Book Review

I Live for This!
Bill Plaschke & Tommy Lasorda

As I kept reading through this book, I was impressed on what a nice guy Tommy Lasorda is. He was a tough guy as a baseball manager, at least sort of, but really he's a nice guy. He grew up poor, and really washed out as a ball player, but he was a really good manager. (A Hall of Fame manager, if you don't believe me...)

I remember him on TV from the Slim Fast commercials. The story goes that he had $80 thousand dollars riding on him losing 30 pounds, the money was for a home for some nuns. He stayed on the diet only long enough to win the bet, then ditched Slim Fast for good. The man is an eater. I think it was this book that got me thinking about Italian restaurants and spaghetti & meatballs...

The book talks about how nicely he treats everyone. At least everyone he likes. The secret of his success as a manager was to treat his players like his own sons, treating them very nice and making them feel special.

These days, he's back in the Dodgers organization, and he goes around the country doing speaking engagements. Some of them he does for pay, a bunch of them he does for free. (He figures the pay ones pave he way to go into schools, to police, that sort of thing.)

He's got a potty mouth, so he's not going to be featured at a BYU forum any time soon, but it's interesting to hear of the sort of things he does these days.

An interesting book...

Restaurant review

Carmine's
NYC - Times Square

Mob food.

After class got out this afternoon, we got ready to drive into the city for dinner. It rained most of the day, and was still raining. Gale didn't really want to go into the city with us, I think he was a little worried about what we were going to eat. We drove down the road looking for a chicken place to get him something, he decided that he wanted us to drop him off at a mall. The mall he had us drop him off at was something like 3 miles from the hotel, and it was still raining, but he insisted, so we dumped him off there.

We drove into the city, and found ourselves a parking spot on the East side of the park. We met Rob at the subway platform in Grand Central station, we had decided to go for some good Italian food, I really wanted spaghetti and meatballs, but real spaghetti and meatballs. Rob had a place for us to go in Times Square. I guess Rob knows someone who has eaten t every single restaurant in Manhattan. Something like that.

You walk into Carmine's, and it really looks like an Italian restaurant. Pictures of 'the family' on all the walls, covered tablecloths, that sort of thing. We ordered fried zucchini, spaghetti and meatballs, and the Farfalle chicken, which was the special of the day. The zucchini ended up being a giant pile of shredded fried zucchini. I ate too much of this stuff, but it was good. The 2 entries came, (it's a family style place) and were giant platters of food. I ate 2 plates of each kind, including 2 giant meatballs. I was mostly full by then, and Rob reminded me of our old trips to Brick Oven, when I would have 6 or 7 plates of pasta, so I had another half plate of spaghetti. I am still stuffed.

I don't know who this Carmine fellow is, I didn't see the guy from Laverne and Shirley, but the pasta was really, really good.

Tomorrow: Not sure about lunch (Jess has been impressed with the picks so far and wants me to find another for lunch. I created a monster), maybe Indian or Korean for dinner...

Restaurant Review

White Mana Burgers
Hackensack, NJ

AKA: The burger that got away...

We missed this place the first time we drove past it, I knew it was by the river, and was looking at the river when I should have been looking at the building. It didn't help that the place was so small. We walked in, it's a little tiny shack of a place with about a dozen stools around a grill.

The burgers are tiny, I estimate 1/8 pound burgers. ($1 each.) I ordered 3 burgers and fries. The fries came out right out of the fryer, the burgers right off the grill. They were very tasty. I should have ordered 4 of them, now I will be thinking about the burgers all day long.
The girl at the grill just asks you how many burgers you want, and onions or not. We are not sure how she kees track of who ordered what, but she seemed to get it right every time.

It's not a place to go if you want a nice spacious place it eat, or if you have problems sitting down to eat when people are standing right behind you. You can always order it for takeout, but if you are anywhere near this place, you should check it out. Those burgers are tasty.

NCAA bracket update

Well, having the girls make my picks based on which mascot they liked best was at best a bust. It became quickly apparent they their undying devotion to the feline type of mascot was trouble. I put each bracket in on ESPN's website so I could track them. At this point there are a couple of things to note:

• Ruth picked the loser of 75% of the first round games, and Louisville was the only winner she picked from the second round. This is why she was the "control" for tournament randomness in the combined bracket.
• Mary and Kate ended up with a similar score. Kate got all her points from the first 2 rounds only. She didn't have anyone left after that. Mary took 2 teams much deeper, but she's also done.
• Emma's undying devotion to the Jayhawk, at least to this point, did good things for her bracket. I'm still not sure that she knows what a Jayhawk is, or what she would do with one should she find one, but she wins the award for the most correct points among the girls. When I get back, I will let her pick something out of the prize box. (Yes, we have a prize box. You want a prize, come over and do a load of dishes, or some laundry. I'll give you a prize.)
• Tara, who just made her picks, not worrying about which mascot she liked better, but using some other picking method, is in the 22% nationally. I've only been higher than that once at this point in the tournament. The bracket I did for work, is only 3 1st round picks better than Tara's bracket, and has the same teams and same result lined up for the rest. Our end game was just about the same. That's still not saying anything, I'm currently in 20th place out of 28, and the guy in 28th place forgot to make his picks.
  
• Long story short, this method was no better than the one I used last year. It wasn't any worse, just not any better. I'll need to think something different up next March.

On another not totally unrelated note, this is the Cubs year to win the World Series. You heard it here. Just remember that. (I said this last week at work, someone asked if the baseball season had already started, I said "No, but that's usually the best time of the year to announce that the Cubs are gonna win it all...) In 2 1/2 days I will be at Yankee Stadium.

Book Review

Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man
Robert J Millet


This little book was a book Tara got me for Christmas this past year. I only just now got around to it. (I've been reading the other book she got me for Christmas off and on since then. I've only got about 30 pages in that one, but I left it home from this trip because of luggage problems.)

Anyway, Brother Millet wrote the book in an effort "to awaken us, to nudge our consciences, to educate our desires, to call us to higher ground, and to provoke us to glimpse and grasp the power with which we have been endowed." (I couldn't think of a better way to say besides just repeating it.)

He then goes through a bunch of different topics in relation to being a priesthood holder, and being a better priesthood holder. It was an interesting little book. At the end of each chapter he gave some 'points to ponder', in case we weren't picking them up out of the text.

I thought it was a good little book, I thought it would take me longer to read than it did.

Some things (or questions) that I am taking away from it, some from him, some I thought of: (To work on, I guess...)

• What kind of priesthood legacy am I leaving? I have been thinking a lot about this question in the past couple of months, since we found out we are having a boy, by the way. (It's different when all your kids are girls.)
• To what extent am I driven more by the pressing than the eternal? What are some instances in the past week in which the most important matters of my life took a back seat to matters of lesser worth?
• If my wife or children were asked what the most important things in their husband's or father's life are, how would they answer. (Tara tried answering some of this question in the book itself, she left me little notes about me. This means you are gonna have to go get your own copy of the book, I'm keeping mine.)
• What can I do to help my home teaching companion better understand the vision and purpose of home teaching? There are reasons he's my companion, and I don't help him out enough sometimes.
• How can I be more involved with the members of my Elders quorum? It's easy for me to be not involved, I'm often busy in and around church. Sometimes I think the Elders quorum doesn't want to ask me to do something because they think I am already plenty busy. I also don't always go out of my way to get to know some of the quorum members...
• What do my daughters or my wife understand about the power and blessings of the priesthood as a result of their interactions with me? I'm not very quick to suggest a priesthood blessing might help, or be warranted, in a situation. When I do ask the girls and they say no, I don't always press them on it. I hope I at least am quick to respond when asked, and have never refused anyone when given the opportunity...

Anyhow, maybe I shouldn't have this list here. Then again, what can it hurt?

Restaurant Review

Cheesecake Factory
Hackensack, NJ

After getting back to the hotel, eventually Jess felt better, so we went out to eat. We asked the girl at the hotel desk where a good Italian place was. She went and got a preprinted paper which a bunch of local restaurants on it, and directions, and pointed us to the Italian place on the paper. I didn't know if she really knew the place from first hand experience, it wasn't all that convincing of a sell. The place also sounded really expensive, so we ended up going to Cheesecake Factory.

I had the Shepard's Pie, which was good. The last time I was at a Cheesecake factory, I had the Shepard's Pie, it was good then as well. When I ordered it, the waiter wanted to know if I wanted the lunch sized plate or the dinner sized plate. I went into some sort of monologue about having had the Shepard's pie before, and the dish being pretty big, but if that was the lunch sized portion, I didn't want to order the dinner sized portion and end up having a platter 18 inches wide filled with food. I think I confused the waiter, so then I just said "Dinner sized plate, please." I guess this paragraph sounds funnier in my head.

They had a sugar free cheesecake there, I got it and had them put some banana slices on it. It was pretty good.

I think tomorrow we will get start exploring for our food again.

The hotel has a hot breakfast bar in the mornings, I went and looked at it this morning, and there was nothing there that was even tempting to eat. The scrambled eggs were round in shape, and flat. They looked odd. Maybe I will go back in the morning and try to look at the other foods, and try not to look at the eggs, and see if it makes a difference...

NYC tourism - the quick method

After Jess got his medicine, he was really just ready to sit back and relax to wait for the stuff to kick in. I was driving, so I decided to take the scenic way back to the hotel. Gale hadn't ever been to New York City, and likely won't be back. I'm not sure still if he's planning to hang out during the evenings with us, so I figured we should take at least a little time for him to see things.

We made our way down to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty. It was a really clear day, there wasn't any problems seeing it. We drove past the World Trade Center site, it looks like they are starting to build again, but I didn't get a great look at it because I was trying to avoid a taxi that was in front of us. We drove all around, ended up going past things like Wall Street, the Empire State building, Radio City Music Hall, The Ed Sullivan Theater, and Central Park. After a while of this, I think they were done, so we went back to the hotel.

We ended up on the Henry Hudson parkway, which took us to the George Washington Bridge, and found out a secret: If you go onto the George Washington bridge from the Hudson parkway, you don't have to pay the toll at the bridge. Is that some NYC secret that I shouldn't divulge on the internet? It was nice.

Church in Brooklyn

We drove into Brooklyn today to attend Rob's little branch there. We left an hour before he meeting time, to give us plenty of time to get there. We did pretty good until things started looking familiar, and I got off the freeway early (earlier than google maps wanted me to, anyway.) It turns out I got us off in Queens, not in Brooklyn. Was Broadway so important to these people that they had to have a Broadway street in 3 different boroughs, none of which have any relation to each other? Or is that what they mean by Off-Broadway? (Manhattan's Broadway is "Broadway", the one in Queens is "Off Broadway", and the one in Brooklyn is "Way Off Broadway"?) Anyway, Queens was nice, we spent our extra time getting back to where we were supposed to be and got to church right on time.

Sacrament meeting was interesting, (but not quite the "interesting" I would attach to a Fast and Testimony meeting in Buffalo...) there were some good testimonies that people went up to bear. After Sacrament meeting, Rob asked me to give the Sunday School lesson. (Even though we talked about last week, and he told me everything was covered, and there wouldn't be any surprise teaching opprotunities this time.) I ended up teaching the lesson, they were on Lesson 11 - 2 Nephi 31-33. (I don't know if our lesson at home is the same one, the Bishop asked us to start attending the temple prep course a couple of weeks ago...) I thought the lesson went pretty good today, there was good participation, and I don't think I rambled too much. I did at one point say "I grew up in Buffalo, NY. I guess that shows how long I have been out West. I should just say that I am from Buffalo, since you all know where that is." A lot of heads started nodding.

Rob invited us to go back to his house for a late lunch, but then he went and started some interviews. Jess wasn't feeling all that well, he was getting a migraine, and didn't really want to end up getting sick over at Rob's place, so we told Amy that we were going to go, went off to a little shop to get him some Excedrin, and took off.

Restaurant Review

Tick Tock Diner
Clinton, NJ

This place was featured in the Food Network's "Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives" show. It's supposed to be one of the best diners in New Jersey. Being only 10 miles from our hotel here, I suggested we go there tonight or dinner. Having said that, they made me drive.

I had the California Wrap, which was a grilled chicken wrap. It was very good. It came which chips and salsa, I thought it was the salsa making things tasty until I had my first chip by itself. Their chips are very, very good. I don't know where they get them, but they had some sort of extra flavor to them you don't normally get, at least where I have been getting them.

I also had sweet potato fries. Very nice.

Gale had a hamburger, which I hear is right in character.

Jess had the prime rib, and enjoyed it very much.

Lots of the other things people were ordering looked very good, the general consensus is that we could go back there again this week to try something else on the menu. We'll see what happens.

After dinner, I gave in to the temptation to have one of their canoles. Man was that good, but I think it was more sugar than I have had in the last 4 months combined. I was a little light headed for a bit, but things have settled into head, neck, arms, and leg aches. I knew going into it I would pay for it, don't feel bad for me. It was a good canole.

Trip alert

I am leaving for New York City in the morning. (Before it's light out.) I'm not sure all of what we will see, where all we will go, or what we will eat, but I will be sure to keep you updated here. We've got a 3rd guy going with us to the class, he's gonna be lost sometime during the first day, and I don't expect him to really get unlost. Maybe not, but I'm not holding my breath. He really doesn't have the prereqs for the class.

I thought I would try to get this guy to get this guy to eat something weird, but it sounds like he's a "meat and potatoes only" kind of guy. He also plans to spend his evenings in his room studying for a certification test he's taking soon, so he won't be tagging along much at night.

Anyway, no Age of Empires in the morning...

2008 Goal update

1. Post a goal update to the blog at least twice a month. 6 updates - Right on schedule.
   
2. Don't let a post go by without some progress to report. You be the judge.
3. Stain the play set. Sometime soon.
   
4. Finish the retaining wall. Sometime soon.
   
5. Finish the mission journal. No progress.
   
6. Build a bunk bed for Emma and Ruth. Late Spring.
   
7. Stay under the 210 weight. Current weight - 203.
8. Go to the temple at least once a month. We've gone twice this year so far. I didn't get there this month.
   
9. Take Tara somewhere for our 10th wedding anniversary. No trip picked or booked yet.
   
10. Read 18 books. 3 books completed so far, I've almost got another one finished, and expect to have a few done this next week.
    
11. Plant something other than tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans and peas. I have all that stuff I bought planted now, nothing poking out of the dirt yet...
    

How do people find time for this stuff?

This evening, I was introduced to an ASCII version of Star Wars episode 4. (At least the first half of it, anyway.) To see it, you have to telnet to towel.blinkenlights.nl. (For windows people, open a command prompt and type telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl I assume Linux users already know what to do...) I find this fascinating. How did these guys find the time to do this? I assume they were in college then, and had plenty of time to work their way through all the frames of this. They must have graduated (or had kids, according to Ammon) before they were able to finish it.

Of course, I did take the time to watch the ASCII version of a Star Wars movie, with no sound in it, so maybe I have that kind of time. Maybe I should volunteer to help them finish. Or do the next movie...

Utah Jazz Game

Today I had a little work meeting at Energy Solutions Arena. (Known as the Delta Center to just about anyone.) An HP reseller, Zunesis, had one of the lead designers of a product called ServiceGuard come in to talk to some of us from 3 different companies (About 18 people). The presentation was interesting. To start his presentation, and to decide what to take the most time on, he asked each of us what we currently had for fail over and fault tolerance in our environments. One company talked about how they had purchased some things, but had struggled to get any traction on deployment. The other company said they had needs, but were just starting the process. He turned to us, and asked what we use, I said "2 monkeys and a ping pong ball." That got the reaction I was looking for from all over the room. Anyway, the presentation was more interesting than I was expecting. The training I am doing in NYC next week is on this product, and the presentation wasn't just a rehash of what I will get next week.
After the presentation, we were taken down to the floor of the arena, where the Utah Jazz were getting warmed up. It was interesting to walk all around the bowels of the place. I think the Jazz employee was delaying until our dinner was ready. We were all given personalized Jazz replica jerseys. Dinner was good, we had dinner and watched the game from one of the loge boxes that ring the arena. There was a lot of food, and I ate a lot. At halftime, Zunesis brought out 2 Jazz letterman jackets, a Jazz golf bag, and a basketball autographed by the entire current team. I won the basketball.
I figure the basketball will make it's way onto eBay when the Jazz are either kicked out of the playoffs, or when they make it to the finals. We really don't have a spot in the house to display this thing, and I can think of half a dozen different things to spend the money on off the top of my head if I sell it. I figure the end of the season or the start of the finals is a good time to post the auction. If they are in the finals or win it all, the value of the ball should go up some. (It's unclear to me at this point what the current value of the ball is, I think the jackets were $100 each, and the ball seemed to be much more expensive.) Anyway, we'll see. I might call the place that sold it tomorrow to see what it would go for. I do know that there were a lot of people paying attention to the basketball on our way out to the car tonight... What do you think? Is that a good time to sell the thing? What do people think it's worth?

Book Review

You can Lead a Politician to water but you can't make him think
Kinky Friedman

2 summers ago, Tara and the girls were off in Buffalo visiting, I was home working. One night I ended up at the Evan's for dinner, after dinner, they turned 60 Minutes on. One of the stories was about a guy named Kinky Friedman who was running for governor in Texas as an independant. We thought it was a joke at first, the guy seemed to run off at the mouth a lot, and was pretty irreverent.

It turns out he didn't win the election. I think what happened was that he wasn't done talking after the election was over, so he wrote this book. It's about what he thinks is wrong with politics (more specifically in Texas), why he didn't win, and what he thinks should happen to fix things. (He thinks there should be mandatory voting and legalized gambling, among other things.) I kind of think he's an odd duck myself.

I saw the book, remembered the 60 Minutes story, saw the book looked thin, and gave it a chance. It didn't take much to read, either in time or in brainpower. He seems to me to be one of those guys who stands against a lot of the things that are wrong in politics and government, but then opens his mouth and starts saying things that worry you just a little. Like the guy that ran for mayor here a couple of years ago.

I'll save you the time, unless you are really interested in this guy for some reason. The book is just him blowing off steam, he's clearly still got a chip on his shoulder from the election. He's got 2 other things he is doing, that he talks about in the book, and is worth mentioning: a habitat for horses, and a pet sanctuary for abused pets. Other than that, carry on, you can probably pass on this book.

Easter Pictures

I took some pictures of the girls, I don't think Tara is all that excited about how they turned out...

Beach ball

After doing most of the eggs, I started running out of paint. I had enough of each color to make a beach ball egg. I think it turned out ok...

Green Eggs - and a Ham

Egg decorating

This year we bought a "24K" Egg decorating kit. It was supposed to be golden eggs, but the gold really didn't mix well, (I think it was old) and the kit was missing one of the gold packets.


The girls all watched in awe while I painted the eggs. Emma was so enthralled by it she climbed into Lily's high chair so she could watch while she ate dinner. They seem to have turned out ok, if the paint had been newer, I think the colors would have been more even. We also didn't have to break out any vinegar, which was a plus...

Game Time

Dad, Dave and I played Age of Empires again this morning. Dad and I ended up teaming up against Dave. In the end, we were way too much for him...

Easter Egg Hunt

Pictures from this year's Easter Egg hunt:The caption should read "Which of these mooks am I going to steal eggs from?"

We had a couple of false starts, Ruth couldn't resist.

Lily only dropped everything out of her basket twice.

Lily would only pick off the ground. We tried to get her to get a couple of others, but she wouldn't until we tossed them on the ground.

Way, way, way off Broadway

Tonight we went to see a play. When we got our tickets at the beginning of the season, it was called "Playing Fields". A few weeks ago we got a letter saying the name of the play had been changed to "Roofsliding".

I once did a little roof sliding myself. When I graduated High School, I started painting the house. The house has a little roof over the front room, and the day of our graduation practice, I nearly slid off the roof. I had a rescue rope, and used it, but had slid half off the roof. After this, it was time to go up to the school, I didn't change or anything, I figured they were just showing us how to walk properly, and it wasn't worth my time anyway. I was in the front row of the class, and the walk through was fine, for being pointless. When I got home, my Mom asked me if I went up to the school in those clothes. I told her yes, she told me to look at the back of my pants. The rear end of the pair of shorts I had been wearing had completely worn off when I slid off the roof. What was left of my shorts, and the boxer underneath were covered in tar from the shingles. My Mom was embarrassed for me, since I wasn't really. I asked the girl behind me during the actual graduation why she didn't say anything, I think she was embarrassed also. A week or two later, I was up on an extension ladder painting the eaves. The ladder slipped out, I fell straight into some bushes, staring straight into a can of white paint. I had white paint over my entire head, up my nose, in my ears, in my mouth. My little brother Adam was out there painting the shutters, all he could do was laugh at me.

Anyhow, the name of the play was "Roofsliding." This has something to do with some sort of tradition someone knew about from Scotland, where men get up on a roof, and slide down it, and try to stop themselves at the gutter. The only thing "roofsliding" had to do with this play is that the play is set in Scotland, and everyone spoke with an accent. The origional title of the play was "cake", which had a little more to do with the play, "Playing Fields" was somewhere between the 2.

The play was kind of odd. It really didn't seem to have a point. I think the problem was that the thing was originally a 10 minute play, written by a student. This student eventually decided to try to take that 10 minutes and make it last 2 hours. The play had maybe 10 minutes of content, and 110 minutes of filler.

There were some laughs. There was 'sort of' a plot, but not really. If I had to sum up this play very quickly, I would have to use the phrase "...so anyway..." (I know I've done this before with a play I saw, but this one really deserves that response.) If I were pinned down to explain what the message of the play was supposed to be, I would have to say the message was "Scottish people are completely insane." I can't say more, it's more of an experienced thing, really.

The actors did a really good job with what thy had, and the scenery was interesting, but if I were given the choice between putting on this play and doing something else, I'd do something else. (Even if it meant *gasp* doing more than one Shakespeare in a year...) I'm not sure what the thought process was to get this play on the schedule. Maybe it made more sense in a earlier revision.

To top it off, we had bought season tickets for the first Thursday of the season. (The first Thursday of each play's run....) So far, we had exchanged each set of tickets for a different day. I took our tickets in yesterday to exchange them. Normally, they change a fee to exchange tickets, the other times this season I exchanged tickets, I got away with no exchange fee. Not so this time. I got rung up for another $6.40 for this play. It's a good thing I saved a little money on dinner with a gift certificate I had...

We got into the the theater, and there were maybe 30 people in the audience. The place was maybe 1/3 to 1/2 full by the time the thing started. I'd say 40% of the people left at the intermission. We stayed until the end.

One thing about going to these plays, is that it always seems to give Tara and me a chance to mock people. It's not that we are mean, it's just that some of our fellow audience members just naturally inspire that sort of thing. You hear some pretty funny things waiting for an on campus play to star. Tonight, the girl behind us was explaining to the guy she was with about how the shoes you wear tell all about your personality and stuff. She started explaining what her shoes said about her, and followed it up by psycho analyzing the guy based on the shoes he was wearing. The guy just kept saying "That's true, that's true." The only thing I could think was "say what you want, I'm wearing these shoes because they fit my feet."

Anyhow, I'd say pass on this one. Unless you are related to one of the actors, have an affinity for Scottish accents, already bought your tickets and can't get out of it. The Evans will be going on Tuesday, we don't plan to warn them, we know they will leave at intermission, and we really want to hear their take on it when we see them Wednesday evening. We don't want to temper their reaction at all...

Restaurant Review

Magleby's

I hadn't been to Magleby's since they ended up in their new location in the Riverwoods. We used to go to the old place all the time at work, back in the days when CA had a huge budget for feeding customers. Howard, our account rep, really liked the place, and Karl, one of the guys at work, loved the apple pie there.

Every time I used to go, I would get the blackened chicken pasta. I really liked that dish. The blackened chicken was seasoned a ton, and they would sprinkle chopped cilantro over the top of the thing. That was one good plate.

I got the blackened chicken pasta tonight, remembering how I used to like it. I guess memory is a funny thing. The blackened chicken pasta was not the same as it used to be. The cilantro is gone. The bowl is smaller. There is less blackening of the chicken. There is a lot more alfredo sauce. The gave me a bit of an upset stomach for a little while. It just wasn't the same as it used to be. I'm not ruling out the fact that I think my palate has changed a bit since I did that sugar & yeast free diet... (I've got a very low tolerance for sweets now.)

Tara had the blue plate special. Today's special was chicken enchiladas. They looked really good. Tara tells me they also tasted really good. Her report is that the enchilada wasn't overpowered by sauce, like people sometimes like to do. They included potatoes in the enchilada.

The restaurant has an interesting hardwood floor pattern, if I ever do a hardwood floor in the house, I will definitely get 2 or 3 different types of wood, and do some sort of pattern. When we first walked in, the noise of the open kitchen, the televisions at the bar, and the people around us made the place seem very loud. When we got to our seats, it wasn't loud at all. They have lots of walls and little nooks and crannies with benches, which seems to do a good job of reducing the noise.

The chicken pasta was fine, just not what I was expecting. The deserts sounded good, but Tara was full, and I didn't want to approach the sugar. The chocolate cakes they have are gigantic.

Easter Egg Hunt

Tomorrow morning we will have an Easter Hunt for the girls, like we do every year. Hopefully Lily figures out what is going on before all the eggs are gone.

We don't want the girls having too much sugar, we also don't want partially eaten candy all over the house. Last year this involved a fair amount of money. This year, I have 5 1/2 dollars, and 5 quarters. I put some candy in eggs, and decided to make little certificates for playing games on the Wii. The girls should enjoy that.

I decided that little slips of paper weren't quite good enough, so I made a bunch of Origami Bunnies out of them, them dropped them into the eggs. We'll see how it goes.

The Brackets

Ruth's bracket - AKA "If I just repeat the last thing Dad says almost all the time, he will eventually stop asking these pointless questions..."

Emma's bracket. She doesn't know what a 'Jayhawk' is, but she likes the sound of it. Same for the "Blue Devils."

Mary's bracket. Mary took the most time and did the most thinking about which mascot to pick...

Kate's bracket - Wildcat heavy

Tara's bracket. Posted without permission...

The Combo Bracket. It *could* happen...

2008 Goal update

1. Post a goal update to the blog at least twice a month. 5 updates - Right on schedule.
   
2. Don't let a post go by without some progress to report. You be the judge.
3. Stain the play set. Spring, which is in 2 days.
   
4. Finish the retaining wall. Spring, which is in 2 days.
   
5. Finish the mission journal. No progress.
   
6. Build a bunk bed for Emma and Ruth. Late Spring.
   
7. Stay under the 210 weight. Current weight - 204.
8. Go to the temple at least once a month. We've gone twice this year so far.
   
9. Take Tara somewhere for our 10th wedding anniversary. No trip picked or booked yet.
   
10. Read 18 books. 2 books completed so far.
    
11. Plant something other than tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans and peas. I purchased the following: (And got them today in the mail) Tomatoes (Golden Mama Hybrid, Honeybunch, Razzle Dazzle Hybrid, Tangerine Mama Hybrid, Italian Ice Hybrid, Yellow Pear), Cucumbers, Zuccinni, Green Bell Pepper, Yellow Bell Pepper, Spaghetti Squash, and Red Onions. This should do it for us. I meant to plant peas last week, but I accidentally bought green beans... I plan to plant some of the stuff to get it started on the weekend.
    

March Madness - update

I had the girls pick brackets based on the mascot they liked better. After that, I combined the brackets using Tara's bracket as the tiebreaker. (I didn't have Lily do any picks, since she can't talk all that well yet.)

The tournament this time has a bunch of wildcats, bulldogs, a number of eagles/golden eagles, 2 cougars. Now I know what the committee does every year. They decide which animals are their favorites for the year.

Ruth pretty much picked the underdog for each one. I figure she's the control for the upsets. The girls definitely had a "cougar" bias for some reason... Anyway, we'll see what turns out of it. It can't be any worse than what I did last year.

March Madness

I would like to first take a pot shot at the Mountain West conference. For the 2nd time in as many years (And it's been happening for a while), I have myself thinking that the Mountain West rigged the tournament to make sure that the regular season champion didn't win the tournament. San Diego State won the regular season and the tourney a couple years back, but that's it.

I figure their reasoning is that the regular season champion lately has been in excellent position to make the NCAA tournament, and they wanted to make sure that more than one team made it in. (The tourney champion gets an automatic bid, no matter how bad they were in the regular season.) They get the refs to make it look not completely obvious, but make sure strategic fouls are called on the team in better position to get an at large bid. In the 9 years of MWC tournament, the #2 seed has a 16-5 record, and the #1 seed has a 14-7 record. If San Diego State hadn't won the tourney a couple of years ago, the disparity would have been worse.

Last year, I spent about 4 hours putting together my brackets. I did a bracket with a coin flip. I did a bracket with teams I thought would win. I created a bracket that involved a complicated weighting system. Then, to add in the inevitable randomness of the NCAA tournament, I combined the coin flip and the weighted bracket to come up with another. After all that work, I ended up not doing so well.

I don't have time for all of that this year. (plus it just doesn't work) This year, I am thinking about letting each of the girls do a bracket, based on which team mascot they like better. Then I can do a combined bracket after that. I'm not sure how well that one will go, but it can't be any worse than I did last year...

Age of Empires

Dad, Dave and I played against 3 expert computers on Saturday morning before my little visit to the hospital. We ended up winning, not much to say except it would be nice if the other 4 brothers and sister I have out there would come play with us sometime. Is the time of the day/week we are playing bad? Is there a better time someone would like to suggest?

backed up

I've been sick for the last few days, which has got me backed up on blog entries. I have a number of them bouncing around up there waiting to get out. There will be a number of them for today, just know that some are from stuff over the weekend.

Sometime around the middle of last week, I started to have pain in my gut. By Friday, it had settled in the lower right side of the gut. I had a little bit of a fever, no appetite, it hurt, etc. Saturday morning nausea was added to the mix and waste output from the gut had reduced to nothing, so I called the doctor who said I should head into the hospital to get checked out.

I spent most of the morning Saturday in the ER. The nurse guy tried putting in an IV in my right arm, but the vein burst. He ended up sticking it in the left arm. They ended up giving me pain medicine and nausea medicine. I had a CT scan, and some blood tests, none of the tests indicated appendicitis, so they sent me home.

I spent the rest of the day Saturday laying down. In the late evening, I was having problems again, so I took some more pain medicine and nausea medicine and went to sleep. It was still working it's way out of my system Sunday morning, I couldn't get out of bed.

I guess the real problem is that I was critically backed up. It's not completely out of the system yet. I was nauseous again yesterday, and stayed home from work. I was feeling hungry again late Monday night. Right now, my motto is "This too shall pass..."

Restaurant Review

Pastorero

I got some of the guys at work to come along for lunch, all of us have the Tacos al Pastor except for one guy, who had the Mamacita.

As always, the tacos were very good. The meat was very well cooked, and I'm starting to get used to the combination of the taco with the pineapple on top. It's the one food item in existence where the pineapple fits. Do not take this to mean I will try pineapple on pizza. The only place pineapple is appropriate is on the Tacos al Pastor at Pastorero...

Anyhow, I don't know anywhere else that you would get 5 tacos for $5, and have them be anywhere near as tasty. The service was quick, it's not like you are sitting around twiddling your thumbs waiting for the food to come.

We took Ledge with us, Ledge is fairly intolerant of spicy foods. I made wings at work once, they put Ledge out of commission for a couple of days. (His fault for eating them, I say. He knew what they were when he picked them up.) Ledge's comment was that the tacos were spicy, but not too spicy. I think the word Ledge is really looking for is "savory". Those Pastorero tacos as savory. Tasty savory. My mouth is watering thinking about them...

Everyone drop what you are doing and head on over. Brigham's Landing.

Yankee Stadium

In the last couple of days, I have found myself being sent on a trip for work to the NYC/NJ area in a couple of weeks. (2 weeks from now) This evening I realized that Spring Training will be over by then. I've never been to Yankee or Shea stadium before. Unfortunately, the Mets are out of town that first week of the season, their first home game is after I'm back home. The Yankees are in town, and on top of that, this is the last year they will be playing in Yankee Stadium. I think I'm going to have to be sure to go to a game in Yankee Stadium, since I won't have an opportunity to again, I think.

Billy Crystal got himself into the lineup for the Yankees today in Spring Training. It doesn't sound like he's going to make the cut. If I had the means, I think I would be visiting ballparks during the summers. (College games are nice and relaxing, and the minor league games here are nice, but there is something different about the Big League games. Maybe it's the size of the stadiums. Maybe it's the history. Maybe it's the hot dogs.) For a while last year, I thought about taking time off work and going on a road trip to visit ballparks in the West. I even mapped out routes and dates at one point and started making sure tickets were available, but nothing ever came of it.

I've been to only a few Major League stadiums: Dodger Stadium, which I've been to a number of times always out in the bleachers; Turner field (Atlanta) - it was a dark and stormy night, there was kind of a fog in the air, but Greg Maddux was pitching, it was his last season in Atlanta; Minute Maid Park (Houston) - I pretty much just sat there, ate peanuts, and relaxed for 3 hours. I was a little burned out then, so it was a nice night; Wrigley Field (Chicago) - I went to a double header one day, the Cubs lost the first game (they were playing Denver), and started the second game by going down by 10 runs. Lots of people ended up leaving after the first couple of innings, I went down and sat 4 rows back right behind home plate. That was quite the view. About 20 minutes after I got down there, Sammy Sosa hit a home run out of the ballpark. The ball just sailed out into the night.

We have a really nice ballpark on campus, the view of the field is great, but the season is so short, especially since the home games start in the middle of March, when it's not always nice baseball weather. There is a minor league team that is just a few miles away, and we can usually get tickets for the games for free if I ask and have been nice to someone in particular at work lately (and I have lately...), but I have to be ready to spend lots of time getting concessions when we go, because we always take the girls when they go, they can't really last an entire game, and it seems like a big production every time we try to go.

Long story short - someday, if Major League Baseball lasts this long, Tara and I will get all the kids out of the house, off on their own, and we will take lots of trips in the summertime visiting different cities to watch baseball. I'm sure Tara will humor me...

Goodbye again, Dilbert

I don't know if you know much about Scott Adams, but he's kind of a punk some times, especially when it comes to religion. Don't get me wrong, the Dilbert comic just nails our work environment more times than most people care to admit.

Every once in a while, he decides to take pot shots at religion. A couple of years ago he did something that ticked me off, and I stopped reading the strip for a while. He's currently running a series of strips now that's fairly irreverent. The campus paper here is not running them, it's doing old ones in place of his current run. I figure Scott Adams is doing it because Easter is right around the corner.

I took the Dilbert widget off the blog. I'll think about putting it back some other time. Maybe.

Book Review

Clapton - The Autobiography
Eric Clapton

I picked this book up at the library a number of weeks back. It sounded interesting. I really didn't know much about Eric Clapton's life, just that he was involved in lots of bands over the years, and the song Tears in Heaven was written when his boy died.

I had picked up the book in case I needed something to read during the election, but I didn't have any time that day to get any reading in. (I really didn't get any eating in either.) When I finally got started on the book, it was vaguely familiar of the old VH1 Behind the Music shows they used to do: "A great artist. Look back at his troubled past, all the way back to his childhood. A life of trouble, addictions, and more trouble..."

It didn't help that when he was in middle school, he learned his Mother was really his Grandmother, and his sister was really his Mom. (This is revealed very early on.) He was kicked out of school, and as he started his music career, got hooked on alcohol and drugs. (Does any of these things sound like Behind the Music to you?

The story of his musical career and songs was very interesting. He was friends with all kinds of rock and roll people from back in the days. (Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, etc, etc.) He was friends with George Harrison, and eventually marrying George Harrison's wife.

It turns out that he's an alcoholic, and the book finally takes a more positive spin after he finally gets sober. As all good VH1 Behind the Music episode goes, it sounds like he had a happy ending. He's continued sober for 20 years, he built a therapy center to help people, and now has a 'normal' family.

I always liked his music, or at least most of it, anyway. (He's got some songs out there that are not very thinly veiled drug songs.) Reading the book kind of kept a constant soundtrack running in my head. One other Clapton CD I kind of have a hard time with is the "Unplugged" one. I don't like the slow acoustic Layla, and on my mission, I had a missionary in my apartment when I was on crutches that was having problems, and played that CD very loud, over and over, until I couldn't take it anymore. I told him to stop playing the thing, "or else." His response was "Or else what?", and he turned the music up louder. I got up out of my bed, on the crutches, and went to his room, opened his CD player, took the disk out, and smashed it against his dresser. This made him pretty mad, he tried to shove me over, and said "I'm telling President!" I simply said "you're gonna tell President what, exactly?", and hobbled off. I owned the CD back home then, and still do, but really haven't listened to it too much since.

Anyhow, sorry for the aside there. The book is interesting, it sounds like he wrote it himself, and has a very honest feel to it. It makes me glad I don't have a VH1 Behind the Music type of life, that's for sure.

Book Review

The HP Virtual Server Environment
Dan Herington & Bryan Jacquot

I had been piddling my way through this book for about a year and a half now. I actually lost it for about 5 months, and found it last week. Since I got it back, I figured it was time to buckle down and finish the thing.

This book is a very good overview of what virtualization tools HP offers for it's Integrity servers. If this makes no sense to you at this point, you can stop reading this blog entry.

The book goes through everything, from clustering large machines (serviceguard), to carving big machines in pieces (npars), to virtual carving in pieces (vpars), and finally down into slicing in VMs (Integrity VMs). They call it the HP partitioning continum. They do a very good job explaining each topic, with lots of diagrams and easy to understand prose. They also talk about things like instant capacity and pay per use. They spend plenty of time going over the management tools associated with these products.

If you are planning on diving into the HP Integrity VM arena (Especially running Integrity VMs), I highly recommend that you get and read this book. Even if you aren't, but you are looking at buying HPUX hardware, I suggest reading the book, it might make you decide to do some virtualization, which could save you money.

By the way, I got this book for free from the authors right after they published it. After I lost it, I decided we had a couple of people here that needed to read it so they understood what offerings existed. Since I lost the book, I called up our HP sales guy and asked if he had a copy I could borrow. He ended up comping another copy for us to have. Nice, huh?

It's against the law to be a slow eater

I ended up picking up Emma from preschool today, she wanted to go to my office after. She was good at the office, and for lunch we went to the creamery for a hamburger. (They have a kids meal that has a big cheeseburger, fries, a drink, and an ice cream. It's a big meal for a little girl.) Emma started on the drink and ice cream first, I figured I might as well get her the ice cream first since it was going to take a few minutes for them to cook her lunch. Emma ended up taking about 45 minutes to eat. This is not abnormal for her.

When we went out to the car, one of the University Traffic dudes (student employee, by the way) was standing behind the car writing up a ticket. I had been parked in the 30 minute zone. I asked him if he was just finishing up a ticket for me. Me said he was, I had been parked there for a while. I pointed ovder at Emma and said "She's a slow eater." I started getting her into the truck, the kid took the ticket and tore it up.
I thought that was nice of him, don't you?

Good at washing cars, bad at starting them

Missy called this afternoon. She was around the corner from my office, and couldn't get Drew's car started. I gave her the gears about losing my good parking spot, and went over to help.

I got in Drew's car and turned the key. The car started right up. No problem. Missy's comment was "Why do they always start for you when they won't for me?" I didn't answer, even though I had one that almost came out. I'll share it with you:

"Because I know how to curse them out properly."

I just fool around all day....

There have been reports circulating around our house that I don't have a job. I'm not so sure about that. I seem to be pretty busy at work every, calling it not having a job might be stretching it just a little bit. Maybe it was that little bit of time Emma spent with me at my office while Tara was gone. Emma got to play and watch TV while I worked on the most important tasks on my list of 20 things that had to get done. Or maybe she just doesn't see the backbreaking work of sitting at a computer all day as doing anything.

Anyway, the girls also don't seem to have any clue about how much money I make or where it all goes. For FHE tonight, we talked about these things. We also talked to the girls about our plan for the next couple of years. They seem to be ok with it. I don't really think we squashed the idea that I don't have a job...

Not necessarily paying full attention to the Sunday School lesson

Someone in Sunday School today said something about dragging our sins along behind us. This made me think about something.

Back in the day, I went to join the high school track team. I told them I wanted to throw shot put and discus. Mister Barnard, the track coach, told me I could, but everyone had to run for the first week. (I think it was so that they didn't send someone to the field events that should also be running.)

The first week of track practice involved the following: A warmup run around the track once, followed by stretching. Then anyone that was not new got to go where ever they were supposed to be. The hurdle guys went to dig out the hurdles. The cross country and long distance runners took off. Jumpers went to the jump area, that sort of thing. Us new guys got tires harnessed to us and we were set to running. For a weeks worth of practices.

Looking back on it, I think there were 3 main reasons they did this to us, from the least likely to the most likely:

1. They figured that running with a big truck tire harnessed behind you would make it so that you ran faster and more explosively when the tire wasn't there.
2. Mister Barnard thought it would be funny to make a bunch of kids run for a week with tires harnessed to them
3. The track was a soot/gravel track, and they needed to have it groomed. The easiest way to groom the track at the start of the season must have been to drag tires across it. In hindsight, I think that's the real reason they made us do this.

After my initiation, I was allowed to go throw discus and shot put. That same year, (when I was a Sophomore in High School) they started doing a "Fat Man" relay. This was a 4x100 meter race, they did it at the same time as the normal 4x100, but it was just field athletes. There were 5 of us that year that threw discus and shot put, but one of the guys ran in the 4x400 meter race. One of the guys had a bad foot and couldn't run, and that was before I dropped a shot put on him and broke his foot. The other 2 guys were football players, and seniors, the 3 of us and a high jumper started running the in Fat Man relay. At each track meet, we would spend the first hour or so of the meet talking the other school's discus and shot put throwers into running the Fat Man. We usually won the Fat Man, not that it counted for anything, since we would lose to the 2 normal 4x100 teams. One meet, we were running the race, the other team's normal relay dropped their baton at the hand off where I was. Our Fat Man that day ended up out running our own team's normal relay, and since the other team had trouble with the baton, we won the race. Just about our entire track team busted up laughing. The coach was not immediately outwardly amused. The normal 4x100 relay had to do LOTS of running that next week. After we lost to the normal relay the next week, the coach started joking with us about it, I think he must have been amused right off the bat, but he had to be mad at the runners for a while...

Also, a little story about those 2 football player/discus throwers. When I was a freshman, one day near the start of the school year, I was walking near the back of the school towards the front with my Baritone Sax case, and these 2 guys were running down the hall towards me. For some reason I don't fully understand, I made a move toward them with the case, I think to juke them out. The one guy flinched out of the way, they both got tangled up together and fell on the floor. Since they were running, they actually went sprawling all over the place. When I saw what I did, I got scared and took off running. (They had a foot and 50 pounds on me.) They chased me to the front of the school, but I had a head start, even with the Sax, and I had booked out the front doors. By the time they got to the front doors, I was at the little parking lot at the street hiding behind a car. They came out, looked around, didn't see me, and went back in. When the coast was clear, I went home. These guys never brought the thing up after I was on the track team the next year, they likely had long forgotten, and I wasn't brave enough to say a word about it...

Age of EMpires

We thought Adam would be playing this morning, but he must have decided that sleep was more important than play, because he didn't show. Only Dad, Dave and I came. Someday we will have Dad, Amy, Drew, Dave, Adam, and Tom all in the same week...

Since it was only the three of us, we played a rematch of last week's marathon game, a free for all. I switched to Aztecs this week to try to get past Dave's Japanese riflemen. Those dudes still seem abnormally strong to me.

Dad had the first set of military guys near me, so I sent most of my army down to investigate. This led to Dad needing to build a new town center in a new location. Dave eventually had the same problem, once I took care of enough of his riflemen that he started having economy problems. (I had something like 75 villagers working for me, so I was never out of money.) Eventually I was able to take care of business.

Hopefully we have more family ready to play next week...

Can you be more specific please?

Back in the day, before we were married, but not too much before, I would let Tara borrow the Escort to go places. This was either went dating had already started or was very eminent. It was the Escort that really salted things for Tara, by the way...

One of the times I let her borrow the car was on a Saturday when I was at work. (I used to close the computer room every Saturday, and worked from 2pm to 8pm.) Tara went shopping or something, towards dinner, her and one of her roommates stopped by with a ham and pineapple pizza. Tara asked me if I wanted a piece, I very politely passed. We visited some, but they couldn't get me to take a piece.

A couple of years later, Tara let me know that she bought that pizza for me. (This was during a discussion we were having about pizza and how pizza should not include cooked fruit.) I didn't know she was trying to to be nice... Consider this: I would have been a lot less clueless about it had she walked in and said "Hi, thanks for loaning me the car, I bought this pizza to share with you to thank you, come have a slice." (Tara wasn't that forward...) That's the kind of clearness I need sometimes.

Tara knows now that when she calls in the afternoon, the question to ask is "When are you coming home?" This question leads to less ambiguity than other questions she could ask.

I haven't really gotten this concept through to the girls yet. A couple of nights ago, I found Emma pouting in her room 2 hours after she went to bed. I asked her what was wrong, she said "I wanted you to get me some milk." There didn't seem to be any indication of that before. Today, she started flipping out while were were trying to get everyone out of the house to go over to the school for Mary's thing. After a bit of crying, she finally started screaming "I'm Hungry! I'm Hungry! I'm Hungry!' Maybe I'm starting to get through to her. I sat her down and gave her some food.

So, if you ever some across my kids, and they are very direct and upfront about something they want, that means the lessons are being won. If they sit there and don't say anything, they are just channeling their "Inner Uncle Dave".

Just kidding Dave.

Free Air

On my mission, I once had knew a missionary that was violently opposed to paying for compressed air. If he got a flat tire, he would walk his bike around rather than pay at a gas station to get new air in it.

We have a tire that's got some problems. It's got a slow leak in it. (This was missed for a while.) The tire needs to be replaced. I plan to do it sometime soon, but in the meantime, I have to go fill it up every few days.

The third time I went out to fill the tire with air, I went to one of the places near the house that charges 50 cents for 3 minutes. I put the first quarter in, and the thing started up. My first thought was that I was getting a deal only having to pay a quarter. My second thought was that I had been "paying for air". My third thought was that I should go buy an air compressor.

In the last week, I have discovered that Conocos in the area seem to all have free air. The air is connected to their car wash unit. I don't know if it's a company thing or just a local thing, but it's nice. No more paying for air to fill up the tire that I need to replace anyway.

Oops

We have a new "Manager of Managers" tool at work. I have spent a number of hours this week trying to model our entire web infrastructure top to bottom on the thing for a meeting Monday morning. At around 4pm this afternoon, I was pretty much done with the thing. (At least enough done that I wouldn't have to think about it all weekend...)

At about 4:15, I decided to pick up the directories and organize them under on heading, so everything looked cleaner in the tool. I had a meeting at 4:30, so I was hurrying to get it done. I did it the wrong way, and wiped out about 20 hours worth of work. All I'm left with now is a very empty shell of a framework that doesn't actually monitor anything. It's very, very, unimpressive. Unless you consider that it was nearly fully complete, and I didn't have a backup of it. That makes it a spectacular mistake.

I haven't decided if I'm going to try to get it redone this weekend, or refuse to speak English on Monday...

Kindergarten program

Every year, the girl's school does a few things that are exactly the same from one year to the next. They have a festival at the end of the year, where each grade does a dance. The Kindergarten does the jello dance, 1st grade does the same, etc. It doesn't sound like they ever change. They have a kindergarten program that's the same way. The songs are the same, the program is the same, just different kids.

2 years ago, Kate was part of a "G". Mary had a signing part this year, but tonight, someone didn't show up. Mary's friend Todd Thomas was the other part of the "G", and needed help, so he got Mary to do it. Mary wasn't expecting it, so Todd Thomas talked her though it. Now we have to make sure Emma gets in line next year to be part of the "G".

I'd post a picture, but we didn't take our camera...

Tara Gone - Day 6

I'm running out of new things to say. Here's really the only new thing that happened today.

While putting Ruth to bed, she said she wanted her song, so I sang her the song. Then she said she wanted a kiss, so she got a kiss. Then she said something I didn't understand, so I asked her what else she wanted. Her answer? "A fairy Godmother."

There you have it.

Random thoughts by me

I thought I'd give a go at trying to create a blog entry the way my little brother would do it. Let me know how I did. "See also: Andy Rooney"

I don't understand how the CW network is still in existence. It's there as a merger between UPN and WB but it's not like the shows are any good on that channel. They have one popular show, "Smallville", everything else is just junk. (Go ahead, name some other show on the CW you think you like, I'll still stick with my story...) It was the same back in the day on UPN, the only show they had was "Voyager". Look where they got them when that show ended and they decided to end "Enterprise" after 4 years...

I don't understand sometimes why little kids just keep going and going and going, even when they are tired. I understand why teenagers and young adults do it, I certainly have had more than my fair share over the years. (Once I played spades for 36 hours straight, just not with the same people the whole way through. That doesn't even touch some of the things I have done for work... ) Last night a certain 4 year old was in her room having a good old time until about midnight. She was tired, she just wouldn't sit still long enough to sleep. I had all the lights in the house off, but that didn't help matters. She stopped coming out when I told her I would confiscate the light in her room if she didn't go to bed, but I still heard her carrying on in there for quite some time. She was the first one out of bed this morning. Shouldn't she sleep when she's sleepy? You'd think she would save her energy for the daylight hours when she can do whatever she wants...

Steve told me that Macey's is running a case lot sale right now. It's bad for him, he's in charge of aisle 5 - canned goods. The case lot sale is mostly about canned goods, so he gets slammed by it. I think we will have to check out the price of wipes, we need to get more, and usually they are a good deal for a box of them at the case lot sale. The sale in the Winter isn't so bad, they keep all the stuff in the store. I don't really like the one they do in the summer, they end up with cases and cases and cases of food outside in the blazing heat. Who wants to buy a case of cans of beans that's been baking in the sun for a week. You'd think they never heard of the word "botulism."

I don't understand people who want to see the Stake President sometimes. Too many of them call and want an appointment, but they call with a particular day and time already set in their minds, no matter what else is going on or what the President's schedule is like. They will call, I will suggest a time, and I get "Can he do it Sunday afternoon? I have 'such and such' on Tuesday night." Then they start digging in their heels. Some of these people are those getting married. You'd think if they were doing something as important as getting married, they would make the time to get where they need to be, and not be difficult about it. Equally annoying are the people that wait until the absolute last minute to call for an appointment. "We are getting married in 2 days and need to meet with the Stake President." Whenever these people call, I think "You think you're getting married, huh? I hope it all works out for you." It seems silly to put these things off until the last minute.

Life without Tara - day 5

The girls all got baths yesterday so this morning I just had to get them dressed for church. This was a piece of cake, since Kate picked them all dresses out (Their dresses from the wedding), and Missy stopped by to do their hair. We were all ready to go at about 8:40, so I gave them each a pop tart and loaded them in the van. The girls were good in church, I thought they were being a little noisy myself, but everyone around seemed impressed by how well they acted. (Our standards for "how children should behave at church" are pretty high. The girls seem to have been ok with the fact that I didn't bring anything for them to do in Sacrament meeting again...)

After church, we had lunch and everyone (including me) went down for naps. I don't know if Kate slept at all, but Mary and Ruth slept for a long time, Emma appears to have gone in to play with Lily. Lily didn't do so well the rest of the afternoon she may have been sleepy.

Missy and Steve came over for dinner, after I got Lily out of her crib, I fell asleep again, when Missy walked in, I woke up, and Lily had climbed up past the TV and was investigating the DVDs. Oops.

After dinner it was bedtime. (Exciting day, huh?) As of right now, Emma, Lily, and Kate are asleep. Mary and Ruth are having a hard time going to sleep, but they took the long naps. Oh well. I don't expect to see Ruth again because I told her if she came out of room again she would be sleeping in the little crib for the night I think she believed me on that one...

2008 Goal update

1. Post a goal update to the blog at least twice a month. 4 updates - Right on schedule.
   
2. Don't let a post go by without some progress to report. You be the judge.
3. Stain the play set. Spring, which is right around the corner.
   
4. Finish the retaining wall. Spring, which is right around the corner
   
5. Finish the mission journal. No progress.
   
6. Build a bunk bed for Emma and Ruth. Late Spring.
   
7. Stay under the 210 weight. Current weight - 207. I have eaten a few things that I shouldn't have this week which have given me some problems. I am thinking about going back to the strict version of the diet for a little while to see what comes of it again. (At least gets the aches to lessen...)
8. Go to the temple at least once a month. We've gone twice this year so far. I had meant to ask my Dad for some family file cards before they left but it slipped my mind...
   
9. Take Tara somewhere for our 10th wedding anniversary. No trip picked or booked yet.
   
10. Read 18 books. Zero completed, but I'm (still) working on several. One of them is due back at the library in a week, so I need to sit down one night this week and finish it.
    
11. Plant something other than tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans and peas. I thought about buying some tomatoes from Burpee.com this week, I decided it was too early...

Tara Gone - Day 4

It was something like 55 degrees at 9:30 this morning, when the girls realized that Teen Titans was a rerun, I convinced them to go outside and play. They were out there until lunchtime, I made them lunch at took it out to them. They seemed to enjoy themselves, but Emma and Ruth enjoyed themselves by emptying all the water out of their toy box out there.

After lunch, Emma and Ruth got baths and went down for naps. They must have been tired out, because they both slept for a long time. Mary went to a birthday party and Ruth went down for a nap, so I had Kate go take a bath and then spend some time amusing herself in her room. Long story short, after the mania that went on while I tried to play Age of Empires this morning, it was a very quiet afternoon here.

At one point, I was lamenting the fact that the BYU- Air Force game wasn't on TV tonight. I don't know why, but the last BYU - Air Force game was not on TV, either. Maybe the Air Force has some government operative on the coaching staff, and they don't want to blow his cover by putting him on TV... Anyhow a little later, the head coaches wife called looking for Tara. (The coaches wife is the Relief Society president here.) She told me how she had promised Tara tickets to a game sometime, and she had a bunch for tonight's game that were still unclaimed by anyone. She asked if we wanted them, I didn't hesitate. (Especially since the younger girls all got good naps..)

The girls were pretty good at the game. They didn't last to the very end, but very nearly the end. Ruth spent much of the time looking around the auditorium for Cosmo. Lily spent part of the time with a popcorn bucket over her head, wearing it like a hat. Air Force got killed.

Age of Empires

Dad, Dave and I played Age of Empires this morning. I was India, Dave was Japan. I don't understand still why Dave's dudes were so string against my dudes. It took a really long time for me to figure out which of my military units would not just get immediately wiped out by his guys. (This was a really expensive lesson.) I will have to try playing Japan sometime so that I understand what happened there.

At one point, I started attacking Dad's town center, but Dave kept causing problems on the other side of the map, so the most I damage I did to dad was knocking down one of his factories.

I didn't play very much of the last hour I was in the game. Lily had woken up, I had to change her diaper and get her a bottle. Then Ruth completely freaked out about an umbrella. (I think she's tired.) By the time I got back from dealing with Ruth, Dave had wiped me out...

Dad and Dave are still playing, I think it will be a while at this point, unless one of them just gets tired of it and quits.