So there are a couple things I need to write about that I haven't written about yet due to some information that I don't want to have snapped up by big brother at work. Mainly I don't want them to know I call in sick instead of requesting time off. I can use my vacation time as sick time if I so desire, and it saves me the hassle of listening to my boss whine and complain about what a huge inconvenience my absence is for him. So I don't want that to get sent in to the mucky mucks and have them come down on me for doing what I have to do to keep my sanity. So there you have it.
First of all, I need to tell you all about my birthday and the amazing awesomeness that it was. I took the day off work because I just wasn't going to go to to work on my birthday. That's just not the way it's done. So early that morning, Megan woke me up and asked me if I wanted to open my presents before she left for work. I told her that my family usually does the whole wake you up and sing happy birthday to you thing. So I told her I'd open them right then. So I pretended to fall back asleep and she brought in some presents. I got some books, two of which I was able to guess (once again, it's hard to surprise your spouse. I wasn't there when she bought the books, but I was able to figure out what they were before opening them. I guess I just know her and she knows me. It takes a little of the surprise out of things like that, but in the long run its more satisfying than the alternative). The big present of the day was a Gamecube (That's how Nintendo spells it. Just one word: gamecube) and a couple games for it. In addition to the gifts, my amazing wife also cooked me a special birthday breakfast. So I got the full treatment.
I sent Megan off to work and I sat down to play on my new gaming system (current gaming system roll call: Atari 2600, Atari 800XL, NES, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo clone, Playstation, Xbox, Gamecube, and if you want to count the handhelds I also have an original Game Boy, a Game Boy Color, and a Game Boy Advance SP. I guess I'm some sort of collector). I plopped in Super Mario Sunshine, which is an interesting and strange Mario game. Then I plopped in Super Smash Bros., and it didn't work. I was pretty bummed about that, but I got excited at the prospect of taking the game back to Bookman's because Bookman's is a wondrous place. So I grabbed the receipt and the game and headed on over.
At Bookman's they didn't have any more Super Smash Bros. They didn't really have much for the Gamecube at all. It's kind of a sadly underrated system. So I ended up buying a memory card for the Gamecube and a few Atari 2600 games. They have a massive bin of Atari 2600 games that they sell for $1 or less, which is nice. So I've been stocking up on Atari games every time I go in there. So I picked up my wares and left the store. I still really wanted Super Smash Bros., so I took a trip over to the dungeon of dorks video game store.
I call it the dungeon of dorks because these guys have approximately 0 social skills and all they know are video games and other nerdly/dorkly things. Their prices are steep because they probably base things on what they would be willing to pay for a game rather than what an average citizen would be willing to pay. I both love and hate going into that store. I love it because they have tons of stuff. They have everything from Vectrex games to used PC games. I hate it because those guys are constantly one-upping each other with video game/nerd knowledge. So if you waltz in there, you will be bombarded with one-ups and corrections to everything you say. I remember one of them going crazy on me telling me that the Game Boy Advance version of Gunstar Heroes is technically an adaptation, not a port. So yeah, it's a crazy place. Now I don't know why I went into all this explanation of this place because it was actually closed when I rolled by. So I went to the next best place: Game Crazy.
I dropped by the Game Crazy on Alma School and Main, where the friendly Indian fellow works. The friendly Indian fellow is a funny guy. He knows tons about video games and genuinely enjoys telling people about awesome games. He's always super chipper and he calls everyone, "boss" or "chief." The fun part about it is that he does it all in a thick Indian accent. I get a kick out of it. So he guides me to some awesome Gamecube games, none of which were Super Smash Bros. So I still don't have that game, but I picked up a couple other choice titles. I got Paper Mario, which is a game I think Megan could pick up and enjoy. I also got a Tony Hawk game and a James Bond game. So it wasn't all bad. I just realized I sound like a little kid being so excited about new video games on my birthday.
I went back home and played the new games, which was fun. When Megan got home from work, it was time to kick the birthday plans into full effect. She had planned on taking the day off with me so we could both go around and collect on the free stuff people give you on your birthday. If we had both taken the day, we could have both gone on free birthday rampage and been elbow deep in frosting and ice cream by the end of the night. As it was, we tried to fit as much in the remainder of the day as possible.
We headed over to Joe's Barbecue in Gilbert for a free birthday meal. They do it up right at Joe's. I got a full free meal with a free pulled pork sammich, a drink, a side of some sort, and a slice of lemon cake. It was really good food. Halfway through the meal I got a call from the padres who had called to sing happy birthday. There were only three of them (Mom, Dad, and Lynnette) but they made quite a racket and it sounded like there were more of them. So I got my official birthday song as I was enjoying the only cake I'd eat the whole day. I'm glad I didn't have an actual birthday cake this year because, if'n you didn't know, I had way too many cakes last year. It was out of control. Anyway, I'd like to give a big endorsement to Joe's as a birthday destination. It's delicious and free, which are the only two things you need to know about it.
After Joe's we headed on over to the Krispy Kreme to collect on my free dozen doughnuts. Krispy Kreme also does it up right. A dozen is a lot of free doughnuts to just give away, but with how addictive they are, they know people will be back. So we picked up the free doughnuts and headed over to Hollywood Video to pick up a free video rental. We got "Be Kind Rewind" which is a movie I've wanted to see for a while. It was directed by Michel Gondry, who can be a little weird and artsy at times, but it starred Jack Black and Mos Def, not to mention a super awesome job by Danny Glover. So there you go. The movie was not laugh out loud funny, but it was a lot more touching than you'd expect. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but I wouldn't discourage anyone from seeing it. Megan and I both enjoyed it.
On Thursday I actually went back into work, which I thought was funny because I was just going to be gone again on Friday. But there was no sense in burning through all my time off, so I showed up. It was a pretty standard day: do everything I can to avoid the boss, and wait until the last minute to get all my work done. I think I've developed some bad work habits at this job that I hope I can ditch when I'm working somewhere else someday.
After work on Thursday we made arrangements to go over to Mary and Konden's to drop Turbo off. They had the great pleasure of being the tortoise sitters while we were away. We ended up staying fairly late. We played a couple games of Mag-Blast, which Mary and Konden swear is one of the best games ever made. They beat us pretty bad the first time around, so we weren't to keen on the game at first, but Megan battled Mary to a draw in the second game, so I guess it's a fun game after all. It's funny because I really didn't understand all the rules until I was dead. Now that I get it I might enjoy it a lot more the next time out.
I also took some time to throw a new Nintendo emulator on the computer for Konden to play with. He also showed me a crazy game that I had apparently downloaded but never played. It's called "Spiritual Warfare" and I believe it's brought to you by the same people who brought you "Billy Graham's Bible Adventures." The game is a little like Zelda, but instead of killing monsters and collecting weapons you're converting people and casting out demons with fruits of the spirit. You collect pieces of the armor of God as you go around, which help you on your way. It's actually a pretty fun little game, and seeing the animation of the unbelievers becoming converted is pretty hilarious. So for those of you with Nintendo emulators, there's a game for you to try.
So we got out of Mary and Konden's fairly late, and then when we got back we realized we still had laundry to do before we could go to bed. We didn't end up going to be until 1:30 or so, which was horrible because we had to be up at 4:00 to get ready for our flight. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night.
We woke up after only a few hours of sleep and started throwing things together. Neither of us had packed, and we had other things to take care of before we left. So basically we were stumbling around the house in a no-sleep stupor. We got out the door later than we wanted and headed over to airport.
Due to the fact that we were going to be leaving and returning on super early flights, we opted to leave Megan's car in the parking lot. We ended up parking in the economy lot, which meant we had to catch a shuttle to the airport. We were already running a little late when we pulled into the economy lot, so waiting for a slow shuttle didn't help much. When we finally dragged our sorry carcasses to the Frontier Airlines ticket counter, the lady told us we were too late to check into our flight. Not only that, but she didn't have a record of Megan having a ticket (though she had mine, which was odd because it was Megan who made the reservations). So we took a few extra minutes at the ticket counter proving that Megan did indeed have a reservation, and then we both got standby tickets for the next flight. The beauty of the next flight was that it didn't leave for an extra two hours. So that basically sealed the deal that we would miss the actual wedding, which is something I bet Megan on. I told her that some unforeseen circumstance would bar us from getting to the wedding in time. It would have been a tight squeeze even if everything went according to plan.
So we took our time getting to the gate and getting through security, but we did get through everything in time call Jen and tell her we wouldn't make the wedding as we sat there and watched our plane, which was just sitting there for a few minutes before taking off. So yeah, we could have easily made that flight, but restrictions being what they are we sat around the airport for a little longer.
At one point Megan went up to the lady at the counter for our gate and asked her what the chances of us getting through on standby were. She told us it didn't look good because the flight only had three open seats with about an hour left before it closed and they started giving seats to standby passengers. So we were worried that we might be spending a good chunk of our day just sitting in an airport, but thankfully this was not the case. We somehow managed to sneak onto our standby flight.
The flight to Denver was just long enough that I couldn't get tired to enough to actually sleep on the plane (I actually have a big problem with that. I have to be super tired to sleep in a moving car, bus, or plane). As we were touching down in Denver I made a few observations: 1) the area immediately surrounding Denver International Airport is the ugliest part of the whole state. It looks like the less interesting parts of Arizona (i.e. the part between Kingman and Bullhead City), which is not the sort of thing you expect from Colorado. 2) The farmers in Colorado would make a lot more money with their crops if they would use the whole field. Seriously, most of the fields I saw were growing crops in circular patterns. This is because they use those motorized sprinkler things, but instead of using the ones that cover the length of the whole field, they use ones that only cover the radius of the circle they plant their crops in. Call me crazy but I think the extra crops you would get from the corners would help defray the cost of the extra pipe, wheels, and sprinkler heads. 3) When we touched down in Denver, it became the farthest East I have ever travelled in my life. This means I really need to travel more. I'm 29 and I've never been East of Denver. That just sounds kinda sad. But we did get to make lots of jokes over the weekend that Denver was part of the Mysterious East, so taking comedy into account it all probably evens out. 4) The Denver airport looks like a giant overturned caterpillar. it just does.
So Megan and I got off the plane and took another shuttle over to the overpriced car rental company we were using. Lucky for us it was customer appreciation day so we got free hot dogs and water. That helped us feel like we weren't being totally gypped on our car rental. When we finally got up to the counter to rent a car, we were surprised to find that it was going to cost even more than we had planned on. And of course they tried to throw in extra costs and talk us into paying them for super deluxe insurance and a tank of gas in advance. We barely escaped with the shirts on our backs
We hopped into our rental car and were ready to hit the road when we realized that we had no idea where we were going, which roads went where, and where we were even supposed to meet everyone. We called up Jen, who should've been and probably was busy with bridely duties, but hers was the only number we had that we could call. She got us pointed in the right direction to meet everyone at the post-wedding luncheon. We ended up getting to the luncheon well before everyone else, so we took a minute to try and catch a nap in the car.
Once everyone showed up, we made our way into the church building and sat down for one of the more delicious wedding luncheons I've ever seen. The main course was a choice between barbecued ribs, bratwursts, or chicken. So you know it was good. We got to sit right across from the bride and groom and offer up our apologies for not getting even less sleep so we could've made our flight on time. We had Jen draw us a crude map to her house with directions on how to get back to Denver proper (the luncheon was in Longmont and Jen's place that we actually stayed in was in Loveland). We ended up using that napkin map to navigate our entire weekend.
After the luncheon, Megan and I opted to go see the sights of downtown Longmont. Jen's sisters told us there was nothing to see, but we saw all the sights and had us a grand old time. We found the main street downtown area of Longmont, parked the car, and hot footed around. We went into every pawn shop, thrift store, guitar store, and art gallery we could find. We only ended up covering one side of the street but we had a bona fide killer time and I even picked up a souvenir: a hat featuring the old Denver Nuggets logo. If you don't remember it, it looks a little something like this:
In case you were wondering what the Nuggets uniforms looked like back in those days, check our how wicked awesome hall-of-famer Alex English looks in the old Nuggets uniform:
I think they should definitely bring this look back. We really need to see Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson sporting the rainbow. But back to the original point: I picked up an old Nuggets hat for two bucks and it was awesome.
After thrifting, pawning, and generally enjoying the thrills of downtown Longmont, Megan and I headed over to the reception. It was kind of funny seeing Jen in a wedding dress. She's a lot more girly than she was when she was Megan's roommate, and I mean that in a good way. We had a good time at the reception, but I was unbelievably tired. Remember we had only gotten about 3 1/2 hours of sleep before all this went down. Jen and Justin graciously offered to let us sleep in their house while they went on their honeymoon. Their house was another buncha miles North of Denver in Loveland, and I ended up falling asleep on the way over. It was funny because the sun hadn't really even gone down when we left the reception, but I was as tired as I have ever been in my entire life.
Megan and I ended up getting to bed that night at some ridiculously early hour like 8:00 or so. I slept like a log. I honestly can't remember being as tired as I was that night or sleeping as soundly. Megan got up a couple times halfway through the night because she couldn't sleep and I didn't notice at all.
The next morning our only plan was to see all the sights of Denver, but we really only had the napkin map so we just headed in the direction of the Denver skyline and hoped that fun times would find us. Before we got too far, we stopped off at a Waffle House for breakfast. I thought it was funny because the people in the Waffle House were exactly the kind of people you'd expect to see in a movie where people stop off at a Waffle House somewhere. I saw guys who may have well just been Sea Bass from Dumb and Dumber. So it was a good breakfast and a good opportunity for people-watching.
When we reached Denver, the first thing we saw was Elitch Gardens, which is a Six Flags theme park. We were debating whether or not we should just opt for the easy fun time of a theme park or go find some fun of our own. As we were driving around, I saw the steeple of what I thought could've been the cathedral Kimberly told me to go see while I was there. We set out on a quest to find the cathedral, and soon found that what I thought was the cathedral was actually a big state building or something. Oddly enough, the cathedral we were looking for was directly in our field of view as we realized we were looking at the wrong building. So we went and took a gander and some pictures at St. Francis, which was built in the late 1800s. Unfortunately, it wasn't open for visitors so we didn't get to go inside.
After the cathedral, Megan and I decided to go back to the one place we knew we could find and where we knew we could have fun: Elitch Gardens. It turned out to be a good choice. We hit all of the major roller coasters and other rides, I paid way too much for a corn dog and Megan stood in a line that didn't move for 45 minutes to get some nachos. Things like that were a little ridiculous, but the rides were fun. The sign at the entrance said, "If you haven't seen Elitch Gardens, you haven't seen Denver." so I guess we fulfilled our mission to see Denver.
We left the park well before it closed, but I was nursing a headache and we were both still fairly tired. We decided that the proper time to get up to catch a 6:45 flight is 3:00 in the morning, so we made an early exit so we could get to bed on time and not be dead tired for church. We picked up a pizza on our wy back to Jen's house and had pizza and watched the new Willy Wonka (I guess it's not all that new anymore) for dinner. I had never seen that version of Willy Wonka. It wasn't bad, but I prefer Gene Wilder. It just really made me want to read the books so I can see what the movies really should've been.
We went to bed right after dinner and woke up at 3:00 in the am. We immediately got our stuff together, ate the rest of the pizza for breakfast (yes, we forgot it was fast Sunday, but by this point we were lucky we knew what day it was at all. We threw our things into the car and headed back toward the airport. We knew we needed to get gas for the car somewhere before hitting the car rental return, but we couldn't find a single gas station along the way. It was driving us nuts as we were driving toward any signs of civilization that looked like they might sell gas. Let me just say that if you're looking for gas near the airport in Denver you have two options 1) Drive a long way back into Denver and hopefully find a place there or 2) Go to the Circle K near the rental car return which charges a full 50 cents more than the places in town because they're the only gas station within 20 miles of the airport. It rediculous, but we bit the bullet and filled our tank with what we could only hope was the best dang gas ever extracted from the entire Earth.
We dropped the rental car off, caught the shuttle back to the airport, and showed up in plenty of time to catch our flight. So at least that went well. Megan slept or made attempts to sleep the entire way home. I knew I just couldn't make it happen so I stayed awake and listened to my ipod for a couple hours. Before we knew it, we were back in Phoenix.
Megan and I took advantage of the fact that we arrived back in Phoenix somewhere in the 7:00 in the am hour and we hit the hay for a couple hours before getting ready to go to church. In doing this, it made all the events of the morning seem like they were a completely seperate and distinct day.
Lucky for us, we're in the ward that meets at 1:00, so we had plenty of time to catch some Z's and be rested enough for church. I got sustained and set apart in my new calling, and I'm excited for all that bidness to start. Megan also got a calling, but I'll leave it to her to tell you what it is. I'll just say that I predicted her calling with 100% accuracy. I also predicted that something would happen and we wouldn't make it to the wedding on time. So don't ask me to predict anything about your life. I'm on a scary hot streak right now.
Well, I'm starting to lose track of where I wanted any of this to go so I think I'll shut it down. I had a great birthday and Megan and I had a killer time in Denver. More than anything we're both really happy to be home in our own house. Barring any more house-sitting, we should be home until Thanksgiving, which sounds perfectly fine to me. So I'll let that be that. If you made it all the way to the end of this entry, give yourself a gold star.
