Birthday Festivities 2015

My birthday was last week.  I turned old.  That's a lie.  I was already old.  I turned 34 which is definitely a new level of old.  It's over 3% older than 33, so that number right there tells you I'm pretty old.

We didn't do a lot of celebrating on the actual day of my birthday.  (Robyn did take me out to dinner that night, though.)  Much like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, I celebrate my birthday the Monday before the actual day.  Most people call this day Memorial Day.  I call it, "My birthday observed."

On My birthday observed, Robyn told me to wake her up 30 minutes before I want to eat breakfast.  I actually thought that meant that it would take her 30 minutes to do her hair and other such womanly activities.  What it actually meant was that it took 30 minutes to drive there.  She took me to The Original Pancake House in Draper.  I the most delicious breakfast burrito known to man, as well as some fantastic pancakes.

Before I tell you the next activity Robyn had planned for me, I should tell you that Robyn takes her students on all sorts of field trips, and I always tell her that I'm jealous and I want to go on a field trip.

So she took me on a field trip to the Living Planet Aquarium.

Field trips are so great!

We took selfies with sharks

I got to touch a ray.  (I've done it before, but it's super cool so clearly I did it again.)

I took a selfie with the arapaima.  (If you don't know what an arapaima is, you need to watch River Monsters.  It's the only fish that really scares Jeremy Wade.)

We had selfies with penguins.

I even got to pose with the napping otters.  (Incidentally, a little kid 3 or 4 years old was put in this same spot by his dad.  When he saw the otters, a look of pure terror came over his face.  It was precious.)

There were also important things that happened that weren't captured in selfies.  (I know.  You wish there were more selfies in this post.)  The first is that when I saw the octopus, I got up really close to his little tank and whispered, "Cthulhu fhtagn".  Doesn't that just seem like something an octopus would want to hear?

The second was when we watched the guy swimming into a giant tank filled with sharks and rays.  He had food with him to feed the rays.  The rays would come up and eat out of his hand.  The sharks knew he had food so they kept swimming up and trying to get it from him.  He would just grab them and push them away.  I kept thinking, "That guy is totally fighting off hungry sharks.  Best job ever!"

I hear you have to have a degree in marine biology to be the guy that fights off sharks.  I guess I'll just have to stick with my computer programming job.

Secret Shoppers Rule, Regular Shoppers Drool

I got to be a secret shopper.  It's kind of like being a regular shopper, only it's secret, and awesome.

My sister, Jen, was really the one who got to be a secret shopper, but I was invited along for the ride.

What's that, you say?  You don't know what a secret shopper is?  My explanation of it being secret and awesome wasn't enough?  Well, aren't you a snippy little blog reader.

I imagine that secret shoppers are slightly different wherever you go, but I will explain how it worked this time.  Buffalo Wild Wings was using secret shoppers to do employee evaluations.  Our job was simple, we show up at the restaurant, we request the server that they assigned to us, and we eat food.  They gave us a voucher that we used to pay for our meal, so it was completely free.  After the meal is over, there is an evaluation form that we fill out.  It has questions like, "how long did you wait before your server talked to you?", "Did the server offer you dessert?" and various other questions.

The word is that if they pass the evaluation from the secret shopper they get the wonderful reward of keeping their job.  If they fail, there is a second secret shopper sent from the corporate office.  If they fail the second time, they no longer have a job.  (It's the age old 2 strikes and you're out system.)

The system may seem a little harsh, but I was happy to be a part of it by eating a free meal.

I had never eaten at Buffalo Wild Wings before.  Upon walking in, the first thing I noticed was the awesome crowns that you can wear.  How could I not grab one?  I'm clearly a wing man.

Robyn commented afterward that they would have never guessed that our table was evaluating their service, because clearly someone important would never wear a hat like that.  But she's totally wrong.  Doesn't that selfie make me look important?

I'm not gonna lie.  Our server did an awesome job.  She took good care of us and my burger was delicious.  (They didn't even take away my hat when I ordered a burger instead of wings.)  She passed with flying colors.  She is still employed to this day!

The moral of the story is that secret shopping is way better than regular shopping.  I really want to do it again.  Do you need the services of a secret shopper?  Because I will secret shop for food.