Carving out our niche.
A regular puff-paint Picasso.
A while back I got some free tickets to a show from a local radio station. The show featured sets from Story of the Year and The Bravery.
For Kristie, watching Story of the Year was like a trip down high-school-memory-lane. I say that because most of their fans were in high school themselves and dressed so emo it hurt. Not that Kristie was into that scene or anything, but Eagle High apparently was.
The Bravery put on a pretty good show, however. They’re another new-wave, indie rock outfit, hailing from Brooklyn. Fun times, and best of all, it was free-ninety-nine.
After the race on Saturday we headed up to Franklin for the remainder of the weekend to watch General Conference and be with family.
While there, I watched UNC and UCLA get steamrolled, which blew my chances of winning either my work or Ivy House bracket. Stupid. But besides that we had a terrific time. Tammy and Kyle and their family came down from Washington and Nathan and Kendra came up from Provo. I really, really enjoyed the sessions of conference. And it was fun to chill around the farm. While crusing by on a four-wheeler, Nathan captured a photo of us on a walk in our particularly awesome hand-me-down outfits. Note my awesome hat and Kristie’s to-die-for umbrella:
In case you were wondering, the half marathon didn’t kill me afterall. Sorry for the temporary absence.
So, we did it. I completed my first 13.1 mile race, and Kristie, her third. As expected, she rocked it. She took 2nd place in her age division and maintained a stellar 7:24 pace. Check her out sporting the new hardware:
I, on the other hand, ran it at a respectable 8:09 pace and was just happy to finish. Around mile nine, I, with a straight-face, offered a kid twenty bucks if he’d sell me his bike on the spot. You should have seen his face, he didn’t know what to make of me. Even though I spent the whole race waiting to be done, I found enough energy to full-out sprint the last block to the finish line. Then I threw up on my shoes. Classy.
Here’s a picture of us after the race:
And as an extra bonus, lucky Kristie won a free 6-month Gold’s Gym pass in a random raffle. Not too shabby.
And in other news, we’ve decided to run the St. George marathon in October. Since there are so many people that sign up, there’s a drawing to enter, and not everyone makes it. If we do, the SEO company I work for has offered to sponsor us!
Friday night Kristie and I got to go to a reunion for the missionaries of the Brasil Salvador Mission who served under our esteemed Presidente Williams. He and his wife are such wonderful people, it was great to see them and a few of the guys I served with in the Bahia. Here’s a picture with us and Pres:
Ever since elementary school I’ve loved this day. It’s like a sanctioned celebration of rampant immaturity.
From Kool-Aid powder in the shower head, to toothpaste on the white toilet seats at school, to exchanging the sugar and salt containers–I tried it all. I was that annoying kid you wanted to strangle, at least every 1st of April. So this year I decided to get back to my roots and cook up a good prank. The target? My awesome, forgiving boss, Jen Wily. Here’s a little back story and how it went down:
So at work we’ve all signed a strict non-compete that bars us from participating in any business that would compete with or undermine the efforts of Vizad Inc., the internet marketing/search engine optimization company we work for. Now it’s important to note that this is a particularly touchy subject with Jen, and she takes it very seriously. From her perspective, any breach of contract is, understandably, a serious breach of trust.
So my brain starts churning last night and pretty soon I’ve concocted a brilliant prank…one that would probably get me fired (at least temporarily) if it failed to deliver the punch line.
So I began by heading over to tommcconnon.com, a blog that I started back in July ’07 and had every intention of developing, but never got around to it. There I added a link on the sidebar that read “Freelance SEO services.” (SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is what I’m paid to do for our clients at work.)
Then I created a new page on the domain that made it look like I was selling SEO services as a freelancer on the side. To Jen, this would be seen as a blatant, dishonest breach of contract and if true, would certainly be grounds for termination. I added a list of fake “current clients,” and even went so far as to include a former Vizad client (whom I’ve since removed for privacy’s-sake) as a current client of this freelance business.
The only live link on that page was a call to “see more” of my supposed clients. If clicked, it would take you to the all-important, “you got punked” April Fools message. Lots of attention to detail, lots and lots of fun.
So the process was designed to take Jen through the anticipated stages of disbelief, denial, anger, full-blown frothing hatred and then blam!…relief (mixed with some of that lingering hatred). All I needed was someone to tip her off to it, and luckily her husband Preston was game.
So I heard later that he got up first this morning and brought a laptop over to her as she was just waking up. He was all: “man, you’d better see this…look at what I just found” and handed her the computer. So Preston (that lucky duck) got to sit there and watch as she clicked through the link, read the freelance SEO page and saw the client list, with mounting confusion and rage at every step. She told me later that when she clicked the “see more” link and saw she’d been fooled Preston almost died laughing. Man, I wish I could have been there.
Yes, that’s a line from 50 Cent’s Stunt 101.
Even cooler however, is this little number. Check out Kristie’s mad skillz:
Last night I was browsing through this blog’s analytics data, and happened upon a visit from bobbyandkathryn.blogspot.com. Not only was I excited to find more friends in the blogosphere, I was also particularly impressed with their most recent posts. In addition to a loving tribute to Kathryn’s brother, there is also a thoughtful post about the sacred significance of Easter.
The post got us talking. Where should Easter eggs and the Easter bunny fit in the whole scheme of things? I mean, the kid in us loves that stuff, don’t get me wrong, but does it detract from the weightier matters? I’m sure we’ll be especially mindful of this in years to come. I certainly am grateful for our Savior and the hope that the Easter message brings me.
This year we did take a little time to do the kid stuff, however. Kristie woke me up with an easter basket full of chocolate (yay!) before church:
and we had a do-it-yourself egg coloring hour ’cause the grocery store had sold out of those cheap-o little kits the night before. It worked out great, thanks to a little help from eHow.
A couple of weeks ago we did Park City for dinner and a movie, and had so much fun that we decided to do it again. Here’s a quick recap:
On Friday we missed out on a chance to go night skiing with Jer and Ked at Brighton (stupid work, stupid school). And while looking for a way to salvage our evening, I saw that the Park City Film Series was featuring the ski documentary called Steep. I figured that if I couldn’t be skiing myself, maybe the next best thing would be watching other people skiing.
It was. Guys, check out this trailer for Steep…if that doesn’t get your adrenaline flowing there’s a fair chance that you’re already dead. Now all I want to do is make enough money to buy a plane trip to Alaska and heli-ski the Chugatch. Who’s with me?
Before the film Kristie ordered (and ate) a burger that was as big as her head. Seriously, look:
That’s my girl!
So I’m on an innertube water polo team. Or was. We called ourselves “Team Chlorine.” (I, for the record, wanted to be called “the Inner-Tubulars,” but my nomination was shot down…as it was last year, and the year before.)
Innertube water polo, for those new to the “sport,” is a quite a spectacle to behold. It features two teams of highly-coordinated individuals bouncing around a swimming pool in pastel pink-and-yellow innertubes. These individuals, as far as I’ve gathered, are supposed to propel themselves in the water by wildly flailing their arms and legs to generate something akin to momentum. Once moving, they try to pass or shoot a ball into the opponents goal without tipping over, losing the ball, or giving up in embarrassment.
Tonight was our first tournament match, and sadly, like the Cougars, we exited in the first round. It was a tough loss for all of us, but now I get to look forward to our wheelchair rugby season this fall. That’s right, innertube water polo and wheelchair rugby. Jealous? Somehow I always end up playing the kind of sports that only six-year-olds would think are cool. Unless you’re in college, and so over “being cool.”
Here’s a shot of some members of Team Chlorine after the match:
Our courageous captain left us with a rousing speech that ended with something like, “We did not die like dogs, no! We fought like lions, and feasted on their haunches” or something to that effect. Anyways, it was moving.
