I've created a monster (but she's kinda hot)

My first blog post ever was on Dec 17, 2004. Since then I've been explaining to Traci (you may know her as the Mrs. HTF) how the whole blog thing works. I used to beg her to go read my clever posts, but since I've never written one of those I told her to settle for my mediocre posts. Sometimes she'd actually read 'em (although she never laughed, but that's kinda how my jokes work on her . . . they don't). I told her that she should do a blog. She'd comment on how it was a waste of time and how nobody would read it. I assured her that those words only described my blog, and that she'd have more success.

Well, as many of you know, a few weeks ago, at my urging, she took the plunge, and it was a full-on, nuclear, cannon-ball off the high-dive type of plunge. Now she is totally hooked on the blog thing. She's a little bit fanatical about her daily blog. She talks more about her "readers" more than her kids. (that part's 1000% sarcastic) We now use the phrase, "I'm gonna write a blog about you!" as the ultimate argument stopper. My four often-blogged-about children and I live in constant fear that we will do or say something blog worthy.

Just playin'. I'm actually pretty proud of Traci, and duly impressed. She's having fun and it looks like she has some folks that are consistently reading along. We were gonna have a contest on "readership" but she's already left me in the dust so I've pretended like I forgot the idea. You should also know the real reason this particular post was written - my wife has actually made fun of me for not writing on the blog in several days. So the whole Frankenstein thing is really resonating with yours truly right now.

I'm a lucky guy!

Why I was wearing a towel on my head

Click here for a photo and explanation.

Fantasy Wrap-up

Another year of Fantasy Football has come to a close. This was the closest I came to actually playing any football this year - sad, I know. I set up 2 leagues. In one league I started off with my team being called the Rattlefrogs (leave a comment if you know what that means) and after losing my FIRST SIX GAMES I changed my name to "TrainWreck." Miraculously this strategy worked. I rattled off several victories in a row and somehow go into the playoffs as a 6 seed out of 8 teams. Again I somehow lucked out and made it to the finals against my good friend Larry. Coincidently, he was the 8 seed! Larry beat me, but I've never felt better with a second place finish. (Ha, Becki!!)

In my league with my work friends I had a way better regular season. It's nice that I reluctantly drafted Tom Brady. But I lost in the semifinals simply because Brian Westbrook decided to TACKLE HIMSELF on the one-yard line. (see the video below) If he'd have just walked in I would've made it to the championship game. I have to give the guy props for the selfless act, but wow, I know for a fact that a lot of guys lost a lot of money because of it.

Thanks to all my fantasy football friends! Can't wait for the Madness of March!

Spinning Wildly

Traci (the Mrs. HTF) is an avid exercisist (a word I just made up meaning that she exercises mucho). Every morning at 5 she's up and out the door. She comes back a while later either smelling like chlorine or covered in sweat (I'm told that for women it's called "perspiration") I respect her a ton, while I'm sleeping of course. She most often talks about her "spinning" class. I assumed that this was some sort of aerobic dance class where you spin around to music. I've tried spinning around to music, and I could only go for a minute or so until I could no longer stand, so I can see how you'd need a class to get really good at. To my shock, Traci corrected me and told me that it was a class where you ride a specialized stationary bike to music. She has specialized shoes and everything. It's special.

Well, for months she's been telling me that I need to go with her. Conveniently we have 4 children and getting a babysitter at 5 AM is kinda goofy, so I always have had an excuse. Well, my mother-in-law is in town for the holidays, and Traci said all she wanted for Christmas was for me to go to the "Spinning" class with her. I couldn't say no. So this morning we went. It seemed benign enough when we walked in. There were a bunch of cool-looking bikes that don't actually go anywhere, but I quickly noticed a huge design flaw in all of them. The seats were tiny and harder than the wooden chair I'm sitting on now. I asked Traci about this, but she just thought I was being funny. I wasn't. She got me all set up and the class got started. After the first 8 seconds or so I was hurting in places where I've never felt pain before. That tiny seat was literally "kicking my butt" in ways it's never been kicked before. I figured I'd last longer if I never sat down. Yeah, so that strategy didn't work well either. I toughed it out and I'm sure there were plenty of chuckles directed towards me during those 45 minutes of torture since my form was a little bit shy of perfect. About 30 minutes in I started actually feeling ok, but that's probably my body going numb. Well, I can't really walk up or down stairs now, so I'm thinking that this spinning stuff may not be for me. And this wooden chair is making me squirm.

There's one problem . . . Traci wants me to go again on Wednesday.

Here are some links to a few of my blogs about other exercising adventures:

On Two Years Rest . . .

The Only Guy

That's Great, But Please Don't Crowd

Who feels guilty now?

This morning I asked (told) my boys to go upstairs and get dressed, make their beds, & brush their teeth. To my extreme shock (sarcasm noted) they didn't comply. Instead they were watching TV and playing Xbox. So I told 'em that for their punishment they'd have to stay in their room after they got dressed. They weren't too happy about that, but life's tough. I went downstairs and started in on the dirty dishes. After about 10 minutes or so, a paper airplane sailed into the kitchen. It was clear that something was written on it. So I thought I'd share (click the photo if you can't read it). Needless to say, a few minutes later they were back to the XBox, with Daddy in tow.

Words to live by

"Whenever I’m about to do something, I think “would an idiot do that?” and if they would, I do not do that thing."
(Dwight Schrute, from The Office)

Religion, Politics, and an Awkward Moment

Well, I’m not one who blogs much about politics or religion (although they are two of my favorites), but lately I’m hearing far too much about those two topics in the same sentences. I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked at the role religion is playing as we go through the bizarre process of selecting our next President. Likely my surprise is driven by the fact that it’s very much my religion in question. That’s not a bad news story holistically – hopefully some of the really odd misconceptions that are out there can go away for some folks. However, I’m sure hating feeling like we (using that pronoun generically) have to defend what we believe, while other’s beliefs, even if they’re identical to mine, get zero scrutiny. Let me give you an example:

I’m walking out of the office yesterday and next to the elevators is a TV showing CNN. Wolf Blitzer is interviewing Mike Huckabee, and the text on the screen is quoting Governor Mike’s upcoming NYTimes interview where is rips on “Mormons” using some really goofy speculations about what we believe. You can get more info on it here. While I’m listening a guy in his late 40s, early 50s walks up behind me and starts watching with me. I don’t know the guy, but he says to me, “Wow, those Mormons are a really weird bunch.” I asked him why he was saying that and he referenced what was on the screen and other stuff that he’d heard (none of it true). I stopped the conversation by telling him that I was a “Mormon” and that he was tragically misinformed. (example, he thought there were 200,000 of us and that the church was headquartered in Independence, MO) Of course that made for a nicely awkward moment. I let the silence hang for a while. I told him the names of several prominent members of the church at our own company and in public life. He was shocked. I would’ve taken the conversation a bit further, but he was so embarrassed that I think he just wanted out.

I should’ve sent him here so he could actually read and see what we believe instead of hearing it from a disingenuous politician on TV. Anyway, long post here, and I have a lot more to say on the topic, but I thought you might find the story interesting. Lots of polls have been out there about the "Mormon Problem" for Mitt. I saw one that said 56% of the respondents would be less likely to vote for a Mormon. Wow, are we really still so backward and misinformed?! And don't think for a minute that other politicians aren't using that to their advantage (example above). (even letting their mothers get in on the bigotry) It's frightening to think that we very well may choose our next President based partially on which Christian church he goes to. Absolutely frightening . . .

Some of my favorite things recently

So here are a few of my recent favorite things:

- Having to choose between watching KU basketball and KU football
- My kids cranking up the iPod and singing out loud with headphones on (this is particularly hilarious!)
- My leaf-sucker/mulcher . . . it feels pretty manly
- Employees of Southwest Airlines
- Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison
- "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" by Marshall Goldsmith
- Hanging Christmas lights when it's 72 degrees outside
- 5 Fantasy Football wins in a row
- BYU is in the top 25
- The kids all got ready for school without us saying a word this morning
- Riding a trolley in San Francisco
- Watching iCarly with Allison

Corporate Flo

(Disclaimer - any blogs that mention work-related stuff have to be awfully vague, so sorry about that)

Corporate America is an important place where serious things happen and important, serious people have serious meetings about important things that will have serious impacts that eventually will become important to others who are serious about Corporate America being an important place. By which I mean, there's a reason that Dilbert and The Office are so popular. The Corporate-World is laugh out loud hilarious, and that's all because of the people in it.

Example - I recently attended a meeting where there were 5 of us in a large conference room. In addition there were 20 or so people conferenced in on the telephone. Well, 15 minutes after the meeting started this lady blasts into the room. (I will refer to this woman as Flo - for no particular reason) Flo was clearly hurried and stressed. She's texting and apologizing simultaneously, without noting that she totally just interrupted the conversation of 25 people. A simple "sorry" would've sufficed. As she takes her seat she continues to apologize and repeatedly (I stress that word) send to the uninterested audience the following messages with her words and actions:

- First and foremost, Flo is important, and that clearly, is why she is late
- Flo had "back to back meetings" (translation: "I am very important")
- Flo was several buildings away in her last meeting (translation: "I am very important even in other buildings"), and that's another reason she should be excused for being late
- Flo would like to start the meeting over now. (Translation: Flo is so important that the combined importance of the rest of us is way less than her importance alone)

Something to know about Flo - as corporate ladders go, she's at or below the rung that the rest of us hang on to. So it's not like the CEO just waltzed in.

After several minutes of this the moderator graciously (by which is mean she's way too nice) begins getting Flo up to speed. While the moderator is talking across the table to Flo, she pulls our her PDA and starts texting/emailing. Yes, she's that important. The moderator pretended to be blind and just kept on talking. At the end of the monologue, she asks Flo if that all made sense. Without making eye contact Flo's response was, "not really, but I'll catch up." At this point I wisely covered up my laughter with a fake coughing fit.

There were several other comments from Flo as the meeting when on where she again made sure that we understood that she was sorry for being late because she had back to back meetings in another building. Apparently, she feared that after a couple of minutes our child-like minds would forget how important she was. The absolute kicker though was when the meeting was opened up for questions. Now, I'm pretty forgiving on dumb questions. Heck, I ask lots of 'em. But Flo uttered one (which I can't repeat for fear of the corporate blog hounds) that was so bizarre my jaw hit the table. It was akin to you asking the woman who gave birth to you (Mom) if she's ever been pregnant. Have you ever heard something that was so funny that you couldn't even laugh at it? After the initial shock wore off and the meeting ended I was able to get my hearty chuckle.

Long post here, but the lesson is that we corporate citizens probably aren't quite as important as we think ourselves to be. I suspect that several of you know Flo-like people. If so, will you please invite me to a meeting with them some time? I haven't laughed that hard at work in a long time. Meanwhile, I'm guessing that our friend Flo is at this very moment in another serious back-to-back meeting in another building. So if you see her . . . don't open the floor for questions. (If you do though, can I just call in and listen?)

Seriously.