Darren Alff

Late yesterday afternoon I heard the mailman drop a big heavy package on my parent’s doorstep. I ran to the door to see what it was.

On the mat outside the front door was a large brown packege with an International Shipping sticker plastered onto its backside. I instantly knew who it was from – the family I stayed with in Germany last summer: The Rybickis!

Mr. and Mrs. Rybicki’s daughter, Natalie, was a foreign exchange student who came and stayed with my parents and sister in the summer of 2006. The year after that, I flew to Germany and stayed with the Rybicki family for approximately 1 month. Then, just two short months after returning back to the States, Natalie flew out to California for a second time and stayed with my parents yet again. I flew back to my parents’ as well and we all spent about a month or so showing Natalie around Southern California.

Last Christmas, as a way of saying thanks, The Rybickis sent my parents a gigantic package of German and Polish goodies. There was chocolate, fruit, wine, Christmas decorations and a whole host of other treats and surprises. But the package was absolutely huge… and I can’t imagine what they must have had to pay to get it shipped from Poland to the United States. (They typically mail packages from Poland because it is so much cheaper there).

Anyway, we got this new package yesterday and while it wasn’t quite as big as the package my parents got last Christmas, it was still incredibly heavy.

Inside the box were some clothes for my mom and sister, a bunch of German candies, and a scrapbook that Natalie made from her experiences both here in the United States and during my visit to Germany last summer.

The way Natalie made the scrapbook, it reminded me of a fairytale. It started with a “Once Upon A Time” and ended with a “Happy Ending.”

Somewhere in the middle, Natalie had a page where she listed all the things she likes. On this page were items like “Gold, money, festivals, Gucci, and $100,000 cars.” Then, on that very same page, she had written “My own gardener.”

I thought this was funny. My parents thought it was cute.

You see, here in California where my parents live, just about everyone has a gardener that comes once a week and cuts the grass, trims the bushes, and cares for the general landscaping of the house. But where Natalie is from in Germany, having your own gardener is far from the norm. She thought we were funny to have our own gardener… and now, months later, it seems as though she is dreaming of one day having a gardener of her own.

When Natalie was here visiting with my family, she shared with us some of her goals for the future. She wants to go to college, have a great (high paying) job, and possibly even live in the United States. And while her dreams of having a gardener are slightly humorous to this California native, I know that this is something my German friend is certainly capable of if she just puts her mind to it.

Thanks for the scrapbook Natalie! Keep up the good work… and say “hallo” to the rest of the family for me!

I hate seeing animals or people suffer, so when I heard a loud scream from downstairs earlier today, I knew I was about to stumble upon some sort of terrible scene.

When I got downstairs, I found my cat, Lucky, sitting in the living room over a small gray bird. There were feathers all over the place and I was sure the bird was dead, but as I came closer, Lucky moved away and I could see that the bird was still breathing.

I pushed the cat out of the room and then returned to the bird to assess the damage. Its head was down on the ground. Its entire body slumped on the floor. And its beak was clasped tightly to the rug on which the cat had dropped it.

I tried to get some movement out of the animal, but all the little guy did was stare up at me in absolute terror.

After a few minutes of assessment, I picked up the rug on which I had found the little bird and moved it outside. I didn’t know what to do. Should I put it out of its misery? Should I call someone to come and take care of the thing? Or should I simply let it sit there and hope that the little bird would gather up the strength to pick itself up and continue on its way?

Well, this story has a happy ending of sorts, because after about 15 minutes of being left alone, the little bird picked itself up and stood on two feet. Still breathing heavily, it took another hour or so to hop about 6 feet to the base of the house. Then a few minutes later the little guy walked into the grass and disappeared.

I tried to find the little guy a few minutes ago, but he seems to be gone. I hope the little finch was simply in shock and has now continued on its way. Whatever the case, I’m keeping the cat inside tonight.

This morning I went out to breakfast with my dad. We started to talk about my plans for spending this coming winter in Europe and he wanted to know exactly where I was planning to go. But when I started naming places I planned to visit, he wasn’t exactly sure where all those places were.

I didn’t have a map of Europe on me, so I grabbed a piece of paper and quickly drew out a rough map of Europe from memory.

When it was over, I had the image that you see below. At first glance it looked like a really crappy drawing of Europe, but at second glance it looked like a man bending at the waist.

What do you see? A crappy map of Europe? A man bending at the knees? A man with a tail? Let me know!

Today my best high school friend, Travis Miller, got married. Since moving to Utah I’ve only talked to Travis a handful of times, but he was the first person to come and visit me in Utah – even if he was only there for two days.

I was asked to help videotape the ceremony with another high school friend, Katina Bartalone (now married as Katina Bergen), so I had a somewhat active role in the ceremony.

The wedding and reception was at a great Camarillo home in the hills between Camarillo and Santa Rosa. There was a luxurious swimming pool, small guesthouse, huge kitchen, and more!

What was most incredible about this wedding was the fact that I knew an incredible amount of people in attendance. It seemed that everyone there was someone I once knew back in elementary school, high school, or college.

My elementary school friend Michael Floryan was there with his new wife Jackie and brother Matt (who went to my college and majored in film just like I did).

Mr. and Mrs. Draine were there (parents of some old elementary school friends) and so were the Stevens (also elementary school friends).

My first soccer coach, Mr. Mark Cardella, and his wife were there.

Gabe Pascillas (a high school acquaintance) and Luke Campbell (high school friend and soccer teammate) were also there.

And my whole family was in attendance as well. My mom, dad, and sister.

I could go on, but you get the point. It was crazy just how many people were there that I knew.

Now that Travis is married, I’ve only got two close friends who have yet to tie the knot. Everyone else has already been married… and some already have kids!

It was great to see everyone, but it was strange to be back in Camarillo and seeing all these familiar faces. It just makes me feel old and a bit out of place.

I’ve been using the service at Twitter.com for about the past two months and the more I use it, the more I find that I really like this weird little service.

I wrote a post about Twitter a few weeks ago and since that time I have accumulated a great little following. I now have 37 people following me on Twitter and I am following 5 others.

Despite how much I like the service, it seems that Twitter has some serious server problems. Half the time I try and visit Twitter.com, the page either takes 30 seconds to load or the website is completely down and I am unable to punch in my updates.

Just look at what I got the other day when I tried to log in:

Here are the 5 people I am currently following on Twitter. I’ve ranked them in order from my favorite to my least favorite:

Darren Rowse – Problogger.net
Jeff Walker – ProductLaunchFormula.com
Heather B. Armstrong – Dooce.com
John Reese – Income.com
The Sundance Institute – Sundance.org

Here’s another one (June 12, 2008):

And another (June 13, 2008):

I’m an ice-cream-aholic! I admit it. I love ice cream and I find it very difficult to go for an entire day without eating some.

Yesterday I finished off whatever ice cream I had left in my fridge and decided that this was going to be the last bit of ice cream I was going to eat (at least for a little while).

So I went to the grocery store yesterday and didn’t buy any ice cream. It was hard to do, but I did it.

Instead of buying ice cream, I bought a bunch of bananas instead and put them in the freezer. The idea here being that if I get an ice cream craving, I can eat one of these frozen bananas instead. It’s not quite the same, but I hope it helps!

All this talk of ice cream has made me want it even more! And what’s worse is that it is hot today – a perfect day for a big bowl of ice cream. Ugh! I better go eat a banana.

I just finished a book by leading Bigfoot authority, Loren Coleman. The book is titled, “Bigfoot! : The True Story of Apes in America.”

As you may or may not know, I have a slight fascination with the beast we know as “Bigfoot.” I wrote a report on bigfoot in the 6th grade and since that time have been both intrigued and terrified by the idea of a giant human-like ape wandering around in the woods. And because I spend so much time out in the forest by myself, the idea of Bigfoot scares me even more!

In Coleman’s book, he discusses many of the famous Bigfoot cases and reveals some Bigfoot stories I had never heard before. One of these unknown stories ended up causing a huge ruckus on the Internet after people listening to one of Coleman’s speeches misinterpreted his message and thought that the renowned Bigfoot expert was suggesting that Bigfoot might be gay!

Here’s what happened:

In 2001, Coleman was giving a speech to a good-sized group (about 225 people) of Bigfoot enthusiasts in Newcomerstown, Ohio. During his presentation, Coleman briefly told the story of a eyewitness who had seen Bigfoot having sex with a cow. Coleman “lightheartedly wondered aloud if 10 percent of the Bigfoot population, matching the figures we have for Homo sapiens, might be gay.” He then moved on to another subject.

At the end of Coleman’s lecture, the Bigfoot expert answered a number of questions, but no one brought up the “sex question.”

It was to Coleman’s surprise then, that a few days later the Internet was abuzz with outrage over his suggestion that Bigfoot might be gay.

People that were not even in attendance at the seminar were sending Coleman nasty emails and making horrible comments about him on the Web. Some people were upset with the fact that the Bigfoot expert had brought up the subject when there were children in attendance at the presentation.

One angry writer wrote, “Talking about bigfoot and anal sex with cattle by an unclassified creature when there are children in the audience who may view Bigfoot as a monster anyway, isn’t a subject YOU as the speaker, arbitrarily have the right to inflict on other families.” Another person wrote, “ The most important point is that you have NO credible evidence that Sasquatch have anal intercourse with cattle. What stupid illiterate speculation!!!!!!!!!!”

Then, something funny happened! Another Internet user responded by saying, “Actually, if Bigfoot was gay, he wouldn’t be having sex with cows, he’d be having sex with bulls!”

To follow that up, Dave Grenier of Olympia, Washington clarified the joke by saying that, no, “if Bigfoot was gay, he’d be having sex with another Bigfoot, not a bull.”

In the end, Coleman notes that to this day many people remember him only as the guy who said “Bigfoot is gay” and “has anal sex with cows.”

This might be a devastating professional blow for Coleman, but to me it’s just plain funny!