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Funniest Things Me and P Did in College

I'm sure Preston will have a slightly different list, but here's my take, no particular order:

1. Sent a burning toilet floating down the Provo river on a giant piece of industrial foam
2. Ran away from Jen Creer while she went to grab her coat or something
3. Dressed up in long johns and capes as the "Beet Gods" and stood on heating grates on campus to make our capes flap
4. Doing "Budge Runs," mostly by scooter. What made it funny was our consistency -- almost weekly for like 2.5 years 
5. Pillow fight. Was that funny, though? It was funny when it started, but less funny 1500 people and a lot of cops later...
6. Incredibly bad Missionary poetry, sent to a co-ed but dropped off at a friend's door by mistake, which we took, made into songs, performed live before an audience of friends, recorded, and sent back to the missionary for his listening pleasure (this one is for me, P, and Andy)
7. I seem to recall an adventure with a moldy bag of potatoes....
8. Set a stuffed monkey on fire, left it out in the snow in front of our apartment
9. Stapled Kirk's socks and underwear to the ceiling
10. Put a couple dozen staples into the crotch of P's underwear, which he didn't notice until he had put them on, and then "jumped" into his jeans. I think it drew blood...

Thanks....Dick!

During our sophomore year, the entire Industrial Design class was allowed to go on hiatus and explore other areas of interest. Doug Stout was teaching our class at the time, and I really think he was annoyed by some of us, and saw this as an opportunity to get rid of us for a few weeks. Well, under the wing of BYU-dropout-turned-Hollywood-special-effects-guru, Randy (Crit) Killen, we started hanging out down at BYU studios...with permission of the Grand Pu-bah of BYU Studios, Mr. Dick Jameson.

Now, don't get me wrong: Dick was awesome. He allowed us pretty much unfettered access to any project on the lot, and we were able to help work on a couple sets, including one to be used by the Church for one of their videos. And many interesting design projects found their way down to the massive scrim backdrop for photo shoots (the coolest was Scott Allen's giant paper mache planet).

What's the point of this story? Not much. It's just that one time, Randy and I were down meeting with Dick in his office on the lot, and Dick was walking us through slides of different sets and effects. Dick was sitting with his back to us, and I was doing everything in my power to not bust out laughing as Randy would say things like "Wow, that one is interesting.....(long pause)...Dick." And then he'd turn to me and kind of chuckle. Over and over again, always with the long pause.

Ok, it was stupid. But it made me giggle remembering it.

Crazy kids

Go Cougs, rise and shout the cougs are out.  Cougareat, pronounced Coug Air EE at for more sophisticated dining pleasure.  It was as place of intrigue and downright strange times.  I can't recall if I wrote this already but one of the fun things to do was play the same song over and over on the jukebox.  For some reason I was stuck on two songs that were particularly annoying.  Chains of Love by Erasure and some song by Bonnie Rait.  Anyway, I'd pump about five bucks of quarters into the jukebox and play the song over and over and over.  Insert hilarious adjective.  No one noticed of course, but it was still funny.  I also enjoyed sitting down to complete strangers and striking up a conversation about something completely off topic  "Hey, what was the first bicycle you ever rode?" or "Have you ever had hernia surgery?"  Mostly it was an attempt to score chicks, but for some reason I was usually in some long term relationship.  I wasn't a play the field guy.  Stupid me.  One thing about the cougareat is that you could always find cheap food.  Pizza slice being a staple in the PDGreen diet. 

After chillin like Bob Dylan at the cougareat, for some reason I was obsessed with some video game near the bowling alley. I can't for the life of me remember.  I think it was Millipede.  I spent a lot o money on Milliepede and the game was boring.  Once you figured out the pattern it was simple.  Ah well, the life of a student wasn't always the most exciting.  I look back now and think about how stressful I thought life was back then.  I'd crave to have that kind of stress these days.  Hmmm, do I wake up at noon or one.  I think I'll back Russian and go fishing.  Living on 300 bucks a month.  Simple life.  This is a pointless log.  I was just remembering the cougareat and wanted to mention it many times in a blog.  Tastes like chicken man.

The Family Statue on Campus

For some reason, the family statue was a favorite of ours.  We were always doing something with it.  Dressing it, adding extra children or stuffed animals.  I'm not sure why we did it, perhaps we were both from dysfunctional families and needed some warmth in our lives.  Solid copper families give off a lot of warmth

Moo, I Say

Just a quick item for tonight: I miss the little cow signs.
Someone spent a lot of time going down to Kinko's south of campus, making color copies of little cows, cutting them out and pasting them on foamcore, attaching sticks, and then placing their little signs in grassy areas on the north end of campus near the humanities building (forgot the name) and the ASB where people were breaking free of the paved sidewalks, and killing the grass in a selfish drive to shave 2 seconds (if that) from their classroom-jockeying routines.

Most people ignored the signs. But I admired them. Not enough to stop cutting across the grass, mind you. But aesthetically, they were nice.

Clockwork Not-So-Orange

Maybe I am repressing the many visits I made to the top of the Kimball Tower to participate in those sinister (yet paid) psychological tests.
I remember going up to the top floor, occasionally having to wait for someone to let me in (and on rare occasion I would find the door to the the roof observation deck open and venture out), and then I was led into a small room where they had me play a little computer game. I'd play for 30 to 60 minutes, and then someone would come in, thank me for my time, and I'd leave. But that's all I remember. And then weeks later, I'd receive a small check for my time.

Why can't I remember more about this? Did I black out? Was I probed in some way? Was the room some kind of gas chamber where they'd drug me, adjust the implants that they placed in my back molars for better reception, provide me with detailed instructions of the next target I was to kill, bring me out of it slowly so that I wouldn't realize what was happening, and then send me on my cheery way? Should there be an investigation? Is my story enough to warrant some kind of government probe?

Ok, maybe I'm just bitter because the game was rigged, and I always lost. Guess I pulled out all of my molars with pliers for nothing.

Dave the Dog

As I've mentioned previously, one of my favorite pastimes throughout my time at BYU was entering a building just before the 10pm lockdown and exmploring the halls. And of course, the Harris Fine Arts Center was one of the best building to explore, as it holds a vast array of classrooms, hallways, theaters, and hidden passages (not that I condone this kind of activity nowadays). One numerous occasions we came across bins of pictures and projects in one of the basement hallways. As I also had classes in the HFAC, I knew that these were items that had been left behind by students, and had never been claimed. One night Preston and I were going through the bins, and we came across a picture of a happy looking dog, seen here:

We named him Dave, and his image became legend. Well, at least in our minds. We made zerox copies and threw up missing dog posters all over campus, we often displayed the picture prominently in our living room, and we even added his image to our Robbie Sorenson shrine (who, by the way, was mentioned in a semi-famous poem by P. Donald Green).

Funky Brigham

Do people still run through the main quad between the library and the ASB, watching the Brigham Young statue do the funky chicken as they run? Maybe not, now with the library extension and the statue moved from the left side of the fountain (when facing the ASB) to the center. But oh, what a jolly good time it was, running about, frolicking near the whale tail (which I hear has been moved down south of the Kimball Tower), or -- my favorite -- sitting on the shoulders of the little girl holding the hands of her parents in from of the Kimball bldg. All in good fun.

To be honest, I only did the BY funky chicken thing once, felt foolish when I did it, and afterwards mocked anyone I ever saw attempting it.

What the flock?

As with many former BYU students, I have a love/hate thing with living in Utah. There are many good things (access to skiing, prominence of the church, close to many locations from the hit film 'Footloose'), but there were just too many bad things for me to stick around much longer than absolutely necessary -- with crappy student job prospects being at the top of my list. I had to pay my own way through school, and after grants and loans, I still needed to work. So I did telemarketing. I sold t-shirts that I made (my best seller was a Brigham Young quote - "You can go to Provo or you can go to hell."). I also sold several paintings. I unloaded trucks for Color Spot. I participated in some paid psychological studies in the Kimball Tower (mostly playing video games where they watched me). I even worked in the deli section of a Dan's Foods (ugh, to this day the stink of ham still bothers me. Not even bleach could get the stink off my hands).

But the job I always admired was the flock of students picking up trash on campus. How did they get this free-loading piece of cake gig? I sure couldn't get onboard that gravy train. And you'd never see one or two of them, picking up trash and moving across the quad quietly and efficiently. No. There were always gaggles of them. 10, maybe 15 of them at a time, half of them standing around, the other half sort of casually looking for trash. Maybe. There was always the dedicated loser who was concerned that he wasn't "magnifying his calling" as a member of the trash herd, but the rest of them were obviously basking in the glory of their do-nothing job. Most would just lumber about, chatting it up. I swear there were couples. That's right -- what a great way to pick up chicks. Or hang with your fiance who you had known for almost 3 weeks. All while looking for garbage on a campus that never has litter anyway.

Damn, I wanted that job. I wonder how much something like that pays?

Zog

Shortly after sophmore year, I drifted in and out of my Coca-Cola / Hagen Daas high and decided I hated sitting around and drawing toasters and fax machines every day as part of my Industrial Design program, and started investigating options within the Art department on the side. I came across painting by Jim Christenson, who at the time was a professor (may still be for all I know) and a well known illustrator. He had these paintings of creatures with huge noses. I liked them, and in my caffeine/sugar delirium, created a figure out of foam, clay, and bondo which one of my design professors - who was also head of the Design program at the time - Doug Stout, called "Zog."

Here he is: . The unshaven look was quite popular back then. And that's not a shawl -- I was creating a layered tapestry of fabrics and plastic gems and other nik-nacks, which is what Christenson's paintings look like. Lots of junk all over the place.

Zog was quite the fixture in our apartment and eventually moved with us to the Hole. I'm not sure what happened to Zog. I seem to remember punching him in the face and causing a large crater -- possibly the effect of a post caffeine/sugar high.

By the way, this is not Zog. But that guy is way cool.