Commercial Parodies & a YouTube Discovery

Layne and I had a really nice weekend and Layne enjoyed his birthday on Friday. We went and saw the new Batman movie. Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was both amazing and disturbing. If you're going to see it, you're in for an Oscar performance, but prepare yourself to be a little creeped out and to remain seated for a solid 2.5 hours.
So I finally read the Twilight series (books 1 & 2 so far) at the urgent request of one of my young women. She gave me the books and texted me every day until I convinced her that I was reading them. I was a little let down after all the hype, but overall enjoyed reading them. They're no Harry Potter, but fun and interesting reads. So at the theater this weekend I saw previews to the movie 'Twilight' and was thoroughly disappointed by the actor they chose to portray Edward. This guy who is supposed to be the epitome of strength and masculine beauty looked a little scrawny and feminine to me. Does anyone else who has read the books share my sentiment?

In addition to the movies, we went to Best Buy to use the gift card Layne's parents sent him which is always fun. We stay as far away from that store as possible unless we have a gift card or extra money to blow, and lets face it, it's been a LONG time since we've had any of that! Among the items we picked out was the DVD of the best of SNL commercial parodies. We had a good time watching and remembering some of our favorites (such as: Mom Jeans, Dissing Your Dog, The Love Toilet, Buh-Weet Sings, Happy Fun Ball, Bad Idea Jeans, Colon Blow Bran Flakes, Taco Town, Old Glory Insurance, Litter Critters, Dog Laywer, Swiffer Sleepers, Woomba, Homocil, Eterna-Rest and Oops, I Crapped My Pants). There were some that I was disappointed didn't make the cut such as Chess for Girls & Cookie Dough Sport. Since we had so much fun watching them, I thought I'd share a few.

Swiffer Sleepers


Homocil

Old Glory Insurance

Cookie Dough Sport


Chess for Girls


Oops, I Crapped My Pants

Ah, classic! There are plenty more where those came from! Now for some other videos. Its amazing what one can stumble across when they're on YouTube. Someone posted these videos of the ECU Chamber Singers' first performance at the National ACDA Convention in Miami in March of '07. Oh the memories. I'm posting these mostly for my mom who never got to see my choir perform and would have loved to have been there. I wouldn't post these for general audience viewing. In fact I'm actually quite embarrassed by them. I look awful!! We had to be up at 5am the morning of this performance (which was at 8am). The night before, half the choir ate bad seafood and my room mate among others was up all night with the worst vomiting and diarrhea I've ever witnessed. Of course, in the middle of the night when our toilet clogged, I was the one who had to clean up after her and get maintenance to come fix it. Anyway, it was a miracle we were able to take the stage at all missing as many people as we were. The sound quality of these videos is pretty bad, and we didn't know we were being video taped, so bare with it. The other 2 songs of the performance haven't been posted yet.

Wondrous Love

Der Geist Hilft Unser Schwahheit Auf - Bach motet for double chorus that took FOREVER to learn and even longer to memorize!

El Hambo - This piece is written in Swedish gibberish (think the chef from the muppets) and drove us all nuts.

Daniel, Servant of the Lord- Good ole spiritual that brought the house down everytime.

29 and Feeling Fine!

Today I'd like to wish a great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my best friend and E.C. Layne Michael Nelson who is now 29! I shudder to imagine just how drab and incomplete my life would be without this fun, intelligent, passionate, loving man in it! I hope you have a wonderful day, and enjoy your new skateboard! I love you babe!

Whats Up Doc?

Yesterday morning I got called into my boss's office for a private meeting. I haven't seen him in months because he's always somewhere doing something (conference in Tokyo, convention in China, meeting with clients in Germany, that kind of thing). Anyway, I was surprised to see him at all much less at my desk requesting a meeting with me. The sudden butterflies I got in my stomach reminded me of a time in 4th grade when I was summoned to the principal's office. I agonized the whole way there about what I could have possibly done wrong and what kind of punishment would be handed down. I still remember all the kids in my class making that sound kids make when someone is in trouble. You all know what I'm talking about. Anyway, that meeting with the principal actually turned out to be a request for me to allow a newspaper reporter to follow me around for a day at school. I had been recommended by my teachers for my good behavior and academic standing. Needless to say I was incredibly relieved that I wasn't going to be horse whipped and expelled from school, and quite pleasantly surprised!

...ANYWAY back to my meeting with my boss. Much like my 4th grade experience, I had gotten myself worked up over nothing. He started by offering sincere praise of my work on the project over the last year, and making some small talk about how I felt about it. Then he came to his point. He expressed a desire for me to begin a PhD program under his direction, and continue to work on this project. He said he had already reviewed my GPA and my overall body of work and with a decent GRE score, he would ensure my acceptance. He also made it very clear that if I decided to become one of his doctoral students, he would commit on the spot to fund the entire thing in addition to paying me a small salary for my work on the project as a PhD researcher. I was so thrown by this left field request that I had no idea what to say.
He continued to sell me on the idea by citing that the UofU's Biomedical Engineering program is ranked in the nation's top 10, and by telling me about all the grants he has secured to ensure funding for my degree and the project for years to come. I don't remember much else except that I said "thank you" and "I'll look into it". I have long had a desire to get my PhD, but have never expressed it to anyone outside my immediate family, which made his request all the more strange. I'm flattered that someone with such an outstanding International reputation as his would hand pick me to become one of his few Doctoral students and on top of everything would commit to fund my entire education (which would easily cost me $50,000)!
Men and women from all over the world apply to become one of his students. This man is a genius! He's the kind of German Doogie Howser who probably played with a "Tickle-Me-Tolstoy" doll or the "Playskool Particle Accelerator" as a kid, while I was still banging pots and pans together and being completely captivated by Bert and Ernie. Anyway, he's not one that is used to hearing the word 'no', and frankly thats a pretty difficult thing to say no to.

While I was extremely surprised and flattered, its highly unlikely at this time that I will accept (though I will GLADLY accept the 5% raise I was just offered). Layne is in the middle of preparing for grad school (which is more important than me furthering my education right now) and even if we were going to remain in Salt Lake for 4 more years, it would be nearly impossible for us both to be in graduate school, make enough money to support ourselves AND have children that we want so desperately, without any family support nearby. I had all but decided not to tell anyone about my little meeting since it was unlikely that I'd accept. However, when I told Layne, he insisted that we celebrate the little triumphs in life no matter how small. I'm so grateful for a husband who has always encouraged me to go after my dreams, who has pushed me to achieve my goals and who is constantly giving me wings to "be Kelly" as he puts it. He has already sacrificed so much to allow me to find personal fulfillment in my education, employment and other pursuits. I certainly feel like a very lucky woman, who hopefully someday will become "Dr. Lucky Woman".

Boulder, Arsenic & The Chosen One turns 16

As promised, I finally uploaded all my pictures from our family trip. I won't go into a lot of exposition about the trip since I'd rather look at pictures than read a narrative myself, but warned, there are a lot of pictures (though not half as many as were taken)! For those who don't know where Boulder, UT is, you're certainly not alone. About 90% of native Utahans don't know where it is either, which is why its so special to us. In fact, the only people in Boulder have either lived there all their lives, or are tourists from Europe who have been lured by tales of the unparalleled vistas, hiking, hunting & fishing, mountain biking and more.
We go because my grandpa Church worked summers in high school carrying mail to Boulder from his home town of Escalante by mule train (actual picture). In 1963, he bought a summer home there where he ran a cattle ranch, raised horses and enjoyed the place he had become so fond of as a youth. That ranch house and land has been in our family ever since and his vast posterity enjoys it to this day.

John gleaned some new found courage from that ridiculous Mic Dundee hat he found in a closet and boarded this less than reliable vessel in the pond out back where we made a fire and had s'mores. Ask him how long it took for his boots to dry after that incident.

Let the horse shoes tourney begin! A Boulder tradition.

Notice the concentration and follow through here. I think this was the game where Dane and I beat dad and John 21 to 1.

Just being lazy.
Our first hike of the trip up to the toad stool. See it?
The last time I did that hike was 12 years ago as you can see by my name (Kelly F '96) carved into the sandstone at the top.

Fast Sunday dinner.
The 4th of July festivities began with the 5 minute parade. This small town parade made the weekly arrival of the garbage truck seem like Thanksgiving Day in New York. The highlight of the parade (aside from the Garfield county ambulance and the pickup truck full of kids spraying people with a hose) was the "freedom dragon". We knew it was called the freedom dragon because of the girl walking ahead of it shouting, "Feel the power of the freedom dragon!" Oh, we felt it alright. Sweet.
After the y'all come BBQ at the town hall, there was a town talent show open to all. The talent included a mime show, local bands, harmonica performances, a one man Monty Python show, and a little girl named Willow who recited 'The Highway Man'. There was 3 hours worth of such "talent". My dad actually entered and recited a cowboy poem he wrote and won $50! Way to go dad!
Let the stream fishing begin. I caught 5 fish in an hour and a half using one worm. Here is the Bono approach to fishing. Unfortunately for Layne, wearing cool shades and urging the fish to do their part to help fight AIDS in Africa was not enough to coax them out of the water.

The great Risk game of the trip (which Dane won) interrupted by a little early birthday celebration (for Dane) with a cake I made.

Our second hike up sugar loaf mountain.



Swimming and playing catch at calf creek.
The Moqui cave dwelling.
A local
We did a LOT of this on the trip.
Here I am killing everyone at Scrabble.

It was a great trip! Too bad coming back to work wasn't so great. In part of the lab where I work, an engineer was working with sodium arsenide years ago and part of the duct work got contaminated with arsenic. That duct work was closed off and quarantined, but not removed because of the danger and expense of having it cleaned out. Since then it hasn't been a problem...until the arsenide alarm went off on Friday as I was undressing in the entryway. They locked it down and had environmental health and safety come down with the nuclear holocaust masks on to run tests in the lab. Boy, arsenic poisoning really would be the icing on the cake of my 3 days back from vacation!
Saturday was a very special day because it was the 16th birthday of 'The Chosen One' aka my little brother Dane Addison Flaherty. Dane is 10 years my junior and I often felt like a 2nd mother to the boy when he was little. We've been close ever since the days when I'd sing him to sleep at night, and watching him grow up has been an absolute pleasure for me. To this day, Dane is one of my best buds!

(A surprise party for Dane at the Gilbert theater where they saw a 3D movie)

Some things you may not know about Dane:

1. He has the most nicknames of anyone I know. Some examples: The Chosen One, Boy, Squeege (short for Squeegie) and Booger.
2. Dane is a music stud. He plays the piano, the jazz saxaphone, the guitar and has in recent years developed into a true bass (I couldn't be more excited about that).
3. Dane has often been called John's mini-me, but don't be fooled, there is nothing mini about this kid. Mark my words, before Dane's mission, he WILL have outgrown his older brother in both height and girth. Buckle up John, its coming.
4. Dane is a gaming fool. My dad (the English major turned poet, author, playwrite and journalist) hasn't been able to beat this boy at Scrabble in ages.
5. Dane is relatively mild mannered, but he's a competetor! This Christmas during our family basketball game, he established himself as a force to be reconned with. Dane is also a budding volleyball stud.
I'm so proud of the incredible and upstanding guy that my little brother has become. Happy birthday boy! I love you!

Hello, my name is Kelly Nelson and I'm an addict...

It was a great 4th of July that Layne and I spent in Boulder, UT with my family. I just got back last night, and while its nice to be back in my own bed, vacation always goes by too fast and its very difficult to get readjusted to life afterward. We had a great time though and have a lot of good pictures to post as soon as I get over the post vacation craziness at work. For the time being, I'm in the middle of a dilemma and could use some opinions.
I LOVE Trident sugar free gum. I like to chew gum at work because I find it helps me relax when I performing long tedious tasks with my hands. I go through at least a pack a week, and Layne has become somewhat of a chain chewer (though Stride is his weapon of choice). I rest easy knowing that Trident is sugar free, but I keep hearing bad things about the ingredient Aspartame found in almost all sugar free gums on the market. Many websites (like this one) claim that consuming Aspartame can cause any number of immediate or long term side effects. There are however, just as many websites (like this one) claiming that there is no risk whatsoever. I have looked and can't find a sugar free gum without Aspartame in it. I also LOVE Crystal Light packets that you add to water (also containing Aspartame pictured below -- I know, I'm a nerd).
I haven't noticed any decline in my health since I started "using", but the opponents claim that you can be suffering from the side effects for years without ever noticing. Does anyone know anything more about this than I? Do you know anyone who has ever had a problem related to the consumption of Aspartame? Does anyone know of a sugar free gum on the market that doesn't contain Aspartame? HELP! ...must...chew...something...

Bedding Bandits

Layne and I had a lovely weekend starting with a couples massage at Massage Envy Saturday morning. The only difference between that and a regular massage is that they open the doors between 2 rooms. Layne and I were waiting in the relaxation grotto for our therapists to come get us when in stepped a 22 yr. old Nordic goddess. Long blond hair, fair flawless skin, perfect physique. In a honeyed voice she called Layne's name and they began discussing what areas he needed concentration on. I sat back imaging what kind of muscle bound Adonis would sweep into the room and pronounce himself my masseuse, when suddenly my stupor was disturbed by a raspy voice calling my name. I turn to the doorway to see...

Ok, I have to pause for a moment here. First of all, for what I'm about to say I blame in part to my undergraduate study of Psychology. We always did those word association tests where someone shows you a picture and you say the first word that comes to your mind. Well, call it habit, but I still do that in my head sometimes. So I'm going to share with you the first word that came into my head when I saw my masseuse, but I must warn that it may paint me to be either very shallow or judgmental or both, so please don't think me an awful person.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, I turned to the doorway to see...the troll! Bless this woman's heart, I'm afraid my initial reaction at her appearance could be blamed in part on the strapping Sweedish lad I had envisioned. Before I describe her, let me preface by saying that she was EXTREMELY nice, and definitely knew how to massage. Its just a shame that the texture of her hands was akin to a Brill-O pad (not to mention her longish unkempt fingernails), and she refused to use adequate lotion on my skin which created the sensation of being scrubbed down post radioactive waste exposure. The sound of her voice betrayed about 20 years of chain smoking. I'd probably guess her age at around 46, and she was about 5'3"ft., but appeared shorter due to moderate scoliosis or just really bad posture. She had bad teeth and a mullet on top and erred on the side of not enough (if any) makeup. She also had a nasty, rattling, croupy cough which interrupted the sounds of the Peruvian rain forest throughout the session. It became especially bothersome when I was on my back and got the cough in the face and smelled the breath! YIKES!! Try mixing in a Tic-Tac sister! When she wasn't coughing, she was giving me tips on all the great things I could find at the Dollar Store if I knew where to look. I think I've mentioned it before, but I don't like small talk during a massage. Anyhow, in that moment when I first laid eyes on this woman and my word association of "the troll" popped in, I finally understood why they chose the name "Massage Envy" for their company, and as I watched Layne with the poster girl of therapy, I felt myself coming down with a SEVERE case of it!
The psychologist in me has to wonder why this is. Why should I consciously or subconsciously care what this person looks like? Am I just shallow, or is there something else going on? What I came to conclude is that my reaction would have been the same if I visited a dentist that had bad teeth, a Dr. with poor personal hygiene, a hairdresser with an ugly do, or an obese fitness instructor. When we seek professional services, we want our professionals to emulate the benefits of their trade or at least present themselves in a manner that makes their customers feel comfortable. Is that far fetched or am I just completely shallow?

Yesterday was like Christmas in July (almost) when my very own St. Nick brought home a trunk full of goodies from work. Layne has really enjoyed working for Select Comfort so far, which makes me happy, but what makes me even more happy is discounted stuff! Every so often at the plant they end up with an excess of non-bed items (pillows, bedding, blankets, etc.) and have to get rid of them. First crack goes to the office staff, and yesterday Layne picked out a bunch of stuff. Among the things he brought home were: 2 Queen size 310 thread count sheet sets with pillow cases (retail $140 each, Layne paid $15), a queen size feather down comforter (retail $300, Layne paid $20), 3 different kinds of pillows
(retail $50 each, Layne paid $15), a summer weight queen size feather comforter (retail $200, Layne paid $20) and 2 gigantic rolling duffel bag suitcases with the handle which could each easily fit an adult inside (retail $120 each, Layne paid $20).
Thats about $800 of top quality bedding and merchandise that we only paid $100 for! It was so fun to strip off the sheets, pillows and comforter that we thought were nice before, and outfit our bed with all new stuff. In the future, when these employee closeouts happen, Layne will let me know in advance so we can give our family and friends a chance to get in on the action. Let me know if you'd be interested so I can share the good fortune next time! Few things make me quite as cheery as getting a really good deal!