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