Vacation

Jarom and Lixi went to Delaware this last weekend to play with the Winns for Thanksgiving which left me to my lonesome all weekend. I appreciated the solitude as I am shedding and prefer to do this in peace. They came home Sunday night and told me all about their trip to Delaware. They arrived at the Philadelphia airport late on Wednesday night after a long flight. Jarom had some bad luck at first on their flight and had to sit next to a VERY overweight person who took up most of his and Jarom's seat. His bad luck turned around, however, when a seat opened up in the exit row. He was glad to have his space but Lixi was sad she had to sit all by herself on the long flight.

Once in Delaware, the fun began immediately. There was a Winn family Turkey Bowl Thursday morning and Lixi is so good at football that she scored a touchdown on the opening play. Loni was the photographer and was able to capture the whole thing on film. Lixi and Jarom were on opposite teams and Lixi's team won due to a wide open pass that Jesse dropped in the end zone which would have won the game for Jarom's team. This is okay though, because the better team won.
After the foosball game, it was time for Thanksgiving dinner. Lixi reported to me that her homemade dinner rolls finally turned out this year! She was very excited. This is the first time she made rolls that actually worked. She has horrible luck with yeast breads. The rolls were a nice compliment to a delicious dinner. After dinner, the rest of the evening was spent watching football games on TV. Lixi was also pleased to report that she won her fantasy football game again this week, putting her at 6-6 for the season. She has a really great chance of making the playoffs. Jarom, on the other hand, is struggling and if he loses his game this week, he wont make it. Bummer for him.

The rest of the weekend went smoothly and included a shopping trip, a trip to Lancaster to visit some friends and putting up of the Christmas decorations. I personally am excited for Christmas. I find it to be a fun time of year. Maybe Jarom and Lixi will give me an extra mouser for a Christmas present... Can't wait!

After the fun weekend, Jarom and Lixi had to get back to work. Lixi's teaching is going well and Jarom is doing well in school. He takes the GRE this Saturday and will hopefully do well so he can get into grad school. Anyway, hope you all are doing well. Jarom and Lixi send their love.

Turkey Day's a'comin

It has been a relatively uneventful week here in the Winn home, but I wanted to write and express my thanks to those of you who have voted for me in the current poll. Even though it has hurt Jarom and Lixi’s feelings, I am happy with the results thus far. Thanksgiving is coming up, which is OK I guess. Turkey isn’t really my bag, due to their size and all those disgusting feathers, but is always nice to have a few days off from work. Well, I don’t really have a job, so I guess it is the same as any other Thursday. But it does mean that I will be left alone again so that the others in the house can go to Delaware for the weekend. It should be a good time.

Safe Sets, our intramural volleyball team finished the regular season with four wins and only one loss, and we are hoping to make a strong run through the playoffs. Alixa is having a blast playing the sport that she loves the most, and Jarom has gone from being an idiot who has no idea what he is doing to an idiot who has some idea what he is doing in only a few short weeks. He actually scores a few points per game now, and Lixi doesn’t have to yell at him nearly as much now as she did in game 1. His 3-on-3 basketball team, the team formerly known as Sons of Abish (the BYU intramural office seems to have realized the hidden joke of this name and has removed it from the database, relegating us to the generic name Team [25]), finished the season without losing a single game and now will have to fight their way through the top division playoffs. Things are going much better now than they went for football and soccer earlier in the semester. Perhaps this will be the year that Jarom finally gets a t-shirt to prove that he is a good athlete.

Conflict Resolution

Jarom spoke with his co-worker Meghan today and wrapped up this little fiasco. It turns out that her anger towards him stems from an incident that occurred in early September, but she had never spoken to him about it. During the first two weeks of school she missed a few days of work without telling anyone and was late for several other shifts, once by more than two hours. When he asked her why she was late, she gave excuses like "I was talking to my mom" or "My roommate was in the shower." Those are fine if you are five or ten minutes late, but honestly, who showers that long?! Assuming that there were some personal issues that she didn't want to talk to him about, Jarom decided to alert the office supervisor of the situation. The supervisor spoke to Meghan and there hasn't been a problem since.

It turns out that this action insulted Meghan on several levels. First, that Jarom would "go behind her back" and talk to the boss about her tardiness. Second, she felt that he was singling her out because he didn't complain about others lack of punctuality (none of which was seen by him.) Thirdly, she felt and still feels that it is OK to show up late or leave early because the job isn't that big of a deal. All of this had been festering in her for three months, and when Jarom had the audacity to invade her privacy and read her blog (posted on the World Wide Web, the most secret of hiding places) it came boiling over.

Fortunately, they were able to discuss it like civil human beings. They came to an agreement that they will not be friends but will coexist at work without further incident.

In other Winn news, Lixi smashed Jarom for the second time in their fantasy football league. Jarom has not handled it well, and is very bitter.

Nefariousness

It has been an interesting weekend in the Winn residence. Jarom and Alixa went up to Boise for the Grandma Holderness birthday bash, leaving me with their apartment all to myself. I enjoyed my solitude. But first – surely you are wondering why I would use a word like nefarious for the title of this entry. Let me explain.

Jarom went in to work on Friday, and it started out like any other Friday. Some classes to record, DVD’s to make, equipment to move. During his down time, Jarom was playing around on the computer and found a blog that his coworker Meghan had written. Curious, he began to read the several entries that it contained. Pretty typical blog stuff, what was happening in her life, her thoughts on being recently engaged, blah, blah, blah. And then he stumbled upon an entry in which she was comparing the good and bad things in her life. At this point she mentions the great people she works with, counterbalanced by the nefarious co-worker with whom she currently shares the office. A quick look at the date and time reveal that the blog was written during the shift that Jarom shares with her. Taken aback, he posted a comment questioning what he had done that was so vile as to merit a word meaning extremely wicked or villainous (and thanks to Satan, usually reserved for snakes like me). No one else seemed to know anything about it, and since Meghan does not work on Friday, the situation would have to wait until Monday before an assuredly awkward situation could take place.

Jarom and Alixa took off for Boise as soon as his shift at work was over. Upon their arrival, Jarom was telling the story of his interesting day to his family and opened up Meghan’s blog so that the others could read the entry first hand. Unfortunately, during the 6 hour journey Meghan discovered that Jarom had found the blog, and in a spastic overreaction made the blog for invited readers only. He then sent a message to her facebook account, only to have her immediately block him there as well. He plans to talk to her about it, but is fearful that her immediate childish response will be to stop talking all together.

I will continue to update you on the outcomes of future encounters, but the main thought that I have been having involves people’s reactions to conflict. It amazes me how frightened most humans are when it comes to confrontation. I suppose that it is a byproduct of your cushy lifestyle. In my world, we are used to dealing with others, often in situations where one of the participants dies at the end. I guess that sort of struggling makes it a little bit easier to handle a little discomfort in interpersonal relations. Hopefully Meghan and Jarom will be able to resolve this little spat like adults and nobody will have to be killed.

Life from ground level

Get a blog, they say. Everyone has a blog, they tell me. All my friends stare at me with disbelief in their eyes when I tell them that not only do I not have one, but I don't even want one! But here it is, the initial offering of Mitch's Corner. In the coming days, weeks, and possibly even years you will be able to read about my thoughts on topics ranging from sports to politics, from tropical deforestation(a subject that is particularly dear to me) to how much you should tip your waitresses(at least 25% if it is Lixi). Today will just be a short intro, no main topic. Please let me know if there are subjects that you would like me to speak on. You will probably find that my perspective is unique, as an immigrant to this great nation and most particularly as a non-human. With that I will close by stating my sadness that the Pats beat the Colts today in what will probably be the best regular season game all year, and my joy in watching what was probably the best regular season game all year. Unfortunately I had to watch it by myself since Lix and Jarom don't watch TV on Sundays. They are really great people. Instead they went out and delivered home baked cookies to underprivileged local children.