I’ve completed the first decade of my adult life. Where has it gotten me?

A decade ago I was in the middle of my senior year of high school. Those were care free days… Ah geez. With thoughts like that I can’t help but feel unrelenting oldness creeping in on me. I feel an analogy coming on… it’s kinda like that annoying duck at Central Park that inches closer and closer to your picnic sandwich while you’re not looking. You got to stare at the duck so it doesn’t get any closer; but the thing never relents so you’ve got to keep an eye on him and the sandwich or you’ll get no sandwich cuz it’ll fly away at a moment’s hesitation. I still want my sandwich but the quacker already flew away with it. That’s kinda weird analogy. I feel like that right now. I feel like that times 3.7.

Old.

I’m closer to thirty years old than I care to admit. It feels like the stupid bird already flew away with my 20’s so what up next y’all.

But oh, it’s New Year’s Day.

I look forward to these days. You only get one a year and there’s just a unique freshness on New Year’s Day that you can’t drum up at any other time of the year.

So I take a especial initiative.

I have a special name for days like today. Well, I actually ripped it off. Today is D-Day, as I call it. Yeah, I did borrow that phrase from Normandy. To take nothing away from June, 6 1944, my D-Day does consist of a battle. That battle goes on within myself. Kind of a reckoning really. This is how I do it.

I reckon stuff… like how well I did last year or why I didn’t do so well or how I can do better and what my goals are for this year and how I can achieve them and what they will mean to me and what it will be like when I achieve them.

My D-Day stands for Decision Day. So that’s what I do, I decide on stuff and then battle myself the rest of the year to get it done. So, today is a landing of sorts. I land upon a new shore in my life. This is how I usually do it.

Last year I achieved my New Year’s goals. (I hate the use of “New Year’s Resolutions” and here’s why). 2009 was the first year that I hit every single one of my goals. Not only that, but I found that I hadn’t made my goals hard enough. I had nothing to do goal-wise for the last three months of the year. This year is going to be different.

But since we’ve completed a whole wide decade. Today is extra special. Gives a body the chance to look at ten years worth of experience.

So where have the last 10 years gotten me? Here’s the wrap on a decade…

• Moved away from home.
• Graduated High School.
• Graduated church seminary.
• Server a church mission for two years in Santiago, Chile.
• Grew two more inches.
• Learned to speak fluent Spanish (learned Chilean too, kind of a third language if you know what I’m sayin’)
• Enrolled at Brigham Young University.
• Achieved my life-long dream of making the basketball team at BYU.
• Watched my dream fade away in the wake of chronic stress fractures and bulging discs.
• Worked a job.
• Started my “dream” business.
• Failed at my “dream” business.
• Failed another 4857.3 times to start a business. Cool experiences.
• Started an internet business, got that still pumping out cash today.
• Recruited to play volleyball at BYU. That wasn’t my dream.
• Mastered singlehood.
• Finally found the REAL girl of my dreams.
• Married the girl of my dreams.
• Graduated from BYU.
• Have a beautiful home that I call my office.
• Have a baby boy. He is a miracle.

Uh course there’s a lot left out here. Just to add a note here, I feel like I’ve had 20 years worth of experience crammed in to the last 10 years. And maybe I have. Personal life. Business. Family. Church. I feel blessed beyond measure. I adore my wife. I have a beautiful baby boy that I can teach how to fish and golf and hoop. Family is all that matters. In the last 10 years, family is all that has mattered. I don’t reckon that will ever change. If it does, you can give me an artificial gut check with your fist.

Here’s to the challenge of a new decade, not just a new year. Don’t let the eeriness of the future get you down. It’ll all work out. Put your head down and go to work.

He likes to make an entrance, even if it’s just seconds before his entrance would have been an exit. He was almost stillborn.

This is how our firstborn, Warren Jay Ellsworth, joined our family. If he ever pulls shenanigans like this again, he’s grounded for a month :)

Before we share this crazy story…

No sad crying. There’s nothing sad here. We got all the sad crying done and over with already. Be happy. I cried while writing this, but it was a happy cry with a fresh perspective on life that is precious. If you cry, cry happy please. We have much to be thankful for. Today, for us, it’s no coincidence that it’s Thanksgiving Day. We have a son and he’s here to stay [rhymed].

Laughing is recommended. Please laugh. No, this isn’t really a funny story, but at least laugh at my unkempt grammar-isms. And cool things happen when you cry and laugh at the same time. Trust me. It’s killer.

Please leave a comment if you’d like. Drop your little line at the end here. If you’re shy. It’s okay, we love shy people too. Please know that you’ve blessed our lives. We love you, your goodness, your faith, and your mighty prayers.

This is written from my perspective. Obviously mine was not the only perspective, it’s just the one I know the best. There were many other people who experienced deep emotions and heart ache during this experience, but hopefully you get an idea of how things happened.

Please know that without you, we would likely be son-less or at least our son wouldn’t be able to reach his full potential on this earth. It may not be much, but in return we’d like to share this story with you. Your faith and prayers have moved a mountain in our lives and parted a Red Sea of sorrow to reach a shore of happiness we had never known.

This is what your faith made possible… This is what faith makes possible… There is a God in heaven who listens and answers our prayers. I know that to be true.

Monday, November 23, 2009.

12:27 AM

The clock hit midnight too quickly. Exhaustion set in 3.8 seconds later, but it took us 27 more minutes to hit our bed. Just one week stood between Janica and the day that just never seemed to come, the due date. We had no idea that it never would come.

We both wanted to have the baby a bit early. Janica was already supremely uncomfortable all the time. I was looking longingly at Tuesday. That would be a perfect day so as to not mix with too many family and national holidays. Staring straight in to the last week of pregnancy, time seemed to be an impassable, bridge-less chasm where we are forced to take a life-long detour to walk around it. Janica and I read from the scriptures and say our prayers together before we go to bed. But this was one of those days where Janica falls into an unconscious delirium. Might be a better idea to read scriptures in the mornings. She typically beats me to bed anyways.

This time, whether in her delirium or not, Janica wet the bed. All over. But yet she didn’t. A waddle to the bathroom. Uncontrollable leakage in the toilet. To me, it smelled kinda like antifreeze, a sweet smell. Well, I’d read the book enough to know what just happened. Sheer excitement set in. The pregnancy, up until this point, had been text book predictable. But this water breaking business put her in a more elite category of those that have their water break before labor starts.

This was the perfect day to have a baby and it was coming. When the water breaks, the baby comes. Whether naturally or not, the good people make sure it comes within 24 hours. Janica couldn’t hold in the excitement and neither could I. I turned in to a giddy school boy person, “We gunna ha’ da baby.” I’d say over and over.

“We got a leaker!”

As the dude in all this, the pregnancy doesn’t really hit home until, well, it gets real like this. And it was real. And it started to hit home. I was excited. Legit. There’s no mistaking the flow of many waters we seen. Her water done broke, yep.

Janica’s parents were in town. I wasn’t shy about waking up the house.

“We got some action!” I says to my mom-in-law. Dad-in-law stared at me from under the covers of his bed with a huge smile on his face. He’d been in bed for a while. He didn’t mind getting up.

Since Janica had been going strong and wasn’t dilating much at all, everyone expected her to pass her due date, which was Sunday, the 29th of November. That day already had a special ring to it. That is our wedding anniversary. We’d just finished talking not more than a half hour earlier about how perfect it would be if she had the baby tomorrow. Well… I seriously wouldn’t mind if that trick worked all the time.

We took our sweet time throwing our bags together and collecting our stuffs. This is or first go around. But no, we didn’t have anything ready. I’m chill like that, never too late, never in a hurry. I literally danced around the house collecting the stuff that the good book says to collect. This was all kinds of fun for me. Janica, not so much. She was just waiting for the pain to bend her over like in the movies. The pain was slowly starting to show a little bit in her lower back.

We took a minute to say a prayer and give Janica a priesthood blessing.

We were all packed, coats on, car seat in hand, backpacks loaded, when my mother-in-law asks, “Don’t you think it’d be a good idea to call the doctor to make sure we should even go in? Sometimes they send you home to wait for contractions, even when your water breaks.” Janica hadn’t had any major contractions. Made sense to wait to hear from the doc.

We called the dispatch lady (who didn’t answer any of our questions, but did tell us that she had all her children with back labor and no epidural) Dr. Rees returned the call. He says, “Yeah, you’d better come in.” I didn’t mind. We were sure her water broke.

2:30 AM.

I broke the law on the way to Timpanogas Regional, not because I needed to, but because I could. You only get the “My wife is having a baby” excuse a few times in life so you better take advantage of it.

When we were walking up to the Women’s Center doors I broke out my Flip Video Camera and started to record the action. The door was locked. Who would have known that at a women’s center, “Water Broke” were the magic words to open the locked doors and not “open sesame?”

We checked in to antepartum room 110. Janica donned the sporty hospital gown and we waited.

Wasn’t long before we met Earlene, named after her father Earl and her mother Marlene. She is a veteran nurse. Her first task was to make sure that Janica’s water actually broke. So, she had her cough. Nothing. Shimmy. Nothing. Cough. Nothing. Cough, cough, cough. Nothing. Turn head and cough. Nothing.

Where the heck was that semi-clear yellowy stuff that seemed to be so abundant just minutes before?

Nothing came out. This was embarrassing. We couldn’t prove to Earlene that her water broke. So naturally, Earlene wasn’t sure her water broke. Could be mucus. Could be urine. No, it was amniotic fluid and I’m sure of it. It didn’t make any sense to go back home and collect the fluid sitting in our bed sheets.

It was still there.

She took a swab and examined it under a microscope. Amniotic fluid dries in the form of a fern. Cool gee-wiz fact.

She came back in and says, “You’ve ruptured.” Those were the words I wanted to hear. It’s business time. Well, it was almost business time. Turns out that Janica was only dilated to a one, still.

So we waited for some cervical change, and got to know Earlene better.

Wait.

We got to know Earlene pretty well because the IV kept yapping at as every five to ten minutes. If it wasn’t the IV it was the blood pressure gauge or the air pressure stockings. Something was yapping at us every other minute it seemed like. That had the nurses in and out constantly.

Wait.

4:30 AM.

Dad-in-law read the signs to mean that it would be a while before the baby is born and everything was chugging along. Things weren’t happening at a good enough clip so it seemed harmless to step away for a couple hours. He wanted to be here when the baby was born. We agreed to apprise him of any changes.

I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten anything since 6pm. My better judgement had been saying, “I told you so, you should have eaten before you left” for the last two hours. Who would have known I wouldn’t eat anything that night or the following day.

I stepped out to go see what kind of grub I could find in Orem, Utah at four in the morning. I joked with the nurses a bit while making my way down the hall. I was in a happy mood. This was a good day and I couldn’t wait to meet my newborn son.

All smiles.

As I was taking my last steps out the door, I heard a nurse call, “Dad!” I don’t know why I turned my head. I’m just not used to answering to that. This was the first time in my life that anyone had called me dad.

When I turned she said, “We need you back in the room for a second.”

Oh, okay. No problem. I probably need to sign some papers or something. The nurse seemed calm.

I walked past the desk where the four nurses were just seconds before.

Nobody was there.

The door to our room was half open. I heard the bustling inside and I swallowed hard. I could hear Janica crying before I entered the room. All four nurses and Earlene seemed to be moving about the room like you would in a a very orderly and skillful rendition of a chinese fire drill at a busy intersection.

I was half in shock, and half in wonderment, and half scared sheetless. That’s three halves I was in. I figured out what was wrong all by myself. I looked at the EKG monitor and baby’s heart rate was bouncing around 50. Normal heart rate is 120-140.

He must have been pinching the umbilical cord or something. Moving Janica around quickly dislodged it and let the baby’s heart rate normalize. The nurses worked skillfully. There was nothing for me to do but to trust them to do their thing. And they did two things.

Baby got back… to his 110 baseline heart rate. They placed a node on the baby’s head to check his heart rate more accurately. The ultrasound monitors weren’t cutting it and they wanted to know exactly what the rate was at all times regardless of Janica’s or the baby’s position. AND while placing the node, Janica was stretched to a three. That’s three centimeters of dilation. Seven to go.

Janica was terrified. I tried hard not to show any terrified-ness. We had a new sound in the room. We could hear the consistent clip of the baby’s heart rate now. He was going strong at 110-115. Which is still lower than what the nurses would like to see but  acceptable.

5:00 AM.

We talked about the epidural with Earlene. When do we do it? Janica wasn’t feeling any pain with her contractions. She was contracting but was not in labor. Earlene thought it would be a good idea to give her the epidural just in case there was another emergency and they had to go act quickly in places where it might hurt a bit.

We gave Janica the epidural based off of that reasoning, and not because she really needed it. Let me just say that it was very interesting how they applied the epidural. They got that down to a science and it was nothing like I had imagined.

I got comfy with the Lazboy again and tried to rest a bit. No rest would come. I don’t fit in those stupid things.

How do you sleep anyways?

I’m about to meet my son.

What does he look like?
How big is he?
Does he have hair?
I hope he doesn’t get my toes. I hate my toes.
But he can have my nose. I like my nose.

Wait… What the heck are we going to name him? We hadn’t officially decided on a name. I kinda wanted to meet the kid and not arbitrarily assign him a name. We talked a bit about names. We had always liked Warren best. That’s my middle name. Got it from one of my heroes, my Great Grandfather Warren Shurtleff. He’s 103 and going strong.

We had an hour of peace, except for the stupid IV which kept spouting off every few minutes saying that there was air in the line when there never was. Earlene flushed the line a couple times just to be sure and the IV thing didn’t seem to care if there wasn’t air in the line, it still made a racket. And if it wasn’t the IV it was the blood pressure gauge that wouldn’t inflate correctly. That alarm was a bit nicer sounding.

“Who keeps messing with these things? Quit messing with them.” I thought to myself. Little did I know, those “things” would save my baby’s life. After all, Earlene was in the room fidgeting with the dumb thing when the baby’s heart rate dropped. She was able to act immediately.

It was time for the petocin. They don’t mess around. They give it straight through the IV, that same one that harped at us every five minutes. Janica needed to speed things up a bit. She was still not dilating on her own.

Earlene was working the night shift, which ended at 6am. Because she had seniority, she was able to arrange for Crystal Gledhill to be our nurse. She is a good friend of Janica’s who grew up in the same little one-stop-sign town (a really small farming community in rural Washington). This was brilliant micro-management by the man upstairs. It was extremely comforting for Janica to have someone she trusted and knew as the nurse that would deliver her baby.

How common is it to have a home town friend deliver your baby when your home town is 700 miles away? That’s exactly what happened.

Providence.

6:30 AM.

First dose of petocin.

7:00 AM.

Crystal checked Janica’s progress. Dilated to a three still, but 90% effaced. That’s a step in the right direction. Except for the one little hiccup, the heart rate dropping, everything is going as predicted. It’s not uncommon for a baby’s heart rate to drop in utero. Janica wasn’t in labor quite yet. Her contractions weren’t consistent.

7:04 AM.

God bless the stupid IV machine. Yapped again. Crystal came in to check on it. It was really at a point where any one of us could just hit the red button to shut it up. For some reason, we never did. Crystal entered, stage right. Just as before, there was nothing to do but to hit the reset button. Baby’s heart rate was going at a steady clip. That was such a reassuring sound to everyone.

7:05 AM.

In a moment, without warning, baby’s heart rate plummeted to 40 and stayed there. Crystal was staring at the machine when the heart rate dropped.

Instant action everywhere.

Instant tears or terror.

Almost all in one motion six nurses poured in to the room. It happened so quickly. Each immediately went about doing something.

Janica burst into tears. I was paralyzed in fear.

Just as before, she was thrown to her right side. Left side. Hands and knees. No position allowed the heart rate to rebound.

Crystal made a split second decision.

I don’t remember what was said. It seemed that every nurse knew what needed to be done without any verbal cue. A half a moment later, the nurses were unplugging the machines and wheeling Janica out.

“Call Dr. Rees Now!” He was 10 entire minutes away.

At that exact moment, I had a clip board handed to me and a body suit laid on the chair in front of me. I consented to an immediate Caesarean section just as Janica’s bed left the room with her in it.

7:08 AM.

I asked if I could follow.

No.

“Put on the suit.” Someone yelled.

Janica was terrified. She heard me ask if I could follow. She heard the response.

She was alone.

But Crystal.

Crystal was an angel to my babies. She abandoned her post to grab Janica’s hand. Just as you would rotate defense in a three-two zone as the offense swings the ball across the court, a nurse flawlessly stepped in place to take her spot.

Poetry.

What happened next is magical. What happened next just doesn’t happen.

Our room was literally right next to the operating room. We couldn’t get any closer. In moments she was in the operating room. THE critical element in an emergency C-Section is the doctor. Our doctor. He was paged moments ago and 10 minutes away.

As Janica was wheeled to the OR, a doctor approached.

“What’s up?” Dr. Allen says.

Where did he come from? Crystal thought. He was not our doctor. We’d never heard of him.

This miracle doctor didn’t hesitate. He was dressed and prepped in what seemed like seconds.

7:12 AM.

Janica was strapped to the table with her arms out wide. A curtain was thrown up at her torso.

“Is she clean?” Someone asked.

“Yes.” Someone answered.

A male nurse came to her side.

“Do you have an epidural?

“Yes.”

“Wiggle your toes.”

Her toes wiggled. A nervous look crossed his face.

“Okay, we’re going to start. Let us know if you can feel anything.”

They start the incision.

“Can you feel that?”

“No.”

“GO! GO! GO!”

Meanwhile, I was struggling mightily to don the body suit as fast as I could. I couldn’t fit in it. I’m 6’10.” I finally stuffed myself into it, threw on the hat, and fastened the mask. I was sporting a full wedgie.

“Okay, you can come in.”

I hurried around the corner to the OR. I won’t forget the unmistakeable cold, sterile smell. There were at least 16 people in the room. Everyone busy.

I stepped in the room. Noise everywhere. I heard one thing…

“Baby’s out!”

I saw my limp, red baby passed across the room and placed on the examining table.

I crumbled to my knees.

I crawled to Janica’s side and held my head close to hers.

She was terrified. Crying uncontrollably. “Is he okay? Is he okay?”

I said nothing. I fought back my tears.

“It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.” I said with barely a whisper. I stroked her hair gently.

Four eternities passed in one minute.

Where is it?

No sound… Still no sound.

Where is it?

I strained to hear.

Amid the noise, a faint whimper. Then a muffled cry.

My son. My son.

7:16 AM.

“Do you hear that? That’s a good sound.” The nurse said.

Janica heard her son. Her firstborn. My tears fell on her face.

I kissed my angel wife and stood.

They were cleaning my baby. He was pale.

His cries were sweet music that melted my heart instantly. His body convulsed and strained breathe. He fought for every breath. His nostrils flared.

“How is he?” I asked. Nobody answered.

I heard someone say, “He’s pinked up.”

Someone else said, “He’s had a few concerning movements.” I found out later that those words were code for, “He’s having a seizure and we just don’t want to tell you.”

The room was still full of motion.

“What’s his blood gas?” Someone said. “Pull an APGAR,” another voice said. “Weight?” A dozen questions were asked an answered by people with masks on. I didn’t understand. I wouldn’t find out till later what blood gas or APGAR was.

My baby’s first APGAR test was a 2. Ten is normal. His blood gas was right on the line between danger and dead.

The next moments were a blur. I watched my baby laying on the table.

He peed.

He was diapered and swaddled and shown to Janica for half a moment. She was still on the table with her arms out wide.

The site of him…

She saw her son.

She hadn’t stopped crying.

Robyn, the nurse in pink. Asked if we had a name. After I mentioned we were still working on that. She said, “I’m going to call him Lucky until you tell me otherwise. You guys must have someone watching out for you. This baby was meant to be here.”

I followed the baby to the nursery. I made sure they added his identification bands and security anklet.

He still used his whole little body to breathe, his nostrils flaring. He threw his arms and legs around wildly.

I had a son.

Just a minute or two in the nursery. It was calm in there. I found out that he weighed seven pounds and eleven ounces and was twenty inches long.

I was told I could hold him and to follow a female nurse down the hall.

I picked him up.

I didn’t know it but I was taking him to the NICU. I walked down the long hall to the NICU. Per chance I passed my mother-in-law, who was terrified waiting to hear or see anything. We snapped a couple pictures on the way to the NICU. Once there, I placed him on the examining table. Right about now, I wanted some answers.

How the heck is my son?
What’s wrong?
Will he be okay?

In the NICU, I found the nurse practitioner. Her name is Kari. Over the course of the next forty minutes I grilled Kari for all the info I could get. She sugar coated everything. I think she realized I didn’t really appreciate the boiled down version. I was able to get a translation of what was meant by “concerning movements.” He had what appeared to be a seizure. Really, there is no way to tell for sure if it was a seizure. His concerning movements meant that his body was under an extreme amount of stress.

The extent to which my baby went without oxygen was just unknown. The signs pointed to catastrophic damage to his brain. The seizure signified to them that there was an acute amount of brain trauma. Kari finally relented the fact that we’re looking at a sick baby. He could be permanently brain damaged or even become completely dependent for the rest of his life. They just didn’t know. Time would tell. I found out the meanings of APGAR and blood gas.

My baby’s APGAR was a 2 at one minute. The second test was a 7. The third, an 8. The longer I spent in the NICU, the better my baby got. He responded really well and his blood gas bounced back quickly. Those were all good signs. He had a special oxygen mask that made it easier to get him oxygen.

As we watched him closely, he had no more “concerning movements.” Kari placed two  lines in his umbilical chord to feed him and keep him hydrated. His body slowly calmed and he was able to breathe easier.

I went to go see my other baby. Janica was now in a room, all stitched up. Her parents and sister were there too. A lot of questions ensued. I didn’t have all the answers so I went to get some.

I learned of a procedure called “Cooling.” This was a new practice. Babies that suffer trauma and are facing potential brain damage are offered cooling. The babies are set on a cooling bed for 72 hours. The bed keeps their core temperature at 33.5 degrees celsius. That’s 92.3 degrees fahrenheit. That’s only a couple degrees about stage 3 hypothermia.

Wow.

Why the cooling? That’s torture.

Cooling the body’s core temperature restricts the blood flow. If there is any swelling or bleeding in the brain (which they all assumed our baby boy had), the cooling would lessen the spread of the swelling and constrict the bleeding.

They found that drowning victims from cold water recover quicker and with less brain damage than warm water victims. Makes sense.

The problem was that there was only one cooling bed at the hospital we were at and time was critical. The neonatologist contacted Primary Children’s to see if our baby qualifies for their program. The qualifications of Primary Children’s were a bit less conservative than those of Timpanogas Regional. (I found out later that Primary Children’s had only done cooling four times in the last year. This wasn’t a common thing).

The first answer from Primary Children’s was that our baby didn’t fit their qualifications. The neonatologist approached me again about twenty minutes later to let me know that Primary Children’s had called back and said that they had reconsidered. They wanted to treat our baby.

I went back to my family and pulled my father-in-law aside to tell him what I had found out. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell Janica that our baby is facing brain damage and that he had had what seemed to be a seizure and now they wanted to take him away.

Janica would ask me how he’s doing and I would say he’s getting better and responding quickly, which he was. She’d been through enough. We’d been through enough.

I wanted to give my boy a priesthood blessing. Um, I kinda need a name to do that. I came in to Janica and asked her what she felt we should name our boy. She said, “I don’t know. You’ve seen him the most what do you think.” I thought.

I’d always liked Warren Jay. It finally felt right. She agreed.

I brought my father-in-law in to the NICU to give our baby a blessing. Time was of the essence and they were minutes from bringing the AirMed team in to get him ready to be flighted to Primary Children’s.

He was so wrapped with wires and tubes that only our fingers could fit through to be placed on his head.

The blessing was short. He was blessed to be made whole.

Within about twenty minutes, the AirMed team brought the baby by the room. We were now in room 118 where we would stay for the next several days.

This was the first time that Janica got to really see her baby.

She reached out and touched his little fingers.

He was boxed and strapped into the life-flight self-contained incubator.

The wires…
He had wires everywhere.

We mustered a couple smiles for pictures… our first family pictures. But my heart was aching to watch my wife say goodbye to her little son.

I fought hard not to lose it here.

It hurt.

They rolled him out and he was gone.

It was at this time that I leaked the word to my parents and siblings about what we were facing. I had called my mother in the middle of the night after Janica’s water broke. I couldn’t help it. I was excited then and knew my mother wouldn’t mind me waking her up to tell her the news.

This time, the phone call was to explain the situation and ask for a family fast. Nobody had any idea what we were going through up until this point.

I was emotionally spent already. Tears came in waves. I fought constantly to get a hold of my emotions. I felt like I had to be the strong one, but I just didn’t know what to feel.

I was bearing the burden of knowing that my son could face a difficult life of mental challenges. The severity of which was unknown.

I was talking with my dad, who at this point was in Phoenix, Arizona. I walked outside the women’s center to get some privacy. I wish I hadn’t.

There’s no mistaking the sound of a helicopter…

On the phone, I told my dad,

“There goes my baby.”

I completely lost it at that point. I hung up with my dad and since I was already outside, I didn’t know where else to go. I went to the car. I cried violently. I don’t remember ever crying like this. I needed it. I needed to cry.

Pray.

After that phone call, my parents caught the next flight from Phoenix to Salt Lake.

I called my local church leader and asked for faith and prayers. My parents-in-law did the same. Many people answered with their faith and began to pray and fast. We were so blessed.

I wish that I could have had the emotional stamina to explain what we faced to those who offered their faith on our behalf. Especially my siblings. I just couldn’t get myself to explain what was going on to each sibling, one at a time. I asked for our parents to spread the word. I hope that you can forgive me for that.

Now, to wait.

There was nothing I could do other than console my wife, be with her, and pray. The baby was gone and in good hands. The staff at Timpanogas had been so good to us. Great people.

I don’t know how we made it through that day. But we did. Somehow I felt a calm reassurance that my son would be okay.

I sought out a couple other nurses for their opinion. I wanted some straight answers. Robyn was the nurse that named the baby “Lucky.” I tracked her down and we talked for a bit. She said to me that never in all her years of nursing had she ever seen or heard of a C-section that happened that quickly. C-sections don’t typically take that long, but this was an unplanned, emergency C-section to save a baby’s life. Again she reconfirmed that it’s obvious somebody was watching out for us and that our baby is supposed to be on this earth. He was minutes, maybe seconds from being still born.

From her point of view, the chilling truth is that I could expect to make some really important decisions in the next few days because our son is really sick. I was given some encouragement to stick it out and be patient because it would be a long road to recovery, if he ever recovered fully. I learned that typically when a baby goes without oxygen and then seizes, you can expect there to be brain trauma by default, but the long term effects are never known fully until they unfold. I asked if there was any way to know if the motions he did were actually seizures. No, theres isn’t, she said.

“Those weren’t seizures.” I said to myself. “Those weren’t seizures.”

What Robyn mentioned to me concurred with what Kari, the NICU nurse practitioner, had said earlier during one of our Q&A sessions. Our baby is sick. The precautions we are taking are to limit the damage done to his brain. We can expect some difficult decisions. That was the consensus.

My consensus was that my son would be just as normal as any son. I felt my faith bolster. He has the priesthood of God working in his behalf. I knew he had the faith and prayers of so many who loved and cared for him.

So far, little Warren has exceeded everyone’s expectations. Everyone except those who exercised their faith in his behalf. The nurses and doctors are all dumbfounded that his labs have all come back normal. He’s strong and vital. He’s a fighter.

Janica came home from the hospital this morning. She moves really slow, but feels good. She had a C-section in under six minutes. They weren’t soft.

It’s 11:00 PM on Thanksgiving Day. We’re with Warren now. He’s finally so comfortable. So peaceful and untortured by the cold. He’d spent 72 hours at a stage 2 hypothermic temperature to lessen the potential for permanent brain damage. This broke my heart to see him fight through the cold and starvation. The nurses hated doing it to him. He couldn’t be fed while undergoing the cooling treatment. He hasn’t been fed but through an IV. They began warming him half a degree an hour starting at noon today. Janica couldn’t hold him until he was steady at normal body temperature. After Janica came home from the hospital, we took her home and got her comfortable. She rested until we could take her north to see her baby. She didn’t want to see him until she could hold him close.

She’s holding him now. It’s Janica’s birthday. It’s Thanksgiving Day.

MIRACLES

There were many.

In retrospect, I’d like to recount the miracles that I saw during the birth of my son to allow for some perspective about how faith, prayers, and fasting move mountains in our lives.

• I have a son. And one day he will call me daddy.
• Earlene. She is a mage.
• Crystal Gledhill. Nuff said.
• Janica’s water broke way before labor started. That got us to the hospital way before we normally would have, and in time to be within the care that Warren needed. If Janica hadn’t ruptured, the baby probably would have died in the womb.
• Janica had her epidural when there really was no reason to. Earlene was brilliant to raise the issue. I felt strongly that we should have the epidural even though it made me nervous. If things had progressed normally, it would have been several hours before labor started and several hours before she really needed the epidural. Also, the nurse was nervous because she could easily move her toes, yet their was no pain.
• The stupid IV, blood pressure gauge, and air stockings. Though annoying as they were, if ALL THREE weren’t frequently malfunctioning the nurses wouldn’t have been so close. Both times Warren’s heart rate dropped the nurse was in the room fiddling with the machines.  In my opinion, we had some unseen friends messing with the machinery. The IV was tricked over and over in to thinking that there were air bubbles in the lines. There never were.
• Dr. Allen. This is perhaps the biggest miracle. What are the chances that a random doctor would be immediately available at the exact moment he was needed AND react in seconds. He didn’t hesitate. Regarding the fact that he was there and immediately available, Robyn said “that just doesn’t happen.” If Dr. Allen would have deferred and waited for our doctor, Dr. Rees, our son wouldn’t have made it. He performed a C-section in less than six minutes.
• Warren’s vitals bounced back really quickly. His first APGAR test was a 2. His third was an 8. My father-in-law’s sister was a nurse for 40 years. She had never heard or seen of an APGAR test bounce from 2 to 8. His blood gas improved just as quickly.
• Warren has passed all his tests and has maintained solid vitals. There has been no abnormal activity and no sign of any.
• Our families have been brought together. Our hearts have been stretched. Our faith has been strengthened.
• Technology. Without, Warren wouldn’t have had a chance.
• BYU will beat Utah. Having Warren up here at the U of U makes things interesting :) I can assure you, he’ll be wearing BYU blue on his way home.

Again, I wish you could know how much we appreciate the love and support we’ve received. I cannot thank you enough for your faith on our behalf. Hopefully, by being able to see the fruits of your faith, you will know as I know that God lives and loves us. He watches over us in our time of need and sends angels to attend us, both seen and unseen.

My heart breaks for those who watch their children, at the sunrise of their lives, battle through sore trials just to get their foot on this earth. There’s not much more you can do than to wield your faith and love your children. We’re one among many who have experienced similar miracles. God is good. I have a new respect and love for life and family. Family is all that matters.

Just days ago, I had no idea what family really meant. I do now.

Love to all.

P.S. Warren’s last test, and most important, is Saturday the 28th at 8:00 AM. He’ll have an MRI to verify that there is no swelling or tissue damage and has normal brain activity. Every nurse that I have spoken to has every confidence it will come back clean. He’s been so strong and so normal. If he passes his test, he just might come home on Sunday, the 29th. That’s his due date and our first wedding anniversary.

Special thanks to my sweet mother who has been at Warren’s bedside almost constantly. When Janica and I couldn’t be there, she was able to give him the love and encouragement he needed as he battled through. Love you mom! Thanks dad for being at mom’s side. And to my parents-in-law who experienced most of what you just heard right along side Janica and me. Their support has been nothing short of amazing.

It’s Saturday. I slept in till 10:31am. Lounged around enjoying nothingness till about noon when I got to work on some copywriting for a new landing page I was building for a Google AdWords campaign… then the crazy started.

One of my little external hard drives that I use to back up files at home decided to bust itself and not work or sumpin. This is actually the first hard drive to die on me, ever. I thought I had a good streak going. The problem is I needed some files on it. Not to worry, I figured I had backed them up to a hard drive on my desktop PC at the office. (Don’t get any ideas, I’m a Mac guy and I hardly use PCs cept when I HAVE to. I actually leave this one at work because I have no good use for it).

My wife went to the store and I headed in to the office. I drove all the way there, walked up to the building, and promptly realized I’m a knucklehead. I had forgotten the electronic office key at home so I couldn’t even get in and it didn’t seem like there was one single blessed soul within a ten mile radius to save me. I drove all the way back home. When I made the return trip back to the office, here comes a freakishly unbelievable tempest, it was like a stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf type deal. The radio said there were some 75 mph wind gusts (isn’t that like hurricane winds?) and the rain was sideways (the kind of rain that stings a bit when it pelts you in the fleshy parts of the neck). Yick.

The files weren’t on the hard drive I thought they was on. I needed those files to finish my project for the day. Me being so project-oriented, that drove me insane because I couldn’t finish what I started. I headed home. This time when I left the office the wind was so fierce it was shaking my car like there were kids bouncing on the hood of the car. More pelting rain with debris… I didn’t need that paint job anyways, no worries. Branches and leaves were blowing in the air, they were blowing everywhere. Okay, that was a really lame nursery rhyme sentence but I just couldn’t delete it.

I was in a hurry now. I needed to get home quickly so that I could pick up my wife and go get the Jeep that I had bought from a friend of mine. We made it to his house about 2:40. He’d already gone but he’d left the keys and the docs behind, and I left him the check. He didn’t leave the jumper cables. He had those with him, on the way to Salt Lake. The Jeep was stone dead. I went knocking doors in the neighborhood till I found some jumper cables. We needed to be across town at 3pm.

By the time I got the Jeep started, it was now 2:50, just behind schedule enough to start making things interesting. We’ve spent a lot of the last week looking all around the valley for a home and we had an appointment across town to see a house with Paul Reeb at 3:00pm (he’s the real dizzle real estate agent, those are hard to come by).

The Jeep’s brakes were metal on metal, almost undrivable. We headed slow and steady across town. All the while I had been making arrangements with a repair shop to have the brakes fixed on the Jeep so it would be drivable. I used my handy I phone to find local car shops. I called a dozen to find one open on Saturdays.

You’re probably wondering what the heck kind of car I just bought. It wasn’t from the salvage yard, but the Jeep isn’t in the best of conditions, thus, the $1000 price tag. It needs a lot of work. It’s a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited with the Quadra-drive technology thingy. Smokin’ deal. I made it up to the auto repair shop right after 3:00pm with the brakes grinding metal on metal and stinking up my cockpit. I hurriedly dropped off the Jeep at Rocky’s American Car Care Center and hopped in with Janica to make our appointment. She had following me in our Honda, which was usually in stellar working condition. I hopped in and we made it to meet Paul only 10 minutes late. I had called him while looking for jumper cables to say we would be 10 minutes late.

The house left us wanting. Disappointed. It was in what seemed to be a retirement community. We’re not going geriatric just yet. Good house, twin home actually, just not what we want. The basement, however, is one of the best we’ve seen and it has a legal accessory apartment. We thanked the owners and headed out to the car. I hopped in after opening the door for my wife and started the car. As we rolled out, the car felt funny. We didn’t get 100 feet before I realized we had a freegin’ FLAT TIRE!! Geez. I had one car in the shop already and now a flat tire. I emptied the contents of the trunk into the street and changed the tire. I don’t know how I fit that much stuff in my trunk, really. I should have taken pictures. It was almost 4:00 pm now.

I had a company barbeque that would start at 4:00pm that I really needed to be to. Those things are important. We hurried back to the repair shop. Trevor, the repair dude, was supposed to get the car done by 4:00pm because that’s when the place closed, but apparently the auto parts store sent them the wrong brake pads. So we waited till 4:35 till it was finished. I was kind of antsy because I thought I needed to find the nearest Les Schwab to get my tire repaired as well. I went to my trusty iPhone. The stanking battery was plum dead. Everything was out of batteries, geez. What to do?

In my brilliance, I just schmoozed over Trevor, the repair dude, and persuaded him to fix the tire and put it back on for free. So we had our flat tire back on. The dumb thing was only flat for about thirty minutes or so. Not bad. But it was close to 5:00 now and there was no way we would make it to the BBQ with enough time to enjoy it. The BBQ was a good 20 minutes away and we needed to go home first, which would be a 50 minute round trip. We wanted to try and get there anyways.

The Jeep was finished. It was then I realized I didn’t have my card with me… Good thing I had most of the numbers in my head. We left to drive the Jeep home and then head up to the BBQ to at least make an appearance. This is where it all went worse. At the State Street and Center Street intersection in Orem, the Jeep died. Completely died. Plum dead in the middle of the stinking intersection at 5pm in the afternoon on a Saturday. That intersection is the crossroads of Orem, Utah and a busy shopping center. There is no doubt in my mind that I got cussed out by dozens of unhappy Utah drivers (they’re always unhappy anyways so that didn’t bother me none).

I knew the battery in the Jeep was dead (we have to jump it every time we start it) but I thought it would make it home to Provo. Up until now, after a jump start, the Jeep ran fine, which means the alternator is in good condition. I didn’t notice anything wrong with the alternator before. At the repair shop we had jump started the Jeep and it seemed to be running okay, that was just 5 minutes previous. Just my luck, it ran well enough to get me to the middle of the intersection…

The Jeep was so dead that I couldn’t even turn the hazard lights on to signify that my Jeep was busted and that drivers should make their way around the busted Jeep and cuss me out later. The battery was just so roasted that it wouldn’t hold any charge from the alternator at all, not even to unlock the doors. And now I thought the alternator was shot too. I had already spent $485.48 on new front rotors, calipers, and pads and I didn’t want to spend any more money today. I just wanted to get the Jeep drivable. I would charge the battery at home. Oh, and I didn’t even have my own jumper cables.

The Lord sent me angels. In under a minute we had six people pushing the Jeep out the way of traffic. Luckily, there was a minivan full of a entire Mexican family right behind me. A family of seven in an old Chrysler Voyager minivan. He was my good Samaritan today. He jumped right out and helped us push the car out of the way. The wife hopped right in to the driver’s seat of their van as if she had done this “save the freaked out white dude in the middle of the intersection” thing before. I happen to know Spanish so it was fun. They were good people, but not just good people, they had jumper cables. He stayed with us for about 25 minutes seeing if we could get the Jeep to idle on its own. On those Jeeps sometimes when it’s dead enough that the computer loses power it takes a while for it to learn its idling speed again. If the Jeep got below 1000 RPMs, it would die. I had to keep the pedal on the gas, even while the jumper cables were hooked up (wussy jumper cables with very gaugeless wires almost). I told them I’d just give it a shot and try to get home, but really I just didn’t want them to stay with me all day. I was inconveniencing them. Even so, they didn’t seem too inconvenienced. Cool cats. The kids were entertaining.

We were now in a parking lot, safe from the busy traffic at least but in no better condition. So I give it a shot. With the car on and me thumbing the gas, but not letting it idle, I tried to gently approach the busy street. In doing so, it took 5.93 milliseconds for me to realize I wouldn’t hit the traffic right. I wanted to just hit the traffic so that I wouldn’t need to touch the break at all and I could just sped off to the nearest Pep Boys, which was just three blocks away. So… my my non-multitasking skills freaked out and I hit the dadgum brakes (positive moment of the day = the brakes worked flawlessly).

Alas, I failed at my attempt to make it anywhere really. This no idling business is tricky. I couldn’t brake and throw the car in to neutral while pedaling the gas all at the same time (I’d never practiced that before, it’s tricky). The Jeep jumped back and forth, convulsively. I’m sure my face was red, if I could have seen my face, it would have been red. (This deal gave me flash backs to driver’s ed when I was the only one that had to use the Ford Fiesta with the stick shift when I’d never really driven a car much at all, let alone a stick shift). It died right there. With some effort, my wife and I rolled it back into the parking lot. Couldn’t have done it without her. The Jeep wasn’t going anywhere.

Hmmm. There was now no way I could get to the BBQ now. That would be over at 6:00pm. The next scheduled item that this car mess goofed up is the wedding reception of one of my wife’s close friends. We needed to be there by 6:20pm. We were both dressed like we were heading to the gym and filthy; me up to my elbows and her with a few soiled fingers I’m sure. Luckily we did have another car with us (the one with the repaired tire). I dropped her off at home and boycotted the reception. I have a hard time at receptions anyhow.

I picked up my ipod so I could listed to some internet marketing stuff while I figured out this mess. I didn’t have any idea how I was going to get the Jeep back with just me. But I was determined to get it done somehow. I drove back up to where we’d left the Jeep. I figured if I could swap out the battery for the one in the Honda, the car could run off the battery long enough to get it to Pep Boys. I busted out my tools. The Jeep battery wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t get the stripped bolt off that tightened the wedge that held the battery in down. I spent one hour trying to get the battery out. I decided against busting the wedge off.

I drove over to Pep Boys and deliberated with the sales team there until I realized I was talking to the wrong people. I bought my own jumper cables (the cheap kind, I figured it would be enough to get it started) and went back to the Jeep. The dumb jumper cables couldn’t even start the Jeep so I go back to the stankin’ Pep Boys. This time I convinced the shop guys to let me use their jumper pack without paying for it. I didn’t want to pay $39 for a tow job either, the Jeep was only three blocks away.

The jumper pack worked fantastic. The Jeep started right up and idled just fine. All the while, the alternator was putting out about 14 volts, which is exactly the voltage it’s supposed to be pumping out. This whole deal was puzzling. The symptoms of the Jeep were a little weird. The fact that the Jeep worked well with the jumper pack let me know that the alternator is just fine. Sweet.

Got the Jeep to the Pep Boys and they looked it over and tested the starting mechanisms. Turns out it’s just the battery. They charged my $14 for an install and a $9 shop fee to throw a $90 battery in there. Plus tax that was $120 and sumpin. I didn’t complain. The Jeep started cleanly now. So, new front brakes and a killer new battery with 85 cold crank amps.

Meanwhile, my wife was enjoying herself with her college friends. I now had two cars to get home. I decided to drive the Jeep home. I wanted to listen to it to see what else might be wrong with it. I tell you what, the noises coming from the Jeep are various and sundry. Almost like the noises you’d imagine coming from Sleepy Hollow or Tales from the Crypt. All in good time. The thing will be running smooth before long.

Made it home about 10pm, turns out I needed to go pick up my wife, so I did. We headed up to get the Honda and called it a night.

Bling.

UPDATE: This is my most popular post yet so far (as of June 2009). And as always if you like this kinda stuff you can subscribe to the RSS feed or get automatic updates via email so you won’t miss any crazy stuff. We’ve had so much fun reading your comments! If you haven’t commented, don’t be shy… My wife’s side of the story is here

In most situations, you only get one shot at it. And that one shot will be remembered for a lifetime––and not just by you either. If done right, it will entirely, maybe even permanently, melt the hearts of everyone that hears how it all went down. Fittingly, tears of felicitous joy should be shed as the shear romantic beauty of it soaks into one’s soul. Then, your own fond memories of how it went down for you and yours cascade through your own sense of presentness, stirring even more emotion. This ‘it’ is no small matter.. It’s once. It’s emotion. It’s commitment. It’s love. And it will never be forgotten. It’s a precise point in time. A pinpoint in time that is preparatory to the melding of an eternity past with an eternity future. (How’s that for an intro with literary-ness).

What the heck am I talking about? So… if the dude gots his head on straight, ‘it’ means a whole heck of a stinking lot.. it’s like one of the most masculine (but romantic) duties that you can dutifully fulfill in this typically unromantic life. You do it with your own kinda style and with careful, precise, and planned measures.

Forget the wordy intro. I’m freaking engaged and stuff to the coolest woman on earth. And I’m about to tell you how it went down. This is not a short story. It was not an easy thing. Neither was it a quick and easy thing.. as you will see. It took a full 8 hours to go down.

In hindsight, though, the hilarity is quite singular. Since I can’t possibly recount the chronicles of last night in person, I figured I’d do the next most gentlemanly thing and write them (took me 8+ hours). Post them. And you’ve received the link.

This is long… If you do make it through, please leave a comment at the end letting us know you were here. It doesn’t matter if we don’t even know you or if you aren’t family, we would love to hear from you. Just click on ‘add a comment’ at the bottom.

But first, hold on to your hearts and pay attention. This is a fun ride. Don’t distract yourself by trying to multi-task while reading this. It won’t have the same effect. Please.. feel free to laugh and cry as you may. This is worthy of both gestures. I’ve done both while writing this so you can do the same while reading it.

This is how it went down..

The Build Up…

When a couple breaks the M-word barrier (when they start talking about ‘marriage’ without referring to it in code names) and leaks the news to their mothers so that, in turn, the tenacious planning gets under way, the dude loses the element of surprise… unless he’s conniving. An expected proposal for marriage, in my book, just doesn’t have the same affect. Surprise, ingenuity, etc., is the general rule. A dude must still encourage the element of surprise, shock, and awe even if ‘it’ is expected.

I had been working on prepping and preconditioning Janica and almost everyone else to assume that for various reasons I was going to wait till the last minute to ask her to marry me (though we’d been planning the wedding for weeks and most everyone we know was expecting to hear the news anytime). I also made an effort to quench and reformulate unsuspecting Janica’s expectations about the ring, so that I could “under promise and way over deliver,” in a shock and awe-like manner. Over deliver like a whole lot and stuff… like a good salesperson would.. all to achieve the desired affect. I was secretly anxious and almost over zealous to get on with it, to be ‘official.’ This last week I’d been impatiently waiting for the ring to be finished. That was the only hold up.

I decided to design the ring myself. I went in a did the whole deal without telling anyone. I had previously found out Janica’s size and taste. Turns out the ring I had been imagining in my mind for years would fit her tastes just right. I was still incredibly nervous that for some reason she wouldn’t like it. I so wanted to get it right the first time without having to exchange it for something else.

Being a semi-romantic dude, for the last long while (I ain’t know how long) I’d been thinking about how to help it all go down right. I was thinking about how to do my duty thing just right––romantic, surprise, shock, awe, hyperventilation, eye-fanning, etc. I’m conniving and calculating when it comes to these things. And I had an idea that was perfectly genius (I’m assuming it was genius, I didn’t ask anyone’s opinion really).

Little did I know, the whole deal went down far different than I had planned it would… far, far different. And that, my friends, makes all the difference.

It starts…

Earlier in the week I had innocently asked Janica if she wanted to go have a picnic at the beach one evening and watch the sun set. There was nothing atypical about such a thing. She unassumingly said that would be agreeable. I was hoping that would happen Wednesday night. That was not to be because the dadgum ring wasn’t done yet.

Yesterday, Thursday, September 18th, was my first day as an employee, in a very long time. That.. was weird. I’ve been so used to working for myself. Luckily, I love what I do at SEO.com. I’d been doing it for free for a long time and now I get paid for it.. and I still do it for free in my spare time.

About half way through my first day I get a call from the diamond store. Janica’s ring is ready. I lost all focus for the rest of the day. The minutes creeped by… not crept, creeped… like a creep would creep.. haunting me.

I couldn’t wait any longer to axe her to marry me. I made the decision right then that it was going down that night. (Insight: In case you don’t know me very well, once I decide to do something, I usually don’t stop until I get it done.. I had a real bad case of that one-track-mindedness yesterday). I left work a bit later than I had planned for. That put me behind from the start.

It was 5:30 p.m. The sun would go down in one hour and forty-five minutes and I needed the sun to complete the romantic affect I desired. The weather was perfect. I had my idea. But I had no materials. I needed some props to pull it off. So I go hunt for some props.

First stop: The most important prop. The diamond store all the way across town. Check.

It’s 6:00 pm.

Second stop: I have no idea.

Now, I’m not an arts-and-craftiness-oriented person. I don’t spend much time in Michael’s or Joann’s or Robert’s. So when I needed ‘props’ I could only assume where they would most likely be found. For reasons that will be explained, I needed a corked bottle, some packaging string or twill, and parchment paper. That’s it. Simple right?

I went to all those previously named stores, along with Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Pier 1 Imports. A simpler thing would have been to hop on down to the nearest booze place and buy some booze right? Would have saved me an hour.

It’s 7:00 p.m.

The bottle ended up being only seven or eight inches high and really skinny, with thick glass. Would it float? Maybe my physics are off here… In any case, if it was going to do the trick, it needed a note stuffed inside it.. a crafty-ish one with some choice words that would be like a romantic moment lubricant. I wrote the choice words on the choice parchment, antiqued paper and I jimmy-rigged the string so the finder of the bottle would be able to pull the choice note out. Foreshadowing the frustrations to come, the dumb thing wouldn’t fit. I wrote another note, this time one a smaller piece of paper with smaller handwriting. After rolling up the paper and jimmy-rigging the string.. wouldn’t fit.. and the string slipped off. So how do I get the paper out?… Hmmm… The third time. With an even smaller piece of paper (the last sliver of paper I had) and smaller writing.. It fit. Barely. So I popped on the cork, leaving a tag end of the string hanging out of the bottle.

I had my prop done, all fancied up with an uber-romantic note on the inside. It was 7:15 p.m. I was sweating. But I wouldn’t be sweating for long because the sun was going down, taking all the romantic mojo with it.

What to do with the bottle? Luckily, I was already at Utah Lake, where I’d planned for it to go down. I’d bought the stuff and headed there to assemble the prop. I got out of the car and ran to the only 30’ stretch of beach and quickly found the softest 16 square feet of sand.. the only patch of sand on that rocky beach. For picnic purposes, that was where we would set out the blanket and eat our gourmet tuna fish sandwiches that Janica was preparing. We’d texted each other, coordinating dinner. I half buried the bottle in the sand as if it had been misshapenly washed ashore. I would help her happen upon it when the opportune moment presented itself.

The sun had already sunk past the horizon. I had only minutes left of romanticism, as the brightening sunset would shortly follow the sinking sun. I sped home and picked up Janica. At this point I’m still sweating. I haven’t shaved. My breath is… miscalculated that one. And let me just say that my mind wasn’t set on conducting slick-like-a-cat conversation, though I knew that was important to disguise my plight.

My mind was going a thousand miles a minute. How do I ask her? Knees? Sitting down? How should I give her the ring? Where should I put the ring. How do I keep the ring from her? Do I hide it? What do I say to introduce this mysterious little green corked bottle with a message in it without her suspecting anything? Is she on to me? Is the bottle safe? Would anyone walk off with it? There were tons of fisherman there… How long is the sunset going to last? Will it still be romantic? Does my breath smell that bad? (Luckily, I found a mint a bit later in the mess that is my car, another miscalculation). Will she like the ring? What if she thinks this production of mine is cheesy?

I thought about a lot of things on the way back to Utah Lake and my little ‘setting.’ I thought about everything, or did I? I failed to consider romanticism’s arch-nemesis, the blood sucking killer mosquito hoard at Utah Lake. We got out of the car. Walked to the spot. Set out the blanket. Sat, and promptly lost six quarts of blood. In an instant, billions of mosquitoes everywhere.. completely everywhere.. on everything.. sucking dry every square inch of uncovered skin. It wasn’t going down like that. No way. We ran back to the car and sheltered ourselves. We spent a couple minutes killing the mosquitoes that managed to make it in to the car with us.

The tuna fish was surprisingly good. I had my fill, but the mosquitoes didn’t. They were stacking up ten-high on the windows, begging us to emerge. I’d never seen so many. I’d never seen so much opposition come from such little things. Jumanji? We drove away, and consequently drove them off.. the windows at least. Mosquitoes dissipate when it gets dark. They only live one night, if they’re lucky. So I was going to wait a bit and try again when they weren’t as thick. We drove around going to the edge of the jetty and back. The bugs weren’t letting up. It was now 8:15 p.m. September the 18th. The light faded. It was dark. The bottle was still in the sand.

Immediately my mind was racing. How can I fix this and still salvage the ‘it’. I could still pull it off if I found some other body of water close by without miniature oppositions everywhere. But first, I must retrieve the bottle. I stopped the car and said to Janica,”I’m going to go see how bad it is now.” I jumped out of the car and went to where I’d hid the bottle. I couldn’t see it anywhere. It was dark.

Awkward amount of time passes.

I finally find it and Janica finally sees me duck down to the sand and pop back up. I have it. I test the cork lid to see if it’s snug. It wouldn’t come lose. I try harder. Stuck. I try harder. Half the cork comes loose, breaking off in my hand. I can’t get the cork out. How would she? At another awkward interval, while I was supposed to be testing the bug density, I finally just twist the cork loose instead of popping it. I can only imagine what she’s thinking at this point. I’m losing my mind.

I run back to the car. Awkward conversation ensues, riddled with random humming of a Coldplay song and singing to the radio as an excuse for not talking. Good way to distract the conversation I thought. After an eternity, I say, “Gosh dang it! I really wanted to go on a walk tonight. Where can we go on a walk?” I needed a place with water too pull it off.

Six options that were close to Utah Lake with little to no mosquitoes: Campus, campus, campus, campus, the park by Wal*Mart, or the mental hospital (at this point I really felt like I belonged at the Utah State Mental Hospital anyways). Campus would give me the highest degree of probability. Janica even suggested the park by Wal*Mart. When she did, I asked, “Does it have a fountain?” She has no idea why I want a ‘fountain.’ I had askedfor a ‘walk’ not a ‘fountain.’ She looks at me as if I’ve completely lost it. I had. But I was undeterred. It was going down tonight somehow.

What would have been…

So, I’m sure you’re all wondering what I would have done had the Utah Lake bit played itself out flawlessly. So here goes..

After eating the gourmet picnic staring into the setting sun, I help Janica happen upon the mysterious corked bottle. “What the heck is that? That’s curious. I’ve never seen a bottle like.. it still has a cork in it! Check it out!” She grabs it. Examining, she finds a string that is connected with sumpin inside. At the end of the string, she sees a little rolled up sumpin. She uncorks. Pulls the string. Unwinds. Reads. Ahhhhh…. She screams, fans her eyes and hyper-ventilates.

Here’s where it would have gotten real good. She wasn’t expecting much as far as a ring goes. I would have gotten down on one knee and asked her just as straight as you can ask a woman to marry you.  (I figure you don’t need to mess around with colorful language at this juncture, not a time for flowery-ness). She says ‘Yes.’ A very simple word––dignifiedly so.

But the ring? Ah yes the ring. Wink. This is my shear romantic geniusness. I would take the string, size it right, wrap it round her ring finger and say “Here’s to a beautiful start.” Then hold her for a while. Knowing Janica, she’d be happy with a string ring… for a while at least. Count of Monte Cristo anyone? Bomb show. Love it. The author of the book and the screenwriter stole that idea from me…

While watching the sun set.. time for a walk. The south side of the marina has a very long right angled jetty. I take her all the way to the end, out where it’s private. Sitting on the huge rocks, watching the fading light of the sun, I reach in my pocket and pull out the first of three rings that make up the ring. It’s a band with channel set princess cut diamonds, beautiful on its own. I knew she would be happy with that alone. In silence, I’d slip off the string and put on the ring.

***Pause for the affect***

On the way back, we stop again to rest on the rocks. Stealthily, out comes the engagement ring with the super sparkly––again in silence. Normally a band and an engagement ring would make up a ‘wedding set,’ But I wanted a particularly symmetrical ring so there was one last piece I would save until the opportune moment. I wanted that moment to be on the doorstep of her apartment (across the street from my house) where all the poignant stuff in our relationship happened. And there it would be. Perfect. Simple. Affective. Surprising. All that good stuff. But see, it ain’t work out that way.

Back to Reality…

I’ve got the engagement ring safely in the chest pocket of my button up shirt. The other rings in my pant pockets. We’re cruising in my car up center street toward home, which is uber close to campus. We park the car at my house. She drops off stuff. I fix myself real fast. (Brush teeth, hair, smell-me-good-sauce, all that jazz… cuz it’s going down).

On the way up the hill to campus, I ask her where she’d like to go. I asked about ‘that place up there.’ I acted like I hadn’t been to the new waterful/river/creek manmade concoction up by the bell tower on the extreme northeast side of campus. It’s beautiful and watery so I figured it’d functionize just right to set the right mood. I succeeded in helping her want to show me this new cool place.. a place complete with water and stuff, which was what I needed to pull off the message in a bottle. This was emergency on-the-fly backup plan number one.

I’m about to get carpel tunnel syndrome, however you spell that, I don’t care. I ain’t even half done yet, but I’m still in love with Janica.

That cool place up by the bell tower is only three inches from a small city worth of freshman. They are everywhere and they are young. They’re always out at night traipsing around doing an-extension-of-high-school kind of stuff, in a kosher mormon kinda way.

Based on that possibility alone, I was worried about privacy and interruption for sure. My plans for privacy were further disrupted by a massive World of Dance show that let out precisely as we hit campus. Now, hoards of people mixed with the hoards of freshman. There’s been nothing but hoards of things all night. Crazy.

We proceed. Again, awkward conversation. My mind is rolling on despite the silence. What to do? I just have to give it a shot and hope for the best. At least I smell good and my breath is fresh. But how can I get the bottle in the water without here knowing? How will she find it?

I have had the bottle in my pocket the whole time, since I picked it off the beach. The whole night, I consciously kept that side of me away from Janica. I had left my cell phone and my wallet at home to make room in my pockets for the bottle and the camera.

It’s 9:45 p.m.

We get up to the cool place and it’s not too terribly non-private. Cept there was this dude with his head phones on sitting on the precise bench I had envisioned in my mind. that was the bench. The dude happens to be a freshman dude from Janica’s home town that used to be on Jeopardy. What a coincidence. I hope he doesn’t think I’m a jerk…

Instead of the bench, which was under a street lamp (I really wanted/needed the lamp because the writing on the paper in the bottle was super small and she’d need to read it without any problems), we walked up closer to the waterfall thingy. Beautiful it is. Loud too. Rushing waters. I think to myself, “Self, can I just throw the bottle in the waterfall and hope it floats down stream? or that it would clank on the rocks and attract her attention?” The bottle had to be durable, but how durable? Would it float. I didn’t know.

We snap some pics on the rocks by the waterfall. Awkward amount of time spent there. Lots of awkwardness everywhere around. More couples come and peruse the scene. Finally, I decide against throwing the bottle in the river, at least right there by the waterfall. I’m planning ahead… I threw some random rocks in first, making big splashes, so that throwing things in the water wouldn’t be out of place or questionable if I decided to throw the bottle in the water a bit later.

We walk back to the bench, now unoccupied and still fully lighted. We sit. I think, while humming randomly, and making complete nonsensical comments about ducks and things. There were ducks everywhere. They quack.

More awkward time passes. Millions of awkward milliseconds passed by. Couples kept passing by. More freshman. No privacy anywhere. Salvage the proposal? How would I do it? At this point, she’s got to be on to me. There’s no way I could be this awkward, this long, without her suspecting.

I thought to ask her “how’s your imagination?” And then ask her to close her eyes and imagine that she turned around and found a mysterious bottle on the beach instead. Then the bottle would appear behind her on the sidewalk. Lame. I actually did ask her about her imagination and she was adamant about answering it even after I’d blown the question off without her having to answer it. That was a hint that she was on to me. The element of surprise was slipping away quickly.. in fact, it was long gone. Though I didn’t know for sure. No matter, it was going down.

I needed at least to try to get the bottle in the water. How to do it? Here it is: I forgot my camera on the rock… I really didn’t but I ‘did.’ I tell her so and run to where we were sitting, near the waterfall. I put the camera on the rock, turned away for a split second, and went back for it so I wouldn’t be flat out lying. I was over by myself, in the dark, while she was sitting on the bench, under the light, texting her sister.

Now is my chance to get the bottle in the water. I walk half way back to the lighted bench, to where a huge boulder would somewhat break the line of site between me and her. I duck down close to the water. It’s clear, over a foot deep, with a slight current. Maybe just enough that if the bottle floats, it would drift down toward Janica and the lighted bench. Perfect.

I lean over close to the water and gently drop the bottle in, expecting it to bob back above the surface. My physics were wrong. Duh. No way the little amount of air that the bottle contained would float that thick glass. Too late. It disappeared, falling straight to the bottom.

The bottle was corked so the message would be safe to use again, if I could just get the bottle back. (I didn’t think that ripping off half the cork would weaken the cork enough to let water seep in). The bottle is still in over a foot of water and I can’t see it. There was just barely not enough light to see the little bottle on the bottom. There was a glare on the water and what light there was refracted itself so the bottom of the creek was distorted. I leaned closer to the water to try and abate the glare…

As if nothing was meant to go right, the inevitable happens. In that instant, time stood still. Almost on cue, as I bent down closer to the water, my huge investment and token of love for Janica came hopping out of my chest pocket, where it had sat silently. Maybe it too was impatient with me. It seemed to be laughing.. mocking me with all its simple splendor. The ring bounced off of a rock and plopped into the same water that swallowed my bottle.

It vanished… Worry sets in… then panic.

Despite the pending doom of wasted money and a botched engagement, I managed to chuckle to myself. I felt around for the ring. Thank goodness BYU takes good care of their water works. There was no silt on the bottom for the ring to sink in to. I felt around and quickly got the return of my investment. But the bottle?

There was no other alternative. I wanted to act like I tripped and fell in the water just to add to the irony of the moment. But then I’d have to walk all the way home with wet shoes. And I liked those shoes. I quickly stripped off my socks and shoes and rolled up my jeans and jumped in. Janica is still on the bench all by herself. I felt around and found the bottle standing vertically on the bottom of the creek.

The bottle made it safely back into my pocket. (The water would slowly seep into the bottle through the cork and ruin the note). At this point, it was actually quiet and still all around me. For once… no people. But I hadn’t gotten my ducks in a row.

So, I would just have to pull the ‘imagination’ card I’d previously decided against and play my hand. I came back over to Janica with bare feet, my jeans rolled up, my socks and shoes in my hand, and the bottle tucked in my pocket. She looked at me as if we should have gone to the mental hospital and had her walking home alone. I can only imagine how weird I must have seemed. I was tortured and tired and I just wanted to propose to the girl of my dreams. Please!!

Again we sit. And I with my internal debate as to what in Sam Hill do I do with this butchered situation. I’ll just out and ask her. Forget the bottle. Forget the romance. Forget the surprise. I just want her. I just held her for a while. Seconds later, there comes laughter from my two-o’clock. The laughter gets closer. Sounds like freshmen laughter. You know, the ‘we don’t have a care in the world’ laughter. They’re walking towards us. No privacy.

It was 10:37 p.m.

The kids have freshmanmade boats dangling from their freshman fingers. They come closer and closer. There’s ten of them. Much laughter. Much annoyance. They line up their boats in the water at the head of the little manmade creek, right by us. Camera flashes. Laughing. Freshmen talk. GO!!! Cheering. They are racing their boats down the creek.. Keep racing and racing. It’s a Thursday night. I don’t understand.

I wait. Still wanting to propose to beautiful, patient, understanding and extremely long suffering Janica. But alas, I abandon my plight at the cool place. For over an hour I battled the odds there and came up beaten. There were three other decently romantic ‘bodies of water’ on the way home and thus four more chances, because the door step would be the last resort. All the people who attended the World of Dance production were long gone.

We walk away from the cool place.

Forth to last chance: The little water display between the Museum of Art and the Fine Arts Building. The one with the creepy, weird statues and stuff. That would have been and easy spot. The water is right by the little bench I was thinking of. We approach. There’s two people wrapped all up in themselves already occupying the bench, in it’s entirety. At this point, if they would have left some room, I would have shared the moment with them and proposed to Janica there. We walk away from the forth to last chance.

Third to last chance. The pseudo-neoclassical courtyard at the JFSB. This should have been my last resort because I’ve had a history there already. This is one of my favorite spots. Again, propriety was lost to me at this point. I just wanted to get it done. I hurt emotionally and I was exhausted mentally. We get to the beautiful JFSB fountain…

Immediate shock, awe, and disbelief…

Introducing the ironic/comic relief moment of the century: Already on his knee, was a little boy who was proposing to a very big girl. Shock and awe. But not the shock and awe I was looking for. That ruined it for me. Flat out killed it dead. Not an once of romance was left in me at this point. I had no words. More awkward meaningless mumbling conversation covered up my disgust and frustration.

It was 11:10 p.m.

Second to last chance. The cliche chocolate duck pond south of campus. Eww! I didn’t care. After that last seen of romantic carnage, we were quickly on our way. We passed the old President’s house, which now has a nice garden with a bench we’d occupied once upon a good time. I thought to occupy it once again and end my torture there. No.

We continued down past the Maeser Building, the most iconic building on campus. I considered just sitting on the steps there and popping the question. No. I was headed for the sloping spread of lawn on the south side of the Maeser building where Janica and I had had some meaningful chats. I thought that would be it. Finally!! Peace, privacy, and love. I liked that option better than the chocolate duck pond.

Denied. Two girls who enjoyed each other’s company way too much shot out in boisterous laughter immediately as we approached. Kicking and screaming laughter. The ab work out kind. The kind of laughter you need a gym membership for. Good for them. To me, this was no laughing matter. I no longer cared about the pond. I was tired of walking. Tired of thinking. Tired of the stupid bottle in my pocket. Tired of planning. Tired of caring.. and still in love.

Last chance.

Home.

The doorstep.

A refreshing familiarity.

…Still walking hand in hand, with the bottle in my left pocket. She has perfect hands.

It was 11:30 p.m.

With the last vaporized fumes in my emotional gas tank.. here goes one last shot from the hip. It was going down. I had already made the decision early and I don’t back down. It was going down. It was going down, romantic or not. I’m not even thinking about the bottle at this point. I would just use the three ring staggered shock and awe approach, without the string ring. That’d work. The bottle stays in the left pocket. We sit on the porch…

As if on cue once more, less than 30 seconds later… random person 1 walks by… Random person 2… Person 3… Random couple… Rinse and repeat over and over. No privacy. No romance. Whimsically typical. What else could I expect? So we just sat and sat… on the porch perch.

One of Janica’s best friends and roommate then comes out of a neighboring house and makes straight for us. She is a red head. And a gleeful conversation follows. Of course she is an innocent bystander and has no clue what’s going on. I hadn’t told a soul what I was up to that night. On the bright side, Janica was probably relieved that somebody had common sense enough to talk to her like a normal human being should. I should have been sleeping in white-sheeted bed at the mental hospital.

As if irony had been the mainstay of the evening, Janica’s roommate dares to ask me in a hushed, low whisper, “Hey, you got the ring yet? When you going to ask her? Get on with it will ya!!” If she only knew…

Now, where we live is quite the social place. Three is a crowd, and when there’s a crowd, a gathering shortly commences. One of my best friends sees the crowd and comes over with his computer to rip off some free wireless internet. He sits on the porch with us three. Now we’re four.

Janica’s roommate asks him about the current financial crisis… I was doomed. This was not going to be a short conversation. He’s a financial planner for Merrill Lynch, which company just got bought by Bank of America at $29 a share. “The current financial disaster has it’s roots in the sub-prime mortgage melt down. Do you know what a sub-prime mortgage is?…” And so it goes on and on. Frustration builds to a boiling point… I just wanted one whole minute of semi-romantic privacy. I’m feeling tossed to and fro with every wave of incidental indecency. I am almost numb to it at this point.

Then out comes the entire neighborhood to play with us.

It’s not long before we’re eight, instead of four. Ten. Twelve. The bottle was still buried in my left pocket, safe and unused. My heart, after ripping itself out of my chest, fell on the ground, exhausted and abused. Each new person that joined us to chill out on our signature porch perch stepped on it, sat on it, and made it hurt.

It was over.

It was 11:45 p.m.

I take Janica inside and I say goodnight. I just wanted to hold her forever and cry on her shoulder. She had no idea what I was going through for her. I gave her a kiss goodnight. and let her slip from my grasp. She went to bed. I stashed the bottle and joined the party on the porch outside her place, though not part of me wanted to party.

Everyone was laughing, joking. I was crying inside, struggling to smile at anything. I don’t remember saying a word to anyone. I stood with my hands in my pockets, the bottle no longer there.

I wandered home.

Thoughts. Thoughts. And thinking.

I had resolved to ask Janica to marry me. A raging inferno of debate continued inside my mind and heart. My thoughts festered my heart ached. Wait… I can salvage this. What about the element of surprise? What about romance? Shock? Awe?

Ahhhh… It was perfect.

I would wait until they all went to bed. I would wait until the party dissipated.. until the porch perch was cleared of its community riffraff and we could be alone and together… finally. I would call Janica on the phone until she answered. Her phone would not be on silent. I, knowing well this girl whom I wanted for my wife, knew her phone wasn’t on silent because she uses it as an alarm every night. I would call repeatedly if need be. Yes! Repeatedly. There was no escaping me this time.

She would descend the stairs, half asleep and unawares. Upon opening the door she’d find me on the porch perch all by myself… with nobody around… on my knee… and it would go down with shock and awe. This was nothing how I’d planned it from the start.

Because… if she was on to me and suspecting sumpin was up, surely her hopes would have been dashed as I kissed her goodnight. She’d never expect me to wake her up out of a deep sleep. So that’s what I was gunna do. Bling.

I waited and waited. Thursday was drifting into Friday morning. The party slackened not. Laughing, screaming, laughing, talking. Unabated. I wandered back over to join the fray and maybe encourage a bedtime.

It was 12:15 a.m.

I’d been trying to ask Janica to marry me for the past 7 hours.

Minutes later, another friend shows up. He pops the trunk of his sweet Audi IS4 and pulls out some bedding––Pads, blankets, sleeping bag––and slaps them down on the driveway across the street from where we were. This was a familiar seen. Untimely, but familiar nonetheless. Huh? Three and a half years ago, he used to live next door to me, which is across the street from where Janica lives.

Back in those days, he and his roommates liked to sleep out front on the driveway during the summer nights. This particular night was beautiful, still about 74 degrees. A beautiful night. He’d since moved away but randomly got the itch to sleep under the stars, on the driveway of his old place. This is the only night, of which I am aware, that he’s come back to sleep on the driveway since he’d moved out three and a half years ago. He couldn’t have picked a more disastrous evening to be sleeping on the streets.

***Pause while this last shred of irony sinks in***

He would be sleeping exactly across the street from where I was to propose to Janica. There would be no privacy at any interval that night, for he would surely be privy to my public proposal on the porch perch.

What could I have done more?

It was over.

Janica was in bed. Sleeping beauty. Yet still there would be no privacy on the porch perch.

My personality kicks in again. Getrdone you pansy! I ain’t no quitter bro! I ain’t quit.. ever! As if there was some type of competitiveness within myself, against myself. Again, the same worn out thoughts still thinking themselves through the synapses in my brain. Thinking…

What about the element of surprise? What about romance? Shock? Awe?

Ahhhh… it was perfect.

The Audi.

I asked if I could use the Audi for a few minutes. With a wink, the street sleeping friend agreed to let me take it for a spin. He thought I was just going to take it for a spin. I call Janica…

Phone ringing… Ringing… Ringing…

“Huh.. Hello?” Barely a whisper.

“Hey Girl! How you doin?”

(From somewhere I was able to muster a happy voice. This was it. I knew it. There was no possible way anyone or anything was going to interfere this time. It’d be just me and her. And she wouldn’t be expecting it… shock and awe)

“I was almost asleep.”

“Get dressed and come down stairs. I wanna show you sumpin.”

Click.

A few minutes later she emerges. The party still going on. She sees me in front of her house, in the driver’s seat of the Audi, beckoning her to get in. We were going for a ride in a far sweeter car than my own. This would be a treat for sure. She would think that the reason I woke her up was to go for a joyride in the Audi IS4. It would be a joyride, just not the kind she’d be suspecting.

Now, where to go?

I sift through my mental phone book of potential romantic sites in Provo. I compromise. I just wanted flowers, wherever and whenever I could find them. I didn’t care about the place anymore.

We drive.

She’s in the passenger seat wondering if I’ll finally make my way home, to check myself in at the Utah State Mental Hospital. I’m taking corners and testing the throttle as if that’s the show for the evening. I make conversation about how bomb the car is.

I’m trixie.

We end up in the parking lot below the Y mountain trail. I park for 15 seconds. I didn’t see any flowers and I didn’t want to share the moment with a dozen other parked people.

We drive on. Fun.

I find flowers. Not where I’d thought they’d be.

It was almost perfect though. It was simple. The flowers looked like daisies, Janica’s favorite flower. In a rush of adrenaline and masculinity, I remembered my sacred romantic duty. This was it. The saga ends here.

I flip the car around and pull over… parking completely crooked. I didn’t care. It was dark, nobody around. We were finally alone and  unencumbered by mosquitoes, freshmen, or community riffraff.

We’d pulled over next to a vacant lot on an empty street.

Finally, a finality to stamp on this 8 hour escapade.

Now parked. She wonders what the heck is going on. I say one, romantic, pointed phrase in explanation.

“Get out of the car.” (I was playing for the shock and awe at this point).

Lest I forget my propriety. I end up opening the door for her…

The flowers were right there. I reach to break off a flower. As Janica watches, I struggle to break off the flower. Embarrassment anyone? The affect of the uncooperative flower in light of what I was about to do…

Finally it breaks free. She’s still looking at me wide-eyed and wonder-filled. Still wondering about my sanity. (As if this was the blandest story, to add some salt, turns out I’d subconsciously picked the ugliest, most busted, unkempt flower of the bunch.. I picture Sigmund Freud rolling over in his grave). That just warmed my heart.

With the flower clutched in my fingers, I pause and look at her. She’s beautiful. There was something about this moment that just made her more beautiful than I’d ever seen her. The street light shown down on us as if it was held in place by heaven’s angels. It was as if I was emotionally coming home after I’d been away for years at sea.

“This is for you.. [pause] Janica, what I’ve been trying to do this whole night is propose to you.”

“Are you serious?!?!?!?”

I smile. This was my time to shine y’all. I wanted to keep the question simple. I could have been wordy, but it would have killed the affect.

I take her hand. Hit the knee. And ask her using the most traditional language possible.

In response, she says just one word. A dignified, simple word.

All in one motion, I have the first of the three rings that would make up the whole ring in my hand.

In another motion, I slip it on her finger.

“Here’s to a great start.”

“It’s gorgeous.” She said.

I hold her off the ground. A simple kiss on the forehead for her.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” She whispers into my ear. I smile to myself. Precious moment.

She would have been content with that one ring. I knew that. But again, all in one motion, I slip the engagement ring on her finger. (I got the ‘all in one motion’ thing down).

“I hope this fits on there too.”

“What???” She asks softly in disbelief.

I hold her again. Simple kiss.

All in one motion I pull out the third piece and in silence slip that one on her finger. She’s utterly speechless and almost hyperventilating at this point.

She loves the ring… She loves the ring! She loves the ring!!!

That’s what I’m talking about. A swell of pride and testosterone…

Felicitous joy. Permanent smiles… Giddy little grown up schoolchildren.

We’d been gone only 15 minutes.

It was 1:03 a.m.

For sake of this marathon story extending even longer, this is where the proposal story ends. Naturally, upon finding out the news, people freak out. There was a lot of freaking out that night. And not just by Janica and me. Back at the party scene, Janica’s sister was the first to know.. then it snowballed.

Now, at this point I’m certainly relieved, exhausted, and absolutely overjoyed. It’d been a terribly beautiful night. Waves of fluctuating emotions. The day had been difficult. I was met with frustration after frustration, stifled at every turn. Yet I continued. The end was beautiful.

After looking at the ring, which Janica loved to show off, the next question people asked was how it went down. Hmmm… I had no simple answer for that, seeing how’d I spent the last 8 hours proposing to Janica.

As I recounted the story the first time, the raw entertainment value began to sink in a
nd lacking the energy to recount the story over and over to every inquirer, here I sit, typing.

Now she got the ring bling thing.

The ‘big day’ happens on November 29th. We couldn’t be happier. Seriously.

I am in love with Janica. Period.

The end.

P.S. If you read all the way to this point, Janica and I have taken up a lot of your time. I only ask that you please take up some of our time and write a comment or two below. We’d love to hear your two cents! We’ve enjoyed so much your comments! Keep ‘em coming!!

UPDATE: Again, congratulations on making it all the way through. Go get your reward… Janica has decided to publish her side of the story. The plot thicken-izes… right here. And as always if you like this kinda of stuff you can subscribe to the RSS feed or get automatic updates via email so you won’t miss any future crazy stuff.

What do you say when you have nothing to say? What are you saying when you say nothing at all?

If I had nothing to say, I prolly wouldn’t say anything. At least nothing would come out of my mouth. Its just up to you to decide what it is I mean by the silence.

Having nothing to say, or just saying nothing, doesn’t mean that you have nothing to say, necessarily. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Your loud silence speaks a library full of possibilities, you just don’t get to control what it is that people are assuming you are saying through the silence. Silence can be very ‘potent’.

By saying nothing at all, you leave your audience in a most awkward quandary for each is left to divine what the heck it is you mean by your ‘stinking’ silence.

Call me crazy, but I just ain’t a good diviner sometimes.

Silence could mean pretty much anything. Here’s a few ideas. Silence could meant that..

1. I’m speechless. I’d rather stare at you because the depths of your beauty are infinite and the words that I would say wouldn’t even scratch the surface.
2. The value of that which I am about to speak is not worth the time and effort associated with speaking it.
3. I am not ready to tell you what I am actually dying to tell you.
4. You are not ready to hear what I am actually dying to tell you.
5. I’m too ignorant to explain it.
6. You’re too ignorant to understand what I’m about to say.
7. The timing isn’t right.
8. The timing is too good and I’m a chicken liver.
9. I don’t have enough time.
10. I am thinking so many things that it’s a veritable impossibility to speak them all, so in silence I remain. The classic paralysis by analysis.
11. I’m just not any good with words so I’d rather you guess what the heck I’m thinking and I’ll tell you if you’re hot or cold. (A silent invitation to play 20 questions).
12. If you’re a girl, your silence is because you assume that the dude can and has read your subtle ‘signals’. He should know what you’re thinking anyways.
13. I’m boring.
14. You’re boring.
15. I’m too tired and I don’t want to talk about it.
16. You talk too much and I need a break.
17. I’ve talked for the last hour straight. It’s your turn.
18. You have something in your teeth and I’m too embarrassed to tell you.
19. This date is over.
20. I just passed some mean gas and I don’t want anyone to think it was me so I keep my mouth shut, or plug my nose and keep my mouth open so I can breathe.

It may be better to just speak up and say it was you ;)

The silence raises a lot of questions doesn’t it? Makes a body wonder what is meant by the silence. Even through the silence you can almost hear the neurons at work in that thought factory thinking up stuff.

By not saying anything at all, you’re saying a whole lot.

Bling.

Oh, just had an after thought. You remember that green Geico gecko. He’s cute right? What would he say when he says nothing at all? He’d probably say something like “You could save a boatload of money on your car insurance by switching to Geico.” If you’re in Houston he’d say, “you could save a boat load of money on your Houston auto insurance.” In Houston, they don’t have car insurance, it’s auto insurance. Go figure.

Life is like a blender AND maybe like a box of chocolates too, but for this post, more like a blender please. Yes, I’m serious. Yes, I’m serious.

Electric blenders are mysteriously cool and supremely advantageous and somewhat necessary in order to live a convenient life full of convenience and smoothies. (My sister has one of them Vitamix deals that are just really unreal).

With a blender, almost unlike any other machine known to mankind, random unkempt stuff that seems like it shouldn’t go together, just does somehow.. in a smooth kind of way.

All you do is throw a bunch of produce, or fruit. or junk food or healthy food or gourmet food or last month’s leftovers or all of the above in to the pitcher thingy with the sharp twirly thingies attached to the bottom of it, throw the plastic/rubber lid thingy on top, and hit the GO button. Then you just let it go.. and it does its thang.

(The mildly disruptive part of smoothie making) After you hit the GO button, you just might need to hold your hands over your ears and do all you can to make it through the deafening 100db noise without pulling your hair out in convulsive spasms. You’ll be rewarded if you do. (If you have a Vitamix though, the thing just purrs even when it’s blending up blatant nastiness).

Seconds later, the good part. de-lid the thingy and pour the pure n tasty smoothie-ness into your smoothie catcher cup. The whole deal is vaguely miraculous. Imagine.. ungood food can come out good all of a sudden, as if it was always meant to be good.. even vegetables. Because let’s be honest, the foods’ true identity had just been hidden under an unblended shield ever since I was a kid. (My mom wishes she had known the secret) Bummer, now the secret’s out.

So where’s the miracle?

This is what’s miraculous: You can throw rough stuff and hard stuff and wet stuff and dry stuff in the same blend and they’ll all come out smooth (I’m assuming that you and I are both thinking about biodegradable stuff.. you know, like food, not rocks).

What does this have to do with life? Check this out. We all of a “blender of life” so to speak. Life is full of ungood stuff (and of course good stuff too, but let me prove a point). You know, the kind of stuff that just hurts the mind, body, and soul. Emotional, physical, spiritual rough stuff that just needs to be smoothie-fied or just blended somehow… if it were possible… at the “bearable” speed. Life gets hard sometimes.

Here’s the punch line: Zoom out. Luckily we have a Master Blender who has an eternal-sized magic blending machine that has the ability to make EVERYTHING smooth again, even though the “everything’s” roughness would seem overbearing or insurmountable or permanent. With the touch of the Master Blender, somehow, our life, as rough and as tough and complicated as it may seem, can all come out happily smooth again… that’s a miracle of astronomic proportions.

At times, I’ve felt like I’ve put all the wrong ingredients in my own “blender of life.” But somehow, with the touch of the Master Blender, I’ve come out with beauty abounding and smoothie-ness all around.

The inspiration for this post: After years of butchering bachelorhood… finally getting the right consistency.

Bling.

Today is April 6th, a special day with special meaning for me. I believe in Christ and know that he lives. I want to be like him. I wish to share a recent experience that brought me closer to Christ with the idea that maybe it might be for some substance or meaning to you, even if you don’t believe in Christ.

A couple weeks ago I was in Indiana on business. The week went by quickly as almost every minute of every day and half the night was demanded of us. Late Thursday we were driving through South Bend on I-80 in route to Chicago to catch a red-eye out of O’Hare the next morning. We stopped for some refreshment at the fabled Taco Bell just off Michigan Avenue.

We were both aching for food as we hadn’t had time to eat anything since an early lunch, it was nearly midnight. Just minutes after we received our food, and having the window still rolled down, we were approached by a homeless man.

I have had some experience with the homeless—and I haven’t been as brotherly kind as I ought to have been. I have given of my substance and have left them wanting. I’ve struggled in the past to decide which is appropriate. Do they really need the money? Are they professional beggars? What will they do with the money? Are they really homeless? This one experience helped clarify my confusion. I will leave you to decide for yourself, given the impact, for whatever its worth, of this story.

When approached by homeless, I typically acknowledge their plight and move on without much more than a thought or two. Knowing the great effect eye contact has in creating persuasion, I would try and avoid eye contact altogether. If you look them in the eye, they can catch your attention just long enough to set into their spiel wherein they create an awkward sense of obligation that makes you offer a compensation of some sort. Those on the streets of New York are particularly keen at this.

In the parking lot of Taco Bell, we were approached by a homeless man we later came to know as Willy. He looked much more kempt than most and had a smile on his face. Willy was different, and we quickly came to know just how different he was. His attitude caught me off guard, and succeeded in catching my enough of my attention that I caught his eyes. I said “hi” to Willy with half a soft taco in my mouth—which action was signal enough to encourage him to start his employment.

The painful truth is that my first reaction was to roll my eyes, inwardly, and continue eating my food in front of him, almost as if I invalidated his very existence and didn’t have time to care.

All feeling and empathy in my heart fell head-long into a pile of shame; because for the next 20 minutes we listened to Willy deliver a supremely persuasive and deeply moving speech that could rival Lincoln’s second inaugural address. I ate my thoughts and my initial reaction for dinner and ended up giving him the rest of my soft taco aliment. I couldn’t imagine a more effectually efficient speech, and coming from such an unanticipated source no less. Being familiar with some principles of persuasion and having crafted persuasive speeches myself, I was absolutely dumbfounded at the impact his little ditty made on me. Both my partner and I were literally moved to tears.

He told his story of financial ruin and how anybody’s financial house of cards can be easily and unexpectedly blown to the ground with random gusts of unforeseen wind. He had family in Houston that was well off, but the shame of sharing his dire circumstance has kept him from contacting them. He’d been injured, laid off and now homeless in a matter of three short months… and he’s still injured because he can’t get proper care.

Willy was eloquent. He was real and grammatically correct—even politically correct. He was sincere and obviously educated. His dress was relatively clean and his teeth were white. He was a common stouthearted man fallen upon hard times and there was nothing typical about him.

As he finished, we tried desperately to hide our emotions. That was awkward as there was nowhere to hide them. We got out of the car, talked to Willy, shook his hand, and gave him encouragement along with every last scrap of the gourmet food we had extracted from Taco Bell. He gratefully accepted the food with an even more indebted-like Willy smile. We then took a few minutes and crossed the street to pull some money out of an ATM. By the time we had returned, he had eaten as much of the food as he was going to and saved the rest for his wife who was cooped up in a women’s shelter. We committed Willy to sweep the parking lot at a nearby church, just as he had done many times before for just $4. Our monetary gift was prepayment and deservedly more.

Ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.” (Mosiah 4:16)

Now, I may never know what truth or error was spoken in Willy’s speech or what his reality really was. I may never know if you actually swept that parking lot or not. And verily that’s not the point here. What I can know is that a needy man, who sought for understanding from a man who wouldn’t normally offer understanding, got it loud and clear. My once cold heart turned lukewarm. I understood Willy.

There may be fastidiously irrelevant ethics or politics involved in situations like these, but that’s not the point here either. We can be a little more understanding, a little more caring, a little more like Christ. I can give more than just my substance. I can give my understanding and my care, and “not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.” (2 Cor. 9:7)

Willy is someone’s son, someone’s father, someone’s brother. But above all, he is a child of God, just like you and me. What can we cheerfully give?

Think upon that and interpret as you may.

Bling.

How would the outcome of the American Revolution have been affected had George Washington sulked, pouted, and licked his wounds after he and his army were ousted from New York City in one of the largest battles of the American Revolution—the Battle of Brooklyn? Hmm.. Instead, in hindsight, that battle became a turning point…

Though it was the Colony’s first encounter with a newly reinforced and refreshed opposition, Washington’s expectations were never sullied. And though he always demanded his troops’ best, he was not a perfectionist because he understood what his best was—having had extensive wartime experience—and how his best differed from the best of his troops.

At the same time, he did what most perfectionists can’t. He understood that what his novice army had to give may not be up to par with his own personal best. At New York in the fall of 1776, he knew his men had given their best. That is a victory. Their best amounted to a loss on paper, but a success over all. For many, they now had a starting point from which to measure their future successes and their future expectations. They knew what they were up against. They knew the competition.

What’s beautiful to the unperfectionist in this representation is that an untrained, makeshift army faced overwhelmingly stout odds with unfettered courage—without knowing what their best really was. They didn’t know their potential. Most men of the Revolution had never fought before, yet they fought and they fought with their lives. The loss at New York was a learning experience. The opposition had been reorganized and reinforced with over 12,000 trained, uniformed soldiers—no doubt an unsettling and fearsome sight to the untrained and largely un-uniformed glorified militia. This demanded that the revolutionists raise the bar… and they did.

This devastating loss could have crushed the revolution. The colonists had lost their New York City stronghold which was the heart of their operation. Washington lost over 5,000 men to death and imprisonment. He was chased from New York, through New Jersey, and across the Delaware with scant supplies, weary soldiers, and freezing temperatures. It was then that Thomas Paine wrote his most famous line “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Those are the times that demand one’s best.

Despite the loss, somehow, Washington succeeded in rallying his band to perform at such a high level that it would seem beyond their capacities. A stealthy Christmas Day crossing of the Delaware River into New Jersey overtook their opposition and regained lost ground by out maneuvering and overpowering an organized, uniformed opposition—albeit a host of 12,000 or more.

In essence, George Washington was able to incrementally increase his troops’ output by helping them realize their potential and understand what they were capable of giving, while maintaining their expectations. He encouraged and prodded his men to continue on, to not give up, to forge ahead, to give, to do what they could. That was their best.

Now Ask Yourself…

Ye all perfectionists… with this story on your mind try this perplexing thought on for size: What is your best? And pause to think…

Or perhaps try it this way: Did those who crossed the Delaware that awesome night know they were giving their best while they were giving it? How do you know you’re doing your best while doing it? What does your best look like? What does it feel like?

At the Battle of Brooklyn, a raw and biting loss, did the men that fought there give their best? How could they know… seeing how most had never fought before? How can you know your best if you’ve never “fought” before? How could they know that they were even capable of winning back their lost territory by forging a river in the middle of the night to fight an army four times the size of their own? The men at Brooklyn were willing to give their lives for a cause. For some, that’s all they had to give. They gave and kept giving. That was enough. That was their best.

Sometimes we perfectionists get caught up in measuring ourselves against others’ achievements whilst in the heat of the battle, per se. That hesitation and indecision will kill you dead in battle every time. So don’t even go there dude. You can’t know your best in the midst of battle, just fight.

Manage Your Expectation

This applied principle serves to show the brilliance of George Washington. He did not demand that his troops achieve results equal to what his own would have been had he fought at the front lines with the infantries. He understood incremental, yet steady progression. He did demand that each man give his best—whatever that best was it didn’t matter—and rely on God for resolution. He knew they were finally capable of a heroic retaliation.

Like with Washington’s men, whatever your best is, understand that your best is completely yours. Your best is not the best of someone else. Your best is not your neighbors. It’s not your bosses, or brother’s or sister’s, or pastor’s, or teacher’s, or evangelist’s, or so forth’s. Your best is not the best of Hollywood’s finest. Your best is not the captain of the football team’s best. Your best may not be the best of the valedictorian’s… it may be better. Your best is yours. And you are the only one that can dictate what your best is. Create your best and then recreate it.

That said, or written, sometimes in life it becomes our turn to courageously do things we’ve never done before—to expand the reaches of personal accomplishment to include higher and higher levels of difficulty and achievement. Still, at other times, we are left to claw, crawl, and slurp through harsher and harsher realities that make basic survival the end goal and focus. In these difficult or harsher times, as in most times, we can’t know what our best is in foresight because our best is most often found in uncharted territory—like the heretofore unheard of surreptitious Christmas day crossing of the Delaware. There are few things in life that we cannot try, try again to achieve increasingly better results as our best builds on our previous best.

Yet still, sometimes we can only give, or only do. Sometimes we can only survive, or just make it through. If you keep moving and doing and making it through, perhaps in hindsight you will realize that what you gave and what you did and the way you made it through, no matter the quantity of giving or the outcome, was in fact your very best. Then you can do what most perfectionists can’t and smile wide and long to yourself, knowing that you’ve given your best. Then next time, set your previous best as your expectation and work to beat that mark.

Know that whatever amount your best is, you can’t know it while staring it in the face. Accomplish first, as you may, and then look at what you’ve accomplished. That is your best today. Your best is not found in the accomplishing but in the post-satisfaction of accomplishment.

In a basketball game I scored 56 points. I had a triple double. Our team won the game. As the mini-celebration commenced afterwards, I went off by myself to sulk. What? Typical perfectionist behavior. To the congratulations that I was offered, I would respond, “Yeah, I can’t believe I missed that last shot though.” My thoughts were not upon jubilation and merriment. I found myself focusing on the open shot I missed in the closing seconds of the game as if that one miss deemed my entire performance a catastrophic failure. I could not see the overall success because I was focused entirely upon one small mishappenstance (my word). I was a perfectionist who was entirely unfamiliar with my best. Looking back, I couldn’t have played any better. That was my best and I couldn’t see it for what it was. Don’t be like that. That is so un-Washington-like and ridiculous.

Be steady, work hard, keep working, keep moving, and just make it through. Do that and you’ll find, like Washington’s brazened hosts, that the yesterday’s best makes the outlook of tomorrow’s best a happy thought that fosters anticipation, excitement, and content without the perfectionist’s paralyzing dread.

Bling.

The title of this post is a bit misleading. And maybe it’s the title itself that I want to soapbox about. How can anyone know what quarter of life they are currently in? Nobody knows when their life-clock will fall silent. Mine could malfunction and rupture itself beyond repair tomorrow afternoon or in 50 years. Only the Clockmaker knows.

If it is tomorrow, that would by default deem the first six years of my life as the necessary encasement of any applicable quarter-life crises. Luckily, I didn’t care for much more than He-Man underwear, soccer balls, and a naked Ken doll back then (Hey, my sisters wouldn’t let me play with them unless I had one).

What could have been my quarter-life crisis back then? It might have something to do with my dad’s literal use of “Labor Day” or Santa’s bad habit of favoring the other kids at Lea Hill Elementary and not me.

Yeah, if you didn’t watch the news last night, as of today, I’m every bit of 26 years, 3 months, and 6 days old. Okay, the news last night has nothing to do with it. Point is, I’m 26 and though I mentioned quarter-life crisis, I have no intention of actually living until I’m 105 years and 24 days old (though my Great Grandpa is nearly 102 and doing just fine). Crisis or not, linear timing really has nothing to do with the crisis itself does it?

That aside.. most “quarter-life crises” have to do with selecting a profession of permanence and value.

Why does anyone care what he or she wants to do with themselves? Does it matter aside from the basic free market principles of marketplace specialization and the “Invisible Hand” (Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nation economic stuff—yeah, I remember a bit from Econ 110)? What does it matter to you?

###Of course I have my own ideas and convictions but I’m really curious as to what you think###

Talk amongst yourselves.

Or, a much better alternative, if there’s any of y’all out there who would like to salt the tip jar a bit, post your comments below. Just click on the “Add a Comment” link at the bottom of the post or if there are already a number of comments click on “n Comments.” The page will reload a bit and a place for you to enter your comment or “Say Your Peace” as I like to put it, will make itself available.

Bling.

Kudos to my good buddy Russell. In one of his comments on a previous post he mentioned how he wants “more superficial information” like how to hit a golf ball 400 yards with a 3 wood. So this post goes out to all y’all who want a more superficial side of Seth. (If there’s actually “y’all” out there—which word suggest a plurality of audience members). For a future date, Rusty suggested a tutorial on how to cut your own hair, which thing I’m quite good at seeing how I haven’t paid anyone to cut my hair for years. Stay tuned for that one. This post’s about my favorite leisure activity and a unique ability to hit a golf ball a really long way… under special circumstances…

Being that Rusty has given me the green light to be superficial I might talk about myself a little bit here. It’s true. I’ve hit a golf ball over 400 yards numerous times with many witnesses (but never with a 3 wood, sorry Rusty). In some sense that puts me in an elite club. I don’t know what that “club” should or would be, but if there was one that had anything to do with hitting a golf ball 400 yards I might qualify by a few yards.

My brief golfing history: I hit my first 300 yard drive when I was 14 years old with a 3-wood on Fore Lakes Golf Course in West Valley City, Utah (not much of a course, just a little 9 hole executive). I made my first birdie on that same hole. I started golfing with a used set of clubs my uncle had given me. It’s been a little while since then. I’m much bigger now or taller at least with a little bit longer and a somewhat shinier clubs that are more explicitly functional (Mizuno MP30’s 2-PW, X-stiff Dynamic Gold +2 steel shafts, bent 3 degrees upright). I’ve never had a lesson in my life, but since high school I’ve somehow been able to flirt with scratch golf (I did more flirting in high school…) and I’ve won every long drive contest in every tournament I’ve been in outside of collegiate or prep sports. (If you don’t know what “scratch” is then don’t worry about it).

Nobody in my family really plays much golf, except my uncle, so I don’t know to whom I can attribute my golf mediocrity other than Tiger Woods himself. (No, he’s not on my speed dial but I got close enough to him one time that I could have punched him in the face had I wanted to). As A kid I would record every single tournament he played in the was broadcast on national television to watch it over and over through out the following week. Thus, I’m very much self-taught, or I just did what Tiger did. So this post is as unprofessional as is my golf.

PAUSE: I better watch it. This golf subject is way too enjoyable for me and I know way too much about way too much meaningless golf stuff. I can talk about golf for hours or days even, which would mean I can write about it for even longer. Straight to the point…

3 Critical Points to Hitting a Golf Ball 400 Yards

DISCLAIMER: I have two things to my advantage. First, I’m coordinated. Second, I’m 6’10”. Most of you have the former, but not the letter. The latter gives me all the advantage in the world to hit a golf ball 400 yards, if I have the former. (Being tall plays a different role when you actually try to score well in golf, in that sense it’s better to be a lot a bit shorter).

A golf club is a lever and you know what Archimedes said about levers and fulcrums, “Give me lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world.” Yeah, I’ve got long… fulcrums and levers and stuff. So don’t you worry about what you can’t control, just do these three things and you’ll perform just fine.

Critical point number one: Forget everything that has anything to do with Happy Gilmore as it refers to golf. The movie is good entertainment sure, but it has given people an incrdibly false perception about golf in more ways than just how to hit a golf ball 400 yards. From a golfer’s viewpoint, from my viewpoint, the show is a disgrace to the game of golf, but albeit entertaining.

Always remember this: it is mechanically impossible for someone to hit a golf ball 440 yards swinging like Happy Gilmore. It’s not going to happen. You may think that “swinging harder” will make the ball go farther, but in golf, that’s just not the case. You can’t run up to a ball and swing as hard as you can and make the ball go any further. Don’t think so? Try me, I’ll give you a driver and I’ll take my 7 iron and I’ll out drive you by 50 yards. I only hit my 7 iron 205-207 yards. Distance is not about swinging hard, it’s about a lot of things that have nothing to do with swinging hard. Hitting the ball is mostly about proper timing and synchronization of your hips and shoulders. Almost as important are your stance, grip, ball position, and ball striking. None of those have anything to do with swinging hard. If you’ve ever seen Ernie Els hit a golf ball you’ll know why he’s called the Big Easy. He’s one of the longest drivers on the PGA tour. Check this…

Critical point number two: Tee the ball up higher and don’t rest your club on the ground prior to takeaway and place the ball all the way forward in your stance. This is critical. I use 3” tees (must be white and wooden). Don’t be afraid to tee it up and rip it. The top of the club face should hit the ball right at its equator. Beginners don’t tee the ball up high enough and when they do they’ll pop it straight up in the air because they rest their club on the ground before they swing and flub it.
Most people rest their driver on the ground prior to takeaway and skim the surface of the grass during the backswing. I got news for you. Your brain is accurate enough to help your muscles create a specific muscle memory point. Your downswing will likely return to that point, nip the grass (or plow it), and hit the clubface way above the sweet spot instead of right smack in the middle of it. The result is a weak shot. Don’t do that. Hover the club barely above the grass at setup, tee the ball up accordingly.

The reason why you must place the ball all the way forward in your stance (straight off your big toe) is because you want your driver to do what it’s meant to do. That may sound stupid, but it’s true. Your swing with your driver is different than with 3 woods from the turf, utility clubs, irons, wedges and putters. Your swing is shallow and wide; more “oval” than any other shot. . The impact point with the driver should be just before the club begins to ascend. The impact point with all other clubs, except a 3 wood off the tee, is descending. Just get used to teeing the ball forward and swinging wide and shallow.

Okay, that was three points, lucky you.

Critical point number three: For me, this one factor has made all the difference and has turned my mediocrity into superhuman strength. Have girl problems. I’ve hit my longest drives while releasing large amounts of dating and relationship stress in the form of focused adrenaline. Just get it all out man… and let it go. Just let it go. For those of you who don’t have girl problems, I’m sorry, but 400 yards is a bit far without that superhuman edge.

All in all, it should look like something like this. I even give you two swings for the price of one. (This shot is with a standard 45″ Titleist 905R with a Fujikura Speeder shaft).

Bling.