"Add as a Friend"

So a friend was having a discussion on his facebook wall concerning proposition 8 and invited me and a couple other friends to join. Somewhat begrudgingly I joined facebook, found a couple of friends and clicked "Add as a Friend". Now suddenly I am getting "friend" requests from "friends" that I haven't seen for quite some time.

Perhaps it is my introverted side that is keeping me from pushing that "Add as friend" link on many people that I know, but wouldn't describe as friends per se. But whatever the reason I find it rather presumptuous to click that link. More and more, it seems, that "friend" or "friendship" is being thrown around as a casual term. It is easier to say "we are friends" than it is to say "We are acquaintances" or "an acquaintance told me" as oft times that may turn into an additional conversation that perhaps we may not want to have--particularly if the person you are talking with might consider themselves more a friend than an "acquaintance" in your vernacular.

Perhaps I value friends too much. They are not throw-away commodities that can be easily replaced, nor can they be readily made--at least for me. For whatever reason throwing out the term "friend" means more to me than the usage so common in today's society; but then again perhaps it was never intended to be used in such a strict, narrow focus that I have assigned it.

So to those of you whom I truly call friends, and with whom I am close, know that it wasn't a friendship created by hyperlink, but one forged by memories and admiration over the years.

Pens

I love pens. I love the way they write; the way their ink looks on paper; but mostly the idea behind the transmission of information. I am quite simply fascinated by pens. My two favorite writing instruments are the G2 blue rollerball and the Twist Erase 0.7 mechanical pencil. Both of these instruments are wonderful to write with.

To be honest I do not know where my fascination with writing instruments, namely pens, comes from. I very vividly remember practicing my sigature for some time trying to find the best way to make it look. I also remember buying bulk #2 pencils in seventh grade because I thought they looked cool. Doug Richens, in 9th grade, became irritated with me and my signature because I wouldn't print my name on English assignments, but would rather sign my name.

The turning point most likely came when I went to BYU and took a drafting class and was introduced to drafting pencils. I remember standing in front of the many options in the BYU bookstore and finally deciding on a 0.9 diameter drafting pencil with a knurled grip. It was really cool. But my mission took my fascination to another level with pens.

One of my first purchases when I made it to Switzerland was a rather inexpensive fountain pen by Watermark. I practiced with that pen over and over, signing my name, writing fun sentences. I continued to work on my signature. The first modification was the inclusion of my middle name; then came the moving of parts of my middle and last names into the swooping G and B of my names; finally I circled the tail of my final t around to make the "crosses" on my t's. The feel and flow of that pen was wonderful.

Using that fountain pen made me realize that lined paper was not good. It distracted from the writing and flow of letter to letter; word to word; and sentence to sentence. I quickly began using plain, unlined paper. Bliss.

When I returned home I couldn't find refills for my pens and then they eventually broke. So I once again returned to pencils--always a 0.9 mechanical. In my Junior year of school I discovered engineering pads. The pads of paper were perfect note taking pads--plain, unlined green tinted paper on the front, with graph paper on the back that showed through to the front just enough so as to guide my writing.

Then finally I found the G2 pens. I was hooked from day one. The flow of the pen was similar to that fountain pen I bought in Switzerland. I have written with many of the colors, but I always drift back to blue.

I really have no reason for what I just wrote. It seemed like a good idea as I thought about it. It was a nice distraction from the difficulty of work and the uncertainty of the times. I hope you enjoyed it.

Don't Point Your Gun at Me

I have long been a fan of Boston Legal (see here). This season, unfortunately, is its last. Though this year hasn't been as lively as previous seasons it has still been enjoyable.

We "Tivo'd" November 3rd show, and just watched it tonight. It started out as many of this seasons episodes, and nearly made me wish I had just gone to bed. It was enjoyable, but not like previous seasons. That is until the clip below. I nearly fell of the couch laughing at this clip. (Of course it would have probably been better in the context of the whole show).

To summarize what led up to this clip, Alan Shore (James Spader) and Denny Crane (William Shatner) have been arguing on and off the entire episode about Denny's desire to vote for McCain (Denny is a life long Republican). In this episode the argument becomes heated, and well watch the clip.

The thing that made it so humorous for me was how so out of place it was for two lawyers to hold a paintball shootout in an office, dressed in suits. But yet it seemed so easy to see how arguments this political season could have led to such an eschange. I was absolutely rolling all while being unable to breath from laughter.

Heather Lost a Tooth

Heather lost a tooth today at the ripe-old age of 4 yrs, 8 months. It was somewhat surprising to find one of her front teeth loose, with a new one growing behind it. She doesn't seem old enough.

Ky and Ryan both lost their first tooth in late kindergarted/early first grade. Taylor and Heather both lost their first tooth prior to kindergarten. It is interesting how different kids from the same parents are.

MrBerrett.com

This has been a while in the making, but I am now finally comfortable with the look and feel of it to put it live. So without further verbosity, here it is. Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, I give you...

(Trumpets sound, doves fly, and a gasp from the audience is heard.)

I have been wanting to create a website for my classes for quite some time, but alas my html and web programming skills basically suck. Most of what I do, I have "borrowed" from my brother Rus. I had been wanting to use the same software for the blog that I use on this site, but I never could find the time to figure out how to do the things I wanted. So rather than waste another year "trying" to figure it out (I say trying but really I never tried), I used Apple's iWeb to create one over the weekend.

I hope it works as I hope.

--edited to finish off my last paragraph that just seemed to hang--11/04/08

Kids' School Pictures--2008

So here are this year's kids' school pictures. Enjoy.

	Ky is 11 in the picture, though will be turning 12 early next year which means he will be getting the priesthood and can pass the sacrement at church. He is pretty excited. Ky is currently a red/brown belt at Bushi-ban karate, and should get his black belt in 2010. Ky is currently in the 6th grade. Much to Ky's dissapoinment the music school where he was taking guitar lessons closed, and so he had to get a new teacher. He is doing really well with the new teacher (who is much more structured).
	Taylor is now 9 years old and in the 4th grade. He loves his red pokemon shirt. When he realized that picture taking day was coming up, he made sure that Jen had washed his red pokemon shirt. He will be turning 10 early next year. Taylor is in a kids bowling league and regularly bowls over 100. He still is my best birthday present. Taylor is also playing the trumpet, and doing really well at it. He likes to play it loud, but he also plays it clear. Lately he has been learning some of the songs from Indiana Jones.
	Ryan is now 7 and in the 2nd grade. He takes pride in his physical appearance, particulary his developing muscles. This year he played tackle football and played the wide receiver. He loved it, particulary wearing the uniform. For Halloween this year he went around in his football uniform. He turns 8 next August when he will be baptized. He is quickly becoming a good piano player, and we will regularly find/hear him playing the current song he is working on outside of his normal piano practices.
	Heather is 4, turning 5 next year. She loves to play dress up and is currently taking dance. It is funny to see her in her primary class as she is a good head taller than anyone else in the class. She also loves to have her picture taken and is very good at making the "I'm an adorable little girl" pose (as seen in this picture). She loves dresses and skirts, and it was only after me asking multiple times that she started wearing her bermuda shorts. Heather will be starting kindergarten next year and is already reading.
	Hailey is almost 2. She is an energetic little girl who loves to play and carry her "babies". She recently learned to jump and runs most everywhere she goes. Her hair is finally getting to the length where Jen can do a little more with it than simply a top knot. Her favorite game is to tease Daddy when he asks for kisses and hugs. Though she will occassionally give me hugs and kisses, it is never when I ask for them. She loves to draw and color, and "read".

Happy Halloween

And to those who don't like Halloween, "A POX ON YOU!!!". Haha, only kidding.

Me personally I enjoy Halloween. I give out the good stuff--full size candy. This year the little kiddies are being treated to: Butterfinger, M&M's, Skittles, Hot Tamales, Starbursts, Crunch, Mike & Ike's, 100 Grand, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and Twizzler Nibs.

My house isn't getting hit as hard as years past. My street cred must not have gotten out yet. Though what limited kids that have come, have filled the air with "oohs" and "aaahs" so it is all good.

Based upon the current foot traffic, we are going to have a lot left over.

Silly Rabbit Herons Don't Just Eat Fish

So in looking at a couple other articles that were linked off of the article about the spider eating the bird that I wrote about here, I came across a couple other articles about animal "dinners" that usually don't happen. The first was a bout a heron eating a rabbit (see picture below). The second was about a leopard killing and eating a crocodile.

Let There Be Night

Interesting article in the most current National Geographic Magazine concerning the slow elimination of the night sky by man made lights. In many areas of the country few stars can be seen; all the more startling is the difficulty many people are finding in seeing the Milky Way due to "Light Pollution". It is a good read.

One interesting part was a picture of Bountiful, focused primarily on the Bountiful Temple. The entire photo album of the pictures that accompanied the article can be found here. The picture of the Bountiful area is the second to last.

Enjoy.

And You Laugh at Arachnaphobes!

Okay this is just crazy. Check out this article and image of a spider catching a bird, yes a BIRD, in its web. Here is the image for a sample of what you will see.

How to Win an Election

Every so often TBS and other basic cable television stations air "The American President" starring Michael Douglas. It is in some cases rather shallow and predictable. As we wipe ourselves off this presidential season I am reminded of a quote from this movie. It is given at a press conference that President Shepherd (Michael Douglas) interrupts. The quote is as follows:

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.

And then this one right before the above quote discussing his rivals quest for the Whitehouse:

I've known Bob Rumson for years, and I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it!

You can see a full clip of the speech below. Thought all you that read this blog might find it interesting.

One Month

One month without sugar, 10 lbs lost. Actually has turned out to not be as difficult as I thought it would be. I figure I might as well keep going.

Sugar

Once upon a time my brothers went for months without sugar in preparation for the state swim meet. As a side affect my Mom, ever the supportive one, began making a lot of food without sugar--at least during this time. So inadvertantly I went without a lot of sugar but never fully without.

By the time that I was on the swim team and swam at state my senior year I had a different coach than Rus and Brent; thus I didn't have to go without sugar. Richard Barnes and I attempted to do it in preparation for state, but I am pretty certain that I didn't make it.

Jen was borderline gestationally diabetic during her pregnancy with Hailey, so to keep everything in line she went off sugar during her last trimester and subsequently lost 10-15 lbs, when normally she would gain 10-15. Which leads me to the following.

Jen has challenged me to go a month without sugar (primarily refined sugar) which also includes corn syrup and any other artificial sweetner. So after two days I am doing okay. I had a slight false start with a nice organic yogurt that had no "sugar" but in its place it had "evaporated cane juice". Last night after a couple quick searches I quickly discovered that it is a slightly less refined version of sugar, so no go. I was really good yogurt.

So I'll keep you updated on how it goes. This is all done as an experiment to see if my body reacts similar to Jen's. Who knows.

Hailey Sue

Over the course of the summer Jen played a good amount of tennis and has taken a couple of students under her tutelage. Jen's lessons were usually in the morning which resulted in Hailey waking up to her "dada" on many occassions.

Hailey finally figured out where Mom was and would regularly go to the window that overlooks the courts or stand by the front door and call for her "Momma" or "Mommee". Eventually she would get out and wander over to the courts.

The funny thing is now whenever Hailey Sue cannot find Jen, she will wander to the tennis courts looking for her, even when Jen isn't there. She has to determine for herself that Jen is not there before she will listen to where you are telling her Jen is.

--Updated 9/15/08 to correct a spelling/grammar error pointed out by Richard.

Thriving Ivory

So while I was driving my son to karate (please pronounce it properly "Kuh-raw-tay") my local radio station 101.9 The End previewed the debut album for the band "Thriving Ivory". For whatever reason I connected with the music--was completely in awe of the sound and music coming from my radio. Can't explain why as the lead singers voice seems to be opposite of what major labels seem to be pushing lately.

Needless to say I went out and bought the album on iTunes. I thoroughly enjoy every song. They have videos up on their site as well as their current single, "Angels on the Moon", to watch and listen to. Hope you enjoy it as I have.

Referees and Recreational Sports

Today I had the fun time of watching Ryan play in a football game. Today was his second game, but the first that I was able to see, as last week I was coaching Heather's first soccer game. It was a fun game to watch, though I could have done without certain parents/coaches on Ryan's team yelling at the refs.

Yelling at the refs, particularly in recreation sports, is one of my pet peeves. Particularly when the basis of the yelling is "call it both ways", or "call it fair". This type of yelling it not beneficial, it just becomes sour grapes. Unfortunately a very good game became tarnished by assistant coaches and parent "whining" and "complaining" about unfair calls.

The main reason why this bothers me is because, rather than focusing on why the penalty was called, the coaches missed an opportunity to teach the kids, and instead focused the kids attention on something else--namely the refs. It now became the refs fault that they held the opposing player rather than their own culpability in the penalty.

I wish I could say that I wasn't guilty of yelling at a referee on past occasions. Mine is probably more problematic in that it was done at a church softball game. All though I will admit that the umpire of the softball game deserved it. Its all glass houses anyway.

Economies of Scale

So Copper Hills High School is running a sub-for-santa and charity money drive. The goal for the school is $16k, which they should meet. I upped the ante and told the Student Body Officers and my classes that if $20k was raised I would shave my head. On top of this they are doing a "homeroom" competition.

The homeroom competition is pitting the homerooms against each other. In order to make it fair they are comparing the total raised per student. Thus they take your total money raised in your class and divide it by the number of students in the class.

My homeroom class has done admirably. They have raised $1017.20. Unfortunately here is where my title comes into play. I have 39 kids in my class, and thus the total amount raised per kid is only $26. The first place class has raised nearly $32/student, but when you only have 14 kids in the class they needed to raise only $448. In order for my class to catch them I must raise $240 overnight. But that is to tie where they are today. Not only do I have to raise that much more to catch them, but for each dollar they bring in between now and 9:25 am tomorrow I have to bring in an additional $2.80. And since she charges money to use the hall pass, I am out of luck.

DAMN!!!

////edited to change the numbers for the other class////

Kids Photos

School Photos of the kids can be seen here.

Ooh Be Quiet

Yeah I know it has been a while. I have thought about posting, but find myself too busy lately. Since my last post we have moved, quit Verio, and started teaching. Shrug...nothing too big.

Moving

About mid June we began to look at how best to decide how to make live of a teacher's salary. As we evaluated our options, I happened to check to see what homes were on the market in Alpine, and we found one that was considerably cheaper, near a park with tennis courts, and didn't require our kids to change schools. So we put in an offer, and put our house on the market. By mid August we had sold our house. We moved into the new house August 17th.

Teaching

As if life were not hectic enough while we were moving into our new house I got a call from the Principle of Copper Hills High School wanting to interview me the next morning at 7:45 for a Biology teaching position. The next morning I interviewed, and was offered the job around 9:15 am. Whoa Batman. Needless to say life has been pleasantly hectic since then. I haven't had time to even watch television since school started, but for LDS General Conference.

Quit Verio

Needless to say I quit Verio. Hehehehehehe

July's Electric Bill

So we got the electric bill for last month. It was a bit of a sticker shock--$192. Whoa!!! Then I looked closer at the numbers.

As noted previously our equal payment plan jumped up to $170/month which prompted change on my part. So $22 more than the equal payment plan, really wasn't too bad considering that last month we saved $55. Net gain of $33 during the hotter months of the year.

The consumption numbers for July 2006 were 3019 kWh for the month, averaging 91 kWh per day. For 2007 we cut the numbers back to 1875 kWh and 57kWh respectively. Nice.

So for the hotter parts of the year we have continued cutting our electric use by 38%. The average for the year so far is an average reduction of over 40%...nice.

Power Consumption

Latest power bill came today. I am quite happy. Last year we averaged 75kWh/day. This year for the month of June we averaged 43kWh/day. Yeeehaw.

Power Bill

My power bill continues to stay low. Last year we used an average of 57kWH/day for the month of May. This year we used an average of 28 kWH/day. Sweet.

There are a couple things I did this past month to help as the temperatures began to rise. First I paid more attention to the daily temperatures and kept the windows open during the day as much as possible, particularly if the daily temperature was in the low to mid 70's. Second I opened the windows every night to get the temperature in the house down as much as possible, thus delaying the onset of needing to turn on the air conditioning. Third, we recently installed Vista window film on our house that is designed to reflect incoming heat and UV. With the three above steps of the hot days we experienced during the month of May we did not typically have to hit the air-conditioning button until after 3pm.

Power Consumption Continued

I have now replaced nearly all of my lightbulbs with CFL bulbs. It will be interesting to see how things continue.

The good news is that as of our last bill we have cut our power consumption year over year from an average of 53 kWh/day last year for the month of March (billing month of April) to 28 kWh/day this year. Had we not been on an equalized payment plan our power bill would have only been $68.

America's Favorite Pasttime

Growing up my life revolved around baseball. I was pretty good, and loved to play. In Junior High School my love of the sport wained when I started playing with people better than me and I found myself sitting on the bench more and more. So rather than working to improve myself, I quit. It still bugs me that I quit. I am not saying that I was 'pro' material, but I got a lot of joy out of playing baseball. I still do, but at a much slower pace--softball. It is also fun that my wife loves to play softball as well, and would have been pretty well recruited had she not made it clear to her High School coach that she was going to BYU. Some would say (myself included) that she has a better throw than me, particularly her accuracy. It has been fun getting out in the yard throwing with her.

Well now it is my kid's turns to play America's favorite past time, and for the past couple weeks we have been going out and playing catch with them. We are also sleeping with the foot of our mattress slightly elevated as we break in a couple newer gloves.:

Ky's 10

Happy Birthday to Ky. Today Ky turns 10...how time flies. It seems like only yesterday that the Doctor, much to his astonishment and ours, announced that we were having our first child 1 month early. I can still remember the look of shock and astonishment on Dr. Glenn's face. Priceless. Jen's and my expressions would have been just as classic to see.

Since 5:00 pm of that day Ky has been a constant joy and pleasure to parent. His is an avid reader and will quite regularly get caught up in his reading at night and not turn out his lights at the agreed upon time. He is slowly coming into his coordination, and is getting good at the guitar. Ky is a good student, and I don't believe he has gotten lower than an A- yet on his report cards (though he has come close).

As per tradition Ky woke up to a treasure hunt, which each year gets more difficult. The hint that I came up with was

Ether 12:27, last seven words.

It took him quite some time to find his presents. HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE.

CFL Update

As I mentioned here I replaced a good portion of the lights that the kids leave on with CFL bulbs. This was primarily done out of frustration with the ever north moving cost of electricity costs in my house. This is the first month with all of my CFL bulbs in place. So what did I get for the deal?

In comparison with last year's billing cycle I used 600kWh less this billing cycle than last year. I don't attribute all this to the discontinuation of incandescent bulbs in my house as in April of last year I also decommissioned an older server that was consuming a lot of power while serving out a relatively low visited website (pics.berrett.org. But still each of the past 3 months since having the CFL's in place I have continued to reduce power consumption in the home month over month.

This summer will be interesting in comparison with last summer.

Taylor's Baptism

Well with Taylor's 8th birthday comes his ability to be baptized, and today is the day.

Taylor has been waiting for this day for quite sometime and to watch him today was quite amusing. He was bouncing off the walls with excitement. "I can't wait to be baptized," he said all the way up to the time we left for the church.

Grandpa and Uncle Brent gave the talks on baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost respectively. Both were good and well done. Since our Stake does baptismal services only for the ward, Taylor was the only one to be baptized in our meeting, which made it all the more fun.

As we walked to the font, you could tell Taylor was excited and seemed to have a bigger bounce in his step than other days. If I would have let him I am sure that he would have ran down the hall to the baptismal font. After his baptism and confirmation he was really happy and appeared to have a perma-grin on his face.

Heather's Three

Heather's 3 today. We sent her on a treasure hunt for her presents as soon as she woke up. She received:

• A Barbie video--12 Dancing Princesses
• A fairy doll
• Cinderella III DVD

Heather is a fun little girl, and is very much a girl. She loves to dress up as a princess, or take care of her 5 "Hailey" babies. She also does not like to kiss Daddy when he is not cleanly shaven. Quite often when I ask for a kiss I will hear, "No, you're scruffy!"

Happy Birthday Heather!!!

34

Not much to see here...Move along. In the famous words of "Oingo Boingo" "it's just another day.".

I don't get that excited for my birthday. Not sure why. Ever since I had kids I have seen my birthday as less and less relevant. Perhaps it is because I am comfortable with my life and what I have. Who knows, but needless to say I just don't get that excited.

Yesterday my good friend Scott and I went out to lunch at "Wallaby's Smokehouse" at 131 S State in Lindon, UT. It was good, not as good as I remember, but still good.

Tonight we had Pier 49 Sourdough Pizza which was good and Jen made me a chocolate cream pie, which if Jen made a crust from scratch would beat my Mom's pie (sorry Mom).

Jen asked me a couple day's ago what I wanted for my birthday, and to be honest I couldn't think of anything so I told her not to worry. So it was with great surprise that she got me something very good--a 80-hr TiVo Series 2 Dual Tuner DVR. I had been wanting to get one for a bit but couldn't get myself to pay for the subscription service. But since I didn't buy it, and we got a $180 rebate on the box, we bought a 3 year subscription, thus allowing us to purchase the TiVo subscription at the lowest possible monthly price. In looking at the wiring schematic, the cable signal is split inside the box and the output is via either coax, S-Video, or composite outputs. I set it up to output to my TV on S-Video, and split the video cable to my TV and TiVo, thus allowing me to record two shows simultaneously and watch a third if I so choose.

For being just another day, Jen and the kids made it a good day.

Taylor's 8!!

Today Taylor is 8, and he is pretty excited about it. He has been talking about it for quite some time. As per our family ritual he woke up to a bouquet of balloons, a box of donuts, and a clue to his first present. Each present he found had a clue to the next present. In all Taylor got 5 gifts:

• Boy Scout Uniform and Wolf Book
• Green Scriptures and Case
• A Watch
• An Arts and Crafts magnet set (of some sort)
• A Calvin and Hobbes book (he loves these)

Taylor is a great kid--full of life, and loves to tell jokes. He is a bright kid that does well in school. He is very excited to be baptized and to start cub scouts. And Saturday he starts his trumpet lessons.

Love you Taylor, Happy Birthday.

Waste in Washington

I am a regular lurker at digg.com and came across the following article detailing the work that Senator Coburn has undertaken during his tenure as first a Representative and now as a Senator. It is a very good read, and a rather depressing look at the state of affairs in Washington D.C.

Mozy.com

A friend of mine works for mozy.com. The premise of the company is to make offiste computer data backup available to the masses--well for right now only Windows users, but soon Mac users as well.

I tried out their product some over the weekend and am impressed by the concept and the implementation of the client. Looking forward to a Mac client as I don't run any dedicated Windows boxes.

CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lights)

We have our electric and gas bill equalized over 12 months, which makes it easy on the monthly budget. Unfortunately the recent electric bill adjustment jumped our monthly electric payment from under $120 to $170. To put it mildly, this shocked me, and quite honestly pissed me off. So to help reduce our electric bill I am quickly moving many of the major lights to CFLs.

The lights that I began replacing with CFLs were the ones that the kids typically leave on for long periods of time. I replaced most of the bathroom lights (which get left on a lot) with CFLs first. Not only are these left on a lot, but they are also a lot of lights--in four bathrooms there are 22, 60 watt lights for a total of 1320 watts in use when all are burning. Of the 22 bulbs, all but 4 were converted to 13-15 watt CFLs. This change reduces the watts used by nearly 900 watts. All of the kids rooms have been converted to CFLs as well as all the main bulbs down in the basement. In all I have replaced about 41 incandescent bulbs with CFLs.

So am I happy with them?

For the most part yes. Each of the bulbs uses less energy, but puts out more actual light. The light output as well as the energy savings makes me very happy, particularly since the lumen output of a 40 watt CFL is similar to a standard incandescent 60 watt bulb, so in some cases where I had multiple lights per room (such as the bathrooms) I replace some 60 watt bulbs with CFLs thus saving a few extra watts.

I am not happy with the length of time the lights take to completely warm up and reach their full lumen output. Some of the lights also have a slight delay before the lights even put out any light. Those two are the major frustrations. The starkness of the light is a slight irritation to me, but not to Jen. She is mostly frustrated with the two main issues noted above, which is why one of our main bathrooms is a mix of CFLs and incandescent--well those two reasons and price. The spiral CFLs are relatively inexpensive--about the same cost as the halogena lights that I really like. Globe lights, that we have in the kids bathroom, are over $4 a light bulb--nearly 3 times the cost of an incandescent. All the literature (well packaging really) says that we will save money over the life of the bulb. I guess I'll find out.

Fun with Amazon

I love amazon and am a regular purchaser of their services--mostly for DVDs and books. Today Jen went on-line to purchase some gifts for her the cousins down in San Diego, and after purchasing the items realized that she had forgotten to ship it to her sister in California. Unfortunately when she went to cancel the order was already moved to processing. And this brings up my greatest beefs with Amazon.

As I am an Amazon Prime member, I get free 2-Day shipping, thus as soon or within minutes of a checkout being made, the order is locked into the "shipping soon" status, which means that the order cannot be canceled.

So upon searching the Amazon website and then google, I found the customer service phone number, where upon I was told that they could not cancel the order and that once I receive a tracking number to call the carrier and cancel the shipment. I explained that I was very aware of their shipment time-frame and was very frustrated with the immediate change to "Shipping Soon" within minutes of the order being placed. I also explained that I know the order won't be shipped till later tonight, early tomorrow and that they should be able to cancel this order as it was being shipped to the wrong address. She again informed me that the order could not be canceled. This perturbed me to no end, so I asked to speak with her supervisor, and unfortunately after requesting it multiple times had to yell at the customer service rep (I always feel guilty when I have to do this).

The supervisor, probably due to my insistence with the front line rep, immediately premised to contact the order fulfillment center to get the order canceled, and much to her credit the order was canceled.

Now here is the ironic part. Shortly after getting the initial order canceled, I went on-line and ordered the products again and checked out. It wasn't until later that night that I realized that I had shipped it to us, rather than to California. I am a moron, who begrudgingly and humbly ate his crow last night.

Sick Day

Last Thursday (Jan 18) Ryan came home sick after throwing-up at school. He later threw up in the bathroom, unfortunately missing the toilet, so we kept him home on Friday. Yesterday (Sunday) Ky came down with the same symptoms shortly after coming home from church. Unfortunately his nausea hit while he was sitting on the toilet with diarrhea. This resulted in the bathroom floor once again being covered with vomit. Nice.

Well, last night Jen began getting the same symptoms as the kids, and Taylor started complaining about an upset stomach. Heather also was complaining about an upset tummy, but I think her complaints stemmed from the desire to sleep with a bowl in her bed. Needless to say today I took a sick day to help Jen out, and we kept Ky and Taylor home from school just to make sure that no additional clean-up was needed at school. All was quiet from the vomit patrol, and no further sightings were encountered. That was good since I can't stomach the sight nor smell of vomit.

Ryan, the little man

Ryan will occassionaly do things that strike me as more mature or grown-up than he actually is. Today was just such an occurence.

I was walking past the kids bathroom upstairs when I noticed the light was on. When I opened the door to turn it off (assuming no one was in it) I found Ryan sitting on the toilet, reading the newspaper. I had to chuckle.

Ky, the reader

Each night we have a family routine. We start the bedtime routine around 7pm. This routing consists of: pajamas, brush teeth, family prayers (each kid prays), scriptures, then reading with each individual child. We start the reading process with Heather and Ryan, and then move down to Taylor and Ky.

Both Ky and Taylor are good readers, but after finishing reading with Ky I was struck by Ky's love of reading. After reading a couple of chapters of the book I am reading to Ky, I put the book on his window sill, on a stack of books that Ky is reading on his own. Normally Ky's stack of books is several books deep--books of 200-300 or more pages each. This stack of books are typically the books that he is presently reading, but will occassionally contain a just finished and a yet to be started book. Tonight I am not sure why it struck me since the stack is always there, but tonight it struck me how much Ky loves reading. On the nights when we get them to bed late and put them to bed without allowing them to read on their own, Ky will actually sulk.

Fatty, fat, fat.

I be fat. Yes it is true, I be fat. Some would call it obese, but I just call it fatty, fat, fat.

Since I graduated from High School weighing close to 180 lbs, I have been on a not so steady weight increase. Since I got home from my mission the lightest I have weighed was 205 lbs, and that was a result of me chasing my wife--literally. You see when I first met Jen and began studying with her, we didn't really begin dating for a bit, what we did do is begin running together. Really what happened is she mentioned to me that she ran every day and I volunteered to run with her. So up until we got engaged Jen and I ran 6 days a week, and as I result I dropped down to 205 lbs. This 6 day a week running regimine had a couple other benefits: first it allowed me to meet my wife, get to know her, and get her to fall in love with me (I fell in love much sooner); second, it allowed me to lose enough weight so that I could get an 'A' in my weight lifting class--as grades were based upon your ability to lift a certain percentage of your body weight. But now I digress.

The purpose of this post is to affirm to the world that I am fat. As noted above it is not like I haven't known it. Were it not for the three years in high school all of my life since my early teenage years would have been pudgy--a nice fat roll hanging loosely around my mid section.

Well, to be honest I am tired of it and this post is more about publically recognizing that I have a problem that needs fixing, then about the suddent realization that I am a fatty, fat, fat.

My goal for this year is to be under 235. This would require an average weight loss of 1 lb per week. To make this happen I am doing the following:

• Daily exercise (20 mins cardio, and weights).
• Better eating. Salads or some other vegetable each dinner.
• Limiting my food consumption to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus one snack.
• Not eating after 8pm (2 hours before my desired bed time).
• Eliminating Soda (diet or otherwise).
• Drinking water, rather than milk, when thirsty.
• Reducing the amount of television that I watch.

Starting weight (Jan 2): 288.5

Ryan's 5...

Well today Ryan turns 5 and as such is eligible to go to kindergarten this year--he starts on Aug 30th. Ryan is a fun kid. He seems to have a constant twinkle in his eyes and an infectious smile on his face, but when he is mad or sad his whole face changes. His current mood is readily apparent in his face and countenance. He has an easy going personality that allows him to work his way into any play group without problems. He is a good brother and regularly provides the comfort his little sister needs (though in many cases he is the cause of her needing the comfort in the first place).

He is a mischievous, happy, fun loving kid, and I am proud to be his Dad. Happy 5th Birthday Ryan.

Gotta Fix the Roof...

It will probably not come as any surprise that I have been putting off fixing the roof for some time, at least since last summer. During a wind storm several shingles were blown off and I just didn't want to get up on the roof to fix them. Well this morning I woke up to find that some of the tar paper had blown off as well. Looks like my delay has ended.

Called up my neighbor and borrowed his roofing nail gun, and then went up to Interstate Roofing Supply to get a couple bundles of shingles for the repair. While there I also purchased a few Whirlybird Turbine vents that are supposed to help remove the heat and moisture from your attic and thus reduce energy bills. I figured since I had to be on the roof anyway, might as well try it out.

After I ripped back the damaged shingles and replaced the damaged tar paper I set about installing the turbine. The installation was relatively easy, nothing complicated about it. Once I got it installed I finished up the shingles to the ridge. When I got to the ridge I pulled out the ridge shingles only to find them too narrow to blend with the existing ridge shingles. I installed a couple thinking that it would be fine, but decided that it didn't look to good--a little half-baked. Since I had a full bundle of ridge shingles I ripped off all the ridge shingles and re-did them with the new ones. The repair took me about 4 hours, but having my neighbor's roofing gun helped out greatly.