The Subsitute Mormon Chaplain

The Substitute Mormon Chaplain provides a look at a man who is low on faith. The book relies on flashbacks to give the reader several inspiring stories that the 'Mormon Chaplain' experienced to have faith in God. The book serves the purpose of inspiring the reader to look back at their own life and analyze the experiences that have contributed to ones own faith. For those who are not familiar with the Mormon faith, many terms in the book will be a little bit confusing and undefined unless you are willing to do a little bit of research. Those with a basic understanding of Mormonism will be pleased and may draw on similar experiences where they could see the hand of God influencing their lives.

Overall, the book is well written and holds the interest of the reader. There are blessings ascribed to those who search to know how to follow God's will and obey commandments that they see as divine. Some will see a luck and chance play into how things are accomplished and others will attribute those things to divine intervention. Whatever the faith of the reader, this book does a great job at promoting obedience and faith building in a religious context.

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I received a complimentary copy of (The Substitute Mormon Chaplain) as a member of the

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Grown Up Christmas List

A few days ago I wrote about a Christmas Mix that has really been meaningful to me during this Christmas season. One of the songs on that cd by Amy Grant is entitled "Grown Up Christmas List". In that song the verse goes like this:

No more lives torn apart,
That wars would never start,
And time would heal all hearts.
And everyone would have a friend,
And right would always win,
And love would never end.
This is my grown-up christmas list.

I grew up listening to this song and have always liked these lyrics, especially as I become more grown up and form my own grown up Christmas list. Sure, they are a little cheesy, but the inherent message is meaningful to me. The list that Amy gives includes many things that she has no control over and will obviously continue to happen in great abundance. Lives will be torn apart, wars will start and everyone will not always have a friend, but there are 'wishes' that she and you and I can control and bring to pass.

As a young man I looked forward to Christmas so much. I knew that this was my one chance in the year to get new toys, clothes, essentials and no sleep. The no sleep didn't bother me that much considering all of the others bells and whistles (literally) associated with the Christmas season. One thing I could also look forward to was Secret Santa or the 12 days of Christmas. This is something that we would do to a neighbor who we would all decide on and needed some extra Christmas love. Each night for the 12 days preceding Christmas we would leave anonymous gifts on the doorstep, back porch, mailbox, bricks through windows (kidding) or anywhere else around the house that we had decided on. These small gifts all espoused the Christmas spirit. Kris and I would go with my dad, or in later years by ourselves, to deliver these gifts to the chosen neighbor. I always loved doing this and experiencing the joy that came with giving. I'm grateful for my parents who incorporated this tradition into our home.

Now, I don't look so much forward to the gifts or presents. I'm at a point in life where I can purchase any necessity or want whenever I need to. The waiting Christmas morning for gifts doesn't bring the anticipation that it once did, but the spirit of giving has always stayed with me.

Amy's wonderful song offers some things that I believe can be achieved by one's one volition. Some of her grown up Christmas list items are wishes that are on my grown up Christmas list too. As a member of the LDS church, I firmly believe that right will always win in the end. That is a grown up Christmas wish that I have and know will come to fruition. I also know that love will never end. The love that comes through Christ fills and increases as people all around the world try to do the deeds that the Savior did and love their fellow man. Love will never end, but it can end in our hearts if we don't seek to give freely and serve those around us. President Eyring, an LDS apostle recently said, "Threre are gifts to us that we can offer to others for Him. We do that by remembering Him and trying with all our hearts to do what He would do and love as He loves." We can love as we have been loved. The last wish from her song that I hope for is that everyone will have a friend. I can be a friend to all those who need one and seek to help those in need. A lot of these wishes are self-fulfilling prophecies. If you have a Christmas list this year, do your best to fulfill the items on the list and spread the joy of this time of year.

A Picture Diary of a Christmas Birthday

Aaron Lewis, my sister Rachel's wonderful fiancee had a birthday last weekend and we celebrated Sunday night. I like Aaron for a lot of reasons. 1) He'll be way more successful than me 2) He and I studied similar scholastic subjects and had many of the same professors 3) He makes my sister happy 4) He'll be way more successful than me and 5) He's a pretty good guy. For all of these reasons and more (like that he'll be way more successful than me) I decided to honor him with a caption picture diary of last night's celebration.

I know people have many different preferences, but all Aaron wanted was a small piece of meat for his birthday. I won't tell you how I felt about it (extremely unsettled), but to each their ownHere's Laura (Aaron's sister and my future cousin) sitting in her car while we went to town on all the food Aaron didn't eat (who just eats a single piece of meat on their birthday anyway?) Laura was in this car for 4 hours and 26 minutes (all times approximate)
Ok, here's what Aaron's plate really looked like (kind of). This is actually my sister's plate, but since they are getting married, all things in common right?
After dinner Aaron read us his mission call. This was a little strange because he's already been home for about three years and we all knew that he served in Colorado, but he really wanted to read it to us. Anything for the birthday guy.
4 hours 27 minutes and counting ........

After Aaron read his call, Kris read us a story that he had written about a young boy who met a young girl with beautiful long hair. Everyone thought (incorrectly) that the story was about Aaron and Rachel, but those of us who had eyes to see knew that he had just blatantly stolen the basic premise of Tangled.

Katie was absolutely captivated

Laura finally decided to join us. She had some obvious signs of hypothermia, but quickly regained full mobility. We were all grateful she decided to face the music and begrudgingly wish her brother a happy birthday.
Aaron didn't have a chance of blowing out all the candles, we stacked the deck (and the cupcakes) against him. It was a noble effort and by noble I mean failed. After the candles, Laura put her arm around Aaron. This was a nice sisterly gesture, but we were sure that Rachel did not like it one bit. Laura, Aaron is Rachel's now
Kris was really tired from everything that was going on . I don't blame him. Everyone was really tired of pictures and videos being taken all night (sorry guys), but those scowls all turned into smiles once they heard I was making a picture diary of the night.and here's one of those smiles right now. You're very welcome Rachel for documenting this great night. I hope you enjoyed Aaron's birthday.
.

Merry Christ(mix)

What makes a great cd mix? Is it the variety of songs? The theme of the cd? How catchy the songs are? How the songs make you feel? None of these, all of these? It is a tough question. I don't really know the answer to what makes a cd mix great or spectacular, but I recently received one of the best mixes I've been exposed to in a while and it has many of the qualities I find pertinent to good mixes:

1) It's Christmas music (I love Christmas music)

2) The music sticks with you (I find myself humming many of the songs when I'm not listening to the cd)

3) The music is very positive and makes me happy

4) I want to do good things (Christmas related) for others when I listen to the songs

5) They are fun to sing along with

6) Some make me laugh because they are cheesy/over the top (thank you Mariah)/strange (Busta Rhymes and Bieber??)/or talk about hippopotamuses (I want a hippopotamus for Christmas, is this a metaphor?)

7) It's Christmas music

8) The Killers are involved

9) The music reminds you of someone or something (the nostalgia factor)

10) It's Christmas music

Here are my short thoughts along with the singer/song of one of the best mixes I've ever had the pleasure of listening to:

1. Oh Santa. Maria Carey-Strong solid opening song from Mariah, catchy, fun, multiple Santa references, everything you want in a Christmas song

2. Mistletoe.Justin Bieber- I love when 5'4 teeny boppers call other people shawty (I know shawty means girl, it's still funny to me). This song does tug at the heart strings though, makes you want to procure some mistletoe immediately and find a special someone

3) Only Thing I Ever Get for Christmas.Justin Bieber- More mistletoe references, more heart strings being tugged

4) Fa La La.Justin Bieber-Boyz to Men help out on this track, which is always a plus. Some easy rhymes in this one, holly/jolly, fa/la. Bieber isn't bringing it on this track like his other ones, Boyz to Men represent though

5) All I want is You.Justin Bieber-Christmas love songs can be very sentimental, I feel like Beiber opened up my chest and took these lyrics out of my heart. He has a special gift that Bieber.

6) Home this Christmas.Justin Bieber-Stay out of my heart and mind Bieber!!

7) The Christmas Song.Justin Bieber/Usher-Beautiful duet by these two. When I picture them singing this song to each other it makes it kind of funny. I would have picked a female to sing this song with. Thoughts of Usher and Bieber hanging out on Christmas Eve singing this song to each other is a bit of a stretch, but hey, why not?

8) Little Drummer Boy.Justin Bieber/Busta-YES YES YES. Listened to this song three times in a row. You can hear Busta in the background leading up to his verse making various references to fireplaces and saying 'yeah' a lot. Busta talks about food (no surprise), rapping (less of a surprise), and Christmas (big surprise). Thanks for this great tag team.

9) A Great Big Sled.The Killers-Do I love the Killers? Yes. They make a new Christmas song every year that comes out on Dec. 1 to support the RED campaign to help with the eradication of AIDS. This is my second favorite of their six Christmas songs. It offers nostalgia, catchy tune, Christmas, and it's the Killers. Love it.

10) Happy Birthday Guadalupe. The Killers-Very good Killers song. The first Happy Birthday/Christmas song (they do mention Christmas, decking the halls, wishing upon Christmas trees, and Mexican angels). So good!

11) Merry Christmas Happy Holiday. N Sync-Who would have thought that N Sync stood for In synchronization? Thank you google. (Joke, I actually did already know this). This is a great holiday tune.

12) My Only Wish.Britney Spears-This is one of my favorite songs on the mix. It is so catchy and happy. It reminds of a better Britney, a less tainted Britney. So that helps with the nostalgia factor. This song may have gotten a repeat or two.

13) All I want for Christmas Is you. Mariah Carey-Mairah+Christmas=guaranteed good time. This is also one of my favorite tracks on the mix. Very fun, very upbeat, very Mariah.

14) Last Christmas. Wham-The synthesizer song! That's how I originally referred to it upon first listen. Very 80's ish (probably because it's from the mid-80's) and that explains the synthesizers. I want to slow dance to this song right now.

15) Feliz navidad-Christmas classic, the mix would not be complete without this gem. I do think there are only 3-4 lines in this whole song, but that enables everyone to sing it.

16) Melekalikimaka.Bing Crosby-Many people didn't know Christmas existed in Hawaii before this song, Bing set the record straight back in the 40's. We're grateful to him.

17) Baby it's cold outside-Nice chill song about Christmas, I like it. I hadn't heard it in many years. I don't know how it would be as a karaoke song, but that doesn't really matter. But as you listen, think about doing karaoke with someone on this song. It's A Capella in many parts and would be quite interesting to sing this with someone.

18) Grown Up Christmas List. Amy Grant-My mom had Amy Grant's Christmas cd when I was young and would always listen to it. Very nostalgic for me. I like the message to this song and Amy does a good job. I think of one of my good friends who always tried to be friends to everyone when I listen to this song.

19) The Gift. Collin Raye-I had never heard this song before, but I really really like it. It makes me think of people who have been gifts in my life. There have been many.

20) Oh Holy Night. Mariah Carey-If you aren't looking at who is singing this song when it first comes on, you will think it is a man for approximately the first two seconds of this song. Just wait until the end though, DIVA time!! Awesome.

21) I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas. Gayla Peevey-Speechless. I almost skipped this track and it turned out better than I thought. Funny song.

22) Suzy Snowflake-Great ending track to one of the great Christmas mixes. I want to do this for my next karaoke appearance. It will catch people off guard, it is a good song, and there's a great interlude where a dance number can be interjected.

So, there you have it. One of the best Christmas mixes around. These songs have helped me feel the Christmas spirit, experience an appropriate amount of nostalgia, and get my heart strings tugged at way too much. I hope you've enjoyed the track by track break down. Enjoy this Christ(mix) and have a Merry Christmas.

Companionship Inventory

It took a full three months on my LDS mission to experience my first real companionship inventory. For those of you who are not familiar with this terminology, a companionship inventory occurs when two missionaries discuss the positives, negatives, strengths and weaknesses of how the communication and relationship in the companionship is developing. Previous to this first 'real' inventory I had only asked my companion if he was good, to which he generally replied 'yeah' and we would go on our merry way. Guys are so easy to get along with sometimes. It wasn't until I actually sat down with a companion and hashed out everything going on that I saw the immense value that these discussions can have. Over the rest of the time on the mission I enjoyed these inventories to take stock of what was going on. I did hear some unusual and once or twice petty things that annoyed companions about me, but every time I received this information I was grateful to know so that I could work on it and become better. In the cases that I heard petty things, I would state my case and resolve the issue.

There are a number of reasons why I liked having this inventory once a week.
1) It only was once a week for a few minutes
2) Anything that upset me during the week allowed me to wait until we talked and usually by then it wasn't that big of a deal
3) I learned a lot about how I am perceived
4) I learned a lot about how other people perceived themselves
5) I learned to say encouraging things that I recognized as great qualities in others
6) I learned how to work well with people from other cultures
There are many great things that one can learn from similar experiences. This list is by no means exhaustive, but these are some of the great lessons I learned.

I'm mentioning this because my sister Rachel recently told me how she and her fiancee have a relationship inventory on a regular basis. Many good things have come from this because of the regularity and frankness with which they can discuss their concerns. I think this is a wonderful idea. When you can talk openly, espousing the spirit of love with someone who you care about, great things will happen. Most good relationships will need great communication to be successful. This is a necessary skill that will help two people grow closer, get to know each other better, and sort out any misunderstandings. It can be just as hard to be open with someone as it is to hear what someone thinks about you, but it is worth it. A relationship inventory done correctly is a great tool for any two people serious about making a relationship successful.

Amazing Race

No Love in the Club: Part 2

The drive up to Park City was rather uneventful considering the initial shock of seeing a harlot walk out and enter my friend’s car. We talked a little about ourselves and started joking around more as we got closer to our destination. Fortunately for the scantily clad women with us we found a parking spot right in front of the club. The girls spent another ten minutes or so getting ready and debating over trivial tasks such as bringing in a coat (for the 15 foot walk to the front door), leaving a purse in the car (also, our car was 15 feet from the door), applying chap stick, and applying perfume. The combined time it would have taken a normal person to complete these tasks and make these decisions was 42 seconds give or take, our entourage complicated these simple tasks by deliberating for a full ten minutes of personal agony for me. As we finally approached the front door to the club, greetings were given to the bouncers and we were ushered inside. I was subjected to only a visual frisking at this point and made my way into the club.

As I entered the club bar area my mind reverted to the many episodes of Jersey Shore that I had watched in anticipation of this moment. I expected the following things from my club experience that seemed standard in every Jersey Shore club excursion.

1) At one point there would be multiple women dancing on tables or bars (Coyote Ugly also contributed to this delusion)

2) There would be at least two people beyond any point of coherence due to inebriation that would fall down at some point during the night.

3) Every bouncer that I came into contact with would give me mad props and I’d say something cool to them that they would immediately courtesy laugh at

4) A girl and guy making out with no regard for any other living (or dead) person

5) The wild card was that I would see a guy kissing two girls at the same time

Now these are all things that I legitimately expected to see at some point because of my avid watching of Jersey Shore. None of these is something that I necessarily hoped to see (who I am kidding, I wanted to experience all of these things), but I did fully expect to see something of this sort during the night. I will say now that I did not see any of these things happening during the course of the night and was a little bit upset by my misfortune. However, there were other things that I did see, but first I will go back to our entourage.

As was expected the girls that we arrived with quickly ditched us after we had been there for 15 seconds. They seemed to know everyone and started taking an insane amount of pictures. I fully believe that nearly 50 pictures were taken over the course of the next two hours. To put this in perspective, I recently spent a full 9 days in Europe and managed to take 28 pictures the entire week. This is most likely because it was freezing and I hated taking out my camera, but still 28 pictures in Europe. We were in a dark club with nothing cool to see at all. I couldn’t understand why the girls wanted to take so many pictures of themselves dressed in such revealing outfits. I can understand one or two pictures, but there were enough pictures for multiple albums. It was like they were documenting the fact that they had no self-respect for their future dead beat husbands and families. Congratulations to them.

One of the girls that we came with was expecting a boy that she had a crush on to be at the club that night. However, she often varied from her original desire to see him. Her reasoning went like this

1) hope that he comes

2) hope that he doesn’t come

3) hope that he comes so that she could ignore him

4) hope that another boy she liked would show up so the first boy would be jealous

5) hope that she could go home with the first boy

6) hope that she could go home with the second boy

7) hope that the first boy wouldn't show up

8) hope that she could dance on a table and kiss two guys at once

Ok, I made that last one up. But claiming that this girl was fickle, was a gross understatement. She was almost as bad as Brad on the Bachelor. Every time that Brad goes on a one on one date with a girl, he almost always gives them a rose and says that he is way into them and that he is excited with how things are going. This man can not pull his emotions away from rationale thinking at all. I guess now that I think about it, he is just like every guy, so I suppose that I cannot fault him too much.

About halfway through her deliberations the first boy did show up and proceeded to grab her friend’s butt, hit on various other girls, ignore her, and then eventually talk her into staying the night with him. This last part was especially excruciating. We had planned to leave at 12:00 because of some early morning church obligations for myself. The girls pleaded for 1:00 and my friend and I relented. At 1:00 the girls showed up and said they had to say goodbye to their friends. 1:20 came and one girl came by and said she had to find the other girls (we could clearly see them dancing on stage by the DJ as she claimed she couldn’t find them). At 1:45 we finally corralled them into the car and were about ready to go, but the one who had so many deliberations about the boy said that she had to go back into the club for a second. She didn’t answer our phone calls or come back out for 20 more minutes. This was the point when I started cursing her out to her friend, with my friend more than equaling my creative swears. Finally the girl showed up outside. She came to the car, said she was staying, and walked back inside. I was furious. Her plan had obviously been to stay much later at the club, but she had the gall to drag us along for such a long period of time with no intent of intimating what her true desires were. By the time we got home (a snow storm had just come in and slowed our drive home) it was 3:30 in the morning. Only Pauly D can change my idea of clubs now. I still think he is one of the coolest guys that ever graced the club scene and I pledge to continue my club affiliation vicariously through him.

There were a few things that I did enjoy during the night and here they are in no particular order:

1) A man that looked exactly like Billy Zane and for all I know it was his cousin or maybe even son, spitting image

2) A large woman in a bright red dress that we simply referred to as The Big Red Machine, I was mildly entertained when we talked one of the girls into getting her picture taken with The Big Red Machine

3) Drinking half of a red bull and feeling like my heart was going to explode, I would be an awful drinker

4) A kid getting tackled at my feet by three bouncers and one of them cuffing the kid and another taking a shot to his gut as they dragged him out of the club, no one knew what the kid had done, but it was funny

5) An older gentleman wearing crappy skate shoes from the late nineties and bobbing his head to the beat of the music for most of the night, I’m pretty sure he was so liquored up that he had no idea where he was

6) A cool kid walking by my friend and simply saying, “you’ve got a grabber”, we later learned that this was when a girl leaves and then comes and finds you multiple times throughout the night and often drags you along wherever she goes. Thanks cool kid!

7) An indian kid who looked like a gypsy shaman indian who was actually wearing a headband with a feather and indian looking vest

8) An Asian kid doing a sweet break dance before it was broken up by the bouncers

Let me now explain how this was my personal liberty jail. As Joseph received some of the greatest revelation ever known to man he was in a dark, awful jail with people who hated him. I wasn't in quite such a circumstance, but I did have clear thoughts as I sat in the back of that club. I knew that I was grateful for the knowledge that I had been given of the restored gospel and that I should do nothing that would disqualify from the wonderful blessings of a Christ centered life. I walked out of that place feeling empowered to choose the right and make the most out of my life in whatsoever situation I would find myself. I believe that sometimes the sweetest thoughts can come in places you would never think. This different perspective really helped me to see how great my life is and how great it is to have the gospel in it.

Car-less

Last week I was seated around a spacious table with a few of my co-workers working diligently on a new project. We had just finished a great meal and were finishing up the small details pertaining to the completion of the new initiative. As often happens after meals, my mind was prone to wandering and I glanced up at the tv right above our table. Some program about a car show was on and I didn't think too much of what was going on, nor was I much interested in what was happening. Suddenly someone mentioned that the car that the camera had focused on was a '68 something or other, to which someone else responded that this was not the '68 version, but the '65 model. The feeling that washed over me was similar to the feeling I got about two-thirds of the way through Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen; I had no idea what was going on. I saw that there was a car on the screen and that it looked like an 'old' style car and that people were looking at it. In Transformers I was aware that explosions were happening and that some robot vehicles were fighting for some reason, but beyond that I had no idea what was going on.

I don't think I am alone in saying that when it comes to cars the best thing that I can come up with to say is that the car looks cool, nice, or big. I suddenly revert to a third grader trying to describe his house in my elementary vocabulary. There must be some generational gap when it comes to car knowledge or maybe I'm less inclined to pay attention than other people. I do not know anything about old cars except that they are old. I can distinguish a Mustang, or Camaro, and even the rare Corvette, but when it comes to years and models, I have no idea how people can tell what is what and does it really matter. Apparently one model was better than the other for some reason that no one can really explain, it just is general knowledge.

Everyone has heard stereotypical jokes about men and their adoration for cars. Men love cars, they fix cars, they wash cars, they go for long drives in their cars in the fall, they grill out of the back seat in their cars, they make out in cars, they do everything with their cars. It would seem that the whole reason for man's existence begins and ends with a car. I remember watching Home Improvement in my youth and wondering why the "Tool Man" was always working on his car or talking about a car. I mean always. A full 25% of the scenes were of him in his garage working on his car with his friends, boys, even his wife, and oddly enough many times he was all alone working on the car. As a child I was taught that a good portion of my everyday life must be spent doing something with a car. I had better things to do as a 12 year old and skipped the mandatory daily sessions working on a car. On another note, if a life form from another planet could only tune in to Home Improvement episodes they would be convinced that man had some sort of amorous relationship with his car. (heck, even I was convinced of this, no wonder Miss Taylor was always so upset with Tim, he was stepping out on her)

My lack of knowledge or even concern for vehicles led me to wonder about the following question. Will the cars of this generation be considered classic cars in the future? When someone calls a car classic, I'm not even sure what that means. I do know there is nothing classic about a Corolla or Accord. So my answer would be no. Which means, that unless this generation goes and researches old cars from the 50's to 70's, people will just stop caring. I can't recall a conversation where I sat around and talked with my friends about cool cars. (except after each and every Fast and Furious movie and in that case we only talked about how fast those cars were, and to boot, those cars were civics, nothing classic about that). Why would we talk about cars? Did guys ever just sit around and talk about how cool cars are? Maybe they did, but that seems way outdated. To car lover's defense, I'm sure that people still do get together and talk about their cars that they've owned in the past and how cool they are and that's great for them.

Now there is one area of pop culture that has embraced mentioning cars and showing them on music videos. You guessed it, hip hop!!! Country music videos with hicks driving old beat up trucks around just never caught on. I suppose that the hip-hop culture does talk a lot about cars, but usually they only refer to the price tag, rims, or how many hood rats are draped over the vehicle. And all of those things are just bragging anyway (I've never seen a rap video where they are doing an oil change or rotating the tires). So, after all I do suppose that there is some contemporary discussion (if you call a scantily clad woman washing a Maserati as a discussion, I do, that is something to discuss for better or worse) or cars, but it's not a conversation I'm likely to join in on soon, unless a new Fast and Furious movie comes out soon.

My Liberty Jail (Part One)

Liberty is perhaps the most ironic name for a prison, unless somewhere an inmate somewhere is sitting in Freedom Jail shaking his head slowly. That’s like naming the biggest buffet in Louisiana “Slims” or referring to the largest inmate at the state pen as “Tiny”. Most cities have jails and the jail usually follows the name of the city (Salt Lake County Jail). In Mormon historiography, Liberty Jail was where Joseph Smith was unjustly incarcerated for 4 months during 1838-1839, however the title Temple Prison was later associated with this locale because of the tender revelations that were received here and now reside in the LDS scriptures the Doctrine and Covenants. Those familiar with Mormon history are well aware of the content and circumstances that brought about these revelations. This location was probably the last place that Joseph would expect to receive a revelation. But do revelations ever really come when or how we want them to? It is my experience that this is not the case, inspiration comes when and how the Lord sees fit. Certainly we have places of refuge in Temples, Churches and even our own homes that are conducive to revelatory experiences. However, I believe it is possible that someone can elicit responses from the divine in prison type surroundings, just as Joseph did. These locations may in fact include spiritual or physical prisons (the Church actively assigns member to visit prisons to those members who have made mistakes and end up there). I witnessed first hand how a prison like atmosphere can induce one to want to be better and led to think more clearly on what direction their life should take. In no way do I intend to encourage people to seek such an environment for divine inspiration, but sometimes a glance at a riotous and sinful type of life can lend itself to the realization about how good life is without those influences .

Another weeknight sprawled across a sofa clad in basketball shorts and a hoodie watching sports was the pinnacle of what my genius could come up with to entertain myself. Luckily a friend with promises of hot tubs, games, and girls was the incentive I needed to pry myself off the couch with a rain check promise that I would soon return to my sanctuary. Rushing through my pre hang out warm up I showered, dressed and even doused myself in some smell goods (cologne for those of you who aren’t familiar with the term smell goods). Within the hour I was at my friend’s doorstep ready to meet some new people and hopefully meet a great girl. My optimism was approaching defcom three status (which is really high, there are four defcoms). This night was going to be awesome!

Two hours crawled by as the girls continually prolonged their proposed time to meet up with us, patience was certainly waning and the initial optimism had all but dispersed. I think that once you hit that second hour of waiting for someone to get ready you start entertaining other ideas of something to do, any idea, ideas of dollar movies, play box (xbox), or anything that doesn’t involve waiting longer for someone to put on clothes and comb their hair. We would have welcomed a coloring books with open arms at this point (and don’t think that thought was not entertained).

Finally the time arrived that the girls where ready (I could have gotten ready 17 different ways in the time it took them to prepare themselves) and we pulled up to one of their houses. The optimism was back, we were finally going to meet up. This night was going to be great! And then…the butterflies of the stomach variety were replaced with a large stone. As soon as I looked out the window a shudder of disappointment rippled through my whole body (I believe, and my friend confirms, that my body actually shook). The girls were dressed like women of the night, harlots, whatever you want to call it. I was in jeans and a t-shirt. Looking back I’m not sure if I was more rattled by the outfits or what the outfits suggested. We would not be going to any movies tonight; hot tubs were a distant thought, my longing for my comfortable sofa refuge at home would not be seeing me for longer than I had supposed. Those outfits suggested only one option for that night’s activities, we were going to one location and one location only…..we were going clubbing.

Anklitis

As soon as I landed I knew that this was much worse than any of the other ones. I've been prone to ankle sprains for the last decade or so. The first time that I ever had an ankle injury was one spring afternoon in the backyard of one of my good friends. As precocious young children we often sought fun in precarious ways. On this particular day my neighborhood cohorts and I encountered a number of mattresses in a dumpster. Naturally, we laid claim to our treasures and took them back to my friend Shu Shu's house. We started jumping on the mattresses while imitating wrestling moves for a few hours until one of us realized that the mattresses were probably extremely dirty. It was then that we started spraying the mattresses off with a hose and were surprised to see a foamy liquid emit from the first mattress, much to our chagrin we realized that these mattresses were laden with urine from one of our good neighbors. The spraying of the mattresses continued for a few hours until we were satisfied that all of the urine was cleaned out. During the hours that it took for our new "toys" to dry we cogitated about the possible uses. Wrestling mats, makeshift sleds, a motorized bed and other ridiculous uses. We finally settled on an idea, we would jump off of the trampoline and land on the mattresses doing various stunts, flips and aerials. Now the trampoline at our disposal was not your conventional round tramp that was so common in the late 1990's, not this was one of the old rectangle tramps that provided possible injury at any jump (which could possibly be said of any tramp, although these seemed much more dangerous). The fun started off innocent enough, we'd jump off on the mattresses on our feet first and then onto our back and then some flips. The ante kept on escalating until finally I decided to jump as high as I could and land on my feet on the far side of the mattress. I took off confident in my take off, but quickly started to fade to the right, I waved my arms frantically to try and control my drift, but as I came down my right foot landed outside the mattress and rolled my right ankle hard. It felt (and sounded) like it popped as soon as I landed. I laid down instantly and tried to move my ankle, but it was quickly swelling up to unnatural sizes. As I limped home, I winced with every step as I could barely walk. Days of my foot in ice packs and bowls followed as I utilized crutches to make my way around school and home. Since that first sprain I have injured each of my ankles numerous times. The most recent one was last Tuesday at a Church pick up game. I was driving to the middle of the lane and came down on someone's foot. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post I knew that this one was worse than the others. I could feel a small pop in my ankle and was sure that I had done some damage. I was determined to walk it off like all of the others, but my dad encouraged me to go get an x-ray. I had not been able to put any weight on my ankle for two days and was rather discouraged that I had fractured my ankle. As I sat in the doctor's office I offered a silent prayer that nothing was broken and that this wouldn't hinder me with everything that I needed to get done that week. As the doctor walked in my heart dropped, but I was soon reassured that I had only suffered a small bone chip and that the ankle would be ok. I was so relieved. The next day I found that I could move around a lot easier and that the swelling wasn't as bad as the previous day. I'm sure that there was some sort of divine intervention because there was such a stark contrast from the previous day. There was still some swelling as the days continued, but overall there should be a full recovery. I did however get a call from the radiologist today that there was a small crack in the bone that could have happened last week or could have been older. Perhaps that first trampoline incident was more serious than I first anticipated, but I feel blessed to know that I should be fine.

Here are some pics of the recent injury



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When in 'Doubt, fire' the ex

Last night as I was impatiently waiting for the Jazz game to come on because of an error with FSN, I randomly came upon a show that I had not seen in years. The story was a simple one, man has marital issues, man divorces wife, man attempts to win kids over (fails), man becomes house maid dressed like an old lady to stay close to the kids and keep tabs on his ex. You’ve guessed it, the incredible story of Mrs. Doubtfire!!! Apparently my memory is not so good because after watching for a couple of minutes I couldn’t believe how crazy the premise of this movie is.

Take a second and pretend that you are fifteen years old again. You have seen your dad everyday of your life and know him better than you know anyone else. Unfortunately, your parents decide to get a divorce and to compensate for taking care of you and your siblings, your mother hires a housekeeper. Oddly enough the new housekeeper looks exactly like your dad in a huge fat suit (Mrs. Doubtfire is the largest British housekeeper ever, has a strange body structure, and always wears the same thing), and to boot has a funny accent (did I mention that your dad was a professional at impersonations?) At any point would you suspect that this might be your dad? (you nodding your head slowly) YES!!!! It’s such a convoluted plot. How did the writers create the script? Here’s my take:

Screenwriter: Ok, I just talked to Robin Williams and he wants to make a new movie. He wants to do lots of impersonations and funny voices and that’s about all he said.

Writer: Hmmm, he does do that fantastic old English lady impression.

Screenwriter: Yeah, I’ve seen that. Ok, let’s see…how about he impersonates a housekeeper of some government official so that he can spy on them?

Writer: No, he’s not a great action actor. We need something with kids.

Screenwriter: He’s a hip housekeeper for street kids and helps them get their lives on track.

Writer: Wasn’t that kind of the premise of Hook?

Screenwriter: Ok, they’re his kids and he’s trying to be around them without them knowing it’s him

Writer: You’re on to something…

Seriously, how was this movie created? (It was actually based on a book, but it’s funny to think of a bunch of writers sitting around trying to create a movie this movie out of thin air) When I think of how you could get this kind of story I am stumped. Despite my misunderstanding of how this movie was created, I found some parts of the movie very funny, especially when you contrast it with Arrested Development. For AD fans, you’ll remember how Tobias dresses up as Mrs. Featherbottom so that he can see his daughter more regularly, but it is painfully (as in laughing too much pains) obvious that Tobias is the new housekeeper. I know I’m a bit late to hop on the mocking bandwagon of Mrs. Doubtfire, but AD ridicules how blatantly obvious it is that Robin Williams is the housekeeper in Mrs. Doubtfire. Does the movie ever address why there no background check? Name check? (how many Doubtfires exist?) Social Security check? Did Mrs. Doubtfire go to all this trouble to provide this false information?

All this thinking about Mrs. Doubtfire led me to some self evaluation. Don’t we sometimes want to remain in the lives of those who we break up with? Many people react to break ups in the same way as Robin Williams reacted to the break up with his (her) family in this show. I came up with six similarities:

1) After break ups, many girls (and boys) quickly find a way to get back into their ex’s lives. Examples include, attending the same church or club, going to a party they know the ex will be at, or in one crazy case actually moving into the same apartment complex as the ex. (this really happened and they are actually married now) Most people try to stay around and be friends with the ex in vain (sometimes legitimate) aspirations to rekindle the flame that has been put out.

2) Being friends with the new man (woman) in the ex’s life. Now this one is a little weird and to pull it off the person has to be very clever or subtle. In Mrs. Doubtfire, she sort of befriends Pierce Brosnan (new boyfriend) to keep loose tabs and make fun of him at every opportunity. Sometimes it is a lot more obvious. One time I met a really cool girl and we soon became friends on Facebook. Later that same day I received a friend request from someone who I did not know at all. I noticed that his friend’s included the girl I had recently met and her sister. When I questioned the girl about this she confirmed that he was her ex and that he added every boy that she met. I’m serious about this. The funny part was when I was hanging out at her house a week later and he came over. “Hey, you added me as a friend last week on facebook.” He mumbled something and walked into the other room. Weird…..

3) Parties. This is the easiest way to stay around in someone’s lives, especially with the advent of Facebook. Mrs. Doubtfire always finds ways to be at her (his) kid’s big events even though the dad can’t be there in person. He is still involved in the fun times. How easy is it to go and see what events someone is attending and randomly show up at that event (on the contrary this can help if you don’t want to randomly run into someone at a party)? Parties are a non-confrontational, relaxed environment that provides a place of casual conversation with an ex. Parties are a safe place to “run into someone” and chances are that the other person is going to be civil and maybe even kind. If you are really lucky they’ll realize that they made a huge mistake and start trying to date you again. Maybe.

4) Text. Although the texting craze hadn’t quite hit a stride yet when this movie was made it still proved that limited contact was necessary at some level. Robin Williams could see his kids once a week and only for a brief period and he was still relevant in their lives. The text offers limited contact in our day, but can mean many different things. Usually we have no idea why an ex is texting us, but this list gives a pretty good overview:

a. I’m sorry I hurt you

b. I hope that you come around

c. I’m still thinking about you

d. I’m not thinking about you enough to call

e. I still want to be friends

f. I want to ask you some irrelevant question that I already know the answer to

g. I’m lonely

h. I want to get back together

i. Remember how good of times we used to have

j. I am lost and have no idea what I’m doing

k. I want to hurt you in some way

l. I want to show you that I am more mature than you

m. I want to see you to see if there is anything between us still

The list goes on and on and on. The text is a wildcard. No one really knows what the other person’s motives are in texting. That is why it is called text, its 160 characters of words. Trying to derive any emotion out of text usually leaves people more confused. One of the most confusing things in a text from an ex is ‘how are you’? “Well I’m sad, you dumped me” “I’m over you”, how to you respond? There is no way to decipher what the words ‘how are you’ really mean. Refrain from using this at all costs.

5) Wasn’t Mrs. Doubtfire essentially stalking her (his) ex and children? He was obviously not in full custody of his children and seeing your children when you don’t have visiting rights is illegal. Stalking also happens when break ups occur. This does happen. The bad thing about stalking is, it is so easy. People can of course do it from a distance these days through social networking, but does that really diminish how crazy it is? There are times when you want to see how the ex is doing or what they have been up to lately, but it can go much further than that. I guess as long as you aren’t dressing up as a housekeeper at your ex’s house and cleaning up after them you are probably in good shape.

6) The straight up approach. At the end of Mrs. Doubtfire she finally comes clean, or rather is found out. She (him) states her motives, her love, her desires for her children and a reasonable solution (reasonable in the sense that this would be unsettling to find out your dad has been cross-dressing for months) is found. Sometimes the best solution is to get back together and sometimes the best solution is to cut all ties with the other person. If there exists any smidgen of doubt about where the relationship stands, the best thing to do is talk about it directly with that person. I spent the better part of a few years reading into signals (I guess they weren’t signals) that I perceived to be someone’s interest and I was wrong. I should have asked some tough questions and been clearer.

Maybe the writer of Mrs. Doubtfire had been divorced, maybe the screenwriter had been in a tough relationship and then tried to reconcile with his ex. Someone got the inspiration to write this movie and provide a blueprint of how to not do things when it relates to a break up of any kind. There are kernels of wisdom in explicitly not following the path that Mrs. Doubtfire walked.