The Geek Beat

It was like a 90s sketch comedy troupe

2011-09-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

Normally when I see an ad or a poster with a group of people from all the different races I get a little upset because I think it is tokenism and tokenism is stupid.

But today I half Asian son played with a white kid, two black kids and two Mexican kids.

You know, when it’s not being used to sell me on Walmart, tokenism’s kinda cool.

Wheeeeee!

2011-08-18T07:05:00.000-07:00

As I’m writing this, my back is incredibly itchy. When you’re sitting alone in your basement office/hide-from-responsibility room, your back is the absolute worst place to develop an inch. This is sort of ironic because it’s actually the best location to develop an inch that if you were anywhere else would be a major problem - your crotch.

But that’s neither here nor there.

The reason I would currently trade my map to the secret Lost City of Gold for the ability to scratch the middle third of my back is I’m recovering from a sun burn. Nothing too bad, just red enough to make everyone I meet want to slap me on the back as a greeting.

But as a pasty-white-guy, after the mandatory three days of pain as punishment for leaving my home, I now get to spend the next 48 hours as a micro-leper, scared of people, constantly scratching and pulling off dead parts of my body.

It was worth it though. My own flesh is the currency I gladly pay to enjoy the world outside of my home and office.

The part of the world that I dared to enjoy without the protective covering of a Hawaiian shirt was Seven Peaks Water Park in Salt Lake City, formerly (and currently by me and my family to lazy to accept the name change) known as Raging Waters.

My family and I spent last Friday chilling by the pool, chilling down the lazy river and chilling down some great water slides. It’s hard to chill while plummeting 5 stories, 20 feet in the air down a man made river held up by 2 inches of plastic, but that just how chillax we are.

It wasn’t all chill and cool though.

Places like this always have lines just long enough to be stupid. It is impossible to surrounded by that much water and not have to constantly pee. And despite great advances in all other forms of technology, we still build the steps to our water slides out of wood that can only do three things:

1) get really hot under bare feet
2) put splinters into bare feet
3) look unsafe

That being said, I had a great time. There’s something about revisiting important places from your youth that awakens your inner child in ways that watching the schlock they call Saturday morning cartoons these days never could.

For example, I am convinced that there is an age at which I will be able to go down a water slide on a tube and not pretend that I’m flying a TIE fighter from Star Wars.

However, that age is not 29.

On the other hand, I am hoping there is an age where I can see a woman in a tiny bikini and I don’t spend the whole time looking 15 degrees to the left of her so I can ogle safely from behind my sunglasses.

That age is also not 29.

I do know for a fact that there is an age where you can watch a ten-year-old run to get in line for a water slide that you just don’t dare and not feel like less of a man because you know in you heart of hearts that he’s not braver than you, he’s just got less to live for.

And that age, my friends, is 29.

Geek on.

This kid gets it

2011-08-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

I was hanging out with my son at the slides at the local park today (because if I hang out there without him, I get the cops called on me) and there were a couple of mothers there watching their two kids -- a boy and girl about five-years-old -- as they climbed on the Monkey Bars.

As they were approaching an especially difficult leg of their journey, the girl said with a grave tone in her voice “We need to be careful, this is extremely dangerous.”

Without missing a beat, the boy responded in a voice that was the vocal equivalent of rolling his eyes.

“You’ve been learning words from your Mommy haven’t you?”

Here goes nothing

2011-08-02T21:20:00.000-07:00

The Boy, this is your father speaking, so put down whatever you are into when I decide to read/give this to you and listen.

As I write this it is July 25, 2011, you are 20 months old and have just gone to bed. Today was a simple day, very simple in fact. And yet, amidst all the simplicity, you taught me something so profound that I just had to write it down.

First, a bit of background. I said today was a simple day, and it was, but it was the kind of simple day that you live for when you become a parent. We were going to take you to the library.

I’m not sure what your study habits will be like when you’re older, but here and now, you love the library. If we’d let you, you would spent hours, running between the shelves of books, discovering new things at every turn. You love to have your mother or me read to your from the baby books bin. You love to grab magazines with Elmo or Thomas the Tank Engine on them and explain everything about them to us in your own language. You love all the posters and decorations they have there for you to enjoy.

Today however, being the Monday after a Pioneer Day Sunday, the library was closed. We didn’t realize this until we had pulled into the parking lot. You were heart broken. You kicked and thrashed against your car seat and against the injustice of it all.

Your mother, the quick-thinker she always is, placated you by saying we could take you to school next to the library to play on the recess toys. If there’s one place you like more than a library, it’s a park. There’s less books, but more screaming, which is a fair trade in your young mind.

We’d never taken you to this park before. You were hesitant at first, but grew more adventurous, eventually climbing higher than you ever have before. When the time came, you didn’t want to leave. Even the first drops of rain would not dissuade you from pointing at the numbers on the hopscotch boards and giggling with glee.

To move you closer to the car while maintaining your level of happiness, your mother and I each took a hand. When run together for a few steps and then “One Two Three!” swing you forward into the air. You laughed, your mother couldn’t help but smile and I tried to capture the moment in my mind so that I could live in it forever.

I was convinced the day could not get better.

I was wrong.

The rain picked up, damping the world and our spirits. We ran to the car, and promised you that we’d come back and play there again soon. We drove home. As your mother and I cowered in the garage, looking out into the rain, you ran straight in, laughing as you went.

Knowing your mother is part cat and hates to get wet, I went after you. I was about to bend over to pick you up and carry you back into the house, when I decided the “Cool Dad” thing to do would be play with you in the rain for a while.

We started to walk around the block, at least you did, and I followed. As is normal for most kids your age, it was a slow walk, because you had to stop to examine everything. Every rock, every yard, every puddle was the most amazing thing in the world to you.

I hope one day you’ll understand what it does to you to watch your child explore, it makes you slow down and try to understand what they find so fascinating. You think back to your own youth, and for a few minutes recaptures the feelings of wonder and amazement you used to feel when everything was new.

That’s what happened to me. You’d seen everything that we looked at before. Many times in fact. But tonight it was different. Tonight it was wet, shiny and clean and despite the fact that you had to get soaking wet to do, you wanted to see every last bit of it.

I hated when I had to bring it all to end as bed time closed in. But even as I carried you home on my shoulders you were amazed by what was around us and you were smiling.

I pondered this as we finished the last leg of our journey. Into all our lives, rain will fall. Rain that will make us cold, wet and miserable. But the rain will bring with it change. It will wash the world clean and if we embrace it, it’ll wash us too.

When this rain comes, it brings with it a choice. We can hide, staying indoors, where we are safe, warm and where everything is the same. Or we can run, laughing, into the downpour.

We’ll see things in a different way than ever before. We’ll overcome our fears and dislikes, and find a whole new world to play in.

Today you taught me to run in the rain. Something I’d forgotten over the last 27 years since I was your age, when the time comes, I hope to teach it to you again.

Thanks boy.

You’re the best.

Lt. Governer, I choose you!

2010-11-08T07:15:00.000-07:00

Whelp, it’s the second week of November which means I can finally start considering the waves of campaign signs that have infested my world for the last two months as what they really are:

Red white and blue litter.

I don’t mean to sound anti-elections. I love elections. I just hate election time.

I think every two years (even though it turns out we have elections every year. Who knew?) everyone other the age of eighteen (and especially those over 60) goes election stupid.

We chose sides, we wear obnoxious buttons, we even stand in the street and yell at each other like shopkeepers in a country only Indiana Jones would visit.

And the voter guilt. Heaven forbid you decide your not informed enough to make a proper decision and decide to stay home. You, sir, are the scum of the earth. You don’t deserve to live in this great country where every man and woman has the right to let their voice be heard!

Now get your butt down to the grade school and vote for who I tell you to vote for

Fortunately I did vote this year. In fact for the first time I voted by mail a couple days before the election. It was nice, I got all the joys of looking down on people who didn’t vote with out all that hassle of actually going some where and smelling old people.

There is a downside to voting by mail -- two actually if you count the fact that filling in bubbles on a sheet of paper still gives me an stress headache. Since I voted days prior, late at night when I should have been playing Starcraft 2, I don’t actually remember who I voted for in several races. And now that results are in, I’m not sure if I should be happy or not.

I’m also not sure how I should feel about knowing who a voted for. On the one hand, I know that I’m not one of those stupid, straight-party ticket voters (more on this later). On the other though, I can not, with 100% assureity, say that I didn’t not just trust the future of my state to eenie-meenie-miney-mo.

Plus this doesn’t exactly speak volumes for my ability to do the basic things required by adulthood. I’m not going to read too much into it. I know I’m smart. I can program complex software, understand most episodes of Nova and perform 6 hit combos in Street Fighter 4. Who I voted for just happens to be one of those things I can’t remember, like where I put my keys or that the end of the first Matrix is actually really dumb.

In fact this may through into doubt whether or not I should be trusted with the responsibility to even vote at all.

Maybe I’m not...maybe the country is like my little league baseball team and would have been better off if I had just stayed home.

Nah, I voted. And according to all the celebrities, that’s all that matters.

I promised I say something about straight ticket voters. I don’t mean to speak ill of people who want to save themselves the labor of filling out 12 bubbles, but I’m just against it in principle.

I just can’t understand having so much faith in a political party that you will vote for them regardless of who the individual candidate is. I mean, I love the New York Yankees, but if the kid who used to pants me at the bus stop stepped up to the plate in pinstripes, you better believe I’m hoping he takes a bean-ball to the crotch.

It’s the same thing with parties. You can vote for each candidate from a party if you want, but be sure to vote for each candidate from the party. It’s just a matter of principle.

Principle. The same reason I always write in Jean-Luc Picard in one unopposed race every year. Principle.

Geek On.

Holy crap it feels good to type that again.

Steve Shinney is happy he voted, happy he wrote, and happy that eggnog is back in the stores. Comments below make him happy too.

Here we are again

2010-06-29T21:04:00.002-07:00

Watching the US vs Ghana game on Saturday was a familiar feeling. Not a warm fuzzy familiar feeling like well-warn shoes or a hug from your grandma. It was more like the familiar sting of dentist drill. Gnawing, grating and painful, but at least all the waiting is over.

Normally I hate people who look down on people who are new to there chosen hobby. I think it's elitist and counter-productive to mock the people you should be welcoming into the family of the fandom.

But as elitist and counter-productive as it is, I can't help but think a lot of the reaction from newer US soccer "fans" is down right pants-on-backwards stupid. There is a real sense of anger among some of these people. They feel the team is nothing but a bunch of "posers" who have let them down personally.

These people who obviously weren't watching back in 1998 when these United States took butt last in the tournament and were flat out told by the world that we didn't belong there. When some one says America let them down after their first time ever winning their group, I want to scream, I want to yell, I want to point back in time and demand to know where they were when we were picking up the pieces of 2006 saying "Well, at least we did OK against Italy" (and we really didn't).

Now am I upset that the American's aren't going to the quarter finals? Of course, that second goal 5 minutes into extra time stung like a soccer ball to the gut when playing on the "skins" team. I was devastated that they lost. It was a winnable game, and after watching so many unwinnable ones, I was distraught to see this one slip away.

The difference is that I knew full well at some point between June and July 2010, team USA was going to break my heart and I was going to enjoy every minute of the ride until then. It's like if the head cheerleader decides to "go out" with you as part of a horrible joke, but you go along with it for the free make outs.

People new to cheering for the red, white and blue aren't used to the fact that rooting for the Yanks is like being a Milwaukee Brewers fan. You know you're not going to win, you just hope the team makes a good show on the way.

And did they ever give us a good show!

The luckiest shot in the history of the game.

A come back from down 2 only to have the go ahead goal taken away in a hair pulling example of what makes this game so awesome.

And finally, a stoppage time goal to lift the team from elimination to the round of 16.

The Mighty Ducks would never have such a script because no one would believe it. And I don't know if my heart could handle the US going all the way to the final game and this rate.

It was a heck of a ride and I enjoy (almost) every minute of it.

And so, I say to Team USA, thank you.

Thank you for playing your hearts out.

Thank you for showing the world what American grit is all about.

Thank you for winning your group.

Thank you for proving that Americans can play soccer and play it well.

Thank you for never giving up, and I promise I'll never give up on you.

Next time though, trying to have some semblance of defense for the first 15 minutes of the game. Thanks.

Besides, now that my team is out, I don't have to worry about a single other game. I can just watch the highest possible level of the beautiful game and enjoy each game for the event that it is.

That's the real thing for me, I may be a US soccer fan, but I'm a soccer fan first. I want to see America do well, but when they don't, so long as I can watch some one else do well (in a completely separate match mind you) I really am ok. I wish the World Cup would never end. I wish every day of the year I could turn on the TV (in America) and see world class soccer. I can't though. That will not be happening any time soon. So for the one month out of 48 when it does happen, I don't have time to be pissed off for very long.

I've got too much great soccer to watch.

Steve Shinney is a huge Soccer fan. He hopes to get back to the business of this blog soon. Comments can be left below.

Whenever my son counts I hear lightning, is that normal

2010-03-07T20:36:00.002-07:00

Father's Note: I started this column when Grant was only two weeks old and I was super sleep deprived and still more than a little freaking out about the whole being a daddy thing. This whole mind set kept me from ever really sitting down and finishing this piece or any other for that matter. Now things have calmed down enough that I want to start writing again. Unfortunately, I'm now such an awesome father that no one would believe a lot of the stuff I had planned. This piece for example no longer makes sense now that I've been taking care of the the kid for 4 months. Still there are some days when he really is a monster.

My baby is a vampire.

I don't know why no one has noticed this before but he is definitely a frickin' vampire.

I'm not sure if all newborns are Nosferatu or just mine is but there is no way around it: He only sleep during the day. He terrorize innocent people at night. He get all their nourishment from sucking fluids out of another living human being.

I can't be the only one to connect all these dots.

So I have a tiny little vampire bundled up in small wooden box in my room. What am I supposed to do?

The day I became a registered Libertarian, I sworn to battle the undead wherever I encounter them, not wrap them up in little puppy dog blankets and sing to them about rainbows and rubber duckies.

And yet, this vampire is just so cute.

Every time I get the crosses out and sharpen all of my stakes I look at him there, snuggled up like the world's cuddliest prince of darkness and my heart just melts.

It's a real conflict of interest for me. I'm sure you can understand.

Babies hate it when you rub garlic on their faces.

So here I am, trying to come up with a plan. I can destroy my own flesh and blood, totally piss off my wife and be forever know as that guy who dropped his infant into the Holy Water fountain at the local cathedral or I could create an elaborate plan where I raise this vampire as my own son so that I can one day turn him against his own kind.

I've decided to go with number two because this way I get to play with a baby, which is always fun.

Babies can't go out in the sun or they'll sparkle.

So now that I have a plan of action, I need to figure how to go about doing it. You can't just start something like this by making stake-hurling crossbows and bullets infused with sunlight in your garage.

I need to contain the child and keep him under control. I've gotten his crib treated with salt and made a crucifix mobile.

I'm looking into a way to surround the nursery with running water and I never go in there without a mirror. It's a small start, but I figure by the time he's four he should be stronger than a pro football player and able to turn into a bat. I figure that's we can start training.

Babies can make women do whatever they want just by looking at them.

So that's father hood for me so far. I'm looking forward to receiving my first father's day gift: The severed head a vampire clan leader.

Babies look really good in a tuxedo.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is a little bit disappointed his first born was a vampire. He was really hoping for a werewolf or a matador. It could be worse, he could have been a girl. Comments and vampire raising suggestions can and should be left below.

Premptive Critic: When in Rome

2010-01-28T16:26:00.001-07:00

When in Rome, you should do as the Romans.

When in a (Rome)mantic comedy, you should do as the idiots.

When in a (Rome)mantic comedy, main characters must be very attractive, have incredibly cool jobs and not smell like a combination of old meat and butt. Yet they still remain hopelessly single and clueless about how all the ugly schlubs with regular jobs and a slight rump odor manage to hook up all the time.

Let's be serious, this is Kristen Bell we're talking about, with the way she rocks that blue dress in the wedding scene in the trailer, I'm not buying the “I haven't found anyone yet” story.

Wait, I think I've done this Preemptive before. Several times.

Let's get back to the when in Rome part of things. Just are when you are in Rome there are certain things you should do (see The Coliseum, eat fresh gelato, get yelled at by an old woman), there are some things that you should not do.

And at number two on this list is don't go into the ancient fountain while wearing a blue dress you rock so well do dig around for the European equivalent of 37 cents.

“Don't go into the wishing fountain for the money. It's rude and dirty.”

Those are seriously the first words I remember my mom ever saying to me.

Wasn't this woman every four?

And yet through this act that was the worst breech of cultural courtesy since President Bush barfed on that Japanese dude, we get our plot.

That's right, despite being in a (Rome)mantic comedy, this movie has conflict that is not entirely based around two people simply misunderstanding each over and being too attractive to sit down and talk about it. No, violating the local wisdom of Western Society's oldest city will bring a crap storm of (supposed) hilarity that no last minute run through the airport can solve.

Apparently, to undo this kind of bad mojo, you have to drive a mini into an elevator with Danny Devito.

I preemptively love this movie.

I'm serious, blue dress.

Premptive Critic: The Spy Nextdoor

2010-01-14T19:12:00.001-07:00

“Secret Agent Bob Ho (Jacky Chan) is about to face his most difficult mission ever.”

Please don't be kids please don't be kids.

“Babysitting.”

Crappit!!!

Seriously Jackie, what happened to you? You were second coolest celebrity (after Jenny McArthy) of the whole 90s. Now look at you.

Don't get me wrong. I idolize you (literally, I have a gold statue of you that if anyone takes a boulder in the shape of Mr. T's fist will come done and crush them) but you have lost the plot?

You keep making this feel-good, family movies and I'll tell you, my family does not feel good.

Do you even remember that scene in “First Strike” with the ladder? That was you man. That was you making the entire United States of America crap its collective pants.

That's how cool you used to be.

Look at you now in this one. The only people crapping their pants are your co-stars.

Ok, I'll admit. I'm being a little hard on you Jackie. It seems no matter what film you end up being in, you give it 100 percent and make some of the worse premises into truly enjoyable experiences and I'm sure you'll do the same here.

I'm just wistful for a long gone time, I guess.

A time where the only movies you stared in featured either beating people up with chairs or two misfits from different worlds overcoming their cultural differences to beat people up with chairs.

I guess I'll have to face facts that those days are gone just like dollar-a-gallon gas, grunge music and Jackie Chan movies where the most threatening looking person from the trailer didn't look like he belongs in a Avril Lavigne video.

Sigh.

I preemptively hate this movie, but I know I'll love it later.

Oh and if you're really reading this Mr. Chan, I'm still pissed about the last ten minutes of “The Myth.”

Premptive Critic: DayBreakers

2010-01-05T21:39:00.001-07:00

Well it was bound to happen. These days you can't go into a Hot Topic and swing a stick without hitting some kind of new-age, gothy vampire merchandise. This new, brooding brood of the undead are big money these days.

Now, I'm not going to get into how dumb the emo vampire thing is. Lets just say I'm against anything that makes vampires good looking.

They can't use mirrors people, vampires constantly have stuff in their teeth.
Fangs.

Whatever.

Fortunately, for us DayTrippers is not trying to cash in on current preteen girls vampire crush fad. It seems that somebody finally took a lot at their 12-year-old daughter's closest and asked them selves “Wait weren't vampires suppose to be monsters?”

Unfortunately for DayCampers, the only people not sick of vampires are preteen girls with vampire crushes.

I don't want to get anywhere near any movie where I may hear misplaced squealing.

However the biggest problem that I have with Day Dream Believers is that the plot is waaaaaaay to convoluted to be creditable.

You expect me to believe that vampires could defeat mankind (which includes me remember) even though they can't go out at night or eat at Olive Garden.

And then you expect me to believe that they able to form an international corporation whose soul purpose is to round people up, keep them alive and use them for their own benefit like cattle, all the while never coming across two perpendicular pieces of wood?

Seriously, why don't vampires just drink cows blood? They're way cheaper to raise and they can't make holy water.

This whole plan is way more work that they would need.

Think about it. There are millions of young women out there who would give anything to stare into the eyes of a sparkly bloodsucker.

There are millions of young men out there who will let complete strangers take a considerable amount of blood for nothing more than a couple cookies.

Vampires, if you're out there, her's what you do. Make yourself all shiney. Let girls look at you in exchange for cookies. Then turn around and trade those cookies to college-aged guys for blood.

So basically, for the price of some glitter paint, they vampires can eat all they want, not upset anyone and not have to invade any towns in Alaska.

It's a win-win.

The movie, however, lose-lose.

I pre-emptively hate this movie.

Because it sucks.

Get it? Sucks. Because of the vampires? Never mind.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2009-11-28T20:27:00.001-07:00

When I was a grade school, my teacher took us to the Discovery Center in Boise. It was one of those “hands on” museums where kids get the chance to learn up close and personal that science in not only fun, but potentially messy enough to get you kicked out of a “hands on” museum.

We loved the place. It was a place that naturally led to running and screaming – even ten year old boys' favorite activities – and it gave me a chance to live out some of my early-nerd fantasies of doing what I assumed to be real scientist type activities, stuff like building an arch out of blocks, or knocking down rows of dominoes while blowing giant soap balloons while digging a sandbox for bolted down plastic dinosaur bones.

Scientists live an awesome life.

One of my favorite parts of the “museum” was the “lift simulator” which is a fancy name for a super powerful vacuum set to blow out enough air to hold a ball in midair. We used this highly sensitive scientific device to perform several serious experiments about the effects of highly pressurized air on our faces.

Through an accident that the experts agree was bound to happen at any place that gave kids ready access to science the Discovery Center closed. Well, after 17 years, I've finally found what they did with the lift simulator.

It's in our local Target's mens' room, working as the most incredible hand dryer I've ever seen.

This gave me a welcome distraction because I was at Target to buy my wife a nursing bra.

They say when you become a parent your whole world changes and they couldn't be more correct, or more vague. I really thought they meant that the minute I looked into those black little eyes I'd be a real adult, complete with a hedge fund and a basic knowledge of fuel-injected engines.

In reality I got told to go to the women's underwear section of Target.

Twice.

Because I got the wrong kind the first time.

As a new father I'm doing a lot of things that College Steve would never do, picking little dried flakes of poop of another human being for example. I didn't want to do those things, but I am a daddy, and the thing needed to be done, so I just did it and it wasn't all that bad.
I figured buying a nursing bra would be one of those things.

It was still that bad.

I'm now convinced there will never be a time in my life where I will feel comfortable in the lingerie section of a store. I am even less comfortable asking a real live human female which bra I should get my wife.

To be entirely honest, Target is lucky that I felt more uncomfortable stealing than I did walking back and forth in front of the check stands with my purchase hidden beneath a pack of diapers waiting for the one check stand with a middle aged man (because the middle aged man working at Target can judge no one) to open up.

There are other ways I've changed as well though. For example, I can't listen to country radio anymore.

I've always been a fan of the deep, heart-felt, family oriented lyrics that country music offers. Nowadays however, I can't listen to any song about fathers, children or dogs without tearing up.

Yesterday I heard “Enter Sandman” by Metallica and wept like a child.

It just would have been nice if some one, rather than saying “Your life will change,” had told me “You are going to turn into a giant boob.

Speaking of boobs I'm not even going to get into how those have changed for me.

Lets just say I caught a clip of “The Girls Next Door” and all I could think about was food storage.

So all in all I've been changing in more ways faster than I have since puberty. And just like puberty, I'm tired, cranky and smell bad. But – just to run this analogy into the ground – just like puberty, I'm embarking a fascinating adventure into a new time of my life, complete with new experiences, new heartaches and new pants.

Only this time, I'm losing hair, rather than gaining it.

Steve Shinney is a new dad, which he's learning changes a man more than being a graduate, a missionary and an eagle scout all put together. Comments go below. That hasn't changed.

Leaf me alone

2009-11-10T21:00:00.001-07:00

We've truly had a storybook fall here in Utah this year. Full of warm weather, beautiful colors and various little pumpkins on everybody's door step.

Now however, with no more baseball to watch and my mother-in-law in town, I've found myself having been relieved of a lot of my former responsibilities. Basically all I do is sit around getting more and more freaked out by the baby and occasionally raking leaves.

I'm glad for the job. It's good honest work with nothing to show for it after a week. It's like shoveling snow without the half-finished snow fort.

Beyond that, in a way, it feels like raking leaves is a way for me to connect with those who have raked before. There is something about gathering dead plant parts that ties the generations together.

Except the dillhole with the leaf blower. When you use a leaf blower you're not connecting with the past, all your doing is using an over-sized hair drier to put your leaves on someone else's yard and pretending the wind did it.

That's it. Geek on.

Steve Shinney is just happy he wrote something.

I have, however, decided that I'll love him

2009-10-23T20:46:00.001-07:00

As a man who could transform from a carefree turd to father at any moment, I'm spending a lot time dealing with stuff I'm not used to: like breast-pumps, onesies and my own feelings.

I've also found myself thinking very seriously about things I never thought about before. Here is just a sampling of the kind of stuff I can't stop obsessing about.

What to call the boy.

I'm not talking about a name. We've been pretty decided on Grant for a while now.

Although now that we're to the point where we're telling random strangers that this is our choice, I'm starting to doubt it. Everyone we've told so far has responded the way: “Oh that's so cute.”

Listen ladies. There is not a man on the planet who wants his firstborn son to have a “cute” name. We want names to be solid, strong, respectable and most importantly, easy to spell.

If one more woman tells me “Grant” is cute, I'm changing it back to my first choice, “Bothor the Destroyer.”

I'd like to get a dude's opinion on the whole subject but no guy has asked yet. Guys just aren't too concerned about this kind of thing.

There are seven-year-olds out there that I still don't know what to call.

Anyway, back to my point, I don't know what to call my son. As in I'm not sure what to refer to him in an offhand remark. Nothing seems right. Buddy, is too common. Boy is too condescending. Buckaroo is too long. Skippy is hopefully going to be his little brother's name. Right now I'm thinking Captain, after two of my greatest heroes: Captain America and Captain Crunch.

Whether or not to fart in front of the child.

This is a big one for me. Before I got married, one of my biggest (as it is for all guys, don't lie to yourselves ladies) concerns was what I would do with all my gut gas after I got hitched.

My wife and I however have a deal about farting. I can do it whenever I need to, and if she ever had to break wind (which of course she hasn't yet, because she's a girl, but you never know) we can make fun of each other as much as we want, but we never speak of it with another soul.

Kids, have no sense of such honorable arrangements.

I don't need the lady at the Best Buy to come up to us as a family and have the following exchange happen.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Thanks ma'am but I think we're alright,”

“Are you sure, you've been playing our display Playstation 4 for six hours.”

“Yeah, I know I'm just testing th–”

“Daddy made a stinky in the car.”

“That's OK Grant, she doesn't need to know this.”

“He made the air taste like meatloaf.”

Can I make up imaginary friends for him?

People always talk about the imagination of a child like it is truly magical, and can give birth to a thousand unique and lively creatures.

Really, kids can't come up with crap.

I remember my imaginary friend. He was a one foot tall boy who looked just like me name Joey. From age 2 to 8 that was seriously the best I could come up with.

Grant needs better than that. I'm thinking a dragon who speaks with a pirate accent and shoots marshmallows out of his nose.

That beats a stupid 1 foot tall kid any day.

What words should I stop using.

Unless Street Fighter or a wireless network is involved, I usually have a pretty clean volcabulary. But still, we live in a different world than the one I grew up in, and my son will not be considered spunky for calling is friend a “frickin' retard” or a “Dirty Scotsman.”

I'm trying to come up with more fatherly phrases to use. So far all I got is “Holy Muffintop.” and “What the soggy burrito?”

As you can see, I have a lot of work in front of me. Fortunately I have a wide selection of multi-sided dice that make most problem solving a lot easier.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is currently operating on four hours of sleep a night. The rest of the time is spent lying awake, thinking about what action figure he should buy his son first and apologizing to imaginary friends.

I'm sorry I don't update more

2009-10-04T21:10:00.001-07:00

Dear Grant,

This is your father. It's about a month before you are born. If we end up changing your name in the next couple of weeks, just stick Joseph or Abel or whatever we went with. Unless it's Dennis. Then I'm just sorry.

It is still weird for me to think of you as real person. Because once you are a real person in my mind, then that means I'm a real father, and I don't think either of us are ready for that.

That's the main purpose of this letter. I want to let you know upfront that I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that I'm going to mess up pretty much everything that I try to do for you.

I'm sorry your first diaper is going to be on backwards, your first bottle will be Oval-tine and that your first bath is going to be the scariest event in either of our lives.

I'm sorry that I won't have an in depth answer for a lot of your questions and will often have to say something broad like “Because the prophet says so,” or “Because your mom's Chinese.”

I'm sorry that you're going to have eat my cooking.

I'm sorry that every embarrassing story about you is going to end up on the Internet.

I'm sorry that you're whole life people will ask you where you're from. If you end up looking totally Asian, except the massive goatee at age ten, I'm doubly sorry.

I'm sorry I'm not cool and won't be able to teach you how to be cool. I'm not good at foot ball or basketball or fixing cars or talking to girls. But if being cool ever requires some one teach you Dungeons and Dragons or how to say dinosaur names, I'm your man.

I'm sorry we can't have a dog. It's your mom's fault, but I'm still sorry.

I'm sorry that sometimes, when I think about you, and all the responsibility and changes that you represent, I get overwhelmed and have to put my head on my desk and just think about pie.

I'm sorry I'm going to mumble a lot and scare your friends. When you guys get older, you'll discover I'm hilarious.

I'm sorry I have to let doctors stab you with big needles and make you cry. I promise that it's for your own good and I'll buy you ice cream if you're a big boy.

I'm sorry I'm just a computer programmer, not what little boys dream their dads are, like a baseball player, an explorer or a robot.

I'm sorry about your Grandma Shinney. She was like that when I met her.

Mostly I'm sorry that you and I are both flawed human beings and as such will never be able to truly see eye to eye. I'm sorry that this, combined with the pride and stupidity our gender endows us with will keep us from having the relationship that we really want to have with each other.

I'm sorry that we'll both feel like there's nothing we can do about it.

I'm sorry for every awkward silence that may be endured.

I'm sorry for any angry words that may be said.

When we do finally get past all of this dumbness, I'll be sorry we didn't do it earlier.

And I'm sorry about any scares on your head that you're mother won't explain but just glares at me when you mention. You're probably going to be very slippery.

I'm sorry I always end my letters to you with my college catch phrase.

Geek On.

Steve Shinney is your father. He really does try heard, even if you can't tell. He hopes people will leave comments below.

Doe, a deer, a visiable deer

2009-08-23T21:20:00.001-07:00

I've been super stressed lately, not just about work, church and my broken xBox, I been largely consumed by the fear that I won't be a good father.

I mean, I've failed every fish I've had to take care or and kids need a lot more than flakes of food (although maybe fish do too and that was my problem all along).

Then suddenly, in a moment of clarity that brought the deep joy only an ice cream man can bring, I realized that I'll do just fine.

I'm ready to be a dad, have been for years.

I can see deer while I drive.

That may not sound like much to some of you but if you think about it, I'm spotting brown animals in a brown field that are only alive because they're good at hiding from a vehicle doing 65. I think that makes me pretty freakin' awesome.

Growing up, I was in awe of my father and his ability to see deer while he was driving. He could be working his way through bad traffic, on a rainy day, with four kids in the back seat fighting over the rules of punch bug (and for the record there are no punch backs, ever) and he could still see and point out every deer along the way as well as get a count of the points on the antlers.

Or at least, that's how it seemed to us in the back. I was pretty busy back where I was sitting. I had sisters to bother, books to read, barf to hold in. I didn't have time to be looking out every time my dad said he saw something. If I did that, believe me, no one would have gotten punched.

So rather than look up from my work, I would humor my old man and give him a sincere, “Oh yeah, I can see them too.”

Of course, this could only last for so long. Even at the age of seven, I felt the need to compete with my father, so I would start looking for deer myself, hoping to point them out to him, before he had the chance to do so. The problem I couldn't see the deer when my dad was pointing at them. I didn't have a chance on my own.

Not to be discourage, I tried a new tactic: lying. I would say that I saw deer when really all I saw was a long and boring stretch of road separating me from the cable at my grandma's house. I figured the worst that could happen would be my dad would tell me that those weren't deer, but rather rocks. Instead however, he'd nod and say, “Oh yeah, I see them too.”

Once I realized I could say there were deer where there weren't I started “seeing” more and more exotic animals. Elk, bears, zebras and giant sloths became common sights between our house and the grocery store.

This went on for years, me blatantly lying through my teeth and my dad dutifully saying “Oh yeah, I see it too.”

It was a good system. I liked it I still remember the day all this changed.

We were driving to grandma's and as we were cresting a hill halfway between home and the Idaho border. It was just about sunset, as we were just cresting a hill and heading down into a small gulley, when my dad pointed off into the sunset and said “there's a herd of seven deer over by those rocks.”

I don't know what possessed me to look when by these time I had been just faking it for years. But for some reason, I looked where my father had motioned and what I saw rocked my world forever.

Deer.

Holy crap, I thought to myself. There really are deer. Dad hasn't been lying all these years. He really can see animals from the car. He's like some kind shaman or deer-related Jedi.

It was officially on now. I had a teenage ego to maintain. I couldn't be worse than my dad at something. He was old. I dedicated every car ride through the wild expanses between Idaho town to scouring the country side for deer.

Still despite having the advantages of younger eyes, not being distracted by driving and being hyped up on Slurpee syrup, I never saw anything until my dad pointed it out. Everyone once in a while we'd see something at the same time, but those were always stupid things like rail road crossing, so it didn't really count.

Even after I started driving myself, I kept my eyes peeled for deer. It wasn't until years of living on my own and driving for hours to visit family that I got to the point where seeing deer became a common place occurrence.

I hardly ever ride in the same car as my father anymore. I've never really had the chance to show him that I have followed in his strange, slightly OCD footsteps. I don't know, but I like to tell myself that he knows anyway, and that he's proud of me.

I'm looking forward to the time, only a few years away now, when I'll be riding with my son somewhere, and off in the distance I'll notice a deer drinking from a shallow stream.

I'll point, and with wisdom passed down from generations in my voice, I'll say “There's a deer.”

And he'll respond. “Oh yeah, I see it.”

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is a full fledged deer related Jedi. Deer related comments can be left below.

I also suck at badmitton.

2009-08-12T21:09:00.001-07:00

Rather than go on and on about how awesome I am at stuff, I figured I should come clean and let you guys know that there are a few things that I'm not so good at. Some may say, that I may even suck.

The plan is to get all this crap out of the way in one shot. Next time I'll get back to talking about how I could totally punch a camel in the face if I had the chance.

Thinking of myself as an adult: I'm 27. I've lived on my own for nine years. I've voted in three presidential elections. I've graduated from college, gotten married and am currently sitting less than three months away from being a father. I have met every requirement for being a real adult that this country has ever come up with and done so with style.

And yet, when I look in the mirror, I don't see a paunchy guy with a receding hair line. I see a dude who, with a couple months hard training, could still have a career as a professional wrestler.

There is something in the back of my head that says “Anyone who checks all the stalls for Captain Hook, before he can do his business, is not a grown-up.”

I don't like working adult jobs, I don't like paying adult mortgages, I even buy cereal without a toy inside, therefore, according to how I remember the Pythagorean Theorem, I cannot be an adult.

QE-freakin'-D.

Gardening: I always figured I'd be really good at gardening. It is, after all, nothing more than, playing in the dirt, then waiting followed by eating. All three activities that I excel at. The problem is gardening also requires getting plants to grow, something I apparently suck at.

It's not all my fault. I do everything I'm suppose to. Plants just hate me. I think it all goes back to second grade when I tried to grow a seed in a paper cup. Instead of water I would pour orange juice on mine.

I guess that's some kind of cannibalism to them.

Making the decision of when to go to the bathroom: I honestly cannot count the number of important life events that I've only half paid attention to, because I really had to pee. I still have no idea what my doctor said I should do about this rash I got for this very reason, and it's been four months.

Savoring: I'm really bad a slowing down and enjoying my food. I don't know what it is, but I have some primal need to eat my food before anyone takes it. I wasn't raised by wolves, but I would go over there for dinner sometimes, so I guess I may have picked it up there. I don't know.

Taking medicine: I don't mean I'm like a little kid or a pet or my sister in that I have physical difficulty swallowing pills. Ever since the day I accidentally wolfed down a whole Jolly Rancher, getting an aspirin has been easy peasy. I just never think to take them.

I'll be laying there with a major headache, wishing that I lived in a video game where there where magic substances that I could take and my pains would just go away.

Then my wife will offer me an Ibuprofen and I'll be confused what the gross piece of candy if for.

Finishing columns: You have no idea how many columns I've got half written on my hard drive. I have column ranging in topics from String Theory to my very strong opinion on butt-lint. And yet I never seem to fin–

Geek on.

Steve Shinney apologizes for ending with metahumor. It's the Internet, which means I have a meta quota to fill. Comments can be left below.

Real Men Don't Rant, They Blog

2009-07-23T21:21:00.000-07:00

We got the ultrasound done a few weeks ago. I was never so excited to stare at a fuzzy screen and try to pick out body parts since I was a kid and we'd try to watch late-night premium television.

Ever since we found out we found out we were having a boy everyone has assumed that I'm more excited than I would have been if we had a girl. “Yeah, I'm thrilled that my first born is someone I can torment with sports equipment until he's 8 after which we'll begin competing at various things until he turns 27 at which point he'll have beaten me at everything. That's way better than a girl who will love me unconditionally forever in exchange for playing barbies with her.”

I know parents-to-be always say they don't care about the gender of their soon-to-exist spawn. I always figured it was another wad of parental crap like “Changing diapers is a rewarding experience.” When it came to be my turn to wonder if I would be able to take my kid to a public restroom or not in five years, I really didn't care.

Mostly because I'm pretty sure any kid with a mobile made out of special edition Lord of the Rings action figures is going to turn out pretty cool.

Now that I know there will be at least one more generation correcting teachers on how to say “Shinney” I will admit that I am pretty excited to have a son. It means that I'll have the chance to teach him what it means to be a “real man.”

There is a lot of confusion in the world today about what it means to be a real man. Some say only those with power and wealth are real men. Others think only the physically strong qualify for the title.

The problem is most of these people don't know anything about being a real man, and so, for the the convenience of my son-to-be, I'm now going to lay down some of what I'm sure could turn into a Master's Thesis on what in means to be a real man.

Real men kill bugs. With their hands. Real men like the popping sound just a little.

If you want to be a real man, you have to be able to rock a really sweet beard.

A real man never admits the weather is too cold, the food is too spicy or that he is the reason the whole basement smells like burnt carpet and cheese.

If you're a real man, you don't wait around for someone else to solve your problems. If. however, during the process of trying to do something on your own some one more experienced offers help, a real man will graciously accept.

Being a real man requires driving all the way home, no matter how tired you yourself are, if your wife needs to sleep.

Real men root for the good guys, even when the bad guys are actually quite a bit cooler.

Sometimes being a real man means spending your day off digging through rocky soil to bury a random stranger's dog.

A real man, never drinks diet. If a real man gets too fat, he gives up soda.

A real man doesn't let anyone else define what “too fat” is.

Being a real man means running out into pouring rain/snow/hail to help your neighbors bail out their storm windows. They also pull over in a snow storm to push out slid off cars and help people they hardly know move.

Real men protect their little sisters. If they ever make friends with a girl who doesn't have an older brother, real men fill in.

Real men don't litter.

A real man is allowed to cry at a wedding or when Old Yeller gets shot, he's just not allowed to let anyone see.

If real men are going to write something on a bathroom wall, they make it clever and keep it clean. They don't just draw a wang.

Real men can drive stick shift.

Real men wear hats, shorts and Hawaiian shirts because real men decide when their going to grow up.

And they also decide what that means.

This is probably the most important part; real men geek on.

Steve Shinney is a real man, or at least, he's trying really hard to be, for his son. You may add to the definition that proves him as such in the comments below.

Cast your chairs into the abyss, never to return

2009-07-08T20:40:00.001-07:00

Gather round laddies and harken to my tale.

A tale of wonder, majesty and upholstery.

A story that happened to me, and if you're not careful, could happen to you.

If ever in your journeys, you should happen upon a young man answering to the name of Drew Smith, do not shrug him off. And if this Mr. Smith sounds a warning about a certain item, be sure to give him heed young one, especially if the item is a sleeper sofa.

For this man, despite his common name, is sage of great wisdom in the field of living room furniture that transforms via various dark rights, into uncomfortable places for sleeping. When Drew Smith tells you that a sleeper sofa is best left where it is, believe him, for the very forces of Hell shall conspire against you and all who would move it.

I once received such a warning. I told him that I be joining a common acquiescence of ours in the glorious battle that is moving. “Fear the couch,” he said. These three words, and nothing more.

And yet in this trio of syllables lurked untold truths and a warning that, had I followed, would have saved me untold aches in my heart and my back. But I paid them no mind.

I my hubris, I felt no need to “Fear the couch.” I am Steve Shinney and by the stars I fear no man nor beast nor piece of furniture. If I could survive the Great Nemean Dresser and the time I dropped a washing machine on my roommate, surely this mere couch with a bed folded inside was no match for my wits and brawn.

Once I tried to lift my side though, I knew that since the Dawn of Man no greater folly has ever occurred.

I tell you as sure as I live a breathe this sofa was not the sitting place of any mortal being.

It was the devil's loveseat.

No material known to man weighs as much as that contraption did. Surely it was forged in the very fires of the under world from the bones of some grotesque demon-spawned whale.

Beneath its behemoth girth, my muscles quivered and my hernia strained. I was able to keep it together (literally), but only be summoning all the grit and determination I could lay claim to.

Sometime, in the ages past, it was foreseen by a nameless oracle that everyone that I should ever help move would live on the the top floor. And so it was this night. Three floors of tight double staircases and tighter corners stood between us and the couch's final resting place.

And yet, it was proven yet again that no height is to great and no furniture is too heavy to crush the indomitable human spirit. We lost many good men in that final assault, but in the end, the day was ours and the move was complete.

Geek on. In glory and honor, geek on.

Steve Shinney is good at two things,moving heavy objects and using dramatic words. He takes both very seriously. Go ahead and leave a comment below.

Cryptic Facebook Status Explained

2009-06-25T19:41:00.001-07:00

So I was trying to light the barbeque the other day, but without a lighter or matches. No problem, I thought to myself. I'm an Eagle Scout I should have no problem summoning fire using the skills I learned from the scouting program.

20 minutes later I realized that cooking chili in the can and getting into a fight playing basketball wouldn't help me here.

Thinking further back in my childhood, I remembered a time that I did an “experiment” in my parents kitchen by sticky construction paper into the toaster.
I don't know what seven-year-old me was trying to learn, but I remember what I got. Yelled at. And fire.

So I knew that my toaster made, besides delicious toast, fire. But I needed a way to get the fire to the grill.

I did manage to find some birthday candles. I don't know why we had birthday candle, I don't think I've ever gotten a birthday cake since I've been married. But this was not the time for bitterness, now was the time for clever solutions.

I figured a birthday candle would be the perfect way to transfer fire from something hot, like the toaster, to the grill. So I

About half way into this, a thought entered my head. Maybe this isn't such a great idea, I mean this is totally how an episode of Rescue 911 would start.

But then I remembered they don't make that show anymore, so I kept going.

In the end I failed to start a fire of any kind. I don't know if modern technology is made to made the potential everyday occurrence of jamming a birthday candle in the toaster less dangerous, or if I'm just really bad at everything I do but the end result was the same, my wife won't let me cook when I'm home alone anymore.

I'm not racist, I'm a sports fan.

2009-06-18T16:53:00.001-07:00

Being sports fan means that you can honestly and truly hate someone that you have never met before just because of what they believe and how they look.

It's as close to being a racist as you can get these days and still be considered a good person.

You see, I was born a Yankees fan. My father was a Yankees fan. My siblings are all Yankees fans. My mother observes Yankees fan holidays. I had more choice in my hair color than I did my preference in baseball teams.

Being a Yankees fan is not as easy as some people make it out to be. People generally assume that you're just a band wagoner. You have to root for a team on the other side of the country that you have no real connection to. And there are Red Sox fans.

For those of you who don't follow sports, I may need to explain a few things here. You'll have to understand that the Yankees and Red Sox rivalry is about more than a mere game. It is the physical manifestation of literally centuries of competition between two of America's first cities. It has been around since baseball started being played on a field without cows. It's part of the game that is part of the soul of this great nation.

And seriously, they started it.

It all began when the devil himself went to Boston to start a baseball team.

I know my average reader doesn't care too much about sports, so I won't go into details of the long and sordid history between these two titans of the diamond. I'll just say that the Yankees have never used babies as bases, and leave it at that.

I mention this because I recently had what will probably be a once in a life time opportunity to travel deep into the heart of enemy territory, the very belly of the beast, and attend a Yankees/Red Sox game in Fenway Park in Boston.

Not wanted to draw attention to the fact that all 30,000 plus people there wanted to spit on me and dump nachos down my pants, I decided not to wear or do anything that would give any hints as to my true allegiance. With this in mind, I dressed like a jedi, because we all know that jedis are at one with the force as well as the entire American League Eastern Division.

I got to the game early to just soak in the ambiance that is Fenway Park on game day, which was a good decision and very enjoyable except for the fact that the were constantly pumping baseball stadium pipe organ music over the load speakers. The pipe organ is an excellent instrument uniquely qualified to play songs like “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” “Tequilla” or the timeless battle hymn about the dancing baby elephants.

It's not nearly so good at playing “Where the Streets Have No Names.”

I tried to blend in the best I could without feeling dirty. I would clap when the Red Sox made big plays, but I when it can time to yell and scream I stick to non-discriminatory remarks like “Yay baseball,” or “hooray for sports” or most often “I didn't go to work today!”

I don't think anyone noticed.

I was planning on doing something equally sneak whenever the Yankees did good, but that turned out to be a non-issue. The good guys don't always win, even when you travel the breadth of the nation to watch them play.

Still, the atmosphere in the stadium was electric. The entire place rocked with each long ball hit. Even though my team was losing that everyone around me was a Red Sox fan and a jerk, I still had a great time and would recommend going to anyone who likes baseball in any degree or fashion.

Unless of course you're a Braves fan.

Then screw you.

Steve Shinney actually played a lot of baseball when he was a kid. He was really good at “taking one for the team” which may be why he still can't pronounce extracurricular. Comments go below.

What is a father to be to do?

2009-06-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

So life as a father of a fetus is a lot more stressful and time consuming than I expected it to be. Just like marriage and black people, I've gotten all of my information about pregnancy and the associated male experience from sit-coms. I've always assume all I'd have to do is get up in the middle of the night to run to the store for the ingredients for a barbeque flavored potato chips milkshake and to totally freak out in hilarious fashion when the big moment finally comes.

And so I practiced. I got pretty good I think. I had forgetting my wife in the car at the hospital down to a science.

But then I realized I didn't have to do any of that.

Actually so far, I haven't really had to do much. And I think that's the hardest part of the whole thing.

The one thing I've had to do is serve as a back rest for my wife while she lays on her side because her stomach crushes her intestines and makes her fart if she lays on her back. So she's taken to sleeping on her side. But our mattress sucks and kind of folds in on itself, which causes my wife to flop back on to her back during the night like a over-turned turtle on the side of the road: tragically helpless, in a slightly comical way.

This is where I come in. If I sleep crammed right up against my wife, I can keep her propped up in the correct position. This is awesome for me because I get to contribute to making a better gestation environment for my child and sleep at the same time.

Beyond that and trying really hard to learn the Chinese words for contraction and placenta so I can translate for her parents when the big day comes.

Unfortunately, I don't have much else I can do. I just sit there, muttering reassuring words while my wife does whatever it is women do that lets a baby grow inside of them.

Which apparently is a very complicated, time-consuming and painful process. It breaks my heart to see my wife as uncomfortable as she is. It hurts even more when I realize that we're not even to the “fun” part yet.

This does mean we're also too far away for me to be doing anything. No nursery to put together, stairs to baby proof or anything yet. So I just spend a lot of time wandering my house, looking for something broken to fix or something bug-like to kill. Anything productive but manly.

Mostly though, I just tell my wife that she's awesome and that I love her. It's not much, but it's all I have.

I suppose this is all part of the experience. I think having to sit back and watch my wife suffer through a hardship that I am completely powerless to help her with is a challenge that I'd suppose to face. Something to help me become a better father.

My kids will have problems that I will be unable to fix or endure for them. When my son breaks his a arm, all my understand of circuitry and electronics will be worthless. My daughter's broken heart can not be put back together with duct tape. If I'm to be a father – more than a father, a dad – I need to learn that some times all you can do for the person you love is listen and then say you're there for them.

That, and truly mean it.

I think this is why men can't get pregnant, we have more important lessons to learn before we can have kids.

This is why I can't imagine being one of those lesbian couples who want to have baby so one of the women carries the child while the other just offers support. I cannot imagine what my wife would do to me if she was in this state and I wasn't just because I'd called “heads.”

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is learning all kinds of neat things, like the fact that five-alarm chili is not good for babies. Comments and more info can be given below.

This is supposed to explain where I've been

2009-05-18T21:00:00.002-07:00

This may end up being the most important thing that I'll ever write in my life.

It all started with pee.

Urine has been a very important liquid in my life. I don't think there are has been a day in the last 27 years of my life that hasn't been – at least in some small way – effected by number one.

I've had to think long and hard about if winning a game was worth getting whizzed on.

As a janitor, I've cleaned pee off floors, walls and one time a ceiling.

I've used human lemonade as a weapon.

I've seen more bottles of pee along the side of the road then I have McDonalds bags and animal corpses.

I've taken a bottle of wee-wee that was stored, without permission, in my fridge and a milk jug of Kool-Ade to commit possibly the world's greatest act of psychological revenge ever.

And that's not even counting all the amazing adventures in my life that I've had and random, magic toilets I've found simply because they happened while I was on my way too drain the lizard.

Despite my otherwise robust and in depth pee-related resume, there are two things I've never done with the stuff. Knowingly drink it, and use it to tell the future.

The former is a trick known only to Kevin Costner in Waterworld and “Slow Bobby” Templeton in my fourth grade class, but the later is one that my wife recently preformed.

It was amazing though. Through some sort of mystical alchemy that could serve as a metaphor for our marriage, ancient Chinese wisdom and modern American technology combined with a normal bodily function to allow us to peer into the otherwise unknowable and let us know exactly what we would be doing in one year's time.

I was so nervous, I had to go. But it wasn't my time. This once, I had to stand back and let the love of my life take the spot light, and the seat of honor.

And unlike me, my wife wasn't peeing for her own selfish pleasure or for distance. My wife was peeing for a nobler cause. She was peeing for truth.

I gave her space to work. I've used more than enough men's rooms at stadiums to know that the only thing that can make it harder to produce than having someone standing watch over you is having someone standing watch over you offering tips. So I paced the hall.

I figured I'd need practice at it. Hall pacing is a time honor tradition for men in my position. Fortunately our hall is pretty short. I think its good to train a bit before moving to the big leagues.

Once the deed had been done, it was all over but the waiting. I was called in for this part. We stood there together, holding hands as our future unfolded before our eyes.

I was the most romantic thing we'd ever done in that room.

And there on the counter, too quick for anyone to really savor the moment, the second blue line appeared, bringing with it the amazing news.

She was pregnant.

We're going to have a baby.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is super excited to welcome a new gnome into the world. He is losing sleep of many perfectly normal fatherly concerns such as “what if I'm a bad dad?” or “what if I drop the kid?” or perhaps the most frightening of all “what if my daughter wants to be a cheerleader.” Congratulations along with unoriginal parenting tips can be left before.

According to my spell check Krypton is a word but Kryptonite isn't

2009-05-11T21:59:00.001-07:00

I have some advice for everyone out there.

Don't wear your Superman shirt to help people move.

If it's your lucky shirt, take the risk.

If it's the only thing clean, wear something stinky.

If you're going to a Superman shirt convention afterwards, change in the car.

If you're a girl, go topless.

Do whatever you have to do to avoid putting yourself through the pain and headache of two hours of stupid comments from stupid people.

I guarantee that if you don't listen to me you'll pay for it. After ten minutes of trying to get the couch through the bend in the hallway some one will be like “hey shouldn't we be done with all this by now. I mean we have Superman with us.”
And then someone else will come back with “It must be all that kryptonite I have in my wallet.”

And then the two of them will look smugly at each other and laugh and laugh.

Then you'll have to punch them both in the nutsack.

So far we haven't met any gazebos

2009-04-23T20:50:00.001-07:00

I would apologize profusely for my recent period of inactivity, but at this point I'm like a five year old with his finger in the cake batter. I'm not sorry for what I did, I'm just sorry I got caught.

There are reasons for me not writing much lately. Several of which I can't mention just yet and some of which are just too embarrassing.

Now any of you out there who where with me during the great Karaoke incident of '04 know when I say I'm embarrassed to tell you something, it's gotta be pretty bad.

One reason for my absence that I'm not embarrassed to admit (but probably should be) is that recently I've been spending a lot of time pretending to be a lot shorter than I really am.

Finally, after a life time of wondering how I could make myself more of a social outcast, I've finally found it. I've started playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Dungeons and Dragons has always been the split entry landing that has prevented me from falling all the way down the social steps to the basement where everyone paints miniatures and writes slash fiction about Doctor Who and Darkwing Duck.

Secretly however, Dungeons and Dragons has always been my unicorn, the one thing that I really wanted to do, but unfortunately was just too cool for.

Darn my ability to play sports and make out with pretty girls.

I've spent plenty time in fictional dungeons and slain many a dragon in my day, but still this mythical combination of the two had always eluded me and this made me sad.

But no more, all it took was seven friends and coworkers to admit to each other that we all had this same desire, burrowed away, deep in the crawl spaces of our souls.

It was a defining moment in my life, one where I never felt so united in purpose with so many people.

That's kind of sad actually.

Regardless, this fearless party of adventurers has set forth into a world of darkness, hoping to connect the scattered points of light. We fight evil, by rolling dice at it.

Occasionally we speak in funny voices, but that doesn't seem to have any effect on the evil so it's kind of tailed off.

Still, we don't talk too much about our exploits with the outside world. We've already found the prejudices that kept us from playing as kids is still alive and well today.

It blows my mind that these days, a group of men and women, ages 23 to 35 can spent hours in a windowless basement waggling small plastic guitars and pretend to be rock star and no one will say boo, but have a group of the same demographic in the same place and have them do math and pretending to be guys with swords and gnomes and all of a sudden people start getting uncomfortable.

The one defense that I have against the attacks such uncomfort spawns is the fact that I play a dwarf.

I don't know what it is, but when I tell people I play a son of Earth, people seem to understand a little bit. I guess no one can deny that short, bearded men such as my self only have so many options in life and pretending to be a shorter, more bearded man seems to be one of them.

I think that may have been why so many people gave me hammers for Christmas.

With adult life as busy, complicated and down right scary as it is these days, I happy to have an escape, one made better still by the presence of friends and five pound bags of Swedish fish.

I highly recommend it to anyone who, like me, wants to roll maximum damage, but was too scared to before.

In conclusion, elves are gay.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is a level two dwarf ranger and has waited his whole life to say that. Intense mockery can be left below.

This is all true, that's what makes me awesome

2009-03-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. I have myself another nemesis.

Yep, the guy at the who butted in front of me in line for Spiderman 2 and my grade school bus driver, Mrs. Henderson (also known as Mrs. Hendersucks) now have company as the most hated people in my life.

My dentist.

I know I tend to write a lot about the dentist. There's just something about having to sit still for a half hour that leads to a lot of introspection. It's either think, or listen to Afternoon Delight four times so this is what you get.

My last dentist appointment was during my lunch hour. Which is lame because my lunch periods are usually spent being happy that I'm not working, not being sad and wishing I was working.

I kept putting off actually leaving and trying to find things for me to do. It was the most productive I'd been in months.

Unfortunately when the time came that I could no longer put off leaving, disaster struck.

It was about half way to the dentist's office that I realized that in my hurry, I had forgotten to brush my teeth. I was going to let some one go digging around in my mouth without at least trying to get rid of the Oreos I had for lunch and covering the smell of my breakfast taco with something more minty.

Dental journals generally refer to this as a dick move.

Seriously it's kinda like having some one come over to fix your toilet but not flushing first.

I felt bad about it. I really did. I looked everywhere for a mint or some gum or anything to kind of cover up the smell with but all I could find was a dried old french fry and that didn't help much.

It tasted good though.

As I sat there, waiting for my great shame to be discovered, I start to rationalize. Maybe this wasn't that bad. Maybe the dentist would appreciate someone not being all anal about cleaning up before they came in.

Then again should could just find some new metal thing to jab me with.

As the preparation went on however, I was started to think that I might be able to get away with this. Neither the dentist nor the hygienist had said anything, and I wasn't getting any of the all to familiar “this guy is disgusting but I don't dare tell him” looks.

That's when she said something made it all too clear that not only did she notice, she intended to take revenge.

“I think we can do this without numbing you up.”

Come again. You think you can stick a working drill into my mouth and poking around with giving me some sort of drugs? You know for some one who went to school for more years than I've been alive, you're not very smart. There's nothing you could say to make me ever agree to this madness.

“Unless of course you're scared.”

OK, well there is that.

She had me where she wanted me there. While I am all to familiar with the fact that I have a regular threshold for pain, there is no way I will admit that in public.

Except on the Internet apparently.

You know what never mind that last bit. I was totally cool with her drilling one of my favorite teeth without pain killer. It just meant I wouldn't drool on myself when I went bear punching later that day.

Yeah I'm freaking tough.

Actually with the exception of the extremely surreal feel of the drill grinding against my teeth, I didn't feel any pain. I don't know if I just that manly or she was just that good or if the whole Novocaine thing is just one big scam that we've all agreed to because its really hard to argue with a medical professional, especially one holding a drill.

Anyway, my plan for revenge is simple. I'm going to brush my teeth so good, use high powered mouth wash and even floss to make sure she never gets another crack at me.

That'll show her.

Steve Shinney is not afraid of drills anymore. He is still afraid of bees. Very afraid of bees. Comments should be left below.

I still don't know what to do with the pizza guy

2009-02-19T20:35:00.001-07:00

I had three goals when I became a homeowner:

I would install a secret passageway between the kitchen and the conservatory.

I would never become one of those old guys who spend half of their time complaining about how other people's dogs always poop in their yards.

I would create a series of progressively complex and potentially dangerous traps to thwart any attempted burglars in an improbable yet hilarious sequence of events that would make Rube Goldburg proud and that kid from Home Alone crap his pants out of jealousy.

So far I'm batting at about 500.

No go on number one. The fact that my house doesn't have a conservatory was kind of a kill joy on the whole project. At least I don't think we have one. I'll admit, I don't really know what a conservatory looks like out of the context of a murder investigation.

Other people's dogs do poop in my yard. Fortunately so far it's all been cover by snow so I really don't care. Plus I'm keep track of who's dogs does what so I can be sure to respond in kind once it gets warm enough to pull my pants down outside.

My video-game worthy security system is coming along, just not a quickly as I would like.

Part of it is my fault. I've taken on a couple extra projects like trying to lose weight and getting back into totem pole craving. Not to mention that I just learn that I have the travel channel. It's was hiding behind 40 channels of static, who knew.

But I refuse to take all the blame on this one. Just like the time in high school when I was found naked on a mini-golf course cowering behind the windmill, this isn't all my fault.

I've got to blame my wife a bit. She's normally all for home improvement projects when it involves replacing a shower head, cleaning rain gutters or painting elaborate Chinese characters on our walls, but try to cut some slits in the wall the crossbow bolts to shoot through and all of a sudden “You don't know what you're doing.”

Of course this recession hasn't helped matters at all. I've had to cut down in all sorts of areas. I can't afford to keep the oil at a boiling temperature so people who don't know the secret knock don't get scalded, they just get sticky.

Instead of tigers the pit under my the trap couch I have two angry raccoons a scary looking chicken.

Most disappointing is the fact I couldn't get a death ray to point at the back door and instead have to make do with a hair dryer.

But I'm soldiering on like a brave little toaster and I must admit that things are looking up. I've got too much left to do to get discouraged now. I've got springs to load, snares to set and poisonous snakes to position and poke until upset.

Home ownership, it's never done, but it's rewarding.

Now it you'll excuse me, it sounds like I may just have two raccoons now.

Steve Shinney is finally truly living the American Dream, he has a trap door that'll drop door to door sales men into fire. Comments, questions and request for special glasses that will let you see the trip wires for the next you come visit can be left below.

I'm just getting better

2009-02-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else super stoked that it's February?

I know that it's not a cool month to like. The weather's still colder than a public school lunch system burrito and if you're not it a stable relationship the only cool holiday involves the entire country waiting around for an over-fed rat to tell what kind of pants to wear the next day.

This February however is off to a great start because I don't have to worry if my fly is up any more.

No, I haven't taken the plunge and switch over to sweats entirely (I have to wait 35 years or 200 pounds before I can do that). It's February 4th, which means by now, I can in good conscience forsake my New Year's resolution.

One of my New Year's resolutions this time around was to keep any and all cows from getting out. However it turns out that constantly being worried about the condition of my barn door is nothing but undue stress on bridge that probably should come down anyway before it hurts someone.

And really, let's be honest here, no one notices the 49 times that you remember to put your zipper in the full and upright locked position. It's the one time you don't that everyone decides your crotch is the thing they want to be looking at.

I'm not too worried about this though, for one, people have been surviving just fine with my fly down for years so it's not like it's going to hurt anyone.

Plus, there's plenty of other resolutions that I made at the start of this year (like my goal to eat big-boy cereal every morning) that I have kept just fine so far and it looks like I'll be able to make them a regular part of my life.

You see, I use the same strategy for self improvement as I do for putting band-aids on a flailing, oiley two-year old. Throw a bunch of them out there, and hope something sticks.

And sometimes things do. Despite what my mother may have said in her last Live Journal post, I really am a much better person than I was ten years ago. I think a lot of that can be traced back to the resolutions that I made and kept.

While I don't exercise everyday, I used to, and I still do more than the average American, and I'm healthier over all, which was the intent of the resolution so it counts.

I'm more accepting and tolerant of people whose lifestyle choices I don't agree with, like clowns or babies.

I'm no longer afraid of the vacuum.

I use mouth wash every single night.

I've done pretty good at writing this column or something else once a week.

I haven't de-pants a direct superior since '02.

I don't even remember the last time that I chased down a jr high kid, threw him in the mud, sat on his head and punched him until he peed.

Unfortunately not every resolution has gone as well as my pledge to eat more muffins.

The follow are some resolutions that I flopped on, like a fat kid trying to do a back flip.

No more making fun of fat kids.

I never really got the hang of flossing, although I think this is the white whale of resolutions. I'm pretty sure no one really uses floss, not even anal dentists (which is a really funny phrase).

I figure the only way that the floss manufactures stay is business is they also make that fake plastic grass you see around Easter, which is basically just really flat floss.

Learn the real name of the plastic table looking thing that comes in a box of pizza.

No more audibly farting at parties.

Turn into a mummy.

Come up with a new catch phrase.

Geek On.

Steve Shinney is working really hard on the resolution his wife gave him, but it just so hard to stay awake in church. Advice and encouragement can be left below.

The home depot guy what not sympathetic

2009-02-02T21:12:00.000-07:00

Never in my life have I been more susceptible to ninja attacks than right now.

I recently moved into a house with a furnace, which is so constantly making noises that I no longer pay them any mind. If a ninja could learn to make furancy noises, (and I think we can all agree that they could) they would be able to walk right into my home and that would be the end of me.

I've never had this problem before. We got by on electric heat as a kid, and I don't remember it making too much noise. Although looking back every time it turned on my little brother would jump up to stand in front of it with his pants down.

It was kind of hard to hear anything over the screaming.

Lame but nessicary

2009-01-29T21:15:00.001-07:00

I'm sick.

Not super sick, but I'm sick.

I don't want to write a Geek Beat when I'm sick, so I'm going to give you the Mormon equivalent of drunk blogging.

I just downed some Thera-flu and I'm scheduled to enter some sort of coma. Before that happens I'm going to try and write as much as I can and see what comes out. Here's hoping it doesn't suck.

I've been sick for a few days, getting progressively worse every day. It's just a cold, I've had worse, but I can't see straight, I can think straight and I'm pretty sure I couldn't draw a straight line without a ruler.

I've created myself of what I can only describe as a Nerd Nest. I'm in bed. Wearing more clothes than a convent of self-conscious nuns. I have every blanket in my house some around me. Within arms reach I have a laptop with wireless access to the world, a TV remote, a my X-box, four fantasy novels, three comics books, two things of Sprite and I think I have a partridge in a pear tree around hear somewhere.

I don't like to point figures, but I blame my wife for this. She made me drink salty rootbeer the over day. Salty rootbeer. Rootbeer with salt in it. It was just as gross as as it sounds. But it's some Chinese remedy so I had to drink it. I was really hoping I could just eat some pretzels and was it down with some A&W but ancient Chinese wisdom says no.

It also say I couldn't add ice cream.

I don't know why all medicine has to taste like reheated death. But it does. In theory it is supposed to taste like stuff I like. Cherries, grapes, bubble gum, honey and the like. But it never does. They could make pork chop flavored cough drops and I'm pretty sure it would be pretty gross.

Well I'm starting to see monkeys where I'm pretty sure I don't have any, so I'm going to go away now. I sure hope this is as funny in the morning as I think it is now.

Geek on (drugs).

How much can-can can the candy-man can-can?

2009-01-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

They say the average man thinks about sex once every second.

I think that's a bunch of crap.

If the average man has that on his mind so much when does he think about candy?

Of course candy has been front and center of pretty much 2 out of every 5 thoughts I've had since I was 3. I'm a big fan of the stuff. I think all of the trouble in the Middle East would go away if Hamas and Israel would take a fifteen minute to sit down and think about how freaking awesome Tootsie Pops are.

In recent days when various stresses have been crushing down on me like a 12 year old girl on a Jonas Brother, I've found great solace and joy through meditating on the joys of candy. Let me share a few of them with you.

I think you can tell how much you mean to someone by simply asking them for one of their Starbursts.

If they give you an orange one, they consider you to be more than an acquaintance, but you're really not close yet. Try spending more time asking about their day and really listening to their answer and you'll work your way up to the better colors in no time.

A red one means they are a good friend. They'd gladly help you move, but would probably think twice before jumping in front of a bullet or a charging rhinoceros for you.

If they give you a pink, you have found yourself a soul mate, marry this person, even if you have to change your sexual preferences and state residency to do so.

A yellow means they are probably planning to poop in your cubicle and you should probably hit them before the get you.

Considering the fact that I've eaten about 1500 Everlasting Gobstobbers in my lifetime, I think those buggers are horribly misnamed.

I think that at some point in my life, probably sooner than later, I should really stop trying to guess the answer to the jokes on Laffy Taffy wrappers.

And I really need to stop feeling so smug when I get it right.

Kids these days have it way to freaking easy these days. Not only are PG-13 movies more violent with a higher chance of bare bums, but the average pack of Smarties has way more colored ones in it.

When I was a kid, a pack of Smarties was a freakin' algebra problem. I did some pretty complex algorithms trying to figure out which side of a pack of Smarties to start eating from (because you had to eat them in order dang it!) in order to get the flavored ones to cancel out the crappy air flavor of the white ones.

Speaking of Smarties, was it ever cool in your school to snort Pixie Stick powder up your noes in lines like cocaine? It was in Idaho (a lot of dumb things were cool in Idaho).

Well I had a friend who though that he could get a better sugar rush taking a couple Smarties and crushing them up and snorting them. Once he developed a tolerance to that though, he took the next logical step.

He snorted a whole Smartie, right up his nose.

I'm pretty sure it hit him in the brain, because he never could do long devision.

Mmmmm.....candy.

Steve Shinney loves candy. His dentist hates him.

I also love toast

2009-01-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

I tend to bandy the word love around in ways that I probably shouldn't. I love a lot more inanimate objects than a married man probably should.

I love my Xbox, I love my black and gray tie, I love my measuring tape. I love a lot of things that while incapable of loving me back, understand me better than my wife or my parents could ever hope to.

Despite all this, I don't want to diminish my new found love, which is deeper, truer and less superficial than my love for my microwave.

I love my new coat. I keeps me warm when I'm walking to work, and it has a hood that I can pull way down over my eyes and pretend I'm a super sneaky assassin guy.

This isn't the first time I've loved an outer garment though. When I was a missionary, I had a coat that served three purposes and filled them extremely well.

The first was that it kept we dry during the near constant rain that pisses down on the people of Sydney every winter.

Second it was a long, black trench coat that hung down to my shins. When I wore it, especially in really windy subway stations, I felt like Neo from the Matrix (probably because it was actually the same station).

If a coat like that can make Keanu Reaves a tough guy, just imagine what it would do for me.

Finally, the third reason, and this is the most important, was that it let me scratch my nuts in peace.

As all return missionaries out there know with great certainty, wearing slacks for two years straight has several effects on the human body. It makes you really really like jeans, it gives your legs a shade of white not found anywhere else in nature and it gives you the Rot.

The Rot is a situation where the most sensitive of your skin gets sick on only hearing about fresh air in various skin magazines and revolts like a poverty stricken, 17 century nation. I don't know all the biology behind the rot but I know that it is described in certain medical texts as “itchy as a Mo-Fo.”

My coat had holes in the pockets, which I can only assume were but there for the sole purpose of giving the wearer easy access to his junk because thats all I used it for.

Because of the loose cut of my coat, any and all scratching motion was completely unnoticeable by the outside world. I know this because I spent hours in front of a mirror making sure because when you're an ordained minister of your church, the last thing you want is some one catching you digging deep down in the danger zone 'round your ding-dong (don't try alliterations/wiener jokes like that at home kids, I'm a professional).

Just as I am able to love an article of clothing with the same passion I love my wife or cake, I'm also able to hate a house hold appliance in a way most people reserve for dogs that poop in their yard.

For Christmas this year my mother gave my wife and I an electric blanket.

At first I didn't think too much of the gift. It was a very standard mother gift: practical, thoughtful, not a video game.

In the days that followed, however, this mom gift quickly became the single greatest thing in my wife's life. In a stubborn effort to save money, we keep our furnace set to butt-cold. This helps a ton on heating and refrigerator expenses but are probably spending enough on hot chocolate to eat up most of the savings.

Our bed has always been a sanctuary from the rest of our house but before Christmas this was more like heading south for the winter and only making it to southern Utah. It was warmer, but it wasn't really warm.

All this changed when we plugged in the blanket.

Now crawling between the sheets is like an all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas to eat chili and compete in a parka-wearing contest.

Before this bed-wide climate change, every night sometime between 4 and 5 am, my wife would wake from the butt-clenching cold and it became my job to serve as a fifth blanket. I would cling to my sweetheart, protecting her form the elements with my own warmth, helping us to draw closer as a couple.

Now, every night at the same time, my job is to climb out into the cold and turn her half of the blanket back on, then get back into bed without making too much noise.

Basically my mom got my wife a replacement me for Christmas.

Thanks.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney feels very passionately about a lot of things most people don't think twice about. He spends a lot time yelling at the stove.

I can't help it, it's just who I am

2009-01-05T19:19:00.002-07:00

Who am I?

I'm not Batman.

I'm not Jean Valjean.

And please, don't call me Ishmael.

While you're at it, stop sending me Ishmael's junk mail.

I'm no once special. You've probably never heard of me. You wouldn't know me if you saw me on the street and even if you did, you probably wouldn't admit it.

And yet, I'm inside you.

I am the part of you that looks up at the sky at night and wants to boldly go and explore the great nothingness between the lonely diamonds of lights and all the adventures along the way

I'm the day dreams you don't tell anyone about, the ones with wizards, dragons and you in a suit of brilliantly shining armor, a magic sword and a princess to save.

I'm you're top score in Tetris and your secret shame of never beating Contra.

I'm the urge to go eat at the place where the pretty girl waits tables. I'm the lump in your throat when you try to talk to her. I'm the feeling of being a retard when you can't.

I'm also the frustration when you can't figure out a 15% tip for her in your head.

I'm the little bit of fear that wells up in you no matter how old you get every time you see a football team practicing. I'm to automatic reaction to look for a teacher to run too in case they decide to stick your 20-year-old body in a locker.

I'm you're secret knowledge about all things Pokemon.

Bulbasaur rules by the way.

When you watch a movie that every critic ripped apart for being shallow and derivative I'm the joy you get when you love every car-chasing, boob-flashing minute of it.

I'm the voice in the back of you're mind that tells you that it's OK to wear white socks and sandals (it's not).

I'm the part of your brain that every once in while – usually while you're driving on in the shower – that wonders if the Thunder Cats could beat up the DinoRiders.

I'm the tree fort you're gonna build when you have kids, but really it's just for you.

I'm urge to dress up for a movie, even if it's been out for three weeks and really isn't that kind of movie.

I'm the secret crush you still have on April O'Neil, She'ra, Chun Li and the three Princesses (Toadstool, Zelda and Leia in the gold bikini).

I'm the laugh you have to repress every time a coworker shifts in his or her chair and it makes a sound that vaguely like a fart.

I'm the delusions that action figures are a sound financial investment.

I'm the source of all the awkwardness, loneliness and rejection you felt when you were in Jr. High and still haunts you to this day.

But I'm also where your happiest memories, your simple pleasures and your momentary escapes from reality come from.

I give you something to care about when you feel like no one cares about you.

I'm your inner child who still believes that no matter how bad things get in this world, in the end good will triumph over evil. Who won't give up hope that everyone will make it home. And still hopes that some day, Superman will save us all.

I'm Steve Shinney, and I am a geek.

I think you are too.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is all this things and more, tune in every week to the Geek Beat to feel better about yourself by comparison.

Ain't this a kick in the snowballs

2008-12-30T16:32:00.000-07:00

It's times like this I'm glad I'm from Idaho.

I bleed ice and I crap snowballs.

For those of you who don't live in the greater Salt Lake area, we've recently been able to take part in several storms, each of which has left a layer of white on our fair town like greasy frosting heaped on a crappy grocery store cake.

Through a combination of geographic features, wind patterns and God's sense of humor, about half of this snow has ended up square in the middle of my driveway.

Which really I don't mind for the most part. Shoveling snow has pretty much always been a part of my life so I'm pretty used to it. It gives me a good chance to think about what I want to write (which apparently was about shoveling snow).

Plus it's a really good work out. I don't get much physical activity these days. Walking to to work, basic house maintenance and running up and down the stupid stairs looking for my glasses are pretty much the extent of it.

Throw shoveling pounds of wet snow into that equations and I'm getting freakin' buff. Between my recent return to playing Street Fighter more than sleeping and my newly discover biceps, I really want to punch something.

But then I realized that everyone around me has one of the three things I won't hit someone in possession of (glasses, boobs or the ability to fire me) or was in church and I don't fight in church anymore so I'm kinda out of luck.

Although I have been saying some very disparaging remarks about acappella singers hope to elicit some sort of a response. So far those harmonizing, panty-waists haven't have the crotch rocks to respond to my challenges.

Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, in my drive way up to my knees in god-snot.

Like I said, I've been clearing driveways since I wore Duck Tales underwear (or to be more accurate, started wearing Duck Tales underwear, since that's not a seven year span), so I've gotten pretty good at it.

Now if you had asked me a year ago if I was good at shoveling snow, I would have thought that my 5th grade teacher was wrong and that there was such and thing as a stupid question and you had just asked it.

I considered shoveling snow to be like breathing, or going to the bathroom or drawing swiss cheese, anyone could do it.

It turns out however, that there is a skill to shoveling your drive way, and yes, I'm really stinkin' good at it.

Because of the recent kidney stone in the housing market I've recently been able to move into a neighborhood way nicer than I really deserve. This new place is way different from anywhere I've lived in that no one has been shot yet and no one else actually shovels there own driveway.

Oh sure, their drive ways are clear of , but they didn't really earn it. They all cheated really, using snow blowers, or ATVs with plows on the front of them, or their kids.

I don't have any of theses luxuries.

All I have is a metal snow shovel, one glove, a back that could give out at any moment and the knowledge that I truly am more manly than anyone else on my freaking block.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a nice bubble bath waiting to soak my muscles.

Steve Shinney is also way better than his neighbors at other manly activities like growing beards, cooking meat with fire and killing bears with cricket bats. You can request any of these services in the comments section below.

Its a hardware thing todo

2008-12-09T20:03:00.002-07:00

I'd like to say that the reason I haven't written more than “buy chicken” on the back of my hand is I've been too busy jumping my jet ski over a pit of flaming rhinos.

That, unfortunately, would be a lie.

In truth however, there are only two things that have been keeping me from writing like I should: I have a house, and I have Street Fighter.

The second of these has been a blast from the past the likes of which I have seen since found that box of action figures on my way to the fireworks stand. More on that later though.

The former however, has been a mixed blessing. I'm thrilled to have a place of my own. I'm very excited to be building equity (although I'm going to be honest here, I'm only exicited because I like to build things. It reminds me of Legos, I'm not ever sure what equity really is, but I'm stoked to build the crap out of some).

One the other hand, there are a lot of down sides to owning a home. Like the fact that I'm poor now. And that I'm pretty much committed to use the same shower for the next 20 years. Or if something around the house breaks or starts to smell bad, I have to fix it. I'm not used to having that kind of responsibility.

Back when I rented, if the toilet backed up, I could just move.

I made sure that was in all of my contracts.

There is however, for me at least, one advantage that resounds above these disadvantages.

I get to go the hardware store.

Soon after we bought our home, I became keenly aware that my current armory of tools would not be enough to keep up with the roughly 2000 things that needed fixing before I could go to bed.

I never thought I would see the day that a hammer, three screwdrivers, a roll of duct tape and a level wouldn't be enough to fix all my problems.

I was kind of a dummy until I got this place.

So I went to the store.

I love going to the hardware store. I always had. There's just something about the smell of wood dust, paint and testosterone that lingers in the air that I just love. Before becoming a home owner though, I never really had a reason to go.

Once in a while I'd need something real, like a nail, but normally my trips were to figure out what materials I'll need to get when I finally get around to making that robot.

But hardware stores are kind of different than others. In other stores, if I spend too long browsing through a section I have no business – such as ladies underwear (once again, for the robot) – the employees all ignore me completely,

Or they call the cops.

But at the hardware store, people would see me looking in awe at an propane tank I could totally use to make it shoot fire, and they would ask me if I needed help getting it into my cart.

So then I would be faced with having to explain that I really didn't need anything and just like looking a shiny piece of metal.

Now that I have a reason to go there, naturally there's no one around to freaking ask what I need and let me get on with my day.

OK, that's not true either, when I first walk in, I surrounded by more bright orange than you'll find at a hunter's camp. However, at this point, I'm still under the delusion that as a manly man, not only do I need help to hook up a gas dryer, but I don't even need help finding the parts.

I wandered around for about 10 minutes, mostly looking at shower heads and toilets (you should really check out this year's models by the way, amazing), before I can admit to myself that I am a moron and don't know the difference between the 47 rakes they have (although it doesn't matter, I don't need a rake) and another 10 convincing myself to admit it to one of the helpful guys in an apron as well.

By this time, the whole store is on break, and I'm reduced to wandering around like a four-year-old lost at the mall, only instead of crying out “Moooooooooom” I have to shout out “SpraaaaaayPaaaaaint”

I hope this equity thing is worth all this hassle.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is currently trying to finish his basement with Lincoln Logs. It's going well.

Vote for me, if you want to live

2008-10-23T19:34:00.001-07:00

I love fall, I know it sounds morbid, but I just love it how all the plants shrivel and die around me while I get along just fine with a light jacket.

It makes me feel genetically superior.

Fall is also the time of year when the eggnog comes back to the stores, hockey starts up again and all those freakin' bees get what's coming to them and die lonely, freezing deaths.

It's pretty much perfect.

Every four years, however, my perfect season gets ruined like a wedding cake with a dove in it.

If you really need more of a setup than that to windge about the Presidential election, you really haven't been paying attention.

Now I don't mean to sound like I'm criticizing the whole system. I love democracy, but democracy comes from Greece and we American tend to screw up must things that we get from other countries.

I think our track record with “Mexican” food backs be up on this.

No where south of Arizona will you find anything like unto the Chalupa.

The problem is rather than being based on debate and compromise, our political system is basically a game of hot potato, only with media people instead of music and in place of a potato, drugs and hookers.

Either that or its a race to make the other party's candidate look like he steps on puppies for exercise.

If we're going to make it seem like one guy is good as Gandhi and the other guy is as evil Megatron (I was going to say Hitler but then according to to Godwin's Law, I'd have to stop writing) then we should skip this whole election crap and have them settle this as true good and true evil should: with a light saber fight.

Actually I'd just wait to see who pulls out a red one, and then vote for the other one.

It would save time so I could go watch the bloody-knuckles match to see who gets to be VP.

Another thing about this whole process that is really in need of a make over is the mascots. An elephant and a donkey? That's really the best we could come up with?

I still don't get why our two political parties chose these two animals. Why would anyone chose to associate politicians with the two dumbest, stubbornest, stinkiest animals who are good for nothing beyond carried heavy loads and making tons of cheap fertiliz–

Oh wait. Never mind, I just figured it out.

I've also never understood why people will say that their candidate is the because people in another country want them to win.

Maybe you've forgotten, but people from other countries are the last folks we should be listening to about who to put in charge of our country.

It's kind of like the other team telling you you should let the fat kid pitch in kickball. They say it's because they think it would be good experience for him but really they just want to see how many line drives they can bounce off his head while they run up the score.

For the most part, I think that most people in both parties (yes I am aware that there are more than two, but as part of the voting American public, I don't care) are good people who are honestly doing what they think is best.

The problem is the people around them are so greasy you could fry a chicken on them on a hot day.

These people are salesmen, and salesmen are the natural enemy of engineers. We're like camels and ducks.

The only thing more annoying than all the dickweeds out there trying to get me to vote are all the super dickweeds just trying to get me to vote at all. I'm going to go to set myself up

Voting may look like a multiple choice test, but you can't just go ABBACABA like you did on the SATs. That's how countries end up like France.

This is why the write in option is the only option makes any sense. Mario and Captian Kangaroo in '08.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is not running for office. If he were he'd run under the “No Soup for Monkey” platform and call the organization the Toga Party. Comments can and should be left below.

His mascot is better too.

2008-10-21T20:29:00.002-07:00

I'm working on a column about how annoying this current election is and I came across this video, now I finally know who I'm voting for.

http://www.ea.com/redalert/factions-allies.jsp?id=PresidentAckerman

I can really get behind a President who's answer to the teen pregnancy problem is to punch Micheal Cera in the wiener.

Steve Puts the Cry in Financial Crisis

2008-10-16T16:52:00.001-07:00

I don't want to alarm you, but killer bees are no longer the biggest threat to this country.

It turns out we really are our own worst enemy. As a country, we've really screwed our own pooch so much we've turned a once proud and powerful free-enterprise system into the economical equivalent of falling on our keys.

On my own, I don't understand much of the current situation. When it comes to things financial – along with matters of basic hygiene, how I feel about people in our neighborhood and what I like to eat – I rely of my wife for information.

My wife is a brilliant woman and things like this are right up her alley. She's got a PhD in economics and she is always willing to teach me about the area of her expertise. Just the other night she told me all about supply and demand (apparently, it means that I have to supply whatever she demands).

Not to demean her accomplishments though, but it's not hard to look like a financial genius when standing next to me. I still have a ceramic Snoopy full of “just in case” pennies.

If not for her I would spend all my money on Mountain Dew and cheese.

From what she's told me, a lot of the problem stemmed from sub-prime mortgages which are mortgages that are given at a sub-prime rate, to sub-prime borrowers wearing sub-prime shoes.

Now, I may by new to this world of people who know that 401k is not just a whole lot of k, but even I could have told you this was going to lead to trouble. The name should have been everyone's first clue. I don't want sub-prime time TV. There's no way on earth I'd eat sub-prime beef. Why would I get a sub-prime loan?

And yet people did, at an alarming rate.

Speaking of alarming raters, the other problem with these loans was that many of them had an adjustable rate. “Adjustable” is an interesting word. Consumers look at the word “adjustable” and think, “hey, my pants are adjustable, the seat of my bicycle is adjustable, I like things that are adjustable. I want my loan to be adjustable too.”

The lenders on the other hand see the word and think “Hey, I bet we can use this to screw people up the back of their adjustable pants.”

And they did, rates shot up and – as was foretold by the name of the kind of loan – mortgage payments got “adjusted” much to the shock of many sub-prime borrowers who were under the impression that the bankers were going to be their friends.

Have you ever seen a movie where the bankers are a bunch of kindly old men looking for people to help with the wads of cash falling out of their pockets? No, you haven't, because in movies their always portrayed as a bunch of heartless, money-grubbing dillweeds.

Movies like this are natures way of warning us that bankers are, for the most part, heartless, money-grubbing dillweeds. The kind of guy who would kick a random stranger in the nards for $5.

The joke was on the money grubber this time. Not only did people not like the new much higher rates, they tried to pay off the difference with gummy bears.

Apparently if you're the kind of person that thinks a sup-prime anything is a good idea, there's also a high chance you consider your favorite candy to be legal tender.

The last straw in the camel breaking economy was when President Bush, because – according to reports – is a giant a-hole, took that little knob on his desk that says “economy” and cranking it all the way down passed “rocky” to “good crap we're boned.”

I hope this look at the economy and it's troubles has proven helpful. If you have any questions be sure to let me know. I'm putting together some helpful handouts to explain the whole thing with charts, graphs and a cartoon of the stock market waving it's genitals at everyone. I just need to find a Kinkos that will let me pay for printing with Swedish fish.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is doing what he can to weather the current financial situation by hiding under the covers and clinging to to his IRA while crying. Calming comments can be left below.

Home is where you spend your money

2008-10-09T17:57:00.001-07:00

After much deliberation and several near-marriage-ending fights, it's done. My wife and I have made an offer on a home.

My wife is thrilled about having a place to raise our family and all the equity we'll be having (or making, or whatever verb you do to equity). I'm just glad I don't have to go house hunting anymore. I was really bad at it.

It's hard to look at an empty house and imagine it as the home you would turn it into. You find yourself thinking things like “yeah, that's a nice banister, but what would it look like with my underwear drying on it?”

Fortunately you have a realtor with you at all times, so these trains of thought never lead to anything that would end up in the papers.

I don't think house shopping should be this way. With other large purchases, such as a car, you're allowed to try doing what you will be doing with the car. You drive it.

I don't think a 20 minute tour, 17 of those minutes being spent talking about school districts, is enough time to know if you will actually like living in a place. I think I should be able to move in for a few days. Give the place a bit of a test-live. It makes sense.

Of course I think I should be allowed to lick any cake I'm considering buying.

This is because I'm not the kind of person who makes life decisions quickly. I dated my wife for two years before we got married. It took me months to decide which college I wanted to go to. But I decided which building I'm going to spend the majority of my life in less than an hour because some one else was looking at it and because my realtor said I could have pie.

I'm too scared to poop now.

There are just too many unknowns.

Things I don't know about this house that scare me:

Is it haunted?

The house is going inspected for structural integrity, various pests and mold. It will not be checked for ghosts. Let me tell you something, if I wake up to get a drink and find myself face to face with the spectral remains of a young lady, hacked to pieces on her wedding night, I'm not going to be too concerned with mold.

What birds hang out in the back yard?

And at what times? While, I love doves and quail visiting in the evenings, I am not a fan of squawking, pooping alarm clocks (this is why I don't have kids). I'm also concerned I don't know the neighborhood outlook on BB guns.

How does it smell in the rain?

We've all been in a house at one point that smells a bit like an old person on soggy days? I don't want to be the house in the neighborhood that everyone checks the forecast before they visit.

Is it haunted?

I'm serious, it really bothers me that I don't know this. If this house is on a Native burial ground, I'm going to be so pissed.

How are the neighbors?

Are the nice? Are they douche bags? Are they robots? Are they robotic douche bags? I know none of these things. The only living being in the area that I've actually met was someones dog who appeared out of no where to smell my wife (I can't blame him, she smells excellent).

I tried Googling all these things, but all the links were to Wikipedia (which I still don't trust ever since the Golden Girls incident). I guess I'll just have to suck it up though. Sometimes a man has to Kirk it up and live where he hasn't lived before. I think I can do this. I think I can make it work.

Unless there are ghosts. Then I will cross those streams so fast, it'll make your head spin.

Steve Shinney is so concerned because his house was built in the 60s. Do you have any idea how many people can die in a house in almost 50 years. A lot, that's how many. Comments and recommendations of a good paranormal investigator are welcome.

The strange this is, I kinda miss the little guy

2008-09-02T19:35:00.001-07:00

If you ever have to look down to remind yourself that you haven't been stabbed in the stomach, your day is off to a bad start.

This was the situation I found myself in the other day. I even left work early so I could be miserable in only one way at a time.

I took a shower, hot water normally eases whatever pain I'm feeling, but this time it just made it a wetter kind of pain.

I considered putting clothes on for a minute, but the thought of bending down to pick them up from their place on the floor made my stomach cry out in anguish.

And so I laid there, bare-bum naked, waiting for the alien larvae to burst from my stomach and end my pain forever.

It really sucks, when all you want in the world is just to curl up into the fetal position and cry, but said curling really really hurts.

Finally I decided that that searing pain in my stomach might be something I should talk to a medical professional about.

I'd been manly for almost 9 hours. I'd filled my quota.

My lovely wife drove me to the nearest insta-care facility where I was over whelmed by how misinforming that name was. There was nothing insta about the care I received.

What they should call it is an insta-pay or an insta-wait or an insta-fill out these forms, because those are the only things I did within the first 20 minutes.

Not that I mind. There were plenty of other people there in need of care at any speed. Some of whom were in more pain than I, and other who were just better at selling it.

As I sat there I tried to distract myself by reading a Newsweek the humor columnist in me is required to say was from the Regan era but was really from March.

I had to distract myself because now the pain was so pain that I wanted to puke. It was like someone had put a donkey in my stomach and it was trying to kick its way out.

As a former janitor, I've found that I have secret agent-like awareness in potentially dangerous situations. Only instead of always knowing how to escape and constantly figuring out how to disable any one in the room who may be a threat, whenever I feel sick I'm constantly scanning the room for the best way to blow chunks so that no one has to clean it up.

Ok, it's 4 and one half steps to the garbage can in the corner, but if that kid playing with the blocks stands up, I won't be able to hurdle him, so I'll go left instead, where it just five and one third steps to the large, potted plant.

It's not as cool I know, but I would argue that it's just as heroic.

Finally I got to see the doctor. By which I of course mean a nurse.

She was very nice though, and did a good job taking my vitals and gathering some basic information. Then she took me to an small room, gave me a paper dress, told me to strip to the waist and that the doctor would be with me shortly.

When I got to see a doctor. He listened to my stomach with a stethoscope – which really makes me think they just really like to use those things for everything they can – and poked my belly like I was a beloved mascot for a bake goods corporation.

I don't know how effective the listening was, unless he actually heard something burst, but the poking was very effective in making it very clear that I was really in pain.

Apparently stethoscopes and fingers were the whole extant of medical equipment this particular insta-care had at their disposal, because that was all they did. The doctor said that he couldn't rule out appendicitis and that I should probably get to emergency room.

I was about to say that wouldn't be necessary but he poked me again in the stomach and I saw the prudence of listening to a medical professionals advice.

So my wife helped me stagger to the car and drove me to the hospital. The insta-care gave us very good directions that helped us find the hospital with no problem. They were not however as clear on how to get to the actual emergency room. We had to drive around the whole building twice, cross a bridge guarded by a troll and speak the elvish word for friend before we were finally allowed to enter.

The emergency room was another place that didn't meet the expectations I had from it's name. I don't know it it was because people had planned their emergencies better than I had or if it was always this way but it didn't look to me any busier or more stressed than a normal doctors office.

There were even toys for kids to play with. In my mind the only thing kids had to play with and the emergency room were severed fingers they found on the floor.

So I calmly wrote my name on a sheet of paper and sat down to patiently wait for the receptionist or God to call my name. Whoever spoke up first.

The first medical professional that I dealt with was a male nurse. He really struck me as more of an gatherer of information than a healer of wounds. He asked me a lot of questions about my past medical history, any similar trips to the hospital, how I had paid for those and how I was planning on paying for this one.

“What seems to be the problem?” he asked, in a voice that made it pretty clear that whatever my problem was, it had better be pretty good because he had probably seen people die already today.

I tried to come up with the most manly way to explain the situation but all I could up with was, “My tummy hurts.”

He then took my vitals which consisted of taking my blood pressure, checking my temperature and sticking a thing on my figure for some reason. I think I had something to do with oxygen.

This was the first of many vitals takings during my time at the hospital. That seems to be how doctors and nurses greet people. They say their name and the stick their hand out, but when you go to shake it, BOOM, they've slapped that cuff on you and are squeezing for all they're worth.

The next person I saw was an EMT. The EMT's part in this whole process was basically to stick a big, all purpose needle in me that later nurses and doctors could use to put in and take out various fluids.

I wasn't too worried when he explained this. I've given blood plenty of times, but this time it was different. Apparently if you've got a donkey in your stomach, needles just provoke him.

In the EMT's words, I suddenly lost a lot of color. This is a big deal for me because I don't have a lot of color to go around. I can't afford to lose any.

At that exact moment, however, I had bigger concerns than the current state of my complexion. The exact location of my blood, and my sudden need to fall down for example.

The EMT had me lay down and hooked me up to an IV to help me regain some fluids. I instantly fell in love with this new method of taking in fluids. I think the only way it could be more effective would be if they pumped the water directly into my bladder.

In between trips to get rid of some of the IV solution, they gave me a CAT scan. They stuck my lower half into the large machine that reminded me of a really high tech, but really crappy water slide.

After dipping me a couple times, the thing whirred and beeped for a bit and delivered it verdict that I was perfectly fine.

I think it was hoping they would send me home and I would die and then the robot uprising could take place.

No such luck this day Mr. Roboto. The technician was able to catch on the ruse, run the test again and sure enough, my appendix had taken the commuter rail all the way to inflamedville.

I considered this a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it pretty lucky when you think about it to have the one organ that craps out early be on I totally don't use. On the other hand, I always considered my appendix to be one of my finer features.

The surgeon came a explained what appendicitis was and would happen during the operation. He was very personable and dig a good job explaining things, but really all I heard from him was “You're in a lot a pain right now.”

I do remember that he spent a lot of time going over what would happen in the “worst case scenario.”

“Mr. Shinney, I want you to be fully aware that, 'worse case scenario' you could be full of giant spider eggs. It's not very common. Only one person out of 500 has it. I just think you should know.”

I understand the importance of making sure the patient has all the information, but I think he should also give equal opportunity to the “best case.”

“Mr. Shinney I think you should also be aware that when we open you up, there's a 4 and one half percent chance all this pain was cause by a small golden monkey. If that's the case you'll get to keep the monkey.”

He also gave me a paper to sign saying that he had explained all the options available to me. This was pretty easy for him. Apparently my options were I could let him poke around in my stomach with a camera, a pair of scissors and a stapler, or I could go home and die a slow and painful death.

On the TV in my little room, the Yankees had just beaten the Red Sox, so I figured I had something to live for, so I went with the first one.

We had to wait about an hour for an operating room to be available. It was a quite time of introspection. I looked back on my life, on what I had done and what I still hoped to do. I prayed for comfort and strength. I told my wife I loved her.

I made up my mind who I would haunt if the doctor sneezed.

When they came in to tell me the room was ready for me I was a little bit sad to say goodbye to my little corner of the emergency room. It had a bed, a TV and a bathroom all within 20 feet of each other. It was nicer than many apartments I've lived in.

I was also sad because everyone in the emergency room was really nice to me. I'd like to think that it was because of my charming personality and my up-beat attitude.

It truth I think it was just because I didn't bleed or barf on any of them.

They helped me onto one of those hospital beds on wheels that are officially called gurneys but when you're strapped into one, you just think of it as a “transport to a scary place.” The wheeled me into the operating room where I was introduced to my anesthesiologist and much more importantly, to my anesthesia.

I don't remember any of what happened next. Considering that it involved people cutting, probing and shaving all different parts of my body, I would say this was probably a good thing.

Even with all the kindnesses I was shown during my stay in the hospital, including saving my life, the one I was most grateful for was that they waited until I was completely under to lift my gown and expose my junk to anything medical.

I think this is the way it should always be.

During the next hour or so, my appendix was removed. I don't know what else happened in that time. I'm still hoping they did some sort of experimental treatment that will someday result in my being able to fly, shoot lasers out of my eyes or at least figure out my gas mileage in my head, but so far, no luck.

After I was all sew, taped and stapled back together, I was wheeled into the room in which I was to recover. I'm normally not very interested in interior decorating, but for some reason, I found myself very impressed with the curtains.

I was moved into a less movable – and therefore less scary – bed and hooked up to multitude of machines, none of which were explained to me and told to have a good night. On the way out the nurse said offhandedly “Oh, if you need it, there's a urinal next to your bed.”

This was the meanest thing to happen to me during my stay, and that includes all the poking.

Now I know that the average woman does not spend a lot of time in the men's room. This is kind of the idea behind the whole system. But really women, it is very important that you know what is and what is not a urinal.

Because if you tell a heavily drugged, post-op patient that there is a urinal beside his bed, in his current state of mind he will assume there is a real, porcelain-on-the-wall urinal somewhere to his left. When he wakes up and finds that there's nothing but a pee-bottle, he's gonna be more than a little disappointed.

This pee-in-a-bottle system is so that the nurses can keep track of how much you're producing, and so that the rest of us can be glad we're not nurses.

At first I was glad to have the bottle. I was in no mood to stand up and go anywhere to go. The thought of being able to pee as I was struck me as ultimate luxury.

The problem was that ever since I was four years old, I've been practice NOT peeing while in bed. Over the years, I've gotten really good at it.

This expertise came back to haunt me as I was unable to fill the bottle while lying down and I had to stand up, like a common slob, and do things the old fashioned way.

But as soon as I was able to stand and do my deed, for the first time in my life I experienced peeing after having a catheter recently removed.

I'm not going to bore/disgust you with the details. I'll just say it felt like I had a bad sunburn on the inside and leave it at that.

Bodily functions aside, my first night was a long dark and scary one. I was still in a lot of pain, under the influence of some pretty heavy duty chemicals and one of machines I was plugged into started beeping.

I didn't know what the beeping meant or what caused it, but I did know that whenever you go to a hospital, they hook you up to at least one machine so important that if the plug gets pulled out, you get three warning beeps and then you die.

Fortunately, my beeps were from some other machine.

The rest of my time in the hospital was spend laying in bed, watching TV and drinking juice. If it weren't for the butt-clenching pain and the huge bills, it would have been the best vacation I've had in a long time.

So that's my big medical story. It's not that big of a deal I know. Plenty of people have had worse than me. And yes, I do include all mothers in that group.

I don't know how painful child birth is. All I know is I'm going to wait until I pass a kidney stone while on fire before I try to compare it with anything I've gone through.

I don't want to go back to the hospital.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is now minus one minor organ. He's recovering well but will probably never be able to help you move in the future. He is sorry for the inconvenience.

Sorry this was so long in coming, expect a return to regular posting.

Patients are a virtue

2008-08-01T21:13:00.001-07:00

I really wanted to have something up hear weeks ago. This time last week I was in the hospital and I'm still working on a column about that experience. It'll be up as soon as it's done and I'm pleased with it.

No one invited me to this or any other parties

2008-07-11T22:39:00.001-07:00

Trying some very different things in this piece. Would appreciate any feedback.

Last week we Americans, with our red blood, blue jeans and whitey tighties, celebrated our freedom: Freedom not just from obsessive dictators but from commercials for feminine hygiene products during major sporting events.

Yes, now days we Yankees are freer than a stomach ache on Halloween, but it wasn't always the case. There was a time when Americans were subject to foreign rule. Not just any foreign rule, but the oppressive and evil foreign rule of the British who, at the time, were about as evil as Shredder from the Ninja Turtles..

It was all a big misunderstanding. The British (who invented wedgies by the way) were convinced they owned the colonies simply because they had made them.

As a result of this British (who smelled like wet cow) tyranny, the Americans were not allowed to go swimming for at least 45 minutes after eating.

But in these darks days of wet socks and stale popcorn there were, however, a brave few who dared to dream. Dream of a future where their children were free to take a penny, even if they had no intention of ever leaving a penny.

These men were upset at the injustices they suffered at the hands of the British (who were also in league with Gargemel from the Smurfs). They were upset they a 10 pm curfew. They were upset they couldn't make a right turn at a red light. But mostly they were upset about taxes.

The British (who hated puppies) were big fans of taxes. The put ridiculous taxes on everything. Sugar was taxed. Toilet paper was taxed. There was a tax on wig powder. You know that little plastic table-looking thing that comes in a box of pizza? They had a tax on those. Even the thirteenth donut in a baker's dozen was taxed.

Basically the British (who always double dipped in the salsa) were a bunch of taxing douche bags.

Now the Americans wanted to rebel. The problem was British (who cheated at Clue) Army had like two million soldiers, some of which may have been vampires.

These soldiers had two jobs in America, give speeding tickets to people just going two miles over the limit and make sure none of the Americans got to drink any of the special British (who pretty much sucked at volleyball) tea, which was kept on a boat.

So the colonists, burning to feel the freedom of Taco Tuesday, took the tea and dumped into the Boston Harbor. Of course, those of us who can finish the mazes on the back our cereal boxes (which the colonists couldn't because of the high maze tax) realize that putting tea in water is pretty much the recipe for tea.

And so these brave revolutionaries turned American's biggest shipping center into the world's largest cup of Earl Gray, which sounds a lot more like a prank that an act of total defiance.

At first the British (who pooped on babies) were confused by this move. Their first reaction was to enforce a tax on dressing up like an Indian and on doing things they didn't understand.

Before long though, the British (who hated your Grandma) couldn't resist a practically endless supply of tea. Soon then all came in for a drink.

That was when the colonists shot them.

Unfortunately they used too loud of a gun and the shot was heard all the way around the world. This lead to the American Revolutionary War which was pretty much the coolest war until the invention of death rays because it consisted of the Americans beating the British (who had no nads) so bad that they didn't set foot in America again until the War of 1812 by which time they had invented evil robots spies.

Fortunately, by then Andrew Jackson discover a ring of power, so we were OK.

So I hoped you enjoyed your Independence Day. But we should remember these brave founders for freedom all year long.

In conclusion, fireworks stands should be open all year.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is a serious historian who never makes up facts. Ever. Not even if you asked him to. You can try to talk him into it in the comments section.

Bus Bus Goose

2008-06-28T08:11:00.001-07:00

I started riding the bus long before it became cool to do so.

Nowadays, I find myself again not so cool. With gas prices raising faster than ninja at the grocery store, everyone seems to be taking public transportation these days.

Not me, I've been doing it for month, back when I was the only one of the bus and I did just for the satisfaction of looking down on hippies with a “greener than thou” look on my face.

Now the bus is become more and more crowded and every morning, I find myself reliving the nightmare of grade-school Steve, trying to find a seat before the scary bus driver hurls the bus towards the next stop.

It's a horrific labyrinth of people I don't want to sit be: too fat, too scary, too stinky, too female and it's really too much stress for me that early in the morning so I am putting my foot down. I was hear first, so of you are gonna hafta go.

Its for the good of everyone.

Or at least me.

The following people should not be allowed to ride the bus ever.

Bikers.

I'm not talking about the kind of bikers who peddle from their home and the bus stop. Those people are fine so long as then don't stand in front of me in those thing they have the gall to call shorts.

Trust me on this. I wear shorts more than any adult should. I'm almost an expert on shorts. If your pants are so tight your butt hair pokes through, those aren't shorts.

I'm talking about the guys who are so in to their bikes that that

The is nothing scarier than an angry biker. And there's not angrier than a biker forced to used public transportation. So I'm pretty sure that there's nothing scarier than a biker on the bus.

Maybe a clown with a gun that shoots rattlesnakes.

But there would have to be – like – four of them.

Old women who want to talk.

I don't know if they can't read, can't work an iPod or have just been around so long that they've already read and listened to anything but if you put a woman over the age of 70 on some sort of public transportation, and suddenly she really wants to talk with any random stranger who happens to be me.

And the cheaper the form of transportation, the crazier the woman becomes.

On a plane, she wants to talk about her grandkids, which is boring.

On a train, she wants to talk about her cats, which is more boring.

On the bus, she just wants to talk about herself, which is the most boring thing ever, and usually pretty gross because she has all kinds of health problems that she has to show me, some of which kind of make me throw up a little in my mouth.

The guy with the shovel.

I was on the bus a few weeks ago and some dude gets on with a shovel.

He didn't look like a farmer, an archaeologist or Smokey the Bear or anyone else who would have a good reason to have a shovel with them. I tried to come up with a situation that would require digging and an easy, yet anonymous way to get to and from the digging but all I could come up with were shallow graves and

Apparently I wasn't one freaking out about this guy. The biker on the bus shot me one of those “This guy is going to make on of us into ice cream topping,” looks and moved further back in the bus.

Attractive people.

Good looking people have no business being on the bus. You guys make the rest of us feel bad.

Finally, Dark Jedi.

I don't have any good reason. I just hate them so much.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is a big fan of planes, trains and automobiles. Not the movie, he just like things that go vroooooooooom. Drop him a line below.

To swim or not to swim

2008-06-21T00:07:00.001-07:00

It was a glorious two and a half weeks, but spring is over and we're now full on into summer.

All the changes that happen when we enter to hottest time of year are in full view already. The trees have enough leaves to give shade. The flowers are in full bloom. The grass has a bunch of brown spots from where people let there dogs poop in the snow 5 months ago and never cleaned it up.

But the sure-firest (surest-fire?) way to tell that it real is summer is to just walk by the pool in our apartment complex and notice the place is more crowded than the local IHOP (and this despite the fact there pool doesn't offer 5 kinds of syrup).

I never know how to react to the fact that there is a pool where I live. As a kid I always wanted one. Even started digging one for a while but then I started thinking about dinosaurs before long my T-rex and Triceratops were duking it out in my room.

Come to think of it, that's how all my childhood projects ended.

And a lot of my adult ones.

Anyway, now that I find myself with easy access to a pool I can never decide wether or not to use it. As an adult there and just so many conflicting pros and cons about the whole issue.

Maybe someone out there could help me. Let me just explain my thinking.

Pro: Sweat.

Just ask anyone who's ever been down wind of me, I am a sweaty stinky man.

I'm from Idaho, I'm built for colder climates. Once the summer hits my poor skin, I start sweating like a fat guy going up stairs.

That's just walking to the bus, when I work out in the sun I just look like a cartoon super villain made of stinky water.

I bet I produce more liquid per hour than 3 dairy cows.

This slimly covering may keep me cool and protect me from predators but it makes me none the more popular with the ladies. Not that I really am looking for any ladies at this point in my life, but no matter how married you get, it still hurts when they point and laugh.

That's one thing I really like about being at the pool. At the pool its hard to tell the difference between someone who is dripping wet with sexy pool-water and someone who is dripping wet with extremely un-sexy personal water.

Con: I suck at swimming.

For a guy who passed all the swimming requirements scouting could throw at him, I'm a really lousy swimmer.

I spent most my time like I did when I first started going to pools, clinging to the end of the pool only leaving to try to swim to the other side when either my mom's watching or some kid dares me to.

I always start out with pretty good form, by after two or three strokes I become the only person in the pool over the age of five doing the doggy paddle.

It's better for me to just stay on land, where I can usually get around with no problem.

And if I can't, I just fall, not drown.

Pro: bikinis. Lots of bikinis.

Much like losers wait for the swallows to return to that place they go, the average red blooded American male considers the return of bikinis into the realm of acceptable day wear as the true sign of summer.

Today I saw more cleavage and side cheek than I had since Christmas. And this was just on my way to check the mail.

Some people say that it's shameful to see women parading around half naked in public like that.

I think these people are idiots.

A woman wearing a bikini is way more than half naked. We're talking about what, less than two square feet of covering going on?

By my figures a well-figured woman in a proper bikini is anywhere between four/fifths to thirteen/fourteenths naked.

An Eskimo with his shirt off, that's half naked.

I swear this country can't do math anymore.

As much as I appreciate them I've never really understood the mentality behind bikinis. There are very few young women who would let random strangers see them in just their underwear. And yet, if you make that same underwear waterproof, and all of a sudden it's appropriate to were to grocery store.

Con: naked kids.

I'm all for skinny dipping in proper situations, like when it starts with gratuitous nudity and ends in bloody murder but there are limits.

I'm pretty sure it's against some sort of federal law or pool rule to let your offspring splash around – as the French say – buck naked, but I've seen baby wiener during too many trips past the pool.

At first I was against it for sanitary reasons. I was convinced that being in the buff would increase the chance of peeing in the pool by several hundred percent.

Then I wised up and realized that warm water, constant splashing and the commonly accepted fallacy that chlorine makes everything better has already made it so pretty that the only people who don't leave a little personal Kool-ade in the pool are the rare few who actually shower before getting in the pool.

They do their business there.

So I'm not worried about these kids doing anything I wouldn't do in the pool. I do, however, worry about the harsh rays of the sun. If a family is too lazy to put a suit on their kid, I'm pretty sure they didn't sunscreen them up properly.

I'd try to shade them myself, but that's just creepy, even for me. And I look at strangers' wedding photos on Flickr.

Geek on.

Steve Shinny is a poor swimming who accidentally typed the word “poop” every time he wanted to write “pool” and had to go back and change it while giggling like a school boy. Comments can and should be left below.

Save a trip, get the snip

2008-06-18T21:27:00.001-07:00

There are a lot of big decisions that parents have to make. On decision that parents of new born boys find them selves facing is the issue of whether or not to have their kid circumcised.

I've already decided that any boys I end up having will have it done. I figure if someday they ever decide to go Jewish they'll be really glad that I did.

Geek on.

You must be this handicapped to park here

2008-06-13T05:33:00.002-07:00

A little early this week as I'm heading to the lake.

It may be because I just ate some delicious curry, but I'm really starting to believe in karma.

Like my neighbor who does bad in the form of blasting their stereo really loud have been punished with really bad taste in music.

Another example, I used to think that it was unfair that handicapped people got to park closest to the building. I mean it's not like most of them had to even walk there. They'd just roll their way up there without a care in the world.

But then I realized that they may have the closest parking spots, but their stalls are furthest from the men's room door. So it kind of evens out that way.

While I've never been jealous of their high seated toilets and their so wide-it-echoes stalls, but I'll admit, theres been times I've looked at their parking spots and the looked at the door and realized they were only 34 inches apart, and I got a little jealous.

This envy went away one day when I realized that in order to use a handicapped parking spot the person has to literally park on an image of another handicapped person. I don't know if I could bring myself to do that.

That poor guy is already in a wheel chair, he's obviously got enough problems without me parking my car on his torso.

Maybe that's how he ended up in that chair to begin with.

A fear of inflicting additional pain on painted paraplegics aside, I still have high levels of guilt that prevent me from ever taking a reserved spot no matter how quick my trip to the sporting goods store will be.

I won't even park in the spots next to the handicapped spots unless just I stubbed my toe really bad.

Unfortunately, other people aren't so lawful good when it comes to signs spray painted on the asphalt.

Just the other day I saw someone park in a handicapped spot without a tag or license plate. I watched him get out of car and walk in with ease. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt that he really did have some sort of physical problem that warranted his use of that coveted spot, but then he jump kicked an old lady in the head.

I'm pretty sure he was just a douchebag.

And just so we're clear, I asked my doctor, being a douchebag doesn't count as being handicapped.

Unless you're golfing, then I think it's a two stroke handicap.

Despite the fact that it's often abused by the morally challenged, I kind of like the idea of parking segregation. I think we should color code the whole lot and then make people park accordingly.

The blue spots for handicapped people would stay the same as the closest.

All lots would have the red spots that you see for senior citizens and expectant mothers.

Next would be yellow spots for anyone with small children (in the case of grocery stores and movie theaters however, these spots would be located over a mile away to encourage people to leave those brats at home).

The system would continue from there through the rest of society: doctors and firemen, librarians, dog owners, people who like Jazz music, Civil War reenactors, Congressmen, cat owners, golfers and so on until finally there would be a peach colored spot in the middle of landfill in Illinois reserved for that weird guy who invited me to get in the hot tub with him when I'm pretty sure he was naked.

Naked weirdos can walk for all I care.

That's karma for you.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is an (usually) able bodied young man who is perfectly content to park in the orange and blue striped parking spots right in between math teachers and anyone who switch hits is softball.

Time to Facebook the Truth

2008-06-06T22:08:00.001-07:00

As a man who owns more Ethernet cables than pants, it pains me to say this. I think we've taken this whole Internet thing about as far as it can go.

It's clear now that we will never be able to download bacon, so I think it's about time we just walk away.

You're not buying it are you?

Ok, I'll level with you.

The main reason I know that the Internet is on it's last virus delivering legs is that even I – the guy who taught Numa Numa how to dance – have fallen to the lowest level of Internet usage.

I'm on Facebook.

If I can succumb to the temptation, what chance to you guys have?

About as much chance as monkey bench-pressing a sumo wrestler which explains why Facebook got so popular in the first place.

When I first heard about Facebook, I was Carl Sagan level skeptical about the whole thing. Social networking was stupid and had already ruined outer space for us geeks. Now it was going after books.

Still as I saw more and more of my friends setting up Facebook pages, I began to wonder what the attraction was. What made it so much better than MySpace?

And people were very clear that it was better than MySpace. They were borderline religious about the whole thing. They were like people with Teevo.

Facebook is like MySpace in that it lets people who think PHP is something hippies use pretend that they can make a Web site.

It's different from MySpace in that there are a lot less perverts looking at pictures of skanky girls they don't know (although there are more perverts looking at pictures of skanky girls that they do know).

It's better than MySpace in that I use it.

I think this first point, along with the ability to prove that you really do know more about movie trivia than your friends, are what makes Facebook so popular. Its a commonly held belief that Web developers are the sexiest people on the planet. People have long yearned to be as respected as the members of this noble profession.

I've always resisted such social networking sites as Facebook and MySpace because I pride myself on being a highly skill computer user. I didn't need help, I could make a Web site the old fashion way, with blood and sweat and ones and zeros.

And I'd make it cool and neat and stuff.

5 years later I've come to a realization that I am painfully lazy and this was never getting done.

I tried really hard to dig into all the HTML, JS, CSS and LMAO that I needed to build a really great site, but whenever I sat down to get to work I would write two lines of code and then realize that somehow I was playing WOW.

Honey, what are you doing? I thought you said you were going to work on your Web site.

I am dear.

Then why do I see a dragon?

He's trying to steal my code, that's why I have to kill him.

So I do have to admit Facebook is a lot easier than building write a Web page the old fashion way, just like buying your food is easier than hunting for it.

Although I do still feel like a bit of a wiener when I eat a muffin instead of skinning a deer.

Another thing I love about Facebook is how easy it makes social interaction. In Facebook there's no range for how well you know a person or how much you like them.

In real life it's way more complicated. In my life there are many different words I use to describe people: friends, acquiescences, buddies, coworkers, people I ride the bus with, neighbors, people who work at stores I go to a lot, neighbors who I sneak around trying to avoid, my wife, ward-mates and people I think are douche-bags for not returning their shopping carts.

On Facebook, everyone is either your friend or a total stranger.

It's actually very cleansing.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is just happy that now he can finally number all the friends that he's ever had in his whole life. The answer, according to Facebook, is 21.

The Geek Beat: Burn Baby Shower Burn

2008-05-31T09:20:00.003-07:00

I like to think that I'm pretty clever. I've been walking through forests my whole life and I've never been upside-down hanging from a tree or in a pit with a tiger. It's because I'm pretty good at spotting traps.

And yet, despite all skills as an Eagle Scout, this last weekend I still found myself at a baby shower.

In my defense, it was a baby shower cleverly disguised as a barbecue.

My first hint that this might not be a regular barbecue was when I realized the host couple were registered at Target. Generally people don't register for a barbecue. Although I'm totally for getting this tradition started. I think it would really catch on.

You have been cordially invited to a BBQ at the Shinney residence on Tuesday, the 12 of Febtober. Please RSVP so we will have plenty of potato salad. The couple is registered at Albertson's and Chuck's Butcher Shop.

I've never been a big fan of showers of any kind. They're just way to feminine for me. I know I'm suppose to be a modern man and all that jazz, but if that means I have to go to a bridal shower and listen to women squeal after each present they open, screw that.

Besides, baby showers always seem to be for one of two purposes. Either for the parents to get a bunch of free stuff in order to recover some of the massive costs involved in procreation or for them to say one last goodbye to all their couple friends who don't have kids yet.

Have your first kid is a lot like getting married. It is a huge commitment, it is a major milestone in your life and once you do it, it's pretty much impossible to hang out with anyone who hasn't yet.

I went anyway, assuming that so long as somebody stood outside and turned large chunks of meat into food using fire, I could just focus on that and be able to shut out all the talk about onesies and spit up.

No such luck. I was thwarted by one of my oldest (and most delicious) nemesis of all time: sloppy joes.

And by the time we started playing games, all pretense of being anything but a baby shower was thrown out quicker than old coleslaw.

I'm not saying you can't play games at a barbecue. Far from it. There are a ton of really fun games that can be played in the context of a barbecue: baseball, horseshoes and “see who can fit the most jello in their mouth” for example.

However, one game you never play at a BBQ is “Guess how fat the hostess is.”

Playing this game will get you kicked out of most BBQs with grill marks on your face.

And yet, some how, this is perfectly acceptable at a baby shower.

Well we couldn't just guess like normal people would. That wouldn't be fun. We had to take string and make a loop the size we thought our ever expanding host would be. When we laid them all down next to each other, it became as obvious as the fat guy at the gym that none of the guys had any idea how big a pregnant woman should be (not even her husband which is discouraging).

Then we had to guess the weight and length of the baby when he is finally born.

This is another spawning tradition that I've never understood. Why do we have to measure our babies like fish? It just gives me the impression that if one isn't big enough we can just throw him back, or sneak him under our waders and hope the game warden (or doctor) doesn't catch us.

I also hate it because I have no real frame of reference to go off of. I have not real idea how big a baby should be at birth. You could tell me that the average infant is three inches long like a new-born kangaroo, and I would not feel comfortable calling you a liar.

Since I had no idea how many inches or pounds go into an average baby, I just said he'd be 6 1/3 crayons long and hoped for the best.

Hundreds of people have told me how heavy and how long their babies are, and I have paid more attention to infomercials about home meat dryers than I have to any of these announcements. I think it's because I don't have a kid yet. Once I do it'll be competition, at which point I'll start lying about the size of my posterity, just like I lie about the length and width of everything else I care about.

And seriously, why can't we just say tall? Babies are people too you know.

Still even despite the lack of an actual barbecue, I had a good time. I'm proud to say that I've survived a baby shower.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go take a man shower. I still feel icky.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is a veteran of many crappy barbecues who thinks that showers should be held for anyone for any major life event. He is currently planning a “just got an X-box” shower for himself.

100th post, in 3rd person rather than 3-D

2008-05-30T20:55:00.001-07:00

The ever handsome Steve Shinney was walking to the bus stop this morning, when he noticed the sign at the Hooters across the street was proclaiming proudly, “We have Wi-Fi!”

'What a strange thing for Hooters to brag about,' he thought to himself. 'If I were them, I'd make a sign that said something like “We have buxom women in tiny clothes!” or they could just shorten it to “Hey, we're Hooters!”'

He tried to distract himself by listening to music, but he still couldn't get his head around this concept. It didn't make sense for Hooters to brag about having Wi-Fi, something he himself possessed in his own apartment and didn't feel the need to make a sign to tell people.

He considered perhaps they were trying to compete with the coffee shop next door, whose sign also proclaimed that “We have Wi-Fi.”

'But who's business are they competing for?' He wondered 'Granted coffee shops have a monopoly on people who like to slowly drink a single overpriced coffee while they work on their Great American Novels.'

'But I'm pretty sure no novels – great, American or otherwise – have ever been read in Hooters, let alone been written.'

He considered for a moment taking advantage of this highly-toted Wi-Fi and writing his latest idea for a book ( a touching love story about a jazz musician who falls for sexy young werewolf set in the 13th century) just to be the first person to raise to literary greatness from such a location, but then he realized not only would his wife not approve (with punching) but with that many distractions bouncing around nobody could write anything.

'I can't even write if I see a dog outside my window,' he thought and pushed that fantasy out of his mind forever.

He looked down the street to the next bus stop and contemplated walking a bit further every morning so that he didn't have to wait where he had to read such perplexing signs. There were still nights when he would lay awake remembering last Christmas when the same sign wished him a 'Hooterific Holiday', a phrase that haunted him still.

Finally the bus came to carry him away. As climbed aboard he realized what it all meant.

'This sign, is a sign. It's the sign I've been watching for. It's time to bring back The Geek Beat.'

And so it was.

Somethings they just don't teach you in the MTC

2008-05-24T12:22:00.001-07:00

Languages are a lot like fighting ninja werewolves, just when you think you're getting good at one you find that your skills are severely lacking when you need them the most.

I've been studying Chinese for over seven years. For the most part I do OK and on the occasions when I need to say a word or phrase that I don't know like “archaeologist” or “Decepticon” I have my lovely wife there by my side to bail me out (just like with the ninj-wolves).

This week however, I ran into a situation where both my leet sino-skills and lovely sino-wife both failed me.

I was still in China, doing some last minute shopping, which for me means shopping for Chinese DVDs. Chinese DVD salesmen are unintentionally hilarious. When every they see whitey they a circle with their fingers (commonly recognized as the universal sign of a DVD) and say one of the few English words they know “DVD” (which actually doesn't count because that's also how you say DVD in Chinese).

Normally I then blow them away by chatting with them about Chinese movies and movie stars, prove my linguistics manhood and move on. I'm fairly comfortable in these situations so I went to pick up a couple Chinese Television series to last us until our next trip while my wife took care of her parents' computer needs.

This is when I discovered a major chink in my Chinese armor (that phrase has never sounded more racist, I should have thought of a better way to say that). Since the last time I was in China many of the bootleg DVD vendors have moved much of the stock into the back rooms that used to be reserved for adult programming. Also the vendors seemed a lot more convinced that a white guy wondering around could only be interesting in dirty DVD was were making different commonly recognized universal signs with their fingers

I just wish I knew how to say “I don't want to go to your porn room” in Chinese.

I'm hoping for the second kind

2008-05-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

I saw a sea monster yesterday.

I'm not really sure if it was one of the cool kinds with the lots of arms, the horns and the teeth and the ship wrecking powers like the Kraken or if it was the really cool kind with the tits and the boobs and the seashell bikini like a mermaid, but it was definitely a sea monster.

It was on my flight home from LA.

Even though the flight from LA to SLC requires passing over absolutely zero water, the plane made a small detour over the ocean. I think they were kinda hoping we would crash there. They seemed really proud of the fact that their seats could be used a a flotation device (all thought I would have felt a lot safer if the seats could be used as a parachute).

I saw something big in the water. I don't know what it was, but my world needs more magic. There fore, I'm decided in was a sea monster.

You can't change my mind.

I'll Eat Something With a Face, So Long as it's Not Smiling at the Time

2008-04-17T21:54:00.001-07:00

Because I have a mental problem that prevents me from not buying something that's really cheap and I never pass up the opportunity to eat like a five year old, I recent purchased a whole bunch of goldfish crackers.

It's been a while since I've eaten goldfish crackers. I don't know why, I love pretty much all food that comes in the shape of a fish: goldfish crackers, Swedish fish, actual fish.

Well whatever the reason for the long separation, it over and me and one of my favorite childhood treats are back together again.

I was looking at a back for goldfish crackers for probably the first time since I learned how to read, and I noticed that they have a mascot now. A whole school of mascots actually.

Now on the side of every small bag of goldfish crackers are four goldfish crackers with eyes and a mouth.

I'm all for my snack foods having cute cartoon mascots. There's a part of me that gets a perverse thrill from the thought of a tree full of little, well-dressed elves who's sole purpose in life is to bake me delicious cookies. There's just something creepy about the lovable, happy character that's suppose to make me want to each a particular snack food being one of those particular snack foods.

It's kinda like how I've always had a problem with Mayor McCheese trying to sell me his head.

No tooth puns

2008-01-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

My tooth hurts. It's not a constant demanding pain that demands attention like stubbing your toe or taking a mail box to the crotch. It's more of a slow annoying pain, the kind that never goes away, but never gets bad enough that you can complain about it without sounding like a total wienie.

It's kinda like working in an office.

I'm no stranger to mouth pain. I went through the torture of having braces in Jr High which was basically two years of constant mouth pain and soft food. Then in my freshman year at college, I had my wisdom teeth taken out by a man that I once watched cut a tick out of my friend's butt with a scalpel. So I can handle a little moral ache.

I'm pretty sure it's just simple cavity and a simple trip to the dentist would have the whole filled with metal and me filled with pain killer and happy gas and my problems would be solved.

However, just like my issues with body oder, knowing how to fix a problem doesn't mean I want to do it.

Now before you go accusing me of having such a common and down right boring neurosis like a fear dentists let me explain myself. Unlike the millions of Americans who fear dentists and all their needles, drills and long, pointy metal tooth pointers for absolutely no good reason, I have three firm, realistic and sane reasons to not want to got to fix this problem.

First: Dentists are doctors. Doctors are for wusses.

Despite 25 years of evidence to the contrary, I have still managed to convince myself that I am a strong and manly individual. I could have been a crusader, marching across the known world to face death at the hands of heathens, blistering sun and sand in uncomfortable places. I could have been a mountain man, living alone in the woods for years with nothing but my gun and my beard for companionship.

Instead, I am a software developer.

I think the most dangerous thing I did this week was tell a coworker the break room soda machine was out of diet Mountain Dew.

Since I was cursed to be born in the 20th century, I have to find other things in my life, bare them with patience and tell myself that makes me tough.

Right now, I'm wearing this toothache as a badge of pride.

Second: I cannot shame my family.

My grandfather was a dentist. He was more then a dentist though, he was like a dentist character in a cartoon. Everything at his house revolved around teeth. I grew up reading dental propaganda in the form of children's books. I played with a Play-doh set where you made teeth, stuck them into this creepy plastic head and then yanked them out. They had me so brain washed, I really though that an apple was as good as a candy bar.

We were a family who brushed. We were a family who used mouth wash. We were not a family that flossed, but we always told grandpa we did when we went for a visit. Seriously, nobody flosses.

I still remember when I got my first cavity. I was in high school so I had driven myself to and from the dentists office (this was in Idaho, where apparently you're allowed to drive under the influence of medical painkillers). I still remember the look of disappointment I saw in my mother's face when I explained why I was drooling out of the left side of my mouth.

I never want to see that look again.

Third: Popcorn is awesome right now.

The cavity is right in between my two back teeth, which is normally the kind of place that popcorn kernels like to hang out for weeks, making me consider suicide. Now, the whole is big enough that any remains of the delicious movie treat can be easily removed.

It seriously a dream come true for me.

Fortunately for me, I'm married and my wife is used to me. She's got me an appointment for next week to get this taken care of, so I guess that's that.

Geek on.

They're like really flat vampires

2007-08-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

I had a good night.

I slept tight.

I should have known I was forgetting something.

I was very disappointed to learn that bed bugs really exist. I was even more disappointed to learn that they really do bite.

What really got me upset though, was when I learned that they bite me.

My wife and I recently discovered that we have a colony of bed bugs living in our mattress. To my wife, this was a disgusting and extremely annoying inconvenience. To me it was just plain shocking.

I don't think I would have been anymore surprised to wake up and find a unicorn chewing on my foot.

I probably wouldn't have been anymore shocked if I had found a small family of tooth fairies living in our closet.

Before the moment of actually seeing the bed bug crawling around our bed and the 45 minutes on Wikipedia doing bug related research (did you know that there's an entry for wet T-shirt contests) I would be more likely to believe that the strange bite marks we had been finding all over our bodies were from the Utah Chupacabra (much rarer than the Mexican variety).

I think the reason I would be more ready to accept on of these other supernatural possibilities over the prefect natural bed bugs is that until I smashed one with my own bare hands, I had no idea that bed bugs were perfectly natural.

Until the job people of the Internet gave me the low down, the only source I'd even heard of bed bugs from was my mom. Now my mother may make the best meatloaf on the planet. She, however, is no entomologist.

Ever since I've been legally able to ignore everything my mom told me, I've been operating under the assumption that everything my mother told me was wrong. I retroactively applied this theory to all the things she had told me in the past.
Since from the time I was in feety pajamas my mother warned me of two things, bed bugs and the witch that would come out of the kitchen closest after my bed time (my mother was an expert at child manipulation).

Now I have to accept that fact that my mom, the same women who told me that if ate all my vegetables I'd grow up big and strong like Superman (four hundred pounds of broccoli later I'm still only 5 foot 5 and get beat up by fifth graders on a regular basis), was actually right about something.

This changes everything, I literally have to rethink the way I view the whole world.

If there really are bed bugs, then maybe some of the other crap my mom told me was right too.

Maybe the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus really are watching me all the time, judging whether I got candy or underwear each year.

Maybe fat kids really do have feelings.

Wow, maybe some day I really will regret hitting my sister in the face with my yellow wiffle bat.

Nah, probably not that one.

That's it for me, I'm off to kill more bed bugs, that's what I do now.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is an former super gullible six-year-old who, once he got used the idea of his mom's competence is really enjoying having a whole new species to squish.

Oh Thank Heaven, For Mouthwash

2007-07-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

A fictional short story based on true events. This is version one, will see many rewrites

In Jack's defense, it was really hot that day.

Heat will make people do things they'd rather not. A health nut will buy ice cream. A serious business man will frolic in the sprinklers in his best suit. A middle aged woman will think that wearing a bikini is OK, even though she's let her body go in recent years.

Throughout human history, heat has lead to all kinds of horrible things, none any worse than what my best friend for life, Jack Pattywack, did that hot summer afternoon.

It was mid-August, which is the only month in Idaho when the asphalt actually melts enough you can write dirty words into it. Me, Jack and our other best friend Brian Batowski had been out mowing widow McGrady's lawn and trimming the edging.

We had tried to out smart the heat by starting really early in the morning before the sun had a chance to warm up and really start convincing people to do crazy things like play strip lawn darts.

There's only one real problem with this plan, no matter how early you start you have to actually finish quickly or the sun comes back. We'd been at it most of the day because we only actually worked when she'd come to the back door and holler at us.

It was a system that had served both parties well over the ten years since her husband died and we started doing her yard work. It gave us motivation to keep working and it got her off the couch once in a while after she cracked her hip.

Finally, by the time the heat was making swimming in a public pool sound hygienic, we decided to call it a day. We'd been at it for hours and old ladies don't play baseball or anything in their backyard anyway so it didn't have to be done anywhere she couldn't see from the house.

Being extremely financially responsible for three high schoolers, we decided that the way the ten dollars we'd earned would best serve us in the future was by buying Slurpees to keep us from dying from heat stroke.

We had to go halfway across town to find a Seven and/or Eleven that didn't have our pictures behind the counter. Once we found one that were our money was considered good the three of us when up to the Slurpee machine to make our selections.

“What ya gonna get gentlemen?” I asked.

“I'm gonna get the frozen Coke,” Brian told me.

“Don't you always get that?” I asked even though I knew full well that he did. Sometimes it's best to give the neurotic a chance to explain themselves.

“Well yeah, but why not?” he asked in that know-it-all tone that always accompanies a rhetorical question.

“Because you should really expand your horizons my friend.”

“I don't think so,” he responded. “It not like I've never tried the other kinds, I have and I like Coke best, it's a classic flavor and and American original.”

“What do they sponsor you now?”

“No but they should,” he grinned. “Besides, even if I hadn't, it's not like there's a lot of other horizons available to me. This is a four color Slurpee machine: red, blue, my brown and gree– Jack get your mouth off of that!”

I turned around a saw Jack suckling from the green Slurpee nozel like a baby calf.

“Dude, this is why Burger King doesn't have a soda fountain in the lobby anymore,” I reminded him pulling him back.

“I just wanted to know what flavor it was,” he muttered, as if it justified his lack of tact and candor.

“What do you mean you wanted to know what flavor it was?” I whispered harshly, trying to to draw the attention of the attendant who obviously didn't see what happened in the big round mirror they use to make sure no one shop lifts or takes the latest edition of “Shiny Cars and Skanky Women” out of it's protective plastic bag. “You know what flavor it is; it's green.”

“Green's a color not a flavor,” he said.

“Green is so a flavor,” I retorted.

“No it's not,” he said sounding a little to high and mighty for a guy who was just caught red-handed sucking on a public beverage dispenser. “It could be lime, green apple, watermelon or something entirely new and yet they just have it label as green. They're practically requiring I taste it. They probably want me to to try it so I can tell everyone else what it is.”

I sighed. “Everyone else already knows what it is. We're in Idaho, it's either lime, lime or lime. No fancy flavors here.”

Brian and I decided to delay our serious philosophical discussion until later and hurried out of there before Jack decided to put another part of the store in his mouth. I got a cup of red cherry, Brian filled up with his precious brown frozen Coke and Jack decided to stick with his green flavored one.

We payed and made our way outside to enjoy our spoils.

I squinted as I stepped out into the light. I stared up smugly at the sun, grinning that I had beaten him at his own game.

We took shelter under a large tree, full of leaves and home to several birds who treated us to a victory song. If you've never heard “Eye of the Tiger” performed by robins, you're missing out.

We sat down to discuss our big plans for the rest of the day.

“I say we go fishing down in the river,” Brian suggested.

“Nah,” I said, shaking my head “I lost my pole while we were running from the bees last time, remember.”

“Oh yeah.”

“You could just throw rocks at the fish,” Jack suggested. “You just throw sticks in the river most of the time anyway.”

I shrugged. I had to admit he had me there. I did think throwing sticks was more fun than holding one for a long time.

“I mean honestly Skippy, why do you even bother coming fishing with us?” Jack continued waving his Slurpee hand enthusiastically. “Do you truly understand the simple joy of the struggle between man and fish or are you jus–” he was interrupted by subtle plopping sound.

We all looked down and saw a sticky green fluid on his shoe.

Jack chuckled. “I must have split some Slurpee on my shoes,” he said. He bent down, wiped it off and licked his fingers clean.

In the matter of about a second and a half, I watched Jacks face changed from confusion to disgust and finally to horror.

“That's not Slurpee!” he yelled in terror. He dropped to his knees, looked up at the heavens and cried out “Nooooooooo!” just like in the movies.

His yelling scared the birds out the tree.

I like to take that whole "One man's trash" thing to an unhealthy level

2007-07-16T18:23:00.000-07:00

I used to think when I graduated college and got a really job that wasn't as a janitor, I'd finally be able to stop eating donuts from the garbage.

I was wrong.

As I look back at my life, I'm a little concerned to discover that most of my difficult moral questions have come from deciding when eating food out of a garbage can in an office somewhere was stealing and when I was morally justified in taking it.

You would probably be really concerned to discover how rarely I've considered whether or not eating such food was sanitary.

I'm not exaggerating though, I really used to spend a lot of time staring into garbage cans wondering if I was allowed – morally – to eat that last couple pieces of cake with so much frosting that no one wanted them.

I even looked to the Bible for guidance, but it didn't help. For a book supposed to have all the answers, it was strangely vague on the moral standing of dumpster divers.

I'm not one hundred percent sure on that though, I didn't check in the front part. I never read those chapters because I'm always afraid I'll find something I really like will send me to Hell.

If it turns out that double dipping in the salsa is a sin, I want to be able to plead ignorance.

These quandaries were pretty common for me too. Until my wife forbade me, I earned most of my income from various positions as a janitor. I enjoyed it. It was honest work, but simple and the only one that rewarded me for not being squeamish at the site of vomit.

The best part about being a janitor was those special occasion when I would find a treat, stashed away somewhere just for me.

I used to wonder if the people who worked in the office new what I was up to. I think some of them thought it was interesting, and would set up mazed of garbage for me to dig through like a lab rat through a maze, only instead of cheese, I got a slice of cold pizza.

Other employees, however, considered be a pest and would tied their food up in the tree, to keep me out.

Some times I have to team up with a bear to get at it.

Don't think I would just root around in the break room garbage like some kind of raccoon with a mop (the best stuff was always in the conference rooms), I did have standards: I'd only eat stuff that was separated from the “real” garbage by a box or bag.

Or if I was really hungry, a memo.

When I stopped janitating (the verb form of janitor for those of you still learning English) and got a real job in the other side of an office (the side that doesn't clean the toilet) I thought that the good times were over and I'd have to start paying for all my meals.

In truth however, things have gotten better, because now, as a full-time employee, I have access to the garbage long before the janitor even get there. It's like a dream come true.

I no longer wish I could be invited to meetings where they have donuts – one of which there was today – I just wait until the meeting finishes, the table is cleared and the lights are turned off. Then it's mine time to shine.

Or steal.

I really don't care anymore, it's a free donut.

Geek On

Also, turn your flash off

2007-06-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a big family trip to New York. A lot of stuff happened that probably wouldn't be funny if you were there.

I would like to give everyone a little travel tip. Don't take picture out of the window of the plane. I know to you, it's a priceless memory of your experience 50,000 feet over the Great Lakes, but to the rest of us, you look like a moron with 24 picture of the wing of your plane.

Geek on.

Five years and thousands of dollars later, they still get my name wrong

2007-05-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

Did you hear the distant rumbling on Saturday? It was faint, but it was distinct. It was the world changing.

Well my world at least.

As of two days ago, I’m officially a college graduate. No more going to class with out showering, no more counting pudding as a balanced meal, no more pretending that I know what I’m talking about for 20 or more pages.

No more.

People are often asking me if I walked. I did. It was an interesting experience.

They one email I did get about stuff (way back in February, thanks guys) said we were supposed to gather on the quad at 8:30. I may be perpetually late for class, but for work and meetings and stuff I deem important, I’m usually pretty punctual. I rocked up about twenty after. There were maybe 50 people there, only 3 at the spot for the College of Science.

On another note, it was really cold, windy and snowed a little. Those robes are not insulated at all and have no pockets. Basically everyone just stood around and wished their hands weren’t so cold.

It was about this time I realized I had to pee. Not a big deal. I figured I’ve had to pee during most of the important events in my life so far, why should my college graduation be in different?

"It shouldn’t" is the firm answer my bladder gave me.

As more and more people started to show up, I noticed that I didn’t know any of them. I was concerned why I was the only computer science major on the field. Was there a special graduation for us online? Was there some major project that was due in a few hours that I had completely forgotten? Was there a LAN party in the CS labs that I didn’t get invited to?

Eventually I just relaxed and realized that most computer science majors were in that particular field so that they wouldn’t have to walk through nature, especially when it’s cold, windy or early.

We then walked across campus to the Spectrum for the commencement ceremony.

I don’t know why I was so nervous walking that sidewalk I’d traveled many times before, I think it had something to do with the fact that I’d never worn a pointy hat and dress in front of that many people before.

This year BYU had Vice President Dick Cheney for their commencement speaker. We had a reverend from Salt Lake. Not as famous but a lot less controversial. He did a good job, talking a lot about the opportunities and responsibilities we will have in the future to share our time, talents and treasure with the community.

He later specified that the latter meant sometimes donating to the university when they called and asked for money.

I think they told him to say that.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to make this observation but as I was sitting there, I couldn’t help but notice that the higher ups on the stand kinda looked like wizards in their colorful robes and funny hats and all.

I also thought they looked like high ranking KKK members, but I figured, “you look like you can turn me into a frog,” would go over better than “You look like you hate black people.”

All in all, I’m glad I did it.

The commencement thing, the jury’s still out on college. We’ll see how this whole grown up life deal turns out.

I don't know what ado means either

2007-04-28T20:12:00.001-07:00

Part of the fun of being married the the world's cutest foreigner is that I get to learn the English language all over again through teaching it to her. It's fun, although sometimes I have to admit that I don't know as much about my native language as I would think.

For example, today, I realized I don't know what a pass is. Like if there were ever some bad guys getting away, and it fell to me to "cut them off at the pass," I would have to just stand where I was and hope that I was already there.

Geek on.

We all know that green is the bad boy of the colors

2007-04-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

So they ran a "meet the editors" thing in the paper today. Not my idea but not my section.

It was very colorful. Mine was on pastel blue.

The manliest of the pastels.

Geek on.

It's never sexy when you know the truth

2007-04-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Guys, if you ever hear a female say to another that she has a nick rack, she’s talking about the vast number of towels she has displayed in an artistic fashion.

Geek on

Deoderat Showers FTW

2007-04-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

I have a secret.

Lean in close and I’ll tell you.

I didn’t shower this morning. Can you tell?

Actually I’m really mad at myself. My new year’s resolution this year was to shower everyday before I go to work/class and I made it until today. 3 months and change is pretty good but I was so close.

I used to skip my morning shower all the time. I figured the 20 minutes was better spent sleeping than making myself not smell like cesspool. Some days I loved it. I was like a spy. I had a secret and I couldn’t let anyone get close to me or they’d find out. Most days though without a shower to truly wake me up, I’d just stagger around like some walking corpse: The undead – or, more accurately, the unwashed.

Anyway, today’s the one day a week I can get away with it so it’s ok. I’ll get some brains, I mean soap, working for me later.

Geek on.

Pre-emptive Critic: Music and Lyrics

2007-02-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

Peanut butter and jelly. Surf and Turf

Some things just go together. I’m hoping that “Music and Lyrics” and my eyes aren’t one of them.

I don’t like it because it’s a romantic comedy about an odd couple. I hate those. The only good movie about an odd couple was “The Odd Couple.”

Plus there’s just something about Hugh Grant macking on Demi Moore that gives me the heebies with just a touch of jeebies.
After Moore flashed her “music and lyrics” to David Letterman so many years ago, she’s been trying to shake her whore image. Now she’s paired up with Grant who ever since shaking a whore has been trying to save his career.

This combination just doesn’t work for me. It’s like cheese and breakfast cereal, it just doesn’t work.

And if by some weird chance it does, it shouldn’t.

I pre-emptively hate this movie.

Playing Command and Conquer doesn't count I'm afraid

2007-01-30T11:15:00.000-07:00

So I'm supposed to be writing a column about the military, but I don't really know that much about the real miltary. All I really know if what my uncle Mike has told me over the years and I'm sure he, being an Air Force man, has a little bais in that direction.

I’ll admit I’m not very familiar with the military that fights today’s wars. I am however really familiar with the military that fought in the conflict known as the Star Wars.

I’ve just been informed I’m not allowed to write a column about how what this country really needs to get out of Iraq is our own Death Star.

Of course, a Death Star is pretty much my answer to every problem.

Professor: Mr. Shinney would you like to turn your final project in?

Me: (brandishing a remote menacingly) Would you like some Death Star to the face?

Professor: You get an A.

Me: (continues to brandish)

Professor: I meant two As. Three. Four As and the naked female class mate of your choosing!

Geek on.

And I read that thing about the lady who died from too much water, now I'm really scared

2007-01-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

I’ve said before that I’m terrified of doctors. Not actually doctors in the way that if I say one on the street I would run like a little baby who could run, but going to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor because he (or she in theory but so far all my adult-life doctors have been men) always ask me to do things. Things that are good for me. Which usually mean things that will make me miserable.

Like when the doctor told me not to have dairy for 10, right over Christmas, prime eggnog season. Or the time I had to were wrist bracers that cut the feeling off in my fingers.

This last trip to the doctor, he told me to make sure I drink 64 ounces of water, everyday. 64 ounces! That’s not including any pop, milk or juice I may drink, it has to be pure water. I’ve never peed so much in my life.

And the problem is when I watch TV I discover that I have all the symptoms of bladder issues that they advertise medicines for. So I’m all paranoid that I have something seriously wrong with bladder or my prostate or something else down there in the important region and when they get to the end of the commercial they tell me to talk to me doctor and the whole horrible cycle begins anew.

Geek on.

stupid gnome rogue...

2006-12-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

Some one stabbed me in the stumach. If I find out it was you, I'm gonna be pissed.

Creepy and now 20% more crawly

2006-10-20T15:40:00.000-07:00

Many people think that we are safe here in our little valley, far away from anything that can hurt us. And to a point that’s true, we’re far away from the mummies of Egypt, but we have our own share of creepy crawlies that the rest of the world don’t have to worry about.

For obvious scientific reasons, I divide these into two categories: creepies and crawlies.

There are several things on USU that are flat out creepy. Any of the students who work one of the many “card-swiper” jobs on campus will tell you nothings quite as creepy as when people give them a card that has been in a back pocket so long that it’s taken the exact curvature of the owners butt cheek.

As far as crawlies go, I don’t think there’s anything more crawly in all of Logan than the Box Elder bugs. These little guys are everywhere and beyond the occasional satisfying pop sound, they are completely worthless.

Sometimes when I’m laying on my back trying to sleep, I wonder if anyone has ever filled a box with Box Elder bugs and given it to an LDS missionary.
I hope not.

That would be stupid in, like, six different ways.

The unspoken advantage of crotch rot

2006-10-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

When you're always itchy "down there" you never have to worry about your fly being down. You already know.

Geek on.

Stuff I decided not to publish for obvious reasons

2006-09-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

Always remember treat dating like a game.

I know a lot of people say they hate the games involved in dating. This is because they always lose.

I like games of any kind. Computer, video, board. If I can win, I will.

Dating is just a game and I won. I’m married. My wife is hot and one year later she still likes me.

That’s worth way more than any about of gold coins.

But if you want to win the dating games there are a few things you should know first. Consider this column your dating strategy guide, or teachers’ edition with the answers in the back.

The first thing you must do to ensure a flawless victory in dating is to understand the nature of the game.

Too many people are convinced that the teams are guys and against girls. No offense but this is about as retarded as the starting lineup of the special Olympics volleyball team.

Dating should never been seen as a contest between a man and a woman. Rather it is a desperate struggle against the demons of dieing alone.

When I hear "freakin'-A" I'm gonna switch to books

2006-09-06T18:43:00.000-07:00

I heard the word "Shiz" on tv the other day. Not the word "shiz" stands for, the actually word "shiz."

Since when do they Uthans write for television?

Preemptive Review of 'Snakes on a Plane"

2006-08-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

I ******* hate it when some ****** Hollywood producers think that their ****** doesn’t stink and they can make any ***** movie they ***** want.

It’s even ****** worse when they use snakes so ******* fake that it makes “Anaconda” look like ****** Lord of the ***** Rings.

And just a tip to the ****** who put the trailer together, don’t but the ******* ending of the **** movie in the ******* trailer. Where not dumb ******* here. We can ****** figure it out.

With the ****** rules in the ****** airport these days, it would be more like “Snakes in the ***** Security Line to get on the ******** Plane.”

For any *****s out there who don’t ******* know, the phrase snakes of a plane is ***** Internet lingo for something that doesn’t ****** make sense. Just like this ******* movie.

I preemptively ***** hate this ***** movie.

Preemptive Review of 'Pulse'

2006-08-04T15:33:00.000-07:00

Continuing the fine American tradition of ripping off the Japanese in everything they do, “Pulse” is next horror movie, featuring an attractive young cast, weak plot exposition and a bunch of androgynous monsters.

In the film a lovable college student dies and begins his final journey into the cosmic beyond. Like a good boy he sends a note to all his friends to let them know that he made it safely.

His friends, who don’t understand what email spam is, open the message and release a plague of the living dead upon the world.

They probably open attachments from strangers too.

Retards.

Apparently now zombies are using the Internet against us.

And you thought pop up ads were annoying.

Fortunately the endless swarms of demons or ghost or zombies or what ever these things are stand no chance against the deductive powers of Veronica Mars who’s on the case.

So let’s review the important security tips this movie provides. 1) Don’t give your password to anyone. 2) Don’t post your address on any Web site. 3) Don’t open emails from beyond the grave. 4) Never, ever, under any circumstances, punch the monkey.

I preemptively hate this movie.

A Preemptive Review of Accepted

2006-08-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

Ah high school, the best four years that you can’t wait to end.

Does anyone else remember the movie “Camp Nowhere,” the one where the kids make up their own summer camp to avoid spending the summer bonding with their parents?

The makers of American Pie are sure hoping you don’t or else it would spoil the ending of “Accepted” and that would just be tragic.

Goofy looking star Justin Long finds out the hard way that life after high school is just as full of people just waiting to give you a wedgie as are on any high school football team.

But rather than sucking it up like a man and going to a trade school or BYU or something like that, Long decides to create a college so “awesome” that checking out babes is a class.

I mean what are you going to do with that degree? Besides teach of course.

Still not convinced that this movie will be a total waste of time? Just think of it this way. It’s an American Pie movie with a PG-13 rating which pretty much removes the only reasons to watch an American Pie movie.

Besides, you never forget your first made up college.

I preemptively hate this movie.

In China: Post 8

2006-06-08T08:07:00.000-07:00

------------Monday, May 29, 2006---------------

Yesterday was a laid back Sunday. I wrote, everyone else played cards. We ate dinner. That was really about it.

Today was basically the same, except around three o clock we all went out for a walk through the People’s Sqaure and down Nanjing Road. We went to the bund too but the air wasn’t clear at all. You could hardly see across the river. Afterwards we went out for hot pot again. This one was a sort of backwards though. Instead of boiling food in spicy and then dipping it into flavor, we boiled it in flavor and then dipped it in spicy. It was good.

That’s really all I have to say about the last two days.

----------Wednesday June 1, 2006---------------

Yesterday was another day just spent hanging around the apartment. Around noon Gugu and Gufu took Sally’s parents to the train station and me and Sally watched movies. Ping Ping has a small collection of bootleg movies. This isn’t surprising. Bootlegging is pretty big business here. There are people on a lot of the bigger street corners with boxes set out full of DVDs and VCDs all for about 8 kaui. I haven’t bought any and I don’t plan too. You can get legal movies for only three times that which is still much cheaper than in the USA and sits a lot easier on my conscience. I’ll admit it’s tempting sometimes. The illegal ones are very new movies. I’ve seen Mission Impossible III, the 911 movie and even X-men III (the real temptation) available for purchase. The quality isn’t very good though. The ones we all watched were copies of preview versions and would go black and white from time to time while a warning against piracy would scroll across the screen. The Chinese subtitles were so bad, Sally didn’t even use them much. It seemed like it was done by someone without spending too much time on the project or having a great sense of the English language,

Today was our last day in Shanghai. It followed the pattern of the last few days with us not being too busy. We packed up out things and bummed around I watched Germany play Japan in a pre-World Cup friendly. Another one of Sally’s college roommates came to visit. She’s living in Shanghai but was too busy studying for the GMAT to come and see Sally until now. The two of them caught up until it was time for dinner.

Everything that we have eaten in Shanghai, that wasn’t from a restaurant, was made by Gufu and Gugu. They have taken over cooking responsibilities for Ping Ping and Jeff since they moved in a few months ago. From what I’ve seen and gathered, this is a fairly common arrangement in China. The food was all good, some of it (Gufu’s lamb) was super good, but it was all about the same everyday. Jeff said that he never tells Gugu and Gufu if something is good because they’d make it everyday and never says if something is bad because it would hurt their feelings. Sounds like good advice to me. One of the most frustrating things here is actually meals. Chinese have such a different way of eating; it’s really hard for me. There are no levels of preference towards food. You love it and want to eat it constantly, or you hate it and anyone who even thought of feeding it to you. I can’t say that “I don’t love seafood,” because if I did, they’d never give me any, but when I say “I love seafood,” I have to eat it all. As awesome as the food was I’ll be glad for something else. This is actually the way I’m starting to feel about Chinese food in general. I love it, but American life has spoiled me, I’m used to too much variety. Of course I’m still going to eat as much Chinese food as I can while I’m here because I may not come back for a few years and I want to enjoy what I can while I can.

Once Jeff got home we loaded up into the car to go. It was sad to say goodbye to our family in Shanghai, they’d been so good to us. We hope they can come to the US soon so we can repay the kindness (hopefully they don’t come before we have money though, or else they’re really going to be disappointed). It was also sad to say goodbye to Shanghai, a city that I still don’t really think I understand. It’s so big and growing so fast, I want to come back some day and try and figure out more about it. But not permanently, I get a real “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here” vibe from the city.

Jeff drove us through the busy Shanghai streets to the airport. Traffic was pretty bad. It may have been the worst I’ve seen in China but I think that I think that just because you pay more attention when you’re in a car than you do when you’re in a bus. China has started having more and more cars on the road recently. Because gas is such a concern (although it’s priced similarly to how it was back home when we left) most of the cars are either really new models with good mileage or have a manual transmission. Most of the cars are from Japan or Korea but American cars are starting to become more common. Jeff drove a Ford and I’ve seen a few Chevys too. According to Jeff Dodge is known for their bigger vehicles rather than cars.

We finally got to the airport and made our way to our terminal. In the parking lot we past a small crowd of people gathered around a disturbance of some kind. Like I’ve mentioned before, Chinese people love a free show off any kind and are ashamed to stand around it. If you see a group of people flocking together, you can bet there’s something to see. Of course, there’s rarely much indication as to what the commotion is about. What they consider a good show is could be anything from a grisly murder to a big fat white baby and the only way to know is to push your way to the front to get a look for yourself.

Finding our flight was not the easiest thing we’ve ever done. We waited for a while at one gate and were then sent to another. We were all gathered in this second gate, and rumors started floating through the masses that we had moved again. By now it was about an hour after we were supposed to board so people were pretty frustrated. Me and Sally stayed cool though and when it turned out we were at the right gate we were able to ride the flow of humanity right into our plane.

The flight from Shanghai to Beijing was about 2 hours long. Even though it was really short it had a lot of turbulence. Still it was pretty nice, we had headphones and they were showing highlights of the World Cup qualifiers so I was pretty entertained for the duration of the flight. We landed and had to find our tour group. In Shanghai the guy from the tour agency who was supposed to make sure everyone knew where to go put Sally in charge of an old couple who looked like they would probably get lost if left to their own devices however when we got off the plane we weren’t at a gate, we had to climb down the stairs-truck (which I’ve always wanted to do, just like all the spies and celebrities do in the movies) and take a bus to the terminal. Some how in the process we lost the old people. Our tour guide, Yang Dao, was waiting for us and eventually was able to round us all up. We went to another gate to wait for another group who were taking a different plane. While we were waiting Sally went to use the restroom. She was in there for a bit and the other group came so Yang Dao herded everyone to the bus. I didn’t say anything because Sally had been gone so long I figured she was right about to come out and we could run and catch up. I kept moving further from the restrooms to keep the group in sight and finally decided that this plan wasn’t going to work. I chased after Yang Dao and told him we still had someone in the restroom. In the meantime Sally came out and thought I had left her. Fortunately we met up and were able to meet up and get on the bus. By now it was well after midnight. As our bus went to our hotel, Yang Dao talked a bit about our tour and what we would do. I didn’t catch much up with it. It was all that I could do to stay awake. I did catch when we had to wake up, 5:45 a.m. By the time we got checked in and everything, it was 1:30 a.m. Not a good way to start a three-day tour, but when you consider what can happen on a three-hour tour, you take what you can get.

-------------------Thursday, June 01, 2006--------------

We woke up early, as requested, and had breakfast with the rest of our group. Breakfast was pretty much the same each day. We had eggs (hard boiled or course, always hard boiled), coconut cake, mantou (steamed biscuits) and some small salad type dishes. This early in the morning though, you don’t care what you eat, you just want to eat, so I did. Afterwards we all piled onto the bus and made our way toward the first stop in our tour.

Every other city I’ve been too, I’ve tried to take note of my first impressions as we drove through the city. This time however, I don’t have any though, I was unconscious the whole time. What I can say is that it’s hot. Shanghai was hot and humid but you would get a breezy coming off the water. No such luck in land-locked Beijing. It’s really hot and really stuffy. Today the temperature was up to 40 degrees Celsius, which is really hot. Stupid heat.

I woke up when we got to Gong Wang Fu, which is a palace that has been turned into a tourist stop. In China, the past is big business. People want to learn about their past. Unlike in America, where only some people choose to skip the amusement park to visit the historical site, here the important places in history are the big draw. I love history so that’s fine with me. It is a little different for me here though where I’m not very familiar with the events that made the spot worth noting, but it’s still interesting. I’m going to have to do some research when I get some to fill in a few of the gaps. Most of the places were still really beautiful without too much of an understanding so I was able to appreciate them on several levels. And I have plenty of photos to go with it.

Gong Wang Fu was a really neat place. It was a lot like Fuzi Miao in Nanjing but it was different style of architecture. Also Fuzi Miao dealt a lot with the old character for tiger and Gong Wang Fu was all about the character Fu, which means blessings or happiness. The character was all over the place as were carvings of bat. In Chinese, there are a lot of words that are pronounced the same and are only differentiated by context. This has led to many puns over China’s long history, and contributes heavily to their symbology. The character for bat is also pronounced fu and so bats are considered a sign of good fortune. There are a lot of other examples in Chinese but this is the one most applicable to our trip to Beijing.

One of the biggest attractions at Gong Wang Fu was a fu character carved by Cangxi (the emperor from the Qing Dynasty who lived the longest and was one of the residents of Gong Wang Fu) into a rock in a cave at the base of a small hill on the palace grounds. The character has become sort of a Chinese Blarney Stone. However, rather than traveling from around the world to kiss a rock to give themselves good luck, at Gong Wang Fu, people travel from around the country to rub the glass in front of a word carved into stone in order to ensure good luck and health for their family. This strikes me as a lot less selfish, not to mention infinitely more sanitary. Sally and I rubbed the face of the stone, so if anybody won the lottery or anything like that recently, now you know why and we want our cut. Supposedly, the character was blessed years ago by a Buddhist monk, making the character impossible to take a picture of. To me it sounds like a legend made up to explain why the flash bouncing off the glass ruined everyone’s photo, but I may just be too skeptical.

As part of our tour in the palace, we were taken into a pavilion for tea, snacks and a performance like the emperor would have watched. The snacks were good but the tea had tea leaf in it so we didn’t partake. The show considered of some dancers, a young boy who balanced a big heavy looking pot on his head and did tricks and a singer. It was interesting but I’m glad it was short. If I had remained sitting down in a darkened room for too long, I would have fallen asleep. After the show we finished our tour of the palace and took as many pictures as I could. I was concerned about our batteries for the rest of the day so I didn’t use the view finder or the zoom for most of the pictures, opting instead to just crop and edit when I get back to America, the home to my computer with Photoshop and a mouse. Still, a lot of them look all right as is. All this places are so packed with tourists that it’s impossible to get a lot of the shots I would have liked without a hundred people in them. Our tour concluded – as they most do, regardless of country – in a gift shop. The special item at this stop were hangable paintings of the character fu, supposedly all made from a rubbing of the original character under the hill. Chinese leaders are often known for their penmanship and their writing can be worth a lot of money. Cangxi’s characters are especially valuable because apparently he didn’t write very much. Based on the amount they seemed to sell each day, Sally says she doubts they’re real. I guess she’s a bit of a skeptic too. About half of our group wasn’t as untrusting. About half of the 30 people in our group bought one. We figured we were the poorest of our tour, everyone else seemed to be snagging up the pricey stuff while Sally haggled for a couple kuai off a T-shirt.

After Gong Wang Fu, we got back in the bus and headed to Tiananmen Square. The first thing we did once we got there was pile our bags at Yang Dao’s feet because we were going to Mao Zedong’s tomb and you can’t take anything in with you. There’s a granite building in the square that houses Mao’s body. When we went there was quite a line of people waiting in the hot sun to get in that wrapped a good way around the building. There were guards the whole way making sure no one had bags, cameras or bottles. I guess they’ve had some problems in the past and didn’t want any repeats. It was kinda strange to see armed security when you don’t even see cops with guns very often. Right before the door was a small stand selling flowers, an ironic bit of capitalism at the resting place of the father of Chinese communism. We filed in and around a statue of Mao sitting in a chair that some people would walk up to and bow down in a form of worship called baibai (Sally says many old people still revere him as a god). Behind the statue was a huge pile of flowers laid by that day’s visitors. After that we went into the room where Mao’s preserved body is kept in a glass coffin. It was dead silent in there, very different from Sun Zhongshan’s tomb which echoed with the sound of tour guides and tourists Of course, Mao was actually part of many people’s lives, while Sun is probably too far removed to be real.

It’s strange to see everyone paying such respect to Chairman Mao. Even though I’m trying to gather enough information about the man to have a real opinion of my own, I still have the inborn reaction that Mao was a monster from what they teach us in America. I’ve heard the whole gamut of opinions about the man. I’ve talked to those who see him as a deity and to some who think he was worse than Satan. Both sides spout off reasons, all of which sound more like repeated propaganda than facts. I’m fully aware that the Chinese government hasn’t always told the truth, but I’m not stupid enough to completely trust the American or especially the Taiwanese on a topic this sensitive. History is always tricky though. They say that history is written by the winners but really everyone, win lose or draw, all have their own version of past. Everyone is convinced their version is right too. It’s tough nut to crack but I’ve got a long time to go in front of me to figure out if he was a great man with some horrible ideas or a horrible man with some great ideas or somewhere in between.

After we went through the tomb, we picked up our stuff and looked around the rest of Tiananmen Square. Unlike every other square that I’ve been to in China, Tiananmen is all concrete with no grass, flowers or trees. There’s a big monolith dedicated to the heroes of the revolution and a few street lamps but that’s about it. It’s a pretty big square too. There were a lot of people there, many of them obviously tourists. There were of course lots of people selling Mao watches, book about him and Beijing Olympics memorabilia. Naturally they all came up to me but, with the exception of a hat for a few kuai, we held strong. We should have been stronger; it was a pretty crappy hat. We took some photos and bought some ice water. That’s how you can tell your in a Chinese tourist destination, they have ice water.

Tiananmen Square wasn’t what I expected. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t like it at all. I think we have such a powerful image in our collective mind when we hear the name Tiananmen Square that it’s hard to think of it as an actually place where people go everyday, not just an event in history. In truth, a lot more than that one infamous event happened there. A lot of it good a lot of it bad. Still, when you go there now, if you don’t know you’re history, you wouldn’t think anything had happened at all. There’s no plaque, no monument, no apology to the world. Nothing. Like I said, I don’t know what I was expecting. I’m sure if you go to Kent State back home, you won’t see too much of anything. Sometimes it’s best just to move on and leave history in books so that the rest of the world can get on with their lives.

Our last official stop of the day was Gu Gong, or as it’s most commonly known, the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was the center of the Chinese government through most of the last two Dynasties (Ming and Qing). When the emperor moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing in order to be closer to the troubled northern border with the Mongolians, they built the Forbidden City for royal family at court. It’s by far the biggest palace that I’ve been to. Much much bigger than any of the other’s we’ve visited. It had several large buildings and many small ones, all surrounded by a thick, high wall and moat. In the middle was a large, open, stone courtyard that echoed as you walked through it. You could close you eyes and imagine thousands of imperial guards standing watch over the home of their king, just like in the movies. It was just like they showed it in “The Last Emperor,” which is a good movie, but really really long so I don’t recommend it unless you want to learn way more about the man than you ever wanted to. Just what “Shanghai Noon” they show the courtyard in that one too, and it’s a better film. It has punching. Anyway, when the Manchurians of Qing Dynasty rose to power, they kept the palace as their main center of power. Both dynasties had other palaces and residences but the Forbidden City was the big one. When the communist came to power, they set the site aside as a historical site and began restoring it as the museum it is today.

There were many exhibits throughout the palace. We didn’t have time to explore it all, but we did see a lot of the wealth of the emperors in the form of the jewelry that they wore and the decorations they had. Yang Dao lead us through the place and explained what everything was. There was English on most of the explanations but it was usually shorter and less detailed than the Chinese so it was nice to have him there to fill in the gaps. I feel bad about how little I know about Chinese history, but I feel pretty good about how much I’m learning. The Forbidden City was another one of those places in China that I’ve dreamed about seeing for a long time and it was really exciting to see it.

After the Forbidden City our group went to dinner. It wasn’t a very nice restaurant, but it was a bit nice than the one we had lunch at. This time at least we got chairs instead of stools. After dinner Yang Dao told us there was a street similar to Nanjing Rd not far from where we were. Those who wanted to could walk the block to go check it out; those who didn’t could sit in a small park and wait for an hour. Some of the older people were starting to get a bit cranky so Sally and I decided it would be more fun to go shopping. On our way over, we passed through a night market. Most of the stalls were selling snacks. We were tempted to get some lamb kabobs but they were more expensive than they are in Dalian so we figured we could hold out of a couple of days. We strolled though the night market just enjoying the sites and smells of the place. Well most of them. Everyone once in a while the fragrant aromas of roasting lamb, sugared fruit and boiling soup would be replaced by a smell very similar to poop. Sally said the smell came from intestines, which makes sense because that’s where most animals keep their poop.

After shopping we got back on the bus. Even though it was only 8:00 by the time we were back in our hotel we were pretty tired. I took a shower while Sally realized what a dump we were staying in. It was a pretty low class hotel and we just didn’t realize it the night before because we were so stinking tired. Still it was only for a few nights and we were having a Beijing adventure so it was going to have to be all right.

------------------Friday, June 02, 2006----------------------------

We woke up bright and early today and made our way to the bus. I was really excited because I knew that today was the day we’d go to the Great Wall. However, that was our last stop of the day, we still had a lot to get through first. Yesterdays stifling heat was gone, replaced with gray clouds that looked down menacingly. The first place we went to was a jade showcase. In China tourism is a big moneymaker but like most businesses, it’s based heavily on connections. Most of the tour companies make deals with shops like this one: If we bring you groups of out of towners with money to burn and you give us a cut of your sales. Because of this we were constantly being brought to places trying to temp us into purchasing luxury items. This place was easy to overcome the temptation, as most of what they had was large, intricately craved jaded statues. Most of these cost thousands or tens of thousands of kuai more we had. Still it was fun to look at them. They had some really neat stuff including a huge jade boat and a pair of tigers that were not too much smaller than real life. Jade is really big in Chinese culture, especially for the older generations. I can’t deny it’s a really pretty stone and it’s amazing what they can do with it.

So after we got out the jade store I was all psyched up to go to the Great Wall. We all piled into the bus and set off for a super market. I was really kicking myself at this point for sleeping when I first got on the bus instead of listening to Yang Dao. Each part of China has it’s own local dishes that are known across the country, Beijing’s is so good that it’s known around the world: Roast duck. This place sold vacuumed packed roast duck. Like Winco on a Saturday, there was a lady standing guard over a pan filled with shredded roast duck and a box of toothpicks. I’ve said how much I like duck. I’ve had Beijing roast duck in America and in Australia but people were always telling me how much better it is actually in Beijing. Based on as much information you can gather from a free sample, I have to agree with them. We bought a duck to eat with Sally’s family when we got back. We didn’t feel like we were spending too much money though, not when we saw other people piling as many as ten into their carts.

Beijing is also known for it’s dried and preserved fruits. We bought a couple of boxes to give as gifts. We also bought some packs of flower tea and vacuumed-packed bag of rabbit meat (really not that good, but it may have been the sauce it was packed with). Sally was really excited to see so many snacks that she grew up with and wanted to buy more but resisted for fear we wouldn’t have enough money to get through the rest of our trip. I can’t say that I blame her. If I lived here for four years and then went home, it’d be hard to resist a store full of Cheetos and Oreos.

Our next stop was actually really interesting to me. It was a house of wax that showed the rise and fall of the Ming Dynasty. Before I came here I had heard of the Ming Dynasty, knew it was the second to last one and had heard of a Ming vase. It was nice to know some the real history. The Ming Dynasty was an important time in Chinese history and was full of interesting characters with fascinating stories. There were some great leaders and some horrible ones. Our museum guide did a good job explaining things but she spoke into a speaker that was sometimes hard to understand. Fortunately there were English explanations that I was able to read (I’m really good at that)

Most of the explanations mentioned the people being buried at a place called the Ming Tombs. I was curious about what they were but before I could ask we were put back on the bus and whisked away to them. The Ming Tombs are 13 tombs that house many of the leaders of the Ming Dynasty. We only went to one, the final resting place of Zhu Di, the second emperor of the Dynasty, the one who moved the capitol to Beijing. He was a good leader, both at governing his people at home and conquering new land, and built a good foundation for the Dynasty. Along with a peaceful garden and big mausoleum, the tomb featured a museum about Zhu Di, filled with artifacts that have been recovered. As a side note, all the emperors of the Ming Dynasty had the family name Zhu. The same name as Sally.

Finally, after waiting all day (although I’ve technically been waiting my whole life) we headed up the mountains to the Great Wall. The part of the wall we visited sits on the top of a very steep series of mountains covered by a dense forest. These natural barriers combined with the mighty wall made it such an intimidating position that no battle was ever fought there. Still the impressive structure stretches out as far as the eye can see in both directions, winding its way along the peaks of the mountains. No sooner than we had started our accent up the mountain toward the historic site, then it started to rain. It didn’t rain so hard that we needed more than the ponchos that friendly people offered us for two kuai each, but it was enough to make taking pictures difficult and climbing the wall slippery. Before we could climb the way, we first had to get up it. There are several methods of going up the steep slope including gondolas on a wire, like the sky ride at Lagoon. We took these small one-person cars that are pulled up the incline on a chain, like a roller coaster. It wasn’t until we getting pulled up and me feet were higher up than my head that I realized just how steep it was here. Because of the rain, most people weren’t in the mood for much climbing, preferring instead to cower in those big towers that you see spread out intermittently along the wall. Once we were able to push our way through the crowd, we were able to climb with our too many people. There were still people though, and they tending to walk right in the way of our photos. We climb up the hero slope, which was by far the steepest section we could find. It lead up to a solid brick wall where people were talking photos to prove they had done it. It was quite a climb. Personally I don’t think anyone should be allowed to wear one of those “I climbed the Great Wall” shirts unless they get up the Hero Slope. There were three younger guys in our group that were surprised that we made it up there. I don’t think they realized I was their age. Actually they were surprised that Sally could make it.

We made our way down the slope after we got as many pictures as we could. In was so foggy you couldn’t see very far away so the didn’t turn out as well as we had hoped. On the way down Sally stopped to haggle for some T-shirts. I was a good little white boy and went on up ahead so no one would think we were together. While I was waiting another vendor tried to sell me something. Usually these people just say “Hello, _________” and fill in the blank with whatever they’re selling i.e. “Hello, DVD” of “Hello, watch.” I told her in Chinese that I was fine and I was just waiting for my friend and that we would soon be going. I guess that threw off her sales pitch because for a second she didn’t seem to know what to do. I missed this. In an English speaking country, it usually throws people for a bit of a loop when they find out I can speak Chinese. Here, people usually are pleasantly surprised but not shocked. Suddenly she asked how to say bracelet in English (she probably hadn’t been able to sell very many until now) I told here, showed her how to spell it and helped her with pronunciation. Other vendors came over from nearby stalls to learn and practice with us. They asked me how to say a few other items that they have for sell. I helped them with some of the harder sounds in English. It was a total flash back to my beginning English class back in Sydney. Before long, Sally finished her shopping and I had to leave my impromptu language school behind. People keep telling me I should open an English school here, maybe they’re right.

-------------------Saturday, June 3, 2006------------------------

Today we didn’t do as much as the rest of the group. We were supposed to go to a couple of places that cost extra money to get into and we were running low on cash. We only brought so much with us to Beijing and didn’t know how many of these events would cost extra money, it’s not like we’re starving. Plus we weren’t really in the mood to go to the first place. It is the ruins of another palace, one that was burned by French and British Forces during the Opium War. From what Yang Dao said, it sounds like this place has been turned into a site to show the horrors China has suffered at the hands of foreigners. I considered trying to explain that we have place in America that were burned by the British, like the White House, but figured it really didn’t matter. The rest of the group went in for two hours, leaving Sally and me to hang out with the driver.

The driver had a Gameboy so we decided to entertain ourselves. We were really close to the campuses of several of biggest universities in China. We went to Qinghua University and looked around. Sally said that Qinghua is a technical school and could be compared with MIT for it’s level of prestige. It was a really nice campus and fun to walk around. When we got there it was still really early in the morning so there wasn’t many people there. By the time we left though it was as bustling as an American University during the week, even though it was Saturday.

We got back on the bus and were taken to our next forced shopping experience. This time, rather than hawking jewelry or roasted ducky goodness, they were selling life. At least that’s what you would assume by listening to them. In truth they sold Tibetan medicine. They worked out of a small hospital (at least I assume it was a real hospital, there was a sign on the ground floor pointing to the OB/GYN) and had some specialists who would look at your palm and feel your pulse and tell what was wrong with you and them prescribe you some expensive pills from some Tibetan flowers. This may sound suspicious to the average Westerner but I take this stuff all in stride now. There was 1 time I thought that all Eastern medicine was bunk, but that was before my mission. In the last five years I’ve seen too much to back it up for me to just dismiss it. Plus I’m a big enough boy to admit that just because I don’t understand something doesn’t make it not true. And it’s not like I really understand how Western medicine works anyway. Anyway, these doctors looked at everyone’s hands. Most people were prescribed pills and some bought them. Both me and Sally let them take a look. The doctor was able to correctly tell us what kind of health problem we had (fatigue for Sally, mysterious stomach problems for me) so their method of diagnosis seemed to have some merit, but the business side of things was pretty darn shady. As soon as we told them we couldn’t buy anything they started to haggle with us on just how many pills we needed to get better. That falls in the dodgy category of my book. So the moral of the story: Trusting Chinese medicine is like eating a burrito; if it’s from a registered dealer, you’re fine but you’re just looking for trouble if you get it from so weirdo in a back alley.

The next stop was supposed to be at the Beijing Aquarium but that was an extra 75 kuai a person and Dalian has one as well that we were planning to visit and I don’t think an hour is enough time to really appreciate something like this so we took a nap on a bus instead.

The next stop was another shopping place (if I ever start a tour company, our business model will be no kick backs because this was getting a little annoying) this time selling cloisonné. This time it wasn’t so bad though because it was pretty interesting. Cloisonné is a beautiful Chinese art form, dating back over three hundred years. It’s the way they make all those really colorful vases. Before they tried to sell us anything, they took us for a tour of the plant where they make the cloisonné before they sell it. Even in today’s modern age, cloisonné has to be done entirely by hand. First they cut small pieces of copper plating and bend in into cookie cutter type shapes. These molds are then soldered to the copper vase. They then fill the various shapes with colorful enamel to make beautiful patterns and pictures. The vase is then baked in a kiln, polished and shipped to the sales floor. The final product is really quite beautiful and Sally and I have decided that when we’re old and have a big house we’ll buy a nice vase.

The next place we went (or the first place if you look at it the way I did) was the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was the warm weather residence of Cixi and other important figures in the royal family during the Qing Dynasty. Cixi was an empress who controlled the country behind the scenes and is generally considered to be the reason the Dynasty eventually failed. She built the palace and ordered that it resemble Xi Hu in Han Zhou. The two places really are very similar. The whole place was really beautiful and since a picture is worth a thousand words I’ll just show pictures later to anyone who cares.

After dinner we went to another jade store. They took us in back to have a lady explain how to tell real jade from fake jade. A few people in our group were a little sarcastic with her and she broke down. The boss was brought in because he was from Shanghai (as were most of our group). He talked to our group, got them laughing and offered them a 90% off discount because he only wants to make money off foreigners (I’m pretty sure I didn’t think I could understand him). Almost everyone bought something but as we drove away they were pretty sure that he had still sold them fakes.

Rather than having dinner with our group we ate with a girl that Sally knew in college and her husband. It was nice to talk to people who I was able to understand and the Sichuan style restaurant was really nice but not so expensive that I felt bad. The only problem was they lived on the other side of Beijing so by the time we got back to the hotel it was really late. We figured it was no big deal. There was only one more place to visit tomorrow and it cost more money and we really didn’t care. Plus we would have to leave early to make out plane that was going to Dalian so we decided to just sleep in, miss the tour and then head to the airport. It was the perfect plan.

-------------------Sunday, June 04, 2006------------------------

Except that it failed. Yang Dao was fine with us not going, but with the rest of our group gone our deposit went with them. The hotel wanted a 100 kuai deposit just to sleep for another hour. We decided it wasn’t worth the headache and packed up. Our group was gone by now so we took the subway to a place were you could buy tickets on an airport shuttle bus. The bus was really nice and I was left wondering how to take a tour on one of those instead. On the plan ride home, I made friends with a little boy who had technically stolen my seat. Sally and I figured it be better for us to be split by the aisle than him and his mom so we gave them our spot. The plane ride was only an hour long and before we know it we were back in Dalian. We threw our stuff on my back and caught a bus across town. We came home, had lunch and I just crashed, sleeping for the next three hours. We went out for hot pot for dinner.

In China: Post 7

2006-05-27T23:02:00.000-07:00

---------------Friday, May 26, 2006--------------------

There was actually a reason for getting up so early. We had to hit the road to get to Hangzhou. Hangzhou is a famous tourist spot in China and is often described as paradise on earth. Also an old city, Hangzhou was described by Marco Polo as the finest place in China. There is a lot of history involved and even more beautiful scenery. Hangzhou is also known for it’s beautiful women, but since I took the best looking girl in all China there with me, I wasn’t too impressed. Ping Ping wasn’t able to go but Jeff was able to trade his car for a friend’s minivan and drive us around. He’d been to Hangzhou a couple times and knew basically where we were going.

As soon as we got there we were instant set apart as tourist because we had Shanghai license plate (Chinese plates are like Idaho plates, you can tell where a car is from by the number on it) and people were running through traffic to offer to be our tour guides for just 20 kuai an hour. You know how must people have one profession they just can’t stand, be it lawyers or salesmen or telemarketers? Well Jeff hates tour guides, so he would argue with them until traffic a head of him had cleared, told them OK and then drove away before they could get in the car.

Our first stop in Hangzhou was the famous and beautiful Xi Hu (West Lake). West Lake has been a popular tourist destination for centuries. Many a famous poet, statesman and general have stayed or lived there. We parked our car and started to walk around the lake. It’s not a big lake, much smaller than Bear Lake. You can drive around the circumference in a golf cart in about an hour. There are a lot of pretty parks and pavilions. They play relaxing music over some well-hidden speakers that adds to the atmosphere. There were several people taking advantage of the relaxing area by practicing Tai Chi. The first place we stopped was a restroom that I swear was the nicest one in all of China. I would have taken a picture but Sally had the camera with her at the time. We took a lot of other picture though, mostly of the pretty scenery. Hangzhou was another one of those places that I’ve really wanted to go for quite some time so it was really fun to see what all the fuss was about.

We walked about a quarter of the way around the lake before we came to its star attraction, Leifeng Ta (Thunder Peak Tower). Leifeng Tower is a tall Buddhist pagoda that was originally built about a thousand years ago to house a relic of a Buddha. The tower stood until the early 20th century when it collapsed. It was rebuilt a few years ago on the old (now steel reinforced) foundation as a place for tourist to go. The tower has been romanticized in legend, especially the Story of White Snake. The Story of White Snake has been around for a long time, being retold as a famous opera and television series. It’s about a pair of snakes who take the form of people. One of them falls in love with a man and marries him. A Buddhist monk decides that snakes turning into people must be demons and devotes his life to fighting them. To make a long story short White Snake is eventually imprisoned in the tower. The tower sits on top of a high mountain, which is now accessible by stone steps and an escalator. We were a bit behind Gugu and Gufu so we ran up the steps to catch them. I was about to turn around once I got to the top and yell “Adrian!” but I figured no one would get the joke. Inside the tower are a serious of detailed carvings showing the story of White Snake and some important Buddhist legends as well as paintings showing the original building of the tower. From the top you can look down and see all of West Lake, lying before you. At the bottom there is a small museum showing so artifacts that were found when the tower was excavated including the original container of the relics (in this case, a lock of hair).

After we went through the tower, we took a cart around the rest of the way. We didn’t get to stop and take picture very much, but it would have taken all day to walk around the whole thing. We found a small little street to eat dinner. I know this sounds weird but it was like a Chinatown in China. There were a lot of Chinese restaurants and small stalls selling snacks and tourist trinkets. By this point it had started raining pretty heavily so we ate our lunch in a noodle house. We pretty much all got the same thing, a big bowl of noodles in lamb broth with a big chunk of lamb meat. After wards we huddled under umbrellas and ate a skewer of what they said was venison. The meat was a fair bit lighter than I remember deer meat being but it’s been a while since I’ve had it and it could have been a different species of deer so I’ll with hold my judgment.

After lunch we went to the other place we planed to visit, Linchen Ci, which is a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Hangzhou. Its really cool, on minute your walking in a modern Chinese alley, the next your in this hidden jungle paradise with stone statues covered in moss and vines all the way us this tree covered mountain. The temple has been around for centuries. Across from it is a hill that looks like its right from out of a movie. Hidden amongst all the dense vegetation are many stone Buddhas craved right out of the rock. The mountain was really steep but stone steps lead up to many of the statues. That doesn’t mean climbing them was easy, the steps were really steep and slippery from the days rain. Only Gugu and Sally’s dad went into the actually temple, it cost money but they wanted to go in and worship. Neither are devote Buddhists but that’s not required. Meanwhile the rest of us waited outside. Sally and I climbed up and down the mountain taking pictures, which I think will convey what this place was like a lot better than I can here. It was really a beautiful place. I was thinking what it would be like to be a monk here. After climbing all those stairs all day, I understand why they’re in such great shape. As my mind wandered I found myself, with and the grace and agility monks aren’t known for, falling square on my butt. I was fine. My pants got real dirty and my hand hurt a little, but nothing was bruised but my pride. A small stone got stuck in my skin from the fall. At first I was hoping it would give me super Buddhists powers. But then I realized that any powers that I got by falling down, probably wouldn’t be that cool and it got itchy so I ripped it out.

After Gugu and Sally’s dad finished in the temple we got back in the van and Jeff started driving home. The freeways here are really quite nice. The traffic’s still pretty crazy but we had three lanes most of the way. Nice smooth road too. Although you do have to pay a toll and toll roads are never fun, I suppose they’re necessary when you’re first building a road system. We got home and Ping Ping joined us for dinner at a really nice restaurant. We had all kinds of Chinese food (or as they generally call it here: food) and it was at this meal that I realized just how long I’ve been in China, Sally told me that I had just eaten coagulated blood and it didn’t even faze me. I must have been here for a while.

----------Saturday, May 27, 2006---------------

Just a lazy Saturday in Shanghai. We didn’t do much today. Nobody was in a real hurry to go outside because it was super windy. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky though; figures that we get better weather when we’re not going anywhere. I took the opportunity to catch up on my writing (I wrote like eight pages, I’m getting sick of this so ya’ll better appreciate the work I put into this, I’m sure I will later as well) while everyone else, besides Jeff who had class all day, played cards. I might have joined them but I still don’t get the game too well, you need an even number of players and they’re were all speaking the Jiangsu dialect the whole time, so I’d be really left out of the conversation. Gufu doesn’t even speak much Mandarin. Shanghaiese and Jiangsuhau are close enough that he’s been able to get along here just fine.

Around five, we finally set off to go to downtown Shanghai. We walked are the Jin Mao building which is the tallest in Shanghai at 88 floors. Right next door was the construction for the World Finance Center which, when completed, usurp that title with a total of 101 floors.

We also went up the Oriental Pearl Tower (that one with the spheres I told everyone to look up, if you haven’t go do it now). The tower is located right on a bend in the Huangpu river and offers a great view of the Bund and the rest of Shanghai. We looked around and took a few pictures as the sun set off in the west. Afterwards we looked through a bit of the Shanghai museum. I was misinformed when I last wrote about Shanghai. It is a lot older than I thought, although it didn’t grow big in China until the Ming Dynasty. It was also of less importance on the world scale until Western people came in after the Opium War and started colonizing here. So yeah, sorry for the information, hope no one used it in a school report or anything.

Afterward we walked around on the other side of the river, took so night time photos and went out to dinner. We had what I’ve been wanting since I came to China: Hot pot. I don’t know if I’ve ever explained hot pot before. Hot pot is basically a pot with really hot food in it (hence the name). It’s traditional food from Sichuan, the spicy province. I’ve had it in Sydney and in Logan and have loved it every time. I love spicy food and this is about as spicy as it gets. I love it most when people haven’t eaten it with me before and think it’ll be too much for me. This has happened several times as Sichuan people tend to use hot pot as kind of a figurative trial by fire for their friends (although the next day it can sometimes turn into a literal trial of fire) and I always exceed their expectations. This time no one was trying to overwhelm me. In fact Gugu and Sally’s parents didn’t even eat anything from the spicy side. The way it works is they bring you a pot of water with two halves (you can get it not separated but everyone in your group has to be on one side of the spicy fence, which hardly ever happens) one side filled with water and onions, garlic and other seasonings. One side is usually also full of so much spicy that it’s a deep, dark red. There is a gas stove in the middle of the table that is used to boil the water. You are then provided with sliced meat and vegetables to boil in the water and some sauces to dip it in. The problem was this time the place was out of sauces. The rest of the family complained because they didn’t want to pay to eat food without flavor. I was OK with it though because I consider spicy to be a flavor and one of my favorites. It was a really good hot pot. You could tell because those of us eating were coughing and wiping our eyes and noses a lot. There are only three times that a real man is allow to cry in public: at the loss of a immediate family member, when his team loses in the playoffs and while eating really good hot pot. If my description has you salivating as much as I am now, I know a really good hot pot place in Salt Lake. Same rules are Korean Barbeque apply.

In China: Post 6

2006-05-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

---------------Saturday, May 20, 2006------------------

Well today was the big day, our wedding feast. Sally’s parents had decided that since we’ve been married for so long already, there was no point having a ceremony. Instead we were just having a big dinner for all of their friends and family. Actually it was mostly Sally's parents’ friends. Sally had a few friends from school there, but not many. In total we had six tables filled with neighbors, friends from work, old army buddies and slew of people from where her parents grew up who had also moved to Dalian.

With a few simple words from Sally’s father the feast began. Each table was set with plate after plate of amazing looking food. There was so much that they were stacking plates on top of each other. We literally had to finish one dish, so that waiter would take it away, before we could eat what lay beneath. Fortunately most of the food was meant to be eaten cold, so speed wasn’t an issue. This was also good because Sally and I had precious little time to actually eat. Chinese wedding tradition dictated that we go around pouring drinks and lighting cigarettes for all the guests. By the time we were done the party was starting to wind down. Throughout the process, people naturally tried to get us to drink with them. Most understood when we would drink 7-up rather than beer (Sally’s dad actually over estimated how much alcohol would be needed, many guests wanted us to pour soda rather than liquor) but a few were more persistent that one such an occasion everyone should be drinking. We stuck to our guns though. Sally did a great job explaining that we didn’t drink out of principle, rather than for health reasons. Most people took that as reason enough and dropped the issue. This was truly a blessing because we didn’t want to be forced into a situation where we’d have to be too forceful and make someone lose face.

After we finished saying goodbye to and taking pictures with most of the guests, the staff started cleaning up the food. There were plenty of leftovers, which Sally’s mom tried to give to as many people as would take it. We still ended up with a whole lot to carry home ourselves, including about eight bottles of pop. While Sally’s parent’s handled the financial side of things, I did what I’ve come to do best in China, I sat in a chair. After a few minutes, one of the last remaining guest, a family friend who helped welcome guests and have them sign the Chinese equivalent of the wedding book, came down and started talking to me. He started by asking my opinion of the war in Iraq. Always hesitant to discuss politics in other countries, I tried to dodge the question, saying I’m not informed enough to have a fully formed opinion (which in many ways I’m not). He didn’t except this though and kept asking. I started telling him what many of the people that I knew who were actually over there that I knew or knew people that knew had told me. I told him what the people protesting on the streets of America thought of the whole thing. I told him that most Americans are somewhere between the two. He asked about Bush and what people thought of him. I explained that opinion about the president were as wide and varied as opinions on the war. The conversation continued from there, focusing mostly on American Chinese relations. We talked about culture, business and personal aspects. We even talked about the major theoretical differences between Chinese and Western medicine. And of course, because we’re guys, we talked sports. This uncle (I was never told his name) spoke with a sometimes difficult Shenyang accent, but after a few minutes I was OK. It was the first time I’ve had a one on one conversation with someone of the older generation that lasted more than five minutes. It was good to remind myself that I really do speak Chinese.

When we got home, I was tired. The whole time people kept telling me that I must be really tired on such a busy day and I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t be because I hadn’t really done anything. I spent the whole day just shaking peoples’ hands and doing what I was told, and yet I was exhausted. It was just like our wedding in America. While I went in the other room to recuperate (by which I mean write with out interruption) Sally and her folk counted our haul. In China, rather than buying the new couple a dozen sets of knives (I never figured out what I was supposed to cut with them all) or six toasters, wedding guests give a gift every young family really needs: Money. Everyone who came gave us a hongbao (red package), a traditional red envelop with a wad of cash inside. The amount they gave you was also recorded next to their name in the wedding book. It ensures that the couple’s family knows how much to return when they’re invited to that family’s wedding.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and eating leftovers. After dinner Sally, her mother and I all packed our things for the trip to Shanghai. I’m still excited about the trip.

----------Monday, May 22, 2006-------

We woke up a little late yesterday. In a hurry we ate as quickly as we could and made our final preparations to head out for Shanghai. Naturally we had to eat lunch once we were ready, because if I were ever to fully digest something before eating again, I would surely die. The train station wasn’t far but it was too far to walk and we had too much stuff to easily take the train so we took a cab. It worked well because the train station was within the initial range of the cab. As soon as you get into a cab in Dalian, you owe the driver 8 kaui. This fee will get you 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from where you started, before you start being charged anymore.

We got to the train station and waited for the train. We didn’t stand in line; standing in line is a Western concept. In China, you usually just mill around and push forward as a huge mass of humanity, a form of organized chaos that has to really be experienced to be understood. That’s not even true because I’ve been through it many times already and I still can’t understand how I get from where I started to where I wanted to go. I’ve given up hope of sufficiently describing it. I’ll try though. We were all standing around by the gates to the train. The time came to start boarding, some music played over the loudspeaker and tree men in train uniforms march out and saluted us in unison. They opened the gates and I became part of a wall of humanity. I had a huge backpack on my back and a small suit case in my hand so I wasn’t well equipped to fight back. Somewhere in front of me an old lady dropped her bags, I thought she’d be crushed, I really did, but rather than becoming tossed like a leaf in the river, she became a stone, with the current flowing around her. I actually found myself being pushed away from her, instead of toward. I didn’t end up at the gate I expected, but I ended up at the gate the flow wanted me to reach, and that’s good enough for me.

And 24 hours later, we were in Shanghai.

It wasn’t that simple of course. We boarded the train and found our seats. Since we had sleeper (they were actually hard-sleeper, not soft-sleeper, but still so much better than hard seaters that I didn’t care) our seats were actually small, blue bunk beds. There were probably 30 stacks of three cots on the train. Since we had two bottom bunks we mostly sat on the beds but there were also small seats on the wall across from the beds that folded down for passengers higher up. Since we boarded at 11:00 it wasn’t long after we had started moving that people started taking out their lunches. We had plenty of fruit and left over cakes from the wedding feast to last us the whole journey. For anyone who didn’t think to bring food, they had food carts that sold snacks as well as full meals. It was just like in Harry Potter but with pig feet rather than jellybeans that taste like boogers. I’m not sure which I would prefer.

After everyone ate, most people took a nap. The whole car was eerily silent. Me and Sally passed the time by playing chess. As people started watching us, the car came alive. Soon people were talking, laughing and playing cards. Most of the passengers were older and most spoke with accents so I didn’t say too much. I’d had my fill of learning new Chinese card games so I retreated into science fiction.

I became instantly enthralled with “Speaker for the Dead” by Orson Scott Card. Many of the quotes on the cover talked about how this book exceeded “Ender’s Game” which I enjoy a whole lot, so I was pretty excited to read the next of the series. I really enjoyed this one, and given my current circumstance, was touched more by it than “Ender’s Game.” The book deals with humans trying to learn from another alien culture and the struggles that come from this. There have been times when I’ve felt that China and America might as well be on different planets for as different as our cultures are. Of course, there are other times when we seem more the same than I ever imagined. Still the book is awesome and I recommend the first two books of the Ender Series to everyone. I’ll hold off on recommending the whole thing until I’ve read it because I’ve heard mixed reviews.

The whole journey Sally’s mom kept trying to feed me. I tried to fight her off as best I could because I really really didn’t want to have to use the toilet (and I use the term loosely, this thing was bad ever for a squatter) if I didn’t have to. I’ve managed to avoid using squatter thus far, and I didn’t want my first experience to be barreling down the countryside some where in between Dalian and Shanghai. For some reason the only place I really felt the movement of the train was in the bathroom. I guess it’s really easy to forget you’re in an enormous metal tube rocket through the Chinese countryside when you’re deep in the world of the greatest fiction writer the Church has every produced. It’s really hard to forget it when you’re trying to pee into a tiny metal hole in the floor.

At ten o’clock it was lights out. Everyone climbed into their bunks and went to sleep. I snuggled with Sally and we talked a lot about our trip so far and about our future together. We got tired quickly and I climb up into the middle bunk above her. I fell asleep pretty easily the first time but woke up as we jolted into each station. Falling back asleep wasn’t so easy. Everything you’ve heard about the rhythmic click-clack of the train rolling over the rack singing a lullaby, lulling passengers to sleep is true. The sound is there and it is quite soothing. What isn’t soothing is having the stack of beds being filled with three middle aged Chinese people who snore on different patterns. But I survived. I’m a survivor. That’s what I do.

In the morning I tried to finish my book, but often got distracted by the scenery outside. Now I feel like I’ve started to really see China. I saw the countryside. I saw rice paddies with farmers working them by hand or with the help of a water buffalo. I saw the oriental style architecture change as we made our way south. I saw the Yangtze River. It was awesome and humbling.

We got to the Shanghai station and bid our train farewell. We were met at the gate by Sally’s cousin, Ping Ping, who’s apartment we’ll be staying at for our stint in Shanghai. We took a cab (more expensive than the ones in Dalian) to her apartment in the Pudong region of Shanghai.

Shanghai is huge! It’s much bigger than Dalian, with taller building and more of them. It’s humid too. Really humid and hot too. It’s like Sydney in the summer. I’m really happy that I’ll be wearing shorts the whole time. It was raining when we got here, so I’m pretty sure I didn’t get the real Shanghai. The streets were empty compared to Dalian. Of course, they were pretty full compared to anywhere in Utah.

I don’t hear much Mandarin anymore. Sally, her mom, her cousin and her aunt (Gugu ) and uncle (Gufu) all speak the Jiangsu Dialect when we’re in the apartment and I mostly hear Shanghainese on the streets. Mostly I just sit and listen. And I think and try and learn about this alien culture I’ve found myself in.

--------------Tuesday, May 23, 2006--------------------

Well today was my first real day in Shanghai. I was right, this place isn’t definitely not like Dalian. Of course, I suppose that’s to be expected. You wouldn’t expect L.A. to be the same place as Chicago.

Shanghai is different from most cities in China in that it was founded by Westerners. Scattered throughout the city amongst all the modern buildings and Asian architecture are many stone European style buildings. There’s especially one section where the various powers of Europe built all their banks and offices etc. More on that later.

Sally’s mom decided she wanted to spend the day catching up with her in laws so Sally and I were on our own for the day. We’d been having some problems with the camera and since I figured I’d be more successful telling you guys that I’ve decided to stay in China than trying to come home without any picture we bought ourselves some new batteries. We had to try a couple packs before we found some that worked but once we had we were on our way.

Sally’s cousin recommended a couple places for us to go. The first was Shanghai Renmin Square (Shanghai Peoples Square), which is in downtown Shanghai. We took a bus there that Sally claimed was the most crowed she’s ever ridden but I thought the one her dad and I took in Shenyang was worse. The buses here are more expensive than those in Dalian, a pattern that we’ve seen repeated many times in Shanghai. On the way there, I noticed that traffic here is different. There are a lot more cars in Shanghai because of the larger population. Despite there being more cars Shanghai traffic is a little more subdued. That’s not to say it’s not chaotic. It’s just more of an organized chaos, with more traffic lights and other controls. There are also a lot of traffic assistants who help enforce the rules. A traffic assistant is basically a crossing guard with a yellow vest and an attitude. If someone tries to cross the street while the light is still a red hand, they blow their whistle and grab the offender and hold them back until the light switches.

We got to the square and looked around at some trees and fountains. We considered going through a museum housing some ancient Chinese paintings and bronze work but it was twenty kaui a person to get in and we only had 100 to get us through the day and a lot of other places to visit today so we decided to move on. We made the same decision about an exhibition of the Shanghai of the future. Sally had to use the restroom so we set off in search of a KFC. This is because we’ve heard that they have the nicest bathrooms in all of China (we hear a lot of things). We looked all around the area and couldn’t find one so Sally decided to use a pay toilet. Just as she let go of the coin I saw one across the street. Our investigation into the quality of restroom facilities of various overseas fast food chains would have to wait for another time.

After this adventure, we headed off to Nanjing Road. Nanjing Road is a strip of road that is famous for it’s shopping. In the dialogues that I’ve read in my Chinese classes, characters are always talking about how they planning on going to Nanjing Road of which of our vocabulary words they purchased there. It was the first specific place in China that I’ve heard a lot about and had been looking forward to seeing (more specific than say, Shanghai). The strip is several blocks long and closed off to traffic. The whole place is crawling with people buying and selling all sorts of things; everything from clothes to chopsticks. The sales people were helpful too, a little too helpful. They would see me and latch on to me, trying to convince me to buy their stuff which is an improvement from when I go into a nice store in America and the sales people follow me around to make sure I don’t steal anything. There were a lot of interesting things to look at though. There was this one shop that specialized in jade artwork and calligraphy supplies. They had these amazingly intricate statues carved from solid pieces of jade. The craftsmanship was very high. We considered buying Sally a brush and some ink for her to work on her writing, but decided it would be cheaper to get them some that wasn’t so over run with tourists.

After we ate a quick lunch of baozis (steamed bread with meat and/or vegetable filling) and soup in an underground restaurant, we headed over to one of the most famous parts of Shanghai, the Bund. To be honest I hadn’t heard of the Bund before and I still don’t know why it’s called that, but I have seen many pictures of it. The Bund is a bend in the Huangpu River (part of the Yangtze) and offers an excellent view of the Shanghai skyline. We could look across the river and see the skyscraper with the two large spheres in it (Google image search Shanghai and I’m sure you’ll see some pics of what I’m talking about). This part of town was also the center of all overseas presence in China. The entire street has the old, stone buildings that England, Russia and other western powers built. It was a major social center in the 1920-30s and the scene of many movies and TV series. The tradition of overseas visitors continues today with more white people in this one area that I’ve seen in the last three weeks. From the looks of them, most of these people were old retired couples who were finally crossing “Visit China” off their lists of things to do before they die. Now that I’ve been here, I figure Sally and I can always dream about visiting Turkey or someplace like that when we’ve quitted working.

In true Shanghai tourist fashion, we took plenty of photos from the platforms overlooking the pavilion. Most people seem content just to take a quick shot from anywhere of them standing in front of what ever the attraction for the area is, with no thought to angle or proper cropping. Sally and I have had a lot of fun going beyond that, trying different shots and using the rule of thirds for a more artistic approach to tourism. We bought a new card for her camera so we’ve had plenty of shots to work with. It’s been a learning experience for me, as I’ve never had too much experience with a digital camera. When I was in Australian I had to consider the fact that I had to pay to develop the film (on a very limited budget) and carry them with me for two years so I think I came home with only 350-400 shots. We’re looking to easily surpass that here in China; we’ve already go about 300 taken. Granted a lot of these are duplicates or not going to be used for anything more than a quick “this is supposed to be this but some one bumped me so the camera moved and made the picture all blurry and stupid” while we shot our photos to people in the two weeks after we get home that people are still interested. Through all this working together on getting photos, we’ve discovered that Sally and I have different philosophies and I have been physically struck during “discussions” about the benefits of vertical shots vs. the “inferior” horizontal variety.

As we went back through Nanjing Road we had to use the restroom again. I normally wouldn’t bring this up (you should all know me well enough to know I would never talk about such base human functions) but since we were passing a KFC we figured, “Science must go on.” So we went in to us the restroom. The sign said, “Restrooms this way,” so we went this way. Another sign said “Restrooms through this door,” so we went through the door. We continued to follow the signs into the next building up the stair and into this dark, musty corner. I don’t know what the ladies room was like but the men’s room was not “finger licking good” I’ll tell you that right now. Still, since it wasn’t actually a KFC restroom we’ll have to try again later.

Since by this point we were quite a bit further from where we wanted to walk to get back to The People’s Square, we took the subway to another bus station. The intra-city trains here are pretty different from the ones that made me love public transport in Sydney. First off, there’s not as many of them and they’re not a crucial. In Sydney everyone takes the train. Buses are for losers and people who only ride them to and from the train station. Here the buses are packed solid while the subway is nice and roomy (by Chinese standards of roomy). The trains in Sydney are all two leveled. Here only some of the larger trains that go from city to city are. In China the train is all one long tube while Australia are made up of individual cars. In China, the lady that announces the next stop is a recording with a nice, easily to understand Chinese accent. In Sydney the next stop is lost in a garbled mess of the names of the next five stations all read aloud by who ever is driving, usually a dude from Shri Lanka who no one understands. Here in China, the automatic ticket vendor gives you change in the form of nice, crisp bills. In Sydney you feel like you hit the jackpot in Vegas every time you use a twenty to buy a $2.20 ticket to the city. Shanghai trains seem to go faster but that might just be because thy crank up the air condition to give you a simulated sensation of speed.

--------------------Wednesday May 24, 2006---------------------------

Everyone was still too busy to do anything with us so they arranged for Sally and me to take a tour of Nanjing. We figured it was better to spend two days exploring the former capitol than hanging around the apartment watching Chinese dubbed episodes of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” so we went along with it. Our travel agent got us train tickets to and from Nanjing, transport to and from the train station, a hotel room for the night and a tour bus of all the major attractions the city had to offer. All for less than $100 US. Not a bad deal in my book.

Nanjing is about three hours from Shanghai by train. We woke up really early (sometimes I think I get the worst culture shock not from the Chinese, but from the fact my whole family over here are morning people) and Sally’s cousin’s husband (who for the sake of simplicity I will refer to as Jeff) drove us to the subway station. We took the subway to the train station and wait for our train. Since our train started where we were and ended where we stopped (as opposed to us only riding for part of the train’s total journey) we felt no need to fight the crowds and waited a bit before boarding. We sat by a kid who played his DS (think really cool Gameboy) the whole way and a mother and daughter, the younger of which was full of questions and comments for the older. Our train was delayed a bit and we ended up needing four hours to get to Nanjing. Fortunately our ride was still waiting for us. As the driver honked his way through traffic (the worst I’ve seen in China, but also with the most controls, the lights all have timers to tell you how long they’ll be green, red, etc.) we were able to get a bit of an idea what Nanjing was like.

Unlike Shanghai, Nanjing is old. Very old. We’re talking over two thousand years of history in this place. For me, who’s never been anywhere over 300 years old, that’s a lot of time to be thinking back. For the most part, Nanjing doesn’t show her age though. It looked like a modern city. Just as new and almost as shiny as Shanghai. The name Nanjing means Southern Capitol, a title it earned by being the capitol of China for quite a while back in the day (Beijing, creatively enough, means Northern Capitol). It’s this history that brings so many tourists, most of them Chinese, to town and they’ve done a pretty good job preserving it.

One thing that really stood our in my mind about Nanjing was the number of bikes. I know that when people think of China they think of a billion people riding around on bicycles, but I’m always a little hesitant to believe the common perception. Especially after living in Dalian for two weeks where bikes are much less common. Shanghai and Shenyang have a lot of people peddling around, but Nanjing blows them all away. It has huge bike lanes, sometimes separated from the rest of traffic by a dividing wall or fence. Whole families will ride one bike together, with the father peddling and the mother sitting on the back holding their small child. People are always giving people rides on their bikes. When I was young I tried many ways to give my friends a lift but no matter what method we tried, be it with the rider sitting on the handlebars or standing on the pegs, it never worked well and certainly was never comfortable. Here people do it all these different ways and it doesn’t faze them a bit. I’ve seen people riding along on the back of someone’s bike with a plate of food in one hand, chopsticks in the other, having a conversation with the peddler, all as if it were nothing. It’s not just people too. People here are so good on their bikes the can transport anything, with one hand holding an umbrella if it’s raining. I saw this one older fellow, peddling down the street with a full sized fridge across his rear fender. I was impressed.

We go to our hotel and checked in. They told us that our tour would start tomorrow and the rest of the day was ours to do with as we pleased. We went up to our room. At first glance it didn’t seem so bad. It had a TV, air conditioning and two small beds. There was only one amenity that I was concerned about though and after putting our bag down (we travel light) I went into the bathroom to check. Much to my relief, it was fully prepared to accommodate a western traveler. I was about to shut the door behind me when I tried to turn on the light only to find it didn’t respond. We tried some other lights. Nothing. We tried the TV. Dead. Our room didn’t have electricity!

Or so we thought. We talked to someone and they explained that you have to put the key to your room (a card key) into a slot to complete the circuit that allows you power. I guess it’s a good way to prevent guests from wasting juice while they’re out, but it’s really scary when you think your facing a day alone in a hotel with nothing to do and no power.

Fortunately we didn’t have to spend the whole day in the hotel. Sally called on of her college roommates, Yang Ying, who was living and working in Nanjing. She came over to the hotel and they caught up for a little bit. Yang invited us to go with her back to here place to meet her husband and his parents and than go out for dinner. We couldn’t refuse. Actually we could refuse and Sally did for a bit but they convinced her that they’d help us find our hotel again. Yang is currently working as a lecturer and her husband Hou Ge, is a dentist for the military. They recently bought a new apartment and are in the process of getting it remodeled before they move it. Sometimes I feel bad for Sally seeing how all her friends are living the big life here in China and I have her stuck in a tiny one roomer in Logan, Utah. She’s a good sport though and says she’s OK with it.

We went out to dinner at a nice restaurant near their old place. It was a chance to eat some Nanjing special dishes. Each part of China has it’s own food style. I’ve tried to convince people that America is like that too – although to a lesser extent – but have so far not been too successful. We had a variety of food, including braised meat, stir fried broccoli and fish (I’ve eating so much fish this trip and yet I still struggle with the bones, Sally on the other hand, is like a cartoon cat sticky and whole fish in her month and pulling out a whole skeleton). The star of the meal was the duck. They explained that southern Chinese each duck like northern Chinese eat chicken (which is quite a bit). Nanjing’s yanshui duck is famous throughout the country and supposed to rival Beijing world famous roast duck in tastiness. For this meal we had the house special, a huge bowl of duck soup. They boil a whole duck in this large pot filled with green onion and bamboo shoots (tasty and crunchy, I can see why Panda’s like it so much). It was really good and the four of us could have just eaten the soup and been full (for a while, soup is filling but it doesn’t stick with you).

Having eaten nothing by Chinese food (with the exception of the ice cream in Dalian) for the last three weeks, I’ve decided a few things about American food. #1, we don’t eat enough soup. The Chinese meal almost always has soup with it. It usually comes at the end though rather than at the beginning when we eat it, and is used to wash down the meal in the absence of water. There have been many times I’ve forgotten that soup would be coming (or didn’t know) an ate myself too full to enjoy it. That’s always disappointing. #2, we don’t eat enough duck. Duck is awesome and I’ve enjoyed it ever since I started eating it in Sydney. The last few weeks have been duckalisous. I do feel a little bad eating the stars of my favorite childhood program “Ducktales” but it’s so good that you get over it quickly. #3, we really don’t eat enough lamb. Again, I developed the taste for this meat down under and really miss it while I’m state side. We have found some in Logan though so it’s not as hard to come by as duck. I like both meats for the same reason. They’re darker and richer in flavor than their more common counterparts with a nice bit of fat on there too. It’s good eating.

-----------------Thursday May 25, 2006------------------

We woke up really early this morning (can I just say that I am really sick of 6 a.m.) and ate a quick breakfast of Chinese pastries in the hotel restaurant. After gathering up our things we got on the tour bus. It was just starting to rain and would rain most of the day, making most of our pictures dark and gray. By now I’ve gotten used to being the youngest person around. With the exception of me and Sally everyone in our group was a generation or two a head of us. The came from all around China and most were in groups of three or for who would speak to each other in their own dialect. Our tour guides explained the day’s activities and asked us to pay the fee that went to cover the price admission tickets and lunch. Part of the group didn’t know about lunch costing extra and raised a bit of a fuss but there was this one old lady on her own who just couldn’t understand why she had to pay again (we paid half upfront to the travel agency for train and hotel, and then the tickets and stuff were paid at this point) and raised a big stink about it. I had to smile to myself as the poor tour guide argued with her. Some things are constant no matter where you are in the world; the struggle of customer service is one of those things. I’ve had many similar arguments when I told people they had to pay their phone bill.

Once everything got settled down we set off. Most of our time was spent in the bus as our driver tried to force his way through traffic. In the mean time the tour guides would explain some of the history, both ancient and modern, of Nanjing. Because they would speak into a loudspeaker, I couldn’t understand them very well (I did better when they didn’t use it) but Sally was a very informative and patient translator. One thing they mentioned was the pixiu, the official animal of Nanjing. The pixiu is a mythical creature, like the dragon or unicorn, that was supposed to bring you good luck because of its curious anatomy. The pixui has a big mouth – to suck in all the luck – a big butt – in which to store the luck – and, I’m not making this up, it’s Chinese legend, no butthole so that none of the luck leaks out. There are statues of this poor fellow all over Nanjing Most in the same style as Chinese dragons or lion statues.

The first stop was Meiyuan Xincun (Garden of mei flower in the new neighborhood) which is famous for being the site of a lot of the planning of the Communist Party before they rose to power in 1949. It was also where the second negotiations between the Communists and the Gouming Party took place. The American were involved too (as we often are) with the Marshal Treaty. The place is a lot like many of the historic sites you can visit in the States like the Beehive house with a lot of artifacts and rooms reconstructed as they originally were. There were also a lot of old photos and news clippings hung on the walls. In front of Meiyuan Xincun was a large statue of Zhou Enlai, the first prime minister under Communist power. While Mao Zedong is often a controversial character because of many of his decisions, Zhou Enlai is generally well liked by the Chinese people.

We didn’t have too much time to wonder around because we had to get back on the bus and head to Chaotian Gong (the palace that faces heaven) which housed the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang (the same Zhu as Sally’s). YuanZhang was a farmer before he rose to emperor and many of the people treated him as a brother or a friend so his court built him this palace to set him apart from his subjects. Now days it’s a museum of artifacts for the six dynasties that used Nanjing as their capitol. The first of these was the Dong Wu (Eastern Wu) dynasty from the time period of “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” (one of the four most famous books in Chinese literature). The artifacts in the museum ranged from old copper tools to small burial statues to chamber pots to a replicas of Chinese weapons including a rapid fire crossbow that made China’s armies a force to be reckoned with. They walk ways into the chamber was made with small stones forming a zigzag pattern that looks like the Chinese character for “people” to remind the people inside the palace walls that they were above the people outside. On the way in there was also a big statue of Kongzi (Confucius’s real name).

Our next stop was Yuhua Tai (Rain Flower Park) which was the spot where 100 thousand communists were killed during the conflict between the Communists and Gouming Party (and you thought McCarthy was bad). The park is the location of a huge statue erected as a monument to those killed. It features 9 people, many in chains, standing defiantly against oppression. The number nine was chosen because it’s the biggest Arabic numeral. The statue it at the top of a long flight of stair, up against and jungle covered mountain. Besides being the site of so much death, Yuhai Tai is also known for its rainflower stone, which are these really pretty stones. We actually spend most of our time at the park in this jewelry shop that featured this stones. They’re not a gem stone or anything like that, they’re just really pretty rocks that shine up really nice. They made us stay here so long because the tour company has a deal with this store (and many others) where they get a percent of the purchases made by groups they bring in. We considered buying some rocks but opted instead for a small Jade pixiu for me to wear around my neck because I make it a point to buy anything that will increase both my luck and my chances to use the word butthole in polite conversation.

After the park we went to Fuzi Miao, which is another palace in Nanjing. They talked a lot about feng shui here which is the Chinese art of aligning a room or building to increase the flow of positive energy. Water is important in feng shui and this palace had a pond and some streams flowing through it. It was just like you’d imagine a peaceful mansion in ancient China to be like, with lots of trees, rocks and pavilions. I could just imagine myself in a kung fu movie, if it weren’t for all the tourists. As part of the tour we were able to watch a performance similar to what Chinese royalty would have seen complete with classical Chinese music. Throughout the tour they stressed importance of the ancient character for tiger, which they tried to get us to buy. This time, Sally was strong and didn’t buy it.

We had lunch in a restaurant by a famous lake in Nanjing. The food was pretty forgettable but there was an old man there who was signing and selling Chinese painting while we ate. They were really good but we figured we’d already bought enough stuff. After lunch we drove around the lake. There were some cool statues but we didn’t stop to really look at them or take photos. We did stop by a pretty waterfall though. That was nice. I’m sure we could have stopped a little more but some of the other in the group were pushing on to the next stop. The guides also tried to get us to stop buy a teashop for a free sample (so we’d buy tea) put the old folks wouldn’t hear of it. They said they’d rather just sit in the bus in the rain than go it. Sally and I had no intention of buying or even sampling tea, but figured we’d not be difficult for the poor guides. Right as we got off the bus however, they gave up and we moved on.

The last stop on the tour was Sun Zhongshan’s (same Sun as mine) mausoleum, the final resting place of the founder of the Gouming Party. My recent Chinese history is a little weak but I’m starting to piece things together. The Gouming Party was the party in charge while China was a democracy (from some time in the early 1900s until the Communist rise to power in 1949). By the time Mao and Zhou came to power, the Gouming Party of Zheng Kaichek was corrupt and evil in the eyes of many people, hence the famous uprising. When it first started, however, the party was led by good and noble people who are still held in high regard by the populous, especially Dr. Sun, the first president. The current government still shows them in a good light. It’s kind of like if some other political system were to rise in America, people would still think that George Washington and the others were heroes and the overthrown administration would be vilified. Makes good sense to me from a political standpoint. People tend to want to keep their heroes of old, but are often willing to turn their backs on people they can more easily see the flaws of.

The mausoleum itself was quite impressive. It sits atop another huge hill with stair leading up to it. The stairs also go through some stone gates with characters carved in Sun’s own hand written that declared, “The world is for the public.” The way up is also lined with stone lions, one of which was hit during the Japanese attack on Nanjing during World War II. At the top is the actually resting place of Sun Zhongshan, five meters underneath a marble sarcophagus, craved to scale in his image. No photos were allowed in this section and our tour guide spoke quietly in the building. Despite the vast numbers of people climbing up to see the former leader, it was a very somber place. Not depressing, just serious. In spite of the air of history, Sally and I had a good time taking pictures together. We were the only ones however as the rest of the group, concerned about getting to the train station early enough (old people are old people, no matter where you go) headed straight down to the bus and complained until the tour guy went to find us and bring us back early.

One of the most outspoken passengers was the old lady who didn’t want to pay (let’s call here Crazy Aunt Daisy). Crazy Aunt Daisy never did submit willingly to having to pay, she only gave to tour guide the money because she was afraid the group would leave her, stranded somewhere in Nanjing if she didn’t. We were a little concerned she’d get left behind too. Not on purpose but she tended to wonder off on her own all the time. The poor tour guides were constantly keeping an eye on her. By the time we were in Fuzi Miao, she realized both me and Sally were wearing blue, we were the only young people at most of these places and I was the only white guy period. With so much setting us apart she decided to follow us around. Crazy Aunt Daisy was a funny old lady. Constantly asking everyone questions, usually ones that people had already told her the answer too. One of the other old ladies even told her to stop talking after CAD asked where she was from for the fifth time or so. Since we were on the same train (but thankfully different cars) she decided to stick to us like glue once we got to the train station. We got her to the waiting room and I left to use the men’s room while Sally explained how she would know which train to get on. I guess while I was gone CAD warned Sally to be careful around me because guys are dangerous. She also gave her some birth control tips. By the time I came back Sally had had enough and told Crazy Aunt Daisy that we were going for a walk and she should stay where she was. It took a while but we finally convinced her that we’d be back right after we bought some snacks for the train ride. We bought some snacks but hid in another waiting room for a while. I felt kind of bad but I bought a Miranda (the Pepsi equivalent of Smart) from the store there and, you'll never believe this, it was cold. Really cold pop, straight from the fridge! Nothing here is cold but this was. One sip and the heat and humidity slipped from my mind. It was beautiful. Finally we figured we'd better head back before CAD decided to go looking for us and missed her train, by the time we got back someone else had taken our place, both on the bench and in the life of Crazy Aunt Daisy. I still miss her.

After a chess filled train ride home, we were picked up at the subway station and brought home. We had dinner (the leftovers from the other’s dinner including a lamb dish that’s Gufu’s speciality) and I took and much needed shower. We went to bed early because there is another 6 a.m. coming up tomorrow and we’d hate to miss that.

In China: Post 5

2006-05-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

---------Thursday, May 18, 2006--------------

I woke up with stomach problems again and had to stay home (more for safety than because I didn’t feel well) while Sally and her mom went shopping. I figured no big deal, I’ll hang out, watch soccer, catch up on my writing, go to the bathroom every ten minutes, a laid back morning. And it was, for the most part. The only thing worth noting was that the postman came by to deliver a package and needed a signature. I didn’t feel qualified to provide it so I took a message. I have several Chinese names and am never sure which one is appropriate to use. Besides it was for her father so it might have been top-secret Chinese government stuff. So I just took a message and went pretty proud of myself for being able to do so.

After lunch me and Sally decided to go climb one of the nearby mountains. However first we decided to sit for a bit and digest (we were really full, we’re always really full, we’ve both gotten fat since we’ve gotten here) before we left. I fell asleep. When I woke up Sally fell asleep. She told me to wake her up in half an hour, so I did. She wanted another 15 minutes. I gave it to her. This continued until it was time to go for dinner. Sally’s parents and we went to Jiajia for dinner.

After dinner Sally’s dad went to a tenets’ meeting for their building. I guess the land that this building is one belongs to the military and they’ll be tearing it down soon to build a bigger complex. Everyone who lives here will still get an apartment in the new place but they don’t want to have to pay if the new rooms are bigger than the current ones. Sally and I took a set of keys and went out for a date. It was nice not to have to worry about getting back in time for her parents to let us in and still get enough sleep.

We went to the big mall where we waited for her friends a few days ago. We shopped a bit and went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream. The ice cream was good but the proportions were not so much. When I pay 16 kaui for a single scoop, I expect something softball sized. I’ll accept a baseball if it’s really good but no smaller. All we got was a racquetball. I guess they count on Americans being desperate for a taste of home.

Speaking of Americans being desperate for a taste of home, we also checked out the ice cream at KFC (we weren’t just two crazy people wondering the streets looking for frozen dairy deserts, we did other things too, I just don’t think you want to here about us looking at Chinese CDs). I know that when people talk about how American culture is taking over the world they always mention that McDonalds is everywhere. This is true, there’s a Mackers (Aussie slang) in every major shopping center in Dalian. But in the war to conquer the world’s taste buds, it’s better to follow the orders of a colonel than a clown. I’ve mentioned before that KFC is everywhere and I meant it. Every time we go out, I count the KFCs that I see. Four is the average. Like most international fast food franchises, KFC adapts to fit local tastes. In Sydney (we Kentucky Fried Chicken is even more popular than it is in China) one of the things that struck me with the most culture shock was the fact that they gave you French fries with everything (because you can’t have chicken without chips, it’s the law). Here it’s a little healthier with a seasonal vegetable side dish. The ice cream wasn’t very good, but at least you didn’t pay much for it and the size was what I expected.

-----------------Friday, May 19, 2006-----------------

Today we mostly finished getting ready for the party tomorrow. We went to the Carrefore (which Sally wanted me to explain is French, not Chinese) to buy some drinks for the dinner and some small luggage for our trip to Shanghai (which, it turns out, starts Sunday, more on that later, if I remember). We bought a pair of small, personal suitcases that will fit easily in the overhead compartment. We also bought a whole lot of Pepsi and 7-up. With the exception of Smart and Fanta, which enjoy a much smaller market share, most of the pop here is either cola or lemon/lime. No root beer, no Doctor Pepper, no cream soda, nothing. Coke and Sprite are the clear winning of the Chinese soda wars. Sally told me that until recently there wasn’t any 7-up here at all. It was all Coke products. I guess Pepsi has spent a lot of money advertising (I see it everywhere) and while the flagship drink has started to gain traction, 7-up has not. So much to the point Sally’s parents almost went with two cases of Pepsi rather than one of Pepsi and one of 7-up because they were afraid the guests wouldn’t drink it. Also, the cashier confirmed with us that we knew we were buying 7-up, not Sprite. We would have gotten Sprite, but they were out.

I like going to Carrefore. For one, I always see at least two other non-Chinese people there. I never talk to them, it’s just nice to be reminded that I’m not the only one. Also we usually get a zhenzhunaicha on the way out, because they’re cheap and are hands down the best drink this continent has ever produced.

This trip we also got me so clothes. We figured out my pants size in Chinese and bought me a pair of shorts. I didn’t get the color I wanted because for some reason all the ones in my size in the right color were lacking the hole that you put the button in the front through. I was relived to fine that it was just these few and not some new Chinese style so I decided that the ability to do my pants up was more important than fashion, so we went with a lighter shade. As a souvenir, I also found the T-shirt with the worse English on it I could find. Every since I’ve learned Chinese, I’ve been hyper critical of the Chinese characters that people put on T-shirts, hats or permanently on their body. Usually their choice is OK, but more often than not it’s not exactly what they were expecting or isn’t written quite right. Here in China, it’s the Latin alphabet that is mysterious and cool looking. English is written on a lot of clothing and advertising for no reason other than to look neat Other languages like French, Spanish and even Greek pop up from time to time, but usually it’s English and usually it’s really bad English. I’ve never claimed to be the best speller or to have the best grammar (which I’m sure these letters have proven) but sometimes it gets a little ridiculous. The funniest part is, they don’t even know. So I got a shirt so that I can always remember it. I won’t tell you what it says, I’ll just tell you that it beat out “Brave hovers in water like fish.”

Like I said, we’ve finally figured out our trip to Shanghai and we’re going on Sunday and we’ll be taking the train. At least, Sally, her mom and I will be. Her dad will be flying down a couple days later to join us. We ordered him a plane ticket over the phone and they delivered it to our door, just like a pizza! It came while Sally’s dad was at work, her mom was out running errands and Sally was in the bathroom. The money was on the table though so I was able to handle the transaction without concern and increase my usefulness in the family.

This train trip should be a lot less painful than the last one. Even though it’s a lot longer, 23 hours, we’ll be riding in what’s called a soft-sleeper. Soft-sleepers are supposed to be a whole lot nicer than the hard-seaters we took to and from Shenyang. I’m certainly hoping it is. I’ll be taking “Speaker for the Dead,” the next book after “Ender’s Game,” a copy of the “Dao de Jing” the Taoist book of scripture and the conference Ensign, so I should have plenty to keep myself busy. And we’ve got magnetic chess so Sally can pass the time beating me at that. She’s really gotten better and I still tell her when she makes a bad move so I’m pretty much doomed from the first move. It’s still a lot of fun though. So while I’m not busting with enthusiasm for the journey, I’m not dreading it. Plus I really want to see Shanghai so it’ll be worth it.

Once we got everything for the near future worked out we focused our attention on more current matters, dinner. Both Sally and her mother were suffering from upset stomachs so it was just her dad and I eating. We were looking for a wonton place but decided to eat what they called fast food instead. It was a lot like the Chinese restaurants that are popping up in supermarkets in America only a lot cheaper and whole lot dirtier. We just ordered a couple dishes from the guy behind the counter and sat down and ate. The food was like you would get at a Chinese place in America too, only a bit more authentic. I thought it was really good and at 14 kaui total for four dishes and two bowls of rice, the price can’t be beat. My favorite was the lazi jiding (spicy, cubed chicken), which is a fairly common Chinese dish. Think tiny spicy chicken, now make it without that crappy breading on the meat, real chilies and better sauce, then make taste a thousand times better. Now you have lazi jiding.

After dinner Sally’s parents went home and we went for a walk. We went back to the park we’ve visited several times. It was busier than ever, probably because of the weekend. It was still a little light out, so there were still a couple old guys playing Chinese chess on the ground. Most people were walking or jogging for exercise with a few doing Tai Chi or other, similar forms of exercise. We even saw one guy practicing kung fu. We also found a place were old couples were dancing together to music being played over any old stereo. There were many schools of dancing being practiced – from the waltz to country swing – so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an organized event by any means. It was still fun to watch and made a relaxing end to the day

Steve’s interesting bit of information about China for the day: Like America, China uses their athletes in a lot of their advertisements, especially those who succeed on the international level. There’s one athlete who appears in more adds than any other though, and no, it’s not Yao Ming (although he is everywhere here). Remember in the last Olympics when the Chinese dude got the gold in hurdles? Yeah, I didn’t either. This guy is an icon over here. I see him all the time of billboards and on TV. I guess it makes sense though. He won big time in an event that China hasn’t won before and did so in big way. Still, not what I was expecting when I got here.

In China Post 5

2006-05-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

------------Tuesday, May 16, 2006--------------

Today we took a few minutes to get ready for the wedding party. A friend of Sally’s mom came to help us. In Chinese, you generally refer to people much older than you as aunt or uncle. We were preparing some gifts to give the guests. We wrapped little packages of candy and cigarettes. This may seem a little strange but is quite traditional in China. It’s just there way of saying “Thank you for coming to our party. Here, have some tooth decay and a tumor.”

In the evening Sally and I headed over to Anne’s house for dinner. Liu Yang wasn’t there because he is out of town on business. We bought some dumplings at a mall near her place. Like most people in China, Anne lives in an apartment complex. Hers is part of a collection of large complexes in a rather nice community on top of one of the hills here in Dalian. China is different from American in that the rich prefer to live in the valleys, making hill top property some of the cheapest available. Anne and Yang both work and don’t have any kids yet so they live in a very nice place. Our apartment back in the US would probably fit in their living and dining rooms. It was probably a little bigger than Sally’s parent’s place. They had a lot of nice things too. I have to reassure Sally that someday, we’ll have jobs and not live in the tiny little place we live in now.

Not a very busy day on the whole, but still fun.

--------------Wednesday, May 17, 2006------------------------------

Today was a busy day. We slept in a bit, which gave us a late start. Once we got going we ate breakfast and then Sally and I went to the office where she used to work. Before she left China to come to American and get her doctorate, Sally worked at a company as an office assistant. Most of the people she worked with were still there. We didn’t have a lot of time to stay and talk because we told her mom we’d be back by 1 p.m. so we just dropped off some gifts and left.

On the way back we saw a bit of a disturbance on the street though the bus windows. All I saw was a guy running down the street and a lady and a guy on a scooter chasing after him yelling all the way. Once they caught up with him a loud and vocal argument ensued. Even more so than that time at the train station, people gathered around for the show. Some of them even took part in the shouting. Sally explained to me that in all likelihood, the guy was a bag snatcher or a pickpocket of some kind. He ripped off the lady and took off counting on his ability to out run her. However she was able to enlist someone with a scooter to help her chase him down. Now in front of everyone, he would have to deny any wrongdoing. It was good to see that many people concerned for a fellow citizen, but I was glad to see a cop walking over to restore order as we turned the corner.

Back when I was just a country bumpkin who had never lived in a big city, I used to be terrified that as soon as I got to any town bigger that Ogden (and yes, this included Salt Lake City) I would get mugged, pickpocketed and murdered, all at the same time. It took me a month or so do not be paranoid all the time in Sydney. I’ve gotten used to Dalian faster, but I’ve had practice. I actually feel a lot safer here than I did there, but that’s probably because I don’t have drunk Australians coming up to me to explain the purpose of life all the time.

We had to be back so early because we had to eat lunch and get ready to go sightseeing with Uncle Wu and Monica, the father and daughter from Friday night. We drove along the road that went on Friday. It turns out there are parks and scenic overlooks the whole way. And here I was thinking it was just a long and windy road. We started at a beach park that is popular for tourists here. Proving they really know their market, the builders of the park provided plenty of statues for people to take pictures with. Actually, most public places around here are just full of statues and people standing in front of them, flashing the peace sign, getting their picture taken. The statues where we started were of a “western” nature and included everything from a Dutch windmill to African folk art to a Pacific coast Native American totem pole.

It was also at this part of the park where I learned that I am the true Lord of the Pigeons. There was a flock of pigeons there (pigeons are not all that common around here, you hardly see them just flying around) and a couple guys selling packets of corn to feed them (they mopped off the area to help you forget the normal side effects that come from playing with pigeons). Monica asked her dad for some money and she bought us all some seeds. At the mere sight of a folded up newspaper the white pigeons went into a feeding frenzy. Some would fly up to attack the bag, hoping to get first picking of the food inside. Others wait below counting on the person holding the bag to freak out and drop the goods. This is what Monica and Sally did. I on the other hand, was the lighthouse in the storm of feathers. I truly ruled over the Pigeon Kingdom. I divided the seeds equally among my subjects and there was peace and harmony in the land. Once we ran out of seeds, using my years of teasing dogs with an empty hand as a template, I learned that if I held my hand out like it had seeds in it, a pigeon or two would jump up and sit in my hand for a bit. Outsmarting a lower life form is always a good feeling. After we were done with the pigeons I noticed a slight residue on my shoulder. Not enough to make me need to change shirts or anything, but enough to remind me that pigeons aren’t the cleanest thing to be the lord of.

One major difference between this place and Sydney can be found in the pigeons. Sydney is like most large city, absolutely covered in pigeons. I have many humorous anecdotes from that time in my life involving pigeons. The few pigeons that they have here are healthy and attractive birds. Usually white or at least mostly so. In Sydney, the pigeons are all kinds of colors and every flock usually has several sickly looking birds in it (Australia doesn’t have any birds of prey to pick them off, as far as I know). For reasons I never understood, at least half of the fowl were missing at least one two; many even hopped around on toeless stubs. I can also assume that the lack of competition here makes the pigeons more docile, I haven’t seen any picking on each other and they don’t fly away when you get close enough to kick them.

We continued along the road, stopping from time to time to take in the scenery. There were a lot of rocky cliffs descending into the raging sea and tree covered mountains. We’d occasionally hear the call of a bird from deep in the woods, which Sally’s dad said was a pheasant. I didn’t see any so I don’t know for sure if they were ringnecks like we have back home, an import from China. There was also a so called, “Magic Road” that will propel your car forward in neutral, in either direction.

There was more on the road than just trees and rocks. There was a stretch of road covered with statues of every sea creature imaginable. There was also a compound with some deer in it surrounded by statues of deer. If deer in the wild could somehow summon the power of the plastic deer, they would live forever while wolves and cougars chew on the dummies.

At the other end of the road was Tiger Beach, so called because the coastline curves like a tiger’s tail. We watched a Mongolian performance troupe perform dances, singing and playing traditional string instruments. There were also people flying strings of at least 30 small kites and men bull whipping wooden tops. It was the first public performance that I’ve seen here in Dalian, another difference between here and Sydney, which was crawling with musicians, martial artists and modern “artists.”

After we finished touring, we picked up Auntie Wu and went to dinner. Again it was Korean Barbeque. Uncle Wu is a very nice but stubborn man (as are many people here in Dalian), and despite our protests, ordered way too much food. Even though I ate myself sick, I still like Korean food, especially kimchi, a traditional side dish consisting of preserved rotten cabbage. Let’s just say it’s an acquired taste at best, but I like it. We also had marinated beef and lamb, shrimp, fish, cornmeal and some tendon, which was really chewy and tasted like a dirty diaper smells (they like it though, so it’s perfectly legitimate, it’s just different from what I’m used to) all with the texture of wood. Still, with the spicy food and the hot coals in the table made me sweat. It’s not often you need to take a shower after dinner but I sure did.

In China:Post 4

2006-05-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

------------------Monday-May-15----------------------------

Today we just hung out around the apartment until evening. Then my and Sally went to meet with the local branch. Since it was just dinner rather than a church meeting, I was allowed to attend. Because of schedules, only a few members were able to come. It was the older members who aren’t busy with school and classes. They were awesome. There was the Yang Family. Brother Yang is the branch president and has been a member since 1998. He joined the church while visiting family in Hong Kong. His wife, mother and children have since joined the church. There was Max Huang, from Taiwan. He is also a convert who came over to China for his work for Ferrari. Until last year he wasn’t able to meet with Chinese members either but since then the Chinese government has decided that since Taiwan is part of China, so are Taiwanese people. His wife is a recent covert from Kunming in South China who wasn’t able to join us. There was also Sister Teng, a sister in probably her late 50s early 60s. She’s the one who got her mission call to Toronto. We all met in the apartment of the Zhou Family. Brother Zhou was baptized ten years ago in Singapore. His wife spend most of the time in the kitchen so I didn’t get to hear her story but their daughter Zhou Lin was adorable. Brother Yang bragged of how she would be the first child baptized at eight here in Dalian.

The Zhous lived on the other side of town close to where Sally went to college. We met the Yangs at the soccer complex where I was yesterday. From there we took a taxi to the Zhous’. Since a cab can only hold four people and there were five of us, I got to live out one of my lifetime fantasies. We got into a cab, pointed at the one in front of us and said “Follow that car.” The driver did a good job at this, despite the fact that the other driver was a fair bit more aggressive than he was. This led to many “movie car chase moments” when we would try to catch up, weaving in and out of traffic. It was scary, but awesome at the same time. At one point we ended up in front of the ca we were following. I don’t know how it happened but it was pretty funny.

Once we got out of the cars we walked to the Zhous, who lived in a huge complex of modern apartment complexes. All I could think was how glad I was that I didn’t have to tract them. As soon as we walked in the door, I could feel a real difference in the Zhous’ home. Maybe it was the Chinese proclamation to the world on the wall.

We sat and talked. They asked me questions about my mission and Sally about here conversion. They told us about the history of the church in Dalian. I was stunned and in awe of their faith and testimony. They haven’t had the easiest time here, but they have thrived. Together we ate potstickers and laughed. They seemed to like to play a game the members in Sydney would play “Wait until the white kid puts food in his mouth to ask him a question.” They were awesome people and I really have a feeling like this won’t be the only time that we see them. It’s good to know that when this country opens it’s doors, there will already be such a strong base to build one.

After dinner we walked to Sally’s college and took the bus that she would ride every week to get home. It was a long bus ride through a couple different parts of town. The size of this city continues to catch me by surprise.

In China: Post 3

2006-05-14T21:42:00.000-07:00

----------------Saturday May 13, 2006---------------------------------------

I woke up this morning with a stomachache. Rather than get up and force food into a pained belly, I decided to stay in bed instead. This turned out to be a good idea because when I woke up a couple hours I felt a lot better. I had some fangao [a kind of steamed bread that I really like] for breakfast. The stomachache came back with a vengeance a hour or so later but after I went to the bathroom I’ve felt good for the rest of the day. Sally’s dad thinks it was because I ate the raw fish without dipping it in wasabi sauce first. Wasabi is a Japanese sauce that uses mostly horseradish. Because of my infamous horseradish experience in Vegas, there’s only one thing on earth I hate more than Bob Sagat, and that’s horseradish, so I think it was worth it.

After getting rid of the pain the only way I know how to deal with nagging stomach discomfort we slugged around the apartment for a while. We had plans to meet with a couple of Sally’s roommates from college who are still living in Dalian. We took a bus down one of the bigger streets called ZhongShan Street to a big mall. This same street is the one I’ve gone down many times. It has the train station, XingHai Square and many other important places on it. The buses hear are different from the ones I’m used to from Logan and Sydney. First off you have to pay and they have a lot of people riding them, which makes them totally from anything LTD has to offer. Here the buses stop at each stop to pick up and let off passengers, which with as many people riding as they have, is a pretty safe bet. In Sydney the buses will blow right by every stop unless on one there flags them down or someone on board presses the button to get off. In Australia you have to know where your going and they charge you accordingly, the further your stop, the more your ticket is. If you don’t have exact change, the driver will break a 10 or a 20 for you. You get a receipt and need to carry it with you for the duration of the trip incase the transit authority gets on to check for fare bludgers. Here you drop one kuai in the bucket and your good to go. For as long as your on the bus, you’re fine. In Australia people, with the exception of young punks who don’t count because they’re not people, are generally civil and will offer they’re seat to an elderly person or a mom with kids. Here, with so many people, you can’t always afford to be nice.

We went to a big mall by the train station. Like most big malls around the world on Saturdays with one was packed, mostly with young trendy people. It also had the most American places that I’ve seen in Dalian, including a McDonalds, a Pizza Hut and a Baskin Robbins. Sally and I were weighed down with three bags of soy vitamins that Sally’s friend wanted us to buy for her so we couldn’t walk around too much until they found us.

Sally’s two friends soon met up with us. They were Anne and Judy. Anne brought her husband, Liu Yang, and Judy brought her boyfriend Bryan. These, with the exception of Yang, are obviously their English names used for the sake of simplicity. Our original plan was to go to a big nice buffet of the fifth floor of the mall. We slowly forced our way through the crowd and up the escalators to the restaurant. The mall was like a bigger version of a mall in, you guessed it, Sydney. It was the confusing layout (it took forever to find the next set of escalators) and the awesomely Asianness of the food court that reminded me so much of the mall in Chinatown. Once we made it all the way to the top, the hostess informed us that the buffet was only open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from to 10 p.m. Since it was 3 we decided to find another place to eat. Someone suggested YiXin (one heart or love) Barbeque, a Korean barbeque that wasn’t far from the mall. So we hoped in a couple of cabs and headed over.

I don’t think I’ve ever really explained what a Korean barbeque is. If you’ve never eaten ate one, I highly recommended it. So much so that I’ll take you to one in Salt Lake sometime if your willing to pay. It’s kind of a do it yourself joint. The waitress brings you plates of sliced, raw, marinated meat. In the middle of the table is a hole, the waitress then brings a bucket of hot coal and places it in the hole. She caps it with a grill and you’re good to go. This means everyone can have their meat as done as they like it, and it slows the meal down allowing for better conversation with family and friends. However, it’s the marinated that really shines in this show. The meat is usually dripping with sauce and therefore dripping with flavor. I can’t really describe the flavor and usually just say it’s loaded with Koreany goodness. My friend Ryan Robbins once said it’s so good that he’d throw it up just so he eat it again.

We got a room and sat and ate and talked. It was different than the other people I’ve met since I’ve been here. These were Sally’s friends, not her parents so she was excited and the conversation was lively. Also because we were all of the same generation there was more to talk about. I understood pretty everything that was said because they spoke with good clear accents. I enjoyed it. After we finished eating, Sally gave the girls some of the vitamins that she had brought for gift and the guys some Pringles that we were originally supposed to ship to a friend’s family but the post office wouldn’t let us. I’ve never seen anyone so excited to get a tube of Pringles.

Afterwards we made our way home. We took the 11 bus which is a route that goes through the neighborhoods rather than down the main street. The bus was smaller, only had one seat on each side and seemed to be a slightly older model. Ironically, it was also equipped with TV. The driver grinded the gears a lot and even sent some kids flying from their seats. It was good for me though because it help me get my “bus legs” back.

We got off the bus at the park where we walked off dinner a few nights ago. As we walked home Sally called her parents to let them know we were heading back (we didn’t have a set of keys so we needed them to buzz us in). They weren’t home so Sally wanted to go to the nearby Carrefour store (think Chinese Wal-Mart) to buy some bread that she has been craving for a long time. It’s this really thin Indian Style bread called paobing (thrown bread). While we were there we also picked up a couple of drinks, a zhunzhunaicha (pearl milk tea, not really tea, and quite tasty, next time you’re in Logan I’ll take you to get some, my treat this time) and a suanmeitang (sour plum soup, to my knowledge you can’t find it in America because it doesn’t make it through customs because of the no disgusting drink law). When we got home Sally’s parents were back as well. Apparently they had a similar idea and had bought a bunch of snacks too. They had lychees, cherries and dried hawthorn (my favorite, it tastes like fruit leather). We snacked and then played cards. They tried to teach me this ridiculously complicated but equally popular card game. I’m still trying to learn and not doing terribly well yet.

-----------Sunday, May 14, 2006-------------------------

Sally called Elder Jia, the go to guy in China for members to find a local congregation to attend. To our surprise and delight, Dalian had one. We really weren’t expecting to be able to go to church here. There was only one problem: Non-Chinese citizens couldn’t go. We still wanted Sally to go to church so we headed out. The plan was for me to hang out at Olympic Electronics City while she went to church. Not my ideal Sunday but it was better than hanging out at home. Electronic City is a two-floor electronics free for all underneath a soccer complex. It was a lot like the clothing expo but with computers rather than skirts.

It was pretty cool. I don’t know how much any of the stuff cost because it wasn’t labeled. I didn’t have any money so I didn’t ask. They had a wide variety of stuff though, everything from TV’s to computers to light bulbs. I spent most of my time looking through the movies. Everyone seemed to want to sell me DVDs (I blame the white guy factor). China is known for it’s movie piracy and I was smack-dab in the middle of it. If I wanted to I could have bought Mission Impossible Three or the new 9/11 movie that just came out. Trying not to look like too much of a foreigner, I spend most of the time thumbing through the TV series. Chinese TV aren’t open ended like ours are. They usually feature one major story arc and several small ones over the course of 20 to 50 episodes. These are very popular and I really like them. I’ve watched a couple of them back home and really like the way the stories can be more drawn out and how there’s usually a whole lot of kung fu. Fortunately there are other places where you can buy not pirated versions of these and I intend to stock up.

We were originally thinking they would only have sacrament meeting but they had a full block so I had even more time to kill. Exhausting my desire to have people say to me “Hello, DVD” making a circle with their hands (the universal sign of the DVD) I wend back top side to watch soccer for a while. While soccer is popular here, they’re not one the same level of play as Europeans or South Americans. Still, it was fun to watch for a while until it got too hot. I wandered around Olympic Square for a while watching little kids roller skate and then went across the street to hide in an air condition Internet café. Finally, Sally called me and we were able to go back.

She said she really liked the branch here. It was small, with only 12 members, but bigger than we were expecting. One of the members even just received a mission call to Canada. which is really exciting. I guess Chinese members can go to serve in five countries. We’re not sure of all of them but the US, Canada and Australia are all on the list. Sally also said the members were very friendly and happy to welcome her into their group. She said she had the same feelings at this branch as she did at an American ward and I explained that was because the truth is the same everywhere.

We went home and had lunch. I took a quick nap while the rest of the family watched the Korean soap opera. I guess Sally’s dad slept through it too. Sally’s mom sure didn’t, she cried. She really gets into this show. Sally says this is a pretty common occurrence.

After the mandatory viewing of the Korean soap opera, we went to the Labor Park here in Dalian. This time we were prepared and finally took a camera. Unfortunately the light wasn’t too good so the photos aren’t the best. We’ll be sure to take a lot more. The park was really pretty. We were there for the end of the annual peony festival so there were a whole lot of fragrant flowers in bloom. They also had a lot of statues including one for each sign of the Chinese zodiac. They had some birds in cages and ponds of gold fish where people could fish for pets. I wanted to take a picture of it but Sally wouldn’t let me. I’ll show the pictures I was able to take when I get home to a fast Internet connection. The park was a really pretty place though, and I liked it.

On our way out, we bought so lamb kabobs from a street vendors for a kaui each. This place lives and dies by its street vendors. They’re everywhere selling everything. It’s an extra bit of fun that we just don’t have back home.

I conclusion, I like China.

I'm in China post 2

2006-05-13T08:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was very laid back. After our quest to Shenyang we weren’t really in the mood to do too much. We lounged around the apartment, watched TV and, of course, ate. After dinner we went for a walk. I’m feeling a lot more comfortable walking around. I can cross the street all by myself now and everything. I even know am starting to know my around a bit. Not enough that I would want to wander around on my own, but it’s still nice to not feel lost all the time.

Our walk led us to a park not far from Sally’s home. I was a nice place with a small lake in the middle of it. There were some blossoms on the trees which added a nice fragrance to the air and bats flying around which added awesomeness. Even though it was getting dark, the place was full of people enjoying the evening. Some were fishing in the lake. Many of them were walking their dogs. There are a lot more dogs in China than I would have imagined, I’ve even seen the running free on their own, but all of them are small. I’m probably only seen two or three bigger than a sheltie. The kids around my age were mostly in small groups playing a game similar to hacky sack but with metal disks tied together and feathers coming out of one side. I think it’s a new fad because no one seems to be very good yet.

Today we went shopping again. This time it wasn’t to a shopping center like we’ve been to before, it was more of a crowded warehouse full of small wall-to-wall shops selling all kinds of clothes and other things. With so many vendors in such a small area there is a feeling of high competition in the air. The people running these stands are literally willing to sell you the shirts off their backs. Most of them wear this merchandise so that you can see it on some one. With everyone competing for your money, smart consumers can really take advantage. Sally’s mom is an expert haggler. She was able to get one vendor all the way down from 190 kaui to 100. I would say it was amazing to watch her in action but I actually wasn’t able to see it. My job was to disappear as soon as she and Sally started asking some one about the price or quality of a piece of clothing. This is because they were afraid that people would try to rip them off if they had a “rich” foreigner with them. But hey, I’m a ninja, I’m used disappearing on commanded.

While they would haggle I’d walk around the expo and explore. It was weird to see the different levels of excitement of the part of the vendors. Some would shout at you, trying to convince you to buy from them. Other just sit back and wait, reading, cross-stitching or even napping to pass the time. There were no dressing rooms like in a real mall, but who needs a dressing room when the merchant can just hold up a sheet for you while you change behind it? Like I said the people running the shop would often wear want the sold, tag still attached, so you could tell what they sold, even if they weren’t at their stand. If they had a nice shirt, they were from a shirt stand. Nice pants were from the pants shop. I can only assume what the underwear vendors were wearing. I figure it didn’t affect me. Actually underwear was probably the most commonly sold item there, which kind of limited what I could do while I waited for Sally and her mom. If I’m looking at pants, feeling the different materials and comparing them, I’m a discerning shopper. Do the same thing at the bra shop and I’m a pervert.

After we bought a bunch of stuff for various people back home, we went to eat at a restaurant called Jiajia (rough translation: Good good). At the entrance they have plates with all the meat and vegetables for each dish with a price tag set out so you can see exactly what you are getting. What you actually eat is still in back unless you order something that requires they pick a fresh fish or lobster from the many tanks on one wall. The whole place was booming. It was one of the loudest, most exciting places I’ve ever eaten. The food was really good too. We had Chinese style ribs, a Sichuan style fish and some egg and vegetable soup. The ribs were actually a cut of meat from the top of the rib, right up against the spine, not as far down as Western ribs. It’s funny, while we were staying at my Grandma’s right before we went to the airport I watched a show on the Food Network about an annual rib cook off in Reno. While I was watching it and drooling at the different ribs, I thought to myself that ribs were a truly great, truly American invention. I had forgotten that once again, the Chinese beat us by 4000 years, give or take. Sichuan cooking is one of the five traditional styles of cooking here and is one of my favorites. Basically it means cooking with a couple handfuls of dried red chili peppers and everything dripping in oil. It was delicious and just what I needed to clean the pipes.

After lunch we went to a world even more foreign to me that the streets of Dalian. A world I’ve never gone before and about which I know nothing about, a beauty salon. Sally has decided that while she’s here she wants to get her hair cut so we shopped around a little. I tried to avoid Chinese barbers in Sydney. My hair is so different from Chinese hair that the few times I strayed from my rule I suffered for it. They should do OK with Sally’s though.

Sally didn’t feel to well so she napped for the rest of the afternoon, giving me a chance to type up the day so far while watching soup operas imported from Korea with Sally’s mom. She’s kind of addicted to them. She was more fun to watch her than the TV.

Once Sally’s dad came home we all went out to eat with a friend of her father’s family. They took us to a buffet at a nice hotel here in town. In exchange me and Sally were supposed to speak a little English with their daughter. This sounded like a fair trade to me. The hotel obvious caters to foreigners and seemed like a really nice place. They decorated the place with Italians flags and boasted Italian cuisine but all I could find form Italy was pizza and a couple pasta dishes. Still that’s better than I normally get. They did have a lot of Western dishes, including roast beef, pork chops and even venison. All this was along side many traditional Chinese dishes. I tried to eat a wide variety of dishes but our hosts kept giving me meat so I had to keep eating it, you know how it is. They also got a bunch of sashimi, raw fish, for everyone to eat, but it turned out I was the only one who would eat it. I was so full I could hardly walk.

In China there is not nonsmoking section in restaurants. While more and more parts of the country are prohibiting smoking, restaurants aren’t any of these parts. Our host and many of the nearby tables’ guests smoked continually throughout the meal. While I’m still not about to take up smoking it doesn’t bother me as much as it used too. If I come home smelling like smoke, don’t go rifling through my stuff looking for the rest of the pack to make me eat it. It just means I’ve been to China. Fortunately for health reasons, neither of Sally’s parents smoke – or drink for that matter – so we haven’t had to had those orders at home. This is doubly good since Sally has been sick lately and smoke has been sending her into coughing fits.

One funny thing that happened during dinner, I was waiting for the server to cut me a slice of roast beef. The meat looked just how I life it, brown all around but a nice shade of pink inside. This two Chinese gets were staring at it wondering what on earth it was. “It’s raw meat,” one said. “No way, that’s not possible,” he friend explained. “Now that’s how the foreigners eat it,” the first boy added. “Yep,” I explained” and it’s delicious.”

After dinner we went for a drive to see Dalian at night. Since we’ve been usually been going to bed by 10:00 p.m., this was my first real experience with Dalian nightlife. Despite being as long fro east to west as the US, China doesn’t use time zones. This means an extremely eastern city like Dalian gets dark early, like around 7:30 these days. We drove along a windy mountain road that from what everyone told me is very pretty during the day. To me, it just looked dark. Then we went to XingHai park to walk around. It was really pretty at night, with good lighting on all the statues and the nearby buildings.

This is when I learned that you have to pay to use the public restrooms here. This is a whole new experience for me. The only other time I’ve paid to do my business was in Australia and that was just once to use the “Toilet of the Future.” This was not the toilet of the future. It was more like the bathroom of 50 years ago. I’ll spare everyone the gory details of the revolution I’m planning on starting if they every start charging to use the restroom in Logon. Let’s just say it’s disgusting.

The whole bathroom experience is very different here than it is in America. Here it’s not as relaxing. All the have are squatters and the walls are lowered to match. Also, with the exception of the Shanghai airport, you have to take your own toilet paper.

I'm in China, post 1

2006-05-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

I’m in freaking China!

After the worst chunk of long, boring and painful travel in my life I’m finally in that mysterious land to the East. It’s kind of weird for me. For the last five years I’ve dreamed of coming to the land of great food and Great Walls and now I’m really here. It’s kinda like being able to sneeze after your nose tickles all day.

I’ve only been here for three days now but it seems a lot longer than that. I’ll blame the jetlag and the language barrier for that. Now that I’m over that, I think time should resume its allotted course. And by that I mean the jet lag, I don’t think I’ll ever overcome the language barrier. It’s hard for me to imagine that I ever got by in Sydney like I did. I think the people there spoke a different kind of Chinese. Of course I think a lot of things.

Before we left, I would make fun of Sally because every time I would ask her what we would do here she would talk about how much good food we’d eat while we were here. That was really all I could get her to talk about was food, occasionally she would saying something about going shopping but then she’d talk about all the treats we’d be buying from street vendors while we’re out. Now that I’ve been here a few days I realized why she talked like this. All we do is eat. Occasionally we go shopping, but mostly, we eat.

We start at the traditional first stop of breakfast. I’ve never been much a breakfast eater. A pop tart or toast is more than I normally eat and more than I need. That theory doesn’t fly in this family though. Breakfast is usually a couple hardboiled eggs (usually one from a goose and at least one from chickens) a plate of Chinese cucumbers (thinner and crispier than the English variety), a plate of huge shrimp or a shrimp like animal I’ve never seen before and a huge chunk of this chewy sweet bread that we bought from a street vendor for 5 kuai. One the whole breakfast is okay. A little bland, but okay. The problem is the amount of food involved. By the time I forced it all it, I’m good for the rest of the day. They don’t seem to think it’s enough to get me through the rest of the morning. I’m usually handed a huge bowl of strawberries and told to go watch TV while they clean up and figure out what we’re gonna do the rest of the day.

The rest of the day usually includes lunch. Lunch is usually really, really good, although yesterday Sally made me eat a pig’s foot even though she knew I didn’t like them. Sally loves seafood more than she loves me so we have seafood a lot. We’ve had clams and scallops so far and I’ve sure there’s a lot more in store for me. Sally told her mom that I like meat so we have a pork dish and usually some meatballs for lunch each day. We have Chinese salad (raw radish slices and sauce) and soup too. Add a bowl of rice to this and it’s hard to eat it all. It’s delicious, but I’m only one man, my stomach has limits.

Dinner is usually what we couldn’t each for lunch with a couple other dishes made especially for the occasion. It’s a whole lot more food and my crappy schedule of work and school has left me ill prepared. It’s getting easier though. Largely because I think I’m gaining weight. I was actually hoping to lose a little of that here but maybe (warning: I’m about to give way too much information, you may want to skip ahead to the next paragraph) once I start pooping like normal, I may actually be able to do that. As of right now I’m still carrying most of the food I’ve eaten since we landed.

Fortunately, there’s one thing in this country of tea and beer to help me wash all this food down, Smart. Smart is a Coke product that Sally introduced me to while we were in “Coke World” in Las Vegas. It’s an apple flavored pop that they have here and it is delicious. It’s like I can finally get that flavor I’ve enjoyed all my life without the hassle from all that unnecessary chewing. My life is now complete.

Okay in truth we do do a little more than just each. We have gone shopping a few times already and I’m sure we’ll go again. Shopping is popular activity in China, you have endless opportunities. Everywhere you look there are make shift street markets with people selling everything from produce to electronics. You can get all your shopping done before you even get to the store. Of course these merchants often try to get my attention because I’m foreign but so far I’ve resisted their every business skill.

Things are really cheap here too, when I remember that the prices are in kuai, not dollars. Since one US dollar is worth about 8 kuai, this is a pretty important conversion to make. So far we’ve gotten me a nice pair of shoes and Chinese national soccer jersey. We bought Sally all kinds of stuff, none of which I’m able to remember right now. I may be okay with shopping in China, but I’m still a guy.

Dalian is a very amazing city. Often in travel guides they will talk about the rhythm or the pace of a city. Dalian doesn’t have a pace and rhythm indicates some sort of order. Here in Dalian, they are a chaos, and yet it’s a chaos that works. Everyone and everything is happening completely independent from everything else. There are so many people that everyone has stopped caring. The other people on the street aren’t people, they’re just an obstacle on the way home. Everyone just pushes their own directions and because there’s five million people all going in a different direction, there not enough in any particular direction for anything bad to happen. It’s a beautiful thing to just sit back and watch because even though you don’t know how, it works.

I used to feel the same way about Sydney, but then I became a part of the chaos, rather than an observer, so it lost some of the mystery. Dalian still has it. Now that I’ve had more experience, I’m willing to bet that all big cities do.

There are many other similarities between Dalian and my home down under. Both have brick sidewalks, which are beautiful, but are hard on the feet and harder on the knees. At least I’m not wearing church shoes this time. It’s also really, really humid. If you’ve never lived right by the sea, it’s an experience. Your clothes are never really dry, your sweat just stays on you and you pee a lot more because of it. Both Sydney and Dalian have a growing city feel to them. Dalian has a higher percentage of Asians, but not by much. Both have a lot of restaurants, none of which have tacos and a lot of adult bookstores. I don’t know if the adult bookstores sell tacos and I don’t care enough to ask.

There are differences as well. In Sydney, if you were in a crosswalk, you were the king of Australia. You could step out in front of anyone and they would stop. It was quite the empowering experience to have. Here, it’s every man, woman and child for themselves. You just run out and try to squeeze in between cars because nobody is gonna wait for you, even if you were the king of Australia. It’s scary trying to cross the street, it’s like very high stakes Frogger. So far I haven’t seen anyone lose though. That’s heartening.

I’m sure there are more differences worth mentioning. I’ll have to write them down as they come to me.

I do spend a lot of time here watching TV. This is just to fill the time. We’re not here to travel all the time. First and foremost, we’re visiting family and that leaves some spare time. While I’m still not sure of everything I can usually find something worth watching. There’s usually a movie or a kung-fu series on. In fact the first thing I saw on Chinese TV was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Mostly though I watch sports. Sports are easy because I don’t have to understand everything they say. There big into the NBA here so I’ve watched some of the finals. Best of all, the Chinese ESPN has been gearing up for the World Cup so they’ve been showing classic games from previous tournaments along with plenty of Chinese league soccer. It’s good to have one while I type or draw or do whatever.

The bed that we sleep on is far from comfortable. It’s just a layer of foam on a wooden slab. While it takes longer for me to fall asleep and I have roll around I like, my back hasn’t been hurting me lately which is good. I’ll let you know how it goes.

We’ll that me so far, any questions send them by email. That’s the best way to communicate with me. See ya’ll later.
-----------------------Tuesday and Wednesday, May 10, 2006--------------------------------------

Well it’s been a bad day, but the worst days make the best blog posts.

It’s actually not been that bad, it’s just been long and hard. But like most things that are long and hard, it’s been worth it. Let me explain.

Part of our plans here were for Sally to renew her visa. For students like her that’s just part of coming home. She and her mom were going to leave on Tuesday for Shenyang, the capitol of the Liaoning province (that’s where Dalian is by the way) and would come back really late on Wednesday. The cheapest way to get from city to city in China is by train. They left around noon to catch the train for the capitol.

While they were gone, Sally’s father was going to stay home from work to look after me. I told him that I was fine to stay alone and just watch TV, read, draw and write but he insisted. After our wives left the two of us went to XingHai (Star of the Sea) Park, the largest public square in Asia. It was a really impressive place. There were a lot of fountains going down the center of the square, statutes of various sports around the perimeter (Dalian is a very sports oriented town) and some low budget carnival style rides. XingHai Park is right by the ocean. Surprisingly, there weren’t very many seagulls and only a few pigeons. On the walls of the pier, we could see people scraping off some kind of shell fish (small clams I think). There was also a huge monument dedicated to the 100th year anniversary of the founding of the city back in 1999. It had a thousand footprints leading up to a couple kids playing in the sand. It was one of the many things that I wish I had brought my camera for, but without my wife, I tend to forget pretty much everything. I understand it only gets worse from here.

The square earns its rank of biggest in Asia. It’s pretty darn big. Sally’s dad was impressed with my being able to handle walking the whole thing. Apparently when they take Sally, she has trouble keeping up.

We got to the park via bus. We took a double decker bus and at Sally’s dad’s recommendation sat in the front seat on the top level. It was an exciting and terrifying view of the city. I was actually seated a little bit further forward than the driver so there were several times that I thought we were surely going to crash into a cab or a scooter or an old lady with a cart. However the bus driver seemed to really know his trade. We weaved in and out and no one got hurt. After a few minutes I was able to relax and take in more of the city. There are statues, huge modern shopping centers and KFCs everywhere you go. Even among all the hustle and bustle of modern Dalian, I was able to see glimpses of a more traditional China. These ranged from old people doing Tai Chi in a small grove of trees to playing mahjong on a cardboard box. It’s an interesting dynamic.

We came home from the park and started dinner. We made dumpling. The filling wasn’t made from shrimp or sausage like Sally normally makes, but rather some kind of sea worms. They tasted alright but after a couple their chewy texture got hard to swallow. Her dad taught me a better way to wrap dumplings that is quicker and looks pretty. With practice I will become the best in the world for sure.

While we were eating, Sally called to tell us that she had forgotten an important piece of paper in her backpack and that she needed to have it brought to her if she were to get her visa. So at 10:30 at night we headed to the train station and caught a train for Shenyang. I’ve read in people of travel books about the charm of the Chinese rail system. Well as we took the all night train, I didn’t see any charm. All I saw was a crowded train car with butt-numbingly hard seats, smoke coming in from the area between cars and people constantly jostling for seats. They sell seats by number but they also sell plenty of “no seat” tickets incase some one misses the train because they’re waiting at a bus station instead of the train station or something like that. If you have a “no seat” ticket you have to pounce on what you can as soon as you can so you never have an empty seat next to you. It’s hot, I’m sweating like a Mexican monkey and the train keeps shaking me awake just as soon as I fell asleep.

The train clattered through the darkness from 11:00 p.m.until 4:00 a.m. We got off at Shenyang South station but after an hour we learned we really wanted Shenyang North. While we were sorting this out I saw my first argument in China. Some lady was fighting with the ticket seller about the price of something. I’ve seem such confrontations many times before but what I thought was funny was how here, people weren’t at all trying to hide the fact that they were watching and enjoying the show. It wasn’t like in America of Australia when once a situation turn tense everyone pretends they’re not there.

We took a cab to the northern station where we met up with Sally and her mom. We went back to the place they were staying, a room in some one else’s apartment they’ve turned into a bed and breakfast, minus a breakfast. No sooner than I got through the door than I collapsed on one. This ended my hope that the bed we sleep on at Sally’s parents’ was the exception not the rule for beds in China. At this point I didn’t care, I was asleep within moments. When I woke up, the wives had just come back from something. We all went to get breakfast, breads and milk from a little store around the corner. I’ve had a lot of Chinese friends in America complain to me about the quality of milk and bread we have in the states. For milk, I can see their point. I wouldn’t say it’s any better than our milk, but it’s not any worse either. It’s just different. I guess it’s just a matter of what you’re used to. In the bread department, we win though. These weren’t the steamed breads that China is really good at, these were Western style packaged breads. The first one I ate was OK, but the other one was a sweetbread with pieces of dried ham, lines of cheese and a chewy mayonnaise center. Not a good mix.

After breakfast Sally and her mom went to the American Embassy to take care of everything. I slept more. My sleep here is hardly ever without dreams. When I woke up, Sally came back with good news, all was well and she would be able to come home when this trip was all over. We were actually a little worried that there may be problems because of our marriage. Fortunately for us, it wasn’t even an issue. Prayer works, just in case you were wondering.

Once that was behind us, we were able to go out for lunch. We went to a Korean Barbeque, of which there are many here in Liaoning, which was pretty good. This let me see a little more of Shenyang. It’s a lot more of what I expected a Chinese city to look like, although the only specific thing I can put my finger on is the presence of bikes. Sally explained that Dalian is too hilly for most people to ride bikes.

After lunch me and Sally’s dad went to catch our train, leaving the women to shop and pick up Sally’s visa. On the bus to the station, I met I guy from Nigeria named Miked. The bus was just packed with wall-to-wall Chinese people and there we were this one white guy and one black guy. He was really friendly and spoke good English. It was nice to know I not the only foreign person here.

We missed the train though so we had to switch our tickets for “no seaters” on the same train Sally and her mom were on. Since the train didn't leave until 11, we had a lot of time to kill. I read a bit from “Ender's Game,” the only thing I brought with me to Shenyang, but mostly we just waited. Since there was no guarantee that we'd be able to sleep on the train, we went to a place were you were able to rent a bed for a few hours. They had “rooms” fenced off with particle board with a TV and eight beds in a room. Travelers often pay a few kuai to get out of the waiting room and lay down for a little bit. These beds were also the hard kind but by this point I'm used to them. What I wasn't used to was the TV blaring the Chinese equivalent of the Lawrence Welk Show (I assume it was basically the same thing because there were people singing and bubble, that was Lawrence Welk right?). I still managed to grab a short nap, which made all the difference.

That train left at 11:00 at night and we didn't get back to Dalian until 6 a.m. Even though it was a lot longer than the first right, it was a lot easier to deal with. It's always better when the person sleeping on your shoulder is you wife, not some old man. We made small talk with some to the other passengers. Most were impressed that I spoke Chinese but still preferred to ask them questions about me than ask me directly. This bothered me at first but then I remembered I was too tired to care. I finished Ender's Game and tried to sleep with varying degrees of success. Finally, after blaring the Dalian theme song over the PA system, we rolled into the final station.

From this point it was a quick trolley ride back home. The Zhus all wanted to eat breakfast but I was too tired. I excused myself politely and crashed in bed. I didn't wake up until about 10 a.m. I finally got to shower after 50 plus hours. I finally busted my Gillette Quatro out of it’s packaging. I'll admit, I used to make fun about how the razor company is getting out of control with the race towards infinite blades, but I enjoyed the shave. I could hear my stubble crying in vain for mercy against the power of the fourth blade.

So that's my adventure so far. It's one heck of a ride. I may not be having fun all the time, but I'm enjoying every minute of it. Yeah China

Choices choices

2006-04-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

So recently I was in the computer lab and some guy was playing high level World of Warcraft and I was trying to sneak peeks to see how he was doing while I did my homework. It was a little too late that I realized there was a girl sitting inbetween us who seemed a little freaked out that I was constantly "checking her out."

The answer is right in front of you

2006-04-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

I today’s workplace you really need to be careful about what you say. Sexual harassment is a real problem these days and you really need to be careful with it. I’ve all for a fair and comfortable working environment for everyone.

Recently in my office, our editor in chief (who is a woman), basically gave us permission to use the word “rack” while we’re working.

Us guys haven’t said anything else since.

Geek on.

I got poor so I could make money

2006-03-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure the so called "graduation fee" is just the university's way of saying, "we'll miss your money, give us something to remember it by."

Geek on.

Nothing's coming to mind here either

2006-03-27T21:49:00.000-07:00

Things I do when I should be writing The Geek Beat:

Google my one name. Now don’t pretend for one second that you’ve never done this. The only people who haven’t done this have never though of it and they will probably do it the next time they are alone at a computer.

Googling your own name is one of the greatest things to do because it’s an easy way to judge your impact on the world. We can see all the work we’ve done that others can see – if they ever happen to Google our name – and plot ways to get back at the bastards that stole our name.

Geek on.

You whippersnappers

2006-03-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

It’s official.

Despite all my efforts to avoid, stop or at least delay it, I’ve become a grown up.

Darn it.

You see, that’s what I’m talking about. I can’t even swear and be all edgy anymore.

When ever I try to curse or use a dirty word, I subconsciously think of the automatically replace it with something like “freak” or “gun” or “tuckus.” If I focus really hard sometime I can still write “poop.’

I realized that I had become a card-carrying adult when I compared my Spring Break activities with those of my younger, singler friends.

Let’s just say no ones going to be online downloading clips from my vacation.

Even compared to my Spring Break last year, this year was responsible, mature and lame.

Last year I went for the ultimate road trip with my roommate. It was the quintessential road trip across the back roads of America. Through it we learn the history of this great nation, a great deal about our selves and that Kansas is a stupid, stupid place.

This year, I helped put new carpet in my friend’s nursery.

Through it I learned that mauve is a kind of pinkish red and that carpet adhesive is really sticky.

I’ve also learned the satisfaction of a job well done.

Or at least, a job done.

Geek on

I've also decided that there should be a minimum age for bikinis

2006-03-14T15:20:00.000-07:00

I've decided that fat guys should not use messenger bags for the same reason girl should. The strap tends to do a great job drawing attention to the … hmmm … lets just say the zoomazooms.

Geek on.

I didn't die

2006-03-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

I’ve always known that I’d die either in a hailstorm of bullets or in the first round of a single elimination, to-the-death martial arts tournament.

I’m OK with these fates. With the first at least I’ll be taking several officers of the peace with me. In the latter my death will inspire my childhood best friend to fight on to victory to avenge me.

Although I a little confused why my best friend would be fighting in the same single elimination, to-the-death martial arts tournament as me.

Also, is there such thing as a double elimination, to-the-death martial arts tournament? If not there should be. I’d watch that movie.

Geek on

Read this or die!

2006-03-06T16:56:00.000-07:00

I’m scared. I’m scared that I might forget to vote and I will die.

What’s the deal with threatening people with their life for every little thing that we happen to feel passionate about? Is that the only way we can make someone else care about what we care about?

All it does is leave me in a panic. If I don’t vote, I’ll die. If I don’t recycle, I’ll die. If I don’t skate, I’ll die. If I don’t stop stalking Jessica Alba, I’ll die. If I don’t drink enough water, I’ll die.

I wouldn’t be so worried if I knew I’d come back as a ghost with awesome powers, but I have no such assurance. I’ll just try to keep one step ahead of my assassins.

Geek on … Or die!