No TV

It's really weird for me not to be glued to the television watching Olympic trials, the Euros, NBA draft, and baseball tonight every day.

I guess it's just another reason why my parents house isn't as cool as my apartment in Logan would have been.

I guess I'll have to make do with scouring the web for sports articles at work each morning between calls.

Thank you Deadspin for your hilarious opinion, Grantland for your high-quality writing, Aggieville for your constant USU updates, the Sagebrush Spot for your insight between sunburns, the Desnews (kinda) for indirectly talking about the Aggies whenever a certain byu quarterback is mentioned, ESPN for obvious reasons, and Twitter. God bless Twitter.

Honey badger don't give a...

We deal with a lot of different types of people at the ol TAVron.

There are lots of manual laborers who come in and buy a ton of gas, fill up their huge mugs from the fountain, and usually buy some sort of snack or lunch. There are the social workers from the care home down the street who come in and buy energy drinks and complain about how understaffed and outnumbered by the residents they are.

The group that most concerns me is the kids from the middle school across the street.

Most of them are great kids. A few of them are sneaky little bastards who will do anything to save their allowance and steal the candy bars they shove into their fat faces. I don't even let the thieves come into the store anymore.

Then Daddy came in the other night to scream at me.

Apparently I'm not being fair to his sons, because those angels would never do anything wrong, even if it meant embarrassing Daddy's status in the community.

Dude, I make 8 bucks an hour at a crappy job that has nothing to do with my field just so I can pay housing next semester. I promise I'm more Honey Badger than Princess Helpful.

Job updates: part 2

Some of you might be wondering where all the blog posts have been lately. I know, my bad.

Just before I moved from Logan a couple months ago, I was talking to the bigwigs of a weekly newspaper chain in the Salt Lake Valley. I was pretty stoked cuz they seemed excited to let me take on some stories, but then they didn't call me.

Until now.

On Tuesday, I got an inquiry of interest phone call. On Wednesday, I got an email asking me to write four stories of 4-500 words in the next seven days at a rate of 25 dollars per story. On Thursday, I interviewed ten sources for said stories. On Friday, I received photographs and finished up interviews. On Saturday, I wrote rough drafts of the stories. On Sunday, I finished up and submitted them.

Not bad to get two stories in a day before deadline and two more in three days before deadline, all while juggling two other jobs, softball games, and Da Ladies.

Or at least that's the plan right now. I mean, it's only Friday morning as I'm writing this, so who knows what will actually happen.

Job updates: part 1

(Photo courtesy of Rock Climber)

So I quit my job at Chevron.

Some of you may be asking, "but wait, didn't you just barely start?" Yes. Yes, I did.

You see, I told both the owner and manager who interviewed me that I will need a couple weeks off in July to go to a family reunion in Minnesota, aka the trip up North. Apparently there was some misunderstanding and I won't be receiving that time off.

Not with the title of "head gas station grunt" when I come back from my conquest of Canada Jr. anyway.

Was it a smart move to cut myself off from money? Probably not. Have I been to a game in a major league park? Nope. Do I have my whole life to work? Definitely.

But it's not all bad.

The management at my other job, the deaf call center, has been very understanding.

It looked like a similar thing to Chevron (aka TAVron) was happening when my time off requests were denied, so I told the manager I would have to quit so I could go.

He basically told me to try and get other people to cover it, but if it didn't happen and I was "sick" or whatever, it would be okay. He was like, "when you come back, we might sit you down for the formality of telling you how important attendance is, but then we'll just talk about how your invasion of the Lake Country went."

Okay so I added that last phrase, but he's still cool with me going.

Climbing all night

When 5$ climb night at the rock wall rolled around last Friday, I was pretty stoked.

Earlier that day, I worked up the courage to ask the cute girl at work to come with, and she was pretty excited too. This was probably going to turn out to be a double-win night.

The bad news: Work Girl bailed. The good news: I got a text from a friend who is in Salt Lake working for Usana, and she wanted to come with.

I don't know if it was because I was so excited to hang out with Usana or if I just haven't lived in Salt Lake for a good five years, but I definitely took 7th west instead of Monroe and got there about 15 minutes later than I should have.

Anyway, it was a good time. Usana, Rock Climber, Awkward, a girl whose sounds exactly like another old friend of mine, and a few others from the ol' YSA singles ward climbed the night away among the masses at Momentum.

It was good to practice a bunch of 5.10 climbs, but it's weird climbing indoors because there's no creativity in the routes you climb. There are set holds and one way to climb each wall, unlike outdoors where you can use anything you can get your hands on.

I tried a chimney, but didn't get very high. My right foot slipped when I was trying a knee jam, and my ankle slammed into the wall in front of me, causing a momentary silence after a huge bang echoed out from where I hit. Maybe it just seemed loud because I was inside the crack.

All in all, it was a good time. I couldn't pinch my fingers together without pain by the end, but I got to spend a good time with friends, hang out with a girl I haven't seen in yonks, and met a new climbing buddy for this fall in Logan.

Helping the deaf hear since 2007

I've been at my new job at Sorenson CaptionCall for a couple weeks now.

Well, I first worked there a little bit in high school and then went to Scotland and Logan. Now that I'm back, I actually got a full dollar raise and I make more than three dollars better than I do at the ol' TAVron.

It's a pretty good gig too.

You know those annoying closed captioning subtitles on movies? I create a phone call version of that for the customers. Of course all call information is completely confidential, but we can get some very entertaining ones. Let's just say we caption every type of call and it doesn't matter if the number dialed is to grandma and grandpa or a 900 number.

Since I've done the job before, I flew through the 3-week training and graduated in four days. That's gotta make you feel cool, right?

The bad side is my schedule. Sunday through Friday at 6 a.m. to 11a.m., excluding Tuesdays. This not only means I have to get up at just after 5, but since I'm so dang tired after closing the ol' TAVron the night before, I have to take a good-sized nap most days, which means I either sacrifice rock climbing or go to work exhausted.

The good part is that it's pretty chill that early in the morning. There's a lot of down time, so I tweet away, train the voice recognition software to understand my voice better by reading USU football articles out loud, and catch up in the ol' Book of Mormon, but I never doze off because that's against company policy.

Hopefully I earn enough to pay for housing in Logan come August.

CENSORED

Author's note: The following post has been edited to avoid twisting the truth in any way in an attempt to not offend certain readers (see previous post).

Rock Climber, Jordan and I...

Wait I shouldn't name names. Let's try again.

I went rock climbing with two other people.

Hmm, maybe naming the activity is too specific also.

I hung out with two other people and performed an undisclosed recreational activity.

Yep, that'll do.

The three of us may or may not have done the previously mentioned anonymous activity one or more times at one or more locations somewhere in Big Cottonwood Canyon. the United States of America.

While it would be improper to mention whether or not the activity was fun, whether there is visual evidence of said activity, or any memories whatsoever, let it suffice by saying the recreational activity took place and was, in fact, recreational and nothing more.

Wow, what a boring post, at least I didn't offend anyone. Hopefully.

Well, I guess that's the price I'll have to pay to keep friends in Salt Lake.

Don't make me do my Z snap!

Today I found out my blog is not liked by all those who read.

Am I as upset as Gru was when Vector stole the pyramids? NoO I am not!! A little...

However, I will not apologize for my behavior! Also, I don't actually understand what some of these girls in the ol' YSA ward could be offended about. I mean, all of my posts have been entirely fictional. Any similarities between individuals living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Except Awkward. I'm pretty sure we can safely say he's a real person. And Layton/Wingwoman. And Rock Climber has told me he likes the blog. Other than that, everything is fictional.

...There's no way anyone believed that...

Either way, those haters who gohn hate should know of my disrespect for their displeasure. Take it easy gurrfranns. I'm a somewhat easy person to deal with, so just come ask me to take something down or change a post you have a problem with so it doesn't talk about you as much.

Who knows, you might actually enjoy having a civilized conversation with me.

A good find

Through my life, I've tried to find the best ways to attract Da Ladies.

There are more obvious methods, such as having a puppy or baby with you, playing guitar, dancing, etc. I've used most of those.

There are less-obvious hooks, like being confident, having goals in life, wearing aviators and having a beard, etc. I've used all of those.

I never knew that a hobby like rock climbing would be so effective at finding Da Ladies.

Rock climbing 3: better than before

This is me at the beginning of the most difficult climb I've ever completed, a 5.10a. Not bad for the third time ever climbing outdoors. 

The guy belaying me is Rock Climber, who helped me get great deals on my gear. 

Almost to the crux...

It's hard to see, but I had to pull myself over the roof with basically no footholds. I felt really cool when I got it. First try today!

Coming down...

This is the hardest climb I've ever attempted, a 5.10b. I got halfway before my arms gave out. 

Props to Big Talker and Big Talker's Friend on photo duty...

That's me being lowered down after a humbling experience on a nasty overhang.

Standing around. Big Talker's Friend is staring at the wall in the black shirt. 

Oh, and here's Big Talker. She's a cutie, so I figured I'd reward all those who actually took the time to look at all the pictures. 

Crashing on the couch

I wanted to title this post "Returning to Logan," but I feel like I should save that for my final blog entry at the end of August. Besides, I'm only in Cache Valley until this afternoon anyway.

A few thoughts:

My old roommate is getting married.

I could write a entire post on this alone, and a whole other blog about the adventures we had. He's got a good girl. It'll be cool for him to start a new part of his life, but at the same time I wonder how mine will turn when I go back to school this fall without Roy as my wingman.

Marriage is scary.

Who wants to grow up? Who wants bills, insurance, car payments, rent, graduation, a career workload, and all that grownup stuff? And kids?? Not me, or at least not yet. To me, getting married is the symbol of all of that. As long as I can put it off, I won't have to worry about all the other stuff. Right?

Logan reminds me of summer camp.

I walked into the house I crashed in last night and saw all signs of summer. Three huge TVs were hooked up to various video gaming systems, canoes and kayaking gear rented from the university were stashed off to the side of the living room, aloe vera and tanning lotion visible under the couch, a for rent sign displayed out the window, and the whole place had a summery feel to it.

Here comes the sun.

There's nothing better than munching on fresh fruit fro breakfast while watching a Cache Valley sunrise from the various hikes in Logan Canyon with a pretty girl. Okay, so I didn't do any of those this morning, but it's still true. At the very moment I wrote those words, the sun peaked up over the mountains through the window to me. Even though I'm sitting on Texas's couch and not in the wind caves, it's still nice.

The pool.

In my experience, college town pools are always full of the same people; sluttos and douchebags. The sluttos are all afraid to get wet and just lay out in the sun while the douchebags wear their white sunglasses and blast their awful music while horsing around in the water and being jerks to the sluttos. They spend all of their time here during the summer. It's a wonder why all the sluttos talk about how they can't get a good guy and the douchebags all talk about how their girl cheated on them.

Couches suck.

Okay, so I'm a Caucasian American male aged 18-34, but I've had some pretty crappy sleeping situations. As if two years of mission beds weren't enough, there was the port-o-pottie (again, don't ask), the unfinished bedroom, the spider-infested barn, and the gross Oakridge beds to name a few. Texas's couch wasn't all that uncomfortable, but for whatever reason it was probably the worst sleep I've ever had.