ketchup only

tryouts

2011-11-06T22:24:00.000-08:00

tomorrow. 3 pm. be there. if you're a high school girl and you live in park city.

so stoked for this season.

today i watched the series finale of friday night lights, as well as 'the heart of the game,' a great film about a girls basketball team's seven year magical journey.

can't wait. can't sleep.

god is love. rev. run.

untitled

2011-09-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

ten years ago today (well, yesterday now), i was walking into mr. maddux's classroom to drop off a boys volleyball promotional video for the miner morning show that day. i was there a little before school started, just after the first tower had been hit. maddux always had a huge projector screen in his room for showing student videos and whatnot, and of course it was on that morning. i walked in, i'll never forget the image on the screen. two towers, one with smoke emerging about half way up. i asked what was going on and at that point, nobody really had any of the facts. at first, people thought the plane had accidentally flown into the building, later they learned it wasn't an accident at all. just as i was leaving, still having to stop by my locker and get to first period, the second plane hit. i immediately turned around and went back into the classroom. there were about ten students in the room, along with mr. maddux. we all couldn't believe it, still confused.

i proceeded to first period, u.s. history with mrs. king. the television was on in her room and we all sat and watched. that's about all i remember from that day. various news reports of the pentagon being hit by a plane, the white house being on lock down, and president bush was in florida, i believe, reading at an elementary school. i remember watching him in a press conference, but i don't remember what he said.

this past friday, the miner morning show did a special extended version of the show. not only was it mr. maddux's birthday, but it was the last day of school before the ten year anniversary of 9/11. we lost mr. maddux to cancer last spring. i miss him a lot. as a student, i had him all four years of high school, two of the four, i had him twice. i loved making movies for his class, and it's still a hobby that i'm into today. i starting working my ass off at park meadows golf course the summer of my 8th grade year in order to save up enough money to buy a camera for his class. he was a great guy. as a new teacher, he was helpful, kind, and always good for a laugh. i enjoyed the three extras years i was given with him when i returned to the high school as a member of the faculty. he taught me and then, in my first year of teaching, i taught his son devon. next year, i will most likely have his twin sons in my class. i really hope so. devon is an amazing individual and i wish him all the success and happiness in the world. he's truly one of the nicest kids i've ever met.

the kids in maddux's program have begun to do some truly amazing things. i posted a video made by a student in my last post, and i'd also like to post one in this post. this video is called '88 and sunny.' it was made by maddux's star student last year, cole sax. i strongly encourage you to watch the whole video and watch it full screen, beginning to end (the home videos at the end are priceless). it's a great film and won several honors at last year's 'miner film festival.' i also had both cole sax and garrett schlag (the main character in the video) in class and they are amazing kids as well. they were invited to new york this anniversary weekend to show this film at the "orphans of 9/11" gathering. enjoy the video and know that i will never forget the tragic events of september 11, 2001, and i will never forget chris maddux.

88 and Sunny - Short Film - from Cole Sax on Vimeo.

in my skin tight jeans

2011-08-15T17:36:00.000-07:00

whoa, whoa, if you're looking for a picture of me in skin tight jeans, it's not gonna be on this blog. however, i did stumble upon this video today, and while all of travis mccoy's girlfriends look good in the music video, the one at the end looked really really familiar! watch the vid and see if you can identify his last leading lady...

after watching the video, i was certain it was who i thought it was, so i did a quick reference check with my good friend wikipedia.org, just to make sure. as suspected, the girl at the end of the video is the one and only, katy perry. wikipedia says that they were dating at the time the video was made. to all the girls out there, here's a poll question: travis mccoy or russell brand? you make the choice.

since my mind was on katy perry after watching that video, it made me think of another cinematic gem, this one made by none other than a few students at the high school. it's pretty funny, and it looks way good. enjoy!

Teenage Dream from Ian Quill on Vimeo.

summer vids

2011-08-14T00:03:00.000-07:00

so at the beginning of last summer, i did a post about summer not officially starting until i heard the three songs mentioned in that post. i apologize that all three have been taken down off of yahoo's site and so you can't play them through my blog, but i'm sure you can go look them up somewhere else and enjoy them there.

anyway, this summer has come (and almost gone... yikes!) and while cruising to various destinations (mainly san diego twice), a couple songs came on the ipod that reminded me it's summer. when i got back, i looked up the videos because i remembered them being cinematic gems. i've posted them below.

up first... 'hey ma' by cam'rom and juelz santana. i love this video/song. whatever happened to wearing oversized jerseys all the time? whatever happened to denim bikinis? whatever happened to hot tubs in stretch hummer limos? man, i miss the good old days of rap music videos. although jay and kanye's 'otis' is fun to watch (shout out to @Slim2Real, even jay-z's wearin' a snapback! go #teamsnapback!)...

the second video is sheryl crow's 'strong enough.' i don't know why i like this song/video so much, but i do. maybe it's because this was close to the time i started watching mtv (this song and 'all i wanna do' made me fall in love with sheryl crow, she was a major babe, still is!) and i really remember the videos from about that time. i dunno, whatever it is, enjoy these summer starters! kinda.

the big troy-bowski

2011-08-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

so this past monday night, the crew and i hit up jupiter bowl for some good times at the lanes. we bowled three games and while there was no clear-cut winner (that's my story and i'm stickin' to it), a good time was had by all. the night started with trev and i meeting up with troy and the girl from the grand america pool. after about two games, brady and patsy joined us for the last game (they had gone to a movie earlier). on our way out, trev decided to climb the pillars outside and then proceed to tightrope walk across the wooden beam, probably 25-30 feet in the air. when we went for slurpees after, trev also decided to climb the stone column by the gas pumps at the blue roof. both instances were captured on film. enjoy the vid!

wings

2011-07-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

so this video just premiered today. pretty crazy. it's cool to see other people cleaning their shoes with toothbrushes. sad day when you get your kicks stolen off your feet though. reminds me of 'about a boy.' 'and where did you get cool new trainers?" haha.

anyway, this guy's from seattle, friends with blue scholars, and loves j's. i can get with that. there's also a plug in the video for the seattle supersonics (R.I.P.). if you're on twitter, start following @sonicsgate. go to sonicsgate.org and watch the full length movie. even if you are not a basketball fan or from seattle, it is the craziest story ever and you won't believe what went into moving the team to oklahoma city. it's honestly a really great documentary.

here's the 'wings' video...

the joy of text

2011-07-19T22:24:00.000-07:00

as many of you know, i hate talking on the phone. hate it. i'm a face to face or text kind of guy. i use my hands and my face when i talk to people, and when i text, i'm usually able to convey my message and it also gives me plenty of time to rationalize and formulate my thoughts.

with that being said, i had a funny text encounter this evening. it was about 9:30 pm and i was shooting hoops at the high school. i received a text from a number i did not know and all it said was, "sam!!!"

for some reason, people like to change their numbers a whole lot these days. i've had the same number since i was a freshmen in college (which was also my first phone, so it's been my ONLY number). anyway, every week or so, i'll get a text from either a new number saying that this is so and so and this is their new number, or i'll get a text from one of my contacts saying that they are changing their number to such and such. either way, i'm usually busy when this happens and more often than not, i usually think about the hassle involved in changing or updating someone's number... so i don't do it. then, about three months later, they call or text and i have no idea who it is and pretend i do know who it is until they give me a good enough hint or i just break down and ask (then i tell them that i got a new phone and lost all my old numbers, which i didn't). anyway, i realize that by saying this, through karma, i'm probably going to have to get a new phone or number or whatever, and you can all do the same thing to me that i do to other people. that's just the way the world works.

so this post does have a point, and i think i'll get to that now.

back to the mystery text, "sam!!!"

so since i don't know who it is or recognize the area code, i text back, "what's up?!?!?" like i know the person and it's been forever since i've heard from them.

they text back, "going to the library... but i just worked out! next semester you are going to do these classes with me and sophia! we can make kara do them too :)"

this is where malcolm gladwell and thin slicing (blink!) come in. i see 'library, semester, and classes." this has got to be someone i know from provo/byu. then i look at the names... sophia (who the f do i know named sophia?) and kara. i don't know anyone by either of those names personally. now i start thinking about married people (who do i know who's married to someone named sophia?). no one.

i give in.

i text back, "sign me up! yo, who this?" i used ghetto talk just to spice things up and freak out the other person.

they text back, "alex powell :) hahahaha"

alex powell.... who do i know named alex powell??? oh, that's right, no one. i scan and scan, nothing is coming up. nothing. i don't know anyone named alex powell. i know people named alex, and i know people with the last name powell, but i don't know an alex powell. i don't even know if it's a dude or a chick.

i text back, "oh werd! i don't know why i don't have your number stored, haha."

a couple minutes go by and no response.

i pull out the big guns. i text, "yo, are you still tight with jimmy?" i don't know anyone named jimmy, but i'm hoping this person is like, "jimmy? i don't know who that is, i know you through so and so."

the person takes the bait. they text back, "who is jimmy? hahaha."

at this point, i have to go off the deep end and get them to tell me how they know me. i go big. i text back, "jimmy! crazy legs jimmy?!? you know, jimmy? that kid got some crazy legs!" again, i don't know anyone name jimmy, and i especially don't know anybody who goes by 'crazy legs jimmy' and has crazy legs. whatever those are.

the person on the other side has got two options, admit that they know me through somebody else, or go along with the crazy legs jimmy thing.

actually, they've got a third option. and they went with it. the third option is to actually know somebody named crazy legs jimmy. they text back, "that jimmy! dude, i love jimmy :)"

at this point in time, i'm like, "great. this person really does know somebody named crazy legs jimmy." either i've really forgotten who this is, or it's one of the high school students who somehow got my number and they are just messin' with me. i decide to keep it chill and not reveal too much or get myself into a trap of any kind. kids are crazy these days.

mind you, i still don't know if 'alex' is a dude or a chick. so i text back, "yeah kid, that dude crazy!!!" i used kid because it's uni-sex and i stuck to the ghetto talk for intimidation.

they text back, "jimmy likes to PAR-tay :) he rocks socks."

rocks socks? what the f does that mean? oh well, i go with it. i decide to keep the jimmy gag going. i text, "yeah he does! i can't stop bustin' up thinkin' 'bout crazy legs jimmy. good times! so what's new with you?" i figure it's time to put jimmy to rest and try to seriously figure out who this is.

they proceed to tell me that they are studying and ask about me. i'm still not willing to give up too many details, so i say i'm just chillin', tryna stay busy. they say that their humanities class would keep me plenty busy and that i should take it for them. i say, "yeah humanities is tough, glad i'm done with college."

this was the tipping point. they text, "who is this? haha."

i come clean. i text, "this is sam white, but in all honesty, i have no idea who you are, hahaha. i was hoping i might remember, but you either got the wrong sam, or i'm just really blanking."

some time passes.

"i think i'm talking to the wrong sam. i don't know who you are," they text.

at this point i'm driving home, so i can't really text back. but after about five minutes i get another text, asking if i know mckenzie powell.

the name sounds familiar, i think it's the mckenzie that chuck dated. kenzie v2.0 that is (not to be confused with kenzie v1.0, who decided to start dating greg instead. because he had a big ... wallet. if you've seen 500 days of summer, greg = the puma).

anyway, after a couple more texts, 'alex' explained that she had mckenzie's old phone with all of her contacts in it and thought i was someone else. i told her that i knew chad (like kylie knows chad) and remembered that he used to date her before she went on the mission that she's now currently serving.

i also told her some other stuff, but i'll have to talk to chad about those things as they are private matters of the heart and not for the blogosphere.

god is love. rev. run.

weekend highlights

2011-07-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

here's to the first of many 'weekend highlight' videos to come. fortunately, this weekend was the forth of july so there's some fireworks thrown in there. troy had to babysit his sister's son, grant, so we took him to the grand america with us to hear JP and the gang. we did concert at the canyons, fireworks of our own, and hit up the parade. what a weekend...

the one thing that i am truly pissed about was that i had the opportunity to see brett and syd and baby callie and while i thought i was filming them saying hi for the video, i was actually not recording until i pushed the button a second time and put the camera in my pocket. i did however get some good shots of inside my pocket.

all the 'rage'

2011-06-04T15:14:00.000-07:00

i really liked this song and the original video before i just recently stumbled across this one...

i can honestly say i like it even more now.

NBA Mix - Renegades Of Funk (featuring the legends of nba) from Damn Show on Vimeo.

i got 99 posts and that don't include this one

2011-03-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

sorry, that doesn't really go along with the flow or beat of jay-z's '99 problems,' but oh well, i did it anyway. this is post #100. wow. i have been slackin'. sorry about that.

anyway, it's been a busy couple of weeks since my last post. 'step it up' week went well, mainly for my hair, not for the team. we won one of the games, but didn't quite 'step up' like i'd hoped. oh well, it was a great season, overall, i was pleased.

we had our annual end of the year banquet. i got up for about a half hour and said two-three minutes worth of nice things/funny stories about each and every girl, and i think they all felt honored. i almost made it through without tearing up, but i let a couple slide towards the end, when i was talking about some of this year's seniors. they've been an incredible bunch and i'm going to miss them in the future. the banquet was catered by el chubasco and i'm still eating left over chips and salsa. mm mm good!

here's this year's varsity team pic:

i don't know how it's possible, but even in the dead of winter i can still manage to pull off extremely tan legs. and it's all natural, no GTL, no nothin'. just tan-ass legs for all to enjoy. it's a miracle.

speaking of miracles, this season brought about the greatest nickname for a team of all time. thanks to my good friend chuck, park city girls basketball became known as the 'main street miracle.' we've now been branded that and will start cashing in.

i was also misquoted in the deseret news as saying, "we beat east high in a decisive fashion." "in a decisive fashion?" who says that? anyway, it exploded on twitter and lunchbox and chuck hounded me for weeks. luckily, i've got a good PR guy.

well, besides that, i've taken on a new role. i'm currently the assistant coach for the park city high school girls softball team. i'm learning lots, freezing my butt off, and having tons of fun. i may not be the x's and o's guy the ladies go to when the chips are down, but i'm still a motivator at heart, and i bring a smile and a 6'5" frame to the field each and every practice/game.

besos,

hefe blanco.

god is love. rev. run.

steps n shoes

2011-01-30T21:48:00.000-08:00

hello all. i apologize that it's been months since my last blog post. i really have been slacking (on blog posts, not in general. in actuality, i've been quite busy and thus i haven't had time to post on the blog). anyway, i'm back. and better than ever (i hope). so what's been up?

first off, the lady miner season is going well. we are still losing some games here and there to teams we should be destroying, but what can ya do? we've already recorded five victories on the season, and still have at least six games left. who knows, we could surprise some people. one of our players reach the 1,000 career point total the other night, and did it in only three years at pchs. this has never been done by a boy or girl at park city high school, so it's pretty awesome.

as with tradition, it is officially 'step it up' week starting tomorrow, so i've shaved steps into my hair in hopes of rallying the girls and getting them to play the best basketball of the season, since we have probably our two toughest games of the season this week. photos are posted below:

since the season has pretty much been occupying all of my time, i've haven't really been up to anything else. i'm hoping to get back to reality soon, but i never like it when the season ends. the day after is worse than december 26th and november 17th combined.

speaking of december 26th, i got these just one day before:

they are a great shoe. i got them for christmas, mainly for coaching and lookin' fly. i feel like they do a good job at both. they were on sale and that's makes them even cooler.

i also bought another pair of shoes today, which made me think that it's time to update the blog. i realize some of you may be saying, 'sam, another pair of shoes?' if that's you, we really aren't friends because you don't know me at all. i will either wear them or put them in the condo for decoration. luckily, these new ones are for basketball and they too were on super sale ($31 plus an additional 20% off) so i will be wearing them starting this week when i play. here's a pic:

i know that they look a little low cut for basketball (but hey, i like things low cut... like sweaters on girls with big, eh, nevermind) but they get the job done. they are like a nike generic version of the kobe's. if you haven't seen this commercial, you're in for a treat. it's hilarious and explains the low cut. check it out:

oh man, gets me everytime. that kobe bryant, what a lovable guy. anyway, that's what's new on the sam shoe front.

what am i looking forward to? well, the power of 3 has a thanksgiving goal, so i'm super stoked on that. we're currently unable to reveal details, but get excited.

other than that, my third year of teaching is officially half over and things are still going really well.

i'll try my hardest to post more often.

god is love. rev. run.

#98 - write a post about the buried life

2010-09-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

'what do you want to do before you die?'

a fair question, wouldn't you say? the answer could be simple, like 'overcome my fear of heights.' it could be something quite complex as well, something like 'get my song on the radio so my grandma can hear it,' or 'visit my mother's grave site.' whatever the answer, the four guys who make up 'the buried life (on mtv),' do a heartfelt job of helping others to accomplish their goals. don't get me wrong, the guys help others, but at the same time, they are working to cross off one of the one hundred things on their list... stuff like 'play ball with obama,' 'tell a joke on late night,' and 'throw a badass party.'

i highly recommend the show if you've never seen it. each episode is a new task and requires the guys to be not only creative, but out-going and willing to do just about anything to complete the mission. each episode also features the guys helping a stranger, which is personally, my favorite part of the show.

all of the episodes are good, but i feel that the best episode is episode 4. check it out at mtv.com (shows->the buried life->full episodes->season 1->episode 4), but i'll warn you, it'll make you a little teary.

i also really liked the season finale, where the guys successfully pull-off a 'badass' party. not necessarily because i'm known for throwing 'badass' parties, but because they were able to get the rap group 'naughty by nature' to perform at the party.

treach and vinny

why was this so close to home you ask? well, like i've previously stated in this post, i was able to serve the rap group and their entourage at the park city grill, located in the park city marriott. pretty cool, i know. vinny and treach first came in for lunch. i knew it was them but after watching hours and hours of eminem interviews and listening to 'stan', i knew it wasn't such a good idea to act like a crazy person, super-excited, and autograph-seeking. so i decided to play it cool. i took their order, kept the conversation to a minimum and tried my best to meet their service needs. i did tell everybody in the back kitchen that 'naughty by nature' was in the restaurant, but no one seemed to know who they were or really care. anyway, they had a show that night at harry-o's and while i would've love to have gone, i knew that i had to work the next morning at 5:45 am.

while working the next morning, the group came in again, this time for breakfast. i asked them how the show went and made some minor small talk, again, keeping it cool and not trying to act like a star****er. the coolest part of the experience was that treach was wearing some special edition air jordan 1's (pictured here).

the shoes contain a picture on them of michael jordan hitting the game-winning shot against georgetown in the ncaa championship game during his freshman year. the moment is immortalized in this picture:

(yep, that's patrick ewing on the far left) it's also captured in the following jordan brand commercial:

this is one of my favorite commercials because it combines so many amazing and inspiring moments. not only is chris paul (the other cp3, the real one is candace parker) running sprints throughout, but you also get a look inside the appalachian state football weight room (the mountaineers strolled into the big house a few years ago, only to beat michigan in the season-opener, which is supposed a gimme... funny thing is, the utes strolled into the big house a few years later and also beat michigan, and then the utes went on to win the sugar bowl and bust the bcs for the second time). speaking of bcs busting, the commercial also pays tribute to the boise state buckin' broncos, where they are practicing at night on the smurf turf, running the statue of liberty play that would propel them to victory against oklahoma in the fiesta bowl several years back. this moment also hits home, since last october i was invited to be a groomsmen at nate larsen's wedding, held at boise state's stadium, the reception room looking out onto the smurf turf. with the help of good ol' jay larsen, my friend ryan stam and i were able to go out on the field and run through the play as if we were playing in the game that night (i realize that the fiesta bowl took place somewhere else, but still we got to go out on the turf and pretend). the commercial also features jim valvano running on the court after winning the ncaa championship game over houston (byu's basketball coach, dave rose was on that houston team, along with clyde drexler and others. i've gotten to shake coach rose's hand several times, after coaching my team of 12-13 year olds to victory each summer at the byu sports camps, he's a great guy). if you really want to see something emotional and life-changing, go to youtube and type in "jimmy v." click on the ten or eleven minute long one and prepare for a treat, it's monumental. the commercial ends with jordan hitting the game winning shot over georgetown and the title 'there are no cinderellas' comes across the screen.

'there are no cinderellas...' i really like that. more importantly, i just finished a book today called 'outliers.' it's by malcolm gladwell (author of 'the tipping point', and 'blink') and it was recommended to me by lunchbox, who's currently killing it at boeing in seattle (power of 3 will set us free!). anyway, the book is a really great read, i highly recommend it. it goes really fast and it's hard to put down. it's all about how successful people became successful, and more importantly, how even though we think they were just lucky, they actually had a lot of things going for them and hard work was the key. the book is basically another testament of jesu (just kidding), another testament that hard work really pays off. 'the harder i work, the luckier i get.'

so with the new season of 'the buried life' starting tomorrow night, check out the marathon going on on mtv today, especially episode 4. i'm looking forward to the new season, i hope it's even better than the first one.

***there's another show on mtv that premiered after the vma's, called 'world of jenks.' it's a similar set-up, he spends a week with different people in different situations and tries to help them in some way. i saw the first episode and it was alright (all the above!), but i haven't seen any since and i think that i'm still more of a buried life guy, but only time will tell.

i want your ugly, i want your disease

2010-09-18T17:06:00.001-07:00

after last year's fiasco-filled vma's, several people asked me what i thought and to weigh in on the situation. i did. fast forward to september 2k10. this year's show was somewhat uneventful compared to others. i was not a big fan of chelsea handler, she's just not that funny. and no, even after his performance, i still do not have bieber fever. and no, i will not show you my bieber.

anyway, i'd mainly like to comment on this year's performances. and how much they sucked. i can honestly say that group of performers didn't do it for me. don't get me wrong, eminem killed it, but rhianna's chorus just didn't measure up. kanye was good, i really like just him up there and the drum machine. however, his auto-tune verse sounded like shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit (imagine me singing that with an auto-tune accent).

it's like, these people are supposed to be professional singers/performers and most of them couldn't even sing one chorus on key. i feel bad for b.o.b., cuz bruno mars blew and so did that chick from paramore that everybody apparently likes. like i said, rhianna blew (she only has four lines! c'mon rhianna!), and taylor swift did just alright. i was impressed that the bieber kid could sing and dance at the same time, but what he was singing sounded nothing like the recorded version that is currently making him millions. even drizzy drake was off-key (much love to mary j. blige and swiss beatz tho, mainly because swiss beatz is married to alicia keys and she is preggos).

i know what you're thinking, 'sam, why are you hatin' on all these peeps?' the reason, because we all should expect more and expect these peeps to step up to the plate.

with all this negative nancy talk, i would like to point out that there was one person who sounded good on vma night. but she wasn't a performer. instead, she was a recipient. of many awards that is. while in general i think most of what lady gaga does is a gimmick to attract unnecessary extra attention, she made a believer out of me that she can actually sing. and unlike the other performers of the night, she can sing well and can sing well even when she's not warmed-up. when she accepted her award for video of the year, she belted out a few bars from her upcoming album, and it was crystal clear.

so my hat's off to you lady gaga, way to go. hopefully, your colleagues will take some time to master their craft.

i'd love to see one of these two guys perform next year, even though i have a feeling that sammy adams doesn't sound anything like he does on record...

love pink

2010-07-11T17:14:00.000-07:00

just incase you missed it...

this reminds me of the olden days (before youtube) when i would find out when and what show eminem was performing on and then i'd sit around and wait for the show to come on while i recorded it. i've got like 15 tapes full of random eminem performances. you can find just about all of them and more now a-days on youtube. god bless technology. i apologize for the like 50 million eminem posts, but i'm a fan and with the release of 'recovery,' i've gone back into full-time fan mode. sorry. but enjoy.

money doesn't buy happiness

2010-07-02T14:57:00.000-07:00

sorry for the double eminem post, but i couldn't resist posting this one as well.

a lot of people don't realize how funny eminem really is. i did a post awhile ago about em's cameo in 'funny people,' as well as posting the video from mtv.com, 'eminem: where have you been?' he's hilarious. anyway, here he is doing the top ten on letterman:

jay-z's also quite funny:

the two announced a couple months ago on espn (during a detroit tigers/new york yankees game) that they'll be doing a combined two concerts in september, one in detroit, one in new york, both at each team's respective ballpark venues. it should be AMAZING! i'd give my left (you know) to see either show. here's a preview, jay-z and eminem on the same stage. if you had any doubts, here's more proof that eminem is the greatest live rap performer of all time.

continue reading the post below for more on eminem...

but in the evening, i gotta goooooooooo...

2010-07-02T14:21:00.001-07:00

so last week, eminem dropped his new album 'recovery.' in all honesty, i had heard the single and at first i was bothered by that stupid snare drum throughout the whole thing. slowly, i came around and began to like the song more and more. with almost no hype or promotion (i had not even the slightest idea of a release date), em released the new cd and it's awesome. i was a little upset with 'relapse,' as were many others, so it was good to see that he's back and i think he realized that 'relapse' wasn't the direction he wanted to continue in. i see it as an album for him to vent and get some demons out in the open, but i think he's over it now and he's gone back to making flat out, good music again.

i really like 'spacebound,' 'cinderella man,' 'won't back down,' 'almost famous,' and 'going through changes.' 'no love' with lil' wayne is also very good and i LOVE the 'night at the roxbury' sample, what a beat and chorus! but by far my favorite song on the album is 'so bad.' it's not very deep or revolutionary. eminem doesn't say anything super profound on the track, but the beat (doc dre!!!), the chorus, the flow, it all comes together and you can't help but bob the head.

'so bad' is actually the only dre beat on the cd, which is interesting considering he did EVERY (except 'beautiful') song on 'relapse' and he's the executive producer for that album and this one. either way, all the songs are well done and sound good together. i've said it before, and i'll say it again, there is no doubt in my mind that eminem is the greatest rapper alive, and in my mind, the greatest of all time (i still love you tupac). you can't even explain it, he's just that good. he raps so many lines per verse, so many verses per song, and every word is carefully thought out and planned. his chorus's are better than most rapper's verses, and in some cases, his chorus's are longer than other rapper's verses.

overall, a great album, i highly recommend it. i would've like to see a dre verse somewhere on there, but it's all good. em was finally able to write a song for proof, and i think he did it justice.

i got excited about slim shady's return after i saw this on last year's bet awards, he's just so good. mos def and black thought kill it as well!

congrats!

2010-06-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

congratulations to lara pessetto (star a tha ghetto) on her wedding today. lara is one of my favorite people in the world and i wish her the best in the future! there's no way i would've had nearly as much fun at byu (she's actually the first person i met at byu on the very first day) without her there to make me laugh and smile. i'll remember the good times forever, y groups, going to 'panther' games, basically living at the provo dollar theater every weekend (it's delux son, delux), chatting on msn messenger, lara mastering the dorm phone systems, real men of genius, eating in the CANC every meal, reffing and supervising the psychos that called themselves intramural athletes, going to san diego for pistol pete's wedding, laughing at all the funny/crazy stuff knecht would come up with (including the make-out/del taco one on one basketball game), getting married in the park city temple with brittany, and all the other fun times we shared!

so congrats again, enjoy the day, you're the best of the best!

p.s. this was taken at a byu game, back when trucker hats were still somewhat 'in.' this is the only one i ever found that fit right, but over the years, i've misplaced it. anyway, it's a good pic and i'm so happy and excited for lara!

everwoody

2010-06-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

so i realize that once i start dating and eventually marry emily van camp, she'll be able to get any season of the show she wants and she'll most likely be able to get it for free. however, since our courtship is moving slightly slower than i'd like/expect at this juncture in time, i'm afraid i had to get on overstock.com and drop twenty-five bones on this joy in a box. call it how you will, this ships on tuesday... yay!

season 3's release means that things are looking up for the franchise and there's almost a definite chance that season 4 will follow suite and be released next summer. can't. hardly. wait.

room service

2010-06-12T08:43:00.001-07:00

so one of the perks of moonlighting at a hotel in a relatively famous resort town is that you get to occasionally rub elbows with celebs. while the chances of running into tom-kat or brangelina at the prospector marriott are slim to none, there's still a fair amount of b-listers who check-in nightly. about a month ago, we had the eagles. i wasn't working, plus i really only like one of their cds and so it wasn't a really big deal for me. however, while working room service last night, i did deliver a pot roast, a new york, and a chicken caesar salad to this lady, her husband, and their daughter...

that's right, it's the lady from the 'bourne identity' series and 'the notebook.' she's the mean mom in 'the notebook,' yet not so mean in real life. while her husband didn't leave an extra tip, i did find the situation very amusing since she and her family were parked up, in the room, watching wiley miley in 'the last song.' that is the absolute truth, i would not make that up. my only regret is not chiming in and saying, 'last song is okay, but it's no notebook (awkward laugh).' the rest of the night was pretty un-eventful.

by far the best celeb encounter at the marriott was when i got to serve 'naughty by nature,' but that deserves a post to itself so check back soon.

my stamina be, enough for pamela anderson lee

2010-06-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

although the month of june is alive and kickin', for me, summer doesn't officially start until i've gotten myself in that 'summer mindset.' park city's not known for it's instant heat, in fact, two out of the four years i was in high school, it snowed on the last day of school (we're talkin' june 12th or so). it takes more than a little warm weather to get me fired up about summer, and it usually starts with this...

Big Pimpin' @ Yahoo! Video

jay-z's "big pimpin'" video reminds not only me, but all of us, that summer is here... get on the boat and have some fun!

speaking of summer jamz, i was cruisin' in the whip the other day, when this song came on the ipod...

Roll Wit M.V.P. @ Yahoo! Video

that's right, it's stagga lee. stagga lee's "roll wit m.v.p." is yet another hot video that embodies that summer time feel. what could be better than a truck load of hot honnies moving in down the street while you're wearing an all white ecko unlimited jersey and brushing your hair, laying on your lawn? i can only think of one thing... and that would be if kelly rowlands moved in down the street while you're wearing an array of throwback jerseys, big white sweatpants, and a band-aid on your face. which brings me to the final summer time vid... nelly's "dilemma" featuring the lovely (and my favorite destiny's child group member) kelly rowlands.

Dilemma - Featuring Kelly Rowland @ Yahoo! Video

enjoy the next few months! it'll be snowing again soon.

the lab is re-open for biznezz

2010-05-31T19:55:00.000-07:00

as many of you know, i'm a huge fan of rob dyrdek's show on mtv, 'fantasy factory.' it's an inspiring blend of comedy and entrepreneurship that just makes you feel all warm and tingly inside. "makin' moves, and breakin' records," is one of rob's many common phrases, which i'll admit, has flashed before my eyes more than once, right before a major purchase or decision i've had to make. while it's not as conservative as adam and i's 'buddy system (for any purchase over $25, i have to consult and get the 'okay' from lunchbox),' the phrase has helped me to see the good in some of my more 'liberal' transactions.

a couple of years ago (pre-fantasy factory), i bought a mixer. it was an investment (for me), but nothing's brought me more joy in such short time. for those of you who don't know, a mixer is a simple piece of technology that connects two separate audio devices to a single controller. you can control the sound levels, volume, and the amount of each audio source, as well as 'mix' the two together. the mixer is most common among dj's who 'mix' records on turntables while they are djing parties. some dj's have gone digital, using laptop computers and electronic turntables that simulate 'mixing.' however, few dj's have gone 'ghetto,' like myself. sure, people have long been using an ipod or computer to 'dj' a get-together they may be hosting and don't have the funds or equipment to properly get the people movin', but this leads to gaps in songs and ultimately a dance party's biggest adversary, 'dead' noise. it may be a second or two, but if people are able to stop, breath, and rest, you've lost them. the mixer is key, and allows for non-stop, back to back, uninterrupted jam after jam (which translates to constant hip thrusting and if all goes well, many of the things described in r. kelly's 2003 hit, 'ignition (remix)'). so while dj's mix turntables, and common man uses a single ipod or laptop, i've taken it a step further. my ipod becomes one audio source, while my laptop becomes the other. the mixer creates a beautiful, seamless marriage where both can co-exist and forces people to feel guilty for ceasing to dance the whole night through. don't get me wrong, dancing is a work-out, and coach sam says, 'hydrate,' but it's best to drink up before you start, that way if you need water while the party is alive and kickin', you can choose your breaks appropriately and not risk giving up the middle ('i found the sausage!').

so what does this have to do with the fantasy factory? well, if you remember episode 5 of season 1, rob builds a recording studio for his cousin, drama, aka emo chris. the studio is a piece of art and would make any aspiring producer, dj, or emcee inspired to create the next 'illmatic.' the studio is dubbed 'the hands of god' studio because on one wall, there is a mural of an older man bowing forward, his hands extended out of the wall as chairs for people to sit in. there's a rock cave connecting the main mixing room to the actual recording booth, and a giant 3D growling gorilla face that stares across the mic from whoever's laying down a hot 16. on the show, the crew records three hit songs, "bangin' on fools," "apology to rob's mom (feat. john mayer)," and bobby light's comeback/farewell song, "light's out." i'm sure many others were recorded, but didn't make it off the cutting room floor for the second season.

anyway, with the condo feeling more and more like home, i decided to set up 'the lab.' in the post below, delux_247 tells it like it is and reminds us that every hit he EVER tossed up, was done right there, in his 'lab.' while it's no 'hands of god studio,' i'm pleased with the set-up and it's allowed me to get back to my roots and continue my mixing education. if you thought samapalooza I was good, you obviously didn't come to samapalooza II. if you thought nothing could out-do samapalooza II, you clearly missed samapalooza III: the graduation special.

so if you're having a dance party anytime soon and need a dj with the skillz, you know who to call.

here's some pics of the new lab set-up. enjoy.

you'll notice the big blue exercise ball has replaced a chair of any kind. this way i can work on the core while i'm mixing up hot beats.

oh and here's a pic of my new springsteen shirt.

bang bang bang bang bangin' of fools!

it's delux son, delux

2010-05-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

so i'm pretty sure i've posted this numerous times before, but for some reason i just thought about it again. it is truly cinematic genius and sets the standard by which all other commercials should be judged. if you've never seen it, enjoy. if you saw it every time you went to a dollar movie in provo during 2003/2004, enjoy it again and remember all the good times we had.

'look familiar? true playa from day one.'

thank you love you

2010-04-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

with the start of the final season of 'the hills' kicking off is less than 25 minutes, i figured i might as well do a shout-out post. recently (the last 15 months), i've had a hard time remembering why i once would go out of my way to catch the newest episode of the laguna beach spin-off. while kickin' with lunchbox this past sunday (by the way, i have a really awesome story that goes along with that, later in the post...), we were hangin' at the condo, watching mindless television. we were flipping back and forth between vh1's behind the music of t.i. and a 'hills' marathon on mtv. we started off watching t.i. for the majority, only flipping back to 'the hills' during commercials, but then it hit me. i remembered. episode 512 from season 5 was on. spencer has just bought the house for him and heidi and they are arguing about whether or not to have kids. the comedy ensues from that point on. from turning off the wii and kicking the neighbors kid out to playing 'count to 2000' hide and go seek, spencer's true colors are once again, stunningly obvious. so when asked why i like 'the hills,' there's only one reason...

thank you spencer pratt.

so on sunday, after a trip to davanza's with the boys, we hit up j. crew. i was hittin' up the sale rack when i came across a blue button up vest. i already have it in one color, but it cost me a pretty penny. i think i wore it like 7 times coaching during the season, so the thought of getting another one definitely crossed my mind. this one was initially $70, but it was marked down to $39.99. it was also hanging on a 20% off rack, so it would've been $32ish. since adam was there, i pulled up the buddy system and asked if i was allowed to buy the vest. after i pleaded my case, he gave me the okay. i sauntered up to the register, still contemplating the purchase in my mind. when the lady scanned it, $9.99 flashed on the screen. in my mind, 'holy ship!' she punched a couple more buttons, applying the 20% discount and said my total was $8. she then looked at the vest and said she was going to check it, just to be safe. i told her that was cool and she typed in the numbers again. again, $8 came up. she said it must be right. i said that's fine with me, then i yelled to adam to grab another one. so, walking out of j.crew, i was now the proud owner of 2 blue button up vests. should've been $140... instead, $16. boo-ya.

just ask their seven foot tall mascot

2010-04-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

was watching stephen colbert tonight and this clip was on. couldn't stop laughing.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Nailed 'Em - Drive-Through Rapping

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Fox News

lo's britney

2010-03-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

so with the end of the quarter rapidly approaching (friday), many students have come banging on my door, asking what they can do about their grade and how it's possible for them to be failing p.e. (believe me, it's possible). most of them slacked off big time in the beginning, either not dressing, not participating, not behaving, or not turning a single thing in. i realize they are 10th graders and for the kids in the first semester it was their first real taste of high school. as much as we claim to not 'hold their hands' and baby them through to graduation, we do. constantly reminding them to turn stuff in, giving them half credit for late work, the list goes on and on. basically, college will be a wake up call for many of them. anyway, i can understand the kids in the first semester falling a little behind and not catching onto the system. but the second semester kids? gimme a break. they are slacking on purpose and going out of their way to do poorly. i tell them right from the start, if they give me 10%, i'll go the other 90%. i will go out of my way to help each and every one of them and do whatever i can to get them to the next level and be successful in life. but if they're going to ditch, not dress on purpose, and not behave... it's 'don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.' no more mr. nice white. they want something for nothing and feel they automatically 'deserve' an 'A' outta me.

so this week, coach schaub (my office-mate) and i, have tried a little something new. each time we hear a knock on the door, we open up itunes and crank this track... enjoy!

while surfin' for this video, i stumbled across my all-time favorite justin jam...

oh canada, we love our beaver

2010-03-10T22:37:00.000-08:00

my sister sent me this. oh canada...

mozeltof ladies

2010-03-08T22:12:00.000-08:00

they did it...

congrats to the university of connecticut women's basketball team on winning 71 straight games and breaking their own previously held record. i'd love to see them get 89!

congrats as well to coach geno auriemma. i've really enjoyed reading about him in the last two books i've read and wish him continued success in the future. i'd kill to get two straight wins, he's gotten 70 straight, twice.

*author's note: i'm not of jewish decent and thus i do not know how to spell "mozeltof" correctly. i apologize. sha-bot sha-lome!

hookers at pchs

2010-03-04T20:42:00.001-08:00

i'm a big fan of titles.

i was recently reminded of this when i finished 'the same river twice,' a book about geno auriemma and the connecticut huskies women's basketball team (surprise surprise, i love reading three kinds of books, 1. coaching biographies 2. rapper biographies and 3. kurt vonegut's). if you know anything about basketball, specifically women's college basketball, you know that there are two 'juggernauts (if you will)' of the game, tennessee and connecticut. connecticut is coached by geno, tennessee by pat summitt. summitt has eight national championships (that's second only to the amazing john wooden's ten with the ucla men's team, he also holds the record for 88 consecutive wins, more on that later), and geno is close behind with six, three of which were back to back to back. the lady huskies are currently attempting to break the women's college basketball record for most consecutive wins of 70 straight (that's more than an entire season of winning, plus the ncaa tournament), set of course, by them, seven years ago. as of three days ago, they've won 69 straight and things are looking good. if you initially picked up the book and looked at it, you'd assume the book was a chronicle of the back to back to back championship seasons or something along those lines. in actuality, the book follows the team through the trials and tribulations of the year after their 1999-2000 championship season. mounds of pressure were on them as they were hailed by many to be the best team ever assembled (little did the many know that this year's team is on track to be even better...) and a shoe in for a repeat title. after injuries set in, and with a young point guard at the helm (who would later become one of the best ever), the huskies struggled (32-3, i'd kill for that record) and lost in the final four to notre dame. the book's title, 'the same river twice,' is an excerpt from a direct quote from geno, 'you can't stick your foot in the same river twice.' this caught me off guard at first, but then i figured it out. what geno meant, was that since a river is constantly flowing and moving, you can never place your foot (or any appendage for that matter) into the same river twice. the river will never be the same. the water you've put your foot into is long gone, maybe yards or even miles away. never again, will you touch the same water molecules in that specific formation. it's fun to think about.

when i write, i too like to use clever titles. the title comes from a phrase in the passage, a play on words, or simply something that hooks the reader long enough to get to the good stuff. my post, 'morning wood,' is a perfect example. no where in the post do i discuss sun-rise-induced erections or the song of the same name by 88 keys, it's merely a post about the release of season 2 of everwood (which seriously rocks by the way). but it hooked the readers!

the title of this post comes from another run-in i had with catchy titles. during my senior year of high school, i was a contributing writer and member of 'the prospector' staff, park city high school's school newspaper. i was an opinions writer and (surprise surprise) also a sports writer. i wrote some real gems that year, but nothing topped the april fool's edition of the newspaper and my article about howie, from the backstreet boys, and lance, from n*sync, forming a two person rap supergroup called c.w.a., crackerz with attitude (the school was very liberal). anyway, when i graduated and moved on, i remember returning to the high school one day to visit my mom (who worked there). on her desk was the latest issue of 'the prospector.' i glanced through, curious to see the legacy i had left and to see if any other writers had stepped up and filled my spot as the guy who wrote smart funny articles. turns out no one did. end of story.

just kidding.

but seriously, no one was as smart and funny as i was (back then, remember, it was 2002-2003).

anyway, i glanced through the paper and one article really jumped out at me. 'hookers at pchs?' it said. i HAD to read this one. i did. and it was pretty good. although, besides the title, there wasn't tons of funny stuff throughout. the article was an in-depth look at the crocheting/knitting (requires a tool called a 'hook' apparently) craze that had taken over at the high school (cool, i know). everywhere you looked, students were crocheting this, or knitting that. more often than not, the kids were making beanies or headbands displaying the green, red, and yellow 'rasta' colors that pay homage to music legend bob marley and other fallen jamaican soldiers. at least that's what they'll tell you. in actuality, those colors mean they like to smoke marijuana. a lot. now that i'm at the school as a teacher, it's clear to me and whenever i see a kid displaying those colors on a t-shirt, backpack patch, or sweatband, they are high off their ass. sad, but true. there were a few however, who crocheted and knitted for the love of the sport, the love of the game. they simply just liked to make hats and headbands and scarfs for people. one such example: i remember bryce bailey even told me once that his sisters (and two of my favorite people ever), liz and lauren, were the avid (not average) hookers and could crochet anything my heart desired in a matter of minutes.

so yes people, there really were 'hookers' at pchs.

she's got hips for days

2010-02-16T22:07:00.000-08:00

alicia keys - try sleeping with a broken heart

so i first saw alicia keys perform this at the american music awards and i really liked it. i liked it enough to look it up and pay to download it. while watching bet's '106 & park' (big ups to terrance and roxy) a few weeks later, i learned that there was a video for it. mind you, i only caught a clip of the vid since it wasn't the 'new joint' of the day (whenever a new song/video makes it's debut on 106 & park, they play it in it's entirety. otherwise, they just play a clip of it like they used to on 'trl.' it's okay, i didn't know either until about 8 years ago), so it kinda caught me off guard at first. i mean, she's walking around one minute, bringing dead dogs back to life, and then all of a sudden she's flying over manhattan and lookin' damn fine in a full body purple jump suit. baffling. anyway, after tracking down the video on google/youtube/mtv, i saw the beginning and the end and now it makes sense. she's a superhero and her weakness (or only downside) is the man she loves. i'm not gonna come right out and say it, but alicia, that's pretty much the same exact plot as will smith's 'hancock.' i'm just sayin'.

all in all, i love alicia keys' videos. she's brilliant. i love how she uses rappers in her videos. mos def in 'you don't know my name.' that was awesome. the whole 'verizon' parody... classic. all she wants is a man in a blue suit with a good job who likes hot chocolate (um... me!). then she used method man in her 'if i ain't got you' video. another classic. she doesn't want all the glitz and glamour, all the money and furs. naw, she just wants a man who makes an honest living and treats her right (um... me!).

when i saw her perform 'try sleeping with a broken heart' at the all-star game the other night, i just got flat out giddy.

here's the link to the videos, check it out:

you don't know my name

if i ain't got you

try sleeping with a broken heart

they're well worth your time. and alicia, if you're out there, don't worry girl, i'm takin' the hints. just lemme know when you're ready for me...

now this is a guy i'd clap for...

2010-01-30T22:19:00.000-08:00

the original greatest show on turf.

next time i'm at an iowa state, st. louis rams, or arizona cardinals game, and they're retiring kurt warner's number, i'll stand up and clap.

thanks for all the good times and memories you gave me, kurt. go rams!

bandwagonzz

2010-01-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

i had a little free time tonight, so i actually decided to do two posts tonight. sorry.

my entire life, well, almost my entire life, i've been a los angeles rams fan (i realize that they have moved to st. louis and now i am a st. louis rams fan). my dad grew up in l.a. and when we were young, he got us hooked on the rams. the rams had some good years, back when my dad was young and living in l.a., but for much of the 80's and 90's, they flat out stunk. i couldn't quite grasp the concept of a team losing for almost an entire decade at that age, so i stuck with them. i followed them religiously and anxiously checked the newspaper every single sunday to see if they were playing on t.v. in utah. of course, they never were. they played on t.v. in utah twice a year, both times against the san francisco 49ers from their division. those of you not current with 80's and 90's 49ers, lemme bring you up to speed... they were good. really good. they would beat up on the rams every single time and just make it almost not even fun to watch. i forgave joe montana for all the damage he'd done to the rams when he was traded to kansas city. in fact, i became a very big joe montana fan when he was a chief and his jersey was actually the first one i ever acquired (i now have close to 17). as for the heir to his throne, i've yet to make amends with that fellow. steve young single-handedly took over rams' game after rams' game and showed no mercy. if he loved beating anyone, it seemed like he loved beating my rams. i was just a boy at the time, but i had a heart and feelings and i believed that everybody eventually should get a fair shot. i couldn't figure out why the rams had to lose and lose and lose. and i couldn't figure out why steve young had to be the one to beat them all the time. i've never forgiven steve young for all the tears he caused me growing up, and i don't think i ever will. my first weekend at byu (freshmen orientation!), bryce and i had not yet bought sports passes so we walked up to the gate and bought $14 student football tickets. i remember the game well, byu played and beat georgia tech pretty easily. i'll never forget halftime though, never. i'm pretty sure it was the game they retired steve young's number at lavell edwards stadium. the entire venue was packed and everyone in attendance was standing and cheering as steve young walked to midfield. i sat in silence. i remember bryce repeatedly telling me to stand up and one time even grabbed me and forced me up. how could i stand? how could i clap? this man torchered me on a biannual basis and smiled at the camera the whole time he did it. there's no way i would clap for this man, despite his 'sub-par' accomplishments in college and the pros.

anyway, that was just an intro into what this post is really about.

i was shopping at fashion place a couple of weekends ago and after i had hit up my usual route (finish line, zummiez, foot locker, and journey's), i headed down the mall to an old favorite. fanzz. i've always loved fanzz, a store dedicated to sports merchandise. it started as 'the pro image' and i would frequent the one in cottonwood mall almost every other weekend growing up. we eventually got one at the park city outlets, but it left after a couple of years.

i'd always go into fanzz with one thing in mind, i've got to find some rams gear. i didn't care what is was, a shirt, a hat, a jersey, anything rams, i'd buy it. sadly, like the t.v. stations, utah is confined to regional prison bars. it's the place to go if you're looking for anything jazz, utes, cougars, bees, or buzz. but beyond that, good luck.

anyway, i was in there this past weekend or whatever and after i had looked at all the full priced cool new flashy jazz throwback gear, i made my way over to where i feel a little more comfortable... the sale rack. frugal sam was on the scene. i mentioned earlier that i collect/like jerseys. my favorite thing about my jersey collection is that i've yet to pay full price for a jersey. i usually get a screamin' deal on ebay or i just buy jerseys of players that no longer play for that particular team. so there i was, cruisin' the sale rack, remembering hearing something about a trade deadline, lookin' for jerseys that might have been marked down due to player relocations.

as i combed the rack (comb the desert! -spaceballs), i began to see a pattern. every shirt/jacket/anything, was either orange and navy, or yellow and black. at the time, the winner of last year's super bowl was not fresh on my mind. in fact, if jay leno or someone had done a 'jay-walking' segment and asked me that very question, i probably would've embarrassed myself on national television. luckily, fanzz had my back. instantly, i knew. since half the sale rack was pittsburgh steelers gear, it was obvious to me that they had been crowned world champions (which i've never understood, just because you win the super bowl, doesn't mean you've beaten everyone in the world) a little under a year ago. you see, utah is all about the bandwagon. don't get me wrong, i love this state, especially park city (hence the need for me to have an 8' park city flag hanging in my living room), but we are traditionally bandwagon jumpers. if somebody's winning, we're their biggest fan. if they're losing, we're like 'who?!?' i remember a couple of years back and everyone was on a patriot's craze. tom brady was bigger than john stockton. the thing that sucked the most was when the rams actually had a couple good seasons (greatest show on turf!) and won the superbowl, the state of utah loved the rams. all these hokie rams fans appeared out of the woodwork and suddenly kurt warner's jersey was outselling karl malone's. it was a trying time for us true rams fans (we got through it though cuz now they suck again, like really suck).

i also mentioned a sea of navy and orange on the sale rack. you can't go to a utah fanzz store without running into some colorado overlap. since we share a border with them, they think they can ship all their crap broncos gear to us and that we will just buy it up like hot cakes. wrong colorado. wrong. we don't like the broncos. terrell davis is a bum. we don't like the nuggets. well, actually, i do. i've always like carmelo. i like k-mart and the birdman is growing on me (protect the nest!). i wasn't a huge fan of chancy billups until matt nagel told me a funny story about him getting into a fight with chancy (a.k.a. 'smooth') in 6th grade in a rec. league game and then going to a jazz game 19 years later and hounding him from the 3rd row. now i don't mind him that much.

so the point is this... if you live in utah, support the jazz, either the utes or the cougars (not both), the park city lady miners basketball team, and pick a team that wasn't world champions from the year before to support in either football, baseball, or hockey. and don't say you've been a real salt lake fan for 20 years just cuz they won it all this year. and don't say you like david beckam cuz he's good and that you like the l.a. galaxy, only say you like him cuz he's good looking.

lastly, i've been to the rams stadium back when they played in los angeles, and this summer i was able to visit the dome in st. louis. if you're a rams fan, it's like mecca to a muslim, you gotta go once.

p.s.s. steve young, i really don't like you. still.

i was on tour with gwen stefan-i

2010-01-20T20:29:00.001-08:00

i was cruisin' to school in the whip the other day and listening to some jamz on the ipod. i got really bored with my playlists and feel like i've been listening to the same new songs over and over again. i put the whole ipod on shuffle and i've decided just to let it play through. in theory, it's all my music, so in theory, i should like every song that comes on. it's been great, i've really enjoyed stumbling upon some old favorites. anyway, i was half way to school when akon's "don't matter" came on. i really like this song, but instantly, i was reminded of probably my favorite akon song, "blame it on me." the song is good, don't get me wrong, but like many of my favs, i truly fall in love with a song when i fall in love with the video. "blame it on me" is a great video, with four underlying stories all folding out and developing into one. i really like when artists get creative. i've posted the video below, so if you've never seen it, take a minute and enjoy. if you have seen it, it's probably been a while. take a minute and enjoy.

my absolute favorite part is when the dj, played by clinton sparks, get a call on from his wife in the beginning. when she calls, it shows her pic on the iphone and simply says 'wifey.' yet another thing i look forward to in life.

home opener. part 2

2010-01-02T21:38:00.000-08:00

in keeping with the tradition of "part 2's," i've decided to re-visit the home opener post i posted in september. while it probably won't be as entertaining as 'i am a man' and 'i am a man part 2,' i hope you chuckle once or twice throughout.

i realize that the utes season is now over and although it was a pretty good one, we did drop some games we shouldn't have. oregon was a bunch of scrubs when we played them and not much better last night in the rose bowl. tcu was straight legit and there's absolutely nothing bad i have to say about them. they are flat out good. we shouldn't have lost to maxi-pad hall and the cougs, but oh well, that's what makes it a rivalry. we'll get 'em next year. we've still busted the bcs twice, won nine straight bowl games, and had the #1 pick overall. but for some reason, people still strongly dislike (even hate) the utes. : ( i don't.

anyway, back to home openers. yesterday was my first day out skiing of the year. and i don't mean like the first day i've skied in 2010. i mean the first day of this ski season, the 2009-2010 ski season. for some reason it really bugs me when people say stupid stuff that involves the new year. like on dec. 31st, they'll say, 'see ya next year, haha.' and they know they are going to see you tomorrow. or this one guy i talked to said, my plan is to be chugging a beer at 11:59 pm straight through midnight so i when i stop and it's past 12:00, i can say, 'i've been drinking all year!' that stuff bugs me. it's a pet peeve. but then again, the phrase 'pet peeve' bugs me. bad.

although the day started out very sunny and warm, by the time i was skiing, it was cloudy, cold, and snowing slightly. not to mention it was icy. i try not to complain a lot, but after years and years of skiing, you've seen all conditions and some are just better than others. skiing truly is like riding a bike. after 20 yards, i felt like i'd already put in 20 days this year. skiing is like volleyball, it brings me lots and lots of joy. if everyone could ski, play volleyball, and get action, there would be world peace (that's right, i said it!).

i went up with my dad and my brother and my mom came up shortly after. we haven't all skied together in a long time, probably two or three years. it was a lot of fun and i'm glad they made it up.

while waiting in line at silverlode, i noticed a long time employee of the resort, doug, working the line. doug is pretty unforgettable because he is missing a hand and has a grasping claw/hook as a replacement. he's a very nice guy and a wonderful employee, but that sort of thing sets him apart from most of the other people who work there and he's easy to remember season after season. anyway, when i saw him, i texted a friend of mine because she worked at PCMR one season, one day a week, in order to get a free season's pass. she had told me that doug meant business, but he was also pleasant to work with. after i texted her, she called me right away and we found out that we were both skiing and that we were not more than 100 yards away from each other.

here's a semi-silly one.

here's the side hug. although, i did give her a full-frontal when we initially met and it wasn't even her birthday! it was new year's though.

we met up for a run or two and it was just lovely to catch up with her. out of all the people i've skied with in my life, i can honestly say that there's not one that i like skiing with more than laura rees. she's probably the most improved skier i've had the pleasure of meeting. she's put in the time and the work and she had the desire to get better. it's great to see someone who loves the sport and is willing to work at it. when you ski with her, you can tell she is having a wonderful time.

so although it wasn't a football or basketball game, it was my first day out of the season, the opener. and since i consider park city my home resort, i feel that 'home opener part 2' is an appropriate title for this post. may the snow continue to fall, and may i continue to look more and more like kirt white so we don't get in trouble for sharing a season's pass.

happy new year!

998 to go

2009-12-08T22:20:00.000-08:00

pat summitt. watch your back.

the lady miners defeated waterford tonight for my 2nd career win as a head coach. pat summitt has at least 1,000 career wins as a head coach in division I college basketball. i'm hot on her trail.

i am a man. part 2

2009-11-15T14:04:00.000-08:00

so this last friday i had a little free time and was able to complete many tasks in a short amount of time. i got tons done at school, mailed bills, picked up my checks from the marriott, went to the bank, did laundry, cleaned and vacuumed the condo, just about everything i could get done, i did. it was a very successful day and i was pleased with myself.

i could have called it good there and ended the day a success, but i wanted more.

side note: in july i did a post titled, 'i am a man.' it chronicled my adventure to home depot to buy salt for my water softner. while ultimately it was a pretty uneventful story, i still felt like a man.

recently, my shower drain has been clogged. it takes about an hour for it drain after i have a shower. this is not only disgusting, but most likely unsanitary. so, after a couple of days of dealing with this, i decided it was time solve the problem. initially, i just wanted to buy some draino and be done, but i haven't ever used the stuff and didn't really know what i was getting into with intense chemicals.

i decided to first observe my surroundings and my situation. i sat there and took a good look at the drain and surrounding objects. on the circular metal thing above the drain but below the faucet, i noticed a phillips head screw. i grabbed the screw driver and began loosening the screw. once off, there really wasn't much going on with that thing, so i cleaned it and screwed it back on. my drain doesn't have one of those trip levers where you flip it up and the water goes down, or you flip it down and the water stays put making a nice bath. instead, you just pull up or down on the actual drain.

i pushed, i pulled, i screwed, i unscrewed, i tried just about all i could. the thing wouldn't come off or out.

i decided to consult a professional. i opened my laptop, went to google video, and typed in 'how to fix a bathtub drain.' numerous videos appeared, filled with information on all types of drains and systems. it was great. i watched probably 20 minutes of videos, gaining a little something here and there from each of them. none of them address the specific drain or set-up i was dealing with, but i was able to piece things together and using my mind, i came up with several solutions. 'give a man a fish, and he will eat for a night. teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.'

i rigged up a hanger wire and before long i was seven or eight inches deep into that drain fishing out all kinds of stuff that had been blocking the free flow of water.

i learned several things that day from the internet videos... 1. most system are made out of pvc pipe or something plastic, so yeah, draino is definitely going to burn through whatever's causing the clog, but it may also eventually burn through or severely damage your piping. 2. the internet is awesome. 3. nothing made me feel more like a man than having a couple screwdrivers (non-alcoholic) out, a clothes hanger turned wire in my hands, and listening to miley cyrus's 'party in the u.s.a.' while i cleaned out my drain.

and the jay-z song was on... and the jay-z song was on... so i put hands up (you know the rest)...

volleybally

2009-11-13T11:09:00.000-08:00

so the last couple of weeks, i've had the opportunity to do something i really love every wednesday night. volleyball. that's right, volleyball. i've always loved the sport, and played whenever the chance presented itself. in high school, there was no school sanctioned team due to title IX and we were forced to form a club team. we enlisted the help of coach ed potts and had a wonderful time playing against each other. if i'm not mistaken (which i'm usually not, and especially in this instance since i filmed, co-starred in, and edited the thing), we made a hilarious promo video for the miner morning show, park city high's daily video announcements show. when we traveled to salt lake to play other teams, we quickly realized that we were not good and should probably not make a serious push for a boys' volleyball team at pchs. the kids we were playing had been playing for years on elementary, middle school, and select club teams and they kicked the ship out of us. we were broke, but not broken (shout out to blue scholars).

upon arriving at college, i noticed that p.e. was not a general class, but you were still required to take a specific physical education class or group of classes to graduate. i had no problem with this and quickly enrolled in both basketball and volleyball. these classes were amazing. think about it, an entire semester class dedicated to volleyball. i was in heaven. i stayed in heaven throughout my time there, taking volleyball every single fall semester, and basketball every single winter semester. i usually took v-ball with my good friend and international volleyball sensation, lara pessetto. occasionally, this mexican kid named eber was also in our class ('muda focka', which means "move the knife" in portuguese). i feel that my skills grew and grew in college, and i actually came out a pretty decent player. i played intramural volleyball whenever possible, and my summers in park city were filled with hours upon hours of sand volleyball.

this fall, some of the teachers in the district put together a competitive team that plays in the fall racquet club league. it's every wednesday, and we usually have two matches a night. it's a blast! i'm on a team with several of my old teachers, as well as some of my new colleagues. me and the b.o.c. (bob o'conner) are the twin towers of racquet club volleyball. he is the david robinson to my tim duncan (munch on that juno/ellen paige).

another funny story. one of the players on our team is named virginia and she is an assistant coach with the high school team. one of my t.a.'s is on the high school team and told me that none of the girls really like her and they call her 'vagina' when she's not around. so when i see my t.a. at school, i tell her that i played volleyball with 'vagina' last night, and she just laughs and laughs.

anyway, here's the real point of this post. volleyball is amazing. for me, it releases so many endorphines and seritonin that sometimes, i don't know what to do with myself. volleyball makes me truly happy. i've often said that the only way for there to be world peace, is to have everybody (and i mean everybody) getting action. when people are getting action, they are in such a better mood and it's really hard to get them agitated. if we could all just be getting action, nobody would be mad and nobody would want to start wars. recently, my view on this has changed. don't get me wrong, i still think constant all-inclusive action would solve some major world problems, but i've derived a new theory to supplement my old one. here it is: if everyone were playing volleyball, there would be world peace. please don't copy and paste this onto your application for the pulitzer peace prize, just read it, think about it, and embrace it. with that being said, i'm late for a game!

just kidding. but seriously, play some volleyball, get some action, love one another.

splurge

2009-11-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

man it feels good to be back! sorry for the hiatus, but i'm here. i hope to keep the posts a comin' and a comin' often. anyway, since we last talked, i've made some purchases. now, i'm not one to brag or let everyone know what i have, but i do enjoy sharing my joy with the world. nothing makes me happier than finding a good deal. call me cheap, call me frugal (which i prefer), call me what you will, but nothing beats that feeling you get when you were in the right place at the right time and you got something for cheaper than you should have. and nothing beats telling everyone about it. recently, two such instances occurred. the first, happened in one of my five sacred places (1. rice-eccles stadium, 2. anaheim stadium (where the rams used to play), 3. the chili's on 4th south, 4. the huntsman center down on the floor, and 5. the nike outlet in park city). i just happened to be in the nike outlet and cruising the sale section when these babies jumped out at me...

yup. gangsta. and only $20. slide that debit card!

the following week, i decided to up the ante, and look into luxury cars. this story actually starts a couple weeks earlier, when i went on an excursion to the gem state (it's idaho people, come on!).

ryan stam, a former high school basketball teammate and finger board champion, and i were invited to be groomsmen for another friend of ours' october 9th wedding. ryan owns a sick vw gti that is tricked out to the max. it's got a slammin' system, dark-ass tint, and some good lookin' rims. ryan also owns a late 80's subaru legacy sedan. he bought it for about $1000, with well over a hundred thousand miles on it, but it still runs like a champ. it's got all the original buttons and everything is in-tact. he claims it's because the previous owner was asian, and we all know asians like to take care of their cars. we also know that i don't find them the least bit attractive.

speaking of asians, nate (our other buddy) is pretty asian. so ryan has this sweet gti and this awesome old subaru. he only drives the gti in the summer and only drives it when he's staying close to his house. he bought the subaru solely to drive in the winter and to drive when he goes long distances (road trips included).

anyway, we hopped in the subaru and drove to twin falls/boise for nate and erica's wedding. nate is on the boise state basketball team and erica is on the boise state dance team. i got to walk around on the smurf turf a lot and even ran a re-creation of the famous 2005 fiesta bowl statue of liberty play. jared zabransky ain't got ship on me. side note: i wonder who would win in a fight between zabransky and matt saracen? my money's on the taco, but only if it's prison rules.

so when i got back to pc, i was on a mission. i needed to find my own, second car...

after a couple weeks of checking ksl.com religiously, i found my dream car.

it's a 1994 nissian sentra with about 134,000 miles on it. it's got a great tape deck and forced me to dig through the archives and find my old mixtapes. i must say, i'm one hell of a mixtaper. it gets about 30 miles to the gallon, so i'm goin' green! it was only $2000 so i wrote a check and now it's mine! i plan on driving it on days when it's not snowing and days when i have to drive long distances. i'm keeping the blazer (aka the nation), despite someone putting an obama sticker on it (just kidding, i put it there, but lunchbox gives me a hard time anyway). the blazer is the car i had as a sophomore in high school and i find it kind of nicely ironic that i now teach sophomores at my high school. either way, whatever car i'm in, you know i'll be keepin' it gangster.

ryan stam, you are a genius.

imma letchu finish

2009-09-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

with the airing of last sunday night's mtv video music awards, i was flooded with texts in regards to my feelings on kanye west's actions. not only that, for the past week or so, the media has been bringing it up over and over again claiming it's the 'most famous moment in vma history.' first off, yes, kanye screwed up. i don't know what he was thinking, it was early in the show, i guess he didn't realize that beyonce (i love you) was still up for several more awards (including 'video of the year'). it was an unfortunate turn of events. i realize, and i think he does too, that he lost some fans that night. he's apologized (which still doesn't make it right) over and over and i think he's learned his lesson. he probably won't do anything like that again for awhile.

anyway, enough with all the negativity and the dwelling on the kanye situation! i thought the highlight of the night was the return of eminem! he did amazing. he looked great accepting his award and his skits with tracy morgan (one mic baby!) throughout the show were hilarious! he is a very funny person (hence my post about his cameo in 'funny people') and i thought he did a great job!

while watching the show, i searched for his piece that he did for the movie awards earlier this year. this is quality stuff right here. yes, the beginning is a little raw, but hey, it's eminem, he's supposed to be raw. either way, if you haven't seen this, enjoy! if you have, laugh again. the comic book shop scene is HILARIOUS (just like nick cannon)!

p.s. there's a 15 second commercial at the beginning again. push through.

eminem - where have you been?

if the video doesn't play, go to mtv.com and type in 'eminem where have you been?' in the search box.

Eminem - MTV Shows

walk it out

2009-09-16T20:24:00.001-07:00

for the last five days of school, i've been taking the tenth graders to city park for some serious(ly awful looking) sand volleyball. it's not that they are trying to play awfully, it's just that they are finally getting used to their bodies and realizing that they can be good at things/sports if they actually try to. so, for every sport or activity we do, it takes them about three days to really grasp it and become proficient. by day three, they're having fun and it's starting to actually look like whatever sport we're playing. the first day of ultimate frisbee just about made me turn in my teaching license. then i taught them the 'pancake' and the 'crab claw,' (both excellent frisbee catches) and all of sudden, they were playing like the pros.

anyway, the point of this post is that park city kids don't know how to walk. sure they can put one foot in front of the other, but they can't really walk. they complain constantly about the 14 minute walk from the front of the school up to city park. it's ridiculous, it's 14 minutes, not a big deal. secondly, they don't know how to cross the street. i can't tell you how many times i've had to pull a kid back up onto the curb when a car is turning right or to keep a group from crossing when the big red hand is flashing. they think they own the road.

kids just don't walk around like they used to. i remember walking a lot of places. sure we had the bus and whatnot, but you had to walk to the bus stop and then when you got off, you had to walk around town, crossing streets and staying on sidewalks. you learned how the lights worked, you learned to look both ways.

these kids need a lesson in toughness. they need a lesson in logic. they need... coach white.

safe spot, sk8 spot

2009-09-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

people have heard me say several times that 'once park city gets a chili's and a best buy, i won't ever have to leave.' basically, the only time i go to salt lake is when i have to grab some grub at chili's or when i have to get the hot new shady records cd from best buy (although, during the fall, i do go down for utah ute football games).

recently, the park city best buy opened it's doors and welcomed new customers to experience the magic, in a non-salt lake/provo setting. all the merchandise, all the fun, just minutes away now. i couldn't have been happier. i've already been three times. once just to look, once to buy the asher roth cd (a follow-up post is in the works... asher is the ship), and most recently to buy my mom a digital camera for her birthday and an eminem concert dvd (the concert dvd wasn't for her, it was for me).

after leaving 'big blue,' my boi jeremy and i went to see 'extract' (jason bateman is the bomb.com, r.i.p. arrested development) at the redstone theater. when we walked out the best buy doors, i didn't see jeremy's car. he told me that he had parked underground. what? best buy had underground parking? oh snap.

we walked down there, only to find that we had just discovered our future professional skateboarding training facility. it was huge. it was well lit. and it was EMPTY. maybe like 2 cars. absolute madness.

later in the week, we were bored and decided to skate it up. we took our skates to the best buy underground parking lot and shredded it up! we opened up the back hatch, bumped some hot jamz, skated for almost an hour, both drenched in sweat after.

there's only one downside. best buy's underground parking structure is a 'dead' zone. zero service (can you hear me now?) what's so ever. it's okay though, cuz if we're gonna get good, we can't have distractions (like smokin' hot girls texting us all the time to make out with them constantly. yes, it happens all the time, constantly).

see the ice... see the car...

2009-09-06T22:49:00.000-07:00

i was watching 106 & park on bet the other night when this video came on the countdown. it is AWESOME. i really liked this video and hope you enjoy it as well. i didn't see the end of it until i later looked it up on mtv.com. i think the end kinda ruins it but oh well, i laughed in the beginning. if you can make it through the 15 second ad at the start of the video, you won't be disappointed...

Jeremih - New Music - More Music Videos

home opener

2009-09-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

last night marked the beginning of yet another exciting university of utah ute football season. it's nice to open the season at home and it's even nicer to open the season at home against a team that you've beat eleven straight times. utah state looked better than they have in the past, but the utes proved to be just too much for the aggies to handle.

i like going to the games with my dad. mainly because he goes out of his way to get there early. usually we roll down in the vette, but last night we rocked the silverado. getting there early allows for a nice stroll (instead of a hurried sprint) from the car to the stadium. you can hear the music playing all the way there. there's hundreds of people, all in red, all heading for the stadium. it's glorious.

the band comes out. the cheerleaders come out. the crimson line comes out.

this year's introductions were awesome because as the video played on the jumbo-tron (one word principal taylor -- who by the way has the nicest teeth ever), anytime there was a clip from last year's sugar bowl (side note to all the byu fans out there -- last year, utah went 12-0, even beating the cougars, and then busted the bcs by kicking the pants off alabama in the forementioned bowl game, which was also their 8th straight bowl win, an ncaa record), the entire crowd went CRAZY! it was so loud. you could feel the energy from last year carrying over. it made you proud to be there and proud to be a ute fan. when the team came out of the tunnel, it went from a 10, to an 11 (big bottom is still number one on my playlist, spinal tap).

i was really impressed with the new quarterback, terrance cain. he played a good game, threw some good passes, and made some good decisions. a couple passes were a little high, but they were still catchable. i think the team will come together as a unit as the season goes on. but for a guy who's never played in a division I college football game, i thought he did well.

by far my favorite part of the game, was seeing two former byu cougars there, and they were almost dressed in ute colors. one was wearing black, the other was wearing orange (luckily, they weren't sitting next to each other, october's still a month away). for fear of ruining their reputations as loyal cougar fans, i will black out their names to protect their identities. one was j**** w******* (rhymes with wared jilstead), a friend and former co-worker of mine, and the other was l**** r*** (rhymes with raura lees), a long time friend and former starting guard for the 'penetrators.' it was truly great to see them there and it just made my heart happy.

besides a few park city alum here and there, i also ran into my dream girl. well... not her exactly, but she definitely met the criteria and even added a few new aspects. picture if you will, a hot ass girl, with a 'bump-it,' rockin' a utah football jersey (in a tight women's size of course) and jeans. now... take it up a notch, and imagine this same girl, still bumpin' it, but now rockin' a utah basketball jersey (in a tight women's size of course), showing some shoulder, with jeans and jordan retro 3's. that my friends, is the future mrs. samuel david white. i'm sorry, i'm genetically/environmentally forced to fall for a girl with these traits.

not if, but when.

things i'm looking forward to this weekend:
1. laurie white's birthday (saturday)
2. watching byu play oklahoma in jerry jones' wet dream stadium (saturday)
3. watching greg paulos, yes greg paulos (former dukie point guard), start at quarterback for syracuse (saturday)
4. somehow meeting the girl mentioned above, starting a relationship with her, and getting engaged (saturday to whenever)

GO UTES!!!

commander and chief of the pimp ship

2009-08-31T21:56:00.000-07:00

so when i was kickin' it in st. louis this past summer, this song came on the radio while kat and i were cruisin' the streets. i had heard it once or twice before, but for some reason couldn't remember it. anyway, there's this one part in the song where ne-yo talks about being 'commander and chief of his pimp ship' and it's kat's favorite part. she was laughing really hard at that line.

when we got back to her apartment that night, we got on the internet and watched probably every r. kelly video (minus the 'trapped in the closet' anthology) ever made because i wanted to show her the video for 'same girl (quite possibly the funniest not-meant-to-be funny song/video written, produced, recorded, and filmed).' after watching classics like 'i wish' and 'world's greatest,' we decided to see if there was a video for the 'pimp ship' song.

turns out there was. also, turns out i had already seen it like a month before and that's how i somehow knew the song. here's the video if you've never seen it. it's keri hilson's 'knock you down,' featuring kanye west and ne-yo.

Keri Hilson "Knock You Down" feat Kanye West & Ne-Yo

the point of the post is that this is a really great song and a really great video. the song is catchy and provides words of encouragement for those who are down on love (myself included). meanwhile, the video is a masterpiece, yet another from my boi kanyeezy. not only is he wearing the air yeezy's in video, he's also rockin' the black mullet. keri hilson in black booty shorts can't be beat, and ne-yo is just a straight up pimp (hence his role as commander and chief of said 'pimp ship').

my favorite part of the video (other than the booty shorts and the booty they're attached to) has to be the painting. we all know kanye was an awesome artist back in the day before he started rapping. i don't know for sure, but i'd like to think he did the actual painting for the video. if he didn't, it's still a cool painting and i still love kanye, but if he did, he's that much cooler in my book. the painting inspired me to do a little artwork of my own. i used a similar set-up, little squares divided by white lines that come together to make a whole. the subject of my painting however was not a really good-looking r&b singer/songwriter, but merely the next best thing, a pair of ballin' shoes.

so thank you keri hilson for writing the song, singing it, and wearing booty shorts. thank you kanye for producing the song, rapping on it, directing the video, hopefully painting the painting, and wearing the air yeezy's. and most importantly, thank you ne-yo, for being commander and chief of your pimp ship flyin' high.

yo teach!

2009-08-23T17:27:00.001-07:00

tonight is my last night of summer. tomorrow officially starts my second year of teaching at park city high school. i'm excited for tomorrow and for this year in general. the second year should be lots easier in terms of already knowing what's going on. last year, i didn't get my keys to the school 'til the first day, couldn't log-in to my computer 'til lunch, and found out i'd be teaching a bought-out period of aerobics some time in there too. i made it work and had a great time doing it. teaching aerobics was awesome, it was just what i needed to counter balance all those 10th graders. i will miss it this year.

i bought some new school shoes a couple weeks ago. this is what they look like, except in all white:

they are pretty dope and i haven't worn them yet so i'm excited to get them on my feet!

i'm stoked for basketball season as well. the girls team will be effing awesome this year so make sure you make it out to a game. i'll post the schedule soon.

looking back on the summer, it's been a good one. i went to st. louis - awesome. i took the girls to price, utah - awesome. i worked the byu basketball camp - awesome. i worked at the grill with my really good friends jeremy, liz, lauren, and juan(bo) - awesome. i got to chill several times with my boy adam - awesome (i just wish everybody wasn't always staring at our pen 15's). i went to the oregon coast and the seattle/tacoma area to visit family - awesome, except when it rained at the beach. as far as a goals update, i got tan, i got buff, but i didn't get to skate nearly as much as i wanted. there's always next summer tho!

i saw a lot of good movies, listened to a lot of good music, danced, balled, and chilled. it was a good-ass summer.

wish me luck tomorrow.

pen15

2009-08-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

so last wednesday i went and saw '(500) days of summer' again. i had originally seen it last january during the sundance film festival which happens to be held in beautiful park city, utah. we went and saw two movies that day, one right after the other. we saw 'spread' first, an enchanting tale of aston kutcher effing his way through the richer neighborhoods of los angeles only to have the same thing happen to him later in the movie. i enjoyed the movie even though it was quite graphic and the guy next to me coughed up a lung onto my lap.

after 'spread,' we walked treacherously across town to another theater where we made it just in time for the start of '(500) days of summer.' i laughed really hard. it was a touching movie.

as the movie's credits came to an end, the sundance people brought out director marc webb (who by the way has directed so many music videos it's not even funny. fergie, yellowcard, nelly, my chemical romance, all-american rejects, regina spector, just to name a few), joseph gordon-levitt, and (troy and i's girlfriend) zooey deschanel, to talk about the film. that was really cool because we had just heard aston kutcher talk at the end of the other movie, and now we were listening to these people talk about how the movie came together and some fun times they had making it.

when i saw it again on wednesday, i could barely remember any of it and it was like seeing it for the first time. i laughed hard. again. the 'morning after' scene is easily the best part of the movie. it is absolutely hilarious. i also really liked when they played 'penis' in the park (hence the title of this post).

i went with my good friend lara and we just had a ball. at least i did. we remembered the good ol' days of freshman year at byu when she and brittany mastered the use of the dorm phone and reeked havoc on so many unsuspecting victims. i really hope tyler gets that message from his grandma someday.

so if you're looking for a funny, heartfelt film, peep it.

oh, and i completely forgot! the girl at the end of the movie is the lovely lyla garrity from 'friday night lights!' but i wouldn't have known that in january because i hadn't started watching the show yet. just finished the third season and it was awesome. can't wait for four.

in the M. I. Ayo!

2009-08-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

just to remind errrybody, the new kourtney kardashian show starts tonight.

we all know i'll be watching those... episodes. haha, i really crack myself up.

i thought everybody loved you?!?

2009-08-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

first off... adam weidemann, DO NOT READ THIS POST!!! i'm serious.

now that that's taken care of, this past wednesday i went and saw the new judd apatow movie, 'funny people.' i think he makes quality entertaining movies and because his movies are three to four years apart, i think that builds suspense and makes me want to see them more. i'll admit it, i really liked 'knocked up.' i thought it was the realist movie i'd ever seen, even though izzy from grey's would never get with seth rogan... no matter what. besides that fact, i thought it was pretty believable and it was nice to see a movie that you felt could actually happen to someone you knew (unlike every romantic comedy/action/horror/drama film ever made).

with 'funny people,' judd apatow writes and directs the story of a famous comedian (played by adam sandler) who's diagnosed with a terminal disease (the trailer tells you that much, so i didn't ruin anything). the diagnosis forces him to look at his former and current life differently. i'm always a big fan of movies where characters are forced to look back on their lives and see what they could've done differently. growing up watching movies, i enjoyed seeing these films because it made me conscience of being in the moment. if you realize where you are and what you are doing, than hopefully you can do things right and not have to regret tons of things when you get older. i'm not saying i've made great decisions throughout my life and there are definitely some things i'd like to do differently, but overall, i don't regret much and i've felt like i've had some really great friendships and relationships with some really great people.

anyway, throughout the movie, there are hilarious cameos by many of the greatest comedians/actors of all-time. a lot of them are from sandler's connections and years on snl (at least i assume so), but some of the cameos make you think, 'wow, how did they get that person in the movie?' when in actuality, i'm sure most of those people loved being in a movie that was projected to do very well at the box office and become a cultural identifier like 'knocked-up' and 'the 40 year-old virgin.' don't get me wrong either, apatow has his connections and has had his hands in a number of films and tv series (i.e. freaks and geeks) for a number of years.

by far, the funniest cameo is the scene with eminem. now everybody knows that i really (like REALLY) like eminem, but this part of the movie made me laugh harder than any other part and made me laugh harder than pretty much anything else has in the last two to three weeks. to the common person, it was probably mildly funny, but not as funny as it was to me. for some reason, it just made me bust up laughing and i couldn't stop. i think it's because i've followed eminem so closely and i've seen a lot of his interviews and the clips he's done for mtv where he's doing comedy, and i knew he probably had a lot of fun filming this scene. it's a pretty raw scene, with some pretty intense language, but his interaction with sandler, seth rogan, and ray ramano is absolutely hilarious.

the only downside to 'funny people' is that i didn't get to see the end of it. this is the ONLY time in my entire life where i have had to stand up and leave a movie theater while the movie was still playing. there was twenty minutes left and i was late for work.

i hope to see the end soon.

some days you just need to laugh

2009-08-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

so i was doing some 'research' the other night on the world wide web's second best informational site (the first being wikipedia of course. see also, the michael scott quote regarding wikipedia), facebook.com, when i came across this lovely photo:

i won't disclose it's origin or who it belongs to (cuz after all, once something is posted on the internet, it is no longer yours and you have no legal claims to it. i learned this at an internet safety course for tenth graders put on by the lovely men and women at the summit county sheriffs department.), but it's freakin' funny and really makes me laugh. this little girl is perfectly normal, she's just making an amazing face in this photo.

it brightened up my day and i hope it brightens yours.

coming soon...

2009-08-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

new posts that is! from me.

thanks.

finally

2009-07-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

extra! extra! read all about it!

thank goodness.

to quote alec baldwin in the movie elizabethtown, 'this shoe might force an entire generation to return to bare feet.' of course he wasn't talking about the croc in the movie, but i've felt since day one that this applies.

i am a man

2009-07-11T21:59:00.001-07:00

i am a man. i own a house (technically it's a condo). today, my house needed some home repair, and since i'm the man of the house, it was up to me.

the water softener at the condo has been low on salt pellets for a couple of days now and i was finally able to address this problem today. i went to home depot and made a 'nice little saturday' out of the adventure.

the thing about home depot is, no matter what you're wearing (j. crew cords (on sale of course), a button up, and a half-zip sweater) or what you're mood at the time, when you walk through the doors, you feel like a man. i'm talking about feeling like a man's man. like a construction worker, with overalls and a hard hat man. you feel like the world is at your fingertips and you rule everything. there's so many things in there that you could literally be entertained for days.

even though i was technically in home depot to buy something most manly men would call 'a luxury (soft water is hardly a luxury),' i'll admit, i caught the man buzz. i asked three different employees where to find the salt pellets and i didn't feel embarassed asking any of them for directions.

even though the bag was only forty pounds, i felt like a man carrying it out to my car. i 'saluted' other men with my free hand as they walked in and i walked out. we were communicating in man, it was great.

i loaded the bag in my car, turned my ipod to lily allen and drove off into the distance.

after i emptied the bag into my water softener, i went to the outlets and bought some really nice $12 chino pants from j. crew.

today, i felt like a man.

back together with my girl

2009-07-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

so i made a purchase about three nights ago. i'm not big on buying full cd's since most artists just have one or two good songs and then throw a bunch of crap on an album and try to sell it for $16. i do however, buy the albums of artists i support and really like. usually, these artists put out good albums and i like almost every song on them. anytime someone on shady records (eminem, d12, obie trice, stat quo (please come out soon!)) drops an album, i'm legally (not really) bound to buy it. i have to support em, and the shady records troops. the same goes for my girl lily allen.

not only is she really good at singing and really funny, she's also fing hot! now i'm usually not into jumping across the pond and those english girls (cuz i'm from utah and i'm a sucker for 'bump its'), but i'd sip tea and watch the tele all day with lily if i could. she's absolutely gorgeous. my favorite thing about lily is her style. she wears these chill dresses and then to completely knock your socks off, she rocks air jordan retro 3's. she is amazing.

her first album, 'alright, still,' was completely hilarious. she wasn't afraid to say what was on her mind, she made me laugh SO hard. her songs were catchy, easy to memorize, and dealt with some very funny situations.

this album, 'it's not me, it's you,' still has some laughable moments, but the tone is a little different. it's hard to explain. don't get me wrong, so far i've really bonded with this record and i can easily listen to any song on there. it's just different. i had heard that she and 'alright, still' producer, mark ronson, had not worked on this album and that that was going to lead to a different sound. there's definitely something (i don't wanna say 'missing') not there that was on the first record. he's not the key to her success, but they do make a very good team. one of my favorite songs is 'oh my god' off of mark's album, 'versions.' they really hit the jackpot on that one.

this album is again filled with trashy language and more blows to the male psyche. there's a song that is very inappropriately titled, but the way she sings the chorus, you can't help but laugh and sing along. my favorite song so far is ' who'd have known.' it sounds a lot like an elliot smith (who was SO awesome! R.I.P.) song from 'good will hunting' and it just hits you where you can't do anything but feel good while listening to it.

lily, if you're reading this, just know that you are the girl for me. you can come to park city anytime, and i will treat you like a queen. when you do come, please wear a hot dress and retro 3's. thanks for putting out this album, it's great! keep up the good work.

love,

sam

you can find may in st. louie...

2009-07-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

first off, lemme say thank you SO much to miss kitty kat 'pawz' fiet! she is the best tour guide in the world. she is go, go, go (which is funny, cuz she's usually got that "i'm not going face" on anytime we wanna do anything), can't stop, won't stop! she made the trip very enjoyable and i really appreciate all the time that she gave up to show me around. thanks kat!

basically, i've been told for years now that i need to go and visit st. louis. luckily for me, i finally had some free time and was able to book a very reasonable flight. i showed up the the famed salt lake international airport about an hour before my flight, bag in hand, ready to take on the world. i walked into the terminal and noticed a very long line to check in, so i walked back out and had one of the 'curbies' check me in. he was a nice fellow and helped me get everything in order. i was a little upset by the $15 bag check fee, but figured, 'hey, i'm on vacation, i'll carry it on on the way back.'

with my bag checked and my boarding pass in my pocket, i easily made it through the metal detectors and on to my gate. the flight was full, i sat by a nice young lady who didn't talk at all. across the isle was an african american couple. the girl had fake nails that extended at least 3 inches from each finger. the dude was wearing a 59fifty and slept the whole time. his girl didn't really like flying and kept sucking her thumb and grabbing his arm anytime the plane shifted in the slightest bit. it was kinda funny to watch. we landed with no problems and i was now in the 'lou.'

no one told me that st. louis is fing the hottest and most humid place on earth (at 6 p.m.). i stepped out of the airport and i was instantly upset with myself for wearing jeans (not jean shorts of course). it was really hot. i had come from park city, where it had been raining for 3 weeks straight and i was not at all ready for this.

kat was at the curb waiting for me and we quickly scurried out of the airport traffic. it was so good to see kat and we were able to catch up as she drove me to her apartment.

before i go any further, i'd like to share the two photos i took during my visit to st. louis. i never remember to take my camera anywhere and i rarely take photos when i do bring it. luckily, kat took lots of photos and e-mailed them to me so this post will have photos from my trip. anyway, here are the two that i deemed worthy:

we got to kat's, i changed, and then we were back in the carolla! we decided to go see the musical '42nd street' at the MUNY, a local outdoor ampitheater in the park.

the dancing was really awesome and the story line was alright. the atmosphere was great and we had a really good time. st. louis slowly started to cool off as the sun went down. we also went to 'jimmy jonh's' before hand where i got a very plain sandwich. it was quite good.

friday morning we woke up and got dressed for school. i went to class with kat because she is in the master's program at washington university in st. louis. friday's are guest speaker days and so we had the pleasure of hearing from three locals with diabetes. they all told their stories and then opened it up for questions. to ensure that people ask questions, kat's teacher assigns several class members to ask questions each time. this friday was kat's turn. she asked a couple real good questions and i was even able to ask a few as well. i really enjoyed class with kat. i also got to meet some of her friends from class (whom i would run into several more times before the trip was over).

after class, we toured the campus a little and saw all the hospital buildings. it's a different campus than the actual washu cuz it's the medical school part. it was very beautiful.

we then went to lion's choice for lunch. it's kinda like arby's for rich (or should i say rich'er') people. i got a french dip, fries, and a gigantic ice cream cone dipped in chocolate fudge. it was out of this world.

next stop was the budwieser factory. kat really likes this place, as she has been through the tour three times! it was very informational and a really good time. we had many members of our tour group who weren't really concerned with the tour, but more importantly, when they would get their free beer (each person who takes the tour get two 11 ounce beers of their choice). the best part of the tour were our tour guides. mike, a varitable veteran when it comes to bud factory tours, really knew his stuff and commanded the tour with an iron fist. he was the kind of guy who knew a lot, but was just going through the motions because he'd done this seven hundred million times. mike was a little upset at the beginning of the tour because his partner was apparently late. this wasn't a problem for mike, it just means he has to talk twice as much. it turns out that his tour partner was a new hire and was currently working only her second day. she thought the tour started ten minutes later. anyway, another worker came up to mike and asked him where his partner was. the two thought that no one was listening to their conversation. kat and i were though. he said he didn't know where amy was. the one guy asked 'amy?' mike put his arms out wide and said 'you know, BIG amy.' the one guy said, 'oh, i know who you mean.'

'big' amy met up with the tour several minutes later and she wasn't huge, but i could see where mike had developed her nickname from. the rest of the tour went very well. kat and i ate a lot of pretzels at the end of the tour, but passed on our free beers. maybe next time.

the bud tour took us right into the evening. after some quesidillas at kat's, we met up with two of her friends and went to an art gallery. the gallery was having a show that night, and they were featuring a glass blowing demonstration in the back. it was really cool to see. it's quite a process and you could easily get burned or badly hurt. plus it takes a long time so i think i'll stick with pen and pencil. it was really neat to see though. outside the gallery, there were some people playing with fire. they were doing different tricks, putting it in their mouths, swinging it around, and doing it all to interesting music. here are some pics:

this guy kinda freaked me out but he was definitely the best 'player' on the 'team.' and i can respect that.

kat and i rented 'he's just not that into you' from the redbox in the ghetto and called it a night.

the next morning we were up bright and early, dressed and ready for our day. we went over to the park and rented a paddle boat. we paddled all over the little lake there and i nearly died of heat exhaustion. it was really hot.

it was cool cuz we could see the art museum and 'art' hill. there were some fountains spraying water and some families out and about.

after the paddle boat, we headed into downtown st. louis. these next three pics speak for themselves. basically, i was in heaven. i had reached mecca.

on our way back, we stopped at foot locker in the hood. it was AMAZING! they had so many colors of air force ones and tons of jordan/air force one mash-ups. it was stuff you'd only see on the internet, never in a utah store. luckily for my bank account, i didn't have any room in my suitcase for newly purchased shoes.

we also stopped at this catholic church right by kat's apartment. it's the st. louis cathedral and it's pretty famous. it was absolutely beautiful inside. the detail on every aspect of every wall was out of this world. i couldn't believe it. it was probably the coolest thing i saw on the entire trip. photos don't do it justice, but here some are.

we hit up beth's birthday bbq later that evening. lemme describe beth for you. way too tan, 5'3", and rocks a bump it. basically, i was genetically prone to find her very attractive. it's the utah in me, i'm sorry. kat didn't really know beth, but had been invited to this bbq months ago via facebook and the messages that beth sent out were just too much for us to resist. i feel like we all made some new friends that day.

another highlight of the trip was saturday night. we went out into downtown for one of kat's classmate's bachelorette parties. the girls had already done all the traditional stuff by the time kat and i had met them, so we arrived just in time for dancing. the club we went to was awesome. it was like four stories, no cover, and the d.j. was pretty off the hook. he was mixing up everything. i'm not going to lie, i was inspired. we ended up dancing until about one in the morning and having a really good time!

after our saturday night escapades, it was time to repent. just kidding. but we did go to kat's singles' ward sunday and it made me thankful for all the hot girls we have in utah. we may not have all the cool colors of air force ones, but we have lots of hot girls.

we (didn't) hit up steak n shake on the way home. it was really good, despite their using overly enlarged photos of the food on their menu. the best part was our waiter. the dude was so out of it it wasn't even funny. after he took our order, he went over to the 'claw' machine they had up front and tried for about 12 minutes to get a stuffed animal. kat also caught him standing in the back with a straw in his mouth, zoning out and making a really interesting face. he made the lunch for us.

the trip came to a sad end as kat dropped me off at the airport. i had so much fun and again, i would like to thank her for letting me come visit. she took me everywhere, let me sleep on her couch, and showed me the real nitty gritty st. louis. it was a blast!

pool day

2009-07-06T21:25:00.000-07:00

i realized i've haven't blogged in a while, thank you. i've been gone and busy. two things that don't allow you to blog very well or very often. i figured i'd throw something out there really quickly just to let the fanz know that i'm still alive and still kickin'.

today i went to the pool at the condo. it's the second time i've gone since i've moved out there. i really like that pool. it's just the right size and the 'pool area' is very nice (my h.o.a. dollars hard at work). i shot some jamz first on the bball court right next to the pool area. the hoop is very nice as well and most of my shots were going in so i can't really complain.

two of my very favorite people came up from salt lake to join me at the pool today. their names are laura 'l. reezy' rees and katherine 'pawz' fiet (this one might take a minute to figure out but remember that kat is short for katherine and a kat is an animal (cat) and fiet sounds like feet and cat's feet are usually called paws and when you substitute a z for the s, it's pawz). i have know them for a very long time. they were two of the first people i met at byu six long years ago. they both have boyfriends now (and admit it).

we had a good day at the pool, catching up, reading xxl's, talking about stuff, and tanning.

the st. louis post is coming, i just have to get some pics off my camera.

morning wood

2009-06-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

it's official. i just finished typing in my credit card number and placing the order. several days after june 16, 2009, this should arrive at my door:

i'm stoked.

a funny thing just happened. when i initially tried to upload the above picture, i accidentally clicked on this photo:

this photo documents one of the top five days of my life. my awesome friend kate works for fischer (sp) productions and recently there was this park city soap box car derby for little kids down main street. one of the guys she works with built this tricked out soap box car (by the way, i think that's what they are called. they used to build them in the 50's maybe, like lil' rascals type ship? i dunno know...) complete with a steering wheel, brakes, and an all wood interior. the thing was LEGIT. not gonna lie, i would've killed for one of these all the way until i was 23. anyway, the next week was 'shark week' at fischer productions and they wanted to get some 'p.r.' for the upcoming week. kate asked my boi jeremy and i if we would paint the car to look like a shark. jeremy and i would never turn down an art project and would never turn down kate, so we accepted. kate did an awesome job on the 'pre-production,' covering the car in canvas and doing the initial base paint. jeremy and i came in with that artistic eye and brought the shark to life! we added eyes, gills, teeth, and one mean-ass look to that shark. our inspiration was actual sharks that you might find in the atlantic or pacific oceans, as well as WWII war planes that they used to paint awesome teeth on the sides of, strictly for intimidation purposes. we used jeremy's iphone to find pics ("there's an app for that," i kept saying).

honestly, after a long day of teaching and practice, nothing hit the spot like a cold coca-cola, painting a derby car like a shark, and listening to jeremy's ipod. i was in heaven. we painted 'til like 7 that night, it was a blast.

kate was the sweetest person ever and gave us really expensive (like REALLY expensive) sunglasses for all of our hard work. i would've done it for free or for a small bag of m&m's.

this photo depicts the shark car and myself (myself in the traditional 'stand by your ride and flash the westside sign' pose). jeremy posted these pics on facebook as well, the caption saying, 'just when you thought dry land was safe...'

moral of the story: i can't wait 'til everwood season 2 comes to my front porch and if someone offers you the chance to paint a derby car like a shark, you do it. no questions asked.

goals update

2009-06-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

june 12th is rapidly approaching (3 days!), and while i'm pretty excited to have finished my first year of teaching, i'm also way excited that the goals i set a month or two ago are going so well. the lifting is going great, i'm really seeing results and it's the first time in a long time that i've stuck to such a strict weight training schedule. if i keep it up, i may give dwight howard a run for his money.

as far as skating is concerned, park city's recent TERRIBLE weather has really been halting my progress. i'm looking to pick the skating up ten fold once the sun starts shining. the weather has been SO weird, especially within the p.e. 10 scene. it changes class to class and doesn't really allow for any continuity in my day. one period i'm outside in the sun, the next it's dreary, ominous, and the kids are begging to go inside. minutes later, it's sunny again. everything's always wet, it's frustrating. oh well, since it snowed on the last day of school two out of the four years i was in high school, i keep telling the seniors that there's a fifty percent chance it's gonna be bad weather! i hope it's nice, i really do. graduation outside is a whole lot better and easier.

anyway, when it comes to goals, i'm proud of myself for sticking with them and working hard. i will really step up my skating in the weeks to come. thanks for hanging in there with me. next step, get the 'white' tattoo. haha, jk!

'you there, out of the gene pool!'

2009-05-27T15:51:00.000-07:00

let me tell you the best thing about being a p.e. teacher... you make so much money it's not even funny. i'm basically rollin' in dough, blowin' my nose with hundo's. i've got so much cash flow, that on holiday weekends such as last weekend, i volunteer my time to byu to help run their annual father/son basketball camp. okay, so i'm kidding. i don't make millions but i do alright. it is the greatest job in the world and anyone who says any different is only kidding themselves. getting paid to do it makes the job just that much better. anyway, this last weekend i did pack up some things and head for provo. this was my second year working the byu father/son basketball camp and it was a real treat.

i taught school all week and headed to provo about 3 pm on friday, where i began working from about 4:30 to 10. long day, long week, but as they say, 'i'm young.' friday night went pretty well, despite having a dad break his femur (yes, his femur) not three yards away from me. i was stationed at the flag football rotation, where my duties consisted of breaking the fathers and sons into teams and letting them play some football. there were some dads trying to relive their glory days as they clipped, stiff armed, and tackled opposing fathers and sons (some sons being as young as 7, yikes!). all in all, most were good sports and threw to the kids when they got the opportunity. saturday and monday were injury free so all was well.

top two quotes over the three days of camp:

"get that weak crap out of here." -said by a father who knocked down a pass to a kid on the opposing team.
"he's got hands like his mom." -said by a father whose son dropped three passes in a row.

in provo, i was able to stay with lunchbox and have some quality bonding time. we enjoyed cruising provo, eating at iggy's with courtney, throwing the softball, hitting up church, watching the star wars saga, and coaching chuck through is love woes. i also worked on my skating slightly in his living room.

one of the best things about the weekend was eating at the new CANC (or cannon center to be politically correct). i ate my little heart out, gained probably five pounds, and lived to tell about it. the new set up is amazing, it's so BIG and it's nice that there's several 'stations' with more options. they've gotten rid of the 'last night's leftovers' table, and increased the dessert bar two fold at least.

overall, a great weekend, filled with good friends, good food, and good flag football.

the title of this post comes from an observation i made last year, but was reaffirmed of this year. there are many situations where the genes line up and you can easily point out which kid belongs to which father. there's some goofy lookin' kids and some goofy lookin' dads and the two just fit together. the interesting genetic observation is when this goes terribly wrong. there were several dads with $150 brand new hyperdunks, very athletic, making plays, hustling, and gettin' the job done. then you'd see their son... pointdexter with 3" thick glasses, slightly overweight, can't dribble to save his life. the reverse is also true. you've got these superstar athlete kids and their dad is the one who (when he doesn't get hit in the face with the pass) double dribbles everytime he thinks about putting it on the floor. there's absolutely nothing wrong with this, it's just friggin' hilarious and i thought i'd point it out.

thank you, that is all.

first listen

2009-05-26T14:37:00.000-07:00

i apologize for the blogging absence, i was away from my computer recently and therefore the intranet. after a long day of waiting and waiting, i had a chance to give eminem's new album, 'relapse,' a first listen. surprisingly, orion's was sold out of it (they prolly ordered 6 copies), but dirty kirty came to the rescue and picked it up in provo at the local best buy (park city's very own best buy is opening shortly and that will be one of the best days of my life). anyway, after school, after practice, after the cavs game, and after playing ball at the church 'til 11:30, i popped the cd into the player, turned off the lights in my room, and listened straight through.

based on the one time listen, here are my thoughts...

this album was alright, not great, but the one that is scheduled to be released later in the year has the potential to be awesome.

this album was eminem's first attempt at rapping while sober. he's been addicted to perscription pills for a number of years and while he was selling records and seemingly doing well, he wasn't. since his last album, he's checked into rehab and completed the program. in numerous interviews, he tells reporters that he's completely clean and he's somewhat happy with that. this album was basically a recap of his drug abuse and the road to getting better. i'm not sure if one of the steps of rehab is admitting and recounting all the things you've done, but it seems that he's used this cd as opportunity to do that.

the album starts off with him conversing with his doctor at the rehab facility. he begins telling eminem that he's healed and free to leave. eminem brings up feelings of self-doubt and worries that he will slip into his old ways. the doctor begins to change, saying that it's okay for him to go back and do those things. we slowly start learning that this is a nightmare and the music officially starts. 3 a.m. is the first actual track, a trip back to his 'slim shady lp' days filled with verses about serial killing and of course, pills. it's a dark song, but his flow and command of the beat, is really out of this world.

there are about 10-12 more songs that deal with rehab and drugs, with the climax being a skit called 'mr. mathers,' where he has apparently overdosed on pills and killed himself. this is actually where the cd takes a turn for the better in my mind. it seems that at this point in the album, he's killed or distanced himself from the old, drug addict eminem, and moved on. songs like 'beautiful, crack a bottle, and underground' are completely different from the rest of the album.

for the hardcore fans, eminem has brought back some of the classic skits or elements that made it on all his previous albums. paul (his manager paul rosenburg) is back, as is steve berman (the label head at interscope), and even ken kaniff from connecticut makes a hilarious appearance.

subject matter wise, i didn't bond with the album at all. as far as rapping goes, eminem has shown that he has MASTERED his craft. his cooperation of the beat and the lyrics is like nothing we've heard. he raps perfectly to the beat and doesn't miss a single opportunity. there are times where he make 5 rhymes in a line, all precise and right on cue. there are times where he raps one line, begins another, rhymes two or three things in that line, and then finishes the line with a word that rhymes with the word from the first line. it is absolutely amazing. he has almost no guest appearances, sings all his own choruses (which he's also learned how to master), and produced many of the tracks. i am truly excited for his next album.

one of the things that drove me nuts about this cd is that he rarely raps with 'his' voice. it's almost always the cartoonish, silly yet vengeful, stupid voice that he made popular on songs like 'rain man' and 'ass like that.' it's annoying.

for the next album:
change the subject matter
lose the stupid voice
continue to command the beat with your lyrics.

thank you for reading, this will be the last post on the eminem cd.

manana

2009-05-18T15:59:00.000-07:00

it's like christmas eve!

p.s. i don't know how to type spanish on an english keyboard and get the little wavy thingy above the 'n.' so for all my english speaking readers out there, this post is titled, 'tomorrow.'

patiently waiting

2009-05-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

this tuesday marks the highly anticipated end to eminem's 3 year hiatus with the release of his new album 'relapse.' those who know me know that i am a HUGE eminem fan and i've been following him pretty much his whole career. while i may not agree with exactly everything that he says, there is no denying that his skills are out of this world and he draws you in, making you care about his life and experiences.

i discovered mtv in 5th grade but wasn't exactly what you'd call a faithful viewer. i'd turn it on now and then, mainly looking for the video for sheryl crow's (cuz she was/is way hot) 'all i wanna do.' i had only seen the video once, but i think it was the first video i'd ever seen and it was quite a catchy tune. anyway, i tried and tried, but no luck. i began watching mtv less and less.

one day as an 8th grader, my best friend, jason 'j-mo' morgan, asked if i thought britney spears was hot. i racked my brain, trying to remember if i knew any britney spears' that went to our school. i couldn't think of any and so i asked him who she was. 'who is britney spears?!?' he said. he promptly walked over to the t.v. and turned on mtv. he introduced me to 'trl' and along with it, christina aguilera, limp bizkit, britney spears, and kid rock ('uncle ROCK!' - rev. run). he knew every video and whether or not it had moved up or down on the countdown from yesterday. i had to admit, britney spears was hot (hence, i would later in life make kevin federline an idol of mine). 'baby one more time' took catchy to an all new level.

intermixed with the artists i just mentioned, was a music video from a white rapper. it didn't look like other rap videos, just like he didn't look like other rap... pers. a dude with bleached hair, dressed up in a variety costumes, rapping about drugs, his mom, and the trailor park, suddenly turned my world upside down. i started following him from then on out, becoming a fan.

since then, i've learned that there's no doubt in my mind he's the best rapper alive. his ability to put words together is unparalleled and will be for years to come. he invites you into his life, makes you care, and lets you watch him grow as a person. he's made mistakes throughout his life and he's the first one to tell you. but he's learned from them and he's been able to channel that energy (good or bad) and make amazing music out of it.

as far as 'relapse' goes, i'm anxious to hear the whole album. i've listened to the five singles, and of the five, i'm only really feeling one. i doubt that all five will make the final version of the album, but only time will tell. this could be eminem's triumphant return to the rap game, or it could be a major flop. either way, i'm in his corner and i will find something positive from it all. hopefully i'll remain a fan for the rest of my days to come.

in anticipation, i've been refamiliarizing myself with his works. join in if you'd life. on each day, listen to the specified eminem album (straight through, no skipping), and only that eminem album. it's kinda fun to see him grow and peak in just a few days.

wednesday 5/13 - infinite
thursday 5/14 - slim shady lp
friday 5/15 - marshall mathers lp
saturday 5/16 - d12's devil's night
sunday 5/17 - the eminem show
monday 5/18 - encore
tuesday 5/19 - relapse

goals update

2009-05-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

i feel like the best way to keep me on track in accomplishing my goals is to keep faithful ketchuponly readers updated on the progress. the lifting is going great! i'm getting buffer and buffer by the day. i've expanded my lifting zones to both the high school weight room and the workout facilities at canyon creek condos. i must say that i'm enjoying both. the high school is easy because i can usually just go in to the weight room and lift during one of my preps, but canyon creek is nice because i don't have to lift with high school football players. i don't mind them too much, but it's a good break out at the condo. the funniest thing is when the football players hook up their ipods to the stereo system and really get it bumpin'. i hear 'f--- this, f--- that, so on and so forth' at about 150 decibels (that would be like standing 25 meters away from a jet taking off, and yes, i just looked that up on google because this blog is all about factual information and sophisticated academia) while i'm trying to get my lift on. the kids look at me like i'm going to tell them to turn it off or turn it down because i am a teacher, when in actuality, it's usually rap music that i enjoy, just at a much higher audible level (if you've ever ridden in my car, you know that 1. i didn't have a cd player until a year ago because tapes are awesome and i am the mixtape king, and 2. i am my father's child and enjoy music at a pleasant and unobtrusive volume).

the skating is coming, slow and steady. i'm building up the courage to go to the skate park and just cruise around in the beginner's bowl. i'm pretty good in the driveway and i can skate all over my neighborhood with minimal fatigue. taking the plunge will be tough, but it's time to face the music. if i really want to improve, i have to challenge myself.

as far as tanning goes, i took one step forward, and two giant steps back. i laid out on sunday afternoon for about an hour, listening to music and rotating about every four songs. i went back in the house and looked in the mirror, only to find myself as white or whiter than when i began. this baffled me but i said to myself, 'oh well, it's a process and it's going to take more than one day.' i put my shirt back on and laid down for a nap on my bed. i woke up from my nap, noticing that my skin was starting to hurt. i took off my shirt and checked the mirror again. i was BRIGHT red. it only got worse as the night went on. it's been a couple days and the burn is turning to tan. it still hurts a little, but overall, i'm feeling good. i think it will be a good base and now i can continue to build upon this.

we're going strong, june 12th is rapidly approaching.

why i heart bryce

2009-05-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

so. i've decided to start a blog series. i'm calling it, the 'why i heart so and so' series. the groundbreaking first entry, 'why i heart chuck,' was well received by the general public and the rules are, when the general public enjoys something, GIVE THEM MORE (hence, 'night at the museum 3' and 'x-men 4')!

this week's 'why i heart so and so' goes to the man, the myth, the legend, one bryce cam'ron bailey. i've known bryce for some time now and although we've bickered in the past about some things (mainly duke basketball, i.e. jj. redick's sexual preference and how it relates to duke commentator dick vitale), we do agree on one thing, everwood f***ing rocks. bryce may not put in those terms, but i know that's what he's thinking.

anyway, bryce saw my recent blog post, 'i created the facebook group, emily vancamp gives me an everwoody' (he was actually an intial member back we had was cool and had facebook) and got on the research horse. after i'm sure hours upon hours of exhausting internet searches and browsing the 'periodicals' section of the harold b. lee library, he has brought this to my attention. that's right folks. everwood season 2 is coming to dvd june 16, 2009. mark your calendars, this is a blessed day. i have a feeling they will release seasons 3 and 4 in a timely fashion.

so if you see bryce in the next couple weeks, give him a hug for me, slap him on the butt, and ask him if his mom's album is ready to record (mrs. bailey's got the illest flow on the planet and i can't wait to executive produce, market, and have a grammy party for her debut album, tentatively titled 'mommy got raps,' available exclusively through the essayem records international media outlet group, all rights reserved). while you're at it, ask him how his own essayem records project (lawn mowin') is coming, even though he's currently not practicing the skill set that made him famous.

so bryce, hats off to you. you are amazing. thanks for the research and looking out for your boy all those years. keep dancing to country music with your wife in your living room and keep being an example of the perfect man to all of us, myself included.

p.s. i really think jj and dick have secret butt sex every night, but that's strictly a hypothesis at this point in time.

t minus nine days

2009-05-10T21:41:00.000-07:00

the new em drops on the 19th. if you're half as stoked as me, you're losing sleep and listening to 'tonite' off 'infinite' right now...

subsequent posts will dive deeper into this exciting event.

i created the facebook group, 'emily vancamp gives me an everwoody'

2009-05-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

i just finished watching the 'brothers and sisters' season finale on abc. i really like that show and i'll admit it, i even really enjoyed it before emily vancamp joined the cast. emily and i go way back, back to her days on the greatest show ever made, 'everwood.' we fell in love early 2003 and it's been a while ride ever since!

the day i found out that 'everwood' was going off the air was probably the saddest day of my life. luckily, the series finale was AMAZING and i had the foresight to tape it. i watch it at least once a year (usually around christmas with 'love actually' as well, just to remind myself that love actually, does exist). there's a montage for the ages in that episode and it brings the tears to my eyes every single time. i'd love it if they (the powers that be) would release the rest of the 'everwood' seasons on dvd. i bought season one the day it came out and expected seasons two, three, and four to quickly follow suite... not the case. i'm still waiting and so are thousands upon thousands (well, maybe hundreds upon hundreds) for those seasons to make it to dvd. dear warner brothers, we will wait patiently, just know that we are pissed. love, sam.

when emily vancamp joined the 'brothers and sisters' cast (i'm not going to lie, i kinda saw it coming, greg berlanti created both shows and treat williams even guest starred in one or two episodes), i was so excited. she is stunning, absolutely beautiful. not only that, a great actress, and i'm sure, a stellar person off screen. dave anabelle's character, justin, keeps blowing it big time over and over and almost did it again tonight. if he messed it up this time, i was going to stop watching the show. i just couldn't handle watching him let her go, that would shake me to the core.

anyway, emily vancamp is awesome and way hot, i just thought i'd let everyone know.

derek hough

2009-05-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

my new idol.

any white dude that gets to hang out and dance with lil' kim, i am a fan of.

editor in chief

2009-05-10T00:17:00.000-07:00

so i decided to edit out the foul language in the short story i posted the other day. i hope it doesn't take away from the story too much. the dashes are still there where the words would be, but they are dashes now and dashes are less offensive.

two wins

2009-05-09T23:54:00.000-07:00

it was a big afternoon/evening for the lady miners of park city high school as they raked in two wins today at alta high school. spring fling, a spring aau tournament for girls basketball, is going on right now and we've actually done pretty well. we lost our first two games by about ten and it started the whole 'here we go again' mentality. we played well in the games, just couldn't really finish and didn't really seem like we wanted to win. our next two games were a huge turn around, as we ended up beating juan diego and losing in overtime to granger. the girls got that taste of winning in their mouth and the hunt was now on.

one glitch in the matrix however, beings that we are affiliated with park city high school and beings that park city high school was forced to close recently for four days due to a swine flu 'pandemic,' our team had to all but 'drop out' of spring fling. we were dropped from our three remaining games and the tournament. sad day. just as we were starting to come together and really gelling.

the spring fling lady was nice enough to schedule us two more games when i informed her that school had abruptly restarted. i was very grateful and the girls were excited to play. we played viewmont first this afternoon, playing a pretty good game and holding on to win by about eight points. we still haven't mastered 'closing out' an opponent or game, but we some how held on to this one. an hour later, we took the court as we faced bingham, another very good team. we played them tough, despite making some errors and missing some key shots. we were actually down by three with about two minutes to play. we ended up coming back, getting ahead, and although it came down the the buzzer, we were able to protect our one point lead and win the game.

the girls were proud of themselves and i was so proud of them. they've come so far even since the season has ended. each player has gotten stronger and better and i am really excited for next year. we've got an eighth grader who will definitely get some varsity playing time, as well as a ninth grader who should step up and be a great player. our star is back and looking better than ever. basically, next year is gonna be fun and we are definitely gonna win some games. get out your red and white, here come the LADY MINERS!!!

do the write thing

2009-05-01T22:51:00.001-07:00

due to the media's over coverage of the recent possible outbreak of swine flu (an entirely different post in itself) in beautiful downtown park city, i had the pleasure of having the last two days off. while i love days off, these two were odd and somewhat unproductive because i really had no idea they were coming. i couldn't really plan anything, plus parkites in general were discouraged from gathering in groups (church was even cancelled) so that meant no girls basketball practices or games.

i did however, get the opportunity to attend an awards luncheon at the governor's mansion on thursday. my cousin, whitney, who's also a teacher (8th grade english in st. george), had three of her students finish in the top ten for a statewide 8th grade writing contest where two finalists will go to washington d.c. at the end of the month and compete nationally. the contest was called 'do the write thing' and the students were supposed to write about overcoming violence in their lives. on thursday, the governor opened his home to the finalists and they were honored in the ballroom. governor huntsman himself could not be there due to previous engagements, but mrs. huntsman open the ceremony and did a lovely job. she was rockin' some tight white capris and i will say, they were lookin' pretty fly, mamacita. the group also had the pleasure of hearing from utah's attorney general, and even miss utah made an appearance (honestly, not that hot). each student had their name called, came up and shook the attorney general's hand, had a photo taken with their teacher, parents, etc., then sat down (my cousin had three of the ten finalists!). they then announced the two that would be going to d.c., one of which from my cousin's class. the whole ceremony was great and the kids truly felt honored. i was lucky to have been there just as a spectator (side story: my cousin didn't tell my mom or i that it was an invite only lunch and that there were only a certain number of people allowed. she had called in and reserved a seat for my mom, but since she didn't think school would be cancelled, she didn't think i would be able to come. luckily, i was able to steal a seat and somehow got fed.).

this get together reminded me of my own days as a middle schooler and an essay winner. when i was in 7th grade, the state of utah held an essay contest for all 7th graders in preparation for the impending 2002 winter olympics...

the salt lake organizing committee (sloc) for the olympic winter games recently announced a 'spirit of olympism essay contest.' this contest was designed to help students increase their understanding of the olympic ideals and expand their skills of expression as they write about those ideals.

i remember spending a couple of weeks on this essay in ms. beal's english class, and i was really concerned that i wouldn't be able to submit a piece of art with my essay like i had in previous grades. ms. beal said to me, and i quote, "we're in 7th grade now. we write essays and don't do art." while i was a little down based on this information, apparently i wrote a pretty good essay. the olympic committee announced that they would take the winning student from each district to nagano, japan to the 1998 closing ceremonies as sort of a passing of the olympics from japan to utah.

i ended up being top five in the district and that earned me a lot of perks. i attended several luncheons like the one mentioned above and even missed school one day to fly to l.a. and back to retrieve the olympic flag. i was even on t.v. that night (wearing a hat and chewing gum, ms. beal ripped me a new one for those two).

looking back, at the time it didn't really seem like a big deal. it was just something that kinda came up. it was like, i wrote a good essay and now i get to do some extra stuff here and there. it never really sunk in. it's not a life changing accomplishment, and i didn't get to go to nagano (thankfully, i would've starved because i doubt they have anything i'd eat), but thinking about it now, it was pretty cool. not everybody can say they got that chance.

basically, this post was just to remind myself that earlier in life, i had some successes, some accomplishments, and i need to keep the dream alive, keep it going. i can continue to work hard, i can continue to strive to be great. i'm really proud of my cousin, she inspired me to step up my teaching and although i probably won't have any 10th graders in my classes who win essay contests because of me, maybe they can at least stay active throughout their lives and enjoy being healthy. if i succeed in that, then i succeed in life.

i had to dig through the archives, but here's my 7th grade essay that got me a shot...

hoops are in my heart
by sam white

over 90 percent of north american kids will play basketball before they graduate from high school. few will receive college scholarships, and very few will be drafted by a professional team. so what are my chances? i've wondered about this, because basketball is in my blood.

since i was five years old, i've loved playing basketball. i was having a tough time with my game at first, because i had very bad asthma which made it difficult for me to run. sometimes it got so bad that i would have to go to the hospital. then other times i could use an inhaler and get back to playing the game i love the best. i'm able to control it most of the time now.

i've always been a patient and peaceful person. my parents have given me a lot of confidence and support. first of all, they taught me the great game of basketball, then they taught me to help and respect others on and off the court, because this is another valuable thing that we call good sportsmanship. it include the will to win and, just as important, the will to lose gracefully.

the way i can spread olympism in my community is getting good enough to one day go to the olympics and be a role model to others. yet, in the meantime, i'm improving my physical and athletic game-the game i love-and looking forward to welcoming the world to utah.

why i heart chuck

2009-04-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

i'm sorry to keep boring readers with updates on my summer goals, but these goals are legit and i am very excited about them. when i mentioned these goals to my good friend, blogging mentor, and fellow power of 3 member, chuck (his blog header photo is easily one of my favorites of him), as usual, he got me chuckling and slapping the table at diego's fine mexican eatery in provo. while my plan of attack for 'filling out' a jersey with no shirt underneath was to hit the weights and hit the weights hard, chuck's solution to 'filling out' a jersey with no shirt underneath was simply that, 'filling out' a jersey. he told me that his plan was to just eat a whole lot and become overweight, thus being able to rock a jersey 'undershirtless.' i laughed for a good long time and it reminded me of chuck's previous logic right when he got home from his mission. while others were on a quest to regain their pre-mission physique, chuck lived by one phrase and one phrase alone: 'no pain, no gain.' and for our readers en espanol: 'no es pain, no es gain.' though many of you have heard this phrase, chuck saw it in a different light. his theory was that if he didn't try to gain, he wouldn't have to endure the pain, basically, 'no es gain, no es pain.' it's this sort of logic that makes chuck, chuck.

how does this apply to me? i'll tell you. chuck's 'backdoor' logic got me thinking. being 6'5" and a breezy 180 lbs., i realized that i might not in fact be able to fill out the 10+ XXL jerseys i already own. there's no doubt that lifting and getting stronger will make them look better on me, but it's gonna take some serious muscle mass gain to match up to lebron. i'm not really into getting fat (i mean, it'd be a bad example to the kiddos), but what other options do i have? so i started thinking... if i'm gonna have problems getting bigger, why not start making the jerseys smaller? bingo! i went online that very instant and began browsing ebay. i found this sick michael jordan olympic jersey in an XL for a screamin' deal and automatically bid on it. 5 days later, i had this on my door step:

pretty sweet eh? i thought so too. so now i'm on a quest to not only kill it in the weight room just about every day, but i'm also on the hunt for more XL jerseys to add to the collection. thanks chuck!

oh, and here's a pic of the skate, i don't think i've posted one yet. sk8 or die.

side note: big ups to rob dyrdek for having ryan sheckler to fantasy factory. and jacqi, i still miss you! tons!

goals update

2009-04-24T18:37:00.001-07:00

it's been about a week since i announced my summer goals. here's a look at my daily schedule since then:

6:05 - rise and shine, shower, make my sack lunch, eat a chocolate donut.

7:35 to 12:51 - mold young minds and teach the youth of park city to enjoy life through physical activity.

1:00 to 2:25 - hit the weights.

2:25 to 3:30 - shoot the jamz.

3:30 to 4:30 - skate park meadows.

4:30 to 11:00 - do whatever else needs to be done.

the goals are going well.

untitled

2009-04-21T05:37:00.000-07:00

8 months and 2 days is a long time.

i miss you. lots.

love,

sam

one year anniversary

2009-04-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

so i recently realized that i missed my one year blogging anniversary (sad, it was february 7th). looking back, what a year it has been. while it seems as though i've come a long way, in many ways i'm right back where i started. i'd like to thank power of 3 member, charles 'bryan' rogers for turning me onto blogging and giving me the confidence to launch ketchuponly. i remember reading a story on his blog that he posted about a chubby girl rubbing up against him at a party and how heavy chicks love him. it was at that moment that i realized blogging was for me.

at first, i really didn't have anything to write about. i twirled my thumbs waiting for inspiration. i finally opened myself up to the world when a fashion issue confronted me. skinny jeans? to buy them or not to buy them? while i never fully committed to the movement, i did start buying jeans that fit better and i did see results.

from there, i chronicled my adventures in fitness club romance. i covered such subjects as flirting on the treadmill and told the ladies of the world that i would be the one guy who wouldn't ask them out in the middle of yoga class.

i revealed my love for kourtney kardashian. twice.

ketchuponly readers saw a softer side of samwell blanco when i wrote about my mom's cancer and the long anticipated return of elder dirty kirty.

shortly after, i used this blog as a platform for my poetry. 3 words (i love you) took a relationship to a new level.

about this time, girls basketball began and consumed not only this blog, but also every other aspect of my life. i wouldn't trade it for the world though. did i mention we're gonna win state next year?

and now, looking to future, where will we go? what will we do? no matter what, ketchuponly readers can expect several things: some good ol' fashion sam white humor, a hot 16 every now and again, and as always, an account of the events that shape and mold who i am.

let the journey continue. happy one year.

p.s. download eric prydz's "call on me." i am listening to it right now as i type. it is fing awesome.

yes please

2009-04-18T21:59:00.001-07:00

i want that. i'd even take some fakes.

2 goals

2009-04-18T21:19:00.000-07:00

i have 2 goals for summer.

1. since a certain someone constantly told me that i was too skinny and too white (even though i constantly told her she was beautiful and perfect, daily), i've made it a goal to wear jerseys without a shirt underneath, all summer. starting june 12th, i'll be buff enough and tan enough to rock a variety of jerseys without an undershirt. i should look a little something like this...

thanks bron bron, you're an inspiration to us all.

2. with the purchase of my new skateboard last fall (i finally found a skateboard for the price i wanted off www.whiskeymilitia.com. i asked my parents for a skateboard for my graduation from college. i rock, i know.), i would really like to dedicate this summer to becoming off the hook at skateboarding. i do realize that i'm 6'5" and that doesn't really correlate to becoming a great skateboarder, however, i'm going to work at it and do my best to really step up my skate game. sk8 or die.

i'll be looking up to my 2 MTV skating idols, rob dyrdek and ryan sheckler (i also want to get a huge tatoo across my back that says 'white' like sheckler's, but i think i might get beat up a lot because most people would probably think i'm just a racist who tatooed 'white' on my back when in actuality, it's just my last name, and i'm not a racist) for inspiration.

basically, i've got 8 weeks to get buff n tan and then another couple months to become a pro skateboarder. anything is possible when you put your mind to it. wish me luck.

amen jared, amen

2009-04-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

my buddy jared posted this on his blog a couple months ago. i started watching the first season on netflix and now i'm hooked. thanks jared.

dreams really do come true

2009-04-14T14:25:00.001-07:00

those who know me, know that i am a HUGE fan of the rob dyrdek (that's pronounced 'dear deck,' not 'deer dick,' haha) MTV shows, 'rob and big' and 'rob dyrdek's fantasy factory.' no one can ever replace christopher 'big black' boykins in my heart, but i'm honestly about to say that i enjoy the fantasy factory just slightly more. call me crazy, i know! rob and big was hilarious because it was the first of it's kind. a show about 2 guys. one, a short white skateboarder with more money than (what seemed like at the time) brains, the other, his 300 lb. black bodyguard. the combo was genius and created many on-screen moments that will live forever.

rob and big inspired me in many ways. i took up skateboarding, murdered out my mountain bike, and came to the realization that i, like rob, am D.G.L. i actually looked up net-guns, thought about getting onto the underground turtle racing circut, and looked high and low for my own 'drama' and 'bam bam.' i had a lot of great memories watching 'rob and big' with the fellas, it was a sunday night bonding ritual last year that kept me going all the way to graduation. when we all got together for the series finale, it seemed as those we were losing a friend. someone we'd laughed with, someone we'd cried with. like an imaginary member of the 'power of 3.' with 'rob and big' off the air, it seemed as though life might not go on. it did however, but it just wasn't nearly as fun.

with school starting up, a new life in pc, and all the other things that kept me busy, i missed any promos leading up to the premiere of 'rob dyrdek's fantasy factory.' i missed the first 3 episodes. what kind of fan was i? a bum, that's what kind. chad or adam would text me all the time saying, 'did you see fantasy factory last night?' i honestly had no idea what they were talking about. i was lost. when they told me it was rob's new show, i told them that there's no way it could compete with 'rob and big' and i nearly wrote it off. then one day i had some extra time to myself and i looked into this 'new' show. i watched the first 2 episodes and fell in love. this was it. this was what my life was missing. i felt whole again.

i love the premise of the show. i love that he drives a t-rex. i love that he still treats drama like $#!+. i love that he calls his manager and his lawyer 'corpo.' i love that he makes his receptionist rap about everyone who comes to an appointment. i love that she is terrible at rapping. i love the 'hands of god' studio. i love that for just about every transition in the show, they have rob or someone doing something absolutely ridiculous with a basketball and that it always goes in (even though it's probably like the 50th try). 'fantasy factory' is the most inspiring show on television. it's feel good t.v. it makes you want to be a better person. rob dyrdek inspired me to buy my condo. 'get your mogul on' is my new life motto. 'we make deals and break records' is right up there as well. he's made me look at life differently and helped me to realize that you gotta have fun in whatever you do. you have to make the people around you laugh. if they're not having a good time, you're not having a good time. he's taught me that you have to invest. you have to become a brand. he's got 14 signature shoes! michael jordan and maybe allen iverson are the only 2 other people to have accomplished that. the 'BB' is an international symbol for fun. he's got his hand in so many things and he's not afraid to put his stamp on something he's excited about. rob has inspired me.

get your mogul on...

2009-03-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

this week marks a momentous occasion for ketchuponly (a.k.a. the life and times of sam blanco), i am closing on my condo! yes, that's right, i am buying a condo and after about a 2-3 month process, it looks like it will actually be mine before week's end. i'm very excited and looking forward to this new venture. the jury's still out as to whether i will rent the condo out (and have someone else pay the mortgage) or if i will actually inhabit this dwelling myself. i am about to post ads for renters on craigslist.com and also inform the teachers that i work with of this amazing deal, so i will see if i can get any bites. if not, i will go ahead and move in for the time being, enjoy myself thoroughly, and cut the budget in other areas (sorry jacqi, we may have to slow down on the slurpees, jk, i love you!). i've posted a few pics, tell me whatcha think...

the bed...

flat screen #1...

the baffroom...

the dining area...

many a quesadilla will be constructed here...

flat screen numero dose...

and finally, the living room...

yippee!

shank it at the banquet...

2009-03-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

hello all! as you know, i've been coaching the park city high school girls basketball team this year and what a ride it has been! it was an overall joyous time and i'm so grateful to have been given the opportunity. i couldn't asked for a better group of girls and although our record didn't necessarily reflect how good we were, i feel like the team continued to improve each game and a lot of good things came out of the season. as is traditional with the end of the basketball (or any other high school sport for that matter) season, we recently (march 17th, st. patty's day) had our end of the year team banquet. despite the headaches involved in scheduling a time and place, the thing turned out great and i think the girls really enjoyed themselves. we had a potluck style banquet held at the treasure mountain middle (i'm not calling it international, that is way to weird) school. pretty chill, pretty casual (apparently, no one told me not to wear a shirt and tie so i did and i was the only one but it's all good), good food, good company. the girls put together a lil season highlight slide show with some music and what not, which was cool. after that, we introduced each player on each team and said a little something about them. it was a lot of fun, for some of the girls i just kicked it off the dome and it worked perfectly. the last thing i did was read a poem that i wrote as kind of a recap for the season. nothing too crazy, just some hot 16's, after hot 16's, after hot 16's. i've included it below and wish you the best of luck while reading...

it's fall in park city, what a wonderful time,
the leaves are all changing, the suns starts to shine,
i'm sitting at home, enjoying my corn on the cob,
all of a sudden, i've got a new job!
several people inquire, but it's me they approach,
they want me to be, the new girls basketball coach,
i don't have much time, to put together a staff,
i plot and i plot, but can't seem to fill in the graph,
first comes coach coleman, he'll coach the fresh,
then there's just me, i'll coach the rest!
i find mr. potts, next it's coach schiffgan,
in walks coach thomas, he's just been up liftin',
he says that he's down, would love to just try it,
we have all our coaches, avoided a riot.

granger was first, their school opened some eyes,
some students had strollers, cops arrested some guys,
"coach white you were right, i miss the park city bubble,
i don't really like it down here, it's nothing but trouble!"
so i said to the girls, while we were waiting,
they're high schoolers like us, so let's stop all the hatin',
granger huffed and they puffed, we were in better condition,
to go 1-0 was our team's only mission,
we fought hard against them, and it really did show,
we shot only 5 of 16, on our free throws,
we may not have won, but i was impressed,
this was just one, in a season of tests.

next up were the eagles, of juan diego,
hopefully tonight, we'd make a free throw,
sophomores and jv, both got big wins,
they laughed and they smiled, and put on big grins,
varsity played hard again, developed a lead,
we let them back in, couldn't match up their speed.

next on the docket, a school they call delta,
we had a good half, they ran for some shelta,
we took a short break, not so mean not so tough,
5 points in the second half, just wasn't enough.

we traveled and traveled, we toured the state,
we left school so early, and got home so late,
after a couple more games, we headed down south,
that sweet taste of winning, still not in our mouths,
the hotel was great, IN N OUT is the best,
the weather was awful, and so were the refs,
we slid and we skated, i'm not gonna lie,
i got so damn frustrated, i started to cry,
not at the girls, or the way they were playing,
just at the refs, and the things they were saying.

the holidays came, the gyms doors were shut,
somehow i managed, to still injure my butt,
hobbling around, coaching ball and some reason,
we had to get ready, to play in our region.

these games were tough, we hung in them all,
a couple things different, like not losing the ball,
we came pretty close, in a lot of the games,
we surprised even some coaches, and stunned some big names,
with the stage finally set, 3 wins on the line,
we are ahead of the ravens, with expiring time,
we played hard and won, it was a spectacular night,
it fired us up, and rekindled our fight!

next up was union, a winnable game,
time just ran out, and our score was the same,
they scored a few baskets, we went ice cold,
we fought to the end, we didn't just fold.

the season has ended, we had a good run,
we might not have w's, we might not have won,
we might not have headlines, at least not a ton,
but we banded together, and sure had some fun!

i had a lot of fun writing this poem, it seemed to just flow from the dome. i started it when i woke up, worked on it in the shower, while eating breakfast, while driving. i taught school all day and then finished it up right before the banquet. again, it was a great season with ups and downs, but i had a lot of fun and can't wait until next year we are good and start killing people.

lemme update you...

2009-02-26T16:04:00.000-08:00

as usual, i find myself blogging the most when jacqi is frustrated with me and therefore not hanging out with me and keeping me busy (in a good way). today is one of those days. a communication breakdown has forced me to the computer and forced me to update the blog.

but what to write about? basketball ended (although i still play every single day after school). in case you were wondering, we finished 1-18. yes, we did get a win. my good friend and great photographer, cate williams, documented the event and those photos can be seen here. she really does a wonderful job, check out all her work at www.catherinewilliamsphotography.blogspot.com (she's AMAZING). anyway, this season is over and we are already looking ahead to next year. the goal is to begin working with the younger girls throughout the spring and summer in an attempt to win some more games. you heard it here first, at least .500 next year with a playoff berth, and 1 to 2 losses the following year, making a run at the state title. call me crazy, but that's the goal.

school is going great. i've got a new batch of 10th graders and we are starting to grow on each other. i'll never forget my first group; we laughed, we cried, we ran (3RED!). but this new bunch has some characters as well, and overall, some pretty good kids. i've got some free time on my hands now and so i can devote more time to lesson planning and improving my teaching.

the skiing has been pretty good thus far, however, occasionally we'll get some rain. despite popular belief, this is actually NOT good for the snow or the skiing. but i've still been able to get in a couple days here and there (mostly sundays alongside the most beautiful skier ever (she skis pretty well too!)). one thing that's spiced up the mountain a bit is me on a snowboard. yes, believe it or not, i blew the dust off of my old marker board (which i'm pretty sure they don't make marker boards/bindings/boots any more because everyone keeps looking at the set-up oddly. as a matter of fact, i don't think they make 'clip-ins' period any more). i've had a blast getting back on the board, and to tell you the truth, i'm still pretty good. i've made it all over the mountain with minimal falls or hold-ups and i'm even able to stick with most skiers that i ski with. it's made going to the ski hill a challenge again and allowed me to start pushing myself again. i'm not saying that i'm so good at skiing that i'm no longer challenged, i'm just saying that getting back into snowboarding is like learning something new and you can see the improvement each run. it's nice.

other than that, not too much is new. jacqi and i have been together for 6 months now (on valentine's day, sorta) and i love her more than ever. there will be a post on this subject coming soon, but for now just know that i love her lots and even though i do stupid stuff like not have my phone by me all the time and miss her calls and not realize that that's when she getting off work and i should probably have my phone by me because she's going to call and i need to answer because then we can hang out since i probably won't see her for the next couple days because we're both pretty busy. anyway, i'll do better in the future and i'll use my brain!

the last thing i'd like to update you on is the fact that i'm currently in the middle of buying a condo in park city. it is 802 sq. ft., single bedroom, good sized bathroom, huge living room, and a nice kitchen. it comes with tons of furniture and tables and wall hangings and dishes and other cool stuff. anyway, it should be mine come the middle of march and i'm very excited for it!

that is all.

yes we did

2009-01-25T17:06:00.000-08:00

january 20, 2009. yes we did.

a moment of silence

2009-01-25T13:45:00.001-08:00

yesterday, january 24th, long-time north carolina state women's basketball coach kay yow died. she was a great coach, great person, and an inspiration to many (myself included).

from espn.com ...

Yow's Considerable Efforts Will Live On
By Mechelle Voepel

There's a picture of little Kay Yow with her parents. Dad is dressed in a sailor uniform; his oldest of four children, Kay, estimated she was about 6 years old then. That would have put it a few years after World War II.
The framed photograph sits in her Raleigh, N.C., office with so much other history. Actually, it might continue to sit there for some time. How long will it take before someone moves to clean out that office? Who will ever have the heart to do it?

Maybe it won't be "cleaned out." Maybe it will remain unoccupied, like a shrine. Or maybe the next coach of the North Carolina State women's basketball program will keep many things just as they are. Then again, how can anything ever be the same for the Wolfpack? Yow coached this program for 34 seasons -- from the birth of modern-day women's college basketball to a time when fans now expect to see several televised games a week. The loss of Yow, who went the distance in a knock-down, drag-out war with cancer before passing away Saturday at age 66, leaves not just NC State but also women's athletics with a permanent void.

Who else was this successful at this high a level while always being universally liked? Who else inspired only admiration and never ire in her foes? Even her fiercest adversary -- Cancer, with the capital C -- would have expressed boundless admiration, were it an entity that could speak.

Cancer first showed up in 1987 and took part of Yow's body. Then, in 1993, it took her mother, Lib, and her good friend, fellow NC State coach Jim Valvano. Cancer took new pals she met as she comforted fellow warriors with the disease, which returned to her in 2004 and again in 2007. Cancer took her appetite, her cherished high energy, her restful sleep, her mornings and afternoons on the golf course. It took away any thoughts of a quiet, relaxing time beyond basketball.
Cancer took and took and took -- yet there was always Kay Yow with something more to give to everyone around her.
That photograph … it lingers with you … the little girl with her parents, small-town North Carolina people from what has been dubbed "the greatest generation." Raised by them -- a man who was a machinist and a woman who ran a beauty salon -- Yow was molded by the values and ethics of that generation. The one that fought a war and built the machines to fight it, that accepted food rations and believed you deserved no more than what you worked to earn.

She was good enough, wise enough, humble enough, brave enough, decent enough to have been part of that generation herself. So you could have understood if Yow had been old-school and hard to please, if she had looked upon "kids" through each passing decade with narrowing eyes -- as if they became softer, weaker and more disappointing as the years went by.
Except … she saw no such thing. To her, kids were always basically good, no matter when or where they were born. They just needed a guiding hand in their lives. And it didn't have to be an iron hand. It never was with Yow.
There's a story her longtime colleague and friend, Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, tells of when Yow was her assistant for the 1984 Summer Olympics.

"I had two players from Tennessee on that team in Lea Henry and Cindy Noble," Summitt said. "And I yelled at them constantly because I knew I could and they could take it.

"One day, we were walking back from our practice gym and Kay said, very calmly and quietly, 'Well, you know, Pat, I just wonder if you've really thought about how much more that Cindy Noble and Lea Henry are going to learn from you.'
"Then she said, 'I think they're both trying really hard and they both want to please you, but how much more do you think they can possibly do?' I remember shaking my head and saying, 'Good point.' And I backed off both of them. She was right. She made me a better coach just in subtle ways, in things she'd say to me."

Yow won 737 games in college … yet didn't grow up ever expecting to be a coach. Born in 1942, she received a basketball from her parents when she was about the age she was in the aforementioned photo.

Growing up in Gibsonville, N.C., she was a child of few needs. She had her ball, a hoop in the backyard and time. She was very happy.

Women's college basketball as we know it today didn't exist then. In fact, in many places there was not even high school basketball for girls. Generally, what was true in North Carolina was true across the country: Girls' basketball had been fairly prevalent in many places in the 1930s and into the 1940s. Yow's mother and aunts had played it not just in high school but also in the industrial leagues that were among the very few semi-organized athletic outlets for women. But there was a backlash to the gains made by women during World War II, and it subsequently affected even girls' athletics. In Yow's youth, girls' basketball became a patchwork endeavor that survived in the 1950s and '60s in many smaller communities but generally not in larger ones.

In retrospect, theories developed about why it happened that way. Such as that girls in smaller towns or schools often were from farms or were the daughters of blue-collar workers. They were girls used to physical labor, so their competence at athletic tasks seemed just a part of the overall fabric of their lives.
Also, smaller places had fewer residents of which to boast, fewer to feel proud of, to hold up as examples. Girls, you might say, could matter more in small towns.

Kay Yow mattered. She once scored 52 points in a high school game, and the coach of the boys' and girls' teams at Gibsonville then predicted something that seemed preposterous when Yow was just a prep junior. He said she'd make history in the sport of basketball. How could he have known then? How could he have seen what was coming? Yow herself didn't see it. She went to college at East Carolina, which didn't have a women's basketball program, got an English degree and prepared to make her living as a teacher. She got a job at Allen Jay High School in High Point but also agreed to the principal's request that she coach the girls' basketball team.

However, Yow thought she knew nothing about how to coach. So she studied. She learned on the fly. She followed her instincts. And when she won a championship … Well, that's one of the bittersweet, funny stories she told, the wry way she could look back at those times. Yow recalled that while she was celebrating with her team, a school official ran toward her -- not to join in but to give a somber reminder: She'd better be sure, in all the excitement, not to forget any of the towels the school had provided the team to bring to the game.

Those things cost money, you know.

Yow continued coaching high school until getting her master's degree at UNC Greensboro, then took over the college program at Elon. Her sisters, Debbie and Susan, played for her.

Title IX was signed into law in 1972, but most colleges waited a few years to see if they were really going to have to pay attention to it. Once it appeared they did need to, they began looking for people to build women's sports programs, often from scratch or close to it.

NC State had sponsored women's basketball one year before bringing in Yow, starting in the 1975-76 season, on the recommendation of a sports editor from Greensboro. Years later, Yow told the newspaper that has chronicled her career most closely -- The News & Observer in Raleigh -- that the job at NC State didn't pay much but did include a car, which meant she could give her old VW to her very pleased mother, who needed it. Those who were Yow's contemporaries -- such as former Maryland coach Chris Weller -- never lost sight of how it was in those critical years in the 1970s, when women's college athletics really began to germinate. They never forgot driving vans to games and not being sure whether they'd have enough money to pay for their team's meals and lodging. But it was all worth the inconveniences and uncertainties. They were small compared with the large possibilities.

As Yow once put it, "If a person really has a grateful heart, the door can open wide for so many good things to come your way."
Women like Yow always remembered they were educators first, coaches second -- and if that left relatively little time for their personal lives, such was the price of this kind of career happiness. They knew they were pioneers exploring not literal "land" but rather "turf" that traditionally had belonged to men. They knew there were barriers to knock down, but different ways to do that.

Some people ran headlong and threw their full force against them. Yow wasn't like that. There was another option. Gently, but firmly, she could lean against the barriers. Eventually, they would give way. In the 1970s, NC State and Maryland were the two giants of ACC women's basketball. That continued into the 1980s. Yow's first battle with cancer, in 1987, didn't stop her from recovering to coach the U.S. Olympic team to gold in 1988. Yow's Wolfpack won the ACC tournament in 1980, '85, '87 and '91. In 1993, though, Yow's program was in the midst of a mini-slump in which it missed the NCAA tournament three seasons in a row. But Yow had much more serious losses to deal with then.

Valvano, who shared her passion for books and basketball, died of cancer that April. A few weeks later, Yow's mother also passed away after fighting cancer. So neither was alive to see Yow reach the pinnacle of her coaching career, in 1998, when NC State advanced to the Women's Final Four. Yow got involved in The V Foundation, and raising funds for cancer research was to become as great a part of her legacy as coaching. As she put it, "I said a long time ago in my career that if what I'm doing is just about W's and L's -- wow, how superficial. I give my whole life to that? No, it's about investing in people."
Cancer's return forced Yow to miss 16 games in the 2006-07 season, but her team had something special in store for her when she got back on the sideline. The Wolfpack upset both of their nearby rivals, North Carolina and Duke, plus made a run to the Sweet 16.

Yow's father, Hilton Lee Yow, died of congestive heart failure that March. Yow coached through that, and through her obvious fatigue and pain. Her body was a battleground between the cancer trying to decimate her and the drugs trying to decimate the cancer. Many thought Yow might not make it to another season. But she did, crediting a faith that gave her strength beyond what seemed possible.

She got through 2007-08, when she was the only person who could unify feuding coaches Summitt and Geno Auriemma of UConn. Both are on the board of directors for the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund, which was created in December 2007 and works in partnership with The V Foundation. In September 2008, Summitt, Auriemma and many of Yow's other colleagues, plus some LPGA stars, gathered to compete in the 4K Golf Classic to benefit the Yow fund.

"Everyone feels a connection with Kay," Auriemma said. "She's a competitor, but she's a great human being, first and foremost."
This February, in a tradition that started in 2007, teams across the nation will again wear pink uniforms for the "Pink Zone" initiative. Formerly known as "Think Pink," the event -- which also has spurred several male coaches and even some men's college basketball teams to don pink ties, pocket squares and uniforms -- raises funds for breast cancer research.
Yow always saw her life's true importance as helping others, working toward goals that could benefit everyone. She believed we are all bound together. Her wish was that no one would feel alone.

It's like the Robert Frost poem "A Tuft of Flowers," in which the narrator comes to work in a field that another man had cut earlier -- and feels a kinship with him over a common purpose. He wants to send him a "message" with his thoughts even though they would never meet.

"Men work together," I told him from the heart. "Whether they work together or apart."
Men and women, boys and girls, people of every age -- all can participate in fighting cancer because there's so much still to be done. You can donate to the cause and help continue to fund life-saving and life-extending research.
But you also can honor Yow just as profoundly by simply bringing a little more everyday kindness into your life and those of people around you.

In so many ways, we can all keep working together with Kay Yow. Even though, through our tears, we accept that we must now work apart.

lady utes in action

2009-01-25T13:00:00.000-08:00

despite our win/loss record, i'm having the time of my life coaching the girls. i think they are having fun too and there's no doubt in my mind that we are getting better with each game. as kind of a 'morale booster,' i decided to take the girls to university of utah women's basketball game. unless your name is chance johnston, this is a pretty enjoyable time for anyone. the day was rainy and dreary outside, but inside the huntsman center, life was good. the lady utes were playing their butts off, the band was kickin' those hot big band tracks, and swoop was on the loose. jv head coach and my varsity assistant coach, thomas, and i were able to flag swoop down for a photo op.

i think the girls had a fun time seeing what the college game looks like and how hard you have to work to make it. one thing i love about women's college basketball is that you can honestly sit as close as you want (no matter how ugly you are). here's a shot from our courtside seats.

we were close enough that i could've stood up and asked morgan warburton for a date (except i am already dating the greatest, most beautiful person, on the planet! mwah!) and she could've heard me and responded.

after the game, we made our way over to the seats behind the utes bench, where we waited for one of the assistant coaches to take us back into the locker room. we were able to high five most of the players, chat and ask them questions, and tour the locker room/lounge. it was a great experience for the girls and i truly hope they had a good time. i'd like to thank the parents that drove, they rock. thanks to thomas as well for helping out so much this year. we've got five games left, we can easily win 3 of them. it's time to buckle down and get some w's. go lady miners!

season update

2009-01-25T12:38:00.000-08:00

i realize that in an earlier post, i told faithful ketchuponly.blogspot.com subscribers and readers (thousands, i know) i would be keeping them up to date on the 2008-2009 lady miners' first season under the famed coach sam. sadly, due to time constraints and lack of appealing stats, this task has become increasingly difficult. we are sitting comfortably abottom (is that a word? opposite of 'atop'...) region X (that's 10, not X, as in Gen X, my favorite store in the world) with a record of 0-15. for all you non-math people out there ('i was told there would be no math' - name that commercial...), i will take the difficulty out of this situation and calculate our winning percentage for you (.000). while that may not be very impressive to some, it's important to look at the 'whole' stat. i believe special guest star, 'bleeding gums murphy,' from 'the simpsons' once said to weekly regular character, lisa simpson, 'you've got to hear the notes he's not playing.' actually, she said that while listening to his album, 'sax on the beach,' after he had died. yes, that's right, she is listening in her room and bart comes in and asks what she's listening to or why she thinks he's so good. and she replies, 'you've got to listen to the notes he's not playing.' initially, i thought this was the most dumbest (i know, on purpose) thing anyone has ever said, but then i realized it applies to my current situation. if you look at our winning percentage, yeah, we're not very good, at least by traditional win/lose standards. however, if you look at the stats we're not reporting, suddenly, we are pretty darn good. what stat is that you may be asking? well, peep the stat we're not reporting... losing percentage. that's right, i said it. we are 100% when it comes to losing. the big 1.000. beat that judge. beat that wasatch. beat that morgan. y'all got nothing on king kong (a.k.a. park city).

lost birthday pics

2009-01-25T12:26:00.001-08:00

not really, i just forgot to finally get these off of my camera and post them, so here they are...

the provo crew in front of my favorite place on earth... chili's on university parkway. we somehow convinced the girls taking this picture that it was our first time ever eating at a chili's franchise restaurant.

jacqi and i at the house.

this is the artistic one, slightly angled. thanks kirt(is).

the 'rents.

birthday boy, most beautiful girl in the world, dirty kirty.

overall, a great birthday filled with friends and family.

p.e. teachers can read?!?

2008-11-23T19:39:00.000-08:00

thanks to my wonderful girlfriend jacqi (the most prettiest, most smartest, most funniest, most hottest, most awesomest, most beautifulest girl EVER!), i was able to read the new eminem book, the way i am. i've read whatever you say i am, a biography of his life by anthony bozza, a former writer for rolling stone magazine. i really enjoyed that book as it was a very historically accurate account of his life and included several slightly comical, slightly unsafe interview situations with the man himself (you get from the book that he is very hard to get a real answer from and his main way of avoiding tough subjects or questions is to use off the wall humor and intense intimidation). i REALLY liked this book though because it was autobiographical. it was written with sacha jenkins (i still have trouble figuring out how people write autobiographies with other people. i've read numerous autobiographies of rappers and coaches and wonder if they just say everything out loud and the writer makes sure the punctuation works or what?) and it gives a very real look into the come up of (what i think) the greatest rapper to ever live. the stories are authentic and personal, the pictures are rare and great (i've only seen very few of them published in other places), and the book reads very well (if books could read that is...). there's a short section at the beginning discussing the death and funeral of deshaun 'proof' holden, eminem's best friend and fellow d12 member. he explains that proof is the real reason eminem succeeded and that proof constantly pushed em to be the very best he could be. proof's loss affected many and has created a gigantic writing block for eminem (although 'relapse' is set to be released this winter). he brings closure to the event and remembers a true friend.

the book starts off in true eminem fashion; intense and in your face. he's telling you stories and talking $#!+, explaining how and where he came from. he talks about how he used to fabric paint on clothing for local detroit rappers and high school kids when he was in middle school. he discusses the hip-hop shop and the battles. he chronicles releasing the first album and how he went from a nobody to somebody, very fast. he flew coach until the marshall mathers lp came out. that just baffles me. chapter three takes the audience through the true 'superstardom' that became eminem. he was everywhere, doing everything. he covers some drug use, his anger problems, and the filming of 8 mile.

by far the best part of the book is when eminem talks about growing up and how he raises his daughters. you truly connect with him and he makes you care about him and his situation. i think that is why eminem has been so successful. these days, rappers are a dime a dozen. you can be hot for a week or two, and then you're gone. some of the best emcee's never even get a shot because label heads don't feel they have 'selling power.' but eminem made you care about him, made you want to know more about him. he made you want to buy his stuff. he is a person you can identify with no matter what your situation. not only that, lyrically he tramples anyone. anyone. and yeah, some of his lyrics are off color and inappropriate, i'm not saying i agree with everything he's ever said. i respect him because he speaks his mind, his rhyme schemes are unbelievable, and no matter how hard you try, you can't stop listening to him. he cares about hip-hop and cares about its integrity. he knows the history, he knows who came before him and the barriers they broke down, the limits they pushed. the quote on the last page of the book says it all,

'rap forced me to deal with people socially. it forced me to get off my @$$ and shout $#!+ at people. it felt good. hip-hop was a community where i could fit in, and it really didn't matter that i was white. hip-hop made me feel like i was on a team. i felt like i was not only representing people who had my back, but also connecting them each other. that's what hip-hop is all about for me. always has been.'

if you get a chance, read the book. it's good. thanks jacqi, it was a wonderful birthday present!

team pics

2008-11-22T13:48:00.000-08:00

here's a look at the 2008-2009 lady miners...

and a funny one (something i've never been a big fan of)...

finally, the coaching staff (from 250 yards out)...

if we play half as good as we look, it could be a great season...

happy birthday, to me

2008-11-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

today is my birthday. i have now graced the planet for 24 (human) years. i've seen some things, done some things, and eaten some things (with ketchup only of course). i had a lovely day yesterday, filled with friends, family, and chili's. you can't beat that. thank you to all who have made the last couple of days great, i really appreciate it. i apologize for the cancellation of sam-a-palooza III. too many uncontrollable factors led to its demise. i realize that all people wanted was a good @$$ dance party and that i failed them. i'm sorry. to quote one troy kingsbury gulbransen (sp), 'we will have a sam-a-palooza when the park city high school girls basketball team cuts the net and wins state this year.' troy has prophetized, now let us get out of the way of fate and let it happen! GO LADY MINERS!

thanks for all the facebook love, the survival packs, 'rich dad poor dad', davanza's, the utes party pack, the nano cover, and the special edition eminem book with the limited edition dvd! 23's been good, but 24's lookin' awesome.

we talkin' 'bout practice

2008-11-15T11:10:00.001-08:00

if you've never seen this, check it out:

practice, by allen iverson

well, the 2008-2009 park city high school girls basketball season is officially underway. after one week of practice, i can honestly say, get ready to run. surprisingly, we had 26 girls turn out the first day of 'tryouts.' i anticipate we will have roughly 20 girls everyday divided into three teams (sophomore, junior varsity, and varsity). we survived losing a 6'5" girl to a volleyball scholarship, losing one of our best shooters to volleyball as well, a hard nosed defensive threat to i don't know what, and our starting point guard to community service/keeping her grades up (yes, it confused me too). anyway, based on what we do have, we should do alright. either way, we are a tight knit group and we are going to have lots of fun!

'who's coaching?', you may be asking yourself... well, i've taken on the head coaching job (a dream come true) and i've learned there's a lot more to coaching than just showing up and helping people become better at basketball. reunited with my own high school coach, coach potts, we are flying by the seats of our pants and learning something new everyday. coach potts somehow convinced the photography teacher, ms. shiffgan, into coaching a team. she's very athletic, but admits to never having played basketball before. her female presence is strong though, and that's mainly what we need.

the cards may be stacked against us, but we're gonna make the best of the hand we've got! the first game is at granger high school on november 25th. keep your eye out for future posts, as i will be uploading stats and stories chronicling the journey we're about to embark upon.

wish us luck!

somebody's got a case of the mondays...

2008-10-29T16:41:00.000-07:00

after a lovely weekend involving a friday night screening of the warren (g) miller movie with the livingston's (yes christy, my pants are up right now), two sleep-overs, secret life of bees on saturday, and a trip to provo on sunday (two sacrements, one relationship's sunday school class, and priesthood at costco with lunchbox, the 'troy' part of 'catroy', and dirty kirty), i was on top of the world. how could things get any better? i'll tell you. the clock struck twelve and it was magically monday. school was alright, but the fun was yet to come. jacqi and i had planned to continue a tradition that had been recently interrupted due to a number of things. so jacqi came over after school and we were on our way.

we had a number of errands to accomplish, and very little time (not really, it just sounds more exciting that way). we proceeded first to park city's own 'true value,' in search of a garage door opener.

as you can probably tell, garage door openers are more expensive than we initially budgeted and therefore jacqi was forced into a frown. i was able to capture jacqi candidly in her natural habitat. here she is 'on the move.'

with our spirits in the dumps, we decided to participate in our traditional monday routine and get slurpees. here i am pushing the limits and enjoying that slurpee goodness.

when it comes to slurpee-packing, jacqi is my apprentice (and a cute one at that!). she is a quick learner and with a winning attitude and a hunger for slurpee-packing knowledge.

i, on the other hand, come from a more formal training in slurpee-packing. while i don't personally take credit for inventing 'slurpee-packing,' i believe the history of this scholarly unsolved mystery goes a little something like this. in early 1995, at five totally unrelated 7-11 locations throughout the world (paris, london, new york, tokyo, and park city, utah), five individuals were prompted to begin 'packing' their slurpees. no records indicate which of the five was first, and further more, all five have been interviewed and saying they are part of something greater than themselves and only as strong as the whole (true story, i swear). anyway, i was one of the five. i was the first person west of the mississippi to pack a slurpee. not only was i first, i constantly evolved and continued to push the envelope on the slurpee-packing frontier (or as scientists call it, the final frontier). slurpee-packing is not only an art, but a science as well. barometric pressure, densities, and molar mass all factor into the slurpee-packing equation. one wrong pack or shift could be the difference between runner-up (to me of course) for 'slurpee of the year' and a joe schmoe "i'm on my lunch break and don't have time to think about the packing my slurpee or the slurpee-packing greats that came before me" slurpee. moral of the story. we packed some good @$$ slurpees. if we had a scientific scale, i would say that they were easily six pounds each. easily.

from here, we continued our monday fun-day by going to albertson's. with slurpees in hand, we were on a mission for an absorber. what's an 'absorber' you ask? well silly, it's a man-made shami. if that doesn't make sense, go to your local wal-mart and buy one. it will change your life and you will never use a towel again.

albertson's didn't have any, but they did have armoral wipes and that interested jacqi and her new car. here she is reading the packages, dispelling false claims, and comparing prices (she's such a good lil shopper!).

i had to document that i was there, and the last pic is one of two that we have together.

if you thought our adventure (and this post) were over, you are mistaken! the journey continued and we found ourselves at the market at park city (the grocery store formerly known as "dan's") still in search of an absorber. unfortunately, the market also doesn't carry this miracle product. however, we did find some spanish version and since we couldn't read it to make sure it was what we thought it was, we bought it.

if we hadn't gone to the market, we wouldn't have seen the crazy lady and her two crazy lady kids sifting through the pumpkin patch outside. we decided to get two pumpkins to take home to carve (such fun!). we grabbed best two (jacqi is such a good pumpkin picker!) and headed back to the ranch. after a nice dinner with mom, it was time to get serious. we cut a top in each pumpkin and removed the inside stuff.

i carved my pumpkin and jacqi carved hers. she definitely beat me in the 'cooler pumpkin carved' contest, but i did alright. here are some pics from the process.

for some reason, jacqi wasn't too happy with me in this one.

awwwwwhhhh.

mwah!

my mwah! pumpkin.

more stuff happened that night that was really fun too.

all in all, this was the best monday ever! i got to hang out with the most beautiful girl on the planet, packed an ill slurpee, and carved a wicked cool pumpkin.

i wish every monday was this fun.

thanks jacqi! mwah!

a good @$$ dance party

2008-10-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

hello all, i just wanted to drop a quick piece about an off the hook dance party i attended this weekend. a good friend of mine from the freshman ward turns 24 this tuesday and decided to go with the slightly daring, 'before the birthday, birthday party.' it's scientifically proven (i'll post the research at a later date. that jeremy ranch elementary school is doing some ground-breaking things with days of the week...) that not everyone can have their birthday fall on a friday or saturday night, and thus we are more often that not, faced with the 'when to have the party?' decision.

well, for one laura rees, the 'pre-birthday' party worked out swell. this year's theme: the spicy cw series, 'gossip girl.' one thing i love about people born in 1984, we love to theme our parties. long gone are the days of superhero or sports birthdays, we now live vicariously through tv drama's and music superstars (see also, sam-a-palooza II: the graduation special). if we can't be kanye west in real life, nothing is going to stop us from throwing a party in his honor (in our honor. after all, it is our birthday, right?).

so anyway, the party's theme was gossip girl. v-necks were required to enter, and as always, diet coke and pink m&m's welcomed guest of all shapes and sizes (mostly male, but we'll get to that later).

my boy, adam, and i rolled up a little early (after a wonderful meal at chili's) in hopes of spending some quality 'pre-party' time with the birthday girl herself. as usual, we found six girls (and larsen) in the green house living room... dancing (some things never change). we were greeted with open arms and began joining in to kanye's 'stronger.'

more and more people began showing up and the place was packed. adam and i decided two things that night, 1. prop dancing was a must (hence the water bottle in my hand the entire night, also good for hydration though... coach sam says, 'always hydrate') and 2. we own the middle. we didn't let a single person muscle their way into the middle of the dance floor, it was ours and ours alone.

i have to give a shout-out to dj paul (while he may have nicer and more professional equipment than myself, i consider myself a real 'hood dj, i mean, who else figured out how to rock a party with two ipods, a mixer, and some bangin' computer speakers? that's right, no one). dj paul flew in from john mccain's home state (we won't hold that against him) and really pumped up the jams. other guests of notable mention: syd boyswinkel (married or unmarried, she still got moves), lara pessetto (star a tha ghetto), charles 'bryan' rogers (the future of the power of 3 is uncertain...), party nate (always a good time), jeff zwick (holdin' it down for budge 2200 and byu 119th), rock-climb melissa, and rochelle morris (who avoided me at all costs probably because byu lost this week and the utes are still undefeated and i made a comment in reference to this very fact on my facebook status, sorry rochelle, we'll always have intramurals...). m.i.a. for the evening: ms. katherine 'kitty kat' fiet (don't worry, we poured some out for ya) and jacqi (who i was confronted about constantly that night).

all in all, thank you laura for being born. thank you for growing up to be 24. thank you for having a good @$$ dance party. i think i lost 15 pounds from dancing so hard.

quote of the night: myself, 'hey, i found all the sausage, it's out here!'

i'm no dante, but i do alright...

2008-10-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

a couple weeks ago, jacqi and i rented and watched a movie about four female friends. no, it wasn't 'the women (which we saw in theaters the week before),' but instead the 'sex in the city' movie (sorry to blow your cover syd, but remember, when you move out of provo, you no longer have to worry about what people there think of you). i'll admit it, the movie was good. i was entertained. the best part, jacqi stayed awake! of course, she had already seen it in theaters, but still, it was a big step. one of the key elements of the movie that tied beginning to end, was 'love letters.' carrie was reading an imaginary book of compiled love letters from quote un quote, 'great men.' she mentioned mozart, voltaire, and napoleon (among others). personally, i was waiting for her to read something from kanye, ll cool j, or lebron james (no such luck). she then read the following from beethoven:

though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my immortal beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - i can live only wholly with you or not at all - yes, i am resolved to wander so long away from you until i can fly to your arms and say that i am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - yes, unhappily it must be so - you will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. no one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - oh god, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. and yet my life in v is now a wretched life - your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - at my age i need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? my angel, i have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore i must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

ever thine
ever mine
ever ours

not bad ludwig, not bad. however, keep makin' hot beats (props on that 5th symphony, that sh*t is hot!) and let these young bucks (gettin' paid, gettin' paid... way to go young buck!) try their hands at a letter of love.

so here it is, my attempt at a love letter. however, being the hip-hop head that i am, i had to write more of a 'love rap.' enjoy.

this one goes our to ms. jacqueline christine...

i love to dance with you and hold you tight,
i love how you’re ticklish, except at night,
i love to help you house sit and eat ice cream,
i love your eyes and lips and the way they gleam,
i’m sorry i’m allergic to everything but you,
how much i like cuddling, i only wish you knew,
i’m sorry that i’m quiet, but i love you lots!
i wanna scream it out loud, at somethin' like 200 watts,
but how's about i whisper softly into your ear,
i love everything about you, so have no fear,
i love how you sleep through any movie that's been made,
i love that we’ve known each other since ninth grade,
i love to drive you home cuz i get more time,
to be with you, and to me that’s fine,
i’ll walk you down your driveway when it snows or sleets,
and i’ll always rub your back, neck, legs, and feets,
i’m sorry if i miss some things or miss some hints,
but i love to kiss you lots and make nose prints,
i love your calves, and when you come on up,
i love to call your phone, just to say what’s up,
and even though we didn’t quite win that 5K,
i gotta hold your hand, and that always makes my day.

thanks for being so awesome. mwah!

praise you

2008-10-11T00:14:00.001-07:00

times like these can be rough. what with the nation's (and the world's) economic situation, our political future uncertain (please god, help us elect obama), and as always, rising gas prices. it's good to bring positive energy into our lives. i remember this video from its original rotation on mtv back in the 90's and i've recently stumbled upon it again. i only know one other person in the world (2 others in the universe) who can dance with this level of skill and precision. that person is one william carlquist ('willi vanilli' in some circles). this clip brings me pure joy. hopefully it will inspire you as well...

a word to the wise, this will most likely be the theme of sam-a-palooza 3. get ready. detox is coming. we gon make dre do it

homonyms

2008-10-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

i've decided that i use three different dictionaries in my life, merriam-webster's, provology (thanks chuck), and the standard parkite dictionary. for example: cougar.

webster's: cougar /'ku-ger/ n. : a large powerful brownish yellow cat formerly widespread in the americas but no longer found in many areas.

provology: cougar /'ku-ger/ n. : a large powerful whitish (unless on the football or basketball team) byu student, byu fan, or dude in a cosmo costume. see also go cougars, cougar blue, cougar mail, and cougar concessions.

parkite dictionary: cougar /'ku-ger/ n. : a hot older married or unmarried woman out on the town that is 'hooked up' with, merely for bragging rights among twenty-something males. see also cougar hunting, the cougar call, the spur aka 'the cougar den', and of course pass out with your cock out (sorry jer, it happens to the best of us... kinda).

thirteen ways to sink a sub

2008-10-04T11:31:00.000-07:00

pre-post comment:

my previous track record for taking sick days at a place of employment:

park meadows country club (7 summers), days i called in sick: 0
david g. white architect (2 summers), days i called in sick: 0
copy depot a.k.a. 'pop copy' (1 summer), days i called in sick: 0
byu intramurals (4 semesters), days i called in sick: 0
park city grill (1 summer and a christmas break including a 5:45 am new year's morning shift), days i called in sick: 0
student teaching at springville junior high and provo high (1 semester), days i called in sick: 0
byu summer basketball camps (1 summer), days i called in sick: 0

now that that's out of the way...

i recently started my 'career' at park city high school (go miners!), teaching physical education (i could do 3+ posts a day on this experience alone). the first few days and weeks were overwhelming (to say the least), but i felt that i was hanging in there and enjoying the ride. the 'kiddos' were having fun, being somewhat active, and things were good. the sunday before the third week of school, i developed the beginnings of a sore throat. monday came and went, the throat got worse. still not horrible, but noticeable. i figured it might reach its peak on tuesday and then begin to get better. not the case however. tuesday was bad, wednesday was worse, and thursday i actually cried during dinner while trying to swallow meatloaf. thursday morning i had gone to the doctor and left with no tangible diagnosis.

doctor: your strep test came back negative. take these. if you develop a rash, you have mono. if not, it's probably just a virus.
me: thanks doc.

i didn't develop a rash, but i did lay in my bed in pain from 3 p.m. thursday, until 10 a.m. friday. somewhere around 9:30 p.m. on thursday night, i threw in the towel. i logged on to the school website and requested a substitute for friday. not only was i swallowing anti-biotics, but my pride as well. i was broke, beaten, and defeated.

needless to say, i needed sub plans. i began typing. i didn't want the kids to get dressed for p.e. that day. i figured the sub could have them do book work and other homework in the cafeteria and there would be less problems that way. i didn't want to deal with losing equipment, lack of law & order, and people just sitting around doing nothing. i typed up the plans, thought of every possible thing a student could say to the sub to get out of class, outlined the rules, outlined exactly what i wanted them to do, and even picked out a couple students from each class that could be trusted. 'flawless' was the only word that came to mind while reading the plans back to myself. or so i thought...

i returned monday to the gym, only to find the equipment closet left wide open all weekend, balls of all kinds everywhere (some no longer usable), my pump broken, the books neatly still in their cabinet (untouched), and a note from the sub that said, "we didn't want to do book work, so i just let them play."

moral of the story: never be sick.

muggle buddies

2008-08-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

this past couple of days, my family and i have been visiting beautiful carlsbad, ca. carlsbad is close to san diego and an amazing beach that we have been coming to for about ten years. we really enjoy driving down there for a couple of days during august and hanging out at the beach. the past two times we've gone, we've invited my aunt and uncle. i could write 150 blog posts about my uncle, but i do not want to win "the funniest person alive who writes about their uncle" award (at least not this year, '09 looks promising though). anyway, this year, my aunt and uncle, my cousin, his wife and two daughters, and their new born baby joined us in carlsbad. also, my aunt's brother and his wife (who live in the area), stopped by for pizza by the pool. so, all in all, we were rolling 12.5 deep.

while we were chit chattin', my uncle began talking about his new love, geocaching (if you haven't heard about this yet, look it up. it's interesting, but not as interesting as my uncle makes it out to be). he is all about it. he eats, sleeps, and breathes geocaching. not only does he like to find them, he is all about creating and planting new 'caches.'

so, we are chillin' by the pool, eatin' some pizza, and listening to uncle tom talk about geocaching. my aunt chimes in and tells us that there is a cache that is within a mile of our hotel. everyone is very interested and we decide that we will get the gps and find this thing. once we type in the coordinates, we all get up and begin moving in the direction that it tells us to. i can tell that my uncle is nervous about something. he stands up and tells everybody to hold on. the conversation went like this:

uncle tom: hold up everyone.
everyone: what is it?
u.t.: we need to stagger and not move in such a big group, we could attract mugglers.
my dad: what's a muggler?
u.t.: mugglers are people who try to ruin the caches. they find the cache and then throw it away or destroy it.
my dad: why?
u.t.: because they are evil, evil people.

my uncle is very concerned about "mugglers." according to him, they are the scum of the earth. someone who spends their time watching for people geocaching, finds out where the cache is, and then destroys the cache so others cannot experience the joys of geocaching, is a sad, sad person.

so you may be asking yourself one question right now? what the *&^% is the point of this post. simple, first off, to give props to my uncle for being such a badass. and second, as a warning to all you "mugglers" out there... STOP doing what you're doing. go muggle something else. leave the die-hard geocachers alone. they didn't do anything to you. that being said... cache on uncle tom, cache on.

dirty kirty makes his return...

2008-08-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

well folks, the kid is back. the man, the myth, the legend. on july 23rd, after 24 months in northern california, elder kirt(is) white returned home to park city, utah. the mission was very successful and he did a wonderful job serving others and representing the LDS church. we are very proud of him and his sacrifice and were blessed in many ways while he was gone. however, the greatest blessing is getting him home.

here's the four of us reunited in the airport... (no he did not serve in hawaii, nor is he hawaiian. yet, he still got layed)

in front of the garage and the beautiful sign someone painted. (that truly is a beautiful sign and whoever painted it clearly is an amazing artist/p.e. teacher)

the missionary by the plant...

mom removing the tags after he was released. (he really didn't want to give these up)

again, we are very proud of kirt and are grateful that he returned home safely to us. he is an amazing individual who did a lot of good for a lot of people. the most exciting part is, he will continue helping people and bettering the world throughout his whole life. we love you kirt. thank you.

you can ring my bell-ell-ell, ring my bell

2008-07-30T22:28:00.000-07:00

whoa! so sorry i haven't posted anything in a while (basically, i took the whole month of july off), but i have been somewhat busy. my brother got home (yeah!). other than that, step class has consumed my life (a later post on this wonderful subject is soon to follow). today however, i wanted to drop a few lines about cancer. cancer f ing blows (that's right, i said it). this past february, my lovely mother was diagnosed with a form of colon cancer. she went into surgery and had 6 inches on either side of the growth in her intestine removed (she says things go through her a lot faster now, if you know what i mean). shortly after that, she began chemo (i think that's how you spell it). every other monday, she goes to salt lake, gets hooked up to a pump, takes the pump home, and returns the pump to salt lake on wednesday, after she has been given 100 "shots" of chemo. for the next four or five days, she sleeps, says everything tastes like metal (even popsicles!), and throws up a lot. she then gets a week to recover before the next treatment.

when she started, they told her that the goal was 12 treatments. they said that most people can only handle 10 before their blood breaks down. these people still have a really good chance of beating the cancer, but if you can make it to 12, you have the best chance. so she started, and it was rough. but she stuck with it and stayed focus. she was determined not to get sick (cancer is technically sick, but if you get like a cold or something on top of that, they won't give you your chemo treatment for like another week or so and it pushes everything back). she didn't get sick, and she didn't get discouraged.

today, she turned in the pump on her 12th treatment. she made it. she will still have the chemo drugs in her body for about a month, but her treatments are over. down at the cancer center, when you are finished with your treatments, you get to ring a bell they have on the wall and all the nurses and patients clap and cheer for you. today, she rang the bell.

i love you mom.

vegas non-preggers party

2008-06-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

so i was chillin' out this afternoon, surfing the channels, when what do i land on... a 'keeping up with the kardashians' re-run. unsure if i'd seen this one before, i intently watched. the episode started off with my crush, kourtney, taking pregnancy tests (doesn't get any better than that). she was a little fearful and a little anxious as she waited for the results. after about 3 minutes, the 'fool proof' test revealed one and a half lines. kourtney and khloe were both unsure what this meant. two lines meant bun in the oven, one line meant don't forget next time.

the subplot of the episode was one of the little kardashians wanting to get a puppy. she asked bruce (my favorite character), who told her no and that he would end up taking care of it. she was sad and upset, but the war was far from over. she showed pictures to kris (the mom) on the internet and then convinced her to take her to the pet shop. once there, kris caved, bought the puppy, and told the girls that they were going to hide it from bruce for a couple of days. classic kardashian female behavior. poor bruce.

meanwhile, kourtney and her douche bag boyfriend, scotty, go to the 'gyno' for an appointment. after a some dramatic shots and a commercial break, we let out a sign of relief and learn that kourtney is indeed, not pregnant. scotty's first words: "thank god. i'm mean, not thank god, but thank god not right now." kourtney's words to the camera: "thank god."

when the couple reveals the family that kourtney is 'without' child, they all decide to have a 'non-preggers' party in vegas. i mean why not? you're not pregnant, so go to vegas. good stuff. not only that, but they rent a party bus to take them to vegas. they drink for 5 hours on a bus with a stripper pole.

before leaving, kris tells the camera that she hopes the girls tell bruce about the dog while she is gone. poor bruce.

unfortunately, i didn't get to see the end of the episode, so i don't know how it all turned out. however, i'm sure bruce got screwed somehow.

neil diamond f ing rocks

2008-06-26T22:50:00.001-07:00

recently i've been on a neil diamond kick. i've been listening to his 60's classics and his last album, 12 songs. both of which are really dope and i just let myself go when i've got the 'diamond in the ruff' blaring in the background. i like the classics because they are just really basic songs about love and chasin' that tail. they are catchy and classy. neil speaks straight to the heart and you can't deny that.

i like 12 songs because it's basically classic neil. he went electric for awhile, he did the stadium thing, and now he's come back to the classic roots. for this album, he teamed up with legendary producer, rick ruben. ruben has done stuff for johnny cash and kid rock, but is most famous for his work with the beasties and ll cool j (ladies really do love cool j). he and russell simmons started def jam out of rick's nyu dorm room. they were innovative and awesome. when i heard rick was going to work with neil, i went nuts. rick came in and basically told neil that he needed to go back to that one guitar sound. neil was a little bit weary, having lost faith in his guitar skills. rick assured him that that's what the people wanted to hear. and he was right. neil recorded 12 songs, playing and singing and totally kicking ass. thank you neil. thank you rick.

keepin' up with kourtney

2008-06-26T22:39:00.000-07:00

for those of you who haven't seen 'keeping up with the kardashians' on E!, start watching it. while it may not be as 'drama filled' as my other favorite reality show, 'the hills,' it comes close. bruce is probably my favorite character. he is way chill and seems to be the only sane one within 50 miles of filming. the girls do whatever they want basically, and then either try to hide it from him or tell him later when there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. at times i feel bad for him, but then again, when you're on a reality tv show, you won't get sympathy from me. sorry bruce!

bruce is hilarious, but the real reason i watch the show is kourtney kardashian. i think she is like 10 times hotter, realer, and smarter, than her sister, kim. don't get me wrong, reggie bush is gettin' his and i'm not hatin', but if i could date one of the kardashians, it would definitely be kourtney. keep it up girl.