damn good. this is not to brag. this is to help me be more grateful, something that I need to be doing a lot more of these days.

I am healthy, without any major medical issues ever in my life. I don’t take medication and I have no allergies. I have relatively good physical fitness. I work out in the weight room three times a week and have done so for just about two years straight. I don’t quite have the endurace levels I once had, but I did run a 6:45 mile the other day, after lifting weights and without pushing myself. I am financially sound. I am in a small amount of debt over my scooter, but I have a solid plan for having it paid off within the next year and a half. Currently I am in little to no debt because of school, and with the good possibility of government grants next semester, I should be in an even better position. I have a decently paying on-campus job. It requires some technical skill, and I get to play with computers all day long. I have a high GPA, allowing me to be a canidate for honors societies and dean’s lists. I see no indication of my grades going down, so I have a very good chance at getting into the graduate school of my choice to continue my studies. This should make me quite able to find a solid, decently paying career in the future. My family is stable and together. My parents show no signs of marital issues, and all of us stay close and in contact. I have a solid belief in my religious views, which brings me a sense of stability and meaning in my life. I am active in my church and recieve emotional and mental fulfillment through it. This summer I will be returning to Japan, a country, culture, and people that I love dearly. I get to spend approximately two months just learning and soaking up an amazing experience there.

Life is good. I have no right to complain about anything. Sure, I run into difficulties sometimes, but I can do hard things. It’s time for me to be less selfish and start giving more of what I have to others.

i realize this is totally just a product of the byu environment, but i feel old. i don’t know why. i am not old. i act even less old than i am. i’m probably getting pretty close to high school senior maturity level here. for example, today, latenighthunter and i tried really hard to use as many “that’s what she said” lines… i lost miserably. latenighthungter was on a fricken roll. i still enjoy making crude comments from the car to couples walking down the street at night… i play the air guitar… i am still nervous around girls…

i definitely am not in as good of shape as i used to be… i ran a 6:45ish mile today on the track just to see what it was like, and it was definitely not as easy as it should have been. sad.

spring 2006: latenighthunter and i move into university villa apartments. the place is a dump. messing, skankiest apartment i’ve gone into, but it was cheap, and the social life was decent. latenighthunter and i are all about single rooms, but we figured we could put up with each other for at least one term. a week or two into the term, latenighthunter is always sleeping out on the couch. why? he says he just has an impossible time sleeping on his own bed. he lies there and just can’t sleep. so, thats cool. a few days later, i come home from work and there is a mattress sitting in the room on the floor. i ask latenighthunter, and he said it was the one that had been sitting outside of the apartment for a few days (which i remembered seeing), and since it appeared to be abonded after sitting there for so long, he decided to bring it in. there didn’t appear to be any water damage, though i worried about bugs. latenighthunter started sleeping on the floor of the room on this mattress every night, and then leaning it against the wall during the day. i shoved the two beds together and had a queen size. we were both happy.

latenighthunter went home for the summer term, but the extra mattress remained, leaning against the wall. i didn’t think about it much, until our ward announced the final party of the summer. it was pirate themed, and they were going to have a pirate ship race across the pool. the second i heard that a light bulb went off it my head. a mattress is mostly air, so it would float if it were possible to make it water proof. after a few days of thinking, i presented the idea to my remaining roommates. the dollar store carried full rolls of plastic wrap, so the day before the party, brad and i went and picked up a pack of ten, along with some duct tape. with the help of brad’s girlfriend allie, he and i fully wrapped and sealed the mattress in ten rolls of plastic wrap. we added some artistic details (a skull and cross bones made from duct tape, a naked barbie girl on the front of the ship, etc). the ship remained in the apartment for the evening, hidden from our competitors eyes. but we did allow the university villa maintenance guy to come in and take a look. he thought it was awesome.

latenighthunter came back the day of the party, so together we planned our attack. as the architect, i felt that my place was on the shore. brad would captain the ship, while brett and latenighthunter would be the motors. after the party began, we made our grand entrance. i led the procession with a large pirate flag attached to a pole made of the used plastic wrap rolls. my boys were dressed in pirate attire, and everyone in the ward was obviously both amazed and intimidated by our creation. the race was a rout. our ship, both unsinkable but quick moving easily defeated the lesser competition. after the race was over, a full blown “sea battle” ensued, with our ship effectively sinking all of our enemies. we ruled the ocean.

that night we left the boat next to the poll, since had begun to take on a little bit water during the fierce confrontation. packing up to leave and begin a new semester began the next day, so the mattress was pushed to the back of my mind. a day or two later, i saw a couple of guys with it in the hot tub. the thanked me graciously for being part of such a great invention. the next day i moved out and on to bigger and better things.

a week later, i recieved a call while at work. it was jane (i dont remember her name actually), the manager of university villa. she asked me if i was involved with throwing a university mattress in the pool. i said that i had used a mattress as a pirate boat, but that as far as i knew, the mattress was not the property of university villa. she claimed that it was, and that our apartment collectively owed $100 for its replacement. i told her i would speak with my roommates about the subject and get back to her.

of course, this was total crap (i used a harsher word at the time). whether or not this mattress was at one time the property of university villa seemed irrelevant for these reasons:

1. it was left outside, subject to all weather conditions, for a period of quite a few days.
2. once it was brought inside our apartment, it was not reported missing nor sought for.
3. it sat inside our apartment for approximately 3 months, without ever being reported during cleaning checks, where it would have been fully viewable and inspectable by university villa employees.
4. the night before the party, the maintenance guy observed and approved of our use of this mattress.

after discussing with the my roommates, i decided to call back jane and present my arguments as to why we should not have to pay for the mattress. had it been once property of university villa, it had obviously been abandoned and forgotten. jane would have nothing of it. she demanded we pay the price for what she claimed was a mattress sorely missed by the complex. had we removed the mattress right after the party, it would have never been missed, so it certainly appeared like a money grab. my mother, out visiting for education week, stood by listening. after a time of speaking with jane and getting no where, i became frustrated and raised my voice. had my mother not been there, i would have called jane things much worse than unethical and dishonest. after almost half an hour of back and forth, i gave up and conceded a lower price. i was willing to pay the entire amount, not wanting to burden my roommates with my failure.

i contacted dirty egg (who still lived at the villa), and he, admittedly upset, went down to the office and had a chat with jane in person. for some reason, he was more successful than i (he says it was because he was more calm than i, and he told her the mattress was by the dumpster when found, a fact that i am unsure about to this day). so, supposedely we were not charged, but the $30 check i recieved in the mail seemed a bit suspicious. i highly doubt that we left the aparment dirty enough to be charged $70 cleaning fees. but by that time, i had stopped caring, and decided jane would have to live with her decision.

so, in summary:

• mattresses wrapped in plasted wrap are amazing pool toys.
• university villa is a trash heap, POS apartment complex with unethical management. (pass it on. i told jane i would make sure this message got out as far and wide as possible).
• we had a ton of fun, and i would pay $70 to do it again.

i really want to be slapped. will someone come please do it? everyone i keep asking to do it won’t. so, if any of you ladies out there feel like i deserve to be slapped but just never got up the courage to do it, here is your chance. please don’t feel any reservations. i really truely do deserve it. thanks!

nicole tried telling me that i act the way i view myself. so if i stopped thinking i was a jerk, i would stop being a jerk. but i can’t help it. all the evidence points to it. i mean, i am sitting here on a saturday night writing a blog. why? i burn bridges. flick of a match. crackle crackle. crashing into the river. and i really play the role of a jerk poorly. i’ve done my best to observe other guys. they are great at it. they have all the lines and right moves. i’ve tried them. admittedly, they work sometimes. i think i have too much of a conscious though, because i can’t go in such a quick succesion like the pros can. i get weak, slow down a bit, thinking i might have something worth holding onto. but soon enough my methods for getting there are revealed, i hurt feelings, the feelings i wasn’t supposed to have are hurt, and i find myself back at square one. i listen to some emo and get lost in my work. but then as soon as opportunity arises again, i give the jerk thing a shot, thinking maybe this time it will be different, and i can pull it off like the pros can.

occasionally i get glimpses of memory from years ago of what it felt like to care and be cared about.

i just remembered i was going to blog about the mattress story. no time to do it tonight, but as a preview:

• 1 mattress
• 10 rolls of plastic wrap
• 1 swimming pool
• 1 hell yeah.

the easiest way to break a man’s pride: segmentation faults.

stupidity: one year ago i spent $90 shipping flowers to a foreign country. stupid. especially after what happened sunday.

fugly chicks: drew barrymore, sandra bullock

makes me sad: missing jack’s mannequin

wastes of time: blogging

hfac. 4th floor. a wing. men’s restroom. third stall. the door sticks. don’t pull on it too hard. it will hit you in the face.

i am in love with peanut butter moo’ds from jamba juice. yum. i try to justify getting them often because it is from jamba juice so it must be healthy, but to be honest, it is really just a peanut butter chocolate banana milkshake made with frozen yogurt and soy milk. i just finished a classic sized one here at work for breakfast. i got the energy boost because i am freaking tired, but i am wondering how much that really helped, cuz i still feel freaking tired.

made it through the first weekend of hello dolly without too many major hiccups. the polka still sucked. it didn’t help that one of the girl’s wigs fell off onto the stage, which made ermengarde and i laugh and get off step… the waltz was decent though. we made it around the stage without tripping.

moving on…

something is missing… why am i always such a jackass that hurts people’s feelings? i am not a nice guy. as elder keen so aptly put, i am an arrogant jerk.

i can see now why it is so much easier not to care.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly,
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

i keep my principles and get burned. i lose my principles and get burned harder.

play practice is over. i don’t think that quite sunk in. play practice is over. 18 hours a week added back to my life. no more staying up until 3 am to do homework. i get to be social again. my roommates get to see me. i get to go over to friend’s apartments. i will be a person again!