The Revelation

This last Saturday I was called upon to work because of the busy season. I thought I would only be in for five hours or so, but ended up staying about seven. I would have been more uptight about the lengthy day except for a comment that one of the Draculitos Emmett made.

Now, I am well aware that most of these posts concerning Draculios are satirical and that although evidence points in the direction of vampires crawling around my work place, it is not factual. You already knew that though.

I brought in donuts for the eight of us who were working that day and encouraged the others to partake in sugar rushes to fill up their energy reserves. Near the end of the day I entered the breakroom and noticed that there was only one donut remaining. Emmett was on the other side of the table, so I told him to go ahead and eat it. (Emmett usually doesn't bring lunches to work and I never really see him eating, I guess he just likes to get all his work done before eating.) I told him he needed to eat the donut and that he should really be eating during the day. He responded, "man, I only eat when the sun goes down." I stopped and looked at him and said,"Emmett, you just sounded like a vampire." He laughed a loud laugh and said,"yeah, i kind of did didn't I." and that was the end of it.

I really like how there are so many coincidences concerning vampires at my work or "draculitos". Even though there is no evidence, things continue to happen that would lead some to believe that draculitos really do walk the aisles of the Coke warehouse.

Cocodrilos

Arturo is very proficient at doling out pseudonyms to the people at work. Some of these have obvious connotations, but others are a huge mystery to me. I must admit right now that I do not speak Spanish very well, I understand the gist of what is being said and the context of the words, but sometimes I do not understand every single word that is being said to me. However, for the sake of my audience I have meticulously researched these nicknames and double checked them with other fluent Spanish speakers (Mexicans) and believe that these are the most correct translations I can decipher.

1) Los Cocodrilos-The Crocodiles Arturo calls our two bosses the crocodiles, I think because he thinks one of them walks around and sniffs the air looking for trouble because he always calls them spies too. One time he said "los cocodrilos estan buscando as pulgas" the crocodiles are searching for fleas. I also had no idea what he meant by this, but as it stands, I have two bosses who are crocodiles

2) El Gordo-The heavy(fat man) This one is pretty easy to decipher. Any 300+ man is going to be referred to as the fat guy. Spanish has a way of being very straightforward and this is no exception. The gordo is a very large man and thus has been dubbed as such.

3) Hormiga Atomica-The Atomic Ant This name is given to a 6'5 Samoan kid at work. He is very strong and I think that the ant part might have something to do with him being able to lift heavy loads, as far the Atomic part, your guess is probably better than mine. I can't imagine calling anyone an atomic anything as a nickname.

4) Florencio- Florence This is what Arturo calls me. I did some research and a horse named Florencio was popular in the early 90's. I do not think Arturo is familiar with horse racing though. Florencio is also a popular name in Mexico. Lupe (another co-worker) told Arturo this was my name and for the longest time I could not figure out why Arturo kept referring to me as Florencio. I guess it was a misunderstanding, but I enjoy it.

5) Sapote/Manotas-Big toad/Big hands This nickname is given to Mark, a large imposing Polynesian man. He is taller than me and about three times as thick and is the one man who strikes fear in every other employee at work, even though he is the funniest guy around. Manotas is the kind of man who will make fun of you and you do not dare to say anything back when you first meet him. But as you get to know him you can make fun of him and he will laugh just as loud.

6) La profesional-The Professional This name is given to the guy at work who is always running around looking like he is working really hard and giving everyone else crap for not working as hard as he does. I think the name is intended to be the man's mindset of himself and not how others view him. I guess you could say it is an ironic nickname, as so many are.

7) Patito-Little duck When a large man walks and appears to be waddling like a duck he receives a corresponding nickname, the little duck. This is why Arturo has given one man at work this name.

8) Luchador-The fighter This is for a man who used to work with us and always walked around with his shoulders held high as if he wanted to fight someone, he never did fight anyone, but one time Manotas was making fun of him and he really wanted to fight, but like I said, no one fights with Manotas.

9)El Italiano-The Italian Arturo claims that this Mexican guy is a fake Mexican and so he calls him the Italian

10) Rey Benjamin-King Benjamin A guy named B.J.

11) Draculitos-The little draculas I've talked extensively about this on other posts, but two white looking Polynesian kids who have convinced Arturo that they are vampires. It is still a mystery to me.

12) Chinito-Small Chinese guy Actually a guy from Laos, but everyone calls him the Chinese guy, kind of racially obtuse, but who ever stopped anyone from grouping a diverse group of cultures into one large race? Neither I nor Arturo, that's for sure.

That is most of the better nicknames that he has coined over the course of my employment. There are others that are not as good or memorable, but I feel like these ones should see the light of day, or at least the light emitted from your computer screen.

Draculas of a feather . . . . suck blood together

The third installment in a series following one man's quest to rid a warehouse of Vampires.

I've noticed Arturo has been a little more nervous with the proximity of Halloween around the corner, or around the week if you prefer. He stated on Monday that we were all forced to wear collared shirts so that when the Draculitos bit our necks to suck blood out the evidence would be hidden behind a collar. (At least it's not a popped collar, we aren't that cool) We enjoyed a nervous laugh together as I say his point and wondered to myself why indeed we had to wear collared shirts.

Things got a little bit more intense this afternoon. . . .

Arturo approached me with a few minutes to spare before he left for home. He asked if he could buy two rolls of the plastic wrap that we use to keep product on the pallets when it goes in trucks, (above is a picture). I asked him what he needed it for because I thought it was a weird request that he asked me to question the crocodile (this is what he calls our boss, there will be another story elaborating on this) and he would wait. I went into my boss' office and asked if Arturo could buy two rolls of the plastic wrap. The 'crocodile' was a little perplexed at such a strange request and replied that we did not normally sell these wraps to employees and that a box of it (4 rolls) cost $86. I returned to Arturo with the news that he could purchase a box of the wrap. I again inquired to what use he intended this wrap, the reason being that the wrap is hundreds of yards long and you do not need a large quantity to wrap a lot of things. He was once again vague and said he had a lot of things "fuera da casa" that needed to be wrapped many times. I went inside and finally convinced the 'crocodile' to sell Arturo a roll and he agreed to do so for $20. Arturo was excited by the news when I came back outside the office. This intermediary business had tired me out and I intended to find out the purpose of all this wrap. As Arturo was leaving I asked him once again why he needed so much plastic wrap. This time he finally heeded my call by simply replying with a sly smile To set traps for the little draculas." and walked out the door. To be continued . . . .

The assasinated gato

This is the second part in my series of the Draculitos and Arturo.

The last few weeks have brought 3 kittens into our lives at the Coca-Cola warehouse. They showed up out of nowhere one day and a couple of the guys started leaving scraps of food out for them by the parking lot in back. The cats have gotten bigger (as kittens are known to do) and eventually one of the ladies even bought them a small house to keep warm in because of the ensuing cold. One day last week I got to work very early and walked inside and started my normal routine of work. A few hours passed before Arturo approached me. He said that the Draculitos were in need of blood and had killed one of the cats ( his spanish words were, Los Draculitos estavan con hambre y assiniaram el gato). I was a bit confused and thought he was kidding so I didn't think much of it. A few minutes later another co-worker appeared and said that one of the cats had been killed in the parking lot. I didn't know quite what to think, I hadn't grown particularly close to any of the cats, but I thought it was strange. About five minutes after this my boss came up and told me he had pulled in and seen the dead gato on the pavement too. News was certainly moving fast. Maybe the Draculitos were really out for blood and Arturo had been right. When I walked in that morning I had seen no dead gato's on the road and the Draculitos always got to work after I did. Well, being on the low end of the totem poll at work, I found Arturo recruiting me to help him pick up the remains of the cat. He drove his forklift out with a garbage bin and I had a shovel. Sure enough when we got outside I saw the assassinated gato. The entrails were sprawled out next to the flat body and a bird was picking at them. (I said assassinated because gatos are usually quite agile and this one had been hit by a car, I suspected foul play, but unfortunately no proof was ever found.) I moved into position with the shovel and had to turn away while Arturo pushed the gato with a broom, I seriously almost yacked all over when I felt the weight of the gato in the shovel. I tried to do a no look lift into the garbage can and missed . . . . the gato smacked back onto the ground. Arturo chuckled and made fun of my weak stomach. Much to his chagrin I found my mark on the second toss and the gato was out of sight. Perhaps the Draculitos had struck again, I am not sure how the gato died other than it was hit by a car, but I do think something must have happened to impede the gato from moving. When will the Draculitos strike again?

Just as I wrote that last part down I remembered a story that happened about two days after the gato incident. I was sitting in the break room with Arturo and Lupe. I looked on top of the Coke machine and saw a bottle of Fruit Punch Powerade. I inquired of Arturo if it was his, to which he sheepishly replied, "es la sangre para los draculitos" (it's the blood for the Draculas). I couldn't stop laughing for the next 5 minutes. This guy seriously has me convinced that there are Draculas at my work and they have taken the form of two half-Samoan kids.

Draculitos

I have a co-worker at work named Arturo. He is the utility man as I like to refer to him as. He scrubs the floors on a Zamboni and empties the trashes. He basically does all of the work that no one else wants to do at all. Arturo is an interesting man, he has nicknames for all of the workers in the warehouse, I am referred to as Florencio, there is no rhyme or reason to many of these pseudonyms, but they are really funny. The nicknames that strikes me as the most odd is Draculito. Arturo refers to two Polynesian guys as "Los Draculitos". I suppose it is because they are both half Polynesian and rather white in appearance. Whenever Arturo sees one of these two guys he says in Spanish that "los draculitos estan buscando sangre" or the draculas are looking for blood. I always found this rather funny and played along with his joke, chiding his once in a while about the draculas wanting to suck his blood and other vampire references. On Monday of this week when I entered work I wandered over to Arturo's cleaning station where he keeps most of his supplies.Much to my bewilderment I happened upon a clove of garlic sitting on a barrel. I thought it was strange but didn't think much of it. When I saw Lupe, one of the other Mexicans, about an hour later I asked him why Arturo had garlic by his equipment. He told me that it was to ward of the draculas. So apparently this whole time Arturo really has believed that these two workers are legitimately vampires. I loved it! When I questioned Arutro about this garlic he verified that it was indeed because of his fear of the draculas. I don't know whether he is afraid of Polynesians, or he really thinks they are draculas, but either way I thought it was hilarious.

Swiftly Seeking Swift

I have always loved "Love Song" by Taylor Swift. I think it is an incredible song! However, that was about the extent of my Taylor Swift knowledge until last week. As some of you may know, Kanye West went a little crazy and hurt this young girl emotionally. This caused me to do some song searching on Taylor Swift and I must say that I am in love with her. "You Belong to Me" describes how I feel when I really like someone so well. If you've seen the music video you know that she tells her crush she loves him with a note she pulls out that says "I love you", well guess who is now walking around with that same note in his back pocket all of the time?!? That's right, this guy, and I do mean guy. Speaking of notes, Taylor hits them all. She has the voice of an angelic song bird. I know I'm not so "swift" to jump on the ol' Taylor Train from Awesomeville, but I'm on board now. I only have Mr. West to thank for this. But before I finish I must say that the Taylor Train is going full steam ahead and the sun happens to set in the West, could this be a slow decline for Kanyeezy, let's hope not, but I don't see him winning public approval for quite some time.

Mannerly

An old gentleman at my work tried setting me up last week. He referred to the girl as sweet and mannerly and that she was abused as a youngster. Oh great! Now I'm well aware that beggars cannot be choosers, but they can be cautious. So, this cautious cat decided to take the low road and lie. Sure, I know that is bad and I probably should give it a chance, but I'm going to dodge the ol' bullet before the gun goes off and make up something about being out of town every single day for the next month

Oh no Kanyeezy

Oh no, why did you do it Kanye? You promised us you were going to be good, you promised us you weren't going to run your mouth no more, you promised us that you would smoke cigars with three fingers instead of two, you promised us that you wouldn't publicly humiliate 19 year old country singers, you promised us you would leave the crazy designs out of your hair, you promised us that you wouldn't damage your already questionable reputation, you promised us you wouldn't deliver unsolicited shout outs to Beyonce in the middle of other people's acceptance speeches, you promised us that you would glow in the dark during your glow in the dark tour, but we couldn't even see you, you made so many promises and now I will make a promise to you. I promise to never listen to your promises anymore unless you make promises in your songs and I happen to listen to them because I still think you are a great rapper, but I will not promise to listen to your promises about promising any more.

Soda Sales

I was not too excited for work this morning after getting five hours of sleep last night. I do not understand why, but sometimes I lie awake thinking late into the night and cannot fall asleep. Last night was one of those nights and it set the tone for work today. I arrived at work and I was noticeably chipper and feeling very happy. Every two weeks my work does employee soda sales where all the employees come to the back and get the products that they have ordered. I am usually put in charge of this adventure because no on else wants to do it and I enjoy it (this may be why I was so happy or maybe because I'd talked to an old friend the night before, I'm not sure). Anyway, one of the first things that happened was Lupe's arrival. He was picking up product for his son and his friend and ended up with 18 cases of soda. There was no way to accommodate all of that soda in his little car, so he brought a huge truck to work and directed me and another co-worker to dump it all in back of his truck. We did so and I could not stop laughing. Below is a picture of Lupe sleeping in a chair. Lupe then had me check to make sure he had all the right product and I gave him a hard time because it was all mixed up. I was about to take the papers, but he indicated he wanted them so that if the f------ cops found him he could prove that it was his soda. I really could not stop laughing and allowed him to take the papers in case the law came after him for soda stealing. So Lupe left and it was on to a certain employee who does the exact same thing every fortnight (two weeks, the period of time in between soda sales). She can never seem to find a certain product that is usually right in plain site and always beckons me to help her. Then she plays the long face card and asks me to help her take the stuff out to her vehicle. I wonder if this is her idea of flirting or just to be annoying, but it has the same effect on me. We are not usually supposed to help people take product to their cars, but I usually cave and do it anyway. Later today I was given a young Polynesian apprentice named Emmett. He is a way nice guy and quite large, he could smash me into pieces but he is nice so he doesn't. Anyway, I was showing him the ropes of employee soda sales and began to introduce Emmett to all of the females who came to pick up product. I would say, "this is my friend Emmett, he is more than willing to pick your order and help you out to your car with it" The strange thing is that no one took me up on my offer of offering Emmett. I think it was fear because of his stature. One lady looked at him and shook her head, it was hilarious. Emmett would later say, "man, I don't think that any of these people like me." It did appear that way. That was mostly everything that happened. It was a really fun day and I enjoyed doing soda sales and talking to everyone at the office. Here is a picture to show how happy I was.

Trick knee

Last week I was playing in a recreational basketball league. The week before this game I had dunked it three times and was eager to have more opportunities to slam it home. We were playing the best team in the league and I had a little bit of trepidation, but was still excited to try and dunk it on someone. Within four minutes in the game I was wide open on the right side and streaked to the hoop, as I went up I put all of my weight on my left leg and it gave out from under me. I looked like a fool! To avoid any embarrassment I grabbed my knee as if I had tweaked it to give the impression to everyone present that I had hurt myself. My friend Mike called from the bench, "oh my gosh, are you ok?" I indicated I was and continued to play the rest of the game as if no injury had occurred. You win some you lose some I suppose.

Lemons

Sometimes life gives you lemons and you just say, "screw the lemons"! I know that may sound weird, but I am finding myself guilty of not taking all the opportunities that come my way and oft times I don't recognize the lemons when they are in front of me. I took the gmat a few months ago in preparation for graduate school. I did not get the score that I thought I needed to get me in and was quite distraught about it, especially because I'd studied so hard and had a blessing indicating that everything would go great. Well, I overreacted a little bit and found myself a bit bitter. Fast forward to last week and I met with the admissions director at the U of U to see what I needed to do to get in to the program. She asked me what I got on the gmat and my g.p.a., to my chagrin she told me that I had more than enough to be accepted into the program. She then said she felt like she should tell me about another new program that the U just began offering focusing on global enterprise. I asked about the requirements for that and she named three upper level economics classes and proficiency in a foreign language. I found that I met all of the requirements and will be able to start as soon as January in the program. I learned a great lesson in patience and trust through this experience.
In other aspects of life I find the same things hold true. Like a friend will mention someones name and it will happen a couple of times and I feel like I should call them and it turns out that is just what they needed. Sometimes I also ignore these feelings though and feel like I missed out on something by not following through. There are certainly two ways to live life, make something of the opportunities that come our way or just let them lay by the wayside. A part of me definitely did not want to make anything out of the gmat and give up and take the test again to get a better score, but everything ended up working out. I wish I would be more trusting and go with promptings more, there have been times when I wanted to ask someone out and I just didn't because I believed there was no chance it would work out. I've had a fundamental paradigm shift and a greater desire to be trusting of inspiration that comes my way. I'm happy that lessons can translate to all aspects of life and be beneficial no matter what the experience.

Ironic

The Catholic Church is against capital punishment. I find that somewhat hypocritical considering that if it was not for capital punishment in Roman times, let's say circa 33 a.d., there would have been no crucifixion of the Lord. You can see the obvious problems of that event not occurring, so let's try and be a little consistent here. Condemning something that gave rise to your beliefs??? I guess it works if it fits into pop culture . . .

New music

New music coming out

Muse-The Resistance-Uprising is the first released track and United States of Eurasia is available, if you are a fan of 1984 this song is for you. There is a 3 part symphony called exogenesis that will be great too.

Ingrid Michaelson-Everybody, her last cd was not as good as Girls and Boys, but this one is promising

Jay-Z-Blueprint 3-Already released "Run this Town" with Kanye and Rihanna. Kanye disses Rav-4's, which is funny.

A.F.I.-Crash Love. Not super stoked, but I'll give it a listen. The new single "Medicate" is decent.

Favorite song right now: 1901 by Phoenix

Favorite Album right now: Wolf Parade-Apologies to the Queen Mary

Funny Song I like: I am not a robot by Marina and the Diamonds

Newest Band into my rotation of favorites-Yeah Yeah Yeahs

The world I live in

So summer has passed without a blog post due to other activities and hobbies. Once graduation hit I decided that I needed some new hobbies to keep myself busy. I have been engaged in watching a telenovela entitled Al diablo con los guapos (the devil with the good lookings) and find it very interesting. Here's the break down, a mother died at child birth and left her daughter with a necklace, but the girl (sometimes mistaken as a boy) really wants to know who her father is. On the other side of things, a dad recently killed his wife and his son's girlfriend and now his son is in a wheelchair and hates the dad with a passion. A friend of the family starts falling for the orphan girl who uses so many crazy ways to get by, like selling cards with saints on them and selling soda pop at baseball games. Oh, and you don't want to miss the coach at the baseball games, he is always good for a laugh. The series is heating up and one can only hope that everything gets solved in the 15+ hours left I have to watch of the show.
Another hobby that has been keeping me busy is running. I'm the kind of guy who you see running really fast on the street and say to yourself, "there is no way he can keep that pace up." well, you are correct, seconds after passing me you'll probably notice me slowing to a walk in your rearview mirror, I make sure to run on the busiest roads so as many people can see me as possible.
I've also become an avid reader this summer or as i like to call it story time. I like novels, especially Clive Cussler tales, for those of you who don't know Clive, well let's just say they are like Indiana Jones meets the ocean meets diabolical plans to take over the world. Pretty great stuff. The latest story I leafed through was about a bunch of people trying to control population growth by leaking viruses on cruise ships. Let me tell you, the action did not stop for a page. The funny thing is, this crazy novel was talking about population control just as I was reading another book about population growth, talk about contrasting views. Anyway, the basic concept is that the more humans there are on the earth, the more geniuses will be among us. Say if there is one genius per 1 million people, then we will have more geniuses. That is why it took man (according to scientists) thousands of years to progress so little, any invention that happened was rare and took a long time to disperse among other groups of people. So as the world becomes more crowded, there are actually more intelligent people on the earth to solve overcrowding, urbanization, and depleting resource problems. I also read that ten percent of the people who ever lived on this earth are alive right now! Think about it, the population has doubled over the last 30-40 years. That is incredible to contemplate and who knows how accurate it really is, but I like telling people that and I never have been questioned, so make of it what you will.
It's funny how prayers are answered through the strangest ways. A few weeks back I was going through something that some people might consider a difficulty and found it hard to be at work, anyway I prayed seeking an answer for this issue and was blessed with the comfort of a 50 year old mexican named Lupe. He started taking me under his wing for some reason and offered me solace and humor that I never expected. I'm way grateful for that blessing.
I have been pretty busy this summer, there are some things that I wish I would have done and others that I'm so glad that I did. It's always great to connect with old friends and seemingly not miss a beat once you've reunited, especially when you thought you would never talk to them again. Some relationships seem to permeate any things or distance that may come between them and make you feel happy just to say you know that person. Sometimes the greatest surprises in my life come from such simple things and make me so happy.

The month that keeps on fooling

So, I just read this rather unsubstantiated article but funny nonetheless. It appears that kids who list Lil Wayne as their favorite artist are the dumbest in the nation. Now I do not list Lil Wayne as my favorite, but he is constantly in my top five rotation. This article lacks some credence though. I think some of Lil Wayne's music is super clever, not all of it of course, but the man's word play definitely takes thought. I think this study is more critical of demographics and the kids who enjoy his music. I do not think that music can make you dumb, but if you are dumb maybe you listen to a certain type of music. That is more what it seems like to me, but I do not know. Anyway, check out the study that has lots of different groups on it. My favorite group is actually near the top of the study, so maybe I'm just half dumb. Study on music Preference!!!

Fooling April

So I spent April Fool's Day up in West Jordan and was fooled in a way that I never thought. So, I was watching tv in my front room and I got a knock on the door. I answered it and was greeted by two little kids from down the street. They seemed really excited and told me that my car was in the middle of the street. I thought they were just yanking my chain, but sure enough I looked and my car was in the middle of the street. Now I live in a circle, so there was no immediate danger, but my car was blocking nearly the entire street. Apparently my clutch popped out and the parking brake couldn't hold the car on the slope so it rolled back into the street. The kids had been playing in my front yard and were freaked out because they saw my car rolling back with no one in it. I was kind of embarrassed, so I ran inside to give these two heroes some reese's peanut butter cups. As I was running out to give them the candy I slipped down my back stairs right in front of the kids. I couldn't do anything right. I gave them the candies though and returned to watch my lfietime original movie. I'm not even kidding, I watched a whole lifetime movie yesterday at home because nothing else was on. Oh well, I sure got fooled.

Testing Out

As my college career comes to a close I find that my test taking ability has declined precipitously. I liken it to an ink blot test, where you see black ink on a page and you say the first thing that comes to your mind. On a side note, I think that 40 percent of ink blots look like butterflies. I realized this after taking a test yesterday. There were 70 multiple choice questions and a two page fill in the blank portion. I finished the test in less than 35 minutes. The average test time in my class was bordering on an hour. I do not know if I just do not care how i do on tests anymore or if i have become so trustworthy of my first instincts that I just go with it. I figure that combined with my study methods, this is not the best route to take. Here is my justification, I can study for one hour and get a B on a test, it would take me about 5-6 hours to study hard enough to get an A. I just cannot justify 4 more hours of studying for a marginal increase in my grade. It's the law of diminishing returns, and what I can accomplish in those four hours is of far greater worth than a slight increase in grade. My favorite ink blot, because it is so easy "Giant Panda attacking human kind"

Spring Break

Due to BYU's non-compliance with spring break, Kris and I decided to take a day-cation up the canyon to Park City for a day of shopping, sweets, sun, and swearing. First of all, I don't understand why spring break exists in the first place. For me, the thought of going without school for a week is nice, but 1) I would not do any homework 2) i would get out of my groove and have a hard time getting back into the groove 3) I would probably spend a lot of money on a quick vacation 4) anywhere I went on vacation would be crowded because everyone has the same idea. I feel that spring break is a little overblown and although offers a nice furlough from studies, is not indicative of the real world. I prefer getting out of school two weeks earlier than any other school and being done anyway. So aside from that harangue, Kris and I had our spring break and I broke most of the rules I just talked about. We went up to Park City and I spend $100 on some new kicks, LeBron James shorts, three shirts, and a hoodie. It was one of those days where the stores had everything that I wanted and I could not pass up purchasing, that coupled with the fact that literally two minutes from entering the first store I received a call from my landlady informing me that I did not have to pay rent next month. CHEAAA! I was thus in a more prodigious situation financially and more inclined to spend. After hitting up all the stores, we stopped in Heber at McDonald's. Now, usually I wouldn't write about a fast food eatery in a blog post, but this McDonald's was "the shit." (it's funny how people use that phrase to mean something awesome) It had flat panel tv's all over and even one above the urinal in the bathroom. It was the longest I have ever stood in front of a urinal in my many years of urinal standing, but when you have a tv right in front of you, what is the rush? There was also a McCafe with stools and a bar, an air hockey table, a play station 3, and a basketball hoop. I'm convinced this was the nicest fast food place I have ever been, there was even Internet stations. I was blown away. So, that was basically my spring break with my brother. Not too much to gloat about, but good to forget about school for a day.

Touching down in China Town

Whenever I go to a new country or city I like to listen to a song that gives a shout out to that city or province. These are some songs that I have listened to on arrival to various destinations.

One Night in Bangkok (Murray Head)- As the plane descended into Bangkok dusk was just arriving and this song was pumping me up.

Two different songs were played when I went to Vietnam. The first was neon tiger by the Killers, which says, "far from the rain fall on the trails of old Saigon". Ho Chi Minh, which was formerly called Saigon sure did provide plenty of trails to see, especially along the old tunnels the Vietcong used. The next song that I had going while riding around town was none other than Kanye West's Diamonds from Sierra Leone, "Good Morning, this ain't Vietnam still, people lose hands, legs, arms for real."

The next song is a classic, "Turning Japanese" was playing as I touched down in Nagoya, Japan. I didn't turn Japanese, so the song didn't work, but I still liked it there.

Last summer, Conor Oberst and the mystic valley band wrote a song called Moab, which I had playing as I drove through Moab on a road trip.

Jump Little Children have a song called "Mexico", so this was playing as I crossed the border into Tijuana. Very appropriate for the occasion.

The Recession by Young Jeezy has provided me with lots of good tunes, one in particular is called "My President is Black" and talks about the earthquake in China. Two weeks after that happened I arrived in Hong Kong with this song playing.

Costa Rica is another country that provided me with some songs to listen to. The first song is by T-Pain called "Can't believe it". He says "I put you in the beach house, right on the edge of Costa Rica." I happened to stay in a beach house in Costa Rica, rather a beach hostile, but it's all the same there. The second song is an old one by Saves the Day called "You Vandal", where he says, "last night I dreamt you called from Costa Rica, the place you've been for the last two weeks." I wasn't exactly there for two weeks, but I loved all the time I had.

The last and final song is probably my favorite from Alt. country star Ryan Adams called "New York". You can of course guess where this destination is. Ryan really gives the New York feel in this song and I listened to it about fifteen times during the three times I went to NY last summer. Kanye also gives some "NY summertime" shout outs.

So there are a few of the songs that I have listened to while going to various places. Comment on some of the songs that you have resonated with while going to various countries, they don't even have to have the name of the place in the song. Maybe just a song that meant a lot to you when you went somewhere. I wish I could go to England because there are tons of songs I would listen to, American Boy, Jude Law and a semester abroad, and English Girls Approximately. Holla to all you London town goers.

Buzzed

During this time of year it is common for kids from colleges around the United States to go on Spring breaks and indulge in various buzzes. These range from drug buzzes to alcohol buzzes or whatever form of buzz to alleviate the pressures of college studies. I however, have taken a different route concerning spring buzzes, an actual shaved head. This was not my desire but due to some fortuitous circumstances I now look fifteen years old. Here's how it played out . . . I went home last Sunday and asked my Dad for a haircut. I felt like my hair was a little too long on front and with the advent of spring I wanted something a little shorter. My Dad would not shave my head when I first made the request, but he was willing to trim up my hair. So, he cut my hair and it looked pretty good, but once again there was a part in the front that appeared a little longer. I asked my dad if he could go over that part again, he paused and then grabbed the clippers. Unknown to us at the time was that he had left the shorter clip on the shears that he had used to trim the sides. He went right over the front of my head and gave me a reverse Mohawk, with a short line right down the middle of the head. The only remaining option was for him to shave the rest of my head. I guess I got what I originally wanted, even though I took four years off my looks. To make it worse I laid out in this warm 50 degree and am now sunburned. So, my looks have suffered this week, but I don't care because spring is on the way!

America's best dance crew

I seldom tune into dance shows, but last night was the finale of America's best dance crew and it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life. My friend Val invited me over to witness the culmination of this season's efforts and I was astonished. An Asian crew won, which is even more exciting for me. I have trying to dance all day long!!! They won 100,000 dollars and I think I am going to try and win next season with my own crew. I could use the money. I am going to name my group the classy cloggers, because that is the name of a group of older women in my ward who formed a clogging group with that same name. We're not going to clog though, just jazz dance, because I love the Jazz and I don't know how to clog, but I like the name. I obviously have a dilemma, my name doesn't fit and oh yeah, I don't know how to dance. I think I'll just stick to watching the show.

Dan's in my crew

Gun Guy

I have never desired to possess a weapon, except when I saw Lord of the Rings and looked in the really big sword market for a while. However, recently I really want a gun. Talk on the political circuit is that they are trying to outlaw any gun with a detachable magazine, which would limit the types of sweet guns that people can purchase. I think that with the threat of guns being banned, I am more inclined to get one now. It's like when a movie you kind of wanted to see is at the dollar theater and it's your last chance to see it on the big screen. You go and see it even though it was never really a priority before. The one exception being when they put the Start Wars movies on the big screen in the late 90's, but that won't happen for all cinema attractions. Anyway, I think a gun would make me look more manly, telling people that I own a gun would sure to be a great subject topic, guns bring safety. So those are a few of my reasons why I want a gun, that coupled with them possibly leaving are huge motivation. Concealed weapon's permits are cheap and I can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning than learning about guns. I have been talking to many of my colleagues lately and they have been extremely informative as well. One man even saved a families life because he had his gun on him. This all leads me to wonder why guns are being prohibited. If you limit the number of guns available, then criminals are more likely to commit crimes, because there is no deterrent. In other words, people aren't likely to break into a house where there is the possibility of the owner owning a gun and using it on an intruder. The introduction of fear deters people. In a town in Georgia it is strongly encouraged for every male 18 years old and older to have a concealed weapon. Guess what the homicide rate is for that town. One in the last 100 years. That's a pretty effective mechanism for dropping crime rates. So, while I don't want a gun to use I do think it would be effective in convincing girls that I am tough, just by saying I have a gun. This is probably the biggest reason why (tongue in cheek here). Not really for that reason, but events are taking place that are moving me in the direction of owning a gun.