Rather AMAZING!

Anyone who knows me better than a midget knows kids' sizes KNOWS I LOVE camping! Last night I rounded up my roommate Waldo, a couple buddies, my girlfriend, and her two kids and headed up North for the night. Steaks, smores, hot dogs, pickles, hiking, spot lighting, diggin holes, and drinking silly amounts of exotic gourmet soda all contributed to a GREAT TIME!

Here's some pics from our enjoyable get away, followed by one SERIOUSLY AMAZING video I took during our spotlighting adventure! Outside of the time I saw 2 mountain lions running together, it's by far the coolest thing I've ever seen with a spotlight. Especially because it stood there while I tooks pictures and videos of it...

Waldo, Destiny, and John... Waldo appears to be the most relaxed. haha.

Bonnie and I... How's that for some proper grammer!

Bonnie's daughter Grace and her ever-loving "dolly"...

Bonnie's son Tucker with his, "It's 2 hours past my bedtime but I can't stop staring at the AWESOME fire" look on his face...

I told you, the kid wouldn't stop looking at the fire...

Tucker preferred star gazing over eating his hot dog...

Probably the only candid shot of Bonnie from the trip...

If he wasn't staring at the fire he was staring at the dirt! Oh to be a kid again...

Waldo enjoying his last bite of steak...

Apparently John missed the "We're camping in the mountains, not Hawaii memo"...

Just enjoyin myself...

Tucker had marshmallows for breakfast! CLASSIC...

We took a small hike this morning, and naturally it broke into a quick game of hide and seek...

The kids starting to fall behind...

I LOVE this picture! HA HA! Grace didn't last very long on the hike...

Nothing like a cold pop and a cool mountain breeze...


Ok, this is a video I took last night when we were spotlighting. Excuse my child-like excitement throughout...

Ok, so now for the second post...

I recently lost a "friendly" wager about losing 20 pounds in 6 weeks. Admittedly I didn't try very hard, and will make no further excuses. However, it aggravates me to know that I weigh more now than I ever have in my life. There is also something else that aggravates me... SHAVING! So I figured why not combine my dislike for weight gain and shaving and make it a publicized ordeal.

Tonight I will purchase a scale and weigh myself. I will also shave. Then, if I can lose 2 and a half pounds a week, for 6 weeks, I get to keep my beard. In other words, my goal is 15 pounds in 6 weeks. However, I will weigh myself every saturday night and if I don't weigh in 2.5 pounds lighter than the previous week, I have to shave! GAME ON!

My Bad...

After leaving the missionary training center and reporting to the great state of Georgia I was placed in the mid-sized southern town of Waycross. Home to the Okefenokee Swamp, some seriously "backwoods" moonshiners, and the Howe family. Papa Howe owned the Chick-fil-A at the center of town. Now when you're on an LDS missionary and somebody tells you that there is a place you can eat for free whenever you want you get pretty giddy. When that same someone tells you that the place you can eat for free is Chick-fil-A it makes you want to hug a stranger and say, "I wish we'd known each other, this is a little awkward." At least that's what it made me want to do.

So one day after woofing down some Chik-fil-A for lunch the Howe family invited us over for Dinner. All I could think was, "Chick-fil-A for lunch AND dinner? For free both times? That's BALLIN!" So my companion and I showed up at the Howe's right on schedule, met the family, and then sat around the table to enjoy some delicious bird!

It was a fairly elongated kitchen table. I remember Papa Howe sitting at one end of it and my companion sitting at the other. I took a seat in the middle of one side, and sitting directly across from me was Papa Howe's teenage daughter. I had nobody to my left or right on my side. Now before I go any farther for those of you that don't understand the rules about "girls" when you're on a mission it's very similar to the rules about girls when you're in prison. Sort of. Aside from a handshake, you can't touch em. There's no fratenizing, no dating, and no flirtatious exchanging of digits.

Ok, so back to the table. We were all shooting the breeze while I basically inhaled my chicken sandwich, when suddenly I felt someone's foot brush up against my leg. It started at my ankle and slowly worked it's way up to my knee. I promptly dropped my sandwich on my wrapper and looked directly across the table. The Howe girl was chattin it up with her brother, who if I recall correctly had some rad name... like Chip! Ya-ya... It was Chip! Anyways, she looked everything BUT guilty when it came to the leg graze so I passed it off as accidental and continued eating my sandwich.

Moments later I felt it again, this time it started at my knee and traveled down to my foot! This time I mumbled a subtle, "What the heck!? as I again dropped my sandwich and immediately began looking across the table. This time she was eating... casually... but still paying no attention to me. I looked at her brother sitting next her thinking maybe it was him doing it, just messing around, but he too looked not guilty. Confused, and still very hungry, I once again played it off as an accident and picked up my sandwich.

THEN... Not even 30 seconds later it starts to happen again! I couldn't take it anymore! I pushed my chair back from the table, stood up, threw both my hands out to the side, looked straight at her, and said, "OK FOR REAL... YOU GOTTA QUIT TOUCHING MY LEG!" My rather strange statement, and the fact that I was standing up whenI said it, abruptly drew the attention of Papa Howe. His eyes turned directly towards his daughter and the expression on his face was one of, "Are you seriously touching his leg?"

Suddenly, without warning, a cat leaped out from under the table and began slowly walking out of the kitchen. It looked directly at me as if to say, "GOT YOU!" There was a solid three or four seconds of awkward silence as me, my companion, and the entire Howe family put 2 and 2 together. We must have laughed for a half an hour about how I mistook the cat's tail for this girl's foot!

The moral of this story... CATS ARE GAY!!!!

The Dating Trifecta

3 girls (3 changed names), 3 awkward dates, and 3 lessons learned.

Girl 1: Jenny
Awkward date title: Are you serious Clark???
Lesson learned: Opposites do NOT always attract.

Anytime you're a dude at college and you're single, and you like a girl at college, who is also single, and that girl says to you at anytime, "I really feel like you should ask my rommate out" it's NEVER a good sign. In my real world experience it means 1 of 2 things.
1) The girls roommate keeps all her rommates up at night venting about how guys never ask her out. She says all this as she buries her face in an organic chemistry textbook, and post her 5th status update of the day about how much she misses her cats at home. Or something like that.
2) The girl YOU LIKE has little to no interest IN YOU and is attempting to subtly pawn your attraction off to her roommate.

In the case of a girl named Jenny it was #1. I was "mildly" obsessed with a girl one semester named Hannah. We had a class together and admittedly I went out of my way every class period to say something to her. Eventually we became friends and I had some high hopes of winning her over. Just when I thought I might get that chance, however, she began venting to me one day about her roommate. She told me her roommate Jenny was constantly complaining about never being asked out. She said that Jenny would literally keep her up at night obsessing over guys but ending nearly every sentence with, "but he won't ask me out so what am I suppossed to do?"

Hannah went on to tell me that Jenny is "really fun" and "Scott I think you'd have a really good time if you took her out." At this point I had a decision to make. I could go ahead and take Jenny out once, in hopes that my "good deed" would score me some brownie points with Hannah, or I could politely tell Hannah that the "majoring in whining and complaining about never getting asked out while they spend 9 hours a day at the library" type of girls just weren't... well, they just weren't my type.

I chose to take my chances with the brownie points and went ahead and set up a date with Jenny. Thankfully, I could hardly classify it as a date. You see Jenny didn't have much time because she had to study. Classic. So I decided our "date" would be strolling down Main Street in Rexburg, Idaho so we could hit up the snow cone booth. So we did just that. I drove to her house, and we began walking towards the "Sno-Shack"... makers of the greatest shaved ice west of... campus??? Sure, whatever.

After 10 minutes of walking we took our places at the end of an enormous line of "couples" -- all hoping to win their dates over with $1.50 snow cones. By the time it was our turn to choose from one of like 37 flavors, I had already come to the conclusion that I had more in common with a whales uterus than I did with this girl. And I don't even have a uterus, so you do the math. I mean the girl told me she hated camping and fishing, never played sports, hated to watch sports, loved cats, enjoyed having a curfew, and wanted to be a music teacher. Things went from "zero to I wish i drove here so I could take her home faster" in like 10 minutes! One ridiculously large snow-cone, and 5 more minutes of awkwardness later, and we began the short journey back to her place. Needless to say, I never went out with Jenny again, and unfortunately Hannah had a boyfriend like a week later so apparently my brownie points theory back fired big time!

Girl 2: Michelle
Awkward date title: Wow, that's crazy!
Lesson learned: Choose your questions carefully

I took a girl named Michelle on a date once. It was our first date. We met at a dance. That was my mistake. I should've never been there. She lived on the opposite side of town and by that I mean I made sure to fill my tank up the night before. The date was thrown together fairly quickly but she was really anxious to go out and considering I found her highly attractive I didn't want to miss an opportunity. So not much was planned by the time I arrived to pick her up. I went in her house for a little bit, met her paps, and we tossed a few ideas back and forth about what we should do. After a few minutes I was surprised when she turned down a plethora of simple "get to know you style" ideas and chose to drive up near Payson, build a little fire, make smores, and tell jokes. I'm pretty sure I phrased it that way when I asked her too.

So we ventured up highway 87, but we never made it to Payson. Just our luck we chose the night they had a massive overnight construction project going on. We decided we didn't feel like waiting it out in traffic so we flipped a U-turn and looked for the first dirt road we could turn off on. We found one fairly quickly and I drove in a few hundred yards and we parked. We never made a fire and we never made smores. And no we didn't make a baby either, so you can stop thinking that's where this is going. Instead we just sat there and talked while we munched on "gas station" specials we snagged before leaving town. The conversation was honestly fun. She was a bit sarcastic at times which of course tickled my ear drums so I didn't mind just sitting there talking. The conversation remained fun... for about the first 20 minutes. Then, apparently I asked the wrong question. I don't remember exactly how I phrased it but it was something like, "So have you had very good luck with the dating scene out here in the East valley?"

Ladies and gentleman, anyone who knows me knows that I can talk the bark off a tree stump, and I am more than guilty of my fair share of incoherent rambling, but never in my life did I expect the 30 minutes following my question to unfold the way that they did! I wish I had her response tape recorded! I can't hardly recall a tenth of it. All I know is I must have said the phrase, "Wow, that's crazy!" 57 times in a half hour. She went off about being physically, sexually, and emotionally abused by previous boyfriends. She told me about how one of them punched her in the face and she had to get a restraining order against him. She continued on to tell me some of the craziest things I'd ever heard, and when she was basically done she looked at me and said the greatest line ever... "So you'd be ok with just taking things slow right?" My response? "Well, I'm not about to punch you in the face if that's what you're wondering!" Ya let's just say we didn't become freinds!

Girl 3: Emily
Awkward date title: Never actually happened
Lesson Learned: Stay out of the Library

This one's short and sweet because it never actually turned into a date. You see, not counting group projects I can count on one hand the times I entered the library during the 11 semester I attended BYU-Idaho. The library creeped me out. It was chuck full of uber awkward busniess majors preying on first semseter freshman girls. They'd try to be all sly but I had them figured out. They'd take a seat next to some hot young blonde, put there back pack full of business books on the table and make some sort of comment like, "Oh sorry if I shook the table, I just got so many business books I need to study tonight! I'm a business major in case you were wondering! What's your name?" Ok, so maybe it wasn't quite like that but it was close!

Well one night I found myself sitting next to a cute girl at a fairly large study table. She came up after me so trust me, I wasn't creeping on her! Over the next 45 minutes we chatted about a little bit of everything. I debated over and over again to ask her for her phone number, but I chickened out repeatedly! Eventually she started packing up her things and I decided I didn't need her number to ask her out. I could ask her out first and then get her number. So nay do I crap you, I asked her straight up if she wanted to go out some time. She responded with, "hmmmm, seriously?" I said, ya! Seriously!" She sort of chuckled, smiled at me, and said, "Maybe." Just then a guy walked u, held her around her waist and kissed her. Then I saw the ring on her finger, quietly packed up my things, and exited the library as quickly as I could, the whole time repeating over and over in my head, "What was all that "maybe" talk?" Gotta love the library!

"Bucky, go get the controllers!"

As a kid my mother was the most loving person I knew. Still is actually. But I vividly remember there were 2 things that my mother absolutely LOATHED, without exception. She basically considered them the devil in animated and objective form. The first was any sort of Nintendo, and the second was The Simpsons. Ironically she loved soap operas, which I can't see scoring much higher than The Simpsons on the "classy" scale, but whatever.

The solution to the lack of Simpson's viewing in my home came in one of two forms. The first was to go downstairs and start watching it on the tv in the basement, closely paying attention for that distinct noise of "moms footsteps" coming down the stairs. Then quickly changing the channel to something else when you heard the equally distinct sound of the basement door opening.

The second solution was to cross your fingers and hope dad got home and started flipping through the channels before The Simpsons was over. This because he would usually start watching it if he saw that it was on. Of course even if dad turned it on it never took my mom more than a few seconds to start giving him a hard time about it. But then my dad would fire back with some witty wise crack like, "you know your mother doesn't like this show because I tell her she acts like Marge." It didn't matter how many times I heard him say that I laughed EVERY TIME! I did this NOT because I found it equally hilarious each time, but because I thought that laughing at his joke about The Simpsons would increase the chances that he'd keep it on that channel!

The earliest solution I can remember to the Nintendo shortage was to rent one. Weren't those the days??? Video Powerstore, not even a mile from the home I grew up in, would rent out Super Nintendos and Sega Genisis consoles. The only problem was my mom would only let us rent them like EVERY OTHER year on our birthdays. A far more convienant option was to have my cousin Bryan spend the night and bring his Super Nintendo with him.

Well one night when I was younger me, Bryan, and my little brother Russ were up late playing super nintendo and apparently we were being a little too loud. So my grandma who was visiting from Utah came down into the basement and gave us a couple of warnings. All of which we obeyed for only a matter of minutes before returning to our loud and obnoxious childhood antics! Well we collectively underestimated the seriousness of my Grandma's threat and next thing we knew she confiscated the controllers and took them upstairs with her!

Boy were we fired up! Well, I suppose I should say, "Boy was IIIIII fired up!" I guess I can't speak for Bryan or Russ, but I can assume they were just as upset! So as the three of us laid there talking smack about my grandma Russ and Bryan kept saying, "Dude, Bucky, go get the controllers!" I was hesitant at first but slowly began to develop a master plan to get the controllers back! After a couple of minutes and some fine tuning in my mind I ran my idea by Bryan and Russ who were suddenly reluctant to give their approval. I was confused... 5 minutes ago they were practically begging me to go get the controllers. This of course got me even more fired up, so I stood up and said something like, "Fine dude I'll get the controllers myself! Grandma's old, she's probably sleeping anyways, this is gonna be a piece of cake!"

So I stood up from the cushions that composed my bed for the night and began to creep towards the door that led to the upstairs. I was cautiously placing my feet between Bryan and Russ, when out of left field I heard MY GRANDMA'S VOICE only a few feet behind me... "I wouldn't do that if I were you!" I don't remember if I cursed or not while I simultaneously screamed and jumped a couple feet in the air, but either way it was scary! I mean where did she even come from??? How had she made it all the way down the stairs and positioned herself perfectly behind me without me noticing??? And why was she just sitting there ont he couch all creepy listening to me talk smack about her old age, and never say anything??? Needless to say we remained "controller-less" for the remainder of the night.

The moral of this story??? Never underestimate your Grandma!