Penguins don't have distinguishable faces.

I was listening to one of my mother’s choir albums on the way to school this morning. She just sent it to me last week at my request. There are about 360 members in her choir according to the official website. As I listen to the songs sometimes I get a little teary-eyed, like this morning, because it makes me realize how much I miss my mom. I don’t know if she just sings louder that all the other choir members, or if I just know my mothers voice, but in spite of my hearing deficiencies, I can always pick her out of the crowd. Maybe it is because she used to sing me to sleep sometimes as a child. I don’t know. I never really understood how big of thing this was that my mom was a part up until quite recently. Since my mom became a member back in 1993, her voice has been part of almost 100 albums and videos. She has sung on national television as part of this choir for almost 780 broadcasts. I could not find a stat for how many tours my mom has gone on, just this statement: “The Choir has performed in concerts around the world and throughout the United States. They have traveled to places such as Russia, many nations in Europe, Brazil, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. In 2003 the Choir kicked off the celebration of its 75th year of broadcasting with a tour of major musical festivals in the northeastern United States. Performance venues included Chautauqua, Wolftrap, Tanglewood, the Lincoln Center, and Boston's Esplanade on July 4th with the Boston Pops Orchestra.” Something else kind of neat that I found was when I looked at this list: http://www.mormontabernaclechoir.org/roster/names?letter=B I remembered that my dad went ahead and got famous too.

About 1/2 hour after leaving the drive thru.

“I don’t know why I even bother eating it. I think next time I order from Taco Bell, I will just take my food to the bathroom, unwrap it, and throw it straight into the toilet. It will just be easier that way.” -hm

Suzuki SV650-S (K1)

Last night a buddy and I were driving to Kragen to buy a couple things for the new motorcycle. I was telling a story about something… Oh yeah, this motorcycle apparel shop I went to one time to get my brother a birthday gift. It was the first bike shop I had ever been in that was not geared towards Easy Rider fans. I was totally blown away by the internal skeleton pads they had in some of the jackets. I had commented on how they only had one rack of typical leather jackets and they were on clearance. He looked at me like an idiot and explained how these new uber-padded performance suits are better for performance bikes and yadda yadda. He even pointed out the carbon fiber knuckled gloves I was purchasing to kind of prove his point. I explained to him that my brother was a crotch rocketeer and rode something like a Bazooka qx79 or Kamikaze sp850 or something like that. He laughed at me and asked what kind of bike I liked to ride. I told him how I would be happy on something like a Honda Shadow or Suzuki Intruder, and ultimately something like a Harley Softail that I would be able to do a bobber-style chop job on.
This story sounded just as stupid last night. I even completely lost my train of thought about halfway through it and just stopped talking for minute. The reason I was even thinking about it was because the bike that I was getting parts for was the same Bazooka qx79 from the story, and now I want a pair of carbon fiber knuckle gloves and a jacket with plates in it instead of just my regular biking leathers. I’m not exactly sure what the point is, but I know its there. -p

The joke about lamespace.

I just got it.­ lol funny.­ serious.­ I'm not sure which part is lol, the part that I got it, or the it that I got.­ Either way, it was lol funny.­ I should put this in my book.

The last 2 days: a summary.

I realized that MP3 players are like a giant mix CD that has way more songs than a single regular CD can hold. I think I am going to get one.

I ordered a breakfast combo meal from a touch screen at Jack in the Box instead of waiting in line to talk to a real live person. I was talking on the phone at the time.

I typed my first resume ever. It was very successful in my interview.

I realized that I still do not know how the last Harry Potter book ends. Please don’t tell me I have the book sitting on my night stand waiting patiently for spring break.

I ordered something form a menu in a Thai restaurant by reading the Thai name for it not the English one. The waitress said I pronounced it correctly.

I tried on snakeskin cowboy boots at a thrift store. No, not really I could see by the size stamped inside the boot that they would not fit very well, I carried them around for a couple minutes anyway to look cool.

I gave out three business cards to complete strangers, only one of which was my own.

I showed somebody through demonstration how to fake tripping and falling to help relax and kind of break the ice while walking up to the front of a class to deliver a speech. They did not try it.

I read JKE for the first time since like Christmas. I emailed him like 3 questions right after.

I took my suit to the dry cleaners for the first time ever. It made me feel like a grown-up.

I thought about getting a micro-cassette recorder at the thrift store for $5.95. I didn’t get it, they only accepted cash.

I practiced playing “Sorrow” on my guitar. It is one of my favorite songs to play besides “Country Roads” and “Prison Bound.”

I thought pretty hard about two of the questions I sent to JKE. I really did.

Acceptable deception.

I understand that people form judgments based on first sight. I think that one of the biggest things I took away from high school is how to make people believe I am some thing I am not, or something that I am only about 2% of the time. Job interviews, resumes. Good grief. I cannot even begin to number the people who I have hired or helped hire because of how well they presented themselves, and then ended up completely disappointed by my decision because I had been tricked. It’s like how in my culture we are taught to say “yeah, uh huh, then what” and nod our head when we listen to people talk. How many times have I been thinking more about how to look like I am listening by acting as described above instead of truly listening to what is being said? I don’t know. It drives me crazy, for how results oriented my culture is, its indoctrination seems kind of counter-productive. Maybe I just do not understand as well as I think I do.

I have not made guacamole in months.

Today when I was dropping off the dry my suit to be dry-cleaned, I saw a row of trees with little white blossoms on them. It looked a little weird because the sky was overcast with light grey clouds that were so low you could almost touch them. It just didn’t look like it was the right weather for trees to blossom. I really hope the avocado trees did not blossom early again this year; they just barely started to look good for the first time since last January.

I like sand dollars.

So the other day I was goofing around with one of my bosses at work. We have like a million running jokes, and on this particular one I was seriously beating it dead, like you should have let it go five minutes ago, dead. After a good laugh, I thought about how many times I wish I would have tape recorded some of the stuff coming out of my mouth, and of course I thought it out loud to Charles (this particular boss) and he was listening pretty intently. so I continued to think out loud about what I would do with all of this tape recorded verbalization, and I decided I would publish them in a book called "idiot book."

On nights like tonight I have a hard time getting to bed because of my very un-routine work schedule. I do not want to start doing homework because it is too late, and I just want to go bed but I'm not very tired yet, and unlike my beautiful wife, I cannot just fall asleep because I know I need to. Usually I surf the web for a little bit after I have watched some stupid late night program on TV and getting irritated for wasting my time watching TV, but after I check my email and a couple of websites I realize that this is an act as pointless as watching late night TV. I was not going to start a blog because I already have enough stuff to do, and often find myself pressed for time to meet deadlines. Tonight however, I decided to check out mom's blog and thought to myself "it's time to start the idiot book", so I did.

Since my conversation with Charles, I have had two instances that I can remember thinking about they would go perfectly in this book. I forgot what they were, and now that I have decided to actually write some of this stuff down, it kind of bums me out. Maybe I will get a recorder of some sort and just leave it running when I know I will be around people.

I found out something interesting the other day. I was helping a classmate with an informative speech, and her topic was ADD and ADHD awareness because of her son. It was really interesting to me, because although I have been diagnosed with ADD, I never took my medicine because of how it made me feel. Instead I chose to make it a point to be the master of my head. I am not always successful. Anyway, some parts of her speech really jumped out at me, I can’t really explain how it made me feel, because I am not really sure. It was just strange. She was talking about how typically teachers and other adults see these kids as lazy disrespectful trouble makers, and also about how they are often alienated from their peers because of how they interact with other people due to this disease. I guess the part of the reason it was strange was, at that moment, after hearing her speech, my whole life up to now made sense. For the first time ever, I truly understood why life was so odd growing up. After this moment of clarity, I felt such strong emotion that it made my eyes start to water. I am not quite sure what sort of emotion I was feeling, and that is the other part of the strangeness. It was just weird.

I have a tendency to say “and now you know” after some of the things I say. I almost ended that last paragraph with it. I usually say it when I don’t really understand how I got to saying what I was saying and cannot even remember where the verbal train of thought even started, and now it does not make any sense anyway but I am still talking about whatever the heck I want to. I don’t think I am ever going to put “and now you know” in idiot book, it just doesn’t belong.