Erin The Great

For all you Bloggers out there… I don’t know if you are aware of Akismet Spam collector, but if you aren’t and you don’t have it, prepare to make your life a whole lot easier!

I would get so excited to see a ‘moderate comment’ notice in my e-mail. ‘I’m loved’ I would cry out. I would quickly go to my admin page, and lo and behold there would be 4-5 comments for me to moderate. I was so excited at the anticipation… until I clicked on the ‘moderate comment’ and noticed that it was all Spam. ‘I’m not loved’ I would say as I sighed to myself. This vicious cycle continued on for over 6 months until my friend Nate came over and told me about this wonderful Spam collector. ‘You’ll never go back’ he said with a smile on his face… of course he also said that about the Mac Book, but at least he was right about the Spam collector. Most of my problems were solved in less than 5 minutes.

If you have a wordpress blog, go to your plug-ins and look for ‘Akismet Spam’ and hit activate. This will only activate if you have an account with wordpress (which takes 3 seconds to set up and costs $0). After that, you will be able to moderate actual comments without feeling the displeasure of being led on by false notifications. You’ll never go back and it’s one less thing you have to worry about!

Finally! It’s been over 80 degrees for the last week and like superman, I feel like I’ve been rejuvenated by the mere presence of the sun! It’s a good thing the sun… It means that summer is finally upon us.

I love summer, but the one thing that is the hardest for me to do is sleep. Because it’s nice out even when the sun goes down, people are still awake and doing things even if most of us have to be at work early the next day. It’s like we’re all still kids and we can’t go to sleep until the sun goes down and there is no more noise. I used to look out my window as a kid (when the sun was still up mind you) because I had been sent to bed at an unfortunate hour. My friends would still be playing in the street and I would get more and more jealous by the hour… it’s ok because I would just read with a flashlight until 11 or midnight anyway because really, what kid can sleep that early? I was really good at pretending to be asleep, mainly because for two years I slept in a little space between the wall and my bed. All I had to do was be face down and my parents couldn’t tell.

After many moons, I’m sad to tell you that my mentality hasn’t changed much. Only when I’m dead dragging tired can I make it to bed before midnight. It’s the summer! The only thing about that is the older I get, the harder it is to recover from a night without sleep. In high school, due to all my extra curricular activities, I would run on about 4-5 hours of sleep a night. NOW almost 10 years later if I don’t get at least 7-8 hours I have to ante up the caffeine and drink it like it’s going off the planet. Gallons and gallons of Dr. Pepper just to get me mobile (note how I didn’t say awake). It’s funny how when we’re kids we never want to sleep. When we are adults, we can’t get enough of it. I always tell myself at work that I’m going straight home and going straight to bed… This of course never happens because, after all that caffeine, I’m wide awake by the time I get home. It’s a vicious cycle. My only hope is to have kids and have their natural ‘crack of dawn’ wake-up call be MY body’s internal alarm clock reset. Until then I have my liter to get me going!

My friend Nick draws cartoons for our ward Newsletter… I think he nailed it on the head with this one.

Happy Father’s Day! I don’t want to brag but I pretty much have the coolest Dad around. I grew up being ‘Daddy’s Girl’. Well, ‘Daddy’s Girl’ that could play sports, out spit, out belch and out punch most of the boys my age… until High School that is. Yes my dad’s blond haired, brown-eyed little girl grew up basically a boy, but beggars can’t be choosers right?

I’ve learned many things from my father. Like how The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd were what God was listening to when he created the PAC-10 on the 6th day. He taught me most of what I know in regards to pranking and outdoor survival. I don’t know how my mother felt about her very impressionable 10-year-old daughter being taught the fundamentals of short-sheeting a bed as well as the proper way to make methyl blue/Ex-Lax brownies, but at least learning how to survive outdoors counteracted that. Thanks to my dad, I’m an absolute pro at both.

Aside from the crazy things I’ve learned from my dad I’d like to offer up a very well deserved Thank You. Father, thank you for helping me to not ever have an inferiority as well as an image complex. You always helped me feel beautiful even when I was thin and gangly. Thank you for treating my mother with love and respect so I would have a basis of comparison so as to not accept anything less in the men I date. Thank you for being a mediator through out my teenage years and helping me learn how to calm down before I go into a situation with ‘guns blazing’. Thank you for never pulling a rifle on any of my dates and showing me the fine art of spilling food on myself any time I eat ANYTHING… I am my father’s daughter, and I’m utterly proud to be so!

Dad, thank you for being so stinking cool and for never asking me to turn down my music as a young adolescent, even if it WAS barely music. To you I am eternally indebted. You’ve been a pillar of strength through some pretty rocky times and I love you! You’re amazing and I couldn’t have asked for a better dad. Happy Father’s Day!

I love my job. I’m just going to say this before I go off on my tangent. It all started about two and a half months ago when (due to shenanigans in the work place) I managed to get the Internet banned at my bank branch. I know what you’re thinking… you’re thinking about how popular I became and how you’re jealous of my popularity. Not quite!

I would just like to say that my boss knew what I was doing that fateful April Fools day and didn’t care because it was a particularly slow day and all my work was done. I decided to pull a few pranks on my friends and, after trying to sell my friend’s cars on ksl.com, I realized I had been on the Internet a good chunk of the day. Again, it was a REALLY slow day and my boss didn’t care. Imagine my surprise when three weeks later I get pulled into our security offices up in Salt Lake to get absolutely raked over the coals for surfing the Internet. I’m so glad I was able to waste a couple of gallons of golden gas to get my get my butt ripped to shreds by some corporate beast on speaker phone, especially when my daily Internet usage usually only involved my quick celebrity gossip updates, printing off a sudoku puzzle and finally, my blog. That’s right, I like many of you would blog at work… this is no longer the case.

Since this Internet ban, I’m stuck in my very slow bank branch that maybe sees 30 people total on any given day, maybe 31 on Friday. Payday. Are you seeing where I am going with this? That’s right! After almost 2 months of no Internet, no printing off Sudoku puzzles and NO BLOGGING to keep me from killing customers, I have been left with a huge gaping void not to mention being left to my own devices… never a good thing.

To my co-workers I would like to issue an apology. I am so very sorry and would like to thank you profusely for not slashing my tires, keying my car or TP-ing my house! You all are amazing and should receive a couple of ‘Luv Saks’ in heaven, should you make it there… Boyd.

Luckily, after weeks and weeks of looking almost comatose from boredom, I have picked up a few old hobbies. I have always loved reading and now that I have hours at my disposal, I am reading the entire works of Jane Austen. I’ve decided that reading such books like the ‘Twilight’ series while I was at work was shaping up to be a bad idea. Especially if I was in the middle of one of the fight scenes, and of course thanks to ‘Murphy’s Law’ that would be the very second that someone would call to ask an asinine question like ‘Is this the optical section of Costco?’ Breathe Erin breathe. They don’t know that they’ve just interrupted the climax of your book. Count to 10… ok talk. ‘No, this is CENSORED bank.’ Good, I didn’t bite off heads; it’s going to be ok. The customer asks again, ‘You mean this isn’t Costco?’ again breathe Erin. ‘No I’m sorry, this is CENSORED bank, is there anything else can help you with?’ Click! Rude! What I wanted to say was ‘No, you friggin idiot! What part of ‘thank you for calling CENSORED bank are you not computing??’ Thank you so much for trying my patience when I was being nice, even after you interrupted the best part of the book!

This is why I don’t read really intriguing and complicated books at work… Usually I’m pretty good at holding my cool when I’m dealing with rude people. I realize that, even though I’m reading on the job, that the customer comes first. But when they’re rude, I can’t help of thinking up ways I could meet them in dark alleys… Thanks again Internet Ban! Without you, I’ve managed to forgo all my stress releases until after I get home from work. It’s cool! I’m sure my roommates love me coming home in really foul moods after dealing with the world’s rudest people on earth. It’s ok that it takes me almost 2 hours to calm down from my day. Whatever. I hope you’re happy!

In the last couple of months I’ve been to at least five wedding receptions. I’ve had my fair share of receptions since I stepped foot in Utah but it’s been the last couple of months that have been slightly unbearable. Don’t get me wrong, I love going and seeing my friends happy beyond all reason, but it’s the aftermath and the sidelines and the chatting that really get me.

Luckily I have what I like to refer to as a ‘Reception Buddy’. My friend Jill dislikes receptions almost as much as I do so we became each other’s ‘reception buddy’. Like I said it’s not the coupling and the marriage, in fact that’s the only part that I actually like besides the flowers. It’s the getting stuck in front of inquisitive people who ask you a million questions about your life, who you’re dating and why you’re not married yet. And. if by some miracle you do end up going with someone, you get the ‘now why aren’t you two married’ Awk.Ward. Jill and I have gone to a few receptions together that have been as awkward as they get. With the Provo scene as small as it is, there is only a matter of time before your exes start showing up and best friends and relatives of exes show up. There are also the mothers and aunts of your friends who try setting you up with EVERYONE that is still single in their family… there is only so much of this you can take before you just want to run out of ’said’ reception and scream with every last breath you have. Luckily we have each other to complain to and laugh hysterically with afterwards.

I’m beginning to wonder if wedding receptions are even necessary. To be perfectly honest, the bride and groom don’t want to be there, they have better things to do. Friends and family are going to see them again and the single people all want to run out of what ever establishment ‘said’ reception is being held at after being harassed and embarrassed enough for an entire lifetime… With the exception of last week in Portland (the only time I didn’t get harassed and asked why I wasn’t married. I had the protection of good friends and drunk guests that were to busy getting down with their bad selves). It was nice for once to just enjoy my self at a reception… and enjoy I did I think after the wedding there should be a ‘linger for a few’ and then everybody break!

After my friend’s reception yesterday, I was not surprised at all that it ended up being just as bad and awkward as the rest of them. It was great to see my friends off, but there was someone who tried to set me up with the bride’s ex. Brilliant. Awkward. Not happening. I need to get out of Provo. Honestly I would just like for the rest of my existence to go to a reception and not have to worry about anything and just enjoy myself, but apparently awkward torture is how these things roll… at least in my experience.

Any many of you may or may not know I happen to be a ‘Celebrity Gossip’ junkie. I started out young reading about the ‘goings on’ from People Magazine and US weekly. Nowadays I can look up my celebrity gossip on various websites as well as pick up my magazines to get my fix.

Most of the time I read about various weddings, celebs having babies and who’s divorcing whom, but recently there has been string after string of disturbing articles. Has anyone read the article in US weekly about Joe Simpson (Jessica Simpson’s dad)? The more I read about his guy, the more I have to fight the urge to vomit. There is over protective daddy and then there is ‘I’m secretly in love with my daughter and I’m going to get involved and ruin every relationship she’s ever been in’. No wonder every guy Jessica ever dates goes running, I wouldn’t want to be involved in that weirdness either.

It’s weird to say but I’m beginning to lose a little respect for George Clooney. First he finds this great girl and after raving non-stop about her, he dumps her flat on her face. George, I know you have a bet going with Nicole Kidman and Michelle Pfeiffer that if you marry within 5 more years you owe both of them a huge amount of money, but to continue to dump women just because you don’t want to pay up is ridiculous.

I’m extremely happy that Brittney Spears and Lindsey Lohan aren’t as big of topics as they have been over the last couple of years. Finally! They are living right, wearing underwear and generally doing well. I am also very glad that everyone has stopped obsessing over Nicole Ritchie’s slim form. Good for you for having a baby and looking healthy again.

Does anyone want to talk Grey’s Anatomy? I’m am so glad that Shonda Rhimes finally got a clue and has started laying off the insane drama that has plagued Grey’s for over a year now. One of the reason’s I started watching the show in the first place is that it presented real problems with humor and only slight embarrassment. It was indeed one of the most entertaining shows that I was addicted to. Since the beginning of season three, it has been one crap storm after another, so I am glad that it seems to be ironing itself out.

People can make fun of me all they want but I love reading and going into my little fantasy land where I can watch other people’s problems instead of dealing with my

While sitting in church yesterday, a couple of my friends and I decided to have a ‘girls afternoon/night in’. We decided that we would just stay in all afternoon/night, watching movies, having a sleepover, and doing basically nothing all day because it’s the summer and we’re not in school… Wonderful summer, worthy of heroic praise! Normally our ‘girls nights’ have some form of facial, painting of the nails, popcorn and of course marathon chick flicks. Yesterday though we decided to step away from the normal realm of our beloved girl’s nights and gathered up all the old ‘Star Wars’ movies and commenced viewing. You remember the old ‘Star Wars’ movies that are amazing, and weren’t ruined by all the crazy CGI? After six glorious hours of whining Luke and the beautiful Harrison Ford, we were all in seventh heaven as we watched good triumph over evil. Hmmm Harrison Ford!

The funny thing was that during said ‘girls night’ we had a lot of guys stop in and watch with us through various times of the night. In the end, it was the girls who prevailed and ended the marathon just a little after 1 AM. I love my girl bonding nights with attractive men on the movie screen. It makes me happy and gives me the strength to conquer another week!

It’s my 100th post!! I feel like I’ve reached some crazy great mile stone and because of that this particular post should be awesome. What to write about, what to write about… hmmm…

As a lot of you know, I live in Provo. There isn’t a lot to do here, so people do things and invent things to keep themselves entertained. For the most part (when we’re not studying) we do normal stuff like Facebook, Youtube, and pranks, but it isn’t until we get sooo bored that the really strange ideas just start coming out. One such example of, we’ll call it Provo-tainment (Provo Entertainment), is called Spoon Rodeo. Spoon rodeo is when you wait for an unsuspecting victim. When you know the person hasn’t seen you, you tackle them and become the ‘big spoon’ as you wrap your leg around the other person like you would if you were spooning them on a couch and have one of your friends call ‘spoon!’ to make sure it was done right. Then you get up and walk away.

More forms of Provo-tainment include Truck Tubbing. This is where you get a truck and put a tarp in the bed and fill the bed with water. You can drive around town while relaxing in luke-warm water!

Naked Snow Run - Basically causing a stir by running onto BYU campus in the snow… in a bikini…and a pair of sneakers. We just call it the Naked Snow Run for the effect and the looks you get while you’re running are absolutely priceless!

The two at the bottom you should do at your own risk… I’m not condoning such behavior because it’s dangerous…but it is rather entertaining.

Sobe Bombs – These are tons of fun at big bon-fires. You drink the Sobe and poke a thumbtack through the lid. You then take gasoline and fill the bottle to the base of the neck and loosely screw the top back on. You have to screw it so it doesn’t fall off but not to tight that the pressure buildup doesn’t make the bottle explode shooting glass everywhere. You then place the bottle in the coals with flames hopefully taller than the bottle and watch the fun.

Molotov Cocktail launching - This was made up one wintery day out of boredom during Christmas break. You take rubber piping and make a slingshot. Then you drink a case of whatever you can so you can put gasoline or lamp oil and top it off with a rag sticking out. You light the end and sling shot it into nothingness… preferably in snow so you don’t start a fire. Trust me, the explosion is worth it.

When life in Provo gets just a little too boring, these are just some of the crazy things people do. Luckily I’m at the end of my ‘I’m immortal’ phase of my life. This is one of many reasons that I blog… it’s safer and legal.

I own a 2002 Mini Cooper that I drive like Stella Bridger on the ‘The Italian Job’ and I love the looks I get from guys when I’m driving my car. It’s a very strong look of the undeserving. Like I could possibly be a girl and actually drive my car the way it should be driven… I have news for you guys; I drive my car more then appropriately (like a bat out of hell). So don’t you worry!

I took my car in for an oil change earlier today, and of course received ‘the look’ as I drove up and handed my key over to the scruffy looking mechanic. After waiting for an hour completely zoned in the book I was reading (They Shoot Canoes Don’t They by Patrick McManus in case anyone is interested) I heard my name called. Awesome! DB loves getting her oil changed and I was very excited to drive her home. As I approached the counter I could see that the look in the mechanic’s eye was one of an inquisitive nature. ‘Super’ I thought to myself as I braced myself for the usual lecture. ‘I love it when you bring your car in’ said the man. ‘Thanks…’ I replied. ‘You have no idea how badly I want to take your car out to the salt flats and see how well she corners!’ he exclaimed. ‘Maybe next time’ I replied. He then went into the usual spiel on how I should be driving my car. ‘I don’t know how you’re driving your car but…yada yada doesn’t matter because everything he mentioned I already do (when cops aren’t around)’. ‘Thanks man, I’ll remember that’ I said simply as I left the garage. Guys are funny. But I appreciate the advice anyway.

I’ve been reading Dooce.com for over 6 months now and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Today I had the opportunity to meet the woman in person at a book signing in Salt Lake, and I’m not going to lie, it was like meeting my Elvis. She is so nice and really funny, and after it was my turn to meet her, I’m sure she thought I traveled via ‘the short bus’. In my defense I was extremely nervous so I’m sure the words that came spewing out of my mouth were less then eloquent. Still, it was extremely cool.

To make the day even more awesome, I got to hang out with two very cool individuals. Nothing like hanging in SoJo with Bags and the leper! I had a blast.