Random thoughts

If I was a beautiful, rich actor/musician/celeb I think I would have the self-awareness to admit that it would be nearly impossible for me to stay married forever, especially to another person like me. "You and I are just too self-centered, rich, beautiful, egotistical, and selfish to have any hope of lasting in a union that half the normal people in the world can't even make work."
Don't you have the same reaction when you read of the latest celeb wedding that you do when the short, fat, white kid in your primary class tells you he's going to play in the NBA someday? "Oh you naive soul, how are you so blind?" (Hypocrisy Disclaimer: I married my wife 4 days after meeting her)

I'm all those bad things enough as it is, but can't imagine how much worse i'd be if I were beautiful, rich, and most importantly, worshiped by everyone at every turn.

On the flip side, you've got to give major, major props to the .03% of celebs who stick it out. Must take amazing discipline and goodwill.

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I think horses are about the weirdest, prettiest, gracefulest animals out there. The other night we went to an equestrian tournament to watch our friend's horse compete. That's the thing where horses jump over the hurdles. It was really cool. It was beautiful to watch these huge, magnificent beasts sail over 5 foot hurdles with perfect grace (surpassed in elegance, perhaps, only by the architecture of my dad's hands). Wish I was a horse. Here's a pic of us at the event (sorry we didn't think to take any of the event itself) with Jill, Rachel, and Eric.



Davis, you can skip the obvious joke about a horse being in the picture. That's me. And there's nothing I can do about having a long face except for face-widening surgery, which i've looked into and is very expensive.

Anyway, bottom line: horses are cool. Maybe instead of spending billions of dollars figuring out how to convert corn and grass into car fuel, and how to keep the spent emissions from ruining our planet, we should just go back to riding horses. They just eat the stuff and poop it out. No questions asked.

Too bad Piggy didn't know to control Big Jim.
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I can't imagine anything more terrifying than being attacked by a large shark in deep water. But i've already promised myself if this ever happens to me, and I have nowhere to flee to and death is imminent, I'm going to gird me loins and face the thing. I'm going to gnash my teeth, curse angrily and swim toward the monster with every intention of destroying it as with the same ferocity it means to dish me. I won't go out scared and screaming. I'm going out swinging, eye gouging and gill ripping. I'll end up dead, but the wounded, toothy bas@#$% will wish he had chosen the seal. It's the thought of this future battle that gets me up in the mornings to work out, and that helps me treat my wife like every day with her is my last.
I hope I can keep my promise.

Oh, yeah, same deal if I'm ever taken by terrorists and they want me to make a contrite, weepy video.

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I used to really, really like and admire Obama (the man, not the policy maker). Now he really annoys me. His actions and rhetoric are turning me more and more to the opinion that he's not much more honest or sincere than the rest of them (and I don't hate politicians as much as everyone else, so it's not the worst thing in the world, but Obama-or his followers-need to drop the illusion that he's the people's pure-hearted, altruistic tribune. He's a politician. He's an extraordinarily ambitious and egotistical person, like everyone else at that level. Period.) I hate that every relevant concern about him is off limits, because he says so. There's no legitimate qualm; only fear mongering, distractions, and politics as usual. Vomit. Or maybe it's his disciples that are starting to get on my nerves. Dude can do no wrong. Come on. I was highly enthused about Romney, but he could and did do wrong. Now, I'm for McCain. He does wrong. No one's perfect. Except Obama. I can only take the aura of holiness so long without starting to dry heave. Maybe I'm too cynical.

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I hear the word "stalking" used in popular culture now with a softer meaning relating to curiosity, nagging, etc. ( e.g. "blog stalking" or "my mom is totally stalking me about the wedding date"), as opposed to the original meaning that lands the practitioner in jail. Yeah, well I just want everyone to know that I'm the one who invented and propagated that softer definition. True story. Created it 7 or 8 years ago to fill what I saw as a sad void in the English language to describe a certain behavior, and people looked at me like I was crazy. Could be a remarkable case of parallellism, where some other dude in Kansas City and a lady in Tokyo invented the same definition and it spread from them as well, but I doubt it. I feel like I should be making money off it somehow. Anyway, you can tell people you know the dude who invented it, and that a kid from little ol' Farmington Utah's word caught on much better than Paris's "that's hot."

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As a history major graduate, let me tell you about the worst deal ever made in history. Circa 1993, JoLynn Bell agreed with a local farmer to have her tender, young boys haul 5,645 hay bails, weighing in at 235 lbs. apeice, from one location on his farm to the other (all the while the author and Davis had the misfortune of having to double up to lift one bail, while younger Helga and Olga, the farmers daughters could each handle one alone. Ryan, with his betard strength and advanced years, wasn't so humiliated) for an afternoon. The 96 degree temperature and the author's deathly hay fever didn't make the occasion any more comfortable. I still have deep gashes in my hands where the weight of the hay pulled the thin twine through the house servant flesh (My mom sent me without work gloves).

But in every deal you give something but get something good in return right? Here's what we got. In exchange for this slave labor, the farmer gave me dear mum a huge truckload of manure for her big garden. Guess who got to unload and spread the manure? Good joke, Mom.