My Weekend in the Literal Twilight Zone

A quick scan of Facebook status updates yesterday made it really, really clear that a new movie about a depressing thoughtful teenage girl and dueling werewolves/vampires was debuting.  But I have to admit that I was already fully aware of this because of where I went on vacation last weekend. 

Yep, we had a sleepover in Robert Pattinson’s really-dark basement.

Actually, we stayed out in Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula.  We were in sweet hotel just two blocks from some Italian restaurant that was featured in one, or maybe all seven of the previous Twilight movies, where you can actually order the SAME ENTRE that Bella ordered in the book.  (And I assume you’d only do this if you for some reason wanted to be more attractive to the local vampire community.)  The name of the establishment – yep, it’s BELLA ITALIA.  It’s true, friends.  But of course Port Angeles is just an ancillary part of the saga that makes 40 year old mothers swoon – the real Mecca of the thing is Spoons, I mean, Forks.  Here I want to make something really, really clear.  Our specific plans, which we adhered to, you know, specifically, were to visit the Hoh Rain Forest and the coast – both of which were AWESOME.  The way the roads work, from our hotel you HAVE to drive though Forks, unless you have a helicopter, a teleportation device, OR a desire to take the long route through Northern California.  So hopefully that’s clear for you.  Our visits this weekend to Forks and La Push had ZERO to do with that semi-popular movie/book series.  Still, I suspect you might want to know what we saw there.

• People, mostly female people over the age of 35, dressed mostly in black with t-shirts that say, “Bite ME!  (Edward)”
• Multiple shops that sell crazily-priced Twilight paraphernalia – things like life-size shirtless Jacob cardboard figures, Forks High School cheerleader outfits, and Cullen Family baseball bats.  The wildest shop was appropriately named, “Dazzled By Twilight.”  The place was decked out like a Broadway rendition of the movie with fake trees everywhere, realistic looking mountain/beach scenery, and lighting that made you feel like you were in the woods with vampires who wanted to either kiss or kill you.  I, of course, entered the shop on accident, when I tripped on something.
• The town is covered with businesses/products renamed to remind visitors about the books and how spending money at these establishments will instantly make the consumer a KEY part of the storyline.  At the Subway we ate at there was an official Twilight Sub.  The hardware store was named, Twilight Lumber.  I’m intentionally NOT typing the jokes in my mind right now.
• But mostly the difference between Forks and similar towns were the “Fans” mentioned in point #1.  I was, well, scared of them in a way.  Typically 40 year old mothers of 3 don’t frighten me, you know, very much.  But to see them in this place that I suspect they may have spent, well, a great deal of time thinking about, made me a little uncomfortable.  They traveled in packs, not unlike wolves.  At one point in the “store” I did a scan of the other people in the place and I was the only adult male in the place.  I’m a pretty secure guy, but I felt like I was at a party no one had invited me to.  Please understand, I’m not disparaging these fine and lovely people.  So please let them know that I said that last part if you see any of them OR if you happen to be one of them.

I could go on.  I didn’t even describe La Push, but I already worry I may have offended the vast majority of my readers.  I was lit up recently by a woman when I implied that there may be better writers out there than Stephanie Meyer – I should’ve known better.  Anyway, if any of you happen to pass through Forks like I did be sure to eat the Twilight Sub, which is easier to eat with your $29.99 designer Vampire Fangs that you can purchase around the corner.

Black Funk in the Gulf and an Awkward Oval Office Chat

It’s been a while since you got an update on the always semi-popular, yet mostly-inaccurate, HTF spin on some of the bigger current events of recent days.  Here are of couple that you may have noticed:

• Clearly the biggest story is the fossil fuel that for millions of years was safely underground under a few miles of ocean in the gulf until we decided to suck it out of there and put it in barrels so we can drive and fly and stuff.  After the oil rig exploded, at which point we obviously blamed the Canadians and/or terrorists from Florida, the black funk (perfect name for a 70s soul band which I probably wouldn’t be invited to join for several immaterial reasons) began spewing at rates ranging from 3 drops a day to 3 bazillion Big Gulps per second into the ocean depending on who was estimating.  The company responsible, BP (which stands for BIG freaking PROBLEMS) quickly took charge of the situation by issuing wordy press releases from London that, somehow failed to plug the hole in spite of their length and earnestness.  So then they had the CEO do commercials in America where his words and slow stride set to instrumental music also somehow failed to stop the leak.  But all these valiant efforts have succeeded in making the BP stock price roughly equivalent to the price of a bean burrito at the Taco Bell.  (I’m suddenly hungry…)  Anyway, the update is that the clean-up is well underway in spite of the mess growing exponentially by the second.  This is roughly equivalent to me trying to floss the kid’s teeth WHILE they are continuously shoving sugary pieces of Hubba Bubba in their mouths and chewing away…
• The lead US General in Afghanistan, whose last name is McChrystal and first name is General, was pretty much fired last week.  It seems he did an interview with Rolling Stone, which makes, you know, perfect sense.  It’s not like the guy is busy fighting a war or something.  Definitely a winning strategy for all great war heroes on the eve of a major offensive is to get an interview published next to multi-page articles on Lady Gaga’s tattoos and/or underwear preferences.  And in the interview you should totally make offensive remarks about most everyone you work for (although the digs on the French people seemed fairly accurate).  Upon reading the article (the McChrystal one, not the Lady Gaga one…I think…) the President got our good General on a plane back to DC and had what must have been a very warm and fuzzy meeting in the White House, after which we suddenly have a new General in Afghanistan.  Come on, don’t you think reality TV in the White House would be WAY more interesting that at Kate Gosslin’s house?!

That’s all I have time for now, but the lessons here are mccrystal-clear: if you’re going to chew Hubba Bubba while issuing verbose press releases about oil spewage and/or Lady Gaga’s tattoos be sure you get interviewed by a deeply respected, hard-hitting, news magazine like Rolling Stone.

Being Hit Over the Melon by the Soccer Thing

My first soccer memory was at one of my first practices when I was a kid.  One of the “big” kids on the team had kicked the ball pretty hard and I wasn’t paying attention.  The thing hit me in the head so hard that it knocked me to the ground.  I didn’t like that kid – ever.  But I did play soccer for a couple years when I was like 9 or something.  (yes, I was 9 for 2 full years – wrap your mind around that!)  I should’ve stuck with soccer given my body type (that phrase feels really weird to say, but whatever…).  Instead I picked sports ideal for short, smallish guys – basketball and football.  This key decision is the whole reason I’m not a pro athlete today.  Ok, there may be a couple other reasons…

But lately there’s a nice buzz about soccer, and I’m getting into it a bit thanks to the World Cup.  I caught part of the first US games, but the real trigger for me happened last week in Argentina.  I got to watch the Argentina-Korea game with a bunch of CRAZY fans from Argentina.  When the team scored goals it was literally the most energized sports moment I’ve ever been part of.  Absolutely awesome – melee ensued.  Then the other morning I pulled a few of my kids out of bed and watched the US game with them.  (6:30 AM start time in Seattle)  As Donovan scored that wild goal right at the end I, well, turned into an Argentine dude.  I yelped and screamed – two things that I do pretty rarely.  (I also felt pretty pleased when the French team imploded – their worst melt down since WW II)

Anyway, I’m now loving me the World Cup.  But the odds are high that, as most Americans, once we lose I’ll forget that it was even happening.

Charged for having gas – Part dos of adventures in Argentina

Well, I’m headed to the airport in a bit to fly home from Argentina.  It has been awesome – got a lot of work done, but played a bit too.  Here are some of the more recent things that stood out (I preface this by apologizing for the more off-color observations, but those kinda stuck out):

• Last night I walked down to the swanky “Puerto Madera” (literal translation is “Big buildings that were built to extract money from people”) to check things out.  At one point I was standing and looking at the “Casa Rosada,” which I was told was where the President of Argentina works, but doesn’t live.  It’s a cool building.  I heard a loud noise above my head and saw this HUGE WHITE HELICOPTER – my first thought was that the Pope was making a surprise visit – but that thing was so loud it sounded more like an invasion.  Turned out that it was the President herself.  So I got to see a bunch of people swarm around.  It made me think that I totally need a white helicopter.
• I walked around the shopping district and wound up running into a huge group of protesters.  I tried, but I still have no idea what they were protesting, but from the noise they were making I’m quite certain they had a strong anti-silence stance.  They were pounding metal, shooting fireworks into the sky, and shouting things that no one could understand.  It kinda felt like a preschool run amuck.
• After tons of walking around I picked a restaurant to drop in on.  All the meals here are way later in the day, so I showed up at 8:30 PM and the place was empty – by 10 it was hoppin’.  It was quite a place.  How do I know this you may ask… well – there was an automated breathalyzer installed outside of the bathrooms, assumingly for the patrons to challenge each other on who was the drunkest.  Another bathroom observation – the TP machine gave it out like 2 inches at a time – now that’s conservation.
• Eating by yourself you kinda get to observe and listen a bit more.  At the table next to me were 9 guys of various ages.  The waiter took their order and most of them ordered carbonated water to drink.  That’s common here.  They ask if your want water “with gas” (with carbonation) or “without gas.”  (that’s the literal translation)  I almost fell out of my chair laughing when the waiter returned and asked, “Ok guys, which of you has gas?”  And like six of ‘em raised their hands without laughing.  I love language stuff.  As I signed my own bill I noticed that my soda was referred to as “gas.”  So I can safely say that I was charged extra for having gas.

I’m off now to not sleep on the plane from Buenos Aires to Atlanta.

Adventures in Argentina – Part One

This week I’m in Buenos Aires, Argentina – even farther south than Florida or Texas, but I think more people here speak English.  Getting here took a lot of airplane time and here are a few things I’ve learned or that happened during my adventure so far:

• My ability to sleep on 10 hour plan rides is less than my ability to do pretty much anything else.
• I’ve now seen Invictus twice – and I’ve learned that I’ll probably never be a world-class rugby player (a shock to all of you, I know), but I can quote most of the movie.
• On the flight from Seattle to Atlanta they had free movies since the credit card thing wasn’t working.  This was very exciting except for the older lady next to me who got so frustrated with the control for the movie thing that she gave up.  I offered to help, but she said it just wasn’t worth it.  I gave her Orbitz Maui Melon gum instead and this seemed to make her incrementally happier.
• The lady on the other side of me watched The Blind Side on her iPod, but could’ve watched it for free on the “big-ish” screen in front of her for free.  Maybe I’m just being a guy but big screen is ALWAYS better than small screen.
• If you work in Customs you have to look a little mean and indifferent.
• My Spanish is still semi-ok, at least I could carry on an hour and half conversation with the driver who took me to the hotel.  He gave me a huge talking-tour of the city and an in-depth, non-bias (I’m sure!) explanation of how screwed up politics are in his country – he seems to think we have it all figured out in the US since we have Obama.  The other point he kept emphasizing  was how 3-4 months after things become popular in the US they arrive in Argentina – stuff like technology, fashion, etc.  This clearly means that Justin Bieber is only days away from taking over down here.  As a parting comment I told him to let me know the next time he was in Seattle – he laughed hard at that one.
• The power plugs here are different – forgot about that.
• The first shower I took here was actually kinda scary.  There were SIX nozzles all in front of me along with the shower head above me.  Upon turning on the shower I was pummeled with ice-cold water from all of these different sources.  Then it warmed up a bit and I was fine, but wow – I think people here are somehow cleaner because that’s a lot of water power.
• Driving here is more like walking through the Walmart on the day after Thanksgiving.  You’ll survive it, but there will be bumps/bruises and you have to be really self-centered brave to go more than 10 feet or so.

The thing I’m most impressed with are the people – they are “fall all over yourself” nice.  Yesterday I was standing in a LONG line at a fast-food place for lunch.  The co-worker I was with in the line is due to have a baby in a few weeks.  One of the crazy-busy fast food workers spotted my pregnant friend, ran up to us, and dragged us to the front of the line to order in front of like 50 other people.  AND THIS IS NORMAL.  So classy.  The moral of the story – the next time you’re in Argentina – bring your pregnant friends.

Sunday Afternoon Slug Stuff

About 11 years ago I saw the first ultrasound (or was it sonogram – I have NO idea what the difference is) of the little baby man inside my wife.  I won’t lie – I was ecstatic that it was a dude in there, but only cuz they make a lot more sense to me.  My obvious reaction was to make two quick purchases:

1. A plush football that said, “My First Football”

2. A Flatbed Scanner – this was to scan the images to e-mail the, uh, proof, that we were having a boy.  In fact I actually edited the picture by drawing a digital circle around the, uh, proof, and inserting an arrow and comment that said, “See, it’s a boy!”  Of course this was all just a big excuse to buy an electronic device that I barely ever used – not the last time this would happen…

My boys do lots of the same stuff that I remember doing – and plenty of things that I probably should remember doing, but have selectively forgotten.  For instance, today my oldest came home from church intent on killing slugs by dumping salt on them.  (As an afterthought - I’d like to know what his church lesson was about.)  My reaction was to ask him why killing slugs made sense and that he had to answer in the form of a written paragraph.  Here’s his response:

“Why killing slugs makes sense:

One reason why killing slugs is a good thing is that slugs eat flowers and plants.  The other reason is there will be less slugs here to kill the plants.  The last reason is that slugs get burned from the salt and it burns off their skin.”

He added an illustration involving the three big S’s (slug, salt, slime), which I shouldn’t describe, but I suspect was fairly accurate.  So even though I found it morally reprehensible, by which I mean I totally would be doing the same thing at 10 years old, I handed him the salt shaker begrudgingly told him he could go.  His female siblings were equal parts fascinated and disgusted at what he was doing.  Boys are pretty weird, no doubt, but we can create a lot of fun out of a salt shaker and/or scanner.

Update:  Here’s the actual “paragraph.”

Rain, Rain… Bring it on!

When I was a kid my friends and I used to lay down in the street gutters while it poured rain and enjoyed the happy wetness.  As I’ve gotten older I guess I’ve become a little more averse to getting drenched that way (also to laying in gutters, but that’s probably for different reasons).  When we moved to Seattle I was hit with lots of comments about enduring deluges of Northwest rain.  The secret that I’ve learned in my almost 2 years living here is, and don’t tell this to anyone, that it really isn’t that bad.  Yeah, it rains a bit, but I really think the stigma is a bit overblown, kinda like how in Kansas you see tornados at least every Tuesday.

We have had a wet streak though recently and it threatened to make the holiday weekend a little less fun, but we (by which I mostly mean Traci) were undeterred.  We had said we were going for a hike and so off we went.  I’d never walked that much in the pouring rain, in the woods, on purpose.  It went surprisingly well.  The kids were gonna complain about hiking anyway, and the rain, in an odd way, made it feel like more of an adventure, so we got very few complaints.  Don’t get me wrong, it was far from ideal and there were more than a few slips on the trail.  Also, people got nice and muddy.  But we didn’t push too hard and tried to pretend like we didn’t notice that we all looked like we had just climbed out of the river.  Of course since misery likes company, we invited another awesome family to go with us on Saturday morning.  They mistakenly accepted and actually seemed to have as much fun as we did.  There were some, uh, shorter legs in the group, so that slowed us down.  But I was thinking – for us “tall” people walking a few miles is one thing, but for kids with legs as long as my forearms, walking a couple miles must feel like a marathon.  The kiddos were troopers.

We did however, rush home to put on dry clothes and sit in front of our space heaters.  Our garage looked like a Payless Shoe Source that had been leveled in a mudslide – at least 400 pairs of mud laden shoes that will never be clean again.  Well, after that experience, what do you think we did…

We went and did the thing again on an equally rainy Monday morning, but instead invited 2  fun families to join in our forced fun on the trails.  Again there was a some good slippage and I actually pulled my innocent white sock out of a shoe that had been sucked into a mud pit for a minute.  The kids led the way though, and I really didn’t see much of them.  I think they got up the mountain so fast they had time to build a make-shift cabin with indoor plumbing and satellite TV.  They descended equally fast.  Yeah, we were drenched and all, but the power of the cheesiness of being with friends/family and having a little nature adventure kinda made the rain feel a little less wet.

So the next time it rains and you see my name on the caller ID – answer at your own risk!

Jack Should Totally Set A Perimeter Around the Smoke Monster

Within 24 hours my two favorite current TV shows came to an end this week.  I was devastated to see the Celebrity Bachelor Loser Amazing Race While Dancing end its season.  Actually, you probably know that I’m talking about Lost and 24.  I’m sad to see their runs end, but it certainly was time…  We’ve seen enough of Jack suffering in both shows.

I must pay tribute to my friend, Dave, who endured sitting with me through 4.5 hours of Lost and then a couple more of the Jack Bauer Power Hour.  I’ll have to check, but I think after that much time together we have a common-law marriage or something.  But it was fun to chat it up during the shows.  The Mrs HTF has joined me for Lost this season, which has been awesome.  But, I did spend a lot of time trying to answer questions to get her caught up on the show.  I found that you could just answer most questions with “You just have to understand the Flash-Sideways to get that.”  For the most part I didn’t have many understandable answers, but I admire her for jumping in with both feet this season.  She even teared-up a few times, which, if you know my wife, registers on the Surprise Meter about as much as a news article about a politician who tell lies.  The girl is a, um, quick-crier.  For you guys out there, you know that this is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb if there’s ever a disagreement.  The tears come, and I know for sure that, however sound my logic may have been, I’m not only dead-wrong, but I’m pretty much evil to the core (yeah, I’m a bald smoke monster who works in Finance).  Anyway, I loved Lost and will miss the show.

24 is a bit more like an addiction than a TV show.  After each episode I find myself shivering (true fact – Dave covered me up with a blanket during the finale last night) and as wide awake as I could possible be.  It’s remarkably like the cold plunge at the Russian Spa.  And then, I have to come back for more to get my fix.  Each season got more and more unbelievable, but I don’t care much about that.  I had to see more and more.  Traci never really watched 24 with me, because, well, it’s 24 and, uh, a tad bit violent.  In much the same way that Antarctica is a tad bit cold.  So I usually would watch this show by myself late at night – not the best of plans…  But I’ll miss Jack getting things uploaded to his PDA, setting perimeters, shooting people in the thigh, and getting visuals on bad guys (as opposed to just seeing them).

Before these shows started I had ONE child, and well, life was different.  For instance I was 6’4” and had a marvelous weave in my hair.  Anyway, I’ll miss those shows, but will probably get a bit more sleep…unless I start thinking about how FREAKIN’ AWESOME it would be to have Jack Bauer on that stupid island instead of Jack Shepard…  Who wouldn’t watch that show?!

Roughin’ It and Flaming Sticks of Fun

Last weekend the Pope boys put on our Mountain Man personas and went camping.  (I define “Mountain Man” as a guy who has both thumbs at least 10 feet away from an electronic device AND has removed things that make noise from his ears that weren’t there when he was born)  It was the annual church Fathers & Sons Campout, which should be called – Fathers Set Up Tents and See Their Sons Sometime the Next Day Campout.  There was much burning of stuff, some of which was actual wood.  I observed one little guy, who we’ll call BJ, who clearly has a career as a Fireman Trainer Dude and/or Arsonist.  Somehow, in all his 5-year-old glory he knew precisely how to stoke the fire so that it would singe anyone standing nearby.  This was a much-admired skill, and not necessarily one possessed by all the impressed adults males (me).  During the 8 hour long marshmallow roast I marveled that we were so at ease with 3-foot tall people running around millimeters from the fire with flaming, pointed sticks.  Nobody would’ve been surprised to see some HOT puncture wounds – but I think most everyone survived. 

My own boys avoided me completely and did hyper-complex boy games in the woods like, “Let’s see if we can hit Charlie and/or Jimmy with a rock.”  My oldest didn’t even sleep in our tent, choosing the safety of the minivan instead.  Which was good because he was a least partially shielded from snoring that, and I’m not making this up, had some of us wondering if Bigfoot was having a family reunion in our campground and was ticked off after having lost the family raffle.  As an aside – why women (particularly the Mrs. HTF) marry guys is beyond me… I’m going with pity or some sort of masochism thing….

I will say I had a great time, and I think my boys did too, but I haven’t seen them since we got to the campground…

PS- I suggest you take a quick read at the post from last year’s adventure, as featured on MormonTimes.  (yeah, I was pretty geeked about that part…)

As Seen At The Rock Show – The Return of HTF

I’ve been to a few concerts, which hasn’t automatically made me cool, much to my dismay.  At first I thought just being present would instantly increase my mojo.  In actuality, it often feels more like my presence there is simply tolerated by the cool people AND their tattoos.  The vast majority of my head-boppin’ to loud music has happened in the shower at my brothers’ rock concerts.  A few weeks ago I saw Spoon play two nights in a row here in the Sea-Town.  I’ve seen ‘em play quite a few times, so I kinda did a lot of people watching instead of focusing too hard on the band.  As I looked around and thought about the interesting crowds I’ve seen at other shows, a few “categories” of concert goers formed in my wandering mind.  Here are a few:

• The tall guy in the front row who so intently and passionately sings every word that it’s like he’s proposing to the band in song.  If I were in the band I’d be kinda scared of this guy…  And right next to him is…
• The girl who just STARES at the band.  There’s no movement, no facial expressions, nothing.  It’s like she’s in a bad Sandra Bullock movie where if she takes her eyes off the band or shows emotion of any sort her pants will explode.
• The girl who has come with her date, but the guy refuses to get up and dance with her.  For the first few songs she actually tries to lift him up out of his seat.  By song 3 she gives up but just dances wildly by herself.  On song 5, which is always a popular one, he begrudgingly stands up cuz he realizes he’s like the only one still sitting and he knows he has some ground to make up with his lady-friend.  She, of course, takes this as a sign that he wants to dance with her, so she turns her moves towards him.  He’s trapped now.  So he waddles a bit and may even nod his head a few times on the down-beat.  He’ll continue this bizarre ritual until the end of the show because he knows that anything less and the date with this girl will probably be his last.
• The girls (and they always travel in packs of 3) who have been drinking heavily and would like everyone around them to know it by demonstrating their off-beat moves which often involve closing their eyes and flipping their hair around like it was on fire or something.
• The guys who came to the show with other dudes and are constantly trying to gauge each other to determine how much movement is macho without being “that guy.”
• The middle aged couple who clearly heard a couple songs on the radio and are trying SO hard to fit in with the younger crowd.  This pair spent more time than any others deciding what to wear while they were in a dark room with total strangers.
• The girl on the balcony who, in spite of the fact that everyone up there is seated, will not be stopped.  She’s on her feet and shakin’ and bakin’.  The guy she’s with (see previous date-scenario description) is clearly mortified and will be leaving to “go to the bathroom” momentarily.
• The short bald guy who is super-proud of his rockin’ brothers and sings along a bit too loud and has mastered the awkward confined space groove.

So next time you’re at show rockin’ out, look around.  Guaranteed you’ll see some or all of these folks.  Rock On and Stuff!