Signs of the Times, Issue No. 101 - 04/13/10

And the Good Lord looked down and smiled upon him... for today was Tuesday.

Greetings to one and all. This is Aaron. And um... this is my Newsletter. It has been quite the week in Jive City. For all those of you who thought it would never pay to be a Loyal Subscriber, I'm here to prove you wrong. Topics to be discussed today: A-Town's next stop, the five cardinal sins of Facebook, another disappointing Review, more reasons to hate Tiger, the NBA playoff picture, hilarious moments in employment, and what happened to me over the weekend. On we go!

I'm usually pretty Good with keeping my actual Feelings from surfacing on Facebook, but apparently I freaked out at least a couple people on Friday night when I posted "Aaron Christensen is sad." I'm sure many of you have been wondering what on Earth could possibly make me sad. Let me enlighten you. I was traveling on the freeway on Friday afternoon during rush hour traffic. Things had been pretty stop-and-go in my lane, so I had been trying to make a lane change for a couple minutes, but to no avail. Sometime around 5:00, I was glancing to the left for probably About one or two seconds, when suddenly all the traffic in front of me had stopped. Almost simultaneously, I had both rear-ended the car in front of me and also been rear-ended from behind. I was only going About 30, so the impact wasn't very hard, but the car in front of me caught my hood and bent it 90 degrees so I couldn't see anything in front of me. The car behind me hit-and-ran and scraped up my back bumper a little bit. From what I've been told, somebody got the license plate. Nobody was hurt in the accident, which is Good, and most of the damage was done to my car, which, I guess, is a Good thing, too. The car in front of me was able to drive away with what looked like very little damage to its rear bumper. The front part of my car got smashed up pretty well, so I wasn't able to start the car and it had to be towed away. Miraculously, nothing behind the windshield was damaged. The windshield didn't crack, the airbags didn't deploy, the inside of the car looks untouched, and all the doors and tires still work. Miraculous.

The damage doesn't look TOO bad, but then again...

Of course, there is never a Good Time to get in an accident, but really, this couldn't have happened at a worse Time for me or my family, especially considering that I quit my "job" last week. We think that our insurance coverage will cover most of the problem. I suppose my plans of taking it easy until EFY starts have been rearranged a little bit now. Obviously, I'm still in the early stages of the situation, so I'm not exactly sure what will happen right now, but I have faith that everything will be ok. After all, I've been in almost this exact situation before. About a year ago, I also had no car and was unemployed, waiting for EFY to start. Other than the whole girlfriend part, I think I made it through all right, so I know I can make it through this little bump in the road, as well. Most importantly of all, I know that Heavenly Father loves me and is always watching over me. I am thankful to Him for the protection that he has offered me for the past 23 years of my life and I know that, even though sometimes my plans come to an abrupt halt, in a manner of speaking, that His plans are always the right plans.

I was unharmed. The inside of the car miraculously wasn't damaged, either.

I'd quickly like to thank everyone who has been sympathetic to me in the last several days. As I've explained in my Newsletters, my social life at the University of Utah hasn't been booming, by any stretch of the imagination, so I really appreciate people who have gone out of their way to see how I was doing through phone calls, text messages, and through Facebook. I'd also like to thank Loni Nock who came to see me on Saturday night. Oh, and to the person who texted me "lol sorry that sucks", uh... That's P.M.U.!! "lol"??

On to a happier topic, eh? Today I had an interview with the student-produced radio station at the U. Things went really well. I met with the program director (the same position I had at the KAGE) and we discussed the current state of the station and its plans for the future. We talked About the experience I've had at Snow and X96 and what I would be able to contribute to K-UTE, as it's called. We had a nice little chat and then he invited me to come back on Friday morning to meet with the station manager to discuss the possibility of working on staff as the next program director. I plan on making the trip, so we'll see how things go. But for right now, things are looking promising. This could very well be the return of A-Town.

A-Town is Runnin' Wild once again!

I've become a fan of a few more things on Facebook. Nothing ridiculous like "I HATE girls who say they hate drama, but they really cause all of it," but, rather, fan pages of celebrities like Donny Osmond and Chad OchoCinco. I've gotten a Good laugh out of their status updates in the last couple days, like Donny's Monday posts: "Going in to the dentist for regular checkup. All [S]igns point to no cavities" and "It's family night. Phone's going off." 'Atta boy, Donald. And what a better way to start off a Tuesday than to see a post from OchoCinco?: "Hope y'all have an amazing day much love from the Interesting One." I suppose this is what Twitter is like...  People keep telling me to get a Twitter account... But I hate Twitter... Your thoughts? Feelings?

Perhaps you've noticed. I'm on Facebook a lot. Basically, when all your assignments from school have to be typed up and you're on the same career path as me, you end up online quite a bit. Perhaps you've also noticed that I'm a little O.C.D. About some things - like capitalizing any forms of the following words: "Feel," "Good," "About," "Yourself," "Sign," and "Time." I'm a bit of a freak. So naturally, there are some things on Facebook that really bother me. Here are the Top Five cardinal sins of Facebook, in my ever-so-humble opinion:

1. Referring to yourself in the first-person in your status update: Bad example - "Aaron Christensen is so happy to see all of my friends tonight!" Good example - "Aaron Christensen would love to see his friends tonight if he had any."

2. Don't tell me you haven't seen this a million Times: Bad example - "Aaron Christensen class is so boring today." Good example - "Aaron Christensen: Class is so boring today."

3. Accidentally posting a comment for somebody else as your status: Bad example - "Aaron Christensen Oh hey, yeah, the concert was so sweet. When are you coming up here again?" Good example - "(Aaron Christensen to Chandra Young) Oh hey, yeah, the concert was so sweet. When are you coming up here again?"

4. The backwards smiley face: In America, we read left-to-right, so when you type (: instead of :), it looks like Ziggy, not a smiley face.

5. Posting spoilers, unless it's one I don't care About. Like "24." Spoil "24" all you want. But lately, Thursday nights are just not Good nights for me to be on Facebook. Whether it's the outcome of Tribal Council or the identity of the mole on "Flash Forward," something is sure to pop up, no matter how hard I try to avoid it.

I present to you The Week in Review. I was very excited the other day as I went to the library because I stumbled upon what would surely be audio gold - the soundtrack from "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure." Well... not so much. A couple of the songs are Good, but there were several of the songs that I didn't even recognize from the movie. Plus, "the boys and the girls are doing it" doesn't mean the same thing I thought it meant when I was seven. I'm giving the "Bill & Ted" soundtrack a 4 out of 10 and wouldn't recommend it. I wouldn't even put any of the songs on my iTunes - and coming from a man who is always looking to expand his music library, that means a lot.

Bogus.

I'm still confused About something. This is The Boo Box, by the way. Welcome. Really, though, why did so many people want Tiger Woods to win the Masters? Have we so quickly forgotten that we all hated this guy like two weeks ago? I vote for polls on ESPN.com every day and a lot of them, needless to say, have been About Tiger lately. Upwards of 64% of respondents said they wanted Tiger to win. Is this "for reals"? Everyone I know wanted him to lose. In fact, I can't think of a single person that wanted him to do well. Um, hello, Sportsnation, this man is an adulterer, liar, dirtbag that can't control his appetites, nor his anger. No, I'm not suggesting that we all condemn him - he's done that himself. I'm not judging him. I'm just stating the facts. Why do we want him to win? Perhaps I need to be more forgiving or something, but this just blows my mind. Luckily, he didn't win. There was a fantastic article with Jim Nantz's comments on Tiger's on-course behavior during the Masters that I think sums it up very well. Nantz claims he would have been fired for saying some of the things Tiger did on-air. This is not a man we should cheer for. Yet another Sign of the Times - we would rather have Tiger Woods win than an integrity-driven family man in Phil Mickelson or a 60-year-old Fred Couples. Either of those is better for America than Tiger Woods doing anything. Everybody together now - BOOOOOO!! Ridiculous. And that new Nike commercial is horrible.

He looks concerned... And he should be.

The NBA playoffs are coming up - and you know what that means, don't you? Yet another long summer vacation for Tracy McGrady. The playoff race in the Western Conference has been crazier this year than perhaps any year I can remember. I still think it's funny that our eight seed is better than the five seed in the East. Sure, the Cavaliers have the best record, but when you're playing teams like the Knicks, the Wizards, and the Nets four times a year, you better win at least 60 games. Once again, the Jazz have managed to put themselves into a position where we depend on other teams for playoff seeding. We're currently fourth in the West and can go as high as seconds or as low as probably sixth. We need to win our last two games and have both Dallas and Denver lose their last game if we hope to get the two seed. That would be pretty nice, considering we'd end up playing Portland, by the looks of it, but hey - anything can happen. Here's my prognosis: The Jazz can beat Dallas, Portland, and Phoenix. We'll probably end up getting Phoenix, which is fine with me. They don't believe in playing defense. I think the Lakers and Nuggets can give us a run for our money and easily beat us. Badly. I was at a home game this year where Denver beat us by 20 without their two best players. It's ridiculous. I think we are better than San Antonio and Oklahoma City, but I could see us struggling with them, too. Let's pray for a miracle and hope we end up number two versus number seven Portland, but don't quote me on that. My prediction is a four-five matchup against the Suns.

A Loyal Subscriber just texted me to let me in on the tragic news that Kate Gosselin has been rejected by Playboy. I texted back and asked who Kate Gosselin was.

I'm currently watching a show on Animal Planet about some lady who had a bear in her house. A guy went into the house with a gun to try to get the bear out. It's the most intense thing I've ever seen. And I'm talking about the show, not the guy's ponytail/beard combo.

I'm pretty sure this is the guy. Not a Good look.

And finally, in "Hilarious Moments in Employment" news, do we all remember how my manager at Costa Vida hired another girl that took 2/3 of my hours each week for the last month I worked there? She quit last weekend.

Very rarely, if ever, has someone been so honored as to receive back-to-back Shoutouts of the Week, but this week, we're working the magic. We're making it happen. The Shoutout of the Week goes to my dad, who has been a huge support for me this last week. Thanks, Dad, for everything you've done to help me out.

Surprisingly, today has turned out to be one of the best Tuesdays in my recent memory. Good things are happening everywhere. So just remember - if you're ever having a tough Time, it could always be worse. Find something every day to Feel Good About. Unless it's Tuesday. Then find at least two things. But oh yeah. I'm not supposed to show emotions anymore. I forgot. 

Until next Time,

Move It. Sell It. And Leave the Door Open.

Aaron