My Thanksgiving Message -

I want to thank you people for ruining my Thanksgiving.

Curt and I were headed to Salt Lake for our Thanksgiving dinner and I had to make a stop. In the men’s room at the Chevron was the following poem.

Get me
For free.
There’s never a fee.
And always something new
and nice to see.
Call Bobby G.
317-0017

Imagine my shock to realize this is Bob Geiger’s phone number. Curt and I went to a number of other rest rooms and found this number posted along with various poems. We had a lady check for us and it’s in the women’s rooms too. I know he’s given his number out on the WCF. I don’t know if you people are doing it but I bet you know who is. Touring men’s rooms was not my idea of how Curt and I wanted to spend Thanksgiving. Somebody said that since the Geiger’s have wasted so much of the people in Ogden’s time they were going to return the favor but this is ridiculous. As mayor I could order you to stop writing this phone number in restrooms but I know if would just make people do it more. So now Curt and I get to spend the holiday going around with a bottle of Windex and some paper towels. Somehow I will get you back for this.

Let’s Meet Chris Peterson -

Now that the Standard Examiner has disappointed so many by demanding that my friend Chris Peterson come up with a proposal for what he wants to do, I felt it would really help for him to take a few minutes here and let all of you get to know him a little better. So take it away Chris –

Thanks Matt. And first let me say what an honor it is to be here on the WC Forum. I have nothing but the greatest respect for all its posters and many more readers. You know, the WCF is really becoming a main information outlet for Ogden, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say it may be number two behind the SE. And as I have said to Matt many times, if you can’t go number one, you should always still be able to go number two.

Most of you know I started my career with Trammell Crow, before having the great opportunity to work for my Father in Law, Earl Holding, starting in 1987. He is truly a Great Man as well as sort of a relative, and working with Him and getting to know Him better was a real opportunity. Being able to interface with Him on a regular basis gave me a renewed appreciation for His genius and financial skill. Everything He did was a class act of the utmost caliber. But after working on His projects, all of the highest quality and professionalism, I felt it was time for me to do something different.

As you may know, at present I don’t really have any employees or any place of business, but I do have a large table in the kitchen where I read a lot of magazines. I have about six companies that I run, although right now none of them have any actual sales. But of course, these details are of no consequence in the circles of business where I travel and I suspect such matters are perhaps over most of your heads. My good friend, your mayor, also has a deep and varied work history, including a few months with Iomega, a year or so in Ogden’s planning department, and some time working a shaved ice stand before he became mayor. His rich and varied business background and history of increasing accomplishment is so similar to my own, I think it’s what makes our friendship so deep and unique. You know, if the little guy would quit politics I’d hire him in a minute just as soon as I get some of my businesses going.

Anyway, here’s the important part. What I really need from you Ogden folks right now is to give me an option on the Weber State land, the golf course, and the city land on the bench, as well as a re-zone of my slopes, plus water and sewer hookups. These simple, technical details would immediately make me a millionaire without any further effort from me at all. It’s all I really need to be able to tell my former friends and family “Look at me! I’m Back!” I know Don Wilson says my ski resort isn’t feasible, but he’s a really old man, and I don’t want to say he’s old but he’s so old what he thinks really doesn’t matter and the guys I had do the chain sawing in Malans said they thought it’s a good idea for sure. So let’s quit all the naysaying and get on with the minor paperwork I need. It’s an exciting time in Ogden! You know, the couple of times I’ve been to your city and bought free street tacos for I guess the homeless or whoever those people were that came to my rallies I can honestly say Ogden really wasn’t the armpit my friends and I say it is.

But it can still be better!! Now Matt, just let me thank you for giving me this chance to let the Ogden folks get to know me a little better this afternoon.

Hey thank YOU Chris. You know, it’s a mystery to me why anyone wouldn’t want to let Chris spend a billion dollars cash money on the barrelhead in Ogden. I know you people would all be on board if you could just see things the way Chris and I do, and the way the other important businessmen of Ogden do. You know if we just had more men like Chris - tall men who look like Wayne Newton – or just more business men in general, it’s worth whatever we have to do, to me.

About Advisory Bodies -

I’m surprised you people aren’t making more out of the Planning Commission voting me down this week. Perhaps you are learning how our gum mint works around here. For those of you who don’t know, I thought I’d offer a little civics lesson on “advisory bodies”.

That’s what the Planning Commission is, an advisory body. Basically, that means I don’t have to do what they say. All I need is four votes on the City Council, and as you know I have Saftsen, Stephenson, and Stephens. Who is the fourth you ask? Let’s just say I have a secret weapon. Or perhaps I should say, a Sue-cret weapon.

The first time I learned about advisory bodies, it was my elementary school teacher, Mrs. Rumsfeld. She used to call herself that, my advisory body. “Come by after school Matty,” she’d say. “Your so little and cherubic.” She, and her little porcelain elves all over the place, with that big piece of foam rubber stuck to her chair with the school masking tape. “My hose is bunching up Matty. Here, help me fix it.”

Then there was Mr. Hector, who caught me climbed up a tree looking in the boys PE room. I asked him if I could still be the towel boy. I tried to make friends with the tall boys. I would put a little white hat on my head, made from a folded towel, like little elf and I would take their towels to them. “I don’t want that towel,” they’d say, then they’d tear the towel off my waist, and laugh at me.

That is what led me to live a life of purity. Tell me now, Mrs Rumsfeld, I know you read this blog. How do you feel now, now that your house near the river is being torn down? And how about your house, Mr. Hector? Maybe Curt Bramble saved you from the WalMart last year, before you moved onto the bench. But I have something in mind the legislature won’t be able to save you from this time. And when I’m looking DOWN on all of YOU as I move slowly 30 feet overhead, who’ll be laughing then?

Anyway, I have to go now. I like to give these public service announcements on how our governor mint really works. This has been your free civics lesson.