Yes, we are still here.

I did it!  I posted twice in less than a week!  All you people losing faith in my blogging abilities, I hope some of that faith has been restored.  As promised I thought I'd tell the story of our tannenbaum (German for "tougher than a Sawzall").  

'Twas the night before Scott's birthday when all through the apartment... Sorry, I thought I could maybe keep that up, but then I realized that the post wouldn't get done until later next year, so we're going with normal story format: 

My roommate Scott had a birthday last Sunday but had neglected to tell anyone about it until 11:45 Saturday night.  Upon learning this important fact my other roommate Ethan stood up and left the apartment, returning 10 minutes later with.... Nothing.  At exactly midnight o'clock I wished Scott a very happy birthday and went  promptly to bed.  The next morning the apartment was awakened by Ethan singing a happy birthday song to scott to the tune of 'O Christmas Tree.'  Somehow Ethan had managed to get the tree into the apartment and set it up without making a sound.  Is this impressive? Yes.  Does this make me wonder if he has also been sneaking into my room at night and stealing my dirty socks? Yes.  Is it weird that my dirty socks are a hot commodity on e-bay? Not in the least.  We assume he purchased the tree the night befor, but considering that he was only gone for ten minutes, he also could have chopped it down, stolen it, or built it out of paper mache.  Anyways, the tree had no tree stand, was supported by being wedged between our two couches and had one ornament (read: Guitar):

As good as the Orna-tar looked, it just didn't seem complete, mainly because no man tools, duct tape or fire had been used in the birthday gift process.  I saw my opportunity to contribute.  Enter the Sawzall.  For those unfamiliar with things that are manly and destructive, a sawzall is one of the manlier tools available to men.  It will saw... all. Nails, sheetrock, plywood, fingers, you name it.  Everything except Douglass Fir tree trunks.  I guess when God invented the Douglass Fir He made the tree trunk roughly the same density as Mount Rushmore.  Fir must have been tacked on to the name as a mean joke.  I now have a quite embarrassing and long video of me letting the camera know just how cool I was to be in possesion of a sawzall only to then find that the blade of the saw was formed from stale cheese.  

(You'll notice my wise choice of safety footwear)

One inch of stump, ten branches, and (miraculously) only two toes later we realized we had nothing with which to make our tree stand up.  I know what your thinking, which is exactly what we thought in that moment: Cinderblocks and twine.  

 

I've decided that creating a blog is kinda like when I was a kid and got a new toy. At first the new toy is all you want to play with. You sneak it to school with you in your backpack, you show it to all of your friends, you take pictures with it, you dream about it, etc. I have a long history of doing this with new things: my He-Man power sword, X-Men and Star Wars action figures, my iPod, and that weird thing I can do with my stomach (believe me, that's weird to dream about). I feel like I have to have something profound, insightful, or at least whiney to blog about. To top things off, both Christian and I have gone back to being really busy ever since Thanksgiving break ended. I have two projects left for Accounting in the next four days, and when I'm busy Christian doesn't get a computer (because I get mad that I'm busy and lock him in his room, tied to the closet door)(Not really, if any police are reading this, besides he's 21 now so it wouldn't be illegal). Despite the lack of freetime and general exhaustion that has crept into our respective lives the past week and a half has been quite rewarding.

I figured it was time to let go of the fact that we are neglected (since people are acutally checking our site - Thank you), and start posting about the things that are happening in our life.  In the spirit of the holidays our car has decided to quit working.  When did it decide to do so? Yesterday morning when we were hoping to go feast on delicious turkey and pie.  The car was mocking us, openly and shamelessly mocking us.  For those of you who don't know, the last six or seven months with this car have been quite the struggle.  Everytime we get it working again, something else goes on it.  In a car ad we would be able to advertise "Completely rebuilt engine" and "will sometimes run great" also "was not responsible for any recent instances of genocide." 

le out of football it begins to feel like a more girly version of a manicure party).  The car, just to tease me, started without a problem driving to frisbee.  After a five man game of frisbee I hopped in the car and turned the key and the car made a sound like an old man weezing after smoking for 30 years.  Or like I had put that old man in the engine fan.  Normally our car sounds like a rock-polishing machine, so I didn't think too much of it and tried starting it again.  The car, again taunting me, made some sounds like it was starting (rock-polishing as opposed to old man in fan), but just when I thought it would catch it just quit sounding.  One more time I tried it and it started like a gem (from all the rock polishing).

I headed home and we got ready to leave, hopped in the car and tried starting it again.  After three times and mixed prayers and profanity the car started.  I thought "maybe it just needs to get warmed up."  We went to pick up Jessica, and Christian had the infinite wisdom to suggest that we try starting the car a couple more times and that if it wasn't going to start immediately that maybe we should not take it up to Brigham City for fear that we would get stuck up there and have to become Utah State students.  The funny car starting sounds did not get any better, but in fact got worse.  Jessica suggested that we could take her car.  She went to start it and, brace yourself for this, it did not start; dead battery.  So we took our crippled car and pulled it up to her crippled car and gave it a jump. 

 In a small holiday miracle, her car started.

We took off for Brigham City and had a, thankfully, uneventful car ride up.  We arrived in time for lunch and had a spectacular feast with our Aunt and Uncle Darrel and Jolene their kids, our Grandma and our uncle Dave.  After lunch, because no holiday would be complete without a little bit of YouTube and blogging, our cousins busted out their computers and we did some video swapping and some blog reading (as a reference, they actually enjoyed reading our blog and spent a significant amount of time perusing its contents).  After a few more rousing games of ping pong and Ticket to Ride it was time to be off and consume more pie in Draper, pick up Sarah and her sister from the airport and finally arrive back at home safe and sound.

That brings me to today.  This morning I dropped Christian off at work and just for kicks drove by some of the stores up in that area and noticed lines and full parking lots and so on and mused to myself how happy I was that I have absolutely no expendable income and was not in the massive black Friday rush.  I hope everyone reading who did participate in the insanity had all their hopes and dreams fulfilled and that the pushing and shoving and angry looks was all worth it, and that you felt very Christmas-y the whole time.  Because I was feeling in such a holidayish mood, I went home and went to sleep.  

The car problems did not end though.  I think that the car was a little jealous that we left it at home and took Jessica's instead, so today instead of coughing and sputtering it has decided to just spin and spin and spin and never catch.  I think it has completely consumed that poor old man.  I think I'm going to spend the rest of the evening conteplating ways to make the car... disappear? and still claim it under insurance.  I wonder if it would fit in a BlendTec Blender?  I bet I could put it in there one piece at a time and say that it was an "industrial accident." "I don't know how the car got in the blender Mr. Insurance adjuster, it must have wanted to make a shake and it went horribly wrong."  In the mean time it's just sitting out there in our parking lot laughing at me.

Happy Black Friday everyone! 

P.S. Sorry for the helter skelter post, it seemed to flow a lot better in my head.

We figured that something was wrong. This blog having been created two days ago and having had multiple posts, still had not received any comments. Surely our readers, eager to prove that we were not forgotten, would be over-zealous in their posting of comments to the words of wisdom that were laid before them. Yet there was nothing. Tests were conducted and the results showed that it was impossible to leave comments due to a glitch in the flawless blogger system. This has since been fixed and now there is no excuse for zero comments to the flow of wit and charm that emanate from your computer screen. And now we'll wait for the comments to start pouring in.

Well, our deepest fears have been confirmed. We have been forgotten, or at least neglected. We have brought this beautiful piece of literature to you and what have you done? That's right folks we are empowered with Google Analytics, and it has reported to us that the average time the reader spent on our site was two minutes. That's not even enough time to skim the jewels of knowledge we have dropped on you, just watching the laboriously picked videos would take about five minutes. Upon reviewing our initial posts it appears that we did not communicate clearly enough what the requirements of this blog were - we made this blog to bless your life. It is specifically engineered with wisdom and musings which are not soley to entertain, but to enliven the soul and to help you become a better person. We had one reader who spent a good amount of time on our blog go on to get a couple of gold medals in the olympics and then cure cancer. In the spirit of the holidays, today being thanksgiving and all, we're willing to let this initial oversight go on one condition: Everyone who wants forgiveness must leave our blog open in your browser any time you are on the internet. We expect google analytics to tell us that the average visit time is well over an hour. Study the doctrines contained therein, take notes, cross reference with other high-value literature, send us large checks to help us cover our expenses.

No, we're not married. Yes, we are very bored. Yes, we are still here.

A Christian and I were lazing about today, we decided that it would be a good decision to start a blog to remind those of our friends and family who remember us that we are out here in the desert. We also decided it would be a good idea not to shower or shave for all of thanksgiving break (christian has actually not shaved since last christmas, and is quite proud of what looks to be three hairs).

It may seem to those reading that this blog is a blatant and childish way to get attention, similar to jumping from the roof of our house into the cheap plastic swimming pool. It is.

We figure that since Matthew and Nicole felt it necessary to draw even more attention to themselves by starting a blog, even though they already had a wedding, TWO receptions, Nicole happens to be the first daughter in law in the family, and Matthew converted to Hare Krishna that they have openly declared Will-Inclusion War. We're not going to be caught unawares, in fact as the two neglected children of the family, we have decided to come out with guns blazing! That's right we're pulling out all of the stops! Take that Attention Stealers!

In that spirit: I was ignored as a child. Christian was not, but feels badly for Nathan.

Also, Catherine has a cell phone and has not yet hit her twenties.

Also, Eric makes lots of money and is smarter than both of us combined.

Also, you had Matthew before us.

Also, you gave Matthew the best genes so he was able to get married first.

Also, Catherine got to go to Africa and save small children from being devoured by mutant alligators... by that I mean she got a cell phone... Again.

We dare you to come back against those, oh married people.

Oh, and we have amazing funny videos:



Attention is ours.

What better way to begin this journey of information than to start complaining about the mundane things in my life. I am truly disappointed in my current chicken patties. I purchased the bag in hopes of nourishment but the first time I opened the bag those hopes were dashed. For a reference of just how painful this experience was to me, see video:



These silly things are the size of silver dollars! I eat six of them at a time and my hand is the size of four of them (Nathan's hand equals a dozen).

This is a big thing in my life. I want everyone to know how much this is affecting my mental health.