“Why Are You Makin’ It Complicated?!...It’s Easy!”

Warning: This post may offend all those that are (1) devoid of a sense of humor; (2) uncomfortable with the use of well-crafted hyperbole; or (3) overly sensitive to the plight of the undereducated and their misguided attempts at self-improvement.

To fully understand this post, please follow the link below and watch this sublimely eloquent and thoroughly persuasive advertisement for Everest College:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZipLIoRqm8&feature=related

If you have ever felt lost, I am confident that after having reveled in the genius of this stalwart life-coach you are now found. I don’t know about everyone else out there, but before I saw this commercial I did not have a five year plan, the future seemed bleak and scary, I didn’t know what direction my life should take…now I do.

Before everyone starts thinking I’m uppity, I would like to say that I am sure Everest College is a fine institution. Furthermore, I respect anyone who pursues an education and I am certainly NOT an academic snob who looks down on a person for attending community/online college. That having been said, it’s not the message being offered (get an education) that I find ridiculous—it’s the messenger and the method of delivery. To elucidate my position, I have enumerated several qualms with the aforementioned advertisement:

Qualm 1

Call me crazy, but as a general rule I try not to take career advice from anyone wearing a sideways baseball hat. People who insist on maintaining a drunken frat-boy persona by cleverly tweaking the angle of their hat are morons. I’m not sure if this guy is trying to rebel against an overly burdensome, straight-laced and pernickety society by intentionally looking like a slouch, or if he was cool in high school and just hasn’t been able to let the dream die. Either way, I’m hesitant to blindly follow the academic admonitions of a person who, by twisting his hat, has marked himself with the international symbol for “tool.”

Qualm 2

For me, general rule number two includes questioning the validity of any career advice given by anyone preaching to me at night in what may or may not be “da hood.” I’m not in marketing, but if I were to put together a commercial for Everest College or any institute of higher learning, I would not use as a backdrop a neighborhood reminiscent of where one might acquire fake Prada bags, hot Rolexes, and adult herbs. Again, just me, but I might film the commercial in a school, at a place of business, or in a beautiful park on a sunny afternoon—you know, somewhere I might want to be instead of somewhere I would only find myself if my car broke down while picking up a hooker.

Qualm 3

Has this guy even been to college? If so, is this what I can expect from an Everest College education? I have to assume that as the spokesperson, this guy exemplifies what it means to be an Everest College graduate. I’ll concede that perhaps he received superior marks on his capstone research paper delving into the psychological degradation associated with hat-cocking, but would emulating this man really lead to success?

Qualm 4

For this one you may have to watch the video again and pay particular attention to the body language of this silver-tongued salesman. Is it just me, or does he roll his eyes as he turns away from the camera? Where does this guy get off being disgusted with me? By the end of this commercial not only have I been lambasted for wasting my life, evidently sitting on a couch relentlessly talking on the phone, but by the end, this man can no longer stomach looking into the face of blinding incompetence, aka, the viewer. Fully exasperated and no longer able to feign patience or even mask his broiling condescension for television viewers like myself, he rolls his eyes and turns away having accepted as fact that we viewers are perpetual losers lacking the tenacity to reach for the phone and change our life. I understand it’s this man’s job to motivate us to allow Everest College to help us achieve heights which we could not attain alone, but I’m not sure that this guy has a sufficiently impressive resume to treat all of us humble, late-night television viewers with pure, unadulterated contempt.

In short, despite this man’s undeserved hubris, he’s right; I am making it complicated when it is, in fact, easy. I’ve spent an undisclosed amount of time writing a post in defiance of this commercial, when next time I could just change the channel…but will I? No. Complaining is just too much fun!

Chronicles of a Fat Man

Many regular readers of the Grady blog have commented on the striking frequency with which our posts involve food, eating food, discussing food, and excitedly discussing eating food. True, Leslie has elected to share with the world our lustful obsession with Five Guys, Sno-2-Go and other fine establishments which exemplify the pinnacle of culinary achievement, but
unfortunately, excessive indulgence cannot be had without consequence.

As a result, for obvious reasons, Leslie and I have fully committed to silence the voice of our inner fat guy and strangle the demons of obesity. Unfortunately, inner fat guy will not go down without a fight! It would be nice if slaying inner fat guy was as easy as karate chopping nameless henchmen in a B-grade 1970’s martial arts movie, but destroying inner fat guy has proved to be more difficult than assassinating Rasputin.

I am happy to report that we are winning the fight. Leslie has thus far lost over 15 pounds, and I’ve lost around 55 pounds since the conclusion of my 13-week gluttonous binge-a-thon, aka, summer internship. Nevertheless, we have noticed that much like Chuck Norris, inner fat guy does not sleep…he waits. You may think you have slain the beast, you may think he is dead, you may be convinced that you have torn inner fat guy to pieces and burned the ashes (Twilight reference), but just like the killer/zombie/ghost in every horror movie ever, inner fat guy will always come back to life for one last heart-stopping scare (cholesterol pun).

Despite the recent success Leslie and I have had combating inner fat guy, I’ve realized that there are some tendencies which may be subdued, but which will never be eviscerated. I’ve included a few of my more shameful and egregious inclinations in the hope that I am not alone—in the hope that someone reading this will understand and possibly validate my shortcomings:

1. Eating Brownie Batter—I better not be alone on this. By “eating brownie batter” I don’t mean that you make brownies and lick the spoon before you cook them…I mean you make brownie batter and eat it. No cooking. I have done this more than once in my life and I really hope I’m not alone. Fortunately, thanks to our friend Hayley Bean, we have discovered “No Pudge” brownie mix at Trader Joe’s. This has further facilitated my life-choice to eat brownie batter but in a more “health-conscious” way.

2. Late Night Food Runs—You know how sometimes at night you’ll think, “Man, I really want a Big Mac.” Well, most people just ignore that and go to bed, but fat people don’t. One night, just before bed, Leslie and I were flipping through the channels and saw a special on the history of McDonald’s. After watching for about 10 minutes or so, we looked at each knowingly and said, “are you thinking what I am thinking?” Instead of going to bed, we got into the car and obediently reported to our nearest McDonald’s for Big Macs and McNuggets. Inner fat guy won that night, but it was delicious!

3. Circling the Parking Lot at the Gym—We’ve all circled the parking lot looking for a closer spot, but recently I caught myself performing this favorite pastime of the obese at the gym. Bear in mind, I had gone to the gym to work out, I wanted to lose weight, but inner fat guy wanted me to make sure that getting inside the gym took the least possible amount of energy. Since then I have noticed countless others doing this as well. Inner fat guy does not want us to realize that when we go to the gym, we can drag our morbidly obese carcasses the length of an additional four parking stalls instead of circling the lot three times hoping to get a closer spot!


This will likely be an ongoing list of tendencies that I’ll add to later. I promise my inner fat guy cannot so easily be summarized in three bullet points. In the meantime, if any of you have any inner fat guy traits, we’d love to hear about them and commiserate. Until then, happy eating!

Sno-2-Go = Happiness

Here in Williamsburg, the coming of spring means many things - the birth of the baby lambs at Colonial Williamsburg, the first ride of Apollo's Chariot at Busch Gardens, the budding of the cherry blossoms, and of course opening day at Sno-2-Go. Ahhh....Sno-2-Go...the pounds that you have given me and the happiness that I derive from your delicious combination of unsurpassed soft serve ice cream and fine shaved ice drenched in such flavors as "Gremlin" and "Tiger's Blood."

My weakness? Double stuffed Coconut and Bahama Mama snow ball....which in layman's terms is a layer of snow cone, soft served ice cream, snow cone, soft served ice cream, snow cone, and then a dollop of soft serve ice cream...oh yeah - it's good!

See that card in my hand...if I fill that card up with stamps, do you know what I get? 2 dollars off my next order...their stuff is SOOOO good they can get away with a card that gives you TWO DOLLARS off. And do I keep the cards? Heck yes!

One stamp closer to slightly cheaper happiness!

April through October is surely the happinest time of the year! How I will miss thee when we move, Sno-2-Go!!

National Marine Museum

Last weekend Kevin and I drove up to Quantico, Virginia to meet up with Kevin's childhood friend and college roommate, Robert, and his wife Jenna. They were in DC visiting family and we were able to sneak some time with them while they toured the National Marine Museum.

The National Marine Museum is the really weird shaped building you see off the freeway on your way to DC...I am not really sure what the shape is supposed to symbolize...any ideas?

Robert trying on a heavy backpack in "basic training"

The museum had some really neat displays - personally, I think tanks are the coolest!

A nice parting thought...

St. Pattys Day Extravaganza

With a last name like "Grady," you have to go ALL out for St. Patrick's Day! Every year we host a "traditional" St. Patty's Day dinner and it seems that with each year the group gets larger and larger and we love it! With 30+ people in our apartment, it felt more like an Irish pub than our living room!

Before the chaos!

Kevin made both the cupcakes and the shamrock sugar cookies - How I love having a husband that can not only cook but bake (better than I can actually)!

Stirring the potatoes (do I look domestic or what!)

Checking the meat - in my family, we make our corned beef a little differently. After the meat cooks all day in the crock pot, I take it out and put a yummy brown sugar honey mustard glaze on it and then cook it until the glaze caramelizes on the meat...trust met, it is AMAZING!

After cooking and cleaning all day, Kevin is wiped out - and the party hasn't even started!

The guests arrive and start to chow down!

Little Miss Emiline Bean - all dressed in green! I am such the poet!

Elizabeth and baby Gweneth Moon

Katy Wall, Hayley Bean, and Nora Harrison
Samuel Crawford

Brian Wall and Eric Bergeron

Kendra and baby Carter Thornock and Michelle Jacobs

Thanks for coming everyone! We had a great time:)

FINALLY!!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, THE WILLIAMSBURG FIVE GUYS IS NOW OPEN!!! And yes, we went on opening day!

Kevin may look calm and collected,

but he is anxiously awaiting his burger!

My life is complete!

PS - The place may look empty, but that's probably because we went at like 9:30PM...

In DC with Miss Karen

We were fortunate enough to get a visitor to the east coast a few weekends ago when Kevin's sister Karen flew out to DC for a work conference (Karen works for the University of Nevada Las Vegas and does the PR for the business school there). We had a great time touring the city and eating at some fun restaurants!

Karen and I at the Capital Grill - I LOVE my sister (in-law)!

(I had to cut Kevin out of this picture because he was making the weirdest face!)

We headed to the American History Museum for some fun pop culture history!

Karen has her eye on Dorothy's ruby slippers!

Every Seinfeld fan needs a picture next to the puffy shirt!

("But I don't want to be a pirate!)

Kevin LOVES trains - whenever we go to the Crawford's, he always plays with Sam's and vows that we will have a train set for our 'kids' (ie for Kevin).

I always had a thing for Rafael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - I realize that I am pictured next to Michelangelo, but I thought I should mention my childhood crush on a turtle with major attitude!

Thanks for making this a great weekend, Karen!