Signs of the Times, Issue No. 188 - 12/27/11

And now presenting... 2011: The Year in Review!

Greetings to one and all to the final Newsletter of the year - and what a year it's been! Topics to be discussed today: The semi-triumphant return of the Trans-Christensen Orchestra, a new NFL record, a heated dinner-time discussion, and the Top Five Signs of the Times for 2011! What are we waiting for? On we go!

As advertised, my world-famous band, the Trans-Christensen Orchestra was back in action on Christmas Eve, as per usual. Video cameras were rolling, but we're going to need to shoot it one more time before I can post the video of it. The performance truly did happen, though there is little-to-no evidence of it in the real world at this current moment in time. The performance, which featured Amy as the star of the show, went just about as well as we could have imagined and was as awkward as ever, with near-dead silence from the audience throughout the entire song, despite Austin and I shaking our booties in a cheap attempt for cat-calls and/or laughter. Oh yeah, it was great. Really great. I'll have the video up on Facebook by Saturday at the latest. It won't disappoint.

Let's get the Game Ball out of the way early this Issue. The game ball goes to my home dawg, Drew Brees. When it boils down to it, while we're on the topic of "the year in review," my entire season hinges on a trade that I somehow got my mom to agree with as I traded her Eli Manning and Michael Turner for Drew Brees and Mark Ingram. Though this week was not necessarily the most glamorous for fantasy stats (23 completions, 307 yards, 4 TDs, 2 INT, and 38.68 fantasy points), the New Orleans quarterback currently donning the virtual uniform of the glorious A-Town Assassins set the all-time NFL record for passing yards. The record, formerly held by NFL legend Dan Marino, stood for 27 years and is one of the most glamorous records in the sport today. I was watching the Saints last night when the record was set and I can say that the record could not be held by a nicer guy. Drew Brees is an incredible player and a stand-up guy. He has done so much to help not only the franchise in New Orleans, but has also helped turn around the morale of the city, itself, post-Katrina. The guy is awesome and, though (and it pains me to say this) it looks like Mr. Jake and his Team TARDIS will be taking home the first place trophy this year, I just wanted one more moment in the limelight, dang it. Give me one more Game Ball and that shall suffice. Congratulations to Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints for their historic night last night.

Good things are happening in the Big Easy.

I just had a very distressing conversation around the dinner table about a little "incident" I had back in high school. Many of you may remember it. There I was, driving to school one morning. Austin sat, as he normally did (and when I say "normally," I mean "always" because he wasn't old enough to drive) in the passenger's seat. Driving, driving. Normal morning commute to the Home of the Hawks. Then, out of nowhere, Austin, with a look of terror upon his boyish face, points outside to the left of the car and shouts, "AARON!! DEEEEEEER!" I immediately cast my gaze out the window, whereupon I saw a deer attempting to leap across the road (and over the hood of my car). As you might have guessed, it didn't end well for the deer (or my car, for that matter). In horror, I flashed my eyes to the rear-view mirror. "Please don't be dead, please don't be dead. I don't want to be late to school," I thought, panicked. The deer (sadly for it) was still alive, trying to scramble to its feet. It wasn't pretty. I'll leave it at that. And I kept on driving. I've said it for years and even threatened to put it on my tombstone - The deer hit me. Nobody ever believes me. Tonight, my family, whether out of sincerity or otherwise, accused me of hitting the deer! Are you serious?? Even Austin, who was in the car to witness it, said that we "hit each other." Un-freakin'-believable. Are you SERIOUS?!? In order for me to have hit that deer, I would have had to have been driving sideways and, as far as I know, no cars can usually do that. Look at the dents - on the left side of that car. Not in the front. On the SIDE!! The deer hit me! Holy crap! Come on, people!!

Ok, now on to the segment we've been waiting for all year. Well... probably not. But I've been excited about it. Here we go. The Year in Review! I asked you all to vote for the poll on my blog site over the past seven days and things weren't looking too impressive until all of the sudden yesterday the number of votes practically doubled in the space of, like, two hours. Not sure if all of those votes were legitimate (and, upon review, I'm not sure if many of you people even knew what you were voting for in the first place), but we're going to count them. Firstly, I will review a couple of my favorite moments from the year of our Lord, two-thousand and eleven, and then I will count down the top answers, as selected by you kids, my faithful readership.

Honorable mention:

Creation of the A-Town Webisodes: I really liked doing my five A-Town Webisodes. I think they're awesome. Apparently only seven other people agreed with me. Maybe I'll just stop making them. But oh! You wouldn't like that, now, would you? I'll keep making them and you'll keep not watching them.

Passed 100 followers on Twitter: Nobody likes Twitter. But I do. Come on! Twitter is the marvelous social networking site that brought us that amazing 2011 gem, Hashtag Mania, which... well... it brought a smile to my face, anyway. @atownmania

Played trumpet for "Into the Woods": I knew this wouldn't be in the Top Five, but I had to put it on the poll, anyway. I had a great time playing with the Taylorsville Orchestra in the first half of 2011; got to spend some quality time with Richard Brunson; made great friends with Michael Brunson; got to laugh at Howard, the painfully-embarrassing narrator; and took part in the world's first Triple Facepalm. What's not to love?

Took pictures in a fancy hotel robe: I'm a little surprised that this slipped out of the final list because it jumped ahead as the early leader and likely favorite. Who could forget a couple weeks ago and the uproar that was caused when I posted pictures of me and (gasp) a girl, adorned in spiffy hotel robes at my posh resort in Park City. How could I? How dare I? I am still baffled that so many girls got offended by the pictures that were about as G-rated as they come, considering the considerable lack of girls who will consider going out on a single date with me. Hmmmph. Whatever. At least it gave me something fun to go on a rampage about. 2011 was not my year for dating. According to me, anyway. Stay tuned.

Book of Mormon mania: This option wasn't on the poll because it didn't happen until Christmas Day. My Young Single Adult stake started a Book of Mormon challenge in September-ish and the goal was to finish the entire book on or by Christmas. I was in mid-Mosiah at the time and I figured that I'd just keep reading at my own pace and that I'd still probably beat them. Hmmmph! As quick as I could blink, the stake had blown past me and I had some major catching up to do. In the past three weeks, I have been reading an average of 12 or 13 pages per day, including 20 pages for the grand finale on Christmas Day, but I finished right on time. I probably wouldn't recommend cramming in the scriptures like that, but it made me feel awesome to finish with the rest of the stake, especially considering how hard I had to work the final couple weeks to get it done. As President Hinckley once promised, it brought an added measure of the Spirit into my life and I truly Felt Good About Myself for accomplishing that lofty goal. Additionally, the Facebook status I posted upon completion of the book would undoubtedly end up being one of my most-liked statuses of 2011, garnering 23 "likes" from other Facebookers.

With no further ado, here are the Top Five Signs of the Times for 2011:

Fifth place:

Got a smartphone - Twelve votes
In 2011, I embraced the technological revolution by finally upgrading to a smartphone. Though it hasn't necessarily altered the course of my life, it was a big step in the right direction as far as keeping up with the Times goes, and, apparently, you Subscribers thought this to be somewhat of a big deal in the past 52 weeks. This means that I can be obnoxious on Facebook from anywhere now, not just when I'm at home. Ooh, and I can retweet people from my phone now, too! Nice... Sadly for all of you who were dying to play "Words with Friends" with me, after about a month of losing games by 200 points or more, I decided that I'm just no good at that game.

Fourth place:

Failed "A-Town Dating Service" experiment - Thirteen votes
I'm not exactly sure how this happened. I'm not even really sure that anyone who voted for this even remembers what the A-Town Dating Service actually was. Voters probably just saw "Failed A-Town Dating......" and cast their responded in the affirmative. Back in April (Issues No. 152 and 153, if you must know), I mentioned that I was going to start up my own dating service to hook up anyone brave enough to give me their vital information with anybody else who was willing to do the same thing. I'd be the matchmaker. I'd make everybody fall in love. I suppose you could use a phrase similar to "those who can't get married try online dating... and those who still can't get married set up their own dating services to hook up their friends." Well, needless to say, the A-Town Dating Service didn't really pan out. I think 15 guys said they were willing to try and only one girl said she'd do it because I probably whined about it on Facebook or something and she was just trying to be nice. Those are great odds, ladies. I don't understand why nobody wanted to do it. And in the end, I'm still single and so are all my buddies. Whatever. Anyway, as author of this Newsletter and so-called creator of the A-Town Dating Service, I veto this option as being one of the best things that happened to me in 2011. It happened, yes. But was it one of the best things that happened this year? No way. If it was, this year was a total failure, and I can't allow that. 

It was like this.

Third place:

Got a full-time job/Got a free TV - Twenty five votes total (12, 13)
2011 was the year that I reluctantly, but officially, retired from Especially For Youth, the LDS summer camp I had worked for for the last two years. I loved doing EFY, but I figured that, now that I'm done with school and all that good stuff, I'd probably be able to pay the bills. I applied for jobs like crazy when I finished up school and the first (and really only acceptable) place that wanted me was a place called ZAGG. I'd heard of it through the grapevine before, but didn't really know too much about it. However, I was immediately impressed by their product line and what they had to offer. I took the job in May and have made numbers in the five-digit range since I began. One of the main reasons for taking the job was that I would be able to make way more money there than I would at EFY - and it's not that money is what it's all about, but... um... money pretty much is what it's all about. So it's been nice to finally pad the bank account and be able to get a lot of financial stuff on the right track. On top of that, I've started making bank with commissions based on the amount of sales I get per week, so I've been able to be a lot less frugal (scratch that... that's putting it way too nicely - I'm flat-out cheap) than I typically have been in, oh, say the last six or seven years. I've been able to spend money for fun and not just for stuff that I have to pay for, while simultaneously saving up money for stuff like student loans and car insurance, which has been fun. Perhaps the grandest moment in my ZAGG career to date, however, was the aforementioned company Christmas party where I not only got to wear a sweet hotel robe, but was also awarded, along with every other employee in attendance, with a brand new 40" flat-screen TV. Saweeeeeeeet!! Holy crap, that is so awesome. The TV is fantastic and my Playstation 3 has never before felt so loved. I watched Harry Potter 7-2 on Blu-ray the other day and it blew my mind. Working in a call center is definitely not what I went to school for and certainly not my ideal career, but, man, is this a sweet company!

ZAGGing it up.

Second place: 

Amazing Race - Eighteen votes
Late in 2011, my brother Austin and I applied to be on the hit CBS reality TV show, "The Amazing Race," immediately gaining a following of fans. Our application video on YouTube got almost 500 hits in less than a week. This was the realization of a life-long dream for us and it's still hard to believe that we actually did it. Though we won't find out if we made it until next month sometime - and if we for some inexplicable reason are NOT selected, we won't EVER find out - it will always be something that we can look back at and make fun of. If we make it, that's awesome, we'll win, be rich and famous, and the line of girls waiting to date Austin will be twice as long, but if we don't, hey, at least we tried.

If we don't make it on the show, we riot.

First place:

Graduated from college... again - Eighteen votes and 2011's top Sign of the Time
In 2010, my Loyal Subscribers joined me in celebrating my graduation from the University of Utah last December, voting it as the best thing that happened to me last year. I slammed the textbooks shut, hung up the headband, voluntarily forfeited my radio scholarship, and headed home on TRAX. Little did we know that in a matter of weeks, I'd find out that I didn't actually graduate. Luckily, I was done with classes, done with homework, done with stupid group projects, and practically graduated. But I ended up having to go back to school for a spur-of-the-moment internship with my buddies at K-UTE Radio. It really didn't end up being that difficult. It could have been much, much worse. In May, I finally - OFFICIALLY - graduated from the University of Utah. I got that diploma and ran like mad before somebody could tell me there was a problem. My REAL graduation has changed my life in several non-educational ways, as well, severely hampering my ability to socialize and leading me to the typical, grown-up way of life: Wake up, go to work, go home from work, watch TV out of pure exhaustion, go to sleep early, repeat. My Bachelor's Degree will be remembered, if for nothing else, for two things: for making me one of the very few lucky people to ever "graduate" three times for a four-year degree and for being the only thing to ever be voted by my Subscribers as the Sign of the Time of the Year on back-to-back years. That, my friends, is something truly impressive.

Take that diploma and RUN!!

 

Finally, it's time for the Shoutout of the Week, which goes to all of you, people, without whom this Issue would not be possible. Without you, I guess this would be, like... a journal? Is that what they used to call those things? Congratulations on surviving another year, A-Towners. 2011 wasn't the best or the most memorable year ever, but hey - it could have been worse. It could have been 2009. Here's to 2012 and hoping that great things happen for all of you.

That's about it for this week and that's about it for this year! Be safe in this last week of 2011. Don't do anything stupid and, for Heaven's sake, don't drink and drive. Merry belated Christmas and a happy New Year.

Until next Time,

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

Aaron