FalaFala

Sorry

2006-04-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry for not posting. I haven't felt like posting to this blog in a long time, mostly because the focus of my life is changing from my friends to Melissa. The two of us are engaged to marry on July 27, so that's all that I think about these days. We've got a lot to do in preparation, because I've got to be in Phoenix by April 27, and then I'm leaving for an internship in Arkansas from May 15 to July 21. I've finally got summer plans, and I feel super blessed to have these particular plans. Unfortunately, they leave me with no desire to blog. This blog is probably going to be in hibernation for a while.

The Girl Is A Saint

2006-03-13T00:21:00.000-07:00

I got interviewed yesterday by Melissa's dad. I wanted permission to marry her, and he wanted to make sure that I have all of my ducks in a row and that I'm committed to his daughter. I think I passed. Melissa seems excited about how everything went, and I can't wait to actually ask her and make it official. This development might come as news to some people, but, for those of you who have been following recent developments, it shouldn't be a surprise.

This is my reasoning. First things first, I've enjoyed the single life, and it's been good to me. Unfortunately, single life doesn't enable me to spend eternity with the woman of my dreams. It lets me spend a couple of hours a day with her, but that's about it. Therefore, I need to get married and move on with my life. Second, Melissa is definitely the one for me. Goodness. I had my doubts when I first met her, but after Thanksgiving, we started running three times a week. Running turned into dating after Christmas break, and then dating turned into kissing in early February.

A short time later, I realized just how much I loved this girl, and it started to sink in that I would never ever want to or even be able to break up with her. That led to some serious deliberation and some consultations with homebase. After a few phone calls and a lot of praying and sorting out of feelings, I realized that I really just wanted to marry her. I came to that conclusion at the beginning of this week, and I spent the next six days trying to talk myself out of it. I failed of course, and that led to the conversation with her dad.

I've realized that I will be happier with Melissa than with any other girl that I could ever dream up. I've dug deep to find reasons to put this off, but Melis and I really are a match made in heaven, and there's no use trying to deny it. I don't care if this marriage business sounds like it's too fast or too Provo or too naive. It's extremely Provo, but given the circumstances, it's not too fast nor too naive. I've made my decision, and I can't delay this any longer.

Casimir Pulaski Day -- Surfjan Stevens

2006-02-28T00:42:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry for not updating my blog. It's not responsible of me, but I haven't had the normal subjects to write about. I almost got myself killed on the way home tonight from Melissa's. We'd kinda fallen asleep in each other's arms, and I realized that I needed to head home, because it was ten past midnight. Anyway, I got out of the door, into the car, and within a block of her house I completely spaced a yield sign. The car was coming from my right, and whoever was driving braked just in time. I haven't done anything that stupid since I was driving with her on Saturday and pulled out in front of some traffic that I just didn't see. All of the other effects that she has on me are sublime, but I do get a little absent minded and my driving suffers. These are the moments when I have to offer a not-so-silent prayer for everything that God is blessing me with and for everything that hasn't gone wrong in my life.

I contemplate the fairytale that is my life, and I wonder if I deserve it. Someone has been pulling strings for me my entire life, and I could never ask for anything more. I feel supremely grateful right now, and I can't quite find the words to describe the emotion. I almost want to scream, but I'm afraid of wrecking the perfectly peaceful spirit that's come over me. I'm screaming inside for joy and wondering if this is it and if life gets any better. It has to, but this is the best that I've ever experienced.

The glory of my life is that each year has been better than the last. Just when I thought that I could never top last summer, the following fall blew my expectations to pieces. Winter has been too good for words, and I fully expect to spend this spring crying for joy. These emotions are too strong. If I weren't feeling them, I'd never believe myself.

BCG, Profit and the Shutdown Rule

2006-02-09T00:51:00.000-07:00

Mark says that I've been walking on clouds lately. He's right. In short, Melissa rocks my world.

I had my Boston Consulting Group (BCG) interview this afternoon. I was almost surprised to get the interview in the first place, because I know that upwards of a hundred resumes land in their inbox, and I somehow managed to be one of 16 people to get interviewed at BYU. They're interviewing a ton more kids at other universities, so the competition is still extremely stiff. The Dallas office is picking up five interns, so I can only hope and pray that I get an email in the next couple days with an flyout offer. Then I'll still have to compete tooth and nail for the spot. I hate how they do this, because it feels like getting cut from the basketball team over and over and over again. The odds that I'll make it are pretty thin, so I understand rationally that every interview is a long shot, but it still hurts to get turned down. I'll just have to see what my future holds.

BCG did the interviews in two half-hour parts, each with a different interviewer. So, I got two full case interviews. I'd never done a case interview before, and none of my practice made much of a difference. It's all about thinking on your feet and improvising. I managed just fine, although I would have prefered to have made fewer mistakes. To my surprise, my hands didn't get even a little sweaty. That's a milestone, because they're usually freezing cold and soaking wet before every interview. I felt super relaxed, and I verbalized my entire thought process just like all of the stuff I read told me to do. Excellent. Now let's just see what they thought of me.

The interviews weren't my last chance to improvise. With ten minutes left in Pope's econ 110 lecture, he gets a call from his wife asking him to run to city hall to save their house from some sort of evil zoning change. He's got to run, so he looks at the nearest TA (me) and says, "Chris, will now explain firm profits to you as well as the shutdown rule." Then he hands me the chalk and takes off. I hadn't been paying any attention to his lecture, so I spent about 30 seconds staring at his diagrams and trying to catch up. Then I spent another 30 seconds making stuff up until the light went on in my head, and I finally remembered what I was trying to explain to 250 anxious students. I didn't even get nervous! What's is this!? My stage fright seems to have disappeared, because I didn't even care that I was completely lost in front of a gigantic class. I finished explaining it, answered a bunch of questions and the class took off.

It's My Obsession

2006-01-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

Now that my life is pretty stable and just about all of my needs seem to be met, I've returned to my original obsession--music. It all started with the dance party playlist. I just wasn't satisfied with it, so I've been spending a lot time and effort trying to get a better handle on house, dance punk and anything retro. This has led me away from the more relaxed Of Montreal-style stuff I've been listening to, but it might just be time for a change.

I started my musical journey with MxPx, the Ataris, the Hippos and a bunch of punk, ska and hardcore bands. Then freshman year at BYU brought Built to Spill, At the Drive-in and assorted older bands like that, especially stuff from K Records. After the mission, I took a long time to get back into it. I eventually got into more independent underground rap like Sage Francis, Why? and the Roots. Last summer started the Bloc Party brit-pop obsession, and now I'm feeling strange longings for house remixes of brit-pop and retro stuff. It's all getting more electronic.

This is a good progression, because I'm getting into worlds that I haven't explored before. I could never stand techno, but I don't know if I can identify house with techno. At least it's not the lame euro-techno. The wonder if the rave thing will ever die completely, because I consider it a blight. Yuck. There's so much mediocrity. The principles that I've been learning in my marketing class seem to apply here; if a firm can't produce something unique, it shouldn't be producing anything at all. Basically, commodities suck unless one has some kind of special advantage, so everyone needs a niche. Music is the same way. Nothing about the latest Weezer album is special. Nothing differentiates it from the trash surrounding it, so it's just another piece of trash. A lot of people consume trash, but you are what you eat. I think this explains why I'm becoming obsessed with singles. A good single stands out from the crowd and makes everything else look mediocre, so why not collect only the standouts?

Bumpin' and Grindin'

2006-01-21T15:15:00.000-07:00

I don't know what happened to last night. I was intending a small little house party, but my roomie Mark sent a mass text to his entire phonebook. As a result, we had a line going out to the street for about half an hour. All of the events of the night are too much to try to describe, but I'll give a quick overview.

9:30 pm
Melissa, Scott, Rachel Lee and Dane were here with my roommates. We were watching the Office on the projector and just sitting around. Scott, R.L. and Dane all took off.

10:00 pm
The first wave arrives. It's a bunch of Mark's girlfriends, and we start the music. They only want hip-hop, so we oblige and let them dance.

10:30 pm
The second wave arrives. We have no idea who anyone is, and all they want is to bump and grind. Both parts of the living room are packed and no one can move. Some kid decides to take over our playlist, and he loads it up with a bunch of miserable radio tunes. The ghetto takes over our living room. We smell pot somewhere and a few people bring their beers. Two drunks are stumbling around in the kitchen and making friends with everyone.

11:00 pm
All of my friends show up and bring a good crowd of dancers. I don't want trashy music, and neither to they. I'm pissed, but these problems are not easy to solve. I wrest control of the playlist and manage to make about fifty people mad by ditching the hip-hop and trying something more musical. Everyone, and I mean everyone is trying to help me and making a million suggestions and I start to get frustrated. Finally, I turn control over to Chad and suggest that we just roll with his The Annual 2005 Anthems CD. That goes well for a while, but then there's some more revolt, so Chad starts to mix things up. I try to pretend like it's not my house and just dance.

11:30 pm
Chad manages to salvage the party, because the ghetto only wants to bump and grind, so the ghetto starts to file out. This is excellent, because now we outnumber them.

12:00 am
Chad hands me the playlist, and with some quality help from Francesco, I play what I've wanted to play all night and we dance until 1:30 without any more fights or arguments or mutiny or ghetto. I owe all of you who reject the dark side and fight for all that is right and true.

2:00 am
The last straglers are still hanging out on the couch, but most everyone else is gone. I change clothes and spend the next two hours pounding out a quality playlist to use next time.

5:00 am
I finally get to bed, but my throat is killing me and I can't get Romeo by Basement Jaxx out of my head. I fall asleep at some point and sleep until noon.

Scenesters Can't Dance

2006-01-14T03:39:00.000-07:00

Melissa and I went to a random party tonight that I'd heard about but wasn't really invited to. We didn't know a soul, but we knew each other, so we stuck around. The music was ok--not great, but ok. They had the most amazing DJ equipment, but they just didn't have the taste to pull it off. Anyway, I entirely expected the scenester kids who were throwing it to get the party rolling and cut the rug into a bajillion pieces. Turns out, the kids are all too shy! They'd kinda rock back and forth and look at each other like 15 year-olds at their very first EFY. We ignored their critical little I-have-a-band eyes and pretended like we were at the party of the century which worked surprisingly well.

Can you believe they had a pole? They had a pole. No joke. The original owners must have put it in, because it was built into the place. When that day comes, my house will have a pole. When the kids grow up, I'll just integrate it into some new cabinets or something.

MusikFest last night was incredible. I never dreamed that it would be so successful. I mean, it was standing-room-only in the first half hour, and the last kids to leave only took off around 1 am. This is going to be the best semester of my life. It'll be dancing on Tuesdays, the Fest on Thursdays and weekends with the most entertaining people I've ever known. Oh, and my roommates are great too. Chad's living with me again, and Marky Mark and The Other Chad are hilarious.

Welcome New Year

2006-01-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

This has been an eventful week to say the least. I'm not going to try to explain everything, but I'm feeling very happy about it all and content to be where I am right now. The break was great, if only to be with my family and to revisit a few old relationships that I miss. It also helped me to appreciate my life in Provo just a little bit more and to feel a little more independent.

I'm working on a house party for the 20th. We're looking into possible band performances in addition to dancing, but I'm not sure if the bands will attract too many people for our living room. We'll just have to see. I've got a week and a half to get the word out and to make sure that everyone is invited. If you're reading this, and you have any idea where I live, you are invited. This isn't quite the right place to post my address.

My classes are looking great. I'm in the managment junior core, so I have a group to work with, and we have all of our classes together. The guys and gals that I'm with seem like they'll be great to work with, and the professors are going to be pretty relaxed. I mean, compared to the econ program, this shouldn't be too challenging.

A Little Nostalgia for the New Year

2006-01-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

I should really write in this thing more often. It's 2006, and I'm excited, because this is going to be the best year of my life. 2005 was the best to date, but it's all on the up and up for '06. I mean, I already played, like, two games of Sudoku.

Last night was a big party at Alex's place in Tempe. So, ASU is the party school of party schools. I shouldn't have been surprised by the alcohol, but I wasn't expecting it after so many years at the driest school on earth. We have some amazing parties at the Y, and we don't need any alcohol at all. We work within a different set of rules, and I think that those limitations make us innovate and create something much more exciting.

I've been chatting with an old friend from the mission. She's a member in Portugal, and I served in her branch for about 7 months. Anyway, chatting with her is some sort of nostalgic blast from the past. The area I was in at the time is gorgeous. The little city is named Quarteira. It's an ancient Roman fishing villiage, and it still feels ancient when you head up into the older part of town. Whoever built the homes didn't conform to any sort of building codes or zoning laws. The homes are built right on top of one another with impossibly tiny alleys and walkways, and they're all the same white stucco with TV antennae sticking up from the roof and laundry hanging out the windows.

My favorite method of tracting in that area was to head into the oldest part of town and open every gate I could find. The goal was to find the hidden courtyards that the land owners would rent out for housing. Rent in Quarteira is super expensive, because it's a beachgoer's paradise and the entire country wants to own a vacation condo somewhere along the coast. Anyway, the regular folks who actually live in Quarteira aren't the most affluent bunch. They're mostly service industry types who cater to the beachgoing hordes in the summer, which means that they're underemployed for eight months, and then they make up for it in May, June, July and especially August. Europeans like to take a solid month of vacation every year, and most of them schedule it for one of those four months. As a consequence of the crazy lifestyle, Quarteira is full of Brasilian and African immigrants, and they need places to stay.

Anyone who owns some land in the old town can make a quick buck by throwing up a little apartment out of block, stuccoing over it and renting it out to some poor immigrant. The immigrants were our favorite people to teach, so we'd go to pretty extreme lengths to find these hidden stucco huts. A few times, I'd see an African or Brasilian contruction worker heading home from work, and I'd grab my comp and follow him to figure out where he was headed. There was no point in stopping him in the street if we could follow him, find another hidden alleyway full of stucco huts and knock on his door. The first time I tried this, we taught the guy I followed and then taught three or four other people living in neighboring huts.

The next most shameless tracting episode was a lone Brasilian flag that I spotted one night in Setubal. It was hanging from the top of an eight story apartment complex, so I figured that there had to be Brasililans living in an attic apartment. Sure enough, we taught three first discussions that very night on each of the top three floors. We taught the Brasilians in the attic for a few weeks, and we got one or two discussions each from other brasilians on the sixth and seventh floors.

I miss the good times. The bad times can be forgotten, and most of them have, but I'll never forget the feeling of walking home after a long evening of tracting with Elder Wilson by my side and an ocean breeze filtering through the cobblestone streets in old Quarteira. I loved that, and I always knew that I'd miss it. For once, I appreciated what I had right when I had it. My feelings for Quarteira, Setubal, Moita and Praia da Vitoria can only be described as some kind of romance where everything is idealized into one glorious, beautiful walk past the beaches and through the back alleys of Europe.

It's a time that I'll never be able to recreate, so I shouldn't even try. Some things are like that. I want to visit Quarteira again some day, but I can't expect it to be the same, so I should probably leave that memory alone and never go back. I'll have the same feeling about college too, but those memories won't be so distant. They're not from another country, and their effects will be felt in every aspect of my future life, so they should stay a little more real to me.

I have to wonder if life gets better than this. I feel like I'm living a dream, and I'm going to wake up one day to a disappointing reality. I sure hope I can replay my life in Heaven. It should be like Tivo with a fast forward button for all of the least pleasant parts when I screamed at my mission companions and spent weekends alone in my apartment, wishing that I had somewhere to go and someone to go there with.

Setúbal on a rainy day

Fútebol at the Faro chapel (near Quarteira)

Oddly, I only have memories of empty beaches.

The unforgettable Corneo family

Nouzalter is the most motivated member-missionary I've ever met. We'd get calls from him telling us that we needed to run to his house, because he'd cornered some of his friends and we needed to teach them the first discussion. Nouzalter was also one of the top long jumpers in Portugal. He was actually jumping for the Benfica track team when I met him, but they wouldn't pay him enough, and he had to quit training and give up his plans for the Olympics. He used to make fun of me for being fat. I denied it, but looking back, 215 lbs. is a little chubby for me. In the middle is Elder Wilson, my favorite companion of all time.

I finally found a good blog editor

2005-12-31T00:50:00.000-07:00

I'm still trying to keep busy. I actually kept so busy today that I didn't even go running. That's pretty drastic. I've been running every chance I've had, but I spent most of today in Tempe with Alex Vittal. We tried writing another jazzy Brazilian song, but the melody wasn't flowing, so we bailed and went shopping at IKEA. Utah needs IKEA. Some of their stuff is cheap and looks like it's about to break, but most of it is quality.

I spent the night messing around with metal wire, solder and a small blow torch. I ended up twisting the wire around a bunch and soldering the ends closed. It's a funky looking bracelet. I don't know if it's worth wearing, but I kind of like how it's so unique. I'll keep it around.

I can't believe that it's New Year's Eve; I mean, I'll turn 24 in 2006, and I'll be done with my undergrad in 2007. Next month I'll have been home from my mission for a year in a half, and I still haven't dated anyone seriously. I'm afraid that I'll marry the first girl I date seriously, just because I've never made it past a two months with anyone. It's kind of disturbing to think that I don't know what it's like to date anyone for more than a couple of months.

I'm growing a beard.

Why Do Men Have Nipples?

2005-12-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

I'm done waiting for my grades. They're in, and I'm more than satisfied; I'm ecstatic. All of the hard work finally paid off, and now all I have left to do is to turn it all into an internship. I've got six or so companies to send my resume to, so I have a lot of work ahead of me. Justin just got in at Monitor, and he's not that much smarter than me, so I might stand a chance, but it makes me nervous.

I miss Provo! I miss the people in Provo and from Salt Lake too, and I can barely wait to get back. I'm enjoying Phoenix plenty. It gets a little old sometimes when I run out of things to keep me busy, but I'm actually doing pretty well. I've been running every day, and I've been doing my lunges and stretches, so I should be getting stronger for skiing in a week. I've also spent a lot of time pimping out my computer. I've got the Tiger operating system now, and I'm downloading widgets and extensions and fonts and desktop backgrounds and nifty little programs and anything else that I come across. Melissa keeps sending me links to new graphic design sites, so I'm staying entertained.

I had lunch today with Cheryl! We went to Manuel's, a funny little mexican restaurant, and our waiter was hilarious. He was straight out of the barrio with slicked back hair and a super-ghetto accent, and he was really relaxed and easy to deal with. Cheryl kept me entertained with stories from the dreaded Petsmart and all of our usual conversation topics. I realized that I live vicariously through her sometimes. She's got the best gauged ears. Hott.

Of Montreal has replaced Spoon as my band of the month. Wow. I finally bought the rest of Sunlandic Twins, and it's blowing my mind as we speak. Wow. If that weren't already enough, I've got all of the CD's that we gave each other for Christmas. I have more music than I can fully appreciate at the moment, so I'm just going to hide out with Sunlandic Twins until I'm sick of it, and then I'll venture out to appreciate the other new stuff.

AH! I can't forget to mention the Marcy reunion. I see this girl once every year or two, and it's always a treat. We went bowling last night. I suck at bowling, but I managed to win our last game, because everyone else there was sucking pretty badly too. I just managed to get fewer gutterballs. Anyway, we talked. It was good. She's in medical school in New York City, so we had plenty to talk about. Apparently, Anna just had a baby! Wow.

Life changes quickly, and I'm afraid, because I don't want anything to change. Not right now! I want to take a snapshot of the next month or so--which I am sure will be one of the best months of my life to date--and I want to pause everything for a year or two and just live and relive all of it. Maybe that's not quite accurate. I don't mind changes, but I want all of my relationships to be on fire. I don't want to be slowly drifting away from some people just because I need to drift closer to others. This January, I will have my cake and eat it too. I'll get to February later.

Christmas Fantasy Blog

2005-12-23T20:36:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a long break if I never get my grades. I can't stand this. Why can't my professors get grades in! They've had an entire week, and I want to start applying for internships with my hopefully new-and-improved GPA.

I've been running in the mornings. This morning was my first time out with both Scott and Eric. I don't know if all three of us have ever run together before, which is really strange, because we're all pretty serious about running, and you'd think that we'd run together all of the time. Eric, the youngest, led the run, and I think he took off a little too fast for Scott. We're all at varying degrees of out of shape right now, and I think Scott's been running the least. Anyway, it was a good time, and I want to do it every day of the break.

Being home has put me in a strange relationship position with the women of Utah, and I've come to the conclusion that I want all of the beautiful women of this world for myself. That might not be a realistic desire, but I'm sticking to it. This is my fantasy blog. I'm in control. Reality cannot limit my fantasy blog. Emotion cannot limit my fantasy blog. The eternal principles of dating and marriage cannot limit my fantasy blog. My fantasy blog transcends space and time. Anything is possible. I will form my own personal harem and fill its ranks with beautiful women. Yes.

Finito

2005-12-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

The semester is over, and all I have left to do this year is ski and apply for summer internships. I'm really excited, but I'm a tad worried that I didn't do quite well enough on one of my finals, so I might take a beating in one of the classes that I felt the best about. Oh well. It's been an amazing semester whether my professors give me the grades I want or not.

Chase's dance/birthday party was incredible. It took a long time to get going, and the cops made us shut down and move to another house, but it worked out perfectly. We ended up at the hospital cafe--cafe west--for the afterparty. I really need to throw some parties next year. Everyone seems to be itching for Musikfest Resurrection, so we can get that started and hopefully it'll be a weekly thing and I'll always have somewhere to be on Thursday nights, even if 80's falls through. Once that's going, it's dance party time. I need to find someone who can lend me his or her enormous speakers.

Fun! and Lambdas

2005-12-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

Now is the time to get back to blogging. I haven't been working very hard for the last couple of weeks, but that's about to change, because finals start on Monday. I'm not going to worry about them until Monday, and then it's on, and I'm taking no prisoners. I'm just aggressive like that. And talking trash provides motivation.

This has been a great weekend. It was a party on Wednesday, dancing on Thursday, Narnia for free on Friday, and Diamond Fork and painting today. I ran into Rachel Rollins Wednesday night at Rachel Fournet's cereal party. We're going to resurrect Musicfest, and it's going to be incredible. Hopefully, we can get it up and running after Christmas break.

As usual, dancing was great. The girl I danced with last week found me again. She's a lot of fun, but I'm not going to let it leave the dance floor. No Candice, I'm not getting her number.

We were freaking out last night, because we couldn't get tickets to see Narnia on opening night. Well, Betty came to our rescue and told us about a free showing in Payson. We were worried that it would be packed, but we had no trouble finding seats. Narnia was amazing. It was actually inspiring to see how ashamed Edmund was for selling out his friends. All he got for it was some hot chocolate and a turkish delight. I was mad at him through the beginning, because he reminded me a lot of my little brother Eric. He always had to disagree, and he'd lie whenever lying was convenient. He turned around in the end and used his experiences to his advantage. Maybe Eric will pull the same turnaround.

Most everyone had to bail on Diamond Fork this morning, but Melissa, Lindsay, Chad and Jeremy Neely held strong, and we had an amazing trip. The weather was clear and relatively warm. The pots were good and so was the company. Chad is officially the funniest person I know. Afterward, I went with Melissa to her studio. She needed some company while she worked on a few of her projects, and I got to mess around with paint! I made two pieces that went directly to my wall. One is a couple of lambdas (the sexiest character) side by side, and the other is two spraypaint stencils, a leaf, and an exclamation mark.

And I say, "Self, great day!"

2005-12-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful day. I have to recap it all before I forget about it.

Robbie woke me up at 10pm to make plans for Divine Comedy. Receiving a wake up call from Robbie was very fitting for the day. I was glad that he called, because I was not getting myself out of bed on my own, and I needed to get my day started. I spent the next three or four hours finishing two enormous papers that are due on Monday. I am so relieved to have that stuff behind me. I've done more writing in the last semester than ever before, and I'm getting to the point where it doesn't bug me anymore. This is exciting.

Next, I took Lindsay to the grocery store and headed out to Divine Comedy with Robbie, Wiggle, Wendy and a guy whom I just met named Justin. Anyway, DC was better than I expected it to be. It had it's ups and downs, and I could have done without some of the Mormon in-jokes, but I enjoyed it. Then we headed to the Village Inn, got free food from a friend who serves there, and out of the blue I decided to keep Candice company while she drove Damon home to SLC. I thought we were just going up and back, but we were actually going to watch a movie and drive home the next day (this morning). We watched the movie Speak. The acting is amazing. The actress who plays the main character captured all of the right emotions and made the girl's story entirely believable.

Anyway, I'm home now, and it's 2 pm Sunday afternoon. The entire day was improvised and unexpected, and I want every day to be just like it.

Media Frenzy

2005-11-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

I finally posted a new photo album, but it's nothing special. There are a few video clips that I've had online for various reasons and never linked to. Anyway, this new page might be entertaining. It's even got a bunch of songs that I wrote on my computer and one that I did with my buddy Alex from Phoenix (versa portuguesa).
Media Frenzy

Not Normally Distributed, ie. Lots of Skewness and Kurtosis

2005-11-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

The graph below shows the errors for the data set I've been analyzing for econometrics. The blue line represents how the errors should look, and the ugly lines that jump all over the place are what they actually look like. This is disappointing; however, the project will go on, and I will get a good grade in my class. So much for everything being perfect.

In other news, the rest of life isn't quite perfect either, but I can't complain. I'm still as excited as ever, and the possibilities for the future are endless. I passed my 16-credit Portuguese exam, so that'll give my GPA a shot in the arm. I'm going to have to update the resume! After all is said and done, I might actually get an internship. Incredible. I tore my last midterm apart. Hard work and preparation always seem to pay off! Now I'm down to a few PowerPoint presentations, some paper revisions and final exams. That's it. That's the entire semester.

Aftermath

2005-11-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving was great, and I loved being home with the family. Now I've got to pull everything back together and finish off this semester. We rolled into Provo at 6:40 pm--exactly nine hours and ten minutes after we left our house in Phoenix. That's an all-time record. We could have done it faster if we hadn't hit traffic outside of Nephi. Anyway, the trip was uneventful.

So I walk in the door to my house and realize that I'm not in a house--I'm in an ice box. I turned off the heat before I left on Wednesday, so the house froze over the weekend. It's taking forever to heat back up, so I'm sitting here shivering in my jacket.

Nobody's answering my phone calls darn it. What's going on? I have to get out of this house before my feet freeze off.

Thanksgiving 2005

2005-11-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

I've actually spent the day thinking about what I'm thankful for. I know. It's amazing that the whole spirit of Thanksgiving can actually mean something. I'm excited to be home, and I'm amazed at how happy I am to be around my family, but what I'm really excited about is that I actually miss Provo. I haven't always missed Provo like this, but I miss it now, and not because of the actual place but because of the great people who surround me. I feel at home in Provo, and that is incredible. I wish I could have everyone in one place, but living away from home makes me appreciate it that much more, so it's worth the sacrifice.

So, my dad bought this car while I was at school. It's a Lotus Elise. He let me drive it this afternoon, and the experience just about gave me a heart attack. I got it up to 100 MPH in fourth gear on the on-ramp to the freeway. I've done 100 in other cars before, but never with that acceleration and never with that much control. I felt like I could have easily pushed it up another 30 MPH. I want to take that thing to a race track, because driving it the speed limit is a crime. I mean, if you were an eagle, would you walk to the lake to get a drink and to catch some food? No. You'd fly there. The lotus felt like it was taking a walk down the freeway, and it needs to fly. I cannot imagine a sexier car.

Junior Kickstart

2005-11-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

Due to popular demand--mostly a comment by Sunnie and a general understanding that people want to see pictures--I'm posting photos from Thursday at Area 51 and Saturday at karaoke.

This blog has strayed pretty far from its original purpose--Chris's highly personal account of all of the happenings in his life--to a broader, more public purpose--archiving Chris's not-quite-so sensitive thoughts and feelings and broadcasting them worldwide. Surprisingly, the not-quite-so senstive things that I post on here aren't too far from my deepest thoughts and feelings, so I'm happy with the direction this blog is taking, and I look forward to a bright blogging future in the months and years to come.

Menos El Oso

2005-11-20T20:47:00.000-07:00

Last night was some kind of musical orgy. I signed up for an online music service and got enough music to keep my busy for weeks. To top it off, we left for SLC at about 10:30 and spent the next three hours singing karaoke at some new Korean karaoke shop. Apparently the owners are Mormon, so their place isn't a karaoke bar; it's a pool hall with karaoke rooms upstairs. Last night was my first karaoke experience, and I was impressed. It's just like going dancing--you need the right kind of people to make it fun. Fortunately, our group was hilarious.

Robbie talked tonight at his very own ward fireside. I was a bit surprised that he was doing the entire thing himself, but his message was excellent. He told his conversion story which includes cliff jumping, a crushed vertebra, 8 months of extreme back pain, ten million dollars and then no ten millions dollars and a miraculously healed back. The story is interesting in itself, but the way it involves the gospel is incredible. I'm glad I know that kid, not just because of his crazy stories, but also because he's inspiring and hilarious.

Now that I think about it, I don't think that I've ever had a better group of friends than I have right now. As cheesy as that may sound, it's completely true. I was a bit of a loner in high school, and I've always had trouble finding people that interest me. All of a sudden I find myself completely satisfied with the people whom I know. Thats kind of surreal to think about, because I'm not usually satisfied with anything, but I'm satisfied with the way life is going right now, and I hope that I can keep it all up for as long as I live in Provo.

Shown Up By Brooke

2005-11-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

Apparently my youngest sister Brooke not only updates her blog more often than I do, but she's funnier too. What am I supposed to do about this?

Spoon on Monday was incredible. I haven't seen a show that amazing for a long time. Unfortunately, we stood right next to a speaker, so my right ear is still ringing. I need to be better about the earplugs, because I'll go deaf otherwise. I spend so much time listening to extremely loud music at shows and clubs that I'm going to either be deaf or have a permanent ringing in my ears. I've looked into the ringing thing. It's called tinitus, and it's more common than most people think. Basically, you just have to damage your ear drums enough times and the ringing starts and doesn't stop. I've only had the ringing last more than a day once before, and that scared me a lot. The longer this continues, the more nervous I'm going to get.

Last night was New York Doll. I'm glad to finally see it, but I was a little disappointed. I spent the whole time feeling sad for Arthur Kane. He had the best years of his life between the ages of 18 and 22, and then he burned out and spent the next thirty years wishing he could recapture the past. His brain was too fried to make anything happen, so he ended up living off of government disability insurance and working in the family history library at the LA temple. At least he found the church. What do people live for if they don't have the gospel? I would probably be living for love, money and other people's attention without anything more significant to keep me going.

Bloggerworm

2005-11-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

My youngest sister Brooke just started up her own blog. She's only ten, but she can write better than most high school kids, plus she's hilarious. I mean really really funny.
Brooke's a Bloggerworm

Last.fm

2005-11-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

I have discovered Last.fm. I owe Mr. John Nuttal a big thank you for the hot tip. Now you can track my every listening move at my Last.fm page. I'm glad that someone thought this site up and made it happen. This is the kind of site that makes me want to be an entrepreneur and do something really creative and useful.

I want to go dancing. This has been a great weekend, but it needed some dancing to round it out. Yesterday (Saturday) was our thrift store marathon. It wasn't quite a marathon, but it was incredible. I got two picture frames, a hideous poster, a brief case, trivial pursuit and my first sweater in years. I really haven't worn a sweater in forever, but I'm loving the one Eric found for me at Saver's. It's dark blue with one of those old snowflake designs across the chest. I need more sweaters like this one. I also need to play some trivial pursuit.

Kevin, my roommate, woke me up at 8:30 this morning to go to some sort of stake priesthood meeting at ten. I groaned and got out of bed. Fortunately, I didn't take a shower. As soon as we got there, we realized that it was stake priesthood leadership meeting. I wanted to be really pissed off at Kevin, but he always has such good intentions. The funny thing is that I'd mentioned while we were eating breakfast that I'd never been to a stake priesthood meeting before. He said they always went along with stake conference. He was wrong.

Blood Brothers

2005-11-11T16:10:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted to here for a while, so it's time. I've had a great week, but it's been difficult. I woke up Monday morning with a strange need to ask that girl out, so I did it that afternoon over the phone. I just called her up and asked her when I could take her to lunch. We went this afternoon, but we were both in a huge hurry, so we didn't even get to eat together. We had to get our food to go and run back to campus. I felt like I'd kind of blown it, but I don't think she minded. I used it as an excuse to go out next week and make it right. I'm going to start putting my self-confidence to use by actually asking girls out instead of being a bum and waiting for stuff to happen on its own.

I got an 84% on my 16-credit portuguese exam. I'm a little ticked off, because the questions were retarded. I'm getting A's on all of my port 321 tests, and I only get an 84% when I try to test out of the 100- and 200-level classes. Lame. Anyway, I can still accept 13 credits of A, and that should help my GPA out a bunch.

School is intense. I'm looking forward to next semester, because I'll be taking the business managment integrated core, meaning that I'll be in all of the same classes with all of the same people. It's a clever way to promote teamwork, and I think it will simplify my life a bit, because all of the classes will be related to each other, and everyone will have the same schedule as me. This semester is kind of chaotic, because I have two econ classes, a portuguese grammar class, religion and that lame public management class. My schedule is really disjointed.

I bought the latest Spoon CD, and I love it! I love how their music isn't too complicted and how the piano, vocals and guitar all interact. Music makes life more enjoyable.

Library G.F.

2005-11-07T00:58:00.000-07:00

Game night was great! The turnout was excellent, and the Taboo was good. My friends make me happy.

I went to visit the library g.f. tonight after games. She was with all of her roommates, and she was concentrating on this watercolor painting that she's been working on. I realized that I'm not really that interested in her. She's cute and fun, but not quite enough to keep me interested for too long.

I spent church today thinking that I need to ask out this girl in my ward. She's really pretty, and she has a completely irresistible smile. I mostly just want to see her smile at me as much as possible. I need to just suck it up and give her a call. Now, the thought of dating this girl makes me wonder how she’ll relate to my friends. How is that supposed to operate? What if the g.f. doesn’t hit it off with the friends? What’s the protocol? Do I dump the g.f. or do I keep the relationship separate and just spend less time with the friends? I don’t like either of those options, and I find the dichotomy to be entirely unfair.

blackmail

2005-11-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

My name is Scott. I have hijacked this blog. I am operating under time constraints due to the legitimate operator's close proximity. Enjoy

Trashing Days

2005-11-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

I spent all day working on an econ paper for this Thursday, and it left me with the strangest feeling. I've spent the entire day isolated from the outside world, and I don't know if I want to go back out there. I feel like reading, and I think I might download a free ebook from gutenberg.org, grab a few blankets, and spend a cozy night with my laptop. The other option is a cozy night with a DVD. I haven't stayed in for a long time, and I don't know if it will happen again tonight, but I wouldn't mind if it did.

I've been listening to Neon Golden by the Notwist, and I love it. The music is so serene and beautiful, but at the same time, it grates every once in a while for a little contrast. The beats are intricate and layered, but they don't always match up. Sometimes the beat gets completely lost in the beeps and the pops until the songs devolve into noise.

Life's good, but sometimes it doesn't seem quite real. I've maneuvered myself into this position somehow, and I never would have guessed that things would have worked out as they have. Now I have to wonder where I'm headed next. What little decisions will I make and where will they lead me. Most everything that's happened to me in the last six months is a result of one or two small decisions that I made in April. It's
amazing.

Black & White

2005-11-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

This has been an eventful week, and I'm kind of tired, but I must forge ahead. Rachel Lee's All Saint's Day party was excellent. I actually got dressed up and painted my face white and black. Yeah, that's me in the picture below. The black eye stuff wouldn't come off, so I still look like I'm wearing eyeliner. It's a dramatic effect. I have a ton of work to get done this weekend, but I'm confident that I can pull it off. I'm looking forward to getting it finished. Also, I'm going dancing tonight, so I'm excited.

Sheesh

2005-10-31T12:34:00.000-07:00

I'm blown away. How am I supposed to know these things? The last 24 hours have been full of self-reflection for a lot of reasons. Our ward had the yearly "chastity talk." I feel like I'm going to hell, but I wont. Being good is important. Second . . . I'm not going to comment on the second reason for reflection right now. It should be enough to say that I have more than one reason for reflection.

No Dice

2005-10-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

Vegas didn't happen. It was sad, but I'll find plenty of other amazing things to do tonight. Here are some photos from Area on Thursday for anyone who may be interested.

2005-10-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

Ice was amazing. Damon got us all VIP passes and even got the younguns (Scott, Lindsay, Rachel Lee and Candace) in the 21+ area, which was key because the under 21 section was terrible. Anyway, we had a good time. I saw an old mission friend, but I didn't say anything to him, because he had a cigarette and a drink that could not have been sprite or red bull. That was kind of sad, but it's a good reminder that I'm not invincible. School is still amazing. My scheme to take my hardest econ course along with a bunch of easier classes has been paying off. If things keep going as they have, I'm on track for my best semester yet. In other breaking news, my econ TA buddy Hillary offered me a free ticket to the Vegoose music festival in Las Vegas. It's all going down on Saturday, so I'm frantically trying to get everything lined up for the trip. The only real cost to me will be the gas to get there and back and my entire Saturday, but I think I'll be able to pull it off if I work hard all Friday. This is probably the most action packed week of my life. If I go dancing in SLC tonight and go to Vegas on Saturday, I'll have gone clubbing two nights in a row and seen Iron & Wine and Calexico and an entire days worth of incredible music in Las Vegas. This is all set to occur within six days. Wow.

Chris, Rachel Lee, Lindsay and Scott

Drip Drip Drop

2005-10-26T18:26:00.000-07:00

This is what we were up to last Friday Night.

Diamond Fork and Somethinglocal

2005-10-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

I don't usually like to make this blog a timeline of events, but this has been a killer weekend. It all started off with Chad's talent show. We choreographed and performed an interpretive dance for his entire ward, and it went off without a hitch. That was exciting. Then Rachel Lee mentioned something about going to the hot pots at Diamond Fork, I called John, and that was that. It was an amazing, smelly night. Damon came down last night to hang out with us and to see a local band named Palomino. I don't usually like the local Provo bands, but Palomino was impressive. I'm a fan.

Anyway, this next week is going to be intense. I wont have quite as much school to take care of, so I'll have time to work on my papers. We're also going to Iron & Wine and Calexico tomorrow! And if that wasn't enough, Damon's fashion show is on Wednesday, so I'm going to at least two nights in SLC. I'm excited.

Nada

2005-10-21T20:42:00.000-07:00

I didn't get the internship call back, and the Kohl's people still haven't called me, so I can only assume that they're the kind of pricks who don't call you when they don't want to hire you. That kind of pisses me off, but I'll deal with it. I feel a bit better because my friend Justin, who I consider the smartest kid in my class, is having an even worse time. He's interviewing with a ton of companies and not one has bit. If they don't hire us, who are they hiring? I get really confused. I thought that being at or near the top of my class would be enough to get me interships and jobs. Lame.

Anyway, we're going to Diamond Fork hot springs tonight. I'm worried that we accidentally invited too many people, but I hope I'm wrong. We'll see. How do you uninvited someone without being rude? Is there even any etiquette for this? Lame.

Anyway, I'm not really in that bad a mood. Chad, Stevenson, Adam, Matt and I just performed in a ward talent show. It was hilarious. We started the dance routine inside garbage bags. We slowly emerged like we were hatching from eggs, and then we ripped off our shirts and it just got out of control. I'm going to post a link to the video file as soon I get it.

School's still going wonderfully, and I'm looking forward to a good week. My new library friend and I made each other mix cds this morning. New music makes me happy.

No Shh! Zone = Paradise

2005-10-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

I spent the entire day today in the No Shh! Zone of the library. The No Shh! Zone is the new Periodicals. I'll provide just a little background for those who may be unaquainted with BYU tradition. Periodicals is where everyond USED to go to hit and get hit on. If you needed a date and didn't have much of anything else going on, you just opened up a magazine in Periodicals and wait for something delicious to walk by. I've been studying in the No Shh! Zone for about two months now. I didn't go there looking for any action, but lo and behold, the action finds you in the No Shh! Zone. I'm sitting there, innocently wrapped up in my labor econ book, and some girl comments on my shirt and starts up a conversation with me. Now we're myspace friends and have traded a couple of myspace messages. The funny part is that my roomie, Brian, had the exact same girl come up to him sometime last year, comment on his shirt, and have the exact same conversation with him that she had with me. He told me a few of the details, and my experience was identical. This is hilarious. I will undoubtably continue to frequent the No Shh! Zone, because it's the best and most convenient place to study on campus. It also has the best assortment of attractive people to check out when I'm sick and tired of my econ. Could I ask for anything more?

Photographic Extravaganza/iPhoto Is Incredible

2005-10-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of photo albums that I put together today. They're themed.

Assortment
SLC

Djibouti

2005-10-15T12:13:00.000-07:00

I'm 23 years old today. I finished my mission on July 15 2004, so I've been adjusting to real life for 15 months as of today. I kind of like odd-numbered ages; they're so edgy, and I can always use a some extra edgy in my life.

I'm probably the happiest right now that I've ever been. I don't feel quite as spiritually in tune as I was in Portugal, but I have a much better grasp on reality and feel mentally and physically healthy. To top it all off, October is the best month of the year, so I don't know that life could get any better.

Kohl's -- Expect Great Things

2005-10-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

I interviewed with Kohl's Department Stores this morning. The interview went well, but the interviewer had a strange style. He didn't ask me any probing questions; he just went off about Kohl's internship program and asked me why I wanted to work with Kohl's. I talked to an MBA friend of mine who told me that I'd just experienced a bad interviewer. Apparently interviewers are supposed to dig into the applicant's decision-making process and ability to deal with failure. I felt like I did as well as I could have given the way the conversation went. During the interview, I found a mistake on my resume. I wrote that I was graduating in December of 2007, and my real graduation date is April of 2007. That makes a big difference in the recruiting schedule, and I think that's why I missed out on a bunch of interviews that I really wanted. While this really sucks, I have to be thankful that I got at least two interviews in spite of the error. If I can get offers, I'll at least be in a position to get some experience and possibly have a job next summer.

My main concern is that I might be overqualified for the Kohl's position. I'd be analyzing sales numbers, making forecasts, and ordering millions of dollars in inventory. That sounds interesting, but what if I could use my qualifications to land a better position, possibly with a consulting firm or an investment bank. After talking to the Kohl's people, I felt like I had a lot more game than most of the guys there. If that's the truth, I could always count on rising through the ranks and getting promoted to a position that would fit my abilities a bit better. If I'm fooling myself, I should take any offer I can get and not put up a fuss. I'll just have to see what happens. I feel like I should get to use the difficult theory and analytical techniques that I'm learning instead of massaging numbers through an inventory managment program and interpreting the results. All of this makes me wonder a lot about my future. Whatever happens, I had better be well paid, 'cause I'm putting myself through the most difficult education that I can conjure up.

Oil Rig!

2005-10-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

I got my oil changed! It's very exciting. I also went to Demae with Chad. We meant to bring dates, but then we weren't going to go, and then we went anyway, so we didn't have time to plan it. We wouldn't have found dates anyway. We let ourselves dream sometimes.

I got my 110 papers graded today, because the class I'm assigned to is having a test. I was really worried about the kids. Their last two homeworks have been really bad, and most of them haven't been going to the TA lab for help. I sent an email out to everyone whose papers I grade to tell them that they should pick up their homework and be very very afraid for the test. Maybe one or two of them will study a bit more, or maybe not. We'll have to see.

My mom has been reading this blog. Hi Mom. Apparently she likes to see my personal view of my life. Can I blame her?

Rachel Lee just got pissed at me for giving her crap about school. I'm sorry Rachel. I wish I could tell if you were messing with me or not.

I had my first good AIM conversation in a long time with Ronny tonight. That was nice.

I'm still loving The Go! Team. They have such a unique sound!

Life is coming at me really fast these days. School is like an avalanche that I have to sprint to stay in front of. I can do it, but I can't let my desire falter or I'm toast. Goodnight blog.

I've got a bunch of stuff to do

2005-10-09T22:31:00.000-07:00

I've got a bunch of stuff to do to get on top of school and life in general. On nights like these, I'm ticked off about school and dating--the two most aggravating parts of my life. Well, money can be a little aggravating, but I've kept ahead of my bills and I've gone out a ton, so I can't really complain. My aggravations are basically just school and not dating. The funny thing is that I'm doing better than I ever have before at getting A's in my classes. I'm seriously kicking trash. I don't know what happened. The only problem is that I'm paranoid that it's all going to come to an abrupt end. I don't know when, but I have a lot of papers due in the next month, I have an evil midterm next week, and I have to keep up with homework and my TA job while trying to find an internship for next summer and going out every chance I get. So, even though I'm out of the house more than I've ever been, I don't ask anyone out . . . ever. Maybe if I put as much effort into getting dates as I did into getting grades I'd do better. Hmm. Anyway, enough of that.

I got an amazing CD last night. It's by The Go! Team, and it's called Thunder, Lighting, Strike. I love it. The whole disc is instrumental with a few scattered vocal tracks that are mostly gibberish. The trick is that the entire CD is very rhythmic and the instruments include horns, piano and a harmonica. The sound is nearly impossible to describe and incomparable to anything I've heard before. I describe it as super-playful dancehall with sunshine harmonica melodies and double-dutch chanting vocals. Listen and love. That is all.

Never Again

2005-10-08T01:00:00.000-07:00

I got called "sugar tits" tonight. Did I feel violated? Yes. Will that ever happen again? Hell no. No one saw anything, and I spent the entire night playing solitaire in my bedroom. Yes.

Bulldog Blvd. and My Phone

2005-10-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

My phone fell out of my pocket while I was biking along Bulldog Blvd. this evening. When I went back to find it an hour and a half later, the only part that still worked was the SIM card. That means that all I don't need to set up a new account or anything, but I do need everyone's phone numbers again. I'm going to buy a new phone tomorrow, so I would appreciate any phone numbers that anyone who reads this could email me. If I know you, a name will suffice. If I don't, I might need a bit more description to know if I should call you or not.

PhotoFest

2005-10-03T23:40:00.000-07:00

Sisters (Brooke and Shelley)

High School

More PhotoFest

2005-10-03T23:37:00.000-07:00

It's late and I've spent too much time on my Pmgt 385 class. I've got a test tomorrow on top of a ton of other junk to do, so I need to get to sleep. This has been a long and productive day. Sometimes I wish I could work a 9 to 5 job, go home and not even think about it, but I like this. School dominates my life and gives me a sense of purpose. I might suck at everything else that I do, but I do pretty well in the classroom. This year is the hardest I've had so far, so things should get really exciting really fast.

I want to go dancing on Tuesday! I need to get lots of fun people to go with me. I'll probably end up in SLC on Friday too for a show. Death Cab would be nice, but I'm not sure if I want to spend the time AND the cash to get up there. I'll have to see how my schedule looks Friday night. I wonder if life will always be this complicated.

Mission Mug Shot

Mt. Ranier

Elementary School

Eric (Brother)

Chad (Good Friend/Former Roommate)

Frustrado

2005-10-02T01:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight was a dating frustration night. You know, one of those nights when you and your roommates get home at the same time, and all you can talk about is how you're having no luck at dating.

It all started at the hot tub. It's always a little easier to wish I had someone to date while surrounded by mostly naked people.
Anyway, I got home and my roommate Brian and I got to talking. The poor kid just broke up with his girlfriend of ten months, and he has no one. That's what happens when you date like that. You lose your friends. Brian and I got to talking about how he never meets girls and how I meet tons of girls and can never bring myself to ask any of them out. For some sick reason, I'd rather be friends. It lasts longer. Once I've dated a girl, we just can't be friends anymore. I try every time, but it never works.

I've probably had too much luck with my asexual friendship philosophy. I stumbled across it about a year ago, and it's been the basis of all of my good friendships since. The key to my method is that I can get much closer to a girl that I will never date than I can to anyone else. This may sound weird, but it's proven itself in practice time and time again. If there's any chance of developing an attraction, I act differently. I can't help it. I have to conciously decide and commit to never ever ask the girl out, and I'm good. I can be myself and there's no pressure. This philosophy leads to some killer friendships, but it's dating suicide.

I think that I shut myself up to some degree, because I refuse to pine over women. I hate the whole "crush" thing. If she doesn't like me in the first few meetings, why fight it? I could think about her, obssess a little, and try to win her heart, but then my perception of reality gets screwy and I hang on way too long. Additionally, I don't want to be a tool. There's something degrading about pining after a girl. If I have to convince her to fall in love with me, aren't I trying too hard? I refuse to compete. I refuse to be a backup. I don't want to get married to a girl who only started dating me because the guy she really wanted wouldn't ask her out.

Sometimes I worry that my standards are too high. Sometimes I think that I shouldn't build up my expectations and that I shouldn't worry if things aren't perfect. Then I remember every girl I've ever dated and just how accurate my first impressions have been. Goodness. Am I the only guy who knows exactly why he'll break up before he even starts dating? From the first date I always know exactly what will lead to the breakup, and it's just a matter of time before the little pebble in my all-stars starts to feel like a marble and then a jumping jack and eventually turns into one of those thumbtacks that always rolls over so that its pin sticks straight up in the air. At that point I get out while I still can, and I've usually waited a week too long by the time I've done it.

I'd like to find a girl that I don't have any reservations about dating. I want to find someone who I feel comfortable with right off that bat, who attracts me physically and whose heart I wont ever have to break. I don't believe that this is too much to ask.

Provo PD!

2005-10-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

Nobody was on campus today, so I was booking it down the bike path off the top of campus to the street below. I even passed a cop who was driving on the pedestrian side of the path. Who knows why he was on the pedestrian walkway. Anyway, at the bottom of the hill there weren't any cars, so I shot out into the bike lane and got into the left turn lane. I was going pretty fast and some white car was stopped in the turn lane about thirty feet in front of me. I did a stupid thing and pulled to the left of him and passed him while making the left hand turn that the driver was taking so long to make. I was still booking it down the road when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that a white car was pulling up on my right kind of fast, and I could just hear someone yelling over my ipod headphones. I figured that the driver I'd just passed was mad at me or something and wanted to get past me, so I pulled to the empty left side of the road and made a quick turn down a sidewalk to loose him. I wasn't sure what was going on behind me, but I wasn't looking back. I was getting out of there. The car that was following me caught up to me halfway down the sidewalk and it was the cop. I decided not to try to ditch the cop, which was a good idea.

The cop told me that I'd run a stop sign at the bottom of the hill and that I'd broken all sorts of laws when I pulled around the car. I disputed the existence of a stop sign. I've been on that hill every day for the last month and I can't remember any kind of sign, but maybe I'm just so used to stopping for the peds that I never noticed it. I played dumb about pulling around the car. It all happened pretty fast and I wasn't even sure what went down, so that was really easy to do. I'm still not sure if that's exactly how it happened, but I told him that the guy pulled in front of me, which I still think he did, but I can't remember how far ahead of me he was when he pulled out into the turn lane. Anyway, I'm going to have to be more careful about that hill. The funny thing is that I saw the cop and didn't think anything of it, and by the time the cop came after me I was inadvertently trying to ditch him already. I do the weirdest things sometimes.

Hick's Rules of Derived Demand

2005-09-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

I was asked to prove Hick's rules of derived demand today at the end of my 463 test. It was crap. Nobody I know in the class studied for it, and I doubt that many other people had any clue what was going on. I felt great about the rest of the test, but the last one was death. I like my teacher, but I hate cheap shots at the end of tests. It introduces way too much chance into the grading procedure.

Anyway, I'm exhausted from school and work, so I'm heading to bed for nap time. Then I want to party all night in SLC in celebration of Miss Fournet's 23rd year of life. I'm going do laundry and buy food too. I haven't had time to keep up on my housework, and I have two tests in the next five days, so I'm not going to have time to rest for a while.

In exciting news, I found my jacket at the lost and found. The dude told me that he didn't have it. I described it for him a second time and stressed that it really had to be in the lost and found. He agreed to look again, and two minutes later he had my jacket for me. Apparently it was stuffed under some other lost and found junk. I also saw the purses in the BYU Bookstore. They've got pretty good placement right to the left of the main entrance. I hope they sell!

Compensated Demand

2005-09-28T22:20:00.000-07:00

I'm pumped because I just got done with a big study session for my labor econ class. We have a big midterm tomorrow, and the study group was really helpful. I'm unhappy however, because I forgot my jacket in the study room, which is really lame. I don't know how I didn't get freezing cold on the way home, but I managed. I'll have to go reclaim it first thing in the morning.

Today was a great day at school. I got to spend a bit of quality library time with a friend of mine, and I'm starting to get a bit attached to her. This can only be a good thing. I learned a ton in 388, and I'm really excited that I know what I'm talking about in 463. I ended up leading the study group, because I had a good understanding of how the graphs worked, and I had prepared pretty well already. It was a confidence booster.

I'm exhausted.

Human Development

2005-09-22T16:16:00.000-07:00

When I showed up to teach my TA session this afternoon, I found three girls working on a group paper at the computer station in the front of the classroom. No one showed up for my review, so I'm sitting here, getting paid and listening to these girls discuss their paper.

The paper is on a study of female development and early puberty, and the entire discussion centers on young girls' body image and perceived attractiveness. Apparently, girls who hit puberty early gain a bunch of weight and feel less attractive than girls who develop later. Girls who develop later tend to stay skinnier and feel better about themselves through middle school.

The discussion these three girls are having is ironic, because all three were obviously early developers, and they were all kind of frumpy too. Big, frumpy girls understand intuitively that they're not very attractive to men, but do they understand the cause and effect of how they eat, dress, and are? This reminds me of my uncle who has a persistent habit of ruining his own life. He studied psychology at the U and never used his degree. Like my uncle, these girls seem to have gravitated to a major that enables them to study their weaknesses full time. I wonder what that says about me.

I understand how frumpy girls feel. I might have a sleek, stylish appearance and an air of confidence, but I've been there, and I've experienced frumpiness firsthand. My parents dressed me up until the 9th grade. I wore short jean shorts, even shorter green and purple polyester shorts and t-shirts with frogs all over them. I never got haircuts. I didn't realized that I could wash my face to prevent zits until halfway through my freshman year of high school. I sang soprano in a boys choir for years, took trumpet lessons, played chess, and read. I didn't have any friends that I respected very much, and I either sat by myself at lunch or I hung out at the weirdos' table.

I always knew that I wasn't a weirdo, but I didn't know how to show it. I hated eating lunch with my geeky friends because they were so boring and immature. One of them got pissed at me in the sixth grade and followed me around the playground until I finally broke, tried to tackle him, and got my trash kicked. This kid went on to be third string quarterback on our high school football team. We didn't win even half of our games that year.

When I see kids that haven't quite overcome that phase yet and walk around campus in their frog-covered t-shirts, hunched over under the weight of enormous backpacks full of oversized textbooks and nasty peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I feel their pain. I shed the weird t-shirts long ago, but I still sport the oversized backpack and the pb&j disaster mashed between my graphing calculator and my laptop.

Some things have changed, but they're all external. I'm still the same nerd that I always was; I just have some status symbols to keep me company and make me feel special. That's all any of us want anyway. We want to be special, and we want people to tell us that we're special, so try to differentiate ourselves from the crowd. We want meaning. We want to love, to be loved, and to deserve all of the love that we get.

I don't know what these girls are really thinking, but they look like they want to understand why they don't feel attractive. The answer is obvious, but they're not satisfied with that. They're digging into their past to try to explain their present. I hope they can find a solution to their problems. Maybe their pasts will cough up some answers, but I suspect that they're going to have to rely on diet, exercise, and a slightly more feminine wardrobe.

A Time To Blog

2005-09-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

I bought new cons yesterday, because my old pair was toast. I tried to talk myself into a bunch of different shoes, but I couldn't find anything that I liked more than the original cons. It felt a little lame to buy the exact same pair of shoes that I was replacing, but I must follow my conscience, and my conscience said classic cons.

School isn't worrying me much yet, and that in itself is a bit disturbing. I feel like I know what's going on, and next week's midterms will show my true preparation. My econometrics class is supposed to be killer, and it's hard for me, but I feel like I'm on top of the material. The same goes for my labor econ class. I have to remind myself that these classes are famous for being impossible, so I need to study a ton. Enough of school.

I got the purses into the BYU Bookstore. They took twelve on consignment, and they'll take more of these sell. I pitched the purses to a few other stores around Provo. One store accepted four, and the other will probably accept some if I can get a hold of the owner. I was nervous the first time I pitched the bags to the manager at the bookstore, but once I got talking I switched into missionary mode and things went pretty well. For some reason I can switch off my emotions and fears when I'm talking to people I don't know. I must have learned to do that in Portugal, because I feel like a missionary every time I do it.

I went dancing on Tuesday with Lindsay, Rachel Lee and Damon. We had an amazing time and I can't wait to go again. My plan is to go on Monday after the Architecture in Helsinki show, but we'll have to see if it all works out.

Rock the Block

2005-09-18T01:01:00.000-07:00

My friends from freshman year threw an enormous block party tonight, and I went with Rachel Lee and her roommies. The party had a lot of potential, but there were too many people, not enough dancing, and the DJ wouldn't stop talking. DJ's shouldn't talk. Ever. The DJ is there to provide good music, not gay comments. Anyway, I was pissed at that and at the retarded crowd. I'm going to try to get the same people to go to 80's night with me and escape the lame Provo party scene. Lame.

Anyway, Mom and Dad came to SLC for a conference. Dad taught a bunch of doctors how to cut off blood flow to uterine cancer cells, so they paid for him to fly to SLC. That meant that Lindsay, Scott and I got to hang out with Mom and Dad for two days. It was excellent, and I miss them. I'm glad I have a happy family.

The weather is getting amazing. Scott and I went running this morning and loved every minute of it. We're getting faster, and we have an appetite for big hills. Every time Scott suggested a turn, we'd head up some kind of mountain. We survived, and I'm excited to run more next week.

Dance Revolution

2005-09-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

80's night was amazing last night as it always is with good friends to dance with. I brought Scott, and I think he had a bit of trouble with the crowd, which is understandable. I had some trouble with the crowd too, because there were just too many people, and I need my space.

I'm not going to write too much today. I'm in a lazy mood, and I need to take a nap to make up for lost sleep, but I'm going to quickly vent about the campus women. I keep seeing the most beautiful girls up on campus and wondering why I don't know them. I know lots of beautiful girls, let there be no misunderstanding, but I want to know them all! I need to make personal business cards, hand them out to all off the beautiful females on campus, and hold a personal convention where I'd meet all of them, get their phone numbers, and live happily forever after. Of course, I can't even ask out the girls I know, so this is most likely just a fantasy and will never happen.

Yeah!

2005-09-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

We had an amazing time at 80's night this morning. I say this morning because I didn't get home until 4am. Of course, I was up at 7:30 to get ready for school. The lack of sleep doesn't hit me for a while, so I'm still feeling energetic sitting here in the library before class. I took a bunch of pictures of the action last night, and I've posted a zip file online that's full of beautiful action photos you might not want to miss.

http://www.zeepers.com/images/danceexplosion.zip

$2.87!

2005-09-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

I'm pissed off that Blogger keeps losing my blogs. I can't write into the Blogger text editor anymore. It can't be trusted!

The semester has started out well, and I feel organized because of the palm pilot I stole from home. No one was using it, so Mom just gave it to me. I'm getting a lot of use out of it, because my life gets more complicated every day.

I bought a ten dollar bike from D.I. I'm going to fix it up and try to save some gas. I dropped $40 at the pump yesterday, and I'm pissed. I really don't have this kind of money, and I'm worried about how I'm going to substitute away from from the car. I need to save the car for weekends and for grocery shopping, but that's really hard to do when I want to drive all around town every day. I miss cheap gas.

I got all of my econ regressions run yesterday, and they turned out perfectly. I was kind of proud of myself, because I had no idea how to do it a few days ago, and the tutorial Prof. Butler gave us was kind of thin on explanation. Now I just have to write the paper, but that shouldn't be too hard.

I want to date, but I don't know if it will ever happen. Rachel Lee's got two very available roommates, but all three of them live in the same house, and I can't seem to talk myself into asking either of them out. When I showed up for church, I instantly made friends with half of the girls in the ward. I'm steering clear of most of them, but one actually looks interesting. I need to know a lot more, and I'm taking my time.

Hardy 189

2005-08-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

I just moved into my new place on 300 West. It's enormous, and I love it, but I have nothing: no furniture, no kitchen supplies, and no roommates. I also broke up with Holly on Thursday, so I don't have a girlfriend either. Breaking up was kind of painful for me, but it had to be done. She was wonderful about it, which helped, but I still got all emotional. I want things to work, and when they don't, I feel responsible. And I hated to disappoint Holly.

Anyway, the moment I broke up with Holly, I met Rachel Lee's roommates. This is ironic, because they're beautiful, and I could see myself dating one of them. We'll have to see if anything happens there, but I don't think Rachel Lee will be very helpful. I really don't know what's going on there.

I want to go biking this morning. Somehow, I'm going to find my way to the lookout on Squaw Peak. This will take me a few hours, but it will be worth it, because the descent is incredible.

I applied for an internship in Scottsdale next summer. It felt weird to finally be applying for such an important part of my education, and I'm scared that I will mess things up and find myself working a pointless job next summer. I have all of the qualifications; in fact, I'm more than qualified.
People would kill for my resume, and I still feel like I'll get rejected. I'm going to have to start applying in earnest this semester.

I had a great time being home with my family, and I'm glad I spent only a week in Phoenix. I could have left one day earlier. I enjoy being with my family, but I get bored after a few days. The best part of being home is talking with my parents. Mom and Dad make me dig through my emotions, because they question everything I say. Dad talked to me a lot about Holly, trying to talk me into keeping the relationship for a while longer, and he made me realize that I couldn't keep it up another day. It's sad to come to that realization, but I acted on it, and I'm glad. I could have dated Holly for a long time, but I didn't feel like I could marry her, and that's the nail in the coffin.

Argh

2005-08-14T00:50:00.000-07:00

I got really frustrated tonight at work. I get frustrated sometimes, and I can't seem to get it out of my head. Fortunately, I had Holly to talk to tonight. We planned to spend some time together tonight, and I got home too late for curfew, so we went for a walk up on campus.

I took a ton of photos today with my handy little camera. I should post some.

You probably need to be familiar with Los Hermanos to fully appreciate all of these scenes, the covert phone call in particular. This is a general documentation of all of the people I hang out with, most of whom are much more photogenic than I am. I have a picture of Damon too, but I think the photo makes him look like a monkey, so I wont post it. I don't think he'd appreciate that.

Frozen Strawberries Revisited

2005-08-06T02:48:00.000-07:00

I don't feel at all like I did last night. The moment I saw her today, I wanted her again, and I don't know why. I can't explain this to myself. I don't want to try.

Frozen Strawberries

2005-08-05T16:06:00.000-07:00

I'm chewing on a frozen strawberry and contemplating my life before I get dressed and go to work today. I'm sad to be losing so many friends by quitting Los, but I'm also starting to get a little bored with the work. It's not a challenge to give good service anymore, so I don't see myself learning anything new, and I'm starting to lose my tolerance of $2.13 an hour for rolling silverware. We'll call it the Los Hermanos Mexican Sweatshop.

I want to be close to Holly, and I want companionship. That's what this is really about. She's a great person, but she doesn't excite me or motivate me to be more than I already am. I'm not going to grow with this relationship except to the extent that I learn how to date and treat a girl right. I do respect her, which is more than I can say for some of the girls that I've dated. I'm sad that this hasn't grown to be more than a crush, and I don't want to have to end it. I hate ending relationships, even though it's never as painful as I fear. I want Holly to be happy, but I don't think I can make her happy. I don't think I can grow close enough to her emotionally to love her. I don't know that I'm ready to stop trying quite yet, but I need to start considering it as an option and work my way up to it. I hate to disappoint people like Holly. She's too pure. She's too trusting and innocent for me to feel comfortable telling her that I can't carry this any further.

T Is For Tomatoes; Pincushion Tomatoes.

2005-08-04T00:47:00.000-07:00

Life is good. I've got a job that I like, and I'm quitting it for a job that I like even more: school. I just bought a nice little camera to stick in my pocket and record the next few years of my life on a flash drive. I spent last night in SLC with a nice young woman from my ward, and John and I are finally getting our purses made. This is all a lot of work, but I like it, so I keep it up.

I don't know much about serious dating. I understand what its like to get caught up in a crush, have a good couple of weeks, and get so freaked out that I can't ask a girl out for months. That's the story of my dating life, and it needs some transformation. I must not understand things very well, because I'm a disaster, and I need to change how I go about things.

Blech

2005-07-31T10:13:00.000-07:00

It was great to see my immediate family this weekend, but the extended family reunion just about killed me. We spent five hours sitting around a dusty ampitheater in the middle of the desert waiting for and then watching the yearly Castle Dale pageant. The only people that I wanted to talk to the whole weekend were my parents and brother and sisters. Scott wasn't there. Punk. He sure missed a lot, and he had the house to himself for an entire weekend. What a life. To top it all off, I got a sore throat and runny nose, and Lindsay threw up three times the night after the pageant. The only person I have to blame for my crappy weekend is myself, but could I really have known better than to have gone to the reunion? Never again. Maybe things will have changed in a couple of years, but I doubt it.

I'm still trying to figure out what I want to happen with Holly. I wish things didn't have to be so complicated and I didn't have to be so picky.

I moved back into my basement room, and I'm finally sleeping through the night. I'm also in house cleaning mode, and that makes me happy.

Desperate Guys

2005-07-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

I got really pissed off yesterday morning, because Danny was all over my sister the night before. Lindsay can generally handle herself, but I don't think she sees what's going on. As far as I can tell, Danny throws himself all over every girl that he can. He doesn't use physical affection to communicate feelings of love and attraction; he uses physical affection to gratify his horny little self. I called Lindsay up and told her to talk with Danny to clear things up. If he really liked her and wanted to date her exclusively, that would be fine. Of course, they're not dating at all, and Danny's going back to California in a month. Grow up people. Just grow up.

The zipper material is finally coming. It should be here sometime next week.

I bought a digital camera for $100 the other day. I'm pumped, because it's the size of a credit card. I mean, it's a little thicker, but it's plenty small to keep in my pocket all of the time. I can't wait to get it.

I'm torn. I like girls, but I don't like any one girl. Half of me is in love with Holly while the other half is kind of disinterested. That second half is crazy about completely different people, and it never seems to agree with the first half. One day, when both halves agree on the same person, I'll be in business.

Provopulse Comments Are Homoerotic

2005-07-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

Provopulse.com is the first site that my web browser pulls up when I turn on my computer every morning. I like the site, but the comments are so stupid! I can't read them anymore.

I've been on an organizational roll all day. I've been using my notebook to get lots of phone numbers and plan for the new calling that I received this morning to be an FHE group leader. It's not going to be very long term, and it shouldn't be much work either , if I plan it correctly. These kinds of assignments are difficult only when you wait until the last second to plan them. Therefore, I'm trying to get everything moving today so I don't have to worry about it later. I'm also excited because I get to hang out with Holly tonight.

Millions

2005-07-14T00:04:00.000-07:00

I actually went on a date tonight. Amazing huh. Today was quite the day. I fixed the swamp cooler, I got my hair cut, I bought house supplies, and I went to SLC with Holly. We saw Millions at the Broadway Theater, shared an Italian soda at Coffee Break, walked around half of Salt Lake, and ate a burrito at Beto's before we called it a night. It wasn't supposed to be a marathon date, but we didn't really want to go home, so we kept it going for a few extra hours. I can't wait to take her out again.

Whoretex It Is

2005-07-10T03:18:00.000-07:00

We went to Vortex tonight, and we got our trance on. I finally have entertaining friends, which is what I've been looking for since I was born. I like friends that aren't afraid to get down with their bad selves and shake it 'til two a.m. I need some sleep, 'cause tomorrow's the Sabbath, and I've got to bless the sacrement. I need to be awake during Sacrement Meeting, and that means that I need more sleep than I've been getting on Saturday nights.

She Peed On My Car

2005-07-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted to tell someone exactly what you think, but what you think is so harsh that you just can't say it? She peed on my car, and that was only one of the many obnoxious things she did yesterday, so I want to tell her that I never want to see her again, but I can't. However, I will do whatever I can to never see or talk to her again. This is the first time that I've felt such negative feelings toward anyone, and I don't like it. That's why I want to never see her again.

I put my clothes in the washer and took a shower. When I walked out the bathroom door and down the basement stairs to my apartment, I saw water dripping from a bunch of spots in the ceiling. I thought it was from the toilet, because the toilet has had issues lately, but it wasn't. I walked up stairs to find that the clothes washer was dumping water all over the floor. There was a half inch of water that was slowly filtering its way through the floorboards and into my bedroom. I called the landlord, ran to Lowe's Hardware to buy a wet/dry vac, vacuumed up as much as I could, and waited for the repairmen to show up. They tore up all of the carpet padding and left a bunch of high-power fans to dry the carpet itself. That means that everything in my room is in a pile upstairs, and I can't put it back until the carpet is dry. This is extremely inconvenient, and it makes me want to live in a nicer house. I hope the place I'm moving into has good plumbing.

Damn Straight

2005-07-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

I just bought the new White Stripes album and the Cure's greatest hits album, along with one track by Kings of Convenience. I'm on a musical roll right now, and I can't allow anything to stop me.

Rachel, Damon, and I went dancing last night, and we had a great time. 80's night can be a blast with the right people and a good, carefree attitude. When we first got there, half the crowd was gay, and I had to fend off a dude in red shirt who looked like he wanted to dance with me. Rachel and I had a long conversation about gayness because (1) Rachel and I know lots of gay men, and (2) I needed to reiterate, for the hundredth time, just how straight I really am. This girl tells me that she knows that I'm straight, but then she says, "You just haven't explored your gayness." I can only hope she's joking, 'cause I'm straight like a yardstick, an arrow, a gun barrel, or anything else you can think of that epitomizes the word straight.

We're going camping today. I want to bring my bike and go for a ride tomorrow morning after we wake up, but I don't think we'll have room, and I don't think that anyone else would want to go with me. I'm wondering if I should get a bike rack and save my trunk space.

I want IKEA furniture. I also want a digital camera. In addition to the furniture and camera, I want to buy clothes. To make matters worse, I want to save as much as possible so that I'll have money when I really need it. I want to move into the new house on third west too, and I can't do that until late August. Patience Christopher-san. Everything will come to you in time.

Cem

2005-07-03T01:16:00.000-07:00

I worked all day today. It was a good day, and my tables liked me, but work gets tiring after the first shift. At least I like the people that I work with. What makes me jealous is that my roommate Danny got here last week and found himself a job selling cable. He makes way more than I do, and he works fewer hours. Punk. I guess my job is a lot more fun, and that's really why I don't want to quit.

Anyway, when single 20-something guys like myself don't have anything pressing to think about, what do we think about? The answer is women. In my case, I don't think about any women in particular, because I realized a long time ago that thinking about particular people too much makes me act like a hormonal twelve-year old. I think more strategically about why I can get what I want in everything I do except for dating. I feel like it's my biggest weakness, but maybe it's everyone's biggest weakness. I don't know. I would really like to know if I'm doing anything wrong, and if I am, what is it? I could use a dating coach who would analyze my technique and fix me. Actually, I wish I were two years more mature than I am. I wish I could see things like I'll see them in two years and avoid all of the pitfalls and missed opportunities. I'm beginning to understand why people get married, because being single sucks. Having a good girlfriend does not suck, but girlfriends aren't very reliable, whereas wives tend to take themselves a lot more seriously. Just look at a wife, any wife. She takes herself more seriously than your last girlfriend. Case closed.

My name is not Gregg Bromka

2005-07-02T02:19:00.000-07:00

For the first time in months, I got stuck with absolutely nothing to do. I couldn't even think of anything that I wanted to look up online. I started looking through my bookmarks, and I realized that I didn't have any desire to read anything. I didn't have anyone to talk to, I didn't have any work to do, I didn't have enough time to start anything, and I didn't have a car to go anywhere. Basically, I wasted three hours of my life trying to sleep and trying to redesign that stupid website for the fourth time. We really have to get this purse thing underway SOON.

I did, however, find a house for the next phase of my life in Provo. The lady on the phone told me that the owners were going to replace the carpet, paint, and furniture. They had better, because it's a mess. I don't know how anyone could comfortably live in a place with such crappy carpet and furniture. Once everything's fixed up, it's going to be a palace. I already applied through the management company to get the contract, and I called up Kevin Smith, Brian Price, and Robbie Pierce so they could sign up too.
The place is huge and cheap, and I think we'll really enjoy it.

Pin Tomato

2005-06-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

I got last night off and went to Kilby Court for one of the weirdest and funnest shows of my life. I felt kind of awkward though, because I recognized tons of people, but I didn't know them well enough to carry on decent conversations, so I said hi a lot and then stood there being awkward. I really shouldn't care, but I do. How do I get over this?

Three Cheers!

2005-06-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

For game night that is. I really didn't think that anyone was coming, and then the whole world showed up! Talk about edge-of-your-seat excitement! It was a lot of fun to have all of those people making lots of noise in one room. Most everyone was from Los Hermanos except for Lindsay and Danny the Roommate. Of course, the girls had to ask me if Danny is gay. Could they be any worse at judging gayness? They think that any guy who takes care of his appearance or wears nice clothes or doesn't try to come off macho is gay. Rachel is officially wrong ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time. Well, she has been right, but she should start by assuming straightness, because, like the weatherman predicting clear skies in Phoenix, she's going to be right 90% of the time.

I'd like to get everyone that I know into one room at one time. That would be a crazy event. It would be all of the Los people with friends from last year combined with my freshman-year buddies and the high school cross-country team. It would be an odd bunch of really fun people. Speaking of really, I really need to go to bed, because I want to do something with my life tomorrow instead of sleep the day away and spend the night at work.

Sim

2005-06-23T00:07:00.000-07:00

Today could've been a lot worse. Fortunately, I fixed my flat, fixed my brake, and made it home from Springville in one piece. Work went well, and I came home to play Xbox a bit and go to bed. Maybe tomorrow will be a killer day. We'll see. I still don't have my grades from last semester, and that makes me nervous. I want to either rejoice or come to grips with failure as soon as possible. In the mean time, I'm going to sleep.

I'm Frustrated

2005-06-21T23:09:00.000-07:00

Today was a little frustrating. Today wasn't a complete failure, but nothing turned out quite like I had hoped. I finished registering Zeepers at City Hall, but they didn't give me the final sales license because I have to wait two whole weeks. It's going to kill me.

Next, Lindsay and I went searching for housing. I couldn't find anything I liked, so I got tired of driving around and went home for a nap. Work was ok, but I didn't make a whole lot of money, and then I spent it all on groceries.

After that, I tried to go dancing, but Racharella didn't return my calls, and I went to bed.

Tomorrow needs to be better. I'm unhappy because I'm supposed to be having a fun time this summer, but instead, the kids who I wanted to hang out with aren't being any fun. At least I have Cheryl to chat with. Good friends are hard to come by.

Aggravated Snot Monster

2005-06-19T23:40:00.000-07:00

I too am a Snot Monster, though I'm not necessarily aggravated. I'm more of a panda when I'm aggravated. Ask anyone who knows me.

I spent the last couple days chipping away at another website design. It's up at Zeepers.com as always. Maybe, when John and I are finally ready to get Zeepers off the ground, we can poll our website viewers to in order to choose the best layout. I'm sure they'll just get better as I get more experience and put more thought into the design.

We had a pleasant night at the hot tubs yesterday. The scooter ride home was freezing cold, which shouldn't be the case in the middle of June. Anyway, I was dry and exhausted when I finally got to bed at 3 a.m. Seven hours later, Chad woke me up and told me that I needed to clean up the crap water all over the floor in our bathroom, because Chad had to run to his girlfriend's ward. I was too groggy to put up a fight, so I wandered up the stairs and took a peek at the flood waters. It turns out that I'd clogged the toilet the night before, and when Chad flushed it this morning, all crap broke loose. I got to spend the first half hour of my day sopping up smelly water and trying to disinfect the bathroom. I was kind of pissed at Chad, but after I finished waking up, I realized that he wasn't being that unreasonable.

Chad's leaving for Europe on Tuesday, and he's moving in with Brad when he gets back. I'm going to miss him. Chad's the best roommate and one of the best friends I've ever had. I'm sure I'll like living with Kevin--Kevin and I might even have more in common--but I'll miss Chad's sense of humor. Nobody can quite match Chad's sense of humor.

I talked to my parent for nearly two hours this afternoon. As always, we talked a lot about life and how we're getting through it. Dad's having a stressful time at work, because he's probably going to lose his diagnostic contract, and he's afraid that the interventional contract--the moneymaker--will be close behind. I think he's exaggerating the problem a bit, but it's still a pretty tight spot to be in. He'll make it out. He always has.

We also chatted a bit about dating and how I need to be patient. I'm in no hurry to get married, but I'd like to be dating someone that I could marry, and I haven't done that in years. There are plenty of beautiful girls out there, but a hot body and a pretty face just aren't enough anymore. It's kind of frustrating, but there comes a day when the head has to do all of the thinking and the rest of the body has to go on hold. That's why growing up is such a mixed blessing, because every step toward adulthood is a step away from the simplicity of hormone-driven adolescence, and you can't put off growing up forever.

I'm tired, but, for the first time in 10 months, I don't have classes to worry about, so I could stay up all night if I felt like it. I just hope that this kind of freedom to make my own schedule doesn't come back to bite me in the butt.

Hobble Creek Breaks My Back

2005-06-17T00:37:00.000-07:00

I almost killed myself a bunch of times this morning while riding up in Hobble Creek. On the way home I drank a liter of whole milk and a giant peanut butter bar from Reams.

Last night, while I should have been sleeping, I realized that zeepers.com needs a ton of work. Racharella's right; we're selling sex here. Well, not really, but we need to be selling style, and my current pages are a little short in that department. However, they were never meant to be the final product, just a couple experiments to improve my Flash skills. I've got a few ideas that will make it beautiful, but I could use some free consultants. Racharella can be my ad exec if she wants to, but I don't have any money, so she had better not expect to get paid. Realistically, I need to get the material ordered and make some bags before I can start designing anything serious.

In other news, Ronny saw Dave at Smith's after midnight. He was buying chapstick. Weird huh? There really are no substitutes for chapstick, so I think I know what Dave was feeling. If you're at Smith's in the middle of the night, and you see someone, you can't make fun of him or her, because you're at Smith's too. That concept is applicable in a lot of situations. I suggest writing it down on a sticky note and looking at the sticky note every time you see someone in a weird place.

Zeepers LLC

2005-06-15T22:23:00.000-07:00

John and I registered our company this morning. It's all official. The fees are paid. We're going through with this. I spent a few hours this afternoon working on the user interface for zeepers.com, and I found another site selling a nearly identical product. It turns out that we're not the first people to come up with this idea, but we're going to kick their trash. The other site, zippurse.com, isn't especially well done, they use cheap zippers without metal teeth, and their prices are amazingly high. We'll be able to undercut them in a heartbeat. The funny thing is that their site uses a lot of the same ideas that I dreamed up for zeepers.com. We will, however, produce a better product and do a much better job with the marketing, so I'm not too worried.

In other news, I went on my second ride with Brett. On Monday we rode up Rock Canyon, over Squaw Peak, and down the other side to Bridal Veil Falls. I ate dirt when my front tire got flipped the wrong direction on a slick, muddy section of the descent. I got scraped up a bit, and my body's been a still sore, but we went on another ride this evening. This time we drove up Provo Canyon to the South Fork trail. It wasn't quite as hairy as Monday's ride, but I still collected another bruise and nearly flew over the handlebars at 20 odd miles per hour. This is one of the more dangerous hobbies that I could choose, so I hope I don't regret it in a few months.

The Website Is Up!

2005-06-13T00:05:00.000-07:00

I got Zeepers.com up and running. It only took me four hours to figure out the flash and do the initial design. I still don't have any content, but I tacked on the new version of the Portuguese song that Alex and I recorded. Alex added a viola track that spices things up a bit. Anyway, I'm exhausted. Over and out.

YKK

2005-06-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

I called up the YKK office in Anaheim, CA and did a little research on zipper prices. I need a resale license from city hall so that they can sell to me., and once I've got that, I can get spools of zipper material at $.2739 per meter. That'll make the purses so cheap that I'll be able to spend more money on handles and labels and fun stuff like that. John H. from work wants to go in with me, so we'll probably end up splitting the costs 50/50. I looked into sewing machines, and I think I can get a decent one for about $140, but I might not have to if John's sister or Melissa will sew them for us. Anyway, now that I've talked to Ykk, I'm a lot more confident that this idea will actually go somewhere.

In unrelated news, some girl's pen leaked all over my dress shirt pocket last night at work. The shirt is ruined. All good shirts have to die; some just die sooner than others, and that makes me sad.

We stayed out until after 3 a.m. this morning, and I really enjoyed it. I can't wait to get finished with school so I can think about the rest of my life for a little while and get bored enough that I'll be begging to take classes again in the Fall.

Two Things

2005-06-08T22:53:00.000-07:00

Melissa and I finished the first purse. I did the pins and she stitched it. I had no idea that it would be so difficult. I need to find more feminine zipper material, because the stuff that I have now is a tad on the masculine side. I like it, but will the local female population?
I also discovered a treasure trove of old journal entries that I saved as text files right before I left for Portugal. I spent an hour in my waste-of-time I Sys class transfering them all onto Blogger, and now I have January to May 2002 in my blog archives. I wish I had the time to sit back and read them all, but I'll have to save that for another day.

Summer in Abbadon

2005-06-07T23:50:00.000-07:00

It's been a few days, and I'm feeling the bloggin' itch. I don't have much to say, besides to tell my reading public that I'm feeling pretty well, and I expect to have a good week. Work is getting better after wanting to hit something when I closed last Saturday. I've been riding a lot, and I got my first flat today. I figured out how to fix it, and now I've got to buy a new tube, but I can deal with that.

I've decided that nothing confuses me as much as dating. It seems to easy to see when my friends are being dumb or when they've got it together, but I'm too close to my own situation to see it clearly. All that anyone wants is to be happy, and we all have our own ideas about how to get there. Our success is determined by how good an idea we have of what we really want, and how we're going to reach it. I'm really worried about my roommate and his girlfriend. From my perspective, they need to get married, and they want to, but stupid stuff keeps getting in their way. I think they'll make it, but it could be close. My other roommate doesn't want to date his girlfriend anymore, and he doesn't know what to do about it. It's pretty obvious that he needs to break up with her, but doing it is the tricky part.

I closed with Adam tonight, and I couldn't believe how quickly it all went. I was home by midnight. In contrast, Irving and I didn't get home until 1 a.m. last Saturday. I was too tired to be worth much that night, and I'm starting to fade as I type. Time to sleep.

Pinback is amazing, and so is this Air remix that I discovered at 7:30 this morning.

Pooped

2005-06-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't been this tired in a long time. The ride today with Nick was excellent. A bunch of expensive tools fell out of my pouch during the ride, and Nick kept searching until he found them. I was giving up, but he saved me about $30. I couldn't believe that he found it all.

I tried to hang out with Robbie and Ronny and Wiggle and Hyrum and Glade and friends, but I couldn't cut it. All I could think about was my bed, and that doesn't make for very interesting conversation. Maybe it's the triple dose of benadryl that Wiggle gave me. Hmmm. At least I'm not sneezing my brains out.

Word.
Peace.

Blaaah

2005-06-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

Check out the beautiful website that I designed for my I Sys class. It's nothing special, just a few pictures a bunch of fulfilled requirements.

I Sys Assignment

Rock Canyon and Reject Fajitas

2005-06-02T22:47:00.000-07:00

I rode up Rock Canyon this afternoon. I suspected that it would be uphill the whole way, but I wasn't quite prepared for it to be uphill and NEVER level off. It was actually a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. I'm getting better at climbing. I also waded across a bunch of rivers. My shoes got wet, but the water was cold, and I liked that.

Later, at work, I got the worst table ever. It wasn't their fault, it was mine. I just couldn't get their food out to them. I was freaking out, running all over the place, trying desperately to keep them happy. Unfortunately, I failed. They still tipped me well, but I think it was out of pity, not necessarily satisfaction. Anyway, I had an OK night, but I never fully got over the stress of that one table. I got critiqued by Dave, but Braden tipped me off, and he sent me the best table of my night, so I was happy. Everything went great, and they were very very nice to me, so I really can't complain too much about today, even if I still feel a little uptight after the table that I mucked up.

I visited Melissa today at her job. I told her that I'd call her, and I did, but she still hasn't called back. It's frustrating. It's hard to maintain a friendship when the other party doesn't return phone calls very well. Anyway, I'll probably just go to sleep and have an amazing day tomorrow.

The Mighty X-Cal

2005-06-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

I got my bike today, and I took it for its first ride. I can't believe how beautiful it is, and I can't believe how great a deal I got on it. My manager sold it to me, and he almost didn't want to part with it. I don't think I'll be able to ride it to class for a long time, because no lock will be impenetrable enough to keep that thing safe.

I made $17 today at work. Lame. Nobody outright stiffed me, but they came really close. At least my totals were amazing. I actually broke $12 a customer. Maybe that will somehow make up for selling $6.25 per customer last night.

I walked into my econ classroom this morning and my cell phone was sitting on the table. It was a huge relief. Then I got my Isys project back. I got a B on it, and I'm not happy about that at all. I did good work. The only problems were minor details, but they have to make the class difficult, so minor details are EVERYTHING. I really don't like that class. I can't even talk myself into enjoying it like I did with Phil 201.

I'm listening to the Carol King anthology that I got from my parents at home. She is one of the best songwriters of all time. I wish I could do that, but I don't necessarily feel like putting in the time to make it happen. For me, that's music in a nutshell. I can listen to it all day, but I never have the energy to practice and actually create anything.

My body is exhausted after the ride this evening, and I need a good night's rest. I'll sleep a lot better if I can get in the habit of riding every day.

Ronny called me from Colorado, and I wanted to be there, but at the same time, I'm not caught up on life in Provo quite yet. I have too much going on to leave, at least until the semester ends. I'm really nervous that my grades aren't going to be as stellar as last semester. I have been working, and that's a big chunk of time, but I can't let anything get in between me and my goals. I was thinking about what I want to do next summer, and the only thing I could think of was an internship at Apple. I'd get to move to Cupertino, CA, and I'd get to work for my favorite company in the entire world. I already saved my resume on apple.com; I just have to wait for the right job opening. I can't imagine actually getting it, but I'm going to try. I shouldn't be intimidated, but it's hard not to be. Where else would a guy like me rather work?

Lonely Hearts

2005-05-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from my mom's high school newspaper, the K.O. Krier, November 24, 1970
Dear Lonely Hearts, I have a huge problem, I'm very shy and deeply in love with Terry Yabara, but he's too aggressive. What do I do? Signed, M.P.P. Dear M.P.P. Don't worry if he comes on strong! He's as gentle as a lamb. Dear Lonely Hearts, I'm writing you this letter to tell you that I think Kevin Brown is the most beartiful (sic) person in the whole world. All my friends think so too. Not Telling Dear Not Telling, We've seen him and we agree; he sure is beautiful! Watch out Kevin! Dear Lonely Hearts, Viki Andrews wants Butch Okaberry! Unknown Dear Unknown, If she likes him so much, she'd learn to spell his name. It's Okelberry. Warning!! Tom Sims: Someone is after you! Brad Morman: Watch out! A certain Pam is gonna get you. Aaron: Someone wants you; give in. David Forsythe: A certain girl by the name of Terri Y. is determined to catch you! What do you think of kisses?? We asked these people that question . . . Emory Campbell: They're all right in the right places. Pam Ruby: They never entered my mind. Sara Lee Kelly: I'm glad I don't have them. Jackie Millikan: I don't like them on anyone. Chuck Hallstrom: I don't like to have them. Lynn Parker: They are a pain in the neck. We really asked them what they though of freckles.

Versa Portuguesa

2005-05-30T00:39:00.000-07:00

Alex Vittal and I wrote a song late last night. We had to finish and record it before going to bed, so I didn't get home until 4 a.m., but we were really excited about it. Anyway, I figure that someone might appreciate it, and it definitely fits in my online journal, so here it is. Versa Portuguesa. It was inspired by The Life Aquatic. The Brazilian guy who plays David Bowie songs in Portuguese is my new hero. I love Brazilians, and I wish that I could imitate their style.

High/Low

2005-05-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

Stalemate. Stalemate. When do I jump out of the cake? When do we admit it's a fake?

I bought an old Nada Surf CD yesterday at Zia. I love it. Now I just need to find The Notwist for a reasonable price, and I will be happy. I went to Zia with Lindsay and Cheryl. We got smoothies, listened to music in the car, and watched Moose work at Zia.

We had a pool party last night for all of my friends from high school, because we don't get together much anymore, and I wanted to see as many people as possible before flying back to Provo. Instead of trying to have lunch with everyone individually, I invited everyone over and had a party.

Lindsay, Cheryl, and I were going to float the river today, but I realized last night that my time here in Phoenix is too short to spend an entire day on the river. We're going to go swimming here instead, and then go shopping or something.

Phoenix is hot, and I'm glad that I'm not living here this summer. Provo is amazing in the summer, and I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time on the bike that I'm buying off one of my manager's at Los. I'm really excited about it, even though I probably shouldn't have spent that much money in one place. I'm really happy with my life in Provo, and I think I'll love it even more when I don't have school to worry about for a month or two.

Casa!

2005-05-27T02:04:00.000-07:00

I'm actually home . . . in Phoenix. I didn't think this would happen until August. Thank you Mom and Dad for flying me home; you saved my life.

I went to Scott's high school graduation, and I could barely believe how lame it all was. The principle has a really monotone voice, and she was talking about "Shadow Mountain's eternal flame" that should remind us of those who never made it to graduation. Mom wondered aloud if the principle was talking about the dropouts. The speeches only got worse. The most painful was from the school speech and debate champion. She obviously thinks that she's really clever, because she looked every word up in the thesaurus and did her best to maximize word length. All of the speeches seemed kind of immature, except for one of the last kids to go. I couldn't figure out who he was, or why he was speaking, but his style was natural. He didn't sound like he was trying to impress anyone, and he only used his thesaurus a few times. In my opinion, good public speaking should never be a recitation, unless it's in front of a television camera. There are obviously some exceptions, but high school graduation does not qualify. I really prefer listening to someone who can speak naturally and doesn't kill the audience with ten minutes of adjectives.

Night

2005-05-25T23:16:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I'm home. I took my econ test this afternoon before work. It felt like it went well, but I can never be sure. I'm getting better at this waiter thing. I didn't have too many tables tonight, but they were very nice to me. I really enjoy work. Weird huh. It must be the awesome people that I work with. Liking my job means a lot to me, so I hope I don't get sick of it. I don't think I will, but you never know. Robbie's going to be gone soon, and that will be a sad day. Of course, he will be back, but I don't know if I'll be at Los anymore. I'm going to have to quit once Fall semester starts, because I'll have 15 hours of classes and 12 hours of TA work every week. I can barely handle 20 hours at Los and the equivalent of 12 regular hours of school. I've got to sleep, but I haven't written in here for a while, so I need to wind down a bit and get ready for bed.

Thank you Ronny. You saved my backside.

Demon Days

2005-05-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

I finally bought the new Gorillaz CD. It's awesome, and I can tell that I'll be listening to it nonstop for the next few weeks. I don't know how I'm going to get all of my junk done this week, but it's going to happen. I'll scrap and scramble until it work. Anyway, I'm off to work. Word. Peace.

Zeepers.com

2005-05-23T06:23:00.000-07:00

I registered Zeepers.com last night. It's my first domain name, and I hope it's not my last. Robbie, Ronny, and I were inspired last night when we saw the most amazing purse from Brazil. Ronny's roommate's boyfriend's parents brought it back from a trip to Brazil, and the boyfriend gave it to the roommate as a gift. Anyway, within five minutes of zipping and unzipping it, I knew I had to make them. Two hours later, we had a name for our product and website, a handful of different marketing strategies, a plan to start manufacturing them, and a bunch of ideas for different kinds of zipper-related clothing. We'll have to start slow with different kinds of purses, but we have plenty of ideas to keep us busy.

2005-05-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

I went shooting with Adam today, and I came back with a nice little sunburn. We never made it to the hot tubs last night, and I'm still thirsting for a good soak. I'm feeling kind of adventurous. I was disappointed that we didn't find the nutty putty caves earlier this week, and I still want to find the hot springs, but I realize that it's not easy to do.

I'm going home next weekend! I have two tests to take the morning I leave, but it will be worth it. I'm going to see my family! I'm going to see Cheryl too!

I visited the bike shop down the street from my house to drool over their Gary Fisher's. Those are some beautiful bikes, and I want one. They don't have the bike I want in stock, but I'll track it down somewhere.

Blue Raspberry

2005-05-17T01:11:00.000-07:00

That's about it.

Tonight, In The Whispers Where We Wont Be Found . . .

2005-05-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

Last night was a lot of fun. After church, I had Sunday dinner with the Beatty family as usual, then I went to Veronica's house for snacks and games. Yesterday was a very good day for me in more than one way.

I pulled a 93.9% on my I Sys test on Saturday. The amazing part is that I realized at 4 a.m. Saturday morning that I had to take the test at 10:30 a.m. if I wanted to make it to work at 1:00 p.m. That meant that I had to rush to bed, wake up four and a half hours later, run up to the testing center, study furiously for 45 minutes, and take the test at 10:30. I couldn't believe that I got such a good grade, because I didn't have nearly as much time to study as I would have liked.

It turns out that Ronny and Robbie were spying on me when I took my first table last Thursday. They made fun of me at game night, because I looked so nervous while I talked to the girls I was waiting on. Robbie did a hilarious impression of me fidgeting with my shirt, and I couldn't stop laughing, because he has my nervous fidget down so well. I subconsciously let the whole world know what I'm thinking at all times, so I shouldn't be surprised if I don't get away with much. I thought I was being pretty confident, but I was wrong.

I just realized that I have two tests on May 26, which is the same day that I fly home. My plane leaves at 4 p.m., so I'm going to have to do an early morning double header at the testing center. Not fun. My scheduling this summer is a mess. I get everything done; I just have to wake up extremely early and use every spare second for homework. I've got 17 hours at work this week, so now is the time to get caught up on my classes.

Tables!

2005-05-11T19:20:00.000-07:00

I served my first two tables today! I was going to serve Ronny, Robbie, and Hiram, because they had the day off and came to my section, but my trainer didn't think that was a good idea. Oh well. I waited on a couple of girls instead. It was a bit awkward, and I mixed up their drinks, but they didn't stiff me, so I can't complain. In fact, they left me a two-dollar bill for a tip. I've never had a two-dollar bill before, so I was excited. I had a nice, hungry couple come in right afterward. They were nice, but I wasn't as comfortable as I would have liked. I'm sure I'll get comfortable with it soon. Every time I've trained for a new shift, I've been quiet and awkward for the first shift. By the second shift, I'm already comfortable and back to messing with everyone. I'm really glad I didn't take that job at the Olive Garden. Los Hermanos is much better.

Cinco de Mayo

2005-05-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

I finally had a good night out. I went to work yesterday hoping to find someone to go to 80's night with me. Instead, Rachel, a co-worker of mine, asked ME if I wanted to go to 80's night. I was almost dumbfounded, except that I'm never at a loss for words, so I told her that I was already planning on going. I brought Lindsay, and we had a crazy time with a bunch of Los employees. We went to Denny's afterward, and the other car got a flat, so I didn't get home until 6 a.m., but I still woke up at ten to go shooting with Adam and Carl. For whatever reason, I ended up driving all of the girls home, which I can't complain about.

Work yesterday was catering for a new Motel 8. They had this big Cinco de Mayo party and invited the mayor and a bunch of people. We provided snacks, but the snacks became dinner. It was four hours of serving taquitos and quesadillas of all varieties, and I brought home $50 in tips. That makes $13/hour, so they can ask me to cater any time.

Nothing But Net

2005-05-05T13:54:00.000-07:00

I got straight A's. I don't know how it happened. It was like Christmas, New Year's, and my birthday all wrapped into one. I'm also in my new house, which I love. I finally got the internet hooked up, so I can get back to my blog. To top it all off, I passed my server's test at Los Hermanos, so I'm going to start serving next week. I can't wait. All I need now is a girlfriend. It's pissing me off.

Margaret's mom and sister came to visit, and they love Chad. So Chad's probably going to be married before the start of Fall semester, because they're too in love to put it off any longer. I, on the other hand, am probably going to lose my roommate and best friend. That I don't know any girls that I could date only makes the situation worse. Socially, I'm in a tight spot. I'm going dancing with Lindsay tonight. Hopefully she can round up a few friends, cause I'm not having any luck.

In short, everything has gone my way academically and financially, but socially I'm a beached whale. The tide went out, left me behind, and I'm rotting in the hot sun. I can pull myself out of this. I've done it before, but it takes time, and it's annoying.

April 26

2005-04-26T07:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a long, long day. Chad, Kevin, and I took a fast 48 min. run, and I got to work. Lindsay and I cleaned the car, she moved into her new place, and I spent the next five or six hours trying to move into the new house. Chad and I moved together, but he's got so much stuff that he couldn't get it all moved over, so I was all alone in the house last night. I went to work for my first training meeting last night. Los Hermanos seems pretty demanding, so I'm going to have to work pretty hard at my training. You only make minimum wage until you can pass a server's test and start serving.

I missed my friends last night. I hope that I can make new friends quickly. I don't want to lose my friendship with Melissa, but it's definitely going to be harder to maintain, now that we're not neighbors. I do, however, have my own room, and I'm loving it. It's in the basement, so the ceiling is kind of low and I can hear footsteps above my head when the other guys are stomping around their room, but it's not bad, and I'm sure I'll get used to it quickly. I found the perfect desk at D.I., so I'm well equipped. The only thing that's missing is internet, so I'm in the library right now catching up on emails and relaxing a bit before the semester starts in 40 minutes.

It's funny how I feel so awkward right now. It has to do with all of these changes. It's like I don't know what to do with myself. I felt the same way when I first moved into my last apartment. I new I had a bunch of things to do, but I went about it haphazardly and got this weird uncomfortable feeling. I must get into such a strong routine during the semester that a change like this puts me into a different mental state.

TB and Mountain Bikes

2005-04-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

Winter semester is history. My grades are in and there's nothing that I can change, so the pressure is off. However, spring semester starts on Tuesday, so this isn't much of a reprieve. To make things even more complicated, I'm also moving to a house and starting a new job this week, so practically everything is going to change in the next few days. I'll be starting over in a new ward, and I hope to make some good friends. I've enjoyed my time here, but I've had a hard time enjoying the people. There are a few girls that I've really identified with, and I've liked a few of the guys, but for the most part, this ward has been pretty dry.

I think that Melissa is leaving me for a guy at the bike shop where she works. He's not LDS, but that has a special appeal to her, and I understand that things are going to change with the new semester. I might not see much of her, but it was bound to happen.

I hung out in SLC with a couple of girls last night, and I didn't like it at all. The girl who was driving kept getting lost, and SLC is on a grid system! I don't know how you get lost in a grid. She wasn't paying any attention to the street signs; she imagined that somehow she'd find the house we were looking for without stopping to check the street signs. To make things even worse, the two of them complained a lot about Utah, and I can't stand that. Oh yeah, and the driver had this nasty smelling body spray that made me want to hurl. The moral of the story is that I can't hang out with just anyone and have an enjoyable time. I need to be a bit pickier with what I do on the weekends.

I've got to get a TB test tomorrow for my food handler's card. I need to move my stuff into my new place, and I need to be at work from 8-10 p.m. for a new-employee meeting. And I want a mountain bike, and they're expensive.

2005-04-17T01:34:00.000-07:00

I can't post during finals, because I have too much work to do. It isn't easy trying to salvage my grades while attending every single local show that I can find.