"All I Fear"

I guess I will follow suit with my own list of 20 things I would do if I had no fear:

1. Pursue a music career full-time
2. Dive into the pool head-first
3. Do a backflip on the trampoline (I guess my wife and I both have that fear)
4. Give plasma (I'm okay with giving blood though)
5. Buy a house
6. Actually invest time in school so I can get good enough grades to get into a top-tier PhD program (in case I decided to go that route)
7. Run for political office
8. Snowboard more often (I'm too comfortable on skis)
9. Invest in the stock market
10. Actually release my "Racing & Retracing" CD
11. Delve more into my scripture study
12. Quit my job
13. Take a dance class with my wife
14. Get in shape
15. Befriend our neighbors
16. Finish the children's book I once started writing
17. Ask my wife and/or father-in-law to teach me to weld
18. Race a motorcycle
19. Leave my door unlocked
20. Live without insurance

So there you have it, folks. My innermost fears exposed. Enjoy. Feel free to post your own list(s).

The First Presidency Christmas Devotional

As Deidra mentioned in one of her prior posts, we had the opportunity of attending the First Presidency Christmas devotional. One of our friends sent us a few pictures from that night, so I thought I might as well post them here. We had a good, ol' fun time.

$500

That was the amount offered for my online soul . . . and I turned it down. Thanks for your comments!

I haven't had enough of these kind of days lately . . .

Since transferring jobs, things have been pretty crazy and I have not had much time to breathe at work. Today is finally a slow day and my boss is gone, so it is much more relaxed and I actually have time for a short little blog. Plus, it is the last day of work for me this week, so I have very little motivation.

But once Thanksgiving is over, it is going to be crazy until Christmas - with school assignments, tests, work, etc. So I figured I'd give you at least a couple of paragraphs to read to tide you over for a while.

How much for my online soul?

In an update from a previous post, I wanted first to let everyone know that I was successful in regaining possession my original website (www.chrishartwell.com) for about $30. A couple of weeks have gone by since that transaction was completed, but I have yet to re-upload everything onto the site. Well, this week, I received an email from another Chris Hartwell who was interested in purchasing the website from me in order to use it for some sort of personal financial blog. Upon further communication, I got a tenative offer, but am not sure I want to sell. I don't want to tell you yet what I was offered - but I want your collective professional opinions. If you were in my position, for what price would you be willing to sell the website? Maybe after getting some responses, I will tell you what I was offered, but I want to hear what you all think first.

The Birthday Party that Rocked!

It may have happened three weeks ago, but everybody knows I am a blogging slacker, so I am just telling everyone about it now. Deidra threw me an uber-excellent birthday party . . . and I have pictures to prove it!

It all started with the arrival of some special birthday guests - Karisa, Hudson, and Dalanie. Rumor has it that Hudson even chose coming to visit us over going to get ice cream. Perhaps he could sense all the refreshments that were going to be available to him at the party.

It was my big 30th birthday, so we had to go all out. This included chips, vegetables, lil smokies, and soft pretzel bites - all of which could be dipped into the nacho cheese "fountain of youth." As you can see, at the beginning some of the guests (Karisa and Tameka in this picture) weren't quite sure what to think about it. But it was a big success once people got used to it.

Not only that, but Deidra baked an awesome yellow cake with chocolate butter creme frosting AND an amazing pecan pie - both which were served with ice cream. Check out the awesome candles!

There was much Wii playing to entertain all the guests. Deidra and I had even created little Miis (virtual players on the Wii) for each of the guests who had RSVPed.

Finally, there was opening of presents. This particular ensemble was courtesy of the Mills.

We have such great friends and the party was a ton of fun People were still playing the Wii until the "wii" hours of the morning (man, I'm funny!). Thanks to the Newmans, who let us crash in on the social center at the apartment complex they manage. I am grateful that Deidra went through such great lengths to make an unforgettable party for a huge birthday that could have been dreadful otherwise. I mean, who ever wants to turn 30?

Everyone is invited to come play the Wii anytime. We've had a ton of fun with it since we got it. It was totally worth being my anniversary, birthday, and Christmas present all rolled into one.

I'm NOT 30!

I just had to express that today while I still can.

The death (and rebirth?) of ChrisHartwell.com

This week, I tried to access ChrisHartwell.com and it would not come up. I contacted the company I purchased it from to find out what had happened. Come to find out, my registration for ChrisHartwell.com had expired back in August. The company had attempted to contact me, but had an old email address that I hardly ever check anymore. After the registration expired, ChrisHartwell.com was purchased by another company, so I was unable to obtain it! Talk about frustrating. So instead, I purchased ChrisHartwellMusic.com.

I later went online and found contact information for the company that purchased ChrisHartwell.com. I assumed that their company did business by buying domain names that expire in hopes of charging large amounts for the previous owners to buy them back. Upon contacting the company, they were very cordial. They apologized for purchasing the site when I was still interested in it. They wouldn't tell me any specifics, but said that their company bought websites that had expired for research purposes. They offered to sell me back the website if I would simply cover the costs they had spent in purchasing the site.

So hopefully on Monday, I will be able to get ChrisHartwell.com back in my possession. Until then, everything has been uploaded to ChrisHartwellMusic.com. Maybe someday, I'll even update the website. Who knows?

While the cat's away the mice will procrastinate

Deidra left on Thursday morning to go to DC and visit some friends and old co-workers in DC. Of course, I unfortunately have to stay and go to work, since our trips to Seattle left me with only a few vacation days left at work. I have been trying to read the last 200 pages of The World is Flat for class and write an analysis of it while she has been gone. So far, I have about half a page written with quite a bit left to do. I can't get myself to focus. Instead I spend time surfing the net, checking fantasy football, reading Sports Illustrated, reading blogs (everything I have missed since i last read blogs about two weeks ago), and now I'm even BLOGGING! Can you believe it? But it's due by Wednesday, so I will be forced to buckle down some day soon.

An update . . . of sorts

This update goes out to Daisy Paige, the one fan who requested an update. Congratulations on the pregnancy! You and Josh will be great parents.

Other comments I have neglected to leave on people's blogs:

1) To Karisa - Happy birthday, happy "birthing" day (I can't wait to meet Dalanie), and happy birthday to Brent, too. Sounds like a lot of summer birthdays around your house.

2) To Bestsariah - Nice haircut

3) To Kamilah - Your husband screamed on the roller coaster. That's kind of funny ... but not too funny, because I'm pretty sure he could beat me up.

Updates that I have missed:

1) My summer classes are over and I passed all three classes.

2) Now I get to start the graduate program fo' real in a couple of weeks.

3) My best friend from high school is getting married and I get to be a groomsman . . . unfortunately, it is in Seattle, so I have to miss work and school in order to do so.

4) Work is uber-crazy and I'm not sure I really like it. But I've only been doing it for a couple of months. It's definitely made me miss the lazy summer days of working with the education side of things.

5) Our trip to Mesquite was all sorts of fun. Deidra and I won at tennis, but I lost in golf pretty soundly. I also lost at the waterslide luge, the holding your breath underwater for a long time competition, and at Settlers. We went with three other couples and had a great time. The Suburban was perfect transportation to fit us all in.

6) (This is pre-emptive news, since who knows when I'll blog again) My lovely, wonderful, spectacular, beautiful, brilliant, caring, and incredible wife and I will celebrate our second anniversary on Saturday. Hopefully her husband figures out something cool to do.

7) My lil sil is currently living with us until school starts. She's a pretty cool cat ... though sometimes a little strange. She was about 500% excited to show off her Fat Baby boots at the Cassia County Fair this weekend. She even took a day off work for it so she could head to Burley tonight.

8) And finally, I'm sorry to disappoint those who were hoping for a repeat performance as I defended my second place ribbon at the Cache County Fair. While I did sign up to participate again this year, we totally spaced it and missed the fair completely. Oh well!

I hope that's enough to keep you all entertained for another little while. I am also getting rid of the junk pile and the lyric of the week/month, since I do not update either of those enough to make it worth it. But I will try to be a little bit better about posting . . . maybe.

Are you ready for some football?

It's that time of year again. I want to extend a personal invitation to everyone out there (and that includes you Scott Cromie) to join my fantasy football league. Just click on the picture above and enter the following information:

League ID: 29580

Password: roxor

Let the games begin!

Wanna sell coffee on the Sabbath?

That's basically the question I posed to a recently-returned missionary today at work. He came in looking for a job, and I was trying to fill a job for Saturday and Sunday grinding, brewing, and giving out samples of coffee to customers at Sam's Club.

He's going to do it.

Should I feel bad?

A pretty good surprise

At around 11:45, with about 15 minutes left in class this morning, I got a text message from my wife that read:

"Do you think you'll be wrapping up at noon?"

I replied that it looked like we were nearing the end for the day. Her text response was:

"I hope so, too! There's a pretty good surprise waiting for you!"

I'm a sucker for surprises, so as soon as class got finished (11:54 - six minutes early), I ran home down the hill and arrived shortly after noon. I must have been too fast, because when I opened the door, I was told to go back outside because the surprise wasn't ready.

A moment later, I was called back in and found this on my plate at the candlelit table:



It was definitely a pretty good surprise. Does it get any better than a summer lunch like that? The wraps were pretty amazingly tasty, pasta salad is always a Chris favorite, and the lemon-poppyseed cupcakes glazed with some sort of lemon-sugary goodness were irresistable. My wife is pretty much awesome.

Oh, and Happy 25th Birthday Diet Coke! Thanks for being a part of such a great surprise.

(P.S. I think it's kind of weird that I am older than Diet Coke.)

A Super Mario Christmas Story

What you get when you mix one of Nintendo's greatest video games with one of the best movies ever made? Pure genius ...

I've been taggified!

Four Jobs I’ve held:
1. Farm hand/cow milker
2. GWU Board of Chaplains student assistant
3. Senator Larry Craig's Intern Coodinator
4. Branch Manager

Movies I can watch over and over:
1. Back to the Future
2. Life is Beautiful
3. Napolean Dynamite
4. Gattica

Places I’ve lived:
1. Declo, ID
2. Washington, DC
3. Cincinnati, OH
4. Logan, UT

T.V. Shows I enjoy:
1. Seinfeld/Bernie Mac/Malcolm in the MIddle/Drew Carey/all other old sitcoms that are re-ran all the time.
2. The Office
3. Jeopardy
4. The Simpsons

Places I have been on vacations to:
1. Glacier National Park
2. Boston, MA
3. The Czech Republic
4. Spain (Madrid, Zaragoza, & Barcelona)

Favorite foods:
1. Quesdillas
2. Steak & Potatoes
3. Smothered Grilled Chicken
4. Spaghetti & Hot Dogs, seasoned with a generous amount of Frank's Red Hot (my official bachelor meal - I can only eat it now when Deidra is out of town)

Websites I visit:
1. You Tube
2. MSN Games
3. Yahoo! Fantasy Football(more info on the 2007-2008 season to come)
4. Chris Hartwell Dot Com

Places I’d rather be right now:
1. Washington, DC
2. Hawaii
3. Mesquite, NV (adventure to Mesquite is forthcoming, so be ready!)
4. Your mom's house

Consider yourself tagged (because you're probably the only four people that might read my blog that haven't already been tagged [that I know of])
1. Chod (In order to get out of the junk pile)
2. Kamilah
3. Sarah
4. Robin

Family, the Zoo, and IKEA.

I know it's been a long while since my last post, but an eventful midweek-weekend has made it requisite to do so now.

It all started on Wednesday, when Deidra came and picked me up from work. We made it over to the church for our church's blood drive. I like giving blood, but mainly for the treats. They hooks us up pretty well with Oreos, pretzels, trail mix, peanut butter/cheese crackes, Fig Newtons, and some great flavors of Welch's juice. It could almost take the place of dinner - but not quite.

After giving blood, we headed to Ogden, where my dad's side of the family was having a get-together. Deidra finally met my Uncle Larry, only 22 months into our marriage. I think that was the last family member on either side of either family that had not been met by the spouse. So we can check that off of our list. A lot of my cousins and their kids were also there. It was fun to see everyone and talk for a while. My parents were there with their two-year-old granddaughter (our niece), Stevie, who they are watching for a few days.

We then head just down the road to Riverdale, where we stayed the night (with my parents and Stevie) at the old Red Roof Inn, which apparently used to be a Motel 6 and recently was changed back to a Motel 6 - go figure.

The next morning (I had taken the day off from work), we got up, had breakfast at IHOP, dropped my piano keyboard off in Bountiful to get fixed, and then went to the Hogle Zoo.



Stevie enjoyed seeing the elephants, monkeys, alligators, snakes, camels, rhinos, and giraffes. But her favorite was this little bird that came right up to her (behind a glass enclosure). She tried tapping on the glass to touch it, and finally stared kissing the bird through the glass. It was pretty funny, and maybe a little bit disgusting. Who knows what else has touched that glass.

We left the zoo a little bit before noon and convinced my parents that we should go have lunch and shop at IKEA.



We got there right as the lunch hour was in full swing, and Deidra and I enjoyed a red pepper & mozzarella sandwich and chicken Caesar salad. My parents got Stevie some macaroni and cheese, but she spent most of the meal stealing lettuce from my dad's salad and nibbling on it like a cute little bunny rabbit.

Once lunch was over we started shopping, but my parents didn't last long. We said our goodbyes and they headed home while we continued meandering through IKEA. We came away with four new chairs for our dining room. First, we got two of these chairs:



And then we got two of these folding chairs (also in white, but they didn't have that color on their website pictures) that we can pull out when we have company over:



We also got some little stuff - a jar to fill with candy in my office, an apron that Deid fell in love with, and a shaker that we're going to fill up with powdered sugar.

I had originally suggested also making a stop at NPS, but after IKEA, we didn't have any desire to spend any more money. So we traveled home and put our new furniture together, and now here we are.

So maybe it's not a gut-wrenching story that tugs at your heart strings, or one that makes you laugh so hard you cry, but at least I finally blogged - so you better appreciate it.

Happy Birthday, WEP!

I even took you out of the junk pile finally.

May your year be full of Sta-Ta-Grade and punch-out pincap visions. And may your wildest dreams come true.

Expedia.com just rocked my world

Deidra and I have been looking forward to a trip to Los Angeles we had planned for this week. We were to leave on Wednesday and come back the following Tuesday, and had purchased plane tickets from Jet Blue and both a hotel room and a rental car from Expedia.

Today, we found out that Deidra's Grandfather Parish just passed away and his funeral is set for Saturday - right smack-dab in the middle of our vacation. So Deidra and I sat discussing our options: a) to try cancelling our vacation, b) to attempt to reschedule all of our reservations, or c) to go on vacation and miss the funeral.

We decided that option A would be our first choice, if it were possible without getting burned to badly with cancellation fees from JetBlue and Expedia. If it cost to much to cancel, we decided we would look at option B . . . and possibly option C, if both options A and B were too costly.

I first called 1-800-Expedia to look into cancelling our hotel and rental car reservations. After a very short time of talking to the automated system (giving it our itinerary number and telling it that I wanted to "cancel itinerary"), I was immediately forwarded to a live operator, without even having to hold at all. That's right - no elevator music interspersed with that annoying recording that says: "all of our operators are currently busy - please continue to hold." Score one for Expedia! The lady I talked to was very understanding and expressed her condolences in a fairly heavy foreign accent. I was told that there is normally a $50 cancellation fee ($25 for the hotel and $25 for the car rental), but that she would gladly waive those fees because of the situation. Wait - did I just here correctly? I am being refunded the entire amount of the purchase without any cancellation fee? I would have been content to pay the $50 and get the rest of the money refunded. Score another one for Expedia! Needless to say, I was very impressed with them and will certainly use them again in the future.

Deidra next contacted JetBlue (since she had paid for the flights with her credit card and under her name). She had read in the original itinerary email that there was a $30 cancellation fee per ticket to cancel via phone and $25 per ticket to cancel via the internet. But after my success in getting fees waived, she thought she would try using the phone to explain the situation and hopefully get those fees waived as well. No such luck. After waiting on hold for a few minutes, she ended up cancelling our flights with a $60 penalty ($30 per ticket) - and the rest of the money we paid for the tickets is being refunded as "JetBlue Dollars" that can only be redeemed through JetBlue. We were content with that, but definitely not as impressed with their services as we were with Expedia's.

But, all-in-all, we are glad that we were able to get everything cancelled and make it home for the funeral. Deidra was not particularly close to her Grandfather Parish (and I had only met him a couple of times), but we wanted to be there particularly to support Deidra's dad. Family is one of the greatest blessings that we have in this life. Both Deidra's parents and my parents have been there innumerable times throughout our lives (both before and after our marriage) and we are grateful that we are able to support them and show a small token of our appreciation for them through these kinds of situations.

Happy, Happy Birthday, Deidra Dear

Happy days will come to you all year
If I had one wish, then it would be
A happy, happy birthday to you from me!

The official Golden Birthday is here - 22 on the 22nd! Deidra already knows what she's getting for her birthday, but unfortunately it will not be delivered in time for her to take advantage of it on her birthday. In the next couple of weeks, we'll have to post about it and get some pictures when it actually arrives. Stay tuned!

I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to the love of my life!

My Centennial Blog Post

This is officially blog post #100 on this blog. It took just under a year to achieve (slower than some, faster than others). I don't have much more to say about it, but if any of the Parish clan need an excuse to lick their dessert dishes today, I give you permission to invoke celebration for my 100th post.