Expose?

I have been meaning to respond to the Halloween post from Rebecca below, but I am going to wait and do it after Halloween, In the meantime, I had some other thoughts...

While watching Rock of Love Girls: Where are They Now? on VH1, my mind wandered off and began thinking about a make-believe special called: Cyprus High Friends: Where are They Now? I began thinking about how good we all have it. I compared my friends to arbitrary situations I come across on a daily basis and came out feeling very good at what our lives have amounted to. Seriously, have you ever stopped to think along these lines? Granted, to my knowledge, none of us are ridiculously rich; but also to my knowledge all are living comfortably. It’s fun to think about what we have become. Here is what I have come up with that, collectively, we have done: built buildings, own a business, practice law, own our homes (or at least paying the bank for them), started families, happily married, program computers, raise children, practice law, fight fires (I had to throw me in here), manage a restaurant, professionally photograph, and the list goes on and on.

We really have a lot to be happy about in life. None of us has major health issues (to my knowledge), we have stayed active to our core religious beliefs, and most of us have created successful blogs.

Seriously though, if you go back to high school days and remember how we were and what we did, and fast forward to where we are now, would you have ever imagined these circumstances for each of us? It’s kind of fun. Sitting in the Commons area begging you all for a nickel so I could get 45 cents for a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup seems like so long ago, and surely my mind was never turned to what I would be when I grew up. I think when asked in classes I always said I wanted to be a Forest Ranger. It also makes me wonder what my kids will become? Right now, Tierra wants to be a Cheetah (Thundercats always comes to mind when she says this), Eli signs his name at school “Eli Fireman,” but always says he wants to be a builder, (in fact, he wants to build Disneyland in our backyard so we don't have to drive so far) and Haylee always dresses herself up in our toy firefighter gear.

Anyway, hopefully this spawns some fun comments about all of us, since those of you that read and comment on the blog are mostly from the Home of Scholars and Champions. Let’s hear it. Who surprises you the most? Least? Not at all? What did you think I would be when I grew up?

Okay, Chad, you win.

Let's talk about Halloween. Costumes to be more specific. I've been digging through our costume box trying to come up with something for all the many, hip Halloween parties we will most certainly be invited too (You know, like the kid's school parties and the ward trunk or treat). There's slim pickin's in that box but I think I might be able to put together something. I'm thinking I could pull of a good Hermione Granger from Harry Potter (I do love my teen fiction). The frizzy hair look should be easy since that's what my hair always seems to do without any coercion. All I would need is a magic wand so I could work on my Patronus charm to keep away Dementors. Or I could just go without it.

I also found a fun pink, striped 50's style skirt and shirt that I could probably do something with. I'm thinking either Sandra Dee from Grease or Barbie. But I don't have the legs to pull of Barbie so I'd probably go with Sandy.

The best thing in the box was something that looked like this little beauty (minus the sickle).

I guess you could call it the Grim Reaper look. The whole faceless thing is pretty creepy. I chased my kids around the house in it for a few minutes (minus the sickle). It was great fun! I think this will be my choice to wear while handing out candy on Halloween night.

For the parties, I'll probably just go with the easy choice: a pirate. It's a popular choice in our household. Simple to throw together, comfortable, and you can wear an eyepatch: what's not to love?

So, do you dress up for Halloween? If so, what are you planning to wear? And if not, is it because you're too busy waiting for The Great Pumpkin? Because he's not coming.

Oh, and Chad, I found a red and white polka-dot shirt with your name on it. I'm thinking Minnie Mouse. I'm sure Tierra would let you borrow her ears.

Open Letter To Rebecca

Remember when this blog got started and it was called “He Said, She Said”? Remember when it was designed to be a friendly spar of sorts between the sexes? Remember when you, the readers, liked it best when Rebecca posted things? We have all been forsaken here. You have been forced to read my endless ramblings about nonsensical gibberish. It’s not my fault, however.

Me too, barely.

Dear Rebecca:

Please come back. You are so full of ideas and opinions that you should share on here. Why have you abandoned us? Is it because you don’t have time to write down the opinions you share orally? Are you too busy reading teen fiction? Did the keys on your keyboard secretly change around on you so that when you type it comes out all dyslexic and unintelligible?

I think your fears and concerns are unfounded. You have valuable words to share with the entire cyberspace universe. Won’t you come back? Pretend it is a book that others are reading and dying to know what happens next! Suppose there are readers hanging on your every word. If nothing else, humor me.

Isn’t the point of marriage and family to do things together? This idea was hatched by both of us, after a conversation with your mom. Your side of the family. I agreed, thinking it would be a joint operation.

The point is, it just looks flat out ridiculous to call something He Says She Says, when it is only “He” saying it.

Signed,

Everyone.

Vegas Baby! Yeah!

Maybe you know this already, but the “sweet hotel deals” in Vegas that are advertised for Sundays through Thursdays, are the biggest scam ever. Like a legal Ponzi Scam.

Last weekend, I took a road trip to Phoenix to catch a baseball game. Fun trip. So-so drive. Fun game. Another stadium checked off my list. I went down with Jason, my partner in “baseball stadium crime.” We were joined this trip by his dad and brother. We left Friday and drove down through Page, Arizona. We went past Powell...my first trip to Powell ever-though I won’t count it since it was just a drive by. If you have never made the Salt Lake to Phoenix drive, take my word for it: it’s long. Not one of my favorite routes. A step above I-80 across Wyoming though. And definitely a step above taking a wrong turn coming home from Colorado and not realizing you missed the I-80 exit until you are 10 miles from Casper, Wyoming which is three hours north of I-80 on I-25.

Once in Phoenix, all was well. We ate good food. We cruised around the city. We saw a game. Chase Stadium, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, was actually pretty sweet. It was mostly indoor, with a retractable roof. My big concern going down there was that the forecasted high for the day was 108 freaking degrees. (Yes, the weather man said, “108 freaking degrees.") I was certain we would roast faster then the Stay-Puft marshmallow man after getting lit up by the four Ghost Buster Proton packs complete with the particle accelerators. We had a pleasant surprise on our arrival to find the indoor field was air-conditioned to a near-perfect 74 degrees. Once the sun went down, they opened up the roof and we enjoyed the rest of the game under the night sky. Fun game. Jason’s dad fought for and got a ball that was hit into the stands during batting practice.

We hung around Phoenix Sunday and watched football at a sports bar. (Jason’s dad and brother went to the Arizona Cardinals game.) After the game we debated and nixed the idea to go eat at a restaurant featured on the Food Network called Alice Cooperstown. Adam Richman recommended eating a hot dog called “The Big Unit.” My homophobic tendencies won out and we ate somewhere else. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. No way.

Then we drove to Vegas. I called ahead to some hotels to get one of those sweet Sunday night deals that all the billboards from Boise to Mesquite rave about. (Tangent: I hate the Little America billboards that you have to deal with every two miles all across Wyoming. I will never stay there just because they annoy me so bad.) The phone call was sweet. $27.99 for the night. Two rooms split between four people makes that even sweeter. So I say, “We’ll take it.” Then comes the fine print. The tricky “Hotel Amenity Fee:” $16.99. The phone reservation fee: $3.99. The 18 percent Vegas hotel tax: 6 bucks. Sales tax: 3 bucks. Pillows on the beds and fluffed: 5 bucks. Okay, I made the pillow fee up, but suddenly our room is 50 bucks a night. I ask about the hotel amenity fee. They tell me that they are allowed to charge us for providing stuff in the room. Had I been more on the ball I should have just asked for whatever the $27.99 covers. Probably would have gotten an empty hotel room freshly gutted from the Meth lab discovered there by the maid. Who knows? So now I know...the Vegas hotel deals are essentially the same as airlines that charge you to take your bags with you. I have been racking my brain this whole post to figure out a way to charge you all a “blog-reading fee.”

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's Off To Work I Go!

The following is a spin off from a magazine article I wrote that is a local publication for Salt Lake area fire departments:

I love my job. Most of my coworkers also love their jobs. It is almost a necessity. For as much time as I am required to be there (56 hour weeks, 48 hour shifts)-and as much time as I have to spend with the same small group of people in the small confines of the fire stations-to not like the job would make for a miserable life. Forty-eight-hour shifts would get very long, and most of us would surely become serial killers.

The fire station is literally my second home. One-third of my life is spent there. The guys that work out of the same station as me have become my second family. We see each other at our worst, and at our best. We see the general public on their worst day and have to help each other through the situation, as well as those to whom we respond. We are often required to perform difficult tasks in the worst of circumstances. As a coworker, I have often doubled as impromptu marriage counselor, voice of reason, listening post, sound-board, etc., (but not so much a shoulder to cry on-we are all tough as nails). It seems no conversation is off limits. I know things about people I never cared to know. I have shared things I never thought I would share. The water-cooler conversations and unsolicited free advice on virtually every topic imaginable are easily accessible-whether you are looking or not. Through these conversations and experiences, we become like family. We share a bond unparalleled in other professions.

Since I live at the fire station one-third of the time, I have chores, just like I do at home. All of us have them. We live there, remember? We do dishes, clean the bathrooms, take out the garbage, cook dinner, make our beds, and so on. A friend of mine recently did a “ride-along” with us and was amused that a group of men were doing household chores. She pondered out-loud that our spouses must be lucky women.

There are some differences living at the fire station versus living at home, however. Here a few examples (for your entertainment, of course):

At the fire station, my clothing is arranged in such a way (at all times) to allow me get dressed as-fast-as-possible. When an emergency occurs, we are literally “on the clock.” We are expected to be fast, and the faster we can get there, the person or place having the emergency has the best chance of survival if less time passes. Every second literally counts. So at night, rather than just tossing my clothes wherever I take them off, I carefully arrange them so that I can get dressed quickly, in the dark, half asleep, and without putting my pants or shirt on backwards or inside out. I have a 98 percent success rate here because lets face it, after the fifth call at night, my coordination and level of awareness drop off drastically. Hopefully an inside-out shirt is not considered out-of-uniform after hours! Ask me sometime about my zipper-in-the-upright-position percentage.

A shower at the station is rarely enjoyable. There is only one thing more annoying than getting the emergency call right as you reach full lather. (That one thing will not be discussed here, since this is a family article) It is so hard to be all sudsy and have to do a quick rinse, a quick dry, and run down the hall trying to get dressed while jumping into the fire engine and trying to hear the details from dispatch. I have shown up to multiple emergency scenes with a hair full of conditioner and soap in my cracks, crevices and armpits.

It is true that firefighters are awesome chefs. It is also true that I have eaten more cold-gourmet meals than I care to discuss. It is almost a given that we could sit around the station all day without an emergency call until we sit down for that hot meal that someone has been working on for hours, and then as we sit to eat, the alarm goes off for someone experiencing an emergency, whatever it may be. A particular paramedic, now retired, was infamous around our department for losing his temper if an emergency call came in at dinner time when it was his cook shift. The crew that worked around him had fun with this, sometimes calling in test pages just to get him worked up.

With that said, I do have the best job in the world. On some small scale, I get to show up at someone’s worst possible moment and do everything within my training to make it better. Its hard to beat the feeling when you are able to pull the family picture album unscathed out of the apartment that just burnt up, or when we get to tell “Little Johnny” that Grandma is going to be just fine after a few days in the hospital. Crawling through twisted metal and broken glass to get to the injured motorist just to tell them to hang in there a bit longer while we cut the car away from them is up there too. I get paid to break stuff (from time to time). My universal house key is an axe. I open car doors by way of hydraulic shears. I get to drive fast in the opposite lane of traffic. I run in, while you’re running out. I have the best job in the world.

So you can keep your 9 to 5 gig. I will be just fine working my job, even with the reduced hours of sleep at night, the incomplete showers, and the cold meal that has been reheated 4 times. Its all worth it when I get to drive down the road in the opposite lane of traffic, honking the air horn, blaring the siren, and cursing the drivers that don’t understand simple traffic laws. Its worth it when we have to throw out the prime rib that was cooked at 5 p.m. for the Mac and Cheese at midnight.