Pop Quiz

One of the songs I sing to mini-Holdinator #2 at bedtime is "Gone" by Jack Johnson. This is the first song that the little guy has tried to learn himself, but he only sings one line. It goes like this:

"Gone poo poo"

At least that's the way he sings it. It took me a while, but I finally figured out the line he was mimicking. What do you think the real line is?

Noted

No matter how much you try to tell an almost two-year-old that a Hot Tamale is not a jelly bean, he will still very carefully try to eat it anyway.

And when he discovers that it really is "burny" like you told him, he will give it back to you.

One Double Oh

100 posts! Wow! Oh my gosh! or heck! or whatever! My sister was the one who inspired me to start this blog, I thought it only appropriate that for my one hundredth post to echo what she did. That is, list 100 things about me. Oh boy...

1. I'm named (middle name) after my dad's younger brother

2. I lived in the same house from the time I was born until I was 19 and left for my mission

3. That house is green

4. But it's not a green house that you grow plants in, it's just painted the color green

5. My dad called me "bug" and "the blond German"

6. Maybe he still does when he's talking about me with my mom

7. It was a half-mile bike ride to my elementary school

8. I know this, because we drove there one day and tested the distance on the trip odometer so I could tell how far I was riding my bike to kindergarten

9. I'm thinking "kindergarten" looks like a German word

10. Once when riding my bike to kindergarten I scraped my left hand under a mail box and had to get stitches; the crossing guard carried me to the school (so I'm told)

11. I knew a girl named Tenly in kindergarten

12. I joined the Green Day "idiot" club

13. I have two older sisters, one older brother, and one younger brother

14. For about two and a half years while in college breakfast consisted of 2 or 3 cheddar cheese bagels and a donut from Smiths

15. For about two and a half years while in college my blood pressure got too high

16. When I was 15 I really wanted a job

17. I got hired at McDonalds, but then they said I couldn't work there because of my age

18. A couple years later my friend Heath got a job at the same McDonalds

19. Heath didn't like his job, except that when we went there for lunch one day he was surprised that the fries were hot and fresh

20. Heath tried to teach me how to meditate once in his one-room apartment in Manteca, California while listening to Magadog, but I didn't get it

21. Instead of working at McDonalds I got a job at Teriyaki Bowl

22. Then eventually I got a job at Sears where I met a girl who wore a different color pair of Converse Allstars everyday

23. She introduced me, kind of, to Skippy Smurf

24. Skippy Smurf introduced me to Supah Geek

25. Supah Geek introduced me to J

26. J and I got married in December 2002

27. I'm really, really in love with J

28. Two other guys who worked at Teriyaki Bowl (Stix actually) and I made a pact that we would never see the movie Titanic; the penalty for breaking the pact was death

29. One of the other dudes watched Titanic in Idaho

30. We didn't kill him; we figured watching the movie was probably a fate worse than death

31. My older brother hit me in the head with a baseball bat

32. accidentally

33. I have a smile on my right knee

34. Donuts, especially Winchells donuts, are heavenly

35. Cat allergies are terrible

36. I'm not allergic to cats

37. I used to be allergic to cats

38. But then I got NAET from the doctor who assisted Marie Osmond with her depression, and now I'm not allergic to cats anymore

39. As a missionary I rode in the backseat of a sheriff's car

40. Last time I weighed myself I was almost 200 pounds

41. I was once thought to be a hologram

42. I have carried on an entire conversation in which both parties only used the word "dude"

43. And this was long before those beer commercials

44. I'm not very good at sports

45. That I can remember I had committed to name my oldest son Bradley James or Aaron

46. My oldest son is not named Bradley James or Aaron

47. Speaking of names, I named each of my drums and cymbals on my old drum kit after famous drummers

48. They had names like Gene, Chad, Tre, and ... I don't remember the others

49. We (my friends and I) called my first car Starbolt

50. That came from a NOFX song; I wouldn't suggest listening to it

51. J and I spent our first Christmas together in a cheap motel and ate at Denny's

52. I majored in elementary education

53. and English

54. and history

55. and history education

56. and Classics

57. I graduated in Ancient Near Eastern Studies

58. I sell cars for a living, and I love it

59. After years of aspiring I finally got called to teach Gospel Doctrine, and I love that too

60. J and I have had four pet birds: one sparrow named Rochester, and three parakeets: Aberdeen, Wingfold, and Gladwynn

61. J and I have had (and still do) two pet cats: Nibley and Peterson

62. J and I have had three stinky pet mice: Constantine, Benedict, and ... help me out here J (i love you!)

63. J and I have had (and still do) one pet dog: Annie

64. I do seem to remember trying to grow some plants in my house growing up, but it's still not that kind of green house

65. Because it's not humid and glass

66. My best friend in high school once went to class wrapped up in Christmas lights; he plugged them in and "blinked" all during class

67. I've been on Less Than Jake's tour bus; probably not the same tour bus that they have now

68. I taught at the MTC for two and a half years

69. I taught Seminary for a year and a half

70. About a year ago I stood next to Elder Holland for about five minutes, but didn't have the guts to say anything to him

71. We were listening the the Utah Valley Bell Choir at the time and Elder Holland seemed really engaged in his listening

72. Elder Holland is taller in person than he seems in photos with other general authorities

73. I guess I'm opinionated about some things

74. If I'm ever setting up security questions on a website I can never use any objective questions such as "what is your favorite food?" or "what is your favorite color?" because I may like something today but in a month or whatever I might like something else

75. The best questions for me are subjective like "what color was your first car?" or "in what city did you attend elementary school?" because those answers never change

76. It seems to me that not very many people blog on the weekend

77. Like me, maybe they do most of their blogging while at work

78. One of the things that I'd always kind of wanted to try was being a server at a restaurant; that was fulfilled in 2006 when I got hired at Carrabba's

79. I hadn't heard the "f-word" in years when on my first day at Carrabba's I heard it more than once

80. I was just told by some guests that bought a car from me that I was so friendly and patient that they would have felt guilty shopping anywhere else

81. Ethically, I'm not sure how to feel about that

82. I really like the cartoons Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Cartoon Planet

83. I wish I could find the CD of Space Ghost's barbeque

84. When I was a paper boy I would listen to a walkman while delivering papers and imagine that I was in a music video

85. I still like to imagine that I'm in music videos when listening to my iPod

86. I have had two iPod Shuffles; I washed one in the laundry and spilled lemonade all over the other one

87. Do I have a favorite television show? Probably not, but I really like Scrubs and The Office

88. I used to have a bumper sticker on my car that said "Kill Your TV"

89. That was the first of a lot of bumper stickers that decorated the back end of Starbolt; according to this blog that makes me a white person

90. About the one iPod Shuffle, it was in my apron pocket at Carrabba's and somehow a glass full of lemonade spilled down the front of me into the pocket; it still plays music but iTunes doesn't recognize it when it's plugged into the computer

91. I was really excited when I got hired at Saturn and I discovered that there is a hot cocoa machine there

92. The first day that I met J she served me cookies and hot cocoa

93. One evening when I went to visit J before we were dating she asked if it was OK with me if we listened to a talk by Elder Holland called "Inconvenient Messiah;" I couldn't have been happier

94. I still haven't developed a phobia

95. When J and I were engaged, I would usually have lunch with J's best friend Nash; we'd split a sandwich and drink (again) hot cocoa next to the ballroom in the Wilkinson Center and commiserate with each other because we both missed J

96. J was in her first semester of nursing school when we were engaged

97. The semester we were engaged, I was still an English major and my GPA ended up being, um, not so great;

98. I have dyed my hair black, bleached, blue, and purple

99. I have really liked Converse Allstars for as long as I can remember (my earliest memory includes looking in my closet and imaging a pair of red Allstar high tops there)

100. I've seen Rubin and Ed

Carnivorous Dude

There is this fantastic new restaurant open in Lindon. It's called Max'n'Cheese, and it is tailored to kids, complete with kid-friendly menu options, and a very cool play area in the middle of the place. Mini-holdinator #2 loves the play place, and thinks the food is OK, but it just doesn't compare to his new favorite restaurant:

Tucano's

For a dude that's not quite two years old, he sure loves his bacon wrapped fillet mignon, teriyaki sirloin, and fire roasted ham.

Fruits and veggies? No thanks.

Conversation in the Car

Mini-holdinator #1's been feeling a little ill today. So on the way home from the store J looked in the back seat and asked, "How you doing, pumpkin?"

His response: "You have to jump over the hole or else the monsters will get you."

I have No Idea

If anyone read my blog yesterday and the image displayed was a big black background with yellow text that read "THIEF," I changed the image...

I don't know how that happened. The image I first put up was of a blue-ish magic eye picture.

By the way. Seeing a magic eye image is not like riding a bike. It's been more than a year since I have looked at one, and now I've lost the "magic" or whatever.

The Conspiracy

One semester at BYU I took a computer class. The professor one day was talking about perspective or something, and he put one of these things up on the overhead. I immediately thought Oh, one of those things.

I had never been able to see anything in one of these pictures... everyone around me would say, "Wow! That's so cool! Look at that!"

I'd just stare and see nothing. I'd tried for hours at a time, adjusting my eyes, "looking past the image" going cross-eyed and every other tactic people told me to use. But they never worked.

Well this professor claimed that he had helped a number of his students see the images in these things and he had a 100% success record.

I decided to break that success rate for him, because there was no way he could help me see one of these things.

I went to his office; he had me sit in front of one of these things, shone a little light behind my head and had me focus on it in the reflection of the picture. I didn't see anything until suddenly the shape of a dinosaur started making its way into my line of vision.

But the thing still looked like the pattern! I thought this would be some kind of detailed picture in full color, etc.

This professor did much for me. He helped me know that the entire world was not in on a conspiracy to convince me that these magic eye pictures were more than what I thought they were.

Then I dropped his class.

A Walk

I like to think that I live in a very pedestrian-friendly area, where one can walk with kids in a stroller and get just about anywhere.

I like to think this, but I kid myself.

Yet sometimes I'm just enthusiastic enough about this hallucination to try walking in my neighborhood. Like the other day:

I took our Dodge Grand Caravan to a place to have the rear windows tinted; the poor mini-Holdinators suffer during sunsets in the backseat, so we're hoping tint will alleviate that pain a little.

The mini-Holdinators went with me; we dropped the van off and were told it would take four to five hours. I pull the stroller out of the van, strap them in, and head for home....

North on State Street (in Orem)
Then west on a little side street to find a place for mini-Holdinator #1 to go poopoo.
Ah! Family Dollar: Perfect.
The bathroom in Family Dollar is remarkably clean. I can't say how grateful I am for that.
And they have cool kids clothes at amazing prices, so I get something for each of the mini's.
Then off again. It was sunny but windy like crazy.
West on 800 North--against the wind.
I decided not to cross 800 West; why? Because sometimes I'm an idiot.
The sidewalk ended.
Weeds in really soft dirt made up our way.
I had to get the double stroller down to the 1200 West intersection, but the way down was this soft dirt, weeds, and an extremely steep decline.
I started to attempt it, but decided I like my mini's safely strapped in a stroller, not strewn across a busy street.
So we made our way into the LaQuinta Inn's parking lot and onto the lawn that ran along side a fence that made its way down to a sidewalk where I could cross 1200 West.
The stroller really wanted to run into the fence while I pushed it across a steep grassy slope.
We finally crossed and made our way up the construction zone that is 1200 West with sidewalk for about half the way, wind blowing us from the west.
And then got to home; I don't know about the mini-Holdinators, but my ears were ringing from the sound of the passing cars.

The sad part of this is that I know I'll do it again. Maybe not from Performance Tint, but somewhere.

Because I'm deluded.

I guess.

Look Out World!

This past Sunday at church a member of the primary presidency approached us and asked if Joshua was ready for his talk. He'd told her he was ready, but this was the first we'd heard about this. The sister had stopped by the house earlier in the week with the invitation to speak, and when we didn't answer left it on the door.

We found it in the back yard when we got home from church.

It was Mother's Day, so no big deal, I could help him wing a talk.

I sat in the back of the primary room during Sharing Time, and they announced the birthdays. It's been a while since Joshua's been to Sharing Time due to various illnesses, family things, etc, so they announced his birthday along with a couple of adults.

"Let's have all the birthday friends come and share what they like to do with us," said the presidency member.

Joshua walked up to the stand, pulled the microphone down, looked back and forth and got a very pleased look on his face...

"Hey! This is weird! [sundry other random things he said as well, I don't remember them all] I like to talk in microphones!"

This wasn't even his talk yet. Oh boy.

So when he was announced as the speaker I went up with him to try and keep things focused.

Me (whispering in his ear): "Talk about why you love Mommy."
Josh (in the microphone): "Talk about why you love Mommy."
Me: "Why do you love Mommy?"
Josh: "I love Love LOVE Mommy soooooo much!"
Me: "What does Mommy do for you?"
Josh: "She . . . " I'm pretty sure he made up some new words here.

Then I helped him bear testimony.

Public speaker and performer? That's my Joshy.

Irrational

So in the absence of a pet peeve, I've considered that I may be able to develop a phobia.

I'm thinking that it wouldn't be too tough to develop a fear of elevators. All it would take is really taking seriously the instructions written for fire fighters on the elevator wall.

What if that stuff really happened?

I can feel my heart in my throat already.

I Had it and Now it's Gone

I was going to post about something terrific and/or kind of amusing. But I completely forgot except that I was going to mention this as a tangent:

Being called Bud doesn't bother me anymore. I guess I just had to release it to the universe via cyberspace.

Now I don't have a pet peeve.

Weird

Did you know there is a guy who commentates for ESPN and ABC and his name is Hubie Brown? And it's not a pseudonym made up by some fanatical Mormon Jazz fan?

Really, I'm not kidding.

Denver Nightmare

I dreamed last night that I was called to be stake president.

I don't think it had anything to do with this conversation that took place last night in between Maury's visits to our table:

(Earlier) Dave: That phone call was about planning my son's first birthday party...

Jack: I'm so full. Look, I'm four months.
Brian: Hmm, Jessica's almost six months along.
Dave: She's expecting? So this will be your third?
Brian: Yep.
Mike: Hey Dave, when is your wife due?
Dave: A year ago?

Denver

I'm in Denver.

It's a business trip. I'm here for a training that will go for 8 hours tomorrow. This is the first business trip I've been on in nearly 10 years.

The last one was to Richfield, Utah to help open a new Hogi Yogi there. I went back and read my journal from the time to remind myself of the trip. All I wrote about was feeling bad about not being in town for a Skalars show...

I seem to remember being on the local radio station. A DJ was doing a remote at the opening of the restaurant, and he interviewed me because I was an employee of the original Teriyaki Stix (Bowl). I remember him looking into my eyes and saying that he felt like the Lord had big things planned for me. You'd think I'd write about that in my journal, but no, I was 17.

So, Denver... actually I think we're staying in Golden.

There are four of us from Utah here. The car rental place was out of the cars that we had originally asked for, but then set us up in a Dodge Durango. Ah, to hear the biting critiques of our rental by a bunch of Saturn sales guys. My favorite: "I wouldn't buy this, but I could sure sell it."

We used a GPS thing to help us find the hotel, and therefore got lost, but only once. The GPS did an excellent job of saying things like this: "Continue on the same road in two miles." What are we supposed to do until then?! Huh?! The real highlight came when we pulled into the parking lot of the hotel and it said, "When able, make a legal U-turn."

Mike checked in for us and brought us four keys. He told us that there was just one room with two double beds...

Ah ha ha ha! What a joker, that Mike. Actually, that's kind of a lame joke, huh? Except that it was TRUE! Ha ha ha ha ehh...

We got another room and will be taking the bill back to Saturn of Salt Lake.

So dinner. We ate at a place called "The Keg." It boasted "keg-sized baked potatoes." I got a baked potato, and if it was the size of one of their kegs, they must throw some pretty weak parties, because it was the size of a regular potato. The other guys all tried the prime rib and raved about it, so if you're ever in Golden and want to spend a lot of money on dinner, try the prime rib at The Keg. The table was set with wine glasses, and when Dave told the server we wouldn't be needing them, our sever (Maury, by name) said, "You mean you don't want water?"

Dave was thrilled with Maury's name, and made sure to address him by name every time he came to the table. We all appreciated his mustache too. Maury gave fantastic service.

And now it's off to the pool, I'm thinking the rest of the trip will be pretty low key, inasmuch as it will consist mostly of sitting in a training. So this is likely all I have to write about Denver.

I mean Golden.

Joke

A man was driving around town with a car full of penguins. A traffic officer pulled him over and told him that he needed to take the penguins to the zoo. The man agreed.

The next day the same officer saw the same man driving through town, his car still full of penguins. He pulled him over again and said, "I thought I told you to take those penguins to the zoo!"

The man said, "I did! Today I'm taking them to the beach!"

I told this joke all the time when I was probably six or so... I didn't get it.