Put the Cadbury Egg Down, and No One Will Get Hurt.

Sarah and I were walking in our local Smith's down the holiday aisle and were absolutely shocked to find that Easter Candy has nestled in and found a home with the Valentine's Day candy.  My first thought was when was Easter?  March is the only thing that made sense. So I went home and  I calmly check the date of Easter on the calendar.  April 24th?  Mind you this was back at the first of January.  What is going on?  Have I missed something?  How can you be selling stuff for a holiday that is 3.5 months away?
I have been deeply concerned for sometime on the timeliness of holidays.  I think people are getting bombarded on every commercial front with these festivities.  No wonder there exclamations of weariness and overload that comes with holiday seasons.
The Christmas season especially has been extended and re-extended to allow everyone the time to enjoy the holidays.  Buy your presents now so you can enjoy the holiday.  Mail your cards now so you can enjoy the holiday.  I think it is having the opposite effect.  It use to be that you could get your tree the week of Christmas or even Christmas Eve and that was fine.  Christmas shopping was meant to be done during December.  Now if you haven't started before December your are deemed a "Procrasti-Santa".  It is ridiculous. 
We tried to go buy Halloween decorations for the Ward Halloween Party the week before Halloween and found pretty much nothing.  If we left it up to the stores, our party theme would have been "Have a Gory, Hallow Christmas."   Homemade paper crafts were our go to that time.  
Go to the store on the week of any other holiday and try finding half way decent decorations.  I dare you.  I have been trying to find half way decent decorations for three years and have found that every time I am choosing between the ones that are either trite, dull, or matted due to kid saliva.   You are pulling from the bottom of the barrel.  If you want to buy those baubles at their peak it has to be purchased right when they hit the shelf.  Which is some cases is 1.5-2 months before the festivities occur. 
This whole idea cooked up in the name of commerce, to plan for every holiday months before its observance is crazy.  The reasoning behind it being that it gives you time to enjoy the holiday when it arrives.  I ask, how can you enjoy the holiday when you are in the process of preparing for the next holiday?  We amble into this marketing snare all the time.  It is impossible to not be thinking about the next festive event when you have a constant reminder of at least three holidays as you walk down the aisles of the grocery store.  The amalgamation of holidays is puzzling I think it is frustrating the whole order of things. No wonder we have snow in June and warm sunny days in the middle of January.  Mother Nature is confused by it as well.
There are three solutions:
1-  We get rid of holidays altogether.  Apparently they are just too complicated and stressful and end up not being much of a break from the hectic parts of life.  If we have to plan and they consume so much of our time months in advance then why are we celebrating them.  There are suppose to be a day set aside to recoup and celebrate.  How are they any different than any other day in the present state?

2-  We combine all holidays into four holidays that are evenly spread out through out the year.  They would of course be placed in a corresponding season and then would encompass all holidays that were suppose to fall within that three month time frame.  Santa would supervise the Hallow ThanksgivaChristmaca Holiday. Instead of his cap he can have witch hat and a skirt of bright turkey plumes.   He could also have other embellishments that would take on other holidays.  For example, at the point of the witches hat could be an American Flag for Veteran's day.    For the next set of festive days, we could have a groundhog that is dressed up in leprechaun attire only its red (which fits in more traditionally anyway) and he shoots fireworks at you that bring luck, love, wealth, and black history awareness.  I think we get the picture. 

3- We stop all the nonsense and just celebrate holidays as they come in the season when they are suppose to be celebrated.  No more overlap of holidays.  This means Christmas as well.  Let's actually put up Thanksgiving decorations.  Heaven forbid we would actually take time to discover new family traditions by celebrating other minor holidays.  Sarah and I have distributed Groundhog Day cookies and I have been known to share a Mole Day Joke. It doesn't have to be complicated.

The Free Market will eventually just have us spending all the time for this holiday and that.  I say it has to stop.  Our minds and pocketbooks can't take it anymore.  We just have to be strong enough to resist the urge to follow in their schemes.  Celebrate holidays as they come.  Learn about the history and live for the headaches that they cause sometimes.  Don't spread the headache out for longer than you need to.  Better yet, keep it simple.  It is generally better for everyone.

Celebrate Good Times

Well, we are movin' on up.  To the East Side.

Sarah and I officially will be leaving our rat nest to the Holladay region at the end of November.  Our end of lease will be up and we could not be any more glad.  There has been very little quiet and peaceful enjoyment of out current abode.  Our new place is not quite a deluxe apartment in the sky but we can't wait to be over and done with Travis James Lane.  It is quite funny that only weeks ago, Sarah and I were bracing ourselves to spend a few more months here at this place.  We have been searching for new place since September and had abandoned search after thinking about having to move during both the holiday season and other stressful events that were going on in our life.  We can now leave knowing that we have done everything in our power to make the best to maintain the peace and it is not our fault that we are moving.  So I will bid farewell to our dismal den. Let me start off with talking about the things I will not miss about our place.  Then I can finish with a more positive note talking about what I will miss.
I will not miss the heat or air conditioning being turned off at night.  This was one of the first problems that we encountered.  Our Landlords for some unexplained reason feel the need to shut off the heat and air conditioning  at promptly 10 ever night.  The air whether hot or cold doesn't kick back on until 6:30 or 7 o'clock the next morning.  It doesn't take a genius to know that this in the long run is going to cost more money than just keeping the temperature at a constant temperature.  Luckily we do not have to stay very long in the unbearable heat the issues forth from the overburdened heater.  All I have to say is thank you little space heater/fan.  You have been a god send and never die again like you did that sweltering night in September. 

I will not miss that demonic Buster.  I can't tell how many times I have prayed for your death.  I am not a violent person and I am definitely a dog lover.  This plague needs to be silenced.  We have said that this was a problem but if fell on deaf ears and brought more problems than it was worth.  Every day we are greated to this menace as we sneak in and out of our house by his bark.  We have had to keep our windows and blinds closed for fear that the dog will go on a barking tirade that lasts hours. It seriously goes on to long too far when you hear the strain in the dogs bark and the owner has not even come out to tell him to shut up.  When he does come out, it is just to reinforce the behavior by saying everything is alright.  What an idiot.   And the dog is not to blame because it doesn't know any better and it is constantly being told that what it is doing is alright.
I will not miss the Harpy, Olympic Runner, and Starer that live upstairs.  We never hear a rest to the madness.  There is such a cacophany of sounds that pierce our ears every single day.  It is sad that we can count on two hands the number of days that we have not had to deal with blood pressure raising, MI inducing noise.  Is it sad when we pray that their vehicle is not in the driveway when we come home from work?  Just so we can get an hour of peace?  Good bye shrill screams, reverberating yowls, and endless blubbering.   Au revoir marathon runs from one end of the house to the other.  Adios, weird eyes with no sense to get out of the way of a car in motion.
Lastly, I will not miss the amount of time that Sarah and I have had to talk each other down from our nervous breakdowns caused by the whole situation.   We are on a rotation system that really needs to stop.  If I am not irate then she is.   It has been a very long year and I am just very glad that an end is in sight.

Now for the things that I will miss.
Goodbye tree full of birds that greets us every morning.  I just wish that we didn't have to sneak past you so that the dogs don't hear us.  (I forgot to mention that the owners solution to calming Buster's bark was to get another dog).   You birds are awesome and you can come visit our yard at our new house any time.
Goodbye mini vacations to escape our prison.  They have been quite fun.
Goodbye the veins protruding from Sarah's head.  She is extra cute when she is mad.  She also gets incredibly funny and witty.
That is about it. 
Holladay and Holidays hear we come.

Captain's Log: Stardate 9508.06

Last night I finished a book that had me deciphering the last clue using morse code.  It was really quite enjoyable and reminded me of a time when I was much younger when my extensive knowledge of morse code saved many of my friends lives as we traveled through the outer realms of space.   So last night I had to fess up to something to Sarah.  This little memory brought a great deal of laughter from Sarah and a great deal of questions.  So I bet you are wondering what I revealed to Sarah.  You will have to decipher it( ..   .-- . -. -   - ---   ... - .- .-.   - .-. . -.-   -.-. .- -- .--.   .- -. -..   .-.. --- ...- . -..   . ...- . .-. -.--   -- .. -. ..- - .   --- ..-.   .. - .-.-.- ).  Give up.  Okay, I will tell you.  I went to Space Camp and not just any Space Camp.  It was a Star Trek themed Space Camp.  It is probably the geekiest thing I have ever done but before you make any assumptions about me let me make it quite clear on how I stand about the experience.  First,  it was a scout trip so I had no say in whether I went or not.  Second,  I absolutely loved and love Star Trek.  I remember as a kid sneaking out of my bedroom to go watch episodes of TNG (The Next Generation) when they would come on after 10 every night.  I could not get enough and I have never been as devout to a show as I was to Star Trek.  I dreamed of being able to be apart of the Star Trek world and flying around in space aboard the Enterprise.  Matching wits with Data as we played Tri-Dimensional Chess with his cat Spot nuzzling up to my leg.  Hanging with Geordi and Guinan in Ten-Forward swigging on a warm glass of Rokassa juice.  Being trapped in the holodek with Picard and Worf because of some computer glitch is preventing us from leaving. Q must be up to his old tricks again.  And I still want a replicator in my house.  I would watch until I fell asleep and this is too part of the reason that I established a long habit of sleeping on the couch.   I received the Trekker merchandise magazine which I never bought anything from but secretly wished I could at that age.  I was a member of the official Star Trek Fan club and had the membership card to prove it.  I owned action figures, the USS Enterprise,  toys that a reminiscent of Polly Pockets for Star Trek, and the Ultimate Star Trek Encyclopedia.  I even put together models of the ships from Star Trek.  I was obsessed.  So now with that perspective you can call me a geek and not make any assumptions.  Needless to say, I was stoked to be going on this trip.  It was young trekkers dream come true to be experiencing this.  I still remember the my first experience of being teleported up to the ship.  The strange whirling motion as the molecules of my body were transformed to energy and back again and I arrived on the ship.  It was so awesome.   As we made our way to the bridge, we passed countless rooms.  Engineering, the Mess Hall, the Crew Quarters, the Infirmary, etc.  I was given the assignment of Communications Officer hence the morse code.  My primary duty was to relay and decipher incoming hails and inform the Captain of any developments.  It was not the ideal job in fact it w very boring for me but I was in space so I didn't care.  I had hoped that I would be in engineering because it was by far the coolest part of the ship I thought at the time.   I only remember a few things about the whole trip.   First, I took part in several away team experiences one of which we encountered resistance from Romulan forces to retrieve some sort of relay beacon that was in the Neutral Zone.  I had a minor encounter with a Klingon upon the ship who decided to eat a piece of paper that I was told to give to him by the captain.  The Klingon gave me the nickname Mop because he threaten me that if I ever gave him such bad food again he would clean the floors with my head.  And I remember having the worse night sleep because I had the top bunk in my quarters and no matter where I turned to get sleep that night I had a light in my eyes.  But all in all it was an awesome experience and I really did enjoy it.  I am also proud that I was able to experience a little bit of my dream to be a part of the Star trek world if but for a moment.  If anyone wants to join me in the ranks of being a geek, the camp is still in business in Pleasant Grove, Utah.  I hear you getting excited.  Here is the link.  And adults can participate as well.  http://www.spacecamputah.org/.   And just to give you a glimpse of it I have included a video.  Enjoy.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7WDJkaTyqw    

O' catalyst, where art thou?

SUPER HERO: A TYPE OF STOCK CHARACTER POSSESSING "EXTRAORDINARY OR SUPERHUMAN POWERS" AND IS DEDICATED TO PROTECTING THE PUBLIC.
I have long known that I have a secret ability to pick up radio signals some how in my head. I hear (Yeah that's right I hear) the cuckoo bells going off in your head but believe me it is so. Sarah is my witness to it. I have on countless times started singing a song out loud and turned on a radio only to find that surprisingly that song is playing or is the next song to play. I know or rather hear what you are thinking, the songs are just overplayed and I could easily just have the song in my head from earlier on that day. But I don't listen to the radio that much. In fact, I seldom listen to the radio because I feel it interferes with the internal songs bouncing around in my head and I can only listen to one song at a time and more often than not I prefer the song in my head. Much to Sarah's dismay.  But these songs are not from overplayed groups like Nickelback or Wilson Philips. I swear radio stations have a quota for how many times they have to play "You're in Love" or "Rockstar". But these mind songs seem to be forsaken songs that I haven't heard in years. It can't be just some random event. My claim to have this ability has to be legitimate. Either I can hear the radio waves or I have to ability to call upon some force so that I hear exactly what I want to hear. I could also just be crazy which is also very likely.  But either of the former ways make it so I have a special ability and the latter makes it so I can still think it and that makes it reality.  The only problem with this ability is it is not nearly strong enough.   So I looked up on Wikipedia what I need to have to become a superhero.
1- There has to be a presence of the ability whether it be natural talent or supernatural talent. Check.
2- Most heroes were apart of some catastrophic event or a catalyst that will bring their abilities to the next level. Peter Parker got bit by a radioactive spider, all the X-men and Kal-El are exposed to radiation changes and their DNA morphs, Bruce Wayne wants revenge on his parents death, Captain America beefed up on Vita Ray treatment, and Bruce Banner has a little mishap with his gamma bomb invention. So I, too, must find a way to be part of a one of these events so that my full power can be realized. I am hoping that is not the event where I have to reap revenge on those who have killed my loved ones. I can't bear that.  But I am in luck I work in a lab and surely that has increased my chance of one of these other strange events occuring. Maybe some stray radioactive rat or rabbit from the oncology lab will attack me in the hall someday. Or all the machines in nuclear medicine go haywire and start a cataclysmic event that I somehow don't escape because I can't hear the overhead speakers to evacuate (I occasionally work in a room with 13 freezers and can't hear any of the fire alarms or alerts that are broadcasted over the PA).
3- Most super heroes have a strong moral code, which includes a willingness to risk one's own safety in the service of good without expectation of reward. This one is self explanatory. And I do think my actions tend to be for the good so I think I am on track with this.
4- Most super heroes are independently wealthy. Oh dear.  I am not but after my full powers are realized I suppose that I could go figure out a way to make money.  It is not really gambling if you know the outcome of a race or match that you place wager on, is it?  Even goody two shoes Peter Parker used his powers in the beginning to make a little money.  I am entitled to a cut as well.
5- Every hero needs a lair or a hideout.  I am thinking that I will just construct a rudimentary structure on a radio tower and set up base there.  Easy one. 
6-A distinct costume-  This one is tricky.  I want to be taken serious so I don't think I can have a huge antenna on the top of my head.  It is cliche and ridiculous.  I think I will just walk around in a big ear costume.  So much better.

7-An Archenemy-  This too is hard.  I know that my ability can help me with petty criminals (intercepting police scanner waves and all) but the only archenemy I can think of would be Photon: the villain of light.   He would travel at the speed of light.   I would have to travel at the speed of sound which means he is a great deal times faster than me.  So I would get to the scene of the crime well after it is happened. This is a problem.  Solution:  I would have to use my wits and my ability to hear into the future his plans and devise ways to slow him down (with water)  or trap him (in opaque box).  He will torment me with irksome songs that I will be forced to listen to over and over.  It will definitely be a challenge but I will be able to handle it.  Good will always win out in the end.

So the plan is set and I am waiting patiently for that primary event to happen.  Unless someone else out there knows another way to become a super hero.

Blood Will Keep Us Together

Whoa, has time flown. My last post was nearly a year ago and I think it is just sad. I blame Facebook mainly for this but that is another matter. A great deal has happened since last October. First, I am no longer in Logan. I now live in Salt Lake. Another change is that my career focus has switched at the present moment from dealing with plants to medical research. Hence the blog title switch. It has been quite a switch and I still am trying to learn all the new terminology that comes with working in the medical field. I am still dealing with genetics so not much has changed procedure wise but there are just so many medical acronyms. I feel like I am working with the government all over again. It has taken a great deal of getting use to. But Salt Lake has been good to Sarah and I. Sarah has enjoyed the change of working as an academic advisor. It offers the chance to still help students but not have to deal with the stress of teaching. She is much happier for it and so am I. We have really enjoyed being here and experiencing city life. It has been an interesting change. I think for the first few months I was in constant road rage just from the going-ons on the road. I still get the occasional frustration when I discover a median is standing between me and my destination or some jerk does something squirrely. But other than that it has been nice having more things to explore. In Logan, we would sadly drive around looking for stuff to do and end up a hour later back at home feeling dejected. We miss all of our friends up in Logan and sadly have not found replacements to some of our favorite places to eat but we are quite happy.  Well, I will close at this time. I just wanted to get myself going on the blog again so I will close with the promise that more is to come. And, yes, that can be taken as a threat and a promise.

Halloween Appetizer

Here is my Halloween Treat for all my family and friends who care to watch.  This is a compilation of a bunch of shows that I loved when I was a kid on Halloween.  Some are from when I was not a kid but that doesn't matter.  I hope you enjoy.  Sorry about some being blurry but they are good so you watch.  Happy Halloween. I removed the video player but you can still access it through the link.

Are you Scared of the DarK?

Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society.

Since it is the week of Halloween, I thought it appropriate to talk a little about fear.  We had a game when I was growing up called "Nightmare" in which the players try desperately to go around the board and collect their character keys all while trying to avoid the wrath of the Gatekeeper.  I hated being called a maggot. The game is controlled by a video tape that is playing in the background.  Players race against time in order to beat the Gatekeeper.  At the beginning of the game all players write down their fear on a card and place it in the middle of the board.  Then if you collect all the your keys you are suppose  to go to the middle of the board and face your fear.  Well, actually to win you didn't want to get your fear you wanted someone else so I never really got that part.  The game was rather suspenseful as I recall and I never really liked the paranoid feeling that I got whilst playing it.  But it was a Halloween tradition and in the long run I generally realized I had a good time after it was all said and done.
The reason I bring this up is as stated before is in part because it's Halloween.  It's suppose to be a spooky scary time.  A time when people are suppose to face fear in some respect.  But also I have been think about in great detail lately why I fear the things that I do and how I came to have the fears that I do.  So I thought I would share three.  I have many others but I think that these three are the ones that have caused me the most anxiety.

Did you ever get the feeling that someone was following you?  I think most people feel this way at least once in your life.  The adrenaline starts pumping and you feel your heart will never slow down again.  When I was a younger kid I enjoyed thinking that the moon was following me.  It was a magical feeling that some how you were significant enough to have the moon follow you.  Out of the countless amount of people that it could follow it chose you. That's an amazing feeling. But then I had an experience where I was riding around my nieghborhood on my bike and a car followed me.  I still can remember the eery feeling I had as the car matched pace with my blue bicycle.  I had to lay low in an alleyway for a couple on minutes until they were gone and I could continue my way back home.  I knew they were following me because I went around the block two times in order to check whether they were actually stalking me before I ducked in the alley.  From that time forth, night was no longer a magical time .  The moon was no longer following me and in its place was a dark menacing figure that was after me.  I ran home at night ever since. Even now to this day I make haste when I am walking at night.

I use to love going in Kaybee toys in the mall.  I could get lost in that kingdom of toys and never get bored.  There was a new thing around every turn. My mom would be out shopping which I hated to do with her so I would persistently ask if I could go to Kaybee toys where I could peruse the aisles and just be in toy heaven for a few brief moments.  Again this was a magical time that was soiled by the acts of another.  On one particular day I got an over-zealous employee who creepily announced over the intercom such phrases as "I know what you're doing." and "it's not worth it."  It took me a couple of minutes to recognize that he was addressing me due to the mesmerizing aura permeating the action figure aisle.   In my Teenage Mutant Ninja delirium I left the store way too quickly to not at least appear guilty of his accusations.  But I had done nor thought nothing of the sort.  Kaybee toys was my haven from a tedious day of shopping with mom and now it was ruined.  I don't think I ever went in to the store again without at least my brother with me.  Another incident occured where a store manager followed me out of a gas station and proceeded to question me as to shoplifting from his store after I had just come from paying for some penny candy at the register.  I was angry about this one because he made me empty my pockets and scrounge for a receipt that was not there for my recent transaction.  I got so flusters searching for it which I hadn't recognized that the cashier had not given me one because I spent less than ten cents. He eventually believed me and apologized and I angrily rode my bike off to home.  I can't go into a store anymore without the persistent thought that I somehow might be designated as a shoplifter.  Those cameras are always watching.  I hate those black little objects.  I have never nor never will be a shoplifter.  I'm much to smart to waste my time stealing petty things from stores.  But because of this paranoia I desperately don't want to leave a store without at least having purchased something.  If I happen to leave the store without purchasing anything I have this fear that I will be chased down by some security guard in the parking lot who will try to make me unload my imaginary ill gotten gains.  And if the security alarms on the front doors go off my heart just starts to race regardless of whether I have bought something that he cashier forgot to swipe or it goes off on someone else.  I often have to make it into a joke in order to coup with the anxiety.

My all time fear is pyrophobia.  I have lost so much sleep oer this and if it wasn't for conference talks being on tape and my sister Teri some nights I would have got no sleep as all. I would cringe when the firefighters would come to our school because I knew that for the next little while I would be getting very little sleep at nights.  I wish I could have skipped those assemblies.  What is a new problem spot for me to be on alert about with regards to my house and fire safety?  I watched in horror as the fire crew presented a movie of fires sweeping through a house overtaking all in its path.  I picture my family being consumed by the flames when ever I would close my eyes at night.  I started a nightly routine where I would check the fire danger spots in the home before I would go to bed.  Clear those clothes from around the water heater and while you're at it don't let them be near the furnace either.  Is the oven off?  The list became longer and longer as I my paranoia grew.  Now there can't be clothes on a vent either.  I even got to the point that I was checking each spot more than once per night just to be sure and on especially bad nights I would never stop checking until I crashed some where from sheer exhaustion.  Also if  it was winter outside I would have blankets ready to throw out the window so my family wouldn't freeze in the cold.  It never occured to me that the fire would be plenty of warmth.  My main worry with a fire is that somehow one of my family members would be caught in its blaze and I just couldn't have that.  I had to make sure that everyone was safe.  It was much too big of a job for me at the age that I was to take on.   It also didn't help that Bryan use to light matches right in my face.  Siblings just like to torture each other.  I don't think he ever knew I had such an aversion to it.

So here's the recap.  I hate fire.  I could be type casted as a shoplifter.  And someone is following me.  My fears have wained in their intensity over time which I am grateful for.  I don't think I could subsist on as little of sleep as I sometimes got when I was younger.  The shoplifting one probably will not go away.  I think stores want you to fear shoplifting so those cameras will never stop watching and employees will always be on the look out for the next Bonnie and Clyde.  I don't run as much when it gets dark anymore either.  This is in part because I am quite big and I think I can take care of myself it worse came to worse.  I think we just gradually realize over time that somethings are irrational and we no longer have to fear them quite as much as we did. 
I declare this meeting of the Midnight Society closed.