Today

Hello everyone,

Today has been a pretty productive day. I woke up and began my day by studying the GRE. I have a GRE study book and I went through the verbal section today. The vocabulary section is so much fun.

After studying I went to get a haircut. I haven't had one in a while and my hair was getting pretty long. Some people said they preferred it long, but it's not very comfortable....so now it's comfortable.

Actually, I haven't seen a lot of the people who read this blog in a long time and I haven't taken a picture of myself in a long time.... so I'll include a picture at the end of this post that I took right before I went to get my haircut (the smirk was accidental....and I realize my hair still wasn't very long, but it was very long for someone who usually takes clippers to their head every 2 weeks).

Anyway, I had a sorta funny experience while getting my haircut.

This is what happened:

The lady who cut my hair was the same ladywho cut my hair last time. My first and only haircut at her salon was 4 months ago and she didn't remember me. As she put that plastic hair sheet thingy around my neck she started her smalltalk.

Now, I don't know if all hair stylists have a small-talk course as part of their beauty school training, but it would make sense if they did cause they all say the same things. And the funny thing is no matter how you respond they seem to go to the next already memorized question without addressing your response. I guess this is for the best cause I'd much rather have them focusing on their job rather than entertaining me with their facility at spinning an interesting web of dialogue.

Anyway, after a minute or so of having the exact same conversation as last time I started playing around a bit. Cause, you see, every question was the same as last time, and last time after I'd answered a question I'd always ended my response with, "well, that's me, how about you?" I guess people often do that cause she had memorized answers for those questions too (you can tell they were memorized cause they were too concise and she said them with no expression...like someone does when they're reciting).

Well, my memory for dialogue is pretty good when I want it to be, and I had even more incentive to remember what she'd said because I thought it was odd that she'd memorized her answers... I tend to remember odd things.

So, I decided to have some fun with this and see if I could re-create our last conversation. I just needed to play my part the same as last time.

She was, of course, on top of her game and she started our conversation the same way she did 4 months ago. She said, "So, what do you do for fun?"

I responded as before, "Well, for fun I study, and for work I go on long bike rides."

So far so good, that was exactly what I'd said last time. She continued on with her memorized questioning and said "oh that's nice so are you in school?"

Now, at this point I knew we were doing pretty well and that our conversation has been almost word for word identical with our last one. I was pretty excited at how well we were doing and I kept it going. I responded as before and said I was about to graduate (not true anymore, but necessary to duplicate our last conversation). She said the same thing as before once again "oh, that's nice, so what do you study?"

She's good! I responded the same as before and told her I study Philosophy.

At this point I got sorta bored of the game and decided to try branching out. Instead of recreating our old conversation I decided it would be better to try predicting the conversation. As I mentioned earlier I had responded to all her questions with questions...and I still remembered her answers....so our conversation went like this:

(me to her) "so what do you do for fun?"
She started to answer but I said, "No let me guess, you like to hike, go for bike rides with your husband, and on Wednesdays you go dancing at the place down on the corner."

She took a step back and looked at me shocked. I not only said what her answer was last time, but I did it in the same order. She knew I had had this conversation with her before and she laughed. That was the first genuine thing she'd done the entire time.... the first action that wasn't scripted. Now we were finally getting somewhere. She said, "We've had this conversation before?"

I told her we had. She said "well, what else do you remember?"

I might have sounded creepy, but I just spewed all the details I could remember. I told her she had 4 kids....that as of 4 months ago the oldest was 7, that she had been cutting hair for 14 years, and that her favorite musician was Bryan Adams, and that the rest of our conversation 4 months ago was her telling me about a Bryan Adams concert she'd gone to when she was younger.

(the whole scene was very much like a scene from one of my favorite movies: Groundhog Day...I guess it's the closest I'll ever get).

It's a good thing she was an older lady because I think that freed me from her suspecting me of hitting on her.

After I responded I noticed that I had pretty much gone through all the questions on her smalltalk list. So, she just got quiet and finished cutting my hair. The whole thing was pretty strange.

I guess I'm just bad at first impressions.

I guess I'm even worse at second first impressions.

Anyway, that's my haircut story. She'll probably remember me next time.

Hope you all have a great day.

P.S. Oh, and here's the pre-haircut almost hippie picture:

Post

Well, I figured I better get a blog post in; it has been a while.

Let's see...what's new....well, I had a strange dream last night.

I dreamt that I was hanging out with Bill Clinton. We were working on some speech he was going to give at a charity dinner. After a few minutes of working he started to recite what we'd written so far. I was impressed with how quickly he'd memorized our speech. I told him he had an impressive memory, but then I joked that Monica Lewsinski might disagree.

He got sorta mad at me for saying that and he got all competitive and he said he could memorize faster than me. So, we had a memorizing race (I know, I know, all this makes very little sense).

We both started memorizing his speech; Bill beat me by just a second.

That should have been the end of it....but it wasn't. You may not be aware of this, but Bill Clinton is a horrible winner. The moment he beat me he got all annoying and arrogant . He started bragging to Hillary about how he'd beaten me and how he was so smart. I told him to let it go but he said "hey, I can't let it go, if I stop talking about it you'll forget...you know...your memory and all."

That Bill Clinton.... so condescending.

Anyway, that's all I can remember from the dream. It was pretty strange. I think the dream ended with me walking away all frustrated and him laughing at me.

I've been trying to figure out why I had a dream about a memorization contest with Bill Clinton. The only thing I can come up with was that I visited Garett's family yesterday and Garett was a huge fan of Bill Clinton.

Also, on Saturday night I saw a friend who was proudly reciting a poem he'd been memorizing to anyone who would listen.

So, the friend with the poem combined with Garett's family....maybe that's why. I don't know.

Well, I better go. Hope you all have a wonderful day.

Ticket

Well, I started to write out my summary of year 27...but as I was trying to put down all the highlights of the year I realized that I was making a ridiculously long post and that I'd have to break it up...so rather than finishing that post I just thought I'd complain for a second.

This morning I looked out the window. Outside there was a bird singing sweetly in a tree, a boy playing with his dog; there was even a whirlwind of pollen reflecting light in such a way that it looked like a whirlwind of sparkly magic dust (well it was either sparkly magical pollen or a Stephenie Meyer vampire exfoliating its skin upwind from me)...but sadly, like a nasty blue bruise on this idyllic landscape there was a COP reading the VIN on my car so he could give me a ticket (yes that's just VIN...VIN# means vehicle identification number number...I have a problem with that (and while I'm at it I also have a problem with VIN since half the characters are letters.... but I digress).

I asked the officer what the problem was. He told me my car had no plates. Rather than acting surprised that my car had no plates (those dirty license plate thieves), I explained to him why I don't have plates: that my car was recently purchased, that I can't register the car 'til I get the title, and I can't get the title 'til it's mailed to me etc.

He said that he was sorry but it was already in the system and that I'd have to appeal, but that either way it's against the law to park along the street without plates.

I told him that when I purchased the car I was told by the seller/bank that I had a 30 day grace period. The cop then said that they were full of hogwash (edited for content).

So, I spent a good deal of this morning talking with the people at the court (they were sorta rude) and writing up an explanation for why I shouldn't have to pay the ticket.

I really don't think I deserve this one, but then again, I never do. I guess even if I do get a ticket I sorta deserve it, not because of this violation, but because I've already talked my way out of so many. To date, I have received 5 parking tickets, and through contesting I've only had to pay.....0 of them. Most of those tickets in the past were deserved, so I guess I have negative automobile parking karma. So, if i do have to pay the 30 bucks here I guess I have it coming, it's just a bad time (although I can't think of a good time for a parking ticket).

The most frustrating thing about the ordeal was how much breath I wasted trying to talk the officer out of it. He kept on trying to defend his action rather than deferring. If he had said initially "I'm sorry, I already inputted the ticket, you'll have to appeal" I would have said "Thanks sport, I'll do that." But, instead he tried to justify the ticket itself and it wasn't until I asked him if he had any authority on the issue that he admitted that he couldn't help me.

I mean, I'm glad he's on my side now, but if he can't help me I see no reason to talk with him. He was a relatively dense man. I think I'll scan my ticket so you can read his writing. He has a penmanship far better suited for writing with crayons; he held his pen in his big meaty first as if he was going to stab the paper rather than write on it.

But, he was just doing his job. I can't really fault the guy. There's nothing wrong with him that completing high school wouldn't fix.

In other news I guess I'm sorta stranded. This morning I was supposed to go to a service activity. There is an old lady in my bishop's ward who collects junk and they need movers...so of course, bring out the elders quorum!

Anyway, I guess thats' about it. Other than my ticket, and a few things too personal for a blog post, my life is relatively boring. I'll post again next time I bump into the law.

Have a great day!

p.s. Here's a picture of the li'l one. She has such a wonderful expression on her face--looks kinda drunk. She's the cutest little wino you'll ever see.

Why I Can't Have Nice Things

Okay, so I got a new car. I really like my new car. But, unfortunately, I'm not meant to have nice new things.

On the first day I have my car I am driving it home, whistling, enjoying the freedom of once again being mobile. I get to a spot where I need to wait for a gap in traffic so I can turn onto a main road.

As I'm waiting for the traffic I feel a horrible bump behind me. I look back and there is a middle aged lady looking very guilty. I pull off to a shoulder in the road and inspect the damage to the rear of my car. It is very minor. Her license plate screw created a nick on the lowest part of my bumper (where only a mechanic or a paraplegic dwarf could see). Luckily, she was driving a very small car and my car has a sorta perky rear so it was high enough to not take it too directly.

Anyway, within 1 hour of getting the car I get into a very minor fender bender. The lady's car lost its bumper so I definitely came off better.

So, that wasn't too big of a deal....but it did shake me up. I went out with a friend later that day and I wasn't feeling to good the whole time, my neck was really sore and I still had that after an accident adrenaline tiredness. I don't know if I was very good company but they didn't complain so I guess I was okay.

All in all it hasn't been too bad learning how to drive a stick. I've stalled a few times but that's only when I'm getting all confident and I try to shift faster than my skills allow. I don't know if the clutch is old on this car because it starts to catch at about the time the pedal is almost all the way up. If I had more experience I might be able to tell.

Today I drove my car out to UVU to play racquetball with a few friends. They were two of the guys I took metalogic with. We had a really good time in that class, it's strange but we somehow were able to make studying for a pretty hard class seem more like a party...and we were actually productive.

Anyway, we were rejected by UVU because we weren't able to pretend we were students. Luckily, one of us had a badminton racket and some birdies that he found at a dollar store. We played the most ridiculous game of badminton. I'm pretty sure anyone watching would have questioned our sobriety. There was a lot of racquet throwing, slow motion saves, ridiculous competitions.....a good time was had by all....and throughout the conversation was littered with nerd/philosophy/logic jokes.

After we got some In N Out. I really love that place.

When I got home I had a call asking if I could help out. I guess some people in my ward were involved in an accident (it was raining today and they hydroplaned). I drove out about 30 to 45 minutes south to pick them up off the side of the road. I went with someone else in my ward cause there were enough people in the accident that it required two cars to get them all home.

Their car was really destroyed.

They had slid around for a bit with no control, they had taken out the steel rail (the back of the car was pushed in in the middle by about 2 feet) and they had fallen into a tree. Luckily the tree protected them from falling into the river.

When I picked them up their shoes were really muddy, but I wasn't about to complain about them dirtying my car when they had just faced their own mortality, so I just asked them to do their best to not get the brand new car filthy. They said they'd try. I thought they did try. But strangely, when I got home, I checked where their feet were and they had muddy shoe outlines ...and strangely, even though I walked around in the mud to help them load up the car, I was able to scrape my feet off well enough that I didn't leave muddy shoe outlines.

Oh well, I'm sure I can shampoo the carpet.

I guess I'm just not meant to have nice things (or at least I'm not meant to keep them nice).

Well, that's about all that's going on. I don't know what I'll do the rest of the day. I'm actually sorta tired. I woke up early for the racquetball and I just got back from a sorta long drive...but I should probably do something.

I'll give it some thought. For now I'm just gonna take a break.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Parallels

Parallels: Car shopping & Dating

1) Guy goes around town looking for a suitable match....sometimes he even checks the classifieds.
2) He often has a few bad referrals/leads (blind dates)
3) Finds cars with mechanical issues (emotional baggage)
4) Finds cars that need body work (obvious)
5) Soon finds that the more money he has the better his odds of finding a car (also, more money means newer car, lower miles, and better shape....hopefully all obvious parallels there)
6) Reliable cars are unattractive, unreliable cars are attractive and more expensive (also obvious)
7) Most cars of a certain age have been in an accident (imagination on this one)
8) Often you find a lot of deals that are too good to be true (usually a salvage title...sorry single moms).
9) When you don't have a car you begin to notice all the people who have cars; conversely, when you have a car you rarely appreciate it.
10) You have to test drive quite a few cars before you find one that you really like.

Okay, 10 is good enough. Sorry if any of these offerings sound too clinical or objective. I just couldn't help but notice that I've felt many of the same frustrations while car shopping that I've grown accustomed to while dating. Actually, as I was car shopping I began to wonder if my ridiculously high standards in car shopping might be indicative of ridiculously high standards in other areas....sobering.

In fact, yesterday I was going to buy a car, but when I got to the bank I saw a crack in the windshield. The person selling the car was busy filling out the paperwork as I walked out on him. So, yesterday I had the automotive equivalent of leaving someone at the altar. Felt sorta bad. He was there and ready to sign the paperwork, but I got spooked and left him with uncertainty and disappointment.

I guess the biggest difference between car shopping/dating is that cars are owned for an average of 5 years while most marriages end in 3.

Anyway, today my quest should be over. I have cash in hand and I'm going to pick up a car at around 3.

I'll post pictures once the happy union is complete.

News!

Okay, so the universe is moving again. Here's the deal.

For the past 9 months Katie Baird (formerly Katie Campbell) has been with child. This morning the child decided to go exploring and see what things are like "on the outside." She escaped her maternal confines at 6:48 and has since been on the loose. Within seconds of entering this world she changed things for many people.... forever.

For starters, I'm now an uncle. So, the baby has already given me a new title. So, without even spending as much as a second in this world she changed an aspect of my identity forever: from non-uncle to uncle. That's working pretty fast. I'm telling you, this child is going to be problems.

Another thing this baby did was change my sister into a mother. Her fitness as a mother is yet to be determined, but I expect great things.

Additionally, Stu-dawg is now a father. He's been working so hard to be financially secure and now he is and he can afford a rugrat...so congrats Stu! Now you can afford the $291,570 price-tag of bringing life into this world (estimated cost of rearing the child through high school (adjusted for inflation)). Now that you're married, have a career, own a house, and have a baby, you've officially checked off everything on your "man-list." Way to go! Basically the next major milestone is dying. I recommend holding off on that one.

Oh, and now my parents are both grandparents. I expect this child will be spoiled rotten. I guess the kid deserves it for being so smart and deciding to be the first grandchild in the family; the first grandchild always gets treated the best. I can already tell this lil' one is pretty sharp (good genetics as far as brains go).

So, welcome to the world Summer Baird! I hope it treats you well. On the whole it's a pretty great place.

In other (and not nearly as important) news, I have found a car. I will get it on Friday. It's a Chevy Cobalt, red, 2007, with 50k miles. It looks like a nice car. I'll include a picture of it in the pictures section at the bottom of this post.

Picture Section:


Fig 1. Here's Summer! Pretty cute as far as newborn babies go. That's a pretty sweet beanie.



Fig 2. Here's my sister radiating a maternal glow.



Fig 3. Here's the "gazing lovingly at the child" picture. It's expected, and I think they pulled it off quite well.

And now for far more unimportant pictures:



Fig 4. Car

Fig 5. Yup, still a car.



Fig 6. ....and yes, Car.

Hope you all have a great day.

p.s. June is such a busy month for birthdays:

June 2: Summer
June 4: Me
June 7: Katie

Honestly Summer, not very original. But, I won't hold it against you. As long as you buy me something cool I'll buy you something cool. Oh, and Katie, you should have been born on the 8th. That way we could have had each subsequent birthday double the number of the previous...but hey, too late to fix that now.

p.p.s. I just found out that the car doesn't have power windows or locks...I've grown accustomed to both. Is that a deal breaker? I'll let you know after I've prayed about it.

Update Update

First off, let me just complain about all the people who say PIN number. PIN stands for personal identification number. So, when you say PIN number you're really saying "personal identification number number." Similarly...ATM machine. ATM stands for automated teller machine. So, if you say ATM machine you're really saying automated teller machine machine.

(you're probably wondering why I felt the need to bring this up....well I'm glad you asked. Here's the explanation:)

Today I went to the bank and got a replacement card and the lady said I could use my new PIN number at any ATM machine. That double whammy of redundancy really caught me by surprise (actually, now that I think about it, it's sorta redundant to say "double whammy of redundancy" since all redundancy is a double whammy...but I digress).

I almost responded with "Really, I can use my PIN number at any ATM machine to get currency money so I can buy purchase things?" But I didn't say this, I just took my card and departed left.

After my bank trip I went car shopping again. I'm beginning to lose faith in humanity. Car salesmen are such sleazy people. I'm sure they're made by dredging up the muck from the bottom of the gene pool.

Today I walked into a used car lot and a guy nearly attacked me he jumped on me so fast. He was wearing snakeskin boots and had on a pink shirt with a popped collar (these are all warning signs...sorta like white trash "bling").

Coincidentally every car he offered me had the following things in common:

1) It was a car that was such a good deal he was thinking about buying it for himself.
2) The car was coincidentally the exact same price as the amount I said I was willing to spend.
3) The car was in horrible shape.

The man told me how honest he is at least 5 times (a sure sign of a dishonest man). He told me how much he hated used care salesmen at least 4 times (either he doesn't consider himself a used car salesman or he hates himself ( if I were him it would be the latter)).

He actually had the nerve to tell me that a car with 92 thousand miles was a good deal because the odometer was broken (as if miles not recorded by the car don't wear out an engine).

At the end he told me "well, I don't like pushy salesmen, and I hate buying under pressure, but if you don't buy that car before the end of the month it will probably leave the lot."

I responded, "well, you said you wanted to buy that car for yourself, and you were here first. I figure you got a better claim. Actually, I couldn't in good conscience take a car you were interested in when it's on your lot--that just seems wrong. So, it's all yours. I hope it's a good car for you."

I then got out of there as fast as I could (this man was unflappable, he couldn't be deterred.... he was going to try to sell me everything under the roof (perhaps even the roof itself) before I left).

So, still no car. The only bright side to my wanderings was I found a restaurant named "Guadalahonky." I don't think I've ever seen a better name for a Mexican themed restaurant. Please, if you will, think on how perfectly that name captures the essence of the place: a Mexican restaurant filled to the brim with white (honky) folk.

Funny, right?

Well, I think I'm done typing.

Good-day.