Holiday Update

I just wanted to make a quick post...and one gripe...about this holiday season.

First off, the gripe is nothing about my holidays, just an observation I made today at the mall.

Anyways, this has been a great Christmas. I really enjoyed seeing my family and look forward to the next few days when I will get to see some of my friends. I didn't realize how much I missed everyone...and their accent...and their southern cuisine...and everything else about home.

Santa was really good to me to. All in all it was a great holiday season. I love my family and was glad to spend time with everyone. The good news is I have another week to spend with everyone here!

On to the gripe...

I went to Opry Mills mall today - for those who don't know this is a fairly large mall that replaced the OpryLand theme park several years back. It is almost always busy - especially in the summer and around the holiday season. The summer I worked at the Grand Ole Opry I got acquainted with the mall fairly well - especially the food court. Thus, whenever I want to go to a mall in the Nashville area, I usually go to Opry Mills.

I mentioned that I worked at the Grand Ole Opry more to impress everyone. This is something that I usually say pretty soon after I become acquainted with someone. It is a good conversation starter, but mainly I just like to brag about the people I met there. So, just another example of how I am superior, er, interesting. I'm a shameless name dropper...

Back to my gripe - So, whenever I go to Opry Mills I usually eat at either the cajun grill of the chinese place, both of which I love. Today I got my food and went on the journey of finding a table. Remember, this is a popular mall so there are lots of tables, but after 4 or 5 minutes of walking around aimlessly I realize that it's so crowded I have no chance of finding a seat.

The only other time something similar has happened to me was in Laguardia Airport's (New York) food court. This was on the way to my US-2 interview so I was pretty nervous anyways, and to top that off it was the first time I had really flown by myself and it was to an airport, an extremely busy airport, that I had never been to. So, when I couldn't find a table I almost cried. But I soon noticed that people were just walking up to tables that someone was already seated at, pulling out the chair, and simply sitting down. No asking if it was okay to sit. No conversation thereafter. It was weird, but I was willing to give it a try. My General Tso's was getting cold.

So, I saw a lady sitting at a table by herself, approached the table, fought the urge to ask her if I could sit, sat down my tray, pulled out the chair and quietly sat down, the whole time watching the lady so I could thwart her objections. She never looked up from her paperback. So...I ate, never speaking to the lady. She, in return, never acknowledged my existence.

Back to today - remembering this Laguardia experience on my third time around the food court I decided to try sitting with a stranger. However, I knew that in the south I better ask before I sit, lest I get talked about for the next 10 years:

"Honey, you'll never guess what happened to me today. I was at the mall eating my lunch, minding my own business and some dude just came up and sat down with me. Never said a word. I'm pretty sure that I've seen him on America's most wanted."

Within a couple weeks my status will have been raised to being some sort of serial killer, or just mentally disabled, all because I acted like someone would act in the North. Not in the South. Just think if it is a woman you go to sit with and don't speak. Automatic mall security questioning.

Anyways, I see a guy sitting at a table for four by himself, ask if I can sit down, and am quickly turned down. He does concede "I will be done in about 10 minutes if you want to wait." I say "No thanks" and walk away, red faced and hungrier than ever. Luckily, a table opens up soon and I snag it.

This leads me to wonder why here in the friendliest of places can't we just walk up and sit with total strangers. I reckon (using southern word for emphasis) that it is because we are so friendly by nature, that when eating alone we just plain want to be by ourselves - we don't want to have to turn on the charm. If someone sits by me, it is awkward if I don't speak. Two people sitting at a table and not speaking doesn't happen in the south unless you are married. So, we haven't started the trend of sitting with stranger because we don't want to have to carry on awkward conversation in busy places, like the airport or busy malls.

After further reflection I realize that I'm glad the jerk didn't let me sit with him. I would have to still be there carrying on awkward conversation.

Update

Sorry for the lag in posting. The holidays are pretty crazy...

Last week I got to go to two awesome concerts. Thursday night I went to see my main man Amos Lee. It was a good show - he played for about an hour and a half, then came out for an hour long encore. By the end of the night I was pretty ready for him to stop playing...but he's awesome. If you haven't heard him check him out. he has a new cd that came out in October. It's as good as the first.

On Saturday night I went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square's Christmas Concert. It was amazing...a 360 member choir, 130 member orchestra, around 100 dancers and 100 bell ringer....and my new lady friend Sissel headlining. I swear she's my new girl friend. Look at the way she's smiling at me.



She was smiling at me like this all night long. Through the camera of course. The concert was in the LDS Conference Center. It seats 21,000 people, so, I applaud her on her keen ability to spot me in a crowd and flirt on stage. Few have accomplished that. The Dixie Chicks and Katharine McPhee. Thats all. Now Sissel. My new love.

Anyways...I head to Nashville on Saturday, but not until we do our Christmas meal giveaway. That's right, on Friday morning I get to be up at 5 am just so I can start my PR people's plan of getting my name out there a little more to publicize my site...you know, get in a few more countries and whatnot. Actually, at 5 am I will be on live television, talking about Crossroads and the events of the day when 1200 complete Christmas meals are distributed that have been donated by lots of Utahns. I think that's so cool. There hasn't been a day this month when there hasn't been a food drive delivered to Crossroads.

Anyways, I just wanted to let you all know that I'm not dead...I will start updating more regularly when things cool off a little. That would be funny if you were all freezing every day like me. If it cools off much more I'm leaving and never coming back. I'm so thin skinned...

International Superstar

Last week I loaded a program called Google Analytics that allows me to track how many people view my blog every day. Since it is designed for companies that actually need this data, as opposed to someone like me who merely wants to boost their own ego by seeing how many people read their blog, there are some pretty sweet bells and whistles. One thing you can do is see the location of the people looking at your page.

Of course, there is a splattering of people across the state of Tennessee reading this...no surprise there. Then, of course there are those readers in the cities where fellow US-2s are, whom I assuming are my fellow US-2s. Kind of a weird thing is that I have quite a large, relatively speaking, readership in Delaware. Most of whom have visited more than once. I know no one in Delaware. I'm still doing an internal investigation if Delaware is still a viable state. Actually, I'm being foolish. Delaware was never a viable state.

Quite a few other cities and states are represented that I have no idea who they are, but that is expected since the internet is public domain and people can stumble across my blog by a web-search. FYI - if you google "high altitude" and "sausage balls" (with the quotation marks, without the word 'and') guess whose webpage is the number three hit...go ahead guess....yep, it's mine. Go ahead, try it and then link to my page...maybe with enough hits I can move up to number one.

But, it's not like I need that moral victory of stomping cooks.com into the ground as the number one hit for a search of "high altitude" and "sausage balls," I mean, I already have readers in 17 states and 8 countries - including Egypt, China, the UK, Canada, Germany, the US, Greece, and India. Bam. That's right...I'm an international superstar.

So, like all international superstars I am having my PR staff make a list of things I will be doing in the near future. The list is still a work in progress, but I've had my people send me some of the major things that they have scheduled for me to improve my public image. Since you are all so loyal to me - especially my peeps in Delaware - I will share some of these things with you. Remember, these are coming from my PR staff so they might have legalistic sounding language. That just means I'm important.

Here it is:

Objective 1: Increase Adam's viability as an international superstar by holding tryouts for a trophy girlfriend. Swimsuit models will be encouraged to audition.

Objective 2: Set up scandal that will make international news to increase public knowledge/ face recognition. Possible scandals include nipple slip, or if more publicity is needed, a white collar crime.

Objective 3: Have Adam use his natural boyish charm to get acquitted from white collar crime (if necessary).

Objective 4: Update blog more regularly.

Well, that is the short list. I'm sure you will figure out some of the other objectives when you see me during the half time of the Super Bowl. (Not to ruin it, but that's when the nip slip is slated to take place!)

My hometown is making national news again!

I was browsing through the national headlines in the Salt Lake Tribune this morning and I saw something about Nashville so I clicked it. In this simple motion of clicking the mouse I opened one of the most investigative, well-written journalistic articles that I have ever read.

It turns out that a plane flying to Dallas had to stop in Nashville because passengers smelled sulfur burning. Naturally, this sent warning signals to officials so they questioned the passengers. It turns out that one of them, a "lady", lit a match to cover the smell of her "flatulence." I put "flatulence" in quotation marks because it is the last word I would use to describe this action. I put "lady" in question marks because I am questioning this woman's "lady"ness. Not a very lady-like action. Especially on a crowded plane.

Actually, I know everyone has to pass gas every now and then - even ladies. Actually, everyone has to fart 14 times a day according to www.heptune.com/farts.html. (Lots of interesting info on this website) I question this number.

But why cover it up with match smell? Claim it or blame it! That's my philosophy. I can't even imagine the regret and embarassment the woman must have felt when she realized that the plane was emergency landing because she didn't want to feel the embarassment that comes along with a little gas dispersed among strangers. If she had it to do all over again I'm sure she would just do as I do - spin her head in many directions with a confused - "do you smell something? I think someone just passed gas" face after the incident hoping that people don't take all the motion for guilt. Either that or walk to the opposite end of the plane's lavatory, crop dusting on the way so each row thinks their neighbor dealt it.

Anyways, I wanted to write about this because, well, this is a topic that everyone loves to talk/write/read about. Farts are funny. They are as funny now as they were in elementary and middle school. Don't fool yourself. When anyone goes to a public restroom to wash their hands and hears a little trumpet noise from the stall they have to bite their bottom lip and think about that puppy that ran away. This is universal. I'm confident of this.

A little while back we had a group discussion with the youth group about lots of topics. One of the questions asked was "why are boy's so gross?" When asked for evidence that boys in fact are gross, a girl replied "well, boys like to fart, talk about farts, and laugh at it and stuff." My counter was that everyone likes to laugh at farts at some level. I know that even the most mature, distinguished people think that passing gas is funny. I know this. It's not up for argument. Before the night was over I had several Sr. High girls come up to me and say something to the effect of "I think farts are funny," even though they vehemently denied it earlier. Not that I needed the reenforcement. I already knew this.

I thought about taking this post even lower by adding pictures that I found on the internet. I decided against it.

What the &@#^!

Okay, so I had a post planned where I vented my frustrations with the BCS system of College football. That's where the title for this post came from. But, Florida made it in so it is no longer appropriate...well, I still hate the BCS system but this year it's cool since an SEC team made it in...next year we'll see...

Like that reasoning? It is fair logic since the SEC should always get a team in the National Championship game. At least in my mind.



Go Gators!



Anyways...I digress...but I did even do research to argue Florida's claim to the title game. I won't bore you with it now, but if you don't think they belong let me know and I will whip it out.

To make the title of this post somewhat relevant...I will talk about my last night. Particularly, about the movie I saw last night.

I've been pretty sick this weekend so I have watched a lot of tv/movies. One movie that I watched was Beloved - the one that Oprah starred in a few years ago. It might have been a pretty good movie...but it was crazy confusing. It's like they didn't think that anyone who would want to watch the movie did not read the book. Just plain confusing.

After the movie was over...I could draw some meaning out of it...but the overall feeling that sprung forth was confusion, with the secondary feeling being anger that I was so confused.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about the movie since I watched it yesterday - more time than I usually spend thinking about movies. It's just a shame that many of those thoughts about a movie that deals with an issue as thought-worthy as slavery, were about how confusing it was.