It's over. After 17 years, it's all completely over. It just got stale, the excitement was gone. Every couple of years, there would be a push to fall in love again, but it only lasted for a few short weeks. So before the rumors fly, I wanted to go online and tell the world: Pearl Jam and I have broken up.
It's for the best. Maybe we'll get back together in a few years. But for now, we need a long break. I've deleted all PJ songs from my "work" playlist.
This isn't my first band break-up. A couple of months ago, I broke up with U2 and a month later, Pink Floyd. I also broke up with Dave Matthews for the second time a little while ago. I'm considering breaking up with Ben Folds, too.
The first band I ever broke up with was Dave Matthews. It was the summer of '98. I was a huge Dave Matthews fan, I had all his albums, including his lesser known "Remember Two Things". I bought an overpriced t-shirt or two, and slapped a couple stickers on the back of my '85 Toyota Tercel, between the Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots stickers. I went to the concerts, I knew all the nuances of each song. Then, one day, I was driving on Carterville Road in Orem, and I put in "Crash". I found myself skipping through the entire CD, not finding any song I wanted to listen to. Then I realized: I fell out of love. It was time to break up. I gave all my cd's and junk to a very grateful and poor Heidi. It was over.
I got back from my mission and started listening to my old music and took suggestions for new stuff, too. Heidi mentioned that Dave had come out with some new stuff, and I figured it had been a few years, it was time to give him a try again. So I did. I fell back into love, it was great. We remembered old times, and we had some new good times. But a few months ago, it happened again. I kept skipping all of the DMB songs that came up on my playlist. I'd been here before, and I knew it was time. We broke up again. It was for the best.
I then realized that I needed to weed out all of my stale relationships. When you listen to 8 hours of music a day, you get tired of stuff pretty fast. After I said goodbye to DMB, I broke up with U2. Then Mel helped me break up a very long and committed relationship with Pink Floyd (she can't stand the Floyd). I debated breaking up with AVA and Ben Folds, but I decided there was some love to be squeezed out yet. But this? A break-up with my beloved Pearl Jam? I didn't think it would ever come to this.
But today, when "Sleight of Hand" came on, I skipped it. I've NEVER skipped "Sleight of Hand". But I did today. I knew in my soul that a break was necessary. I don't blame myself. I blame Pearl Jam. If their last 2 albums weren't total crap (I don't care that the critics liked the last one, it was by far the worst album), then I wouldn't have to do this. Sure, there will be moments when I just can't stop thinking about them, but I have to be strong. I have a few new loves (Jason Mraz and Cat Stevens) and a few longstanding lovers that keep producing quality albums (Tool, Jack Johnson, Death Cab-although their last album left something to be desired).
The days of falling in love with bands and albums are coming to a close. Nowadays, you don't have to commit to an entire album, because one-hit wonders are only 99 cents. Instead of spending 15 bucks at Media Play and praying that the other songs will be good, you can buy the song you know is good, and then preview the others to see if it's a song that you might like.
I'll probably get back together with PJ when their next album comes out. After all, I got back with Jimmy Eat World when their new album came out last year, and we've been happy together since. It helps that Mel approves of the relationship.
So there it is. If you catch me listening to PJ, do me a favor and give me a backhand across the face. But I'm going to continue wearing the t-shirts, though. Can't beat the PJ t-shirts.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Another sports-themed post!
I'll tell you what's wrong with America today. Oh, you didn't ask? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. This is what's wrong. Too many bleeding hearts. No one can stand to feel any pain. Of course, this should only apply at an age or level where the emphasis is placed on competition.
Now that you've scanned the 100-0 story, I will point out that the full-court press was too much. I won't say that shooting 3-pointers is bad, though. It's not like 3-pointers are guaranteed to go in, no matter who you are. In fact, when my basketball team is killing another team, it's usually easy layups that we score the most, and 3-pointers slow us down. They should probably apologize for the full-court press, but they shouldn't forfeit. "Here, we know you'll probably never win a game this year, so we're giving you a forfeit win so you can remember how much we demolished you that much easier."
In 5th grade, I wanted to play baseball. I wasn't any good at hitting things thrown at me at a very fast rate, so I decided I should try Coach Pitch before I played in Little League. You know, where your coach underhands this rubbery, squishy ball, roughly the size of a baseball, as slow as he possibly can so that his team can make contact. One step above tee-ball. My team was made up of boys and girls from 2nd to 6th grade. The 6th grade boy, Seth Collins, I believe, was probably one of the worst players on the team. The 2nd grade boy (can't place his name, but he was the coach's son), was one of the best. Not the best, though. That was my job. That season I hit last (because it was an "everybody bats" format), and I played pitcher, which isn't actually the pitcher, but you stand next to the opposing coach and field all the dinkers the suckies on the other team eke out. I dominated.
The next year, it was time to move on up. The first day of practice, everybody was hurling these hard baseballs (regular baseballs, but they seemed especially hard at the time) as fast as possible to each other. I had a couple of superjocks on my team: Josh Davies (future CVJH basketball star and high school career spent in Juvi), Mike Armstrong (future star pitcher for Timp High), and Kurt Jackson (future Weber State football player). I was pretty intimidated. The first day of practice, I was warming up with neighborhood buddy Allan and I got pegged in the shoulder by an "errant" throw from Josh, who as anybody from Orem knows, is an all-time jerk. I started bawling like a chump. The coach (Josh's dad) comforted me while fighting back laughter, and made Josh give me a half-hearted apology.
A few weeks later, it was our first game at the Orem Elementary fields, and I got up for the first time, struck out in 3 swings, and went straight back, dragging my bat behind me like Charlie Brown, while the sad Charlie Brown Christmas Special music played. I got to the dugout and fought back tears, but that didn't last. I didn't bawl this time, just sat on the end of the bench in my oversized helmet and uncomfortable stirrups and tears trickled down my face.
The season went on, I got better at baseball, still struck out and made errors, but at least I didn't cry anymore. I was probably the 7th or 8th best player on the team. My point? I wasn't that great at baseball, even though I gave it the old college try because my dad thought I would be really good at it (bless his heart). I was much, much better at basketball, and better still at soccer (bragging at this point, I know, but I really was awesome at soccer. Now? I can barely kick). But baseball? I was mediocre at best. When I did make contact, it was a dinker down the line. Once I got a double. But mostly, I was hoping to make contact, because I could usually beat the throw to 1st base, steal around to 3rd, and then advance to home on a wild pitch.
The only sport that you can legitimately not run up the score while still playing hard is football. Run it into the middle a few times, punt. Not basketball. What are you supposed to do, heave the ball up from half-court? Travel intentionally? Just give the other team the ball under the basket until they catch up, and then demolish them again? Just don't FCP--everything else is game. For baseball, what are you supposed to do? Drop a fly ball? Never swing? Soccer is more or less the same as basketball, there's nothing you can do to help the other team without being totally obvious.
I've been on some bad teams, and there's nothing more degrading than when the other team just stops trying. It's like they're saying, "We know we're awesome, we know you suck, so we're just going to mail it in until time runs out." When a team plays hard to the end, they're saying, "We respect you as competitors enough to try for the entire game." Who cares if you're better than me? It's a lesson I need to learn: Don't play with the big boys. BYU intramurals has an awesome system of divisions. I played at a division 2 to 3 level, and I accepted that. Division 1 teams would demolish ours. Division 2 we would be average. Division 3? We made it to the Final 4. That wasn't too shabby, considering there were about 160 teams in the tournament.
If you're 5 years old, "Everybody gets a trophy Day" is awesome. Worthless trophies, ribbons, and certificates mean everything. If you're 15, you need to either give it up or toughen up. Competitive sports were meant to be played at full tilt. At the end of the season, there should be trophies for the champions, nothing for the losers. As long as you played the game clean, no apologies should be necessary.
Why do we feel entitled to be good at everything? Why can't we recognize we're bad at something, and just hang it up? Me, I'm good at computers and math, but I'm awful at art. So I didn't become an art major. Would a college professor apologize for flunking somebody that totally failed their class because they didn't master their material? Of course not. Neither should athletes apologize to the other team when they suck. Play hard, win or lose. Sportsmanship has nothing to do with the score.
So what's sportsmanship? Not being a jerk, pretty much. Don't trash talk. Don't play dirty. Play the game clean, play it hard, be a good teammate, congratulate others for doing it well. Not that hard to understand or do.
Every time my team got demolished, I didn't go home and cry. I just thought "Wow, that was a good team, I hope we don't have to play them again," and moved on with my life.
Most of the people that disagree with everything I say here probably didn't play many sports. I'm not cutthroat-I always played for fun. But there is nothing fun about half-heartedly going through the motions because the other team is bad. I hated showing up to the soccer field and seeing that we were playing some sucky team we were going to destroy. Why? Because the competition wouldn't be as good. It's more satisfying to beat a good team 1-0 than to beat a sucky team 10-0.
That brings me to the infamous game in Orem High intramurals where we beat a team 116-36. This team had Danny Dorr on it, this kid in my neighborhood who hit puberty early and DOMINATED neighborhood games in 7th and 8th grade. I thought he was going to play in the NBA for sure. However, Danny's early growth spurt stopped at 5'8 and he didn't grow past that. So in my senior year, he and his student council buddies who thought they were hilarious, made up an intramural team that was actually pretty decent. We had the best team that year (we won the championship), but they had a winning record, so we were prepared for a good battle. The first half we played out of our minds--every shot going in, no turnovers, tough D. We were up something like 50 to 26 or something, but everything was going in for us. So Danny's team decided to give up the 2nd half. They started hoisting granny shots from halfcourt, sometimes from full-court. Well, what are we supposed to do? They were, in my opinion, defiling the sport by playing that way, so we decided to keep scoring. We let them shoot their grannies, then we hustled down, shot 3's, and passed the ball around so all of our team could get the same amount of shots. I'm proud of that game. Not because we won by so much, not because our stats were awesome (well, maybe a little), but because we played hard the whole time. Did we need to apologize for beating them so badly and forfeit the game? I don't think so.
I think The Covenant School should apologize, but not forfeit. But when they meet again, they should continue to play hard, but ease up on the FCP. Maybe Dallas Academy should switch divisions or start playing elementary teams like Kramer did in his youth karate class. I guess the real question is, why are those 2 schools even playing each other? I blame this on Obama.
Now that you've scanned the 100-0 story, I will point out that the full-court press was too much. I won't say that shooting 3-pointers is bad, though. It's not like 3-pointers are guaranteed to go in, no matter who you are. In fact, when my basketball team is killing another team, it's usually easy layups that we score the most, and 3-pointers slow us down. They should probably apologize for the full-court press, but they shouldn't forfeit. "Here, we know you'll probably never win a game this year, so we're giving you a forfeit win so you can remember how much we demolished you that much easier."
In 5th grade, I wanted to play baseball. I wasn't any good at hitting things thrown at me at a very fast rate, so I decided I should try Coach Pitch before I played in Little League. You know, where your coach underhands this rubbery, squishy ball, roughly the size of a baseball, as slow as he possibly can so that his team can make contact. One step above tee-ball. My team was made up of boys and girls from 2nd to 6th grade. The 6th grade boy, Seth Collins, I believe, was probably one of the worst players on the team. The 2nd grade boy (can't place his name, but he was the coach's son), was one of the best. Not the best, though. That was my job. That season I hit last (because it was an "everybody bats" format), and I played pitcher, which isn't actually the pitcher, but you stand next to the opposing coach and field all the dinkers the suckies on the other team eke out. I dominated.
The next year, it was time to move on up. The first day of practice, everybody was hurling these hard baseballs (regular baseballs, but they seemed especially hard at the time) as fast as possible to each other. I had a couple of superjocks on my team: Josh Davies (future CVJH basketball star and high school career spent in Juvi), Mike Armstrong (future star pitcher for Timp High), and Kurt Jackson (future Weber State football player). I was pretty intimidated. The first day of practice, I was warming up with neighborhood buddy Allan and I got pegged in the shoulder by an "errant" throw from Josh, who as anybody from Orem knows, is an all-time jerk. I started bawling like a chump. The coach (Josh's dad) comforted me while fighting back laughter, and made Josh give me a half-hearted apology.
A few weeks later, it was our first game at the Orem Elementary fields, and I got up for the first time, struck out in 3 swings, and went straight back, dragging my bat behind me like Charlie Brown, while the sad Charlie Brown Christmas Special music played. I got to the dugout and fought back tears, but that didn't last. I didn't bawl this time, just sat on the end of the bench in my oversized helmet and uncomfortable stirrups and tears trickled down my face.
The season went on, I got better at baseball, still struck out and made errors, but at least I didn't cry anymore. I was probably the 7th or 8th best player on the team. My point? I wasn't that great at baseball, even though I gave it the old college try because my dad thought I would be really good at it (bless his heart). I was much, much better at basketball, and better still at soccer (bragging at this point, I know, but I really was awesome at soccer. Now? I can barely kick). But baseball? I was mediocre at best. When I did make contact, it was a dinker down the line. Once I got a double. But mostly, I was hoping to make contact, because I could usually beat the throw to 1st base, steal around to 3rd, and then advance to home on a wild pitch.
The only sport that you can legitimately not run up the score while still playing hard is football. Run it into the middle a few times, punt. Not basketball. What are you supposed to do, heave the ball up from half-court? Travel intentionally? Just give the other team the ball under the basket until they catch up, and then demolish them again? Just don't FCP--everything else is game. For baseball, what are you supposed to do? Drop a fly ball? Never swing? Soccer is more or less the same as basketball, there's nothing you can do to help the other team without being totally obvious.
I've been on some bad teams, and there's nothing more degrading than when the other team just stops trying. It's like they're saying, "We know we're awesome, we know you suck, so we're just going to mail it in until time runs out." When a team plays hard to the end, they're saying, "We respect you as competitors enough to try for the entire game." Who cares if you're better than me? It's a lesson I need to learn: Don't play with the big boys. BYU intramurals has an awesome system of divisions. I played at a division 2 to 3 level, and I accepted that. Division 1 teams would demolish ours. Division 2 we would be average. Division 3? We made it to the Final 4. That wasn't too shabby, considering there were about 160 teams in the tournament.
If you're 5 years old, "Everybody gets a trophy Day" is awesome. Worthless trophies, ribbons, and certificates mean everything. If you're 15, you need to either give it up or toughen up. Competitive sports were meant to be played at full tilt. At the end of the season, there should be trophies for the champions, nothing for the losers. As long as you played the game clean, no apologies should be necessary.
Why do we feel entitled to be good at everything? Why can't we recognize we're bad at something, and just hang it up? Me, I'm good at computers and math, but I'm awful at art. So I didn't become an art major. Would a college professor apologize for flunking somebody that totally failed their class because they didn't master their material? Of course not. Neither should athletes apologize to the other team when they suck. Play hard, win or lose. Sportsmanship has nothing to do with the score.
So what's sportsmanship? Not being a jerk, pretty much. Don't trash talk. Don't play dirty. Play the game clean, play it hard, be a good teammate, congratulate others for doing it well. Not that hard to understand or do.
Every time my team got demolished, I didn't go home and cry. I just thought "Wow, that was a good team, I hope we don't have to play them again," and moved on with my life.
Most of the people that disagree with everything I say here probably didn't play many sports. I'm not cutthroat-I always played for fun. But there is nothing fun about half-heartedly going through the motions because the other team is bad. I hated showing up to the soccer field and seeing that we were playing some sucky team we were going to destroy. Why? Because the competition wouldn't be as good. It's more satisfying to beat a good team 1-0 than to beat a sucky team 10-0.
That brings me to the infamous game in Orem High intramurals where we beat a team 116-36. This team had Danny Dorr on it, this kid in my neighborhood who hit puberty early and DOMINATED neighborhood games in 7th and 8th grade. I thought he was going to play in the NBA for sure. However, Danny's early growth spurt stopped at 5'8 and he didn't grow past that. So in my senior year, he and his student council buddies who thought they were hilarious, made up an intramural team that was actually pretty decent. We had the best team that year (we won the championship), but they had a winning record, so we were prepared for a good battle. The first half we played out of our minds--every shot going in, no turnovers, tough D. We were up something like 50 to 26 or something, but everything was going in for us. So Danny's team decided to give up the 2nd half. They started hoisting granny shots from halfcourt, sometimes from full-court. Well, what are we supposed to do? They were, in my opinion, defiling the sport by playing that way, so we decided to keep scoring. We let them shoot their grannies, then we hustled down, shot 3's, and passed the ball around so all of our team could get the same amount of shots. I'm proud of that game. Not because we won by so much, not because our stats were awesome (well, maybe a little), but because we played hard the whole time. Did we need to apologize for beating them so badly and forfeit the game? I don't think so.
I think The Covenant School should apologize, but not forfeit. But when they meet again, they should continue to play hard, but ease up on the FCP. Maybe Dallas Academy should switch divisions or start playing elementary teams like Kramer did in his youth karate class. I guess the real question is, why are those 2 schools even playing each other? I blame this on Obama.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Oldest Clothes
As I was donning my trusty Sorel boots last night to go out and shovel, I realized that I've had these boots for a VERY long time. Then I started thinking about all of the clothes that I still wear on a regular basis, and there were quite a few items from the 90's. I only counted the ones that I have used in the last year. Most of the items on the list offend my wife to the very core. Listed in chronological order:
MathCounts t-shirt from 1994: The ultimate "Math Nerd" t-shirt, I was too embarrassed to wear this shirt until high school, maybe 3 years after competing in the National Math Nerd Competition of 1994. I think all of us have a bunch of these old t-shirts. My favorite comp, Gertsch, showed me a quilt his mom made with pieces of all his old shirts. I thought that was a pretty cool idea, except that I'm not done wearing my favorite shirts. I can still squeeze a few more years out of my precious t-shirts. My siblings should remember my infamous "Swim, Herschel, Swim" t-shirt that was so threadbare, it unraveled while I was wearing it.
Snow bibs from 1994: All the cool kids in my neighborhood skied. They all had expensive Columbia ski parkas and matching ski pants. So when I wanted to get some waterproof pants for various snow activities, my mom brought me home some super dorky snow bibs. Once again, too embarrassed and cool to actually wear these, I only wore them on winter scouting trips and family sled trips to far off mountains, far from the mocking eye of the popular kids of Canyon View Junior High. In January of 2005, when I inherited some snowboarding gear from my cousin, I went looking for waterproof pants and I found my old snow bibs. They were extremely tight and gave me a nice wedgie, but they were warm and kept me dry. I could avoid the wedgie if I tied the straps around the waist, so they worked for the whole season, and I only looked dorky when I took off my coat. Melanie sported them 2 seasons ago before we bought her pants, and I took them with me to the Camp Joseph scouting trip over Thanksgiving, letting one of the young men borrow them. He thought they were dorky. Ungrateful chumpling!
Sunday shoes from 1995: The brand-Deer Stag. The color-brown. The store-Mervyn's of University Mall. The cost-I'm sure not more than 30 or 40 dollars. These shoes are in surprisingly great shape and they're just a tad tight around my big toe. I pulled them out last year when I was out of brown shoe options. Melanie promptly bought me a new pair. I still look at my Deer Stags and long for the days when I was single and dressed poorly.
Boy Scout belt from 1996: In my days at Orem High from 1996 to 1998, Granolas were in. Everybody listened to Phish, wore hemp "jewelry", went to thrift stores, wore natural colors, grew dreadlocks, and showering was OUT. This bugged me immensely because I've always liked thrift stores, natural colors, and not showering. My mom was dragging me to Savers while you were wearing your Mossimo t-shirts and stone-washed Girbauds! I hated being part of the trend in high school, but sometimes you just have to conform to the style if you happen to like that style. Anyway, I swiped some old scout pants and belt from my dad's closet and started wearing those to school. Everybody always commented "Nice pants!" or "Nice belt!" I was so retro, you don't even know. I also dug up my old "Orchard Eagles" backpack I used in elementary for the extra Old School appeal. I was so popular with that, chicks were fallin' out of my pockets.
Sorel Boots from 1997: Snowboarding was getting big and my friends were all going backcountry snowboarding in the canyons of Fairview and Spanish Fork. There were plenty of snowboards to go around, so all I needed were boots. Snowboard boots were still in the early stages and pretty expensive, so I decided to go with regular boots that could work decently on a snowboard. So I dropped one hundred bones on Sorels from REI. I felt pretty ripped off at the time, I didn't even wear them all that much. But considering they're in almost the same shape as the day I bought them, it turned out to be a pretty good investment.
Brown "Granola" socks from 1998: I think socks are definitely something that most people rarely hold onto for more than a couple of years. Not in the Hansen household. I wore socks growing up that were older than me. Of course, now that I'm living the lifestyle of the Very Very Big and the Very Very Tiny (guess that reference!), I buy a brand new bag o' socks every year. What a snob I am! Anyway, these Granola socks were given to me by my lovely mother, when I told her I needed some Thick Socks for my snowboarding journeys. I still wear those socks on my snowboarding journeys now. They've lost all their elastic, and they sink into my boots and are very uncomfortable, but I'll be DANGNABBED if I retire those socks. They will die when I die.
Winter coat from 1998: Me and Ma bought this coat for 50% off the day after Christmas. I wore it through 2 winters in Poland and one winter in Russia. It was too warm for snowboarding, so I ditched the coat for my snazzy new snowboarding coat in 2005. Once I moved out past the 'burbs, I realized I was spending a lot of time outside again (especially with the scouts), so I dusted off Ye Olde Faithful Warme Jacket, and I wear it with pride. It is pretty dorky-looking though, but I embrace it.
Suit from mission: I still (barely) fit in my mission suits. A little tight around the waist, but 10 years later, I still fit. We bought me a new suit in Thailand and I certainly hope that 10 years from now it will still fit.
So, there's the list. I'm sure some people's list could annhilate mine.
When we were in Thailand, my ma-in-law pulled out dishes and other kitchen things that they had gotten for their wedding. That was like 150 years ago. I was thinking about how my parents also have a ton of things from their wedding, and of course I was only married in 2007, so there's nothing I DON'T have from the wedding. I wonder when I'm old and gray, I'll pull out my handy Black & Decker drill and think, "Paula gave me this 293 years ago!" And then I'll screw in my new Fountain of Youth that I got at a clearance sale at JC Penney the day after the Holiday Formerly known As Christmas (HFAC).
MathCounts t-shirt from 1994: The ultimate "Math Nerd" t-shirt, I was too embarrassed to wear this shirt until high school, maybe 3 years after competing in the National Math Nerd Competition of 1994. I think all of us have a bunch of these old t-shirts. My favorite comp, Gertsch, showed me a quilt his mom made with pieces of all his old shirts. I thought that was a pretty cool idea, except that I'm not done wearing my favorite shirts. I can still squeeze a few more years out of my precious t-shirts. My siblings should remember my infamous "Swim, Herschel, Swim" t-shirt that was so threadbare, it unraveled while I was wearing it.
Snow bibs from 1994: All the cool kids in my neighborhood skied. They all had expensive Columbia ski parkas and matching ski pants. So when I wanted to get some waterproof pants for various snow activities, my mom brought me home some super dorky snow bibs. Once again, too embarrassed and cool to actually wear these, I only wore them on winter scouting trips and family sled trips to far off mountains, far from the mocking eye of the popular kids of Canyon View Junior High. In January of 2005, when I inherited some snowboarding gear from my cousin, I went looking for waterproof pants and I found my old snow bibs. They were extremely tight and gave me a nice wedgie, but they were warm and kept me dry. I could avoid the wedgie if I tied the straps around the waist, so they worked for the whole season, and I only looked dorky when I took off my coat. Melanie sported them 2 seasons ago before we bought her pants, and I took them with me to the Camp Joseph scouting trip over Thanksgiving, letting one of the young men borrow them. He thought they were dorky. Ungrateful chumpling!
Sunday shoes from 1995: The brand-Deer Stag. The color-brown. The store-Mervyn's of University Mall. The cost-I'm sure not more than 30 or 40 dollars. These shoes are in surprisingly great shape and they're just a tad tight around my big toe. I pulled them out last year when I was out of brown shoe options. Melanie promptly bought me a new pair. I still look at my Deer Stags and long for the days when I was single and dressed poorly.
Boy Scout belt from 1996: In my days at Orem High from 1996 to 1998, Granolas were in. Everybody listened to Phish, wore hemp "jewelry", went to thrift stores, wore natural colors, grew dreadlocks, and showering was OUT. This bugged me immensely because I've always liked thrift stores, natural colors, and not showering. My mom was dragging me to Savers while you were wearing your Mossimo t-shirts and stone-washed Girbauds! I hated being part of the trend in high school, but sometimes you just have to conform to the style if you happen to like that style. Anyway, I swiped some old scout pants and belt from my dad's closet and started wearing those to school. Everybody always commented "Nice pants!" or "Nice belt!" I was so retro, you don't even know. I also dug up my old "Orchard Eagles" backpack I used in elementary for the extra Old School appeal. I was so popular with that, chicks were fallin' out of my pockets.
Sorel Boots from 1997: Snowboarding was getting big and my friends were all going backcountry snowboarding in the canyons of Fairview and Spanish Fork. There were plenty of snowboards to go around, so all I needed were boots. Snowboard boots were still in the early stages and pretty expensive, so I decided to go with regular boots that could work decently on a snowboard. So I dropped one hundred bones on Sorels from REI. I felt pretty ripped off at the time, I didn't even wear them all that much. But considering they're in almost the same shape as the day I bought them, it turned out to be a pretty good investment.
Brown "Granola" socks from 1998: I think socks are definitely something that most people rarely hold onto for more than a couple of years. Not in the Hansen household. I wore socks growing up that were older than me. Of course, now that I'm living the lifestyle of the Very Very Big and the Very Very Tiny (guess that reference!), I buy a brand new bag o' socks every year. What a snob I am! Anyway, these Granola socks were given to me by my lovely mother, when I told her I needed some Thick Socks for my snowboarding journeys. I still wear those socks on my snowboarding journeys now. They've lost all their elastic, and they sink into my boots and are very uncomfortable, but I'll be DANGNABBED if I retire those socks. They will die when I die.
Winter coat from 1998: Me and Ma bought this coat for 50% off the day after Christmas. I wore it through 2 winters in Poland and one winter in Russia. It was too warm for snowboarding, so I ditched the coat for my snazzy new snowboarding coat in 2005. Once I moved out past the 'burbs, I realized I was spending a lot of time outside again (especially with the scouts), so I dusted off Ye Olde Faithful Warme Jacket, and I wear it with pride. It is pretty dorky-looking though, but I embrace it.
Suit from mission: I still (barely) fit in my mission suits. A little tight around the waist, but 10 years later, I still fit. We bought me a new suit in Thailand and I certainly hope that 10 years from now it will still fit.
So, there's the list. I'm sure some people's list could annhilate mine.
When we were in Thailand, my ma-in-law pulled out dishes and other kitchen things that they had gotten for their wedding. That was like 150 years ago. I was thinking about how my parents also have a ton of things from their wedding, and of course I was only married in 2007, so there's nothing I DON'T have from the wedding. I wonder when I'm old and gray, I'll pull out my handy Black & Decker drill and think, "Paula gave me this 293 years ago!" And then I'll screw in my new Fountain of Youth that I got at a clearance sale at JC Penney the day after the Holiday Formerly known As Christmas (HFAC).
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