Live Life, Love Life

2012-01-12T22:41:00.000-08:00

It's been a while. It wasn't so much that I didn't want to write, or forgot, I just didn't. So alot has happened in the last 6 months. I've gone alot of places, met alot of people and done alot of things. So I'll see if I can't start updating this again.

This must go

2011-06-30T23:01:00.001-07:00

So I've been flying alot the last few weeks, Missouri twice, Seattle, Italy, and France. One of the things I've learned is that even with of all the technological advances we've made; landing on the moon, artificial hearts, ipods that you could swallow; we still can't figure out how to board an airplane without causing mass havoc, hysteria, adults crying and cat fights between women. But this all made me remember something from a radio station here in SLC where they do a segment called Things That Must Go, basically everything that they think should be done away with. So here's mine that I thought of during my flights.

Emoticons :/
People getting upset when they find out I don't like Lady Gaga
Anyone over the age of 12 saying "Woot"
Politicians
Politicians named Weiner sending weiner pics to young girls
People who take rec league sports too seriously
Philosophical Facebook Statuses
Bad Tattoos. This includes all tribal tattoos on white guys
TSA
Whiney airline passengers
Tourists who try too hard to dress like locals
Creepy housewife cougars
Gold Diggers
Ed Hardy and everything that has to do with Ed Hardy
Summer alarm and pest control sales
People using the word "Premier" for businesses and events. Ex. "This is the premier party of the year"
Self proclaimed hippies
Planking

Joplin, Missouri

2011-06-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

This started out like the dozens, if not hundreds, of natural disasters that have occurred in my lifetime. On May 22 at 5:41pm a category EF5 tornado, the most powerful rating in the system, tore through the middle of Joplin, Missouri, a town of 50,000 people. In a matter of an hour 7,000 homes, hundreds of business, schools and churches were destroyed, over 140 lives were taken and thousands more changed forever. I heard about the disaster through various news sources and as usual felt sorry for those affected but didn’t make a conscious effort to provide any assistance. Then a friend showed me a picture of an intersection in Joplin with before and after views. In a million years I would have never guessed they were the same. I started to realize how awful the disaster was, but still wasn’t doing anything to help. On Tuesday or Wednesday my friend Tracy posted a note on Facebook that she was trying to get a group of people together to go out and help with the disaster relief and for whatever reason, I hope that it was a desire to do something good for other people, I decided to go.

Five of us flew out Friday afternoon; I didn’t know Tracy very well, I’d met Mark once or twice before and Karen and Rachel were new acquaintances who worked with Mark. Karen grew up in Joplin until she was 16 and moved to Salt Lake with her parents but still had family in the area. We stayed in Kansas City our first night and drove first to Galena, Kansas Saturday morning to meet up with Karen’s brother who was wanting to work with us. Since Galena is a few miles from Joplin it was spared from any physical damage but its residents lost jobs, friends and family in Joplin. Karen’s brother, Ray, warned us that what we were going to see would blow us away.

As we drove closer to the town we began to see signs of the tornado – broken branches, bent street signs, the occasional broken window. But when we got to the edge of the tornado zone it was immediately apparent. Roofs were caved in, windows shattered, trees toppled over, cars beaten and battered to little more than useless chunks of metal. What we didn’t realize was that we hadn’t even come close to seeing the worst of the damage. Over the next three days we saw the Home Depot that was nothing more than an enormous pile of scrap metal. WalMart appeared to be intact until you looked behind the front wall and realized there was nothing there. Hundreds of homes were completely obliterated. I found a lot where the only evidence that anything had been there at all were front porch steps that led to nothing but a few rocks that remained from the foundation of the house. Other homes were nothing more than giant piles of wood, shingles, stray metal, and anything the tornado could mix in. The only way I can describe what I saw is that it looked like an atomic bomb went off. There was just nothing left. Even the bark had been stripped off the trees.

One of the first thoughts that came to my mind when I saw the homes, schools and businesses that had been affected was “What next?” When I asked Ray he said that was the same question everyone else had. The obvious answer was to rebuild but who knew how long that would take. Who knew if the town would recover – if the jobs would return and if the schools would be filled again. Everyone wanted answers to the same questions that no one knew the answers to. President Obama’s visit on Sunday brought peace and hope to many people as he promised that they would not be forgotten. America would not let them fall through the cracks. That Joplin will rebuild stronger and better than ever. It gave people what they needed –Hope –because sometimes that’s all we need in the moment.

Situations like this remind us of the goodness of people. During the storm people gave their lives guiding others to safety until the walls came down on top of them; holding doors shut against the storm until they were carried away; sacrificing their own bodies to cover and protect others. After the storm people came from all over the country donating time, money, services, and anything else they could. Trucks constantly passed through the streets offering hot food and cold drinks to survivors and volunteers. People donated equipment for debris removal. Others gave free tetanus shots. Others sharpened chainsaws, some gave free chiropractic work while some where there just for people to have someone to talk to and counsel with. Everyone was giving in anyway they could.

One thing that the storm couldn’t take away was the spirit of the people. Whether it was the person with a sense of humor who spray painted “For Sale: Open Floor Plan” on their house with no roof and missing walls, the tree removal crews that hauled their equipment from out of state to donate their time and services, or anyone of the thousands of people who placed an American flag in the middle of the remains of their home for Memorial Day, the spirit of the people of Joplin lives on. It hasn’t been broken and will not be broken. They will rebuild. They will be better because of this. They’re not going anywhere.

*This is not the full story, if you'd like to read the rest shoot me and email

2011-05-26T19:53:00.001-07:00

Headed to Joplin, Missouri tomorrow to help out a bit. Should be interesting.

2011-05-19T23:36:00.001-07:00

So I keep forgetting to write, but I'll write soon. But remember my graduation list from a while back? 1. I got a dog - Kilo - Black lab/Newfoundland 2. I got a bigger bed

$1,000,000,000,000,000,000

2011-05-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

So I’ve come up with my Trillion dollar idea. We’ve all had experiences where someone says they’re going to do something – go on a date, study with you, meet you for lunch, show up for a soccer game, call you back – but then they don’t. Personally nothing bothers me more than this. So let me introduce


	Flakes.com

So what is Flakes.com? It is a website that I'm creating that is used to help normal, decent people determine who the flaky people in this world are. There’s nothing more annoying in this world than having people not show up when they say they’re going to, waiting for an important call that doesn’t come or sprinting through campus to turn in an assignment because someone showed up to school with their part of the assignment 4 hours later than they said they were going to. Flakes.com doesn’t cure the world of Flakes but it lets you navigate your way through life avoiding them and the consequences that come with them as often as possible.

So how does it work? Using nano-technology, quantum physics and applied nuclear triangulation I have created an amazing App called the Flakometer® to create a personal profile for every person in the world based on their phone calls, texts, social media interactions (facebook, twitter etc.) email, and outlook calendars. The beauty of it is that people don’t sign up for it, it’s created without people’s consent, similar to Apple being able to track people via their iPhones, so they aren’t able to edit their profile to make it look like they’re reliable. The app tracks people based on what they say they’re going to do and if they actually do it. Each person is given a ranking 1-5 on which is visible on other sites like Facebook, eHarmony, Match.com, LinkedIn etc. Every time they don’t do what they say they’re going to their score gets dinged similar to a credit score. The way it works is that on a persons profile a little snowflake icon shows up. You click on it and the persons flake.com profile shows up with one of the following rankings:

This person is extremely reliable and will follow through

with what they say when they say they're going to do it

This person is generally reliable and typically follows through

If for some reason they are not able to do what they said

they will call and let you know

This person follows through about half the time but is usually late

Excuses will include car trouble, sickness, getting stuck at work

This person says they'll do something but rarely does it.

They are easily distracted and wil likely drop what they

are supposed to do with you should something more

interesting become available regardless of prior commitments

HAHAHA Not a chance this person will do what they say

If you're thinking of asking this person on a date it is recommended

that you instead rent a movie, eat ice cream and save yourself

the misery of waiting to see if they call back or show up.

This way you can see if the person you’re dying to ask on a date will actually go or if they'll say yes but then call back saying they're having emergency butt implant surgery. If the person you invite to your Twilight viewing party will really bring the Edward cupcakes you assigned them. If they 27 year old who says that he is the CEO of a major social networking site actually knows how to return a phone call.

I think the thing I’m most excited for with this is for the people who think they’re not flaky are going to have an unpleasant surprise and might finally understand why certain people don’t call them any more. I won’t name any names but thanks to everyone, and there are a lot of people, who inspired this. I’ll dedicate my first billion to you.

Oh wait, they'll probably mean to check my blog but forget to

Checklist

2011-04-30T00:59:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks ago I posted a list of things I'm going to do when I graduate. One of those things was get a dog. Well I jumped the gun a little bit since I haven't graduated yet but the opportunity came and I went for it. He's a Newfoundland/Lab Mix, 7 months old and one of the calmest dogs I've ever seen. I heard him sort of bark 3 times earlier and that was it. And if you're not doing anything with him he just lies down and hangs out. Pretty awesome. I don't have a name yet so any and all suggestions are welcome.

NGO

2011-04-18T22:45:00.000-07:00

Rough day today for 2 reasons.

1) I realized (for the 2nd time) that I can't control people's minds no matter how hard I try, even when it's for a good reason. Kind of a bummer.

2) Cause of this: "Is Three Cups of Tea Writer A Fraud?". If you don't want to read the article or watch the segment it's basically saying that Greg Mortenson, who has built dozens of school's in Afghanistan and Pakistan because of an experience he had over there where some villagers saved his life, fabricated much of his story and is using his non-profit as a "personal ATM".

I've read the articles, seen the 60 minutes piece, read his responses and frankly, I don't know if he's a fraud or not. But in my mind it doesn't matter a whole lot. Just that fact that he was able to build even one school in the area is amazing. How many of us have started organizations like this? How many of us have dedicated years of our lives to helping children in distant countries?

My biggest concern about all of this isn't whether he made up stories or not, its what's going to happen to NGO's all over the world. Now people are going to be more hesitant to donate time and money. People are going to second guess what they're doing. But you know what? Every organization is going to make mistakes along the way. Everyone is going to wish they had done something differently, but as long as they're able to help even one single person, its worth it.

So find way's to help. If you're one of the people who keeps saying that they really want to go on a humanitarian trip, do it. I guarantee you it will be one of the best experiences of your life and you will enjoy it more than any cruise you can take or beach you can sit on. I know that going on these trips is expensive and takes time so if you can't go try and help around your city, do it. Every NGO needs help and will be grateful for anything you can give. Here's a list of some I'm familiar with that would appreciate as much help - time or money - that you can spare.

Foundation Escalera - Builds schools in rural parts of Mexico and provides scholarships for kids to go to high school in Mexico City (Donations and expeditions)
Choice Humanitarian - Works to end poverty around the world through schools and creating a better living environment for people (Donations and expeditions)
The Tipping Bucket - How far do you think $1 can go? Check this out and see for yourself
4th Street Clinic - Provides free health care to Salt Lake's homeless and helps them get back on their feet
Ten Thousand Villages - Sells art and crafts from around the world paying artisans in developing countries a good and fair wage for their work

When I graduate I'm going to.......

2011-04-12T21:33:00.001-07:00

Get a dog

Ride my bike(s)

Talk to a girl

Start playing the piano and drums again

Take the ugly bushes out of my yard

Plant some plants

Cook more

Print and hang some pictures

Tie up some loose ends

Fix my car

Sleep

Clean my room

Organize my garage

Plant a tree

Ride my bike

Watch the stars

Race my bike

Sort out bikes and motorcycles

Get a bigger bed

Get some real furniture for my house

Grill a cow

Longboard

Save some money

Run

Work on a body with no tan lines

Eat more bacon

Drink less Red Bull

Paint the outside of my house so it doesn’t look like a banana split

Put lights up in my backyard

Go to Seattle

Go to Whistler

Whistle in Whistler

Ride my bike(s)

Wakeboard

Take more pictures

Race some races

Learn actual songs on the guitar

Learn the banjo or mandolin?

No talking!!

2011-04-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

Ya know what? I'm tired of the library. In this case I'm talking about the Marriott Library at the U. I'm not a library hater in most cases. Except as I found out yesterday, the City Library charges you $3/hour to park there or you can take your chances with the parking meters and probably get a $30 ticket. But that's not the point of this. It's the Marriott. Almost 2 years ago they finished renovating it and it looks a krazillion (congratulations, you just witnessed the invention of a new number) times better. You don't feel like you're going to get mugged when you're walking through the stacks or that a dust bunny's going to come to life and eat your soul.

So all these upgrades are part of whats causing the problems. The library staff act like OCD interior designers. The best example of this is the 3rd floor. It has very comfortable chairs, study rooms, group and quiet study areas and is where the majority of the open study space is. The 4th and 5th floors are just for print making, book collections and administration offices. So on this 3rd floor the library security personnel patrol it tighter than the Minute Men on the US-Mexico border. If they see you have any sort of food, they're on you like a SWAT team. They make sure that you walk over the garbage and throw your apple away because we all know how much of a mess an apple makes when it tips over. Or skittles. Or a PB&.

But maybe the most annoying part is at 10:45pm. They come on the PA system and announce that the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors are closing at 11pm for the night so you either need to move to the 1st or 2nd or leave. Then they start flashing the lights, I'd imagine similar to what a pre-school teacher would do to get their kids attention. So if you go down to the 1st or 2nd it's packed with no where to sit cause there were already people there, and then all the 3rd floorers came down. Now why they do this I have no idea. Alot of universities have libraries that stay open 24 hours. I think they do this because they realize that students do need to study at some point, and lots of times it just happens to be late at night. Right now my study schedule is about 9pm -2am. Did I choose this? No. It's what happens when you have things to do other than just studying. But I would like to thank the semi-useless employees of the JW Marriott library for their continued annoyance.

2011-03-31T19:36:00.001-07:00

So I moved all my pictures over to a new site that's a bit easier to use.

http://jonathancampbell.smugmug.com/

Diamond Grove

2011-03-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

Everything's better with music. Especially vacations. On my trip last week I got to meet the extremely talented Andy Allen who is just about to release his first album. So if you like music check out this video. Or if you don't like music check it out and then you'll like music. It just works that way.

2011-03-28T23:39:00.000-07:00

Here I am, 11:51 pm on a Monday craving churros. No, not the kind you get at Disney Land or Costco. REAL Mexican churros. Why? Cause I was just in Mexico. That's why. And I want real Mexican tacos. And don't tell me that Moca Salsa is real. It's really good but not authentic. Did you know that burritos aren't really even Mexican? Don't believe me? Go to Mexico and ask for a burrito and you'll get a small donkey in your lap. No joke. It happens.

So why was I in Mexico this time? No I did not smuggle anything back to the US, I declared everything I brought back which was 4 bottles of apple soda for Chris and a body without tan lines. I went down with a group of people I didn't know at the time for a week of relaxation, surfing and Mexican good times. It turned out quite well. There was a huge house. (In spanish I would say cason. It was right above a beach. In spanish beach is playa. It's pronounce ply-yah, not like it's heternymphic cousin from the states which is pronounced "play-yah". Anyway, enough of the grammar lesson.)

Before we left we had plenty of people tell us that we were going to get kidnapped, murdered and our bones ground up and mixed in with the cocaine that was being smuggled into the US. I wasn't too worried though, I feel like I know Mexico pretty well. Anyway on our drive there (yes we drove. 1,716 miles to be exact) we had to avoid a few swerving cars who thought the shoulder was a passing lane and a car completely engulfed in flames. But then we crossed the border from California to Mexico and everything was calm. To everyone who told me I was going to be kidnapped I forgive you, and expect a Milky Way as part of your asking for forgiveness.

Back to the trip. So we surfed, ate, slept, stretched, played volleyball and soccer, took pictures and just enjoyed life without email, cell phones, the google machine and Facebook stalking for a week. It was one of the most relaxing things I've ever done and along with that I met some awesome people. One of the best parts was when we went to the Doors of Faith Orphanage to do some painting and hang out with the kids. I considered smuggling some of them home with me cause they were pretty awesome.

Anyway, that was my trip. If you want more details ask. If not don't ask. If you're indifferent check the "I'm indifferent" box below.

The Other Day

2011-03-01T15:07:00.001-08:00

The other day this happened

Untitled from Jon Campbell on Vimeo.

Wednesday comes after Tuesday

2011-02-23T00:14:00.000-08:00

Its a Tuesday. Wait, nope its Wednesday now. I know that cause my computer says Wed 12:56 AM. I thought I'd write something about Tuesdays but eh, can't think of anything I want to write about. You probably just thought "Thank goodness". But I just did so sucks for you. I went to the Banff Film Festival tonight and it was amazing as usual. There were climbing movies, ski movies, mockumentaries, funny fly fishing movies etc. Everytime I go to one of these film festivals I think to myself that I want to make a movie, but I'm not got a pro athlete (contrary to popular belief I was never drafted to the NBA, NHL, MLB, EPL, MLS, ENC, EEM, ELNS, EMO, SEGA, WII, UTA, DOT, DUI or anything else). And my life is rather boring I think. But guess what, I have a GoPro camera and I'm going to do it. I'll post it on here when I'm done and you don't have to watch it. But you'll want to. It's going to be funny, heart wrenchingly dramatic, cause you to question your beliefs (like why are you using creamy peanut butter instead of chunky?), have gratuitous nudity (of the hand and feet sort) and lots of fowl language like canary, duck, pigeon, eagle, and hawk. Don't pretend like you're not laughing. That was a great joke and you know it. You're probably just jealous you didn't think of it.

Since you're in movie mode now I'll leave you with a few trailers you can watch if you'd like that I think are pretty cool. Enjoy

Life Cycles OFFICIAL Trailer from Life Cycles on Vimeo.

All you (and maybe me) need is love

2011-02-15T23:35:00.000-08:00

So yesterday was the VD. Valentines. Cupid's target practice. A florists paradise. The day that women wait for like a kid on Christmas morning and men despise like April 15th (that's tax day in case you didn't know). And today is the day that men wake up with a kink in their neck from sleeping on the couch cause they forgot about VD again. Like the guy I saw sprint into Smiths at 11pm, buy the first flowers he saw, and sprint back out to his car.

So I didn't have a valentines date this year (the only time I've been in a relationship over Valentines was in highschool. I still remember the donuts, thanks A) but I certainly enjoyed reading about everybody else's day on facebook. I knew people are both overly cheesy or bitter on this special day but wow! Let me share a few of my favorite things I saw.

Here's one guy telling his girlfriend about the great lengths he goes to to profess his love, posted at 12:02am on Valentines.

"I set my alarm for midnight so that I could tell my (insert name here) Happy Valentines Day!!! I hope it is a good one. You are pure happiness to me... See ya in a few hours. Love you"

Way to go Romeo, nothing says love like staying up an hour past your bedtime.

My personal favorite was this event I was invited to called 1438 Valentines For My Wife!! Here's the description:

Happy Valentines Day!!! I need your help even if you don't know (WIFE) ... Today to surprise my wife and make it a valentines day to remember, I want to totally overload her phone with 1438 valentines text messages...
This will take you 10 seconds, and I'd really appreciate it if you could help this be a huge success!
1. Follow this link:(link)
2. Input her number (555-555-5555) Just leave the wireless carrier as Verizon.
3. Input this return address: 1438valentines@blahblahblah.com
4. Paste this message in the message box:
Happy Valentine's Day (Wife)! (Cheeseball) wanted me to tell you how much he loves you. Have a great day!

I wasn't going to do anything until I saw this comment on the wall:
Question - Hey (Cheeseball), is the number 1438 significant?
Answer from Cheeseball - Hmmmmm....well yes it is :) 1 letter in "I", 4 in "love", 3 in "you", and 8 is like a forever sign but sideways...

This convinced me (along with his disappearing off the face of the earth after getting married) to text his wife. But not quite in the way he had planned. My text said,

I am so much hotter than your husband!!

and Stephen's follow up text was

Yeah, he's way hotter than your husband!!

The best part is that we didn't have to put in our phone numbers on the website so she has no idea who sent them. All she knows is that someone out there is way hotter than her husband. And I hope they have a pay per text phone plan.

There were quite a few people announcing that they were over the day, (I'm not sure if they were over Monday's or Valentines cause it was both) and a few saying they were out of love. They probably just needed a hug. And I did see this more than once

Only 364 more days

Lets talk Marketing

2011-02-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

So there I was, it was the first day of my last semester of school forever. I thought I had my schedule all finalized and that I had a venture finance class that night. Well 30 minutes before it was supposed to start I decided to check what building the class was in. When I checked I realized the class didn't start until March 28th. Perfect. I was about to head home to stuff myself with home made nachos but I decided to check my transcript just to double check everything before I left. Luckily I did because I found out that I was 1.5 credits short of my graduation requirement and that would have really just sucked to not graduate when I was planning to. So at 5:43pm I added a 1.5 credit marketing class that started at 6pm. And with that one little click of the mouse life ended. Sort of. You'll get the point though.

The teacher is an adjunct (I usually enjoy these because it's a different perspective on things) - Someone who's not a PhD but has worked in the industry long enough to be an expert. Supposedly.

The first class she explained to us the difference between qualitative and quantitative data cause she didn't think we knew. Not a good start.

She likes to bring in marketing managers from local companies to talk to us about what they do. Usually this would be a good idea. Except for when its her best friend who talks for 2 (two, dos, duh) hours about twitter and keeps saying "I really should go....but I'll tell you one more story." And then it was one more, and one more and one more..... I wanted to tweet at her to tell her to stop.

After the marketing director of 1-800 Contacts (a very numbers focused person) had left after speaking to us she said "I really don't understand alot of what he talked about. I'd probably do it differently."

She gives us assignments to analyze articles about companies with some sort of problem. In these assignments we're supposed to make suggestions for the company to fix it's problem. The real problem - it's an article that already tells how the company fixed their problem. Her suggestion? Be creative and come up with another solution.........

My group didn't get full credit on a paper/presentation. The paper was limited to 2 pages so we put some info in the presentation instead of the paper to keep it to 2 pages. We got docked for not having it in the paper. We decided to talk to her and tell her how we had put the info in the presentation. Her answer? We should have gone over the 2 page limit like all the other groups to include all the info.

Here is our conversation from tonight-
Teacher - "You can't get an A on every assignment."
Me - "Why not?"
Teacher - "You just can't. B's are good too."

Any questions?

2011-01-31T22:51:00.000-08:00

So I went to the gym tonight planning on swimming and thought I'd be like this.

Instead I was more like this

I actually swim about as well as a cantaloupe dropped into a pool off a 50ft platform. I just kind of bob and don't move much. At least I didn't drown.

The best laid plans

2011-01-27T01:01:00.000-08:00

Resolutions. I won't call them New Years resolutions because those are meant to be broken. Don't believe me? If you've driven past Gold's Gym in the last 3 weeks you'll see that you can't even get in the parking lot without fighting for a spot. Go there in a month and you'll have the whole thing to yourself. So here are mine and I intend to fulfill them.

Talk on the phone instead of texting

Finish what I start

Get really good at something that makes me really happy. Just cause

That is all.

For some reason I only write on here when it's late. Current time 12:45am.

On the desk in front of me: 1 half full Red Bull, unopened Real Estate Principles book, blank pieces of paper, pen with the lid still on.

This inspired me over the weekend to do something, I'm not sure what yet but something will happen.

So did this

This still makes me smile every time I see it

This makes me jealous but happy that he got to do it

She has some amazing talent and built this in her spare time. Just cause

My Tshirt says: Live Simply. Good advice

Best new pickup lines (said in a Spanish Accent):

"Notice there are no butterflies in the sky, they are all in my stomach when you are here."

"You are like a firework, you make my heart go boom boom boom."

"Your arm hair arouses me."

Favorite new nicknames: Money and Sideburns. I want to be Sideburns

Best quote of the week: "Fate is the hunter for those least prepared." - Ernest K. Gann

Best realization of the week: Even the best laid plans...................well damn it all.

I bought a planner for the year. I'm planning on probably never really using it.

If I type really fast on my keyboard it sounds like tap dancing.

Time: 3:01am.

On the desk in front of me: Empty Red Bull can, used highlighter, marked Principles of Real Estate book, half a page of poorly written notes that I will never read, pen with the lid back on it, the planner I plan on probably not using.

See you at work in 4 hours.

2011-01-04T22:38:00.000-08:00

So I had the chance to go to Guatemala with Choice Humanitarian last week and it was such an amazing experience! I was lucky enough to be able to take alot of pictures while I was there (900+) and these are the ones that I liked the most. The thing that made it possible to get them is that the people LOVE getting their picture taken. As soon as you take it they rush to look at the screen, even the little toddlers who you wouldn't expect to know what's going on. So here they are.

2011-01-02T22:59:00.000-08:00

Just got back from an amazing trip to Guatemala, I'll post some more stuff about it but this is one of my favorite pictures I was able to get.

2010-12-13T11:35:00.001-08:00

Accountant Attack 2: Fresh Blood

2010-12-09T01:07:00.000-08:00

So I've had some accountants in one of my classes this entire semester and I've been extremely nice to them but decided it was time to wreak some havoc with them on the last day of class. Now you may have read about when I did this last year ( Here here and here). Same set up. Four accountants who religiously sit in the same seats every single day. (Just for the record these are NOT the same accountants as last year, they just all act the same way) Our class starts at 10:45, the class before ours gets out at 10:30, the accountants are usually standing outside the door chomping at the bit to get to their seats at 10:28 (The teacher from the class before ours actually complained to our professor about them standing by the door and trying to get in early). They were just begging for something to be done so I worked with my PIC from Accountant Attack 1, Adrienne, and came up with a plan to throw their world into a tailspin.

I new we had to do everything right or it wouldn't work out, kind of like Oceans 11, so I actually got to school 90 minutes before my class started to leave my backpack in the seat I was going to take just to improve our odds, but I also knew they wouldn't hesitate to move it to get to their seats. ( I have actually seen an accountant move someones backpack so they could get their regular seat). I've learned that collateral damage does not matter to an accountant trying to stick to their routine so the backpack would only hold them off for so long. So at 10:29 I was having a nice conversation with my friend Jane until I noticed the time. I yelled "Got to go, we'll finish this later" as I sprinted away towards the class. Adrienne was already there and we grabbed our seats just before the first of them walked in.

The row of seats only had 7 seats so we sat in the middle so all four couldn't all sit there. Now what makes this all worth it was seeing their faces when they walk in the room. So here's how it went down.

Adrienne and I take the middle seats leaving 3 open to my right.
Male Accountant 1 walks in and sees us and stops and stares confused, looks around, checks his watch, cleans his glasses and then stares back at us again. Eventually walks over and sits to my right and puts his coat on the other 2 seats to save them.
Female Accountants 1 and 2 walk in and stop, staring in disbelief and I see a fury that can only come from staring at balance sheets for too long start to bubble up inside their heads. Male Accountant 1 waves them over to the saved seats.
FA 1& FA2 sit down and from what I could hear their conversation went like this.
FA1 "What the heck are they doing? Why would someone take our seats? They know we sit there everyday"
FA2 "I don't know!! I mean we've sat there like every day for like the entire semester!"
FA1 "You just don't take someones seat like that. I mean if they drop the class or something you can but otherwise you don't."
FA2 "I mean we've sat there the entire class, you don't do that on the last day. I mean we sit there everyday!"
Then Male Accountant 2 walks in and stops confused that there's no seat for him and slowly the reality that he will have to sit somewhere else in the classroom hits him like a box full of pocket protectors. It looked like FA1&2 and MA1 were just shrugging at him like they didn't know what was going on but I'm sure that telepathically they were sending messages about a plan to murder us after class, and he eventually decides to sit across the room. Every once in a while FA1 or FA2 would send him a sympathetic wave to let him know that they still considered him to be part of their elite community.
About halfway through class MA2 got up and left class, I could only assume to set up a trap for us after class, probably some sort of tiger pit lined with freshly sharpened #2 pencils along the bottom. Fortunately Adrienne and I outsmarted them again. The accountants always walked out the back door, and we usually did too but just to change the routine Adrienne and I walked out the front. The accountants never saw that coming.

Today is a good day because

2010-12-07T00:36:00.000-08:00

Even doctors and engineers tell jokes : Your mama's so fat that she should probably be concerned about the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Your mama's so fat that when she dives into a swimming pool she displaces a proportionately larger volume of water than people with less body mass

It's one of my best friends Natalies Birthday today!!!

Pearl Habor is in the past (but not forgotten)

Clean laundry is clean laundry even if its not folded and in drawers

One final project down, 3 to go

"Accountant Attack 2: Fresh Blood" will be premiering tomorrow in my strategy class (Check back for details)

You don't have to be terribly smart to be a business professor (Jeff callate la boca o te rompo la jeta)

I have several pairs of very warm socks

I found my slippers

I'm going out of town in a few weeks to new places

Hairy legs are a good thing in the winter

Recent developments in my life

2010-11-30T21:40:00.000-08:00

I upgraded to 2-ply toilet paper. Life is much softer now.

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend

2010-11-28T11:54:00.000-08:00

Funny People

2010-11-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

So in my family we like to laugh, and we laugh at really bad jokes which makes everything even funnier. Over the last month most of us have been shooting jokes back and forth and I thought I'd share a few of them (although there are certain journalists and pre-med students in the family that don't have much of a personality and prefer not to laugh. Ever.). Just to clarify up front none of these were taken from Laffy Taffy wrappers

Who would win a race between the KKK and the Nazi's?

The Nazi's cause they're the Facist!!!

Q. What did the zero say to the eight?
- A. Nice belt!

What do you call a cow with no legs?
Ground beef

What did one cannibal say to the other as they were eating a clown?

Does this taste funny to you?

What did one atom say to the other?
Give me back my electron!
I didn't take it his friend said. Are you sure you lost it?
To which the first replied,
"I am positive!"

Why does a milking stool have only three legs?

Because the cow has the utter.

Q-What do you call a guy laying in front of the door?

A-Matt

Q- What do you call a guy hanging on the wall?

A- Art

Q-What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs floating in the ocean?

A-Bob

How are a grape and a chicken alike?

They’re both purple, except for the chicken.

Q - What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs living in a hot dog bun?

A - Frank

How do you tame a rabbit?

Unique up on it.

How do you tame a unique rabbit?

Same way, unique up on it.

Where does a general keep his army?

In his sleevy.

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey buddy, why the long face?”

What do Eskimos get from sitting on the ice too long?

Polaroids.

Q- What do you call a cow with a twitch?

A- Beef Jerky

Q- What did the mother melon say to say to her daughter when she got a boyfriend?

A- You Cantalope!

What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches?

A nervous wreck.

Why wouldn’t the lobster share his toys?

Because he was shellfish.

Q- What was the name of the first all giraffe basketball team?

A- The New York Necks!

How do crazy people go through the forest?

They take the psycho path.

What happened when the cow jumped over the barbed wire fence?

Udder destruction.

One night a guy was getting ready to go to bed when he heard the doorbell ring. Disgruntled, he walked to the door and found a snail on the door step. " Excuse me sir, I'm selling magazine subscriptions, would you be interested in any?" The man was so mad that he kicked the snail off the porch. 2 years later, its late at night again and the doorbell rings. The man opens the door and the snail is on the porch again and says "What the heck was that all about?"

That same snail was driving down the street in a fast car with a big “S” painted in the hood.

Someone pointed and said, “Wow! Look at that escargot!”

Why did the turkey sit on the tomahawk?

To try to hatchet.

Why did the Pilgrims eat turkey on Thanksgiving?

The moose wouldn’t fit into the oven.

And to top it off, Kristin made this video of my Dad and Uncle at work

2010-11-15T16:44:00.000-08:00

School has taken over my life but there are still a few things that make me happy:

There is new turf at the indoor soccer place

I bought a pair of green shoes for $4 at the DI. They were just supposed to be for a Halloween costume (Wasabi) but I decided to keep them

I got a new hoodie for hoodie season

The Jazz have won a few games

My family has some pretty awesome parties (immediate and extended)

I'm finding out how cool it is to consult for non-profits (and for profits)

I have some new toy projects to work on at home now that my house is finished

People in Colombia are nice enough to email me back with info I need for school

It looks like the US will FINALLY start getting high speed railroads starting in the next few years

My iPhone still works even though I drop it every other day

I've gotten good at catching my phone when I drop it so now it only hits the ground every other day

The new computer charger I bought after I lost my other one works like a charm

I am finally understanding how the stock market works - Everything I buy goes down in price

Pandora Radio has been playing some pretty good music lately, better than usual in fact

I'm excited that I got a B+ on my marketing final after spending 30 hours on it, (even though the girl who spent 8 hours on it got an A)

I finally figured out that I have to work alot harder than most people in school, at least I finally figured it out so I can actually do it now

Ski season has technically started even (even though I won't make it up for a while)

It was an amazing bike season this year

The House, before and after remodel

2010-10-24T21:21:00.001-07:00

Dear Santa.......

2010-09-29T22:32:00.000-07:00

http://wrenchmonkees.com/

2010-09-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

If you want a chance to laugh at yourself (if you're white), or if you're not white and want to laugh at white people (it's not entirely racist) read this blog stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. If you're white you've probably had this conversation with yourself:

"I'm a unique individual. I'm different from everyone else. Other people only like moleskin journals cause I do. I was the first person to wear Tom's. And it's ok to pay $50 for a pair cause Tom gives a pair to a starving child in the Mongolian tundra everytime I some. I'm saving the world by being fashionable!! I wear old Raybans cause they fit my style, not cause I think I'm cool. Driving a Prius, being a convenient vegetarian and doing yoga are just part of what I do. I studied abroad cause unlike everyone else who went for school credit, I'm cultured. I rode the Euro trains and slept in a hostel in Paris while I was there to see the Louvre. Organic food from farmers markets is healthier cause I'm buying it from a farmer and it says organic on the label. And the tiny vegetables go great with hummus. Riding a fixie bike? Why wouldn't I? Of course, I only ride it when I'm not riding my retro 1972 kickback Vespa to the coffee shop for a chai or mate. Soccer? Of course, anything to make me seem foreign and give me an excuse to wear my Spain National Team jersey that I picked up during my study abroad while I pretend to watch the world cup. I'm going to only speak Mandarin to my kids at home so they're completely bilingual by the time they're 4. Well, no I don't speak Mandarin, but I'll hire a Chinese nanny who doesn't speak English."

Now being from Utah, 98% of the people I know are white. There are a few Asians in there, a few Hispanics, maybe a few people from the Middle East or Africa but most are just plain vanilla folk like myself who do most of this (including me). So go ahead and have a laugh, I did.

Another Blog

2010-09-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

So I've been looking for a place to give my opinion on the business world so I've started another blog here . Don't worry, I'm not smart enough to be preachy, I just think there's alot of interesting stuff out there; Good, Bad, Smart, Stupid etc. I personally love laughing at bad products and advertising so if you want the occasional dose of "I can't believe anyone would buy that. Wait, I can't believe anyone would actually make that" check it out.

Ignorance is bliss

2010-09-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

So I generally try to stay out of political discussions and don't consider myself as either a conservative or liberal. I get tired of hearing Republicans bashing Democrats, the Tea Party saying that we don't follow the constitution (although I find it hilarious when they dress up like pilgrims) , Sara Pallin inventing new words (refudiate?????), Glen Beck crying, Rush Limbaugh being racist, Al Sharpton thinking everyone else along with Rush is racist etc. Maybe that's why I usually listen to sports radio for entertainment like this. But yesterday as I was reading Newsweek there was an article about the proposed Mosque a few blocks from ground zero and how Islamophobia is creeping across the country I saw a quote that struck me pretty hard. I don't remember it word for word but it basically said that along with all the rights we enjoy in the US, we also have the right to be ignorant. This right is displayed everyday across the country in various forms whether it's a church planning a Koran burning on 9/11 or the media twisting facts to elaborate on a story (this is one of the funniest things I've ever seen). It's pretty sad to realize how much influence people with not so inspiring agenda's have in the US. Well, I would hope that most people are able to make their own opinions, right or left it doesn't matter to me. Just know why you believe what you believe and do what you do.

On a happier note, this video at the end sure makes me smile. If you watched my Whistler video (one post down) you'll probably recognize all these jumps. And be sure to check out the new video of the week, I guarantee you'll be laughing.

PNW

2010-08-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

So after I spent some time in Seattle jumping off large trolls (see previous post) Jeff and I went up to Whistler to fly around on our bikes a bit and it was by far one of the funnest things I've ever done. The mountains in British Columbia are enormous, tons of trees, turquoise lakes and enough Australians to fill 22 Outback Steakhouses. Here's a video of the trip.

Yes Man!!!

2010-08-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since I've really written anything so I'll be surprised if anyone still reads this. My own mom admitted that she only looks at it when the link from my brother and sister in-law's blog reminds her that I'm out on this internet cloud thingy too. But anyway, I'll start writing again. School starts in a week so it will give me something to procrastinate with.

So let me tell you about Yes Man!!! There's a movie that came out not too long ago about a guy who was stuck in a rut in life and was convinced to say "Yes" to every opportunity that came his way. As a result his life changed dramatically for the better. (Here's the trailer if you want to see). This movie popped into my head the other night as I was thinking about how life can be a bit boring sometimes and I decided to give it a go, in moderation of course. So here's my Yes Man story.

I'm in Seattle right now to visit my brother and sister in law and to mountain bike. Last night we went to dinner near the Fremont Bridge which is famous for the troll that lives under it. I'm serious, there really is a troll. But it's made of concrete and is a city tourist spot.

We decided to go take a look after dinner cause it's not everyday that you get to see a troll. While we were there a group of boys about 12 years old showed up and started playing around on it. A few minutes later they came over to us and asked us the first thing that you would expect any group of 12 year olds to ask. "Wanna have a karate fight?" Why wouldn't they ask that and why wouldn't anyone want to? They told us that they were doing a video scavenger hunt and one of the items was to have a karate fight with a stranger. Well I finally agreed to fight 3 of them (There were more than 3 but I already felt that this might not be a fair fight). Since this was going to be on video I wanted it to look good so I told them that I would jump down from the trolls fingers above the crushed VW Bug and fight them. I climbed up and then doing my best karate yell I jumped down in my best karate pose which looked something like this, but better.

Well I never thought that knocking out 3 kids would be so easy. They didn't know that I took 3 days of karate class when I was 5 and had been waiting 21 years for this chance to show my skills.

Ok, so I didn't really hit any kids. But I really did do a karate jump, land in the middle of them and start fake fighting. I even pretended to get knocked on my back so they'd win (even though it wasn't a fair fight). When I got up all the other bystanders who were to chicken to fight clapped and told me that I was the best fake fighter they'd ever seen, but they were pretty sure I'd die in a real fight. The kids came up to me after and asked for my autograph (That was the word they used) so I thought that they were so impressed with me they really wanted my autograph. Turns out they just needed it for the scavenger hunt. As we started walking back to the car I realized that when I jumped off the troll I landed weird and kind of messed up my foot pretty badly. But wouldn't you LOVE to tell this story whenever someone asked you how you broke your foot? And that's why I'm going to be saying yes a whole lot more.

1/25th

2010-08-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

Another week at Lake Powell has passed.

I realized that over the last 3 years I have spent 1/25th of my life in Powell.

There are people in this world with way too much money but at least some spend it on some pretty cool toys.

We got a free firework show from some rich neighbors.

Then we got a free firework show from God. His was better.

One day I took a nap on the living room floor and when I got up there was a 20 dollar bill under me. I tried to repeat this the rest of the trip but no luck.

Anna let me know that in-grown toenails are the gonorrhea of the feet. Thankfully I don't have any.

Spencer got clotheslined tubing

The Morgans are pretty easy going people

Caitlin got to see her dad's feet for the third time in her life

I went to Powell.

2010-07-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

This made me laugh. Alot. Hopefully you will too. Unless you're a BYU fan.

Utah moves to the Pac-10! from Semper Ute on Vimeo.

2010-07-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

Since high school I've thought that one of the funnest and most interesting jobs in the world would be to work for National Geographic or some sort of outdoor magazine as a photojournalist. Not gonna lie, this dream isn't dead but for now I'm a bit tied down. For now I'm working on some personal projects, the pictures aren't organized yet but please take a look at http://oreslondon.blogspot.com/ or click on the picture on the top right of the page.

2010-07-06T20:32:00.001-07:00

Happy summer

Ragnar : Wasatch Back

2010-06-21T03:20:00.000-07:00

It's noon on Sunday and I fall out of bed to answer a knock at the door. The problem is that my legs don't want to move or bend. It was a painful reminder of the past 48 hours which were some of the funnest but most difficult I've experienced. At 12:30pm on Friday my team started running the Wasatch Back, a 188.2 mile relay race from Logan to Park City. I'd been dreading it for the 6 months leading up to it, procrastinating training for 5 1/2 of them but in the days leading up to the race I got more and more exciting. My team was made up of 12 people, only two of which I knew previously. We were split into two cars with 6 runners each. Each runner in the car would run a leg and then the other car would run their legs and this would repeat 3 times. We ran from 12:30pm to 7:30pm before switching with the second car. An over priced meal of horrible tasting pasta and a quick attempt at a nap in the Snowbasin parking lot and we were back running. From our first runner at midnight til I finished my leg at 4:30am I didn't even know where we were, I just ran as fast as I could. By this time the 21 hours of no sleep and previous miles were starting to take their toll. I started to see things as I was running but as strange as it sounds it was easier to keep running than walk. Through all of this my night run was incredibly peaceful, no one was around for most of my run through quiet farmland, just the occasional car. We ended the morning at 6am with a drive that seemed to take hours to Kamas where we managed to grab 3 hours of sleep. Our running continued as we took the baton from the second car at noon and ran til 4:30pm. We arrived The Canyons resort with a few hours to spare before the rest of our team finished up their legs. I saw several friends who had run the race as well and all were in as high of spirits as I was. There were people who had run the race all 6 years of its existence, people who run marathons for fun, people like me who aren't runners but are catching the bug, lots of stiff legs and blistered feet, and lots and lots of happy people wearing finishers medals around their necks. It was a great feeling to see our last runner come running up the hill towards the finish line and our team run the last 100ft with her. The feeling of knowing that I helped my team finish the race was incredible. We ran the course in 32 hours which was 14 hours behind the winners but we didn't care. Just finishing was an enormous accomplishment for us. Part of what made the race so fun and amazing was how hard I had to push myself. Like I said, I'm not a runner. I find running around the neighborhood boring. I'd rather ride my bike for exercise. As I was running my first leg another team's van drove by me with "Your Pain Is Your Gain" painted on the back window which slightly motivated me to keep running because I was definitely feeling pain. A few minutes later another van drove by with "WHY????" painted on the back which I felt was a much more appropriate saying for how I felt at the moment. In the end I can walk again, my blisters are healing and I'm starting to look for the next race I can sign up for.

I like to ride my bicycle

2010-06-11T01:12:00.000-07:00

So today someone asked me why I love biking so much. Here's why.

Go Fast

Fly High

Alone Time

New Point of view

Have a nice trip, see you next fall

Make some new friends

Get a new view

And most important, Just have fun

None of these photos are of me, but of much more talented riders

2010-06-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

So let me tell about how cool my sister Rose is. (Caroline, you're awesome too). She signed up for a humanitarian trip to Thailand this summer to go help with various projects in farming communities over there. The group didn't know exactly what they were going to be doing but she was really excited anyway. There was no way 6 months ago when they signed up that they could know that the country was going to be in the middle of a political upheaval and the US government would be telling people to avoid traveling there if possible. Doesn't matter. She packed up and went with Holly over there and is having the time of her life. She's teaching school, helping garden, working with kids who have AIDS or are affected by it and she's been put in charge of building a watchtower to watch over the community farm in a town called Saman Mit. The town didn't have the money to build it so she organized a fundraiser to get $950. (You can still donate for 2 1/2 more days at https://tippingbucket.org/ ). At the rate they're going though, the fundraiser will be done alot sooner than that. To read about the work she's doing over there go here http://hollyandrose.blogspot.com/ . So if you want to have a friend who can dig ditches, build towers and then the next day go write articles for major newspapers (which she does in her semi spare time) you need to meet my sister.

Summer time, and the living's easy

2010-05-21T01:52:00.000-07:00

There's something special about summer nights. It's like the day isn't over, it just takes on a new dimension. When you get off work at 5pm or 6pm, or 3pm, your second breath kicks in and you're ready to go - 2nd job (for fun), biking, boating, soccer, climbing or whatever fits your fancy. When that moment hits its just like when you would get out for recess in 2nd grade. You can go til dark on the lake, later than dark on the bike trail, make your way down the mountain with your head lamp. And then its dark and the firepits start. The view from the mountains over the city is better when its warm. It's ok to stay up late watching 30 Rock when you have work early in the morning. You can go to semi-pro baseball games in the 7th inning and nor feel bad about missing the other innings that don't matter. You can wear Sanuks to work and everywhere else. You can have mini golf night, softball night and any night you want. So here's to a new summer. May it be your best yet.

Wakeboarder: Nate Sato

Have a peaceful day

2010-05-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

Peace

One of the stranger posts on here.

2010-05-03T17:40:00.001-07:00

Don't ask why but today I wrote a eulogy for Mr. Rodgers. Read on if you would like.

Viewed for years and by millions as the kind neighbor just up the street Fred Rodgers exhibited a kindness rarely seen in single AARP members. He had a fondness for cardigans, lounge shoes, trains and puppets which only increased his appeal to young children, but as the years passed his charismatic style was questioned by those very people who, as children, had sat glued to their black and white tv sets as he entered the magical land of Kings and talking tigers. What was he hiding under his cardigans? What sort of place was in he before coming home that made his sweaters so dirty that he needed to change them when he got home? His integrity and forearms were called into question but those who believed in the magic of public television continued to believe in the goodness of the "neighbor next door". Rumors and suspicions cannot diminish what the man did in bringing joy to millions of children and providing a half hour of relief to stressed young mothers everywhere. We salute you Mr. Rogers. May you rest in peace in your magical neighborhood in the sky.

Wait, I have finals this week?

2010-05-01T18:15:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I haven't focused much on finals yet. I should probably get on that. It's hard though when you're thinking about this and your new bike...........

2010-04-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

Brighten up your day and take a listen to the "Crown Prince of Reggae", Dennis Brown.

"Dennis is the one who made it ok to smile during reggae" - Damian Marley

The Truth About Facebook

2010-04-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

(It's South Park but it's clean)

2010-04-12T10:14:00.001-07:00

Rise of the Nerds

2010-04-10T12:24:00.000-07:00

As it's director put it, DARPA is running into a shortage of "Geeks", but not to worry, Peter Sagal explained how the geeks will rise again from the highschools.
As the geek shortage hits our nations highschools jocks will start looking for new prey and begin shoving pot head and stoners into lockers. This will leave a surplus of weed which the cheeleaders will start smoking leaving them too stoned to cheer. Once the jocks realize they have no one to cheer for them they will start dropping out of sports, lose their jockness and the geek, or more formal term "nerd" will rise again out of the ashes to take their rightful place in the dark cubicles in the basements of our nations defense systems. ( I may have elaborated a bit but this was the general gyst of it)

A week in BCS

2010-04-08T13:41:00.000-07:00

Sunday
One advantage to arriving in Mexico with a giant backpack is that no one bugs you about buying a time share on the beach or staying at their luxury hotel. They assume that you're too poor to be worth their time, and their assumptions were correct. We had flown to southern Baja peninsula with no plans other than arriving Sunday, flying back Saturday morning and surfing at a beach called Los Cerritos sometime in between. It's a strange feeling not having anywhere to be or anything to do. We found a city bus going to Cabo and decided to save ourselves $20 and take that instead of the tourist buses. Twenty minutes after arriving in Cabo, we meet Joaquin, an out of work 30 year old who offers to help us find anything we need in town; restaurants, hotels, women, alcohol. We settle for finding a cheap hotel and end up at the Cabo Cush talking to Zeus, a 20-something year old Californian who came to Cabo and never went back. He tells us that Los Cerritos is an amazing beach, and in fact he's going there the next day and could give us a lift. With our plans somewhat set we start walking away from the tourist center of town to find dinner and settle on some tacos al pastor. Back at the hotel, the sleepless nights from the last 2 months and the thought of nothing to worry about for the next week catch up with me and I'm asleep at 7:30pm.

2010-04-05T10:14:00.001-07:00

Here's an update on the foot in the mouth moment. Apparently the 98 year old Martin Cruz has great hearing. Awesome.

Hiding in the dark

2010-03-31T14:06:00.000-07:00

Ever chew on a shoe? Suck on your toes? It's not very fun. I know cause I did this last night. 8:30pm. I was at Wheeler and had just finished up with a customer dinner. I was talking to Paul (Uncle), and Brian (Cousin) in the lobby after everyone had left when the elevator door randomly opened, but it was empty. The Ghost of JK Wheeler was in the building. Paul went on to explain that that is what they say when the elevator does that, because JK (Wheeler's founder) died in his office. This was news to me and Brian. So Paul took us down to where his office used to be which is now part of the merchandise area. As we walked through the merchandise area, all the lights were out, everyone was gone for the day. We went back and looked at the former office turned vending machine room. As we were back there I was reminded of a story my dad told me a few months back about Martin Cruz, the 80 year old parts department greeter who has been working at Wheeler for about the last 78 years. It goes like this in his own words.

So there I was 15 or 20 years ago. It was a Saturday morning, about 7am. The phone rang and it was Martin.
- "Mr. Campbell, I'm just calling to let you know that my wife passed away last night."
- "Martin, I'm so sorry to hear that. Please let me know if there is anything I can do."
- "Thank you, I will."
Fast forward 10 minutes. Phone rings again.
- "Hello"
- "Hi Mr. Campbell, it's Martin again. I'm just calling to let you know that my wife isn't dead. Have a nice day."
- "Ummmm .....ok......glad to hear......."
I've never dared ask him about what happened that morning with his wife.

Naturally since we're talking about people passing away, I tell Brian and Paul the story. We all get a good chuckle out of it and start walking back to the lobby. As we're walking back I walk in front of Martin's desk. Out of the corner of my eye, I see that the light is on at his desk. And Martin is sitting there. I say "Hi Martin" and keep walking as fast as I can. Why he was sitting alone in the dark in the parts department that closed 3 hours before, I don't know. I do know that I am never going to ask him why he was there. Open foot, insert mouth.

2010-03-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

So the other night I happened to not get any sleep. It's not all that interesting of a story but it has everything to do with forgetful co-workers. But this post isn't about them. I can usually function just fine if I get an hour or two of sleep but right as I was about to take an hour nap at 7am, I heard a knock on the door. Turns out it was the sheet rockers who came to work on my basement. I figured that instead of trying to sleep while they were banging around I'd just go to work to finish the project that I'd been working on all night. Things were fine until about 10 and from then on I couldn't keep my eyes open. I think I was kind of trying to work while I drifted in an out of sleep for about 15 minutes. When I finally snapped out of it I realized I had deleted 3 pages of emails somehow, probably when I thought I was working, except these were from my personal email, not my work email. Well, I kind of got my project done as best I could and had to go to class. Luckily class only went 2hrs instead of the usual 4 so I only had to pretend to be awake half the usual time. Well, I had a soccer game at 8 and figured I should probably take a nap before cause I've played a few games on no sleep and they're pretty ugly. Well, I set an alarm but slept through it and woke up 10 minutes before the game. I've had a pretty bad cold all week so I decided to take some Dayquil on my way out the door and the results were interesting. Out of a 45 minute soccer game, I hardly remember a thing. I remember taking 2 shots and making a few passes but literally is it. I don't remember if I was doing any good out there, I'm just glad I didn't take any shots on my goal. I only know that cause no one got mad at me for doing it. Apparently I didn't realize I had no gas in my car when I left for my game so I ran out of gas about 100 yards away for the soccer place. Luckily Jon was still close and gave me a ride to get gas. The rest of the night is fuzzy and I don't remember anything else, but here I am a day later and alive. Luckily, I remember today.

Why are my hands huge?

2010-03-03T10:30:00.000-08:00

Please excuse bad grammar, extra words or words I've left out. I'm really tired

10:47am Wednesday I think. It was another late night in the house in my continual fight against plaster walls. Sure, they look cool in The Matrix when Neo punches through them, but nope. They're not that cool. So as a result I was up til 3:30am and got up at sometime before class, I'm not quite sure. As I'm in this semi-coherent and fighting to make it through the morning with out a Red Bull I've had a few thoughts. This is what's going through my head.

I started 2 new classes this morning, Stats and Info Systems

Both professors are from Taiwan.

One just used the word jargon

Pretty sure the other one knows kung fu

I wonder if the guy in my class from Taiwan knows kung fu. I don't want to find out

During the break between classes I called a girl to go to the Utah - BYU game tonight. I know she didn't answer but I can't remember if I left a message

I just learned that IT empowers

When I got handed the syllabus for the new class, I thought I was getting handed a report to read. Don't ask me why

Don has graduated from button up shirts and dockers to jeans and T-shirts. I'm proud

Susan is a million-miler flier. She should watch this movie.

Ben is wearing knee high moccassins again. Are those something that indians would wear? I wish I had one by me that I could ask.

Apparently everyone notices if you put your head down in class

I just got told I'm useless. A fair assessment

Theres a guy in here that looks like this guy.. I'm going to touch him

I really don't think I'm going to make it through this class awake

I just raised my hand and I don't know why

I just woke up

I am done

The Dirty, Tan Colored Truth

2010-03-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

We all have something that will make us tell the truth. Something that will make dark secrets we have come out. For me, catch me dozing and its game over. The truth comes out. My friend Ali will tell you anything if she's even in mild danger of being tickled. But as we all know, the more common truth syrum is everyone's favorite past time, alcohol. There was another name for it in Harry Potter, but its all the same.

Now drunks take many forms and with my limited experience being around them, these are a few of the classifications. There are close talkers and questioners. There are sloppy drunks. There are Elaine Benes dancers. There are passer-outers, pukers and table dancers. But just before you reach these levels, theres a brief, special moment where the elusive truth teller appears. It's like that moment when you're walking through the crowd at Sundance and you see Jennifer Aniston walking into a club. You pull out your phone to take a picture but nope, you're too late. You have to be prepared. But then again, sometimes Ms. Aniston walks up to you, pulls up a chair and starts telling you everything you never wanted to know.

Now if you're in my family and reading this you're probably asking yourself, "When did Jonathan start drinking?" The answer is that I've been drinking Coke for about 10 years now which the bartenders are more than happy to serve as long as you leave them a decent tip. Also, friends often need help getting home so they always appreciate having a Mormon in tow to be the designated driver. I'm even willing to go look for them the next morning (story for another day). So where am I going with this?

A few weeks ago I went to a piano bar for a friend from school's birthday party. There were a bunch of people from my class there. A few drinks were drunk and while I enjoyed my Coke. I started talking to Cindy and she started telling me that when class started she thought I was going to be a jock. Then we talked and I settled that misconception. Next up was Jane, but her blue razzle dazzle AMF had already pushed her to the questioner level. Another girl from class who I haven't ever really talked to came and sat down and was in the sunset zone. She starts talking and asks how many kids I have. Last I checked it was a grand total of 0. She was surprised. Apparently she thinks I dress and look like a dad who does yardwork on Saturday mornings. Now, I have nothing against yardworking dads, but I'm pretty sure I don't look like that. But I decided to indulge her and asked what I should do to lose the dad with multiple kiddos look. Her suggestion: (see below)

Now I gave this some thought. Low cut shirts. Pierced ears. Tattoos. If it gets me a girl so tan that she can't smile without her forehead crinkling I might give it some thought. I might even get a tattoo of my car logo.

I can see it now. I'd get the Subaru logo across my shoulders and then down in the small of my back "Subaru - Drive Life". Well I decided to postpone my transformation, and then I saw Ms. Aniston at a party over the weekend. Once again. "Why are you dressed like a dad? You look like you're going to do yardwork." This time she was drinking water. Or alot of Vodka. I thought to myself "Again? Really? I'm wearing jeans, a checkerish shirt and skate shoes." Then I looked and she was wearing a dress with sequins the size of quarters and wearing a mini disco ball on a necklace. Vodka. Sometimes its better to just smile, nod and laugh instead of telling someone that they dress like your great grandma did in 1923. Just let the alcohol talk.

Olympic Shelving

2010-02-21T15:54:00.000-08:00

So I don't know much about remodeling which is exactly what I have to do at my house. My first thought was "Hey, I'll go to IKEA cause that's a neat remodeling store." So I measured some stuff, came up with a few ideas and went to there. The place is a maze. I wanted to see kitchen stuff but spent 45 minutes lost in bedroom supplies, bathroom sinks, and textiles. Once I eventually found the kitchen area I looked around for stuff that fit my measurements and ideas. I found some cabinets that worked, but then I saw the sign that said "Hey, if you want more than 2 shelves in your 6 foot tall cabinet you get to buy them for extra sucker. Also, if you want a door, you have to buy those for extra too. While you're at it, you can pay extra for cabinet door handles." No joke, that's literally what the sign said (in my head). Well, I found a cabinet sans door but with only 2 shelves. On my way out I was lost in the second maze and I saw a shelf (not for the cabinet) that wasn't too expensive. I thought "Hey I could hang that up." So I bought it. When I got home I went to hang it up and I shouldn't have been surprised when I found out that I just bought a board. But I was. There were no supports, screws or anything else. Awesome. I should have just bought a 2x4 at the Home Depot which I am already single handedly keeping in business.

Speaking of Swedish products, I've been watching the Olympics a bit. I don't quite understand why some of the events are in there.

Biathlon - who thought of mixing skiing and shooting stuff? Maybe if you're rabbit hunting in the winter. Or drunk.
Curling - Candian shuffleboard
Ice Dancing - Ever wonder what happened to ice skaters who couldn't land their triple lutz's? (for similar events please see rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline jumping)

It makes me wonder how many other obscure and weird events there are in the Olympics.

Wet Socks

2010-02-17T23:14:00.000-08:00

Ah life. School. Work. Fix my house. 3-4 hours of sleep a night. Things are going well though. (Except that I forgot to record the Olympics tonight). I finally decided hire someone to do the stuff I don't know how to do or want to take the time to learn, a month after I moved in. Typical guy right? Well, it goes on.

So I went skiing with my family at Alta on Monday, it was the first time we had all skied together in a long time but we were sans Jeff and Kristin (I thought about them as I got my faceshots).

While we were there my brothers started talking about the mishaps they've had while skiing with their amazingly small bladders. Here's my favorite one.

My youngest brother Spencer borrowed some socks from my sister Caroline to wear skiing a little while back. Towards the end of the day his bladder kicked in and much to his shagrin he couldn't hold it back. His pants and socks, well, they went for a swim. As a result, he had a dilemma. Those weren't his socks. They were soaked in his pee. He had to give them back to Caroline. Now most people would think of the following options. Put them in the washing machine. Wash them in the sink. Throw them away and get her some new ones. Luckily for my entertainment value he didn't do any of those.

Due to his recently discovered body odor needs he had a can of Axe body spray handy. His idea: Spray his still wet, pee soaked socks with Axe and give them back to Caroline. Who could tell the difference? I mean, socks get soaked in sweat when you ski. They don't exactly smell savory after. That was Caroline's initial thought when Spencer handed her the wet, bi-odored socks. Suddenly, the pungent smell caught her attention and the game was up. Needless to say she wasn't too happy but I got a good laugh out of it.

Ah, school

2010-02-10T10:32:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in my managerial accounting class listening to the professor talk about Actual, Normal and Standard Cost Accounting. It all goes back to the accountant joke:

A CEO is looking for a new accountant and has three interviews set up. The first guy comes in and the CEO asks him "Whats 2+2?" The accountant answers "4". The CEO says thanks and has the next guy come in and asks him the same question "Whats 2+2?" and again he gets the answer, "4". The last accountant comes in and the CEO asks the same question "Whats 2+2?". The accountant answers "What do you want it to be?" The CEO reaches out and shakes the accountant's hand and says "When can you start?"

I know that I could do really well in this class but I don't really have much desire to do much. As my dad told me the first time I asked him to help me with my accounting homework a few years ago, "I don't know, I just have the accountants do it". I'd much rather focus on Negotiations, Entrepreneurship and Finance which are all classes I enjoy. Speaking of classes I don't enjoy I finished my business communications class last Friday. We've had this class for 4 Fridays each semester for 4 hours a pop. It gets painful. The teacher isn't great, is always mad, teaches us about what a paragraph is, how to tell stories, how to walk and talk during a power point presentation, and has us do the same sentence correction exercises that you do in second grade. Basically we haven't gotten anything out of the class that we will use later in life. For our final project in the class we had to come up with a "Persuasive Proposal" (propose a change to something) and present it in class. I realized that a present had been dropped in my lap. In the week I had before I presented I made a survey for the class to take and came up with my proposal. My proposal: We shouldn't have to take business communications if we don't have to or want to. Now I understand that some people need help writing and public speaking but I took classes in both of these subjects in my undergrad and can do both quite well. I presented in a very objective manner, only saying that the class format needed to change, but the numbers from the survey told the truth without me saying anything. They basically said "This class sucks and everyone agrees."

Now why would I do this? I'm not out to hurt my teacher's feelings, I just figure that if I'm paying $1,400 for a class and giving up work/study/free time, it should be worth my while. Fortunately for me, 70% of the class agreed, someone just needed to speak up and say it. Now you're probably thinking "You're an idiot/jerk. You told the teacher that her class doesn't work". Yes I did. And I've actually gotten alot of compliments from other students for having done so. (My teacher is still going off on different types of accounting. I think he's repeated himself a few times already.)

The real reason I did it is because of Ghandi and Einstein.

The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
- Albert Einstein

Be the change you want to see in the world. -Ghandi

Can you imagine if, lets say Erwin Rommel had given a persuasive speech in 1939 before Germany invaded France. Hitler would have given him the same look my teacher gave me from the back of the room and then sulked in the corner.

I can hear you whispering

2010-02-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

The other day at the library I saw an elevator repair man getting into a broken elevator and thought "If he's not very good at his job, I'll be he has some really, really long days." This is a true story.

Anyway, so its been a few hellish days of school and not much else. My house is torn apart and full of dust and plaster bits, but someday, maybe 2012, it will get done.

But here are some good new things. If you look to the right of the screen (---------->) you will see a picture. If you click on the picture it will take to you another blog I've made of pictures I've taken. I don't know how that happens, I'll just call it internet magic. I've always loved photography and finally bought a decent camera a few months back. While I do not claim to be any good, there are some pictures up there if you are bored and have nothing better to do.

Second, I'm going to start posting my favorite youtube video of the week over there (---------->) as well. Everyone likes the funny "Charlie chewed off my finger" videos but there is some really, really amazing stuff out there that sometimes I run across on complete accident. Don't worry, it will all be family friendly.

Finally, the guy sitting from me at the library is playing World of Warcraft and whispering really loudly to his friend. Time to move.

You have a doppelganger in your teeth

2010-02-01T14:01:00.000-08:00

I have a few things on my mind.

First of all, who makes up the verification words for leaving comments? If you don't know what I'm talking about click on the comments button below this. Write something and below it there are some funky looking letters and it says "Word Verification". I've always wondered who comes up with the verification words. Most recently I've seen.

poorn
conissec
flugmell
uniestic
unmanow
tortaing
thers

Since this blog is through Google I thought they'd know what these words mean. I googled them. No result. My conclusion is that there is some lowly intern at Google who has the job of making up random verification words in between getting cups of coffee. I believe that he takes regular words, squints and writes down what he thinks he sees. Here are the real words.

poorn = porn
conissec = con issac
flugmell - slug smell
uniestic = unenthusiastic
unmanow = unibrow
tortaing = tortise crossing
thers = theirs

2nd, its doppelganger week on facebook. No, its not a Nazi bomb. You change your profile picture to someone famous who looks like you. Lucky for me that someone said I look like Paul Newman so it gave me the chance to look like this for a week. I don't smoke though.

My friend Nate is opposed to this. I think it's because after I watched Up! for the first time the other week I said he looks like Russell for no reason other than the fact that he's half Japanese and half American. He was so adimnate that they don't look like each other that he his Facebook status said "opposed to popular belief I am not the little boy on 'Up!'". Lucky for me I know his password and subsequently changed his name to Russell and his profile picture to this. You're welcome Russell, you got doppelganged a week early.

In over my head

2010-01-25T13:36:00.000-08:00

So I decided to do the most grown up thing of my life and decided to go out and buy a house. I started last October and got the house last Thursday. 4 months and 2 realtors later it's done, kind of. The house was built in 1944, (I realized the other day that it was built during WWII) but is in surprisingly good shape. It has its quirks but it has a lot of potential. It still smells like old people inspite of my continual burning of scented candles. I'm going to see if Costco sells industrial size Febreeze. These picture are what the house was like when I bought it but it will be pretty different in the next few weeks if everything goes well. If I remember I'll post some new pictures of that.

Whats in a name?

2009-12-22T13:24:00.001-08:00

When I was a little kid, I was jealous of WWF wrestlers because I thought their wrestling names were their real names. Hulk Hogan. The Undertaker. Jake the Snake. I wondered how these guys were lucky enough to have parents to give them names like these. Then, when I was 18 I found out that these are "Stage Names", types of pseudonyms. Fair enough, they're in an entertainment industry. Now, I believe this idea of using "stage names" has transferred over to the newscasting industry. Don't believe me? Here's a list of current new casters. You decide if anyone would actually name their kids like this, especially 40-50 years ago.

Anderson Cooper, CNN (2 last names?)
Campbell Brown, CNN, (Must be a CNN thing)
Sheppard Smith, Fox News
Major Garrett, Fox News (This is especially confusing when he is reporting on the military)
Wolf Blitzer CNN, (Sounds like a Nazi military operation)
Malini Bawa, Fox News
Sarah Courtney, Fox News (2 First Names?)
Nancy Grace, CNN (Again?)
Domenica Davis, Fox News (Illiteration?)
Fawn Boyd-Vigil, Fox News (Baby Deer)
Ursula Errington, Fox News (Does not look like an Octopus (Think Little Mermaid))
A.J. Hammer CNN, (Not MC's Brother)

I could go on but you get the idea. The other thing these newscasters are doing (primarily the men) is trying to look more distinguished by dying their hair gray among other things. Some (Shepard Smith) just end up looking plastic. Can you tell which picture is real?

Finals

2009-12-15T11:41:00.000-08:00

Once again the end of the semester has come and that can only mean one thing. Nope, not locking myself in the library for long hours, not endlessly stressing and pulling out what little hair I have, not scrambling to organize last minute study groups. Finals for me means PROCRASTINATION. Why do I want to spend an entire week freaking out about finals when I can do it for a day? Lets talk economics since that's what my test in on tomorrow, specifically marginal costs and benefits. If you don't know what that is that's ok, neither do I but I'll try to explain. It basically means that if my costs equal my benefits, I've done pretty good for myself. Simply put, if I put in the time studying to get an A but for some reason (the accountants have retaliated by sabotaging my calculator stabbing me with a #2 pencil right before class) I get a B, I got hosed. Or I could just be bad at Econ. Simply put, I do not get much benefit from stressing all week (marginal cost A) when I can stress for a day and kick myself for procrastinating (marginal cost B). It has been my experience that the marginal benefit (my grade on my final) usually turns out to be the same. However, to effectively procrastinate and cram there is a certain method that must be followed. This gets a bit more complex if there are more then one test on the same day, as is my case tomorrow.

Get a good nights sleep the night before.
Wake up semi early - today I woke up at 9am
Eat a good breakfast so you don't have to break for food very often or buy expensive library Nutter-Butters
On your way to the library stop by Dan's to buy 3 energy drinks (Dan's has the best selection)
Find a table where you can spread your stuff out and has a outlet for your laptop, you're going to be there for a long time
It should be around 10 or 11am right now.
If you have more than one test the next day, study for the easiest one first
Frequently get up and move around.
Remember that since you don't have much time you need to have quality study time, therefore Facebook, www.mylifeisaverage.com, blog reading and writing should be kept to a minimum
If people offer to let you study with them, politely decline. They'll only slow you down. And they've been stressing all week so they'll probably want to study something other than what you want to. This is counter productive.

Start your first energy drink around 1pm.
The key to memorization is writing stuff down. Whiteboards, paper, windows, etc. anything is good as long as you can write on it. Writing on whiteboards makes you look smarter to other people in the library. (Good Will Hunting effect) Windows and glass are also good (A Beautiful Mind effect). If you're just writing to memorize that doesn't look too impressive so draw some absurd math equation with graphs and stuff so people think you're doing some crazy problem and are way smarter than them. It doesn't have to make sense at all. In fact if they can't figure it out they'll be even more impressed. You'd be amazed how long people will leave it up there because they're so impressed.
By now you should be on your second test if you have two.
Drink your second energy drink around 6pm.
Study until about 10pm. Drive home, eat dinner and go to bed. No, we're not pulling the allnighter. Only do these in extreme cases.
Go to bed by midnight at the latest
Wake up at 4am and eat a big breakfast
Go to school by 7am to study. This should just be a review of what you studied yesterday. It's also a good chance to ask classmates any questions you have cause everyone is in review mode.
Drink your last energy drink about an hour before your test (thats why you bought 3).
Write any equations you think you'll forget on your test as soon as you get it so you're not trying to remember an hour later.
Get an A. Marginal Cost = Marginal Benefit

Success!!!!!!!!!!

2009-12-09T22:48:00.000-08:00

So I took a sick day on Monday and today was my last day of Econ so I knew I had to make it count with the accountants (pun possibly intended). Since they usually get in the class room about an hour early to save their seats we had to plan ahead and I recruited a dozen other people to help me. Right after our marketing class got out 2 hours before, we just left our stuff in the room to save our seats. We had so many people that they were completely displaced. I unfortunately wasn't in the room when they came in but sources tell me that they came in and said "What the heck is this?". I received many, many crusties during the class (partly because the lady in my class that looks like and angry Hilary Clinton told them that we were messing with them) and I was afraid of getting stabbed by a number 2 pencil after class. (Thanks Taylor for giving me an eternal fear of them). Luckily I escaped unscathed because it is a well known fact that only extremely extroverted accountants can look up from their shoes to to attack someone, and none of these are extroverted. Even if they had been I was prepared to stare them down. I don't think any of them could have handled losing their seats AND getting a world class stare down from someone they don't know in the same day. Something would explode. Anyway, thanks to all those who made our anti-accountant sit-in a success! We'll just have to see what next semester brings.

Game on!!

2009-12-01T12:44:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm having some fun messing with the accounting stiffs in my class. Yesterday I recruited a few more people to help me take more of their seats and throw them way off, but when I got to class 20 minutes early their seats were already saved. 2 of them had gotten there early and were saving their seats. I asked how long they had been there and it turns out they'd gotten there an hour early. To bad for them I have Marketing in the same room 2 hours before. Guess who is just going to leave his stuff in there? And I've recruited even more people to help tomorrow. Game on accountants!!!!

Call me a jerk........

2009-11-24T09:40:00.000-08:00

......but yesterday I decided to mess with my Masters of Accounting (MACC for short) classmates in my econ class. As you know (or may not but now you do) accountants are creatures of habit. They don't like change. They like things to be the same everyday. Accountants are just boring people. Now in my class we don't have assigned seating but over the semester everyone has kind of found ageneral area in the room where they feel comfortable, occasionally changing rows and seats, but nothing is set in concrete. Except for the accountants. To give you an idea of how uptight they can be, on the first day of class (THE FIRST DAY!!!)one of them had put her backpack behind a seat and then left the room. While she was out someone came and sat where she left her backpack. There were other seats open and while a normal person would just move to an open seat, she proceeded to go up to the professor and tell him that someone stole her seat. He just shrugged and went back to what he was doing.

Over the semester the 6 accountants (5 of which are women) have pretty much set up one row/camp as their own and they all sit in the same spot everyday. They set up their desks with their laptops, 7 notebooks, non fat yogurt, sliced apples and baggies of grapes. I was wondering the other day what would happen if someone messed up their row. So I did. Adrienne (a former accountant recently converted to the MBA) and I decided to take the two ringleaders seats and view the aftermath. Adrienne heard one of them say "So do we just have to find a different seat?". Luckily for them one of the accountants was gone and they were all able to fit onto the row with 5 seats, but they were not happy.

NEXT WEEK: We don't have class until after Thanksgiving but when we get back Adrienne and I have a plan for the next wrench in the cogs. We're recruiting other students to help and we're going to take up a few seats on their main row as well as the one they transplanted to so they can't all sit together. Someone might go postal but it will be worth it. Just look at it like we're helping them break out of their shells.

Weekend Update

2009-11-15T23:04:00.000-08:00

So it's been a while since I've written anything. Alot has happened in the last two weeks.

School
I've written a few papers, taken a few tests, gotten some good grades, some bad ones, read alot, haven't slept enough, drank too much Red Bull, laughed in class, walked, slept in the library.............

Work
..........

Other
I've gone on a date or a few, made malotov cocktails, gone to a buffalo auction, bought some new shoes, made toast, bought a sweater, saw a movie, watched some football, played soccer, got a haircut, got a new cast, made Top Ramen, read your blog, considered buying a buffalo, decided against buying a buffalo, played Frogger crossing the street, a friend got engaged, I didn't, I played with my new camera.........

Blog post 100

2009-10-29T23:01:00.000-07:00

www.wwwdotcom.com

Zombies

2009-10-20T11:32:00.001-07:00

Being the time of year that it is I thought that I should share some useful tips on how to survive a zombie attack.

Part I

1. Avoid graveyards
2. If you're running from a zombie and trip and fall, get back up and run. Don't turn around and watch because you will get caught and eaten
3. Zombies can open doors so lock them
4. Zombies run like they're drunk so you can most likely out run them
5. Screaming won't stop them
6. They don't like fire (if you have a flame thrower it is a plus)
7. Zombies eat flesh. My guess is that the less you shower the worst you taste and therefore are less likely to be eaten.
8. You need to destroy the brain. This can be done in a number of ways
a. shoot them in the head
b. hit them in the head with one of the following
- baseball bat
- cricket bat
- crowbar
- tire iron
- shovel
- golf club
c. Cut of the head
- axe
- samurai sword
- Husqvarna 570 chainsaw
9. If someone is dead you need to burn the body to make sure they don't turn into a zombie.
- Napalm
- gas
- Malotov cocktail
10. If you know someone that has been bit use them as bait to lure the zombies into a trap. Then kill them first cause they'll be mad you used them as bait.
11. Never be in the back of a group. You'll be the first to get caught.
12. Get out of the city where zombies like to stay
13. Don't go into abandoned buildings
14. Lock car doors
15. Stay away from windows

I have an Econ midterm to study for but I will finish this ASAP

Lows and Highs

2009-10-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

Low: Broken wrist with hard cast

High: I have an instant club for the next 3 weeks in case I get in a fight
High: I have something to draw on when I get bored
High: I now have a good reason to wear snap up shirts instead of button up shirts
High: Whoever thinks that showering with a garbage bag on their arm hasn't tried it
High: Immediate conversation piece
High: I now have an excuse for misspelling words
High: lkjsadfojas
High: People might think I'm tough
High: I now longer take being able to scratch an itch for granted
High: Drawing on my cast is like getting a tattoo that I can take off if I don't like it
High: I'm not wearing lace up shoes for 3 weeks
High: If I trip and fall I'm not going to rebreak my wrist with my cast on. I can fall all I want now.

Clearly the pros outweigh the cons in this situation.

Mississippi Wrangler

2009-10-06T08:55:00.001-07:00

Here's to you Brett. After 472 touchdown throws, 277 games played, 9,405 pass attempts, 5,805 completions, dozens of Wrangler commercials and 2 botched retirements you are now the first quarterback to beat all 32 NFL teams. 4 days shy of your 40th birthday none the less. Now the question is at what cost. You can never show your face in Wisconsin again (having lived in the midwest I don't know if that's the worst thing in the world). This would be the equivalent of Brian Johnson winning the Sugar Bowl and then transferring to BYU to play. Pure blasphemy. But the Vikings are loving it. They're 4-0 for the first time since 2003 and a potential Super Bowl contenders. But.........Wisconsonians and Cheeseheads everywhere hate him. Life can be bittersweet.

What to do?

2009-10-06T00:09:00.000-07:00

North, South, East or West. So many directions to choose from for fall break.

Life is good my friends, life is good

2009-09-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

I just got home from the Pearl Jam concert. I'm not quite sure how to describe it. Amazing, excellent, unbelievable, and awesome just don't quite describe it. I think the only thing I can say is that I can't remember the last time I've smiled so much or felt so happy. I don't remember ever getting goosebumps so many times in one night. These guys have been around for a long time and know how to put on a show. They play new songs, old songs, songs they like and songs the audience likes. They have fun and make sure the crowd does too. There is nothing like expecting to hear a new song you don't know but then hearing the intro to Evenflow. I can't count the number of times I played that song on the drums when I was learning. Or when the show is almost over and they announce the last song and its Yellow Ledbetter, the only song that could possibly make the night better. Everytime this happened, I'd just laugh and my smile would grow a little bigger. Thank you PJ for making my life happier and the world a better place.

From Dubai to Ireland

2009-09-27T10:43:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest set of emails between me and my Dubian scammer friend

DEAR FRIEND,

THANKS FOR YOUR MAIL, I QUITE UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEAN, I AM NOT IN DUBAI AT THE MOMENT, I AM ORIGINALLY FROM THERE BUT I GROW UP IN LONDON, I AM PRESENTLY RECIEVING TREATMENT IN IRELAND AND HERE IS MY NUMBER +44-704-570-9245.

PLEASE GET BACK TO ME WITH YOUR DETAILS IN THIS MANNER SO I CAN CALL YOU AND WE CAN TALK BETTER:

NAME:
ADDRESS:
TEL:
AGE:
OCCUPATION:

THE SECURITY COMPANY IS NOT IN DUBAI. PLEASE GET BACK TO ME URGENTLY SO WE GET THIS TRANSACTION GOING. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU ARE MY ONLY HOPE IN THSI TRANSACTION AND THERE IS THE NEED FOR US TO BE IN CONSTANT COMMUNICATION AS TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE IN THIS TRANSACTION.
AWAITING YOUR URGENT MAIL.

REGARDS,
SAEED AHMED

Dear Saeed,

I am beginning to question the validity of your request. You first told me that you are in Dubai, but now you tell me that you live in London but are in Ireland. I spent several thousand dollars flying to Dubai to meet you only to find that you were not honest with me. I understand that the securities company is not in Dubai, but my attorneys told me that you would be able to withdraw the money there. I have tried calling your phone but it says that the number has been disconnected. Based on these events my trust is extremely shaken I do not know if I can still help you. If you feel that you can restore my trust in you please do.

Josne

DEAR FRIEND,

THANKS FOR YOUR MAIL, HOW ARE YOU TODAY , I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I HAVE NOT BEEN IN ANYWAY DISHONEST WITH YOU, IF YOU READ MY FIRST MAIL CLEARLY, I ONLY TOLD YOU WERE I AM FROM AND DID NOT INDICATE THAT I WAS THERE AT THAT POINT TIME. MY NUMBER I GACE YOU IS VERY VALID AND IF YOU CANNOT GET THROUGH, PLEASE SEND YOUR NUMBER TO ME LET ME CALL YOU.

AGAIN, WE HAVE NOT CONLCLUDED FOR YOU TO TRAVEL TO THE SECURITY COMPANY BEFORE YOU DID, I AM SORRY IF YOU DID WITH GETTING A RESULT, I NEED TO GIVE SOME DUCUMENTS FOR YOU CAN GO THERE TO GET THE FUNDS.

Saeed, If you recall in your first email to me you said "My name is Saeed Ahmed a merchant in Dubai, in theU.A.E.I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer." By leading me to believe that you are in Dubai by this statement and not telling me that you are in Ireland until your third email my trust is severely shaken. I have received several other offers to help persons in need with their wealth. I will most likely take their offers because they have been honest and forthright with me unlike you. I wish you the best with your defiling disease.

Sign me up!!!

2009-09-24T18:57:00.000-07:00

So I'm supposed to studying but of course I'm procrastinating and procrastination usual involves Facebook. There are usually ads for dating sites, hot moms etc. but for the first time I saw one for LDSSingles.com, a dating site for LDS singles (I know you're thinking "duh Jonathan"). I've always thought that these are pretty funny so I clicked on it. I sure was surprised to find out that "LDSSO® (which stands for LDS Singles Online®) was created in 1996 as a safe and fun way for LDS Singles to meet online and build great friendships and relationships." "Since its start over 400,000 profiles have been created and well over a thousand couples have found their match on LDSSO." I like statistics and numbers so let figure out my odds if I join.

It says well over 1,000 couples have been matched on there, so for arguments sake lets assume 1,200. At that rate 92.3 couples have been matched up per year for the past 13 years. I'm liking my odds.

Over 400,000 people have joined and lets keep our assumption of 1,200 couples, which would equal 2,400 individuals. At this rate my odds of success are 0.60%. About 1/2 a percent. Not looking so good

But how much do I have to pay to meet my future wife? Well, luckily if I sign up for 6 months its only $60 or $10/month but I'm liking my odds so I'll assume that it would take me 2 months to meet, date and get engaged to my future wife in typical Mormon fashion. I'd probably go with the 3 month subscription for only $36 just to be safe which breaks down to $12/month.

The average monthly cost is $12.33. If everyone can get hitched in 6 months this only comes out to 6 months x 12.33 x 400,000 subscribers =$29,592,000. Under these assumptions (which have not been exaggerated at all) this means that for every marriage (1,200) this site makes $24,660 for every couple that gets hitched.

The fun continues............

2009-09-23T15:48:00.001-07:00

Here is my most recent response to our friend Saeed. I used the name Josne Mubaraq, my dad used to call us that when we were little (and it conveniently is the name of the current president of Egypt).

Dear Saeed, thank you for responding. As a God fearing man seeking to do right and never take advantage of others by any means I am happy to assist you in the distribution of your wealth. You are not the first person I have had the opportunity to help. Only 2 years ago I was fortunate enough to help a man from Nigeria who had recovered a sum of $15 million due to an American contractor dying in a car accident and leaving no living heir. Needless to say I am quite wealthy and enjoy sharing my wealth with others. I have had my attorneys in Europe study the finance and security laws and they unfortunately prohibit a transfer of this sort. I understand the urgency of your medical situation so I am making ready to personally fly to Dubai to collect the money from you. I am sure that this will be satisfactory with you as you wish to distribute this money as quickly and as safely as possible. Nothing could be safer than me picking it up. My attorneys pointed out that as it is your money in the European bank you will have no inconvenience withdrawing it from your account while you are in Dubai. I plan to fly out tomorrow morning so if you could please give me your contact information and location so I can find you. I look forward to meeting such a philanthropic man as yourself and trust that you will be an inspiration for me to do good.

Regards,

Josne Mubaraq

Return of the Dubai

2009-09-23T05:51:00.000-07:00

So after receiving the scam email yesterday (see below if you haven't read it), I decided to have some fun with this scammer, the man who's medical issues are defiling doctors (his words, not mine). I emailed him back saying that I would love to get his money and to ask how he would get it to me. I mean, this is $8 million we're talking about here. Here is his response. Unfortunately his disease is still defiling doctors and treatment everywhere. That's got to be awkward.

Dear Friend,

I am most grateful for your mail, and I seize this opportunity to thank you for coming to my rescue and to also let you know that this task is a straight forward and legal task. I am somebody with a conscience. If this task was in any way illegal, I would tell you straight away so that you know what you are involved in and decide for yourself. But it is not like that and you will later see and understand that.

I hope you were not too embarrassed by my first email to you since you do not know me and i am very sorry for the late reply it was due to my illness now i am strong to sit up right. I had no option since my immediate and extended family in and outside Dubai refused to distribute my funds because they want to keep it to themselves. I didn??know how to move the funds out and dispatched it to charity organizations, so I resulted to putting fate to test and making a random contact.

I am communicating with only you at this moment with regards to this task. And I would not have any cause to do otherwise, except you state your intention to withdraw your assistance.

Just like I stated in my first mail to you, this fund is presently in a private security and holding firm in Europe. I cannot claim these funds myself as a result of,

(1) I am under going medical treatment. It has defiled all forms of medicine, and right now I have only about a few months to live, according to medical experts.
(2) I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul and so, I have decided to give alms to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth It is for this reasons I am seeking for your assistance to stand as the beneficiary to the fund and retrieve it on my behalf and dispatched it to charity organizations which I will later provide you with.

All the necessary documents required to get the Funds out of the security firm are in my possession and I will be sending them to you after we must have come to a conclusion and reached an agreement.

I need you to give me your words that you will be very honest and straight forward with me when the money gets to you, So long as you can execute this transaction successfully and help me dispatched it to charity organizations.
Thus, I would need you to get back to me on the following issues,

(1) That you are in a position to be trusted as a God fearing person with such a large amount of fund and dispatched it to charity organization.

(2) That you are willing to contact the security company to discuss the terms of releasing the funds .

(3) That you fully understand this transaction up to this stage and you are ready to proceed under these terms.

(4) That you willing to furnish me your full names, address, phone and your international passport or drivers license.

As soon as I receive your reply that you are ready to proceed under these terms, then I will furnish you with all details of the security company and also how to secure the release of my fund and disposure it to the charities. But if you have any questions up to this stage, please ask and I will be more than happy to respond to them. And I will also send you all the necessary documentations to conclude this transaction and the security company details as my life is too short.

Thanks for your mail, your mail has relieved me and I pray to almighty GOD with his infinite mercy to reward you. I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it now. I want you to pray for me so that God would forgive me and be merciful to me and accept my soul.
May God bless you,
Saeed Ahmed

With regards from Dubai

2009-09-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

I've received dozens, if not hundreds of scam emails over the last few years and I'm still waiting for a total of $453 million. I normally delete them but today for some reason I decided to open this one. Turns out this is one of my favorite that I've read. Don't worry, I'll share the money with you. Enjoy

Dear Friend,

As you read this, I don`t want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday.

My name is Saeed Ahmed a merchant in Dubai, in theU.A.E.I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer.It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about a few months to live,according to medical experts.

I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone(not even myself)but my business. Though I am very rich, I was never generous,I was always hostile to people and only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world.

I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it. Now that God has called me, I have willed and given most of my property and assets to my immediate and extended family members as well as a few close friends.

I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul so, I have decided to give also to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last

good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations in the U.A.E, Algeria and Malaysia. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself anymore.

I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts and distribute the money which I have there to charity organization in Bulgaria and Pakistan, they refused and kept the money to themselves. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contended with what I have left for them.

The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of forty million dollars $40,000,000,00 that I have with a finance/Security Company abroad. I will want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatched it to charity organizations.

I have set aside 20% for you and for your time.

God be with you.

Regards,

Saeed Ahmed

2009-09-17T13:28:00.000-07:00

And the floodgates of school have opened. WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSHH I'm gone

I am, he says, she says

2009-09-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

I stole this from my cousin Sarah's blog
I am inspired by: Old guys who don't care what they look like

I always: wear shoes

I like chocolate Better than vanilla

I never leave home without: my phone (even though I don't use it much_

I can't believe I: am back in school

I melt: hearts

I find myself: waking up at 5am without an alarm clock

I feel uncomfortable: in suits

I have decided: that money is overated

I am free when: I'm not in jail

I can cry: for Argentina

I will: love my life

I dream of: Genie

I am digging: a hole

Most of the time I: breath

I can't help: sticking my tongue out when I concentrate

I remain enamored with: Beyonce

I can't: touch my toes

I need: a roadtrip

I want: a motorcycle

It's strange that I: still have shoes from 8th grade

If I could, I would: eat eclairs for breakfast (this has been changed from the original due to Rosemary's mocking)

I: am me

Painfully Oblivious

2009-09-07T20:01:00.001-07:00

In infomercials, when they try to show how awful the product they’re trying to replace is they show it in black and white. What does that say about old black and white movies?

When a commercial tells you that “Not only will you get this for the low price of $9.99 but we’ll throw in 3 more for the only the cost of shipping!” that means that they can’t even give this product away.

When magazines give work and healthy eating advice they assume that we’re all millionaires, work 2 hours a day and can afford a simple $6,000 two day stay at Bermuda’s finest resort and spa.

Do the guys who still drive the H2’s around with their company logo on it still think it’s cool?

When I hear female tennis players grunt/scream/yell when they hit the ball it makes me wonder if people would watch the WNBA if the players grunted or screamed every time they passed or shot the ball

Adults in commercials – Actors who still haven’t give up the dream of being movie stars.

Wouldn’t be awkward if you’re sitting next to someone who you don’t know in a computer lab and they randomly started looking at your Facebook or Myspace profile

Why do some people feel that they need to eat a 3 course meal in class?

Why do people say HAHAHA or LOL after every text? I don’t laugh whenever I say “I have class today” or “I’m hungry”

I don't get it

School to date

2009-09-02T22:56:00.000-07:00

Here are my favorite things about school so far:

Until yesterday I only had to go to 2 different class rooms. Now I have to go to 3 but I think I can deal with it.

I don't have to take an accounting class this semester.

I realized that all of the Asian students in my class choose American names when they come here because most of us can't pronounce their real names. So far I've met Fiona, Jill, Abraham and Noi (I'm not sure what language that's from).

There's a lady that looks like an angry Hilary Clinton with a bowl cut

Today a lady went and told the professor on someone who supposedly took the seat she had saved for class

Football starts tomorrow

Recent News

2009-08-31T21:06:00.000-07:00

I started Grad School. This is also known as Big Boy School, Real School, Overpriced School and "Whoa, are you surviving?"

Yes I am, thanks for asking

I spend most of my time in class or studying at the library so I don't talk to many people

As a result I talk to people on Facebook alot more whether they like it or not

I don't think many people like it

My Aunt asked me why I think that Mom's on Facebook are creepy. It was an awkward moment. They still creep me out

I went climbing tonight for the first time in a while and it was great

I got lost for a moment but then found the trail. It was a tense 33 seconds, even with the road 100ft away

I don't have to take accounting this semester.

I hate accounting

This is a good thing

My professor is a professional square dancer

I didn't know those existed. I think they're called pioneers

Thanks to Rose (herb) I found this www.mylifeisaverage.com

I think her work is pretty boring

I was going to work out today but then I didn't

Colby bought a Subaru today. If he moves into my house 4 of the 5 of us will drive Subaru's. Nate hates it.

I found string cheese that I can afford at the store

We got a free case of Red Bull and one of Red Bull Cola. If anyone wants the cola its yours, it's gross though

I'm keeping the Red Bull for the wings though

I MIGHT go on a date this week.

They still scare me 9 years after my first one

My wingman skills are outstanding though

Just ask Nate or Jon. I do hire out

I'll set it up but if you can't keep it going, thats your own fault (I'm not naming names)

I'm just writing Nate's name here for fun. Nate

In an effort to get to know myself better I've taken a few online quizzes.

On the "What kind of animal are you" quiz I found out that I'm a Wolverine

On the "What kind of tattoo should I get" quiz I found out that I should get a giant tree tattoo. Don't be surprised if next time you see me I have a pine tree from my feet to my head

FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-08-20T11:42:00.000-07:00

It is not very often that I have such fire-filled weekends as this one. On Thursday and Friday night I was at a family reunion where we had a large marshmellow roasting fire. I'll combine those and call them fire #1. The second was when I was driving up the reunion after school on Friday and at the top of Parley's Summit traffic started to slow down. I began to grumble about traffic jams, how I'm the only decent driver on the road etc. when I saw a huge plum of black smoke. I immediately changed from grumbly to interested. I could tell something was on fire and one lane was blocked off so instead of changing to the faster of the 2 lanes, I stayed in the slow lane to have the best view possible. It paid off. I passed a camper that was being completely, absolutely toasted. I tried to get a picture when I drove past but that didn't work so I just held up my phone, pointed it to the back and got the picture (kind of small but you can see). So that was Fire #2. Fire #3 was definitely my favorite. I went to a Luau that on of the LDS frats was having and they had some firedancers come. I've seen firedancers before but these were my favorite. If you've ever seen the movie Hotrod, this reminded me of that. They started out with "The Final Countdown" playing and both of them twirling their fire batons. On was wearing flaming shorts, a flame headband and an eye patch. These guys were great to watch because they had about 3 moves they could do but kept dropping their batons. One guy actually caught his shorts on fire (yes, the flame shorts actually caught on fire). Maybe the best part of all though was when they poured lighter fluid all over the ground for effect and caught the wood backdrop on fire. They spent about 10 minutes after the show trying to put it out. I couldn't help but feel that I got my money's worth out of comic relief.

2009-08-15T19:50:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I finished my summer job. I know I'm 25 and "summer job" sounds like something you have in highschool. Well, I've had a summer job working at Wheeler in their rental dept. On my last day they had one of the 250lbs. truck drivers sit on me while they zip tied and ceran wrapped me to my chair. I honestly was more worried about the driver letting some gas loose while sitting on me than anything else. I got them back though, don't worry. It was a good day though because Nitro Circus was in town filming and we go to go watch them film a bit since we rented them some equipment. Call me a loser but I was pretty excited to meet Travis Pastrana. If you don't know who he is check him out on youtube and you'll see that he has a pretty awesome life.

Next day I get up early, drop my car off at the repair shop and head to Seattle with Jeff and Kristin to help them move in. Jeff had gotten a head start in the moving truck while we dropped my car off and we were playing catch up. I was a little bitter about having to ride in the same car as their (Kristin's) cats but they were sitting in their cages and not bothering me. Then.....one of them decides its time to forgo the litter box and creates one of the worst smells I have ever been exposed to in any of my many roadtrips. Luckily the next rest stop was only 15 long, smelly, nasty minutes away. I escaped the cats when we caught up to Jeff only to be reunited with them 4 hours later. Tossing empty Red Bull cans at them luckily kept them at bay. While filling up the moving van up we counted approximately 20 warning signs in the U Haul, and you know they're all there because someone did exactly what the warning sign tells you not to. The sticker department at U Haul must have a pretty funny job but if they were in a Soap Opera I'd imagine their day goes something like this.
Telephone rings
"Sticker and warning labels department this is Joel, how can I help you?"
"Joel, this is Rueben down in trucking incidents. We had an incident yesterday that we need you to make a sticker for."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah."
"A guy was walking backwards out of the truck and missed the ramp with one foot. He fell out of truck to the ground and the couch landed on him. It had a hide-a-bed in it so it was very heavy. It messed him up pretty bad."
"I'll get right on it. What kind of sticker are we looking at here? You know the doors and dashboard of the trucks are already completely covered with warning labels and there's not really anywhere else to put them. I just can't do it!"
"I know, but we have no choice."
"You don't understand, I have no more room."
"Can you live with these lives on your conscience?
"I..Uh..."
"Think of our alternatives. Stickers or death, or at least badly bruised legs. There's got to be some way....I've got it!"
"You don't mean-"
"Yes I do. It's time to move to ramp stickers. Maybe if they see it every time they walk up the ramp they won't miss it coming down."
"You're putting me in a tough spot Rueben but I'll do what I can. Stat. Any preferences on the color scheme?"
"We'll need some red and yellow. You know that people ignore any warning signs with green. They just take it as an optional precaution."
"Like that guy that you found dead sitting on his seatbelt after he was in an accident?"
"The Bridgewater incident of '02? Yes, just like that. We're in the works to get the approval to change the color on that sticker but corporate isn't budging. You know how they are."
"Yeah, I know. We'll get this sticker right, don't you worry. A blind man in a blizzard won't be able to miss this one."
"Thanks Joel. Lives are depending on this."
"I know."

And that's how I see the warning label department at UHaul working.

2009-08-02T01:22:00.000-07:00

You know that feeling where you just never have enough time? That's how I feel everynight when I go to bed. I either need to be able to sleep 2 hours a night and be fine the next day or just relax and do about 1/4 of what I want to do. I started a house painting company this spring with my friend Nate and things went fine for a while. Then I started working at Wheeler Machinery 10hrs a day 5 days a week. Nate does the painting but I've been trying to help, especially since we're painting my grandma's house right now. This tends to create 12-14 hour work days 4 or 5 days a week. I'm too the point where I don't mind working weekends/weekend nights/when I should be having fun with friends. I realized this is just a bit too much and have made plans to cut back (as soon as Nana's house is done) but I have so many other projects and stuff I want to work on (I haven't cleaned my room in 2 weeks, the clean laundry is just sitting in a pile on the floor cause everytime I think I'll put it away I tell myself I'll do it tomorrow). For some reason I think I'll have more time when I start my MBA in 2 weeks but I'm pretty sure that's just wishful thinking. So it goes, I'd rather be busy than not. I'd rather have people wanting us to paint their house than not. I just haven't learned the balancing act of life yet.

2009-07-12T21:08:00.000-07:00

This is the secret to a sucessful life: Listen to movie soundtracks while you study and work. You are much more motivated to do well at what you're doing.

2009-07-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

I accidentally took a swim in Lake Powell with my phone so please feel free to send me your numbers again if you would like.

The Pet Peeves (contd)

2009-07-02T00:32:00.000-07:00

Softball players. Now let me explain this a little bit. Right now I play on a rec softball team on Wednesday nights. Simply put, I suck. No way around it. I can usually get on base a few times a night but that's only because I'm still fast. I got a grounder the other night when I was playing in field and threw the guy out and I thought I was the coolest guy on the field (for a moment there I actually was). Now you're asking "If you're a super cool softball player, even though you suck, why do softball players bug you?". The best answer I can give is to go to a park where they have multiple league softball games going on and see for yourself. But, I am going to try to explain myself. Before I do though I must direct you to Jim Rome who describes this better than I ever could hope to. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jim+rome%2C+softball+guy&search_type=&aq=f. First of all, there are the people that argue every close call. The feel the need to talk back to the ref as well as talking smack to the other team. "Hey batter, lets see a big hit huh?!" " (This is a thought)Umm, its a bright fluorescent yellow ball going 12.8mph, maybe I can hit it". Once again let me remind you that this is rec league softball, there's one ump and he's not going to see everything. Once I pitched the ball flat instead of a big lobbed under hand and the other team started yelling at me that the game wasn't fast pitch. I guess my 19mph scorcher was a little much for them. Some of these people look like they never left their highschool baseball or softball team. The guys have new cleats, new $300 bats, take 3 minutes to get ready to bat. The girls either have the poofy pony tail coming out the back of their visor while wearing mens t shirts and shorts. Either that or short, butch hair which makes it hard for me to tell if they're a man or a woman. I've made that mistake before (though not to their face). They're super intense about it though. So go on down to your local softball park one of these nights and take a look.

2009-06-24T23:16:00.001-07:00

The other night one of my friends told me that she didn't think that anything bugged me. She's wrong, I just don't see much use in complaining but I decided to list a few things that drive me nuts.

Chewing with your mouth open. Unless your under the age of 3 don't do this. We all have noses and can breath through it while we chew (unless you lost it on Everest due to frostbite. Then you're excused). Someone smacking food around in their found is easily the most annoying noise in the world to me. Give me fingernails on chalkboards any day.

Texting "K". Why send just this? Why not send "K, see you there" or if you wanted to still save space I think that "K c u thr" will be equally effective. Or if I'm meeting someone some where and I send "I'll meet you by the flagpole after class and we'll throw down there" thats all I need to know. I don't need a "K" to know I'm meeting him at 3pm to whoop his butt. Just by sending that he has made me at least 17% more likely to break his nose and kick him in the liver. At least I have an unlimited text plan. Back when I paid per text the "k" texts made me want to meet someone at the flagpole.

wRiTIng lIkE ThIs. This isn't cute. Maybe you could do it on your valentines in 6th grade but after that it's really not that cool/cute/interesting. I have trouble reading like that. It's like something exciting is about to happen cause you see all the capital letters but then you see the lower case and its such a let down. It's like going to a hotel on the beach and you get all excited for the ocean view but when you get to your room you realize that your window faces a brick wall. Lame.

I'm tired and am going to bed but I will expound on the following subjects soon and possibly ad some more.
-Politics
-Photographers who really aren't photographers
-Self righteous vegetarians

And to the person that prank called me the other week, I now know who you are.

2009-06-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

On Thursday my roomates Jon and Paul started talking about how they wanted to do a night hike up Mt. Olympus to be there for sunrise. I told them I thought it would be fun but didn't think much more about it. Last night around 11 they told me that they were doing the hike that night, I was hanging out with some friends and around midnight Paul told me that he didn't think I'd do the hike since I was still hanging out. I thought about it for about 1/600 of a second and said that I would do it just to prove Paul wrong. My friends ended up staying over until 2:30am when we left so I didn't get to sleep at all. We started hiking a little after 3am and reached the summit at 5:10am and got to see an amazing sunrise. We started running back down at 6:10 and reached the car at 7:30am. I had a soccer game at 9 so I took about a half hour nap and went and played. I got back and crashed and slept from noon til 8:30 which is more sleep than I've had all week. I thought that could just sleep until tomorrow which I'll probably do in about 30 minutes. That is all.

Don't tell your mom

2009-05-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

So I went to the bank yesterday to deposit a bunch of cash that had accumulated after a while, 1's 5's 10's etc. I put the money on the counter for the teller and the girl she was training. When the new girl saw all the cash she asked if I was a waiter. I thought for a second and then calmly told her I was a stripper. I don't know why I said it, it just came into my mind as something that would be funny and it sure was. Both of them got strange looks on their faces and the new girl actually screamed a little. I started laughing and they calmed down and I told them that I actually keep my clothes on when I work painting houses. It was a good time. If you're ever bored and at a bank, give it a try and see what happens.

2009-05-05T08:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I decided to get rid of an old broken TV thats been sitting in my room for the last month. Here's how it went.

2009-05-03T23:33:00.000-07:00

So its been a while since I've written anything on here. Frankly, my life's been a bit boring as of late. I'm done working at Snowbird, ski season is all but over and work is slow. I've played more tetris than I ever have before in my life. I was watching Nitro Circus the other night and was thinking about how much fun those guys must have doing their show/job. I realized that they are just like me and my friends were except with more expensive toys. They jump motorcycles, we jumped tubes over rivers. They race pushcarts down hills going 50mph, we long boarded anything with good pavement going 45mph. They drift rally cars, we tied Christmas trees to the back of our cars and drifted corners on those. They ride lawn mowers, we rode shopping carts. They base jump out of hotel restaurants, we poached swimming pools. Its the natural progression of things. I'm sick of being bored so I've decided that I'm going to do something fun everyday for the next month, if not longer. Hopefully alot of it will be new stuff, I'll try to record some of it and post it. If anyone has suggestions of stuff to do let me know

If you're bored, check this out

2009-04-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/376586/jamega-ramp.jhtml#id=1609305

Too Real To Be Real

2009-04-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

In the last month or so I've started noticing how many "reality" TV shows there are on TV. The fact that I have cable compounds this. There's even a show about people who just go on reality shows. I've been thinking, could I be on any of these shows? Here's a list of shows that are currently on TV.

Rock of Love Bus - I like buses and I like to rock, but I'm not great at love. Maybe

The Bachelor - Me and 20 something hot girls in a mansion. What wouldn't work?

Survivor - I like camping in random places and running around in the woods in a loinclothe. I'm liking it.

The Biggest Loser - I am quite a loser, this could work.

America's Next Top Model - Tyra Banks scares me, and one of the judges dyes his hair silver. No.

Big Brother - I am a big brother already.

Make Me a Supermodel - I don't need anyone's help. I practice in my bathroom mirror. No.

The Real World XVI - I hate overly dramatic people. This would give me a chance to punk some of them. Could work.

Tough Love - This guy tells girls why they can't get guys. I'd be his sidekick.

For the Love of Ray J - No idea what this is. I don't want a guy loving me though.

A Double Shot of Love - Hot twins. I can deal with that.

American Gladiators - I like to pretend that I'm a gladiator sometimes. Running around in a fancy leotard, dodging monster sized humans and tennis ball machines sounds like a great weekend.

Words aren't just words

2009-03-20T23:18:00.000-07:00

I just read this article on CNN about a campaign that the Special Olympics is holding to help people to stop using the word "retard". I think this is great because nothing annoys me more than when people say that someone is "retarded" or calls someone a "retard". I probably notice it more than others because I have an aunt who had Downs Syndrome and she is the sweetest person in the world, as are most people with mental handicaps. They love you for who you are and how you treat them. They are the best friends anyone can ever have and frankly I think it's a privilege to be able to associate with them. To me this word is as offensive as other racial slurs that people are careful not to say. If you read this article think about how you speak and what you might unconsciously be calling other people.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/03/20/obama.special.olympics/index.html

2009-03-12T19:51:00.001-07:00

This is pretty funny, thanks Jeff for sending it.

http://www.whymormongirlsstaysingle.com/

2009-03-11T18:48:00.000-07:00

I just finished up a one week road trip driving 3,000 miles and across 5 states to ski and look at MBA schools. Here's how it went.

Wednesday
I take off driving up through Utah and Idaho. I'm reminded why I'm glad I don't live in Idaho. There is a gas station called Garden of Eden with a huge indoor garden. I follow the road atlas toward Crystal Mountain only to keep running into roads that are closed for the winter. After almost driving in a a circle I found the only open road and found a place to sleep in my car after 14 hours of driving.

Thursday
I ski in the qualifier for the Crystal Mountain big mountain comp and do pretty well. I stayed at the coldest motel ever that night. The shower lasted about 3 minutes and the door wasn't sealed so it was freezing. I almost brought my sleeping bag in cause I was so cold.

Friday
I ski in the semi's of the comp and did well and qualified for the finals. I got back into town (a 35 minute drive) and realized that I'd left my ski boots in the parking lot at Crystal. I cruised back up there only to find that my boots were gone and everything was closed.

Saturday
I got up to the resort early and frantically ran around for 30 minutes looking for someone that could open the lost and found. Luckily one of the rental shop guys had a key. I skied in the finals and crashed 50 feet from the finish gate but it was a way fun line. After the comp I drove to Astoria, Oregon where I've wanted to go ever since the Ataris album, So Long Astoria. While I was driving I cleaned out all the contacts from my phone that I don't use anymore. Then I got to thinking that I have 600 something minutes a month on my phone and I use about 20 of them so I started calling people. If I'm paying for the minutes I might as well use them. Out of about 20 people that I called 3 answered. 2 were my sisters. I'm so cool.

Sunday
I spent the morning in Astoria and Seaside which were some of the prettiest places I've ever been. In the afternoon I drove up to Seattle and looked around Pike's Market and the University of Washington.

Monday
I picked up my dad from the airport and we went to UW for my admissions interview. After that we drove down through Vancouver and Portland and saw some of my dad's mission. We ended in Salem and had dinner with my cousin, Peter. We went to a Thai restaurant where I got shrimp with peanut sauce which everyone told me was good. WRONG!!! It tasted like peanut butter mixed with a ton of oil, which it probably was.

Tuesday
I interviewed at Willamette and then we drove down to Crater Lake which was really pretty and had tons of snow. After that we drove to Winnemucca Nevada which was the most barren drive I've ever made. We honestly didn't see a single car or light from any building for an hour. I've never seen anything like that. After we checked into our hotel I ran down to McDonalds to grad some dinner and I was about 100 feet from the hotel when the Winnemucca police decided to use the tax payers money and pull me over and give me a speeding ticket.

Wednesday
We finish up the drive back to SLC and I get home in time to ski for an hour to get ready for the Snowbird comp.