If a tree falls...

If a tree falls in the middle of the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?

If I write a blog in the middle of the internet and no one reads it, does it exist?

If it is concluded that my blog doesn't exist, then do I not exist as well?

If I can show my Facebook and myspace pages as corroborating evidence that I do indeed exist...

Am I right?

David Gianfredi Media

I decided to take an Intro to Drawing class here at BYU this semester that will hopefully, eventually go towards my credits in the Creative Track. After some time and teacher shuffling for this once a week evening class, we got settled in with David Gianfredi. Ex-military, recent convert and amazingly accomplished artist, David has been quite a treat for us so far. I just wanted to put up a link to his Picasa Web Albumn, Gianfredi Media, so you could all have a look at his work. Click here to go to his page. The Brothers in Arms set is very cool, but my favorite is the bottom gallery. Enjoy.

Logan=Uranus

Why do I = Uranus? Because I am gaseous like unto Uranus. It's true. The radioactivity I picked up through eating street food in Ukraine (and licking my fingers on the metro) got into my gastrointestinal system and corrupted it. Now, when I eat dairy, grains, fruits, vegetables, proteins or fats I get massively explosive gas. And it's not gas like, "uh, I got me a bit of gas," it's more along the lines of, "I just consumed 9lbs of Olestra fat substitute and I need a zip tie and some wine corks to contain this thing!" It's intense to say the least. One cheese stick is a great enough catalyst to ruin a romantic evening or a reverent church gathering.
So, to protect the health and mental well being of the ones I love, I am going to take the Activa Challenge. They say that if I eat it for 2 weeks and don't see better natural digestion, I'll get my money back. Now that's a promise NOT full of hot air!

Captain's Log...

Nothing new to report. Just thought it was time to post a new blog. The last post about the car breaking down was kinda long and depressing and I figured it was time to move on. I haven't heard any word on the matter since last Thurs. when I was told the car might be done today. I need to call and see if it is and if it was covered under warranty.
Speaking of Captain's Logs, I have discovered a joyous new place on the internet where you can watch the old Star Trek TV series; every season, every episode. It's right on CBS.COM.
As if that wasn't good enough CBS has also put up the first season of the greatest TV series of all time: MacGyver. What a beautiful world we live in with this knowledge at our helm. Star Trek and McGyver together, helping us conquer the world!

Sh** Happens...Often

Hey team, welcome back. Well the 4 day weekend was sweet...for some of us at least. Lemme give you the skinny on the shinadigans fortune has been playing on us.
So Kristen and her sister went down to Southern Utah to drop off Jake, her little boy, at her ex-husbands house. It seemed to be a routine run; good weather, no previous car issues and a couple cases of Diet Coke in the back. Seemingly, this trip should be an enjoyable one. So Kristen and Jeanette drive our CRV down with no problem, drop Jake off and decide to head to Las Vegas for an enjoyable day of hanging out in the warm weather. Of course, that's when the trouble began.
As the car was nearing the Las Vegas Strip exit, the check engine light went on and Kristen gave me a call. I told her to find a Checker Auto or something and have them check it on their computer to see what the problem was. Well they didn't make it that far. They barely made it onto the Boulevard when the car shut down at a light and only started long enough to get enough momentum to coast it to the side of the road. Crap. If that wasn't bad enough, Las Vegas' finest and bravest roared up on his bicycle and demanded they move their car immediately. When they told him it was broken down, he gave them a very generous 30 min. to move it, or else he would be forced to ticket them. Jerk.
So long story short, the cop calls a tow truck for them and gets it picked up and on its way (with the girls in tow) to the nearest Honda dealership that I found for them. He was kind enough not to charge them for miles since he couldn't follow directions and went to the wrong dealership originally. After getting there, Kristen through swollen eyes and running mascara, demanded that she speak to Leonard, the service guy I had spoke to on the phone to make sure taking our car there would be ok. Leonard tried to tell her that he had no time to look at it, but Kristen was a mad man, deranged by the trauma of the day, and likely losing it from the makeup running down her face, into her mouth and absorbing into her brain. She demanded that he have a look because they needed to assess their situation. In the face of a huge estrogenized atomic bomb, he buckled and gave the car a quick once over, determining that the front right axle appeared to have popped out and likely ruined the transmission as a result. This is the same axle and transmission that we paid $2,250 to repair/replace in mid December. WHAT?!!! Leonard was kind enough to be straight with the girls and told them to get a rental car and go home, 'cause this thing was not going anywhere, anytime soon. He called the rental company to come pick them up and they were whisked to Enterprise by a half handicapped, black, freelance trucker named Troy.
Now Troy is is story...no a novel, in and of himself, so you'll have to talk to the girls to hear about that, but he got them to Enterprise who kindly informed them that they didn't do one-way rentals, the kind of rental they needed to go from Vegas to SLC...one way. So they were referred to the airport, 30 minutes away, where they could surely find a company who did. A cab was called and the $30 fare was scraped together when Troy, the half-handicapped, black freelance trucker offered to give them a ride for free. FABULOUS! A free ride and another 4 days worth of hilarious conversation ensued. His number was given to the girls "just in case" and Kristen and Jeanette were on their way.

As luck would have it again, one of the 30 rental companies had a one-way car available for them, a Prius; the burnt draft card of our generation. Good gas mileage was expected and delivered. What wasn't expected was the lack of comfort the Prius provides when trying to sleep in it. How did they find this out? They tried to sleep in of course. When they rolled into St. George late at night and couldn't find a free room thanks to the myriad events occurring in the thriving metropolis that is St. George, they decided to park it in a hospital parking lot. But then Kristen woke up to Jeanette moving somewhere else in the middle of the night. She felt "weird" and decided the hospital parking lot wasn't for the.
But they made it. They made it home alive and tired and they told me all about it for about an hour when the got home. They even included the important details about Kristen having to buy new makeup at Mac and Sephora with her tear stained and swollen face and how everyone thought she was some kind of car-sleeping crack addict. Well they were half right I suppose.

More on the fire...

Well, finally some news surfaced about the fire. We didn't even really know what happened during the incident despite living 3 seconds from the building. This is an article from the Daily Herald discussing the heroic efforts and fluffy haired young man. Click HERE to check it out.

Apartment Fire!!!

At around 10pm this evening (Sunday the 10th) Kristen smelled smoke and heard a plethora of emergency sirens that just seemed a little too close to home. We live right on State St., so sirens are nothing new, but these were really close. So Kristen ran outside and sure enough, there was a huge fire wisping off the roof of a building just about 75 yards away from ours. We live in the north west corner of the complex and the building on fire was in the south east. It appears that the fire started in the kitchen area of the first floor and burned up through the other three. A lady we were standing by had had fireman training and said that most likely the entire building would need to be torn down. You can see in the pix and video that the entire corner of the building is burned out. You can actually see into the apartments. See photos and video below.

Death In The Family

I regret to inform everyone that there has been a death in our family. For all of those who knew her, I thought you might want to know so you could mourn along with us at this time. My XBOX 360 died at 11:06am today, Saturday the 9th of February, 2008. I purchased her in immaculately used condition from my friend Jon and she was actually from the first release of 360's back when they debuted. Well, thankfully Microsoft recognized that they had pandemic on their hands a couple months back and extended the manufacturers warranty to 3 years. Because of that, I should be able to get her resurrected without any problem. In fact, I should get her back better than new because the word is they retrofit new, higher quality components inside to prevent the problem from happening again. Here is some video and pix of the death.

Glen Beck Tribute to Pres. Hinckley

My mom sent this to me. It's one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

Git along lil' doggy.

Ok, I know you are all dying to see our dogs. Yes, you have heard correctly, the are indeed cuter than any animal or child you have ever seen. Adorable is an understatement. Oslo, our youngest, is about 5 months old. Chip, the older brother, is about 10 months old. Chip started off a little wary of Oslo, but Oslo is very sociable and dominate, so Chip was quickly forced to be friends and play nice with Oslo. Chip, in his older age, has mellowed out significantly. He doesn't bark hardly ever, is PRETTY good at doing his business outside or on the pee pad and is pretty obedient in general. Oslo on the other hand, is an absolute free radical. He is still young and energetic. He has a major barking problem and we had to buy a muzzle to stop it. Since buying the muzzle, he has been doing a lot better. He is a little better than Chip at hitting the pee pad and could swallow a T-Bone steak whole in less than 5 seconds. Needless to say, he is a major beggar. Here they are:

Ad Man

Well I am really enjoying the advertising program here at BYU. Just an FYI, I was officially accepted to the Advertising program last semester. Very exciting. I have 2 options now, the first being the business track which is the non-creative path, and the creative track which is, well, the creative path. I have to apply to the creative track which only accepts 12 people a year and requires that you do a 15 credit minor in Advertising Design along the way. I will be applying to the creative track in April. I really want to get in, but it sure would be nice to graduate 15 credits faster on the business track. I'll keep you posted. Here are some pix of my mock advertising campaign portfolio that I did for my 200 level advertising class last semester. This is a snippet of the Bed Head and Miller Motorsports Park ads I did. The little caption that I cut out and posted around the ads was very last minute which is why it looks crappy and too small.

Television is LIFE!

So me and Kristen spent the weekend catching up on the TV show Lost. We watched somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 hours of it. Friday, Saturday and Sunday was a non-stop Lost-athon and let me tell you, I don't regret it one bit. That show is amazing. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it. Me and Kristen are finding that we enjoy getting into, catching up on, and then staying current with TV shows almost more than we like going to the movies or renting. You just get so invested, and unlike a movie, it just doesn't seem to end (until the WGA decides to strike again.) Our most recent TV obsessions have been Alias which took us about a year to watch. It was 6 seasons long. Then we got into Desperate Housewives which we are all current on. Then when the WGA went on strike and new episodes stopped coming out, we moved to Heroes and watched the 2 seasons of Heroes that exist. That show is amazing too.
Other than that, I started playing World of Warcraft the card game. It's like Magic the Gathering if you have ever played it, mixed with the MMORPG World of Warcraft, which is played online. I had to stop playing WoW online cause it was burning up too much time and was kinda expensive monthly. I wanted to get an XBOX 360 and play online, so Kristen said if I got and XBOX and XBOX live, I had to cancel my WoW account. So I did, but now I am skirting the fine print and getting around Kristen's rules by playing World of Warcraft in card form. Its pretty fun.

SNOW SNOW SNOW

Finally, we are getting some snow in Utah. My winter memories of a kid were filled with snow castles and forts and snowball fights. But the last few years have just, well...sucked. But this year, we are back to normal. Tons of snow and often has been the weathers protocol so far. I'm loving it. This is a picture of the snow wiped off our new 1986 Toyota Camry that we bought to replace the Subaru SVX.


Speaking of the Subaru, here she is on her way to TX. One of the darker chapters of my life. One of the brightest for Kristen though ;) If you don't know what I'm talking about, long story short we had to sell the farm to make some repairs on this thing. Thats why we sold it, to buy the farm back. The End.

I'm a weak, weak man.

Interesting. It's been a week since I decided to restart my blog and stay on top of it in order to keep it interesting, relative and informative. It's been a week and I haven't posted anything. Wow. I thought I knew what it felt like to suck. But this is just public self humiliation. I just set myself up to fail.
Let's see if I have any interesting photos to post from my phone (since I never remember to carry our camera)...
Woah, totally forgot about this. Here are a couple of photos of Kristen and me at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, UT. It just opened up a year or so ago and is the largest race circuit in the U.S. My friend hooked us up with the facilities and an actual Ford Mustang race car for a photo shoot. We were doing a mock advertising campaign for the track in class and thought photos of the actual track would do the job best. You can tell this picture was taken a few months ago because the background is snowless, and we have been getting copious amounts of snow over the last month. Its been crazy.