Shenanigans

Ok, I'm going to share some things that will probably make my parents not only roll their eyes, but be slightly disappointed, then be glad I didn't get caught and came out unscathed. My parents probably know the truth about all these stories--because parents aren't as dumb as their kids think--but this still gives me the feeling I'm confessing sins here. I'll try to be brief, but as we all know, brevity is not a strong suit of mine. I like to tell stories with lots of detail.

The Tractor
The house I grew up in had a huge field behind it. Many of my friends' back yards were accessible by crossing the field, or following the ditch that ran behind all the houses. We would play hid 'n seek, guns, fly kites, throw snowballs, and have a general good time out in that field. There was a tractor out there, however, that we were instructed never to go near. I'm not sure what kind of tractor it was, but it wasn't the normal farming kind; it had some big compartment for storing stuff, some belts and pulleys, and I don't even remember where you would sit when you drove it. I think it was more some add on to some larger trator used for sugar beat farming. (Ward siblings, maybe you know?) Anyway, I don't know what the deal was with it, but it just sat out there, not used, getting rusty and taunting the imaginations of the neighborhood children. Thus begin the shenanigans.

Contrary to the advice  of our parents (coupled with crippling consequences like having the Nintendo taken away), there were a few of us brave enough to play on the tractor. I remember being told if I did play on the tractor, I could fall, break my neck, be stuck there with no help, die, get tetanus or lockjaw from looking at it too long, etc. We climbed on it, played in it, and even wondered at the blankets we found inside (possibly belonging to homeless people who slept in it at night). I'm not saying we didn't get mildly hurt and scratched, but we'd be damned if we told our parents that's where the scrapes came from.

Golden Eye
This story only requires a couple items for back story. First, yes, I was into video games as a kid/teenager. I was NOT good at the shooter games, but had fun playing them. I was also not a big sluffer (sorry Hayley, I'm keeping this true to life. While I know you hate the term "sluf," that's what we called ditching class.) and mostly went to every class on time.

One day, however, there was some assembly that was going to take up the last three class periods. Someone had brought his N64 to school with the intent to take it to a friends house for a weekend-long Golden Eye-fest. Someone in a group of band geeks suggested it would be more fun to play Golden Eye than go to the stupid assembly, so I immediately offered up my house as a place we could go. We piled into Wyatt Barrett's mini-van, and sluffed the assembly. We were happily shooting each other in the virtual face, when suddenly I hear my dad's car pull in the driveway.

My immediate thought was something like, "We can sneak out the windows when he comes in the back door!" But that would not explain the giant mini-van parked in the driveway, so I had to figure something else out. Everyone else was freaking out a little, because I had told them that both my parents work and wouldn't be home until after school got out. I then went straight upstairs, looked my dad in the neck region (because who can lie to their dad in the eye), and said, "Hi, how was work? ...there was an optional assembly at school, so we decided not to go... but we're going to head back... uh... for band practice, so see ya!" And we piled back into Wyatt's mini-van, and went to his older brother's friends' house to keep playing.

The BioTech Center
At least that's where I THINK this last bit of shenanigans took place. This is one I don't think my parents know about. Unless I've told them the story already.

My senior year of college, I had a roommate name Marcus Aurelius. ("You knew Marcus Aurelius?" Name that  movie.) Ok, not really, but that's what I called him, and subsequently, so did the rest of our roommates. Mark was having a little identity crisis. I tried to be a good friend, but I was nearing the end of that not-true-to-real-life-in-any-way period of time known as college, and trying to figure out where I was supposed to fit in society and life in general. In trying to get through this period of time, I wasn't always the beacon of reason myself, and fell into some of Marcus Aurelius's  plots. One of which was to see what buildings on campus are slightly accessible in the middle of the night.

We totally broke into the BoiTech Center. Again, I'm not sure that was the building, but we jumped over this fence, onto some mechanical devices covered by sheet metal, climbed down the devices, and into an unlocked maintenance door. Once inside, we found that various rooms were unlocked because the rest of the building was secure. It was then I realized that were I ever to be homeless, I would move to Logan, because not only could I sleep on a soft couch at night, the HYPR building was available during the day for showers, with no supervision or regulation on who accesses the facilities. That night, we also got into the English building (not very hard. The doors were wide open.) which then granted access to the Family Life building.

All we did was walk around and see who had offices that were unlocked. But the whole time, the voice of reason inside me was saying, "This is ridiculous. Probably the stupidest thing you've ever done. Even if you're not doing anything, if you get caught, you have ONE semester left to graduate, and you could get kicked out of this school. Do you REALLY want to suffer through more college classes?" It was really dumb. And just one of those things stupid college kids do when they're bored in the middle of the night and don't want to actually go to sleep.

Well, that's all for me. Care to share any of your shenanigans?

Spitty McSpitterton

Mikey is learning how to give raspberries. He's cute. That second video has more spitting. There's spit running all down his face.

Word association

Caron beat me to this one, but oh well. This'll be fun. She gave a link to a random word generator, so I clicked on it and I'm going to give the first memories that come to mind when I think of these words.

1. Cream
I've made these super great nachos a couple of nights for dinner. I put sour cream on top while they're still warm out of the oven, and the sour cream sorta melts all over the place. Tasty tasty. The nachos consist of chips, cheese, totinos jalapeno cheese dip, salsa, homemade spicy salsa, black beans, and fajita-seasoned chicken.

2. Concierge
I've never really had any experience with a concierge, but I remember that episode of the office when Micheal Scott goes on a business trip, and thinks the Concierge is some kind of Geisha/hooker. Very awkward and very funny.

3. Moustache
I don't really like growing facial hair. I've never tried to grow a moustache, but I've tried to grow a beard, and I hate it. I think most moustaches look awful.

4. Whiteboard
At my last job, I had a large white board, and so did the other Proposal Writer. The other guy NEVER used his white board, and so I would mess with him, and when he wasn't at his desk, I'd leave pictures or to do lists. Like, "Milk, eggs, punch Andy in the face, 7 lbs of hamburger, wash car, fight crime, do dishes." Some of those are funnier because he was also vegan. I posted a couple times on whiteboard shenanigans, too.

To finally clear things up

Related to #6 on my last post

Just found this. It's awesome.

Strong opinions

I don't really have many super strong opinions... do I? First order of business: all y'all that read this blog, comment on and point out my strong opinions in the comments. Second order of business: I'll try to think harder. Third order of business: once you've read my opinions, share yours in the comments.

• Opinion #1 - Orange is the best color. For EVERYTHING.
• Opinion #2 - You shouldn't swear in a church, synagogue, or any place of worship. Show some dang respect. And if you do, even if it's at a basketball game for a ward that isn't even in my stake, I'll tell you to not swear in church.
• Opinion #3 - Chubby people and spandex don't mix.
• Opinion #4 - You should always have your wrist strap on when playing Wii. 
• Opinion #5 - My wife is the best and my son is the cutest.
• Opinion #6 - (late entry of my own, and so denoted in orangey-brown) I'm really bugged by people who post all sorts of crap/links on facebook complaining about the government, conspiracies, how awful education is, the evils of consumerism, the evils of capitalism, the evils of socialism, etc. and don't do anything but bitch about it on facebook. You look like an asshat if alls you're gonna do is whine about it and share obscure news articles. Are you doing anything about your zillion causes? Are you avidly writing your congressmen? Hosting rallies? If not, what is the point of all the doomsday sharing on facebook? (sorry for all the cussing on this one, but i'm not in a church, or other place of worship, so I excuse myself.)
• Opinion #7 - (stolen from Caron, who also blogged her list of opinions) Before giving a chruch talk, I HATE when people say they didn't prepare, or didn't have time to prepare, or were called saturday night... sure you were busy or weren't given advance notice, but if you don't tell me that, I would never know and the spirit of doubt wouldn't have entered me, and I wouldn't hate your talk... just sayin'.
• Opinion #8 - You don't need to wear your sunglasses inside. You aren't a rockstar.

That's really all I got... If I deem your comment to be a true strong opinion of mine, I'll add it to my list. :) Additions will be denoted in text of different colors.

Today was a great day

Lots happened today. First, happy anniversary to Hayley!! Two years has flown by. It has been the best two years of my life, and while I'm inclined to say it couldn't get better, I really know it will. We will continue to love each other, watch Mikey grow, watch our family grow, and wonder where the time went. All the while, I get to spend every day with my best friend in the whole world, and enjoy every moment. Thanks, Hayley, for being the best thing that ever happened to me.

I don't want to detract from how much I love Hayley and how happy this two years has been, so the rest will be a bulleted list. And one picture I really want to share.

• We went to get "jammie pictures" with Mikey's cousins.
• We went to Chili's for a little anniversary lunch.
• We went to a movie. In the movie theater!
• We came home and relaxed. Hayley got a little back rub, Mikey slept lots, and we just hung out.
• It was reaffirmed to me that while Mikey is my little "mini-me," he has some of his momma's tendencies.

Regarding that last bullet, Hayley sometimes sleeps with her eyes open. IT FREAKS ME OUT. It makes me do the silent scream. You know, where something is creepy, so you have to react accordingly, but you oddly don't want the creepiness to end, so you don't want to startle it away. Well, Mikey sometimes does the same thing. And I do the silent scream when he does it, too. Mostly because he's actually asleep and I don't want to wake him up (or face Hayley's wrath were I to wake him), so the appropriate response is silent screams.

Lately, zombies have been something we've talked about a lot for various reason. (this is a related statement, I swear. Just wait for it.) Today, Mikey did the scary eyes-open-while-sleeping trick, and I did the silent scream. I also told Hayley, "If anyone in this family has a natural immunity to the zombie virus, it's me, because you two don't have a hope! You've already got crazy zombie eyes!" Check out Mikey's picture of the day:

He's asleep. Out cold. The open eyes looking at me while I hold him are a little creepy. Am I the only one that thinks so? Other than that, he's a-freakin'-dorable... and actually, because it's like his momma, I still think it's adorable.

But back to today. Happy anniversary, Hayley. I love you, and I love our little life.

He sleeps in the crib!

There's a post about non-Mikey, so here's a post about Mikey.

Last night began the weekend of try-to-see-if-Mikey-can-handle-the-crib. Some of you know, he used to sleep exclusively in this:

But last night, we put him in his crib, so he'll be sleeping like this:

He did great, and I only went in once in the night to comfort him. He woke up a couple times more than normal, but we let him cry it out (which really meant he had a small little pouty sound, not a real cry) until he went back to sleep. Then we all got up around 7:20 a.m. Pretty sweet! I hope tonight goes just as well!

Pet peeves

First, a disclaimer: I don't really get peeved and angry about things, even some things I would consider my pet peeves. If you do something or are associated with any of these things, it won't affect our friendship. So here goes.

Number one: bad and inconsiderate drivers. I consider myself a pretty good driver. I'm sure I've bugged a couple people now and then, so this is probably a huge hypocrisy on my part, but I hate when people don't know how to drive. Driving slow in the fast lane, tailgating when I'm going five over the speed limit, not knowing who has the right of way, etc. This is probably the one that gets me the most riled up. It makes me call strangers names. Which I'm going to have to stop doing if I want Mikey to be a nice little kid.

Number two: incorrect usage of words and bad grammar in general. This one deserves a qualifier of its own. I don't get all up in arms over this. This is more something that I notice easily rather than a pet peeve. My own dear wife even says "supos-EB-ly," rather than the correct pronunciation of "supos-ED-ly," (on purpose, she'd like me to clarify) but I don't really care. Other people to whom I am close (I can't very well use dangling participles in a post about grammar, can I) say "OM-pen" rather than "O-pen," and so on. I notice when that happens, but it doesn't bug me. If I got all upset every time someone said "Feb-YOU-ary" rather than "Feb-RU-ary," I could make myself pretty miserable. I also like the American rule when it comes to periods and quotations (as opposed to my friend, Bonny), hate the non-word "irregardless," and don't understand how some people can speak so I understand, but write in a completely non-coherent way. But again, it's not a huge bother to me. I say "mou-en" instead of "moun-tain" most the time, I'm not a great speller (thank goodness for spell check), and I've been known to say "anyways." I also have greater leniency for misspellings and non-use of capital letters in chat windows, facebook, and the Internet in general. But there it is.

Number three: I have a little bit of OCD. I don't systematically lick our kitchen cabinets or anything, but I like things the way they're supposed to be. For example, in our bathroom, Hayley and I have brown towels with two decorative stripes of different texture at the ends. We also have these more-tan-than-brown towels that have one thick stripe of different texture at the end. It bugs me a little when we don't have the same towels. Which is right now. I've got the thick stripe, she has the two stripes. I'll be fine and we'll both use our towels, but if I'm the one that puts towels away, I'll try to make sure they are put in the linen closet in sets so it doesn't happen again soon. Hayley notices other things, but I can't think of them right now. Again, this is not a huge problem. I don't often put my clothes right in the hamper, I only do quick spot cleanings of the kitchen after I cook, and my work desk is a little more than cluttered right now. It's just certain things.

That's all I can think of right now. But another tendency I have is to go into way too much detail, so maybe three is all I need to share. I'm pretty sure I'm going to write about all the suggestions from my "Taking suggestions" blog post, so if you have more, feel free to post them there.

You asked for it

Ok, most of you read Hayley's blog, too, but I think there are some that don't. Based on the comments on my last post (feel free to continue to make requests. I'll be working on them), no one seems to mind Mikey, so here's my latest favorite video of him. Hayley already posted it, but it's so cute! I was recording, trying not to catch his attention because if I did, he'd likely stop laughing. There were probably 3 times I almost stopped recording, but then he'd make some happy noise, and I'd just let it keep going. So here's Mikey laughing with his mamma.



There are a bunch of other videos, too. I'm going to add a link to the side of my blog to the YouTube channel where we're posting all his videos, in case all y'all want to check out the other cute videos of mikey. And a few from  a couple Christmases ago. And a couple concerts we went to. But it's mostly Mikey.

Taking requests

Does anyone read my blog anymore? I mean, I still probably have the same amount of readers because it takes less effort to leave a blog in your google reader than it does to go remove it, so I have that going for me. Anyway...

I don't blog much anymore. Not that I did a whole lot, just a few times a month, it's just now all I want to do is post videos of Mikey, or talk about how cute he is, or post pictures of him... And I mean, while I can't get enough of him, I know people get sick of that.

So what do you all want me to write about? Give me a topic. Any topic. Anything you all ask me to write about in the comments of this post, I'll write about. I'll do it, I swear. It'll give me a bunch of subject to write about. Ask a question, give me a topic, I'll write about it. So what do you say? What should my next post be about? Feel free to give multiple topics.