Pits of the Arms

We went to bed at 10pm on Monday, and I was so excited to wake up refreshed and ready to conquer the world. I fell fast asleep. When I woke up it was to feed Jonah around 5am. I got him out of bed and fed him 5oz. in 30 minutes flat. After a couple of good burps, I changed his diaper and had him back in bed, cooing himself to sleep at 6am. Then I jumped back into bed.

The next thing I remembered was the alarm going off around 6:43, or whatever I set it for. I hit a couple of buttons, thought it was good and passed out. At 7:47, I cracked my eyes open, saw the time and said, "Crap! I have to be in my biology class in 13 minutes!" I moved around trying to get out of bed. While I was doing that, Amelia was saying something to me. All I caught from her was, "Wipe your arm pits with a wet wipe before you leave". I had no idea what that meant. All I knew is that this cave man was on his way to the shower with aching ankles (something I've become accustomed to since I've started an exercise routine).

It wasn't until 11am or so that I found out what Amelia had meant. She meant for me to just take off, but I had made the decision to shower before I heard what she said. Oh, miscommunication...

Marathons

Well, I've been wanting to run a marathon since November of 2004. That's long time. I would have run the Cowtown Marathon in February of 2005 but I got strep twice right before and couldn't maintain the level of training I needed. And I figured, "There's always next year." However, I got married and well I was 8.5 months pregnant at the time of the Cowtown Marathon of 2006. I decided, "Being in labor for 12 hrs and then getting my guts cut open for a c-section and then trying to take care of a newborn is a marathon in itself." However, 2007 is going to be my 26.2 mile marathon year. I figure its gonna take a while for me to get back in shape. Now I just have to figure out when I'm gonna be running around while I've got jonah to look after. I'm thinking my sister is going to be a great babysitter once I get up to Utah though. Or I've got to get me one of those jogging strollers. I'm sure Jonah will love seeing the miles fly by as I train for my next marathon.

Adventures in Sheenia!

Since I was released from working at the temple to play with family and get ready to move, we thought it was appropriate to do something fun this weekend. On Friday, Amelia sent me am email about the Bluebonnet festival in Ennis. It sounded like a great idea. The only problem was that we needed to catch up on sleep, and figure out when the best time to go was according to Jonah's schedule. Luckily, we took off right after a feed and got down in time to enjoy some beauty and a hoe down... in down town... far from roun'... Irving!

Texas Summers

I've lived in 3 states in my life. 1/6 in Idaho, 1/12 in Ohio, and the other 3/4 in Texas. With all there is to complain about Texas you'd think I would appreciate leaving for the mountain west. There you have stuff to do, and it's not so humid you have to change your shirt half way through the day. I can complain about many of the aspects of living in Texas, but I'm missing Texas and I haven't even left yet.

One thing that I'm going to miss, even though it sounds crazy, is the heat and the summers. I recall one experience that displays the intensity of the summers, and the intensity of how stupid dehydration can make me.

Our ward used to help the town of Flower Mound on 4th of July by putting hot dogs in buns at the parade. On one such occasion, it was so hot that I couldn't stand being there anymore. I can't remember why, but for some reason my parents weren't going to leave or they already had. This left me on my own to walk home.

I started up a bike trail that went from my elementary school to my middle school. I could get home from there in what I thought was roughly a 20-30 minute walk. Once I got to the end of the trail, I was beat. It was so flippin hot, and I was so flippin' thirsty that I decided to take a detour into the nearest neighborhood to ask some members for some water. When I got there, there was no answer.

"Crap!" I thought. I was stuck walking under the sun getting more sun burned by the minute, and sweating buckets. I tried to think of someone else who might live nearby that I could stop at and ask for some water. Then I remembered Amy Keifer/Goad. (Amy keifer/Goad was in my 5th grade class, and I hadn't talked to her in years. Now you have an idea of how awkward this could get.) I didn't really know if she lived at the house I was going to go by, but it was my only hope.

I walked around the corner to the house, and knocked on the door. This took some guts, but I figured since I still looked young enough to knock on doors and ask kids to play, I was young enough to ask for water from a stranger. When I knocked on the door, a lady opened. "Hi, my name is Jordan. Is Amy around? Can I have some water?" I ask. "Amy's not here. I'll get you some." She walked off into the house. I wanted to go in so bad to feel some air conditioning, but I stayed put. She came back and I drank the water.

I realized walking home just how strange what I had done was. I had asked a completely random person for water. She could have given me a mickey, tied me up, and cut my guts out. If I had been outside a few hours more, she could have made beef jerky out of me.

Again. I don't know how to end this.

Pearls Before Swine

Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to help someone, but it didn't seem like the right thing to do? Rather it seemed better to let the person just plow through their own problems? I have.

I'm sitting in the computer lab this morning, when 3 people come up to use the two computers next to me. The girl plops down and drops her keys on the table. Her key chain, loaded with trinkets, reminded me the girls in 3rd grade who collected gobs of Ann Frank pencils and erasers.

They started talking about a history test they had taken. I saw the book they were using, heard their derision of the instructor and assumed they had the instructor I did-Dr. Romero. I didn't really want to talk to them. The girl sitting next to me sounded like she was just having a temper tantrum, but out of pity for how hard the class was I asked her, "What class are ya'll in?"

"History with docta Romero", replies the girl next to me.
"1301?", I ask.
The girl looks back at me with a sort of appreciation and says, "Yeaaa". I then gave them my condolences and said it was hard for me too. She replied, "Yeaa, we got a 56 on our last test. Now we find out she's pullin' queshtions from tha webbsite. That's bull honky!" (I inserted honky. She said something else.)

She went on this rant about how her group had been jipped on their grade, not because they didn't know about the website but because Dr. Romero pulled questions from the online quizzes. What I got from her personality was that she was going to complain about the class no matter what the bad grade was she got, or she was going to flaunt good grades in other people's faces. Doesn't make sense does it.

I wanted to help them. I checked my gmail to make sure I still had my lectures notes in that class. I found them and looked over them, enjoying the pristine work I had completed almost a year ago. I wanted to share it with them, but as the girl kept going on about not knowing about the website and cursing the teacher my desire to help wandered off. It felt like casting my pearls before swine (Matt 7:6). The idea to not share my notes solidified when I heard her whisper to her buddies not to share the knowledge they had of the online quizzes with anyone else. I ended up not talking to them anymore, and hoping they failed the class anyway.

Sorry. That's how this blog ends.

Only In Tejas

So this past weekend, Jordan and I drove out to my parents house in Ft. Worth. They live in the city. Well, they are 5-10 miles from downtown Ft. Worth. Ft. Worth is a pretty major city. So I ask you, "Why would you see a horse tied up in someone's front yard?" The house is only a block or two from my parent's home so I had already discovered the residents to be hicks. If you hadn't noticed there is 50 gallon barrel suspended in the air next to the horse. They use that to practice riding bulls or bucking horses...I'm not sure which. Its been there for a while but the horse was new and I had wanted to get a picture of the barrel so I thought having a picture of a horse next to it would be even better.

Job Hunting

I'm a natural planner. It's a quality that couples itself with my "ruthless practicality". With a big change taking place soon, it's expected that I would take to my inate habits and start forecasting what kind of employment is available in Utah County. It's been disappointing; not because of the type of work, or the pay, or even the schedules. Job hunting just womps.

I have plenty of ideas for why I don't like job hunting. Here's a list:

• I have to sell myself (figuratively speaking)
• Finding a job is like working a full time job without pay
• My new wage is likely to be lower than your previous one
• I have to wear knit shirts
• I have to wear knit shirts w/ khakis or slacks
• It's all hype
• Do you ever really know what you're getting into?

With all that said, it's enough to warrant that I won't get a job because of my attitude. Well, job hunting is all the more reason to exercise faith. It's an opportunity to push through troubles and fears, and ask the Lord for some help.

Cartoons

I'm kind of embarassed to be writing about this, but it needs to be told.

Sonya, a lady that sits in the cubicle over, buys the Dallas Morning News every day. And every day it ends up on my desk. However, lately she's kept the Lifestyle section to do the Wonderword. It leaves me without the only important part of the paper-the comics.

Yesterday I took the lifestyle section from her desk and walked away with it to the bathroom. I figured she had finished the Wonderword and was done with the paper. I read it in the bathroom, and left it in the box that holds the toilet seat covers. I didn't think I would need it, so I left it for someone else to use.

Shortly before 4pm, Sonya came over asking for the newspaper. I looked at her, put the best puzzled look on my face possible, and started moving around my desk saying things like, "uhh, I don't know." She kept repeating herself, "Jordan! Jordan! Where's tha paper man?!" I didn't want to tell her. I realized I was lying so I just fessed up, "It's in the bathroom." It was tainted, and now so am I.

Pimp My Name

Everyone needs to do this.

Jonah's Blessing

Today we had Jonah recieve his name and blessing at church. We had a ton of family come out (approximately 3 and 1/2 pues.) It was a great day.

The Earthquake of 1906

Recently there was an article on newsnet about writing the crazy things down that you hear your professors say. Usually I skip writing down all my geology professor's crazy stories, and just tell them to Amelia. But on wednesday he put something up there that I couldn't resist writing down.

During our discussion on earthquakes, Dr. Kubicek brought up the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and said that there were over 900 deaths as a result. However, he mentioned that it was unusual so many died because it occurred at 5:30am in the morning. I thought, "ok, big deal." Then he said, "Only half of them were caused by the earthquake. I'll give you 20 guesses, and bet you won't guess it." So we started shooting stuff out there.

"Fire?"
"no."
"Bad water?"
"no."
"Disease?"
"no."

Then, to all of our astonishment, he writes this on the chalkboard:

THE NATIONAL GUARD KILLED THEM!!!

Really? Yes, really.

New Deal

Every time I tried to change something on the other template, I jacked everything up. So, I decided to just change it to something I knew I could dilly dally with. Here you have it.

Yesterday, I spent a ton of money. Money is a taboo topic, and often makes the one who mentions it seem juvenile. But, I do have application to all of this... it was liberating. Here are the biggies:

1. We paid off Amelia's credit card
2. We paid our last full rent for this apartment
3. We bought a AAA membership

Getting out of debt is great. We're going to be putting our payment for the moving pod on it, but it still feels great right now. The apartment feels about the same way. As a man, having these major expenses out of the way while we get ready to move brings a lot of relief. We've probably always had the money to do it, but Amelia had said, "lets just pay it off, and the put the moving costs on it". Brilliant, and it's a great way to build up some credit. The triple A membership is sort of insurance. You see, in 6 weeks we are going to be driving from Texas to Utah in a car like this:



It has 144,000 miles, a new transmission, new belts, and new tires, but it's still questionable driving it long distances.

In november/december of 2004, Amelia was driving from Oregon to Utah. After making her way through a blizzard, driving on patches of ice, and maintaining her sanity for a few hours, she finally got out of it onto dry road. Shortly thereafter the car died. She was stranded and the only way she made it out was that her parents called AAA and had them drive out to pick her up. She was a couple of hours away from Roy, UT. And so our purchase occurred.

I had more fun buying a AAA membership yesterday than I did buying clothes.

E.R

Yesterday was quite eventful. I woke up early in the morning hearing the loud sounds of Amelia throwing up. I rushed to the bathroom and helped her out. This scene occurred several times that morning. Around 10 or 11, Amelia called a nurse's hotline to see if what medications she could take to help with the stomach flu. The nurse asked Amelia question after question about the cold chills, the incision from the c-section, and then said, "Well, I'm not even going to ask about the vomitting. You need to go to the E.R... Now." So, after the first 3 talks of conference we were on our way to the hospital.

I have never waited in an emergency room. There are a few things you should know about the waiting room at the E.R if you've never been.

1. After registration, you'll probably wait anywhere from 4 to 6 hours to finally see a physician (at least at Irving's Baylor hospital. I heard someone say yesterday it takes anywhere from 12-16 hours to be admitted at Dallas' Parkland hospital.)
2. There is lots of crazy things to behold. I've never had a harder time minding my own business.
3. On Saturdays, TV Land plays episode after episode of Bonanza. They're all worth watching.

Needless to say, our E.R experience was probably like many others who get told to go in, who probably don't need to. I'm becoming more and more skeptical of doctors.

PS: Our visit would not have been as easy without the help of Amelia's parents coming in and watching Jonah. He was pretty good himself, but they all managed to exhibit extreme amounts of patience; for which I will be ever grateful.