Was It Worth It?

Yes folks, I am talking In N Out. We waited, as you may know, for about one hour and 45 minutes to eat at In N Out in Draper yesterday, the locations opening day. We are considering camping out over night for the opening of the West Jordan location, just to say we did. So my question is was it worth it? We think so.

We love In N Out burger. It is a regular part of our trips to Disneyland. We almost always stop in either St George or Vegas. It stands alone in quality, taste, and every other burger category. We are not afraid to spend some of out time getting something we like.

Yes, we know we could have waited a week and decreased our wait time, but we view that as having to wait an extra week. Nearly 2 hours is much less time than 1 week.

Critics have accused that we like it so much because it previously was not as accessible to us? Time will tell, but I don't think this is true. Another restaurant we absolutely love is The Waffle House. Unrivaled in waffle making, the closest Waffle House is in Denver. About 4 years ago, Rebecca and I decided to drive to Denver to eat at Waffle House. Denver is an 8 hour drive each way. Luckily, we had friends in Denver to visit as well, so we threw that in there as another reason, but ultimately all we wanted was a waffle and plate of hash browns, diced, covered, and smothered from Waffle House.

Are we the only crazy ones here? I know you all have something equivalent in your lives...and we want to hear them. What would you drive hours for, wait hours for, or do "anything" for? Leave us a comment and tell us what it is you would do and what you would do it for. What would it take? Don't be shy.

Collectibles

The other day I was sitting in my man-cave(formerly known as "my den", but I was informed that calling it a den went extinct with the final episode of Growing Pains) looking at my baseball cards, and it got me thinking about the act of collecting. What makes us want to collect things? (note: this is not a sports post)

I know for me its a natural inability to throw things away, but I also seek out certain things. I have talked a little bit on various occasions of my baseball card collection. I started collecting cards in Junior high because it seemed like the thing to do. Many of my friends were card collectors, and after a few trips to the "card shop", my interest peaked and I started collecting my own. It was cool to have cards of the players that you saw on TV. As I started collecting it became apparent that there was some serious potential for money making. Or so I thought.

If I owned this card, I could sell it for its book price of 2.35 million dollars. Problem is there are only 40 of them known to be left in existence. It is a 1909 Honus Wagner.

My first love as a young kid was money. I used to sell my unwanted toys in the neighborhood. I would put them in a red wagon, pull them around to friend's houses and sell them off. (Come to find out, if I had just kept some of those original GI Joe and Star Wars figures, I could make a killing off them now!) My Dad used to compare me to Alex Keaton. I tried hard to master the ability of knowing which coins were dropped just by the sound they made. (See Family Ties Season 2 episode 8- I think). So I started the whole baseball card collecting experience with the idea that I would save them nice and neat in boxes for 25 years and then sell them for huge profits. And here they sit, in my man cave, and other places. I have probably close to 250,000 cards. I have no idea how much money I have spent on them, but their combined value is probably around 10 grand. Yet I continue to collect them. I missed the boat when Mark McGwire broke the home run record a few years ago. His card value skyrocketed. I have about 20 of his rookie cards that I never paid more than a couple of dollars for. I held out, thinking they would go up and up like a Michael Jordan rookie, then the steroid news broke. His cards plummeted faster than my brothers and me when we tried to jump off our roof using home made parachutes made of bed sheets and blankets.

My favorite player of all time is Will Clark. I used to do whatever I had to do to get every card ever made of him. He was my childhood athlete hero. A tenacious player. Plus he always put the cool black paint under his eyes. I have hundreds of his cards now. My cousin even got me his autograph on a baseball this past year.

So I ask myself, "Why?" Even though I can not think of great reasons to continue collecting, I continue to do so. I am also collecting mini baseball bats from each stadium I visit for a game. This collection has more of a purpose and meaning to me, so I get it. My daughter Tierra collects the papers that I crumple up and put in the garbage. I only found out about this recently. I am a huge "list maker" person. I make "to-do" lists, "to-buy" lists, "quotes to remember" lists, and on and on. I am frequently updating these lists and rewriting them, or even making new ones. As I do, I throw out the old. Tierra has been secretly keeping these crumpled up lists of mine. This cracked me up. I actually have to be sneaky to throw papers away at my house. I collected my belly button lint while I was a missionary. Had a ziplock bag full after my 24 months. When packing to go home I wondered why I had collected it and threw it in the trash. I kind of wish I had that still.

So my question is, what do you friends and readers and family members collect and why? There has got to be some cool collections out there. My brother Danny collects memories of his stupid 10 dollar purchases. (See a previous post about my New York trip last year.) Another friend collects Pez dispensers. My mom collects Mickey and Minnie mouse plush dolls. My grandma collects mini spoons.

While thinking about this collection topic at work the other day it occurred to me that I think some people collect "911 calls." Or they try to set the record for how many times they can call 911. A lady the other day had called us 3 times in 48 hours, and she didn't even have any emergency needs. The 3rd time she called was only 40 minutes after the 2nd time. When we walked in her house she says to me, "You look familiar, do I know you from somewhere?" I said, "Yes, I was here 45 minutes ago." She acted surprised. Nice try lady, I know I am just part of your collection now.

NBA Opening Day

Sorry to revert back to a sports related post, but the greatest month for sports fans is coming to a close, and the NBA is about to get going, so it is more than appropriate. (October is the greatest month in sports because it is the month that leads up to the fall classic-the World Series in baseball, football is in full swing and on television all day Saturday and Sunday, basketball gets going, and even Hockey gets underway. All sports fans have something to look forward to in October. Every sports columnist has made this comment at one point or another in their career.)

So on to basketball. NBA basketball specifically. When Rebecca and I met, we were huge basketball fans. We both loved the Jazz. (The Jazz were an easy team to be fans of, since we both grew up in Utah, and the Jazz represent Utah's only true professional team.) We went to a couple of games a year, and we even dressed up in jazz paraphernalia and made a Jazz themed jell-o trying to win some season ticket contest. So yeah, basketball was in our blood.

I have always enjoyed playing basketball as well. I have never been very good. This always perplexed me because of all the sports, it is probably the sport I have played the most. Practice makes perfect right? Well, as my brother pointed out, Perfect practice makes perfect. All these years I was just practicing being horrible at basketball, says he. Point taken. I would rather ski anyway.

I have great basketball memories, like when my college roommates and I drove down from Logan-after the Jazz beat the Rockets to go the 1997 finals-just to meet the Jazz team at the airport. We were all watching the game as Stockton hit the shot at the buzzer to win the game. Then the announcers mentioned they were flying home tonight and if fans wanted to greet them to "come on down to such and such gate at this address." I'm not even sure we turned our TV off, we all knew we had to go. Minutes later we were driving, never mind our morning classes or whatever we had going. They landed at around 2 in the morning. Our friend BJ played the accordion and paraded around the area creating an impromptu parade and getting live on 1320 KFAN (albeit at 2 in the morning) with his crazy antics. We were loving it. Besides the fact that the Jazz were going to the NBA finals, we spontaneously drove 2 hours just to get a glimpse of them getting off an airplane and driving past thousands of fans in their cars. That and the impromptu parade led by my friend playing the accordion.

I lost interest in basketball in 2004 when a huge fight happened between players and fans. The NBA suspended a couple of players, but not civil charges were pursued. It made me sick. Never had I personally witnessed a free pass being given to professional athletes. I am not naive enough to pretend it doesn't happen in all sports, but this was too much for me.

I am slowly coming back as a basketball fan. I have an idea that would make me like basketball more though. It drives me absolutely nuts when a professional basketball player misses free throws. There should be no excuse. These cagers (why do they call them cagers?) have played hoops since they were 2 years old in most cases, and free throws are part of the game at every level. To shoot less than 95 percent should be unconscionable. I see two options here. First: If a player drops below 75 percent, they should be suspended from games and not allowed to enter until they can certify to league officials that they have brought their average up. This could be achieved by having the player shoot 100 free throws in practice until the average is reached. My second idea would be to pay the player the percentage of his salary that corresponds with his free throw percentage. So if someone like Shaq is signed for 100 million dollars this year, with his free throw percentage of 61, he only gets 61 million dollars. Just a thought. If any of you have connections with the league, send them my way.

All this said, the Jazz open their season tonight. Has the NBA instituted the blackout rule like college sports and NFL have done? I haven't heard, but I will be watching game 1 of the World Series anyway.

They're playing "our" show

For the sake of accuracy in blogging, I need to clear up a few things:

1. We have all the fixings for rootbeer floats in our kitchen. Chad, did you look in the freezer? That's where we usually keep the ice cream.

2. Chad only watched a Dancing with the Stars (DWTS) results show

with me so it doesn't really count. He has to watch the entire performance show to get the full, glitter-ball impact.

3. I find it amazing that Chad knows so much about a show he so rarely watches. It seems he's well acquainted with Bruno and his "excited" voice. And, no, he didn't google it for the purpose of his blog post because he made the same comment to me as we were watching the show.

Hmmm...Curious.

All that being said, there is no need to worry that we will adopt DWTS as "our" show. I prefer to keep that, along with all other reality dancing shows, as my own personal guilty pleasure. I'm lobbying for Trauma to become our new show. Chad's pushing for Friday Night Lights. I think either would be a good choice.

So do you have a show (or shows) that you watch together as a couple? Or as a family? Aside from sports, Chad and I almost never watch TV together. The kids love to watch the dancing shows with me. I'm on my own with Lost, although sometimes Tierra will join me. I kind of prefer watching Lost by myself. What about you? Do you prefer to watch your favorite TV show(s) alone or with company? And who has a hankering for a rootbeer float right now? I know I do!

If Only...

250 years ago (give or take), Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." I can't but help but think how much different my life would be if he had said, "A root beer float a day, keeps the doctor away."? Ben Franklin was an amazing man, and I do not want to lessen any of his huge contributions to our Country by throwing root beer floats out there, but you gotta wonder don't you?
I don't know if it is true or not, but in looking at stuff about Ben Franklin recently, I found a website that did credit him with saying, "Root beer is proof that God loves us." Despite Mr. Franklin's great advice, I don't eat an apple a day either. I actually like every other form of apple. Apple sauce, apple pie, apple juice, dunking for apples, Apple Jacks, etc. I do not like a plain old apple. I think it may be due to the apple skin getting between my teeth, and as a kid I was so scared that if I swallowed a seed one of two bad things would happen: 1- a tree would grow out of my body, or 2: I would have a life long duty to be the new Johnny Appleseed. These things terrified me. This post is not about apples though, or good health. This post is not about root beer floats. It really isn't about anything. I just wanted to write. You have to wonder though, if vegetables were really the name for candy, would kids still have to be forced to eat them?

As a reader you do not realize the time span between paragraphs, but I just spent the last 10-15 minutes first looking through my cupboards to see if I could whip up a root beer float, and then another 10 to 15 minutes talking myself out of going to the store to buy the stuff to have one. If I hadn't been too lazy to find a shirt and my shoes, I may have been typing this while enjoying one. Other than a root beer float or 10 here and there, I gave up soda pop 2 years ago. Actually, it has been 2 years and 4 months. This was very difficult for me. I loved my Cherry Pepsi breakfasts. I gave up all caffeinated and carbonated drinks. My Lent, I suppose-though I am making it last longer than 6 weeks. I still drink the lemonades and fruit punches that are probably just as bad for you, but that is next on my list. I could not believe how hard it was to give these up! Seriously difficult. I am 12 percent suspicious of the fact that cocaine may still be in colas. I have loved my freedom from soda pop. I break my rule for root beer floats though. Is this wrong of me? Funny as this may sound, due to my cessation of all things soda, I feel empowered to the extent that I can accomplish anything in life that I set my mind too. (Totally stole that from Dr Emmett Brown.) It is this same strength that I am calling upon to give up my fantasy sports addiction that Rebecca and Heidi challenged me to do. (I am not segwaying this into a sports post) Right now is sign up time for fantasy NBA, and it is killing me. I am going to stay strong though. Side note and off topic somewhat: I still haven't been able to regularly attend Sunday School either.

My free time that would be occupied by fantasy sports research has led me to watching more TV. I am now on the verge of having a few TV shows that I follow. (They just don't make them like Night Court anymore.) I watched an entire episode of dancing with the stars last night with Rebecca. I do admit that I was also playing around on the computer, but the show was on, I was listening, I watched a few of the dances of the girls I thought were hot. ( I have a crush on Samantha Harris.) Then it hit me, "I just quadrupled my lifetime exposure to this show in one sitting."

Rebecca and I used to have "our show." For some reason we got into a show called Third Watch. We both liked the first several seasons. We even named our dog after one of the cops on the show that Rebecca thought was cute. It was a fictional show based on firefighters, police, and doctors in New York City. Rebecca wants us to have a new show. I will admit that it was fun to have a show together. However, I struggle now because of a couple things: DVR and TV on DVD. I like watching an entire season in three or four sittings rather than waiting week to week to see what happens. So this is what has ruined my TV watching. I love DVR though. I just wish they still did reruns of night court. Back to Dancing with the Stars...(did I really just say that?) I think it would be a much more entertaining show if Bruno, in his excited voice would just yell, "Your Out!" to the couples that get voted off. All this suspense and drama by Tom Bergeron is lame. Bruno doesn't necessarily have to use the Major League Baseball catch phrase, but something equivalent.

So to go full circle, leave us a comment, or bring me a root beer float.