what was your favorite?

so i've been thinking alot about my childhood(i wonder why?) and the experiences i had growing up. and i started thinking about movies, books, or television shows that i watched or read that left their mark one way or another.

i remember when we (my brother Andy and I) were little and coming back to the "states" from guatemala (i'm sure alot of you can relate), the one thing we wanted more than anything, was our saturday morning cartoons. we would get up early, jump started by that internal cartoon clock, and race to get dressed, make our beds, comb our hair and brush our teeth. getting all this out of the way so that our parents had no reason to disturb us as we sat too close to the tv, forever requiring me to wear glasses.

i remember being at my grandparents house in their tv room, pouring cap'n crunch into my bowl; hearing those golden nuggets of goodness fill the bowl like the sound of glass; cutting the roof of my mouth but not caring because it was so wonderfully bad for me.

we would watch nonstop from early morning till a little after lunch, when the old western tv shows would come on. we'd watch shows like grape ape, george of the jungle, smurfs, MASK, alvin & the chipmunks, scooby-doo, popeye, the littles. it almost seems impossible to watch that many cartoons, but we did, i swear! my brother and i were so jazzed on saturday morning cartoons that our grandparents would tape them and send them to guatemala. we could have watched them anytime, but we only watched them on saturday.

i remember when we first unpacked the tv in our house in guatemala, my brother asked my dad if it was the "english tv". talk about addicted!

there was one cartoon in particular that was our favorite. I'm not sure why but the godzilla cartoon was the most memorable. partly because it had this giant lizard that could breath fire and fought "totally radical" monsters and partly because of the shows inspired theme song. it sounds just the way i remember it! if they had just gotten rid of godzooky, the idiot son of godzilla; the bob hope to godzilla's bing crosby. actually that's an insult to bob hope, how about godzooky was Balki Bartokomous to godzilla's "cousin" Larry. yea, much better. besides that abomination, that cartoon was the one we missed the most.

in retrospect, i think it had more to do with being at our grandparents house, knowing that all summer long we would have our saturday morning cartoons with no tape delay!

what were your favoites? which do you remember most?

she's having a baby

my wife is now 4 weeks from d-day and is ready to try anything to induce. she wants this baby out NOW!

Skyla: They said the baby would sleep for most of the day. They lied to me. I hate them.

not knowing who "they" were, i just agreed.

Me: Me too!

she's been looking online for ways to speed up the evacuation. "castor oil" is now thrown loosely around the house (we would say it sparingly before).

she's over being scared of labor. in fact, i'd even say she's looking forward to it, as long as this whole ordeal is over. she has reached the stage of pregnancy when all she can think about is finally giving birth.

that's not to say that she hasn't enjoyed her pregnancy so far, but she didn't exactly welcome Mr. Morning Sickness with a ticker tape parade. but he didn't stay long and soon enough she was in love with her body, her belly and her ability to create life.

and as a totally unbaised observer, i have to say she is downright gorgeous.

it's this last stage, these last few weeks, that is so frustrating. she can't sleep for more than 1 to 2 hours at a time. she can't find a comfortable position for more than 15 minutes. she works full time. she has trouble sitting down and getting up. she pees like a bajillion times a day. she has to put up with me (St. Skyla anyone?).

she told me that it feels like "carrying a sack of potatoes only you can't put them down and they smush your organs and steal your air".

yet when the baby moves her face lights up(if it hasn't kung fu'd her in the ribs), always reaching out for my hand, wanting me to feel only a small part of what she feels. wanting to share with me as we guess what part of our baby we are touching.

i guess it's the little things that make the big things (belly included) worth it. i know she would agree, but um..mom? you're a nurse, could you tell us how to induce? please!?

i thought you were mine?

as i was watching survivor the other night, between commercials on the OC, i got a little sad. not because i felt sorry for the 15 minute nobodies, not because Jeff Probst wants out of this contract because he's tired of playing "Indiana Jones light", not because i'm jealous that everyone is forced to lose weight (ok, maybe a little on that last one). no, i was sad because it was set in guatemala.

most of you know that my parents were missionaries in guatemala for 18 years and i myself spent 14 years down there. Since the age of 4, guatemala was my home. no we never lived in the jungles, never lived in the sweltering heat, never played tug of war for immunity(unless you count the time my mom and i played while she tried to give me immunity shots), never was my or my families flame extinguished by a rival tribe during council meetings(unless you count the time i was expelled from high school at a council meeting). nope, nothing like that.

i'm sad that people will now know about guatemala. sure they'll see the edited version on tv, and only one location, but it's the fact that people will now know about it. i liked it better when i had that little place to myself. i liked it when people were naive about it like my roommate Micah.

Micah: Where are you from?
Me: Guatemala.
Micah: Wow, the island of Guatemala! That's cool..
Me: Yeah, isn't it?!

yeah, that was my roommate.

i have such fond memories of guatemala that i have shared with those people who are close to me. it was always a place, i felt, could only be reached through me. you can't go to guatemala without me! that's crazy! i'm the only one who knows where it is! it's my secret.

i wanted it to stay that way, although i didn't know i did until survivor picked the jungles of guatemala to showcase their competition. why not mexico? costa rica? the teeming jungles of Colombia that comes equipped with it's own indigenous predator, the druggis lordious? why don't i feel proud that they would pick my pais? my country?

you want to know?!

because nobody bothered to ask ME if it would be ok.

on a more positive note?

so here is the email that i sent back to the recruiter yesterday after receiving the delightful news. i know i sound a little cheezballish, but i did mean it. yes, i too can be humble! also, i guessed on her email address (we'll call her Recruiter) since when they send out those lovely rejection emails they don't usually have a return address. i'm a genius, cause it worked.

From: Benji Herod
To: Recruiter
Subject: Re: Senior Account Services Representative

Hi Recruiter,

Thanks for letting me know. Please let everyone know that I too enjoyed speaking with them and discussing the NIKE experience. I'm sorry that things didn't work out differently. I really appreciated the time and effort that everyone took to make me feel comfortable and at ease during the interview process. I will continue to check the website for job opportunities in the future. Thanks again and do remember me for future openings that fit my qualifications.

Sincerely,

Benji Herod

here is the response i got....

From: Recruiter
To: Benji Herod
Subject: Re: Senior Account Services Representative

Hi Benji,

No problem. I'm sorry that it didn't work out for this time and I'm sure that you'll find a great spot here at Nike. Keep at it and please let me know if I can help with your search.

Thanks!
Recruiter

what does this mean? that it isn't over yet my friends. i, like the phoenix before me, will rise up out....ok that's enough of that. it sounds promising right? perhaps by christmas time you'll all be wrapping yourselves in Nike fleece. but expect Old Navy.

SWOOSH'D!

here's the email that i got from NIKE just now. it's a little overwhelming. wow, what a couple of months (was it months? seemed like it anyway) going through the interviewing process at NIKE.

Dear Benjamin:

We want to thank you again for taking the time to talk with us about the Senior Account Services Representative - US Customer Service opening. We have enjoyed speaking with you and learning more about your qualifications and experience.

As we mentioned, there are other candidates that more closely match our needs for the Senior Account Services Representative - US Customer Service at this time. As a result, we won't be able to move you to the next step of the interviewing process.

Please continue to visit www.nikejobs.com/us to search for open jobs and to keep your profile up-to-date.

We appreciate your interest in this position and wish you success in your job search.

Sincerely,

"name withheld cause i don't want anyone giving her death threats"
Recruiter

i'm sad. i guess i can be happy that God knows what He's doing. i sure wish He'd let me in on it!

I pity the fool

Mr. T(dressed as an Indian talking to an eagle on his shoulder?): Bird, tell me what it is that you have seen.

Jon and I stare in disbelief at the television before breaking out in side splitting laughter.

Years later, still an 11 on the unintentional comedy scale. pure joy.

also, Mr. T comes back to TV. Jon and I are totally going to watch this one.

my goonies

skyla and i went to Cannon Beach on the oregon coast this weekend to visit with one of my friends from college, Lizzie Haworth. i think that most of you know her, but she invited us up for the weekend to visit with her and her family. it was a much needed relaxing weekend.

the oregon coast is beautiful. the Haworth's had a house right on the beach and directly in front of the Goonies Rock! unfortuantely we missed Corey Feldman by one week. he was in town because of the 20th anniversary of the Goonies.

wow, can you believe it's been twenty years?! we watched the movie on friday night and i still think that that would have been the greatest movie to make. can you image all the fun you could have had? being a kid actor and getting to play on a pirate ship, sliding down a huge cave slide, and as Data would say "booty traps".

here is one of my favorite moments of the movie between the Fratelli's and Chunk. i think Chunk is the backbone of the entire movie by the way. without him, it would fall apart.

watching the movie twenty years later, there really isn't anything that dates it, except maybe the Cyndi Lauper stuff and of course Brand's sweet workout clothes. the sweatpants and the shorts pulled over them reminded me off the time i wore a wetsuit with board shorts over them. kinda of dumb, but that was my little homage to Brand. right sam?

as kids, we all wanted to go on adventures, to discover the "rich stuff", exploring new places and things with our friends. i'd like to think that everyone that has been on an adventure or explored anything or discovered something with me was a part of my "goonies" gang. thanks (you know who you are) for not climbing out of that well when you had the chance and staying with me, because as Mikey would say "this is our time".

obsessed completely

so tonight is the season premiere of the OC! i can hardly contain myself. skyla and i are total junkies, along with my parents. it's weird remembering when we first started watching the OC with my parents. i guess you're never to old to enjoy pop culture references coming from characters who are suppose to be in high school.

kudos to the creator Josh Swchartz for bridging the gap between my generation and the baby's of the 80's to early 90's. i watch for the witty repartee between seth cohen and summer(and pretty much everyone else). the story lines keep me interested, but it's the dialogue that keeps me coming back. last season wasn't as good as the first season, but that's why there's always a sophomore slump. i liked how Ryan had a little more personality last season, he actually held his own against seth. Summer was always great in both season one and season two. i was a little unsettled that she appeared so frail in the second season. i guess once you make your blip on the radar screen of hollywood it means you have to show some clavicle. i don't get it. eat something already!

in season one marissa and ryan were the central characters that kept the story moving, but for me it was much more about seth's quest to woo summer. it's there relationship that i identify with more. the biting sarcasm, and the underlying chemistry that they so obviously have with each other was the pinnacle of season one. season two just started that whole process over again, not adding that much to it, or even changing the dynamic. it seems that the writers just thought we wanted to see more of the same. yes they were still great together, but there wasn't anything like "the valley" (so meta!) that made us laugh watching them watch themselves on tv. classic stuff.

also i was a little upset with sandy (tv's greatest dad) when rebecca came on the scene. the fact that there was even an teeny tiny thought of infidelity seemed to cheapen the character that we had idolized from season one. in this link here, Josh Schwartz(the writer/creator) kind of explains were he was going with that. kind of interesting, but it didn't really translate the way he had hoped.

anyway, i could write a ton more, but actually need to get to work(i actually have something to do. go figure!). just thought i'd share my thoughts on the OC experience. skyla and i are planning a little party for the two of us tonight. perhaps some pizza and caffeine free diet coke. who else is excited? anyone?

thanks

thanks for bearing with me last week. i really appreciate everyone who posted a comment or responded to me privately. it's really cool to see how much your friends and family come together and respond when something like this happens.

i just wanted to give everyone an update. my parents, my sister and my brother Andy, all visited her this last weekend and she is doing a lot better. i spoke with her on monday and she was in the kitchen making apple pie so she is feeling better. apparently opium treats you right.

we had a really busy week last week(bought a kidmobile, 3rd interview w/ Nike, friends in Louisiana) and a busy weekend(baby's room stuff) which i will go into at a later date. i just wanted to post something to get the ball rolling
again. be sure to check out the link of the day, it's pretty funny. make sure to scroll all the way down, i wonder if they ever did this in guatemala.

again, thank you for your thoughts and prayers, believe me, they have helped.