Older Than I've Ever Been

Well, it officially happened. I turned old. I don't think old happens at the same age for everyone, but I'd like to cite the following examples to prove my oldness:
1. I go to bed way early. I used to stay up all hours of the night, but now I'm usually in bed by 11. That is definitely an old person attribute.
2. I grunt and make noises when I stand up or move around. Old people totally do that.

I think this old thing has been creeping up on me for a while, but since I just had a birthday I thought I'd bring it up. One thing I should point out is that old birthdays are much better than young birthdays.(or at least married birthdays are better, but I think I got old when I got married, it's possible that married and old are synonyms.)

Robyn has been so great this week, she has been celebrating my birthday all week long. First, her whole family sent me presents and cards and then she took me out to eat at Los Hermanos. While we were there, her name was Maria and mine was Eduardo and I got to order all sorts of delicious food.

Then, later on Friday she took me up to the meadow where we got engaged. It was the first time we had been there since our engagement (almost a year ago) and it was so much fun to roast hot dogs and make eclairs over the fire. (If you have never done that you need to experience it.)

But the very best happened on Saturday. Every year Robyn takes her school kids on a field trip to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving point. I had been bugging her for a while that she should take me there because I love dinosaurs. (Way back in kindergarten my mom convinced me to go by saying that I would learn how to read and be able to read about dinosaurs on my own. I was a very cranky boy after they didn't even begin to teach me on the first day.) So Robyn surprised me with a "field trip" and we went to the dinosaur museum.

Robyn was almost eaten by a giant prehistoric shark but I saved her.

Robyn didn't even know she was about to be eaten by a raptor

Not Pictured: me saving her again.

This is me posing in front of a gentle herbivore.

This is me preparing for the 3D movie on the Xango mammoth screen.

Also Pictured: knee of a stranger.

So, as you can see, my birthday week has been amazing. And the best part is it's not over. My family always celebrates birthdays on Sunday because that's when we get together. In a few hours I will get a fancy dinner made by my mom and lots of presents from the fam. Then tomorrow begins a new month and the end of the purchase freeze. (Don't worry, I'm still accepting non-birthday presents.)

The Little People

Yesterday I had quite an adventure. I took half the day off of work so that I could go to Robyn's school to meet her students. They have been asking forever when they get to meet Mr. Stockett, and Robyn has been promising them that I would come before the end of the school year. Well, since A)The school year is almost ever and B)They were putting on their school program yesterday, we decided that it would be a good idea to make yesterday the day. I arrived right after lunchtime and Robyn had me sit in a chair and all the kids sat on the floor around me. She gave them about 20 minutes to ask me whatever questions they desired. I have always been fascinated by discovering what is in other people's minds and the questions they asked really showed what they think about. I'll just share a few of my favorites:

What is your favorite commercial?
What game systems do you own?
Do you always wear flip-flops?
What is your shoe size?
Do you laugh a lot at home?
If you had a pet dragon what would its name be? (The girl that asked this snuck up to me after Robyn had sent them to their seats and asked what color my dragon would be.)

It was a lot of fun answering their questions and getting to find out what they were thinking about. Then we all went to the gym and I got to see their performance of The Ugly Duckling.

It was super cute. All the kids wore little hats to show what animal they were and they put together quite a production. I was really impressed, when I was in second grade all we did is have everyone sing together, but they had a whole play complete with soloists, props and special effects. It was definitely the most amazing second grade production in the history of the history. I suspect that Robyn's background in theater may have contributed to how amazing the show was.

Then to top it all off, Robyn's school had reserved tables at the Desert Star Theater to see a comedy show called American Fork Idol. It was a fantastic day and I didn't have to plan any of it. Don't I have an amazing wife?

My Blog Turns 1

Today is May 18th. May 18th is an important day in history. Why is this such an important day you ask? There are many important events in history that happened in May. For example, May 25, 1977 Star Wars Episode IV opened in theaters for the first time. Another important event is May 27, 1981 my mom gave birth to me. That event changed the world. So if either of those were your guess than you were wrong. May 18, 2008 was when I wrote my first blog post. That's right, today my blog turned 1!

To commemorate the birthday of my blog I have two agendas that I wanted to address, first I want to tell you the story of why I became a blogger. Robyn and I had been dating a few months. She is a really big journal person. She writes in her journal every night and she hasn't missed a day since she was 15. It's super impressive and I really admire her for it. She believes strongly in the idea of being record keepers and she was bugging me about starting a journal. I agree with the principal of being record keepers but I have a hard time writing in a book that no one will see, but I had been thinking about jumping on the blogging bandwagon so I asked her if becoming a blogger would suffice for a journal. She agreed to quit bugging me if I started blogging.

Thus, "Jeff's Thoughts and Stories" was born. I've really enjoyed writing it and I've tried to have my blog encapsulate all the different aspects of me. Sometimes it's serious, sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's just stupid. But I thought it might be fun to hear some feedback from those who read my blog. I want to know what kinds of posts you like to read the most. Do you have a favorite post? Do you have a post you really hate? I generally judge how much people liked a post by the number of comments (by the way, I love comments) If that is an accurate way of judging than my hawaii announcement has been the most popular post, followed closely by the moniversary series. But, I want to hear all your thoughts, do you like more serious posts like the one about my thoughts on engagement? Maybe you like crazy stories like the time I put a hole in the wall. Do you like to see my nerdiness flow like on my pi day post? Or would you just like to see lots of pictures like the honeymoon post?

Whoever you may be I'd like some feedback. Whether you're a good friend or frequent reader or you're someone who just found my blog through google or someone else's blog. I've enjoyed writing it and I want to know how much you've enjoyed reading it so tell me what you love and what you hate.

Hulu: Coolest Alien Plot Ever

I've been meaning to share my love of Hulu for quite some time. This is the second in my amazing website series. It used to be that if you wanted to see any shows on the internet your best bet was to hope that someone posted them on youtube or some illegal site. The problem with illegal sites is A)By watching them you're supporting illegal behavior and B)They tend to get taken down so they're not super reliable.

Hulu solved both of those problems because they actually have legally contracted with the different networks and are able to show all sorts of TV shows and movies totally free. They do attach commercials to them but they are much shorter and more tolerable than if you were watching your shows on TV.

Not to mention that Hulu has awesome advertising as well. Check out this Hulu ad below:



Head on down to http://www.hulu.com and see what those evil aliens have to offer.

Seventh Moniversary

Can you believe Robyn and I have been married seven months? It seems like just yesterday, but at the same time it seems like being married is just the way it's always been. It's hard to remember what it was like without her. At any rate, this has been another great month filled with adventures. If you haven't been keeping up with things, here are some pics from the past month, and you can read about an exciting purchase. Without further ado, here are some of the events of the past month:

Getting Lost on the Lindon Trail
Technically, we never got lost. We always knew where we were, we just didn't know where we were going. See, we've been trying to be a little healthier. This includes going to the gym once a week, eating healthier and trying to take walks several times a week. So we'll just take off in a direction that we haven't explored yet and see what we see. I knew there was a park in Lindon(a city just north of us) and I thought we could walk to it. Well, it wasn't where I thought it was, but we found the Lindon City trail instead. We followed the trail for a while and it actually got us to the park I was thinking of. Then it took us under State Street so I thought it would bring us closer to home. We were hoping it would wind us south, but it never did and we eventually had to backtrack and walk home on state street. We walked right past the place where we had our reception. We estimate the whole walk was about 4 miles, which isn't incredibly long but was longer than we planned on.

The Snuggly Tummy
My 4 year old niece Addy one time asked me why I had such a big tummy. I told her the obvious reason which is, "It is for snuggling." Now when she sees me she gets excited about my snuggly tummy and she'll come snuggle up to me. The other day when we were babysitting her and her brother, she told me her mom (who is pregnant) has a tummy like mine but it's not for snuggling because there's a baby inside.

Losing Weight
In relation to the previous 2 topics, we've been doing our live healthier program for a little over a month and I'm down about 5 pounds, so I'm losing approximately 1 pound a week. Hopefully that will continue. The nice thing is that we haven't had to drastically change our lifestyle. Just a few small changes.

AAAAAAHHHHHH
This is a story that had to be told. Yesterday morning(Sunday) Robyn and I were snuggling and talking. Neither of us had showered or prepared our Sunbeams lesson or anything. We were just enjoying the morning together but I looked at my watch and said we should probably get dressed and get ready for church. Neither of us really wanted to though because we were enjoying spending the time together. Eventually it got to where we had a half hour left and really needed to go. I looked at my watch and mentioned that we should get ready, but this time showed Robyn the watch. She said nothing except "AAAAAHHHHHH" very loudly. She jumped up and ran in the bathroom. She then asked, "why didn't you tell me we had so little time?" I tried to tell her that I had mentioned it before and that's why I showed her the watch this time. Her response was classic, she said, "Why didn't you say AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH that would have been more AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH." I don't even know what that means but it's filled with awesome. I will have you all know we got to church about 1 minute late and we kind of winged it on the sunbeams lesson but they didn't even notice.

Soda Fountain Etiquette

This morning my thoughts are dwelling on a very important subject. You see, yesterday was Costco Tuesday(every Tuesday I eat lunch at Costco with my work buddies, I have mentioned it before.) I was standing in line at the soda fountain machine waiting to fill my cup. I'm several people back in line, the people in front of me are patiently waiting their turn but I just want a water and the water is available. This scenario has happened about 100,000 times in my life. I really want to just walk up and get the drink I want but the rest of the world seems to think that only one person at a time can be at the machine. If I am next in line I always get the drink I want if that particular drink is not being used. I feel it does a service to myself and to everyone behind me in line. But if I'm not next I never do it, because I would be cutting in line.

I need the opinion of the people. Can I assume that the reason the people in front of me aren't going is because the drink they want is being used? If so, they wouldn't mind me going straight for what I want because when the other person moves they can go straight for what they want. Or should I just patiently wait my turn as I have been doing, even though it pains me greatly to see the inefficient use of the drink machines? I've been thinking alot about this lately, it has me in quite a quandary. What do you think?

Another New Arrival

Read the comic below. (Click on it for a larger version) I'm pretty sure I am that guy. I'm always trying to jury rig something or automate something or just plain get myself into trouble.






So why do I feel like him today? Well, remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about our new DVR? Well, it is super awesome, but I thought it would be even more super awesome if our DVR could be accessed anywhere in the world. I had some fun money saved up so I bought a Hava Gold. It was supposed to be a simple hook up to the network. I won't bore you with the details but I'll just say it wasn't simple. I even recruited my dad who came over for like 4 hours on Saturday. The end result is that I bought a second router for our network and there are now 2 wireless networks running in my house but one of them allows access to the Hava. Which means any computer in our house can watch our DVR. I haven't yet setup access outside of our network but that is my next project.

This whole story leads me to the real question. Why do I even do these things? After spending like 5 hours trying to get it to work, Robyn suggested that I just send it back. I couldn't do it. Once the puzzle has been placed before me it must be solved. Now that the puzzle is solved I should probably go to bed. I hope you enjoyed the comic. If you want to see our DVR it is now available wirelessly throughout our house. Come check it out.