Email

Sometimes I obsess about the pile of email in my inbox. I don't like carrying 50 emails around. Under 20 is always my target. I am currently at 32 emails in my inbox. (Please don't spam me to increase the number...)

I especially appreciated this web comic.

Astronauts: looking up - looking down

About a month or so ago, a new twitter account was created called NASA_Astronauts. It allowed for of all people, NASA astronauts to post things to twitter. They got some sort of feed to the ISS going, and suddenly we had tweets from space!

I always thought astronauts grew up looking out into space. (At least any newer astronauts. I've seen "The Right Stuff"...) Their goal was to be out among the stars. Or something like that. I might be a space cadet sometimes, but I don't think I will ever be an astronaut. Too much potential for being blown to bits. Especially when they take all the funding away.

Anyhow, I've been following them on twitter for a while, and a lot of the posts are pictures of the Earth from space. I thought that was an interesting phenomenon. They spend all their time working to get to space, then in their free time up there, they take pictures of the Earth.

I wondered if this was just something unique to the current guys up there, but today on campus we had Jim Lovell, of Apollo 13 fame, speak at our weekly devotional. It was pretty interesting. He talked about the experiences of Apollo 13, how it was his third trip up there, what happened, and how they got down again. He credited the people on the ground with getting him back in one piece. (That's the engineers, for those counting.) He said something at the beginning of his talk that was interesting. He said from space, you don't see countries. You don't see cities. You don't see any people. All you see is the Earth, pretty much in it's natural state. He commented on the beauty of it all. I guess it's not a phenomenon among those currently up there, but everyone that goes out to space.

I guess the moral is, don't take the Earth for granted. It's our home, after all. You would miss it if you were kicked out.

The Dark Side of Online Purchases

We got a call Friday evening, someone tried using Tara's card at a school in Missouri. This triggered a fraud prevention call. Not sure how that happened, but Tara made a purchase on the Scholastic Books website a couple of days ago. Now her card is disabled, and it happened too late in the day to call the credit union to get things straightened out. It was very loud in the room here at the house when I was trying to interact with the automated system, Tara is hoping it's not the Scholastic order that got stopped, me just not being able to hear. My guess is their site got hacked, and some dude was doing little charges from the info he gathered.

Some would let this stop them from making purchases online. I am not ready to go to that extreme, I make a number of purchases online every month, usually when deals pop up. A couple of days ago I just missed MLB TV premier for the year at $20. (Regularly $120.) I was distracted by work that day, and missed the deal. In the mail today, I got my Superman cuff links. And I don't even own a shirt that I can use cuff links on.


Anyway, I guess a trip to the bank on Monday is in order. And I guess it's time to order a set of credit reports. Anyone have a secondary checking account they use exclusively for online purchases? Think that's too extreme?

Ward Talent Show

The girls have been practicing in Achievement Days for the ward talent show. They had a little song they were to sing. I took Emma, Mary and Kate over there tonight. It turned out they weren't on the program for some reason. Someone forgot about them. This meant we had to wait to the very end of the program for them to perform. So much for slipping out early.


The girls seemed to enjoy themselves. After I tried talking Emma into having her and her friend Lily translate "Go, Dog, Go" into Chinese, and they read it while the little kids act like dogs on stage. I think that would be pretty funny. (Emma claims the word for "Dog" in Chinese sounds like "Go". Doubly funny.) We'll have to see if I can get them to go through with it. I've also talked to Brian, Lily's dad, about getting the two of them to make their own kung fu movies someday.


As a bonus, I got a picture of Chad for his contact card on my phone. I suspect he always wanted to have big hair in the 80's...

Bait and Switch

Tara and I went to see "As You Like It" up on campus with Kirk and Midge. I'm not sure what the deal is this year, but the BYU Theater department seems to be heavy on the musicals and musical plays this year. It wouldn't be so bad if they would just publish they were going to do it that way, give me some time to prepare. Someone's been watching too much Bollywood, I think.

Musical montages aside, the play was pretty good. I only vaguely remembered the storyline, but had enough of it in the head to keep up. I thought they did a pretty good job.

Turns out the disclaimer from last time appears to be a standard thing they are putting in all their playbills these days. I thought it was just to try to keep us in our seats last time. "As You Like It" - good play - some music - and Kirk stayed for the whole thing. (That might have been because of all the rain. Kirk doesn't always stay for the the second half.)

I blame Shakespeare on this one. He wrote in some songs in this one. The Epilogue to the play is lots funnier if you think about the fact that all the actors were men:

If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that
pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied
not; and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces,
or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy,
bid me farewell.

New Phone? New phone plan? What do we do?

Tara's phone is plenty old. Well past due for a replacement. Tara doesn't use her phone all that much. I looked a year ago, switching to a pay-as-you-go plan from Verizon then would have netted about a $20 a month savings. I looked again today, in the past year, we could have saved about $12 a month:




Last year's numbers includes a huge month in the summer, when Tara was in Buffalo, I was here at home. $200 a year is not tons, but it's something. Tara could get herself football and basketball tickets for next year at that savings. There are plenty of things we could do with $200...

What do I do? As far as I can tell, you can't transfer your existing number to a prepaid number. Tara kind of wants to keep her existing number. I hear rumors that there might be a cell plan at Verizon that's less than we are paying now, but I haven't been able to find it yet. Do I do nothing, and just get her a new phone? Is there a better monthy plan? The prepaid plan would save money, but there is also the cost of the new phone and the activation fee.

Maybe I need to go up to the Verizon store.

Remembrance garden

Yesterday Drew and I put together this little remembrance garden in the back yard. Drew went and get some crocuses from his house, we helped the kids plant flowers after the burial. I also planted some lilies, forsythia bushes, and a white rose bush.

John Abel Payne - 10 March 2010

On Tuesday morning, Tara and I went in for Tara to get an ultrasound. (For those who didn't know, she was pregnant.) We found that the baby had died. The rest of this week has been pretty much a blur.


Mom and Dad came into town, we ended up having the burial service today. I've already given a talk about it today, and don't feel like writing a lot right now, but here are some pictures from the burial.


Look at Tara's post on her blog, sparbowl2.blogspot.com for a little more information...






Thanks to everyone for their service, help, well wishes, thoughts, and prayers.

Neighborhood project

One of our neighbors had their roof leaking, and their kitchen ceiling fall in on them about 4 to 6 weeks ago. They didn't have the money to replace their roof, some people in the ward donated money and materials to have the roof replaced. We had lots of people come and help out this past weekend to get the roof done. Chad's got the 'before' pictures, on Saturday evening, I got some 'during' pictures:









I spent several days over there, and was pretty wore out Saturday night. (And very stiff since.) I used to be able to do this kind of work all the time, I guess I've gotten soft. Or worn out. Or something...

Arson pictures

For the curious, here are some pictures of the stuff we found outside last week. The Fire Marshall never came back, at least we got the case opened...

Something (maybe a paper towel) inside, can smelled of gas.

The siding was scorched. I've got siding to replace it, but it was a little concerning that it was outside one of the bedroom windows. No more events since the snowball incident so far...

Tonight in Family Home Evening, we went over fire and earthquake procedures with the girls again. Hopefully they've got it down. After we talked about things, I let them hear what the CO detector and fire detector sounded like. Then we showed them how to open a window, pop the screen, and get out of the house if they have to go through the window. They all climbed out, the little girls needed a little help getting out the window. Adam got very angry with us, until we let him also go out the window.

I plan to test fire the fire extinguisher Friday night after they go to sleep, to see how they respond when they are sleepy...

Stop throwing things at our house, please.

We've had things tossed into our yard lately. Yesterday, Tara found a pop can. It had a little paper towel in it, smelled of gasoline, and was burned up. It was laying underneath Emma's window. The siding under Emma's window is all scorched. We had a cop and someone from the fire department over looking at things. I figure the can was just lobbing in the direction of the house, a little too hard, hit the window sill, splattered, and away they went.

I had meant to go over and talk to them before, but when it's fire being lobbed into the yard, we have a problem...

Tonight, less than 30 minutes ago, I'm sitting in the back room, and a snowball hits the window. I jumped up, got my shoes and coat, and went out there. Didn't see anyone, but our fairly new neighbors were home. Snowball could only have come from their house, or the Niccoli's place, we are pretty sure they didn't do it.

I went over to the place behind us, the husband was cooking something in a steamer next to the garage. The husband doesn't seem to speak English. The wife, Beppa, does. (They are Tongan.) I talked to her about how I was their neighbor behind them, how we had 6 kids (Kate's the same age as their youngest.), and what's been happening lately. News to the parents, I guess. The wife said she would talk to her kids about it.

Hopefully it helps. We can't let things like this keep happening, it's just silly. We should have them over to the house when it gets warmer, get to know them some. They seem like nice people.

It's a nice day for a "Blood Wedding"...

Tara and I went to see a play tonight called "Blood Wedding." I hear it's the National play for Spain. I guess Spaniards are hard up for entertainment or something.

Tara was a little worried, it's all about people dying. And talking about dying. And widows. Those Spaniards. The little guide for the play talked about how some plays are uplifting and show good, some show evil. I thought it was a bad sign. (Lower expectations and all.) They also ran the thing without an intermission, seemingly so the audience couldn't escape.

Anyhow, turns out it was a comedy, sort of. Tara and I were sitting in the very back, against the side, by ourselves. Some parts of the play made me laugh. This was not the indented response, I am sure. Maybe I'm just missing something, but I there was too much forced drama in the play, including, but not limited to, dancing gypsies, an extreme slow motion knife fight, and people sitting around staring at walls.

Blood Wedding - very artsy. I'm not a very artsy person. We also saw an old door hung on a wall with all kind of little sayings written in the middle of it. Wasn't part of the performance, was in a hall in the building.

After the play, we walked out and saw the President's Leadership Council in the art museum enjoying refreshments. I thought about walking in, and having a snack. Possibly introducing myself. "Hi, I'm John Payne, I'm here for the cheese." I didn't do it, I figured the Bishop and President Palmer wouldn't appreciate that very much.