Blaugenour

1-5 Commute

2011-12-21T13:18:00.000-08:00

I am going to tell you a story. During the telling you might think "that is sooo ridiculous. That must be a dream." It's not a dream...this is real life...today's real life, actually.
Some practicalities...Setting: I-5 Southbound, left laneCharacters: Me and Mr. Red ToyotaTime: Running a few minutes early on my commute to work.
The meat to the banquet...Just minding my own in the left lane this morning, I am met with the familiar even-though-this-is-the-fast-lane-I-will-stick-it-and-go-five-under commuter. There is no one in the right lane. I could easily just pass Mr. Red Toyota, but I proceed with my normal approach and tailgate JUST A LITTLE to give them a chance to right the wrong and move over. I like to give people chances to correct mistakes instead of just working around them. Ok, FINE. This is kind of a pet peeve, so I tailgate to teach lessons. Whatever.
So, Mr. Red Toyota doesn't move over. He DOES, however, pull out his sharpie written, cardboard sign that says "SLOW DOWN NOW." HA! He waves it in front of his rearview mirror for about 30 seconds. Laughing, I just keep on him (I'm a bit of a jerk, but I wanted to see what happens with this guy when the sign doesn't work). Irritated, he turns the sign around. I couldn't make out what it said, only that the last word is in RED. Is this guy serious?! Apparently. He pounded on his breaks. Now he's going 60. In a 70. People are passing, I should have followed suit, but still curious. In no rush to get to work (minutes early, yeah?) I go 60 with him...laughing.
He finally ends our tango by merging into the right lane. Yes! I broke him. Oh wait. Nope. Still holding signs. Disappointed not to see his face, yet pleased to see the mystery message from the cardboard's backside, he pressed the writing against his side window - "THE SPEED LIMIT IS 70!"
"Well then GO 70!" I yelled. I don't think he heard me. No matter. It was a good laugh.

I felt this story deserved more than just a roommate audience. Did I accomplish depicting the scene? Wasn't that ridiculous? Treasuring it. Still laughing!

Two Grown Men...

2011-11-01T15:17:00.001-07:00

It was sometime last year or the year before. im not sure when, but halloween yesterday got me thinking about this. Anyway, one day my longtime roommate and now runner up best friend Oliver and i decided to watch a scary movie. So, on one rather normal afternoon in Oliver's room we decided to watch "the fourth kind".

Two grown men, sitting in a room together, in the middle of the day, nearly pissed their pants right where they were sitting all over the place.

The movie is "based" on real events of alien abductees being hypnotized and then sharing their repressed memories of their abductions. The premise is kind of corny. But the idea that these sessions were "recorded" and that the director actually used footage from these "real" sessions made it interesting... and in the end... soul crushing for two guys that thought they were pretty radical. The director would cut back and forth from dramatic representation (one of the saddest things about this whole situation was that i was thoroughly scared of a movie staring Mila Jovovich... i know... i couldn't be more ashamed of myself) to "real" footage. There would be a split screen with the actors acting out the parts of the people in the "real" sessions. And as soon as that split screen popped up Ollie and i would both breath in nervously because we knew something unbelievable disturbing and "real" was about to be shown.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1220198/

I like to think it was the "real"ness of this that turned us into 13 year old girls. To think that all this "actually" happened made me want to shoot missiles blindly into space hoping that one would get lucky and hit some space ship or alien planet or something just so there would be one less place to be abducted to. not to mention, it takes place in alaska which we all know is the most terrifying of all the states.

Ollie had been sitting in front of me the whole movie so i could hear the audibly nervous breathing but i could not see his face. Once the movie had ended he turned, slack jawed and wide eyed. He spoke between nervous laughs:

"Are you freakin serious"

Yeah i was freakin' serious. Freakin' seriously terrified. Freakin' seriously terrified out of my mind guts!

Two grown men. In the middle of the day. Yeah. Its embarrassing. And it lasted weeks. Sad.

2011-09-21T18:55:00.000-07:00

So after posting and THEN reading that blaug, I felt a little embarrassed at how I was 18 and sounded so NOT like an 18 year-old. BUT I regretted posting only for a second. That was written in January. My birthday is in October. So I was only 17. So it's okay...

2011-09-21T18:15:00.000-07:00

It is time I blaug. Here's the thing though. Andy, you are soooo hard to follow. This is my poor attempt (but attempt nonetheless) to contribute. Since "Memories" has been the theme recently, I decided to take a walk down my OWN lane and share a random (first one I flipped to) entry from one of my journals. No alterations. These spelling and grammar errors are legit (except for any missing "g's." My dinosaur computer has a thing against typing them out on first try)! I got a kick out of reading what was important to me that January 9th in 2005. I hope you are just as amused following my 18 year-old psyche as I was.

Dear Journal,

I ran over a squirrel two days ago with the car. I felt so bad. It was the first animal i've run over so far. I hope it never happens again. It was gross. I am back in school now, after my Winter Break (that was a nice two week break :)). We are reading Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain right now. It was an interresting; however sometimes I don't know what Huck is sayin because he talked like he is from Mississippi. We watched a movie in class about the controversy in it. Many are deffencive over the use of the "N" word. I must not really know the true derogative feeling that comes from it, because I don't see what all the fuss is about. These parents (a while ago), were trying to get it banned from required school reading lists. The "N" word was able to be used back then and not be found "shocking." Now it has a more negative ora, but considering Mark Twain's time, the book should not be banned because of terms used in a different time period. I don't know, purhaps I am bein too insensitive about it all.

Last night I went to my Zion winterball. It was a winterball for my choir (Zion Choir - the church one...). We had one, because one of our performances landed on a lot of our winterballs. So a girl in my choir named Rachael Frietas planned the whole thing and delegated jobs to everyone in the choir. There were a lot of people from the choir that were missing, but it was fun anyway. I wore a beautiful outfit. It was so cute. My sister Kelly, saw my dress at goodwill (a thrift store) it was $5. Then she bought me the most gorgeous shoes ever at Nordstrom Outlet for $35. THen we went to macys together and bought myslef a cute jacket (the dress was spagetti strapped), THen we went to anchor Blue and bought some flowers to match. The dress is orange (the pretty orange) with a little bit of orange shear at the bottom. It was spaetti strapped. It was a little big at the top (because I am lacking a little something there :)) So I safety-pinned the traps together, which made it a halter-top, and tighter (perfect :)). Oh, the dress went a little past my knees, and was"A" shaped (it flared out). My shoes were 3 1/2 - 4in heels; clear on the heel, silver on the shoe. It had one band that went right across the back of my toes (right avoce the ball of my foot). On the band, there were different lacquors and shapes of silver beads. The band was about an inch wide. (They hurt after a while...I danced bare-foot). My jacket was the peice of my atire that made it so cute. It was a bright lime reen. It was long sleeved (I pulled it up so it was 1/4 sleaved) and went down to the bottom of my lungs. I had buttoned the 2nd & 3rd to last bottens, which made it look like I filled my dress - and because it was cute that way. It had a pink butterfly on the left side, but I did not like it. So I cut it off and added a green flower. To finish my outfit, I put a green flower (there were two - one for my jacket, one for my hair) in my hair. I looked so cute, and got many compliments. I ot to dance with Brad Gill. He is so cute (and he is a ood dancer...when I say that, I mean he is not afraid to dance like me, and looks good doing it...hopefully like me). However, before the dance, nothing was really going well. To give a few examples, my shoe and flowers fell in a puddle, I got yelled at by another driver on the road, I was 45 minutes late going to Ariane Black's house because my mom needed the car (Britta Harline, Emily Kuykendall and I were oing over there before the dance to eat pizza and get ready together), and I could not find french bread to buy for the dance. But good thing it turned out well. I had a lot of fun!

Monte

2011-09-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

I was pretty young, but not too young. i remember sometimes dad would take the kids individually surfing with him when they were young but not too young. on one of these occasions dad chose me to go surfing with him. he told me about this guy we were going surfing with, his name was monte and he was a firefighter.

i was young enough and old enough to know that firefighters were the manliest man people out there. they fought fires and scored chicks or something. they saved kids and cats from fires and trees and then went home and punched a bear in the face without even caring. they were it. and i got to go and meet one for reals with dad.

i remember he lived in santa cruz, or at least somewhere around there. we drove down a road that had a freeway on one side and a bunch of eucalyptus trees on the other. dad and i probably listened to dire straights which was the norm for trips to santa cruz in those days. i learned that you could get chips for free and that dire straights were sultans, just like babe ruth. monte's house was perched precariously on a hill. i remember i thought it kind of looked like a tree house but built for a hill instead of a tree.

i dont remember the exact moment that we met, but i definitely remember that monte's mustache was awesome. he had a thick handlebar mustache. most mustaches are handlebars to bicycles or pogo sticks, monte had a harley, like two caterpillars hiking up his chin and kissing just under his nose-- radical caterpillars. i remember him talking to dad. we were sitting at a table and i think we were drinking something, but i don't remember much more than watching his mustache move up and down. im sure monte had a nose, a mouth, ears, eyes, etc. i just didn't care, i had never met a mustache like that before and it mystified me.

i remember him saying we were going to surf at a place called sharks. i must have visibly shown the concern in my childish heart at the thought of surfing at a place called sharks cause monte's mustache turned to me. it started to move and words came out from underneath it, "dont worry kid. its called sharks because there arent any sharks there." I WAS YOUNG! of course i believed him. so, we went surfing at sharks where there werent any sharks.

i remember the ocean floor at sharks was rocky and there almost wasn't a single patch of sand to walk on as i made my way out to where the waves were breaking. once i got about 30 feet out into the water the rocks had been replaced with thick sea weed that grew out of the ground like grass, grass that grew too tall for the green house and was curving at the ceiling and creating a thick canopy of vegetable spagetti. i could catch spiders, i like catching frogs, playing in the dirt was a part of my daily routine, but for some reason this thick sea grass gave me the creeps. i remember my hands barely touching the water as i paddled out to monte and dad.

i was scared to try and catch the waves. the water was shallow and i knew that beneath the sea weed soup there were jagged rocks. monte must have used the same ESP as before when he saw that "sharks" scared me. he turned to me (what a glorious mustache) and said, "when you fall just make sure to go butt first. tuck your feet in and let your butt do the work. God made our buts soft for a reason." that reassured me. i probably surfed that day and, knowing that i have never been great at surfing, probably spent a lot of time jumping butt first into the sea weed forest.

we went home after that. my dad and i took highway 17 and probably listened to the free chips and babe ruth rockers while monte drove home in his red truck where he promptly punched a robot assassin in the face, roasted hot dogs over a forest fire, and put medieval turkey leg meats under his masculine rainbow and into his mouth and probably never realized he had changed me. the handlebar mustache was off limits. he never said it but i knew it, he knew it, and my dad knew it. monte owned the handlebar and to grow one would be like stealing the crown jewels of england, only worse cause he was a firefighter and could eat 14 lbs of bufalo meat without dying. you dont mess with that.

its sad that i saw the pinnacle of facial hair power at such a young age, now i have nothing to look forward to.

Chinese Snow

2011-09-01T17:22:00.000-07:00

I think i was 6 or 7. I was pretty young. Our parents used to take us up to a cabin that we lovingly called laugenita. I think laugenita had something to do with the name laugenour and a plant called a manzanita plant. it was a cabin in the sierra nevada not too far from dodge ridge. memories of the cabin just kind of pepper my childhood memories as a loose collection of moments that i dont really remember chronologically and they seem to spread over the course of ten years and one week simultaneously. but i guess that is the case with most childhood momeries, they're like bread crumbs.

there is one moment in particular i remember. it had to be one of my earlier laugenita memories because i dont really remember how i got there or what happened next. one of the reasons we would go up to laugenita was to "go to the snow". i dont know what it is about kids that grow up in climates that dont get snow, but snow to me as a kid was something magical and i remember my parents telling me occasionally that we were "going to the snow" and it was like we were going to a solid gold fantasy land filled with dream wishes and chocolate cake pies. it was everything. you could have said we were going to the moon and i couldn't be any happier. snow was to me what disney had made it out to be: tunnels, snow balls, forts, cushioning for ridiculous falls, and snowmen.

So, at the age of 6 or 7 i remember sitting in the cabin at night. i had probably been out in the snow all morning playing around and making tunnels and forts and throwing snowballs and falling ridiculously and not getting hurt but i dont remember any of that. the one thing i do remember is looking out the window and seeing huge cotton ball sized snow flakes falling gently through the sky, like a heavy blizzard that is too fat and soft to get dangerous. the snow appeared orangish from the porch light. I must have been young because i dont think i had ever seen it actually snow before. so i got all excited and turned to my mom. i'm sure i asked her if i could go out and play in the snow. now, i dont know if i remember this correctly, or maybe my mom didn't want me to go out in the snow anymore and she couldn't think of a reason why (i can think of a handful right now: too late, its too cold, i dont want to get you all dressed up in snow clothes again, there are crazy bears out at night, etc. so this probably isnt the case) but i remember distinctly the following reply to my childish pleas to play in the first snowing of my life.

"no. thats chinese snow. it is really sticky and it might not come off". enough said. i didnt want sticky chinese snow on me. well played mom. well played.

New Blog

2010-05-04T11:57:00.000-07:00

I'm in New York for the Summer. Check out my New York specific blog.
http://andylaugenour.blogspot.com/

Rule #8, More Like a Guideline

2009-08-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

ok, rule number eight has been broken twice now on this blog which leads me to believe that we need to add a clause. So, from here on out rule #8 goes as follows: "when a blog is being run by more than one person there should never be two blog entries back to back written by the same author. (clause a) except in the case that one of the multiple bloggers is obviously more excited about the blog than the other potential bloggers." So, there you have it, and that is how an amendment is made... in a monarchy i guess.

I know some of you are looking forward to some more episodes of Kid Andy: Explorer of the Female Phsyche, but that will just have to wait for another post (i can't show all my cards at once, i have to keep you interested in my entries somehow).

my buddy (for anonymities sake we will just call him O Brown... no no that is too obvious-- Oliver B!)(thank you Simpsons for that one) is headed to Thailand right now. Thailand... THAILAND! Tailandia...thailandais...Таила́нд...taikoku...泰國...ราชอาณาจักรไทย!!! and it would be an understatement to say that i want to skin him and wear his skin around and pretend im him so that i can go in his place. THAILAND! that is so cool. So, i was thinkin, this would rank right up there in my list of things to do before i die... which made me think "what is on that list" , which made me think of blogging Andy 's Top 25 Things to Do Before He Dies or Else He Will Wish He Hadn't've Died Yet List (AT25TDBHDEHWWHHDYL for short, or the AT25 for even shorter). This will most likely be spread out amongst many blog posts but i figured i'd start in no particular order.

#9) Bobby Flay Dinner. If you don't know who Bobby Flay is my first suggestion is to watch the food newtwork channel... it doesn't matter what time cause he has like four shows and chances are he will pop up in five minutes, regardless of what hour you are watching. second, i would suggest that you imagine all the Greek gods... all of them... now imagine they are all great cooks.... now imagine they all got cooked in a waffle iron to make One Great Cooking Greek God... now imagine this One Greek Cooking god goes up against Bobby Flay in an arm wrestling competion... now imagine Bobby Flay ripping this cuisine centered Greek god's arm off... now imagine Bobby Flay taking this dudes arm and throwing it on the grill with some sweet BBQ sauce... now imagine him serving you this Greek god's arm cooked with some south western seasoning... now imagine your face blowing up becasue it tasted so awesome. This is why i want to eat somethhing, ANYTHING, from Bobby Flay (by the way, that whole Greek god arm wrestling thing... true story.) Luckily he has restaurants which will make this wish a possibility if i ever wind up in New York.

#12) Go to a European Soccer Match. i guess to be completely correct i should say i want to go to a European football match. and to be more specific i would really like to go to an English Premier Leaugue match. Not only would it just be awesome to feel decades of sports angst around me, but it would also hone my survival skills for some of my other life goals. If i could survive a european soccer game (ESG) then i can survive anything (i would never go to an italian game, no one survives those). When searching google for a picture that would illustrate just how dangerous a ESG would be i came across a picture of a three year old kid, who could probably beat me up, flipping the bird to the opposing team on the pitch with so much conviction i think it would have made Musilini blush. Needless to say this picture is inappropriate for our blog so i just settled on a picture of fans with bombs going off around them.

Well, those are two of my AT25s. looks like i have two blog series going on at once: "Kid Andy:Explorer of the Female Phsyche" and the "AT25". Lets see how well i can juggle this. and siblings, please make this blog more interesting than just the tragedy of Andy writing about girls and dreams and stuff. I think if this keeps up people will realize just how lonely and pitiful i am.

HOLD THE LINE!

2009-06-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: this is a blog about my relationship with woman. mom. dad. don't have a heart attack, i know this is groundbreaking... maybe dad should shoot some of that medicine through his nose before reading this. and maybe mom should read this while sitting in her rocking chair.

Getting a girlfriend. Tomorrow my cousin Peter is getting married (congratulations, man!). He is, i think, two years my younger. I think he is the first cousin of mine from my mom's side who is younger than me and is married (not officially yet... tomorrow he will be though which i feel justifies me in calling him "married"). Which has gotten me thinking. it has gotten me thinking about girls, and more specifically girlfriends.

Now, lets lay this down, square one, this is a fact, I HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT GIRLS BEFORE... A LOT! i'm a guy. a single guy. and single guys think about four things-- all the time. 1) girls. 2) food. 3) fun. and 4) what is the deal with girls? Now, i don't buy into the "girls live on a higher plane of understanding than guys do". when i say "what is the deal with girls?" what i mean is, "why isn't she like me?" so those are the four things that single guys think about... quite possibly the only thing in some cases. so lets get down to business. this may be a long post, or maybe i will make it a series of posts, because i have a lot to say on the subject of girls.

If there is one thing i have learned about girls and girlfriends it is that people want you to have one. when i go home from school people do not ask me "have you gotten good grades yet?" they don't ask me "have you been spending enough time playing on your computer?" and they don't ask "have you eaten any special food lately?" what they do ask is, "so, have you met any one special yet?" or "have a girlfriend yet?" or "don't you know that we send you to BYU not to get an education but to come home with a girl?" everybody means well, and this is where the blog can go sour reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaal quick, but i am gonna take the high road on this one and lay out why i think that people are so concerned about andy+girls= victory!

reason number 1. do you think this guy has a girlfriend? 'nuf said. don't be like this guy.

reason number 2. people find soulmates. they eventuall fall in love and they become happier people, complete people. married people will tell you that they feel whole when they are with their spouse, a kind of person stew that smells great and tastes even better. single people are just one or two ingredients to their own stew and they have to find the remainig parts to the recipe to make their life a stew. like i am just and onion and some bay leaf and what i need to find are some potatoes and some beef chuck. it is completely natural for people who have created this life stew to share it with stewless grifters.

reason number 3. you may appear to be more anti-social than you actually are. when you go home for christmas from BYU, which you have been attending for far too long, and you haven't even brought home the whif of a girls perfume on you sunday clothes people begin to wonder certain things about your social life. going back to reason #1, there is just something about that guy that tells you he is, lets be gentle and make this sound cooler than it actually is, a lone wolf. you don't need to ask him how his dating life is going to know the answer. some people may look at a strapping guy like me and say "his best friend must be the tv remote, that's the only explaination for why he is still single". to be concerned for anothers well being is admirable and something that makes us better than robots.

reason number 4. you may seem cooler than you actually are. looking at reason #3 conversely it is also possible that people look at you and think that you are cooler than you actually are. i bet reason #1's mom probably thinks he should have a girlfriend. this past winter i went home for christmas and sat next to my sister joslyn in the front of sacrament meeting at church. that day i got a phone call from a great married friend asking me what my girlfriend's name was. i was a little confused until he explained the context and i realized he was talking about my sister (whom he knows very well). he hadn't seen her face since we were sitting in the front and he had automatically assumed that i was cool enough to have to be dating some one by now. i believe the phrase for this is looking through rose colored glasses.

this entry has gone on much longer than i had anticipated. so i will leave you with this and save some of my further girl relationship things for my next entry. this is where a to be continued is in order. look forward to part two in the upcoming days and i just want to end with a line from a song that i feel applies to my answer to reasons 1-4. it is from a band named toto and it goes something like this.
"hold the line"
"love isn't always on time"

I Have Been Thinking...

2009-05-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

Medicine Man, Keep Your Hands Off My Cherry Flavor!!! [i]

Having dedicated a few minutes of my life to pondering upon a certain topic that I feel is important to the world in general, I now dedicate a few more minutes to expressing my feelings on said topic. I leave it to you, the reader, to decide if my time was well spent, or just sad.

Today,[ii] feeling that I had put in a hard days work, and finding that I had a little change in my pocket, I treated myself to a cherries and cream soda. Warm weather had parched me, and the drink was nice and cold; wonderfully refreshing. And it tasted great… it really did. Now my experience with this wonderfully delightful beverage might have ended there, if the delicious cherry flavor had not recalled to my mind the comment of many, many people when cherry flavored anything is brought up: YUCK! IT TASTES LIKE MEDICINE!

I cringe! I lament! I buckle! It tastes like medicine?! How can this soda, which had just brought me so much satisfaction, be compared to medicine… the bane of any flavor experience? How can the flavor of such a delicious and otherwise well respected berry[iii] be attributed to such an utterly awful experience as is a mouthful of medication?

First off, let me clarify that I do understand that “cherry flavored” is very different from “the flavor of cherries”. Cherry flavored is to cherries as Adam Sandler movies[iv] are to comedy. There association is rather poor. But it is still a flavor associated with cherries (hence the name), and therefore the fruit’s reputation does in fact suffer. I also understand that there are some people who do not enjoy the taste of cherry flavor for reasons other than “it tastes like medicine”. They just don’t like deliciousness[v], or something, and I am fine with that. My problem is not that some people dislike cherry flavor, but that cherry flavor has become synonymous with medicine flavor. How did such a thing happen? Let me explain…

Once upon a time, a mother was trying to get her little sick child to swallow a mouthful of putrid tonic. It bears affirming here that medicine is suppose to, and always will, taste bad[vi]. After all, medicine is just another word for drugs, and if drugs tasted good… well… the D.A.R.E[vii] program would be in big trouble, wouldn’t it? Anyway, our fed up mother, out of desperation to get her child to take the medication knowing it will not only lead to wellness, but quite possibly knock him/her out in the process and give fed up mother some much needed un-fed-upping time, goes to her pantry to find something to mask the vile medication. She pulls out her cherry flavor (a staple for cupboards in those “once-upon-a-time” times) and creates a concoction that would forever change the world, winning mommies around the world countless hours of un-fed-upping time.

But at what cost? Let us be clear here: flavoring of any kind in medicines does not, in fact, make it any more appealing. Those commercials, where the kid is sick in bed and the production of a spoonful of red or purple liquor (no… not grape flavor, too!) brings a smile across the face, are just lies. Kids hate medicine, no matter what flavor you add to them. That’s just the way it works. Tell a kid that the chocolate chip cookie they are eating is medicine, and it will fall right from their hands. The two are nemeses’, and will forever remain.

And these flavors pay the consequence. You see, there is a little thing a man named Pavlov[viii] invented, called conditioning. Conditioning is where something becomes associated with something else, and therefore they both produce the same response independently. In this case, cherry flavor is added to medicine. The medicine still tastes bad, and the result is the reviling of… drum roll… both the medicine and the cherry flavor! We hate the medicine, and as consequence, we wrongfully associate that hate with the flavor that was added to it. Cherry flavor doesn’t taste like medicine: it has been added to medicine, to do nothing but make it sound more appealing to the kids that normally would not touch the stuff. It still tastes awful, and the child grows up thinking cherry flavor belongs in the pharmacy department.

Unconvinced that this “conditioning” is the culprit responsible for the cherry flavor dogma? Well, here is another example for you…

How many of you readers love root beer? If you said no, chances are very good you are un-American.[ix] You see, my fellow Americans, root beer does not bear the same appreciation and love around the world that it does in the States. Now, I cannot explain the dislike for such a fine flavor everywhere else, but I do happen to know that on the British Isles the flavor of root beer is associated with medicine… or a type of toothpaste… or something. Anyway, it’s the same game, different name. A fine flavor is associated with some despised thing, and becomes a companion in revile.

How about one a little closer to home… for me. When I was a youth, visits to the dentist usually concluded with a mouthful of disgusting fluoride treatment, which was to remain in my mouth for something like an hour before I could then spit it out into that little cup that must have had holes in it, because it always got everywhere. The flavor added to this fluoride? Bubblegum or cinnamon, depending on my naïve choice. Now I can’t stand bubblegum, and any cinnamon flavor has to be very real (“the flavor of cinnamon”, really) to have any appeal to me. Having unflavored fluoride would not have made my dentist experiences any less pleasant (how could it have been any less pleasant?)[x], and I might not have developed the gag reflex I experience any time someone offers me a piece of bubblegum.

So, now we know the problem, and we know the cause. Now I imagine every moral individual reading this must be asking themselves “What is to be done?!” I am glad you asked. The solution is simple, my friends: stop buying flavored medicine. Just stop. Avoid the stuff like the plague[xi]. I know this is difficult, as so many medications now of days have flavor added to them, but they must not be purchased. They must not be used. The implementation of this regimen must be followed, especially by those of you with little kids. It may be too late for you and your relationship with cherry flavored culinary treats, but don’t ruin it for your posterity. With your help, comments like “It tastes like medicine” can become a thing of the past…

… Unless, of course, one is speaking of how medicine tastes.

[i] If, after seeing this symbol following the title, you scrolled down to here, then you know how an endnote works. Awesome! There will be plenty, so feel free to come down here whenever you want to see what else I have to say. If you just finished reading my ranting and came across this section, enjoy it for what it is worth and better luck next time.

[ii] Actually, I wrote this yesterday, but I didn’t want to go through and correct all references to this thought process taking place “today”. Although I think this is the only one…

[iii] Are they really berries? Despite the fact that cherries rhymes with berries, cherries are actually related to peaches, plums, apricots, and almonds. Not berries. I looked it up on Wikipedia. And yes, I believe everything I read there…

[iv] Don’t get me wrong, Happy Gilmore is an hilarious movie. I love it every single time I watch it. Chubbs is one of the greatest fictional characters ever created. But one film… out of, like, a bazillion… spray and pray humor, at best. Little Nicky… that’s all I have to say…

Actually, I have never seen Little Nicky… but I have it on good authority (Wikipedia) that it is an awful piece of cinema…

[v] Real word. No red squiggly line from Microsoft.

[vi] Okay, so I don’t know this for sure. In fact, that lemony hot drink that they have for colds is pretty good, and I find craving it from time to time. I also like those chewable vitamin C pills… but I don’t think they count as medicine. I have heard (or read, from an article we discussed in my organic chemistry class… booyah!) that we only absorb a certain amount of vitamin C daily, which we usually from our regular diet, and that all the excess we take in just gets flushed out of our system with all the extra water we would be drinking with the vitamins to get better.

[vii] An anti-drug program that goes to schools, shows awful pictures of what drugs can do to them, and hopes it will keep kids away from recreational substance abuse. The Acronym stands for something like Drugs Are Really Just Excrement, I think. The “J” would be silent, and is therefore just dropped altogether.

[viii] Pavlov was working with dogs, as is often the case with so many great discoveries. When it came time to feed his dogs, a bell would be rung, and food would be brought to the salivating dogs. What Pavlov noticed, however (and, therefore, invented), was that over time the ringing of the bell alone, with no production of actual food, would still cause the hungry dogs to salivate. Whether this phenomenon had been occurring before this is debatable, but it is quite a part of our world now. People do it all the time. Be on the lookout for it, its fun to observe!

[ix] As in, not from the United States. I know that this statement bothers people from other countries on the American continents, as they are also technically Americans. But really, what am I suppose to say? Un-United Statesian? That just sounds and reads silly. Sorry, I understand your discouragement for this undeserved misusage, but I’m not changing it.

[x] I am so sorry for my general negativity towards dentist visits, mom, but there is a reason that any other unpleasant experience is compared to “a trip to the dentist’s”. Please don’t let the opinions of your son deter you from your goals, though. Love ya!

[xi] Pick the one you fear the most, and use that as your motivation.

Memorial Day Pool Party

2009-05-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

So in celebration of the men and women who gave so much for our country, the Clydelle Ave Laugenours decided to have their inaugural swim in their new pool! We have been taunting the Utah and Idaho Laug kids for long enough, and have decided to finally put up the pictures of the finished project. They didn't even know we were getting a pool!!! That is what happens when you don't come home for the summer. Let that be a lesson to all college students!

The first dip was pretty cold since our solar heater hadn't warmed up all of the water we had just put in. As you can see, it took a while before we put our whole bodies in. But by the next day, the water was comfortable.

We also had enormous hamburgers for dinner. As you can see, mine is roughly the same size as Mom. It was delicious. I almost finished the entire thing.

Well, time to get ready for work. So this is short. Hope you enjoy the pictures and the torture we put the other Laug kids through.

Love Pie.

2009-05-16T00:33:00.000-07:00

Well, im breaking my #8 rule of blogging: when a blog is being run by more than one person there should never be two blog entries back to back written by the same author. But i am here, i am bored, and it is like 1:30 in the morning and i dont feel like going to sleep.

I sit here in my chair (ive been looking at my computer for about ten or fifteen minutes now, not really doing anything) and i can hear night bugs chirping outside and my windows are open and i can look out and see the one or two stars that are out right now (i know there are more somewhere, they just aren't out my window) and i think to myself, "I like pie".

Not just any pie... i like those multi tiered pies that have whipped cream on top that is as rich as elephant ivory and a chocolate pudding like inside that would make Bill Cosby's head explode. This particular pie also has what could only be some combination of solid gold and angels tears that makes a thin layer of pastry genious between the chocolate pudding and the crust, yum. And then to top it off, and this is a fact, a unicorn chews up some nuts and spits them all over the top of the whipped ivory cream, delicious. I think some people call it a carmel pecan silk supreme, and others call it a pecan preleen (i have no clue how to spell preilien or whatever) supreme, but i just call it love pie because when I eat it i think to myself "this must be what love feels like."

Speaking of love, if i could swap places with any one person in the entire world it would probably be Rob Dyrdek. Now, i am not in love with Rob Dyrdek because Garry already called dibs and brothers can't break a "dibs" (you know what im talking about, right brothers). But, let me tell ya, this guy has got it all figured out. He has like a million Guiness world records and a sweet fantasy factory. He's a pretty successful guy. And he started his empire by doing what he loves: skateboarding. Now i just need to find something that i am good at (other than making kelly laugh at fart jokes) that can make me a little more scratch. I tried picking up bird calls and magic tricks due to their reputation of being real cash cows but my bird calls sounded more like an octopus getting slapped in the face and my magic tricks normally turned into black jack games that i always lost because i am horrible at math (who would have thought that 5+7+J=21, i mean c'mon!). So now i am trying my hand at balloon animals (another lucrative endevour) but it is just frustrating to start from square 1 all over again. Maybe i should ask Billy Mays what i should do, he seems to have an answer for everything. Oh well.

well, i think that was enough for tonight. guess ill get back to either a) going to sleep or b) not going to sleep.

This is Laugenour style!

2009-03-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the new Laugenour kidz blog. Isn't blaugenour a great word cocktail... i knew that this last name had a purpose.

The first sentence of this entry has a lot to do with what you can expect from this blog... i'll break it down for you-- list style.

"Welcome": yes, this is the first entry and a proper greeting was in order.

"new": this is "new" as in "never been done before" contrary to the "new" as in "replacing the old one". This is the first time we Laugen-tots have ever collaborated on the internet... enjoy.

"Laugenour": This is the family name... we are all Laugenour's here... for now... kelly?....

"kidz": I just like the ironic "z" here, it makes us seem much more playful than we actually are... garry?...

"Laugenour kidz blog": this should be synonimous for "not sure how this rollercoaster will actually ride". I hope we post frequently and that our little entries will somehow make you feel something, but as for right now i make no promises.

Done!
Love you mom and dad!
Bahoom!