Childhood Nastalgia of Strange Foods

When I was a strange wee child of perhaps eight or nine, my favorite food in the world was microwave burritos. And not just ANY microwave burrito, it had to be Lynn Wilson microwave burritos, preferably the beef and bean, which was my favorite. I don't know what it was about them, but they were the bestest things ever in my mind's eye, and according to my stomach.

For some reason, the only place I have ever seen Lynn Wilson Burritos is in a supermarket called Smith's, which I've only really seen in Utah and surrounding states. There are no Smith's in Washington, though Smith's is owned by Kroeger, and Kroeger owns Fred Meyer, and we have Fred Meyer, so why don't we have Lynn Wilson Burritos? I don't know.

When we moved from Utah to California in 1990, I left behind the Lynn Wilson Burritos of my childhood cravings and missed them terribly. Being the absurdly strange child that I was, and having understanding parents, whenever we made a trek back to Utah for whatever reason, we picked up a box of Lynn Wilson Burritos and brought them back with us to California, and I would try to stretch them out for as long as I could, but it didn't help when everybody ate them with me. They were gone in a few short weeks, and I had to wait for another trip to Utah to restore my supply. But trips to Utah were very few and far between, so it was one of those special treats I got.

Well, fast forward a few years when I outgrew random food cravings such as a specific brand of Microwave Burrito, where I discovered that there are other foods out there that are pretty darn good as well (like Sushi, and Thai food) and now I don't crave the Lynn Wilson Burrito. However, on my recent trip to Utah, I couldn't resist. I made a short stop at a Smith's supermarket and picked up one loan Lynn Wilson Burrito for a paltry fifty cents. I threw it in the cooler for the trip home and when I got in last night, I put the thawed burrito in the microwave, nuked it and ate it.

It still tastes just like a Lynn Wilson Burrito.

Some things never change. Fortunately, my tastes have matured so I appreciate the finer aspects of life, and don't go craving microwaveable burritos anymore. But they are still good.

Occupying My Time

I may have mentioned that I have been let go from my civilian employer (but I have been meaning to quit so no loss there), my *six month* deployment has been pushed back a couple of months, and I cut my class load back to one class on Adobe InDesign which is about Digital Layout.

I have a lot of free time on my hands.

The thing is, I really enjoy working my creative side, so I thought about this and decided that I would utilize my creative side toward something that could eventually be productive and make me money.

I want to write a book.

And not just any type of book (I've written a gob of unpublishable crap that sits on my hard drive) I want to write a Children's Book.

When I was in first grade or something, I wrote a book about Animals doing fun things. The art in it can be described as cute, as I was quite a little artist at the time. And I've always wanted to go back and rewrite it and get this idea published.

So I was reassessing this little picture book I had planned when I was about seven years old and thinking to myself 'how can I make this idea work for print?' It occurred to me that I wanted to be the artist, but with some creative help, I could probably work on putting this book to verse.

I just hope that the idea is original enough that I'm not infringing on somebody else's creative genius. But the thing is, I had the idea for this book for something like twenty years now.

I think its doable. I just have to figure out the medium I want to work it toward.

A Piece of Nastalgia for You

Little known fact about me, when I was about 8 years old, I was in violin lessons. And unlike most kids at that age, I actually loved the Violin and enjoyed playing it. I wasn't really that good though.

So me, being the techno geek that I am with all of the toys for doing this kind of stuff, I was set out to do a project for my family that I've been meaning to do, which includes transfering all of our old vhs tapes to digital.

So, back in the winter of 1988, my family filmed a christmas video for my grandparents in California. My dad, who I love dearly by the way, is a complete dork in it and keeps mentioning Metamorphosis and uses a lot of big words while the rest of us shyly look on and get embarrassed when we are in front of the camera.

Me? I'm quite adorable. And also show evidence of being the youngest in a family of eight, and as such, well, I'm a bit of a brat. There is a rendition of me throwing a fit because dad asked me what we were going to sing to the grandparents, I wanted to sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and my sister shouted out "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" first.

So, what did I do? I threw a fit.

But that video is out of season. In the meantime, enjoy a piece of yours truly playing a violin. You might want to turn down the sound, because it is quite painful to listen too.

And it took next to pulling teeth to get my mother to dress me like this. Because I usually had my hair back and wore a t-shirt and jeans with the knees ripped out of them.