Too many chefs in the kitchen or why I don’t like useless people bossing me around.

Isn’t there that rule that you aren’t supposed to end a sentence with a preposition? Should the title be “Too many chefs in the kitchen or why I don’t like being bossed around by useless people.” That actually sounds pretty legit. So. Just pretend that it was what I wrote in the first place.

I just want to start by saying that I love collaborative projects. When a group of people get together with a unified purpose there are often remarkable results. Sometimes that is not the case. Here is my biggest concern, and by concern I mean problem. What generally happens with collaborative work is that I end up listening to everyone’s ideas—even the poorly organized ones—and then have to try and make something work. This usually turns out to be someone not thinking things through but just barking out orders as if they already had it planned.

“Oh well just put the desk in that corner.”

“Well it won’t fit through the door.”

Oh no it will fit, just push it through.”

No you don’t understand. I would need to take it apart in order to make it through the door.”

“Oh no you wouldn’t it will fit.”

Well guess what? The desk doesn’t fit and so I had to take the desk apart. Then while I’m taking the desk apart I have several people barking orders at me.

“Use the hammer.”

“Just pull it apart”

“Maybe if you try it from the other side.”

How about we just let me work. I can actually see what type of head we have on the screw, so let me just work. No I don’t want to use a butter knife, and no I don’t think a hammer will help at all.

I don’t mind working with people. I love having people who work with me because they often can solve a problem that I can’t. The key word being-WORK. If you are just sitting there barking orders, get out of my face. If you want to get dirty then, please, jump in all you want, but if you think yelling repeatedly into my ears is going to fix the fact that the desk mathematically won’t fit through the door, then you’ve got another thing coming.

Remember that time that Charles Darwin failed me

This afternoon as I sat at my desk—lets be honest. Everyone know I had nothing to do, so I was reading my book and checking for every update KSL could give me. As I was researching I noticed an article that said that SLC is the 6^th most dangerous city in America to drive in. This was based on the UHP 2009 statistics on deaths and accidents.

Let me just say that I’m amazed that we were so low on their list!

Driving home tonight I noticed several instances where Darwin’s law of natural selection has failed me.

1. A young man was driving his motorcycle next to me on Highway 89. For those of you not familiar with this road it is a very busy industrial road connecting the downtown business center with the northern suburbs. I noticed that for a few seconds he let go of the handle bar. This scared me because it was rush hour, and the last thing I wanted to be involved in was an accident where the motorcyclist lost control of his bike and was run over by my jeep. I then noticed that he had pulled out his flip phone and appeared to be txting someone. He also wasn’t wearing a helmet. I don’t know how many terrible statistics one needs to read of motorcycle deaths before one says, “oh. I need to wear a helmet, and I should probably not txt people.”

2. The next one really wasn’t so bad, it was just more of an annoyance. A lady was stopped at the sign on the street I needed to cross. I did not have a stop sign. But I fortunately noticed that she was also txting. So I slowed down. Then when I was about thirty feet away she just pulled out right in front of me without even looking up from her phone.

I really don’t think that people understand the danger they put themselves in everyday when they get behind a wheel of a car. Cars are a dangerous thing—especially here in Salt lake.

Darwin, somehow you’ve failed me. Your law demands that the weaker and less able participants of a society die, yet somehow there are idiots all around me who somehow continue to be a problem for me. Fix that will you.

Maybe my new favorite song

So i know that I've overdone it on posts for today. Trust me. Every day won't be this extensive. I've actually had a word doc for a while that has been growing with all of my ideas. This is the last one for the day. This song is one I heard one night as I was driving home from Southern Utah. I loved it. I imagine that if Enya got together with Muse (maybe they aren't hard core enough) and had a child--this song is what would come out. It is titled "Sail" by AWOLNATION. if the link doesn't work just look them up on youtube and enjoy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPtSKimbjOU

Something that happened during my last week at work

Many of you might now that for the past year I’ve had the great blessing of working in my Uncle’s Law Firm. This has been a great learning experience, and has even helped to direct me away from certain career choices and into others. Although I’ve had some of the most amazing experiences (I’ll have to detail them for you later) very few match the oddity of my interactions with potential clients.

This is one of those.

We are located right on 4^th south in Salt Lake City. This is a great location because ten minutes in one direction is Pioneer Park—the hive for vagrants, drug dealers, and prostitutes. In the exact opposite direction is the University of Utah. Based on my observations of the appearance and actions of the students on this same street, the men are vagrants, the women—prostitutes, and all of them users. I know that this isn’t a fair generalization, and I, in fact know that it is incorrect. This is starting to get away from my point. This description was merely to inform you that we are smack-dab in the middle of some very interesting characters.

Today was a great example.

I happened to be sitting at the front desk reading a new novel (I’ve already turned over all my work to the new employees and I’m there simply in an advisory capacity). A deaf man came into our office. He was slovenly dressed and I could almost smell him the second he walked in. I knew he was deaf because when I asked him how he was doing and if there was something I could help him with he responded by gesturing towards his ears and then mimicking a hand scrawling over paper. I obliged with a large legal pad. My experience with other deaf clients is that it takes a lot of paper to discuss one’s financial situation. As an aside, I’ve learned that Sign Language is a remarkable form of communication, but is incomplete in its ability to translate directly between itself and even English. This is not a failure on the part of its creators, it is simply a matter of function. Certain words that we use all the time are—to the deaf—irrelevant. For the ease of the reader I’ve made slight changes to his phrases to be more complete and comprehensible.

“I need relief from my debt, so we need to figure out how we are going to communicate in order to make this work.”

“Alright. Let me check on something. I believe I have the name and number of an attorney that can sign.”

I went to retrieve the number. I needed to do some research on this a few months prior because we had a previous client that was deaf. As good as our paralegal was at Sign Language there are just certain things that he wasn’t able to fully articulate (conversational sign language—like any language—is very different from jargons within the same language. I can understand English amazingly, but Mathematical or scientific speak is a very different story). When I returned to our visitor he produced a copy of a drivers license, and gave me his social security number.

“My name is John Doe. My social security number is ###-##-####. For security reasons I’ve given you an expired ID. This is to protect my identity, because I’m the Antichrist of the Second coming.”

I was taken back, but amazingly didn’t let it show on my face.

“If you want to take a seat I’ll be with you in a moment” I said.

I put a few papers together and politely told my supervisor that there might be an issue. We get people like this all the time because of our location, and although I’d like to help them, debt is really the least of their concerns and I’m not qualified or funded to give out prescriptions. When I returned to him he jumped right in writing.

“can I pay you $100 to have you take car of my debt?”

“I’m sorry sir, our fees are actually $1195. “

“Can I make small monthly payments until is paid off?”

“Because of how long that would take I can’t agree to that. There are other attorneys in the valley that will be able to help you. “

His response was kind of touching to me.

“I still love you because I’m Jewish. A lot of Christians thought the Antichrist is a mean person but not really.” To this he held out his hand for me to shake.

This turned out to one of those awkward clubhouse initiation handshakes that end in the half hug. Admittedly it wouldn’t have been so awkward if I’d known that is what we were doing. Over-the-top handshakes is a bit of a specialty of mine. To this he offered me a half-eaten bag of beef jerky.

“Well thank you, but I can’t accept. You keep it. No, no, I insist. I can’t eat jerky. I have bad teeth.” He chuckled and took the bag and left.

I would like to end this by just reminding the reader that NONE of this was made up. I took this from the actual transcript of our conversation. Crazy can barely begin to describe what an interesting environment I work in.

Road Trip to Omaha, Part 2

So I really should be asleep, but I wanted to write this before I forgot any of it. Today I finished my trip to Omaha. It was a really long drive. I completed 1000 miles in what feels like as many hours. Lets start with the morning first though, should we? I went to go and talk to the lady in charge of Graduate studies. After our really short appointment I started walking towards my car. Mass was just getting out (oh btw I’m going to a catholic school! How freakin, sweet is that?). A preacher was walking out of the chapel. For whatever reason I suddenly became super nervous. I tried avoiding eye contact by looking all over the place for something that could suitable divert my attention and be believable. Heaven knows if I walked past him with my eyes fixed on a rock he would try and have my acceptance revoked because he questioned my competency. I realized that I wasn’t finding anything so I looked right at him. To my shock he was looking right at me. If I thought I was nervous before, I clearly didn’t understand how bad it could get. I’m sure all the color drained from my face as the blood sank into my feet. I decided to try and continue my search for the item to divert my attention. All of this was simply because I didn’t know how to address him. I’m not Catholic, and so I don’t know if there are formalities that need to be followed. Do I call him Father? Preacher? Your Eminence? I just didn’t know. What if he asked me if I enjoyed his sermon? What if it was obvious that I had never been to mass? My nerves kept growing as I walked closer and closer to him.

Now Imagine you are a priest walking out of your Cathedral and suddenly there is a person walking towards you who looks like a 5 year old that just got caught stealing from a store, but is trying fervently to conceal the fact. This, I believe would raise a fair amount of suspicion, and it most certainly did for this priest.

As we walked past each other I looked him in the eyes, smiled and said good afternoon Father. Stupid, why did I say afternoon, it is still morning! He responded with “good morning” and a look that told me he knew I was up to something.

I don’t know exactly when I knew I was at home in Omaha, but I’m pretty sure it happened within about 30 seconds of this interaction.

As I got back in my car to leave Omaha I decided I needed something to eat. I pulled in to one of those little shopping areas that has the gas stations and fast food joints. I remembered that I had received a coupon from granting me one regular McFlurry at any location in Nebraska. I was only slightly confused because on the back of the card it had another note stating that it was valid at these locations, and it then listed about ten or twelve McDonalds. I, having no idea where I was, was unsure if this establishment would participate in my free dessert (remember it is still morning, but when you need ice cream, you NEED it). I showed it to the young man at the window and explained my confusion. He crumpled it up and said, “Who knows if this is works here but I’ll give you the free McFlurry anyway.” “Thank you” I said, “I don’t want you to get in trouble, can I just give you the $1.50 for the ice cream anyway?” as I reached into my wallet and the change drawer to grab the necessary amount. “No” he answered, as he gave me back my card and the receipt. “Don’t worry about it, my till is always off.” I chuckled, and thanked him for being so kind, to which he replied, “NO, you don’t understand. My till is always off.” This last part was given that slow overdrawn pronunciation that I believe snitches and undercover cops use with investigators as a way for them to confess without really confessing.

To this day, I don’t know if I should have told the manager at the next window that his employee taking the money was skimming, what I could only assume was a fair amount off of the company’s revenues. I didn’t tell. I maybe should have, but I figured I had no proof. Or did I? (That should be given the same slow pronunciation I was just talking about). Anyway, it was a good McFlurry.

Road Trip to Omaha, Part 1

I’m writing this from the very trendy modern bedroom at the local motel 6. I’m kind of in love with this place, but it smells like smoke and vomit and looks like a funny amalgam of IKEA and burnt sienna. I also don’t feel like they’ve given me enough pillows—seriously motel 6, only two. It is kind of vile. Anyway, I feel like I want to document this trip, because it has been eye-opening in an interesting way. First of all, I don’t get why people drive so slowly. The freeway is meant to be at least faster than normal roads, and yet so many people treat it as if it is a country drive on a Sunday afternoon.

My biggest shock came when I asked someone in Evanston where I could get pizza. He looked at me as if I had just asked where I could conveniently murder a person. I was unable to find a pizza place until some small town in Nebraska. That means that along the entire route of I-80 is void of pizza. HOW DO YOU SURVIVE WITHOUT PIZZA. I’ll admit that I couldn’t eat pizza all the time, but it is nice to know that if I wanted to I could. That peace of mind is unavailable to all citizens of Wyoming.

While driving through Nebraska I regularly had to pass Semi-trucks. While doing just that I noticed several airplanes plying overhead. What got me was when one of those planes dove out of the sky as if he was going to plummet right into the freeway. He pulled up with about 30 feet to spare. This was on the tails of one semi, and right in front of another. HOW AMAZING! This was eye-opening because if you tried this in a more populated area you would spend the rest of your life in prison. How great is Nebraska? It is still small enough that it is can stay untouched by the copious regulations we have placed upon us.

When I finally got to Omaha (which by the way totally scared me when I first drove up. It looked totally sketchy). I pulled up to my school and got out of the car. IT WAS SO HOT AND HUMID! I did not expect it to be to humid. I was schwitzing like I was in a pressure cooker, and yet as uncomfortable as that felt I had this overwhelming feeling that I was home. There is something exciting about being on a campus. It just made me feel like I was in a safe place, and I’m so excited to start classes this fall.

Are you that important

On my way home from work I pulled to a stop at the light. I’m not sure if my car was anxious or just nervous but it seemed to be rattling more than it generally does. All the windows on my car were rolled down because the AC was broken, and it looked as if everyone around me was in the same boat, and it didn’t appear to be helping them either. The wind simply blew the hot air around making me feel even hotter than before. As I sat there scrolling through the radio stations I could distinctly hear a siren. I looked around, and just a block away I could see a fire truck and an ambulance driving towards me. Everyone knows that you’re supposed to get out of their way when an emergency vehicle approaches, but when you’re already crammed up to the line of the intersection as if you were in a Hot Wheels multi-pack, it makes it kind of hard to be any more accommodating. The emergency vehicles got closer and closer and I could barely hear the sound of my music over their pulsing sirens. To my surprise the crossing traffic didn’t seem to remember that when an ambulance has its lights and sirens on it means that there is an emergency. This was evidenced by the fact that EVERY CAR continued to drive through the intersection, even when the ambulance and fire truck were pulled up in the oncoming lanes of traffic inching their way into the intersection. EVEN in this situation, 7 cars drove in front of them. Not only is this a problem because of the obvious state of emergency, but also because these cars were driving right into the mall. That’s right. Whatever emergency is happening in the valley, it pales in comparison to whatever sale they were trying to get to. Someone could have been in danger, or was even dying, but that is irrelevant because Hollister just got a new shipment of jeans.

This leads me to the title of this post, are you that important? Over the past few years I’ve noticed, with ever growing concern that our society is losing its ability to think of others. We have this mentality that whatever I’m doing is so much more important than anyone else—however insignificant our own situation might be. I blame several things for this. 1. Cell phones. 2. I-pods. 3. Reality T.V.

The reason I blame cell phones is because they have forced us to keep our interactions to each other within 120 symbols. Although cell phones give us the ability to call the very emergency people that were being cut off, the majority of their function is txt messaging. We chop and splice our ideas into such tiny messages that no real meaning can ever be gleaned form them. Try having a conversation with someone from generation TXT. It is nearly impossible. They don’t make eye contact, they don’t know how to complete ideas, and their vocabulary is basic (heavens forbid you ask them to spell any of the words either)

I-pods are a problem because they alienate you from the rest of the world. Don’t get me wrong, I love to have my Ipod while I’m jogging, or hiking, but 500 years ago (even 30 years ago) music was a communal experience. You got together and listened to the radio as a family, or as a society. When you heard the news it was probably on a street corner with dozens of other spectators. Now, we just plug in our headphones and block out the entire world. No one can hear our music, and we simultaneously can’t hear anyone but our music. It has effectively closed us off from the rest of the world.

Reality T.V. might seem like an odd cause to the problem, but it maybe contributes more than anything else. Think about what reality T.V. is. It is a bunch of cameras that follow people around for Days, even weeks or months, just to get a few hours documenting the mundane aspects of our lives and blowing them out of proportion to make them appear as dramatic as possible in order to captivate the viewers. What we end up seeing is hours and hours of people going to bars, hooking up, shopping, and freaking out at other people. This skews our perception of what reality is, making us prone to believe that life is just one party after another, with nothing more substantive in between.

All of this, for me is a problem. I miss the time when music was communal. When news was an event that involved multiple people and where decency and consideration were at least more prevalent.

Great Expectations-or- How I was let down by Hollywood.

Several months ago I saw a trailer for the movie Skyline. At first I was generally excited about what I saw. We had this mysterious light which descended upon L.A. en masse and through some magical property swept everyone in the city up, up, and away into what I can only assume is a giant buffet where some far more intelligent beings feast on us. Beyond that, I knew very little about the film. I assumed it was going to be another great sci-fi thriller where humanity bands together and uses our greatest technology against a foe far superior to ourselves, only to learn that it is our basic tools that ultimately cause the visitors downfall.

This is not what I got at all. SPOILER ALERT-but lets face it, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, you probably aren’t going to anyway.

What I got was the story of a boy and girl who visit their friend, who somehow made it out of their poverty-stricken hometown to become what appears to be Jay-Z. They enjoy all the comforts experienced by those who spring board their way into stardom only to find out that they are pregnant. The magical light that descends multiple times into the city somehow gives our hero magical powers while it gives the rest of the world suicidal tendencies, and in their attempts to escape our visitors he exhibits herculean strength and defeats them physically as well as mentally.

The story ends with them getting sucked up into the mothership (which by the way, was blown into tiny bits by an atomic weapon only to be magically reformulated in the air as if nothing had happened). Suddenly our hero has his head dissolved by the aliens and they feast on his brain. For whatever reason the aliens can’t eat his brain and it instead takes over the body of one of them. He then goes on a rampage in an effort to find his true love.

Why this movie depressed me. First of all, I don’t get what the title Skyline has to do with anything. Skyline suggest something on the horizon, not 20 feet away at the neighbors house. Second of all, we have no idea why our planet has been invaded. Do we have resources they need? Are they transients? Is this some religious cult, like Halo, and our planet is the resting place of some much needed artifact? NO. none of that. We are given no idea why they’ve come. To make matters worse we don’t even put up a fight. Our greatest weapons do NOTHING to them. The problem with an enemy that is so omnipotent is that we need a reason why they’ve descended from wherever and even bother with us. This becomes even more frustrating when we notice that the aliens aren’t after any resource other than our brains. This means that our brains are such a commodity and so valuable and so much better then theirs that they simply must have it now. If our brains are so great, why weren’t we able to master space travel? Why couldn’t we come up something to fight back. If the aliens are simply here to absorb humanities collective, then I have a youtube account they can use, and trust me, once they take a look at youtube they will realize just how little they will glean from absorbing our minds. It would be better for them to just continue their little trip around the galaxy and find someone who has accomplished something a little more substantive than videos singing the praises of Friday, or children being bitten on their finger, or cats.