The Haunting Sense of Impending Failure

Stuff

2009-03-11T06:40:00.001-07:00

Hey, guess what? I have a blog! Who knew?

What I don't have today is a post about American Idol. I have blogged about American Idol six of the last seven seasons, but I'm having trouble getting it to work with my schedule this time around. Hopefully I can fix that.

On the other hand, here are a few neat things:

First, I got to be a guest on the Writing Excuses podcast for the last three weeks. Two of the shows talk about marketing (which is why they invited me), and one of the shows talks about fight scenes (which i just happened to be there for while they were recording, so I jumped in). The links are below. If you only listen to one, listen to the branding one.

Marketing 101 / Positioning
Fight Scenes
Branding

Also, the Whitney Awards are rattling and humming. Go look at them here.

Incidentally, the Whitney Awards Gala is on April 25th, which is the day after I graduate. Holy crap. Back to the real world...

Max

2009-01-03T20:46:00.001-08:00

Born 1-3-09. 8lbs, 11oz. 19 inches. Baby and mother doing well.

Christmas Vacation: Recap

2008-12-30T13:03:00.000-08:00

I'm growing a beard. Every year, over Christmas break, the MBA program has a mustache-growing contest, and since I don't want to spend three weeks looking like either Burt Reynolds or a child molester, I've decided to grow a beard instead. On the final day of the competition I'll shave everything but the mustache. If you're very lucky, I'll post a picture.

I read the third book in my brother's upcoming series. It's quite good, and I think he's going to make a million dollars. If you'd like to read his book, it will be first released in the United Kingdom, sometime around March. Here's a link.

For Christmas, my son received a toy fire engine and a Buzz Lightyear figure. He's terrified of both of them. Sure, he'll play with them during the day, but at night they have to be in another room, under a blanket, with the door closed. I can't imagine what could make him so scared except for, I guess, a movie about Buzz Lightyear where we comes alive when you're not watching him.

Holly shut her thumb in the car door yesterday. Last night, as she was going to bed, she complained sadly to Erin about it. "It hurts when I bend it," Holly said. Then her face brightened: "I can still give a thumbs up, though!"

Erin is great with child. About as great with child as it's possible to be before you explode with child. She's scheduled to be induced this Saturday. I'll be sure to post pictures.

I am officially a bad father

2008-12-12T07:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the last day of class, and next week is finals. Consequently, I've been a little busy. Yesterday I was on campus from 7:00am to 11:00pm, and I got back here at 6:00am today. It'll likely get worse before it gets better, but at least there's only one week left.

However, Erin just called to tell me the saddest thing I've ever heard in my entire life: during breakfast, Sammy turned to Erin and said "Guess who's coming over to our house today? Daddy!"

I'm such a lousy father.

Rankings and Dedication

2008-11-15T13:04:00.000-08:00

BusinessWeek's 2008 business school rankings have been released, and BYU's MBA program has broken into the top 25 for the first time ever! I assume this is because I'm here.

Here are the rankings:

1 Chicago (Booth)
2 Harvard
3 Northwestern (Kellogg)
4 Pennsylvania (Wharton)
5 Michigan (Ross)
6 Stanford
7 Columbia
8 Duke (Fuqua)
9 MIT (Sloan)
10 UC-Berkeley (Haas)
11 Cornell (Johnson)
12 Dartmouth (Tuck)
13 NYU (Stern)
14 UCLA (Anderson)
15 Indiana (Kelley)
16 Virginia (Darden)
17 North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)
18 Southern Methodist (Cox)
19 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
20 Notre Dame (Mendoza)
21 Texas-Austin (McCombs)
22 Brigham Young (Marriott)
23 Emory (Goizueta)
24 Yale
25 USC (Marshall)
26 Maryland (Smith)
27 U. of Washington (Foster)
28 Washington U. (Olin)
29 Georgia Tech
30 Vanderbilt (Owen)

Also, I've been meaning to post about this for the past few weeks, but I keep forgetting: As the Marriott School is getting increased recognition, it is also expanding. This year they opened a new addition which is a huge improvement over the old Tanner Building. There are many new classrooms, high-tech study rooms, a much larger MBA lounge, a much-improved cafe, and lots of extra space.

A couple weeks ago, the First Presidency and a handful of the Quorum of the Twelve came to dedicate the building. In this picture, you can see President Monson greeting students as the dedication ended.

Here's the rest of the First Presidency:

As you can see, there was a large crowd (which is why I was up on the second level):

Primary Program

2008-10-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to brag, but our church's primary program was on Sunday, and Sammy was the only kid on the entire stand who both picked his nose AND ate his booger. I was one very proud father.

Conspiracies, Politics, and Common Sense

2008-10-18T18:59:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'll post a full explanation of my thoughts on the election in the near future, but at the moment I want to say just this:

When I was writing The Counterfeit, I read a lot of academic books about conspiracy theories. (Not that my book was very serious, but I wanted my plot and characters to be somewhat plausible.)

I was mostly researching why people believe in conspiracies, and rather than write a big explanation of what I found, here's an excerpt from my book--it's a conversation between the two main characters, Eric and Rebekah (both BYU undergrads). They have just had someone (Isabella) tell them about an elaborate conspiracy. (I've edited it a bit so that it makes sense if you haven't read the book...)

“I need to tell you something, Eric,” Rebekah said, a few steps ahead of me, picking her way carefully around chunks of broken rock.

“What?”

With the penlight in front of her, and me behind, all I could see was her dim silhouette.

“I don’t believe it.”

“That we’re being chased again, and are now hiding in the catacombs underneath Paris? I can’t really believe it either.”

She laughed, but there was no joy in her voice. “I don’t believe Isabella.”

“What part? She hardly told us anything.”

“Any of it, really. I don’t believe that there are people in this world who control things like that – it’s too easy. You know why people believe in conspiracy theories, I think?”

“Why?”

“Just because they’re easy. You remember the midterm in Dr. Vigil’s American Heritage class?”

“Yeah. I remember that I did lousy on the multiple choice section.”

“For the essay portion I answered the question on the causes of the civil war. I wrote seven pages on that thing, all about slavery and the abolitionists, and do you know what grade I got?”

“An A?” Rebekah always got A’s on everything.

“A C-,” she said. The tunnel came to a fork, and she paused, turning to face me. “Dr. Vigil wrote one word across the top of the essay: monocausationalism. When I went to his office to ask him about it, he said that being called a monocausationalist was one of the worst insults an historian will ever hear.”

“Academics are weird,” I said with an uncomfortable chuckle. I had no idea where she was going with this.

Rebekah smiled. “What it means is that the historian claims that something happened just because something else happened. It’s extremely simple cause and effect: the civil war happened because of slavery, or the Great Depression happened because people were buying stock on margin. But it ignores all of the other causes.”

She finished her argument, and then looked flustered. “Which way do we go?” I unfolded the map again and she shined the light on it.

“There’s this dead end to the left,” I said. “Around a curve. It looks good.” The path to the right headed into an area with a lot of right angles and was most likely a former basement.

Rebekah nodded, and headed left. “It’s like what Isabella was talking about with the Pilgrims. I grew up hearing about how they came to America looking for religious freedom too, and that’s true – but it’s not the only reason. In fact, it’s just one of a dozen reasons.”

“And this is why you don’t believe Isabella?” I asked, confused.

“People believe in conspiracies,” she said, stopping and looking back at me, “because they don’t understand all the causes that go into the big events in history. They can’t understand what makes prices rise and fall – I mean, I got an A in economics, and I don’t really understand what makes prices rise and fall. So people think that it can’t possibly be as confusing as it really is, and they decide that prices rise and fall because a secret society somewhere has secret meetings in dark, smoke-filled rooms, and they’ve decreed that gas prices will go up and bread prices will go down.”

“I hate to sound cliché,” I said, “but just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that someone isn’t out to get you.”

Rebekah laughed softly. “I think I saw that on a bumper sticker.”

So, that was a very long way of getting to my point, which is:

When someone tells you that there is a simple answer to anything, be skeptical.

When someone says that some Y happened because of some single X, tell them to go back and read some more.

When someone says "This is common sense", they're almost always wrong.

Why? Because very few of the issues in this election are simple, and because if you believe the issue is simple, then you'll assume there's a simple solution, and then you'll be horribly, terribly WRONG.

I spend more time than I should reading the news, and perusing political blogs. And I'm absolutely nauseated by the complete lack of nuance. Instead, all there seems to be is "I believe X because of Y", or "Politician #1 will destroy America because he believes X".

There is a cellphone commercial that's been running a lot lately, wherein a group of firefighters appear to be sitting in for Congress. The firechief reads off issues, and the firefighters vote -- "800 pages to tell us we need clean water?" the chief mocks. "Who wants clean water?" All the firefighters say "Aye." The chief tosses the 800 pages on the table and mutters "This is the easiest job I ever had."

The message of the ad is clear: these firefighters cut through all the political nonsense--they know how to actually get things done! I think that most bloggers and commentators have this same mindset: yes, we want clean water (or whatever), so let's just vote for it and get it over with. And they neglect the hundred important issues that have to be discussed: where will the water come from? How will it be paid for? What constitutes "clean"? Should it be flouridated? Those kinds of questions are not an example of politicians trying to overcomplicate the issue; they're an example of trying to make the right decision with all the imformation.

Lest you think I'm singling out any party or the other, I am not. I'm singling out stupid extremism. I'm singling out the people who spread goosebump-inducing stories rather than discuss facts and principles. I'm singling out the party apologists on both sides: Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, but also Arianna Huffington and Bill Maher. I'm singling out the people who write silly blogs about how this candidate hates America, and how that candidate is corrupt.

(That was longer than I meant it to be. Sorry...)

NSHMBA

2008-10-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended the NSHMBA career expo in humid Atlanta, Georgia. (NSHMBA, if you're unaware, is the National Society of Hispanic MBAs.) (The expo isn't for hispanics only; it's just sponsored by them. This explains why a freckly, red-headed Scottish-Norweigian was allowed to go.)

A friend recently compared NSHMBA to speed dating, and she wasn't too far off. You stand in line at a company's booth, spend a few minutes explaining why you're awesome and totally marraige material, and then they say they'll call you later if they're interested. It's a wild, nerve-wracking two days.

Adding to the excitement this year was the fact that the economy was terrible--all day Friday we were hearing updates as the Dow dropped lower and lower and lower. Therefore, jobs are a little more scarce than they were last year. On top of that, about 1500 more students were in attendance this time. So, fewer jobs and more competition. Like I said, it was stressful.

But, the truly marvelous part of Atlanta was the food. We first asked the Marriott front desk where we could get good southern soul food, and they directed us to an outrageously expensive restaurant. So, instead, we went outside and asked the bellhop where we should go, and he pointed us toward The Busy Bee Cafe. I ate fried chicken that was smothered in gravy. It was nirvana on a plate.

More updating to come...

59-0

2008-09-13T19:56:00.001-07:00

Erin and I went to the BYU-UCLA game today. It was marvelous.

Recap

2008-09-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

It wasn't all that long ago when I complained about never writing and had to recap everything that had happened in the last month. Well, to the surprise of absolutely no one, I've done it again. Here are the highlights of the last month.

I finished up my internship at ConAgra. I gave my presentation on the state and future of Orville Redenbacher's kernel popcorn, and left. I didn't end up getting an offer from them, but that's okay. It was a great learning experience.

Erin and the kids flew home a week before I finished up. Holly had to start school, and we were worried that we couldn't get home fast enough by car. This turned out to be a very fortuitous decision, as you'll soon see.

When we drove to Minnestoa, we took the route through Wyoming and South Dakota, as I have detailed earlier on this blog. So, instead of taking the same roads, I decided to drive across North Dakota and Montana, and then cut down through Yellowstone Park toward home.

I spent the first night in Fargo, ND, and it was absolutely nothing like the movie. I mean, I haven't actually seen the movie, but unless the movie involved watching the Olympics at the Fairfield Inn and eating take-out Thai food, then they were completely different. No one was murdered.

Whereas most of the summer I'd been surrounded by corn fields, North Dakota had big sprawling fields of sunflowers. It was awfully cheerful, and not at all like I'd pictured North Dakota. (I'd pictured a big gray void.)

I went to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which I'd never ever heard of until I was planning my trip. I was disappointed to discover that Theodore Roosevelt National Park is the most boring, unimpressive place on earth. I imagine that some congressman from North Dakota worked really hard to get some notoriety for his state, and made up fanciful stories for Congress, banking on the fact that none of them had ever been to North Dakota. The one saving grace is that I went to a little cowboy cafe outside the park and ordered a steak sandwich and received an actual steak! The "sandwich" referred to a large piece of Texas toast that came with it. So, North Dakota was all about expectations (good and bad) that were later determined to be false.

I spent the night in Miles City, Montana, which is the home to Violet Beauregard.

The next day, I went to Little Bighorn National Monument, which was absolutely fascinating. I blogged about it here.

After a brief stop in Billings Montana, I headed south toward Yellowstone Park. I was going over the Beartooth Pass, which has been acclaimed as one of the most beautiful roads in North America. I blogged about this experience here, but suffice it to say that once I reached the very top of the pass, my lovely little car, Sussudio, with whom I had spent the last five years of my life, gave up the ghost. I didn't realize this at that time--it actually took the next two days at the dealership in Billings (and me puttering around another hotel) before the decision was made. (That decision being: put a shotgun to Sussudio's head and pull the trigger.)

I bought a new car in Billings. It's smaller than Sue, but that's what you get when you have no income and you're living off of loans. It's also orange, but in a good way. He is named Monty, which is a first--both of my other cars have been girls (Sussudio and Beverly).

I forgot to mention that when Erin got home, she discovered that the apartment had flooded while we were gone, and maintenance had gone in and rearranged all the furniture so they could replace the carpets. So, that was a nice welcome-home present.

At some point on my traveling adventures (most likely while pushing the car) I managed to sprain my back. It hurts like freaking crazy, but only when I stand, sit, or lay down.

The upside of my back injury is that it has helped me get off of Coke. Working 14 hours a day, six days a week at ConAgra had translated into a very severe caffeine habit (in those last three weeks, I was probably drinking five or six bottles of Coke a day) (seriously). And I couldn't get off of it, because I'd get horrible headaches. However, then I hurt my back and I've been on big pain meds for three weeks, and I haven't touched Coke once in that time. Hooray! (The question is: how will I get off pain meds? Heroin?)

I'm back in school now, and very much enjoying my classes. But, I'll blog more about this later.

Clothes For the Particular Man

2008-08-01T06:32:00.000-07:00

So, this last weekend we drove down to scenic Nauvoo. My wife has posted a whole bunch of pictures on her blog, but I wanted to show you this one. It makes me giggle.

It's a clothing store in the small town of Keokuk, Iowa. Apparently, the particular man likes Hawaiian shirts and seersucker.

Happy 24th of July!

2008-07-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

"You! Boy! What day is this?"

"Me sir? Why it's Pioneer Day!"

For those of you who aren't from Utah, let me tell you about Pioneer Day. It's big. There's a big parade, and there's fireworks, and everyone has the day off, and all the businesses are closed, and everyone barbeques. It's like the 4th of July, except bigger.

Once, the summer after I graduated from high school, my friends and I camped out on Main Street to await the parade. (This was a long time tradition in Salt Lake--the party all night was a much bigger deal than even the parade the next morning.) So, we sat around and talked and ate and played cards and watched the dummies who were dragging up and down Main. And then, at about three in the morning, someone ran from the crowd into the street and taunted someone in one of the cars. The car stopped, the doors opened, and out came three guys with pistols and one with a shotgun. The taunter also pulled out his pistol, and then immediately a dozen plain-clothes police appeared out of the crowd, with their guns drawn. To clear the crowds, tear gas was tossed into a mob on the other side of the street, and all of us ducked behind stone planterboxes. It's little things like this that help us remember the sacrifices that the pioneers made, or something.

Anyway, I'm here in Minnesota, and I completely forgot about Pioneer Day until I called my parents a moment ago and they mentioned it. Lousy Minnesotans, neglecting the heritage of the West.

Marketing in Moab

2008-07-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

I know this will come as a shock to one and all, but here is a post that is actually about the MBA program. I know! It surprised me, too.

Every fall before class starts, MBAMA (the MBA Marketing Association) goes down to Moab for a weekend of frivolity and merry-making. The new first-year students come in, all wide-eyed and full of trepidation, and the second-years promptly toss them in the river.

Julianne Hall, the MBAMA Vice President of Something, asked several of us to write blurbs about how much we liked it, so she could email the newbies and give them our endorsements. I, of course, overlooked the part of her message that said "only 1-2 sentences," and I wrote a freaking novel. So, here it is in its entirety, since it likely won't get emailed to anyone.

First of all, let me just say that I hate Moab. I hate its weather (because, holy crap, it's 110 degrees). I hate its over-the-top commercialism (I like to imagine that there's a sweatshop in Burma, where six-year-old kids do nothing all day but apply Kokopelli decals to shotglasses). I hate its very philosophy (last year, I took along a copy of Edward Abbey's The Monkeywrench Gang just to offset all the weekend-warrior, the-world-is-my-roller-coaster nonsense).

I don't like to golf. I hate to mountain bike. And last year we slept in a hostel with overflowing toilets and no air conditioning. (I understand that we have a real hotel this time around.)

And yet, in spite of it all, I loved the Moab trip.

The way I see it, you can get acquainted with people in a few different ways. They can leap from their canoe into your raft, grabbing the straps of your life preserver to toss you into the Colorado River--you'd need to learn their name there so you can exact your revenge later. Or, you can clutch onto their leg as your open-air Hummer speeds along the edge of a cliff (all while the driver is turned around, chatting with you)--you'd need to know their name in that situation so that you can shriek it in terror. Or, you can sit in the shade of Delicate Arch, surrounded by red, wind-worn stone and a spectacular view of Canyon Country--you'd need to learn their name there so that you can say "Man, this is breathtaking." Or, I guess, you could learn someone's name while you're crammed tightly together in a too-small study room, wearing too-tight suit coats, while trying to do too much homework in too little time. I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd pick that last option.

You guys already know the features of the trip: recruiters, rafting, whatever. But the whole point is that I met Brian Steffen on that trip, and he and I instant message each other almost every day; I met Charlie Skinner on that trip, and he and I are interning at the same company; I met Julianne Hall on that trip, and now she's the person I email when I need to vent my frustrations; I met Terence Stephens on that trip, and now I read his blog religiously; I met Anthony Nielson on that trip, and we sat together at General Conference.

The MBA program is only tangentially about how well you can determine the value of stocks, or reduce transportation costs in a supply chain, or deduce the necessary sample size of your market research. The MBA program is about people--and not in a hollow networking way, but in the sense that your ability to succeed in the program (and the business world, and life) lies in the relationships you make with other people.

Come to Moab. I promise that it will be worth it. And I promise that I hate that city more than you do.

The Name Game

2008-07-16T07:31:00.001-07:00

So, my wife continues to be pregnant, and we're continuing to bat around name ideas. We're very pleased with our girl names (Marlo and Lindy), but we just can't find any boy names that we really like.

For quite a while, we thought that Benjamin Franklin Wells could work. Erin liked it because she liked the name Ben, and I liked it because then I could call the kid Hawkeye. (For you uncultured swine, Benjamin Franklin Pierce, aka Hawkeye, was one of the doctors on M*A*S*H.)

But now Erin's not as sold on it. I think she doesn't see the point in naming a kid Ben if I'm never going to call him Ben. (My son Sammy was referred to around our house as Mr. Pajamas for quite some time, but it's kind of faded lately. Holly was either Little Jo or Runty Gunterson.)

Anyway, Erin recently proposed a few new names to the mix, and I want you to see if you can pick out what's weird about them: Luke, Jesse, and Beau. Now let's think: aside from being thoroughly terrible names (Beau?) what do they all have in common? Any ideas?

Well, if you guessed "They're all from the Dukes of Hazzard", then you're right! She swears she didn't realize this, but I know better.

So, I have now proposed a few more names for her to consider: Rosco, Cooter, Enos, and Cletus. And, no matter what the actual name ends up being--and assuming it's a boy--I hereby vow to nickname this kid Boss Hogg. (Let's hope he grows up to be a lineman, rather than a concert pianist.)

Twine and Baseball

2008-07-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

So, I let the blogging go another solid week. If there's any silver lining to this cloud of laziness, it's that I blog here way more regularly than I do some other tasks (like returning emails, or taking out the garbage).

This last week has been quite busy. My friend Cameron, who graduated from the BYU MBA program in 2007 and now works for Ford, brought his family down from Michigan to visit over the 4th of July. It was great fun. Erin has recapped the week in great detail over at her blog (including lots of pictures), but here are a few highlights:

We saw the World's Largest Ball of Twine Made By Just One Man. Does that name seem a little long to you? That's because it used to be the World's Largest Ball of Twine, but then some dang punk kids in Kansas made their own ball of twine that was bigger. And then a jerk in Wisconsin, who goes by the precocious initials JFK (his name is James Frank Kotera), made the heaviest ball of twine. (That ball of twine also has a little friend, who is a ball of string named "Junior".) And, of course, there's some tool in Texas who built some other ball of twine. But I think he should be excluded from the running because he's a millionaire, and probably forced little kids build the twine ball in a sweatshop.

So, it raises the question: what the freaking heck? Of all the dreams in the world, why are all of these people aggressively seeking the title of Twine Ball Champion?

If I had to pick sides, I think I'd definitely choose the Darwin, MN twine ball. On the highway they have a sign that says "Welcome to Twine Ball Country", and they have the annual Twine Ball Days festival in August. That jerk JFK's twine ball never galvanized an entire community!

In other news, I spent three days this week in Naperville, IL, which is a suburb of Chicago. I've never been to Chicago before, and I must say that I quite liked a very small part of it (downtown), and quite disliked the rest. If you've been reading my blogs for years--and I imagine that none of you have--you'll know that I have an intense dislike for urban sprawl. I think the definition of crappy urban sprawl is: it takes more than two hours to drive from the suburbs into downtown Chicago. Holy crap. (More than once we commented that there are about four times as many people in the greater Chicago area than there are in Utah, total.)

But when we got into the city, what fun there was to be had! ConAgra treated all of us interns to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, except that instead of sitting in the ballpark, we were at one of those rooftop places across the street. (Several former apartment buildings built bleachers on their roofs, and you have a magnificent view of the game--and all-you-can-eat awesome food, including Chicago dogs, Italian sausages, BBQ chicken, ribs, etc. My fellow intern Josh Gillett snapped these picture with his cell phone.

Now, regular readers of my blogs will no doubt remember that I couldn't care less about baseball. So, when another ConAgra employee (who I didn't know) sat next to me, he happily explained many of the rules and why baseball is awesome. For an hour, this man told me all about baseball, and how it's like chess. He even made me genuinely interested (though I don't know how long it will last). And then, after all that, I discovered that he's one of the four company presidents. As in, he reports directly to the CEO. Also: he'll be sitting in on my final presentation in August. So, now I'm just hoping that I didn't say anything too stupid, or had sausage stuck in my teeth.

(Really, that is one of the best things of this internship--we have great opportunties to meet with the top brass, and they're all very friendly and helpful.)

The Last Thirty Days

2008-07-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a good solid month since I last blogged.

Back when I was a teenager, I used to try to keep a journal, but I was really lousy at it. So, I'd write for about a week, and then forget about it for a month, and then try to get back into it. But I felt like so much had happened that future readers--I always wrote as though someone would eventually read it--would be completely confused. So then I'd have to write a big recap of everything that happened in the last month, to fill my future descendants in on all my exciting doings. And then, a month later, I'd come back to it and read what I'd said, and be embarrassed that future generations would hear about how enamored I was with Jenny Naylor, and so I'd tear all the pages out. Seriously, I think that journal has about four pages remaining. Nothing ever lasted long.

Anyway, the point of all that is to say that I'm going to recap the last month of Minneapolis.

The day after we got here, the air raid sirens went off and we thought the Germans were after us. But no, it was just a tornado. It never actually touched ground but the hail was nightmarish and it dented the roof of my car. (However, my car is a crappy piece of Korean tinfoil that dents when bugs hit the hood.)

My internship project is focused on Orville Redenbacher's kernels (as opposed to microwave popcorn). My whole life is popcorn. All day I read about expansion size and hybrids and unpopped kernels and mushrooms vs butterflies. I'm a popcorn salesman.

When we first arrived we got to go to a preview screening of Kung-Fu Panda, since several ConAgra products as co-branded (Kid Cuisine, Chef Boyardee, Orville Redenbacher's), and now my son is obsessed with it. As fanatical Holly was about Sleeping Beauty, Sam is about Kung-Fu Panda. He's the Dragon Warrior.

They have the world's most awesome grocery store here: Byerly's. It's carpeted, for crying out loud. It has all the regular stuff that a grocery store would have (a deli, a chinese place, a bakery, etc) but it's all really amazing quality. They even have a chocolatier area. And, the cheese section is phenomenal. (And, since our area is predominately Jewish, they have two butcher shops: a regular one and a kosher one.) I think it's neat.

It's really green here. Growing up in deserty Utah, I've always been of the mindset that if you live in an area with a lot of old trees, then you must be rich. Minneapolis must be full of millionaires! Also: there are rabbits and squirrels all over the place. (Several people here have described squirrels as rats with fluffy tails. But I like them.)

On Monday I took the corporate jet to Omaha and back, and I sat just behind the CEO. (I shook his hand and introduced myself, and he forgot about me an instant later.)

We visited Duluth and Lake Superior, and I later downloaded The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and now I know all the words. Would you like me to sing them to you?

I visited a factory that makes popcorn balls and fruit snacks, and it totally Willy Wonka. The machine was acting funny, and popcorn balls were flying all over the room.

If you would like to see pictures of some of my travels, go visit my wife's blog. And leave comments, because she wants people to leave comments. It's here.

Minnesota Day Four: Sioux Falls to Minneapolis

2008-05-30T20:10:00.000-07:00

I'm tired and going to bed, so I'm not going to write much.

We're here! We rolled into town at about 4:00pm. Our apartment isn't anything awesome, but it's big and roomy and in a nice neighborhood.

Instead of taking the boring interstate from Sioux Falls, we headed north and took the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway. My wife is a big fan of Little House on the Prairie and, when we entered Walnut Grove and saw Plum Creek she nearly hyperventilated. There was a neat little museum there, which we toured, and a gift shop, which we patronized.

However, with or without Laura Ingalls, it was the most beautiful, idyllic drive I've taken in a long time. It was merely a long string of farms, but everything was magnificently green, and the farmhouses looked like they came straight out of a movie. Seriously, if any one of those farmhouses--and there were hundreds of them--were in Utah, it would be bought up instantly and converted into a thriving Bed and Breakfast. It was small town scenic to the nth degree.

And, of course, our camera is dead.

(In related news, yesterday we were noticing a lot of black ground, and wondering if a fire had recently come through. But it seemed like the fire was on every farm, in every field. We have since discovered that dirt is actually supposed to be dark brown/black, unlike the grayish clay and sand we have in Utah.) (I never expected that my culture shock would come via surprisingly-colored dirt.)

Anyway, I'm going to bed. And I'm not going to tell you the story wherein I drove around Minneapolis for over an hour--twice!--looking for a grocery store.

Trip to Minnesota, Day 3: Rapid City to Sioux Falls

2008-05-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

We'd planned to go to Wounded Knee today, and then toddle along the southern part of South Dakota for most of the way. However, the weather looked foreboding, so we nixed it. (Weather.com showed thunderstorms in Sioux Falls most of the day, but at 5:00pm it changed to Strong Thunderstorms, written in red.)

However, we still took several short detours, such as:

Badlands National Park. Halfway through, I asked Erin if she thought the Badlands really warranted National Park status--I just wasn't that impressed. However, then the road wound down into the middle of the rock formations, and--holy cow--it was neat. We stopped at the Visitor's Center, and my scaredy-cat son freaked out, frightened of the plush big horn sheep in the gift shop. So, I took him to the exhibits, and the freaked out about the dinosaur pictures.

Wall Drug. We had been seeing signs for this place for literally two hundred miles. Wall Drug signs first showed up in between Casper and Newcastle. Its billboards advertised everything from having a sherrif on duty to free donuts for Vietnam vets. So, when we passed Wall we got off the freeway and drove past Wall Drug. There were actually quite a few shops part of the Wall Drug complex, vaguely reminiscent of Jackson Hole. We didn't stop.

We ate lunch at Al's Oasis in Chamberlain. Sam lasted about three minutes in the restaurant before the taxidermy freaked him out and we left screaming. Erin and Holly stayed inside, and Sam and I sat on a bench in the lobby. Oddly enough, the waitress attended to me out there just as much as she would attend to any other customer--refilling my drink, bringing me to-go boxes, etc. She was extremely nice, as was the hostess, who came and chatted with Sammy. So, if you're ever in Chamberlain, SD, stop at Al's Oasis. It's great.

In related news, while Sammy and I were sitting in the lobby, I chatted with an old woman who was waiting for her husband. We had a really nice conversation, and she was just the kind of sweet old grandmother who pinches two-year-old's cheeks. Then I asked her where she was from, and she couldn't remember. She had Alzheimers. But she was very nice.

The Corn Palace! Erin made fun of me every step of the way, but I insisted that we get off the freeway and wind our way through Mitchell, SD. However, when we got there Erin agreed: it was awesome.

One interesting thing about today's drive was that it was extremely flat. We knew it would be, of course, but I didn't know how weird it would seem. Having lived all of my life in the west, I can think of few times I've ever been able to look in all directions and see nothing on the horizon. The plains of South Dakota actually gave me an eerie feeling. In Utah, if you ever are unable to see something on the horizon it means you're on the top of something--the middle of a mesa, or the summit of a mountain. I know it sounds weird, but I was genuinely creeped out by it.

In the afternoon, clouds set in. It never rained during the drive, but there were a ton of low clouds. By the time we got close to Sioux Falls, visibility was very low. I dropped off Erin and the kids at the hotel, and then left in search of a grocery store. While driving, I turned on local radio just in time to hear a tornado warning. So, I hurried back to the apartment to wait out the storm. (No worries... that was two hours ago, and it has since stopped raining.)

Anyway, we'll be in Minesota tomorrow!

Minnesota Trip, Day Two: See it. Feel it. Survive it!

2008-05-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

Today started with a continental breakfast in which my we only sprayed the bottom of the waffle iron--not the top--with non-stick spray, and then I spent the next ten minutes trying to scrape burned waffle out. So, awesome!

Today's highlights:

I'm not the only famous celebrity in Rapid City tonight. None other than Hillary Clinton was in town. Whilst driving around tonight looking for a grocery store I instead found a big rally with a few hundred people and about a million cops.

Custer is an awesome little town. We ate at the Baker's Cafe, and the hamburger buns were better than the hamburger. It was delicioso!

We stopped at Mt. Rushmore, and it was actually much cooler than I expected. I was thinking that it would be pretty much the same as looking at a postcard. Granted, that was about it, but it's just neat in real life. However, if you ever go and you ever think about taking the loop trail, don't. One side of the loop is a liesurely stroll--and then there are four thousand stairs. And then, when you're at the farthest point from the visitor's center, and when you're in the middle of the steps, your daughter will need to go potty RIGHT NOW!!!!

We tried to go to the Crazy Horse Memorial, but there were too many clouds and we couldn't see the mountain. Since arriving at the hotel and checking Wikipedia, I discovered that the Memorial isn't nearly as neat as we thought it was. So, no big loss.

I've been in tourist traps before--even big tourist traps like West Yellowstone or Santa Fe--but I've never seen anything like the road between Mt. Rushmore and Rapid City. There are all the usual things, like gift shops, helicopter rides, and bear pens, but the further we got away from the mountain the weirder things got: a snake pit, a kangaroo ranch, and a "Mystery Area" (slogan: "See it. Feel it. Survive it!")

Inside the drive-thru window of an Arby's, I saw a sign which read "Suggestive Selling Tips". I would assume they mean "Suggested Selling Tips", but maybe not. Maybe it's a really sexy Arby's.

Somewhere between Casper and Newcastle, Erin introduced me to the soundtrack of Wicked, and I liked it. For those who don't know, I'm a fan of musical theater, and worked many years in a theater. However, I've been reluctant to listen to Wicked, for one reason or another. And the verdict? The music is good, and I hate the story. I understand the concept: it's not unlike a fractured fairy tale, where we see the "true" story. But, I really hate the fact that the Wicked Witch is the only good person, and everyone else is screwed up. Sure, if you want to show us that Epseba is misunderstood and has a tragic past--great. But, do you have to make everyone else scummy in the process?

You know who that show is written for? Teenage girls. The entire point is: I'm not popular, but it's because everyone else is so evil, and they're all trying to tear me down, and whine whine whine. For the love...

But the music is good.

The main convenience store in Wyoming and South Dakota is the Loaf n' Jug.

Trip to Minnesota, Day One

2008-05-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

So, today we drove the first leg of the trip, from Provo to Casper, WY. It was relatively uneventful; Holly had no real troubles, though Sammy freaked out at being in the car for so long.

We didn't realize it beforehand, but the route took us by Martin's Cove. So, we stopped in for a few minutes--it was nearly closing time--and walked around. And then we tried to watch a short movie in the visitor's canter, and Sammy freaked out. He's two.

Here are a few thoughts about Wyoming:

The restaurant where we stopped for dinner had a smoking section. Seriously, Wyoming? What kind of crappy state still doesn't have Clean Air laws?

Most of of the Wyoming towns that we stopped in weren't much to look at, but Rawlins is really kind of neat. There were some amazing Victorian homes (that looked totally out of place), and a neat old prison that makes my Urban Decay-loving heart happy.

There was a statue at Martin's Cove honoring a 24 year old woman who was pulling a handcart. Her five-year-old kid was getting really sick, so she put the kid on her back, still pulling the handcart. And why was this woman doing the pulling? Because her husband was in the handcart, nearly dead. Holy crap, do I have an easy life.

We drove past the site of the Sand Creek Massacre. It's a little out of our way, but we talked about going to Wounded Knee tomorrow. We'll see if there's time.

In other news, Holly and Erin are long asleep, but my dang son is still awake. Go to sleep!

American Idol: El Fin

2008-05-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, so American Idol was last night and I missed it again! As mentioned, we're moving next week, and I spent yesterday evening with my dad, brother, and brother-in-law playing games. In the other room, my mom--who has never watched American Idol until halfway through this season--voted for Little Davey ninety-two times. I'm like an American Idol missionary, spreading the good word and changing lives.

Anyway, since I can't comment on the show, I thought I'd share with you a couple predictions I made back in the day. Sure, my weekly predictions have been as prescient as in past years, but overall I think I did quite nicely.

This quote is taken from March 12th, which was all the way back at Week One:

As for long-range predictions: if we follow AI tradition, a guy will win this year . . . right now that would look like either David Archuleta or maybe David Cook. I hope it's neither.

But, the week before, back when they first named the top twelve, I made the following prediction, and I stand by it:

My current pick to win it all? No idea. My current pick to lose as #2? David Archuleta.

I hear that Davey did a lot better than David Cook last night, but I still think Cook has it in the bag. And I'm glad. I fully and completely admit that Davey is a great singer and extremely talented, but I've been bored with him since March, and I'd probably change the channel if he came on the radio. Blah.

ConAgra Travel Plans Set

2008-05-20T10:31:00.001-07:00

Well, the time is coming quickly for the internship, and I have a few more details than I had before. I will be working specifically on the Orville Redenbacher brand, though I don’t yet know what I’ll be doing. I should find out later this week.

We’ll be driving out there next week, leaving on Tuesday. We had thought initially about doing the whole drive in two days, stopping only once, since we could save money on hotels. (That would equate to about ten and a half hours a day.) However, rationality has prevailed—after all, I have two little kids and a pregnant wife. So, it’s being spread out into four days.

We’re also taking a more scenic drive than we’d initially thought. The original plan was to drive through the boring, flat cornfields of Nebraska. When we looked up the route on MapQuest, it said “Get on I-80. Head east for 1029 miles.” And, you know, that sounded awesome. So, instead, we’re going to head up through Wyoming and South Dakota, and we’ll see such things as Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills, Badlands National Park, and maybe even Jewel Cave National Monument. Who knew there was so much to do in South Dakota?

And what will I do when I roll into Minneapolis? Well, I’ll spend one night in my new apartment, then kiss the wife and kids and fly to Omaha! Neat!

The Gloves Come Off, American Idol

2008-05-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

So, about fifteen minutes into the show last night I got a call from my neighbor, reminding me that I'd agreed to go play street hockey at 7:30! Curses!

Because of that unfortunate decision, I only saw the first four performances. Also, because of that unfortunate decision, I'm in eighteen kinds of pain this morning. I'm not exactly Mr. Fitness McHealthy, and street hockey not only requires a lot of energy, but you also get injured a lot. I think I slammed into the chainlink fence about seven times. Also, in a rather unpleasant turn of events, I got a splinter in my backside. Just so you know.

Either way, Syesha's going home. She's been in the bottom three/two forever, and I don't see that changing tonight. Personally, I think she's great, and I'd love to see her beat Davey Archuleta, but she won't. (Jason left last week, and we have to figure out where his fans will go. Jason's target demographic was thirteen-year-old girls who voted solely based on the dreaminess of the contestant. They will switch their allegiance to either Davey or David.)

Speaking of Davey, one part of the show that I did see was him on stage with the mayor of Murray. And, if there was ever anyone you don't want as a spokesman for Utah, it was that guy. He wore one of those goofy cowboy dress shirts with an American flag motif, and he had the world's largest handlebar mustache. No, America! We're not hicks!

And I imagine Cook is a lock to win it all.

In The Family Way

2008-05-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

Well, we heard about how BYU is kind of a baby factory, so we decided to join in the fun. Erin is officially on the nest.

Our current name ideas:

Girl:
Marlo Alley Wells
Lindy Colleen Wells

Boy:
Benjamin Franklin Wells (I agreed to this on the condition that I will never, ever call him by his real name. He'll always be called Hawkeye.)
Orrie Rex Wells

And, Erin and I are having a debate: If I sign an agreement to never drink Coke again (right now I drink it almost constantly) then I get to name a kid Barnaby. Erin hasn't yet signed off on the deal, but I'm completely committed.

If I Am Guilty I Will Pay, American Idol!

2008-05-07T04:52:00.000-07:00

Here's the odd thing about me and American Idol: I never watch the auditions--I hate when the judges make fun of the lousy singers. However, I love it when the judges make fun of the finalists. So last night, when Simon absolutely thrashed Jason, I was giddy as a school girl.

The highlights of the evening:

Lest anyone forget, this is what Duran Duran looks like. And they sing silly lyrics like "I'm hungry like the wolf". This is not a song that ages well, and is firmly in the realms of camp and kitsch. So, David Cook singing it, trying to keep up his cool, rocker image was a bad move.

Syesha was great. It's unfortunate that she didn't become great until this late in the season (starting the Andrew Lloyd Webber week), because most of the viewers had already picked favorites long before that. So, she'll end up in the bottom two like she always does.

Jason--goofy, giggling, pretty-boy Jason--sang I Shot the Sheriff in just about the worst song-choice disaster ever in the history of American Idol. For one thing, you just don't mess with Bob Marley (uh...unless, I guess, you're Eric Clapton), but if you're going to sing a song about (1) shooting someone, and (2) having a Sheriff hate you enough that he'd try to kill you in cold blood, then you'd dang well better be at least a little bit believable. Does anyone here believe that Jason would shoot anyone? Show of hands?

Davey Archuleta = Blah. Amazingly-talented, boring blah.

Okay, predictions: Syesha will be in the bottom two, because she's always in the bottom two. But she won't be leaving.

Who will be? Here was my prediction that I gave my wife during the show last night: Jason and Davey have just about the same demographic: 13-year-old girls. (Davey also brings in a few others--the Mormon vote, the good-singer vote, etc. Jason brings in the pot-smoking vote, and the stupid-person vote.) Anyway, Davey's performances were almost exactly as good as they always are, which translates into nothing special. Jason, on the other hand, sucked. And Simon told him to pack his bags. And, like last week with Syesha, Simon's prediction will probably buy Jason some votes. In fact, I was predicting that Jason would get all the fanatical 13-year-old votes, stealing them away from Davey, leaving Davey as the surprise exit.

However, then Davey brought out the big guns. It was the last song of the night, and he looked right at the girls on the front row and sang "Love Me Tender"--the first time he's ever sung a real love song on the show. And all the 13-year-olds' hearts went a-flutter. So, because of that, he's safe.

Which means: Syesha and Jason in the bottom two, and Jason goes. It's about dang time.