Normal Mormon Husbands

Good Bye, My Friends

2009-09-26T04:30:00.000-07:00

When the Normal Mormon Wife was in high school she once broke up with her boyfriend by saying three simple words:

“I dump you.”

No long-winded explanations. No ultimatums. No room for compromise. The relationship was simply over.

Sometimes it is best to just get to the point. After staring at a blinking cursor for the last fifteen minutes I have decided to follow the NMW’s example and just come right out and say it:

I’m done as a blogger. This will be my last post.

The reason is simple. Over the past several months blogging has become more of a burden than a blessing. It feels more like work than a relaxing pastime. I have found myself often doing posts because I feel like I “have to” more than I simply “want to.” The demands of my top priorities in life – family, church, work, fantasy football, NCAA 2010, and Slurpees – have dramatically increased. My free time and energy have fallen faster than ACORN, though in my case it had nothing to do with pimps and/or women of ill repute.

While the NMH blog has a very small following, a few people may be disappointed in some way that I’m hanging it up. If that’s the case, I’m sorry. There are about 48 buzillion other blogs out there and I’m sure you’ll move on faster than Brad Pitt with a new female co-star. But before you do – thank you! Thank you for your comments. Thank you for your compliments and encouragement. Thank you for helping build a small NMH community. It’s been a very cool ride.

When I started my blog in September 2006 I never intended for anybody outside of my family and close friends to ever read what I wrote. And this is exactly what happened for over a year and a half. Then I wrote the Twilight Series for Dummies (And Desperate LDS Guys) in February 2008 and it got circulated around the web. Suddenly I was getting more traffic that I ever imagined. A reporter from the Salt Lake Tribune interviewed me. Bill Simmons at ESPN gave me a small compliment. People were actually paying me to advertise on my blog. And before I knew it, it felt like I had a second job.

After the initial excitement of seeing my blog grow wore off, the pressure to crank out a couple of good posts every week started to get to me. The pressure was always there, constantly lurking in the back of my mind. Roughly 14% of my brain was continuously saying, “How can I turn this into a blog post…” every time I went on a date, got stuck in traffic, visited a dirty urinal, or went on vacation. In the end, it wore me out. Drained me like a thirsty Homer chugging a cold Duff on a hot summer day.

I debated for a long time if I should scale the blog back a little bit or if I should just shut it down completely. Call me the anti-Favre. I’m 100% out. If I did fewer posts I would still feel that constant pressure to churn out more stuff and find an angle to turn everything I do into a witty post. This all-or-nothing decision has been liberating. I’ve made the right decision.

So, in the spirit of being a Normal Mormon Husband, I’ll give my concluding thoughts as I hobble off into the blogging sunset:

I’m grateful for being NORMAL. It is a blessing to be a pretty regular guy. To experience both the joys and trials of life. To have a job that I sometimes love and sometimes makes me want to throw up before I walk into the building. To have good friends to play hoops with and beat at fantasy football. To find Dollar Menu items delicious. To drive a Honda Accord. To love my country. To get sick and hurt enough that I enjoy my health when it is good. Yes, it’s great to have a normal life.

What a blessing it is to be MORMON. My personal relationships with God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, give meaning and purpose to my life. I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded by the Savior Himself. He leads this church through the power of His priesthood and continuous revelation to modern-day prophets. The word of God is found in the Book of Mormon, and I find peace and direction within its pages. Knowing that I have been sealed to my family for the eternities brings me hope and happiness. It is truly a miracle that an unpaid clergy consisting of normal, imperfect, everyday people like you and me move this great work forward. I love being a part of the Lord’s kingdom here upon the earth and know I have found the truth.

I thoroughly enjoy being a HUSBAND. My wife is my best friend. She radiates purity and goodness and optimism and fun. She makes me laugh. She gives me confidence. It humbles me to know that we made three beautiful kids together. Being a dad is more rewarding (hugs, princess dress-ups, sports, reading books, FHE activities, wrestling, etc.) and more challenging (disciplining, scheduling, losing my free time, providing for a family, etc.) than I ever imagined it would be. My greatest hope in life is that the NMW and I raise our children in a way that will help them love the Lord, love their families, love their fellow men, and love life in general.

Okay, so maybe this was a little more long-winded “good-bye” than what the NMW said to her former high school flame, so sue me.

Oh, man, that could be a hilarious blog post – worst high school break-ups! (Fight the urge, Andrew. Fight the urge…)

Thanks again to all of you. Take care.

-The NMH

Obama & NMH Speak To School Children

2009-09-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

This morning President Obama addressed all K-12 students via satellite broadcast. I quickly glanced at the online copy of his text before he spoke and grew concerned when I read the following statements: “All across America…it’s understandable if you…quit on school…I want…you to…stay home from school…Spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox…or Twitter and Facebook. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.”

Maybe I should go back and read the full speech instead of those few random snippets before rushing to judgment here. But it also got me to thinking - If I was able to speak to all of the school-age children in the United States, what would I say?

Please read the draft of my speech below and post comments with any other items I should teach to the children of America. The person with the best comment will be appointment as the NMH Czar of Speechwriting, Copy Editing, and Kitty Litter Removal. (Just make sure your comments are not pro/con Obama’s speech, there are plenty of other sites for that – remember, politics free zone here.)

DRAFT REMARKS OF NMH’S BACK TO SCHOOL EVENT:

Greetings, children of America. If you don’t know what that means it was like I said, “Wuddup, dudes!”

I would like to begin my remarks today by speaking directly to all high school and middle school students. As teen-agers, the vast majority of you think you already know everything there is to understand about life. You also believe all adults are total morons, so there is no point in me speaking to you since you will not listen to me anyway. Just go back to texting under your desks, rolling your eyes, adjusting your hair and excluding your unpopular classmates while I speak with the kids in elementary school.

Elementary school kids, I have an important message for you today about staying in school. It is this:

Stay in school.

Now that I have that out of the way, let me tell you some secrets about elementary school I wish I knew when I was your age.

First, stop picking your noses and eating your boogers. By my estimation, 94% of you eat nose candy several times a day as if your body manufactured an endless supply of green gummy bears. While they may feel like melted gummy bears on your fingers, boogers are filthy little disease balls that can give you illnesses like H1N1. Since none of you kids care what H1N1 is, just know it is way worse than cooties.

Second, take full advantage of recess. Run around. Play games. Get sweaty. The bones and joints in your bodies are made of rubber until you hit your twenties, so take advantage of this time when you can fall down without fracturing your tibia. Run across a field while you can do so without your thighs and lungs burning like California in the summer. Play dodge ball while you can enjoy sports without consulting with your primary care physician. One day you will grow up and get a job. Recess will disappear. As an adult you will be lucky to get one 10-minute break per day and your coworkers will rather spend that time smoking themselves to death than playing Red Rover, so do it now while you can.

Next, while I encourage you to have fun during recess, do not get so crazy that your pants end up with grass stains or holes in the knees during the first week of school. Seriously, guys, could you please take better care of your pants? Those things are expensive! Many parents would love to just buy your soon-to-be-destroyed school pants at Goodwill, but there are no decent second-hand kids jeans because all new pants get mangled. Easy on the pants, kids.

Many of you ride the bus home from school. Talk about a sweet gig! Do you realize how lucky you bus riders are? At the end of a long day at school you get to sit in a huge bus with a bunch of your best friends to talk, giggle, scheme, gossip and trade Pokemon cards while somebody else fights traffic for you. One day you will grow up and realize what a pain it is to finish a tough day at work and then get repeatedly cut off in traffic, hit red lights, get stuck behind slow drivers, and inch through construction zones on your commute home. They shouldn’t call those big yellow vehicles “school buses.” They should be called “Mobile Party Units.” Man, I wish I had one of those. Kids, enjoy the chauffeur and endless supply of friends while you can.

Every once in a while, just say "thank you" to your teacher for no particular reason. Teachers work hard and most of them care deeply about the children in their classes. They have to deal with a lot of administrative headaches (that's a fancy way of saying "stuff") and the pay is not great. You'll look back and be grateful for the teachers who pushed you, challenged you, and inspired you. (Except for the creepy male 5th grade teacher with stringy hair that every school seems to have. You know who I'm talking about. Avoid him at all costs!)

Lastly, please stop losing things. Your parents try very hard to let you be independent. But they need your help. While 87% of your brains are focused on the internet, Play Station, TV, The Jonas Brothers, candy and Hannah Montana, please use the other 13% to remember exactly where you have left your homework folders, shoes, glasses, lunch boxes, and library books. The amount of stress your parents need to deal with will be greatly reduced if you can keep track of those five items. And the less stress your parents have, the more likely they will be to give you dessert or let you stay up a little later at night.

Thank you, children of America. May you enjoy this upcoming school year. May your hard work be rewarded. May your minds be expanded. May you prepare for a bright future. May all of your dreams come true.

Just don’t trash your pants in the process, okay?

Cash For Clunkers...And Memories

2009-08-24T18:37:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine what it must be like to be an old gas guzzling vehicle right now? The Cash for Clunkers program has instigated genocide of the vehicular nature like nothing we have seen since Eddie Griffin got behind the wheel of a Ferrari. Yesterday I literally saw a rusty 1991 Jeep Cherokee wearing a Groucho Marx-type oversized glasses-nose-eyebrow disguise trying to blend into the background, like he was some sort of 2006 Honda Civic or something. Poser.

The purpose of this post is not to debate the merits of Cash for Clunkers (remember: politics-free zone, please) but to give us an opportunity to reminisce about the Clunkers we have all loved or hated over the years. Most of us are passionate about our cars. We name them. We talk to them. We bond with them. We decorate them. We claim them as dependents on our tax returns. And then inevitable day comes and we have to either sell them or kill them, like CBS had to do with Dan Rather.

So today I’m going to share with you the memories of the clunkers that have come and gone throughout my life. I’m sure most of you have some fond memories of certain cars in your past as well, so please post a comment to share the joy with the rest of us. Here are my stories:

1982 Toyota Celica Supra
Year Adopted: 1991
Nickname: The Thunderbolt
My first car. I inherited her as a 16-year-old and I will love The Thunderbolt for the rest of my life. Though it was 10+ years old, the ‘Bolt was in good condition and lightning fast. It had a fifth gear that we called “The Police Gear” that could be used to outrun the fuzz like dropping the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace. Two passengers could squeeze uncomfortably into the back seat and I used to drive three of my high school basketball teammates to our games. We would crank L.L. Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” and look as intimidating as four tall, skinny, white, tattoo-less Mormon Priests could as we rolled to our basketball games.

The ‘Bolt gave me freedom. Freedom to go places. Freedom to hang out at my friends’ houses. Freedom to just drive aimlessly while listening to Depeche Mode as I sorted out the drama and angst of youth. I love The Thunderbolt. May she rest in peace.

1994 Jeep Wrangler
Year Adopted: 1996
Nickname: The Chick Magnet
My brother is fourteen months younger than I am and we shared The Thunderbolt in high school. As soon as I left for Ricks College my folks sold the ‘Bolt and bought a new, beautiful black Jeep Wrangler. Naturally I was livid at the injustice as I trudged to my classes on foot at Ricks while imagining my little bro picking up chicks in his new Wrangler. But when I returned home from my mission my little bro was still preaching in Bolivia, so I had the Wrangler all to myself for a year.

My favorite memory in the Wrangler happened two weeks after returning home from my mission. It was a warm summer day and the top and doors were off the Jeep. I was drinking a milkshake and listening to Smashing Pumpkins as the wind rushed through my hair. In a sudden moment of clarity I said to myself, “Dude! I’m HOME from my MISSION!” I left the post-missionary nerd mode behind as I cruised down 35th South, oogling at all of the girls who were no longer off limits. But no matter how fondly I remember my year with the Wrangler, I always felt like her heart belonged to my little brother, almost like I was dating a girl he had previously dumped or something.

1991 Geo Prism
Year Adopted: 1997
Nickname: None
The NMW and I were married in 1997 and she brought the Prism into our marriage. I also wanted seven pigs, three sheep and twelve head of cattle as part of the marriage arrangement, but my in-laws weren’t cool with that. I never really bonded with the Prism, but the NMW and I bonded with each other as we drove it repeatedly from Provo to her home in Winslow, AZ. We drove the Prism for the first two years of our marriage – car payment free - until the transmission seized on I-15 just past point of the mountain. I only have vague memories of the Prism, like Cheech and Chong probably remember the eighties.

1997 Kia Sephia
Year Adopted: 1999
Nickname: Satan
The Kia is important in my auto history because it was the first car I ever purchased and was responsible for paying off. The NMW and I were recently married and still living the student life, so the $110/month payment seemed like a billion dollars at the time. The Kia was cheap and under warranty so we bought it. The bad omens started almost immediately as our mailbox was inundated with recall notices for issues with the brakes, windshield wipers, CV boots, and the need to exercise demonic spirits that possessed the transmission. We drove the Kia for six years while living in constant fear that it would one day spontaneously burst into a ball of flames and kill us all. I never liked or trusted that car, and it hated me too.

1985 Ford Escort
Nickname: The Poop-Scort
Year Adopted: 1999
Back when we were partying like it was 1999 – because it was 1999 – the NMW and I only had the Kia to get to important places in Provo/Orem like school, work, church, Movies 8 and the Nickelcade. The opportunity of buying a co-worker’s old but running Ford Escort for $1,000 cash was impossible to refuse, like trying to bypass an $.89 chicken burrito at Taco Bell. The Escort was old but had fewer than 100,000 miles with a nice interior. While the battery mysteriously died more frequently than Itchy and/or Scratchy, the ‘Scort got me around town for four solid years.

My favorite ‘Scort memory happened while I was interning in Las Vegas during summer break of my MBA classes in 2002. I was trying desperately to impress the General Manager of our business unit so I could get a job after graduating. My chance to shine happened one day when the GM had to take an emergency flight and asked if I could take him to the airport – in my car. At this point the driver’s side door no longer opened and the A/C was broken, which is a only a minor inconvenience in Las Vegas in July when the temperature reaches 184 degrees on a cool day. As the GM followed me to my car I opened the passenger door, slid my 6’6” body across the gear shift, rolled down the windows, and pretended that nothing was out of the ordinary as we roasted all the way to the airport. In an unrelated story, I was not hired to work for that business unit after I graduated. The ‘Scort was a great investment and it pained me to see her go to that giant scrap heap in the sky.

2002 Honda Accord

Nickname: Sally
Year Adopted: 2004
Yes, I drive a car named Sally. The kids named her after the Porsche in Cars because they are both silver. The NMW and I met Sally back when she was the display vehicle with a ridiculously low price to attract customers who could then be baited-and-switched to a fancier model. You see, Sally has no power windows, no power doors, no alarm, and an engine consisting of a hamster jogging rather lazily in a crank wheel. The salesman was shocked – shocked! – that somebody was actually cheap enough (we prefer frugal, practical, and/or provident living-ish) to buy the base model. But Sally was affordable and easier to pay off than a Bolivian prison guard. Five years and 125,000 miles later, Sally just keeps chugging along problem-free, never breaking down. I hope I’m still driving Sally five years from now.

So those are the stories of my clunkers. I'd like to hear yours, so please post away. While getting some cash for these four-wheeled important parts of our lives would probably be nice, I'm happy just holding on to the memories for now.

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Lenny's Birth Announcement

2009-08-15T18:13:00.001-07:00

Please share in our joy (and pain) of the newest addition to our family! (Click to enlarge)

(Props to my bro T-Boar for the birth announcement idea.)

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18 Hours, $150 bucks, and 0 Kids. Fun? Hardly.

2009-08-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

Tell me if our day last Friday doesn't sound like a surprise romantic getaway for the Normal Mormon Wife dreamed up by her thoughtful, fun-loving husband:

-I take the day off work without the NMW knowing anything about my plans beforehand.
-Our three children are cared for by friends for most of the day, giving us sweet privacy.
-We spend $150 in less than 12 hours.
-Our adventure begins at 7:30 a.m. and lasts until 3:00 a.m. the following day (Saturday).
-Heavy, heavy hallucinogenic drugs were freely administered throughout the day.

Well, folks, our day last Friday proceeded exactly in that manner. But not only was our day a complete surprise to the NMW, it was a surprise to me as well. And instead of heading out for some ditch-the-kids-for-the-day retreat, the NMW and I spent most of the day in the Emergency Room as I was diagnosed with a kidney stone. The kidney stone's name is Lenny.

Lenny is a jerk and I hate him.

I woke up on Friday morning with a sharp pain in my right abdominal region and I just chalked it up to the usual stuff - a cramp, Taco Bell related gas, the fact that our house was built on a Native American cemetery, etc. - and tried to get ready for work. But the pain increased to the point that I had the NMW take me to my doctor at 9:00 a.m. My doctor found a lot of blood in my urine and referred me to the ER for additional testing.

I thanked my doctor and proceeded to vomit in his trash can.

We managed to drop off our kids with a friend (you know who you are, you little lifesaver you - thank you!) and we went to America's Funnest Spot - The ER! Here is how the rest of our day unfolded:

10:00 a.m. - Arrive at E.R. and pay $50 copay. No sign of George Clooney or Anthony Edwards. We're off to a good start.

10:45 a.m. - I have been admitted and now look and sound like a woman in labor. I am wearing a hospital gown and groaning in pain while the NMW strokes my hair like a doulah and says, "Remember to keep breathing..." They say the closest a man can get to childbirth is passing a kidney stone. Out of respect for my sweet wife, we will have no more children.

10:54 a.m. - The nurse hooks me up to an IV with pain meds. The drug immediately burns through my body like a big gulp of Stephen's Gourmet Hot Chocolate on a cold December day, easing my pain for the first time in four hours.

10:57 a.m. - I groggily ask the NMW with a smile, "What's the name of THAT drug?", referring to what is in the IV. The NMW is now afraid I will end up on an episode of A&E's Intervention.

11:15 a.m. - The pain meds are making me hallucinate. I ask the NMW if I am holding keys in my hand (I'm not) because I can feel keys in my hand. I ask her if I'm wearing shoes (I am) because I can't feel them on my feet. I start laughing and tell the NMW I just saw the star of My Name Is Earl's drivers license and he has a huge afro in his photo. Lastly, I tell her that I thought I was in our front yard watching the kids throw cherries at the house for several minutes before I thought they should stop. Who needs TV when you have narcotics?

12:50 p.m. - The ER doctor tells me I have a 4 mm kidney stone, writes me several hundred prescriptions, then discharges me. As we leave the hospital I thank the staff for their excellent care by throwing up in their bathroom. (I've always been terrible with good-byes.)

1:30 p.m. - We are now back at home where I can repeatedly vomit in the privacy of my own bathroom.

2:42 p.m. - The NMW realizes the refrigerator is not working. She immediately calls a serviceman to come look at it before the weekend kicks in.

3:15 p.m. - Our neighbor tells the NMW that water is leaking from our property onto his, most likely from a leak in our sprinkler system.

4:08 p.m. - The NMW withdraws $2,970 from savings and flees for Mexico. (I mean, can you blame her at this point? Maybe it was a bad idea to build our house on that Native American cemetary after all.)

7:00 p.m. - After vomiting the entire day, we call the ER and they tell me I need to come back for another IV, anti-nausea medication, and more pain meds (yipeeee!). Another wonderful friend agrees to hang out at our house until we return, which ends up being six hours later.

7:20 p.m. - Another $50 copay.

7:30 p.m. - There are about twelve depressed people in the ER waiting room as Two And A Half Men airs on TV. I have never seen more than two seconds of this inane show and it immediately gets on my nerves. The NMW and I play a game called, "How long can pass without the laugh track?" The record? Twelve seconds. I think an actual script of that show reads as follows:

Dude 1: "Good morning." (queue laugh track)
Dude 2: "And good day to you, sir." (queue extreme laugh track)
Boy: "Sir? More like sirloin!" (queue outrageous laugh track for seven straight minutes)

Yes, I wrote that myself. If my HR career doesn't work out maybe I can write a sitcom. Sitcom? More like sit-bomb! (queue laugh track).

7:48 p.m. - The NMW tells me the ER waiting room "Smells like Otto's jacket." This is a code word we swiped from The Simpsons to say it smells like marijuana. Not only does it smell like Otto's jacket in here, but his socks and underwear are probably in here too.

8:02 p.m. - WWE Friday Night Smack Down is now on TV. Nothing takes your mind off of your pain like watching steroid-fueled wrestlers whack one another over the head with metal chairs as the announcer yells, "OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!" I'm pretty sure this IS the Telestial Kingdom.

9:11 p.m. - Still in the waiting room and the NMW is hungry. She uses twelve dimes to buy a Rice Krispy Treat from the vending machine in the waiting room, but the machine has problems accepting dimes. She has to push them in real hard or else the get spit back out, like a George Brett wad of tobacco circa 1982. It takes her about thirty tries to finally get her snack. Every person in the ER gets a kick out of the display, especially the guy who smells like Otto's jacket.

10:35 p.m. - Finally get admitted.

11:34 p.m. - Finally get my IV. But this is a really, really bad omen. 11:34 is the worst time of the day because it's hexed. Or at least the NMW and I think 11:34 is hexed. If you turn a digital clock upside down at 11:34 is spells "H-E-Double Hockey Sticks" so we try to avoid 11:34 at all costs. With my luck they probably accidentally gave me IV's consisting of barbecue sauce, Elmer's glue and Clorox. But I've heard hospitals are not legally liable for weird things that happen at 11:34, what with it being hexed and all.

1:50 a.m. - Discharged with several dozen more prescriptions.

2:15 a.m. - Stop at 24-hr pharmacy to get prescriptions filled. Oh, and to also watch crack deals transpire down the street.

3:00 a.m. - Get home, thank babysitter, perform a voodoo doll ritual on Lenny (the kidney stone) and go to bed.

Well, five days later and I still haven't met Lenny. He's just hiding out in my ureters, bungee jumping and whatnot. I can't wait to meet this guy. I bet our encounter will go something like this:

Me: "So, Lenny, it's...uh...nice to finally meet you." (queue mild laugh track)

Lenny: "Same here. Thanks for letting me crash at your place the last few days." (queue regular laugh track)

Me: "Lenny, I hope you like knock-knock jokes 'cuz I've got one for you. Knock knock." (queue uproarious laugh track)

Lenny: "Who's there?"

Me: "Urine." (queue extreme laugh track)

Lenny: "Urine who?"

Me: "Urine big trouble now, bucko!" (queue laugh track where they guy's head literally exploded he was laughing so hard)

***Fade to black***

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The Joys of Child Abandoment & Covetousness

2009-07-30T21:09:00.001-07:00

Nothing strengthens a marriage like abandoning your children and coveting the possessions of multi-millionaires. While this claim might not be completely in harmony with the church’s official position on child abandonment (don’t do it) or coveting (ditto), this is exactly what the NMW and I did to celebrate our 12th Anniversary.

My totally awesome Normal Mormon Mother-in-Law visited us in NC from Utah and agreed to watch the kids for two nights, thus allowing the NMW and me to have a little getaway. We decided to make the 3-hour drive to Asheville, North Carolina, to visit the Biltmore House and stay in a cozy Bed & Breakfast. Asheville is located smack dab in the green, picturesque Smokey Mountains and is the undisputed hippest, coolest, trendiest city in North Carolina. For you westerners, think of Asheville as Utah’s equivalent of Park City, Arizona’s answer to Sedona, or Wyoming’s version of Old Man Cooper’s Dairy Farm.

Asheville is the home of The Biltmore House, which is known as America's Largest Home. It was constructed by George Vanderbilt in 1895 and contains 250 rooms, 43 bathrooms, a 7-story dining room, and original Renoir artwork. I think Batman lives in the basement as well. George Vanderbilt was made obscenely wealthy either as an industrial tycoon or a crack dealer (I’m too lazy to Google the answer), but he somehow managed to build a ginormous house. As part of our getaway we toured the Biltmore and thought you might enjoy reading how our day unfolded:

9:28 a.m. – Have breakfast at the most upscale McDonald’s I have ever seen, a fitting testament to Asheville’s trendy vibe. The exterior looks like an Alpine chalet. The interior décor features Roman-styled columns, a self-playing baby grand piano, and classy floor tile. This McDonald’s is so classy I bet the Playland slide doesn’t even smell like 3-day old toddler urine.

9:47 a.m. – As we walk back to our car, the NMW asks me if there are any homeless people in a place as nice as Asheville. After thinking about it, I conclude Asheville does, in fact, have homeless people. They are called “middle class.”

10:12 a.m. – We enter the Biltmore and park in section C-3. I tell myself to just think of the Star Wars robot C3-PO to remember where we parked. We will either end up back here, or completely lost in section R-2.

10:21 a.m. – The shuttle arrives to take us to the Biltmore House. As I lug my 6’6” body on to the shuttle I nail my head against the roof of the bus, which is about 6’4”. To my complete delight, the Biltmore shuttles have comfortably padded roofs! Those of us who are freakishly tall hit our heads quite regularly, which explains why our short-term memories are worse than Dori from Finding Nemo. I’m just glad the Biltmore had the courtesy to pad…their…ummm…uhhhhhh….what was I talking about again? Sorry, I lose track some times. Oh, yeah, I was talking about Finding Nemo! Right?

10:23 a.m. – The guy sitting in front of me on the shuttle is slathering on some sort extremely pungent lotion and/or biological weapon that is burning my eyes, nose, lungs, and every other sensitive bodily orifice. My head feels as though I touched my tongue to a 9-volt battery and deeply inhaled the scent of a nappy-headed European backpacker.

10:27 a.m. – Step off the shuttle and am amazed at the size, majesty, and elegance of the Biltmore House. But then again, the NMW and I rented small college student apartments for six years, including one that I’m pretty sure was actually a retrofitted Tuff Shed, so I’m easily impressed.

10:31 a.m. – We have entered the Biltmore House and the main dining hall is an obscenely ridiculous seven stories high. No wonder they pad the roofs of the shuttles – George Vanderbilt must have been forty feet tall!

10:40 a.m. – Unimpressed by the “Breakfast Room.” Heck, even I have my own breakfast room. It’s called the driver’s seat of a 2002 Honda Accord, people!

10:52 a.m. – I realized why John Mayer is so famous – he sold his soul to Lucifer in the late eighteen hundreds in order to become a rock star in the 2000’s. This 110-year-old gargoyle was commissioned by Satan himself to commemorate the moment when he took John Mayer’s eternal soul. Look closely, this IS John Mayer.
10:55 a.m. – The Biltmore Library is slightly more impressive than the stack of random old newspapers I have by the side of my toilet. In the corner of the Library there is a statue of an early Christian saint. The saint has his index finger raised to his lips, as if shushing people as they come through the room. I lean over to the NMW and say, “Hey, get a load of Saint Shushie – patron saint of Shushiness.” The volume of the NMW’s laughter will definitely incur the wrath of Saint Shushie throughout the rest of eternity.

11:23 a.m. – So much for George Vanderbilt being forty feet tall. He and his wife slept in separate bedrooms and their beds were about four feet long by three feet wide, or roughly the size of Nell Carter. The NMW says, “I can’t believe they ever had any kids, sleeping in separate rooms on those tiny beds…” But then again, the two of us are a combined 12’3” and are touring this summer with Captain Rickey’s Carnival of Freaks. (Look for us in Pocatello on August 18th!)

11:55 a.m. – We are shown a huge double door that is used for transporting all oversized cargo and materials into the house, including Michael Moore during his 2007 visit.

12:20 p.m. – We enter the Bachelor’s Wing where gentlemen from an earlier era used to retire for cigars and brandy at the end of a long day of hunting, gallivanting, tomfoolery and general shenanigans. A sign hung in 1902 stating, “NO CHICKS ALLOWED!” remains displayed in the hall. I can’t tell the NMW exactly what we men did in the Bachelor’s Wing, but it involved shotguns, endangered species, and extremely tasty jerky. Also, we can no longer register under our real names at the Bed & Breakfast.

1:21 p.m. – Our tour of the actual Biltmore House is over, so we head toward the gardens. We begin walking through an area called the “Shrub Gardens.” After about six seconds we realize that shrubs are totally boring and leave. (Sorry to all of you shrub lovers out there, but it’s true. Shrubs are totally, totally lame.)

2:06 p.m. – On the advice of a friend who recently visited Biltmore and was struck with the number of British tourists she encountered, the NMW and I begin speaking with British accents. My new name is Sir Bertram Van Munster of Newlincolntonshire. The NMW changes her name to Cat Deely. We keep the British accents up for nearly an hour, constantly afraid that a true Brit is going to overhear us and out us as the frauds we are. I think our straight, white, healthy teeth will give away our non-Britishness before our terrible accents will, though.

3:09 p.m. – Head to the Biltmore Farm. I know drug use is a problem in this country, but take a look at this obvious pot head!
3:11 p.m. – As I look at the beautiful, fruitful garden on Biltmore Farm, I tell the NMW I want a garden like this one day. Mark my words – our next house will have an acre of land and 2-3 dinners per week will consist largely of what we harvested from our own crops. Now do Choc-o-Diles grow in plants or on trees?

3:31 p.m. – We are watching a live butter making demonstration and the farm worker says, “Everybody knows fat floats to the top of the milk.” The phrase “Fat Floats” makes me giggle. I think “Fat Floats” would be the perfect title to the sequel to the 1998 Sandra Bullock movie “Hope Floats.” In “Fat Floats” Sandra Bullock has lost all hope, gained 186 pounds, and taken up swimming.

We ended up finishing the day with dinner at a Japanese restaurant, playing pool at our B&B, and watching the movie “New In Town” on my laptop. (Nothing says “relaxing getaway” to an HR Manager like watching a movie about shutting down a small-town manufacturing plant. I could have written that screenplay in my sleep…) NMW, I love you. Thank you for the twelve best years of my life. You make me smile. You strengthen my testimony. You give me confidence. You make life fun. You make me laugh.

Just tone it down around Saint Sushie next time, will ya?

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Killing Time (Serioulsy. I Killed It. Time's Dead.)

2009-07-21T19:21:00.001-07:00

For the past eleven days I have been home all by my lonesome as the Normal Mormon Wife and our three crazy kids have been visiting family all over the country. They will return home tomorrow night and life will finally get back to normal, complete with runny noses, skinned knees, fights over toys, Play Station games, arguments about bed times, no desire to do chores, etc. And those are the issues that will surface just between the NMW and me. I can only imagine what the kids have in store for us...

In the absence of family my life has consisted of one primary objective:

Killing time.

The phrase "killing time" implies that time, like anything else, can ultimately be killed. (The obvious exceptions to the 'anything can be killed' rule, of course, are The Three Nephites, John the Beloved, Chuck Norris and Al Davis.) I've expended so much effort recently in killing time that I actually succeeded! I killed time! Seriously. It's dead.

Time was killed on Sunday, July 19th, 2009 at 10:48 p.m. I had been doing such a good job at killing Time over the past few days that he was nearly dead at 6:02 p.m. when I left home to have dinner at a friend's house. There was blood trickling out of Time's ears and his breathing was shallow, but Time was definitely alive when I left home. When I returned later that evening I noticed Time had crawled over to the the telephone and dialed, "9-1-", but I wrestled the phone away from him before he called the cops. I managed to kill Time later that evening. It was a messy job and I ended up with "a lot of Time on my hands", so I concealed the evidence by putting "Time in a bottle", tying the bottle to a cement block and dumping it in a lake.

The whole ordeal was pretty traumatic and it is going to be a while before I can put this horrific tragedy behind me. But you know the old saying - Time heals all wounds. Except for his own wounds, I learned, since Time is now decomposing at the bottom of Lake Jeanette.

But I did not act alone in this killing. A number of accomplices from all over the web assisted me every step of the way. So if you're ever in the need for killing some Time, here are the seedy thugs who made it happen for me:

Hulu - Best place on the web for free TV shows and movies. In the TV department you can find everything from The Simpsons to The Office to COPS to The A Team to Ice Road Truckers. The free movies are pretty skimpy for those of us of the LDS persuasion, but you can watch Saints and Soliders, Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie, and The Secret of NIMH.

Rasmussen Reports - New polls are added several times a day to show what our fellow Americans believe about society, politics, sports, and business. Some polls have rational outcomes, while the results of others are completely crazy. By "rational" I mean that I agree with the majority of the respondents. "Crazy" outcomes occur when I disagree with the majority, or, better said, Rasmussen was only able to find people who sniff glue to respond to that particular survey.

Facebook - My high score on Path Words is 960. I stopped playing Scramble after I did not blink for 13 consecutive hours and my eyes had to be replaced with walnuts. I have never joined Mafia Wars. And, yes, you will suffer the same fate as Time if you Super Poke me!

ESPN - Despite my Shawn Bradley-related feud with Bill Simmons, he continues to be a must read. During the football season I gobble up Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback columns that ramble from football to space exploration to politics. While I don't always agree with his political beliefs, Easterbrook's a great writer. Speaking of politics...

Huffpo & Drudge Report - I read a lot about politics and visit one of these two sites multiple times each day. Most of you like this blog being a politics-free zone, so I'll refrain from saying which one of those two sites I thoroughly enjoy. If you have never visited either site, the Huffpo will appeal to liberals and Drudge to conservatives. If you are a "moderate" or an "independent", I recommend you pick a side before the 2012 presidential election, which will end in a full-scale armed battle as predicted in Orson Scott Card's book "Empire". Speaking of the OSC...

Orson Scott Card's "In the Village" - OSC is my all-time favorite author. His Mormon Times pieces usually broaden my perspective and help me see common, everyday situation in life a little differently.

Snide Remarks - No other writer can make me laugh like Eric D. Snider. He and I were at BYU at the same time and reading his weekly column in The Daily Universe student paper was one of the highlights of my week. His Police Beat spoof mocking BYU's weekly police roundup is still the funniest column I have ever read.

Boomshine - More addictive than Girl Scout Samoa cookies sprinkled with crack cocaine...or so I've been told (quickly backpedaling...)

Segullah - My sister, Angela Hallstrom, has great posts at Segullah.org. If you live in the Salt Lake valley you can probably relate to her recent column about the East Side vs. West Side rivalry. It's one of my favorites. Sure, Segullah is geared toward women, so I call myself Mrs. Bertram Van Munster when I visit there to disguise the fact that I am really of the gender that sprouts back hair.

Youtube - A happy, upbeat trailer for The Shining. A cringe-worthy song celebrating the Bank of America and MBNA merger (I'm pretty sure Michael Scott wrote this...). Tom Chamber's dunk. I love ping pong. And, my personal favorite, DRAMATIC CHIPMUNK.

And those, ladies and gents, were my accomplices in killing Time. But if my family ever goes on vacation without me again I will need to fill the void somehow. Please post your top-3 favorite websites, videos, web games, clips, etc. that are not listed in this post. I will select the best submissions and give "Honorary Accomplice To Murder" awards to the people who posted them.

And for those of you who disagree with my selections, put down the glue and answer the phone. Rasmussen wants to ask you a few questions.

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The Bizarre Foodstuffs of a Lonely Man

2009-07-14T18:49:00.000-07:00

It is not good for man to be alone.

And alone is how I currently find myself. The Normal Mormon Wife and our three kids left in late June on an epic month-long road trip, leaving me to my own devices. I flew out last week to vacation with them in Utah for a fabulous week and then headed back home, by myself, to North Carolina. So I now find myself as a lone man tending the garden in my backyard approximately 35 miles from Eden, NC.

But unlike Adam, the first lonely man, I am not eating nearly enough fruit. However, I have found myself regularly consuming a disturbing amount of foods that should have been forbidden years ago by the Surgeon General. Unfortunately, I place more stock in the advice of Mayor McCheese than C. Everett Coop, as witnessed by my recent eating habits

I have eaten enough Wendy’s in the NMW’s absence that red pigtails have begun spontaneously sprouting from the sides of my head. My visits to Subway have been so frequent that Jared himself, feeling threatened, told me “back off, man!” or else he would “gut me like a fish” for invading his turf. I have digested so many Taco Bell items that it no longer bothers me chalupas are really just dead Chihuahuas rolled up in discarded carpet samples.

All of this fast food is not healthy. I realized this yesterday when my blood pressure was so high that my blood broke the sound barrier, so I headed to Wal-Mart to do some grocery shopping. This shopping venture may have been the first time I have gone grocery shopping on my own, for myself, since the NMW and I were married in 1997. Since I was only shopping for enough food to last for ten days I did not take the time to make a shopping list. I just grabbed my cart (aka “buggy” in North Carolina) and filled it with a bunch of stuff that looked appetizing and easy to cook.

When I looked at my final receipt I couldn’t help but laugh at my list of bizarre foodstuffs. Here is what I, as a respectable 34-year-old male, purchased to keep me nourished for the next week and a half:

Bread ($2.24) – The NMW wisely weaned me off white bread for wheat bread years ago for health reasons. After several minutes of perusing the bread isle I realized that I had no idea what type of wheat bread I have been eating for the better part of a decade. Whole Grain? Enriched? Honey? Free Range? I purchased Honey because it sounded the yummiest.

Beefaroni-3 ($.88 ea.) – My first love was a girl named Natalie who was in my Kindergarten class. My second love was a girl named Amy in my second grade class. My third love was a substance called Beefaroni. While I have no idea what happened to Natalie or Amy, I am still on good terms with Beefaroni.

Chicken Pot Pie ($2.48) – These bad boys were in my regular rotation as a college student and I have not eaten one in several years. This was a nostalgia purchase. All I need to do now is put on a Depeche Mode CD, repeatedly quote Beavis and/or Butthead, and start some relationship drama and it will be like I’m back at Ricks College circa 1993.

Frito's Honey Barbecue Flavor Twists (2 for $4) – These crunchy, flavorful goodies rank in the Top-5 Most Important Inventions in my lifetime along with the personal computer, the internet, cell phones, and Madden.

Hot Pockets (2 for $4) – One pepperoni, one ham and cheese. I love the portability of Hot Pockets. Maybe I’ll multitask tomorrow by going for a jog at the same time I wolf down a ham and cheese Hot Pocket.

Funyons ($.88) – Impulse purchase. They were eaten before I got home. I rarely buy Funyons when the family is at home because the oniony smell lingers on my breath for several days, regardless of how often or vigorously I brush my teeth. But when I’m on my own? Funyon me up, baby!

GV CM BT MSH ($1.32) – I seriously have no idea what this is and cannot decipher the meaning of the abbreviation on the receipt. Please post comments with your theories or vote in the poll on the right hand column. My guess? Great Valley Combustible Bat Mush.

Pepperoni Pizza (2 for $2.50) – I lived on these in college and still look forward to a hot Totino’s after a long day of work and church meetings. Sure, in college my blood was a thick, gloopy substance that smelled of pepperoni and grease, but man, Tonino’s are good!

Chocolate Milk ($3.42) – Hey! The price on the rack was something like $2.25, not $3.42! Wal-Mart ripped me off! Anyway, I got the chocolate milk because I need some source of calcium in my diet. On a side note, my milk drinking habit is somewhat strange. I cannot drink milk unless it is so cold it is nearly frozen. My milk always goes in the freezer for about five minutes before I drink it. The perfect glass of milk, in my book, has just started to form a ring of frozen milk at the top of the cup.

Dynobites Cereal ($5.24 per bag) – I almost never eat cereal in the morning. It is more of an evening snack for me. In fact, I had two big bowls of Coco Dynobites for dinner last night. If I die from poor nutrition over the next ten days, please place a bag of Coco Dynobites in my casket.

Steak ($4.03) – I am man. Hear me grill!

Tax ($.76) – I was going to make a political joke here, but learned the hard way that it’s best to keep this a politics-free zone.

While I did well stocking up on foods that are either 1) Chocolate or 2) Frozen, I realized that there was no fruit on my receipt. But that might be for the best. After all, the first (and possibly last) time a lonely man got himself some fruit, things didn’t turn out quite so well.

Hurry home, NMW. I miss you!

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Campin' with Cletus and Deadly Varmints!

2009-07-07T14:07:00.000-07:00

“Happy early Father’s Day!” said the Normal Mormon Wife. It was Friday, two days before my official day of praise and eating red meat, and I was still at work. Over the phone the NMW gave me the following instructions, “Don’t go home after work…and make sure your car has at least a half of a tank of gas.”

Saying I was intrigued is like saying Mary Murphy on SYTYCD gets slightly excited about a “buck” and/or “stank” dance routine. My mind was swimming with possibilities. Were we going to the Carolina beaches? The Appalachians? Where, pray tell? WHERE!?

Well, we ended up staying in town but I still almost get eaten alive by a wild animal and shot dead by drunk hillbillies. I’ll explain later.

Before I left work the NMW called again and told me to meet her at huge campground just outside of town. She and our three kids would meet me there for an evening of hot dogs, S’mores, and outdoor shenanigans. Then the family would head home at night and I would camp out.

Alone. All by myself.

When I first spoke to the NMW about my desire to go camping alone I described the experience as “fun”, “relaxing”, and “manly.” I think she used words like “disturbing”, “anti-social”, and “Charles Manson-like”. But this is what I love about the NMW – she supports me even when she thinks I am behaving like a serial killer.

I volunteered to swing by Wal-Mart to grab some hot dogs, buns, and ketchup. When I got to the campground I was amazed to see the NMW had already put up my tent despite having three kids with her. Initially I could only see two kids because our 12-month-old toddler daughter was already covered in mud and blended into the natural environment, like Arnold Schwarzenegger hiding in the mud bank from The Predator. (Sorry if only three people got that last reference, but it was an unforgettably cool moment in the movie.)

The NMW unpacked the groceries and said, “Ummm…where are the hot dogs?” They were nowhere to be found.

Now I know I put the hot dogs in my shopping cart because I had debated whether to get the generic dogs ($.17 per artery-clogging goodie) or the all-beef, road-kill free Oscar Meyers ($.26 each per coronary assassin). After reviewing my Wal-Mart receipt I realized the hot dogs never even got rung up. I think they must have disappeared from my cart into a fourth dimension vortex near the Fritos display at that particular Wal-Mart. (I’ve seen other shoppers have things get sucked into that same vortex, too, like “hope” and “the will to live.” Gotta love Wal-Mart!)

So we improvised had S’mores for dinner!

As the sun started to go down and our daughter’s mud-to-skin ratio became dangerously out of whack, the family headed home. And I was left alone. In nature. To camp.

And, being a real manly-man, did what manly-men do – I gazed at the stars, contemplated stuff, stoked the fire, ate several 12-inch Slim Jims, and started re-writing a novel I shelved a while back. And I was completely happy.

But my tranquility was shattered when the human version of Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel and his brood pulled into the campsite next to mine. I counted between twelve and seventy-eight children running about yelling, “Wooooo Hooooo!” until 11:30 p.m. At one point I asked myself, “Where are their parents and/or court-appointed guardians?” My question was answered after hearing an adult male belch followed by the sounds of several other adults hootin’, hollerin’, and guffawin’ their approval.

I tuned them out and kept writing. By now it was pitch black and I could only see within a few feet of my fire. At one point I had to get up to gather some more firewood and as my flashlight illuminated the blackness I saw something that freaked me out:

A coyote.

Now, I’m no Jack Hannah or anything, but I am positive it was a coyote. My friends have tried to convince me that it was a fox or a hedgehog and I’m just embellishing, but after extensive internet research I have concluded it was, in fact, a coyote. Among all the other possibilities, it definitely looked most like the first animal in this police lineup:

The coyote was slinking around the outskirts of my camp about forty feet from my fire. As soon as the flashlight hit him he quickly darted into the woods, like an impatient member at Stake Conference who bolts the meeting before the closing hymn to “beat the parking lot traffic.”

Hoping the coyote was gone for good I sat down and continued to type. One of the things I did not anticipate was having every insect within ten miles being attracted to the glow of my laptop screen. Seriously. Dozens of winged insect swarmed my monitor like a quorum of hungry Deacons attacking the éclair table at a wedding reception.

While I was typing and simultaneously shooing away bugs I was also periodically shining my flashlight in sweeping motions in the general direction where I had spotted the coyote. I felt like a prison watchtower guard scanning the walls for escaping convicts. After several minutes I had become convinced the coyote had left for good, but then I did one last flashlight sweep for good measure.

And there, reflecting back at me in the flashlight beam, were two dazzling coyote eyes.

He was only about fifteen feet away and slinking toward me in perfect silence, like a parent tip-toeing away from a sleeping infant’s crib.

We both froze. Then, when the fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, I responded by urinating myself, throwing Slim Jims at the coyote, and running away screaming like a little girl.

Not really. I jumped up, made my 6’6" frame as big as possible, bared my teeth, and growled like a bear. The coyote ran away. I felt manly. And freaked out. So I picked up a large club-shaped piece of firewood roughly the size of baseball bat and continued typing.

I kept scanning the camp site every minute or two with my flash light after that. And, believe it or not, but a few minutes later I CAUGHT THE COYOTE FIVE FEET AWAY FROM ME! Now I was convinced he was trying to eat me, and, if successful, the NMW would forever be the brunt of “Maybe the dingo ate your husband,” jokes. I was not about to let that happen.

Plus, at this rate, I wouldn’t catch the coyote’s next sneak attack until he was literally sitting in my lap and editing my novel. I had had enough!

I picked up my club, jumped up from my chair, and ran after the stupid coyote while I hissed, growled, yelled and grunted like a female tennis pro.

The coyote left for good this time, but I’m pretty sure I was too successful in my general scariness because I startled Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel and his posse. Based on the noises that had emanated from their camp I was pretty sure my neighbors had four things in amply supply: 1) Beer. 2) Loaded Shot Guns. 3) Limited common sense (even when sober). 4) Itchy trigger fingers.

For a moment I was afraid Cletus was going to shoot me dead right there on the spot, mistaking me for a bear. Or his parole officer. Whatever. Fortunately nobody ended up eating hot lead that evening. (Well, at least I didn’t, but I wouldn’t put anything by Cletus and his crew of merry-makers.)

At this point I was tired and not particularly relishing hand-to-hand combat with a wild animal or trading small arms fire with my neighbors, so I went to bed. Nothing protects a person from wild animals and a hail of gunfire like a $10-tent from Wal-Mart.

Fortunately I survived the night alone in the woods and returned home to celebrate Father’s Day with an fun-loving wife and three awesome (and dirty) children.

But the next time the NMW says, “Don’t come home…get your passport…withdraw $218…meet me at the Motel 8 under the name Chesty LaRue…” I’m asking some follow-up questions.

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Adding It Up for Addie

2009-06-30T18:17:00.000-07:00

Please don’t tell the Normal Mormon Wife, but I have tender feelings for another woman.

Well, she’s not so much a woman as a girl, really. Now before you hit the panic button and think this is some crazy R. Kelley meets Governor Sanford post that I’m typing from a beach in Rio de Janiero, let me explain.

The girl I am speaking about is named Addie.

Addie is not an exotic, eloquent Argentine beauty with an affinity for South Carolina governors like the one we have been recently reading about. In fact, Addie is still mastering basic skills like walking and speaking, let alone composing love letters and dancing the rumba.

That’s because Addie is only three years old and was has battled cerebral palsy with epilepsy since birth, causing developmental delays in crawling, standing, walking and speaking. Addie is in my ward and it always makes me smile to see her snazzy Sunday hairdo’s, bright smile, soft handshake, and watching her ramble down the hall as she develops her ability to walk. Knowing what a special little girl Addie is made it nearly impossible for me to comprehend a phone call I received from a ward member last April:

“Addie almost died today. She had prolonged seizures. Her heart stopped beating. She is in the ICU....”

How grateful I am to a loving Heavenly Father who, in his tender mercy, allowed Addie to regain her strength and begin the recovery process. She was able to return home to the loving care of her father and mother, Tom and Kelly. And, I’m happy to report, Addie is back at church and smiling and shaking hands and rambling down the halls just like she used to.

And that is what is most important. Addie is back home and progressing. She will still need a lot of care and attention, but she is on the road to recovery.

But the care and attention Addie received in the ICU came at a cost. Addie’s seizure happened while she and her mom, Kelly, traveled from North Carolina to Utah to visit family. All of the medical care Addie received was out-of-network and the bills are more than the family is able manage. Almost anybody reading this post would be in the same predicament if this emergency had happened to us.

It has been inspiring to see how members of our ward have given Christlike service in rallying around Addie and her family. Donations, fund raisers, yard sales, and service projects have been held in the family’s behalf. Tom bore his testimony earlier this month in sacrament meeting to express the family’s gratitude for the love they have been shown. It was one of the most touching testimonies I have heard in a long time.

Tom and Kelly are very similar to those of you who read this blog. They are both college educated. They both work hard to support their young family, Tom full-time and Kelly via home-based businesses called Vinyl Expressions and Lil' Boo. They both love the Lord and serve in demanding church callings. They are both RM’s. And, just like each of us in our own ways, they are experiencing the trials of life.

I have set up a fund to collect donations to give to the family for Addie's ICU bills and for her care going forward. Based on the number of regular visitors to this blog, the NMH community could quickly raise several hundred dollars if modest contributions in the $5-$10 are made. You can contribute more if you are able, but even small amounts will be a blessing. Contributions can be made via a quick Paypal transaction by clicking the "DONATE" logo below. If you have felt inspired to help, please do so today. You will be a blessing to this sweet little girl and her wonderful parents.

I can envision the day when Addie, as a beautiful young woman, gets a snazzy hair-do, puts on a formal dress, smiles widely, and heads off to her first high school dance.

I bet she’ll even dance a pretty mean rumba by then.

Thank you for helping.
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Riot Squad Announced! (Now Go Burn Something...)

2009-06-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

As promised as a follow-up to my last post - What a Riot! - the three-person Official NMH Riot Squad has been selected based on what they will overturn, loot, and burn to celebrate upcoming events in their lives. Congratulations are in order for:

-Chad
-Sandy
-Julie

Way to go, guys! You must be delighted to know that you are the three most likely to end up with felony convictions among the hundreds of people who read this blog.

Here is what they said to win this prestigious honor and a few comments about why their submissions were so great:

Chad: I am celebrating the recent announcement of the remake of Red Dawn.
Overturn: a 1997 Cuban Peso
Loot: Some AK-47 ammunition from my fathers gun safe.
Burn: A red plastic 3 inch army guy.
NMH's Comments: Red Dawn is one of the greatest movies in the history of film. The Wolverines could totally kick the crud out of any other movie on the AFI Top 100 list. Citizen Kane? Eat a bazooka rocket! Lawrence of Arabia? Puh-lease! I'll take the Wolverines tank over his camel any day.

I have had fantasies about living in the mountains and battling commies since the day I saw Patrick Swayze and C. Thomas Howell pop out of the ground like angry, underground Jacks-in-the-Box and mow down the enemy. Plus, my high school mascot was the Wolverine and we used to watch C. Thomas Howell yell, "WOLVERIIIIIIIINNNNNEEEEES!" at our pep rallies. It still gives me chills to this day. And don't even get me started on my Leah Thompson crush...

For those of you who need to get goosebumps, take a look at this (it gets really, really AWESOME at the 1:30 mark if you want to skip ahead.)

Just watching that clip forced my body to sprout chest hair in areas that were previously barren. Chad, your never-say-die, take-no-prisoners Red Dawn mentality is exactly what our Official NMH Riot Squat needs. Now go get yourself a few commies!

Sandy: I live in Wyoming, where we never need an excuse to be on the other side of martial law. On a regular day in my town, you can:
1.Overturn cows. And sheep.
2. Loot the local dump. It's like Wal-Mart out there (and 200 miles closer).
3. Burn your trash in your backyard, because the garbage dump is for shopping.
NMH's Comments: In all honesty, the "...because the garbage dump is for shopping" line is one of the funniest comments I have ever read. It killed me. Not "killed me" as in the Red Dawn way (i.e. in a hail of blood-spattered machine gun bullets), but in the good, funny way. Every riot squad needs that person who can come up with a good one-liner as something explodes in a ball of fire in the background.

For example, if the Jazz won the 2010 NBA Finals and the Official NMH Riot Squad took to the streets to celebrate, I'm pretty sure Molotov cocktails would be involved somehow. Instead of just throwing hers, Sandy would do her best impersonation of Hot Rod Hundley and say, "A gentle push, a mild arc, and the Molotov cocktail hits home!", just as her concoction explodes against a building.

Julie - Event: Thursday Night
1) Overturn garbage can, toy boxes and utensils drawer, just so the toddler doesn't get to have ALL of the fun.
2) Loot through the fridge, looking for something to eat that I don't have to cook.
3) Burn ants with a magnifying glass, just because it's awesome.
NMH's Comments: Every riot squad worth its salt has a completely insane person like Julie who does totally crazy things like burning ants with a magnifying glass just for fun. For example, let's say the Riot Squad is having a planning session to do something destructive - like knocking down some street signs - it is Julie who storms in and says something nuts like, "Forget that! We're burning down the Guatemalan embassy! Yeeee Haw!!!!!" and then starts firing a pistol at the ceiling. Julie brings the edge. You don't mess with Julie.

So, winners, go out and celebrate the best you know how. Burn an army guy. Loot a dump. Ignite some ants. Give me your email addresses if you want and I will send you a certificate of some sort (email me at nmhusband @ hotmail [dot] com.)

Just stay away from my house when you celebrate. Far, far away from my house.

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What A Riot!

2009-06-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

There have been many instances in my life when I have had cause to celebrate.

For example, the Normal Mormon Wife and I took a relaxing Caribbean cruise to celebrate our 10th anniversary. After graduating from BYU I bought myself a 1923 Babe Ruth baseball card as a “Way to go champ!” to myself. My wife and I celebrated the births of each of our children by screaming, “What do you mean it’s too late for an epidural!!!!!!!” at several different anesthesiologists.

A number of other important events in my life have been commemorated by fancy dinners, thoughtful gifts, and parties featuring Mormons eating no-bake food storage cookies and sipping on Martinelli’s (with milk also provided for LDS party-goers who think Martinelli’s violates the whole “avoid the appearance of evil” philosophy. As for me, I’d hook up a Martinelli’s IV if I could.)

In short, I love to get jiggy.

Or at least to get as close to “jiggy” as a freakishly tall, mid-thirties, white, LDS father of three with a herniated disc in his lower back can legally, morally, and physically get. But I realized last week that I must be doing something wrong in my celebratory jiggy-ness, because at no point in my life have my celebrations included the following:

· Rioting
· Looting
· Burning random stuff
· Overturning cars
· Felony convictions

Now keep in mind that I grew up in West Valley City, Utah, were my high school had an AP class called “Burning Random Stuff” (formerly called “AP Chemistry”) and my guidance counselor encouraged me to attend Salt Lake Community College where I could major in “Looting.” And I am fairly certain my guidance counselor had multiple felony convictions for overturning cars. Yet despite my heritage, I never managed to incorporate senseless, irresponsible destruction into my celebrations.

And then my beloved Los Angeles Lakers won the 2009 NBA Finals.

My initial celebration was to exchange a few “Yeah boyyyyyyyyyy’s!” and “Yeeeee haws!” with the NMW, who is also a loyal Lakers fan. We just had to make sure that our euphoria was quiet enough so as to not wake up our three sleeping children. I thought my victory celebration was complete.

But then I saw on the news how the hard-core Lakers fans were celebrating and immediately realized that my jiggification was sorely lacking. I needed to step it up.

Even though the Lakers’ series-clenching victory happened in Orlando, many of my Lakers bretheren took to the streets of downtown L.A. and rioted, looted, burnt stuff, overturned cars, and ended up with felony convictions. And I wished I was there. Here is what I missed out on by being cooped up at home in North Carolina instead of celebrating in the streets of Los Angeles:

So, in honor of my proud Lakers heritage, I decided to stage a mini-celebratory riot by overturning cars, looting, and burning stuff:

Overturning Cars:
I tried to topple my neighbor’s minivan, but it was just too heavy and I didn’t have the combined muscle of a drunken mob to help me out. I had to settle on overturning my daughter’s Little Tykes Crazy Coupe instead. I hope she has insurance. That’ll teach that irresponsible little 12-month-old!

Looting:
There are no nearby convenience stores, so the only place I could loot was my food storage pantry. I managed to get a bottle of ketchup, canned beans, and a box of Life cereal before the cops showed up. (NMW – if you’re reading this, please know that I took the cans from the front to ensure proper food storage rotation. I may be a reckless looter, but I’m not crazy or anything.)

Burning Stuff:
As a trained and registered Boy Scouts of America leader, I had to find the most complicated way of accomplishing this otherwise simple task. Instead of creating flame with a lighter or matches, I used a real man’s tool - steel and flint! I also followed BSA guidelines and made sure there were no combustible materials near the flame. I then burned the paper scrap remnants from our paper shredder. But hey, a senseless fire is still a senseless fire.

I can honestly say I have experienced more fulfillment and satisfaction over the Lakers’ title now that I have celebrated it the right way.

I also thought this theme of not-so-crazy LDS celebrations could be an entertaining discussion topic for the NMH community. So please pick an upcoming cause to celebrate in your life (graduation, wedding, anniversary, statute of limitations expiration, etc.) and answer the following questions:

What is the event?
1) What will you overturn?
2) What will you loot?
3) What will you burn?

The top three submissions will earn the writers the proud distinction of being named members of the Official NMH Riot Squad. I will send you a congratulatory email and everything. Winners will be announced in a few days, so the sooner you submit yours, the better.

Which poses another question – how will the Official NMH Riot Squad celebrate winning such a prestigious honor?

Uh-oh. I can smell the celebratory fires already.

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Fatherhood and Tommy Boy

2009-06-16T18:08:00.000-07:00

(Note: The good people at Mormon Mommy Blogs wanted a few prominent male LDS bloggers to provide their perspective on fatherhood as we approach Father's Day. Unfortunately, the "prominent" male bloggers were unavailable so they asked me to contribute, which is how this post started. Click here to read this post at Mormon Mommy Blogs.)

Thomas R. Callahan III, I know how you feel.

Those of you who have seen Tommy Boy probably remember the moment when Tommy is forced to quickly grow up after his father unexpectedly passes away. In the blink of an eye, Tommy has to give up cow tippin’ and Darth Vader impersonations for a life centered on drumming up enough sales to make payroll for his family-owned business.

For many men, our “Tommy Boy Moment” happens the day our first child is born. Responsibility increases. Decisions become more complicated. Priorities shift. And as we experience the highs and lows, joys and pains,happiness and frustration of fatherhood, sometimes we can only sit back, take it all in, and exclaim:

Holy schnike!

In the spirit of the “Tommy Boy Moment” I will use some of my favorite quotes from the movie to guide my thoughts about being a dad.

**********************************
“Fat guy in a little coat”

One of my favorite moments is when Tommy (Chris Farley) stuffs his massively chunky body into Richard’s (David Spade) tiny suit coat. The coat is so restrictive that Tommy cannot bend his arms, like an older, fatter version of Randy on A Christmas Story.

Just like a fat guy in a little coat, fatherhood is restrictive. This is particularly challenging for males as many of us have a biological urge to leave society behind and live in the mountains eating only what we kill with our bare hands. Like Survivorman. Or Quentin Tarantino.

Being a responsible father often means your free time and energy are no longer yours, but your family’s. Instead of coming home to relax after a stressful day at work, many of us go straight to little league practices, FHE, dance rehearsals, or Scouts.

Now don’t get me wrong. The restrictive nature of fatherhood is a good thing. The Savior teaches us that, “Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” My belief is that making sacrifices as fathers is in harmony with this doctrine. Though restrictive, the responsibilities of fatherhood can make men more selfless and generous. Fatherhood has helped me to find joy by looking beyond myself and overcoming selfish tendencies. While my free time may be limited, I would not trade anything for little league games, dance recitals, first steps, and good-night kisses.

Sure, you can call me a fat guy in a little coat during this stage of my life. But hey, I’m a happy fat guy.

**********************************
(Tommy’s date, Michelle, has had enough from a group of rude boys…)
Michelle: “Listen up, you little spazoids! I know where you live and I've seen where you sleep. I swear to everything holy that your mothers will cry when they see what I've done to you!"

The average man’s veins are full of three important liquids – blood, testosterone, and Taco Bell mild sauce. While I appreciate the life-sustaining properties of both blood and taco sauce, it’s that dang testosterone that gets men in trouble. You see, when men encounter difficult people our testosterone-influenced brains give us five options:

1. Punch him.
2. Kick him.
3. Atomic elbow him.
4. Calmly reach an agreeable solution with him.
5. Even if #4 works, punch him anyway.

Children can be difficult, and fatherhood teaches restraint. Appropriately disciplining my children has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life. It is almost impossible sometimes to correct unacceptable behavior without being completely unreasonable and overbearing with my kids.

As a father, I am learning to discipline my children in love. There are times when I am more successful at this than others. During my parental journey I have come to better appreciate the forgiving nature of my Heavenly Father and his eternal patience with me. After all, I am an adult, I hold the Melchizedek priesthood and made temple covenants, but I still make daily mistakes. Yet my Heavenly Father showers me with blessings despite these imperfections. In a strange way, my own visible shortcomings as a father have strengthened my testimony of God’s love for me.

I just need to do a better job at emulating Him and not Michelle sometimes.

***********************************
(After Tommy spills M&M’s all over the interior of Richard’s car…)
Richard: “Great. Melted chocolate the size of dice melted on the dashboard. That really ups the resale value.”

Children break things. And by “things” I mean “everything.” Fatherhood reminds men that stuff is just stuff and to not overreact when it gets destroyed. Or scratched. Or stained. Or lost. Or eaten. Or lit on fire.

The Normal Mormon Wife and I bought a Little Tykes Cozy Coupe for our daughter’s first birthday a couple of weeks ago. A well-intentioned member of our family decided to give our daughter a ride inside the house, which has hardwood floors. A few days ago the sunlight reflected just right off the hardwood and the NMW said, “Look at the scratches all over the floor.” Whoever pushed the car around left some pretty nice doughnut-shaped permanent gouges in the hardwood.

Neither of us got angry. We just looked at each other and said, “Well, we’ll have to buff that out when we sell the house someday.” We have not talked about it since. No big deal. Fatherhood has helped me relax when unforeseen problems arise, because they happen all the time in a young, growing family.

***********************************
I am grateful to be a father and to experience the ups and downs of parenthood with a loving, supportive, understanding wife. My children bring more happiness and purpose into my life than I ever imagined possible. Sure, there are frustrating and challenging moments, but they pale in comparison to the blessings.

One day when my kids are grown I will probably look back on my experiences as a young father and, quoting from Tommy Boy, say in quiet reflection:

“I swear I've seen a lot of stuff in my life, but that... was... *awesome*.”

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A Follow-Up Dunk on the Shawn Bradley Post

2009-06-08T21:40:00.001-07:00

Bill Simmons, thank you.

A few of my readers wanted ESPN's Bill Simmons to get a copy of the Defending Shawn Bradley post I wrote to prove he was a solid NBA Center to begin his career, not one of the all-time busts like Simmons and others make him out to be. Bill Simmons is my favorite sports writer, the unquestioned star of ESPN.com, and quite possibly the most popular sports media personality in the United States right now. The probability of Simmons actually reading my Bradley post was as remote as Hurley turning down a Ho Ho, but it was sent along to him anyway.

Well, not only did Simmons ready my post, he Twittered about it to his 160,000+ followers. In his quick "tweet" Simmons paid me a small compliment ("nicely done") and offered a rebuttal to my post. Getting props from Bill Simmons for something I wrote was both unexpected and very cool, like when Brad Pitt gets run over while crossing the street in Meet Joe Black.

Simmons wrote to his Twitter followers, "Out of nowhere, a spirited defense of Shawn Bradley! Nicely done. Here's my rebuttal:" and then posted a YouTube video montage of Bradley getting repeatedly posterized. I got a good chuckle out of the video, but it does as little to discredit Shawn Bradley's career as this one diminishes Dikembe Mutombo:

I guess the YouTube clip showing each of Shawn Bradley's 2,119 successful blocks could not be located.

Just as the children's book Everyone Poops teaches us that we all...uhhh...poop, all shot-blocking NBA Centers are going to get dunked on every once in a while. It's just a law of nature. Heck, even the best NBA columnists (ahem, Simmons, looking at you right now...) are going to get journalistically posterized on occasion as well. You know, like when they compare the drafting of Yao Ming over Jay Williams to Bowie-Jordan or call Orlando "dumb" for drafting Dwight Howard. I am willing to look past Bill Simmons' occasional flubs because he consistently cranks out great column after great column. I can do the same when I hear the "Bradley got dunked on all the time!" argument. (So does this make Bill Simmons the Shawn Bradley of ESPN, or Shawn Bradley the Bill Simmons of the NBA?)

Thanks to Simmons over 12,000 people read my Bradley column within 48 hours of his Tweet. The additional exposure generated some good discussion about Bradley's career and I think a few of the comments deserve a little more attention. Here are a few of the common responses from people who read the post:

"Huh. Bradely was better statistically than I realized..."
The majority of the commenters either supported my argument (i.e. Bradley was better than people give him credit for) or said they were surprised to see Bradley's solid numbers over the first eight years of his career. My purpose in writing the post was to show that Shawn Bradley was solid - not great, but definitely not a bust - when he was healthy and getting minutes. It looks like the message got out. To celebrate I have hung an enormous "Mission Accomplished!" banner in my living room to show the Bradley debate is over! I win! Hooray for me!

"You're manipulating the data, you evil data-manipulating data manipulator!"
No, I'm not. I simply used honest, factual, objective data to support my view that Bradley was an above average Center for the first eight years of his career. Now matter how you slice and dice it, Shawn Bradley's stats compare more favorably to Vlade and Camby than to Darko and Kwame. And for those of you who are still not convinced about Bradley's solid stats, take a look at this nugget:

In the five seasons between 1994-1998 only eight NBA Centers averaged at least 11.0 PPG and 8.0 RPG every single year (supporting data):

-Shaquille O'Neal
-Hakeem Olajawon
-David Robinson
-Dikembe Mutombo
-Patrick Ewing
-Alonzo Mourning
-Vlade Divac
-SHAWN BRADLEY!!!!!

(Swallow hard, Bradley haters. It might take a few times to gulp that one to go down...)

No, I'm not saying that Shawn Bradley's career was anywhere near as accomplished as the rest of the players on that list. But this unmanipulated, pure-as-the-clear-driven-snow data shows that Shawn Bradley was a statistically solid Center for a good portion of his career and not an all-time bust, which was the point I was trying to make to begin with.

"Bradley's stats were okay, but he never played hard."
Based on what I read from his former coaches, teammates and fans, this criticism seems to have some merit. At certain points in Shawn Bradley's career it would have taken Arnold Schwarzenegger's flamethrower from Predator to light a fire under the guy. But "passion" is subjective and cannot be quantified (except for by measuring how far Kobe sticks out his bottom jaw in big playoff moments, that is. Even as a Lakers fan all I can say is, "Ugh.")

But hey, there is one LDS returned missionary in the NBA who has passion - Mark Madsen! Madsen oozes passion. He bathes in it. Eats it for breakfast. Took it to Vermont to try to marry it. But in the end I would rather take the 7'6" Mormon guy's stats over the more "passionate" 6'9" Mormon guy's numbers in a heartbeat. Bradley may have lacked passion at times, but he still produced when he was on the floor.

"Who cares about who Bradley's Point Guards were?"
I think this is more important than people realize. When looking at Bradley's relative lack of offensive output (10.1 ppg, 45% FG) over his first eight seasons, I pointed out that the assists leaders on his teams included two Shooting Guards (Jeff Hornacek and Micahel Finley) and Robert Pack (twice). If Bradley was as lucky as Vlade (w/Magic), or Ilgausksu (LeBron) or Smits (Mark Jackson) he would have had better offensive numbers.

A few of you said the Magic-Vlade comparison was weak because they only played together for two of Vlade's first eight seasons. Ditto on Ilgauskus/LeBron and Smits/Jackson. But even these examples prove my point when illustrating the impact a good set-up guy has on a Center. Take a look at the FG% of Vlade, Big Z, and Smits for the two years they played with the people I mentioned versus the two years before (Big Z) or after (Vlade, Smits) playing with them:

Vlade w/out Magic ('91 & '92) - 49.0%
Vlade w/Magic ('89 & '90) - 53.2%
Difference....+4.2%

Ilgauskus w/out LeBron ('01 & '02) - 43.3%
Ilgauskus w/LeBron ('03 & '04) - 47.6%
Difference....+4.0%

Smits w/out Mark Jackson ('94 & '95) - 51.0%
Smits w/Mark Jackson ('92 & '93) - 52.4%
Difference....+1.4%

In summary, Vlade, Ilgauskus and Smits saw their collective FG% improve from 47.8% to 51.0% by playing with Magic, LeBron and Mark Jackson. This is significant. During the first eight years of his career Shawn Bradley never played with a good penetrate-and-dish guy to feed him with easy dunks. This in part explains Bradley's weak 45% field goal percentage.

There were even two examples of Smits and Vlade playing half of a season with their set-up guy and the other half without him. Mark Jackson was traded back to Indiana from Denver on 2/23/07. Rik Smits only played 52 games that year due to injury. Before Mark Jackson's return, Smits had played 22 games and was shooting 47% from the field. In the 30 games he played with Mark Jackson his FG% improved to 49.5% during the same season.

The same improvement happened with Vlade Divac in 2005 when Magic made his ill-fated NBA comeback. In 41 games without Magic, Vlade shot 50.3% from the floor. In 38 games with Magic his FG% improved to 52.3%. Even an old, fat, slow, disease-infected Magic Johnson could have helped Bradley get closer to the 50% FG mark more successfully than the Shooting Guards and cast-offs he was unfortunately stuck with to begin his career.

The whole Defending Shawn Bradley post and subsequent follow-up has provided me with some of the more enjoyable blogging experiences I have had. Thanks to the exposure from Bill Simmons I no longer feel like a lone man preaching the value of Shawn Bradley in the wilderness. The message has been heard. The truth is out there. The Bradley legacy continues. My life's work has been accomplished.

So to quote Bill Simmons:

"Now I can die in peace."

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Defending Shawn Bradley (Swatting Bill Simmons)

2009-06-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

Bill Simmons, I've finally had enough!

While Bill Simmons is my favorite sports writer and I usually enjoy his 7,000-word columns and 90-minute podcasts on ESPN.com, the time has come for me to stand up and tell him to --

STOP HACKING ON SHAWN BRADLEY!

Despite the fact that Shawn Bradley retired in 2005, Bill Simmons and many other like him seem to have some compulsive biological urge to rip on the big guy a couple of times every year. Somehow Shawn Bradley has turned into the tallest human pinata since Andre the Giant got pummeled by The Dread Pirate Roberts.

And since nobody else is doing it - I'm sticking up for my boy Shawn Bradley!

Bill Simmons started this argument so I am going to pull a page from his playbook and write a column that rivals the length of a Dostoevsky novel and nearly blew up basketball-reference.com while I researched it. But before delving too deeply into the details there are a few big-picture points I want people to remember about the first eight seasons of Shawn Bradley's NBA career when compared to other Centers of his era:

1) Defense - Shawn Bradley blocked as many shots per game as Alonzo Mourning (3.1).
2) Rebounds - Bradley (7.6 rpg) was as good on the boards as Zydrunas Ilgauskus (7.7).
3) Offense - Shawn Bradley (10.1 ppg) was as good offensively as Marcus Camby (10.7) and comparable to Arvydas Sabonis (12.0) and Vlade Divac (12.5).
4) Lottery Pick - Shawn Bradley was arguably statistically better than every other lottery pick Center drafted between 1993-2000. (Yeah, I was surprised by that too, but the stats don't lie.)

Sure, you could argue that by only focusing on the first eight seasons of Shawn Bradley's twelve-year career that I am trying to cover up his last four unproductive seasons, like a Chris Farley fan reveling in his SNL and Tommy Boy days while completely avoiding Almost Heroes and Beverly Hills Ninja. (Okay, I'm guilty on both charges.) The fact that Chris Farley's career ended badly doesn't mean that Tommy Boy and his SNL appearances are any less funny. The same goes for Shawn Bradley - his frustrating, injury-prone, relatively unproductive last four seasons do not cancel out the eight solid years he put together to begin his NBA career.

The reason for focusing on the first eight years of Shawn Bradley's career is because there is an incorrect notion among NBA fans that Bradley was one of the biggest busts in league history. The Dolly Parton of the NBA, as it were. The reality, however, is that for eight years Shawn Bradley was a solid NBA Center. Not spectacular, but definitely not one the the all-time busts like Simmons and other make him out to be.

Speaking of Bill Simmons, it was his 5/11/09 BS Report podcast that prompted me to finally write this post. While he was discussing the unfortunate fate of many big men 7'2" and taller, Simmons said that Manute Bol was, "Supremely underrated!" and "Unbelievable!" He sounded as giddy about Manute as the Sham-Wow guy gets about unexpected kitchen spills. Yet when Shawn Bradley's name came up Simmons dismissively said that, "Ahhh, he was hurt within three years," as if Bradley never had any semblance of an NBA career.

In reality, not only did Shawn Bradley have a solid eight year run to begin his career, but the three-year stretch between 1995-1996 and 1997-1998 were pretty remarkable. Even Tommy Boy and the "one and a-half percent of his brain" that he uses can understand that the following Bradley stat is pretty impressive:

Between 1996-1998, Shawn Bradley was the only Center in the NBA to average at least 11.4 points and 8.1 rebounds while appearing in at least 64 games each season (click here for the basketball-reference.com supporting data.)

Keep in mind that a number of Hall of Fame Centers were in the primes of their careers during that time - David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Dikembe Mutombo, Alonzo Mourning, Shaquille O'Neal, Patrick Ewing - yet none of them accomplished what Shawn Bradley did during that three-year span. The only non-Centers in the NBA to pull off the 11.4 points, 8.1 rebounds and 64 games during those three seasons were Karl Malone, Shawn Kemp and Anthony Mason (click here for supporting data.)

Over the past several years Bill Simmons has also called Shawn Bradley a "colossal bust", a "project", a "dunking test dummy", and that picking Bradley during a fantasy basketball draft elicited more laughter than passing gas. In his ESPN columns, Bill Simmons has compared Shawn Bradley to NBA busts like Kwame Brown, Darko Milicic, Jim McIlvaine, Calvin Booth, Michael Stewart and William Bedford. When putting together a list of non-NBA players who could challenge a WNBA team, Simmons recommended putting together a team of "marginal male players (ex-high school jocks, gym rats, Shawn Bradley)..."

Come on, Simmons, you know the NBA better than that! I expect more from you than those lazy, inaccurate comparisons.

When you compare the first eight years of Shawn Bradley's career to the first eight seasons of the "Other Guys" listed above (Kwame, Darko, etc.), you get the following:

In other words, Shawn Bradley put up eight years worth of stats that were twice as good as the Centers that Bill Simmons - and many others - normally compare him to.

Instead of lumping Shawn Bradley into the Darko and Kwame group, a more educated NBA observer would compare the first eight seasons of his career to solid NBA Centers like Zydrunas Ilgauskus, Vlade Divac, Rik Smits, Arvydas Sabonis and Marcus Camby. Take a look:

Pretty surprising, isn't it?

In fact, when you look at Shawn Bradley's first eight seasons compared to the averages of the first eight years of the "Solid Guys" listed above, you get the following:

Sure, each of the "Solid Guys" except for Sabonis went on to have careers that were better than Shawn Bradley's. But over the first eight years of their careers, which, by the way, is a long time in NBA years (wouldn't you be happy if your favorite NBA team's next draft pick is a solid contributor through the 2016-2017 season?), Bradley's productivity was on par with some of the stronger Centers in the league.

While Shawn Bradley was slightly less effective offensively from the rest of the "Solid Guys" (more on that later), his numbers were identical when it comes to games, minutes, rebounds and steals. With the exception of Marcus Camby, Shawn Bradley's goofy big white guy quotient was right up there with the rest of the group as well. Defensively, Shawn Bradley dominated this group - and most of the NBA - as a shot blocker.

But before you kill Shawn Bradley for not being a better offensive player, keep in mind that he played with terrible Point Guards for the first eight years of his career. Vlade had Magic Johnson setting him up for easy dunks followed by awkward man hugs. Ilgauskus benefited from tremendous set-up guys like Andre Miller and LeBron. Rik Smits started off with Scott Skiles and ended with Mark Jackson running the point in Indiana while Reggie Miller stretched the defense.

Shawn Bradley's 10.1 ppg average isn't all that bad when you consider his teams' assist leaders during his first eight years in the league:

Just digest that for a moment. In Shawn Bradley's rookie season the assist leader in Philly was a 30-year-old Jeff Hornacek! The Point Guard with the highest assist average on Bradley's teams was Kenny Anderson, who is not really known for being a pass-first kind of player (or pass-second, or third, or fourth...) How many points would Vlade have scored with the Hornacek/Barros/Anderson/Pack/Finley/Young Steve Nash combo trying to get him the ball? Six? Four?

If Shawn Bradley had played with the Magic/LeBron/Skiles/Mark Jackson combo to begin his career like some of the "Solid Guys" did, he would have been a much better offensive player and probably scored in the 12-13 points per game range like the rest of the group.

But enough about offense. With Shawn Bradley, it's all about defense.

Yes, Shawn Bradley looked goofy. Yes, he looked like a hang man stick figure that my 5-year-old daughter would draw. And, yes, sometimes he looked as coordinated as a new-born giraffe that somehow managed to enter the world on a sheet of ice. But in the end, Shawn Bradley was one of the most dominant, prolific, get-that-weak-junk-out-of-here shot blockers in the history of the NBA. Over the first eight years of his career, Bradley was a better shot blocker than many of his All-Star peers:

After some thorough research at basketball-reference.com I found only four players who finished in the Top-5 in blocked shots per game in each of his first eight seasons since the statistic was first recorded in 1973-1974:

-Hakeem Olajawon
-Dikembe Mutombo
-Tree Rollins
-Shawn Bradley

Some of the all-time blocked shot leaders either suffered injuries (David Robinson) or saw their defensive performance slip (Mark Eaton, Patrick Ewing) over their first eight years and did not make this exclusive club. But Shawn Bradley did, and he was one of the best shot blockers to patrol the paint over the last 35 years.

At the end of his career, Shawn Bradley finished 10th in the history of the NBA in blocks per game (2.5) and 11th in career blocks (2,119).

Remember, Bill Simmons called Manute Bol "Supremely underrated!" and "Unbelievable!" on his BS Report podcast, which in part prompted this lengthy post. So how many blocked shots did Manute average for the first eight years of his career? Five? Six? Nope. Try 3.4, which is not much higher than Bradley's average of 3.1. Throw in the fact that Bol couldn't score (2.6 ppg, 41% FG) or rebound (4.3 rpg) and it is hard to figure out why he was "Unbelievable!" and Shawn Bradley was somehow a "Colossal bust."

Some people put the "bust" label on Bradley because he was drafted second overall by Philadelphia in the 1993 draft. True, Shawn Bradley was drafted too high, but he was far more productive than nearly every other lottery pick (top-14) Center drafted between 1993-2000. While Shawn Bradley had a very solid, productive eight seasons to begin his career, the same cannot be said for the vast majority of the lottery pick Centers who followed:

1993 - Shawn Bradley (2nd overall)
1994 - Eric Montross (7th), Yinka Dare (14th)
1995 - Bryant Reeves (6th), Cherokee Parks (12th)
1996 - Marcus Camby (2nd), Lorenzen Wright (7th), Eric Dampier (10th), Todd Fuller (11th), Vitaly Potapenko (12th)
1997 - Adonyl Foyle (8th)
1998 - Michael Olowokandi (1st), Michael Doleac (12th), Keon Clark (13th)
1999 - Aleksandar Radojevic (12th), Frederic Weis (13th)
2000 - Chris Mimh (7th), Joel Pryzbilla (9th)

When you compare the first eight years of Shawn Bradley's career to the first eight years of the rest of those lottery pick Centers, you can see how much better off Philly was by drafting Big Shawn when compared to other lottery teams who drafted Centers:

Believe it or not, but the first eight years of Shawn Bradley's career were much more productive than the average lottery pick Center who followed him. When you examine the stats of all 17 of these lottery picks there is only one who ranks in the top-3 in all five categories:

Shawn Bradley.

Among all of the lottery-pick Centers drafted between 1993-2000, only Marcus Camby has gone on to have a better career than Shawn Bradley.

So what does all of this mean?

In short, it means that Bill Simmons and the rest of the Shawn Bradley haters out there are wrong. Statistically speaking, Shawn Bradley played for nearly a decade with respectable scoring and rebounding averages while dominating the league in blocked shots. Between 1995-1997 Shawn Bradley was one of the most productive, consistent Centers in the NBA. Philly got a lot more value out of its Shawn Bradley pick than most lottery-bound teams who selected Centers in the seven years that followed.

So, Bill Simmons, the next time you want to take a shot at Shawn Bradley, I've just got one thing to say to you:

GET THAT WEAK STUFF OUTTA HERE!

HEY BILL SIMMONS READERS - IF YOU LIKED THIS POST, CHECK THESE OUT:

Carolina Panthers, Labor Pains and Rob Zombie

My First MNF Game and Bladder Issues

Dominating The Mormon Church Basketball League

Isaiah Thomas, Anucha Browne Sanders and Me

Confessions of a Little League Father

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Wife Beater

2009-05-27T20:34:00.001-07:00

I beat my wife on Saturday. And boy did it feel good!

There was little the Normal Mormon Wife could do to defend herself against my unrelenting, overpowering backhands.

Now before you get the wrong idea, the “backhands” I am referring to are of the Pete Sampras vs. Andre Agassi variety, not the Ike vs. Tina Turner type. And when I “beat” my wife it was two sets to zero and I was dressed in a tennis outfit, not in a tight white sleeveless t-shirt with dangling gold chains. (Anytime a man refers to his clothing as an “outfit” instead of a “uniform” he loses three points on the Manly Scale. I think this faux pas now places me at -6 after revealing that I cried on the Statosphere.)

(D’oh! Using the phrase “faux paus” is -2 more Manly Scale points. I’m just going to shut up now. )

One of my favorite dates with the NMW is going to our local public tennis court for a highly-competitive mixed singles match. It’s close to home. It’s free. It gets me working up a sweat through physical exercise instead of the way I normally do, which is by eating a bag of Spicy Nachos Doritos with the AC turned off.

Not only is tennis a great date for the NMW and me because it is fast, free and physical, but it also allows us to satisfy our borderline-insane competitive urges. We are both very competitive by nature. The NMW and I lettered in multiple sports in high school and have a little bit of Lisa Simpson DNA that drives us to be measured, graded, ranked, or otherwise told how we stack up. In fact, I was first attracted to the NMW while we played on the same BYU co-ed intramural volleyball team and I saw the way she ran, slid, hustled, dove, and did whatever it took to win.

I am pretty sure the NMW’s elbows and knees were covered in floor burns the first time we kissed. Now that’s HOT in my book!

Another enjoyable aspect about spending our date night at a public tennis court is that the people at the park can be nearly as entertaining as the tennis itself. Some people view tennis as a white-dominated, racially discriminatory sport played by women named Buffy and men who own (not rent) tuxedos or have pocket watches on gold chains.

Well the good people at our public tennis court never got this memo. There are 11 courts at our local public park and we see less people named Buffy or Braxton and a whole lot of folks named B’mengala or Bhavikulativusimphone.

The variety of languages spoken at our tennis court may potentially exceed the number spoken at the tower of Babel. And when they all get talking at the same time the sound is as incomprehensible as Nancy Peolsi explaining her knowledge of enhanced interrogation techniques.

After I finished beating my wife – I mean defeating her 6-4, 3-1 – we took a leisurely stroll to see exactly how ethnically diverse our fellow tennis and/or cheap date enthusiasts were. We walked past all 11 of the courts like a couple of Ward Clerks counting the attendance in sacrament meeting while guessing the nationalities represented at the park. In the end, the tally came out as follows:

-16 Asian
-5 Hispanic
-2 French African
-1 African American
-1 Smokin' Hot White Skinned Half-Mexican Hottie (the NMW)
-Me

We were almost able to leave the park with the “How cool, the NMH is the only non-Hispanic white person here!” post-racial America vibe, but our joy was spoiled when we made it to Court #1. There were two plain old white people playing there. Bummer.

But as we more closely examined the party crashers on Court #1, we thought they looked a little familiar. Then, lo and behold, we recognized them as a young woman in our ward and a young man who had just been baptized earlier that day! The young man still technically was not a member of the Church because his confirmation would not take place until the following day, so we added this to our tally:

-1 Mormon
-1 Half-Mormon (Pending Confirmation)

While most of us at the tennis courts that evening came from different racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds, we all had one thing in common: We were all happy. We were all joking around with our friends. We were all enjoying being outside and hitting fuzzy yellow balls all over the place. The atmosphere was akin to having a Nitrous Oxide leak at a UN meeting.

Outside of the tennis courts there was a group of 12 Middle Eastern kids playing football and they were being supervised by 6 Middle Eastern women. A separate group of 8 Middle Eastern men played soccer while another group of 5 were chatting at a picnic table. At the large field across the parking lot a group of 36 French Africans played a massive game of kickball (I’ve never wanted to be French African so badly in my life as I did in that moment. That game was awesome! Just call me Luc Richard Mbah a Moute from now on and sign me up, baby!)

Our date night tradition after playing tennis is to go to Sonic for drinks and an occasional order of onion rings. And as if our evening had not already been ethnically diverse enough, we were greeted at Sonic by a group of about twenty African Americans riding ninja bikes (Bullet bikes? Death chariots?)

The whole evening was starting to sound like an elaborate set-up to a bad joke:

“What do you get when you mix 2 ½ white Mormons, 25 ethnically diverse tennis players, 30 Middle Easterners, 36 French Africans playing kick ball, and 20 black guys on ninja bikes?”

The true answer to that question is probably too ethnically insensitive to even ponder for more than .007165 seconds, so don’t even try to figure it out.

So here’s the safe answer – You get a fun date.

Oh, and don’t forget the wife beatin’. What could be more fun than that?

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Et Tu, Swine Flu?

2009-05-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

“I’m gonna get you this time, chump,” the Grim Reaper said to me in early April 2009. He was dressed in his obligatory long, black, hooded robe. The Grim Reaper’s face was completely hidden in the dark depths of his hood, but his deadly scythe glistened in his right hand. “I’m gonna kill all of you. All six billion of you! This time I will destroy humanity like the Lakers are going to obliterate the Jazz in the NBA Playoffs!”

“Yeah, right, Reaper,” I said, smirking. “You say the same thing every couple of years. Natural disasters…blah blah blah…global pandemics…yawn…nuclear winters…zzzzzz….” I could tell the Reaper was getting riled as I pretended to fall asleep mid-conversation.

“Hah! You overconfident fool!” The Grim Reaper boldly proclaimed. “This time I am serious! I will destroy humanity as you know it! You will read about my vengeance every time you turn on the TV, listen to the radio or log on to the internet. Millions will die! Hah hah hah! Hah (snort) ha ha (oink) ha ha (snort, oink)!”

“What the….” I said, befuddled. Before the Grim Reaper could react I quickly grabbed his hood and pulled it back, revealing his face.

And the face staring back at me looked a lot like Porky Pig.

“Noooo-ink!” The Grim Reaper yelled, retreating as fast as his cute little hooves could carry him. His funny, curly tail bobbed up and down as he scampered away, making me smile.

And as the Grim Reaper ran off to kill millions of people, I had just one thought:

“Mmmmm….bacon….”

****************************************************
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m already bored of The Swine Flu. Or, as the more PC crowd likes to call it – the H1N1 virus. Within a few weeks the ultra-PC crowd will be calling it the MAVTLCOBTDWNIFITDSDJIYXJ, or the Mexican-American Virus That Legally Crossed Our Borders To Do What Nature Intended For It To Do So Don’t Judge It, You Xenophobic Jerk! Just wait. This will happen.

Over the past several weeks I have built up a mental resistance to any mention of H1N1 on television or the radio. As soon as I hear the words “Swine Flu” my brain immediately tunes it out and starts playing mental re-runs of my favorite Napoleon Dynamite scenes.

Maybe I am being a little too flippant about the whole Swine Flu thing, like when Kip refuses to bring Napoleon some Chapstick to school despite the fact that Napoleon’s lips, “hurt real bad!” Should I be taking H1N1 a little more seriously, like Rex-Kwan-Do takes martial arts? (Sorry, just typing this post has caused me to have about four hundred Napoleon Dynamite flashbacks already.) Please vote in the poll on the right to tell me how you feel.

Look, I know the Swine Flu exists. Real people are getting sick, and unfortunately a small number have even died. My heart goes out to people whose lives have been impacted by this disease and I pray that nobody I know will suffer from it. But I refuse to believe the gloom-and-doom reports from the people who are pumping H1N1 24/7. But, hey, nothing is better for ratings and/or funding like a good crisis, so let’s not waste this one, people.

So why do I find a potential global disaster to be more boring than a Happy Hands recital?

Because every couple of years we are told – pretty convincingly – that the world as we know it is going to end. Here are a few of the bed-wetting predictions that most of us have already lived through:

1968: Overpopulation. Paul Ehrlich writes the book “Population Bomb” and predicts that famines will cause millions of deaths in the 1970’s, that life expectancy in the United States in the 1980’s would drop to 42 years due to the use of pesticides, and the nation’s population would shrink to 22.6 million by 1999. While Ehrlich's population predictions were way off, he did correctly predict Al Franken’s election to the Senate before mankind was destroyed, so he gets credit for that.

1974: Global Cooling. Time Magazine reported that “a growing number of scientists” were concerned about an imminent Ice Age as average global temperatures plummeted by 2.7-degrees Farenheit since the 1940’s. And to scare your chilly little rear ends even more, there were, “no indications of reversing.” As ice, snow and polar winds advanced around the world we were warned by a prominent scientist that, "I don't believe that the world's present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row." Just like Vanilla Ice, Global Cooling scared a bunch of people for a short period of time and was subsequently replaced by something much more trendy (i.e. Eminem and Global Warming.)

1980’s: Nuclear Winter. I grew up in the 1980’s and learned to both fear and hate the USSR, or the “Commies” as we liked to call them. In fact, calling somebody a “Commie” on the playground were fightin’ words back in my day. We were told repeatedly that at any moment nuclear bombs could start raining down from Moscow. Two of my favorite childhood movies were War Games and Red Dawn, which only made me more terrified of the USSR. (My other favorite movie was Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, which taught me to always lock my bike and to never, ever, ever accept a ride from a female truck driver.)

Back in the 1980’s we all needed aspirin just to combat the stress headaches that were caused by the world’s impending destruction.

Just make sure you didn’t take a Tylenol back in 1983. Those would have killed you too, remember?

1999: Y2K. Do you remember how terrified we were that computers would rise up against us in rebellion on 01/01/00? I was about to type a lengthy reminder about the Y2K scare but my computer said it would, “gut me like a fish,” if I attempted any such treason.

2001: Mad Cow Disease. Leading experts warned us that, “more than 100,000 people may die from the disease in the next several decades.” As of 2006, only about 160 people had died from Mad Cow. Conversely, an estimated 597 people died after eating at Jack in the Box last year alone.

2003: SARS. Ian Sample of The Guardian predicted that there could be, “millions dead,” as a result of SARS. He then declared that, “Although the disease is spreading more slowly than the Spanish flu pandemic that killed up to 50 million people in 1918, it is more lethal and may simply take longer to spread.” The only thing more lethal than the Spanish flu is Chuck Norris, not SARS. SARS claimed an estimated 800 victims, mostly in Asia, and not the potential tens of millions we were warned about.

2005: Bird Flu. On Sept 30, 2005 the UN’s World Health Organization estimated between 2 million and 7.4 million people could die from a global influenze pandemic. David Nabarro, senior UN system coordinator for avian and human influenza, then said, “the range of deaths could be anything from 5 to 150 million.” By the end of 2007 only 206 people had died from bird flu, making the UN’s prediction incorrect by nearly one-million to one. But on a more positive note, this is the closest the UN has come to getting anything right this decade, so great job, guys!

And now it’s the Swine Flu that is going to allegedly kill us all. Or not. In the mean time, I’m just going to tune out any H1N1 news until it finally just quietly, unexpectedly goes away.

You know, like the time when Napoleon Dynamite’s grandma got put in the hospital after her four wheeler accident at the sand dunes...

(Sorry, sorry….)

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Happy Mother's Day...To Me?

2009-05-12T21:57:00.000-07:00

Would you trade places with your spouse?

I have been asking myself this question for the past several days after the Normal Mormon Wife and I visited Myrtle Beach last week. While we were at the beach I essentially assumed the role of "mom" for three days while the NMW got up early, put on business casual clothes and headed off for a full day's work by attending her continuing education classes.

What in the name of Mr. Mom is going on here?

This Myrtle Beach role reversal was a big change for the NMW and me because she has not really worked outside of the home since our son was born nearly eight years ago. She did work as a temp dental hygienist once a week while I was in grad school, but that's about the extent of her resume since 2001. In fact, we chuckle every time she receives her Social Security statement showing her lifetime earnings and the amount her social security benefit would be. Her statement this year said that she would be entitled to, "A McDonald's Happy Meal Toy" if she began drawing Social Security benefits today.

I am actively encouraging the NMW to claim her Happy Meal toy since Social Security will be nonexistent by the time we are ready to retire. After all, 'tis better to have the High School Musical 3 key chain than no key chain at all.

I am not sure that I have what it takes to trade places with my wife and be a full-time stay-at-home dad. I am a believer that women, as a whole, have been endowed with an innate goodness and an ability to nurture that most men just do not have. While I try to be a patient, caring, and understanding dad, the NMW just has an ability to love that surpasses mine. And I love and respect her for that. I hope our three kids realize how stinkin' lucky they are to have her as their mom.

Here is an example that illustrates how differently the NMW and I nurture our children. Every child in the world between the ages of three and six thinks they need a band-aid every time an object brushes past their skin. It does not matter whether the skin is broken and blood is visible or not - they just need a band-aid! And they won't stop crying until they get one! (The brighter the color, the quicker the tears stop, too.) The NMW handles situations like this in a way that our children feel loved and cared for in the end.

Me? I fantasize about creating my own brand of band-aids to use as an object lesson for my kids to toughen up. I would call them "Manned Aids" or "Whaaaaaa!'nd Aids." The exterior packaging would look exactly like a regular box of band-aids and so would the individual strips inside the box. But when my kids would peel open what they are expecting to be a band-aid, they would actually find manly fortune cookie-type quotes like, "Cowboy Up!", "Suck It Up!", "Walk It Off!", "Man Up!" or any other non-profane cliche that my little league football coaches screamed at me after getting my bell rung.

No band-aid for you unless you nick an artery!

Maybe it's a good thing that I'm working all day while the NMW shoulders most of the responsibility of caring for our home and children.

But then again, sometimes I am a bit envious of my wife's lifestyle. Our oldest son is in 2nd grade and our 5-year-old daughter goes to pre-school three days a week for three hours a day. At times the NMW is home with just our 11-month-old daughter who may either take a nap or just scoot across the floor eating anything and everything within reaching distance.

Seriously. Our daughter has the stomach of a billy goat. Legos? Yummy! Potting soil? Mmmmmm. Paper strips from the shredder? Bon appetite!

Some days I return home late from work after an incredibly busy, stressful or frustrating day and have the obligatory, "So how was your day?" conversation with the NMW. Smiling, she may tell me that she went walking with her friends, then went to the library, then took the kids to the natural science center, and finished her gallivanting about by dropping by the house of one her friends to just chat.

Meanwhile, I may have spent the previous nine hours on back-to-back conference calls planning a major layoff, or being told one of my key projects is being put on hold, or dealing with thorny employee relations issues that have no clear right answer. Sometimes the Mr. Mom thing sounds pretty appealing.

But then there are other days when I have a productive, rewarding, successful day at work only to return home to find out that the kids were difficult all day. They were fighting. Arguing. Talking back. Being ungrateful. Crying. Whining. Rolling their eyes. And amid all of that there was a mountain of laundry that needed to get washed. And then the NMW had to haul all three kids to Wal-Mart, which took an hour and a half. And just as soon as all of the kids are in their car seats ready to leave, one of them announces that their bladder will explode all over the minivan unless they can get to the bathroom in the next five seconds. The trip back to the Wal-Mart bathroom takes another twenty minutes.

In fact, there are a number of days when I count my lucky stars that I am working instead of handling the challenges of being home to handle the constant challenges presented by three young, active, demanding kids.

So, I'll ask the question to you: Would you trade places with your spouse?

While I'm still deciding about what I would do, please post your comments telling me whether or not you would pull the old spousal switch-a-roo. There is also a poll on the right for both both men and women to give their opinions as well.

Please participate. This should be an interesting discussion. It would be particularly interesting to hear from any stay-at-home dads out there who have already made this transition and have a good feel for the challenges and rewards of both roles, so forward this along if you know anybody in that situation.

As for me, I'm going to bed. And at least for now I am happy to let the NMW be the one to wake up before the sun rises to nurse our baby daughter.

Suddenly a few conference calls with corporate don't sound so bad, after all.

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Implants, Drugs, and Happiness at Myrtle Beach

2009-05-07T22:38:00.000-07:00

The Normal Mormon Wife is a straight arrow. She lives a very clean, pure, wholesome life. For example, in the twelve years that we have been together I have never heard her swear. And I'm not talking about just the major cuss words that naturally flow from Jerry Sloan's mouth every time it opens. I have never even heard the NMW use any of the "minor" swear words that appear in the scriptures unless she is actually reading the scriptures. In fact, I think she squirms a little when she has to read verses like Mormon 9:4 and would feel more comfortable referring to the "...darned souls in heck" instead of the doctrinally correct scriptural verbiage.

So imagine my shock when my pure, virtuous wife told me that she wanted to take a trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to broaden her horizons in three areas:

1) Implants
2) Drugs
3) Happiness

I felt in that moment like Danny Zuko must have felt when Sandy unexpectedly shows up at the Rydell High carnival in skin-tight black leather pants and high heels while puffing on a Virginia Slim. Needless to say, I had chills. And yes, they were multiplying. But no, I did not lose control.

Well, we took the trip to Myrtle Beach and the NMW got what she needed in terms of implants, drugs and happiness. And if those provocative topics are not scandalous enough for you, our weekend also included heavy doses of binge drinking, profanity, and skimpy bikinis.

Ahhhh, you've gotta love South Carolina.

I try to stay away from South Carolina as much as possible because odd things tend to happen to me there. One recent experience in South Carolina ended up with me dealing with hobos and defecating canines. While I am pretty sure that both of these groups have large representation in the South Carolina state senate, I am not used to personally dealing with either of them. The purpose of my last visit to South Carolina was to tell fifty people that they would be losing their jobs because their plant will be shut down later this year. Good times!

So, you must be asking yourself, why would a temple recommending holding happily married mother of three be looking for happiness in implants and drugs at Myrtle Beach?

The answer is simple - she is a dental hygienist. In order for the NMW to keep her license she needs to complete continuing education classes every year. This year a large convention was held at Myrtle Beach where the NMW was able to learn about dental implants, dental anesthesia (read: drugs), and finding professional happiness in the dental office. The whole thing sounded so much more tawdry when taken out of context, didn't it?

I'll get to the binge drinking and bikinis later.

The NMW's convention ran from Thursday through Saturday and since we had already booked a beachfront hotel, I took Thursday and Friday as vacation days from work and went along for the ride.

My part of the bargain sounded pretty fun. While the NMW would be in boring classes from 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., I would be able to just kick back with my three kids who are seven years, five years, and eleven months old. We would wake up late, eat mini-Hostess powdered doughnuts for breakfast, drink chocolate milk, watch Disney Channel, lounge at the indoor pool, then hit the beach for a few hours. Sounds great, right?

WRONG!

I did not realize what a terrifying place the beach can be with only one semi-competent parent trying to keep track of all three kids at the same time. Instead of just relaxing at the beach, I had to spend hours on end assessing all of the ways my children could die if I took my eyes off of them for more than seven seconds.

My seven year old son is a decent swimmer, yet he kept taking his boogie board just a little too far into the ocean for my liking. Every five seconds I was looking for him to make sure he wasn't drowning. I just knew that at any given moment I would have to spring into action like a hunky Baywatch lifeguard and rescue my son. Assuming, of course, that hunky Baywatch lifeguards also have farmer tans, flabby stomachs and herniated discs in their lower backs.

My five year old daughter cannot swim so we bought her a life jacket. Every minute she spent in the water the tide would push her about fifty feet away from my spot on the beach. I was terrified that she would end up losing sight of me and getting lost somewhere on the beach. Or worse, kidnapped. And believe me, there were a fair number of shady looking men who probably drove "kidnapper vans" (you know, 1970's model, no windows, shag carpeting, rusted mufflers, public library bumper stickers, etc.) and were just waiting for me to turn my head so that they could pounce and kidnap my daughter.

At one point I literally had to force my eyes to work independently of each other like a chameleon so that I could simultaneously watch my nearly-drowning son and my nearly-kidnapped daughter.

Oh, yeah, and then there was my 11-month-old girl. At the same time I was watching the older kids I also had to make sure that my baby girl didn't get sunburned. Or eat sand. Or put sea shells in her mouth. Or poop her swim diaper. Or get dehydrated. Or get run over by the hunky lifeguards on their ATV's.

Then, to top it all off, we found out that it was national college fraternity/sorority week! And, as luck would have it, a horde or drunken college students decided to set up shop about six feet from my spot on the beach. After observing their behavior for about thirty seconds I concluded that there were five requirements to get into their fraternities/sororities:

1) Get drunk.
2) Use the "F-word" in new and creative ways.
3) Scream "WOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!!!!!" at the top of your lungs and run head first into the waves.
4) Get even drunker.
5) Men must wear swim trunks that show the cracks of their rear ends; ladies must wear bikinis the size of baby wipes.

In addition to the perils of drowning, kidnapping, sunburns and sand eating, I now had to worry that my children would return home talking like Andrew Dice Clay. Or, worse yet, using the real words for "darn" and "heck" when we read the scriptures.

And just when I thought things could not possibly get any worse, the sorority bikini squad attacked me.

Well, not me, exactly, unless attractive twenty-year-old female coeds are attracted to married guys in their mid-thirties with three kids, a farmer tan, a flabby stomach and a bad back. No, they were in love with my adorable 11-month-old daughter and they, "just had to come over and say 'hi' to her! (Giggle, giggle!)"

The bikini squad consisted of four young ladies who, as the scriptures might say, were "very fair" and "woreth smalleth bikinieth." I am pretty sure that they were also mincing and making a tinkling with their feet, but I was too afraid to look closely enough to verify that statement. Being surrounded by four intoxicated, scantily clad, extremely excited young women at Myrtle Beach while my wife was nowhere to be seen was one of the most awkward moments of my adult life. I was half-tempted to get up and flee like Joseph before Potiphar's wife, but guys with herniated discs are not quite as nimble as Joseph. My version of fleeing right now is probably similar to that of a walrus making his way from the beach to the ocean. Only I have to grunt more often than the walrus does.

My only option was to blush like a tomato and engage the bikini squad in conversation until they left. Or passed out due to alcohol poisoning. Whatever. We spoke for about three minutes before they moved on to flirt with a boy named "C.J.", who was apparently childless, had an even tan, sported six pack abs, and appeared to have a fully-functional back.

As soon as the bikini squad left I realized that I had taken my eyes off of my seven and five year old kids! I quickly scanned the beach and ocean and did not see either of my children. I immediately started thinking of ways to explain to the NMW just exactly how I lost two of our three children at the beach:

"Well, hon, the funniest thing happened. You see those four nice looking, young, slightly drunk girls in the bikinis over there? Well, the five of us got to talking on the beach for a while...."

Oh, man, I was dead!

Then, fortunately, I saw the Normal Mormon Boy's head pop up from behind a small wave. I then located my five-year-old daughter building sand castles several feet up the beach from where she had been playing earlier. Plus, my infant daughter had still not gone #2 in her swim diaper. We were all alive. Life was good.

Instead of continuing to press my luck at the Death Hole - I mean Myrtle Beach - I grabbed my kids as quickly as humanly possible and told them we were spending the rest of the day in the hotel room watching a marathon of The Suite Life of Zach and Cody on the Disney Channel. Since we do not have cable at home the kids were all for it.

And I am proud to report that I got my kids away from the frat boys before either of them picked up any creative ways to drop an F-bomb. Yep, they are still a couple of straight arrows.

Just like their mom.

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The Stratos-FEAR

2009-04-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

A number of you left comments on my last post about your various phobias. Your comments were both funny and disturbing at the same time, like watching Jaoquin Phoenix on David Letterman. Just for kicks I posted a poll with my five favorite fears that were mentioned in the comments so that we can identify the person in the NMH community who has the privilege of being vexed with the coolest phobia. So please vote. Unless your greatest fear is completing internet polls, that is, in which case you should probably run away screaming.

Oh, and in case you are interested, the centipede is still at large in our house, laying in wait to pounce from the shadows and attack the Normal Mormon Wife when she puts her guard down. By “her guard” I mean the meat cleaver and nun chucks she has been wielding since the centipede disappeared. I would rate her nun chuck abilities somewhere between Napoleon Dynamite and Bruce Lee at this point. My wife’s got skills, but she is still living with some fear of that evil, lurking centipede.

To eliminate the NMW’s worry I have been half tempted to throw a gummy worm on the floor and pretend it is the murderous centipede. When the NMW enters the room where the gummy worm is laying I would yell, “Look! The centipede!” Then I would attack, smash, mangle, destroy and otherwise pummel the gummy worm/centipede before the NMW got a good glimpse and realized it was a fake. She could then put down the meat cleaver, hang up the nun chucks, and resume living her normal centipede-free life.

I’ve also heard that nothing on earth tastes better than a gummy worm smothered in spousal deception. Mmmmmmm…..deceit-a-licious.

Since my last post I have been reflecting on my insane fear of heights and laughing with the NMW about the one time I tried to man up and conquer my phobia. During the summer of 2002 the NMW and I moved to Las Vegas for my internship between my first and second years of my MBA studies. While we enjoyed our time in Vegas as much as a married Mormon couple with a small baby and no money possibly could, there was one attraction the NMW knew would be off limits:

The Stratosphere.

If you have never heard of the Stratosphere before, it looks like the Seattle Space Needle and is about four million feet high. As if that’s not terrifying enough for a heights wimp like me, it also has two death-defying amusement park rides on the roof. Putting scary rides on top of the Stratosphere is like putting deer antlers on a great white shark. Sure, the shark is even scarier and more dangerous with the antlers, but does he really need them?

Being the life-loving thrill seeker that she is, the NMW really wanted to conquer the Stratosphere before we left Las Vegas. But she also knew the odds of me going up there were as likely as her going on Fear Factor and eating a plate full of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches.

Whudd’n’t gonna happen.

But then the Normal Mormon Wife’s birthday rolled around.

Despite my better judgment (read: bladder control) I surprised the NMW by going out on a limb – literally – and taking her to the top of the Stratosphere on her birthday. The NMW was grateful but also shocked that I would confront my fear of heights so head on. “Hey, babe,” I reassured her. “That’s what real manly-men do for the women they love.”

I then discretely slipped on a pair of Depends.

The first sign of trouble was when the Stratosphere employee informed us that it was $5 per person just to take the elevator ride to the top of the building. An unexpected $10 is a lot of money when you are living on student loans. So much for being able to take the NMW out to a nice place for her birthday dinner. You know, a nice place like Arby’s. Thanks a lot, Jerkosphere!

After begrudgingly forking over the $10 we got in and the elevator ascended toward space like Willy Wonka's glassy suicide elevator. Thankfully it stopped before launching us through the roof and into orbit. The doors slid open and as we stepped out of the elevator the NMW saw one of the most beautiful panoramas of her life. The night was dark. The moon was bright. Hundreds of miles of beautiful desert landscape was visible in all directions. The lights of Las Vegas flickered below us like the sparks from a discarded cigarette hitting the pavement. The Normal Mormon Wife loved what she saw.

I, on the other hand, could only see death.

In all honestly, I could not stop envisioning myself falling over the rail and hurtling to my untimely demise. My head started to spin. My knees shook uncontrollably. I nearly vomited.

And then THE JERKOSPHERE - THE ENTIRE BUILDING - STARTED SWAYING IN THE WIND!

That was enough for me. I grabbed the chain link fence behind me, which was as far as possible from the ledge, and held on for dear life. I could not physically make myself let go of that life saving fence. And then – and I’m not ashamed to admit this – I felt a few tears well up and spill down my cheek. It’s not like I was sobbing like David Hasselhoff on America Idol or anything, but tears were definitely shed. And to make matters worse, I couldn’t physically make my hands let go of the chain link to wipe the tears away. I felt so exposed that I thought Nelson Muntz was going to come around the corner and sucker punch me in the gut at any moment.

I was honestly paralyzed with fear. Nothing in my body was working. Except for the muscles that end in “—incter”, that is.

Several minutes and a few Depends later, I finally did come to realize that I would not die. I managed to pry my fingers from the fence and even went on the rides with the NMW. For me, conquering the Stratosphere was like eating a Zero candy bar – I did it once and I will never, ever, ever do it again.

But, hey. That’s what manly-men do for the women they love.

Especially manly-men who hide boxes of Depends in the closet.

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100 Legs of Death

2009-04-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

Fears. Phobias. Things that make you want to wet your pants. We all have them. My greatest fear?

Heights. No doubt. I'm a heights wuss. If I had a custom wall quote summarizing my philosophy on life it would read, "If you take me anywhere high, you will get punched in the face." (BTW - you can get this or any other wall quote, wall art, vinyl lettering, etc. from Belvedere Deisgns, a new NMH sponsor.)

But before getting into what the Normal Mormon Wife and I are afraid of, please post some comments outlining your greatest fears. It would be interesting to see what keeps this group up at night. Other than living on the east coast and trying to stay up until 1:00 a.m. to see how the Lakers-Jazz games end, that is. Being an east coast sports fan stinks!

In addition to heights, my top-five list of fears also includes mean dogs with sharp fangs, a murderer unexpectedly grabbing my ankle from under the bed, having a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler, and every person who attended Kearns High School. But none of those four even come close to my insane fear of heights.

I have been terrified of heights for as long as I can remember. This phobia may have started as a small child sitting in the back seat of the family car as my dad would drive us through Little Cottonwood Canyon. Dad thought it was hilarious to veer our Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra toward 100-foot cliffs that were right next to the road, which lacked guardrails. As soon as we were mere inches from plummeting to a horrific, fiery death, my dad would then pretend that he was losing control of the car and we were all goners.

Five family members would laugh at my dad's “I’m gonna kill my whole family” joke. I, on the other hand, would lose control of important bodily functions and then have to pretend for the rest of the day that I spilled lemonade in my lap. You know, stale lemonade that smelled strongly of ammonia.

While I am terrified of heights, they do not bother the Normal Mormon Wife in the least bit. In fact, she seems to enjoy them. The NMW would be up for wholesome recreational activities like a hot air balloon ride, bungee jumping, or skydiving if she were not married to such a pansy. (I bet a manly man like Jack from Lost would take the NMW bungee jumping from a hot air balloon if given the chance. This is why the Normal Mormon Family will never, ever visit Hollywood again. I just can't risk the two of them meeting each other.)

While my fear is heights, the NMW is afraid of bugs. Not small insects that she could easily kill like ants, caterpillars, lady bugs, or Ryan Seacrest. The NMW is afraid of larger, creepier-crawlier bugs like big beetles, grasshoppers, grubs, and man-eating worms. I feel bad that she is afraid of certain insects because you can encounter bugs anytime, anywhere, without being able to prepare yourself for it. It's sort of like running into Suge Knight at the grocery store. At least with a fear of heights I can prepare myself in advance for a drive through the canyon, a visit to the top of a high rise, or being shot out of a circus cannon. Heights never sneak up on you. But bugs? They'll get you when you least expect it.

On Friday morning, the NMW least expected it.

I got a frantic phone call from her that morning as I drove into work. As best I can remember, here is what the 9-1-1 transcript would have looked like:

Me: "G'morning, hot pants."
NMW, sounding panicked: “There is a huge centipede inside our house! Not a small centipede, a HUGE one! It's on the stairs outside our bedroom door. What do I do!!?? How do I kill it?"
Me, sounding like Jack Bauer: "Smash it with a broom!" (Then, after fearing that the broom bristles may be too flimsy to smash the centipede.) "No! Not a broom. Use the Swiffer! It's firmer. Yeah, use the Swiffer!" (I think Jack Bauer has killed at least forty-two terrorists with a Swiffer, right?)
NMW: But won't that just smoosh it into the carpet? I don't want to leave a big mess."
Me: "Oh! I know. Get the bug spray and spray it first. That should stun it so it doesn't move. Then you can kill it easier!" (I'm half tempted to tell her to light a match and hold it up to the nozzle of the aerosol bug spray can and just torch the centipede, but I'd hate to lose the house in a raging inferno over a caterpillar on steroids.)
NMW: I don't think the bug spray would work on it. This isn't an ant or a potato bug. It's a centipede! A CEN-TUH-PEED!"
Me: "Okay, just use a shoe."
NMW: "I can't get my hand that close to that thing! What if it bites me? Centipedes bite hard, don't they?"
Me: "You could put on the big yellow rubber toilet scrubbing gloves if you're afraid it's going to bite you." (I'm pretty sure that by the time the NMW confronts the centipede she will be wearing yellow rubber gloves with a couch cushion duct taped to her chest and a metal spaghetti strainer on her head as a helmet.)
NMW: "I don't know if I can do this! I'm terrified right now."
Me: "Do you need me to come home?" (I'm secretly hoping she says, "Yes, yes, you brave, brave, sexy man! Please, instead of going to work, come home and vanquish the hideous beast!" But....)
NMW: "No, don't come home. I'm getting the broom. I'll call you back."
Me: (Darn it!)

Ten minutes later my phone rings....

Me: "Hello."
NMW: "It's gone."
Me: "What? It's gone?"
NMW: "Yep, it's gone. When I came back up the stairs it was gone. I think it might be hiding in the load of laundry.
Me: "Good. Just take the laundry basket outside."
NMW: "What if I just did the load of laundry with the centipede in it? There no way a centipede could survive both the wash and the dry cycles, right?"
Me: "Yeah, that would definitely kill it." (And some people think the CIA was too rough by water boarding blood-thirsty terrorists at Guantanamo. The CIA's got nothin' on the NMW.)
NMW: "But wouldn't that be too messy? It's all about the mess for me. This thing is HUGE!"
Me: "Hon, I am both worried for and amused by you at the same time."
NMW: "Those are appropriate reactions. I'm taking the laundry outside and hope the centipede will slink away. I'll call you later."

About twelve minutes later my phone rings again....

NMW: "I didn't see it leave the laundry basket. What if it's hiding in our bed?"
Me: "Don't worry about it." (Great. I'm really worried about the NMW at this point. Now that she has imagined the centipede in our bed she will probably be sleeping in the van for the next month. Good thing we have Stow 'N Go seating in the Caravan. What can I say to help her remember that we are only talking about an insect here? Oh! I know! Talk about an axe murderer!) "It's not like an axe murderer is hiding behind every door in the house just waiting to jump out and scare you. It's just a bug. We'll take care of it."
NMW: "I'm not worried about an axe murderer. I'm worried about the CEN-TUH-PEED!"
Me: "You gonna be okay?" (Please, please, please tell me to come home to comfort you!)
NMW: "I guess I'll be okay. I'll call you if I see it again."
Me: (Darn it!)

The NMW never called back. I feel so bad for my awesome wife. Having a centipede on the loose in our house is honestly terrifying for her. I wish I could just find that darn thing and then have some fun with it before getting rid of it. You know, rough it up a little bit. Make it sweat. Make it pay for scaring my wife. Put it in the bird feeder for a few minutes. Dangle it over our sharp, pointy, thorny bushes. Tell it some mean "Yo' mamma....." jokes.

All of this means that we still have a rogue centipede somewhere in our house. I'm pretty sure he's conspiring with the ants, lady bugs and mosquitoes to kill us in our sleep somehow. If the insects end up whacking me tonight, please have my remains cremated and spread along Carolina Beach.

Just don't spread my ashes from anywhere too high.

That would totally freak me out.

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Twilight's Edward: Chivalry, Vocabulary, and Flatulence

2009-04-20T21:53:00.000-07:00

My last blog post about women being attracted to Edward from Twilight because he thinks, speaks and feels like a 30-something woman touched a nerve with many of you.

152 nerves as of today, to be exact.

While most of the 152 comments that have poured in thus far understood the humor of my previous post, there were a substantial number of women who got pretty bent out of shape about the whole thing. In fact, I was a little worried that a small group of angry readers were going to track me down and re-enact the dance studio scene from the Twilight movie. I would be James. They would take turns being Alice.

In general, the people who were angry about my opinion about Edward pointed to three main reasons in their attempts to prove that I am stupid, moronic, idiotic, stupid, lame, dimwitted and unfunny.

And stupid.

If I were to blend all of the "I hated this stupid post...." comments together and created a generic, all-inclusive summary it would read like this:

"This is the stupidest bunch of stupid that I have ever read. If you weren't so stupid you would know that Edward was born in 1901 when men respected women!!!!! Not like today when all of you stupid men are stupid!!! Aaarrgh!!! Plus, Edward has lived for OVER 100 YEARS so of course his vocabulary is going to be large, not stupid, like yours!!! And if you were less stupid you would know that VAMPIRES CAN'T FART because they don't eat food!!!

I hate to pick the scab before it fully heals, but those of you who left comments like the one above are wrong. Here is why:

1) The General View of Women in 1901. I think the phrase, "Hey, stupid - Edward was born in 1901 when men treated women with respect!!!" was used in roughly 100 of the comments. Okay, people, I get. Edward was born in 1901. But your conclusions that Edward is a selfless, chivalrous gentleman simply because he was born in 1901 is completely wrong. Men in 1901 did not respect women nearly as much as men do in today's society.

Remember, the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution permitting women to vote was voted down twice by a male-dominated congress before it was finally ratified in 1920. Many school systems implemented "marriage bars" to avoid hiring married women and to fire single women after they got married. The first female elected to the US Senate did not happen until 1930, and I'm pretty sure that she only got elected because she was secretly a sorceress who cast a spell upon the unsuspecting people of Arkansas and was later burned at the stake.

Male discrimination against women was alive and well back in the early 1900's. If Edward retained these male chauvinistic views he would be classified in 2009 as a sexist pig, not a chivalrous gentleman.

Living in the early 1900's would have made Edward's view of women more compatible with Tom Arnold's than with a heroic male Jane Austen-type heartthrob.

2) Vocabulary Adapts - Not Improves - Over Time. A number of commenters also tried to make the point that Edward speaks like a woman because - again - he was born in 1901 when language was allegedly more formal and flowery. I also reject this assumption. You see, a man's vocabulary tends to shift and adapt with the time and popular culture, but not necessarily expand. The fact that Edward still speaks like a woman after 100 years supports my argument.

For example, if a guy was an inarticulate dumb jock in high school he will still probably be one at the 25-year class reunion. The dumb jock will not suddenly be as eloquent as President Obama simply due to the fact that he has lived for 25 additional years. (Now, if he carried a teleprompter with him everywhere he went, that would be a totally different story.)

Also, if Edward thought like a male he would have dumped the flowery early 1900's vocabulary and replaced it with more modern words as time went on. Take me, for example. I was born in 1974 but I do not say "groovy" or"keep on truckin'", which were popular back then. Instead of staying stuck in the '70's I adapted in the '80's to use popular words like "awesome!", "rad!" and "studly!" I then spent most of the 1990's speaking like Beavis and/or Butthead. Thanks to texting, the 2000's have been the decade of the acronym, and I have incorporated them accordingly.If Edward were a more manly-man, he would have adapted as well.

(Side Note: The company I work for uses approximately seventeen million acronyms. My favorite is the acronym for a person in our Specialty Tapes Division who goes out on short-term disability due to a sexually transmitted disease. The acronym? A person in STD went out on STD due to an STD. Classic.)

The fact that Edward still speaks like a lead from Sense and Sensibility instead of allowing his vocabulary to change with the times proves that he prefers to keep things frilly and festive on the inside. This was my point from the beginning.

3) Edward CAN Fart! Okay, the whole "Edward can't fart because vampires don't eat food!" comments cracked me up. Seriously. They killed me. I actually did a little research about flatulence and can assert with complete confidence that Edward - and all vampires, for that matter - can, in fact, break wind. Here is why:

According to Wikipedia, Nitrogen makes up 20%-90% of the gas that is released during flatulence. Edward's diet consists of blood, which contains Nitrogen. Therefore, every time that Edward drinks blood he is ingesting Nitrogen, which will continue to build up in his body until it is somehow released. Edward, therefore, would most likely pass gas in order to release the excess Nitrogen building up within him.

A few of you tried to argue that Edward cannot toot because his internal organs no longer work because they are no longer needed. This is also an incorrect assumption. When Edward bares his chest in the forest and glistens in the sun, you can clearly see that he has two useless body parts - male nipples and a belly button. Since these "useless" body parts were not removed when Edward was changed from human to vampire, I have concluded that his digestive system did not change either.

Wow. I am now the world's foremost expert on vampire flatulence. I bet my mom and dad are proud.

After reading all of your comments, I am still confident that Edward appeals to women because he thinks, feels, and speaks like a female. Some of you will still disagree with me on this, which is fine. But at the end of the day I hope we can agree on one item of Edward's manliness:

He can clear the room with the best of 'em!

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Midnight Sun: Edward Undone!

2009-04-13T21:26:00.000-07:00

EUREKA! I finally did it!

Isaac Newton figured out the Laws of Motion. Einstein taught the world that E=MC2. James Chadwick discovered the neutron. The Fresh Prince taught us that parents just don't understand. And now after months of painstaking research my name can finally be added to the list of people who have solved life's great mysteries.

I HAVE FINALLY FIGURED OUT WHY WOMEN LOVE EDWARD FROM TWILIGHT SO MUCH!

You see, I know hundreds of women between the ages of 14 and 114 who love Edward more than most men love a good NFL Playoff game and a bag of spicy pork rinds combined. After reading all of the Twilight books and watching the DVD - bonus material included - I was still stumped as to why women were so ga-ga over Edward. Sure, I can understand the fact that he is described to be physically beautiful (those are the womens' words, not mine), eternally youthful and loaded with cash. But these qualities only make Edward similar to Ricky Shroeder during the last season of Silver Spoons, yet I do not see any women wearing "Team Ricky" shirts these days.

But most women argue that it is not Edward's hotness or his Scrooge McDuck-esque pile of cash that attracts them to him. Women claim that it what is on the inside that makes Edward the man of their dreams. Most giddy females describe Edward as thoughtful, caring, compassionate, chivalrous and protective. I had always thought that Edward was somewhat controlling and overly possessive of Bella, kind of like the preppy, convertible-driving boyfriend at the beginning of The Goonies. This perception has made it hard for me to understand why women loved the guy so much (Edward, not the guy from The Goonies.)

But then I began to read Midnight Sun.

And after reading the first few pages of Midnight Sun, everything came together. As I read I felt for a moment like Neo when he cracked the code to the matrix and could control everything around him. In short, after reading Midnight Sun I understood precisely why women love Edward so passionately:

Edward speaks, thinks, and feels EXACTLY LIKE A WOMAN!

Okay, all you Twi-hards out there, please put down the pitchforks, burning torches and maps leading to my home. Please hear me out before you leave angry comments or threaten to kill me.

For those of you who are unaware, Midnight Sun was written by Stephenie Meyer to be Edward's first-person version of Twilight. Unfortunately, a partial draft of the book was illegally posted to the internet and distributed around the world before it was ready for wide release. After seeing the tremendous amount of work that went into the publishing of my sister's novel (Bound on Earth) and my brother's book (LDS Why?) I have a better understanding of how much work goes into writing and publishing a book. I honestly feel badly for Stephenie Meyer that Midnight Sun was illegally and prematurely released. You can read her painful account here, and you can also read a draft of Midnight Sun that Stephenie Meyer released by clicking here.

I began reading Midnight Sun to better understand Edward and why women adore him so fanatically. After all, this book is essentially Edward's personal diary of why and how he fell in love with an uncoordinated under-age minor without accidentally killing her or ending up on Dateline: To Catch a Predator.

After reading about ten pages of Edward's innermost thoughts it became painfully obvious to me that Edward thinks and feels exactly like a woman. This is one of the main reasons women adore him so much - they can identify with him. Because, let's face it, in casual social settings women generally prefer to socialize with other women. Conversely, in mixed company men tend to gravitate toward other males who will understand their frustrations with their fantasy sports teams and share in their love of beef jerky and other salty dead animals.

Since Edward is "a hottie" (again, I feel queasy using that word to describe another male) and loaded with cash, the fact that he is in touch with his inner Oprah makes him completely irresistible to women.

The reason that Edward is so in touch with his feminine side probably has to do with the fact that he is written by a woman. No matter how good of a writer Stephenie Meyer may be, she will never be a man. She does not know how we think, eat, sweat, hunt, bond, compete, fight or feel. Stephenie Meyer did the best she could as a non-testosterone producing woman to articulate the thoughts and feelings of the most desirable man on earth.

But the more I read, the more I was wholly convinced that Edward thinks and feels like a 30-something woman. Which, not surprisingly, is precisely what Stephenie Meyer is.

Here are five examples from the first several pages of Midnight Sun that clearly prove my point that Edward's thoughts and emotions have a definite female flair to them. Since I am a man, I also took the liberty of re-writing some of Stephenie Meyer's passages to "manly" it up and make the book more realistic.

Page 1: Bella has just arrived at Forks High School and her new classmates are fawning all over her. Edward can read the thoughts of every student in the school and is annoyed by their fascination with the "new girl."

Edward's Words: "The excitement over her arrival was tiresome and predictable - like flashing a shiny object at a child."
The Problem: Single men who have never sired a child (i.e. Edward) do not come up with examples involving little kids. Childless males create comparisons consisting of sports, video games, food and cars, but never babies.
What a Man Would Really Say: "The excitement over her arrival was tiresome and predictable - like a WWE wrestler who is about to be pinned then miraculously summons the power to lift his shoulder off the mat a millisecond before the final "3!" count.

Page 6: Edward is eavesdropping in on Jessica's thoughts in the cafeteria during lunch on Bella's first day at Forks HS. Edward has to listen to Jessica's jealous thoughts about Eric and Mike being attracted to Bella instead of to her.

Edward's Words: "I listened...(as)...Jessica's frivolous internal monologue continued to gush."
The Problem: The average adult males uses the words "frivolous", "monologue" and "gush" approximately one time per year. The probability that these three words would be used in the same sentence is as likely as the Cincinnati Bengals drafting somebody without a prison record.
What a Man Would Say: "I sort of listened to Jessica thoughts with half of my attention while the rest of my brain plotted Call of Duty strategies. Jessica's thoughts sounded like this - 'blah blah blah Mike blah blah blah Eric blah blah Bella blah blah...'"

Page 9: After seeing Bella for the first time in the cafeteria, Edward goes to class.

Edward's Words: "I headed off for my junior level biology class, preparing my mind for tedium. It was doubtful Mr. Banner, a man of no more than average intellect, would manage to pull out anything in his lecture that would surprise someone holding two graduate degrees in medicine."
The Problem: Again, Edward uses language that is far too fancy and frilly for a real life male.
What a Man Would Say: "I went to my boring biology class. Mr. Banner is stupid. I hate school. I want to light something on fire."

Page 10: Okay, this is the famous scene in biology class when Bella walks toward Edward and an overpowering scent floods the classroom.

Edward's Words: "The scent swirled around me again, scattering my thoughts and nearly propelling me out of my seat."
The Problem: Can't...type...still...giggling...
What a Man Would Say:"I farted." (I mean, come on! Talking about a "swirling scent" that "nearly propelled me out of my seat". I know he's a vampire, but Edward is still a man and subject to clearing a room with bodily odors, right?)

Page 17: As Edward considers devouring Bella like an Arby's Melt and then murdering all of his classmates, he pauses to think of the ramifications this decision would have on his family. Particularly, he thinks of his adopted mother, Esme.

Edward's Words: "I didn't have to cause my mother stress, worry...pain. Yes, it would hurt my adopted mother, too. And Esme was so gentle, so tender and soft. Causing someone like Esme pain was truly inexcusable."
The Problem: The only thing in their lives that men refer to as "gentle, tender and soft" are menu items at Ruth Chris' Steak House. Not their mothers. And when males are thinking about doing something stupid, they think about how mad their mom is going to be when she finds out, not that their actions would actually cause her pain.
What a Man Would Say: "I'm totally eating Bella. My mom is gonna kill me!"

This post is getting too long already, but there were several other examples that I could have used to substantiate my point that Edward is really a thirty-something woman on the inside.

So, men of the world, there is a lesson to be learned here. While none of us can compete with Edward's eternal youth, Adonis-like physique or his Bill Gates pre-recession bank account, we can become a little more refined.

Perhaps we should put down our crossbows and tune into Oprah every now and then. Maybe we should replace our Slim Jim's with salad forks every once in a while. I bet we can use refined words like "quench" and "gush" outside of a sentence that sounds like, "I couldn't quench the blood that was gushing out of hand after I shot it with a nail gun."

In other words, if you want to become the type of man who can compete with Edward - become more like a woman!

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Easter Bunny: Fun Tradition or Satan's Gopher Boy?

2009-04-09T21:01:00.001-07:00

Easter week is one of the best of the year. Spring is in the air. Popcorn is popping on the apricot trees. The weather is getting warm enough that tonight I grilled hot dogs on the patio with the kids and none of us even wore a jacket. (Take that, all you snow covered Utahns!)

Because it is Easter we can look forward to sacrament meetings that are focused on the Savior and the hope of eternal life that is offered to each of us through His redeeming sacrifice. I think good sacrament meetings will help pacify some of the LDS North Carolinians who are still a little miffed that General Priesthood was scheduled smack dab in the middle of UNC's Final Four game last Saturday. I couldn't tell if some of the "amen's" at Priesthood session were for the speakers or for the results the UNC-Villanova game being tracked on about a dozen Blackberries in the chapel.

From a food standpoint, Easter is great because Peeps are plentiful in the pantry. The Dollar Store is selling solid chocolate bunnies that weight about six pounds and are covered in that scarey white powdery stuff, but sometimes quantity trumps quality. Unhatched chicken babies are hanging out in the fridge just waiting to be hard boiled, colored, hidden in the back yard, and ultimately be deviled and devoured.

And speaking of the devil......

The downside of Easter week is the awkward uncomfortableness when the topic of the Easter Bunny gets broached in mixed company. There are three different camps that LDS people - especially parents of young children - fall into when discussing the Easter Bunny.

Camp #1 - The Nostalgics: This group of parents loves all of the traditions, stories, nostalgia and excitement of every holiday, Easter included. They want their kids to believe in fictional characters like Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Leprechauns, and The United Nations (oops, that last one just slipped out.) The Nostalgics remember how exciting it was when they were kids laying awake in bed on Christmas Eve thinking that every bump, knock, or creak was really Santa landing his sled on the roof and shimmying down the chimney. These parents know that their children will eventually have to grow up, get acne and work at McDonalds, so they are going to do everything possible to help their children believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc. during those magical, wonderful childhood years.

There is a subset of The Nostalgics who want their children to believe in fictional holiday characters so that instead of doing real parenting they can simply scream threats like, "Stop hitting your sister or Santa won't give you anything this year, dang it!" Or, "If you fart in the minivan one more time the Easter Bunny will come up into your bed and attack you in your sleep. He has rabies, you know? His little teeth are pointy and sharp, too. You want that? YOU WANT THAT!!??"

Camp #2 - The Fundamentalists: This group essentially tells their children the truth about Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc. during the baby's name and blessing. They go out of their way to make sure that their children are not deceived about the reality - or lack thereof - of these silly "secular" traditions. They rent movies from the library like, Elmo's World: Santa Exposed! and The Veggie Tales Movie : That Dollar Under Your Pillow Came From Dad's Wallet!

There is one plain and simple reason that The Fundamentalists go out of their way to make sure their kids are not fooled by a fat, bearded present deliveryman or chocolate-bearing rodents - they are afraid that when their child finds out the truth about Santa that it will destroy their budding faith in the Almighty. These parents have concluded that one day their children will wake up and say, "If mom and dad lied to us about Santa and the Easter Bunny, then are they must also lying about Heavenly Father! And Joseph Smith! And John Stockton!" The Fundamentalists fear that the day their children learn the truth they will respond by going Goth, dying their hair blue and ditching Primary for underground raves. You will never see a robotic Rudolph with the moving, mechanical head grazing in the Fundamentalists' front yard.

Camp #3 - The Politicians: Just as John Kerry voted for the war before he voted against it, The Politicians do their best to pull a little bit of logic from both The Nostalgics and The Fundamentalists. These parents want their children to believe in Santa, Easter Bunny, etc. because it is a fun part of childhood, but they do not want to lie to their children, either. So The Politicians read books like The Polar Express but never actually say that Santa is real or that the Easter Bunny could attack them in their sleep. They perpetuate the myth, but never actually fully endorse it.

I have a number of smart, loving, wonderful friends and family members who fall into each of these three camps. You probably do, too. So who is right? Please please vote in the poll and post some comments to help me out on this one. Please refrain from bashing or demeaning the groups you disagree with because I would hate to see people get bent out of shape over an Easter blog post.

As for me, I'm a Politician.

In fact, I told the 7-year-old Normal Mormon Boy the truth about the Tooth Fairy a few weeks back after he kept badgering me with questions about her existence. The boy backed me into a corner and I didn't want to lie to him. Since I was coming clean I threw Santa and the Easter Bunny into the conversation as well.

To be honest, a little piece of me as a dad died that day. It made me realize that my son is growing up way too fast and before I know it he is going to be baptized, then morph into an awkward, gangly Deacon, and then ultimately get a super-secret mission call to a predominantly Muslim country that church headquarters will deny ever issuing. We will have to say he is serving in Iowa, but in reality.......

Assuming, of course, that my son still has faith in anything spiritual after learning that I was the one who put two dollars worth of change under his pillow because I had run out of ones.

This whole post turned out to be much more complex than I had originally intended. Please comment with your two cents to help give me some additional perspective.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go destroy a package of Peeps!

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It's March. I'm Mad. Seriously. I'm Mad.

2009-04-06T21:41:00.001-07:00

Bad Ideas: Eat yellow snow. Bite the hand that feeds you. Rock the boat. Seek shelter under a tree during a lightening storm. Kick a sleeping dog. Alter the past when you happen to travel back in time.

HORRIBLE Idea: Pick a Final Four consisting of Duke, Louisville, Syracuse and Memphis. Yep, that was my Final Four. Nope, none of them made it that far. In fact, only Louisville advanced beyond the Sweet Sixteen. My bracket this year stunk worse than a group of male high school students four hours after a Taco Bell run.

And to make matters worse, my March Madness stinkiness was on public display for all of you to witness. And mock. I invited all of you to join the NMH March Madness league a few weeks ago and a total of 38 of you decided to fill out a bracket. When it was all said and done, I finished tied with another guy for 35th place. I even had people in the league posting comments like, "Not looking good for the NMH" and, my personal favorite, "The Commissioner Just Got Destroyed!!" Glad I could be there for you fellas, kind of like how a pinata must feel some sort of fulfillment as a 9-year-old with a Louisville Slugger beats the crud out of him as his candy goes spilling all over the pavement.

The only two people who finished below me this year were women, meaning that every other male in the competition beat me.

I am officially turning in my Man Card.

The Normal Mormon Wife won family bragging rights by beating me and the 7-year-old Normal Mormon Boy. The NMB was beating my wife (er, leading? winning? Beating makes it sound like there are domestic issues going on in my family) going into the championship game tonight. If UNC won, the NMW would overtake the NMB. So the Normal Mormon Boy went to bed chanting "Go Michigan State!", but it looks like my genes were too strong for the boy to make a pick that actually turned out well and he lost. The NMW finished in a respectable 12th place while the NMB finished 18th overall. Nice job, babe. I feel like Bobby Riggs congratulating Billy Jean King at the net right now...

Speaking of the Battle of the Sexes, the men soundly beat the women this year (I mean, destroyed? annihilated? vanquished?) by an average score of 99 to 93. We are men. Hear us roar! Except for me. I don't count anymore.

When I set up the NMH March Madness league I also promised to give away certain meaningful basketball cards to the winner, runner-up, and the overall loser. So, everybody, please put your hand together for this years winners. (Unless you are a sore, bitter loser like me. Then please join me in jeering them and putting their email addresses on multiple spam email lists.)

Overall Winner: Manager - JM, Team - Best. Bracket. Ever.
Runner-Up: Manager - Jordan, Team - Watchmaker
Overall Loser: Manager - MGerb, Team - Roosevelt Kinder Teacher

Winners, please email me at nmhusband [at] hotmail [dot] com with your mailing address to claim your prizes. Because there were some ties, I used total first round points to break the tie for the runner-up and lowest first round point total to determine the overall loser.

Thank you all for playing this year. I am planning on making it an annual tradition.

I just hope that next year I can put an (M) next to my name again.

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