Birthday Aftermath

Another year older and closer to death.

According to DeathClock (you can find out when you are to die by clicking on the link)

Aside from that sunny disposition, I otherwise had a fantastic day.

I really appreciate all the phonecalls, e-mails and Facebook contacts that I got throughout the day. You guys really made my birthday special.

I started by going to work and then a few hours later Kristy and Logan took me to Angie's for breakfast. Angie's is a local diner that serves some of the best food in the valley. I love going there for breakfast, I have never been disappointed in their food and service. I got a broccoli and Jack cheese omelet with hollandaise sauce (I know, surprisingly healthy right?) and then Logan told the waitress that it was my birthday and she came back with some other girls in tow and a HUGE cinnamon roll. Now I admit, the reason I went there for my birthday was to get this large free cinnamon roll but I kinda forgot that they would sing. I told them that they didn't have to sing and then they said then I wouldn't get the cinnamon roll to which I replied, "then you will get no tip." That didn't work, they sang to me anyway. But it was worth it to get that warm cinnamon bun.

I went back to work and then my dad took me out to lunch at Quizno's. I didn't have to eat for the rest of the day! After a nice lunch with my dad's I went home and decided to go out for a run. Unfortunately the run was not as great as I wanted it to be. My knee still smarts whenever I push off of it. I tried my best but the discomfort was getting to me. This knee is bumming me out. I managed to run the last two blocks when suddenly I heard this tiny girl voice yell out "Happy Birthday!" It was Hannah, one of my Primary girls. I had no idea she knew it was my birthday. Her parents saw me and wished me a happy birthday as well, my name must have been on our Church newsletter. But who remembers the birthdays?

After my run, my mom came over to surprise me. And you know what she gave me? A case of Cherry Coke. So yeah, I must have an addiction if one of my birthday gifts is soda! We had a nice visit and then Kristy and Logan came home.

That evening we took Logan over to his school for a Bike Rally put on by our scouts. I have a real great neighborhood with some fantastic neighbors. And it was nice to be wished a happy birthday by them all. One of them said it must be hard turning 32. Boy that was nice to hear. I told her my real age and she was surprised and then she made fun of me because I am older than her. The rally was a lot of fun, Logan tied for first place. Afterwards we all ate Otter Pops and Amber (our Bishop's wife) gave me a ton of Otter Pops as a  birthday gift. Hmm... this is an alarming addicting trend.

We came home after visiting and chatting and I got my birthday cake. It was not a cake exactly, it was these very yummy chocolate cream cheese cupcakes with peanut butter and chocolate chips in them. Like I said, very yummy indeed. While we were eating Kristy realized that they did not sing to our neighbor Kara for her birthday last Sunday. We had talked with her a few days ago and found that since her brother Jordan left on his mission the day before her birthday she was unfortunately left out. She didn't do anything fun and felt kinda bummed. So I thought it would be nice to grab one of my cupcakes, put a candle in it and go over. I am sure glad we did. She was there with a lot of the other Young Women and we were about to sing to her when she ran inside to light it. After we sang to her she told us that no one had sung to her this year for her birthday. And then the Young Women sang to me for my birthday.

So all in all, I had a very nice birthday.

Freaky Eaters

I have a new addiction and it is ironic that it is a show about food addictions. It is called Freaky Eaters and it is on the The Learning Channel and it is like a bad car wreck. You are curious and so you take a peek and now you cannot look away.

The past three Sunday evenings after Logan goes to bed, Kristy and I will watch this show. There are some strange addictions, people who only eat french fries, people who consume gallons of maple syrup, there is a lady that eats tarter sauce with EVERYTHING.

Seriously. 

Everything. 

From jello to cupcakes.



Watching this show got me thinking. Am I addicted to certain foods? I don't think I am. I compare myself to these poor people and I don't think that I am addicted. At least not to the point to where these people are. But am I just on a slippery slope? So what things am I possibly addicted too?

4) I Cannot Believe It's Not Butter

Or some sort of spread that is like it. I can eat this with everything and I am afraid to admit that I do. When I had a bottle of the spray version, I sprayed it on my Pringles. And I sprayed it on my Mac & Cheese. Uh oh, I may have a problem. But then it has been months since I had any. But if I did, I would eat it with everything. Hmmm... I better be careful with this stuff.

3) Chocolate 

Now I don't eat chocolate everyday but I definitely crave it and I think that if there was some chocolate in front of me now I would eat it. But I don't go out of my way to get some. I guess that I am lucky that I am more slothful. Who would have thought that being slothful would be a good thing?

2) Otter Pops

I can go through a box in a day easily. We bought some Saturday night and by this morning half the box is gone. And if I had it my own way, I would have polished them off already. But I would feel bad that Logan didn't get any. So if I am thinking of my own kid before me, I guess I am not addicted. I will eat any type of Popsicle.

1) Soda

I could give this up but I just don't want to. This is probably my biggest addiction but it is one that I think I can control. In fact, I used to drink a ton of this stuff. At least 4-5 cans a day and now I am down to 1 can of  sugared soda a day. I could quit but I personally believe that everything is good in moderation. As long as I am not abusing it, I should be good.

But that show definitely got me thinking...

Redeemed

Boy was it a rough one today.

I was feeling a little disappointed this weekend. I don't want to go into the details so let's just say that there have been some actions by people that I like that have left me a bit disappointed. 

That feeling lingered into today as well. For the last few months I have been asked to assist in the Primary. Now I love the Primary. I love being with those children and I feel that is where I belong.

But today I was losing it. The kids were really rowdy and I was feeling overwhelmed and disappointed. Sure, they are just little kids and I think I would have been able to handle it if I wasn't already feeling the way I was. I just was feeling that I was not reaching the kids. One of the kids that I like called me mean. This ugly feeling didn't leave me even after Church was over.

And then a knock came to my door. 

I opened it and saw one of my Primary girls holding a bag of cookies with a note with her family behind her.

 

Maddie had made a card (with the help of her mom) with a nice fresh batch of cookies and they were just for me. It was exactly what I needed and really redeemed my day. I was ready to tell the Primary leaders that I was finished with my volunteer time but Madelyn convinced me to stay. Well, at least one more week!

Resolutions Halftime

It has been six months since I made my 2011 New Year's Resolutions and even though I don't want to, I guess I should take a look at how I have done. I will rate myself using the Mountain Dew Rating System with 5 Dews being the best (meaning I totally nailed the goal) and 0 Dews meaning I totally flopped.

Resolution #1
"Take Time to Write More"
I did complete another ScriptFrenzy round but aside from that I have not taken the time to write anything else. I do have that children's book that I want to work on. And I really should complete my other novels and take some time to plot my new novel that I will be writing in November.

Resolution #2
"Read More"
The year started out really good. I read a couple of books during the first quarter and I read the Ensign every month for the first quarter. Unfortunately I am struggling this 2nd quarter. I am a little over halfway through my book (Mick Foley's Have A Nice Day) and I think I can finish it off before the end of the month. I have fallen off the wagon when it comes to the Ensign reading. I missed one month and I am behind this month. I have got a lot of reading to do these last couple of days!



Resolution #3
"Be Healthy"
I said I would exercise 5 days a week and I think I have been very close to doing that. I might have missed a day or two here but I can honestly say that I have been exercising a couple times a week. I have played racquetball, I have been riding my bike to work, I have been walking with Randy and I recently have been hitting the Total Gym. I can also honestly say that I have been careful in what I eat. I am definitely eating more healthier foods (more fruits and veggies) even though I still eat my share of treats. I have cut down my soda consumption as well. I still have time to train for my 5K and hopefully my knee will keep up. I think I hit this goal outta the park!

Resolution #4
"Pick up a Pen and Draw!"
Sadly I have not done as much with a pen as I would have liked. I have taken some time to do some doodling but that is about it. I still am interested in doing some art based on the songs of Queen but I have not done anything yet. Looks like I know what I need to do for the rest of the year.

Resolution #5
"Play the Bass"
I still have not learned how to read music but I still manage to pluck my bass a few times a week. Some of the songs I thought were difficult at first are now pretty easy. And some of the songs I am able to sing along with while playing which is way more difficult than you would think. My voice wants to follow the bass and the timing is off and most songs. I am also active in my choir.

I was thinking that I had not done so well with my resolutions but after looking and thinking about them, I think I have done a pretty good job (averaging about 3 Dew per goal). There are things that I definitely need to improve on and now I am feeling a bit motivated to work on them.

The Heat

Ugh. I hate the heat.

Sorry Lebron but it is true.

I feel like Elaine here. My gosh! The heat!

And not only that, my body cannot handle the heat.

Yesterday was practically a blur. I rode my bike to work and came home and ate a lunch and then it all went downhill from there. I got sick to my stomach, I was hot and didn't have any strength. I felt dizzy and the only thing that sounded good (I had no appetite and I was not thirsty) was closing my eyes.

And this is not the first time this has happened. I get heat exhaustion all the time. I got it Friday night walking around SummerFest, I got it while at a family reunion, I got it severely when I was helping Kristy mark a 5K course many years ago and I got it last year at Girl's Camp.

Every time I get over it, I say to myself that I will make sure that I drink liquids and stay cool so it doesn't happen to me again. And then it happens and I refuse to fix myself up. Last night I was sick again but I refused to drink anything. Kristy had to go and get me a cold Gatorade and I still didn't want to drink it. But about an hour later I was feeling a bit better.

I swear that last night will be the last. But I am sure that it won't. Hopefully I won't get it while I am at Girl's Camp here in a couple of heats.

I just hate the heat. And that has to be the first reason why I don't want to go to hell!

500th Blog!

Day 500 

So I was going through my blog, desperately trying to come up with something that I wanted to write about when I noticed something quite surprising.

I have published 500 blogs!

Well, technically this is the 501st blog. So that means that I have blogged 136 times since my initial 365 year.

Uncanny X-Men #500

Fantastic Four #500

Avengers #500

I guess this makes me some sort of superhero right?

Rise Above (the clutter)

I have been listening to the Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark non-stop yesterday and today. I found a place online where you can listen to the whole album for free. Sure it is cheesy but I am cheesy so this is right up my alley.

While listening to this I was surfing the Internet and decided to make myself useful. I am still in that strange dejunking mood so I decided to part with the rest of my CDs. I sold a whole bunch months ago but I kept a lot of them, I just couldn't part with them.

No longer. I have sold almost all of them. And the reasoning is that I have not looked at them since I sold my last set. I have them all in my iTunes, I also made a copy of them and I have them in my backup too. So it is not like I would lose them forever. They are just taking up space and I am positive I can use the money I make for something else. I am still holding on to my Queen collection and I justified myself in keeping them. I have looked at the CD inserts recently to look at the art and pictures and to figure out some lyrics. But that is all of them.

I sell my CDs (you can sell games and DVDs as well) to two different places. One offers free shipping (you print out a shipping label) and the other will credit you when they pay you out for your shipping costs. Now you may not make a lot of money selling them back. In fact some CDs they have so many of that they will only offer a quarter or even a nickel. But I look at it this way, these CDs are taking up space and I never use them. So why have them? I might as well get something right?



I recommend clicking on the banner above to visit SecondSpin first. And then open up a new window/tab and go to Spun.com and compare the prices. It is interesting but you will find that one place will buy a CD for 50 cents and the other will buy it for $8!

And already I don't regret getting rid of this stuff.

Man on a Mission

Last Monday I began a new quest.

Next month, on July 9th my nephew Naythan is getting baptized and they are having a pool party (no relation to the actual baptism) afterwards. Now I am not much of a swimmer but for some reason I am looking forward to dipping my feet and play in the pool.

So I have a little under a month to complete a new goal. So what is this new goal?

My new goal is for my head to look completely out of place on my body.

One of my goals this year is to run a 5K race and that is not looking so good. I tweaked/twisted my knee a few weeks ago (I think I did it when I knocked myself out... ...that is for another blog) and I cannot run on it without it starting to swell. I played racquetball on it last Saturday and I really had some problems. So my training for the 5K hasn't really started. I have been riding my bike to my dad's for work (a little over 8 miles round trip) so I am not without exercise but I feel like I am missing out.

So I have decided that I am going to work out on my Total Gym every other day and ride my bike on the other days (except for Sundays) until July 9th. We'll see how much of a difference a months time will make.

Turn Off the Dark

I have always been a bit curious about this musical ever since I caught wind of it. I like musicals, I like U2 and I like Spider-Man. How can this be wrong?

I wish I still lived in New York because I would catch this show as soon as possible. Now I have heard negative reviews and heard bad things about this but after watching this preview, I am really intrigued.

This could be bad. But it could be Flash Gordon bad. And that could be a good thing.

One thing for sure is that the music is really good. I previewed the songs in iTunes and more than likely I will make a purchase shortly.

Easter Gift Card Party

The other night my family and I went over to my sister's home for a late Easter party with my dad's family. We have been trying to get together since Easter but I got sick and then my sister had golf and suddenly it was already June.

My dad and I were especially excited for this get-together because we wanted to test out a new way of celebrating a holiday that includes gift-giving. Now I like gift giving because I like to find ways to serve other people. But with the family getting bigger and money getting tighter it can become a big stress and not something anyone would want to have during a holiday.

And then Kristy and I heard of this fun idea which I shared with my dad which should solve the stress and money woes but also keep the spirit and the fun of gift giving. We were going to give each other gift cards but in a different sort of way.

After a great BBQ and the games we had Root Beer Floats for dessert.

The rules are simple. Every member of every family is in charge of getting a $5 gift card from where ever they want. They could be grocery stores, Amazon, iTunes, places to eat, Walmart... ...you get the idea. After you purchase the gift card then you place them into an empty white envelope and seal them up. At the party you then put them all in a hat or bowl or where ever and then you play some sort of game to decide who gets to draw first.

We played Apples to Apples for our game. Jill won the first round so she got to choose a gift card. She opened it and it was a $5 gift card to Twilzberry (a frozen yogurt joint). Then Jace won and he chose a gift card (to Hastings) and then we kept playing until all the gift cards were chosen. But, if you won a round and you had already won a round, you could steal a gift card that was already opened or you could keep your current one. I really liked Jill's giftcard and I managed to snag it but then Pauline won her first (she was the last one to win) and she grabbed mine so I had to take the last unopened giftcard (which coincedently was the one she brought) which was a $5 giftcard to McDonald's. I cannot complain, I am sure I can find something there.

It was a lot of fun to play these games for the giftcards and we plan on getting together again for dinner and then telling everyone what we bought with our giftcards.It was so successful that we plan on doing it again this Christmas. The only difference is that the young kids will be excluded and this will only be for adults. And the game might change as well, we might go for our usual poker tournament.

I Remember... Mix Tapes

Before I get into this blog, I want to first congratulate my cousin Jeremy for recently completing his 365 Trek! I know it has been a hard journey but one that is totally worth it. And to honor my cousin, I am going to swipe one of his column ideas. A good idea is a good idea! I hope he doesn't mind but by the time he finds out it will be too late.

I have been in another one of my melancholy moods where I get reflective about the past and I spend way too much time reminiscing. Combine this mood with my "I have too much crap" mood and that spells trouble. This afternoon I targeted my small filing cabinet. I file a lot of things away (schoolwork, church stuff, notes, drawings) and it was time to go through it and clean out some stuff that I really don't need. I found a small cassette insert and it made me smile.

A few years ago I threw out all my old cassette tapes. I don't use them anymore and they were just taking up room (I must have been in this mood then). I had a ton of cassettes, most of them were mix tapes. For those that are unfamiliar with mixtapes, basically you would either record (using blank tapes) music from another tape, record or even from the radio. Like I said, I had a ton of these mix tapes ranging from musical scores to Queen to heavy metal to well... ...just about everything. But there were about 10-12 tapes that I struggled to part with. These were tapes that I made when I was young and living in Canada.

Living in a big city like Edmonton definitely had its advantages. One of the biggest was their library system. In downtown Edmonton they had this huge library and my dad used to take my sister and I there quite a lot. But I was not interested in the books, I was interested in the music! They had a ton of records (of course this is really all they had since this was back in the 80's) but they also had those small 45 records that normally had only a single song on them. But they usually had the latest hits! My sister and I would spend hours looking for songs and we would come home with about thirty of them. Then the next day I would get up early and record them on to tape and make my own mixtapes. I loved spending all that time mixing music. It was like I was Dr. Johnny Fever! I made about ten volumes of music from borrowing those old 45's from the library and I listened to these tapes all the way until I started getting CDs. But now they are just taking up space so I made the tough decision and dumped them.

But I filed one of the tape covers in my files as a remembrance of those old glory days.

This was Volume One. Can you name some of the artists? And yeah, that is not a typo. I had a song called Sexcrime 1984. I don't know how that slipped past the parents.

About a year ago I found these cool USB Flash discs that mimic mixtapes. I need to get me one of these things. Aren't they nifty?

X-Geeking

Sorry folks. I am going to be talking about comic books here.

It is well known that I am a geek. Part of being a geek is also loving charts, databases and keeping track of things. The past few days I have been reworking an old Access database that keeps track of all my comics. I was curious to see how many comics I have sold and that led to forming another database and going through mycomicshop.com (where I do a lot of reselling) to see find all the comics that I have owned at one point. Hours and hours later I think I have a final number. Now this is not exact but it is pretty close and I as a geek, am satisfied.

The grand number? I have sold 3,070 comics.

Now that only begs the question. How many comics do I have? I am not sure how many I have (that is another geek project coming soon) but I know that it is 3,070 comics less than it used to be. My goal is to have a collection that is all exceptional. No crap, no stuff that I won't read in decades. Basically, no filler. Just all good stuff.

Speaking of comics. I just found out that Marvel is cancelling its longest running comic, the Uncanny X-Men. The last issue will be #544 but it will come back with a new #1. This is definitely a marketing ploy and I am not happy purely from a geek standpoint. My first issue of Uncanny X-men was #200 and I have bought each issue since. I have a copy (in comic book, hardcover, trade paperback) from issue #94. And now that grand run is finished. I think I must be getting old and grumpy.

And speaking of the X-Men. Kristy and I went and saw X-Men: First Class opening day. I was going to go at midnight but I just didn't think I could do it. So we went to the 2nd showing that Friday. I don't want to spoil the movie for those that have not seen it but I will say that it was awesome! I loved everything about it and it gives X2 (my all-time favorite comic book movie) a run for its money. This geek left the movie house completely satisfied. It was pure joy to see my favorite X-Man, Banshee, screaming and flying around.

Now I am geeked out and need a rest.

The Tie

Yesterday at church one of my friends complimented my tie. It is one of my favorite ties and I wear it most of the time. But what he didn't know if that this particular tie has a long-lived secret.

This pinkish tie is about eighteen years old. This is one of my few surviving mission ties that went to New York with me. This is the same tie that I wore home on the plane from New York. In fact, I was being a real bad missionary because I wore this tie home. Our Mission President (again, this is the guy that I didn't see eye-to-eye with) came up with this idea that all missionaries should wear the same tie in an effort to promote unity amongst us. While I do like and understand the idea, the way it was presented was what I disagreed with. When I left the mission I gave my identical tie to one of my closest friends and wore this tie home. My Mission President was not thrilled at all that I decided this and made sure that I was hidden in all the last pictures that were taken before I took off. He made such a big deal about it and I am very surprised that when I got to Utah that nobody here knew about this horrible mistake I had made.

But that is not what makes this tie special. 

Didja know that this tie has been in the same knot since the mission? I have never untied it (I am not good at tying ties) and my companion made such a great knot that I have kept it since!

The Wind Caves

Last night Kristy, Logan and I went hiking up Logan Canyon to the Wind Caves. I have not been there for years and when I heard that Kristy was taking the Young Women there for their activity, I jumped at the chance to go.

The Wind Caves is one of the coolest hikes here in Cache Valley. The Wind Caves were formed by water and wind erosion and has created a small triple arch and natural caves made from limestone. It is about a 1,000 feet from the highway so it is a steep climb. This is where Kristy and I went on our first date.

Kristy and just the Young Women were going but I thought it would be good to have a guy go along with them. We met at our church at 6:00 and then headed up the canyon. We had a pretty good group heading up to the canyon.

There was flooding at the beginning of the trail. There is a small stream of water that comes from out of the mountain. It wasn't small this time around.

This was the small stream. Now it was a raging river!

Logan and I were the only guys on this trip. Not that we were complaining.

Logan found a small cave inside the main cave. And before you ask, Logan was not using that as a bathroom.

Afterwards, Kristy, Logan and I headed back home but we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some snacks. I bought a huge bag of lime, root beer and banana popsicles. We had a good time and made it off the mountain before it got dark.

One of the reasons why I like hanging with the Young Women is because they are a good example to me and more importantly a good example for Logan. I hope when the day comes he brings home a girl like these girls.

Matt the Actor

After I came home from my LDS Mission back in 1995 (wow! that really dates me) I was unsure of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be. I wanted to go back to school and I was thinking of either Sociology or Broadcast Journalism but I was unsure if school was right for me at the time. I had a steady job working for MotorCargo but I wanted to do more in life than just working for a paycheck.
I saw an ad in the paper from the Eastman Agency that was looking for models and actors. So I thought what the heck and decided to go down for an interview. I met an agent names Jenny and we talked about modeling and acting. The company was more into modeling and it wanted to branch out into acting and I was one of the first applicants to come in for acting. The more that we spoke the more that we both thought I should give this a good try. So I signed up to take some acting classes.

The acting classes were taught by actor Bruce Ackerman and we met once a week for about two months. The classes were fantastic. There were about ten of us that took the class and we really got along and bonded. Bruce taught us a lot about acting for the camera and how to get over being nervous and how to really get the best emotion out of all of us. Then it was up to us to reenact a favorite scene from a movie. And the one I chose was "one of the more interesting and gutsiest" actors to follow. I chose the opening scene to Army of Darkness with Bruce Campbell. Bruce advised me that this would be a hard act to follow (not sure if he meant the pun) and said that this would be a make or break it type of audition. But I did it anyway.

We were to practice and then audition if front of everyone and then he would critique it. I have to admit that it was a little nerve wracking to perform in front of him and my peers. I do recall that I volunteered to go first so I could get it out of the way. I was glad for it to be done with and he said that I did very well especially considering the source material. He said that my facial expressions were some of the best he has seen. The next project was to partner up with a few other classmates and pick another scene to act out at a recital to finish the training.

But first we had the awesome opportunity to go down to Salt Lake a few times and work with an agent that worked for LDS Productions. These were audition workshops and they really taught me a lot. We did this four times during the course and they were the best part. Our instructor would first introduce us to the audition world and then we dove right in. He would hand us a partial script and tell us who our character was and what he wanted and then we would practice for about fifteen minutes and then head in for a live audition. The first two times we went they were singular auditions, so you were really on your own. The third week was acting together in pairs. He would pair us up together and hand us a script and told us to work it out how we thought it should go.

I remember one audition in particular. I was paired up with Alina and we were a married couple. The script came from Field of Dreams. The more we practiced it the better we felt we got but it seemed like the audition was still missing something. So Alina came up with this idea that if we were married, we should act like we were married and be more affectionate physically. We didn't know if this was frowned upon in the audition process but we didn't have anything to lose. So we went ahead and threw ourselves in these roles. It was an amazing experience. We were these characters and it got to the point that we forgot our lines and just ad libbed the rest of the scene. But it worked because we were in sync with each other. Our instructor stopped us before we got to the end and he was speechless. He said that was the best audition he has seen so far and if we were auditioning for real, he would have hired us right on the spot! It didn't matter that we forgot the lines. It was more important to capture the feeling than the words. He then asked everyone that was watching if they noticed that we were making up our lines. And none of them said they did because they were absorbed in the scene. He then said "There is no such thing as overacting when it is real."

We continued with these workshops and classes and finally it was time to graduate. We put on a show at a fraternity hall at Utah State and we invited our friends and family. I teamed up with Alina again and also Trudy and we chose the Miracle Max scene from the Princess Bride. We also met up together and practiced and practiced for this recital. And we knocked it out of the park! We had such a good time throughout the evening and we were told that ours was the best.

My handwritten script of the Princess Bride

The next week we took pictures for our portfolio and then it was time to begin auditions. Unfortunately the Eastman Agency was not properly equipped for handling acting as it was for modeling and they packed their bags from Logan and moved back down to Salt Lake. I didn't get to audition anywhere like I wanted too but the class and experience was still worth it.

While the Eastman Agency didn't land me any jobs, my class instructor did. Bruce called me twice and got me two acting gigs. They were both voice over work for some local businesses for the radio. It was a lot of fun to get into the studio and perform. Bruce thought I was the most talented of the bunch (and I am not just saying that because I can) and said that I had a lot of versatility. But that was the last professional work I did. Like I said, I don't regret it at all. In fact, this class helped me land a spot in the musical Chess.

I still would like to get into acting. There is just something neat about nailing a scene and selling it to an audience. I guess acting around the house for Kristy and Logan will do for now.