The Man Crush

It was a day like any other back in March of 2005. I was happily employed at Infotrax and life was good to me. During this time of peace there was a song that was on the radio by Tim McGraw and Nelly titled Over and Over Again. Natasha, and many other women have always thought that Tim McGraw was a good looking man. Personally, I never really understood why. And then I saw the music video and my innocence faded, and I could no longer disagree with the women of the world. In that video I could see how women thought he was attractive... and maybe even a smoking hot 180 pounds of man meat with a goatee and a hat.
I made this comment to Natasha and she was happy that I finally saw the light. Some advice that I would give to the men of the world is to only share your man crushes with your wives. Never, and I mean never, share them with your co-workers. This was the beginning of the end for me.
I suffer from a disease called speakyourmindbeforethinking-itis. When I arrive at work the next day I happen to share my current revelation on my thoughts of Tim McGraw with Steve, Jennica and one other person. I should have thought of the consequence, but I didn't care. Where it went from bad to worse was how I worded my new found man crush with my friends. I believe the exact words were, "Guys, I just saw the new Tim McGraw video, and he is hot." And then there was laughter.
I then went to get a drink of water. I didn't go to the bathroom, I didn't go on a lunch break, I only got water. When I cane back to my desk my framed picture of Natasha had been replaced by a picture of Tim Mcgraw. I have to admit that that was one of the funniest moments ever.
The question is why can women say to one another how pretty another girl is, or how much they like their clothes or make-up. But us as men can’t do the same. For some reason it just sounds wrong. Here are two examples:

Scenario 1
BYU stadium:
Natasha: Hey Mckenna, I love that girl’s hat it is so cute. I wish I had it.
Mckenna: Oh, I know her, she is really pretty and nice, she has been in shape since high school.
(They share a laugh and then go back to talking about make-up)

Scenario 2.
BYU stadium:
Steve: Hey James, look at that guy coming up the stairs. He has really nailed coordinating his belt to his shoes.
James: I bet all the girls love him. He is really good looking. And I can tell that he works out. He looks so strong.
(We share a laugh then go back to looking through our binoculars)

I guess as men we must keep our inner thoughts to ourselves as to other males. And we must never have a moment of weakness when we open our souls to our co-workers about a new found admiration for one hot aging man of country... sigh ...

Awesomely Bad Movies: 1984 Dune = Disaster

This time I’m going to talk about another movie that I still love to this day. I used to watch the movie over and over for the battle scenes. During my Senior year in high school, We read the book for English and although I knew the movie wasn’t the best quality movie ever I came to realize how terrible it really was. The movie I’m talking about is Dune, and a lot of sci-fi fans like it....hey, I’m one of you, but you have to admit that this movie is disaster, and by disaster, I mean that Carter has made a better script come of out his diaper. Without reading the book, you can probably get through the movie and say “Well, I think I know what that movie was about, but it’s freaking 4 hours and I’m not watching it again.” That is unless you’re a sci-fi geek. If you read the book then you sit there and say “Did I just waste 4 hours of my life on this piece of crap? I want those hours back…..thank you Dune for taking those hours away from me forever.” This was truly a book that didn’t translate well onto the screen at least in this version.


Normally when a book is adapted into movie form, they take things out and then fill in the plot so that you can get a movie that seems to flow through like it was never a book and if you’ve read the book you’re thinking…that was good, but I thought they would show this or I thought this was better in the book/movie. Case in point for missing things completely in the books…..the Harry Potter movies are pretty true to the books, but you can’t have everything in a 700 page book be put into a 2 ½ hour movie, which is why you’ll wonder why they don’t show more quidditch or it seems like Ron and Hermoine’s parts are getting smaller, even though in the books their more vital than ever.


The problem with Dune is that even in a 4 hour movie you could still never fit everything into it….and that’s understandable Frank Herbert’s book is an fully grown sci-fi book, with a lot of subplots, it’s what makes the book one of the best sci-fi books ever written, and why Herbert’s influence along with a few others have really founded our modern Sci-Fi/Fantasy Genre of books. Where you get into trouble is that original movie of Dune just adds a subplot that was in the book without the explanation. It’s like the writer’s are saying…oh wait the audience isn’t going to understand this point in the end if we don’t add a character, but rather than spend the time to develop the character so that you take the information as being important they just plop someone in the movie for 30 seconds and then they leave. Do the characters: Duncan, Liet Kynne, The Emperor, or any of the spacing guild play the roles in the movie like they do in the book. What about some key subplots like: Why do the Harkkonen’s hate the Atreides? Why is the Emperor so concerned that spice production on Arakkis is having problems? What are Sadukar troops and why would that be a big thing if the Emperor is sending them? Then the space guild…..ummm….wtf….they kind of show up in the movie sound like idiots, look like idiots, and then they leave. These guys are more powerful than the emperor…..they’re the ones that run the show….without them the whole empire doesn’t work.


This post is already longer than I wanted so next time I’m going to continue my Dune rant and post some things about the movie that just don’t make sense or in some cases I’ll explain things that I’ve mentioned in this post…because unlike the writers of the screen-play….I’m all about clarity and explanation for this post at least.

Can I get a side salad with my Caesar Salad?

I’ve been doing a diet for nearly 6 weeks now. I only committed to do it for a month, but it’s working so I’m going to keep doing it until I stop losing weight on it. So far it’s been 42 lbs.

Some diet’s are weird to me, I know that I need to eat better and that my habits need to change, but I would much rather just kick my butt in the gym and then consciously try to make better food choices, rather than completely shut off every food I love. That is the way I have typically been able to lose weight and be happy by having a free day or meal, but that is also the same philosophy that got me to the way I am/was. So far on this diet, I’ve only worked out once and I’m on my way down in weight. The diet….Medifast, which is kind of like Nutri-System in that they send you meals that you eat throughout the day, however on Medifast you get to eat a Lean and Green meal every day. Sometimes when I’m feeling really hungry on the diet I’ll have two Lean and Green meals a day.

At first this Diet was pretty hard and now it’s just normal and some days really easy. Others….I have the number for a Pizza delivery ready and I’m just waiting for Kenna to want to cheat with me. I can tell you it’s weird shifting from working out weight control to just losing weight from a structured diet (I know you should ideally do both, but the time I went and worked out on this diet was the least satisfying workout I’ve ever had in my life….I think it’s a calorie thing and the fact that I’m now eating probably 1/3 of the normal calories I use to eat), I’ve been a gym rat before in my life…I put on 30-40 lbs of weight from the beginning of my Junior year in High School to the end of my Senior year, and for the most part that was solid muscle. I used to subscribe to bodybuilding magazines and although I was never hardcore into getting muscles to stick out in weird places….I enjoyed working my body out to the brink of exhaustion and then seeing it recover and come back stronger. It was a game of making my mind stronger than my muscles and pain. The only thing is that this is really working now and in 25 lbs….I’ll be at the weight I was when I graduated High School. Holy Crap!!! That was 12 years ago. My Goal weight would be a weight that hasn’t graced my body since I was 15 years old….and I’m pretty sure I’ll wear it better now than I did back then. Not that I was a fat kid but I was always “Broad Shouldered” or “Husky” which are just gentle ways of telling a fat guy he’s big/fat without making it seem rude.

Hopefully in 4-6 months I’ll post a before and after picture with results that will be something like the biggest loser winners. We’ll see, for right now, I’m just drinking a lot of Diet Drinks to get my sweetness fixes, and I order side salads at restaurants with my Salad. Why do you ask? Because when the others around me order their appetizers, I have something to eat that won’t really be cheating and I’m not tempted. Will I be able to continue eating like this? I’m not sure, but the older my son becomes I realize that I don’t want to leave him when he’s only 24 years old, newly married and filled with questions about life, fatherhood, and being a husband like my dad left me. In order to do that I’ve got to stop the same habits I learned from my dad.

Carter Moment of the Post:
Carter has decided that the dog is his new best friend. The only problem is that he likes to play ‘konk’ with the dog. If our dog were a larger size this might be okay, but on a Chihuahua it’s a big deal. For those of you not in the know on the game ‘konk’….it’s basically a game where your son (maybe little girls do it too, but I’ve only heard of boys doing it) will head butt you over and over and over. Sounds fun huh? It works because he’s hitting you with thick part of the top of his head so he’s not really hurting himself, however the game of ‘konk’ when you’re not watching can be devastating. I have a sister that broke her nose when her 18 month son decided it was time to play and she wasn’t ready. The key to the game is to get them to say ‘konk’ when they are going to do it so that you have a warning. Well Dino is often times not ready and Carter is pretty good at trapping our dog to either ‘konk’ him or to squeeze the life out of him with one of his other new things….hugging. We love that one……Dino at 6 lbs….not so much.

The Church of Steve Cont'd...

So on previous posts, I've talked about Tomatoes, Dried Fruit, and then Pickles. Now it's time to talk about something that I kind of like the taste of, but I can't stand the texture. So without further ado:

That shalt not partake of Apricots / Peaches

This might also be the mushy fruit rule. To explain this better I going to take you back to when I was young. My parents had apricot trees, and I actually used to eat Dried Apricots a lot. What ruined it for me was seeing the nasty apricots that fell from the tree and became mush. Every time I eat something mushy, my brain goes back to nasty apricots on the ground, just sitting there rotting.

Although we didn't have Peach trees, they're really close to apricots and they tend to be really mushy. Again....I know this doesn't make sense, because I like other mushy fruits....like bananas. I don't know why one works and the others don't, but they only consistent fruits are apricots and peaches so they have to be banned by the CoS.

Carter moment of the day:
So Carter is trying to learn how to climb the stairs....but he's kind of lazy about it. It doesn't matter if he's fully awake or tired....he'll get halfway up the stairs and then he gets pissed. The funny thing is that he is excited and then he magically hits a step halfway up that turns all that excitement into rage at the fact that there are still stairs left up and down. I'm sure he'll make it up all the stairs eventually, but I've never seen him get so mad about something. He literally sneers at you, until you pick him up. It's funny to see him start to get some personality....hopefully this doesn't become a trend.

Awesomely Bad Movies

So the other day, Kenna and I are sitting in bed watching TV and when I'm scrolling through the Guide I see Big Trouble In Little China. Having not seen this movie since my early teenage years I was curious to see if this movie was still as cool as I remembered it being.


Here's what I learned.....This movie sucks! I remember that I used to watch this movie over and over when I was younger. That was partly because it was one of the few movies that my Dad had taped from being on Alert up at the Air Force Base....so it was an unedited PG-13 movie, but mostly I loved all the fighting in it. I just can't believe that I even enjoyed it and one has to wonder, how a movie like this got made....cuz it's kind of serious in the way it tries to be a cool movie. I'm going to try and imagine the room of writers and producers that dreamt this up.


(Deep inside the secret rooms of 20th Century Fox)

"So People...we need to come up with something big here. What have we go so far?"
"Well, Karate Kid was a big success....maybe we could go with something that has Martial Arts."
"Ok, I like that idea, but we can't just rip it off, I mean the Karate Kid franchise is going to do that like 3 more times." (Side Note: On my 8th Birthday, my family and I waited for like 2 hours in line to see Karate Kid 2. The only thing I remember about that movie now.....It's the movie that broke up the band Chicago or so I thought...I just wikipedia'ed it and found out that the song Glory of Love didn't really cause the riff. Thank you Wikipedia.)
"What if we added some Monsters with the Karate?"
"Oooo, that's good....I bet we could get John Carpenter to direct this thing if we did that, who would we get to star in it?"
"I've got a friend who knows Kurt Russell?"
"Yes...Yes...Yes!!! But wait Kurt doesn't know Karate?"
"Well what if he doesn't have to....we could have him be let's say....a truck driver?"
"Ok, so what does a Truck driver have to do with Karate and Monsters?"
"Well he could be driving his truck through China Town."
"Genius!!! I like where this is going. So what's he drawn to when he gets to China town?"
"Someone hot of course"
"And that someone hot would be???"
"What about that hot girl from Porkys?"
"Kim Cattrall, She is pretty hot, and I don't think she's really doing anything good for the next couple of years until Mannequin. (Okay so they wouldn't know this or the fact that Karate Kid remade the same dumb plot 3 more times.....Hillary Swank....you're lucky you survived the Karate Kid 4 movie...that should have been a kiss of death on anyone's career. That goes for you too Elizabeth Shue. The Mannequin comment was just to give you a preview of another film we will talk about on Awesomely Bad Movies....In fact we could dialog a lot of Kim Cattrall Movies in this segment see next line for another example)
"She was just in Police Academy so right now she'd take anything."
"OK, Russell, Catrall, Monsters, and Karate. I think we've got enough to work with here, but let's throw something out there to chance....What do the bad guys want?"
"Let's play our own version of MASH for it. What are 4 powerful things, 4 body parts, 4 things that would make you wealthy and give me 4 girlfriends you'd like to have....ummm scratch that last part."
"Looks like the MASH decided it was eyes....that doesn't sound to good, so how can we make this better?"
"What if they were looking for a girl with Green eyes?"
"Wow you're asking for a lot there, I mean the casting agency going to have work overtime to find a girl on this planet with green eyes."
"That's why the bad guys would want it."
"Wait! Doesn't Cattrall have green eyes?"
"Yes, I think she does, but what if it's someone else they want and Cattrall gets dragged along with the plot."
"That's perfect, now for the Title......What about Trouble in Little Chinatown?"
"Don't we want this movie to be huge blockbuster?"
"Yes, so what would you change?"
"Well let's imply that it's a Huge Trouble or maybe Big Trouble."
"Yes, I like that better and I think Big works better than Huge."
"Great, we'll start on the script."
"Excellent! This is going to be Huge....oh I mean Big. HAHAHAHA!!"
"Good one HAHAHAHA"


One has to wonder if this really isn't the way some movies get created. Anyway more to Awesomely Bad Movies to follow.



Carter moment of the day: Yesterday Kenna and I were cooking dinner and we'd set Carter down to roam around and play with toys. (He doesn't know how to climb the stairs yet, so we're pretty safe not keeping constant attention on him if our house is clean) So Carter starts giggling at something and we realize he's in the bathroom, and we wonder what he's getting into so I walk over and check. My son is standing in front of the toilet trying to climb over into the bowl. I'm thinking that since he loves baths (like, a lot) that he just wanted to climb in and have a nice soak. Needless to say we gave him a good scrubbing after that incident. Kids Rule!!

So the work laptop finally arrived Yay!!! Well actually it arrived about 3 months ago, I just sucked and didn't post for a while. Hey I've been busy. I mean there were all those great reality TV shows with the writer's strike and stuff. Plus, I was playing a lot of Xbox Live...oh wait my account ended like 2 months ago. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I just sucked, and I know it's Blog Taboo to say why you haven't blogged for a while, but I don't care.

Obviously, with all the time that's passed, things have happened in my life. Heck Carter is now almost a year old. That is weird to me that we've had him for that long. Life has definitely changed, for the better, but I'm not sure that I could have really expected the extent that it changed. Life has slowed down and yet it's crazy how fast things are going. It seems like we waited forever for firsts in Carter's life like crawling, his first words (first word was Dada.....YES!!!!), his personality coming out. The next big thing we're waiting on is walking.

Work has gotten better for me. I'm in a new position now where I get to work on projects in all sizes and varieties. It's pretty fun and I'm learning a lot.

So hopefully I'm going to get the opportunity to post more frequently...because I'm running out of excuses for not posting....and I know you're all dying for more Church of Steve and Bathroom etiquette.

I'm going to start a favorite Carter moment in my posts. I'll try to make it something funny, but it may end up being something that is just cute that I wanted to let everyone know about.

More posts to follow.....hopefully.

I love resolutions

I thought it might be fum to make a logo with us in it. Tell me what you think. We can always update the pics, since you didn't even know what I was taking your picture for. But I thought it would be a cool idea.

Now to resolutions. I think it is healthy to have resolutions for each new year. Every year I have resolutions for different categories, such as; Spiritual, Educational, Physical, etc. So here is my physical list for 2008.

As always I want to loose weight. I think I can loose weight pretty easily but i always get discouraged when the weight doesn't come off as fast as I want it to. So this year I am gearing for a very slow but steady weight loss by using the following methods.
-Go to the gym for one hour, three times a week.
-I can eat sweets, but only one day in any given week. the other six are off limits.
-No drinking soda-pop in 2008. Although this one will be difficult I believe that it can be done. Steve told me the other day that he would join me on the soda-pop free 2008!
My ultimate goal is to weigh 200 pounds at the end of the year. I honestly believe that if I go to the gym 3 times a week, cut down on my sugar intake, and eliminate soda from my diet that loosing one pound a week is very achieveable.
Wish me luck, and good luck to everyone and their own resolutions.