Far From Refuge

About a week ago I went to the Sundance Film Festival for the first time ever. Yes I, Scott Hayden, the self-proclaimed Film Critic (I'm probably a self-proclaimed critic about everything actually!), have lived in Utah 3 winters and have yet to attend this fine festival. This being said, I found it prudent to attend this year. My previously mentioned roommate, Justin, found a way to score tickets the first day they were available. Having limited funds I decided to only get tickets for the one I wanted to see the most, Be Kind Rewind. It was directed by Michel Gondry who has directed previous movies Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep. Eternal Sunshine ranks up there with my favorite movies and the Science of Sleep is also really good. I highly recommend both movies to those who haven't seen them and are into movies that aren't you normal cinematic experience.

Moving along....the night of the movie we decided to drive up early to Park City (where the movie was playing) and have dinner. We had reservations at a sweet Israeli restaurant that I very much enjoyed. After dinner we headed over to an art gallery where Patti Smith had an invitation only art show. Justin's buddy, June(sp?), received an invitation earlier while watching a showing of a documentary on her. It was definitely an interesting experience. The art/photography was cool, not super impressive, at least by my standards, but cool nonetheless. The interesting part was watching the yuppies converse. Oh wow, I don't know what it is about rich people and wine, but for some reason when the two come together a sudden sense of pretense is apparent. It was honestly making me sick. Don't get me wrong, I am hope I am one day rich and successful and have other rich and successful friends, but these people take it to a level I can't handle. Not to mention the fact that they all think they know everything about everything. Luckily we didn't spend too much time there. Off to the theater!

The movie was spectacular! I seriously loved it. I won't go into what its about because its easy enough to google the trailer. Suffice it to say, it is definitely worth seeing when it comes out in a month.

I was going to write about the my experience at Sundance but the post was getting long so I decided to save it for another day. I forgot to change the post title. So enjoy the post and come back soon to hear about my escapades in Park City at the Sundance Film Festival. Thanks!

For those of you who don't know, I have a very good friend, Cory Mon, who plays music locally. His band, Cory Mon & the Starlight Gospel, released a live DVD/CD this past weekend and had a release show to kick it off. The show was at Velour which coincidently was where the DVD was filmed. The DVD has some serious film and audio quality. Its very professionally done. The only other recording Cory has had before this was a CD that seems like it was recorded ages ago that he doesn't even play songs from anymore. Needless to say I was very excited to get this little gem in my hands. Cory's music can be classified as somewhat of an acoustic/folk/rock/funk/blues with deep introspective lyrics. I will admit that Cory's style of music is normally not my style, but I was at first impressed with his live show and later gained an appreciation for his actual music. Also, the tunes that he plays now are, in my opinion, 10 times better than his old songs. I believe he has the talent, charisma, and "image" (unfortunately this is important in the music industry today) to make it in the music business outside of Utah.

Ok, so back to the show. This show was supposed to be a big one for Cory, obviously because he is releasing something that is high quality and spent a lot of money out of pocket on. After creating a sweet poster and putting them up around, he also promoted on myspace and facebook. He also got a sweet article in the Daily Herald, unfortunately titled Music Mon(way lame and cheesy), about his upcoming show and his music in general. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

The line-up of the show was also way sweet. Dave Eaton, a local artist, opened up the show. I like some of his tunes, but his show the last few times was sloppy to me and I didn't enjoy it. After Dave Eaton was Code Hero. My wonderful friend, roommate, landlord, and sometimes late night snuggler, Justin Huntington, plays drums for Code Hero. They are a way sweet band who plays what Donnie and I have dubbed Space Alt-Country. Its like alternative and country mixed with keyboards and cool computery sounds. They played a new song called, I believe, "I See Blue" which was absolutely amazing. The song on its own was cool but to make it even more sweet, Justin plays the drum tracks with a Nintendo Wii controller. Apparently it runs on bluetooth and they rig something up with the laptop. So he just stands up in front and bangs on air with the Wii controller to make the drum beats. Very cool in my opinion. After Code Hero was Matt Jennings. Matt Jennings is a touring artist from Minnesota who actually looks a lot like my brother-in-law Zach. Really weird. He IS actually the brother of a fairly big artist Mayson Jennings. He IS NOT, however, related to Waylan Jennings, Shooter Jennings, Peter Jennings, or Greg Jennings (the Green Bay Packers receiver). We gave him a bunch of crap about being related to all of them the whole night. He was cool about though. His music is very spanish-esque. Hard to explain but interesting no less.



After Matt Jennings, Cory took the stage. He started off with a solo song tentatively called Snubbs after my car, and also me. I believe the song will officially be called Her Honesty on the cd. Anyways, its a little ditty with just him, his acoustic guitar, and a harmonica. Yes he does all three by himself. Its a sweet song. Then the Starlight Gospel came on the stage. My other roommate, Jeff Stone also plays guitar with Cory (see the picture above). Jeff is quite tall and skinny, and significantly dwarfs Cory onstage, so its always funny to watch them. Actually Jeff is taller than everyone else in the band. Pretty funny to see on stage. Regardless though, Jeff adds some sweet back up vocals and complimentary guitar parts to the song that would sound a little empty without him. The past few times I have seen Cory he has opened for other people such as Peter Breinholdt(sp?), so he hasn't gotten a long set. Since this show was his, he played for awhile which was nice. I seriously think this was probably his best performance that I have ever seen. I highly recommend checking out his music as well as Code Hero's.

Cory Mon & the Starlight Gospel

Code Hero

If you click on the links above you can listen to some songs by each artist. Of course they are free of charge.

Oh man, how do I begin this story? Friday night I was working, at the Mac Shack, and low and behold who comes in to eat? Marie Osmond. Apparently Marie loves her "star power" and decided to drop her name by saying, "Table for 3, for MARIE OSMOND," Haha. For some reason I was almost rolling on the ground in laughter when I heard she said that. Like we are going to just make a table up and leave because Marie Osmond is here, oohh, she is so famous. Haha. So the hostess told her it would be 45 minutes for the wait. Come on, we made Larry King wait when he came in over Christmas. We are for sure making her wait. Seeing Donny or Marie in Provo is like seeing Kobe Bryant at the Staples Center. You're pretty much expecting to see one them or both sooner or later. So after being told about the wait, she apparently left without taking a little buzzer/pager thing to tell her she is ready to be sat. I can almost hear her thoughts, "Marie Osmond doesn't wait! How dare they make me wait! I was on Dancing with the Stars!" To her defense, I thought about later and came to the conclusion that if I was famous I would also drop my name if it got me a table faster.

Anyways, back to the story. She ends up coming back and guess whose section she is sat in? Thats right! Yours Truly! I immediately told her what a huge Dancing with the Stars fan I was and how much I loved her and was sad she got voted off so early on the show. Actually the way it really went down was I told her that an acquaintance of mine from Junior High and High School, Sabrina, was on that show with her. She proceeded to tell me she was a sweet girl and blah blah blah. She asked if I watched the show a lot and told that I had actually never seen it. Thats seriously the truth. I told her that we don't have cable so we rely on a crappy antenna for our tv and its realy fuzzy. Therefore I don't ever watch tv. Haha, the real reason I haven't seen that show is because it is crap. Haha. Of course my mommy raised me with at least some manners, I failed to mention that.

I hope I haven't lost a lot of people with the length of the story because the best part has yet to be told. Marie said she if I could just turn and burn them that she would be very greatful because they had to get to a movie. I told I would do my best to get her in and out as fast as possible, and just for everyones info I meant it. I would never serve someone badly for any reason, especially a woman who I know will tip me well. All three wanted diet cokes with waters, as well as a hefty amount of lemons, like any woman. haha. So, I proceeded to hurry my butt off to get her all the stuff she wanted. Now, I am pretty confident in my serving abilities and how fast I can do things. I just barely won a competition for going the longest without breaking anything(i.e. glass, plate). Actually, I've never broken anything since I have worked here. That being said, while I was handing out their six glasses on a tray, guess who for the first time dropped and broke something at Macaroni Grill? YEP! Thats right. Diet coke...all over. Most of it got on the floor, but some did get on her and on her purse, which I am sure was about $3000 or so. How poetic? I never spill or break anything and the one time I serve a "celebrity" I do it. No one let me forget it the entire night. I received many high fives and "Thats so awesome" 's. Marie, I have to say, was very cool about it. She was the slightest bit mad or annoyed. So I really have to say that overall she was pretty cool about the entire thing. She also left me a very generous tip.

After 2 winters in the Dakotas and 3 here in Utah, I am seriously over the cold. Im tired of driving to school in a car that is as cold inside as it is outside. I can't wait till this winter is over and I'm back in SoCal.

Ok, so times are way hectic right now. I'm sure everyone knows that I am taking 19 credits in school right now. It is absolutely crazy how much time I either spend at school, or on homework/studying. One of the many classes I am taking is a mandatory 1-unit capstone simulation class. It is essentially a "game" but it is probably the worst game ever created. Its like monopoly on steroids. Just imagine if monopoly and Barry Bonds had a kid together, this game would be that kid. Its absolutely ridiculous. We are put in charge of a company and have to make all the decisions for this company. Sounds easy on the surface, but you are charged with the R&D(research and development), marketing, financing, yada yada yada. I'm not talking about making a simple decision like pick the best decision out of a,b,c, or d. You have to decide how much money to put into each, how many products you want to sell, whether or not to start a new product(plus come up with specs), whether to drop a product, and various other things. Its a headache. On top of that, you graded on how well your company does. All that for a 1-unit class. Absolute ridiculousness. Also, on a funny note, my teacher looks like Newman from Seinfeld. Its really uncanny. Every time I see him I want to say, "Hello, Newman!" Haha.



Any resemblance?

On to work. The Mac Shack is good. I really hate serving tables and relying on cheap Utahans for my wages, but thus is the nature of the beast. Only a bit longer and people will be serving me for their wages which is a much better situation. We've hired a bunch of new servers so after 8 months I am somewhat of a veteran there.

Body-For-Life is going great. I've been on it for a little longer than 2 weeks and I'm already seeing results, which is encouraging. One of my fall backs is the Myoplex drinks that program sells at Target. They taste really good and are very filling so they work well for a "meal". As of late Target has been out of them so I have wavered a bit the past couple of days, but not much.

So on top of Macaroni Grill I just got another job. My friend Dan runs a call center for Dish Network and he needs someone there from 6 to 9 to take calls that are pretty much easy sign-ups. He asked me if I wanted to do it and I thought it would be a good idea and easy way to make a little extra easy cash. I'll get 50 bucks a sale and apparently most people that call in are all ready to sign up anyways. I'll be doing that two nights a week. So my plate is pretty full this semester.

I'd like to get some pictures up here but i can't find the cord to hook my camera up to my computer. As soon as I find that or buy a new one i'll post some pictures.

Ok, so I am seriously sick and tired of being fat. I know many people would say, "Oh you aren't fat," and I guess I wouldn't call myself "fat" fat. But I have to be honest with myself. I am fat. Im over-weight, and I am over it. It hinders my dating life, my self image, and options on the clothes I wear. Im so over be the fat funny guy. And I know I have said this many many times, but I have reached the threshold point.

So, my solution is to start Body-for-Life (BFL). For those of you who don't know what BFL is, it is an eating/exercise program started by guy named Bill Phillips. The eating side basically consists of eating 5 or 6 small meals a day each with a lean-protein and a complex-carb. The sweetest thing about it is that one day a week you get to eat whatever you want to. This throws your body off to what is happening the other 6 days so its more effective. The exercise program is pretty sweet as well. It requires going to the gym 6 days a week but it crams your work outs so you don't have to be at the gym for more than an hour.

Anyways, I'm excited to say the least. I've talked to a number of people that have done it in the past and everyone says how great it works. I was first introduced by my buddy Jeff while I was in California for Christmas. It sounded intriguing and I was definitely ready to do something about my situation. I've been doing it for a little over a week now and i'm already liking it. Hopefully I'll see some results here pretty soon.

So I'm off and rolling with this first post. I am new to this blog thing but it sounded like a fun idea so here I am. Check back frequently for updates. As for what is going on right now, I just started school yesterday. It was the beginning of a tough semester. For those of you who don't know, I will be taking 19 credits this semester in order to be done and graduated in April. On top of school I'll be working at Macaroni Grill. How exciting?! I'm still living in the same house in North Orem with my same roommates. Our friend Donnie from Moreno Valley decided to move up to Utah, so he is staying with us right now. We all have a blast together so hopefully he will be staying for awhile, if not indefinitely.

Moving on to the most amazing thing ever. Everybody needs to see the movie JUNO. It is the best movie I have seen in awhile. I highly, highly recommend it. If anyone is a fan of Arrested Development this movie is for you. It stars Jason Bateman and Michael Cera from Arrested Development. If you are a fan of real life comedies or dramadies, if you will, this movie is for you. It is PG-13 so it is appropriate for all of you out there. Go see it ASAP and enjoy!