Nostalgic Numbers

A fellow blogger and friend (that I've never met), Laura, did a post recently about how certain smells bring back specific memories for her. Every once in a while I'll hear a song on the radio that will bring back the same memory every time I hear it... kinda like whenever I smell bug spray I instantly think of Scout Camp. I've decided to list a few songs that bring back specific memories for me.

Top of the World (Van Halen) and Old Time Rock And Roll (Bob Seger) remind me of growing up with my older brother, Ryan. My mom took his Van Halen shirt away from him when she heard from her coworker that they sang a song with a questionable message. It also reminds me of when Ryan took me to see Risky Business at a midnight movie when I was in Jr. High.

Look Away (Chicago)and Zombie Jamboree (Rockapella [Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego]) reminds me of the two concerts I attended when I was in High School. I remember being pretty pissed that Chicago performed all their songs from the 60's and 70's instead of the songs I was familiar with from the 80's. This might be one of the reasons I don't care for concerts anymore. By the way, Rockapella was awesome!

Forever Young (Alphaville) always reminds me of the Jr. High dances when I'd stand off to the side of the gym and wonder why girls never asked the guys to dance... as if that would have made any difference as to whether or not I participated.

Feelin' Groovy (Simon and Garfunkel) No matter how scared or nervous I am for any sort of event, I can listen to this song and all of my worries melt away... seriously. I'd always listen to this song while I was driving over to a girls house to break up with her.

Here I Go Again (Whitesnake) This is the song I'd listen to after I had broken up with the aforementioned girl. The lyrics made me feel better about my decision and excited for the next chick.

Mmmm Bopp (Hanson) I remember seeing the music video for this at a members house while I was on my mission in England. I distinctly remember thinking that the lead singer was actually a pretty cute chick for a younger girl... then someone told me the group was actually three brothers. I felt pretty dirty.

Then He Kissed Me (The Crystals) The very first drive-in I ever went to was a double feature of Adventures in Babysitting and Can't Buy Me Love. I always picture Elizabeth Shue singing into her bed post.

Juke Box Hero (Foreigner) Even though I've done a great Air Guitar for my whole life, there's just something about how much awesome'r my Air Guitar is for this song. I can also somehow jump higher and do the splits when I'm jamming to this song.

You Sexy Thing (Hot Chocolate) Always reminds me of the amateur strips I participated in when I was single. I only stripped at two bachelorette parties, but we stripped to this song both times. There's just something about it that makes me want to take my clothes off.

American Pie (Don McClean) My mom bought all of us kids season passes to Wild Waters when I was younger. It took just over 8 minutes to drive from our house to Wild Waters and we'd listen to this song for the whole drive since it's about 8 and a half minutes long.

Final Countdown (Europe) This is the song my friend, John, and I chose for the finale in our movie Out of the Blue. The lyrics make no sense and don't apply to anything we've ever experienced as friends, but the song rocks.

Louisiana Saturday Night (Don Williams) This is one of three country songs I can stand. It's even better because it's only about two minutes long. My mom taught aerobics when I was little and she did a "routine" to this song. I had to listen to different songs hundreds of times while she was preparing her "routines" so this is one that got stuck in my head for the last 20 or so years.

Storybook Love (Willie Deville) - This is the theme song from The Princess Bride. I saw this movie in the movie theater when it came out. I got in trouble because I took a dare from my friends to dance to the mellow music playing before the lights dimmed. I stood up and danced in front of the whole theater right as my mom came in with the popcorn and drinks. BUSTED!

500 Miles - (The Proclaimers) I worked at The Snow Shack when I was 15 years old and this song was ridiculously popular. I was forced to listen to this on every radio station during my shifts while making snow cones for hours on end. Whenever this song comes on I can faintly taste Tiger's Blood snowie in the back of my throat.

It Gets Worse

I know that we all say stupid things... some of us more often than others... but it's worse for fair-skinned people like me who blush. Darker skinned people can say something embarrassing and quickly change the subject or move on and no one knows any better. Sometimes the audience doesn't even notice something stupid was said because there wasn't a glowing face and beet-red ears staring back at them.

It happened to me today. I was substitute teaching our Gospel Doctrine class at church. It's been about a year since I've had the calling in a different ward so I was more nervous than usual. Near the beginning of the lesson the principle of humility came up. I decided to share a story from my mission about how the proselyting success rate skyrocketed in the poor areas of England, most likely due to the fact they had been sufficiently humbled and were spiritually prepared to hear about our church.

For some unknown reason, however, I got off on a bizarre tangent about the English economy and government. I asked several rhetorical questions about how their economy could even sustain itself due to the government hand-outs including free money and free houses.

I brought myself back to the lesson fairly quickly and started to continue with my analogy when I saw a raised hand near the front of the classroom. It was a 60ish year old lady that I had never seen before and it looked like she wasn't sure if she should even be raising her hand. I pointed to her and asked if she had a comment. She said, "Yes, I have a comment..." and unfortunately those words were spoken with a genuine British accent. I audibly and probably visibly gulped as she started to defend the system of government in England while her British husband stared at me with a fake, forced smile on his face. I could feel my face getting red and I almost wondered aloud "Who turned off the freakin' air conditioning?" You know how in movies when people get nervous they put their index finger between their neck and their shirt collar to try to get a bit of air flow to their sopping wet chest? That was me. I'm pretty sure I did that a few times while she was defending her country.

Seriously, though... what are the chances that the one day I say something rude about England is the day we have two English visitors? Man, I felt like an idiot.

After she finished talking about England and my pit stains had grown to the decorative size of medium cantaloupes, I said something like, "Really? It appears I was grossly misinformed for 2 full years." Then I moved on to the next topic.

This experience wasn't as bad as the one that happened about 10 years ago. I was working security at the Delta Center and I was hanging out in the ticket lobby trying to look authoritative and important as a 21 year old security guru. I wandered over to the receptionist desk and I noticed two really hot chicks sitting in chairs against the wall filling out applications. I stood a few yards away for about 30 seconds waiting for them to look up and notice my appealing muscle mass and average stature. When they didn't look up, I went out on a limb and said, "How are you ladies doing?" Neither one of them looked up. They continued studying their applications. Then the receptionist said, "They don't speak English".
I asked the receptionist where they were from and she said, "They're from Russia or Brazil or something." Then I said, "That's too bad cause I had four years of German in High School and I remember some key phrases that might help me communicate if they were German."

The receptionist asked what phrases I could remember and I said, "Well my favorite one is 'Ich habe durchfall'". At this point, both of the smokin' hotties looked up at me and started laughing their respective heads off. Apparently they WERE German and had just heard me say that I had diarrhea. It didn't do me any good to try to explain to them that my poo's were actually not at all runny.

I walked away pretty red-faced, but then I couldn't help but laugh at myself when I pictured, in it's entirety, what they had heard. Some dude in a uniform walks up to them and says, "Blah blah blah, blah?". Then the receptionist says, "Blah blah blah." I say, "Blah blah blah?" to which she replies, "Blah blah blah blah." Then I decide to say, "Blah blah Blah I HAVE DIARRHEA."

I'd be laughing, as well.

Pierced Ears

Betsy was painting our dogs toenails when we bought her 6 years ago. She's been letting our boys do moderately "girly" things and I haven't objected too much since we didn't have a girl for her to do it to (it WAS pretty embarrassing to see our 150 lb dog [meant to be scary and intimidating] frolicking around our house with red, glittery toenails).

When we had Season, Betsy had her toenails and fingernails painted while they were still in the hospital. Betsy has been putting lip gloss on her from Day 1... literally.

So you can't be surprised that we chose to have her ears pierced at 4 months old. I just thank my lucky stars that she didn't have my boys ear's pierced over the last several years. Now we have our girl and I'm not going to stand in the way of Betsy making her "girly".

95%

Since I didn't have enough material (or time) for the "100 things you don't know about me" blog post, I decided to put my own twist on the information. I hope it's not too boring.

95% of the time I eat a Hot Pocket, I scald the roof of my mouth.

95% of the time I can wake myself up from a nightmare if I don't like the direction it's going.

95% of the time I'm arguing with someone, the only reason I win is because I refuse to back down from my position and they get bored.

95% of Keanu Reeves' movies totally blow.

95% of Christopher Reeve's movies kick "A".

95% of the time I fold the toilet paper.

95% of the profanities I say are said for fun and not because I'm angry or frustrated.

95% of my time I spend at work is spent doing things other than actual "work".

95% of the time I ride the metal cart all the way to my car when I'm done shopping... even if I don't have any of my kids with me.

95% of the gas used in my VW Golf is spent driving to Layton to see movies with my best friend.

95% of my enamel has been slowly worn away and is now considered "filling".

95% of the time I'm not in the mood for dessert.

95% of the hair on my body can be found on my legs and in my butt crack.

95% of the church hymns I sing in Sacrament Meeting are really only lip-synced.

95% of fellow officers and agents I work with say "supposably" instead of "supposedly" and use "seen" instead of "saw" ("I seen him driving fast.")

95% of our home computer paper is spent printing off digital coloring books from PlayhouseDisney.com.

95% of my daily liquid consumption is in the form of Dr. Pepper.

95% of my wardrobe never gets worn and, instead, sits in the closet wishing they didn't have a collar so they could be included in all the fun.

95% of the times I cry, it has something to do with my enjoyment of being a father.

95% of the time I'm happy with the size of my "junk".

95% of the time, I'm too lazy to answer my phone if it's further away than arms reach.

95% of people doing the same job as me, make more money than I do.

95% of my poops resemble spaghetti in length and circumference (not color or taste).

95% of the time I watch the movies My Life, The Cure, An American Tail, or Life is Beautiful, I cry like a baby.

95% of the time I climb more than 30 stairs, I need to stop and rest.

95% of the time I can spell a word correctly that I've never heard before.

95% of the stories I tell have at least some form of exaggeration or untruth to make them more interesting.

I'm thinking about following up this blog post with a post called "5%". It will go through this same list of items, but focus on the remaining 5% instead.

Galactic Prophylactic

My birthday was yesterday, but I got stuck in some training for work that lasted for two days... the second day of which was my birthday. I'm such a poor planner that when my supervisor asked me last week if I'd be willing to participate in a UA Night (a night dedicated to drug testing probationers), I told him "yes" and that Tuesday was a good night to do it. It wasn't until later that I realized I had just committed myself to a work day lasting from 7 am until 10 pm... and that day was on my birthday.

Betsy was a little agitated, to say the least. She gets more excited for my birthday than she does for her own. She loves to decorate the house and spend the day doing arts and crafts with the kids and then give me the projects on my birthday. She asked me repeatedly what I wanted her to do to celebrate my "special day". I explained that I would only be seeing her and our kids for a few minutes in the morning... and our kids would be asleep by the time I got home. I convinced her to not do anything for my birthday and save the celebration for this weekend. She fought this notion because, after all, TUESDAY was my birthday. She couldn't grasp the reasoning behind my request to completely ignore my birthday celebration on the actual day.

Well, she fought the urge all day long while I was at work, but at some point in the evening she buckled. She knew it was too late to do much decorating, but she decided she would make me a small card. But when she finished the card, I guess she thought that wasn't enough. She felt like she needed to do me some sort of favor on my "special day".

When I got home from work at around 11pm, this is what I found on our kitchen table. I won't tell you what the card said, but I'm sure you can guess based on what Betsy had enclosed with the card. And those are pistachio's that Betsy spent quite some time cracking for me. I laughed the whole time I was eating those nuts. I pictured Betsy scanning the house wondering what she could do for me on my birthday when I wasn't there... then she saw our huge bag of pistachio's. Awesome.

This is just one more reason why I think I have the coolest and sweetest wife in the world. She can't help being thoughtful, even when she promises she won't be.

Picture Post

I'm going to be in training for the next two days and I won't be around a computer much at all. I wanted to get another post up this weekend, but it's been pretty crazy. I've decided to just to put up a couple of photo's instead of taking a huge amount of time telling a story. This first photo is of Betsy's birthday a few weeks ago. It's a family photo that I thought turned out pretty well.

Happy 30th, Boodle!



The second photo is from the fireworks tonight. In the past, we've had to bring ear plugs for our kids. Tyton was always pretty scared of fireworks. Then Boston came along and Boss didn't mind them as much, which made Tyton feel like he couldn't be scared of fireworks if his baby brother wasn't. Well by the time Season came, she thinks fireworks are quiet compared to the screaming and yelling and fighting she has to hear all day long while she's trying to sleep. I thought the look on her face was awesome in this picture.

Have a great week and I'll try to get another post up by Wednesday.

Mega Man 3

Boston missed his nap today, but Tyton slept just like he was asked. When that happens, we end up letting the child stay up later who took the nap as instructed. So Tyton was lucky enough to spend the evening with Betsy and I while Boston was sawing logs.

Tyton asked me nicely if I could go downstairs and play the Nintendo with him. We have an old school NES with a bunch of games I grew up with so it's not like I'm ever really inconvenienced when Tyton asks me to play with him. Usually we'll start to play Super Mario Bro's, but Tyton will have more fun watching me play so he'll die on purpose when it's his turn. I don't mind cause I'd rather play than watch him run out his time since he's too nervous to just jump over those effing turtles.

Tonight, however, Tyton asked if I'd play Mega Man 3. I put the game in, but it didn't work so I had to blow in the game and the NES system about 15 times until it worked. Once I started playing Ty asked me to play the Snake Man screen. I happily obliged, even though I was pretty sure that Snake Man is easier to beat if I had Magnet Man's special power which I could only get if I beat Magnet Man first.

Well, I'm sitting on the floor with my back leaning on the couch and Tyton is sitting on the couch watching me play. I didn't notice Tyton talking for several minutes because Snake Man is a pretty hard level to play after a 3 year sabbatical and I was in my ZONE. But then I start hearing him and I try to figure out if he's talking to me or to the game. He's asking questions like "Can't you go up a little then jump to shoot him?" and "Why do those guys keep flipping over you?". None of his questions really required an answer since he was asking them faster than I could have answered them even if I'd tried. Every time I died, I heard Tyton exhale in frustration and remind me to not make the same mistake again.

When I finally made it to the actual "Snake Man" my power was down to about a third and I only had one life left. Snake Man wailed on me pretty good and I died. I told Tyton that I was on my last life and he became visibly anxious. He started bouncing a little on the couch and then he really started talking.

I started playing my last life and I got into my groove pretty quickly and realized that I could beat Snake Man easily if I took my time and jumped over him every time he ran at me instead of just shooting as fast as I could. This process took significantly longer and Tyton was getting pretty impatient. He kept giving me updates on how much life I had and how much life Snake Man had, even though it was pretty easy to see in the top left corner of the screen. The closer Snake Man came to dying the more nervous Tyton was getting and he was bouncing higher and higher on the couch.

"One more hit, Dad! ONE MORE HIT!!!!"

Then Snake Man exploded and Tyton started cheering. I held up my hand for a High Five, but Tyton threw his arms around my neck and gave me the biggest hug, like I'd just cut the correct wire and saved the world or something. Maybe in his mind, I kind of did.

I love having kids.