Road Trip!

You may not know this, but we're kind of experts at road trips. Basically. We're going to spend this post expounding upon the what, why, and how of the mythical Road Trip.
First, what?
road trip, n.
Definition:
a journey via automobile, sometimes unplanned or impromptu; a journey involving sporting game(s)away from home
Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon
There you are. Now you know.
Why? No one knows for sure. Popular opinion says it comes with the American Spirit: unbridled, wild. Men and women (but mostly men) have been taking road trips for centuries! (Some more fun than others)
All road trips end differently, but in one way or another, they can almost always be called successes. Whether you successfully make a trip to the North Pole and back, or end up a thousand miles from home out of gas and without a dime to your name, both are great examples of a successful road trip.
What really matters is what the goals were from the beginning. In the above examples, the people who went to the North Pole set their goals very specifically:

1. Reach the North Pole
2. Come back home

The people who were (and probably still are) a thousand miles from home weren't so specific:

1. Drive far
2. Have fun

They can both be called successes because they both accomplished all their goals, and got past what those in the business call the "point of no return." This point is exactly one mile from the point of origin. If it's passed, the first requisite of a road trip has been accomplished, the rest is what the travelers decide for themselves.
There are very few circumstances that qualify as a failed road trip. One would be that the travelers set out on the great endeavor and don't make it a mile from the starting point.
To help illustrate the concept, we're going to use pictures from a road trip we took recently. Most of the points are personal rules and principles we've adopted and applied with great success to our situation. Therefore, what's said here can't be applied to every road trip anywhere. Every journey is different, and to be a good road trip-er, you've got to be ready to adjust.
Here they are in almost no particular order:
Rule No. 1 - Drive.
This is a pretty general rule for road trips. Although you could be riding a bike, riding a llama, or even running, the classic and universally accepted version is via a motor vehicle.

Rule No. 2 - Obey all traffic laws (generally).
They are for your own safety. If you want to go far, you had better obey these. Or else you will get really messed up really fast. :(

Rule No. 3 - Don't forget your guide.

Rule No. 4 - Avoid hitting other cars.
It may seem really fun at first, but it will result in the end in your road trip, or at least a delay.

Rule No. 5 - DO use your breaks.
Stop with your brakes, or you will stop with theirs.

Rule No. 6 - Have some good entertainment.

Rule No. 7 - Provide your own soundtrack

Rule No. 8 - Beware of truckers.

Truckers can be really awesome, or really crazy. We have found out from this picture that Santa has an Evil brother. His name is probably Bob… or Nicky, or Toby.

Enhanced picture.

Rule No. 9 - Check EVERY road sign for information pertinent to your journey.
Because, who knows, you may get cold feet on a journey of such magnitude.

Rule No. 10 - Give no quarter to the enemy.

Rule No. 11 - Bring a camera.


Send us your pictures from your adventures, and if they get the BulfenRoben Seal of Approval (we'll elaborate on that later), they might make it into a future post!
(Ha, look at us, building up our non-existant reader base. Haha.)

On going to Israel

I found this great joke on one of my favorite Catholic Blogs, American Papist.

A Jewish businessman in Chicago sent his son to Israel for a year …to absorb the culture.

When the son returned, he said, “Papa, I had a great time in Israel….and by the way, I converted to Christianity.”

“Oy vey,” said the father. “What have I done?” He took his problem to his best friend, Ike.

“Ike,” he said, “I sent my son to Israel , and he came home a Christian. What can I do?”

“Funny you should ask,” said Ike. “I too, sent my son to Israel, and he also came home a Christian. Perhaps we should go see the rabbi.”

So they did, and they explained their problem to the rabbi.

“Funny you should ask,” said the rabbi. “I, too, sent my son to Israel , and he also came home a Christian. What is happening to our young people!?!”

And so they went to temple and all prayed, telling the Lord about their sons.

As they finished their prayer, a Voice came from the Heavens:

“Funny you should ask,” said the Voice…

“I, too, sent my Son to Israel… “

(Thanks to American Papist)

Shame.

Okay, people. (I really hope I'm actually talking to people. I mean, we really don't have any regular readers. I'm going to look like a moron if and when no one reads this. Of course, if no one reads it, I'll be the only one to know I look like a moron. So I guess it's okay.) We're back. It's probably a bad omen that after three posts, we've already had one of those enormous gaps in posting where the readers (if we had any) start freaking out, wondering if we died or something. It can get ugly. All it takes is one obsessive reader to incite some panic in the other regulars. All of a sudden there are riots, flipped cars, Molotov cocktails… Anything can happen when a prominent blog goes silent!
Luckily for us, we're not a prominent blog, so we don't have to worry about any property damages in our name.
I guess the lesson we've learned is we must be ever vigilant for the slightest hint of a bloggable moment.

Branding WIN

It's not just any microwave popcorn, it's Toy Story Microwave Popcorn.

Our parents gave this as a birthday present to our younger cousin (he's like, 3), because, like every boy that age, he's completely obsessed with every thing that's remotely related to Toy Story. Don't get us wrong, we love Toy Story. We always have, and could actually recite the ENTIRE 1st movie (including music themes and sound effects) by heart. We completely approve of his obsession.

Now, the popcorn container is a little crazy, but not the worst thing. I mean, we understand wanting to express yourself while watching a movie. It's kind of like a bumper sticker.

But the little pack of popcorn? Ridiculous! There's no difference between the taste or quality of the popcorn (if anything, it'll be worse than the non-Toy Story stuff)!

We're not actually sure what we're more astounded about: That this is being sold, or that people buy it! (sigh) To quote the Wicked Witch, "What a worlddd!"

P.S. BONUS:

That makes it much better.

What's in a name?

We're sure people are curious (or at least we hope so) about the origins of the title of our little blog. We'll give a little history here:

We wanted to make a blog. So, we took the initiative, hopped onto Blogger, and got started! Then, we hit a wall. We didn't have a name, couldn't think of anything good, and didn't want to settle for "<Blog name here>." For a while, we couldn't figure out a name at all.It halted blog production for months! We racked our brains for ideas but everything we came up with just didn't cut the mustard.

The name we were finally going to go with was "Blog of the BeRo." We were both mostly content with it. After months of no action, we were excited to finally get underway. We were in the process of creating an account, and had to come up with a username (not title yet) so we tried "BeRo." It was taken. (who the heck would use that? Come on.) We tried to think up another option, though we were still planning on using Bero for the blog title. We tried "benrob." Taken!
Finally, we settled on a good solid name that we were both happy with.

BulfenRoben

[bul-fen-rob-in]

—noun

1. A computer glitch. I.e., the disappearance of the Task Bar (applies only to Windows PCs).

2. A choice name for a newly christened blog.

3. A combination of letters that can be created by first having the letters "benrob" in a text input box on a website (eg. Google, Gmail, Blogger, etc.), and then adding random letters via accidentally hitting keys on an attached keyboard. The odds of such an event happening are immeasurably miniscule.

Bero Unabridged Imagined Dictionary. Copyright 2010.

^{(Christopher Jensen is a beast.)}

First Post.

WELCOME.
(intense heroic music)


(Rob)
This is our first post.
We are embarking on a journey. It will not be easy, for it is a journey not of travel, but of words... You're welcome to join us. We'd be happy to have you.
So climb aboard! Let's get underway...


(Alright, alright. That's enough. It's sounding way to much like the intros to those cheap motion rides. The ones where you fly to Mars or something.)

(Ben)
Lets try that again. This blog stuff is hard. Or maybe it's just the first post.
Here we go again.... What the are we supposed to write about?... Well lets see, we're giddy, tired... tired + giddy = more giddiness... Are we just supposed to babble on? about nothing? Well, we have to get this first post done quickly.. its late. Although, we want it done tonight, but we don't have anything to talk about. So, that's why I'm just babbling on.

(Rob)
Let's try something like a mission statement. We're writing this because, uh, because for the past months, we keep finding moments throughout the day that can only be described as Blog Moments. And we haven't had a blog to blog on! So, we have begun this enterprise. We'll see where it goes. (watch, our lives will suddenly become completely devoid of all blogable situations.)

(Ben)
Look at this! We're figuring out how our blog is shaped! We have both our comments, that hopefully make up something entertaining for you all. Improv is awesome. Maybe our Blog will evolve into something structured better. But for now, buckle your seat belt (Subscribe!), its going to be a interesting ride.


(Rob)
Hey! This wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. Just wait until we've actually got something to write about!