Cheeseburger

Okay, so I was out running errands with my dad, and we had just made our last stop. He told me to call mom to see if she wanted us to pick up some lunch on the way home. Well, she had actually just finished making some stuff for us, so we were just going to head home. However, as soon as I hung up, my dad laughs and says, "You still want a cheeseburger, don't you?" This is really his way of saying, "I'm hungry now, so let's get a dollar cheeseburger and if mom asks about anything, I'll just say you were hungry...."

Yeah, we caved in and got two small cheeseburgers on the way home. We pull up into the driveway, and my dad laughs again and says, "Great! Now trash goes in the bag, we hide the evidence, and don't tell Mom!" That got me laughing, because whenever he would say, "Don't tell mom!" growing up, it usually meant we had done something pretty bad (setting something on fire, ruining a meal, someone got hurt, and the list could go on). So I was having a really hard time keeping a straight face walking in the door, and I would have been fine, except the first thing my dad says walking inside was, "Boy, I'm starving!"

I don't know, something about the way he said it, and the sneaky way we were trying to put the trash in the garbage can without making a noise---I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing (I have a terrible poker face...). Even during the prayer over the meal, I could hear my dad laughing silently about the whole thing. Sure, it was just a cheeseburger, but at the time it was the funniest thing to me.

I've been laughing a lot with my parents these past couple of days. I was remembering all of these random events from growing up in Georgia, and I'm just realizing more and more that I didn't have a "normal" childhood (normal maybe for the South, but boy do my friends act surprised that I'm still alive with all the crazy stuff I used to do). Just one story will do for now (and this isn't just me...my siblings and I believe some of my cousins were there for this incident...I think it was the Cutlers, but I'm not sure). My mom was out running some errands, leaving us kids alone in the house. We started playing around with a superball in the living room, just throwing it against the brick fireplace and bouncing it around a little. I can't remember who suggested it, but someone pointed up at the ceiling fan. So we proceeded to throw the ball up into the fan (which was at its highest setting) and laugh hysterically as it ricocheted off the walls. We continued doing this for a little while (15 minutes? 30 minutes?). But then the inevitable happened---the superball shot off and hit a picture hanging on the wall. Of course, this was also the moment that my mom was just pulling into the driveway...Thinking quickly, my older siblings and some of my cousins took the picture off the wall, pulled all of the broken glass out, and then hung it back up.

It was a good three or four years before my mom ever found out. She always had us kids do the dusting in the living room, and it's not like we were going to just outright say, "There ain't any glass in this picture here!"

Summer Vacation

I finally finished all of my papers, and I can now relax for a little bit. This semester actually went a lot better than the last one. I was able to sleep for a few hours here and there as I tried to finish all of my papers, and I'm pleased with the work I did. I'm going to start looking for a job in the next few weeks, which should be a pretty interesting experience here in the city.

And as for other stuff, I had quite a few "not at BYU anymore" moments this past semester, most of which were pretty funny. One week in my Television History class, we watched an episode of the Smothers Brothers. At one point, one of the characters said "s***" which was a big thing that kind of slipped through the censors (ironic, since we were talking about how an entire portion of the episode was cut at the last second because of its anti-Vietnam stance). The following week, we were discussing the episode in class, and one girl asked, "Now, did anyone else hear the word s*** during the episode?" Someone else chimed in, "No, nobody said s***." Even the professor remarked, "Hmm...I'm not sure if someone said s***. That's kind of a big thing to slip by the censors."

Well, I remembered exactly where the word had been said because it was so out of place with the rest of the show. So I called out, "It was during the spoof on Bonanza. The guest star said the 's' word." .....There was an awkward silence in the room. Then the professor said, "Ooh...the 's' word." Everyone started laughing hysterically (myself included), which caused me to call out, "Sorry! I don't swear!" which led to even more fits of laughter from the class. And that's what I call a "not at BYU anymore" moment.

Anyway, here's a few pictures I was able to take before the semester got too crazy. I'll be taking some more now that I have some downtime, but these will have to do for now.

Five minutes away from my house, there's a small trail that walks alongside some railroad tracks. This fence is supposed to keep people out, and I just thought it was interesting

Riverside Park -- I have three different parks within walking distance of my apartment, and they each have their own unique quirks. This park led me right by the Little Red Lighthouse, which is apparently the last remaining lighthouse on Manhattan Island.

Riverside Park -- I was trying to get the bike riders to be just out of focus, but my hand slipped when I was about to take the picture. By the time I re-composed, the bike riders were already almost out of view. Oh well

This piece of grass is about ten square feet, and it is more than a hundred yards from the nearest apartment. Who was raking, and why did they just give up and leave the rake there?

Just some mailboxes across the street from Tisch

I didn't realize until just now that this picture has nausea-inducing saturation--I'll have to dial that down a bit, but I'm not worried about it now

Alex -- this picture was extremely difficult to take, just because he was moving around a lot as he was playing. I kind of like how his fingers are blurred from the motion, and just a tiny part of the strings is in focus