Dec 2007
"the best day of the year (part three): the value in a Christmas party"
Sunday, December 30, 2007 Filed in: my life
so, after the early
Christmas and the hanging of my new light, Stacy and
i had one more thing to do on Thursday, December
13th. we had to attend the Leadership Christmas Party
at ROCKHARBOR
that night.
i don't think that either of us was especially looking forward to this. it seems like every time i'm invited to something that is supposed to be about appreciation at church, there is usually some sort of ulterior motive ("thank you so much for your help, but... we need more!" or something like that). either that or it just is boring and comes off feeling like someone is just fulfilling an obligation. this, of course, doesn't actually end up making you feel very appreciated or valued. anyway, it turns out, this was not the case that night.
i should have known better. i mean, if i could say one thing about ROCKHARBOR, it would be that they make sure that their people know that they are valued. the importance of genuinely valuing people and making sure that they know it is something we talk about a great deal in my Org. Leadership program. it's also something that, in so many areas of my life, i haven't experienced in the past. so, for me, this is a hugely important.
anyway, even as i walk onto the patio that night i can tell that a lot of effort went into this party.
the patio and
entry area have been decorated really well and there
are tables set up in the entry with TONS of great
food on them. before the doors to The Centre (the
worship center) open, tons of people are standing
around, talking and eating Christmas foods and
drinks. it was fun to see everyone, but i was still a
bit skeptical of the evening.
then we went inside. they had completely redecorated the entire Centre for this one night. backdrop, lighting, decorations... everything was different than it had been the day before.
(and different
than it would be the day after. the staff all came
early to set it up and stayed late to put it back the
way it was.) all the seats had been removed and
nicely decorated tables with chairs replaced them. a
dance floor was in the middle of the room. yes... a
dance floor at church. this, of course, piqued my
curiosity. at this point, about 500 people made their
ways in and sat down at the tables.
then the fun began. our Teaching Pastor, Mike Erre took the stage as Santa Clause and got the evening going. i don't think i've laughed so hard in a long time. first, Kit and Tommy led the whole place in a "gameshow" called "So You Think You Can Carol." five of us were chosen to go up on stage and finish the lyrics to Christmas carols. i lost. (i said it was "join the ancient yule tide carol" and it's freakin' "TROLL the ancient yule tide carol." honestly... who trolls?) after that (and this is where i laughed the hardest) Mike (Santa) got up on stage and had the entire room break into groups by their months of birth. then each group was assigned a "day" (as in "The 12 Days of Christmas") and had to come up with an action to along with their day.
then he led the
whole group in the song. there's no way i can do
justice to the hilariousness of how this turned out,
but it was really, really, really funny.
then Todd (our Lead Pastor) took the stage to talk about why we were here and how ROCKHARBOR owed so much to its leaders and how we were the real ministers of the church. he thanked us for all that we've done and are continuing to do. and then he invited the staff members to come up to the mic if they wanted to so that they could specifically point out volunteers who had gone above and beyond. over the next 1/2 hour or so, staff member after staff member came up to the mic and sang the praises of specific volunteer leaders or groups of leaders who had made an impact. it was incredible. even people who weren't specifically mentioned got it. we really are valued. what we do is noticed and it is important and it isn't taken for granted. it was pretty amazing and you could see it on the faces of the people sitting around. then, Michelle Anthony, who is literally over 200+ volunteers, got up to speak and she talked about me! this isn't even the person i work for. this is the person who the people i work for work for. that someone at that level would take notice of what a volunteer leader was doing is pretty impressive. (at this point, i wasn't surprised that that Michelle knew me. she had sought me out months before to get to know me because she had noticed what i was doing and had already approached me about a job. but for her to get up and talk about me in front of 500 people was unnecessarily nice.)
anyway, after everyone felt properly valued and thanked, Todd brought the program to an end with some Christmas carols. and then... the real party began. they had hired a DJ. the music started and everyone took to the dance floor. the dance floor located right in the middle of our worship center. it was pretty awesome. (as the pictures of Mike (Santa) dancing with his wife clearly show!)
we danced for
about an hour. it was pretty amazing. (you don't see
that at a church very often!)
now, as much of a fun party as it was, i don't tell this story because of that. i tell it because it was the first time in my experience that a corporate event of any kind (church, work, school... whatever) actually succeeded in appreciating people the way they should be appreciated without any ulterior motives or agendas. because of that, people want to continue to be apart of what's going on there. they want to serve and do it excitedly. people felt like they were a valued part of a team. actually, no. it was more than that. they knew that they were a valued part of a team.
of course, as an extension of this, the process continued the next week when Michelle offered me a job partnering with her in the running of Family Ministries. this, of course, makes me really excited to join the RH staff team and bring what i have to make a difference there.
like i said, ROCKHARBOR gets what so many other organizations don't. they take the time to make sure their staff and volunteer leaders don't just feel like they're valued, but actually know that they are. this makes us want to work even harder for the good of the whole. and it really does work just like that.
well, that was the end of the best day of the year for me. from Stacy's beachcruiser to Segway tours to hanging lights and dancing with Santa, it was a pretty freakin' good day.
anyway, happy new year! i pray that you feel valued and important in 2008.
- barnes
i don't think that either of us was especially looking forward to this. it seems like every time i'm invited to something that is supposed to be about appreciation at church, there is usually some sort of ulterior motive ("thank you so much for your help, but... we need more!" or something like that). either that or it just is boring and comes off feeling like someone is just fulfilling an obligation. this, of course, doesn't actually end up making you feel very appreciated or valued. anyway, it turns out, this was not the case that night.
i should have known better. i mean, if i could say one thing about ROCKHARBOR, it would be that they make sure that their people know that they are valued. the importance of genuinely valuing people and making sure that they know it is something we talk about a great deal in my Org. Leadership program. it's also something that, in so many areas of my life, i haven't experienced in the past. so, for me, this is a hugely important.
anyway, even as i walk onto the patio that night i can tell that a lot of effort went into this party.
then we went inside. they had completely redecorated the entire Centre for this one night. backdrop, lighting, decorations... everything was different than it had been the day before.
then the fun began. our Teaching Pastor, Mike Erre took the stage as Santa Clause and got the evening going. i don't think i've laughed so hard in a long time. first, Kit and Tommy led the whole place in a "gameshow" called "So You Think You Can Carol." five of us were chosen to go up on stage and finish the lyrics to Christmas carols. i lost. (i said it was "join the ancient yule tide carol" and it's freakin' "TROLL the ancient yule tide carol." honestly... who trolls?) after that (and this is where i laughed the hardest) Mike (Santa) got up on stage and had the entire room break into groups by their months of birth. then each group was assigned a "day" (as in "The 12 Days of Christmas") and had to come up with an action to along with their day.
then Todd (our Lead Pastor) took the stage to talk about why we were here and how ROCKHARBOR owed so much to its leaders and how we were the real ministers of the church. he thanked us for all that we've done and are continuing to do. and then he invited the staff members to come up to the mic if they wanted to so that they could specifically point out volunteers who had gone above and beyond. over the next 1/2 hour or so, staff member after staff member came up to the mic and sang the praises of specific volunteer leaders or groups of leaders who had made an impact. it was incredible. even people who weren't specifically mentioned got it. we really are valued. what we do is noticed and it is important and it isn't taken for granted. it was pretty amazing and you could see it on the faces of the people sitting around. then, Michelle Anthony, who is literally over 200+ volunteers, got up to speak and she talked about me! this isn't even the person i work for. this is the person who the people i work for work for. that someone at that level would take notice of what a volunteer leader was doing is pretty impressive. (at this point, i wasn't surprised that that Michelle knew me. she had sought me out months before to get to know me because she had noticed what i was doing and had already approached me about a job. but for her to get up and talk about me in front of 500 people was unnecessarily nice.)
anyway, after everyone felt properly valued and thanked, Todd brought the program to an end with some Christmas carols. and then... the real party began. they had hired a DJ. the music started and everyone took to the dance floor. the dance floor located right in the middle of our worship center. it was pretty awesome. (as the pictures of Mike (Santa) dancing with his wife clearly show!)
now, as much of a fun party as it was, i don't tell this story because of that. i tell it because it was the first time in my experience that a corporate event of any kind (church, work, school... whatever) actually succeeded in appreciating people the way they should be appreciated without any ulterior motives or agendas. because of that, people want to continue to be apart of what's going on there. they want to serve and do it excitedly. people felt like they were a valued part of a team. actually, no. it was more than that. they knew that they were a valued part of a team.
of course, as an extension of this, the process continued the next week when Michelle offered me a job partnering with her in the running of Family Ministries. this, of course, makes me really excited to join the RH staff team and bring what i have to make a difference there.
like i said, ROCKHARBOR gets what so many other organizations don't. they take the time to make sure their staff and volunteer leaders don't just feel like they're valued, but actually know that they are. this makes us want to work even harder for the good of the whole. and it really does work just like that.
well, that was the end of the best day of the year for me. from Stacy's beachcruiser to Segway tours to hanging lights and dancing with Santa, it was a pretty freakin' good day.
anyway, happy new year! i pray that you feel valued and important in 2008.
- barnes
|
"a better day"
Sunday, December 30, 2007 Filed in: my life
"the worst day of the year"
Thursday, December 27, 2007 Filed in: my life
as i'm in the middle of
my three part series on the best day of the year, i'm
going to take a very brief moment to point out that
today, December 27th, is officially the worst day of
the year.
the short version...
i started throwing up last night as the stomach flu officially kicked in. as a result, i sent my girlfriend and my family to Maui without me this morning as i continued to vomit. now, while they're in paradise, i'm sitting here feeling (and looking) like total crap.
hopefully tomorrow will be better and i can catch up with them.
by the way... please feel free to leave comments on these blogs. i'd be good to know if anyone is reading them. just click on the little link at the bottom that says "comments" and leave me one. thanks!
the short version...
i started throwing up last night as the stomach flu officially kicked in. as a result, i sent my girlfriend and my family to Maui without me this morning as i continued to vomit. now, while they're in paradise, i'm sitting here feeling (and looking) like total crap.
hopefully tomorrow will be better and i can catch up with them.
by the way... please feel free to leave comments on these blogs. i'd be good to know if anyone is reading them. just click on the little link at the bottom that says "comments" and leave me one. thanks!
"the best day of the year (part two): my creation"
Saturday, December 22, 2007 Filed in: my life
so, after the
excitement that was an early Christmas, i really
didn't think that Thursday, December 13th could have
gotten any better. oh how wrong could i be?
for anyone who isn't aware, back in September, i moved into a condo in the safest city in the US... Irvine. and i love it. i mean, i really love it. the condo is great. the location is great. i'm five minutes from ROCKHARBOR, three minutes from Fashion Island, five minutes from South Coast Plaza, three minutes from The District (and awesome new center down here with everything from Costco, to Best Buy, Target, a great movie theater, great restaurants and more), two minutes from John Wayne Airport and about 10 minutes from the beach... it's wonderful. so, over the past months, i've been slowly decorating my place in my own style. (it came partially furnished and i've kept most of what was here. but it needed some more things that weren't here and there were a few things that needed replacing.) one of the biggest problems with my place was that there was no lighting near the dining table. so, if you wanted to eat at night, you either ate at the table in the dark, or ate on the couch. (you can guess where i've been having my meals for the past two months.) this needed to be remedied.
in October, i was down at South Coast Plaza and i walked by the Jon Varvatos store and saw the coolest light display.
basically, they
had hung these wooden racks from the ceiling and just
had about a thousand light bulbs hanging from them.
(it's very cool. check it out if you're down there.)
so, i was talking to my designer friend, Diane, and
told her what i'd seen. obviously, their design
wouldn't work for me, but i liked the basic look of
the bulbs hanging from the ceiling on cords. so, i
came up with an idea. my dining table has these
wooden beams that run through it (like a cross). what
if we got two beams to match, hung them from the
ceiling directly above the table and dropped light
bulbs from there? Diane was intrigued.
now, i'll stop quickly to say that i'm no designer. i was seriously just dreaming out loud and had no idea that any of this was even a possibility. but Diane, being a designer, started pondering. she said she knew a guy who did scenic design for Disneyland who could create faux beams out of Styrofoam. and she knew an electrician who was good at this kind of random stuff. so, she set to work on the design.
over the next few
weeks we met with the Disney guy and the electrician
and it seemed like this might actually happen. and,
on Wednesday, December 12th, the Disney guy showed up
at my place with the beams. (they looked
fantastically real!) the next morning, at 9.00am
(just a 1/2 hour before early Christmas began) Diane,
our friend Jon (who's a carpenter) and the
electricians showed up to install the thing. by the
time we came back from Balboa from our Segway tour,
the light was almost done. within an hour, the
realization of my initial daydreamings was complete
and it is amazing. (we even threw a few red bulbs in
for the Christmas season.)
there's just something about the creative process that is so exciting and satisfying. to have an idea and to see that idea come to life over time is really cool. anyway, that is the second reason why Thursday, December 13 was the best day of the year. i dreamed it up... Diane designed it... and there it is! and now, i can eat at my table fully lit.
part three... coming soon!
matt
for anyone who isn't aware, back in September, i moved into a condo in the safest city in the US... Irvine. and i love it. i mean, i really love it. the condo is great. the location is great. i'm five minutes from ROCKHARBOR, three minutes from Fashion Island, five minutes from South Coast Plaza, three minutes from The District (and awesome new center down here with everything from Costco, to Best Buy, Target, a great movie theater, great restaurants and more), two minutes from John Wayne Airport and about 10 minutes from the beach... it's wonderful. so, over the past months, i've been slowly decorating my place in my own style. (it came partially furnished and i've kept most of what was here. but it needed some more things that weren't here and there were a few things that needed replacing.) one of the biggest problems with my place was that there was no lighting near the dining table. so, if you wanted to eat at night, you either ate at the table in the dark, or ate on the couch. (you can guess where i've been having my meals for the past two months.) this needed to be remedied.
in October, i was down at South Coast Plaza and i walked by the Jon Varvatos store and saw the coolest light display.
now, i'll stop quickly to say that i'm no designer. i was seriously just dreaming out loud and had no idea that any of this was even a possibility. but Diane, being a designer, started pondering. she said she knew a guy who did scenic design for Disneyland who could create faux beams out of Styrofoam. and she knew an electrician who was good at this kind of random stuff. so, she set to work on the design.
there's just something about the creative process that is so exciting and satisfying. to have an idea and to see that idea come to life over time is really cool. anyway, that is the second reason why Thursday, December 13 was the best day of the year. i dreamed it up... Diane designed it... and there it is! and now, i can eat at my table fully lit.
part three... coming soon!
matt
"the best day of the year (part one): an early Christmas!"
Thursday, December 20, 2007 Filed in: my life
PROLOGUE
i think every year has at least one of "those" days. you know the ones where you know when you look back on that year, you think of that day. i suppose it could be a good day or a bad day, but in this instance, i'm talking about the good days. last Thursday was that day for 2007. this (and the following two blogs) will deal with why.
AN EARLY CHRISTMAS: Act I
Stacy and i sort of have a tradition. we celebrate Christmas early. now, my official reason and justification for this is that we do it so that when the real Christmas comes around, we can focus on others and not on ourselves. this, of course, is a lie. we really do it because i'm super-impatient. and it's not so much about me getting the gifts (though i thoroughly enjoy that) but it's that once i have her gifts, i can't wait to give them to her.
so, in early November, we decided that our Christmas would be on Thursday, December 13th. (i pushed really hard for Friday, December 7th, but was brutally rebuffed.) the problem was, i got Stacy's big gift two weeks before that day. this, for me, was torture. so, after what seemed like a decade of waiting in agony, the day came!
all she had told me about my gift was that she would be picking me up at 10.15 to go to wherever it was we were going to. (a-ha! we're going somewhere! i'm so perceptive.) anyway, i told her she needed to be here at 9.30 then so i could give her her gifts. (that sentence had the word "her" twice in a row. though it made sense, i still didn't feel comfortable typing it.) so, at 9.30, in the middle of the chaos that was going on at my house (which you'll hear about in the second blog in this blogtastic mini-series), Stacy arrived ready to be dazzled by what i had told her was "the best Christmas present ever." but, first... i had to throw her off a bit.
in case you couldn't tell, to me, this is all sort of a game. so, i decided that i needed to have some fun with it. i had been picking up a few smaller things here and there over the past months that i knew she wanted, but that, alone, didn't live up to the title of "the best Christmas present ever." so, we went in my room and i pulled out a wrapped gift. (it may or may not be important to know that all gifts wrapped by me are wrapped in aluminum foil. this ensures easy wrapping and unwrapping as well as ensuring that mine are the shiniest gifts under the tree.) she quickly ripped off the Reynolds Wrap™ surrounding her gift and found a new case for her computer. nice? sure. exciting? perhaps. "the best Christmas present ever?" um... no. but she was excited (or pretended to be). then she noticed that the case was a little heavy. she opened it and found another shiny, wrapped prize inside. could it be the complete DVD set of the BBC documentary, Planet Earth? why yes it could! (she's been talking about this for a while and i found it on sale at Costco.) again... she was happy. but "the greatest Christmas present ever?" no. anyway, we hugged and she thanked me thinking that she had received all that she would. and, while appreciative for sure, i'm sure she had to be wondering, "why would he bill this as the best Christmas present ever?"
after that, i told her i was going to run into the bathroom and asked her if she could grab one of my belts for me in my closet. she looked at me with the "get your own freakin' belt" look that i had expected, but then, being the great girlfriend that she is, she said "okay" and headed for the closet. as she walked in the closet, i awaited her reaction. "um... THIS is NOT a belt!" is how she chose to respond. she had found it. her final gift. not wrapped at all. sitting in plain site. her new, Paul Frank "Aku" Beach Cruiser.
she had been saying she wanted a beach cruiser for like six months. i kind of pretended to ignore her talking about it and when we did, it was about how it would be smarter to wait till next spring or summer. then i totally lied and told her that Megan wanted one and wanted me to research them for her. so i did. and Stacy helped and told me which one she would want. it couldn't have been easier! plus, she had no idea. awesome.
it was great. exactly as i'd hoped it would go. she was excited. and now, it was my turn!
INTERMISSION
so, i know this blog is getting long at this point and we still have the other half of the gift giving to go. so, go to the bathroom if you need. get a beverage. cook a Hot Pocket™. and then come back for the rest.
AN EARLY CHRISTMAS: Act II
so, now that my anticipation of giving was over, the anticipation of receiving was growing. we got in Stacy's car and she pulled out of the driveway and immediately over to the side of the road. huh? were we there? no. she handed me a small, wrapped (in regular wrapping paper) gift and told me to open it. i did and found a bandana. confused, i pondered the reasons she could be giving me this. (did she want me to be more like Alex? were we going to a rodeo? if so... i hate stuff like that. how do i tell her i hate rodeos. really, i think anything that combines country music with cowboys and wild animals is just a really bad idea. why would she think i would want to do something like that?) of course, being a moron, i missed the real (and obvious) reason. i needed to be blindfolded. duh.
so, i put on the blindfold (and my sunglasses over that so i didn't look like a complete idiot) and we headed off for what seemed like an eternity. (i think it was about 10 minutes.) i tried to guess where we were at every step of the way. she kept acting amazed that i was figuring it out. (of course, when we got to where we were going, i realized that i had, in fact, figured nothing out and we were at least 20 miles from where i thought we were.) anyway, we got there and i took of the blindfold to find...
we're at Balboa Beach! wait. Balboa Beach? i'm confused. why are we at Balboa Beach? it's December. and we're going to the beach. my look of confusion must have been obvious because she said "come on... you'll see!" and we started walking out toward the Fun Zone. we came around the corner, and there we were. in the next milliseconds i had several flashbacks that made me understand exactly why we were where we were. i will briefly share them with you now.
Stacy and i always watched "Arrested Development" (if you haven't seen it, buy the DVDs... best show ever) and one of the characters (GOB Bluth... pictured) always rode around Newport Beach on his Segway. we always found this very entertaining because he looked so dorky on it.
several times i had commented to Stacy how, as amazingly dorky as they were, i really wanted to ride one of those Segway things.
the flashbacks ended and it made perfect sense why we were standing in front of the Segway store. Stacy had booked us a Segway tour of the Balboa Peninsula. now, you might be thinking... "that's lame." or "you're a huge dork." well, the first one is absolutely not true. (the second is fairly accurate.) but, we had SO much fun on this tour. yes, we looked like idiots. but, holy crap are those things fun! and our tour guide, Jeff, knows EVERYTHING about EVERYONE that lives down there. (did you know that McG who directed both the Charlie's Angels movies and produced The OC has a beach house right there and that he has a multi-million dollar grass lot right next door just so his dogs have a place to poo? i did!) for the next two hours, we tooled around on our Segways and had a blast. we were laughing the whole time and it was awesome. (also, let me just say that those things are amazing. they have no controls! you just lean where you want to go, and they go. it's like mind-controlled travel.)
i think Stacy one-upped me on this one. i told her, i'd never been given an experiential gift. people always give things, not experiences. this was amazingly fun and i'll always remember it. (i highly recommend it. seriously.) then we grabbed lunch in the Fun Zone. (i had this ridiculously large burger that came with fries... on it!) we got back to the car, and she handed me another gift. it was a pair of Monarchy™ jeans that i had really wanted. this day couldn't get any better.
oh... but it could! and it did. and that will be the content of my next two (significantly shorter) blogs.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
matt
i think every year has at least one of "those" days. you know the ones where you know when you look back on that year, you think of that day. i suppose it could be a good day or a bad day, but in this instance, i'm talking about the good days. last Thursday was that day for 2007. this (and the following two blogs) will deal with why.
AN EARLY CHRISTMAS: Act I
Stacy and i sort of have a tradition. we celebrate Christmas early. now, my official reason and justification for this is that we do it so that when the real Christmas comes around, we can focus on others and not on ourselves. this, of course, is a lie. we really do it because i'm super-impatient. and it's not so much about me getting the gifts (though i thoroughly enjoy that) but it's that once i have her gifts, i can't wait to give them to her.
so, in early November, we decided that our Christmas would be on Thursday, December 13th. (i pushed really hard for Friday, December 7th, but was brutally rebuffed.) the problem was, i got Stacy's big gift two weeks before that day. this, for me, was torture. so, after what seemed like a decade of waiting in agony, the day came!
all she had told me about my gift was that she would be picking me up at 10.15 to go to wherever it was we were going to. (a-ha! we're going somewhere! i'm so perceptive.) anyway, i told her she needed to be here at 9.30 then so i could give her her gifts. (that sentence had the word "her" twice in a row. though it made sense, i still didn't feel comfortable typing it.) so, at 9.30, in the middle of the chaos that was going on at my house (which you'll hear about in the second blog in this blogtastic mini-series), Stacy arrived ready to be dazzled by what i had told her was "the best Christmas present ever." but, first... i had to throw her off a bit.
in case you couldn't tell, to me, this is all sort of a game. so, i decided that i needed to have some fun with it. i had been picking up a few smaller things here and there over the past months that i knew she wanted, but that, alone, didn't live up to the title of "the best Christmas present ever." so, we went in my room and i pulled out a wrapped gift. (it may or may not be important to know that all gifts wrapped by me are wrapped in aluminum foil. this ensures easy wrapping and unwrapping as well as ensuring that mine are the shiniest gifts under the tree.) she quickly ripped off the Reynolds Wrap™ surrounding her gift and found a new case for her computer. nice? sure. exciting? perhaps. "the best Christmas present ever?" um... no. but she was excited (or pretended to be). then she noticed that the case was a little heavy. she opened it and found another shiny, wrapped prize inside. could it be the complete DVD set of the BBC documentary, Planet Earth? why yes it could! (she's been talking about this for a while and i found it on sale at Costco.) again... she was happy. but "the greatest Christmas present ever?" no. anyway, we hugged and she thanked me thinking that she had received all that she would. and, while appreciative for sure, i'm sure she had to be wondering, "why would he bill this as the best Christmas present ever?"
after that, i told her i was going to run into the bathroom and asked her if she could grab one of my belts for me in my closet. she looked at me with the "get your own freakin' belt" look that i had expected, but then, being the great girlfriend that she is, she said "okay" and headed for the closet. as she walked in the closet, i awaited her reaction. "um... THIS is NOT a belt!" is how she chose to respond. she had found it. her final gift. not wrapped at all. sitting in plain site. her new, Paul Frank "Aku" Beach Cruiser.
she had been saying she wanted a beach cruiser for like six months. i kind of pretended to ignore her talking about it and when we did, it was about how it would be smarter to wait till next spring or summer. then i totally lied and told her that Megan wanted one and wanted me to research them for her. so i did. and Stacy helped and told me which one she would want. it couldn't have been easier! plus, she had no idea. awesome.
it was great. exactly as i'd hoped it would go. she was excited. and now, it was my turn!
INTERMISSION
so, i know this blog is getting long at this point and we still have the other half of the gift giving to go. so, go to the bathroom if you need. get a beverage. cook a Hot Pocket™. and then come back for the rest.
AN EARLY CHRISTMAS: Act II
so, now that my anticipation of giving was over, the anticipation of receiving was growing. we got in Stacy's car and she pulled out of the driveway and immediately over to the side of the road. huh? were we there? no. she handed me a small, wrapped (in regular wrapping paper) gift and told me to open it. i did and found a bandana. confused, i pondered the reasons she could be giving me this. (did she want me to be more like Alex? were we going to a rodeo? if so... i hate stuff like that. how do i tell her i hate rodeos. really, i think anything that combines country music with cowboys and wild animals is just a really bad idea. why would she think i would want to do something like that?) of course, being a moron, i missed the real (and obvious) reason. i needed to be blindfolded. duh.
so, i put on the blindfold (and my sunglasses over that so i didn't look like a complete idiot) and we headed off for what seemed like an eternity. (i think it was about 10 minutes.) i tried to guess where we were at every step of the way. she kept acting amazed that i was figuring it out. (of course, when we got to where we were going, i realized that i had, in fact, figured nothing out and we were at least 20 miles from where i thought we were.) anyway, we got there and i took of the blindfold to find...
we're at Balboa Beach! wait. Balboa Beach? i'm confused. why are we at Balboa Beach? it's December. and we're going to the beach. my look of confusion must have been obvious because she said "come on... you'll see!" and we started walking out toward the Fun Zone. we came around the corner, and there we were. in the next milliseconds i had several flashbacks that made me understand exactly why we were where we were. i will briefly share them with you now.
Stacy and i always watched "Arrested Development" (if you haven't seen it, buy the DVDs... best show ever) and one of the characters (GOB Bluth... pictured) always rode around Newport Beach on his Segway. we always found this very entertaining because he looked so dorky on it.
several times i had commented to Stacy how, as amazingly dorky as they were, i really wanted to ride one of those Segway things.
the flashbacks ended and it made perfect sense why we were standing in front of the Segway store. Stacy had booked us a Segway tour of the Balboa Peninsula. now, you might be thinking... "that's lame." or "you're a huge dork." well, the first one is absolutely not true. (the second is fairly accurate.) but, we had SO much fun on this tour. yes, we looked like idiots. but, holy crap are those things fun! and our tour guide, Jeff, knows EVERYTHING about EVERYONE that lives down there. (did you know that McG who directed both the Charlie's Angels movies and produced The OC has a beach house right there and that he has a multi-million dollar grass lot right next door just so his dogs have a place to poo? i did!) for the next two hours, we tooled around on our Segways and had a blast. we were laughing the whole time and it was awesome. (also, let me just say that those things are amazing. they have no controls! you just lean where you want to go, and they go. it's like mind-controlled travel.)
i think Stacy one-upped me on this one. i told her, i'd never been given an experiential gift. people always give things, not experiences. this was amazingly fun and i'll always remember it. (i highly recommend it. seriously.) then we grabbed lunch in the Fun Zone. (i had this ridiculously large burger that came with fries... on it!) we got back to the car, and she handed me another gift. it was a pair of Monarchy™ jeans that i had really wanted. this day couldn't get any better.
oh... but it could! and it did. and that will be the content of my next two (significantly shorter) blogs.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
matt
"a short blog with some news"
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 Filed in: my life
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