Just to see it in print . . .

Traveling

2011-07-25T01:20:00.011-06:00

A lot has happened, and I am way behind in my blog, so I am looking for some way to catch up. What I have decide to do is just put some random notes in one post. This is stuff that happened somewhere in between December 2010 and July 2011.

January was a traveling month. I spent three weeks out on the road that month.

Fort Knox: This was my first trip to what I would call the mid-East, Kentucky. Not the coast, but still East of the Mississippi. I landed in Louisville and drove to Elizabethtown, which is the nearest town with a decent selection of hotels. The landscape there was beautiful, green with lots of vegetation, big square red brick houses with large porches on large lots of manicured grass. Even the lower income areas looked well kept compared to other places I have been. I was only there for two days, but really enjoyed the scenery.

The legendary "Fort Knox" is still there, but ironically is not protected by the military installation. Instead it is just a modest sized stone structure out front of the base entrance, surrounded by its own security--razor-wire, chain link, barriers and personnel. The interesting stuff, I was told, is not in the building but believed to be underground. I hadn't realized it, but this is property of the Treasury department which is a different branch of government than the DoD. Anyway, in the pass office to get on base there are signs to remind visitors that this is an active military base, not a tourist location. There are a fair number of historical locations on old bases like this, and apparently the public at large has tried to go see them.

Atlantic City: From Ft Knox I took a late night flight in to Philadelphia and drove down to Atlantic City, arriving at about 2AM. If I was driving on more familiar roads I think this would have been pretty difficult to stay alert, but in unfamiliar [hostile] territory, driving an unfamiliar car, I didn't have any problems. I had also been warned to watch out for wildlife crossing the turnpike at night, so I had multiple reasons to stay awake. I had a room in Absecon that looked out over the city across Absecon Bay.

I was working at the local Federal Aviation Administration facility, and while the driving there wasn't any worse than anywhere else on the east coast, but the security at the FAA was more involved than just about any military base I have visited yet. They did full airport security to anyone that visited, and I wasn't able to drive my rental car on their campus. It was very inconvenient, and like many government-sponsored security regimens, not particularly effective or efficient.

Washington, DC: The next week I found myself in DC, headed for Andrews AFB. A coworker and I touched down at around 3PM local time, so we decided to go do an hour in the museums downtown before finding the hotel. I had heard that parking was difficult in downtown DC, but at 4:30 there were spots everywhere. I parked on a nearby street and we hit the Natural History Museum and the Military Museum (I think...)

Anyway, it was just after 5:30 when we got back to where I had parked, and the car was gone. I had incorrectly interpreted the instructions on the meter and where I had parked became and additional driving lane after 5PM, so I had been towed. In my defense the scant directions were still not totally clear, even after I understood what had happened. Anyway, the system is that they tow your car to another nearby street. You call a number and they towing company tells you the approximate location of your car. An hour later we located the car three blocks away or so and survived the ugly traffic out of there. I ended paying a pretty penny in parking fines over the next few months as well.

Another take away from my time at Andrews was that our military is very inconsistent in their procedures, which has always been counter-intuitive to me. Every base, even in the same branch of the military has a different procedure for getting on base. These little inconsistencies add up to big time dollars being wasted. My example here is the procedure for getting on base. Thinking of Air Force installations only, I have had to fill out multiple forms ahead of time, or sometimes just show my driver's license at the gate. Sometimes I need an escort or a solid itinerary for my visit, while other times I am just let loose on the base to figure it out for myself. I don't blame the soldiers for any of this of course. It is just another source for my healthy distrust of large government. If you want something done quickly, cost-effectively or at a high quality level, then don't ask the government to do it.

Ft Hood, Texas: The last week of January was the beginning of four trips in a row to Ft Hood in Killeen, Texas. I like Texas in many ways. The people are faith-based, gun-toting cowboys. Most of the time I liked that atmosphere. I think that the stereotypical character that you think of when I describe it that way might struggle in the IT/Computer world, and there was a lot of that as well. I liked the restaurants, the weather and the overall feel in central Texas (I often flew into Austin and drove up). At the same time there was a lot of harsh language and an antagonistic atmosphere among my counterparts, most of which was politically motivated.

February was a little better. A couple more trips to Texas. More progress on Ft. Hood.

March was another traveling month. Another week at Ft Hood. Along with weeks at Newark, New Jersey and in Hunstville, Alabama.

I have shared my thoughts about Newark before, I believe, and they haven't improved much. If anything I am just more comfortable there, knowing more how to get around, where to get food, and where not to go.

Huntsville, Alabama was another story altogether. First of all, for the first time ever I volunteered to get bumped in return for free travel. It ended up being so restricted with rules and fees that I wouldn't recommend it unless you had a specific trip you knew you would have to pay for in the 12 months. The truth is that I was able to make last minute changes to my travel plans, and was comfortable doing so. I jumped on a different plane, one gate over for Birmingham, and then rented a car and drove to Huntsville.

Really, if you have the money, the air travel network is fairly flexible. You can get just about anywhere in the country, and sometimes out of the country in a day, if you are willing to pay the price. A big caveat, I know, but it is a new understanding to have. I have changed a lot of flights and as a frequent flyer been given a lot of leeway over the last few years. The cost is the cost of repeating business enough with one or two airlines to earn the luxury of flexibility. Anyway, a tangent, I know, but I thought it was interesting.

Huntsville itself was fantastic. It was rainy some days, but it was beautiful, and pretty warm for late winter/early spring. I was there visiting the Redstone Arsenal, which is where most of our missile research takes place. So this is a boom town full of government contractors, rocket scientists and government funding. The base had tons of amenities, and was a polar opposite to Ft Hood. No rough languaged shout-downs happening in the hallways here (yes, that happened multiple times at Ft Hood.) If I liked Texas, then I loved Huntsville. I told Heather that we should move there. Heather happens to have a friend in town, so it made for interesting discussions, but the lack of a job and the distance from family kept it from getting too serious.

April brought one more trip to Ft Hood, to finish that project up. It also brought my resignation from the company. Traveling has been hard on the family, but in many cases it has brought the experience that I was looking for. I had only traveled out of the Western US a couple of time up to that point in time, and I felt that that lack of experience was holding me back somewhat, so I embraced the opportunity to travel. Now it is over.

Did I resign because I thought I was "done" with that need to experience things? No, it is more just that we have done what we can do for now. A life of experience does not happen in one year, one job, or even with one purpose. I think I exhausted the professional experience available at that company. Yes, there was more traveling available, but that would just be more of the same. I had gained a lot of experience, I missed being home with my family, and I had another option that had the potential for growth. That is usually all it takes.

So I started a new job in May 2011 and a new adventure. I will write about that too, but this post is already overly long, so I will split it up. I have also been focusing on work events in this post, so I should write a few about other happenings from the beginning of 2011 as well.

My trip to the North Pole

2010-12-30T22:45:00.008-07:00

I am not doing a good job of keeping my blog up to date, so in an effort to increase overall activity I am going to let quality slip even more.

I spent 3 weeks in Anchorage, Alaska in August/September this year, and experienced Alaska at its best. I don't remember if I wrote anything about that trip, but I'm not here to tell you about it. I am here to tell you about 2 weeks in December that I spent in Fairbanks, Alaska. That is a different story altogether.

I have pictures somewhere, of varying quality, and I will hopefully remember to add them later. For now, I am just going to hit some highlights:

1. The warmest it got the whole time I was there was -8 F. The coldest it got was -40 F.

2. There are still ravens/blackbirds that live in those temperatures.

3. They don't plow the roads when it snows. It is so cold that the snow doesn't get all that slippery, since it never melts, so their roads are just squished down snow.

4. I drove through North Pole, AK every day, and I stopped by Santa's House several times.

5. It is so cold that frost/ice forms on the inside of doors and windows and can build up quite a bit. It seems to all be based on humidity levels...

6. When you spit in -30 F weather, it does NOT turn to ice before hitting the ground. It hits the ground wet and freezes within seconds.

7. In -30 F, if you toss a cup of boiling water into the air, it WILL turn to snow-like particles and float down.

9. You plug your car in whenever you stop for any material length of time to keep the engine from freezing solid. At grocery stores people just leave their car running with the doors locked rather than turn it off.

10. Alaska is an expensive place to live because everything has to be shipped in.

Like I said, hopefully I will get some pictures to include here as well. (Look, I did!!)

The passing of Sandra Lynn Gresko

2010-10-01T18:23:00.006-06:00

Heather has an open, well-known and well-documented relationship with her mom that is as close as any two people can be, in my opinion. So this is my turn to say that I loved Sandy, and it was with a deep sadness I watched her struggle with cancer and eventually pass from this life this year.

I hate funerals and the hardest part for me is the viewing. There is just something different between talking about someone dying and actually seeing their bodies vacant of a spirit. To me it is akin to the disparity between hearing about a catastrophe and witnessing it first hand. It becomes something you never forget, that reaches you at a different level. At Sandy's viewing I was overcome by sadness and I couldn't contain it. It was such a sense of loss, and I cried for her, and for her daughter, and for her husband, and their family, and for my family. And for me. I had not felt the loss so keenly prior to that moment, and I haven't felt it like that since, but I remember it, and it was overpowering. And to think that this awful experience of death is a part of life. Such sadness.

The day of the funeral was hotter than usual in Phoenix. Definitely too hot to wear a black suit, but wear it I did. I stood in the sun, next to my mother-in-law's grave, and thought about her, and how she was at almost every major event in my life over the last 13 years. There were babies born, kids' soccer games, my marriage, shopping trips to Costco, my family's sealing in the temple, my Eagle Court of Honor, my first full-time job, multiple surgeries and sicknesses. Our first apartment, the next 13 times we moved, Holidays including Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Easter, 4th of July, our birthdays and babtisms. There were times we disagreed, even argued, but in the end we were family. We got over it and learned to live with our differences.

Sandy's legacy lives on in each of her grandchildren who will carry the sense of self-worth and belonging that came from the unconditional love of a devoted grandparent. Thanks, Sandy for all you have done for me and my family. We will miss you. God be with you 'till we meet again.

Newark, NJ

2010-09-18T17:59:00.002-06:00

So I spent some time in Newark, NJ, and I will just go ahead and put it on my list of worst places I have ever been. Near the top.

Unfortunately, New Jersey isn't a bad place from a natural scenery/climate point of view. It is just full of New Jersians. I will say that I am lucky that I am working with a group of helpful, hardworking people out there, so my opinion is not based on them, but more on the 2000-3000 people I drive past every day while I am there. The ones arguing on the sidewalk, fighting, selling drugs, standing around and doing nothing, playing checkers on the sidewalk, etc, etc. In other words, Newark appears to have a bunch of people in it that don't want to work for a living and just want the government to take care of them. And the hard-working people in Newark (who often live a long way outside of Newark) pay for it. It is rediculous. I think I have written about this before, so this is just a refresher in case anyone forgot where I stand on the "should Newark be leveled so we can start from scratch" question...

Anchorage, Alaska

2010-08-30T22:59:00.001-06:00

No, I did not meet Sarah Palin.

I did however take two trips to Anchorage, staying a total of 3 weeks there. It was in August, so it was beautiful weather. Unfortunately I didn't see any moose or polar bears (Alaska icons), but I did see Beluga whales and a seal. And a lot of salmon fisherman. The last day I was there I had some time before my flight left, so I drove down the coast until I had burned half my free time. It was beautiful, and I even saw my first glacier, from a distance (I think).

I also experienced daylight until about 11 PM on those trips. This post may grow if I find some pictures to add, and the time to add them. But at least this wasn't left out now...

Legoland

2010-07-22T18:53:00.013-06:00

Life is hectic. So how do you deal with it? I know how I do. I look forward to the next vacation. It sounds kind of cheesy when I say it (or write it), but it is the truth. I like having a plan for something fun to do with the family, and so far our favorite is the canned vacation to a theme park or other "touristy" location. There is a fair helping of irony to this, since I don't really like crowds, don't enjoy cities and spend a lot of time away from home already, but as I found in some of my earliest blog posts, there is something about being on vacation with the family.

So we picked up and went to Legoland. It is part of our commitment to lay off of Disneyland for a while. I have a goal of visiting all of the other major So Cal theme parks before going back.

One of the coolest things about Legoland is simply all of the lego sculptures. They truly were amazing. Everthing you see here is constructed out of regular stock Lego bricks.

Heather and I saw Hagrid, and both immediately went for a picture. Logan was our photographer on this trip, so we were able to get a few shots of just us.

We couldn't turn down Harry either.

Jeff and Rachelle's fam met us out there, and we ate at this great restaurant twice... umm, I forgot the name. Maybe someone can remind me? Anyway, we were there in between Collin's and Trenton's brithday, so they got to stand on their chairs and be recognized. The cousins were in rare form that night, if I remember correctly. Oh, to be young and so excited about life...

Taryn was a good sport. At Legoland, the little kids have to wait in line with everyone else so the parents can switch on the ride. She did pretty well, and as always, we love to take pictures of her.

Collin turned 11 on this trip. He is growing up on us.

Yeah, work it baby.

I think she has a thing for bald guys...

They did pretty much the whole Vegas strip. The detail was pretty cool. I did find it interesting that the are working hard to create recognizable characters out of their Lego guys, yet they didn't use the standard Lego guys in their model. They built people out of bricks instead. Weird.

We realized that we didn't have a jacket for Taryn anymore, so on the way out of town we stopped at our favorite store: the Disneyland outlet store and got her this Mickey jacket. She loved it, and it turned out to be a good idea because it was cold the whole time we were there. (Highs in the 60's in the second week of July??)

Another cool thing was the technic classes. You could sign up to come back and play with these robots. You plugged them into a computer, programmed them to do certain tasks, and then tested it on this special table. The boys loved it. I loved it. I only wish they would have just let us play on our own a while longer.
All made out of Legos. Pretty cool, huh.
They had some 3-D shows, one of which was Bob the Builder. Taryn really wanted to go see Bob, until she got there. Then she remembered how shy she is, and how big Bob is up close. Still, Taryn seems to pull us more toward characters than the other kids have.

Wow. look at our little family.
So one of the down sides of Legoland was that the rides left a lot to be desired. This is one of the few that Taryn went on, and she loved it, but overall the rides were a disappointment. They were all scaled down compared to DLand, and you can tell that they just didn't spend the money on them. The cheese factor was pretty high. But still, we can say we experienced it.

Jon Schmidt

2010-07-03T00:08:00.006-06:00

Collin found this Utah-based piano-guy, Jon Schmidt a while back. I don't know how he heard about him, but he loved his stuff and worked his tail off to learn one of his songs. Over the last 6 months while Collin has worked on "Jon Schmidt" songs we went to a concert in Henderson where Jon performed, and have watched every you-tube video that mentions his name or his songs. I love to listen to Collin play, and especially when he is playing one of these songs, and I have found myself far away from my family, streaming music from Jon's website, and thinking about how it would be at home and hearing Collin play. Collin isn't a master of all of these songs yet, but he does pretty good, and he is learning what it is to have to perform them on stage. He makes a few more mistakes in front of an audience then he does at home, but I know that it is because he wants to do them as fast as Jon does. He is getting better all the time, and I am so proud of him. So I am going to post a video from a recent talent show. Taryn was making a fuss for part of the video, and Collin had to do his own page turning, as well as deal with nerves, so this is a little rough, but it is life.

2010-07-02T23:35:00.007-06:00

So I came home for a week at the end of May/beginning of June, and then returned again to Okinawa. I was in Okinawa for the rest of June and the first few days of July (28 days total). Currently I am once again in the Kansai airport in Osaka, Japan, waiting for my connecting flight back to San Francisco. I feel like I have blogged more in this airport than in anywhere else in the world (not true, of course).

Anyway, I haven't posted anymore pictures of signs with goofy translation errors, or other cultural oddities, because, frankly, they all blend in for me now. I feel like I see more things as "normal" now, although there are some things that are still just wrong in my book, most of them being culinary in nature. (Why, oh why would you ruin a perfectly good pizza with ring shaped hunks of squid?)

So what I do have to report on is that I finally bought a new camera. It is still an inexpensive model, because I am a tight-wad. It is also a stylish blue color, that doesn't at all fit me, but that is also because I am a tight-wad (the blue ones were on sale. Apparently they didn't fit anyone else either.) So although the newness of Japan has worn off a bit, the newness of my camera has not, and I was on the lookout for something interesting to take a picture of.

So in airports across the world now there are designated smoking rooms. You get used to them. You smell them before you see them, and once you pass them if you just keep walking the smell goes away. Anyway, I was passing this one and walked by, and then stopped and went back and took a picture. There is an obvious problem here if you put "For smoking adults only." Where are the kids going to smoke? Some people are just thoughtless.

Anyway, so on this trip I went golfing for the first time in Okinawa. And the same thing happened that happens every time I go golfing. I lose horribly. I had a great time. I stated at least 10 times that I need to go to the driving range and practice before golfing again. As usual, I enjoyed the time outdoors and so the next day we went again. It was my first time on a small irons course. Nothing but par 3s, and I really liked that. The second time we went it was close to their closing time, so we did all nine holes in an hour and ten minutes. We jogged the whole way. Did my score suffer? Yes. Did it matter? No. So I heard a long time ago that if you video tape your swing, and then look at it, it is easier to see what you need to change (as opposed to having people constantly tell you how to fix it, which I haven't found totally helpful up to this point...) So I did that, and it was really educational. I decided against posting that video however. That would be a waste of bytes on some server somewhere.

What was cool is that the course is right under the incoming flight path to Kadena Air Base, and we saw a bunch of fighter jets throughout the round. They were SO close that we could hear the hydraulics that controlled the flaps and stuff. It sounded like a scene from Transformers. It was so cool. Unfortunately after the tenth fly-over I thought "I should get video of that." Too late.

So I am so glad to be heading home to see my family. We have been spread all over the place, and it is high-time we had some time together. Unfortunately, it looks like I will be back out in OKA a time or two this year, so we will have to make the most of the time we have together over the next few weeks.

I have a few other topics to post about, but I'll wait and work on those later.

What is that on your plate?

2010-05-28T11:11:00.004-06:00

So I didn't take any pictures, but did have an interesting dinner. I love the Korean BBQ places; those are the ones with cutouts in the table with a BBQ stuck right there. My favorite are the buffet style, where you can go to a big open refrigerated buffet of raw meat, and heap up a bunch of raw meat to take back and cook at your table. It is most exciting because since I can't read Japanese, so I have to guess at what kind of meat I am getting.

Well we were at one such establishment, and I saw a plate of raw chicken, and thought that I might get a little chicken to go with my pork and beef. So I grabbed a couple of pieces and sat down to BBQ and eat my rice. Mark, who I work with, asked if I knew what that was. "Yep, its chicken." He smiled. Its bad news when Mark thinks something is funny.

"Tell me what it is" I said.

"No."

"If you tell me I promise to try it anyway."

He grabs the tongs and throws my two now suspicious raw somethings on the grill.

"Intestines" he says.

So it turns out that intestines are rather tasteless, albeit extremely chewy. Reminded me of the unfortunate squid I sampled last time I was in Yokohama, only without the crunchy parts (the little round sucker things.)

I didn't go back for seconds.

Update from OKA

2010-05-25T15:57:00.003-06:00

Still no pictures (I haven't gone anywhere new yet). Still not a lot to update. It has been 13+ hour work days and finding food and sleep in between. I hope to be on my flight home on Saturday, but it isn't looking promising at this point...

Interesting tidbit: Okinawa has endured an earthquake and 2 tsunamai warnings since I was here last. The world is rocking and rolling.

Osaka, for another hour or so

2010-05-23T01:48:00.003-06:00

So, it is true. The only time I have for blogging these days is when I'm on the road. I have been re-assigned to our project in Okinawa, so I am on my way back there today, and will be back and forth a bit for the next month or two. The 7 week break from travel was nice, but good things never last. This should only be a one-week trip, and I have a big task ahead of me, so I don't plan on doing anything exciting. I didn't even bring a camera, other than my phone. We'll see if I can find anything interesting to take pictures of...

Germany

2010-02-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

So I finally made it to Germany in January 2010. Now I am out here for a second trip already in February-March. Overall life has been busy, both at home and abroad, so I haven't had a lot of time for picture taking/site seeing, but I though I would post what I have and make a few comments in case anyone is interested.

This is me standing on a castle wall, overlooking the town of Heidelberg. This is an "Americanized" German town, but I can't tell from where I am. To me it just looks German.

This is pretty much the same picture, just better because I am not in the way.

More from the same vantage point, but looking straight across the valley.

If I turned around from where I took those pictures of the valley, this is main building? Wall? of the "castle". The term castle refers to a lot of things, and while it felt like a castle as I climbed the ancient narrow trail that wound up the side of the mountain, I didn't expect for there to be so many windows... Granted, this still isn't an easily accessed/conquered vantage point, but still. That is a lot of windows.

It seems that the castle is in a constant state of being rebuilt to keep it in showing condition, however, some parts had been damaged beyond fixing by time, bombs and lightning. This picture (horrible lighting, sorry) was meant to show the thickness of the walls. They are incredibly thick in some place,like 12 feet thick. And it still broke... Interesting.

This was part of an interpretive sign that explained about how the castle used to look. It seems that most castles weren't just built, they were large buildings that kept getting addons and remodels until the took the shape of what we consider a castle. Perhaps some of the more Gothic structures are a little different, so I should find some of those. If/when I go to France, I think that a few French castles fit my particular perception of a castle a little better.

This tower was broken almost clean down the middle, and the massive piece of the tower remained intact and just slid to a new resting place. A German professor, trying to make a political point of some kind back in the day, spread the story that this was the work of WWII bombing by the Allies, but Wikipedia confirms that the real culprit here was lightning in the 19th century. Still, it is amazing to see this massive, old, man-made hunk of tower just leaning there like a tinker toy. My picture doesn't do this justice...

Old vs. New. As I said, the castle was more like a bunch of add-ons. Here you can see a date carved in the stone (1545) and right next to it are the more modern pipes bringing in utilities of some kind (water maybe?) Very interesting.

This is from inside the Courtyard of the castle. That big building in front of me is the other side of the wall I was looking up at a few pictures ago. The courtyard does match my perception of castle life a little better... They have converted the East side of the castle (to right, around the corner) to an Apothecary (Pharmacy) museum. It was very interesting too, but I wasn't able to get pictures of anything in there. In the foreground of this picture on the right, you see the corner with pillars. That was where the well for the castle was. That alone is amazing to me, that they could dig that deep by hand on a mountainside and hit water... ok, so I was raised in a desert.

This is a horrible picture for a number of reasons, the biggest being that you don't get the scale of it at all. This is a humongous Wine cask. It was built in the castle, and is 20 ft. tall I would guess? Standing on the ground next to it I have to look up to see the center of the thing. It was huge. Some idiot with more money than brains had it built, only to find that within a year it started leaking. It was only in use for a year or two, at the end of which it was constantly leaking like a sieve. At least the guy did set his sights high.... There was a staircase so you could walk up and over it, or stand on top. It was cool.

This is a town square in below the castle (you can see one of the ruined walls behind the statue. The statue was of Mary and Baby Jesus, but the picture didn't turn out too well.

So those are some of my pictures from my first trip in January. I only had one half day (luck) to do anything but work, since I was only there a week, so I am glad to have been able to see what I did.

I was home for about three weeks, and then I went back to Germany for what was going to be 2 weeks, but is stretching into almost 4 weeks (I am still here...) I hope to be home soon. The upside is that I had a few more days--weekends--to see a few things, so here is a sampling of those sights.

The day started at the Hauptbahnhof (train station) in Frankfurt. We had to take a coworker to the airport, so we parked the car at the train station. There was a tourism office where we got a day pass for Frankfurt, which allowed us to ride any of the trains and get discounts at any of the museums in town (there are a lot of museums) for about 9 euros. That is about $14.

An overall shot of the train station. I am not a big fan of cities, or city life, but I am a big fan of trains. Too bad they seem to go together.

So after getting our day passes and maps we took a few minutes at an American icon to plan out our day. It was extremely cold, and snowing off an on, so a cup of hot chocolate was perfect. Did I mention it was freezing cold? Ok, good. Didn't want to leave that out. (BTW: Can you pick me out of the crowd? Ok, that was too easy.)

There are basically 4 types of trains: underground (U-bahn), Regional surface trains (R-bahn), local trams (buses on tracks;)--(S-bahn) and then the long distance, super fast Inter City Express trains (ICE trains). This is the tram stop (S-bahn) outside of the train Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (main train station). We decided to ride the tram down to the old city center along the river, where it would be a short walk to a dozen different museums.

This is the old town in Frankfurt. Frankfurt is actually considered a new city, and has more skypscrapers than anywhere in Germany (or so I am told) but why would I take pictures of skyscrapers? That seemed dumb. So here is one angle on the old town square. This weekend was Carnival (a big drunken festival of unknown origin?) and they were setting up for the festivities as we wandered around.

Just another building in all its quaintness.

This statue was outside an "ancient statue" museum. They had big windows along the outside of the building, so we walked along and saw all kinds of Greek and Roman statues, at varying levels of modesty. We didn't pay to go in. The statue pictured is of the King (ok, so I don't remember exactly what he was king of) from around 760ish AD. That was a long time ago. And it looks just like him!! Amazing. I wonder if it was chiseled by a guy named Polaroid. Or maybe it was a guy named Bob using Polaroid chisels...

So being from Vegas, I see random stuff stuck on buildings all the time. I don't even see it anymore becuase I know it is all just a faked up attempt to make stucco (and the whole city) look like something more than it is. Well, I saw this on the side of an old German building and thought, I don't know if that is genuine or a reproduction for tourists. Just not knowing for sure somehow lent it some credibility. And even if it is just another cheap stucco reproduction, it does have more value because the street I was standing on probably had seen armored troops on horseback (among other conveyences.) Also, you can't tell from the picture so much, but this is not just a picture, but a flat sculpture on the wall (isn't that called a relief? I never took art history. I never thought I would use it ;) )

This is two attemps to get a shot of an old chapel across the river. Yes a new camera is on my Christmas list.

There was a foot bridge across the river... (Did I mention it was freezing cold?)

This is me on the foot bridge, freezing. (Thanks Mom for the stocking hat from Christmas like 10 years ago. See, it made it to Germany!) The sign above/behind me is in Greek. In the full sized picture I can't make out the characters I can't read. Yeah, you aren't missing much there.

This is a dog.

So we wandered around some more. Went to an Architecture museum and a Archeology museum (no pictures allowed in either.) We found a more modern, very European street to walk down that had a bunch of shops and pubs, so we stopped in one for lunch. That took two hours. That is where the dog picture came from. We noticed in multiple places, especially restaurants, that people would bring their dogs to work. Our waitress owned this little dog, and the table next to us had a few little kids, the youngest being a little blond haired girl who was 3 at most. They loved this dog, and the waitress came over and had it do tricks (rolling over and such). My little Taryn would have loved that dog. He was very patient with the kids, although they did finally get him to bark a few times. When the family left the dog went and sat by the glass door and watched them leave.

So a few more train rides and we were done for the day. I have a few more pictures from my trip, which as I mentioned isn't over yet, so I will do another post later for those who might be interested.

Sliding in Germany

2010-02-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

So in the post with the more recent Germany pics, I showed you a 747 on stilts and mentioned that we got to slide down from it. Here is a video of a co-worker, Jason, who captured his slide down from the platform under the plane. Notice the excitement. It was like being a kid again. Cool.

More Pics from Germany

2010-02-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

So several of you have told me that I need to update my blog. You are right, of course. So I decided to work on that this weekend, and when I logged in I found that I have several posts that I just never finished. I didn't realize that these had been left out, so this is what you get. Old stuff. Due to the catching up I am doing, I plan on putting relatively little effort in these posts, to they are disorganized and don't honor chronology or comprehensivity. (I did just use two awesome words though...)

These pictures (and this post) are from my second trip to Germany, earlier this year. I was there for a month, and although it was a lot of work, I did get out for a weekend visit to the Teknic Museum in Speyer. I am pretty sure I slaughtered the spelling there...

So this was a massive museum of technology, born from the collection of a single investor, I believe. One of the cool things was that they had a bunch of planes/aircraft on display up in the air. Some of them had stairs so you could go up in them and see the inside. The cooler ones had big stainless steel slides to get back to the ground. More on that later...

This is a German U-boat (submarine). I went inside (see below.)

This is me inside of a German U-Boat. It was crazy tight. When fully loaded it said that they had something like 40 guys in here. I think there was room for about 4. Midgets.

This is the back of the Russian space shuttle. It never actually made it into space (the Russians ran out of money...) but it was still cool to see a real space shuttle.

This was the inside of a humongo German cargo plane (military). They had a video showing them landing it on the little airstrip by the museum. Crazy. The overran the runway and bumped into a fence... and then stopped.

They had a bunch of sweet old cars. This was a fancy one.

They had a full-on 747 up on stilts for us to climb around on. Check out the slide twirling down out of the bottom of it. Also check out the fence on the wing. It comes up later.

I couldn't help myself.... You see a 747 laying around, you just can't help but pick it up.

So they let you walk out on the wing. That was pretty cool. And then Lennie and I started jumping. It moves. Then we got off of it.

I made it to the bottom of the slide. Very cool.

A piece of the Berlin wall. I have a vague memory of watching this wall come down on the news when I was little. It is interesting to start to see things I remember happening memorialized in museums. I am getting older.

They had a whole section of decked out model railroad tables.

When you enter this room you are distracted by all of the cool cars. Then you look up slightly and see a jet pointed at your head. Its a trip.

Another cool car.

This is a boat made by save-the-rain-forest-people and then sailed somewhere far away (across the Atlantic?) I'm a little sketchy on the details. All of the interpretive signs were in German.

It is hard to appreciate, but the back tire on this thing is about twice as wide as a normal motorcycle tire. The seat was so wide it would have been hard to straddle. Would make an interesting ride.

Hmm. Some pilot had a really bad day at some time in the past.

They had a lot of turbines on display, this one being the biggest. I think it went to a power generator (water??). Anyway it was cool. They also had a couple of jet engines opened up so you could see the inside. This place was the ultimate place to ask how something worked.

Another plane and slide. I didn't even go in this one.

The title of this picture is one word: HEAVENLY. This is chocolate milk that I got at the local grocery store. It is 3.5% milk fat and has real chocolate that settles to the bottom when it sits. You shake it up and oh man is it yummy. I went through like 5 or 6 bottles of this stuff. It seemed relatively cheap too-- 1.35 Euro? So a little less than $2 US.

Ha, so they have these awesome rolls that are cooked just enough to keep their shape, but are still doughy. You buy them for cheap and them pop them in the oven to finish cooking them. It is cool because they are so cheap, and because you get fresh baked bread with dealing with dough. I was unfortunate enough to learn, however, that if you forget to take them out of the oven for an hour or two, they turn to charcoal. I squeezed (spellcheck says squoze ins't a word) one of these bad boys over the trash can, just to see what would happen. It exploded into black dust, in case you were curious.

This is me by the river that ran by where we were staying. There was a quaint church across the river, and those European ducks right there, so I paused for a picture. It was frigid. I should point out my scarf. It is the first scarf I have ever owned, and I bought it in the mall (off the clearance rack--less than 5 euro if I remember correctly!!) It made me feel like I fit in better in Germany. I didn't fit in, of course, but the scarf helped me feel that way.

So the same river had a ferry. I'd never seen a ferry before that I could remember, and this seemed more interesting for being so modest in size, so we hung around and watched it go back and forth for a while.

The rustic cobble stones went right into the river... How did they get them there? How do they stay? Oh and there is a big river barge going up the river. The cargo is sandwiched into the floaty things up front, and then the boat in the back attaches to it and pushes it around. It is like a tractor-trailer in reverse. They pretty much hauled tail up and down the river, disrupting all the Euro-birds.

Hmm, I must have been fascinated by the cobblestone. I am sure there was a good reason to include this one. Maybe the chain that keep the ferry from floating down river?

And there was a bridge just around the bend in the river, but it was a train (and pedestrian) bridge. I don't know where the nearest car bridge was.

So right in the middle of a park next to the river there was this odd tower. I ended up seeing them all over the place. Not really sure what its function was...

So I think there may be other pictures, but this is what I have here, so I am posting this. I may get fancy later (which may equate to me putting a new date on this post (February 28. 2010) to get it in the right order), but in the meantime, enjoy!

Disneyland Tokyo

2010-02-15T10:43:00.037-07:00

Wow. So last fall I was in Tokyo and had the chance to go to Tokyo Disneyland. It has been months since, but I finally decided to document the trip as best I can. It was interesting for a number of reasons:
1. I was alone. Yep, I went to TDL by myself.
2. It was my first Disney experience outside of Anaheim.
3. I only had 2 days to do two parks.
4. It was cold.

So I have some pictures here, and I will add some thoughts about the trip. Also, since I was on my own and didn't have anyone to talk to, and I couldn't make friends with anyone because I don't speak Japanese, I instead used my time in line to write about the experience as it happened (not unlike twitter...) Unfortunately this was unlike Twitter in the respect to length. I went on for as long as I wanted. I might add some direct quotes from that as well. Anyway, enough intro...

Day 1

Day One began with a bus. I was staying in Yokohama, which is south of Tokyo, and it is about an hour bus ride to Disneyland. My friends there informed me that I didn't need an advance ticket, and that the buses are never full. Unfortunately they weren't Disney-ites like myself. If the word "Disney" was an adjective it would mean "crowded". Yep, I wanted to take the 6:45 AM bus, so I got to the stop at 6:30. There was already a bus load of people in line. I made it on the second bus that left just after 7 AM, and we left more people on the curb. The bus ticket was a close call as well. There wasn't a window to buy a ticket, I had to use this machine. Good plan except for that machine was all in Japanse. No English button. I was forced to ask a stranger to help me (me as in the only grown-up white guy in a Disney sweatshirt trying to catch this bus by himself ) buy a ticket to Disneyland. It was awesome.

So being cursed when it comes to buses, of course I got off at the wrong stop and hiked a mile to the entrance, where I got to stand in line. You can just make out the roof over the heads of about 10,000 of my closest Japanese friends there. That is where the back of the line should have been. Once under the roof you were in line to get your bag checked for contraband, and then you got to stand in line to actually get in. It was Disney [crowded].

One cool thing was that Disneyland tickets could be bought at Disney retail stores. And they were everywhere. There were two within walking distance of my hotel in Yokohama, so I had picked up my ticket earlier that week. You may notice that there are dates on the ticket. In Japan you buy tickets for certain days, since they sometimes sell out. Yep, some days Disneyland is so full they just stop selling tickets, and this was one such weekend actually, with a Japanese national holiday and it being the first weekend of the Christmas season. Unfortunately, I didn't get any discounts by buying in advance...

This picture was compressed even more after it was uploaded and so it didn't turn out well, but my two-day pass was about 10,000 yen or roughly $100. It wasn't a park hopper--it was only good at one park per day. Due to the busy weekend, I had to go to Disneyland on Saturday, and Disney's second gate, Tokyo DisneySea the second day, Sunday.

So a little over 30 minutes after the park opened, I made it inside. The first character I saw was Pooh, which made me miss Taryn, my little Pooh fanatic. So I snapped this picture for her. In California I wonder where they find so many short people to fill the costumes, but I didn't ponder on that for long on this trip :)

So if you have ever been with me to Disneyland (and many of you have), you know that it is all about the FastPasses. What makes them great is that in CA, few of the locals use them, so if you are from out of town, or just want to make the most of your trip, a little forethought and some extra hiking across the park pays serious dividends. Well, here in Japan everyone and their dog tries to work the FastPass game, so it doesn't have the same effect. For my efforts I only got 3 Fastpasses and they were all gone by 10:30 AM, and from what I've read, that is not uncommon. I didn't even get to use one of them.

So I had my first FastPass in hand (Space Mountain) and was walking by IASW (Its a Small World) and decided to pop in since there was no wait. That is what is known as a "rookie mistake." I knew better than that, but I did it anyway and suffered. By the time I got out of there the park had been open for 90 minutes and any benefit from my early start at the day was completely lost. Anyway, I thought I'd include this picture of the loading area for IASW. As you can see it is indoors, as are almost all attractions at TDL. I thought it gave most rides a different feel, but also made me appreciate DL-CA even more. When you are walking around, having the queues out in the open as you walk by an attraction kind of brings it out to you (or brings you into it?) You feel more like you are in a theme park than you do when you are just walking down a sidewalk with buildings on each side, no matter how intricately themed. Just an opinion...

I posted this picture to show that even in the middle of the ride, English is prevalent. Most of the visitors were Japanese, and relatively few seemed to be fluent in English, but when Disney first licensed this park (yep, TDL Resort is not owned by Disney) part of the agreement was to keep English as the primary language. This was Disney's first park overseas, and I think that since then they have changed their minds on that, but you can see the effect here, at the end of IASW. It did help me navigate the park though, having English signs here and there. Unfortunately there aren't English signs everywhere though, so there were a few awkward moments after all...

So as I said, going to IASW first messed up my plan. By the time I got to Big Thunder Mountain, this was the sign I saw. The standby line was 110 minutes! I didn't believe it at first, but got in line anyway.

I love smart ideas, and this one qualifies. I don't know if you can see it, but he has a white wristband on. They measure the kids height, and if they are tall enough they get the wrist band so they don't have to get measured again. I don't have evidence, but I would guess that on some rides it is a requirement for all little kids.

The queue line for BTM is really cool. You climb up a hillside, through a [fake] sandstone arch and then into a rustic shack where they can wind you back and forth for 60 minutes. The shot above was taken from the queue line, looking back down the hill at the mass of people that are in line behind me.

Many/most of the rides are near copies of Disney rides at other parks. BTM is at every Disney site, in one form or another, for example. In the TDL version, they have a cool hot springs area during the ride that you can see in the right side of the above picture. Also, the seats are padded!!! There is also a little divider to keep you from sliding back and forth during the ride. Both are good additions, even though it eliminates the option of going three to a car with little kids, which I have done, and will probably do again.

Speaking of things you don't see every day:

An observation from my phone-notes: "Its quieter. The soundtracks are just a level or two quieter, there are dead spaces walking around and on the rides where there is no soundtrack. I don't know if it is better or not, but that is just how it is. My opinion depends on the situation I guess. Sometimes a little peace and quiet is nice, and other times more volume is better to make the ride or parade or whatever more fun."

So by noon I had been on Small World, Big Thunder, Splash Mountain, Jungle Cruise and Tiki Room. It doesn't sound like a lot, but given the circumstances, I was feeling pretty good about it. But I was hungry. I began hunting for things to eat, and in Japan, that can be a real struggle (at least for me.) Then I saw the waffle house, and my problem was solved. One chocolate syrup and banana covered Mickey waffle later (400 yen) and I was good for another hour or two.

When I had first entered the park and ran for my Space Mountain FastPass, I encountered this line that easily looked like an 45 minute wait, and I was totally surprised to see that it was for a FastPass to their newest ride, Monsters, Inc. Ride and Go Seek. I balked at that craziness of waiting more than half an hour just for a FastPass, and went on my way. However as the day went I couldn't help but think that I should make sure to see all of the stuff that wasn't available at other parks, and a brand-new ride definitely qualified. After enjoying my chocolate covered Mickey waffle, I wandered over to the MI FastPass station to find this:

No FastPasses left (I wasn't surprised at this point), but a 180 minute wait??? Are you kidding? I was tired from my early start, and had found most of the rides to be redundant to my experiences elsewhere, and I just couldn't keep myself from wanting to see this ride. The MI ride in Disney's California Adventure is a decent ride, although still just another addition to the dark ride category. To me, Disney didn't break out of that category until they introduced interactive rides, such as Buzz Lightyear AstroBlasters(the TDL Buzz ride was down most of the day, so I didn't experience their version) and Toy Story Mania. Reading the sign for this MI ride gave me hope of a [new] interactive experience; everyone was to get their own flashlight to "find" monsters on the ride.

So I got in line. And waited. And waited. They did have some minimal theming (a video for instance) to try and keep the queueing area interesting, but there were just too many people. There was no point but to have miles and miles of chains snaking the line back and forth outside (and inside) the building. The first hour I wrote on my phone. Then I played solitaire. I took videos and pictures (Yes, my phone was my friend this whole trip.)

It was pretty close to the 3 hours they predicted when I finally got to the boarding area. The ride vehicles were these little two seaters (in pairs)! No wonder it was a 3 hour line. The only justification I can come up with for this is that TDL, which often has a crowding problem, figured that they could stash a couple thousand guests at a time in this queue and get them out of the way. What other excuse could there be? It wasn't even a constant-loader (like Buzz.) I got in my little Monster cart and picked up my flashlight. Rounding a corner, the light came on. We zigged and zagged through what was a decent, but not extraordinary, dark ride experience.

I could shine my light on the Monsters, sometimes animatronic, most often not. And nothing happened. It wasn't an interactive ride. My actions didn't change the ride experience one bit. Very disappointing.

So if I had it to do over again, would I wait in line for it? Actually yes. What I learned was that it was better to focus on the different rides/experiences, even if less exciting, than to re-hash rides that I had been on dozens of times, despite the minor differences I would see (which were clinically interesting, but not material to the overall ride experience.)

By the time I got off of MI, the afternoon was starting to give way to evening. I realized that I was losing light and wanted to get the obligatory castle pictures. This one and the picture at the top of this posting are two of those. You can tell in both that my lighting was past its prime, and I only had my crappy little Sanyo camera (never buy a Sanyo camera), but I did the best I could with what I had. I would love to get another shot at this with my wife's fancy Nikon D50 someday.

I had learned that the AstroOrbitor in Disneyland [CA] had once sat up by the PeopleMover station, but being a relatively new Disney fanatic, I never saw the PeopleMove open, or the AO in that position and, frankly, I had a hard time picturing it. Well, they had that same setup in TDL, so I don't have to imaging it anymore. It was right there. I definitely see the appeal to what I consider a poorly placed, lackluster ride at Dland-CA, if only it were in its original spot. The height would make it a whole new ride. No, I didn't try this one out (I'm not big on spinning rides.)

It was near the end of the day when I finally used my Space Mountain FastPass. The theming was very much the same, but the ride was not quite up to par with the original, mostly due to the lack of music. I never realized how much the music added to this ride, which is in the dark, so you are already down 1 of the 5 senses. Adding an auditory piece to the ride really makes a difference. It was still a good ride, but doesn't compete with its CA counterpart.

I hit up Pirates of the Caribean, and even Peter Pan (a mere 45 minute wait, how could I pass that up?) I liked the Pan ride for two things: It was a constant loader with a conveyer belt--I like to see the park trying to maximize throughput on its rides-- and the London flyover scene was much improved over the CA version. Closer up, with moving car lights. Other than that is was pretty much the same. So at that point I was tired and bedraggled. I got the following video of the Christmas Tree in the center of the World's Bazaar (their Main Street) while I wandered around in a dazed stupor. I had my 3rd and final Fastpass(Pooh ride) in my hand, but it wasn't good until 10PM, and I still had to be alert enough to make my way through the train system to a hotel I had never seen in a nearby, yet unfamiliar part of town. (The addressing system in Japan makes about as much sense to me as an Italian opera.) So I called it a night.

The whole experience was great, although I will admit it was somewhat lonely. I would have rather had at least a friend along, if not my family, but overall I have only one regret, and that was not getting to the Pooh ride. It is completely unique to TDL, and in some forums I've read it is heralded as the best ride in the whole park. And I missed it because I was tired. Wimpy. There is no excuse for that. Luckily, there is another day to this story.

DAY 2

The train system in Tokyo is extensive, and is the primary transportation mechanism for millions. With my characteristic tendency to overplan, I had my itinerary pretty planned out when it came to trains, and my solo train riding went off without a hitch (I'm only cursed with buses.) Basically I took the train to the Disney station (the station name escapes me at the moment) and then transferred onto a signature disney train. The Disney train (with its own fare, of course) even had minnie-shaped straps to hold on to.

In Disneyland I was greeted by characters, but at Tokyo DisneySea this huge water-covered rotating fountain-Earth was the centerpiece of the plaza. This big entryway (inside the turnstiles) was surprisingly empty of concessions or even attractions. I stashed my overnight bag in the lockers and hit the park.

So I'll say two things over and over about DisneySea. One: This is an awesome park. Two: It was dang cold. The iconic feature of DisneySea is the volcano which spews fire every hour or so. The fire shows isn't that big a deal from a distanc, but from inside Mysterious Island (the rocky center of the park you will get to see in a minute) it is a good show, expecially since they add sound effects and underground lighting that make it look like there are active lava flows.

This video is from inside the island. You are surrounded on all sides by rock, and the center is all water. You enter through tubes/caves/walkways from the various connected lands, but this isn't really the classic Disney hub and spoke design. The rock itself is a ride, of course. Journey to the Center of the Earth. It was very well done, although short. I managed to go twice.

While the theme of DisneySea is definitely "water", there is an eclectic mix af themes in specific areas. Above you see a seaside castle worthy of any Fantasy fiction novel, but when you get there there are actual tours of the castle, focusing on castle life and the whole bit. I didn't quite know what to make of that. In fact, the best thing about the place was the food stand there that sold churros and hot chocolate among other more asian treats. I had both a churro and a thimble-full of hot chocolate for a measly 600 yen ($6.00ish--and yes that was sarcasm.) It was so cold that at that point (around 10:30 AM) I could still see my breath and there were random snow flurries riding the very gusty wind. The hot chocolate was worth every yen.

This is standing with my back to the rocky island and look back to where I came. The big arch in the center of the buildings is a tunnel, acting as the "Main Street" for this park, and on the other side is the entrance plaza with the giant Earth-fountain. This bay is the venue for the over-the-top water shows that happens later in the day (video segment below.)

Disney couldn't have a parked based on the Sea without paying homage to The Little Mermaid. This was the kiddee section of the park, with rides and play areas for the younger crowd. I didn't spend a whole lot of time here, but the setting was so well done, I had to take a picture. This was also one of the few areas I saw characters on this wintery day. Eric (Ariel's boyfriend) turned out to be a huge white guy (he was seriously like 6'6" or taller- no mask) and was accompanied by his dog--the name escapes me-- but the dog was a cast member or two, walking on all fours. It was pretty funny. The Japanese girls (and women) swarmed that guy like an Africanized bee hive. I will admit that he did look exactly like the guy from the movie, but come on...

So where King Triton's domain fit right into the decor, there was this odd Persian looking place where they had an Aladdin show going that didn't fit in at all. It was extremely popular, I would guess, from the crazy lines for the show (or maybe they just wanted to get out of the cold like me...) but I didn't have the time or desire to do a show. Again, this area had a main entrance and then was a huge courtyard. In this picture I was in the courtyard looking at one side of the surrounding walls. It looked cool, but I missed the connection to the rest of the park. I don't remember any large bodies of water in Aladdin??

This video is of the cool water show that happened in the midafternoon in the main bay. It was around the same scale as Fanatasmic, although slightly larger, in my opinion. And since it was done in daylight they had to do more to keep you occupied on the periffery. It was over thirty minutes long, and included some sort of good vs evil storyline (all in Japanese), along with a number of cool "floats". In that respect it was kind of like a cross between Fantasmic and the Main Street parades. All of the Disney characters showed up at one point or another, with the main characters getting their own floats. The centerpiece, which is in the video, has one performer on it that is supposed to be some sort of spirit and throughout the show she get higher and higher up. I want to say it goes roughly twice as high as it is in the video.

While the show is cool, I just can't forget my first impression. They are all going to die of hypothermia. It was seriously in the 30's with a steady wind. The wind chill had to bring it down to the teens or twenties at the most. And they were out there being hoisted in the air, being squirted in the face with water and they had to sing and dance. In other times and places I would call that cruel and unusual punishment. Case in point: Check out the waverunner guys in the video. Suicidal.

I managed to get a lot of the show on video, but I am just posting a section. I haven't looked, but I am willing to bet that you could find a better copy of the show on YouTube, although the title would probably be in Japanese.

So I have more pics, but this post has gone on too long already, so I will just stop. DisneySea was awesome. I went on the Indiana Jones ride (a copy of the Disneyland-CA ride), another roller coaster that was short on theming, but still a fun ride, a small-worldish ride, but with a story line about a guy that sailed away and had adventures but came home (it was like a mini opera delivered to you on a small world boat.)

There was a ride called Storm Chaser that was a 4-D moving-theater type experience. Think Bugs Life movie in DCA meets Star Tours. I stood in line for 80 minutes for that in absolutely freezing wind. The queue was all outside. I couldn't feel my fingers or toes when we got on, and my ears hurt, and then part of the ride experience including getting hit with mist from a storm. I pulled my hood up during the ride. I could tell it was a decent ride, but that didn't mean I had to enjoy it right then. There was a "Little America" part of the park that I barely even dipped into. Again, it was stretch to fit it into theming, by my estimation. The big pull there was the Tower of Terror, but since I had been on that before, I prioritized the stuff I hadn't done before.

I think that was the main reason I liked DisneySea. It was the first really new Disney park I had seen since really becoming a theme park fan. I know Dland and DCA like the back of my hand, and TDL was similar enough (I hear it is a carbon copy of the Magic Kingdom in FL), but DisneySea was mostly new (to me) rides and had a different feel. It was great.

If I could I would go back with the family, although navigating Tokyo with our gaggle of children would be both hectic and expensive. Still I would go to Disney Sea first and prioritize everything there over DL. If you ever get a chance to go, I highly recommend it.

My Musician

2009-12-08T01:18:00.002-07:00

I posted my first YouTube video. It is a short video of Collin practicing for his upcoming piano solo in church. My idea was to video/record him playing a handful of his songs so I can listen to it on the road. I miss his music whenever I am gone. He's very talented, and we are proud of his hard work!

2009-10-01T00:05:00.000-06:00

So I haven't blogged in a while, largely because I haven't gone anywhere. It is when I am away from my family that I seem to have the time/make the time to document what is going on. With that being said, I somehow never posted any pictures from my August trip to OKA. That is probably because Heather went with me, so I had a welcome distraction the whole time. Anyway, here are a few pics of us in Okinawa.

This is the standard pose in front of the pineapple guy. Your hands are supposed to be like pineapple leaves. Get it? There is a picture of me to, but I like the model in this picture better.

He's everywhere!! Ahhh!!

These carts were amazing. They were just modified golf carts with half a plastic pineapple on the roof, but they had little bilingual speaker boxes and they drove themselves down a windy path while the speaker told you all about pineapples! It was cool. There wasn't any track or other connection that we could see, but they accelerated, braked and steered themselves. Very ingenious. My best guess was that they had buried a tracking cable in the ground below the track or something...

Here we are.

Heather was awesome. She struck out on her own each day while I was at work and made friends and saw stuff and took goofy pictures. She is cute. And that mannequin loves shima bananas.

Of course, now that I think about it, I also spent a week in New Jersey that didn't get blogged. Maybe I just need to catch up...

Ryukyu

2009-07-25T00:54:00.004-06:00

Yep. So much for not going back to Okinawa. I found myself on that muggy, humid island once again this week. I am already on my way home, but thought I would post the few pics I have.

This is the eternal red light. The green arrows below the red go off and on, but the red one stays lit no matter what, even if you have a straight green arrow. Hilarious.

I stayed in Mark's house and discovered how cool moving walls are. Those dividers can all slide out of the way, so that make this a 1, 2 or 3 bedroom apartment. Sweet.

Finally, we found this awesome Korean bbq place. Well, Mark found it. $20 - All you can eat raw meet (to cook at your table), soda and ice cream. Nice.

Well, I have to go get on a plane, so more later.

Oh yeah, the title. Ryukyu is the name of the chain of island of which Okinawa is one. FYI.

Okinawa, AGAIN

2009-07-14T21:50:00.020-06:00

So I will be honest. I don't know what to do with my blog. As this type of blogging evolves I am feeling more and more out of place. It is like I am sitting in one of my wife's scrap booking parties.

Nevertheless, here I am. I have pictures I want to share, and sometimes I just like to write. Maybe I should try writing in my journal? But where is the fun in that. No one leaves comments in my journal. Of course, no one leaves comments here either.

ANYWAY... So I went to Okinawa again, presumably for the last time. I have a bunch of pictures I thought I would share from that, so here goes.

This is a cup of cold fizzy green goodness called Melon Soda. I will admit that I got melon soda every chance I got. I highly recommend it.

And what is this? Oh it was my dinner. And what am I holding in my chopsticks? (check out my chopstick skills by the way!!) Oh that is just a little chunk of squid tentacle. Did I eat it? Yes I did. Was it good? No it was not. It was like trying to chew on a chunk of rubber bike tire. A slightly fishy bike tire. So I avoided the rest of those little guys. The soup was still good.

So we went to the beach at sunset one day, not because we thought the beach would be nice at sunset, but because it was the only one-hour break we took in a 16 hour+ workday. There were these little white crabs skittering all over the beach. You couldn't even walk 10 feet without them scattering underneath your flip flops. Rex had a nice strategy for catching them. He threw sand on one of the bigger one and then picked up the handful of sand, then the crab crawled out of the sand and onto him. It was dark, so the pictures weren't that great, but this is one of the better ones.

Yes. I am a dork.

I have a cheap, low-quality camera that I have been trying to squeeze every bit of value out of, and part of that effort is playing with the different pre-set shooting modes. This one didn't turn out to bad I think.
This one as well.

So as we left the beach we found this very eloquent sign. I hope you can read it.

This was my sweet ride while in OKA. A Nissan March. I would totally buy one of these. It is a fun little car with a 1000 cc engine and a decent stereo. Too bad they don't sell them in the US.

This is the decent stereo. It is awesome because it also has built in GPS AND a digital TV tuner. So why can't you see it? Because everytime I changed environments everything fogs up, thanks to the humidity. This is called my camera lens fogged up!

Phew. That's better. This is my unfogged sweet in-dash TV. The bad news: all of the options were in Japanese so we had a hard time working it. In the end I think I accidently erased all of the music that was stored on it. Whoops. It also had this annoying feature where the screen turned off if I went more than 5 Kph. It made stop lights a lot more fun though.

This is Jason and I waiting for an awesome dinner at the Four Seasons. The entertaining chefs weren't that entertaining, but the steak was totally awesome!

This is Mark and I at an authentic Japanese restaurant. Yes I am not wearing any shoes because we had to take them off at the door, and I am sitting on a hardwood floor so I can eat at a table that is all of 16 inches off the floor. We couldn't read the menu and there weren't any pictures, so we were lucky that Rex and Haekyung were there to help us order. I learned that in most places like this I can ask for tankatsu, which you can see in front of me. It is like Kentucky Fried Greasy Pork with a yummy oriental BBQ sauce. It usually comes with a cabbage salad on the side and, of course, rice.

So that is all I have at the moment. A few fun pics. There are a few other posts coming up, so come back soon!

Ranking Pixar

2009-05-29T08:31:00.005-06:00

Recently IGN ranked the work of Pixar, the industry-dominating animated film company. (Link to article:http://movies.ign.com/articles/986/986660p1.html) I found it as I was reviewing my RSS feeds from my favorite Disney sites, something I should blog about some time. Any way, my thanks to http://www.mickeynews.com for picking this story up and bringing it to my attention.

Their rankings went like this (1 being the best):

9. Cars
8. Monsters, Inc.
7. A Bug's Life
6. Ratatouille
5. Finding Nemo
4. The Incredibles
3. Toy Story 2
2. WALL-E
1. Toy Story

Of course, they caveat the whole list at least once per page with the fact that the worst Pixar film beats the competition hands down, and I would echo that. This is also a list of the 9 best films to come out over the last 9 years, and I would go on to say that in many cases this isn't just in the animated category. I'm talking about the best out of all genres. Except for WALL-E.

OK, I've said too much. So what do I think? Of course, being a critical mind, I disagree with their rankings, thus the post. To get straight to the point, here is MY assessment:

9. WALL-E
8. Ratatouille
7. Finding Nemo
6. Monsters, Inc.
5. Cars
4. A Bug's Life
3. Toy Story 2
2. The Incredibles
1. Toy Story

The only thing we agreed on is that Toy Story deserves the top spot. I guess it also shows that I prefer action oriented movies more than the IGN folks, and that I despise wordless environmentalist films about robots. So what do you think?

I'm Lucky

2009-05-20T06:57:00.009-06:00

OK, so first click play above. I'm not a fan of music always playing on blogs,so I am making you click on it. Now, I have to dedicate this song to my wife of almost 11 years (wow I am old:) I am missing her terribly right now, and when I heard this song I wanted nothing more than for her to hear it too, even though it isn't a new song.

I just wanted to tell everyone that I am a very lucky man. I have a beautiful wife who takes care of our kids and best of all, takes care of me. She is creative and talented and people like to be around her. She makes friends easily and misses her old friends terribly when we are scattered by time and trials. When I get stressed out or otherwise harried by this existence we call life, she is always there to rub my back, say nice things to me and make me some cookies (yum). She endures the hard times with me and we celebrate the good times together when they come. Our kids love their mom more than anybody, and she loves them right back, in a way that I don't think anyone else on earth could. She is irreplaceable.

Yes, I love her dearly, and I have loved her ever since I met her. When we were dating I used to write her all kinds of notes and cards, and there have probably been too few of those since we started our family, but I am saying it here, right out in front of the whole entire everybody (OK, I think there are only like 3 people who read my blog, but it is the idea that counts)

Thanks for being my best friend and most of all, I love you.

I'm lucky that you chose me.

Okinawa Quick Update

2009-05-16T21:50:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was Saturday, and I found a Japanese shopping center and went in and wandered around. It was fun. They have 100 Yen stores, which is the equivalent of a Dollar Store. Same crap for sale, too. Their grocery store was mostly fish (fresh fish, frozen fish, live fish, canned fish), dried noodles, and seasoning, as well as a produce section full of stuff I didn't recognize. I stopped by McDonalds and KFC that day instead of buying much at the store, although I did snag a few snacks. Their bakery is just a little corner of the store, but the baked goods are tasty. They are very fresh, with little preservatives. You buy stuff out of baskets while it is still warm and if you don't eat it in 24 hrs it is hard as a rock.

We had to pick someone up from the airport which is 30-40 minutes away, and we got to see a new road that we haven't been on before. It is funny because similar businesses seem to cluster together in the same areas. On one section of the street there much have been a dozen barbarshops in the same half mile. Weird.

Well, that is my little story for the day. I will post some more tomorrow.

Okinawa- Trip 1 pics

2009-05-15T07:26:00.005-06:00

So a few months ago I made it to Okinawa. I think I mentioned it. Well, I made it back for a 2nd visit and decided to post some pictures, but since I never posted the pics from the last visit I will do those first. I will lower your expectations right off the bat by saying that I am often interested by odd little every day items. So did I take awesome panoramic vistas of mountains and beaches? No. McDonalds bags and Dr Pepper bottles? Yes.

I like to do Sudoku during plane rides. It is compact (one sheet of paper and a pen), free in newspapers and plane magazines, and takes me a long time to finish. Also featured here is roughly one cup of Haagen Daas Ice Cream, which set me back 300 Yen, or approximately $3. I would never pay $3 for a cup of ice cream, but for some reason I didn't mind parting with 300 Yen. I was leaving Japan that day, and for some reason those coins didn't seem so valuable when heading back to the states, even though I knew I would be going back.

Yes, this is as nasty as the name is. It has a kind of grapefruity taste at first that ends in a kind of salty, bitter aftertaste. I tried it. Then I recycled the bottle with most of the liquid still in it. There went another 150 Yen.

You might be thinking, "what's with the fireworks store?" Or perhaps "nice flower shop." Wrong on both accounts. This is a used car lot. And, yes, they all look like this. I think they are trying to shock you so bad that you wreck your car as you drive by, thereby creating business.

This picture isn't the greatest, but it is the sign at the main entrance to the base, by the flagpole where they raise/lower the colors and play the national anthems. I say anthemS because they play both the Japanese and US anthems every morning. This picture was just as they were about to lower the colors.

This was my hotel room on base. I was impressed by how much furniture they were able to squeeze into my little living room/kitchenette.

Coffee is a huge thing in Japan. It is everywhere, in everything. I thought I had seen it all until this showed up on the menu. Coffee Jelly for 180 Yen. What a deal.

Anyway, that is all for now. Maybe tomorrow I will post some pics from my more recent trip.

A Windfall

2009-05-14T04:54:00.005-06:00

Have you ever found a $10 bill in the back pocket of an old pair of jeans or in the jacket you haven't worn in over a year? Or have you ever rediscovered an old movie that used to be your favorite, and is just as good now as it was back then? These are similar to the way I felt when I popped the SD card from my camera into my computer.

I had shelved this camera a while back, since the picture quality wasn't what I had hoped it would be. Every once in a while we grab it on the way out the door somewhere, and in the meantime the kids love to take pictures and movies with it. Well, I plugged in the card to retrieve a picture I had just taken, and I was rewarded with all kinds of pictures that I hadn't seen before, strung out over the last year or so. It was so awesome that I decided to share some of them.

(If you think any of them need captions, let me know and I'll add them)

Quarantined? Are you serious?

2009-05-14T03:24:00.002-06:00

Today's topic is over-reacting. Our example of over-reacting? The government of Japan.

Here is the scenario: I am on a Boeing 747 en route to Okinawa, via the Narita airport in Tokyo. I like to make "tight" connections, since I generally don't check any baggage, and I just flat move faster than most air travelers. Anyway, we touch down at Narita and taxi to our gate. This is where it starts to get crazy.

Along with our obligatory customs declarations, every passenger got a medical survey. It was a pointless piece of paper because half of it was filled with identifying information which was the exactly same information required on the other two forms I had to fill out. The rest of it was making sure that I didn't have a vacation home in Mexico.

So back to the story: Our plane was quarantined. Every plane is quarantined. We were "boarded" by Health Officials (10 humanoid-shaped beings) completely protected by blue hospital gowns, gloves, masks and goggles. I was given a mask by the flight attendant so that in the event I had to speak to one of the Health Officials (HOs) they would be protected from my bacteria-filled spittle which would undoubtedly fly at the first fumbled consonant.

The first HO approached me with an oversized polaroid camera that took my temperature from 3 feet away. And good thing too. I hadn't put on my mask yet and we all know how hard it is to control that spittle. Apparently my heat profile was within acceptable limits because the HO shuffled down the aisle, being careful not to get close to anyone that hadn't been measured yet.

Next came a pair of HOs. The first one had the important job of making sure that I had filled in all of the blank lines on my survey. You may be wondering how you can get an education that will let you fill such an important position in society, but don't forget about the second HO of the pair. His job was to hand me the yellow paper saying that I had been screened. If only I had gone to Health Official school.

Yep, that was the end of the screening. An hour later, after they had hand counted over 400 forms (Our plane was missing two forms so they had to come through and verify that we all had our yellow paper) we were allowed to deplane. Now, I am not a Health Official or anything, but from what I understand, most people who get the Swine Flu actually recover. And we lose thousands to the regular flu every year. I am thinking that they are slightly over-reacting.

And what was the cost? Not much compared to the massive health risk averted by such close and careful screening. I only missed the last flight of the day to Okinawa from Narita and had to buy a $30 bus ticket to get to the Haneda airport in time to catch the last plane to Okinawa. That has to be worth it, right? And the fact that this must happen to multiple travelers on every flight (they have special quarantine delay fliers for you when you miss your connection) wouldn't add up to a cost greater than the benefit. Or would it?

Taryn and the Ice Cream Cone

2009-05-05T17:07:00.005-06:00

I made ice cream cones the other night and Taryn wanted one too, so I let her have her own little one. I couldn't help but post this. She is so funny!

Disneyland April 2009 Slideshow

2009-04-09T01:37:00.000-06:00

All of the lost stories

2009-04-07T20:20:00.003-06:00

So I have pretty much let this blog go. Things have just been so busy! I am going to do the Catch-Up-On-Everything-In-One-Post post. This is going to be a fast, action-packed posting, so hold on to your hats and glasses!

I went on my first campout as a Scout Leader. I survived, the boys survived, so it was a success. We only had one kid who threw up, and the food was good (it is all about marshmallows over a camp fire in both cases). We completed our 5-mile hike the next day, with the only down side being that these two grandmas out-hiked our little troop of 11 year olds. Neither the boys or the grandmas seemed to mind, so I don't either, I guess.

After 1 year, 5 months and 17 days, I made my triumphant return to Disneyland. I don't know what I was triumphing over, but that is how it felt. It was tons of fun, not the least due to the fact that we got to go with some family that we hadn't been there with, as well as some family that we had. The fastpass acquisition went well, and we had teenagers along that stayed from dawn to dusk with me in the park. Yes, it was a success.

My boys have a new favorite card game: Killer Bunnies. It is time for the next expansion pack.

Looking over my previous posts, there was one more trip to Japan in there, but to Okinawa this time. In case you are like me and assume that since Okinawa is a part of Japan that it is physically close to Japan, you are wrong, just as I was. It is instead a little island in the middle of the ocean about 2 hours south of the main Japanese island (by air). I had high moments, like when I felt true patriotism in every person around me as we stopped in the middle of the street at 8AM to show respect for the Stars and Stripes. I had low moments, like on my final day I read an article in my daily copy of the appropriately named Marine newspaper, Stars and Stripes. The article talked about the gang culture in the military and how this guy was acquitted on a technicality even though he contributed to the death of a comrade. Overall it was a good experience and I have some goofy pictures to prove it.

We got new evidence that life isn't fair. My mother-in-law has been diagnosed with lung cancer although she has never smoked a day in her life, and while I can line up a hundred people who don't deserve this kind of experience, she is at the front of that line. We are asking that you add your prayers to ours that her fight will be successful.

So over the last few months a lot has happened, and I often find myself thinking, "I need to write about that on my blog" but time being the limiting factor, it hasn't happened very often. So rather than waiting for time to write up each of these into its own posting, we will see if this opens the floodgates. I'll try to post some pictures about all of this a little later.

Scouting has become a part of my life again

2009-02-26T05:52:00.004-07:00

Yes, I was a Boy Scout once. A mildly successful one. I got the badges, heck I even got THE badge, but soon afterwards I got married (sounds weird to put it in perspective like that) and I dropped teenagerishness like a hot potato and moved on, or so I like to think. Anyway, it has been fun to get re-involved with Scouting. I am a leader for a group of 11-year old scouts, and Collin is now a Bear Cub Scout. Logan is just dying to be a scout and wants to do all of the cool stuff that Collin gets to do, so I see scouting pretty solidly in my future. And so far it has been nothing but fun.

So here are a few pictures from some recent scout hikes.

My first caveat: I shot all of these pictures with my G1 (cellphone.) Thus the acceptable, not exemplary, quality. So obviously we went and found some petroglyphs on our first hike. There were hundreds of them in this canyon, which made us wonder what was so special about this canyon? I think it was a sign yard. You know, the place where your local city or county construction crews keep their construction signs? When the prehistoric business owner needed to leave a message for passersby, why spend weeks chiseling it out of rock, when he/she could just run for a day through the desert barefoot, and come back the next day with a 200 pound rock already engraved with their message. Brilliant. Not to make light of a different culture, but I dare you to comment with your best guesses as to what these prehistoric billboards say. What about the picture above? Obviously it means Help Wanted: Dancer with Maracas and Fringy Outfit. Duh.

This is the popular holiday warning sign: Don't Use Christmas Tree for Ashtray. These are so intuitive. I bet they put the best-sellers right down by the trail. Trenton and Logan got to come on this hike because it was a family hike. Heather educated me on the fact that "Family Hike" and "Father/Son Hike" are in fact synonymous, so she stayed home with Taryn. The boys were true to their personalities. Logan was only happy if he was in front of EVERYBODY, and Trenton was tired and wanted to go home and watch TV as soon as we got to the trailhead sign 100 feet from the car.

Lizard Roadkill Ahead? This one is slightly less obvious.

Tie Your Goat To A Tree By The Tail Only? Don't Pee on the Cacti? Bighorn Sheep Should Use the Second Port-a-Potty From The End? Ok, I give up on this one.

And here are the boys. Collin in the uniform, Logan up on the rock, Trenton with the hat. Nice. That is all for that hike.

So this was a different hike. Again I'm shooting with my camera phone. The sun is so harsh in the desert that pretty much all of these pictures are washed out. Oh well. This one is a natural arch. The cool thing is that the arch is only about 8 inches tall. You could totally put miniature people on it and make a believable scene. It was cool.

Here is Collin sitting on another natural arch. I let him come on this hike even though it was for my 11-year old Scouts. He was hyper the whole time for some reason and was all over the rocks. He was the youngest one there and the first one back to the car.

Well, this has been another make-up posting. Another one bites the dust.

More weird pics

2009-02-16T14:12:00.002-07:00

So I am cheating on this posting. How? I am posting a few last shots from my trip to Japan and I am going to date this blog as if I had come right home and posted them like I intended. Only I can't do it without fessing up. Counter-productive, right? Right.

These people sure love their Pokemon. This was a big Pokemon store in the middle of their swanky mall. Notice how the picture looks like I shot it from my waist. That is because I was totally trying to hide the fact I was taking pictures in their store. By this point in the week I was tired of the funny looks every time I pulled out my phone.

This was my favorite sign of the week. For those of you who are viewing this on your iPhone, I'll read it for you: "Foodiun Bar. Quiteness---it is the summit of the clouds that can be seen at the bottom of the lake." Classic. Needless to say, this is my desktop image on my laptop now.

So on my last night there Justin, who I unfairly referred to as my tour guide in the previous post, took me to a more authentic place to eat. We met up with his girlfriend for the meal, but I try not to post other people's pictures without their permission, so I will focus on the food rather than them. It was cool. We sat down and there was a big round hole in the table. Then the little 5'2" waitress came out lugging a big iron pot of burning coals that fit right down into the hole. The menu consisted of individual plates of vegetables and different cuts of raw meat. I let Justin and Miho do the ordering. Anyway they brought out the raw meet, which we then cooked ourselves at the table. Near as I could tell they were ripping off the American backyard BBQ concept. (Yes, that was a joke.) Anyway, Justin did most of the cooking. So, just to impress my mother who threatened me with a mission to Japan my entire growing up years, here is a short list of what I ate: fried mushroom, fried onion, kimchi (sp?-- it is spicy pickled cabbage), cow's tongue, tofu, and rice. For the record I wouldn't have eaten any of that when I was younger. No, I didn't even like rice.

My hosts were kind enough to ask the waitress for a fork for the white guy, and after a couple of exchanges in Japanese they brought me out a fork. The only problem is that the only fork they had was a toddler's fork (pictured above.) My favorite features of the fork: Pretty pastel pictures of animals to look at when I got bored during my meal, extra large non-sharp tines so that when I slipped going for a chunk of cow-tongue I wouldn't impale myself.

Actually, I thought that the chopsticks were half the fun of the meal. I had practiced on and off throughout the week, but these were a real challenge because they were metal and especially slippery. In the end I mastered them, err, well, I got through the meal. Here is a picture of me showing off my chop-sticking skills. (Hint: When in doubt the shish-kabob maneuver is a great fall-back move with the chop-sticks.)

Since I spent a substantial amount of time on trains, I thought I would get a picture of one. Notice the spy-angle of my shot again. Yep, I casually took this shot with my phone while looking the other direction. I could have been James Bond, except I don't own a tux.

This is funny. That apartment building is mostly vacant (it turns out they are still in a recession, although it is hard to tell sometime.) Anyway, I hope that whoever thought up this trick with the lights got a bonus or something. Very creative.

MMmmm. I was waiting in the airport, enjoying a DP and decided to get one last shot of an American icon with a Japanese twist. Dr. Pepper with Japanese on it is cool, but over there it had Coca-Cola branding marks too. Weird.

Well, that was all I had from this trip. A lot of the other cool stuff I saw and learned about was military in nature, so I'm not sure how much I should comment on. Nothing secret of course, but being on a military base got me thinking a little more about national security. I did get to see an aircraft carrier though (from the street). Those things are crazy big. Anyway, I have a couple of make-up posts to do, and then I will have a posting about Okinawa.

Ciao.

2009-02-10T05:22:00.002-07:00

So here are my Tuesday night pictures. I am super tired, so I didn't venture far.

This is another shot of my ferris wheel. It is mine because I can see it out of my window. It is a ferris wheel because it is big and round and people can ride on it.

There is a 5 story mall with a 20 story hotel on top of it next to my hotel. It also has a train station under it (these people are great at multi-tasking apparently!) This is a sign in the mall to tell you stuff. The places it pointed to sounded snazzy, but my picture isn't big enough (on my blog anyway) to see what it says, so just make something up that sounds Japanese when you look at it and you will understand why it is cool.

This was next to a marble fountain. I couldn't help myself.

I think they just want me to be excited for the new store. I wonder if Golem knows about this one?

Ok, enough of this sillyness! I need sleep!

2009-02-10T04:27:00.002-07:00

Since my last posting actually got a comment or two, I thought I should put a few more pictures up:)

There were fancy crepe stands everywhere. Really fancy. Crepes. Weird.

That is what I had for dinner Monday night. Yep, like all smart people I went to Japan to have Indian food. The Butter Chicken Curry was very rich, I couldn't eat very much, but the big triangle pancake thing was delicioso! I forgot what it was called. Lon? Lan? Something like that.

Ok, so this was the dangdest thing I ever saw. (Yes, I am flexing my American vocabulary.) We popped into a fancy arcade for a look-see and there was this big seating place with a screen the size of the whole wall showing a virtual horse race!! And the chairs each had its own screen so anyone could walk up and sit down and play like they were just having a day at the derby! I suppose there was some actual game involved (I hope!) like betting with virtual money or something, but that is just dumb. Even if you win at this horse race you lose your money. You might as well go to a real horse race where if you win you actually get something back. Crazy.

Why did I take a picture of McD's? I don't know. There was just a big bucket of fries floating above the door and I grabbed for my camera. That just happens sometimes.

There I am. The picture is out of focus, but you aren't missing anything. This pic doesn't do the scene justice either. I am standing in front of the busiest crosswalk in the world. Apparently over a million people cross this intersection EVERY DAY. And there were still people stupid enough to try to DRIVE THROUGH IT. Hah. And there were like 5 huge advertisement screens like in Times square. It was pretty crazy.

Somehow I didn't take any pictures of the crazies we saw walking around, or the Nigerean thugs or any of the price tags. When I was in London last year I thought that place was extremely overpriced, but I'm thinking Tokyo takes the cake. I walked through a mall where they casually displayed watches with a 5,100,000 yen price tag. That is over $51,000. Shoes going for $150US were just stacked on the sidewalk like a "Big 5 Going Out Of Business" sale. These people are nuts.

We also managed to get lost on the subway system. We caught an express train north when we wanted to go south. What do you do when you don't read Japanese and are lost? Pull out your iPhone (my tour guide had one) and get train directions back to where you want to go. It tells you what train to catch and when (up to the minute) to get you back to where you want to be.

This was all Monday night, so I'll cover Tuesday next time.

An awesome view...

2009-02-08T01:53:00.002-07:00

So this is the view out of my window this evening. So far I really like Tokyo (which is based on a whole 2 hours of experience!) And why do I like it here? Everything seems very organized. Just waiting for the bus is organized. They had lines drawn on the ground telling you where to stand and everything. The city itself looks kind of older and dirty in some ways, but some of that might be because you can tell that everything was built for function, not beauty. Just some thoughts ...

Quote of the Day

2009-01-10T23:54:00.003-07:00

So this title is misleading. No, I am not going to promise to post a new quote everyday. Rather, I am going to continue with my practice of randomly throwing out stuff that interests me, on the off chance that it might interest you as well. But no one wants to read the "Random Quote That Caught My Eye, Which May Be The Last Quote I Ever Post, Or Perhaps Just One Among Many" posting. Yuck. Instead I am naming this post "Quote of the Day."

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, very part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.

--Swami Vivekananda Indian Spiritual leader - Founder of the Ramakrishna Order of Monks 1863-1902

How can you read that and not want to blog about it? Can this really be true? Is success really as simple as complete, absolute, unshaken focus on what you want? What about balance? What happened to "all things in moderation?"

I noticed that he specifies the creation of spiritual giants as a measure of success--or at least you can read it that way. Is he saying that success is always a spiritual matter? Or is he saying that being a "spiritual giant" is the only real success? Perhaps if we walk down this road for a while, we can say that the only success is spiritual, and that all temporal concerns are taken care out of necessity, for they are prerequisite to the pursuit of the end goal, the spiritual goal. Does that really work though?

Tangent Warning> Oh, and then there is always someone who wants to point out that everything is spiritual. Yes, I know. Yet, if you say that all things are spiritual, you imply that everything in your realm of concern is included in the [limited] domain of "all things". So you can also say that all things are spiritual and physical at that point and your original statement is a bit misleading. Hmm, this is a tangent, so I am going just leave it. < /Tangent Warning >

So what do I think of our monk friend? (No disrespect intended.) If you really give your life over to one idea, you can achieve success in that thing. That is you will accomplish what you set out to do. However, my idea of success doesn't fit into that scenario, because to me success is related to potential, and the level of achievement that is needed to succeed is relative to that potential. Take the classic workaholic stereotype:

Johnny MBA really really really wants to be a VP someday, so he gives his whole life to the company. He works long hours, sacrifices his vacations, and spends his money on the right clothes, the right car, and the right hobbies that will get him to VP. In 20 years he is called into the Board Meeting, the CEO's Office, the SVP's office (wherever) and he gets the offer. He gave his life over to something, and he succeeded at it. He is also alone in life because his wife left him, his children don't know him and his real friends were discarded because they wouldn't get him to the top. He is probably either in debt, out of shape, and just plain mean, or all of the above.

I believe that Johnny had potential other than what he achieved, and I think he will be accountable for that potential. I know that we live in a world of specialization (maybe this quote was ahead of its time) but what really matters is how much we did with what we were given in total.

So it is late, and I didn't intend to write a post tonight. I tried to end this rambling 3 times now, so I am just going to cut it off here.

Jack and Jill ran up a hill . . .

2009-01-04T00:50:00.005-07:00

So I decided to re-write the classic nursery rhyme to be a little more... ahem... personally applicable:

Jack and Jill ran up a hill
So they wouldn't get any fatter.
Jill now rides
On a bike beside
Jack who busted his knees because he didn't know what the heck he was doing.

So I kind of lost the rhythm and rhyming at the end there, and it probably won't compete with the centuries-old version, but it definitely feels more believable.

So I have been trying to be health conscious for a year or so now. I say trying, because I don't think I have ever achieved true "Health-nut" status. I can't point to any week out of the last 52 weeks and say that I lived a healthy lifestyle that week. There are just too many variables that go into that kind of a title.

That is not to say that I haven't done good things or made progress of any kind. One of my recent endeavors is to train for a long-distance race. You know, the old fashioned kind where you use your feet rather than a car, truck, motorcycle, bicycle, horse, ostrich or rocket-powered roller skates. I found a training plan that seemed like a good fit for me, and along with a few friends I committed to The Race. Ironically, it is 6 weeks later and we still haven't actually decided which race is The Race, but that is just logistics.

So I started training. The first couple of weeks were the same. I would get home from my new job, mentally destroyed, and my wife would beat me with my running shoes until I put them on and ran around the block a time or two with her. After that I started to enjoy it a little more and the roles reversed a bit. My wife discovered medical issues related to having 4 children by C-section that made the idea of running for more than 20 minutes a little unpleasant. I was coasting along with my training plan, so we came up with an alternate solution. I would continue to run and she would come along on a bike. That way we would both get out and get some exercise, but the activities were better suited to our bodies.

It turns out that for me, running with your partner on a bike is similar to getting chased. For the next week and a half I posted my best times yet. Of course in the beginning the agreement was to not worry about times at all, but you can't run for 5 miles and not wonder how fast were, and whether or not you improved over the last time. So I kind of over extended myself I think, especially on Friday.

It was the day after a holiday, January 2nd. I had stayed up until 3AM the night before working on a project for work and then gotten up to be in to work at 7AM. I was burning the candle at both ends, so to speak. We all know how healthy holiday food is, so I was feeling groggy from too much fat, too much candy and not enough clear liquid, and that day at work I didn't eat much, but just drank water to clear out the junk-food feeling. So I got home at 5:30 PM, planning on immediately hitting the sidewalk for my longest run yet: 6 miles. I got home to find my running shorts still wet in the washer. I had learned earlier (thankfully on a short run) that those shorts are essential to my happiness after the run, so I stuck them in the dryer and had dinner with the family (holiday leftovers.) It was 7:30 by the time I got out the door, low on sleep, sloshing with heavy food and an energy level to match.

Retrospectively, I will say that I had gotten away with a lot of bad habits up to this point. In fact here is a link to 10 common mistakes new runners make. I was regularly committing 9 out of 10 of these. Well, they all caught up to me that night. I was tight by the third mile, and by the time I stumbled home after the 6th mile I felt horrible. I won't go into all of the details, but I can give you a hint to how it went by mentioning that today I spent time researching how to run properly, the importance of stretching, doing warm-ups and cool-downs, and how and why you should buy the right running shoe.

So I am still planning on running The Race, but I am revising my plan ever so slightly. For instance, I think I might bother to stretch in the future. Also, it is probably a good idea to sleep for some reasonable time period the night before you run, as well as eat something other than left over fried beef, Dr. Pepper and a package of Peanut M&Ms. (Never mind that those cover most of the food groups.) And my 6 year old tennis shoes that we recalled from being "Painting shoes" to become running shoes? Lets just say that they got their two-week notice. I'm actively looking for replacements.

All in all, I love the feeling that I am doing something to counteract time and genetics when it comes to my health. I had a physical today for new life insurance and it is great to hear positive comments about my blood pressure and heart rate. I just need to get a little smarter when it comes to the process and, whether I like it or not, life is an insistent teacher.

It's About[.com] Time!

2009-01-04T00:33:00.003-07:00

So I am really here to write a post about running, but I am going to first take care of a tangential topic, starting with something that I used to consider to be a plague to the Internet: About.com. For years now I have continually run into About.com in my Googling, and no matter how many times I clicked on that link I found it to be a wasted click, my only solace coming from the knowledge that there is a fair chance that the About people had to pay for my click. The content was watered down and didn't answer my need. The advertising was over-abundant, over-bearing and under-relevant (yes, I just coined several new terms there. Use them free of charge.) I reached the point where I would check URLs in my searches and if the word "about" was anywhere to be seen I withheld my click.

Somehow, despite that history, I ran into the About.com running page (no pun intended) and for the first time I was satisfied. Ok, I was more than satisfied, I was excited, overjoyed, etc., etc. I found the information well targeted and concise and in short, exactly what I was looking for. Related information was linked to in intuitive ways, the answer to my next question at the bottom of every page. The ads were obviously labeled and relevant, which actually made some of them appealing (I can't even believe I said that.) Anyway, while I still can't endorse About.com in its entirety, I give a hearty hats-off to who-ever made that page happen.

So after that awesome introduction, here is a link to this topic on About. It isn't page that I like to start with, which is different for each person, but a general page on the topic of running for beginners (like me!): http://running.about.com/

A bit of Agile geekiness

2008-12-22T23:45:00.005-07:00

So I am still on the hardly-ever-getting-around-to-blogging-plan, and now that I am taking the time to add something, it is just a geeky comment on an article. How cheap! Still, I can't help but highlight the article I found today.

Background: Like many others, I have been a fan of the Agile Development process for software development in the past. Although imperfect, it seems to approach the needs of both the business owners of a project as well as the developers working to make the project happen. What I have found more intriguing, however, are the opportunities to take principles and practices from the Agile Development methodology and apply them in other areas of business and my life.

I will admit that some parts of the article I am about to link to contradict the whole idea of using Agile ideas outside of the software world, but hey, this is my blog and I can have an opinion here. So I respectfully disagree.

Here is the article: The Decline and Fall of Agile

Like so many things in life, whether it is writing books, running half-marathons, buying houses, etc., the success of the thing is based on the will of the participants to follow through. It isn't skill, talent, smarts, etc, etc. For all the successful people I have met so far in my life the persistant, follow-throughers out-number the skill/talent/smart crowd 10 to 1. Conversely, of all the people I have met (including myself at times) that TALK about achieving a goal but DON'T, I can confidently say 99 out of 100 of them haven't followed through. To be fair I will say that they haven't followed through YET. (I am an optimist.)

How does this relate? If you boil down most of the issues both in this article and the subsequent comments, everyone is complaining a lack of follow-through in one way or another. Even the commentors that mention a lack of training and skill seem to be asking their peers to follow through on pursuing their education. There are a few that just think they are smarter than everyone else, but hey, it is a technical article. What do you expect?

Anyway, those are my thoughts, and I am glad I took the time to share them, even though this doesn't really fit in my blog very well. Deal with it:)

Random Updates

2008-12-02T20:29:00.004-07:00

I have a few things to wrap up here, and I am tired, so I will be brief.

Right, that is a lie. I haven't written anything in weeks, and I am bursting with useless things to say, so this will be a very long and drawn out post with many extraneous words, and several run-on sentences, but you never know when I will write again, so go ahead and read the whole thing.

1. Before I left TGN I promised that I would give credit where credit was due. Joy crushed the competition. There I said it. Give her a pat on the back--or leave a congratulations comment if you don't know who she is--because she lost almost 10 pounds in our competition and she is half the size I am.

OK, enough of that, we are moving on to a new plan. That's right, we are collecting commitments to run a half marathon next year. As of today I don't know which one we are going to run, but I know how long it is going to be: half of a marathon. That means really long. Training has already begun (although with my schedule I am falling behind) but our commitment level is extremely high, so I it will happen. If you would like to join this elite group of driven, empowered individuals that have set a course for self-improvement, just reply to this post or email me and I will send you the training schedule (or you can click here). Or you can choose to remain a slob (or continue with your own exercise plan I guess).

WARNING: If you join you will have to report your progress weekly and will be subjected to abusive phone calls if you don't perform. I'm serious.

NOTE: This is not geographically specific. You will, however have to travel to whatever race we choose sometime in Fall 2009.

EPILOGUE: We are just training to complete the race, not win the race. If you have a problem with that I am thumbing my nose at you right now.

2. I have to welcome back a friend and a coworker, James. He was in Iraq until recently, and I want to congratulate him on his safe return and thank him for his service to our country. James: sorry I missed your return by a week or so due to my move, but I'll be in touch. Let me know if you are ever in town.

3. I am one book away from my goal of reading 52 books in 2008. Woot!

4. I have learned a lot of new terms in the last week or so. Here are a few of them: provision, SMDR, WOPR (pronounced wopper) and CAIRS. I just thought I would share.

5. Taryn is the cutest baby ever. Yes, I am biased. So what?

6. We put up our Christmas tree today. Even with all of the other stress gong on, it is always nice to celebrate something for a while.

7. I need to go to Disneyland. Some things never change.

OK, so that is a lot of randomness, but it is something new. I need to post some pictures of our new house, and the family, etc., but that is for another day.

Move Number 18

2008-11-19T12:20:00.002-07:00

It has been a while since I have posted, but this time I have a good reason. I am changing jobs, companies and even states. I have lived here for the last 5 years, and it has been an incredible journey that I never could have foreseen. I think that I have matured a lot. I say matured but that is a nice way of saying that I look and feel a whole lot older after my time here. I came to go to school and be able to provide for my family, and I accomplished that goal.

Yet somewhere along the way I lost sight of my goal. Generally that means that the goal doesn't get accomplished, but that wasn't the case. I guess that since my existence here was formed around going to school, I had to finish, but somehow my attention and effort really switched to my career after about my first year of school. It wasn't supposed to be that way of course. I was supposed to get an easy part-time college student job and focus on getting a diploma, but that didn't last long. First of all, it was a flawed plan. I had a family: a wife and three kids. Part-time jobs don't support families. Second, it just isn't in my nature.

So after a year of struggling and depleting our savings from my pre-college career, I got serious about my job, and school slowly slipped from my priority list. I kept going, because I had committed to it and commitment is a part of who I am (go ahead and laugh), but my focus was on succeeding at work. Now I am leaving that job, which became an all-consuming factor in my life, and on my way out of the door I am realizing a few things.

1. I will never know what I don't know, so I had better watch out for it.
2. All I can do is my best and sometimes that just isn't good enough. And that is OK. I'll live.
3. School is over. In every aspect. It is time to get to work.

So with that knowledge I am approaching a new career in a new industry. I am going to do my best, and maybe it will work out great and I will make lots of money, etc., etc. or maybe I will fail and life will suck and I will have to do something else. It is both exciting and a bit daunting, but either way, I will live. There are things in my control that I have to take care of: spiritual matters, family concerns, expenditures in their many forms. But the rest will come and go. Good times and bad. Plentiful and scarce. And I think I am OK with that.

Am I ready to move on? Yes, it is time. Am I sad to go? Yes, I am. It is another chapter of my life closing, an unexpected chapter maybe, but a chapter I will label with the word "college" and stick on the shelf. What is next? Well, I have a family to provide for and raise, and I still haven't completely ignored the possibility of an MBA, despite my less-than-exciting GMAT score. We will see what the future holds, and I hope that you (who bothered to read my personal ramblings on my blog) are there with me.

Politics, one more time

2008-11-03T12:01:00.006-07:00

So last month I got into a few political discussions, which were fun and informative, but the topic kind of dried up at that point in time. Even though I haven't posted about it lately, I have still struggled with the "political" question. Well, now I have done my homework and wanted to share my opinion with everyone. Why? Because that is what blogs are for. Opinion-sharing.

President of the United States:

Bob Barr - Libertarian
I was torn between Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin (Constitution party). They are both more to my level of conservatism, but Barr supports a few too many social liberties for my liking and Baldwin has this opinion that Lincoln was a crappy president and that the South should have been allowed to secede. In the end I am going with Barr. He has been in the House of Representatives, and so at least comes close to the type of experience needed to be president, which can be hard to find among third party candidates.

U.S. Representative District 3 - Jim Noorlander - Constitution Party

Governor - Jon Huntsman - Republican

Attorney General - Mark Shurtleff - Republican

State Auditor - Clare Collard - Democrat (she was the only one with a website. I figure that if the other candidates--even the incumbent--didn't care enough to throw a simple web page out there, then give the job to the one who wants it.)

State Treasurer - Richard Ellis - Republican

State Senate District 16 - Radene Hatfield - Democrat (she automatically gets the vote for attempting to tell me why I should vote. Oh, and she never yelled at a pizza delivery person that I know of.)

Representative District 64 - Becky Lockhart - Republican (she went to my wife's scrapbooking party when no one else did. That is also good for a vote.)

The judges (there is a whole list of them and I am supposed to say whether or not to keep them) - Yes to all of them. I looked at their annual report and they all had like 90% or better responses in the extremely satisfied section. Good enough for me I guess.

State School Board District 13 - Neither - I don't have enough information about either candidate and I don't use the public school system and I am leaving Utah within the next few years (at least).

Constitutional Amendments A-D - Yes

Constitutional Amendment E - Yes, but this was harder. Should we invest public funds in private enterprise, even if on a very small scale? In the current economy? I admit that the thought of the corruptive possibilities make me weak in the knees, but in the end, my belief is in the people, not the government, so it is a yes.

Commission Seat C - Not Voting - there is only one candidate. Basically I figure that he can elect himself.

Well, there you have it. My cards are on the table. Now I urge all of you to vote for the same people I voted for. Don't bother with all of that tedious research, just trust me:)

An exercise classic that still makes me laugh every time

2008-10-30T08:15:00.003-06:00

Exercise

For Christmas this year my wife purchased me a week of private lessons at the local health club. Though still in great shape from when I was on the varsity chess team in high school, I decided it was a good idea to go ahead and try it.

I called and made reservations with someone named Tanya, who said she is a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and athletic clothing model. My wife seemed very pleased with how enthusiastic I was to get started.

Day 1 - They suggest I keep this "exercise diary" to chart my progress this week.

Started the morning at 6:00 AM. Tough to get up, but worth it when I arrived at the health club and Tanya was waiting for me. She's something of a goddess, with blond hair and a dazzling white smile. She showed me the machines and took my pulse after five minutes on the treadmill. She seemed a little alarmed that it was so high, but I think just standing next to her in that outfit of hers added ten points.

Enjoyed watching the aerobics class. Tanya was very encouraging as I did my sit ups, though my gut was already aching a little from holding it in the whole time I was talking to her. This is going to be GREAT!

Day 2 - Took a whole pot of coffee to get me out the door, but I made it. Tanya had me lie on my back and push this heavy iron bar up into the air. Then she put weights on it, for heaven's sake! Legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made it the full mile. Her smile made it all worth it. Muscles feel GREAT!!

Day 3 - The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the tooth brush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I am certain that I have developed a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was okay as long as I didn't try to steer. I parked on top of a Volkswagen.

Tanya was a little impatient with me and said my screaming was bothering the other club members. The treadmill hurt my chest so I did the stair monster. Why would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by the invention of elevators? Tanya told me regular exercise would make me live longer. I can't imagine anything worse.

Day 4 - Tanya was waiting for me with her vampire teeth in a full snarl. I can't help it if I was half an hour late, it took me that long just to tie my shoes. She wanted me to lift dumbbells. Not a chance,Tanya. The word "dumb" must be in there for a reason. I hid in the men's room until she sent Lars looking for me. As punishment she made me try the rowing machine. It sank.

Day 5 - I hate Tanya more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. If there was any part of my body not in extreme pain I would hit her with it. She thought it would be a good idea to work on my triceps. Well I have news for you Tanya, I don't have triceps. And if you don't want dents in the floor don't hand me any barbells. I refuse to accept responsibility for the damage, YOU went to sadist school, YOU are to blame. The treadmill flung me back into a science teacher, which hurt like crazy. Why couldn't it have been someone softer, like a music teacher, or social studies?

Day 6 - Got Tanya's message on my answering machine, wondering where I am. I lacked the strength to use the TV remote so I watched eleven straight hours of the weather channel

Day 7 - Well, that's the week. Thank God that's over. Maybe next time my wife will give me something a little more fun, like a free upper-colon exam or gum surgery.

Week 2 results

2008-10-29T09:48:00.002-06:00

So things have been really busy, but I have to post about yesterday. Joy pulled out a narrow victory by .1%!! I, unfortunately, fell off the wagon pretty bad last week. I only ran 3 days, and didn't do any of my other workouts. The only reason I was still in the running at all was because I managed to maintain some semblance of a controlled diet. Joy was victorious by exercising seriously 7 days a week. Dang.

The good news: We have both committed to 3 more weeks of competition. You have to give it time! We are still taking new competitors.

I hope to put out a real post soon. In the meantime, check out Heather's blog for the family updates.

Week 1 followup

2008-10-22T13:48:00.003-06:00

Maybe it will be helpful to post what we did so we can learn from each other. I learned from Heather that I just need to get the stomach bug that is going around if I want to bump my numbers.

I ran for 30+ minutes on an eliptical on 5 of the 7 days, kept my diet around 2000 calories +/- did 2 resistance workouts and 1 failed stretching workout.

This week I need to do 30 minutes cardio 7/7 days, resistance 4/7 days and flexibility 3/7 days. Lets see how I do. Oh and continue to try to keep the diet in check. I eat whatever I want up to 2000 calories.

That sounds like a lot of work for 3 pounds. Hopefully I will do better this week.

Week 1

2008-10-22T09:24:00.002-06:00

So yesterday was the first weigh in. Sorry for not posting yesterday, but it is never too late to catch up. I lost 1.5% (weight lost / original weight) which is a little short of my 2% goal, but not bad. I just need to push a little harder this week. It was enough to pull out a victory at the office, although this next week will be tough. So chime in and let us know how you did!

The game is on!!!

2008-10-14T16:33:00.003-06:00

Okay, so for those of you who said you are going to participate, here is how it goes. Tonight (Tuesday) you have to weigh yourself to set a baseline and then next Tuesday I will do a post and you need to reply to the post with the percentage of weight lost. NO GUESSING OR ROUNDING ALLOWED. This will protect you from having to put actual weight numbers out there. If you don't reply to the post, I will just assume that you are all talk and no action (this is serious, man!). Jillian, you don't have anything to lose, so you can throw whatever you want out there. Or not.

Just for the record, there is one brave soul at work who has agreed to make this more interesting by putting money on the line between the two of us. The one who loses the least has to pay the winner, who lost the most, $5. Then we repeat the following week. Overall I have more weight to lose, so I am going to win:) Any other takers on that deal?

Oh, and another coworker gets to call me "Tubby" until I weigh less than him (like next week) and then I get to use the name on him for the rest of eternity, because he isn't exercising. HA! Take that.

Ok, so on your marks, get set, go!

Im a Loser, just not the Biggest Loser

2008-10-09T11:51:00.007-06:00

So I was just talking to a friend at work about the reality show "The Biggest Loser." Now in case anyone is confused, yes I am still morally opposed to reality shows, but this show is different. It is based on people affecting real, lasting life-long changes for the better.

So why write a post about it? For one, I didn't realize I was so into it. I could tell stories about previous contestants and had my own story to add to it. I guess it is almost into the hobby category for me. Weird. Anyway, without realizing it, I told how I was a Loser. I didn't realize it before, but I have a Losing story, so I decided to share it with the world now, just because I can.

I weighed the most I have ever weighed at the end of last year -- 235 lbs. Yep, I just put that most personal number on the internet for all to see. Take that. You may be thinking "He's not a big fatso. Chunky maybe, or thick at times (in more ways than one) but 235?" Yes my friends, it is true. The link to my proof--all of the pictures of me being fat--is here.

That's right, the link doesn't work. One, because I ain't puttin' those pics on the world wide web, and two, because they are no longer accurate. I started watching The Biggest Loser last season and after a couple of hours watching fat people suffer at the hands of two of America's fittest personal trainers, and lose over a hundred pounds in one week collectively, I thought "I could do that!" So I started exercising and keeping track of my exercising and my diet. Each Tuesday night, as the contestants weighed in, I would take a commercial break and step onto my bathroom scale. Some weeks were good, some not so much. But the point is that the show got me to take action.

In the end, my good habits were not permanent. The show ended and so did my record keeping, exercising and calorie-control initiative. I returned to the bottle (of Dr. Pepper) and my sedentary lifestyle. What did last is the result. I lost 25 lbs. in that time, and I have maintained at 210 for almost a year. No, I'm not "healthy" and I am probably in as bad a shape as ever, but there were results, and I am thankful for that.

So now a new season has begun, and I have been watching. It is time for me to get back up off of the couch and make another run at it. My goal is to be 180 in 2009. (Pretty brave to write my goal down like that, huh? It means that I have to do it or you have the right to humiliate me later.) I believe in baby steps, so I am shooting to be 200 by Christmas, 190 by 2/1/09 and 180 by my birthday in March. Anyone want to join me? It doesn't count until you have set concrete goals in a reply to this post (you don't have to share personal numbers however:)). I predict zero participants, mostly because I only have 2.5 readers, and all 2.5 of those people are probably too smart to share the goals like I just did. Or maybe you are already in shape. I will accept any goal in lieu of weight loss in that scenario. Go ahead I dare you.

Finally, I will end with one caveat. I like TBL as a show. It is much more uplifting than most of the other crap on TV, but they have caved into making it a big emotional blubber fest for half the show to get people more emotionally involved. Now I'm not saying that it isn't an emotionally trying time for the contestants, I just don't want to watch it. So I record it with my DVR (which is the greatest thing since sliced bread) and skip the commercials and crying-people parts. It is just better that way.

The Cab Driver Goes to Heaven

2008-10-08T09:34:00.001-06:00

A cab driver reaches the Pearly Gates and announces his presence to St. Peter, who looks him up in his Big Book. Upon reading the entry for the cabbie, St. Peter invites him to pick up a silk robe and a golden staff and to proceed into Heaven.

A preacher is next in line behind the cabby and has been watching these proceedings with interest. He announces himself to St. Peter. Upon scanning the preacher's entry in the Big Book, St. Peter furrows his brow and says, "Okay, we'll let you in, but take that cloth robe and wooden staff."

The preacher is astonished and replies, "But I am a man of the cloth. You gave that cab driver a gold staff and a silk robe. Surely I rate higher than a cabbie."

St. Peter responded matter-of-factly: "This is heaven and up here, we are interested in results. When you preached, people slept. When the cabbie drove his taxi, people prayed."

Funny stuff

2008-10-06T11:32:00.002-06:00

So I have decided to use my blog to aggregate stuff that I don't know where else to keep. My last post was a memory that I wanted to preserve. This one is much less noble: A joke. Rather than spam the world with it, I will post it here for present and future visitors to enjoy.

Now, yes, this one was emailed to me (courtesy of my dad), but it is funny. I'll try not to do this too often, but often enough to have a good list of jokes when I am done.

UPS Airlines

Just in case you need a laugh:
Remember it takes a college degree to fly a plane, but only a high school diploma to fix one; a reassurance to those of us who fly routinely in our jobs.
After every flight, UPS pilots fill out a form, called a 'gripe sheet,' which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics corrects the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight.

Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by UPS pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers.

By the way,UPS is the only major airline that has never, ever, had an accident.
P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.
*
P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.
*
P: Something loose in cockpit
S: Something tightened in cockpit
*
P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.
*
P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute
Descent
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.
*
P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.
*
P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.
*
P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what friction locks are for.
*
P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.
*
P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you' re right.
*
P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search
*
P: Aircraft handles funny. (I love this one!)
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right and be serious.
*
P:Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.
*
P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.
*
And the best one for last
*
P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from the midget..

Family Reading Time

2008-09-29T21:40:00.002-06:00

I just had a fond memory, and I thought, "I should write that down somewhere." This seemed like the best place to do that, so here I am. It is kind of mushy, especially as a follow-up to a response to an article about Google, so beware.

When I was little, I remember my mom reading to me all the time. Even well after the time when I could read myself, we would lie on her bed and she would read to my sister and I. I don't actually remember what she read, although I do remember that there were chapter books that would take days to finish, but I always thought that that was fun, and now that I look back on it, I think it helped me relax at night. I have a serious problem of not being able to go to sleep because my mind gets caught up on one topic or another. I also remember visiting my parents a year or two after getting married, and walking in to find my mom reading to my sister who was like a junior or senior in high school at the time. It may sound a little silly, but I think it just shows that reading is important in my family.

Recently I thought that I should read to my boys, and so when we were at the library I picked up a smaller kids chapter book (Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, it is a classic) and we spent a couple of nights reading it. It was fun for the boys, and although it did seem like one more thing to do at night, it was fun for me as well.

Anyway, that is my thought for the day, and now it is recorded for my posterity, yadda yadda yadda. If any of my siblings read this, I would be interested to know if you have any similar memories. Mom, if you want to validate or refute any facts here, feel free. We all tend to remember history the way we want to.

Do you fear the Googleplex?

2008-09-25T09:20:00.003-06:00

So you have to read this article about Google's rise to domination.

I think they really hit the nail on the head. We are head to a web-centric world, and Google is at the wheel with the accelerator slammed against the floor. And what are to do about it? What can we do? For me personally, so far I have embraced it.

Why would I do that? Google's products are free and meet my needs. It is that simple, and isn't that what we all dreamed of for the Internet from day one? Free tools to make our lives easier and our businesses cheaper to run? What I don't think anyone envisioned was one massive for-profit company out there making it all happen under one roof.

I admit that is a little scary, but I have a growing number of google docs, I love my iGoogle page and I will admit that Msoft and friends don't find what I want to find on the Internet anywhere near as well as the big G.

So what are your thoughts? Should we start fighting this teenage giant now before it grows up and squashes us all? Or should we blissfully kiss Microsoft goodbye and cling to our new Big Brother?

Number 17 is down, now for 18

2008-09-23T00:57:00.002-06:00

The move is more or less complete. Yes, there are still a few items at the other place, maybe even enough for a couple of loads, but the lion's share is here with us in the new old house (old new house?) It is true that with a larger family with older kids, we have a lot more stuff and so moving is more painful. That is just how it is I guess. I'm not getting any younger and the couches, armoires, dressers and bookshelves aren't getting any lighter.

So all that is left is to start planning move number 18. I don't like to move, and I don't want to move again, but recent events have convinced me that our wandering days are not quite over yet. The end is near, I can tell that much, but I am not going to lie and say that I think we will be here very long.

*sigh*

I'd better get some rest.

The scariest news I heard today . . .

2008-09-18T09:26:00.004-06:00

Since I was sick of Weird Al--Collin's new favorite CD--I was flipping through the radio stations on the way to work and I ran across an NPR news station and paused to hear what I thought was the scariest news of the day. Lloyds of London, a huge bank in the UK is buying out the Bank of Scotland (HBOS) making it the largest holder of mortgages in the UK, holding a full 1/3 of all UK home loans. Now, I don't have anything against mergers or acquisitions, in fact they play an important part in contemporary business strategy. So we does this one freak me out? Well, we don't seem to be learning from our mistakes.

Why did Fannie and Freddie pose such a significant risk to the economy? They own almost all US mortgages. Now Lloyds finds themselves in a similar situation. To paraphrase the reporter, she said that "under normal times the UK government would never have signed off on this merger, but these aren't normal times." She continued on to report that the government in the UK even stepped in to help the parties come together, to help the deal go through. It is seen as a short-term fix to a problem, but to me it screams of a long-term problem in the future of gigantic proportions. Really, don't these guys read the news? You want to insulate your economy from giants collapsing? Don't let your giants get too big. Sure, help HBOS find a buyer, but don't set up a bigger collapse.

US tax payers will be bearing the burden of Fannie, Freddie, Lehman and others for years to come. I guess our friends in the UK just feel like they are missing out.

Here is a summary of the transaction from Bloomsberg:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aACIIha0JBvE

More Politics . . .

2008-09-15T19:22:00.003-06:00

Ok, so I have given up trying to merge the email and blog conversations, however, I am going to post my responses. I will keep my correspondants' thoughts private.

I don't think I am waiting for a perfect election or candidate. And I realize that our system is not perfect. My concern is that perhaps the system, election or candidate may not at all represent the values I want to represent. And yes, I think there are single issues that make the situation a no-go for me. For instance, if I had no other experience or history about Pres. Clinton, I would say that I absolutely do not want him as a president because he is an adulterer. I am not saying that he can't work out his own forgiveness or whatever else, but to me that rules him out as a leader of this country. Obviously millions of people disagreed with me, but that is just an example.

Every BYU undergrad student has to take a class called American Heritage, and it is generally taken your freshman year. They approached questions like mine in an auditorium setting and I remember the day they talked about the importance and role the two-party system played in our politics. They also showed videos of "democratic" proceedings in new democracies where the representatives ended up in fistfights in meetings and how the smallest percentage of the population could control the entire country. So I am not offering that as a solution. The BYU answer was that when either party strayed from its constituents, a third party would form and grow until it was big enough to get the respect of the larger party and pull it back the direction the constituents wanted, be it right or left.

That is one of those ideas that looks good on paper, but I don't know if it works in real life. What I see is a lot of people that go along with their party no matter what. It is almost a religious matter for some. If the people aren't keeping the party honest, then what keeps the party from controlling the people? And in either case, what keeps the party upper-crust from pre-selecting candidates? If the candidates are pre-chosen then why do we vote?

Don't get me wrong, I believe in democracy. I want to have a say in how the country is run. Right now I don't think I have a chance for meaningful input because I don't know who I am voting for. I don't trust the media. They have their own agendas from profits to political ties. I don't trust the campaigns, as they are obviously dis-incentivized to give objective information. As I have shared with some of you before, I took a marketing class where they showed how the public is manipulated in every election not by charismatic candidates, but by master marketers that control the emotions of the masses.

I think this is similar to economics. One of the few things I learned in my econ classes was that there is one big all-encompassing caveat to every theory held in the field of economics (at least that they taught me.) All of the equations, graphs, etc depended on the consumer having perfect knowledge of the product. Without that, there was no telling what the fickle consumer might do. How can I vote when I am constantly being fed skewed data?

For example, lets go back to Rush's website. Take a look around for about 30 seconds. just take in a few headlines, get the flavor of it. Then go to Micheal Moore's website and do the same. Do you see the similarity in writing style, design, etc.? Each trying to be a little funny while seriously attacking the opponent and defending their side. Granted, I like the content on Rush's website a lot more as a conservative, but that type of content does not inspire trust. Realistically, if one side can lie, why can't the other?

About our armed forces, I have a lot of respect for them, and I respect and feel gratitude for what they do. They allow us to have discussions like this. However, it seems to me that to vote just to vote is not honoring their sacrifice. If I risked my life to defend someones right to vote I would hope that they thought about what they were doing, and didn't just vote for someone because the guy on the radio or TV said they were good, or because they attended the right convention.

An obvious comment: It hasn't come up yet, so I'll bring it up. One strategy we can and should employ as church members is to pray and ask for wisdom and guidance in choosing who we vote for. This is a good plan. When Joseph Smith prayed with a similar question, asking which church to join (casting a vote through attendance perhaps?) he was told that he should attend none of them. He wasn't told that he should exercise his religious freedom by joining the one that was closest to the truth, but he was told to hold out and do what was necessary to promote the real truth. Do you think this is a possible answer in my situation (without meaning to sound presumptuous, of course)? That it might be better to not vote and continue studying the problem until I have a solution?

A parting thought to muddy the waters just a little more: We haven't mentioned it yet, but should it matter that no matter how I vote, or whether or not I vote, McCain is going to win Utah? I mean doesn't make the whole thing a little pointless?

As always, great conversation. This is very enlightening. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

(Nate, I read your comment. All I would add to the above is that my ego is apparent in my haughty expressions, sexy Walmart wardrobe and witty golf-course banter. Sorry, this is just a sincere question ;-) )

Your chance to influence an Undecided vote in the next election . . .

2008-09-14T22:32:00.004-06:00

--OK, so the political discussion has continued outside of the blog via email, and once again I am going to try to merge them. I am interested in getting lots of varied input, so we will see how this goes. Here is my most recent email response.

So I have to admit that I don't feel like anyone has answered the real question here. I agree that politics have changed over the last 20 years, and even more so in the last 100 years, but I wonder if the situation has changed and rather than address the change we are just making up reasons to avoid change.

So to avoid ambiguity, I will restate one of my main questions:

How is it OK to vote for someone who doesn't share your values, therefore not representing your interests?

More of my thoughts to flesh out the question:

Isn't that the basis of democracy? Are we really "participating" in democracy when we vote for one of two options even though we don't believe either represents our interests? What if there is a conspiracy out there, and they own both candidates? Are you going to feel good when you leave the polls having just put your vote with the "less evil" candidate? To use a sports analogy, in the end it doesn't matter if you lose by 2 points or 20 points, either way you lose. Pres. Bush isn't a hero right now, and Dad mentions some questionable ties in his background, (which I heard about during the last race btw), but I certainly don't think things would have been any better had Gore won the last go-round. In short, we were all hosed before the election even happened, many people knew we were hosed, but our current form of democracy didn't offer us any solution to the problem. I think we are in the same boat this time. Being in the most conservative state in the nation, you think I would have heard good things about McCain during the primaries, but I did not hear one positive thing about him at that point in time. And now all of those critics are telling me to vote for him, making them hypocrites in my mind.

Now for my opinion (OK, this is all my opinion, but I wanted a new section):

I think we need to change as a nation to survive as a democracy. We may call it a democracy, but names change. Isn't it true that the "democrats" used to be the conservative party? I think the bad guys, whoever they are, are changing the definition of democracy in this country. They can use the same words, the same rallying cries that our predecessors used, but be supporting completely different ideals.

The current voting scenario is like going to Walmart. You only have two options on most products: The leading name brand for that product and the store brand. We need to either change our parties to make sure that we are getting a choice that we want to vote for or we need to change the system.

My solution:

I don't have one. I would like to develop a solution that at least gives me a direction on voting day, but I'm not there yet. So what do I do? First, I abstain. I am not convinced that voting for the sake of voting isn't doing more harm than good, so unless I have a specific candidate I believe in, voting day is just like any other day. Second, I keep bringing this discussion up with anyone who will discuss it with me. I annoy family members with active discussion. Whatever it takes. What I don't do: Listen to Rush. If there is a world-wide conspiracy that owns presidential candidates, financial institutions, etc., then I certainly am not going to get out from under their umbrella by listening to a nationally syndicated radio personality. Especially one that is voting for McCain (ie, not fixing the problem I see in the system). Just to be fair I just visited [Limbaugh's] website and it is so full of one-sided spin that it is comical. I got nothing of value. I might as well listen to all of the democrats on NPR (our buddy Garrison Keillor, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, etc.)

Opening the floor . . .

So here is your chance to influence my political views. Go ahead, let me have it. Tell me why I am crazy, wrong, stubborn, or whatever. I'm not saying I will agree, but I am listening:)

What is your Big Bang theory? Or theory on the Big Bang?

2008-09-11T10:23:00.002-06:00

So I have been trading a few emails with family members (mostly Jeff because he is the only one who talks to me) about politics, life, and now a current event. I think it is both interesting and fun, so I decided to put it to a larger audience. Plus, the email thing gets annoying after a while. This is what blogs are for.

Here was my jab this morning to get things rolling:

Since yesterday's conversation was so interesting, what do you think about this article that came out today?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24748826/

Of course, I am referring to the Big Bang machine doo-hickey that they plugged in over in Switzerland. Here was the one and only response I got. (Sorry for making your email public.)

Okay, you want to get the day started with a Bang (pun intentional) ! I mean a really Big Bang...get it...
Were you wanting to discuss the quantum physics of this machine, or the fact that every stinking article in the news for the next two months has a political spin going on? Not to mention the fine print saying the US is still in the lead, they are only Fear Mongering to the crowds that the title could be lost at some future point due to a lack of money. It is funny how this could sound like a less fortunate individual living in the projects in Philly (or anywhere) whining that all of their problems in life come from the government not greasing their wheels...

Now that it is getting interesting, here is my response. Feel free to comment from here.

HA! Yep, this is a good way to start the day.

I did think it had a spin to it. I was amazed that the US Government kicked in $531 million to the Euro project, but that they were whining about losing a $91 million budget in a time of war. At the same time, I think it is obvious that the US is losing dominance in a number of areas (maybe you don't think so?)

So, my question is this: Do you think it is important that the US continues to be an unquestioned world power, or should we be looking at things as a world-community?

Things to consider: military and political threats, linked economies, lack of national self-sufficiency, the affects of isolationism on your own lifestyle, the affects of globalization on your future.

Lets hear what you think. Don't worry, no one reads my blog but you and me.

It is all about the shadow

2008-09-07T21:54:00.000-06:00

This is my first posting from my phone. i don't know why i haven't blogged about my phone before, but It has made all of my wildest dreams come true. more or less.

anyway, i can surf the internet, play games, take pictures and movies, check my work email... the list actually doesn't end. So here I am in the emergency room, AGAIN, with Collin who got crap in his eyes, AGAIN, but this time the whole world (ie the internet) is at my fingertips. This is awesome.

Football, Life, and Roots

2008-09-05T10:14:00.002-06:00

I like sports. I just do. I am not a big sports fanatic, and I never feel like I have the time to follow a team for a whole season (except for the Diamondbacks in ’99 when they won the World Series), but I enjoy it when I can. I like playing sports, but similar to watching them I never seem to be available to play when people I know are playing. Obviously I need to practice better time management. That aside, I can honestly say that I have never been as excited for college football season as I am this season.

Last week we had family in town and I got to go to the BYU home opener against Northern Iowa. It should have been a blow-out from the first quarter, but for some reason the Cougs couldn’t get around to really finishing them off until the fourth quarter, and the 41-17 score doesn’t tell the story of the fumbles and long running plays that kept the game close until the last 12 minutes or so. It wasn’t the best game I have ever watched, but there was something perfect about being there, packed into my 18” square assigned space like a sardine and getting baked by the late summer sun. Honestly I couldn’t figure out what it was, but I enjoyed the game from the minute I walked up to the stadium to the minute I got into the car to go home.

Later it hit me as I reviewed the schedule and was lamenting my lack of tickets to the Homecoming Game vs New Mexico. I realized that I haven’t missed a BYU Homecoming game since I have lived in Utah. That is 4 years in a row, and now in the 5th year the tradition will be broken. The truth is that for a lot of reasons I like living here, and BYU, be it Football, Basketball, Volleyball, you name it, is a part of living here for me. I love a good football game as much as the next guy, but BYU Football is different. It is a part of where I live, and now it is a part of my history.

So as I am typing this I realized something else. Something awful has happened. I knew it would happen someday, but I always expected to have more say in the matter. It was supposed to be part of a master plan or something.

I have put down roots. Dang.

Oh well. We’ll see how that goes in the long run. Until then, Go Cougars!

All kinds of fun

2008-08-16T23:27:00.012-06:00

We had a great time on our vacation. I say "we" in reference to me and the boys. Heather got sick and so we sent her and Taryn home early to rest while we had fun without them. That is just our life. I just wanted to share a few pictures (and a video I think!) of our trip.

The Disney Syndrome

2008-08-11T01:49:00.004-06:00

Well, it has been around 10 months since I went to Disneyland last, but it feels like 10 years. Now that some time has past, I thought I would try to make sense of my... hrmm... preocupation with it.

I have decided that it is largely attitude. I have been playing around with Windows Movie Maker, and made a video of our first Disney trip. We took a lot of video that first time, and it is interesting in those videos how many times we mention that we need to go on vacation more. Prior to that we hadn't really done a family vacation. There were trips as well as the odd adventure here and there, but there weren't really any planned out vacations where we could go and spend time as a family and yet relax.

Disneyland gave us a vacation in the unique way that only Disney can, and I think that that is irreplaceable in many ways, but I have finally found that I can go on other vacations. Of course, if I had the option it would be Disney every time, but I think that I have come to the point where I can go on "vacation" without the Mouse. We are currently planning a 3-day trip within an hour of our house, and I am really looking forward to it. Here are the keys to a great family vacation (for me--no guarantees for anyone else):

1. Location--It can't be at home. Home is where the heart is, but it is also where the computer is, the phone is, the TV is, the boys' friends are, etc, etc, etc. We have to leave all that behind.
2. Activities--I still haven't figured out how to enjoy going somewhere, say the beach, and just sit there. I need a plan, an activity, an itinerary !! (Yeah for itineraries!) Not to mention the boys need to be active or else they are unbearable and the vacation is a failure.
3. Life's details taken care of. Growing up, all of our vacations involved camping. I like camping ok, and it can be a lot of fun sometimes, but more and more as a parent camping is a lot of work, and that extra overhead pushes camping out of the vacation category for me. It can have its own category, but until the boys are older and can help more, it is out. As you can imagine this gets expensive, but I don't know that it can be helped at this point. I prefer that someone else makes my meals and my bed, and I prefer not to have to clean up the messy room when we are done. We just pack up the stuff and leave. That is nice.

Well, those are my thoughts on vacations. I need to post some pictures again, but that wil be for another time.

An Unexpected Graduation Day

2008-08-09T23:45:00.003-06:00

In the past I have told people how lucky I am that I get to work with my friends. I am not an emotional kind of guy, so this doesn't equate to any sort of HR concern; for me it is simply caring about people as individuals. Some of you are already laughing at me, thinking that that is a given, but I should point out that this does not come naturally to me, rather it is something I learned from a previous boss, and I think it is missing in a lot of cases. I guess the main difference is that when I am away from the office, and a story or something comes up with someone from work in it, even if they report to me, in the story they aren't my coworker, they are just a friend. And I like that.

I don't know if I am explaining this well. Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because this week I had to say goodbye to 3 friends who are changing jobs all at once. They aren't leaving together, since they are going all different directions, but the timing was incredible. One at a time would be bad enough, but all at once... And they weren't just any random three people, we are talking years of experience working closely together from building cubicles to pulling all-nighters to get projects done, etc. They represent the last of the "old team" and now I am about the only one from the good ol' days.

Anyway, although I understand the situation, which I am cool with BTW, it has still been sad. This is a first for me, professionally speaking, but I was trying to put my finger on why it felt familiar, and then I realized what it was like.

It is like graduation. Most of your friends will still be around for a while, but after graduation day, the guaranteed day-in, day-out interactions will be gone. Sure, there is the stuff you do for fun, but now everyone is going to get jobs and sooner or later they are going to move away for work or school or whatever. So from a practical standpoint, graduation is when it is over.

Yeah, so I felt like blogging about it. And I just did. If you three are reading this, I wish you well, and I fully expect you all to keep in touch.

I thought I swore off of the journal-type postings, but apparently not so much. I will just have to blog more for the next couple of weeks to bury this one down in the history;)

On the move . . .

2008-07-28T19:35:00.002-06:00

So we are contemplating yet another move. We have been married 10 years, and it feels like we have moved about every 5 minutes. Actually, just for fun I got Heather to help me write up a list of all of our moves so I can confidently say what move this one will be. It was amazing. This will be move number 17.

For those of you who don't believe me, here is a list of the moves. I am doing my best to make this web-friendly by keeping things vague to those of you who don't know us, and obvious to those who do. Easier said than done.

1. Married and moved to Mesa
2. Moved back to Prescott (Hozoni)
3. Country Club Circle
4. Harlequin in PV
5. 1968 Doublewide in PV(that was a winner)
6. Campbell in Prescott
7. Cory and the dead Pine Tree (Prescott)
8. Back to Hozoni
9. Thelma in PV
10. Sioux in Chino(this was both a low point and a high point at the same time.)
11. Little House in Provo
12. Apt #1 in Provo
13. Apt #2 in Provo
14. Back to the little house
15. Blue house on the hill
16. House with many Stairs

And now for number 17. It gets harder every time, but I don't fear it like some people. Yes, it is a lot of work, but it is just that, work. We have also been lucky in the past to get a lot of help from family and friends and that really makes a difference too, but it is important to not let it be an emotional event. It is a job like mowing a lawn, chopping wood, changing a diaper . . . I could list a lot of unpleasant jobs here. Anyway, I thought that was interesting.

Maybe I will do a real post later.

This is a new posting. Yeah.

2008-07-06T09:40:00.004-06:00

So I haven't written a post in a long time, and frankly, I don't have time to do this one, really. However, I am tired of seeing the same thing on my blog, so I thought that I would say a few things, post a few pictures, etc.

Obviously, the pictures are just random, pulled from the past few months.

Only 2 hospital visits in this time period. That is a success.

It has been 8 months, 7 days since I was in Disneyland. Crap.

That is all I have to say. At least this is something new.

NARA II at NARA II

2008-04-11T19:03:00.010-06:00

So I spent a couple of days in the Washington D.C. area again this week. It was a training/general followup visit, and as always it was tremendously helpful to be out here on the ground. As before I won't get into the business details of the trip, but I do want to share a few stories I picked up at NARA (National Archives and Records Administration). NARA really is a fabulous place because even if you are not really into history (me) you run into stuff that is so cool and so real that history kind of comes alive. So here are a few stories and pictures from my week. DISCLAIMER: These are all unofficial comments and pictures and not NARA publications. I tried to remember in most situations to ask before taking pictures, but overall I am surprised and pleased that NARA is generally not opposed to photography.

The Stacks. Most records are stored in controlled, but not entirely unusual rooms referred to as The Stacks. This concept made a lot more sense to me when I toured the American Antiquarian Society, as there were a number of large stacks of documents, but at NARA the room I got to go in was just a big room with really cool moving shelves. Each shelf was full of boxes of documents with labels saying what was in them. Since this is just my blog, I don't feel bad about saying that I am EXTREMELY disappointed in NARA's organization. Even in our company we have the ability to track a book or box of documents to the exact room and shelf where they are. Nara has no such system. They can't query a database and tell you where a certain set of records are. The best they can do is teach their people how the system SHOULD work and then turn them loose to find customer requests. What an opportunity lost. Ok, that was my disappointment for the trip. The rest of this is about the cool things NARA has and does.

So this is a facsimile copy of the Declaration of Independence. We only peeked, so I just stuck my camera in and shot the best picture I could get. It was cool. I don't know if you can read it, but at the bottom of the page protruding from beneath the top document is the signature of William Ellery. He was one of the signers of the Declaration, and I hear that there is an awesome exhibit about him in Philadelphia. Just something else to add to the list of things to do if you are ever in Philly.

This is obviously a shot of Abraham Lincoln's signature, pulled from a handwritten letter that was hundreds of years old and in remarkable condition.
The conservationist was able to fold it an unfold it like it was yesterday's newspaper. I learned that the difference was the quality of the paper, and that there are paper quality standards even today for any official document that comes from the White House. They want those documents to last.

Now this is one of my favorite stories. I guess that during World War II there were a handful (6?) German saboteurs that secretly landed at different site on the Eastern shore of the US. They came ashore in German uniforms, but immediately changed into American duds and buried their belongings in the beach. They were soon found out and caught, and the US government went back and dug up their stuff for proof to the world as to what happened. Everything found that belonged to those men was preserved, and this picture is of some of their personal clothing. There was a whole stack of boxes of this stuff, but we just got to look into the top one. The weird perspective of the picture is because I had to hold my camera over my head to get a decent shot. Sorry. On a different table they were piecing together a newspaper from 1943 (or was it 42? I don't remember) that had also been among their belongings. You might be wondering why these items were at the archives instead of a museum, and for that I will give the best description of NARA's purpose that I can, although it will be inadequate.

So all of our government agencies are out there producing documents. Those documents, or at least some of them, need to be preserved for either a set period of time or indefinitely. So the National Archives and Records Administration has the task of taking only the most important of those documents after a period of time and having them preserved for long-term use by the public and others. The room I took a picture of above was almost completely dedicated to records from the State Department. I think that only about 5% of all documents that are important enough to be stored by their respective agency are important enough to come to NARA. Right now NARA is over 1 million cubic feet behind in processing all of the newly arrived documents, and as time moves on, more documents come of age and are moved. As I mentioned, NARA is also responsible to see that the public has access to those documents that they are entitled to. Like many other organizations, I get the feeling that they are often struggling to really figure out the best way to implement new technology in their situation. The inventory control issue mentioned above is one such example.

So back to the German invaders: Those items are at NARA because they are evidence that was held by the government, not just cool antiquities. While NARA can not handle all of the issues that might arise out of artifacts such as those, they can handle many of them and being in the D.C. area means that they have all of the experts needed close at hand.

So I also got to visit the vault. This is where even more valuable and rare documents are kept. The door is bigger, heavier and the lock is fancier. I got to see the surrender document of the Japanese in World War II, as well as the birth certificate, final will and other personal papers of Adolf Hitler. Those had been mounted on tough pages and bound into a hardcover book by the British for use in the Nuremberg trials. The book had metal hinges and just a simple "AH" embossed on the cover. After the trials the British government gifted the artifact to the US in show of gratitude for US assistance. Hitler's signature was small and unimpressive, barely bigger than the type on the page. Weird.

Being a Disney nut I was excited to see the Disney company's contribution to the war effort. Their contribution was in the form of two stylized cartoon characters meant to be logos/mascots for various military regiments. They were cool to see (complete with Walt's signature) but they were definitely off limits to my camera. Disney was smart from day one and I don't think he relinquished rights to anything he ever produced. In the the early forties he licensed those images to the government. Brilliant.

So those are a few highlights from my trip. As I said, it was educational, both from a business standpoint and in a personal sense. Being back east makes both history in general more real and our country's heritage more meaningful.

Setting the car on fire -- Do I need a better title than that?

2008-04-08T23:00:00.003-06:00

People have asked, and since I don't want to offend either of my readers (you and that other person) I can't help but tell my set-the-car-on-fire story. I can't believe I am publishing this.

So to make myself feel better, I will start out by blaming my wife. She is beautiful, smart and a pretty good cook when she wants to be, but she is the one who left the DVD player on in our van a month ago and sucked the life out of the battery. Of course, by the end you will see that this weak attempt to shift the blame is trash because I more or less prove that the fire and the dead battery aren't related, but for now let's just go with it. It wasn't my fault.

Being a good husband, I hurried home and parked my father-in-law's red Cadillac nice and close to the van, hoping to make quick work of this task. While I haven't spent a lot of time under the hood lately, I am definitely experienced at using jumper cables, and so I popped both hoods and hooked the cables up. No, there weren't any sparks. I had parked so close that I had to turn sideways to slide between the cars and into the driver's seat of the van. The key turned. The engine started. Still no sparks. Everything was going according to plan.

I slid back out of the driver's seat and back between the cars. I removed the cables. No sparks. I completed the whole process with my bare hands. Nothing but cold metal. I shut the hoods. I turn off the Caddy. I start coiling up my extra-long (and therefore very convenient) jumper cables when I smell something. Something electrical. I turn around and there is a trickle of smoke coming from underneath the hood of the my father-in-law's car. My first thought was that I had let it idle too long and it had overheated or something. I was contemplating this option when the smoke became worse, and I decided I should take a look. I pop the hood. A small orange flame was burning something on the left side of the engine, the same side as the battery, but not really next to the battery. A small (1/4" +/-) pipe was glowing red hot, but I didn't recognize what it was.

So this is where I have no excuse for myself. I panicked. Somewhere I remembered somebody telling me that the fuzzy stuff under the hood was meant to fall off if there was a fire and smother it, thereby saving the engine. Yes, I have been appropriately taunted for this since then, but as I stared at the growing orange flame, right next to a gasoline powered engine, I just wasn't quite thinking clearly. So I slammed the hood shut. This was an internal combustion engine, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Those of you who know me know that I am a deeply caring individual, and the welfare of others is always on the top of my list. Interestingly, since the flame was still burning under the hood I wasn't myself, so instead I acted out of self-interest. I jumped in the van and moved it far away. My thinking was sound. If the Caddy blows up in a huge ball of flame and heat and smoke it would be a bad idea to have our van sitting next to it. I jumped out of the van and ran back to the car and then stopped.

Now that I had acted in self-interest I didn't really have a plan. The smoke was pouring out from under the hood and I was beginning to doubt the hood-liner-smothering-the-fire plan, but I didn't really know what to do. At that point the kids had figured out what was going on and were coming out hoping to watch Grandpa's car burn up. The explosion scenario, unlikely as it was, still seemed possible so I yelled at them to go back inside. They reappear every 30 seconds for the rest of the story, wanting to see some action. Or roast marshmallows. Or both.

Now, years ago, when I was like 7-8 years old, I remember taking a family trip over the mountains in southern California, where the steep grade caused cars to overheat. Along the windy mountain roads were cement "barrels" filled with water to assist the unfortunate travelers whose cars overheated. It was on that trip that my dad explained to me why you never throw water on a hot engine. So as I stood there watching the borrowed car fill our neighborhood with smoke, I knew that water wasn't the answer. I had also learned (as a cub scout) that you should throw baking soda on an oven or grease fire, but I didn't know if (1) that strategy would work on an engine or (2) if we had that much baking soda.

Yes, this whole time I stood there and stared at it.

Heather, being prone to action in emergencies came running out of the garage with a 2 quart pitcher of water. She obviously hadn't been on our family vacation when I was 8.

"What am I supposed to do with that?" I asked.

It wasn't what she said but how she said it that counted.

"Put out the fire. Don't you think it will work?"

Her tone suggested that I didn't know what to do, and that I was just standing there being worthless, both of which were true at the time, which made it worse. Remembering that moment, I think I can relate to Adam's predicament in some very small way. I knew it was wrong, but what else could I do? So I threw the water on the car.

In the end it not only a harmless action, but also incredibly lame. The hood was closed, and thanks to General Motor's excellent hood design, the inadequate amount of water just drained over it without entering the engine comparment, i.e. where the fire was. I stood there holding the empty pitcher feeling stupid while the smoke continued to come. At this point, in my mind, the car was toast. If I didn't put it out somehow that unlikely ball of flame was going to become a reality. Maybe not by explosion, but probably a slow, depressing, consuming fire very close to my home.

Now there was motivation: our house. I ran to the back and grabbed a hose, turned on the water flow and pulled it to the front. I was just about to turn it on the car when there was a muffled pop and fluid leaked out from under the car. I sprayed the car a few times, but now the smoke was lessening, and I got the feeling that if it was going to get more exciting, it would have happened already. I had done everything I could think of, all of which was useless and wrong. The adrenaline from the possiblity of an explosion was gone, so I went inside and called my father-in-law feeling pretty stupid.

He just laughed.

So what will I do next time that I unknowingly set a borrowed car on fire? I will move my car out of the way. After that I will go inside and watch TV. It will be a lot more entertaining (for me), and lot less embarassing, and in the end, just as effective as anything I did in this story.

My Disappearing Booklist

2008-04-06T17:11:00.004-06:00

I have said before that I didn't feel like my blog has a purpose. I just can't get excited about maintaining an ongoing "virtual visiting teaching visit" --sorry if that reference offends anyone. My personality (red/blue, Choleric/Melancholy, INTJ, depending which personality classification system you prefer) requires me to always have a purpose of some sort, and so I am looking to do something with this blog to develop a purpose.

So I looked at what I liked best about it, and my hands-down favorite feature was my book list. I love to read, and I like watching the list of links grow as I revisit many of my childhood-favorite reads. Often, as I finish a book, I have thought of adding a quick opinion or perhaps just a synopsis of the story, but either time has never permitted or it didn't seem like the right place for that. Well, I decided that it was time to make a place for it, so I created a new blog: called The Fiction Room. There I will be writing a quick blurb about each book as I read it. I think I will also need to start something similar for the infrequent, but important, selection of business books I pick up. At the very least I will split them up in some way. I would generalize it to The Reading Room, but some smart soul already took that one. While there is a link on this side, you won't see a link back from that site to this one. I have decided to try to keep this one a little more anonymous.

Anyway, that is why my book list is gone and you can click through the link to the right or in this post to see the new site, although I am not under any illusion that anyone found my list interesting besides me. As usual, my initial review happened after midnight, so the quality is not what I would like, but it is a start.

The new site also represents my first attempt at affiliated marketing. Allowing people to purchase books through my site, especially those I read and discuss seems like a good time to try it out. We will see how it goes.

That leaves one large problem: the gaping hole on the side of my blog. I love lists, so it has to be a list. Probably my next favorite list outside of my book list is my Birthday/Christmas list. Ever since I was little I have made extensive lists of wants, and I have found that the fun is in the list. I rarely get anything on my list, but year by year that concerns me less and less for some reason. I just like to keep the list up. I figure that since my birthday just passed, now is a socially acceptable time to post it. Posting a list before my birthday would be construed as a bit materialistic I think.

So there it is. All open to comment and ridicule as always.

2008-02-24T13:04:00.006-07:00

So I just shared my story about being a "green" traveler, green as in inexperienced not environmentally concious. However, there has been more to my trip than that, so I thought I would add to the saga a bit.

For one, there was three days of solid work. That isn't much fun though, and I suppose some portion of it is somewhat confidential, so I will move on to the good stuff. Saturday did not have any work related necessities, so we (Jack and I) had the day to go sightseeing. The bus system really hasn't improved from that first day. Generally the bus is late, if it shows up at all, and trying to figure out which bus to take is like trying to find a worm in a bowl of alfredo linguini. They all look the same so you end up just waiting for one to move and then jump on it.

Saturday morning was no different. We stood in the cold morning chatting for about 35 min until the bus showed up. Of course just because it showed up doesn't mean we got to ride it. It went right past us. I suppose he thought that we were standing in the mud under the bus stop sign for half an hour trying to get a tan. Who knows. So we decided to go for a cab instead.

When the cabbie learned that we just wanted to go to the Metro station, I think that he was offended. He certainly wasn't happy. We got in and as far as I could tell he was going the wrong direction. We asked him which station we were going to, and he gave the right answer, I think. I don't know what nationality the guy was, or what school system he had come out of, but we couldn't understand most of what he was saying. When we got to the station the bill was higher than expected, but what do you do? We paid him and got out. Of course later that day we find the route on a map and figure out that he went around the whole university, rather than straight through it to the station. It doubled the trip.

The metro, as predicted, was much more reliable, straight-forward and understandable. We emerged near the Washington monument. It is interesting how my perception of the world has been shaped by the media. I pictured the mall as a big open grassy area with nice paved walkways. That is how it is in the movies. It turns out that there were gravel trails instead of pavement and the grass was little more than a muddy field. In fact it resembles my lawn, which is in a shameful state.

We stopped for pictures by the Washington Monument and then decided to swing out and see the Jefferson Memorial and then around to the Lincoln Memorial. On the way we saw the Holocaust Museum, and since it was on my list of recommended sites, we went in. We didn't come out for 3 hours.

It was a disturbing experience, and in that respect it was totally successful in its purpose. The naivety of the people, the evilness of the Nazis, the desparate situation that came of all of that; it is both almost umbelievable and a constant warning. How a whole society could turn from complacent to wicked in a matter of months, or a few years at the most. How so few were willing to stand up to a bully. How little we remember the few who did stand up to fight. How slow their neighbors were to help out. It could all happen again, too. That is one of the scariest things. It could be happening right now, and most of the world wouldn't even know it. Yikes.

As you can imagine, that put a spin on everything else we saw that day. Our next stop was the Jefferson Memorial, where this country has literally etched in stone the words and ideals that we were founded on. And you can't help but wonder how we failed in those purposes for millions of people. We stopped at the Lincoln Memorial next and saw the words of another leader who fought to end oppresion, and I realized that his cause still exists and has always existed. It is the classic good vs. evil dichotomy that all of us must choose between. Germany chose evil for several decades and look what it has costed them. The U.S. has been on both sides at times, but where are we today?

We walked through the Vietnam Memorial, and it is obvious that it is not easy to know when to be involved and when to let other's have their freedom. We struggle with it within the country on an individual level, so how can we make the right choices on an international basis? It also seems that politicians don't actually help the process. They come with their own desires for power and can steer nations into collision courses almost at will. Where are the benevolent leaders who make moral-based decisions?

And then we had lunch. I had an unsatisfying glorified boloney sandwich while Jack enjoyed a delicious Philly steak and cheese.

We decided to go for something a little lighter and spent most of the rest of the afternoon in the Air and Space Museum. Now that was cool. My boys would love that place, full of rockets, spaceships, airplanes and science. I waffled on whether or not to take in an IMAX movie about flying F18 jets, but my cheap side got the best of me and I skipped it, which was OK. Instead we ran over to the Natural History museum and spent the last 30 minutes running through the displays to see what ever we could.
It was great. There was one photography exhibit that was fantastic that I took some pictures of.
My shots don't do the real ones justice by far, just as a picture of a mummified ox doesn't have the same effect as seeing it does. It was still cool.

We went to China Town for dinner and ate some moderately good Chinese food. I guess that I am as picky as my mother claims if I can call Chinese food from China town moderately good. But it was.

So that was the adventure. Other than another botched attempt at using the bus system, and another cabbie who stiffed us by a couple of bucks, the excitement was pretty much over. Both Jack and I agreed that this would be a great place to bring our families. To my surprise admission was free at all of the museums. My tax dollars are paying for it all so I might as well use them. There is a week of solid entertainment right there. We'll just have to see when the next opportunity arises.

Planes and Buses and Trains, Oh My!

2008-02-24T08:17:00.005-07:00

I am enjoying my first visit to Washington DC, and it has been a lot of fun as well as a lot of work. Being fairly new to travel, I think I have a pretty good handle on airports, and after my London experience the subway/tube/underground/metro thing isn't too difficult either. As long as I stick to those I am fine. This trip is a little different because I had to rely on buses to get around. Sure, I could have taken a cab anywhere, but frankly, the taxi ride is another alien form of transportation for me, so I decided to keep costs low and use the buses.

I flew into the Baltimore airport and after collecting my luggage started looking for the bus stop. It was on the way to the bus stop that I realized that I didn't have cash, so I stopped at an ATM and took care of that problem.

One thing that always makes me feel more secure when I am traveling is to have a map. I don't have to actually look at it, I just have to have one on me somewhere, and I feel like I can never get too lost to find my way back. I stopped at an information kiosk and was given a whole pile of paper, some useful, most destined for the trash bins. I was also given some very useful directions. Ride the B30 bus to Greenbelt station and then ride the Metro to College Park, where I should emerge from the Metro station next to the University of Maryland, and I knew that the Archives were next to the U of M and that my hotel was apparently more or less on campus. The bad news: I would need exact change for the bus.

I ended up walking back to a newsstand (next to where I had started) so I could buy an overpriced pack of gum whereby I could have the exact $3.10 I needed to ride the bus. I shoved the changes in my pocket and I started walking back to the bus stop, jingling the quarter and two pennies in my pocket. Wait a minute... My change didn't include the coveted dime I needed. Unlucky for me I was a fast walker and was half way back to the bus stop, which was in another terminal. I walked back to the newsstand and exchanged my quarter for two dimes and nickel and then booked it back to the bus stop. Of course, I just missed the bus. I now was blessed with a half hour wait in the cold.

Forty-five minutes later I was enjoying a rather scenic ride to College Park, rehearsing the directions the information-guy had given me. My maps were in my briefcase, all was well. I get off the bus and follow the herd down into the metro station, where I stopped at one of the machines to get my ticket. I was going to be there for a while, so I was going to get a pass that I could use anywhere. After 3 attempts at getting a pass I was stumped. I was using a company credit card, and I didn't know the zip code that the bill went to. On the fourth try I used my own card and it worked. And I missed the train. Another cold 20 minute wait.

Thirty-five minutes later I got off the train at College Park still cold (it was only a five minute train ride) but feeling a little more confident. Yes, I was delayed, but in the end I had won. Or so I thought. I emerge out of the hole that was the metro station and look around. I don't see anything but a line of buses, a parking structure and trees. Where was the University? It only took me about 10 minutes to decide that I had to ride a bus, and after examining a map and a few schedules I picked one out that went to the University. For those of you who are thinking that I am too stubborn to ask for directions, let me give my rebuttal now. First of all, I was in this mess because of that very strategy. I had done what the guy in the airport had suggested, and that didn't work. Also, from this point on I asked every bus driver I encountered (yes there are several) for help, and in every case I got one of two responses: 1.)"I don't know" 2.) information that turned out to be incorrect. So there.

So with the assurances of my bus driver I climbed on board and settled in a seat where I could see where we were going. After riding for 5 minutes I started to get concerned and after 10 I realized that this bus was not going where I needed it to. I got off at the next stop, which happened to be a 7-11. I went inside to get some more help (bad idea).

After looking at me like I was crazy (A lost white guy towing his luggage in a "rough" neighborhood in Baltimore. Crazy is a good word for that.) they pointed me towards a bus stop down the street. I went and stood next to the sign. The wind had picked up and it was cold.

Fifteen minutes later the bus came. I stepped on board and followed my routine of questioning the driver. "Does this bus go the University of Maryland?"

Another "you are crazy" look. Maybe it was the luggage.

"No. You need to be one more street that way," he said, pointing in the direction that I was calling North at the time.

"Can I just go around this block to get there," I asked with a pointing gesture of my own.

"Yep."

"Thanks."

I got back off the bus and as it drove off I headed around the corner. A couple of houses down it was clear that this was a dead end street. There was a business at the end and I thought that maybe I could cut through their parking lot to get to the other side of the block. That was until the guard dog came from around the corner. He was mad. We discussed it for a couple of seconds and we both decided that I should go back around the block the other direction. I hate mean dogs. They could have at least tied him up on the property.

So I headed back down the street, around the block and found another bus stop in the opposite direction the 7-11 lady had indicated. They should really try to hire better people I thought. As I waited under the new bus sign I thought about what I was doing wrong. Maybe I should stop asking about the University. I decided that I would instead ask to go to the Archives. We had picked our hotel based on the information that it was the closest hotel to the Archives, so if I aimed for that I should have a winner.

Ten minutes later the bus pulls up. Yes, it went to the Archives. I settled into my seat. Fifteen more minutes of riding found us turning into the Archives driveway, only I didn't see the hotel. In fact I didn't see anything but trees. We drove into the property passing three different security stops and finally we stopped at the doors of the archive. This didn't look good, so I decided to question my driver further.

"Is the conference center near here?"

"Yep."

"I didn't see any sign or anything."

"I think it's attached to the archives. It is real close. The guard in there should be able to tell you."

Who was I to argue with a local. So I got off the bus and stepped up to the glass doors as the bus drove away. It was dark now, being close to 7 PM and the wind was still making it feel colder. For some reason the doors were unlocked and I stepped in and smiled at the guard. I believe in making a good impression, no matter what.

He must have thought I was out of my mind, and the smile didn't help my case.

"No," he said slowly, probably trying to make sure I understood, "there isn't a hotel attached to this building. The conference center is to the left on the main road back there."

"So, I just go to the main road and turn left?" My intentions were obvious. He glanced at my luggage, my thin Disney sweatshirt before he responded.

"Yes, just to the left. It is a little far to be walking though."

I thanked him and stepped back out of the doors. Yes, it was cold, and I had luggage, and I didn't really have a clue where I was, but I had already considered the idea of just walking to where I needed to be if I got some straightforward directions, and now I had them. I walked back through the three guard stations and turned left at the main road. It was poorly lit, and the sidewalk even poorer. Clearly the suitcase manufacturer had not designed the wheels with off-roading in mind before they shipped them off to Costco.

Thirty minutes later I walked in the door to my hotel. I smiled at the lady at the desk.

"How was your trip, sir?"

"Fabulous. I got to see a lot of this area."

"Can I help you with anything else?"

"Yeah, do you have a map showing the bus routes around here?"

No, they didn't have a map, and I figured it was just as well. I got settled in my room and started focusing on the rest of my trip.

2008-02-10T17:21:00.001-07:00

Wow. What a day. I'm an in London for the first time, and today was my one and only chance to do some site-seeing. If you haven't been able to tell from my Disney posts, I am a strong believer in vacationing hard, and although this trip is not a vacation, the hours from 9:30 AM to 9:30 PM were discretionary, so here is what we did.

I say we because I am traveling with Mike, my boss. He has been here before and was very nice to me all day, letting me pick the sites I wanted to see. The day actually started while I was over the Atlantic, but I will skip that part. I deplaned (the technical term) feeling like I had survived an ordeal, which was actual better than it could have been. There was no one in the seat next to me and even though I wasn't comfortable, I did get a decent amount of sleep (4+ hours?)

I grabbed a small booklet in the airport that said "Welcome to London" and it turned out to be a fantastic find. It had a basic sightseeing map and info about the tube (subway). Mike happened to run into someone on the plane who he had worked with before and that was our second great find. Mr. Bartholemew has been to London a lot lately and quickly led us through the airport, put us on the right train, and even helped us buy our tube passes (oyster pass is the real name, although I don't know why it is named that.) After these two big wins and a couple of extra minutes here and there as we learned how the tube system worked and we were checked into the hotel by 11:30 and ready to hit the streets.

I had been given a thorough debriefing on London sightseeing by a friend at work before I left (a third boon, really) and I had already decided that I didn't want to spend money on a tour. We just rode the train to the Westminster stop and got off and started walking. I also decided to travel light, so I didn't take my borrowed travel guide with me. While it was nice to have an uncluttered experience, I do wish I had had a bit more of the background on some of the things we saw. Next time I think I will spend some quality time with a photocopier before I leave home, or even better, invest in a good pda.

Anyway, so the first thing we see upon exiting the underground is Big Ben. Oddly enough I don't think either of us were 100% sure it was Big Ben. It was certainly a very large, gothic-looking clock next to the river Thames, but for some reason I expected something bigger. It probably had a lot to do with how we just popped out of the ground right next to it. I took some pictures, and then we walked around and got a picture with some of the attached parliament houses as well. From our new position we decided that the large cathedral we were standing next to was Westminster Abbey. It being Sunday it was not open for tours, but we wandered around the grounds and visited the gift shop. It was cool just for the architecture if nothing else.

This seems like a good time for a rambling side note. FINALLY I found a practical purpose for my GE history classes. Every now and then some ridiculous piece of trivia from those classes that would come to mind. So let that be a lesson to everyone out there. If you are ever sitting in a boring history class just remember that someday you might visit the place concerned and knowing the history will make your vacation better. There you go. A noble purpose. Now on with the report . . .

We then went looking for Buckingham palace, and after a minor detour we found it: big, square and plain. Kind of disappointing really. It had really fancy gates, but other than that it looked like an oversized bank. There weren't any guards with the red coats and fluffy hats either. Instead there were funny guys in blue coats. Every couple of minutes they would do a funny high legged walk for 20 feet, turn around and go back to where they started. Since I don't think they were allowed to actually turn their heads to look around I can't imaging they are very good at guarding anything.

After that we walked from the palace down to Trafalgar square. I hear it has some nice fountains, etc, but I wouldn't know because today London decided to celebrate the chinese New Year on the square. It was packed with people, and I found it ironic that We Europeans (or Westerners, if you are offended by that generalization) like to celebrate other people's holidays with our own customs. For instance, when we walked up there was a cute Chinese girl on a stage with a couple thousand Londoners watching while she played some very European classical music on her violin. Weird.

Well, that was pretty crowded so we then took a few more detours (got a little lost) and then made it to Covant Gardens. I didn't actually see a garden, but rather it was an open cobblestone square for performers surrounded by quaint shops and restaurants. This was a great part of the day. These two guys were just out in the square getting ready to do a show. They were funny. They were jugglers, I suppose, but it was the comedy that made it worth it. They kept our attention for a full hour, and my only regret is that I didn't have enough battery in my camera to record the whole thing. At the end they were up on 8-foot unicycles juggling back and forth. It was great.

By then our feet were hurting and it was time for lunch. We picked one of the small eaterys in the square (in the garden?) and had a great meal while the next act went on. It was a guy playing a cello with 5 high school or college aged kids with violins. They were awesome. They did lots of laughing and moving around while they played the classic Classical pieces that everyone knows (Pachelbells Canon, etc.) They were really good. The lead violinist was funny because he was a punk-looking kid, with a mohawk and multiple piercings, but he was a tremendous violinist AND he loved playing the classical stuff AND he was excellent with the audience. It was cool to watch. Everyone performs for tips, more or less, so their success is based on making the audience happy. To my mind, that is the way ALL entertainers should be compensated.

We strolled through a few shops and then decided to walk the river trail down to the Tower Bridge, which turned out to be more like a 2-mile hike.

It was very scenic though, with side walk performers and vendors everywhere and museums and significant historical sites AT LEAST every other block. The mix and match between old new was very intriguing. At times it looked like the new construction was out of place, and at other times it looked like it was just a hassle for society to preserve some old building. In both cases I found that I enjoyed the culture and the experience of just being there.

Finally we made it to the Tower Bridge, which is named that because it is next to the Tower of Londen, which actually isn't much of a tower. It is more like a really old castle, sinking into the river bank while the sky-scrapers go up all around it. I got pictures of both, although they are sketchy because of the dark.

At that point our legs were done, so we rode the tube back to the hotel (with serious delays because a big-time football game just finished down the road from the hotel) and cleaned up and enjoyed a nice Italian meal (made by real Italians). Now it is time to finish up this posting and go to bed. It has been a lot of fun, but tomorrow is when the work starts, so we will see how that goes.

Cheerio.

My January Project

2008-02-03T21:26:00.001-07:00

So I have struggled with what to blog about. It isn't that I really lack things to say (it has been suggested that I can be "opinionated.") It is more that I am still trying to figure out what is the right stuff to say. Blogs are so public, and yet if you go browse through what is out there they are largely personal. Anyway, this is me trying to get it right.

So what have I been doing this last month? Other than the trips to the emergency room, cleaning up after the holidays and learning to take care of a newborn all over again, I decided to get healthy. I know, it is kind of a cliche thing to do around New Years, but for me it was serious. For one, I have never seen any kind of positive will power around any diet or exercise regimine. I didn't know if I could even do it.

The New Year stated out great. I was exercising and cut my calories in half. I lost some weight and improved my lung capacity (probably not technically correct, but you get the idea). It was all going great until I got sick. It was just a little bug; I didn't even miss a day of work, but it sapped my energy so that I didn't exercise for a week, and now I am back where I started.

I have decided that this is a metaphor for life. It seems to me that one mistake in life costs ten times as much effort to get back to where you were.

Example 1: The obvious: Dieting. It is easy to fall off the wagon and have a double scoop of chocolate ice cream while watching a football game. You can clear out both scoops in under 5 minutes without even knowing that you did it, but it is a sentence of 30 minutes of hard labor to burn it off.

Example 2: Money. If I accepted every credit card offer that showed up in my mailbox in just one week I would have the ability to bury myself in debt for 20 years. And no, that wouldn't be hard to do.

Example 3: Time. If I miss one full day at work it takes me the rest of that week plus several of my own hours after work to catch up. In essence I never get days off because if I take a day off I just have to work 8 - 10 hours extra on other days. (There is a loop hole to this one though. That is to take over a week off, at which point you are so behind that you never catch up and then all you have to do is take the punishment for anything that didn't get done.)

So before I end the posting sounding all negative and stuff, I should acknowledge that my original statement is not completely true. While I do have to work on establishing my good habits of diet and exercise again, I do have the experience to know that I can do it. Previously my will-power record was probably counted in hours (<100) and now I have counted it in days. The next step will be months I suppose. In any case, while I do not relish the thought of starting over and being sore again, etc. I do appreciate the knowledge that I can do it and that will have to be enough to carry the day.

P.S. I'll let you know how it goes. Not because I think that anyone out there cares, but more because I don't know that you don't. It is free accountability.

Disneyland Reunion 10-2007

2008-01-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

OK, so somehow I never blogged about my final Disney trip of 2007. Yes, it was last October, but I was just reviewing the last few posts and to me it leaves a big hole in between the September trip and Taryn's arrival. I am a little rusty on the details already, but I do have a few tidbits I wrote down on the trip so it deserves an attempt.

So this was my first vacation without Heather. Just me and the boys. Now, you might be asking, what about the annual father-and-sons outings? Yeah, well I was never under any impression that they fell under the "vacation" category. They are pretty much just work. So while I was going to do a single-parent vacation, I wasn't going to do it alone. Actually we had the biggest group we have taken to Dland yet. My brother and two of my sisters all came with their families. In the end we had 16 people.

Six weeks prior I had finished my recruiting phase of planning and was working hard on the daily schedule. After 10 hours of phone conversations, 37 emails and two revisions, I made copies of the final schedule for all of the adults. I also took to heart the warning that I should back off and not be an over-domineering control freak. Yeah, I can't imagine where that came from either. Weird. Finally it was time to go.

Day 1

Tuesday morning we left around 4:45 AM. I don't think anyone had any faith that I would actually get up and out of the house that early, but they didn't take purpose into account. Big mistake. Anyway, the kids were rowdy for the first hour, mostly from the excitement of leaving on yet another trip to Disneyland, and partially because Aunt Teri was going with us. The crowning moment of the first hour is when I heard a sobbing whimper from behind my seat (all the boys were laying on the floor of the van, supposedly trying to sleep.)

Then came Logan's whisper out of dark mass of blankets, "Dad, Trenton cried."

"Trenton-buddy, what is wrong?" I asked.

"I just want to go home."

It was an emotional moment. Heather was on bed rest, and thus was left behind in bed for the safety of our daughter. Teri, who got an annual pass when we did last December had offered to ride with us to help out on this pseudo family reunion. Well, at that moment I was really glad to have her along. She climbed into the back of the van sitting on the floor and comforting my youngest son, who was tired and missing his bed and most of all, his mother.

An hour later they were all asleep.

I think it was my fastest trip on record, and remarkably involved less speeding than ever before. I set the cruise control on 78 mph, and due to the early start and light traffic later we at the hotel at 3:00 our time. We only stopped 3 times, which I think is another record. We got Teri logged into her Internet class, and I gathered the boys and trooped them into the park.

I found that once again the environment had changed on me. I had a blow-by-blow schedule planned out, but it turns out that because Disney expected less people at this time of year that they had turned off the FastPass booths at almost all rides. We ended up actually waiting in half-a-dozen standby lines before heading back the hotel. That is a first, but it was a theme that would continue the following day.

Day 2

The next morning we showed up at the gates 45 minutes before the 10 AM opening (shortened hours due to low expected volume.) So did 2,000 of our not-so-close friends. The lines were as long as I had ever seen them. They let us in just after 9:30 so we could pack ourselves into Main Street for the rope drop, an event reminiscent of the Boston Marathon plus strollers. Dennis, my brother-in-law led out with the first FastPass run of the day to Space Mountain, and the rest of us headed to Splash Mountain. We all arrived there after only minor confusion, to find that the ride was broken. So we settled for the psychedelic Winnie The Pooh ride, and took on the Haunted Mansion, which turned out to be a 90% rerun of the Christmas version. Indiana Jones was broken, Big Thunder was not a fast-pass ride that day and by noon we were in California Adventure and only had 4 rides under our belt.

One of the reasons that we wanted to be there at that time was the Wednesday was Logan's birthday. From previous trips we found that we always had extra time in the line for Aladdin, so my plan was to hold a birthday party for him while we sat in a circle on the cement, waiting for the show to start. It turns out that with the crowds it didn't quite happen that way. Rachelle had brought in cookies for all the kids and there were a few gifts, but it was a little crazy due to the Disney Cast member walking by every 30 seconds asking us to cram closer together. It turned into serious confusion when the presents came out. Logan was opening them standing up, while the cousins jockeyed for position to see the haul with frosting-covered pumpkin cookies waving around like small explosive devices. After some serious negotiation with those around us we decided to take this party the rest of the way and stuck candles in a handful of the pumpkin cookies and actually introduced open flame in this environment. Dennis and I started the "Happy Birthday" song, and by the second line Logan had 500 or so of his closest Disney friends join in. By the end the whole line was singing. The Hyperion theater seats 2000 so it was a rousing song. The doors opened, the crowd rushed in, and the party was over. Wow. It was a winner.

It would be wrong to conclude the whole birthday scene without proper tribute to the Turkey Leg. I think it was our first trip in August of '06 when we discovered the Turkey legs. They are about 10-12 inches long and roasted forever. At $6, they are not cheap, but the salty, juicy meat is worth it, just once per trip. Well I had grabbed one of these for lunch on the way into the line, and throughout the entire birthday scene I had a side business going. A steady stream of cousins (and sons) came by and with the semi-help of one very small plastic butter knife I sliced hunks of turkey off for my customers. It is one of those scenes I just wish I had a video of. A small knot of people in line for the Aladdin show, having a birthday party with open flame while the birthday-dad butchered a turkey and handed out meat to any grubby little hand that displayed itself. Life was good.

The Aladdin show was awesome as always, although my right hand stunk like a roasted turkey through the whole show. The rest of that day we spent in California Adventure, with a lot of the same FastPass frustrations we had experienced in the other park. As the day came to a close at DCA, we hopped back over to Disneyland and used up what FastPasses we had left. The lines were really long everywhere. That night we saved dinner until we were done playing and ended up at Denny's eating waffles at 10:00 that night.

So I think this is as good a place as any to make a general observation. Overall, in all of my trips to Dland, I have seen Disney make very few mistakes. They have amazing attention to detail and fantastic systems and processes for handling just about everything. However, they made a big mistake, from what I can tell, last October. They pushed really hard on marketing the October Disney experience, and it worked. The place was really busy. In fact I think it surpassed their forecasts. They should not have been in low-volume mode. The FastPass machines should have all been turned on. They should have kept the park open longer. But they didn't. I guess they can't get it right ALL the time.

Day 3

So to speed up the story a bit, the next day we enjoyed a lot of the rides we missed in Disneyland, including Splash Mountain. Some of us opted to go back to DCA that morning/afternoon and we had a great time. Since Jeff and Rachelle had recently learned that they were expecting baby number 4, they opted to stay and experience some of the calmer rides in Fantasyland, and then we all regrouped that evening. After dinner at the Plaza Inn we hit more rides, and that night we did Finding Nemo, which had an hour-long wait (it was new this last summer.)

Day 4

A unique thing we did this trip was actually plan a day outside of the park. Well, it was mostly outside of the park. Collin, Logan and I got up on Friday and went in the park at 8 AM as usual thanks to our annual passes. It wasn't worth it for anyone else to waste a day on their park-hoppers. Trenton, who had another tough trip, just wanted to stay inside and watch cartoons, and Teri was happy to stay with him. We rode a few rides (Big Thunder 3 times in a row if I remember correctly) and got two rounds of FastPasses. Then we hiked out of the park, loaded up the van and met everyone else at a grocery store where we were preparing for a day at the beach.

I had never taken the boys to the beach, and I am glad I was with other people who knew the way because I got way turned around. Finally we found a good spot and by 1:00 we had all of our stuff laid our and the kids were off playing. Daniel is pitching for his baseball team this season, and he and Dennis made a sand mound and got to practicing.

Tanner and Trenton as usual went off and had a great time digging in the sand a playing with a little plastic boat they found. The rest of the kids migrated between eating, flying kites (thanks to Teri) and chasing around the many birds. Three or four hours later we had had enough, we were hungry, covered in sand and salt and sick of paying the parking meter (I need to remember to take a bucket of quarters next time.) We loaded up and found a park not too far away where we heated up some chili and soup and let the kids play until dark. The kids were pooped by the time we got back to the hotel, so we put Logan and Trenton in bed, where they immediately crashed, and Collin and I made a final 3 hour run into the park. At 11:58 we were just getting off of Space Mountain and had one more set of FastPasses so we had a footrace around to the entrance of the ride and made it back in line by 30 seconds. 10 minutes later the ride broke down and everyone in line got 5 free FastPasses to anything they wanted to ride the next day. We felt that we had used our day well.

Day 5

So by the 5th day we were completely wasted. We were still in line for the 8AM rush into the park and we went hard for as long as we could. Somehow with all of the different preferences and time constraints we had yet to go on Collin's favorite ride, California Screamin'. It was so busy that we ended up really only having one shot at good FastPasses. Everyone enjoyed the ride at different times, due to the need for someone to stay with the smaller kids who couldn't go. On all of our trips Logan has wanted to go on this ride, especially as he watched Collin get so excited about it. He has always been just a few inches too short. On our September trip has was only off by 3/4 of an inch, so we told him that he might get to go on his birthday trip. I took him up to the measuring post, and he was soooo close. He need less than half an inch. So I took him to the side and folded up one of the art papers we had from the animator's workshop and put it under his heels. His head barely touched the post, and we got him on the ride. He looked a little umm . . . shocked, but happy that he was a big kid. Of course, I had to get pictures of the whole thing.

That night was the night we had all planned to take in Fantasmic, a water/multimedia show at the river, and the fireworks. The boys and I came late after doing some final souvenir shopping and found a small spot for us to sit. Trenton was completely done, crying and whining. The other boys were also complaining, and after all of the late nights and early mornings, I was also wiped out. After 15 minutes of sitting on the cold cement, waiting for the show to start, I realized that we had all seen this show before and that this wasn't worth it. So we got up, said goodbye to everyone we could find and went to bed.

Probably the hardest thing about not having Heather there was the loss of the quiet voice telling us when to eat and when to go to bed. She is always firm about when it is time to sit down and eat, and when it is time for her to go to bed she is not easily distracted. Usually at that point in time anyone else who is tired can go back to the hotel with her and I stay until they kick me out. My personality does not prioritize needs and wants in Disneyland very well. So the whole trip my boys and I were tired and hungry, mostly. We still had a great time, but that last night we hit our limit, and I hauled everyone out of there. I was thinking about Heather as we made our way to the front gate to exit, and we passed by the huge Mickey pumpkin. I had made an effort to get pictures throughout the trip, but I knew that I hadn't done very well. Here was a picture that I knew Heather would want. So we stopped, and I had to get both Trenton and Logan to stop crying by invoking the name of their mother.

"Mom would really really like to have a picture of us right here. It will just take a few minutes."

As you can see we look a little dazed, but the boys did great. The tears are gone and there are just a few tired smiles. If nothing else I think this is an accurate sum of our trip.

What I learned this time -- As I said at the beginning, I have never been there with a group that big. It is different, and in that situation a schedule like I like to make isn't practical. Each person brings in a new set of variables, and with that many people, there were too many variables for that level of detail. If I get to go with another group like that one, I think we just need a couple of times/events per day where everyone gets together, probably around meal times or shows. We will see if I get the chance to try again.

An overall trip downer -- Indiana Jones was closed the entire time we were there. That was sad. Especially since it was a FastPass Ride I was counting on.

A highlight of the trip -- Disneyland is a lot of fun. You see a lot of friends, people on dates, etc., but one of the things that I really like about it is that there is an overwhelming number of families. It was great to be there with my family, and with my brothers and sisters. I think it is a unique venue to get to know each other, where someone else is taking care of the details and you just get to pick what kind of fun you want to have next and go enjoy it. It was a great experience for all.

Booklist 2007

2008-01-21T09:36:00.000-07:00

So I actually recorded a booklist for a whole year. There are a few things I would like to do in the future, such as link each title to my review/opinion of the book, but as with everything in life I will start at the beginning and we will see how far I get.

Not only do I love lists, but I also love books. That means that a booklist is a no-brainer for me. These are the books I have read in 2007.

#	Book	Author	Date Completed
1	Magyk	Angie Sage	January
2	Flyte	Angie Sage	January
3	Wizards First Rule	Terry Goodkind	January
4	Sometimes the Magic Works	Terry Brooks	February
5	The Miserable Mill	Lemony Snicket	February
6	The Austere Academy	Lemony Snicket	February
7	The Stone of Tears	Terry Goodkind	March
8	The Indian in the Cupboard	Lynne Reid Banks	March
9	The Ersatz Elevator	Lemony Snicket	March
10	The Blood of the Fold	Terry Goodkind	April
11	The Temple of the Winds	Terry Goodkind	April
12	The Vile Village	Lemony Snicket	April
13	The Hostile Hospital	Lemony Snicket	May
14	The Carnivorous Carnival	Lemony Snicket	May
15	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone	JK Rowling	May
16	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets	JK Rowling	June
17	Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban	JK Rowling	June
18	The Slippery Slope	Lemony Snicket	June
19	The Grim Grotto	Lemony Snicket	June
20	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	JK Rowling	July
21	Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	JK Rowling	July
22	Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Prince	JK Rowling	July
23	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows	JK Rowling	22 July
24	Fablehaven	Brandon Mull	July
25	Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star	Brandon Mull	July
26	The Penultimate Peril	Lemony Snicket	July
27	The End	Lemony Snicket	20 July
28	The Book of Story Beginnings	Kristin Kladstrup	2 August
29	Artemis Fowl	Eoin Colfer	28 August
30	Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident	Eoin Colfer	31 August
31	The Edge Chronicles: Beyond the Deepwoods	Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell	15 September
32	Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code	Eoin Colfer	30 September
33	The One Minute Manager	Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson	30 November
34	Gregor the Overlander	Suzanne Collins	15 December
35	How to Be a Great Boss	Jeffrey J. Fox	17 December

The Birth Day

2007-12-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

So I had a few other pics from yesterday's events that I felt like sharing. Lets try chronological order.

1. The happy (and nervous) mom. Obviously this is pre-op. Not so obviously this was taken at 7:15 AM and she was running on an hour and a half of sleep.

2. Jumping right past the birth and the "Introduction" pictures, here are some of her first moments with Mom and Dad. You might notice that Mom ain't lookin' quite so chipper. This would be a post-op photo. You also might notice that Dad has a funny look on his face. Nothing much to say about that. I am just funny looking.

3. Here are the brothers who have yet to meet their new sister, but I thought I would at least mention them anyway. They are all quite put out about that. I guess I will also admit that I have been looking for a reason to post this picture since they all look so spiffy.

4. Today Taryn got her hair done and tried on some new clothes. Why do I get the feeling that I will say that again? Anyway, here she is in the latest NICU fashion. You can also see that she is accessorizing with a pink bow and classic feeding tube. I didn't even know that the FTs were back in style.

So for all of you who like actual information, I will oblige now that you have looked at my pictures. Heather is doing tons better, even though she looks like she lost a fight with a staple gun (I honestly can't look at it.) She had to get up and walk today. I spent most of the day being thankful that I don't have to go through any of that stuff. I have a great wife.

Taryn got off the oxygen tubes last night, but this morning her doctor switched it out for the feeding tube. It should be a short term thing to make sure that she is getting nourishment, and that her body knows what to do with it, from day one. She takes a pacifier now, so that is a good sign. The girls also had a successful nursing session this evening, so things are looking up for tomorrow.

More tomorrow (or sometime.)

Our new addition

2007-12-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

Taryn was born this morning, 12/17, in SLC. She weighs 5 lbs 13 ounces and is 20.5 inches long. She is very cute (as you can see.) Thanks to all of you who helped out along the way! We will let you know how the recovery goes for mom and baby. (Heather is just sleeping away. All went well.)

Disney Marathon

2007-08-30T21:55:00.000-06:00

Every year Disney has a marathon where people run around the park for fun. I don't understand this. Don't people run around the park for fun every day?

Anyway, while I am not crazy enough to try to run a marathon, I felt like I ran a Disney marathon last week. Yes, I just got back from my 4th Disney trip this year, and it will go down as the hardest one yet. Let me just touch on a few highlights for you.

1.) Heather is in the middle of a high-risk pregnancy, but rather than miss out on Dland, she opted to use a wheelchair. We rented one before we left on the trip, both to save money and so we could take it between the hotel and the park, which we did. Repeatedly. Every day. Several times every day. I think I made 4-8 trips per day between those locations, and that doesn't count the distance within the park.

2.) I have realized another benefit of graduating. I have achieved an all-time low in my personal fitness. This was impossible while I was trucking 20 pounds of books around campus every day, and taking at least one PE class per semester, but now that I have a diploma it is my right to let myself go to pot. And I have. And I paid for it. While I realistically topped 6 miles per day, it felt like I walked 20+ miles per day, and after day 2 I was completely sore and it seems like I was sweating and breathing hard the entire trip. Now I have motivation for my next trip . . .

3.) One of my favorite things about DLand is that it is true family time. On our first visit we were worried about our kids standing in line and getting bored and whining, but it didn't happen. It was great.
Well, I don't know if Trenton is tired of vacations, or if it was the fact that he didn't get pushed around in a stroller the whole time, but he was horrendous. There was whining, crying, fits in every store and even a few bursts of anger. He had a tough time.

Now that I have glamorized all of the hard parts about this trip, let me just tell you that that trip was great. We still, after 14 days at Disneyland in the last year, haven't done everything there. I came with a more detailed plan than ever (because I know every attraction by now) and I planned in a few things we have never done, and we enjoyed all of them. My list of to-do's is already growing for our next trip in a couple of months (Heather will be staying home for this one) and I am looking forward to the whole thing. Some of the new experiences we had this time around were:

1.) Eating at the Plaza Inn. Actually we ended up doing this 3 times. I am a huge salad fan, and nothing beats a tough day of walking around than a cool, crisp garden salad, and they have them at the Plaza Inn for $3!!! And you can get bread sticks for a $1!! That is amazingly cheap for on-site food. The only other things you can buy for $3 are cotton candy or a churro. Even a deep-fried, sitting-in-a-warming-bin-all-day chimichanga is like $6. It was great to have a nice sit-down meal each day.

2.) Billy Hill and the Hillbillies. So maybe I like this fiddlin' hick show because in my heart of hearts I long to wear overalls to work everyday, but the show was only part of this successful event for us. We went during the heat of the day and got to enjoy a great meal of finger foods and root beer floats while being entertained by redneck comedy. You can't say that this isn't a super situation. And it was funny and the performers were way talented and they made fun of the birthday girl in the front row for half the show. Fantastic.

3.) Golden Dreams. OK, so this is pretty much a waste of space, but I wanted to do all the stuff I hadn't done before. They did have a cool special effect to open and close the show, so I give them points for that, but hopefully they come up with a better use for that cool theater soon.

So that is all I have to report on that. Enjoy the pics. I am working on another post which I actually hope will be useful. I am critiquing the many Disney web sites out there and making recommendations. Let me know if you have any favorites I should consider.

Mug shot or mugshot?

2007-08-08T01:20:00.000-06:00

When I started this blog I claimed that it had a higher purpose than frivolous day-to-day updates of the mundane, but I am already breaking this rule. I am just posting a picture of myself with a beard for fun, because I am about to dispose of it (the beard, not the picture.) It has served its purpose having annoyed my parents, scratched my kids and alienated my wife. It is kind of like pushing your little brother just so they get mad and chase you around. Well, now the fun is over and it is time to undo all of those fun side affects and go back to life as usual . . .

Something Fun

2007-08-08T00:23:00.001-06:00

At the beginning of the summer I promised the kids that I would fight against my urge to be a work-aholic father and that we would do "something fun" every week as a family. Logan has really latched on to this idea. Almost every day he asks, "Are we going to do something fun today?" Then we all have to remember if we have fulfilled the weekly goal or not. It has been a great experience.

So far we have gone to the theater, hiked, swam, partied with family, had game nights, had movie nights and played baseball. While I can honestly say that I have enjoyed every minute of it, I can not say that I would have had the discipline to put the other things in my life aside long enough to do these weekly activities without the promise and Logan's follow-through. Sad, isn't it?

So last Saturday it was 5:00 and we still hadn't done "Something Fun." Time was of the essence. We had talked about hiking to a local waterfall, but I only had a vague idea of where the trail even began, and it was supposed to be a decent length (2 miles). In the end I threw caution to the wind (I'm really good at that these days) and threw some bagels, a first aid kit and some water in a backpack and we all jumped in the van to go hiking, sans Heather of course. These days she isn't hiking anywhere. OK, honestly, she isn't hiking anywhere on any day. It isn't her thing.

So we went hiking for our family outing and Heather went to watch Hairspray with her mom. It works for us. It was 6 PM by the time we had begged our way past the ranger station and found the trail head. (I didn't have any cash to pay the $3 fee. Whoops.) As usual the boys were dancing around with excitement at the prospect of "doing something fun."

As we started out, we began to pass other hikers on the trail, all heading out, not in. More than one motherly hiker shook her head at me when they saw us just starting out with 4 year-old Trenton in tow. No less that three of these kind ladies took time to tell me that it was farther away than I thought. I thanked them for their generous words and told the boys to march faster.

Forty-five minutes in I started to get a little worried, and told myself that we would turn around if we didn't find the falls in the next thirty minutes. Logan, being both our leader and the clumsiest of the bunch, was starting to get tired and tripped and bumped into things regularly. He seemed to make progress down the trail by bouncing off of trees, rocks and other organic material (the trail was open for horses.)
At 55 minutes we finally saw the falls and in an hour flat we had completed the two mile hike in.

We rested on a big rock and ate our blueberry bagels before taking off our footwear and testing the stream at the base of the waterfall. There are some things in life that are near impossible to describe, and one of them is the ice-cold, yet refreshing feeling of melted snow running over your feet after a hike. Add in some pain from the jagged fragments of rock that lined the bottom of the stream and it made for a sweet-and-sour combination that you just can't get in any other way. It was great.
We spent about 30 minutes resting and playing in the water, and then I knew it was time to go. We hadn't been on the trail 10 minutes when Trenton announced that he just wanted to go home and lay down. The rest of the return trip was a struggle. It was a combination of stumbling, murmuring and coaxing, mingled with the sporadic discoveries little boys make. We had the opportunity to poke at several caterpillars, collect a single wildflower for Mom (yes, you may report me to the Forest Service or whoever for taking one flower) and acquire a cocoon to bring home and hatch in a jar.

The return trip took us 90 minutes, and it was pretty dark when we got back to the car, but we made it and we had a great time. I don't have any exciting news from this little outing. No one experienced any medical trauma, although Collin's arm is still broken of course, and it was uneventful. For us that is what made it a great trip, so I wanted to share it.

The Pain of Disney

2007-07-31T04:00:00.000-06:00

"Wait, Dad!"

I was only half a step ahead, but I slowed and took my son's hand as we rounded Grizzly Rapids and headed for Mulholland Madness.

"What's wrong, bud?" I asked as I slowed further, noticing a slight limp in his 7 year-old stride.

"My feet hurt," he said.

No wonder, I thought to myself. It was the third day of our four-day trip to Disneyland, and we had been going strong all three days. We were at the park gates at the opening of the day to hear the bells ring and the attendants would beep our tickets through with the other early risers. We hadn't taken any naps, and each night as the light faded to a darkness that sparkled with the lights of Disney, my wife would take our other two sons back to the hotel and Collin and I stayed until they wouldn't let us on any more rides.

It was my favorite time. I felt like a dad. Not just any dad, mind you, but an awesome dad. We hustled all day to get fastpasses and hit all of the rides, and now in the cool night air I had tickets to get into any ride without waiting, and it was time to hand everything over to Collin and do anything he wanted. At first he wanted to do the big rides. We rode Space Mountain over and over until we knew every twist and turn in its dark downward spirals. Then it was Big Thunder and the Matterhorn. We got our fill of California Screamin' and it was into the second night before he stopped asking for coasters and we tried the Haunted Mansion, followed up by Pirates of the Carribean. That long boat ride almost had us asleep that night as we trudged back to the hotel, but it was the best feeling ever. Everything he wanted, I could give him, and I felt no guilt doing it. It was what we were there for.

Now here we were, our third evening, and Mom had just left with the worn-out little brothers. The world was ours once again and it wasn't even dark yet, but his feet hurt. It was OK. The time was now his. I sat him on a nearby bench and pulled his rubber sandals off.

"Do you have a rock in your shoe?" I asked.

"No, they just hurt right here." He pointed toward the bottom of his foot.

"Do you have a splinter or blister or something?" I searched the sole of his foot, and found nothing. It was slightly red, but still free from callouses. I started to massage his foot with just my thumb, and I remembered what his feet looked like when he was born. Pink little knobs stuck on his scrawny legs.

"Ouch! That hurts."

"It shouldn't hurt; there's nothing there to hurt."

"Well it hurts anyway."

"Do you want to rest here a while?" I was beginning to be at a loss for what to do next.

"No, I want to go on a ride. Can we go to Mulholland Madness?"

I helped him up, unsure if this was the right thing to be doing. His limp was noticeably worse now. We made it to the ride and I helped him in his seat, and off we went exaggerating the tight turns by throwing our bodies into the side rails of the coaster, and reaching our hands in the air as we took that first and only deep drop. We got off and started a slow walk back through the park. He stumbled every couple of steps now, and finally we stopped and I put my hand on his head.

"Are you sure you are OK? Do you want to go to the hotel and lay down?"

He hesitated, and I knew what he was thinking. It must have been difficult for him, a boy who more or less ruled such a magical place for such a short time, to consider giving it up on account of mere physical pain. It might have been the first choice in his life where it was all up to him, and yet he knew that he had to make the wise choice in lieu of the fun choice. I think of that decision now and I feel like at that moment I learned something about my son; I learned what kind of person he could be, if I but did my job as a parent, a teacher, and a provider for him.

"I want to go lay down." It was a statement, and I knew that he was committed. We started a slow stroll, hand-in-hand toward the turnstiles, the smells of corn dogs and french fries mixing with the rhythm of the beach music. His steps started to falter and I picked him up and carried him piggy-back past the brightly lit shops and under the Golden Gate Bridge. The Monorail whooshed past, a near silent force punctuated by the tired little faces still pressed to the glass to get one last glimpse of the magic.

The next morning we roused the troops early, hoping to make the most of our last day by visiting all of our favorite rides one more time. Collin didn't want to budge. We dressed him and pushed him out the door with the other boys, but we didn't get to the parking lot before his feet began to hurt again. We got him a stroller at the park and he curled his skinny limbs into the stroller and immediately fell asleep, oblivious to what was around him. He didn't ride a single ride that day and only woke for meals. His mom pronounced early in the day that he had a fever and treated him with Tylenol as he fell asleep yet again.

It ended up taking the whole trip home for him to start to perk up, and yet he never cried or complained, just like he never complained as we played in the park. He knew what had happened and I was proud of the decision he made on his to stop when he needed to stop. Even more, I felt that he had had the trip he wanted and there was no reason to feel bad about that.

Now, I know what you are thinking. I can't even begin to guess at how many times I heard the words, "Well I hope you are proud of yourself. Look what you did to him. You ran him ragged! What kind of a father are you?"

You may not agree with the approach, but even today Collin and I talk about staying late in the park, and I am thankful for all the memories we have, even the painful ones.

It Seems That This Wednesday is Really A Monday in Disguise

2007-07-25T23:10:00.000-06:00

Never should a parent have to hear their child scream in agony. Well, at least not for more than 10 minutes. Yet, that is what happened to me today. There will be no cheerful, upbeat posting from me today. No, instead I am going to tell you about my dreadful morning and how it has once again left me in sorrow and confusion. If you were hoping to hear about my last trip to Disneyland, or perhaps my upcoming trip to Disneyland, sorry. Perhaps you should check back tomorrow.

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Nothing good comes from getting up before 8 AM. In fact you can safely take it further and say that only bad things come from getting up before 7 AM. That is, in fact what I did today, and judging from my results, I should have just stayed in bed.

"Wake up, we're late!"

I heard Heather's voice but didn't register exactly what she was saying. It was her quick exit from the far side of the bed that gave me just enough consciousness to look at the clock, which read 6:18 and then I remembered.

"What time is Logan's swim thing?"

"I don't know, but he was supposed to be there at 6 AM to warm up."

She was already dressed, and just looking for footwear, but I laid there for just a minute, testing my resolve to see Logan's final swim meet of the year: the County wide meet. It was only for Logan this time, since Collin's times qualified him for a more competitive meet, and it was 30 minutes away. I was guessing that it was supposed to start at 7:00, so if we all left in 5 minutes we might make it. By the time I completed this math Heather was already pushing Logan out the door. "Bring the boys when you can, and see what you can come up with for breakfast on the way," was all I heard before the door slammed shut behind her.

Collin and Trenton stumbled into my room, bleary eyes looking for Mom. "She's gone boys. We need to hurry or else we will miss Logan's race." The next 10 minutes were crazy as three half-asleep individuals attempted to reach a common goal. Finally, we all stood in front of the house, dressed and with a grocery bag of bottled water and granola bars for breakfast. That is when I saw my truck, the back filled with tools and odds and ends. It had to be emptied.

"Collin, you need to help me empty my truck."

"Ok, Dad."

I backed it as close to the garage as I could and after another 5 minutes of unloading we had the truck bed cleaned out. Trenton was making faces at the kittens who were hiding under the truck staring at his tortured expressions. It seems that we were finally ready to go. I went to close the garage door, but with no luck, as my bumper hung in the path of the garage door. If only it were 1 foot further into the driveway the door would close and we would be off. One of these days I'm gonna get a door opener for me too, I thought. I got into the S-10, released the parking break and depressed the clutch, allowing the slope of the driveway to give my that extra 12 inches of clearance I needed. That is when I heard it. Collin was screaming.

I slammed the parking break into place and jumped out the truck. Had I ever foreseen this as a possibility in my lifetime, it would probably be among my worst nightmares. He was stuck to the ground, his right arm completely covered by the back tire of my truck. And he was screaming. I jumped back in the truck and cranked up the engine. That is when the predicament hit me. I was sloping down the driveway with my son under the wheel. I had to put it in reverse without slipping so much as an inch forward. I hesitated only a second, then popped the break, put it in reverse and reved up the engine. I eased off the clutch, maybe a little too much. There was a screech as my tires sought traction, and then it leapt back and Collin was on his feet again still screaming.

His arm hung at his side, and there were tire marks up the forearm like some strange human cartoon character. His face was scratched and there was black dirt all over his face, with a few small dots of blood appearing here and there. Trenton, having just turned 4, was starting to get hysterical as well with his brother screaming at the top of his lungs, and I knew that this was one of those times for action.

"Collin, I need you to get in the truck right now. I am going to take you to the hospital." I put my hand on his back and gently pushed him to the truck.

"Trenton, look at me. We will be OK. Collin will be OK too. Get in the truck." I put the truck in gear and rolled out of the driveway at the same time I flipped open my phone to call Heather.

As I said, I don't believe that parents should have to endure hearing their child scream in agony, but that is just a wishful statement, not based on the human experience in any way. The truth is that most parent WILL hear their child in the midst of real pain, and it is probably even arguable as to whether or not that is desirable for parents to understand the emotions of parenting at that level. However, all of that being said, I maintain that 10 minutes should be the limit for enduring that heart rending sound.

I sped towards the hospital, going well over the speed limit, allowing my adrenaline to act as some sort of performance enhancer (at least that was the rationale I have thought up after the fact. Thanks Harry Osborne.)

"My arm! I can't move my arm!"

In truth I don't think I was all there, and there was nothing that was going to slow me down from reaching a place that could help my son. As we left the house I had said a prayer for the boys, asking for safety in our travel and for comfort for Collin.

"Owww! My shoulder! Please don't hit the bumps!

Twice more during that journey did Collin ask for a prayer in between screams and sobs as I wove in and out of the early morning traffic. We were still about 5 blocks away when I hit the 10th minute. Of course, I was not timing it so much as I could measure it by my emotional state.

"Dad! Help me! It hurts!"

I started to go to pieces, tears leaking out here and there, and as I pulled up to the hospital I was feeling the weight building up inside. It was some kind of awful brew of Worry, Fear, Pain all stirred together and seasoned heavily with Guilt. And we all know that a little Guilt can go a long way. Luckily, my brother-in-law Dave had made it to the hospital ahead of my, having heard about the accident from Heather. I pulled up and went to get Collin out, and found that his limp arm was facing me. Somehow all ability to reason had drained out of me and I just crouched there patting Collin's hand while Dave ran inside and returned with a nurses.

She sized up the situation and moved to grab him out of the truck. He screamed as she squeezed his broken limb into her body. I couldn't seem to find the words I wanted to convey to her that she was an idiot.

"That is his broken arm!"

I put my hands under him supporting his weight but holding him away from me. In the defense of that poor nurse, I suppose that this looked like I was offering him to her again or something, but I was ready to take him anywhere she wanted in that exact pose. Instead she took it as an opportunity to reposition, and she pulled him back in. I was in the act of telling her that she was still an idiot when I heard it. It was a sound that I have read about in many books, usually where a character is leaving their last scene in a grisly way. It is the thick, grating, crunching sound of broken bones. An audible and unmistakable statement that things are not OK and that where one thing should exist straight and solid, there are now two or more things with ends that are vying for space. It left me speechless and I just stared after her and she hurried him into the hospital. Dave appeared at my side and gave me a hug. The weight I was feeling inside finally boiled over and I started to cry. He gave me a squeeze.

"Take Trenton. I'll go park your truck."

I sat down on a bench in the Loading Zone, holding Trenton on my lap. I just sobbed, letting out whatever was inside. I held Trenton close to me, his small face full of concern, but without tears. I hugged him tightly and cleared my mind, letting it all leak out then and there. Thoughts flowed out one droplet at a time. I almost killed my son. I hurt my son. Is he going to be all right? What if his arm is never the same? What if Collin never forgives me? What if Heather never forgives me? How am I going to explain this? What was I thinking? Why didn't I stop the idiot nurse?

After a while the flow ebbed, as it always does, and I felt empty. That is when I noticed two nurses standing outside the door looking around for the gray S-10.

"I'm his father," I said, and I followed them inside.

I don't care much for hospitals, especially Emergency Rooms. I know the valuable function they serve having visited them over 20 times in the last few years, but there is still the feeling of frustration in the air every time you walk into one, and this visit was no different. During every other visit I had imagined that the answer to that frustration was to be taken directly into a room and given the full attention of all of the staff present, but that is what happened this time, yet it didn't eliminate the frustration like I thought it would. I think it is the lack of clear, definitive answers that infects every room and mind in the whole building, and that is one infection that isn't cured by that foul smelling chemical they use to clean every surface.

We were served by a nice doctor, and the staff was helpful. They had the X-rays done almost immediately, and everyone was nice to the boys. However, we left with no cast, no surgery, little peace of mind. His arm had broken in only one place under his bicep. It broke clean through the bone, and they said that it didn't need to be set, as it would heal itself in time. The weight of the arm is enough to keep it in place. I'm not saying I don't trust their knowledge or experience, it is simply that the result of going to the emergency room was an ace bandage, one splint, and one very big bill.

So that is where it stands. Collin is sleeping fitfully behind me right now, his arm loose in the sling as he sleeps. There were no other broken bones other than the the one in the right arm. My family was very blessed today to escape such a scary accident with one broken arm, and the whole experience has taught us all valuable lessons. Collin agreed to not try to reach for kittens under the car when someone was in the driver's seat, which is what he was doing when the accident happened. I decided to always turn on the engine as opposed to let the truck roll silently. Logan decided that today was his day to be a backstroker and took first place at the county meet. OK, that one wasn't really related, but I wanted to work it in somewhere.

I am thankful to my Father in Heaven for all of the blessings we received today, and I am thankful for family members who were right there by my side, both in person and in spirit.

That is all of the story for today. You have to admit, even though today is Wednesday, if today auditioned for a part as a Monday, I think it would get the job hands down.

Character 1: Murphy's Law

2007-07-24T23:18:00.000-06:00

From time to time, when I don't have any other stories in the works, I will just do some writing exercises and post them for fun. My first draft is always lousy. If I think something has promise I can usually make it decent with a few revisions. I welcome feedback on these exercises, since they are useless if I don't learn something.

One of the exercises will be to just write a scene where I attempt to develop a character. The plot isn't the goal. And there is always the task of showing instead of telling . . .

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Murphy ran his fingers through his curly hair and stared at the paper on the desk. It was as if he no longer knew how to read, the letters becoming heiroglyphs, their meanings lost over the centuries. He was toast.

He sat up, the buttons on his shirt straining as he stretched his arms, hoping that the movement would somehow unlock some knowledge that was lying dormant in his brain. He squared his body to the paper, straightening everything from his flip-flops to the bridge of his nose. It is time to to do this, he told himself, but even as reaffirmed his purpose, memories flooded into his mind.

He was 8 years old, and his mother was shaking her head at his spelling test. At 13 he hid his new class schedule that showed two repeated classes from his friends. He was 15 and he saw his brother's amazing SAT score on the fridge, and knows that no magnet will touch his results.

He twiddled the #2 pencil between his thumb and finger. How could one test mean so much? If you couldn't answer these questions right here, right now, you were doomed to be a second class citizen for the rest of your life. The pencil slipped from his fingers, bouncing as it hit the ground. One long sweep of his hand and the pencil was back, never finishing its bounce. Too bad I can't snatch test results out of the air, he thought.

Mr. Reynolds, the test timer, announced that 10 minutes remained for this part of the exam, and once again Murphy's head lowered over the paper. He knew what he had to do. He skimmed the question, and then picked answer. Skim, pick, skim, pick. He had known that it would come to this, and at least he was consistent, he thought.

Die Hard Disney – Taking the Park Head On

2007-07-22T14:32:00.000-06:00

So perhaps obsession runs in my blood a little. I own 124 baseball cards, and every one of them is of Nolan Ryan. If I start reading a book I am virtually gone from the world until I have read the last word. Heaven help me if it is a series. However, I don't know if any of my past obsessions match my current Disneyland fixation.

It was only last August when my wife and I decided to splurge a little and take the family to Disneyland. We were innocent at the time, just in need of a little vacation, and our kids were tall enough for most of the rides, so we packed up the van and headed west. I did not know that I would be taking that same trip 5 times in the next year and a half.

Getting Started
We arrived like any other packed van of camera-toting tourists. We took the survivalist approach to the park, distributing food and supplies among our 3 boys, preparing them with instructions on when to use their rations. "These are yours, but don't eat them all before we get in there. You want to refuel as you walk and always take advantage of the water fountains you see." The 3-year old just struck his best Power Ranger pose, growling at me as I shoved fruit snacks into his pockets. His brothers (5 and 7) didn't seem to soak in any of the speech either. They were up an hour earlier than usual, and it showed in their blank stare.

Leaving them behind in their stupor, I hefted the 29.5 pound backpack I was to trudge around with for the rest of the day and headed for the car. There was a cool breeze, and the salty California air only egged me on. My wife herded the zombies into the van and we were off.

Engaging the park
Being the centennial tightwad, I was determined to get our money out of this place if it took every last ounce of will I had. The online map that was already several weeks old was stuck in my pocket, and every tip and trick I had learned about Fast Passes looped endlessly through my head. We had made good time so far by getting to the park early, so my chances were good. We were "beeped" through the entrance booth, the tickets were stowed in a pouch around my neck, and I was waving goodbye to the kids and yelling to my wife to keep the boys moving towards Space Mountain where I would meet them after getting some Fast Passes. The key was to stay on top of the Fast Pass game.

Ten minutes later, Fast Passes around my neck with the tickets, I was sitting in Tomorrowland blissfully unaware that it would take the family another 5 minutes to get there. Finally they arrived, and I ushered them into the line. We were still one of the first guests there, and 10 minutes later we entered the boarding room of one of my favorite rides. Perhaps it was wrong to approach this as I did, but the kids were all tall enough, and therefore there would be no turning back for anyone. None of the boys had ever ridden a roller coaster; OK, they had never even seen a roller coaster up close, but that is why Space Mountain made all the sense in the world. It is indoors and completely black. I don't know if it was the screaming coming from the dark hole in the wall, or the windblown hairstyles of the people shooting out of that hole that tipped them off, but all of a sudden all 3 boys started having misgivings. I knew from the start that we would run into this sooner or later, and it was an essential part of my War on Disney that I win this particular battle. I was prepared to give a lot for this all-important victory.

"You guys listen to me. There is only one rule on this trip. We can do anything you want, and we will have endless fun here, but you have to go on every ride. This is not an option. There is no way out. Now move on, the line is getting away from us." My wife rolled her eyes as we moved with the line. It was all a bluff, of course, as well as a gamble, but I had to go for the win now, early on. The 3 year-old whimpered a little as I pulled the bars down onto our laps, but I didn't mind. At least he wasn't crying like the 5 year-old. I put a comforting arm across his body, grasping the far side of his lap bar. "Just hold on to Daddy," I said, silently hoping that this gamble was going to pay off. I could just picture spending the rest of the day in Fantasyland because I had scared the wits out of him. A few minutes later it was over, the lap bars snapped up and I helped him out of the car. His hair was swept back, demon-like in its spikiness, and his face was white. I took his hand to help steady him as the shaking died down. Here it comes, I thought. "Hey buddy, how do you feel? Wanna sit down or rest? We can do whatever you want."

"I just wanna go again."

He smiled to match his hair. I smiled with him. The game was on.

Defeat
I now had 3.5 fully supportive troops for my cause (my wife was having a good time, but thought that we were all nuts). I exploited every piece of information I had, and by lunchtime we had taken out at least a third of the park and I had a fat pouch full of Fast Passes for later on in the day when the lines were long. The boys were having the times of their lives, and our camera actually felt heavier from all of the pictures it was storing (OK, maybe it was the other contents of the pack that were wearing me down.) By 8 PM my pack was 20 pounds lighter, but the boys were done. My eyes narrowed as I went over the two-thirds of the park that we had covered. And we had two more days to go. Nice. I slipped it in my pocket, shouldered the unconscious 3-year old and headed for the parking lot trams.
Back at the hotel I poured each of the kids into their beds, and then sat on the edge of the flower-patterned comforter. I was a bit alarmed to see a huge lump under the blankets next to me, then realized it was my wife. I swear she is related to Clark Kent when it comes to getting ready for sleep. From the sound of her breathing she was already dreaming, so I leaned back against the headboard and studied the map. That is when it happened. It was one thought, but it was defeat in every aspect. In conquering the park there was no victory. I knew that not only did I get to do it again tomorrow, but I had too. I was hooked.

It gave me everything I wanted that day. I wanted a strategic battle. It obliged. I wanted to see my kids light up about something other than the TV, and they did. I wanted to really laugh with my wife and hold hands with her as we went from one moment of fun to the next. Not only did I get all of these things, but I had a camera full of keepsakes to help me remember it all.

Now sure, I skimmed over the materialistic side, the hurried trips through the shops at attraction exits, the grainy picture of the picture that showed us being scared out of our wits on a ride and the whining that comes out of children whenever they are within 20 feet of a cash register, which I should add, seem to be placed every 20 feet throughout the park. Yet at the end of the day, I didn't need to purchase a single trinket to get what I wanted. In fact I wondered at how they were able to do so much, to pay attention to so much detail, for the flimsy price of a 3-day park hopper. The wages of just the janitorial staff I had seen that day cost more than I had paid. Surely, just the electricity to power all of the rides we had already been on had barely let Walt & Co. break even on my tickets. How did they do this?

I changed, got into bed and turned out the lights. I was sliding into sleep, where I heard my kids laughing uproariously with theme-park music in the background when it came to me. The answer has been a Disney message for my whole life and longer.

Magic. It had to be magic.

What the heck am I doing?

2007-07-22T14:27:00.000-06:00

I am going to skip all introductions. My reasoning is that you will learn enough about my as I continue to blog here, so an exhaustive kick-off intro just doesn't make sense.

So why am I blogging? I have no spare time, and already spend too much of my time in front of screens every day. When it comes down to it, I love to write, and have aspirations to write professionally some day, and if some day is ever going to be a “today” I need to do this. The biggest issue is that I need to allow myself to have readers. Of course a writer needs readers, but that is not what I am saying. I need to allow others to read my work in a meaningful way.

I learned this in a creative writing class I took a couple of years ago. I enrolled on a whim, sacrificing a few classes I needed for one that I really wanted. The opening assignment was to write 20 single-spaced pages about myself, followed up with a personal narrative. It was one of my all-time favorite and assignments ever as well as the first real test of my assertion that I wanted to write for a living. The personal essay was easy, and 12 pages later I had a narration that met my personal expectations, which is saying something. I was on pins and needles when I got the paper back. I was finally going to have a virtual stranger tell me if my dream of being an author was founded. The note scribbled in the curvy script of my teacher was validating at the least, and possibly one of the most liberating responses I have ever received. "Tony, you are a writer!" is all it said. I was elated, as if a door had just opened, and then the rest of the semester happened.

I would do an assignment and email it out for revision and comment. Never again was I happy with my own work. Never again did I hear anyone tell me sincerely that they thought I could make it as a writer. And worst of all, I never got the courage to read my work to my classmates. There were a few required readings, but every day there was an opportunity to stand up and show that I was a writer and that I could accept readers. Now here I am writing and hoping that a few people will read what I have to say. Even more, I am hoping that I can continue to write and share my work.

So that is why I am here. I hope that you too find a meaningful reason for coming back. Perhaps you are a friend of mine and just want to support this effort. Perhaps you are interested in the topics that will come up.

In any case, at least I get to see it in print . . .