Month: March 2006

While reading in the May, 2006 issue of Seventeen magazine, I came across the What Freaks Him Out About You article on page 084. I have my own opinions about the issues the ‘guys’ brought up.

Andrew answers, “it’s weird when a girl gets clingy in public and you’ve only been together for like, a week”. That’s funny. I happen to like clingy girls. I do not think they are ‘marking their territory’, but even if they were, I’d love to be marked! 😀

I actually agree with Paul, who mentions group trips. He brings up the bathroom thing, and I don’t think any guy will ever understand that. I don’t care about the toilet trips, they could be giggling and talking good about me, but the whole hanging out in packs is distressing. I prefer private one-on-one conversations.

I disagree with Devon completely. I think wedding talk is so cool, and you can really learn a lot about a girl when you hear about her wedding fantasies. It also lets me know we are the same track, marriage bound. After all, the whole point of dating is to find a suitable spouse. Your dream wedding? I want to hear all about it.

Ryan has a good point, but I’ll take it a little further. Why drink at all? Are you nervous? Bad things happen to girls who drink, so don’t do it.

Brandon is correct. If you’ve got to break up with a guy for me, I don’t even want to hear about it. I agree with his assessment that it is a sign she will do the same to me for someone else. Also, I’m not competitive, and I would hate to be resented by some guy whose parade got rained on. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Chuck is absolutely insane. Any girl who is willing to cancel major plans to be with me is totally attractive to me. Old-fashioned girls were willing to give up everything about their lives to be happily married to their man. So, forget about college, your parents, and anything else that may bring us apart, and let’s get it on!

Again, the type of girl Sean is talking about is so awesome. She knows what she wants and is willing to get it. If you are interested in me enough to do research, I’ll be impressed. Just don’t talk to my mom, she thinks I’m blond and took gymnastics. My Dad and sisters know me pretty good though.

James is right. But I’ll make you a deal. If you need a hug, just start crying around me. Warning: I may start crying too. I hate to see girls cry, it breaks my heart.

I don’t know what JJ is smoking, but it’s guys like him who ruin things for others. For the record, if you want to do my dishes or tidy up my room, the jobs yours and I’ll compensate you any way you want! These are awesome traits for wifes and mothers. It’s what I refer to as the womans touch, and everything I have needs that. 😉 Of course, my dishes are always done and I already keep a clean house. Hmmm. We’ll work something out.

I have one more thing to say about that article. What a hottie! Have you seen that sassy chick and the look she is giving us? I’d give anything for a girl like that.

I have minor changes to report for the code of all my pages. I changed the noscript menu for those of you who use browsers not equipped with javascript capabilities or have deactivated them. Also, a problem that’s been bugging me every since I started using Opera is that the javascript menu is too low on the top of the page to cover some of my logo image has been fixed. This problem did not extend to MS Internet Explorer, but the solution, as minute as it is, does, though only the trained eye will notice. 😉

Also, being the absentminded guy that I am, I had not realized that two of my menu pages, Helpful Resources and Favorite Links, did not even exist! They were the text menus, so unless you don’t have javascript, you probably didn’t notice. So now, they exist! 😀

You can view them here (not that there’s anything there to see):

page38.html or page38.html
and
page39.html or page39.html

When I first bought this laptop, it was 5 years old and in pristine condition. Since then, it has been used and abused to the max. The thing is falling apart. It’s been dropped numerous times, hit by a car, and smashed with groceries and laundry. If I had the money, I’d buy a new one.
The cover is cracked. The seems are broken apart. The battery latch is broken so the battery is taped in with duct tape. The AC power supply cord has been spliced together near the tip where it plugs into the computer. The battery itself no longer charges and isn’t recognized by the BIOS or OS’s any more.

It still turns on though. It may be dilapidated, and held together with tape, but it’s still ticking. Everyday, I plug it in and do my writing. The LCD screen is still in great shape, and none of the internal components are worn out. It functions and continues to serve my purpose. But for how long?

I am very impressed with this IBM ThinkPad 390. It has been good to me and I appreciate that. I have cause to worry though. I have been slacking on my book. You know, the one that’s been “nearing completion” now for months. I’ve let myself get distracted with various inconsequential matters, like my blog, webpage, instant messenger, the internet in general, and the ever-present girl problem.

Well, IBM built an excellent computer, sturdy and durable. But nothing lasts forever. I only hope it will outlast my unnecessary procrastination. I keep telling myself, all I have to do is finish this book and get it sold. Of course, I say that about getting out of Satan George, Utah, so I can meet a real woman too. You’d think that alone would be enough incentive to stop lallygagging around and get to work.

From my favorite seat at the Satan George branch of the Washington County Library I can monitor the progress of the construction of the new library building. It’s going very slow.

I have often thought about how slow construction projects in Satan George are. It is unbelievable compared to the speed of similar projects farther up north. It would appear, that without the threat of a severe winter, construction companies have the luxury to take their sweet time. This is great for those workers who get paid by the hour. I cannot, however, see the benefit to the contractor though, who gets paid by the job. Even road construction in this town is a joke. The boulevard project should have been finished months ago.

Additional problems are also evident with the new library building. For starters, it’s small. Granted, Washington county does not have enough books to fill the current libraries; a new larger building is not even needed. Still, if your going to build one, why not take the initiative and build it with the future in mind. Looking at this new building, I cannot believe that the floor space any greater than the current library.

Too make matters even worse, is the actual floor plan. I have never seen the design or the specs, but I can tell you there are a lot of interior walls. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a reasonable explanation for the placement of the walls I have seen being erected these past few weeks. Do they plan to have different smaller rooms for the various categories, or sections? I have no doubt they are planning a major segregation of the patrons.

The librarians here seem to think their authority extends over the people as well as the books. A quick look at the current building will reveal no less than a dozen video surveillance camera’s. Have you ever been in a public library with a single camera? Neither had I until coming to the socialist state of Utah. Try answering your cellphone here, you’ll discover a belligerent attack by the Washington County Library Nazi Police. The ACLU would have a field day with the number of rights violations you can expect to experience here every day.

Some of my expectations for the new the library, if they ever get it built, include: no bike rack, if you’re unwilling/able to drive a car, they won’t want you there; no backpacks allowed, that’s Utah’s-bankrupt capitol of the world-discrete way of saying no homeless; no laptops, you’ll have to pay to utilize the computers in the new claustrophobic computer lab, but you can only view pre-approved webpages and suffer enormous lag time due to the extreme filtering processes; cell access hindering paint; no children allowed, they already try to ‘enforce’ that rule here; separate, uncomfortable seating in other claustrophobic chambers for those who refuse to leave the library to read; and the same Nazi staff just to name a few. Sound dismal? It is, but it is also realistic, most of them are already implemented to some extent.

After the failed hearing for dismissal, I wrote a request for discovery with the city prosecutor, then e-mailed the prosecutor, asking for a meeting. I had intended to present the request in person so we could go over it and discuss the case. He responded in favor of the meeting, but, as it turned out, his office was too busy to fit me into the schedule.

As the date of trial neared, I was still unsure about how I was going to handle it. I had not heard back concerning discovery. My main concern was what lies Patrol Sargent Gordon McCracken had included in his report that would make a city prosecutor believe he had a case against me.

I was able to prepare a fool-proof defense against the biking without reflectors charge. For starters, my bike has all the reflectors Utah Code requires, any idiot cop could see that. I also had the owners manual, which contains the specs for the bike and reflectors, and even a statement assuring owners that it meets all federal and state statutes.

A week before the trial, I received an e-mail from the prosecutor’s office notifying me that the discovery I requested was ready to pickup. I was astonished to find that McCracken’s testimony in the police report concurred with the actual events. I took this as a good sign. I was bummed out that no evidence reports had been made concerning the key piece of evidence in the case: my bicycle. I still think it is interesting that my bike was locked up in processing for a week and no reports were made available to me. Of course, such reports would have crippled the city’s case.

In the week of preparation, I polished my own written testimony and contemplated filing it with the court. From several perspectives, it is not a good idea to do that. At long last, however, I decided that I would like to have my own testimony “on file” in case I was able to use the information later in life, such as, in a book for instance. I figured this reason outweighed the opposition. I filed the testimony the day before the trial with both the court and the city prosecutor, though I knew I was not going to testify myself.

The trial was on January 18th, 2006. I was, in a word, unprepared, being inexperienced in court. I know law well, but practical application is different. Not only that, but I had forgotten my key evidence against charge 2-bicycling without reflectors. (I had been prompted several times in the preceding weeks to place the evidence in my backpack ahead of time, but neglected to do it.) It would have taken too long to go back and get it, so, even though I had all the required reflectors on my bike, I wasn’t going to be able to prove it in my defense. However, charge 2 was the least of my worries.

The guts of the city’s accusations was charge 1-interfering with an arresting officer. The only defense I could come up with was to ask McCracken, in cross examination, whether I had performed any of the acts listed in Utah Code Annotated § 76-8-305. So I that’s what I did, with the code section as a guide, I asked, one-by-one, if I had done any of them.

I asked Gordon McCracken, while he was on stand, if I had used force or a weapon, he answered no. I asked him to tell the court what he asked me to do at the time of the arrest, such as where I was to place my hands, etc. so he did. I then asked him if I had refused to do any of it, he said no. I asked him if I had refused to refrain from doing anything he had requested I not do (such as did I talk after he told me not to) he answered no. So then I asked if it was his testimony that I had not done anything to interfere with him that night. He was stumped. When I asked him if I had performed any act that interfered with him, he answered “An act? No, you did not perform an act”. The prosecutor didn’t like that for obvious reason reasons; Utah Code Annotated § 76-8-305 uses the specific word act.

And despite the fact that McCracken had testified for the city prosecutor that everyone has a social security number, when I asked him flat-out what was my ssn, he had to say he didn’t know. The prosecutor was furious at that point and objected to my question. Lucky for me the judge agreed that the prosecutor himself had opened the door wide open for the question. It was classic. 😀

Despite the small victories, I did stumble through the trial and McCracken lied about our previous encounters which I was, in all honesty, not expecting after reading his initial testimony in the police report. To make matters worse, the prosecutor had never mentioned charge 2, nor did McCracken ever offer evidence that my bike did not have reflectors, so when I was finished questioning McCracken, I rested my case having forgotten to at least make an attempt to dispute the charge. I noticed it the millisecond after I had passed control back to the prosecutor, but it was too late, and I spent the rest of the time kicking myself in silence because of the critical error. I am still pretty angry about that.

The judge wasted no time declaring me guilty on charge 2. Arriving at his decision pertaining to charge 1, on the other hand, was an agonizing several minutes when he weighed his thought out loud, which tended to lean one way and then the other several times. At one point, I was sure he had made his final decision, and I wrote GUILTY! next to the charge has I had done with charge 2.

During the whole trial I pretended to be taking notes, I was just doodling, thinking how in the world was I going to get out of this? It was the cities position that because I answered “I don’t have one,” when McCracken asked for a social security number and again when he asked for an address, that I was refusing to perform an act in accordance with the statute.

The judge disagreed. He even said that if that constituted interference according to that code, cops could just approach any homeless person and arrest him for telling the cop that he did not have an address. 🙂

When I left, Gordon McCracken was still in the parking lot. He told me “congratulations, you did a good job in there”. I responded with a “thank you,” and proceeded to my new bicycle. I could overhear him talking to someone else saying, “I mean it too, he did a good job”.

I am crushed. Pun intended. My Emma Watson source, Emma-Watson.net closed Sunday. I checked it Saturday evening before leaving the library, but when I tried to visit the site last night, there was nothing but a notice from Jo that she was leaving the site.

The notice reads that Fred will be taking over, but that the site is closed until then, which the site estimates is one to two months from now. Fred is going to overhaul the whole thing. Why he cannot just keep the existing site operational while he does so is beyond me. I do it with my own website. You keep the existing pages up until the new ones are ready, then you just upload the new one. Downtime is less than a second.

I’m going to miss Jo. She ran a cool site and is very interested in Emma’s career. I think she did a wonderful job. I also think the rest of the staff did a good job, and feel bad for Megan and the rest of the newcomers, who seem to be left high and dry with Jo’s sudden [rash] decision. I wonder if Fred will let them be a part of the new site. I hope so. I wish I had the time and resources to devote to such a pursuit, I’d love to be a liaison to Emma from her fans.

Well Oh…

I had about six or so inches of snow when I woke up yesterday. It was just like home. Again. Fresh and wet. I was cutting a trail on my bicycle all the way into town. It was cool. I had known it was going to snow, so I expected that part. Still, it was a surprise to see how much.

When I woke up, I listened to the snow fall for an hour or so while continuing to enjoy the warmth of my little igloo. Then I started hearing what may have been a drip or creak. This worried me enough that I opened my eyes and looked around. It was not a drip, the tent was creaking because of the weight of the snow. My walls were leaning inward a great deal.

The thing I didn’t like about the two sudden days of Island Park October, was that even an amateur cub/boy scout tracker could have tracked me from my church house to my camp. That made me a bit nervous. For the most part, my camp is out of sight, and, therefore, out of mind. Leaving such an obvious track straight to my place is not the most desirable thing to have to do in this area, with as many people who hate the homeless and despise the needy.

As much as it made me homesick, I still hate snow and cold. I have hated that all my life. There was a reason I came to Satan George, Utah, after all.

Well, I spent the day updating the info on my About Me page. I hope it comes across as more friendly. I added a few new paragraphs and a bunch of smileys. I was concerned that despite the fact I had included my web address on that thank-you card, that woman was scared of me. I thought maybe they had either never visited the site, or were intimidated by it.

Well, anyway the new page can be viewed at:
index.html and index.html

I also changed my request for donations section of all the pages. It now includes an additional paragraph under the PayPal donate buttons with a link to My Wish List page, which I intend to rewrite someday.

I’m also having a problem uploading on the 100free server again, so it may be a few days until the changes can be viewed there.

Waldo’s Web – Geocities server.

Believe it or not, I am now watching it snow from the south window of the St. George branch of the Washington County Library. It is sticking too. Boy, it is really coming down, just like home. It started about 10 minutes bore 11:00 AM, here at the library and was sticking by 11.

This morning, before I even crawled out of my tent, I knew it had snowed. All the years of living up north and waking up to snow, I know what it feels like. I have never liked snow, but I do enjoy the feelings it brings. I love watching it from windows. It is so mesmerizing and beautiful.

Watching this snow is making me homesick. I wish I could afford to move back up to Island Park, Idaho, or even West Yellowstone, Montana. I’d be there now if I had a place to live. There is so much about that area that makes it better than Satan George, Utah.

First and foremost, are the girls. They are so nice, and accepting, and kind. Guys like me can have friends in women there. There’s no heinous allegations to worry about. They are just as beautiful and wonderful as the scenery, which is the next best thing about the area.

I love the forests too, and the wildlife. That’s the type of environment I wish I could raise a family with. The crystal clear waters and the grassy meadows. The moose and the threat of bear. The bike rides and hikes. The thin mountain air. The lodgepole pines and crackling campfires.

Oh, somebody take me home.

As I studied the scriptures today, I contemplated the similarity between the story of Ammon and King Lamoni with the situation between me and the woman I presented the thank-you card to. Of particular interest were the verses 16-19 and 28 of the nineteenth chapter of the Book of Alma.

I may be grabbing at air here, but I likened myself to Abish. Pertaining to my situation, I saw a wonderful goodness in that woman and wanted to share my joy with her family, and everyone else she may include. But instead of recognizing the kindness of their daughter and use the experience as a lesson, her parents murmured against me and attributed my actions to malicious intent.

Abish wanted to share a wonderful goodness with others, but when they saw what had been done, the people did not understand it and murmured and attributed it the devil. When she saw this, she became “exceedingly sorrowful, even unto tears”.

My own exceeding sorrow has excited a tremendous amount of tears. But unlike Abish, I do not have a verse 29. I am still confused about the whole ordeal. What am I to do? I have no queen to awake and subdue the contentions. I feel so helpless.

The girl and her family did come to church on Sunday (they had stopped attending our ward because of the card), but she went out of her way to avoid me. I’m walking on eggshells at my own ward meetings. Should I still acknowledge them the way I did before? Are they going to read more into that than is there? Should I just ignore them as they are me?

I cannot believe that is the right thing to do. But then again, I thought the right thing was to show her how much her kindness meant to me in the first place. Abish also thought it was the right thing to gather together the multitude. Were we so wrong?