Sanpete County Legends

MORONI 4th OF JULY PARADE 2012

As many of you may know Laura and I are from a county in Central Utah called Sanpete county, as described in the above illustration we have a Temple, snowflakes, a blue moon and a mountain called the big horseshoe.

This map shows a exact approximate location of Sanpete

Well every year we like to go to Moroni to take the kids to the parade. It's really fun because it isn't too long and they still throw candy, which is one of the best part of parades.

Moroni main street

Well last year (2011) like every year, we went to the parade as we have done for the past 10 years or so. The parade was just as good as it ever was with one difference, hardly any candy was thrown. It was actually quite pathetic, all the participants just threw small hand fulls of candy to large groups of kids. Can  you imagine 20 kids all running after 9 pieces of taffy? Needless to say most kids walked away with a very small baggie of candy.

After the parade Marc and I were talking about how little candy was actually thrown that year, suddenly the heavens were opened and Marc and I came up with an idea so good that it can only be described with one word....Legendary.

I told Marc that the next year we should enter the parade with the sole purpose of throwing candy and nothing more. We would somehow need to raise enough funds to buy a very large amount of candy, enough to fill the bed of my truck to be specific. We told Andy of our idea and he immediately started helping plan for this great event, Laura, Cole and Shamri also thought it was an awesome idea. We had plenty of help, and time to pull it off. With a full year of preparation we expected everything to go amazingly well.

Well, if any of you have ever been involved in something that has a seemingly infinite amount of time to prepare for, you probably know that it can also be easy to put it off till the end. This is exactly what happened. About one month before, we decided that it would be time to make preparations. We called everywhere to get pricing on the taffy and did the math to figure out how many pounds would be needed to fill the bed of my truck. Andy has a friend who has an account with Sweets taffy, and after much research we concluded that he could get us the best price. Andy ordered 2 cases just so we could see how much volume each one would take. Before the two cases arrived we started punching numbers and we figured out that it would cost nearly $2000 for the amount of candy we would need.

After finding out how much money it was going to cost each one of us must have concluded that it was not a realistic goal and all planning ceased. Nothing more was said about the parade until about one week before the 4th when Andy called me and said the two cases had arrived and wanted to know if we should try to return them or what we should do with them. We decided that we would beg everyone in the family for donations and just buy as much as we possibly could we were just worried about getting entered into the parade, and also if we could order that much candy on such a short notice.

Well, we were able to get a spot in the parade #24 to be exact, which incidentally turned out to be a lucky number because it got us one of the only shady parking spots while we waited to begin the parade caravan.

Marc was able to have some shirts made for us at the last minute, which he paid for and donated, good thing he works at Namify.

Andy took care of getting the candy ordered at a discount price and I was in charge of calling everyone and begging them to invest a large amount of money in something that has little return, and when I say "little return" what I really mean is; absolutely no return, unless you count the bag of candy each investor collected during the parade.  I will not name the amounts or people who donated but I would like to thank them in behalf of hundreds of Sanpete county children, and their dentists.

We were able to get all the candy the weekend before the 4th, This is 22 cases, we were able to buy a total of 26 cases which contain nine three pound bags of taffy. Each case weights 9x3 lbs, for a total of exactly 9x3x26 pounds.

Aiden and I even made a special box made out of a special type of material known as wood.

The night before the parade Laura and I spent about 2 hours opening each three pound bag of taffy into the cardboard boxes so we wouldn't have to do it the next day. Our basement smelled like a candy factory for days.

The morning of the 4th Laura and I woke up at 5:30 and emptied all 26 cases into the special wooden box. It wasn't as much candy as I had envisioned but it was still more than I had ever seen in a wood box, in the back of a black Dodge truck, that year.

All of the boxes after we finished.

 

Here we are patiently waiting to begin.

When we started in the parade we threw a few large hand fulls at some kids who were waiting at the top of the hill, they were too lazy to even pick up the candy, if picking up pieces of candy off the ground is to much work for a kid, he's in for a rough life. We were kind of concerned that that's how the rest of the parade would be......it wasn't.

Once we pulled into the main part of the parade where more people were we made it rain candy. Kids who were so used to fighting over a few pieces of candy were diving on top of the candy, they soon realised that diving was not necessary as we through so much candy everyone got their share.

Here is a group of teenagers that were crowding out the little kids, so we gave them more candy, at about 80 miles an hour right in the back.

Notice how in front of my truck there is no candy in the road and all the people are off the road, now notice behind my truck how many people are in the street gathering candy, also, notice how far back the people are still on the street, on both sides, because it took them so long to pick it all up. 

It was so awesome seeing the look on peoples faces as we threw more candy than all the other floats combined, they had never seen anything like it before, especially from an organization they had never even heard of. People were cheering, and taking pictures of us.

We felt kind of bad for the guy behind us who only had one case of candy to throw, I'm pretty sure that no one even noticed the next three floats after ours.

Now, when we got to our group...We freaking unloaded!!! Look at all the candy on the ground.

Taking a closer look at this picture. The red circles show the amount of candy that was air born in any given second during the entire parade. The red arrows indicate the approximate amount of candy that was on the ground at any given second during the whole parade.

I love taking pictures of people taking pictures of me.

Andy walked the whole way and made sure that the kids (and adults) who were unable to run in the road still got plenty of candy, including a girl in a wheelchair who was unable to pick up any candy, and several people who were sitting on their porches.

After the parade we still had a full case of candy left over so some of us walked back up the road and threw it to people, including an old man in a scooter. We received several encouraging words of gratitude for making the parade awesome, it was such an awesome feeling.

I think we were one of the highlights of the parade, what an awesome way to celebrate our country's independence.

Getting back to our family, and telling of our adventure. I think we all had perma-grin for the next few hours.

Showing off our shirts.

All of the participants

As long as we can afford it we will continue in this tradition, hopefully we'll be able to get some outside donations or sponsors.

Pet Peeve #2

It has been so long since I have updated my blog I wanted to do a quick posting in my pet peeve series.

Today's pet peeve will be called:

"Let me just read that for you"

Have you ever gone to the store in search of a product and upon searching for this specific product, have you ever found yourself comparing two similar products and wondering which one would better meet your needs? Of course you have.

Well when in this situation there are many things to consider before making a decision, like the products price, it's quality, warranty, and the specific services or tasks that this product is capable of performing. There are also several things that may be done to find out which of these products will better serve you. The first and most obvious thing to do is look at the products label or box cover, most of the time a products primary features will be listed right on the front. Now, if  after doing this you still need further knowledge, the next thing to do would be to actually look on the back of the box, this typically will give a deeper explanation of somethings key features, and from this point you can better compare the two items and base your decision on what you read. After reading everything on the box and you still can't figure which item is best for you the next step would be to wander around the store until you finally find a store employee who with much hesitation will come and hopefully explain the differences between the two products you are interested in buying.

Now, this is where the Pet Peeve comes in. So you are finally able to find someone to help you figure out what these two products do. The first thing this worker typically does is briefly explain what he knows about the products, which is usually less than what you know. When you continue to inquire about the products features the employee realises that he requires more knowledge to help you out. So what does he do? Of course, he picks up the box, reads what you just read minutes earlier,  and then explains to you what he just read. As if you weren't smart enough to have already done that. Don't you think I already read the box?? That's why I asked for your help! Duh! I understand if he doesn't know about this item, but either tell me you cant help, of find someone who can.

So, in short, this peeve is; When you ask a store employee for help and all he does is read the product description on the box to you as if you weren't smart enough to do that yourself.

PET PEEVES

Well once again I find my self starting another posting with the phrase "It's been a long time since my last post" and it really has however based on the amount of comments I got on the last post it really doesn't matter because no one reads it anyway. Nevertheless I will continue to type as if someone out there, either now or years in the future, will read this and be touched, or offended.

Despite the fact that I have not updated any of our family happenings I have decided to start a new "Series" of blog posts that will be known from this day fourth as......

PET PEEVES

Now for the few of you who know me, or have even just met me once, or perhaps just passed me in the street, know that I have many small, medium, large and extra large "Hang-Ups" I am admittedly a person who is easily annoyed, however what separates me from the rest of those who are also easily annoyed is that I am not constantly miserable due to these irritations. And I also feel fully justified in the fact that these annoyances are brought to light.

As I said this will be a "Series" of postings so each post will contain one or two subjects that I would like to focus on.

The first subject I would like to bring to your attention will be known as:

"That restaurant is no good"

There are several restaurants that serve a variety of foods, but the majority of restaurants specialize in one type of food. For example if you go to a Chinese restaurant you would probably expect to be served delicious Chinese food.  If you go to a steak house it would be safe to assume that flame broiled slabs of beef rib eye cooked to the perfect medium rare temperature would be the best thing to order. Now as we all know there must be an opposite in all things, so If you go to Lee Hung's gourmet Chinese restaurant and on the menu you notice that they serve hamburgers, it would be wise to conclude that the burgers served there are probably not the best burgers that you will ever have, and probably are not even very good. If you go to Greasy Bobs Steakhouse and order a Fettucini Alfredo from the menu you can most likely put money on the guess that it will not taste very good.

So...what is the point??? Well the point is: if you go to a restaurant, or cafe, and order ANYTHING other than their speciality items, then for goodness sakes don't expect to enjoy what you order, and don't you dare complain about what you got!!

In summary, the hidden pet peeve here is:

People who go to a restaurant that specializes in a certain type of food, order something completely opposite of the speciality items even if it's on the menu, and then have the nerve to complain about the food, and even go so far to tell others that that place is not good because they didn't like the grilled cheese they ordered at the Italian restaurant.


The End

The Snake

Finding myself without any significant talent, or skill worthy of your time I have decided to waste the next few minutes on another short story.

Now, before reading this story I must first make a few things clear. First, I do not think myself to be any sort of writer or story teller, so if you think that this story is grammatically incorrect, poorly punctuated or entirely wrong, then it would be important for you to keep in mind that I simply don't care. Second, this story may or may not include you, I think it would be safe to conclude that 99.999 percent of all story's written in this world do not include you, but that doesn't make them boring or not worth reading, therefore if you do not hear your name, or the name of anyone you know, please don't turn off your mind. Third and perhaps most important, it is crucial for you to consider the fact that this story, or any other story I have ever attempted to create, could, and possibly will offend you in one or more ways so please either decide not to take it personally or discontinue reading.

The past few stories that I have shared with you have been about pranks or jokes that have gone completely wrong, this story too is about a joke that went wrong, it contains one very elaborate and carefully thought out plan, one tiny water snake, and a toilet, I will call it:


THE SNAKE

In most cases when you hear someone talking about snakes and toilets it would be safe to assume that they are talking about trying to unclog a toilet using a plumbing tool called a snake, after someone had an unusually large bowel movement, or a child tried to flush a barbie doll. This story is not about clogged toilets, it is about a real snake, and a real toilet that is, to the best of my knowledge, not clogged at this moment.

The few of you who know me well, and the even fewer of you who are still reading this story, know that I like to pull pranks on people, most of which usually turn out to very offensive, hurtful, and make people cry. This pranking also makes me a target for other peoples pranks, which I am sad to say is exactly what happened on this day.

The incident took place one summer day a few years back. I had just finished a long hard day's work and had arrived at home, typically after arriving home the first thing I do is scavage the kitchen for any kind of treat, then after failing to find something to eat I make my way to the bathroom. As you may know the facilities at the job sites are not exactly the most enjoyable place to relieve ones self, so it is wise to just hold it until you get home. Well, this day was no different and for your information, I'm happy to say that everything went okay in the bathroom.

After leaving the bathroom Laura approached me with a smirk on her face and asked me how it went, which I found a little odd, but not wanting to be rude I told her everything came out just fine, and I continued down the hall. She quickly approached me again and said, trying not to laugh "Are you sure nothing weird happened in there?" to which I responded "No everything was fine, should I be concerned about something?", "Um...No....... Really? nothing happened?" she said, I could tell by the look on her face that she was now worried about something. I asked her what was going on, so at this point she had no choice but to confess to a great plot and conspiracy, to which I was the target of wrongdoing.

Earlier that day Laura's Mom, Carol, had come up to take Laura to lunch. That same morning Carol had found a tiny water snake in her yard and thought it would be funny to use this snake to pull a prank on me. So while at lunch the two of them devised an evil plan,  Laura was to wait until she heard the sound of my truck in the driveway, then quickly put the snake in the toilet, and greet me at the door as if nothing suspicious were taking place, the snake would take care of the rest when I was to use the bathroom. So now you can see why Laura was so surprised when nothing unusual occurred in the bathroom.

The prank had obviously failed, after much deep deliberation, Laura and I concluded that the snake had met his demise by being flushed down the toilet. Laura then went back to folding the laundry and I went back to the kitchen to look for more food to eat. About ten minutes I heard a loud and startling scream come from the hallway, thinking that something terrible had occurred I quickly ran to see what had happened....

When I arrived to the scene of the scream I saw Laura standing on one foot in the corner holding her leg up to protect herself, like a cartoon elephant trying to escape from a mouse, and pointing at the linen closet floor. I looked over expecting to see a fierce Badger, a ferocious cottontail rabbit, or perhaps a very incorrectly folded towel, but what I saw was none of these, It was the cutest and tiniest little water snake I had ever seen in my life.

The elaborate plan formed by Mother and Daughter that day had not only completely and utterly failed, but it had backfired on the prankster, causing an incredible amount of humiliation and stress to take place, especially after I refused to get the snake out of the house.

After enough begging I finally did take the snake outside where it was later found in the road, as flat as a pancake, after being ran over by an extremely fast moving car.

And we all lived happily ever after (except for the snake)

If any of you need tissues to dry your eyes, their is a fresh box in the kitchen next to the bread.