Is this an unintentioanl analogy to life in general?

I bet it wouldn’t be too hard to make it sound like one… but it isn’t. This is a picture of an intersection by my current work (only until about 9pm tonight, then it becomes my past work) I just thought it was funny, all the street signs. It made me think of my brother Jake. I bet he would have taken this picture, or one similar to it, and he probably would have managed to get the freeway entrance sign in the background a little better too.
While I was posting this, and kind of an afterthought:
I was thinking about putting a link to the intersection on Google earth, but then I figured I would let you do the legwork, and type in what you think the name of the intersection would be, and see what happens.
-p

The drive was sunshine and blue skies the whole way.

Phewf. What a week. Today I arrived in Salt Lake with the green car… safe and sound in spite of all of the weather forecasts. I need to be to the airport at 5:30 tomorrow morning in order to catch my flight back to San Diego. I miss my wife and I miss my Clover. I cannot wait to see them.

Let me back up a little bit... I haven’t put anything up for quite a few days. Sooo… I have been working and getting things ready for the big move. I have been pretty busy, and have not really felt creative enough to put something interesting up… I still feel kind of uncreative, but I also feel like I should update the idiot book, especially after being featured on jakes new blog.

Clover has been growing like crazy. I found out that she likes to hear me play the guitar. I can no longer hold her the way I used to… all of two weeks ago… she is too big. She used her last “N” size diapers up about three days ago, and is now wearing size one. She is also still cute as a bug. I am totally in love with her. She has started trying to roll over and loves holding her head up when I try to get her to cuddle with me. I cannot wait to introduce her to her cousins and aunts and uncles next month.

I finalized the game plan to get my family up to Salt Lake. As I mentioned before, I have moved my car up already, and am going back tomorrow to live out my last week in San Diego. I met my new boss today, and picked up my new schedule. I start working at my new Taylorsville Starbucks on Feb 1^st. I also saw, for the first time, the apartment my wife and me… I guess I need to start saying my family and I… or maybe just my family… anyway… will be living in for the first few years of our Utah Adventure. Bottom line, I am psyched. I seriously am.

On kind of a personal side note, I have noticed something different about Salt Lake… or maybe about myself and how I feel about Salt Lake… Today when I was driving around the valley, I was excited and surprisingly optimistic. About what? About everything. The last time I was living in this place I was not a happy person, and as a result this was not a happy place. It is like I am seeing the same placed but in a new light. It is kind of neat, but even more exciting than neat. Long story short, I am pumped.

That is about it for now.

kind of like the week before the first day of school.

Dad and his friend "Bronco" the pelican.

Kristin gave her boss her notice today. What notice? The “It’s been wild, but I am never going to come back to work” notice. Oh man. It is really happening.

Today I talked to my new boss on the phone about my schedule starting Feb 1^st.

Last night I bought a one way plane ticket from Salt Lake to San Diego. I am going to drive one of the cars up, all by myself, on the 19^th, then fly back home, work a couple days, pack up the fam, and drive the other car up on the 28^th. Up where? To the Salt Lake Valley, that’s where. We are moving. It is official.

Holy crap… It is still kind of not real. Today I brought a couple of boxes home from work to kind of pack some of the things that were left behind from the adventure in October. I never thought I would ever go back. I really didn’t. I still kind of doubt, mentally, that it is going to happen.

So, here is the rough outline for the next book in the saga of my life. (San Diego was more of a book than a chapter for me, and I believe that this next adventure will be even wordier than the last five years.)

My family and I are going to move to Sandy. I am going to transfer to a Starbucks in Taylorsville for the time being, as well as hunt for a more “career style” job in Salt Lake. I will start attending SLCC in a year (after I can qualify for the resident fee schedule as opposed to the non-resident) to bolster my transcripts. When I have met the requirement for a transfer degree in my major, I will transfer to the University of Utah. I am going to get a Bachelor’s degree in sociology… that is the plan, but it is open to change… I acknowledge that I changed my major 3 times officially and about 10 times unofficially before getting my two year degree… I am aiming for a career in something along the lines of Probation officer or rehab counselor… I am not sure yet. I do know that as I get back into school, many of the opportunities that I was never aware of will become known to me, and that will assist me in my educational goals. I do not plan on wasting as much time figuring things out as I did initially at Grossmont, however.

I am going to be an awesome dad. I am going to see Clover grow close to Kristin and I, as well as her aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents. It is very possible that I will even see my family grow in size before I finish with school. I am going to be a presence in my daughter’s life. I acknowledge that although I have many plans for my own life, it is imperative that I make time for my family. It is not just my wife and I anymore, and I refuse to consider family time as having lunch with my daughter on my 30 minute lunch break or in between classes. That will not be okay with me.

I look forward to reconnecting with some of the people from my past before it became a past that I have had to learn not to regret. I also look forward to watching the families of my brothers and sisters grow.

I appreciate how much I have grown over the last however many years it has taken me to be where I am now. I appreciate how much I have changed, positively in my mind, over the last however many years. I am sure that I will appear different on the outside to those who have not seen me in some years, and not just because of the way I have cut my hair.

I don’t know where else to go with this… I will now open up the floor… questions anyone?

Sometimes I think that I am really going to miss my job.

Banana Splat.

Okay so here’s the joke.

When I was still a pretty small kid, I am thinking like 4-6 age range, my favorite joke was banana splat. I don’t know how it got started; I just know I thought it was one of the funniest things ever. It wasn’t even a joke with a punch line… or a real joke or whatever… this is the joke: “guess what? BANANA SPLAT!” sometimes I had to cut it all the way down to just “BANANA SPLAT!”

When we would be having family home evening, and taking care of the family business for the week, I would always raise my hand with one item of business, banana splat and a bunch of giggles. I know that pretty much most of my family did not think it was as funny as I did. I could tell when nobody was in the mood for it when my dad would ask “Does anybody have any more business we need to discuss besides banana splat?” I would usually raise my hand any way, “banana SPLAT!”

Sooo… about 20 years later…

I was working. I wasn’t really “feeling” it. It was early in the morning, around 5:15 am or so. We have really powerful ovens at work. We also have bananas and a drive thru window… can you see where this is going?

Pretty much… I asked my boss on this morning:

“What kind of food would you classify bananas as, Breakfast or lunch?”

“Bananas are definitely breakfast food in my opinion… yeah; I think they go with cereal… breakfast food.”

“Oh… So I should probably not have warmed it on lunch… maybe like a breakfast sandwich, do you think?”

“What?... *looks in oven… blinks a couple times… looks at me… closes the oven… looks at the ground… looks at me… looks away...* Yeah, you probably should have done it as a breakfast. Bananas are not a lunch fruit.”

After it was finished I looked in the oven and tried to imagine what I was thinking, because this was not it… I thought it would be cooler… like exploded or something… especially judging by the boss’s face… anyway, I picked it up and walked over to the window and threw it onto the ground as hard as I could out frustration for the let down…

Banana splat. I couldn’t stop laughing. I thought it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen… a steamy (fresh out of the oven) banana splat.

I guess the funniest part about this whole thing for me is that I didn’t really think ahead about what I was doing. First I was imagining blowing up a banana, not thinking about how I would have to clean the oven after blowing it up. I was so not impressed by the banana warmed on lunch that I threw it on the ground to try and make it cooler as opposed to abandoning the idea and just throwing it away. I wasn’t picturing a splat… I wasn’t picturing anything… but it ended up being pretty dang funny to me.

Banana splat.

It splatted so hard.

The little stringy thing against the wall in the top of the picture is the top section of the banana peel with the sticker still attached.
The pictures look all reddish because that is what color the parking lot lights are, and I had no flash... but you can definitely tell the peel is pretty burnt.

Just one more thing tonight.

While I was eating breakfast today, I mentioned to my sister in law that I am not a fan of breakfast sausage because I don’t really like chewing on the skulls of my enemies.

I had to explain it then the same way I have to explain it now… just during the last explanation I mentioned that this should be in the book… and this explanation is in the book… so kinda different, but mostly the same… anyway, here it goes:

I was having a conversation at work one day about taco meat, and how I like to go to Del Taco and get the fiesta box, but order beans on my tacos instead of meat because of the mysterious crunchies found in said meat.

One of my friends at work explained about how he has a throw up reflex to that sensation… he can’t help it… I don’t think he throws up anymore, but if he gets one of them, he just has to stop eating and totally loses his appetite, whether it is the first or last bite, doesn’t matter.

We talked about our different strategies for dealing with the crunchies. (I think that the technical term is “gristle, chunks of”) I was kind of making up my strategy as I went…

“Whenever I get a mystery bite of crunchies in my taco I just imagine that…….. *the pause during this time was long enough for everyone to imagine something, like jawbreakers or candy or unicorn teeth or whatever, and try and guess what would come out of my mouth next, myself included, I just went with what came out first* ……. they are the skulls of my enemies, and I am crushing them with my teeth after their horrible downfall in order to make their destruction that much more complete.”

I used to not really do that, but it was pretty funny, and now that is what happens, or at least I think of that conversation and get a cartoon picture in my head of me chewing the “skulls of my enemies.”

As if I have any enemies of whom I would tear their head off… in some sort of mortal combat or what, I don’t know, then somehow de-flesh it so that I could put their skulls in my taco meat.

They would have to be really small skulls.

The lexicon is on my agenda.

Today I flossed.

I had an interesting conversation about this healthy habit with one of my friends at work on New Year’s Day at about 5 in the morning. We were both exhausted. The conversation was not about flossing so much as New Year’s Day (NYD), and the resolutions that usually come along with this holiday as predictably as peeps come along with Easter. I expressed to her that I am not a fan of waiting until NYD to change my life. I think I came across as kind of a jerk, and did not articulate very well that I am pro change and resolutions and all, but not so much waiting until NYD to make those changes. I feel like if I can treat every new year as a new clean slate, why not every month, or week or… every day as a new day, unblemished by yesterday, and completely able to change tomorrow. I kind of expressed how I feel about this around Independence Day in my idiot book.

I realized after thinking about this conversation, while I was flossing my teeth, that I have held a grudge against NYD. I have not, in the past, given it the respect of being a new day. If I wasn’t aware of what day it was, I wouldn’t think twice about changing my behavior to develop a new habit, NYD or not. Why couldn’t I change on NYD, and just call it a “resolution” as opposed to a “NYD resolution?” Holy Crap… I can!

I say thank you to my friend for not pointing this huge flaw out in my thinking knowing that I would probably figure it out. Wow. I guess I just felt kind of like an idiot when I came to this realization while flossing this morning. If my hands hadn’t been busy, I would have done the “palm to the forehead duh I am such an idiot slap thing.”

I just wanted to share this. I hope everyone meets their resolutions with the fire and determination required to accomplish their goals. I hope every new skill set and talent and action that is on the agenda for improvement or development in anybodies life this year will be improved upon over the next 365 days, and hopefully, lifetime.

I am going to floss again tomorrow.

Did I do this last year?

I decided that I should maybe do a little recap of a few significant things that happened in 2009.

I think it will look like a punch list:

*Things that happened last year that make me feel like I have grown up… at least a little... since last time*

-I bought a car… with four doors and a hatchback... a family car.

-I tried to buy a house… then a condo… then another condo… then like 15 other condos… didn’t get one in spite of our best efforts.

-I held a salaried position in a global company.

-I was laid off from my salaried position.

-I got a Costco membership… I upgraded it to an Executive membership.

-I got my first college degree… Associate in Science, Administration of Justice/ Forensic Technology.

-I celebrated my 3^rd wedding anniversary.

-I got my wife pregnant.

-I had a daughter.

-I did not visit the emergency room once… not even in my dreams… this has been the second year in a row.

-I moved out of an apartment during daylight hours… I got about 96% of my deposit back… they had to replace the little silver dishes underneath the burners on the oven and have a professional cleaning service come clean…

-I celebrated my 4^th year of sobriety.

-I celebrated my 4^th year of being an ex smoker.

-I grew a full beard.

-My wife gave me a leather wallet… without a Velcro change pocket… it is a coach wallet.

-I started wearing a watch, all the time, not just when I am running the shift at work, and using a real day planner as opposed to post it notes stuck inside the flap on my wallet.

-I did not get one phone call from a bill collector… well… I got a call from SDGE, because I forgot to pay my last month’s bill… but I answered the phone, and paid the bill during the phone call… so I don’t really think it counts.

-I started having to wear XXL shirts instead of XL shirts… not happy about it.

-I made some friends.

-I stayed pretty up to date on the idiot book… in 2009 I held an average of 5.5 posts a month, that’s more than one a week…yesss! Goal met… very grown up.

-I went to bed on time.

-p