S"NERF"ING ADVENTURES

So, today, we went crazy.  But that's normal here.  We went a special kind of crazy today.  Our roommate Jessica came with two nerf guns (one with a laser to help you aim... so cool!) so we've been randomly attacking people throughout the semester.  But today, the flame within us grew to a forest fire.  We began to desire something more.  A full out war, instead of just sporadic battles.  So we all went out and did the practical thing: bought all the nerf guns we could afford!!!  Which, albeit, was not many, but now we all have one.  We defended the decision with the fact that these guns would probably come in handy if ever a zombie apocalypse were to occur.  At least, they couldn't hurt.  I am the proud owner of TWO nerf guns.  Be afraid, cuz I've been practicing my aim.

See?  Aim at Marina:  Check! 

Aim at the camera: Check!

And lastly, aim at the ceiling: Check!  I'm good at this.

We plan on attacking any unsuspecting intruders.  Or non-intruders.  If you walk anywhere near the vicinity of our building, watch your back.  Or don't, and then you can be blissfully unaware of what is sneaking up behind you.  Mwahaha....

I Love My Mom.

Really, I do.  My momma is pretty great.  When she's not teaching high schoolers, baking pies, or feeding the homeless, she's giving me dating advice.

Through Facebook.

girls are gross

Don't be alarmed, I live in a new, nice, and clean apartment now. I guess i never uploaded this one...

i will admit to being pretty nasty once and a while, but i am completely serious when i say that the girls that lived in our apartment before us were really nasty. as mentioned in an earlier post, the carpet looked like a ja-poo-zi overflowed on it, there were hand prints on the ceiling... just use your imagination with the rest. i mean really. it was like they weren't girls, and they were actually crippled grizzly bears with machine guns as arms and octopus tentacles trying to cook stir fry, while babysitting a legion of toddlers that were all trying to make themselves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, while standing on their heads, and playing the popular board game, "Monopoly".

 there were hand prints and random smudges all over the walls, doors... the ceiling... i honestly think that one of the girls was eating a pizza and the other was putting on her foundation and they ran out of napkins and towels and were like, *said in a valley girl lisp* "i have an idea! let's just wipe our hands on the walls and ceiling! that'll work just as good, if not better." and they proceeded to do it.  today, i decided that i would be a nice roommate to rachel and vacuum her room since she's been saying that she needs to do that, so i did. it looked fine, but not up to my standards. the carpet had clearly not been edged in a LONG time. to my dismay, i found that we do not own an edger. i thought about going to the dorms and just borrowing their's for the evening, but i just wasn't vibing it. instead, i got on my hands and knees and used my hands to edge. oh. my. gosh. i edged the whole room because i got a little ocd about it and ended up with a dust bunny larger than my fist! ewww. i was in such a "spring cleaning" mood that i edged the hallway and my room as well, since i don't want my allergies to pay me a visit like they usually do around this time of the year. the bunny got significantly bigger. i contemplated going to the trash can and taking a picture of it, but i tied up the bag that it was in. just know that it was the size of a real bunny. bigger than this one.

i might have also gotten a little carried away and cleaned the hair out of her carpet. the discovery i made was priceless. (i found 2 pennies and an earring! but that's not what i'm talking about.) i immediately related it to what we learned in our old physical science class that i actually enjoyed very much. the law of superposition. i began to smerf the carpet with my hands and found that i could pull up the hair. the top layer was all light blonde, rachel's. the harder i brushed, i got deeper and pulled some light brown hair. it must have been the girl before rachel. finally i brushed even harder and pulled up dark brown hairs, the girl twice before rachel. it was pretty gross, but quite interesting at the same time. instead of looking like layers of different colored sedimentary rock, it was layers of different colored hair.
after countless clorox wipes and many hard worked hours, liters of sweat and 3 t-shirt changes, the apartment is starting to look great! i must admit that i am happy with how it's coming. people, when you move, please leave your apartment clean. PLEASE.

BYU Addictive Substances

We take what we can get.  And we abuse it heavily.  At the moment, all of us have an incredibly unhealthy obsession with this song:

Skip to 1:59.  Trust me.

The effects are borderline inappropriate.  It's like Ecstasy, but you won't get kicked out of school for listening to it.  Musical Ecstasy.  Yes.

Join us...... It's fun..... You know you want to...... Live a little..... YOLO.

Random Pics for Y'all

Drunken Escapades, Pt. 2

A few days later, the drunk girl called me. I had to call her phone to find it, so presumably she misdialed off the incoming call list. I got a call from a number I didn't recognize and answered, with hopes that it was a job calling to hire me.

Me: "Hello?"
Drunk girl (clearly drunk again): "...it was Travis.  I... I paid my [expletive] bills!"
Me: Confused silence
Drunk girl: "I had so many [expletive] bills!  There was the [expletive] DirecTV bill and I [expletive] paid it."
Me: Awkward silence
Drunk girl: "So... so don't [expletive] worry!"

Then the call ended.  What have I done?  Does this mean I can add drunken confidant(e?) to my resume?  Cause I think that would be kickin'.  Maybe I would have finally been hired to the job at a bakery downtown I really wanted to work at.  Does drunken confidant(e) not add a little spice to a resume?  Tell me I'm wrong if I'm wrong, but I think this will really help me in the professional world.

The moral of the story is that I am never going to do nice things for anyone, ever again.

How my self-defense training almost came in handy really prematurely. Sort of. Work with me here.

Once upon a time, typically referred to as my freshman year, I worked selling concessions at BYU football games. This was fairly successful, definitely the most fun job I've ever had, so I figured I would do it again this year. And so I am. Apart from the fact that I became a class ditcher before school even really started, this went off without a snag. So I show up at the game, receive my fancy official hat and apron, and go to check in. The man asks me if I'm a cash handler. I figure, I work the cash register, therefore I handle cash. Right? Right. So I tell him yes, in a slightly unsure, questioning manner. He checks the list, and confirms, yes I am. So then, without warning, he points out my station on the map, and then tells me to head to the police station/ office thingy to pick up the money. I give him a blank, slightly panicked look. He sends me on my merry way.

So, lugging my enormous backpack, (I didn't have time to go home after class) with a million things in my pockets, clutching my apron and hat, and holding my paper map in front of me like a sad, sad tourist, I amble off in the general direction I was pointed. I actually found it without much difficulty, though I did have to walk through several rooms full of cops and security people. I reach the office, and tell them that I need money, apparently. They are unable to find me on their list, but they give me the money anyway. Make of that what you will. By this point I'd figured out that I was almost certainly not really a cash handler, but they'd already given me official forms and stuff at the front, so I figured it was probably too late to do anything about it. So they pack me up with 900 dollars worth of change and stuff for my station, and I move on to the next leg of my journey. You would think that the hard part would not be over. You would be wrong.

After ten or fifteen minutes of wandering around attempting to follow my map, I concluded that I was almost definitely lost. And I was lost with 900 dollars of possibly slightly stolen money, which made it both funnier and a lot more panic inducing. I started asking various stations if they knew where I was going. Some admitted that they had no clue, others pointed me in a general direction. Several of these instructions conflicted. It took probably another ten minutes before I finally reached the stand I was supposed to be working at. I then happily handed over my pouch of money and moved on to more important matters. Like counting churros, and stuff. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I have finally sorted out my priorities.

Life Lessons or My Ongoing Career as a Shoulder Devil

On the fourth of July, I woke up at three in the morning, and proceeded to spend the entire day traveling from California to Windham, Maine. Yep, I sure know how to enjoy a good holiday. I'm here to help my Grandpa pack up his house, since he's planning to move in a few months. My Grandma, who can be lovingly referred to as a pack rat of alarming proportions, died a few years ago, leaving him with a large house filled to the brim with stuff. It's a two-story, four bedroom house with many closets, an enormous craft room, four rooms worth of garage in the basement, and an additional large shed with an attic on top of that.

At this point, you may be thinking, "Wow that would be a lot of stuff, how could he have gone this long without going through at least some of it?" And you would be absolutely right. He did. Along with many assorted relatives, he has gone through and gotten rid of a bunch of stuff. And then they did it again. And possibly again after that; I'm a little fuzzy on the details. So there couldn't be that much stuff left, right? Wrong.

This is where the life lesson comes in. I definitely have a bit of the pack-rat gene in me. I like to have all my stuff with me, packing frequently bring me to the brink of a nervous breakdown. My belongings are currently spread out across three states, and that's kind of stressing me out. BUT, today may mark a turning point in my attitude towards stuff. Despite my best intentions, I've already accumulated a few things to squeeze into my small suitcase. And you may be thinking "Oh, that's not so bad, surely you want some things to remember your Grandma by." And I have those things. Lots of them. And so does everyone else in the family, because we've already gone through it several times. And yet, new "treasures" continue to be found. Things that have been offered to me today include: many handkerchiefs, (side note: Why would anybody want a hankie? Gross.) many pairs of fancy gloves, a relief society manual, enormously large hair clips, a long braid made out of real hair, a vase I may or may not have given to my grandmother many years ago, really old stickers, and some 12+ year old gum. (Okay, that last one may have been a joke.) And that's just the beginning.

The big winner, however, isn't even for me, it's for my parents. It's a quilt, which means that yes, I will be toting a large blanket through airport security and multiple flights in addition to everything else I brought. Not only that, but it's possibly the most depressing quilt I can imagine. Years ago, when my Grandma was sick, my ward got together and made a quilt for her with a bunch of people signing squares. Most of them say "Get well soon." Who wouldn't want that back, right?

The shoulder devil in me came out today when, well into the garage sale, we discovered even more boxes in the garage to go through. Keep in mind that these boxes had not been opened at all since my grandparents moved out here in 2000. Now surely, anything you've gone without for twelve years can't be terribly important, right? You could almost certainly toss it all and never look back, right? Ahahahaha. Wrong. We went through all of the boxes, and there were lots of them, and lots of them were big. Contents ranged from old bowling trophies to a whole box of hankies to a faceless mannequin head. The best, however, were the boxes filled with papers, which naturally had to be gone through individually. Sitting out in the baking sun (I'm really not cut out for humidity) I watched and advocated the trash pile as my aunt went through page after page of (really dusty and sometimes spider-ey) junk, searching for family history treasures. And apparently she found some.

The attitude was summarized best later in the day when a different aunt came across an old plate commemorating my Grandma's first marriage. "More dishes?", she said. "Oh, well I have to keep this." (she also arrived by airplane) Really? You have to? Now, it's not like I don't understand the appreciation of family history, or even that objects can hold sentimental value (although I think most of those were picked through long ago). But there's gotta be a point where it becomes to much. I agree that some heirlooms are cool, and have already been in the family for ages. But does that mean that we keep them forever? And that the next generation keeps all of them, plus everything that was important to us? It gets ridiculous pretty quickly (and it was already pretty ridiculous.)

Anyway the moral of the story is that the computer age is a beautiful thing, stuff is overrated, and hopefully I learned to let go a little today. I'll let you know how it works out.

P.S. They sold the only lamps in the room where I'm staying. This doesn't really work into the story, but it's pretty depressing anyways.

Drunken Escapades, Pt. 1

But don't worry, they're not my drunken escapades.

One night on my way home from work I decided to take a detour through the sketchy part of Pocatello (aren't they all?), when I passed a car pulled over to the side of the road.  After much internal debate, I turned around and went back to see if I could help them with anything (despite the fact that the only useful thing I might be able to provide is a cell phone with internet capabilities- my car knowledge is seriously limited).

The car had stalled, and the two girls who were driving it needed some gas.  I offered to drive them down the road to the gas station about half a mile away to fill a can with gas.  This is where things started to go downhill.  One of the girls asked me to push her car to the gas station... with my car.  Well that was definitely a solid negatory.  I talked them into riding in my car to and from the gas station, after which, I would take off.

I have had very little experience with alcohol, so I didn't realize exactly what I had gotten myself into until we were on the way to the gas station, and I started paying attention to what was going on.  One of the girls was moderately sober, but the other was very intoxicated.

Much thanks to my daddy, I had an empty gas can in my trunk for emergencies.  We filled up and then filled their car.  I waited to make sure their car would start and I could go home with a clear conscience.  If only things were that easy.  The car didn't start.  I pulled up next to them to see what was going on, and patiently waited at their side while they got into a drunken argument about what to do.  They decided to push the car out of the road and walk home.  So they started pulling valuables out of the car.

That was the point at which a cop pulled up from the other direction. DrunkenPants (hereby known as DP)  panicked and immediately got into my car while the more able minded girl tried to explain the situation.  The police officer asked us to get out of the road and moved on.

In her panic, DP dropped her phone on the pavement.  But wasn't able to comprehend what I was saying and insisted I call her phone while she drunkenly searched my car.  Meanwhile, Girl 2 started checking their car for her phone, which she was unable to find.  Then, DP confided to me that she had Girl 2's phone and insisted we weren't going anywhere until Girl 2 returned her phone and made me promise not to tell G2.

I found the phone on the pavement, where I knew it was going to be, and returned it to DP, who then returned G2's phone.  At this point, DP begged me to walk them home.  Even though their house was across the street.  So I accompanied them across the street.  And by "accompanied," I mean I navigated DP up and down the curbs and stairs with several "step up here" and "step down here" whilst half dragging her.

The best part was how they thanked me once we were finally inside- with shots.  They insisted I join them in taking shots, and when I politely declined, they asked if I wanted to watch them take shots.  Surprisingly, I passed on the second offer as well.

Such lovely folks in Pocatello.  I really think I bonded with those girls that night.  They also invited me to their garage sale the next morning.  I should probably look them up on Facebook or something, I sense a lasting relationship in the works.

Dance shoes off the Black Market

Yes.  So sketch.

So, here are my new character shoes for folk dance:

**Disclaimer: These are not actually my legs.  I found them on the internet.  I love the internet.... I claim no right to these legs.  No copyright infringement was intended.  The right to these legs remains with the owner, whoever she (or I guess it could be a really strange 'he') may be**

I finally got them today after procrastinating and somehow getting away with not having them last year.... but I finally did have to get them.  $56.  Guys, I have a somewhat expensive hobby.  But that's not even the worst part.  The worst part was going to get them.

So, folk dance is pretty political, in that you can't even try out for the higher level teams unless you have the right shoes.  Not just character shoes, the right character shoes.  But no one is allowed to tell you where to get them.  If they were to tell you a certain store that sold the right character shoes, then other places could sue BYU and say that they are favoring that store.  So, legally, they aren't allowed to tell you who sells them.  The politically correct answer when faced with the question is, "oh, you know, you just get them around..."  You have to know who to ask--who is exempt from the law, and can give you this secret information. 

I ended up finding out where they were sold through a friend who had been on one of the top teams.  You'll never guess where you go to get them.  A tuxedo shop.  Of course, right?  It's a small shop--and I mean really small.  The shop is tucked in the corner of a shared business complex with a tiny sign.  It's owned by the head of the folk dance department's husband.  But technically he's not allowed to sell them, so he keeps them in the back room.  And when you buy them, you have to use cash or check--no credit card.  Too many legal issues. 

So here's how it went down.  I kept my ears open for mentions of people who might have access to valuable information.  I would track those people down and hope for a more specific answer than the usual "oh, you just find them around..."  Eventually I was able to get the name "Perfectly Suited by Garth."  Then the trouble was finding it.  I went down University Avenue until I was around the right place, and went into an old salon/tattoo shop.  Some one noticed me and said, "Nice weather we're having, isn't it?"  I answered, "Yes, but I always carry an umbrella."  Apparently those were the secret words, because then they told me to go down the hall to the back of the store and enter the second door on my right after knocking four times in quick succession.  I did so, and an old man let me in.  "I'm assuming you're not here to buy a tux," he said.  I then told him I was there to buy dance shoes, and he took me into the back room of his already "back room" shop.  I tried on the shoes, found some that fit, and then paid for them in cash.  As I left, I had the strange sensation that I had better keep a look out for cops, but without looking too guilty.  I was smuggling drugs guys.  Or something like that.  Dance shoes off of the Black Market.  Sketch.