I am Smart. S-M-R-T

The other night we were going through stuff in our room, and I found my collection of football cards. Yes, I'm pushing 30 and I still have football cards, so what? Maybe some day they'll be worth something. Or not. Probably not.

Amongst my football cards I found a piece of paper with some notes from my high school Physics class. I don't know why it was there or why I kept it, but there it was. I used to think that I was kind of smart in high school. I was in the National Honor Society and had a fairly good GPA. I though that I was smart until I read what was on this paper. In my Physics class Mr. Nethercott would from time to time have us observe some contraption and then explain how it worked. I'm not sure why, probably to get us thinking or something. That's what was written on this paper. I'm not sure what the contraption was, because what I wrote about it was less than helpful. Here are the words of 17 year old me trying to explain how a contraption works:

"The thing spins and it pulls the steel band inside. It does it because centripetal force is pulling it toward the center of it. Or it does it because when it turns that thing sucks so much it pulls the metal bands in."

I'm hoping that was the first draft of what ended up being a profound paper or something, but I kind of doubt it. I ended up getting a D in Physics. Good call, Mr. Nethercott.

Cool Videos

I got on to YouTube tonight, so now I'm going to bombard our blog with videos I think are cool.


Donny Osmond on the Jimmy Kimmel show. Funny stuff.


Will It Blend - Bic Lighters.


Microwaving a can of spray paint. Why am I watching this? I'm sleep deprived and I think it's funny.


Terry Tate Office Linebacker. I know this is a couple of years old, but I still like it. Why, maybe because I'm a nerd.

Irritating

One of the more irritating things in life is when you get in your car when you're in a bad mood so you slam your door shut and yank on your seat belt to put it on, and when you yank on it, it does that thing where it locks up and won't come out so you have to calm down for a second and calmly pull the seatbelt to get bucked up. Stupid seatbelt. It was probably created by some passive aggressive pacifist who was trying to get people to not drive angry. Jerk.

Come Back Jerry

Happy 45th birthday to my favorite wide receiver, Jerry Rice.

Now that the pleasantries are over, time for the real reason of this post. Jerry, get your butt back on the football field. I'm serious man. You're only 45. And I'm guessing that you don't smoke weed or go boozing every night like all the guys currently in the NFL, so you're really only like 32. Come on man, at 32 you were still the best receiver in the league.

It's not like you've been doing a lot since you retired. Just this:


And this:


A whole generation of kids are growing up knowing you as the bald guy who lost on Dancing With the Stars. Don't let that be your legacy.

Have you seen the bums who are out there playing receiver for the 49ers now? Those guys couldn't catch a ball if it was covered in duct tape and tossed to them from three feet away.

Come one, Steve's going to need somebody to throw the ball to. (I learned from "Everybody Loves Raymond" that you're not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, but I don't care.)

Come on, come back and this guy can do your highlight reels. It would be cool.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Hey, don't make me beg. I love you man. You can join me and Steve in our apartment in San Francisco. Ummm, hold on. Scratch that idea. Bad idea. BAD IDEA.

McDonald's Monoploy

If any of you are playing that McDonald's Monopoly thing, I will trade you four Oriental Avenues for a Pennsylvania Avenue or a Boardwalk.

Come Back Steve

Happy 46th Birthday to my favorite quarterback, Steve Young.
Now that the pleasantries are over, time for the real reason of this post. Steve, get your butt back on the football field. I'm serious man. You're only 46. Vinnie Testaverde is going to start a game Sunday for the Panthers. That dude's like 63 years old, and he'll have to be pushed around in a wheel chair for the second half of the game, but he's still doing it.

Come on man, your old team needs you. They're last in the NFL in yardage and points scored. They're 2-3 and they've only won two because those games were against the Arizona Retirement Community Cardinals and St Louis Hip Replacement Center Rams. Don't make your fans sit through more losses dude, it makes me feel dead inside.

Joe Montana won four Superbowls. You only won one. Do you want to live in the shadows of Joe Montana for the rest of your life?

You may say that you had to leave because you had multiple concussions. Pansy. My grandfather was trampled by a herd of cattle once. He had three broken ribs, a compound fracture of his tibia, a blown MCL and ACL, a broken wrist, and lost vision in one eye. Did he quit? No! Why? Because he had a job to do. Get your lazy butt out on the field on do you job, ya bum!

Do you know who the quarterback of your team is? Alex Smith! The kids has thrown like 300 interceptions in four games this season. He's ruining the legacy of all great 49ers quarterbacks. If you're not coming back at least teach him how to throw a football. Please.

I miss you Steve. I miss your laugh. I miss your musk. When this all gets sorted out, I think you and me should get an apartment together.

(That last part was from "Anchorman", if you were wondering.)

I Get Confused

I'm not the most observant man in the world. One example of that is if two people have a similar characteristic, I get them confused or think that they are the same person. Some famous people I swear are just one person going by different names. Here's a few example of people that look the same to me.

Skeet Ulrich and Johnny Depp

Meryl Streep and Glenn Close

On a side note, both of those names sound like they could be a guy

James Caviezel and John Stockton

On another side not, James Caviezel was in an episode of "The Wonder Years" and he played the star on the basketball team. He looked like John Stockton so much I wondered why Karl Malone wasn't on the court too.

Ok, one more example of people that look the same to me....






Har har har.

I do have a point to all of this. Today one of the analysts in my group at work asked me to go talk with one of the users to get some information. Well it turns out that the guy I was going to talk to looks slightly similar to another guy who has an office two doors down from him. (When I say they look similar, it means they're both white dudes over 40.)

I was going to talk to Bruce who "looks like" Jerry. I wasn't sure where Bruce's office was, so I went walking in the general direction. I passed Jerry's office, and nobody was in there. I found Bruce's office and went in.

Ok, the guy behind the desk was either Bruce or Jerry. The wall outside of the office has a nameplate that says "Bruce ...", the desk has a nameplate on it that says "Bruce ...", the guy was sitting behind the desk, and he was doing some work on the computer. Anyone with half a brain would have thought, "Ok, this is Bruce." Apparently I don't have half a brain. I was so sure that this guy was Jerry, without even taking into account the obvious signs that this was Bruce.

Idiot!

I take two steps into the room and say "Hey, is Bruce here?"

Idiot!

He kind of looked at me and probably thought "Nope, I traded offices with him and liked his nameplate so much I thought I'd keep it. Here's your sign". He said "I'm Bruce." I should have known.

If Jerry was a chick, there would be a 75% chance that I would have figured that one out before I opened my mouth.

Idiot!

Going phishing

I've heard on the news about people getting emails from what looks to be their bank telling them that they need to sign onto a certain website to verify their account information. (I believe the term for that kind of thing is phishing.) I hadn't seen one of those before last week.

Last week we got an email from "Bank of America" telling us that there had been fraudulent activity on our account, and that we needed to log onto http://59.27.203.5/boa/online

/online_secure/index.php within 48 hours or they would disable our account. (The link no longer works.) There are a few things wrong with that. I assume that Bank of America would have you log onto bankofamerica.com instead of an IP Address. The return address is bankofamerica@yahoo.com That and, ummm, we don't have a Bank of America account. Way to know your intended target, Mr. Scam Artist.

The website looked pretty close to what Bank of America's site actually looks like, so I could see how some would be tricked into that. It was mildly exciting because this is the second scam email I've ever gotten. The first one I got was about helping Meka Bakasu Te Pemako, a Nigerian Prince, receive his inheritance. I'm still waiting on my cut of his $12.5 million.

What to do

Since it's late and I can't complete a rational thought, here's another one of those posts that is all over the place. Sorry.

Those of you who know Dylan know that he can be a bit of a handful sometimes. I love the kid to death, but he does some things that make us want to sign him up for a spot on the moon base. I'm sure that most parents feel like that about their kids from time to time.

Today's case against Dylan involves a DVD. Sam ordered some movies online two or three weeks ago, and with the great speed and efficiency of Amazon.com, we got them yesterday. While Andi was at Joy School, she watched the movies upstairs with Dylan. She left to get lunch ready, went back upstairs to find that Dylan had broken one of the DVDs. We hadn't even had it for 24 hours, and Hulk Jr. goes and busts it in half. Have you ever tried breaking a DVD? Those things are pretty flexible, and snapping them takes quite a bit of effort. I don't know how he did it, but he did. We need to find something to occupy him so that he won't end up breaking stuff. Something like a coloring book, a puzzle, or a weight training system.

In other news, Happy Birthday, Mark Hamill! You can download your very own Mark Hamill wallpaper here. Don't be the only person in your neighborhood/office without a Mark Hamil wallpaper.

In my ongoing fight against all things Sandra Bullock, I must warn you that she is making another movie. This one is called All About Steve, and thankfully it looks like she will not be a recently divorced undercover FBI agent traveling through time on a runaway boat.

For only $130, you can buy Halo 3 and a commemorative helmet. (Lightning gun and electron vaporizer not included.)

I was going to look for a video to embed here, but I couldn't find one that wasn't stupid. Instead, here's this, which is just as good as a video.

Oh no! I tried to fix the cow, but I ended up killing it. Here's a less cool alternate cow.

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   `//-.|  (  ,\\)\//\)\/_  ) |
   //___\   `\\\/\\/\/\\///'  /
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\       `-.  '_`.      .'_` \ ,-"~`/
 `.__.-'`/   (-\        /-) |-.__,'
   ||   |     \O)  /^\ (O/  |
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  jgs  / |  ||   `""""~"`
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Baby Registry

Sam keeps mentioning that we need to register for a baby shower that Aubrey is throwing for her. I went ahead and picked a few things that I think the baby will need.

A cooler bag that includes two bottles, a fork, a spoon, and a sandwich box. The perfect gift for a newborn.

A rattle.

Some pajamas.

A shirt. If you're on of those people who doesn't mind spending $30 on a shirt.

A baby blanket.

This has to be the coolest mobile ever made.

Yes, I know that I'm a big dork.

One Year

Yesterday was my one year anniversary of starting work at L-3. Woo hoo! I made it a whole year without them getting sick of me. I got an L3 tie tack thing to commemorate having worked here for a year. When I've worked here for five years I will get to pick an item from a catalog full of fifteen dollar things. Woo hoo again.

The past year seems to have gone by fast. I still wake up some days and find it weird that we live in Texas. The news comes on and it starts talking about stuff that happened in Dallas, and I think to myself "Why do I care about that?" Then I realize, oh yeah, we live thirty miles from Dallas. I'm a quick one. My mommy says I'm special.

I don't really have anything interesting to add to that (that's nothing new). I just think it's cool to look back and see how much has changed in the past year. Crazy stuff.

Next Summer's Hero Guy

I was looking around on the internet and found something that is kind of cool, but kind of unnerving at the same time. It looks like they're making an Ironman movie that will open next summer.

I don't know much about Ironman. He looks cool and all, and I'll probably end up watching the movie eventually because I'll watch just about any superhero movie at least once. Unless they make a movie about quail man, then I'll have to pass.

That's Sam's brother Barton, if you were wondering.

The unnerving thing about Ironman is, if you watch the trailer, you'll notice that Ironman/Tony Stark is played by Robert Downey Jr. I though that Robert Downey Jr. had died like eight years ago or something, but nope, he's alive and well and playing Ironman. What's next, are they going to make a Batman movie and have some pansy like Val Kilmer or George Clooney play Batman?

Evil, Thy Name is Dentist

Thursday I had an appointment with my dentist to fix a hole that was in my tooth. A piece of my filling fell out about seven months ago, and since then little bits of my tooth and filling have fallen out from time to time. I've never been to dental school or anything, but I'm guessing that can't be good. I was scheduled for a possible root canal depending on how close the decay was to the root. Since all dentists are sadistic and evil, if they have a chance to give someone a root canal, they'll do it. Dentist man started drilling my tooth and when he finished he announced "Looks like we'll need to do a root canal. Muhahahahaha!"

Let me say right now that I don't like dentists. At all. They have no redeeming qualities at all. That may be painting them with a pretty broad brush, but I don't care. I guess the hate started early when one Halloween I received a toothbrush from the local dentist instead of candy. "A toothbrush? Where's my candy you weirdo?"

Before they could do it, I had to sign a sheet that gave them permission to perform the procedure. I'm guessing they don't count on people reading those things, but I did just to see what was on it. It said something like "I give Dr. ----- to perform technical term for a root canal. I understand that this dude is going to drill a freakin' big hole in my tooth and down into my gums, tearing out nerve tissue as he goes. I understand that if I cry during the procedure, Dr. Whozit can videotape my weeping and share it with his other evil dentist friends. I am also aware of the following complications that may occur during or after the procedure:
Permanent numbness in tongue, cheek, lip, gums, head, shoulders, knees, and toes.
Instrument breakage in tooth
Possible need of additional root canal if decay returns
Marsupial attacks
Mild discomfort in gums"

I signed the thing, and they started at it. They turned on the TV that was in the room so that I could watch it during the procedure. I don't think they considered how hard it is to watch or hear a TV with two people working within three inches of your face using tiny yet loud vacuums and drills. It was a nice gesture though. The dentist drilled out three quarters of my bad tooth out and then started poking around at the nerve or something. He would poke it, I would twitch and he'd ask if I felt it. "Ummm, yeah, couldn't you feel my hatred for you burning a hole into your soul? Oh, that's right, you don't have a soul because you're a dentist."

I tried not to look at the drill bit he was using to get the nerve out, but it was hard not to see it since it was like twenty seven inches long. Surprisingly the huge drill didn't hurt as bad as when he got his little poking hook out and tried to get me to confess to toilet papering his house in July. When he had the nerve out, he said it kept bleeding and wasn't sure why. He took another look and said "Oh I know why, there's some nerve tissue in there." He dug it out and then asked me "Do you want to see some nerve tissue?" Do I want to see nasty bloody pieces of my face that will probably gross me out? Sure. It looked like a piece of raw meat, which was kind of disappointing because I was hoping it would look cool. Oh well.

He finished pretty quickly, and so far I still have feeling in my face, which is a plus. I get to go back in two weeks to have him to finish it up, and to pay him more money. Woo hoo! After I paid my bill and was on the way out the door, I noticed a jar of suckers with a sign that says "Take one". It's a dentist conspiracy man!

Nothing Happening

Nothing much has been happening here lately. Jared and I had a little adventure going to work on Tuesday. You can read his account of it here if you're interested. To summarize, we took a shortcut to avoid some traffic and ended up having to slog through three feet of mud on a county road. Our shortcut made up 2 1/2 hours late for work.

Yesterday we were at the store, and Dylan was helping me push the cart. After a minute of helping me push he said "Dad, my pants are falling down." I looked down and his pants were around his ankles. It happened once more before we left the store. Good thing he's too young to get embarrassed about stuff like that.

The NFL season is starting this week. Woo hoo! I predict that tomorrow night the 49ers will beat the Cardinals 154 to 12. If my job were to set the betting lines in Vegas, I wouldn't be very good at it.

Pulling the Plug

A little while ago, my boss asked me to upgrade some software on a piece of equipment that we have. I went to the station where it was and started looking at it. I figured that I needed to move the machine to my desk so that I could hook it up to my computer. I got underneath the table to unplug it. I finally found the right plug, and pulled it out.

As soon as I pulled the plug, I hear an alarm go off and see a light start blinking. I thought "Oh my gosh, what did I do? All I did was unplug a power cord!" I immediately plugged the cord back into the socket hoping to stop the alarm before anyone noticed. "Oh man, I'm in trouble. What is my boss gonna do to me?" After another couple of seconds (I'm really quick some days), I thought about what was going on. Fire drill. The timing of the alarm going off couldn't have been more perfect. Someone must have been watching me that day trying to think of ways to freak me out. It worked.

For some reason it reminded me of an experience I had when I was a kid. I was probably about 11, and my family and I were at the local K-Mart. (Being from Star Valley, Wyoming, the local K-Mart is a 70 mile drive away. Not that that's important in any way.) I was looking at the cameras in the electronics section, doing stupid stuff that kids do like pushing every button and zooming in on my hand so I could see my fingerprints.

Because I was super observant, I noticed that the cameras were attached to the counter by a telephone cord. Because I was a stupid kid, I thought to myself "I wonder what will happen if I unplug one of those." Because I was a super stupid kid, I unplugged one. As soon as I did, an alarm started going off. "Oh crap!"I immediately plugged the cord back into the socket hoping to stop the alarm before anyone noticed. (Is it bad that I have the same thought process that I had when I was eleven?) Someone did notice the loud obnoxious alarm blaring because some idiot kid had unplugged a camera. The K-Mart electronics worker was nearby and came over to investigate what was going on.

Some kids in that predicament might have run. I was frozen in my tracks, unable to move. Being eleven years old, I was unaware of how the penal system worked. I thought the K-mart man was going to come over and throw me in a jail cell in back of the store. "No, K-Mart man! I didn't mean to! No!" Instead, K-Mart man just turned off the alarm and gave me a look, then went about his business.

I guess it was a good thing that I didn't unplug the camera and run away with it, then I might have gotten in some trouble.

The World We Live In

I don't watch the news very much. I mostly just watch Sports Center and call it good. I figure if something earth shattering is happening, they'll mention it between the scores or something. I think I'd just rather not watch the news after seeing some of these headlines in the past week:

Man kills Good Samaritans on freeway. - This happened in Dallas. I used to not stop to help people on the road because I know nothing about cars and could provide no help except to say "Woah, that's bad." Now I have this reason too.

Wife free after 67 days for killing husband - Well, I hope she learned her lesson.

Playground spontaneously burns - I knew those things could get hot in the sun, but that hot?

Millions of toys recalled - I hope they recall that annoying Elmo thing the kids have.

Broncos 17, 49ers 13 - Aww, man.

So, to recap: Your kids can't play with certain toys, but you can't take them to the park to get them away from their deadly toys because the playground could spontaneously combust. Getting to the park is not safe because who knows when someone is going to shoot at you, and if that person is a good aim they may spend just over two months in the clink. On the bright side of all this, the 49ers are 1-0 in morale victories so far.

Write Something, Carters!

It looks like Montse has been bombarded by those meme things lately. She didn't pass this one on to us, but I thought it looked fun, and since there is absolutely nothing else going on I thought I'd give it a go. Here it is.

Eight Facts About Our Marriage

1. When we were engaged, we realized we didn't have a song yet. We were in the car, and we decided that the next song that came on the radio would be our song. Our song is Enter Sandman by Metallica. Rock and roll, baby!!! Woo hoo!!!

2. Sam's brothers and her cousin sang/played our song at the reception, which was in a church. The missionaries who happened to hear chastised them for it.

3. At our wedding, my family outnumbered Sam's 15 to 1.

4. After two days of marriage, we almost got an annulment because I found out that Sam is a Dallas Cowboys fan. (Ok, that's not entirely true.)

5. We went on our honeymoon to glorious Reno Nevada. We didn't have a car. Do you know what there is to do in Reno if you don’t drink, don't gamble, and don't have a car? Not a whole lot. For some reason we ended up moving nearby four years later.

6. My cousin decorated our car for our reception in Star Valley using panty liners, sardines, vaseline, cheeze whiz, and some other stuff. It took eight dollars worth of quarters at the car wash to get it all off. His payback's coming someday, it's only a matter of time.

7. For the first month and a half of our marriage we lived in Sam's Mom's house. In that month and a half, Sam worked cleaning hotel rooms, and I was a successful stuntman turned superhero turned criminal. On the SIMS. On the SIMS I was fit, in shape, and the most popular guy in the neighborhood. In real life I gained 30 pounds and didn't bother talking to anybody if I didn't have to. Sam married a real winner.

8. Sam is legally blind and I am hard of hearing, so we can attest to the truth of the phrase "A blind wife and a deaf husband make a happy couple."

D'oh!

Burger King has a site where you upload a picture, and it makes a Simpsons type character out of that picture. Apparently this is what I would look like Springfield.

It doesn't really look like me, but what can you expect from something that's free? I've tried doing pics of the kids, but it doesn't like them. The computer must know that Sam doesn't approve of The Simpsons, so it's trying to not corrupt the children.

I've been Memed!

Montse at Beehive Academy, at no fault of her own, has tagged me for The Moaning Meme that originated at The Freelance Cynic. Apparently this Freelance Cynic person doesn't think there are enough email forwards in the world, so she/he/they decided to start this thing. I haven't read their original post, but if this isn't for some kind of school project studying exponential numbers then shame on them.

The Moaning Meme
5 people who will be annoyed you tagged them.

The Crookstons - Sorry
Matt and Becky Williams - Good luck finding your blogger password.
Mark Cuban
Greg Oden
Curt Schilling


4 things that should go into room 101 and be removed from the face of the earth.
* The person who started this blog meme thing.
* Squirrels. They're creepy little animals. You never know when they'll attack.
* Sandra Bullock. Coincidentally, it is her birthday today. Don't forget to pick up your copy of "Premonition", on DVD or BluRay Disc.
* Mosquitos.

3 things people do that make you want to shake them violently.
* Skateboard in the street and don't move for cars. Dang kids.
* Using the speakerphone when they really don't need to. What, are you afraid of parasites on your receiver or something?
* Not signaling when they're turning.

2 things you find yourself moaning about
* When my kids hit me in the crotch. It seems to happen a lot.
* When my wife goes to the store with Aubrey.

1 thing the above answers tell you about yourself.
* I may be a little sarcastic.

RULES
Link to the original meme at freelancecynic.com so people know what it's all about! (And so they know where to send the hate e-mail.)
Be as honest as possible, this is about letting people get to know the real you!
Try not to insult anyone - unless they really deserve it or are very, very ugly!
Post these rules at the end of every meme!

I'm going to add some rules of my own:
Feel free to insult Sandra Bullock.
Send the person who tagged you $100. When you receive $100 from someone, send the person who tagged you 25%. We could all make a lot of money here, folks.

Mid Year Review

Since it's July and the middle of the year, I decided I'd look back at my New Year's Resolutions to see how I'm doing. I think I had resolved to:
1. Not get fired
2. Lose Weight
3. Don't get my wife pregnant.


1. So far so good with this one. As long as I don't start doing drugs or taking firearms to work I should be fine.

2. Well, let's just say that today I drank approximately half a gallon of Mountain Dew. I wish I was joking.

3. Oops.

Maybe I should have set more realistic goals for the year. One of our friends from Nevada, Montse, has been doing this Smart Habits Saturday thing for a while now. It seems like a great idea, and it looks like she has been doing an excellent job at it. I would start doing it myself, but I can tell you what my thing would look like after three weeks.

Habit 3: Stop Watching So Much TV But how will I find out what happened to Kevin Arnold while he was growing up if I don't watch "The Wonder Years" everyday?

Habit 2: Stop Drinking Mountain Dew Hey, I can stop any time I want to. I just don't want to right now.

Habit1: Exercise Does getting out of bed count as exercise?

I really should do all of those things. Maybe someday I actually will. Maybe being the key word there.

On a completely different subject, I hate paying my car insurance premiums. Back in Fallon we didn't mind at all because a guy from our ward was our agent, and he was super cool and a really good value for the money. When we moved to Texas we had to go through a different company. Our "agent" has misquoted us on every quote she has given. I am fearful of anything at all happening that would require us to rely on her for help on a claim. One time she sent us a card and wrote in it "I love referrals", and I thought about referring the parents of the skateboard kid down the street, just because I don't like them because their kid is always in the street skateboarding. Hey pal, McDonald's has a hat and an apron with your name on it. Our insurance agent should be joining you there in a month or two. We're going to be changing insurance companies this week. Blah on you insurance companies.