Que Dia!

Talk about True Blue Cougar Fans!!!

I love taking the older kids to the BYU Football games. Go Cougars!!! You would not recognize the orneryguy at the game. I wear BYU t-shirts, I do all of the cheers (another cougar first down, BYU Cougars, etc.), I stand and sing the fight song and do the fist pumping rah-rah's, and I even stand and do the wave. In short, I am embarrassed to be me at the games, but I love it! It took me 38+ years to get over my self-consciousness enough to actually stand and yell and throw my arms in the air when the wave comes around. I even stand and dance when the band plays, moving my shoulders and shaking my bum. I actually have FUN!!! Dallin and Abby do not even recognize me at the game.

Oh yeah, baby, we sit at mid-field!!!

Except our seats are in the nosebleed section. This was a case of going in with low expectations and being pleasantly surprised. (No jokes about marriage here, please). Anyway, when I bought the tickets I warned the kids that we would be sitting on the next to last row and so they should not get their hopes up about enjoying much of the game. We took the binoculars and I was dreading the fighting we would have over who used them and when. But, when we got to our seats and turned around to watch the players warm up, we were shocked at how well we could see EVERYTHING! We can see the entire field at all times. Even all four corners of the end zone. And plays along the near sideline are not blocked from our view by the players. To make our seats perfect I want to move to the back row for next year. Seriously, the only better seats would be straight across on the top row of the west stands on the 50 yard line, because those seats get shade in the third quarter. But, those tickets cost a lot more. I get mine at a faculty/staff discount that is hard to beat.

A couple of Swinging Monkeys!

The people who sit behind us did not come to the Wyoming game today so we moved one row back to their seats. This picture was taken at the start of the fourth quarter. The diamond-plate box behind the kids is actually a folding platform that opens up to the light tower behind us. It is scary high and there is no way you would get me to walk out on it. Anyway, it is locked and it has chains attached to hold it level when it opened. The kids sat down inside of the chains for a minute when I got the genius idea to put their pads inside the chain. They loved it. Another reason I want those seats right behind us is because when the crowd starts stomping their feet to make it too loud for the opponents to call their plays, I was pounding on that gate with my fist and the noise was deafening to us. Banging on the wall around it just hurts your fist, but the gate itself is like a big bass drum. Again, I only like noise and chaos when I am the one making it. It is just another item on my long list of double standards!

MINI-ME!!!

Yeah, I am becoming a total nerd! A year ago you could not have gotten me to wear a BYU t-shirt, period. But, as a part of an assignment in my Organizational Behavior class, I wore a BYU sweatshirt while watching a game. It had to do with identifying yourself with your organizations culture. Anyway, anyone who knows me knows I am easily embarrassed by just about everything. If it involves having fun and allowing others to see you are enjoying yourself, well, it is just not allowed. Part of the dysfunctional upbringing I had. Ask Steph, she will vouch for the screwed-upedness we all got (he just made up that hyphenated word, didn't he?). Imagine being so messed up that you get embarrassed about what people will think about you for wearing a BYU shirt. Or being embarrassed sitting in a restaurant while people are singing 'Happy Birthday' to someone on the other side of the room. (Special note, we went to Los Hermanos tonight after the game, and I clapped and cheered along during one of those sing-a-longs, are you proud Steph? No, she is probably embarrassed that someone she knows was in a restaurant while singing took place :-)!)

No longer stifled by this weird insecurity, this year, we all got BYU blue before the first game and wear it religiously on game day. It doesn't matter if it is a home game or an away game. It is BYU Blue Baby!!! Before this game I bought BYU hats. Dallin and I got blue ones and Debi, Abby, and Emma got pinks ones. Then today we scored 5 more free shirts. They were handing them out on the way into the stadium. Now we have 5 matching BYU Blue shirts. We are the Nerd Herd (homage to 'Chuck', if you have seen it on NBC). It gets even worse, so watch out for the next paragraph!

You have been warned, so, proceed with caution. Tonight, at my insistence, all 5 members of the Crazy Lee family wore their BYU Blue shirts, and their hats, while we went to Los Hermanos and the grocery store. I am losing it. The mere thought of two of the five of us even dressing similarly used to be enough to send me into a tizzy. But tonight, I was the instigator of this unseemly behavior. Later on I noticed that Dallin and I were looking very similar and started calling him Mini-Me as we were walking around. I asked Debi to take the pictures. (Again, I usually run away from cameras). Help me, I am losing my orneriness!

I need to find something to complain about quickly before the orneryguy becomes mrhappy.

Grr, curse, grumble, :-(, etc !

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The Sad Man Behind Blue Eyes

What a great song by The Who!!! Being a sad man, and having blue eyes, I have always identified with this song. Whenever I start to have a "pity party", or start a "poor me story", Debi always taunts me with, "Oh, is it our little sad man behind blue eyes?"

Well, yes, yes it is. I have been brutalized on all fronts for my unintentionally being such an 80's icon. OUCH!!! Why didn't anyone organize an intervention. I obviously need help and support, not laughing and ridicule. Perhaps a makeover on Oprah would help. I hear she is a "miracle worker." So here's the deal. I am asking you to answer a few questions for me.

1. Please list as many things about me that scream "80's dude" that you can think of. Be specific. Blanket statements such as "everything" may be accurate, but they don't give me much to work with. Also, things such as "pants, shirts, hair, etc." need to be more specific. Exactly what is "wrong" with them. Note: I no longer own any Guess Jeans :(


2. Is there any hope for me? If the answer is no, you are probably right, and you are now done. If however, you are foolishly optimistic, and you answer yes, please continue.


3. Please, please, please offer suggestions. What can be done to bring me at least to the 90's, or even make me Y2K compliant. I am aware that actually reaching 2008 is impossible, but please help me to not be "that guy" who everyone sees and automatically thinks "time-warp."

Debi and Abby looked up 80's fashion websites and kept laughing at me. It was sad, so of course I pouted, which made them laugh harder. Poor me, the sad man behind blue eyes.

Please help me to not be "The Hoff" (see picture above)!!!

Simple Man

I saw this poster and I want to know if it is true. Please answer yes or no in the comment section and have a nice day. Also, if I am a "simple kind of man" does that make me a simpleton?

Anyway, Lynyrd Skynyrd rocks and you should really listen to that first song on my playlist. In fact, if you want to have a classic rock kind of day you should listen to the entire list. You can open a new browser window and keep on surfing while you listen. The playlist is very incomplete, and a little sporadic. I mean Barry Manilow? Hello? That was definitely for Debi (and I am a closet Fanilow).

Back to the simpleton question. My life was certainly simpler before school started for me on 9/2. For the record, I am in my second year of a three year master's program at BYU. I will be earning a Master's of Public Administration, which means if I play my cards right I can be like the head garbage man dude. Here is a simple way of explaining my upcoming degree, think MBA (Master's of Business Administration) designed for the not-for-profit sector. We are both part of BYU's Marriott School of Management and have similar courses and professors. The MBA focuses on for profit enterprises. The MPA focuses on government, universities, churches, charities, etc. Some examples include working in the administration of any government office, the LDS Church, BYU, the Red Cross, IHC, etc.

Wow that was boring! So here's the deal, I would like to either move into the administration at BYU or possibly work for the Church in a sector of the welfare division. I have visited Welfare Square a few times and have felt that I need to be involved in improving the lives of others(That's right, the orneryguy has actually been touched by the spirit). We have two guys in our program who work for LDS Philanthropies raising money for various projects such as providing wheelchairs to the handicapped and building wells for impoverished communitites. I want to get involved in something like that. Debi and I want to serve multiple missions and I want my work to prepare me for that while it provides for my family.

I apologize for the serious tone of this post. It was truly not intended. In fact, if this nonsense keeps up the blog may have to be cancelled.

So my accounting professor is like the world's smartest guy. Seriously, he has three PhD's, the last one in Artificial Intelligence from Carnegie-Mellon. He created an accounting teaching computer program that nearly ruined my sanity. It uses artificial intelligence to track what you are doing and predict mistakes you may make and questions you may have. It gives hints and warnings when you ask for them and it is spooky. If you are unsure of what to do, rather than clicking help and entering a word or phrase, you simply hit help and it answers the exact question in your head. I am afraid to think "do you know what I am thinking?" and hit the help key because I know the answer will come back "yes, and you better repent!" Anyway, the program is great, and I love using it, but it was the install that was terrible. My computer kept rejecting the program. Our professors son is a long-titled computer genious (read: geek) who comes to each of his fathers classes on the first day of school to help anyone who is having problems installing the program. He helped everyone who had problems but me. He spent over an hour and determined that I would have to wipe out my hard drive, re-install all programs, and lose anything that wasn't saved off-site. So, I got to rebuild my computer the first week of school. Nothing like a little added pressure.

This post is already too long and tragically terrible. So here's the deal, (the deal? Is this guy a used car salesman or what?) if you would like another sardonically delicious attack on something like people who chew with their mouths open and kick the back of my seat in the movie theater, stupid people, (you know who they are, and so do I, so why don't they know who they are) or whether the comma should be after the phrase or the comment in the parentheses after the phrase, (I am pretty sure I have screwed that up. Twelve years earning an English degree shot to ....) let me know. I crave comments. Especially sardonic ones.

Oh yeah, if you are all good little commenter's, I will tell you the story about Edward Paul Horwinski and the Great Pizza Mystery or possibly the one about how Johnny Got Hit in the Head by a Flying Frozen Turkey. Make a request!

Oh, and did I see Ryan McQuivey at the BYU/UCLA game? Go COUGARS!!!

Warning: This Post Is Lame (I'm Learning to Post Pictures)

As Debi and I were leaving from a wonderful short weekend stay at Johnson's Mill in Midway, I got a hold of her digital camera and starting taking pictures. I normally don't go for those new-fangled gadgets. Anything more technical than a Sony Walkman (circa 1982, cassette version) is beyond me. But, I was having fun. Snap, snap, snap and no paying for film development. I decided I wanted one for myself.

I did fine installing the Kodak EasyShare Program on my computer and took some pictures only a guy would take. You know, the first was my Coke from Taco Time. Then pictures of my Mustang, Truck, Motorcycles, the fence we built this summer, etc. Then I decided to get adventurous and try the video feature. So I have a short clip of the inside of the door and the dashboard of my Mustang while I start it and listen to the exhaust (with the door open so we can all hear the ringing of the door open bell, of course). Yeah, I am pretty lame. But, when you've got a K&N Performance Intake, Bassani headers, and a 3" MagnaFlow exhaust with Cat-Back headers installed on a 5.0 HO Ford V-8 engine, you are pretty lame, and obviously living in the past. You can take a flashback with me and have a listen here.

Speaking of living in the past, have you seen my straight-leg, faded blue jeans. Debi is pretty sure I never left 1988. She teased me just today about my pants. And my hair. And my shirt. And my music. Oh yeah, and about being ornery. She finds it hard being the unfortunate soul stuck with me. I mean, yeah sure, she likes the idea of me, but not the actual practise. I guess I am like one of those fancy trucks you see on the road with the awful, multi-color, paint jobs and murals on the tail-gate. Whoever thought it up and paid the ridiculous amount of money to have it done envisioned a true work of art in their mind. But when the work is done it just looks stupid. That's me, Debi's stupid looking truck (painted in the 80's obviously). If only it weren't against BYU standards I could grow an awesome mullet and wear muscle shirts (these of course present a problem with the whole garment thing). Wow, religion is standing in the way of me living out my white trash fantasy (and looking like my dad). Yeah, I'm the guy Debi wanted to marry. What was she thinking? My mom and Stephanie tried to tell her to run far, far away, but she didn't listen. She regrets it now. She's told me so. Lot's of times. Oh well, maybe one day I'll be the guy she wanted me to be when we got married. But until then I've just got LOTS OF POTENTIAL. (And a wardrobe, hair-cut, car, and music from the 80's).

Oh yeah, back to the camera. Here are some photos that only a guy would post. Especially a guy who lives in a trailer, drinks generic beer, and whistles through his tooth. I am that classy guy :)

Oh yeah, that Mustang was pretty sweet my senior year of high school. Ironically, I hated those Mustangs then and I hate them now. Back then I liked the Camaros a lot better. Still do. The Mustangs I like are 1964-1967 Fast Backs and the newest ones after the restyling done in 2005. Oh well, the price was right, it was a low-mile, original owner model. And it is fast. Stock, the 87 GT's did over 148 MPH. This one has had some work done and will go faster than I will ever find out. Now, if I had this car back in 87, I would have found out how fast it would go and probably not be here today.