Rolling with the punches.

Out of sheer boredom, I decided tonight, finally, that I would do another post.  It's been awhile since my last one, and a lot of stuff has happened.  Some good things, and then some not-so-good things.  It's been fairly eventful.

So to start off, I signed up Preslie for baseball.  I was hesitant about it for a few reasons.  For starters, I knew that it would mean that I'd have to drive all the way to Farmington a lot.  Also, I didn't really know if she'd be into it either.  I've played catch with her a little bit, but that has been the extent of her baseball experience thus far.  What if she totally sucked, and then that destroyed her confidence?  I decided in the end that it would be a good experience for her to have, so we went with it.  I played sports with the guys on my street growing up, but was never on any official teams or leagues, so I've been pretty excited to see her having this experience.  Right from the start I committed to making it to all of her games, even though it's been a little bit of a sacrifice sometimes to make it up there.  Nevertheless, she has done awesome, and I have loved every second of it!  She's taken to it like a natural too.  She is the only girl on her team, and the tallest by nearly a head.  She has also hit the ball at every game when she's gone up to bat.  I am a seriously proud Papa!

A couple of weeks ago, I took Preslie for a little weekend vacation to Idaho.  She was born in Idaho, and I wanted to show her where we used to live, and what we used to do when we lived there.  It was a really fun little trip.  We made it to Pocatello, and checked out McKee's Pet Store and the petting zoo where I used to take her sisters for walks to.  We also ate at a couple delicious local places that I used to love, and then did a little shopping.  Finally, we ended up driving to Lava Hot Springs, and stayed at this cool Bed & Breakfast place for the night.  We took a dip in a private mineral bath, then we went for a walk and played some arcade games, and finally went hunting for fireflies and fairies along the river.

Since then, I discovered that I was being audited by the Utah State Tax Commission, which was exciting.  Not really a big deal, other than an inconvenience as I had to try and dig up information and paperwork from 2008 that I no longer had.  In the end, a quick conversation with the Auditor cleared everything up, and apparently all is well again.

At the same time the audit was going on, I discovered inadvertently that my identity had been stolen too.  When I found out, I said, "Well that certainly sucks..." but then I laughed.  It has been an inconvenience, but is not devastating, as the thief didn't do too much damage thus far.  Life goes on.

Finally, there was the train incident.  I got this crazy idea that it would be fun to take the Frontrunner train up to SLC to get some pizza at Este Pizza downtown.  I talked my buddy Austin into coming, so we headed to the American Fork Frontrunner Station and hopped on the train.  We got a late start, and didn't end up getting to Este Pizza until 10:50pm.  They had stopped making pizza, so we were only able to get 1 slice of pizza each.  That was disappointing.  To make a long story short, we ended up barely missing what apparently was the last train back to Utah County at 12:07am, and then became stranded in downtown SLC.  The train station is right next to the homeless shelter, which is really not the best place to be.  Especially after midnight, as we found out.  We ended up wandering around downtown for many hours, passed the homeless shelter about 6 times, and almost got stabbed/raped a handful of times as well.  Somehow we escaped unscathed, and with our butt holes intact.  It was a bit unnerving to say the least.  We thought we were going to have to take the Amtrak train back to Provo at 3:30am, but at the last minute, our friend Kris called and came to our rescue at 3am to take us home.  There are far too many details that make this story a lot more entertaining, but alas, I will leave them out this time.  Basically, it was a really long night, and that was the worst slice of pizza I've ever had in my entire life.

What really surprises me about all of this, is that through all of the negative and adverse things that did happen, I mostly just laughed.  In the past, I probably would've stressed out and been a knot of frustration, but not this time.  I'm a lot more relaxed about life in general these days.  Life happens.  I'm choosing to enjoy my life and all the little things right now.  I have an amazing daughter, awesome family, great friends, a job I enjoy that pays my bills and keeps me comfortable, my health, a car I like, and all of my needs are taken care of.  Generally speaking, I am pretty happy these days.

:)

Movies and what they say about me...

I've been watching a lot of movies for the past couple of weeks.  I was doing good with watching less movies and staying active, until about 2 weeks ago when I apparently irritated my lower back again.  Dr.'s orders included taking a steroid regimen pack, pain killers, and muscle relaxers, and also lots of rest.  And let's not forget a hot pad.  Boy oh boy do I love hot pads.  Because of this forced relaxation and loss of activity, I have been watching a lot of movies at my place.  I've also been in a bit of a quandary recently in regards to my thoughts and emotions.  My thoughts have been all over the place, and well, my emotions, I'm just not used to having them I suppose.  :p

Rather than try and explain my emotions over the last couple of weeks, here is a list of the movies that I've chosen to watch, in no particular order.  Some several times.  Don't judge me.

Lars & The Real Girl
One Week
Amelie
500 Days of Summer
Crazy Stupid Love
Unforgiven
Lawless
Skyfall
Feris Bueller's Day Off
Couples Retreat
The Guardian
True Grit
White Irish Drinkers
A Night At the Roxbury
Failure To Launch
Raising Arizona
The Flowers of War
Safety Not Guaranteed

Also, so far dating has been kind of a headache.  I've met some really nice girls, and I've met a few slutty girls.  All in all so far, it is kind of exhausting.  With online dating, you sort of have to cast out a really big net, so to speak and then hope for the best.  Some days I'll end up talking to a whole bunch of girls, and some days perhaps one or two.  Some that I feel like I connect with on some levels, but then there just isn't a spark or any real chemistry there in person.  I find myself comparing most of these girls to a certain someone, and they just don't seem to measure up.

Unfortunately, that certain someone isn't available and I can't exactly wait around and hope for the best either.  It's time to be realistic and make myself get out there.  I keep hoping that perhaps I'll just meet someone who will be great on a whole new level and that will make me forget.  Help me forget.  Whichever way you want to look at it.  It sucks to be so completely enamored by someone and not have it reciprocated.  I think that everybody ends up loving someone at some point of their life that is just not the right person.  Or perhaps just not the right time.  I'd like to think that I'm worth wanting on some levels, even though I am far from perfect.  I have a lot to offer, and feel like I am finally ready to move on with my life.  I am ready to find someone again.  I am ready to be loved and love in return.  Hopefully she's still out there, and maybe, just maybe, there is a chance she is looking too.

To date or learn French?

So.  Dating is ridiculous.  People are so pretentious.  I recently decided to sign up on a plethora of online dating sights to give that a try.  Never done it before, and I finally just figured, "Meh.  How bad could it possibly be?"  People are so connected now, and I've heard of so many people making real and lasting connections from meeting online now.  Seriously, how bad could it possibly be?  

First off, most sights out there are not free.  I would imagine that you are more likely to find quality people using a paid site.  Kinda makes sense, right?  You know what I think about paying for an online dating site?

I'm not a total cheapskate, but I don't think I'm willing to pay these ridiculous prices to see a picture and have the right to message them directly.  Only a handful of these sites will actually let you communicate with each other for free, and are pretty limited to how much communication they will allow too.  All of that aside, however, and I am not too terribly impressed thus far.

Nearly every single profile I have read about every girl around here says about the same thing.  Here is a quick synopsis in case you were wondering....

"I am fun and love the outdoors.......blah blah blah.  I love to hike....I'm fun, I love to laugh, and stay active...blah blah blah.  I like to go out, but I also like to snuggle up on the couch and watch movies.  I'm spontaneous.  I love good food.  etc."

It is rare to find a genuine profile that actually tells me something real about any of these girls.  Who doesn't like to have fun and laugh?  Who doesn't love the outdoors around here?  Apparently if I went into the mountains, I would also find every single girl there, and she would be hiking.  And she would be loving it.

Let's talk about looks.  Why is it that nearly every girl I am seeing that is my age, looks to me more like they are in their 40's?  A lot of these women just look so old to me!  That sounds so mean, but it's true.  I don't feel old, and I definitely don't think that I look that old either.  Why do these women look so aged?  This means I am typically looking at girls anywhere from 24-36.  Those seemed like good enough numbers for me.  Looks aren't everything, but obviously it is important to be attracted to your partner.  In my opinion, there is either chemistry or there isn't.  I may not be a male stripper/model, but I don't think I'm Frankenstein either.  If I message you, a return message is nice and polite I suppose, but you're either interested or you're not.  Let's not waste each others time.  On the other hand, I was under the impression that the point of a dating site was to date.  How many people are great at advertising and marketing?  Online dating is all about selling yourself.  Am I interesting and attractive enough that you can't pass me up?  Personally, I think I am much more interesting in person.  I don't care much for texting either, as it is difficult to show sarcasm, humor, and inflection in text.  I probably come across more as a big giant jerk while in fact, I probably think I am hilarious.

Next topic, communication.  Are there some special rules about protocol for responding back to someone?  If so, somebody let me know so I can be on board.  Personally, I think it's a bit rude to just suddenly stop talking to someone and leave them hanging.  I'm a grown man, and I appreciate honesty, and direct communication.  Guys are just like that I think.  Spell it out for us, otherwise, we make assumptions.  On the other hand, let's try to have some tact people.  Do you really think that your first communication to me should be asking me why I didn't go on a mission???  I don't know, maybe it should be and I just shouldn't be offended by that.

This brings me to my next point.  I am not perfect.  I have a little bit of baggage, so to speak.   I am divorced.  I have a kid.  I'm going to be 32 this year.  I'm not a GQ model, though I do think I could have made some serious money if I would have just let that dude take the pictures of me wearing The Leatherman.  Oh well.  I also did not go on a mission......GASP!  Shocking, I know.  Mostly, I believe that I am not in the right dating pool.

Let me also stress that I am not looking for perfect either.  I don't want to marry the next girl I go out on a date with.  I want to have fun.  I want to get to know new people, and try some new things.  That isn't code for sleep around and hook up.  I understand that probably isn't the norm for most guys either, but that's where I am in life.  I want to be happy.  I'm ready for love.  I'm ready for the real thing, and I'm ready to meet the right person, whoever that may be.  Someone who will love me and appreciate me for who I am, and push me to be better.  The list goes on of course, because I have a pretty good idea at this point of what I'm looking for.  At the same time though, I want to be surprised.  I want to find the right person for me, even if she doesn't fit the mold I am used to.  Hopefully that makes sense to anyone that might be reading this.

I am old fashioned in a lot of ways, but it is nice to be chased sometimes too.  Don't leave me guessing as to whether or not you are actually interested.  If I have to guess, then I will probably assume "no" is the answer.

You know what else is awesome?  When I've met a girl already that I think is about as close to "my perfect" as I can imagine, but I know I can't have her.  Already taken.  I find myself comparing a lot of girls to her, and they don't really measure up.  Do most people do that, or am I the only one?

Online dating is full of awkward disappointments.  Seeing that someone has "viewed your profile" but didn't find you interesting enough to message you, and that sort of thing.  Much different than real life or what I've experienced thus far.  Part of me wants to keep on looking, and keep hoping that something unexpected will happen.  The other part of me just wants to forget it and just work on learning French instead.

Que faire? Que faire?

Don't wanna be a cat dude.

Everyone has heard the jokes about a Cat Lady.  You know, the lady who lives alone and has a whole mess of cats?  When I picture a cat lady, I imagine a crazy and disheveled looking older lady who wears knit sweaters, has messy hair, no make-up, and probably smells awful as well.

After a quick shoulder and legs workout at the gym tonight with Ikaika, I came home and crashed.  I was walking like Frankenstein, and could barely lift my arms (because I did so many).

In case any of you are wondering, the resemblance is pretty uncanny.

After a quick shower, I headed upstairs to make a delicious taco dinner for one, which was delicious by the way.  As I finished eating, I realized that How I Met Your Mother airs on Monday night, so I hurried and pulled up the latest episode on my laptop.  My apartment was just a little chilly, so I put on a sweater, grabbed my fuzzy blanket, and stretched out on my awesome couch so I could watch my show.  Right about then, Sassy, who is Preslie's new cat in case you were wondering, jumped up on my lap as well.  I was fairly relaxed and content, and reached over to get a nice swig of apple juice.

That was when it happened.  That was when it hit me.

I have become a cat dude.

I'm 31, and I live alone, or at least when Preslie isn't here, that is.  I am wearing a sweater, I have a beard, and I am sipping  on juice minus the gin, and I have a cat.

WTF???

I immediately became self-conscious about this, and tried to rationalize that it wasn't so bad, because I only have 1 cat.  And I'm certainly not throwing cats at my neighbors or anything like that.  I'm still cool, right?  This isn't the start of the end for me, is it?  I'm not going to be alone forever, am I?

Who am I kidding?  I didn't think that much about it or even care for that matter.  I just watched another episode of How I Met Your Mother.

Witch Hazel

First of all, let's get one thing clear.  Pay attention to your body.  When you are working out at the gym and something starts to really hurt, and your body says, "Perhaps now is a good time to stop..", then perhaps you should listen.  I have a bit of a problem with knowing when to quit.  Especially when I am working out, and am in the middle of a set.  If I set out to do 12 reps, then be damned I am going to do all 12 reps.   This is when you need to pay attention to your body and know your limits.  Take tonight for example.  I was doing a seated curl at a Hammer-Strength preacher station, and my left bicep started to hurt.  And it wasn't hurting in a good way.  I was on my third set, and on about 7 out of 12 reps when suddenly I felt something tear deep inside the bottom portion of my bicep.  Immediately I started to drop the curl bar, but then ended up squeezing just at the bottom and over-extended my bicep.  Basically, my arm bent too much at the elbow and sort of bent in the wrong direction for a brief moment.

Now hear is where my stubbornness plays in.  At this point, I had this deep tearing sensation that went down my entire bicep and into the majority of my forearm.  It hurt pretty bad, and felt even worse if I just let my arm hang at my side.  I should have stopped, and been done with it at that point.  Stubbornness prevailed, and I continued on, as I still had 2 more tricep and 1 more bicep exercise to complete.  I tried to justify continuing on by rationalizing that perhaps I just needed to stretch it out and keep it moving to keep it loose.  This was not the case.  Now it seems to hurt even worse.  Imagine that.

So what does witch hazel have to do with any of this you may ask?  I will get to that.

After leaving the gym, I was thinking that a nice hot shower with the hot water running on my arm would feel fantastic.  That's when I remembered that I needed to swing by the store to get some more soap, and perhaps some new face wash.  Adult acne decided to pay me a visit, and I have had a couple random pimples pop up this last week.  As much as I enjoy looking like I'm High School kid with a beard at 31 years old, I decided that I should get a new face wash.

I popped in to the store, and started to collect what I needed.  When I came to the skin care section, I had no idea what I should get.  I stood there like an idiot and checked out some of the different options. Finally I settled on getting an astringent of some sorts.  I had just a few options.  For who knows what reason, I ended up grabbing Witch Hazel, as it was a more or less natural astringent that claimed to not cause dryness, as well as being safe to use with all skin types.  That seemed good enough for me, so I walked back to the front of the store to check out.  Lucky enough for me, the shortest line also was occupied by a cute checkout girl.  I made the obvious choice, and strolled up to make my purchase.

Dove Men's Care Bar Soap.  Q-tips.  Witch Hazel.

Cute Checkout Girl started to ring up my stuff after giving me a brief smile, but then stopped with the Witch Hazel.  She held it for a few seconds, then started to read the bottle.  "Witch Hazel, huh?  What is this for?"  Then looked up at my face inquisitively.

"Apparently it's an astringent......for washing your face."  I replied.

Then she looked up at my face, and her eyes searched around my beard for some signs of acne.  I could feel my face turning red.

"Have you used it before?" She asked me without cracking a smile.

"Nope." I blurted out, feeling a little bit embarrassed.

"Do you think it will work?" She asked again with a concerned look now.

"I guess we'll find out.  Perhaps I'll come back next week and you can tell me if you see any improvement."  I kind of laughed after saying this, as I was being sarcastic.  I hurried and swiped my debit card, and then she smiled awkwardly and put the stupid bottle of witch hazel in the bag with the soap and Q-tips.  I gave what had to have been the most awkward smirk of a smile, and then rolled my eyes.  She laughed and then handed me my receipt and bag, and stammered out, "Well I guess I'll see you next week then.."

And smiled.

And that my friends, is exactly how you do NOT get a girls number.

The End.

So this is how I'm going to go....

This last weekend was my scheduled weekend to have Preslie.  On Thursday night, her Mom sent me a text that the storm was pretty bad up in Farmington, and she wouldn't be able to meet me like normal.  We agreed to try to meet up on Friday instead, weather permitting of course.  On Friday, I had a lot of errands to run, but luckily enough for me, I have a pretty awesome boss who was cool with me popping in and out of the office that day.  Especially since he had apparently been snowed in up in Bountiful where he lives.  He claimed that they got over 3 feet of snow overnight.

I had made an appointment to get my windshield on my car replaced by a mobile tech on Friday, but due to the sub-zero temperatures, I ended up having to bring my car in to their shop.  After getting that done, I went over to my friends shop to get my Safety and Emissions testing done, and then off to my favorite place......the DMV.  I've been to hell, I spell it.......I spell it D.M.V.  Once that was behind me, I was able to get back to work.  A few hours later I headed over to my Optometrist to get my eyes checked again, and order another pair of frames.  I updated my prescription, lenses, and got another brand new pair of Ray Ban frames for $10.  Gotta love having good insurance!

After that was done at about 5:45pm, it was time to head up to pick up Preslie.  Her Mom had texted me again to say that the were snowed in, and once again, she could not meet me.  I was not, however, going to miss my time seeing my Squeak, so I decided to just drive all the way up there to get her.

When I first got on the freeway down here in Utah Valley, it was definitely snowing, but not too bad.  The freeway was clear, and I had decent visibility.  Before too long I was behind 3 really big snow plow trucks, which were blocking all the lanes as the they drove at about 45 MPH and were spraying some sort of sand and salt mixture on the ground.  I had my windshield wipers going, and had to frequently spray fluid to clear the gunk off that continued to cover my brand new windshield.  Finally, the trucks broke formation to allow a passing land in between the two on the left, and I took the opportunity to get past them.  As I accelerated to pass them and started to come up between the two trucks and pass them, my windshield  wiper fluid froze.  It happened so quickly that I didn't really have any time to think about it either.  I was approaching the point of the mountain, and within 3-4 seconds, my windshield was completely covered in a mixture of salt, sand, snow, and ice, and I could not see a thing.  I couldn't even make out lights through my windshield.  My heart started to race, and I could feel myself starting to panic as I continued to hit the button for more fluid to come out to no avail.  As fast as I could think to do it, I rolled down both of my front windows and stuck my head out the window to try and see.  It was single digit cold, snowing pretty hard, and I was doing about 60 MPH or so with no place to pull over.  The trucks had plowed the snow off into the shoulders on both sides, only leaving the lanes to drive on.  It was in that moment that I thought, "Well........I'm certainly up shit creek now."  I couldn't slow down, as these two large snow plow trucks were right behind me, but I couldn't see anything ahead of me either.  I kind of shrugged to myself in the car and said out loud, "So this is how I'm going to go..."  My mind was still racing and I started processing the reality that Preslie wasn't going to have her Daddy anymore, and she would be sad.  Then I started to worry about how much life insurance I was going to be leaving her to take care of her and that sort of thing.  All within the span of what had to have been just 10-15 seconds at most.  Just at that moment, a semi or other sort of large truck passed me on the right side and hit some sort of wet spot which splashed a little bit onto my windshield.  Just enough that I could run the wipers and clear about a third of my window and see a bit.      And it was over.  Just like that.

I continued driving the rest of the way to Farmington, as I was able to see and enough snow had fallen by then that I was able to clear my view.  I also didn't want to stop and end up getting stuck behind those trucks again.  Passing over into Salt Lake Valley was an immediate change.  The snow was sticking on the freeway, leaving only 2 thin trails for tires in each line through the white snow.  I passed several cars who spun out directly in front of me, and also a few accidents where cars had lost control and slid into the median or other cars.  All the while, no car was doing more than 40 MPH.  As I passed  downtown Salt Lake City, the snow got heavier, and the tire trails became more faint.  I was starting to  realize that making this trip probably wasn't the best of ideas.  Nevertheless, I continued driving until I made it to the Farmington exit at Lagoon to get to Preslie's Mom's house.  I came to where the exit should be starting, but only saw snow which I had to plow through.  There really wasn't an exit.  Only snow.  By now, I had shifted into the lowest gear on my Saturn Vue, and was still barely chugging along.  Their house is right up against the Mountain, as high up on the benches as it goes.  As I pulled onto the driveway that leads up to their house, I noticed a lard mound of snow that was easily about 20 feet high, apparently the end result of plowing the driveway earlier.  The driveway leading up the hill to the house had about a foot of standing snow on it, and I could not see over the snow through my windows on each side as I drove up the hill either.  There was easily a good 4 feet of fresh snow.  I was only annoyed by this, as it proved that Preslie's Mom was telling the truth......for once.  How annoying.

I picked Preslie up, and drove back home, but we didn't get back to Orem until around 9:30pm.  The drive back wasn't nearly as bad.  Preslie held my hand and was pretty excited about all the snow, but mostly about seeing Sassy, her cat, once we got home.  When we did finally get home, I was more than ready for bed.

Strawberries.

This blog post is about what a pasty, no-tan, white guy I have become.  No joke.  I need to go tanning in a major way.  

I think what bothers me the most about it is the fact that I used to be tan.....once upon a time.  Before I moved to Utah, I spent a lot of time outside playing football and at the beach surfing and boogie-boarding.  I was your typical blue eyed, blonde haired California surfer kid.  Then I moved to Utah, and things changed.  I swear it was the Utah sun that did it to me.  Suddenly, my complexion decided that it would just take after the Irish and Danish side of my genes.  Forget the French or Indian side.  Who needs a tan?  Not this guy.  Now, I've kind of turned into a giant strawberry.  That is the only way I can describe it.  My hair has turned more of a strawberry blondish color, and my complexion is definitely that of a strawberry as well.  And let's not even talk about my beard.  It's almost completely red.  If I am in the sun, I don't tan.  I just burn, and turn a darker shade of strawberry.  Temporarily of course, and then I go back to my normal pasty and strawberry self. 

Perhaps I should get a tanning pass.  I've done that before, but don't recall having much luck.  Perhaps I should just accept my pasty skin and flaunt it.  Perhaps I should even learn to love the new nickname a couple friends have given me.  Shortcakes.  That's not so bad, is it?