O-blog-atory Post

As can be inferred from the title, this is simply an obligatory post. I really don't have a lot to write about, but it's been a while since I've written.

First things first. It is my lamentable duty to report that no one correctly guessed the past "Winner of the Week" challenge. In fact, nobody even incorrectly guessed the answer. Therefore, the prize money from last week will carry over into this week's challenge. (By the way, the correct answer was John Lathrop.)

Since my last post, I have moved up to Washington and am working on a house for David. Since I'm raking in the big bucks, I decided to buy a new camera. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to post because I had the camera shipped to the Yerington place with the expectation that I would get it at Thanksgiving. I decided not to attend the festivities but anticipated that Elise would bring my camera up when she came to visit--just like we had been planning for a few months. Then she called up one day and said, "Sorry Bro. I don't think I'll come up after all." Now I won't see my camera for a few more weeks.

Most people would say, "Don't blame it on Elise. She doesn't have to go up to Washington if she doesn't want to. Besides, it's not like she's maliciously plotting to keep your new camera from you."

To those people I would ask, have you even looked at her blog? She's got more pictures than she's got words. She's grabbed a major share of the photo-posting market and is trying to stymie my attemps to get in the game. All I can say is "enjoy it while you can, Elise. Once I get my camera your blog will have fewer hits than AAD."

To be the winner of the week, simply identify to whom these quotes belong:

1.) (Walking out of the house in nothing but underwear) "I'm running away!"

2.) "I would have to say my favorite season is....Lemon Pepper!"

3.) "Maw-awm, Ben's buying Starbursts and he's not gonna share."

4.) "Maraaae. if you're going to put this in the public, you need to talk to my agent. don't be ridiculous if you're talking about me. i have a reputation to keep...and morals to...obtain? UPHOLD. UPHOLD. stop. I'm going to go cry myself to sleep."

5.) "Oh sock locks, how I love you. The way you lock the socks so they stay together and don't become unlocked. What a precious and ingenious invention you are. Oh dear, sweet, glorious sock locks. This is my ode to thee and your useful simplicity. If I had but a penny for every fond memory I have of you, oh treasured sock locks, I would take those inevitable riches and purchase more sock locks, thus perpetuating a never ending cycle of sock locks, fond memories, pennies, and more sock locks...."

*Some of these quotes have been paraphrased. Two of them come from family members' blogs. Bonus points for identifying those blogs and the date the quotes were posted

The East Coast

I just came home from a week on the East coast. It was pretty cool and I'll tell you all about it, but first things first. The last "Winner of the Week" challenge was pretty tough but not impossible. The correct identification for all 5 quotes was provided by Victor. Since he admitted to receiving the answers from his Mom, I will grant the award to both of them. Congratulations to the first co-"Winners of the Week"!!!

Here are the quotes attached to the person to whom they can be attributed.

So let me tell you about the East coast. We flew out of Salt Lake City last Thursday night and landed in New York City at about 5:30 a.m. We were met at the airport by my friend's Mom and drove a couple of hours to their house in Connecticut. After a a short nap we took a tour of the town and went down to the beach. The next day we all went to Boston. It was a nice city but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I guess Elise and Marae got my expectations too high. The highlight of the day was seeing this Gigantic pumpkin on the drive up.

The next day we went to church in Connecticut and stayed around my friend's house. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday was spent in New York City. We saw a lot of the city in the three days we were there. The first day was spent at the Museum of Modern Art, St. Patrick's Cathedral, 5th Avenue, and Times Square. The next day we went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and then ended the day by going to a performance of Hamlet on Broadway.

On the last day in the city we stopped by the Manhattan temple, walked through Central Park, played the giant keyboard at F.A.O. Schwartz,

visited Rockefeller Center, went to the Chrysler Building, and to the top of the Empire State building. I was impressed by how big the city was. By the time we got back to Salt Lake, the city looked tiny.

Thursday was spent in Connecticut again. My friend's family prepared a big lobster dinner for us which was excellent. The next day we packed up, drove to the airport and flew home. It was a really neat trip and I had a lot of fun.

So here is the "Question of the Week": Which ancestor is buried in the same Boston cemetary as Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and Mother Goose?

I've been tagged!

Congratulations to Elise, the very first Winner of the Week. She correctly identified the "Lobster Man" reference from my last post. For those of you who didn't get the reference, Marae sings a song about being a lobsterman's wife. I have attached a youtube video with the song below. (It is not Marae singing, nor is the animation done by myself or anyone I know)

As I was reading Mom's blog, I noticed that she tagged me back in the day when people were doing that sort of thing. I figured it's better late than never, so here it goes.

5 things I've done in the past 10 years:

Graduated from High School

Got a Hernia

Stayed all alone in a hotel for Christmas

Replaced the alternator on a '96 Saturn

Ate a good hamburger

5 things I wish I could do today:

A back flip

Chop down a tree

Sneeze with my eyes open

find a good hamburger

Eat a good hamburger

5 foods I wouldn't live without:

Ribs

Bacon

BBQ'd Meats

Buffalo Wings

Good Hamburgers

5 things I'd do if I were a millionaire:

Get new tires for my rig

Get a roof rack for my rig

Reupholster my rig

Get a new air freshner for my rig

Buy a new rig and a good hamburger

5 places I have lived:

Alaska

Idaho

South Africa

Utah

Cooper's room

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The next "Winner of the Week" will be the person who most quickly and accurately identifies the author of each of the following quotes:

1) "Gimme some uh dem chips."

2) "I lite ta play bak-skit-baaaw."

3) "Oh garbage!"

4) "I had lunch at Big Mac's"

5) "I've got vision. I've got vision. I've got vision. Who could ask for anything more?"

Who will be the very first "Winner of the Week"?

So it seems Mom has finally updated her blog after nearly a year. Check it out and be sure to leave a few comments so she knows people are actually interested (at least more interested than in the AAD blog...that shouldn't be hard to do)

In reading Mom's newer posts you will notice that she incorrectly states that we attended "Marae and Ryan's wedding". Of course we all know she married Ben Campbell, but I was under the impression she would end up with this guy:

NOTE: The first person to correctly explain the previous reference in my comments section will be the "Winner of the Week" and will receive recognition and accolades in my next blog post.

Also, in going through some other blogs, I discovered Bella, Rachael B., Victor, and Nick all have blogs I didn't know about. Check those out too.

Marae's Wedding

Marae had her wedding last week and she looked positively radiant. Unfortunately, Elise couldn't make it. She is very anxious to see some pictures so I will post some here.

The Bride and Groom exiting the temple

Such a cute couple!

Everyone loved this dress Marae wore.

Awww...too precious for words!

The fam.

It was such a wonderful day, too bad you couldn't be there Weebs. Enjoy the pics.

(Here are the real photos http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2147168014/a=105498603_105498603/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/)

A quick update

Have you ever turned a keyboard upside-down and shook it only to have what looks like 1/2 cup of Mrs. Dash fall into your lap? Neither had I, until now. I'm sitting at the computer in the New Plymouth house trying to think of something to blog about, but there isn't much. I went up to Washington and helped deliver phone books, but that's already been thoroughly documented here, here, and here . A couple days later, David and Jeanne's family came down to New Plymouth and David, Jon, Cooper, Hyrum, Lydia, and I went camping. However, those events have been chronicled here and here. So there's not much left for me to say. I've been in NP for a few weeks irrigating and such while Dad, Mom, & Craig are wandering in the desert. As you can imagine, there's not much to do here, so I have decided to hone some skills in the meantime. As some of you know, I constructed an "insulated carcass wrapper" out of denim.

(I prefer 'constructed' to 'sewed' and 'insulated carcass wrapper' to 'quilt'... those terms seem less gay)

I've also been watching a lot of TV. There is a show on PBS called "Barbecue University" that has inspired me a lot. I bought a bag of charcoal and have smoked/cooked two chickens and about eight pounds of beef in the last few days. It's been pretty enjoyable.

After the success of my Lego videos, I have made a couple of short clips with nieces and nephews. Here, Eliza rides Cooper like a skateboard and moves through walls.

And here, Hyrum upsets the four-wheeler after he kicks it and then miraculously escapes.

From camping to cupcakes

It seems it is time for an update on my recent activities and what not. I'll begin with the 'activities' and then move into the 'what not'.

I mentioned in my last blog that I was going camping over Memorial Day weekend with my friend, Jason Bergquist. We hiked up to a little area above Alpine, Utah called the Second Hammongog. We were hoping to hike up a little further to a mountain lake and fish, but there was snow covering the trail after we had hiked up a few thousand feet. Here's a picture of our campsite just as we were getting into snow.

And this is us taking a break on our way back down.

We packed up a ton of food because we had been on campouts before where we basically starved, so we decided that heavy pack were better than empty stomachs. We ended up giving away or throwing away a lot of it but we ate like kings.

By the time we came down off the mountain, neither of us had showered for about four days and the odor was becoming palpable. We had little choice but to head to the local car wash and hose off. After some suds, a spot-free rinse, and a wax we went to a park restroom to change. I felt like a classy homeless guy.

Even though we weren't able to make it up to the lake, had to throw away a lot of food, and rinse off in a car wash, the whole trip was pretty fun. Plus I got to see Elise an Marae and my now-future-brother-in-law Ben.

I didn't have a picture of him so I had to do an online image search--the photo above came up. I don't know if it's a school picture or what, but it turns out that he was voted one of the ten 'most-wanted' men in New Mexico. Sounds like Marae got quite a catch.

With Marae occupied with Ben, Elise is feeling neglected. She now calls me about five or six times a day looking for someone to talk to. She has also posed some questions to me in a recent blog post. Basically the query stems from a brief conversation we had about fads in which I listed some current fads which have reached their climax and are, in my opinion, on their way down. I told her that fads are usually targeted at women and that a sure fire way to spot a fad is by the prevalent use of pink in the logo. She seemed skeptical so I did a search for logos of a couple fads I have observed--cupcakes.

And Frozen Yogurt...

I think you get the point. Pink seems to be used to sell a product when the product can't sell itself, either because it is of inferior quality or unjustifiable price. Can you think of any company that has a pink logo that has been around for a long time? (Aside from Owens Corning, the construction products company, who use it in their branding for entirely different reasons) But why pink? Here's my theory, pink is very feminine and invokes the 'princess mentality' as described in this article which states that girls grow up with ''all the pink, frilly and sparkly'' princess accessories and that, "For many women, there's still a piece from childhood to want to be a princess." As everyone knows, fairytale princesses can have anything they want and always have the latest and greatest--the fads. By marketing to women with pink, marketers are appealing to the inner childhood fancies of women one cupcake at a time. That's not to say fads are bad, they play an important role in a thriving economy, just don't expect current fads to be around in such invasive numbers too long. Frozen yogurt and cupcakes will be around forever, but the shops that deal exclusively in any one item will fail as soon as that item is no longer in demand. I hope that answers your question Weebs.

Sharing a ton about Yerington

So, I've been a blogger now for a little over a year. In that time, very little has happened in my life--which would explain why I have so few posts. The latest blog-worthy event comes with my exodus to visit the new homestead in Yerington.

Oops, that's a picture of a dustbowl-era house. I easily confuse the two. Here's the Yerington house.

We've been working for a few weeks to make it look as nice as it does in this photo. Lots of landscaping, digging, hauling, burning, blistering, and such. But it's fast becoming Mom's dreamhouse...or at least the latest in a series of dreamhouses. I guess as soon as one is done she dreams of another. Which would explain the results of the latest poll.

:

When asked how long it would be before Dad and Mom move again, 50% said between 1 and 5 years. The other half predicted less than one year.

:

Elise has already moved away. I don't know if she got sick of cooking or simply fed up of Mom trying to set her up with an older gentleman from the ward ('he's a rancher...he's a cowboy'). I, too, will be leaving ASAP. I plan on going back to Provo for a little while. My buddy, Jason Bergquist and I are going on a camping trip over Memorial Day weekend. After that, maybe I'll hike the 'Y' again with Elise.

Or maybe I'll hang out with Marae before she heads off to Maine.

Whatever the case, I'll keep ya'll in 'da loop.

:

See what I did there? I took the letters from those three words and highlighted the ones that spell 'Linda', thus creating the perfect segue to wish Mom a happy belated Mother's Day.

Oops, that's a picture of a dustbowl-era mom. Here's the Yerington Mom.

Oh, by the way, Craig has a blog now. check it out by following the link on the right side of this page. And, as always, answer the poll question.