the strAIGht dope

This week I am going to bookend my entry with a couple of videos. The first is something that I saw on The Colbert Report, one of my favorite shows and primary sources of political news. Colbert challenged the Republican answer to Barack Obama, RNC Chairman Michael Steele, to a rap-off. Since Steele is a class act, he did not come onto the show to battle with Stephen. So, in typical Daily Show/Colbert Report fashion, they cut a bunch of television appearances to create their own. I found it to be both hilarious and impressive.



The big news of the past few weeks has been the incomparable incompetence and appalling arrogance of American International Group. As you should all know, AIG received a hefty chunk of bailout money, something in the neighborhood of $175 billion. When I first began hearing about the proposed bailouts during the summer of ’08, it seemed like a pretty bad idea. I had Jarom ask some smart people whose opinions I respect (Mars and Bruce) whether it was a good idea or not. The consensus was that it isn’t good, but it is probably needed to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the economy. Obviously I can’t say what would have happened without the bailout, but the further we go along, the more I think it shouldn’t have happened. One of the biggest complaints that I have about it is that the government is giving out tons of money without any control as to what is done with it. And then the government gets mad when things aren’t done the way they want them to be done. And then they overreact and go crazy. Case in point: AIG executives are due to receive about $165 million in bonus money. This makes people mad, because in general people don’t like other people to make more money than they do. Unfortunately, these are contracts and the legal ramifications for not paying the money are significant. So Congress channels their inner 2-year old and decides to levy a 90% tax on those individuals. I am pretty sure that it won’t fly and in a few weeks some athlete will test positive for steroids and divert our representatives attention once again, but the logic behind it irritates me. If Congress didn’t like the way they ran their business, don’t loan them more money!! If AIG wants to pay huge bonuses, let them. The business will either succeed or fail, and capitalism will have worked its magic once again. But I hate the fact that our idiot congresspeople are now sticking their noses into all sorts of business.

Jarom got an email from his EQP today asking him if he would teach the quorum this Sunday. This is the second time he has had to teach in the last few months. Teaching the class was not listed as part of his job description but has been an unfortunate byproduct of being the quorum secretary. It isn’t nearly as bad as speaking in sacrament meeting, which Alixa inexplicably threatened to volunteer for last week. Only the threat of bodily injury kept her from seeking out the bishop and offering the Winn’s services. Since he was given no topic for the lesson, Jarom chose The Challenge to Become, a talk by Elder Holland that is among his favorites. He recommends it to all of you. [I don’t know if I have any non-LDS readers, but if I do, feel free to ask Jarom what on earth this paragraph is talking about.]

The NCAA tournament is now at the Elite Eight level, and we have a new leader(s): Dave Tilton and Cameo Bell. Congrats to them, and best of luck down the stretch.

The second video for this entry is a little embarrassing to me. I just shed last weekend, and have been feeling a little rotund, so I’ve put myself on a slight diet. Since I was feeling a little self-conscious, I chose not to share this information with Jarom. As a result, he got me a mouse that I really didn’t want to eat. The ensuing video is the result. I present it as exhibit A of why I will not be a threat to baby Jenna. I hope you enjoy it.

Sometimes, you just want a buddy

Twitterpated

Many years ago, people were only aware of the population with which they came into direct contact. If a family member or friend moved away, you only found out what they were up to if you ran into them at a later date. Communications has come a long way since then, moving from the pony express and telegrams to more modern telephones, text messaging, and email. In the last few years, social networking sites such as myspace and facebook have taken “keeping in touch” to a whole new level. It is now possible to stay on top of the lives of hundreds of people whom you have no interest in hearing about. In fact, it is now difficult to separate the information that you are actually interested in from the garbage from some guy that you barely knew in high school. And yet, modern society’s attention deficit disorder continues to accelerate. Those familiar to facebook know about status updates, where you can essentially tell your facebook friends what you are doing right now. There is now a new web service called twitter, which allows users to enter small (140 characters or less) blurbs about their daily lives. Many of those who use the service twit dozens of times each day, providing incredible amounts of useless info to people who have nothing better to do.



Jarom had heard about twitter, but ignored it, much as he did facebook, studying, and doing household chores, until he realized that all of these things could be good if done in moderation. Last week he read a news story about Charlie Villanueva of the Toronto Raptors. Apparently he snuck away from the team to grab his cell phone and twit during halftime of a game against the Celtics. Here’s the twit - "In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We're playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up." While Villanueva’s grammar and judgment can be questioned by his message and the fact that he did it at halftime of an NBA game, it did garner Jarom’s attention, and he decided to go ahead and create an account. Now he can be alerted if Shaq goes to the bathroom, or if Mark Cuban needs a new pair of pants. It should be a great addition to his life.

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Like those people need another reason to drink.

Another great addition to the Winn’s life this week was a new office chair for the computer. Since their marriage, we have simply been using one of the chairs from the kitchen table. These are not very comfortable and look a little silly. So for St. Patrick’s Day Alixa got to pick out a new, comfortable, swivel chair that can rock back and forth. It has been great. Jarom has been able to use it to check the status of his NCAA tournament bracket, which has done poorly, as it does every year. Skiffington is currently leading this blog’s pool, with 510 points. Nancy is bringing up the rear with 110. It seems she did not quite grasp the meaning of the seeds, and as a result haphazardly selected winners with no apparent logic at all. She now has exactly zero teams still alive on her bracket. But I admire her for trying. In fact, that she was able to create an ESPN username and successfully enter herself into the competition is a remarkable achievement, and one that should be applauded. So I applaud you, Nancy.



Also, Annie came up with a name for my game that I like better than the last one. It will now be known as “Are You Smarter Than A Ball Python”, and the winner will be listed after each post.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

It is the season of joy, the one time of year when the NCAA doesn’t get it all completely upside down and backwards. The men’s basketball tournament starts on Thursday, providing ten days of upsets and thrillers. Over the coming weeks you will hear drastically inflated statistics that claim trillions of dollars in lost productivity at work, and formerly unknown college students will become heroes and household names (see Curry, Stephen, and Drew, Bryce) as the field of 64 is winnowed down to a single, undisputed champ. I invite all of you to test your skills against my own on espn.com’s Tournament Challenge. I have created a group that is available for anyone who is interested named I’ve got a fever. The password is cowbell. And I encourage you to all to participate, even those who know absolutely nothing about basketball. It is often you who win these things. Trust me, knowledge is of minimal assistance.



As you probably remember, Alixa has spent much of this week trying to recover from her near death experience last weekend. It has been a long and painful process, but she is almost back to normal. The only real nagging issue is a persistent cough that she hasn’t quite been able to shake. So she decided to take it easy this week, giving away all her shifts at the Olive Garden. She made an effort to go easy at her other job as well. In fact, on Wednesday she came home and informed Jarom that she did nothing but play minesweeper and spider solitaire all day long. Oh, Microsoft games, where would corporate America be without you? You should all be proud of her though, as she has decreased her time on expert from about 1000 seconds to 384. We are crossing our fingers that she will be able to turn pro soon.



Last week I began a new feature, albeit without informing any of you. The working title for this game is the polygraph game. It involves me placing a factual slip somewhere in the entry. Last week, I incorrectly labeled dolphins as fish. Annie was the first and possibly only person to catch my mistake, and thus is the inaugural winner. There may or may not be prizes for this, but at least you will know that you are the smartest and/or earliest reader if you win. Best of luck to you all, in this game and with your brackets!

For the Record...

First of all, I would just like thank all of you, especially my mother and mother-in-law for having the laugh of your life at my expense. I would like to assure all of you that while it may sound funny, it was not. I was there. It was GROSS! But I suppose looking back, it is a little humorous. Also, I would just like to clear up the fact that my throwing up had absolutely nothing to do with pregnancy or with being weak minded. I am still the psychologically strong person I always was, but when you have a sister bug to the flu, you can no longer control your vomiting. So, I would just like to remind everyone, that to this day, pregnancy has caused no vomiting because I am strong and have forced it away. That is right, I am awesome.

Blame Halo III

Jarom grew up with a terrible mother who never let him have a video game system, and now he lives with a terrible wife who will never let him have a video game system. Perhaps this is why.

To the...

The Winns started their spring season off with a bang. They were lucky enough to spend a week with Jarom’s parents, brother, and another friend in a nice house on Kiawah Island, just outside of Charleston, South Carolina. The vacation started on Monday morning around 9:00 as they began the 7-hour drive down there. As any folks from the northeast know, there was quite the snowstorm on March 1, and they had to drive through the tail end of it as they crossed the Smoky Mountains through North Carolina. But as they passed the city of Bat Cave (yes, it’s real, and how cool would it be to grow up there?!) it began to warm up. By the time they made it to the Atlantic coast, temperatures were around 50, and would get up into the high 70’s as the week progressed.

Sunset from the dock

Kiawah Island is a beautiful and secluded island. It is full of big trees with Spanish moss hanging from the branches, wonderfully manicured golf courses, quaint little shops and waterways everywhere. They stayed in a lovely home with a pool that was supposed to be heated (it wasn’t), a private dock, and access to a plethora of bike trails. Jarom’s immediate goal upon arrival was to befriend an alligator, and it didn’t take him much time. Steve Irwin would seriously be in heaven there. There were gators of all sizes pretty much everywhere you looked, up to about 12 feet long. He got within a few feet of them several times, once nearly stepping on a 5 or 6 footer and scaring the bejeepers out of both himself and the animal. Alixa spent many a childhood summer on Hilton Head Island, which is just a few clicks south and strikingly similar, so she felt right at home and had a blast. It was quite nice to be in such a pleasant environment with some family that they don’t get to see as often as they would like.

What kind of mother would let her children play around next to that monster?

As you might expect, Jarom took advantage of the opportunity to play a few rounds of golf with his dad, brother, and Mike Slaugh. The weather was nice and the golf was free (at least free to Jarom—He says thanks, Bruce), so the fact that he won both games was simply a bonus. I think that this is the first time that Jarom has beaten his dad at golf, which brought back memories of when he first started to beat him at basketball…at about age 12. After that they didn’t play hoops together nearly as much. Hopefully this doesn’t have a similar effect on their golfing frequency.

It must be tough to be a Charleston police officer.

As Jason said, "You can't spell segway without a g-a-y."

Another friendly Kiawah native

On Saturday, the weather was the best it had been all week, so they rented some kayaks to go play in the river. They were two person boats, so in the afternoon Jarom went out with Annie and Juliet and they were lucky enough to see a little pod of dolphins, two adults and two little ones. The fish seemed mildly curious about the kayak, and would let them get within about 20 feet before vanishing beneath the surface and reappearing 100 feet away. Jarom would paddle over to them again, and the process was repeated 3 or 4 times until he started to get tired and turned back to shore. Juliet was thrilled to see the baleine (that’s French for whale. Her parents think it’s cool to have a bilingual 18 month old, but they can’t even teach her to correctly identify an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin by its dorsal fin? C’mon people.)

The deer have to sprint across the roads in SC

Seriously, amazing sunsets

Unfortunately, Alixa did not get to ride the kayaks because she got herself sick on Friday afternoon. It seems to have been a combination of some sun stroke (she doesn’t believe in proper hydration) and a flu-like bug. She was bed ridden for much of Saturday, but the fun didn’t really start until the ride back to Knoxville. On Sunday Jarom and Lix were driving about 50 miles past Charleston [Jesse, stop reading here] when she started to throw up in the middle of her coughing. At first she kept it on the blanket that she was covered with, but there was more coming up. Trying to keep it from becoming too messy, she rolled down the window to hurl outside. Unfortunately they were on the freeway doing about 70. If any of you have ever spit into the wind, you can visualize what happened next. As Jarom slows down and tries to get off the road without causing an accident, he can feel little bits of wetness hitting his arm. So of course the rest of the car interior is receiving the same treatment. After coming to a stop, the damage was pretty severe. Alixa was covered, there were bits all over the inside of the car, and the entire right side of the Camry was plastered. Jarom literally could not see out of the window. They stopped at a hotel and a gas station for a clothes change and some paper towels and cleaner, and then kept on truckin’ to get home as soon as possible. They arrived at 5:30 and went straight to a walk-in clinic, which was closed. So it was off to the ER, where they spent the next 6 hours. Lix got an IV, some meds for her nausea and fever, and negative tests for the flu and strep, which was good news. As a result her vacation got extended a little bit, getting a day off on Monday and only going in for a few hours on Tuesday. She seems to be coming out of it, which is good. Amazingly, Jarom has managed to avoid catching whatever it was, knock on wood. He has tried to be supportive and help her get better. He does say that the highway puke event was possibly the most disgusting thing he has ever experienced. Even so, they had a good vacation and are glad that Bruce and Nancy invited them down.

Alixa wanted to send a shout out to her buddy Mandy Jo with her pants. We miss you, Carters.

Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down!

A few days ago I celebrated Ash Wednesday, marking the start of Lent. This year I have decided to give up painting my forehead with charcoal so that I don't look like I just escaped from a burning building.

It's a good look for Senor Biden

Alixa attended her first book club meeting this week with a group of women from the ward. She felt a little awkward because she didn’t really know any of them, but she enjoyed herself. The book they read this month was The Hiding Place, which deals with some issues from WWII. It didn’t go entirely smoothly, however. At one point they were discussing how it can be a person’s “time” to die, and the recent plane crash in Buffalo was cited as an example. Lix decided to make a joke about Octomom and how she needed the space here on earth or something. She told the joke to me later, and I thought it was funny, but I guess it didn’t fit with the middle-aged woman crowd.

Alixa did get to select the book for next month, and she chose The Glass Castle. I read this book this week, and it is quite an interesting read. I don’t want to give too much away, because I think you should all read it, but I will say that I have never been more appalled by parents than I was when reading the book. It is an autobiography of sorts, and recounts experiences like the time the author set herself on fire at 3 years of age because she was doing the cooking by herself, the time her dad used her as a prostitute to try and make some money to buy beer, and the time all 4 children (ages 8, 6, 3, and a newborn) were tossed into the back of a UHaul and driven across the country. The writing is really well done, and it is interesting to see how a productive member of society can emerge from such a bizarre past.



Alixa had another doctor’s appointment this week to make sure that everything is developing normally. Both baby and mama seem to be physically healthy. Psychologically…well that is another matter entirely. This particular day was what Lix refers to as one of her “weepy days”. Part of this checkup involved stepping onto a scale. This is something that no woman enjoys, and can be particularly traumatic for a pregnant lady, or so I would imagine. Alixa was not happy with the amount of weight she had gained. I will not divulge what that gain was, lest this be the last post I ever write. Anyway, she began sobbing uncontrollably and did not stop for several hours. Jarom tried to console her, but let’s face it, that has never been his strong suit. She has since recovered, making everyone around here much more comfortable.

This was the actual weight on Jarom's new scale

In other weight related news, Jarom got a scale this week to monitor his increasing fatness. In an effort to make Alixa feel really terrible, I volunteered to be weighed, and came in at a hefty 3 pounds. That’s about 195 less than Jarom, who ran a 10k later that night because he felt so terrible about himself. On Monday the Winns leave for a week in Kiawah Island, South Carolina with the parents Winn, Jasonannie, and the Mike Slaugh family. There are plans to do some golfing, some kayaking, some nothing, and possibly some more nothing. It should be a great time. Enjoy the first week of March!