Ethan Parker

I really love to drive. I’ve thought many a time that I’d be a good race car driver or motorcycle racer. Those dreams will be fulfilled when I take one of those week-long driving courses they offer. Or maybe I’ll just rent a Ferrari.

This was while my older brother and I were in St. George for a little while replacing the engine in his BMW. Fun times. Aug 2010.

It might be the lateness talking but I’d like to re-emphasize a post a couple posts down in case you missed that posty McPost.

I’ve probably watched that video about 22 times now. Man, it rocks! Google “WIll.i.am seasame street” for yourself and pretend you found the video on your own and enjoy the electric plus-sign vibes running through ya.

Then skip the video to 1:28 and watch those muppets shake their heads all over. Yes ma’am.

Sesame Street rocks. This is a good one. It’s important to think positive. A great quote I read recently goes something like this: “A poor man is not he without cent, but he without vision”

Hey y’all! I found out through my iPhone correcting me that “yall” is spelled y’all instead of “ya’ll” like I always thought. It makes perfect sense now. I was so blind.

This week has been amazing! Wow, so much fun and adventure. The trip to the trade show was more intense than I thought. The first 5 hours to Boise weren’t too bad, just a little rain and I was running on beef jerky and a pomegranate ‘naked’ juice graciously given by the lenders of the car. I would have been fine driving the VW Jetta all the way to Washington but my parents offered to let me drive one of their cars so I took them up on it.

I ended up driving the 2006 325i which was very very nice all things considered. First of all, you can cruise at 100mph and it feels like you’re doing 55. We didn’t go that fast the whole time but ya know, it’s nice to have it if you need it. Second, it has some pretty nifty traction control that came in handy when Benjie and I got caught in a snow storm in Washington. We couldn’t see more than 10 feet in front of the car. Intense it was. Sort of just crept up on us and I’m glad we made it out of there!

I picked up Benjie from work in downtown Boise, he works at Clearwater Analytics. It’s way cool, their office space is a floor of a taller building and they wear jeans and t-shirts to work. I’m so glad for that, I thought Benjie was getting all corporate-ed out and living under the tyranny of a no-fun boring-party poo-boss environment. Quite the contrary and that’s good for my homie.

For those new to Parker Planners, Benjie and I partnered in the summer of 2008 after Parker Planners was around for about a year. It was way fun to catch up and we had about 8 hours to do so on the way to Tacoma. Another super lucky (side story: see image below, yes, that is SUPER LUCKY ELEPHANT rice. I first saw it on my mission. Oh man that was good for many laughs) break was that our former employee Jackie Lau lives right in Tacoma now! She has a fancy marketing job with Kraft foods with company car and all that. She let us stay at her place which was super cool. We got there around midnight and left the next morning just after 6am. Quick visit indeed.

So we got the Hotel Murano (if you reverse the name like that it’s at least 14x more fancy than ‘Murano Hotel’) around 7am and it was mega artsy-fartsy. Loved it. Tacoma is a pretty cool city, lots of hills like San Fran and right by water like various other cool cities. Benjie and I set up our booth quickly and ate the free (ehh, kinda, we did pay hundreds of $ to be there) pastries and juice. People were busy body bees as they set up their stuff. It was fun to see. At 10am when the show was supposed to start we were primed and ready to talk about planners. The minutes felt like hours as an extremely slow trickle of potential buyers walked briskly, directly to the booths they needed to hit. Right past us. We then watched as a few more came and lovingly embraced employees at other booths. ? What? These people obviously have been doing this for years and already know each other. Can we be 20 years older and magically know all the college bookstore buyers, too? Huh? Who does this stuff anyway?

So after about 30 mins (2.2 eternities of stress and anguish) I thought we were doomed to be welcomed to a wonderful trade show and kick in the rear by a harsh reality that selling is harder still than I ever thought. Sigh.

THEN. Then a lady came up to us, she was younger, maybe late 20’s with some interesting piercings and tatoos. She was hip, funny, and seemed to like us a little. We talked to her for less than five minutes then she gave us a promising “I’ll take your info packet back to my boss and see what he thinks”. Oh good. Progress. Then after a few more comments from us she said “ok, I’ll do it, what do I need to fill out”.

Ammon and I hiked Mt. Timpanogos, the second highest point in Utah at 11,700 feet. It was really fun! Beware the video has a lot of references to the “double rainbow” internet meme made famous by Jimmy Kimmel’s twitter feed.

Today marks the day of this blog also becoming a vlog. That’s a video-blog. Once a week there will be a video of the proceedings of Parker Planners. I pledge to be brief, random, and interesting. I was doing a weekly newsletter for my partner and accountant and employee gone Kraft marketer person but I’ve decided this is much more appealing. The blog is called “Living the Dream” right? Well it’s about time I show the world the ups and downs of running your own very small business with dreams of making it big.

Enjoy Living the Dream; Genesis:

You heard it here first. In the future all computers will be replaced by elaborate systems of beetle shells stuffed inside our pockets like a handful of peanuts. Just ask this BYU student.

In all seriousness, go BYU research.

Wow today was jam-packed. 7:40 am brought a session at the Provo temple which I really enjoyed. Then it was off to see Mike play soccer, he’s the best, the 12 yr old genius that I mentor. Next it was tennis time with a friend of mine who played in high school, she was a tougher opponent than imagined. Next was a ride up Provo canyon with another amiga. It was totally fun, if you’ve never experienced 140hp in a 470lb machine I recommend it. The road took us up the canyon, past sundance and through a very windy set of sweet turns and eventually spit us out at the caves by mt timpanogos. Way fun!

Side note- if you’ve never been to cafe Peasan in Orem, wow you gotta go. VERY good. Quick quality Italian.

Next it was Cougar time, yup, hittin’ on single ladies past age 40 oh yeah. Not! I know you really didn’t think that. BYU Cougars that is; went to Lavell Edwards to see our beloved football team get embarassed by a no-name team. Rather lamedissapointing but hey, hang in there, Heaps, every dog has his day.

What a day I tells ya. I’m beat. Homies are at the dollar movie right now but I’m thinking to hit the sack. Deadman blogging.

Love mucho

Ethan

Eric and I were at the grocery store and I saw the sweet vent car again! This is the business end, license plate blurred because it’s cool to blur things.

Yes it is. I was writing our weekly company newsletter and I wanted to honor what day it was. Wikipedia says it’s a day for programmers to rejoice and relish the fact that they are the most powerful people on earth (paraphrased).  In other news and in honor of my dad who spoke Navajo on his LDS mission, the US once used Navajo people to speak code in WWII.

Wonder what he’s sayin?

It’s a test of character. Believe it. Tonight my ward had an organizational meeting where 50 of us get together and assign callings to everyone in the ward. We come fasting to try and be spiritually in-tune.

So after a 2-hour meeting that ends at 9pm a person can get pretty hungry and impatient. I told the place to bring pizza 10 min before our meeting ended. 8:50 came around and no pizza. 8:58 came around and I called, they told me the driver already left and it should be there soon. The place is like 200 yards away so I wasn’t worried. When it got to be 9:05 and hungry angry people were leaving I was a little torqued. I called back and told the guy to call the driver. I could have been nicer So delivery man shows up 25 mins late and we finally get to eat. I don’t know how much my bishopric member tipped him but the delivery guy had to have felt dumb. My bishop was pretty irritated, too and wants to escalate it to a regional manager level which I think is good, if I managed something like that I would want to know if a group of 50 people had a negative opinion about my pizza.

There is a Utah-famous story about senate majority leader Curt Bramble and how he belittled a pizza girl and was a total jerk about it. Here’s a link to the pizza girl’s blog who wrote about it. Crazy story!

A while back my older brother did an MMA (mixed martial arts) fight. He was living in Tennessee at the time and his friends filmed it for him. Ammon wins with a guillotine choke.

I like sushi. My first real sushi was in Santa Barbara, CA on my mission provided by a very cool member last name Sarabia. I was pretty skeptical especially because cartoons usually think raw fish is really gross. However, with enough soy and wasabi you can eat just about anything!

I’m still in AZ right now and today I went with the three owners of Secure Source (2 are brothers in law) to a place called Tomo near Phoenix, AZ. Best sushi I’ve had in my life to this point. Wow. I used to think the fancy sushi rolls were overrated and it was all about a simple piece of fish and maybe some avocado in there. I stand before you today as a convert of way awesome sushi with fried crud and lots of other goodness on there!

Yup. That’s life. Why do we only say this when something bad happens? Why not say it when we have an other-wordly success? “Yup, that’s life” As in “WHOA! Life is amazing and I love how we receive wonderful things when we least expect it!”

Last April I was chasing this girl I had known for about a year and a half. I had to know if she was really interested so I asked point blank. She said she was and so I let her know how I feel in some pretty creative ways. One of which was buying a domain and posting a rap I made for her on it. Ha ha. It was totally fun to make and I even recruited one of my musical genius friends to make the beat with me on his synth. Well my crazy attempt at impressing a girl worked only to make her boy toy at the time jealous and uncomfortable and maybe scare her off a little. Can’t say I didn’t try! Good times. I don’t regret it at all. I say if some super amazing girl is going to say she’s interested in me then she better prepare for an onslaught of “Hi, I’m Ethan, I use my talents to impress girls”.

I’m writing this on Aug 9 even though I’m scheduling it to be published 2 weeks later. I feel a little less pressure writing that way. It’s weird blogging about dating when I’m taking girls out currently and all but whatever, mostly family reads this stuff anyway. If the girls I’m giving attention to find and read this blog then hey, I guess they’re that much more informed.

This has for-sure been the craziest summer of my life. For one, I’ve never dated someone as amazing as the ‘cowgirl’ I blogged about a while back. Two, Parker Planners has been the adventure of a lifetime (in the process of or actually selling to: Deseret Book, Walgreens, and Walmart) and I’m still learning so much. And three, I went on my first cruise, first trip to San Diego, and drove my first late-model BMW probably 3,000 miles or so. Heck yes, friends! I love life!

This post is intended to help with matters of the heart. Nothing like dating to land smack dab in the middle of said territory. Here we go: I’m ancient by mormon singledom terms (25 oh please no!) and just barely an adult by any other standard. Most people think I should be focused on making a million bucks (yes, don’t worry I am) rather than ultra-laser-beam dedicated to finding a wife. Yes, not a girlfriend, but a wife. Scary thought? Yes, the pressure is on in this place called Provo. It’s not about finding someone you enjoy hiking and jamming music with, oh no. It’s marriage time and if you’re past a certain age and not married there’s pretty much something wrong with you.

I don’t buy it. I’m all about people falling in love and taking the next step in faith, but just because you’re at “x” point in your life and without wife doesn’t mean you’re a failure. In my life there have been girls that wanted to move forward when I didn’t and girls that chose not to be with this amazing studdedly-muffin-supreme when they had the chance. That’s just dandy says I. A wise friend of mine told me “some will, some won’t, some wait, so what? NEXT”. Yes, this is about dating. True that. Some will (but you may not want to) some won’t (yup) some wait (I need time, blah blah blah) so what!? Next. Yup indeed. Right now I’m at the NEXT phase.

2010 summer love was way better than last summer so that’s cool. It was something absolutely amazing that came along when I least expected it. After General Conference I had my dad give me a priesthood blessing, which I hadn’t asked for in a long time. In that blessing I felt like the girl I was chasing (rap video one) was nothing to worry about and God had something great in store for me. I really had faith in that.

Turns out only two weeks later I met a girl who fit that description pretty well. It was funny, we were both in disbelief about how much we had in common. So much so that her parents asked “so, what’s it like dating yourself?” We had a blast. Went to AZ on a road trip, graduated college together, played tennis, rode her horses, went country dancing, fixed things, did yard work, spoke Spanish, rocked out on guitar, etc. Just when I thought dating was a trivial pursuit I was reminded that you never know when you’ll meet someone you just fall for immediately. It can and does happen when you least expect it.

So, no, there’s no engagement story or happily ever-marriaged-after story but hey, it’s all good. I’m pretty darn young and what’s the rush? Pretty much we broke up half way through the summer and she’s off at one of the nation’s best law schools back east. It wasn’t right at the time, I think we both felt that. As much as we wanted to take the next step in life things just weren’t really falling into place. I look at it as a great growing experience, we helped each other laugh and learned a lot. I feel much better prepared for future lady friends.

My grandpa Parker passed away in 1997. He fought in WWII in a submarine as a 17 yr old. He rebuilt lots of cars with my dad and owned one of 1500 Rambler Rebels (a very light and powerful car from the late 1950’s). I always liked coming down to Hurricane to visit he and grandma. They were always so kind and loving. Grandma would stuff you full of food and grandpa would direct you to the candy dish or read to you any time. 

I’ve visited this place many many times but never met the neigbors until two days ago. Al next door has been cutting my grandma’s grass since 1997 when grandpa passed away. I had no idea someone was taking such care to help one of my family members. I was blessed with the opportunity to mow Al’s lawn Monday he is recovering from heart surgery. He said that my grandma is a very neat person. He’s right. The biggest surprise however was meeting Al’s wife. When I met her she said “you’re Ray’s grandson, it’s the eyebrows, I can tell”. Then she said we had beautiful eyes. I thought that was funny, but hey when you got, you got it . Sonya’s career was in nursing and she was the first on the scene when grandpa fell off the ladder. She tried to revive him but said he was gone before he got into the ambulence. 

What a neat experience to get to know my own family better through close friends of theirs. I could/would/should really be back in Provo right now being responsible but I’d give up lots of money to hear more 1st hand accounts about my grandfather. When we meet people like that it’s not by chance. We need to hold onto and record those events. 

This is a different BMW than normal, it’s my brother’s 2005 545i. It’s faster and cooler than the 325i but alas, this car had taken some abuse before we got it so it has issues. Last week Ammon had just started a trip up to Provo so we could hike Mt. Timp before our family gathering and his car threw a rod on the way up. Bummer deal. Right now we’re both in Hurricane, UT at my grandma’s house installing a new motor. The new engine arrived today.

I just got back from playing some guitar hero with Ammon and his friend Terrin and I’m exhausted! Ammon and I worked on that car all day. It’s tricky business because he bought a motor out of a 745i and we’re putting it in a 545i. It’s the same 4.4L DOHC V8 but because it’s out of a different car and used to be attached to an automatic transmission there are some subtle differences that have made the swap more colorful. We managed to get the engine and tranny mated and hanging from an engine hoist. We’ll see what tomorrow brings! Never worked on a German car before, kinda weird. They love to use torx head bolts.

Here’s Ammon working away while it was just an engine.

(bandaged) thumbs up! Motor and transmission together!

Now It’s heading toward the car

Ammon and the car, preparing for installation of the engine

This is tougher than it looks. Very easy to smash something important, and quite the balancing act getting 300lbs of pure power into a BMW 5-series.

We did it! Got the thing in the car. Now we have to install the A/C compressor with no belt tensioner. Not fun for those who have ever done a fan belt and had the luxury of a spring you compress to install the belt. We had to losen the bolts to the compressor and manually turn the engine with a ratchet to ease the belt into place.

This weekend has been amazing! So Thursday we loaded up the trucks, B-mer and Vibe and headed for the hills just outside Hurricane, UT. It’s pronounced “Her-ih-cun” said really fast if you’re from around here. We went to a place I’ve been many times with my dad and brothers to shoot guns and what not when I was a kid. My grandma has lived down here since the early 80’s and many a vacation day has been spent exploring southern Utah’s red rocks.

This trip we had my dad’s go-kart with us which was perfectly suited to the terrain. Way fun, and the best part is you can take a passenger along for the ride, too; this time it was a niece or nephew saying “go crazy!” or ” no jumps this time”. We also shot some guns and oddly enough there were hundreds of little tiny frogs all over the ground to entertain everyone.

Enjoy the documentation:

We went to a demolition derby Saturday night and it was they best one I’ve been to! Oh man you wouldn’t believe it! Normally they do cars, old weird cars with no traction and there’s a few bumps, but nothing spectacular. Ever seen demo-derby trucks!?! Yup, they got ‘em at the Washington County Fair! Oh yeah. We saw one get nailed from the side and flip over. So sweet.

Enjoy this demolition derby worker:

Discovery of the day: rearrange St. George and you get George Street! 

I’m here right now with all my immediate family! There are 8 original Parkers, 3 spouses, and 9.7 grandkids. We are having such a blast. My neice Sienna who is 9 is an amazing dancer, if she goes to BYU she’s cougarette material all the way. I beat box and she grooves to it

We all got here tonight and we’re all staying at this sweet house. It was built in 1870 but has been added onto and rennovated since then. Lotsa bedrooms, pool, hot tub, tennis court, wifi, flatscreen tv and dvd player- what else do you need?! This place is awesome and no better people to be here with! Really looking forward to these next few days!

Sometimes when rappers want to see whose rhymes are superlative, they “battle”. It’s non-violent.

Sometimes when people like something, they call it “sick” to describe how much it uplifts them. That’s how I’d describe this video.