Oh man...

That Hobbes character is hilarious. I'd love to hang out with him sometime...

Merry Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Correctional Chagrin

A few months ago I was assigned by my supervisor to test out some new software. It was voice-recognition software that Corrections was considering purchasing for the entire department.

I plugged the headset into my computer and put in the disc. The installation was pretty easy, but then I was prompted by the software to read a few different things. Apparently, the software can "learn" how you speak after a certain amount of time. I got pretty excited as I looked through the options of things to read aloud. I clicked on a Dave Barry article.

Dave Barry is a humor columnist that I read religiously when I was in Jr. High and High School. I started reading the article as I watched the voice-recognition software translate my words almost instantly onto my computer screen. Unfortunately, the more I read, the funnier the article became and I started laughing a lot between words and sentences. The software did a pretty good job, though, and most of my embarrassment came from all of my co-workers in surrounding cubicles who were listening to everything I was saying (at the time I was working out of South Salt Lake Police Department and my cubicle was surrounded by SSL detectives).

After the software "learned" my voice I decided to try it out in a real application. I opened a report I had been writing on a new offender who was in jail waiting to be sentenced. The report I was working on is called a Pre Sentence Investigation Report. It's pretty much a biography of the bad guy... in brief.

Well, most of the information is technical court stuff with lots of numbers and symbols and the formatting is kind of weird so I decided to do all of that by hand. I didn't want to waste a bunch of time trying to figure out how it worked with the software. The first opportunity I had to actually read something aloud and have it transcribed for me happened to be the "Defendant's Version" of the offense. This is where the bad guy writes out his version of the crime and talks about how he feels about it.

I don't know why I didn't think about what I was doing before I did it. I turned on the microphone and started to read the handwritten statement by the defendant. Keep in mind that I'm trying to speak at a good volume and enunciate my words so the software can keep up. It started something like this (spelling, grammar and punctuation have been corrected for your benefit), "On April Sixteenth two thousand and seven I was drinking at my girlfriends house. Some of her friends came by while she was at work and they brought something that looked like tobacco and said we should smoke it."

At this point I started to realize what the other detectives might be thinking. A couple of them know that I'm trying out software, but most of them don't. To them, it probably just sounded like I was on the phone with somebody.

"We all smoked it together and then all of her friends left. I think I fell asleep on the couch for a while, but then Paula started crying. I remembered that I was babysitting for my girlfriend so I went to check on her."

All of a sudden, I realize that I'm typing this report on a sex offense. I consider for a second that I should stop and finish later... maybe when no one was around. But if I was really going to use this software, then I couldn't be shy about it. I mean, this is how it was gonna be in my office day in and day out.

"I went into her room and she had kicked her covers off and she told me she was cold." Ok... you know what... I'm not gonna type the rest of it, but you can imagine the direction this is going. I read the entire thing and I can hear people gasping and walking over to my cubicle when I was about halfway through.

It was actually good that the software was accustomed to hearing me laugh while reading because I laughed through the whole last half when I realized most of the detectives were standing behind me by the time I finished.

That's the end of my story. Oh yeah... the guy went to jail for year. That's it.

Loser

Season can't talk yet, but she's pretty good at sign language. I'm not positive who taught her this "loser" hand signal, but I'm pretty sure it a response to the Santa hat I forced onto her head.

Fans

Twilight totally ROCKED!

One Step Closer

Before I share an email with you that I received this evening, first let me reiterate my love for Dr. Pepper. I also want to express my shock (and slight amusement) that there are actually avid "soda pop collectors and enthusiasts" who are excited about all things soda related.

To be honest, I'm actually thinking about joining:


Hey there Cameron - was just reading your blog post about winning your Dr
Pepper Indiana Jones hat and thought I'd drop you a line. I'm the editor of
a newsletter called the Soda Spectrum Series (http://www.sodaspectrum.com).
Our publication is dedicated to soda pop collectors and enthusiasts.

For the upcoming edition I'm doing a brief blurb about the Indiana Jones
movies... How The Last Crusade was sponsored by Pepsi in 1989 (along with
some pics of the promotion they did) and about how Dr Pepper sponsored the
newest movie this past summer.

I was wondering if you would permit me to reprint your blog post about how
you won your Dr Pepper Indiana Jones hat - I think it's a fun little story
that our readers would find funny. Let me know if this would be ok and we'll
go from there.

Thanks so much for your time Cameron, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,
Blair Matthews
Editor, Soda Spectrum Series
http://www.sodaspectrum.com


My reply:

Blair,

I have no problems with that, whatsoever. Would you mind sending me a copy of
the issue in which my tale appears? I'd greatly appreciate it.

And you don't have to mention how bad I thought IJ4 sucked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvsMUjfHDAw

Cameron Daley

Fame and Fortune

So I've had this blog since last January and I haven't done this yet so I hope you'll forgive me. I promise this blog will not turn into a "Cameron is so cool and amazing" type of blog dedicated to all things cool about me (even though it kind of already is).

If you've known me for any length of time, you know that I've always "joked" about how I want to be famous. In fact, the line I'd use was "In seven years you're going to need a VIP pass just to see me." I started using that line about 10 years ago and if you've seen me lately, you know that you did not, in fact, need any sort of special permission and/or paperwork to see me.

I met my friend John Maxim (previously Henderson... you should ask him about THAT story if you haven't yet) while serving in England on a mission for my church. Our meeting is a funny story in and of itself, but I won't go into that here. John and I learned quickly that we both had a mutual love and respect for all things cinematic. This friendship blossomed into a passionate love triangle between me, John, and the movie theatre.

John and I both knew that we wanted to be famous and we felt the best way to achieve our goal was to be extremely entertaining. So we started out by paying $4000 to Century 16 movie theatre in Salt Lake so we could put up an advertisement on the big screen as part of their commercialized slide show playing before each movie. We got quite a bit of feedback from this attempt. We both started getting phone calls from people we hadn't heard from in years. They just wanted to tell us that they'd seen us on the screen before their movie. It was this taste of fame that made us want it even more.

We decided to make a movie titled Out of the Blue: Based on Actual Events. When Universal didn't call us and offer us a $5 billion dollar budget within two weeks of finishing our movie, we decided to try something else. We moved on to drawing a comic strip called "Out of the Blue". This comic ran in dozens of college newspapers all across the country for free. We didn't want money. We wanted people to know us and laugh at us and be entertained by us. This comic strip was the closest we'd come to accomplishing our goal. We started hearing people talking about our comic on campus. We received emails about our comic and we even had a few people write letters to campus newspapers trashing on our comics. It was awesome.


When we didn't get offered millions of dollars to continue our comic in thousands of newspapers around the globe, we moved on. A new radio station had just kicked off and John told me about how they didn't have a morning show... it was just a regular DJ. So one day (and I still don't know how John talked me into this) we went to the station, uninvited, and told the receptionist that we were their new DJ's for a morning show and that we were starting on Monday. I'm pretty sure we thought it would show some initiative and confidence if we introduced ourselves like that. The receptionist called the owner of the station down, because I guess we were pretty convincing and she didn't realize we being presumptuous. When the owner arrived, we knew we couldn't stutter through our introductions so we said the same thing we'd said to the receptionist... except this guy knew better. Needless to say, we were kindly asked to leave the premises.

We decided to try TV. I stumbled across a lame as hell movie review show on the government owned channel 17 in Weber County. It was pitiful. I forced John to watch a few episodes with me and we shook our heads in frustration as we watched these two imbeciles crash and burn over and over and over again as they talked movies. We knew we could do better.

We called the owner of the station. We told him we wanted our own show. He wouldn't let us do a movie review show since he already had one (that totally blew) so we pitched him a show called Odd Jobs, starring us. He was hesitant, but told us to film a few episodes and give them to him... so we did. He loved it. He loved it a lot. We couldn't get episodes to him fast enough. Literally. He wanted a new episode every week, but it took us at least a month to film and edit each episode. For that reason, Odd Jobs eventually died.

Now on to the point of this post. Recently John and I discovered that the movie review show that we coveted is no longer on the air. We immediately called Channel 17 and secured our spot as the new movie reviewers. One of the conditions of doing our movie review show was... get this... the owner wants us to film at least 4 episodes of Odd Jobs a year. That's how much he loves that show.

So John and I are in the process of getting our movie review show, The Cinematic Experience, on TV. The process is tedious, but in the meantime, I was hoping that YOU, my blog readers would do me a solid*. The Cinematic Experience is currently on You Tube and we're uploading new reviews every week. Would you be so kind as to log on and watch some of them. We try to keep them each under 5 minutes so it shouldn't suck up too much of your day.

We are also extremely interested in any type of feedback you may have. We've received some good and some bad and I can assure you that ALL OF IT is extremely helpful. We've already started incorporating some suggestions we've received into the show.

If you have a Facebook account, we've started a group called The Cinematic Experience. You're welcome and encouraged to join the group so you can receive future updates about our show as well as how our goal of fame and fortune is coming along.

Once the show is On Demand, I'll send out an announcement via Facebook telling everyone how to access it. The more "hits" we get through Comcast On Demand, the more likely we'll be able to buy each and every one of you a house in a decent neighborhood or at least a condo with covered parking.

Sorry if this post was too long and boring, but I've included several links that will help you access and peruse our previous accomplishments.

I hate it when people tell me to "spread the word" so I won't do that... ahem. I won't do that.

The link to our show will always be on the top left of my blog main page. Have a great weekend.

*solid = Pop Culture lingo meaning "big favor".

Lessons Learned

1. Don't assume that a 6 year old will be the least bit careful when playing with a large toy sword.

2. Even though people say "in the blink of an eye" to mean "really really fast"... sometimes it's not fast enough.

3. Tyton can say "I'm sorry" more than 5 times per second if he fears his head might be pulled off his shoulders otherwise.

4. Pharmacists know just as much (if not more) than doctors.

5. Neosporin can be placed directly onto your eyeball.

6. Don't tell your best friend the real reason your eye hurts unless it's something cool like "I got punched" or "It's syphilis".

7. If you do tell your friend the truth and you happen to be on the phone with him so he can't see the swollen eye lids and bloodshot whites, be prepared to hear insult after insult about being a "girl" and concealing "girl parts" from all other male acquaintances.

8. It's fun to make your 6 year old feel guilty as often as possible by saying things like, "I can't believe my eye, that you stabbed, still hurts so bad" or "Man, I promise I'll NEVER hurt you as badly as you've hurt me" then laugh and say "Just kidding. It's really ok. I still love you." Then pause and say, "Or DO I?"

C.Y.A.

I have some cousins that don't go to the doctor. I haven't really had in depth conversations with them to figure out their reasons, but I've always been fascinated with their lifestyle. This post isn't about the stupidity of being anti-doctor. This post is going to be about why I kind of agree with them.

I'm in a unique position. We've all visited doctors at one time or another, but not very many people can say the following words, "If it weren't for medical intervention, I'd be dead." Well, my wife can say that... and I was with her when she almost died so you won't catch me trashing on doctors too badly. But let me just tell you how stupid most doctors are. In my 31 years of life, I've observed what seems to be doctors getting paid to guess. Apparently, that's what they teach you in medical school. Just guess. "If you're wrong, you'll find out soon enough and then you can change your mind. If you're wrong too many times, though, someone could die... so try to minimize your bad guesses the best you can."

Monday: Tyton has swollen tonsils with white patches all over them. Tyton goes to doctor. Strep Test culture is taken and comes back negative. He is given an antibiotic and told to return on Wednesday.

Wednesday: Tyton returns to doctor, but his primary doctor doesn't work Wednesdays. Doctor says, "Hmmm. That antibiotic isn't working. Let's give him a really painful shot in the leg. That should do it. Come back tomorrow morning so we can see if the nasty antibiotic combined with the painful shot did the trick."

Thursday Morning: Doctor says, "I'm not seeing any decrease in that swelling. I'm going to refer Tyton to an Ear, Nose, Throat specialist guy where your co-pay should double. How does that sound?"

Thursday Afternoon: Nurse comes in and says, "Whoa. That tonsil will probably need to be drained. That's a very painful procedure. He'll need to be put to sleep unless you plan on holding him down." Tytons eyes are the size of large dinner plates and it's obvious he's too shocked to speak. Enter Specialist. He spends less than 5 minutes with Tyton and says, "We don't need to drain that tonsil. Instead, head over to the hospital and have a large needle shoved into his tiny arm. We can test for mono. I definitely think it's mono." I say, "But he has tons of energy. Isn't fatigue the primary symptom of mono?" Specialist says, "Good point... hmmm. Well we can test for other things, too. I'm also going to switch his antibiotic to one that might work better, but it tastes an awful lot like feces." Tyton then asks what feces is.

Later Thursday Afternoon: Blood drawn and tested.

Friday Morning: I call the Specialist to find out what the problem is. Specialist assistant says, "Well, the mono test was negative. All of his blood cell counts were normal so that means it isn't blah, blah, blah or blah blah blah." I say, "So we really don't know anything, right?" Assistant sighs and says, "Right. But it could be Strep." I tell him that the strep test was negative at our regular doctor. Assistant says, "Those throat cultures are wrong 50% of the time." Surprisingly, assistant doesn't ask us to come in for a different, more accurate strep test.

Monday: Tyton has a rash from head to toe that itches like crazy. We call the specialist and he says it's probably an allergic reaction to the antibiotic so he switches it again so something that tastes like strawberry citrus bile.

Wednesday: The rash is worse and so we take him back to his regular doctor. I spend about 30 minutes filling her in on everything we don't know so that way we all don't know the same stuff. She says she thinks it might be mono. I say, "Huh?" She then says that the specialist did the wrong mono test that usually doesn't work on six year old kids. She then says that it's unlikely he's allergic to two separate antibiotics from two different families and to continue with the doses from the newest one. I ask if she can re-test his blood sample for the correct mono test. She say, "Oh no. That blood is gone. But mono is a virus anyway so redrawing and retesting blood doesn't really matter anyway." Then the doctor says, "One thing we know for sure is that he had a severe case of tonsillitis." Really? Did you come to that conclusion based on the softball sized tonsil? I bring up the whole "fatigue" thing again and she says, "Kids are able to retain energy through a lot of illnesses that are supposed to make them tired."

Now it's Friday and his rash is gone. His antibiotic dosage is completed. His tonsil isn't swollen anymore and he has the exact same amount of energy as he's had for the last two weeks. And we still have no idea what was wrong with him.

Bad News

Betsy and I have suspected for quite some time now that there was something wrong with our boys. There have been a lot of sleepless nights over the last several years as Betsy and I have tried to figure out how to deal with our suspicions.

Our fears were confirmed today by a doctor via email. We sent him a photo of our boys and he replied with the words we've always been terrified of hearing... "Your kids are retarded."

Here's the photo we sent him:

Pepper Spray

Back in the day when I worked graveyard shift things got very boring at around two or three in the morning. We decided, the geniuses that we are, that we were going to spray each other in the face with our pepper spray... you know... for fun.

My reaction to being sprayed wasn't very funny, neither was Carvers, but this guy (his name is Alan Green) was totally hilarious. I still can't believe how funny this is. He quit shortly after this video was taken because he wanted to snowboard more often than he had been and his graveyard shift kept interfering with his snowboarding schedule. I'm not sure where Green is now, but if he stumbles across this video... he needs to email me. That guy is hilarious.

Ninja Fart (Wah)

I spent a couple of years in England on a proselyting mission for my church. As if that kind of lifestyle isn't interesting enough, often missionaries find other things to do to entertain themselves. Most of them aren't mature forms of entertainment. If you think about it, at the end of the day you still have a bunch of 19 or 20 year old guys who have chosen to devote two years of their life to teaching people about their church. It can be expected that their immaturity will find a way to escape.

I don't remember who started it, but somebody in one of my areas had a problem with air escaping from his anus. It was a chronic problem that we'd all make fun of him for. Eventually, he started doing his best to make his flatulence "quiet"... if he could. He started calling his silent farts "stealthy". Somehow the "stealth farts" morphed into "ninja farts" since ninja's are stealthy by nature. Well this missionary was so proud of his "ninja farts" that he wanted to make sure his fellow missionaries knew when he was being stealthy, so he started making a very quiet ninja sound effect whenever he'd let a "ninja fart". The sound effect was "wah" spoken as high-pitched as a male voice could muster and at a volume level just above a whisper. Ideally, only those individuals within three feet of him would ever even know he'd fluffed. The story climaxed when we were at a dinner appointment at a members house. During the blessing on the food, three of us heard the fourth missionary say "wah" in the middle of the prayer. Luckily the member was an old lady and she had no idea we were all stifling laughs through the prayer.

You're probably wondering where I'm going with this. When I returned from my mission, I told my family about the "ninja farts" and the stealthy nature of proclaiming the sneakiness of one's farting action.

I remember that my family decided to go to Seattle to visit my brother, Ryan, and his wife. When we all got there, my family wanted me to share the "ninja fart" story with Ryan. He and his wife were both thoroughly entertained. At some point during our visit, a couple of my brothers started saying "wah" whenever they'd fart. We all thought it was pretty funny. Before long, everyone in my family including my sister, my sister-in-law, and my mother and father were all saying "wah" whenever we'd fart.

Now... here's the point of my story: People (including you) fart a lot more often than you think. There were eight of us who were hanging out together all day, every day for about five days. Not five minutes went by during the entire five days that someone wasn't saying "wah". Seriously. Not five minutes.

So if you're ever in a room with eight people, you can be pretty dang sure that every five minutes at least one person has let some silent air slip out of their arse. Think about that!

Big Girl

Season is almost 7 months old. It's so crazy. She's gotten so big. Lately she's been able to grip things in her hands and swing them around without letting go. I took a couple of photos of her holding her new favorite toy. Don't worry, though. It's a butter knife so it's completely safe. We'd never put our kids in danger by giving them a steak knife or anything.

Enjoy the photo's.

Mathematics

Math has never been one of my strong suits. I haven't taken a math class in about 15 years. My last math class was when I was a sophomore in High School and I took Geometry. I don't remember much about that class because there was a dude in there who was always trying to pick a fight with me. I spent most of my time worrying about whether he was going to punch me in the face after class than I did focusing on the teacher.

So anyway, I just spent about an hour arguing with one of my coworkers about a story problem that has confused me for the last two decades. You've probably heard it, but the story problem goes like this:

Three guys go to a hotel and get a room for $15, paying $5 each. After they get to their room, the manager thinks, "I think I may have overcharged those three guys." So he gives the bellhop $5 and tells him to take it up to the guys as a refund. Halfway to the room, the bellhop thinks, "Since $5 can't be split three ways, I'll just take $2." So he puts two dollars in his pocket and gives each of the three guys a $1 refund.

So now each of the three guys has only paid $4... totaling 12$. The bellhop has $2 in his pocket which makes $14. Where's the other dollar?

I've told this story to dozens of people over the years. Usually we laugh and then talk about how stupid math is and how if "math" was a mortal entity, we would have stabbed it repeatedly, placed it in a gunny sack and thrown it into a large body of water after securing it to a heavy object of some sort.

But every once in a while (like today) I'll tell the story and someone will think they can explain to me where that missing dollar went. My coworker just spent at least 60 minutes trying to tell me about how it's a "play on words" and how Asians engage in this type of reckless tomfoolery --

*break* Ok. I'm not lying. My coworker just came back in here while I was typing this blog and spent another 15 minutes trying to explain this to me. I kept telling him to get out of my office and he said, "I will as soon as you acknowledge there's no such thing as a mathematical impossibility." So I agreed with him, but then he sat down and started talking about "actual reality" and "perceived reality". Then he started in on the difference between what the patrons actually paid versus what they thought they paid. Criminy! I had this exact conversation with my dad 10 years ago!

This is what I'm talking about. The story is fun to tell. The way the story is told is what I love about it. Of course something goes wrong with the way it's told. No argument there. My coworker actually drew some notes on the back of my appointment cards and some post-its in an attempt to illustrate. I wish I had a scanner here at work so I could attach these sweet visual aids. It would increase the entertainment value of this tale.

The best part is that I have a job where coworkers can have long meaningless conversations about virtually nothing. In fact, at one point my supervisor chimed in and said, "If the guys gave the $3 back to the bellhop then all the money is accounted for." That was his solution.

Walmart

We've all had our peculiar Walmart experiences and I'm not about to pretend like my Walmart experience is superior to yours, but I thought I'd share it.

I like Walmart. I shop there all the time. Mostly I like it because I don't feel like I'm being judged. I mean... how can people judge me when it's obvious I'm so much better than them?

So I'm there with my friend and we're on the Kool-aid isle (I'm not sure why) and this guy walks past us and I smell a distinct odor of Pine. Not like Pine-sol, but actual Pine Trees. Then my friend says, "Hey Cameron. Check out the Mountain Man. Dude looks like Paul Bunyan." The guy had one of the thickest beards I'd ever seen and he was wearing an equally thick, red, turtleneck sweatshirt. He had on some plaid shorts and some hiking boots. My friend was right... he DID look rather odd. The problem was, Mountain Man was way too close to us for my friend to be mocking him as loudly as he was.

Sure enough, immediately following my friends "Paul Bunyan" comment Mountain Man looks over at us and makes eye contact with me as I'm trying to identify who my friend is referring to. Then Mountain Man, without breaking eye contact, starts walking swiftly toward me with a fairly aggressive look on his face. I mumble something like, "Nice one, dude. Here he comes. He totally heard you."

Mountain Man gets about 12 inches away from my face and I'm fully expecting some sort of physical attack. I mean, really.... there are a lot of crazy people who shop at Walmart. Anything is possible. Then this dude unleashes the most bizarre, ranting, soapbox-type speech I've ever heard. It went something like this (keep in mind, the rant was directed toward me while my friend was standing three feet away trying not to laugh): "I heard what you said" (I tried to motion toward my friend, but MM wasn't having it) "Just because I'm wearing this sweater doesn't give you the right to speak ill. I own a business and I'll tell you right now if you worked for me I'd fire your ass on the spot for making that sort of derogatory comment. I used to teach at a local college and I taught my students to never speak in such a way." I stood there for about 10 seconds slowly realizing that this guy was crazy. He was making less sense with each sentence. Finally, MM wandered away and my friend thought it was hilarious.

So we get our stuff and make our way to the checkout lines. I keep noticing MM as he wanders around the store and I also notice he keeps staring at me in a sex offender kind of way. It was pretty creepy. His red sweater just kept jumping out at me every time he was in my field of vision. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. Then my friend says, "I'm gonna go over to that line. It looks like it's moving faster." So he goes over to the other line, but after about five minutes it's obvious the checker on his line is going really, really, really slow, so he bounces back to my line. Then he says (again, way too loudly) "I'm coming back over here, that checker is freakin' retarded!" The 20-something year old girl in front of us in line turns around and says, "That checker is my sister and she's not retarded. She's actually one of the best checkers this store has." I'm thinking, "Seriously, get me out of this store." My friend replies, "I wasn't talking about THAT checker. It was the one over there. She's going really slow."

So the line keeps moving and we finally get up to the cashier. All of a sudden, I remembered that a few days earlier I had seen a girl I went to elementary school with named Marilee working at this exact store. Marilee was probably the one girl in my class who was dorkier than I was. I thought, "Maybe I could have this checker pass on a 'hello' to her. I'm sure she'd be flattered." So I say to the checker, "Does Marilee work here?" even though I knew she did. The checker says, "That name doesn't sound familiar. What does she look like?" Criminy. I stood there stuttering, trying to figure out a description that wasn't insulting. Then the checker says, "I think I know who you're talking about. Does she work graveyards with her mom? They're both fat?" I sighed and said, "Yeah. That's her. Can you tell her I said 'hi'?"

While I'm walking out of the store with my friend who can't stop laughing, I start telling him about how I can't believe how uncomfortable and bizarre this trip to Walmart had turned out. As I'm explaining to him that I don't think things could get any more weird, a four-year-old kid with a mullet sprints past me and bolts out the sliding doors toward the parking lot.

I hear a lady behind me scream "Timmy. Don't run into the road like that! Do you want to get hit again?"

Coolness

I really hope my kids are cooler and more popular than I was in school.

I guess there's no way to really know for sure, though, is there?

Hug, Kiss, Touch, Scratch

I'm not exactly sure how it started, but at some point the usual "hug and kiss" morphed into a "hug, kiss, touch, scratch". I think it was because when Tyton was two or three years old he wanted to prolong the goodbye's by hugging for a longer period of time. I'm pretty sure it was Tyton who requested the loving "touch" as part of the goodbye. Then, shortly thereafter, we started including a "scratch" which consists of a simple scratch on the back, arm, head, or something.

It's really fun to do and I almost forget we're the only family who does this... until we mention it casually without thinking and then we're forced to explain what we're talking about.

Well, last Tuesday I was on my way to a church meeting at about 7pm. I had pulled out of the driveway when I saw Tyton sprinting toward me from the backdoor. I started coasting away from the house... intending to blow Tyton a kiss or something since I'd forgotten to participate in our usual goodbye ritual. Tyton started cutting across our side yard which ends abruptly at a two foot concrete barrier which then drops off to our neighbor's driveway.

Tyton was yelling "DAAAAAD, YOU FORGOT A HUG, KISS, TOUCH, SCRA-a-a-a-" as he tumbled off the two-foot wall onto the neighbors driveway. He jumped up so quickly, I actually wondered if he'd landed on a mini-trampoline. He started saying, "I'm ok. It didn't even hurt. I'm fine." Looking back, it's obvious he was trying to act unhurt because Betsy and I always tell him not to run in the side yard for fear he'll tumble off the wall and get hurt... which is exactly what had happened.

I say to him, "Are you sure? Your hands or knees didn't get scraped or anything?"

"Nope," he said as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Then I noticed the blood running down his forehead. He still hadn't noticed the blood all over his arm and running down his cheek. I scooped him up and started telling him not to freak out. He was confused. He didn't know why I was telling him not to freak out. Then he noticed the blood dripping off his chin onto the pavement. "What's that?" he asked, "Is that from me?" "Yeah," I said, "you just got a little cut."

We got the bleeding stopped and took him to Instacare since it looked like he might need a few stitches.

The doctor said "It looks pretty straight and it's not gaping so we can use glue on this." The funniest part about it was when the doctor, nurse, receptionist and pretty much every other employee asked how this had happened. I know they're REALLY asking, "Did you slam your kids' head against a doorjamb?", but I had to keep explaining what had happened and every time I told the story, I'd say, "I forgot to give Ty a hug and kiss so he was running-" then Ty would cut me off with a correction for the Instacare staff, "Hug, kiss, touch, scratch." They'd look at me with a baffled expression and I'd explain the "touch, scratch" portion of the farewell.

The rest of the doctor visit was great. Tyton never cried. Not once. He even laughed a couple of times. At one point, while the doctor was holding the cut closed after applying the glue Tyton asked, "Why don't you blow on it?" The doctor replied, "Because I don't want to blow my germs all over your cut." Tyton thought that was hilarious for some reason.

Correctional Contretemps

A few months ago I was at work and it was a Friday, which meant my "team" was in charge of sitting in the check-in area of our building. All day long, probationers and parolees reported to our building and my team checked them in, paged their respective agents, ran them for warrants, and on occasion we took certain individuals into custody and had them sit in our "waiting room", handcuffed to the bench, while we wait for someone to be have enough free time to transport said individual to jail.

So I'm sitting there and I get this whiff of serious flatulence. I overhear a couple other agents joking about how someone at the front desk must have gas. I was pretty sure it wasn't me, but I've been known to fluff without noticing so I realized it was possible the air had escaped from me.

The odor became significantly stronger. Much, much stronger. The jokes about "who farted?" became much less entertaining and I actually checked the bottom of my shoes. The smell was almost overpowering.

Then one of my coworkers came up behind me. I said to him, "Dude, do you smell that? Was that you?" (I guess the joke wasn't THAT old). He says to me, "No. Someone just crapped their pants."

I laughed and said, "That wouldn't surprise me."

He gagged audibly (which was funny in and of itself) and said, "No seriously. An offender just *gag* shit his pants while he was getting *gag* handcuffed!" Then my coworker walked briskly... almost ran... out of the check-in area toward the bathroom. I'm not sure if he threw up or not, but he easily could have.

Curiosity overcame me and I wandered out to the hallway where we typically arrest people and I see several more of my coworkers cleaning up a puddle of poo that was spreading across the tile (seems like we should have hired specific people to do that for us).

I've never been arrested before, so I don't know what goes through someone's mind when the idea settles in that they're being returned to jail or prison for an extended period of time... but if I knew it was a possibility, I'd definitely empty my bowels first... unless I wanted to "stick it" to my P.O. one final time. That would be funny.

PS Febreeze doesn't work for serious odor problems such as this.

You're HOT!

I've been trying to figure out the best way to write this post without making it too complicated. I think I've figured out the best way to do it and it involves some visual aids.

Over the last several months, my blog has morphed into a redundant discussion about homosexuals, being gay, and what makes a person (specifically me) gay. That's fine. I don't think my "sensitive side" is any more overt than other dudes', but what makes me stand out is my willingness to admit it, discuss it, dissect it, and laugh about it. That probably makes me seem more gay than I really am.

Backstory: Did you read about Pizzagate? The story about the pizza delivery girl who took pizza to Senator Brambles house and stood idly by while Bramble exhibited many ass-like qualities for several minutes? Well I read it, and I thought it was hilarious. I even made a comment on her blog, but so did about 125 other people so I figured my comment would disappear into the background. Which it did... for the most part.

The next day I received a comment from a complete stranger on my blog. The comment was about Spongebob Squarepants. It was an innocent comment, but I don't get comments from strangers very often. I went out of my way to figure out who had left it. I went to the author's blog (who goes by Ridor). His blog was really busy and chaotic, but I skimmed through it quickly in an attempt to figure out who he was and how he found my blog. I read a sentence in his blog about how he is deaf. I thought, "Cool. A deaf guy is commenting on my blog." For the record, I think deaf people are pretty cool. I wish I knew a deaf person personally. This comment is just as good.

Then, just as I was about ready to click away from his blog, I read another sentence about how this Ridor character is gay. He's out of the closet and openly discussing his gayness and deafness in his blog. "Ok," I think, "that's pretty cool... I guess. A gay deaf guy found my blog and made a comment on it."

At this point I'm still kind of confused as to how this dude from the east coast found my blog. Then I remembered my comment about Senator Bramble. I thought, "I wonder if Ridor read my comment on that pizza girls blog and then clicked on my blog cause he liked my comment."

When I made my comment, I clicked the box that said I wanted all future comments emailed to me. This comment from Ridor was forwarded to me as I'd requested. It was made about 15 or 20 comments after my own.

Ridor's comment was pertinent and straight forward... until the last sentence. Ridor is deaf. Ridor is gay. Ridor thinks I'm hot. Cameron can hear. Cameron is straight. Cameron is flattered. Some guys would be offended at a comment like this. I wasn't, even though hundreds of other readers have undoubtedly read this comment and now know that Ridor thinks Cameron is HOT!!!

I don't know if Ridor still reads my blog or if it was just a one time thing. But Ridor can read my blog and lust after me all he wants. I'm straight and I have no romantic interest in dudes with very few exceptions. But I think everybody has a deep down desire to be found attractive. I want all the girls in the world to think I'm smokin' hot. I know I'm only about a 6 (if a 1 is a RMC), but I still want to be found attractive. And I honestly don't mind if the occasional dude finds me attractive, as well.

I've also found that the people who are most offended at stuff like this, usually like to make out with members of the same gender and are scared of being found out.

Thanks, Ridor. You've boosted my self-esteem. Lust away, my friend. Lust away.

Homework

I don't know why I thought this was so funny. This is Tyton's first packet of homework. He sat at the table this afternoon and did about 10 pages since he decided not to do it during the week and it's due tomorrow (I wonder who he takes after).

The instructions are to circle all of the letter S's on the page. I had to read Tyton the instructions, but he took them VERY seriously even though he missed a couple of them.

He did it in pencil so it's hard to make out all the circles. You may need to click on the photo to blow it up big enough to see.

Tee Hee

When I was growing up, my dad had a lot of funny sayings that he thought were intelligent and original... but to his children, well... they were just ridiculous. Whenever we'd make fun of him for the things he'd say, he always say the same thing in rebuttal (which ended up turning into another avenue for mockery). While all of his offspring were laughing and making fun of him, he'd shake his head, sigh and say to himself "So easily entertained."

Those words popped into my head when I logged into my blog the other night and saw this:



I giggled silently to myself when I saw the Hit Counter number.

Hee Hee. "Boob". It really doesn't take much to entertain me.

Windy Helmet Tongs

As I was downloading the photos off our camera today I noticed we seemed to be lacking on available memory on our memory stick. I couldn't figure it out since I had already downloaded all the photos. Then I realized there were a ton of videos that were stored on the camera. It's a pretty roundabout way to access them, but I finally transferred all the videos from the camera to my computer. I've included three of them for your viewing pleasure.

This first one is Tyton narrating the wind from the storm that swept through on Monday. This was his first video, but I think he did a pretty good job.



Boston got a helmet and pads for his birthday. This is him showing them off. In case you don't speak three-year-old... his first sentence is "This is my helmet!"



Betsy called me into the kitchen two nights ago and asked me to videotape the boys making Season laugh. They're dancing around with tongs and speaking gibberish at the top of their lungs. If you don't have kids and want to know what it's like, hook up all the available speakers in your house, turn up the volume as loud as it will go and then play the video on a loop for about 12 hours (except you, John, because doing that would probably make you cry).

VP

I'm not a political guru by any means. In fact, it's only been in the last few years that I've even been slightly interested in what goes on in our country. But I found out today that Sarah Palin has been chosen by McCain to be the VP candidate. I had no idea who Sarah Palin was until today. I still don't know a whole lot about her, but I know one thing. She's hot.

I know it shouldn't matter how attractive she is, but c'mon! Why would anyone choose to vote for anyone besides a McCain/Sarah ticket? Sarah has a little bit of feminism coursing through her veins, which I'm sure bodes well with all the female voters. She was voted Miss Wasilla and ran for Miss Alaska, which will definitely influence a great many (straight) male voters.

Before you call me any names, let me paint a picture for you. Most of you have probably seen the movie Deep Impact.
It stars Morgan Freeman as the President of the United States. In the movie they discover an asteroid (or meteor or whatever) is headed straight at earth and most of us will die... except for a select few who have been chosen to live in underground caves for years, maybe decades, to ensure that "life will go on".

Now imagine sitting at home watching TV and that beeping sound starts, indicating a message from The Emergency Broadcast System is coming on. You think it's going to be another inconveniently timed "test", when all of a sudden, you see Obama sitting in a chair behind his desk in the Oval Office. He breaks all kinds of bad news to the country. Maybe it's an asteroid. Maybe it's a plague that's taking over the world. Maybe it's World War III. You'll be in a panic, most likely.

Now envision Sarah Palin sitting in that chair (since McCain will have long since died of old age). She's talking about monkeys or something. You hear her mention the word "outbreak", but all you can think is "Man... she's smokin'."

When I think about voting in November, that's what I think about. We know bad things are going to happen in our country and in our world. Who do I want to be the one telling me all the bad news? Obama? Or sweet, sweet, Sarah?

I choose Sarah.


Oh yeah... and McCain.

Captain Underpants

There are a lot of reasons why having kids is fun, but having a couple of boys make it so much more enjoyable. There's something about playing with them while they're doing "boy" things that really brings out the kid in me. Actually, now that I think about it... most of the things I do are childish so it would be more accurate to say that my JOB actually brings out the ADULT in me.

I've been reading Captain Underpants to my boys for about a year and there's something about the way the author writes that makes my stomach hurt a little bit with jealousy. There are five or six different books in the Captain Underpants series and it's obvious the author has warmed up to his audience of young boys as the series progresses. I find myself laughing aloud at some things the author chooses to write and I'm pretty sure the humor goes over the head of most school-age youth.

I've chosen to share a couple of examples and I hope they substantiate my claims. I actually tried to read these pages silently as I was doing this post and it's not as entertaining. So, if it's not too much to ask, read these pages out loud. Close your office door if you're embarrassed. If you're in a cubicle, then read these pages loud enough that your co-workers can hear you. I have a feeling they'll be just as entertained as you are... and for some reason, saying all of these descriptive words aloud is much more fun.

Correctional Confabulations

So I'm sitting at work the other day. I have appointments lined up all day long at 10 minute intervals. I go up into the check-in area and call back my 1030 appointment. She comes back with an attractive female accomplice. The girl I supervise is not attractive in the least. On a scale of 1-10 (with a "1" being a retarded midget corpse) this girl is about a "3". Her friend, however, is at least an 8... maybe an 8.5.

They come back to my office and I ask my probationer how she got to my office, since I know she doesn't have a license and driving a vehicle would be a violation of her probation. She motions to this hottie and says, "She gave me a ride."

"Oh," I say, "is this your friend?"

She gets a genuinely surprised look on her face... with a hint of confusion. "Um, HELLO? This is my sister? Can't you tell?"

For her to think that she looks anything like her hottie sister... I don't know... someone has been really, really dishonest with her. Probably a boyfriend or her mother.

Kindie Garten

This time of year it seems like there are hundreds of family blogs announcing the first day of school for their child. I'm doing the same thing, except with a couple of entertaining photo's to go along with it.

The first one is when Betsy was getting Ty out of the van upon their arrival to school. The second photo is in the hallway outside the classroom door (you can see backpacks hanging on hooks in the background). Betsy said it was pretty sad, but she HAD to get a photo even though he was having himself a little conniption fit.

Luckily the second day was great and it's been great all week. Whew.

Motivational Series

We've all been emailed some variation of those Motivational Posters. They're pretty hit-or-miss, really. Sometimes they're funny and sometimes they're lame. I was forwarded an email today that had about 15 of them attached. I found myself laughing out loud at a few of them which I don't usually do. I've decided to post some of the better ones... but the "WTF" one was my favorite for some reason.

Twilight: A Male Perspective

We were over at my sister-in-laws house about two weeks ago and she had all of the Twilight books on her nightstand. I have been hearing a lot about it lately since the newest book, Breaking Dawn, came out. I was watching the news and saw about five million women standing in line to pick up the new book. They were all gushing about a character named "Edward" and how they had "discussion groups" that were set up just so a bunch of chicks could talk about this book. My wife, Betsy, doesn't read much of anything except the scriptures, KSL.com, and Parenting magazine. I figured it might be a book she would enjoy.

So we borrowed the book and Betsy started reading it that same night. For a few days I watched her closely to see if she was enjoying it. She was. I noticed she was able to find time to read it during the day. She'd even stay up later than usual so she could read it after the kids went to bed.

I started to get curious. What the crud are all these chicks freaking out about? What could be so awesome about this series? Finally, I decided I was going to read the first book, Twilight... just to see. So I waited until Betsy went to sleep and then I'd take the book into the front room and read it. I didn't use a book mark because I didn't want Betsy to see that I was reading it. If she DID figure out I had been reading her book, I didn't want her to know how far I was or how much progress I'd made. If I didn't like it and Betsy knew I was reading it, I didn't want Betsy gushing to me about how awesome it was and put me in a position where I'd either have to agree with her (lie) or disagree with her (hurt feelings).

I just finished the book this last weekend, just behind my wife. It was pretty good. I had some problems with it, though.

I want to tell all you dudes out there a few things about Twilight. First of all, the reason women like this book so much is because it's about 90% Romance Novel. You know those books at the store that have really buff guys with huge muscles, wearing a ripped shirt and they're cradling a scantily clad hottie in their huge arms? Twilight reminded me of what those Romance Novels might contain. It's from the point of view of Bella, a 17-year-old girl. She's in lust with this dude, Edward, who we learn is a vampire. "Vampires?" you might be thinking... "Cool!" Well, not really... but kinda.

If you've seen any vampire horror movies then you know what can typically be expected from vampires. Raw emotion, passion, blood, sex, gore, and maybe a topless Sam from Who's the Boss... if you're lucky. For the book, Twilight, remove "topless". Remove "blood". Remove "sex" (it's a Mormon author, after all). Remove "gore". What are you left with? That's right. Emotion and passion. There is some allusion to blood and gore when Edward occasionally mentions "hunting", but not enough for any real man to get too excited.

Also remember this story is told from the point of view of a 17-year-old girl. Almost without exception, every time she sees Edward, she notices something amazing about him... like his perfect face, hard jawline, gorgeous eyes, muscular chest, smooth voice, brisk stride, gentle touch, etc. Now try to imagine every paragraph containing several sentences describing Edwards absolute perfection. It gets old pretty fast... for a guy.

Another thing that bothered me quite a bit was that Edward is not the nicest guy. I mean he says a lot of great things, he's amazingly smooth for a 107-year-old teenager, but he acts a lot like a jock. He orders Bella around like she's his dog and she does exactly what he tells her do. Why? Because he's so hot. That kind of bugged me. I saw that kind of thing happen in High School. All the hotties would flock to the A-holes because they were hot. I'd watch from afar and think, "I'm so much cooler than that dork face." But the chicks never noticed because I wore glasses with a strap in the back to hold them up.

The author of Twilight also strays from some of the basic, generally accepted "truths" about vampires. That's cool for the most part. I mean, an author has creative license and can write her stories however she'd like. But, c'mon! A vampire can't be in the sun or else his skin melts off. That's pretty basic. Most everything else is optional (wooden stake through heart, flying, turning into a bat, etc) but the sunlight thing is pretty elementary. I think it would have been better if the author had just chosen to ignore it, but instead, she chose to have the vampires stay out of sunlight for a completely different reason. Are you ready for this? Because sunlight makes them sparkle and glow like they're covered with diamonds and other shiny jewels and gems. Like Edward needs to be any MORE beautiful than he already is. Sorry. That's pretty lame. I really hope she doesn't elaborate any more on this stupid quality in her future books. Not that I'm planning on reading them or anything.

It's pretty obvious that Bella isn't really "in love" yet. I'm not saying she won't EVER be in love with Edward, but I don't think she's in love with him at the end of Twilight. She's infatuated with him because he's a vampire, he can run really fast, he's super strong and he's "oh so perfect". I don't think "awe" equates to "love".

Edward says all the right things, as well. He makes the rest of us guys look like babbling imbeciles. Let me tell you, ladies, if I had over 100 years to perfect my womanizing ability, I'd say all the right things, as well. It's kinda like Groundhog Day. Edward is a "teenager" and knows exactly what to say to make other 17-year-olds swoon because he's had a lot longer than us mere mortals to master it. "But, Cameron, Edward doesn't have any experience with women. He even told Bella that he's never felt this way about anyone. AND he's also a virgin!" Yeah right! Edward's been around the block once or twice in the last 100 years, I promise. He's just perfected his dialogue so he can impress Bella and whoever comes after her. With all the pent up one-liners and "icy caresses" he has built up, I guarantee Edward can hold his own in the sack. Bella is just an immature 17-year-old who wants the hottest guy in school to pay her some attention. That guy just happens to be a vampire.

That's all I have to say. Good luck, guys. If you can zone out during the more descriptive romantic scenes, it's actually a pretty good read.