The Annual explosion of Yellow

Tara's rose bush gets wider and wider every year. It seems pretty happy this year. It's in full bloom right now. Ruth keeps picking blossoms off the thing, I am surprised she hasn't yet hurt herself on a thorn. Some of the other girls have been collecting petals that have fallen on the ground and spread them all through the yard.

Book Review

The Show I'll Never Forget
50 writers relive their most memorable concert going experience
Sean Manning, Editor

I picked this book up at the library, it looked to be an odd little book. As it turns out, it's an odd little book. One of the benefits and drawbacks to this book is that it is writers who are writing the essays. Some of them just write their stories, and do a pretty good job of it. Some of them are clearly trying to show off how good a writer they are, to varying effects, and some of them just use their time to force in their own agenda. (Only a couple of these, but they were annoying. Also one or two foul mouths.)

Anyhow, the stories of the concerts had the entire spectrum. Not really any classical music, but a broad spectrum of different music was represented, mainly rock and roll. The book was ordered chronologically. Some were absolutely crazy, especially when the time period got to the time when punk was around. Most were about people enjoying concerts and the goings on related to them. A couple of them just had me saying "So anyway..." One thing I thought was pretty relevant to the story was that many of the people had some sort of drug related thing in their stories.

All in all, the book was interesting, and some of the stories were really well written, but I'm glad I didn't spent a lot of my life going to concerts and living the lives that some of these people did...

One last thing. A couple of the essays really were just kind of odd. Out and out odd.

Trip to the dump

I took a load of junk to the waste transfer station this afternoon, the remnants of the old swamp cooler was in the truck with an old toilet, a bunch of old wood, and most of the stuff from when I tore our closet to pieces. It wasn't like going to the dump where you drive around on old trash until you get to the place they want you to leave stuff. (I did that in Buffalo a couple of times. It was kind of interesting.) This is a place where large garbage is taken, when they fill one of the giant bays, they cart the junk off to the dump.

Twice a year, we get a free pass to the place with the utility bill. (There is no large garbage pickup here, they even were too lazy to get the Christmas trees off the street this year.) For a while, I have been thinking I would take stuff to the dump when I got the pass, the one we got this Spring expired before I needed it. A couple of days ago I went online to see how much it would cost me to go out there, and it was $4. $4! I thought it would be more.

When I got there, they asked me what I had, and when I told them a swamp cooler, the girl wanted to charge me $10 for hazardous waste, as if it was an air conditioner. It took me a little bit to convince her there was no hazardous waste (no freon), and she eventually only charged me $4.

On the way home, I stopped at the stone place. They had some over runs, but not a lot in the color our current wall is. There were tons and tons in a tan color, I didn't think the wall would look very good with one side one color, and the other another. I ended up getting 55 stone, and they only charged me 50 cents each. A few years ago, when I started this silly wall, they charged me $1 each. Anyway, I have started working on the wall again.

Restaurant Review

Legend's Grille

This place is in the Student Athlete Center on campus. It was put in as sort of a place where people (targeted at athletes, really) could go for a good appropriately sized meal that was fast and wasn't take bad for you. Maybe a long winded and bad description, but it's in the building where all the athletes work out, and I think all scholarship athletes get a meal card to eat there. (Not sure on that one.) The place has a nice little salad station, if you are into that sort of thing.

Anyway, they have a birthday club, where if you sign up you get a "free" meal. ("Free as in speech, or free as in beer?", you ask? I know Jess is out there saying it right now...) The coupon came, it was a buy one entree get one free. The other John in the office volunteered to take me to lunch, as long as he could get the free meal I told him maybe I would just go over there and eat 2 entrees. (He had no argument to this.)

Anyway, after Tara's appointment with the doctor yesterday, (the doctor scheduled her for induction on June 12th.) we ran over to this place to get dinner, since the babysitter was not given a return time. I had the grilled chicken plate, Tara had some sort of BBQ onion burger. My chicken was good, no seasoning or sauce, just grilled chicken in all it's naked glory. This was nice because from last Thursday or Friday to yesterday I kind of had a constant upset stomach, and I was having problems with pain. (Too much sugary food surrounding my birthday.) I didn't go to work on Wednesday, I was just feeling too sore.

Anyway, the chicken was good, I really liked their fries. They were steak fries, and you could tell the oil they fried them in was fresh. I also had corn as a side dish, they must had roasted it or something to cook it, it just had that sort of texture.

Tara says it was the first onion burger she has had where the onion didn't overpower the taste of the burger. I guess all in all it was a good experience.

Right next door to the restaurant, they have a large "Hall of Fame" trophy room. I haven't taken the opportunity to head over there yet since they put it in, but I hear it's interesting.

Pictures from "the dance festival"

The border on this layout looks a little skewed to me. Do the angles look right to everyone else, or is it really like that?

I hope it's not just all slide shows that some people are having problems with. I have heard a couple people say the page loads slow or crashes their browser. If you are having troubles, please comment here, and I will stop doing the slide shows, or at least make contact with the blogger/google docs people about it...

Jello Dance

I got part of the Jello dance, starring Mary, recorded. Sorry about the roller coaster motion at the beginning of the recording...

Baby Shower

Tara's friend threw a baby shower for her last Saturday. I thought Tara would get a blog post in about it, but she has been busy doing thank you cards all this week and has not had time yet to do a blog entry. I have heard 2 different types of comments about the baby shower. The first is "That was some shower." The second is "That was the biggest baby shower I have ever been to."

Tara's friend insisted on doing the shower. It was very nice of her. Tara tried to invited the people she knew. She didn't want anyone to feel bad they got left out. I hear there were somewhere around 50 people there.

This is a picture of the gifts that came home Saturday, except for the double stroller that was still in the van. We used the stroller this morning, it's a nice one.

2 weeks or less until the baby boy is born...

A Day in the life of Lily

• Wait patiently in the morning for someone to come get her out of her crib. As soon as someone appears, immediately hand over the empty bottle from the night before. If the bottle was thrown out of the crip the night before, raise a ruckus until the bottle is recovered.
• Diaper change. Every night the diaper leaks, so a good wash down is required. If Dad is in bed still, start talking to him until he responds. Then begin meowing like a cat. The demands for a new baba start now.
  
• If breakfast is being served, start eating. If breakfast is not being served, start foraging for your own food.
• Normally, breakfast is followed by sitting on the couch, drinking a bottle, and watching some combination of PBS kids shows. Today Dad is home, so PBS educational broadcasting is replaced by Mario Kart Wii...
• Played toys in the back room. Put a bucket on her head. Played with toys.
  
• Started fighting with Ruth about who should sit on the chair by the computer. They ended up both sitting there, Lily started pounding on Ruth.
• Sat in the crib for a few minutes for pounding on Ruth
• Played with more toys, polished off the bottle.
• At lunch at the high chair
• After lunch, nap time.
• After nap time, more animal noises while diaper is being changed. This time it was dogs, cats, and monkeys. She must dream about animals.
• More play time. This play time is generally "free range" play time, with the entire house as her canvas
• Dinner
• Playing with balloons and putting little magnet things on the fridge. The other girls are in bed, so she finally gets a chance at the balloons.

It rained today, otherwise she would have gotten to go out to play. Playing outside consists of the following different types of activities:

• swinging on the swing. She will sit there for a long time if there is someone to push her.
• sliding down the slide. She can't quite do the final step to the playset by herself, but she loves to slide down the big slide.
• playing with little cars & bikes.
• Sitting in the dirt and digging. This might be her favorite outside activity.
  

Strawberry day

On Saturday, we bought a flat of very nice fresh strawberries from Costco. Last night after dinner we had Strawberry shortcake. We had plenty of strawberries left over from that, so today was strawberry day. Mary and Emma dressed in clothes with strawberries on them to celebrate. For breakfast, we had strawberry pancakes. At lunch, they had crackers with peanut butter, each cracker had a slice of strawberry on it. They also had more strawberry shortcake. With dinner, we had strawberry banana shakes. Strawberry day is over now, and we have used up the supply. Maybe I should make tomorrow Spam day and see where that takes us.

Webkins

Ruth got a Webkins for her birthday, they went to put it online today. The thing is a frog, Ruth named it "Big White Dog". I'm not sure what that means.

Age of Empires

The last 2 weeks, Dad and I have been the only ones to show up to play. We've been trying King of the Hill free-for-all games. I won last week, we played against 4 Hard computers that really didn't do much of anything.

This week, we played against 2 expert computers in a free for all game. I ended up getting my counter down to 45 seconds, but one of the computers destroyed my town center and all but one of my villagers. A different computer built a fort right next to the King of the Hill fort, and eventually won. It didn't look like the 2nd computer was in much of a mood to attack the other...

I am not sure how things went from Dad's perspective, I know he had a little army that didn't fare very well against an army of mine, but that's what happened to me.

Birthday

Today was my birthday. I didn't make all that big of a deal about it. This morning Tara wanted me to do something I wanted to do, but nothing came to mind.

I spent part of the morning fooling around making ringtones for my phone. (I'm a pro at it now.) I decided to go into the office, because I had a server to reinstall. A secondary reason was to wait to see if a free lunch turned up. No lunch turned up, but the building secretaries came in and did an off key "Happy Birthday to You" rendition. The department gives candy bars for birthdays. I gave my candy bar to one of the students on our team. The install was on a development machine I have, I was going to install the latest version of HPUX to get ready for something that I'm going to do next month. The installation stalled, and it took me about an hour to realize that the server was too old, and the OS would not install on it. I spent the rest of the time at the office loading up the ringtones I had created into my phone and playing with it. (It was a slow day in the office, being the day before a long weekend.)

Immediately after making the blog entry about the week's proceedings, I got that email from Walmart, and decided it was time to leave. The first time I left the office, I came back for my microSD card. The second time I left the office, I came back for the email about my Walmart order.

Tara took me to dinner at Sizzler. My steak was very good.

My little Wii Decathlon seems to not be picking up steam very well. Tom was here, and entered the contest, he babysat while we were gone. (Meaning the girls ate dinner and he got to play Mario Kart Wii. That's what I would have done in his place, really.) No one else has entered, except Tara got a few races in.

While I was at Walmart, I figured out what I wanted to do for my birthday. I wanted to take a nap. I don't know if that's a bad sign or not. I didn't take a nap...

Happy Birthday Ruth

So, right after I submitted the post about the scooters, I got an email from Walmart saying they were ready to pick up. The girls seem to like them.
As promised, here are a couple of pictures from Ruth's birthday party earlier in the week.

Your results:
You are The Joker

The Joker 63% Dr. Doom 62% Riddler 54% Mr. Freeze 54% Magneto 53% Lex Luthor 52% Apocalypse 50% Juggernaut 49% Kingpin 42% Mystique 41% Green Goblin 37% Two-Face 37% Dark Phoenix 35% Poison Ivy 31% Venom 31% Catwoman 30%

The Clown Prince of Crime. You are a brilliant mastermind but are criminally insane. You love to joke around while accomplishing the task at hand.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

We now return you to your regular programming

I guess I should have sat down a couple of times this week and made some posts. To catch you up:

• We had cake and ice cream for Ruth on Sunday evening. Tara's parents and her Sister's family came over. Pictures will follow soon. We ordered several birthday presents for her online. On March 18, we ordered 2 little red tricycles off Amazon. They are back ordered, and Amazon still doesn't have a ship date, but they are trying. (Other places I have tried buying things have canceled the order after this long..) We bought some scooters on Walmart.com nearly 2 weeks ago, and did their little Ship-To-Store thing. I got charged for the scooters, but I'm still waiting for the email saying I can pick them up. (Walmart is estimating sometime between now and the 28th.) I bought some night shirts from Disney's online store, they came, and Ruth seems to enjoy them.
• The swamp cooler has been nice. It was hot at the beginning of the week, but it was nice and cool in the house.
• I watched "The King of Kong" yesterday. It's a movie about grown adults whose sole purpose in life is to have the All Time High Score in classic arcade games. One dude is a guy who got laid off from his job, bought the arcade version of Donkey Kong, and got really good at it. Another guy had the All Time record for Donkey Kong since 1982. It was equal parts funny (as in mockingly funny) and just sad. At one point, the first dude broke the record, and was videotaping it, in the background his boy is screaming at him to stop playing Donkey Kong, he needed his diaper changed... If nothing else, I know I am not quite that bad.
• Yesterday I got a microSD card I had ordered. I now have a bunch of music on my phone, and I finally sat down and figured out how to make and upload my own ringtones. I spent a good portion of last night trimming out portions of songs to make the ringtones. I told Tara to start thinking about what ringtones she wants, since it's relatively easy to do at this point.
• My next 3 Netflix selections are the first 3 Indiana Jones movies, so we can get ready to go see the new one. It also sounds like they did a decent job with the Iron Man movie. We watched National Treasure 2 the other night, it was a good movie, I thought, I was a little confused at the end because I thought I missed something, until Tara said something it sounding like they were setting up for a third movie. There were a bunch of plot lines that hadn't been tied up...
• Still waiting for someone to purchase our minivan.
  

If you blog about it, they will come.

This past month this blog was visited by someone from Montana and someone from Delaware. I guess complaining about it actually worked. It might just have been someone in the Governor's office of each state poking around seeing what hits come up in Google Search for those 2 states, but I'm ok with that. it might also have been someone that visits regularly that took a trip out there, and I am ok with that also. The only state I do not have a visit from, all time, is Vermont. They must be too busy eating all that free Ben and Jerry's ice cream, or they are bitter that they have a state quarter that no one has really ever seen. (At least I have never seen one up close.) I am also up to 64 countries, although most of these are usually a one stop type of thing, really do I get a returning visitor...

Mario Kart Wii

For my birthday, Tara got me a copy of Mario Kart Wii. (OK, so the truth is that I bought 2 wheels on Amazon a couple of weeks ago, to send a hint, she went looking for the game, but couldn't find it. Kate and I were out, and found it at Best Buy, gave Kate my debit card, and had her buy it. Close enough.)

Mario Kart Wii is how I have been spending all my spare time in the past week. It's really fun. I'll have to start thinking about how I can plan for a "Wii Nascar" event for the Fall, after the Wii Decathalon has completed...

I've been trying to complete all the circuits and unlock all the characters and cars, but I'm only about half way through right now with the circuits, still plenty of things to do. They also have an online mode, but I haven't yet changed my online settings to play. (I figure the circuits are giving me plenty to do right now, why add online play to it?)

Some people think the steering wheels are a little harder to use, but it's good for the girls, they seem to do ok with it.

Less than really all that impressive goal update

1. Post a goal update to the blog at least twice a month. 9 updates - Right on schedule.
   
2. Don't let a post go by without some progress to report. Well, I'm not all that sure that this on actually counts all that much...
   
3. Stain the play set. Complete. Put it in the books
   
4. Finish the retaining wall. Sometime after I sell the Minivan
   
5. Finish the mission journal. No progress.
   
6. Build a bunk bed for Emma and Ruth. Late Spring. I think I need to start working on this once I empty the junk out of the bed of the truck. Emma has taken to lying down on the floor in Mary and Kate's room, which kind of bothers Ruth. Maybe a new bunk bed will help her stay in her room at night.
   
7. Stay under the 210 weight. Current weight - 203.
   
8. Go to the temple at least once a month. We have yet to make plans to go this month, I think we need to get on the ball here.
   
9. Take Tara somewhere for our 10th wedding anniversary. Still looking for plane tickets to drop for September, but I've sunk $1000 into this trip to date...
   
10. Read 18 books. 9 books completed so far, half way there.
    
11. Plant something other than tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans and peas.
I actually had to replant a couple of things yesterday, since plants had gotten eaten by that pheasant.

A sign of progress

If you look closely here, you can see some apricots on this little tree of ours. It looks like the tree is doing well after all. I counted 8 apricots right now on the tree. We will have to see if the girls can stay off the thing long enough for the things to grow and get ripe...

Preparing for Summer

A critical need here at the house - a working swamp cooler...

I have been keeping our swamp cooler alive for a number of years, as Drew can attest to. (He's possibly done more work on the thing than I have.) Last year I went up there to try to patch up all the rust holes in the basin. I put in half a tub of silicone in holes, and thought I got them all. When I added the water, a number of other holes were discovered. I tried patching one of them, and the hole got really, really big. End of swamp cooler.

We got through last year ok, but I don't really think Tara and the girls can make it all the way through the summer in this place without it. I bought a new swamp cooler. (Our only major purchase with our Tax rebate check until the minivan sells...) Missy, Steve, and Tom helped get the old rust bucket off the roof and the new one up there. I wired the thing up, but it kept tripping the breaker when we powered it on.

I gave up, Drew came over this evening to help. (He brought over a power tester.) There were 2 sets of wires, I figured one was for the pump, the other for the fan. After testing things, we found that one of the wires had a hot and neutral, the other had 2 hot wires. Maybe this is how all swamp coolers are wired, I don't know. Is it some big secret? I had wired a hot wire to the neutral wires, I'm just glad at this point that I didn't burn down the house.

After getting the electrical done, I patched everything up, hooked up the water, and away we went. The swamp cooler now works. We are good to go. Just in time, since the next 5 days we will have high temperatures of 78, 84, 89, 91, and 90.

Thanks everyone for helping, especially Drew...

Shepherd's Pie

I've got this posted on the meal blog my sister set up for the family, but I reserve the right to also post the entry here...

Annual Art Show 2008

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's day out there.

I got Tara Dance Dance revolution for Mother's Day about a month ago. This past week, her second mat came in the mail. Now she can play with other people.

The girls didn't really behave too terribly much different for "Mother appreciation week". Emma mentioned it a couple of times, but that's about all we got out of it.


In the middle of the week, I decided that Tara needed something else besides a game for Mother's day. I ordered her an ice cream cake. I hear it was good, she has 2 slices left she can have for breakfast in the morning.

I made breakfast in bed for her, but the girls woke her up and got her out of bed before I was finished cooking. I sent her back to bed, so she could enjoy it.

I bought her an orchid to wear to church, but we ended up being in a hurry to try to get there in time, and we both forgot about it. I think it will still be in good shape by next week, she will wear it then...

A couple of the girls made her some cards. All in all it seems to have been a low key affair. I wonder if she got ripped off, as far as holidays go...

Summertime Wii Olympics

***Exclusive event announcement***

I am starting a new contest here at the house. It's a Wii decathalon. We will be using "Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games" to run the contest. There will be an end of contest awards ceremony, including dinner and medals.

Rules:

• The contest runs from now through August 16th. Scores/Times are looked on at midnight, August 15. (The night of August 15th...)
• The dinner & awards ceremony will begin promptly at 4pm on August 16th. During the awards ceremony, all attendees will hum the national anthem of the winners choice.
  
• Many can enter, few will win. All scores recorded and maintained by me. The link to the scores can be found by following this link, or by looking at the bottom of this blog.
  
• Anyone can enter, just come over and declare yourself in. There will be no drug testing, although the use of performance enhancing drugs is strongly discouraged. If you don't live nearby, take a trip, make a stop, play all the events, and leave. No problem.
  
• All races to be done at our home. No outside scores will be accepted. Friday evenings from 6pm-9:30pm (or so) are available for open racing. Anyone can come and post scores during this time. Dessert will be offered to you if you attend these sessions. Other times of the week are available by contacting Tara or me. (You can come anytime really, you just need to make sure we are around...)
• Post a low score or slow race? Someone beat your best time? Don't worry, come back and try again. You are welcome to try to improve as often as you like up to the late night of August 15th.
• The races: Hammer Throw, Pole Vault, Single Sculls (rowing), 100m Freestyle Swim, Archery, 100 Meter Dash, 4x100 Meter Relay, Javelin Throw, High Jump, 110 Meter Hurdles.
• You are welcome to use any character you think you want for each race. You are not tied to a single one. You can also create and use a Mii to race with. (Or bring your own with your own Wii remote.)

Scoring:

• As scores are posted, the results page will be modified to include an up-to-the-minute score sheet. This score sheet can vary wildly, since someone can walk in anytime, post 4 high scores, and vault themselves from last place to first. (So don't get discouraged, just try again.)
• First place in an event - 15 points.
• Second place in an event - 12 points.
• Third place in an event - 10 points.
• Forth place through whatever - counts down from there. In the event that there are more than 12 contestants, some people will end up scoring zero for each event.
  
• 4 people with the same score/time equals 4 people with the same placement and point total. If it's 1st place, 4 people get 15 points. Person #5 gets 12 points for second place. (Not 8 points for 5th. Don't argue, I'm in charge.)

I am sure I didn't plant that...

We went to a baseball game this afternoon, when we got back, I was putting something in the freezer in the shed, Emma said something about a large blue bird being on the roof of the shed.

A little bit later, the girls were out in the back yard eating Otter Pops, and told Tara about a bird in the yard. Tara went and looked, and a pheasant was pacing back and forth. The thing was kind of gimpy, I'm not sure where it came from. The neighbors a couple of yards over said it was in their yard all day yesterday. It was a nice looking bird.

We left the bird alone until it started pecking at the plants in the garden. Then I chased it away. I guess the option was to eat the thing, but I'm not really hungry enough at this point to pluck the feathers off a bird and clean it to eat, really. (Same thing for cleaning and scaling a fish.) Ask me again in 6 months if the minivan has not sold by that point...

Yet another unscheduled project

My parents replaced the plumbing and hardware associated with our kitchen sink back in February. (Thanks again, by the way.) The old faucet had been dripping for some time, but I had never gotten around to looking at it. As a result, the flooring under the sink was not in good shape. I finally got around to replacing it today.

I used some laminate flooring and just laid it in there. Then I glued the front of it down to the front of the old cabinet floor. The laminate looks nice, I think. Now we've got the dish detergent bucket under the sink, and the garbage can is back under there finally. No more of Ruth standing on the bucket and falling off, and no more of Lily trying to pick the good stuff out of the garbage...

I still haven't rerouted the dishwasher hose, that will have to be a project for another time.

Garden update

A few days ago I planted the bigger part part of the garden, and had to finish off a couple of tomato plants this morning. Here's what we've got. (The picture on the 3rd slide seems to be squashed a little...)

The anti pink paint brigade

I finally got around to finishing the crib for the boy. It's not the best paint job ever, especially if you look at the ground below where I was painting it, I spilled a pile of paint there... At least he will have one thing in his life that's not completely girl like when he is born. (We actually have 2 dressers worth of boy baby clothes...)

Apricot Tree

Our little apricot tree seems to like the spot it got planted in, it's starting to grow. Hopefully in a year or two it will be plenty big and we will start seeing fruit on it...

Water everywhere

Yesterday afternoon, we got a torrential downpour. It rained and rained and rained.

The back porch had water flowing like the Mississippi during the storm. Emma stood at the back door and watched for a half hour. I hadn't yet cleaned out the gutters, water was just pouring into the carport and into the shed. There is something I like about the smell of wet sawdust, but the water really was everywhere.

I left for Stake meetings at 5pm, Tara went to her Mom's place. When I got home at 10:30, I expected Tara to be watching basketball, but she was reading a book. It turned out that the TV, phone and internet were all down.

I went out to the shed, where the switch is that does the fiber to ethernet conversion. The thing has a UPS backup to it so that the phone line will work in a power outage. The UPS unit was dark. Everything was wet, water had been pouring down the wall. I took a lamp out, the electrical socket had juice.

We had an older little UPS from when we had Comcast phone service, I pulled it off the wall in the laundry room and took it out there, but the newer UPS had a different connector. I thought for a minute about splicing the thing together, but the phrase "I void warranties" kept coming into my head, so I held off.

I turned on a space heater and stuck it up by the UPS, 2 hours later, when I plugged the UPS into the wall, the thing crackled, but didn't power on. I left it overnight, and this morning when I plugged it in, it powered right back up. When the switch powered on, we got TV, phone and cable back.

I'm a little surprised that the thing came back on, really, but APC makes good products. I wouldn't go throwing a bucket of water on it, and I need to do something to make sure the water doesn't do that again, but I was impressed that it came back on...

Test Presentation

Google docs lets you create and publish presentations, and they now have an "Embed" feature to allow you to publish these presentation places like right here. Here's a simple little one I just did. This will make it a little easier to post pictures here, or other stuff, because I can embed it here and save space...

Brainwashing my children

Tara's latest blog entry is about Emma's answers to a number of Mother's Day questions. Today started "Mother Appreciation Week" here at our place, I had Tara ask the other girls the same questions. Some of the answers:

"How old is your Mom?" - Ruth's answer: Just bigger.

"Where was your Mom born?" - Ruth's answer: At the church.

"How did your Mom and Dad meet?" - Mary's answer: Mom saw Daddy holding up a sign at the bookstore.

This shows 2 things, first, Ruth's in her own little world sometimes. I'm surprised the answers didn't involve the preschool she hopes to go to soon. (But she's not going there for a year and a half...) Secondly, my stories are starting to take hold in the legends. I'll admit, the story about the bookstore technically is true, but isn't really how we met. I just like to tell it that way.

The story?

Back in the day, one late February it was very warm outside, I didn't have much to do. They were building the expansion to the library then on the North side of the building, so nearly all campus foot traffic ended up on the South side of the bookstore during class breaks. It was a good place to set up booths for clubs or whatever. That warm day, I ended up grabbing a textbook, and went to the bookstore. I went and got a big piece of poster board and a marker, and made a sign that said "I'm looking for a wife, please stop and talk to me." I set the sign up at one of the booths and sat down to read my book. (Or sort of read, I only got through about 10 pages in 90 minutes.)

I got lots of reactions. Most of them were disbelief at what they were reading. I thought the reactions were hilarious. Quite a few people stopped to talk to me, more girls than I actually expected to talk to. (I was mostly in it for the reactions it would get from people walking by. Quite a few girls came by...) A photographer for the school paper came around and took a picture, but it never ended up in the paper. One lady came by and told me all about her 4 daughters. To top it all off, Tara walked by, and when she saw me, said "What are you doing?" I just pointed out the sign, since it was fairly self explanatory. I think she was a little shocked, and a little not so much shocked. (It was me doing it, after all.) Hilarious.

Well, the sign clearly worked. I went out there with the sign, and one of the girls that walked by that day eventually married me. I call that a success.

Tara calls it twisting the facts. We had known each other for some time at that point, although we hadn't been dating to that point.

Anyway, if I am asked how we met, I use that story. It's still good for getting reactions. Tara gives the best reaction when I tell that story, she sticks to her guns - "That is not how we met..." Anyway, based on Mary's answer, my stories are sinking in, despite Tara's efforts to mold history in the way she wants...

Free dinner - "What is it?" - It's free, come eat.

There was a funeral in our ward this morning, I forgot about it when I woke up this morning and didn't think about it until this afternoon when Tara called. I guess they had a lot of food left over, divided it up and made deliveries. I am sure the thinking involved going to houses with lots of family members to make the least amount of trips...

I'm not necessarily a fan of cheesy potatoes and ham. I don't really like having a lot of cheese in my potato. I also don't like the thought of ham sitting in a pan of it's own rapidly cooling juices. I don't know why. The ham we ended up with was in a bag, no juices attached. It's some strange mental thing with me, this ham was fine. At Christmastime, the ward had a dinner, it was ham, and bring your own cheesy potatoes. I signed up for cheesy potatoes, and rebelled and brought roasted red potatoes. I also cooked up my own piece of steak and smuggled it in. (In my own defense, at the time I was on the diet that forbade ham and cheese...)

Anyhow, this ham wasn't too bad. One of these mornings we will have to toss some of it in some scrambled eggs, until Lily eats it all first. She seems to be a big fan. The potatoes weren't too bad, the cheese content was lower than I was braced for, which is always nice.

Other things they brought that I can't speak to: rolls, jello salad ("Meat Jello", says Emma.), and chocolate cake. The chocolate cake looks and smells really good.

Some day I need to write down my expectations for the funeral that I'm not necessarily expecting to get. Ok, maybe now. The "Return to Sender" casket is a must. I can't stress this enough. Really, really good food should be served. It doesn't have to all match, I'm ok with lots of different types of food, as long as it's good. Tonight with the stuff, they sent salad, I made a chicken wing salad, put the salad down, drizzled some chicken wing sauce as dressing, and put on a couple of cold chicken wings from a couple days ago that I had in the fridge. It's a winner. Chips and salsa should also be served. (Happy Cinco de Mayo, by the way.) I can think of lots of things that could be served. During lunch, everone needs to related one story about me they know. If they can't think of something, it's ok to make something up.

Walking

The wellness program at work is doing 8 different "events" this year, if you do all 8 of them, you get a $200 rebate check from your health insurance premium in January. Last year it was less events and $100, but getting the $100 was nice... I have to walk 384,000 steps in the next 6 weeks for this $25.

A new event starts tomorrow, it's a walking thing. I have to walk 8000 steps a day. They will let you substitute 30 minutes of "other" exercise for either 3000 or 4500 steps, depending on what it is. You can also count the amount of water you drink as 25 steps for every 8 ounces you drink. I figure I could just drink 2,500 ounces of water a day, and not have to walk at all, but that much water will cause LOTS for walking. (More like lots of running.) Maybe I could just drink half that much water...

I think I can count playing the Wii for this, all I need to do is pull out Tara's "Dance Dance Revolution" (her Mother's day gift, by the way), and I can get all the steps I need...

For every 2 events you complete, you can get a prize out of the Wellness store. We just finished the 2nd of the year, I am debating between a hydration backpack and a walky talky set.

Now I really understand

We've ("We" being the Stake) been sending out letters to missionaries every month. I am sort of heading it up. We do pretty good, and have been diligent about sending them, with only a couple of late letters. On my mission I thought it was hilarious to be getting a letter that was 2 months old, or 2 at a time. When I was given the assignment to make sure the letters from the Stake happened each month, I really wanted to get them out the same month they were written, and I never wanted to send 2 months worth of letters at the same time. I remember the enjoyment of mail on a mission, every envelope counts. (I had one companion that called the travel bureau for each state to request the "Free travel guide", then branched out from there. He started getting tons of mail, I don't think the mailman appreciated it...)

So far we haven't sent 2 letters at once. I still don't want to resort to that, it would be a sad day. We have pretty much gotten them out on time, except it's May 4, and I am stuffing April's letters into envelopes. Now I understand.

I got the letter from the High Councilor 2 weeks ago, but have been busy. We just absorbed 3 wards from a neighboring Stake into ours. (Missy and Steve are now in our Stake.) We have had a bunch of meetings about this. April is also a busy time here, since students graduate and leave, lots of Elder's Quorum presidencies get reorganized, we have been doing a bunch of interviews.

I guess I shouldn't make excuses. The May letter will be out on time.

Saturday morning game time

This morning, at the appointed hour, it was just Dad and me ready to play. We tried a 2 vs 6 Hard computer game, but there was something wrong with Dad's computer, the app kept dying.

As a result, I played a 1 vs 6 hard computer game, which ended up being swift and unsatisfying.

After that game, Dave was on, we tried to play a 2 vs 6 Hard computer game. This one was a little less swift, but just as equally unsatisfying.

The computers were victorious.

(sort of) Restaurant Review

Domino's

What will you do with your 30 minutes? I made the girls clean up Emma and Ruth's room...
I ordered pizza online from Domino's tonight. It's kind of an interesting thing, they seem to track the pizza, or at least pretend to track the pizza. It was kind of nice because I explained to the girls that they had 30 minutes to clean, then went back there when they put the pizza in the oven, went back again when it got boxed up, and went a 3rd time when the delivery guy left the store. It provided a little bit more motivation for the girls to actually do something. (The room actually got clean, as an added bonus...)

I had 2 pieces of pizza, it wasn't all that greasy, and only made me a little bit queasy later. (This is not really a bad thing at this point.) We got the 3 10-inch pizzas for $4 each. It's really a personal sized pizza, as far as my portions normally are, but I also made wings for dinner, so we lived it up. The girls seemed to like having a couple of different toppings to choose from instead of the regular pepperoni kind, I thought they would like the black olive topping more than they did.

The picture I uploaded has a survey question, we didn't give them 2 stars, it was just scrolling through them as I captured the image. It really wasn't a bad pizza ordering experience...

Coffee flavored ice cream

I talked to someone a couple of days ago, they had tried coffee flavored ice cream and liked it, they were wondering if I thought it was against the Word of Wisdom to be eating it all the time. My response? "It's got coffee in it right?" They said "So, you are saying yes..."

Having been thinking about it for a couple of days, here's where the train of thought has gone:

1. Coffee flavored ice cream - you may like it, and start eating it from time to time.
   
2. At some point, the coffee flavored ice cream still tastes good to you, you come across "iced coffee" - since you like the taste of the coffee flavored ice cream, you try an iced coffee.
3. Having been hooked on iced coffee in the summer, some cold winter morning you end up really cold and really wet, and have a cup of hot coffee.
4. Then you can't stop.

This is in no way autobiographical, I can't stand the taste of the stuff. (And if I were less colorblind this wouldn't be a problem. The only place I come across this taste is in the Jelly Bellies at the Stake Center, which I really don't eat anymore, and 9 months ago I figured out that if you smash them before you eat them, you can smell what flavor each bean is, and can avoid the nasty ones...)

Anyway, that's my take on coffee flavored ice cream.