Milk in a Box

Oral History

2010-12-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

Farrell Nielsen and Coleen A. Nielsen Oral History Project
Interview with Farrell and Coleen Nielsen

Date of Interview: November 14th, 2010; Brigham City, Utah
Interviewer: Michael Dalton
Transcriber: Michael Dalton

Dalton: If you could each say your name; spell it, and your ages? And where we are right now?

C. Nielsen: I’m grandma Nielsen, actually. Coleen A. Nielsen. I was born in 1933 so I’m 77 years old, yes I guess I’m 77 and we’re here in Brigham city, this is where we’ve lived in this house for 51 years.

F. Nielsen: I’m Farrell Nielsen. I was born in Weston, Idaho. I’m 78 years, I’ll be 79 next month. And we’ve lived here in Brigham City, you said 53 years?

C. Nielsen: 51. Well, we’ve lived in this house for 51. OK, you need to spell your name and I didn’t spell mine.

Dalton: Go ahead.

F. Nielsen: F-A-R-R-E-L-L N-I-E-L-S-E-N

C. Nielsen: And my mother spelled me Coleen with only one L in it C-O-L-E-E-N.

Dalton: Just like my sister.

C. Nielsen: And Nielsen is always hard to spell N-I-E-L-S-E-N

Dalton: Perfect, thank you. Now, we’ll start with maybe your first experience with media. I don’t know what that would be, would it be maybe radio for both of you? What’s maybe the first time you can remember listening to the radio?

F. Nielsen: I can remember when I was a boy, I was a small boy we had a Philco Radio. It was an upright, up there in Weston, Idaho, and I liked to listen to the Lone Ranger and Jack Armstrong and that, and it was that period of media.

F. Nielsen: I remember we always used to go down to Grandpa Shrives. He was a step grandfather to me, and we’d go down there and listen to Jack Armstrong-not Jack Armstrong, the big fighter, who was it.

C. Nielsen: Joe Louis.

F. Nielsen: Joe Louis! And Billy Conn. We listened to them on the radio.

C. Nielsen: And it was exciting to listen to boxing on radio, if you can believe it. We grew up in the same era.

F. Nielsen: And that was our entertainment.

C. Nielsen: Our entertainment was radio.

F. Nielsen: And the movie houses.

C. Nielsen: Saturday morning was “Let’s Pretend” And it was fairy tales that they…

Dalton: So that was a radio program?

F. Nielsen: It was a radio program called “Let’s Pretend” and we’d turn that on and we’d just be glued. Glued to the station. And that was our entertainment. Other than that we were outside doing other things.

F. Nielsen: What are or were some of your favorite radio programs? You said “Let’s Pretend,” do you have—

C. Nielsen: Yeah “Let’s Pretend”.

F. Nielsen: The Lone Ranger and then it got into… all be darned if I-

Dalton: Don’t stress about it.

C. Nielsen: Well about the time we got married we’d watch things like Inner Sanctum.

F. Nielsen: Listened to.

C. Nielsen: Yeah, we’d listen to these on the radio. And, you know your imagination is much better then it is just watching something. When some of these really scary—we probably should’ve—

F. Nielsen: Radio programs—I remember when we were in the army and we were down in Presidio going to the movies there on the army base we sat out in the car—

C. Nielsen: Waiting for it to start.

F. Nielsen: Waiting for it to get to the time of the movie and it was Inner Sanctum and when it got time to go into the movie we could hardly get out of the car! *Laughs*

C. Nielsen: We could barely get out of the car to go in we were so scared. This is something on radio, because you have to use your own imagination. Where when you turn on the television it does that for you.

Dalton: Do you listen to any radio now? Any programs specifically?

C. Nielsen: Yes, mostly in the car. Most in the car and we’ve notice that it’s more News news news. When I was a little girl there were the soap operas on the radio that my mother liked and I listen too, “Our Gal Sunday”… let’s see. I was gonna say another one and now I’ve forgotten it.

F. Nielsen: Dick Tracy.

C. Nielsen: But it was a continuing thing. And you could hardly wait til the next day to hear how their tragedy was going to turn out to be.

Dalton: They were continuing stories kinda like some sitcoms today?

C. Nielsen: Yes it’s like the soap operas on television now. That we don’t watch. We don’t get into that.

Dalton: Do you listen to news only or do you listen to music?

C. Nielsen: We don’t—

F. Nielsen: Most of our news that we watch is on television. But about the time we moved down—well, we had a little television in my hometown some people had TV in that last two years of my high school. But since we moved here we’ve had television and that’s been our medium. Television certainly has transformed a lot, it used to be show that would entertain on challenges and stuff like that.

C. Nielsen: $64,000 questions and, you know—

F. Nielsen: Yeah. But, ma…what’s some of the television shows—oh Lawrence Welk was one that Coleen’s dad, that was the only show on television as far as he’s concerned, Lawrence Welk, it was good to entertain but TV has come a lot further since then. But I find that TV has… a lot of television today gets too destructive. It’s just the day we’re living in.

Dalton: What are some of your earliest memories of maybe television now? What shows did you watch as kids? Or maybe—

F. Nielsen: Red Skelton show. That was one I really liked to see. He was a good entertainer. And of course I’ve always liked sports. Use to be a lot of baseball but it’s more football now.

C. Nielsen: We only watch baseball when it gets to the World Series. By the time it gets to the end then we get involved with the last two teams to make it.

C. Nielsen: I’m trying to think what… we didn’t get a television until, well we’d been married how many years, 4-5 years, we didn’t have one when Farrell was finishing college. We got one after we moved into this house. A while after cuz—

F. Nielsen: We didn’t have one up in Weston? I thought we got one there. Maybe not.

C. Nielsen: See we’re old enough that things are not quite as sharp as they used to be…. Some things really stick out in your mind and some things—

Dalton: Well maybe let’s move to that then. What are some of the big events that maybe you remember with media. Mine for example, I remember listening to the radio on my favorite music station and I hear that terrorists have attacked us on 9/11.

F. Nielsen: I remember that, I remember that and I can event step back to radio. I was down at my step grandfather Shrives house on a Sunday. I was playing out in the backyard with my half uncle Lamar and grandmother stepped out on the back porch and says, “Come in here you guys come here the Japs [sic] have attacked Pearl Harbor!” And I turned to Lamar and I said, “Where’s Pearl Harbor?” He didn’t know. “What’s Pearl Harbor?” That was my-I’ll never forget that. And then all the news of the war, listening Roosevelt’s fireside chats. All during the war. That was the only medium we had to get the news of the war. Television wasn’t there at that time. The radio just brought us all the news that we wanted to hear.

C. Nielsen: I guess we had television by the time that John Kennedy was assassinated. That was…that’s one of those events that sticks out in your mind too. And we may have heard it on radio—we used to have the radio on a lot in the mornings. Just to get the weather, just to get what’s going on. How warm to dress the children before they left to go to school. What other big events…

Dalton: I was thinking those would probably be the biggest.

C. Nielsen: Those were.

Dalton: So for the JFK one can you remember if you first heard it on the radio or on the TV.

C. Nielsen: I think it was on radio. I really—and I think we did turn it on to the television and they were slow. Radio is quick; it came on their first. We had a stereo right there was the piano is and we used to use that a lot. We used to put records on their and play, but that was the radio we used an awful. Cuz the television was down in the basement so we didn’t see that as much.

Dalton: I kinda skipped because I don’t know if you’ll have anything super exciting or memorable but newspapers are dying now but it was big and it was very important to journalism for a long time. Do you have any memories reading the newspaper? And specific ones or did you guys read the newspaper?

F. Nielsen: We’ve always had a newspaper.

C. Nielsen: Always had a newspaper.

F. Nielsen: Always had a daily newspaper.

C. Nielsen: I don’t know if we’re as good as your dad is with daily newspapers but yes we’ve always had the newspaper that comes from Ogden that tells all this area’s news. And uh, I mean that’s one of the first things we do in the morning is bring the newspaper in and read specific headlines and things and…TV get you just a little bit about something. A newspaper gives you details. We’ve enjoyed reading the newspaper to get more details on certain subjects. And at our age we check the obituaries every day because we’re losing friends all the time. And so that- that is one thing we do check a lot. Read the front page and have you check the obituaries yet.

Dalton: Um, now we have Internet and the age of computers. Have much of that do you use and how has that affected your life involving media?

F. Nielsen: The Internet.

Dalton: Yeah the Internet and the age of computer.

C. Nielsen: Well I bought our first computer because grandpa was doing income taxes by hand. And so he decided to add another 30 or 40 more people and I just said we’ve got to have a computer. He didn’t want to go out and buy it so I did. And I’d keep making phone calls to Bruce and to Douglas. How many megabytes – I mean I didn’t know what I was talking about but I’d go in the stores to the sales people. Megahertz, megabytes, RAMs, all that kinda stuff and then I’d go home and I’d make phone calls. So Farrell used the computer but it was not online. We didn’t actually go online until after we came hoe from our mission. And when—

Dalton: What year was that?

C. Nielsen: We left in 99 so we came home March of 2001. And by then people were e-mailing back and forth. And so we were going to be left out if we didn’t go online and get e-mail.

F. Nielsen: The use of computers out at Thiokol. Really started appearing on the people’s desk about 5 years before I retired. And I had one when I retired but I didn’t use it very much. The people working underneath me, they used them more regular than I did. Now everybody is using them. And I used them quite a bit in my income tax really saved a lot of effort, a lot of work.

C. Nielsen: But the Internet itself, you don’t get on it too often.

F. Nielsen: Uh uh.

C. Nielsen: I get on the Internet some. I do the e-mailing and you know I check on things. And I’ve gotten airline tickets on there and ordered a few things. I’ve done genealogy.

F. Nielsen: We do little search on there on places to go with our timeshares and things like that, booking.

C. Nielsen: It would be hard probably to be without it entirely. But we’re not the generation that grew up with a computer and so it’s a little more difficult for us to understand it.

Dalton: That makes plenty of sense. Now this question I don’t know how it’s gonna go over but at least for me this new technology of, you know, facebook, e-mailing, texting—all of that is important for courting. How was media or was it involved at all in your courtship?

C. Nielsen: No.

F. Nielsen: Man the only thing that—we came from the time, going back to my grandparents place, they had a television that you had to crank to get a connection! And you were on a party line! Five different people on the line. And one ring was one person, two rings was another family. And we never even had a phone in our house for a long. When I was in high school we did but before we didn’t have a telephone. We didn’t have a bathroom until World-War II was over.

C. Nielsen: The tin-tub is what we had a bath in when we were growing up. I was 12 when we moved into our new home and had a bathroom. But we didn’t have a television in our house until I bought it. When I was about a junior in high school I got a job in a bakery. Selling donuts and bread and all these kinds of things; I was just the clerk. And I remember wanting a phone so badly because if I wanted to phone someone I had to walk a block, a real big block to the farm next to us and use the Eam’s family telephone. And it was one of those party lines and sometimes you couldn’t get on for a little while after you got there. And I finally saved my money and went to the phone company and got a phone installed in our house. And I remember paying for it for, probably when I was a junior and maybe even a senior. Then it was up to my folks to take over after that. But a phone was a big thing back then too.

Dalton: So you two didn’t much talking on the phone in your courting?

C. Nielsen: No, no. Um, Farrell was in high school in Weston. Westside high school and I was in the Preston high school. And so—

F. Nielsen: Preston, Idaho, Weston, Idaho.

C. Nielsen: And so Farrell and some of his friends would come up and date some of the girls up there. Farrell dated one of my friends so I knew who he was when we were about what? Juniors.

F. Nielsen: Juniors.

C. Nielsen: Juniors in high school. But I didn’t date Farrell until after he came home from his mission. I had a friend that I dated a little bit and was leaving on a mission. And he had a girlfriend named Kaleen and mine’s Coleen. Little difference in spelling but, no we didn’t do an awful lot talking on the—I guess you know we’d call and we made dates but we didn’t chat for a long time on the phone. Did we?

F. Nielsen: No.

FREEDOM!!

2010-06-10T22:39:00.001-07:00

I'm sure, just like my vacations of yesteryear, I'll get bored and wish school was back in very quickly. But right now:

WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!

I suck at teh interwebs

2010-05-31T09:47:00.000-07:00

I just realized that you can see my last memorial day post on the front page of this blog. That's how little I update. I'm no good at this thing. I did team write a blog-post at Divine Comedy's page and it's kindof almost funny, so yay for me.

School is half kicking my trash right now, but in a few weeks when spring semester is over I'll have so much free time I won't know what to do with myself. So lucky for you two people that read my blog, you'll have more stuff to read.

Happy Memorial Day. In our of it, read this wikipedia page. It's about John William Finn, the first medal of honor recipient during WWII. He got it for doing what Cuba Gooding Jr. did in Pearl Harbor, except he did it while getting shot. He passed away this last Thursday.

Valentines.

2010-02-11T08:37:00.000-08:00

So my good friend Ayumi showed me a blog called jennyology. Whoever writes it (I'm assuming a "Jenny" of some sort) created some amazing valentines based on Lost (and a couple from 24). For example, she made both of these:

Brilliant. I'm a fan. In fact, I'm such a fan that I decided to make a few more, based off other shows. Mine aren't nearly as good, but maybe you'll find one you like. I don't expect you to know what they're all from.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T17:49:00.000-08:00

And the Chocolate Rain guys sings a Christmas classic:

A Week+ later...

2009-09-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

...and it's still funny.

I just don't get this new fangled interbox machine.

2009-08-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

I consider myself pretty hip and cool on the interwebs. I know about the youtubes and the viral videos and such.

But I do not get twitter.

And yes, I'm in advertising. I've attended quite a few forums and presentations on how twitter and other micro-blogging can help a brand. You want to know my take? It's extremely overhyped. Unless you're product fills a very specific, heretofore empty niche market, it isn't that helpful.

And that's just businesses.

For normal people, WTF? It's even worse than a facebook status message, because facebook lets you use more than 160 characters (and gives you an excuse to write in the third person). No, I'll tell you what twitter is. But I'll give you a couple hints first.

"eating breakfast."

"I'm mowing my lawn."

"Brother just set the couch on fire. brb."

Guessed it yet? This one will do it for you.

"I'm away from my computer right now."

That's right! Twitter has been around for a long time, in the form of an AIM away message.

BUT MIKE TWITTER LETS YOU BROADCAST TO THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!?!!1

Yes, and if you're an Iranian getting the crap beat out of you by your government, that's great. But for the rest of you, have fun with your away messages.

This is how awesome my little sister is.

2009-06-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

She just showed me these videos on youtube.

I'm too lazy to embed them, so just click the links.

Karate.

Beautiful Doctor.

This one is my favorite.

Watch out, he says a bad word.

All you need to know about my time in Vegas

2009-06-14T22:20:00.001-07:00

In one picture.

Happy Memorial Day

2009-05-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

America's last living veteran of "the war to end all wars".

Thank you.

Cheneykus

2009-05-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

Dick Cheney gave a speech this morning that was very critical of President Obama. This is the speech he gave in Haiku form. Regardless of your political leanings, it's pretty funny.

Glee

2009-05-20T21:11:00.000-07:00

Just so I don't have to tell people to watch it once it gets into its second or third season like I had to do with 24 and The Office, just go watch the pilot for "Glee" now. It's on Hulu, but if your internet is good you can get better quality from Fox.com.

Brother Joseph (Lawless)

2009-05-17T19:59:00.000-07:00

My good friend Joseph Lawless just got back from his mission a couple of weeks ago, and I had the opportunity of going to see his homecoming talk today. He spoke on a topic very personal to him and one that should be personal to every member of the LDS church: member missionary work.

Joe was baptized at the ripe young age of 17 1/2, a direct product of friends who were willing to share the gospel with him. His father did not want him to join the church, and so Joe took the discussions at six month intervals for over three years, attended church and went to (and I believe even graduated from) seminary until his dad finally consented.

Seeing him speak was a great for multiple reasons, not the least of which was witnessing the immense spiritual growth he had over the last two years. However, what stuck with me was how powerfully he taught the importance of member retention and enduring to the end.

In a comparison I've never heard used before, Joe taught that enduring to the end is much like building a brick wall around your house. He said you don't just lay a few bricks down and call it a day, you continue to slowly build it, layer by layer.

The analogy is extremely fitting and pondering it more only made me realize it more so. Many people fall away from the church because they don't continue to build this protective outer wall. How many RM's have fallen away, not because they necessarily lost their testimonies of the church but because they stopped building their brick wall, which kept the ever increasing dangers of the world out? I don't know how many inactive members I met in Mexico who could still bare a burning testimony of the Book of Mormon but because they stopped building their wall were no longer willing to do anything about it.

As members we often hear of the first four principles and ordinances of the gospel, and later as missionaries we add "Enduring to the End" as the fifth. In the story of the Israelites in bondage, God creates divine symbolism by having them pass through the Red Sea (baptism) and protects them with a pillar of fire (gift of the Holy Ghost). I'm not sure if this is part of God's intended symbolism, but I certainly find wandering around in the desert for 40 years symbolic of enduring to the end. Enduring to the end takes a long time and is oftentimes difficult, but the payoff is worth it.

Building a brick wall takes a great deal of time as well, and in a spiritual sense we will never stop building it. But it is the only way to keep ourselves safe from the damaging outside influences of the world.

Thank you Joe.

Something Actually Worthwhile

2009-04-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to write much because this site does it much better.If you can, donate. If not, at least send an angry e-mail or something.

For Future Reference...

2009-04-06T17:50:00.001-07:00

A George Foreman Grill, a waffle maker, and a "Snakmaster",

Will all do the exact same thing to a sandwich.

With Apologies to Matthew

2009-03-09T23:14:00.000-07:00

Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain RA, which would randomly check on his tenants.

And when he had begun to do cleaning checks, he happened upon one apartment which had been destroyed the night before by a huge party.

And because there were like 15 holes in the walls and serious water damage, the RA told him that he’d be evicted, and he would take his security deposit and made him sell his car, laptop and iPod to pay for the damages. And take his girlfriend on a date.

The student therefore fell down, and pleaded with him, saying, dude, cut me some slack, and I’ll get you the money.

Then the RA of that student was moved with compassion, and told him to get off the floor because it was still covered in salsa and soda from the party, and said that this time, he had his back.

But that same student went out, and found one of his classmates, to which he lent a pen one time: and he grabbed him, and started choking him, saying, give me my freaking pen back.

And his classmate fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, dude, cut me some slack, I’ll get it back to you tomorrow.

But he didn’t cut him any slack, but sent him to the honor code office for lying and got him kicked out of BYU.

So when his classmates found out what that jerk did, they were really pissed, and came and told the RA all that was done.

Then his RA, after he had called him, said unto him, O you complete idiot, I patched up your whole apartment for no charge and didn’t make you let me date your girlfriend because you had a good pouty face.

Why in the world could not you have just got a different pen?

And the RA was pissed, and delivered him to the honor code office, and got him kicked out of BYU.

Late Night Obama Jokes

2009-03-06T17:08:00.001-08:00

I honestly have not heard any late night jokes about Obama, and only a few about his administration. So, in the spirit of making light of something that is sending us straight to the crapper, I will (very poorly) do the job that around 100 different people get paid to do but won't.

Here we go:

In a act symbolizing the Obama administraion's vow to reset US-Russia relations, Hillary Clinton gave the Russian Foriegn Minsiter a gift of a black vase that said "peregruzka", which means "reset".

Or at least that's what she thought.

"Peregruzka" means "overcharge" in Russian. Don't be hard on her, it was a simple mistake that could have happened to any one of her hundreds of aids using freetranslation.com. And actually, it wasn't a translation mistake at all; The American Taxpayer accidentally got the "reset" vase instead of the "overcharge" one.

Another one:

President Obama spoke to graduates of the police academy in Ohio, announcing that his stimulus package saved 25 jobs. I'll copy the relevant part of the transcript below:

All together, this recovery plan will save and create over three and a half million American jobs over the next two years. Because of this plan, those who've lost their jobs in this recession will be able to receive extended unemployment benefits and continued health care coverage.

Because of this plan, 95 percent of working Americans will receive a tax break that you will see in our paychecks starting on April 1st.

Yay! $13 more a week! Don't spend it all at one place!

That wasn't funny, that was just depressing. My bad. I'm horrible. Til next time.

Let it Out

2009-02-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

Maybe I missed Kleenex's "Let it Out" campaign because I was in Mexico, but in the off chance you missed it too, it was a well done, emotional, feel-good campaign.

Kleenex had to fight an uphill battle against irrelevancy. When your brand name is so commonplace people use it instead of the actual product name, it's hard to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Just watch the video until the first commercial ends.

Feel better?

The winds of change are blowing...

2009-02-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

My friends and I are starting a project. Will it be awesome? Probably not. Will I enjoy doing it? Probably yes.

So all two of you that read this, get excited. Announcements to come soon. I will leave you with a picture that makes me happy every time I look at it.

I love ice sculptures

2009-01-19T23:08:00.000-08:00

Especially the ironic kind.

When lots of people do something, it makes it cool.

2009-01-14T19:43:00.000-08:00

So supposedly there's gonna be a flash mob in the wilk tomorrow. I don't really know why, there's gonna be a maximum of 60 people mobbing in a building that always has at least 500.

I have a better idea. I think we should start a flash comment mob. Just like 500 people, all commenting 10 times on some blog that almost no one reads. Like this one. And as no one reads this, my idea will go to waste.

But one day someones going to do it, and it's going to be on the news, and I'm going to say

Me: Hey, I came up with that.
Someone else: Really? That's cool. (Lying sack of crap)
Me: They should be interviewing me.
Someone else: Yeah, it's too bad.

Yeah. That will be awesome.

The solution to the auto crisis

2009-01-13T23:07:00.000-08:00

So I was reading my friend's livejournal (ruuna.livejournal.com, although I don't know why I'm linking because only his friends can read it) and he started a new tradition this year. Every day he posts a random holiday somewhere in the world, and random facts that happened on the same day years before.

On January 13th, 1942 - Henry Ford patents the "plastic automobile."

There are so many things we need to thank him for.

In all seriousness, this thing:

Gets 66mpg, can go 60m/h in both directions, and has holes in the floor so it drains itself when it rains. And it costs a little over $15,000.

All you peeps in Detroit, take a good long look at that plastic car. Then, how bout you design more cars that are cool, cheap, and get good gas mileage. Sure, maybe the "Acrea Zest" wouldn't sell in the US, but the freaking FRENCH made that thing! You can do better than them you slacktards.

If you shoot for the moon and miss, you'll be floating out in space for forever.

2009-01-08T09:42:00.000-08:00

My Dad is what I would call a true professional at goal setting. He is GOOD; back in his day as Bishop he would give a fireside every year on how to make effective goals. I thought I'd share some of his wisdom.

Before February.

There are 5 rules to effective goal setting, or "3 Rs, M, D":
(You can see where my spelling expertise came from)

1. Realistic - It has to be a goal that you can truly see yourself reaching, or you won't push yourself to reach it.
2. Reviewed Daily - If you're not looking at it every day, you will often forget about the goal. It needs to be at least in the back of your mind almost always.
3. (w)Ritten Down - This is similar to rule #2; it's easy to forget goals that you don't have down in stone.
4. Measurable - You have to be able to judge your own progress and the success of your goal. "I want to be a more grateful person" is not something you can measure, but "I'm going to say 'thank-you' every time somebody does something nice to me" is.
5. Deadline - The day by which you want to have accomplished your goal.

Be careful when setting goals that depend on the actions of other people. You should never beat yourself up over not accomplishing a goal, but be especially careful about not being hard on yourself for goals that other people influence. For example, if my goal was to win a basketball championship by the end of the year, I could practice every day and become incredibly good at basketball, but it's still up to the rest of my team.

Also, be careful about who you share your goals with. While some people might encourage your and help you along, others might be a little on the teasing side. There you go, the first truly helpful blog post I have created (and quite possibly the last). Now it's time for me to take my own advice and set some solid goals for 2009.

Close the Door.

2009-01-05T20:34:00.000-08:00

That's what my mom always told me. But I'm having trouble.

I've Got Troubled Thoughts and Self-Esteem to Match

2008-12-28T12:46:00.001-08:00

So my littlest sister got a puppy for Christmas. She named him Buddy; I call him Tyler. He is one happy dog. Not that I'm not happy, but I wish I could be as happy as him. Well maybe not that happy, lab-retriever happiness in human form would probably get annoying. (Hey! Hey! How are ya! How are ya! Hey!)

My biggest gift was clothes. And I'm happy about it? Actually, I didn't even get clothes, I got a certificate to go shopping with my mom, and I'm happy about it. Weird. What happened to those huge Christmas lists full of millions of toys and video games? What is wrong with me? I guess next year I'll ask for some crazy video game, or even better some race track that my dad will spend all night setting up so I can play with it in the morning. Yesss.

I also got the new Fall Out Boy CD, and "What a Catch, Donnie" is quite an addicting little tune. I pulled the title of this pointless post from the lyrics of it. And I don't "got" either of those things. My thoughts aren't all that troubled and while I apparently I have no skill with the ladies I'm too proud to worry about self-esteem issues.

Mandatory cute puppy picture:

If you were hoping I had some purpose to this post, sorry to disappoint. Don't feel bad, I'm disappointed too; I was hoping I would suddenly come up with some moral lesson or profound insight but I got nothing. Life is good. Oh, I learned in Elders Quorum today that the Male body finishes growing at 28, so after that technically I'll be slowly dying. How uplifting.

But as for me I wish that I was anywhere...

2008-10-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know, I'm horrible, etc.

I'm a firm believer in karma. And karma has been kickin my A recently. Well, not for always bad. Lots of good things have happened to, but a lot of things I wanted to work out in a lot of different aspects in my life haven't since I've gotten back.

I've seen that great deal of what hasn't worked out has been because of something stupid or wrong I did in the past. Often times is a repeat of exactly how I wronged someone, but on me. And yet, as the time goes on I've seen how the things that didn't work out right as I got back have been for the best. Which makes me think that the things that aren't working out for the best NOW are also for the best.

Karma, you're good. Real good.

And also, here's a little taste of what I saw this last Thursday night.

Best Text Convo Evar

2008-09-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Unknown Number (UN): Where is the party at?

Me: Uhhh, who is this?

UN: Tyrone!

Me: This is Mike. I don't know any Tyrones, although I wish I did.

UN: Haha my bad nigga! Wrong number

Me: No problem Tyrone.

Sorry to get your hopes up

2008-08-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

It was only a rubber suit. How sad. I was sure that this time, this time we really found bigfoot. Well there's always next year. I mean, he has to exist. While the bigfoot in the picture above is allegedly only a man in a suit, I have here a picture of Bigfoot jumping OVER a PLANE.

Then again, I'm not sure I want us to find Bigfoot. Because if he ends up talking anything like chewbacca, that's going to be the most annoying scientific discovery EVER. Happy Life Day, Bigfoot.

We're having family night, are you?

2008-08-18T21:12:00.001-07:00

Tonight was Monday night, which means it was family night. It was a little shorter than normal because my Dad is on a business trip in Florida (bad timing for that one, eh?) and one of my sister's is in Provo. It also might have been a little shorter than normal because Jenna, my littlest sister, was in charge. She gave a wonderful lesson on baptism (incredibly cute, she got close to the end and then said "oh, I forgot to do this part, um, baptism is the first step, 'draw front part of train'"). And we played two rousing games of Uno Attack, where I'm pretty sure she could've won but just because she wanted to keep playing she pushed the button anyway.

I missed my own family family nights, and I'm about to miss them again.

But Jenna didn't have the whole show to herself. My mom also read a little bit from the LDS newsroom. Proposition 8 will be up for a vote this November in California. It's a law we already passed in 2000, was overturned by the California Supreme Court for being "unconstitutional", so now its up for vote to add it to the constitution. It's shortest piece of recent legislation I've ever heard of, only adding 14 words to the constitution: "Only marriage between a man and a women is valid and recognized in California". Period. No rights are being taken away, nobody is being hated on or discriminated against. Just protecting the family as it has always existed, whether you believe in a creation or evolution.

Obviously, as with anything political, a good number of people couldn't care less. Especially because this may not be happening in their own state. Just remember, when California sneezes, the rest of the nation catches a cold.

Protecting families for family night. Fitting.

Get Emo or Die Trying

2008-08-14T18:05:00.000-07:00

This is Jeff, the emo guitar. Jeff has no last name. Jeff has gone through a lot; He's been carved on, broke, glued poorly back together, carved on again, ripped apart, glued satisfactorily back together, carved on again, burnt, and carved on again.

Jeff has been played by many musically talentless missionaries, and carved on by perhaps even more. Jeff's selfless sacrifice has allowed many an Elder to vent their sadness, frustration and anger over ex-girlfriends on him, preventing them from slitting their own emo-wrists. Names, places, insults, wedding dates and much more have been permanently graven onto Jeff's glorious wooden surface.

I wish I could claim that the design of Jeff was my idea, but I cannot. Josh Walton, currently stuck in Magic Kinland, came up with and owns Jeff. He asked me to take the guitar home for him, and only for this reason have I been entrusted with his care.

A final note: if the human Jeff ever reads this, just know that you are seriously disliked by a very large number of spanish-speaking men.

Rock on.

Mission Accomplished

2008-08-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

It's over. I have to say that the transition has been easy, but that's most likely caused by the fact that my parents came to pick me up in Tampico.

My family is awesome. My mission was awesome. The elders I served with are awesome. The people I served are awesome. My friends back home (that remember me) are awesome.

Life is mostly awesome.

Apparently everybody got one of these fancy blogspot blogs, so I figured I'd follow the trend. Plus there is very little chance I will keep up my journal writing habits without the world-wide-internet-computer-machine.

I'm not gonna tell any mission stories, at least for now. They're just mine and my family's til Sunday.

Peace suckas.