The hopes and fears of all the years a met in thee tonight.

At this hour of the morning when I usually prefer to be sleeping soundly I came across a blog post that was comforting to me as my first Christmas with a significant loss is about to begin. The other day I was very sad at the thought of having lost Nolan and that Christmas just wasn't going to be all that good this year. I started thinking of Christmas a the celebration of Christ's birth and what Christ did for us. It was relieving. I can't say that this christmas will be what I thought it would be 3 months ago, but I have a new view of what it will hold for me this year.

Merry Christmas

Take a moment to think of the significant role Christ has had in your life.

Oh Christmas Tree

Our trees through the years

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Doing those things we don't love to do

I just got around to the annual cousin letter. I've always been a procrastinator when it came to the letter, but this year I really didn't want to write anything. I think everyone around me knows that Nolan passed away the day he was born and that it was the most challenging experience of my life. I have written a few things about it, mostly for myself, so I'll remember and so others will know how I feel. I didn't want to revisit those feelings to share with the family too much, but I got something out and it's been a challenge even in its brevity. That's that, so I'm just gonna say it now. If I have another year like this one was I'm not writing anything.

Is there something wrong with my tastes?

Nabisco, what’s going on with you guys? Why can’t you make a proper Mint Oreo cookie to meet my needs?

I got hooked on the idea of a Mint Oreo when those stupid Keebler Elves quit making their old Grasshopper cookies that were essentially a Mint Oreo, not the Girl Scout cookie knockoff that they market as a grasshopper now.
I really liked the Mystic Mints, which evolved into Fudge Covered Mint Oreos. From what I could tell this was an Oreo with a minty filling covered in fudge. But that was discontinued and they introduced a Milk Chocolate Covered Mint Oreo, it wasn’t nearly as good as the Fudge Covered Mint Oreo. As best I know that, eventually, disappeared too.

A while back there was an Oreo Double Delight, the filling was green and white. I was supposed to be minty and creamy, it was tasty, but the consistency of the filling was off. Now there are Cool Mint Oreos, they taste the same to me as the Double Delight Oreos and the filling is off on these too.

Much to my pleasure, the other day I was at the grocery store and I say a limited edition Mint Fudge Covered Oreos. They aren’t quite as good as I remember the original, but still a nice find that I will savor for the time they are available to me.

Just know, I'm really not sure

If you ask me how I'm doing, I'll probably tell you I'm OK all things considered. The truth is I'm not sure how I'm doing, I've never been through anything like this before. I'm getting by, I go to work, I'm trying to do other things that I've always done. Just know that it is alright to talk to me, I am still me and I still like to being social. I may not want to talk about everything that has happened though.

Now you can test for yourself

I came across this colorblind test and thought it would be fun for you to see where you fall in the spectrum. Maybe you're colorblind and don't even know it, but probably not.

Something Fresh, Something Exciting!

While trying to figure out what I should be posting about to generate more interest in my blog I noticed lots of lists on other blogs. Hmm, what could I make a list about?

10 Top ten David Letterman top ten lists? No, I haven’t watched that show consistently for years and have no idea where my brother’s book of top ten lists went.

9 List of things I thought of listing? I think that’s been covered before by many others.

8 Why I’m glad to be the Cubmaster and not the Scoutmaster? No, I’ll just be put in as Scout Master if I make a list like that.

7 Best Moments on Fresh Air with Terry Gross? Ok, I know I’m grasping at straws here.

6 Things I’ve overheard at stores? I actually wanted to make this list, but I forget the funny stuff I hear before I can write it down.

5 Why Reaganomics was so good for me and the country? I didn’t have a clue what economics or Reagan’s policies were while he was in office, so I’m not going to go there now.

4 Poor grammar and why it bugs me? It really does bother me when then and than get mixed up, but I am no master of the English language and grammar in general (as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now).

3 Why The Simpsons is such an enduring television show? I love this show, but I mostly watch it out of loyalty to my reputation as a Simpsons fan. The show is no longer what it used to be.

2 Best Movies Ever! according to Gage? That just generates questions or invites criticism and I don’t want either of those.

1 Bologna and the many ways to pronounce it? Now that’s and idea that came from a David Letterman top ten list, so It’s already been done.

I guess I have made my own top ten list of lists, so suck on that Mr. Letterman!

Gotta use what you can

I took my boys to the zoo this afternoon, it was a fun outing, even if the Utah St., Utah game made the drive home difficult. There was a Snow Leopard cub at the zoo and this sign.

I thought it was a good way to advertise the new Apple OS and help the zoo out at the same time.

Some Random Thoughts with Pictures

It was the DWs birthday a couple weeks ago. I built her a cake for the occasion. It's an orange cake that I made from scratch. Here's the frosting in progress. I've made this cake for her birthday before and I'll probably make it again.

It's summer and pretty nice outside when it's not too hot. The boys love to spend time outside whenever we will let them. The enjoy eating lunch or any meal for that matter at their picnic table.

The other day the DW and the boys went no a tour of the Beehive House and looked around Temple Square. They have been obsessed with vests and cowboy hats. This is what they were wearing for the tour, cowboy hat ad fishing vest for one and cowboy hat, cowboy vest and fake pull over cowboy boots for the other.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

2 Car Garage

Two months in the new place and we can get two cars in our garage.

I have an idea for a family photo

Recently the Big Sis posted a funny link about an awesome shirt. A web comic that I like reading had a reference to said shirt that I thought was priceless. I'm now considering getting the whole family some of the shirts for a family photo that will be worthy of this blog. Enough with the links.

More from around the house

I spent Saturday working on all sorts of project around the house. I started off putting some shelfs up in the closet in the office/nursery. I was able to clean up some of the boxes and other clutter sitting on the floor.

Next I moved on to installing dimmer switches in our bathrooms. These are the best ever, you don't have to have the light blindingly bright at night or any other time of day for that matter.

Now this is the stage of my blog where electrician should look away. I installed an outlet in the area Kinsey has set up for sewing in the basement. She had run several extension cords to get power where she needed it and I thought a proper outlet would be more appropriate. I added the splitter because she needed more than two outlets.

Many pictures, shelves and other decorations were put up as well. It's really starting to look like our home here.

And the home improvement begins

We spent a week in our new home before heading off for a week of vacation and now reality is setting in. There are no big projects to do just yet, but I've officially started on one of the little ones. Today while I was home for lunch, I started patching small holes from nails and other such things in the walls. The best was the entryway from the living room to the Kitchen. The corner bead had been hit pretty hard and dented. It was covered with scotch tape and painted very poorly. I wanted to get at least some of the patching done at lunch so I could get it better filled after work. I went to all the effort of patching and painting at the old place just to do it again in the new place. Once the patching and touch up is complete I'll move on to replacing the kitchen sink and faucet. It's just more fun than I should be allowed to have

Reporting as a Citizen of Disneyland

My family as become Honorary Citizens of Disneyland! If you look at the picture closely you will see that the boys are wearing buttons that say Honorary Citizen.

We were all given these (everyone in our family that is).  We ended up getting to the park before we planned and were at the head of one of the entrance lines.  A worker (or cast member as the are called) came out and asked us how we were doing, he then asked if we wanted to help open the park. He then gave us the buttons and and a book to sign our name and where we were from.  He said he'd be back later for our help.  When it was time for the park to open we got to go inside the gate to be introduced and welcome everyone for the day.  Pretty exciting, huh?

Ah, the Intermaweb

After a week with no internet of our own, we are back on line. Stupid Qwest with their capacity limitations wouldn't let us transfer our service all of four blocks. I'm pretty sure we were freeing up as much broadband spectrum as we would have been taking up again. Don't even get me started on the prices Comcast charges either, it's no bargain. We decided to try a wireless broadband ISP in the area. They have decent speeds and good prices. I'll let you know what we think of Digis once we have had a chance to try it a little longer.

Happy Birthday to my Little Man

This little guy turned three today! He savored the birthday cake breakfast and has been having fun with the presents, if only I could be home having fun with him today.

Utah loves Woot!

Ever since I learned about Woot! from my brother, I have been loving this site. Judging from the map below, Utah loves Woot! too.


The map illustrates the number of sales to a state. Wyoming, right next to Utah, has no love for Woot! for some reason. Utah is the brightest state and therefore <3's Woot! I've only made two purchase so far, but it's exciting to see what random item they will offer each day. Every coupple of months they have a Wootoff where they sell items one right after another. At some point durring a Wootoff, they will offer a "Bag of Crap", it's a grab bag of leftovevers basically. I got one once and I can tell you that it was, infact, crappy stuff, but exciting none the less.

I've become obsessed

Since actually trying this game for the first time I have been wanting to play it more and more. It's fun and challenging, you built your train routes across the country or continent, there are several variants. You have go to try it. If you are a friendless looser you can play online, if you have a significant other or friends you can play the board game. It's great either way.

The Doldrums of March

It's March, I've been sick, our house hasn't sold, so on and so forth. The snow is gone, for the most part, and nothing has really come to life yet. It just isn't all that exciting, but I'll get through it somehow. I hope everyone else is having a better March than I am.

Mark of The Beast

If you're reading my blog you are aware of the sixes tag. You go to the sixth picture folder, choose the sixth picture and then tag six people.


What you see here is Easter 2008. The Wife and boys are all dudded up for church in their new outfits. I would get a far different result at home, but I only have about 6 picture folders on my computer at work, and this is in my screen saver folder.

As was said by my brother(s), if you read this blog you've already been tagged, now get to it.

I Saw Something Great!

OK, so you have seen the picture on my blog. Three colors coming together to make many more colors. This is/was a threadless shirt design, but was sold out in my size before I ever even knew it existed. I walking around Target and what do I see, but a very similar shirt. Three circle overlapping to make several other colors. I know many of you take color for granted because you can always tell what color you are looking at, but I'm proud of the times I look at purple and know it is purple. I wish I could find the shirt to show you, but Target doesn't seem to be selling it online yey. I fully expect each and every one of you in blogger land to get me one of those shirts if you read this. There, now you feel obligated. I think I might pick one up for myself tomorrow, but I still expect you to get me one.

My Mac History part 1

So you'll all remember that I wished happy birthday to the mac a I thought I would go through my own mac history.

What I remember as being the families first computer was actually two different computers, or so my brother tells me I knew it as a mac (it was an Macintosh 128, then upgraded to a Macintosh 512 and then traded to someone to get a Plus). I was pretty young so the mistake is understandable since the first three Macintosh's all looked the same from the front. What I knew was turn computer on, wait for icon, load disk, swap disk if asked or if I wanted a different game. Later it was turn hard disk on, turn computer on, don't mess with floppies. There were some great games played on this computer and some fun drawings were made.


Next came the awesome IIsi, awesome in that it could display color. Games were all new in color and MacPaint was even better when you could add color. I remember writing several papers for school on this computer and the internet was experienced on this computer for the first time too.


Nowa note here. It seems like there should be another computer in here, but I can't for the life of me think of any other computer being in our home. We went from an 8Mhz to 20 Mhs to 250 Mhz? That just doesn't seem right, but it's what I remember.

About the time I was getting ready to leave for college my dad bought this machine for the home, the Power Mac 6500/250. It was big and powerful, but was short lived as the power leader for Apple. I didn't use this computer too much at home, but it became mine a few years later and served me well for a few years in college.

When I headed off to college my dad was able to get an out of service machine from work for me, the venerable Centris 610. It was no hot rod, but I could write papers, surf the internet and play solitaire with the best of them. My roommate didn't have his own computer and would ask to use mine some times. I was fine with that as long as he asked. I think I upset him when I added a start up password. It was nothing against him specifically, there were a few people that would change desktop images and I didn't want to deal with that. Notice how high tech this computer is, no optical drive. I had my dad's old external one


Stay tuned for more mac fun on my blog, or ignore my blog because I'm talking about old computers, you decide.

Happy International Mustache Month

I'm a little miffed that I just found out about this today, but it turns out that February is International Mustache Month. As stated on the web page "The idea is simple: grow your beard throughout February, then shave back to a glorious mustache for a gala beer party at the end of the month." you can find the official rules here, but be advised, you might be a couple days behind. I really don't care about the beer party at the end, and I don't even know if there would be one in my area if I were interested. Maybe I'll remember all this for next year.

Happy Birthday Mac!

Today is the 25th birthday of the Macintosh and wanted everyone to know. My how you have changed over the years. I love my Macs (yes I have more than one), but that's all I'm going to say about that now.

Feel free to ask me a question

I bet you didn't know it, but today (or tomorrow depending on who you ask) is National Tax Advice Day. If you have a tax related question feel free to ask today, tomorrow, or whenever for that matter. When you are considering your tax preparation needs keep me in mind too.