Another birthday party for Emma.

Around here, we try to only have 'friends' birthday parties at ages 8, 16, 32, and 64. (I suppose we would also have a discussion about one for 128. It is also possible that Tara is owed a 'friends' birthday party...) Other than that, we try to limit it to inviting the family over for each birthday.

Anyway, it's Emma's turn to have a party for friends. Her birthday was over a month ago, we put the thing off until today. She invited a lot of people, and most of them came.

I was the food committee. I came up with mini pudding trifles in little plastic shot glasses. I figured it was a nice little portion for little people. The kids seemed to like them. One of the little boys that came over seemed fascinated by the size of the little cup. He wanted to keep one of his, I gave him a clean one. If he has a drinking problem later in life, it's not my fault.


I also made almost 5 dozen mini cupcakes. Then they got frosted, and the tops were dipped in sprinkles. Also a hit with the party goers.


This is our third friends party. When it started, we let people mill around outside. Who would have figured on 90 degree weather on the last day of September? (Sorry about the focus in this video. Looks like a finger got in the way. I don't claim to be a great photographer/cinematographer...)

Emma wanted to do some carnival games for her party. For some reason, it was surprising to me how low a limbo stick can go when you are dealing with 8 year olds.

The nice thing about a party like this, is after about 30 minutes of play, then opening presents, and a little pizza and cake, and the party is nearly over. I think Emma had a good time.


Next up: Ruth in 2013. Then we have Lily in 2014, Kate in 2015, and Adam in 2016. We live a wild life.

Another little cupcake...

Restaurant Review

Rocky Mountain Wing Shack
Provo, Utah

There's been a place up in American Fork for a few years that makes pretty good wings. They cook them to the crispy side, ala Duff's. If you want hot, you need to order XX Hot, or XXX Hot. You can't just order medium like you do at Duff's and assume they will be hot at all. (They have a XXX Hot challenge. Eat 12 boneless wings in 30 minutes or less. I haven't done it, but it doesn't seem like it would be all that hard.)

I usually get Hot Garlic wings. They aren't super hot, but aren't mild, and have a good flavor to them. They also serve tator tots, if you want them. I really like them. They cook them crispy, and have the right amount of salt on them. In the past, Tom, Drew, and I, or some combination of the three of us, would wander up there and get wings, but it's all the way up there (15 miles or something silly like that), so I don't go that often.

I try to stay within 2 miles of the house, unless food is involved. This week, they opened a "Wing Shack" here in town. It's 4 miles away from the house, but it's much closer than the AF store. It's very much closer than Buffalo. (2000 miles.) It's only 2 miles from my office. I have already been there twice.

Tara discovered another reason to go there Saturday night. She ordered their $2 side salad, and loved it. It had plenty of fresh veggies on it, and had a good, crisp flavor. She liked it much more than side salads she gets in other places around here, that you might pay up to $4-5 for.

They aren't cheap wings, they have a lunch special - 8 wings, tator tots or fries, and a drink, for $9. They have a all day 20 wing deal with tator tots or fries, and two drinks, for $20. They have a 40 wing deal, with lots of tator tots or fries, and two drinks, for $37. That's the one Drew, Tom, and I usually get. Last night, I ate 17 wings and a bunch of tots. I also had 5 wings for lunch on Sunday, and 5 wings for dinner.

I personally would like to see this place stick around. It's nice to have a place to go to get a decent chicken wing, and that's a rarity out here. Everyone in the Springville/Provo/Orem area should check it out.

A lawn update

No new grass yet. Either I am not watering enough, I am not patient enough, or I got ripped off at the store. I will give it another week.


Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon, all the sticks (1x2's) I had roping off the bottom of the lawn got snapped off near the ground. I think some kettlehead must have been walking by, and thought it would be a good idea to kick the things at the ground to snap them off. It's silly really.


I am strongly considering getting a piece of rebar, cutting a channel down the 1x2's, placing the rebar in the middle, and making a 2x2 out of it. Then I would stick it in the middle of the bottom of the lawn, just so whoever it is can come by again, kick the thing, and break their toe. It wouldn't be my fault they broke their toe...

Ruth's a future drummer...

She's just getting warmed up here, if you catch her with more energy, she really gets into it...

(Tried to post this last week, but Blogger seems a bit insolent about the video for some reason. Instead, you get YouTube...)

Reseeding the yard

Last Saturday, I decided to over seed the front yard. Our lawn looks ok when it's really long, but it's not so good if you look closely at it. The lawn is not super thick. I've started to get some weeds coming up out of it, and some crab grass. It's starting to get towards Fall here, the really hot is over, so I figured it was a good time.

I mowed the lawn really short. As short as I could get the mower to go.

After I took a thatch rake to the lawn, you could really see how bad things were. Here is the worst patch.

Most of the lawn looks pock marked. If you look very carefully, and stare at it long enough, it starts to look like a greenish version of the face of the moon...

It's kind of hard to see the scope of the thatch that came up out of the lawn, even after mowing super short. Between the mowing and the raking, I overfilled our green yard waste can.

After I got done, I threw seed down on the lawn, and roped the thing off. I figured I needed the rope to keep the mailman off. I think it also keeps the neighbor cat off, but maybe nothing else. When I was putting the 1x2 posts in to hang the rope, I tried to get one in over in the corner of the porch, by the little pine tree in the picture. I was using a rubber mallet to pound it in, and it started bouncing on something. I went and got a sledgehammer, and after one hit, the post shattered into 25 pieces at the bottom of it. At first I thought that I didn't know my own strength, but I started looking, and there was a knot at the bottom of the piece of wood. The rope is tied off to the pine tree.

I should know in a week or so how it went, if we can get the new seed growing before all the leaves fall off the tree. Stay tuned in a week or two for another update.

Also, it is now Tuesday, and my arms are still tired from using the thatch rake. Not something I would want to do for a career... Also, it started pouring down rain while I was trying to finish. That was kind of nice, because I was hot and tired by that point.

New campaign

Today was Municipal Primary Elections here. We had a primary in our City council district. The guy I voted for didn't move on to the general election. I'm not sure I care to vote for either of the two that are left. *Maybe* they will give me a reason in the next 2 months, but I'm not holding my breath. The incumbent decided to not run, which was too bad, because my motto would have been "Vote the bums out!" At least I can still use it in four years... (I don't understand why the City Council has argued with each other so much over the years. Just get along, and get to work!)

Tara and I ran some errands this evening, when we came back, Ruth had started a campaign of his own. She didn't use Twitter or Facebook, and does not have a blog, so she had to resort to putting up posters all over the house:

"I Want My Jacket"

"Ruth's lost Jean Jacket. Jean Jacket Ya"

"Ruth's Lost Jacket"

"I Love My Jacket"

"The Lost Jacket - Tues July 12 2011"
We assume Ruth had help with this one.

"The Lost Jean Jacket"

"My Lost Jean Jacket"

I vaguely remember a jean jacket. I do not know where it is. I don't even know if it would fit Ruth if I were able to find it. If anyone out there knows the location of Ruth's jean jacket, could you let us know? Also, Ruth appears to need a hobby...

Waiting for them to give me a reason to stay...

I am the Committee Chair for our local Scout Troop/Venture Crew. We don't have a Varsity Team. Our BSA district has a monthly roundtable meeting. Last month, the Scoutmaster, Venture Advisor, and I went to the roundtable meeting only to find that the thing had been cancelled for the month. I had even checked the website that day to make sure it was still on their calendar.

Tonight the Scoutmaster and I made it to the meeting, they started the meeting by asking where the roundtable commissioners were. They had gotten new ones in June, and wanted them to come up and lead the meeting. One of the guys went up, said he had no idea what he was doing, and hoped the other guy would show up. The other guy didn't.

They had a few announcements, and started sending people off to the breakout sessions. Our Scoutmaster went to the Scout session. They started to send the Varsity leaders off, and asked the Varsity guy to take the Venture leaders as well, since the regular guy couldn't make it. I didn't really have an interest in going to that breakout, since they were very unlikely to talk about Venture issues.

I went over to the 11 year old scout session, and found that it was headed up by the two leaders from our Stake that are running our New Scout program. I don't like the way that's being run right now, and I definitely don't like the laissez-faire attitude those two have about it and the boys that are there, so I didn't go into that breakout.

I went back to the Scout breakout, where our Scoutmaster was. I sat behind him for a minute, and decided that we didn't need two of us in the same session. I ended up bailing on him, which I am sure he appreciated. Next time it happens, I will let him bail.

It would be nice if the District was just a little more organized about it, so that those of us that take the time to be there, when there are other things we could be doing, actually get something out of it. Maybe I just have a bad attitude. Either that, or I'm right...

Book review

Windows Server Administration
Self Paced Training Kit
by Ian McLean and Orin Thomas

I am a Linux Systems guy sitting at a Windows Systems guy's desk. Or something like that. At the beginning of the year, I started working on our Windows systems here at work. I must have been sick the day I made that decision, or something. (And it hasn't stopped me from continuing to work on Linux machines when I can...) My laptop is Linux, I haven't booted into Windows on it in over two years, I think since me, my Dad, and my brothers stopped playing Age of Empires on Saturday mornings...

Anyway, I picked up some Windows books online earlier in the year, and have been reading through them when I have some time. I recently finished this book. It's a training book to get the reader ready to take the MCITP Exam #70-646, the first in a string to become a "Microsoft Certified IT Professional". I'm not sure I am interested in taking the Microsoft certification exams, but this book was good for gaining a broad knowledge of Windows server administration, of all things...

The chapters of the book flow from topic to topic, and at the end of each chapter they include "Labs" of a sort, where they talk you through practising the lesson topic on development machines they have you build early in the book. I didn't do any of the labs. I suppose I would want to go back and do them if I decided to take the exam. The end of the chapters also have multiple choice (sometimes in the form of 'choose all that apply') questions related to the chapter topics, to see if you were paying attention. The questions are also supposed to be of the type you would get asked in the certification exam. In going through the book, I was able to pay attention, I guess, and did fairly well in answering.

The book was good for giving a good overview of the differing types of things you might have to do with a Windows server. I feel like I at least have a good foundational knowledge of what is going on at this point, even if I might not have the in depth knowledge.

The book also comes with a practice exam CD, which I tried installing on a VM I installed on my laptop after I finished the book. I couldn't get the practice exam to come up properly, and didn't bother taking the time to figure out why.

Happy Birthday Kate!

Kate turns twelve tomorrow. I'm not sure how I feel about that. We are dangerously close to have teenagers in the house.

I recently heard from Tara that Kate has been complaining that I never made her a purse. I spent the better part of the last 3 weeks making her one in the evenings after the kids went to bed. It took longer than I expected, because Kate kept coming out of her room all the time. I would have to hide the thing, and wait to make sure that she was really back in her room.


Kate seems to have liked it, and she was plenty surprised by it. Grandma Oaks response? "No one ever made me a purse..."

A "moderate" "one mile" hike

On Friday, my brother came over and asked me and my dad if we wanted to go on a hike up the canyon. Drew made it should like it would be a short hike - 1 mile - and a 'moderate' type of hike, with only a 700 foot incline. Or so the guide he was looking at said...

It was a nice hike, but ended up being a little longer than I bargained for. It looks like from google maps that it was about a 700 foot incline, at least to the spot we were shooting for. (Something called 'Big Springs'. I am assuming the Springs are more impressive in the Spring.) We ended up going past that and up another hill as well. Google maps also indicates that we went about 4 miles in total.

When we got back, I told Grandma Oaks that we hiked to the base of the trail to the fountain of youth, but had to turn back on account of the ninjas. She didn't really believe me.

I survived the hike, and I was able to walk the next day, so I guess that's something. Just be warned, if Drew wants you to go on a short hike, grab the GPS first, and make sure it's not some sort of Death March...

Also, as continued proof that I am a poor picture taker, here are a couple from the hike:

That's my dad next to a tree that has fallen down. The branches of the tree had grown up out of it, becoming trees themselves. They were at least 20 feet tall each, and were just growing out this fallen tree. The picture is completely blurry, it might as well be a picture of Bigfoot... Maybe I will submit it as a sighting.

Another blurry picture I took. This time from the trail. It looks more like an impressionist painting than a picture, maybe I should have it printed out on canvas...

Other family pictures from today.

I think there are a lot of other pictures floating around somewhere, just not on our camera...

One of these days all of us boys will be in the same spot at the same time. Not today... (Looks kind of like a lineup.)

Drew and his family.

Tara and Noel

I think the fact that there were a bunch of cameras going all at once, from different directions, confused some people. At least they were all smiling.

That's a lot of grandkids. And four of them are in Buffalo.

A baptism and a blessing.

This weekend, Emma got baptized. She seems to have enjoyed it. there were bugs (mostly spiders) floating around in the font that I had to clean up before we could get started. I guess I can't help it. I see a bug, and it has to be fixed...




We also blessed Noel. She decided she was hungry just before the blessing started, and fussed through the whole thing.


My parents came out, and brought my Grandma Oaks with them. I'm not sure how Grandma Oaks got out of being in the pictures, at least on our camera. The kids (and Me and Tara) have enjoyed having them visit. They go back in a few days.