Parenting as a Jack-in-the-Box milkshake

Sometimes I think that raising children is like a milkshake from Jack-in-the-Box. Let's go specifically with the Oreo milkshake. You have to suck on that straw until you almost have an aneurysm to get a small taste of that ridiculously thick milkshake. But oh how rich that one little taste is. Then after you've had 15 or 20 little tastes you're so satisfied that you can't finish the whole shake. I love those moments as a parent where you just think that there's nothing better than that little baby. Playing hide-n-seek, or watching them get the biggest kick out of the smallest things, like a Barbie Dream House commercial is good stuff. Granted, there are moments when a big piece of Oreo gets stuck in the straw and blocks the flow of joy, but those moments always pass and the reward is that much bigger when they do.

Life in the city

Kind of going along with the post about my job at American Express, I wanted to post something that highlights some of the fun moments we've had here in Salt Lake. For me it's been great because I've never really lived in a city before. I've always lived in small rural towns, such as Laie, Rexburg, and Logan, with the lone exception being La Canada for about 8 months. Granted, Salt Lake is not a big city, but it's the biggest I've ever lived in. With that, it's very evident that life in the city is much different than life in suburbs and rural areas. Here are a few examples:

1. The Karate Guys: There are two guys that do karate in front of our apartment complex every once in a while. It's not a violent type of karate either, it's more of a meditative sytle of karate mixed with spasmatic outbursts of attacks/defense. It's like they think they're in slow motion getting ready to fight the oncoming imaginary attackers, and suddenly the action whips back into full speed. John Woo would be proud.

2. Halloween: We are on our way down to the Mall, and the elevator door opens and immediately I get an eye full of a young college age kid dressed in nothing but tighty whities, suspenders, and a fireman's hat. It's amazing I haven't erased this from my memory.

3. We are walking down the hall to our room, and yet another young college age kid is standing out in the hallway with his door wide open screaming that there's a cockroach in his closet. He then convinces some poor stranger to go in his room and kill the cockroach. I was just happy that someone else got talked into doing it, and not me. Awkward.

4. One morning I just happened to be looking out our patio doors when I saw two guys very carefully exchange a couple of concealed items, and then quickly walk away from the situation. I couldn't help but think that I had just witnessed a drug deal in broad daylight go down in front of my apartment.

BARACK

Pete and I just finished watching Hannity and Colmes. Wow, how frightening that Barack, the leading candidate for President is a supporter of such an evil man. Is Reverend Wright delusional? I can't believe some of the things he was saying about the goverment's conspiracy to wipe out the African American's with the Aids virus in the 80's. This guy actually thinks 9/11 was the act of the United States Government. He claims that greedy white American's are wrongfully debilitating the African American race. His preaching of black American's as victims is only perpetuating the vicious cycle. How can the the black culture overcome their economic difficulties by taking the victim's standpoint? Obviously Reverend Wright has a few screws loose. It's funny that although the Reverend has been Barack's spiritual advisor and Preacher for 20 years Barack claims he never knew Wright's personal stand and never heard any of these offensive sermons. He is flat out lying to protect his candidacy. God save America if this man is elected President! It will truly be the beginning of the end. I guess this is great for the Republicans. The race is so close that even if Barack loses a few votes, Hillary will win the Primary and McCain will have a better chance of beating her than he would have Obama. I certainly hope that at least educated Americans will be alarmed by Baracks relationship with this man he claims is like an uncle.
Regan

I attached the crazy video of excerpts from his speeches

Stranger in a strange land

So, this is my first time working in a business setting, and I have to say that for an introverted feeling type (although the MBTI I took here says I'm an INTP), it's very different. This is a setting where I am constantly surrounded by extroverted thinking types. That puts me in a lot of awkward situations, on top of all those situations that come with working in an office to begin with (If you've ever seen The Office, or work in an office environment you know what I'm talking about). I've been working here for two months now, and here are a few highlights:

1. First day of work at a huge company. The worst part about this is trying to remember the names of all the people.

2. We've got this one guy here that is a no-holds barred kind. He was once told that his filter is not inside his head, but outside. Meaning, that when he says something he doesn't think first, and but always feels sorry for having said it afterwards. This is a very true description of him. He sings Broadway tunes wherever he goes, yells out random things at large meetings, and tells stories with an unmistakable falsetto voice.

3. I am a part of a team that includes four people. About two weeks ago our boss asked for five minutes in what's called a "Huddle Room", which is basically a meeting room. She preceeded to tell us that she was leaving the company on the 14th of this month. There we sat for about 20 mintues as our boss cried, trying to think of something to say that would be appropriate for the situation. This all comes after hearing our Director of Finance chew our boss out earlier in the day for a mistake she made on a report that went straight to the top of the company. Which leads to my next entry....

4. Our boss tells us that she needs our resumes because our Director has requested to assess our background and potential development within the company. Then by chance my co-worker asks our Director why he needs that, and the reply is that he never asked for it, which then leads him to believe that our boss is trying to steal us away from the company when she finds a new job somewhere else. So we decide behind our boss' back that we're not going to send her our resumes, hoping it doesn't turn into anything between us, or between her and our Director. Which leads to my entry....

5. Our boss calls us in the "Huddle Room" a couple days after the resume incident, and tells us that she has been asked to leave the company that afternoon, a week before she was supposed to leave. So, we're all shocked and we have to once again go through the whole "try and find something appropriate to say" ordeal in that ridiculously quiet and claustrophobic "Huddle Room". Which leads to my next entry...

6. Our Director quickly throws a pizza party togethor for her farewell. Our entire team (about 8 people)sits in a meeting room with some Pizza Hut in front of us wondering how in the world it came to this. My boss has been axed, and now we're eating Pizza Hut to say goodbye to her. It is such a weird paradox of circumstances to be saying goodbye to someone by eating pizza. You'll never see such passivity during a meal as when someone is being booted from your company. I think there was a pizza and a half worth of leftovers.

Anyways, that's how it goes here at American Express.

Google Gadgets

I found a really cool website that's part of Google that supports a bunch of stuff for blogs and what not. Here is the URL:

http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open&cat=all

Here's a sample:

Regan's Favorite Song

Hey out of the selection of songs that we have on the blog "Rebellion Lies" by Arcade fire is my favorite. Just scroll down and click on it. You have to check it out!