Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

This semester is slower than usual. That's a bonus. I get to spend more time with Rebecca; I like that too. We woke up late this morning, and by late I mean that we rolled out of bed at 8:30 and took our time getting ready for school/work. The day has been warm and sunny; short sleeves weather. I didn't have to dress up for work today; I usually have to wear button white shirt and tie, but today, I'm wearing normal clothes. Not only that, but we got donuts. And then, after we did nothing for the morning, some people came around with a huge tray of cookies and milk.

While listening to "Hands Down" by Dashboard Confessional in my car, with the windows down, I realized that I was having a really good day. Maybe it was from the cookies, or the donuts, or the sudden warm sunny weather, but today is an amazing day. It was one of those moments that we, as human beings, just treasure. It's times like driving around in my car on a nice day that just make things melt away.

Here's a list of some of my "euphoric" moments: those good times that just make the world around me and time disappear; when things just slow down and you can enjoy everything.

• Dave Tedesco and I were working on a film project until late, late, late...right around our old neighborhood. It was a perfect night, one where we were doing stuff and didn't care how late it was or what we did: the stars were out and we were having a good time. It was the stuff movies are made of. That's probably why we made a movie of it. (by the way, this happened a lot while filming with Dave)
• I went over to Mckell's house in Provo. He was waiting for someone to come over and drop off some film information for him. He said "I need someone to wrestle." It was a day just like today: beautiful, warm, perfect. We wrestled until we were so exhausted we couldn't do anything but lie in the grass and barely breathe. He told me he couldn't believe how old we had gotten.
• Around Valentine's day, Jen and Emily came over to my apartment because they had nothing better to do. I had just gotten a package from my parents in the mail and we opened it together and ate WAY too much candy. Jen put on the ridiculous valentine heart pijamas my parents mailed me and we took pictures. I don't remember what else we did, but it was a truly wonderful day.
• Summer days at work with Cyrus and Mike always ended in us playing video games on the computers for much longer than we should have. We'd create a local server and play deathmatch Halo for hours. Once, we caught the other guys in the office online playing UT and laughed our heads off.
• Elder Bowen was a stiff missionary and too stressed out for my style. I loved the dude, but our housing situation was horrible (we were being evicted) and couldn't find any place to live, which was a full time operation. This made him even more uptight about things. One day, we were walking around and I made some comment using my Sol Rosenberg voice. He stopped, paused, and then just doubled over laughing. After that, we stayed up late at night laughing about the Jerky Boys and seeing life in a new way. It was good.
• Luna and I drove out to Detroit, without any purpose or aim. We just went driving. And we got to Ellis Isle. And I took lots of pictures. A homeless guy was feeding apples to a deer that was waltzing around the island. And I fed an apple or two to a wild deer. On our way back, Luna said "You're like heroin." It made sense to me and I felt pretty dang good.
• Rebecca and I woke up early on our first day in Hawai'i, so I could go see if there were any sea turtles. At first, I was let down because there weren't any in the tide pools. We walked out onto the volcanic rock, scraped up our feet and waded through the tide pools. I like wading with Rebecca. By the time we were halfway out to the middle, we noticed that there were two sea turtles lying on the center outcropping of rock. We waded right up to them. I have always wanted to be right next to sea turtles. It was so peaceful.
• My freshman year, I lived on the edge of 9th east. I put all my paints out on the balcony, and laid out there, watching the clouds race by and listening to the cars drive by. The sound of cars reminded me of waves. I fell asleep. Good.
• Matt called me up and told me we were going to go listen to Allen Ginsberg read some of his poetry in Ann Arbor. Kevin came along because neither of us were old enough to drive without our parents. And we wouldn't get home until midnight. Kevin didn't have a ticket but he got in for free because he volunteered as an usher. After the show, we asked him to go backstage and see if Allen G. would come out afterwards to sign autographs. Only about 15 people hung around and we kept moving to the back of the line. Eventually, it was just us and him...we sat and talked. Our friend, Coco, cried when she got to face him, in person. I shook hands with history. The next day, I went to get a poetry book signed by Patti Smith, and Allen G. was there. He called me by name and said hello. I couldn't believe it.
• Similar experience. Josh called me up and told me we were going to see Philip Glass at Borders. At this point in time, I wasn't clear on who Philip Glass was. I sat with my sketchbook, waiting for him to walk in. We were on the front row. He wore glasses. At first, I wrote down that I thought he was British. He isn't. I asked him some questions about working with Brian Eno. Josh and I tried to get enough courage to ask him to come with us to lunch. He looked like he was in a hurry, so we didn't. It was still an amazing experience.
• In seattle, Rebecca and I went with Robert and Camille to the Olympic National Forest. On a hike, we went deep into some isolated old growth area with waterfalls. It was more mystical than any place I've ever been. The air itself was rich with the feeling of mythology, history, and beauty. Rebecca and I climbed down to the water and sat under a boulder.
• My 27th birthday. Nothing special about turning 27, but Rebecca made it into the best day. It was perfect weather in Seattle. We went out to eat Greek food. We got to see a Troll under a bridge. We went to Gas Works Park and watched the sun set over the city. We spent the rest of the evening with our good friends. Read about it here, if you want the details.
• Any point in time, when I was with Rebecca and we were at the branch library in Seattle. It was like birthdays and christmas all rolled into one.
• The first day I was in Alabama. Dwayne, Matt and I shared a room. We woke up and did absolutely nothing all day long. We inflated a plastic reindeer. We drove around with the reindeer's head out the window. It took us hours to get out of the bedroom, just from sitting around talking with Rebecca M. Then we went and rode a bike down a very steep hill. I thought I was going to die. And we climbed into caves around her house. A wonderful way to spend spring.
• Road trips with Rebecca. They're long. They're at times, painful. But whether we're driving to Oregon or to Virginia, the hours pass and I reflect on life and the beauty around me. And I get to talk with Rebecca for hours. I like that too.
• There's a couple summer experiences that fall into this category. The summer Rebecca and I spent in Seattle fits this. It seemed like every day was a "euphoric" moment. Also, the 8 months I spent living on my own in Los Altos and all the time I spent with Andrew. The trip we took to Arizona in his 1982 Porsche 944. The late nights we stayed up watching movies and hanging out with Pam and Jeremy. The ice cream eating contest. Santa Cruz. The friends I made in both places slowed down time for me.
• There's a certain time dialation that happens when I go with Jon and Faith to Florence. I can smell it in the air. I can feel it in the sand. I remember the first time Jon, Faith, Rebecca and I went to the coast together. It was like my head was jerked out of reality.
• Listening to Rebecca read Where the Wild Things Are to me. The whole world stops turning for a couple minutes.

Most everything we did had to do with that 22 pound rat. That 120 year old 22 pound rat. But Rebecca doubts the validity of Punxsutawney Phil's age. Whatever. If a big fat squirrel can predict the weather, why can't he be over a hundred years old? ;)

We went over to the Washburn's house for FHE and introduced people to new games. It seems like we do that a lot lately; maybe that's because we don't have any "regulars" who we play our usual games with, other than Karl and Angela. And we're still introducing them to new games :). But Monday night was nice, even if Rebecca and I didn't feel like we could talk their language. It's difficult for us to sit around talking scrap books, pregnancies and sports when neither of us have experience with these things, making it challenging for us to fit in with our own demographic in this ward. Yet, we keep trying.

Wednesday morning, Rebecca and I spent a couple hours putting up a show on the top floor of the HFAC at BYU. One of my professors (the one who told me to just get a BA and move on to an MFA for speeds sake) keeps asking me why I'm not in the BFA program. He must know too many people to keep any details straight, because I've gone over this with him many times: he's the REASON I didn't go for a BFA. Still, he walked past us and asked if this was my BFA show. Nope. Just a show. Why aren't you getting a BFA? Because YOU advised against it.

I still believe what he said the first time. MFA programs don't care about WHAT degree you got, but what your portfolio is like. When I was at CMU, Clayton told me that one of their grad students was a plastic surgeon who decided to switch and do some art for a bit. If Joe thinks that my shows and work is worthy of a BFA final show, then I guess that's a good sign.

Friday was a pretty good day. The weather was wonderful, I got to wear normal clothes to work and we had a groundhog day party in the evening at Karl and Angela's place. We played 'pin the shadow on the groundhog' and 'throw the darts at the groundhogs' and other made-up games. Karl and Angela always invite people we don't know and we have lots of fun at their parties.

Rebecca has been finishing up her IRB proposal for her thesis. We're hoping that she gets it done in time and they don't take forever to approver her. But Katie has helped by reading it over and she has experience working on an IRB committee in VA. We also turned in taxes, but not state ones: utah cheats us, cuz we make money out of state! One day, I'd like to really understand two things better: taxes and the stock market.

Just normal school, other than that. Have a great week.

UPDATE: We forgot to mention that on Tuesday, we were DUPED. Seriously duped. Wayne saw an advertisement for a contemporary artist, Robert Rauschenberg, speaking on campus. We were overcome with excitement and could hardly wait until 4pm. Until they started a VIDEO of the guy, and we realized it was just part of a film series, not the lecture series. DUPED. We felt so duped that afternoon.

We were thinking that we hadn't posted pictures of ourselves in a while, so I wandered around Saturday afternoon looking for something to take pictures of. Star cat loves having us around and follows us everywhere. She's still more kitten than cat. Rebecca was fixing our duvet cover (a little bit of "hot glue" action, she says). Star loves ribbons and tape measures, so she was trying to 'help' the whole time. Sunday mornings are usually the same for us. We wake up and Star has been sleeping down by our feet. I get the lappy so we can read and write emails. So there are some pictures of that. Last night we went upstairs to play Dance Dance Revolution. I was horrible at it. Rebecca was too drugged up to play (on allergy medicine). But we should get some pictures of that posted.

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So I tried using my sewing machine to hem some of Wayne's pants (mental note, he's not length 34...if we get jeans that long I'll have to mend them as well! Who knows why he likes his pants so long that he can completely cover his shoes with his pant legs...). However, I learned something important about my sewing machine. When it refuses to go forward anymore, I shouldn't force it with the manual turn...needles can break in such situations. Needless to say, I need to go buy a new needle before I can finish the job. At least the jeans that worked look good...now I just need to finish the other pairs of jeans.

We had Karl and Angela over for southern food on Thursday. It's a nice luxury to be able to hang out with people in the middle of a school week! Even with helping each other out quite a bit, though, Wayne and I couldn't win at Bohnanza. I guess we'll just have to go back to being mean. :)

Mutual this week was moved to Wednesday instead of Thursday, because that's the day they could schedule a temple trip. They stressed that they were going to leave the Church building no later than 4pm, so you would get left behind if you were late. Amazingly, we had everyone there two minutes to 4. How often do we actually get to start an activity on time?? It was a good trip, and I enjoyed remembering our youth temple trips from Austin to Dallas when we traveled four hours to get there and used to stop at Golden Corral afterwards. Four hours each way was a long time to wear a dress in a car! The youth in this ward were amazed that we traveled "so far" to get to the temple, since they can go to the temple right in their "backyard," so to speak.

Research hit a small snag this week, since one of the tools I needed to use wouldn't compile. It's freely available, but wouldn't compile on the computers in our lab. On Friday, though, I had the idea to try it on a different lab's computer, and it worked! I learned that our compiler was too "new." Apparently these things aren't backwards compatible. How often is it that something won't work on a computer because it is too new?? Now we just need to install an old version of the compiler so we can use the tool I need on our computers.

Friday we rented Corpse Bride. Somehow we missed it when it was at the dollar theater, so we paid a bit extra to rent it. That's one thing to appreciate about Provo...it is cheaper for the two of us to watch movies in the theater than it is to rent them. Unfortunately, we also just missed New York Doll in the dollar theater, so we'll have to rent that one when it hits the rental places too. [Tim Burton sometimes looses that magic he had back in the early 90's. Big Fish was really good, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was good, but there have been a lot of misses in his career as of late. - Wayne]

I think that's about it. Wayne wants to post a scathing review of the book we read this week, so check back for that later. Until then, have a great week!

Okay. Here's my review of Kira-Kira. On the opening paragraph, we knew that the sister was going to die. We knew the chapter she was going to die in. I knew that nothing was going to happen in this book besides someone dying and a kid trying to deal with it at the end. Why? Because this book is formulaic.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but in the past handful of Newberry Award books we've read, it feels like this is the same theme that's repeated in most of them. Walk Two Moons followed this same formula as did Bridge to Terabithia. However, I liked Bridge and I couldn't stand Walk. Looking over the list of Newberry Medal winners, I guess not as many as I thought followed this pattern, but it feels like if you've read one, you've read them all. Or maybe I'm bitter because I lived through the experience of loosing someone I was close to, and it's not like this.

Why is it that a 12 year old in the 50-60's doesn't know that cancer KILLS? Why don't her parents tell her? Why is it that nothing happens in this book and I played video games through the whole thing, only catching one in every 4 words and still understood the whole book? The most redeeming part of the book is the last two chapters. Maybe the last one chapter.

Sorry. This book is the dumps. If you want a good Newberry book, go read Crispin, Despereaux, Holes, View from Saturday, Giver or any of the other ORIGINAL Newberry winners out there.

A couple years ago, I read Dune Messiah and Children of Dune; afterwards, I watched the TV miniseries adaptation of the books. Although I wasn't facinated by Messiah, Children progressed the Dune story and I became really interested in reading the rest of this series. Then I had surgery and forgot all about it. But this review is about the original.

I picked it up a couple days ago because Rebecca was deep into the book she was reading and I wanted something to pass the time while I helped a professor with a video project (there was a lot of down time). But before I get into the book, I need to explain some history.

Growing up, David Lynch's adaptation of the original novel was in my top 5 movies. For a very long time. And although I accepted that there were strong differences between the novel and the film, I recognized them both as being great masterpieces. However, because I loved the movie so much, it was hard to read the book and NOT see the book in light of the movie. It has been many years since I have seen the movie and images have begun to fade from my memory. This made reading the Dune novel a bit interesting because, for the first time, my imagination conjured up the world and the people, instead of possessing the characteristics of the book. It was a bit tricky to do, for me, because I often caught myself seeing Paul Atredies as the Paul from the movie, while in the book Paul was some punk 15 year old kid. And Gurney Halleck was fat in the book, not quite Patrick Stewart. Once my imagination took hold, this book really opened up for me. I was absorbed in it completely, reminding me of my first reading of Hyperion or Gateway (without the unneccesary sex from both books).

For the most part, the book flowed smoothly, up until the last battle when things felt rushed. Unlike Messiah, the original contained the right amount of the choppy and confusing "mind dialogues" which Frank Herbert loved to include in his novels. Simply put: a brilliantly created universe AND an amazing plot.

I have been invited to participate in a collaborative art exhibition in Phoenix, AZ. The project proposal was written by a professor and will happen in April or May. Further details later.

Rebecca was accepted to present ("poster") at a conference in NYC in late March. Since we've never been to NYC, we decided to take this chance to see if we could get both of us to spend a couple days there. The sad thing is that during the day, Rebecca will be stuck in a conference while I am wandering art museums and galleries. But if we work this out, we'll have plenty of time in the evenings to do fun stuff together. [The conference is on Human Sentence Processing, and the work I'll present is stuff that I have done with the Linguistics research groups I've been involved with...my thesis stuff isn't ready to submit anywhere yet -becca]

The question is: are we going to be able to work out a way to get to NYC? It's very expensive to get a hotel anywhere and for some reason most of the hotels are booked already. Who knew that something big is ALWAYS happening in NYC? We don't really know anything about good hotels in NYC, so I emailed a professor of mine who goes to NYC all the time. He had some recommendations (stay at the YMCA because it's cheapest, but he usually stays at a nicer place on the upper west side) but it turns out that neither of those work because the YMCA is booked and the nicer hotel is way out of our price range. We'd like to keep the trip under $1000 [i.e. under what we got back in our tax refund :)]. Which is quite hard. And we didn't know. But we just don't have the money to spend on this trip, but it would be a nice graduation present to each other.

Well, we tried finding a good place for reasonable rates on Saturday. We think that we've got it worked out, but sadly BYU has to do all our travel purchases (because they're paying for Rebecca's half of the trip) and they aren't going to be in the office until Tuesday. Which means we have to wait on pins and needles hoping that the hotel isn't full in that time.

Going backwards in the week - we went out on Saturday to pick up some new needles for Rebecca, tough needles. She fixed all our jeans and started working on some of her other mending projects that we've had since we got married. This sewing machine is a handy little tool. She's going to make me an apron one of these days, I've already picked out the fabric.

Friday night, we went to see Harry Potter in the dollar theater. It was good, but I felt like this one was an "action flick" instead of a portrayal of Harry's experiences and world. To me, I appreciate the third film the best because it was an "artsy" approach to the Harry Potter world. For example, in the final battle of the fourth movie between Harry and Voldemort, why was Voldemort monologuing?!? I wanted to scream that out in the theater, the great line from The Incredibles, "I can't believe you got me monologuing!" But in the 3rd movie, the focus was on Harry coming to grips with his parents and his own power. I guess it's a difference in perspective between two types of directors: those who film movies to make money and those who film movies because they can be an art form.

Rebecca had an interesting mutual night on Thursday. The girls wanted to have a "girly" night [they called it a "Beauty night" -becca], so against Rebecca's better judgement, they invited someone to come talk to them about "colors" and what "season" they are [at least we had someone else talk about this stuff...I was kind of at a loss for what to do!]. It's supposed to help you identify which clothing colors best flatter you. My question is: how did they relate that to Young Women virtues? [ummm...Individual Worth?]

For Valentine's Day, we made chocolate covered strawberries and watched a documentary called "My Date with Drew." Cool premise to the film, we recommend people seeing it.

That's about it for this week. Have a good one.

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Well, it's official. We bought our plane tickets to NYC last week. Well, we bought Wayne's and BYU bought mine. So at the end of March we'll make our own spring break and take off to see the proverbial apple. [Some people get spring breaks...we have to make ours! -wayne] Any suggestions on what we should make sure to see and do while we're there?

We rented a movie called "Mirror Mask" on Friday, and found it so interesting we rewatched it on Saturday. And still haven't returned it.... The world the movie created was just very intriguing. It took a little while to figure out what was going on exactly (I didn't know the premise of the movie before going into it), but it made perfect sense once you figured out it was a dream world. It was exactly like dreams in how anxious I was to see what was going to happen next, though much more vivid than my dreams ever are. Wayne, however, says he creates whole worlds like that in *his* dreams all the time. Somehow that's no surprise.... :)

For mutual, we had another winner of an activity in my books. Hehehe. First a so-called "beauty night," then we all go off to a basketball game. What's next? Public speaking night?! Anyway, the basketball game wasn't as bad as I was imagining it. Except when I came home with the BYU fight song stuck in my head and Wayne made fun of me for it. He thought I was singing five different songs, because he doesn't know the fight song, but it was in fact just one long song.

So why do people get into sports anyway? I don't get it, honestly. I am a little excited about next month's activity, black-light volleyball, but that's because it will be fun to watch the girls I know playing. Maybe people learn enough about sports players that they enjoy watching them play because they know them? I don't know.

We submitted a painting to a BYU competition. Wayne doesn't expect it to be well received after the last show at the HFAC, but as I say, it never hurts to try. Besides, who doesn't like Mario?!

The only other thing to report is that we heard from UCSD that they had trouble viewing the CD we sent as part of Wayne's portfolio. They figured it out and got what they needed, but this tells us that schools are already starting to review the portfolios. Too bad we still have to wait a month or two (or three) before we hear back from any of them...!

Well, have a great week. We'll enjoy having a Tuesday this week, since BYU declared it a "Monday observed" last week.

Jerked and Sunny-side up
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1 TBS used oil (bacon grease, left over oil from hush puppies, whatever suits your fancy)
1 1/2 cups peeled and diced potatoes (1/2 inch dice)
1/2 cup diced yellow onion
salt and pepper
1/4 cup jerk sauce
1/2 TBS brown sugar
1/4 cup sliced green onion
1 tsp dried oregano
2 eggs
two corn tortillas (or you could use flour)

Heat 1 TBS of oil (probably bacon drippings) over medium heat in a skillet large enough to hold all of the potatoes in a single layer. Add the potatoes, yellow onion and season with 1/2 tsp of salt and pepper. Cook until crispy on all sides (8-10 minutes), stirring frequently. Remove from heat.
Transfer potatoes to a mixing bowl, add Jerk sauce, green onions, oregano and brown sugar. Mix, but don't mash.
Keep the skillet on the stove, and cook the eggs (fried style), sunny -side up. Cook 'em how you want 'em.
Divide the potatoes evenly and cover the tortilla. Gently place 1 egg over the potatoes. Serve like a stack (tortilla, potatoes, eggs). Serves two.

Panera Bread's Monte Cristo Sandwiches
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8 thick slices bread (we recommend sourdough)
4 teaspoons honey-Dijon mustard
8 slices thinly-sliced Swiss cheese (4 ounces)
8 slices honey-cured ham (4 ounces)
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons water
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons butter

Spread 1/2 teaspoon mustard on each slice of bread. Assemble the sandwich: bread (mustard side up), 1 slice cheese, 2 slices ham, 1 slice cheese, bread (mustard side down). Repeat to make four sandwiches.

Whisk eggs, water, salt and pepper. Melt butter in heavy large skillet over medium-low heat.

Dip both sides of the sandwich into egg mixture, lightly soaking bread. Place in skillet and cook until the cheese melts and the sandwiches are golden, about 4 minutes per side. Cut sandwiches in half diagonally and serve (best if topped with powdered sugar and jam).

Makes four servings