Of Creepy Ukrainians, Mission Calls to Sendai, Midget-Presided-Over Funerals for Corda, and St. George Weekends

Greetings, esteemed blogonados from all across the world. Yeah, I was just looking at my blog stats page (never knew there was such a thing!) and apparently I've had page views from some pretty far-flung locales, including six from the UKRAINE. Who ARE these people? "Fiddle dee dee. Nothing to do. Let's read a blog written by some weirdo we've never heard of who lives in Utah. Maybe he has pictures of his hot wife on there."

Anyway, two items of big news to report. First off, Alyssa's parents got their mission call to Sendai, Japan. Yep, right where that killer earthquake/tsunami hit a few months ago. Calvin jokingly said they "might be returning with six toes" (on account of radiation leaks from the damaged power plants). They leave January 2, 2012. Happy New Year! By the way, did I ever mention how Alyssa's grandma and sister-in-law were actually on their way to Japan and were ONE HOUR from landing when the earthquake hit? They got rerouted to another airport and spent something like ten hours sitting around in the plane/airport. In the end, they went on their vacation as planned but wound up cutting it short by, like, a week.

The other big news is that my company actually has a new name (which it was supposed to get in, I think, January). But I'm not supposed to blab what it is. Though I will tell you that it features in a very way gnarly Styx song that me and my friend Wes used to sing at the top of our lungs while sitting outside our apartment when we were roommates at Utah State. No wonder we were such Don Ja-wannies with the ladies. Anyway, when they accounced the name internally, we (this is true) held a funeral for the old name (Corda), wherein we all placed an item with the Corda logo into a coffin, then had a funeral procession (with an actual hearse) from the reception center to our building's parking lot, where funeral speeches were given and the items in the coffin were ceremoniously burned, the ashes of which were later placed in an urn. All of this was presided over by a midget. I am serious. Apparently he's done plenty of gigs as a midget-for-hire but this is the first time he's ever "had to drive a hearse." Yeah. The MIDGET was driving the hearse. Don't ask me how he was able to reach the gas and brakes. Anyway, after that, we proceeded to smash a car with sledgehammers. Mm-hmm. I tell you, with our new CEO, Josh James, around, there has truly never been a dull moment.

Oh yeah, and I got an $8000 raise. It's still not as much as I was making at Pearson, but it's a start.

We also went to St. George for the Fourth of July weekend again. Swam with Holden and Emily, sushied it up at the new all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant in town, Mario Karted on the Wii until our thumbs were blaspheming us in rage, and so on. Nothing too monumental, but what else can you do when it's 110 degrees outside?