Wards-That-Must-Not-Be-Named

So I moved out of my apartment about a month ago. A lot of factors influenced my decision, including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Non-functioning oven
2. Mysterious radiators that operated on their own schedule
3. Pot-smoking neighbors
4. Awkward encounter with one such pot-smoking also gay neighbor where I learned that the term "Mo" does not refer to "Homo" which means I definitely answered her question incorrectly and FAR too quickly. She was nice but our hallway encounters were never the same...
5. The amateur X-rated movies being filmed in the apartment below mine

However, the thing I dreaded the most....was the Singles Ward. To understsand this feeling, recall the fear and loathing with which the characters in Harry Potter said the name 'Voldemort'. In most cases they used the term 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named' becuase his name was too powerfully horrible to utter. I have yet to come up with an adequate subsitute for the "Singles Ward" term that brings me such grief...but I'm working on it.

I could write pages and pages of Singles Ward experiences....but I won't. I'm not even going to touch the testimony meetings turned into date auditions, or the Family Home Evening formula (who decided an ugly Christmas sweater party was required every year...the funny and original ships sailed a long time ago on that idea), or the spirituality = A's Relief Society lessons, or anything beyond my most recent encounter.

I was at my most recent Ward (which I should point out was not in Provo - the weirdness is not contained in that one city by any means) listening to the announcements. Nothing out of the ordinary (activities, food, servce, etc.) but then they announce something called a Blitz. I was intrigued. They went on to explain that all the interested Ward members would gather at the Church and then proceed to visit 3-4 members who hadn't shown up in awhile (LDS word for these people is 'inactives').

My interest turned to horror.  One Tuesday a month some poor unsuspecting people would have 10-30 people descending on their house to investigate why they'd stopped attending church and pressure them into coming back. It was amazing to me that the people sitting around me could have convinced themselves that this was a great thing they were planning, as if the word "blitz" was a synonym for "friendly service," something akin to helping an old person cross the street.

Clearly no one had taken the time to look up "blitz" in a thesaurus, if they had they would have found the words assault, attack, bomb, bombard, carnage, charge, offense, onrush, onslaught, rush, storm, and millitancy, which hopefully would have clued them into the terror they were about to bring on innocent souls. Right then and there I resolved to do my best never to be home on Tuesday evenings (as I knew I was already at risk of being considered 'inactive'). When I was home, I kept the lights off, refused to answer the door and thought about getting a ladder for use in quick-escape situations. Thankfully, my manuevers allowed me to escape the dreaded 'blitz.'

My whole life I have heard quotes about LDS youth being "strong and righteous" and basically the best generation to live on the earth. Having been in a few Singles Wards I've realized something... this generation wasn't saved for this time because they're interesting or smart or funny or attractive. So which generation was that? I'm thinking I'd like to trade.

My Dad

As of yesterday, my dad is officially not the CEO for Control4 anymore. And while he's just moving to new role with the company, this was a bit of a milestone. I usually find him an easy target for criticism or jokes, everything from his lack of hair down to his Tevas-with-socks fashion choices, but this feels like a good opportunity to reflect on why I'm proud of my dad.

Until I was probably sixteen I didn't realize that most people considered 'work' a 9-to-5 deal. I always saw how hard he worked - he was working when I left for school in the morning, he was at work when I got home, sometimes we'd see him for dinner, and then he'd be working when I went to bed. And that's when he wasn't traveling. What I didn't really get to see, until I started working at the company three years ago, was what all that work produced. I am so proud of what he's been able to accomplish in his career, especially at Control4. The late nights, early mornings, and hours of travel aren't easy but I think the results speak for themselves.

In a busy work environment, it can be easy to lose sight of the human element. I've seen and heard plenty of examples...using an employee's lack of performance, an elevated title, or potential financial gain as an excuse to mistreat or disrespect people.  One of the things about my Dad that I am the most proud of is that he simply doesn't think that way. He has been successful without ignoring or forgetting the well-being of people around him. He is a successful businessman, but he is an honest, caring and good person first.

His commitment to his work has at some points caused him to miss out on family time, something that I used to remind him of constantly. Being the manipulative teenager I was, I would often remind him that he had missed something like six of my birthdays, especially when I thought I could get a laugh or use guilt to help me get something from him (never actually worked). But, when I was a Freshman in college, my dad was invited to speak to the Entrepeneurship club at my school.
I went to watch and to my surprise, he spent quite a bit of time talking about the impact his work had had on his family time. In fact, he even got choked up as he told everyone how he had missed six of my birthdays. Needless to say, I haven't brought up the birthday issue since. Despite the amount of time he's spent working over the years, none of my siblings, or my mom, or I have any doubt as to how important we are to him.


 I love my dad. He's passionate about Control4 and making it successful, he's put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into getting it to where it is and I'm so proud of him for that. He's a great example, a great human being, and a great dad.

My Summer Vacation (Girls Camp)

So I was assigned to help with our Ward girls camp. 33 girls, 7 adult leaders, 3 days, 3 nights, camping. It was an enlightening experience in a lot of ways, but generally pretty fun. Here are the highlights:

• The theme of the camp was Happily Ever After and we were all supposed to be princesses (not my idea). I didn't think it was possible to be a princess when you had to sleep in a tent...but I was wrong. There were people with cots, with sleeping pads on the cots, with sleeping bags, and comforters! They also had whole bags of makeup, perfume and even something called dry shampoo. I didn't sleep or look or smell like a princess but some people sure did.  
• Justin Bieber songs never fail to make teenage girls scream. I bought my first Justin Bieber song after I got home - hoping if I listen to it I will understand this phenomenon
• I made crafts. With flowers on them. Enough said.
• Advice: If you want to make people happy after a long day of setting up campsites (complete with a carriage that lit up and chandeliers in our case) don't feed them sandwiches for dinner 
• Snoring sometimes come from the most unexpected sources 
• Sleep aids: sometimes necessary 
• Whole wheat pancakes are one of the best breakfast foods that exist...when covered with buttermilk syrup.
• There's a reason the fairy godmother in Cinderella floats - that robe is impossible to move in, especially through a circle of camp chairs while pirouetting. Floating is the only way to go, and I have the bruises to prove it.
• Removing hair wraps requires hair cutting - something you should find out BEFORE you have one put it in your hair.
• Women of a certain age are really hot ALL the time so they like to leave the tent windows open when they go to bed - makes for a pretty chilly night. Again, insert sleep aids here.
• There's this thing called Crackle that is apparently supposed to go on top of nail polish and make a cool cracked-looking pattern or something? My nails just look like they were really poorly painted with whiteout.
• I will never again walk up to a tent and just start unzipping without giving the people inside some sort of warning. You see and hear things you wish you hadn't.

Living Solo

Discoveries I've made since living alone:

• I actually can kill spiders, given a heavy enough shoe that can be attached to the end of my swiffer. 
• I'm messy. That will shock no one I suppose, but I always thought I was just messy when I only had small spaces to work with (like my bedroom or my desk). Turns out the messyness just expands to fill the space. 
• I might not like the color green as much as I thought I did. I have a LOT of green stuff. 
• It becomes really easy to leave doors open when no one else is around...bedroom doors, bathroom doors...there's no one to separate from!
• I love yogurt and cheerios, together. That's been my dinner for the past four days. Still trying to get around to unpacking my kitchen.
• I need to take more pictures (I have so few to put up in my apartment) but I now have a lot less to take pictures of - I'm not going to take pictures of myself sitting on the couch, reading on my bed, standing in the kitchen....the solo apartment doesn't lend itself to exciting photographic remembrances. 
• I cannot tolerate sleeping in the heat. If I were on a jury and a murderer testified that he lost his temper because his bedroom was hot and that's why he killed the woman who cut him off on his way to work....I'd let him off.
  

The New Place and Some Old Places

Two of my favorite places in the world are Walden Pond (Concord, MA) and Central Park (NYC). My new apartment is nowhere near as cool as either of those places. BUT, I think there are some similarities.

• When Henry David Thoreau went to Walden Pond, he "wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if (he) could not learn what it had to teach." I came to my apartment for sort of less profound, but similar reasons. I was ready to be on my own. I aslo needed some separation from my parents, which apparently Thoreau did not - he still had his mother do his laundry.

• Thoreau was not completely isolated at Walden Pond, but he clearly had a lot of time on his hands to think...he wrote a 300 page book with chapters like "The Bean Field", "Solitude" and "Brute Neighbors". Since I've started living here, I've written in my journal almost every day. And in fact, one day I wrote about how much I like being alone (solitude) and yesterday I wrote about my neighbors! I don't plan on writing anything about a bean field.

• I live by Liberty Park, which has a pond. 

• It's a little harder to show similarities between my new place and Central Park. There's actually just one thing that reminds me of it, and that is the squirrel. When I went to Central Park I remember being really surprised by how many squirrels there were, and how they didn't seem to be afraid of anything, humans or otherwise. Well outside my living room window lives the most obnoxious squirrel in the world. Every morning I wake up to him squeaking away for no apparent reason. It took me awhile to find him, but when I did he seemed to be squeaking right at my neighbor, then he went to another tree and was squeaking at some bird, and on and on. I had no idea squirrels could be obnoxious, I don't even think I knew they could really make noise. But now....well I never understood the point of BB guns.

Betrayal of Jerry Sloan

What happened today between the Utah Jazz and Jerry Sloan is infuriating. I'm not going to talk about what I think of his coaching style or whether he'll win a championship, because I don't think that's relevant.

A coach who has been here for 23 seasons and over 1,000 wins should not be disrespected this way. I'm sure there was more to it than Deron Williams calling his own play in the game against the Bulls, but I'm also sure that Deron's attitude didn't help. Maybe Deron didn't love Jerry's style, but guess what...it worked for John Stockton. Stockton's stats didn't suffer because of Jerry Sloan, they were incredible...because of Jerry Sloan. Maybe Sloan wasn't going to take the Jazz to a title, but the current roster isn't going to do that no matter who the coach is. There are a lot of factors that go into a team's success or failure, and everyone involved knows it, which is why it is so disappointing that the Jazz management and the players would allow a storied, hall of fame career to end this way.


Jazz fans aren't going to like it, this is not going to help Deron's image, or Greg's image or improve loyalty to the team. Jazz fans don't buy tickets or watch games religiously because of any one so-called super star. The Jazz have always represented the down-to-earthness of Utah residents. We don't put up with diva players (the reason why players like Stockton, Hornacek, and Matt Harpring are the most talked about...not people like Boozer or even Malone). We value hard workers who are going to stick around and get the job done. Jerry Sloan represented the best of that, and for him to leave with anything but a standing ovation is a travesty.

Business Professional - Or Not

This week I had to take a one-day trip for work. . I've watched my dad travel for business quite a bit and I wanted to emulate his efficient travel style. So this morning I set out to play the part of an experienced business traveler.

Step one: pack light. I succeeded in this. I fit everything I needed into my computer shoulder bag. Toiletries, computer, clothes for tomorrow, I'm all set. More on this later.

Step two: don't waste time at the airport. I also succeeded here, sort of. I arrived at the terminal 15 minutes before my flight was supposed to board. No big deal, I had checked in online, had my boarding pass on my phone, no checked bags. I got through security, checked my gate and headed off towards my flight. The board had said B17 and I didn't think much of it until I was halfway through the trek to the B gates in the Salt Lake Airport. They are two people movers and one level away from security. I arrived at my gate, there was no where to sit but I saw some columns marked with row numbers so I went over and hovered near the one marked '6' because that was what row I was on. I waited until they were boarding and I went up to give the woman my boarding pass via phone. She didn't take it and scan it, she said "Uh...this is a Delta boarding pass." And I liked right back at here thinking "Yes....?" Then she explained, "This is a Southwest flight, not Delta." Then it all made sense, trekking all the way over there, the row numbers, almost no business-types around. Apparently when I checked the boards for my gate, I had looked at the wrong flight leaving for San Diego. What are the odds that there would be two flight leaving at almost the same time, for the same place, from the same airport? High apparently. So back I went to the C gates (which happen to be RIGHT in front of security). Thankfully I arrived before they called my zone. I was perspiring a little, and the two men sitting on either side of me didn't seem thrilled, but I didn't care. I had originally planned to read my Wall Street Journal finance book to keep up my appearance as the 'savvy business traveler' but that had pretty much gone out the window, so I played Monopoly on my phone instead.

Lesson: Double-check gates. 

Step 3: Move through the airport without slowing down (like you've been there a million times before and you know right where you're going) and get a cab. I did this just fine. Got in the cab, told him where I needed to go, and we were off. However, about 30 minutes in I looked up at the price clock thing and realized the amount of cash I had in my wallet was possibly not going to be enough. I remember thinking about that before I left, but also thinking, eh, the cab ride isn't going to be more than $40, that's how much it is in New York and there's no way it will be that much here.I quickly mapquested the directions to find out how much longer we had to go and realized that I DEFINITELY did not have enough cash to cover this.  And there was a little sign that said no credit cards. Bad news. So we arrived, and I told him I could give him what cash I had (enough to cover about 60%) when he pulled out a credit card machine from his glove compartment. He didn't exactly know how to work it so he was not happy but he got his money and I got to my hotel.

Lesson: Cab rides are based on distance, so don't assume the fee will be the same wherever you are.

Step 4: Get rewards points. I made sure the hotel had my rewards number when I checked in so I could get all my points. She called me Ms. West and told me there would be a shuttle to take me to my meetings in the morning. I felt that I had succeeded in making this woman think I was a savvy business traveler. She even looked surprised when she found out I hadn't stayed at the hotel before.

BUT THEN....I got to my room and realized I had forgotten two things in my effort to pack light. First, pajamas. Second....well, at certain times of the month, certain items are required. I required them...but I forgot to pack them. I literally ran to the hotel services book to see if they had a gift shop where I could buy them. They didn't, only vending machines with food. But they did have a section that caught my eye called "Forgot something?". It said they would provide toothbrushes, combs etc. free of charge as a service to guests. So I could call them and ask them, or ask my male business associate who I was going to dinner with, to make a stop at a store so I could buy them. I decided it was better to embarrass myself in front of strangers than colleagues.

So I called the front desk. To my chagrin a male voice answered. I just took a breath and said "This is an embarrassing question...but do you have any feminine hygiene products?"

Response: LONG PAUSE...Uhhh...let me check. ANOTHER LONG PAUSE. Yes...we have both....kinds.

Me: Oh great! So, should I....

Response: I can have someone bring them up.

Me: That would be great!

Response: Ok, um which kind would you like?

Me: Oh, uh, (awkward laugh) well..either one is fine.

Response: I'll have someone bring one of each.

Me: (To myself: One? Seriously one? Oh whatever I am not making this worse). Ok thank you!

So then I waited for the awkward exchange. Pretty soon there was a knock at my door, and I found myself being presented with a tray, the kind hotels use to bring room service food, lid and all. When I opened the door the man standing there lifted the lid for me, I took the stuff, and he walked away without saying anything. I'd like to think that they made it look like room service for my sake...but from the look on the kid's face...it was definitely for his.

Now I'm sitting here trying to force myself to call the front desk again to ask for a toothbrush, yet another thing I forgot.


Lesson: There are more important things than packing light.