The Making of a Blue Man

Did I mention I love Halloween?  Well, this year my costume idea turned out to be a little more ambitious than in past years.  I just really wanted to be a blue man.

I think i pulled it off pretty well.  But the process turned out to be much more involved than I originally thought.  I started out looking like this:

Not a Blue Man

There are a few problems with the above picture.  Such as:
1. I'm not blue.  I'm rather white.
2. I have hair.

We decided to tackle the second problem first.  The first step was to trim my hair down so it would be easier to shave.

White man with short hair is not equal to blue man

That step wasn't too scary.  I normally cut my hair pretty short.  The next step was new for me.  I needed to shave my head.  So, I had to lather up with shave gel.

Precious? Yes.  Blue Man? No.

Robyn helped out quite a bit.  She was the one who actually ran the razor over every inch of my head.  The result was a completely bald Jeff.

I could have stopped here and gone as Mr. Clean

Finally, with no hair to get in the way I could begin the application of makeup.

This was the beginning of a ridiculously long process

Fast forward about five years later.  While I was applying my makeup, Robyn was putting together her costume.  I think we were officially the cutest couple ever.

Who would have thought that Cindy Lou Who would grow up to fall in love with a Blue Man?

The Aftermath
We went to a party with some friends, where I was able to share my blueness.  When I got home, I hopped in the shower and discovered the makeup was a little more difficult to remove than I thought.  I eventually got the hang of applying soap, makeup remover and plenty of elbow grease.  When I got out of the shower, I had cleaned up my skin for the most part, but it turned out my eyebrows were a little more difficult.

I was hoping it would be a permanent look.

Robyn said my blue eyebrows were unacceptable for bed.  She felt that our entire bed would turn blue if I had blue eyebrows.  I didn't feel that was true. But since I didn't try it, I can neither confirm nor deny the veracity of the blue bed theory.

Her belief in the blue bed theory was very strong so she got out the makeup removal kit and proceeded to scrub my eyebrows while I played on facebook.  It was a little awkward, but we both got what we wanted.  I wanted to play on facebook and she wanted my eyebrows to cease being blue.  Talk about a win/win.

In the end, it was a lot of work, but the awesomeness was totally worth it.  Now it's time to start planning next year's costume.

The Haunted Date

This week I went on a date. It wasn't with my wife. That was my sensationalist opening line that's supposed to draw you in. Are you drawn in? If not, there's not much I can do to keep you around. I'll just cut my losses and send you to see dancing badgers.

For the rest of you that are still around, I have a story to tell. You see, I love Halloween. I love scary movies. I love wearing cool costumes. Most of all, I love haunted houses. When I was single, one of my most beloved traditions was that every year I would take a girl to a haunted house. I went with the hopes that something would frighten me, but it was important to take a girl so that I could be amused when she was frightened, even if I wasn't.

I always figured I would find someone who I would fall in love with and take her to a haunted house every year for the rest of my life.  (Ahh the naivete of youth)  Then I met Robyn. It turned out I loved her even though she is much too frightened of haunted houses. Naturally, we got married.

The sad part of the story is that I hadn't been to a haunted house since beginning to date Robyn. (She did try to go to a haunted house. That's how much she loves me. But it didn't really work out.)

But then I saw a commercial for the Haunted Circus. The commercial was seriously creepy. I knew deep down in my soul that I needed to go. I also knew that it was important to bring a girl for screaming purposes and that girl wasn't going to be my wife. That's when I got the brilliant idea to ask my little sister Mellen (Her name is MariEllen but I call her Mellen because that's how I roll.) on a date. We had lots of fun. She even screamed properly when she was supposed to.

This is how precious we looked before we went in.

I have a few other pictures to share.  At my wife's request, I am not posting them directly, you'll have to follow links.  Remember that one time I had that creepy night visitor? Remember how I told the story and posted some creepy images to go along with it? I got in big trouble for that.  Robyn made it clear that I am not allowed to be scary on my blog or else she will never read it again.  She told me she doesn't want to see any pictures from the haunted circus.  So I am respecting that and only linking to them. (But be warned.  They're not very scary.  So click on them at your own risk.)

When we got there, there was a giant creepy clown roaming around the entrance.  I asked him if I could have a picture with him.  Mellen said that having him pose for a picture ruined his creepiness.

Later, I made Mellen pose with a creepy clown.

Then she had me pose with one. She told me I didn't look scared enough, so this is my scared face.

We had good times together.  She clearly wasn't the most screamy girl there, but I was totally okay with that. There was one part where we came out of one of the circus trailers and there was a guy standing there with an ax.  I commented that he was kind of creepy and Mellen agreed.  He said he was offended by that, and was going to have to chop off her head.  I tried to explain to him that that kind of rhetoric might be the reason that he's coming off as creepy.  He didn't seem to want to reason with me.

I did actually get frightened a couple times.  There was one strange headless creature that ran at me and really surprised me.  I didn't scream or anything, I just kind of giggled.  Mellen said it was really funny.  After the initial shock wore off I told the creature that I really liked him and I gave him a high five.

All in all, it was an excellent date.  Mellen and I agreed that we need to make it an annual event.  Aren't sisters great?

Will it microwave?

My wife got a new microwave this past week.  But that's not what this post is about.  You see, a new microwave means that we have an old ghetto microwave that doesn't matter if it gets ruined.  An old ghetto microwave means we have the chance to answer the age old question of "Will it microwave?"

It is such an important question to answer that I thought I would share my findings with all of you.  By the way, don't try this at home.  Just come over to my place instead.  We'll have good times.

Here are all the things we tried microwaving.  (Actually, it's not all.  Some of them weren't that interesting.  These are all the ones that were cool and/or amusing.)  Thanks be unto my brother Zack for being the face of the "Will it Microwave?" movement.

A CD

Microwaving CDs has been a pass time of children for centuries.  I'm pretty sure I've seen cave paintings of kids putting CDs in microwaves.  Nevertheless, I felt it was an appropriate place to start.

A DVD
DVDs may look a lot like CDs but the technology is fairly different.  It turns out DVDs are not as cool to microwave as CDs.  But there are still some fun sparks and goodness.

A Fork
This was one of my favorites.  The awesomeness is overwhelming.

A marshmallow
Microwaves make marshmallows multiply.  It's like when gremlins get wet.

A zinger
Zingers are kind of like twinkies with frosting on top.  We were hoping it would explode or expand or something.  It mostly just melted, but still pretty cool.

A match under a glass bowl
This contraption was something my brother had seen videos of.  It turns out its awesome.  This was probably my favorite.  I am not an expert in physics so I have no idea why this happens.  I am an expert in awesome, so I can tell you this is definitely awesome.  If there is a physicist in the house, perhaps they can explain what is happening here.

I hope I've helped you answer the eternal question of "Will it microwave?". It turns out being an adult is just like being a kid, only when you own the microwave your mom can't get mad at you for doing things that could break it.

Third anniversary

I told you before that for our third anniversary Robyn got a microwave and I got a trip to Shoshone Falls.  We got back from our trip yesterday.  It turned out to be a fun and relaxing little trip.  We saw just enough things to make it fun, but not so many that we couldn't relax.  Here are a few of the experiences we had.

As we drove into Twin Falls,  I told Robyn that we were going to drive over a huge bridge.  The Snake River has formed a giant canyon that is pretty amazing.  But as we were driving across the super flat area approaching the city, we began to doubt that we would see a massive canyon with a bridge going over it.  Then suddenly it appeared.

I.B. Perrine Bridge AKA biggest bridge ever

I was pretty sure it was a bridge, but luckily someone helped me to confirm my belief.

Of course, the site that I came to see was Shoshone Falls.  They call it the Niagara of the West.  It is actually taller than Niagara Falls but not as wide.  As we drove down the canyon road approaching the overlook I could see the top of the falls and I just began to be giddy.  I was super excited, this is a very important item on my bucket list.  I parked in the parking lot and ran down the stairs to the overlook.  Robyn took my picture in front of the falls and a nice little bonus rainbow.

I didn't see any gold at the end of the rainbow.

The falls were beautiful.  They haven't had this much water flowing for years.

I was pretty excited about it. Robyn took a video of me. We all know that I sound special needs when I get excited. She said I could sound smarter if I told some random facts. That's why I start rambling about how much water is flowing. I don't think it worked, but you can enjoy the view of the falls nonetheless. Here I am in front of the falls.

Oh, and it's important to prove Robyn was there as well.

Isn't she precious?

After Shoshone Falls we went to Twin Falls.  Twin Falls got its name because there were two different water falls coming on both sides of a large rock.  Unfortunately, the power plant has dammed up one side of the falls, so it's not really a twin fall anymore.  But here is the waterfall.

See the dam on the right?  This is unifall.

Through all of our explorations we got to see this massive canyon.  It was amazing.

Looking at this it's hard to believe we couldn't see it until we were almost on top of it.

All in all, it was a fabulous trip.  We got to see some amazing beauty as well as enjoy some quiet time together.  Next year is Robyn's turn to plan the anniversary.  Let's hope it's awesome.

My longest Roommate

Today is an important day in history.  Three years ago Robyn and I took the plunge and became man and wife.  That means today is our third Anniversary.  The third anniversary is a very important milestone.  You see, today is the day that Robyn becomes the roommate I have lived with the longest. (This is clearly excluding siblings and parents.)

That's right, for 3 years I lived with these individuals:

Though I have a great love for Conor and Jordan I feel that I definitely traded up.  For the past 3 years I have been married to the love of my life.

Way cuter than Conor and Jordan.

It's been a thrill ride and an adventure.  I'm so glad that I get to be with my love forever.  I look forward to many more years together.  Robyn, I love you more than bacon.  (I clearly don't love Conor and Jordan more than bacon.)

Stay tuned for more on our Anniversary.  Robyn gets a new microwave and I get a trip to see Shoshone Falls.  So don't change the channel!

What Google Knows

I recently discovered a fascinating feature on Google.  (By recently, I mean about 15 minutes ago.)  I don't know how long this feature has existed, but I choose to believe that I am the first human being to have discovered it.

You see, Google now has a feature where you can drag images into the search bar and it will search for "similar" images.  Naturally, as soon as I discovered it, I had to play around with it to see what it would return.  Again, naturally, I used various images from recent blog posts of mine.  Some of the results impressed me by how good Google is.  Some of them puzzled me, but made me even more impressed when I realized the correlations.  I'll show you what I mean.

Here is Robyn.  She is precious.  She is in front of scenery.

A search for that image returned this image:

This girl is clearly not as precious.  But she is female and she is in front of scenery.

Not bad, right?  Well, let's see what else Google returns.

Jared and Katherine are so cute as they hold each other lovingly in the forest.

According to Google, Jared and Katherine are just like these warriors:

Look how they lovingly hold their guns in the forest.

The next picture is of Robyn.  She is sporting a beach ball belly to demonstrate what she would look like pregnant.  The picture is indisputably awesome.

Indisputably Awesome. (Just reminding you)

According to Google, what else is indisputably awesome?

Who would doubt the awesomeness of this face?  Google knows what is awesome.

For the next picture, remember when I looked just like an Allosaurus?

I still can't tell which one is me and which is an Allosaurus.

Google thinks that picture looks just like this:

It took me a minute to figure out why Google thought they were the same, but I figured it out.   The little girl is cute, just like me.  The guy is old, just like a dinosaur.  Isn't google wise?

I have one more for you.  This one truly showcases how much Google knows about everything.

It's just me, chillaxin with my delicious green juice.

Google thinks that is just like this:

That's right.  Google thinks I'm just like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.  You may think it's because I have no social skills, or that I'm conceited and full of myself.  Those answers are incorrect.  Google clearly returned this picture because it saw me as a genius and wanted to let the world know that I am as smart as Sheldon.

Aren't you impressed with how much Google knows about the world?