Surviving the apocalypse while laughing at other's pain

I’ve been neglecting this thing for too long, but after our close call with the apocalypse I’ve decided bringing back my blog. It really makes you think.

Speaking of apocalypses, this has always been my favorite time of year. No, not Christmas (although it is a close second), my favorite time is the day after a failed apocalypse.

The sense of disappointment from the crazies just permeates the air, and they become desperate to find a new apocalyptic event to latch all their hopes and dreams on to.

The poster child for post-apocalyptic disappointment.

It’s great, and I love it.

I loved it when our kooky friends Ronald Weinland and Harold Camping predicted the end of the world, were wrong, promptly re-predicted the end of the world, and then were wrong again.

There’s nothing better to me than when some loony doomsday prepper out in Montana is disappointed that he can’t defend his wheat from the unprepared virgins of the world.

In order to understand why I revel in such disappointment, you have to look at where I was raised.

I come from a small town in Northern Utah where many of my neighbors and members in my ward were avid survivalists, survivalists who were more than ready for Y2K to take us into a new era of anarchy, militias and post-apocalyptic goodness.

For example my Sunday school teacher decided that the manual assigned by the Church was not sufficient in preparing our young impressionable minds for the second coming. So he took it upon himself to eschew the manual in favor of teaching us about the second coming… using his own personal research. This meant instead of getting lessons on the teachings of Christ, we got lessons in how to properly prepare wheat and lessons on the shekinah.

(Side note: Shekinah is a Hebrew word that literally means, ‘to settle, inhabit, or dwell,’ and is used to denote the presence of God. However, my Sunday school teacher told us it was a precursor to the Lord’s arrival. He literally told us that in the last days everyone will see something in the sky, and people will wonder what it is. But we will know what it is because he taught us about the shekinah.)

While every ward has its kooks, this particular kook had a whole gaggle of kooks with which to discuss their doomsday plans. And as we approach Y2K those discussions only intensified.

Now, my dad was home teaching companions with said crazy Sunday school teacher, and here is an approximate re-creation of one of their conversations directly from my dad:

Crazy Sunday School Teacher: So I just got a new shotgun this past Saturday.
My Dad: Don’t you already have one?
Crazy Sunday School Teacher: Well, you can never have too many guns to defend you property. Especially once the government collapses. I have to make sure that my family and food storage is protected.
My Dad: So does this mean that when I come to borrow a cup of flour after the second coming you’re going to shoot me.
Crazy Sunday School Teacher: Oh no, I would never do that.
My Dad: So you’re only going to shoot the ones you don’t know. 

You've seen the television show, I saw the live show every sunday

Now, I’m sure that my dad was probably exaggerating as he re-told this story at the dinner table that night. But after participating in some of this particular teacher’s Sunday school lessons, I believe most of the conversation.

Anyway, as the new millennium approached the air of doom reached an all-time high. Mind you this was frenzy just in the hallways of our building, as many of these doomsday preppers had always had an some excuse to not be in class.

Then January 1, 2000 came without so much as a brown out, and you could smell the disappointment in the air the following Sunday.

It smelled like cracked wheat and gun oil.

Ever since then, the day after the failed apocalypse has become like my second Christmas, and I eagerly await the next one. Which by the way should be on September 28, 2020 if we are to believe George Madray’s predictions.

Some more new music... Obadiah Parker

I heard this song on Scrubs, liked it and looked the song up. Obadiah Parker is the name of the group or guy, I'm still not quite sure.



It's arguably better than the original song. So head on over to iTunes and get their songs as they don't have a label or anything like that.

The amazing hunt for a hot tub while down in Arizona, part dos. Public nudity.

As I last left you (which was quite a while ago, sorry about that) we had just gone to a "haunted mansion" in the woods got freaked out by all the people that were already at a supposedly abandoned house. Now you may be wondering what this has to do with finding hot tubs, this area comes to play in a big way in a later on. Trust me.

Anyways a couple days later after a long day of riding horses up in the mountains, which I should mention kind of scared me a little. Even though it was only my second time, running around on small trails and such didn't really bother me, but I don't think my horse liked me or anyone else for that matter. In fact I have to give mad props to Lisa, she's probably one of the bravest persons I know. Seeing as my horse, named Cliff, nearly kicked her... twice. In fact the second time she nearly got kicked in the face as my horse kicked both his feet back and Lisa's head was pretty much in between his two hooves. Now I don't know about you, but I would have crapped my pants right there, no hesitation, time to turn around and get a new pair. But it didn't even phase Lisa. That's hardcore.

Needless to say after all that riding, we needed a hot tub. However, that just was not in the cards.

Apparently, near Thatcher, and I use the word near very loosely as it was quite a drive to get there, there's a hot spring (I also use the phrase hot loosely, because as I will explain I really have no proof that it's actually hot), and that was our destination. After a 20 minute drive we were there, and so were a bunch of other people. We passed one hot tub/spring with a couple of people in it in favor of another that was supposedly larger and better. However, that larger and better one was full. So we decided to go to the smaller one with a couple (meaning a guy and a girl presumably boyfriend/girlfriend) in there. We soon found out why it was nearly empty.

The following is exactly what went down that night as we entered the hot tub area:

"Come on in. There's plenty of room," says the girl in the hot tub

Now as we walk in something doesn't quite look right but we're not close enough to the hot tub to notice what's really going down. The closer we get the clearer it gets, the two people in the hot tub aren't wearing any clothes, at all. Fortunately it was dark enough outside and the water was murky enough that their bits and pieces were covered up but there was no way I was going to get in. However, I followed along because this was a golden opportunity for awkward amazingness and I wanted to see the reactions (I probably didn't get any bonus points toward heaven for that but it was worth it).

"Are you guys wearing clothes?" Shanna asked, after she had hung her towel up and had turned to get in.

"Yeah," the naked hot tub girl replied, "But could you guys turn around while I get my boyfriend's boxers."

As we all turned around, we heard her get out of the hot tub run to the fence, grab something off the fence, and then jump back into the hot tub, cannonball style. After this exchange, it was clear what had been going on in the hot tub and at this point the reactions of the group ranged from hysterical laughter (that'd be me and Lisa), shock and humor (Logan, Jon, Shanna, Felicia), utter horror (Halie) and total obliviousness (Mike). In fact, Mike was so oblivious after the girl had run to get her boyfriends boxers he still headed toward the hot tub and started to climb in. \

"MIKE!" we all yelled. He looked up and noticed the nakedness and jumped back.

"I think we're gonna go somewhere else," Shanna then said.

"No, it's okay. You can come in. Does anyone have a shirt I can use?" naked hot tub girl replied.

"That's okay, we're gonna go somewhere else," Shanna replied.

We then turned around and left. Now at this point, you have to realize I was doing everything I could to keep from bursting out in a fit of laughter, biting my tongue, not looking at anyone in the group. Everything. But I lost all control when I heard the naked hot tub guy yell to us as we were leaving.

"It's not like we were having sex or anything," he yelled.

Only real vampires may apply.

So a few weeks ago while I was surfing the net out of boredom, I stumbled across this website. After reading it's contents, I couldn't help but feel a mix of amusement, bewilderment and wonder. It blew my mind. If you haven't checked it out, you should, it's hilarious. It's a website for vampires, real vampires. Or as they more poetically explain on their website:

"Sanguinarius does not deal with fiction, folklore, or role-playing games. If that is what you are looking for, then you'll need to look elsewhere. I have nothing against role-playing, but if you are a vampire in role-playing-persona only, please do not waste my time and yours trying to convince me that you really are a vampire. I may be a 'Sucker, but I'm not a SUCKER."



That's right folks it's for real vampires, who really suck blood, and are real creatures of the night. All you delusional fakers go away.

There you go all you Edward-loving Twilight maniacs. Go get your vampire boyfriend... or don't, I'm pretty sure you'll get bitten and then get some weird infection.

Some more enlightenment...

Dannyanism Proposition of Enlightenment #34C: Never underestimate the power of pudding snack packs.

The amazing hunt for a hot tub while down in Arizona, part one. The prelude.

Last year around this time, my roommates and I decided to go down to Arizona to visit some friends and during that time we went on a quest to go hot tubbing. Unfortunately, we never actually did get into a hot tub, but the story involved in trying to find one became one of legend and I guess I just wanted to get the down in writing before it was lost on younger generations.

However, before we start, there was some really crazy crap that happened while we were down there, but I'm used to weirdness going on. I have become accustomed to people saying, "Well that's never happened before." It's just normal for me. I've never been to the beach in California when it's actually sunny, every time I've been to Las Vegas, there's been record low temperatures, record high winds, or flooding because of record rainfall. (Although there is an amount of debate as to whether my Dad being the cause of these Las Vegas weather issues, or just our powers combined brought down the crazy). And I'm okay with that, because it just means that all my road trips and vacations have become adventures as a result. These trips down to Arizona are no different, the people we visited to this day can't understand how we never were able to find a stupid hot tub, and ended up dealing with naked people supposedly not having sex in a hot tub, burnt down haunted mansions, cold hot springs and crazy hippie cults in the process.

This is us getting ready to be ghostbusters.

It all started in February when the stars aligned and my roommates and I discovered that over President's Day weekend, we found we could have a potential 5-day weekend and decided to visit one of their mission friends down in Arizona to ride horses, explore and go to some hot springs in the process. It was going to be great, however we had no idea how great it was going to be.

The weirdness began when we decided to go to a supposed haunted mansion that used to be frequented by the Rolling Stones back in the day. In order for us to see the mansion, we were informed we would have to quietly sneak up onto the property while trying to avoid the property caretaker who was known to chase people off the property with his shotgun. That right there is enough to get the blood pumping, but that wasn't going to stop us, because the place was supposedly haunted and who's gonna give up an opportunity to potentially see a ghost? Well, probably a lot of people, but not me.

So here we were climbing over a locked gate, rain beating down on us and getting ready to head up the muddy pathway to the mansion, with visions of ghostbusting grandeur in our head. As we marched our way down the path, in the distance two lights appeared, and started moving toward us quickly. Headlights.

"Quick in the bushes," someone yelled, as we all dove off the path way into the shrubs and bushes off to the side, hoping and praying we hadn't been seen. Visions of ghostbusting grandeur had quickly been replaced by visions of being chased through the rainy desert by a mad man with a shotgun.

The truck passed by without incident, when it dawned on us that in our stupidity, we had parked our car by the gate, and crazy shotgun man was going to know that we were there. Without hesitation, (which I definitely thought there should have been some hesitation, I mean there's supposedly a shotgun involved) Shanna and Mike go running back to the car in hopes of moving it before the guy sees them.

Anyways, as we wait in the bushes, five minutes pass, then ten, then we start to worry. We call Mike up on the phone, and all we get is a short answer, "Can't talk now." And he hangs up.

Another five minutes pass, and we see them walking up the pathway. The crazy shotgun guy, who apparently wasn't THE shotgun guy had caught them and told them to leave, and then took off himself. So they pretended like they were leaving and parked in a different spot and had to sneak back into the area. So we were safe to head on up.

As we turned the corner and could see the mansion something was off. The building had supposedly been abandoned for quite some time and in the time that our Arizona friends had been up there, no one was ever there. However, this night, the lights were on.

This of course wasn't going to stop us, in fact it fed into our curiosity. Logan, Mike, Jon and Lisa quickly took off to go see what was up. I tried to keep up with them, but at the same time also tried to keep the rest of the group within site. So l lost Logan and the rest. However lining the road, leading up to the house cars had been parked there and it looked as if there were people up at the mansion having some sort of party.

Sadly this is where my mansion experience comes to an end. The girls that I was with started to head back toward the car and curse my sense of chivalry I went with them, trying so hard to convince them to stay and explore. I was even more distraught when the others came back telling stories of people with axes and other creepy things. Almost one week later the mansion burned down, and we were some of the last people to see it standing.

This however is only the beginning as we began our quest to find a hot tub that would span over the rest of this trip and into the next, and we would be back.

(Join me next time as I tell the tale of how Mike almost jumped into a hot tub with a naked woman)

This is a photo of the mansion, but to see it as we saw it, imagine that it's in the middle of the night, pouring rain, with the lights on. It looked like it was straight out of a horror movie.

This was the place one week later.

Even more enlightenment.

Dannyianism Proposition for Enlightenment #2: Learning from your stupid mistakes is good, learning from other people's stupid mistakes is great, but persuading others to do stupid things so you can learn from their mistakes is AWESOME! (Older siblings can attest to this.)