My Mini-Don Draper Experience

Last Thursday was my birthday. I got older and I am now old enough that this bothers me. I work 4 days a week 10 hours a day so Thursday is my Friday. I had a ton to do that, but I had dreams of leaving work early enough to go watch a movie by myself. I spent most of the morning working on an article for an Environmental Journal on carbon sequestration (I was also submitting this as a paper for a class), but at around 2:30 I was done. Not with the work I had to do, but with being in my office, so I made my escape.

For those of you who are not Mad Men fans you will likely not understand this, but I pulled a Don Draper. I sneaked out of the office to see an art house film in the middle of the day. I put on my black fedora and walked around downtown SLC for a while. I stopped in one of my favorite stores Misc. and was dismayed that she had no men's clothing that day. I then went to Jitterbug on 3rd South and may have bought a pair or two of vintage cuff links, may have. I then stepped into The Copper Onion and sat and the bar and had a drink(bitters and soda with an orange slice and a muddled cherry...I felt so inclined plus it resembled an Old Fashioned) before my show began.

I then sat in the back of an empty theater and watched Howl. The James Franco biography of Allen Ginsberg. The film itself was excellent, despite it's clumsy editing and disjointed story line, the animated sequences that illustrate Ginsberg's opus work would be compelling cinema on their own. It also had Jon Hamm in it which if you are pulling a "Draper" makes anything better.

There is something I love about seeing movies alone. It frees you from thinking about anything other than yourself and the celluloid. Seeing a movie like Howl that asks much of it's audience's imagination in total silence takes a movie to an even greater cerebral place. You allow yourself to become immersed in both the words written of a poem that shifted a generation and the artistic license that a filmmaker a generation removed attached to that work. There is a moment of magic that occures when the lights dim in a theater and images begin to flash on screen where the anticipation builds as you are about to enter a place you've never been before and will be able to escape your daily confines for 90 minutes (or 3 hours if its Kevin Costner and you may go back to back at work if its The Postman). Feeling that while you should be at work is even better.

That night was followed by dinner with friends at Moki's in Taylorsville and staying up till the wee small hours of the morning finishing my article (I'll let you know if it gets published, but I got a 97 on the paper).

I Got Just What I Wanted for my Birthday...A NEW President!

I have been delaying writing my blog because I have not downloaded any pictures. I decided that I better just write the thing and add pictures latter if I can. I will start by writing about the election. November 4th was my birthday. Maggie worked very hard to make the day special for me and truly succeeded. That morning I had an interview with a Salt Lake City Homicide Detective about my background and suitability to become a police officer; the detective came to my home. The interview went really well I think. The fun part for me was that I was watching one of my favorite shows Homicide:Life on the Street while waiting for the "murder police" to arrive at my door.

We then opened my birthday gifts. Maggie gave me a new ski coat, and a movie I wanted starring her favorite actor Mark Wahlberg. My mother gave me the complete Young Indiana Jones on DVD, and copy of Indiana Jones' Lost Journal. Judy gave me Terms of Endearment on DVD (NOTE: This may sound out of character for me, but it is part of my goal to own every Academy Best Picture and it is based off of a book by one of my favorite authors Larry McMurtry). There were also cards from friends and family with cash that allows me to shop for something fun. So thank you to all of you I have not thanked.

Next we went to Gateway Mall to look for something fun for me to spend my birthday money on. Maggie ended up with new running attire (which she totally earned by doing her five miles in pouring rain one day, and falling snow the next). I got a Bobby Flay cookbook. We went to the Broadway and watched the new Oliver Stone movie W. We both felt that it was an appropriate way to say goodbye to the past eight long years. The movie was good with great performances, but it was defiantly directed by Oliver Stone with lots of strange stuff. I would recommend getting the Red Box DVD.

I went to class that night and learned about accident investigation, but was mostly concentrating on my mothers text messages...we got Pennsylvania...OMG AZ too close to call...waiting on Florida, damn Florida. I normally love class, but I flew out of there like Seabiscuit when we were done. I got home in time to watch Ohio called, and the rest of the election.

I can say I have not felt like this in a long time. I was so impressed with John McCain's concession speech. He sounded like the man I have admired for years again. I hope that this speech is how we remember John McCain, and not for some the past two years pandering. When Obama took the stage and began to speak I could not contain my emotions (something that for those of you who know me, know is something I do well). I cried, and I am only a little ashamed of it. I felt hope and excitement. I partially wondered if this speech really was that good or if after having W. for president for eight years the bar was so low on what a president should sound I could not tell the difference. I however am sure it really was that good. My friend Holly came over and ate birthday cake and celebrated change with us.

Over the weekend we went to Park City Saturday night to see some friends of mine and mother's that we have not seen years. We spent most of Saturday night talking with them drinking tea and eating pie. It was good to reconnect with old friends and for Maggie to make some new ones. Sunday we had dinner at the Elton's, I correctly guessed both dinner and dessert this week in Maggie and I's weekly guessing game "What's for Sunday Dinner?" We ended the night playing Mario Kart on the Wii.

On Halloween Maggie and I went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Tower Theatre. The Rocky Horror Picture show is yet another event that everyone needs to do at least once in there lifetime. If you don't know what happens the movie is played on the screen while people act out the parts in front of the screen. The audience participates by throwing rice during the wedding scene, yelling lines back at the screen, dancing the Time Warp in the aisles. Our friend Qualye(there is no way I am spelling that correct, but its pronounced qu-a-lee) played Rocky and got us the hook up for some sweet tickets. I didn't do anything spectacular other than put on the Elvis costume, and Maggie revived her costume from last year which was a black slip covered in the words Id, Super Ego, and Ego...do you get it? She was a Freudian Slip. Its very clever. We then went home watched my Halloween tradition Young Frankenstein.