25 random things about me tag

Here you go Becky, this should fulfill my obligation to you.

I have rolled three vehicles in my life, my truck twice. Luckily the first time wasn’t that bad and James Yon and I were able to roll it back over and drive away.

I served a mission to Nashville Tennessee and loved it. I consider that time in my life the best two years before I met Becky.

I skated (skateboarding) in middle school and high school much to the disapproval of my dad who wanted me to be an athlete.

I was a jock in high school. Not because my dad wanted me to but because I just loved sports and that is why I also skated.

I have been selling stuff my whole life. First with greeting cards out of the Boys Life magazine and then a lemonade stand. I was also on the sales staff on my high school newspaper.
I love paranormal shows. Ghost Hunters anyone?

I love to read, I didn’t read all through high school and then after my mission it kind of took off. Right now I am reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Perfect Victim by Linda Castillo.

I love LEGO'S and my desk is full of them.

I once started a car on fire while Sid Campbell and I were wreck less driving in the country outside of Wendell.

Some day I want to take a summer and with my son and dad visit every pro baseball park in America. I have been to three currently but I think a three generation road trip would be awesome.

I use to skip school on Fridays to go to Miracle Hot Springs with my friends.

I use to run from the cops in Wendell for fun until one night I ditched one and later that night he met me at my house to tell me we shouldn't do that anymore or someone was going to get hurt.

I love muscle cars

I love music and constantly quiz Becky on who is on the radio. Mostly Classic Rock

I wish that I had been born about 30 years earlier so I could have lived through the 60’s.

I am neurotic about my lawn and mow it every four days.

I have eaten alligator, turtle, squirrel, possum, and octopus the last one still creeps Becky out.

I watched Barry Bonds hit number 47 at Pac Bell park in San Francisco.

I wanted to be a history professor that drove an old beat up Land Cruiser and wore tweed jackets to class. I would have been the best history professor ever.

I worked at Taco Bell for 4 years during high school.

I wish I lived in Oregon on the coast.

I have been a BYU fan since before I was born and worship the ground TY Detmer walks on. I met him a couple of years ago at LaVelle Edwards Stadium and just stuttered while I shook his hand.

I love Thai food

I love the Beatles and think that they are one of the best bands ever.

I have severe road rage.

I love watching sports and would probably watch competitive thumb wars if they televised it.

I tag Mom/Dad (together if you want), Scott, Derek, and Chris Percy.

Obama

I am getting tired of everyone saying that Obama is the anti-Christ and that he is going to lead the U.S. down a road of destruction. I have heard a lot of people out there say that the country was going to be flipped upside because Obama was elected. Some people really believe that Obama is going to come in and turn the United States into a socialist country. I can not believe that these people can honestly think this and I think that if they do believe that they have no idea about politics and the way that our government is set up. We have a system of checks and balances and it is not like Obama is going to come in and turn America into Cuba. With the way things are how can anybody say that we don't need some sort of change? How can anybody hope that Obama fails when we as a country are in such a horrible economic time? I know that some family members are not going to agree with me and that is fine. You don't have to agree with me but I do think that you have to get in the boat and lets start moving this ship forward. We can't do that by thinking that Rush Limbaugh is right in saying that he hopes Obama fails. We all have something invested in this country and we are not going to go anywhere if we don't band together and make something happen. We need to quit our backbiting and move forward. This goes for those who are tired of Bush as well. We can't sit around blaming him for the economy for the next four years and think that things are going to get better. We need to move on and get to work. All I am saying is that the country is going to be fine, it always is. My parents hated Clinton but the country is still here sixteen years later. I have friends who hate Bush but the country is still here eight years later. We need to pull together now and make this work.

Company Man

Do you ever get the feeling that you are putting so much time in for a company that isn't looking out for YOU? Hypothetically speaking, lets say that you work for a company that wants the most out of you. Even when you are giving "110%" they are asking for you to give more, more of your time, more effort, more of yourself. Lets just say that in this environment you have meetings two or three times a week (see my post on office meetings/training) where the local heads of this said company are telling you that you are not doing enough for "The Company". You are asked to give more of your time and energy. Lets say that, hypothetically, you start to feel that you are not being compensated for this extra time that you are asked to give. You start to question the effort that you are putting in because the compensation is not equal to the amount of time. You want to slack but you know that in the long run it will only hurt your hypothetical bottom line and you have a family to feed. You continue to work and give "110%" all the while hearing in meetings how you are not doing enough. At some point there is a breaking point, lets say hypothetically that it is an email you receive stating that you will now have to work a few Saturdays and you are not going to be compensated due to the fact that you are an "exempt" employee (exempt employees don't have to clock in or out because they are commission based employees so they are supposed to be able to come in when they need to and leave when they need to. These employees actually are expected to be at the office at 8:30am and not leave until 5:30pm and if they don't adhere then they are in trouble and you better not bring up that these employees are exempt employees because you don't really know the correct definition of exempt employees). So, hypothetically, you say something to a coworker about working on a Saturday and don't realize that a manager is standing on the other side of the cubical wall. That said manager pulls you into his/her office and begins to tell you that you have a bad attitude and that you are not a "Company Man". You bring up all the things that you are doing and how you continue to give the proverbial 110% and this manager tells you that is not right because if you were a "Company Man" you would know that 110% is relative. When you are giving 110% then 110% actually becomes 75% meaning that you need to work harder to get to 110%. You leave this meeting in a worse position then when you went in but you can't say anything or else the heads will send out an email stating that you have relationals training and it is mandatory for the entire department.

My girls are better than your girls!

This past weekend I had family come up from Utah and stay at our house. We love to have family over and we always have a blast. This weekend though went exceptionally well as Becky was amazing and Audrey did well to. Becky got up Saturday, Sunday, and Monday and fixed breakfast for our guest as well as fixed lunch and dinner on Sunday. Audrey did her best with the limited amount of sleep she was getting, to be cute and fun. The weekend was a blast and went off without a hitch. Becky is an amazing host and is aways so good to our guest. She does such a great job and I am so lucky to have her. Audrey is also so awesome and I am lucky to have her in my life as well. My girls are so amazing and I couldn't live without them, I love them so much.

My clients are better then your clients!

The other day I went to Hap Tallman's on Overland in Boise. Hap Tallman is a western store where you can get your horse tack, pet medication, western wear and pretty much anything country. They are a client of mine that I recently acquired in the shuffling at the Statesman. I really like going to Hap Tallman because the lady I work with there is awesome. I stop by every couple of weeks just to see what is going on even if they are not doing any advertising that week. On this day I was there to drop off a proof to make sure that the ad we were going to run was correct. While I was waiting for the owner I started walking around and found this interesting piece of "art". It seems to me that it is a mouse riding a chicken. If you notice the mouse has a vest and a hat on with a rope in his hand. I couldn't help but take a picture because it is not everyday that you see this. I have thought about this several times in the past weeks and decided that my clients are the best clients. The owner of Divtoz is also really cool. He calls me up with all sorts of questions on advertising and non-advertising related material. Idaho Angler is a place that I go just to hang out and chat with the guy I do advertising with. The lady at ISU that I go through for their advertising is really cool and I enjoy talking with her. George Fox University is the same way. I really like my job but I think that a lot of it has to do with my clients and their personalities. My clients really are better then your clients, honestly your clients don't have "art" like this.

Austin is leaving, Reed graduates.

Austin Collie will always be one of the greatest receivers to come out of BYU in my book. He is the first player to declare for the NFL since Luke Staley did in 2001. I can't think of another player since then that has had the talent that Collie has. Scott and I have texted "COLLIE!" a million times over the last couple of years. He has been a go to guy on the offense since he was a freshmen and I have never worried about a QB throwing to him because I knew he was going to catch almost anything. I am bummed that he lost his last two games and that one of them was to the team up north. He will be missed at BYU.

It is a good thing though, Collie's stock is up right now and he could go as high as the late second round. Really he could have come out against Oklahoma and had a career ending injury and never make it back. He will now have the opportunity to get paid and not have to worry about injuries without being taken care of. Also maybe now Max will stop looking his way and will be able to throw to some other receivers.

Michael Reed has been one of the best receivers at BYU the last four years. The guy is money! He catches every ball thrown his way and usually has a guy on top of him. He is the most underrated and under used player on the team. I will miss Michael Reed next year almost more then Collie. He has been such a great player without getting the touches that others have gotten. Had Max thrown to him as much as Collie maybe he would hold the receiving record, just a thought.

Photography

Becky posted our 2009 resolutions and on that list was "work on photography". When we were in college I thought that I was an emerging artist and I would take my camera with me everywhere. I had a lot of fun but I didn't know what I was doing and soon thought that I wasn't very good and stopped. As we were going through some boxes we found some photos that I had taken and thought that they weren't to bad.

This is a truck that Marc and I saw in Joseph Oregon.

I put the photo into Picasa and played around with it and came out with this sweet photo.

2008 Remembered

2008 was a pretty good year for us. We finalized Audrey's adoption in February and sealed her to us in March. We took a three day weekend to McCall that was a surprise to Becky and we had a great time. We went to Newport, again. We really love the Oregon coast and would live there if I could find a good paying job there but since I can't I guess Boise will have to do.

I had surgery on my knee and after countless hours of telling Becky how stupid it was that I had it done, it feels great and I am really glad that I got it taken care of. I did stay awake during the procedure because Bishop Gines had told me once that if I ever had the chance to watch a surgery like that to take it. I did and I was not disappointed, it was amazing to see how bad my knee was banged up. When Dr. Johnston got in there he ended up taking out 75% of my meniscus which was more than he thought he would have to.

I had my first Fathers Day this year which was amazing and I have to give the credit to my amazing wife for coming up with the perfect day. I hope that I can repay her with an amazing Mothers Day this year (since Mothers Day was already over when she threw me this party). We had a lot of fun and I didn't know that being a father could be so awesome.

We hung out with family at the Willard reunion and although Robert wasn't there we had a great time. We get to spend time with Uncle Eds family here in Boise but the time that we spent together at the reunion was awesome and I feel that we were able to build on are already great relationships. The bad part about the reunion was that it was so hot that everyone was running their AC and blew a fuse in the park. It wouldn't have been so bad if they couldn't find a way to get the power back on to our cabin until Becky had left to stay at her parents house.

We spent a lot of time outdoors and in downtown Boise going to concerts, the farms market, and fun Boise festivals. I love Boise because it has all of these things in one location. You can go from downtown to the foothills to a farm all in about 20 minutes and it has been fun to see it all this year as we have spent more time outside.

We were able to spend some time with Becky's family this year in Baker City Oregon. We had a great time in there with her family and they should think about getting together more often as we always have such a good time with them. We took a train ride on an old train while we there which was really cool.

At the end of July we moved to a bigger house and a longer commute. This house is great and we love everything about it, we just wish that it was closer to town. I now have a 20 minute commute to work and a 45 minute commute home. I do love our house though and it has enough room to let us grow so we won't have to move for awhile.

We were able to see both of our families over Thanksgiving and Christmas and it was awesome. We are so thankful to our parents who let us stay with them when we come down. I know that they would like to see us more but it does make the time that we do see them special. Also my entire family was home for Christmas and it was fun to get to see everyone and socialize with them. We really don't get to see them enough and it is such a great time when we do see them. I had the thought that this will be how it is when we are reunited with our families in the next life and how special it will be with those that we haven't seen in a long time.

Through the trips, the move, and the holidays there has been one common theme...Family. I couldn't have had as much fun this year without my family. Becky and Audrey has made everything that much more fun. From Audrey seeing the seals at the Newport Aquarium to Becky being so surprised that I took a day off of work and took her to a "fancy" hotel in McCall, it has been so fun to spend time with them. It has been a great year and without them it wouldn't have been so great. I am so grateful for both of them in my life and I am glad to have such a great companion to share the rest of my life with. I really couldn't have picked a better mother, wife and best friend. Here's to another great year in 2009.