Car Names and Arch-Nemeses

Living in Provo again has its pluses: I'm back to my old barber who I know I can trust, dollar scoop night at Baskin Robbins guarantees fresh ice cream due to the high amount of traffic it gets, and cost of living is low enough that I can finally afford having a car again without feeling like I'm going to break the bank!

I'd been doing some research online for a few weeks prior to moving and had a general idea of what I wanted: a reliable car that will last a long time and get decent gas mileage. Not much different from what most people seek, I would think. Once I landed in Salt Lake last Thursday, I knew I wanted to get mobile as fast as possible so I could move to my new place and be independent again, so with the help of my dad I managed to get a decent deal on a car the very next day!

The new ride is a 2006 Nissan Sentra SE, with only 22.5K miles on it. This little guy should last me a while. And the best part, in case you can't tell from the photo, is that it's BRIGHT YELLOW! (A daylight picture would probably show this even better, but the only time I have remembered to snap a few shots was last night in the Smith's parking lot.) I never thought I'd own a car this color, but the mechanics of it seemed to be great and I figured that, heck, you're only a young, single bachelor (hopefully) once and I might as well have a little personality in my automobile.

And I'm already seeing the benefits! I went shopping at Wal-Mart on Saturday and had to park clear on the opposite side of the parking lot, almost at McDonald's. When I stepped out and had to remember which row I parked on, it took me about 2 seconds to see this bright yellow bumper barely sticking out. Yellow FTW. *cough*

In addition to the awesomeness of its color, the spoiler on the back has proven its worth in the few days we've been together. I was driving down I-15 the other day when I thought to myself, "Man, this 4-cylinder engine is really wailing! My old Lumina would have been about ten feet off the ground at these blazing speeds!"

Now let me make one thing clear: I've decided to NOT dub this car "The" Sharkmobile. It is certainly A sharkmobile and can be referred to as such, but I wanted to give this one a different label so as to separate it more from its predecessor who, in the end, gave me more grief than I'd anticipated.

One thing you have to know about me, though, is that I'm generally opposed to most people's naming schemes for cars. Firstly, it's odd that we feel this need to properly name our vehicles at all, as if they're our children. Secondly, most people I know tend to give their cars real-people names that are generally feminine, like "Barbara" or "Pam." That's weird to me, too. A car name should represent something unique about the car itself and, if using an actual PERSON name, should not be a name you would actually expect to hear on the street anymore. Here are some good examples of car names I've grown to approve:

-"Myrtle": JKC's car in college that his grandma gave to him. It was definitely an old lady's car and it ran like a prune, getting you to where you needed to be but about ready to die at a moment's notice. We were hoping that another roommate would get an old man car-counterpart that we could name "Baxter."

-"Lola": My sister's car, named such because, during its first long drives with the CD player on shuffle, it favored Barry Manilow music more often than any other variety.

-"Kiff": Cabeza's car. The license plate letters are "KFF," leading to this natural allusion to the hilarious "Futurama" sidekick, as well as many Zap Brannigan quotes. I can count on both hands how many times I've been in that car and NOT thought to myself, "I have a very sexy disease. What do I call it, Kiff?" ... "*sigh* ... Sexlexia..."

Bearing that in mind, I present to you my car's new title: Professor Zoom! I imagine most readers won't immediately catch that reference. The explanation is as follows:

The Flash is my favorite superhero. His costume color scheme, as pictured, is solid red with a white circle and yellow lightning bolt comprising the icon on his chest. The Flash's arch-nemesis, the Reverse Flash, also known as "Professor Zoom," has an opposite color scheme: yellow base with a black circle and red lightning bolt comprising the icon.

Now, I'm not one to promote supervillainy, but Professor Zoom is a tragic figure who had a life that handed him nothing but disappointments. Of course, this is all to OUR benefit, because the results of said life have led to a lot of great Flash storytelling and character development. So why not repay him just a little for his hardknock existence?

I even broke in the car's new attitude by trying to establish its "wicked"-cool personality right off the bat: the first songs I played on my drive home from the dealer were "Tribute" by Tenacious D and most of the new Offspring album, which is about as bada** as rock can get. The stereo system ate it up (including the subwoofer in the trunk that was included)!

The name fits well -- the solid yellow body and black interior of my car are very reminiscent of the Reverse Flash. All that's missing is a little red, which should be fixed within the next few weeks as I am custom designing a Reverse Flash insignia to place on my rear window. All the closet nerds in Utah Valley who end up driving behind me will be eating their little hearts out.

Oh, but if your name is Barry Allen, you better watch out. I'm pretty sure my car plans on killing your fiance on your wedding day.

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Epic Shark Fail(s)

Let's face it. I gave my two weeks notice last Thursday and am mentally checked out. In the 4.5 days I have left in the office all I've got on my plate are the tail ends of two really tedious projects, each of which might take me about 20 minutes to do. What better way to take advantage of my need for distraction than by documenting some of my favorite injuries from a lifetime of klutzhood? If only there were photos to accompany these.

KNEE MEETS FACE
Senior year of high school. I'm at my friend Hillary's house late one evening, celebrating her birthday hard core by joining a small crowd of party-goers in dancing on a makeshift ballroom floor in the dining room.

In a random fit of seeking attention as a means to expel a sudden oncoming of internal energy, I place my right hand behind my neck while my left hand grips my elevated left ankle. I then begin to rhythmically convulse, bending my torso back and forth while pulling and pushing the leg my left hand has a hold of.

Why this was even once considered a good idea for a dance move is beyond me. Within moments my overzealousness got the best of me -- my own left knee met my face quickly and sharply, leaving me with a broken pair of glasses and my first bloody nose. I somehow had to drive home that night despite only barely being able to see the road.

HEAD MEETS CEILING FAN
While serving as a full-time missionary in Dallas, one of my zone leaders comes to my area overnight to see how the work is coming along. While getting ready to retire for the evening, I decide it'd be great to share with him my plan for a cross-country road trip when I get home.

Standing on my bed to adequately point at the map I had hung near the ceiling, I mentally note that the fan, which is currently on the highest speed setting, is hanging just inches from my noggin. "You'll be fine as long as you don't lean back any further," I tell myself.

THUK-THUK-THUK-THUK-THUK!!!

I fall off my bed, hit the floor, and grip my head as I writhe in pain. Zone Leader stares in disbelief.

HEAD SEEKS REMATCH WITH CEILING FAN
One or two weeks later, my OTHER zone leader makes an overnight visit to my area. Zone Leader #1 calls us to ask Zone Leader #2 a question, and we put him on speaker phone so all three of us can chat.

"Hey, did you tell him what happened around this time last week?" Zone Leader #1 chuckles over the phone.

I wisely respond, "Oh, let me reenact it! It was pretty funny!"

Standing on the bed, I explain, "Well, I was showing Zone Leader #1 some locations on my map, and then my head went like THIS --" Mentally I'm thinking that I'm not really going to stick my head in that fan again, I'm going to get just close enough to illustrate the direction it was headed.

THUK-THUK-THUK-THUK-THUK!!!!

Body plops to floor, hands grip head, teeth grit. Zone Leader #2 stares in disbelief. Realizing I'm okay, he loses it laughing. Zone Leader #1 probably rethinks my eligibility as a missionary.

WHO NEEDS SKIN ANYWAY?
A group of friends, including myself, decide to hike along a river running through Zion National Park -- much of the trail demanding us to hike in water sometimes up to our chests.

Months of preparation take place, including several safety disclaimers and lists of gear to bring along. Knowing that our feet are going to be submerged much of the hike, Darrell and I decide that regular shoes or hiking boots will only soak up water and get really heavy. We opt instead to go out and buy some hike-worthy sandals.

Of course, what footware store name is most equated with the phrase "hike-worthy"? Payless Shoes, duh! Without even bothering to look elsewhere, we head straight there and quickly find the cheapest pair of sandals money can buy -- I think each pair cost us about 12 bucks. Satisfied that our feet would be adequately protected for the twelve mile hike by a thin slice of leather topped by a few inches of cheap thread, we head to South Utah for the great outdoors.

The hike is awesome. Beautiful. We even think we're going to die from flash floods a few times when it starts raining in our particular part of the canyons. By the end of the arduous journey, the cold water combined with exhaustion have made my feet entirely numb. Since I can't feel any pain, I naturally assume that my feet are doing alright.

Getting back to camp and pulling out some shoes and socks to throw on, however, reveals the truth of the situation: the straps running across a the top of my feet, where callouses don't reside, have slowly been cutting into my skin, grinding away a large area of the top few layers bit by bit over the 12-mile trek. Removing the sandals reveals a bloody mess, and after some makeshift wound-dressing to now-thawed little tootsies, I find myself unable to walk without wincing in very real pain. For about a week after finishing the hike I walk like an arthritic old mule and even solicit piggy back rides from roommates. Some of the scabs are so deep that they literally take about 8 months to completely heal.

Darrell's feet? Totally fine. It turns out that he didn't tighten the straps on his sandals all that much, so there wasn't such a tight, constant abrasion. Darrell also hates tightening a tie all the way up to his neck and wearing pants where the crotch doesn't sag at least five inches below the point where his legs converge. I'm pretty sure that Darrell would wear absolutely nothing but a Snuggie everywhere he went if it were socially acceptable.

On the upside, the remaining scars remind me of the great charity of two of my roommates. Upon returning home, without me even asking, Mitch cleaned and dressed my hideous wounds (and re-dressed them at least twice in the days that followed), and Isaac ignored the throngs of women who were constantly chasing him for at least an hour as he ran around the ward looking for some medicine to prevent infection. These memories honestly warm my heart.

I'M LIKE A BIRD
On another hiking venture about a year later, Darrell decides to take us to Henefer, UT (pictured to the right) to explore the vast expanse of rock and dryness surrounding his hometown.

Nearing the last two miles of a maybe-six mile tour, the first few members of the group, including Darrell and myself, reach a six foot drop off a great fallen tree we've been walking along. Darrell and a couple others gingerly climb down hand over foot to be safe. I, on the other hand, decide that the dirt beneath the tree looks soft enough to me, and six feet really isn't that far of a drop anyway, so I take a few steps and leap off and fall until...

... my foot lands on a fallen branch, causing my ankle to roll worse than it ever has in a million lifetimes. For the only time I can remember in my adult life, I scream in pain and lie in the dirt, nursing the wound while the rest of the group catches up to us and stairs at this pathetic ball of a man rolling around on the ground. Luckily the hike is mostly over, and the hardest part is behind us, although the last half mile or so involves walking across a sea of endless rocks and boulders, which I challenge anyone with a sprained ankle to do at a pace faster than that of a drunken three-toed sloth.

Later on, a crescent bruise will form under the ball of my ankle, and I won't be able to run comfortably for at least 6 months. I think I even use crutches for the only time in Shark history for a brief period.

IDIOCY, PLAIN AND SIMPLE
Last year I decide to run from my house in Alexandria, VA all the way to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC -- a roundtrip totalling about 10.5 miles. Of course, up until this run I've only trained for 5 or 6 miles. Forget that I decide to make this run once I'm already out the front door, so I don't have any water with me.

I return a VERY dehydrated, queasy man who can barely walk, and it takes me about three months for my running injuries to heal enough that a light jog is even feasible.
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And that, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg.

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Gah!!!

If you happen to be visiting this page from a link on Sonja's blog, I apologize for any confusion. "Mark Gillins" is dead. The Shark ate him.

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Dreams: "Penny! I Love Ya!"

Most of the members in my local church congregation are stranded on the island from "Lost." We got stuck there because for a time the island had stopped moving and seemed to be just a normal, tropical landmark, so it was opened up for tourism and small towns were built to accommodate the traffic and provide some night life. When the island decided to start going nutso again, it happened to be a day that most of my congregation was doing some sightseeing, trapping us.

Determined to get off the island, I decide to make a swim for it. Every once in a while I can spot a mountain range just a couple miles offshore, and decide that I'll head for that, despite the warnings from other people that I shouldn't. While a party is happening on the beach, I warm myself up by swimming in the air about 7 feet off the ground, heading toward the water, and then finally plunge in and go for it. I'm about a mile out when I realize that my arms and legs are giving out on me (in real life I'm not a very strong swimmer). Luckily I haven't even left the large channel that I had decided to start from (because walking on land to the furthest point out certainly is just plain illogical), and soon I find Cabeza, old roommate Warren, current roommate Darren, and friend Amanda coming out to rescue me, and they dutifully pull me to the shore that I had been moving parallel to and carry me back to the rest of the castaways.

Emotionally drained from a failed escape attempt, I plop down in a seat with the congregation, who has set up folding chairs on the beach, facing away from the water, to have some church meetings. An announcement is made by one of the leaders that a small group of packages has mysteriously arrived at the island, and each one is addressed to a different person there. Another leader holds up a large box over his head and I can see that it's addressed to me, but suddenly someone a few rows back stakes a claim on it! Not one to be had, I stand on my chair and furiously yell "HEY! THAT'S MINE!" over and over, repeating myself because I keep getting drowned out by the applause of the surrounding congregation, who is very excited for this fellow to be receiving a box of goods.

After three or four attempts, I'm finally heard and the impostor sheepishly gives me the box. As I begin to slowly open it, I wonder who would have sent it to me. Looking for a name, I find "Marcos" scribbled on the side of the box. I begin to sob as I express gratitude for Marcos, a real-life member of my congregation, who was so thoughtful to send this along.

Opening the box, I find that it contains several clothing items, most of which belong to me, including a set of military fatigues and my blue and white beanie that an old college roommate had crocheted for me (see picture). It feels good to have something of my own again.

Later on, Amanda and I keep going to an abandoned saloon to drink the non-alcoholic beverages, but every time I try to jump over the bar to play bartender, the bottle of whatever I'm going to drink falls out of my hands and shatters. One of these times, the beverage is a gourmet lime soda. The only other drinks immediately available are bottles of Jarritos, which neither of us is really in the mood for.

The rest of my experience involves exploring a nearby restroom, making plans to dig out a new living area/cave (including an uncomfortable bed made of sand), and watching three cartoonish-looking animals try to save each other from plunging off the side of a cliff to their demise.

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Dreams: In Brightest Day, in Blackest Night...

Soaring above green fields peppered with orange-and-yellow-leafed trees, I'm very content at the notion of having super powers. After a few minutes of the normal loop-de-loops and corkscrews, I land outside a small house. Glancing at my hand, I notice the source of my flying power: a small ring! It appears to be made of sturdy black string, with a green gem set in.

Entering the house, I find Cabeza, who is just getting out of bed. I flash my ring at him and explain that it's just like Green Lantern, except that my ring only lets me fly, not conjure objects built of solid energy. Cabeza then excitedly pulls out an identical ring, slips it on his own finger, and aims his fist at the wall. After a moment of concentration, a 4-inch, green circle pulsates where he's pointing. "Gasp! Your ring holds the second half of the Green Lantern powers!" I exclaim excitedly.

In the corniest moment of dream history, we put our fists together so that the jades are in contact with each other, a la the Wonder Twins, but instead of reciting a dorky encantation to activate our powers, the rings begin lighting green sparks and emitting electric bursts that suround our hands, even after separating once again. Not really sure what this has accomplished, I begin goofing off with my abilities, easily levitating off the ground in a diagonal direction, keeping my body erect while widening my eyes and puffing out my cheeks to get a reaction out of my brother, who dutifully laughs, because I am, after all, a comedic genius.

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Why Do I Lunge Out at You?

This song is dedicated to everyone but Abe, Darwin, and myself today. Enjoy!

*Note that my web hosting provider has had some server lag issues today, so try hitting refresh and give it a minute if it doesn't show up or play at first.

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Dreams: Head Cancer & Sandwiches

I'm sitting/lying in an operating chair in a doctor's office that is particularly cold and sterile. Metallic blue is the prominent color of the room. The doctor, stereotypically sporting a white coat and glasses, rolls up on his stool alongside me and delivers the bad news: I have cancer in my head. I don't recall exactly what KIND of cancer -- I remember thinking it was similar to leukemia -- but in any case, it was in my noggin.

Suddenly I'm in the lobby of the doctor's office to discuss insurance info, schedule a return appointment, etc. My mom has joined me at this point and is sitting at my left as we talk to the nurse on duty. She wasn't with me to receive the bad news, so she is still sort of unaware of what's going on. I'm nonchalantly chomping on a PB&J sandwich -- which I'm rather enjoying, actually. I am sensing a sort of nervousness as the nurse explains the possibilities and costs of treatments (including radiation), but my PB&J has me so satisfied that it's hard for me to stay focused on my own, dire health situation (if you knew how moist the bread was, perhaps you wouldn't be chuckling at me right now).

My mother is clearly confused. For some reason she keeps thinking the nurse's discussion regarding cancer treatments is for HER, and she keeps trying to figure out why the nurse would be telling her this instead of talking about ME. As I approach the last third of my sandwich, I realize that it's probably time I tell my dear mom what's going on -- but I don't want to have to wait to down the rest of this delicious meal!

Here is where I reach the climax of the dream-dilemma: delivering important news to my mother that will clarify some vague-yet-dreary information VS. finishing the best peanut butter & jelly sandwich in the history of mankind. Seriously, this is a tough choice to make in a matter of seconds!

Deciding I can make this a win-win situation, I cram the rest of the food into my mouth and, betwixt some rather painstaking chews, explain to my mother what's going on. Miraculously she can understand my muffled words, and isn't taking the news nearly as hard as I thought she would.

With my last swallow, the nurse gives a few quotes for what our medical expenses are going to be like. This is where the stress really sets in. Furiously upset by how high a price it is to treat cancer, I stand up and throw an empty paper cup toward a trash bin as if the cup were a rock and the bin were the living room window of every person who perpetuates the printing of Family Circus comics. As I do this I scream, "WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE FOR SOMEONE TO DIE?!"

The cup overshoots the bin and lands at the feet of a line of people waiting their turn to see the doctor. While they sort of look at the ground to figure out what just bounced against their legs, I calmly approach them, retrieve the cup, and gently place it in the bin.

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