25 Things All About ME!

This is a repeat of something I got tagged to do on Facebook yesterday...I just can't get enough of spreading my influence through cyberspace.





1. I have eaten at McDonalds in 9 countries. I hope to make it an even 10 this coming summer.

2. Last summer over the course of 10 days I traveled through Germany by plane, by train, by bus, by tram, by car, by motorcycle, by bicycle, and by moped...I think I'm only missing a boat ride.

3. When I was in elementary school and jr. high I was absolutely obsessed with the spelling bee. When I was in sixth grade I missed the word "piccolo" in the school spelling bee (how embarrassing, right?--I spelled it "piccollo") and was awarded 4th place. The top three got to go to the county bee and I was extremely outraged because the girl to whom they awarded third place misspelled her word in the same round that I did, but had drawn a later number so she got out "after me". According to the official rules,however, when this happens the two spellers are actually declared to have a "tie" and a spell-off is supposed to occur, in this case to determine who would win third place. There was no spell-off. Immediately after the bee I went directly to the principal, found the rule in the rulebook that specifically stated there should have been a spell-off and DEMANDED that they follow the rules. He pretended that I was misinterpreting the rulebook and didn't do anything about it. I went home and cried for hours. No joke. I'm still a little bitter, if you can't tell... The next year I did better--3rd place in the county bee. I misspelled "abdicate." (I spelled it "abdocate.") That was a long entry for number 3, so moving on...

4. In rereading this note I found that I skipped #4...I haven't grown an inch since I was 15 years old.

5. I love the Russian language and still study it on my own every day. This week's vocab list includes "aardvark", "acorn", and "acupuncture."

6. I have never lived in the same place for more than 5 years.

7. I am the only one of my grandfather's natural grandchildren that is not a twin.

8. The most gratifying and beneficial part of my undergrad experience was my employment at my school's music library.

9.I took my first steps in a library. Now I work in one.

10. Iowa is probably my favorite place I have lived in the US. No joke. Even though everything that could possibly have gone wrong since I moved here has gone wrong, I absolutely love living here. It will be hard to leave.

11. I have been to 13 foreign countries, but never to Canada.


12. I shared a bedroom in a hostel with two girls from Denmark and a girl from Montreal for two nights last summer. They were all taller than me.

13. When I was in elementary school I was obsessed with the Chronicles of Narnia. I would watch the BBC live-action film version of the books with the neighbor kids constantly. We knew them so well that we would act them out verbatim beginning-to-end in our yards.

14. My feelings concerning the last year of my undergrad and the following months can best be summed up by the first three tracks on the Dixie Chicks album "Taking the Long Way." I think Natalie Maines and I would be friends.

15. Over the course of this decade I have only been in the USA for the 4th of July four times.

16. I was always the youngest kid in my class until I got to the 10th grade.

17. I spent over eight hours on a train last summer sitting next to a drunk Russian who accused me of being an American spy. (This accusation came after he thought for the first four hours of the train ride that I was from Latvia.) His logic for determining that I was a spy was based on the fact that I spoke Russian and don't drink alcohol.

18. When I was in kindergarten I was reading at the 3rd-grade level but my teacher wanted to hold me back because I had "trouble using scissors." Thank you South Dakota education system. (In the end, I still went on to the first grade.)

19. When I was in eastern Germany and in Russia last summer I pondered a lot about the fact that 20 years ago our countries were bitter enemies yet here I was hanging out and living among my German and Russian friends. I thought a lot during this time about our grandfathers, who all probably fought against each other during World War II. I am sure that they (our grandfathers) would have been very proud to see their grandchildren two generations later together as friends. That experience made me feel very close to my grandfather who fought in the war but died before I was born.

20. I don't have a problem eating a slab of solid pig fat (it's a delicacy in Russia) but I think that drinking milk straight out of a glass is DISGUSTING.

21. The longest I have gone without a haircut is eleven months.

22. I have an amazingly insightful, funny, and poignant blog. Read it! (heintz57.blogspot.com) :)

23. i drive a 1990 Buick Park Avenue. I call it the Albino Rhino.

24. I have stuck my feet in the Mediterranean from both the European and African sides.

25. Despite the reassuring efforts of many, I still feel that I have not accomplished anything of real value with my life. This pains me sometimes.

Things that happen to me when it is 30 below zero...

-my nostrils stick together when I inhale rapidly through my nose (quite enjoyable).
-My left eye starts this weird little twitch and I get momentarily scared that my contact is going to pop out.
-I let my mind get boggled by thinking too much about how it could possibly be 110 degrees warmer in LA than it is in Iowa right now
-I get asked questions about driving a car in anarctic-like temperatures that I have no idea how to answer
-my lower thighs (area right above the knee) start freezing to a point that it feels like they're burning
-When I leave my apartment in the morning with my hair still wet, I like reaching back and feeling the frozen curls that stick out under my beanie
-I wake up in the early morning and the first thought that pops into my head is "I don't want to go outside."
-The end of my nose starts tingling and I immediately become paranoid that it's frostbite
-I get the weird desire to stick my tongue to a metal pole...
-I have nothing to do at night other than sit at home and watch "House" because I can't muster the determination to open my front door and feel the instant chill.
-I give in and turn up the thermostat from 68 to 70.
-And finally, I get really rather sad when I think that this will probably be the only insanely cold Iowa winter that I'll get to endure

German Coast Guard????

I've shown this to actual Germans and even they thought it was funny!!

guilty as charged........

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/23/19-travelling/

OK, first off: click on the title of this post, which will take you to the link that I just pasted on here. Read the linked article and then return hear to read my ever-so-insightful commentary on the matter.

K, assuming that you just did what I told you to do, you can now continue to read the rest of my wisdom which I am so willing to disperse.

Things the article of this blog accuses white people (more directly: me) of:

-"travel is not only beloved but absolutely essential in their development as white people." True.
-"Every white person takes at least one trip to Europe between the ages of 17-29." Easy. Try three with a fourth one in the works. And let's not forget that little "warm up" trip at the age of 16.
-"During this time they are likely to wear a back pack, stay at a hostel, meet someone from Ireland/Sweden/Italy with whom they have a memorable experience, get drunk, see some old churches and ride a train." Well, I had memorable experiences with two girls from Denmark, which is practically Sweden I suppose. As far as getting drunk, well...not quite, but I do have a funny story from Paris Trip '01 that deserves to be told at another time. (Don't worry for all you faithfuls whose jaws just dropped--I was completely oblivious.) 'Yes' to backpack. 'Heck yes' to hostels. And 'yes' on the trains.
-"they return to North America with ideas of writing novels and screenplays about their experience." Does keeping a blog about your trip(s) and then constantly blogging about it/them for months to come count?
-"Upon returning home, they will also find an affinity for a particular beer or liquor from a country they visited." OK, they were a little off on this one, but I do have Paris Trip '07 to thank for helping me find Cola Lite (aka Diet Coke).
-"The second type of white person travel is Third World. This is when they venture to Thailand, Africa or South America. Some do it so that they can one up the white people who only go to Europe." Um, duh...plus it looks really cool to have stamps in Arabic on your passport. It totally wins the chicks over...oh wait.
-"white people like to believe they are the first white people to make this trip. As such, they should be recognized as special and important individuals." I've always known that--thank you Captain Obvious.

The Epic of the Measuring Stick

What an eye-catching title for a blog post, don't you think? The following post will someday be compared to the great epics of our time---Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, The Mighty Ducks--take your pick. It will also undoubtedly join the ranks of the great Hollywood screenplays (Casablanca, On the Waterfront, She's the Man--once again, take your pick), but lucky enough for all you readers, you are the first people to ever become familiar with the Epic of the Measuring Stick--you are the proud, the few.

It all started with a measuring stick and three spoiled kids from an unnamed university.



(Not actual measuring stick. The real one was a shiny silver aluminum.)

Previously mentioned spoiled children had been given an all-inclusive trip to the Mediterranean coast of Italy to give presentations at a library convention of all things. One of these spoiled children (we'll call her "Darcy") borrowed a metal measuring stick from the library of previously unnamed university (for your convenience, we'll just refer to it from now on as "BYU") to aid her in a poster she had designed as part of her presentation.

Our story will begin in Naples where the measuring stick had an eventful week sitting in its hotel room eating truffles and witnessing the literal meltdown of a computer (there will be some great CGI for this in the movie) but like all good things, the vacation had to end. Darcy had the unfortunate circumstance of getting to go backpacking through Italy with her father for two weeks following Naples (poor thing) and didn't have room for the measuring stick in her backpack. (Looking back on it, there wouldn't have been room for an entire computer either---did you plan that explosion for your own convenience, Darcy????) Because of this, the responsibility was dealt to me to assure that the measuring stick made its way back home to the BYU library halfway around the world. It was a responsibility I was willing to accept, but little did I know the looming trouble this would bring upon me. (At this point in the movie-version there will be some element of foreshadowing--maybe a new leitmotif in the score or some clever camera angle. We're still working out the details.)

My path after Naples became that of a solo journey. With the measuring stick tucked safely away in my suitcase, the two of us found lodging for several nights with two female travelers from Denmark, but unfortunately, it was not to last. (That's the closest this epic will get to having any form of a love story--don't worry, the screenwriters are planning on spicing up that part of the screenplay in order to boost the movie to at least a PG-13 rating. It's a marketing thing.)

Then an unexpected disaster struck (It always does in an epic, right?) This will rank right up there with the disastrous moments of all epics--Scarlett loses the farm, Maximus is deceived and arrested by Commodus, Harry decides to abandon Lloyd in Nebraska and walk home to Providence, and now to add to those epic moments.....THE WHEEL ON MY SUITCASE BROKE.

The plot thickens.

The next path of my journey involved riding a train to a nearby port city of Salerno where I was to board a ferry by myself that would take me across the Mediterranean to the northern African country of Tunisia. Little did I know that the walk from the train platform to the ferry port would take me over two hours and during this epic walk (Which of course ranks among the greatest of all epic journeys--like Rose and Jack crossing the Atlantic, Moses leading the children of Israel out of bondage, and the Three Amigos on their quest to find El Guappo.) During this arduous and taxing foot journey, the left wheel of my previously (and deceptively) reliable suitcase gave out and broke off. This left me with no other option but to drag the suitcase the rest of the way in the hot sun to the ferry port.

Here is where we reach a major point of decision which will really illuminate the inner strength of my character.

When I reached the ferry port, I realized that I had a smaller duffle bag packed inside my suitcase. In a moment of desperation, I began to unpack the essential items out of my suitcase and place them in the duffle bag. Everything that didn't fit would just have to stay abandoned forever on the coast of Italy. However, when I got to the bottom of the suitcase, there lied the measuring stick. No matter how I tried, the measuring stick simply would not fit into the duffle bag. Having always considered myself to be among the most reliable and honorable of all human beings, I decided that I simply could not fail Darcy and not deliver the measuring stick back to its proper owner. So slowly I placed all my items back in the broken suitcase, zipped it up, and proceeded to drag it behind me with much effort for the remainder of my journey. What dedication. What mental toughness. What strength of character. (It is now that I realize that once this hits the big screen, I will most definitely be ranked among the greatest of all the noble Hollywood characters--Aragorn, Oskar Schindler, Nacho Libre, etc.)

The journey continued for the measuring stick with a long ferry ride across the Mediterranean to Tunisia, where it resided for several days before flying back to the states. Upon return to Utah, preparations for an upcoming cross-country move overshadowed my original priority of returning the measuring stick to the library and so while it was so close to its home, the journey of the measuring stick was not yet complete. Off it went through the cornfields of South Dakota and Iowa where it rested for several months, all the while awaiting my return to Utah.

(During this whole time, Darcy waited patiently to be reunited with the measuring stick. Several flashback sequences will show Darcy back in America which display her feelings of longing and yearning for the measuring stick to make it back to her safe and sound. Following the unparalleled success of my side of the story in theaters, a spin-off film of Darcy's side of the story will be produced. Both will be unprecedented landmark achievements in the history of film.)

Finally, on January 4th, 2009--more than five months since the measuring stick and Darcy parted ways--the two were reunited in a most joyous moment. Darcy looked kind of like this when she and the measuring stick were together again for the first time.



This will be an ending forever embedded in the minds of audience members everywhere. Watch out Scarlett O'Hara--there's a new Georgian belle that's going to steal the hearts of moviegoers everywhere.

And with that, the epic has drawn to a close. See you at the Oscars.

Happy New Year from ABBA

World Tour: Public Transport Style

I have seen the world, I've seen it wonders....but there's no place like underground public transportation. (Fifty points to the first person who can name that pop-culture reference. The race starts....now!)

I have an extremely boring life and nothing really worth blogging about. I checked my friends' blogs for inspiration but all I found were pictures of their smiling/crying/vacantly-expressing offspring and that just got me depressed. But, because I have taken on a more nomadic lifestyle for my early-20's, I have gotten to see a heck ton of the world while everyone else is disposing of putrid diapers and cleaning dribble off chins....who's the one who hasn't accomplished anything with his life NOW, huh???

So in my efforts to reflect on a once eventful life and also to unintentionally rub in the fact that I'm more well-traveled than you, I will now proceed to give you my assessment and impressions of every single underground (call it metro, subway, tube, t, whateva) public transport system that has ever had the honor of having me as a passenger.

In chronological order.............

1) Paris (2001, 2007)

The Paris metro is mostly great...tons of different lines, clean platforms, vending machines, magazine stands, monitors that say when the next train will arrive (which is sometimes 7-10 minutes...way too long for someone accustomed to the Commie-inspired metros of Russia). The absolute best part of the Parisian metro though are the recorded voices that announce the name of the next stop. They're very...French. So with ridiculous accents and more ridiculous intonations, the "metro voices" became the subject of much ridicule and parody among my friends in the music program I was participating in there during summer 07. "Eur-OPE! (drastic rise in intonation) EUR-ope. (drastic fall in intonation)" has never ceased to bring a smile to my face.

P.S. Watch out if you're wearing a backpack in the Paris metro. Not because of pickpockets though...you'll probably get trapped in the clear, plastic gates that open up when you submit your fare. It happens to the best of us.

2) St. Petersburg, Russia (2003-2005, 2007, 2008)

The St. Pete metro feels like home to me...(But just feels like home...it's probably a literal home for plenty of street children and homeless people in the city.) It's the only metro system I've ever used where they still give you metal tokens for your fare. This past summer I looked at a metro map and I think that I have now used every single station on the St. Pete metro with the exception of Kirovskiy Zavod and some new one at the top of the blue line. I am also proud to say that I am one of the few people I know of who has never had anything stolen from them while riding the metro in St. Pete. Go me.

The St. Pete metro has also acted as a reflection of the rising expense of living in the city over the past five years. When I first arrived in St. Petersburg in Dec. 03, one ride on the metro cost 7 rubles (about a quarter). At the new year, the price was raised to 8 rubles. I remember the lines of people trying to buy and hoard as many tokens as they could before the price raise--it was quite a big deal. The next year the price was raised to ten rubles and that's the price it was when I left in 05. When I went back to St. Petersburg in summer 07 the price had jumped to 14 rubles (!) and when I went back this past summer it was 17 rubles (!!). That's about a 150% price increase in five short years!! Inconceivable. However, the St. Pete metro is amazingly efficient--you never have to wait usually more than two minutes for a train (thank you communism) and most of the metro stations are basically museums in and of themselves (thank you communism). I always carry around my plastic monthly transport pass from the st. pete metro as a memento.

Don't even get me started on the escalators...

3) London (2005)

Finally I began to understand what all those "Mind the Gap" t-shirts were all about...I thought they were trying to raise awareness of a certain retail chain.

4) Washington, D.C. (2007, 2008)

I remember being annoyed that the fare you had to pay was determined on how far you were traveling on the subway. That's the only place I've been that was so specific about fares...snobs.

5) New York City (2007, 2008)

Blast to the past. Whenever I'm on the NYC subway I always feel like I'm back in 1987. I blame it on the fonts on the station signs. I guess they're iconic though so they probably won't change.

Oh, and it was a great moment of epiphany for me when after all these years I finally figured out what the "A Train" was.

6) Moscow, Russia (2007, 2008)

Answer-A huge, ginormous, massive system of interweaving trains that's always full of tons and tons and tons of people that acts overall as a reflection of this huge, ginormous, massive city. Question--What is the Moscow metro? (I still haven't lost sight of my dream of being on Jeopardy.)

I remember being really weirded out the first time I rode the metro in Moscow because I was so used to riding the metro in St. Pete that it was just strange to ride on another metro in Russia full of unfamiliar station names, etc. But I got over myself.

P.S. as of summer 08, it was 19 rubles to ride the Moscow metro. That's up 2 rubles from summer 07.

7) Boston (2008)

The "T". Rode on it just twice going to and from NEC...the whole time I was riding on the train I was thinking, "Had I chosen to come live here I would probably be riding the T every single day...but I chose Iowa." Now I ride the Iowa City Transit bus every day and wouldn't want it any different!

8) Berlin (2008)

One of the few criminal acts of my otherwise flawless life. All I wanted to do was go from a certain train station (not the hauptbahnhohf...a different one) in Berlin (where I had just arrived from Chemnitz) to the Berlin Tegel airport for my flight to Rome. So from the train station I started following the signs that would lead me to the metro and then all of a sudden I was standing on the platform and a train was arriving. I looked around for some sort of ticket booth to buy my fare but there was none to be found. So when the train pulled up in front of me and the doors opened, I just got on. I only had to go four stops before getting off to get on the airport shuttle so when I got to that stop, I stepped out onto the platform, walked up the stairs, and was out in the open. To this day, I have no idea how to purchase a ticket for the Berlin metro.

9) Naples, Italy (2008)

My one ride on the smelly Naples metro came after being in the city for a week and never having previously taken advantage of the city's metro system. It was a lot less crowded than the buses were and after riding on the metro there I could only say to myself, "Good work genius. You could have been doing that all week long." But because I did spend my whole week walking around the streets of smelly Naples, I got to see a city on the verge of constant anarchy in all its glory. Sore feet was a very small price to pay.

10) Tunis, Tunisia (2008)

I should sue Tunisia for false advertising. I found the "metro" in Tunis and it turned out to not be more than a glorified tram. It was super crowded and everyone was looking at me because obviously I was a tourist. (I thought my bandana, super awesome tan, and overall rugged look would fool them, but I was wrong.) The tram did go underground for a little bit though, so to my great relief I was able to have an underground experience in Africa...this almost made up for the despair I felt when I found out after I arrived that there was no McDonalds in all of Tunisia. In my bitter, bitter mindset caused by that (and the fact that Tunisians don't use toilet paper), I realized that I had no idea how many stops I had gone and had no idea where I was on the line. The train was too ghetto to have any voice announcing the stops and none of the platforms had any signs indicating what the name of the stop was. By some miracle, I just randomly picked a stop to get out of the train and it happened to be the one I was looking for. Go me.

Thanks for reading. I know you all feel enlightened now and are probably thinking, "Wow, Dan really has such an amazing life." Go me.