Foodleking has arrived.

For those of you who don’t know him, which would likely be all of you, I want to take a moment to introduce you to someone who is one of my very best friends in the world.

I’ve known Foodleking since I was six years old, when I first moved to Southern California. He became especially prominent in my life because we attended the same church and the same school. Growing up, I had school friends and church friends and artsy fartsy friends, but Foodleking crossed over into all of them. (Not so much the artsy fartsy, actually. He’s not really artsy, although he would probably admit to being somewhat fartsy – more so as he ages.)

As a result, almost all of the experiences that I’ve recounted in this blog have included him, too. Foodleking was a firsthand witness to the Majesty of Springsteen, many of my Brushes with Greatness, and the Horrors of the Order of the Arrow. (He, unlike me, is a real live Eagle Scout. My mother told me that if I didn’t follow in Foodleking’s footsteps and become an Eagle, I would regret it for the rest of my life. Based on that criteria, the rest of my life has yet to begin.)

There are innumerable Foodleking stories I could recount, and I probably will as time wears on. My entire childhood is filled with them. We carpooled and trick or treated and played on the same little league teams together. (He was a good athlete, though, and I wasn’t.) We chased the same girls. (He caught them, though, and I didn’t.) We did the same drugs. (He didn’t do any drugs, though. Fortunately, neither did I.) I’m sitting here trying to remember specific incidents, but it’s impossible to narrow it down. It’s like trying to single out experiences you have with a brother, which, essentially, is what Foodleking was and is.

He was in the car with me when I got pulled over for driving 101 miles per hour. He broke into the Missionary Training Center in Provo with me to give another one of our friends a contraband TV Guide. As a groomsman at my wedding, he made a thinly-veiled crude toast about part of my anatomy that went over everyone’s head but mine. (I’ll leave that one to your imagination.)

About a year ago, Foodleking, Mrs. Foodleking, and his growing family – four kids at last count, if I’m not mistaken – made the trek up to Utah to pay us a visit. He’s quite the grown up now with a real job and everything, but no matter how long we go between visits, it feels like no time at all. We just pick up where we left off.

Much seems to have happened in that intervening year, however. According to his Blogger profile, he now lives in Afghanistan, working as an excavator in the fashion industry. This seems like quite a departure from his previous career, but I’m sure he’s the best darn fashion excavator the Afghani fashion industry has ever had.

So, Foodleking, welcome again. Feel free to correct my stories when I screw them up.