5 Things - The Seven Peaks contest

Tom donated 2 passes to Seven Peaks recently, I have just instituted a contest for the girls. For the next couple of days, they will be picking up 5 things at a time vieing for an opportunity to head over to Seven Peaks. The person who picks up the most in the next couple of days, and gets at least 150 sets of things picked up, will get to go over there on Tuesday.



They have all day tomorrow to clean, I will be home all day to supervise. When they start to slow down, I will throw in one of Tara's free personal pizza coupons she won the other day.

When they run out of things to pick up, I will suggest other things, like vacuuming, cleaning walls, dusting, that sort of thing. We will see how it goes.

Geek level

I had someone tell me last night that I was the least geeky tech guy he knew. This is a compliment, I guess, but I wonder how many tech guys he knows. (I almost said "I wonder if his sample size is too small", but I figured that would raise the geek level a little...)

Baby blanket

We got a blanket in the mail for Adam from Coreen a few weeks ago. It is dinosaur themed. That is all I can think of to say about it at midnight...

A purse for Lily

I finally got around to finishing Lily's purse. It seems to be just the right size for her.

Random picture of Adam

I heard some complaints that we hadn't posted any pictures of Adam lately, so here you go.

Sometimes you get the good genes, sometimes you get the bad...

Lily got stung by a wasp this morning on her finger, her finger swelled past the point of bending, her hand got all red, and she got hives on her hand and forearm.

It was the first time she had been stung, the doctor's office had us give her some Benedryl, and watch her. The medicine seems to have helped. I assume the next sting will be much worse, and will need a faster response. Looks like I passed something bad on.

Book Review

Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS
Greg Niemann

Tara's brother used to work for UPS part-time, and they gave him benefits while he was working there. I thought this was a little odd at the time. One of the Bishops in the Stake is a driver for UPS, I talked to him about his job a couple of months ago for about a half hour. I had heard they had a new thing where the drivers were directed by their little GPS thing to never take left turns. (He still makes left turns where it makes more sense.)

UPS is a giant company, I didn't know they were started so early in the 20th century. The book talks about how the founder, Jim Casey got his start, and how they started expanding their business, one city at a time until they covered the entire country. It turns out that most of their management is promoted from within. It sounds like they take pretty good care of their employees.

This book has tons of information about the history of UPS that I had never heard before. They have a corporate culture of customer service that goes from top to bottom. They spend tons of money every year trying to innovate, like trying to reduce fuel costs, trying to speed delivery, that sort of thing. I also like how the author didn't try to sugar coat everything. It sounds like one of the problems UPS has had involves the stability of their retirement programs. They also had problems integrating their corporate culture as they branched out internationally.

It makes me wish the package coming tomorrow was UPS, but it's coming FedEx...

More from the Muppets

High Definition

Who knew High Definition looked so good?

Now it can use all it's strength growing larger...

We sent the girls out back to play this morning, they were running through the house making noise, the cable installer guy was trying to get the TV service reassociated again, and Tara had a head ache. After the cable guy left, I looked out the window, and Lily had a couple of apricots in her hands. It turned out that she stripped the tree bare. (There were only 5 apricots on the tree, but it was a sure sign of progress for that little tree.) She had taken bites out of 3 of them, and all 5 of them were in a little dirt hole by the edge of the wall. Ruth told me there were building a nest, I guess she thought they looked like eggs. Hopefully in a couple of year the tree will be nice and tall, and we won't lose all the fruit to varmints...

Luggage scale

I always thought some sort of gadget that you could hook to your luggage and pick it up to weigh what you have got in there would have been a good invention. Like all good inventions, someone else thought off it also. You can pick it from from ThinkGeek at: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/aa38/

I'll file it away with my idea for the solar powered flashlight...

Washing machine

For the last couple of months, our washing machine will usually run through the wash cycle and then stop without draining, like it does when the lid is left open. Sometimes this is fixed by opening and closing the lid. When that doesn't work, I try opening and dropping the lid. Sometimes that doesn't even work. Sticking a pencil in the little slot to simulate the closed lid doesn't always lock. This evening was one of those times when dropping the lid several times didn't help any, I eventually put the lid down, and pressed down gently on the lid near the spot where the slot is. The washer started right up. I've done this 3 times tonight, I am 3 for 3 so far.

Sometimes it is the simplest of answers. It is probably a good thing, since we can't really afford one of those high capacity HE washer and dryer sets they have out now, although with the amount of laundry we do around here, it might pay for itself in a year's time...