something funny happened on the way to the hospital some 12,045 days ago

first, i must apologize to all the dentists out there who may have been offended by the less than flattering treatment i gave dentists in my previous post. i admit that dentists are doctors and they have a piece of paper to prove it. no hard feelings my dentist friends? each of you who were offended can tell yourselves your lawyer joke of choice to get even with me. it wasn't meant to be personal for anyone besides bryson.

second, i would like to announce that i passed the bar examination. yes, i am relieved. yes, i am off suicide watch. yes, i can get on with my life as a working professional. it's about flippin' time. i'd love to share more since i nearly had three heart attacks the day the results came out, but that's a post for another day as well as my swearing in yesterday. it's official... which makes today a good day, but not because of anything i did, rather today marks the begining of my good friend johnny miller's 34th year.

it is late and i am tired, but i could not let today pass without sharing one of many favorite johnny miller moments in honor of his 33rd birthday. johnny is probably my oldest friend. i don't have any friends that are over 33. actually, i have known john since we were in diapers. we probably hung out with each other almost every day over a period spanning 1988 to 1995. so, as you can guess, i know a lot about johnny and he knows just as much about me. most of what we know about each other will never leave the walls of our immature minds, but that shouldn't worry anyone... we're good kids for the most part.

of the many light-hearted memories i could share of my good friend johnny miller, i have chosen a classic that will go down in annals of johnny j. miller's official anthology: the fat lip. thing is, i've got to type the account out before the clock strikes midnight so as to not miss his actual birthday and as most of you know, i am succinct challenged.

on with it then...

the fat lip took place some 20 years ago during the magical week of camp del webb. johnny and i were avid scouters who anxiously anticipated the advent of boy scout camp every year and by avid scouters and anxious anticipation i mean we weren't big fans of camping at all. but, we did it and we tried to make the best of it and as the old addage goes: misery loves company. to give you an idea, i would always get homesick and cry or ask to share a tent with the scout leaders during the trips and john would always brag about being able to leave early to go play on the little league all-star team just to make us all feel like we were going to be stuck in tent and outhouse land while he got to go be a superstar baseball player; thing is he never actually left early he just liked to make us think he might. most of us didn't want to be at scout camp and camp del webb was no exception.

a few days into camp del webb and all its glory things were shaping up nicely: one scout had managed to get a peanut stuck up his nose, another was threatening to go awol and leave, i was afraid of sleeping in my own tent, and an overall feeling of gloom and extreme boredom permeated the crisp mountain air. think the alamo the day before it was taken out except that we didn't have any cool knives, guns, or coon skin caps. morale was down but that didn't keep us from trying to find ways to entertain ourselves.

one particularly boring/depressing afternoon while we were sitting around looking for something to do, my friend johnny meandered off to an area were a bunch of fire wood had been gathered. i haven't a clue what he was doing since firewood is outside john's areas of general interest,those being: things with motors (ask him about the time he accidentally started a big old construction vehicle near my parent's place without having any idea how to turn it off), heights (ask him about the footsteps on the roof we'd regularly hear during early morning seminary back in ninth grade), and fire (maybe he thought the firewood would lead him to fire). anyway, john had left the rest of the group and was off quietly doing his own thing, forgotten by the rest of us widdling scouts until we heard some weeping coming from the general direction of the firewood area.

the weeping subsequently caught our attention and we all slowly gravitated towards johnny. the weeping quickly crescendoed into outright panic and audacious crying. we wondered what could possibly have happened to the boy who had lived through a black widow bite, appendicitis, a hernia, independence alternative high school and john muschong (alright, he'd only lived through two of those up to that point, but, seriously, what did fire wood have on him?), when all of a sudden a somewhat hysterical johnny miller emerged from the firewood area with gushing tears and the fattest top lip i have ever seen in my life. and i mean big, like polish sausage big.

apparently, a bee had tried to kiss john while he was rummaging around in the fire wood (or visa versa, point is the bee left in stinger in john's top lip). this bee must have been on steriods or dosed up on the same juice that the spider who bit peter parker was pounding because it had an extremely potent effect (something akin to a nuclear reaction). if i didn't know any better i would have thought that john had received a collagen injection gone bad from an overzealous physician. it was pretty swollen and judging by john's reaction, i don't think he though it was ever going away.

as for me, i wasn't sure how to react... before me stood my best friend who was obviously in pain, scared, sobbing, and requesting help. make no mistake, i felt sorry for him and wanted to help him, but i was a bit shell-shocked... the kid looked like a mutant. scarlett johanson, mick jagger and fat albert's lips had nothing on johnny... maybe all three of them together may have stood a chance, but that is debatbale since johnny's lip was FAT(with an "f", not a "ph"; and when was the last time i used caps?). think will smith in hitch when he had that bad allergic reaction and his face got all swollen. that was johnny except that all the swelling had taken place in his lip and it was exponentially worse.

john's lip was literally three to three and a half times its normal size. i was not only shocked to see this gross abnormality, but on the brink of bursting into uncontrollable laughter. but, i exercised an extreme amount of self control and refrained. it's unfortunate, though, that john was having such a tough time with it all, because a photo of john and his lip at that very moment would provide his, mine and your posterity with more laughter and joy than humans should be allowed to experience for generations to come. it would likely have solved the hostilities in the middle east, cured cancer and inspired all politicians to be honest. however, no one had the heart to bask in poor johnny's pain right in front of his face (which could barely be seen at this point what with the swollen lip covering it up), instead we laughed about it behind his back.

my dad, who was present at the time, actually wanted to and almost took a picture, but johnny was so distraught, he opted not to risk making the situation worse than it was by exploiting the poor kid's misery (i think he feared his lip may actually explode if johnny got anymore excitement). in hindsight, big jeff should have snapped a shot regardless of johnny's feelings at the time since the pic would be well worth any added pain lil' john might have experienced. believe me, he would have gotten over it, but now, like bigfoot, nessi and yetti, johnny's fat lip is a mere undocumented legend that will be tossed around campfires for generatios to come.

but i was there, i saw the thing, and i will never deny it nor cease to proclaim it so long as i have bones in my fingers to type. someday, with a long white beard and a bit of a limp in my walk, i will gather my grandchildren around the campfire in the thick of a full moon and recount the tale of how i personally witnessed johnny miller and his cursed lip. i expect that my grandkids will never play with fire wood again from that moment on.

i think even johnny wishes someone would have taken a picture since he never actually got to see the swollen mostrosity for himself as there were no immediately accessilbe mirrors. in fact, i have heard him say on more than one occassion that one of his first requests in heaven will be to see a flashback of fat lip johnny. i'm sure heaven has a 32 x 40 portrait of this instance right next to michael jackson in its hallway of "wow, can you believe what our creations have managed to do to themselves down there."

so, in closing, i would ask all of you on this the 33rd birthday of johnny miller to take a moment of silence and close your eyes to imagine him some 20 years younger, teeth a little bucker, voice a litlle higher and tears a'flowing down onto a fat lip the size of his dad's afro. pay the boy his due respect... he has earned it for pete's sake.

the fat lip is just one of the many images/memories of my friend john i currently feel compelled to share with the rest of you. this is the johnny i know... and should he live to see the grand old age of 34, i will share another similar, but equally embarassing (if not more) moment of my life with john j. miller.

done with one minute to spare. happy birthday, jonus!

miss. kitty's ranch and the cackling dentist

my brother-in-law is a dentist. his name is dr. lemone and he has a very distinct laugh and by distinct i mean border-line annoying. to make matters worse, he laughs at his own jokes. to make matters worser, he repeats his jokes profusely and when i say he repeats his jokes i don't mean he tells the same joke twice over a six month or two year period, i mean he tells the same joke twice or even three times in a row within a matter of minutes (to the same person). but, to make things even worser, his jokes generally aren't funny; however, listening to him laugh is. to give you a visualization, he kind of looks and sounds like jerry seinfield except that he's not nearly as funny and he has blonde hair (once we were watching seinfield and jameson asked if that was uncle bryson on tv... i'm not sure he appreciates the comparison... seinfield that is). btw, i know "worser" isn't really a word.

dr. lemone is a great guy. we like to give each other a hard time. i think he understands his own goofiness and doesn't take himself too seriously, so i tend to capitalize on those traits when making fun of him. i would feel bad about this except that he brings it on himself by instigating the jokes about me being short and stuff like that. in response, i do what any self-respecting person would do and defend myself and my family's honor. i usually get the last word in though because i know the surefire a-bomb comment that always puts an end to our juvenile verbal spouts.

you see, dr. lemone is supersensitive about a certain physical feature which i at least will have the sensitivity not to mention publicly on the world wide web, but everyone nose that exploiting a physical feature someone is self-conscious about is like a charging rhino plastering that person's will to defend him/herself. as such, i am ashamed to admit that i have often had to resort to such seedy tactics in the fog of brotherly warfare. it's an ugly side of humanity that no one should have to see, but you are able to sleep in peace at night, free from the echoing cackles of a devious dentist because of it. no need to thank me... i am only doing what any decent person would do.

so, here's the rub: bryson has practically been begging me for a year or two now to come get some free dental work at his office. free dental work... how can a student turn that down? that's very kind of b, but i should have known better. no sooner had i allowed myself to be strapped down to a dental chair complete with gauze and all sorts of dental instruments stuffed in my paralyzed mouth than i realized that dr. lemone had me just where he wanted me.

he was in his element. he was poised for revenge. he could make all the bad jokes and sling all the hand-me-down insults he wanted with no fear of verbal retribution from me. believe me, i tried and i gagged. not pretty. i just looked and sounded dumb which only emboldened the doctor (if you can call a dentist that) giving him more reason to ridicule me. and the cackling began. a wicked sounding laughter only heard in the movies when the villain has triumphed and is monologue"ing" in the face of an apparent triumph. worse yet, i was helpless. have you ever tried to talk with all that stuff in your mouth and a numb tongue? rest assured, dr. lemone took advantage of my weakened state like lex luthor laying into a kryptonite debilitated superman.

and so there i lie, taking it like a man... suffering through the wicked cackle coming from the face behind the mask as i silently plotted my verbal retaliation. minute after minute, i was only getting stronger even though i suspect he increased the anesthetic dosage to over paralyze my tongue to the point that it would still be numb once the initial obstacles, the instruments and cotton candy, were out of my mouth. he would, too. but then it hit me, dr. lemone needed this. getting back at me for years of jokes about his self-conscious physical feature helped him feel better about himself and, so, in the spirit of brotherly love i was happy to oblige. i took one for my brother from another mother and let him bask in his personal punic victory... at least right up until he spoiled it for himself.

how is that you say? well, the cooper clan often tags along on the coat tails of big jeff to attend various charitable events throughout the valley. a couple of these events have become annual traditions for the cooper family. one of these events is the nevada cancer institute beach party. pretty splashy event. lots of money, lots of booze, lots of superficiality, lots cougars (not the byu type) that never got the memo that they're not in high school anymore which is a perfect lead-in for the next "lots of": and lots of plastic surgery (so i've heard, i haven't noticed myself). to add a little perspective, a very undeservingly famous socialite named after a place in france with the initials ph showed up at the last one. it's pretty big time. good food and lots of dancing (you should see my sisters... they're big eaters and surprisingly limber dancers). we have good old fashioned sober fun with all the hoopla and puffy pirate shirts, not to mention all the odd looks we get from the less than sober crowd although the odd looks might just be the excessive amounts of alcohol kicking in.

after the beach party there's the party at miss. kitty's ranch. hold on, let me explain. i understand full well that, generally, in nevada, when speaking of a ranch owned by a female named after a small furry animal, certain less than reputable suppositions start to flood one's mind. believe you me, this is not the case here. miss. kitty is not that kind of woman and her ranch is definitely not that type of "ranch." mrs. kitty's ranch party is an event held for the opportunity village which is a very noble organization pushing a very noble cause. but, if you were familiar with nevada's less than stellar reputation for the legalization of several vice attracting institutions and not as familiar with the opportunity village and its affiliation with the philanthropic miss. kitty and her ranch, then you may have assumed the worse...

well, such was the case the other day when dr. lemone had me in his grips and, as noted above, i was defenseless. and for that matter, so was his dental assistant who has to sit and listen to his jokes day in and day out (she's an employee). she can't say anything to dr. lemone for fear of losing her job. so, she, too, must sit and listen... and listen she did the other day when dr. lemone asked her, "you think jer's a good guy? you should ask him about miss. kitty's ranch..." he tried to act like he didn't mean what it sounded like he meant, but it was too late. she had likely come to her own conclusion as evidenced by her reaction and she conveniently all of sudden reached for an extra pair of latex gloves (just kidding about the gloves). it was a perfect recipe for disaster: me unable to defend myself, a dental assistant not from here but familiar with vegas' promiscuous proclivities, and bryson's window of opportunity to take a shot at the brother-in-law who has caused him to cower in self defeat so many times.

so, he did... and here's what i still haven't figured out? did he intentionally drop the miss. kitty's ranch bomb knowing his assistant would presume he meant one of the ranches in one of the lawless outer rim towns of nevada? or did he really innocently mention mrs. kitty's ranch not realizing the connotation it carried? if the former, then, i've got to say that b was in the zone that day and playing way above himself... that move was just short of genius. but, if the latter, then all i have to say is even a broken clock gives the right time twice a day. sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

amazingly, i keep going back to possibility that his design was devious and i have to wonder, how long had he been planning this? how many nights had he sat up thinking of the perfect double entendre that he could drop on me in public, in a situation where i had no means of defending my good name? is there a secret room in his house filled with all sorts of clippings pinned to the wall and streams of thread connecting pictures of me to index cards with different insults and phrases all coming together in perfect maniacal mess? had he tested this one out on my other brothers/in-laws in an effort to perfect the insult? how he must have counted down the days for me, the last of the family, to enter his lair and submit myself to his mercy. i gotta hand it to him, he delivered on the miss. kitty's ranch card... sad thing is, now i'll have to hear about it at every sunday dinner for the next 18 months. the reverberating cackle is echoing in my mind already.

at least i've got the blog. i'm not sure bryson knows how to use blogs (it's an age thing). so, who's the defenseless one now?

the keys, simple prayers, child-like faith and the maverick (no, this isn't a cs lewis novel although it may be as long as one)

aim told me a nice little story this week about caleb and keys. in our house, we have trouble keeping track of keys. one reason for this is that our boys love to go get our mail from our lock box mailbox. as a result, the keys don't always get put away after the mail has been retrieved and for all i know a few of our bills are out lying in the street somewhere. if you happen to see any of the bills in the street when you come to visit, feel free to pay them.

with missing keys comes bouts of frustration that unfortunately the little ones don't quite understand. have you ever wanted to open your mail box so badly to grab that stack of bills but you just can't because the keys are missing? it's an awful, awful feeling. it's also a feeling we experience around here all too often and each time the keys go missing we rhetorically ask the kids where the keys are knowing full well they haven't a clue... but we try.

the crux: i got a call the other day from aim explaining that the oft routine of attempting to go get the mail and not being able to get the mail due to missing keys had taken place that very day in the cooper household. the difference this time is that instead of asking the unanswerable question of "where, where, where are the keys?", caleb, whose sunday school teachers must have taught a lesson on prayer this past sunday, volunteered the idea of offering a prayer for some divine assistance in locating the missing keys. aimee, wanting to encourage simple acts of faith such as these within our children, agreed that this was a good idea and so it was done.

caleb offered the prayer because it was his turn (he usually insists that it is) and sure enough, not long after, the key was found behind our curtains. aim and cabes were surely pleased to have found the key and in effort to express their gratitude, aim suggested that they offer a prayer of thanks. thus, as already noted, caleb, with an "i got this, mom" type attitude offered the prayer, but instead of saying thank you the little guys exercised a little more faith and asked for some help in finding our second mail key. that's right, key #2. bet you didn't see that coming... bruce willis was dead the whole time and we have a second missing mail key. the difference is that caleb believed and asked for the ultimate helping hand.

before i continue, i need to provide some context and explain that it has been quite some time since i have seen two mail keys in the cooper household... in fact, i don't know if we've had two house keys since we first moved in. in the past, i would have thought it more likely to find my dad singing a solo while cleaning the toilets in an apron than finding our second mail key. i even think that aim thought lil' c was pushing his luck when he suggested prayer as the answer to our second missing key. but, like elijah, cabe's faith didn't waiver and, lo and behold, it was done thusly: the second key was found in the mailbox key hole.

having gone two for two, aim and caleb then felt it appropriate to offer up some thanks and so they sacrificed a couple of the pooping pigeons out back. just kidding. i apologize if any of you found that irreverant, i couldn't resist... i'm a maverick. seriously, cabes said one more prayer so as to not forget the source. turns out prayer was key in finding the keys (wasn't that cute?).

warning: aimee said this next part was pretty weak... you've been warned.

actually, i was also serious about being a maverick. i only bring this up because my last post elicited a comment from an old canadian friend of the family's. he's not old, but we've known this guy for a while now and the fact that he's canadian really has no bearing on this post i just like to country drop. so, our friend from the north posted a comment suggesting that guys maybe shouldn't blog. don't worry jentry, i've heard it all before, but i'm not ashamed of my blogging habits... i guess it's just because i'm a maverick.

i can't help it, it's in my maverick blood which i'm sure is not compatible with any other blood type except for maybe type m (i think jack bauer has type m blood and i am pretty sure he has a blog on 24's homepage). i sense that some of you aren't buying it... well, here's some evidence: i don't use proper capitalization when i post... how does that not scream rebel? plus, i went to unlv's law school whose mascot is the rebels. there you have it, i am a maverick.

i could go on, but i will spare ye. mavericks and childlike faith leading to keys. is there some hidden innuendo there? i'll let you decide. discuss.

the artful dodger reincarnate

i just read my last post about starbucks, and while i maintain my staunch opposition to starbucks and its emperial forces, i realize that it was a pretty lame post. i was starting to think i was losing my blogging touch (a gift i think i was born with... do you really think the ability to ramble on about nothing for hours on end can be taught?, when a friend at church today told me how much she enjoys reading the blog. i can only assume that by "reading my blog," she meant the stuff that i write on the blog, which means i am making a difference in at least one person's life (and, no, the person to whom i refer is not my wife, i have to pretty much beg her to read the blog or threaten to print all types of libelous lies about her in the blog if she doesn't read it). just so we're clear, aimee does read my blog and she does enjoy it. this comment was included purely for comic relief purposes.

i tell you this, my friends, for two reasons: first, as a self-promoting/self-congratulatory measure and, second, to let you know that my desire to be the greatest blogger to ever grace the face of the earth has found new life. as such, i challenge any and all bloggers who dare to a gentleman's duel, emphasis on gentle, (gentle women may also participate), in my tiny backyard a week from tonight. bring both your laptops and some dignity, but know that you'll only be leaving with one of them.

now, for the post: the artful dodger reincarnate. the artful dodger is a reference to some character in some dickens' novel that i have never read. i think it is the one called oliver something or other (i am too lazy to type in www.wikipedia.com to do some in-depth research... look at that, i just typed in www.wikipedia.com, what a liar). so, as you have surely surmised, i have no idea who the real artful dodger is (i think he was a pick-pocket, not that he was real at all: fiction) and it doesn't matter for purposes of this post because dickens never had a blog and even if he did, he probably wouldn't have been very good at it since i'm sure he can't type. plus, i'm sure he's very long-winded and is incapable of staying on point. in fact, dickens' ghost of novels' past, any of his heirs and/or legal representatives... you are all free to participate in my bloggers gentleman's duel if you feel so inclined. bring it.

back to the artful dodger before this post gets too longwinded or too off point. as a young lad in the cooper clan, i was sometimes referred to as houdini. we all know who houdini is, right? the mastermind illusionist who was slightly more talented than job bleuth. harry, as i like to call him, had a knack for getting out of things. at this point, some of you may be under the mistaken notion that i was known as houdini because i could get punched in the stomach by other kids, as hard as they could punch, while i tightened up my rock solid abs to the point where i barely even noticed the punch (houdini did this, too, in fact i heard this is how he died), but the truth is my family members, being the historical revisionists they are, have fabricated some tall tale about my ability to get out of house and yardwork more efficiently than harry could get out of a chinese water torture chamber as the reason for my "houdini" nickname.

i admit, there may be some truth behind me getting out of a few afternoons of family fun of weeding and digging holes to nowhere in the vegas summer sun, but this did not happen nearly as often as my beloved siblings would like to believe. however, it did happen at least once on an afternoon when i mentioned that i had a stomachache, was excused from working that afternoon and then seemed to quickly overcome what was ailing me just in time to take down five or six pieces of little caesar's pizza. from that point on, my dad affectionately referred to me as houdini and the rest of the family thought his label was just as clever as the shenanigans i would allegedly pull to get out of work... and the name stuck.

to this day, i still hear the accusatory cries of "houdini" as if i were leading some lethargic work-avoiding life (actually, there may be some truth to that given i just started a full-time salaried job for the first time in 3 years), but you'd think that 3 straight years of 2,100 billed hours at an accounting sweathouse firm would dispell some of houdini's notorious "legend." apparently not.

fine. i can't even be bothered by it. my work-ethic self-esteem is such that a few houdidni call-outs won't even phase me. but, if i am going to get a bad rap for avoiding things, i would prefer to be known as the artful dodger instead of houdini. to me, it sounds cooler. and if i am going to be known as the artful dodger, then my son, caleb, shall be known as the artful dodger reincarnate. if i was good at getting out of work in my younger years(which i am neither admitting, nor denying), then caleb is truly gifted (actually, he's not gifted as much as he is stubborn and determined). you see, caleb is a boy who does not like to get sweaty. he declines to help take out the trash, put away dishes, make his bed, put away books, and/or sometimes use the toilet when appropriate all in the name of not wanting to "get sweaty."

it's true, we are a very clean family that tries to maintain respectable habits of hygeine. however, i suspect his pleas to avoid perspiration have more to do with his lack of desire to exert effort than his wanting to remain sweat-free. as an example, i did some yardwork yesterday (which i had been desperately trying to avoid for the last few weeks, but the houdini illusionist acts don't work so well on aimee... i don't think she has an imagination) with some help from my sons. one of my sons was very helpful and useful to have around while the other one might as well have not been there at all. yet, he was there and i love him and he is only 4, but i fear a habit has been engrained within him at an early stage that will require years of bribery and shock therapy to get him to help with chores, yardwork, taking the trash out and foot massages. we'll get through it.

in all seriousness, caleb's just lucky we don't live in some asian nation were child labor is a perfectly acceptable institution. he'd be out on the streets getting all sweaty every minute of every day (at least during the summer). like i said, i love the kid and i would never want him to do something he's not confortable with, like getting all sweaty, so i try and sympathize. maybe he's one of those guys that gets the big sweat rings underneath his armpits while completely pitting out all his shirts. that's just uncomfortable for everyone. we all notice it, but no one can say anything and we're all embarassed for that guy.

there's no way i would want all the hispanic kids he goes to school with pointing and saying behind his back "aye, pero mire a este pibe... como perspira!" (caleb is the only kid who doesn't speak spanish in his class). no parent should ever have to see their child suffer through something as terrible as sweaty pits. and let's face it, he knows his body better than i do, so i guess i should give the artful dodger reincarnate the benefit of the doubt and buy into his "i don't want to get all sweaty" claim.

besides, as usual, this post is about 4 paragraphs longer than it should be to the point where i am getting all sweaty. but, i guess that's what's required of the world's greatest blogger.

remember: gentleman's duel, my house, next monday (opening prayer: jameson, spiritual message: aimee, activity: blogger duel to the death followed by refreshments). see you there.

the land of starbucks: glimpse of the trip and band of brothers

i am still working on putting together some multi-media presentation of our epic trip to seattle. in the meantime, i am posting a video clip of a street band performing in front of the original starbucks in downtown seattle. the starbucks is right outside pike's market which is a really cool open air market on the edge of the downtown area. aim and i spent the morning there meandering through the different booths and set-ups before grabbing some breakfast at a place inside the market. we split a salmon and shrimp omelette that was very tasty. seattle seems to be somewhat known for its seafood (how's that for an alliteration?). after spending a few days there, i saw, and tasted, why. delicisiosa.



seattle is also known for its grunge music and coffee. i can't attest as to whether this designation is merited or not since a grunge band hasn't been popular since 1995 (and i didn't like it then) and i don't drink black crack (or is that diet coke?), i prefer my addictions to be of the ice cream variety. coffee makes me laugh. in my opinion, it smells disgusting and yet its absence would probably be more detrimental to society than a rash of vampires sucking the blood clean out of 90% of the world. for some perspective, think "i am legend" to the tenth power. i am fully expecting the government, at some point in the future, to subsidize devices that will intravenously supply coffee into humans in order to preserve human life and the economy as we know them.

actually, i think starbucks/coffee (i consider them one) is behind the economic downturn we are experiencing. i saw this coming several years ago as a lowly staff accountant at pwc who was picked on and laughed at for not wanting to take a 1/2 hour coffee break in the morning and then another in the afternoon. the only conclusion i can deduce from such behavior is that similar unproductive activity is taking place throughout the world. thus, the economy has crumbled. starbucks is taking over the world. i can hear emperor and empress starbucks cackling now... "ha, ha, ha... insolent fools!!! resistance is futile. we distracted you with walmart, but now you're in our cold unforgiving grasp... so easily duped when you're all hopped up on caffeine." the day is coming. do you think it's just a coincidence that there are more starbucks in the world than molecules? all starbucks has to do is take out diet coke and its cornered the caffeine dependency market.

alright, time to step down off my caffeine soap box.

check out the video below of three of the finest caffeine free strapping young lads you'll ever lay eyes on. these are the type that legend is made from.

byu home opener: provo and memory lane

before i get to the seattle trip, i wanted to post a little slideshow of the boys with their grandma and aunt tami feeding some ducks. the feeding took place over the weekend of byu's homeowner against northern iowa. we were up in p-town for the game and stayed with kim and gaylin like we usually do. we had a lot of fun being with family and watching byu start the season. caleb came to the game with us and sat through the entire thing. it was hot, but he was fairly well behaved. we had great seats, compliments of my boss.

you'll notice the last photo in the group of the boys with their homemade capes (thanks to grandma hodges). they love their capes. caleb throws his on and thinks he is superman. it's kind of fun until he disappointingly says, "dad, when am i going to be able to fly?", and i worry that he is actually going to try and test the cape out someday.

we always enjoy spending time in provo since it is where aim is from and that is where we spent the first five years of our marriage. aim always runs into at least 4 or 5 people she knew from back in the day there two of which she usually went out on dates with and they sit around and reminisce about the good ol' days... for several hours sometimes.

happy valley brings back memories. some happy, and some not so happy. there's our first apartment which we affectionately refer to as the argentine house. why the argentine house? well, i served a mission in a very poor part of argentina and saw a lot of poverty while there... our first apartment, which was actually part of a house, reminded us of a house you'd see in argentina.

it was great. it had two red doors in the front, but we could only use one (although the one we could use didn't open all the way because the master bedroom was in the way). the master bedroom was a treat. the door to the master bedroom wouldn't open all the way either because the bed was in the way. correction: the mattress was in the way. yes, we didn't have a bed when we got married, nor did we have our own car or telephone service. we didn't have much money either.... but we had the stuff that really mattered, like a tv, a sandwich maker, a blender, an ice cream maker and a brick oven down the street with a pay phone.

yes, you heard me correctly, we did not have a bed when we got married and, now that i think about, we didn't even have a mattress - we had some foam pads that we fashioned together to use as a mattress for our first marital bed. very romantic. the master bathroom (which was the only bathroom) was also one of a kind since you couldn't shut that door either. you learn a lot about a newlywed spouse listening to her shower everyday. we loved that place. we loved it so much, we moved out after two months and moved in with the in-laws for the summer. i won't comment on living with the in-laws since they read the blog except to say that we may have had some grandkids for them a little sooner had we not been living with them that summer.

after the we left the hodges manor it was on to virginia and helen's 200 year old home. virginia and helen were two 80 year old sisters who kind of reminded me of a an ancient version of marge's sisters on the simpsons except they didn't have the raspy smoker voice. they were our landladies and were very nice people, but a little old and a little too content with the house in it's very old state (i said 200 years old). i offended one of them when we were doing a walk-through of the house and asked if some of the wallpaper was the original wallpaper.

that house was fun. for starters, it had no shower... only a bathtub. that didn't seem like such a bad thing at first, but a year and a half later, i was ready for a permanent shower (thank goodness we could go to the temple, do baptisms and then shower there). it was kind of funny watching a pregnant aimee in the tub with her belly sticking out of the water. this is also the house where we finally figured out why that patch of what we thought was immortal snow in the backyard would never melt... turns out it wasn't snow at all. silly us, we should have known that it was regurgitated sewage bubbling up from the sewer opening we had in the backyard. is that up to code? in the 1800s i guess it was.

ask aimee sometime about the dog we kept down in the cellar at that house. actually, ask tyler about it and if he doesn't start shaking and wet himself as an emotional reaction to what has to be a traumatic memory of the time aim told him we had a puppy down in our creepy cellar and urged him to go down and have a look. what she didn't tell him was that there actually was no dog down there at all and when he reached the bottom of the stairs, all by himself mind you, she was going to turn of the lights and shut the door. did you ever see that horror flick, "the ring"? yeah, it was like that... girl at the bottom of the well while her mom covered the well with a stone. tyler probably starts to twitch when he watches that show.

i think he was six years old at the time. he cried and hid under the table when he got back upstairs. didn't know aim had it in her. for the record, she now feels bad about doing this. luckily tyler survived the moment and will not haunt/terminate us as we watch a video someday. we don't have a vcr anymore, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

last note about the historical monument house: this is where we met our first married couple friends who occasionally jump on the blog and comment: sean and jasmine (actually, it's shawn, but if i remember correctly he prefers, sean). as i mentioned, this was a house which we shared. as such, we lived downstairs and they lived upstairs. shawn and jasmine were great friends. we had a lot of fun with them. our living spaces were separated by a door inside the house and sometimes it maybe seemed like we were actually sharing the entire house rather than living separately. in fact, we would sometimes come home from school hungry and looking forward to eating some of that leftover pasta roni or frozen pizza we'd had for dinner the night before only to find that shawn had helped himself to a little snack during the day while we were out. we missed them when they moved out, but they got this sweet deal on a mobile home that was bound to make them tons of money, so we understood.

alright, aim said this is too long, so i will stop. memory lane. the nostalgia. someday i'll pick with the next place we lived at after that: the projects. get excited.

is that long enough for you, callie?

the great northwest

coming soon: pics from our trip to the northwest

a preview...

southern soul: cooper family vacation to biloxi and new orleans

here's the slideshow from the recent big cooper family vacation i wrote so much about last month. i had to split it into two shows because it was too long for youtube as one. enjoy...

first installment



second installment

lil' c starts pre-school: the art of bribery

big cabes started pre-school about a week and a half ago. he was pretty excited especially since he found out he'd get to ride in a bus in order to get there. aim and i were also pretty excited about not having to drive him there until we found out that the bus would pick him up at 6:50 am which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world except that caleb isn't a morning person (i typically am just getting back from a mini-iron man workout during which i spend time at the peak of mt. chrleston reading scriptures and pondering life around 6:50, so it's not biggie for me... it's cabes that struggles in the morning).

at first, the early mornings were no big deal; but, we all knew that day was quickly coming when it would require an all-out war to get the kid up, on the bus, and off to school before 6:50. unfortunately, the novelty of the situation wore off after only his first two days at which point aim and i had to do what any set of self-respecting, well-grounded parents would do... we resorted to bribery.

my experience is that bribery generally works with most kids. i have also found that by caleb's own admission, i am his "best buddy" when i buy him things that he wants. which is good to know, because caleb is a very formidable, if not masterful, opponent in matches of who can out-stubborn whom. there is no text book for negotiating with a child like our #2 and even if there ever was, i likely threw it out the window long ago while trying to convince caleb to do some tortuous task like eat lunch.

fine. he may be stubborn, but i'm smart. aimee's smart. therefore, together we must be smart squared. that's pretty dang smart (i think my claim of being smart just took a hit). the point? we have learned over the course of our dealings with caleb that negotiations are delicate and unpredictable. one day the threat of not being able to watch batman will work wonders, but then accomplish nothing the next. for me, the trick has been listening to caleb talk about what interests him at the time (i think i may be on to something with this listening stuff) and then using it as a carrot. of course some carrots are bigger than others and sometimes the size of the carrot is not as important as the timing of the delivery of the carrot.

lately, caleb has been wanting to go to chuck e. cheeze's (side note: hand sanitizing companies could increase sales by 200% by simply setting up shop in every chuck e. cheeze's in the country). boom: there's the carrot.

wednesday rolls around. this is a day to day battle. must be nimble. a new day calls for a new carrot. chuck e. cheeze's is a pretty big carrot. should be sufficient to incentivize him into getting up, getting ready and onto the bus without much effort. cell phone alarm clock goes off... hit snooze. goes off again, hit snooze again. goes off one more time, snooze one more time. goes off yet again and now we only have ten minutes to get him ready and on the bus (the school feeds him breakfast thank goodness).

negotiations begin.

caleb: i don't want to get up... i'm sleepy. you never let me sleep (it's true. we keep our kids up all night by spraying water on them as soon as they start to close their eyes).

aim/jer: (thought process: start small, see if it's enough. save cheeze's if possible) but caleb, don't you want to go to class, you're teacher is waiting...

caleb: no, i'm sleepy.

aim/jer: but caleb, the bus is on it's way. do you want us to have to call the bus driver and tell her to turn around because you don't want to go???

caleb: yes

aim/jer: are you sure??? that's not very nice....

caleb: yes, i'm sleepy.

aim/jer: (time is short. initiate plan b, bring out the big guns) caleb, what if we go to chuck e. cheeze's tonight? if you're a good boy and get up and get ready, we can go to chuck e. cheeze's

caleb: //silence// (did he go back to sleep, or is he thinking about it?)

aim/jer: don't you want to go to chuck e. cheeze's?

caleb: yes

we got him...

caleb: but, not tonight... (translation: you have no leverage here. move on to your next bargaining chip).

what??? back to the drawing board.

lately, that has been the typical morning around here. fortunately, caleb is loving pre-school (after he wakes up and gets there). as you can see from the pictures, he was pretty excited to go and has a good time while he is there. this helps get him motivated in the morning. he has been talking about this for months, so we are glad he is finally getting to do it.

i just realized it is sunday night and i have no carrots lined up for tomorrow's negotiations. i'm done.

pics from the deep south

i finally got around to uploading the photos from our mississippi and louisiana trip. here are some of my favorites. you can catch them all in the video below. many thanks to big jeff and special k for making the trip possible. we loved it and are already looking forward to the next one.


kicking back in the room.


on the river


pulling the waverunner out.


taking it in.


out to the pier for some fishing.


j-man trying to catch something.


getting ready to eat some brazilian bbq.


limo from the airport.


always the watchful parents.


kat and b lemon on the escalator at the aquarium.


g-ma with da boyz.


cool indo american pole at the zoo.


little ones checking out the animals.


this is the bus we showed up to church in. see post below.


this was the view from mine and aim's room.


web from the zoo.


kids jumping at the zoo.


checking out the gators.

video forthcoming.