Gay Aiken

On this weeks edition of People magazine Clay Aiken, who just had a baby with his 50-year-old best friend thanks to in vitro fertilization, announced his gayness to the entire world. Amazingly, there were still a few folks who were unaware of this. Next weeks planned cover: a picture of Jesse Jackson and the words “Yes, I hate white people.”

Seriously, who didn't see this one a mile away?

It is starting to look very bleak for the once-mighty Vols football team this season. Already 1-2, they now look forward to away games at Auburn (ranked #15), Georgia (#3), South Carolina, and Vanderbilt (#21), and a home game against Alabama (#8). Optimistically, they might be able to squeak out a 5-7 record. It sure doesn’t look like we brought any good luck with us here to Knoxville.

Jarom and Alixa received a new calling in church this week. They will be teaching 6 year-olds in primary. Alixa is more thrilled than Jarom about it, but that is probably about as surprising as the Aiken news. It will get them out of Relief Society/Priesthood each week and give them a reason to have goldfish in church, so it should be a good time.

Sadly, Alixa injured herself this week. She was playing tennis with Jarom when she heard something in her foot pop. It doesn’t hurt unless she puts weight on it, which is sort of a good thing. She is currently uninsured, so she is going to wait another day or two before deciding if she needs medical attention. This is why you shouldn’t have feet. It is just more potential problems.

I think the real reason she got hurt is the bad karma that she has been accumulating as a result of her new found love of country music. A few days ago Jarom came home to her singing something about getting back to her roots, something something look at them boots…it isn’t good. Jarom had sensed that this would happen, but he never expected it to sink in this quickly. You should all be happy to know that he continues to resist and shows no signs of giving in.

I guess not everything about country culture is bad

For anyone interested, the answer to last weeks quiz is Lance Armstrong, who was born Lance Gunderson. Quite an upgrade, at least from a marketing standpoint. I am certain LiveDerson bracelets would not have been nearly as popular.

Florida has a reptile dysfunction

It is Florida week here in Knoxville, which means that the crazy has been kicked up a notch for the start of SEC play. Forgotten, at least for the moment, is the unfortunate season-opening loss to UCLA. Hope springs eternal as the town thinks about upsetting the fourth ranked and much hated Gators. Since a victory is highly unlikely I have to talk bad about them now, before the beatdown.

Two cars decorated in typical UT fashion.

It goes to show that in this town, both the rich and poor are crazy.

Speaking of college football, both Lixi and Jarom have received taunting messages from friends this week in the wake of BYU’s 59-0 dismantling of UCLA. Some of you may think that because we are now in Tennessee we have begun to hate the cougars. This is not the case. In fact, we will continue to root for them and hope that they win all their games, even when they are playing someone who beat UT.

Alixa continues at her ambulatory job (which is ironic because she just sits in a chair all day), and has started to become friends with the ladies at her office. Today they found out she was a Mormon after she heard one of them talking about having 3 flat tires and mistook it for incredibly bad luck (since most of my readers are also LDS I should clarify that a flat tire is an alcoholic beverage.)

Jarom continues to enjoy golf, especially now that the beautiful Tennessee autumn has started. However, the Winn family has no money, so in order to keep playing he has to walk instead of using a cart. In order to cut down on the number of miles he had to walk, he played only one ball. Despite (actually because of) not having a driver in his bag, he played nine holes at +7, mulligan free. He hopes it doesn’t get too cold here and he can keep playing until November.

Imagine him without the smile, and replace 

the cap and gown with 45 pounds of gold chains.

Jarom does also go to his classes, which he likes. He actually hasn’t missed a single one yet, which is probably the longest he has ever gone into a school year without an absence. Nancy should check the archives and verify that. In his sport marketing class he sits next to Mr. T. His name is Jesse Turnbow, and he looks and sounds like B.A. Baracus. He played O line for the Vols in the late 70’s and was then drafted by the Cleveland Browns. He is 6-8, 360, and Jarom hopes to get him to say, “I pity the fool” by the end of the semester.

Check out the video in the top right corner of the blog, and take the quiz, without searching the Internet for the answer.

Drivin' me nuts!

What a weekend! The NFL regular season began, which is exciting around this house. Jarom managed to squeak by Alixa in their fantasy football matchup, although it was closer than expected and came down to the Monday night games. The college football season, despite being only two weeks old is already shaping up to be a great one. I have decided to become an East Carolina fan, because I like how they keep upsetting ranked opponents and I want to be a pirate.



The most emotional moment of the weekend happened while I was watching the BYU-UW game, which was on cable TV here in Knoxville. After a marvelous fourth quarter, capped by 76-yard drive that ended with an amazing QB rush into the end zone for a chance to send the game into OT. It was at this moment that the worst call I have ever seen in any athletic competition occurred. UW’s QB was so excited after scoring the TD that he jumped to his feet, threw the ball in the air and went crazy with his teammates. He was flagged for excessive celebration and the extra point became a 35-yard field goal, which was blocked. That sent BYU’s entire team pouring onto the field from the sideline, demonstrating perfectly the kind of behavior that should get a penalty. It was an unfortunate incident of refs not allowing the players to decide the game. BYU probably would have won in overtime, as they seemed to be the better team, but that isn’t the point. To read a good article about the incident, click here.



In other news, Lixi got a job that she started on Monday. She is a receptionist type person for the local emergency response company (Ambulances). She wants to get paid more, but at least she has something to do during the day now. She will keep her eyes peeled for better opportunities, but she feels lucky to have this job right now. Jarom and Alixa made friends with another young couple in the ward over dinner and Settlers on Sunday evening. They seem to have many similar interests, and they even liked me, so hopefully it will stick. Alixa also joined the ward softball team, which plays in a local church league against the Baptists, Lutherans, etc… I guess we will see which church is true soon enough.

Jarom is enjoying his classes and likes his teachers. He has two foreigners who speak spotty English and enjoys hearing the silly things in the English language that we usually take for granted. One example that made him smile yesterday: his teacher was talking about why people play sports, and he used the phrase “play skiing” in a sentence. On the surface it isn’t too far off, but it sounds ridiculous. Those are the sorts of things that keep him paying attention during his nearly 3 hour Monday evening class.

Job Fare

Another week has passed, and the Winn’s are starting to get into a little bit of a rhythm here in Knoxville. Jarom is enjoying his classes, learning about intercollegiate athletics and sport law. Alixa is working at the Olive Garden, a band-aid to keep us from starving until she can land a better job that will hopefully allow her to work a more typical 9-5 schedule. Even though she hopes to be out of the restaurant business very shortly, she does great work there. She already has a regular customer who asks for her by name. She says that the alcohol consumption is not much different here as compared to Provo, but everyone orders “sweet tea”, which is simply iced tea and boatloads of sugar [Recipe: 3 gallons iced tea, 5 lbs sugar]. She has also earned 4 free lunches from guest compliments and other outstanding services.

We have been here long enough to start noticing other interesting traits of eastern Tennessee. One of these is an omnipresence of the unwanted-results-of-sexual-activity industry. There are lots of ads for pregnancy testing and prevention (especially on UT’s campus) and many others for STD prevention. Perhaps this is the norm and Utah simply has less, but it has been interesting to see. Alixa is hoping that the environment will help her to get knocked up.

As many of you probably know, UT lost their season opener to UCLA. The town has been sad the past few days, and it is not the best start for turning Jarom into a diehard Vols fan. In other football news, the NFL starts this week. That means that the annual Jarom vs. Alixa fantasy football game is on this weekend. The all-time matchup currently stands at 2-1 in Lixi’s favor, although Jarom is optimistic for this game.

Jarom turned 27 last week, and nobody came to his party. Jerks. For his birthday the internship gods gave him a position with Adidas working with the regional director of team sales. That means that he will be doing stuff with high schools and colleges that get their equipment and/or uniforms from Adidas. It should be interesting, it gets him school credit, and at the end of the semester he will get $1000-1500 worth of stuff from Adidas. That’s a lot of workout clothes!

Lastly, a funny story. As part of her job search Alixa needed to fax a resume to several potential employers. Today Jarom found a stack of 4 resumes and 4 cover letters in the car. A little embarrassed, Alixa admitted that she had printed them up without realizing that she could simply fax the same resume and same cover letter four times. In full disclosure, I must make it known that this was simply a mental lapse. She did not think that fax machines actually send the physical piece of paper. She just had a brain fart. But I laughed when I heard it.