the weekend update

so this past weekend was pretty enjoyable. me and the mrs. took a quick trip up to Park City to get away from the bubble for the night. it was a good change of pace and not very busy, which was also a plus. there was snow everywhere, which abruptly reminded us that it was winter. up and down main street, in and out of little shops and trying not to get too cold was how the evening went. we both endulged on some new jeans, and got our grub on at Main Street Noodle and Pizza Co. the best thing about gettting pizza is having it for breakfast the next day!a funny moment up in park city was this dude that was yelling at his wife/girlfriend for getting his car all dirty. let me paint you a picture: homeboy was in his late 40's maybe early 50's, but definitely stuck in the 80's. he was rockin one of the dirtiest mullets i had ever seen, even more hardcore than billy ray cyrus himself. the girl with him was distraught because she couldn't parrallel park, and mr. mullet was even more distraught by her pathetic excuse for a park job.

saturday was pretty sweet too. i woke up and took in the buggy to get an oil change and then started to clean the bathroom- etrain's orders. in the afternoon i went over to jake's house to watch a lil football. normally i am not much of a sports fanatic or football watcher, but it was good to get with the fellas. we watched the Ohio State vs. Michigan game, and it was just as intense as all the hype anticipated.even papa Katz came in and left Lil Sid Vicious with her mom. BYU put on a good show too, clinching the conference title and defeating New Mexico.

Later in the evening we went over to our friend Trish's b-day party. Not your typical girly party by any means. but then again, Trish isn't a typical girl. the party was themed around the UFC Welterweight Title fight between Hughes and St Pierre. I felt a lil outta place because i was the only dude there who couldn't dead lift 600 lbs. meat-head central, but good guys i suppose. we didn't stay to watch all the fights, but sent our b-day wishes to Miss Trish.

puppy training

we all have mile stones in our lives; our first day of school is probably the most memorable for our parents. well, we have reached that same mile stone with our pup and by request of my wife i will share it with you, while she is in san diego. tonight was his first day of obedience school, and it couldn't have come any sooner. there were a lot of puppies in the class, all different breeds and sizes, along with all different owners. some that stick out are jack the chihuahua and his gay owner, and the three hounds with there hippee parents. buster was all fired up about being around so many dogs and people, which caused a little a.d.d. he kept trying to play with the labradoodle next to him and steal her treats, instead of learn anything. the trainer was really nice. Karen has been doing this for quite some time, i just hope she can help us out with Buster. throughout the session Buster was a punk and wanted to play, not learn.he was used as a "demo dog" by the trainer to learn a command, but got distracted half-way through and tried to wrestle with the three hounds.we have our work cut out for us! plus he was a snob about the treats we had-which made training and positive reinforcement kind of hard. but, we have some homework to do- some commands and getting him used to his new training tool, the clicker. i worked with him when we got home, but he still wasn't havin any of it. anywho, i must go seeing as i have yet another test to study for. and etrain, i hope that was satisfactory to your needs.

tone the grad

so yesterday was a pretty sweet day. for one, it was about 75 degrees and the sun was shining. i was walking around campus with a short sleeve shirt on- or in my "shirt-sleeves" as my wonderful mother-in-law Mama G would say. school was a normal day, except for one little thing. what?what is it you say. well, i guess you can figure it out by the title of this entry. there goes the suspense.i applied for graduation!thats right, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and brighter folks. it was quite an experience. the spanish department is a joke, and full of rude, unhelpful people. i won't go into details, but needless to say it will be a happy day when i turn my tassel, walk up to the podium, grab my diploma and walk out the door. i will never have to step foot on campus as a student again!

redemption

some people call me loke, some call me stroke...but i would like to refer to myslef from now on as the "comeback kid." thats right, after last weeks embarrassment and general dissapointment i came back strong with high hopes and full throttle. On friday night, Erika had hoped to be wined and dined and treated like royalty for our weekend date. Much to her dismay, I had planned for us to go out to dinner with the crew to celebrate "jakie-poo's" birthday. Erika had a rough day at school- to say the least- and i am sure she was just hoping to leave the night up to me. friday night was a bit unusual however. Jake had planned to go to the movies with some of who we like to refer as the "replacement friends" at around 6:30 or 7-ish. therefore, we- those friends who care about him most and vice-versa- had his Olive Garden b-day dinner at 4:45pm. Yup, just us and the denture squad. in fact, we had beat the senior citizen rush, if you could imagine. the dinner was fun though: nothing is better than gettin together with amazing people. the katz', francis, jake and the mendioroz's. we shared some pretty amazing laughs, and good food. i think that the quote that will be legendary forever is sarah's classic "Chris would be soo embarrassed!" as we discussed the new trend of nudist colonies becoming mainstream. sorry chris. what a line!

after dinner we went up to the Riverwoods and saw "The Prestige" with Chris and Sarah. it was our second time, and we still haven't gotten it all figured out. what a great flick-i highly recommend it. the first time with ty and jenny left us stumped, confused and wanting to figure out what had happened. the second time, we got most of the plot worked out, but still are lost on a few things. its awesome.

Now, for the whole reason of the new name- saturday was my turn to sing the great Bob Marley's Redemption song as i planned out our night. Erika had been gone all day at school, I didn't have to work, so i focused on "her day." as she was away, i got my domestication on. thats right, i have been known to cook from time to time, yet baking i have not ventured into. My boss made an amazing pumpkin cake thing the other day at work, and i brought a nugget home for erika to sample. if you know erika at all, you know that this is her favorite time of year because pumpkins are everywhere, in every form of edible food and she can't get enough of it. after 2 days of raving about the "punkin goodness" as she called it, i got the recipe and baked it while Erika was off at school pampering jeff.

i also went grocery shopping to put togther her new new favorite dinner- Giatta's veggie paninis- which i made for her hot and fresh when she walked in the door. she enjoyed the panini, but was distracted by the huge pan of pumpking deliciousness. with no hesitation we dove into the dessert and her eyes lit up. jackpot! she loved it.

the night did not end there however. after stuffing our faces with pumpkin, and letting our guts settle from such a quality meal, we headed up north to enjoy the highlight of the evening. i took her to see the classic "Man of La Mancha" up in SLC at the Hale Theatre. The cool thing about this particular theatre is that its a "theatre in the round," like Shakespeare's Globe. The drive up was a joke, we almost missed the show. I guess there was some orchestra concert at the E Center accross the street, which caused serious traffic. there is nothing worse than a utahrd traffic jam. But the gods were smiling because the show started late and we were able to make it.
the play really was entertaining, Don Quixote was really good and soo was Dulcinea, but the real show stopper was Sancho.one of my favorite parts was when he sang to a dying Quixote about "this and that." Also the fight against Gypsies was a classic scene. he was hillarious and the production was great. we still have the songs stuck in our heads today.it was good to be enriched with culture, especially spanish culture and it was a great end to a great night.

most important of all was the appreciation and happiness that oozed from erika all night long. i always love seeing her face light up, as she gets treated special or is pampered in any way. its soo worth the time and effort to really show how much you love someone, and then feel the love ten times more right back.

dropping the ball

so this past weekend was a sad one folks. nothing tragic happened, nothing exciting. just sad. it was sad because i totally let erika down and that is probably the worst feeling that i can have. the thing that sucks is that i was trying to plan all week long a fun date to take her on.it being around halloween there are lots of haunted houses and such to check out. erika loves scary things and its the perfect time for it.i had been making calls all week to get other friends to come along, but it all came down to saturday afternoon and no one could go. sadly, we just went to dinner then went home to watch a movie on tv. i write this because i feel like i owe her an apology, becuase even though our friends couldn't go out, i should have taken her out all by ourselves. besides thats what its all about anyway right?making her feel loved and special. those of you who are married know how much it hurts when you know you have let someone down, even though they claim to not care. for all the guys out there, we should consider ourselves lucky that our wives still keep us around after dropping the ball soo much. at least i feel lucky.

i feel lucky to be in the game still, and have a wife who does so much for me. its the little things ya know? as i sit hear i realize that there are so many little things that she does for me everyday. lots of times i drop the ball and don't recognize them or just fail to acknowledge them.little things like get my favorite ice cream at the store, or taking out buster early in the morning. or paying all the bills on time.i really am lucky to have such a keeper of a wife and that she keeps me around.i am sorry that i dropped the ball snig. i love you.thanks for all you do.

OH SNAP!!

so saturday was an eventful day for mr loke stroke. i decided to help a brother out-a mr T. Brown- with his car. the car has had issues since he has been up here, so i gave him a tow to the dealership. it was the first time i had ever given anyone a tow, and i must say that the Taco performed beautifully.
everything was going well. there was a little scare going down ty's hill, when his breaks barely worked-luckily he didn't rear end me. but it was a fine trip from north springville to the chevy dealer on university ave. Luckily for us, it was a BYU gameday-or maybe not so lucky-depending on if your a football fan- but the traffic was thick, so lots of stop and go. all this stop and go caused a few jerks when the tow roped tightened up. As we were turning into the turn lane to go into the dealership, suddenly i noticed that my load seemed a little lighter. I looked in my rear-view, and saw ty sitting there laughing his head off.

fortunately for us, we only had to push the blazer about 50 ft into the chevy repair shop. because the rope had gotten tugged at a few times, the knot was pretty much impossible to get off. I had to cut the rope off by using a razor blade for about 20 min of incessant slicing. but i got it off and me and ty still chuckle at the thought of our little adventure.



nothin but love t brown. nothin but.

mr loke stroke at the strokes...

boys night out and what did we do? rocked the casbah like it was our job. the night started out a little, shakey...On board with us was Jacob "sign me up..." Melzer, Corporate Marlo, Tyson aka "capitan" Brown and myself. So as we are headin north up to the great SLC Marlo pulls out his ticket and asks us where we got ours. thats when it hit me. MY TICKET!! not in my pocket, my wallet or in my hand, but taped nicely to my pottery barn message center in my house. shoot. but alas, i was not alone, my friends. ty brown also left his golden ticket in his casita. so a 40 min detour later and we we on the road again, pointed in the right direction, tickets close to our hearts. luckily Melzer has premium traffic driving skillz, and we made it up in time.

we met up with the rest of our crew- half the members of the infamous Otters: Joel "i used to date a grandma" Baer and Nate Barnes. Along with them came "philipino Jeremy." the final member of the crew showed up about 15 minutes later...none other than the ring leader himself Zachy James. I am goin to be real honest with you folks...i wasn't exactly thrilled to see mr. james. Zach is one of those kids who makes life interesting- sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. its a love/ hate relationship with the kid. just like zach himself, its all or nothing. But, Zach proved to swing things for the better this time around and got us all pumped and crazy during the show.

oh the show...one word: Glorious. the music and the crowd anyway. the band- i have never seen anyone as wasted as lead singer Julian Casablancas before. he was trippin on something, but luckily was coherent enough to perform amazingly. the crowd was fun. theres nothing like goin to a show 10 deep with bros. its been a while since i was completely saturated with sweat-most of which was not my own- from head to toe. its kind of amazing sometimes when you are at a concert and a complete stranger all of the sudden becomes your best friend-just for liking the same music and gettin into it. thats how it went down, our crew joined forces with the neighboring groups with camaraderie for the Strokes. its also amazing how fun it is to go nuts, with some of your closest friends.

the best song of the night for me was "Reptilia," or maybe their opening diddy "You only live Once." another highlight of the night was tossing Zach up into the crowd to crowd surf. what a nut. the only bad thing about the show, was that their set wasn't very long.they should have played a couple more, but hey thats rock stars for ya.

other highlights of the night:
going to Chevron for gatorade. as melzer went to pay, the cashier took his debit card and put it down her bra. sick as all get out, but made us laugh none the less.
Del Taco- marlo talking about a movie character "Chinegro"- those of who know, laugh now

Tyson took some sic pics throughout the night so be on the look out for the next update.