You Can Quote Me on This

Have you ever noticed yourself quoting movies, TV shows, songs, or books in your everyday conversations? I have come to discover that I quote movies and TV a lot. Most of it is with Whitney, but I do it with other people too. It's really hard (that's what she said) not to use these quotes. At work the other day the company provided lunch for the employees. It was Chicken Cordon Blue, corn, salad, and mashed potatoes. If you know me you know what's coming. These mashed potatoes are so creamy. Caesar Romero was tall. Only one person at my table laughed. Oh well. I guess not everyone has my sense of humor. I guess I'll just have to hang in there like the little boy cat. Nailed it. Like many people, I have a lot of things I quote, but I have discovered that I quote some things more than others. Here is how I would list the top shows/movies I quote by percentage.

45% The Office




45% Psych



10% Other assorted movies/shows

I guess even Bruton Gastor would be able to tell what my favorite shows are right now. What is interesting is that most of the stuff I quote is from comedy shows. I just thought it would be fun find out what other people like to quote. Leave your own list in comments.

In case anybody was wondering, I do not have a deep seeded jealousy for a tiny little boy cat.

5 things I miss (and don't miss) about Utah

Whitney made a post about this a few weeks back and I thought I would do the same. Only I don't know that I could come up with 10 things so I went with 5. Most of my friends know that I never wanted to live in Utah for any long period of time. But now that I lived there for 6 years and have moved away, I have found that there are some things that I miss. Here we go!

What I miss:
1. Living in a college town. I loved living right next to BYU. There always seemed to be things going on and places to go. It is a different atmosphere. Along with this comes college sports. This is related to #1. Game days are awesome. There is excitement in the air and I love going to the games.
2. KSL. It was just fun to watch (or listen) their news broadcasts. They are just more professional than the news casters I have seen.
3. Utah Jazz. I am a basketball nut and I loved being able to listen or watch all of the Jazz games. I was a Sonics fan growing up and hated the Jazz, but I grew to like them a lot.
4. In-laws. As strange as it sounds to some people, I love my in-laws. They have been so good to me and I love being with them.
5. Friends. Whit and I made so many friends and I miss them. It was fun to have people to talk to and spend time with that are in the same stage of life as you. I know that everyone will move away, but I will keep in touch. I suppose that this also includes the friends that I made working at the bindery. We had good times and I miss them too.

Don't Miss:
1. Crazy and impolite drivers. It is nice to have people who let you in when you put on your signal, enough said.
2. Insincerity. I told lots of people that I would get a feeling of insincerity from some of the members of the Church. It just felt like some people did things just for the appearance rather than because it was the right thing to do. Let me emphasize that it was not everyone. I guess I grew up in a community with a lot of really sincere and good people both members and non-members.
3. Having no money. This really had to do with being a student more than living in Utah, but because I was in Utah when I was a student I think it applies. While I have more expenses and responsibility now, it is just nice to have greater income and being paying off the debt.
4. Inversion. It was terrible at times. I really didn't have much of that where I grew up. It would just get so nasty, eeeewwww!
5. High food prices. My dad was a farmer and I grew up in an agricultural area. The food prices were significantly lower. And not only that, Washington does not have sales tax on groceries.

So there you go, hope you enjoy.

Joining the ranks

I have had a cell phone now for 3 years. In all this time I have not had text messaging or any other type of messaging (picture or video) Whit and I have been on her parents family plan with Verizon. It really helps as far as cost, but we had no options on our plan because they didn't want to pay for them (not that I blame them). But this past weekend The decided to renew and upgrade their plan. I now have all the types of messaging. The only thing they didn't get was a data plan. So now I have joined the ranks of the many who message with their phones.

As a consequence of the renewal we were able to get new phones for the upgrade price. We went to the Verizon store to look at what phones we could get and their costs. The salesman was nice to point out some good features and problems with some of the phones. We were poised to purchase our phones but we couldn't because of some account access problems. It was a good thing too. As we had decided to get the phones the salesman started pressuring us to buy things we didn't want. He started bring accessories over that we didn't ask for and was strongly encouraging us to purchase the insurance for our phones. We left and didn't go back. We instead went to Bestbuy. What a different experience. They were helpful, answered all our questions and the phones were cheaper. They didn't pressure us to buy other things either. So now for the main event: Which phones did we buy?



Whitney got the new LG Chocolate. It has an extra 1GB of memory for songs. It is a flip phone instead of the original chocolate which was slide. My brother Steven has the original chocolate and I didn't like the interface at all. This one is much better and most importantly, Whitney likes it.



I went a little more modern. I got the LG Dare which has a touch screen. It is awesome. The touch interface works really well and the menus seem easy to navigate and find what you are looking for. It also has a 3.2 megapixel camera. It is a sweet phone. So for those of you who want to talk or text me, just leave your number (if you know i don't have it already) and we can get started.

A flood of good times?

This is a story that starts a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Ever since my family moved into our new house, when I was five, we have had problems with flooding. This is not flooding from tons of rain but mostly from mistakes in watering the lawn, flowers, and garden. It didn't matter too much as the floor was cement and we had most of our possessions out of the way. Now that we have finished half the basement it has become a bigger problem. It involves taking out carpet and replacing carpet pad and the like.

My Mom has had a knack for flooding the basement several times a year. She turns on the hose to water her flowers and forgets it is on. This happened earlier this year and while I was not here, I heard it was really bad.

I guess you could call me my mother's son. While watering the yard and trying to water the garden, I opened a valve to get a better flow. Unbeknownst to me, the tap by the window well was wide open. It was about an hour before anyone knew. Whitney sent Autumn and the neighbor girls down the basement to play. They came back up announcing that it was all wet. Whit ran to tell me, I was outside, I went running to the window. That is when I found the faucet. After turning it off and rushing to get a bucket with a rope, I bucketed out the water from the window well. It was 2/3 of the way up the window. Whit ran to a rental place to get a carpet cleaning vacuum which sucked better than any shop vac I have ever seen. Scott called friends family and neighbors to come and help us. It took 4-5 hours before we were done cleaning up. At first the water would seep over the top of your shoes when you would step on the carpet in the bedroom. It was really muddy too. But we got it all cleaned up and now we are trying to get it really dry. We will have to replace the carpet pad in the bedroom. This happened on Saturday.

On Monday one of the neighbors that help us clean up called and asked for our help to clean up their basement flood. We thought that it might be a prank they were trying to play on us. So, in the spirit of good fun we decided to dress the part. Here is a picture:





There really was a little flood, but they thought it was hilarious. I hope you do to.

The world continues to turn

It has been awhile since I blogged. Things are starting to fall into a routine. Wake up at 5:00, get ready, catch Van Pool by 5:35, ride into work by 6:30, work, work, work, ride home at 5:00, arrive home just before 6:00, eat dinner, find something fix my lunch for the next day, find something to do, and go to bed a lot later than intended. I always have plans to make it to bed by 9:00 or 9:30, but I always end up not getting to sleep until 10:30 or 11:00. So this part of my routine needs a little work. It is just hard when you only have 2 hours in the evenings to do things with your wife, relax, or do something athletic.

Whit has been terrific! She is a great wife. She cleans all the time, makes me dinner, does her little projects and is all-in-all AMAZING. I am so happy that I am married to her.

I have been learning a lot at work. Many times I feel really stupid because I don't know how to do something. There really is no substitute for experience. Contributing to the problem is the fact that people have different words for the same thing. Occasionally, someone will ask me if I have done something before. I say no. When they sit down to help me I realize that I have done something similar but called it something different. Not that I couldn't use the help anyway. I am trying to learn as much as I can so that I will be more prepared for my next job. This job will probably last 3-5 years. More likely to be 3. Anyway, that's enough of my ramblings. Thank goodness football season is here again!

Proof

So I heard some people doubting that I was a cowboy and they wanted some proof. O ye of little faith. O ye that must see to believe. Well, here is the proof.

How do you stack four ton of hay? One bale at a time.

A few days ago, a man came and dropped off some hay for our horse. He brought us four ton of hay when my dad had only ordered 2 ton. Not only did he bring us more than we needed, but he pushed it off his tractor in one very tall stack. As happens in the Tri-Cities, the wind blew hard that night. You can guess what happened next, the stack fell over like Humpty Dumpty falling off the wall. Fortunately for Scott (my older brother) and I, we are not part of all the King's horses or all the King's men so we were able to put it back together again. We also had Whit snap a few pictures of our exploits. Have a gander.



Can you see the fallen stack on the left?



You gotta lift with your legs.



You tend to get a little dirty with all the sweat and flecks of hay flying around.



The stacking job is done!



I'm exhausted.