Waterloo

June 18, 1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte defeated at Waterloo
June 18, 2010 - Schmetterling got married

Whereas I got married on the 195th anniversary of Waterloo, I feel that a little ABBA is in order, don't you?

Thus dies this blog:

My foray into identity theft

A few weeks back, I opened FireFox on a library computer. Inexplicably, FaceBook came up as the homepage, and I found myself logged into somebody else's account. So I changed his status to "occasionally neglects to log out of his account on public computers" and logged him out. I wonder if anything ever came of that.

My Proudest Moment

I would say, "Is it any wonder the ladies are flocking to me?" except that I spent the majority of this set making fun of dating....

beeBOO BEEP

I really suck at living in the cellular age: I never, ever have my phone on. To keep people from getting angry at me, then, I have resorted to making clever voicemail answerings. Today I made a new one and realized that I should probably preserve these someplace to show off my awesomeness and then complain when people plagiarize. So here you have my collected cell phone voicemail answerings of 2009, starting with my current one, and going back to the one that was on my phone when the year started:

(Piano Man)
Leave a message you're on Kyle's phone
Leave a message for free
And I'll call you back when I am all alone
And need someone to talk to me

(Downtown)
When you try to call Kyle
You are faced with denial
'cuz you just get his
Voicemail
And he doesn't have minutes
So who knows when he'll get it
and respond to this
Voicemail

(Over the Rainbow)
Somewhere in Provo Utah
A man lives
Who's good at checking voicemail--
Sadly this is not his.

(Gilligan's Isle)
Just sit right back and you'll hear a sound
The sound of a little tone
Then you can leave a message which will then be stored
On Kyle Jepson's phone
On Kyle Jepson's phone

(Beverly Hillbillies)
Well, you have reached the voicemail of a man named Kyle
Who likes to make it answer in a musical style
So you can do some singing at the sound of the beep
Because that is your queue from me to leave a short and sweet
[spoken:] Message, that is.

("O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana)
It's Kyle's phone!
Leave a message!
And I will call you someday!

(We wish you a merry christmas)
I wish you would leave a message
I wish you would leave a message
I wish you would leave a message
And I'll call you right back

The lives of others

I spend 10 hours a week in the library, scanning stuff for the professor who employs me. It doesn't take a whole lot of concentration, so I have to find ways of amusing myself when the things I'm scanning aren't sufficiently interesting.

And that's how I developed one of my new favorite pastimes: eaves dropping on the conversations around me. I have learned that any conversation is funny when taken out of context. Here are the ones I've liked well enough to jot down:

Guy: Wait, you were laughing at a funeral?
Girl: The lady sitting next to me was crying and snorting! It was so funny; I couldn't help it! She was like [SNORT]--[hahaha]--she was like [SNORT]--it was so funny!

Girl1: So he has, like, a thousand pairs of shoes.
Girl2: That'd be pretty cool: "Hm. Today I feel like wearing blue shoes."
Girl3: Yeah. But I just can't imagine spending that much money on spray paint.

Girl1: Some people, like, spit in my face.
Girl2: Really?
Girl1: Yeah.
Girl2: Because of him?
Girl1: Yeah. I just wanted to shout, "I'm not George Bush! I'm not George Bush!"

Girl to guy: Well, first of all, you have to be bored and good looking, so we could totally choose you!

British-sounding girl on cell phone: No, no, no: I'm even more allergic to Band-aids now than I used to be!

One guy to another: She said she did wanna date a punk rocker--but I'm like the pambiest punk rocker ever! I'm really just a wannabe....

But my all-time favorite is this one:

One guy to another: Oh, but dude, make sure you don't get too overzealous your first time 'cuz this one girl did, and she ended up throwing up all over the place--just way too much ice cream.

This could only happen to me

Yesterday, I was out wandering the streets of Provo while talking on my cellphone. When my conversation ended, I headed back to my apartment. Just as I was reaching my complex, a girl I vaguely recognized as being from my ward hailed me from the other side of the street, so I walked on over.

"Hey Kyle," she said, "we were thinking--well, first, do you know who I am?"

"Um," I said. "You're in the ward. You teach Sunday school sometime. Your name is--Ashley?"

"Yeah!" she said. "Are you dating anyone?"

"Uh, no?"

"Great!" she said. "You know Esther in the ward? You know Esther--nice Esther, has your color hair, does a lot of activity stuff--how can I describe her?--she's the one who looks like what you would look like if you were a girl!"

Um. What? Okay....

"Yeah," I said. "I know her."

"Me and my roommates asked her if it'd be okay for us to set her up with a boy in the ward, and she said yes, so we were thinking about it, and we think you two'd make a great couple, so will you ask her out?"

"Sure," I said. "I've actually toyed with the idea, but I don't know what she likes doing."

A near truth: I've actually toyed with the idea, but I have stronger interests elsewhere.

"Really?" she said. "That's great! Okay. I'll call her and tell her and ask what she likes to do, and then I'll call you. Kay?"

Wait, what? You--huh?

"Okay...."

"Thanks, Kyle!" she said, turning to go into her apartment. "I'll call you soon!"

Weird.

I went into my apartment and relayed this most curious story to my roommates, who all agreed that it was very strange indeed. About 45 minutes later, I got a call from a number I didn't recognize.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Kyle?"

"Yeah."

"This is Ashley. I just got off the phone with Esther. (I love how I'm being, like, a middle man. Isn't it adorable?) She said she knows it's lame but she's okay with doing whatever so you can just call her and ask her out and she'll be okay with whatever you think of. She seems like the fun sort of girl who's enthusiastic about whatever, so I'm sure you'll have fun. You seem like a creative dater. Are you a creative dater? Is that a good characteristic to have for you?"

"Uh, I try to be."

"I thought so. You seemed like the creative dater type. Anyway, I know she likes outdoorsy stuff like being out in nature and things, so you might wanna do something like that, but whatever you think of should be good."

"Okay."

"Balls in your court, Kyle! It's all up to you now!"

"Um. Thank you."

"No problem. Okay I'll talk to you later. I'll probably ask Esther all about it later and get a full report, but I might ask you too."

"Okay...."

"Thanks, Kyle! Talk to you later!"

I'm somehow reminded of the events leading up to that trip to the canyon....

Anyway, this story was too fantastic not to tell, so I told it to just about everyone I saw for the whole rest of the day. When ward prayer rolled around that night, my plan was to ask Esther out when I saw her, but she never showed up. However, just about everyone else wanted to know if I had asked her out yet--and not just people I had told about it: apparently Ashely was spreading the word too. A group of girls I home teach saw me leaving after ward prayer and asked me if I had asked Esther out yet; I told them I was going to go call her right now. They told me to just go over to her place, and pointed out her apartment to me, so I went straight over.

I knocked on the door and a roommate let me in, telling me that Esther was washing her face but that she'd be out in a minute. I told the roommate the story, and she found it quite ridiculous. About the time the story ended, we heard the bathroom door open, so she went to apprise Esther of my being there:

"Esther," she said, "Kyle's here to talk to you."

"Right now?" a nonplussed, flat, croaky voice said.

"I can go away if it's a bad time, Esther!" I called. "I will come pester you some other day."

The roommate peeked around the corner and whispered, "She's been a little sick today."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. "Esther! I'm sorry! I'll come bother you later!"

Esther came around the corner looking tired and--I dunno--just not feeling well, but she had a pleasant sort of expression on her face--something like, "I don't really want to see anybody right now, but I'll make an exception for you."

"So, Esther, howzitgoin'?" I asked slowly.

"Well. Ya know."

"Yeah. So. Ashley talk to you?"

"Yeah," she said. "Kinda makes me feel like I'm back in middle school."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, I was gonna ask you out right now, but I think I'll wait until sometime when you're feeling better."

"Thanks."

"Kay. So. I'll, like, bug you sometime next week then, probably."

"Okay. Thanks, Kyle."

"Yeah, no problem. I'll see ya later." I got up to leave. "Hope you feel better soon."

"Thanks. See ya."

"Bye."

FYI

Last night I went on a date. It was a first date with a girl in my ward. We went to the Draper temple open house. Everyone told me it was a bad idea; they all said, "Kyle, that's gonna be really awkward! Don't make it a first date." I, of course, in my typical style, disregarded everything anyone had to say about it, and we went on a date to the temple.

It was a very nice date. Nothing awkward or dramatic about it. In fact, I've never been on a date that went so smoothly and hitchless. I only mention it on this blog so that you can know that occasionally, every now and then, when the moon is in the right phase and the stars and planets align just so, I can pull off a good date.

Thought you should know.

A politically offensive post

I fully expect that this will offend some of my politically active friends, but I think it's at least mildly entertaining, so I'm including it. This is my journal entry for last election day (4 Nov 2008). At the time, I was really interested in a girl named Betsy, and that's why this entry reads the way it does.

At the top of the page, I attached my "I Voted Today!" sticker, and then I wrote this:

---

5:17PM

And do you know why I voted today? It certainly wasn't because I liked the candidates (tirade on that to follow shortly). It wasn't because I wanted to show good faith in The System because, frankly, The System sucks! It's broken and corrupted, and I seriously considered following Shawn and Joel in not voting to express my view that The System is down. What moved me to the polls today wasn't even my sustaining of Church officials who condone and encourage political activism (though, in retrospect, that might have been a nobler motivation than mine).

I went and cast my vote for John McCain because Betsy says she likes him.

And you wanna know another thing? I don't feel bad about that at all. I have a notion that I ought to feel like a cad, but I don't. Here's why:

Although it's a syntactic oxymoron, I consider myself a radical conservative in that I want small government: unless I am directly threatened by something that I cannot protect myself from, I want government to stay the heck out of my life. Because of this, I am rather upset with the Republican party right now: they've done a lot to grow the government and to expand the executive power in the past eight years, and I find that abominable coming from a so-called conservative group. Therefore, I wasn't too hot on voting in another GOP candidate.

Barrak Obama (Democratic candidate and media poster child) is far worse, though, because of his socialist ideals. Nevertheless, I considered voting for him for a while because most of his promises could only be fulfilled by acts of Congress, so he struck me as fairly harmless; I thought he'd be a nice figurehead to oversee the continuing downfall of this proud nation. But after a political discussion with Betsy on the phone a couple weekends ago, I realized that voting for a candidate whose politics I unilaterally disagreed with was a bad idea, even if I doubted his ability to enact any of his bad ideas--what if he did?

Then I was fairly resolved to vote for a third party candidate just because I feel like that's the really the only way to make my vote count anyway (true, chances of a third party candidate ever getting elected are infinitismal, but it was a big deal a few years back when Green Peace got enough votes to become federally recognized; I'd like to participate in something like that). But looking at the Utah ballot quickly dissuaded me: Socialist party (no good), Green Peace (blah), Ralf Nader (not my guy), Libertarian (don't like 'em), and the Constitution Party (I like the party, but their condidate's leadership credentials are limited to the fact that he's had his own Baptist churhc in Florida for the past couple decades--no political experience at all).

So John McCain it was. I don't mind him; I just hate his party. But Betsy likes him, and I look forward to honestly telling her I voted for her boy.

That's me.

11:12PM

So. Obama won.

After watching McCain give his concession speech, I called Betsy:

"Howzitgoin'?" I asked.

"I'm pretty good," she said. "But I think I'm going to hold a wake."

We left politics almost immediately and had a most delightful conversation that last nearly an hour (50 minutes and someodd seconds), which I felt very good about.

Except for that it never came up--who I voted for--I never said.

And that's that, I guess.

Take THAT, Dr. So-and-so!

This is from my journal entry for 9 January 2008, my first day at BYU:

---

My English professor (Dr. Claudia Harris) handed out the syllabus and went over it with us. I kinda zoned her out as I flipped through the syllabus on my own, realizing that it was almost identical to the English 100 class I took right after my mission, which was perhaps the least challenging English class of my academic career thus far and not something I want to do again.

At one point, Claudia (she prefers not to go by Doctor) asked what our expectations for the class were. Various students raised their hands and made comments, and after each one, Claudia wrote a one-word summation of the comment on the board.

"Anyone else?" she asked after 4 or 5 comments had been made and summarized on the board.

I raised my hand.

"Yes?"

"I want this class to be a challenge," I said. "If it doesn't make me think or lose sleep at night, I don't think it's worth my time."

A brief silence ensued in which she merely fidgeted with her marker.

"Yes," she said. "We'll be thinking in this class."

She wrote nothing on the board but rather put the marker away and moved on to a new topic of discussion.

At the conclusion of the class, she said something that I felt was directed toward me. I feel that way partly because of what she said but also because, whereas her eyes had roved around the room throughout the class up to that point, for this little monologue, her eyes fastened upon my corner of the room. She appeared to be looking straight at me, so I engaged her in a staring contest.

"I have a Ph.D," she said. "I have taken a lot of college classes, and I learned that I could kind of get a feel for whether or not a professor's teaching style would work for me on the first day of class. If you feel like we're not going to get along, I think you should drop the class: it won't hurt my feelings, and every time I failed to drop a class that I had a bad feeling about, I regretted it."

I couldn't help myself; I smiled. This parting shot won her my respect--and confirmed to me that I was in the wrong class. So I took Claudia's advice and dropped her class.

Shoulderpants

I moved into a new ward at this beginning of this school year. One of my first weeks here, I was in Sunday school when a guy was called on to say the prayer, but the person leading the class botched the kid's last name, which is Coatney.

"I'm sorry," the teacher said, "how do you say it?"

"Here," the guy said, standing up to demonstrate to the class. "It's Coatney. Coat"--he touched the arm of the suit coat he was wearing--"knee"--he patted his leg--"Coatney. There. Now you'll never forget."

"Oh, okay," I said. "Shoulderpants. Got it."

The few people sitting right around me (my roommates, mostly) chuckled at my comment. I don't think Mr. Shoulderpants actually heard it--if he did, he made no response. But ever since that day, me and my roommates have referred to him as Shoulderpants.

Today I got called as a Home Evening group leader. As I looked over the list of people in my group just now, I realized that he's in it.

This will most definitely be an exercise in restraint for me, but, should my restraint fail, look for cool follow-up stories in the comments section of this post.

Interro-BANG!

Here is a happy memory from my journal entree for Halloween '07. The Jenny mentioned in this story is not the same as Ice Cream Jenny. During this time in my life, I had a couple of different Jenny's popping up occasionally in my journals, and I didn't know their last names, so gave them titles. One was Ice Cream Jenny; this story involves Saxophone Jenny (so called because we both enjoyed playing the saxophone--in fact this is what I was referring to in "Not you! I meant the saxophone!").

So here you have it, the birth of Interro-BANG!:

---

As mentioned 14oct07, I'm co-hosting the ward "Untalent Show." During a Sunday-night meeting of the activities committee and we two emcees (Saxophone Jenny and I), we decided that the show would have a superhero theme. After the meeting, Jenny and I decided that throughout next week (the week leading up to the show), we're gonna burst in on random apartments while wearing our outfits and do crazy silliness to advertise the show and encourage participation--and we're gonna get all that on film!

Last night, I got a fantastic idea for what to do, and today I got it together. All it took was a nylon book cover from Big Lots, some large blue underpants from Toss, my running pants, a gray long-sleeved shirt, and a printout of a controversial punctuation mark and Interro-BANG was born.

I'm so excited! The get up is SO DANG FUNNY! Oh man! I was laughing so hard in front of the mirror.

But wait; it gets better:

Ben Hubbard came over to hang out tonight. While he was here, Sarah came and knocked on the door to invite us over to a dance the other Cinnamon Tree ward was having at the basketball court (she didn't know Hubbard was here, but she knows him from marching band). We went over, but it wasn't all that great, so we came back fairly quickly.

Not too far from my apartment door, Saxophone Jenny and Becca (her old roommate) were standing, talking.

"Jenny!" I said. "I have my superhero outfit, and it is awesome! Oh man! It's so funny!"

"So," she said, "what's it like so I can kinda make mine the same?"

"Hold on," I said; "I'll go put it on and be right back."

I ran inside and put on my running pant and the long-sleeved shirt (which had the red interrobang taped on the front of it) and then pulled the blue underpants on over the top of them. I put the book cover on my head, which makes it look like a bright blue Batman helmet made out of spandex with a desert safari neck cover thing. I wrapped my red quilt around my neck like a cape, then ran outside and nearly pounced on them, yelling, "Interro-BANG!"

They thought iwas funny and all, but the best part was Becca saying, "Um. You're wearing men't briefs--on the outside."

Ahahahahahaha! That's right I am!

After a minute or so, I said, "Okay, I'm going back inside now."

"Good idea," Becca said.

It was so great!

My face! My face!

Here's a fun story from 16 June 08:

----

Around 5:00 today, I decided to go grocery shopping. As I did, I got to thinking about Suzy and Krista. During our first meeting, it came up that they like limeade a lot (there was an empty bottle sitting on their kitchen table). Then this past Saturday, I was talking to Krista, and I somehow brought up my thing for kitchen appliances, and I mentioned that an apparently ownerless toaster oven resides in my apartment that I have often considered kyping and adopting except for the fact that I have no idea what to do with one. Her suggestion was to put mozzarella cheese and raspberry jam on bread and then toast it till the cheese melts and the bread is a bit toasty. So as I shopped today, I picked up raspberry jam, a little brick of mozzarella, and some limeade.

When I got home, I pulled down the toaster oven from high up on top of the cupboards and turned it on. It worked, so I spread some raspberry jam onto a couple slices of bread, topped each with a slice of mozzarella, and tossed 'em in.

After a few minutes, the cheese was melty, so I turned the oven off and pulled the tray out and sat down to enjoy my open-faced creations with a bottle of limeade.

The toasted creation was actually quite delicious, which surprised me a little because I was never a fan of the jam-and-cheese sandwiches my dad put in my grade-school lunches, but, then again, he used sharp cheddar cheese and homemade strawberry jam, and no taosting was involved. The milder taste of mozzarella in conjunction with the creaminess of the meltedness made Krista's version quite delectable.

(The limeade was pretty good, too, though it seemed the sort of delicacy that is best enjoyed in smallish quantities.)

And so I resolved to adopt the little toaster oven, thinking that these Krist-en sandwiches might become common faire in my diet, but such was not to be. After I finished eating, I went to return the oven to its perch atop the cupboards, but, as I did so, the door fell open, releasing a searing hot tray onto my face. I dropped the oven from a good seven feet in the air and ran to the bathroom screaming, "My face! My face!" I ran cold water over my forehead, nose, and chin as my roommates came to investigate what had happened.

The poor little toaster oven is history, now--its entire frame is tweaked and its dials fell off--so I had to throw it away. I did get some pretty exciting burns on my face and bicept, though--Victor stopped by and told me I looked like I had been attacked by a tiger. Alas, my life is not that exciting: while some men do the sorts of things that allow them to be attacked by massive felines, I live a life in which I've only ever acquired scars from ruthless inanimate objects.

*sigh*

Even I have limits

On 27 August 2008, a girl rear-ended me and totalled both of our cars. I hopped out of my car (sudden trauma makes me giddy) and was gonna go strike up a conversation with her--maybe even ask her to walked to the fast food restaurant we were wrecked in front of while we waited for the police to show up--but she didn't look like she was in the mood, so I didn't.

I wonder how that would've worked out. She was falling to pieces at the time: would offering her a greasy burger cheer her up or make her feel worse?

Guess I'll never know....