The Painful Happenings

Super Villian Beard

2012-01-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what makes people turn into a super villian? I know exactly what would turn me into a super villian - the inability to grow a proper beard. It's part of the reason I don't try.

At first glance, a few days growth doesn't look so bad. But let's look closer:

For some reason, this beard 85% of the way back. It seems like it just gives up before it gets all the way across towards the ear line. Grow it out, and you have an annoying spot on both sides of the head, where the cold bitter winds can still freeze your brain, while you are out on the lam.

What beard wearing super villain wants to have bald patches in the beard? You grow it, you want it to fill in. Not the case in this beard. Lots of areas that don't need to be shaved. It's just places on the face for you arch nemesis to mock you with. Keep growing it, it just looks funnier and funnier. Big thick beard, big bald patch. It's one thing to have the bald patch on the top of the head, it's another to have it in the beard.

The world can thank me later for shaving on a regular basis now...

Santa Stew

2012-01-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

Every year for Christmas, Santa brings a pile of vegetables for us to make a stew for Christmas. It's the one time of the year the kids will actually eat a stew we make for them. It's one of our relatively new Christmas traditions. (Along with a big breakfast after the presents are all opened...)

Belated Christmas Pictures - round 2

2012-01-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

Tom came over for Christmas morning, and brought his (now) fiancée Julie with him. We usually have Tom take pictures for us on Christmas day, here are some of them:

Emma trying to explain who "Dr. Who" is to Julie

Tara and her stash of "Babylon 5" DVDs

Lily

I hear the story goes that my parents found this material in the ship that I came in, and they sewed the outfit with it. That's just what I hear...

Noel - not just a Christmas sentiment any more...

This is the expression on Ruth's face for every picture Tom took of her. I think she it was more about hamming it up for Tom, than the excitement at the gifts, although she did like the book set she is holding here...

Afterwards, Adam would say that this was his favorite thing he got for Christmas. This is a little funny, I pulled it out of a claw machine one day...

Kate (and the other girls) got a lot of books. The word I hear is that somewhere in the middle, Julie leaned over to Tom and asked if our kids liked to read...

Mary is one to always appreciate things she can accessorize with...

The previously mentioned Julie, for those looking for a picture of her...

They all seemed pretty happy, which is really what you are going for Christmas morning...

Belated Christmas Pictures - round 1

2011-12-31T13:53:00.004-07:00

This year for Christmas, I made the kids scarves. I started back in October, while Tara was out of the country.

They were pretty excited about them. Ruth and Lily were excited about theirs, they have been waiting for "Dr. Who scarves"...

Tara and Noel we jealous of the scarves, in the past week I made them scarves as well.

The gingerbread man

2011-12-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

Ruth narrated "The Gingerbread Man" at school several weeks ago. Tara got a video of it. I tried uploading several times in the interval, but blogger doesn't appear to want to cooperate properly. Here it is, from Youtube. Take that, Google, you are hosting the thing anyhow.

Anyway, Ruth did a pretty good job...

Zhu Zhu palooza

2011-12-25T21:13:00.002-07:00

We had another Zhu Zhu Pet infestation for Christmas this year. After the girls went to bed, we showed them to Noel. As soon as she can sit up by herself, we will put her in the front room with a dozen of them, (I am sure we have more than a dozen...) so she can see them all in action.

Annual Christmas Concert

2011-12-14T20:36:00.004-07:00

Emma's Choir

Okay, it's Emma's choir in the background. The video's mostly of Emma. And the paper airplane of the kid right in front of me...

Also, Kate and Mary's choir. Some how they were standing near each other. Only one of the songs, because I didn't have a lot of charge in the camcorder.

There you go. The reign of "blurry pictures by John" may be over. Now you get "shaky videos by John"...

Can someone clue me in?

2011-11-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

Tara thinks this comic is funny. I have no idea why...

Neighborhood kids...

2011-11-17T06:07:00.000-07:00

Last week, Tara was driving down the street to the kids school for a parent teacher conference. She heard a bang, the window in the van broke. Looks like someone put a BB through the window.

I taped it up with packing tape because it was late afternoon on a Friday, and I didn't want to deal with it right away. It turns out that packing tape does a pretty good job keeping the shattered window in place. I've been ignoring the problem since then. At some point soon, I will have to replace the window. For now, it's a non-stained stained glass window, providing an interesting blind spot in the van. Some of the kids seem to like looking at it.

Who sits in their yard waiting to shot out car windows?

Also, how does Blogger know which way to orient the pictures that are uploaded? Does my phone provide that information, or is Blogger guessing?

My work here is done.

2011-11-16T06:54:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, I spoke to the youth in the ward. I told them that I wanted to tell them about three times in my life that I've been chased. I started to tell them about the time I was a Freshman in High School, our band director switched me from clarinet for baritone sax. I was not a good clarinet player. I ended up being an ok baritone sax player, at least as far as high school standards went...

Anyway, the school's baritone sax had this big case with a loose handle. I was playing with the handle one day early on, and the case was wobbling. I twisted it, the case went sideways, and swiped two football players that had 6 inches and about 25 pounds on me. They were running in the opposite direction down the hall, and ended up tumbling into a heap. They looked up at me, and gave me a dirty look. I panicked, dropped everything I had, and bolted. They gave chase.

About this time in telling the story, the youth figured out I was talking about "chased", not "chaste". They started relaxing and chattering a bit. I asked "what did you think I was talking about?" I thought it was pretty funny.

A couple of days ago, we were all in the car, driving back from Salt Lake. Tara asked the girls what it meant to be "chaste". I looked in the rear view mirror, Kate was looking at me laughing a little.

My work here is done.

Tara's return

2011-11-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, Tara got home from her trip. Noel and I went out to the airport to get her. (A 12 minute drive - not on the freeway - absolutely fantastic!)

When the plane landed, Noel was looking around, after Tara walked up, I gave Noel to her. After a few seconds Noel looked at her, and gave a look of total surprise. Eyebrows arched, eyes open wide, and mouth in a little 'o'. It lasted only a few seconds, but I've never seen a look like that on a four month old baby before. It was kind of funny.

After we got home, Noel screamed at Tara for over an hour. Just letting her know about her displeasure. She seemed fine the next day.

I am sure the kids are happy Tara came home. They were tired of me, I was just tired, which made things worse. Now if we could only get them to go to sleep at night...

"The agitator turns at midnight"

2011-11-14T20:59:00.004-07:00

AKA "A little torque makes the world turn round"

Our washing machine tried breaking down again. This time it was the upper agitator that stopped working. I've noticed lately that it wasn't rotating the clothes all that well. Last week, Kate stuffed the washer full, and the clothes didn't turn around at all. It took several cycles to get the soap all the way out.

The part that grabs the agitator and turns it had worn down to the point that it was basically useless. Options - fix the washer or replace the washer. I don't have the money right now for the washer I want to replace the current one with, so I explored repair of the washer, likely not for the last time...

Last week, I found a parts website - http://www.repairclinic.com - they made it very easy to find the replacement part. It cost me $10 plus $5 shipping, and the parts came in 5 days, including a public holiday where there was no mail.

While waiting for the part, we did half full loads, so the bottom agitator, which still worked, could move the clothes around in the water. With nine people in the house, laundry piles very fast if you are only doing half loads.

The part came, and I spent a good 45 minutes trying to get the bolt off the agitator, so I could replace the part. I was using a socket and a straight attachment to try to take it off, not a socket wrench. This clearly wasn't working, so I borrowed a long extender from my friend Chad. It took about 30 seconds to get the thing off with the extender and a socket wrench. (Thanks again, Chad!) Proper torque beats brute force any day.

Anyway, the washer works as designed again, even with a full load. Now I can make Emma take that jacket off that she wears every single day...

Halloween

2011-11-14T06:32:00.000-07:00

I never got around to posting Halloween pictures from this year. Here they are:

Dr. Who. I had jelly babies in my pocket, and feed them to the kids while we walked around the neighborhood. More than knew what the costume was. (Maybe a dozen.) That exceeded my expectations. I'm thinking about going back to Beaker next year...

Kate was Athena, or Hera, or Artemis, or something. I have forgotten. It was two weeks ago, and I had to fill my head with HPUX information again 10 days ago. There was a buffer overflow, I lost some things.

I thought I would win the prize for "most obscure costume" in the family this year. I was wrong. That prize went to Mary. She was a character in the Young Adult book series she read. I hear it went over good at school, but most of the people whose house we visited didn't really know what she was.

Superman. We had problems with the curl that day.

Dorothy. As far as I know, this year, there wasn't the same confusion regarding Emma's costume as previous years...

Ruth was a princess. Just a princess, she would say.

Lily was a princess. As we went out that night, she started saying "Princess of the World", then "Princess of the Universe". By the end of the night, she had a whole back story ready for anyone who would listen. I think that's why Ruth kept saying "Just a princess"...

Days 13-19: "Mostly a haze"

2011-11-13T20:23:00.002-07:00

I never got around to finishing my report of how things went with Tara gone.

I caught the mouse. It was pretty easy. Mice are suckers for peanut butter. Set the trap, leave the house, and blam! - that's it for the mouse. Retrap things, no evidence of mice since...

That last week Tara was gone was kind of interesting. I was staying up very late watching priority registration, and waking up very early to feed the baby and get the kids to school. I got about 4 hours a sleep a night that week. And drank lots of Dr. Pepper. Most of it is a haze. I think I watched way to much "Fresh Beat Band" that week. There may have been an extra helping of "Bad Cop" around the house.

I don't know if homework was done. I am pretty sure the kids ended up where they were supposed to be. They lived through it. Everyone stayed clothed, feed, and healthy. I guess that's something.

After Tara got back, I told her she couldn't do that again until after the kids are all in full day school. It wouldn't have been nearly as hard if Noel wasn't a 4 month old baby...

Days 11&12: "Suddenly past the midway point"

2011-10-23T21:58:00.003-06:00

The kids came home yesterday. I took them to lunch on the way home. I put it up for a vote. I should have just picked. I kind of wanted to go to Maria Bonita for nachos, I am sure the big plate of nachos plus something else would have taken care of the whole thing. Maybe two plates of nachos. I don't know. The kids voted for Chuck-A-Rama. Or as Adam calls it "Chuck-A-Grandma". I fear for my Mother when he gets big and strong.

I am tired of Chuck-A-Rama. Overdose for the year, I guess. I'm going to start vetoing it, I think. Try to expand the kids horizons.

I wanted the kids to clean the front room, entryway, and their bedroom. They cleaned nothing. Fantastic. Bad cop will be here tomorrow after school, I think.

Tara liked to use scented candles from time to time. Drown out the scent of 7 kids, I think. I just try to ignore the smells. I have long trained myself to actively not smell stinky diapers, for example. Scented candles I am unable to ignore. If they are too strong, I start choking on the air. This dampens Tara's scented candle parade. Once in a while, I try one to see if I still have problems. It never works, I always end up having to stop the thing.

We have a giant Apple Crisp candle that someone gave us for our wedding. We haven't gotten all the way through it yet. I tried to use it this evening. No go.

It's wholly possible that I should have talked to more adults at church today. I was busy changing the baby over and over. She really appreciated the fresh canvas, I guess.

Also, we have a mouse in the house. That's what I get for encouraging the kids to play outside last week. They can't keep a door closed for anything...

The front lawn looks better...

2011-10-22T16:04:00.003-06:00

I guess I've given up on the front lawn for the year. I'll work on it some more in the Spring. I hadn't mowed it for more than a month, I was trying to get new grass going, and mowed a couple of days ago. I trimmed it up a bit today.

The lawn looks better, and some new grass came up, but not exactly what I was looking for. I'd like really think, sod like grass. It's not something I will obsess about, at least not obsess any more about for now, but at least it looks nice.

Days 9 & 10: "Silence is Golden"

2011-10-21T22:28:00.004-06:00

Wednesday afternoon, I took the kids up to Tara's parents house. This weekend is UEA weekend, meaning no school. It also means that Tara's Mom doesn't have to work. She volunteered to take the kids for a few days. I took her offer.

The house has been fantastically quiet. I have actually really enjoyed it. I slept 10 hours last night. I got two full days of work in. (Plus a little) I cleaned the back room. I mowed the lawn. No one woke me up bright and early in the morning...

I go get the kids tomorrow. It will be fine. I'm thinking about taking care of my "lunch debt" all at once tomorrow...

Days 6-ish - 8ish: "House Arrest"

2011-10-21T22:01:00.003-06:00

On Monday morning, we tried going back to work again. Adam wanted to watch "the puppets". What he really meant was "The Muppets". He really liked watching the muppets. I guess some things age really well.

Anyway, for some reason, my laptop would not play the DVD. It worked just fine the time he came to work before. Instead, I turned cartoons one for him. I think it was Curious George and Clifford the Big Red Dog. I have my second monitor under my desk for him, with a blanket laid out. He seems to like it.

Noel did fine, but threw up all over me. Then she leaked through her diaper. Small bursts of time. That's all we can really do at work. I think we could have gone longer if it didn't involve regurgitated baby formula and stinky diapers. I briefly thought about leaving the diaper in Sorrel's office, who was not at work that day, but I resisted the urge. (It wouldn't have been the first time, by the way...)

Anyway, after that, we kind of just stayed home. I have decided to not intrude on nap time, anyway. It makes the wee little tikes a bit crazy by night. Tuesdays and Thursdays involve too many preschools. I could have taken Adam and Noel back to work on Wednesday morning, but we ended up just staying home. It was easier. (I got lazy, I guess.)

It's easier to just stay home. The kids keep busy. If they get bored, I just give them a job. (The kids rarely say they are bored.) I lay them down for naps in the afternoon, and get a couple of free hours before the older kids get home from school.

Maybe we will try to go back to work on Monday morning. Maybe I will take a second shirt just in case Noel targets me again...

Pumpkin time!

2011-10-17T22:36:00.005-06:00

Our local grocery store sells what amount to two different sizes of pumpkin this time of year. They sell small ones for 69 cents a pound, and larger ones for 14 cents a pound. If you were looking to spend the least amount on pumpkins for decorations, a party, or whatever, (Say for instance, if you have 7 kids, and they want to decorate pumpkins, for example) you might be tempted to get the smaller pumpkins. You would be wrong.

The small pumpkins are about five pounds each, give or take. The larger ones are 12 to 14 pounds each. The large ones are about the same cost as the smaller ones.

I got the girls pumpkins today, they decorated them tonight after dinner. We used to help them carve pumpkins, but decorating them allows us to let everyone participate, and is tons less messy. The kids don't seem to mind.

A Scarf for Sara

2011-10-15T20:50:00.004-06:00

"A Scarf for Sara" Not the latest movie on the Lifetime channel. Not a best selling book somewhere. A scarf. For Sara.

Before Tara left for France, I made her niece Sara a scarf. Tara got there today, and gave it to her. Sounds like it was a hit...

Days 3 & 4: "A measure of normalicy"

2011-10-15T20:22:00.005-06:00

Yesterday, we tried to enforce nap time, to keep things normal. This didn't work all that well, since the girls didn't actually take a nap. Adam and Noel took the naps they were supposed to.

Several times during the day, I thought it was Saturday. Then I remembered it was still Friday, and realized there was a bonus day in the week suddenly. It may have also factored into my not going into work, and not doing any from home as well... I also spent several periods of time thinking about painting either the back room or the kitchen. I decided against it.

Friday night there was a ward activity - a potluck dinner. We got there about 20 minutes late, all the tables were full, and much of the food was gone. We set up a new table, and the kids went through and got food. I held the baby until I realized that she was leaking through her pants again. (We discovered this week that the new kind of diapers we bought last week have containment issues. Noel went through three outfits yesterday...) After the dinner, they had a miniature golf course that the young men built. The kids scattered to go play. After a while, Noel was ready for another diaper change, but we didn't have any more diapers in the backpack. Since we already used the backup outfit, I figured it was time to bail.

Several breakdowns happened at this point, I think mainly do to sleepy children. Emma was upset because Mary took off with her friends and ditched her. Lily was very upset because Ruth ended up with a balloon, and Lily didn't. Sad times.

I thought about tired children for a while, and decided that they needed a darker place to sleep, both during the day, and at night. Tara had some thicker fabric that someone gave her years ago, we found it a couple of weeks ago, and was likely going to be given away at some point. I made blackout curtains, and put them up in the girls room today.

This afternoon, all the girls but Kate went in and laid down in their room for about an hour and a half for naptime. I don't think they actually slept, but they stayed in their rooms. Win for me. Tonight when I came home, you couldn't see their lights were on in their room, either. Win again.

At this point, I think things have calmed down just a little around here. Noel has been slobbering like a maniac lately. I just gave her a frog stuffed animal, and she is busy attacking it, trying to somehow get it into her mouth. I think she is either starting to teeth, or she likes the taste of fabric. I fully expect 'bad cop' to have to show at some point, but it looks like that will not happen today.

Tara made it to France, sounds like her flight went pretty well.

Day 2: "Martial Law"

2011-10-13T22:41:00.002-06:00

Last night, the kids stayed up way too late. I had a meeting, Noel was at a babysitter. The kids were in bed. I figured they would be asleep, but I got home at almost 11pm, and the main light in their bedroom was on. Not a good sign. When I went in their room, they had the light off, and 4 of the 5 of them were at the very least pretending to be asleep.

This morning, some of the girls were dragging a bit. Big surprise. I allowed no complaining, just getting ready for school. Off they went.

I spent several hours at work today, having Adam and Lily watch the Muppets. (Adam called them "The Puppets". It's amazing how some things hold up to age...) I thought I had diapers in the diaper bag, but it turned out that I only had one. When Noel polished off the fresh canvas, it was time to go home.

After school, there were still clear signs of extreme fatigue. I didn't allow whining or complaining. I enabled "homework martial Kate" as a deputy to get all homework done and reviewed. Then we orgainized work parties for directed chores, and a search party for missing library books. (7 of 8 located and returned.)

Someone brought us dinner and ice cream for dessert. I made Adam eat a single noodle before he got ice cream. Emma made a fairly convincing acting job at pretending to eat one.

After dinner a curfew was announced. The girls tried to play the 'be crazy in the bedroom' game, but it was quickly and efficiently squelched before it got too far out of control. Now they all appear to be asleep.

Noel spent a bit of time looking around trying to find someone. She can't seem to find the person she was looking for. Strange.

Day 1 (of 21): "Perpetual Motion"

2011-10-12T23:29:00.005-06:00

Let me start out by saying right off the bat that I understand I will get no pity from any mothers out there reading this. I'm not really looking for any.

Have I got your attention now? Entries here for the next twenty one days will talk about experiences of me taking care of the kids - some subset of all seven of them - without Tara. For some definition of "taking care of the kids", anyway.

Tara left this morning to spend some time tooling around in the South of France. My only requirement for her trip is that she come back fully rested and relaxed. Tara wants me to take a lot of pictures to post here. Today I got one. (Don't skip ahead, wait for it...)

When I bought her tickets, I got tickets out of our city airport here. They started commercial passenger flights out of here in June or July of this year through Frontier Airlines. For now, they've got one flight out in the early AM, and one flight in every evening. The flight only goes to Denver. It was well worth the money, from my perspective. (I assume Tara's flight went well.) We got up, drove to the other side of town, a little under 15 minutes, and we were at the airport. Easy. It shaved 90 minutes off the round trip drive to the airport. I am definitely going to try to get my next business trip to go out from this airport. If anyone flies into town, and wants me to pick them up from this airport - not a problem at all.

We got home just in time to pick up all the car pool people for choir. We got to the school about 4 minutes late. (for choir - 1 hour before school actually starts...)

I spent the next 5 hours dealing with the little kids. Noel was ticked off because she was very hungry and very tired, and was having a hard time picking a priority. Lily had preschool. Adam was bored, I guess.

I was cooking eggs for egg salad sandwiches for Lily and Adam, Noel was awake again, and wanted to eat, and Ruth called from the school. She told me that today was 'eat lunch at school with a parent day', it was the only day that it would happen, and she wanted me to come down to the school right away for lunch. For a second I had the idea that maybe I could possible find a babysitter or something, Ruth told me to find someone to watch the other kids, and call her back in the school office, she would be waiting. About 45 seconds after I got off the phone, after looking at the eggs, looking at Ruth, and opening the front door, I decided to call Ruth back. I told her what was going on, and suggested that maybe we could go out to lunch on a different day. I think I committed right there to taking each of the kids individually out to eat while Tara is gone. Ruth came home from school and asked if I was ready to go out to lunch. Not today, Ruth.

After all the little kids were down for a nap, I got about an hour of work in. I'm not sure it was super productive work, but it was something.

Tara's Mom stopped by after school, so I took the opportunity to take all the library books back, and get some milk. I bought 5 gallons of milk on Saturday night, but it was time for 6 more gallons. I'm thinking about getting a cow.

Tara and the girls read a lot of books.

I should have made a couple of trips or something. I think I set my back back a day or so carrying them into the library. Also, there are 8 more books somewhere in this house that need to be returned. 5 have been located. I don't need to work out. I can just take the library books back. Then as a cool down, I buy milk.

I tried to make dinner be leftovers, but it sort of morphed into leftovers and cereal. I'm not sure how that happened. Tomorrow one of Tara's friends is dropping dinner off. On Friday, the ward is having a ward activity - international night, where you bring your favorite international dish. I am strongly thinking about making potato salad. Not German potato salad. Good old fashioned American potato salad. The United States is most definitely a member of the international community. And we have 3 dozen eggs and a bunch of potatoes in the house.

I had a Stake meeting tonight that was supposed to start at 8pm. I had gotten a babysitter for Noel, and took her over there. The meeting started 45 minutes late. And went over an hour long. Noel seemed to be having a good time when I got there. When we got home, the girls had the lights on in their room still. 4 of them were at least pretending to be asleep when I went into their room.

I seem to have been on the go all day long. Which isn't all that different than normal, except I had this possibly deluded idea that I could fit work in while Tara was gone. I think we will try tomorrow. I'm going to make little beds for Lily and Adam under my desk, maybe they will sleep. We'll see.

I also did 4 loads of laundry, and two loads of dishes. All in all, I was busy all day long, and I think we did pretty ok. There was a brief breakdown that involved a one paragraph essay, and proper spelling of words. I think that got resolved, but I'm not sure, and that child was either asleep or acting asleep an hour ago.

At about 10pm, I got an email with the choir director at the school. She was sending it to let us know about a "small issue that they've had and she talked with the choir about today." What was the problem you ask? The kids have been getting there late. Several minutes late, in fact. They only had 1/3 of the choir there on time today. Then she said something that I just have to quote directly:

"...choir begins at 7:30 sharp. After that, the red pencils are put out on the roll and the child is considered tardy."

I think something actually exploded in my head. A tiny little explosion, but I think it was real. My doctor wants to have me do an MRI of my head. It was the 'red pencils' part of it. Tara hasn't yet been gone 24 hours, and I'm already considering making a scene at the school. I almost replied to the email right away, but the filter engaged just in time. I didn't reply to the email. Maybe that means it was an implosion in my head, since nothing violently came out. I'm thinking about going into the school on Monday, getting the kids there on time, and keeping them out in the hall for a few minutes, just so I could watch her whip her little red pencil out...

Another birthday party for Emma.

2011-09-30T19:47:00.003-06:00

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

2011-09-26T19:06:00.002-06:00

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

2011-09-25T18:58:00.003-06:00

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...

2011-09-15T18:34:00.001-06:00

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

2011-09-14T19:21:00.003-06:00

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

2011-09-13T23:04:00.006-06:00

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...

2011-09-08T19:38:00.004-06:00

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

2011-09-08T15:49:00.003-06:00

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!

2011-09-06T07:20:00.001-06:00

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

2011-09-05T09:06:00.000-06:00

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.

2011-09-04T20:58:00.003-06:00

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.

2011-09-04T20:48:00.005-06:00

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.

Happy Birthday Emma!

2011-08-25T19:33:00.004-06:00

Today is Emma's 8th birthday. Emma is 8. Kate is nearly 12. Hard to believe...

More Bad Parenting

2011-08-24T23:05:00.002-06:00

Today's edition - age inappropriate toys

I guess she's still got a couple of weeks before she can use the Ultra Saucer...

1st of school - 2011 edition

2011-08-22T10:50:00.001-06:00

Today is the first day of school - and Tara couldn't be happier!

Emma is listing forward just slightly, because she decided last night that the backpack she used last year was too small. She opted for a much larger one this year, and filled it full of stuff the school was extorting out of us. (National Parent Extortion Project - AKA School Supply Lists)

Anyway, the girls are excited. Kate was doubly excited when she found out that they would get breakfast at school today as well. I'm not sure what that indicates about her priorities at school, but then again, she comes by it naturally. The main thought on my mind for the last 36 hours is the fact that Rocky Mountain Wing Shack is opening a place here in Provo in two weeks...

If I had been faster on the draw, we could be saying "Drat! Foiled Again!"...

2011-08-17T21:19:00.005-06:00

A few weeks ago, one of the guys on our team went on a vacation for a while. At some point early on in his stay away from the office, a small fund was put together, aluminum foil was procured, and we went to work wrapping his desk, his stuff, his pictures, everything. Lots and lots of people helped. We labeled it as a "team building activity", but I think we had people from all over the department eventually help. And they enjoyed it.

The final product looked pretty good. I folded up some fold creations with absolutely nothing in them, so he would open them up and not find anything. I was getting ready to do one when someone came in asking some questions, I used the foil to draw the picture, then I folded it up. (He opened it up, and wanted to know what the picture was trying to say...)

It was a fine foiling job, but the day he came back, I decided it needed just a little more, so I went to the store and got some of those large Hersheys bars, and took the other wrapper off, so they were just foil. Blended right in. Took him a while to find them.

Here he is, clearly enjoying the craftsmanship. We had our building dedication two weeks later, a few days after he came back, the department HR lady showed up, said "What happened to your desk?" They talked for a few minutes, then she told him to have it cleaned up before the dedication.

The dedication was last Friday, his desk looks really good, and not a lot of traces of foil. (They are there, we stashed some things...) No one really came through our area to tour the place after the dedication. He could have left his desk foiled.

Sunday night, at around 10pm, I realized that we could have come back in on Saturday, and refoiled all his stuff. That would had been funny. He gets foiled, he cleans it up, we immediately refoil... Too bad I didn't think of it sooner.

New camcorder

2011-08-15T17:48:00.002-06:00

I got a new camcorder on Friday, just hours too late to do an incomprehensible recording from the Chinese boot camp that happened for Emma and Ruth last week. (It is wholly possible that I was just not paying attention, but I had to ask Tara several times what they were talking about.) The camcorder came without a SD card, and the best deal was on Amazon, so it's only ready to roll tonight.

Anyway, next time there is some sort of presentation at the school, we might actually be able to record and present it, not just give you slight blurry pictures. For now, you will have to make due with "children confused by technology"...

And we will try to focus on "Noel thinks her Dad is funny" another time:

Oh, by the way, the camcorder was free. Not a bad deal at all...

A "lifestyle changing" offer

2011-08-13T10:49:00.003-06:00

We have have a vendor at work whose products we have used for a long time. We've had a fairly good relationship with the vendor, I suppose, and two of us on my team know one of the products absolutely inside and out. The other guy knows a related product just as well also. From time to time we have helped the vendor out as a reference client, talking to other potential clients about our environment, deployment, and the benefits gained. We primarily used the product to help manage a mix environment, when we had all kinds of Unix and Linux machines on the floor. These days we have one Operating System we use the product for, and we think we can replace the product with native tools. Our department pays quite a bit of money for the product, and a replacement would save a bundle. I am targeting being done by the end of the year.

The vendor has a guy that started being the rep for this product something like 6 years ago. A couple of years ago he was promoted to being the rep in the Mountain West, and then I think the entire West. We last talked to him about six months ago, they had another reference client call that they wanted help with. He called last week, and wanted to visit with us again. I assumed it would be another reference client he wanted to see if we could talk to, and planned to break the news to him that we were moving off the product.

It turned out that he has been promoted again, and he is a company VP over the product. Good for him. He also told us that the product had finally been the top performer in the company for the first time ever, and his people were busier than they had ever been. He had 12 positions opened for Senior Architects and wanted to know if we wanted the job.

We had upgraded the two products in question from one version to another a few years ago. He had heard it from our sales rep and didn't believe it at first, because the two versions were fairly different from each other, and they hadn't to that point had any customers worldwide that had done the upgrade by themselves. To that point, everyone had engaged with the company for professional services to get the upgrade done. It wasn't too terribly hard for us, since we understood the products so well, and understood our environment so well...

Anyway, I think if we had said yes, he would have had us on a plane next week to help a customer design their deployment. (This is what Senior Architects do, professional services to help design deployments, upgrades, and the like.) The job would involve quite a bit of travel, which I am not sure I am willing to do. I have a 30 minute commute to work if I walk. I try to avoid going more than 10 miles from my house, as much as possible. (I generally stay within about a 2 mile radius, really.) When Tara wanted to go to France, I bought her tickets out of Provo, instead of Salt Lake, so that I didn't have to drive up there and back to drop her off and pick her up. The small increase in ticket cost and the baggage fee was well worth the tradeoff. I would not be a good commuter. I assume I would suffer from road rage if I had to drive a significant distance to work on a regular basis. The idea of taking a job where I would have to fly all over the country fairly often doesn't really excite me.

The guy from the vendor tried to talk up the job. It would double my pay. He has a lot of day trips, and his wife travels with him a lot. The technical guys participate in the sales bonuses that come in. He had one guy that got a million dollars in bonuses last year as a technical guy, then he quit to go live on a beach somewhere. He said it could be a 'lifestyle changing' job. I could afford a nanny to take care of the kids while I traveled. (And on and on.)

I'm not sure I want to change my lifestyle. It's not a bad lifestyle. Our family is not starving. I work close to home. This summer I have been taking Thursdays off and taking the kids to the waterpark. We like living here. I like my job, it stays varied enough to keep me fully interested in the things we are doing, and in the next couple of years, we can see ourselves making some very interesting changes in our environment. I'm not sure going from client to client helping design their deployments of the product would keep me as interested in what was going on, it seems like it would be generally the same time after time. Also, it's not like I am anywhere close to the end of my career, and I'm not sure that working for a vendor is an incredibly stable idea. Sure, I could make a lot of money for four or five years, but then be tired of it and ready to move on. Or the company could be sold and gone, or carved into pieces. You never know.

With all other job offers I have had, I haven't had the feeling that it's time to go. There has always still been work to do here. I really like my job, and am really looking forward to some of the things we want to try to do here. At this point, I don't want to leave, and while the money would be nice, there are more important things than money...

Having said all that, the other guy is in a much different point in his life than I am. I could see him taking the offer, and doing really well with it...

Anyway, I am not taking this offer. The benefits really don't seem to outweigh the consequences.

Tour of Utah

2011-08-11T14:47:00.003-06:00

They have a bike race out here called "Tour of Utah". It's billed as 'America's toughest stage race', I think that's mostly because they have it in the middle of August, and we have lots of mountains...

Anyway, this one of the stages ended up going up the road half a block from our house. We took the kids down to see it. Here's the extent of our excitement for the week:

Clearly we are excitement deprived here. They had the road blocked off for almost an hour, for the 30 seconds of bike riding. I guess we should have watched from a few miles further up the road. The road goes on a pretty good incline from our house for another 2 miles or so, then drops fairly fast. It sounds like 10-15 riders wiped out in the transition from the incline to the decline. (They also said the riders were going 38 MPH at the bottom of the hill...)

In about a half hour, if we are still bored, we can go out back to the same street and watch the gridlock as everyone comes in for the BYU graduation...

Problems with comments on this blog

2011-08-07T21:28:00.002-06:00

It looks like Blogger has an issue with comments on blogs for some users. I had someone tell me a couple of weeks ago that they tried to make a comment, but something happened afterwards and it didn't work. Tara tried tonight, and it didn't work, either.

I was using the "embedded comments form" layout, and it looked like it was blocking Tara from making comments in IE, but not Firefox. It looks like it's a known issue that blogger is working on. I changed my comment method to do a pop up window for comments, I hope that doesn't offend too many people out there. (I know there are a few of you out there that are offended by pop up windows...)

Anyway, sorry to those that tried to comment and couldn't. Carry on.

Restaurant Review

2011-08-06T08:02:00.000-06:00

Chen's Noodle House
Orem, Utah

It has been a while since we went to a restaurant that we hadn't been to for a while. There is a little Chinese place behind the mall in Orem that hides behind a tire store. When we drive past it, I think we should stop there someday, until the other day, we never had.

We went, I didn't know what 'noodle house' really meant, but it turned out the place is a Chinese restaurant, much like many others around here, except this one has big windows and lets in plenty of light. (I am not sure why most Chinese restaurants around here are in places with no windows, except for the fact that the rent in those places must be low.)

Anyway, the food was pretty good. Our waitress tried fairly hard to be helpful, even though I was being a tiny bit difficult when ordering. (I got the Kung Pao Chicken, but was tempted to get their Seafood Soup, maybe next time...) The food was pretty good, not too sweet, not too greasy, and mine had lots of fresh vegetables in it. I didn't taste tons of preservatives that you sometimes taste. I thought it was pretty good.

All in all, the food was pretty good, and not too expensive. It's a place to stop at again someday.

A revisiting of my goals for 2011

2011-08-05T21:27:00.004-06:00

I haven't really focused on how I have been doing on my goals this year, I think as a result, I haven't done a very good job finishing any of them so far. Here is what I wanted to to, and how far I have gotten. They are still good goals, but unless I focus, I won't finish them this year. I might need a little inspiration on a couple of them. Here is what I wanted to do, and how I have done so far:

Do something significant I've never done before. I wanted to participate in a demolition derby, but I decided that I didn't want my thumbs broken in the derby. I also sold my old truck. It worked out anyway, since I was going to participate in the July 4th derby in Delta. (Noel was born on the 4th of July, I don't think Tara would have appreciated me doing that with her there to drive me to the hospital...) Now I am left without a good idea. Tara is taking a trip later in the year, and will be gone for three weeks. Does watching the kids for that long count? I'm not sure...

Go somewhere I have never been before. I generally stay in about a two mile radius of my house. I may be turning into a hermit. I went to Atlanta in May, but I've been there before. This one won't involve going anywhere too far away. I wonder if there is somewhere here in Utah I would want to visit.

Read twelve books. I have still not gotten back in the habit of reading like I used to yet. Having said that, I have read six books this year. This is a little surprising to me.

Do twelve small projects around the house. I haven't done too many house projects this year:

I put a new front door on the house
I put some 'dressers' in before the baby was born
I made a swing for the tree in the front yard
I did a big one a few houses down, that I'm gonna count...
I fixed up the little baby crib for Noel

Now that I actually look at it, I'm at five. I'm actually a little surprised about this as well. Finishing the rest doesn't seem so hard, I have a few started already. I have to remember the 'before' picture, though. Half of them could easily be done outside, but I need to get out there and do them. It's kind of warm out there right now. Yes, I am whining...

Walk 200 miles. I have gotten in 49 tracked miles so far this year. Not great, but it's something. I am almost to the point that walking to my office from home doesn't trash my ankle for the rest of the day anymore. This is a good thing. 150 miles is 100 trips to my office, but I don't think there are that many work days left in the year, and I am not currently walking there every single day. This one can only be done if I focus.

Can anyone out there help me with a little motivation? Help would be appreciated...

Rejected!

2011-08-03T18:40:00.000-06:00

The Credit Union I belong to has recently added a service where you can add your own custom image to you debit and credit cards. I have been thinking for a while about what picture I can put on my cards. Over the weekend I had a good idea:

I uploaded this Superman symbol for my debit card. I had to shrink the image a little so I would fit, but the preview of the card looked pretty sweet.

I uploaded this Bizarro symbol for my credit card. I had to blow it up some so it would fit. I liked the contrast there: Superman = Good, Bizarro = Bad. You have two cards in your wallet. Are you more likely to pull out the Superman card or the Bizarro card? (The Superman card, of course.)

Anyway, I was really hoping they would just have some automated system that spit out the card and mailed it out to you. Today I got an email saying that my 'MyCard Design' had been rejected. To quote the email:

Please carefully review the image guidelines below before submitting another photo. NOTE: Downloaded images from the internet are usually copyrighted and will probably be denied. To ensure that your custom card request is approved and processed in a timely manner, please review the following examples of prohibited items

Then they listed about twelve different generic rules about what you can't have on the card. (No naked or half naked people, no copyrighted materials, no people doing illegal activities, no celebrities - such as cartoon characters, no half naked celebrity cartoon characters, etc.) Oh well, it was worth a shot.

No I am left with still not knowing what pictures I want to put on my debit and credit card. (Well, I know which ones I want, I don't know which ones I want that they will actually let me have...) Any ideas?

Multiple Choice Quiz

2011-07-31T18:23:00.002-06:00

Look at the picture above. Then decide which of the following is true:

Someone fed these flowers Gatorade
The dye from these flowers is flowing back into the case
Adam has started potty training

An odd mostly uneventful night...

2011-07-30T00:45:00.002-06:00

Wednesday night I went down to the girl's camp for gate duty. I've been down there other years for pre-camp setup and down for a day of visiting, but this is the first time I went down for gate duty, and wasn't really sure what to expect. Last time I was down there, we stayed in an A frame cabin, I only had a sleeping bag, and slept on the floor. The guy that went down with me snored louder than anyone I ever heard before, which is saying something. I didn't get that much sleep that night, and slept off and on the rest of the next day.

This time, it poured down rain here at home in the hour before I left. The rain set a record. I was worried about being cold and wet, but the camp is about 70 miles South of here. (The weather said it would get down to 47 degrees. I didn't know much about what gate duty entailed, I envisioned sitting in a camp chair at the gate at a campfire, and staying up all night. We kind of heard we would be up all night.

The guy that was supposed to come down with me had to bail, instead of having me find someone else, they got someone to go with me. I didn't know anything about the guy. I ended up borrowing Drew's new truck, (which is nice, by the way) and we headed down.

The guy was a little - I don't know - off, I guess. Maybe I shouldn't say that, but I say a lot of things I shouldn't say. He was kind of squirrelly. He would talk a mile a minute about stuff, and flip topics here and there in mid thought. Then he would decide to read, spend five minutes reading, and eventually start talking like crazy again. All kinds of topics. When we got to the camp, we had about a half hour before going down to the gate, and we visited with the young women. One of them offered my a licorice, I said 'no thanks'. She offered him one, and he went into a several minute monologue about wheat allergies and how licorice has wheat, but no one knows. Later, he told me he needs to learn to just say 'no thanks'...

The caretakers at the camp told us to drive down, close the gate, back the truck up to it, go to sleep, wake up at 6am, and go home and go to work. Not exactly what I was expecting, but it sounded ok to me. We ended up letting a couple of people out, a couple of people in, and generally tried to sleep. At midnight, we had lights shining in our faces, because someone needed to get in.

A little later, the guy that was with me woke up and insisted that there were four guys coming up the road with flashlights. He jumped out of the car and was yelling at them, trying to turn on his little light to see them. He insisted they were there, so I turned on the headlights on the truck. No people. He got back in the truck, and said 'Sorry, sometimes I do that when I am asleep.' I told him if he did it again and ran into the woods, I wouldn't go off searching a five mile radius looking for him. He promised not to. The term may be 'odd duck'.

Anyway, Drew's truck is nice to drive, not so nice to sleep in, but we didn't have too much trouble, and the assignment was way easier that expected. All in all, it could have been much worse.

Some thoughts on food

2011-07-26T20:40:00.002-06:00

I was having lunch with my friend Scott today, we talked about how we both have to rotate different foods in and out of our diets. Then we started reminiscing about our Freshmen year of college, when we lived in the dorms and could eat whatever we wanted three times a day. (Buffet style. The restriction was one plate of food at a time. Not much of a restriction...) And then have ice cream on top of that. (And I ate plenty) Scott was disappointed the day they served jambalaya (he is from New Orleans), and it was not that good. I remember the days they brought in the personal 6 inch pizzas, and I would eat 4 or 5 of then at a time. With fries.

A few days ago I was thinking about all the differing kinds of foods I have eaten in the past. I'm not saying the scope is necessarily the same as others reading this, but I think I've eaten a lot of different stuff, and I've definitely eaten a lot of it...

I am sure my Mom could tell stories about amounts of food she had to make day after day that would frighten the tar out of young couples with small kids. I had four younger brothers, we ate plenty of what she made day after day. (And as far as I remember, as long as it wasn't "green banana soup", we liked just about all of it.) The coneheads had nothing on us when it came to mass quantities. I'm sure it wasn't up to par with families with four future college football players or people like that, but I have seven kids, mostly girls, and I don't think we will reach those kinds of quantities any time soon. Oh, also, if you didn't eat fast, sometimes you didn't get seconds. I always wanted seconds, so I ate fast. My Mom always tried to serve me last, so the other kids got a chance...

When I was 14 or something, I washed dishes at a fancy restaurant down the street from my house. (I think it was called 'Warren's' or something like that, but it's gone now.) Anyway, work consisted of washing pots and pans while watching them cook the entrees, and washing dishes while watching them make the desserts. It all looked really good. The entree chef every day would find something new I hadn't tried to sample. (For example, one day he said "have you ever tried smoked duck?" Then he would slice me off a piece to try. Every day was different.) After the dinner rush was over, the entire crew would sit down and eat a meal together. Something different every night, something in a pot, always really good. I don't remember how much they paid me an hour, but it was always in cash and it was always provided in a small brown envelope. I don't think I made tons of money there, I don't remember exactly how long I worked there, but I think I eventually left for a better paying job.

I worked at a scout camp in the summers, in the kitchen. This had definite food related advantages. We would get up plenty early to get breakfast ready for the scouts, after serving and cleaning, we would eat. For breakfast, I many days would get a box of lucky charms, a big clear bowl, and some milk, and would go to town. Usually this would be associated with people sitting around watching me eat. I think I may have been some sort of side show freak. One time Roger made "Chocolate Fest" for the camp staff. I went to town. I've talked about Cadbury Creme Eggs here before. I am sure there are people out there that have a "John Payne eating at the camp - mass quantity" story...

I worked at Wendy's for a while in High School. I mostly worked nights. If you worked a full eight or ten hour shift, they either gave a steep discount for a meal, or comped a meal, I don't remember which. On full shift days, I would go to town on the salad bar they had there, or get a double combo, depending on my mood. Most of the time, I worked the grill. On nights when I closed, I generally ate a spicy chicken sandwich after the store closed, and then made a "giant fry ball" with the left over fries. That's right. Giant Fry Ball. Multiple nights a week.

I served a mission for my church in San Fernando California. There are people from all over the world in the San Fernando Valley. We ate all kinds of food. The members of the church often liked to feed the missionaries, and they always assumed we were super hungry all the time. This was fine by me. In my first area, we were eating at the home of an Italian family, who made a giant pot of spaghetti. They served us on platters. (Full on platters, heaped with food.) I ate two plates, they wanted me to eat a third. As I was finishing my second plate, my companion was finishing his first plate. They asked me if I wanted more, but I said "No, I think two plates is my limit, but Elder Meier here told me earlier that he was really hungry today, so I am sure he would love a second plate." Elder Meier could barely finish his first serving, and wasn't happy I did that to him... On my mission I had foods from all over the world. At one point I am pretty sure a Philippino family servved me a stew that had dog meat in it.

After my mission, I was enrolled in school, although I spent more time in other endeavors a lot. I had two jobs, one of which was on a framing crew. I estimate I had a 6000 calorie a day diet. A typical day involved going to work at 6:30am, taking a break at 9am to go to the gas station. I usually had a big breakfast burrito with tator babies, a large soda, a candy bar, and some other snack to take back to the site. We would stop for lunch, and go somewhere for a full on lunch. Mid afternoon, back to the gas station for either another soda or a gatorade, an ice cream sandwich or Klondike bar (usually a Klondike bar), a candy bar, and some other snack. After work, a full on dinner. Then sometime at night, some sort of snack or ice cream, or whatever. I burned off every calorie I ate back then.

We used to go to a place called 'Brick Oven' at the end of every semester to take dates, tell stories, and try to eat everyone else under the table. My friend Jonathan would always try to out eat me, but he never could. I would pound it down. One time we went to a place called 'Leatherbee's', that had a 25(?) scoop dish. I ordered one, and talked Jonathan into one. I finished mine about 45 minutes before he finished his. I shivered all night after that.

Then there is all the random stuff I have eaten. If I am hungry enough, I will eat anything. One of the guys at work a few years back had these 72 hour kits that were 15 years old. Every time he went out of town for training or vacation, I would get hungry and think about eating one of them. One day I finally did. It was nasty. One time we had a student that left a burrito in the freezer of our little fridge at work. The student went on a two year mission, and came back to work for us. The little freezer had been frozen over for a long time. He thawed it out, and found his burrito. He let me eat it. It was kind of freezer burnt and was missing some of it's flavor. I added pepper. A few months ago one of my students had a box of wheat thins on his desk. They had been there for a while, and were well past the expiration date. I decided to help him out by eating them for him. They were slightly rancid. It didn't stop me from eating most of the entire box. (The aftertaste was worse than the initial taste. I kept eating to avoid the aftertaste, and I was hungry.) I bought him a new box.

I am sure there are plenty of other stories. Lots of differing foods I have eaten. Plenty of times eating way too much. (Like 24 1/2 large wings at Wingers. The 1/2 wing was because I dropped one in mid-bite...)

These days, I try to do better. My doctor has me rotating in and out things like wheat, gluten, milk, and something that I for some reason can't remember right now. (edit: eggs.) I have been doing this for 2 months now, and feel physically better than I have in years. I try not to go to town quite as often. I mostly sit on my rear end all day long, and don't get tons of exercise. I still don't do very good. Last week, a store around here had 8 pieces of fried chicken for $5. I think I ate the equivalent of an entire chicken. A small chicken. (I like fried chicken...) Today I had a 9 inch Philly cheese steak sandwich with heaped with jalapeno and banana peppers. It was tasty. I did walk 1.5 miles to work this morning. But I also ate a bag of chips and salsa from Cafe Rio while I typed this... Some day I will learn. Or not.

What in the world is going on around here?

2011-07-25T22:27:00.002-06:00

We seem to be attracting random junk around the house. Not that we don't have tons of random junk in the house, but usually we know the source. Lately we have found some random stuff around the house.

For a few weeks about a month ago, we would have a random article of clothing on sidewalk right in front of the house. A sock one day, little boy's shorts another day, a glove, a winter hat, that sort of thing. If I picked up the clothing item, another one would show up the next day. If I left it sitting there, nothing new would appear. It was weird. I asked the neighbors if any of the clothes were theirs, but they disavowed any knowledge of it. I personally think their dogs were getting out and leaving us gifts, but the neighbors would have to acknowledge that their dogs get out...

Last Thursday, when we got home from a baseball game, in our laundry basket by the washing machine, there was a pair of size 4T Fruit of the Loom boys briefs. Now, Adam is not potty trained yet, and we have superhero under roos waiting for him, not white briefs. No idea where these came from and why then. Tara has a theory about them getting mixed in with the kids clothes when her parents were watching them after Noel was born. I personally wonder just what in the world the girls are doing when we are gone from the house...

Today Adam brought me a cassette tape labeled "En Vogue - Funky Divas". Tara disavows any knowledge. I am completely confidant that this is nothing I have ever had in my possession. Seems kind of random. Amazon tells me this was 1992. How did it get in my house, and where did the boy find it?

We have some friends moving tomorrow. They've been packing for something like a week. I'm firmly entrenched in the idea that if we ever move, I will just sell everything we own, not pack anything, and start over. Seems an easier way to go...

Stuff this!

2011-07-20T21:51:00.002-06:00

My kids are clothes stuffers. You give them a pile of clothes, pre-folded and ready to be put away, and guaranteed, the clothes would end up stuffed somewhere. I suppose this is ok, but the dressers we had we $100 Sauder "some assembly required" dressers. The sides are press board, the bottom is a different kind of press board. This is perfectly fine for someone like me. I set clothes in, the drawers open and close, no problems.

For my kids, who can't stop stuffing, the bottom of the drawers inevitably fall out the bottom. The kids end up stuffing more until the drawer one below opens at the same time as the one that is stuffed overfull. For a while, I was taking broken drawers and using a liberal amount of Gorilla Glue to the drawer to hold it together. This generally works well until they stuff and break the bottom by breaking one of the sides of the drawer. That usually ends the life of that drawer.

With the baby coming, we needed another dresser. I had a plan to build a 'stuff proof' dresser, over engineering the thing to handle any amount of clothes they could try to throw at it. I had a definite design in my head, and I figured that I could make the sides of the dresser a little bit different for each dresser that I made. I planned to put a little bookshelf on top of the dresser with a couple of shelves for the girls to put books on.

At the end of May, I got side tracked by a project down the street. By the time that project was done, I didn't have time to make a dresser. Tara and I spent some time going to different stores looking to find a dresser to purchase, even if it meant the same kind of dresser we already had. We couldn't find any. Most 'some assembly required' dressers these days are only 3 1/2 feet tall, with three drawers in them. Not what we were looking for. Pre-built dressers were the same size, but three times the cost.

After wandering around for a week trying to find something, I had an idea. I got metal shelving, and some laundry baskets, and made a makeshift dresser. It's nice and tall, and has tons of space. The kids can generally see the clothes, which is nice for them, and as you can see from the picture above, they continue to stuff, but it doesn't matter. (The clothes in these baskets was nicely folded and put away two weeks ago, but it doesn't take long to end up all over the place, I guess.) They can stuff these as much as they want, I don't see them breaking the baskets any time soon. Each shelf is rated for 350 pounds, so they can stuff full of chain mail if they want, and it still should be fine.

I liked the thing enough to make four of these. We found the baskets at Walmart. We cleaned out three different Walmarts here in the valley of this type of basket, and still needed about 6 more. A week later, one of them had 4 of them. I took them. Then another had 10 of them, I only bought two. I took secret pleasure in screwing up Walmart's inventory system around here by creating a one man run on the product, then having Walmart over stock the things, and I won't be buying any more. (I bought 16 of them in total.) Now, any time I go to Walmart in the next two months, I plan to walk by the laundry baskets, and if they have 8-10 of these on the shelf, I will just laugh to myself.

I gave Drew three old dressers with the remaining drawers. Hopefully he was able to build one good one, and hopefully his kids are not stuffers...

The calmest baby in the world

2011-07-19T22:58:00.003-06:00

Noel is now 2 weeks old. She had a checkup today, and has just about regained her birth weight. She has also grown nearly 2 inches. (I've been telling people that she eats like a Payne...)

If you look carefully at this picture, you can see that she also has a heat vision power, like some of her sisters before her...

She seems to tolerate noise fairly well. I think the volume level in the house went down for the first week, but went back to 'normal' since. Some of Noel's siblings just don't have a volume control on them. Or a mute button.

She likes to sleep on her side. She also likes to kick her blankets off. Maybe she just gets too hot. If she can, she will wedge herself against one of the sides of whatever she is laying on. In general, she's a really calm baby. We hardly hear a peep out of her, unless she is hungry or bored. She also has a slow burn. Having said that, last week she gave me a look that I know I have given other people before. The look of "don't you dare bother me." I backed off...

We will try to remember to take some pictures here and there. No promises.

Book Review

2011-07-06T16:29:00.005-06:00

Called of God by Prophecy
Dennis Horne

In the church, we belief that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.

This book addresses this topic, giving lots of examples in the history of the church, in explaining the topic. Now, usually in the past when I have come across a church book that gives so many stories about things like this, I tend to not like them so much, because usually they just leave the stories there, and have no narrative. The stories are not there for any good reason than to be there. In this book however, the author is explaining points about being called of God, and has a narrative in the chapters of the book. He uses a lot of little stories, but these are there to reinforce points in the book, and he does it in a way that becomes faith promoting, rather than just being sensationalistic.

I like this book, the author does a very good job in explaining the topic. Being one that has both received and extended callings in the church, it was a good reminder that at all times, we try to receive revelation through the Spirit before calls in the church are extended to people. As a result, we can move forward with faith and confidence in the church when we accept calls and extend them, knowing that the revelation has occurred first. It's been a good thing for my in the past year in the Bishopric of the ward to extend these callings, praying about them first as a Bishopric, and proceeding from there. I also have enjoyed seeing people that may have been hesitant at first to accept a calling, going ahead and trying, and really coming to enjoy the calls that were extended.

Anyway, this book is a really good treatment of the fact that in the church, we are called of God. Those in a position to extend calls would do well to read this book.

No Comment

2011-07-05T13:09:00.002-06:00

Also known as "What in the world is this man telling me?"

Like taking candy from a baby

2011-07-04T19:31:00.003-06:00

When Ruth was born, we started a tradition of giving out candy bars at the hospital, work, etc in the week of the kids birth. We should have thought of it several kids sooner, I kind of like it...

Anyway, with Ruth, we gave out Baby Ruth candy bars. I thought this was completely appropriate. Lily was our fifth, we handed out Take Five candy bars, and said "Take Five, please..." With Adam, being the first boy, we handed out Whatchamacallit candy bars, because that kid came with a whatchamacallit. (Maybe less than completely appropriate, but I thought it was funny.) With Noel, I was planning on getting Good and Plenty candies, because the kids are general good, and now we have plenty of them. Since Noel was so insistent on being born on July 4th, I ended up getting Red, White, and Blue salt water taffies. (mint flavored.)

We have a lot of them. We need people to come take some, so Adam doesn't eat them all. I think he ate a dozen of them in a half hour. Holding Noel was nice, but he would rather eat candy. When I took them back to the car after their visit today, he was ticked off that he didn't have any more candy. I anticipated this, and had one in my pocket just for him. If we take all this candy home and don't hide it, that is all he would eat for a week...

Noel Carolyn Payne

2011-07-04T02:58:00.004-06:00

Born 2:03AM - 4 July 2011

8 pounds 8 ounces
20 inches

The baby seemed determined to be born on the 4th. She did everything she could to delay, then got down to business after midnight. Things seem to be going fine at this point...

Yet another insurance story...

2011-07-02T18:34:00.002-06:00

I use a BiPAP at night. (Kind of like a CPAP, but two pressures.) For a couple of years, I had a company sending me supplies in the mail, and I started getting quite a stock pile. After a while I tried getting them to back off on the shipments, to mixed results. I finally got them to stop sending for good at the beginning of the year. I will start getting supplies when I need them again, I suppose.

But I won't use the same company. Their parent company is a company called 'Rotech". I don't know much about them, but I know they do the billing for the local company that was providing the supplies. They have been kind of sketchy about getting things billed on time, however. In the beginning of 2010, they started catching up. I figured everything was done, until the end of last year, when they billed me for two shipments of 6 air filters. (at $240 for each shipment.)

Something went wrong when they billed insurance, insurance rejected the bill. Three times. Then the company decided to go ahead and bill me for the 'Allowed amount' - $336 - for three air filters. It looks like something you would stick in your vacuum, that you can get from the store - $5 for three of them. I think there is a pretty big markup, just because they are 'medical supplies'. Maybe that's what really is wrong with health care in this country...

Anyway, I wasn't paying that. I have more than 12 of these in my box of supplies, and was perfectly willing to send them back. I decided to fight the parent company first. In January, I talked to them, and convinced them to rebill the thing, hoping this would work. It didn't, the insurance company rejected again.

In March, I spent the better part of a day calling the company, the insurance company, back and forth over and over trying to get the story straight. The insurance company wanted them to verify the dates of service and quantity. Rotech said "huh?" I talked to a supervisor. They indicated that they would do it, and rebill. Then I started calling once a week, asking them why I haven't seen the billing go through yet. They assured me that it was in process. Since then I have gotten two bills requesting the $336. I called at those times as well, they told me to just ignore it, the billing is still in process.

I am not sure why it took them another four months to get around to it, but yesterday I got an email from my insurance that the claim was processed. Not only was it processed, but they paid out on it. It's like a miracle! An insurance miracle! Anyway, the patient responsibility portion of the bill was $21.35. That's about what you would pay for the vacuum filters if you got twelve of them, I find that kind of interesting. If I thought I could get away with it, I would strongly consider paying with loose change, mostly pennies. All in all, I think I "won".

I missed work that afternoon back in March to call over and over, but it saved me over 300 dollars, so I suppose it was worth it. I also won't use a medical supply company again that has Rotech as a parent company, if I can get away with it, just so you know...

A new swing

2011-06-30T17:21:00.005-06:00

This is a piece of log, like several pieces of log, carved off a bench that I will get around to finishing someday. (Maybe this summer!) The bench project was paused after I burned out my belt sander (this has since been fixed), and I used a grinder for one or two days that I decided was too dangerous to continue using. I have several pieces of log like this, so I should be able to make more of these swings for the front yard.

Sanding the swing down left it with some interesting waves in the bench. You can sort of see them in this picture. The bottom was not sanded or shaved down in any way, I wanted to make it look kind of natural, like a swing you would find out in the woods somewhere. (Made by a bear, I guess.) You can't see the lag bolts I put in from the back to close up the cracks in the wood... (I'm pretty sure a bear wouldn't use lag bolts. That's how you can distinguish between the work of a bear and me...)

After sanding it down, I decided that a little bit of stain would make the swing bench look really nice. I had some sitting around, and since I wasn't looking for any particular color, one coat took care of it.

On June 4th, I had gotten to the point that the swing was ready to hang. I had planned to take care of it sometime the next week, but I got side tracked working on a house a few doors down.

My friend Chad, who is feeling lots better these days, came over this afternoon to help me hang the swing. He has had plenty of experience, knowing just what to do to not have to use the ladder... You can see the girls were happy to try it out.

Sometime later in the summer, I will make a couple of more swings for the tree, so this one is not lonely. I need to ponder improvements to the design first...

Preparing for the baby

2011-06-30T15:16:00.003-06:00

T minus 3 days...

We plan to use the old crib, at least for a few months. (We have used it for all the kids, I think. Not completely sure.) It has been white, it was painted blue for Adam, and I think it was briefly pink, although I have a hard time remembering what in the house has been pink over the years. (And I didn't see pink while scraping and sanding, so I may be wrong about that.)

We picked yellow. I am not completely sure that it's fully yellow, it's yellow as far as my colorblind eye can see. It may be yellow with patches of green. We'll see...

Dear InterMountain Health Care...

2011-06-24T21:15:00.002-06:00

Tara got a call from someone in the collections department from IHC today. The lady was insistent that Tara needed to pay part or all of her $40 bill today, or risk being sent off to collections. Tara didn't let the lady bully her. (Good for her...) She asked when the bill was from, and at first the lady was saying something about late May. Then Tara lit into her about turning something over to collections right away after it cleared insurance. The lady backed off and said it was something from late March, and still wanted the money right away, because they had sent three bills and hadn't heard from us at all. Tara then explained that we paid a large chunk at the end of April, and a chunk at the end of May, and they would get more money on Thursday, after we get paid. Tara had to explain that we paid online. The billing lady had to go look it up, and low and behold, we had been paying them money! Shocker! Good for Tara. The lady should just be glad that Tara didn't just have them call my cell phone. I would have played bad cop.

Listen up IHC people: I paid online because I didn't want to have to deal with you people. It's bad enough that you are billing things under three different accounts. Tara has been over there every week for months, and she's having a baby next week. We get bills from you constantly, in differing states - just billed, off to insurance, and finally "patient's responsibility". When they get to the state of "patient responsibility", the bill goes in the file with all the other bills to pay at the end of the month.

Additionally, your online bill payment site poorly designed. I log in, I can see the three accounts, but right this very minute, two of the accounts show the balance for "Patient Responsibility", which I know about and am ready to pay, and the third has a large balance and just says "pending insurance". You have little 'information' buttons, but they don't seem to work, so it's hard to see if the third balance is the one that has the $40 on it or not. Too bad for you, but I am not paying money against that third account while it says that. I will wait for the insurance to post, and pay then. If it doesn't happen before the end of this month, you will have to wait until July to get your $40. (In the meantime, I will feel free to pay down the other two accounts, since those appear to post against things I have seen come through insurance recently.) Now, you may say, "but sir, if you are keeping those bills in the file, can't you just pay the money?" I am pretty sure there is an outside chance of me reacting badly to that question, since we are already giving you people a portion of our monthly income...

P.S. If you have problems with this, call my cell. I gave the number to you the last time I made a payment. I would be glad to talk to you about your little problem, and have some suggestions as to what you can do with your online payment website.

My current project

2011-06-15T22:26:00.000-06:00

My friend hurt himself pretty badly last week, and has his left hand in a cast. He was working on the house pictured here when he did it, and was only about 10% into the project. He's not able to work for a while. (He was given a 20% chance to keep his thumb a week ago. It was upgraded to a 85% chance today.)

I've been spending Saturday and weekday afternoons working on the project for him. We've got people from the ward helping. Here is a picture of what we got done today. Trim on one side of the house, and several rows of siding. Not pictured, but finished was also a lot of sheeting and tar paper. The house is finally closed up, and ready for shingles all the way around it.

If you are looking for me, I am down the street. Listen for the construction noises on my street. I might be busy for a while longer, and won't have time to post here...

Happy Birthday, Adam

2011-06-13T21:46:00.003-06:00

Today was Adam's birthday. For some reason, he seemed to think it was hilarious for people to sing "Happy Birthday" to him. We missed the expression on his face when he opened the present that had the Diego tshirt in it, but he was very excited about it. If you ask him what else he wants for his birthday, he says a "doggie pillow pet". We have not been able to find any doggie pillow pets...

The other thing he really wants is cake and ice cream. The kid catches on fast. We got him some cake and ice cream, and after, went to the creamery to get some balloons. We got enough for him and the girls, and as I was putting the balloons in the car, I tried buckling them in the seatbelt, and the flew away. Adam still had his, but he seemed a bit shocked about the ones flying off into the clouds.

It reminded me of the time that we went to the Children's Hospital employee picnic, which was a gigantic thing, at least it seemed to me. (I must have been somewhere in the range of 6-10, I suppose.) At the end, we had balloons. It was a hot car, my dad was driving, and the windows were opened. We were told to hold our balloons, but I let mine go, and it immediately floated up right in front of my Dad's view. He was able to bat the thing out the window and kept driving. I watched the thing float away as we drove away...

Today was sort of like that, except that I was not in the driver's seat then, the van wasn't moving, and it was 5 balloons, not 1 balloon. Also, having been a driver all these years, and having the occasional 'distracted driver' problem, I think my Dad took the balloon in the line of vision problem really, really well.

Late Spring project

2011-06-10T22:30:00.004-06:00

The temperature out there is in the mid 70's, heading into the 80's. So naturally, it's a good time to make a scarf, right? I tried a different pattern this time around.

So maybe it's not the right time of year for scarves. Tara tells me that I need to make Kate a purse still, Kate feels a strong injustice at not having one. That's funny, she's never told me that. (I don't really remember why she didn't get a purse, I assume it had something to do with a hand injury, or some sort of attention disorder...

Anyway, this scarf turned out ok, I guess. It's been a while since I made a single color one, and I stopped before this one was big enough to cover a small South Pacific island.

All my problems are melting away...

2011-06-09T08:35:00.004-06:00

Last night at 6:45pm, I had a number of things wrong:

Tara was 20 miles away with all the kids, a cousin, her Mom, and a dead van
I was supposed to be at the church helping the Young Women get connected to the internet there
I was still at work staring at a Netware cluster that no longer wanted to function

I called Tara's Dad to see if he could get up there and shuttle some kinds down to his house. I called the Young Women's leader to tell her I wasn't going to make it, and talked her through it one more time. We had three of us at work, one at home, and on the phone on vacation in Las Vegas.

I also arraigned to get a minivan to take up to get Tara, and was waiting my brother Tom to make it up to my office to pick me up. Tara called her sister, by the time Tom got up to my office, Tara's brother-in-law had gotten there, jump started the van, and they were ready to come home. This mornign I took the thing down to Autozone, the battery tested fully charged and good. Looks like they just drained the battery. Problem #1 fixed, I think. I also think I owe Tom and Corey a lunch...

The young women were having problems connecting to the wireless at church. We have the access point not broadcasting. They only had one of eight laptops connecting properly. I had them move to a room closer to the access point, and eventually found someone that could go down there and try to help them. I don't know how successful he was, or what really happened after that, but they didn't call back, and the activity was over before I got home, so for now, I am just assuming things went ok.

We beat our heads on the work problem until 9pm or so, to no avail. We should have been off the Netware cluster a while back. We don't have a support contract, I'm not convinced that Novell really wants to support people anymore. (They outsourced their "per incident" support service.) At about 9pm, the guy in Vegas decided he was the best person to open the call, and we decided to let him. I told him to call me if he needed help, one of the other guys planned to be at work at 6:30am to take over if needed. This guy stayed up all night, and got the problem fixed at 6am. (Outside of the service call he made. $1000 for nothing, essentially.) I woke up at 7am, and found the the problem had been fixed.

So, three problems last night, all fixed, that I didn't directly resolve. I like the ones that get fixed for me. I fully expect to walk out the door in a couple of hours and find a new truck sitting in the driveway, waiting for me... I am also seriously considering writing an epistle for work about "IT Brittleness", where I talk about how running services on outdated hardware, old Operating Systems, poor applications, or lack of redundancy causes outages to last longer and take more effort to fix, but that's a story for another day...

Wardrobe malfunction

2011-06-05T20:44:00.002-06:00

I've been thinking about shirts today. And pants. White dress shirts, and suit pants. Here's the problem: When I wear my suit pants, I always feel like they are bout the fall down to my ankles when I get up from sitting. White shirts never seem to fit quite right, I have a couple that refuse to stay fully buttoned. Both of these can be a problem when you are trying to limit your 'exposure'...

I don't know why I have such problems with my suit pants. I wear belts, but I must just stand up funny or something. Up I go, and I feel the irresistible pull of gravity tugging on the pant legs. I guess I should be wearing suspenders or something. I can have the pants cinched tight, the feeling doesn't escape.

I have three kinds of white shirts. The first fits very nicely everywhere but the arms. The arms on that shirt are too short. The shirt tails are nice and long, the shirt stays tucked in at all times, which is a plus when you think your pants are going to fall down. I wore the collar on this shirt out, because I had worn it so much. It was really nice when I didn't wear suits to church all the time, I would just roll the sleeves up, and off I would go. The only other drawback to this shirt is that it was a little thicker fabric or something, when I wear it with a suit coat, my insides melt from the broiler that is generated. I would get more of this kind of shirt, if the shirt wasn't so hot to wear.

I have another kind of shirt, that it lighter weight, and pretty much fits everywhere, except for the fact that I think they ended the shirt one button short at the bottom. I am always having the bottom button come undone. Combine that which a belt that is cinched up to avoid a pantsing, and the shirt starts moving around in various directions. No one really wants to see my belly. I think this is the main reason ties wear invented. Men started wearing them so you can't see that one of their shirt buttons have come undone. That's why people look uncomfortable in a tuxedo. Sure, you have a cumber bun on that helps with the pants problem, but right there, out in the open to the world are your shirt buttons.

The third kind of shirt I have is slightly narrow in the neck, and a little too short on me. The buttons stay buttoned, but the bottom of the shirt gets exposed when the pants do their thing. Maybe I need longer shirts or something. Like the kind that go down to your kneecaps. I am always wanting to unbutton the top button on this shirt.

There you go. Your "too much information" quota for the day. Maybe I should just suck it up and go shopping, of all things, for new shirts. And some suspenders. I don't even know where most of these shirts came from. Tara has the unenviable task of trying to buy me normal clothes from time to time. Maybe I shouldn't complain until I have walked a mile in her shopping moccasins...

I can see Adam being the exact same way as me some day. He does want to wear his church clothes one minute more than he has to. He gets home from church, and is immediately ready for someone to help him get the clothes off. Today Tara rolled his sleeves up on his shirt, he seemed to like that pretty well.

Man Cave

2011-06-01T09:58:00.000-06:00

We watching the movie "Red" on Monday night. Since then, I have been thinking about the possibilities for digging out underneath my carport and shed, and making myself a workspace. Then I can get a shell of some car somewhere, and use the front of the car as the entrance to the workspace. It can just sit in the driveway, looking like it was supposed to be there.

The house can just be a decoy...

Book Review

2011-05-31T21:30:00.004-06:00

A Journey
My Political Life

Tony Blair

I don't know much about British politics. If asked, I could name Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and Tony Blair as recent Prime Ministers, but before reading this book, I wouldn't have had a clue as to the names of the current Prime Minister and his predecessor.

This book took me an embarrassingly long time to read. Maybe it was because the first two chapters talk about British politics in a way that if you are an outsider to how things worked, you had to focus to figure out what he was talking about. Or maybe it's just a reflection on my American way of talking, thinking, etc. Whatever. I eventually figured out what was going on, and the story kept going anyhow.

Anyway, Tony Blair was Britan's leader during many of the major events in recent world history. He was Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007. Some of the memorable events during he tenure include: The death of Princess Diana, Kosovo, 9/11, Iraq II & Afghanistan, peace with Northern Ireland, and others. Lots of recent history.

I remember him most for standing by America after 9/11, even when others didn't want to. I thought his observations and recollections on things like Iraq were very interesting. And it's true that he stuck with it, even when it wasn't necessarily the popular thing to do. He still believes in using hard force when necessary, and using diplomacy when that tactic is more appropriate. Once the book got going, the stories he told were very interesting. I feel like I know lots more about what happened in England during the recent past, the last three years excepting...

The book wasn't just about British international relations during Tony Blair's tenure. He also pushed lots of domestic reform over his years in office, which were also interesting to read about. It sounds like the media hated him by the end of his time in office, so I guess that's a reason to like him, right?

Anyway, one of the things he talked about that I thought was interesting involved his feelings towards building peace in the world. Basically he believes that we need to understand people of other faiths, not just fear them or distrust them on principle. When we start to understand the way they think, it becomes easier to understand their point of view, and you can work towards peace. Many times, extremism from a small minority is the driving believe that is presented, which can be damaging.

It's a very large book, not one to try to rip through solely on a Saturday afternoon, but it's interesting, and provides lots of insights to British and International events over the past 14 years, give or take.

Annual Dance Festival

2011-05-29T14:37:00.003-06:00

Friday was the last day of school for the kids. The teachers gave up teaching several weeks ago, for some of the kids, as far as I can tell... Since it's the annual dance festival, it's time for the annual "John takes blurry pictures of the kids in the dance festival." The grades do the same dance every year. (Kindergarten in the Jello dance, 6th grade does the maypole, etc.)

Ruth really enjoyed being in the Jello dance this year.

Emma was in the hat dance. Not sure what to call it, really.

Mary did the pole thing. I just call it the pole thing. She enjoyed it, as you can clearly see. (Or mostly clearly.)

Kate was in the silly little island dance. If you zoom in on the picture, you can see the expression on her face. This is the expression she used the whole time. Clearly she did not want to be there. I asked her later, she said she didn't like that one. She must get her love of dance from her father...

Next year, I expect to have a phone with a better camera. (Mine is due for replacement this Winter.) Maybe we will get less blurry pictures next year.

Civil Disobedience

2011-05-28T23:04:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was the last day of school for the kids. I try not to get too involved, mostly so that I don't:

Demotivate the kids when it comes to school
Say something at the school that Tara would regret me saying

Anyway, that being said, the elementary school here is a pretty good one. they do have a few quirks, however:

Flag Corp - The raise and lower the flag everyday. I find this a worthwhile effort, but their way of getting it done is kind of odd. They have the kids march in a sort of half step march, all in synch. People are supposed to stand aside when they come by. Yesterday at the school, they spent plenty of time over the PA trying to get parents to stop and reflect the flag, or the flag corp, I'm not sure really which. They said "At the school, we stop moving for the flag." To which in my head, I thought "But what about not talking?" I may have said that to Tara...
Talking heads - The principal likes to talk. We have a choir concert, the principal has to say something. During the dance festival at the end of the year, (blurry pictures tomorrow...) she gets others to join in with her. They keep going and going. Just get to the dancing already, so we can take the kids home! Do all school principals have to always talk all the time?
Tardies - My kids eat breakfast at the school. Last year, they had a hard time getting to their class in time to start the day. Emma doesn't eat as it is, I would tell her to not worry about being late, just focus on her breakfast. Last year we got a threatening letter about their tardies. My initial reaction was to demand to know what exactly the school thought they were missing in the first five minutes of the day. Get an accounting of all the teaching moments each class does in those first five minutes. Tara had me ignore the thing...

Anyway, that's all I can think of off the top of my head, I am sure there are others. Today at the dance festival, I saw something I thought was fantastic. The thing ended, and some of the classes started to leave. They got on the PA, and said something to the effect of "Teachers, we are not done yet. Please remain here while we finish up, sing the school song, and then have flag corp." Tara and I were leaving at that point, and they starting singing the school song. I didn't know the school had their own song.

As we were leaving, there was the second grade, all carrying their chairs away while singing the school song. They didn't care that they were supposed to sit still, they were done. School was over for the year, it was time to go. Priceless civil disobedience...

Atlanta Marriott Marquis

2011-05-28T20:32:00.002-06:00

I stayed at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta. It has something like 47 floors. When I checked in, they asked me if I wanted to have a room on the upper tier or the lower tier. I picked lower tier, and was on floor four. I figured if there was an emergency, I wouldn't want to be walking down 40 flights of stairs to get out of the hotel.

There was no emergency.

Still here

2011-05-27T22:42:00.003-06:00

One of my friends has been complaining this week about the silence around here lately. Guess it's time to get back to it... Here are some details around some recent tweets:

{May 9} Today required heavy editing, but I think it managed to maintain it's 'G' rating...

Some days needs editing. Some days I need editing. Some days I need heavy editing. Every once in a while, I just throw up a firewall, and don't say anything. It comes and goes.

{May 9} Just nuked my calendar to get rid of a set of broken reoccurring events. If I forget your birthday or whatever, I blame @googlecalendar :)

When I converted from using Outlook/Exchange for email and calendar a few years ago, a pile of reoccuring meetings ended up coming into my Google calendar as reoccuring, with no end date, but detached from each other, so you couldn't just delete the series, but you had to delete them one at a time. I had a couple that were duplicates of the same meeting as well. I've been deleting them one by one when they annoyed me enough. On the 9th, it annoyed me to no end. I deleted a bunch of the duplicates, trying to figure out if they were deleting somewhere in the future, somewhere in the past, or something. No dice. I ended up completely wiping out my calendar to get rid of those silly calendar items. It worked, and I mostly got my calendar back together, I think. It's definitely much cleaner.

{May 10} May 2 - DHL was given two large boxes to ship back to HP. DHL just called, they still don't know what to do with them. #notakebacks

I talked about a support experience with HP last month. I thought that was the end of it. HP scheduled to have a DHL courier come out with the parts, and take the bad parts away. I was sick in bed the day this was supposed to happen, but the courier was an old guy in a beat up van. He took the parts away, and for tow weeks, DHL couldn't really figure out first, where the boxes went, then second, what to do with the boxes, and then finally, how many boxes we actually gave them. I talked to them last week, and convinced them that I sent two boxes back, not three, and they should just get them back to HP. I half expect to hear back from DHL again next week on this, a full month after they took the boxes away...

{May 12} Woke up this morning with the "Sanford and Son" theme running in my head. I'm not sure why...

"I'm coming Elizabeth!" - my favorite part of the second Shrek movie.

{May 14} I am seriously considering giving up Cheetos for good...

Cheetos make a mess. Cheesy fingers, you eat too many, and they give you a gut ache. I ate too many that day. Haven't had any since. We just bought a bag today, we'll see what happens...

{May 16} Keynotes at conferences are a lot like infomercials. "You get not 1, not 2, but 4! All in your private cloud! Order now!" #msteched

The best 'keynote' I attended at a conference was with the Mythbusters. Normally they grate against me in some way. I will never attend one again without thinking about infomericals. Anyone who has been at a technology conference and attended a keynote address should know what I'm talking about.

{Sample of tons from last week} Guy on the escalator was annoyed that I did not walk down, but stood there. Stairs are to the left, buddy. My ankle hurts... #MSTechEd

I went to this year's Microsoft TechEd conference last week. There were some interesting sessions there. The conference was held in Atlanta Georgia, in the big conference center down there. I had been to an HP conference there a few years back, if I'm remembering right. I had forgotten how much walking was required in that convention center. I estimate I walked 2-4 miles a day down there. (May not sound like a lot to you, but it's a lot for me right now.) Since then? Nothing. The conference had a twitter contest, where supposedly someone would win a prize for the best tweets. I have no idea if anyone won anything.

{May 20} As is my tradition, my old toothbrush is being left behind at the hotel. Someday my DNA will be harvested because of this habit...

No one finds this weird, right?

{May 24} If there is no response to the note I wrote to one of the kid's teachers this morning - I will be secretly disappointed... #grumpyparent

I lashed out at 'behavior cards' again this week. I wrote on the card something to the effect of "Can we please stop doing these things now? If the answer is no, I have stronger feelings about these behavior cards." I don't know what Mary's teachers said about those things, but it made Mary crazy if she ever forgot the thing on a school day. There was no response to the note, but the cards stopped coming home. I like to think I won, but Tara believes they stopped because Mary's teacher had a baby that morning. Whatever, I'm just happy to be done with the school for the year. (Today was the last day of school here.)

{May 26} Feel asleep on the ouch tonight. Now I feel like I folded in half - the long way...

Someday we will replace our couches with new ones that are very comfortable to sleep on. The risk there is falling asleep on the couch, staying there all night, and not making it to the bed. The good thing about our current couch is you fall asleep on it, and wake up with weird aches and pains. Sleep all night on them, and they make you pay.

{May 26} less than two hours left to claim the play tickets before I randomly give them away. Who wants them?

We had tickets to "Dairy of Anne Frank". We had other plans. I took the tickets over to the theater to give them away. Not lots of people going in to see the play. Tried giving them to a young couple, but they had tickets at the will call. A lady and her daughter were near there, and said they wanted them. Hope they enjoyed it.

{Today} Why is it that when I eat rotissery chicken, the C*H*I*P*S theme starts in my head? Weird repressed memory? Or jumbled associations?

I have no idea what this was about. Just the way I am sometimes, I guess.

Restaurant Review

2011-05-18T17:54:00.002-06:00

Mama Ninfa's Mexican Restaurant
Atlanta, Georgia

This evening I waked over to the Hard Rock Cafe, but when I got there, they were closed for a private party. And I wasn't the private party they were closed for. Half way back the block was a little Mexican restaurant with a couple of little old ladies trying to give people menus. I went back to the Mexican restaurant.

It was really good. The staff was friendly, the service was very fast, and the food was good. I had their beef fajitas.

Long story short - The food was good, it didn't cost too much, and I'm full. If you are in downtown Atlanta, looking for Mexican food, I suggest Mama Ninfa's. Much better than Jalapeno Charlie's...

Night at the ballpark

2011-05-16T20:41:00.003-06:00

I try to make it a rule to go to a baseball game in any major league city I visit during the warm months. (Doesn't always work, but I try to make it a rule.) I am in Atlanta, (in case you couldn't tell) and got a chance to take in a ball game tonight.

It is a bit on the cool side for Atlanta in mid-May right now, today's high was around 60, during the game it was in the mid-50's, with the wind blowing. Ok for me, but I guess not so much for many of the natives, the stadium was only a quarter to a third full. (Side note: I estimated that the place held 25,000 people, but Wikipedia says 50,000. That either shows how poorly I estimate, or how badly Wikipedia can be off sometimes. It also means I may have guessed wrong on the number of bears in the car at the conference today...)

I paid $6.50 for my ticket, which ended up being on the upper portion of the bottom tier, along the first base line. I could have sat way down in front, there were so few people there, but I figured the upper deck provided some wind block, the few was great, so I kept myself planted. I had a ball park dog and fries for dinner, the lady in front of me gave me some of their peanuts. ($6.50 for a bag of peanuts. She was saying the exact same bag was $2 at Walmart, then she pulled one out of her handbag. A classic case of smuggling contraband into the ballpark. And now I'm complicit to the crime, since she shared...)

MLB has a smart phone app, where you can 'check in' while you are at the park. They had a promotion going at Turner field, now through the middle of June, if you check in at the park, you can get a free Braves hat. (One per phone for the duration of the promotion, some restrictions apply.) It's not the greatest quality ball cap in the world, but it's perfect for one of the kids...

We walked down to the ballpark shuttle, it was $2 for the trip down there, and really was a good way to get to the ball park. On the way back, I think someone tried to pick pocket me, but they hit the wrong pocket, and came away with nothing. (Also, my money and cards were in my inside jacket pocket, so they wouldn't have gotten anything of value, besides my temple recommend...)

All in all, it was a fun night. The conference had their Expo reception, the game was much better than watching a bunch of tech guys drink, and wandering around eating too much food. The Braves won the game, 3-2, over the Houston Astros. Their closer came out in the 9th inning, and was throwing 95-98 MPH fastballs. 98 MPH is noticeably different than 85 MPH. How does anyone hit something going that fast?

This was actually my second trip to Turner field. I don't remember who they played last time I was here, I just remember that it had rained just before the game started, and there was this fog over, around, and through the whole stadium...

Book review

2011-05-15T19:42:00.003-06:00

Hope in Our Hearts
Russell M Nelson

This book is a collection of talks from Elder Nelson over the years, on the three general topics of 'Relationships and Family', 'Doctrines of the Kingdom', and 'Personal Growth'. A couple of the talks I remembered, at least generally, but most I didn't. In the introduction, Elder Nelson says that everyone encounters challenges and frustrations in life, but faithful people can be produced by 'continuous consistency in keeping the commandments of God'. I think that was kind of a theme in all the talks in the book. It was an interesting and inspirational book.

Restaurant Review

2011-05-15T19:29:00.002-06:00

Jalapeno Charlie's
Atlanta Georgia

Tonight we decided to catch a restaurant close by the hotel, so we could get in before things got too busy around here tonight. We picked a Mexican place called "Jalapeno Charlie's". Actually, they said they were 'Latin Mexican Fusion', whatever that means.

I got the blackened fish tacos. They were ok, I would put them several notches above the fish tacos at Los Hermanos back home, but I might put them with on par or a notch below the crispy fish taco at Del Taco... I'm not sure what I expected. It was like they took a piece of fish, fried it in oil/butter, blackened it, and slapped it in a flour tortilla. Maybe I expect cabbage in my fish tacos, or something. I wasn't super impressed, but I didn't spend ten dollars on it, in downtown Atlanta, so I guess that's ok. Better than spending twice as much, and being disappointed all around...

After we left, I figured out the fusion part of the restaurant. That's when the food fuses to your sternum for a while afterwards. There was also something with sugar in it, I could feel it afterwards, and likely will wake up in the morning pretty sore, which is not a great start to a week on the road.

I would like to get some fried chicken while I am here. Jim wants to go to a German restaurant. Anyone else have other suggestions?

Perfect Squares

2011-05-03T17:52:00.002-06:00

This month I turn 36. 36 is an interesting number. It's a perfect square 6x6=36. It's also the product of two perfect squares, 9 (3x3) and 4 (2x2). 9 x 4 = 36.

The last time this happened was when I turned 16. The next time it will happen is when I turn 81. Seems to be a reason to celebrate 36, I would say. But then you would say that I'm a nerd...

Tara asked what I wanted for my birthday. I told her anything was fine, as long as it was square.

I am glad tomorrow is May...

2011-04-30T17:56:00.002-06:00

Last night it started snowing. I don't know why, I assume it was some sort of cruel joke, really. The above picture was from today about noon, most of it had melted. I think it's all gone now, I have been avoiding looking at it. I hope the below forecast holds true, because next weekend looks like it might be really nice. I think it will be time to plant tomatoes on Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm thinking today was "Winter's Last Stand"

Guy's night out

2011-04-28T21:19:00.003-06:00

Tonight Adam and I went out for a "guy's night out". We started by getting a drink at the Chevron, and Adam got his very first Hostess Pudding Pie.

{Parenthetical commentary - When I was a kid, one of my paper routes had a Wonder Thrift Store at the end of the street. I used to get a Hostess Pudding pie or Hostess fruit pie almost every day. Occasionally I would mix it up a bit and get one of those giant marshmallow snowball things. Other times I would get a bag of chips to eat while I delivered papers. It's no wonder I never made a dime on that paper route.}

Anyway, I asked Adam what he wanted to do after the Chevron stop, he said "Go home and play in the back yard." I suggested the NickelCade instead. I don't know if they have these all over the country, but here we have this place where you pay $2.25 to get in, and they have arcades, claw machines, skee ball, and ticket machines that are anywhere from one nickel to four nickels to play. $2.25 for admission and 10 cents a game of skee ball can make for a pretty good deal.

I introduced Adam to Crusin' World, Super Mario, Mrs. Pac Man, Galaga, and a couple of other games. We played skee ball about 10 times, he liked handing me the balls. We also played the claw machine a bit and got him a stuffed animal out of it.

Adam seemed to enjoy putting the nickels in the machines. Hopefully this doesn't mean that I will find a whole pile of change in a CD player sometime soon. Towards the end, we hit a 100 ticket jackpot on a little game, and ended up with 205 tickets. Adam got two handfuls of little prizes to go with the stuffed animal that I got out of the claw machine.

Superpower - Flight

2011-04-22T08:19:00.000-06:00

Adam is all boy. This has happened in a house full of girls. He has several pairs of Superman pajamas. One has a cape.

Every couple of days, he comes and finds me, and asks me to find his cape for him, so he can fly. This is interesting to me, I ask him where he wants to fly to. Every time he has a different place: to church, to Anson's house, to the store...

I remember back when we lived in the house on Villa in Buffalo, it had windows in the living room that were smaller, and a little higher on the wall. (I suppose because there was another house close by, and they wanted light but not staring...) Anyway, when I was little, I have no idea how little, I would reach up and grab the window sill by stretching as far as I could, and I would put my toes on the floorboard. I would look up, and see the dust in the sunlight. Then I would look down to verify I was off the ground. Then I would let go of the window sill at the same time that I jumped off the baseboard, in an effort to fly.

There was one time that I was really sure that I actually took flight. Just for a second. Adam must get it from me.

Some recent thoughts I have had - Including an endorsement of one company, and mockery of another...

2011-04-21T22:49:00.003-06:00

Some recent thoughts:

I think it's finally Spring. I hope it's finally Spring.
Early this month, we found that the latch on our bedroom door had frozen. Fortunately, the door was open when this happened. I had an extra latch because I bought an extra knob two years ago when we remodeled. I took the doorknob apart, and replaced the latch. Then I thought it was kind of silly to have a two year old latch that was frozen. I bought the thing from Kwikset, which is a Black and Decker company. I got on their website, and sent them a message asking how to unfreeze the latch for the lock. The next day, they emailed me to say that a new latch was in the mail. It came a few days later, no other questions asked. Not bad. I will certainly look to buy a Kwikset lock the next time I buy one, even if it means I might someday get locked inside my bedroom because the lock has frozen...
Several times this month, I have gotten in the shower, turned on the water, and my body has registered surprise at getting wet. Then my head says "Of course it's wet. It's water." I don't know what that means. Maybe my body has gotten dumber than the rest of me. I explained it to Tara, she thinks maybe I wasn't fully awake yet on the days that it happened. Either way it's weird.
I've been a "manager" for over a year now. This can really take a good chunk of my time sometimes. My team is now 9 full timers, and 4 student employees, with another full timer coming soon. More than half of us have trips coming up in the next few weeks. I'm not sure we thought that through properly... Our bosses boss like to call me a manager. I like to call myself an engineer. When he calls me a manager, I think "Smile when you call me that." Turns out I've got the phrase backwards in my head. I haven't said it out loud to him yet.
I've been working on a large wood project this week. I burned out a belt sander early this week. (sparks and flame) Drew hooked me up with a chainsaw and a grinder, which is helping a lot. Today I got through a chunk I've been working on for several days, but the thing cracked in a bad place. Grrr..... Maybe Gorilla Glue?
I've set a goal to walk 200 miles this year. I've only walked 21. My office is only a mile and a half from here, but I can't seem to try to walk that far. (And it's not that far, really.) I think I just need to suck it up and do it, but lots of mornings are just hard. Lately I've been peeling myself off the bed. Lots of pain right now, but I suppose the pain is there whether I walk or not, so maybe I should just try it Maybe I'm just lazy.
The people behind us have chickens now. On Sunday, the kids all had their noses pressed against the back window. "Dad! There's a chicken in the yard!" I've got a bunch of city kids. The chicken must have dug under the fence and squeezed in. While I don't mind having a chicken eat the bugs in our yard, chickens are messy. I caught it and tossed it back over the fence. The kids were impressed.
Every time I see the following commercial, I think about buying a Mustang. But then I think about all the other things the same amount of money could do around here. I need to start walking to work.
I had the batteries in a UPS in our campus bookstore go bad recently. We bought it about three years ago, and didn't have it on a maintainance contract. Turns out it was still under warranty, which I give HP credit for. They overnighted me new batteries (50 pounds). We scheduled to replace the thing tonight. The bookstore had a power flicker this afternoon, which took the servers down. Timing it everything. I went over there at 9pm, it took them about 40 minutes to get BYU Hawaii off the system. We shut the servers down, and took the UPS apart, and couldn't get the batteries out. It turned out that the batteries wouldn't come out because one of them had nearly burst, and was swollen. I finally got the thing out, and we found that HP had sent the wrong battery pack. (Now here's the mockery) HP - If you are going to spent the money and effort to overnight large items to people, maybe you should consider making sure you are sending the correct part...

I'm definitely in the mood for a sugar free donut. Is "sugar free donut" an oxymoron? My sister has been posting these deserts online that sound really good, but I can't touch them...
Still here? I'm going to Atlanta next month for Microsoft Tech Ed. Anyone going? I'm going to an Atlanta Braves game while I'm there, and have an extra ticket...

I haven't had one of those dreams in a while...

2011-04-16T14:07:00.002-06:00

Last night I had a dream that I was taking a final for a literature class. I'm not sure what brought that on, expect it's finals up on campus starting today. It has nothing to do with me, really. I've been out of school for good for nine years now. I also didn't really take any literature classes in college...

Anyway, this final was an essay test. The only question on the test was "which of the books we read this semester was your favorite, and why?" I started in talking about how I didn't actually go to class during the semester, or read any of the assigned books, but I did get some reading in, and started writing about some of the things I recently read. This was more true to my illustrious college career...

In the middle of the test, whoever was next to me started freaking out, and had to be removed from the room. I figure this was Tara tossing and turning next to me.

At least I took it in stride. When I was enrolled in school, I used to have dreams that I had been enrolled in classes for several weeks, and forgot about them. In the dream, I would be checking my schedule online, and find this class I was signed up for, but didn't know about. As far as I know, I never really forgot that I was enrolled in a class, but I'm not sure. Rob, Russ, Jonathan? Did this ever really happen to me?

Also, I was once in an American Heritage class, but only went something like a half dozen times. The final was an essay test, and one of the questions was "What was Benjamin Franklin's influence on the Constitutional Convention?", or something like that. At the time, having not been to class much, I didn't know what his role was. I think I said something about how he was a big man with a loud voice, and liked to throw his weight around. I kept going from there. Hopefully the TA grading the final was at least partially amused. (I ended up with a 'D' in the class, which counted, and never retook the class...)

All in all, I am glad I am no longer a student. Or at least enrolled in school. I'm a bad example, kids. Follow in the footsteps of your mother...

Book review

2011-04-14T16:05:00.003-06:00

VMWare vSphere 4.1
HA and DRS
technical deepdive

by Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman

A coworker recommended last week that we get this book and read through it. He had heard someone else talking about it on a business trip he took.

As the name implies, this is a technical book related to the concepts of HA and DRS inside VMWare. I might have titled it "HA and DRS - technical 'very thorough overview'", because when I hear the word 'deepdive', I think about internals, this book was more about concepts, 'best practices', and practical setup and use of HA and DRS.

The book is kind of smallish, 200 pages with lots of illustrations. One of the things they did throughout the book, that was kind of funny to me, was they kept talking about different setting available to you to change, then they strongly recommended leaving the default. At least they did it in a way that you could understand why to leave the default setting.

Having said that, even with all the things going on this week at work, here it is on Thursday, I got the book on Monday, and I've read it. I found it to be a very good overview of HA and DRS, written so that even the novice with VMWare can pick up the book, read it, and feel like they know what is going on with HA and DRS. We have been running VMWare for five years now in our environment, and are nearly completely virtualized, I would say we have quite a bit of experience in these areas, and there are a few things we need to talk about from this book.

I plan to have everyone on my team read it, and would recommend it to anyone running VMWare in their business environment, whether they are just starting out, or have been running for a while now...

Fun with little kids

2011-04-11T21:55:00.002-06:00

The three older kids are off somewhere having a good time. (It's Spring break. They are not in Florida...) We took the little kids to Denny's for dinner, and then miniature golf.

Adam had a good time cutting his food with his knife. He ate one piece of bacon, and tried cutting everything else. He did a pretty good job with the sausage. Adam also nearly pitched a fit when Tara drank some of his chocolate milk.

After dinner, we took them to miniature golf, since we have the passes. Those three little kids sure can be persistent about getting the ball in the cup. Ruth wanted to play in the dark golf. (They have an indoor course with neon lights.) She was wearing a white shirt, it was a little hard to look at her.

Afterwards, we went over to watch them drive the slick track cars. Adam was pretty impressed. I took a shot at the batting cages, but I was hitting medium speed softballs, after about a dozen successful hits, I was done. I guess my wrist is not quite fully healed yet. Next time I will have to stick with baseballs, I suppose.

The little kids seemed to have a good time. When we first bought those passes this year, I wondered if the little kids would enjoy / be able to play mini golf, but they seem to do just fine.

One other thing. I have decided that wearing a public batting cage helmet is just like wearing bowling shoes. You really want a layer of clothing between you and it. Next time I will remember to bring a ball cap... (And my own bat.)

Thanks, Mom

2011-04-10T11:07:00.002-06:00

My Mom made this baby quilt last year when we lost the baby. I think the little tags all the way around are from all the different quilts she had made to that point for grandkids, but I could be making that up... Yesterday I finally got around to putting together a frame for it so we could hang it on the wall.

The sides of the frame are not attached, I couldn't convince myself that a single screw through each end would hold the thing steady, and we wanted the option of taking it apart so the quilt could be cleaned, so I ended up nailing it to the wall with eight nails to hold the shape together. We will have to see if it works or not.

Nachos

2011-04-09T18:38:00.002-06:00

I've never met a plate of nachos I didn't like. Until last night, I hadn't had one that I couldn't conquer, either. That all changed last night. We went to Maria Bonita in Orem for dinner, I ordered nachos. The lady asked me several times if I wanted a full plate or a half plate, I insisted on a full plate. She nearly didn't let Tara order after that, she had thought that we would share it.

When the plate came out, it was piled high on a two foot across platter. There was a layer of chips, followed by a heaping layer of refried beans, follwed by chip, then cheese, then chips, then beans, shredded beef, lots more cheese, onions, tomatos, and cilantro. This was a massively large plate of nachos.

When I got my plate, the people behind me were asking their waitress what exactly it was I ordered. The plate is big enough to feed a number of normal people, or two of me, under normal hunger conditions.

It was a very good plate of nachos, I also enjoyed it for lunch. It is seriously enough for a half plate to be a meal in and of itself, if you find yourself looking for dinner in North Orem sometime. Just don't plan on ordering something else with it.

"New" Front Door

2011-04-02T13:58:00.004-06:00

Almost two years ago, I bought a new front door for our house. Yesterday I decided to stay home from work and install it. (I figured it's about time to get around to it, and the fact that I started 3 weeks ago by pulling half the siding off helped...)

The old door wasn't in great shape. It was pretty weather worn, and the weather strip at the bottom would not stay on it anymore. To the left of the door, you can see that the old shingles and old door frame is still on the house.

It turned out that when they put our existing door on the house, they decided to not replace the frame, and just stubbed the door into the existing frame. It looks like the door was a bit shorter than the existing frame, because they put a strip of wood on the bottom of the door to close the gap, and the weather strip was hiding the little strip of wood.

Whoever built this house with either cross eyed or didn't own a level. There is not a lot that is level, including the rough framing after I got the old door frame out. I had to do some shimming and build the thing out a bit so that the siding would go back on properly. (I didn't really want to take it all down and remove the old shingles, just because I was putting in a now door.

There was one episode of "John gets very angry at the stupid door", I got the thing all ready to go, and the top and bottom sills level, put the door in, and it wouldn't shut. Turns out the sides of the door frame were no where near level. I took the door back out, dropped the bottom sill a little, and Chad came over to help me finish putting the door in. (We also have a picture here from yesterday that proves that Emma did not change her clothes today...)

This afternoon I finished putting the siding back on the house. All that's left is finishing the sill at the bottom on the outside, and cleaning up the rough opening on the inside, and working on the little gap the new door left in the floor on the inside. As usual, one finished projects caused two others...

"Even-tempered Kate beyond Thunderdome"

2011-03-30T21:51:00.004-06:00

Tonight was the city wide elementary school choir festival. They hold this annually, each elementary school has their choir sing one song in the festival. In previous years, this was held at the Provo Tabernacle, but the Tabernacle is unavailable right now, because it burned to the ground six months ago.

Enter the Thunderdome! One of the High Schools in town are the "Thunderbirds", their gym is called the Thunderdome. It was the best place they could find to hold the festival.

Anyway, Kate sang, seemed to enjoy herself, and only has one more week of getting up early for choir practice before they knock off for the year. Here's a video:

(No zoom on the video function, sorry. We were also really not close at all, so no clear pictures.)

Now, about the Thunderdome. For some reason, the bleachers have incredibly tall seats. I'm not sure why, I imagine the guys that built it were all seven foot tall. My feet barely touched the ground normally, I had to sit kind of funny to get my feet on the ground. This made my legs go to sleep. The reason why they resort to battle to the death format in post-apocalyptic Thunderdome? Because the seats are so uncomfortable. At the end of the choir festival, the kids stomped their feet and made a lot of noise to cheer for their teachers. You could almost hear them chanting "Two men enter, One man leaves". Despite all this, and the fact that it was a choir festival, no sign of Tina Turner tonight.

It wasn't that bad, really. The adults mostly tempered their urge to talk to the captive audience, for the most part, and they kept it to just the other side of one hour. We just need to find them a venue that allows the audience to keep the use of their limbs afterwards for next year.

Anyone want to send a girl to camp?

2011-03-28T21:28:00.002-06:00

Kate wants to go to a 5th grade summer camp. It's 'only' $100 for a week, but they want it this week. Andd they want you to hurry and sign up - space is limited! There's nothing like a high pressure sales job against a 11 year old.

Anyway, we've got a lot we can do with the $100, we haven't decided if it's worth it yet. We are giving it a couple of days to think about it. Kate really wants to go, and is willing to pay the $3 she's got in her pocket.

I have the money, I could pay for it, but we have other things we would like to do with the money as well. Like pay medical bills when the baby is born. And register the van. And buy a new refrigerator. And we already paid for passes for them to do stuff this year. (Water park, mini golf, baseball games, etc.)

So, anyone want to put their two cents in? Do we pony up the money in the next day or so and send her off? Kate has $300 in her savings account. Do we have her pay for it if she wants to go that bad? I don't think she knows she has the money in there right now, but now that I think about it, maybe that's the way to go, make her pay for it...

Or, does someone want to sponsor her? I have a link on the blog - "Send a girl to camp". Also a link here on this post:

Dirty Rotten Stinking Allergies

2011-03-28T21:06:00.002-06:00

Nearly every year I spend a little bit of time complaining about allergies. I don't remember having such problems as a kid. It seems like every year, I have a week or two in the early Spring, and a week in the early Summer, when I get hammered by allergies.

Last weekend (8-9 days ago), I was knocked off my feet by something. Saturday night I did not sleep well. Sunday morning I woke up with a splitting headache, I was dizzy, overheated, and ached everywhere. I slept about 18 hours on Sunday. I stayed home from work on Monday, and didn't really leave the couch for the better part of the day. I was headed for another sick day on Tuesday, but some things came up at work I needed to deal with, and I went in.

The headache continued through to this weekend. Then last night, I was sitting here in the house, and realized that for a good part of the week, my eyes have been all kinds of itchy as well. Allergies. Why didn't I think of that sooner. It's not like I haven't been dealing with them all this time. I have a strong suspicion it's a bush in my back yard that gets me. I hacked it to bits several years ago, but I didn't dig the roots out, and it eventually grew back.

Last night I took a Benadryl before I went to bed. I felt tons better this morning. In the last few hours, I've started into a stuffy nose, the headache is back, and it's so much fun. Hopefully it passes in the next few days.

It's better than it used to be. Before I started poking my head into bushes around the house, I used to spend a week flat on my back in bed...

Dinner and a Show

2011-03-25T22:59:00.002-06:00

Tonight we went to dinner and a play with our friends, Matt and Talia. For dinner, we went to this new little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant in town called Laura's Kitchen. We had their carne asada plate. It was pretty good. They also serve tamales for $1.25 each, but only on the weekends. I asked if they included Friday evenings in the weekend, but sadly, they did not.

The play we went to was called "Persuasion". It was adapted from the Jane Austen story of the same name, and written by a high school friend of Tara's.

I read this on Twitter a week or so ago, I though of Tara:

Heroin is a drug;
heroine is a female hero.
Jane Austen fans are prone to heroine overdoses.

The play was about time travel, love once rejected, sailing and adventure, pretty people with mirrors, and had just a little bit of "Naval language".

That makes Jane Austen sound more exciting than it seems to be to me, having never read any of the books and only peripheral experience with the countless versions of the stories that Tara has on DVDs. As far as I can tell, they all have a lot of walking, some dancing, talking, brooding, and more talking. I don't know. But I love my wife, and I go with her to the plays.

Anyway, this one was well acted. We were up at the top of the theater, which is a change for us, we normally sit down on the front row, we switched our normal tickets to a different night. I sat right next to the production booth, which had a kid running it that seemed to be paying very little attention to the play itself. For a while, I couldn't really tell what he was doing, but I figured out towards the end of the play that he was running the microphones. He had a computer screen with the inputs that needed to be on in each scene, when it was time to make a change, a blue string of lights came on at his station.

The set was also pretty interesting. They had a large semi circle in the middle, which turned back and forth. They would rotate one scene, and stage the next off stage, when it was time, a little curtain went up, and the rotated the scene in.

One last thing. About two thirds of the way through, one of the characters falls and gets hurt. She jumped and crumpled to the ground. Matt busted up laughing, and made half of the rest of the audience laugh with him. I think it was supposed to be a serious scene, but it wasn't tonight...

Ball Night!

2011-03-24T21:15:00.003-06:00

The BYU basketball team so nearly made it to the Elite Eight tonight. Then they blew it in overtime. They had a great season. Now the Jimmermania here at the house can die down a bit.

Hopefully Coach Rose sticks around. (He evaded the question on the radio tonight.) If they go somewhere else, maybe they'd sell us their house at a 75% discount...

In other news, the BYU Baseball team had their home opener tonight. We had free passes. They sent four free passes to all BYU employees, good for one of the three games this weekend. I ended up with something like twenty of them. There were maybe a hundred people at the game tonight. I chalk it up to the fact that the basketball team was playing in the Sweet Sixteen game at the time (It was halftime when left for the game), and it was cold and potentially going to rain. (It didn't rain, and wasn't super cold, really.)

They ended up winning, beating San Diego State 8-4. I took Kate, Mary, and Emma to the game, they seemed to have a good time. After the game, they were handing out more tickets. We would go back tomorrow night, but Tara reminds me that we have other plans tomorrow night. I forgot about them. Maybe we will go back on Saturday. I've got about a dozen extra tickets for tomorrow night or Saturday, if anyone wants them.

The first pile of "baseball game peanut shells" of the year...

New superpower

2011-03-23T22:32:00.002-06:00

I discovered today that I have a new superpower - I'm completely invisible to the Boy Scouts of America!

Six months ago, I tried to register as our local troop and pack chartered organizational representative. Seemed pretty straight forward - fill out the form, send it in. I had our cub committee chair take it in for me, she was headed to the district office anyway. They wouldn't take it, I hadn't taken the online Youth Protection Training.

I took the training. I gave the form back to her, she was headed up there again. Seemed to take that time. They took the form, and acted like they would process the application.

Several weeks later, I get the form in the mail, with a note that I needed the Youth Protection Training done, and the certificate from it with the application. Stapled to the application was the Youth Protection Training certificate. This was a bit odd, I thought, but we had a Roundtable meeting a few days later, so I took my form with me. I showed it to the district executive, he wasn't sure what to say, but took my application to take back to the office.

Six weeks later, it's time to recharter. Our scout committee chair tells me that I'm not on the online leader list, but maybe it's just lagging behind a bit. He planned to head on out to the district office to charter the troop, or something like that. Turns out the Scout office claims no knowledge of me, and I have to fill out another application.

I'm not a big fan of filling out forms, and especially not when I've already done it once, but I do it again. Things seem ok, they took the charter documents.

Now it's about three and a half months later. Today I got an email from the district executive that our unit's charter had gotten sent back, they needed to get my application to resend in the charter. I tried my very best to keep my filter engaged...

I called the district executive, and while I didn't express my aversion to filling out forms, I did talk about this little history lesson I'm sharing here. He still wants a new application filled, since they don't know where either of the others are.

I went online, they have a form online that you can type your answers to the form, but it only fills out the first page, and not really all that well. I ended up filling out the new form, going and finding my training certs again, and getting everything ready. I suppose this one I should take up there myself, and get them to sign some sort of form saying the received delivery of the stinking thing.

I fully expect to get a call soon, where they tell me they have my form, but they don't believe I am a real person...

Suddenly my laptop is a bully

2011-03-21T17:07:00.002-06:00

Message from my laptop:

"Out of power. Plug in within 30 seconds, or be suspended to RAM." (Something to that effect)

I moved faster than I have all day long, and plugged the thing in. The laptop essentially said, "thanks, but I am shutting down anyway."

Not one to take to bullying, I am typing this post from out desktop PC...

Book Review

2011-03-19T22:36:00.002-06:00

52
Greg Cox

Another Comic Novelization!

I've been reading a non-fiction book off and on for longer than I would like to admit. I don't know why it's taken so long to finish, maybe it's because the author is British, and he is writing with an accent. I've got maybe a half dozen books I am currently somewhere in the middle of, and will eventually finish up. Last week I got this book from Amazon, and decided to take a break from the other book I was reading.

This book is a novelization of the year long DC comic series that followed "Infinite Crisis", but came before "Final Crisis". (I wonder what the next 'Crisis' event for DC will be.) After "Infinite Crisis", Superman didn't have his powers, Batman was away trying to be less paranoid or something, and Wonder Woman was busy trying to be a normal human for a while. The world was left to other heroes for a year.

The book primarily deals with the Booster Gold, Batwoman, The Question, and Black Adam story lines of the comic book series. The book is pretty violent, and the there were things about the book I definitely didn't like, but they are also story elements that are being pushed in the comics these days, I hear.

Reading the book makes me wish there was a way for the comic novelization genre to succeed. It would be nice to have some well written comic novels to read from time to time. I don't have the time, money, or really the inclination to collect comic books. I do like Superman / Batman / etc, we have on DVD a number of the TV series that have been done.

Anyway, the day was saved without Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. But only barely. We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

Teach me how to "Jimmer"

2011-03-19T20:15:00.003-06:00

It's "Jimmer Madness" here at the house, and has been for several months. I think there are several members of the house that might swoon if Jimmer came to the door.

Any way, this weekend, Lily's been walking around the house singing the "Teach Me How To Jimmer" song. This evening, Ruth came up with this little move that is her version of teaching people how to Jimmer - around the back, then through the legs...

Gutters

2011-03-18T19:25:00.000-06:00

I haven't been up on top of the shed in a number of years to clean gutters and the top of it off. In hindsight, I should have. The gutters are a mess. Our neighbors have a big box elder tree that hangs over the shed and part of our back yard, and it drop tons of leaves and seeds every year. It wouldn't break my heart to see it go. Those trees also attract box elder bugs, which are all over the place with this tree.

I worked on the thing last week, at the bottom of the picture you can see spots where I had pulled debris out of the thing. Towards the top of the picture you can sort of see where flashing is bent upwards. My shed floods with water every time it rains now. This has slowly gotten worse over the last couple of years. I suppose it's mostly my own fault, for not cleaning our the gutter.

I cleaning up some, I found that the flashing was bent so bad, that it allowed about four inches of space where the shed was completely exposed. Add the leaves and stuff to it, and water must have just been flowing in ever time it rained. For now, I have the flashing bent back into close to the right shape, and used a brick to hold it down. We will see what happens on Monday or Tuesday when it rains...

Kate's play

2011-03-18T13:13:00.003-06:00

Kate had a play last night for her class. It sounds like her teacher is a fan of depressing WWII plays. (I'm not sure there are really 'happy' WWII plays...) This one was about a concentration camp for children. Before the presentation last night, the teacher was telling everyone about how her entire class was in tears after a performance on Wednesday night. Is it really a good thing to have your entire class of 11 and 12 year old kids in tears? Isn't that something that could be considered at least on the road to emotional abuse? (Maybe that's too inflammatory of a statement. I'm sure if I said that at the school, I would end up in a meeting with the principal, the teacher, and likely someone from the district, and I am sure the school doesn't want that...)

Anyway, Kate says she is ok, she seems to be, I guess. She was "Child #6", and had a few lines. Any other time she was on stage, her part was to look scared, sad, wishful, and more sad. She did a pretty good job.

Some things I never connected (or knew) until the last week or so

2011-03-17T07:10:00.002-06:00

Dishwashers:

Sometime last week, I came home and loaded up the dishwasher. Having a dishwasher full of dirty dishes that won't start is almost as bad as a washing machine full of laundry that with won't drain or won't spin. (Or both) I would press one of the buttons on the front, and the dishwasher would display some set of buttons that had absolutely nothing to do with the button I pressed. The thing definitely didn't want to start.

After doing some research, lots of people on different forums talked about bad controllers boards doing this. I tried killing the power from the breaker box, but that didn't help, really. I found a site or two that talked about "showroom mode" for dishwashers. One that was talking about a sort of similar model as ours said that if you pressed the rinse button (which we don't have) five times in five seconds, then "showroom mode" gets enabled. They talked about hitting cancel twice in succession to get out of it.

Cancel wasn't really working all that much, so I started pressing different buttons five times in five seconds, followed by other buttons a couple of times in succession. I was able to eventually find the right permutation to get the dishwasher to act normally again.

"Showroom mode" - who knew.

Nuclear Meltdown:

For some reason, before this past weekend, I never realized that a nuclear meltdown involved actual melting. I'm not sure why. I hope things over in Japan don't get worse.

Something I read on Twitter, it made me think of my wife:

Heroin is a drug; heroine is a female hero. Jane Austen fans are prone to heroine overdoses.

The school thinks we have nothing better to do:

Tomorrow we have what I have been calling a "non-optional after school activity". Kate has a play for her class, they perform tonight and tomorrow. It's something about the Holocaust. (She also studied the Civil and Revolutionary wars this year. Not sure who picked that trifecta.) Last week we had the annual Kindergarten program one night. We got there early, but there were no seats. We sat way in the back. We couldn't see or hear, it's a good thing they don't change the program ever. We also have one or two choir performances coming up in the next couple of weeks. I don't think our kids are really over scheduled at all. They have Activity days, piano lessons, and choir. That's about it, but the school seems to think we should be over there all month. Parent/Teacher conferences are next week, but I'm not going. (It's better for everyone involved if I don't...)

Our gutters

I should have cleaned out our gutters about two years ago. Every time it rains, the shed floods. I started on Saturday, and filled out huge yard waste can, but only put a dent in 20 feet of space above the carport gutter. I haven't even started in on the gutter there itself. There is a Box Elder tree in our neighbor's backyard that makes a mess every year. Looks like it might take several more weeks worth of yard waste cans full of gutter debris to finish up. I don't want to really toss it in the garden, I don't want ten thousand little Box Elder trees in my garden later in the summer.

It's actually kind of hard to walk on two feet

I watched part of a robot marathon a couple of weeks ago. (I lead a wild life, don't I?) These little robots were walking around this track. Every once in a while, one of them would either veer way off the track or would just fall over. After they fell over, they would try to pick themselves up. If they couldn't get up, suddenly you would see 4 or 5 slightly excited engineers all gathered around the robot on the ground. (It kind of reminded me of the time on my mission where I hit a parked car with my bike. I couldn't get up, all the people around me were talking about the car and the bike...)

Anyway, at one point, one of the robots fell over and couldn't get up. 4 engineers came over, picked the robot up, and set it on it's feet. The robot fell over again. They picked it up again, it fell over on the other side. They picked up the robot and took it to the back where a table was. It was over there for a long time. Walking looks hard. I don't expect to see an army of robot soldiers marching through the streets any time soon.

That's all I've got for now

Normal pictures from a perfectly normal child....

2011-03-16T18:31:00.002-06:00

"Happy girl on a boat"

"Happy girl in a forest"

"Happy bug on a bunny"

"Giant Monster Vampire Bee"

Pi day (Yesterday)

2011-03-15T20:58:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was Pi day. A couple of days ago, Kate asked if we were having pie for pi day. It had the start of the "teen aged daughter voice" to it, but not completely in that voice. (I'm not sure what that completely means going forward, but I do know that I am edging ever closer to having a teenager in the house...)

Anyway, for dinner last night we had shepherd's pie and lemon meringue pie. Reviews were mixed in the house, but reviews are mixed in the house for every meal.

What makes this noteworthy? It's the fact that I went to the store to get the lemon pie, and the shelves at the store with the frozen pies were in large measure empty. They tried moving the pies to the front and standing them up for a bunch of them so it looked like the shelves were still stocked. (Empty looking shelves are bad?) There had been a run on frozen pies yesterday. That's how I know I live in a nerd town. (Says the man that was also at the store buying a pie for Pi day...)