I strongly suspect that my tooth is not numb.

This blog will teach you not to speak to somebody who has your fist in their mouth.

I recently went to the dentist to get a cavity filled. I was super excited, I love getting shots and having a stranger stick his hands in my mouth. So I show up and lay down in the patient chair. I love those chairs, though they make me feel rather lazy being horizontal when everybody else in the room is sitting on a stool. There is me, laying horizontal, and two people sitting on stools on either side of me. "Ok, pleased to meet you. So um, are you ready to put your hand in my mouth? Cool." I open my mouth and he begins digging around in there, sticking a large needle into my mouth in various locations, this is awesome.

Then the Dentist looks down at me and asks "So do you have big plans for Christmas?". I am all for people being nice and making small talk at the workplace, but if your job consists of placing your hand inside my mouth, which I use to speak out of, I am willing to give you a pass on the whole communication thing. I am staring up at him, and he is staring back at me and in my head I am like "Ok fine, I'll play ball buddy". I answer the question. My answer to his question was "We are going to my wife's parents house for the day". The words that came out of my mouth(which has a mans fist inside it) were "EE ahhh oin uuu I ives arence ouse o eh yay". He looked down at me and said "What was that?".

This is my second worthwhile experience at the Dentist. My first was when I was thirteen. My sister was in town and decided to accompany me and my mom on the trip to the Orthodontist. This was the consultation appointment, so he was gonna look at my teeth, say "Dem der some crooked teeth". Then we would offer him "X" amounts of money to fix my mouth situation and we would be off. We are seated and after a bit he comes in. He asks me to open my mouth, he looks in and begins to inspect my situation. I will quote him "Ok, well it looks like she has a cross bite, she will definitely need braces for about 18 months." I am looking at him and thinking, "Does he know about my clogging past? My hair doesn't even look like a girls anymore, what the hell?" He continues on with the conversation and refers to me as a "she" a few more times. I of course say nothing about how I am in fact a boy, and was born with a penis, I tend to shy away from confrontation. Finally, my sister breaks the news to him that he has mistaken me for a girl, when I am in fact a boy. Life goes on, we hire him to correct my cross bite. I'm not too sure about the logic in picking a man that confuses male and female to fix a little boys crooked teeth, but that's water under the bridge.

Back in the present I am still at the Dentist trying to speak to a man who has placed his fist inside my mouth. It isn't going well, kind of a one sided conversation. I wish he would just read a book to me or something. I love books. He finally comes to the conclusion that he has injected me with enough novocaine. Bring on the drill. He starts doing his thing, after about 10 seconds or so I feel a sharp stinging pain. He pulls the drill out, apologizes for not numbing me enough and injects me a few more times. This happens a few more times. At one point he looks down at me and says "Are you sure that your tooth isn't numb". My answer, "I strongly suspect that my tooth is not numb." Finally, he breaks through my nerves defenses and manages to numb the tooth. Finishes the job and sends me merrily on my way.

One problem, I have been injected with approximately four times as much novocaine as he thought I needed. My face is now numb. Not a lot of feeling going on. This would be a great time to practice heading the soccer ball! What's the worst that could happen, bring on the facing. Anyway, I go home and make dinner. We eat dinner and I go up and get into bed. Finally, my mouth begins to awaken. To a reasonable amount of pain. Not just tooth cavity pain. My tongue really hurts. Why is there a blister on the roof of my mouth? This is quite uncomfortable. The moral of the story is that if your mouth is numb, you probably shouldn't be eating hot food. It certainly seems like common sense.........

How many times can I say poop in one blog post? Twelve.

This blog will look deep into your soul, and tell you to run away.

About three years ago we purchased a house and a puppy. We named him Phil, he is a classy Golden Retriever that owns his own pub. I read a lot about retrievers prior to our purchase and I was pretty excited about how fast they were at becoming potty trained. A lot of retrievers would be potty trained within a few short weeks. Amazing. Apparently nobody informed Phil that he is a retriever. Phil just loved pooping indoors. Some people claim their dog is like a human, well mine poops inside. Beat that. A short nine months later he was finally a house friendly dog! Somewhere in the middle of those nine months the following event occurred.

One Saturday morning me and Annie decided to go to Home Depot. I forget what we were shopping for, perhaps a grill. I grabbed the leash and me, Annie and my faithful companion Phil were off. We got to Home Depot and me and Phil were looking at grills and Annie was down another corresponding aisle. After a few minutes Phil needed to poop. The great retriever that he is, he informed me of this by pooping right where he was. Some dogs let you know they need to poop by nudging you or whining. Phil skips that inefficient step and lets you know the fastest way possible. By pooping. On the floor, in Home Depot, by the grills. I panicked.

At first I tried to drag Phil towards the entrance, which was 40 yards off. This I would not recommend for all you future "My dog is pooping in Home Depot and I don't know what to do" people. So I no longer have one location of dog poop. I have multiple, because my dumb ass thought dragging Phil towards the entrance was ideal.

I NEED TO FIND ANNIE. I start running, passing aisles, with Phil now running by my side with a whole lot of energy. Let me get distracted here for a moment. Whenever Phil poops he always celebrates by sprinting around the house. I wish people did this. How exciting would that be? Your mother in-law comes out of your bathroom and starts sprinting around your living room with a big smile on her face. That is entertainment.

So I am searching for Annie, running in flip flops, with a freshly relieved, super handsome Golden Retriever. I am near the entrance and I finally see her, the problem is that I was almost passed the aisle when I saw her. So I simultaneously yell "Annie" and lose my footing at the same time. I am now flat on my back, in a medium amount of pain. My freshly relieved, super handsome Golden Retriever Phil is staring at his downed owner and Annie is laughing hysterically. She had no idea.

I am in full on panic mode. I explain to her that the Barbecue aisle has been tainted and we needed to act. I was counting on her having a poop bag in her purse. She doesn't have a poop bag in her purse. Which is a total travesty. She has everything in there, more on that in a later blog. Ok. Ok. Ok. We just need to go out to the car and get a poop bag. We exit Home Depot.

We hit the fresh air and breathe in freedom. It feels good to get out of that prison of a building. It doesn't smell very good in there either. We are quickly walking to the car. Somehow, and I am not sure how this happened, we decided that going back into that tainted building was not good policy. We got in the car, started the car, and fled the scene.

We absolutely, positively, ruined somebody's day.

I'll take the luxury suite.

A few years back I went in to see the doctor, he recommended that I get an allergy test. Not one to disagree with doctors, I immediately agreed that we should administer this test. Side note: Why do we just accept the costs of these tests? I dislocated my shoulder a few years back and they asked me if I wanted oxygen. My response was "Well breathing on my own is getting rather inconvenient due to my shoulder dangling by my muscles so sure, lets pump oxygen into me. While we are at it, going to the bathroom is getting rather inconvenient as well. Could you perhaps charge me a few thousand dollars, hook me up onto a tube and hand me a bag to carry around? Lovely." I got the bill for the oxygen a few weeks later, $85 dollars. Keep in mind that I was breathing just fine before the oxygen. Basically I paid $85 dollars to make my nose hairs cold. Mission Accomplished.

I seem to have gotten sidetracked, my apologies. So I go in for my allergy test, actually no I am not done being distracted. You need to understand my allergies. As a kid(turns out I had quite the entertaining childhood), I had major allergies. I know what you are thinking, Nick had a runny nose and is gonna bitch about it. Which is the exact reason I am about to tell you this story!

We had a trailer while I was growing up to go camping in. It was a lot of fun. I had my own 5x3 foot luxury suite. It was perfect because I had a 5x3 bed, match made in heaven. It was a bunk bed style luxury suite, my brother Josh also had a 5x3 luxury suite above me. He got the top bunk because I guess there was a fear that I would fall off of the top bunk. I don't know what would have led my parents to this conclusion. Maybe any of the previous blog posts could help shed some light on this topic.

So camping is a lot of fun, the only problem I can think of in regards to camping is that there is a lot of nature around. Me and nature, not the two best of friends. If nature was on facebook, I probably wouldn't be his friend. The problem with nature is it really multiplies the level of discomfort you have when you are known to have allergies. Say you have a runny nose typically in the spring, well go up into the mountains and now you have no nose. Just 2 holes in your face that dead end about an inch up there. I am willing to assume that people that suffer from allergies and people who partake in the use of cocaine are not the same people.

My problem was that I didn't have a runny nose under normal circumstances. I had a clogged nose at all times, and catastrophically runny eyes and nose if I encountered anything living. Plant, dog, cat, bird, catching a football and republicans all seemed to cause me problems. So taking me into the mountains would certainly be discouraged by any ordinary physician. Into the mountains we go. That's why I love Bob. No complaining and no nonsense around Bob. No matter what happens to you, it has happened to Bob and your story doesn't even compare. If you fell and cut your arm open and had to drive yourself to the hospital he would look at you and smile. Then tell you how he once had to do that except he ran out of gas, pushed the car to the hospital while letting his blood fill up a milk jug. Got to the hospital, donated blood to a baby, then his organs to an old man, then stitched himself up in the waiting room with a piece of bark. Went to work the next day, showed up early. This is probably an understatement of Bob's amazing feats.

So I would wander through each day, struggling to breathe through my mouth. The nose was just a lost cause. My eyes would run if I would interact with nature, so obviously I steered clear of that sort of nonsense. Other families tended to enjoy my company, or they felt like they were taking care of some poor kid and could write it off on their taxes. Probably the latter. I survived though, the days were tough but I just learned to get used to itching my eyes. The problem was what would happen at night.

At night I would go to bed in my 5x3 luxury suite, one thing I have always excelled at was being able to sleep like a rock. The unfortunate thing is that just because I was asleep, that doesn't suddenly mean that my allergies turn themselves off. So my eyes would water, and keep watering, and then dry. Then they would water again, and dry again. This would form a type of super bondo glue that sealed my eyes shut. Which is very convenient while sleeping, rather inconvenient when you wake up.

The first time this happened I was very traumatized. Basically, I woke up and tried to open my eyes. I found that to be physically impossible, so I did the next reasonable thing and started screaming. My parents rushed to my aid, removed me from my luxury suite and put a warm wash rag on my eyes. After about 10 minutes my temporary blindness had been cured. Though I never got over how my parents knew exactly how to fix the problem. Did they know this would happen? Did they knowingly put me into this situation? Was this some elaborate plan of Bob's to toughen me up? Couldn't he see that I was clearly not tough? Nobody will ever know. Now you know my previous experiences will allergies.

So I go into my allergy test. It goes like this, they put a checkered box on your back with about 50 boxes. They then take a small dose of different things people have been allergic to and put it on your skin. Great. Thanks for giving my body a super dose of everything it hates. So they put all these different types of dog hair, cat hair, pollen, and hippy sweat on my back. After 30 minutes they come back with the results, which I already know because my back WON'T STOP ITCHING. My eyes are actually trying to stick themselves together with each blink. It was ok though, I just stopped blinking.

The results are as follows. I am allergic to everything except three different types of moss. This is the truth. The only thing that my body likes are three different types of moss. The worst part of the whole ordeal is that after all the itching and pain, they didn't even tell me which types of moss I can go frolic in. Somewhere out in the world is a swamp full of moss that my body will completely synchronize with, but I may never find this glorious place.

-Nick

The benefits of repeated blows to the head.

This blog will encourage the use of helmets.

Growing up my family had a male golden retriever named Buster. He was huge and very powerful. We had a harness that you would hook to him and in the winter he would pull us on a sled. It was awesome. Well, it was awesome the 2nd time and every time after that. The first time was not so awesome.

So I was very young, we will say between 5-7 years old. Josh and his friends were being pulled by buster on the snow packed roads and it was awesome! I was very excited for my turn. We had a sled, and a leash hooked onto the dog harness. All you had to do was hold onto the leash and boom, instant fun. Well Josh and his friends didn't feel like I was strong enough to hold onto the leash while Buster pulled me. The main reason they thought this was because I was clearly not strong enough to hold on to the leash while Buster pulled me. Luckily my brother had a genius idea that would allow me to still participate. So what he did was instead of having me hold the leash, he just tied the leash to my hand.

Josh starts running, and Buster immediately takes off. It was amazing. I was so light that Buster had no problem pulling me. I was going to set the record for being the fastest down the street. We were flying by houses, my hand tightly secured to the rope, Josh has long been passed up. The ride lasted about sixty seconds and finally Buster comes to a stop. Ride of my life. The only thing that would have made it better is if the sled had come with me. Though I guess it was handy that I didn't have to carry it all the way back to the house. Ever since then when I see a movie where a guy gets dragged behind a horse I say "Ya that totally sucks guys."

After the dragging event springtime rolled around and we were finally able to get out on the trampoline. Finally a sport that I was good at. Trampoline instructions "Get on trampoline, jump around, smile and laugh. Good job." This particular day was different, the trampoline had been moved by my brother. It had been strategically placed underneath a tree. Oh man this was going to be awesome. They were jumping out of the tree, doing flips out of the tree and landing on the trampoline. These guys were amazing.

When my turn rolled around I naturally did the most acrobatic move my body would allow. I call it the "Jump out of tree and land indian style on the trampoline move". It turns out that given my particular coordination level I should have opted for the jump out of tree and land on feet trick. I have always been good at the land on your feet trick. Anyway my particular trick landed me a little off balance on my ass, which combined with other people jumping catapulted me backwards. By backwards I mean flying through the air, upside down, screaming until I landed in the exact opposite position as the "Land on your feet trick". It also was a negative that I did not land on the trampoline. I would discourage such behavior for any of you future trampoline acrobats.

A few years later I had moved on from the trampoline and mastered the art of rollerblading, and by mastered I mean that I could go forward and not fall down. All the neighborhood kids had rollerblades and hockey sticks and I was super stoked to be able to play with the big kids. There weren't a lot of kids my age in the neighborhood so I just played with my brother and his friends. In hindsight I don't think that hockey is a good sport for little kids to play with older kids.

We had been playing for a while and it was going great. Actually, in reality I sucked pretty bad and once I got going I couldn't stop or turn. I was out of control. For reasons that I haven't figured out I was put on defense. All I had to do was stand there and try to prevent the puck from getting past me and into the goal. Easy enough.

All was going well until the other team had a fast break. I was ready though, I had my feet strategically placed so that the puck couldn't get past them. I had the big goalie stick that was half my weight, nothing got past me. Well the unfortunate thing about a fast break is that it gives the opposing teams player time to really line up his shot at the goal. The same goal that I have willingly placed myself in front of. Afterward I realized that I was probably too short to be goalie. In general goalies do not need to be tall, but taller than a tall toddler is certainly a good star. So this kid hits a slap shot directly at me, the puck actually leaves the ground. The only problem is that it didn't have to get very high to line up with my face. I blocked the shot.

I played soccer as a kid. Soccer is a pretty hardcore sport. I was not so hardcore. I was more softcore, but that sounds dirty so we will just call me a wuss. The thing is, is that one specific part of soccer is completely ridiculous. So it basically plays out like this, anytime the ball is hit up into the air you are to use your head to hit it into the direction you want it to go. I immediately was not on board with these sorts of shenanigans after my hockey experience with things flying at my head. Here is a basic commentary of what went on.

Coach: "Ok Nick, Bryan is going to kick the ball at your head, and you need to head it back to him.

Me in my head: "This seems like a bad idea, my forehead is very small, that ball is rather large, I don't see how this isn't going to hit my face. Why doesn't anybody call this facing?"

Me to the coach: "Ok"

Bryan kicks the ball, I make sure that the ball goes nowhere near my face, which consequently means I do not hit the ball with my forehead.

Coach: "Nick you have to hit it with your forehead, don't jump after it is already above you, get in front of the ball."

Me in my head: "Oh wow, that ball was going so fast. Why isn't anybody congratulating me on not getting killed? Seriously, what? No please do not kick the ball at my face again. I hate facing. How is this a good idea?"

Me to the coach: "Ok, got it."

Me in my head: I'm not putting my face in front of the ball, what is this guy drunk? I don't put my face in front of bullets for this exact reason. That ball is bigger than a bullet and I am pretty sure it is going faster.

Bryan kicks the ball again, I make every effort possible to make sure that I am not assassinated by "facing" the ball. Quite successfully I might add.

Coach: Nick, you can't be afraid of the ball.

Me in my head: I am not afraid of the ball. I am afraid of the velocity that the ball is traveling at. I am also a little concerned that it is directed at my face.

Me to the coach: "Ok."

Soccer was never really my thing. I mean I played it a lot, constantly in a state of fear that the ball would elevate itself to head level and I would have to choose whether I wanted people to laugh at me for ducking or laugh at me on the ground after "facing" the ball.

Life is hard as a kid. Especially for the uncoordinated. It is really extraordinary that I never had major brain damage from repeated blows to the head. Or, if you think my blog posts are completely insane, maybe I did have brain damage from repeated blows to the head. Probably a 50/50 chance I suppose.

-Nick

Dances with Trolls

Blog #2.

This blog will give you a brief look into my past.

My parents first 2 kids were females and the 3rd was a male. Then I was born a male. For reasons that I have yet to describe to you I strongly suspect that my mother was disappointed at this. It started off innocent enough. My mother didn't cut my hair, which at the time was all good because child mullets were the style. Unfortunately it had the effect of making me look like a girl. Which if anybody has ever been a boy and looked like a girl, well it really doesn't have a positive influence on how other kids your age treat you. It was the 80s though, the 80s made a lot of males look like females, it was in the air I guess. If I was to write a book about males looking like females the first chapter would be about the 80s and the second chapter would talk about the "Affliction" brand of clothes we are seeing today. That's for another blog I suppose.

So I looked like a girl. What's the best heterosexual remedy for a little boy that looks like a girl? Clearly a troll collection. Now this is not your Lord of the Rings troll collection(which would be awesome and I would totally want). No, this was a 90s phenomenon troll collection. I have attached a picture for everybody who is not quite sure what I'm talking about.

So as you can see, these trolls don't exactly scream "The owner of these is going to have lots of girlfriends." The main vibe that I get from trolls is "GAY". The problem is that I was just a little kid, and kids love getting toys. So I didn't just have a troll collection, I PLAYED WITH TROLLS. Now I never played with Barbies, so I don't know what kind of an effect that has on a young boys mental state. I can't imagine it holds a torch to the troll lifestyle. They don't appear to have a sex, they are just trolls that really nobody should ever, ever play with. Except me.

So I am a boy that looks like a girl, plays with trolls because a barbie is too sexual and is trying to get on in life. Time to figure out what I'm good at right? First up, is the boy/girl coordinated? Ok he isn't coordinated at all. Wow I mean, he's not so awesome at coordination. What sport should we have him play? This is where my mom really played her hand. Nick the boy/girl was signed up for clogging.

Some of you males may not know what clogging is, which I completely understand. Your parents wanted you to be straight. So basically, you wear a lot of sparkles, a ridiculous little button up outfit that is made out of like nylon and ribbons, and you go out on stage and you just dance your little heart out to 80s music. Which totally worked with my girl hair. You also wear shoes that tap tap tap as you dance dance dance. Now, I always like to be informative in my blogs. So here goes, uh.....putting your little boy/girl into clogging is not a good way for him to make friends. It is a good way to cause him to be mocked in school. Turns out no matter how good you are at spinning and tapping to great balls of fire, it actually makes it harder to make friends. Not easier. The world is a strange place.

I learned one other thing during my elementary school clogging days. It is impossible to explain to your friends why your parents are making you clog. There really is no logical answer to the question and it wasn't helping my lack of coordination at all. Which doesn't help a kids case in elementary school. Can you catch a football? Nope, but I can tap to the beat of "It's raining men." Hey where you guys going?

Yet somehow I fought back. Made friends, abolished dancing from my life, and kept being uncoordinated. Somewhere in the mix my body stopped growing around 5th grade, which was rather inconvenient. If you are small and coordinated you can make do. If you are small and uncoordinated you get rejected a lot. The good news is I had finally shed my girl hair for a much cooler part down the middle style. A style that was so cool that I kept parting my hair, year after year for the next seven years. It's like the left side of my brain never wanted to have to engage in conversation with the opposite sex, and the right side of my brain just loved parting hair.

I will once again apologize for my rambling randomness. I always attempt to make it have a point but sometimes the point is lost in the telling of the story. From time to time I will offer you a glimpse into moments in my life. These glimpses will allow you to read one of my blogs and say "Well you know he danced in sparkles and played with trolls as a kid, what do you expect?"

I hope that this entertains at least one person, because it came at the expense of my mother. Who I love so much.

-Nick

Power tools, cranes and other kid friendly items.

This is going to be informative.

That is what I told myself when I began writing this note. It will serve as a convenient guide for anybody who may not be familiar with the construction industry. It will help you avoid being mocked in the future. So...here we go.

First I will educate you, then I will tell you a short story so you can read and go "Wow I'm never gonna be as dumb as that guy." I work commercial construction. You could potentially see me at any given job site around Utah. We hit a lot of them. I install expansion joints. That is a key piece of information, if you are taking notes, write that down. I am a sub contractor. Basically it works like this, the General Contractor(not me) bids the job to the owner and they pick the best price and award the job to the cheapest General Contractor. Who then goes out and hires subcontractors to do the entire job. Except the concrete work, it is some unwritten code that the General Contractor gets to screw that up all himself without involving any other companies. It's like picking Mark Eaton to shoot your technical fouls on the grounds that "Well he knows what a technical foul shot is, so I guess we should let him shot them." I would pick a more recent basketball star but quite frankly, I don't know any. The Nba lost my attention once they went all gangsta. That sounds slightly racist......wow ok getting sidetracked here. I feel like a new paragraph is in order. I don't know a lot about paragraphs but if it will help me stop talking about Mark Eaton I am in.

So we got it covered that the General contractor does not build the building so much as hire other trades to build the building. So they hire electricians, painters, drywall guys, brick masons, blah blah blah. We all have our part. So this is what I am trying to teach each and every one of you. Everybody has their part. Just like Mark Eaton blocks shots and avoids the long ball. By long ball I mean 3 pointers. I kind of suck at sports dialogue. How the hell did I get back on Mark Eaton? New paragraph.

You probably think I am completely crazy by now, but fear not, this kind of has a point. I will get to that point by telling you a story. Today I was working on the BYU Campus in Rexburg Idaho. I should probably give you a little background on Rexburg first. Rexburg totally sucks. That is all. Anyway so I am working on campus and we are working on the exterior of the building, so a lot of students are walking by. Keep in mind this is still a construction site. So this goofy, clean shavin, awkward guy walks up to me, we will call him Joseph Smith. So Joseph Smith walks up to me and says "Oh, hey....um....are you....working on this construction building?" (Keep in mind that I am wearing a hard hat and safety vest) I look up at Joseph Smith, and what I wanted to say was "No. I am not working on this construction building." What I did say was "Yes, I am working on this construction building." So I feel I have synched right in with his awkward vibe and I am eager to here more from Joseph. I knew he wouldn't let me down. He then pointed to the construction building bridge and stated "Well, I just thought I should tell you that there is a light that is dangling down on that bridge that was installed improperly." I immediately recognized him as one of the people that doesn't distinguish between construction trades. Now what I should have said was "Oh thanks! I will go rewire that light as soon as I am done pouring the concrete on this construction building. Then I will go finish painting, setup your wireless network and begin making hot chocolate in the cafeteria. I hope they have enough wipped cream." What I actually said was "Thanks, I'll get right on that."

So the moral of the story is to remember that the workers you see on a construction building site are all part of a puzzle. Everybody has their part. The second thing you should remember is that calling a job site a construction building is very awkward.

I don't know if this will appeal to anybody, but it has a lot of helpful information in it.

-Nick