My sister just posted a hilarious picture of my niece on facebook. She has on bunny ears and is making a series of very expressive faces. I love expressive people. Maybe it’s from my background in sign language.  So much of ASL and really any language is based on facial expression so I always pay very close attention to faces.  When people are very expressive I feel like I connect with them more. My sister is super good with her facial expressions so of course her smallish child is as well. This picture has to be one of my favourite baby pictures of Hannah thus far. It’s my sister’s first baby so she is taking tons of pictures. But then who wouldn’t. Hannah’s blessing is tomorrow. Too bad I can’t be there. My sister made all the plans so that I could make it then my manager decided not to give me the days off. I should stop complaining about that.

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My family is coming up next weekend because they’re on spring break. I saw their reservation in the computer at my place of work (I work at a hotel) and I wrote in a requests for their room. Typically when guests come in they have requests on their reservation asking for a high floor room or extra pillows etc. so I put in a request that said “please have bathtub filled for pet sea slug.” I’m not sure if I’m allowed to do that but I did. I just want to know what my manager does when he is looking at the list of arrivals next week and that one comes up. I’m sure it will be hilarious. I am still trying to decide what I want the other reservation to say. I was thinking about putting a request in to “have all light bulbs removed guest will be bringing their own energy efficient bulbs.” I was in a really creative mood yesterday. I must have spent a good hour thinking of random things I could request. My family comes in on Wednesday so I’ll see what happens then.  I have to think of ways to entertain them. Fortunately I’m not going to be working too much when they’re here.

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Wow I don’t know what number post this is but it certainly isn’t number twelve. I’ve been flyin’ solo this weekend and it has been terrible. I don’t know how I lived for so long without having someone to share a bed with. It’s so cold and lonely. I went to the volleyball game tonight, alone. It was a pretty exciting game. Before that I went to my aunt’s place. All her kids were over with their kids so I was kind of the odd man out but my aunt is awesome so she was good about including me. I did get a kiss from my niece her mouth was covered in chocolate but it was sill great. She just started walking a few months ago. Her dad is Chilean so when you say besitos, she comes over and kisses you on the cheek. It is nice having some family here to visit with. Hopefully I find somewhere to go tomorrow. My wife will be really sad if I am alone on easter.

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I made an interesting observation while driving to Bountiful yesterday; “traffic” in Utah is not the same as traffic in California…at all. It is basically the complete opposite. I noticed while driving that I was regularly gravitating toward the farthest right lane. When I drive I take what I like to call the path of least resistance. Basically I change lanes every time I see a faster lane. Sometimes I may pretend to be a NASCAR driver looking for the best pocket to drop into, but most of the time, I find the best lane by choosing several cars ahead of me then figuring which one is moving the fastest. It startled me that I kept finding myself in the 3^rd or 4^th lane because those are supposed to be the slow lanes. When there is traffic on a California freeway, it is a result of the fact that so many cars are leaving the freeway that the off ramps can’t handle them so they backup onto the freeway. When this occurs, there is a slowing from the farthest right lane (lane 6 or 10 depending on where on the freeway you are) and gradually slows the other lanes making 1 the fastest lane. In Utah however, the exact opposite occurs which means that the slowing isn’t a result of overpopulated freeways but is instead a result of the fact that no one actually is in a hurry to get anywhere. 

I skyped with my sister and my niece today. I was in the “fish bowl” in the Chem building so I didn’t want to be noisy and distract anyone so instead I put ear buds in and signed my responses to my sister. It was pretty great. People kept randomly looking over at me because I was signing to my computer. My sister had her baby six weeks ago and she (baby) is super cute. She was asleep most of the time and she kept waving her hands around like she was trying to sign as well. I hope I get to actually see her soon. I find out at the end of the week what my chances are of going home for Easter. Hannah (my niece) is going to be blessed on Easter Sunday down in LA so I’m really hoping I have at least one day off. My mom is thinking about flying me down if I can’t make it on the drive down with my wife and brother in law. Hopefully it all works out. 

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I have so many things I could/should be doing right now. I guess this is somewhat productive. I have sort of put my writing work on hold for the past few weeks. It is by far my favorite class this semester but I have been doing poorly in my other classes so I have been forced to quit paying attention to this class in order to actually pass my other classes. Hopefully I can get back on track quickly. My last essay was probably the worst essay I have ever written and I still got a passing grade so I think I’ll survive. That’s probably not the best way of looking at things but that’s what it has come to. At work, two of the front desk clerks have quit and the manager is refusing to hire another clerk so I’ve gone from 24hr/week to 40hr/week so I am super busy now. And, also because of our need for more employees, I won’t be able to go home for Easter most likely. There’s a lot going on Easter weekend back home for both my family and my wife’s family (we’re both from Irvine, CA) so my wife will be going down either way which means I’ll be home alone for Easter weekend…lame. 

Would I rather be deaf or blind? I am super biased on this one because throughout high school and the beginning of my college career, I was pretty well immersed in deaf culture. I have several deaf friends and my older sister (who now is an interpreter for the deaf) even dated a hard of hearing guy for a while. I’m certainly not fluent in Sign Language but I know enough of it to know that if I were to become profoundly deaf, I would be able to cope a lot better than I would be if I were to lose my sight.  I really do love the deaf culture. It is a very open and welcoming culture. My high school had a deaf school as part of the school and I used to always hang out in the deaf quad so I got to know a lot of the deaf students. I am a very visual person so if I were to lose my eyesight I would have a really rough time coping. I love driving and biking and running all of which require me to see where I’m going. Also I really don’t like being blindfolded (even for games).

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I almost got hit by a deer today. It was running right down 700 east right in the middle of the road at rush hour. I was stopped at the light and two deer came running straight towards my car. One almost hit me then weaved past my car and on down the road. It was a great start to the day.

All last week my car sounded like a colony of crickets had moved into the engine block but yesterday the noise went away. I think it’s because I finally scheduled an appointment with a mechanic. It seems that cars are always afraid of mechanic shops kind of like people and doctor’s offices. They just get stage fright.

I have decided that cars are allergic to Utah. In the last year I have brought three different cars to the Utah valley and every time after a few weeks of being here in P-Town, the cars have just started sounding terrible. I had my parent’s van for a while and it was making a horrible noise but as soon as it got back to California, it began to run perfectly. I have some of the same problem myself but I’m working on overcoming that.

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I had a fantastic weekend. I somehow managed to do absolutely nothing. I’m including sixteen hours of work in that “nothing” but it really felt so relaxing. On Friday after I got off work at eleven, my wife and I stayed up ‘till two watching Psych in bed. Then we slept in and had sourdough pancakes for breakfast (they’re amazing). It was a beautiful day on Saturday so I biked to work. Then on Sunday we went to my cousin’s son’s baby blessing. Our church starts at one so we had some time after the blessing to relax. My wife and I both teach nursery so Sundays are always fun. After church we went up to my aunt’s place for dinner. She makes some of the most amazing I have ever had. We had “Café Rio” and it was perfect. Then she brought out her pie. I had a few slices of strawberry pie which was heavenly then followed it up with some triple chocolate pie.  It was great. My aunt lives up in the mountains so it was quite a drive going there and back. I personally love more technical roads but none of my passengers did. My brother in law was a little queasy by the time we got to the main road. My car was filthy as well. A good portion of the road was not paved and it had been raining so there was a lot of mud.