Category Archives: Crazy!

Egg Wonk 2

Flo or Gertie left us another mysterious egg creation. We did NOT eat this one nor did we open it. I still hope that one day we get an egg within an egg.

Cross your fingers!



Photo by Taylor Colledge

Egg Wonk

A few days ago we found this wonky egg in our coop, thanks to Flo or Gertie. We kept it in our fridge for a little bit but soon realized that none of us would ever dare eat it. After a little bit of research, I found that there exists a long list of chicken-egg oddities including blood spots (seen it), double yolks (not yet seen it), shell-less eggs that feel like water balloons (gross!), and perhaps the craziest egg one might encounter which is an egg within another egg. It’s like you crack open an egg and voilà, another egg! CRAZY! Suddenly our lumpy egg doesn’t seem so weird.

But look at it! It’s so freaky!


Tabloid

I recently watched Tabloid and the experience is one I won’t soon forget. This Errol Morris documentary tells the story of a former Miss Wyoming named Joyce McKinney who was arrested in 1977 for kidnapping and raping a Mormon missionary in England. Who would NOT want to watch this movie with a premise like that?! The story became a huge tabloid sensation and this film presents it in such a fascinating, hysterical way.

Check it out soon!


African Grey Parrot

I recently read this story and it made me happy and excited.

Sandra Mikolasch of the University of Vienna’s Konrad Lorenz Research Station in Austria and her colleagues first checked that seven African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) had no preference for the two types of food on offer, seeds or walnuts.

Then each parrot watched a researcher hide a walnut under one opaque cup and a seed under another. Next the researcher hid the cups behind a screen, removed one of the treats and showed the bird which one had been taken. Finally, the screen was removed to see if the parrot could work out which treat must remain, and under which cup it must be.

Only one of the parrots, a female called Awisa, was able to do this, choosing correctly in three-quarters of the tests – 23 out of 30. “So far, only great apes have been shown to master this task,” says Mikolasch. As with the parrots, only some apes could solve the problem, she says. “So we now know that a grey parrot is able to logically exclude one possibility in favour of another to get a reward, known as ‘inference by exclusion’.”

Amazing! That’s more intelligent than some humans I know!


Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo

2011 officially takes the cake as the weirdest year of my entire life. There have been so many crazy things happening all around me. I had a really crazy day Wednesday and figured I ought to write it down somewhere.

At about 3 PM Wednesday afternoon, I bent over my work desk to cut out some samples that I’ve been working on. As I rose up, I started to feel faint and dizzy. Soon the objects in the room were shaking and the ceiling started to melt. Voices behind me sounded like growling and I apparently turned a not-so-flattering shade of grey-green. I looked over my computers and said, “Hey Margo, can you come over here when you get a minute.” When she came over, I talked about my condition and other co-workers handed me a huge pile of M&Ms. My speech started to slur and I can’t remember saying this, but I apparently mentioned that I felt like I was on a boat. I also explained how books looked like they were trying to shake themselves off of the shelves and that the lights were melting.

Eventually, Margo and Brent Rogers (another co-worker) walked me downstairs to a couch where the light fixtures continued to melt like molasses. My body turned to heavy mush and I closed my eyes. Soon, Margo was on the phone with my doctor’s head nurse and she thought I was potentially having a stoke or a seizure and advised Margo to call 911. Once paramedics arrived they took my vitals, which were normal, and they gave me option of riding with them to the hospital, driving myself to the hospital, or going to the Polyclinic and waiting for a 4 PM appointment. I chose to wait to see my doctor at the Polyclinic. Taylor had showed up a few minutes before the paramedics and so he was able to drive me around.

My doctor was really nice and it didn’t take long for him to diagnose me with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. It’s basically caused by a cold that got into my inner ears. I totally thought I was going to to be Liza Minnelli in Arrested Development and that my friends were going to start calling me Lucille 2. He said that the vertigo could likely return and that I should be prepared for it. Afterwards, Tay drove me home and I passed out cold for about 5 hours. I finally woke up, ate some dinner, and wondered what the hell had just happened.

When I went to work the next day I was a little embarrassed. It was good to hear from other people exactly what had happened and it gave me a little more clarity. I’ve recently adjusted my desk at work so that I’m standing up all day and we thought that may have contributed to the vertigo. Anyway, I’m glad this wasn’t anything too serious and I’m glad my co-workers were so helpful and that they don’t call me Lucille Austero. Man, I miss that show.

2011 is CRAZY! And now I’m off to Utah where I’m going to emcee my dad’s wedding reception “program” at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building!