My sweet wife and I celebrated our one year anniversary in Salt Lake. To celebrate we got the couple's getaway package at the Little America Hotel. It was an enjoyable evening. I can't believe it....1 year!?
While in Salt Lake we ate at a famous restaraunt Litza's Pizza...Ok so it is not so famous, but it tasted good enough. While eating dinner I recalled a weekend assignment Shayne Clarke gave us the week before. Shayne officially owns a piece of my brain now. On my ANNIVERSARY I am thinking of MCOMM... There is definitely something wrong with that picture. Anyway, the weekend assignment was to buy a stranger a Coke. So, I as I was leaving I told the waitress that we would pick up the drinks for the table next to us. They seemed like a nice enough couple.
My "lesson learned" was that you don't have to know someone to do service. Thank you Shayne.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
The Prodigal Son Returns!!
This week was a very eventful week. My little brother just got home from his LDS mission in Santa Rosa, CA. It was especially neat for me because I haven't seen him in 3 1/2 years (our missions overlapped). He is doing amazing, in fact, so amazing that we went to lunch at Zupas (thanks Shayne for the advertising there) and five girls stopped to hug him and say how much they missed him.
The title of this blog is a little misleading. In fact it is a complete lie. Justin was never the prodigal son. If you have read the Book of Mormon there is a character named Captain Moroni. A scripture about Captain Moroni says that if every man were like Captain Moroni the very gates of hell would be shaken forever. That is like my little brother. Another character he is like is Nephi. Nephi was a prophet first one that we know, in the Book of Mormon, he helped things to grow. Ok sorry. Nephi was awesome though; however, he had two older brothers that were rebellious. I always thought growing up that Justin was Nephi, my older brother was Laman, and I was Lemuel. It was sad I was Lemuel, because he just did anything Laman did. Anyway, that is how cool he was.
I learned of my little brother's spirituality when we were young. My friends and I were playing slingshots in my room one day, while Justin was reading his Bible. We were shooting Jenga blocks, Hot Wheel cars, etc, and totally oblivious to Justin on his bed. Well, one of the Jengas flew and hit him in the head. He suddenly became full of the Spirit, and stood up on his bed with his countenance glowing like Moses' after coming down from Mt. Sinai. With conviction in his voice he said, "Whoever hit me with this wooden block better come forth!" We were rebuked to say the least.
This was a very important lesson for me to learn. That lesson was reinforced today when he gave a powerful sermon at church. My "lesson learned" is that my little brother has always, and will always, inspire me to be a better person. After his talk today I rededicated my life to living more righteously. Thank you little Nephi.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
The Invincible
In junior high school I thought that I was invincible. Nothing could touch me. Every sport I played in I was the best. The biggest reason for this was the obvious fact that I hit puberty before everyone else (in 6th grade as a matter of fact). I thought that I was so cool because I was shaving in 7th grade, I had armpit hair before everyone else, and I was about a head taller than everyone. Of course that was short lived when I stayed 5' 8" until this very day... However, in junior high school nothing could touch me.
One night in particular I decided to test my invinciblity and I came home past my curfew. My mom was furious. Being the quick thinker I am, I recognized that my mom was pretty frazzled from being busy all day working from home. Therefore, I simply told her that I had previously asked her if I could stay out later and she gave me permission. She also realized how busy she was, and realized that what I had said could have very easily been the truth, and she let me off the hook. It was genious.
From that moment on I realized how easily I could get away with things, and soon enough every excuse was, "Mom, I PROMISE you told me I could sleep over at Tommy's house," or "Dad said it was ok (vice versa to my dad)." I was living the high life, and as I mentioned earlier, I was untouchable. The problem came when I started to let that get to my head too much, and my parents were smarter than I had given them credit. They caught on, and soon enough my @$$ was grass (pardon my French). There were two "lessons learned" at that moment (a) my parents were pretty clever no matter how busy they were, and (b) think of more excuses!!!
One night in particular I decided to test my invinciblity and I came home past my curfew. My mom was furious. Being the quick thinker I am, I recognized that my mom was pretty frazzled from being busy all day working from home. Therefore, I simply told her that I had previously asked her if I could stay out later and she gave me permission. She also realized how busy she was, and realized that what I had said could have very easily been the truth, and she let me off the hook. It was genious.
From that moment on I realized how easily I could get away with things, and soon enough every excuse was, "Mom, I PROMISE you told me I could sleep over at Tommy's house," or "Dad said it was ok (vice versa to my dad)." I was living the high life, and as I mentioned earlier, I was untouchable. The problem came when I started to let that get to my head too much, and my parents were smarter than I had given them credit. They caught on, and soon enough my @$$ was grass (pardon my French). There were two "lessons learned" at that moment (a) my parents were pretty clever no matter how busy they were, and (b) think of more excuses!!!
Look how invincible I am!
Monday, May 17, 2010
What Makes a "Good" Driver?
This is kind of an embarrassing story, but it is a very important one for me. I have been driving since I was 16 (I know, that’s crazy right?) I like to consider myself a pretty darn good driver. I don’t think that tickets constitute your skill as a driver. I think the main thing that sets a good driver apart from a not so good one is the number of wrecks they’ve been in. When I say wrecks I am saying it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. I am pretty sure that every wreck is preventable. I have had 5 tickets in my life, all of them speeding, and I have been in one accident…technically. Ok, so I’ve been in one accident, and I hit a parked car…maybe I am more on the not so good driver side. Not completely on the bad driver side, but definitely leaning there.
I want to explain how exactly I hit a parked car. First off, I have known my wife since I was 15, and we dated when I was 17. She is beautiful, and I mean beautiful. Maybe I’ll post a picture if she’ll let me. She was a grade older than me in grade school, so I felt that I really needed to be cool to impress her. This particular story happened when I was a senior in high school and she was a freshman at BYU…. I thought I was doomed. Well, I always wanted to spend a lot of time with her to keep her from the horny freshman at BYU, so about three times a week I would pick her up from work and take her to lunch, or take her lunch. This particular incident happened when I was dropping her back off at work.
Harmon’s was right down the street from Rachel’s work, and we used to go there for lunch. I loved getting the Bolthouse fruit drinks. They are so rich and delicious. So I was drinking the “Berry Boost” and to my defense those drinks tickle your taste buds. Well as I was driving through her parking lot my mind was engulfed by the plethora of flavor in my mouth, and each gulp was better than the one before. The bottle was about a third of the way full at the time, and my gulps weren’t just sips. I full on wrenched my head back to get as much of this fruity goodness as possible. During one of those head-wrenching gulps, I let the drink down pretty fast hitting the bottom of the bottle against the steering wheel, and spilling that precious juice all over my shirt. While I had a mixture of emotions between laughter, sheer anger for spilling this manna from heaven, and utter amazement I let the car drift to my left, and I struck a parked car going about 15 miles per hour. It was really embarrassing to say the least. So my “lesson learned,” so to speak, is to never drink and drive…especially with a Bolthouse Farms drink.
I want to explain how exactly I hit a parked car. First off, I have known my wife since I was 15, and we dated when I was 17. She is beautiful, and I mean beautiful. Maybe I’ll post a picture if she’ll let me. She was a grade older than me in grade school, so I felt that I really needed to be cool to impress her. This particular story happened when I was a senior in high school and she was a freshman at BYU…. I thought I was doomed. Well, I always wanted to spend a lot of time with her to keep her from the horny freshman at BYU, so about three times a week I would pick her up from work and take her to lunch, or take her lunch. This particular incident happened when I was dropping her back off at work.
Harmon’s was right down the street from Rachel’s work, and we used to go there for lunch. I loved getting the Bolthouse fruit drinks. They are so rich and delicious. So I was drinking the “Berry Boost” and to my defense those drinks tickle your taste buds. Well as I was driving through her parking lot my mind was engulfed by the plethora of flavor in my mouth, and each gulp was better than the one before. The bottle was about a third of the way full at the time, and my gulps weren’t just sips. I full on wrenched my head back to get as much of this fruity goodness as possible. During one of those head-wrenching gulps, I let the drink down pretty fast hitting the bottom of the bottle against the steering wheel, and spilling that precious juice all over my shirt. While I had a mixture of emotions between laughter, sheer anger for spilling this manna from heaven, and utter amazement I let the car drift to my left, and I struck a parked car going about 15 miles per hour. It was really embarrassing to say the least. So my “lesson learned,” so to speak, is to never drink and drive…especially with a Bolthouse Farms drink.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
The Sting Felt Through the Years
I like to consider myself as a religious man, and there is a scripture that has stuck out to me ever since I read it. What it basically says is that the Lord forms us from the womb. I really feel that the Lord has done that, i.e. formed me from the womb. This post is about an experience that I had that helped mold me (even if incrementally) into the man I am today.
The story that I would like to share this week is a story that was brought back to my memory just yesterday. It was a story of when I was a young lad in kindergarten. The reason this story was brought back to my memory was because my wife and I were working in the garden on Friday. While slaving away my sweet wife had an unfortunate run in with a bee. It ended badly with the bee stinging her, and I had to come to the rescue. Luckily I knew exactly what to do! After all I did receive my "first-class" rank in Boy Scouts. I applied some mud to the wound instantly relieving her suffering hand. It brought back the memory of when I was first stung by a bee.
When I was in kindergarten I used to go to a Daycare while my parents were at work. My little brother and I called the Daycare "Teacher and Granddad's" (Not really sure why). Naturally, I ran the show at Teacher and Granddad's. At that age I was really busy with my friends playing tee-ball, exploring their 1-acre backyard like Lewis and Clark, and saving the world everyday as our favorite super-hero. As I said, I ran the show.
One day in particular we were especially busy saving the world with our made up super-heroes. My friend/sidekick had wheels as feet, and swords as arms. I was really cool as a guy who was as speedy as Flash, my left arm was a really strong vacuum, and my right arm was as strong as Hulk's. So what I would do was suck our enemies with the vacuum, and knock them out with my right arm. Or, I would suck trees, and knock them out with the trees. At the moment I was struck by my arch nemesis, the bee, my sidekick and I were losing ground from the enemies. One enemy pushed me really hard so I started falling backwards waving my arms to try and keep balance, but I unfortunately fell hands first into the arch-nemesis, the bee. He won... I was in excruciating pain. I ran in to plead my case with Teacher, and this is where my soul forming begins.
I told Teacher the whole story, from us creating our super-heroes, to fighting off the villains, and falling to my doom on the bee. To my amazement she didn't believe me!! The woman I called TEACHER didn't believe a word I was saying. To make matters worse, she accused me of trying to catch the bees (I assume she got that idea from the week earlier when we actually were trying to catch bees). I couldn't believe what was happening. I mean, who in their right mind would try and catch bees. It was ludicrous! I reassured her that what she was saying was not the case, however she wouldn't budge. She continued to make her accusation until I would admit defeat. I felt as if I was being tortured, and I had to give in, just to appease the pain. So the unthinkable happened....I gave in. The arm-sucking, Hulk arm, speedy man admitted defeat to an event that never happened. I told her that we were indeed trying to catch bees while the real truth is we were playing super-heroes. I went home that day put-out to say the least.
There is an upside to the story however. The part that I feel was the most soul forming of the entire experience. The "lesson learned," so to speak. When I got home that day I went to my mom and showed her the battle scar that I had received on my right hand ( the Hulk hand). I tried one last time to plead my case, and told her exactly what happened. To my astonishment/relief she believed me! Not only did she believe me, but she felt compassion for me. My mom nurtured me back to health, both physically and spiritually. The down-trodden could now hold his head up high, because of a mother's touch. I learned at that time that my mom was indeed the most caring woman in the world, and I also learned that from that time forward I would be a "Momma's Boy." I love you mom! Happy Mother's Day!
The story that I would like to share this week is a story that was brought back to my memory just yesterday. It was a story of when I was a young lad in kindergarten. The reason this story was brought back to my memory was because my wife and I were working in the garden on Friday. While slaving away my sweet wife had an unfortunate run in with a bee. It ended badly with the bee stinging her, and I had to come to the rescue. Luckily I knew exactly what to do! After all I did receive my "first-class" rank in Boy Scouts. I applied some mud to the wound instantly relieving her suffering hand. It brought back the memory of when I was first stung by a bee.
When I was in kindergarten I used to go to a Daycare while my parents were at work. My little brother and I called the Daycare "Teacher and Granddad's" (Not really sure why). Naturally, I ran the show at Teacher and Granddad's. At that age I was really busy with my friends playing tee-ball, exploring their 1-acre backyard like Lewis and Clark, and saving the world everyday as our favorite super-hero. As I said, I ran the show.
One day in particular we were especially busy saving the world with our made up super-heroes. My friend/sidekick had wheels as feet, and swords as arms. I was really cool as a guy who was as speedy as Flash, my left arm was a really strong vacuum, and my right arm was as strong as Hulk's. So what I would do was suck our enemies with the vacuum, and knock them out with my right arm. Or, I would suck trees, and knock them out with the trees. At the moment I was struck by my arch nemesis, the bee, my sidekick and I were losing ground from the enemies. One enemy pushed me really hard so I started falling backwards waving my arms to try and keep balance, but I unfortunately fell hands first into the arch-nemesis, the bee. He won... I was in excruciating pain. I ran in to plead my case with Teacher, and this is where my soul forming begins.
I told Teacher the whole story, from us creating our super-heroes, to fighting off the villains, and falling to my doom on the bee. To my amazement she didn't believe me!! The woman I called TEACHER didn't believe a word I was saying. To make matters worse, she accused me of trying to catch the bees (I assume she got that idea from the week earlier when we actually were trying to catch bees). I couldn't believe what was happening. I mean, who in their right mind would try and catch bees. It was ludicrous! I reassured her that what she was saying was not the case, however she wouldn't budge. She continued to make her accusation until I would admit defeat. I felt as if I was being tortured, and I had to give in, just to appease the pain. So the unthinkable happened....I gave in. The arm-sucking, Hulk arm, speedy man admitted defeat to an event that never happened. I told her that we were indeed trying to catch bees while the real truth is we were playing super-heroes. I went home that day put-out to say the least.
There is an upside to the story however. The part that I feel was the most soul forming of the entire experience. The "lesson learned," so to speak. When I got home that day I went to my mom and showed her the battle scar that I had received on my right hand ( the Hulk hand). I tried one last time to plead my case, and told her exactly what happened. To my astonishment/relief she believed me! Not only did she believe me, but she felt compassion for me. My mom nurtured me back to health, both physically and spiritually. The down-trodden could now hold his head up high, because of a mother's touch. I learned at that time that my mom was indeed the most caring woman in the world, and I also learned that from that time forward I would be a "Momma's Boy." I love you mom! Happy Mother's Day!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Pee Drinking Crap Face
I was thinking awhile about a theme I might do for this blog. Every blog needs a theme, right? While contemplating I realized a couple of things 1) Only my wife thinks I am funny, she laughs at every joke I say...One of the reasons I am madly in love with her 2) I am ok at writing and 3) I am pretty sure that I think I am cooler than I really am. In realizing that I decided to try and implement all three of those things: I will try to be funny, I will write every week, and I will tell you cool stories about how cool I am.
My wife actually gave me the idea for this post. I like to tell stories about when I was younger. A good story is about 40% true, and the rest is either exaggerated or completely false. So, I thought that I could write stories about when I was younger, and pull lessons that I learned from those stories, hence the blog name "A Lesson Learned." When I say younger that could be any story before today...right?
The title of this post, if you didn't know, is from a famous movie, Sandlot. This movie is awesome. This part of the movie is when the only other baseball team in the movie rides their bikes up to the "Sandlot" to challenge Benny "the Jet" Rodriguez, and gang, to a baseball game. A few not so kind words were exchanged between Ham, the fat catcher, and the leader of the other team. Ham, along with so many other names, calls the leader "you pee drinking crap face." I personally wouldn't know what to say back to that except, wow.
The reason I chose this as my title was because I LOVE this movie. It reminds me a little bit of what me and my gang were like when we were in Elementary, however we were even more into baseball. Smalls, the main character, says that summer they lived, and breathed baseball. To us it was a lot more intense. We WORSHIPPED baseball.
Although we had a whole lot of guys that we would run with, there was three of us that particularly loved baseball, and that was Rhett Palfryman, Chris Benson, and myself. The Braves were our favorite team, because, well who else would be our favorite team? Chris (my uncle who is a year older than me) and I were Chipper Jones guys, while Rhett was a Fred McGriff fan. I could go on for hours telling you story after story about how much we loved baseball. In fact I already have to my wife, bless her soul. However, telling you the stories would pull away from the "lesson learned," and quite frankly this post has gotten pretty long. Real quick though, I used the word "worship" above for a specific reason. When I say we worshipped baseball, this is not one of those times I am exaggerating. Rhett and I went to the same church for four years. Every Sunday during the main service we would write down the Atlanta Braves lineup, positions, and circle our favorite players. DURING CHURCH! We would then compare notes afterwards... If that is not worship I don't know what is. We would play baseball all the time. If we weren't playing real baseball, we were either pretending, or playing some made up form of baseball. The ONLY time we took a break was Super Bowl Sunday when we would play tackle football in my room, on our knees, while watching the Super Bowl. Those days were awesome, and it wasn't just awesome that we played so much, it was awesome because we were awesome at baseball.
All three of us were always on the all-star team. When I was 11, I was picked first overall in the city league draft to the Dodgers (we took third that year, I could tell you everyone on the team). This talent lasted all through Junior High for all three of us. It wasn't until High School that my talent started to plateau. I have looked back on it for a long time, and wondered why that had happened, and lately I have realized something. It stopped being fun for me. I was playing for the recognition, and to have my stats look good. I realized that because I have started a baseball team for old people, and it's fun again. I lost sight of why I played baseball, and what made it America's past time. It is just so stinking fun!
I have learned a valuable lesson, that when you stop loving something, and you are doing it for the wrong reasons, it starts to lose its purpose. Not only does it lose its meaning, but your performance starts to either plateau, or degrades. When you start to feel that plateau remember why it is that you started it in the first place, and try to focus on that. That to me was "a lesson learned."
My wife actually gave me the idea for this post. I like to tell stories about when I was younger. A good story is about 40% true, and the rest is either exaggerated or completely false. So, I thought that I could write stories about when I was younger, and pull lessons that I learned from those stories, hence the blog name "A Lesson Learned." When I say younger that could be any story before today...right?
The title of this post, if you didn't know, is from a famous movie, Sandlot. This movie is awesome. This part of the movie is when the only other baseball team in the movie rides their bikes up to the "Sandlot" to challenge Benny "the Jet" Rodriguez, and gang, to a baseball game. A few not so kind words were exchanged between Ham, the fat catcher, and the leader of the other team. Ham, along with so many other names, calls the leader "you pee drinking crap face." I personally wouldn't know what to say back to that except, wow.
The reason I chose this as my title was because I LOVE this movie. It reminds me a little bit of what me and my gang were like when we were in Elementary, however we were even more into baseball. Smalls, the main character, says that summer they lived, and breathed baseball. To us it was a lot more intense. We WORSHIPPED baseball.
Although we had a whole lot of guys that we would run with, there was three of us that particularly loved baseball, and that was Rhett Palfryman, Chris Benson, and myself. The Braves were our favorite team, because, well who else would be our favorite team? Chris (my uncle who is a year older than me) and I were Chipper Jones guys, while Rhett was a Fred McGriff fan. I could go on for hours telling you story after story about how much we loved baseball. In fact I already have to my wife, bless her soul. However, telling you the stories would pull away from the "lesson learned," and quite frankly this post has gotten pretty long. Real quick though, I used the word "worship" above for a specific reason. When I say we worshipped baseball, this is not one of those times I am exaggerating. Rhett and I went to the same church for four years. Every Sunday during the main service we would write down the Atlanta Braves lineup, positions, and circle our favorite players. DURING CHURCH! We would then compare notes afterwards... If that is not worship I don't know what is. We would play baseball all the time. If we weren't playing real baseball, we were either pretending, or playing some made up form of baseball. The ONLY time we took a break was Super Bowl Sunday when we would play tackle football in my room, on our knees, while watching the Super Bowl. Those days were awesome, and it wasn't just awesome that we played so much, it was awesome because we were awesome at baseball.
All three of us were always on the all-star team. When I was 11, I was picked first overall in the city league draft to the Dodgers (we took third that year, I could tell you everyone on the team). This talent lasted all through Junior High for all three of us. It wasn't until High School that my talent started to plateau. I have looked back on it for a long time, and wondered why that had happened, and lately I have realized something. It stopped being fun for me. I was playing for the recognition, and to have my stats look good. I realized that because I have started a baseball team for old people, and it's fun again. I lost sight of why I played baseball, and what made it America's past time. It is just so stinking fun!
I have learned a valuable lesson, that when you stop loving something, and you are doing it for the wrong reasons, it starts to lose its purpose. Not only does it lose its meaning, but your performance starts to either plateau, or degrades. When you start to feel that plateau remember why it is that you started it in the first place, and try to focus on that. That to me was "a lesson learned."
These pictures are already labeled, and unfortunately Chris is not in it...However, he did look a lot like Andrew, so just pretend.
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