Random Tuesday

A couple of random things: On Sundays at church, I get to help out in the nursery with all of the little kids. As a result, I get to play with the Legos. This is what I built. I wanted to take it all the way to the ceiling, but the little troublemakers busted it up. I do have to say - my Lego building skills are nearly as good as Carter's skills.

Brodi and I went out to a restaurant and this was the ridiculous scene I came upon in the restroom. Seriously? The handles on the sink were less than an inch big. I need to have hands like a 5-year old to be able to turn on the water. I get style. This wasn't it.

Fall has arrived. I guess it means that I can no longer walk shirtless around the neighborhood. It also means some cold Saturday morning soccer games. Time just seems to go too fast sometimes.

Pee Wee Herman just doing something inexplicable

This is completely random and totally worthless, but I saw this picture and it is just too awesome not to post. What is not to love about this pic? Pee Wee Herman styling in his awesome suit. Regis Philbin dressing just like him. Why do they have all that candy with them? Pee Wee Herman spilling all of those gumballs. There is no point to this post, except for the complete craziness and strangeness of this picture.

Randomness

Over the past few weeks, we saw a couple of movies--Inception, very entertaining. The visuals in the movie were terrific and the story was interesting. Enjoyed it quite a bit. We also saw 'Salt.' Tons of action and over the top and wild. The story often got a bit silly but oh well. It was also cool to see one of the big car chase scenes and running scenes were filmed just outside my old office in DC. If I was still there, I would joined in on the scenes.

School starts in 10 days. That is crazy. The kids love summer and we do too...but it will be good to get them back in school. Carter is having a great time finishing up summer though as he is perfecting his bike riding, working on his skateboarding, wanting to play more basketball and is playing 3-4 hours of organized soccer every week.

I was at the grocery store the other day and these two guys started talking really loud and saying 'Holy cow, TAB!, they still make that drink?' I proceeded to get them a proper dressing down by telling them 'of course they do, because its awesome and tasty.' I offered them a can but they turned it down. Their loss. I will continue to enjoy my pink canned Tab.

Camping, Logos and stupid frakkin' automatic hand thingy

So, we had a neighborhood campout and we took up the boys. They had a great time of running around in the wild and then sleeping in the big tent. Asleep by 10:30pm and not up until 7:30am...that is what I call a success. I was in charge of entertainment. For some reason, Twister, Monopoly and Risk were not good games to choose for a campout.

I walked by this house the other morning and saw this--two air condition units with Utah and BYU logos painted on it. First off, that is craziness to have them next to each other, I mean Ute and Cougar things need their space away from each other...but the second question is, someone paid to have that done to their air conditioners? Third question--where do I go to get mine done? I am willing to spend thousands of dollars to proclaim my love of the Utes.




These are an abomination. Automatic hand driers. It plays out like this: I wash my hands and then I want to dry my hands. I wave my hands in front of it. Nothing. I shake my hands in front of it. Nothing. I end up doing some crazy dance (like the running man dance) all in hopes of getting this frakkin' thing to turn on. It usually ends with me cursing like a sailor and wiping my hands on my shirt. Technology, its Fabulous!

Randomness of the Week

Brodi and I went to a movie this past Saturday and it was a Horror. No kidding. The movie was pretty entertaining, Iron Man 2. I am a true comic book geeks (as my thousands of comics from my childhood would attest) so seeing these comics on the big screen is always fun. But the scary thing was outside of the movie theaters on 33rd South. It is hard to tell from the picture, but look at the trunk and go up to where the branches start--there you will see a massive beehive. HUGE. Few things in this world scare me much. I love heights, I love adventure...but bees make me break out in a cold sweat and makes me scream like a little boy. I gathered up the courage to take this picture. We were told that a queen bee landed here and her swarm joined her for a party. They yellowed taped this area off to the public. No deaths reported.

This morning, we drove by a sign at a dance club with this on a billboard: 'Foam Party tonight!!' I seriously have no idea what that means. Dancing with foam? What kind of foam...the hard styrofoam stuff or the liquid foamy stuff. I am tempted to take Brodi down there and show these teenagers how old parents party.

I went out to eat with my dad at a restaurant. He got a can of Diet Coke. He went to pop it open and the tab popped off. We finally punched it out so that he could drink it. After a taste, he put it down and checked the expiration date: October 2009. Yep, not a good impression of that eating establishment.

Have a good weekend.

Car oil does a body good

I bought some Lucas Oil. Basically, it is oil that you mix in with regular car oil to help older engines perform better. I checked the back of the bottle and it said the following: "Keep out of reach of Children. Harmful if swallowed." Seriously? Seriously? You need to put a warning on a bottle of Car Oil that if someone swallows it, it is harmful? You mean to tell me that coating your ribs, throat and stomach with black car oil could be harmful to your health? Thanks for warning us all.

Transformers--part car, part motorcycle...a Carcycle

It was Indian food night on Saturday night so I drove out to get take out. On my way home, I saw a funky car/motorcycle thingy in a driveway, so I hurried and pulled over. As I got out my car, the couple in the driveway let me know that I was parked head on in traffic (I thought it was the shoulder of the road, not the 2nd lane of a 2 lane road). So, I jumped back in the car and pulled in to the driveway before I cause a huge accident.

So, for the fun part. I asked the couple what I was looking at--they told me that it is a motorcycle but with car parts. You have to have a motorcycle license to drive it and it is not available from any store in Utah. All I can say is that it was the coolest thing that I had seen in a while.

You could also purchase a top for it which I am assuming that it would make it look even more strange. The CD player and stereo are all in the trunk. They informed me it is the nicest ride you could ever have. They turned me down on my request to 'take it for a spin.' Oh well.

An ad for nothing, apparently...

I found this ad and I had to post it. Take a look at the picture. It is a guy and a girl, both with guitars on some pseudo stage, not really singing and just smiling while they are 'rocking out.' So, what could this be an ad for? Guitar Hero? Some bad dating site? A teeth whitening ad? Nope, its for Cigarettes. Seriously...its the one thing they are not doing at the moment, nor do you see a cig in his pocket or anywhere for that matter. Does anyone see this ad and say, 'I am totally in the mood for a smoke now?' I guess I am talking about it, so mission accomplished for Newport. Well done.

two women and lots of kissing

I have a great office overlooking the Salt Lake library. I get some great views. Yesterday though, that view changed. A couple of women were walking down the street and they stopped and started making out on the sidewalk. I hear all the time on television how hott! it is to see two women make out. Let me say, it wasn't as hott as others say. Oh well.

You can't put a price on Awesomeness

A few days ago, I found two beautiful watches on sale (the watches, on sale, would now cost under $100,000!)...but before I made the purchase, we decided to hold off on it.

Brodi and I have decided to give each other a Roundtrip ticket to space. We are so excited. For only $200,000 a piece, we will be able to be astronauts and fly to space! I know what you are thinking...only $200K!?! Well, for that small amount of money, we'll get to fly 65 miles up into space. The entire flight takes 2.5 days...oh wait, sorry, the entire flight takes 2.5 hours. Yes, 2.5 hours. So, for only about $1,200 a minute, you get to go to space. Sounds like a steal of a bargain.

Brodi and I cannot wait. For only $400,000 total, we will get to spend half of an entire afternoon in space. If that is not money well spent, I do not know what is. The downside? I get carsick, so I am assuming that I will be puking within 5 minutes of the flight. But I can't think of a better thing--paying lots of money for lots of puking opportunities.

On a sidenote, they have already sold 300+ tickets for this journey, so we will be on a waitlist. Merry Christmas Bro...I can't wait! Feel free to join us and you can learn more about it and book your tickets here: http://www.virgingalactic.com/

My iphone laughs at water and calls it weak!

I dropped my iphone yesterday. Not on the ground. Not in my car. Not on a soft leather couch. I dropped it in the toilet. Yes, the toilet. Now before you all go ewwww, there was nothing in the toilet except for 'fresh' toilet water. So, thats basically totally clean, isn't it?

It was like slow motion. I was washing my hands and my phone was in my coat pocket and I must have bumped it out...I saw it flip out of my pocket and slowly descend to the bowl with me letting out a slow motion 'nooooooooooooo'...splash.

With reflexes like a cat though, I submerged my hand in the water and pulled out the iphone. I nearly performed CPR on it, but decided that it would be better to dry it off. I screamed as loud as I could to all those in the office "I need some paper towels STAT!!!!!" Shockingly enough, nobody came to my aid. I proceeded to turn it off...then dry it off...then let an occassional tear fall gently to the ground...then more drying off. And guess what? It turned back on.

Until this morning when it would not turn on. 5 hours it stayed turned off, showing no hope for a reawakening...until, guess what. It turned on again. All is good. Until my co-worker Mike informed me that his daughter dropped her iphone into the water and it worked fine for a week and then went dead forever. Let the countdown begin...but I have a good feeling about this one. The power of Apple will not be stopped by some stupid office toilet!

Impressive--1 load! Not so impressive--Probably took 3 days to pack

I saw this downtown. I do not know what is more impressive--the very efficient packing job or the fact that this truck will still be able to move with that kind of load. Kudos to the driver.

Hosting a Party which would make me the Most unpopular guy in the Neighborhood

I can think of a lot of party ideas. Actually, I can think of a lot of bad party ideas. An adult Twister party? I would probably not get a lot of friends to come to that one. Dress up as your favorite Lords of the Ring party? Yeah, I would probably not get a lot of friends to come to that party.

But both of those ideas look genius compared to the having a Computer Operating System party. For those of you with a computer (A PC, not an Apple Computer), your current computer probably has Windows Vista or XP as its operating system. Well, Microsoft has come out with a new operating system, Windows 7. So Microsoft and its Ad agency came out with a perfect idea of having computer users host parties to introduce their friends to the new computer Operating System. Seriously. Not kidding.

The idea here is to invite your friends over to your house, make some snacks and sit around your computer and learn a new operating system. Yeah, how fun does that sound? To help us, Microsoft even did a video to show you how to host one of these parties. Once again, I'm being serious. (start the video and press pause for about 30 seconds and then watch so that it can run smoothly).

I can't wait to host my own party. It sounds like fun. Look for your invitations in the mail.

Howlingly Cool

Brodi and I have been married now for over 11 years. I am thinking of doing something to spice up the marriage and I found the solution:

What woman does not want tough and mysterious? Nothing says 'danger' and 'living on the edge' than a guy that wears a wolf t-shirt. I no longer need a stupid polo shirt, or a sweatshirt, or some other typical shirt...I will now wear the Wolf shirt as this is truly a crowd pleaser.

So, the question for you all--which says 'a more manly yet still metrosexy man'? The three wolves howling at the moon (pic on the left)...or the patriotic pack of wolves in front of the american flag (pic on the right)? Let me know and Brodi better be prepared to fall in love with me all over again.

To hang or not to hang?

We usually grow some cherry tomatoes every year in our backyard. I decided to try something different--you know that infomercial with the upside down tomatoes, the Topsy Turvy Tomatoes? I wanted to give it a shot. I mean, c'mon, the all of the pictures on the internet show that this is THE WAY to grow tomatoes. I can safely say that this is turned out as a disaster to me. I dreamed of fabulous results like the pic on the left. It was not meant to be.

As you can see, it was not pretty. The ads talked about the plants producing 'miracle tomatoes.' Let me just say that if it produced miracle tomatoes, then miracles suck. I got about 6 cherry tomatoes out of this. It makes you question everything when a good old informercial at 3am may not be telling you the whole truth about how easy it is to produce high quality fruits/vegetables. Is that not the saddest looking tomato plant that you have ever seen? I am not quite sure how I could so royally screw it up, but as you can see, I did.

On the other hand, my other not-topsy-turvy cherry tomatoe plant went crazy and has produced hundreds of cherry tomatoes. I also get the feeling that when I am not looking, this plant just mocks the topsy turvy plant all day long.

So, a confederate flag and a banana meet on the street....

You can tell a lot about people by the car they drive and/or by what they have their car. This truck (pic on the right), though it is hard to see, had a confederate flag on their car. Interesting. I have some idea what that means.

The car, pictured on the left, had a huge stuffed banana on the front of their car. I have no idea what this means. People are strangely fascinating.

Tall. Really Tall.

I saw this man on the Today Show this morning and it just amazes me. When I was a kid, I wondered what it would be like to be tall, like 6'6" or something like that. My main interest was from a basketball perspective. Alas, I am stuck in my 5'11" frame. After seeing this guy, I am pretty pleased to be my size. This gentleman is from Turkey and he stands 8 feet, 1 inches tall. This man will never know what it is like to drive a Toyota Corolla (he would never fit), nor will he ever be able to pass under a regular sized door. He would barely even fit in my basement.

As I mentioned before, I am totally fine with my height.

Dancing all over the world

I saw this video over a year ago and even today, when I see it, it makes me laugh. If you have already seen it, enjoy. If you haven't, check it out.

Showing your love of Peace

You know you love 'peace' when you are ready to dedicate a 15 foot high pole with a Christmas light-ed 'Peace' sign in your front yard.

Random Random-ness

For some reason, known only to the road construction gods, they have decided to tear up 78% of the roads in Holladay. No joke. The best part is, the work begins at 7am, the trucks park in front of your house and traffic barely moves anywhere. I am sure it will look nice in a few weeks, but for now, it is a disaster.

I don't know if you had heard, but Michael Jackson died. With half of the stories in the first segment of the morning news about his death, I am assuming that he died just a couple of days ago.

If I was not already married, I would probably marry my iphone.

2 of the best cereals around? Honey Bunches of Oats and Chex. Some cereals are so simple yet delicious. One of the worst cereals around? Rice Krispies and Cocoa Krispies--the reason being, you have to eat about 14 bowls of it before you even feel remotely full.

Summer is almost over. How frakkin' crazy is that?

The tv show 'Better off Ted' is the first show that could rival Arrested Development in laugh out load moments. Very good stuff. The premise of the show is a research company named Veridian Dynamics that basically does some crazy research but everyone thinks that it is normal. Each episode has one of their commercials and their commercials are the best: