You Can't Say No

Senior Vice President: Nick, I need to have a meeting with you right away

Nick: Sure
SVP: I have a task for you and you can't say no.
Nick: Now im scared but OK.
SVP: "Says Task"
Nick: I would love to do that but im out, I have surgery, then my birthday, then I fly upstate for a funeral.
SVP: Oh...well..I guess you can say no then.

Monster Truck show part: 2

Schedule: 2pm Monster Truck Show

7:30pm 2nd Monster Truck show

We showed up at 1:15 and the place is a ghost town. No vendors are even setting up yet.

My Parents to an attendant: Hey there, what time is the 2oclock show?

Attendant: 7:30pm

Parents: What?!

Attendant: We announced it on the radio on Monday.

Parent: Well who listens to High Desert Radio? Why didnt they tell us this on Thursday when we bought the tickets?

Attendant: /shrug

Monster Trucks

A contestant from "The Voice" in France is here in the High Desert where my parents live, to film her music video. From France to Victorville to sing county at a Monster Truck show. /What a world

Skype Friend

No PeachBimbo, I do not want to be your Skype friend.

New Book

SCRUM: The art of doing twice the work in half the time.

Earthquakes

Nightmare:

Standing in my home,
Its dark,
House beings to rumble,
Unseen voice yells "Its happening",
I run outside,
Neighbors pool breaks and I am hit by a inland empire tidal wave,
Wake up.

Spider Face

Nightmare:
I was holding my son who was still a baby,
He had a hand-sized spider crawling on his face,
It took both my hands to hold him,
No one else would help me

Dance Down for what?

Nothing like dancing down the hall to "Turn down for what" and your wife comes dancing down the hall from the other side.

Song link

Frozen 2

Historically Disney cant do sequels. In that vain I brainstormed how they will do Frozen 2.

Frozen 2 , sorta like the first one but worse story and characters, plus a new character we can sell.

Frozen 2 - Elsa vs Jack Frost

Frozen 2 - Elsa Vs the Sun King
hes fire, shes ice, how can they get along?

Frozen 2- Olafs magic fairy trollland, so it fits into a new park.

Frozen 2 - Refrozen - Elsa's at it again, she accidentally re-freezes her home and her sister and her wacky friends have to re-stop her. Oh Elsa.

Request for a new outfit

On Arya Starks new outfit for Game Of Thrones:

Nick: your right, shes hot. But I like her new outfit very much. hint hint, sexy rogue gypsy, middle east flair is your next non pregnant outfit to buy, with gloves that have some of the fingers cut out.
Lani: I'll keep that in mind.

First world problem:

My I-Pod mini cant play files over 26 hours long.

Puppy Pee

I just sat in warm dog pee. /grumble

Eagles Nightmares

I had the same nightmare twice last night; Glenn Frey kept kicking me out of the Eagles because "I was never part of the Eagles" and "What was I doing in his house."

Question about Lock Strength

How strong do you have to make the lock on a Bathroom Stall door?

Walt Disney - The triumph of the American Imagination

Starting reading "Walt Disney - The triumph of the American Imagination" by Neal Gabler again. This is my third time.

The book really humanizes Walt Disney and shows that his real power is Control. The Steve Jobs autobiography shows many of the same traits. Neither are particularly good at art or creation, but what they excel at is control.

I thoroughly enjoy reading this book and its even better to listen to.

You're not that tall

On a business trip with one of my team members we were walking to the urinals in the men's restroom. He was half a step ahead of me and did a double take on which urinal he was going to use, the taller or the shorter one. He chuckled and said to me "Well I guess since im slightly taller then you I will take the taller one." At this I laugh out loud as I looked down on him. When we were done and washing our hands, I said " you know im Six foot right?". to which my 5,6 team member replied "no way, im taller than you." as he looked up at me.

Watching the dawning realization that I was infact almost half a foot taller then him was awesome to watch on his face.

Disneyland 1995

I watched a video about a mans trip to Disneyland in 1990. He hasnt been back since and while he was growing up his sister (who had a rare kind of brain disease) would watch the video over and over again. He talks about how this video that hes experienced hundreds of times is his perfect Disneyland and that he may never want to go back to Disneyland again because it wouldn't match his video.

This really brought into focus for me the feelings you get for better or worse about the past. Sometimes you can create just a create memory in your mind that you will never be able to relive it. Its just human nature.

In terms of Disneyland, my fondest memories were 1995 Disneyland. Indiana Jones had first opened, I fell inlove with the Jungle Cruise, and the People mover was still around. Most of those trips were spent with my friend of 21 years.

When I look back at those memories they are so clear in my mind. We were so young and Disneyland was a place of magic, even though we knew it was built by men. Sometimes I yearn to be able to re-experience that place, even for a day. But its just not possible so I am happy to have had the experience in the first place.

Creativity INC - Finished

Creativity INC.

I finished reading  (listening) Creativity INC on Saturday. I dont know if I can adequately explain how much reading this book affected me.

Creativity INC by Ed Catmull is about the struggles of managing creative people. Ed Catmull is the president of Pixar and now Disney Animation, two places that have a huge softspot in my heart. Reading this book has really got me fired up again to being proactive and bettering myself.

Anyone who is in a creative field should read this book as it really hits home on why companies can do one thing great and never follow up on that success.

My favorite idea from the book
"The better, more subtle interpretation is that failure is a manifestation of learning and exploration. If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it. And, for leaders especially, this strategy — trying to avoid failure by out-thinking it — dooms you to fail."

SteakHouse 55

Disneyland Hotel - Steakhouse 55

Lani and I went to have drinks at Trader Sams and dinner at Steak House 55 yesterday.

The steakhouse was great. Elegant, quiet, but with a hint of playfulness. We were served two amuse-bouche, a popcorn shrimp and a peach sorbet. Both were fantastic.

For starters I had the lobster-bisque which was made special for the valentines day weekend and Lani had a hearts of romain salad. Which just made me ask Lani and the waitress "why does my wife hate Romanians", a joke that didnt go over as well as I would have hoped.

Turns out our waitress heard me talking about the Philippines and she was from there, so we talked a little about it. It was a pretty crazy thing to think that someone from a farm in the Philippines ends up on Southern California, working at a fine dining Steakhouse at the Disneyland resort.

For our meal we shared a bone-in Ribeye with the SH55 butter sauce, yukon mashed potato's, and asparagus (I actually got to request no sides with the asparagus because I was allergic to pistachios, actually felt kinda bad about it being "that guy".).

The meal was great. The steak, cooked medium rare was delicious and it went very well with the mashed potato's and asparagus. We really enjoyed getting to just sit and eat a nice meal and take our time (which is in short supply these days).

Due to the time it took to get our meal we also got a free desert.

Creativity INC

Reading the book Creativity Inc. This combines two passions of mine, managing creative people and being in a creative industry. I am listening to it on my drives. I am about an 90 minutes in and ive already felt watershed feelings twice. I would suggest it to anyone in a creative field.

Amazon Link

Black Hawk Down

Book: Black Hawk Down
I recently finish "Black Hawk Down" by Mark Bowden. Every month I get two book on tape from Audible​ and I really like Mark Bowdens "Killing Pablo".

Black Hawk Down was great. The movie doesnt really give the scope of the Battle of the Black Sea. The book also covers the political situation of Somalia as well as first hand accounts of the people fighting Task Force Ranger.

The book covers ~100 of the Rangers/Delta/Air Force soldiers and what they experienced during the battle. The movie condenses this down to about 30.

If you dont have the stomach for stories regarding death, this is not a book you should read. It does a great job describing the chaos of battle, including the necessity to kill non-combatants (civilians) due to their involvement with the militia groups.

This book even made me tear up a bit at the end.

Flushing

In the mens bathroom at my office they put up a new sign. "Please only Flush once". I wouldn't have thought anything about it except that one of the maintenance guys who happened to be in the area next to me and he flushed not once, not twice, but three times.

Raising a Puppy

Puppy week 1: Routine and "normal"
Lani​ and I have now had Leet, the puppy for one week. We knew it was going to be a challenge and we also wanted to get the puppy well in advance of the baby that is due in July.

Everyone's living situation is different and we knew that what was "right" for us would not be right for everyone. Both Lani and I are gone from 6:30am to 5pm and we had to take that into account. The puppy shouldn't be left outside and if the puppy is kept inside its going to relieve itself all over the place (since it doesn't know better).

Idea 1: Create small living cage (no roof) with pee pad, news paper, food/water, blanket for sleeping, and some toys. This would be for days and nights when we are not home to watch her.

outcome: The puppy only 10 weeks old was able to climb up and over the first night and end up in our room. 5 small pee spots and 2 poops. This wasn't going to work.

Idea 2: Lani bought a bigger cage wall and we bought a kennel. We figured the dog could still live in the changed area during the day and at night and sleep in the kennel.

Outcome: The puppy jumped on top of the kennel and out of the cage that night. 4 pee spots and 2 poops. So we decided the cage was the right size but we couldn't have it near the kennel IF she was aloud outside of it.

Idea 3: At night, kennel the dog. Dogs can hold it longer if you make sure they don't eat two hours before bedtime and they are exercised. We have been doing that every day/night so we decided to try just putting the puppy in the kennel, covering it up and letting her sleep.

Outcome: The puppy barked, howled, and wined for two hours. She finally fell asleep but it was torture listening to her. She also woke up at 4am at which point I went downstairs to let her out, take her outside to use the bathroom (though she had peed in the kennel), then play with both our dogs till it was time to go to work.

So this was the first 3  nights and while we didn't panic it was clear we were going to have to change something. this is pretty long already so I will finish out the week later.

Airport Ribbons

--sees a dozen people in line with red bows on their luggage--

Nick to woman: Excuse me, do the red ribbons mean good luck?
Woman: no its so I can identify MY bag.
Nick: Ah. Just saw a bunch of other people in line with red ribbons and I was curious.
Woman: Oh. I hadn't noticed.

Manilla Tax

I just found out there is an outgoing tax when you leave the Philippines. Guess they took someones joke seriously when they said "Id pay to leave this place". /joke

A bag of drugs

The sheer amount of security I had to go through at both LAX and Air Philippines was crazy. When I got home I was randomly chosen for a bag check. Had an interesting time explaining the large bag of pills Lani packed for me.

Officer: What is this speed, coke,...
Nick: Allergy pills, anti diarrhea, advil, and something to help me sleep
Officer: Do you need so many?
Nick: ..apparently.
Officer: Alright. Pack your bag and get out of here.

Amazon Order goes to someone else

It appears amazon did not deliver a package to our house. They claim they did and the website says it was delivered in Fontana. Lani Smith suggested giving Amazon time so their driver could "check to see if he got the right house". Which apparently they do, but hes not doing that till tomorrow at 5pm.

My response:
Sounds like we just need to make a claim now, IO don't see ANY way this is going to get us anything either he says " I totes did it" or "golly gee guess I done sent it to Fontana", neither scenario gets us our package.

Getting old

You know your not doing great when:

You gave a business the phone number of your grandmother from 10 years ago and you have to ask your wife what your actual phone number is.

Flagpole Sitta

Just heard "Flagpole sitta" on the radio. IRS like 1999 called and slapped me with nostalgia.

Building a bed

When your wife says things like "I wantt to buy a new bed frame, one that is really nice" don't say it's ok to deliver it at 8pm.

Nick: so there are a lot of parts is this something I'm supposed to build?
Lani:yeah... I didn't think about that.
-two hours later-
Nick: these instructions are shit and this doesn't look right.
Lani: let's just put the slats down not nail them in and future Nick and Lani can worry about it

Setting up the PS4

Nick setting up our PS4: "so in the old days, I'd just turn on the power button but I don't see one," as he pulls out the manual.
"Ah! They've made it the size of an ant,"

Marriage

Wife to Nick: I'm trying to think of something fun to do for our anniversary on Saturday. :lists about 9 ideas.
Nick I haven't really thought about it and nothing you listed really seems like fun, but I mean, I'm sure it'll be a good time and am down to do whatever you want.

Little Planet

Wife to 3 year old son: You are the cutest boy on the planet.
son: Mom I'm not a planet!
Nick: It's not very nice to call him a planet...

Hipster Irish Coffee

@ the airport
I'm listening to a hipster girl argue about what's in an Irish coffee and the bartender is saying " I can do that for you". The woman then comes back a few seconds later and just asks him to make it right because "why not?"

Discovery

Lani: You never went to discovery zone as a kid?
Nick: I know what Discovery zone is academically, I grew up in the desert
the discovery zone is the desert. I played outside alot.
Lani: Dude im so sorry.
Nick: Dont be, nothing beats discovering what happens when you get hit with a dirt clod that has a rock in it.

Its been a long time

Hey Everyone,

so I was writing this blog while I was unemployed and taking care of a 5 month old. Its been ~2 years and I am going to start blogging again because its a good outlet when I have no-one to tell my jokes to.