Friday, September 29, 2006
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Hitting for the Cycle
Yes, it's true, I did it... sort of.
In my first 2 games of church softball, I've batted twice in each game, and I'm 4 for 4 with a single, double, triple, and home run!
I'd probably better retire now before I get translated, or enshrined in the church softball hall of fame in Cooperstownville, Utah.
In my first 2 games of church softball, I've batted twice in each game, and I'm 4 for 4 with a single, double, triple, and home run!
I'd probably better retire now before I get translated, or enshrined in the church softball hall of fame in Cooperstownville, Utah.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Snide Remarks, for free
Back in "the day" (college) I used to read a column called Snide Remarks, which was published in the BYU paper, and written by Eric D. Snider (Get it? Snider? Snide Remarks??). Funny stuff. Then I graduated and forgot all about it.
I hadn't heard or thought about good ol' Eric D. in a few years, till I ran across his book, also called Snide Remarks, at Hyrum's house a couple months back.
I read through it and it brought back fond memories of the Titanic Parody and Police Beat, among others.
Then a day or two later, by complete coincidence, I was reading a movie review that happened to be written by none other than Eric himself. So I shot him a quick email to see what was happening, and he was kind enough to respond.
Here's an excerpt from my email:
"...just wanted to say that I still find the snide remarks columns very funny despite a few years going by. I still love the references such as "the Stephen E. Robinson & Gerald N. Lund Building for People That Everyone Thinks Are General Authorities Because They Write a Lot of Books" and "the J. Golden Kimball Center for Religious Swearing." And the letter to the editor column is classic material."
And from his response:
"...and those ones you quoted are two of my old favorites, too. Sometimes I think I'll never be that funny again...."
Anyway, here's the point of all this: Snide Remarks was originally free, but after Eric became a freelancer, he started charging for it. But, as of a few days ago, Snide Remarks is free once again to the general public. (Hallelujah, amen!)
From the column:
"So I finally did some weighing and balancing. I could make X dollars a month and have Y readers, or I could make zero dollars a month and have potentially thousands and thousands of readers. I ultimately decided it was better in the long run to have more exposure, even if it meant making nothing from "Snide Remarks." And so on Aug. 23, two days after this column appeared, we officially liberated "Snide Remarks." It was a lot like when Paris was liberated at the end of World War II, but without the stench of Nazis everywhere."
So now you can waste hours of your employer's time perusing humorous material here.
And you can read my favorite column of all time here. Enjoy!
I hadn't heard or thought about good ol' Eric D. in a few years, till I ran across his book, also called Snide Remarks, at Hyrum's house a couple months back.
I read through it and it brought back fond memories of the Titanic Parody and Police Beat, among others.Then a day or two later, by complete coincidence, I was reading a movie review that happened to be written by none other than Eric himself. So I shot him a quick email to see what was happening, and he was kind enough to respond.
Here's an excerpt from my email:
"...just wanted to say that I still find the snide remarks columns very funny despite a few years going by. I still love the references such as "the Stephen E. Robinson & Gerald N. Lund Building for People That Everyone Thinks Are General Authorities Because They Write a Lot of Books" and "the J. Golden Kimball Center for Religious Swearing." And the letter to the editor column is classic material."
And from his response:
"...and those ones you quoted are two of my old favorites, too. Sometimes I think I'll never be that funny again...."
Anyway, here's the point of all this: Snide Remarks was originally free, but after Eric became a freelancer, he started charging for it. But, as of a few days ago, Snide Remarks is free once again to the general public. (Hallelujah, amen!)
From the column:
"So I finally did some weighing and balancing. I could make X dollars a month and have Y readers, or I could make zero dollars a month and have potentially thousands and thousands of readers. I ultimately decided it was better in the long run to have more exposure, even if it meant making nothing from "Snide Remarks." And so on Aug. 23, two days after this column appeared, we officially liberated "Snide Remarks." It was a lot like when Paris was liberated at the end of World War II, but without the stench of Nazis everywhere."
So now you can waste hours of your employer's time perusing humorous material here.
And you can read my favorite column of all time here. Enjoy!
Sunday, August 13, 2006
My Trip to Havasupai (Grand Canyon)
If you haven't been to Havasupai (in the Grand Canyon), you need to repent and go immediately. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth.
We set out on a Wednesday night, the fearsome foursome -- Nate, Cami, Sharice, and Patricia. It is about a 5 hour drive from Mesa, so we were planning to leave around 6:30 or 7 PM, but it ended up being more like 10 PM. We arrived at 2 or 3 in the morning, and slept in the parking lot for a few hours.
We woke up around 6 but didn't
get going till almost 8, I'm not sure how that happened. The hike down was fun, not too strenuous, but it seemed awfully long. After 8 miles we arrived at the village. I'd been there once before, but I couldn't remember how far it was from the village to the campground. It turned out to be another 2 miles. (Ugh!) We finally arrived and Sharice had a big fat blister on her toe.
The trip was planned by another friend named Melinda, so we looked around for her group and finally found them after fording the river. Cami tried to throw her shoes across and one of them ended up floating downstream but thanks to my cat-like reflexes I was able to quickly fish it out.
That afternoon we went and played around in Havasu Falls, an impressive 100 foot waterfall which was close to the campsite. Then Cami and I went to check out Navajo Falls, which was less than a mile from camp. I somehow didn't know about Navajo Falls on my last trip, but it was definitely worth a visit. Navajo Falls isn't as spectacular as the others, but I rated it as the most enjoyable of the falls, because you can play around in it without getting pummeled too badly.
Friday we hiked down to Mooney Falls, which is probably the most spectacular waterfall I've ever seen (although it's been a while since I was at the Columbia Gorge in Oregon, and since we didn't have digital cameras back then, I pretty much have no record of anything). Getting down to the pool below the falls requires a hike down a steep cliff, the warning signs said things like "Extreme Caution... Don't Go Any Further Unless You're Crazy... If You Die It's Not Our Fault... etc." But we made it down without incident.
After playing around in the falls and the nearby rope swing, we headed dow
n the river. About 3 miles down is another falls called Beaver Falls, but we didn't make it more than 1 or 1.5 miles. We found another rope swing and played around some more, then decided that we were tired and headed back.
Even though we were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to camp, Sharice and Patricia hadn't seen Navajo Falls, so we went back there. I love that place! (Só faltava a namorada :). We played around a while again, and I fought through the current and climbed up into a nook on the left side where the falls are coming down on you from all directions. Very cool.
Back to camp by dark for some more tasty freeze-dried camp food. (It actually was pretty good.)
That night a group of about 10 or 12 of us played a game called Mafia. For those of you not from Utah, Mafia is an intriguing game in which 2 people are secretly assigned as Mafia members, 2 as policemen, and everyone else as townspeople. Then the Mafia tries to kill the policemen while the policemen try to discover who the Mafia members are and convince the townspeople before it's too late. Naturally I was assigned as a Mafia member (I a
m 25% Italian). Normally the game ends after either the 2 Mafia members or the 2 policemen are both killed. However, this time, the moderator either forgot to stop the game, or didn't feel like it, so I ended up having to kill off both of the policemen and then at least 5 more townspeople after the policemen were already dead. I also threw my Mafia partner under the bus, so I ended up killing everyone in the town. Too bad the Guiness Book people weren't there. After the first game I went to bed. ("That's it for me, I'm out of here!")
Saturday morning we got up "early" and headed out. It was already 8 before we really got going. Patricia took the helicopter from the village, while I, Cami, and Sharice trekked the last 8 miles. We ran into a lot of the other people from the group as we were hiking out... mostly as they were passing us. My friend Jill fell on the hike out and chipped her front tooth. (Yikes!)
At one point I got a ways ahead of Cami and Sharice, so I decided to stop and wait at the next shade I found. But I kept going and never found any shade for maybe another half mile or more. I didn't want to get too far ahead, so I stopped right there in the blazing hot sun and sat down on a rock. I put some sunscreen on, then draped a sock over the back of my neck, and actually fell asleep! A while later (I have no idea how long) Cami and Sharice caught up, along with a friendly dog that was accompanying us up the trail.
We finally made it up after several hours. And then went to Chili's.
• • •
(I still haven't bought a new camera since I lost it in NYC, but here are all of the photos that I've mooched from other people so far.)
Prologue: At one point on the hike out I was trying to think if we could get my whole family to Havasupai, because it should definitely be a mandatory trip. For the less agile, the helicopter costs $80 per person each way, which doesn't seem too unreasonable. Then there's an easy 2 mile hike to the campground after getting dropped off. So I think even my mom could make it. Let's shoot for next year!
We set out on a Wednesday night, the fearsome foursome -- Nate, Cami, Sharice, and Patricia. It is about a 5 hour drive from Mesa, so we were planning to leave around 6:30 or 7 PM, but it ended up being more like 10 PM. We arrived at 2 or 3 in the morning, and slept in the parking lot for a few hours.
We woke up around 6 but didn't
get going till almost 8, I'm not sure how that happened. The hike down was fun, not too strenuous, but it seemed awfully long. After 8 miles we arrived at the village. I'd been there once before, but I couldn't remember how far it was from the village to the campground. It turned out to be another 2 miles. (Ugh!) We finally arrived and Sharice had a big fat blister on her toe.The trip was planned by another friend named Melinda, so we looked around for her group and finally found them after fording the river. Cami tried to throw her shoes across and one of them ended up floating downstream but thanks to my cat-like reflexes I was able to quickly fish it out.
That afternoon we went and played around in Havasu Falls, an impressive 100 foot waterfall which was close to the campsite. Then Cami and I went to check out Navajo Falls, which was less than a mile from camp. I somehow didn't know about Navajo Falls on my last trip, but it was definitely worth a visit. Navajo Falls isn't as spectacular as the others, but I rated it as the most enjoyable of the falls, because you can play around in it without getting pummeled too badly.
Friday we hiked down to Mooney Falls, which is probably the most spectacular waterfall I've ever seen (although it's been a while since I was at the Columbia Gorge in Oregon, and since we didn't have digital cameras back then, I pretty much have no record of anything). Getting down to the pool below the falls requires a hike down a steep cliff, the warning signs said things like "Extreme Caution... Don't Go Any Further Unless You're Crazy... If You Die It's Not Our Fault... etc." But we made it down without incident.
After playing around in the falls and the nearby rope swing, we headed dow
n the river. About 3 miles down is another falls called Beaver Falls, but we didn't make it more than 1 or 1.5 miles. We found another rope swing and played around some more, then decided that we were tired and headed back.Even though we were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to camp, Sharice and Patricia hadn't seen Navajo Falls, so we went back there. I love that place! (Só faltava a namorada :). We played around a while again, and I fought through the current and climbed up into a nook on the left side where the falls are coming down on you from all directions. Very cool.
Back to camp by dark for some more tasty freeze-dried camp food. (It actually was pretty good.)
That night a group of about 10 or 12 of us played a game called Mafia. For those of you not from Utah, Mafia is an intriguing game in which 2 people are secretly assigned as Mafia members, 2 as policemen, and everyone else as townspeople. Then the Mafia tries to kill the policemen while the policemen try to discover who the Mafia members are and convince the townspeople before it's too late. Naturally I was assigned as a Mafia member (I a
m 25% Italian). Normally the game ends after either the 2 Mafia members or the 2 policemen are both killed. However, this time, the moderator either forgot to stop the game, or didn't feel like it, so I ended up having to kill off both of the policemen and then at least 5 more townspeople after the policemen were already dead. I also threw my Mafia partner under the bus, so I ended up killing everyone in the town. Too bad the Guiness Book people weren't there. After the first game I went to bed. ("That's it for me, I'm out of here!")Saturday morning we got up "early" and headed out. It was already 8 before we really got going. Patricia took the helicopter from the village, while I, Cami, and Sharice trekked the last 8 miles. We ran into a lot of the other people from the group as we were hiking out... mostly as they were passing us. My friend Jill fell on the hike out and chipped her front tooth. (Yikes!)
At one point I got a ways ahead of Cami and Sharice, so I decided to stop and wait at the next shade I found. But I kept going and never found any shade for maybe another half mile or more. I didn't want to get too far ahead, so I stopped right there in the blazing hot sun and sat down on a rock. I put some sunscreen on, then draped a sock over the back of my neck, and actually fell asleep! A while later (I have no idea how long) Cami and Sharice caught up, along with a friendly dog that was accompanying us up the trail.
We finally made it up after several hours. And then went to Chili's.
(I still haven't bought a new camera since I lost it in NYC, but here are all of the photos that I've mooched from other people so far.)
Prologue: At one point on the hike out I was trying to think if we could get my whole family to Havasupai, because it should definitely be a mandatory trip. For the less agile, the helicopter costs $80 per person each way, which doesn't seem too unreasonable. Then there's an easy 2 mile hike to the campground after getting dropped off. So I think even my mom could make it. Let's shoot for next year!
Monday, July 31, 2006
Sculpture Cycles
A couple weeks ago my roommate Marcus had a bike show in LA. He has a company called Sculpture Cycles that builds custom Harleys. I figured it would be a good way to celebrate my birthday on the beach, so I went along. My buddy Dave also came along, and a friend of Marcus's named Mandy came to help with the show.
We left at 6:30 AM on a Friday morning. We were in a big Ford F-250, hauling a big trailer in the back holding 3 big bikes and 1 big frame. It was about a 6 hour drive. The show was actually being held in Long Beach, right on the water, and we got there in the early afternoon. It took us a couple hours to set up the booth. Marcus has some "easy up" tents which took us about 20 minutes to put up. We later saw some other guy do it in about 20 seconds. The booth was 10 x 20, just big enough to hold everything.
Marcus has his own frame, that he designed, called the "Steroid Frame." I screwed on a couple of plates on the wheels of the display frame that he had there, so I could officially call myself a bike builder. Dave helped out with
a little spray painting. The rest of the show we talked up our professional bike building skills.
Me: So, how long have you been the head of painting at Sculpture Cycles?
Dave: Pretty much as long as I've been working here at Sculpture Cycles.
After we got everything set up, we zipped up the booth and headed to our hotel, the Holiday Inn. Then we headed to the beach for a little bit. Dave and I tried out his skimboard. Our skimboard skills were somewhat akin to our bike building skills, but it was fun.
That night Dave and I drove around looking for something to do. We had heard there was a big singles activity, but we couldn't find it, so we finally ended up at In 'N' Out Burger. I saw a guy with a couple of girls at a table outside...
Me: "I bet those guys are Mormons."
Dave: "You think?"
Me: "I dare you to go ask them if they're Mormons."
Dave: "Shut up... all right." (Walks over to their table.)
Dave: "I was wondering if you could settle a question for me. My friend over there thinks you guys are Mormons."
Them: "What??" "Naaaahhhh!!" "Why??"
Dave: "I guess you look like Mormons."
Them: "What??" "Naaaahhhh!!" "Get out!!"
Dave: "OK... thanks anyway."
That was our entertainment for the evening.
On Saturday morning we finished setting up the booth, and prepared for people to come by. We all had our Sculpture Cycles T-shirts on, and I picked up some of the relevant info about the bikes so I could act like I knew what I was talking about.
Passer-by: "This is some pretty trick stuff!"
Me: "Yeah, this is the steriod frame, we designed it ourselves. The back wheel is a 360, it's the biggest wheel currently available on the market. We've got a 120 inch merch engine in there. The price starts at 48K, and you can go up to about 80K depending on what options you want. This particular bike goes for 68K. The stretch is 4 inches..." (etc.)
I sold one T-shirt for $20, but no bikes.
After working the booth for a few hours, we walked around and checked out the other booths. There were a lot of really intense bikes.
Then Dave and I headed back to the beach. First we stopped off and Dave bought a boogie board. The waves were big and we had a fun time trying to catch them.
That night we went to a "VIP party" on the Queen Mary, a former cruise ship now serving as a hotel right close to where the bike show was being held. After 10 minutes of the loud party, Dave, Mandy and I headed out to explore the ship. Marcus stayed to schmooze with bike vendors, or something. The ship was pretty cool, and it was nice to be right there on the ocean.
Sunday was my birthday, but I didn't really do anything official to celebrate. We went back to the show for a couple of hours, then Dave and I went to church, at the Eldorado ward. After church we went back for the end of the show. The show winners were announced in the various classes. Unfortunately, they switched locations for entering bikes in the show, and so our Franken-Buell didn't get entered. It likely would have won the Sportster class. The winning bike for best-of-show was a crazy looking over-the-top cowboy themed chopper, which I didn't get a picture of unfortunately.
After the winners were all announced, the show was pretty much over, and we spent a couple more hours tearing down the booth, and loading up the bikes. We had dinner at Red Brick Pizza and some ice cream from Coldstone. We went back to the hotel and relaxed in the hottub.
Monday we slept in, then went to see one of Marcus's suppliers, called American Suspension. The owner, a guy named Vince, who Mandy said looked like an older version of Fabio, gave us the tour. They have a pretty big operation there, where they build the motorcylce front ends. I ran some rough numbers and figured out that they are probably a 10 to 20 million a year company.
As we were driving away I saw a house-for-sale sign in a yard, so I called up to check the price. It was a paltry 700K for a 1300 square foot house in about a 20 year old neighborhood. Maybe Phoenix isn't as expensive as I thought...
After the tour we all went to the beach and tried some more boogie-boarding. The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli... so we (or at least I) got pretty beaten up by the waves. But it was still fun. And we of course did some obligatory frisbee tossing for a little bit.
After the beach we headed home. I drove for a couple hours. Not very fun, too big of a rig. But I got used to it after a while. We got home around 1 AM.
As we left the show on Sunday, the guy selling sunglasses at the booth next door, Tim, said, "Hope to see you at the next show." So I guess I'm going to have to go to Sturgis!
We left at 6:30 AM on a Friday morning. We were in a big Ford F-250, hauling a big trailer in the back holding 3 big bikes and 1 big frame. It was about a 6 hour drive. The show was actually being held in Long Beach, right on the water, and we got there in the early afternoon. It took us a couple hours to set up the booth. Marcus has some "easy up" tents which took us about 20 minutes to put up. We later saw some other guy do it in about 20 seconds. The booth was 10 x 20, just big enough to hold everything.
 |
| Me on Steroids!" |
a little spray painting. The rest of the show we talked up our professional bike building skills.
Me: So, how long have you been the head of painting at Sculpture Cycles?
Dave: Pretty much as long as I've been working here at Sculpture Cycles.
After we got everything set up, we zipped up the booth and headed to our hotel, the Holiday Inn. Then we headed to the beach for a little bit. Dave and I tried out his skimboard. Our skimboard skills were somewhat akin to our bike building skills, but it was fun.
That night Dave and I drove around looking for something to do. We had heard there was a big singles activity, but we couldn't find it, so we finally ended up at In 'N' Out Burger. I saw a guy with a couple of girls at a table outside...
Me: "I bet those guys are Mormons."
Dave: "You think?"
Me: "I dare you to go ask them if they're Mormons."
Dave: "Shut up... all right." (Walks over to their table.)
Dave: "I was wondering if you could settle a question for me. My friend over there thinks you guys are Mormons."
Them: "What??" "Naaaahhhh!!" "Why??"
Dave: "I guess you look like Mormons."
Them: "What??" "Naaaahhhh!!" "Get out!!"
Dave: "OK... thanks anyway."
That was our entertainment for the evening.
On Saturday morning we finished setting up the booth, and prepared for people to come by. We all had our Sculpture Cycles T-shirts on, and I picked up some of the relevant info about the bikes so I could act like I knew what I was talking about.
Passer-by: "This is some pretty trick stuff!"
Me: "Yeah, this is the steriod frame, we designed it ourselves. The back wheel is a 360, it's the biggest wheel currently available on the market. We've got a 120 inch merch engine in there. The price starts at 48K, and you can go up to about 80K depending on what options you want. This particular bike goes for 68K. The stretch is 4 inches..." (etc.)
I sold one T-shirt for $20, but no bikes.
After working the booth for a few hours, we walked around and checked out the other booths. There were a lot of really intense bikes.
Then Dave and I headed back to the beach. First we stopped off and Dave bought a boogie board. The waves were big and we had a fun time trying to catch them.
That night we went to a "VIP party" on the Queen Mary, a former cruise ship now serving as a hotel right close to where the bike show was being held. After 10 minutes of the loud party, Dave, Mandy and I headed out to explore the ship. Marcus stayed to schmooze with bike vendors, or something. The ship was pretty cool, and it was nice to be right there on the ocean.
Sunday was my birthday, but I didn't really do anything official to celebrate. We went back to the show for a couple of hours, then Dave and I went to church, at the Eldorado ward. After church we went back for the end of the show. The show winners were announced in the various classes. Unfortunately, they switched locations for entering bikes in the show, and so our Franken-Buell didn't get entered. It likely would have won the Sportster class. The winning bike for best-of-show was a crazy looking over-the-top cowboy themed chopper, which I didn't get a picture of unfortunately.
After the winners were all announced, the show was pretty much over, and we spent a couple more hours tearing down the booth, and loading up the bikes. We had dinner at Red Brick Pizza and some ice cream from Coldstone. We went back to the hotel and relaxed in the hottub.
Monday we slept in, then went to see one of Marcus's suppliers, called American Suspension. The owner, a guy named Vince, who Mandy said looked like an older version of Fabio, gave us the tour. They have a pretty big operation there, where they build the motorcylce front ends. I ran some rough numbers and figured out that they are probably a 10 to 20 million a year company.
As we were driving away I saw a house-for-sale sign in a yard, so I called up to check the price. It was a paltry 700K for a 1300 square foot house in about a 20 year old neighborhood. Maybe Phoenix isn't as expensive as I thought...
After the tour we all went to the beach and tried some more boogie-boarding. The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli... so we (or at least I) got pretty beaten up by the waves. But it was still fun. And we of course did some obligatory frisbee tossing for a little bit.
After the beach we headed home. I drove for a couple hours. Not very fun, too big of a rig. But I got used to it after a while. We got home around 1 AM.
As we left the show on Sunday, the guy selling sunglasses at the booth next door, Tim, said, "Hope to see you at the next show." So I guess I'm going to have to go to Sturgis!
Saturday, July 29, 2006
A Tragic Day (Pronounced in a high pitched voice like in Babe The Pig)
For many years, I have had an infinite number of email addresses. For the domain names that I manage, I have generally used a "catch-all" email address, meaning that any email that wasn't assigned to someone else would go to me. Certain people have had fun with this and used email addresses such as NateIsTheCoolestManAlive@lc.com or NateMustDie@lc.com.
However, those happy times are behind us now. Due to the ever increasing flood of spam, I can no longer handle all the email that goes into the catch-all's net. I do have a good spam filter, but spammers send to hundreds and thousands of made up email addresses (e.g. 1@lc.com, 2@lc.com, 3@lc.com, etc.) in the hopes of guessing valid ones. With the catch-all in place, all of them go to me. So even if only .1% of spams are getting through, it's still too many to deal with.
This was a tough decision to make, because I've been haphazardly making up and using different random email addresses here and there over the years, such as amazon.com@lc.com. This allowed me to see who was selling my info, and it was also just a nice convenience. Now a lot of those emails will no longer get through. But unfortunately that is a price that has to be paid to cut down on all the stinking spam.
I know you were probably on the verge of sending an email address to NateShouldRunForPresident@lc.com or possibly IDesperatelyWantToGoOnADateWithNate@lc.com, but it was not to be. To quote Milli Vanilli, "It's a tragedy for me to see, the dream is over."
However, those happy times are behind us now. Due to the ever increasing flood of spam, I can no longer handle all the email that goes into the catch-all's net. I do have a good spam filter, but spammers send to hundreds and thousands of made up email addresses (e.g. 1@lc.com, 2@lc.com, 3@lc.com, etc.) in the hopes of guessing valid ones. With the catch-all in place, all of them go to me. So even if only .1% of spams are getting through, it's still too many to deal with.
This was a tough decision to make, because I've been haphazardly making up and using different random email addresses here and there over the years, such as amazon.com@lc.com. This allowed me to see who was selling my info, and it was also just a nice convenience. Now a lot of those emails will no longer get through. But unfortunately that is a price that has to be paid to cut down on all the stinking spam.
I know you were probably on the verge of sending an email address to NateShouldRunForPresident@lc.com or possibly IDesperatelyWantToGoOnADateWithNate@lc.com, but it was not to be. To quote Milli Vanilli, "It's a tragedy for me to see, the dream is over."
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