An awesome blog post

My friend/college roommate/high school BF/essay editor, Dani, wrote an awesome blog post. I've read it aloud to a lot of people these past few days and decided I needed to post it here so others can enjoy it too.  

Read this awesome blog post. 

Thanks, Dani, for the entertainment. My dad agrees, the best line is about the current threat level.

My Free PlayStation 3

I have started to conduct an experiment.

I always see those ads on the net as I search google for new links to yesterland.com (or wherever, but I had to point out yesterland.com somehow) that say that you can get a free laptop and then all it ends up being is a trick to get you into a Netflix subscription.

Well, my buddy Eric Anderson from BYU, now living the glamourous life of a filmmaker in L.A. (he actually just finished his internship at Village Roadshow), told me the other day how he is one person away from getting a free PlayStation 3. Now, you have to understand that I really, really want a PS3. Not only for the gaming experience, but for the Blu-Ray playing capability. Eric tells me that he has used these guys (the PS3 offer-ers) before to get a free iPod and his friend got a Wii and XBOX360 with it. It actually works he tells me.

So I had him explain to me how it is working for him. He needs 8 people to sign up to complete various offers, some of which include Blockbuster Online, Netflix, FreeCreditReport.com, and a few others.

"Well, how many do you need, Eric?" I said to him.

"Just one."

I signed up for Blockbuster and thus started my quest for 8 people to sign up for a free PlayStation 3. Nancy and I want to watch Season 4 of LOST before Season 5 starts on Jan.21.09 so we thought it was a good idea. I do Netflix, but haven't had the enthusiasm to reactivate my account lately. It was a good deal too. 3 movies at a time, 5 in store trade ins for $10 for the first month. You only need to sign up for one month to make your deal eligible for the PS3 offer so I was sold.

Well, I have about nine signed up so far with seven that have told me they have completed an offer. So theoretically it is working.

I wonder if it is the Christmas season or something, but they haven't updated my profile yet. Eric says all his other people's offers processed faster than mine.

Below you can see my progress. I will keep you all informed if it works or not. In the meantime, if you need a "free-credit-report" or some movies for a month, please sign up. The Free Credit report doesn't cost anything if you cancel within 9 days of getting the report.

this has been on my mind since October

I've been meaning to do this post since October. I know. The suspense. I was planning on Halloween, then switched to Thanksgiving. Now that harvest season is over and we have other plants in our house, let's blog about my pumpkins.

As my roommates know (and still frequently tease), I love pumpkins. At the first fall sighting, I stop and buy two; one pumpkin is for the table decor and one for outside. They are horribly overpriced in September ($.30/lb), but the fall squash only comes around once a year and I must enjoy it as long as possible. I particularly enjoy the plump, short and round versions, but above all, the stem must have some kind of personality. 

Now, when I was in college, my roommates found it a little strange that I was so obsessed (as you may be right now). They decided to name my pumpkin(s) and tease me about them (did I already mention that?) Polly was the first (she was murdered early and turned to pumpkin pie) and I believe Paul was the second. 

Then I got married. Bryce was kind enough to allow me to indulge further into my pumpkin obsession and I bought all sorts of small pumpkins and squash for my fall decor. I turned one year's favorite pumpkin into a floral arrangement at school (take note: pumpkins rot VERY quickly when filled with floral-food-water.)

Okay. Now on to the next strange background story:

I have terrible luck. Ask my sisters, brother and Dani: it's terrible. Once in the seventh grade I won a month's supply of Twix bars from Channel One. That's about as far as the luck-meter flies for me.  

Bryce, on the other hand, has great luck. He's working on winning a Sony Bravia and Playstation 3 package right now, but no bites yet.

Among his luckiest accomplishments is his ability to find twin eggs. I don't know how or why, but he has found THREE twin eggs since we've been married. T-H-R-E-E. Trust me here, HE DOESN'T DO THE BULK OF THE EGG CRACKING. I DO. And every time it has happened, I get REALLY upset. So upset that I'm not even going to post the details. And don't ask me how many I've found because then I get more upset. 

Now, the merging of these two strange stories:

I went to Smith's to buy milk one October afternoon. I was so excited to see the pumpkins even though our house was filled with all sorts of varieties. Then I saw one of those cool, round, stem-owning pumpkins and I just had to take a look. As I picked it up, it was ATTACHED TO ANOTHER PUMPKIN. It was a TWIN pumpkin. Lets just say that was one of my luckiest moments. 

Another lucky moment: when the guy in line said, "Wow, I wish I had found that first."

Another lucky moment: when my husband said, "Wow, what a lucky day."

And so here I post a picture of my prized pumpkin. His name was Michael Scott, in honor of Season 2's Halloween episode.  I just took the picture the other day, so it is sad that the stem ended up splitting.  

But that is about as twin egg as I'm ever gonna get. So thanks, Mike, for greeting our fall festivities and giving me a little more luck in life.

(a real) Christmas (tree) is here again

Our Christmas Tree made it home! We went to the very lovely Home Depot and picked out our tree on Saturday.  Here are some pictures.  I think the guy (who was very nice) thought I was crazy for taking pictures during the process, but when I'm buying a $30 plant that only lasts one month, I need to capture every moment of it.

On the way home (a slow process), Derek discovered that one of the strings was tied tight enough to make a note. It was hilarious. 

And this is a shot from our balcony. I love how the tree is almost as big as the car. Now I need to post a picture of it decorated. Only one guess on the color scheme!

D- Street

Florida? Really? Really.

Yes. It's true.

We finally are going to make it to visit Mike & Heidi in Florida.

Dani (Dunaway) Rowan told us about this site called AirFareWatchDog.com. They have unbelievably awesome fares. I set up my RSS Feed reader in my MAC OS X Mail program to download them whenever a new one is released. Lately they have been sending me some great fares ($100 RT to Detriot, $180 RT to Rhode Island, etc.) and then we got one for $160 RT to Tampa from SLC. So we talked to Mike and Heidi and made our trip. WE'RE GOING TO FLORIDA!!! In the middle of February! Goodbye to the snow, HELLO to the beach!

We have a lot we want to do and we will be there for 8 days total. An old boss of mine at Disney Studios got us some tickets to Disney World too... and so we want some advice about that and Florida in general. Of course Mike and Heidi will plan days because we want to see where they live, go to the beach, eat where they like to, and all that. But we have never been before (I do not count my 4 hour layover in Miami coming home from Rio de Janeiro as a real visit, though it was amazing to be back in the USA again.) We need some advice on what to do or see, especially at Disney World. Any ideas?

The best Halloween picture

The best Halloween picture
Originally uploaded by bryce.randle

Derek was pretty excited to be out and about.

At first he flipped out. He did not understand that the person he just got candy from was about to close the door, forcing him to go on to the next house. He was like "Wait, they just had a whole bowl of that stuff! Why are we leaving?"

After about 3 houses he was down with it. Jennifer was Jesse and Derek was Woody. As you can see, he is sporting some tootsie pops. They accessories allowed us to keep him in his costume.

Booya.