Color Theory for the Color Blind

Father's and Son's

2010-07-17T16:56:00.002-06:00

Wyoming, the Cowboy State

2010-05-05T23:21:00.003-06:00

Not too long ago we bought an atlas of the United States for our boys. As we were going over the western states portion of the atlas we realized our boys had not been to Wyoming. What you say? How could that be? It is so close! So we packed up the car for an adventure.

We didn't get a picture of the Welcome to Wyoming sign, but Evanston is only 4 miles away.

You can see the excitement in their eyes.

Here are the boys with a mounted bear in the grocery/hunting supplies store. They think of the greatest combinations in Wyoming, there was also a liquor store, but you had to go outside to access it. There were probably in excess of 100 trophies on the walls of this hunting store.

This is the river walk, we didn't see the river, but we saw some tracks, lets see where the lead us.

A metal bear with a fish!

We didn't see the river because it was cold and windy. As you can see I had no jacket and the younger boy wanted to be carried (no surprise there), so not trek to the river.

The worst part of this whole experience is that I didn't even get any fireworks. What was I thinking, I saw at least four different places I could have bought them, maybe next time.

Christmas Fun... What?

2010-03-31T23:39:00.002-06:00

So my sister didn't want more junk to shove into her 300 square foot apartment so she was given activities this year. A while back she and I took Miles to the symphony and then we made rings from silver coins. Hers was made from a quarter, I made mine from a half dollar.

Here we are pounding the coins to flatten the edges, this was a rather tedious step and later I found out our neighbor thought her washing machine was broken because of the noise.

Here I am using the drum sander on my dremel to open up the middle of the ring.

It is pretty cool that the writing is still legible, here's the quarter.

I finished mine later, you can see that it still says half dollar.

Liberty

Some photos of my weekend in SoCal

2010-03-02T22:58:00.002-07:00

This is what I saw Saturday morning.

Bob the Builder with me and my boys.
E taking the Lego Volvo for a spin around the track.
M driving exactly along the line of track because that's the kind of boy he is.
Meeting a Lego family outside Legoland.
Cajun jambalaya pasta for dinner.
Learning how to hold the reigns to drive a team of horses.
Trying to open the locked jail cell.
Three days of fun, what more could I ask for? maybe a week or more.

The Joy of Fatherhood

2010-02-14T19:28:00.004-07:00

On Monday I was asked to make a Robin Hood/Peter Pan hat with some specific instructions. It was to be green and it needed a red feather. I don't know that I have ever made or seen a paper Robin Hood hat, but I think I made it successfully, or at least good enough for a 3 year old. He has been wearing it most of the time for a week now.

The results

Wearing it opening a Valentine

Wearing it eating Valentine M&Ms

Posing for a photo wearing it

Who knows what he's trying to do here

I think the hat has a couple days left before it's torn apart from all the use it has seen, but it's easy enough to make another.

Out with the old...

2010-01-01T00:23:00.001-07:00

...and onto a new year that's hopefully happier and all together better than the old.

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

2009-12-24T05:27:00.003-07:00

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

2009-12-17T22:19:00.003-07:00

Our trees through the years

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Doing those things we don't love to do

2009-12-14T22:38:00.002-07:00

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?

2009-11-10T14:15:00.001-07:00

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

2009-11-02T11:35:00.002-07:00

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

2009-09-30T14:42:00.001-06:00

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!

2009-09-24T13:11:00.011-06:00

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

2009-09-03T20:49:00.002-06:00

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

2009-08-09T13:26:00.003-06:00

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

2009-06-16T20:09:00.000-06:00

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

I have an idea for a family photo

2009-05-27T13:20:00.003-06:00

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

2009-05-19T07:18:00.006-06:00

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

2009-05-06T13:50:00.002-06:00

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

2009-04-28T22:12:00.003-06:00

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

2009-04-24T10:45:00.002-06:00

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

2009-04-13T09:08:00.002-06:00

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!

2009-03-31T08:25:00.002-06:00

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

2009-03-20T20:20:00.003-06:00

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

2009-03-11T16:31:00.002-06:00

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

2009-02-24T09:20:00.004-07:00

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!

2009-02-12T22:39:00.002-07:00

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

2009-02-10T10:40:00.004-07:00

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

2009-02-02T13:25:00.004-07:00

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!

2009-01-24T13:51:00.003-07:00

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

2009-01-15T15:03:00.003-07:00

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.

The Joys of Christmas Music

2008-12-23T11:13:00.003-07:00

My sisters have been sharing some of their favorite Christmas music, but I'm shocked that the traditional Robertson Christmas music has not been a part of that. It is, in a word, awesome! Listen and enjoy.

Is all life mockumentary fodder?

2008-12-08T14:53:00.005-07:00

The other day I sat down to watch This American Life. I've listened to the radio show for quite some time now and was aware of the TV show, but could not watch it because I would not pay ridiculous amounts of money for Showtime. It's out on DVD now and as I started watching it the DW asked are you watching a mockumentary? I thought about it and yes, it seems like the kind of stuff from a mockumentary. What kind of person keeps a Brahma bull around as a pet? A pet that gores them. So, it beggs the question what in our everyday life could be taken and, with little effort, be made into a mockmuentary?

24 Days of Lego Awesomeness!

2008-12-02T15:40:00.004-07:00

I was able to pick up a Lego advent calendar for the boys and myself (I'm not going to deny it) for our holiday joy this year. One door has been opened and it will be hard to keep the other doors shut until it is time to open them each day when I come home from work. Each boy also has a chocolate advent that they get to eat after breakfast, so hopefully that helps. I am totally looking forward to each new door and seeing what it contains. We currently have one knight, he's not too much fun to play with on his own, so we'll see what tonight brings (I'm sure it will be just as exciting).

What do I want for Christmas?

2008-11-28T15:28:00.001-07:00

I don't know, so could you help me? You, my blog followers, know me so well I bet you could help me. Anything that is reasonably priced. Thanks.

You Voted, Now What?

2008-11-04T08:21:00.003-07:00

Take advantage of some of the voter freebies. If you like coffee go to Starbucks for their free offer. If you like doughnuts, go to Krispy Kreme for a free doughnut. You can even get ice cream from Ben & Jerry's for voting. If you haven't voted, hurry up so you can cash in!

Halloween

2008-10-31T21:04:00.002-06:00

Here's our family, Jessie, Mr. Potato Head, Woody and BuzzScary pumpkin #1 from the younger son
Scary pumpkin #2 from the elder son
The pirate designed by the wife
Jack Skellington that I did, this matches the mug I got at Disney World.
I hope everyone had an enjoyable Halloween!

Snow!?

2008-10-12T10:53:00.002-06:00

Yeah, about 2 inches of the white stuff. I came to expect snow his early while living in Logan, but never this much this early. People talk about snow by Halloween, that's still almost three weeks away. Well to warm the heart and body I've been making Heavenly Ham Beans Soup, I hope it does the trick.

2008-09-12T14:09:00.000-06:00

Mind your P's and Q's

2008-09-10T21:58:00.004-06:00

So if you've been following the kind of news I do you are surely aware of the Large Hadron Collider built by CERN. This news brought back an old memory from my college physics class. I has this Scottish professor who would occasionally make mistakes in front of the class. One day he was lecturing on hadrons. He thought he wrote hadron on the board, but switched the r and d around. Someone in the class mentioned to him that he had misspelled the word to which he replied, "I'm Scottish, I make spelling mistakes." He went on with his lecture for a few minutes as we laughed a bit now and then about the word he had unintentionally written on the board. He eventually came back to what he had written, realized what it said and became very embarrassed. He promptly dismissed class and the incident was never spoken of again, at least by him. I have a friend from that class that I still bring it up with on occasion.

Another week with a few highlights to report

2008-08-24T15:44:00.003-06:00

In keeping with my fathers request, here are a few of my highlights.

On Friday I took the day off to let Kinsey rest, she was sick. I took the boys to a great toy store in Salt Lake, lunch at their favorite, McDonalds, then some fun looking at birds at the aviary.

Helping my wife get a party together for my MIL's 50th B-day.

Being finished with a priesthood lesson for another month.

Tune in next week for more exciting highlights.

Highlights

2008-08-17T10:18:00.002-06:00

In no particular order, some highlights from my Week.

Going to the fair. I honestly don't think too much of the Davis county fair, but it's so fun to go with the boys and see them enjoying the animals and the other kid stuff. They don't have the fair food selection that I grew accustom to as a child if you were wondering why didn't love it.

Chocolate zucchini cake, I'm eating some right now.

Out anniversary. Here she is with the flowers I gave her, aren't they beautiful together!

BLT's! There's only a small window each year to have something so good as this with real tomatoes from your own garden.

The Garden is Alive

2008-08-07T20:38:00.002-06:00

Our little garden is coming along. After one pumpkin plant failing once it was put in the ground the second one has taken over the garden. It has covered two pepper plants, the cucumber that wasn't doing much of anything and has extended past the tomatoes and through the fence to the other side . Most mornings the blossoms are filled with bees doing what they do best.

The tomatoes are coming along well too. After last years poor showing the plants have shot up and now all have some fruit on them. Here's the one tomato that is starting to get some color.

Our peppers are doing something too. I was afraid they were duds this year, but not so. I guess we might eat something from our garden yet.

This is dedicated to the one I love

2008-07-28T23:26:00.002-06:00

Happy Birthday. I love you tons and I hope it's a great day for you. May we celebrate many more together.

I can only hope you look this surprised opening your gifts.

I've been outed

2008-07-19T15:51:00.003-06:00

When posting about my birthday/fathers day my wife included a photo of me opening a gift, or more specifically a Lego set. I love Lego's and I am a grown man, there I've said it. I noticed that there is a new Vintage Minifigure Collection and the oldest are some very familiar to me.

I decided I would do my own little vintage collection, or time line. I have one that is very old and predates those in the lego set of the vintage guys. I felt this was representative of the minifigs I've had over they years and still love today (generic ancient figure, astronaut, firefighter, knight, pirate, Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones).
I decided to put all the minifigures I have together, at least the ones I have here at home. There is a Lego collection in Boise I think I might still be able to claim as my own. Take a look.

Of all those guys I have, most have been found second hand at thrift stores. In some cases I have found entire sets fully intact, the best example is pictured below. It came in the box with instructions and is out in the garage assembled right now.

Yes it might be childish, but I enjoy them. I have at least one brother that has collected some Lego sets of his own. Really my boys will be playing with them a lot in the next couple of years too, that's my real justification for collecting so much right now.

Fun was had

2008-07-05T11:28:00.002-06:00

Here's a picture of the better looking family members waiting for the big show of the evening.
This is what some of them looked like
I hope Noelle had a good birthday on top of it all.

Haiku

2008-07-01T06:44:00.002-06:00

Anticipation
Freshly made, ready to eat
Cleaning up the scoop

Happy Fathers Day

2008-06-15T20:24:00.003-06:00

Now, enjoy some grilled goodness!

We hosted the Fathers Day feast this year and had some great grilling action going on. Chicken kabobs, pineapples, peppers and onions. It was pretty good with the baked potatoes and salad to round out the meal. I hope all the fathers out there had a great day!

It might be hers, but...

2008-06-11T13:18:00.003-06:00

So the DW is in a cooking club that meets monthly to exchange freezer meals. It's called Girlfriends Cooking Club, but it has one male member and at least one male behind the scenes member. In preparation for the upcoming meeting we purchased about 40 lbs of chicken breasts to be marinated. Being the kind husband that I am I trimmed all the fat from the whole lot myself. I'll be the first to admit I benefit greatly from the club in that we are introduced to a variety of great food. Additionally preparing ten identical meals to be frozen is a lot easier than preparing ten different meals. I'm not saying it makes my meal prep any easier because I don't cook dinner too often any more, but the DW seems a little more relaxed for the most part. I just think the name of the club could be revised.

My Son Doesn't Chew His Food

2008-05-25T22:09:00.003-06:00

This evening we went to a park that we used to frequent before moving to our house. We have driven past this park and seen that the cool old playground had been replaced and assumed it was the typical modern playground that isn't all that fun. We were wrong. There are more things to spin on at this park than I have seen anywhere in a long time. M's favorite was a "Spinner Bowl" that looks like this
Since it is on an angle it can really go for a long time. I tried it out and even a little motion will get it spinning. M wasn't interested in a little spinning. I would get it going and it would really go for a while.
On the ride home he said his throat didn't feel good. Just after we pulled into the driveway he tossed his cookies. This is how I know he doesn't chew his food. I know, I'm an awful father, but he was enjoying himself at the time and I expected the results to be more immediate if they were going to show up at all.

Doctor visits made and avoided

2008-05-22T19:49:00.003-06:00

Some of you might remember an issue with E and anemia last year. It showed up once again at his well child visit so we actually visited the specialist that we tried to see last year when there was a power issue at the hospital. He is anemic, and probably always will be. He has a congenital form of anemia that his body thinks is normal. As any of you that know him can tell he is rather active which is a good thing in this case.

The other day I was getting some chewies out of the pan when the spatula slipped and I dug it into the palm of my hand. The DW thought I should go get stitches, and I didn't. It wasn't bleeding too bad and the wound hasn't hurt much either. My hand has been a little sore, but not at the specific place where the wound is. I think I'm fine.

Lastly the DW was cleaning up a broken light bulb and cut her thumb. She thought she might need to visit the doctor to make sure it didn't need stitches. It was far less severe than my hand, so I convinced her it would be alright.

Now for the details

2008-05-08T09:33:00.002-06:00

So, now that you have seen the car here are the specifics. It is a 2004 Honda Odyssey EX with the DVD player. The exterior is Havasu Blue and the interior is Fern (gray), Kinsey isn't the biggest fan of the interior color/patter, but we weren't going to be too picky about that. It has the two bucket seats in the middle row, I don't think I've seen an odyssey that didn't have that. The boys are sufficiently spread apart that they can't easily harm each other, but we are also further from them than we have been in the past. That being said, they are actually easier to get to now that you don't have to climb over a seat to get to the back of the van. It has dual power sliding doors that can be controlled from buttons on the dash board. The elder son can open and close the doors himself, he loves that. The car is a lease return and has a little more than 36,000 miles on it, we will be sure to put more on it as soon as possible. It has the fold flat third row seat, so we can easily load a ton of junk back there if needs be. We are really excited about this. Are we weird to be excited about a van?

Out with the old...

2008-05-03T19:31:00.003-06:00

In with the new

My favorite online game

2008-04-18T12:04:00.003-06:00

So, I like to play games online from time to time. My current favorite is Traveler IQ Challenge. I can get an IQ above 100, but not by much. It has several quizzes, some for the world, North America, the United States, Europe, you get the picture. Just don't ask me about Africa, I am terrible at any question that deals with Africa.
Another online game that I like, but is totally different, is Desktop Tower Defense. You have to protect your desk from creeps that come across. It's fun and challenging, but in a different way.

A Perfect Ending

2008-04-13T20:34:00.003-06:00

While we were unloading the car after returning from E's horse birthday party
a kind horseman passed by and stopped long enough for this:As you can imagine, and see, he was very excited.

Knives

2008-04-10T21:23:00.003-06:00

A couple weeks ago while we were at Ikea and I found a magnetic knife holder. The DW was all over getting one. We have had a knife block that takes up what precious little counter space we have. Tonight I got the required fasteners to get it stuck to the wall and we are good to go. I'm already a big fan of it.

Here's how it look s holding all our knives.

Teach them in their youth

2008-03-21T19:47:00.005-06:00

This is our photographer in training

Here's a portrait of his brother

This is an artistic pose of my hula Homer

And finally some of his experimental work

It's in his blood

2008-02-27T22:22:00.004-07:00

This is my hard core tie dye (or fire shirt as both the boys call it) boy today eating lunch. This is how into the tie dye he is. This one got dirty as he was playing after lunch. He was screaming for his fire shirt as we took it off, so the DW put on another one. When I put his pj's on tonight he freaked out again for his fire shirt, so he is wearing it over the pj's as he sleeps.

Oh what do you do in the winter time?

2008-02-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

It has been snowing here with some regularity since about christmas. I've been getting a good workout with all the shoveling, and I've certainly been feeling it.

I didn't have to go into work today, but I did have to work nine hours on Saturday, so don't be to jealous of me. It was fun to have a weekday off with the family. After doing some shoveling, we borrowed some sleds and headed for the hills. Fortunately for the wife and I it wasn't really a big hill, but plenty big for the kids. We spent quite a while sledding and otherwise playing in the snow. I got a good workout carrying children up the hill and forging paths as we trekked into uncharted territory. It was pretty awesome. We had pristine snow and were all alone to be as crazy as we wanted. I look forward to another weekday off to spend some fun time with the family, or maybe I'll go skiing next time.

Me,the tax preparer

2008-01-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

It's official, I am a tax preparer that can electronically file your returns for you. I also have a website for my practice, Wyndham Tax, please check it out and tell me what you think of it. Don't forget to schedule you appointment with me either.

Christmas means candy to me

2007-12-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

Each year as a child we made candy and would share it with the neighbors. My wife and I have continued the tradition and worked several hours to get everything ready this year. I made the pecan brittle and divinity, Kinsey made caramels and fudge. Early reports indicate the candy was a hit, and what is better than making people happy with sweets.

Here's a picture of the pecan brittle done the traditional way in a 9x9 pan. This year I tried pouring it out onto a marble slab and I think I'll continue doing that in the future. You can get the pecans mixed in better, but you can't really get it to spread out anymore than it does in the pan. I guess the candy sets up too fast on the marble.

Oh my, there are so many leafs

2007-12-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

It's almost a full week into December and I was raking leafs today because our tree just holds onto them until either there is a lot of wind/rain/snow to bring them down, or the new leafs start to come in.
Here's a picture of the boys playing in the leafs before I raked the first time almost a month ago. I have raked a total of three times now and filled about 25 bags. I hope I'm done for this year, but we have yet to see what kind of weather is to come and how much more the tree will dump on our yard. I'm praying for only strong winds that blow everything into neighboring yards.

Come on, everybody's doin' it

2007-11-28T15:24:00.000-07:00

Since I've seen a few people advertising their blog reading level I thought I'd see where mine fell and where some of the others I read lined up. I'll just say that my blog is in line with my education. I wasn't really surprised by others results, but mine might have been just a little high, but I'm not one to complain about that. It's kind of getting that A when you were counting on a B+.

The most interesting thing I did was follow the links from blog to blog, you know, the link that says next blog, so I'm hitting totally random blogs and checking their readability. This is what I found. Foreign language, automatic genius, every time, I quit checking after about the fifth one. If you blog about solely about sports you're blogging at an elementary reading level, go figure, kids understand sports. The best result I saw was for a fifth grade classes homework assignments, it came in at the genius level. Those must be some crazy smart fifth graders.

Scarry

2007-11-16T22:44:00.000-07:00

As my non-blogging sister has told the story, I loved a certain Richard Scarry book as a child and would get upset if she tried to skip a page or even condense the story a bit. I could read the same story to myself even before I could read. The story was Babykins and His Family. I almost got a copy from eBay, but was barely out bid.

I have been looking for those great out of print classic Richard Scarry titles and have managed to find a few. I check the thrift stores every so often and love it when I make a great find. Here are some of them.

The Best Mother Goose Ever is great because it isn't the sanitised version of all the old nursery rhymes that kids get today, I can really let my children know what will happen to them if they are naughty. Fun With Words is really The Best Word Book, but with a dictionary added to the back of it. There is a funny flickr site that compares the original and the updated versions of the Best Word book ever.

I guess my son is a little like me

2007-11-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

I've been told I need to blog more often and am taking it to heart. In light of my last post I have decided to write a but about my own experience with stitches. Aside from medical procedures I've had stitches three times. I really don't have any recollection of the first two incidences, but they did leave some great scars that I carry to this day.

Annzy won't appreciate this, but she contributed to my first experience with stitches when she was done paying and I was not. The next happened not long after the first while I was playing at the neighbors house. In both of these situations my parents were unavailable and the Dildine family took me to the hospital. I guess I might have them to thank for my life today.

The third happened when I was in high school and my parents were yet again unavailable. I cut my head open on a nail sticking through a board in the orchestra pit of the schools auditorium. The nail was hording nothing together, it was just stuck through a board. The nail looke something like this.
I had to go to the school nurse and she tried to call my mom, but she couldn't be reached, same story with my dad, so my oldest sister was the next option. She was a teacher at another high school and was not accustom to getting calls during class, but in this case, an emergency, her classroom phone rang during the last period of the day.

She came and got me taking me to the doc-in-a-box where they told me I had a gash in my head about one and a quarter inches long. To numb the area the used cocaine as a local anesthetic, it was my firs and to date only experience with the drug. When my boy had to get the staples in his head I asked if they would use cocaine and the nurse just gave me a strange look and said they use a topical cream.

I think I ended up with six stitches and some really short hair right where the cut was. I think I was more concerned with having my hair cut than getting the stitches, but I'm a little strange about may hair that way.

Ouch, that looks like it hurt

2007-10-29T20:36:00.000-06:00

The other night the boys were running around when the younger one came into the family room where his mother and I were sitting. He had blood in his hair and was very upset. We looked closely at his head and decided to take him to the doctor. Well, about an hour later he had three staples holding the wound shut.

The doctor said this would probably be the first of many with two boys, and he's probably right.

There's no sense denying the truth

2007-10-20T15:04:00.000-06:00

My Sister was kind enough to make one last purchase for me as a microsoft employee with the associated discount. In the package I found a suprise, this.

I figured it would be fun to wear it to work and see what kind of reactions I got. Most people thought it was pretty cool and wanted to know where I got it. I was sure to tell everyone that my cool sister got it for me.

My Brother-in-law the writer

2007-10-12T11:01:00.000-06:00

Here's a shout out to my BIL, he is the newest feature writer for the Utah Statesmen and you can find his first article here. He will appear every other Friday with some type of music review. This should be great experience for him even if he is going into technical writing. Come to think of it I'm related to a lot of technical writers. My sister and SIL are or have been technical writer and now the BIL too. I guess it's like me going into programming, my father did it some, my oldest brother did it, my next brother did it, one of my other brothers-in-law did it, so I had to do it too. Some things just run too strong in a family.

Don't forget to weigh in on my Halloween costume. you can still leave comments on the post below.

A New Month And A Question For You The Reader

2007-10-02T11:10:00.000-06:00

So, it's October and Halloween is just around the corner. Each year we have a costume party at work and I have always participated, some years are better than others so far as my costumes are concerned. Fred Flintstone was the most popular costume I have ever had, and the cereal killer was the most disturbing.

The point being, I need an idea for a great costume. Dwight Schrute is what the DW thinks I should be. I think that would be fun, but there might be a better idea, and I would really love to win the costume contest at work. I've always thought the Charlie Brown ghost was a funny costume, but I wonder how many people would get it (for those of you who don't know, Charlie Brown's ghost costume had eye holes all over the white sheet) . Now then, Feel free to comment on what you think I could do for Halloween. Jason, please do not suggest Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, because I simply will not do it. Another thing, I have started growing a beard for any ideas that might include that, but I have no problem shaving either.

Les Simpson - Le Film

2007-09-26T14:17:00.000-06:00

I have finally seen The Simpsons Movie. It's a little embarrassing how long it took me to see it considering what a Simpsons fan I consider myself to be. I thought it was good, in fact I laughed as I read a comment on IMDB the other day stating something to the effect 'I'm glad it didn't suck.'

I guess when something has been in the works for so long and rumored even longer there is a lot of expectation built in. I have to say it was great to have a story that could be fully developed in a way that a 30 minute, or 20 when you factor in breaks, show just can't get into. Also, I think they were able to spend a little more time on the animation. I can't explain what the difference was, it just seemed to be of finer quality, or I just wanted to see it as such. See the movie if you haven't even if you don't like The Simpsons.

What happened to your trees?

2007-09-24T20:29:00.000-06:00

For Labor Daywe went to Boise and we had a great time there with family and friends, well, I had a great time with family and frinds, Kinsey had a great time with family. The dive back form Boise was dreary and rainy pretty much the entire way. I think the storm was following us the entire way home. When we got home we found all to be well with our home, I've got to say that is always a relief.

The DW's mother invited us to dinner that evening, which was nice. We were in no mood to prepare a dinner and having an offer to get a home cooked meals is always appreciated. While we were having dinner the wind was crazy and there was a bit of rain with it. It was loads of fun getting the boys back into the car with the wind and rain! When we got back home we saw this site, two trees laying across the sidewalk.

One of the trees was completly uprooted, and the other was just about laying flat on the ground. I got my saw and cleared the mess that used to be our trees in the parking strip in front of our house. Since then I've had a few people question what happened to our trees. I guess it was an act of God.

How I love the Beatles

2007-09-20T14:00:00.000-06:00

As I was siting here listening to Abbey Road I was reflecting on how much I love the Beatles and how long that love has lasted. I don't know that there has been any other group so long lasting in my eyes musically speaking, especially considering they haven't even produced an album together since Abbey Road.

One thing I love about the Beatles music is the number of renditions I have from other groups. I am not like my father who says he likes the Beatles music, just not when they perform it. So, what brings up the Beatles and covers of their music, I guess it's the new film Across The Universe that uses the music of the Beatles to tell their story. I've only listened to a couple of the songs from the soundtrack, and it's all right so far, it'll probably be a while before I actually see the film.

There are covers that I love and will probably always listen to since I can't really remember a time that I didn't listen to them, namely the Sergio Mendes arrangements, thank you Dad. There are others that I wish had stayed in the minds of their creators rather than being recorded. The soundtrack to another film, I Am Sam, has some great covers and others that bring to mind the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. One of the play lists that I will probably never get rid of on my computer will be Beatles Covers just because it is so great as are the Beatles themselves.

Me and the Simpsons

2007-08-08T11:00:00.001-06:00

So a coworker told me about this web site that lets you create a Simpson's version of yourself. I tried it out and thought it was fun. I've done the whole family now in fact. If you want to try it out go to simpsonizeme.com, I think this explains all the Simpson's look alike icons on some of the forums I visit.

The WohleHog

2007-08-07T09:57:00.000-06:00

Last night I had a great time going to see Rush with a friend of mine. I think it's been six years since I've paid to see a concert, and this one was well worth it. One band playing for about three hours was incredible. My friend and I made one person particularly angry. When you go to a show like this most people stand, but I guess we were in the family section or something, and many people decided they would prefer sitting. One person behind us thought we were making too many people stand to see the show. He approached us and asked us to sit. The people immediately behind us said that they were going to stand even if we sat down, so we continued standing. A little later the man that talked to us about forcing everyone else to stand "accidentally" spilled some beer in our direction. We didn't see him the rest of the night, I think he was scared that he had hit too many people with the beer and would face dire consequences if he came back.

So it's been three years since I've done any work in the theatre and I guess I'm a little behind the times. As we were heading toward our seats we passed the sound and lighting consoles and there were three lighting consoles. I've seen two used, but never three. With the exception of ten follow spots that were manually operated, all the lighting was robotic. I guess that many lights makes it difficult for one person and or console to control all of them simultaneously, it could also have something to do with the addressing of teh lights, but what do I know. The picture above is the WholeHog III, that was what they were using to control the lights, just so you know what the title refers to.

Happy Birthday DW

2007-07-29T14:12:00.000-06:00

Birthday cakes are very important in my family and my wife also has strong feelings for birthday cakes. I'm not too great at decorating cakes, but I'm related to plenty of others that are very talented in this area, fortunately the DW prefers the substance of the cake to its appearance. She chose an orange cake this year, fitting because orange is her favorite color. Being that it was a layer cake with orange flavored frosting I looked at the picture in the cookbook and tried my best to duplicate the cake. I think I did a pretty good job, but I won't know for a few more hours how well it really turned out. Until then, Happy birthday, may it be delightful.

That's how I fondue it

2007-07-19T21:52:00.000-06:00

First off, let me apologize for the title that is very similar to a title that I used just earlier this week. Moving on now. We decided to have fondue and I thought the DW would just pick up a packet like we usually do and we'd go from there. To my surprise she bought the raw ingredients and we were making it from scratch. It's not that I mind doing this type of thing, but it has never worked for me before and I had just resigned myself to the idea that I couldn't make a basic Swiss fondue because it is always stringy and a little separated. I guess it's all in the recipe. It was great this time and we all enjoyed a nice dinner of cheesy bread, apples, broccoli and carrots.

That's How I Grill

2007-07-15T15:29:00.000-06:00

So I got some cash to get a grill for my birthday. I got the one looked really cool, it also cooks better than the portable grill I had been using for the last five years. The elder of my sons likes it so much that he constantly requests that I grill things for him. The other day I grilled a couple hot dogs just for the boys, let me tell you I know what a grill is for. With the new grill I also have a lot more space than I have in the past. I've grilled things in pairs so far, a pair of burgers, a pair of chicken breasts, a pair of pork chops and a pair of hotdogs. Maybe I'll start gilling in greater prortions sometime soon, and maybe I'll have you over when I do.

What's in a name?

2007-07-05T15:05:00.000-06:00

So I decided that since everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I have a blog of my own. I started coming up with names.

First I thought of Linus Van Pelt because my sister is Lucy Van Pelt. I had my blanket for comfort as a child and all, but Linus was a middle child and I'm the youngest. That brought me to Rerun, but aside from being Lucy's youngest brother we didn't have much in common.

I then thought of my brother's title of More Evil and thought maybe I could be the Brother of All Evil, but he is not all evil (I don't think he that evil period) and I just don't want to make him sound worse than he really is.

The DW suggested something apple, computers and not the fruit, related, but that's just become another form f snobbery in the last few years and I don't want to sound like a snob. That's when my former profession in theatre gave her the idea that I come up with a name related to lighting design. In a way the DW's and my titles are related in a color sense, Orange and Other Bright Colors and my own Color Theory for the Color Blind. What better title for a color blind lighting designer (of sorts).

Enjoy!