Glad to see that bureaucracy has yet to fail us....oh, wait

For the many people who actually read this blog (in reality about two people, Jacob Keele and Tess), you know that I am going to UVU for school. I recently dropped a class that turns out would be much better time-wise if I were to take it this summer. So, I dropped the class thinking that would be the end of it, when about two weeks later I received this in the mail...












This is a check from UVU (don't worry I have removed any information that could get me into trouble) for the amount of $2.00 and 00/100 cents...seriously.
I had paid $379 for class fees this semester and had a $1200 tuition wavier, so apparently, out of that $379 I forked over...only $2.00 of it was for that class.

Now, here is where we get into some fun math: The average office worker makes between $5.85 and $13.85 an hour, but since it's UVU I am going to say it's only $5.85. The average accountant makes about $49.00 per hour. So lets assume that it took the office worker 20 minutes to process the paperwork and the accountant, 15 minutes to do his or her job. So that would cost about $14.10 to have them process this one check. If we add about $0.50 for the cardstock it was printed on and $0.44 for the postage, then we have the grand total of $15.04, just to mail me this oh-so-important check for TWO DOLLARS!

If it weren't a federal crime, I would gold plate and frame the damn thing!

And the brilliant cherry on the government cake is that the $2.00 doesn't really cover the gas it takes to drive to the bank to cash the check...thank you, and good day.

My (Hypothetical) Death Via Airplane...

This last summer Erin, her roommate, Diana, and I went to New York on vacation.

If I had to suggest at least one thing everyone should do in their life, I'd say GO TO NEW YORK CITY would be at the top of the list. We saw a play on Broadway, visited historic landmarks, and had an overall great time (much to the chagrin of my wallet).

The only negative experiences we had in New York were two fold.

First...our hotel!

We stayed at the JFK airport Ramada in Jamaica, New York.

So...pretty much on the corner of Stabsville and Rapetown. I'm not sure about Erin and Diana's room, but in my room one of the previous tenants had taken to slicing the window drapes with a butterfly knife...so that was a great, warm, safe, feeling for me.

(see)

Also, I'm pretty sure the hotel itself was on egg crates.

(See)

Second...Our Return Flight Home

Exhausted, we drudged our weary selves onto the plane, like B-movie zombies (quite literally for Erin, who had taken an Ambien 30 minutes before we boarded).

We were ready to go home and get back into our everyday boring lives, filled with school, work, and other stuff... Our plane was taxied out onto the runway when suddenly, BOOM! We were hit by a massive thunderstorm, which left us stranded for two hours.

THEN, we had to wait until all of the planes in front of us had taken off, all 41 of them. It was during this time that Erin had entered her half-awake, half-drug-induced rage. "I ordered a water!" she said curtly as the flight attendant walked nervously by...even though we hadn't taken off and the drink cart hadn't passed us by yet. Normally my sweet, gorgeous girlfriend--who is by no means editing this blog for me right now--would never do such a dreadful thing outside the confines of the anger prescription she'd carried on the plane with her. But I digress...

We were finally able to get into the air and flew directly into the storm. So let's do the math here: We were stuck in an airplane cabin on a tarmac for over four hours. I have one laptop and one iPod and both batteries had worn out by hour two. We took off and on our four-hour flight home they sent the drink cart only once to give us what I can only call a "splash" of water in a Dixie cup and a handfull of dry-roasted peanuts. If we wanted any real food we were going to have to fork out $8.00 for a finger sandwich that I wouldn't even serve at my wedding! Because Erin says they clash with her six colors anyway...but I digress.

As my stomach rumbled and my boredom grew, I reached a moment of clarity, what the Buddhist monks might call "enlightenment." Now this probably wasn't true enlightenment (being that it was brought on by hunger, boredom, and higher nitrogen levels in my brain from the high altitude, as well as being in an all-oxygen environment) but at the least we could call it an epiphany.

So, as I was saying, a single thought struck through my head like the flash of lightning threatening to send us careening toward the ground. As we made our decent into Utah, I could see the federal prison like a tiny speck down below. I thought of a death row inmate and how his final moments would play out. At the cost of the taxpayers, he would be given a steak dinner, a beer, a cigarette, and at least fifteen minutes of clean female companionship before he were to die...

Now, if my plane were to crash in a super-heated conglomerate of fire, steel & my human flesh, the only thing that they would find in my stomach would be peanuts and shame.

So I would have payed $500 dollars for a horrible death and the worst last meal in human history, while my tax dollars would give Joe Van Wifekiller a four-course meal and something warm to rub up against...

I hate flying Coach!