Despite all of my best efforts, I caught the dreaded flu virus that half of my student staff has. After a day filled with shivering, cold sweats and feeling woozy, I crawled into bed yesterday afternoon and slept for twenty-two straight hours with a few brief moments of lucidity. Apparently, my coma-like state was what my body needed because my fever is finally gone, and I’m starting to feel a bit more human. I’m hoping I’ll feel well enough to go back to work tomorrow, but more importantly, I need to rejoin the world of the living before the big game Sunday. Priorities, people. Priorities.

It’s back… In the midst of the 2007-2008 Writer’s Strike, there is one beacon of joy in the otherwise dreary TV world… the season 4 premiere of LOST. There are countless theories floating around the internet (and our apartment) regarding what the writers have in store for the first 8 episodes of this season. Is our hero, Jack, really that out of control? Who’s in the coffin? Who is Jacob? There are just so many unanswered questions. If you haven’t been watching, now is the perfect time to catch up. If you’re a LOST fanatic, too, the waiting is almost over. (ABC Thurs 8/7c)

Most of the time our student workers create documentation that is concise and informative.  However, this is what we see when our student managers spend hours upon hours trying to fix a machine, and their final, last-ditch effort fails.

In an effort to move on and out of mourning after the Packers’ loss last weekend, I’ve immersed myself in Phoenix Suns basketball. No matter how awesome the guys look this season, I still find myself missing the Irish ‘dreamboat’ Pat Burke. Since Pat left and joined the Golden State Warriors, it’s hard to know if I miss his crazy antics or 4th quarter, 3-point prayers the most. Just in case your heart aches to once again ‘live the dream’… here’s a best of video trilogy to keep your love alive. (At least, we still have Leandro.)

Most people have a very limited knowledge of their parent’s history. Their lives in our eyes are based upon spoken fables of walks in the snow and parental punishment and the knowledge of who they were during our childhood. This past weekend, Zac and I had the chance to go back in time with my parents to one of their first homes before we were born. After struggling to find the entrance hidden among new growth and twenty-five years worth of change, Grapevine Ranch came into view as we drove over the hills of Highland Road. While we couldn’t clearly see the house from where we were, we saw it perfectly through their eyes and stories. From humorous tales of having to break into their own home to the struggles of early married life, we gained a new perspective of the people who knew us best in the world, and that alone made our afternoon drive through the desert… priceless.

The funny thing about life is it never really goes as you expect or plan. You can fill countless datebooks, calendars, and agendas with words, dreams, and hopes, but they are just the backbone of your existence. It’s the twists and turns along the path that make life a journey and not just a task.

Today, I was taken aback when my past showed up in my present with a missed call and accompanying voicemail. A number I never thought I’d see in my caller id and a voice that I had buried were expecting me to call back. Pressing the send button wasn’t an easy task as I weighed whether or not a return call was merited. When the past creeps into the present, do you hear what it has to say or slam the door before it can hurt you again? As the saying goes, “Fool me once… shame on you. Fool me twice… shame on me.”

I’m pretty confident if you talked to most of my friends and family who had read this chapter of my yesterdays they would strongly advise me not to pick up the phone. As one of my favorite philosophers John Mayer says, “If you never stop when you wave goodbye, you just might find if you give it time you will wave hello again. You just might wave hello again. And that’s the way this wheel keeps working now.”

So in effort to face old ghosts and finally put the past away, I dialed those ten numbers and waited for that familiar voice on the other end of the line. Nothing revolutionary happened in those thirty-two minutes, but the past is finally where it belongs. For the first time in a long time, I know if our presents ever collide it might not be such a bad thing. Time has marched on in the past two and a half years, and it’s time we caught up. Sometimes a phone call is a simple hello, an apology, or an I miss you, and sometimes it’s just the thing you needed but didn’t know. Because as ol’ Johnny says, “I believe that my life’s gonna see all the love I give return to me.”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Of the 10,000 things I love about my job, there are a few things that irk me. Today’s edition of Seriously, Seriously?!?!?! is “why do people buy a Windows machine and then decorate it with Apple stickers (more than likely from their iPods)?” Embrace your OS, people! Live and compute with pride! /rant

If I had a bank account with a few extra zeros at the end of the balance or a sugar daddy (just kidding… kinda), my financial splurge would be going to see concerts. I don’t drink… smoke… gamble. No, live music is my vice. In my musical daydreams, my concert buddies and I would see our favorite artists whenever they were in Arizona AND we’d see Willie Nelson at the Hollywood Bowl, Bonnie Raitt in Texas, Mayer in Atlanta, and U2… everywhere. But, alas, visions of sugar daddies and extra zeros are not in my future, so I have to be careful what shows I go see and where I spend my concert budget. This is why Ryan Adams playing with The Cardinals in Arizona was so phenomenal; they were in my parent’s backyard (figuratively). We didn’t have to fly to Chicago or drive to Salt Lake City like we had originally considered… we just hopped in the car Friday afternoon and headed home. Most days I dread the drive to Willcox because of the traffic and having to pass through both Phoenix and Tucson to get there. Ryan Adams was totally worth it.

Being the children of the Google generation, Zac had been scouting out the Ryan Adams’ setlists from the shows directly proceeding ours and informed the group late Wednesday night that RA had come out 45 minutes before his set was supposed to begin in Tulsa and played a short acoustic set without his band of unreleased songs from the new album. Naturally, Jeff and I changed our plans at the last minute and left Flagstaff without Jeff’s Gore friends (who had to stay a bit later at work…boo) and headed down the mountain to meet Zac for the show. There was no way Zac, Jeff or I were going to miss such a sneak-peak so after a quick dinner at Chipotle (our traditional concert dinner), we headed to the theatre to secure our spot with a view.

From the moment RA stepped on stage he had our attention. This was no Stevie Wonder or Eric Clapton. He wasn’t a rock star. Instead, he appeared to us as a shy geek who wanted us to believe his name was JJ Bouillabaisse and he was just there as the opener to play three simple songs. Most of the crowd hadn’t arrived and it was beyond intimate. There was nothing grandiose or egotistical about this artist opening for himself… He wasn’t showing off or stroking his own ego. He was gifting us with the chance to hear him unpolished and unproduced. Automatically, I fell in love with his second acoustic offering Go Easy with the lyric…”I will always love you. So go easy on yourself Even before the ‘real’ concert began, we were satisfied and had gotten our money’s worth.

Click To Continue Reading…

1) I’ll be so glad when my HDI certification exam is over tomorrow and am even happier I no longer have to study for exams post-college.

2) E-quaintance is my new favorite word. I can’t tell you where I heard it because I made it up. (Yes, Lauren. I used to play WOW.)

3)

This will be delivered to my door tomorrow according to Fedex.com (track it with me if you’d like). I will be so relieved to have a phone conversation or send a text message without fear of my phone rebooting itself. I swear it’s like its running Mobile Windows ME. shudders

4) 106 blog comments in one day that were caught as spam has GOT to be some kind of record, right?

What do you do with the people in your life who don’t listen to you? Whether it’s a family member, a friend, or even a foe doesn’t matter if they aren’t taking the time to be vested in your world. I’m sure most of us have such a character in our life’s play. (Chaucer would have a field day with the imagery of this person. Massive mouth… non-existent ears.) These are the people who have the gift of gab, and being the good friend, enemy, or relative that you are, you listen, take notes, and ask questions in the appropriate places. Heck, you could probably be a contributing editor in the wikipedia page of their life. But the flipside of the coin is they truly have no idea what’s happening in your life and that doesn’t seem to bother them. They nod and smile, offering the right oh’s and hmmmm’s, but aren’t digesting your words. In all of your conversations, 95% of what they say is self-focused as if it’s your job to offer them a place to verbally purge themselves. I’m a pretty open person. I mean most of my life’s details can be found in this blog (even if I believe these people just skim through the posts looking for pictures). I strive to be supportive and truly listen to those who speak to me. I’m not asking everyone around me to be Laurelologists, but it might be nice to not have to say the same thing over and over again because they weren’t really paying attention each previous time. But what would be the best would be if this person asked, “how was your day?” and for once… really heard me.

The Packers lost tonight, and I’m quite certain there are very few families outside of Wisconsin who are as greatly affected as this family. Before kickoff we were lamenting the fact that win or lose we were proud of how far the Pack had come and the hurdles they had conquered this season. Pride might not seem to most as the ‘right’ emotion when discussing a professional team, but, you see, being a fan in my family is more than just getting excited for a game or owning a jersey or hat. Fandom for us is a loyalty that perseveres 4-12 seasons to find ourselves in 13-3 dreamlands. It goes beyond knowing the quarterback’s name but means that at least one family member (Zac) can name the college each player on the roster attended as if they were reciting their ABC’s. My dad raised us to be cheeseheads, and I still remember being 7 years-old and jokingly cheering for Randall Cunningham and the Minnesota Vikings… it broke my dad’s heart. From then on, I knew that my heart would forever bleed Packer Gold and Green.

I’m sure to some people who know us, work with us, or are even related to us our allegiance borders on obsession so let me explain. We aren’t fairweather fans. We’ve survived the days of Don Majikowski and watched the first Lambeau Leap. We cheered when we signed #92 and cried when Reggie died. We’ve seen more playoff games than most fans and have the championships to prove it. But our love doesn’t stem from our number of wins. It comes from a place that finds goodness in a hometown team owned by its fans who show up Sunday after Sunday in freezing weather to watch their team… A team that’s led by a modern-day Huckleberry Finn who reminds us that there are still athletes who do it for the love of the game and not a paycheck or fame. A man who at 38 years-old has faced more tragedies in the public eye than we would wish on our greatest enemy and yet still plays with the joy and enthusiasm of the boy who left Kiln, Mississippi so many years ago.

Tonight was a hard loss to watch. There’s nothing as painful as losing in overtime and knowing with one less flag on the field, one pass that flew just one more yard, or one ball that you didn’t try to pick up but instead fell on you might be headed to Arizona and not home doesn’t make it easier. I remember the feelings of despair in 1998 when we lost to the Broncos in the Superbowl and how crushed my family was. However, tonight’s NFC Championship loss seems to be hitting a bit harder for one simple reason… with every game we play and every win and every loss… we take one step closer to a time with no Brett. Eventually, the hero of our story will have to retire, and we’ll no longer have our standing date on Sunday afternoons. As much as that thought makes us feel like we might never recover from such a blow, being a true fan means that we’ll continue to cheer on the next Green Bay hero while never lessening our love for the man in our favorite football fairytale. Tomorrow morning our tears will have dried and watching ESPN will not be as painful, and despite the uncertainty of what lies in store for #4′s future, each of hearts will always beat to Go Pack, Go!

“Reverse psychology is an awesome tool, I don’t know if you guys know about it, but basically you can make someone think the opposite of what you believe, and that tricks them into doing something stupid. Works like a charm.”  -Michael Scott

It’s been a sad while since I’ve been able to give this blogging-thing the respect it deserved, and to be honest, I’ve missed writing. Missed having an outlet to contemplate the state of my world. I even found myself on multiple occasions constructing posts in my head of things I wanted to write about or would discuss when I finally had the chance to do more than ‘just keep breathin’. Starting with that amazing Tom Cruise Scientology video… I mean, seriously, wth? Is he on something? Did he ingest too many of Morpheus’s red pills? At first I thought he had to be joking, but no, he’s dead serious. I had to giggle to keep from stabbing myself with a letter opener as he ‘humbly’ informed the world of his desire to help his fellowman. If you have taken the few minutes, please watch the video. Try and keep up with his acronyms; it’s more than a tad bit creepy, and I’ll pay money to anyone who can decipher his ranting.

Moving on, in case you haven’t gotten my not-so-subtle hints, the Packers my Packers are in the NFC Championship game on Sunday, and the best part… I get to be with my dad and brother to cheer them on (unlike this past week where I was stuck at work refreshing text in a web browser). I’m really not sure there’s enough space in the house for the three of us to watch the same game, but hopefully Brett will deliver one of his masterpieces and the post-game celebration will be that much sweeter because I will be with the two cheeseheads I love most. I probably should be concerned about the man-crush my brother has on Brett, but then again my dad and I feel the same way. Maybe the love is genetic? Then, the Pack will be heading to my neck of the woods for Superbowl XLII in Glendale, Az.

As for work… nevermind. Let’s not go there. It’ll just be easier on us all if that four-letter word is left alone. But, oh, oh, oh! Tomorrow night is Ryan Adams night. Jeff and I are leaving midday tomorrow to make sure we meet up with Zac in Tucson and get to will-call earlier enough to get in and see any surprise pre-set Ryan might deliver. Apparently, he played a five-song acoustic set in Tulsa on Wednesday before he and The Cardinals came out to start the show. All in all, he played something like 31 in his two sets. Maybe Zac’s 93 song dream setlist wasn’t so crazy. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Miss Sunflower and Come Pick Me Up. I’m sure you’ll be hearing more post-show.I’m harboring a few developing topics of conversation that should eventually materialize into posts in the next few days, so be prepared. As for anything else that needs to be said, TGIF (almost) and don’t forget to chant in chorus with me on Sunday… Go Pack, Go! Go Pack, Go!