In which I learn many nifty facts about Iraq

Jessica and Mitch came to visit. They came for Mitch's graduation, but Jessica's birthday was during their trip. We had a little birthday party for Jess at my apartment, and it was nice. Jess and I actually spent all Saturday being friends, though.

I had several things that I had accumulated to give Jess: a (thoughtful!) souvenir from the DC part of my trip. Shade shirts from Shade's Provo thing. Her toaster (since she hadn't ended up getting one for her wedding). Several CDs, which together made up a Classical Music Top 100 collection, which I think is fantastic. My ipod that I never use anymore, for Mitch to use on his commutes.

For a nice break on Thursday, when I was cleaning for my cleaning check, I wrapped everything in birthday paper. Even though it technically wasn't all for her birthday. Because who doesn't like unwrapping stuff? And for extra fun, she'd forgotten about a bunch of the stuff, so she was surprised by it.

(Wrapping random things actually reminded me of something my mom used to tell us about sometimes when we were growing up. When my mom was little, she and her older brother got such a kick out of Easter egg hunts that they would have their own. They would collect rocks, wrap them in foil, and hide them for each other to find. )

Jess brought some things from California for me.

She brought a couple butter cookies from her local grocery store (the store near our house used to give free samples to kids when we were younger, so we both remember them fondly although they're hard to find these days).

She brought some specific dark chocolate bars that I had requested (from her Trader Joe's). I wanted them because they were super healthy and tasted delicious. How often do you see chocolate bars (even dark ones) with only 50 calories and 3 grams of fat?! Amazing! I needed more. [Note: When I was going to show Jess how healthy they are, I noticed that there are 8 servings per bar. Sigh. So much for that.]

AND! Best of all, she brought me an Iraq Culture Smart Card, which is what military people are given before they go off to Iraq. She had gotten it when she went to an open house at her local base, and thought I would like it. I DO.

First, I learned about Iraqi Clothes/Gestures. You can tell a lot about a man by the kind of cloth he wears on his head. A guy wearing a white head covering "Has not made the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca." (Who knew?!) If instead, he's wearing a black and white head covering, he is "From a country with Presidential rule (ie Libya or Egypt) and has made the hajj. " If he's wearing a red checkered head covering, he is "From a country with a monarch (ie Saudi Arabia or Jordan) and has made the hajj." Fascinating. My favorite gesture is: "Quick upward head snap with tongue click means no."


Then I opened the guide to learn some phrases. I started reading some from the first section to Jess and Mitch.
stop / awgaf drop your weapons / Dhib is-la-Hak do not resist / la it-qa-wem stay where you are / ib-qa makanak

They seemed to have a particular theme, which we thought was kind of amusing since it's so basic, and usually language guides start with things like "hello" and "my name is". That first section was "Commands". There were also "Numbers", "Questions" (Who is in charge? / minu almas-'uul?), and "Helpful Words/Phrases" (hello / marrhaba; thank you / shukran; mines / algham).

There is also a "Do This" section, with suggestions like:
Respond to a woman's greeting only when she initiates the contact. Allow her to shake hands using only her fingertips. Try all food offered to you, even if in small portions. Feel free to ask about the cuisine or its preparation.

And a "Don't Do This" section, with suggestions like:
Don't point with a finger; it is a sign of contempt. Instead, point with your entire hand. Don't make the "OK" or "thumbs up" signs; they are considered obscene. Don't praise an Iraqi's possessions too much. He may give them to you and expect something of equal value in return. (AWESOME!)

The guide also has a section on religion that has information about Muslims, including a religious calendar, with color coded holidays. (If the name of the holiday is in blue, expect fasting and prayer. If it's green, expect celebration. If it's red, expect procession.) And a section on cultural customs, like "Admitting "I don't know" is shameful for an Iraqi." or "Family is the center of honor, loyalty, and reputation."
And it has a map.

Mine is on waterproof, tear-resistant synthetic paper, but you can (read the rest or) print your own HERE.

I just planted my garden!

I've heard it's supposed to snow next week, and hopefully, hopefully it doesn't. My plants were getting too big, and today I transplanted them into my square foot garden!

I used 2 bags of vermiculite, and 5 bags of Miracle Gro Organic Vegetable Soil. I wanted to use peat moss also, but they only had one kind at Lowe's, and I didn't like how it looked. Anyway, I layered them into my garden, and mixed them. The layers made me feel like I was making a giant, inedible cake.

And then, after I had all the soil where it belonged, and it was good and moist, I needed to actually plant stuff. Fun!

So I planted everything. I decided how many to plant in each square based on how big I thought they would get, and also based on how many had actually sprouted indoors. I used the peat-moss-like stuff from the ones that didn't grow to cushion the planting area so that my little sprouts could grow from super-soft baby-plant dirt into pretty-soft normal-plant dirt with a little bit of a transition.

For the beans and melons, where a couple grew in the same little spot, I picked the stronger sprout and pulled out the smaller one. And I was sorry to do it, but I knew that I had to.

The only problem I ran into was, my seeds did better than I expected them to. The carrot seeds were tiny, so I poured a little pile of seeds into each of the indoor grower things, and actually I didn't need to. They grew like grass! So I opened the little grower things, and pulled out ones that looked like they had long roots and were growing well. And I set the other ones aside. I felt kind of bad.



They did what they were supposed to (grow!), and that just wasn't enough for me. So even though they were alive, I had to just throw them away. But they looked kind of grassy since there were so many, so I felt bad, but not awful.

And then I got to the tomatoes. I decided to plant four tomato sprouts in the tomato square, and that was fine, except that when I was down to one little tomato hole I had two little sprouts to choose from. And there wasn't one that had grown a whole lot and one that was little. And there wasn't one that had longer roots. They were the same. And I had to sit there and decide which little guy would live and which one would die. It was terrible! I've been so excited about my little garden. I've watched everything sprout, and felt encouraging thoughts for the ones that had almost pushed through the soil. I just got kind of attached to my garden. And it sounds kind of silly but actually isn't, because they're all alive. It's hard to abandon something that's alive, because I grew it from a teeny tiny seed. I got kind of emotional about it. (My roommate and I decided which one to save, and when I was on the verge of tears we decided that I would suck at having an abortion, if I feel so compassionate about tiny sprouts.)

So I won't say that I planted a tiny tomato plant in front of my apartment complex, but I won't say that I didn't, either. If it grows, that will be cool, because tomatoes! in front of our apartment! and if it dies, then at least I wasn't the one to kill it.

Anyway, that's the story of me planting my garden. Here's something I'm really starting to wonder: How in the world am I supposed to keep everything in its own squares?

WHY WE NEED A MAP - C.S. Lewis

I typed this up awhile ago because I wanted to post it on my blog. On my mission it was one of the spiritual thoughts we would leave for people who weren't home. I saved a copy because I like it.


WHY WE NEED A MAP

In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by Theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, “I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that’s just why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!”

Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he will also be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of colored paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only colored paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.

Theology is like a map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experiences of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God--experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion --all about feeling God in nature, and so on--is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.

In other words, Theology is practical: especially now. In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones--bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected. To believe in the popular religion of modern England is retrogression--like believing the earth is flat.

-- C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, Book IV Chapter I)

I LOVE Neil Patrick Harris, and other stories from today

I've had a super busy day today. The two main themes from today were doctors and potatoes.

This morning I went for an annual doctor's checkup. I'm not sick or anything, but my health insurance company really encourages us to do our yearly preventative stuff, so I decided to go ahead and go. It was fine. My doctor is leaving Friday for a month in Italy, so we had a lot to talk about.

Also, I learned something interesting that is worth sharing. I always thought that the recommended amount of exercise was 30 minutes of exercise, 3-5 days per week. It probably was that before. The American Heart Association currently recommends exercising most days of the week ("5-6 days a week") for an hour each time. Whoa. That's a lot. And it's more than what is recommended for guys, my doctor said. Apparently they've decided that women benefit more from more exercise. "It's something to work up to, of course," she said.

The other reason my day was doctor-themed was that I received the first disc from Season 1 of Doogie Howser MD in the mail.

I love the show How I Met Your Mother, and while I was in New York a couple weeks ago, I told my friends all about it. And then after we did our Letterman taping, we stepped into the Buy Our Letterman Stuff! store, and HIMYM was on TV. "GUYS! Look! That's it!" I proudly told them. "Oh," one of my friends said, "Neil Patrick Harris is on it?" "What? The kid from Doogie Howser, I asked?" "Yeah, that's him right there." I had no idea! I love Barney. I didn't realize that he was the same guy who played Doogie Howser. (I never really watched Doogie Howser.)

And then my mom and I were talking about it the other day, and I think I told her how surprised I was to realize that he was the same guy. My mom said how fun it was to see him on the show because on recent episodes Barney typed onto a blue blog (which was a reference to Doogie Howser, who keeps a computer journal like that) and he also talked about how cool magic is. "Don't you remember Dad and I talking about seeing him at the Castle?" My parents are members at a private club in Hollywood, and apparently they've seen him there a bunch of times. AWESOME. I didn't realize my parents see Barney regularly (!) and in person (!). (And! Always SUITED UP!) I definitely didn't catch the reference to Doogie Howser with the blue screen, though, and my mom encouraged me to see some of the episodes (since I can easily get stuff like that with Netflix).

Well, that came today, and I watched the first few episodes. I love it! The funny thing about it is, in How I Met Your Mother, Neil Patrick Harris's character (Barney) is a total stud. He's handsome and charming, and he's AWESOME. And in Doogie Howser, I expected his character to be kind of dry or nerdy, but he isn't. He's a total stud in that, too, except just younger.

So now I'm totally jealous of my parents for getting to see him in person. I think Neil Patrick Harris is legen....dary!

The other part of my day was potato themed.

Basically, what happened was, on Sunday we had "Munch and Mingle" which is where people from church all stay afterwards and eat together. And talk together, so that we can get to know each other and find people to marry. Or something like that. And I'm part of the group that prepares the food. This Sunday we served loaded baked potatoes, with chili, sour cream, salsa, and a bunch of stuff. It was really good.

Afterwards, I went to the kitchen to help clean up, and the guy who is in charge of it all was throwing away baked potatoes. He tossed them into the trash one at a time, but there was a huge pile of baked potatoes in the big garbage can. "WAIT!" I stopped him. "Those are still good." (They weren't even opened. They were wrapped in foil, just out of the oven.) "Can't someone just take them home?" "I asked like 15 people and nobody wanted them." He kept tossing them. "And besides. Potatoes are like $3 for 15 pounds." "BUT!" I protested. "Do you want them?" he offered. "YES." I said.

So my roommate and I filled two big bags with right-out-of-the-oven hot baked potatoes. What are we going to do with all these? We discussed it, and I decided we would throw a potato party and invite everyone from our apartment complex.

So we did.

We made twice-baked potatoes, a real ham (which cooked all day) with ham sauce, broccoli and corn, and cut orange slices.

This afternoon I put fliers on everyone's doors in our whole complex. I had them printed on neon paper, and they said " WE KNOW YOU'RE BUSY BUT COME EAT ANYWAY!"

Quite a few people actually did come. Our kitchen and living room were both full of people. It was a huge success, and I think everyone who came had a great time.

And one final update: my garden is doing really well! I noticed today that a bunch of my plants already have roots that have grown through the little plant-starter things. And some of each type of plant is growing. Also, I ate my first home-grown strawberry yesterday. It was sweet, and full of flavor.

Thoughts on Democracy and Voting

From a very young age, I have sometimes been interested in politics.

My first memory of political awareness and interest was from the second house that I remember living in. Almost everyone in my city had gardeners, and we did too. We had a few sculpted bushes in our front yard. "LOOK!" I'd tell someone, probably my parents (but maybe anyone who would listen). "PRESIDENT BUSH IS IN OUR FRONT YARD!" They would pretend to be interested, and I would lead them outside to one of the tall sculpted bushes. "See," I'd say. "President Bush." I would have been in first or second grade, and I remember thinking it was a clever joke, because Bush was the President's name, and we had one in our yard.

I remember some major political events, but the only other time I remember being especially interested was for my senior year of high school. I had an extremely liberal civics teacher, and I would correct him when he stated his opinions as facts. Most of my classmates were also very liberal (or didn't know or care, or care to know), so someone had to do it. [Dr. R agreed that he was doing it, anyway, and started drawing attention to the times when he didn't. "That is a fact, Ms. Mylastname," he would announce.] I was in that class for the 2000 election, and it was no secret that Dr. Ramp. did not want Bush to win. I was also 17, and could not vote. (Oh, the misery!) When Bush did win, I brought Republican BUSH cupcakes for my whole class, in celebration. They had red dots inside, and red sprinkles on top and said BUSH on each cupcake. I think I've blogged about that before, actually. But honestly, I don't think I knew too much about what Bush wanted for our country. Not really.

For my first year of college, I did student government, and was one of the senators. It was fun enough. I helped people register to vote, and I was moderately interested in politics for a little while.

And then, I completely lost interest in politics, and the news. On my mission, we were not supposed to discuss politics with people or follow the news, so that made it easier to be disinterested. But when I got back, I really wasn't interested either.

I think the main reasons were:
1. It takes a long time to follow the news and really have a good idea of what is going on. Reading up on issues and candidates is just very time consuming.
2. I got tired of hearing about the same things over and over again. I knew that September 11th had been something important for our country. I knew that people were dying in Iraq, and I knew that we were looking for Bin Laden, and I didn't want to hear the same things every day for months and years on end.
3. So much of the news and politics is negative. I have enough problems in my life without having to feel bad for even more people. It wasn't that I meant to be insensitive, just that watching the news made me sad, and I didn't want to feel sad about stuff that I couldn't really do anything about.
4. It seems like a lot of news and politics are subjective, and it's hard to predict what America really needs, or what will really work. Or how important integrity is among politicians, or how big of a role government ought to have. Everyone has such different feelings about it, and they all feel strongly about it, and I can kind of see where everyone is coming from. Since I can relate to most of the sides, it's hard to make a decision (especially without having taken the time to really understand the issues.)

There were probably other reasons, too. But I became really moderate, and stopped voting in local elections, and didn't read newspapers or watch the news on TV. I became really, really uninformed.

And then, for some reason, I became really interested in this presidential election. And politics in general. And when I visited DC, and took a tour of the Capitol, I became fascinated. It made me want to serve in the House of Representatives. It made me want to know what is going on, and do something. I've been following the news all day, every day since my trip. And I find it really dynamic and interesting.

Plus, I've been reading things that really talk a lot about how inactive my generation is, politically, and I can completely understand that, but I can also understand why we need to participate.

It is not our responsibility to put flag bumper stickers on our minivans, or to buy lots of fireworks for the Fourth of July, or to attend our American History classes just because we have to. But we do need to vote. We do need to learn about issues, and vote based on what we really feel or know to be right. And not for who or what our friends or families vote for, or for who we think would be cool for no reason. And if it's time consuming, or boring, or sad, that doesn't mean that we don't need to be responsible citizens anymore.

Democracy depends on people being informed and voting.

Digging!

"Digging" really is the perfect subject for this post, because I have two stories related to digging, and that's about the only thing they have in common.

The first thing is a story from a book that I'm reading.

"One summer, she helped me create a fantasy world in a large cardboard box. We used mirrors for lakes and twigs for trees, and I made up fairy-tale stories for my dolls to act out. Another summer, she encouraged my younger brother Tony to pursue his dream of digging a hole all the way to China. She started reading to him about China and every day he spent time digging his hole right next to our house. Occasionally, he found a chopstick or fortune cookie my mother had hidden there." (pg. 10, Living History, Hillary Rodham Clinton, 2003.)

How awesome is that?! I love that her mom hid fortune cookies and chopsticks for her brother. I bet the kid was totally delighted and felt like he was actually getting closer. I bet he was super excited about it. That's terrific. Every time I share that part with someone, it makes me laugh.

My other story about digging isn't really a story at all. It's just news: MY PLANTS HAVE SPROUTED! I am so happy! Today I noticed a bean sprout, a zucchini sprout, and two carrot sprouts. Also, my strawberry plants grew another berry that looks ready-ish and a few green ones.

The carrots kind of surprise me, because they come from seeds that are so so tiny. How can whole big green sprouts come from something so little? (Someday when I get married and have kids, I'll probably be fascinated with that too. It's just like life comes from nothing.) A carrot sprout is kind of a miracle, and it's amazing that all of the blades of grass, and trees, even just leaves on trees...all of that stuff, it's really incredible. Because scientists can grow seeds, and manipulate stuff sometimes, but I sure doubt they could pick the perfectly right molecules and assemble DNA and pack that stuff all together into a scientifically made seed. Every time they do something, they start with something that God has already made a miracle for.

Anyhow, there are miracles all around us. It's just a matter of watching for them. (This all reminds me of that scripture that says that everything bears witness of God.)

Here are some pictures of my lovely garden.


The End.

OBVIOUSLY, English is Different in the UK

I’ve noticed something funny about British speech that doesn’t really carry over into American English. People in the UK use the word “obviously” different than we do here.

In the United States, we use ‘obviously’ to mean “anyone can immediately tell”. For example, “Her hair is really obviously green.” It doesn’t matter if you know her or not, it’s REALLY green, and anyone can tell. Or, “obviously it’s a bad idea to run a red light.” Running a red light is dangerous, and everyone knows this. “Obviously, she made chicken for dinner.” It’s not beef tonight, it’s chicken, and I can smell it.

In the UK, people very often use ‘obviously’ to mean “It has become clear to me now.” “Obviously, I was at the hospital, and that’s why I forgot to cancel my account.” It becomes clear to me now that I forgot to cancel, because oh, right, of course, I was at the hospital. “Obviously, I entered my card for my mum, and she’s forgotten to cancel it.” “I hadn’t realized my mum forgot to cancel it, and you certainly would have had no way of knowing, but it’s become clear to me now.” “I’ve come to the end of my free time, so obviously I want to cancel.” None of these things are obvious to me at all (as someone who does not know them personally), nor do the people expect me to know. Interesting.

It’s kind of funny, because obviously, I’ve started to use ‘obviously’ when I talk to them. (See, that wouldn’t be obvious to you, the reader, at all.) And nobody ever says “That’s not obvious at all!” It’s just fine because it’s kind of like an interjection.

In the US, ‘obviously’ often confirms a common understanding between people talking, and in the UK, the understanding is not implied or expected, and ‘obviously’ is frequently a simple transition in conversation.

[Also, many, many men call me “my love” the same way many Italians call random people beautiful (“Hello, beautiful!”), and the same way that old American ladies call people “sweetie.” “My love” sounds less diminutive, though.]

Planting Seeds!

Yesterday I started planting my garden! I had purchased seeds on Friday, and planned to plant them on Monday. Monday came, and I trekked to Smith’s to start buying soil. Unfortunately, I encountered two problems. First, I had to walk through January to get to the store, and second, Smith’s only had one kind of soil, and it said multipurpose, but the picture was only of flowers.

Since I had to walk through a snow storm, I wondered if planting seeds and baby plants outside was such a good idea. I decided that starting the seeds indoors would be an acceptable solution, because the seed packets described the process in the instructions. (Also, I’m already afraid that I’ll kill the plants by giving them too much or not enough water, or too much or not enough sunlight, or too much or not enough fertilizer, or the wrong kind of fertilizer. Or by planting the seeds too deep. Adding snow to the equation didn’t seem like a good idea.)

And then, the soil that Smith’s has doesn’t say “vegetables” on it. And the picture is just of flowers. So I started talking with the florist lady who works there. “Ummmmm, look, I’m starting a garden,” I told her. “Will this stuff work?” I pointed to the soil. “Because it doesn’t say vegetables on it, but it does say multi-purpose. But the pictures are all of flowers. And I don’t want to eat chemicals.”

She looked at the package. “You’re trying to grow them organically? Well, this has Miracle Grow, so it probably has chemicals….but it does say multi-purpose….I think it would be fine. I use it for my herb garden.”

“Hm. Okay,” I said.

“And if you’re transplanting them anyway, you should be fine.”

“About that. Do you just use little plastic cups or Tupperware? Or what do you grow them in if you start them inside?”

“You can. Actually! There are these things that you can get, they’re pellets, and you can grow them indoors and the roots just go through, so then you just take the little things and plant them directly when you’re ready…Do you know where IFA is?”

“No…wait, so what are they…?”

And the lady told me all about these little things for starting seeds indoors. As soon as I heard about them I knew I had to have them. She told me where the store was.

Yesterday I went. I got an indoor greenhouse for starting 50 seeds. AND! I bought strawberry plants. I love strawberries! I really liked the store a lot. I actually just like country stores in general. Every time I visit a country store or ranch store, I wish I had a ranch. I want to take chicks home, and have a big garden, and horses, and wear a cowboy hat and boots.

But anyhow, I got home with my loot and planted the seeds. The way that the pellets worked is, they came in a tray. They started out hard, and looked like chocolate cookies. Then I added warm water, and they became little pots of soil wrapped in…well…something roots can go through.

I poked seeds into them. I planted cantaloupe, zucchini, tomatoes, green beans, and carrots. Hm. Fun. The seeds for the carrots and tomatoes were especially tiny, which will make them even more impressive plants.

And now I have to wait for them to grow. The package says they’re guaranteed to grow. I am less confident than that, but I hope it‘s true.

I just know this project is going to teach me loads of patience. My roommates and I went out to dinner last night, and when we came home, I wanted them to have sprouted already. They hadn’t.

Oh, and: here is a link to the blog post on FrugalDad that Erin shared to begin with. I wanted to post it yesterday, but my computer was not cooperating.

And, here is a link to Uffish’s post yesterday about gardening. I’m kind of excited about her and I both doing gardens this year. We can probably like…trade fresh vegetables or something.

In Which I Start a Garden

I have a new project!
(When don't I have a new project?)

A little before my trip, Erin shared a blog post about square foot gardening on Google Reader. Basically, the idea is: only use the amount of space that it actually takes to garden, use really rich soil, and you can grow a garden! So it's perfect for people who don't have time to weed/ have bad soil/ only have a balcony, etc; people can grow a garden even in 1ft square pieces.

This appealed to me for a few reasons:
1. I've been trying to eat more fresh/healthy food lately.
2. Organic stuff is appealing to me.
3. The price is right. (You start with seeds, which are basically wooden pebbles, and wind up with fresh vegetables!)
4. I had a plant on my mission since I couldn't have a pet. It was kind of cool to see it grow towards light and stuff. And get bigger. So I guess I like watching plants grow.

So I decided that I would build a garden!

On Friday I went to the man mall to get supplies. It was tricky. I learned how to tell the difference between treated and untreated wood. A nice thing about Home Depot is, though, the people who work there are suuuuuper helpful. A guy saw me looking at lumber and asked if I needed help. "YES!" I was like, "Okay...I need to get these things, and I don't know what they are..." He helped me go through my whole list. And he even helped me pick a good drill. (I was like "Look: I'm sure someday I'll get married and he'll have tools, and how often will I even use this anyway, so it doesn't need to be some $500 drill...but I don't want it to break in the middle of the project either." He understood.)

And THEN, another Home Depot guy carried huge heavy long boards for me, and cut them into the sizes I wanted. He even used the huge saw to cut me six little blocks to be feet underneath my garden. Nice.

The only problem was, I was supposed to get side boards that were 6" tall. And I thought, wait a minute, it's square FOOT gardening. So I wanted sides that were twice as tall. And I got them, but they were daaaang heavy. But fine, whatever. So I thought I would carry them and take the bus back home...except that I couldn't walk with the stuff at all. I had way too much heavy wood.

I ended up taking the bus and taking things in trips. It took me three trips to load everything onto and off of the bus. But it worked. And I wanted to build it the same day, because I was excited.

So I got everything ready...and realized that even though the display drill said it came with a 20 piece accessory kit (including drill bits), mine actually wasn't quite the same because it came with nothing of the sort, and didn't even mention an accessory kit on the package. I went and bought drill bits from a nearby store. And I bought vegetable garden seeds.

BUT! Nowhere had the right kind of soil!

And then Saturday, in between Conference sessions I constructed my garden. I was so proud of myself. Aside from having no dirt, it looks fantastic!

It is also very heavy, so I don't know how I'll move it in August. But whatever. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

NEXT POST: Planting seeds!

[NOTE: I'm not sure how I wound up with all of my pictures sideways. They started out right-side-up. I'll try and fix them tomorrow. EDIT: pictures corrected.]

Impossible Hobbies and Cross-Dressing

This afternoon I went to print something at the library. It's part of my unending quest to prove my residency to the University of Utah. And that's fine.

On the way to the library, I passed The Cotton Shop, which I know carries Amy Butler stuff. Which I like. I decided to go in and see they had any new fabrics from her lines. I stepped in the door and it was insanely busy. A girl handed me a ticket. "You'll want to hold onto this for the raffle," she said. I pretended I knew what she was talking about, and walked in. All over the store there were signs 'EVERYTHING 20% OFF' (unless marked with another sale). I had unwittingly stepped into Moonlight Madness! which is TONIGHT ONLY, from 5-9. Huh. Cool.

So I found a couple Amy Butler patterns that I wanted. I bought sophia carry-all and weekender travel bag. I also got fabric for the sophia carry-all, and interfacing. I still have to buy other stuff for it. I need lining, cording, a zipper, template plastic (whatever that is), etc, etc, etc. The bags are soooo cute though. And Amy Butler is trendy to people (my age anyhow) who sew. It never goes on sale.

I don't have a sewing machine, though. I don't know how to do zippers. Or piping on the edges. So it's a project that will probably have to wait until whenever I visit my mom. Too bad. I love my Amy Butler bag that I made before (the swing bag), and I think as soon as I finish these, I'll want to take them everywhere.

The girl behind me in the superlong line to have things cut recognized my bag. "Is that an Amy Butler bag?" "Mhmm" "It's so cute." "I love it. It was super easy, too." We had a whole conversation about it. She bought Amy Butler patterns and fabric, too. It isn't just me.

[That's the impossible hobby part of this post.]

I went to the library, and printed my thing. And got books! I'm going to read Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Strapped by Tamara Draut.

Then I went to the grocery store because Smith's has strawberries for $1.50/lb. And I picked up a few other things while I was there, but nothing really exciting. I started my walk home.

A couple blocks away from my house, I heard someone behind me as I was about to cross the street. The light changed. We crossed. "Can I help you carry your groceries?" a guy asked me. "Nah," I said without looking up. "They're actually not that heavy. It's just bread and stuff." (True.) "Okay," he said. It was nice of him to offer, anyway. And we took two separate paths, that both went the same way, and were about 5 feet apart.

I noticed that it seemed to be a guy, but he was wearing a light pink shirt. A fitted, woman's light pink shirt that had one of those empire-waist seams. It tied around the neck, with a bow. It was a very womanly shirt. I couldn't understand why a guy would wear something so obviously feminine. He was definitely a guy, though.

Our paths met up, and he kept talking to me. "It's a nice night," he said. "It is," I agreed. "It's nice that it's starting to get warmer." We talked about the weather for a few minutes, and about being from southern California. He was from the city next to mine. But had moved up to Utah quite a long time ago.

And he said it: "I hope I don't make you uncomfortable. Some people wouldn't want to walk with a cross-dresser." Aha. Things made more sense. "Nah. You can wear whatever you want," I told him.

And then we talked about whether or not I was attending BYU, which he doesn't care for.

And I got to my apartment, so I told him to have a great night, and we said goodbye. And that just goes to show that stereotypes are often unfounded. The guy offered to help me carry groceries, without even knowing me, and under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn't have started a friendly conversation with him. There is good in everyone.

Where in the World is Emily Sandiego?

Here's something fun and easy that will make you feel as smart as Chloe O'Brien:

I made my phone trackable. Any time you want, you can see where I am. For free!

Today I'll be going up to Salt Lake City. Then tonight I'm flying out to the Newark, and I'll be spending the next 9 days in New York City, Washington DC, and a little bit of VA.

If you want to watch me move around, go to Navizon.com and register. It's free, and they don't send you junk. Click on "Buddies/Groups" and then "Add Buddy" and my username is "emi255".

[NOTE: As I was typing this I realized I have a referral code. It is 5B5B5C5A5D5B . If you want to enter it, that's great. I get referral points. If you don't want to, that's okay too, because that wasn't the reason I was telling you all about this.]

It will ask me if I approve of you adding me, and I'll approve anyone who adds me. And then, whenever you want, you can click "View" to see where I am. It uses cellphone towers to track where I am through my cellphone. I've been watching it track me on my phone over the past few days and it seems like it's usually accurate within 5 blocks or so. I think that's close enough for it to be fun to watch, but far enough for me to feel entirely unconcerned about being trackable.

My phone has another feature that is really cool. If you want to talk to me, it will find where I am, wherever I happen to be, and it will let you talk with me instantly! Amazing. And you don't even have to register at all for that. Phones these days!

Taxes (reprise), Commercialism, and My Life (in general)

I was going to say that this has been a good week, but really it's only been a halfway decent week. That's fine. Not every week has to be the best week. It wasn't a bad week, anyway.

On Monday I went to file my taxes at BYU. The accounting department at BYU has a service that they offer during tax season, and they'll file your taxes for free. One of my friends told me about it last year, and it worked out well for me last year, so I went again this year. EXCEPT, last year they didn't accept appointments, and this year they started accepting appointments. Which I didn't realize. So everything fills up way faster because they have fewer "stand by" openings. And even though I went as soon as I could, they were done accepting people. Too bad.

I went back on Tuesday, and put my paper on the stack of papers before they were even open. Even though I left my house right after work, and got there pretty early, my little paper (which I had pre-filled-out) was nowhere near the top. It said that the estimated wait was about 3 hours, so I grabbed a sandwich from Subway. I sloooowwwlllyy ate my lunch, and then I went back to the accounting lab on the first floor of the library to wait and wait and wait.

Every really not so often, a girl would come out of the lab, look at the list of appointments, go to the bottom of the stack of standby papers, and call the next person. And then! She kept coming out of the lab(!) and ended up calling a few people instead of just one!

And the last time she came out, she looked at the appointments, and rifled through the stack of standbys, and she just stopped and stood there looking kind of confused.

A girl near me started laughing. (We were about 25 feet away, I'd guess.) The girl near me had gotten up and walked past the stack of papers (and the people waiting over there) about 20 minutes ago. "He put a paper in there to ask her on a date!" she told the people at her table. The girl calling people turned around and started talking to the guy waiting there. I couldn't hear what they were saying. After about four minutes or so, she went back to the stack of standbys again. "Samuel?" she called, grinning. She looked around at all of us who were waiting. "Sorry about the delay." AWESOME. It made me happy. It also made me wonder a lot: did she know him already? She was pretty. It could have been some random guy. Did she actually accept and go out with him? Who knows.

And then on Thursday something else happened that was wonderful. I passed by a Goodbye! party for Thirdmango. While I was there, Optimistic told me about a blog that I needed to be reading but had never heard of. And when he told me about it, everyone else was like "Emily doesn't read it? OHH." And everyone started telling me the basic idea behind it. It's called The Leila Texts, and it turns out, it actually is something that I love. Basically, it's this girl who-- by some random Verizon technology twist-- receives tons of texts meant for other people with her name. If you have never read it, you should. It's really excellent. She copies all of the texts she receives onto her blog and then writes really funny comments along with them. And if it had happened to, like, a grandma, it probably would have been less funny, but it's this 23 year old girl. Super.

AND, at the same party, I saw Mr. Keith. He was the first person I knew to get an iphone. And he let me play with it at Happy Pirates when it was still really new. Anyway, he had seen my Gchat status (16GB of AWESOME!) and had guessed that I had one too, and we talked iphones for a little while. Fun! He really strongly recommended me getting an Invisible Shield on my phone.

Now here's the thing about Invisible Shields: I really didn't know much about them before my chat with Mr. Keith. I knew that my mall has one of those like, carts in the middle of the walkway for Invisible Shields, but frankly, I always sort of thought they were lame. I kind of compared Invisible Shields with Ab Rollers and Magnet Bracelets and other Infomercial treasures.

Mr. Keith told me all about them though. They make phones grippy, instead of super slippery. I've worried about that since I got my phone. He let me look at his. Hm. Grippy is good. AND, they protect the phone. Mr. Keith said he didn't want any scratches on his phone at all, so that was important to him. He could slide his iphone across the floor and with the Invisible Shield it wouldn't be scratched at all. You wouldn't even be able to tell. No way, I told him. He said he'd done it before. And his phone wasn't scratched. Hm. He said it was worth every penny, and that I should get one. So I (of course) immediately wanted one.

And I got one on Saturday. So far I really like it. Another benefit of the Invisible Shield: my phone fits better in my pocket, since it isn't a bulky case.

I can think of a few things that people have strongly recommended to me: Tilex (which is a bathroom cleaner, and WORKS), and The Magic Eraser (which is another cleaning product). I haven't bought any Magic Erasers yet, but I have had multiple people strongly recommend them to me. And I promise, I really don't go around talking about cleaning products with me. So for them to come into random conversation with someone my age, from multiple people, I expect them to be amazing. Also, pork salads from Cafe Rio. I used to get steak. Now I only get pork salads there. Someone strongly encouraged me to try that, and there has been no going back.

I asked one of my coworkers if she had ever bought something because someone else had really talked it up. She couldn't think anything at first, and then she said that she went to MAC because I recommended it. It's true. I do recommend MAC. Whenever people compliment my complexion, I always tell them it's actually just that I do a good job with my makeup. Which is also true. I hadn't realized that she went though.

So I have a question for all three of my readers: What have you bought because someone else made it sound like you should really get it?

I realize that people have had experiences like the one that LJ had with her Jambalaya, but surely you've bought something good because someone recommended it.

Done with CERT

Last Friday we had our final CERT meeting. It was actually our mock-disaster, and it was excellent!

It was held on Friday evening because the in-charge-ish captain from the Fire Department wanted to be there and couldn't come at our normal Tuesday night class time.

He picked four group leaders, and they each stood in corners of the room and took turns picking people from our class to be on their teams. I am proud to report that I was the second person picked out of our entire class. It was like public school physical education classes, where people from the class are chosen one by one. I used to always be picked last for that stuff, because I don't have an athletic bone in my body. Or muscle either. So I felt kind of bad for the last people picked, because I would have been happy to have any of them on our team. And being picked last sucks.

And now, an aside: something funny about our class is that there have been some funny issues with people's names. One lady who almost always sat in front of me was named Diane. (She still is, actually.) We had a fire fighter who started calling her Dinae (rhymes with Janae), though. And he didn't just do it once or twice, either. He name-dropped like crazy, as though he was trying to make her feel good because he was using her name, except that he had it wrong. And she corrected him once, and he made some excuse, and winked to keep it light-hearted. But then he went back to accidentally calling her that. So for the last few classes, a lot of us have called the lady Dinae, just because it's funny. She smiles about it too.

The other funny name thing is, we had a guy named Jeffrey. Jeffrey's an interesting guy. Anyway, our fire guy (for several weeks) was called Jeff. And before Jeff's second class, we had a conversation about names. (The firefighter Jeff remembered my name, because his wife is also an Emily (whose isn't?), but I hadn't remembered his name from the week before.) And Jeffrey from our class started talking about how he likes to be called Jeffrey and not Jeff, because his name isn't Jeff, and people shouldn't be lazy and shorten it. And the firefighter Jeff (who was actually really a Jeffrey but goes by Jeff), couldn't understand why Jeffrey was making a big deal about it, but even if it was kind of weird, Jeffrey was really clear about it anyway. AND THEN! Our firefighter Jeff obviously forgot all about it, because he shortened the guy in our class's name every time. It was really funny, because he wasn't doing it on purpose, but it obviously bothered Jeffrey even though he didn't mention it again.

Anyway, same guy in our class, Jeffrey, has also been really odd. He's from the singles ward that participated in our CERT. He's told us a few times about how he didn't kiss anyone until he was 29. And he has made a lot of winning comments like, "What if I can't touch anyone? Am I going to be able to do this in an emergency if I can't touch anyone? Because I really can't touch people. This one time, a lady was having [I forget what emergency] and I was right there, but someone else had to help her because I couldn't touch her." Or, "Last year, I made $9000, and I was only homeless for three days!... I lived with my girlfriend a lot that year. She was my fiance, but we didn't get married." Or, "I paid a lot of money to DeVry, but they wouldn't give me a degree because I'd never heard of algebra. Since when are numbers letters? Numbers should just be numbers. I was in special ed, and we never did algebra. I'd never heard of algebra before. So it was a waste of money. I have a high IQ, I just don't see things like other people do." Or, another time, someone asked everyone in class how they were doing, and he said "I have high blood sugar!" It was really very funny. The other people from his ward had heard all of his stories about 15 times, so they rolled their eyes a lot, I think. He was a nice guy, anyway.

Anyway, so the fire guy in charge of our CERT event picked four people, and he picked Dinae, and Jeffrey, and two other random people from the class. And of course Jeffrey picked me first for his team. So the whole event was really exciting. Jeffrey was supposed to be our team leader, and he didn't really do anything, because he was nervous about it all. Poor guy. At one point, he used special ed as an excuse. I told him, though, "Jeffrey. There is no special ed here. It's just CERT. And you're on CERT, and I'm on CERT, and we're all part of CERT, and we're all equal. And we just do our best, and don't worry too much, and you can do this. " So we had a little pep talk and kept going.

Basically, the way that the event worked, was, there were volunteers (mostly youth) who had fake injuries. Really good makeup fake injuries. So they looked like burn victims, and bruised, and bloody, and they were hidden all around the church building. And we had to find them, and organize things as though there were a real emergency and we were responding. There was search and rescue, and medical stuff, and so on. So we had 12 minutes to respond, and then the whole situation reset, and our group switched to a different responsibility. The first time, our organization was awful, and we totally didn't find all of the people, and were not very efficient, etc. By the fourth rotation, we did a pretty good job. I think in a real emergency, we would get the hang of it, even if we weren't completely organized until 15 or 20 minutes into the emergency.

My favorite part of the whole thing was using fire extinguishers. Which we finally did.

We took our pictures for our cards, had some final conversation about how things went, and CERT ended. Now I have a green backpack full of emergency response stuff, some interesting friends, a bunch of memories, a little bit of preparation for if there were (or when there is) an emergency, and free Tuesday nights.

New Music! (To me.)

Suppose you order something out of stupidity. You forget to cancel something that renews. You click the wrong button. Whatever. And then you think that an easy to get out of having to pay is by contesting it with your credit card company. Well, you can do that, and they can try to process a chargeback, but you really did order it (we have your name correct and your address correct, and your email address, and your cellphone number etc etc etc) and so you lose anyway. To be nice, some card companies will call to check into things before they process a chargeback. It's cheaper for us and for the card company, and for you the consumer. And the card company will ask if we're willing to set up a refund for you, since you didn't mean to order it, and usually we are, and things are ok even though you're not the brightest.

So for my job, I every few weeks or so will speak to someone from a card company. And usually they talk to me about it, and have our customer on hold, and they switch between talking to them and me, and then connect the two of us. Fine.

Today I talked to someone from American Express. And while they had me on hold for a little bit, I heard a song that I really liked. So I Googled the part that I remembered, "someday you're going to realise" "right up" and found it! It's "Fill My Little World" by "The Feeling", which is a British band from Sussex. I didn't think I had ever heard of them until I listened to one of their other songs, "Sewn," which was massively popular. And I did know that one.

So now today, I am just loving "The Feeling". Fun. Hooray for British hold music as a way for me to discover music.

Another Story Involving Police

Today I worked at my mall job. Partway through the day, a couple of girls from our store went to get soda. They had to go to the food court, because one of the places offers 'mall drinks', which are the huge size of cups, for $1 instead of like $3 or whatever large mall sodas cost.

They were gone for quite a while, and when they came back, they came from the wrong direction. We asked about it and they said there were a bunch of police out in front of our store (well, to the side a little). They said we should go peek. They were really curious about it.

I went out and walked around the whole scene and came back to report. There was a blond lady sitting on a mall bench, and one police guy was standing kind of near her. There was a group of police talking with a guy in a polo shirt, and another policeman with a Hispanic man. The incident stretched around half of a cellphone sales kiosk in the middle of the walkway.

What could it be, we wondered. Maybe sexual harassment, one of my coworkers thought.

We saw one of the policemen start questioning the lady. A little while later, they all left. They walked all kind of in a line, with the Hispanic guy in front, wearing handcuffs.

And like that, the situation dissolved. My coworkers kept wondering aloud what it was all about. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is not curious at all and 1o is extremely curious, I think I was probably at about a 2.5, and my coworkers were at about a 7.5 or an 8.) My coworker suggested I go out and ask the guy in the phone kiosk. And so I did.

What had happened was, the guy tried to steal shoes from a popular athletic shoe store in the mall. There had been someone following him, though, so they caught him. He was taken to jail for it. And get this: the blond lady was his girlfriend?/wife? and she's pregnant with his kid. Due-in-five-days pregnant with his kid. And he's in jail now.

So here's the moral of the story, kids: don't steal. Especially if your girlfriend is about to have a baby. Because that's just sad. If you can't afford shoes, buy some at DI. Or steal them from somewhere that isn't in a mall. (Have I written about how I feel about malls in that regard? I don't think so. I'll have to do that sometime.)

Also, this week I gave notice that I'll be finishing my work at the mall. This month marks one year of mall-working thrill and I think I've had my fun. I'm just too busy for it these days. I have three shifts left as of today.

Entertainment brought to you by the IRS: Tax Quotes!

I'm working on a special, top secret project which I find very interesting. (What else is new?) Because of this project, I discovered that the IRS has on their own website a list of Tax Quotes. And by 'quotes' I don't mean estimates. I mean things that people have said about taxes.

I'm shocked. I thought the IRS would be far too boring and serious of an entity to poke fun at themselves. Huh. Who knew.

My favorite quote from the list is: Actually, I have two favorites. They are:

“I am proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is – I could be just as proud for half the money.” — Arthur Godfrey, entertainer

“People who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women.”
— Unknown

Go on, see for yourself.

Fascinating, eh? Next thing you know, the IRS will be coming out with its own record label.
They can include this stuff on the first one:

1. The Taxes Song from the YT Debates <--- not bad.
2. Money (That's What I Want) The Flying Lizards<-- of course
3. TurboTax: The Rap <--- WOW!
4. Money Money Money; ABBA <-- also, of course
5. The guy done with his taxes music video. <-- huh?

Our food will make you 7% smarter. And nicer.

Something about healthy food, which kind of makes me laugh, is that there are quotes all over the place. Maybe they think that if you’re thoughtful enough to not be eating foods that hurt the environment, you’re a pretty thoughtful person, and they want to encourage that. I really don’t know. The brand names are exciting, and they put quotes on things.

Here is a quote from my box of wholesome, whole-wheat, vegetarian brownies:

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

And another one from my vegan breakfast cereal (which, by the way, is delicious):

“In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” - Baba Dioum, Senegalese conservationist

And the fun doesn’t stop there. Brownies have that quote, but the chocolate chip cookie box has a different one. And Wild Berry Crisp has Baba’s quote, but the Mango cereal has a totally different quote. And these are the only two I have on hand to blog about. Every day, all I have to do is eat, and I nourish my body AND mind. (Psh. And some people think they’re lucky to have word searches on the back of their cereal…)

Someone called the police.

Yesterday Erin and I went geocaching. [I'm so sorry that all of my blog posts are about caching lately! I promise that I actually do still have other hobbies! After this I have one more story to blog about that is half geocaching related, and then I'm done.]

I got a new phone which is really awesome because it lets me access the normal Internet from anywhere. Great! So the idea was that we would go to an area that I hadn't found much in, and then just look up stuff to find as we went.

We decided to go out by the Provo Town-ey Centre. And since we drove up behind it, we chose a particular cache in back to look for, and started looking. It was a BYOP cache (Bring Your Own Pen), which means that it's usually small enough for there to be no pen inside. Great. So it was probably going to be tiny.

The coordinates led us to a big power box out in the back of the mall parking lot, next to a kind-of busy road. There were also a couple trees the cache could be in, if it was really small, and really camouflaged, and the coordinates were a bit off, so we searched them too. Mostly we searched the power box, though, because it just had to be there somewhere. The difficulty was rated 4/5, which meant it was pretty hard, and someone had commented that it was clever.

We looked and looked, and didn't find it. And finally, right before we were about to give up, Erin found it. And it was clever.

And we walked back to the car, and I pulled up some nearby caches on my phone. And then we saw a police car going around the bend. "Oh, great," we thought. The police car pulled up near us, and the policeman got out and came up to our car. "What are you up to today," he asked after I opened the door. The mall security police van pulled up next to the police car. "Geocaching!" I told the policeman, and I held up my GPS and phone. He didn't say anything for a few seconds. "If it would make you feel better, I can show you where the cache is, " I offered, grinning.

He did want to see it. It was lucky that we'd found it, because otherwise I couldn't have shown him. He and I walked across back to the power box, and I showed him. "Do you get a lot of calls for geocaching?" "Quite a few. We had someone leave one in front of the police station, and of course if people leave a box in front of the police station, you don't just wonder about it. You call the bomb squad...." He told me about one time there was a cache out at Utah Lake where they had opened the box and were really confused with the contents "there's a deck of cards...and some papers and..." It was pretty funny. The police seemed to have gotten a big kick out of it just being geocaching.

Someone had reported us tampering with the power box, and they thought that maybe we were trying to turn out the power for the whole mall.

(Why would anyone even want to do that?)


Our final cache that we found yesterday was also exciting. It was one that required hiking. It took us about an hour to find it and get back to the car. Mostly because we didn't realize that there was parking about 50 feet from the cache. So we hiked a long way up the dried, rocky creek. About when we reached a big, fresh, bloody, furry deer carcass that smelled awful, we realized there was a paved road right along the creek on the south side. But it was too hard to climb out of the creek on the south side, so we climbed out on the north side instead. And then to cross the creek we had to hike up to a trail about 100 feet above us, at a very-upward angle. Then back down and across the whole thing at a part with a real trail.

I think if we had parked at the right spot it would have probably taken us 10-15 minutes total. Ah well. Hiking is good. And the weather was great.

Another Geocaching Post, Sort of.

Jess and Mitch have a geocaching joke. To humor my mom and I, they pretend that they're really interested in geocaching.

The joke is especially funny when Jess texts me.

9:00pm 1/18/08 From: Jess
Em, we've gotten like six geocaches on our way to Rexburg. I mean ten. Wish you were here.

11:17pm 2/12/08 From: Jess
Mitch said he's super sad that he's going to miss geocaching when youre here. Stupid trip to Chicago. OH WAIT! Ill bet there are geocaches in Chicago!

AND THEN! While I was actually visiting Jess, she and Mitch had a text message conversation that was similar:

11:13am 2/23/08 FROM: JESS TO: MITCH
We're still looking up geocaches. [sigh]

11:14am 2/23/08 FROM: MITCH TO: JESS
Oh... You love spending 55 hours looking for geocaches. Make sure you collect lots of geocoins. I have allready found 12 in Chicago so you will have to beat me.

11:15am 2/23/08 FROM: JESS TO: MITCH
Really? Well, we are finding a bunch of travel bugs so that we can move them.

11:16am 2/23/08 FROM: MITCH TO: JESS
Oh yeah I uh did 17 of those too... I am the best geocacher ever.

11:17am 2/23/08 FROM: JESS TO: MITCH
Gosh, youre a way better geocacher than me. Are you letting all your work friends help find them too?

11:17am 2/23/08 FROM: MITCH TO: JESS [no, her husband isn't texting me love messages.]
Yeah we have been skipping lunches and breaks to find them. Love you pretty girl.


So, that was the conversation that they had, which Jessica read to me as it happened. AWESOME. I had her forward them to me so that I could post about this.

The thing that's really funny about it all is, they don't geocache at all. Ever.