Lookie Here

Have I done this one yet? Here is a list of things that I have memorized at some point in my life.

the entire movie Hook, as well as Toy Story and most of Billy Madison
pledge of allegience
paul revere's ride
some scriptures
o captian my captain
all of the states and capitals
preamble to the constitiution
gettysburg address
the alphabet forwards and backwards!
dental codes
my lines for the school play Readin' Writin' and Rockin'
the night before christmas
chicka chicka boom boom
that book I read to jake a billion times, bees buzz
shel silverstien poems
a few shakespearean monologues such as the beginning of Romeo and Juliet

There are probably a billion more things that I have memorized but I can't think of them right now.

My Bucket List

I haven't seen the movie (The Bucket List) but I'm pretty sure its about guys who do the things they wanted to do before they die. I've had a list like this in my head for a while but I've just called it "a list of things I want to do before I die". Here are a few things on that list that come to mind right now:

learn sign language
write a book
own vending machines
learn spanish
get a college degree
have babies
go to Italy
learn to enjoy running
see the MOMA


Two of these goals should be done, or well on their way in 2008. But I'm not telling which!

Tragedy Struck

This morning Linwood and I woke up around 6:40 and a few minutes later, we started to hear a creaking sound followed by a CRASH. Our bookshelf on the wall had fallen down...on top of our 4 month old laptop. It was by far the most expensive thing we owned followed by a very distant second with Linwood's acoustic guitar and our car. Unlike the car and guitar, we used the computer every day. It was so shocking to look at the screen that stayed intact but the picture shattered and blacked out in spots. Linwood and I love our technology (Linwood especially) but to distract myself from all of this I've been making a list in my head of non-technological things that I am grateful for.

Alphabetically:
Art
Baby Jake (Big Jake isn't so bad either)
Birds (but not as pets)
Books
Cereal (and the cereal shelf that we keep it all on, hopefully it won't fall)
Chocolate cake
Christmas
Circles
Crunchy leaves
Diversity
Faith
Family
Family Photos
Flowers
Friends
Frozen yogurt
Granola
Hope
Linwood
Music
My jobs
My "teddy bear" blanket
Ninjas
Our apartment
Pie
Prayer
Rain storms
Rice
Salad
Simplicity
Sleep
Snow
Sunshine
Strength
The University of Utah
Warm bed
Warm/Comfy clothes

The list keeps growing and it isn't hard to come up with more. Some people are reading this thinking, its just a computer! Well they are exactly right but for me, it takes a little more work to put it into perspective. I'm so excited for Christmas and to spend time with my friends and family!!!

*this was written on a computer at work... its not like our computer was the only one that existed!

Update. I went to the Apple Store and they seem to think that only the screen was damaged so we're going to replace it for about $500. I guess its better than another $1800 computer. Also, I met a guy at the store who hangs shelves for a living and I explained our problem. He said that I put it up correctly. Oh well.

A Lady's Purse

Lately my purse has been feeling really heavy! I thought I would see what was going on and here is what I found:



Now, can you find: twenty two cents, a Nintendo DS in its case, a pile of reciepts, a picture of myself posing with a hula dancer, two packets of instant oatmeal, a DS charger, my card case, two parking validations for the Gateway, fancy sunglasses case with the sunglasses in it (but you wouldn't know that), an apple, an envelope that may still contain a paycheck, my super-secret sketchbook, an excessive supply of tampons, two paintbrushes, a cell phone, a folded piece of paper with unknown contents, a Best Buy gift card from 2001, tissues, a bra strap headband, ticket stub for Bourne Ultimatum, a pen, ticket stub from a Pirates/Phillies game, an abandoned to-do list, two tubes of chapstick, a frequent shopper card for Paradise Bakery, a frequent shopper card for Subway, a Dum-Dum, a Trax pass, moisturizing lipstick, and a baggie full of business cards? I hope you can!!!

music of 2007

Every month Linwood makes a cd featuring his favorites for that time of the year. So, here we are in December and his favorite albums of the year are in!
1. Arcade Fire -- Neon Bible
2. LCD Soundsystem -- Sound of Silver
3. Radiohead -- In Rainbows
4. Deerhoof -- Friend Opportunity
5. Menomena -- Friend and Foe
6. Animal Collective -- Strawberry Jam
7. Once Soundtrack (The Frames)
8. Kevin Drew -- Spirit if...
9. Of Montreal -- Hissing Fauna
10. Feist -- The Reminder

Honorable Mention:
Iron and Wine-The Shepard's Dog
Panda Bear-Person Pitch
Peter Bjorn and John-Writer's Block

You don't have to take his word for it!

Jobs

As I recently resigned from one of my favorite jobs and began another, I think its time to post a list of all the jobs I've ever had. (At least the ones I can recall right now.) These are in no particular order.

Felicity's Gift Wrap
I've only been there a week but its great. We just need some more customers and it will be the best place ever. Come check it out at the Gateway next to Ben and Jerry's.

Dentist's office
This one pays the rent and such. I plan to have it until the day I move.

Utrecht
I'm still technically employed here but I just don't have time to work. This was probably one of the best jobs. I worked hard but played hard too. I also met some really great people.

Extra
I was an extra on Everwood. I just stood at the snack cart and ate food that wasn't for me. Mmmm.

Market Research
This was a fun job but it took up most every Friday and Saturday night for 2...maybe 3 years. It paid well and I had a pretty good time. We made people so mad though. It was a little bit shady.

Ensign Elementary
I was a teacher's assistant in a special education class for first through third grade. The other TA was horrible to the kids. I really liked being with them but it was stressful to be ordered around all day. I used getting engaged as an excuse to quit.

Kiwanis Felt Rec Center
Best job with the worst pay. I worked for the county playing with kids all day. We went on field trips and made crafts and played games and ate and napped (but not really)... we had a good time. I wish that place still existed. Those kids LOVED me.

Sherwin Williams (SLC, PIT)
In Pittsburgh I was an Interior Decorator and was extremely overpaid. We had a really good staff and had a great time. My claim to fame was meeting Andy Warhol's brother. I was there for 2 years or so. When I moved to Salt Lake, I had the same responsibilities plus more. I got paid 2$ less and didn't like my coworkers. I think it only lasted 3 months.

Wooster College
Alexis and I worked at a basketball camp at the College of Wooster in Ohio. It was pretty great. We just made sure the girls went to sleep and didn't fight. If they were homesick we let them cry to us and tried to make them happy. I also remember ordering a lot of pizza and making a ton of Gatorade. Oh and, we drove a golf cart around campus. It was excellent.

Homeless Youth Resource Center
I volunteered with Volunteers of America and made lunch for homeless teenagers. This didn't last long because I wanted to help out but they really didn't need me. The best part was the kid's names. Lets see...there was Blade and Frenchy, PacMan, Fro, ToothPaste, Camaro, Magnet, Tabasco, now I'm just making these up. But they had really cool streetnames.

Salt Lake City Blitzz
This was an especially embarrassing job. The Blitzz was Salt Lake's professional soccer team a few years ago and I worked for them doing various things. I would pass out the promo item at the gate and one time I had to count the ticket stubs so they knew how many had come to the game. It was a lot. I also sat on the sidelines of some games and passed out water. I was the water girl! I did get to meet Mia Hamm and got to know some members of the team. The embarrassing part comes from one particular game where we didn't pass the promos out at the door, we went out on the field and threw them into the stands. I think they were stuffed soccer balls about the size of baseballs. I'm really not good at throwing so sometimes the people in the first row caught stuff but mostly it just kept falling back down in the field.

Episcopal Diocese
I got this job through Kelly Services. I only worked it for one day but it was supposed to be longer. When I came back for the second day there was somebody else in my seat. I guess they weren't impressed with my "sitting at a desk" skills. I was just supposed to transfer calls to the correct people but the whole day I only got two or so calls. Nothing too memorable there.

Oil Convention at the Salt Palace
Also through Kelly Services I worked at the convention center and helped out with whatever conventions were coming through. The one I worked the most on was an Oil Convention where I learned all about Schlumberger and other oil giants. Nobody really knew what they were doing. I think we just had to print up name tags and check people in. Seriously nobody else could figure this out so it was like I was the one eyed man in the land of the blind except I had two eyes with 20/20 vision. Does that make sense? I was so poor when I had this job and somehow the people that I worked with knew this (I probably told them) and some of them gave me cash in addition to my paycheck when the job was all over.

Cigna Healthcare
Another job where I got to work with Alexis. I couldn't have done it without her!!! We actually worked for Intracorp: the Pre-Certification for Cigna. I think we had to call hospitals and doctor's offices to track down people who did not bother to pre-certify with Cigna to see if it was okay if they got treatment. I'm really not sure. I just know that we learned a lot of short hand and I used a fax machine a lot. I also learned to call dead people "expired". It was really really mundane. We took walks around the parking lot every day and ate egg salad sandwiches for lunch. Towards the end I was taken off of phone duty and took care of all the incoming and outgoing faxes. I saw a lot of disturbing pictures of cases that were trying to get pre-certified like skin blemishes (moles, birthmarks, growths) and many breast augmentations and botched implants. It was shocking.

Porter's Prescription Pharmacy
The summer after I graduated high school I got a job with my pal Cherisse at Porters. It was very uneventful. I remember taking calls from doctors and lots of our customers dying (expiring). I also remember dusting a lot and reading Hallmark cards. I don't really remember how it ended but I don't think anyone was too sad.

Kaufmann's
I worked at Kaufmann's for a looooong time. Kaufmann's for those of you who don't know is a part of the Robinson's-May company who recently renamed all of their stores Macy's. I worked there for a while in pretty much every department. There were a few highlights. There was the time that somebody asked me how to get to the mall (that hadn't been built onto the store yet) and I gave him directions that he obviously could not follow since, again the mall did not exist yet. It was really immature and mean but I was young and bored. Once I was at home and got a phone call from one of our security guys who wanted to ask me out. He got my phone number from all the information that he was privy to because of the position he was in. It really creeped me out since there were cameras every where and I'm not sure how long he had been watching. He was fired. Like I said, I was there for quite a while so there are many stories. I think I'm still on my lunch break from the last day I was there. I may go back one day and clock back in and get to work.

Dollar Tree
This was my first real job. I wasn't very good at using the register. Its true that everything is a dollar...except for the things that are 2 or 3 or 4 for a dollar and some has tax but some doesn't. So it isn't that easy. I did well though. Dollar Tree will always have a special place in my heart.

Janitor at the Weather Station
This is a job that I was able to work with McKenzie. We had a blast. We had keys to the weather station that serviced all of Pittsburgh and maybe even south western PA. I don't remember how old we were but for anybody, that was a lot of power to have. It was like having a key to the city. We were supposed to clean the whole place (including the bathrooms) and I think we did pretty well but we didn't go near the bathrooms. We got that job because the regular janitor was going out of town. I hope he still had it when he came back. I think we got paid like 200$. I also learned that weather balloons are huge!

Substitute for Prof. Woods at CCAC
There was a lady in our ward who taught a class at Community College of Allegheny County but sometimes she couldn't make it to her class so I would show up to take attendance and throw a movie in. It really earned me too much respect. The students thought I was legit and would ask me questions and I think they were even a little intimidated by me. I never figured what the class was about. Something along the lines of psychology.

Babysit Brinks
I was stuck in the middle of an ugly divorce babysitting the Brink kids. It was horrible. I left on bad terms but I was glad to get out. It was really horrible.

Embassy Suites Banquet Serving
Another not so great job. I set up, served, and took down banquets at Embassy Suites. My co-workers were sleezy and the job was not fun at all. Setting up involved polishing silverware, folding napkins into fancy shapes, and a few other things. Serving, for me, involved dropping giant trays of dishes and hopefully not spilling food or broken glass on the guests. Clean up was just getting the dirty dishes to the right place as well as the dirty laundry. I wore black pants and a tuxedo shirt with a black vest that was way too big for me. Sometimes when we served cherries jubilee for dessert I had to throw sugar into the flaming alcohol and dance. It was mildly embarrassing. The worst, of course, was when people that I knew would come. Once I served my high school's Christmas dance which just felt weird. Oh and once I worked at the cash bar which was totally illegal but I did make a lot of money.

Is that the end?!?!! I don't believe it. There have to be more that I haven't thought of. Well that was a walk down memory lane.

Trips

Places I'd like to go to between now and this time next year:

Los Angeles
Pheonix
Denver
Chicago
Pittsburgh
New York
New Orleans
Philadelphia
New Jersey

I think there was more.