We are the Champions!

Big congrats go out to Real Salt Lake and many thanks to a team that finally gave this state its first ever major sports championship!

Halloween movie 2009

Ok, so I figure my blog can be good for one thing at this point: posting about the 2009 Halloween movie we have been filming.
I am particularly interested in this one and think it is turning out to be really cool. Take a look at the trailer that Jon made and spread it around to all of your friends and family. Lets make this thing Epic!

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On this day in history....

January 9, 1493

On this day in 1493, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, sees three "mermaids"--in reality manatees--and describes them as "not half as beautiful as they are painted." Six months earlier, Columbus (1451-1506) set off from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, hoping to find a western trade route to Asia. Instead, his voyage, the first of four he would make, led him to the Americas, or "New World."

You tell me, do these two look anything alike?

Does anyone know if Christopher Columbus ever took part in any AA meetings?

More on the wonderful world of Manatees to follow next week!

Not my story, but still funny...

So this is probably not proper protocol in blog land but seems how it has been two months since I have posted anything I figured it was ok. The following story is not mine but had me busting up:

This is by Dave Barry:

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis. Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'
I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's enemies.
I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.
Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.
The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose, watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.
MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.
After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.
At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.
Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this is, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.
When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' had to be the least appropriate.
'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.
I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

ABOUT THE WRITER
Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald.

On the subject of Colonoscopies...
Colonoscopies are no joke, but these comments during the exam were quite humorous..... A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies:
1. 'Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!'
2. 'Find Amelia Earhart yet?'
3. 'Can you hear me NOW?'
4. 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?'
5. 'You know, in Arkansas, we're now legally married.'
6. 'Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?'
7. 'You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out...'
8. 'Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!'
9. 'If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!
10. 'Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.'
11. 'You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?'
And the best one of all:
12. 'Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?'

Sorry Doc, its not you, its me...

So after reading others tell about bad dates, awkward interviews, yelling at punk kids in the car behind them (loved it) or otherwise just embarrassing moments I have decided to share my most embarrassing moment. But first, a little background and medical information.
I am one of the fortunate few that suffer from kidney stones. Kidney stones are mainly attributed to middle aged men but in my family, well for my oldest brother and I, they came much earlier. I had my first one when I was 18, Jeremy was on his mission so his first came when he was 19 or 20. When the first one hit I was laying on my apartment floor playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo 64. I thought at first that I was just laying in a bad position because my lower back started to hurt. So I moved around a few different times, but nothing helped. Over the next hour the pain got gradually worse. So much so that literally banging my head on the wall was less painful. I have tried to figure out a good way to describe the pain to others but have never been able to come up with anything that really fits. Try and imagine this though, it might help a bit: Take a knife and stab yourself repeatedly in the lower back, throw in a few twists and turns while you are at it and you just might come close. For those that have given birth I have been told that the pain is equivalent. But since I have not given birth I cannot confirm that. This Far Side comic illustrates it well I think.
Anyways, I ended up going to the hospital to get drugged up and had my first experience with morphine, holy crap that stuff is amazing, but that might be another story. The pain came and went over the next 3 weeks, an hour of pain here, 2 hours of pain there, maybe 45 minutes just to tease me, and as much as 4 hours at some points. I thought it would never end. My Urologist told me I had to wait at least 2 weeks (the normal amount of time for a stone to pass) before he would take further action. After the second week he finally agreed that it was time to do something and scheduled surgery for the next week. He suggested trying to place a Ureteral Stent, a long perforated tube that will be placed within the length of the ureter. The hope of this is after time the stent will dilate the ureter and after it is removed the stone can easily pass as if it were traveling down a "slip n' slide." The actual installation of the tube required me to be put under with general anesthesia in a same day surgery setting. There were no incisions made so I will let you figure out how it was put in. The removal of the stent was a regular office visit though.
I had the stent in for about 3 weeks and the day I went in for the removal I was really confused. I was told to meet my doctor in his regular office, not at the hospital. This made me immediately nervous since I was now sure that I was going to be awake for this. And all I could assume was that it was going to have to come out the same way it went in, remember, no incisions, and if you still havent figured it out, they did not go through my mouth. This is where things get really tricky, oh, and you all get to read about me being naked, lucky you.
After checking in a nurse took me into a back room that I had not been in before, not the usual examination room. This one was a sterile room, with all sorts of equipment, kind of like a mini operating room. I was instructed to take everything off from the shirt down, and the shirt might as well come off because they were going to lift it up to my shoulders anyways. I sat down on this table/chair thing and put a small blanket over my lap. The nurse came back in with the doctor following behind her. This was the first time I had actually seen him since the surgery and he didnt bother with any pleasantries. This was probably best as he was about to do his business and I was in no mood to get to know him better at this point under the circumstances. He didnt even buy me dinner first. It was at this point he put on some gloves, sat down on a little stool and pulled the blanket off. There I was sitting in all my glory, with a grown man at my feet and a nurse standing behind him smiling at me, this was already embarrassing enough. But that isnt even the worst part. The doctor then grabbed a hold of a bottle with orange liquid in it and started squirting it all over me, all over my stomach, thighs and finally, all over my goods. This was an anesthetic. He was just simply cleansing the area. He then grabbed a towell or some gauze and started rubbing it in all over. It was at this moment that a line from a movie popped into my head. More specifically it was a line given by Jack Nicholson from the movie As Good As It Gets. I am working on getting an actual video posted in but for now I will just tell you the line and here it is, "People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch." Such bad timing for this to pop into my head. I felt myself starting to laugh as the doctor was "shampooing my crotch" so I had to bite on my lip to hold it in. The nurse though had never taken her eye off of me and saw all of this. I had a big smile on my face and when I noticed that she was still looking my face went bright red. I was mortified. All I could do was hunch my shoulders and look the other way, I promise you I was not enjoying the "shampooing." The nurse giggled a little bit. It never occurred to me that I should explain myself, I was to busy being embarrassed. It has since been brought to my attention that by not explaining myself I just made myself look like a fruit. Oh well, it was 12 years ago. The red in my face quickly went away when the Doctor grabbed a 3 foot long ureteroscope, a long tube with a tiny camera at the end of it and a little grabber claw on the inside that can only enter the body in one way. What the crap, where did he think that was going? Well, it went there, and it wasnt pleasant, at all. The tube came out and a few days later the stone passed right on down the "slip n' slide."
One day after that stone passed I started getting pain in my other kidney. Yep, number two, and I was still only 18. For the next 9 years I had one in each kidney every year. Usually one in the spring followed by one in the fall. Over the last 3 years though they have stepped up in frequency. This year alone I think I am on number 8. I stopped counting around 30, but I think it is pretty close to 4o stones that I have passed in the last 12 years. The good news is that I think that I am so torn up inside that I rarely get pain with the stones anymore, a little pain here and there but not like the first 10 or so. Also, I name all of my stones. I used to name them after x-girlfriends or others girls that caused me pain, but since I ran out of them years ago I now assign honorary names to them. Let me know if you want to be named after one and I will put your name down on the list and contact you when it takes place.
So whats the moral to my story...kidney stones suck, and when put in a position where your manhood/womanhood and possibly your sexual preference may be in question, always, always defend yourself!

Whose Legacy is this highway anyways?

So last night I took the opportunity to take the new Legacy Highway up to Syracuse to my sisters for dinner. And let me tell you this, I dont get it. It was somewhere around 12 years ago that Governor Mike Levitt proposed this highway and it is now just opening. From what I read it was officially given the green light 10 years ago, 2 years after the initial proposal, but was held up time and time again in court due to environmentalist and angry citizens, mostly from West Bountiful. I do not pretend to know all of the ins and outs of each sides arguments but after driving up the 10 mile or so stretch I just dont get it. It is an ugly stretch of land, very ugly. All of the precious "wetlands" that the environmentalists were trying to protect, I couldnt find. There was a pond near the north end of the road, but that was the only wet thing I could find and that didnt even look like a natural pond to me. And as far as the arguments that the wonderful people of West Bountiful voiced, for the most part the road runs by absolutely nothing. A few neighborhoods here and there. But seriously, how can people argue over better transportation?
I will say this though, riding on a brand new, fresh paved road that has been open for less than 24 hours was nice. It was very smooth and quiet. It took me the exact same time to get to my sisters as it always had, but this of course was on a quiet Sunday evening. I imagine that the rush hour traffic is where the good people of Davis County will truly see the benefits.
In order for this road to be built there were several compromises that UDOT had to agree to. First they had to agree to make the road narrower than originally planned, which they did. But it is very obvious that is not what they see the future of the road to look like. They narrowed the road down to two lanes each way yet actually are taking up the same amount of space. They just left about 50 feet or so untouched in between the two directions. The bridges also are constructed in a way that they will easily be able to go in and add another lane each way in the future without having to rebuild the bridges much like along I-15. So is that really a compromise? The other compromises I dont see as being a real big deal for UDOT to deal with, big rigs are not allowed on the highway, they must stick to I-15, no big deal at all, and they had to agree to a bike/run trail that runs the length. That one was easy enough, just lay down some extra asphalt on the side and put a stripe down the middle of it. I did see several people taking advantage of this, but I cant see why, like I said, it is an ugly place and I imagine at certain times of the year it is bug infested.
The biggest draw back of the road to me is that the speed limit is 55 yet it is constructed just like a freeway. There are on and off ramps, no stop lights and no intersections. Oh, and dont try and speed down it. I saw 5 cops with people pulled over to the side last night. I think they realize that they can easily fill their quota on that road alone. This lower speed limit is really annoying to me, its like having a really nice juicy steak laid in front of you yet you cant eat it, you just have to stare at it and smell it. Not fair. Oh, one more note, and this might be one of those points that the environmentalist got right, I saw several dead animals on the road, I would say at least a dozen, and keep in mind it had only been open for 24 hours. This apparently was a foreseen problem because I saw a "Highway Animal Control" Vehicle out on clean up duty.
What would I rate the new Highway: 79. I will let you figure out the scale.

I'm Bart Simpson, who the h3!! are you...

The above picture may not be clear enough to read, please click on it, I worked hard on it.

Ok, so I am still behind the times on this whole blog thing. I have found that I just dont have a whole lot of interesting things to say. I dont have one of those great jobs where 6 year olds give me constant blog material, I dont have any strong political views, except that I hate all politics, I dont have a family, at least not here with me, that I can write endlessly about, and I am not sure that you all want me to rant and rave about BYU football for week after week. But dont worry, I will get going eventually and give you all something to read while you are sitting at your desks when you should be working. Let me give you a sneak preview of whats to come sometime down the road. Mullets: A hisory. Tramp Stamps: Another history. People watching at the fair/demo derby (still in the works.) All sorts of top ten lists (one on hot female athletes, just to appease Stephanie.) And many more. Maybe I should take some sort of poll to get some ideas of what people out there want to hear about from me. But for now, I am going to take off a little bit from Jon's Chuck Norris blog and eventually get into a list.
One of my favorite shows growing up was "The Simpsons." I think this is pretty much a prerequisite for being a guy. My brothers and I were so serious about our love of the show that we told my only sister that any potential husband had to pass a series of questions. Within those questions was whether or not he was a Simpsons fan and how could he prove it. Luckily Dan passed the test and they now have two awesome kids. Watching the show as a kid was made difficult at times because my mother banned us from watching it from time to time. I always found a way though. Its funny to look back now and watch the early episodes, when Bart had a "really" foul mouth, and compare it to what is on TV today. If my mother knew then what she knows now she would have let us watch The Simpsons and only The Simpsons.
I could get into a list of my favorite episodes and why but that could get pretty big. I will say though that two of my all time favorite episodes are the "Tomacco" and the "Beer Baron" episodes. In the first Homer decides to become a farmer. In his vast inexperience he decides to plant a "little of everything" and fertilizes it with plutonium. The final product is "Tomacco," a tomato with a dried tobacco center that is instantly addictive. Bart gets addicted as well as the farm animals who go crazy and start tearing the farm apart demanding more tomacco through a new found speech they have developed. Classic. In the "Beer Baron" Homer turns to Bootlegging when a 200 year old prohibition law is enforced in Springfield. After Chief Wiggum fails to catch the "Beer Baron," Homers secret alias, Rex Banner is sent in from the United States Treasury Department to hunt him down. Once agian, just a classic episode, this one in particular has a few of my favorite lines. At one point Homer comes up from the basement where he has built his own distillery and Marge asks Homer what he is doing down there, Homers reponse is "Marge, I dont want to lie to you" and then he just walks away. Just good writing right there.
I could go on and on, showing that there truely is some form of geek in me. But like I said before, this is every guys calling, to be a Simpsons geek. If your man doesnt appreciate The Simpsons and quote them at every chance he gets, well, he might be gay, 70 years old, a women, or a gay 70 year old women.
One of the things I have always loved about the show for some reason is trying to catch what Bart is writing on the chalkboard during the opening credits. For those of you that dont know, it is different for every new episode. I can imagine that several of these came about because of real life situations that the writers were either part of or have heard of. I am telling you, teachers have the most interesting job sometimes, if you dont beleive me just ask Kristi. I have compiled a list of some of my favorite ones. They are as follows.

• Organ transplants are best left to professionals
• Five days is not too long to wait for a gun
• They are laughing at me, not with me
• I will not trade pants with others
• I am not a 32 year old woman
• I will not get very far with this attitude
• I will not hide behind the Fifth Amendment
• Hamsters cannot fly
• I will not torment the emotionally frail
• I will stop talking about the twelve inch pianist
• the Pledge of Allegiance does not end with Hail Satan
• Wedgies are unhealthy for children and other living things
• I do not have power of attorney over first graders
• I will not re-transmit without the express permission of Major League Baseball
• I will not expose the ignorance of the faculty
• I saw nothing unusual in the teachers lounge
• I will not prescribe medication
• I will not teach others to fly
• I will not bring sheep to class
• I will not yell "she's dead" at roll call
• No one is interested in my underpants
• I am not authorized to fire substitute teachers
• My homework was not stolen by a one-armed man

And my personal favorites (try and imagine a kid actually saying or doing these)

• I am not deliciously saucy
• I will not instigate revolution
• I do not have diplomatic immunity
• Goldfish dont bounce
• Ralph wont "morph" if you squeeze him hard enough
• I will not call my teacher "Hot Cakes"