3000

The first person to read this blog post will be my 3000th view. So congratulations on that. Naturally, at a major milestone like this one would reflect. So I guess I will do that.

3000 is an important number. It is part of the name of Andre 3000. If you eat 3000 of anything then that's pretty impressive. 3000 is the number of days in 8.21918 years, or 250 months. It's the number of minutes in 50 hours, which is 2 hours more than 2 full days. It's the number of times people have viewed my blog.

What's in a blog? A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. But a blog about the veracity of that line would be something entirely different. Here at Hunting Sasquatch we have explored many different subjects, and by that I mean about four. I talk about dating stuff, hot-button issues like the BYUSA, food, and Sasquatch. We've even coined some awesome Sasquatch related catch phrases at this very moment such as, "Squatch out!" and "You put the sass in Sasquatch," and "Walking in the footsteps of giants will cause you to split your pants." I said awesome, not good. Oh, and I also wrote an allegorical villanelle about Bacon. Deal with it!

By this point it should be clear to you that I am quite probably a sexy genius. Who else would take dozens of unwanted and not-very-delicious plums and turn them into a most delicious Strawberry Plum Bread and personal Plum Pies? Who else would think of putting lemonade powder into their pancake mix? Who else could you turn to when you just don't know how to communicate with the opposite sex? Who else could convince you that the Friend-zone is not a bad place to be? Who else would, without any real research on the subject, condemn an entire organization and present a lot of possibly true facts to back it up? Who else could possibly be as attractive as I? I don't know, but I assume that there are at least three of us in the world, and the other two are probably the ones hogging all the ladies.

Let's metaphor some stuff. I love Emma Watson. If she walked up to me right now and expressed interest in forming a physical connection via the lips, I would oblige. If she punched my arm, I'd laugh with her and not get angry or frustrated. I would (and do) follow her on the Twitter. I might even be a fan of her on the Facebook, though that is less likely because people actually see my the Facebook and might be inspired to judge me based on my unrequited affection for her. I don't know where I'm going with this. Ah, right. Life is filled with choices. On the Twitter, I can follow Emma and read her tweets, know what she thought about things, and I have the option of tweeting at her. Do I take that opportunity to tweet at her? No. She has 7.5 million followers, which makes it sound like a strange religion, but I assure you that the Emma worship I have seen on the Twitter falls far from idol worship. It's the same with all the celebrities. I've never once heard Emma Watson compared to Jesus, so I think it's all in good fun.

Now, let's say I did tweet her. People probably use the @EmWatson all day e'eryday to share some pretty brilliant insights, such as, "You are so pretty #nothingbutneck", "Hey @EmWatson y r u so awesome? XD", "@EmWatson, ur ratio of talent to film income is astounding #skittlemyknitting" and other such observations. The impact of one tweet is inconsequential. But let's say, in a time period of one waking-day I tweeted her like 3000 times, all with fascinating and intriguing ideas, comments, questions, and words of affirmation. I feel like that could not go ignored. I also feel like she would recognize my affection and reciprocate it.

Well, I have felt your affection. 3000 views?! For me, that's amazing. I ain't no famous person. I ain't never gon' be. But at least one person has looked at my blog 3000 times, which seems excessive if attributed to one person. So 3 people have looked at my blog 1000 times each. Much more normal. So here is my announcement of reciprocation. Openly declare what your level of affection for me could produce from an oven, and the winner will receive that oven item as evidence that my affection actually produced it.

And if you are Emma Watson and you want to declare openly that you want to form a physical connection with me via the lips, then I will create the most delicious kiss ever from my oven.

So, without further ado, and with one adieu, here is a picture of Emma Watson.

My Anniversary

Today I have officially been home from my mission for three years. And for those of you that doubt it, I do in fact like women. I feel like today is a good day to look back on the past three years and see what's been accomplished in the interim. We'll divide this into several areas and discuss them in turn.

1) Women - I have none.

Since I have been home I have been in one short-lived relationship, and dozens upon dozens of first dates. In fact, for the past 2.5 years I have been in no relationship whatsoever. I'm not saying I haven't tried, I'm saying they haven't. I'll take my mother's road and say that it's really the ladies' fault. I'm a relatively attractive young man, intelligent, talented, skilled, and Fresh2Death. I will say that I am a busy man, but I have yet to find a girl that actually likes me back (or at least shows reciprocated interest), is mature, and I am interested in, or any combination of those that includes the first one. Really, that first one has been the great stumbling block. I'm not going to speculate about why that is. I'll just keep trucking along.

2) Job - I have none.

I have held like three jobs for periods of several months since I have been home. I am just temporarily not employed. This is not to say that I don't do a lot of work. I just don't get paid for it because it's technically for my major. But man, if I got paid hourly for extracurricular theatre work, then I would make bank. But also, working part to full-time in theatre plus taking an average of 17 credits a semester leaves little room for gainful employment. But you know what, I do what I can.

3) Degree - I have none.

Not for lack of trying. I'll actually graduate more-or-less on time. It's just the whole semester before the mission didn't really count for jack when I transferred to BYU (BYU is significantly less than transfer friendly). That and I've changed my major as often as Mother Nature changes her mind in Utah. But the fact that I'll still graduate in 4 years excluding the pre-mission semester. And I'm really happy with my major and the work I do and the skills I have learned. So, bonus points to me. Once I actually officially declare my major.

4) Life experience - I gots oodles.

I've climbed mountains, worked a variety of different jobs, learned how to make people fly, created some really awesome theatre, been on a variety of dates, gotten to know a lot of people, made a handful of solid friends, and learned a ton about me and life. I've written successful blog posts, networked, danced, become a relatively consistent pitcher, purchased a pitcher, sent a sister off on a mission (like, a real sister, not like I dated a girl who then went on a mission), baked many great and glorious delights, and gone on many great and glorious adventures. I've even fired several guns. So life experience, check.

So even though if you took a snapshot of my life right now and saw that I was sitting on my couch in sweaty clothes, girlfriend-less, jobless, and degree-less, that snapshot does not in any way, shape, or form define my last three years of life. They have been (generally) happy, successful, enjoyable, and filled with love and adventure. Good friends, good eats, good times.

And now a brief photo journey backwards from Katie going through the temple back to me getting my mission call.

Katie is now a full-time missionary in Lubbock, TX.

We climbed a mountain.

Doing it like Bernie at Danny's wedding.

 Tebowing at the top of the stairs from Rocky on the family Christmas Walkabout.

You know how we do, eating omelettes at the hospital.

This happened more than five years ago.

Fathoms, Cubits, Spans, and Firkins.

I'm afraid I've been thinking. A dangerous pastime, I know. I swore to myself I'd be married to Belle and right now I am forming a plan.

Nah, just kidding, I'm not getting married, and I don't know anyone named Belle. Unfortunately. She is by far the rocking-est Disney princess. Smart, sassy, attractive, decisive, as well-read as rural peasant France could get, and strong. I've read people saying that Merida was what parents were waiting for in terms of a strong female Disney princess, but I'm like, please, Belle has been around for decades. And if you try to respond that Belle needed the Beast, then I would respond that the Beast needed Belle. Both relied on each other and achieved even greater potential. So I don't care what dress Disney wants Merida to wear as a princess or what she looks like. I already have a female role-model Disney Princess.

But I digress. What I actually want to talk about is something near and dear to my heart. Let's call them unfathomables. That which unfathoms me. Or that I cannot fathom. And fathom is a fascinating word, so let's detour for a second.

Fathom. As a noun it is the inconsistent measurement of the span of your arms, from hand to hand, generally accepted as about 6 feet, though only actually 6 feet if you happen to be about 6 feet tall (This is my favorite old school measuring tool, followed closely by a Span and a Cubit). If you are 5'5" then your fathom is not 6 feet. It's a measurement used nautically to measure depth. If you ship sits 5 fathoms deep in the water, then the last thing you want to do is sail your ship into 4 fathoms deep water. So the verb form (to fathom) is the measuring of depth. And so, just a short hop, skip, and a jump from that definition we get the way it is used now (not a whole lot of large sailing ships with sounding lines anymore), penetrating or understanding the truth of a subject (well, object in the purely grammatical sense). Some things in life you can easily fathom ("Hey, Tim, you're desire to date that girl is totally fathomable. Especially when you take into account that you only want to date her because she is visually appealing. That's exactly one fathom"). Other things in life are unfathomable ("Sir, I've used all the rope we have but we still haven't hit the bottom. The depth here is 80+x fathoms, or in other words, unfathomable!").

So what do I find unfathomable? I've already said women a ton of times. One time I got close, but I ran out of rope at 120 fathoms (that's 720 feet for the conversionally challenged, which is more than a stadium). I don't really have much else to say where women are concerned. I find them fascinating, but I'm okay with standing behind the rope while other people golf. Besides, think of all the sand and water traps. Let's leave those to someone who knows how to navigate.

One thing I do not fathom is humans. They are unpredictable. You start looking at motivation, emotional states, personality, all sorts of stuff that muddies the waters. Mice are easy. If you give a mouse a cookie, then he'll ask for a glass of milk. And if you accede to his wishes the second time, then you enter into a circular trap, spiraling down into a world of taking care of a mouse until all the cookies are gone. Moose are similarly circular. If you give my dog Frodo a roll, he will want your roll, too.  Not so with humans. You give a human a cookie, and who knows where that will lead? If I feed a human a roll, chances are they'll wander off somewhere and make themselves a sandwich. But you can't know for certain. There are definitely certain patterns that one can count on, but people deviate so often from these patterns that it's not even really worth knowing the patterns in the first place.

Another thing that boggles my mind is cheese. It is essentially the product of mold, and yet it tastes super good, but when it gets moldy we can't eat it anymore. But man do Americans love their cheese. From the Jarlsberg, to the Gouda, to the Provolone and the Parmesan. Even Americans have their own cheese (Appropriately named American Cheese), but there is an argument to be made that it is not, in point of fact, cheese.

All right, fine, I relent. Girls. They're like humans squared in terms of unpredictability. You think you know what's what, but then the what you thought you knew turns out to not be the what's what, and what you are left with is a feeling of what and why and how. That's all I have to say about that. But boy do I love them.

Rubik's cubes. They are not fun. And yet, somehow, they are one of the most popular toys ever. But they're not a toy. They are a puzzle, and puzzles are not toys, they are pattern recognition educational tools disguised by colors. The moment someone puts a Rubik's Cube into your hand, you naturally feel compelled to solve it. But you can't without looking online. Unless you are Will Smith. But the thing that blows my mind about the Cube is that at the end of all the time you have sunk into it to solve it, what do you have? You don't have a picture of a sunset over the Thames. You don't have a 3D construction of the Eiffel Tower. You have a cube, with each side a different color. And then you scramble it up again to see if you can do it. There is no reward but personal satisfaction, and as far as I'm concerned, people doing pointless things for personal satisfaction alone gives yet another reason why humans are unfathomable.

There are a number of other things that I don't understand. Why don't Russians love donuts and bagels, and why is that word interchangeable over there? How can pudding be milk-based, but Snack-Packs thrive at room temperature? Why did Clive Staples Lewis go by Jack?

And finally, the last thing for today that I find unfathomable is Jell-O. It used to be alive, but now that's freaky so they play that part down in advertisements. Wait a second, I haven't seen a Jell-O advertisement in ages. Oh yeah, I live in Utah, no need to advertise here. And why? Because for some reason LDS culture thrives on a Jell-O based dessert diet. And due to the widespread consumption of Jell-O, people feel a need to take it's natural gelatinous deliciousness (well, that's arguable) and tamper with it to make something new and exciting. Carrots do not belong in Jell-O. Celery does not either. I can handle fruit bits because Jell-O is "fruit" flavored. But then you get into the awe-inspiring Jell-O masterpieces, like one woman I knew made a veritable tower of Jell-O with over a dozen layers. When you factor in that it had to be cooled layer by layer, you're looking at a more-than-one-day process to make a dessert that I frankly cannot enjoy as much as brownies (1-hour tops). I understand tradition. I understand that it is cheap and you can make a ton of it. I understand that blending it with ice-cream in a blender and then letting it set makes the most delicious Fred Short's' Day treat in the world (Mudgy-Scudgies, as invented by the one-and-only Andrew McCole). Really I just don't understand adding vegetables. Just stop it. Apparently people also like mixing alcohol with it. Stop corrupting the inexplicable childlike joy of eating Jell-O.

In closing, I find that the most unfathomable things (and people) tend to be the most interesting. LIke which is cooler, the ocean when we know the depth of it, or outer space where there are no limits that we have found. Or who is more interesting to converse with, someone that you can read like an open book, or that mysterious, gorgeous woman who waffles to and fro so often that you don't know if she's on the same page as you, or even in the same library. I'll let you decide, but the answer you should arrive at is the unfathomable one.

But what I do fathom is sloths.