Doing my part for the economy

I could tell by the double ring of the phone that someone from off campus was calling me. Typically that means a vendor or a magazine rep. It was the latter, calling from a magazine I thought I had already canceled. After several years in the computer industry, I've collected several complementary subscriptions to trade journals, but I've found that I get too many to keep up with, and some are of more value than others. This particular magazine I thought I'd let lapse because it was one that I really didn't see much use in it. I usually like to curtail the call center people before they get into their spiel, so I interrupted the woman after she identified herself, and told her that I wasn't interested in receiving the magazine. Usually, that gets one of two reactions; either the caller will thank me and hang up, or they will go off on some extra text designed to make me feel privileged to receive their magazine. The woman shifted to her prepared text, but this time instead of telling me how great their publication is, she began talking about the troubling economy, and how by simply taking their magazine for free, I can help keep their subscription numbers up and keep their magazine in circulation.

I was a little stunned and surprised. I ended up accepting the complementary subscription, and indicated that I'd take distribution electronically. I think I already have email rules in place to dump the magazine into an archive folder, and I'll probably never even look at a single issue of the magazine, but I'm a sucker for doing things for the economy. Call me a softie, call me a dupe, I guess I'm an easy mark. I wonder if I'll be hearing this approach from other magazines in the future.

My Brush with Greatness!

I'm here in Detroit for the SAE World Congress. It has been interesting, and I made a few contacts. I also came to the realization that the Governator seems shorter in person. That's right, I stood about 20 ft away from Ahnold. I spent a few hours wandering the Expo floor. At one point I looked around and saw this knot of suits and photographers following some route through the vendors. I wondered briefly what the deal was, it sort of looked like a tour. A short time later, I was talking to a vendor. I looked to my right, and saw two men each leading a Doberman on a leash. Then I saw a mass of uniformed policemen. I wondered briefly who it could be, was Obama attending the conference on the sly? Then I saw Governor Schwarzenegger striding in the midst of them. It was kind of exhilarating to be that close to him. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera ready, so I missed a prime photo op. He swept by down the aisle, and that was the last time I saw him.

So, what was Governor Schwarzenegger doing at SAE World Congress? He was on a panel discussing the future of green vehicles. I did snap a picture of him on a big screen during the panel. The auditorium was so full there was no chance I could even get close enough to take a picture of him directly.

I've also felt severely under dressed. I've attended conventions before, but they were all computer technology conventions. People dressed pretty casual, you know, jeans and t-shirt. Here, the vast majority of people are wearing suits and ties. It seemed that most people took me for a student. If I had this all to do over again, I would have bought a company polo, and wore that around here.

Most of the vendors here are parts manufacturers or people who support them. I've seen more of the innards of gas engines than I ever knew existed! But, I have made a few contacts, and had some good discussions with some here. One guy in particular had actually already been in discussions with one of the scientists at the lab, and had been arranging a visit. He seemed interested in what we have been doing on my project, and wanted to add that as part of his visit too. Hopefully something will come of it.

Well, I need to get ready for bed. It's almost 1 am here in the Eastern time zone. My sleep schedule is already messed up, not to mention my eating schedule.

A Merry Wii Christmas

I know Christmas was last week, and I really don't have any excuse why I didn't post this then. I only went to work one day...

Anyway, we had a very fun Christmas, for the most part. The kids got some good presents, and I got the family what I wanted for them last year... A Wii. I waited too long last year, and so missed out. This year, I bought ours early in the year. Even so, I almost missed out on the second big gift we got. Along with the Wii, I wanted to get a Wii fit. I saw them in the store in early October, but thought I would be able to find one later, and didn't bother picking it up then. By the time I was inclined to buy one, I couldn't find a single one in any store. Fortunately, my mom picked up the last one in my hometown of Delta, and sent it to us. So, we got a Wii, a Wii fit, and Mario Cart. Sierra spent the next 2 days playing Wii games nonstop! She spent a few hours unlocking exercies and games on the Wii Fit. The running games were the funniest. She realized early on that she didn't need to run, only wiggle the controller. Megan and Hailey were funny with the running games too. They don't seem to be able to run in place, so as the running session progressed, they got closer and closer to the television. I expected them to be planting their noses on it before they were done. I even got Lori to play a little Mario Cart with me, and she was expressing a desire to spend some time on the Wii Fit, though she wanted me to make a pact with her that we'd each spend 30 minutes a day on it. Probably do me some good...

This afternoon, we got the gift from my brother Aaron and his wife Carrie. They sent us 2 more games, Boom Bloxx (one I told them I wanted), and something I think is called Brain Academy (Lori and I wanted one educational game for the kids). Apparently, the neighbor kids came over, bringing 2 of their wii-motes, and a few other games, and so the kids had an impromptu Wii party. Fun all around.

Not much else to report. Of course, this being the last day of the year, I'm contemplating my new years resolutions. I suppose most people have already worked theirs out by this time, but being the world-class procrastinator that I am, I probably won't have my written until the new year is already under way.

Get a rope

So, I heard something today on NWPR that really got my dander up. They were talking about the Leahman Brothers failure, and how Congressional hearings started today around executive actions during the days and weeks leading up to the failure of that venerable institution.

So, here's the thing that got my attention, and made me a little bit angry. It seems that even as Leahman Brothers was petitioning the government for aid, they were funneling millions of dollars to their executives in compensation. I get so sick of this kind of thing happening. During the article, the person that NPR was interviewing made an allusion to Jimmy Stewart films, and immediately my mind turned to "It's a Wonderful Life." Specifically, the scene when George and Mary are leaving for their honeymoon, and there's a run on the savings and loan. George takes his hard earned and carefully saved money that was to pay for his honeymoon and with some fast talking and cooperation from all his investors saved the Bailey Savings and Loan with his own money. That's the kind of business man I can admire.

I got my first post college job at Hewlett-Packard at the height of the Dot-Com Bubble. Everyone was riding high, and if you had a business plan written on the back of a used napkin that had the word Internet in a fuzzy looking cloud, there were more than a dozen venture capatilists that wanted to inundate you with money.

However, that only lasted a short time past my joining the company. The bubble burst, and immediately tech firms had to tighten their belts. At HP, the CEO (Carly Fiorina at the time) cancelled the company performance bonus, on the grounds that while HP turned a tidy profit, it was a paltry thing compared to the wealth the company had earned while the bubble had been in full swing. This didn't affect me, becuase I hadn't been with the company long enough to qualify for the bonus, but many of my co-workers were bitter about that move. Then they suspended all pay raises. This did hit me, because less than a year after I started working at HP, I got my first promotion. Finally, as things tightened up, we were asked to voluntarily take one of 3 corrective actions: 1. take a 10% pay cut, 2. Take a 5% pay cut, and donate 5 vacation days to the company, or 3. take a 5% pay cut. Having just graduated from college, I didn't have vacation days to spare, and looking at my finances, I didn't feel that my entry level salary could withstand a 5% pay cut (I might have chosen otherwise if I had gotten my raise), so I opted out of the plan. What bothered me, is that none of the executive team mentioned what they chose, if they chose at all. Even worse, we received word that due to the cost savings implemented, Carly had received her performance bonus of some 5 - 10 million dollars. Like most of the employees, I was flabbergasted.

However, across the city, another company showed me what I ought to expect from those in power. Micron was also taking a beating at that time. In fact, they were probably in more dire straits than HP was. After all, they weren't as diversified as HP. The entire upper management team at Micron voluntarily went without pay for 6 months while the company worked to stabilize itself in the economic turmoil. At that moment, I envied my friends that worked for Micron. At least they had a management team that they could look up to.

So, when I heard about the Leahman Brothers, I couldn't help but be reminded of my short tenure at Hewlett-Packard, and the management team that lost my respect.

The Tenney Fourth of July

Well, as you know, this weekend was the 4th of July. Our neighbors tend to be a bit exuberant in celebrating Independence Day, so normally, our 4th consists of me watering down our cedar shake roof, followed by Lori and I sitting on the street watching the neighbors light off their mortar launched fireworks, while the kids hide inside the house and watch movies or go to bed. The girls have always been sensitive to loud noises, especially Megan. But this year, all three were excited to watch the fireworks show. So, I spent a little more than we usually do, and we joined the crowd who had gathered at my next-door neighbors house to light fireworks. I was a little apprehensive, expecting that either I or my wife would have to call an early end to the evening to take the little ones home. However, they all did great and enjoyed the show immensely. Megan did take some precautions (she came outside wearing a pair of earmuffs which Lori augmented with some wax earplugs). Hailey did insist on going home a little early, but it wasn't the noise that got to her, she just got really tired and wanted to go to bed. Sierra and Megan stayed for the entire show.

I brought along my camera in an attempt to take some pictures of the event, but found I have quite a bit to learn about taking fireworks pictures. One of the issues I had was a problem I've encountered before. That is, I get an internal reflection in my lens of strong light sources. It appears as a ghosted image in the opposite quadrant of the picture from the light source. Fed up, I did a bit of reading and found that one possible culprit is the cheap skylight filter I have on my lens. I purchased the filter to protect the lens in case of a fall, or to keep it from getting scratched. The filter costs $15, which is a lot less than the $200 for even the cheapest of lenses. But, it also means that I'm now shooting through an inferior level of glass compared to my lens. I'll have to try some night shots without the filter to see if that makes a difference.

The second problem I had was that most of the sites I read suggested that you set the focus on your lens to infinity. Unfortunately, the mortars that my neighbors were launching don't go as high as those used by a professional fireworks show, so they were going off inside the focal range of my lens. Thus, with the focus set to infinity, my pictures of the fireworks came out blurry. It was hard to tell this on the small lcd screen on my camera, especially since the camera was tilted almost straight up, so I didn't realize it until the show was over. I got a couple of shots that look great as thumbnails, but once you start to zoom in, they go really out of focus. So, most of my "good" pictures were of the fountains that everyone had. One really fun thing that they tried was to attach a fountain to the back of a remote control car, and then drive it up and down the street. That provided some really interesting light trails.

Here's a few of my favorite shots:










You can see the rest in my Fireworks Flickr set.

Facebook Family

Being a knowledge worker, and especially a research scientist in the field of computer science, I hear a lot about social networks and web 2.0. I've even taken the time to join a few social network ventures over the years, but typically (as evidenced by my stewardship of this blog) my activity in them has been sporadic at best. I've tried Orkut, Multiply, Youtube, LinkedIn, and once, in a moment of weakness, I even created a myspace profile (which I promptly deleted with a deep seated feeling of self loathing). Of all these, the only one that I really tend to at all is LinkedIn. I really enjoy how they organize that network. It's allowed me to regain contact with old roommates, colleagues from previous companies, and students I looked up to while I was in school.

I have absolutely refused to join Facebook. I've always thought of it as the online equivalent of the frat house, and I never really wanted to associate with that crowd in college.

Well, today, a friend of mine posted a video on Facebook that I really wanted to see, so swallowing my pride a bit, I created a Facebook account. Apparantly, several months back, one of my brothers had sent me a Facebook invitation that I pretty much ignored, but Facebook hadn't forgotten. I immediately got a notification that he had invited me to be one of his "friends" on Facebook. I accepted the invitation, only to find out that I am quite literally nearly the last member of my extended family to join Facebook. Even my aunts and uncles have Facebook accounts. I'm not sure whether to be embarrassed, ashamed, appalled, or some combination of all three.

Needless to say, I've spent the last hour sending friend requests to all my family members. I feel so dirty...

Just another brick in the wall

Our housing development sits on the lower slopes of a good size hill, and our house is pretty much at the bottom of the hill. Most of our neighbors just have a significant slope through a portion of their back yard, but due to how far back in our lot our house is situated combined with the layout of the house, sloping the yard would have rendered a large amount of our back yard unusable. At least I think that’s why the original owner put a terrace in the back yard. It really makes things much nicer, we have a decent swing set in the yard and plenty of room for the kids to run around. The problem has been the retaining walls. They’re made out of railroad ties, and over the 5 years that we’ve lived here, they’ve rotted. Last year, the wall between our yard and a neighbors yard collapsed. So we replaced the wall with a manor stone wall. This wasn’t too difficult, since they had already poured a concrete slab, so we just laid the stone right on the slab, and were able to finish the wall in one day. Another wall, in our yard, was also falling apart, but hadn’t completely collapsed, so we hoped against hope that we could put off replacing it for a year. Well, it started to collapse shortly after we replaced the first wall, but we just didn’t have the money to replace it, so we just let it deteriorate.

It’s now been a year since we put up the first wall, and we had been losing dirt out of the second, so we figured it was time for the annual Tenney Terrace Wall Party. We invited a few of our friends over to help us put up the new wall, and bribed them with BBQ. This wall went much slower. I took Friday off so I could remove the old wall and do some prep work. I had intended to get the base trench dug, but first I had to remove 3 bushes that were going to be in the way (2 on the upper terrace, and one super overgrown evergreen bush that was on the lower level) and take out the old wall. The two bushes on the upper terrace weren’t to difficult to remove, at least not with a mattock. I had originally intended just to prune the evergreen bush back, but we’ve wanted to be rid of that beast for some time, so I took out the clippers, and my reciprocating saw and went to work. Finally, I began the demolition work on the old wall. I started with a crowbar, but found the wood was so rotten that the crowbar was completely useless. So, out came the mattock again. It made short work of the wall, but I think we'll be finding rotten wood debris in our yard for many years to come...

Unfortunately, all this prep work meant that I was not nearly as ready as I would have liked when our friends arrived, and most of them had other commitments which kept them from being able to help us the full day. In the end we got the trench dug, and the base material leveled. I laid 2 rows of blocks, then took the rest of the day off to recover. Over the next week, I spent 3-4 hours each night laying blocks for the wall. Tuesday, my good friend Erin returned to help me place some more blocks (despite the pain in her ear! I had no idea she was in pain or I would have told her not to come). This Saturday, I placed the last block in the wall and took some time to admire my handy work.

Here are some before pictures, along with one after picture. Two of the before pics are from Sierra's birthday the year before, so you can imagine that the wall was in even worse shape than shown here.

Should employers fine smokers? Today I was reading an article on Lifehacker on that subject. Initially, most of the comments were on the side of the employers. I'm not sure I agree though. Don't get me wrong. I think that smoking is a terrible, dirty habit that puts the smoker at risk and all those around him. However, many of the comments were about lost productivity (as you might expect, with the article being on a productivity blog). And, on those grounds I have to disagree.

One comment in particular caught my attention. The author claimed that he knew of smokers at his company that took 10 minute smoke breaks every hour. His contention was that that added up to 80 minutes of lost time every day. On the surface, that seems like a very simple calculation. The guy is outside, away from his computer, smoking a cigarette. Obviously he isn't working. However, in the day and age of the knowledge worker, it's not that simple. I look at it much like a professional athlete. You rarely see an athlete in for the entire game. Every so often, even the most skilled players are given a short rest. The reason for that is obvious to any one who has engaged in a strenuous activity. Your muscles just need a rest periodically to regain your energy level. Many researchers in the area of cognition describe the mind as just another muscle. That 10 minute break may be just what the person needs to refocus, and regain their mental energy. In addition, that is 10 minutes that the person isn't exposing themselves to the eye strain of looking at a computer monitor, the repetitive motion of typing and mousing, and it gives them an opportunity to stand up and get their blood flowing.

A few years ago, I was given an "ergonomic evaluation" at work. The result of that was a list of recommendations, including an ergonomic keyboard, chair height, and a 10 minute break every hour. Admittedly, part of this recommendation is likely due to the fact that I've already experienced some RSI problems (due to a stupid workspace setup when I worked from home during college). This may seem excessive, but some sites I've read actually recommend a 30 second break every 10 minutes, along with a 15 minute break every 2 hours. Add it up, and you're talking about 1 hour 48 minutes a day. Now, I don't take the breaks like I'm supposed to. When I get working on something it's hard to tear myself away. But I do try to do 2 15 minute breaks a day to get up and walk around campus. I think there are 3 benefits to this. First, that short period of exercise gets my blood pumping and helps me to stay alert. Second, I often will use that time to think about the work I have been doing, and refocus my efforts for when I return to my desk. Third, By scheduling in my break, I become more productive by saying "I'll work on this task for 2 hours, then I'll take a break." It helps break up day a bit and gives my day some landmarks to help map it out.

So, smoking may be a dirty habit. But I don't believe it to be the productivity loss that many believe it is.

You oughta be in pictures!

Candy sales for Camp Fire Kids begins this weekend. Normally, I really don't enjoy the whole selling candy thing, but this year something special has happened. A picture that I took of one of the kids in our group (Ciera Schmidt) was entered in a national contest, and was chosen to be on one of the boxes of candy that the kids will be selling. Aside from not being mentioned in any of the press coverage (let's face it, Ciera is a much cuter subject than the 30 something amateur photographer who took the picture), I'm pretty excited. I've only seen a picture of Ciera holding up the box of candy, but it feels pretty cool to have one of my pictures getting national exposure. I'd like to think it won't be my last!

Now that I've seen the picture, it appears they edited it a bit (I've never been great at post processing... need to work on that.) and blurred the background. The picture looks great. Here's my unedited version:

Missed opportunity

I've started reading a blog called Digital Photography School. The first day that I began reading it, they had a post titled "5 Reasons to Take Your Camera Everywhere in 2008." As I read it, I thought that I really wanted to make sure to take my camera everywhere I went. However, the next morning as I was leaving the house for work, I looked at my camera bag, and decided I didn't want to deal with the hassle of carrying it around and left the house. As I drove down the road, I saw the most amazing sight. On a nearby hill, there are a number of windmills, and some clouds had enveloped the hill. The sun had broken through the clouds, and so the windmills were encompassed by a soft golden mist. I found myself thinking "I wish I had my camera right now!"

So, yesterday morning, I did take my camera with me. And I was glad I did. I'll edit this post later with one of the pictures I took that morning.

Trash Talk

One of the difficult things about being an electronics junkie, is finding ways to dispose of old equipment safely. I currently have a several failed motherboards, video cards, sound cards, etc... just lying around taking up space in our closets. Until recently, I wasn't aware of any place that would take that type of waste, but on the Linux club mailing list, someone pointed out a local business that handles electronic waste, and will do so for free (within reason, they do charge a storage fee for monitors). So, without further ado, here is the contact information for this company:

Bachand Electronics Corp, of Richland, has an unofficial service. The really great thing is that they'll even take monitors (although they are going to charge you $5, which is a bargain). They will take most any electronics, and here's the cool part:

If you give them a computer that still has working components, they'll scavenge, and build working machines out of them, and then donate them to worthy efforts that would otherwise go unfunded. I just spoke with the owner, and am planning on taking my current collection from the garage to them, this Saturday.

Bachand Electronics Corp
1351 Wyman St, Richland, WA
(509) 943-6203

If components are truly dead, they store them on a pallet, which gets picked up by an electronics recycling firm...

This post is just for me

Well, mostly at least. Up to this point, most of my pictures have been taken using the auto mode on my fancy DSLR camera. I've gotten lucky and had several pictures turn out very well. I've wanted to learn how to use more of the manual settings on the camera, but haven't taken the time necessary to do so. But, recently a blog I read (life hacker) has had a couple of posts about using the fancy features of DSLR's. I've bookmarked the articles, but just so the links won't get lost, I'm posting them here as well.

Master your DSLR camera pt 1
Master your DSLR camera pt 2

Family week!

It's been a crazy week. Last weekend, I flew down to Utah to join my family in celebrating my Grandma's 80th birthday. It was kind of a crazy trip. I hadn't intended to go, as I had some other obligations scheduled for that weekend. However, those got moved until the next weekend. I did have to get back for an appointment on Sunday, so after a lot of deliberation, I decided to fly instead of driving down with Lori and the kids. It was a pretty crazy flight schedule. Interestingly enough, It was cheaper for me to fly if I bought a package that included 2 nights in a hotel in Salt Lake City. My flight back was at 6:00 am, so I needed a 4 am wakeup call. Pretty crazy. Anyway, the party was great. We had a family dinner for Grandma at noon on Saturday, and then began an open house at 3. She had quite a surprise. I think she knew about the party, but she didn't expect me to be there. Even more, my uncle Don, who lives in Hawaii, flew over to be there, and my aunt Ronella and her husband Clay made it as well. Grandma was moved to tears, and the look of joy on her face as she saw Don and Ronella was precious. All of her children were there for the party, and a large number of her grandchildren also. We took a number of family photos, then had a nice lunch. Most of the family pitched in, either cooking, or decorating the church cultural hall. My mom and siter-in-law did the table decorations. The center piece was a vase of Grandma's favorite flowers, and photos from early in Grandma's marraige. During lunch, my uncles and aunts did a little program. Each of them talked about things they remembered about Grandma as they grew up. They recorded the stories, so hopefully they'll digitize the audio and share it around with the rest of the family.

After the lunch, an open house was held at the church. I think it went very well. It wasn't so busy that Grandma felt overwhelmed. Several distant relatives came to visit, as well as some of Grandma's neighbors over the years. It was good to see so much of my family. I've missed the family reunions over the last several years, so it's been quite a while since I have seen many of these people. All in all, it was a very satisfying trip. On the way back, I again had a short layover in Denver. While there, I ran into a family that goes to our church, and sat next to them on the flight. It was a pleasant surprise, and a lot of fun.

My birthday also happened this week. Lori totally surprised me. I thought she had forgotten. I wasn't really all that concerned about that. We really didn't have anything planned, at least as far as I knew. I teach at WSU on that day, and Lori had called me earlier that day to tell me that she had a meeting at 7:00 that night, so I told her I'd meet her at Sierra's gymnastics so that she could attend the meeting. When I arrived, Lori took me out of the gym and told me of her plans. She had a friend taking Sierra home from gymnastics, and a babysitter at home for the other two girls, and we had a few hours for a dinner date. It was a lot of fun.

Anyway, that's all that's happened this week :)

Procrastination

So, I mentioned in a (much) earlier post that I had purchased a book on procrastination called "The Now Habit," and that I'd be posting my thoughts on it periodically as I read it. Well, I procrastinated reading the book on procrastination, and so I've only recently spent some time in the book. I'm nearly halfway through it at this point, but already I think it's having an impact.

One area the book discusses is the procrastinators internal dialog. You see, procrastination is actually a defense mechanism (and an extremely effective one at that). According to the author, people don't procrastinate because they are lazy (I'm not sure I agree with that assessment totally), the procrastinate to avoid something that is painful or undesirable. It could be that the person is a perfectionist, and is afraid that they will produce something that is not totally perfect. However, if they procrastinate, they could say that the reason that their work wasn't perfect is because they didn't give themselves enough time to complete the task. If they'd only started earlier, the project would have been perfect. That way, they can keep their sense of self worth intact. He also points out that people can be afraid of success. Yeah, I did a double take on that one myself, but after reading what the author means by that, I can actually relate to that one. Being afraid of success means that you fear what comes after success. Not the recognition, but the assignments that may come your way after you are successful or that if you are successful, there might be less work for you to do. The procrastinators internal dialog can give a lot of insight into what motivates the procrastinator to, well, procrastinate. Phrases like "I should do this," or "I need to do this," are attempts by the procrastinator to will themselves into action, but usually have the opposite effect. By saying that you "should" be some way, you are comparing the imperfect now with a perfect vision of now. Finding yourself lacking can be depressing, leading to even less motivation to improve. Saying that you "need" do something sets you at odds with some authority figure. You are being forced to do something that, given the choice, you wouldn't be doing. This allows you to play the victim, and by procrastinating, you are "sticking it to the man" to some degree. Though I haven't made many changes to my internal dialog, the book has made me far more aware of how I talk to myself with regards to tasks and assignments.

The author also points out that procrastination is very successful as a defense mechanism. That's why people use it. Procrastination almost immediately relieves stress (though it piles it on later!), and often, if one procrastinates long enough, someone else may step in and do the job that they were supposed to do. This reminds me of the Demotivator poster on procrastination "Hard work pays off over time, but laziness always pays off right now."

Birthday party or insanity?

I think we now have definitive proof that my wife is a masochist. The first clue was that she married me, but the latest demonstration happened this last weekend. Sierra turned 7 on Friday, and so my wife insisted on having a birthday party for her. I'm not sure when people started having full parties for every birthday. Growing up, there were certain ages that my parents would actually throw a party for, and the rest of the time we were allowed to invite one friend to Sunday dinner the week of our birthday. Anyway, We have a close group of friends that who have children near the same ages as our kids, and we usually invite all the kids of each family. Unfortunately, that means that we end up with 10 kids just with the families of these friends. This year, since Sierra is in first grade, Lori wanted to make sure that a few kids from her class were invited as well. Then she invited the children of another friend. In all, we had more than 20 children at the party. Things went well at first, the kids spent most of the time outside, and Lori had set up some Pokemon themed games. Everything seemed to be going well, until we brought the kids inside so Sierra could open her presents. As usual, I was taking pictures and didn't notice that the children staged a coup. They all had surrounded Sierra, with all the adults standing in a circle around the perimeter. It became a present free-for-all. Kids were practically throwing presents at Sierra to be opened, It was absolutely out of control. But the kids had fun, so I guess that was the point of the whole thing.

It being a Pokemon themed party, Sierra got a lot of Pokemon stuff. Several stuffed Pokemon, Pokemon trading cards, the whole bit. One item she got, Megan pretty much adopted. Sierra got a small stuffed Pokemon named Buneary that fit inside a Pokeball, and when the ball is thrown pops out. In keeping with a habit Megan's had lately, she got the Pokemon wet. Usually she does this when she has gotten one of her stuffed animals dirty, and wants to clean it. This time she was trying to make the Pokemon grow. Anyway, Lori put the Pokemon up to allow it to dry out, and as a punishment for Megan getting it wet. Later on Saturday, Megan kept coming up to Lori and saying "Mom, you're happy!" We weren't sure why she was doing this, but she did it 3 or 4 times. Finally I asked her why Lori was happy. Megan replied "Because she wants to give me Buneary." I had to laugh. Lori had gotten angry with Megan for getting the Pokemon wet, so now that mommy was happy, she must be ready to give it back! My kids crack me up sometimes.

I'll edit this post later once I have the pictures from the birthday party posted.

Disturbing events

A lot has happened since I've posted last (that's what happens when you let more than a month go by). Just to summarize, we bought a new car (Lori's car was dying), adopted 2 dogs (ostensibly to help Megan), and Sierra and Megan started school at the new elementary school. A lot of things, but not the focus of this post.

I called our insurance company today to get our old car removed from our insurance, and the new car put on it. I told the lady who answered the phone my name and told her that we had just purchased a new car, and traded in our old one. I gave her the details of the new car, and then she informed me the change had been made. I was a little shocked though. With nothing more than my name, and a few details about the cars that we drive, I was able to effect a change to my insurance. It seems to me that they should have at least asked me a security question to verify my identity. Pretty crazy.

A Dangerous Hobby...

OK, so I have to tell someone this, or I'll explode, and I don't really want to tell my wife, cause she'll worry the next time I run off to take pictures. This evening, I noticed that the sunset was an odd color, so I decided to take some pictures. I hopped in my car and drove up Kennedy road a bit to get away from the houses and trees that would block my view. I stopped where the road crests the hill right before it curves around candy mountain, and pulled out my gear. For 5-10 minutes, I snapped pictures, until the color I was looking for left the sky, then I put away my camera. Just as I got my camera in the bag, and had closed it up, I heard a voice behind me. I had been so wrapped up in taking pictures and breaking down my camera that I didn't hear him approach. I hadn't made out what he had asked me, so I turned around and said "huh?"

"What're you up here taking pictures of?" The light was a little behind him, so I couldn't make out facial details, but I thought for a second it was someone I knew playing a trick on me. He looked fairly young, late teens or early 20's, but it was hard to tell in that light. He had his hands resting on something that came about chest high. His tone of voice was slightly hostile or accusatory, but I didn't immediately pick up on that. Again, thinking that he was someone I knew, I responded "taking pictures of the sunset."

"Don't you bullshit me!" he said. It was about this point that I realized that I didn't know him at all. In my mind, I just thought "whatever", and snorting in derision, I turned and walked around my car, and got in the drivers seat. As I did, he turned and walked away, and I saw what it was he had been resting his arms on. In his right hand he carried a rifle with a scope on it, and I was struck how that conversation could have turned out very differently. I was a little frustrated, because of the 2 of us, only he was doing anything close to illegal (Coming out with his gun could be considered brandishing), and yet he probably thought he was defending his property or privacy or some such nonsense.

Busy week

This is the first week of summer vacation, though it seems like we are more busy than we were during school. Lori has been driving all over the valley. The kids are enrolled in swimming lessons, still doing gymnastics, and Sierra just started piano lessons this week. She likes playing the piano, but not the drudgery of practice, so I know she is definitely my daughter. The teacher (Lori's cousin Audrey) gave Sierra an assignment for practice, which pretty much constitutes the first 3 pages of her work book. But I think Sierra is getting bored with playing the same thing over and over again, because she keeps wanting to move on beyond those pages. She's getting better at playing the assigned passages, but I hope, for her sanity and mine, that Audrey will let her move on next week.


The other exciting news (aside from all that and buying a piano too) is that Sierra began riding her bike without training wheels this week. She had been begging to get them off her bike, ever since her friend Gage had his removed last week. So, Monday evening, I ran out of excuses (I really wasn't looking forward to chasing her bike up and down the street while holding the seat to keep it steady), and removed the training wheels. The first pass up and down the street, she did pretty good, though she kept leaning to one side. She denied she was doing it until I let go of the seat briefly to prove my point. After the second pass though, she had it down! All in all, I think it took about 10 minutes for her to be able to ride without the training wheels, though it took a few practice turns for her to be able to make a turn without putting a foot down to save herself a fall. She's been zipping all over the neighborhood since. We've gone on a few small rides together, and perhaps this weekend, we'll go down to the parks along the river and ride for a bit. She's a little nervous about that, because of all the people that walk/ride along the bike path, but I think with a little more practice, she can handle it.

Camping 'n stuff

My friend Erin over at flarinerin has been giving me a hard time about posting, so that's a clear sign that it's time.

It's been a busy few weeks. Over the Memorial Day weekend, we went camping with our church congregation. Lori and I were not all that thrilled about going when the day came, but the kids were already pumped about going camping, so away we went. Our church maintains a campground in the Cascades near White Pass. It's a beautiful area set on a small reservoir. Once we got there, we had a great time. The kids were instantly interested in going boating, but since we had gotten to the campsite so late, we promised them an outing Saturday morning. There were skits and dutch oven cooking that night. The kids enjoyed the campfire most of all though. Sierra was a marshmallow roasting machine. I think she was more interested in making smores than eating them. The other attraction was throwing pine cones from the huge pile of them near each fire pit. Eventually, we did get them to settle down and go to sleep. The next morning, the kids were impatient to get on the lake. Unfortunately, the boats were locked up so we waited until after breakfast (also provided by the church). When we finished, the boats were still locked, so Lori hunted down the caretaker for the camp and got him to come unlock them. There was one row boat, and 5 canoes. We never really considered the canoes, there was no way that we would be able to keep the kids from standing up in the boat, and we really had no desire to end up swimming. We rowed around the lake for some 10 - 15 minutes, dodging trees and fishermen. But eventually we had to take the boat back. Hailey could have spent the entire day in that boat, and she protested at the top of her lungs! Once back on land, we cleaned up camp, and returned home. Later that afternoon, we headed over to Evans house to celebrate the birthday of Daniel, Evan's stepson.

Sunday was pretty crazy. Lori and the girls went to church with Evan and his family, while I rehersed our church choir and conducted then during church. I then ran over to Evan's church to be there as Daniel received the priesthood, and then ran back to church to substitute leading the music in primary in my church. I had a few other things planned that night, but was able to get out of them so that we could spend the rest of the evening with Evan's family.

Monday, I attended a memorial program for the veterans in the Tri-cities. The stake choir has sung at this event for the past 2 years, and it's something that I've really looked forward to. The program is always very touching, and it reminds me of my grandfather, who served in World War 2. This year, I took my camera and took several pictures during and after the program. I'll have to post them sometime.

This last weekend, our church engaged in a service project for several single older ladies. The week before, I had been asked to lead the activities for one of the projects, so Friday night, I and another member went to Home Depot and spent about $70 on flowers and other supplies. The plan was to do as much for these ladies as we could in just 2 hours. I don't know how the other projects went, but ours went great. A couple of young men spent most of the time planting flowers, and they did a great job. I replaced a couple of electrical outlets for her, and checked out the fire alarms. The toughest part of the whole project for me, was crawling into the crawl space below her trailer to pull a dryer hose from the dryer to the vent exit on the side. I hate spiders. I don't mind getting close enough to kill them, but the idea of crawling under that trailer, especially after opening the door and seeing all the spider webs. There was quite a bit of debris, and I just knew there were spiders in every corner. It took me a few minutes to work up my nerve to belly crawl to the hole in the floor where the dryer hose came through. Ten minutes later, I had the hose pulled through and hooked up, and you couldn't have gotten me back under there for anything. We finished by fixing a cabinet door, which required that I run home to get a drill to modify the mounting hardware. The project was a great success.

Wow, I didn't mean for this to be such a novel, but I guess when you post once a month, lots happens between posts. I have a few posts I'm working on that aren't travel logs. Hopefully I'll get one of those out here for your enjoyment.

Updates

Wow, Lots has happened since my last post! I guess things like that happen when you go a month between posts. So, I'll try to catch you up on what's going on.

A few weeks ago, we had a birthday party for Megan. She's 5 now, and we're gearing up for her to enter kindergarten. We invited a bunch of friends over for cake, icecream, and grilling. We were pretty excited, because this year, Megan opened her presents without any assistance. In the past, she has been a little afraid of what might be hiding under the wrapping paper, but this year, she really got what was going on, and tore into the presents. I think it was nice for the kids who came too, because she showed she was excited with each thing she got. It was a red letter day for me as well, as I didn't turn the burgers into charcoal this time. My grill skills are getting better!

Then, Lori and the girls left for 10 days to go down to Utah for spring break. We have a friend that is on the board of an autism school, as well as having a child with autism herself, so Lori went to observe in the classroom, and to get some pointers from our friend. I was a little nervous about her driving the whole 10 hours by herself, but aside from Megan having some stomach problems (and throwing up 3 times!) on the way down, the trip went well. They spent time with both sets of grandparents. For the first half of the trip, they stayed at Lori's parents house Orem. The cousins were out of school too, so they were able to spend a lot of time visiting and Grandpa Sampson took them all horseback riding. The girls also learned respect for kitties, as Lori's old (and cranky) cat, Tikka, lives at her parents house. That cat is psycho, not nearly as good natured as our cat. Showing how brave (or crazy) she is, Lori, her dad, and her sister Kiersten, took all the kids to Moab and went hiking up to the arches. I think this in particular had an effect on Sierra, as seeing the delicate arch (a mouthful for a 6 year old) was one of the highlights of the trip that she made sure to tell me about.

Later that week, Lori and the girls drove down to Delta and spent Easter weekend with my parents. The kids did easter egg hunts, and in what has become something of a family tradition, they went out to the sand dunes and rolled easter eggs down the dunes. I was a little worried about their visit to my parents house, because Megan had gotten attached to a kitten when we were there last summer. She dubbed the kitten "Sparkle," and talked constantly about seeing Sparkle on this trip. Unfortunately, Sparkle had died just a few weeks after we returned home from that summer trip. When one of her fish died recently, I took that opening to explain to her that Sparkle had died too, to which she responded matter of factly "No, Sparkle doesn't die." Well, when she got down to Delta, she seemed to take the fact that Sparkle wasn't around in stride, so I guess I was worried for no reason.

Lori's mother rode back up with her, for which I was grateful, and they returned earlier this week without incident. Her brother, Steven, who is preparing to take his first job after graduating, followed them up in his car, and they left today to return to Utah. Just in time to skip helping out with our huge project that we are working on this weekend.

Several months ago, the wooden terrace wall between our yard and our neighbors yard was pushed over by the roots of one of our trees. At the time, we sought a quote from a landscaper friend of ours. They sent out their estimator, and then never got back with us. Tired of waiting and asking for the quote, I've pretty much decided to do it myself. So, this weekend, I'm tearing out the remains of the old wall, and putting up a block wall, which will hopefully last longer than the last wall did. Included in that is killing the tree that did the damage in the first place. My neighbor has been kind enough to allow us to cut into a concrete pad that was poured next to the original wall to allow us enough room to put in the new wall. My original intent was to try to save the tree, but to do that, I would have had to cut nearly a foot into my neighbors pad. So, down comes the tree so that I can use the smaller blocks in the wall construction. I *hope* to be able to finish the entire thing tomorrow, but it is a big job. We're inviting a few friends over to help, with the bribe of steaks for dinner. I'll post pictures of the project once it's done.