My Life... Matt's Entertainment

Wow! It’s been a crazy couple of weeks since graduation. Including:

• Site-seeing in Nauvoo
• Ditto in Chicago
• 14 hour drive from Milwaukee to Chapel Hill… with scenery provided by every hick town along the way
• Setting up shop in Chapel Hill
• A quick trip from Chapel Hill to DC
• A quick trip back from DC to Chapel Hill to fly home to Utah today

I’ll pull out the GPS at some point to give you all the nerdy stats but suffice it to say, a lot of time was spent in the car. Which normally would have caused me to go insane, but luckily I had Matt as a travel partner… There was never a dull moment, including:

1) On a rainy day in NC I send Matt from the car to the apartment to get some paper so that we can formalize our plan for the day. Matt speedily returns from the apartment holding 2 sheets of unfolded white paper out in front of him. As he carefully avoided the trees the torrential downpour was unleashed on these poor flailing pieces of paper. (Now some say that I'm a patient man… but the other 99% of the population would disagree with them). As he gets in the car, it takes all my self control to say (only slightly snarkily), “Matt! What are you doing?” Matt gets this grin on his face like it’s free burrito day at Beto’s and pulls two other pieces of paper out of his coat… apparently this is his idea of a joke… he walked the rest of the day…


2) I had to get my brakes changes the day we left for DC, so as I do so I'm scouring the internet for a deal on a hotel room. Now a deal on a hotel room in DC isn’t like a deal on a hotel room in a lot of other places. It’s more like a game of let’s see how close to $125/night we can get without ending up in a part of DC that looks like the backdrop for a post-apocalyptic movie.



Finally after a good 30 minutes of searching I stumble across the hotel on the right. It is called The Churchill, and was built as a luxury hotel at the turn of the century. The pictures are the exterior of the building and the lobby of the hotel. The best part is that I found the room for just under my target… We arrive at the hotel, and for two days I have trouble falling asleep at night because I feel like I stole something… as we’re packing up to go Matt says, “This place is nice and all, but I don’t think it’s that much better than a Hampton…” To which I lovingly responded, “Fine next time we’ll find something a little nicer for you.”


Most of the above stories are true… Matt was a fantastic help and the move would’ve been literally impossible without the big guy… But don’t tell him I said that, otherwise we’ll all be getting wet note paper for the next 40 years.

Dr. Who?...

So graduation came and went. I know this for several reasons, including:

• My sister-in-law
• Amazingly thoughtful gifts
• An awesome family that came out to Milwaukee
• Great friends who joined them
• I'm not going to school anymore
• I am expected to show in North Caroline in a few weeks with more than a smile and a witty personality
• And of course the photo evidence…

Other than that not much has changed. I don’t feel better about myself (which makes me wonder if that’s because there’s not level of self-esteem higher than the one I’ve achieved), I definitely don’t feel more important (see the last parenthetical statement), the only pronounced feeling is gratitude for the each item mentioned in the list above.

On a less sappy note, the morning of graduation we went fishing on Lake Michigan. It was a beautiful morning with Captain Jay and Silent Tony. My dad, our family friend Jack, Greg, Me, Brian, and Mighty Matt all set sail at 5:30AM. The sea and weather complied to make the atmosphere enjoyable, but joking around while remembering such manly things as Dumb and Dumber, Tommy Boy, and Napoleon Dynamite was definitely the highlight.

Apparently, we caught some fish too. It’s a sensitive topic for a lot of the more experienced fishermen among us, so I won’t go into too much detail. Let’s just say if I talk about who caught the biggest fish then Greg, Brian, and Matt will get upset (Jack and Dad couldn’t care less).

On the way home my dad decided that we should scout out the location for the ceremony. The following exchange literally occurred with absolutely no embellishments almost no embellishments

Dad: Mike (I was driving), I think we should go see where graduation is going to be.
Me: That’s a fantastic idea, and if I knew where that was it would be an even better idea
Dad: We can find it
Me: Ummm…. How?
Dad: Don’t you live here?...
Me: … (stunned silence)

So after a fruitless search I get frustrated and just start driving home. As everyone is wondering where I'm going, I pull up to an intersection in downtown (which happens to have a red light). I stop behind the red light, and then proceed through the intersection slowly to assess the oncoming traffic.

During this time an older gentleman with a winter coat and sunglasses (odd since it was 60 degrees and overcast) walks into the crosswalk and proceeds to the driver side of my car. For brevity’s sake we’ll call this guy drunk/confused/old/angry guy (DCOAG for short… and I'm not sure if he was all of these but I know he was at definitely 2 of them) throws his arms up to about shoulder height and stares at me (apparently he’s well enough to walk across the street but not spry enough to walk around a mini-van).

I'm the picture of poise at this point so I calmly scream at the top of my lungs “WHAT?? WHAT DO YOU WANT??” I can tell DCOAG cannot believe all the walking he has to do on this day that he set out walking… it’s really gotten him in a foul mood. DCOAG probably hates it every time he goes to concert (because of the loud music). I'm certain DCOAG hates church (because of all the fuss about this God character). DCOAG loathes school (because of all this learning mumbo jumbo). DCOAG is one of these people for whom things just never seem to go right…

At this point DCOAG realizes defeat (I'm not pulling into oncoming traffic or backing into the car behind me simply to make his life easier) and he reluctantly goes around me. I make my turn and drive about a half a block to the next intersection… Just in time to see DCOAG jay-walk… Man, now he can’t even get cross-walks to move to accommodate him… no wonder he’s DCOAG…

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