Observations

This morning I shaved my beard into a moustache. When I got to work and my boss called me into his office to help him with something, he looked at me a little bit puzzled, and then asked if I'd gotten a haircut. I grinned and said yes. I did, in fact, get a haircut yesterday.

Then Garrett looked up from what he was doing (also helping Jon) and laughed, pointing out that it was Moustache May.

Jon looked at me again, this time noticing the moustache, but still confused as to what was new. "Oh, yeah, you had a full beard yesterday. I knew something was different but I couldn't figure out what it was."

This might not be that funny on its own, but I mostly like it because I predicted that exact response last night.

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.

The best of times, the worst of times

I realized yesterday that my best moments are the same as my worst moments. Here's a ranked list of the best and worst things that happened to me yesterday:

1. I saw the girl that I like yesterday. It's the best thing because I like seeing her, and the worst thing because I feel like a tool because nothing's ever going to happen between us.
2. I spent $10 at Taco Bell. It's the best because it was so good, but the worst because I'm ashamed of myself for spending so much money on lunch.
3. I played the soccer accuracy drill in the ward activity. It's the best because it's the first time I've gotten to play soccer since I hurt my leg (details coming soon) and it's the worst because I did really bad and got out in the first round.
4. All we did at work yesterday was watch Star Wars fan films. It's the best because we goofed around all day, and the worst because now I'm going to have to work harder to get my project done in time.

That's all I can think of. It's a neat phenomenon, though, huh?

30 year plan

Ben's dad got us an interview to re-make his company's Web site. AudioDig hasn't yet had a lot of clients, so we were pretty excited and nervous, but I think it actually went well. So with any luck we'll have an actual paying job soon, and then I won't sound like a liar when I tell people that I have my own Web design company.

Ransom Reversal

Jessica, the secretary at work, has this bowl on her desk in which she occasionally puts candy. It's been a few weeks since she's had any, so Roy and I took the bowl, and gave her a note that read (more or less) as follows:

If you ever want to see your bowl again, you will leave candy at this location on your desk. Do not contact the police or the administration.
Signed, NOT Roy & NOT Bryant

While I can't be sure that she didn't tell our boss, I'm pretty sure that the police haven't gotten involved yet. Well she put some candy out, but it was just barely a handful, so I think the bowlnappers just took the candy and didn't give the bowl back.
So today we looked in the cabinet where we had hid the bowl, and it was gone.
As far as I can see, the only solutions are that either (1) someone stole it from the cabinet, in which case we've actually lost it, or (2) Jessica or an accomplish went through our cubicle while we were at lunch yesterday and took the bowl back. Since (1) is pretty unlikely, considering that I work at BYU, we've assumed (2). I'm sure what they want us to do is to go and confess that we lost the bowl so that they can make us feel silly for taking it. We'll show them.

A Hope for Normal Conditions

We went to lunch early today, and its a good thing that we did, because it started melteding pretty hard as soon as we got back. I think its worked its way into frozening. I hope it at leasts normals in the mountains, but it would be fun if we got some normal here, too.
Brighton opens tomorrow. Are they the first? Well, I'm excited. I'm torn about what to do with my money this season, though. I really liked the Brighton night pass that I had last year; that worked out pretty well. It costs $250. I think the rumor about Sundance puts a mid-week pass at $130 or something like that, which is much more in my price range, but then there's no night skiing and probably no Ben, which for sure would slow down my improvement rate. A real pass (even for students) to Brighton is about $500. I need to sell a Web site or something.

I've hardly been to any of my classes this week, and I haven't worked that much, and I can't think of anything important that I've gotten done. Maybe I was on a break. I wish I'd known ahead of time that I was going to be on vacation, though, because then I could have taken a trip or something.

The main page for the project that I do for BYU is finished, and today we were trying to figure out how to get the domain name pointed to it correctly, but we got it and the page is official as of today. I've been working on a module that sorts the images into galleries, and I finished the part that allowed a random image from the gallery to be displayed. I was uploading this just as my boss was sending out the announcement that the web site was done. You, there are several files and changes to the database that happen while I'm uploading a modification, so the web site looks screwed up for probably 2 minutes while I'm uploading things. These, of course, were the exact two minutes in which the dean of the college received the email and looked at the web page. Drama ensued.

The secretary at work told me I have to use headphones when I'm listening to music. My life is so hard.

I got a new computer! Well, my work did, but its for me. Its a P4 3.6GHz, 148GB disk, and I got this 19" monitor. I'm so installing Doom 3 on it, now. It even smells good.

I'm using a Mac right now. I know, but don't freak out. See, we have this machine here at work for testing if our apps work on the Mac, but nobody ever uses it (partly 'cause the programmers don't care about the Mac, and partly because we have a limited number of working jacks to the internet). So, our secretary never actually comes in (I'm glad that's not just me, either) so I stole his internet connection and hooked it up to this Mac so that I could listen to the radio while I'm programming. I mean, uh, so I could test my applications!

They moved me into a new part of the office that they made for us programmers, so now not only am I going to have to start showing up on time and actually doing work, but I won't get to stare at the gymnast girls that come in! I don't know how long I'm gonna last at this job, now.

So I tried to get this web design job today. When I talked to the owner of the store the other day she got really excited and she acted like she had already decided to have me do the site. I went back today to seal the deal, and her attitude completely changed when she realized that she was going to have to pay for it. I tried changing some options and lowering the price, but I think she just decided not to actually pay me for it. She even made some excuses about her husband or some friends making one for her for free, and I'm just like, Come on, your husband doesn't know how to make the site that I'm trying to sell you here. Besides, who makes web sites for free anyway? Well, whoever you are, I wish you would stop, because you're ruining my business.

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.

I'm working on another web page right now, my first "professional" page (that means I'm getting paid for it). It's for Kim Dubois's band, called Silver City Pink. What I have done so far is posted here.