Dreaming of Otis

Some of my favorite moments in life are when my wife says funny things while she is sleeping. It only happens once every couple months, so it's always a special treat.

 The other night, I was laying in bed and I heard Robyn mumbling something about a baby. I couldn't quite understand what she was saying. I asked her what she said, and she responded, "I was talking about Otis, our son."

 I thought this was hilarious. "She thinks we have a son." I giggled to myself, "she thinks we would name him Otis."

This was the picture I had in my head, of what she must be dreaming about.

I remember thinking, "This is gonna be awesome to write about on my blog."

And then I woke up.  That's right.  The whole thing never happened.  It was a dream.

This is a more accurate picture of the truth

I had to hang my head in sadness.  It was my brain that invented Otis.  But at least I was still able to share Otis with all of you.

P.S. If there ever was a dream that needed analyzing, this is it.  So do share your theories.

More people of Google

It's always fun to see what Google searches bring people to my blog.  Sometimes I wonder if they find what they're looking for.  I've done it before.  But I like to respond to some of the google searches.

So, without further ado, the google searches are in bold.  My responses are everything else.

fat guy in white pants
I assume you were brought here by this story, in which my mission companion had to push in my gut while I tried to zip up the white pants in the Bismarck temple.  Worry not.  I'm still fat, but I have my own white pants that fit me just fine.

"road to hana" flowchart
I had to google this to try and guess what you might have been looking for.  As far as I can tell, there are no flowcharts about the road to Hana on the internet.  The good news is, because I love you, dear reader, I have made a flowchart to help you solve your problem of not being in Hana.

coworker took my wifes clothes
I can't say I've ever had that problem.  Although my wife's clothes did blow off once.  Perhaps you should ask your coworker if they would return your wife's clothes.  I'm sure it's all a misunderstanding.

caught in my wife's clothes
I can't say I've ever had that problem, either.  Although we have switched faces, so being caught in my wife's body might be worse.

What a terrible atrocity

man getting eaten by a pig
What's wrong with you?

odoyle42.blogspot.com
If you know the url to my blog, you don't have to google it, you can just type it in the address bar.

question mark on woman
Again, due to the exceptional service you've all gotten used to, I have created this image for you.  My wife has been question marked as well as the woman in the background.  In addition, the man in the background has been exclamation pointed.  That is service.

thoughts on striped shirts
I have nothing against them, but I usually wear shirts with one color, or with an amusing graphic.  The amusing graphic is usually related to something geeky, or to bacon.

trash cans disappearing tucson
The conspiracy is more widespread than I thought.  Perhaps the people in tucson have some answers for why my trash can is disappearing.

zen bamboo
You need to hike the Pipiwai trail on Maui.  You go through the bamboo forest, and it is amazing.  The trail is just past Hana.  Refer to the flowchart above to get to Hana.

Thanks for googling.  Keep searching for me and I'll keep responding

The Arm Folding Evangelist

As I've said before, Robyn and I work with the 3 and 4 years olds at our church.  There is one particular girl who is super cute and super imaginative.  It is particularly difficult to help this girl stay quiet.  She is never defiant, she just imagines she is some place more awesome than sitting in her chair in Primary.

For example, one moment we are all sitting there quietly and then she suddenly remembers that she is a ballerina.

This is what she thinks she looks like

This is the reality.  

You'll notice the reality looks pretty similar to the fantasy, she's spinning.  She has a dress.  It's all basically the same, except that it has me chasing after her trying to stop the performance.  At one point I picked her up to place her back on her chair.  She pointed her feet and arched her back.  I'm pretty sure I just became her dancing partner and we were doing some sort of fancy lift.

So, after a few fancy lifts, I decided I should negotiate.  I explained to her that once we get to class (at this point we were in sharing time, with all of the other Primary classes) we have blocks available to play.  But only kids who are reverent get to play with the blocks.

Instantly, the ballerina was no more.  She sat down on her chair, folded her arms and gave me the "I'm so innocent" smile.  I gave her a thumbs up and she beamed with pride.  

Then she looked at the boy sitting next to her.  He was sitting quietly, but his arms weren't folded.  She had to put a stop to this great tragedy.  She quickly got out of her chair and joined him on his chair.  He looked at her with great dismay.  But she began evangelizing him.  She exhorted him to fold his arms so he could receive the promised reward of blocks in the next class.

How do you help the evangelist understand that the boy who always sits quietly is doing just fine?  We did another fancy lift and got her back to her chair.  She was relatively quiet the rest of the time.  

She received the great reward of blocks in class, and even got to play with a puppet.  She lived happily ever after, at least until her dad came to pick her up.  The idea that she had to go home brought tears to her eyes.  That's how fun Primary is.

The Spiderman Conundrum

It would seem my life is filled with mystery.  I still haven't figured out who loves my garbage.  And, while that mystery kind of creeps me out, this one has its own element of creepiness.

So here's the story.  I mow my line every Saturday.  I'm addicted to the ooohs and aaaahs my wife gives me when she sees the freshly cut grass.  (I've never done any sort of drugs, so I have to seek highs in other ways).

Every week before I mow the lawn I do a quick walk through and pick up any random garbage that has blown into the yard, or any items we may have left on the grass.  This week I found a particularly unique item.  See below:

I should note that while the above picture features Spider man on my kitchen table, he was not actually found on my kitchen table.  But that would greatly increase the creepiness.

So you're thinking to yourself, "What's so creepy about Spiderman?  Is it his radioactive blood?  Is it that he catches thieves just like flies?"

Those are excellent guesses, and if you were in my primary class at church I would totally find a way to spin it so that your guesses could be correct.  However, this isn't primary and you're not 3 years old.  So I'll just tell you straight, your guesses are wrong.

Think about how Spiderman arrived in the yard.  I can't think of an explanation for his arrival that isn't creepy.  Here's the scenario I've come up with.

Scene 1:  Two children are playing with their toys.
Child 1:  Look at my cool Spiderman toy, he's got radioactive blood.
Child 2:  That is really cool!  Especially since you're only 4 and you said "radioactive".
Child 1:   I know, right?
Child 2:  You know what we should do?  We should play with your Spiderman toy in the Stockett's backyard.
Child 1:  Why?
Child 2:  Because mysteriously lurking on other people's property is fun.  Plus they only have a fence on 2 sides of their yard so it should be easy to sneek around back.
Child 1:  That sounds like an incredible plan.

Scene 2: In my backyard
Child 1:  Look at my toy now.  He does whatever a spider can.
Child 2:  Quite phenomenal if I do say so myself.
Child 1:  Oh no!  The Stocketts are coming home.  Let's get out of here.
Child 2:  What about Spiderman?  Aren't you bringing him?
Child 1:  There's no time.  He'll have to save himself.

So, that's pretty much the only possible explanation for the appearance of Spiderman.  If your children are creepily playing with action figures in my backyard, tell them I appreciate the donation.  It's much better than stealing my garbage.

Our Money's Worth

A few months ago, we bought Robyn an iPad.  She convinced me it was needful so that she could use it for her teaching.  The first thing she did when we got home was play Bejeweled Blitz.  At first I was distraught that we had paid a whole bunch of money so that Robyn could play Bejeweled on a larger screen than her phone.

But then I discovered Photo Booth.  Over the last couple months, I think we've gotten our money's worth.

I think this is a good look for me.

My niece has a very strong chin.

My other niece's battle cry.

If you think my nephew is precious now, you should see him with a regularly shaped head.

We are a precious couple.

That is true love.

So if you don't feel like you're getting your money's worth out of your iPad.  You have two options.  You can give it to me.  (I'll make sure to get your money's worth.)  Or you could just bust out some Photo Booth.

The Incredible Vanishing Trash Can

They say that one man's trash is another man's treasure.  Well, apparently my trash is solid gold.

About 2 years ago, I wrote about how our neighbor was stealing our trash can. We moved away from those neighbors. Not because they were weird trash thieves, but we certainly didn't miss having our trash can stolen. Of course, when we first moved to our current house, the city wouldn't pick up our trash for a month. I can only assume that they didn't want to load up what they presumed to be solid gold in the dump.

Well, it took us a while to convince the city that we really did want our trash picked up.  The city does now believe that our trash is actual trash.  However, apparently our various neighbors still see incredible value in our garbage cans.  Recently, our trash can completely vanished.  It had been a particularly windy day and we live on a large hill, so we thought maybe it blew down the hill.

I walked all the way down the hill, there were no random trash cans.  I even walked down a few side streets to see if it somehow wandered in a new direction.  There was nothing.  Someone, I'm sure was sitting in their backyard, giddy with the pure joy of having acquired all of our trash, and a can to boot.   It's possible that it originally blew away, but someone clearly took it off the street.

I called the city, they thought I was crazy.  But they don't understand how difficult it is for me to keep my trash can.  I eventually convinced them to give me a new one.

So, let me just put this out there.  We do not put solid gold in our trash can.  Sometimes we use 100 dollar bills as toilet paper, (who doesn't?) but we don't put toilet paper in the trash can.  That would just be gross.

So, please, just let us keep it.  You're free to steal the trash out of it.  Just let us keep the can.  Thanks.  It is much appreciated.

Chick-fil-a Day

Today I went with some coworkers to support Chick-fil-a on the official Chick-fil-a day.  If you don't know what Chick-fil-a day is about, let me briefly explain.

Recently, a baptist news organization was interviewing Dan Cathy, the president of Chick-Fil-A. In the interview he said, "We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that."

To me, this doesn't sound like a particularly divisive statement.  However, there were those who took issue with him referring to the "biblical definition of the family unit."  Those same individuals resorted to boycotting, protesting, and in some cases, trying to get government to shut down Chick-fil-a restaurants.

Conservative circles decided to rally together to support Chick-fil-a and their stand for traditional marriage.

Since I happen to have a deep and abiding love for chicken, I thought it would be fun to participate in this event.  Participation was simple, you just had to show up and buy something delicious.  (How can you not support a cause when it means eating delicious food?)

Lest there is confusion, I thought I should clarify what I was supporting.
1.  Chicken.  It's delicious.
2.  Fidelity.  He is still married to his first wife.
3.  Christian Principles.  I've always been impressed with Chick-fil-a and the fact that they are not open on Sundays.
4.  Willingness to take a stand.  He has been willing to stand for what he believes in in spite of the consequences.

I was not supporting the following
1.  Hatred.  He didn't say anything hateful to anyone or about anyone.
2.  Discrimination.  Had he said anything discriminatory about any group, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything else, I would not be in support of his statement.

The above disclaimer aside, I was blown away by how many people were there.  I decided to make this video below to show how many people I saw.

We had to stand in line for a little over an hour. But it was worth it.  As the great Leeroy Jenkins once said, "At least I have chicken."

Even that girl behind me is excited that I have chicken.