That's How I Do It...

I don't know why I'm even writing in this, I'm so disappointed in all 30 of you that have viewed my blog and haven't voted. Tisk Tisk Tisk, consider yourself chastised. Vote already.

Story Time
After some last minute cramming, which I've learned doesn't work thanks to my psychology book, I took my first university exam. Since I haven't ruled out the idea of graduate school I was really pushing for something over 90% however I pulled out an 85% after realizing there was a section I overlooked when studying.

In my book an 85% isn't anything to complain about, especially since this unit was based on Neuroscience and other biological crap that I suck at. Heck, if I'd gotten an 85% back in high school Mom and Dad would have taken me out to celebrate my rare moment of raising the bar. Speaking of which, mom and dad if you're reading this I expect some Spooky's Pizza in my mail box.

How's Idaho?

The land of potatos is Interesting, I'm yet to see anyone resembling Napoleon Dynamite but the culture shock from just a 600 mile move is still showing itself. I used to think that our little conservative pocket in Oregon was bad but now that I reside in Zion v.2 I've begun to understand my misevaluation.

To give you a little background on Rexburg it's about 15,000 residents which doesn't include BYU students. According to salon.com, 99% of Madison County voted for the man who will soon surpass Buchanan as the worst president of all time. In other words, it's a perfect place for the once anarcho-punk obsessed drummer of the liberal punk band Misled Mayhem. If my abandoned teenage politics didn't make me feel awkward my five o'clock shadow will.

The positive side of being in Rexburg for summer is that the one month of sunshine will be coming here pretty soon, which will soon be followed by torrential downpours of snow and we all know how well I drive in the snow. Anyway, I felt I should update the mike experience for all y'all that are wondering how things are going.

Side Note: My soccer blog hit a landmark in that it had it's first 200 hit day... which was really only 199 because one of the hits was due to a person looking for porn. Oh well, a hit's a hit.

I Wish it Were April (Mike Experience Version)

As I sit here, drapped in a cozy cuddle blanket with the logo of my favorite empire covering every inch, I find myself eager for baseball season. I'm still excited despite congress' attempts to destroy the game by calling out/worshiping the greatest players in history about alleged steroid injections in their millionaire tushies; all the while, ignoring wars, recession and the fact that gas is still expensive.

I can't wait for those lazy Saturday afternoons when you sit back on the couch and watch Fox's medicore coverage for a good 4-5 hours. If it's the Blue Jays vs. the Devil Rays, then that sitting position will probably turn into more of a reclined posture as drool vacates my open mouth accompanied by the rumbling of my victorious growl of sleep; which in it's own right is still very edifying.

I believe it was Jay Marriotti on Around the Horn who made mention that regardless of the scandal, baseball will always survive. This commentary parallel's my own thoughts on the current steroid garbage. I say let's move on so the nation can begin their hated of my beloved Yankees, their hopeful wishing that the cubs may be successful and their eager wait to see which long ball hitter shines this year. If our situation doesn't change, that successful hitter will have to give testimony to congress contradicting a glory seeking nobody who wasn't good enough to be a cop.

That being said, start making plans for the first match up of your favorite rivaly and get your chores done so the wife (or mother) will be more apt to letting you gloriously waste 4-5 hours of your day in one the most englightening experience one may have; watching baseball.

Taco Bell Assisted Me in Self-Sabotage

After playing FIFA 08 on my parent's Nintendo Wii, I had a monstrous craving for the lovely Taco Bell. After talking to my lovely and supportive wife she allowed me to take a trip south of the border. I knew that I would get the usual, three crunchy tacos and a burrito of the day which is to add a little flare to the routine. Due to my wife and I's inadvertent vow of poverty, our trips to the Bell have been limited to approximately once every other week, which is a drastic change from 2-3 visits per week (a.k.a my working days), I have been able to make quite a bit of progress on my quest to an amazing upper body.

After this one trip to Taco Bell, my stint of fitness has gone into a tailspin and in lieu of doing ab workouts I'm watching Setanta Broadband and releasing the CH4 buildup that Taco Bell has given me. Moral of this story, don't eat Taco Bell if you want washboard abs.

Sister-In-Law + M-80 = Humorous Musing

My wife interrupted my studies today to read to me this myspace bulletin posted by my sister-in-law. Enjoy.

so today i was just like walking to lunch and i was talking to my little brother jaron like 10 seconds before and he walked ahead of me and i was just thinking oh i'm so happy today tra la la .. AND THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN A FREAKING M80 FALLS BETWEEN MY LEGS AND BLOWS UP!!!!i was like WHAT THE HECK! i didn't even scream though i was just like oh crap! and it was just really loud and it kind of hurt my ears but i just kept walking and my assistant principal was sitting there and she goes omg are you ok?! i was like yeah i was just kind of like surprised and then i felt something coming down my leg so i looked down and i was bleeding so i was like oh crap what the heck.. that sucks.. and so she takes me to the nurses office and they're like what happened? and the lady was like an M80 just blew up right beside her i was like oh great i don't know what that is and she goes that's a 1/4 stick of dynamite i was like oh my that sucks and then i started laughing because i was so shaking up and scared that it was just funny to me i was like oh my gosh i don't even know what to do ... like i just got asploded by a 1/4 stick of dynamite!! so they call my mom and all the rizz razz and the security came and talked to me and i filled out an incident report and then yeah they wrapped up my leg and i was good to go.then my mommy took me out of school and i went and cashed my check.That's my story.pretty crazy yeah....☼♥♀

I Wannabe Hardcore

After viewing a picture of Arsenal's Emmanuel Adebayor with his core exposed; I, American Gooner and fitness guru (see first post), have decided to labor and obtain an amazing core and overall muscle mass similar to that of the Arsenal striker. If you look at the tale of the tape, I feel this quest is in theory possible... the gaining of 15 pounds, not so much the washboard abs.

I feel another contributor to my quest of buffness, with emphasis on my core, is the commercial with Peyton Manning. It was Manning that stated if you're not in your early twenties you should give up on the "rock-hard abs" and since your's truly is still in his bottom twenties now's the time. HOORAH. Usually I don't take the words of people that can't understand the term "football" and continue to use their hands, but if someone gives advice in my favor I'll definitely see them as credible. That being said, look out world, I'm bringing sexy back.

Beware That Killer Cacti.

Apparently, when I was a kid I must not have taken the warning of Nickelodeon's Hey Dude's intro; "Beware of the man-eating jack rabbits and that killer cacti." Although my wife Cambra and I never encountered man-eating Jack Rabbits, we did adventure out to find us some cacti which did not strike fear in our hearts.

My mother-in-law took us a few blocks from their home in Arizona to look at some cool looking cacti that resembled a harmless bush. While driving she told us a story about how my father-in-law had dared my sister-in-law to sit on the cactus, my obedient sis followed her patriarch and sat on the cactus resulting in a hilarious situation for everyone that was there... minus her.

After chuckling off the story Cambra and I, with the thought that we were too smart to mess around with cacti, headed towards the cacti patch with camera in hand. One would think we were trying to catch a cheetah on the run the way we rushed out of the car to get a picture. My baggy-pant-wearing wife was the first to head to the patch, which consisted of about 40 or so of these cacti-bushes. I caught up to her and we both arrived at the patch at the same time, I then lead the way through a narrow passage way between a few of the bushes. With the story of my sister-in-law in our heads, we stepped wearily through the bushes. After I got through I turned around to see Cambra biting her tongue and being in what was visibly a state of discomfort. Instead of writing another 100 words to describe what had happened I'll show you a picture.


The sight of my wife in visible pain caused me to go into Knight-in-Shining-Armor Mode. I sat there for a good 30 seconds surveying the situation weighing each option with the possible outcome, this process led me to the conclusion that I should try to grab it and pull it off... it didn't work and my finger stung for a few hours. After my ceremonial "ouch," which I use to celebrate pain, I decided to pull on Cambra's pants to separate the cactus from her leg. Judging from her reaction when I was tugging it must have hurt; however, once the pieces of cactus were separated I then stomped on them downward until the cactus was off of her pants.

Once this buff-handsome-knight rescued the princess from the killer cacti, we headed back to the car to share with the matriarch that we had a knew cactus story for the family. What's the moral? Listen to the television when they're teaching you about cactus safety. Thank you Nickelodeon, I apologize for my insubordination.

Since I believe in equality, here's my wife's side of the story:

As awesome a blogger as you are Mike-my-love you do have some misinforming statements. Firstly, I went throught the cactus patch first where my pants caught the cactus. You forgot to mention also that they weren't just stuck to my pants but had razored directly through and had about 4 or 5 barbed spikes stuck in my leg. These particular spikes (as Jaron informed us) begin to curl once inside flesh to insure they arent shaken off by animals...or uncareful people. Lastly .. I was the one who thought of pulling my pants away from my leg in a quick motion to make sure no more pokeage happend to either of us. Then once it was off you stepped on it and it jabbed into your shoe, making you victim number two.
love you :)Cambra

Pop Goes the Fruit Filled Crust

There is a moment, while at work, where life can be enjoyed. This moment is morning break. I say this not because of the constant assault of sexual innuendos and the "that's what she said" punchlines nor the jocular display of machismo that us men use as competition, to see who can continually one up the next guy. Morning break is amazing because of one thing, pop tarts.

Today, I grabbed my pop tarts and rice crispy treat (to wash down the breaded faux-fruit) and claimed my spot in the break room by placing the delectable rice-sugar-cake at my familiar location. After doing so, I returned to the toaster to place the reason for going to work in the convenience cooker known as a toaster. I didn't want to use a microwave for fear of receiving ridicule from Brian Regan, in case he showed up at the warehouse.

With saliva dripping out of my dust covered lips, my chapped laborer hands slipped the awesome treats into their respective locations. I let it sit there for some time but noticed a bit of smoke, at this point my brain said "that's not good," of course I was more worried about how the toaster treat would turn out, not the possible fire. This was when I used my muscles, which were formed at the gym I frequent, and fought that little toaster lever until it had released. In the .05 seconds it took for my pop-tart to eject from the toaster my feeling went from happiness to dismay... breathtaking really.

I was so relieved when my burly man arms got the lever to release, preventing any damage to the pop tarts but much to my dismay the lever was a meatball with extra sauce. Before I could compute anything in my head as to what was happening, I watched my reason for going to work fly out of the left side toaster slot, cross over the right side toaster slot and then land on the horrendously dirty warehouse floor that was probably infested with mouse remnants and spider houses. When I finally realized what had happened, I let out probably the most, in any other circumstance, humiliatingly girlish scream. Luckily it was justified... I think.

Dejected, I put my armor on to protect myself from my co-workers who had heard my feminine squeal, realizing I had probably forfeited the machismo competition, I headed to my spot to eat my one edible pop-tart. It was truly a way to fall from cloud nine on a boss-less Friday to genuine sorrow. My advice to anyone in this situation is to be patient with the toaster, it has the power to ruin your day.

Creativity Break

Robert Frost once said "nothing gold can stay" and I believe nothing is more fleetingly golden than creativity.

It is currently 1:45 AM and I have a story to tell. This past week at work my assistant and I have had a war going on regarding the radio station that we listen to, he wants monotonous country and I want butt-kickin'-hairspray-lovin' classic rock. This dispute has gotten so extreme that it has resulted in taping the tuner wheel so the station can't be changed. Side note, the reception is horrendous because there is no antenna just a series of creatively entwined paper clips attached from the radio to the metal frame of my work station.

Our clash began when this past Wednesday we had the station set to the trashville country station to hear the local morning show, all because I'm a nice guy and believe in giving accomodations to those who assist me. In the course of that morning show I enjoyed down-home conversation and the same songs I always hear on the station, because they never change. There was one song that I could not stand it was this song entitled "Firecracker." First off, don't play a song called "Firecracker" when it's snowing outside; secondly, the song writing left a lot to be desired. After enduring the 3 minutes of torture that was this attempt of clever songwriting and cookie cutter country, I was ready to turn it to the classic rock station because the morning show was about done. It was at this point my enthusiastic partner told me that it would just be one more song, I obliged. It was no more than five minutes later that I heard the same attempt at clever songwriting and cookie cutter country that was "Firecracker" all over again.

By this point I was pretty upset so I found something to do outside of my work area, void of crappy music, when about 45 minutes later I returned to an assistant saying "Mike, you don't want to come over here," thinking that he just dry-heaved a deuce (farted) I cautiously walked up breathing strategically. Much to my dismay there was no pungent odor, just the same attempt at clever songwriting and cookie cutter country blaring from our broken down radio. I threw a fit and began to take action. I made a declaration that if I were in the area there was to be no country music, thus starting the previously mentioned war.

Fast forward to later that night, art class. If there was one place I could be sure the classic rock station would be on, it was in the good ol' art room; it wasn't, but the country station was. After explaining my hatred for the station and the continual firecracker assault to my classmates, no more than five minutes later, the last hoorah, I hear the same attempt at clever songwriting and cookie cutter country music blaring from the clay covered radio that had betrayed me so greatly. After publicly making a scene, proving to my "have-better-things-to-do" class how silly it was that I was being attacked by the local radio station, the powers that be made peace and played "If We Make it Through December" by Merle Haggard.

All was well but the war rages on.

Free Time = New Blog

Amid the multiple time consuming ventures such as, work, school and church I have found a refuge in the day of Thanksgiving. Due to this glorious holiday of food and fake football I have been able to embark on an amazing journey into the world of blogging. YEAH! That means to all you out there, who ignore all the substantial and edifying features of the internet to search blogger, are in for a real treat.

I begin my blogging career with a tale of triumph, well it's not as much a tale as it is a personal epiphany, that involves myself and various weight lifting devices. For all those who read this who aren't my "bff's" and do not know me in "r/l," I'm not gifted in the realm of athletics or physical masculinity. Some would go as far to call me "weak." When I found myself in the local athletic club the strong folks had already commandeered the free weights so I had to settle for something that was comparable to a medieval torture device. I meandered my way over to this device and sat down grasping the rubber handles with my feet facing out in front of me which were held down by a horizontal padded bar that was part of an intricate pulley system. After many failed attempts to move said padded bar without pulling the leg hair off my shins I had decided that I had had enough.

When I had slipped my way out of the padded-bar-seat-trap, my eyes had caught a glance of an adjustment device. "What a moron," were the words I said to myself after noticing this device. I then fixed this machine to my physical needs and sat down far more comfortably awaiting to completely dominate this feminine leg machine. I gripped the handles, did a little pre-strain-wiggle and then struggled to lift the padded bar once more... again, to no avail. I repeated this process of re-adjusting and struggling for a good 5 minutes, in the moments when the other patrons were busy with their workouts, until I had finally been able to conquer the 80 pounds I was trying to lift with my quads.

This experience prompted my epiphany. Gyms were created to make a fool of the tall and scrawny because not only can you not lift the weights but you have to re-adjust every machine before you realize you're a failure.