Boston Rob bromance

It'd be too harsh to call it a drawback, but the one unfortunate part of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday night was no Survivor.

So without a new episode to contemplate, I thought I'd reflect a bit on one of my all-time favorite castaways, Boston Rob.

Quick intro to this clip I'm encouraging you to watch: Boston Rob, frustrated with his tribe and feeling a little ill, decides to take a walk and get some air. Not long into his walk, he collapses. When one of his tribe mates finds hims and can't wake him up, she calls in the show's medical team.

The entire 3-minutes is pretty darn entertaining, but the meat of the clip is from about the 1:25 to 2:10 mark.

and .... action!

••••••••

That, my friends, is sound advice you can take to the bank.

Quit trying to be something you're not. Suck it up, put on your big boy pants and go to work.

Crybabyitis. Gotta love it.

Hopefully my man goes far and the third time is the charm. It scares me that Russell is dead set on knocking him out soon, but I'm going to be pulling for my namesake as long as he's around.

March Gladness

It started a 9 a.m. with me, my friend Matt, two donuts and half a jug of orange juice.

13 hours, 16 games and one fantastic buzzer-beater later, it was over.

Regrets? None whatsoever.

With the day off work, a projection screen at my disposal and my laptop ready to spring into action when I needed a new game to watch, I sat down on the couch and perfectly executed a marathon of college basketball viewing.

The best part of the day was the first game on the docket, thanks to Jimmer Fredette and this guy.

What a relief for Cougar nation.

What a shame that I'll be back on the clock for Friday's first round games.

Celebrity status

I've tried to keep a low profile in Yuma. Kept a tight circle of friends. Avoided public places. Shopped late at night. Dated only when necessary.

That's all over now. I've got a household name like Tiger, a household face like Seacrest, and a household voice like Regis. :)

For the past couple months I've had the opportunity to play a little part of the local NBC affiliate's news broadcast. The sports anchor wanted to do a weekly 3-minute segment about the Arizona Western College basketball teams and bring me on as the "expert." (His term, not mine.)

Here's a taste of my work. (I tried to post the video directly into the blog. The little video screen appeared, but it was blank and nothing happened when I clicked the play button. Sorry.)

There's about seven or eight more of these if you're interested. Which one's the best? Guess that depends on whether you consider "best" as Emmy-worthy stuff or Boom-goes-the-dynamite stuff. I've never watched them and tried to erase from my memory any and everything I said.

However, I'm sure if you decide to watch them you'll recognize some of these faces/expressions/reactions:

• "You didn't tell me you were going to ask that question."

• "Sit straight. No, too tall. Cross your ankles. No, too lady-like. What do I do with these bean stalks!!"

• "Better not say that. (awkward pause.) Better say something."

• "Why did I say that?"

• "Hey look, I can see myself on the monitor! Am I REALLY that pale and pasty?

• "Probably should smile. (Smile, pause). Oooh, that was cheesy."

• "Stop staring at Tommy. Stop staring around the room. Look into the camera!!"

• "Why did the camera guy's face just get really serious?"

Couple observations from this experience:

1. People love to tell you they saw you on TV.

It's fun being a celebrity and all, but I just didn't expect this kind of notoriety. Excluding the haters who me leave voicemails when I fail to include their precious all-star prodigy child's name in a story, it's rare when someone tells me they read my article in the newspaper.

2. 3 minutes goes by in a jiffy.

Before going to the news studio each week, I probably spent 45 minutes - 1 hour preparing myself with stats, records, tends, quotes, and ideas. Then the lights go up, the video starts running, and bang, it's over.

I imagine the gobs of nervous energy pushing me along had something to do with it too.

Seacrest out.

Refrigerator art

I've had nearly five years post-college to experience why family wards rule and singles wards drool.

Just a few examples:

- The callings. Goodbye hymn book organizer, hello Boy Scouts. More work? uh, yeah. More rewarding? uh, yeah.

- The lessons. It's so great when you can use the end of class to tie everything back to the Atonement rather than how to find your eternal companion.

- The social scene. Nothing wrong with a little catching up with friends between classes, talking about "the big game," etc., etc. But when catching up shifts to flirting, set-ups and DTRs (and you have no skillz with the lady folk), it's much harder to get you worship on.

- The noise. Most people think they'd really like complete and total silence during sacrament meeting. It's nice for a week or two, but then it gets weird. Church was meant for 16-year-olds to fumble their way through the sacrament prayers, babies to scream a little, kids to whisper a little too loud and primary music from the other ward to fill the air.

Speaking of primary and kids ...

One of my home teachers has an adorable little girl. Last week the Young Men and Young Women took over sharing time in primary, and this angel (who's never met me) points me out and says "You're my daddy's friend." So cute.

Yesterday after sacrament meeting, she comes over and hands me a piece of paper with a drawing on it. I take a quick look, tell her its beautiful and try and hand it back to her. She keeps her hands at her side, smiles, sways back and forth for a second and walks away without taking the picture. I take a closer look at the writing in yellow crayon to discover "Brother Rob Wiler" on top, realize this picture is for me, and get lost in awe.

Never before has being a complete and total sap felt so right.

I'm pretty sure this is a picture of me (in red) sharing my testimony at the pulpit (green) during sacrament meeting yesterday (which, BTW, I started with possibly one of the best opening-line, quick-wit jokes in fast and testimony meeting history that didn't interrupt the Spirit one iota). The faces and names at the bottom are her family, who typically sit in the front row.

For those of you who get 1,000 of these a day from your little ones and start to get a little tired of it, tell your kids to make them for the single losers in your ward. Trust me, they'll volunteer to babysit for free any night you need 'em.

Nice day for a Weiler wedding

WARNING: Contents of this post are entirely suitable for children and will likely put them and most of their parents to sleep due to an insanely large amount of writing. Please refrain from reading near sharp objects or while operating heavy machinery.

******

What trumps Christmas, college football, reunions with friends and a weekend of pro sports in Phoenix?

A baby sister as a blushing bride.

It was kind of dumb of me to go to Utah for the holidays packing four dress shirts and one pair of dress pants. Thankfully in the male world it worked out okay. Still, when you're home for 10 days and wear the same pair of pants five of those days, it gets repetitive.

Don't have many shots from the temple to show off due to technical difficulties. On the bright side, I accidently stumbled upon a fun way to frustrate your friends and family members: Hand them a camera with a dying battery and ask them to take pictures (Sorry Catherine).

Michelle and Michael were sealed by Elder Hinckley, who sat beside me the day before at their luncheon. (That's right, HE sat beside ME. I'm the important one here.) Elder Hinckley made quite the first impression, Just before passing me the basket of rolls, his first words were "So brother Weiler, where's your date?" Only could one of the Lord's inspired servants be so bold.

However, there's a good chance these folks fed him that line ...

Three themes stand out about my sister's wedding day, the kind of things we'll be telling Michael and Michelle's children about 20 years from now.

1) The weather. Cliche? Sure. But how can you not discuss the weather when you're January wedding in UTAH features

• no snow

• no nasty inversion haze

• sunshine

• a somewhat chilly gym during the reception (not really "weather", but it qualifies)

2) Michelle's train, or rather the nine shortys grasping the train everywhere she went. Totally adorable, especially considering the number of times they came close to lifting it too high. For a girl who grew up with no sisters and few little cousins, inheriting a half-dozen sisters in-law and nine nieces is a fantasy come true.

3) "Okay, everybody do a big hug!" Wish I had some photo evidence to illustrate this. I know my sister was really excited about her photographer. But seriously, any formal group picture she did was followed by the group hug picture. Enough already.

Great wedding Michelle and Michael. Hope you had fun in Hawaii.

*****

Alrighty then. Let's talk Christmas.

First of all, a big round of applause for the men and women at the airlines and airports who work on Christmas Day so cheap-o customers like myself can still fly home instead of driving for 11 hours. Oversized carry on? Welcome aboard. Yuma to Phoenix? 35 minutes.

We asked Santa Claus to make our house one of his final deliveries of the night so we could celebrate Christmas on the 26th, and the big man came through.

Christmas is a million times more fun with kids around, so we have Kevin's girlfriend Natalie and her son Chandler to thank for bringing us something else to play with than Dad's brain teasers (eh Leslie?)

The kids hooked up Mom and Dad with a flatscreen TV. There may not be high-speed or wireless Internet, cable or satellite broadcasting, blu-ray, MP3, Blackberry or Wii technology at the Weiler home, but if it ever it comes, it'll be in HD baby.

******

It wouldn't be a trip to Salt Lake without getting together with some of the old 33rd ward crew. It's amazing how we can tell the some of the same stories over and over again and they never get old, but what's more amazing is there's usually one or two new stories that come out of the woodworks I've never heard before. Always good to find out new information that neglects to be shared, like the fact that one of them is now a firefighter (fairly new news, but still) and one of their wives is 7 MONTHS PREGNANT (C'mon Stir).

The other more unfortunate than amazing thing about hanging out with these guys: I'm just as bad at video games as I ever was. Mario Kart's a great game, but it gets old quickly when you're finishing 12th every time.

Also got to see a bunch of other friends from high school and college and play with their kids. Once again got schooled at the Wii (Jackson, age 4 1/2), learned the lyrics of a Black Eyed Peas song (Gavin, 2) received training in operating a circular saw (Carson, 2), dangerously ate peanuts at Five Guys restaurant (Everett, almost 1) and fell head over heels in love with a smiley-faced little girl (Kate, 1 1/2).

*****

Few other highlights from the vacation:

• Huge shout out to my cousin and fellow blogger Rebecca for notifying me that BYU Creamery chocolate milk is for sale at Deseret Book. If you don't understand the power of BYU Creamery chocolate milk, add it to the list of things you need to experience before you die and thank me later. Why I only bought one bottle while I was in Utah is a question with no acceptable answer.

• Finally, something to make me feel good about Max Hall.

We took a second picture where Doug acts like he's dreading losing our bet on the BYU-Utah football game, but that wouldn't be keeping it real. I wish it bothered my brother to wear BYU gear as much as it would have bothered me to be clad in Ute crimson, but it just doesn't. Curse his good nature.

• Speaking of Utah football, I spent my last day of pre-holiday vacation working at the Poinsettia Bowl. Trust me, my loyalties are just as blue as they ever were. And stay classy, San Diego.

*****

Last but not least, my first week back in Arizona was pretty darn enjoyable (hello 70-degree temperatures!!! You were sorely missed.) I went to my first Suns game (Thanks Athena!) and covered the Cardinals playoff game for work. Steve Nash, D-Wade, Larry Fitzgerald and the highest scoring playoff game in NFL history. It was ........ wait for it .......... awesome.

Bowl lotta work

What's this, you ask? Why it's the logo of one of the 2009 Mississippi Bowl, silly.

Why should you care, you ask?

You shouldn't. To even the most dedicated of sports fans, a junior college football bowl doesn't appear anywhere on the map. But I spent four days in beautiful Biloxi, Miss. covering the snot out of it, so you better believe I'm gonna blog about my time there.

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• Here's a little-known benefit about calling Utah your home state: you can spell it in four letters and say it in two syllables. Mississippi? Uh uh. Any guesses on how many times this reporter took the long journey that starts with an M and ends 4 S's, 4 I's and 2 P's later ? 57. Yep. Went back and counted. I have no life.

• With only a few hours away from all things football and bowl-related and no rental car, I didn't get to explore all there is to explore in the Biloxi-Gulfport area. I saw plenty of these ....

hoped to see more of these ....

hit up a few of these ....

(Sidenote: I was up 2 grand at the craps table, remembered I'm Mormon, and called it a night. No worries. It's all going to the ward missionary fund. :) )

got a real good look at the inside of this building ....

enjoyed an excellent game here ...

and chowed down any time they put one of these in front of me.

Didn't bring home any Southern belles as a souviner (sorry Mom). Just a couple T-shirts, foam footballs, and a stomach full of tasty shrimp and fried chicken.

Happy Elk-giving

For the past three years I've barged in on the Rowden family in Kingman, Ariz. for Thanksgiving, and they've treated me like one of their own.

The first year I got the traditional Thanksgiving Day. Turkey Bowl in the morning, Dallas Cowboys game in the afternoon, a fancy feast, pumpkin pie, scintillating conversation and board games galore.

What else could one want?

Last year they tossed in some wrinkles. The turkey bowl was moved indoors for a hoops game. We spent the afternoon working on a deep-fried turkey, and they took the idea of a "assortment" of desserts to the extreme.

In all, there were 23 different kinds of pies and cakes. I took home portions of 6. No problems there.

So it should have come to no surprise to me when I called to invite myself for Thanksgiving this year that they'd spring a whole new concept on me:

Camping and Elk hunting.

Different? Try revolutionary (to me).

A holiday? You betcha!!

The food was great. The games (Nerts, Hearts and Scrutineyes) were humbling. The hunt, sadly, came up empty (curse my luck). The company was fantastic.

Oh, and the scenic views roughly 10 miles up the road were, to say the least, Grand.

Thanks Tony, Vicki, Peggy, Norm, Brad, Corbyn, Emily and Bradley for all the fun.

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Some Thanksgiving week traditions, however, continue to live on.

"You're gonna eat lightning, and you're gonna crap thunder"