Quarter mile long doughnut

They made a quarter mile long doughnut on campus, here is part of it, after being cut up:

Also seen in the area - a heavy police presence. I asked one of them if he was going to eat all of that, he seemed to take it well...

Progress?

Progress may be happening.  I went to the doctor today, he was happy with the way things looked in my wrist, took the stitches (20 of them) out, and put it in a hard cast.  I had to wait ffor over an hour in the waiting room, I was there so long, I almost ordered room service.

Hard cast means my fingers are fully free, and in the next day or so, I might be able to get the swelling down.  The doctor also got me more pain killers so I might be able to sleep more than three or four hours a night.  They also want me to stay out of the sling at this point, so that I don't start having problems with my elbow.

No such thing as a carbonite cast, and it will be casted for a couple of months.  I could have gotten bright yellow.  What do you think about my color choice?

meh. and ouch.

I haven't posted this week, mostly because I have spent the week sitting in the chair, with my arm strapped into an ice machine. I'm not really up to speed at all yet, I have a doctors appointment on Wednesday, I hope to get a different cast then. I had to go back in this week, my thumb was bruising all the way up it, I needed to make sure it wasn't dying. Turns out it wasn't half dead, just really ugly. 

I am off the heavy pain killers now, which is both good and bad. I have only got about a day and a half worth of work in this past week, and want to try to get a little more in this week if I can. Tara leaves Thursday for a trip to Oklahoma, then things could get interesting. :) 

More some other time. For your viewing picture, here is what got done: (two screws were from before, they had broken and were embedded, so he left them in...

Surgery this morning

In 13 minutes I will be at the hospital to get my wrist worked on.  Couple of hours from now, and I have a built in ping pong paddle!  Stay tuned...

Fluffer Nutter

I introduced the kids to Fluffer Nutter sandwiches the other day.  Results, overall, were positive.  Ruths only complaint was that there wasn't enough marshmallow fluff on hers.  It's being added into the rotation...

Preschool pictures revisited

Ten days ago, I mentioned that Adam is in preschool this year.  Someone over there has continued to trickle pictures of him doing things at the school.  Here are a couple:

I sent an email after this one that said: 

All these pictures you have been sending is of the back of Adam's head.

Just commentary...

 Today, we got two new pictures:

In this picture, I think the reaction Adam is expressing was after the teacher said something like: "Adam, look up here so that your Dad doesn't chew me out later."  Adam looks slightly confused by some instruction he just got.  Either that, or he knows exactly what they are talking about...  Also notice the stacks of evenly built and carefully placed blocks.  If only his bedroom looked like that.

They also learned about circles and holes.

Trouble

Since sometime in the Spring, I have had trouble with my wrist.  

Backup for a second.  Since 1996, I have had trouble with my wrist.  Back then, I had a softball accident that caused the wrist bone for my thumb to detach from the rest of the wrist.  I had surgery to tie it back together just before Christmas that year. 

In 2001, I was having trouble again, and ended up eventually having a partial fusion of my wrist done.  After that surgery, I ended up with maybe a total of 60 degrees of motion in my wrist.  (I can get 180 degrees of motion in the other.)  I have had periods when I tweaked it, or whatever, and 21 months ago, I went into the doctor because it had been acting up, he shot the thing with cortisone, and the wrist was immobilized for two months.  This sent me on my way again.  Here is what it looks like today:

OK, that's a bad picture.  The (not small) bandaid is covering the scar, which already looks crazy because it is from two surgeries. 

Since the Spring, I have been having pain the wrist.  It's been getting progressively worse since.  I have been wearing the brace off and on all summer long, hoping it would get better, but it hasn't.

About 8 weeks ago, I was doing some job interviews getting ready to hire someone.  One of the guys that came in for an interview just absolutely crushed my hand.  The grip of death.  I didn't have the brace on because I didn't want to waste the short time we had in those interviews talking about me.  It took a number of days to feel like he hadn't destroyed it.  Since that time, things have gotten really progressively worse.  Use a chainsaw for a while?  Can't use the hand for anything for a few days.  Screwdriver?  Forget about it.  That shed I started working is largely unchanged.

At this point, I can use a key to open the lock on a car or the doorknob of the house, but I can't turn the key in the deadbolt.  I can't use a mouse without the brace on.  I can not put any weight or pressure on the hand, without pain shooting out.  Not good.

Two weeks ago, I went to someone we know that works on hands, not my normal surgeon.  I figured a second set of eyes couldn't hurt.  His prognosis?  "Something is definitely wrong with this wrist."  He wanted me to take my x-ray back to the regular guy I see for my wrist, and have him take a look at things, since we had x-rays from 20 months ago.  He seemed to indicated that my surgeon was one of the best around.  Speaking of the x-ray, here is another view of my hand:

That's an iPad in the background, by the way.  I needed to use something as a back light for scanning the x-ray.  Worked pretty good.

Anyway, I got another cortisone shot in my wrist today.  I have surgery scheduled for next Friday, to have my hand fused, from the middle bone just above the existing hardware, all the way down to my forearm bone.  Everything under the existing fusion looks good, according to the doctor, he thinks the gap between the bottom of the wrist or the top of the forearm bone must have compressed, or something, and has been causing all this trouble.

He gave me the option of just trying another cortisone shot, and seeing what happens, or doing the surgery and getting it taken care of right away.  I've already done one shot early last year, so I bargained into a shot now, and schedule surgery, and then if the shot starts helping significantly by Monday, we would cancel the surgery and roll with it.  Soon we will see.  If the full fusion happens, I will have no flapping type motion at all left in my wrist.  I will be able to twist the wrist, but as far as usefulness, it will be much like having the wrist brace on all the time, like I am doing anyway.  Hopefully just without the pain in the end.

This also means there are a few other things at risk here.  I need to get the yard cleaned up and ready for Winter.  I have been ignoring it for two months.  I had planned to make Emma a Halloween costume.  It was going to be fantastically nerdy.  (Maybe I can still design, and get her to manufacture...)  I would also be in a cast almost until Christmas time. maybe that doesn't matter, since in a cast, I don't lose tons of motion over what I would already have after the surgery...

Back to being a lefty, I suppose.  It's not so bad, I've had some experience.  :)

Also, happy "Ten Eleven Twelve"

Once upon a time...

... I found a monkey suit for rent.  And I wore it to work.

I think the bunch of bananas was a nice touch. 

This is my old boss' office. I'm not trying to make any kind of statement in this picture...

Treasure Hunt

There is a guy in town that is starting what I think is a book buyback business at the end of the semester.  He is working his way into promoting the business by gathering a list of contacts to promote to.  He is gathering his contact list by running a treasure hunt here in town.  The prize is $5000.  He is releasing a clue every day, and estimates that it will take 40 clues for the treasure to be found.

I know the general area where the prize is, based on the current clues.  (Not sure what today's clue indicates, waiting for a few more, I guess, at this point.)  On Thursday, I took Adam and Lily, and we walked around looking for the thing.  Thursday evening, Drew and I looked slightly more intensely at a particular area.  (It can't hurt to include a police detective, right?)  On Friday, Drew and Kaylynn spend a good portion of the morning searching.

I took some of the kids down there again this evening looking.  We didn't find the thing, but had a nice walk, anyway.  Maybe we will try again in a couple of days if he releases a clue that helps narrow things down a bit.

On Thursday, we didn't see anyone else looking where we were.  Tonight I saw someone clearly looking.  He was talking to some friends on his phone, indicating that he found the general area.

I am also not ruling out the possibility that the prize has already been found, and the guy paid someone $500 to keep quiet about it for a few more weeks, while he continues to generate buzz...

Yesterday afternoon, we took the kids on a drive through the Alpine loop. Some of them had never been up there.  The pictures below really don't show the depth you get when you drive through there.  I wanted to get a picture of the middle of the really thick aspen trees, but there weren't any good laces to pull over the direction we were going, and we were in a huge van, so people wouldn't have appreciated me stopping int he middle of the road and getting out.  (Didn't stop others from walking down the road in one place.  The drive was packed last night, when we came out the American Fork canyon side, there were about a hundred cars lined up to get in...)

Anyway, I don't know if the pictures I took even show the colors all that well, but the kids seemed to enjoy the ride, and as an added bonus, half of them fell asleep on the ride.

This bottom picture was taken at a sideways Batman tv show angle.  The trees are pointed up.  My gift to you...

Mission Reunion

On Friday night, we went up to a mission reunion. It's been a long time. My mission president is now the church historian and recorder, so he hosted us at the Church history library. It was nice to see some of the people I worked with on my mission, and one of my companions. (Matt Yearsley) For a part of the program, they presented some of the historic books and documents they have from church history. It was pretty interesting.

Some original pamphlets of the Book of Commandments and Pearl of Great Price

The Book of Commandments

First editions of the Book of Mormon in Welsh, French, Italian

First edition of the Book of Mormon in Britain

Long overdue restaurant reviews

There are some restaurants around here that we have been to recently that deserve a mention.  We'll just see what kind of mention...

First, last night we went to the Cheesecake Factory in Salt Lake for dinner.  We sat down at 5:30, and ordered a couple of appetizers, ordered dinner, ate the appetizers, kind of hung out, and then at about 6pm, I noticed that the Braves were playing the Cardinals in the Wild Card game, so I pulled out my iPad, started playing with the thing (I've had the MLB streaming app this year, and they updated it recently to include the option of watching different camera angles).  I had turned it on in the middle of the delay where they where the Atlanta fans were trying to decide if the umpire would live or not. 

Anyway, the manager of the place came up, and apologized for our meal being late, said it would be out in just a minute, and he would comp us a couple of cheesecakes.  Up to that point, we hadn't even realized that we had been there so long, and it was another ten minutes before our food came.  I had fish and chips, they tasted like they had been under the heat lamp for a bit, but it was still fine.  Tara had ordered something that included cous cous, I assume whoever was cooking it messed up the first batch, and that's why our food was so late. 

Last time we were at a Cheesecake Factory, we were there something like an hour after sitting down, waiting for our food.  Had dessert comped that day too...

Anyway, here is some quick clips about some restaurants around town:

Thai food - Go to Thai Mango, not Thai Kitchen.  Thai Mango is perfect, as long as you get the owner lady serving you.  She always remembers what we typically get.  The food is generally good, and generous serving.  We were there a couple of weeks ago with some friends, and had some trouble with the kid that was serving us, his English was not good at all.  Thai Kitchen seems to have much smaller portions, not really as flavorful, and always seems to have dried out their rice.  (I say that, but the only thing I order at either place is the beef waterfall.  It's under the salad category, but it's mostly meat...)

Heart Attack - There is a place in town called Cubby's Italian Beef, it's fairly new. I've been there six times, I think.  They serve Italian Beef, Italian Sausage, etc.  They have something called a Heart Attack, which is an Italian Sausage with Italian Beef on top.  It's great.  If I keep getting it, I'm going to have a heart attack...  They also serve Rosemary Pepper Fries.  Very salty, lots of rosemary, and fantastic.  I could go there and just eat the fries, if they didn't have the heart attack on the menu...

WingShack - There is a place in town that serves a pretty good chicken wing.  I usually get hot garlic pepper or extra hot garlic pepper.  It's good stuff.  They also serve tator tots.  Wings and tator tots, you can't go wrong...  We go there from work every once in a while, a couple of weeks ago, we went for lunch, and the guy had two of us and two other people and that was it for his lunch rush.  He also does a punch card, I had filled one, and redeemed it, so his lunch rush for the day was a net of 2 meals.  Not good if you want to stay in business.  I left thinking he might be in trouble.  We went for lunch again a couple of days ago, there were about ten people there when we got there, and by the time we left, the place was jam packed.  I've never seen it that full, and the guy looked pretty happy.  The wings are good, nice and crispy, and the sauce is plenty flavorful.

Pizza Buffet - There is a place called Pizza Pie Cafe in town.  The place is always packed.  Kate wanted us to take her there for her birthday, we went, but Tara and I both did not feel that great afterwards.  Too much wheat product for me, and I don't really like the pizza there.  They have about a dozen different flavors, but I would generally pass on at least ten of them, unless I had just paid ten dollars to eat them.  They also have a pasta thing, but it's just too much wheat.  I don't know what upset Tara's stomach.

Emmanuel's - Around the corner from our house is a new Mexican restaurant.  It seems to be run by the same three guys all the time.  Their food is really good, portions are generous, and they seem like really nice people.  They don't say tons, but seem nice.  I'm guessing they would have more to say if I spoke Spanish...  Anyway, this location has had a bit of trouble keeping places open, but just across the street is a dive that has been open for 60 years or something, hopefully these guys can stay open...

There are others, I am sure, but that's all for now.

Noel and claw machines

I've talked about claw machines here before.  Noel seems to enjoy watching them go, especially because many times, it means she gets a new toy.  If we go to a place like the local grocery or Walmart, she gets excited because she knows a claw machine is there.  If she sees the thing, she generally gets really excited.  At Walmart, I try to stick to the 25 cent machines, because you get four tries for a dollar.  If they have one of those fun centers inside the store, those generally work better than the ones they have out by the entrances.  (Pro tip!)

This summer, I was in the middle of Nebraska at a Walmart at 11:00pm, buying laundry soap.  I checked out their machines, and tried the 25 cent machine there.  On my first drop, I snagged two little stuffed animals.  There were a couple of little kids watching, and they were absolutely amazed.  Here in town, the 50 cent machine at Red Robin is a pretty fair machine.  I've gotten several decent sized stuffed animals out of that one.  Also here in town, the machine at Shopko is garbage.  Don't waste your money there.

I have an app on my iPad called "Gas Buddy" that let's you know the gas prices near your location.  It depends on users uploading gas prices.  Maybe I can build an app that lets you find, rate, and comment on claw machines near you.  Call it "Claw Buddy", "The Claw", or "Mystic Portal"...

The other day, we were at the grocery store.  We stopped at the claw machine, as is the tradition, and tried pulling something out.  I picked up a stuffed animal a couple of times, but it fell out of the claw.  Noel watched this, and after we didn't get anything, she turned her head and got a frown going.  She had the "I've never been more disappointed in my father than I am now" look on her face, and wouldn't talk or look at me for a few minutes.

I guess it's a mark of success when you one year old expects a toy at every claw machine, because she gets one so often...

Free Form Fridays

For the past two months, I have been trying to do something I call "Free Form Fridays" with the kids.  Nearly every Friday, I have taken one of the kids out on a night on the town.  Spending time with them, or some such thing...

When I envisioned the thing, I thought I would take them to do whatever they wanted, within reason or budget.  Secretly, I envision them getting creative with their choices, but I guess if that little fact stays a secret, it's never going to happen.  So far, the general consensus has been to go to the water park or the mini golf place.  There is nothing at all wrong with those places, and they have enjoyed it, but maybe going forward, they need a little spark of inspiration so that they don't get bored of mini golf.  (I say bored, but there are seven kids, so it's something like 2.5 months between each turn for each kid, because we don't make it out every Friday...)  Also, some Fridays, I just don't feel totally up to walking all around creation, maybe choices in front of them would help us be more consistent every Friday if I'm not feeling at the peak of health.

So far, we have done the following:

• Ruth - Chinese food and mini golf / laser tag
• Lily - Waterpark
• Adam - Seven Peaks (the waterpark), then go home and have a snack, then take a little nap, then watch a show.  (This is the way Adam described what he wanted to do over and over.  He was very insistent on it, and must have thought plenty about it.)
• Noel - Drive around and try as many claw machines as we can before Noel got tired.  (We got about 20 of them in.  Won two stuffed animals.  More on that later.)
• Kate - Chinese food and mini golf
• Mary and Emma - Haven't gone yet...

A primer for future Free Form Fridays

Activities that include dinner Trafalga - Orem Trafalga - Lehi Seven Peaks (Summer) Go to a museum Learn to make cookies Learn to make doughnuts Go to a baseball game Go to a basketball game Go to a soccer game Go Ice Skating Play games on the Wii Play Zoo Tycoon Play a board game Do service for a neighbor Explore the BYU library Something else the kids think of

Activities that include a snack or treat Go to a movie Go to a play Learn to make a pie Learn to make a particular meal Make something from one of the "Geek Dad" books  (electronics, woodworking, chemistry, etc.  Lots and lots in those.) Canoe down the river  Go to a corn maze Assemble and paint a model car or plane Go to the NickelCade Something else the kids think of

I'll try to remember to make a post about Free Form Friday from time to time...

New roof - 4-6 years from now

3.25 years ago, we did a bunch of work on the house, and tried not to do too much on the roof, so that we wouldn't cause any leaks.  We ended up taking the old chimney down, and worked mainly at the top of the peak.  We reused the pipe that was the old hot water heater vent as a bathroom vent. 

2.75 years ago, we had a Christmas tree in the kitchen area, and came out one night to a puddle of water under the tree.  We thought the kids had been watering the thing.  

1.75 years ago, we saw the leak in the doorway over the pantry.  Turns out the kids hadn't been watering the Christmas tree after all.  We had a leak in the roof, near the reused pipe.  I covered it with a tarp, and largely ignored it until now.

On Saturday, I climbed back up there to see about sealing up the leak.  The tarp has weathered, and pieces of it have been floating down off the roof for a few months.  I am sure the tarp wouldn't have made it through the Winter...

Anyway, I didn't really see a smoking gun on the leak, but from being up inside the roof while it was leaking, I knew the area it was coming from, so I unloaded an entire tube of tar on the area.  We'll see what happens.

It looks like we are only about 4-6 year from needing some serious work on the roof.  I think the only real reason they thought this layout would work up here is "let's get this done in a hurry".  That flat-ish spot is trouble.  The membrane looks like it's starting to work it's way into wearing out.  A few shingles here and there have gotten brittle, so the end is near.  I don't really know how old the shingles on the roof is, it's at least 15 years old, I suspect much longer.

When we get around to it, maybe that's the time to put a second floor up over part of the house.  Guess I had better start a fund now...

Preschool

Adam is attending the BYU Preschool this year.  Hopefully he spends the year warming up to people so he's ready to roll for kindergarten next year.  From what we can tell, he spends a lot of time playing with the trains and the blocks, not that there is anything wrong with that. Here is proof, which one of the student teachers emailed to us the other day:  (We need to teach the student teacher how to wait for someone to face the camera before snapping a picture, it seems...)

I asked him if he ever plays on the computers, he said "they don't have computers at preschool, Dad!"  I asked him if he plays dress up, he said "No, I don't play dress up!"  

As long as he's enjoying it, he can play with the trains all year...

A life changing purchase

Two weeks ago, we got a new washer and dryer.  We bought a high capacity, high efficiency Maytag Bravos XL model.  Before this purchase, we spent years of our lives being perpetually backed up in our laundry efforts.  Since the purchase, we have been always caught up on laundry.  It's amazing!

Part of the draw of the thing is that the dryer works so well.  For most loads, the dryer is done within a few minutes of the next load of laundry, if not before the washer finishes.  If you get distracted after moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer, and start the next load a bit later, the dryer is always done first. A load of a dozen towels only takes about 90 minutes to dry.  It's amazing the volume of laundry you can rip through when you aren't waiting on the dryer.

We will see if we end up with any energy savings.  I am sure we will save some cost in electric.  I'm not as convinced with water.  The washer uses less water, but even though we live in a desert, we oddly don't pay all that much for water here.  So far, things have dropped off, compared to last year, but it's not a full month's usage in this billing cycle:

...time passes

Sorry about the brief pause.  Been a bit busy for the past couple of days.  

Since the beginning of the Summer, my hand has been hurt off and on.  It seems to have gotten worse over time, not better, no matter how much I wear my wrist brace.  In August, I was doing some interviews for a position we had open at work, and was not wearing the brace, because I didn't want to waste any interview time talking about me.  One of the interviewees shook my hand on the way out, and had an 'iron fist of death' grip.  He just crushed my hand.  (We didn't hire him, but it wasn't the handshake that did him in.)

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I finally decided to get an appointment to see someone about it.  I had the appointment on Tuesday, the guy I went to sent me to the hospital and back for x-rays.  Him playing with the wrist had it very agitated.  After he looked at the xrays, his opinion was that 'there was something definitely wrong' with the wrist.  He thinks maybe the fusion has a screw that might have worked loose.  I had gone to him instead of the guy that did my two wrist surgeries just to get a second set of eyes on the problem.  Turns out he wants me to go back to my regular guy to compare the xrays to the ones that we did 18 months ago.  My regular guy is out of the country, I see him in 2 weeks, we will see what happens.  

Last Friday, I used a chainsaw as a cutting/ripping/planing tool.  My hand was generally useless for the bulk of two days, and is almost back to the way it was before all the cutting, but not quite, seven days later.  I guess we will see what happens.

Yesterday we took the kids to Chili's for dinner again.  I'm thinking I am tired of that place.  I really like the chips and salsa there, but I can't seem to find an entree I like.  I tried chicken fajitas last night, but the chicken was dry, and the tortillas were stale or something.  It was just kind of hard to eat, seemed like something was missing.  I thought it was beans and rice, but it turned out that beans and rice doesn't come with the fajitas plate at Chili's.  Some day soon I will do a post about a few of the places around town we have been and liked, and a few places around town we have been, and can just as soon not go back.

It's almost time to start thinking about Christmas presents.  Not sure what I am going to do this year.  I am making a custom order scarf that I need to send away soon, and Emma wants me to make her a dalek costume for Halloween.  Tara is spending early November in Oklahoma, I might take a trip out to New York City before Thanksgiving.  

There is always something going on...

"This space intentionally left blank"

Taking a day off.  In the meantime, enjoy the following, but not all at the same time, otherwise it will melt your brain...

- - --

Pear Pie

Tom gave us lots of pears.  Who wants a slice of pear pie?  Emma's been dying to have "leftover pie" in her lunch for school.  Looks like all her dreams are about to come true...

Before the secret ingredient was added...

Piping hot out of the oven...

Working in the shed

The stuff I have out in the shed has needed some attention for a long time. This summer, I started cleaning it out. It just meant that the stove, dishwasher, and old broken bunkbed I had been using as storage and workspace are all now gone. All the junk is still in there:

On Friday, I played hooky from work to start working on the shed.  I have some very large logs I got from Drew a couple of years ago, I cut a portion of one of them into 2"x15" planks, with a chainsaw.  (Who needs a planer when they've got a chainsaw?)  This took a while to cut though all that wood (over 5 feet tall), and my wrist was largely shot by the end of the day. 

I also started building a frame for the workspace.  The shelving I am ripping from the log will sit on the frame. 

Next up:  sanding down the planks, installing the shelves, and adding insulation to the shed.  After that, I build a shelving unit for all my tools.  Stay tuned...

Fall must be here

Fall - when the schools do fundraisers, hype them up to the kids, and try to do their best to get you labeled a bad parent for not supporting them.  Last night was the annual Fall Festival at the elementary school, every once in a while, we try to talk the kids into doing something else, but it must have been hyped at the school, because they were all raring to go. 

The nice thing about it this year was that the little candy & prizes table allowed them to just send the tickets we bought them directly, rather that making the kids play games, then get other tickets, and redeem those tickets for candy or a prize.  This year, we got to cut out the middle man.  We took the kids a couple of times over there, so they could use up their allotment.

It's not that the Fall Festival is a bad thing, it's just that it's crowded, usually hot, and when not hot, cold and rainy, and in the end, we always end up with crying kids.  Just wears them out.

Kate is in a new school this year, the fundraiser she brought home today was a magazine drive.  I've got enough magazines, I don't need any more.  The hyped it up with the kids today by telling them that they would get a celebrity rubber duck keychain for each magazine subscription  they sold.  I told Kate to find some similar duck keychains on Amazon, I would buy them for her, and a few extras to give to her friends.  Somehow the magazine drive has brought out my rebellious nature.  So, if you want to buy a magazine from Kate, feel free, but if you want to buy her a rubber ducky keychain, even better...

The Proof

Need proof that I am at least marginally involved in what goes on at the house?  Today before I got home, the kids made pop bottle creations for tomorrows Fall Festival, which I will do my best to try to get them to skip.  The results?  An owl, a dalek, the tardis, and a three headed monster.  One of these things is not like the others...

Proof?  You be the judge.

5 down, 2 to go

Lily started Kindergarten this year.  She's pretty stoked about it.  Tara got a few 'first day of school' pictures in:

(Kate must have already headed out that day.  She leaves at the awful hour of 7:15AM.  It's kind of exhausting, really...)