Yes, we are still here.

I'm sure that even Shakespeare would have left at intermission.

2011-10-22T12:24:00.000-06:00

So I recently mentioned that I was going down to Cedar City as a chaperon for my friend and his class. First off, I lied. Not about the Cedar City bit, just about chaperons needing to be fingerprinted and have background clearance. It turns out that's only a policy in some districts (to be fair, I spent about 5 months working [not paid] in one of those districts, so...)

Second off. It was cold. Very, very cold. There were parts of the trip that I was straight up miserable. Why? Because no one was planning on it getting as cold as it did, especially not on the night that we went to go see King Lear OUTDOORS!

Yes, Southern Utah University has a "replica" of Shakespeare's Globe theater on it's campus (don't be fooled, the added chairs. Chairs!). Well the first night we were in Cedar City, after driving through a minor snowstorm to get there, we went to go see this Shakespeare a la Shakespeare. It was miserable.

No offense to the actors, but it wasn't very engaging as a show. It didn't help that it was 39 degrees out. And it definitely didn't help to not have a coat. The most any of the students had was a hoodie and a fleece blanket. It especially didn't help that the show was 3 hours long. We were so excited when intermission hit because we thought it was time to go, then we checked the program and screamed, but that just froze and hit the ground. Another hour and a half. But, I can't recall a time that I ever left a show at intermission, I just think it's a courtesy thing.

Oh. And we know that it was 39 degrees because all of the kids had their smartphones out and were checking constantly. We got to hear about it at intermission. SUU sold a good amount of hot chocolate that night (though I hear that was disappointing too).

Though I complain about that night, the rest of the weekend was actually quite enjoyable. I did something that I don't remember doing ever in my life. I saw three plays in a day. It was incredible. I had many opportunities to see two shows a day while in London, but three is a record.

The best part about these shows is that they were all spectacular. Each one was done by the Utah Shakespeare Festival (which a Tony award winning festival) and they were some of the best theater I've seen this side of the ocean. We saw A Winter's Tale at 9am, Noises Off at 2pm, and Dial M for Murder at 7:30pm.

Even more astounding is the fact that the festival does repertory casting, which means that they have one cast to fill all the shows. So we saw some of the actors three times that day. It was amazing to see the versatility that they had. I tried to imagine the fatigue that must have set in as well. I heard from one cast member that by the 2pm show, which is a slapstick comedy, that they were all so hopped up on caffeine that it was one of the craziest shows yet. Luckily for the actors, the way a rep cast works is that generally if you have a large part in one of the shows, your part in the other shows are significantly smaller. This helps to reduce the burden and avoid burnout (or so I'm guessing).

So there really were some positive things from Cedar City. I'm just glad that my frostbite from high school didn't flare up. I guess I wasn't in a speedo this time...

I might offend some people here.

2011-10-22T12:23:00.000-06:00

And that includes some members of my family. But I really don't like the word "Yummy". I really don't. I don't like saying it, I don't like reading it, and I especially don't like the sudden increase in popularity that it has gotten (I'm so hipster).

Really though.

I've started trying to cook more, now that I'm a responsible adult or whatever. It seems like almost every recipe that I look up online is described as yummy. If not in the original post, then someone in the comments has almost surely made up for the deficit. I once saw a dish made primarily out of sausage and other meats described as yummy. I cried.

As a person who likes to over-think every situation, I tried to figure out why I was having this averse reaction to the word. I think it's because it sounds like someone talking to a two year old, which I am not. It just sounds kind of like immaturity in a word. Harsh? It also gets applied to many non-food situations, and that just goes too far for me.

Replacements? Delicious, Savory, Delectable, Tasty, Succulent, and so on.

Let us not neglect these other entries.

Anyhow. It's my burden to deal with. I just wondered if anyone else was a picky as I was. Kind of like how some people will squirm at the word "moist".

Ask the Goat to explain it to you.

2011-10-20T12:00:00.000-06:00

Hilarious show. Seriously. For those who haven't picked this one up yet. May I recommend this last week's episode? It was incredible. I ROFL'd, I LOL'd, I LSHIWWFH'd. This last week's episode was definitely one of the most intricate and intriguing episodes of any show that I've seen in a long time. It was a nice breath of fresh air, especially since the week before wasn't quite up to snuff.

Anyhow, here's a link. I think you should watch it. Really. So hopefully I hook you on this. Feel the draw...

Things that make me squeeeeee

2011-10-18T21:49:00.001-06:00

I like weird stuff. We know this. I like random videos. We know this too. And now there's this. You're welcome. (note: if you are offended by a naked mannequin type of nakedness, feel free to not watch this.)

going to the store. from dlew on Vimeo.

Nicknames I Have Been Given By Students

2011-10-18T20:29:00.002-06:00

Mr. Cragun (original)
Mr. C (obvious)
Mr. Crayon (because misreading Cragun on a whiteboard leads to this)
Mr. Quagmire (Apparently the kid liked Family Guy, though I'm not sure that I want this linked to me...)
Mr. Khaki Pants (I have many pairs now that I'm a teacher. It was noticed)
Mr. Tall (I get asked by students how tall I am almost as much as I get asked if I married... daily)
Mr. Man (This came from an elementary school... surprised? I'm not.)

But the above all favorite:

The Kraken (or just "Kraken")

This is the one that was given to me basically from day one by my Timpview kids. There apparently was also an arm-motion that went along with it that looks similar to an octopus. I did not know about the arm thing until after my student teaching was done and I was helping with the state drama festival. Two of my students (who may or may not be on a list of favorites) turned to me out of the blue and said "DO THE KRAKEN ARMS!". I, never having seen the Kraken arms, simultaneously waved my arms above my head and asked "Is this a thing? Is this something that we do?"

It turns out they had been doing it all along.

*note: I might update this at some point. That is assuming that I somehow accrue more nicknames. Don't I have my fair share though?

I'm an Adult? Really?

2011-10-05T16:35:00.000-06:00

This weekend I will most likely not be blogging. I will be a chaperon. All weekend. This sounds like a bad idea.

My good friend Richie (aka Mr. U, aka Romeo) who I was in a play with a long time ago and also graduated with, is a theater teacher locally (well, north about 1 1/2 hours). This weekend happens to be the Utah High School Shakespearean Festival. So Richie needed another male chaperon and I volunteered. "Why doesn't Mr. U just ask a parent?" you might ask. Well, first of all, I love to go to these kinds of conferences and Richie's a great friend, so I'm really excited to do this in the first place. But more so, due to changes that are taking place in the Utah education realms, chaperons need to be fingerprinted and have a background clearance by the FBI. Which I have and do.

Wait what? That basically means that the FBI has certified me as being more reliable than a majority of adults right? I don't know when this happened, but I guess I'm now a geezer...

To be fair, the last time that I chaperoned a trip they built a fort on the bus...

The Hypocrisy that Envelops My Goals and Such (an epic of technological proportions)

2011-10-04T16:13:00.000-06:00

So this last weekend was general conference. Also I have been blogging more. It turns out that this is not a coincidence. You see, I made a goal this last weekend (actually it was one of the very first goals that I made) that I would start using my social media knowledge to share the gospel and such. You see there were a number of talks that mentioned the need for people to clarify points of church doctrine and to raise their voice (I can think off hand of Elder Bednar, Elder Holland, and Elder Ballard). There was specific mention made of those things such as Mormon.org profiles (Here's mine) and blogs (you're reading mine).

So I felt that one of the first steps was to use what I already had. More specifically I think this means posting more regularly on this blog and being more willing to post spiritual things. I know that I have tried this before, but is it really a goal if you don't have to restart three or four times?

Also, there is the matter of Twitter. For those of you who are not Twitter-savvy, it is very much like a continuous feed of facebook status updates. "So why not just use facebook?" you might ask. Well, generally I do, but there are some subtle differences between the two (though die-hards will claim they are vastly different... not for me). The major difference is the use of hashtags. Essentially what happens on twitter is that at any point in a post (which only allows you 140 characters) you can use this symbol (#) and any word you type after that becomes a searchable term. Meaning that it makes the word a link, and if anyone clicks the link they will see all other posts from everyone on twitter that has used that same hashtag. Confused?

Well what ends up happening is that there are trends. If so many people use the same hashtag, it becomes popular and will start to gain a life of its own. Generally these are fairly stupid, like #Thingsyoushouldknowaboutme or #JustinBieber, but once a hashtag starts trending it takes on a life of its own. But then there's even another step. If a certain group of people all use the same hashtag over and over, and are continually searching for other people's posts using that tag, then you begin to be familiar with those other people and suddenly you have an online community.

Enter LDS tweeters. During general conference, there is a neat little thing that happens where many members of the church start "live-tweeting" conference. This means that they will post quotes, doctrines, reactions, rumors, and so forth on their twitter as conference progresses. This has been happening for a number of years now, and I have been participating for the past 3 or 4 sessions.

The reason why this is so interesting is because you start to see the same people showing up. We all started using the "#ldsconf" tag and we could all see each other. And then we started to get to know each other. And now there is a community that has formed, appropriately called the "#twitterstake". The beauty of this is that it is creating a wonderful group of connections from across the globe, but more than that, it exists to put religious things on the website. This means that if any random twitter user noticed the #ldsconf hashtag and got a little curious, they would suddenly be flooded with quotes and doctrines from General Authorities. And every so often, questions are asked, via twitter, and responded to in a like manner.

That was a long bit, but we're not done yet.

You see, then entered Elder Ian S. Ardern. He spoke during the Saturday afternoon session and came down pretty hard on those who waste a lot of time forming only cyber aquaintences and wasting all of their time on the computer. This caused quite the stir among the #twitterstake (who was tweeting everything he said about not tweeting). But there was a nice conclusion that was reached. As with most conference talks, the general authorities tend to preach balance in all things. I feel that reviewing Elder Ardern's talk, that is what he is advocating. He is not saying that we should entirely remove ourselves from the internet, but we need to use all things in moderation and not let ourselves become addicted to the online world.

So my second goal is to spend less time on my computer.

I know that my two goals may seem a little contradictory, but they really do work together in my head. I need to make sure that the time that I am spending on my computer is productive (like blogging?) and to make a concerted effort to cut out the frivolous time. Hence the hypocrisy.

The irony is the amount of time that I spent writing this epic, and the amount of time you spent reading it.... sorry Elder Ardern...

The "Where Have You Been For 10 Months" Post

2011-10-03T16:11:00.001-06:00

Since this is a blog that was also created to keep family informed on the whereabouts of the two (now one) youngest Cragun boys, I feel that I should give some highlights from the past ten months.

I love lists.

I think the biggest thing that has happened is that I have gained a new sister and lost a roommate. This all happened in one swift move. Amoray fits into the family a little too well, but I guess that's why Nathan fell for her. But this also means that Nathan is no longer my roommate. For which he is eternally grateful...
I graduated. Really. I am now licensed to teach theater and psychology grades 6-12. I know that sounds fancy, but poverty really never is...
I student taught. It was fabulous. I taught at Timpview High School (go T-Birds!) and I loved it. I wouldn't necessarily say that every second was amazing, but most every experience that I had was beneficial in some way. Not to mention the kids were awesome. I really did get a taste of what teaching is all about and I loved it.
That being said, I may not teach. Really though. After much thought and deliberation I am finding my life heading more and more to a psychological field such as therapy (as in giving not receiving). Details are still being worked out for all of this.
That being said, I am currently teaching. Kind of. I'm currently working as a sub. It's interesting. It has been great to meet all sorts of different teachers, work in various schools, see the different dynamics and the different subjects, and to just be working with the kids again. But something's missing. I have related it to a few friends as the difference between lust and love. I get a little bit of teaching but then I'm gone. There's no real connection. I try to get to know the kids and have a good influence and all that jazz, but they won't ever see me again. There has been more than one day where I have started planning the next day's lesson only to have to remind myself that I am not their teacher. It's kind of sad.

So that has been a short summary of life. I'm sure that I forgot things, but that's what follow-up posts are for, right?

The Post-conference Glow and other thoughts

2011-10-02T18:44:00.004-06:00

Two posts, two days. Make sure your food storage is in order. The end is near.

I love conference (see all previous mentions of conference). As always, there were a number of amazing talks this year. I am kind of curious as to why I always feel like there is such an amazing number of amazing talks and amazingly I think the answer is that the quality doesn't change. Conference is always amazing because it's what we need at that time.

Recently, during hometeaching, my roommate made a really interesting observation and pointed out that what the prophets say in conference can be seen as scripture. This I knew. But then he started talking about the idea of 6 months and why we have conference semi-annually. It kind of hit me in a really interesting way. Conference is the scripture that we need for the next six months. If there is something that takes more than six months or is a continuing problem, there is a very good chance that we will hear about it in the next conference. And then we will have another six months where we will know that it is the will of the Lord and that it's something that we should be looking at or working on.

So, like I said, it's not necessarily that this conference was better than last conference or that the speakers were more prepared, but the endless quality that comes from conference is because it is so pertinent to what the church needs.

So thinking back on this conference I think that my favorite moment was Saturday night. I love priesthood session. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's that there seems to be more directness, maybe it's the specificity of the topics and how they relate to me, but something about the priesthood session just always seems to make it a favorite. This one was no exception.

To be fair, there were a number of factors that led up to me really liking this one. I went to conference in SLC. I went with my awesome roommates. Elder Holland was the first speaker. All favorite things. I have a particular love for the talks of Elder Holland and President Eyring. I think it has to do with their willingness to approach subjects from the emotional/passionate side. I feel that's how I approach many things as well.

I loved Elder Holland's talk. It was phenomenal and he made the conference center buzz with the power of his message. It was the kind of talk that I honestly don't know who the two speakers after Elder Holland were because I was so focused on writing all of my thoughts down that I missed their messages. For those who haven't seen his talk, I highly recommend going and streaming the video. It needs to be watched. Not just read.

Overall, I think that some of the main topics this session were: Missionary/Priesthood responsibility, repentance, and reading the scriptures. I love that there are so many messages there. I love that there is this renewed desire in me to change and improve and to make goals. I love that everyone else probably got entirely different things out of conference than I did.

I especially love that we get to do this again in six months.

The Semi-annual "Thought on Conference" Post

2011-10-01T13:44:00.002-06:00

... and yes, we are still here. Or at least I am anyhow. Nathan has been married off (read: dead). And since the start of this blog was in direct retaliation to another brother's choice to get married, I felt it was only appropriate to renew my blogging efforts. Because I'm still here.

Also, I'm kind of bored.

However, explanations and catch-ups aside, today was the start of General Conference, which I love whole-heartedly (all of conference, not just the start). We're only one session down and I already have a slew of talks labeled "Read again", which is my little tag to myself to signify that there was too much to get for just one listen.

But I think one of the best moments of this morning for me was the announcement of the church's new program, similar to the Perpetual Education Fund, that helps members to be able to have financial help to attend the temple. *Quick side-note for anyone not familiar with LDS temples, there is no financial cost to enter a temple, however, in some parts of the world families need to save up for years to be able to afford the transit to and from the temple*

The reason this was so powerful for me is because as it was being announced, it was clear to me that it was an inspired program. I felt the spirit as I tried to imagine the individuals who would benefit from this program, but more so, what those benefits would be. I feel like for the majority of those who will use this program, they will be making the trip to have their family sealed for time and all eternity.

I love watching this church and the way that it works, and the way that they will respond to the needs of the members in whatever way necessary (this is one of the reasons that I find LDS Family Services so intriguing). It helped me to understand that Heavenly Father knows and loves each one of His children (this was a message throughout the morning session) and that this love is expressed and translated directly through the leadership of the church.

I love conference.

See you in a year. Or tomorrow. I haven't decided yet...

It's that time of year again!

2011-01-05T22:23:00.004-07:00

WARD PHOTO SHOOT TIME!!!

Oh my goodness!

Things got a little crazy.

Then things got a lot crazy.

Then things got a little violent.

Then things got a lot violent.

Those family members who were at the Eddington Christmas party might notice that the white elephant gift that I received has already been put to good use. I'm doing another set of shoots tomorrow night. They will probably be less crazy, but no one really knows. View the whole shoot at my Flickr site.

Also, bonus points if you can correctly identify the two pictures of Nathan in this post.

Good Models Make Getting Good Photos Easier

2010-12-26T23:59:00.002-07:00

Example #1:

Example #2

Example #3

Christmas was a lot of fun this year. I ended up getting some new lighting equipment and just had to try it out. So we had a little mini-shoot. We have also completed 2 puzzles, eaten tons of Christmas cookies, had a Nerf war, watched three movies, learned new games, played old games, and stuffed ourselves full of lots of food. Tomorrow involves Snow-shoeing and an extended family get together. Neat.

Merry Christmas.

Religion

2010-11-16T23:13:00.002-07:00

I started typing a post, then lost it (always save your work) and I don't have the time that I'd like to have to really dedicate to this post, but here's the breakdown. Lots of things have been happening in my life and I'd like to keep you updated, but one of the most important things has been my goal to read more talks and books by the apostles of the church.

I really felt like I wanted to share some of those things with you.

First of all, I made a mormon.org profile, but it looks like it's still processing. I really think that these are wonderful and I hope that they are helping. You should make one too!

But more serious now. I have seen some really powerful moments come in the past little bit. There have been moments where I have been called upon to stretch myself personally, in my calling, and also in helping others. I have really felt the power of the messages and talks that I have been studying as the perfect talk for that point in time will somehow be the one that I happen to read.

I wanted to share some of my favorite talks with you and some of the quotes from those talks. First of all, I have been reading from "Trusting Jesus" a book of talks given and compiled by Elder Holland. I highly highly recommend this book. Especially this talk and this talk.

I love the way that Elder Holland can help me to put into perspective the events surrounding the life of Jesus Christ, especially the Atonement. I also love the way that I am able to tell that he is speaking from the heart.

One of my favorite quotes from the second link above is as follows. Speaking of the Savior:

In the moonlit silence of that Near Eastern night, every acute pain, every heartfelt grief, every crushing wrong and human hurt experienced by every man, woman, and child in the human family was to be heaped upon his weary shoulders. But in such a moment, when someone might have said it to him, he rather says to us, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27.)

“Ye shall be sorrowful,” he said—sad, lonely, frightened, and sometimes even persecuted, “but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. … Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:20, 33; italics added.)

How can he speak that way? Of good cheer and joy? On a night like this? With the pain he knew was just ahead? But those are the blessings he always brought, and that is how he always spoke—to the very end.

I love that. I really do. I have written next to the title of the chapter "beautiful" because to me the whole talk is an achievement of the spirit.

I also had a rather powerful experience tonight. I have been trying to be a support for a friend going through some rather serious issues. This has involved many long or late-night phone calls. There are times when I just honestly don't know what to say. When that happens, in my mind, I am failing the other person and my first reaction is usually avoidance. I'm not proud of it, but that's what I do. I couldn't bring myself to return the call because I didn't know what I would do or say. I didn't think that I could help and I didn't think that I could handle the situation, I needed a break. Then my book fell open to the first talk that I've linked to. Specifically it fell open to this:

I make an appeal for us to reach beyond our own contentment, to move out of our own comfort and companion zones, to reach those who may not always be so easy to reach.

I realized that I wasn't strong enough, but that was okay because I was being asked to go beyond what I thought was possible, and that by doing so I would be supported. I know that the quote doesn't say this exactly, but that's what I understood. I made the call, and things turned out well. It was a special moment of understanding for me.

I also particularly like this quote from the same talk:

I would ask you now to help with this healing, healing for others, healing for those you love and, yes, perhaps especially for those you don't. The people around us need a lot of help, and I think the Lord expects us to join in that effort.

Also this one:

On the example of the Savior himself and his call to his apostles, and with the need for peace and comfort ringing in our ears, I ask you to be a healer, be a helper, be someone who joins in the work of Christ in lifting burdens, in making the load lighter, in making things better. Isn't that the phrase we used to use as children when we had a bump or a bruise? Didn't we say to Mom or Dad, "Make it better." Well, lots of people on your right hand and on your left are carrying bumps and bruises that they hope will be healed and made whole. Someone sitting within reasonable proximity to you tonight is carrying a spiritual or physical or emotional burden of some sort or some other affliction drawn from life's catalog of a thousand kinds of sorrow. In the spirit of Christ's first invitation to Philip and Andrew and then to Peter and the whole of his twelve apostles, jump into this work. Help people. Heal old wounds and try to make things better.

After the experience that I talked about above, I decided that I was going to go and look up some of the Mormon Messages on YouTube. I found one that I have loved for a long time and I hope that you will take time to watch it now.

Anyhow. Thanks for listening. I really do want to try to be better about sharing my thoughts with people online. I feel that it is almost my responsibility as one who is familiar with the workings of the internet to provide answers and support anywhere that I can find questions. For me that includes not being afraid to post things on blogs, facebook, twitter, and all of those other sites that I am visible to all of my friends. I would encourage you to join me in doing so.

Okay, now back to your regularly scheduled mildly humorous programming/ lack of updates.

A post! What? (mostly about photos)

2010-08-18T15:26:00.003-06:00

Still here. Not dead.

I got back from London. I took classes. It was rough. I was kind of burnt out. However, one major accomplishment in my life: I have finished processing and uploading all of my London pictures!

Feel free to view them at one of these two very very similar links:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38080948@N07/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38080948@N07/collections/72157624043684295/

Tied to this accomplishment, I have another personal goal that I met. My flickr account (the two links above) passed the 40,000 view mark. I don't know why I had set that as my personal goal, but I did, and I did it! So now we're on the way to 50,000. Although with all of these London pictures up I think I'm going to reach that goal a lot faster.

Also in the way of pictures, I am in the process of putting the picture wall back up. For those who didn't hear, we had to take it down one time for cleaning checks to make sure that we weren't hiding any sort of wall damage. But I have talked to the manager and he told me that if I put it back up then I wouldn't have to pull it down again. Unfortunately he is leaving and we are getting a new manager and I sure hope that they keep that policy or I will have a royal hissy fit! (I know how too, I went to London.)

Other photo news. I have made quite a large purchase (for me anyway). I have been doing quite a few photo shoots this summer, and I have made a little money off of them. I made myself a promise that any money I make off my photography will go right back into photography. So I bought a lens! It's used, it's not the top of the line, but darn it it's mine and I love it. It's this guy. For those who don't speak camera, it's essentially the workhorse lens when it comes to portraits.

So, I think that's about it for now. (read: I'm bored with this particular post and you probably are too)

Cool.

Yeah.

The Photo Booth

2010-06-21T22:03:00.002-06:00

The Photo Booth, originally uploaded by Christian Cragun.

I made this, you should watch it.

(by "I", I mean that my roommate Scott and my brother did most of the work, but I took all the pictures and came up with the idea...)

Home is where the dresser is - or - I'm done with living out of a suitcase.

2010-06-18T12:41:00.003-06:00

This post won't be too long.

First of all. I'm home. It's a wonderful feeling. Don't get me wrong, I loved London, but like the title says, I am done with living out of a suitcase. It's good to have some stability.

Interestingly enough, I found that I started to miss the oddest stuff. For example, having a calling in a ward. The Hyde Park ward which I was attending decided to not give the students callings, which made some sense when we saw just how many visitors they had on a weekly basis.

Also I missed root beer. It does not exist overseas.

I also missed having a working camera. Yes, sad story. My Sigma 18-50 f/2.8 lens busted. It isn't shattered, but the zoom ring disconnected from the internal mechanisms. So, that sucks, and I'll have to take it to a local repair shop and get an estimate. Hooray! Luckily it didn't break until I was almost home, but unfortunately I don't have many pictures of Scotland because of it...

Speaking of pictures. The final count for pictures taken for the whole trip (including about 100 for California before actually flying out) is:

2396 pictures.

So I've been a busy little bee and have been working my hardest to get those processed (ready to view) and up online. You can find them on my flickr account. I'm going to work at getting it more organized, but at the moment I figure I'll just get them up and deal with organization later. I particularly recommend the pictures of the London Temple, which you might have already seen in an earlier post. But still, I love them. Also, if you have a flickr account (they're free) please feel free to add comments and add favorites. This helps me narrow things down and also gets me a little bit more traffic from other photographers.

Well, I'll probably post more pictures here and there, maybe tell some more stories about London, put up a show list, etc.

But for now I'll just leave you with this, my favorite purchase from the trip:

Travel Weekend

2010-05-18T18:03:00.002-06:00

We leave for Ireland in about five hours. Bringing: my camera. Not Bringing: My laptop.
So hopefully I'll take massive amounts of pictures, but updates will be rather scarce for a bit.

See you on Sunday!

A couple of pictures

2010-05-16T16:59:00.002-06:00

So these are slightly out of focus, but that's what I get for seeing picture opportunities when I don't have my tripod with me (yes I actually packed it over here...). These are taken just outside of the Globe theatre after we got out of A Midsummer Night's Dream (which I thought was pretty awful).

Since I didn't have my tripod with me I tried to rest my camera on the railing of the wall next to the Thames. I think that someday I'll have to take my tripod (and a buddy) and go night shooting. I love night photography a lot, but I'm finding that it's actually quite difficult.

As for the performance (it was Thursday night), I honestly did not enjoy myself. The biggest issue was that our seats were absolutely horrible. The Globe has two large pillars on stage, usually not a problem for the majority of the seats, except for ours. It didn't help that the production, instead of playing the show more in the round (to all sides) to accommodate the space, they chose to have the majority of the action take place right in between the two pillars. I didn't really see about 70-80% of the production.

But on top of that, I really didn't like it. I feel like the comedy was being forced and therefore not funny. I feel as though, like children, they found a joke that worked once and told it over and over and over, to everyone that walked into the room. Quite annoying.

They also tried setting the show in the 1920's with flappers and a cabaret type dancer. But they didn't really let it influence anything they did, which is the wrong way to go about it. More or less it just looked like they were in different costumes.

Who knows, maybe I was just bitter towards the show because I couldn't actually see it, but I didn't enjoy myself as much as I could have.

I think you should watch this.

2010-05-16T15:50:00.002-06:00

I love creative stuff like this.

Also I'm still alive. I have a bunch of stuff that I can post about, but rather than doing a huge post I think I'll break it up into a bunch of little posts so that you can read them at you leisure (rather than trying to work through a novel of a blog).

Sorry that I'm falling behind. It's been a little busy.

Food Update --or-- how I'm making my sister happy by spending gratuitous amounts on delicious things

2010-05-12T17:26:00.004-06:00

For those of you who don't know my sister, repent ye. She is pretty amazing and one of the best chef/cooks on the planet. She is a foodist. She believes in it and practices it. So I kind of promised her that I would keep a food log of sorts. Here it is. At least some of them. The more interesting ones at least. But don't be fooled, this isn't just for her. Any food fanatic can join in the reading fun!

Today: Lebanese place by the Orange Tree theatre. Sooo good. I had the large mix doner. It was lamb meat and chicken meat put in a pita with "salad" (onions and lettuce) with a garlic sauce on it. I have no clue how this is supposed to be different from a gyro other than the fact that I couldn't pick it up. However, that might have been because the thing was huge. Size of my head at least. It could have easily fed a family of four. The lamb was better than the chicken.

Yesterday: Indian food at Memories of India. This place was a bad choice. We were looking for an Indian place because we had heard that London has amazing Indian food (there is actually a large population of immigrants here). Looking at the prices on the window (everywhere has a menu posted outside) the prices didn't look bad at all. We figured out that the place was authentic when we realized it was near impossible to understand our waiter (not trying to be racist, just honest). The main problem with the restaurant is that they charged for everything. The price for the curry wasn't bad but then they charged for the rice as well. What kind of Indian place charges for rice? Anyhow I got the Lamb curry and we all shared some Sag Aloo and Nan bread. It was okay, but not impressive by any means. Oh well. Live and learn. I'm sure we'll have Indian again and we'll see if we can't get a better place.

Monday: Chinese at a small cafe type place (I forgot the name already, it was either Lan or Jen or something). I had the crispy pork and rice. It was pretty good and not that expensive. Jason and Allan both had duck and weren't too impressed. The best part about this place was the dumplings. We got an order of fried dumplings to split and I wish that I had just ordered that alone. They are made (cut and stuffed) when you order them, so they're about as fresh as they come. We may go back and just feast on dumplings. After that as we headed to the show for the evening we passed a little ice cream shop called Pandora. It was crazy. First off it wasn't ice cream it was gelatto (I can hear Nathan screaming in the background). Second, it had the craziest window display. I should have taken a picture. Apparently their specialty is Gelatto in a crepe with whatever crazy thing they want to put in it. There was a ham and cheese one. Anyhow, I was feeling a little ritzy and decided to get a cone with a scoop (pretty cheap too). There were some weird flavors (like green tea) but I decided that I would play it safe and get the cookie flavor. Turns out it was not at all what I was expecting. You see I was expecting something similar to chocolate chip cookie dough, what I got was fortune cookie flavored gelatto in a waffle cone. It was weird, but good.

So those are the food exploits that I can remember for now. I'll keep posting every so often. Because food is good.
Oh, and occasionally we try to cook in our flat. But usually it's not that exciting. This is a picture of a day when we tried making Tikka Masala from a jar with chicken and spaghetti, it was... food.

Also this is the very special cookbook that we found in our kitchen on the first day. Possibly one of the main reasons we don't cook all that often...

The London Temple -- or -- Christian is bad at choosing. A tragicomedy in two acts.

2010-05-12T06:23:00.025-06:00

Sorry that I've fallen behind a little bit. I promise one of these days I'll try to catch up on everything that's been happening. I still really want to tell you about Women Beware Women, one of the most incredible shows that I have seen in my lifetime (and one of the actors was the guy who played Dudley Dursley from the Harry Potter movies in it, if that is exciting to you...).

But for now, other stories. Well this is actually more of just a picture post. Yesterday (Tuesday) we took a group trip to the London temple, so of course I brought my camera along. It was an absolutely beautiful day (a little cold but whatever). For those who haven't been to the London Temple, the temple is beautiful, but almost pales in comparison to the extensive grounds (is that blasphemy?). It feels almost like the temple is on the grounds of a forest. There are acres upon acres (I'm awful at measuring distance)(32 acres according to wikipedia) of little groves of trees that have benches hidden among them so that you can sit and contemplate life. It was absolutely gorgeous. Have I said that already?

So the problem is that I take lots of pictures and a lot of them look a lot alike. I'm horrible at decisions and revisions and so I love them all. That's where you (the magic readership) come in. I'm going to put little numbers above each of the pictures and you should comment and tell me which are your favorites (there is no minimum or maximum). Got it? Go!

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

So that's it. Well, that's 20 out of the hundreds I took. But my favorite part about all of these pictures is that they're all essentially straight out of the camera. I only made minor adjustments to brightness, contrast, and saturation in some areas. So yay!

Fish and Chips and a show that I wouldn't recommend...

2010-05-08T17:17:00.008-06:00

Jason sleeping in a submarine bunk...

Artsy?

Today was rather boring. I did laundry. Yaaaaay... Exciting right? Well about 3:30 we went to go find some stuff to do. We made a plan. We were going to go to the Imperial War Museum, get some fish and chips, and then go see The Habit of Art at the Royal National Theatre.

It kind of worked.

Big Cannons! Run!
The Imperial War Museum

We went to the Imperial War Museum and it was actually kind of interesting. I know my parents are probably recalling the days when I had to be forced to even go inside the museums on family trips, but I find that I am acting like an old person and enjoy reading the histories that are presented. I like to imagine what it would have been like to experience this or that. (This is kind of off topic, but I gained a huge respect and understanding for the Black Plague when I did a show that was set in that time period and had to imagine what it would have been like to see a third of your friends and family die and not know where the plague came from or how to get rid of it).

Jason Being a Missile

I really enjoyed the museum. We spent most of our time learning about submarines and MI6 (think James Bond). There were a bunch of exhibits that we just didn't have time to see. So we're going back at some point. One thing that I loved about the museum is that on the sign next to the tank, missile, airplane, etc. they would have a short description of when and where it was used and then it would have a picture from the war of the weapon. There were some amazing pictures. There were some images from WWI and WWII that were just stunning, especially so if you consider the type of equipment limitations that they had to deal with. It makes war photographers of today look like pansies.

After the museum closed we decided that we had just enough time to go get fish and chips. You have to understand that, for me, having my first English fish and chips seemed like a sort of right of passage, or initiation. We needed to do it right. After some research we found a place that was close to the theater and the museum, was cheap, and most importantly, got great reviews.

It is called "Master's Super Fish". Sold.

It was great. I got the cod and chips. Unfortunately we had little time and had to get the food take away, but it actually made it more fun because she wrapped it in the paper (one of those customs that seemed to add authenticity and legitimacy to my experience) and we ate on the walk over to the theatre.

When we got there we found out that the show we were going to see and had heard was amazing was at standing room only for the night. I was not a fan of standing for the whole show, I had already done that at the globe for Macbeth (which I still need to write about...). So we decided that we would see one of the other shows at the National. To be fair, most of the shows that are playing there currently sound great, so we were fine with switching shows since we were going to see the other ones anyways.

We ended up getting tickets to see Love the Sinner. The idea of the story was actually not too bad. But (in my opinion) it was pretty poorly executed.

The story is about a man who is struggling with his sexual identity and also examines religion's role in matters of homosexuality. The main character is a volunteer for a conference at which the international leaders of his church are gathering to discuss their bylaws, specifically the one dealing with homosexual bishops, unions, blessings, etc.

At this same conference, the main character has a homosexual affair. He then returns home and has to figure out who he is, what he stands for, how to deal with/hide from his wife who is struggling to get pregnant. Things get really twisted when the man who he had the affair with shows up from Africa to his house in England and essentially blackmails/begs him for help in gaining asylum in England.

I think that there were some interesting moments in the show. Watching the main character struggling with his decision and his double life was difficult in the good way (the kind that seems to teach us something and leads to a catharsis). It was interesting to watch him become hyper-religious to try and force an identity upon himself, and how he was so unwilling to accept any of his actions and yet his inability to forgive himself for anything. Just very interesting all around.

The issue was that I felt a lot of the acting was off, there were scenes missing, and the lines were just terrible. Jason made the argument that they were going for a natural feel to the conversation and that they were just talking around the issue and not naming it. I agree with him on that fact, but I felt like it was pushed to an extreme to where it was so "real" that it was actually surreal. I feel like if I had read the script next to an absurdist script there wouldn't have actually been that much of a difference. And yet it wasn't being played in an absurdist way, it was being played as realism which created this awful disconnect for me.

... Anyway...

The set was pretty amazing and the music and sound design were very well done. But overall I did not like it. Sorry. But it happens.

We still plan on seeing The Habit of Art and have heard that it is absolutely wonderful.

Tomorrow is church. That should give me a chance to get caught up on sleep and picture editing. Yay!

Sleep.

Kew Gardens and an amazing show that I might not actually have time to write about right now but it was amazing so just imagine how excited I must be!

2010-05-07T19:36:00.015-06:00

Today we went to Kew Gardens which is a gorgeous attraction. It's made up of 300 acres of gardens with a few special greenhouses and such. It is a photographer's dream. Landscape, architecture, floral, subjects everywhere. So, I'll let the pictures do the talking. We went and saw an amazing show tonight called Women Beware Women and I'm too sleepy to do it justice, but it is the best thing that I have seen in London, I may even venture to say in my entire life. I'll post on it later. Okay, now for pictures.

There were about eight of these statues representing major political powers or leaders (i.e. Wales, Scotland, King Frederick). They were all different animals including a Unicorn! I couldn't help thinking about the crazy statue dogs from Ghostbusters though...

This is the three tiered spiral staircase inside the tropical greenhouse. Jason said it felt like being back in Ecuador. My camera felt the effects. The second I stepped into the house my filter fogged up, so I took it off and my lens fogged up. So, I would have to wipe it off take a picture, wipe it off, take a picture, and so on. Annoying.

They also had a marine display. Seahorses are amazing. They swim without any apparent motion at all, so it seems like they are just hovering and scooting around. I thought this turned out fairly well considering it was shot through an aquarium.

This is a Roman type pavilion. I liked the picture. In case you didn't know, London was once ruled by Rome. I think that is why they are having the Olympics here in 2012. Also to end the world.

These are some of the Southwestern desert plants. I love these type of plants, probably because of the Tour de Southwest that I did with Brian and Brent back in 2006. For those who haven't been to Joshua Tree National Park, I highly recommend it.

Allan found this neat little patch of flowers. We called it a grove. That may be incorrect.

Jason and Allan enjoy being dinosaurs, especially when they're in the Evolution House.

This is the outside of the Temperate House. Gorgeous inside and out. The clouds also helped me out a little.

There was quite a bit of Japanese influence. This Zen garden and ornate gate (rhyme!) were also Japanese. I was unable to catch any Pokemon. I was sad.

This I think actually used to be some sort of palace. I'm not really sure because we didn't actually go in because it cost more money and it didn't sound too interesting. But the gardens around the building were amazing.

I love the crazy hedges.

This is taken from inside a metal gazebo that overlooks the garden. This was a gorgeous place.

Anyhow, I'll try to keep posting daily. Keep checking back.

Two Posts? One Day? The Promised Pictures...

2010-05-06T18:08:00.010-06:00

I know that I've promised lots of pictures. Always feel free to head over to my flickr account. I usually upload most of my pictures there as a form of storage. I've been pretty good about keeping it organized, but sometimes it's just a mess. FYI.

But here are some pictures to help you get a sense of what I do here (other than the theatre part since pictures aren't allowed during performances and most don't even let you take pictures inside at all).

This is bangers and mash. I ate this and it was yummy.

This is Jason dressed as a medieval peasant at the Museum of London.

This Jason dressed as a fireman from 1666. Put out that Grrrreat Fire! Put it out!

This is Rodger (our teacher) and his harem of women at the Banqueting House.

This is Richie (one of the other six males on the trip) listening to the magic ear stereo that told us all about the Banqueting House. He's fascinated by the magic. And the artwork on the ceiling.

Jason is sitting on the throne ordering Allan to behead Melissa. It actually happened. Weird.

This is a pretty house on a pretty day. I have lots of these...

This is me. I take pictures. I have a new shirt on.

Twelfth Night and Primark

2010-05-06T16:59:00.004-06:00

Today was kind of a lazy day as well (I know I'm slacking, but what can I say?). We didn't have class or anything scheduled for this morning and so Jason and I decided that we would go to a shop we had heard about called Primark. For those who have never been to Primark, it is amazing. It is essentially a large department store with secondhand store prices. So there were t-shirts for a pound, button ups for 3 pounds, shoes for 2-5, I could have bought a full suit for under 20 pounds throw in some real leather shoes and we're up to 35 pounds. It was wonderful. The only issue is that I have a limited amount of room and weight left in my check bag for when I return home. I'm already starting to think about which of the clothes I brought from home I will leave here to free up some space. But due to this limited capacity I actually didn't buy that many things. I did get a couple shirts to make me look more European (although that's not always good since we have a hard time determining whether a guy is European or gay...).

After Primark Jason and I realized that we needed to get to the Tricycle theater and fast. We had a matinee that started at 2:00 and from what the teacher was saying we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to get there. We ran into two problems: the directions that the teacher had printed off for us started from our flat, which we were not at, and our helpful roommate Allan had told us which bus we needed to take from Primark... but we had forgotten what number he said. So, it was an adventure. Actually it mostly involved us reading a map. But since we have been mostly using the tube system, we really didn't know how to read the bus maps.

Long story short, we made it. Actually we made it before most of the class did, including the two teachers.

The Tricycle is a pretty neat theatre. Here is its entrance:

They had made a mobile out of three bicycle wheels (granted I guess that would be a tricycle then). And they had a magical corridor of mirrors.

Here's Jason pointing into the worlds of eternity.

Then there was Twelfth Night. This was quite the interesting interpretation of the classic Shakespearean play. It was set in a recording studio, or something. There was no set, and actually no real setting for the play at all. It looked like you had stumbled into a rock concert with seats for the audience. Once the play got going it all made sense.

The show was developed by a group called "Filter" that focuses on the merging of musicians, actors, directors, and all sorts of theatre makers. The idea behind their shows is that they find the highs and the lows in the emotion of the script and then they use music to help tell that story. So, for example, when the Duke Orsino is being a whiny love-sick puppy, it was like a poetry reading in a coffee house with heavy bass and a brush on the snare with Orsino quoting his lines like a beatnik. When Malvolio, the "bad guy" of the show is contemplating how awesome it would be to be a count, it is to the tune of a hard rock song (which he played the air guitar on). And so on.

I loved it. I feel that it worked almost every scene that it was included in. Overall the show was just fun. It was ridiculous and self referential (like Viola speaking to an FM radio which answered her back instead of a messenger). But I think overall my favorite part was the interplay between the two drunk revelers Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew.

The show was set in modern times, everyone was wearing the type of clothing you would expect them to be in on the street. That is, except for Sir Toby. His first entrance, he stumbles in drunk at the back of the stage in full Elizabethan clothing, doublet, tights, frilly starched collar, and starts quoting the "to be or not to be" quote from Hamlet. He then polishes off a beer and wanders off the other side of the stage. The rest of the cast then resumed the play where they had left off.

The best scene, however, had absolutely nothing to do with progressing the plot. Sir Toby wakes up from being passed out on the floor, and in his drunken revelry starts whisper/drunk singing a song about love, then Sir Andrew (also drunk) comes and joins him in his singing. Sir Andrew is wearing this amazing hat with strips of velcro all over it and three squishy balls stuck to the velcro. As the scene goes on, chaos reigns. Sir Toby gets the band to start playing along with him and sings at the top of his lungs, Sir Andrew discovers the balls stuck to his head and has the audience try to throw them at him to get them to stick, then they pulled an audience member up and had him wear a velcro hat, then they started pulling audience members up to start dancing with them, then my professor (of his own volition) got on stage and started dancing (and when returning to his seat climbed the scaffolding the seats were on and accidentally broke a light), and then Sir Andrew ran to the back of the audience to the door and shouted "Pizza!" at which point he started passing two pizza boxes through the audience (I didn't get any).

The scene was nuts, but so fun.

I really loved this show. It was all around a good time. Not the best acting in the world, maybe not even the best interpretation, but it was a side of the show that I had not considered before and it was extremely fun, and yet at moments very poignant as well.

One character that is always rather troubling is Malvolio. He is the bad guy, but in reading the script, and in most productions you watch, he gets way more than he deserves. This show handled it in a very interesting way. They made him evil. Very evil. He started strangling the clown.

Then there is the famous scene where Sir Toby tricks Malvolio into thinking that to woo a lady he must dress himself in a ridiculous fashion (Toby fakes a letter from the lady saying that she prefers a man in yellow stockings who is cross gartered). This production was grotesquely hilarious. Malvolio (played by a man with a bit of a gut) stripped down to thigh high yellow socks and yellow booty shorts... and that's it. He then danced around the stage to his hard rock song until he was discovered by his lady (shocked to say the least) and the play continued.

Now if we just left it there, it wouldn't have been too much and it would have been deserved (he is a mean guy). But there is one more scene.

Because of his antics, the lady puts Malvolio under the care of Sir Toby, who hates him. Sir Toby and the clown, Touchstone, then put Malvolio in a lightless prison with duct tape around his wrists providing him with little food and torturing him with constant noise and talking. It is a brutal scene, and this production left the brutality in it. They didn't try to soften it at all.

So I find it interesting that I could have so much fun during one raucous scene and feel like a jerk for siding with the guy who ended up torturing a man in another scene. Good show.

I know this post is rather long, but the one other thing that we did today was get some great middle-eastern food. The Tricycle theater is located, oddly enough, in the middle of the middle-eastern immigrant community. I'm not sure what you would call it, "Little Lebanon"? Anyhow, it was quite good and really cheap.

Tonight we chose not to see another show. We were all tired and just needed some rest. Tomorrow we are going to Kew Gardens, so expect lots of pictures... to be on my camera at least. After that we will probably go see a show. I'm shooting for 6/6 this week.

Hooray!

Andersen's English

2010-05-05T17:51:00.002-06:00

Today was a rather uneventful day. Sorry. I went to class early this morning (yes we take classes here) and we performed our scene from All My Sons. It went well, especially for being the first group to go. Then I came home and worked on a paper that was due at five.

Tonight we went and saw a show at the Hampstead Theatre called Andersen's English. Now when I first of this show, I didn't care to see it at all. It sounded boring and awful. My opinion has changed fully.

The premise of the story is that Hans Christian Andersen (interestingly enough played by a black actor in this show) shows up unannounced at the home of Charles Dickens. However, Andersen, a Dane, has extremely poor English skills. And so there is a fair amount of humor that comes from his innocent attempts to understand both the language and the customs of the household.

The rest of the story is not so happy as it examines the decaying world of Charles Dickens, who is forcing a son to go to war in India, forcing his wife to separate from him, kicking out the Irish maidservant who is pregnant with his son's child out of wedlock, and so on. It's hard to watch in the way that drama should be. It was incredibly well written and very quotable (I just don't remember many of them...).

Mostly it came down to the wonderful script and some very strong performances by some key actors. Dickens was incredibly engaging to the point of becoming annoying, which helps the audience to connect with his wife and son who have become fed up with his emotional abuse of sorts. Andersen worked very well. This was one of those roles that challenges actors by not allowing them to really use their voice, which is one of their main tools.

Anyhow, the show was one of the better ones that I have seen so far. Also it was one of the cheapest and we had seats in row 2. So the experience was great as well.

I plan on posting more tomorrow (look at me keeping my little resolution thing). Tomorrow we are heading to Primark, which is a chain of second-hand/cheap clothing shops. Then we are seeing Twelfth Night at the Tricycle Theatre as a matinee. There also has been some talk of going to the National Theatre tomorrow night to see if we can find another show.

I know it seems like I'm going to see a lot of shows, but for me that's the whole point of being here. I love it. I'm so happy that there's so much to see.

Psy and whatever else we did today.

2010-05-04T16:29:00.002-06:00

If the title confuses you at all it's because tonight's show, Psy, was so absolutely incredible I may have forgotten some of the other things that I did as well. I'm not even sure where to begin. I guess if you need a point of reference you could think of Cirque du Soleil. But it was still quite different. First off, the soundtrack was amazing. The songs were sort of a mix of electronica and tango, a lot of deep bass and some of the best beats that I have heard in a while. Then there was the story. You might say "I thought that the circus and acrobatic show didn't have a story" well you see, that's where this show was different. The show started with some facts being read over the PA about mental disorders (i.e. 25% of people will have enough symptoms to qualify as having a mental disorder). Then each character was introduced and their disease was named off. The diseases ranged from insomniac to amnesiac to manic to hears voices and so on. Each disease was linked to the actor's special ability. For example, the addict was the actor who performed in the german ring, which made sense with the interpretation of addiction being a cycle that can't be easily broken.

Everything was just incredible.
Here are some clips I found online:

So it was wonderful. And after the show, while we were all raving, the cast came out. I felt like the little kid who goes to the actors to ask for their autograph because that's exactly what I did. I had them sign my program. Granted some of them weren't there, but oh well. After talking with the actors, we found that they weren't sure where their tour would take them. It is a fairly new show and they are just now getting some of the producers to come watch. So if any theatrical producer happens to be reading my blog, this show is worth it! Book them!

Anyhow.

The other things that we did today:
-Went to the Museum of London. This is a free museum that focuses on London's history through the great fire of 1666 (at least that's what was open today, there was some construction going on that may have had more stuff). It was neat. I find some of the historical periods fascinating (not all of them though, I'm looking at you neolithic).
-We went to the Smithfield Market thinking it would have the same fair-like atmosphere of the Borough Market. It was closed.
-I had bangers and mash. It was yummy. (Sausage and Mashed Potatoes with gravy... in a box). Jason got the Pie and Mash with gravy. It was a pumpkin and goat cheese pie. And everything is served with mash.
-We went to the Banqueting House. This was actually more fun than I expected. It is a large reception hall that was built back by Henry VIII. It was pretty cool to take the self guided audio tour and to imagine all of the history that had passed through that building and all of the nobles that had been there. Charles I was even executed just outside the main door. The best part about the Banqueting House is the set of nine very large paintings on the ceiling that Charles commissioned from some famous painter that I can't remember. They are gorgeous. I will post pictures later.

Okay. I need to sleep. I am unsure what is happening tomorrow. There is a show that was scheduled as optional, but it sounds like it may be canceled for the class due to content. We'll see, I may have to make some plans on my own, or just get caught up on homework and picture processing for the trip.

You can't have any dessertblog until you eat your broccoliblog...

2010-05-03T18:00:00.003-06:00

I'm in London. Some of you may already know this. But for those who were unaware, I am here doing a six-week study abroad for the theatre program. I'm loving it. However, all my friends were starting these special blogs for their journeys, and I decided that I wasn't going to start another blog that I don't ever post on, until I continue to post semi-annually on this one... if that makes sense. Also there is apparently some new google "let's see if you're really a human" thing that makes you verify your identity via text message, which I am currently without in the UK.

Seeing as I am constantly putting off blogging, there is a lot to catch people up on, and I will try my darndest, but I will also try to keep my writing time (and your reading time) to a minimum, because, honestly, I would rather be doing other things. But I also want to share all of the wonderful things that have been happening and weird experiences that we have had so far.

As is my custom, I will condense most everything into list form.

-I have been here about six full days. (Worth about 9 days in the states, but the exchange rate is pretty bad).
-I have seen five plays in those six days. I see this as an accomplishment, since that is kind of what I came here to do.
-I have seen: The 39 Steps, 11 & 12, Macbeth, Antigone, and Les Miserables. I will try to go back and write about most of these because they were all mostly amazing (minus Antigone).
- I have learned how the tube system works and use it frequently.
-I have eaten lots of wonderful food. (My favorite so far has been the lamb burger with grilled haloumi cheese).
-I have felt like a tourist. (It's not a fun feeling for me).
-I have done lots of other things. (Good description Christian...)

Really though, I'm loving it here. I love culture. I love theater. I am glad that I get to experience both here in great abundance. I find it amazing just how comfortable I can feel in a foreign country after just a week. I have been taking some pictures and I will try to post some in a reasonable time. But for now I need some sleep so that I can continue the adventure tomorrow. I will try very hard to keep this updated on a frequent but short post basis so that I don't fall behind and put it off.

Just as a little preview, tomorrow we're going to the London Museum (that may not actually be what it's called...) and the Banqueting House, then tomorrow night a few of us are going to see a play/circus/acrobatics show called Psy which explores the idea of the seven layers of the psyche. Sounds interesting. I'll let you know how it is.... plus pictures... I promise... no really...

I won't... I can't... I refuse... I'm giving in

2010-02-25T21:40:00.006-07:00

I first thought that I would just post something on the blog and pretend like I had been regularly posting for the past year, but I thought it would be pretty obvious that it's not true. Then I thought I should at least make up some excuse about why I haven't blogged in nearly a year, but I figured it would be pretty easy to see through all of the standard excuses such as: "I didn't have time" or "I didn't have anything to blog about" or "sharks ate my hands and I had to have them replaced with meat cleavers and I spent the past six months re-learning how to type aoinvran ea omc som fdo aiwto aisundf omaweo vcoiwame cowai ofdz ho." Most people can tell that in reality the reason I haven't blogged is because I can be supremely lazy at times, and by at times I mean for ten month stretches. I thought about summing the last year up in a couple of sentences, but that just didn't seem to do justice to some of the things which have happened over the last forever. Buckle in, because that seems like a really good way to start a long story:

I did some stuff a long time ago, I don't remember what.

the end.

No not really, let's start at the first significant event I can remember since my last blog post: I met a wonderful girl named Vanessa Lau. She's from Chelmsford, England (if you're wondering where that is, it's about 29 miles outside of New Jersey) and had just come down for the summer to chill with her friends and meet new people. With that in mind it was a very successful summer for her. She is majoring in Political Science, is wonderfully amazing, and before you ask the most ridiculous question of all: Yes, she does have a British accent. You think this would be obvious, seeing as I did mention she was from England (which happens to be near Britain, I think they're old rugby rivals), but I get questioned about her accent more than I get questions such as: "do you like her?" or "where did you meet her?" or "does she eat raw meet?"

In case you were wondering (you probably weren't, but tough, I'm typing so I'm going to tell you anyways), we met in my BYU ward and our first conversation was about cars and the British motoring show Top Gear. When she told me she loved the show I knew she was a special girl, and then later that week I found out that her dream car is a Porsche and I knew it would be love. I asked her out and she said she was busy. But then, much to my surprise, she invited me to come with her to a party. That first night was just incredible, I swear the room spun around her, but I think that was because the party was in an apartment above a hookah shop (I know, Shady, right?). We began to hang out a lot (sorry Dallin H. Oaks), and then I began dating her. And then a couple of days later she began dating me. That sounds cliche, but it's actually very true.

About the same time that I began to hang out (sorry again Elder Oaks) with Vanessa, I found out that I had been, by some gross oversight on the part of the Marriott School, been accepted into the Masters of Accountancy program at BYU, specializing in Taxation (thank you for asking, I will have to do your taxes someday, unfortunately that day is not yet). Needless to say I was having a pretty good start to the summer.

Also about the same time I began working for a company called DataMetrix. I was affectionately known as "the Excel Guy" because my position really didn't have an official title, although I started referring to myself as Dr. Excel, The Excel Guru, and other nerdy titles, as you might imagine. I was basically in charge of fixing the weekly reporting system and running any other report that my supervisors could come up with. It was a really good position because it forced me to learn a lot of new things about Excel, VBA, and SQL (if you don't know what that last sentence meant, good for you, you're probably a really cool person and probably have lots of friends. Not everyone can be like you, don't judge me). The only caveat to the job was that it was located in Murray, which is about 45 minutes from Provo, thus giving me my first experience in the commuter's life. If anyone has ever commuted before they know what kind of spectacular experience I had; you start to listen to traffic reports like they hold all of the answers to life, stare longingly at the carpool land, and silently curse any car which uses their brakes. I frequently found myself staring at all of the people driving the opposite direction from me and wondering why we didn't all just exchange houses, it would significantly reduce the commute.

Also at about the same time I learned that one of the greatest goals in my college career had finally been realized: I made it on to the Unofficial BYU Ultimate Frisbee team! This one came as a huge shock; I had been practicing with the team a lot and had been doing my best, but I thought there were a lot of people more qualified than me to be on the team. I guess persistence really does pay off though.

Summer was terrific! One of my absolute best friends, Chris Beach, got married and I was able to go and be in his wedding party. It was an awesome trip (I thought at least) in spite of a little issue we had with our car (it crashed in to the bride and groom's car) and my work laptop (the screen was ripped clean from the rest of the computer in said crash). We also got to go home to Minnesota with the rest of the family for more weddings and for a trip up to Duluth, MN.

Vanessa and I took a road trip out to San Fransisco, CA to hang out with her sister and just to have a fun road trip. It was amazing! I've never taken a real random road trip, and so this was an absolute blast! Driving through the night is a lot harder than one might expect, I really gained a new respect for my parents who did it year after year coming out to Utah.

I ended up really falling for Vanessa over the summer, and she ended up really wanting to go on a mission. So in September she went home to England (29 miles outside of New Jersey) and I started school. If anyone thinks they know what a "long distance relationship" is, I think I can top that. "No, no" you say, "my significant other went even further than England." Just you wait, it gets better. Never has any couple spent so much time on Skype; nearly every minute Vanessa and I were awake we were in front of our computers. "What could you possibly spend 5 hours a day talking about?" you ask. I really have no idea, but we did, and loved every minute of it. Then Vanessa got a mission call to Taipei, Taiwan (told you it gets better, that's 9,749 miles away, which is quite the walk). At first it was really hard to be fully supportive of sending her on a mission, but the more I thought about it and prayed about it, the more I knew it was right. Once again, to answer the inevitable question: yes, I do plan on waiting. Yes, I know that will be hard. Yes, I still think I can do it. Really. I'm serious. Yes, I do really really really like her. No, the Church doesn't have rules preventing this.

Somewhere in all of the mission stuff and skyping, I was selected for and internship with Ernst and Young for this coming summer in San Jose, CA.

I was able to spend Thanksgiving out in England (really, it's just like North New Jersey) with Vanessa and her family. We did a whirlwind tour of Europe, visiting Venice (in Pennsylvania), Paris (west of Hawaii), and London (somewhere on the Moon). I keep using a lot of hyperbole in referring to how wonderful everything is, but I couldn't use enough hyperbole to describe this trip. Vanessa's family was spectacular, Europe was fun, and Vanessa was Vanessa! Unfortunately, Thanksgiving was the last time we would be able to see each other before Vanessa left on her mission. Unless, of course, you count Christmas :)

Originally, Christmas wasn't in the plans, but young impulsive people sometimes do young and impulsive things, like buying last minute tickets for their significant others to fly to the United States and spend Christmas in Minnesota. If I haven't used enough superlatives and hyperbole: Christmas was the greatest Christmas ever! It was wonderful, amazing, spectacular, perfect, fun, super, and blow-your-mind-exquisite! The whole family + Vanessa were in MN for the holidays. I love my family. Being with them is always an adventure of some sort (usually of the computer sort). Add on top of that Vanessa... you get the picture. The saddest part of the trip was dropping Vanessa off at the airport, knowing it would be the last time I would see her for two years. Unless, of course, you count the morning she entered the MTC :)

Originally, seeing her before she entered the MTC was not in the plans, see previous paragraph for reasoning. We spent the month of January back on skype and she spent it getting all of her mission/visa/school stuff sorted out. February 2nd was really the last day I saw her. She was all dressed like a missionary and we were able to sit and talk for a really long time before she had to scamper off and start serving the Lord for 18 Months (now only 17.25 months). And now, for the last three weeks I have re-learned the art of letter writing, which is really difficult with meat cleavers for hands.

--Nathan

PS - Sorry this turned into "All about me and my Girlfriend." Well, i'm kind of sorry; she's amazing and deserves the attention, but I'm not sure anyone really wanted that much detail.

PPS - Rather than put a bunch of pictures in my post I will update the pictures in the slideshow on the right of the blog.

PPPS - Don't be surprised if it's another 10 months before you hear from me again :)

...so now I play the clarinet....

2010-01-21T10:09:00.004-07:00

Hello everyone. I figured that on my return to the blogging world I would indulge in a little shameless self advertising. The main reason that I haven't had much time this last semester is because back in the glorious month of September I was cast in BYU's mainstage production of Tartuffe, a 17th century French comedy by Moliere. Since then it has been long nights of rehearsal and sweat and tears. However, all of our hard work was rewarded last night when we had our first audience. They loved it. The house was nearly full and their reception was wonderful.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show, it centers around a hypocritical man who has weaseled his way into a man's house and is mooching off of his kindness. The family wants nothing to do with this hypocrite and tries to convince the father to kick him out, and hilarity ensues (obviously).

Now our take on this play is truly something special. Our director really wanted our piece to have a Tim Burton feel to it (think The Nightmare Before Christmas or Edward Scissorhands). This includes an amazing set full of pictures frames that can either be made transparent or be used to cast silhouettes. The costumes, hair, and make-up all feel like something straight out of Beetlejuice. And of course there is the original music. One of our cast members has written an original score for the show and it sounds SO good.

However this fun little score called for someone to play the clarinet. So... now I play the clarinet. It's actually a lot of fun. Although it was more difficult than I was expecting (even though my Assistant Director, who plays the clarinet, was impressed by how quickly I caught on). So I would like to formally apologize to anyone from my high school band who I may have chastised for not playing their clarinet part perfectly. You now have my sympathy.

For those of you who are in range of BYU and would like to come see the show, DO SO! Really I think that you will quite enjoy it. We run basically every night from now until February 6th. Here's a link where you can buy tickets. And here are some pictures of the production (I'm purposely not posting pictures of me so that it won't ruin the surprise).
(photo credit goes to Michael Handley)

So, I guess that's about it. Oh never fear, I have plenty more to talk about I just don't want to bore you with the longest post on the planet. But here is a preview of some of the other wonderful things happening in my life:

-I'm working on my senior directing project which is an adaptation of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis.
-I'm dating a beautiful girl. (It makes me happy!)
-I'm going on a study abroad to London in the Spring. (That is, once I find some money)
-I now have a photo website.
-I have a photo website that actually has pictures on it.
-I am a TA for Theatre 101 and it's swell.
-I have added a Psychology Teaching minor, and I am trying to learn new things.
-I still have a severe lack of time.

See you in a few months!

Wasn't Conference Swell?

2009-10-04T17:23:00.003-06:00

I really enjoyed this session of General Conference. I mean I always do (who doesn't?)(atheists). I guess I forget just how much I enjoy it. The talk of the town this conference time is Elder Holland's amazingly powerful and impassioned talk about the truth of the Book of Mormon. It was interesting because at one point I thought "This isn't how general authorities speak normally," but then he mentioned something about the world and I reached a decision: this talk is not for me, I can listen to it, but it was Elder Holland speaking to the world, everyone. At least that's my interpretation of it. It is still helpful to the members of the church, but it was not aimed at them. It made me think that must have been what Abinadi sounded like when boldly standing before King Noah.

However, I think that the apostles should have a "This talk is going to be the most quoted talk for the next six months" award. Elder Holland would have it two sessions running. Other winners would be the "Don't Hang Out" talk by Elder Oaks and the "Good Better Best" talk also by Elder Oaks (who looks like he'll be a contender). I hope you don't find this sacrilegious by any means, I really do love and respect these men. They are marvelous speakers and the doctrine is true. I just find it amazing how there always seems to be that one talk that sticks out from the rest, and because of this, it will be our elders quorum lesson bi-monthly for the next year.

Okay, blasphemy aside. I had an amazing weekend. My goal this year was to not try and write down full quotes from the talks, but to write who was speaking and any thoughts that I had while they were speaking. Then I can go back later and re-read the talks and find the quotes. If they meant that much to me now, they'll at least mean something to me then. It went swimmingly. I have pages and pages of notes. Just thoughts about life. A new outlook on some things that I will try to implement and improve on.

Anyhow. I'm excited to go back and revisit these talks over the next six months. I hope that you will too. Here it is.

Seriously, I'm not blasphemous.

My New Calling

2009-08-30T01:06:00.002-06:00

I make fliers...

Iceland Contributes to Society

2009-08-26T23:09:00.003-06:00

I like music. A lot.

My roommate Scott and I were discussing just how much music I have and how fast I'm getting it. I currently have 25085 items (songs) which would take 99.2 days to listen to and takes up 132.30 Gigabytes of space on my hard-drive. We compared those numbers with the ones I posted on May 13, and then did some generalizations. We figured that I'd been adding an average of 70 songs everyday for the past 100 days. This also means that in the past 100 days I've added 50 days worth of music. That means that I'd have to have music running for 12 hours out of the day with no repeats in order to keep up. But my favorite way to look at it is that I have added as much music in the past 100 days as I have in the past four years...

That's actually kind of disgusting.

Anyhow, that brings me to the real point of this post. I feel that music is like a good book, or an inspirational movie. It can be a powerful emotional force in life and when you are lucky enough to stumble across something worthwhile, it deserves to be shared. There's no point in having all of this music if I can't make other people's lives better.

So, in that vein I would like to introduce you to Sigur Ros (and if I knew how to make letters have accents, the 'o' would have a fun little line above it). I have been listening to them for about three years now, and I love them. They are an Icelandic band and they are national heroes to the tiny island. The music is mostly of an ethereal nature, which is created through some interesting instrumental techniques (such as using a cello bow on an electric guitar, or singing into the guitar's pickups rather than the microphone).

I had seen their videos and I knew they were inspiring, but I revisited them tonight and I remembered just how great they can be. I know that watching three videos can take some time but I really hope that you take my word for it and watch them all. So here goes.

-Von- This re-release is off of one of their newer albums that was accompanied by a Dvd (although a different version of the song had been released on an earlier album). The band was directly involved in the making of a documentary, called Heima, that focused on the hidden beauties of Iceland. It is an absolutely gorgeous film. Here is a great song from the Dvd.

-Glosoli (again those 'o's would totally have accents over them)-This video makes me cry about half the time that I watch it. I love it because there is an amazing build at the end of the song and the cinematography matches perfectly. There is a lot of discussion as to the exact theme of the video, I think you should work on developing your own theory.

(Okay, youtube disabled embedding on this one, so you'll have to click here, entirely worth the click though. And make sure to click 'HD'.)

-Svefn-g-englar- This video makes me cry... always... within the first minute. I love the quotes, I love the song, and I love the respect that is paid to the wonderful special needs theatre group who make the video. I think there is something absolutely angelic about the whole situation. I've tried to think why it makes me cry so much and I think it really has to do with the beauty and the perfection that is shown. It feels like heaven.

Alright. Thanks for humoring me. I may do this once or twice more. I know that this post was more sentimental than humorous, but maybe it brightened your day.

The Man Who Cried Woof...

2009-07-31T01:02:00.002-06:00

Don't worry, that's the title of a play, I'm not creative enough to have come up with that tasty little play on words/phrase.

So, remember the post where I said I wasn't doing anything with my life? It was a lie. A blatant, terrible lie. I have been doing stuff and things. It's been great.

One of these stuffs that I have be doing is directing for a local theatre group known as New Play Project.

Tonight I had the wonderful experience of seeing the fruits of my labors. That's right. It was the opening night of Mixed Up, the newest ten-minute play festival from this unique group. I say unique because the aim of New Play Project is a little different from any of the theatres that I have found here in Utah Valley. We (I've worked with them long enough that I can include myself) work at giving local playwrights, especially LDS playwrights, an opportunity to have their work produced and to provide an environment for them to develop their skills.

It's an entirely volunteer based organization, from the top to the bottom. I have worked with them in the capacity of actor, assitant director, director, supervising director (you'll remember this from December, or you won't, not sure), lead photographer (I add the 'lead' part to make it sound cooler), and more recently, financial manager (probably a mistake on their part). Try putting all of that on a resume. It has been great experience for me, and I feel like I get to put my schooling into practice.

Anyhow, what this all comes down to is that I have a show running right now. In the past I have been chastised for not being good enough at advertising to my family and friends. So here's your official invite. The show runs for the next two weeks (9 performances left) and the cost is only $5 a ticket (because we're cheap). However, if you're in town and you want to see what has been occupying me, and what will occupy me for the rest of my life, come to 100 N 100 E in Provo. You can even pre-order tickets here.

Also, if you check out the website, or the facebook event/group, you may see some photography by me. Not the best, but that's mostly because theatre shooting is a beast (low lighting that is ever changing, but that doesn't mean the actors stop and pose for me. Grrr....)

Oh, and cheers to having two posts in a week. I'll just go ahead and congratulate myself on that one.

Dear "4 followers"...

2009-07-26T21:57:00.004-06:00

Thank You.

Your diligence has not gone unnoticed. As our blog is titled "Yes We Are Still Here" (see above), yes I am still here. Not posting often (such classic blogger style), but it's never too late to start the comeback right?

To be honest, I haven't had much time to blog. No wait, that's entirely false, I'm not doing anything with my time whatsoever.

I took spring classes (which turned out very well BTW) but those ended in late June. I don't have a job right now. Sounds cool right? Wrong, entirely so. It was fun for the first little bit, but after my 3rd straight day of doing nothing but watching youtube, I was done with it.

Oh, our car died! You remember the one that was on it's way out before? Well, it officially bit the dust... because we killed it. Well, I killed it. I may or may not have discovered the secret to unlocking the airbags in your car... hit something. Seriously, try it. It works.

This lovely adventure all took place on our trip to Seattle. Luckily there was no structural damage to our car or to the car of the bride and groom, who we happened to be following...

"But if there was no damage to the car, why do you want to get rid of it?" Good question... um... you. Turns out new airbags run about $2,400, which is 2.5x the value of the car. So say hello to the newest member of the family... Honda!! (pretend there's a picture here). We recently celebrated the arrival of a bouncing baby 1998 Accord.

I started that reading thing again. You know the one with the books. With the words. It's been a while since I've had time for pleasure reading (rather than textbooks, ick). I decided not to make a goal, since my last one turned out so wonderfully (sarcasm). However, I do plan to read whatever I like, whenever I would like to. I figure that's a goal that I can accomplish! I have recently read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and am in the middle of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. They are both books.

I also do photography type stuff. I will now post pictures. These are from last night's "storm" (come on Utah, you call that weather). Although I must admit, lightning photography is going to be added to my list of sucky type photography (see: theatre photography). Oh right, the pictures (click on them for better resolution):
This is at the Provo Temple, which I also took pictures of, but I may post those later.

A bus stop outside the gates of the temple, this is one of my favorites.

These two have no lightning (a little lens flare) but I still love them anyways.

Alright for those diligent few who are still reading. Thanks for hanging in there. I'm going to end now because I have a Harry Potter book waiting for me (what am I doing?!). Oh and don't worry, Nathan still exists. He's around here somewhere...

(Oh and sorry if this post seems a little disjointed, I'm a little rusty...)

I want this now!

2009-05-16T21:09:00.001-06:00

So, my birthday is coming soon. I haven't thought that much about it. Until today.

This just started the wish list.

A few updates as teasers

2009-05-13T15:31:00.002-06:00

For those of you who feel that I have been neglecting this blog, that is simply not true. I have been purposely postponing my posts (P's) so that I can do what all bloggers do and apologize for not having posted in forever. Trust me on this one. I would venture to say that 90% of blog posts start out "I know it's been a while..." I just want to fit in.

However, since I only have about half an hour before my next class, I will keep this brief and full of lists (probably). So here are some things:

-I am now called as the ward activities council co-chair. This means that I am in charge of entertaining my entire ward for a whole summer. Our first activity is a throw back to elementary school. Ask me more on Sunday.

-I took glamor shots for the ward directory. Go to flickr.com, search for my name (first and last) and then click on the people tab and you should be able to see a few of them.

-With those glamor shots I pushed myself up to about 12,000 shots on this camera. Let's see how high it can go!!

-Current state of my iTunes library: 17168 songs, 48.2 days, 85.32 gigs.

- I still try to read. (I just signed up for goodreads.com). Some of the things that I'm reading:

Antigone written by Sophocles reworked by Jean Anouilh and translate out of French by Lewis Galantiere.
Lord of the Flies
Taking Steps by Alan Ayckbourn (it's a farce!)
Red Noses by Peter Barnes (Plague comedies rock!

- I'm taking classes this spring term. (Intermediate Directing, Stage Make-up, Theatre History)

-I'm taking stage make-up (see above) and I'll try to post some great pictures soon. Well, eventually.

Well, I need to go have my snack before I get back into some awesome learning stuffs.

See you again in a few months.

-Christian

NATO is Stupid!

2009-04-20T00:42:00.003-06:00

I just read THE dumbest news story I have ever read. It has made me so mad I could... I'm gonna... I wanna... Blog!!!

I was reading on CNN and it said that a pirate attack was thwarted off the coast of Somolia and I thought, "Hey, this would be a cool story!" so I read and, no lie, this is what it said:

"NATO forces patrolling the Gulf of Aden foiled a pirate attack on a Norwegian tanker this weekend, a NATO spokesman said.

Pirates attempted to capture the MV Front Ardennes at 6 p.m. Saturday and were apprehended seven hours later, Commander Chris Davies told CNN.

A NATO-supported Canadian navy ship, the HMCS Winnipeg, was returning from escorting a World Food Program vessel in the gulf when it saw the Norwegian ship under attack, Davies said. A British Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel, the Wave Knight, was also in the area.

The pirates were captured at 1 a.m. Sunday after they threw weapons, ladders and scaling equipment overboard, Davies said. Several rounds of ammunition were found on the pirates' boat.

The pirates were detained, but allowed to go free after questioning.

There is currently no formal procedure for NATO personnel to follow once they have apprehended pirates, Davies noted. Their weapons are confiscated and they are then typically given provisions and released."

What!!??? You mean that the NATO forces saw pirates attacking a ship, spent seven hours overtaking and apprehending their ship, found weapons on their ship, detained them, questioned them, and then GAVE THEM FOOD and LET THEM GO!? What!? Does this make sense to anyone? I can think of sooooo many things wrong with it! What did the pirates say during the questioning? We're they really convincing enough that the NATO forces felt they weren't a threat? Did the pirates say "We weren't really trying to take the ship, per se, we just thought they were having a dance party and wanted to join really bad!" or "What? Taking other people's boats is wrong? We had no idea?" Seriously! I know why piracy is still a problem in the east, it's because the people we have put in charge of combating it are complete idiots!

I think the cherry on the top of this whole article is that we even gave them food! "Stop attacking us or... or... or we'll give you food!"

Morons. Thank you for reading my ranting.

It's A Road Trip!!!

2009-04-13T00:09:00.004-06:00

We're back! and we have a challenge for our avid listeners (that's you)!

One of my very closest friends, Chris Beach, is getting married this summer and Christian and I have decided to attend because we love him. The wedding is up in Washington (state) and because neither Christian nor I have been to Oregon or Washington, or even Northern California, we've decided to turn this into a road trip. It will probably be replete with break downs and engine fires and hitchhiking and cow tipping, but we think we can do better than all those combined. we want you, the reader, to make a list of things you want us to do, and we will see how many we can do and get pictures of. For example, you may want us to get pictures with some hard-core motorcyclists sporting american flag head bands. Or you may want us to swing on fifteen different swingsets. Or you may want us to ride a bull moose. You make the list and we will print it out and do as many as we can and take pictures while we're doing it. We plan on having a ton of fun and want some help from you.

We have been trying our best to survive this semester, and so far have done a pretty good job of it. Christian was in Macbeth, I saw Macbeth. Christian got his haircut pretty short, I approved of his haircut. Christian did homework, I also did homework. Eric came and surprised Christian, Eric left his watch with us. Mom came and visited us, our cupboards are stuffed with food. We have started hosting dessert nights at our apartment, no one in our apartment sleeps on Sunday nights. Pirates took a US ship, they died.

Something very big that has happened in our life is that we are now members of a very exclusive club. A club that is only for nobles and professionals. Sam's club. Card-Carrying members. We feel like real men.

If anyone's wondering about my dating life, it doesn't really exist. I was taken on a fun quadruple date a couple of weeks ago. And I actually asked a girl out on a date to a show... with my mother. I love my mother, I really do, but for the sake of the girls I ask out, I really don't plan on bringing her along on future dates. I felt like I was back in middle school, because not only was my mom along for the date, but then she dropped my date off at her apartment afterwards. I am such a loser. I hope I get my braces off before my next date and this blasted acne goes away.

Love y'all

Nate

Market Verbs and Adjectives

2009-03-07T11:28:00.003-07:00

I'm a news Junkie. I almost always have some news site open on my computer and check it frequently for any minute changes. One thing I have become quite impressed with is the money.cnn.com writers ability to think of new verbs to describe what has happened to the stock market that day. How many ways can you politely say "the economy is in the toilet?" So to honor their hard work I have started keeping track and in the column to the right you will see a list of the past two days worth of words. Two days and they came up with all those. They better slow down because I think there is a limited number of verbs and adjectives in the english language and at the current rate they'll need a couple thousand to finish out the year.

House Projects

2009-02-22T17:24:00.008-07:00

I'm Back!

I know there has been much speculation circulating on the internet as to the role reversal Christian and I experienced. He went from non-existent to blog controller, and my blog presence dried up. To clear up a few things:

I was not lost in Lithuania after overthrowing a corrupt government.

I was not in Antarctica discovering new species of penguins.

I also was not with Brendan Fraser on a journey to the center of the earth.

So what have I been up to? Well, in January I turned 24, and so far I can't tell any difference. No super powers, no wife, no magical platypus, no winning lottery ticket, no delicious cake. As far as I can tell, being 24 is exactly like being 23. I'm fearful that I will find out in less than a year's time that being 25 will be the same story.

Also in January I did something that I probably shouldn't have. I read the entire Harry Potter series from beginning to end; that's right I mean I read all seven books in about a month, which includes the two week break I took because I was beginning to dream wizard dreams. It got really bad. See I figure that your average Potter fan had about a year between books to let their mind rest, contemplate what was coming up in the next book, join Harry Potter support groups, cry about all the characters who were killed off, and then let the excitement wear off. I, however, did not have those luxuries. I was going through a book every four days and would replay parts of the books in my mind all day long. I had a disease, and I think it probably could have been classed and addiction.

Harry Potter ended and in came February. This is where things get good around here. Christian and I have been working busily on school and then in our free time watching YouTube videos and doing house projects. "What projects can you possibly do in an apartment?" you may ask. "How do they get all of that goodness into donuts?" may be another question. That I can't answer. But as for our projects...

Aren't they beautiful? Eighteen Frisbees. Soak it in. Go ahead, take a minute and just let the glory of frisbees lighten your day and your life. I've been much happier and healthier since I started sleeping under the glory of the disc. Because I'm an accountant and anal, you will notice that all of the frisbees are lined up perfectly straight and square, I blame this on my father.

I also decided that it was time I got my affairs in order in my room and went to work giving my room a deep clean:

Christian, not wanting to be left out of the cleaning extravaganza, did his part to organize his half of the room:

As you can see, he has successfully sorted his towel from his coat.

Just when you began to say "Wow! you must have been swamped for the first two weeks of February!" I say to you, there's more! That's right! Amazing things happen when you don't have a TV in your apartment. It turns out you have all this time where you can do "useful" things. Or you can do what we've done.

Because Christian and I made a new years resolution to become the cooler than the pope, we and our roommates have started hosting a game/dessert night on sundays evenings after ward prayer. Our apartment just didn't have that "We're Cool!" flavor to it though. Christian ingeneously solved this dilema by printing out 150 of his favorite pictures and purchasing enough sticky tack to stick our car to the side of our apartment building. The end result:

The picture of the pictures looks pretty cool, but it really looks even cooler in real life.

And finally our most entertaining project has been the bathroom. For Christmas I was given crayons. I love crayons, I don't know if something was lacking from my childhood and now I'm trying to make up for it by owning and using as many crayons as possible, so the gift of crayons was perfect. Not only were they crayons, they were special crayons that allow you to write on bathroom surfaces... so we did. You may have to click on the pictures to be able to read what it written.

So you can see why I haven't been posting as much, I've just been so busy. I'm still alive and well, and will keep you up to date on future undertakings (like taxes and the resurrection of the scooter). It just wouldn't be a post without a link, so here's probably the funniest thing I've read in a long long time. And this one is gold.

Never Laughed So Hard

2009-02-06T23:26:00.003-07:00

So I've been ~~watching a bunch of superbowl commercials~~ studying for midterms. Now, I'm a huge fan of supporting companies that have awesome commercials, but some commercials just restore my faith in humanity. You may have seen these already, but I think it's worth the time and effort to revisit them. If you don't have time for all three, make sure you at least watch the last one. We'll go in reverse order.

Violence is always funny, always. They also employ the comedic principle of escalation (made that up). The last guy made me laugh to the point of exaustion.

Now we move on to the principle of repetition. Again the use of escalation makes for a humorous video. Koala!

And finally, the funniest thing that I have seen in years. Literally years. Let your inhibitions go, try not to get freaked out, and embrace this minute long clip of bliss. This video follows the rule that weird is so awesome.

Yeah.

I'm a sucker for cute.

2009-02-03T00:01:00.002-07:00

I know that this is just a short post with nothing it. But I found this video and wanted to share it with the world.

30 Plays in 30 Days

2009-01-30T23:06:00.003-07:00

Alright folks, it's time for more goal setting with the slim chance of it actually coming to fruition. With the onset of school, I've been looking for more things to occupy the time that I should really be using to study (ha! just kidding parents). However, these wonderful time wasters are not a waste at all, these are wonderfully useful things for me. First off, I'm trying to get better at sketching. I recently picked up a book called "Sketching for the Theatre" or some such nonsense. This involves learning to sketch set designs and costumes and such. The other thing that I've become very interested in is maskwork and mask making. Unfortunately the one mask making book that I want in the library (of the three books they have on the subject) was checked out the exact same day I went to get it! Let's talk about probability...

And finally my major goal for the day/month is to read one play every day for thirty days. That's a whole month. Unfortunately, this goal coincided with February, the runt of the year. So, I started this goal Friday to avoid the awkwardness of having to say "twenty-eight plays in twenty-eight days" ... actually that's still not bad. The reason I'm doing this is because I have come to understand just how little I know. I am entirely unversed in plays. So I picked up about ten plays at the library and now the good times are rolling. I'm sure that I'll take notes on these plays to aid in production later, and maybe I'll even write some reviews.

I began this trek with a little surprise known as Steve Martin. Yes, he's a playwright as well. I read two of his plays (one was really short). The first was called Picasso at the Lapin Agile, the other was called The Zig-Zag Woman. They were only okay. However, there are multiple reports online theat if you inform Mr. Martin of the performance dates there is a good chance that he will show up to a performance or two.

My next venture in the script world was The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel. An award winning play about a dysfunctional family, it was rather interesting, but has a very small cast. So, I may never ever produce it.

And that brings us to today. Today I read Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee. This was one of the longest ventures of the plays. It's a three act play about drunk people. I don't recommend it. But it won some awards or something.

So, I've been reading a lot, since I'm still trying to make a dent in my novels, schoolwork, and the books that I got for Christmas. If anyone has any suggestions for other reading materials, I'm all ears/eyes.

*Sorry, the videos could use some work. Na zdrovie! <--(see last video)*

I wasn't going to eat it, I was just going to taste it.

2009-01-25T23:30:00.002-07:00

Here's a little something to tide you over between posts, I hope it tastes good.

Also for those of you who are a little bit more high-class, here's a little social networking Shakespeare.

Bon Appetit.

New Pool! I Mean Poll!

2009-01-18T22:27:00.001-07:00

Check it out. Make sure to answer honestly.

"...all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy blog."

2009-01-18T20:57:00.003-07:00

I'm back from the dead. I realize that I haven't posted since... let's change the subject. I will now attempt to inform the world of what I have been doing for the past two months. As a preface to this post, I would like to say:

-This post may become a list at any time.
-Two months is a lot of stuff.
-I don't have access to any cool videos right now (sorry).
-Order is not a requirement.

I have no clue where to break into this ostrich egg of experience, it's just a big oval! So, we'll go with the happiest thing that has happened to me in a while. I have left the deepest circle of hell behind and will no longer be working at Inkley's! I know that sounds a little over the top for a job, but no, it's not. I am so much happier these days, and it can all be tied back to the fact that I don't work there anymore. However, this also means that I have no job and am very poor. But only monetarily, not in spirit.

The reason that I left my job is two-fold: I hated it, and I'm back in school! I have been working full-time(ish) this past year and decided that it was time to return to education at the big blue whale of a university. I'm loving my classes (3 theatre, 3 generals) and I find that with no job I actually have time to do that homework stuff.

For those of you who didn't notice, I mentioned being in 3 theatre classes, that is because I am Theatre Arts Education major (for now). This brings me to the yolk of the egg (see metaphor above): theatre!! (btw theatre is the practice of the art, theater is the place you go to see it (even if wikipedia and dictionaries don't agree with me))(I'm using more than my allotted amount of parentheses :) ).

So, developments on the theatrical front. I finished the show that I was producing with only minor headaches (I stepped into two roles, one the night that we opened). We had a great turnout and a great response. I also have been cast in Macbeth at BYU. Now before everyone gets their hearts all a flutter, I'm quickly discovering how small the role of Captaine/Menteith/Lord really is. And it's getting shorter as many of my lines are getting cut because they don't fit with the concept of the show. The concept is directors interpretation of the show and our director chose: Book of Mormon/Meso-American!! That's right folks we've got lamanites and nephites and we're waging some wars! Luckily for me this means that I get to grow my hair out, however they have also toyed with the idea of us shaving our heads (or at least partially to get mohawk type deals). This is not a joke in any way, shape, or form. However, I think the best thing that happened with Macbeth has been the opportunity we had to work with a Shakespearean text expert and have workshops where we learn graduate level stuff. I'm still buzzing from it and it was two weeks ago.

Last theatre thing. I did something yesterday called the 24 hour theatre project. Here's what happened: Friday at 8:00ish pm, five preselected playwrights (wright not write, right? Yes.) met and each drew a title out of a hat. They then had until 8:00 Saturday morning to write a ten minute play using that title. Then at 8:00am Saturday the writers handed their scripts over to five preselected directors. Then at 9:00 (9:15 for me, oops) the actors showed up and were assigned to scripts. Then we had until 8:00 Saturday night to rehearse at which point we performed for a nearly full house. Awesome. Now those of you who are good at math will note that 11 hours of rehearsal divided by a ten minute play equals too much time. Not to mention number of rehearsals multiplied by the number of occurrences of the phrase"Oh my gosh" in the script (25 times) equals I went insane. Literally though the script had us saying "oh my gosh" about 25 times in ten minutes for the humor of it. In the end our play turned out to be really funny and everyone loved us and then there was time to sleep.

Now it becomes a list (since you and I could be here forever at this rate):
-I got glasses.
-I can see now.
-Christmas happened.
-I have new pajama pants that go over my feets. (Thank you Catherine).
-My best friend is engaged and I'm the best man. (I've got your back Brian, don't bottle up).
-I lied, there is a video in here.
-I took my friend's engagement pictures and had fun.
-I took family pictures and had fun.
-I sold my first ever picture at a ward charity auction (5 of them actually, at $35 a piece).
-I shot my first wedding ever (not my wedding).
-It was a weird experience.

I think that about sums it up. So after five hours of reading you should be all caught up on the nature of my existence.

We'll see you in another two months.

*fun activity!! Can you count all the parentheses?*

Are We There Yet?

2008-12-23T15:01:00.006-07:00

Onward! to Rochester!

That's right! Finals are done and it's time to do what we do every year: sit and rot for hours and hours of layovers in unfamiliar aiports while everyone around you has the "Christmas Spirit" (read: hates everyone, including their own mothers) because the person in front of them is too slow, the person behind them is too loud and the plane is way too uncomfortable. Yay for the holidays! In all reality our plane rides and absurd layover weren't that bad. We left Monday morning at not too early of an hour (Christian: "What!? Not too early!? Stupid.) which means seven in the morning. We drove up to Grandma and Grandpa Cragun's house and met Matthew and Nicole to be chauffered up to the airport.

From here on out, instead of going for a play by play I'm going to go the randoms musings route:

Fact - Flying in turbulence feels like being on a rickety rollercoaster and is way fun.

Fact - Empty planes are amazing because you can stretch out.

Lie - Planes are comfortable if you stretch out.

Fact - Janitors can look cool if they stand in front of big windows for artsy pictures as seen below.

Fact - The coolest food trays ever made include compartments for different foods and should be used as much as possible.

Fact - Pepper does not belong on pasta.

Fact - Denver has artistic and good-smelling bathrooms.

Fact - Black people have soul. They're just better at things like piano and flute.

Lie - White people can have soul. Sorry, just not possible.

Fact - Chris Beach and Ali SoonToBeBeach are wonderful people.

Lie - Chris Beach is Tall (Ha! Gotcha!)

Lie - The only band who can make a flute sound cool is Jethro Tull.

Fact - When someone yells "we have an emergency! Where's a doctor!?" in the middle of your flight, it is quite scary.

Fact - Teachers who talk the entire flight about how much they really don't like teaching and don't teach their kids important principles like "Responsibility" and who think that it's not important anyways should be thrown out of the airplane. Or at least publicly caned.

Fact - The minneapolis airport has THE coolest hand dryers ever.

Lie - Christian has died which is why he no longer posts on the blog.

Fact - Christain and I made it home alive despite icy roads and runways.

Fact - Christmas is going to be very Merry!

So that is the jist of our plane flying experience and five hour layover. Christian has made a goal to post on the blog sometime before he graduates from college (10 years hence), and I support that. In the mean time, we wish everyone a very merry Christmas eve and Christmas day and Day after Christmas and so on.

Scott. Oh Scott.

2008-12-19T22:33:00.002-07:00

"It's like seeing the world through rose colored cataracts."

-Scott Christensen

I love my roommates.

Finally!

2008-12-18T18:23:00.003-07:00

I saw this drawing as I was walking up to campus, and if you know me you know how much I hate pedestrians in Provo, so this made me laugh for a long time. If you can't read what the word bubbles say, let me retype them for you: the little girl says "I thought crosswalks protected people." to which the mom responds "They only protect people with brains, dear." This was drawn on the base of the stairs at 300 East and 800 North where on a daily basis I see someone just step out into the road with no regard for where the nearest cars are. It also doesn't matter if it's day or night, sunny or cloudy, snowy, wet or dry, pedestrians just figure crosswalks mean that cars will see them and stop. I'm sure the people who need to heed this message (1) aren't my friends so they won't see this post and (2) aren't smart enough to understand the drawing and sadly therefore the only people who are going to benefit from this are those of us with brains who get a solid laugh out of it. Instead of waiting for the problem to correct itself I think I've proactively come up with a solution, just attach one of these to the front of our car.

It's Beginning to Smell a Lot Like Christmas

2008-12-10T22:22:00.008-07:00

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.

Now our tree resides in our front room in all of its cinderblocky, twiney, sawzally, piney, mismatched ornamenty glory. It has only fallen once, which we consider a victory, considering what it has for supports. Merry Christmas everyone, I can only hope that everyone else has had as much fun as us with their trees and using their Sawzalls; I'm going to go cut the legs off our couch.

New Toys and Purple Hearts

2008-12-08T17:53:00.007-07:00

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.

Christian's play opened on Friday and they had a respectable turnout. I haven't yet seen it, but don't worry all you who just judged me for being a bad brother, I'm going to go this weekend, I hear it's really good. This set of plays is all based on the prompt "Games we Play" and is all about relationships, so they're comedies (Mormons + Relationships = Awkwardness/inherent comedy). Christian was the supervising director (read: Most important person in the room) of this set of plays and has had more than his fair share of headaches. In a feat of amazing durability and resiliance, Christian's head managed not to explode despite twelve people dropping out of the production (that's right twelve) two of which dropped in the past week and a half leaving the roles to Christian. I think he qualifies for a purple heart (due to the high blood pressure from his Cragun genes).

I've been inundated with homework and homework and homework. What time I don't spend studying I spend with Sarah, and the remainder with my He-Man power sword. Sarah's little sister, Savannah, came back from California with her after Thanksgiving and we found some time to drive up to Salt Lake and see Temple Square with all the lights.

The last bit of exiting news - We have a Christmas tree! It's a live Christmas tree, and I will post some pictures of it and some exciting Saws-all pics soon (read: within the next three months). I now have to go and finish my accounting project, I think the glue is finally drying on my macaroni.

Over nine feet of rain falls each year in the Amazon rain forest :-)

Edit: I read this post and I felt badly that Nathan hadn't embedded any fun links. So on my search of Youtube I found this gem. You should see the other videos too, but this is one of my favorites.

Merry Black Friday

2008-11-28T18:49:00.004-07:00

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."

Yesterday morning I got up and, like any good male on thanksgiving, went to play Ultimate Frisbee (which reminds me; touch football is a really girly sport. When you take the tack

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.

An Apology... But Not Really

2008-11-27T23:35:00.002-07:00

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.

Two Minutes?

2008-11-26T19:52:00.001-07:00

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.

Hello Interweb

2008-11-25T15:26:00.002-07:00

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.

Truly disappointing.

2008-11-25T14:41:00.005-07:00

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.