The Gainer that Never Was

I tried.

I really did.

I tried as best as I could, but you know how there is that phrase about teaching an old dog new tricks?

First, let’s clarify: I don’t consider myself an old dog.

I just think that perhaps I would have been a bit more fearless when I was younger.

But I tried really hard to learn a new trick on Saturday.

I tried to learn how to do a gainer.

It all started at the second annual Campbell-DeLaMare swimming party at the DeLaMare mansion. They wouldn’t call it a mansion. They just call it home, but I never had my own bathroom connected to my bedroom and a walk-in closet growing up. I never had a swimming pool in the backyard with a diving board and slide. I never had an upstairs and downstairs kitchen. I never had an indoor swimming pool either. I did, however, have a pool table and a ping pong table.*

We became friends with the DeLaMares when they moved in to the average-size house next door over a decade ago. Before long, Maren and I were babysitting their youngest kids, Mom was scheduling her daily walks with their mom, Lisa, and we built a new fence with a door in it so we could easily walk from one backyard to the other. It was neighborhood bliss. And then the DeLaMares decided to upgrade. They moved to a bigger home and left our little neighborhood behind. But don’t worry; we stayed friends.

Isn’t it great that even though they live in their fancy new home they still want to see the Campbells? And they want to see ALL of us? GOOD friends.

This last Saturday afternoon was the swimming party.

Maren, Thane, Laina, Hobbes and I drove up together. Before long, we were all outside swimming and the diving board was just asking for my brothers to fling themselves off of it. I hesitated.

But they made it look so easy to do a gainer: Jarv, Mick and Thane.

“You just arch your back,” Thane instructed me.

Mick said something about jumping higher.

Jarv said something about tucking.

I tried the first time and landed on my head. Not too bad. I was more than halfway around.

I tried again. Back flop. Lost my courage.

Try again.

Went in shins first.

Try again.

Head first.

Try again, jump higher.

Back flop.

I’m done.

So much for learning how to do a gainer.

Guess the remainder of the lessons will have to wait for the Campbell-DeLaMare swimming party next year. I’ll let you know how that goes.

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*You’d think because of this I would be a decent pool player or have some amount of ping pong skills. Your thoughts would be wrong, though. I can, however, play both sports better than I can bowl.

Hip Hip Hooray for Hobbes

Okay, I know it’s not supposed to be a cell phone pic / caption contest because it’s FRIDAY – and boy do I love Friday. But, I was slightly MIA* from the old blog world on Wednesday and today I have a great picture to share AN-EE-WAYZ. I have a new nephew, Hobbes. Congrats to Laina and Thane! Here’s a cute pic of him and then, we’ll** post the cell phone pic below for this week’s caption contest. HURRY AND POST A COMMENT NOW BECAUSE IT’S ONLY A FEW DAYS BEFORE NEXT WEDNESDAY’S DEADLINE!

Enter the CAPTION CONTEST now!

The Sciolist Cell Phone Pic of the Week^not-™ is published each week with the intent to entice readers to comment. This is accomplished with a CONTEST! The winner will receive a blog nod in the following week’s post-what a TREMENDOUS prize. Entering is easy. Just click on Comment below, fill in the identification information requested and enter your caption for the above picture as your comment. You have until Larrie posts the following Wednesday’s pic to enter.

Ready… GO!***

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Last Week’s Winner: Boy, way to make this such a tough choice, people. By default, ‘deltalimagolf’ wins (despite the abusive punctuation). Cheers for this Contracted Developer Man (a.k.a. deltalimagolf, which I have no idea what it means, either) who submitted a late entry, which we** counted since nobody else posted an entry. About CDM, he recently gifted his family with a rowdy little troublemaker: a Bengal kitten. Isn’t his family lucky? Also, he actually works… unlike some other contracted developer guy I wonder about.

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*Not sure how one can only be slightly MIA, but I was.

**By we, I mean ME.

***And by GO!, I mean COMMENT!

Day 15: Spending the Weekend Away from the Computer

I skipped a couple of days of “Build a Better Blog” tasks. I didn’t even log on to my PC over the weekend to check emails or Facebook. Gasp. That means that I can pick and choose which tasks I complete for today from those that I missed during my internet absence. Here are the choices:

• Take a Trip to the ‘Mall’ (Put on clothes and leave your computer)
• Update a Key Page on my Blog (would require more than the 5 minutes I use to blog at work)
• Find a Blog Buddy (so many choices)

So what would you pick? The task where I actually step away from the PC; the task where I go and make changes to some of the pages I haven’t looked at for a while like the about me page or the cast of characters; or the task where I find me some blogging buddies? I think I might make an application for that last one… at a future date and time. I do need to update my cast of characters again; it’s been a while. But for today, let’s tackle the first task.

The blogger that writes Problogger admitted in the description for this task that he was in his PJ’s still blogging at 4pm. I suppose that blogging is his job so he’s really been working all day and the dress code is casual. Still, get out more, buddy. His way of getting out was to go to the mall and observe people.

My way of getting out is to interact with people. Wow. I must be an EXTRAVERT.

Here’s what I learned from this weekend of interactions:

• The entire internet should be jealous of my family; this includes my extended family as well. We even make baby showers a great little party for my fabulous sister-in-law, Laina.
• Hot tubbing is a beautiful thing; hot tubbing when the water smells like eucalyptus is bliss; hot tubbing with eucalyptus-scented water and raspberry-lime ice water is celestial.*
• Manual labor can be exhausting, but I also met more of my neighbors when we decided to save the HOA some money and clean up our desperate landscaping around the condos; turns out, we should have rented some dumpsters for the project – caution: piles of ripped out ivy everywhere.
• I’ve never enjoyed losing so bad in a soccer game, but it just felt so good to work really hard and inch ever closer to my goal of being in shape again.
• What would you do if you came home and the power was out? Beth and I walked to the store (one mile away) to buy lunch and picked up a fire bowl on the way back. Then, we grilled steaks and sat out on the porch in the sun. Welcome spring!
• I am now far enough removed from high school that I like seeing old friends… like at stake conference where there are many of you.
• I’m glad Beth made me be social and go to Chili’s Saturday night; I didn’t need more food, but the company was superb.
• Making cookies Sunday mornings is a tasty way to start the Sabbath.
• Spring time is amazing; especially when it includes spending time at the park BBQing.
• I have the best friends and the internet should be jealous of them, too; they laugh with me til my abs hurt, they make delicious crepes, they look for a missing cat and even make a poster, they clean up after parties, they like my home, they like me, they plan trips to a yet-to-be-determined destination, and they rock the casbah.
• Minyo (my cat) came back last night a little before 3:00 a.m. Now we know that I don’t lose a cat after only a year. Phew. Now I have ‘lost kitty’ posters that I won’t need to use. Phew again, but thanks to Megs who made them even though she doesn’t like cats. She must like me. Bonus.

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*That was the three degrees of hot tubbing glory. (Ha, what a funny Mormon joke.)

Day 4: Is there anybody out there… like me?*

Today’s “Build a Better Blog” task required me to analyze a top blog in my niche.

My niche?

Is there any other blog in the world in my niche?

I was stumped.

So instead, I started scanning through my friends’ blogs. I heart my friends. I heart their blogs. These are some of them (in random order):

Mama’s Boys – Linds and I became friends our senior year of high school, but we went to school together since kindergarten. It’s sad that we missed out on all of those years of friendship we could have had, but we made up for it, possibly all in one weekend that involved squirt guns, walkie-talkies, cell phones, undercover gang patrol cops, and an accident.

Phabulous Phippens – Mine and Karen’s friendship came and went because she came and went moving to and from Utah and always back to the same school from elementary through high school. This included a short stint in a musical, getting in trouble with the typing teacher, and attempting to sing in choir first thing in the morning. When I have kids, I’ll expect to call her frequently for advice.

Shanny’s Life – Shannon and I also went to school together since kindergarten and became almost friends in high school, but REALLY became friends as roommates our freshman year in college. That happened because I leaned over in Calculus, senior year, and said, “Hey, I need a roommate and you’re going to BYU. What’s your social security number?” (I also follow her husband, Clark’s blog, Bethletard. It’s a good one.)

The M’s – Sabrina shares her blog with her husband-how cute are they? And again, she’s a friend who I went to school with since kindergarten, but didn’t really become buds until senior year. Are we noticing a theme yet? However, we do have some moments of connection prior to that, including hiding in a garage with baby quail (sometime in 3^rd grade, perhaps), and having Calculus study sessions in my basement where we rewarded ourselves with playing some type of wrestling game on the N64 after.

my little adventures… – Meghan, Meghan, bo Beghan experienced the Larrie friendship curve. This is where it takes some time before she realizes my quirks are actually endearing and then decides that we should spend Valentine’s Day eating Thai food with our Korean friend and then bake mountains of chocolate chip cookies while listening to Outkast. Can you believe they allowed such unruly behavior at BYU? Thankfully, the friendship curve doesn’t seem to be a bell curve; no sloping down yet.

Scattered Starlight – English majors UNITE! Somehow, Katie and I never got to know each other during our tenure as English majors at BYU, but we became friends afterwards, thanks to my sister-in-law, her best friend, Genny. Now we get to connect in a myriad of ways, from reading each others’ blogs to twittering back and forth or posting on each others’ Facebook walls. Yep, we’re TIGHT.

v1.2 – “Kaakun” was in a BYU ward. I have no idea how we became friends because there are many, many holes in my memory from that year of school. However, I do remember him and Rachel playing the “state game,” his commentary during mine and my roommates’ ice skating finals, and drawing on his apartment window in the middle of the night. Since then, there have been Vegas weddings, broken beds, and vomiting at Crown Burger. Sweet, sweet memories.

Family blogs: life of laina – I’m so happy my brother married Laina, for many reasons, one of which is that she blogs and it’s consistent, unlike her husband, Thane, who recently started up again on his blog, My Separate from Wife’s Blog. Nobody else in my family really blogs so I adopted my sister-in-law, Tracy’s family: Aimee, internal conversations & ramblings of aimee heffernan; Scott, Vote of Die Blog; and Ryan, The Idealistic Investor.

Tiffanie – I am a fan of our story. We met briefly during the ‘99-’00 school year when she visited my roommate from Kansas. Then, I ended up in that same roommate’s wedding party where her best friend from Kansas, Tiff, did not. Seemed odd and so I was hesitant to talk to Tiff because I was the bad guy in this situation. Then, many moons later, she moved to Salt Lake and we ended up in the same singles ward. I went up to her and said, “Are you from Olathe, Kansas?” Who’s heard of Olathe and who can pronounce it right? Me. That’s who. Oh-lay-thah.

Two of my roommates who weren’t actually roommates: Nichole-The Audrey show, and Leslie-The Collyafaces. We lived next door, but both apartments got along so well, we would have knocked down the wall that separated us if we could. Now, I just stalk them via their blogs where they post pics of their adorable little girls.

A Day in the Life of Clancy – I knew Clancy when I was younger, but she was always the big sister. Instead, I spent all of my time running around with her little sister, Lacy-climbing cherry trees, rollerblading down Harrison (from 1300 E to 1100 E), doing art projects and playing Nintendo. However, today, Clancy and I go rollerblading down Harrison. Wait. No, we don’t because she doesn’t even live in Utah. Instead, we just stalk each others’ blogs and hit up the jokes on FB chat. It’s a beautiful relationship.

Norton News – Amy and I rocked the basketball court (and sometimes the bench) in high school. I miss her motivational speeches tailored just to me and my emotional rollercoaster ride that was high school sports. Then, she motivated me through a summer of door-to-door sales by sending lengthy emails. Now, she’s got an adorable little family, house, life, etc. It’s fabulous.

View from the Bushes – Every time I read the title of his blog, I think of a peeping tom. However, Ross is not… as far as I know. He’s the former coworker who I initially judged by appearance (longer hair, scraggily beard) and then got over that and realized he was an English major turned geek with the sharpest wit in the department. He moved on to bigger, better things than our web dude at work and now I have to stalk him via his blog. And we have Facebook. Too bad I only got one date with his brother-he would have been a catch.

My sister blogs. Oh wait, no, no she doesn’t, otherwise I would have included it in the family section above. But once, her roommate tried to set up a blog for the two of them: Merphanie. That lasted long. The other roommate, Kasi keeps up the blogging on her own site: Kismet of Kas. Also, I follow Martha’s blog, MOSTLY MARTHA. I’m pretty sure we’re both Mrs.-Lake-trained writers.

I know-this list is getting very long. I skipped over some people because they haven’t blog very recently. (Or because I don’t want them to know that I read their blogs regularly, mwahaha.) The rest of the blogs that I follow are written by people that I do not know… AT ALL.

Here’s a quick list of SOME of those: almost literary, Normal Mormon Husbands, The Art of Over-Thinking, Why Mormon Girls Stay Single, Lifehacker, Mashable!, Seth’s Blog, etc.

Okay, I’m tired of adding hyperlinks so you’ll just have to guess what all the other blogs are that I follow. What blogs do you follow?

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*When I started typing this subject line, I was singing in my head, Pink Floyd’s Is There Anybody Out There? There’s not much to sing, though. Basically, while writing the remainder of this awesome blog post, I was repeating over and over in my head, “Hello, hello, hello” fading out.

Thane the Airplane

What would YOU write for the caption on this one? (I expect at LEAST Maren to come up with something.)

Just Call Me Bionic (Toe) Woman

I remember the surgery.

Mostly.

They did give me Versed (how mean) so I don’t remember it all. And sadly, I can’t really recall quite what my toe looked like all sliced open, but I remember some. Here’s the play by play:

Walking to Foot Surgery

Obviously, I couldn’t drive home after the surgery so I didn’t want to drive to work and leave my car there. Instead, I left my domestic tank (a.k.a. Volvo) at my parents’ and my mom gave me a ride to work. In order to only take one day off, I scheduled the surgery end of day on Thursday with Friday slated for recovery. After an exciting day in the office, I left a little before 3:00 to walk over to the Orthopaedic Center. It was the last walking I would be doing for some time.

Check-in and WAIT

Why would they have a waiting room if they didn’t want you to wait? I checked in, paid my co-pay (ouch) and sat down to read the paper. The assistant who checked me in said that I would be prepped for surgery around 3, and then be in surgery from 4-5, recovering for 30 minutes after and then my ride could come. I gave them my mom’s numbers to call when I was ready to be picked up (kind of like a take-out meal). After five minutes in the waiting room, a nurse came to get me and I thought, “Great, not much waiting.” Silly me.

She brought me in to another room and told me that the surgeon was THREE HOURS BEHIND. I waited for her to laugh and say, just kidding. It wasn’t a joke. He really was behind. This required me to send texts to my mom to try and arrange another ride. They wanted a name of the person who would pick me up before I went into surgery. I guess they didn’t want to send me home with the wrong person.

The next estimate of when I’d be done and in recovery was 8:00 pm and Mom recruited Laina to pick me up.

Now that I was all gowned-up, flapping in the wind (lots of wind in surgery waiting rooms), I pulled out my crossword puzzle, of course. However, the anesthesiologist interrupted me before I had filled in more than a couple. What happened to three hours behind?

My First Ultrasound

I asked the anesthesiologist if we could just do local. Of course he said sure. I’m the patient and it’s my body, right? So we rolled into another room where he did an ultrasound on the back of my right leg (in my knee pit) in order to find the nerve leading down to my middle toe.

Silly me to have thought that they would just numb my entire foot. But, I can’t lie to you, internet. When I could still feel the inside of my ankle, I was worried that I would still feel my toe, too and then how was I supposed to hold still when they started cutting? Rest assured: I felt no cutting. They only numbed the nerves they needed to. Fancy modern medicine.

Don’t Forget to Breathe

Have you ever heard that blonde joke? About the blonde (obviously) who had headphones on when she went to the doctor’s, he asked her to take them off, she warned him that it wasn’t a good idea, but did it anyway and shortly after, collapsed (or possibly died). So the doctor picks up the headphones and listens: “Breath in… breath out… breath in…”

I felt like the dumb blonde.

But it’s the fault of the anesthesiologist, right? Whatever he gave me as we were rolling into the operating room, really made me drowsy. They put the oxygen mask on me and I remember him saying a handful of times, “Keep breathing.” Apparently, being under partial anesthesia doesn’t mean your brain remembers to breathe in and out. Eventually, I came out of my stupor and could again remember on my own to keep breathing. It was at this point that I saw the monitor.

Surgery is NOT Delicate

“Hey, can I watch that?” That’s what I asked the anesthesiologist. (By the way, it’s rather annoying to keep typing that word.) He said of course and even pulled the monitor closer.

I watched my surgery, ate some popcorn and jujubes, and chatted with the numbing doctor (so much easier to type than anesthesiologist). He told me about his dog, I pointed out how well you could see the hairs growing out of the surgeon’s ears.

I remember when they took at least one picture and I’m pretty sure it was after he had cut open the toe and bent it in such a way that the bones were protruding out where there once was a joint. I’m going to ask for a copy of that picture.

I also remember the holes in the bone, but I don’t recall hearing them drill them. They did fill up with blood pretty quickly, but they soon stopped that by sticking blue titanium devices inside the holes. (I have no idea what the specific term is for a new, permanent, titanium toe, but that’s what I have.)

The surgeon had a slightly difficult time getting them to snap together, though. Okay, maybe they weren’t quite like Lego’s so they didn’t snap, but it didn’t look like it was very easy trying to hook them together. They twisted, pushed, shook my leg some, used a handful of tools, twisted some more, and eventually got the male titanium piece in the female piece. It was something to do with lining up the hexagon shape. Ask Jarv. He could probably explain it better.

I couldn’t really see when they were stitching me up because their heads were in the way so I talked with the numbing doctor about his weimaraner. (I want a dog.)

Chocolate and Recovery

They rolled me into the recovery room where the nurses were waiting.

“You’re awake?” She sounded so surprised.

“Yes, and she watched the whole thing,” the numbing doctor said, sounding proud.

And by then, I was STARVING. They brought me my stuff and I asked if I could eat the chocolates I had in my purse. So while they tried to find out who was going to pick me up, I ate chocolate-dipped pretzels.

It was just before 6:00 p.m. Remember how the previous nurse said I would be out by 8:00 p.m.? Clearly, they SUCK at time estimates. It was too early for Laina, too late for Mom and I didn’t know who to call. Thankfully, my family took care of me and eventually, Tracy was called into duty and pulled up shortly after I had changed out of my cozy little gown. Hooray for family.

Dependent on Others

The biggest thing that I learned from this (besides that watching surgery on my own toe was beyond cool) was that I’m excessively blessed with friends and family. PLUS, they’re the friends and family who pick you up, take you food, bring you movies, etc.

I started making a list of all of the things that people did for me in the last few days and realized it was getting very long and if I forgot somebody, I would feel awful. Lots of people checked in on me, gave me rides, brought/bought me food, kept me company, etc. Thank you! Thank you!

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Political Link of the Day: “Does Bernanke Realize What He’s Doing?“

Afraid to look passive, policy makers risk making things much much worse.

A Quirky Game of Tag

Hooray for Thursdays and another fabulous installment of Larrie’s weekly therapy with her imaginary Doc. For some blog readers, this is what they look forward to—it helps them make it to the weekend.

DOC: Welcome, please sit down.

LRE: So formal.

DOC: I’m trying a new thing.

LRE: What? Acting like a doctor?

DOC: Something along those lines.

LRE: Great; just so long as you’re still imaginary and therefore I still don’t have to pay you.

DOC: Right-o. I’ve got a list of questions to discuss.

LRE: Nah; that’s okay.

DOC: But… but, I put so much time into coming up with these.

LRE: Really?

DOC: Sure, why not?

LRE: K, save them for next week.

DOC: Why? Do you have another list of 100 random things all about YOU?

LRE: No; that requires more effort than your list of questions.

DOC: Fine; what have ya got then?

LRE: I’ve been tagged.

DOC: You’ve… been… tagged…?

LRE: Yes; thanks for repeating it. Katie tagged me.

DOC: Kate did, huh? That still doesn’t explain what you’re talking about. Are you playing freeze tag?

LRE: Not exactly; it’s blog tag and I don’t think anybody crawls under your legs to unfreeze you in this game.

DOC: Blog tag, huh? So we’re expecting some of those hyperlink things where the text is underlined and blue?

LRE: Yes, a few.

DOC: All right, fine. Explain this blog tag then.

LRE: Right. Katie wrote the “rules” on her blog as she had received them from the person that tagged her.

DOC: Of course; you have to have clear rules. And what are they?

LRE: Let’s see… I link back to her (done), talk about the rules on my blog, tell six unspectacular quirks about me, tag six other bloggers and then leave comments on their blogs that I’ve tagged them.

DOC: Interesting rules. And these rules ask you to write YOUR rules about YOUR blog? YOU have rules?

LRE: Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that’s what it’s supposed to mean—talking about the rules on my blog and all—it really means that I need to explain the “tag rules” here on my blog, but I could briefly mention my daily posts as the “rules” for MY blog.

DOC: You mean—there’s more than JUST our Thursday appointments?

LRE: Hate to break it to ya, Doc, but you’re only one of usually six entries a week.

DOC: I’m crushed; I was under the impression that we were exclusive.

LRE: Ha—that would be silly.

DOC: Well, I’m afraid to ask out of jealousy, but what are the others?

LRE: Monday is my “freebie” day, Tuesday is the quote of the week, Wednesday is the cell phone pic of the week, you and I have our Thursdays, Friday is about work and Saturday I try and review a book.

DOC: You don’t sound very committed to Saturdays.

LRE: Yeah; Saturday doesn’t always give me enough attention so I’m not as committed, but there’s also lots of soccer now that it’s fall and I haven’t managed to sit down at a laptop when there’s running and scoring goals to be done.

DOC: Well, I suppose it’s good to know your rules.

LRE: Sure.

DOC: K, so what was next? Six unspectacular quirks about you?

LRE: Yeah.

DOC: Who chose to describe your quirks with unspectacular?… sort of an oxymoron there.

LRE: Almost. I can see your point, but my idiosyncrasies aren’t exactly spectacular—just odd.

DOC: All right; you list them and stop naming synonyms for quirk instead.

LRE: Let’s see… first, I keep telling myself that one day I will master “mind over mattress” but it just never happens.

DOC: I suppose that there ARE people out there who like mornings.

LRE: I suppose so, too, but I don’t really want to hear about that. I hate mornings and each morning, a different Larrie wakes up determined to come up with one reason after another to continue hitting the snooze button.

DOC: That button should never have been invented.

LRE: Seriously.

DOC: K, that was one.

LRE: Right; I better hurry this up as I’m rambling and nobody wants to read long blog entries.

DOC: Do you ever have SHORT entries?

LRE: STOP interrupting me. Number two would be that I hate doing dishes, however, since buying my own little condo, I have NEVER, NOT EVEN ONCE, left a pot or pan in the sink overnight. (But that does not relate to cookie sheets or muffin tins.)

DOC: Don’t tell your mom. She’ll wonder why you didn’t do that at home.

LRE: No she won’t. I was okay at doing my own dishes.

DOC: Hmm… maybe I’ll ask her.

LRE: Fine. Moving right along to number three: I think I’m really funny.

DOC: You’re not supposed to think of yourSELF as funny.

LRE: I know, but the thing is, I don’t think other people think I’m nearly as funny as I THINK I AM.

DOC: Do you really care?

LRE: Course not. Okay, number four would be that I had a really hard time misspelling the word millennium in an IM chat today.

DOC: Why were you misspelling it?

LRE: For comedic purposes, of course. But purposely misspelling is so difficult; ESPECIALLY when you type 90+ wpm and therefore don’t type by letter, but type by word. It really cut down on my typing speed.

DOC: Sounds rough. Okay so on to number five.

LRE: Thanks. For the sake of time, I’m going to say five AND six BEFORE you can interrupt me.

DOC: Oh, good…

LRE: STOP.

DOC: Sor-

LRE: SERIOUSLY, STOP. That wasted four lines. Sheesh. (Speaking REALLY fast now…) Five-would-be-that-I-have-a-crooked-toe-again-and-Six-would-be-that-I’m-really-bummed-I-don’t-have-a-piano-in-my-condo. The. End.

DOC: Well, I think I caught that last bit.

LRE: And I’m done.

DOC: Except you need to tag six more. Pick six that also need therapy, k?

LRE: Don’t we all probably need it?

DOC: Not you; you’re self medicated.

LRE: Saves me money. K, I tag Puck, Nettie, Nichole, Pete, Thane and Laina. Who wants to put money down on which brother actually does it… Pete or Thane?

DOC: I’m not a betting man.

LRE: You’re not a REAL man.

DOC: Don’t you have to post a comment on their blogs now to tell them?

LRE: Yes, but I can’t post comments on blogs at work. I’ll try and remember to do it later tonight.

DOC: Just try, huh?

LRE: Yeah… I’ll try.

Toasting Laina

“You went to BYU when I started talking.” -Thane

Sunday, we all shared compliments about my sisters-in-law with September birthdays: Jennie and Laina. One of the biggest things Laina may have accomplished in her life was marrying my brother because that changed a laconic man into somebody I actually have COMPLETE conversations with. She works miracles; it’s true. Thane, on the other hand, thinks that I just missed out on when he started talking by moving ALL THE WAY DOWN TO PROVO – Campbells don’t talk to people at BYU.

Seinfeld in Utah

See? It’s Jerry Seinfeld. At Abravanel Hall. I saw him Friday night… with my counsins Ster and Ian, and my fam Mom, Dad, Mick, Tracy, Thane, Laina, Jennie, Maren, and James. Yeah that’s right… I go out with my family because they ARE just that cool.