If I Claim To Be A Wise Man, It Surely Means That I Don't Know

I enjoy keeping track of all the off-the-wall, stern lectures I get at work from my superiors. Stuff I would never expect to have to be told at work. Previous examples:

Keep the doors closed or the raccoons will eat our profits.

Do not suggest that "Big Jugs" are to blame for a lack of productivity.

Do not come to work with a mohawk.

And the new one I am adding to my list came from yesterdays contractors meeting:

Do not urinate into empty bottles and leave them on the job site. It's just plain lazy and unprofessional!

Oh, Boy...SLEEP! That's Where I'm a Viking!

I was dreaming last night and my dreams are even more boring than real life. I dreamed my wife and a couple friends were hanging out in the living room. Some city workers were raking up leaves in front of the house and I decided to take a shower and get dressed for the day. But the bathroom in my dream had a broken door. I tried to fix it but it proved to be very difficult.

Rather suddenly, I woke up and jumped to look at the alarm clock to make sure that I hadn't overslept. It turns out that I still had over an hour before my alarm would go off. "Good," I thought to myself as I laid back down, "That will give me time to fix that bathroom door."

And I did dream that I fixed the door. I am disappointed in myself for having control of my dream and wasting it so. Dreams are lame. I think Mitch Hedberg summed up dreams best when he said, "One minute you're resting comfortably... the next minute, you have to build a go-cart with your landlord.

Night After Night, Who Treats You Right?

The other day while we were standing around in my mother's hospital room...

Me: "I was saying I was going to go out and buy her an Ipod and put a bunch of music on it that she used to listen to. It must get so boring laying around in bed all day."

My Mom's Friend: "What music would you put on it?"

Me: "I don't know. Bread. Styx. Stuff like that."

My Mom: "Breadsticks?"

Me: "Yes. They've finally combined to form the ultimate super-band: BREADSTYX!"

You're Learning How To Walk. They Pick You Up And You Keep Falling Down.

My mother died this morning. It isn't an unexpected blow anymore. I don't feel ruin inside. I just miss her. This entire month has felt pretty funky and I can't say my mind isn't muddled right now.

I would have stayed in San Francisco with her but everyone, including my mom, decided (before I had a chance to think about it myself) that I needed to come back to Utah and do some schooling for my daytime job because if I didn't do it this week it would probably set me back a year. So I was on a 15 minute break from a 6 hour class at 8:30 this morning when my stepfather told me that she past on.

I haven't talked much in class, because of my funky predisposition, be we talk a lot about safety in class. They even show us a lot of pictures of burn victims and guys who have been run over by trucks, just to drive home the point of how important it is to be safe. They have an in-your-face approach to teaching. Check out this "true or false" question from a sexual harassment quiz I recently took:

11. A foreman who repeatedly refers to the size of a female worker's chest by indicating that the reason she is having difficulty performing a task is because her "big jugs" are getting in the way is subject to a sexual harassment complaint and possible disciplinary action.

Anyway, our instructor was talking to us about that sugar-plant explosion and other recent work disasters and he described a woman who's husband had been burned so badly that, even though he was still alive, he couldn't even communicate with his family and he was likely to die. Comparing my mother's situation to people who have been burned to death or electrocuted made me feel like she had it okay.

I felt strange about leaving my mother in the hospital but, as my sister pointed out, she frequently kicked me out of her hospital room for no apparent reason. She would just say, "You can go now, Em. Alright, Em. See you later, Em." My sister thinks my mother didn't like me to see her in that condition. I think she didn't like being helpless and vulnerable like that.

A week prior, the nurses had been encouraging her to sit up or stand a little everyday if she could. When I was about to leave for the airport she told me she wanted to try standing up before I went. But the nurses had moved her port for dialysis to her thigh and they were pretty strict about saying no. That she couldn't even try. I hope my mother didn't feel bad about that. I hope she knows that one's dignity has nothing to do with one's posture. I'm proud of her. She's always been strong. The hospital didn't change the way I thought about her.


The first time I saw her in the hospital, I told her she looked the best out of everyone in the ICU. But she was also the only one in there who still had dark hair. One day she wanted a mirror really bad and we couldn't get the vanity in her little hospital table to work. I offered to see if they had a mirror down in the gift shop and she sent me down to get one. They had a $500 mirror in the hospital gift shop. I asked the clerk if they had any mirrors in the purses they sold and she helped me find one. But the purse that came with a credit-card-sized mirror was still over $100. Finally the girl went in the back and grabbed her compact out of her own purse. She said, "Here. You can have this one." I offered to pay for it. She said no. She had another one somewhere. I told her she was going to mess up my karma and that I would in turn do something nice for someone else at a later time.

My mom got the mirror and used it to confirm that her hospital appearance was less than appealing. But it's hard to make a feeding tube look good. Not even super-models can do that.

It's strange because sometimes I'll talk on the phone with my stepfather about my mother's condition and as soon as I hang up, I think, "Hey, I should call my mother and see what SHE thinks about all this." Because I forget that she's the one in the bed and I figure she's out there somewhere walking around in the woods wondering why I haven't called lately.

I think all of us really wanted her to pull through this, but the reality is that all the numbers were bad. Really bad. And you can't bend reality. Not with your brain. Not with a crane. My brother told my sister how he had a really bad feeling. He works out in the woods but he only sees owls every once in a while. He told my sister that the last time he saw an owl that our Uncle Leroy died. Right around the time my mom went into the hospital, he hit an owl with his car. He even stopped and got out and asked the owl if he was okay. And the owl flew away. And then a day or two later he saw an owl out in his front yard and he thought it might be the very same owl. Anyway, all of this owl business made him very uneasy. Now that she's died he'll probably be terrified of owls.

I just got the news a few hours ago and I haven't really talked to anyone about my mom dying. I probably should. But I don't want to. I don't like it when people tell me they're sorry.

Know Thyself

We were going through a book of Fun Facts. Can you name the ten body parts that have 3 letters (such as leg)? I needed a hint to get the last one.

Drop The Phone. Take The Plane. Come Back Home Again.

I wasn't going to write about this because of the personal nature and I don't like writing things where the obvious response is to gush out sympathy. Forgive me for any spots where I might be vague.

My mother has been in the hospital for a couple of weeks now. It seems like every time I talk to her, over months and months, she is ALWAYS sick. So much that I probably tend to write it all off as Drama-Queen tactics. My mother, the woman who cried "Sinus Infection." But she traveled by helicopter to the hospital in Reno. Then they flew her to San Francisco at the referral of her doctors.

On Wednesday morning, my stepfather called me while I was in the middle of building a sports stadium and he told me it was time for me to come see her. I suggested that I should finish my work shift and then I would figure out how to get to California. He told me that wasn't fast enough. So I left work then and there. Two hours later, I was on a plane to San Francisco.

My mother's vital organs were shutting down. Pretty much all of them. The doctors were saying it was immenent that they would put her on a respirator, despite her pneumonia. She would be sedated. It was likely that if she went on the respirator, she wouldn't come out of it. The doctors topped that with statements like, "If her heart stops while she's on the respirator, we won't make any attempts to revive her." It might be my last chance to talk to her.

I told the people at work I could probably wait the 15 minutes left until lunch time and they practically pushed me out of the workplace. While I was driving home, it hit me that I was leaving work early, dropping everything, and flying out as soon as possible in an effort to talk to my mother one last time before she died. I started swearing angrily. And crying. The hardest I've ever cried. You know, where it feels like someone's trying to pull your guts out through your mouth? I was trying to get my stuff together but strange things were going through my mind. I couldn't find any socks to bring. All the socks I found had holes in them or paint stains and I kept thinking I didn't want be wearing gross socks while I watched my mother die. I felt relieved when I found some good ones.

My wife and kids had to come home early because of the changes in my schedule. While I was throwing clothes in a backpack, my kids were asking me why my eyes were red. I told them, "Because my mother is sick in the hospital. Sometimes doctors can help sick people and sometimes they can't. And she might die. And I'm scared." And then they quickly changed the subject to kids things and pretended like they didn't hear what I said.

I was worried that I would be a wreck through the plane trip. Luckily, I was tired and I accidentally slept most of the way to Las Vegas. In Vegas I thought I might be able to hang out with Native Minnow while I was on layover but the layover was too short. I decided to call him anyway, even though I knew it would be a grim phone call. I tried to keep it light despite the subject matter. I remember saying, "It's weird because everyone knows their mother will die someday, I just thought it wouldn't be for another 30 years."

When I talked to my family about flying into San Francisco, I said, "My plane arrives at 5:50 pm. Can someone pick me up or will I need to take a cab?" I was mostly joking about the cab, but my family answered that I might have to buy my own ride to the hospital.

Now let's talk about San Francisco. When people ask me where I'm from, I have a hard time answering them. I've decided the best answer is simply: The West. I claim it all. San Francisco feels like home as much as any other place. I have memories of Golden Gate Park. It used to be tradition for my family to take a tour of the bay on those red and white boats at the wharf on my birthdays. I remember Stanford Pow Wows. I went to Escondido Elementary School. Even when we lived by the reservation, Eight Graders saved up money over the years to take one big San Francisco trip before graduating to high school. My family loves to root on the Giants and 49ers, even during their dark years. There was a 3 point earthquake the first day I was there. It's always been like that. Like that, it will continue.

Driving in San Francisco is horrible. I wouldn't own a car if I lived there. Even wearing Heely shoes in San Francisco is to take your life in your own hands. I wonder how the people of that city get by without lawns or normal neighborhoods. Everything is tall townhouses and apartments. It seems like, when you go out in public, you have something to prove and the only thing proven is that it's tough to make it around here. I told my older sister, "I would expect to make $15 an hour or more just to be DIRT POOR in this town." My sister said, "Look at all the pretty dogs people have here. They're all so cute." I said, "Of course. Everyone knows that UGLY DOGS are for homeless people."

Okay, let's jump subjects again: The best part about this past weekend is that it was like a mini-family reunion. Not just that, but we all seemed really close. And not just that, but we all kept a great sense of humor. It was nice to know that in the lowest trenches of a crisis, I was still me; telling stupid stories, making dumb jokes, it's just that my mother was ALSO dying. But we kept a good balance of resiliance and joy along with the tragedy. It made me feel good about my family. And not just my mom's family because my family knows that I don't have any money. My step-mother bought my plane ticket so I could see my mom. My step-father got my hotel room. My sister paid for most of my meals. I was in San Francisco for 5 days with 3 pairs of underwear. The trip cost me $40 even though it costs you $20 every time you park your car. I'll make it up them later.

It was interesting to look around at my relatives as we spent days on end in the hospital waiting room. In ways, we are much like everyone else. Decent people who try our best, yet we find it's nearly impossible to avoid plowing headlong into difficulties. You take life day to day trying to make the best decisions but problems fall on you and floor you. Take my cousin John, he got married a couple years ago and had a beautiful baby girl. He doesn't live with his wife or daughter anymore. It's not by choice and he has no idea why he's not welcome in his own family. My mom's sister adopted John from her brother when John was a baby. Uncle Billy is John's adopted father. Uncle Billy kept the waiting room entertained with endless banter and opinions. When Uncle Billy made known how badly he would like to kick the ass of Lou Dobbs his wife said, "Then WHY do you watch his show? You always get enraged when you watch the news." Billy said, "Because. You have to know your enemy." It seems like everyone in the room could tell you a gut-busting hard-luck story but instead we just joked around with eachother.

It turned out that the drive home from work was the worst of it for me. I didn't cry again. At the hospital, we made a rule that anyone who cried in front of my mom was weak. A couple people admitted to being weak.

My mom's Uncle John was the one who picked me up from the airport. We haven't seen eachother for about 10 years. But we saw eachother in the airport and we didn't have to say a single word. We knew who we were by looking at eachother. We knew why we were there. We knew the situation. We didn't waste time drudging through the obvious. Instead, we told each other stories and made each other laugh. He told me about a guy he knew who showed up at Stanford and bought a car. He never registered the car but he drove it until he got his degree and then left the car in the airport parking lot and never looked back. The first thing Uncle John had said was, "It seems like just yesterday I was picking you up at the airport." It was a reference to when things fell apart for our family in Colorado and we came crawling back to mom's home without a penny on us. It was over 20 years ago and Uncle John had picked us up at the airport and took us to his house and let us swim in his pool.

If you saw my mother when we arrived at the hospital, you might think she was dead if it wasn't for the gasping and moaning. She was tied up with tubes from all directions. Later, my sister said, "What's that story where the guy sails around and all those tiny people tie him down on the beach?" I said, "Gulliver's Travels?" My sister said, "Yeah, that's what mom reminds me of with all of her tubes all over her. I want to tell her but I don't think she'll see the humor in it like I do." I said, "Yeah. It's probably funny to everyone, except for Gulliver."

But at that point, I was so relieved just to find my mother alive that she looked quite wonderful to me. She was surprised to see me but she seemed much more excited to see our Uncle John. It think he must remind her of her father or something.

It took days and days for my mom's condition to stabilize. We spent most of our time at the hospital, either in the ICU or the waiting room. I told my stepdad, "The ICU is pretty professional but out here it's like an episode of Scrubs." He said, "Yeah. Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy, I've seen it all around here. Did I tell you this is a TRAINING hospital?"

One day I sat in the sun on the roof of the parking garage with my brother while he went through a custody hearing for his son via telephone. It was hard to listen to. Like ALL of my brother's previous girlfriends, his baby's-momma is crazy. Yet, everyone in the court treats my brother like scum. He makes good arguments and makes good suggestions as to how to resolve differences and to show the court the "things they haven't seen." They ignore him completely. They're just trying to drag things out so long that he'll give up. You can hear it in their voices that they want him to give up. The custody case started before the baby was born. The baby is 2 years old now. The judge says he's turning the case over to someone else. Assumably because he doesn't want to deal with it anymore.

The weather has been amazing in San Francisco over the past few days and I was sad that my wife and kids couldn't be there with me. There was even a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz from the hospital. We tried to get out around town, now and then. My sister showed me a funny business that specializes in removing headlice. The "Headlice Helpers." Man... all the good business ideas really ARE taken.

We've decide that "Little Italy" is just a myth in San Francisco and that's why it isn't on any of the tourist maps despite the many road signs. At Fisherman's Wharf, I was vastly disappointed in the quality of street performers. The best street performer is some black dude who sits on a milk crate holding two severed tree branches in front of him to hide his presence. Then he yells, "RAHHH!" and unsuspected pedestrians. He drew the biggest crowd but I can't say he was any good because while I was walking past him a pigeon flew up between me and some asian woman and the asian woman screamed. I figure, if a pigeon off the street can be just as entertaining as the bush-man then he really doesn't have much of a talent going. I told my family that I was going to strap two branches to my legs, play the guitar and dance like a robot while scaring people and I would completely put ALL of those other street performers out of business. They've got it coming.

We went to the Boudin Bread Company to see the "Mother Dough." Apparently, these people made some dough in a bowl and they've just been adding more and more dough to that same dough for over one hundred years. The Mother Dough. Awesome sourdough bread. Available in alligator, lobster and many other shapes. We stayed at the Cathedral Hill Hotel, which was a fancy place back in the day, with guests such as Ronald Reagan, Wilt Chamberlain and Mr. T. A nice hotel. Across the street is a bar called Tommy's Joynt which is a historical building of sorts. They fed me some good grilled salmon.

Amid all the joking and goodwill, serious things kept coming up. And strange combinations, like when we bought lottery tickets and decided that any winnings would be applied toward buying my mother new organs off the black market. While we were eating lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe I told my brother he was following my mother down the road to the hospital and that he should change his behavior because I only planned on going through this ONE TIME. He got really mad and defensive and walked out of the restaraunt. I'm worried about him.

My mother made it through her body crashing. Now she has to hold on for one or more organ transplants. She's hanging on but only by a thread. She's seems be getting better everyday but it's still a very fragile situation. The doctors only tell you bad things because then you won't care if they're wrong. I hope they're wrong. I love my mom. I think she's pretty. Even tied up like Gulliver.

Soccer, Drillbits and Dogwalking

When Geppetto came to visit a couple of weeks ago, a girl approached the front door while I was tearing things up on Guitar Hero. It was a neighborhood girl who walks dogs to earn money.

We know we don't spend as much time with our dog as we should so we graciously accepted her dogwalking services. My wife immediately went to get the dog. But our dog is big. A big black lab. My wife is not so big and the girl with the dog walking service is even smaller. She's probably only 10 years old.

My wife tried to hand her the dog's leash but the dog was dragging her across the yard. It almost looked like waterskiing. For half a second, it appeared that my wife had the dog reined in and she passed the dog to the little business lady. The little lady already had a tiny miniature doberman and our dog started dragging them both around like the tazmanian devil. Complete with fart sounds.

The girl proceeded to let the whirlwind ravage it's way toward the corner of the block. I yelled after her, "You can bring her back whenever you want!"

Then I said to my wife, "I think that girl has bitten off more than she can chew. There's an older girl in our neighborhood who walks dogs. We should probably hire her instead. Tell that girl she's too little when she comes back. We need a big dog walker. Or tell her she can keep walking the dog if she gains 30 pounds.

When the girl came back, she admitted she only walked the dog for one hour and let the dogs play in her backyard for the other hour they were gone. We kept her. She walks the dog every week. And seconds before I started writing this, she came to the door to ask if she could walk the dog. FOR FREE. Just cause she wants to. "Knock yourself out," I said.

Today I started my daytime job. I'm a two job kind-of-guy again. The worst part is the alarm clock. But at least I get to work somewhere cool, if not frigid. These things aren't going to build themselves:



I showed up for work and while the boss explained to me where I would go and what I would do, he threw about ten drill bits in my direction. None of the instructions seemed to involve drill bits. Later, I asked one of the guys I was working with, "So why did he give me all these drill bits."

The guy said, "He gave me a bunch of drill bits when I started here in October. I felt like I had a lot of them, so everytime someone needed a drill bit, I would just give them one. Now I don't have any drill bits and the boss won't give me anymore. He gives you drill bits the first day and then you don't get anymore."

I said, "I would give you some of mine, but it sounds like I need them. Sorry."

So I have plenty of drill bits but no time to blog anymore. Sorry if we hit another blog famine in the near future.

Nerd Week Continues...

My wife: "WHAT!!!! are you WATCHING?!?!?!"

Me: "It's a documentary called The King of Kong. It's about two guys competing to be the ultimate World Champion of Donkey Kong."

My wife: "Ahhhhhhhhh! Nerd! This is the nerdiest thing I've ever seen. I can't watch this. I have to go."

Me: "No. It's not that bad. It's funny. You would probably like it. This guy cries a lot."

My wife: "Why does he cry?"

Me: "Billy Mitchell was this uber-nerd video game phenom from the 80's who had the Donkey Kong record forever. Then one day this Steve Weibe guy got laid off from his job at Boeing and just started playing Donkey Kong. He video taped himself breaking the record. On the official tape that he sent in proving his record his son comes in the room yelling at his daddy to wipe his butt. It's hilarious. So then all of these guys tell him that if he really wants respect as a champion that he has to fly across the country to this place called Funspot and break the record on THEIR machine. So he does.



He gets the record for about a day but then that Billy Mitchell guy sends them a video tape where he scores over 1,000,000 points and then they take the record right back from Steve Weibe. He cries because all of the officials are friends with Billy Mitchell. They told Steve his video tape wasn't enough evidence to prove he was the champ and two seconds later, they give Billy the record again because of the new video he sent in."

My wife: "That's still lame. You guys need to learn that video games aren't worth crying over!"

Me: "WHO needs to learn that?"

My wife: "Our son. And my sister says her husband gets REALLY mad when he plays video games. And your friends are always telling that story about how you spiked your Nintendo once (I also threw a piece of pizza at Native Minnow) because you got mad."

Me: "I got mad. But I didn't cry. That happened 15 YEARS AGO. You're going to hold that agianst me?" Because if she did then I shouldn't let it go how she got mad at her brother and pushed him down the stairs once or how one of her brothers wouldn't show her his driver's license picture so she smashed a greasy onion ring in his math workbook which he had to turn in with the pages all see-thru from grease.

Anyway, that movie is cool and has a lot of human interest to it. Steve has a pretty desperate struggle to prove his talent to the big-nerd-conglomerate but succeeds in the end. Billy Mitchell was an awesome video gamer in his day but is also a coward.

Here is Billy Mitchell's response to the film as brought to you by the good people at MTV.

Do You Like Football? Do You Like Nachos?

I know everyone is wondering what I thought about the Superbowl yesterday so here it is.

I like the Patriots but I feel like they have won enough. The Giants were enough of an underdog that I was hoping they would pull it off. I feel slightly bad that the patriots don't get those records for winning and a perfect season but I was very excited at the close game and that the underdogs came out on top.

Speaking of Underdog... did you see that commercial where he fights the Family Guy baby for the bottle of Coke and then Charlie Brown get's it? My kids loved that one.

Anyway, the best play of the game was when Eli Manning ran out of that certain-sack and lobbed it to that dude who caught it against his helmet as he did a backbend over that other player. Very cool.

After the game I came home and hooked up the old NES and played two games of Super Tecmo Bowl. Christian Okoye already has 500 rushing yards and Derrick Thomas has 4 safeties and 18 sacks:



Best. Football. Game. Ever.

Still Things Could Be Much Worse, Natural Disasters...

Look now, you jinxed me Minnow. I'll write about my blogging constraints when I have time but this should give you an idea until then:

Deep Into The Darkness Peering

I know a guy who likes to write and is working on a novel about an old man who works in an orchard until some buggy aliens come through the universe, destroying everything and everyone.

He said, "And it doesn't have a happy ending. Everyone dies."

I said, "Yeah. But I think you should focus on making it seems like there's hope throughout the story UNTIL you kill everyone off at the end so it has a stronger impact. You're focused on having everyone die but I think there's room for a lot more misery in this story than just that."

Because I like doing my part.

To make things better?

Sweeping The Clouds Away

Today's book review is on "It's Not Easy Being Big".

It's a book about how you bump your head and you can't hide and your just kind of a big freak and how it's not easy being big. They also do the reverse about how "it's not easy being small" for Elmo. How he can't see over people, he can't jump across a stream, he can't reach stuff on the playground and so forth.

The moral of the story: Nobody, big or small, is safe from the frustrating annoyances that make life so disappointing. Deal with it or at least take pleasure knowing that everybody else has it as hard as you, too.

I like this book and recommend it to all.

This book review was brought to you by the letters "k" and "w" because it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they make more sense than "q" and "u." And by the number "π" (pi) for being even more confusing than "q" and "u."

Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See

It's high time I paid homage to the great YouTube. Because it is such a convenient tool. Almost TOO convenient because now it gets to the point where you get upset if you can't find a clip of what you're looking for. You're all, Hey! I imagined it! Why isn't it on here?

Karate Monkey? Check.



A japanese telling of Hans C. Anderson's fable "The Wild Swans" where a girl is being burned for witchcraft because she's lived her life as a mute as she knits sweaters from stinging nettles to release her prince brothers from a spell where they have been turned into swans that I remember watching when I was 8 years old? Check. (This is the final scene, you'll have to search for the first part if you want to see it from the start)



The Plague Dogs? Made by the same people who made that "Watership Down" cartoon? Was this made for preschoolers or radical 60's activists? You make the call.



Those certain videos you only like to watch in the privacy of your own home because it would be embarrassing if people knew what you were up to?

We carried all the groceries in while hauling out the trash

My wife has been going through books fast lately. We bought her the book "Speak" about a teenaged girl who is raped and then has a rough time dealing with it but she finished it really fast. And then she insisted on seeing the movie they made of the book. Luckily, it's on YouTube.

I gave her one of my books to read. I've only read about 60 pages of it and it's practically brand new.

My wife took our kids to daycare at the school where she works and she accidentally left the book there. She thought, "No big deal, I'll just pick it up later in the day." So later in the afternoon she went down to retrieve the book.

She asked the ladies who worked in the daycare, "Have you seen my book around? I think I accidentally left it here."

One of the ladies tensed up. She got anxious and said to my wife, "Don't be mad at me. Please don't be mad at me."

My wife went through the possibilities. She may have taken the book to the "lost and found" in the school office. She may have taken the book to the school library. She may have even placed the book in the special area of the school where needy people can find things that people donate.

The lady admitted, "I saw the book and I thought I don't know what this is but it doesn't belong here... so I threw it in the trash."

The trash?

Yes, in the trash can?

In the TRASH can?

Yup.

My wife wasn't upset that she had to dump out the contents of the garbage can and dig around for the book. She just couldn't believe that, with all of the available options, IN A SCHOOL the most logical course of action appeared to be to throw a brand new book into the garbage.

My daughter heard my wife tell me that story in a state of awe and she sprang into action. This morning, my 4 yr old daughter presented my wife with a "Cap'n Crunch" box that she decorated with paper and drawings and asked if she could give it to the teacher to use as a "lost and found" for the classroom. My wife told her she should probably find a better box.

You Want The Truth? You Can't Handle The Truth! Forget About It, It's Chinatown!

Valentine's Day is just about here and that means that it's time to talk about people getting dumber, being left in the dark and aliens.

Here's a PBS bit about how just about every kid in the country used to own a chemistry set (with ACTUAL chemicals) and how things have changed nowadays. Chemists have evolved from nerds to outright clowns:



The guy they interview, Bob Lazar, is credited by many to be the guy who brought the infamous Area 51 to public attention. He worked as a physicist at Area 51 doing research (reverse engineering?) on an alien space craft. It's pretty interesting how he describes the spaceship moving by creating a gravitational field ahead of itself. In this radio interview he also mentions how he and John Leer, of the family that created the Leer Jet, would sneak around and watch the alien crafts being tested. I've also heard a rumor that Bob Lazar has successfully modified the everyday cars that you and I drive to run on and CLEANLY PRODUCE THEIR OWN hydrogen.



But, then again, maybe even thinking for a second that any of this sounds reasonable just means we're all crazy nerds. Or Clowns.

Finally Get Down On The Head Of A Pin

Retarded in a cool way. Almost like music. You Tube is great.

Do You Know What I Blame This On The Breakdown Of?...Society.

Real fast.

I got a big gash in my cheek while I was playing basketball this week. It bled all over. I've been wearing a band-aid on my face. Everyone at work keeps calling me Scarface and Nelly.

We were loading trucks the other day. We sell all kinds of crazy crap and my boss suddenly pulled out a big shiny broadsword that said Excalibur on the hilt. The guys made plans to find another of the swords in the warehouse. I suggested that we should use the bumper cars to have jousts but somebody else insisted that all of history's greatest swordfights have taken places on staircases. I just said, "Well, it's all fun and games until someone gets gouged in the cheek.

Last weekend, Geppetto came to visit with his family. It turns out that there was a bunch of corporate crap that happened and he quit his job as plant manager. Now he's going into business for himself doing other stuff. We were supposed to meet him in the Sam's Club parking lot one morning after his family took care of some business.

My daughter said, "What's Sam's Club."

I said, "It's like Costco."

She said, "Oh. So it's BORING."

I said, "I guess... if you think buying 20,000 candy bars is BORING."

Moments later we found Geppetto loading about 20,000 candy bars in the back of his truck. I told him, "It looks like a big fat guy just bought a years supply of food."

The night before Geppetto had tried to take me to a Utah Jazz game versus the LA Clippers. Our seats were good but it turns out our tickets were bad and they kicked us out just before the end of the first quarter. Geppetto was trying to explain where the mistake must have been to the usher while I was climbing the stairs to leave. I heard someone shouting my name and looked over to see some people from Cow Country. Kevin, the River Guide, and his wife yelled a greeting. Kevin said, "What happened... did you guys steal someones seats?" Which is pretty much what we had done.

So Geppetto and I walked in the freezing cold to his hotel where our families were swimming.

The other night I went to lunch with some guys. Rafa was saying, "It sucks they won't let us work overtime right now. I need the money."

I said, "Me too."

The 18yr-old said, "That's your fault for having kids. You should have been smart and kept it in your pants."

Rafa said, "It will happen to you, one day."

The 18 yr-old said, "But I'll get smart and stop after one."

I said, "You can't just have one. Because then your kid thinks you're his permanent playground buddy. You have to have two so they can buddy up and take off."

The 18 yr-old said, "Bullshit. I never do ANYTHING with my brothers and sisters. I don't think anyone does."

I said, "You take your family for granted. Most people like their brothers and sisters." And Rafa and I gave several examples of fun things we've done with our siblings.

The 18 yr-old said, "No. I still don't agree."

Rafa turned to me and said, "What's the deal with white people? None of them like eachother."

It made me laugh more than it should have.

Book Review: Twilight Series

My wife doesn't seem to read a lot of classics. She'll usually entertain herself by reading all the Dan Brown books or all the "Bourne Identity" books. Last fall, her mother referred her to the book "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer. My wife read the book and the two books following and is now biding her time until Meyer releases a new book in May.

The media is trying to push these books as "The-Next-Harry-Potter-type-series" now that Harry is finishing school. Not, that I know. I have no real association with Harry Potter. Anyway, I try to be a good husband so I started reading the Twilight books for the sake of being able to talk about them with my wife. I've read the first two.

The first thing I said to her was something to the effect of, "It's funny how Young Adult books are so optimistic and hopeful towards an open future. And then how Adult books are kind of the opposite like, and here is the crap that actually happens... here is how hope is pulverized and just having a NORMAL life becomes a luxury."

Thinking back to one of her more recent reads, "Running With Scissors," where the kid would wake up with strange organs in his mouth, she said, "Yeah, I think you and I should read the optimistic kinds of books."

Here it is in a nutshell: Twilight is good but it does require a steady drip of estrogen for optimum reading pleasure. My wife has not baked any estrogen-laced brownies lately so I was forced to read the books with a sense of scrutiny and a strong tendency towards tawdry mockery. Which you can rest assured, my wife loves.

There are some popular criticisms toward these books which I support. The writer pummels it into our heads that Bella, the main character, is as plain and ordinary as humans can possibly come. Did I say human? Did I forget to mention these are VAMPIRE books? What I imagine to be watered-down Anne Rice kind of stuff?

I watched an interview with Stephenie Meyer where she said she hates it when people ask her what her books are about: Romance, high school, vampires. It sounds silly, but that is the premise and, as entertaining as she may make the situation, she needs to accept that it's silly. What I think is even stranger is that OLD LADIES seem to love these books. My wife was reading the third book, "Eclipse," and I was halfway through a borrowed copy of "Twilight" when we decided to buy our own copy of "Twilight" from Costco. While we were in line at the register, some old lady behind us had to butt in and let us know, "That is such a good book! You are really going to like it!"

Did I also mention that Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon? That means she is practically royalty in Utah. She'll sell a lot of books here just based on that fact and I think that is how the book came to fall into my hands in the first place... despite the fact that she is an Arizona Mormon, which isn't even an Idaho Mormon. But you can only get the pure, concentrated mormons from Utah. But I'm not going to say, "This book is good... for a mormon." It's good all the way around. I think there are only hints at the influence in small details. I'll bring it up again in a minute.

The print is big and the writing is quick and simple. There are no underlying themes or deep thoughts to slow you down. Bella is not mormon but I am already familiar with what young mormon girls are prone to. I cheat and picture a more idealized version of the writer as the main character because I imagine that that is what most first-person writers do as the write the stuff. She talks about being very pale. My wife relates. She talks about being thin but soft. My wife relates.

Bella is plain and I don't understand why every guy who crosses her path falls madly in love with her. She is described as clumsy and an "accident magnet" on which I do not agree. She is dumb and makes bad decisions. She thinks she is smart... makes a point of showing off her knowledge of cell division... but every time she gets in a life threatening situation, it is mostly her own fault. If you have decided to lie to your vampire friends, the only people who can save you from another vampire who is bent on killing you, to go confront him yourself then you deserve to die. If you jump off a high cliff for fun, if not for spite, "only thinking about the fall and not what would happen when you got in the water" then you deserve to drown. I hadn't even finished the first book before I was convinced, "Okay, this girl needs to die." I still think that and it bums me out at how many hundreds of pages I have left to read because it's way too many pages to carry a book when the main character is dead.

So I don't really like Bellas thoughts. I usually like her dialogue. It doesn't make me laugh outloud but I think the writer is successful with her attempt at humor.

And then there is the vampire boy. The quick plot is that Bella moves to Washington and is not impressed until she meets vampire boy, Edward. It's a classic tale of love. She sees him and thinks he is good looking and becomes completely submissive, even willing to die for him before she really knows anything about him.

He's good looking, SO good looking. The writer cannot stop talking about how good looking he is. Bella is plain and when it turns out that Edward is also madly in love with her she can't believe it. I told my wife, "Maybe when she says he is ABSURDLY good-looking, she really means that he looks like Napolean Dynamite." My wife told me they are already working on making a movie of the book. I said, "If they make the main characters look like Napolean Dynamite and his girlfriend then I will never say a bad thing about these books again. That would rule."

But it turns out that Edward is not just unbelievably handsome, but also the nicest guy and superest boyfriend in the entire world. And that's when the dialogue makes you want to puke. I love you. No, I love you. No, I love you. And I think this is where the mormon thing comes into play. There are a lot of kissing scenes. Long kissing scenes but without open mouths. There is a lot of heavy petting... but only of their faces. It's the book that has teenaged girls wondering why THEY don't have cute boys sneaking in their windows on a nightly basis.

Even though the vampire can read minds and run as fast as a car with super-human strength I still think most guys would think Edward was a wuss. Because he is written to be what girls want. He is what girls dream about. He doesn't fart or burp or watch sports or play vidoe games or make overtly sexual suggestions or pick on people or any of the stuff that REAL guys tend to do. Even most vampires think he's a wuss because he doesn't feed on people. Because he's too nice and perfect to do that. He's actually somewhat of a religious fanatic as well. He thinks that souls are precious. He doesn't believe he has a soul but that's all the more reason to be good. Which isn't to say he wouldn't be quick to kill himself if he can't have the plainest girl in a small town.

In the second book, Edward goes away. I found it very relieving. I needed a break from the mushy, gushy stuff. But, of course, that meant that Bella's entire universe was falling apart.... OH! And we get to hear about it. Because she has no intention of getting over it. Because there are no cute boys left at school! And she may as well be dead!

On a personal level, the humor was good, I like Washington, she used the name "Emmett" for one of her ultra-buff handsome vampires, any book with native americans in them are a good thing to me, Bella sometimes reminded me of my wife except my wife is prettier and smarter and not clumsy and doesn't even whine so much. I got really worried when the main characters were talking about music: "The fifties had some good music, the eighties were tolerable and everything else is pretty much garbage." That doesn't sound like teenagers to me. I almost thought it was a mormon thing but then I thought, if this was of mormon influence the characters just would have gone on and on about how much they loved the band "Journey" or something. But Stephenie Meyer talks a lot about the music that helped her write the books and thanks bands like Muse, Marjorie Fair, Brand New and others. Not bands from the top of my list but pretty good and way better than I expected.

It is also strange how these innocent books can talk so casually about whimsically taking Nyquil to help you sleep and stealing cars like its better than riding the bus.

Anyway, the short of it is: I mostly read the books in a laughing-at-you sort of way but they would still be pretty good even if I didn't. There are a lot of things in them that bug me and that can probably only be appreciated with the help of ovaries but they are fast to read and somehow keep me curious.

Would You Stand Up And Walk Out On Me?

Time is up, so here is the answer to yesterday's Brain Buster Trivia Question. The body has been provided by Danica McKellar, better known as TV's "Winnie" from "The Wonder Years."

And since she would probably view yesterday's post with a sense of humiliation I would like to make it up to her by referring all of you to buy her book.

If I thought for a second that Jane Austen's dainty little skeleton would benefit from you buying a Jane Austen book then I would tell you to do get yourself one of those, too.

A Girl With A Mind Like A Diamond

Here is a fast money-making idea. It appeals to guys who like brainy girls in their skivvies. This is not the final product. It's just a prototype I whipped up to give you the basic idea.

So...? How do you like Jane Austen now, fellas? Are you getting a sense of her sensibilities?

And my super trivia question of the day is: What brainy girl acted as a body double for this photo?