Jinxy's Dream Journal, Random Thoughts, & Soap Box

Crazy Weather

2011-12-01T19:00:00.000-08:00

*** Dreamt Nov 30-Dec 1, 2011 ***

I was in the Philippines and it was the rainy season. I was at someone's house, and really needed to go visit someone who lived nearby, but on the other side of some fields. The problem was that the weather was CRAZY. Just torrential rain and winds, so people were being warned to stay indoors.

Someone turned on the radio and we could hear the weather report which was reporting both the weather where we were in the Philippines, as well the the weather around the I-15 corridor. I commented to somehow how interesting it is that the Philippines and Utah always seem to have pretty much exactly the same weather.

As the weather report went on, they warned people to stay off the roads, especially the freeways (and as this was going on it was like my dream was showing me a montage of all the places the radio weatherman was talking about). He (the weatherman) said that the freeways were lined with cars pulled-over, and to watch out for the occasional Jawa Sandcrawler. And sure enough, I saw a shot of a freeway scene with TONS of vehicles pulled over to the sides, most of which were sand speeders like Luke Skywalker drove in Star Wars Episode IV, but there were also a couple of huge Jawa Sandcrawlers pulled off the side of the road. I was quite proud of the people of the Philippines for being so good about pulling over due to the inclement weather (literally EVERY vehicle on the freeway was pulled-over).

I decided I REALLY needed to go visit whomever it was I needed to visit. I bundled up and headed out into the storm. As I started making my way through the yard I saw some church officials outside whom I avoided because I knew they'd make me go back inside. The ground was just dirt (no grass or pavement) and was extremely soggy and muddy. Every step I took, I sunk about 2 inches into the mud. Along the fence line I saw a long row of snickerdoodle cookies were on the ground, which were now extremely soggy and bloated-looking. "What a shame THAT is", I thought to myself, and I imagined how delicious a snickerdoodle would be, if it weren't all huge and soggy due to being left out in the rain.

Then I woke up. My television was on (it has an on-off timer that I use for an alarm clock) and a news report was going on about CRAZY high winds that have been gusting around here all morning.

*** ***

A Trip to the Dentist

2011-11-30T19:00:00.000-08:00

*** Dreamt Nov 29-30, 2011 ***

I was in Logan with my married friends Corey and April and we were riding our bikes to the dentist. It so happened that we'd scheduled dental appointments at nearly exactly the same time, so we thought it'd be fun to bike-pool there.

On our way, I started noticing a lot of other people walking the same direction as we were riding. It felt like we were having a pied piper effect, and everybody we'd pass would fall in behind us and start walking in the same direction we were headed.

Finally we arrived at the dentist's office, which looked EXACTLY like the building where I worked while I was in college. We took our bikes to the bike rack and Corey chained the 3 bikes down. At about this point I noticed 2 things. First, my bike didn't having any tires on it...I'd been riding on the rims the whole time, but hadn't noticed until just now. Second, all those people who'd been following us (whom I now saw were all bare-footed, long-haired, flower-carrying hippies right out the 60's) were now headed into the dentist's office.

We made our way through the crowds of hippies to the receptionist desk and she told us a research study being performed by the dentist was going on, and that's what all the hippies were there for; to get molds of their teeth made for money. She asked us to take a seat in the waiting area (which was the atrium of my former workplace). As we waited I started noticing how many of the hippies had dogs, and it was a lot! In fact, a lot of the dogs were in various types of wagons and were being pulled by the hippies. I was extremely annoyed at the situation. I started venting to Corey and April, "What kind of people would bring DOGS to a doctor's office?! What are these people THINKING?? They're just walk-ins, we had appointments....why are WE having to wait??"

I went back to the receptionist to complain, when my two friends got called back for their appointments. I then realized that they were going to finish before me, so Corey would want to take his bike chain, leaving my bike alone and un-secured. I explained this to the receptionist and asked if I could bring my bike inside to keep it safe. She replied that if I wanted to, there was a McDonald's down the road where I could keep it inside. But I REALLY didn't want to have to bring it all the way to the McDonald's, so I started getting more frustrated and didn't know what I was going to do.

About that time, a man working there who could see I was stressed came over to try to make me feel better. He was asking if I'd ever been to that dentist before, to which I angrily replied that I'd been going to that dentist since I was a child. Then he started asking me if I knew if the flavor of Kool-Aid he had was good. I looked at it and saw it was Tropical Punch and told him, "yeah, it's a pretty good flavor". He explained that he didn't know much about Kool-Aid, and was very glad he'd picked a good one. He tore open the packet and poured it into a pitcher of water (which he now somehow had), but I noticed he only poured about half of it in and then set it down on the floor. As he continued apologizing for the wait, I reached down, picked up the packet, and dumped the rest into the pitcher. He then, still very apologetically, said something like, "See!? I don't even know how to make the Kool-Aid!!"

And about then I woke up.

*** ***

Just Flying

2011-11-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

*** Dreamt Nov 26-27, 2011 ***

I was flying!! Well...sortof hovering. I would get a running start, then jump up very high, and sort of just stay at the peak of my jump height, but continuing to move forward (love that inertia!). I was experimenting with different heights varying from just a few feet off the ground to the height of telephone poles. Much of my flying, actually, took place in and around power lines...this seems like a precarious place for flying, but I think I liked having something up there by me as I cruised forward in a cross-legged seated position through the air. It was a lot of fun!

I'd been flying around I-15 in Layton, so I stopped by at my friend S'ven's house (which in real life is NOT in Layton). He seemed to already know that I could fly, because he wasn't shocked at all by it. In fact, he suggested I shouldn't fly in such plain sight of the public. I agreed. This needed to be kept on the down low.

I decided the best way to keep it secret was to fly at higher altitudes. So I went outside and prepared to jump higher. I looked at the grass by my feet and jumped as high as I could. It was like being all the way zoomed-in on Google Maps, then mouse-wheeling down really quickly. I was EXTREMELY high and immediately became disoriented of where I was. I could see the Great Salt Lake, and surrounding areas of Northern Utah, but couldn't quite figure out where I'd just been and what, exactly, was directly below me. I needed to descend to a more manageable altitude. I went down, but too fast, 'cuz before I knew it I was back around the power lines again.

And then I woke up.

*** ***

(Not) My Dream Job

2011-11-26T19:00:00.000-08:00

Lately I've starting having rather vivid dreams that I remember quite well in the morning, so I'm going to blog them while it lasts.

*** Dreamt Nov 25-26, 2011 ***

I was in a parking garage, getting ready to head up to my dad's office. He was going to try to help me get a job at his company, so I was there wearing a suit and tie, ready to go. I took the elevator up to his floor which was REALLY high-up...I'm not sure how tall, exactly, the building was, but it would probably be considered a sky scraper.

When I got to the right floor, I got off the elevator and found that the interior of the building was EXTREMELY reminiscent of the 4th floor of Old Main at USU. It was rather cramped, with low ceilings and narrow corridors. I went down the hall a ways and found my father's office. I poked my head in and he had a TINY office that was just FULL of stacks of papers. I started feeling claustrophobic and nervous about being there, but he seemed happy enough to see me.

He pulled himself away from his mass of paperwork and started leading me down the hall to someone who'd be over the hiring process. At this point I was feeling extremely anxious about being there, but it didn't last long because it made me nervous enough that I woke up.

*** ***

Mission to Japan, German speaking

2011-06-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt June 20-21, 2011 ***

I had just arrived at my first area of my 2nd mission. This time I was serving in Japan. I was feeling kind of stressed, though, because since I'd been on a mission before, I didn't go to the MTC again, so I had no language training AT ALL. I met my first companion who was Elder Hiller (the same name as my first companion in the Philippines), but he looked EXACTLY like my roommate/slumlord from BkE, Thad. I told him about the language problem, and he seemed kind of surprised that I didn't even know the Japanese alphabet, so he said he'd help me. I was very excited to learn German (Yes, the language suddenly changed mid-dream) because I know several people who speak German, but as time went on, he kept putting it off and never did help me learn it.

Then I woke up.

*** ***

Tickets to The Nutcracker

2011-03-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt March 28-29, 2011 ***

My family had tickets to see The Nutcracker. As we were entering the theatre my older brother informed me that a ticket had also been purchased for a girl I know whom I really dislike. I was ANGRY. I started fuming inside and couldn't even speak. I just glared at my brother.

When we got up to our seats I found that my seat wasn't even with the rest of my family! I was even more mad. WHY would they put them in another section than them?? I took my seat and the ballet began.

The production had scarcely begun when the entire section of seats I was in started mechanically separating the seats from one another and sliding around. I hardly had time to react before I found my seat (along with several others) had been moved onto the stage and the dancers were performing around us. I was delighted! I had forgotten about that part of the ballet and I realized that my mom probably gave me that seat because it was the best in the house. I couldn't help but grin, despite feeling some waning level of anger from before.

Then I woke up.

*** ***

What's the deal?!? What is my subconscious working through?? MANY aspects of this dream are identical to those in my "Tickets to Criminal Minds" dream from earlier this month. I'm baffled at what it may symbolize, though. My family and I being separated at an event, finding out (in great anger) than someone I dislike is with my family instead of me, then finding out that where I am is better (or becomes better) than being with my family are 3 blatantly recurring elements in these dreams. I don't FEEL any separation anxiety from my family...I haven't lived at home for years. There's no one new in my family that I dislike. ...I don't know.

I welcome interpretationss!

Tickets to Criminal Minds

2011-03-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

Due to popular demand (one person told me to update my blog), the dream blogging is back!!

*** Dreamt March 6-7, 2011 ***

I was at my old high school to see some theater production. My family was also all there. I decided I'd better buy my ticket so I fought through some crowds and bought a ticket to whatever the show was.

I then went over to my family and they were acting quite put off that I'd decided to buy my own ticket instead of using the ticket they'd bought for me and sitting with them. But I didn't KNOW they'd bought me a ticket, so I was irked at them for not having told me. We all went in and found our respective seats. Mine was in the very back of the theater in the balcony. I looked down and could see my family was on the main floor MUCH closer to the stage than I was. As I looked, they all turned around and saw me and waved, and I noticed that a girl I know whom I really dislike was sitting with them, presumably using the ticket that had been meant for me. I was VERY annoyed.

Somehow something happened, though, that upgraded my ticket so suddenly I was being moved to the front row of the theater. I couldn't complain.

Then everything changed.

I was a member of the FBI Behavior Analysis Unit from the TV show "Criminal Minds". Agents Morgan, Prentiss, Reid, and I were in the Johansen home (the home of one of my childhood friends). We were discussing a case and Dr. Reid spouted off some random fact and then left the room. The 3 of us still in the room laughed and started commenting on how amazing it was that Dr. Reid knows so much stuff. Then he came back in the room, feelings obviously hurt, and said something to the effect of, "I'm just in the next room; I can hear you making fun of me." He then went back to the other room, leaving the 3 of us in stunned silence.

I followed him and tried to explain, "Spence, you know the only reason we say stuff like that is because you're our favorite!" He didn't seem to buy it. I thought a moment, then tried again, "Okay, you AND J.J. are our favorites!". For some reason that convinced him I was telling the truth, so he smiled and shrugged and all was well.

Then I woke up.

*** ***

Be the Ghandi!

2010-11-08T19:00:00.000-08:00

*** Dreamt Nov 7-8, 2010 ***

I was at a fancy beachhouse/resort with a lot of other people, and people kept getting killed. We were all quite disturbed by the number of people in our party who were getting killed or maimed, but none of us could figure out who was doing it.

We - as scary movies will teach you is the proper response to a series of killings - decided to split up into small groups to try to catch the murder. Part of the problem was that the resort place we were at was really difficult to get from Point A to Point B, even if you could easily SEE Point B from Point A. There were lots of big windows and locked glass doors, so we'd see a location and decide to go there, but to get there we'd have to do lots of backtracking and go sortof "the long way" if we wanted to make it there.

That's when I saw them! A pair of blue, furry, humanoid creatures (not entirely unlike Sully from Monsters Inc.). I knew that they were responsible for the murders and they had to be caught, but I couldn't get to them! I'd see them through a window or a locked glass door, but by the time I'd get there they'd have moved to somewhere else that I could still see them, but was entirely inaccessable from my current location.

As I and the couple of people with me chased them we continued to find a trail of carnage they'd left. The most frustrating thing was that it seemed like the injured or dead people we'd find had been attacked just SECONDS before we got there...we couldn't figure out how they were avoiding us. Finally, we were pretty sure they'd gone into one particular room, so one of the people in my group reach for the door, and when he opened it we found another person there who'd just BARELY been stabbed, but there was no sign of the blue creatures and nowhere they could have gone. Suddenly something I'd seen moments before but hadn't really NOTICED caught my attention, I decided to rewind to just before we'd entered the room (I didn't realize I was dreaming but definitely made a decision to rewind...it was like I was watching a movie). After rewinding I watched extremely closely as the guy with me opened the door and I saw that without knowing it, he had stuck a knife through the space between the door & frame right as he was opening the door. He had unknowingly been the one to stab the person in the room RIGHT before we went in.

Suddenly it all made sense to me. The blue creatures were making us see things that weren't real & do things that we didn't know we were doing. I gathered everyone together and told them what was happening. We all agreed that we wouldn't attack each other and that even if it LOOKED like someone was going to attack you, to just ignore it, because it was the creatures making us hallucinate things. We adopted the motto, "Be the Ghandi", meaning to be passive even if you were going to be attacked. We said our little motto several times to ensure everybody remembered it, and when people started to doubt we'd remind them to be the Ghandi, and they'd immediately calm down.

I seem to have a vague memory of seeing (or maybe just imagining) the creatures looking very disappointed that we were no longer playing their little game.

Then I woke up.

*** ***

World of Warcraft Trunk

2010-11-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt Nov 1-2, 2010 ***

I was at the childhood home of my friend Core-Y, and when I looked East up the road I saw a small blue pick-up truck heading in our direction.

When it got closer I saw that the truck was completely decorated with "World of Warcraft" paraphanelia. This included a banner on the side of the truck, streamers, and boxes of the Collector's Editions of the various expansion packs that have come out for the game.

At about this point I realized that the truck wasn't "driving" at all...it was sort of jumping down the road. Not understanding how this was possible I bend down so I could see under the truck, and there was my brother Nick, dressed from head to toe like a Dwarf, carrying the World of Warcraft truck on his back, jumping down the road.

I hollared to him, "Nick! What are you doing?!" As a reply I heard a sort of crazy laugh come from under the truck and he continued jumping down the road.

As I turned away I said, "Man, he must REALLY want to play that game."

Then I woke up.

*** ***

Biking & The Spa

2010-09-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt Sept 11-12, 2010 ***

I was at some sort of Spa where everybody was SUPER snotty. It was one of these super-ritzy all-inclusive places where you'd stay for an extended period of times (at least days) and in addition to massages & mud baths & those type of spa-activities, they made you exercise and they managed your meals and stuff.

A big group of people and I were going to a lower level to sit in a sauna or something, and the people up ahead of me were saying super obnoxious, irritating stuff (I don't remember what they were saying specifically, I just remember being super bugged). So I decided I needed to get out of there and get a pizza.

The next thing I knew I was on my bicycle, riding in the neighborhoods surrounding the Clearfield Amphitheatre. I knew I didn't have much time before they noticed I was missing at the spa so I was trying to hurry back. I came around a big curvy hill and there was another guy on a very small bicycle. As I went to pass him he somehow hooked his arm around my front tire and WOULD NOT let me pass. I was sortof trying to kick him off, when he finally let go and turned into a driveway at his house.

I stopped for a minute and looked back, and then thought, "whatever, he's not worth getting into something with." So I started to pedal away when he shouted something to the effect of, "What, aren't you man enough to face me?" I stopped again and looked back, shocked. He wasn't looking at me, but I knew he was talking to me. He was raveling up a hose in his yard and kept goading me with more remarks like that. I noticed that he had two good-sized dogs in his yard, and I was pretty sure that's what'd given him the courage to shout at me. I didn't know what to do...I was torn between just leaving and going over there to yell back, but face the potentially dangerous dogs.

About then I woke up.

*** ***

Baseball & The Bride

2010-09-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt Sept 7-8, 2010 ***

I was playing baseball in some sort of an organized league. Not as organized as a city league...more like an inter-office league or something like that. I noticed that although we had a full team of 9 players, our opponents only had 4 - a pitcher, 2 basemen, and an outfielder. I figured they just couldn't get enough people together, so this should be an easy win.

I went to bat, but instead of using a traditional bat, I was using a huge (at least 6 or 8 feet long) tree branch that had lots of small twigs and branches coming off of it. I found it was surprising easy to swing considering its size, but I still missed the first couple of pitches. On the 3rd pitch I hit a grounder and ran to first base.

When I got to 1st, I found there were 2 privacy screens setup, creating a "V" right next to the base. The way the "V" was angled, though, it provided privacy from the other bases and outfield, but you could easily see into it from 1st. Standing there in the shade of the privacy screens was a girl I didn't recognize dressed in a bridal gown. I think she'd just had her picture taken, or was getting ready to have it taken.

I'm quite certain that she was somehow part of the game...I think she may have been on my team and had already gone to bat before me.

About then I woke up.

*** ***

I told this dream to my friend at work who had a degree in Psychology. His initial interpretation was "If you ever wanna make it to 1st base, you've gotta get married!"

This interpretation made me laugh out loud, but I pointed out to him that "first base" is just kissing, and I've - shockingly enough - done that before.

He replied, "Oh yeah..." and began a dream interpretation research mission. His research into dream interpretation yielded the following elements:
1 - Being at a baseball game represents contentment and peace of mind.
2 - PLAYING in a baseball game represents the desire to set and achieve goals and can mean that the dreamer feels a need to stop goofing around and focus on goals.
3 - A tree branch represents growth, new life, or relationships.
4 - Shades signify something secret or hidden.
5 - The presence of a bride often signifies purity, but can also (more obviously) signify a partnership or spouse.

My co-worker's final interpretation: I'm pretty satisfied with my life as is, but I need to stop "playing the game" and get married, but I don't know who I need to marry.

Mitch...err...Marty!

2010-09-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt Sept 5-6, 2010 ***

I was with my friends Chad and Mitch and the 3 of us were riding our bicycles through some neighborhoods. When we got to wherever we were going we went inside and found ourselves in a big rec-room with lots of tables set up and lots of doors around leading to side rooms. The place was filled with some pretty shady-looking guys. I was pretty sure that this might be a gang club or something. Then I remembered that we were there for part of Chad's community service that he had to do, and that this place was some sort of correctional facility.

While we were there Chad decided he should get a tattoo. I tried to tell him it was a bad idea, but he'd gone off into a side room to get his tattoo before I could stop him.

Mitch and I decided that we needed to find Chad and get out of there, so we found him and told him we needed to take off, when suddenly Mitch was gone. Chad and I started looking all over for him, but suddenly it wasn't Mitch we were looking for, it was "Marty". I have no idea who this "Marty" is, but in my dream we needed to find him.

The facility didn't seem very big when we were coming in, but now that we were leaving it was gigantic. We decided figured if we headed for the door that we were bound to find Marty somewhere along the way. We asked people as we went through the various rooms on our way out, and everybody kept pointing in the direction of the exit.

When we finally got to the exit there we found Marty along with his wife and two kids. His wife was wearing a police uniform and looked EXACTLY like Marty except with long hair. Also his two kids looked EXACTLY like small versions of Marty.

We left the place and it was me, Chad, and Mitch again. They were on bicycles and I was walking. We'd made it about half way home when I realized something was wrong and asked, "Wait a minute...didn't I have a bike earlier??"

Chad replied, "Aw shi---!!"

The three of us turned around and started heading back so I could get my bike, and then I woke up.

***

Vampire Sea Food

2010-09-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt Sept 3-4, 2010 ***

This dream starred Milla Jovovich playing the character "Alice" from the Resident Evil films. The only difference was in that in this dream she was also a vampire. Somehow a group of people who wanted to kill her trapped her underwater in the ocean. She was in the remains of a sunken ship and in addition to the people on the surface trying to kill her by shining sunshine (I don't know how!!) into the water at her, there was a huge school of eel-sharks circling the sunken ship.

She was able to stay underwater without breathing by periodically taking a bite out of a passing eel-shark, but she had to be careful, because if she got too close they would try to bite her.

She somehow made it out of the ocean and was walking down the street when a group of creepy zombie kids came after her. They'd been sent by the same people who tried to kill her in the ocean. She somehow had the ability, however, to turn them to be on her side, so suddenly instead of coming after her, they were now walking with her.

Then I woke up.

*** ***

This was a rather cinematic dream, which I can only assume was created in response to the number of commercials I've seen lately for "Resident Evil Afterlife" and "Piranha 3D".

It was kindof odd that I wasn't in the dream at all. At one point when she was taking bites out of passing eel-sharks I saw a Point-of-View shot through her eyes, but never was I a participant in the dream.

"Nazis in the Morning"

2010-09-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt Sept 2-3, 2010 ***

I was one of the newest member of Cirque Du Soleil. We went through several of the routines in my dream, although now I can't remember what they were.

After we were done with practice I went over to Amy Porter who was also a member of the Cirque Du Soleil troop. I told her how exciting this all was and she told me that her favorite of all the routines was the "Nazis in the Morning" routine. The routine consisted of a lot of girl acrobats jumping on a trampoline VERY high up between two steel girders which crossed at one end to make a lying-down "V" shape. The girls would spring up between the girders, then turn to be horizontal so on their way back down they'd actually land across the "V" with their hands on one girder and their feet on the other. For the first few girls this was fairly simple, but the later girls had quite a chasm (the first girls stayed in place across the "V", so the later girls had to be further away from where the girders crossed) to stretch across. The last girl literally caught the "V" with her toes and fingertips. The routine was called "Nazis in the Morning" because during the routine there was a song playing that had the lyrics "Nazis in the Morning".

Then I woke up. I immediately went over to Amy to tell her about that dream. She thought it was weird that I'd had a dream with her in it.

Then I woke up AGAIN. For real, this time.

***

Dreams within dreams are so nuts!! It's so bizarre to have the double wake-up thing happen.

Amy (who was in the musical "State Fair" with me last year) made an appearance, I'm certain, because the day before I'd noticed that she'd sent me a facebook friend request. The rest of the dream, though, was just bizarre.

It's funny about the "Nazis..." song, in my dream I could hear the song and it had a real melody and I could sing along with it, but there's no way I can remember how the song went now.

Of Automotive Executives and Convenience Stores...

2010-08-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt August 29-30, 2010 ***

My dream kept bouncing back and forth between 2 primary scenarios...

Scenario 1: The Board Meeting
I was the chairman of the board of some large, unnamed, automobile company. The board consisted of 10 or 12 members including our family friend Rachel; no one else on the board was recognizable. Our meeting was held around a large oval table in the middle of a small parking lot. In the stalls of the parking lot were prototypes of new cars, which all looked remarkably like Porsche 911s. They were all black & white and had crash test decals all over them. These were our new concept cars and we needed 12 of them, but we were short and everybody on the board was panicking about it.

Scenario 2: The Convenience Store
I was in a big hurry to go somewhere, but needed to pick something up from a 7-11/Maverick-like store. As I was in the store, hurriedly looking around for whatever item it was I needed, I noted that there wasn't a line at the register, so even though I was in a hurry, I wasn't TOO stressed. I don't really know what it was that I needed...I DO remember seeing a big bottle of what looked like hand sanitizer and was tempted to get it. As I stared at the bottle, I noticed a couple of people get in line at the register. I hurried moved to get in line (although I'm not sure I actually had any items), but as I move there, EVERYONE else in the store finished their shopping and got to the line before me, so I ended up being at the back of a line of at least 8 or 10 people.

The majority of my dream seemed to bounce between these 2 settings.

I also remember a glimpse of a 3rd scenario as well...I was in the field behind my parents house with some friends. I think we were going to set up tents and camp back there. That's all I remember about that one.

The last bit of my dream was in the board meeting scenario, we had ALMOST gotten the last of our prototype cars and I was pointing out to somebody that even though these cars were prototypes, that they were pretty cool looking. As I said this, I somehow picked up the car...as I reached for it it had somehow shrunk, because now it was just a model of car about the side of my hand.

Then I woke up.

*** ***

Memories of Childhood

2010-08-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt August 25-26, 2010 ***

Initially in my dream my family was going to Sacrament Meeting at church, only it was night time. I also started to feel like we'd just gone to church, so I didn't know why we were going again. I then remembered that recently the church had changed it's meeting schedule so on Saturday you'd go to Sunday School & Priesthood/Relief Society, then on Sunday night you'd go to Sacrament Meeting.

Then everything in my dream changed.

I was with my family at some sort of party/reunion in Clearfield - the city I lived in until I was 5. The event was being held outdoors and there were lots of canopies set-up over picnic tables and sandboxes. ...There were a surprising number of sandboxes.

While there I ran into Kimberly, my best friend when we lived in Clearfield. We were happy to see each other and started swapping stories about the old days.

Also there was Kimberly's older sister (whom she doesn't have in real life) who looked EXACTLY like Melissa Gilbert. I attribute this to the fact that some of my few memories of my old house in Clearfield involve watching "Little House on the Prarie."

I was telling her how I'd seen her brother Casey's facebook page and how funny it was to me that he was still into the same kind of things that my brother and I are (we used to all play together when we were kids). It seemed like our mutual interests in those formative set us on a path of liking certain kinds of things, because even though we moved away from each other, we still grew up to have the same sorts of interests and hobbies. She wasn't especially interested in my theories about that so she changed the topic...

Kimberly then asked me if I remembered how to speak some language we had known when we were little (I don't remember what she called it). I told her I'd forgotten it, and she reminded me that I when I was little I used to stand in the corner and speak it, so I decided to try it. I went over to one of the sandboxes, sat in the corner and suddenly found myself able to speak this bizarre, gibberish language and only she and I could understand.

Then I woke up.

*** ***

Ted Danson was here...!

2010-08-22T11:00:00.001-07:00

*** Dreamt Aug 21-22, 2010 ***

All I can remember from this dream is that Ted Danson was in it...

UPDATE:

I remembered more from this dream! I don't remember how Ted Danson fits into this part of the dream (I think it must have been a separate part of the dream or possible a completely separate dream altogether from the same night).

I had just arrived at a KISS concert. I was there with a bunch of my friends from my hometown. The concert was being held in a weird venue...it wasn't so much of an auditorium or concert hall or anything as it was a park that had a sunken-in area. At the bottom of that sunken-in area was a stage, so people would just sit on the sides of this big dip in the middle of the park on seats that were somehow attached-to the grass (they weren't folding chairs...it was more like the plasic seats you'd find in a sports arena, but these were just sitting on the grass).

Our seats were on the front row, at the far right side of the stage. I had to leave for some reason and when I came back the concert was just beginning. I could hear the music, but I couldn't actually see the band. In fact, as far as I could see, no one was even on stage...

Then I woke up.

*** ***

Musicals, Spaceships, & Aliens! Oh my!!

2010-08-19T22:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt August 18-19, 2010 ***

I was riding a bicycle north-bound on Main Street in Clearfield when I came across Andrew - the director from the musical I was just in ("Noises Off!"). He was heading South and in his arms was a stack of scripts. He asked me if I was going to go to the Amphitheater with him to start the rehearsals of the musical "State Fair", so I said, "Uh...sure!" He gave me a script and I turned around to go with him toward the amphitheater. At about this point I became aware that I was no longer riding a bicycle, but rather a unicycle...this has nothing to do with the rest of the dream, but I took note of it in the dream so I mention it here.

As we headed there, I started to have some confusion about performing this show. "Didn't we just do this show?" I asked. "No", he said, "it was over a year ago that 'Stage Fair' was last performed here." "No", I replied, "I'm sure it was just 2 months ago that we did 'State Fair'". Of course, in all actuality he was correct, but it was still odd to be doing the same musical 2 years in a row.

When we got to the amphitheater, Dallin - the assistant stage manager and "Prop Tart" from "Noises Off!" - was already there building the set for the show. Only it wasn't the set...it was a space ship. There had been some sort of alien invasion and the remnants of the human race were escaping on massive space ships to colonize distant worlds. As I got on the ship I was directed to my chair/bed which is where I'd spend the next 2 years as we traveled to our destination. My chair/bed was sort-of propped up like a chair, but the top was a big cushion in the shape of a person lying down. I climbed onto it and lied down to try it out...it was actually pretty comfortable.

Suddenly we were at our destination...some distant world to colonize. Apparently the hibernation took affect as soon as you got on the chair/bed, so I completely missed the whole journey.

Another guy on the ship called me over to show me something he'd discovered. He'd found an old iomega Jazz drive and was having it read a Jazz disc. I told him that was cool, and he said, "wait! watch THIS..." He then took out the Jazz disc and put in a CD. Before my eyes the Jazz drive evolved into a CD drive and started playing the CD. I had no idea how this was possible. Then he said something about how much stress it is being the leader of our people and suddenly the Jazz/CD drive attacked us. Its cord wrapped around my neck and the body of the drive was snapping at him. I knew what was happening...this drive was a computer-hybrid Zerg; the very alien race that we'd been fleeing from when we left Earth. This little robot zergling was lying in wait until it discovered who our leader was, then attacked him.

I was able to keep my fingers between the cord and my throat so as to keep it from choking me, and I backed-up enough that it couldn't quite reach our leader-guy, but it was struggling hard. It was about then that I woke up.

*** ***

Paralyzed!! ...well, sortof

2010-08-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt August 15-16, 2010 ***

I was at my parent's Stake Center just sortof wandering around. I could hear what sounded like a big group of people in the cultural hall, so I made my way to it. When I peered in, I was no longer at the Stake Center. I was at a school. I think it may have been my Junior High School. There was an assembly going on in the lunchroom (which is what I was now peering into), and I realized that I was supposed to be in there. I kinda felt self conscious about being out in the hall instead of in where I was supposed to be, so I ducked back around the door.

The principal came out and said, "Ah! There you are!! We're ready for you!" I remembered that I was there to be an inspirational speaker at this assembly. Several years prior I had severely rolled my ankle and from that time had been paralyzed from the ankle down, so I was there to tell the kids my story and how I never let it get me down and all that stuff that people with actual infirmities do when they are motivational speakers.

As I started to hobble up onto the stage I felt an odd tingling in my foot. I realized that after all these years I was re-gaining feeling in my paralyzed foot!! I wasn't happy about it, though, I was torn about what I should do. Should I go on and give my motivational speech as though my foot were still paralyzed? Or should I apologize and just leave?? I didn't know what to say. Happily, I woke up.

*** ***

Isang Chorus Line

2010-08-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt August 14-15, 2010 ***

I was in auditions for the musical play "A Chorus Line". The director came out and was angry about how messy the stage had become during auditions, so I quickly grabbed a towel I'd left on stage and ran it over to my little Nipa Hut...we were now in the Philippines.

When I came back the stage was entirely made of bamboo just as the floor of Nipa Huts are, and the director started counting off for us to do the rehearsal dance number. I was sure I'd JUST known the steps, but suddenly I couldn't remember any of them. One of the other people auditioning started to show me the steps again, but then I woke up.

*** ***

Doors!

2010-08-14T19:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt August 12-13 AND 13-14, 2010 ***

I was in my bedroom and I could hear the play "Noises Off!" being performed out in the hall. My bedroom door was repeatedly being opened and closed (there's lots of door opening and closing during the play) when suddenly there was silence. I knew it wasn't my turn to go out yet, but I also knew that everybody thought it was. I was very frustrated, because I didn't want to go out early, but I couldn't let the silence go on, so to get things moving along I went out through the door, then turned right around and slammed it again.

I continued to listen to the play go on and hear my bedroom door opening and closing until I woke up.

*** ***

This dream happened two days in a row, starting the night of our preview performance of "Noises Off" and then again on opening night. It was kindof stressful.

A Chorus Line: Home Edition

2010-04-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt April 11-12, 2010 ***

At the beginning of my dream I was talking to Wolfgang Petersen - the director of the film "The Neverending Story". He was telling me about the filming of "The Neverending Story" and how he built up a camaraderie among the cast members and was showing some film he shot of Barret Oliver and Tami Stronach at a park one day, sitting under a tree, laughing and talking.

Suddenly everything changed.

A bunch of my friends and I were performing the musical "A Chorus Line" in the basement of my parents' house. It really wasn't much a show, per se. It really was just a bunch of us sitting around, doing "A Chorus Line" karaoke while a bunch of people sat around and listened to us. I was incredibly impatient as I waited for my big number to come up.

Suddenly it was my turn. I took the microphone and prepared as my song started. ...It was "Dance 10 Looks 3". Now, anybody who knows anything about "A Chorus Line" knows that this song doesn't even make SENSE sung by a dude, but for some reason that was what I was performing. Unfortunately despite my impatience to perform, I'd neglected learning any of my lines, so I was just sort-of mumbling along with it.

Then the karaoke started to get all choppy and quiet. After a few moments we realized what was happening...the Artificial Intelligence unit living in the computer we were using for a karaoke machine was angry that her favorite human wasn't interacting with her. It was pretty annoying, although it really saved me from my horrible performance.

We found the person that the A.I. unit wanted and settled it down. Then we continued the show with another guy singing "No One Fears The Wicked" (from the musical "Wicked") but to the music of some song from "A Chorus Line". For this song, though, the karaoke still wasn't working, so I had to grab my roll-out electric piano and accompany him.

At some point during the number I started to become more lucid and I realized that this song was from the wrong show, and I realized that I don't know how to even play that song...

Then I woke up.

*** *** ***

No One Expects The Korean Inquisition!!!

2010-04-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt April 10-11, 2010 ***

I woke up to find myself in a large room I'd never been in before...it was somewhat reminscent of the kinda of large, technology-filled, possibly built in a volcano type structure that that Bond villians are so fond of keeping as their secret lairs.

A quick glance around the room showed me who my captor was: Kim Jong Il.

I had a few moments of panic, considering I'd just been taken captive by this diminutive leader of communist North Korea, but then he was actually quite a nice little fellow. He offered me some food, and quite courteously began asking me questions about our government's secrets.

I'm not really sure what led him to believe that I might KNOW any of our government's secrets, but that's why I was there.

About then I woke up.

*** *** ***

Lowering the Bar...

2010-03-31T01:19:00.000-07:00

Was watching "Chopped" on The Food Network...think of "Elimidate", but instead of a dude booting one of 4 original girls each round, it's 3 culunary experts dropping one of 4 chefs each round.

During the judging of Round 1 the judges were disappointed that 3 of the 4 chefs under-cooked their chicken dish, and said that as a result the one chef who fully-cooked his, pretty much won the round by default. Judge Geoffrey Zakarian said, "The other 3 just lowered the bar so far that he shimmied under it without a problem."

...WHAT?!? They LOWERED it so far that it was easy for him to go UNDER it?!? "Raising or Lowering the Bar" is a reference to the sport of High Jump...NOT THE LIMBO!!!

Immortalized on Film

2010-02-23T18:00:00.000-08:00

*** Dreamt Feb 22-23, 2010 ***

I was in a movie theatre watching a movie about some character who had died and turned into a white wyvern. The wyvern was incredible looking; it was pure white, had a serpent body, and silk-like wings that went down the length of its body. It flew constantly, but felt incredibly alone because it was the only one of its kind. Then the wyvern's (still human) mother died and was turned into a unicorn. The wyvern saw this happen but before he could do anything the the unicorn took flight (a la Santa's reindeer) and headed off in the direction opposite of where the wyvern was.

The wyvern flew with all its might and finally caught up with the unicorn. The two were incredibly happy to be reunited as mythical beasts and flew off together.

It was at about this point that I suddenly came to the realization that this movie was about my death and what happened to me after I died because I was, in fact, dead. I suddenly NEEDED other people to see the movie about my death!

I was with my friend Haden (who had already seen the movie) and we rushed to his parents' house to tell them that they needed to come with us to go see this movie now because it was just so incredible. His parents had heard that one of my parents' children had recently been killed and they (correctly) presumed it was me, so when they saw me they were kindof shocked, but I played it off cool and they started assuming that it must have been older brother who died.

We went back to the theatre with Haden's parent in tow and started watching the movie again. This time I got to see the first of it, which is what explained how I died. Turns out I was at a movie theatre, walking into the theatre where the movie I was going to see was playing, when a lunatic came around the corner with a sythe and killed me with one fell swoop of his weapon. It was quite scary to see, and my perspective kept switching between 1st and 3rd person, so I'd see him coming at me with the sythe, then I'd see myself backing away from him.

Right about then I leaned over to tell the people I was with that "it gets REALLY good after this part". Then I woke up.

*** *** ***

I'd say at least 1 in 10 of my dreams (bear in mind that not all of my dreams are blogged) takes place, at least in part, in a movie theatre. Not sure why that's such a common locale in my dreams...I don't see movies in the theatre all that often.

So my interpretation of the dream is that I'm a lonely, miserable, old man who's afraid he'll be utterly forgotten about when he dies. ...How's that for accepting the grim reality, eh?!

You know...Colt.

2010-02-19T13:47:00.000-08:00

*** Dreamt Feb 14-15, 2010 ***
I was at Butterknifes Estates and we were all downstairs having a little party. We decided to play Mafia, but instead of normal Mafia with the ordinary roles (Mafia, detective, etc..) we were going to play Monty Python Mafia, where all the roles were based on characters from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".

We went around the room, drawing our roles from a hat and when I got my slip of paper I saw I was supposed to be "Colt". I was confused. I thought these were supposed to be characters from The Holy Grail...I've seen that movie at least a dozen times...who is 'Colt'???

So of course I asked someone, to which they replied, "You know...Colt." He could apparently see from my expression that I didn't know, so he pantomimed Colt for me by doing a little dance and singing in a high-pitched voice "Heeey, I'm Coooolt....". I had no idea what was going on.

My old high school drama teacher was sudden amongst the party guests and started laughing at me and said, "Geez, I thought you knew that movie!" I was so confused!! I DO know that movie!! I demanded access to a computer and immediately looked it up on IMDB. Sure enough, there was the character Colt, but turns out he was a character in a DIFFERENT Monty Python movie!! I felt super vindicated and woke up.

*** ***

Odd Man Out

2010-01-11T20:17:00.000-08:00

*** Dreamt January 9-10, 2010 ***

I was at a Singles Ward activity that had been planned by my former roommate, and Butterknife Estates Slumlord, Thad. Here was the activity: We were going to take a flight to California, and make-out with a random person the whole way. Yes, it was a ward-sponsored NCMO trip to California. We were still at the church, though, partners for the make-out session needed to be picked. Thad was in charge and the way he organized it was that it was going to work like a white-elephant present exchange, where a girl in the ward got to pick a guy, then the next girl could either pick an un-picked guy, or steal a guy from somebody else, but a guy could only be stolen 3 times, then he was stuck with that girl. The real rub was there was less girls than guys, so at the end there'd be some guys left who had to just go home. And you guessed it, when it was all over I was left behind. One of the girls told me, "Sorry, you're kinda cute, but you just didn't really have much of a personality."

*sigh*

So I left, and then the very next day I met an incredible girl whose head at one point strangely reminded me of a bottle of hand lotion. I thought the girl was amazing, but suddenly I didn't know where she was. Her brother was with me, but before I could ask him what her name was, he choked and died.

I started going through the receipts in my wallet to see if I could find anything with her name on it and I found one on which I had hand-written the name "Vaselli". I figured that must be her. So I started looking through my phone to see if she was one of my contacts.

Then her brother came back to life. He got up off the floor and cleared his throat and started mocking me for not having just asked him what her name was. I tried to explain to him that were thought he was dead due to his not breathing and having turned blue, but he simply said that doesn't die unless his windpipe is COMPLETELY blocked, and as it was, there was still a tiny bit of air able to get through.

Then I woke up.

*** *** ***

All I have to say is: Huh?!?

Video Game Sleepovers and Blueberry Weaponry

2009-12-31T17:11:00.000-08:00

*** Dreamt Dec 28-29, 2009 ***

My brother Brandon, my friend Preston, and I were at an arcade participating in some sort of late night video game tournament. I was watching the screen and saw a player who was depicted on screen as a werewolf, and they were AMAZING...I don't recall the purpose of the game, but whatever it was, the player was demonstrating some amazing skills. Preston stepped up and logged on and dominated the player, who them stood up from the console she'd been playing from to reveal it was a girl gamer. I was impressed. But then not incredibly surprised to see her walk over to the counter and start ringing-up customers.

My brother and buddy decided we should spend the night there in the arcade. It was very late and it just seemed to, somehow, make sense.

I then started watching a documentary about a bio-chemical weapon that was used in the Vietnam War. The weapon took the form of a blueberry-flavored purple jelly that was stored in plastic squeeze tubes. The tubes were dropped from airplanes into jungle villages. The idea was that the natives would start to use the jelly as food, then the military could somehow activate the weapon-component of the jelly (it was unclear in my dream exactly how the jelly was a weapon). But as the natives started using it, they found that the jelly was immensely useful and could be turned into bread (not blueberry bread...just regular wheat bread) and other foods. It was a miracle food and would later be used to end world hunger.

Then I woke up.

*** ***

Rage only fuels my powers!!!

2009-12-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

Yes, I've not posted here in FOREVER...this is my second post this year, and the first was in January!! It's been so long, in fact, that I quite wonder if anybody even checks this site anymore. I'm forced to wonder if anyone will ever notice this or any future dreams I post about. Oh well, I've maintained (when I actually DID maintain) this blog for myself so that I can go back and remember crazy dreams I've had that I thought were interesting enough that I'd want to remember them someday, so I guess it doesn't matter if nobody else ever reads this.

*** Dreamt December 8-9, 2009 ***

I was sitting on a huge set of bleachers in a big dimly lit room. I was surrounded by current and former Clearfield High School drama students and my high school drama teacher was calling out the casting she'd deciding for an upcoming musical production she was putting on. As she was going through the list other people were walking in, some of whom when she said them, were given lead roles. When she got to me she said, "Oh, you're going to have just a tiny, bit part." I was filled with rage; I couldn't believe I'd been snubbed again. I got up, trying to contain my anger. The drama teacher could see I was mad, and called after me, but I had to get out of there. I may have picked up and thrown a chair...I can't remember.

I left the building we were in and entered a church which was right next door. As I entered I saw a mass of people sort of mingling in and out of a room and among them I saw a good childhood friend of mine who passed away a few years ago. I was in shock. I slowly walked towards him, and as I approached he noticed me and called me by name and gave me a hug. I had no words. He looked at me and said, "Oh yeah...the whole dying thing. ...Well some people will do just about anything to get out of a bad marriage, eh?" I was still in shock and couldn't speak. He then laughed and said, "Nah, just kidding. But I can't tell you what happened. Sorry."

"What?!" I finally blurted out, incredulously. "Dude, tell me what really happened!"

"I can't tell you. Sorry." He said with a shrug.

"Well, then I can't be around you," and I turned and left.

I could hear him following me, and that compounded my anger with the prior events in the day. I went outside and suddenly was Wolverine. Metal claws extended from my hands and I let the rage fill me. Just then I saw several students running from the first building, and I knew that one of them was being chased by the military. I ran to her and told her that she needed to use her telekinesis to ward off bullets, but she said she didn't know how. Lucky for us both, I was also Magneto, so I started deflecting bullets with a magnetic field I'd raised. We ran to the parking lot and I looked to see a decent-sized group of military vehicles heading our way. I went on a rampage. Generating magnetic fields I pulled helicopters from the sky, tossed trucks, and smashed tanks from afar. When it looked like I'd destroyed the last of them, I told the driver of the truck we'd climbed onto during the commotion to get moving.

Then I woke up.

*** ***

Monsters and explosions!!

2009-01-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

I had SUCH a stressful dream the other night!

*** Dreamt January 4-5, 2009 ***

I was walking around my parents' neighborhood, but it was my parent's neighborhood as it was when I was about 10 years old, so WAY fewer houses, and lots of fields. I was on the backside of the neighborhood so I couldn't see my house, but I wasn't TOO far away, when suddenly I heard a big explosion. I looked in the direction of my house and could see smoke over the rooftops. I looked down and noticed there was an electronic status board that showed a map of all the lots in our neighborhood, and there was a red flashing light on my parents' lot! That had to be bad!

I glanced behind me and noticed a firetruck, so I ran over to them and told them that my house was on fire. They started to grab their gear and ask me for details about what happened, but when I told them that I hadn't actually been there, so I hadn't personally seen the fire, they said, "Oh, well we can't go unless we're SURE there's a fire there." I didn't know what to do! My parents' house could be burning down, and these firemen wouldn't go.

Suddenly I realized why the firefighters were there. The monster. There was a gigantic monster, running across the land, killing everyone in it's path. And by "gigantic", I mean, like, the size of a skyscraper. And it's method of killing was that it would flip people up into the air, then slap them down so they hit the ground going INSANELY fast. I whipped around just in time to see it toss up the firefighters, then whap 'em down to the ground, I started to run, but it was no use. I was already flipped up into the air, and suddenly I was hit by the creature, and I tensed up as I flew toward the ground, but I didn't die. I bounced. The creature saw me and slammed me to the ground again. But again, I bounced. This sounds fun, but in my dream it was very disorienting and stressful. Basically I ended up just being violently dribbled like a basketbal by this giantatic creature.

As this continued, I woke up.

*** ***

Updates, Office Hockey, and New Extreme (well kinda) Sports

2008-12-05T11:06:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been quite a while since I've written anything on here!! I guess my daily 90-120 minute commute has made me second think frivilous time consuming activies like blogging. The new job is great, but it, coupled with the commute, has also led me to a much stricter sleep schedule. Most nights I'm in bed by 10:30pm now and up before 7:00am!! I don't know if that EVER happened at BkE!

My crazy schedule hasn't interupted my crazy dreams, however, just my writing about them. Here's a wacky one from a few nights ago...

*** Dreamt December 2-3, 2008 ***
I was playing roller-hockey with all my friends from The Office (yes, that's tv's The Office). In my dream, Jim & I were best friends and I may have actually worked at Dunder Mifflin. Anyway, we were all at this big roller rink, skating and playing hockey. Angela glared at us from the stands. Jim was REALLY good, and was telling me about the league he played on. Pam and I decided that she and I would join an adult beginners hocker league, then the following season we could join Jim's league. It seemed like a great idea, and we were all pretty psyched on it.

Then everything changed. I was the host of a television show the premise of which was that I'd go out and try new, exciting, or wacky extreme sports from around the world. The first sport I did was somewhat resemblant to ice dancing in that you and a partner of the opposite gender were on a moving skate and doing acrobatic dancing. It differed from ice dancing dramatically, however, in that you weren't on ice, you were on a long skateboard. Not only that, but while on the skateboard the guy was wearing one long snow ski, and the girl was wearing huge graphite spheroids on her feet. So this was how it worked: The couple is wearing these things and riding a skateboard together through an obstacle course, meanwhile they're doing acrobatic dancing, but the result of the footwear was that the girl had to jump or be lifted whenever the guy turned so she wouldn't be taken out by the long ski he was wearing and the ball-things on her feet made it so she could actually jump off the board and skid along on the ground and slide over obstacled and stuff. I actually tried it in my dream. It was tough.

Then I was whisked away to China to try another extreme sport: Synchonized Meditation. This sport had been popular in China for thousands of years, but only now the west was learning about it. Here's how it worked: A group of 2 or more people (usually wearing swimming suits) would lather vaseline all over themselves, then all lie in a big group on the backs RIGHT next to each other. Something about the vaseline made their mental connections more fluid. So all these people are lying right next to each other meditating, and suddenly all of them would move in perfect unison. Basically the idea was that you would mediate and become so "one" with the group, that you could sense the movements everyone else was making AS they were making them, so you could also make the movements. I was doing this episode from the Great Wall of China, and there were TONS of groups of slimely people all over the wall slinking around as groups. It was bizarre, but it was my show so I had to give it a go. Me and my host in China got all greased up and lied down side by side, but we were having a tough time getting synched up. We'd both move, but they were different movements. I guess I didn't have the knack for it.

***

Psychic Dream II

2008-11-06T06:44:00.000-08:00

I am not even making this up!!

*** Dreamt Nov 5-6, 2008 ***

I don't really remember much of my dream last night, except that at one point in my dream, I was being introduced to several people. We were standing at the edge of a field kinda out in the farmy-area of West Point (of which there's, sadly, less and less these days) and there were several people there whom I didn't know. Somebody was introducing us all to each other and the last person introduced to me was Marnette Hansen.

Marnette Hansen and I met in Mrs. Flinders' 4th grade class about a thousand years ago when we were 9. She and I were chatter-boxes and frequently got into trouble for talking in class. Anyway, although we continued to go to the same schools until we graduated high school, after elementary school we hardly ever spoke...not 'cuz we hated each other or anything (I don't think), we just hung out with different people.

Anyway, in my dream I was pretty surprised to see her and we kinda caught up a little.

***

So today I check my facebook and find that last night a friend of mine sent me 5 or 6 friend recommendations, the last of whom on the list was Marnette Hansen!!! I'm dead serious!! Now I don't believe in psychics or anything crazy like that, but isn't that weird?!? This is something that happens to me often enough that I've gotta think there's something to it...who knows what kindof energy is out there that our brain has the potential to decode? The human brain I tell ya...amazing/weird stuff.

Pyschic Dream?

2008-10-31T10:47:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt Oct 29-30, 2008 ***

I was in my house talking to my roommates in the kitchen. I decided to go to the front room to watch tv or something, and as I was headed that I way I noticed Michael (our former roommate) coming up the porch. I hadn't seen Michael in some time, so I was pretty happy to see him.

"What's up?!?", I said as he approached the door.

"Oh not much, man. I just wanted to see how that mechanic worked out.", he replied.

You see, in real life I'd spoken with him on the phone a few days prior and asked him about where to get my car door repaired, and he'd recommended a mechanic to me.

"Ya know", I said. "I haven't been able to contact him. I left him a message, but he hasn't called back." This is true, it happened in real life.

"Oh, that's weird", He replied.

Then I woke up.

***

Well last night (the day following that dream), Michael actually DID just drop by our house. It wasn't quite the same circumstances...in my dream it was light outside and in real life when he showed up it was already dark; also in my dream he was wearing a brown flannel shirt whereas in real life he was wearing his lifeguard hoodie. Still, I couldn't help but find it interesting how after not having seen Michael for at least a couple of months, that I had a dream about him dropping by and then he actually dropped by, all in the same 24-hour period.

....oooOOOOOoooo.....

Those crazy apostates...

2008-10-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a doozey of a dream from not too long ago...

*** Dreamt Oct 12-13, 2008 ***

I'd moved to the East coast, I'm thinking New Hampshire or possibly the Boston area...I think in my dream it was actually one of those two, then switched to the other. Anyway, I decided to go check out my ward there, and when I got there I found that their Sunday services were QUITE different than those to which I'd grown accustomed. We all arrived at church, and immediately people started asking me who I was and why I was there, I explained that I'd just moved from Utah, but that I was LDS, so it was okay...I was SUPPOSED to be there. They seemed a bit concerned about me being there, but I WAS, after all, LDS, so they let me be, but they all kept staring at me with worried looks on their faces.

We were all suddenly on a huge wooden boat. An ark, really. I lazily walked around while people stared at me cautiously. Every now and then I'd open a door to see what was inside, and more often than not there were several people in long robes and pointy hands, who'd notice me and then shout, "No no no! Get out!" at me.

Eventually we landed at our destination, which looked like a really big, stone, oil platform. People formed lines and we filed out towards illuminated kiosks in the stone. When you made it to the front of the line, you'd put your name in a little glass tube, put that tube into a drop box, then slide the drop box into the big structure...after a few moments, the drop box would re-open, and have on it 2 numbers. The numbers showed you when you'd be resurrected...the first number was the day of the resurrection, and the second was the order on that day. My number was "6 23", which meant that I'd be the 23rd person resurrected on the 6th day of the resurrection.

At about this point I realized what was going on here; these Latter Day Saints were following the principles taught in D&C Section 42, which had been deemed not doctrine was NOT to be followed.

Something needed to be done.

I called my home ward and asked for assistance, explaining the Section 42 situation. They immediately sent out Bishop Drake, a member of my parents' stake high council. It was good to see Bishop Drake, and the two of us headed back to the ark so he could see what was going on. We, again, took the ark out to the stone platform, and he agreed this was a bad situation. We walked around the ark a bit more, and came to a room where Jesus was. ...Yep.

He'd, actually, come in answer to our prayer to destroy these lost souls. I didn't actually see them destroyed, but I knew he'd done so. So we were standing there, thanking him for coming, and he was very courteous, and was saying things like, "Oh, it's nothing. That's what I'm here for." Then I decided this was a great opportunity to find out some good info, so I asked him what I needed to do to become rich. He said, "Okay, write this down...", I grabbed and pencil and paper and waited on bated breath. "www.FunkyNeonFish.com", he said to me. I wrote it down...then I looked up, confused, "really?" I asked. "Nah", he said. We all had a good laugh at his joke. Then he asked me, "Do you REALLY need to know what to do to become rich?" I thought about it, and realized I really didn't, so I said, "No...I guess I don't". He seemed satisfied with that.

We thanked him, and started to leave as he knelt down to pray. Somehow, via prayer, he was going to leave as well.

I came out of the ark and my family was all there, and we started off down the street towards an open-air mall just ahead. It was about then, that I realized I was in my underwear, which - surprisingly - didn't make me feel overly ashamed, except that there was a huge hole in the butt of them. I grabbed an 8.5"x11" piece of paper to hold behind me to cover the hole, and I decided that at the next place available, I'd buy a pair of jeans.

*** ***

For those interested, D&C 42 is DEFINITELY not a good section to not follow. It's the "Law of the Church"...spelling out the responsibilities of priesthood holders, and dictating much about how things in the church are to be carried out.

Jurassic Camp

2008-10-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

I've had several good dreams in the last few weeks that I've been delinquent on posting...I'll try to get them up here in the next few days...

*** Dreamt October 1-2, 2008 ***

I was at a scout camp. Not really sure what camp it was...one of the big scout camps where several troops are up there at a time, each for a week. It was quite late at night, and there had just been some big camp-wide meeting around a big campfire. Now that the meeting was over it was time for the individual groups to return to their respective camps.

As we headed back I noticed how well lit the whole camp seemed to be, despite the late hour. I mentioned it and another scout told me it was because of the crystals. I hadn't noticed them until just then, but suddenly I noticed that all over the camp there were these little ponds (about the size of a big swimming pool someone would have in their backyard) and right next to each pond was a tripod build from 3 tall logs lashed together at the top, upon which rested a rather huge (probably the size of a small car), blueish, glowing stone. I was very impressed by them, and understood that they were there so that people could swim in the ponds at night.

I made my way up to where my camp was, and when I got there I discovered I was at the Ray B. West building (the English department) at Utah State University. I climbed some stairs until I was on the 3rd floor, then I went over to one of the windows that faced the Quad, and to my horror I saw a 20-foot tall Tyrannosaurus Rex-like dinosaur causing mass mayhem. It was chasing students around, snapping at them, and shoving them with it's nose. At one point I was sure it was going to eat somebody, but then it just shoved him to the ground. I was scared, but rather puzzled why it wasn't eating anybody. Then I saw the baby dinosaur!! Another T-Rex-like monster, maybe 10 feet tall came into view and I realized the big one wasn't eating them, it was herding them so the baby could eat them!!

***

It was about then that I woke up. No actual blood or carnage, but still, somewhat unnerving.

Super Dream

2008-09-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt Sept 20-21, 2008 ***

I was superman. That's right, the cape-wearing, high-flying, man of steel. And I felt awful. I'd been doing a lot of thinking and had noticed that in my feats of daring-do that I'd actually created quite of bit of destruction throughout Metropolis. I was just trying to save the world, but as a side effect I'd actually caused some major problems for some people.

I flew down to this video store through which I'd recently thrown some super villain. I went in to apologize for the damage and to find out if there was anything I could do to help, but the guy went off on me. I'd actually caused so much damage that the guy couldn't pay for repairs and he'd ended up losing his business. I felt so bad.

I flew outside and rounded up some of my super buddies (spiderman and aqua man), and we decided that we were going to go around the city and try to repair anything that we'd accidentally damaged. At the top of my list was a sky scraper that I'd somehow knocked over. It was tilted considerably to one side, and was now leaning on another building. I flew over to it and started pushing it back upright. Spiderman, who was down on the ground, had attached several webs to the top of the building and was pulling to help give me some leverage....although I really doubt he was helping, I mean, c'mon, this is a BUILDING we're moving, and I was freakin' superman!

I got the building upright, and felt some sense of accomplishment. I looked down at Spidey, gave him a thumbs up and we headed of to find some more of our damage.

*** ***

This was a rather unusual dream for me, not so much because of the content of the dream, but the fact that I was somebody else. Often in my dreams I'm in situations that I've never actually (nor ever could be in)...I've been able to fly, I've been an olympian, I've been lots of stuff...but it's always been ME. In this dream I was superman; not me with the powers of superman...I was him. I'm not really sure why that stood out so much to me, but it was definitely something unusual for me to have a completely different identity in my dream.

Do you ever dream you're somebody completely else (not just you in bizarre/impossible circumstances)?

GarlickDance 2009: Silent Films

2008-09-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

The script has been selected for next years GarlickDance film festival! And the winning script "writer" was me!! Ha!! Okay...the victory isn't nearly as impressive as it sounds, because I didn't really write anything (you'll notice I put "writer" in quotes). My movies tend to be very visual and action driven...and as such the real trick for me is figuring out how I can let the characters say the lines in the script without interfering with my action. So this year I had the idea to submit a script that was blank...basically a dialogue-less script, and it won! Crazy!! Here's what I submitted as my script:

"(This is a dialogue-less script. There is to be no speaking by characters, nor other means of delivering lines as has been used in prior GarlickDance films. As per GarlickDance festival rules, a narrative prologue/postlogue is allowed, but once the film "starts" there is to be no speaking, subtitled actions, or dialogue captions. As with all GarlickDance films, background music with lyrics is allowed so long as the lyrics are not used as a means of delivering lines.)"

Several people have, in past years, complained about being forced to follow the script...this gives those people a chance to have complete freedom as directors. Well...almost complete freedom. So that there will still be a common thread through all the films, it was decided that each film is required to contain: A Duck, A Flower, and A Cutting Tool. These can appear in the films as overtly or as subtly as the directors desire...they've just gotta be in there somewhere. The idea behind having these objects is that they're fairly random, although common enough that it shouldn't be TOO hard to stick them in the films. Traditionally a big part of the GarlickDance Film Festival has been seeing how each director chose to use the same lines in different ways...hopefully these required "objects" will provide a similar How-will-this-director-use-them kinda thing.

Anyway, I'm excited to start. I laid in bed for a good hour before I fell asleep last night, thinking of ideas for dialogue-less films...no real winners yet, but something will come I'm sure.

Tribond: "The Olympics", "Baltimore", "Jodie Foster"

2008-09-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

If your guess was 3 things featured in my dream Sunday night, then you get a point!!

*** Dreamt Aug 31-Sept 1, 2008 ***

I was in Logan at the huge new Olympic speed speed-skating venue with my parents. We had pretty amazing seats and were having a great time watching the skaters cruise around the rink as they strove to make it to the finals. As the night started to wind down, my parents started discussing whether they were going to go back to West Point or if they should just go to Baltimore, Maryland.

I asked what was in Baltimore, and my mom pulled out his huge genealogy poster she and my aunt had been working on. I didn't know how to read it, 'cuz it wasn't really a pedigree chart...more like a big table with names in the column and row headings, and smiley-face stickers in several of the squares. Apparently my mom had found some long-lost relatives that now lived in Maryland, so she wanted to go visit them.

As this discussion was happening, Jodie Foster showed up. She came and sat right next to me. She was very nice and was talking to EVERYBODY around us. I really wanted to take a picture to prove I'd seen her, but all I had was my cell phone camera and I was embarrassed to take of picture of her with it. So I set the phone on my lap like I was texting and kept trying to take stealthy pictures of her, but none of them turned out. Sorry. :(

*** ***

"Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit..."

2008-09-03T12:25:00.000-07:00

*** Toned-Down on September 4, 2008 ***

Undoubtedly by publishing this I'm just opening up a can of worms, however, this is my soap box to the world, so I feel it necessary to vent.

My roommate Thad invented this game called "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit". In a devious act to back up the claims made in his game, he then wrote a wikipedia page about it, so that he could say he didn't invent it. In a stroke of pure genius he changed some of the rules on the wiki page from his own rules, so it appears that he plays a variation of the "original" version.

The basic idea is that if you can convey the phrase "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit..." to a person on the first day of the month before they have a chance to say it to you, you have successfully stolen their luck for the month.

You may be surprised to hear that Thad doing this to me doesn't annoy me...although I'm sure you won't be to learn that something else does!! "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit" is one of the bizarre little Thadisms that I've come to know in my tenure as one of his roommates. When he does it to me, it's almost endearing, 'cuz he's such a strange little fellow from time to time. When other people do it to me, however, it kind of makes me want to KILL PEOPLE.

When Thad 'Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit's me I think, "GAH!! He got me again!!" When other people do it to me I think, "This isn't my game!! What's wrong with you? You're supposed to get Thad!". When Thad gets me, I don't try to get my other roommates who aren't around...I warn them and advise them to get Thad before he can get them.

To be honest, what annoys me isn't the game or that others are using this Thadism against me...it's that they think that they "got me", that they somehow beat me to the punch and out-smarted me. The truth of the matter is that I couldn't care LESS about getting them. The only person I care to 'get' is the originator Thad

Now I'm sure I just offended several people, because several people did it to me this month whom I KNOW read my blog now and then...although ALL of them got me HOURS after Thad did, I might add, at which point I could have text messaged all of them and got them WAY before they "got me", but I don't WANT to get them!! GAAHHHHH!!!!!

Okay. I've said my peace. I'm sure that several readers of this will, out of spite, "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit" me next month. And once again I'll be incredibly annoyed and be forced to verbally abuse them to myself.

Let's Talk Radio

2008-08-14T10:42:00.000-07:00

I love talk radio. No wait, I hate talk radio. Okay...I kinda love to hate talk radio.

Traditionally my car radio has 3 stations programmed into it: x96.3fm KXRK "Live, Local, Alternative", Arrow 103.5fm KRSP "Utah's Classic Hits", & 94.1fm KODJ "Good Times, Great Oldies". This gives me the mix of "Radio From Hell with Kerry, Bill, & Gina" in the mornings, then alternative rock and Beatles when I need it during the rest of the day. I also try to keep the local NPR (National Public Radio) station close at hand to listen to "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" and "Car Talk" on the weekends, as well as "All Things Considered" in the evenings sometimes.

Recently, however, after my morning drive to work (during which I still listen to Kerry, Bill, & Gina), I've been changing the station to KVNU 610am Talk Radio. Notably this station plays "Rush Limbaugh", "Dr. Laura", "KVNU: For The People", "Sean Hannity", and "Coast to Coast Live". Luckily I don't listen to the radio much, because I don't think I could stand any of the people on these programs, but in moderation I'm actually quite entertained.

"Rush Limbaugh" - Super obnoxious, and yet if I'm just running an errand and his program's on, I usually listen. He's actually pretty funny.

"Dr. Laura" - HATE HER. Hate her stupid callers. This is how the program works: 1)Someone calls up and tells Dr. Laura how wonderful she is and how grateful they are to be speaking with her, 2) They tell Dr. Laura their problem, 3) Dr. Laura tells them they're an idiot, 4) the caller gets all quiet and sortof offended, 5) Dr. Laura says something like "I'm sorry, but..." then calls them an idiot again, 6) the caller thanks Dr. Laura for her "help". EVERY SINGLE CALL GOES LIKE THIS!!! ...And yet, I can't help but listen to the show and yell at all of them for being morons as though they could hear me.

"KVNU: For The People" - Two under-informed guys from Logan rant about stuff they don't understand. Occasionally they make good points, but more often than not they read a headline from the newspaper and jump to conclusions. I couldn't stand these guys if I had to listen to them for more than the 5 minutes it takes for me to drive home from work.

"Sean Hannity" - I try not to listen to him. Ever. All the obnoxiousness from Rush but with none of the humor. When this comes on I usually check NPR.

"Coast to Coast Live" - The best radio program EVER. Unfortunately this program is on way late at night, so I usually only hear it when I'm driving to or from Logan at night. Have you ever listened to it? If you enjoy listening to the rantings of crazy people, this is the show for you!! The show is done very professionally and unbiased, which is quit amazing considering the topics they cover. My personal favorite show was when they had a guy on talking about how mankind was created by aliens to mine gold for them, but then we revolted, and most things in the bible are actually events having to do with these aliens (the Tower of Bable, for example, which was actually a launching pad for inter-planetary space ships). Other good episodes have dealt with hauntings, Men In Black, Mothman sightings, and how robots will one day become self aware and wipe out humankind. The show's completely ridiculous, and I love it. Whenever I need to drive long distances, I try to do it late at night so I can listen to "Coast To Coast Live" while I'm on the road.

So Talk Radio...love it? Hate it? ...thoughts?

What a croc...

2008-08-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

Being an avid fan of the Olympic Games, I've spent considerable time the last few days watching various coverage of the Olympics in Beijing.

The best moment so far: The men's 4x100m freestyle swimming relay!! Holy cow!!! If you missed it, I'm so sorry!! If you saw it and didn't jump up screaming as it finished, you're probably a terrible person. It was incredible!! I saw a replay of it this morning on the Today Show and got goose bumps all over again...so amazing!

The worst moment so far: The commercials! What is wrong with advertisers these days?!? Okay so there are a couple of good ones, but so many of them are SO awful!!

This blog isn't so much about a bad commercial, but about a bad product for which I don't ever recall having seen a commercial until this weekend: Crocs.

Why, people?! WHY?!? Alright, calling them a "bad product" may be harsh. I mean, I don't consider fishing waders a bad product, but they shouldn't ever be worn, say, to the mall. That's the problem with crocs. People think it's okay to wear them outside the privacy of their homes. WHY are people wearing them outside the privacy of their homes!?!? WHYYYY?!?!?!

An actual (as close as I can remember the exact words) conversation I had a few years back with a friend about her crocs...

Jinx: "Why would you wear them out in public? They're SO goofy-looking!"
Friend: "I know, but they're so comfortable!"
Jinx: "Yeah, but slippers are 'so comfortable'...do you wear your slippers out in public?"
Friend: "No."
Jinx: "Why not?"
Friend: "Cuz it would look weird."
Jinx: "!"

Now I'm no slave of fashion! Believe you me!! I've never owned a designer anything in my life. But c'mon! When people like ME are able to point out a shoe fashion faux-pa, it's SERIOUSLY time to consider a change in footwear.

Please, wear them around the house, in the garden, even to the beach...I could see that. But people, please. They're not "cute". They're bad. So very, very bad.

Scrambled!!!

2008-07-09T23:28:00.000-07:00

If you are lkie me, then you plbbraoy rcvieee your sarhe of rnadom ealims taht ciotnan random jkeos, funny pceiutrs, or lsits of stnrgae and irtsnnetieg ftacs. One scuh eaiml taht I've seen ciaurlectd seevarl temis is the cailm taht pelpoe tend to jsut skim over wdors wlihe rdeinag, and throefree the atcual oedrr of the leertts is not vrey itpnmaort. The email cialms taht athulogh i'ts srtagne to look at, the aervage psroen can siltl read at aobut the smae rate so long as the fsrit and lsat letrtes of the wodrs raimen in pacle. Well I hvae dcedied to put taht cialm to the test.

As I am srue it is ovrely obuvois to aynone rineadg this psot, by the time I ataclluy pibuslh tihs to my blog, this etnry will hvae been scblmeard fllownoig the guiiendle taht just the fsrit and lsat ltretes need to rimean in tiher prpoer plcaes. To tset out the toehry I just sepnt aobut 10 mintues wriintg a litlte prrgoam taht tkaes a text file, sptlis up all the wdors and then scremblas the inenr letrets. I am cuerlrtny wrntiig this psot unisg natoepd, then rghit bferoe I piusblh it, I will run it trohguh my pgroarm and chcek out the retusls.

I was qiute iemsepsrd at how eailsy I was albe to raed the llitte massgee taht cmoes with taht eaiml...I wednor if it wlil be as easy to raed this, or if taht eamil csohe vrey spfeciic wodrs that it knew wloud be easy to read when sbrleamcd. Let me konw!

Summer Snowboarding

2008-07-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

This dream was really quite long, but all I remember is the ending of it...

*** Dreamt June 30 - July 1, 2008 ***

Whatever the other events in the dream were, they culminated in there being a snowboard competition that was being put-on by the University. My favorite teacher in the Computer Science Department - Dean Mathias - was doing some of the officiating, and was in charge of the event to some extent (other teachers had to keep asking him questions about what was going on and about rules and stuff).

The competition was more or less a "Best Trick" competition, except that you actually got to do several tricks on a single run. The competition was being held right outside old main where this HUGE ramp (which was FAR to big to actually fit in the QUAD in real life) had been constructed. The apparatus was made of wood and was enormously tall on each of the two sides with a huge dip in the middle that had several jumps made out of snow in it. People would start at the top and snowboard down, gaining speed until they hit a jump, at which point they'd throw some huge trick, then land and prepare for another huge jump, then eventually they'd start to slope up and they'd end up at the top of the other side (obviously friction was not a factor here).

I did my run and apparently did quite well (I don't actually remember my run) because Dean was congratulating me...it was at this point in the dream that Dean no longer looked like Dean, but instead looked like Ben Linus from Lost; this wasn't frightening or upsetting in anyway in my dream, because it was just Dean, but in retrospect it was definately Ben playing the part of Dean.

Anyway, right about then my friend Alisha Geary showed up!! We were all really relieved because we hadn't been sure if she was going to show up in time to complete, but she made it in the nick of time. As her run began, the camera angle of my dream changed to an overhead view of Alisha, so I could see her run really well, and it was INCREDIBLE!! She only hit one jump, but as she went off it she threw her head back to begin the rotation for a double backflip, she made it through the first but in the second she lost her momentum and kindof got stuck upside down. Then, defying all physics, she tucked her head and reversed the direction of her flip mid-air so she came back around and landed it cleanly. The crowd was going crazy!!

She came over to me and I said, "Holy cow, Alisha, that was awesome! I didn't think you were going to be able to recover from the second flip, but then you somehow got the board back underneath you!!" She looked just a little miffed, but still happy. Apparently my lack of confidence in her being able to pull out the second flip was the wrong thing to have told her. We went over to Ben-Dean and the other judges to see how they were going to rank her, but they decided that since she was school faculty that she couldn't rightfully be in the competition. They then decided instead to instate her as a judge to represent the city of West Point (my home town).

*** *** ***

A Whacked Dream

2008-06-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt June 15-16, 2008 ***

I was at this REALLY tiny shack that was located near the field behind my grandparents house. Inside the shack everything was black, white, and gray. The interior consisted of a small bedroom with a rather large, comfy-looking, white bed in it that pretty much filled the entire room, and a hall that had a closet at one end and a swinging door that led to a kitchen at the other. This was being used as the set of "Fear Tactics"....which was knock off of "Scare Tactics" (For those unaware, "Scare Tactics" was his terribly evil show on the Sci-Fi Channel where they would just scare the crap out of the people....think of "TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes", but instead of funny pranks, they would make the target of the gag think he/she was witnessing an alien landing or a haunting or other freaky stuff....I think the show got sued by several of the people they'd punk'd so they ended up getting pulled off the air). Anyway, I was in the crew of this show, but I wanted to try it out anyway to see how it would feel if I were the victim of the prank.

The prank we were going to pull was the person would walk down the hall towards the kitchen area, then somebody would emerge from the kitchen area wielding a knife and come at them. (Yes, our prank - apparently - was to make the person think they were about to be MURDERED! ...can you smell a law-suit on this one?). So I did it...I walked down the hall, and right as I got to the kitchen door it swung open and there was Johnny Depp with a huge cleaver. I was freaked! I backed away as quickly as I could until I got to the closet at the end of the hall, which I promptly climbed into to hide. Right about then the target of our prank came in the house, but I was now trapped in the closet so they wouldn't see me.

The stunt went down as planned, Johnny Depp came at 'em with a knife, they freaked, we all had a good laugh. When it was over I came out and found the cast and crew all out there. Among them now was actress Helena Bonham Carter...I'm not sure what role she'd played in it, but there she was. As we were discussing the prank we decided this was going to make for a really great episode of the new show "Whacked!!", which was billed as "the ongoing adventures of Sweeney Todd". That's why Helena Bonham Carter was there...we were filming "Whacked"...not "Fear Tactics" at all, it turns out.

I decided to go pay my grandparents a visit since they lived so close, when I got there I found most of my family there watching TV, and right then a commercial for "Whacked!!" came on. I was so excited!! I told them all that I was in the show and that I got killed in the pilot episode. They were all very proud.

*** *** ***

Okay...not the wild & craziest dream I've ever had, but for some reason I haven't been remembering a lot of my dreams lately. This dream is, however, an excellent example of how in dreams things can change at the drop of a hat and it all seems to make perfect sense. We were definitely filming "Fear Tactics" and then all of the sudden it was now "Whacked!!"...which was never explained to me, but I completely knew what "Whacked!!" was.

Tut, tut, it looks like rain...

2008-06-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

I get SO annoyed at bad weather. It just sucks the energy right out of me and I want to sit around and be grumpy. I'm especially annoyed at the moment because (per my last post), I'd just gotten into the swing of being more active, and then all of this dreariness started looming over us in Logan. Sure, I could go the gym & be active, but being stuck inside isn't what I want...I want to be outside walking or running. Saturday, Sunday, & Monday I went on the nicest walks around town...no where in particular...just briskly walking around for an hour or so, and it was great. But the last 3 days it keeps being all drizzley and nasty...I hate it.

It's kind of a strange thing how glancing outside has the power to change one's mood so profoundly. Stranger still is when the weather changes quite rapidly on you, and your mood follows. I definitely feel different when it's raining vs when it's sunny...even if I'm indoors. The most striking example of this was when I used to work in a windowless part of the building at SDL...there'd be days where when I got to work and it was cloudy and raining, so I'd be in a "rainy" mood all day, then suddenly I'd pass a window and see that it was now sunny outside, and I could practically feel my mood re-adjusting itself to match the weather. It's like when you go to the movies in the afternoon & you expect it to be night when you walk outside, but when you exit and all that sunlight so unexpectedly hits you, you have to sortof re-adjust your state of mind to be in a day-time mood instead of a night-time mood.

Am I the only one who experiences this? I can't be, right?

I'm sore...it must be spring

2008-05-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

I started running almost two weeks ago, and I now have this bizarre mixture of exhaustion and energy...two things that don't SEEM like they should be able to co-exist. My legs are super tired and rather sore, and yet I feel like I want to go run some more...stupid endorphins.

Every year I get all excited about the warm weather and I start exercising and by the end of the summer I'm typically in great shape (well..decent) and down 15-20 lbs or so from where I started, and then it starts to get cold again and I lose all motivation, so by the next summer I'm once again dreadfully out of shape and pretty much back where I was before the previous summer.

At the end of last summer my typical morning/evening run was a two mile trip that took me about 20 minutes (6 mph on average...not terrible). I've been doing the 2 mile thing again this year, and each time so far it's taken me closer to 30 minutes (4 mph...bleh). This is, of course, to be expected considering the majority of my exercise in the past 8 months has consisted of getting up from my computer to grab a soda. Still annoying, though.

Today I lifted weights for the first time since this exercise kick started. Oh man...I'm not sore yet, but I am SO MUCH going to be so tomorrow.

This just in: Work of Fiction May Not Represent the Truth

2008-05-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

With the West Virginia democratic primaries, the massive earthquake in China, the deadly cyclones in the southern U.S., and the relief effort in Myanmar, one wonders how reporters with the AP/CNN had any time to research such a ground-breaking report as is found on CNN.com today in their article (I am not making this up):
Experts: 'Indiana Jones' pure fiction

That's right! The folks over at CNN have unraveled Steven Spielberg's greatest hoax: Indiana Jones is not a documentary!!

I know!! I was just as shocked as all of you!!

I, for one, am really hoping that this is the first in a series of 'outings' to be done by CNN...think of the possibilities!

Rocky Balboa...not a real boxer?

Yosemite Sam...not a real cowboy?

Luke Skywalker...not a real Jedi?

I shudder to think of what shocking investigative journalism CNN will undoubtedly dazzle us with tomorrow!

Yea-Yay-Yeah

2008-05-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!!! The American public school system has failed us so thoroughly on this topic that I've decided that I have to make a little lesson about it myself. C'mon, guys...."Yea", "Yay", and "Yeah" are not the same word! I'm SHOCKED at the number of times I see these words incorrectly spelled. Be it in emails, letters, blog posts, or whatever, I'm constantly seeing the wrong Y-word used. Let's start off with some formal definitions...

Yea - \ˈyā\ (adverb, noun) : 1.'Yes' - used in oral voting. 2. indeed - formally. 3. 'Not only this but even'.

Yay - \ˈyā\ (interj.) : An exclamation of pleasure, approval, elation, or victory.

Yeah - \ˈyeə, ˈyaə\ (adverb) : 'Yes' - casually.

I know, I know. Typos happen. But this isn't strictly a typo issue. I see it ALL the time in print (mostly, I theorize, because that's MOSTLY what's available to read), but I've seen these same mistakes occur at approximately the same frequency in pen-to-paper writing, so it's not just a simple muscle-memory typo; people, as a majority, seem not to know this.

'Yea'. Now what I see ALL THE TIME is people inappropriately writing/typing 'Yea' when they mean one of the other two. I don't think I've ever seen (or at least noticed) the other spellings used incorrectly. The funny thing, however, is that "yea" should almost NEVER be used!! It's used in voting and in scripture-formal language to express 'indeed' or 'not only this but even...' and that's really about it!! (Ex. "How does the representative from Utah vote that the improper use of 'yea' should be allowed to continue, 'yea' or 'nay'?" "We vote 'nay', yea, we vote 'nay' whole-heartedly.")

'Yay' is our celebratory exclamation. Write this word when you're happy about something (or unhappy but feel like being sarcastic). (Ex. "We're all going to stop mis-using the word 'yea' all the time! Yay!!!")

'Yeah' is probably the most frequently USED word of the three, and yet, the most frequently written as 'yea'. That extra 'h' at the end makes all the difference in the world by changing our 'yeah' from an affirmative vote to a casual 'yes'. (Ex. "Yeah, I'm kinda anal about this whole 'Yea-Yay-Yeah stuff', but it's driving me crazy!")

Help make this a success!! ...It may end up being the first in my adult education series. Next on the docket: How right-of-way works at 4-Way-Stop Intersections.

End of Semester School Dream

2008-04-23T11:38:00.000-07:00

****** Dreamt April 22-23, 2008 ******

I was in class in the Geology building on campus. I've had a couple classes in that building, so nothing was particularly striking about that. I'm not sure what class was being taught, but the teacher was Dean Mathias - the guy who's teaching the game development class I'm currently taking. Dean went around the room passing back an assignment, on which I scored "+15". What that meant in my dream, was that this was an on-going assignment where we turn it in, he scores it, gives it back, then we do some more work on it and he scores it again, adding points...this, apparently, would go on several times.

At the end of class he called for the assignment to be turned back in so he could score it again, but I hadn't done anything new on it! I panicked. I rushed up and asked him what were the new things we were supposed to have done on it, and he said we were supposed to have been filling in several answers about how to use Secants and Cosecants as he was lecturing about them during class. I was really worried, 'cuz I hadn't been paying attention in class, so I asked if I could turn it in late. He told me that if I brought it to his house no later than that night, I could still receive full credit. I was SO relieved!!

I then proceeded out of the building, which seemed to lead into the HPER building, and I headed to some class I had there. I think it was supposed to be a theater class, but when I looked in, everybody was doing yoga. I kinda sneaked in and watched for a few minutes, then decided it was too weird and left.

Suddenly it was the next morning and I was going to class when I realized I'd forgotten to bring my assignment to my teacher's house!!! I was stressing big time. I figured he'd probably be out street racing, 'cuz my teacher (in my dream) was a really big car guy. I headed to a neighborhood in Syracuse where a friend of mine used to live and, sure enough, there was a whole ton of tricked-out cars getting ready to do some street racing, but I couldn't find Dean! I asked some people if they knew where he was, or where he lived (something I probably should have found out before I agreed to bring my assignment to his home the night before), but nobody seemed to know. I woke up right about then, quite panicked about needing to bring that assignment to my teacher, I started to get out of bed in a rush when reality set in.

****** ******

I HAVE CREATED PHYSICS!!

2008-04-17T08:54:00.001-07:00

After several weeks of plugging away at it, I have created Physics!! And yesterday another member of my group created rain!! ...We feel we're dangerously close to becoming supreme beings.

For the utterly confused, I'm in a Game Development class, and these are components for the game we're working on. It's a physics-based side scroller, and I'm not really sure how fun it'll end up being in the end, but it'll be kinda cool, at least.

The final version of the game doesn't need to be finished until NEXT Friday, but we have a major milestone that NEEDS to be reached by this Friday, so we've been working overtime lately. Yesterday I was up at 4:30am to work on it, I continued working on it until 11:30am when I went to work, I stayed there until a little after 5:00pm when I went home grabbed a bite to eat and headed back up to the school, and I was there until 11:30pm. But right at the end, my physics started fully working, so it was all worth it!! I now have fully working gravity, collisions, and joints...if you'd like a real-world example of these three things in action, simply run into a wall and then go limp. Actually, it'd be difficult for you to observe these if you're the one running...maybe get a friend to do it. Better yet, set up a video camera and record yourself doing the experiement...then send me a copy.

'80s Bash at Harry & David

2008-04-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

Here's another dream for the "Whaaa??" category...

**** Dreamt April 14-15 2008 ****

I was at the Harry & David store in Park City, but the store was MUCH larger than it really is. In real life, the store is quite small, but in my dream it was pretty huge and also, a restaurant. For those who may not know, Harry & David is a store that specialized in fruits, nuts, and chocolate-covered fruits & nuts. Yes, it's kindof an odd concept, but if you're ever in the Park City area, bored out of your mind while the women-folk you're with are shopping at the outlet malls, let me recommend swinging by Harry & David...they give free samples!!

ANYWAY, so I was at Harry & David, and there was a big '80s party going on. Everybody was dressed up with huge hair, tons of bracelets, leg warmers, and jackets with far too many zippers on them. The lights were dimmed and there was a projector showing classic '80s music videos. I was having a great time with all of my friends (none of whom I recognized as ACTUAL friends in real life). We were talking about how much fun the party was and how it was JUST like high school, when suddenly I realized, "Wait! This isn't just like High School at all! I wasn't in high school in the '80s...I wasn't even in Jr High in the '80s! And since WHEN has Harry & David been a restaurant?!?"

Very rapidly the acceptance of the ridiculous that seems so natural in dreams faded and I awoke to find Olivia Newton John's "Let's Get Physical" playing on my clock radio. How my radio got tuned to an '80s rock station is beyond me!

******

Interpretations welcome!

"Halt Die Klappe!"

2008-03-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

So last night my trying-to-sleep roommate texted me to "Halt Die Klappe!". I, of course, don't speak German, so it seemed like an absurd thing to text me, because if it was instructions of some kind, I sure wasn't going to be able to follow. Luckily another roommate was in the room who claims to know some German, and he told me it meant "Shut up!". I thought surely that can't be right...if anything my roommate would have just said, "be quiet", right? Nope, I looked it up today on multiple sites and all of them interpretted it as a harsh way of telling a German to shut up (several of the interpretations included swear words to define its more precise English meaning).

Now I don't take offense to my arian roomie, because - as stated before - I don't speak German so a harsh phrase in it just sounds like gibberish to me (although I was a tad annoyed that he didn't just open his door and say something, as it was several people being loud). But it got me thinking about curse words. Now language itself is a very odd phenomenon if you think about it...this odd collection of sounds which somehow have meaning to us, but swearing is extra-odd. The concept that certain sound combinations OFFEND us is really kindof mind-boggling. What is it about these words that offend us anyway? It's obviously not the actual meaning behind the word, 'cuz there's a non-swearing way to say the same true meaning behind every curse word I can think of.

Is it bad to swear in another language? I guess it's the same bad-ness that is if you swear when you're by yourself. I've heard it said that the reason it's "bad" to swear is that the offender is exhibiting a loss of self control...but what if you say a swear word NOT in a moment of anger with no malice AND it's in another language...it's completely meaningless to you and your audience...that's not really bad, is it? But then if that's the case is it bad to simply SAY a swear word in your native tounge if you're by yourself (so as not to offend anyone) if you're not saying it in anger and are just saying it for fun? lol. Anyway, just some random thoughts that came from an evening of keeping my poor, sleepy roommate awake. ^^

Drunken Nights With No Hangover!!

2008-03-05T13:36:00.000-08:00

This past week I've had 3 (THREE!) nights where I dreamt that I was drunk. It's not a recurring dream per se, as the circumstances change in each dream, but definately a recurring theme. Now not ever having been drunk I don't know what it really feels like, so I don't know how accurate my dreaming representation of it is...basically I just feel really relaxed and kinda dizzy. It was actually kinda nice, lol. Don't worry, I'm not gonna go out and buy a liter of Jack Daniel's or anything...anyway, I think I'd be more of a Scotch man...there's just something sexy about scotch...not sure what it is.

AAAANYWAY...The question in my mind is, 'WHY do I keep having dreams in which I'm inebriated?' Back when I read the "The Outsiders" I had LOTS of dreams in which I smoked, but smoking is a big topic in that book (and EXTREMELY romanticized), so it doesn't surprise me that it was on my mind, but why all these dreams about being drunk is beyond me. My only conclusion is that I had the dream once and it was just a weird random thing, but then I kept thinking about that dream, so I dreamt about it again, and now it's sorting of turning into a self-perpetuating theme of my dreams.

Oh well...I guess I can't complain, they're not "bad" dreams, and I get to experience something that I'll never get to in real life...even if it is only what I imagine it would be like.

Academy Awards Party 2008...er...2007?

2008-02-25T13:32:00.000-08:00

Last night was the 80th Annual Academy Awards (which took place in 2008 but award movies that were released in 2007...I think the academy would refer to it as the 2007 Academy Awards, but I think it's safer to just stick with "80th Annual..."), and we had a great party!! If you didn't know about it, sorry. If you did know about it and didn't come, you missed OUT!! Go ahead, feel bad!...I'll wait. All of you people who said "Nah...I don't really care about the Oscars" or "It sounds interesting but I think we'll pass" or other similar responses, you need to talk to those who attended...it was FUN...I'm not gonna throw a lame party...I mean c'mon...it's me!

There were oscar quizzes, ballots so you could vote for the nominees, yum-tastic hamburgers cooked on the grill, and even cookie salad!! ...yeah....you'll have to ask Thad about the cookie salad.

Much like "No Country For Old Men", our roommate Michael was the big winner last night, winning two fabulous prizes; one for taking 1st in one of the oscar quizzes AND one for tying for 1st in the oscar ballots. Other winners included Thad, Jared, & Jennae.

After last night's experience I think next year there'll hopefully be a bit more enthusiasm for my Oscar Party (at least from those in attendance this year), and I guess we'll have to make a special, full ballot (instead of just selections from the "major" categories) for Thad. Here's a big thanks to Michael, Jennie, Thad, Laurie, Jennae, Ben, & Amanda who all had a good time and helped make the party a success! Oh and, again, if you did miss out, make arrangements to swing by and eat some of Thad's Cookie Salad...please.

Betty the Harddrive (2003-2008)

2008-02-18T14:16:00.000-08:00

After several years of faithful service, Betty the Hard Drive passed away Thursday night due to complications from Alzheimer's disease. Just a child by human years, Betty recent celebrated her 5th birthday. Betty stuck by her master's side through 8 apartments and 24 roommates. She loved to run, to memorize things and, towards the end of her life, to skip. Last November, Betty became very ill with the onsaught of alzheimer's and we thought we may lose her, however, with the prayers of friends and family, and the help of I.T. consultant S'ven Haderlie, she was able to stay with us these past four months.

Despite her undying loyalty to her master, Jared Garlick, it is believed that Betty was an evil Harddrive, and is more than likely now burning in hell.

Betty the Harddrive is survived by her Motherboard, Betty the Motherboard.

"Watch the Sun Come Up"

2008-02-15T12:20:00.000-08:00

Last night after an exciting episode of "Lost", a bit of stimulating conversation, and a rousing game of "Signs", what were left of the Lost Party People (the LPPs) hung out in the front room of the ButterKnife Estates and unwrapped lots of Valentine's Day candies to see what was written on the inside of the wrappers, which were sortof like Valentine's Day fortune cookie messages. Both the first and third that I opened read "Watch the Sun Come Up", to which I exclaimed each time, "No!!" ...I mean seriously, do you REALIZE how early the sun comes up?!? If I have to leave the house at 7:45am (which I do on Fridays), I make it a point to never get up before 7:30!

Well this morning I found myself just about to enter Old Main at about 8:10 heading to my 8:30 class when I glanced at the mountains to the East and noticed that the sun was just about to come up over them. "Who am I to argue with a piece of candy?", I thought, and I stepped off the sidewalk to face the arrival of the sun. It was actually quite a relaxing thing to just stand there for 13 minutes watching and waiting. As it turns out, although the sun "officially" rose this morning at 7:24am, the sun didn't peek over the mountains until 8:23am...I know, 'cuz I was there. Standing there, I became very aware of all of the other people who were bustling to and from classes, as I had just been moments before; I hadn't really noticed them when I was among them...funny how that is.

It had been a LONG time since I'd actually witnessed the sun coming up, and I'd forgotten what it looks like at that moment the sun first appears. The edge of the mountains grew brighter and brighter, and I began to wonder if the appearance of the sun may be a let down and that it would almost unnoticably slide into view with how bright it was becoming along the cusp of the mountains. Maybe I would be standing there, watching, and suddenly think, "Oh wait a minute, it's already up!"

A few professors from my department passed me, discussing how it's a shame how so many professors in the C.S. department only want to teach the graduate level classes. I continued to watch. It was SO bright now. "Is this bad for my eyes?", I wondered, "Is it up yet?" I looks around on the ground...no shadows. I checked the blue part of the sky...no clouds. Nope, definately not up yet. I continued to watch.

A car pulled up and girl got out with an armful of books. She thanked the driver, slammed the passenger side door, and headed up to Old Main. I wondered if she wondered what I was doing, just standing there in the cold. As I had walked up Old Main Hill I'd thought about how cold it was, but now that I could just stand there with my hands in my pockets, it didn't seem so bad.

The edge of the mountain exploded. Golden light shot out in four directions where the mountain had been brightest. This definately was noticable. What started out as a tiny point source of golden light was rapidly increasing in size...it was fascinating how long it took the sun to peek over the mountains, and yet once it caught a glimpse of what was on this side, it wanted to fully clear the obstructing pile of rocks as quickly as possible. A gust of air came from the east as I looked around to make sure there were shadows now...there were. "Excellent," I thought,"what a well spent few minutes."

I climbed back onto the sidewalk, turned, and went to class.

WARNING!! VERY, VERY SAD PICTURE AHEAD!!

2008-02-06T11:17:00.001-08:00

So my poor, poor niece Addison developed RSV last weekend which then turned into pneumonia AND bronchitus!! To try to soften the blow of the dangerously sad picture below of her in the hospital last weekend, I've included 2 pictures of when she was in Utah (and healthy) over Christmas.

Awww, what a cute Santa-Baby!!!

Boxes are WAY funner than toys, anyday!!

Sad, sad Addison in the hospital last week right after having her oxygen hooked-up, having her first nebulizer treatment, and undergoing SEVERAL unsuccessful attempts at giving her an i.v....they tried in each of her arms AND in her foot to find a good vein to use, but all they succeeded in doing was torturing the poor kid. =(

What a poor, poor baby! It makes me wanna cry!

She's doing much better now, though.
Here's proof:

She's still not back to 100%, but she's home and feeling much, much better.

Christmas Music is in the Air

2007-12-19T16:07:00.000-08:00

We're waist-deep in the christmas season now, and as a result one of my favorite (and at the same time one of the most annoying) annual occurances is happening: The exact same set of christmas songs are playing on the radio EVERYWHERE you go. While sitting at work I was listening to the radio online, and was frequently finding myself thinking about how much I liked or disliked certain seasonal tunes, and so I decided to put together my top 5's in each category.

Favorites: (in no particular order)
1- "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting)" performed by Nat "King" Cole
What a voice! I don't know who originally worte this song, but Nat absolutely perfected it!

2- "Little Drummer Boy" performed by Bing Crosby and David Bowie
I love this version of this song! Sure, Bing's past his prime and not at his best here, but David IS, and together they sound fabulous!

3- "Merry Christmas, Darling" by The Carpenters
Such a pretty song by such a skinny woman!

4- "Sleigh Ride" performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra
Possibly my favorite Christmas song, nothing gets me more in the Christmas mood than hearing the orchestral version of this classc.

5- "Christmastime is Here" by Vince Guaraldi
A great jazzy little tune from one of my favorite Christmas Shows ("Charlie Brown's Christmas").

Runners up: "The Night Before Christmas" by Amy Grant, "This Christmas I Spend With You" by Robert Goulet.

LEAST Favorites: (again, in no particular order)
1- "Sleigh Ride" performed by Johnny Mathis
I really, really dislike Johnny Mathis' voice, and in this song he accentuates everything I dislike about it. From his sliding to pretty much every note to his astoundingly annoying "Giddy-YUP"s, I just can't stand this stinker.

2- "Blue Christmas" by Elvis Presley
WHY?!? Who told Elvis he could sing slow? Come on, fess up to it! Yeesh...just awful.

3- "Do They Know It's Christmas" by Band Aid
The British Music Performers sad attempt to duplicate the awesomeness of "We Are The World", this song was thrown together in one 24-hour recording session, and with lyrics like "Tonight thank God it's them instead of you", it shows.

4- "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" performed by The Beach Boys
I could just have easily put "Little St. Nick" or "Santa's Beard" in here, which are each about the same level of annoying as this one, but the combination of bizzare circus music in the background the pretty awful-sounding solo voice who sings most of the song just push this one over the top for me.

5- "Baby It's Cold Outisde" performed by Dean Martin
Okay, now I actually really like duet-ness of this song, but the Dean Martin version just kinda creeps me out. The dude sounds like a predator!! Leave her alone, man! "No" means "no"!!

Runners up: "Jingle Bells Boogie" by The Jingle Dogs...This extends to any christmas song comprised of nothing but meows and barks or other sound effects.

What songs can you not wait for and what ones do you dread this time of year?

Why I currently have a goatee...

2007-12-06T17:11:00.000-08:00

So Sleepy!!

2007-11-16T13:15:00.001-08:00

I'm not sure at what point, exactly, my life became a game of "Let's see how little sleep Jared can function at", but it's exhausting!! It's kinda funny (okay, mostly sad) that I've had past semesters where I had hardly any homework and could kinda just breeze through my classes, and then the semester when I switch to a full time job I get two of the most time-consuming classes I've ever had. Yeesh!!

Anyway, I don't have much time to post, 'cuz I need to go to my next class, but since it's almost been a month since my last post I figured I should say something to let those who don't see me on a semi-regular basis know I still am alive.

*sigh* well, time for class. I least I can sleep for 50 minutes in there before I have to get back to homework...maybe I'll have an interesting dream to post about!

The Pumpkin Walk is upon us!

2007-10-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

The Syracuse City pumpkin walk begins tonight and will continue through Saturday (the 27th). It's open from 7:00pm-10:00pm each night and is free of charge, although usually the city has some sort of cheap concessions (typically cookies & cocoa or something along those lines).

If anybody's interested in checking it out, it's located at Centennial Park, right behind the Syracuse City Office Building: 1800 S. 2000 West, Syracuse, Utah.

To get there, travel on I-15 until you get to pretty much any Syracuse, Clearfield, or West Point marked exit (I'd tell you exact exit numbers, but since they re-numbered the exits there not too long ago, I really don't know what they are), and head West until you reach 2000 West, then just turn whichever way you need to go to get to 1800 S. Yes, these are probably the most general directions ever, but since I'm not giving a specific exit to get take, it's kinda hard to be more specific. Sorry!!

If you need more specifics, gimmie a call or email me or something!

What an exhausting week!

2007-10-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

When I was a student at SDL I often wished I could work a few more hours each week to give me a little financial boost, but now that I'm working 30-40 hours each week, my GOODNESS!!! I had no idea how exhausting working full time and taking classes could be!!

Happily we're at another Friday, and I've got big plans. First I need to go to school...that'll be shortly...in about a half hour. Then I'll sit in class for 2 hours and try not to sleep. Next I'll meet with my project partner for one of my classes and we'll do homework for about 3 hours, and I'll try not to sleep. But THEN!! Woo!! Pumpkin Carving Party!! What I like to call, PCP! ..aw yeah...that's the good stuff.

I stayed up super late last night because once I'd finished all my homework I, of course, needed to find some ideas of things to carve. After scrouging around a bit I found 3 pictures on my computer that I converted into pumpkin carving patterns...if ya wanna see what they are, you better come carve a pumpkin at our house tonight!!

Tomorrow's also going to be a fun-filled day, as I am going down to West Point for a planning meeting for this year's pumpkin walk (where there's going to be a reporter from one of the local papers). Also tomorrow night my brother, my cousin, my best friend, and me are going to have a Halo 3 party! We're excited. In Halo 3 you can, apparently, have up for 4 people all playing through the story-mode of the game cooperatively...and that's always super fun! I'm a big fan of co-op play.

I can't believe it's already pumpkin carving time!! Such fun! Here's a pumpkin I carved 2 Halloween's ago. It took MUCH longer than I thought it would, and really didn't turn out a cool as I thought it would (considering how much time I spent), but I still thought it was a pretty good one. ...Good enough to share on here, at least. ^^

Hospitals: Fact or Fiction?

2007-09-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

So this last week I had two hospital experiences: One in real life and one in a dream (Fact & Fiction, get it?!? HA!). Both are somewhat wordy, though, if you may wanna stand up and stretch for a minute before delving into them.

Let's start with that dream:

*** Dreamt Sept 24-25, 2007 ***

I'd just gotten a new job to work at the same place my roommmate Michael P Christensen work, namely in the lab where they clean surgical instruments at Logan Regional Hospital. I was informed that my job was going to consist of two main activities: (1) Cleaning instruments and sending them to the ER when they were needed, and (2) manning the cash register at a little pharmaceutical store that was located above a little mexican market. The kicker was that the store and the Hospital were about 2 miles away from each other. I'd tried asking my new boss about my responsibilities, but he just kept making jokes and wouldn't give me any straight answers...it was really annoying.

My first night on the job I went over to the store and looked on the schedule to find that I was scheduled to work at BOTH places that night...at the SAME TIME!! I panicked. What was I supposed to do!?! No one would tell me. My co-workers didn't seem to have any pity on me, but since the ER seemed like a more important place I decided to go there. Upon arriving at the ER I found my boss again and told him about the double booking thing and he told me, "Oh yeah, that happens sometimes. If you ever get scheduled to be at both places, ALWAYS go to the ER!" So at least I did the right thing!!

As I was there, though, I started to freak out a little because there wasn't ANY close parking. ...I think I'd left my car at the little store 2 miles away. So I asked my boss where I should park in the future and he said, "Okay it's easy, get a piece of paper and write this down..." I grabbed a piece of paper and pencil, but didn't really have to write anything down because the directions he was giving me were already printed word-for-word on the paper I had. Upon closer inspection, I realized that this paper wasn't just typed-up notes on where to park...it was the script for my dream!! Next to his lines was the printed "Boss:" and he was - of course saying exactly what was on the script. His directions on where to park was something like this: "walk 2 blocks west, then turn right and walk about 3 quarters of a mile before turning right again..." this went on for a while, and then the last line of the script was "Everyone together: Then run the last 70 feet to your car as fast as you can." Of course, everybody in the room said it all together ('cuz that's how it was in the script), but the REASON they said it all together was because that's how he always ended the instructions. Incidentally, the reason for the "running as fast you can" was because the parking lot was in a really slummy neighborhood, and if you didn't RUN to your car, you'd probably get mugged.

After all this I really started to freak out! The parking lot he'd described was over 3 MILES away!! I was supposed to work swing shift, park in the worst part of town, then walk THREE MILES to work!?!?! My boss could tell I was freaking out, so he bade me follow him outside so he could show me something. I followed him out to a little patio that was on the back of the ER and he said "watch", as he picked up a golf ball sitting on the ground. He turned to the north and threw it as far as he could...but it didn't get lost...it bounded on houses and cars and buildings etc., until it finally came rolling back to us. He turned to me and said "See!?" Clearly I didn't, so he did the experiment again. He tossed the golf ball as far as he could, but sure enough, it came back to us. "No matter how far you throw it, it ALWAYS comes back", he explained. Suddenly it all made sense. Parking wasn't a big deal at all. I was going to be okay working there at the ER.

***

Are you confused? SO WAS I!! What the HECK did I eat for dinner that night, I ask you!!

Well, 2 days later, I had the opportunity of going to the REAL Logan Regional Hospital to take a drug test and have a pre-employment physical for my new job. You know, I've had to take drug tests and had pre-employment physicals for past jobs, and it was always sort of a "Pee in a cup and make sure you don't have high blood pressure" kinda thing. This was a SERIOUS physical! I was at the hospital for almost an hour and a half!!! After the usual drug test stuff, I had my blood pressure checked, color blindness check, sight test, and then the full physical including the ever exciting hernia test, as well as a myriad of really bizarre little muscle tests.

You know, nothing is more humbling than a full physical. For an hour I had people poking, proding, inspecting, and doing anything else they could think to me, the whole time with the mindset: What can we find wrong with this person?

Bleh. Not the funnest of days ever.

Power Showers

2007-09-22T01:29:00.001-07:00

Do you ever take a shower that makes you feel EXCEPTIONALLY clean? I'm not just talking your normal run-of-the-mill, use soap = don't stink type of showers. Every now and then I'll take a shower that just seemed MORE cleansing than normal, and for several hours afterward I'll still have that minty fresh feeling.

Yesterday I took a shower like that, and it made my day! Well...the rest of it. I took it in the afternoon, and I think maybe that's part of the trick. In the mornings I'm too sleepy to appreciate the power shower and at night I go to bed too quickly following it. That midday shower, though...it's really the prime time to appreciate the power shower's effects.

What time is it? Oh my gosh! I have to work tomorrow!! Why am I still up!?!?

Persuing Other Opportunities...

2007-09-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is the same as the title of the email I just sent to my boss and my current project manager here at SDL. As many of you know, at the end of last week I was offered (and I accepted) a programming position at Dupont Holographics here in Logan. I was so excited for the change, excited to work at a new place, excited to get out of the looming project that's just around the corner here at SDL that I've not been excited for, but as I just wrote and sent that email officially resigning from the lab, I've suddenly (and quite unexpectedly) become quite melancholy about the whole thing.

I've been at SDL my entire college career. It's kinda become my home...it's certainly been much more stable that my living conditions in Logan. While employed at SDL I started my college career, I graduated with my bachelor's, I bought my first car, and I've lived in 4 different houses AND 4 different apartments with a total of 29 different roommates. I've been through a lot while employed at the Lab, and it's kinda sad to see the era come to an end.

But "All good things...", right? In every way that I can see, this is a good move. I am excited for things to come and especially for the opportunity to get out of the "student employee" title that I've held so masterfully for lo these many years. It's been a long, good run, but the call of gainful employment that I've been ignoring since I got my B.S. has finally annoyed me enough to get me to answer. See Kendra...you just gotta keep calling for another year or two, I'll eventually answer the phone.

Rubicks Cubes and Pumpkin Carving

2007-09-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

I can't remember my dream from a few nights ago well enough to really give a full account of all of the details like I would a normal dream post, so it's going to have to suffice that I share just the tiny part of my dream that I do remember well.

I seem to remember my entire dream taking place inside a mall (for some reason this isn't a particularly unusual locale in my dreams...come to think of it, I've had LOTS dreams that took place entirely in malls...weird).

*** Dreamt Sept. 2-3, 2007 ***

I found myself looking in an interesting store with several little odd things in it. There were mostly brain teasers and magic tricks in the shop, and I found a shelf where they had rubicks cubes. Now I'm a big fan of rubicks puzzles, so I grabbed one off the shelf, and it was the most bizarre rubicks cube I'd ever seen. Instead of being a solid NxN cube, it was made of string and beads and as such didn't hold the shape of a cube incredibly well. I fiddled with it a bit, and finally asked what the deal with it was, and the person working in the shop told me that it was just for show; not really a puzzle at all. I was quite disappointed, but that disappointment didn't last long as I found they had a pumpkin carving section to their store. They had several really interesting pumpkin shavers, and some tools that looked like they'd be SO useful for smoothing. They also had a big selection of patterns, but I think I was more intrigued by the tools.

Sadly, I really don't remember much beyond that, except that it made me VERY excited for the upcoming Halloween season.

***

I'm not sure how many of my blog readers know this, 'cuz last October I'd only been at ButterKnife Estates for a month or two, and I still didn't know many of you, but I am what we call a "pumpkin carver". You see, what we do is around halloween time we go out to a pumpkin patch and find a good pumpkin and then we hollow it out, and then carve something into the front of the pumpkin. But that's not all! We then put a light or candle INSIDE it!! So you can see the carving on the pumpkin even at night!! You should all look into it...I hear it's starting to catch on.

Since having that dream I'm WAY excited for October! Unfortunately, I can't really start carving until about 2 weeks before Halloween, or they'll rot before the big night. But I definately need to start getting ideas for cool pumpkins to make. If anyone has any brilliant ideas, do share.

I was going to post pictures of several of my pumpkins from past years, but I'm sure that I'll make more posts in the month of October regarding pumpkin carving, so I think I'll wait and slowly release the pictures. To hopefully whet your interest, here's a picture of one I did 3 years ago.

Blogging for Blog's Sake

2007-08-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

Well I've not had a good dream recently to write about, but I couldn't let the entire month of August slip by without so much as an entry on my blog, so I'm going to share about one of my favorite new things.

Johnathan Coulton!

Johnathan Coulton is a singer/songwriter who did one of the coolest things I've ever heard of. He made a weekly podcast called "Thing of the Week" where he released a new song via the internet every week for an entire year. But here's the kicker: They're actually pretty darn good! He wasn't just throwing garbage out there, they're actually some really good songs. Another pretty awesome thing is that he charges $1 per song to own, but then you pretty much own the song. You're free to use it whatever you want without fear of getting sued or anything. I'm a fan. And he's definately a tech geek, as is evident by the subject of many of his songs.

The last few days at work I've been listening to a lot of his songs, but BY FAR my two favorite are "Code Monkey" and "Flickr".

For the uninitiated, a "Code Monkey" is kindof a derogatory term for a computer programmer who can grind out computer code, but probably doesn't have the higher-primate skills of software architecture, analysis, and design. I love this song, and there's a kinda cool video somebody made for it on youtube. You can check it out here. Now remember, Jonathan Coulton just made the song, not the video (which, incidentally, was made using the videogame "World of Warcraft"). This may not be as cool to other people as it is to me since I am a computer programmer myself, but even so, I think most people would appreciate the cleverness of the lyrics style and recognize it as a pretty good song overall. As a warning, however, right near the beginning of the song, he does curse once, so you may not want to blast this song where sensitive ears may be.

"Flickr" is also a great song, but more than a song, you GOTTA watch the video. Flickr.com is a photo-sharing website where anybody can stick their photos up there for people to view. Johnathan Coulton went out there and viewed a couple of pages of random pictures and made this song & video about what he saw. Again, this video is watchable on youtube here, but I'm pretty sure that Johnathan actually made this video himself. It's crazy how it's super random, and yet such a good song! Even if I couldn't see the pictures, I think I'd still love it, but having seen the pictures it's just that much better. Again, there's 1 or 2 little moments that may make you blush, but nothing too bad. They could definately play this song on the radio without having to edit it. And watch for my favorite part: Dwyer! haha.

Mmm-K. Go watch, listen, and enjoy!

By Way of Announcement...

2007-07-23T10:29:00.000-07:00

The Official GarlickDance film festival took place on Saturday July 21, 2007, and was a HUGE success. Tons of fun. We had a good turn-out of about 40 people at the Utah Chapter of GarlickDance, and about 30 met for the Oregon Chapter, which took place at the same time.

Now for Logan! Since my movie features several Loganites and several others helped in one way or another, there has been much demand to see my movie. Here's the deal, though...just watching my movie would be fun, but to really appreciate the whole GarlickDance thing, you gotta watch several movies. If you read my last post, you know the deal about the shared-script. The first few movies shown in the festival, unfortunately, suffer somewhat, because the audience is often not very familiar with the script, but after watching a few, half the fun of watching becomes waiting to see how the next movie is going to use a given line of dialogue, or what crazy stuff they chose to fill-in-the-blanks that were provided in the script. So rather than just watch my movie, for the Logan premiere of my film we're going to watch all (or at least most of) the movies from the film festival. "Where" and "when", you ask? Well here's the plan...

Our friend Janey works over at the Cine-Four theater by Winger's, and she told us that she can let us watch the movies there!! Isn't that awesome!?! Here's the only catch...it has to be late, and due to several scheduling conflicts, we can't do it on a weekend unless we wait 3 or 4 weeks. So here's what we're planning. 1 week from today (Monday, July 30) we're going to watch the movies at Janey's theater. We're meeting there at 11:30pm, and should start fairly shortly thereafter. Yes, it's a work night, yes, it's late...There's nothing we could do about it. But here's the deal: If we watch all the movies it's only about an hour long (and we'll probably skip a couple of them), and since you know well in advance you can make sure you get plenty of sleep the night before and even plan on taking a nap that afternoon or something, so you'll have the energy to come watch!

I'm really excited for this! I think it's going to be way fun! Hopefully anybody who's interested can make it! Oh, and this is really open to anybody who wants to come. If you know someone who might be interested, invite 'em. I don't want hecklers - remember that the films are all made by amateur filmmakers...for some this was their first movie project ever - but the more the merrier, I say.

GarlickDance Info & A Dream

2007-07-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

After several months of work, I'm THRILLED to announce that my 2007 GarlickDance Film Festival entry will have it's premiere showing tomorrow night at the Official GarlickDance Film Festival in West Point, Utah. It's awfully short notice, but anyone interested in attending can contact me for details. Sometime in the next week or two a Logan showing will take place...we may not watch all of the films at the Logan showing...maybe just the best few and mine...We'll see what people want to do.

For anybody unaware of what the GarlickDance film festival is, it's my family's version of a yearly family reunion. We've never been much for just getting together and having a BBQ...we prefer to be entertained...and who's more entertaining than us!?! So each summer for the last three years our family has organized this mini-film festival. "Mini" in that (A) the festival is small, and (B) the films are short. There's a 12 minute time limit on each film (including credits, previews, outtakes, etc.) but I think this year the average film length is only about 7 minutes. This year there are 11 entries in the film festival. Entrants include: myself, my sister, both of my parents, 2 aunts, 2 uncles, a cousin, a nephew, and 2 family friends. Yes, if you count that up there's 12 people, but two of the directors collaborated to make a single film. In the film festival, each film uses the exact same script. The trick is that the script is riddled with mad-libs-esque blanks. These blanks allow the filmmakers to fill-in the necessary customizations to adapt the script to their unique idea.

Originally this shared-script idea made all of us a bit nervous that we'd end up with nearly identical movies...this has never even come close to happening. It's amazing how the exact same dialogue can be used in such completely different situations! Last year's film festival ended up with many of the movies being some sort of action film. This year it sounds like comedies are the predominant genre...of course, I've not seen them yet, so I can't be sure.

Okay, well that's about it for GarlickDance information. Let's talk about my latest dream!

*** Dreamt July 19-20, 2007 ***

It was time for school, but I really didn't want to walk up to the university, so I decided to take the recliner (yes, the recliner). Next thing I knew I was whizzing up 200 West on a light brown recliner. The only tricky part about driving a recliner, it turns out, is that they spin, so you really gotta keep your balance as you're crusing down the road or you might get spun around backwards and not be able to see where you're going.

Eventually I got to a dead-end (which I don't remember ever encountering on 200 W in Logan in real life), so I got up and picked up my recliner and ran into the HUGE house that was blocking my path. My idea was to cut through the house then I'd be back at the road and could continue on my way. Unfortunately there was a very narrow stairway in the house that led up to the front door, and my recliner simply wouldn't fit. At about this point I realized that there were several people in the house looking at me..I tried to ignore them as I started heading back out. It was also then that I noticed how remarkably light the recliner was...maybe 20 lbs tops. Not bad at all considering the engine and wheels and stuff that must have been attached under/inside it. I got back outside where I'd entered and mounted the recliner and headed back to ButterKnife, trying to think how else I could get up to campus. I thought about taking my bike, but I didn't know where to put it up on campus, then suddenly I thought, "Oh man, where would I have put the recliner?! It'd be way harder to find a safe place to keep it than a bike."

I made it back to ButterKnife Estates and when I entered it was now dark outside. I greeted Thad and started to chit-chat with him, when I noticed that several people (none of whom I recognized) were coming in and congregating in our front room. I tried to ask Thad about it, but he kept shushing me. Apparently he owed some of these people something, so he was letting them use part of our house for the evening.

I went downstairs to my room and noticed that I'd been followed my parents' cat, Gus. "Get out of here, Gus!" I shouted. Unfortunately Gus is a very old cat who's pretty much deaf and quite stubborn, so he wouldn't leave. I picked him up and took him out a couple of times, but he kept running back in. I really didn't want him in there, because he's kinda not fully with it these days and sometimes has bladder control issues. Again I went to pick him up, and when I did he latched onto my right hand. Thankfully I was wearing a bowling glove, so it didn't really hurt, but he kept attacking the back of that hand, and it was just really annoying. I finally got him off and kicked him out of the room long enough that I could close and lock the door. I was trying to figure out why he'd been so keen on attacking my right hand, so I took off the glove, and that's when I remembered that I'd dripped some barbeque sause on the back of that hand, which is what he must have been going after. I started off to find a sink where I could wash the barbeque sause off my hand, but I woke up before I made it there.

***

Lost: The Musical...sortof

2007-07-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt: June 30 - July 1, 2007 ***

I was at the performance of a musical being put-on by my highschool drama teacher. In fact, the performance was in my high school auditorium, except that it had somehow been converted into an amphitheater; basically it looked EXACTLY like my highschool auditorium, except that (A) it was quite a bit bigger, and (B) there were no walls nor a ceiling. I have no idea what was supporting the stage curtain or backdrops. Surrounding both the seats and backstage was a HUGE grassy field...it was actually quite cool.

Right before the performance (which was to be of "State Fair") my brother's friend Rachel, who was apparently in the musical, ran out and asked if I'd come up and be in the show because it didn't have a full cast. This was no surprise to me, because the director had often done this to make rehearsals easier, then would grab random people at the last minute to fill in the rest of the roles. I said, "sure" and went up on stage and pretty much immediately the show began.

I don't really remember what happened in the musical, but it was more like "Lost: The Musical" than "State Fair". There was a plane crash, and my character had been hit with some shrapnel in the gut during the crash, so I actually spent much of the first act lying on my back acting as though I was in grave pain. Then the song "The Wells Fargo Wagon" - yes, from Music Man - began, and my friend Rachel came and grabbed me and pulled me up to be her dance partner. I kept trying to tell her that this was completely unbelievable, because my character had some large chunks of metal in him, so he really shouldn't be up dancing, but she insisted that some time had passed so my character was much better by now. We sortof danced off stage and she told me, "okay, I'm going to run out there and you follow me; I'm going to jump up and you need to catch me and lift me up high over your head." "WHAT?!" I gasped, but it was too late, she'd already started cruising out on stage again, so after her I went. We got near the center of the stage where she raised up her arms to her sides and lept up into the air fully expecting me to be there to lift her even higher. Being that I'd never fully caught up to her, however, I didn't quite catch her in time to lift her up. Rather, I just sort of got my hands on her waist and she immediately came back down with me not really doing anything to even slow her fall. I apologized, but she seemed okay with it.

Then it was intermission. I walked a little way out into one of the grassy fields off to the side of the backstage area, and Ferrell Cool (an elderly man who lives up the street from my parents) came over from the audience to congratulate me on a job well done, and even gave me an Halmark 'congratulations' card. I thought it was an extremely nice gesture.

Just then Ray, another older fellow from my parents' neighborhood shouted over to us, but then realized that he'd probably interrupted Ferrell congratulating me, so he kinda got embarassed and apologized, telling us to continue our conversation, and that he'd tell us what he was going to say when we were finished.

I never did hear what it was, though, because I - as always seems to happen at the end of my dreams - woke up.

***

Being in musicals is a rather common dream for me. I'd say at least once a month or so I dream about being in one musical or another. It's interesting to me, however, that it's usually for an impromptu performance, and yet I feel no anxiety over it. This - of course - isn't always the case, as you know if you happen to be one of the lucky people whom I told about my dream where I was supposed to be in an all-french version of West Side Story.

The most distressing thing really about this dream was that the musical was set to be "State Fair." Ugh, if you have never seen this stinker of a musical, consider yourself lucky and steer clear of it. The only people known to like it are those who saw the movie version when they were little kids, and since they were too young to realize how horribly stupid and cheezy it is, they grew to love it, and they still hold a special childhood affinity for it in their hearts.

My favorite part of this dream was how the director was known for not fully casting the musical, then just grabbing additional people from the audience at performance time. Wouldn't it be fun if that's how shows really were? Just think, you Wicked fans, if you went to see your beloved witchy musical, only to find yourself getting pulled on stage before it started to be part of the ensemble!

A Common School Dream

2007-06-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

*** Dreamt June 23-24, 2007 ***

It was nearly the end of the spring semester at school and I was thinking about how grand it would be when summer was here. It was then that my old high school buddy and former bandmate Eli asked, "How's your spanish class coming?" Suddenly the horror of the situtation hit me. I forgot I'd signed up for 2nd year spanish! Not only had I not attended a single time this semester, but I also took it last semester and never attended then either!! How could I have forgotten?!?!

"I'm sure you can make it up," Eli consoled me, "it can't be that hard for you." Now Eli's a pretty darn good spanish speaker - he took it all though high school and when he got to Chile on his mission in his first area people were known to comment on how strange it was that he spoke better than his trainer...much to the chagrin of his companion - so him telling me that made me feel pretty good, 'cuz if he thought I spoke spanish well enough to still pass the course, I thought I probably was. I had to find Señor Mansfield (my spanish teacher, who in real life was my 9th grade spanish teacher) and explain to him the situtation...I have no idea what there really was to explain, I mean, I'd been absent from class for months with absolutely no excuse, nevertheless I was sure that he'd understand.

I ran down the halls of the university - which somehow as I ran turned into my Junior High School - and out the doors to the portable where Señor Mansfield class was held. I burst through the doors, gasping for breath, only to find no one there. It was such a disappointment, and the reality that I was going to have two F's on my permanent record overcame me. It was at about this point that I, quite gratefully, woke up.

***

Why is this such a common dream? Isn't it kindof bizarre that there is a such a thing as "common dreams" at all? I mean, dreams seem so random and yet there are many dreams (such as the Realizing-That-You-Forgot-To-Attend-A-Class-All-Semester dream) that seem to be experience by pretty much everybody from time to time.

Another super common one is that you're in public and find that you accidentally left the house without any clothes on. Why do we all have these dream? I really don't think that we have these fears.....not once have I ever been out in public and suddenly had the panicky thought, "Oh my gosh! Did I remember to put on clothes after I showered today?!?"

It's a strange phenomenon, but alas, I guess there's nothing we can do about it.

So You Think You Can Direct...

2007-06-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a big believer that dreams are roughly comprised of 2% of our inner thoughts, fears, etc, and 98% random stuff influenced by what we've seen/heard/done lately. Before last night's dream, one should first know a few things: (A) I've recently been spending a lot of time working on movie for my family's annual summer film festival "GarlickDance", (B) a new reality show entitled "On The Lot" has recently begun in which a group of young filmmakers are vying for a movie deal with DreamWorks Studios....I watch regularly, and (C) two night's ago my brother came home with a poster book of stills from the movie "Labyrinth", which I looked through.

*** June 16-17, 2007 ***

I was in a filmmaking competition in which all of the contestants had been divided-up into two teams. As fortune would have it, my mom was also on my team, and my buddy Corey was on the other. In this challenge, we were playing a version of the classic TV show, "Supermarket Sweep." Our teams were to run through a grocery store, grabbing items and bringing them back to our team's bin, then at the end the winner would be the team who had the ingredients to make the most sandwiches.

When time ran out and we went back for the official ruling of which team had the most sandwich-making supplies, our team was shocked to see that most of our stuff that we'd grabbed wasn't there! In fact, we now only had 3 loaves of bread (compared to the dozens in our opponents' bin)! That's the worst thing to be short of, because you can't make sandwiches if you don't have bread! Of course, the accusations immediately began flying, and members of the other team were actually quite quick to confess that they'd hidden much of the sandwich loot that we'd found.

Right about then, a voice came over the store's intercom system announcing that David Bowie (rock singer and star of the movie "Labyrinth") was outside in his trailer and that he would be signing autographs and giving instructions for the competition's next event. Of course everyone bolted for the doors. I never did see David, however, because I woke up right about then.

***

By far my favorite part of this whole thing was that in a movie-making contest we had a task to see who could come up with the most sandwich-making supplies.

What a fun show that supermarket sweep was, though, wasn't it? Alright, it was actually a pretty hokey show, but I always wanted a chance to run through a store like that, madly grabbing stuff off the shelves and throwing it into my cart. I remember as a child some contest - I'm thinking it was put on by Kool-Aid - in which the grand prize was a 2 or 3 minute shopping spree in KB Toys. My brother and I actually drew maps of our local toy store and would plot what course we'd take and write down the top few items that we'd be sure to grab...Of course, it wasn't much of a course through the store, since it was basically just bee-lining it to the video game section and grabbing all that we could.

...Good times.

A Disclaimer & A Dream

2007-06-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not a blogger. I'm not! Now I know what you're saying, "But look! You're writing a blog! Therefore by definition you ARE a blogger." My response: "Next time I see you I'm gonna punch you in the neck!"

I tried once before to maintain a blog, and it failed miserably. Not only did no one have any interest in it at all so I was the only one reading it, but after about 3 days I, myself, lost interest and never wrote again.

I still have no interest in blogging, however, for quite some time I've had an interest in keeping a dream journal, but what fun are dreams if you don't share them (at least the non-inappropriate ones)? Well in the last few days several friends of mine have created blogs, and going on the assumption that since they're currently "into" the blog scene that if I link them to my blog they'll actually read it, I'm giving this whole blog-thing another try.

So without further ado, here's last night's dream:

* * * June 12-13, 2007 ***

I was at church with my parents in the building they used to attend, and there was a young man having an extremely difficult time blessing the sacrament. In his first attempt or two he mis-spoke just one or two words, but as he went on he got more and more flustered until he started just throwing in his own words and entirely new phrases. At one point I think his version of the sacrament prayer started out like so: "Our Heavenly Father, thank you for this day...".

At about this point a member of the bishopric went over to help him, but the young man was such a mess by now that he really was beyond help. Apparently thinking that the bishopric member was going to say the words of the prayer into his ear for him to then repeat, just as a young child gives a prayer with their parent supplying the words, his next attempt (unintentially with the bishopric member's help) was delivered straight into the microphone as, "Just the words on the card. No improvisation." At this, much of the congregation let out an audible (although unintentional, I think) laugh.

Finally, coming to the struggling youth's aid, a Polynesian man in his mid-twenties approached the front of the chapel and blessed it himself. Imagine my surprise, however, when I realized he was blessing it in ilonggo - the primarly language spoken in my mission! The problem was, that his polynesian accent was so thick that whether he was speaking English or Ilonggo, I could barely understand him. I DID, however, distinctly hear in his version of the sacrament prayer "Ikaw nga amo ang Dios ni Zarahemla", which would roughly translate to, "Thou who are the God of Zarahemla". Now I KNEW that this wasn't in the sacrament prayer, but when he was finished he just turned around and gave a thumbs-up to the bishopric, who of course don't speak Ilonggo, so they just presumed he must have said it right!! *sigh*

When the meeting was over I tried to find the Ilonggo-speaking Polynesian to ask how he knew how to speak the pure Adamic language that is Ilonggo. But I was having the hardest time at it! First of all, the building - although I had gone to it many times in my youth - had been completely remodeled, so I kept getting turned around. Then on top of that, there were a REMARKABLE number of Polynesian men in attendance that day, all about the same age & build as the Ilonggo-speaker. I finally tracked him down to one of the foyers, but he somehow snuck (it's a real word! http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/snuck) away into the building's cultural hall. Right after I realized he was gone, I overheard some of the people who'd been speaking with him say, "That was an amazing language! What was it called? Ilonggo?" "Ah ha!!", I thought, "It WAS ilonggo! Now I just need to find him again and ask how to learned it."

Well, once again, that task turned out to be easier said than done. I - as any sensible person would - entered the cultural hall to try to find him, only to discover that another ward was in there setting up some quite large decorations for some sort of graduation ceremony or dance or something. Also there was a photographer with a backdrop, lights, and a camera completely set up and a group of people, in quite formal attire, had formed a line leading up to him waiting to get their pictures taken. It was quite a bizarre scene in retrospect but, as is so often the case in dreams, nothing about it as the time struck me as being unusual. I left the cultural hall on the side opposite from which I had entered, however, I never saw what was on the outside because I woke up.

* * *

Definately not the most interesting dream ever, but that poor kid's sacramental prayer rapidly degenerating made me laugh out loud with the rest of the congregation.