It's Just Wednesday

Once upon a time I was driving on the road between Spanish Fork and Salem (and keep in mind there is only ONE road between the two) and in front of me was a driver who was clearly drunk (I guess I could give him/her the benefit of the doubt; perhaps he was in a diabetic coma), swerving around and almost running off the road and such. I called 911 to report him, and they answered:

911: 911 Emergency, what City?

Me: In between Spanish Fork and Salem

911: What's your emergency?

Me: There's a drunk driver. It's pretty bad, he's going to kill somebody.

911: Ok, where are you driving?

Me: On the road that is Main Street in Spanish Fork and then leaves town going south toward Salem.

911: What is the name of the street?

Me: I have no idea. I'm not from around here, I just know it's the only main road between the two towns.

911: Well I'm going to need you to tell me what road it is.

Me: Seriously, I have no freaking idea. Don't you have a map or something? There's just this one road, and I don't know what it's called.

911: Well you need to find out what road it is so we can send someone out.

Me: You're incompetent. I hope this guy kills someone and it's all on you.

*Click*

I'm going to hell.

Yesterday I was driving home from work and it happened again, although this time I suspect this person was texting or something because for a minute he would be all over the road, and then for another minute he would drive in a perfectly straight line, and then back to swerving. I considered calling 911 and reporting him, but last time I tried this nobody seemed to care so I just watched him, half amused, half angry that he was endangering other people. He came close to broadsiding cars a few times...

Utah drivers, I tell ya.

Anyway.

I've been so exhausted the last few weeks. I have no idea what's going on. I find myself taking caffeine pills almost every morning, but even with those I'm walking around in a fog. The only thing I can think of is that maybe my allergies are making it hard to sleep effectively, and Utah's pollen count has been extremely high lately. Whatever it is, I'm tired of being tired.

I'm really proud of how well I've been doing on my diet. What's really nice is that I'm not denying myself something that I want. Instead, I'm just budgeting for it in my calories for the day. I am in love with fun-size Butterfingers, and my boss is getting the lab pizza today for lunch and I'm going to indulge but be reasonable about it.

Something I like about Utah is an extra pointless holiday: Pioneer Day. I get work off on Friday because of this, and I am ok with that. Unfortunately, Scott doesn't get it off because he's pretty much indispensable. That's good for job security, but bad for wanting days off. I will sleep in and relax all day, and when he goes to work I'll just laugh at him. In a nice way.

That's about all there is. It's just a regular Wednesday and I'm here at work and there's nothing else to report for the moment.

Vroom, Vroom, and Police!: A Guest Post By Scott

As you probably know, the Mustang is back together to where I can drive it to work. You've all seen pictures of the exterior, since the outside is pretty close to being finished. It turns heads as it is, but when it's done it'll turn more! The interior isn't completed, but the only part of the whole car that is completely done is the motor:

I was driving home from work and I pulled up to a stop light. An old '87 Buick with two teenagers pulled up next to me. The driver put it in neutral and revved his engine. I glanced over, glanced away and shook my head. One of them started yelling at me "You wanna race?" I simply ignored them. The light changed, and something in me said, "Smoke them anyway!" so I goosed the throttle and got up to the speed limit within 100 feet of the outside of the stop light. They hadn't even finished crossing the intersection yet. I stopped accelerating once I hit the speed limit and continued on my way home. As I approached the next light, I heard the teenagers screaming out the window "Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" as they zoomed past me at at least 60 mph (speed limit was 40, by the way).

As they passed me, they went through the next intersection and a police officer was sitting at the light, waiting to turn the same direction they were going. As I passed the policeman, he pulled in right behind me and immediately turned his lights on. I thought, "Oh, great, I got myself in trouble." But then I thought, "Well I wasn't speeding..." The policeman quickly whipped around me and chased the two teenagers! It took him a little while to catch up to them, because they didn't stop accelerating once they passed me. I caught up to where the officer had pulled over the kids, and as I passed, still going the speed limit, I giggled, a small smirk on my face, thinking, "Stupid teenagers!"

Ten Things

So I just have a few things to post today, with no apparent theme.

Scott is almost finished sanding, bondo-ing, and priming the 'Stang so soon he will be able to paint it. He doesn't think it's going fast enough, but I think we should take our time and get it done very well the first time. We're looking to sell this thing for quite a chunk of cash, so it needs to be as authentic and carefully done as possible.

I hate tailgaters. When someone is that close behind me, the evil part of me wants to just SLAM on my brakes and pretend there was a deer in the road or something, because more often than not the car behind me is much MUCH more expensive than mine. Ha. But then there's that whole whiplash thing...

Diet Mountain Dew isn't very good when it's flat and warm.

I really really want to know who the final Cylon is, but I promised Scott I wouldn't go online to find out before we finish watching the series. It's just about killing me.

One of my friends' husband is a structural engineer and was kind enough to come over the day before yesterday and take a look at our sub floor and support beams in the basement. It turns out that if we replace one beam with steel and add one more on the longer side of the basement, we might not have to replace the entire sub floor before we can put the wood down.

Mim called me yesterday and asked me a chemistry question (I love when she does that!). Someone had told her that aspartame decomposes to make formaldehyde in your stomach and poisons you so you shouldn't drink diet soda with aspartame in it. Number one, there is no known one step acid to aldehyde reduction. Number two, if you did want to make it into an aldehyde, you would have to eat some lithium aluminum hydride tetrabutyl oxide or else some palladium and quinoline, and if you had eaten these formaldehyde in your stomach would be the LAST thing you should worry about. So there's your chemistry lesson for today: aspartame will not turn into formaldehyde in your stomach. The end.

I have been walking on the treadmill on my lunch breaks at work and sometimes again when I get home. I just pop in some Scrubs or Stargate or Gilmore Girls or whatever and walk while I watch and it makes it go so much faster. I feel like I have more energy and I don't feel so bad about having a cookie for lunch yesterday.

I wish I were a size 8. Or a 6. Whatever.

Kwiddens asked me to knit her special socks to wear to the hospital when she goes into labor. They will be purple. Also, I am stalling weaving the ends into her baby's blanket by starting a new lace scarf.

I'm in love with my new phone, but I miss waking up to Hedwig's Theme as my alarm. I will have to download a new tone.

Utah Weirdos

A blog friend suggested I post about some of the interesting/weird things Utahns do. The problem with this is that most of these things are more of a Utah Mormon culture thing. So I'll list a few things, and try to keep it kind, and you'll think it's hilarious!

Instead of saying "the eff word" they say Flip! or Fetch! or Frick!, which I find hilarious, because we all know what they're actually thinking...

As everyone knows, A LOT of Utahns are Mormon, and they're not supposed to drink coffee, but there are so many people I know who drink like ten diet cokes a day for the caffeine (the rules aren't specifically for caffeine, just coffee and tea, so some people interpret it as no caffeine and some don't).

Weird names. Not even kidding. Kwiddens says she knew a girl named Bronwyn.

Nobody here knows how to cook. Meat gets overcooked to the point of being like leather. Pasta gets mushy. Vegetables are wilted. Foods that should not be combined are...like cauliflower and mayonnaise...and Jello with vegetables in it...Utah definitely has a Jello thing. It's like its own food group.

BAD DRIVING. I'm sure this is true everywhere you go, but it really does seem particularly bad here. My biggest pet peeve about Utah drivers is that they run red lights like crazy on left turns. After the light has turned red, usually three or four cars go ahead and turn even though they weren't even in the intersection when it turned red. Stoplights here have an extra few seconds between green lights in each direction, and I can only assume that this is why.

Also, for a state that gets snow every year, nobody here knows how to drive in snow. Pathetic.

The higher up on the mountain you are, the higher your social status. People assume Mim is incredibly wealthy because her house is up on the mountain, and she's just as broke as everyone else in the world. The funniest thing is, up on the mountain is right along the fault line...really the stupidest place to build a house, if we have an earthquake.

Remember in the 60's when women would back-comb and hairspray sections in the back of their hair so it was poofy in the back and on top? Yeah. They do that here. It's ugly as hell, too.

There are other things, but they're more negative and more related to Mormons specifically, and the last thing I want to do is Mormon-bash, so I'll end it here.

Happy Valley is a weird, weird place.