5 years and counting...

How time flies when you are having a fun. Sometimes it seems like we have been married only a few months and other times it seems like 5 years is such a long time. I thought that Becky did a great job with her anniversary post and there isn't a lot for me left to say. We have had some fun times and some really bad times. We have laughed and cried together (even though she told me when we started dating that she never cried). We have held each other tightly and have had to go for drives separately. The last 5 years have been a great compilation of what marriage really is and really should and could be. How great is this life when you find someone that is willing to take you for what you are, yet continues to push you to be a better person without you realizing that is what they are doing? It seems like all we ever do and have ever done is talk. We can talk about anything from politics to music, we truly enjoy each others company. 7 and 1/2 years ago this relationship was started by our in depth discussion of trivial theories and ideals. I bring this up because this is how I fell in love with a tall blond girl from Wendell Idaho. We talked about everything and anything, and just genuinely enjoyed spending time discussing whatever might come up. A lot of friends and relatives thought that we were crazy having huge fights about politics but it was a staple in our relationship. Now after our 5th anniversary, an adoption, 6 moves, two lost jobs and countless tears and laughter we continue to make time just to talk about our theories and ideals. Audrey has no chance of growing up normal.

Well...that stunk or there is a bright side.

Well I am pretty bummed about the BYU vs Utah game. BYU lost 48-24 and the reason that it was so bad in my mind is because we just threw the game away in the second half, literally. Max Hall threw 5 Int and had one fumble. Now I have heard some people say that the blame should lie with Anae but I am one who thinks that Max has to take this entire game on himself. He has control and can audible at any time. Anae didn't call the most perfect game since the run was working and he went away from it but Max could have stepped up and made a play instead of throwing picks. I would have liked to see Fui run some more as well as Collie getting some more direct snaps and even throwing a couple (it couldn't have hurt). Now we have to go back to Las Vegas or end up in San Diego for a bowl game. I am bummed about that but at least we are going and not sitting out. It really is a bad thing when you are bummed about a 10-2 season.

On the good side with a Utah win that as all but knocked BSU out of the BCS and that makes me happy. Now they will have to stay home and play a 6-5 ACC team or hope to get an invite to the Las Vegas Bowl, which I don't think they will, or an invite to San Diego which is more likely. I hope they have to stay home and play some crappy team from the ACC. That would serve them right for going to Hawaii last year when they should have stayed home.

Rivalry Week

This week is Rivalry week in NCAA football. There are a lot of teams playing rivalry games this week but the one I am most concerned about is the BYU vs Utah game. This game comes down to the wire every year and I am always concerned for it even when one or the other teams are down. They just get up to play this game every year. This year Utah is 11-0 and BYU is 10-1 which makes it a big game for the conference. BYU could earn a piece of the MWC title with a win at Utah and keep Utah out of a BCS bowl game. There is a lot at stake and even when there is nothing at stake this game is crazy. The reason for me writing about this game is to get some things off my mind since I have not been sleeping so well the past couple of nights. Both nights I have dreamt about this game. The first night BYU won 38-24 as they pulled away in the second half of the game. Last night Utah won 17-14 as BYU missed a 38 yard field goal that would have tied the game. That is what this rivalry is all about. It bothers me that people in Boise are saying that Idaho is not their rival because they don't put up a fight. I have seen a lot of BYU games against Utah and sometimes they are not fights either. The problem is that BSU fans think that their rival is anybody who might be better then them. The year that Becky and I came up to Boise to go to school the rival was Oregon State, the next year was Fresno, last year it was Hawaii and this year it is Nevada. I don't think that a rivalry game can change and if it can then it can't be very good. The things that makes the BYU vs Utah rivalry so good is that they have played for along time, they are in the same conference (which doesn't make a good rivalry), and the big one, they are in the same state. It is always huge and that is what makes it so much fun.

I am looking forward to the game this week. This week as been going so slow and I know that it is because I can't wait for this game to start. I was at the game last year and rushed the field when BYU won the game and clinched the MWC title for the second year in a row. I watched in 2006 as John Beck and Co. marched down the field and scored to win the game for the Y (ask Becky about that game as I almost killed one of our cats). I am so excited for this game you don't even know.

Remembering the classics.

Last Christmas we decorated our office space to make it feel more like the holidays. One of our buddies brought in a snow globe that he said was a collectors item. He called it Billy Buttons and the guy acted like it was the coolest thing ever. Now this guy is a huge sports fan and even played division 1 football for South Carolina so he is not a sissy, that is what made it so weird. So we decided to pull a little prank on him. We took Billy from his desk and placed him on our bosses cabinet and took a picture. We waited a couple days while Kevin kept getting so mad that Billy was missing and then emailed a picture to him from an email address named billy buttons. We acted like we were Billy. The fist picture is below and the funny thing about this is that Kevin studied this picture for a long time before he shouted that it was in Steve's office and ran over there and broke into an important meeting Steve was having asking about Billy Buttons. Now Steve had let us take the picture and knew what we were doing but he played it off like he didn't have any idea what Kevin was even talking about, it was classic. We then decided to take Billy and place him in other spaces that Kevin would notice and send those to him. The one with the hockey pucks is Kevin's own desk which was really funny. After that got old we started taking Billy outside the office with us and placing him in elevators and plants downtown. The best one is the picture with the sun behind him because that is Taco Time, which Billy told Kevin in an email was his favorite place to eat. This went on for about a month and finally Kevin was so mad that we decided to give Billy back to him. He placed Billy back where Kevin had originally placed him and left him there. We took the next couple of days to send the remaining photos to Kevin the entire time Billy was sitting right next to him. Kevin never noticed and it was one of my favorite pranks yet.

Expensive Hobby

I think that I have always been into music, I can thank my family for that. For as long as I can remember we would go to the Vipperman Reunion and all of my uncles and my dad would play music and sing. We would have such a great time and I have learned over the years to really pick out the good in all types of music. My music tastes of changed over the years but when I was in my early teens I found a genre that I haven't been able to let go, jam bands. Now this post is not about what music I like or what I think that you should listen to. It is however about a hobby or collection that I would love to start and this stems from that love of music and super cool bands. I would love to collect concert posters of some of the great bands from the 60's and 70's. I have talked to Becky about doing this and in the beginning she was on board, but as we have looked into it we have found that these posters are very expensive. There must be a need for them since they are so much money. When Becky and I were at Haight-Ashbury we ran into a couple of little shops that sold reproductions of these posters but they were around $40.00 to $50.00 and I thought that was a little too much for a reproduction. Now I know that this was a pretty good deal because you can't find a reproduction of a Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, or Jefferson Airplane poster for less than $100.00. I continue my search for these but only at work as to not get that look from Becky that I shouldn't even be thinking about it. I have put a few of my favorites up here. They are all Grateful Dead posters but I do have some other bands that I would like to have, these were just the ones that I have on my work computer.

My wife is hotter than your wife!

Becky is so awesome. Everyday I come home from work around 6pm and she always has dinner ready, the house is clean, and she is happy to see me (most days on this one). She is a great mother to Audrey and a wonderful wife. She cut her hair last night and was so upset afterwards and I felt bad that I had let her do it. The bad thing is that the first time I encouraged her to cut her hair it ended up a little longer then this and she cried for two weeks. I haven't encouraged her to cut it since. If you know Becky then you know that her hair has been getting shorter and shorter every month. I have stayed quiet about all the other haircuts because I knew that she was just trying somethings out. Not that they have bothered me because they don't, I married Becky because she was tall and blond not because of her hair length even though I do miss the long hair sometimes. Today I must speak out though, I cannot hold back any longer. I can no longer sit in the shadows with my mouth shut. I am going to speak publicly about this new haircut. I think that this is the best one yet, Becky looks so HOT with her hair like this and I really like it. I just wanted to go on record and say that I think her new hair style is HOT!

More BSU hate.

This past weekend in the paper a principal wrote into the Statesman and voiced his opinion on a local high school game. He felt that the one high school had run up the score on the other one and he felt that it was unsportsmanlike for them to do it. He said that this team was a running team and the team kept throwing the ball even though they were up 39 to 0. He said that with :38 seconds left in the game the team kicked a field goal to go up 49-0. That was the final score and he felt that it was very unsportsmanlike for another team to do this to another local team.

I bring this story up because the first thought that ran through me head was; what do you expect? these boys and coaches see BSU doing this every week, why wouldn't they do it? They see a team that is up 38-0 leaving there first string offense in and scoring at will. They see BSU running trick plays even though they are up and have no need to run plays like this. What do we expect our young men to think when they look up to teams like this? Should they be helping a team up off the ground after a play or kicking them while they are down? This is why I have a big problem with BSU. They continue to run up the score on teams that don't have a fighting chance.

It really bothers me and there are other reasons why you shouldn't keep "gunning" down the field as well. This last weekend against Utah State, BSU was up 21-0. There was 1:12 left until halftime and BSU was still throwing on every down and trying to score before the half rather than just going in at half up by 21 points. BSU's QB dropped back with :55 seconds left and threw a pass that was intercepted by Utah State. The very next play Utah State threw a long TD pass and scored. BSU had to go in at halftime with the score 21-7 instead of 21-0. Now don't get me wrong I am not saying that we should feel bad for BSU I am saying that this is a reason a team shouldn't just keep throwing down the field. BSU is known for keeping their starting team in until the end of the game when a game is well out of reach of the opposing team. A starter could get hurt and be out the rest of the season this way. The biggest reason I think that you shouldn't run up the score on opposing teams is because it makes you and your program look bad. You look like a jerk and your team comes out looking like really bad. Some day BSU is going to have a down year and there are going to be some teams that come at them and run up the score on them. I am not saying that it is right but I am saying that this kind of play causes others to have bad feelings and then in turn not show any sportsmanship as well.

I also think that this is a reason that BSU fans act the way they do. Their team doesn't show any sportsmanship so why should they. This is why all of there fans are so rude and such jerks. They don't understand that teams can have bad years or what it feels like for a team to act the way that BSU does. Case in point, while I was getting ready to do this post I was talking to a couple of friends that love BSU. I asked them about the interception that I talked about a second ago and they both told me that BSU had to run up the score on USU or else it wouldn't look good to the voters and they wouldn't get into a BCS game. I think that it is sad that BSU fans think that this is what they have to do. They really believe that they have to play unsportsmanlike football to be champions. I disagree and if it is the way that you have to play to get into a BSC game then I don't want to see BYU in one ever.

TCU vs Utah

As usual Utah found a way to pull this game out in the final minutes of the game. Matt and I watched this game at my last night. It was fun but the problem that we both had, was rooting for Utah or TCU. I have grown up hating the U since I am a BYU fan and Matt just hates the Mountain West Conference. I was thinking as Utah was driving in the final minutes that they are similar to BSU in the way that they seem to always find a way to pull out a win. It doesn't surprise me that TCU couldn't move the ball and it just backsup my thoughts that BYU should have blitzed more and gotten more preasure on Dalton. He is not very good when he is preasured. What does surprise me is that Utah scored like they did in the final minutes of play. How does a defense that is dominating a game allow a score at the end of the game when the game is on the line. BJ made some dumb throws into double and triple coverage that last drive (I know that Mad Max does this all time and it drives me crazy there as well) and TCU still couldn't stop it. Even the touchdown wasn't to the open receiver but to Brown who had a TCU defender all over him. As much as I hate to do this I must congragulate Utah on a good win. I also have to say that after watching that game last night I am much more confident that BYU could come out of Rice-Eccles with a win.

I also want to thank Matt for a great game experience last night as well. There was no BYU bashing and neither of us wanted to root for Utah but felt that it was the best thing for our respected teams. We had a good time and even a great discussion on politics, which I know is a party faux pas but it was really good.

Why I hate Boise State...continued

In my last post about Boise State I talked about how my family has been with BSU and why that has driven me from rooting for Boise but there are other reasons as well. One of the reasons is that the BSU team that I was so proud of when I was going to school here has changed. They always ran up the score on teams and they always played with extra intensity but now it seems that they are very dirty in there play. I don't watch every game but I do watch most of them and I have seen some dirty things from players the last couple of years. To name a few I have watched Boise players pushing guys after the play is over while they are on the ground. One night I watched a BSU player who was on top of an opposing player grab the face mask of the opposing player and say something to him them push the face mask to the ground. They never help opposing teams up from the ground after plays. This stuff drives me crazy as it seems that they are a team full thugs. I have stopped watching their games because of this. I really get so upset and it is hard for me to root for a team that plays this way. For my own sanity I have limited my BSU game watching, if I find myself getting upset early I turn the channel. I may come back but if I get upset at a call or non-call or a dirty play then I try to shut it off all together.

There are other reasons for me not to like BSU but I am trying to make this an installment so I am drawing it out. I also wanted everyone who reads this that there are mulitple reasons and not just the one they think which is that BSU beat BYU twice. There really is more to this hatred and although my family happens to be the majority there are some smaller reasons behind it.

The Man Crush!

The other night Becky and I were watching Ghost Hunters and Josh Gates was hosting the live Halloween episode. I kept saying how cool of a job that he has since he gets to host this episode every year and he also has his own show called Destination Truth. I think that he is hilarious and he seems like an awesome guy. She encouraged me to do a man crush post on my blog since I have so many. I have included a few below that are top of mind. Take a close look because you may have some of the same.


Bronco Mendenhall is at the top. He is one of the best coaches in college football right now and the best coach for BYU. His drive and determination is what makes him a great coach and I think that it is great that he can be such a great coach at BYU without the 5 star recruits. He has a great way of coaching that gets the very best from his players. He has taken the program back to the days of glory and that means a lot to the fans (like me) who have been living BYU football all their lives. The last thing is his dedication to the church, he has to get his players to play they way they do without practicing on Sunday and by living by the honor code. He quotes scripture to the team and media. What better man would you want for a roll model, really?



Josh Gates has to be one of the coolest guys on the planet. He hosts a show called Destination Truth where he looks for weird creatures all over the world. I will have to thank my mom for my like of the paranormal and weird creatures. On his show he is always funny and having a good time. He is so passionate about hunting down these creatures and that is what makes his show so fun to watch. In case you didn't notice he is holding a mold of a yeti footprint which he found last season. Just ask my buddy Art about me and bigfoot, some day we are going on a trip to hunt for bigfoot trust me.

Jack Black is probably on every guys "man crush" list. Think about it he is not that great looking, hes fat, and all he does is goof off all the time. Whats not to like? The guy is hilarious and crazy. One of the first movies I ever saw him in was Airborne, a rollerblading movie where a kid moves from California and is the outcast in a small northern town. Jack Black plays hockey and is kind of a nerd but he is funny in it. My favorite Jack Black movie though is Orange County. I love it when he is trying to explain to the cop how the fire got started.

Bryan Kehl was a linebacker at BYU and was drafted by the Giants last year. At BYU he was one of the best linebackers that we have ever had. He was quick and really football smart. On top of that he is one of the nicest guys ever. He is currently keeping a rookie blog for the Giants and in that he talks about why he plays football and that a reason is that he is so blessed and he wants to bless other. What a great guy and a great role model.

George Stephanopoulos has always been so cool. This one might not be so obvious but if you have seen him standing up you will noticed that he only stands about 5'6" or so. I have always thought that he was so smooth and sharp. What a great guy with a great job.

Dennis Pitta makes my list because he has been so dominate this year as BYU's tight end. He is doing such a great job and is so physical. The guy is a great football player and seems to be a great guy.

David Bowie really started this whole list. When I was younger I saw the movie Labyrinth which he was in. I thought that movie was awesome but as I got older I found out that before that movie he was actually a rock star. Since that time I have thought that he was the coolest guy around. He is amazing and I am sure that I don't have to tell you that he is Hot! Don't be worried I love my wife and don't have any "tendencies" but you have to agree that he is good looking with a great voice.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has got to have one of the funnest jobs ever. His job should be on every mans list of things to do. Who doesn't want to get into a car and do 180 miles an hour? Man that is awesome and being the offspring of one of the best NASCAR racers ever he has got to be the closest thing to royalty in America.

Loose Larry's Auto Emporium

As promised I am bringing you pictures of The Idaho Statesman trick-or-treat party. Let me just start with telling how this whole thing came about. Every year the Statesman's different departments choose a theme and decorate accordingly. Last year the advertising department chose to do Harry Potter. My group of guys thought it would be funny to do something completely different since we are right in the middle of the adv department. So we did the north pole and decorated for Christmas. The idea was two fold, everyone else was doing Harry Potter so it was dark and we wanted to lighten our area up, and come the next day (Nov. 1st) we would already be done decorating for the next holiday. The idea was a stroke of genius and it was alot of fun. Since we didn't want to disappoint this year we thought we would again not follow the group and do something different. The advertising department chose to do Chronicles of Narnia so we decided to be used car salesman. Matt was our token used car guy, Landon was "Ol' Gill" our used import car guy, and I was "Burt Bronson" your truck-n-trailer guy. It was a fun day, we went to TGI Fridays for lunch and got a free dessert for dressing up. We stopped traffic when we walked across the street to get Big Gulps. A bunch of people asked if we were "used car salesman" to which we replied yes. It was a blast and we all had a lot of fun with our personas.

Loose Larry's Auto Team

Burt Bronson

Burt Bronson and Top Sales Rep Duncan Fecelscat

"Ol' Gill"

Duncan

The team getting a sales lesson from Loose Larry himself
Lesson #1 Drumm up some hype

Drumming up the hype

Duncan making a sale

Loose Larry selling a batmobile to Batman and Ironman