End of the garden

We had a good amount of rain yesterday, it seemed to come down all afternoon. For a little bit, it was snowing. (But none of it stuck to the ground.) It got down to about 27 last night, so everything was frozen this morning. I don't think the tomato plants survived. We could have put blankets over all of them, but they were already soaking wet, and would have frozen anyway.

Normally we are able to keep the plants around to the middle or end of October, but I guess we will have more time this year to mulch leaves back there...

Bike Helmets

Last Saturday, there was a children's health fair sponsored by the county health department. They were giving out free bike helmets. (While supplies last, but they handed them out for 2 hours nonstop, and didn't run out.)

There was a little concerns from Mary when they were trying the helmets on, she was upset that the pattern she wanted wasn't her size, but she got over it. We ended up with 4 new helmets for the girls. (Something like a $75 value.)

Ruth's helmet looks kind of big on her head, but I think it's just the design.

Kate's Baptism

Kate got baptized yesterday. She seems to have enjoyed it, but she sometimes has my sense of brevity.
The following were there from our family:

• All of us
• Tara's parents
• My parents
• Tara's sister Michelle and her youngest, Jennifer
• Drew, Kaylynn, Anson, and Lauren
• Tom
• Dave
• Grandma Oaks
  

Anson was upset that he couldn't get down in the water after Kate to be baptized, but he's got 6 years to wait. He was outraged. It's hard to believe that we have an 8 year old now.

Sudoku for the 2 year old

Ruth got ahold of Tara's sudoku book and a pencil this morning, and started filling the thing out. Don't get excited, she was filling in 6's for all the blank squares...

RFID - Your key to a better life

Our city library is implementing RFID technology for their circulation services. All books currently have RFID tags. The librarians checking books out now have a pad that they set a stack of books on, they all check out at the same time.

Next Monday, the library will be closed. They are installing self checkout stations, so people can check their own books out. Good news for me, I don't like standing in line, bad news for Tara, she doesn't like the self checkout stations.

Our campus library is also playing with a self checkout station, but they haven't gone to RFID tags on all their books, they have something like 93 miles worth of books in there, it would take quite some time to change it all out.

Trip to Ft. Collins

I spent the last few days over in Ft. Collins visiting with HP. They have done this thing they call the HP Customer Advisory Board for the past 6 years, they have been having me over for it for the past 5. (I guess they like my jokes.)

Ft. Collins is nice, it's a lot like here in climate, the town is a lot like here in feel, also. One thing I like about the town is that all the way up and down College Avenue, they have tons of stores and restaurants, but they have planted tons of trees, so it tones down all the commericalization. You drive down the street, and need to pay attention if you are looking for somewhere specific, but if you are just driving, all the stores don't distract.

On Tuesday, I wore my dark green BYU shirt. I called it my Colorado State appeasement shirt. This was a very well recieved joke. (Ft. Collins is the home of CSU.)

Last year, I get signed up for the National Rent a Car Emerald club. This year, I got a car from them, we went to the rental agency, and picked out our car. This would have been more impressive if they hadn't had only 2 mid sized cars on the lot, but we picked the maroon car over the white car.

On the way home, we checked in at the airport, neither of us had a seat assignment. When we eventually got through Denver security (long lines) and got to the gate, we went up to see what was going on. My boss went up first, he got a new ticket with a seat. I went up, and they told me they didn't have a seat for me yet. (My thought was "what part of 'confirmed' don't you understand?", but I supressed it.) They ended up talking some old lady into getting bumped ($200 in vouchers, but I needed to get home to babysit for Tara), so I got her seat.

It was a good trip, we got quite a bit of good feedback from both HP and from the other customers that were there. (We were one of the 2 smallest. Most of the others were big customers. The HP engineers say they like to have us there because we keep things honest, having the "small customer" opinion to balance out the very large customers... The biggest this time was a bank that has 24000 Unix and Linux machines and 31000 Windows machines.) I always seem to have a bunch of things to work on after one of these things, I think I've got even more today than normal.

Business Travel - A template

Day 1 (Really night 1 followed by day 1) -

Sleep - A good night's rest, the covers are always tucked in too far to be comfortable, there is quite a bit of kicking done to get them close to ok. The AC is never turned to the right temperature to be comfortable, but it's not uncomfortable enough to get up and tune it.

Eating - Whatever is presented is eaten. The food is always good, and it all gets eaten.

Day 2 -

Sleep - The top blanket is gone, the AC is turned up a little, this makes it nice and cool. It takes a little while to get the right mix of pillows set up to sleep on, the feather pillows are much too feathery to sleep on a single one. You wake up several times in the night from turning and getting a blast of air in the face with the bi-pap.

Eating - Food is starting to take it's toll. You are happy to see sandwiches for lunch, if they are offered. Greasy or rich food is eaten only sparingly, you don't want to make yourself sick.

Day 3 -

Sleep - Sleep is difficult. You are tired of sleeping on the feather pillows already. 4 to 6 of them don't seem to be enough to sleep on. The big giant fancy pillows they have don't seem to help. You wish you brought your pillow from home. The BiPap starts driving you crazy as you toss and turn trying to get the pillows right. You consider just getting up at 4am to read something.

Eating - You are tired of eating out. For lunch, the lasanga they offer just doesn't look like it would do you any good, you skip over it and have dry salad and a roll. You eat some very good chicken fingers, but don't take one bite past too many, which is already too many. You skip dessert. It turns out that one sort of too many chicken fingers was too many, you have an upset stomach the rest of the night. (Which doesn't do any good for the fight you are going to have with the pillows that night.)

Any days past the third carry on in the same manner.

Book Review

Niagara: A history of the Falls
Pierre Berton

I don't remember having any history lessons back in school about Niagara Falls, I suppose it was one of those things I missed when we moved and changed schools. (Or maybe I just wasn't paying any attention.)

This book is a history book, but it's not one of those books that has endnotes or footnotes every 2 1/2 inches. The author just tells the stories he wants to tell, and tries to keep things going. (It still took me 2 months to read, I got interrupted in the middle.) The book picks up a bit when the author starts talking about the daredevils - tightrope walkers, barrel riders, that sort. He ends the book talking about the work done to put the hydroelectric plants in, and finished with a fairly long section on Love Canal. (It seemed long, maybe it was just because I was on a plane about the same size as my car...)

I would recommend the book, in fact, I was on a trip with my boss, he's headed over to Buffalo next week to visit Niagara Falls and Palmyra, I gave it to him to read before he heads over there. It will definitely give him a frame of reference going in. (And maybe he can impress his wife with fun filled facts about the Falls.) Anyway, I would recommend the book, but it's out of print. Sorry. Once he gives the book back, if you want it, let me know...

Broadcast Storm

Last week on Friday, I set up my old wireless router in the house, preparing for visitors who might possibly want to use it. I got it going, and things looked fine.

Saturday afternoon when I got home, our internet connection was no longer working. Calling in to the ISP, they said they had disabled the connection because of some sort of excessive broadcast from the house. I disconnected the wireless, they reenabled the port, the problem was gone. I guess the wireless is dead. (I unplugged it a long time ago, I started having problems with it.)

So, for those coming out, there is no wireless in the house. I have plenty of cables and ports, just no wireless. Sorry.

The Home Teaching curse

I have had 2 home teaching family slots for a number of years. I have had one family in slot #1 for a while now. (Something like a year and a half at this point.) Slot #2 has been a never ending rotation of people in and out of it. We think it's a cursed position. If the Elders Quorum presidency assigns someone to be home taught by us in this slot, you can be fairly confident they will be moving soon. I would have a complex about it if it was true of both slots...

I thought I had it licked in the Spring, I ended up visiting a family 2 months in a row. The 2nd visit they told us they were moving the next week. Last month, we visited our new family, they had moved down from Seattle, he had been working in computer repair for a number of years, he was coming back to get a Master's degree. They planned to live in their place for a year or two. We talked about the curse. They didn't think it would happen in this case.

We make the next month's HT appointment while we visit. This makes it easier for me to make sure my schedule is clear, and avoids all the hassle of trying to get everyone on the same page after the fact. Last month we set the appointment for today, this morning I find that their number has been disconnected. We went over this morning, and someone new was living there, and it looked like they had recently moved in. They told our (now) old HT family had moved to her Mother's basement. The curse is alive and well. They must not have needed help moving, they didn't call or anything. I'm not really sure what happened. It turns out he updated his telephone information in the campus directory, I called over there, he said they moved unexpectedly last weekend. (We had Stake Conference.)

Anyway, if you are in our ward, and we get assigned to home teach you here in the next few weeks, you have been warned.

Master of the one liner - 3 hours later

Someone asked me this evening if I ever wondered why I had 5 little girls. Then she asked if I knew the odds of having 5 girls. (1 in 32. I got this immediately, then I started thinking about something else.) I really didn't have an answer for her.

3 hours later, I blurted out the answer: "I have always been a ladies man." I'll be quicker on the draw next time.

Book Review

Opening Day: The story of Jackie Robinson's first season
Jonathan Eig

This book is about the first season of Jackie Robinson (in 1947), the first black man to play in a major league baseball game. It was an interesting story I had never heard before. The owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers decided that integration needed to happen in the game, and did all that was necessary to make it happen.

Baseball at the time had only 16 teams. Many players were Southerners, and many of those weren't very excited about Jackie Robinson playing the game with them. The author explains plenty of time showing how Jackie Robinson was one of the leaders in the eventual civil rights movement which eventually came, just by playing the game the way he played. This was all very interesting.

The author also described a number of the games played that year. He did a very good job describing the games and its events. It was all very interesting. I've never seen footage of Jackie Robinson running the basepaths (I still need to make that pilgramage to Cooperstown sometime), but it sounds like it was fun to watch.

The author also wrote a book called Lucky Man, about the life of Lou Gehrig, that I think I will pick up sometime to read.