Category Archives: Remembrances

26 Things I’ve Learned In 26 Years

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I’m the kind of nerd that blogs on my birthday, but I really wanted to write this thing. This concept is cliche and a little tedious, but I did it anyway. Get over it. I just wanted to write what I’ve learned as though I’ve learned anything new or interesting in my 26 years. Sometime soon I’ll add photos, when I feel like caring about it.

1. Snow is the worst.

I live in Salt Lake City, which is alright, except for their “Best Snow On Earth” BS. It’s really the same snow you’d get anywhere else with a similar climate, but only when you’re tired of it being windy and cold. During the regular months of winter, Utah is cold, but rarely snowy. It isn’t until it’s supposed to be warm again that it starts snowing buckets. If you like snow, then you’re probably an evil person.

2. There’s really no reason to be vegan.

I’ve been a vegetarian for almost 12 years and I’m just two years shy of being a vegetarian for half my life. Within those 12 years, I’ve been a vegan for exactly 3 days consecutively. It was extremely hard and vastly unrewarding. You really have to care about animals to be a vegan for longer than 72 hours, and I can’t handle not having delicious cheese inside my body.

3. I hate TV.

I’m not sure how we can have great TV shows like Arrested Development without subsidies from advertisers, but I’m sure we can figure something out. But sitting through commercials, a schedule you can’t tinker with and how much it costs, has ensured that I’m done with cable/satellite forever. Viva la Netflix!

4. Quit your job often.

In the past two years I’ve had two jobs. Before that I had several others. Not being afraid to quit has been the best thing for me. I graduated college and thought I was going to be a journalist. I ended up a “online marketer” but learned a lot of valuable things. When I quit that job and started working for SEO.com, I learned even more. I’m starting to carve out what I want to do in life. The most hackneyed advice is to “do what you love”, but you have to find out what you love by living. So quit your job, change industries often and learn all you can about life.

5. Learn to like sports.

I’ve spent a lot of time in other countries, and I’ve found the absolute fastest way to make a friend is to start up a conversation about sports. Almost everybody has a favorite sport and you can go a long way with people by just getting them started talking about it. Don’t go to crazy in sports fandom, because that can be annoying or even isolating. But being able to talk enough sportsese is a great way to get people talking and make a friend.

6. Take a lot of photos.

I don’t need to explain this. It’s just worth doing.

7. Anyone and everyone can play the guitar.

I’ve made the mistake of being the huge douche bag at every party playing guitar by himself in the corner. Learn how to play the piano or something cool instead.

8. French Fries are like Religion.

Everyone has an opinion about whose is the best and which one is right, but the fact of the matter is they’re all just deep fried potatoes.

9. Nothing is better than snuggling.

I like it. It’s warm.

10. Fashion is a waste of time.

“Don’t you want to look your best?” I look the best when I’m happy and I’m happy when I’m not worried about how I look. This is why I’m wearing the same Weezer hoodie I’ve had for eight years and not forcing myself to vomit.

11. I enjoy being self-aware.

Take that, Sarte! I have no idea what I’m talking about.

12. 80 percent of your problems come from 20 percent of your possible sources.

Find what is causing you the most stress in your life and cut it out completely. Chances are, it’s something minor. Replace with more of whatever is making you happy.

13. Just listen to people.

I can yammer on for days and days. But people like to be listened to. I’ve made a lot more friends by listening.

14. Write like nobody’s reading.

I’ve sort of come to the realization that nobody reads this blog. And that’s just fine with me. I started this because I wanted a place to write, not because I wanted people to think that I was some sort of expert on life and existence. The fact of the matter is that this is the only way to find a voice is learning what works and what doesn’t. And you’re never going to find that out without doing a little bit of terrible blogging. (Also, I got this advice from a terrible bumper sticker about dancing. It’s lame. But I don’t care.)

15. Travel where you live.

I have lived in Utah for 2 years now and still never have gone to Moab. I’ve been all over Europe and the Middle East, but never took three hours to drive down to Moab. I mean, I’ve been plenty of places in the States, but I should take the opportunity before I head off to college in North Carolina.

16. There is not enough time in your life to watch another Michael Bay movie.

He is stealing your money. You wouldn’t sit there as someone robbed your home, would you? Don’t waste the time or money to make him any richer. He’s a huge waste of resources. And a communist.

17. There is nothing more fun than learning.

It’s the very best thing I can think of. Some people like skiing. I love learning new skills. Heck, learning to ski was way more fun that actually skiing. Whenever I learn how to do new things that improve my current talents and skill set, it makes me feel way better about life. Like a natural high or something.

18. Do the things you hate first.

Do them first, do them fast and then don’t worry about them any more.

19. Learn the subjects you were bad at in high school now

I’ve recently started to learn how to do Math, which is a subject I never got better than a C on in high school. But knowing how Math works is important in the world. Likewise, all the kids who did well in Math in high school are still writing definately on Facebook. Let’s use the expanded knowledge we’ve gained in the last decade to pick up those subjects that were lost on us. For some of us, that means reading The Scarlet Letter. For me it means Algebra. There’s no reason not to try now. We should be smarter, right?

20. Eat candy and cake.

People who hate certain foods have rape dungeons. Carbs aren’t bad, sodium isn’t bad, fat’s not bad and neither is sugar. What’s bad is eating too much and sitting around watching the Bachelor. That’s what too many people are doing now. Eat what you like but not more than you’re willing to burn off for the day.

21. Exercise.

Hot on the heels of the last life lesson is this: get up and run you fat face! (I yelled into the mirror) Our ancestors had to chase down their food for days, but we eat whatever we want whenever we want. Our body has a primordial need to run around and exercise- don’t deny it that.

22. Rarely, in an argument, is anyone right.

We only think we’re right. If I write anything else, people are going to start fighting me on it.

23. Do what you love in your spare time too.

People say “find what you love and do it for a living”. I propose finding what you like and doing that for money and then doing what you love in your spare time. That means at the very least you’ll like your job, but you’ll learn to make better use of your spare time too. Why wouldn’t you want to maximize your fun?

24. Pizza is the best food in the world.

It just is. My grandmother always said she’d just as soon eat the box than the pizza, but she grew up in an era when blacks couldn’t drink from the same fountain as her. So I’m going to say that she had a few things wrong.

25. Twitter is the best social networking site

Twitter is a conversation, it’s minimal and it’s fun. It helps you find people who have the same interests as you, who can help you solve problems and are experts at what they do. Rarely when I ask something on Twitter do I get crappy answers. Just try asking a serious question on facebook. See how many fart jokes you get.

26. Birthdays aren’t worth celebrating.

I’m 26 today. I went to work, danced around in a hail storm, called my mom, had a nice dinner with my wife and bought a new hard drive. That’s about all that needs to be done. The whole day doesn’t need to be about you, and the less you demand that, the more fun you’ll have.

Goats and Gluxovo and God

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I lived in Sevastopol, Ukraine for a period of about 6 months. The thing that you have to understand about Sevastopol is that it’s the weirdest damn place on earth. Ukraine itself is backwards, but Sevastopol is straight up Soviet still. It’s like no one bothered to tell them that the Cold War was over. There are a lot of Old World things that I saw in Sev-town that I expect that I will never see again. They went out of their way to preserve the old Russian way of life, and it was vastly apparent that I was considered I spy during my time there.
It was the constant reminder that the people of that great city thought I was a spy that kept me from murdering the man that I was “stationed” there with. His name was Brilliant, which was incongruent at best. The boy was obsessed with building a mechwarrior and lived in this weird planet where he was awesome and the rest of us agreed. He wanted to be an inventor, and his great project, his billion-dollar baby, was going to be a see-through toaster. That’s the level of insanity he had achieved. That two steps away from murdering you in your sleep.
A lot of my life was shaped in Sevastopol. It was there that I learned that there truly was a God. Not that I had tremendous doubts on the subject, being raised a dutiful child of a faithful Mormon family. I was serving in Sevastopol on a mission for the church I had belonged to my entire life. Still I had a difficult time resigning myself to believing without a doubt that there was a Supreme Deity who was responsible for all of life and creation. After all, I was living in a city that hadn’t yet learned that the Soviet Republic no longer stood with a man whose life ambition was to construct a giant robot with money he earned making a see-through toaster.
We lived in an apartment on Gluhovo street, which by itself was an unbelievable place. Sort of like Martin Scorsese meets The Bourne Supremacy meets Disney. We had a next-door neighbor who we lovingly gave the moniker “Weird Man,” due to the fact that he would watch us from between the blinds in his kitchen window every day when we left. There were only a few times that we saw him outside of his apartment and every time we desperately tried to get him to communicate with us. He would just run through us like he was playing Red Rover. There was a lady of an indeterminate age that was constantly trying to get us to buy “fresh” milk. A group of (actual) children that would sit around and smoke cigarettes. We called them the Gluhovo stompers. People that looked like they were going to work as Serfs on a farm in the country. The best part? We lived 3 blocks from the beach. I could see the Black Sea from the street. And people dressed like farmers. It was past bizarre.
I’m getting off topic (though that’s sort of the point of this blog). We were walking down Menshikova (which was the main street that Gluhovo was connected to) after some awesome proselytizing when we heard this unworldly siren blaring up the road. I couldn’t place it- every siren in Europe is traumatic to listen to. But this one seemed too inconsistent, too shrill. I looked down the road and saw a car approaching. As it drew closer, I squinted and saw a white monkey, screaming its little monkey head off jumping up and down in the driver’s seat. Instead of trying to steer, however, our ancient ancestor insisted simply on pounding the dashboard with angry monkey fists. It took a triple take before I realized that it was an English car- the steering wheel was on the opposite side. I started laughing, but was immediately cut off as I was pushed off the sidewalk by no less than two dozen goats, who proceeded to walk up the sidewalk in a metropolitan area as though they built the place. After a few seconds of shocked silence, I laughed again.
I realized then and there that there had to be a God, because goats and palm trees and monkeys who hate car rides just don’t happen in some freak cosmic accident. God is some Mel Brooks style genius and Sevastopol is his greatest stage- the weirdest damn place on earth.