No hawk

The mohawk had to come off this week, due to legal complications, but it's been a fun experience. Here's some of the responses that I've experienced:

Con

People stare a lot. Sometimes I would forget that I had a mohawk, and I'd just see this guy staring at me and wonder if he knew me or something, or see some girl that just couldn't take her eyes off of me. I'd be pretty sure that she must've wanted me bad, and then I'd remember that I had a haircut.

Pro

I went to the zoo the day after I got the 'hawk, and little kids would stare at me like crazy. They're even more shameless about it than adults, and don't mind staring. They're really nicer about it, though. I think that most of them haven't yet learned to hate people that look different, so they just thought I was interesting or something and I ended up having all of these little kids telling me stories about the snakes and bats that we were looking at. Apparently it's easier to make friends with little kids when you look funny. Maybe clowns should start wearing mohawks.

Pro

A girl in the Detroit airport gave me her phone number and wanted to hook up with me in Vegas. I suppose it's possible that she liked me because of my charm or boyish good looks, but since I don't really get a lot of girls offering me their phone numbers, I'm going to assume that the mohawk was the new thing that encouraged that.

Pro

At the Braves' game in Atlanta I got put on the big screen. When I saw them with their Fan Cam putting people up on the screen, I was pretty sure that I was a shoo-in, so I had Kim get ready, and she got a picture of it as evidence.

Pro

After the game, the lady selling Braves visors liked my haircut and gave me one for free.

Con

At said game, I got really sun-burnt. The loss of a super-power is pretty unfortunate, but let's not dwell on that anymore.

Con

Camille doesn't like me anymore and Kim thought I looked ugly.

Con

The term "WT" was used to describe me on a much more frequent basis (rivaling the frequency with which I actually deserve it).

Pro

My boss, surprisingly, didn't even care. He just took pictures of it and put them on the wall.

???

The bishop didn't express an opinion. He just kept asking, "What happened?" over and over. I didn't really have a good answer for him.

Con

I got pulled over in Nephi on the way back from Las Vegas (where I'm just another one of the many freaks and didn't get any special reactions at all). I was going pretty fast and it was obvious when the cop had seen me, so I pulled right over before he even had to turn his lights on. I would have thought he'd be pretty appreciative of this, but he wasn't pleased with me at all. He even threatened to take me straight in to jail.

It's possible that the last one didn't have anything to do with the mohawk, since I hear that Pete Lattin got arrested in Fillmore just for speeding, and he's a pretty clean-cut guy. I don't imagine that the mohawk helped, though. In fact, just for contrast, consider what happened to me today when I went to court for the same ticket. Today, however, I was mohawk-free and I wore a shirt and tie. The Judge told me to go get my ticket reduced by the DA, despite that I admitted that I deserved the ticket that I got, and the DA cut my fine in half upon hearing that I was a BYU student.
I think that people might treat you different as a mohawk-wearer, but even so, the pro's seem to balance out the con's. I just don't understand why everyone doesn't have mohawks. I guess it's a good thing they don't, or they'd all be super-villains like me.

Lost in the desert

I could have died and been lost in the desert today, and no one would have been the wiser. Consider the following scenario.

I'm driving back from Las Vegas where I went to Jordan and Ariana's wedding reception. I get to St. George and I stop for some gas and some food, and then head on my way. About half-way between St. George and Cedar City, I cross an over-pass, and suddenly my wheel starts rumbling severely. I pull over to the side of the road, and just as I feared, I have a blown-out tire.
I get my spare tire and jack out from the trunk, and start to jack up the car. The road has a slight decline, and the car rolls forward as it raises off the ground, and rolls off the jack. If only I had a brick or cinder block to put in front of the tire to keep it from rolling. I look around the side of the road for a rock to use. The ground to the side of the road slopes down into a tree-covered gully, but on the hill I see a large flat rock, about 5 inches thick. It's a good bet, so I go pick it up. It's really big and heavy, and it's awkward for me to pick up on the hill. I start carrying the rock to the car, but I slip and stumble backward, falling down on the ground. The rock drops hard on my chest, breaking several ribs and puncturing a lung. I pass out as I'm rolling down the hill into the trees. I die a few hours later.
I don't get back to Provo at all that night. My roommates don't think anything of it, because I hardly ever sleep in my own apartment anyway, and this is the second weekend in a row that I've taken a trip without telling them where I'm going. They don't even know I'm gone.
I don't go to Church the next day, but since I have such a hard time waking up every morning anyway, most everyone is used to me sleeping in, and no one is really that surprised that I'm not there, so they don't think anything of it.
Only a few of my friends even know that I've gone to Vegas, but they know that I could stay a few days just as easily as come back today, so they're not really surprised that they don't see me after a few days. Ronnie goes back to Louisiana and never knows if I come back from Vegas or not. All he knows is that I don't answer my Gmail. Jason moves back to Salt Lake and likewise thinks nothing of the fact that he hasn't seen me after a week. Tyler knew that I was gone, but quickly forgets and is just annoyed that I'm not around for him to watch TV at my place. His girlfriend then gets back in town and he stops coming over, so he never realizes that I haven't come back.
The only one of my friends that knows that I've headed back to Provo is Amy Jo. After she's been back in Provo for a few weeks she calls me when she's bored one day, but when I don't return her calls she just writes me off as a jerk and stops calling.
I don't show up to work the next week. No one at work is really surprised, since they're used to me setting my own schedule, working from home, or just taking breaks whenever I feel like it. It takes until the end of the month for them to call, and then they just want to know my new class schedule. I don't give one to them, but they don't worry about since I don't follow a schedule anyway.
Meanwhile the highway patrol finds my car on the highway. They put a notice on it, and when it remains there for a day or two, they assume it's abandoned and impound it. They never even notice my body down in the gully.
My family calls after a week or two, and I don't answer. They just complain about how crappy of a son/brother that they have, and get annoyed with me for never calling them back. After a few months of not hearing from me, they'll call my grandma and see if she's seen me. No one hears from me, and it's not until I don't come home for Christmas that they suspect that something might be wrong, as opposed to me just being a jerk.

This didn't all happen, of course. I did get a flat tire outside of St. George, but I didn't drop the rock and I was able to get back into town and buy a new tire. All in all it took me about 4 hours to get through St. George on my way back home. It is kind of depressing, though, to realize that if something had happened to me that it would have taken 4 months before anyone even started looking for me. Now I know how Bryant feels.

Skinvincible

When Spider-man got his cosmic powers, Magneto came to check him out in case he was a mutant. That's when I learned that some mutants don't show their powers when they're born, but develop them later in life. I assumed that's the way it was with my super power.
I'm a fair-skinned guy, and it's not surprising that I'm sensitive to the sun, and I'd been burnt pretty good when I was a kid. About a year ago, though, I spent a week with my brother in Las Vegas during the summer. It's different going to Vegas with my brother, because we didn't do any of the touristy things. We just hung out by the pool all day every day, and then went to the casinos at night. Even though I laid by the pool without any sunscreen for about four hours every day, I didn't get burned or tanned or anything. It was as if the sun had no effect on me whatsoever. I was skinvincible.
I don't know how long I've had this power, but that was the first time I'd seen it in effect, but now I can't remember being really sunburned since high school when we'd go boating. This week, however, I discovered that my power wasn't a mutant evolution after all, but from a different source.
On Monday I spent a large chunk of the day outside in the sun at the Braves game. The newly-exposed skin on my head got burned bad. Maybe the worst burn that I've ever had in my life. Yesterday it blistered up. Last night the blisters burst. This morning my head is swollen all around the burn on one side. I look like I had some birth defect that makes my head lop-sided.
Now some might say that my skinvincibility was just a joke or my imagination, or that I simply don't get enough sun to test it since I'm just a indoor-dwelling computer guy. I insist that my powers were real, and it's obvious to me what has happened. I simply lost my power when I shaved my head. Every super-hero has a weakness. I guess the haircut was mine.

So I went road trippin' with my favorite allies (except for the #1, who's busy road trippin' with my replacement) this weekend, and so I tried Vegas from the tourist perspective this time: It's a lot more tiring. I'm still worn out.
By far the coolest attraction (or at least the best, even if cool isn't quite the word to describe it) was the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton. Not only is there the most comprehensive timeline ever to show the events of the 25th century, and two great interactive rides (are they really rides, though?) including a replica of the Enterprise bridge that was so realistic that I almost had a heart-attack, and the best Star Trek gift show this side of StarLand (how many not-only's am I allowed?), but the best part was that they actually brought in aliens from the 25th century and we got to talk to them at Quark's bar. I got threatened by a Klingon 'cause he thought my red shirt meant I was a ranking officer, and I bought some Betazoid prostitutes from the Ferrengi that ran the bar, and we talked to some Borgs. Now, I know what you're thinking: You can't talk to Borgs (that is what you were thinking, right?). Well, we talked to 3 of 6, who explained to us that he was among the Borgs that had been severed from the collective and had regained his sense of individuality (There was another Borg who had only recently been separated from the collective and hadn't yet learned to interact with humans, so he just stared at you like you'd expect from a Borg).
I'm sure you're wondering, so I'll tell you how a conversation goes with a Borg: First, we just wanted to know where the bathroom was, and we thought we wouldn't be able to communicate with the Borg to ask him, but he explained that he'd been separated from the collective, and he told us where the bathroom was, and wished us "Success on your urination." Later, he came by our table and inquired as to how my urination went. Everyone started laughing, so 3 of 6 asked if they laughed because it doesn't usually go well, and I said, "Well, sometimes I get a little stage fright," which apparently even Borgs understand: "Acknowledged," the Borg said (sympathetically). He then went on to tell us that he was scanning the area for <insert techno-babble here>, which we didn't understand, but we all acknowledged.
Just when you thought that I was over Star Trek, I get assimilated; I've been watching it on Sci-Fi every afternoon since I've been back home.

I totally missed today. Somehow I forgot what day it was, so I missed the drawing class and I missed BBQ Club. Some people might not think that's a big deal, but I blew off classes today and I don't really care, but I'm kind of upset about missing BBQ Club. I also learned that people look at you weird if you wear a stripper shirt.

Spring break is over. I think Vegas is my new favorite city. I learned how to play blackjack and roulette, spent a <insert favorite swear word>load of money, got kicked out of my hotel, and got the best shoe polish known to man. I'm also proud to say that I spent all weekend there without doing anything to get kicked out of the Church. Now I'm going to stay up all night and try to catch up on the work that I've blown off for the last two weeks.

I finished the Wonder Arch website yesterday. My clients seemed pleased with it but they were reluctant to say that they were, but either way, I got paid and I'm happy with how it turned out. I'm making my own spring break now, and since its not official I'm going to make it last two weeks. I'm going to go skiing tonight and tomorrow and I'm going to Denver this weekend and to Vegas the next. So there. Take that, anti-spring-break-ites.