Meet up with Casey

Not too much is going on. I just thought I should try to put a couple of words here and keep people apprised of my life somewhat. I have, after all, been reading in the history books of my Grandma Rose, and though it is a yearly one, there are things of interest. Maybe some of the things I say will interest people at a future time. Only time will tell.

Meghan has been going to Marching Band camp all this week. But, what I really wanted to put in here is that tonight Dee Anne and I went to Chuck-A-Rama because Casey would be coming through. We arrived before anybody else did, and I called Pam and she told me that about 12-14 people would be coming. We asked them to set up tables as such. The amount of people that came ended up being 25. We had Dee Anne's cousin Patty (from Italy) and her three daughters and one boy. Two of the daughters have husbands and one has two children. Lisa Brown came as well as some of the same crowd that always comes. Also, Anne's two children came with husband or boyfriend.

Dee Anne and I were lucky enough to sit with Casey. He was very open about his bi-polar problems and we had some good discussion. He will be heading down to Las Vegas tomorrow morning with his Grandparents.

Well, it was a good evening and we quite enjoyed it.

Time Keeps on Passing

Well, time keeps on passing into the future. That line is from a song many years ago (when I was young). I know I can't tell everything that has passed during this time and besides that it would bore anybody who would try to look at it.

When I quit posting, my wife had been beat up and her sister was gone. As it turned out, her sister got on a bus and headed to Las Vegas. We were able to track her through a couple of credit card purchases she had made to the Bus Station and then at Circus, Circus. We talked with the police in Nevada because we had to show where she was in order to cancel an APB (All Points Bulletin) put out looking for her in Salt Lake. They were able to go to Circus, Circus and into her room. One of the officers called me to see if there was anything they needed to do. He said that he was an officer that they call out when there is a mental health issue. He could tell she was agitated, but there was nothing to be done because she was doing no harm. I told him, that all was well as far as we were concerned and to just let her stay there without any intervention. She stayed there for a week. We got the APB cancelled and had Steve call and talk to her on an almost daily schedule.

Melanie stayed in Vegas for about a week. My wife, in the meantime, went to her parents house on multiple occasions to pack up Melanie's things. We also went over as a family to move Rod back upstairs into his old bedroom (the master bedroom) which he had given up when she moved in. He couldn't handle it by himself. Margaret continued to be confused about just about everything that has been going on.

When Melanie came home on the bus, we had Jeff meet her at the bus station. He took her to a hotel (a weekly rent one) where she could stay. She has been told not to come back to her parents home because we can't have that kind of behavior. This has caused her to have ill feelings for my wife as well as Pam and Anne. I guess she can't talk good about them in any way shape or form. My wife (and I) have no desire to see Melanie right now. We still had to deal with the courts that came about because of this major problem.

As far as the courts go, we wanted to get Melanie into a mental health court rather than a criminal court. Dee Anne's family was kind of upset at us for even making sure there was a police record of this (although I still feel it was the right choice). While we were waiting for this all to take place, we finally got a court date. It was for March 30th (the same day we were to take our son to the MTC [Missionary Training Center] in Provo, Utah. My wife called them up with a hardship. The clerk was not very nice to her and told her that this court had nothing to do with religion. He treated her pretty rough through the phone. My dear wife was victimized twice now because of this. He told her that she needed to write a letter to the court and include in that letter the address where Melanie was staying. In other words, they had no idea where she was and had no good reason to set up a court date without having served her. Dee Anne and I decided she should not write the letter. Just let it go. The date came and went and a bit later we got a letter stating that unless we did something the case would be dropped. We decided that this was for the best and just let the case drop. This was a huge relief. Dee Anne only wanted to be to the court to defend her sister (which seems kind of strange when she is the victim). They had her in the wrong court system.

Well, enough said about that. Of course, our life continued to move on. We took our son to the MTC on Wednesday March 30th. We picked up our daughter from school and went to a burger joint for lunch in Provo. We were still a bit early, so we went to the Provo Temple grounds (which are across the street from the MTC) and took a few pictures. It was a cold day. Kind of fitting as we would not be seeing our son for the next two years. My wife was in tears, and it hurt my heart to see this was so. She knows it is something that needs to take place and that it is good for our son, but it doesn't make it any easier knowing this. We gave him the final hugs at the MTC and left, feeling a bit empty. It has been hard on my tender wife to have Travis not at home (or in school). We have missed him terribly.

Travis left the MTC and went to the Lubbock, Texas mission on April 18, 2011. We were able to talk to him on the phone while he was in Dallas Texas waiting for another plane. That was quite nice. Of course, he also got to call home on Mothers Day. He bought him a bike and then a couple of days later he was transferred to Abilene, Texas. In Abilene, he got his training. He seemed to grow up a lot in the time that he was there, as we got the emails from him. He had one baptism while he was there, and had more set up to go when he got transferred to a little town called Borger in July. We looked up his address on google maps and when I went to the street view we were able to see two missionaries outside of the building. One of them was on a unicycle. We found that a bit humorous.

In Borger Texas, Travis found that he was now an hour away from the closest set of missionaries (my guess is that they are in Abilene which is 50 miles away) and out of 300 members about 40 were active at church. A counselor in the Elders quorum was asking to be released. This seemed to be a bit discouraging to Travis, but he is buckling down for the work. In just a few weeks, he told us that the numbers of the ward activity improved and people are asking them to go on missionary splits with them. This is all good. We are hoping he has many more positive experiences with this.

Back at home now. During this time we had to get Rod into the hospital because he had cancer of the lung. He had to go in for an operation to take care of that. He also had an aneurysm that had to be taken care of and was life threatening. So, after he healed from his first surgery he went in a second time. Then, after healing from that he had to get a blockage taken out of his colon. This was found to be non-cancerous which was good news for us.

My wife in the meantime has been struggling with taking care of her mother (and father) through all her dementia and Rod through all of his problems. All of this was done while she has been in pain from being beat up back in February (the effects of that are still lingering). She has also had some internal problems with her uterus and is waiting for a hysterectomy that will be taking place at the end of this month.

Meghan has been helping out with a new trailer for her marching band at Bingham High School and now has started a job at Justice for Girls. She has kept pretty darn busy, even when the summer months hit us.

In June, Dee Anne and I went to Dallas, Texas so I could go to a conference. We were able to spend some time together, and it was hot out there. It also was quite spread out and we were glad that we live where we live. Meghan spent that week at her good friends house Katie (her and her family have been a godsend for Meghan).

One thing that I should mention in passing is that Utah had some flooding this year. Water levels were high and it kept on snowing even into June. Thank goodness we didn't heat up all at once, or we would've had major problems. As it happened, the floods were mostly controlled, but some farmlands weren't able to plant which isn't good for the economy.

Speaking of the economy. It has struggled along and is not doing all that well. Hopefully, things will improve soon, but I wouldn't bet on it.

That's about it for now. Who knows when I will post again.

Good News, Bad News

I have a couple of things that I thought should be put in here.

First with the good. Our son filled out all of his mission papers and got them off to the church. We waited for the requisite time and his mission call came in on January 26th. He was called to serve in the Lubbock, Texas mission (English speaking). I do think this will be great for him as his all time favorite food is Barbecued Ribs. I do believe he will have an enjoyable mission experience and know that the Lord calls these young men to the place they are supposed to go. He will be reporting to the MTC (Mission Training Center), in Provo, Utah on March 30th.

So far, my wife and I have spent $1250 at Mr. Mac in order to get his suit, shirts slacks and other things that he will need to go out and teach the gospel. We got what we think is a great discount because of who we knew. Interestingly, the guy that was the salesman is the grandson of the founder of the store. Anyway, I just thought that was some good news and I should note it here.

More good news is that my oldest brother, Larry, has had a procedure again in the hospital that went well. He is still losing the war with his disease, but has won some of the little battles. I am forever grateful for that. He will be missed when he finally passes on.

Now, for the bad. Yesterday, my wife got beat up by her sister. Her sister is bi-polar and I hated hearing this. My wife had just finished cutting her moms hair and then did her sisters hair as well as a birthday gift to her sister. Just in normal conversation after that haircut, all of a sudden she went off into some of her rants. She went into and out of her room a few times and with one of the rants my wife told her to get back in her room. Melanie threw a coke she was holding onto my wife. My wife called her a bitch and then fists flew and my wife was left trying to defend herself. She then jumped on my wife's back and evidently was jumping up and down on her. We're talking an extremely heavy person who was doing this. Finally, my 85 year old Father-in-law went in yelling and told Melanie to just hit me, just once. She backed down. She then left the home and when she tried to come back in my wife pushed her out and locked the door.

I went over after work and sat with them. They finally called the police and they came over at around 4:00. My wife didn't want to press charges and finally, after the officer asked if she felt that others could be harmed, he filed the charges. Now, she will get a letter in two to three weeks for her court date. My wife will get one as well. We just hope that this doesn't come up on March 30th.

Anyway, Pam and Anne came over and then we had my wife leave in case Melanie came back. Pam and Anne also left and I stayed until around 9:30 or thereabouts. Melanie never showed up. Her bedroom door is locked and we would like to get in there without breaking the door. We may have to get a locksmith out. Right now, we are wondering at what point we should put in a missing persons report. Melanie is smart and can take care of herself, so for now they don't want the police and/or the media involved. Personally, I think this is a mistake and I hope I am wrong.

Anyway, enough of the bad.

More Time has gone by

I am getting really terrible at writing anything in here. A lot of the reason is that not a lot has gone on to write about. Another reason is that I am just lazy.

We have had things happen though. Our son has finished his one semester in college. Now, he is getting ready for an LDS mission. This Tuesday he has an interview with the Stake president and hopefully things will move a bit faster from there on out. So far, it has been a long process. He also had his wisdom teeth out on the 4th of this month.

Our daughter is still plugging along in school. She is also going out on dates with a guy named Mike. He seems to be a really nice guy. She made him a comforter for Christmas and it was fun to see the excitement in her eyes as she gave it to him.

I don't know if I have said this or not, but I was called into the Bishops office and it was re-iterated that I am still on the Scout Committee. But, they added a new job for me and that is as a primary worker. More specifically, I was put in to teach the 8-9 year olds and I moved up with them this year so it is the 9-10 year olds. That isn't too difficult of a job and I do enjoy the class.

My wife and I have been plugging along in our marriage, but it isn't easy. I am doing all that I can to help it to survive because when I married her, I married her for eternity. I don't know how to do all things and I continue to make mistakes. I do love her more than anything and pray that we will be able to overcome all obstacles and make our marriage strong.

She is the most beautiful person in the world, and I love her more than she will ever know.

Time Keeps on Slipping into the Future

Once again, it's been awhile since I last put anything in here. It's not that nothing has been going on, but rather, I have been quite busy.

At work, I have started to take a Java class. At times I feel kind of lost in there as it is a different kind of programming language than any I have ever done. I think it will come as I get into it later (this is the route my office is going to be taking), but in the meantime I will be a bit lost. I also get most of the concepts as I am reading other peoples code. At some point though, I will have to create some real code (as opposed to what we have been doing in class), and I just hope that I will be ready at that time.

Our son is still down at Snow College. He says that college life is agreeing with him. He seems to like it although it looks like he is being a bit of a loner (even down there). He says he is doing a good job in his classes. When we last had him here, we had him go into the dentist so he could get the dentist paperwork done for his mission. It looks like he will need his wisdom teeth out, and he doesn't seem to like that idea too much.

Our daughter has been plugging along in Marching Band at Bingham High School. They are in open class this year, so competition has been rough. They felt good this last week to take 3rd place out of four high schools that are in the class. She also seems to be doing well in school. She is getting ready to go to California with the Marching Band and is looking forward to doing that at the end of this week. She will also be going to her first dance (it was girls choice) and is looking forward to that. The one other thing is that she is spending a lot of her time with a boy named Mike. He seems to be a pretty good kid and he treats her well.

My wife and I are plugging along at our marriage and at times it seems that things are going pretty rough. When I feel that we are making progress something almost always happens to knock it back again. It makes me wonder if this is Satan who would try to come in and destroy a good thing. Heaven knows, I love my wife more than anything or anyone in the world. I pray that things will work out between us. I am in this thing for the long haul.

My brother Larry is going in for a procedure today on his heart. I sure hope that goes well as well.

Oh, and one final thing... We got the family picture.

I'm sure there is a lot that I am missing, but until I get better at writing in a journal, this is going to have to do. Time keeps on Slipping into the Future.

Travis College - Layoffs at Work - Meghan Heart Monitor and other stuff

It's been over a month. There is no way that I can catch up everything. I'll try to remember things that happened and put them here.

The first thing I will write about is that we took Travis out to Snow College. He seems to be enjoying his time there at school. He did have to change a bowling class to a swimming class because he found out that the bowling class is about a mile away and getting there on time every day was just too much.

In the meantime we had a family picture. Since Eileen was here in Salt Lake because of the pending marriage of her daughter, we were able to get together to get a picture together. We realized that some of the people wouldn't be able to be there, and we moved around to arrange a place that we could photoshop some of them into the picture later. The picture was taken in a couple of ways. Of course two of my three kids were not in the picture.

A few days after that picture, we were able to go to the marriage of Karen. I took the day off of work for this and we had a pretty good time. My wife was tired so she wasn't able to attend the reception that evening and I went alone (our daughter was doing Marching Band).

A couple of weeks ago, I was called at work by my wife to tell me that our daughter had passed out at school. They also said that she had had a seizure. The seizure part turned out to be more than likely false. We did find, however, that our daughter was low on blood sugar (hypoglycemic) and that she was dehydrated (she took two bags in an IV to hydrate). At one point they had her stand up and she was wanting to lay back down as she felt her head would explode and she wasn't doing well. After we had her to the ER we had to take her to a doctors office to get a heart monitor. She had to wear that thing until this last Monday and it was constantly sending stuff from the monitor to a cell phone (through blue tooth) and on to a company that monitors that kind of thing. They were looking for arrhythmia's. We still need to get the results to that.

With all of that going on, we did go to the Bingham Alta game to keep our eye on her and enjoyed watching a good game at the Rice/Eccles stadium.

On Labor Day weekend, we were able to go pick up our son from school and go to the cabin. We got a couple of pictures of him while he was there (and by that I mean about 100). A couple of those pictures were so we can photoshop them into the family picture. Others were so we could have some pictures of him with our daughter so we can cherish them in his absence. Of course, there was Swiss Days and that type of thing as well.

Another thing that has happened is that we had Verizon (a phone company) that wanted to build a 69 foot cell phone antennae in our neighborhood at the park. I got the Scouts to go to a meeting on that and a bunch of us spoke out against that. I think what we did must have worked because we were able to get Verizon to relook at that issue and they moved the tower to a commercial area (in some storage units). We were glad for that.

Another thing of note should be the layoff that happened at my work. The economy is down, so we had layoffs in order to come into compliance with that economy. Nineteen people were layed off including two in my department. I wasn't one of them. I hate it when this kind of thing happens. I will have to watch what I do to make sure that something like this doesn't happen to me (hopefully). I feel bad for those that lost their jobs.

Finally, I will say that I was pulled into the bishoprics office and released from my church job as Assistant Scout Master. I was put onto the Scout Committee instead.

Well, that's about it for the month. I'm sure there is a lot more, but my memory isn't so good, especially when I don't write here for so long.

Scout Camp - Prepare Travis for College - Helping In-laws

I just looked at the last time I wrote anything in here. I am getting worse at this as time goes on, rather than better. I feel a bit guilty for not writing in a journal, and know that it is something that I should just do. Oh well, I guess I can only move on from here.

Since I last wrote, I have taken a week off of work and went to Scout Camp. It was at Camp Tomahawk which is up in the Uintahs. We started out with only two Scouts. Both of them were named (I guess they still are) Parker. In the middle of the week we had another Parker come up and Jackson (who I told we were simply going to call Parker to keep with the theme). The camp was quite nice and we were able to get the boys to their classes for merit badges. We mostly got to relax around camp, and a couple of times I got on my computer up by the office area where they had Wifi. I even ran most of the relay race that hey had done but because I am out of shape and because of the high altitude this pretty much wore me out. Nothing much happened to really talk about up there. The weather was good other than at night when it down poured a couple of the nights.

I arrived home on Saturday and found that we would leave for my in-laws cabin on Sunday the 25th of July. We did some fireworks on the 24th with my in-laws. Pam and Anne were there as well as Gladys.

As a family, we spent Sunday through Wednesday evening up at the cabin. We didn't do much, but I continued taking the walks that I had started taking on the summer camp, and we did do things like bowling and other activities that you can do up there. We had an enjoyable time as a family. This would be one of the last activities we could really do as a family before our son takes off for school.

Speaking of school, we are trying to get the various things that Travis needs for school. Since he is living on campus we have to get him basic living things. That is costing a fair amount. He also had to get him a new laptop (which he is mostly covering) and then there are still the books. I think we are almost there now, so it shouldn't be too bad going forward. The other thing we will need to worry about is his food allowance.

Travis has also gone in to talk to the bishop about a mission. He has been made an Elder now (by me) and is doing the growing up thing. We have to somehow work out his education with his mission and there is still a lot to be done there.

One thing that we didn't want to have to take care of, but we are is that my mother-in-law has not been paying all of her bills on time. We found out when we went to leave the cabin and gave her a phone call. The phone had been disconnected. When we arrived at her home we went in and I got on the phone with the phone company and paid their bill on my credit card so we could get it back in service quickly. We looked at a couple of other bills at the same time and paid the ones that were overdue or due shortly. Last week we went back to their home and I put them on electronic payment of most of their bills, and we will work on a couple of others as we go. I will also be monitoring their account to make sure that nothing untoward happens there.

Melanie had been put into the psyche ward just before I went on Scout camp and was released just before I got home. She seems to be doing a bit better than before, so maybe she is taking her meds now.

Another thing that I am probably going to be involved in is a cell phone tower they want to put in our park. It is a 69 foot monstrosity and will be an ugly thing right in the soccer park by us and across the street from our church. I went to a city planning meeting to put in my objection to it, and for now it is tabled. They want more information on it before September the 14th when they will once again bring it up and maybe do an action on it. Jolyn Alger is doing a lot of the legwork as she did on the Jordan School District thing.

Well, that sums up about a months worth of stuff. I haven't been too specific on anything, as happens when you aren't writing regularly.

Birthday - and other miscellaneous things

I am not getting much better at writing here. It's not worse than the last time, but it is not good. Once again, I won't be able to remember a ton of details about things, but here is my take on my life.

Over the weekend of my 50th birthday, I needed to keep myself open and ready to do some testing of the mainframe and my jobs in particular to make sure they worked after moving the mainframe from the old building to the new building. They decided to take the mainframe down on Thursday July 1st at the close of the business day. We were told to go ahead and take Friday off as an Admin day because the computer would be moving. That didn't happen as quickly as they had hoped, but it did happen.

On my birthday, my family went out to Johanna's Kitchen for lunch. I had a breakfast there, but it was lunch time. Since it was close to my new office, I took my family to the office to show them my new work place. We only spent a little bit of time there, and then left. When we were passing the home of Janet Chidester, we decided to drop in and let her see our kids all grown up (she knew them when they were little). We ended up staying a good portion of the afternoon there. In the meantime, Anne came and picked up our daughter and then we had to get home in time for our son to get to a parade. Not too much else went on this day.

Saturday the third I was told that I needed to hang around my computer for testing. I did get a text at around 3:00 that it wouldn't be happening until Sunday, so I was finally able to leave my computer at home. Our daughter came home, and we were able to go to the Sandy parade. It was about a half mile from my office so we parked there and walked up to the park. After the parade we went to Sizzler for dinner and then waited at my office. Our son and daughter played some foos ball and just hung out. We then went to the windows around 9:30 and the fireworks started about 10:00. It was interesting looking out the window and seeing all the people set up their chairs on the lawns of our office building. We were on the fifth floor and watched fireworks from there. It was pretty neat. We could also see the Riverton fireworks going on. We were able to get out of the office and get home without too many crowds. It was quite enjoyable.

Sunday, we decided to go to the cabin of my in-laws. We called them and told them we would pick them up and that we only had room for them and a couple of items that they may need. Soon after arriving at the cabin, I had to logon to work. I spent quite awhile online watching my jobs run and getting things to work right. There was only one problem and we got that taken care of so I could finish out the jobs. I was glad to see everything working as well as it was. We stayed for most of the day on the 5th of July and came home a little later. On the way to my in-laws home we saw Melanie walking. She didn't look too good, so we asked our son to walk over there so we could give her a ride the rest of the way. She is in poor health.

It was back to work on Tuesday and things have been pretty normal from there on out (other than having to actually help move the last group of people over). Anyway, everybody is now in the new building and we had very few problems.

We are starting to have some problems with Melanie living in my in-laws home. She needs to get out of there because there is agitation taking place with my mother-in-law taking the brunt of Melanie's bipolar disorder. We have found that she is not taking her meds and we need to look into a possibility of Adult Protection Services. If push comes to shove, we will be putting Melanie out of their home. Hopefully, sooner than later. Hopefully, Melanie will choose to leave when we can give her a couple of options. Time will tell. We are a bit scared for the welfare of my in-laws.

Tonight, we went over to help Sister Babinchack with her weeding and a few other things. My son and wife went while I went to Young Men only to find out not a lot was going on. I changed and then went on over. It is a good feeling to help out your neighbors. I am out of shape and this reinforced that. I will be a bit stiff from the work.

Also today, I had to get in and get a physical. I had Dr Daynes add a blood pressure medication to all the other meds I am taking because my blood pressure has been too high. Anyway, that's about it for now.

It's been a long time since I wrote

Wow! About a month and a half since I last put anything here. I really should write more often. Life has been quite busy for me though, and I am finally taking a moment to write.

While quite a bit happened, I know I'm not going to remember it in detail so this will probably be short despite it all.

In a nut shell, here are some of the events.

Casey was able to have his grandparents meet him in China so they could bring him home to Las Vegas. He has been fine, and there haven't been anymore episodes with him. Pam and Anne went to Vegas to see him and his brother and then they brought Casey back to the Salt Lake area for a visit. Zach, in the meantime had to go back East to take some finals that he had missed and do general catch up.

We have learned that my mother-in-law has had some mini strokes and this has caused her to have some form of dementia. This is concerning to us, especially since Melanie is in her home with her bi-polar disorder. We would like to find a way to get Melanie out and on her own to help out the situation in that house as well as to help out Melanie and her dependence. That is something that we will have to simply work out.

Our son had his final band performance that was held at the U of U. That was a nice time out. We let our daughter hang out with some of the people there and I think she had fun because of the socializing.

We were able to spend a little bit of time with Casey when he came to our home to sleep over for a couple of evenings. We didn't do a lot with him, but I was able to talk with him a bit and to learn a little bit about him. I enjoyed the time that he was able to spend at our home.

My family left to Florida on the 4th of June. We were there until the 11th of June. Our dog, Lizzy, spent that week with Randy and Therese (our next door neighbors). I went to Florida for a summit dealing with my work. It went Saturday through Wednesday. So, Friday evening we had to ourselves, but after the long trip there you are just kind of tired. We didn't do much but we did look around at the hotel. It was at the Gaylord Hotel in Florida. Take a look at the link to see how beautiful this hotel is. Our room was quite tiny though.

I went to classes all that week while my family was going out and hitting Disney World. They had a lot of fun with this. Monday evening, as a part of the summit, I went to Universal Studios where they had rented the park. There were a couple of rides in there that made me a bit sick, but I got through it without throwing up.

Tuesday, Aubree came up to see us from Tampa. She stayed the night with us on a blow up mattress that did not work. She had to blow it up about three times during the night. I'm sure she had a miserable sleep that night. But, while I was in class, Aubree got to go with my family to Magic Kingdom and then I met up with them after my classes were over. We had a good time out there, but there was one ride that said it was only a 30 minute wait and it ended up being a 60 minute wait instead in cramped hot quarters. My wife was going nuts with this because she had had a long day out in the heat.

Wednesday there wasn't a lot going on with the Summit, so I was able to go with my family to Downtown Disney. We spent the day just kind of hanging out. We did some swimming when we got home from that and then Aubree left to sleep at a friends house because that mattress didn't work out too well.

Thursday morning Aubree showed up at our hotel for a bit and then she had to head back to Tampa so she could go to work. We went to the Hollywood Studios of Disney and spent a good portion of the day there. That was kind of fun. My wife and daughter left before my son and I left. We only went to a few more things there and then came back. I saw why my wife was getting so tired as she went to these parks day by day.

Friday we had to pack up to go home and then left our bags with the Hotel while we went to Downtown Disney again and then we went shopping at a few places around our Hotel. It was just kind of a lazy time. We finally decided that we had better get to the airport and got there in plenty of time to catch our flight. After arriving home, we picked up our dog and called it a night.

Getting back to work was kind of a pain because there is some catching up I had to do. Then, we had to get ready for a move at work. I packed up my stuff from work on Monday the 21st and then Tuesday went to the new destination. WCF is now located in Sandy. We were the first group to move over and are still moving people over even now. Over this weekend, the computers will be brought to the new building and I will be going from there. It has been interesting because we have been helping others move over to the new building as well as doing our regular work. So far, things have gone smoothly there.

I do have to say that my wife and I had a good conversation with Zach on Skype (an internet phone). We spent a couple of hours discussing religious things with him. He is on the plane of not wanting to be religious right now. It was a fun conversation for both my wife and I (and I hope Zach enjoyed it as well).

Our daughter went to EFY (Especially For Youth - a church thing) and then our ward had it's Youth Conference. Thursday evening was a time for the whole group where they played games outside and then Friday they did Baptisms for the Dead and a service project cleaning the fence at the temple. They then headed down to Manti (close to Ephraim where our son will be going to school) to watch the Manti pageant. She ran into my brother and his family while she was down there.

Our son, in the meantime has been going out to Salt Lake Community College for their marching band. He has done a couple of parades and still has a few more over this next month (three this Saturday).

Well, that's about it. At least the things I can think of.

Birthdays - Mothers Day - And other family things

This time it's been a long time since I last wrote. I can't remember all that went on, but there are things that should be written down. I have been fairly busy at times, and then there are times I am doing nothing at all.

The 20th is too long ago for me to remember what all went on on a day by day basis. So, you aren't going to get the normal things, but other things that have gone on. The first day to note would be Friday the 30th of April. That would be my daughters birthday.

I took the day off from work on that day to help my wife take care of things to prepare for our daughters sweet 16 birthday. We had bought meat the previous night and we also made sure to get some other things. We still had to go shopping on that day to pick up a few things. My wife did a nice job of decorating the house, and I did what I could to help. We both cut up some vegetables and I prepared the meat for some kabobs. I do have to say that the kabobs came out pretty darn tasty (thank goodness for good recipes).

Well, our daughter had a bunch of friends come over (I'm glad that all 16 didn't come over). There was some opening of gifts and the one that she got from one friend was a pair of goldfish. They were named after my daughter (Trip and Fall). The girls poured in too much fish food and I am sure that is the reason that one of the fish died a couple of days later (I believe it was Fall).

Anyway, we had the girls do their own kabobs and then I put them on the grill. It is nice because it only takes about 10 minutes to cook on the grill. You turn them over after 5 minutes. The girls stayed quite late and watched a movie using our clearplay DVD player. There was also some mindless games. Another thing that was nice was that Katherine (one of our neighbors) made a nice birthday cake for our daughter in the form of a castle. It was oohed and aahed over for a bit.

Well, I think that was good for our daughter to have this party. We were just glad to have it over with.

The next thing that I can think of that happened would be a phone call that we got. I don't remember the exact date, but it would've been about the time of the birthday. We found out that our nephew had a psychiatric episode. We still don't know what all is wrong with him, but tests are going on right now to try and figure it out. Casey was in China (where he has been for a year and was planning on spending another year there with George Washington University) and he evidently stripped off all of his clothes and ran up and down the halls and knocked on peoples doors because he was sure that somebody was out to kill him. He also called the fire department and died his red hair black (getting his eyebrows as well) so he could disguise himself. They got him to a hospital where he tried to escape (because he thought he could) and then they put him in the psych ward. His grandparents (who raised him) were in China, so Zach had to contact them to get them to the hospital. They did get there and a few days later they were able to fly with him back to the United States and then had to drive from LAX to Las Vegas. They then got some places that could check out what all the problems may be. This is ongoing. It has been very concerning to my family and we have had Casey in our prayers repeatedly.

The next thing that I can think of would be my wifes birthday. I stayed home from work on that day as well. We went out to have a lunch and to grab a couple of things and then came home for a little while. We had tickets (my wifes birthday present) to watch Sugarland in concert. I was on the computer too long and we weren't able to go out to a nice dinner (like I had planned) but we did grab a bite to eat at Kneaders.

We got to the concert right at 7:30. The first guy to sing was a guy from American Idol. He did a pretty good job and then they had Julianne Hough. She did a good job singing, but my wife and I hated the way she was dancing. She was using some poles and it made us uncomfortable. Especially since she said that her family was there (she is from Utah). I was laughing at the guy in front of us because when she started some of her "dirty" dancing, the guy in front of us ripped the binoculars out of his girl friends hands. He was in his late forties to early fifties. He kept his eyes glued on her while she was doing all of this.

Sugarland finally came on with an extravagant stage. The tour is called incredible machine and it was set up like a huge clock with a bridge that went through it and a big jumbo tron that looked like a watch face. The lights and everything to it was just wonderful. My wife and I had our ears blown out by how loud they had the music though. It was an incredible concert. I am glad I got those tickets. We enjoyed it thoroughly.

Saturday, (the 8th) we went to my sisters house for my parents sixtieth anniversary (it actually happened on the 14th of April but we were celebrating it this night instead). It was all of my brothers and my sister with their spouses. Eileen couldn't be there because she is all the way in North Carolina. It was nice to see my brother Keith. We haven't seen him for awhile. There was a bunch of the banter that happens when my family gets together, and there were tears of joy as we listened to some of the experiences of my sister and Kevin while he was in prison (he is on house arrest till the 30th of June while finishing out his stay at the halfway house). We both enjoyed this.

Sunday the 9th was Mothers Day. I gave my wife some lotions and bath stuff. The kids made her breakfast in bed (egg McMuffins) and then we went to church. We headed over to my Mother-in-laws home after that for dinner. It was a nice roast dinner. We went to my parents home briefly and then back to the in-laws. Not much else went on from there.

Well, now this week has come and gone, but there isn't a lot to say, so I won't.

Gospel Discussion - Geocaching

There hasn't been too much that has gone on. Last Thursday, my wife's cousin, Linda came over to get her hair done. We got into a discussion that included why a woman would need to obey her husband because of what had happened with Adam and Eve. It was an interesting discussion, and though I wasn't being attacked, it kind of felt that way because of the two women who were asking the questions of me. I finally found something that I thought answered it pretty well, and they both agreed that it was a beautiful way of saying it. Here is what I came up with:

Many people have difficulty understanding or correctly applying the Lord’s words to Eve at the time of the Fall: “Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” (Gen. 3:16.) Some feel this is demeaning to women, and some men use it as an excuse to exercise unrighteous dominion. Can you give some insight on this verse?

S. Michael Wilcox, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, Feb. 1994, 63

S. Michael Wilcox, instructor, Salt Lake University Institute of Religion. Part of the reason this verse troubles some people is that they place the emphasis on the word rule instead of on the word desire, which is the key word of the phrase. The root origins of desire give added meaning. Desire means “to long for, to stretch out towards, and to yearn for.” This was not a curse upon Eve but a blessing. Let’s suppose that just before my daughter was to be married, she came to me and asked for a father’s blessing. Let’s further suppose that when I laid my hands on her head, I gave her the following blessing: “I bless you that you will always feel a desire toward your husband. You will long to be with him in eternity. Your heart will stretch out to him in love, and you will yearn for his companionship. I further bless you that he will preside over your home in righteousness and honor.” Would she feel I had cursed and punished her? Surely every righteous woman in the Church desires to be married to a husband and to be able to love him in that manner.

President Spencer W. Kimball offered this valuable insight regarding the phrase “thy husband … shall rule over thee”: “I have a question about the word rule. It gives the wrong impression. I would prefer to use the word preside because that’s what he does. A righteous husband presides over his wife and family.” (Ensign, Mar. 1976, p. 72.)

Also we remember the man the Lord was talking about when he said these words to Eve. Adam was the great Michael, he who had helped Jehovah create the earth, the great first prophet of the Lord on earth, a most righteous son of God. Those who interpret God’s blessing upon Eve as a punishment have not understood the meaning of scripture. The Lord was telling Eve that she would be watched over, cared for, and protected by the righteous love of a noble husband as she entered the fallen world. In the misunderstandings typical of mortality, how ironic that many men take this verse and use it as license to exercise unrighteous dominion and to rule over their wives instead of treating their wives in a manner to encourage a spouse’s desire toward them.

In October 1993 general conference, Elder Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve said: “Should a man ‘exercise control or dominion or compulsion … in any degree of unrighteousness,’ … he violates ‘the oath and covenant which belongeth to the priesthood.’ … Then ‘the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved.’ … Unless he repents he will lose his blessings.” (Ensign, Nov. 1993, p. 22; see D&C 84:39; D&C 121:37.)

In the general Relief Society meeting held prior to general conference, Elder M. Russell Ballard, also of the Quorum of the Twelve, said: “God has revealed through his prophets that men are to receive the priesthood, become fathers, and with gentleness and pure, unfeigned love they are to lead and nurture their families in righteousness as the Savior leads the Church (see Eph. 5:23). They have been given the primary responsibility for the temporal and physical needs of the family (see D&C 83:2). Women have the power to bring children into the world and have been given the primary duty and opportunity as mothers to lead, nurture, and teach them in a loving, spiritual environment. In this divine partnership, husbands and wives support one another in their God-given capacities. By appointing different accountabilities to men and women, Heavenly Father provides the greatest opportunity for growth, service, and progress. He did not give different tasks to men and women simply to perpetuate the idea of a family; rather, He did so to ensure that the family can continue forever, the ultimate goal of our Heavenly Father’s eternal plan.” (Ensign, Nov. 1993, p. 90.)

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This is the link: http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=a29f425e0848b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

Well, there were other things too, but that took a bit of research for me. I was just glad to come up with it.

Not much went on Friday or Saturday. We did go on a walk on Saturday because the weather was nice. We need to do that more often. I enjoyed the walk with my wife. Also, on Friday I had to go pick up a medication. I decided to find a geocache that was in the area that I was in while I was out there. My wife thinks that this is just a bit odd for a guy who is almost 50 years old and enjoying going out to find geocaches. That was the first one that I found that had a travel bug in it. There were actually two. One was an elephant (meant for Republican) and the other was a bell. They have a tracking number on them so people can follow where they go. I left them there because this cache required that you leave a travel bug if you take one out. So far, on the caches that I have found (all four of them), I haven't taken anything, and I have only left something in one so far. Some of them are only big enough to sign the log (which is fine with me). The fun in this is finding the caches and where people put them.

Yesterday was just the normal Sunday stuff. We went to church and just took it easy for the day. Not much happened today either. I did find one cache on my way home from work. There is another cache that I tried to find, but couldn't quite find it. Reading the logs it looks like that one is a bit difficult to find. People see it as a creative one.

Well, that's about it.

Derek and Andrea got Married

It's only been a couple of days since my last confession.... wait, that's not what I mean... It's only been a couple of days since I last wrote. I just thought I should say something about a marriage that happened today.

First, I'll start by stating that Tuesday evening, I went to Scouts where we had Bro. Bean teach the boys about Personal management. He did a good job and for the most part kept the boys attention. Glen had his computer set up so we were able to look at a couple of stocks for the boys to track and hopefully, they all start working on the three months tracking of finances for the completion of this merit badge.

Today I stayed home from work. There wasn't a lot of reason to go into work because Derek was getting married to Andy (Andrea). I enjoyed sleeping in, but for some reason was a bit tired. We had to leave the house by 8:30 this morning so we could be to the Timpanogus Temple. As it was, we got there early. It was a beautiful day outside although there was a slight chill in the air.

We knew of an earthquake that had happened in China yesterday so we were a bit concerned that Casey would be involved in that (he wasn't). So, I was looking on my blackberry for some information on that. For the most part we found enough to make us believe he was fine. We didn't even know where he was for sure in China.

Well, we went into the sealing room of the temple. We were surprised to see that Kevin was able to be there, as I wasn't sure since he is still on house arrest (not even on parole). Anyway, who are we to judge? I knew of two ex convicts that were in the room. But then our gospel is one of forgiveness and love, so why not?

My Uncle Gene was the officiator (sealer) of this ceremony. He gave a pretty nice speech before they were married, but I sometimes wonder about some of the things that are said. I appreciated what he said, and I know it was all done in the way of advice as well as a help to the young couple.

After the wedding, we all waited for Derek and Andy to come out of the temple. I had the opportunity to talk with my brother Larry. He told me that he has been living on his savings for the past two years and that he was hoping to be able to turn a profit from his businesses soon. I asked him how the health care reform would affect his businesses and was told that for the most part it wouldn't as he is under 50 employees. There seemed to be some concern for his employees though who would have to purchase some kind of insurance. I don't know what that will do to the businessman. He then told me how some of his construction businesses aren't fairing well partly because most of the construction businesses out there do not have businessmen running them. They don't understand that they are losing money until it is too late. Also, he said he has a problem with those companies that don't pay their fair share of taxes and get the construction licenses they are required to do. They also don't pay workmens compensation which in the long run helps keep the legitimate businesses out and the illegitimate business are able to keep on running because they aren't paying all the expenses.

The health care that we were talking about got to my wife. She sat down and discussed a lot of that with my brother. He was able to explain things to her so much better than I have been able too. He did say that the reform would be better for him personally because of his and his wife's pre-existing conditions. He said that he would pay less. But, he is concerned because his kids and grand-kids will pay more. He doesn't think that is right. He would rather pay his portion. He also told her that he is against us all being forced to pay for some commodity. This is absolutely wrong. It was nice for my wife to have this kind of discussion with my brother.

Well, pictures happened next and then we went to my brothers house to wait for the wedding breakfast. We did finally get over to the church where the wedding breakfast was to take place. It was a good time and my sister did a good job on a limited income.

My wife and I went home and I slept for a bit. My wife stayed home with our son and I went back to the reception with our daughter. We had a good time at the reception and I was able to talk with a lot of my relatives and my sisters ex-husband. I'm glad I went, but I probably stayed too long.

Anyway, my congratulations go to Derek and Andy with wishes that they will have a successful and loving relationship in their forever marriage.

I should also mention that today is my parents 60th wedding anniversary.

Sand Dunes and Miscellaneous

Time is flying by even faster now. I hadn't realized it had been so long since I last wrote here. There is no way that I can remember all that has happened over this past little while. There must not be too much to write or I would remember it.

The first thing I can remember is that General Conference happened. We were able to listen to all the sessions of conference even though we were in different rooms in the house. Our kids surprised us (pleasantly) as they chose to watch all of the sessions of conference. Saturday evening, I went with my son to the Stake Center to watch the priesthood session. Late Saturday night my wife was busy getting Easter Baskets ready for our kids. She wasn't going to do it, but the little girl in her took over and she chose to actually get the baskets and hide them. After I had gone to bed she even got the bunny tracks (pieces of paper with bunny paws) that she had to let the kids know that the Easter Bunny had been there. Our daughter tried to follow the Bunny tracks to find her Easter Basket. We had to tell her that they didn't lead to them anymore because she should be old enough to find hers on her own. Well, they both found their baskets.

Being General Conference, we went to my parents house on Sunday. My wife had made her veggie pizza and we were able to say hi to Kevin outside my parents house. Because he is on house arrest he was not allowed to go inside. He (and his family) were in Suits and Dresses so I'm pretty certain they went downtown to watch conference at the Conference Center. That was probably his church time which he is allowed to leave his home for. My sister went in the house and got them both a plate to eat and then left with her husband. We had a nice dinner and barely got everything down in time for conference to start. I found that I watch conference better when I get a place on the couch (which I had for the very first time ever).

We went over to see my wife's parents after conference. Our son had told us that there was a problem with Melanie acting out when we dropped our dog off. That didn't happen while we were there, although I wondered if Rod started it by saying some anti-LDS things about women. He tried that while we were there. We didn't let it fly though. That was nipped in the bud. It was good to not have all this crap going on.

The next thing I can think of was Young Men on the 6th. Glen was sick and Brother Olsen wasn't able to make it either because he had to help out Brother Jackson. At least Brother Bean was able to come up on the stage with me where we made rockets so we could hopefully blast them off at the sand dunes on the weekend. At least we had something to do, and it wasn't too bad. I was also told that both Glen and Scott (Olsen) would not be able to make it to the Dunes on Friday and Saturday. If I was to go, I had to find one of the parents. Jordan said that maybe his dad could go. I talked to him later and he said that he could make it.

At work all last week I had meetings. I was in learning the new Riskmaster system so I can maybe help out with things when we take that over from the Portland office. It was interesting, but got boring at times. That lasted from Tuesday through Thursday. Friday, I was off from work and was able to go on a walk with my wife and then we went out to eat at Rumbi's. I really enjoyed the time being with her. We did have to go to the store to pick up a few things and I had to get stuff together for the Sand Dunes.

I packed all my stuff and made me a tin foil dinner. When our son came home, we asked him if he wanted to go to the scout camp at the Dunes. At first he didn't want to go, but then decided he would go. I made him a quick tin foil dinner as well. We met at Glens house at 4:00 in the afternoon. There were more boys than we thought would be going, so it looked like we would need to take the trailer. This was the first time that I have put a hitch onto our Honda Pilot. It handled pretty well all the way down there and wasn't too bad as far as getting everything there.

With the two leaders (three if you count my son who is 18) we had a total of eleven people at the camp. I loaded a few geo caches on my GPS to see if I would even be close to one while we were at the Sand Dunes. I took the thing and the boys in my car enjoyed hearing Dr Nightmare, Elfred (an elf) and a Yeti talk on the GPS. On the way home they asked for some of those as well as we put on a Japanese lady speaker.

Last year when we went to the dunes it was $8 a car. I had cash for both cars but then found out it went to $18 a car. I had to write a check to get us both through. They would take credit cards but we would've had to go inside for that. Anyway, $36 lightened from my load and we were in. We got one of the last places at the Dunes to camp. Ken asked if we should go somewhere else and I said no that this place was good enough because we may not get another place and in the process may lose this one. It was a good location and it was next to the rest room (a plus). The boys put up their tents and I was grateful to have my son to help me put up my tent. We got a fire going because we needed coals for tin foil dinners. The boys went to play in the dunes and I sent my son up to take pictures of them. We cooked the dinners and it was good (although my son and I had to put ours back in the fire to cook all the way through). One of the boys had hot dogs and one boy didn't bring anything but his teddy grahams that he shared on the drive up. Some of the boys shared their meals with him.

We roasted marshmallows at night (it is a way to keep the boys from just going into their tents) and then Ken, myself and my son stayed out and talked at the diminishing fire. We had some good conversations and I did get out of my son that he is indeed planning on going on a mission. While we were doing that one of the boys came out of his tent and came over. I asked what was wrong and then some boys behind him said to do it. He yelled, "I hate puberty!" and ran back to the tent. A bit later, a bunch of boys were out in their boxer shorts (or swim suits) yelling the same thing. At that point we decided that something had better be said. I went to the tents and told them that they needed to look at what they were playing and make sure it was up to the standards that we wanted to portray. It was cold out so it wasn't comfortable for them to be running around half naked. It was also 10 now and we told them that it was time to be quiet for the other campers. We stayed out until around 11:00 in the evening. I remember looking up at the stars and wishing I could share that moment with my wife. It was incredibly beautiful.

There were a couple of four wheelers that went during the night (its against the rules) so I was grateful that I had thought to bring ear plugs. It was also a cold night.

Morning came, and we got everybody up and out. A fire was built and breakfast was brought out. They made french toast, sausage, and bacon. The plates were forgotten, so it was a bit more difficult to eat the french toast, but they made do. Tents were taken down and then a little bit of playing. Only one rocket was able to be fired because the engines that we had brought didn't fit any of them but the one. That one blew apart in the air and all but the one fin was found. I went with my son (actually he was ahead of me because I stayed behind to go with the Rockets until I found that only one was going to be done) to a geo cache that wasn't very far away. It was up a horrendous hill though. I lost sight of my son and all of a sudden his tracks weren't there. It was a hard climb because it was steep and in the sand. I thought I wouldn't make it. So did my son. When I called out his name he called me on the cell phone. He was surprised that I had made it up the hill. Anyway, we found it by a tree in some rocks. We signed my moniker and I put in a coupon for $1 off a Papa Murphy's pizza. There was a dollar bill in there and some scout items like tote-n-chip. There was also some stickers and just a few nic-nacs. That was my second find (ever). I kind of like finding them. I need to do it more often.

We left soon after this and arrived home by noon. I got the car washed and then did a little bit of laundry. That's about all that went on that day.

Sunday was church, and I found out that I am going to be the one speaker (as far as the scout leaders go) at Jordan's Eagle Scout court of honor.

One thing that happened today that I want to point out is that I saw an arrest happen. I was going to the restroom at work when I looked out the window and watched as a cop pulled over a car into our parking lot. Another cop pulled up and they both got out and went to both sides of the car. After talking a bit, they got the woman out and she calmly walked to the back of the patrol car putting her hands on the car. They searched her and then put cuffs on. Another officer came and the second officer came into our office (he is one of our security guards). I asked him what had happened (I had to turn in my borrowed badge since I forgot mine). He told me that she was on parole and claimed that she had talked with her parole officer. They called him and he said she needed to be arrested. Plus the fact that she had drugs and a couple of warrants out for her arrest. I guess she'll be put away again for a time. It's good to see our men in blue get the bad guys.

Time keeps on flying by

A little more than a week has gone by now. I don't know how much I can remember from a whole week, but maybe I can remember some of it. Here goes my attempt at that.

The first thing I can think of was having Friday off of work. We really didn't do that much, but the kids were home from school (end of quarter) and my wife had Gwen come over. It snowed just before Gwen got to our house. My wife cut Gwen's hair (just a trim) and then Gwen visited with us for a bit. She got reacquainted with Dee Anne and saw how our kids have grown (it's been a really long time since we had last seen her).

Gwen is a childhood friend of my wife's and it was good that she had the opportunity to reconnect with her. They also set up a lunch for a couple of weeks down the road.

In the mail of Friday we got a Netflix CD that allows us to use the WII in order to connect and watch the movies online. That seems to work quite well and now we can get the movies to our TV. I have watched a couple of movies using that and like the way it works.

Saturday I had to get with the Scouts and do a food drive for the Utah Food Bank. I drove the vehicle around while a couple of Scouts went to each door and asked for food. We didn't get a lot, but we did get more than what I thought we would. After arriving home, I headed back out to get the Honda Pilots emission check. That way I can pay the taxes on it and have it legal. I paid those yesterday as that was the last day we had to be legal.

My wife and daughter headed out to look at (and buy) a swimming suit for my daughter. This is to be her birthday present and I think they did well in getting it. It is a whole month early, but they decided that it is better to get it now than wait until everything is picked over.

Sunday, my wife took some of her medications wrong. This made her tired. I went to church with the kids. It was James Sanford's farewell, and he did a pretty good job (as I knew he would). We spent the rest of the day just relaxing at home.

Work has been pretty busy this week. I haven't had a lot of time for anything. A conversion happened over the weekend that caused me to have a few issues. I think I have mostly taken care of it (as of today) but tomorrow and Friday will probably be spent in trying to get everything in its final form. At least I am not in crisis mode.

Tuesday was a Court of Honor for me. Our son went to pizza and our daughter went to some jewelry making thing with the Young Women. The Court of Honor finished early so I was able to be back home in a short time.

Nothing much (out of the ordinary) happened today. Our daughter has been babysitting at the Morden's house tonight and is still out. I will be going to bed soon, and my wife will stay up waiting for her.

One thing I should mention is that last week, my right wrist started to ache. I have carpel tunnel. My wife had braces that I was able to find in the basement on Saturday. I started to wear it and it seems to help out. I have taken it off for quite a bit and when I do certain things I have a sharp pain in the wrist. Tonight it seems to be a bit less pain, so I'll hopefully not wear the brace so much starting tomorrow.

Well, that's it.

Zach - Health Care - Caucus

There's not too much going on, but I had better write something in here, or I'll forget.

Friday evening, Pam and Anne picked up our two kids to take them home for a final time for them to spend with Zach (their cousin) before he heads back to Johns Hopkins University. We didn't do much with them gone.

Saturday, we called to see what was going on and they said they were going to go to the Wach's home and then get some gelato. We headed over for this and to spend some final time with Zach. We had done some housework in the morning, so we were good to go. We also stayed over there for a spaghetti dinner. It was quite nice and we had a good time visiting with family.

Dee Anne and I thought we were going to be taking our kids home but they did not bring their clothes with them and so they went back with Pam and Anne to their home. It was Stake Conference and Dee Anne and I also missed going to it (we really should have gone but didn't).

Zach left Sunday morning and Dee Anne and I showed up to Pam and Anne's house around 5:00 for dinner and then to take our kids home. Marie and Scott showed up and Anne did a little bit to help her cut a dress that Anne had made a while back but Marie wanted it to be shorter now. Anne had to get to work. We didn't stay very long. It was a good time though.

I was disturbed most of Sunday as I knew that The House of Representatives of this country were probably going to be passing this health care that I have been worried about. We call it Obamacare, and I don't believe it is a good thing. There are good things in it, but it is also taking away some of our current liberties. I was right to be disturbed. It passed with only Democrats passing it through reconciliation so they just need a few votes. They chose to do it this way because they lost the super majority which made it possible for Republicans to filibuster the whole process. While this reconciliation has been used in the past, it has not been used on such a huge bill, nor has it been done in a partisan manner. In fact, if anything is bi-partisan it is the rejection of this bill (35 democrats voted against it). The arm twisting that has gone on behind the scenes with the Democrats has been terrible. This is something that we really should take out of existence. At the end of the day, they did pass it.

Nothing much went on yesterday. We all kind of ignored each other.

Today, at work, we had an all employee meeting. As usual, I got bored just being there, but it is something that they expect us all to go to. I wish I could say that I learned something there, but it was more of the same and I already pretty well knew how the company was doing. I didn't win any prizes either, or it may have been a wee bit more fun for me.

We just had sandwiches tonight and then I went to a Republican Caucus. First though, today is the day that Obama passed the health care bill. He is hoping that the amendments that the House Democrats asked for (in return for passing this bill) would go through fast. Republicans are going to do everything to get the amendments back to the house where it can be scrapped. It's kind of doubtful they can do it all though.

The Republican Caucus. Wow! I was a bit late because the lines on the roads just getting into school were phenomenal. The roads were completely backed up. I had to park about a half mile away from the school. When I got to the school, there were oodles of people in the building in various lines. I was glad that I didn't have to get into the unaffiliated lines to sign up to be a registered Republican. Instead, I looked at my card to see that I was in precinct 3530. I went to that line and found that they didn't have my name. He let me sign his roll if I was going to go over and sign up to be a Republican. I went and stood in that bigger line to register (though I knew I was registered). When I got to the front, Bill Ashton was there and had a different precinct number that I didn't have. It was at that time that I found out that our precinct had split. I just had to go to precinct 3521. My name was on that list (so I wasted time in the one line). I had to also take my name off of the 3530 precinct roll.

After all this, I went to the auditorium. It was crammed full of people. They say there were 1200 people at the school. It was hot in the auditorium with standing room only. In the long run there were also people out in the hall that could not fit in. We joked about having to call the fire marshal in to kick out those who did not have a seat. There was some business done at the beginning and then they read the Republican values statement. I found that I agreed with most of the values, but a couple I didn't. Cans went around to collect some money for the party and then we broke off into our precincts.

There weren't very many people there from my precinct, which was a bit scary because I did not want to be a delegate. I guess I didn't need to worry. That did not happen. We voted for the officers (not hard because only one person wanted to be in each position), and then voted for a group of three (I don't remember what they were called) where four wanted to be there. We picked the three and then the State delegate was to be chosen. We needed two. We had four that signed on for that. We had to vote twice to get that through. Each of them had to speak and people were concerned with how conservative they were as well as would they vote against Bob Bennett making it back into office. That was all taken care of and after I talked with Bill and Lisa on the way out, I left.

It was a long night, but interesting. All of the caucuses in the state of Utah (Republican) were filled up. Partly because people seem to be against Bennett for Senate, and a bigger part was because people are up in arms about our current president and Obamacare in particular which was signed into law today. I am quite discouraged. Right now thirteen states have joined a lawsuit against Obamacare for forcing us to have health care. People don't think it will go anywhere, but we can only hope. I am glad that Utah is one of the states on that list. There are 23 other states that are also looking into filing lawsuits.

Magruders - Missionaries - St Patricks Day

Well, I'm back to trying to figure out what went on for most of this week. That's what happens when you don't write things down every day.

On Monday I was able to pick up my laptop from work. It was finally ready, but it would be taken away from me soon enough. I was a bit late from work because of the laptop and met my wife and kids over at the Wach residence. Magruders were there along with their son Zach. We all went out to dinner together at the Olive Garden. It was a nice dinner and then we went back to the Wach home. We had a pretty good visit while we were there, and there were no family arguments as far as politics or religion.

Tuesday evening, I went to the church where the Young Men and Young Women went out as missionaries to various homes to teach a lesson to one of the members who decided to do that. I went with two other adults and three kids. One of the three was in my Deacons quorum. We had a good spiritual time there where all three of the kids did quite well. We then went back to the church were James Sanford spoke to us. He will be going on his mission soon.

Wednesday was St Patrick's Day. After I arrived home and then our son did, we headed out to Pam and Anne's house for a St Patrick's Day dinner. It was a great dinner and then a bunch of people sat down to play a game. I can't remember what it is called right now, but it was a pretty fun game. I mostly watched but had to take the losers hand when they left. I thought it kind of humorous that Marie was out to win at all costs. It didn't matter that nobody else had ever even heard of this game before this. There were things that had people known they could've done a lot better and then she didn't give them any kind of leeway when they did something a little bit wrong, and in one case she had done the same exact thing and got away with it. Oh well. It's only a game.

This morning, I started work on my laptop from home. I took care of some things and then headed into work. Once I was at work, I found that parts of my laptop weren't letting me do what I needed to do. I spent quite a bit of time down at the help desk hoping it was an easy problem. It wasn't. In the long run, I knew they would have to rebuild the software on it again. Hopefully, I will get it back (all fixed) on Friday. Thank goodness I still had my other PC on my desk so I could do my regularly scheduled work. I was even given a task to complete as soon as possible, which I have now done. Paul only told the guy I would have it completed by Monday.

Well, there is nothing else to tell.

Exercise - Zach - Family Arguments and Bipolar disorder

Well, another week has come and gone (well not quite but almost).

Last Tuesday evening I didn't go to the School Districts Board meeting, but I saw some results from it which I disagreed with. They have voted on Public comment to make it so that there can only be 45 minutes worth of total comment and people are limited to just two minutes. People in the audience must be silent and it seems to me that they really don't want to hear what we have to say. In their defense, they did at least get another room where they piped what is going on in the meeting so more people could attend.

Instead of going to that meeting, I, on the advice of my wife, went to Young Men/Young Women. There were two missionaries there who were there to give the Young Men and Young Women a mini MTC (Missionary Training Center) experience. They mostly went over how they commit somebody to do something after they teach them the principle. There was also some role playing. I have to say that I think this is a better way of running this whole thing. Last Sunday, they filled out mission papers, then this on Tuesday. Today, they were to receive their mission calls (my daughter was not there), and in the evening they were to go to their mission presidents home. Tuesday, they go out and teach. It should be interesting.

I can't think of too much that happened on Wednesday or Thursday. However, Thursday I was glad to see that a lot of what we were hoping to pass the Legislature for our district was coming to pass. Hopefully, now that there is a bill that allows us to move funds from one account to another we can pay for our teachers with a part of this and minimize how much we need to pay in taxes. We still will need to be taxed I think, but it could be less. The fight with the Legislature (for this year) is over. Now we need to make sure they District Board takes these new numbers and does the right thing. I will be watching.

I had the day off on Friday. My wife and I stayed home most of the morning and then finally went out and went to lunch. We barely got home in time to see the kids. We told them that we were going for a walk and we went with the dog up to Daybreak Lake. I made the mistake of not wearing a jacket. It was a bit cold (but not too bad). It took us about an hour (at a pretty good walking clip) to walk around the entire lake. I thought I would feel it the next day, but fortunately I was mistaken. After arriving home, we had some Lutheran youth (missionaries?) come around with a survey about beliefs and then they gave us the "right" answers. Well, I disagreed with their right answers, but didn't tell them that because they were not there to argue, but to spread the gospel as they understood it.

After talking to these two, we had to call Pam. She was going to come pick up our kids, but she had an episode where she had too much insulin in her. She had passed out. We told her that we would go ahead and drive our kids up to Bountiful a little bit later. We did this, and visited with Pam for awhile. We stayed until Anne came home and then just a few minutes more. Our kids were more than ready for us to leave.

Saturday was a day of chores for us and we watched a movie.

Today, we skipped going to church and instead headed out to my in-laws home. We had to grab a couple of things on the way there, but got there in good time. The reason our kids had spent the weekend at Pam and Anne's house was because Zach was coming in. He did come in Saturday night. We were going over to the house to meet up with them and spend time with Zach along with a dinner. While over there, Melanie had what I am going to call three episodes. We were talking a little bit about politics and a particular Republican in Utah's House of Representatives who had to resign for a mistake he made almost thirty years ago which got exacerbated in 2002 when he paid 150K to keep the woman quiet. Well, to Melanie it came down to Women Libbers and all of her problems came to the forefront (for the last 20 years). Her father told her to shut up multiple times (which didn't help at all). She was shaking with coffee in her hand. It was a nerve wracking thing. Nobody knew what to do, but I kept on hoping everybody would just calm down and let her go off. But, when you have an 84 year old man who is not going to just be quiet it just went on longer than it needed too. Pam took Zach and left for awhile. Melanie calmed down and we talked with her a bit and then all of a sudden she went off again. Pam and Zach came home just after she had gone off. There was only one more small episode and then we were done. These kind of foreshadowed the whole visit, but we did have a pretty good visit with some humor and good times.

I sure wish we knew what to do about Melanie.

Anyway, we grabbed our kids and headed home.

Not too much going on

As I put in the header, there isn't a lot going on right now. I just thought I better write something because that way I am more certain I didn't miss anything in my life. I must lead a fairly boring life though.

Last Saturday, we mostly did some chores and had to turn a girl away that was with Kirby sales. She was a pretty girl that I couldn't believe they would have out there on her own. We told her that it is hard to get Kirby sales people out of your house after you let them in. I think I kind of proved true because she was a bit hard to get off of our doorstep. She was nice enough, but she was insistent. I'll bet she makes a great sales person.

We did take a nice walk with the whole family around a part of the Daybreak lake. We really should get up there more often. I don't know about the rest of the family, but I quite enjoyed that. Other than that and the regular chores, it was a normal day.

Sunday was church and I had taken the time to make a roast. I think my wife was happy that I would take the time to do that. Brother Ball, the Gospel Doctrine teacher, gave a great lesson on marriage. He has a good sense of humor and mixes that in with his gospel teaching. He knows when to make fun of something and when not too. He is also very good at making people think about things.

Not much going on tonight either. My wife and I watched "One Mans Treasure". It was a Mormon Missionary flick. It was quite entertaining. We enjoyed it. We probably should've made the kids come watch it with us.

I need to look into going to another district meeting tomorrow night. We need to show our support and make sure things are going right with that.

Well, like I said, not much to talk about.

Jordan School District Stuff

It's been a rough week for me. I have been busy trying to make sure that the kids in my school district (and my daughter) will have a future. I don't think I can adequately explain some of the things that have transpired over this period of time.

I have been emailing like crazy to the School District, to members of the Education Committee in the Utah State Legislature, to the Governor, and anyone else that I thought I needed to email. This has been done multiple times over this past week to each of them. I let them know that I am thankful when they have voted the right way, let my disappointment be known for those that voted against. There were a couple of bills that really would've helped out a lot, and both of them got knocked down.

One of those bills was one to equalize money between the Jordan School District and the Canyons District. The Canyons District split off from us and were able to take money from us by changing borders and making sure they had the businesses. We got 60% of the kids, and we got less of the businesses that can help us out with paying for the education of those kids. This took us all down from $1600 per student to $1200 per student while Canyons went from the $1600 per student to over $2000 per student. Our side didn't think it was fair, especially since we weren't even allowed to vote on this issue. We let them know at the time that it wasn't fair that we couldn't vote because we knew it would negatively affect us. Of course that is why the east side wanted to split because they knew it would positively affect them. The bill would've made sure that none of that would happen again. Of course, it didn't pass. There was another one that didn't pass either that would've helped us out. In the meantime more equalization bills are being put out there and another bill that will allow us to put take money from various budgets to be able to save our teachers. That is the biggest problem, that we might lose our teachers. Two Hundred Fifty teachers is a lot to lose. This would raise the class room sizes by about four students to a teacher and could lose accreditation of our schools. It is all unacceptable.

Some students walked out of schools to protest the possibility of losing their teachers. I don't know that this did any good, but at least they are trying. I probably am getting to much into the problems. It has taken over my mind and I am beside myself. I have been angry and am still fighting. Another bill is to raise sales tax by .1 percent to help the schools. One that I am against is the cigarette tax which will add $1.00 to each pack of cigarettes. I don't believe you should ever add a tax that is specific to a product. It looks like that one will pass which could help out the budget crises for the schools.

I have attended another meeting (on Tuesday night again) and then went to the State Capitol for the teachers on Wednesday. There weren't as many people at the Capitol as I would've liked to have seen. But, I was there, and did my part.

Well, that pretty well tells you the week. Everything else has taken a back seat. I mean, the regular stuff went on. My kids had a night over at Pam and Annes after Dee Anne had done their hair, and I played a little bit in a new game on the Wii console called Endless Ocean. Time kind of gets the better of me when I am playing that. Well, I don't know what else to put her, but at least this is an update. It wasn't a day by day like I mostly do because the days kind of blurred in together this week for me.

Scout Camp - Jordan School District Board Meeting

Another week has come and gone since my last confession... Oh wait... That's not the way to start this...

One problem with this is that I don't remember all that went on during the week. It was mostly a boring week I guess.

The first thing I can think of that happened would be Friday evening. I had gone to work for the whole day, and then got home and finished packing up for the Winter Camp at Camp Tracy with the Scouts. We had four adult leaders and seven scouts. The drive isn't too bad from our home. When we arrived, I saw Scotts truck lose the trailer when he went over a big bump. Thank goodness it was ice because it didn't ruin the trailer at all. We set up our camp on the West end of Tracy. It was fairly close to the tubing hill.

I went in and registered the scouts that we had brought and then we had some dinner. It was a cheeseburger. Nothing fancy here! The scouts did some tubing and rifle shooting. I even got in a turn with a .22. After all of that, we went to the lodge for the campfire. After the campfire and them moving the tables back into place, I was able to set up my cot in the lodge. I got the permission to do that because of my Cpap machine. I was glad they allow for something like that. I did have to put in my ear plugs because the kids who are the leaders at this camp like to stay up until the wee hours of the morning. They just have to ignore the guy in the corner (me) with his elephant nose as he sleeps.

Morning came and I got up before most of the camp because some people come in to get the breakfast ready. There is some clanging around. I wandered around camp for a bit. I also went to see if I could see a geocache. In this case, I'm going to use the excuse that I couldn't find it because of all the snow. Although that may be flimsy since I have not found one yet.

I went to where our group was camping and got the boys to clean up their gear and get a fire started so some of the guys could cook their breakfast. I went up with the boys and we had something that resembled scrambled eggs with sausage and some cereal. I sat down by a boy who had stumps for arms. It was interesting watching him do everything with those stumps. There was another boy up there that had no legs and stumps for arms with deformed hands on the end. I wondered how he got along up there.

On that day there was wood carving, shooting, tubing, watching boys shoot off their rockets and so forth. This year I did not go tubing like I had the previous year. Overall, the camp was fun. We got all cleaned up and headed home after a lunch of corn dogs. Once home, I did some relaxing and a few minor chores.

Of course, Sunday was spent at church. We did go over to the in-laws for dinner. I got into what I called a discussion with Rod on Religion vs. Science. Others didn't see it as a discussion but as an argument. I was in a little bit of trouble for my part in that as he is older and I probably shouldn't have done it. The thing is, some of the things he spouts are things that I don't want my kids thinking that his way is the only way to think. I want them to be able to see more than one side and make decisions for themselves. However, if nobody else sees it the same way as me, I must change.

Not much went on Monday. Tuesday evening, after dinner, I went to the Jordan School District Board meeting. It was an important meeting because people wanted to talk to them about their decision to lay off 500 people in the district including 250 teachers. This will raise the class sizes up by four individuals. The Jordan School District has a deficit of 30 million. There is an equalization bill to try and go to the Canyons district (who we split from) and try to make us equal per student money. Before the split they each had $1600. Now, Jordan District has $1200 and Canyons has $2200 (they claim it's only $1900). Well, we don't think that's fair, especially since we didn't get to be in on the split. At any case that will only take care of about $8 million dollars. That House Bill (HB292) was only mentioned and talked about briefly.

Well, this meeting was interesting. First of all it was held in the office building. That only allows 250 people to be seated in the auditorium. I'm guessing that about 750 showed up. People were all over in the room and out in the halls. They couldn't start the meeting without getting the fire marshal there. The fire marshal showed up at around 8:00. They told all that didn't have a chair to leave. I had a chair, so I got to stay. Some teachers gave up their chairs so parents could stay. Some others tried to stay and were told that if they weren't gone in 10 minutes the meeting would be canceled. They left. I think this was planned by Barry Newbold (the superintendent). I really think he didn't want a lot of people there. I heard (and I realize this could be wrong) that he was offered the use of Riverton High and refused it. But, they knew beforehand that plenty of people would be there.

They opened the meeting by immediately going to Patron comments. There were a couple of people (maybe three) who were against taxes being raised at all. Most of the rest of the crowd thought it would be OK to raise our taxes by about $56 for every $100,000 of property per year. There was one older lady (77) who a cop came over to try to control her behavior. I thought he looked quite the bully. She was one of the people who was against the taxes that we were talking about. He came over to her a couple of times.

It got a little bit rowdy at time but not out of control. Some of the students you could hear outside chanting for quite a bit of the meeting since they were booted out. Some people left and then they would let others come back in. I had told one person from my ward that I would read a little bit of what she wrote. That never came about, but we got the information out to be at the State Capitol tomorrow afternoon to help get HB292 passed through the education committee. I really think that it should pass because it will stop other districts from splitting because they know that their east side has more businesses than the west side and a better tax base.

At the end of the meeting I was talking to an educator and we brought up the few who were against it including that older lady. She came out. I was defending her right to speak her mind even if we didn't want to agree with her. I went over and told her that I appreciated her being there and expressing her unpopular opinion. She mentioned some other things that I didn't agree with (like the teachers needed to take a pay cut) and I disagreed with her in an agreeable manner. We talked a little bit about it is a great country where we can disagree and still be agreeable. She gave me a hug and thanked me (I still don't know for what completely, though I suppose I was the only person that was friendly to her there. She got in her purse and wanted to give me something. She could not find it, so she went to her shirt and pulled off a pin. She gave me this pin saying that she gives these out all the time and had more in her car. It was a guardian angel pin. She gave me another hug and said that God loves you. I told her you too. We parted. I don't know her name, but what a sweet old lady with an opinion. It's a late night because of all the people who had comments.

I only hope that the Board members will have listened to what we had to say and act accordingly.