Here is what my fellow employees think of the Lakers:
This documents "NBA Economics" stating the "fact" that the more fouls called against Kobe, the more money the NBA makes.
Happy Birthday to Matt and Gary. Crappy I know, but what do you expect from a guy without internet in his apartment. Makes my life simple when both brother-in-laws b-day is on the same day. Oddly enough they aren't even Strattons.
So, I've been trying to think of my favorite mom memory and there are seriously too many. Like how I used to come home every day from school and eat Oreos and watch TV on that 13 incher in the kitchen with her. I still prefer watching TV in the kitchen. Or maybe how last summer when I'd get home at crazy hours and she was still up in her studio we'd chat and watch whatever episode of Murder She Wrote happened to be on. Maybe my favorite is right after they got the mission call and Mel, Mandy, Mom, and I were packing up Montclair. We found a bag of dried up mini marshmallows and Mandy started throwing them like they were lasers all across the kitchen at us and into boxes and mom joined in. It's the first time I remember mom not being the only adult of the family. At last, we were all immature hoodlums!
What do you think of my new boyfriends?
Just kidding, they are actually the guys from Tapout. They were at Chipotle yesterday while I was eating lunch and couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a picture taken with them.
Since we are all in the mind-set of what is your whatever story, I thought I would throw one legitimate and uplifting request to the family.
What is your favorite mom story?
To set the tone, I will share mine. My favorite mom story is not just one event. It is more a lifetime of love and caring that I did not fully appreciate until much later in life. I thought it was normal to have your mom cook a hot breakfast every morning in the hand print night gown. I thought it was normal to have a brown bag lunch every school day with a sandwich, chips, fruit, and a dessert. I thought it was normal to come home from school every day and have various snacks and assorted goodies. I still think I am her favorite since most days she let me have 2 packages of Swiss Cake Rolls and a 1/2 gallon of milk. She helped me with my homework, most times quite well, other times not so much. (I failed the assignment for Ms. Geddes Geometry class.) Many things that I thought were normal were in fact quite rare and incredible. My favorite mom story is that she is always there.
Before I start, I believe that in heaven (or perhaps for me the other place) we can review aspects of our life and historical moments. How the pyramids were built -Who shot JFK - What really happened on Oceanic flight 815. As I tell this real life event, I want you to store this in the 90% of your brain you don't use, boys in your 95%, and Justin in your 98% that you don't use, and review this real-life event when you make it to your final destination.
It was a warm day in my 3rd grade life. Knowing California weather, the temperature was a high of 73 with a low of 72, with a cool westerly wind. The business at hand was dodge ball, and business for me was good. Being slight of frame with cat-like quickness and a rocket for an arm, it seemed I was molded by the gods for dodge ball. Fat kids, cool kids, girls, those slow of foot, or one-armed--wait the one-armed guy is in a different story that I am only a little embarrassed about, were no match. Whether it was hitting them or catching their feeble throws, the story was always the same, the other team crying on the sideline.
On this fateful afternoon, I had single-handed won the first few matches. In the third game, those with the last name N-Z were again far behind. We were down 2 people to 10, but I had the dodge ball strength of 20 men. The strategy was to lay in wait and catch the throws of the opposing team. (Quick dodge ball rules of the time - When you were in, you had to stay within the lines of the basketball court. When you were out, you went to the baseline of the opposing team. If any balls went out of bounds, you could retrieve the ball and throw it at the other team. If you hit someone, they were out. I guess this was an easy way to keep balls in play on the outdoor courts.) Balls were coming at me from both sides, but with no success. I would catch the ball and then lob it to one of my "out" teammates to continue backside pressure. The plan was to get the numbers more even before I started the throwing assault with my right arm, also known as The Widowmaker.
And then it happened ---dramatic pause--- a seemingly innocent throw was caught and lobbed to the far baseline. I was quickly back in the zone ready to send the next poser to the "out" line when Dave, name not changed, yelled out, "Travis look at your hand!" I was confident enough that I could quickly take my eyes off the dodge balls without consequence. I looked at my left hand and then my right and there it was. My thumb was sticking out of the middle of my palm with the top knuckle bent back. In my heightened warrior state, I was unaware of the damage to my hand. With sweat in my eyes, yes sweat and nothing else, I was able to deftly maneuver without getting hit to the sideline to show Ms. Albert my hand.
The game was stopped and I was led in awed silence to the Nurse's Office. Women and those with a weak constitution were fanned. Who was this Champion that barely recognized the carnage of his own body? He was just boy showing others how to be men.
Mother was quickly called, yes Mother, Madre, or Maa(Lao, pronounced like mad without the d and a hard stop to the aa sound.) The gruesome injury was relayed and the Nurturer to my life responded with, "Can't you just put him on the bus, school's almost out?" Oh, the humanity!! A frightened 8-year old boy in an unfamiliar Nurse's Office without candy or suckers for comfort, with tears, no, I mean sweat in his eyes, the child of this mother's womb left uncomforted. Mother finally relented and begrudgingly drove the blue-green EconoVan to California Elementary school to pick up her spare, I mean boy.
A short drive later we were at Dr. Grandzelas office (not sure if the spelling is right, but that's never been my strong suit. I was the 1st one eliminated at the 6th Grade spelling bee in Texas, I misspelled orchard or orchird or orchaord or orkard or however it is spelled. By the way, why didn't someone stop me from participating in this? As I recall, this was optional. Great way to stand-out and be cool. First attend the spelling bee, so the cool kids think you're a dork and then get eliminated in the 1st round, so the smart kids think you're an idiot.) Any way, after a short wait, we were led to an exam room. As all curious 8-year olds do, I started asking questions about what certain things were in the exam room- tongue depressor, long Q-tips, stethoscope, reflex hammer. And then the fateful question, "What is the white box for?"
These are the facts and the facts are indisputable. The remainder of the story has two variations. One from the perspective of an innocent 8-year old without guile, the other from a non-disclosed aged mother who wanted her injured child thrown on the public school bus to be herded home with the melting pot of California Elementary School. This is the part of the story that needs to be reviewed in the after life. We will all sit down in that theater room in the sky and partake of the goodness of truth.
The fateful question was asked, "What is the white box for?" Mother responded matter-of-factly, "That's where they're going to put your hand to melt it off." At this point, the sweat in my eyes turned to tears. What sort of sick place is this? Would my mother really let them melt my hand off? Mother quickly tried to recover, "No, no, that's where they sterilize the doctor's instruments." Too late, the damage was done.
When the doctor entered the room, I was ready to break free if he took me anywhere close to that white box. I don't care how big a man is, if you kick him in the knee he will go down. Luckily for him, he never took me near that box. He grabbed my thumb with one hand and pulled, nothing happened. Then the old doctor grabbed my thumb with two hands and with a grunted heave and a loud pop, my thumb was back in its correct position. He expertly contoured a padded splint to my thumb and wrapped it in an Ace bandage.
Despite all the trials of the day, I was able to keep my wits about me. With my splinted and wrapped thumb, I looked just like A.C. Green, the power forward for the Los Angeles Lakers. (Again, why didn't someone help me out? I little white kid thinking he was cool for looking like a barely starting power forward. By the way, A.C. Green is a 6'8" black man with a jheri curl.)
There you have it, my favorite injury.
Well, it looks like I made the cut, yet again. I'm in the St. George Marathon (for the 9th time). Who's going to be in my cheering section?
We have a ton of already downloaded pictures to choose from--Trav's just being lazy (I know, I know, so unlike him...) Anyway here's the girls all dressed up for the aforementioned dancing that they were involved in yesterday. Enjoy!
Pictures will be coming shortly, we need to download pictures and our camera battery just died.
The following is from Kaytlin, word for word. She can read and write pretty well. If I didn't write exactly what she said she told me to back up and if she didn't like where the period was, she told me to move it:
Dear Family,
I have finished dance and I like to dance. I hope that you are having a good time and I hope that you are having a fun time. I like the piano because I will be taughted by my mom so that's why I am taking piano lessons. I love you family. I am almost done with soccer and I like soccer because it is fun. I scored a goal yesterday it was because two of the other team's girls fell, but there was the hard one, but I ran fast enough that I could get a goal and two of my teammates were down because they tripped. I like school because it is fun and I like it because it teaches me math. I liked dance because it is fun and I had the dance recital a few days ago.
Love,
Kayltin
The following is from Ady, word for word:
Dear Family,
Dad is the card also for me. And card is also for you. I want do all the things that you said. Look there is a space. We do this (shaking shoulders) and I don't know what else. Just do my dance. Dad there is a little tiny space. Uh-huh. Talk about preschool. Dad, we do hard work at my school. Just do it. Keep doing it, take all that space. Keep doing it, do to there. So write the piano in that space. Just keep going there. Is that all, keep going. Keep going, keep going. Go there. Dad you list all this and I'm helping you with your tweezers, those were big tweezers. Dad you sure have big tweezers, so we could pick up things that were cut those trees. Write a little bit of trampoline right here. Write all the trampoline on this one. Dad keep going, keep going, keep going. Dad did you mean to do that. What is that line for? What is that line for? I'm done.
I love of my family,
Ady
The following is from Macee:
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After a brief hiatus from my wildly successful blogging career, I am back. Rumors persist that this break was caused by lack of ID or password knowledge, but I am here to insist it was just to re-charge my battery. I needed time to find my own identity and to answer the security question to the password of my life, nothing more.
Over the next few blogs you will learn of my favorite injury, is it my collarbone--NO, is it the time I may have broken a few toes trying to jump a swimming pool (not ours, yes I was still in high school, yes my 3 small toes on my right foot and part of my foot turned purple and were swollen for weeks, and no mom and dad never found out (kind of like riding my bike to the beach in CA))--NO, was it almost breaking my ankle on my mission--NO. You will have to wait.
You will also find out about my family. Has my wife left me--my Oreos and milk say no, did I attend Disney's High School Musical on Ice with my wife, 3 daughters, and 10,000 other screaming (fill in this space with a non-profane word) people--YES, did my family not watch TV for 8 straight days...dundunduuuuuuuhhh - YES we did not watch TV for 8 straight days or is it NO we did not watch TV for 8 straight days - either way we did not watch TV for 8 straight days - I checked with Guinness World Records and although it is a personal record it is not a Guinness record.
I am back, and life may begin anew.
A couple of days ago, I was in Utah County for work. When I finished up, I hooked up with Mom and we headed to WalMart. Mom needed to pick up a few things (OK, a lot of stuff) and it's always more fun to shop with someone else. While looking for Little Debbie S'mores (has anyone see these? We couldn't find them) we stumbled upon some Keebler cookies that looked quite taste (as Meggie would say). Well, they ones with a chocolate filling were not exactly what Mom was thinking, but we did manage to find some caramel filled cookies. Well, Mom decided that she wanted to try them before buying them. So, right there in the cookie/cracker isle at WalMart, she busted open the package of cookies and ate one (OK, I did too!) And, then she said she was going to blame the need to open the cookies on her "fussy child." Can you believe that Mom would do such a thing?
As a side note: It was about 3pm and Mom hadn't had much more than a banana all day. But, still funny and unexpected behavior from Mom!
