Sunday, August 4, 2013

jumping

So I have this goal of being able to grab a basketball rim.  This is one of the things I go on a regular basis to help me achieve that goal.  This is a 42 inch box on a 3 inch pad.  I'm 67 inches tall.  45/67=.672.  Cool.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

7 brides for 7 brothers

Our stake did a Broadway musical revue.  That is where each ward in the stake was assigned a different musical to portray in a 5 to 7 minute act.  Our ward did 7 brides for 7 brothers and here it is for your enjoyment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogK02tsm6ZE

Friday, February 15, 2013

10 feet

So one of the things that bring me great joy in life is setting lofty goals and working for months to accomplish them, and the goals I'm talking about have to do with exercising.  

Examples of these goals are:
Benching 300 pounds
Doing an Iron Cross on gymnastics rings
Running a half marathon (okay that one's not nearly as impressive)

But my newest goal is this: I want to be able to jump and grab and hang on a regulation height basketball rim.

So here's what I'm going to accomplish that goal:
Plyometric workouts which are jumping workouts which build up your fast twich muscle fibers which are responsible for explosive motions in your body.  I'm doing that about twice a week.
I'm doing leg workouts in the gym about once a week in order to increase my strength.
I'm stretching my legs as often as occasion permits.
And now that I dropped $40 of my birthday monies to buy shoes I'm going to start playing basketball a lot more because actually playing a sport works your muscles in ways that a regular workout cannot.


And the day I accomplish this goal I'm sure there'll be a movie to post for your viewing pleasure.

Gettin' gussied

So one time Michelle got all decked out with a new outfit and make-up for some reason.  And she usually doesn't do that so mom asked what she was all gussied up for.  And I learned a new word.

This opened my vista to the idea that girls get gussied up when they want to look good and what would be a better reason to look good than when you go out on a date?  I still have no idea what that all entails but because I believe in equal rights I wanted to share how I got gussied today.



 First I washed my car.  I secretly prayed that it would be a beautiful day and it was so my car looks sooooo good.  I just wish I had a vacuum.... but don't fret, I did shake out the mats and what not.


(I also washed the car left of mine)



And then I gave myself a haircut.  All by myself.  I could have gotten a free haircut today because I spined this wheel of fortune apparatus in the Wilk but I wanted a new shirt instead so I did that.


And then the last thing I'm going to do is get dressed up in my blue button up shirt.  It makes my eyes look so good that every girl falls in love with me.  It's what I call my greatest weapon.  

Well I hope you enjoyed these new posts I have.  I'm sorry to all my fans for being very un-bloggable these past few months and he's a shout out to Erika for inspiring me to get back to it.

Valentine's Day

I just wanted to share the song that came to me yesterday on Valentine's day.  You'll probably wonder how a song just comes to someone so I'll go through the thought process that got me to that point.  I'm sure you all have wondered about the things that have gone down in my head so here's your chance.  This exceeds flowers in every way possible.

So I was at work and I had to take a field trip to visit the library to drop off some posters.  I asked my co-worker Nicolina how many strangers she thought I should wish a happy Valentie's day to while I was gone.  She said 3.  So as I was walking around doing my errands I would approach strangers who were girls and say something valentiny to them.  Be they married, single, beautiful, regular, tall or short.  But as I was doing this I was wishing there were a song I could just sing to them and some how I had the primary song "Happy Happy Birthday Children Dear" in my head.  So on my way back to my office I first made it up in my mind and then I decided it was good and I didn't want to forget it so I wrote it down in my iPod Touch.

Here are the words and an attempt to sing it before I memorized it.  Pardon my ugly voice.

It's a happy happy day for all our dears
Valentines will come to you this year
If I had a wish, then it would be
A hug and a kiss from you to me
     (or you can say "to you from me" like I sang it)


Sunday, December 23, 2012

Jeff's Literary Masterpiece, the 2012 Version


Dear Friends and Family,                                                                                               December 2012

I’d like to start off by thanking all my loyal fans.  Year after year you guys convince me to keep at this.  I just want to let you know that you are the reason for our great year.  We succeed in life for the sole purpose of you putting this on your refrigerator and chuckling every time you go to pull out that leftover turkey.  May your leftovers never run dry.

This year Dad had the most fun summer of his life.  He had been so bored without his beloved sons that he practically begged Steven and me to come home, so we did.  We got to go camping up in Tennessee and we strolled about fifty miles.  We just can’t call Dad’s pace hiking any more.  Someone is getting stiffer.  This summer I also started asking Dad each night at dinner how his day at work had gone because I thought it was one of those questions you ask to make people think you’re interested, and I learned that when I was tired of listening to his answer all I had to do was make the slightest political comment to change the subject.  It is so easy to get him wound up.  Good thing I wasn’t around in November.  He also remodeled his favorite room in the house: the pantry.   Now that the food is back on the shelves, he’s forbidden from entering. 

Mom’s new hobbies this year have been teaching seminary and extreme road tripping.  Both activities started the same week.  We all know how adventurous she is, so there’s no surprise she chose to get a substitute teacher for the first week of seminary.  Our road trip team of three drove from West Palm Beach, Florida to Riverton, Utah in forty hours non-stop.  She returned to a house void of children to keep satiated so she stopped baking sweets.  There’s a reason Dad really enjoyed summer. 

Weston’s wife Megan had a new baby in October.  Sam is his name.  Once he can talk, he’ll introduce himself as “Sam I Am.” They also moved into a house this summer and learned that everything breaks once you buy a house.  But aside from all their broken stuff, Megan has fun playing with kids all day and Weston keeps busy fiddling with doohickeys all day in his cubicle.  Surprisingly enough they lead a fulfilling life.  Two-year-old Wyatt’s main contribution to the family is in the marriage prep category.  This year for some reason Steven and I were babysitting that lil’ guy and he exploded.  So because I was the alpha male and Steven is strangely humble, docile, and obedient, he changed the diaper while I searched everywhere for something to get rid of the smell.  I searched in vain. 

Dave’s been working on his resume all year.  He decided that real construction was too tedious so he earned an honorary doctorate in sand castling.  He can do that since he lives in Hawaii.  Evelyn grew her teeth in and started walking and stopped looking like the girl version of Megamind and now she looks like the girl version of the kid from Harold’s Purple Crayon.  I doubt anyone besides myself ever read that masterpiece, but you’d be surprised by the similarities between Evelyn and both of these flattering comparisons.  Elizabeth is still doing great at whatever she does.  She has somehow developed an uncanny ability to get complete strangers to criticize her parenting skills, especially in Costco, but regardless of that, we think she’s doing a great job.

Cody, who is married to Brad, gave birth this year to Brooke.  But March was so long ago I forgot to include it in the original draft.  Now that Brooke can actually do stuff she is simply adorable.  All she needs to be happy is a couple of anchored and mildly elastic strings.  She will grab them and eat them all day, and by that I mean until she gets hungry again.  Brad’s enjoying his last semester of college and finishing out his long time college goal, which ironically doesn’t have anything to do with grades or graduating or resume building.  His goal was to take a college class with every one of his siblings, and he succeeded.  They’re moving to Boise so he can do an internship before starting grad school next fall. 

I had an awesome year.  I got my dream job this summer working for this little establishment a couple miles away from home called McDonald’s.  The ethnic diversity was awesome.  I learned that to a middle aged Haitian woman if you are a female or a male younger than her that makes you a “cheri” which means “sweet heart.”  For the longest time I thought everyone’s name, including my own, was Sheri. Once summer was over, I got my other dream job.  I’m a professional poster-putter-upper for the marketing department in BYU’s school of music.  The job satisfaction is incredible.  It just tickles my heart strings when I see people looking at posters that I put up.   Another highlight is that I went on two second dates this year.   That’s all the average girl can handle of this personality.  But here’s the part that perplexes me: both of these girls wanted to be English teachers.  I never once in my life had an English teacher that I liked.  How can I be attracted to the bane of my existence?  So I started wondering at what point the beautiful young woman becomes the teacher who makes kids read chapter books during the summer.  No English majors more for I.  So my list of deal breakers are: English major, outie belly button, avid animal lover, Canadian, or taller than me.  #RMandsingle #ifyoudontunderstandthisyouneedmoretwitterandfacebook

In August, Steven left on his mission and he’s currently working on the only attribute he hasn’t mastered yet: his sense of humor; he’s come up with some good stuff so far but I don’t think he knows he’s being funny; here’re some favorite quotes from his letters: “New York was kind of boring.  Overall, it was nothing special.”  Does he know that there are people on this earth whose lifelong dream is going to that city?  I don’t even think he took pictures; if you feel the urge to write him a letter I’m sure he’d greatly appreciate it, just don’t ask him to compare and contrast the differences in culture between the United States and Africa; he gave us his answer already: “To me, comparing extremes like that is fruitless.”  I’m sure Africans have asked the same question and my heart goes out to him because I don’t know if he knows how to say that in Portuguese; something else I’ve noticed about him is he uses more semicolons in one letter than I’ve used in my whole life; including the ones I accidentally pressed and deleted; (for those of you who are not English majors: semicolons are winkey eyes ;) either Angolan keyboards are lacking in punctuation keys or he’s trying to set a church record of some type; and it’s probably the first because Steven doesn’t expend energy on fruitless enterprises. 

So right as I was about to submit the final product Michelle came in whining and begging for a better paragraph, not unlike how she acted before I carried her across a river this summer on my back.  She might be the only normal one and that’s why her news seems boring.  I am scraping a clean barrel.  Michelle graduated from high school second in her class this year and took a bazillion AP classes.  She’s so smart she graduated before the salutatorian, which doesn’t make any sense if you know what that word means.  Michelle has had a lot of fun at BYU.  She got into the pre-industrial design program, which is a fancy and misleading way to describe the major of arts-and-craftsing.  She also created an instant bond with the grass.  There are signs everywhere that say “please don’t walk on me, I’m trying to grow.”  I’m trying to make them into t-shirts. 

Well thanks for laughing.  I hope it met your expectations. 

Love, Jeff Whitaker

P.S.  There are still three openings in the family if you know anyone interested in being made fun of on a yearly basis.  It’s tough work so we’re only able to focus on one of the openings for the time being.  We appreciate your patience and support and applications on behalf of cute girls you may know.  Let’s work together this year and beat last year’s referral record of zero. 

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Cougar Spirit

You've been hacked, but I'm sure your loyal readers want something new, and this is pretty incredible.  Besides, you can always delete it if you want.