Sounds like someone has a case of the mondays!

Ah the Monday after a holiday weekend, is there anything more hated? Anyway, I had a good vacation. Wednesday I was able to get “The Jimmy” about 90% finished, though I worked on it until 2 am. By the time we got home it was 3 in the morning so Thursday we slept in until about 11. After dragging my face off the pillow, it was time to make some pies and my famous home made ice cream. At this point I feel impressed to warn everyone to NEVER use regular granulated salt to make ice cream, you MUST use rock salt. Thanksgiving was great. Get together with the family and eat like we all die tomorrow. After the afternoon meal, it was time for some serious laziness. My wife, mom and sister were busy planning their attack on the morning sales. My dad was valiantly holding down a chair, despite having had surgery on both wrists the previous day. After looking through the ‘deals’ and ‘super saver early bird sales’, Nikki decided that staying in bed sounded like a much better use of her time. I would have gone out if not for two simple truths. 1, we are nearly finished with Christmas shopping. Nikki, in her infinite wisdom as a woman (No really, just ask her! Or any woman for that matter!), has seen to it that I have an enjoyable holiday season by finishing our Christmas shopping early. Yes I hate Christmas shopping, and for no other reason than the people. The human creature, when faced with such an endeavor, de-evolves into a life form best described as prehistoric. 2, I don’t go shopping the day after Thanksgiving because I went… twice. After nearly punching an elderly lady for repeatedly clipping the back of my heels with her shopping cart, I swore to myself that I’d never go out again. Thus I slept, happily and dreamt of dinosaurs rampaging through my high school, only to have me chastise them for eating people and suggesting the plentiful livestock ranches as an alternative source of food. Life was good. After waking from this disturbing dream, it was time to head over and finish the Jimmy (te hee). It went pretty fast and we were out of there within two hours. From there we went over to Jamie’s house to start our Lord of the Rings fest. The intent was to watch the all of the extended editions in two days, and we did it. The last half was done at our place because Jamie’s dad commandeered the TV for the BYU Utah game, which was supposedly a good game but I don't much care. Sunday came without much warning, and I was able to wash my car for the first time in about two months (And likely the last time this year. This is also the reason the weather has turned wet and stormy incase you were wondering). That evening we had planned to have dinner with Nikki’s parents, so we drove up to Bountiful and enjoyed a post Thanksgiving dinner with them. While there, we obtained two parakeets and brought them home for the girls to drool over. We’ve decided to name them Pete and Kara (Pete after the bird in Red Dwarf that gets turned into a T-Rex, and Kara because when you combine the two names and rearrange the letters you get parakeet. I am SO nerdy!). Anyway, that was our vacation. I am now down to the final two weeks of school this semester, and things are looking alright. These next 14 days are sure to be a bit hellish, but once they are over I get a substantial break from school before next semester starts. Furthermore, my class load next semester is a little lighter, so I should be able to participate in more friendly type activities. After school is done, it’s time to start on the truck project. The garage is ready and waiting and I am itching to get my hands back on something besides homework.

And now for something completely different...

Nikki and I went yesterday and did our part to support democracy, and it appears the results are in. The question is, now what? It’ll still be a hundred years before we see fruition from the new taxes we’ll be paying with regard to light rail and such. One good thing that came from the elections, the cool stickers! Honestly, that’s why I went. Forget the whole elected officials thing, I just wanted a little American flag sticker that tells everyone I voted! You can’t help but feel insignificant though. I mean there are 300 Million people in the US, which makes your vote count for 0.0000000033% of what actually happens. (I’m aware that a certain percent isn’t of the voting age yet, but it’s an estimate and I don’t see you coming up with any better numbers) Granted that’s for National votes and these were state or region specific, but that’s a little on the small side of insignificant. Now is the real test, seeing who was lying and who wasn’t telling the truth. I wonder what the average percent is of the things a politician say’s he’ll do and what actually happens. I can’t help but feel it’s just like School presidency where they promise things that sound great and are really good ideas, but when they actually get into the position they have no where near the appropriate amount of power or resources to pull off what they were thinking. SO the hop on top of whatever “big” issue is floating by that day and hope the moronic cattle (that’d be you and I) who gave him this position forget about all those silly little things. I realize my view is somewhat shaded and cynical, but I have seen little good come from our elected officials. They are experts in stalemate, deception and secrecy. I submit that every facet of state government, with the only exceptions being certain information in law enforcement (I also support making criminal records public), be easily publicly accessible and audited more regularly in an effort to eliminate fraud and abuse of power. Furthermore I propose extraordinarily tough penalties for elected officials guilty of misconduct. For crying out loud I am sounding more and more like them. I guess everyone has their opinions about how things should be run, and good on them. Suffice it to say that I am frustrated with how our tax dollars are being spent, the lack of progress in so very many directions and the high level of inappropriate activity amongst our elected representatives. I promise this’ll be the last political rant I do this year, and I’ll try to stay out of it until the presidential elections come about in 2 more years. So until the I’ll be posting pictures of my truck and such.

Vote for stupid!

Tomorrow is the big day, election day! So last night I was reading through the pamphlet that came in the mail that has information on each candidate, and I realized that there are some real winners who are running. They were given 100 words to describe what they stood for and believed in. There were several that I had to read multiple times in order to understand what idea they were trying to get across. Some of the entries were just laughable. Some treated it like a job application where they list their meager qualifications, while others used it to express their opinion that love sets you free and children are wonderful. Others babbled on nonsensically as if spoken and written language was something all together new to them. My point is that I am yet again viewing the elections as a crap shoot in which you can never win but only loose less. What can you do? I mean really, what is there stopping me from running (besides a complete lack of interest). I guess the ability of some common person (and I mean very common) to run for public office is what makes America great. What gets me is the fact that these people are supposed to be representatives, and I shudder to think that the masses are putting some of these people on pedestals. It’s about like entering your stock and rusty 1987 VW Golf in a classic car show. Anyway, before I get on a rant I’d better change the subject. OH! So I’m sitting in church yesterday, staring at the floor and figuring out functions to explain the shapes in the carpeting. Behind us is a young girl, I’m guessing about 1 year to 18 months old. Still in the babbling stages of infancy, and she was just babbling away. So there I sit, dazing from an overload of Calculus homework when it happens. I’d been singing that Taco’s song from Invader Zim all morning, and in her babbling the girl behind us yelled out TACOS!!! I could not stop laughing! I chuckled through most of the next several talks. This was only topped when, while waiting for Nikki outside of the Relief Society room, a group of young women walked up to the door and said (not so quietly) “Why does it take the OLD LADIES so long to get out?” This was funny to me as well, especially considering that Nikki just turned 25. Yup 25, the half way to 50 mark! I’ve decided life is much more interesting when you get all the inside jokes (some of which are so inside that the people making the jokes aren’t aware of it). Now that the hunts are over, it’s time for me to get back on track with some of my projects. This is, of course, after catching up on my homework and preparing the garage for the upcoming event. I have decided that my truck has been ugly long enough and it’s time for a face lift, or at least some makeup. I’ll be preparing my truck for paint over the next 2 months. I have between December 7th (65^th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, also the last day of classes) and January 1st to get the truck repaired, prepped, and primed. I have all the equipment to do the priming myself and will be doing such. I also have the equipment to do the painting as well and will most likely, after a bit of practice, be shooting the paint myself. I will likely be posting pictures of my progress as I go through everything, because I know you’re all so interested. Well, until next week, keep your stick on the ice!