Osaka - day 2

Last night we were planning on going into the city to see some of the sights but it was late and we were very tired. In addition, we learned that a train ticket was about 1,300 yen each way. That would be $26 just to see a city that was pretty much closed up. Sure there would have been some bars and dance halls but that isn't my scene so we ate some very expensive food here at the hotel and went to bed. The airport here is quite fancy. It is very open with walk ways all over the place. The walkways lead to the roads, the trains and the hotel where we are staying. The Narita airport (in Tokyo) is very similar but is actually a bit fancier looking. I know I've described the space toilets they have here but since I'm blogging now I thought I would describe them again with a picture.
These crazy toilets are very cool. They have a little water jet to clean your rear end for you. The toilet seat is heated and some of them even blow dry your backside but this one doesn't. See all those cool buttons on the side? You can even buy them to fit on a regular toilet but they're over $100 and I find that hard to justify. Today was a very strange day and I'm very sore. Today we were supposed to visit Sanyo's R&D facility but at the last minute they told us that they don't allow visitors to their R&D facility but they would meet with us during the conference next week. We assured them that we didn't need the grand tour and we would be happy to just sit and visit with them. They still didn't want us to come but it was now inside the two week time to change tickets so to change the tickets would have cost nearly $1000 so we ended up with a free day here in Osaka. We tried to use the day to go visit Kyocera's head office in Kyoto but apparently they don't want us either. So here we are with a free day in Osaka. We started off with a visit to the Tourist Information center and learned that you can buy an all day subway pass for 2,300 yen. Since a single return ticket into Osaka was 2,600 this seemed like a bargain. We then got the tickets and found out that they include free coupons to all the popular sights. By the time we were done today if you add up the admission into everything we did, together with the normal subway fairs it would have cost us more than 5,100 yen so that was a pretty good deal. The country side around here is very strange. They have houses and apartment buildings and people everywhere but if they have a free piece of land they grow rice on it. This picture is not a very good one because it is taken from the train but you can see the rice patty there among all the houses. Most of the people here live in huge apartment buildings but there are still a lot of people who live in small houses crowded together. I know it is mostly roof tops but you can see some of the houses. This picture is also taken from the speeding train. Since I slept as long as possible this morning and I didn't want to pay airport prices for breakfast I didn't eat before heading into Osaka. Tim was also hungry so as soon as we got off the subway we looked around for food. Tim saw some burger place that is popular in Asia and asked if I'd ever had a rice burger. Apparently they use a bun made of rice rather than bread. It was small but surprisingly good. I also had a milkshake with it and the milkshake was especially good for Asia. They don't normally do dairy very good over here. After lunch we headed for the Osaka Castle. As we were walking through the park I was amazed to see a bunch of makeshift tents with what looked like vagrants living in them. I can't imagine why they would let vagrants live in the park but there they are. You tell me what it looks like to you. Osaka Castle was built in the 1500's by a guy named Hideyoshi Toyotomi. Mister Toyotomi was a very nasty guy but he was the first guy who was able to unify all of Japan. Obviously, Castles in Japan are not like what you would see in Europe. They do have a moat but it is around a large tract of land and not around the building itself. Inside this large tract of land (in this case about twenty acres) they build a large Pagoda type of building. This one is about eight stories high. We went to the top of the castle and took a bunch of pictures of Osaka from up there. This city is huge and goes on forever. I was looking at some of the rocks that make up the wall of the moat. Some of the rocks are huge and I was trying to imagine how they could move such huge rocks. It would be very difficult in todays modern world but impossible back then. I guess not impossible but it was still amazing. Well guess what? It is all fake. When they were refurbishing the place they found out that the huge rocks were only a foot or two thick. They just made them so big to try and impress people. Well it worked for me. I was impressed. This is so funny. I have the TV on while I'm typing this and Monk just came on. It is all in Japanese. It is hilarious to watch Monk talking away in Japanese. OK, back to the wall. So after we were done with the Castle we decided that the next most famous thing in Osaka would be the Shitennoji Temple. By this time we pretty much have the subway system figured out so the trip to the Temple was a quick one. The temple is right in the middle of regular native Japanese people and not a tourist area so I took a picture of the street we were walking down so you could get a taste of the normal Japanese life. This temple appears to be a normal working temple but it was built in 593. Isn't that just amazing? This place is built more than 1,400 years ago. It was built not long after Moroni died and not long after the Nicene creed was drafted. It is hard for me to comprehend things that are that old. We don't have anything in the States that old. Walking into the Temple grounds we passed a real "working" graveyard. There was incense burning all over the place (I paid a dime and lit one) and they had these little wheels that I think the idea is you spin them and they send up a prayer. I sent up a lot of prayers. They also had a pond in the garden area with hundreds of turtles in it. They had built several little islands for the turtles to sunbath on. I couldn't help but think of the ponds in Florida where Kira lives. If they had alligators in Japan they would be nice and fat. The most amazing thing was this tower in the middle of the grounds. The tower was no more than ten feet in diameter and inside it was a spiral staircase that went up the tower about five stories. I'm not sure what the point of the tower was originally but now it was filled with several Buddha's built into the walls and thousands of little miniature replica's of the tower with people names inscribes on them. It looked to me like you could buy one of these little towers and get your name honored in this tower but Tim figures it is actually a way to honor your ancestor's. He is probably right since this is more like his culture than it is mine. On the way out of the Temple I was hoping to find a gift shop where I could buy one of these little tower replica's and then I saw them by the ticket booth (we had to pay to get in but it was free with our subway pass). We were looking at them and while neither of us could read the Japanese we could see that they were $1,000 each. Yes, that is a thousand dollars NOT a thousand yen. It was a hundred thousand yen. When the woman in the booth saw us looking at the little towers she made it very clear to us that they were not for sale. I guess since they don't want non-believers buying them then Tim must be right. They are for religious purposes and not just a fund raiser. By the time we finished up at the temple yesterday we were starving so we decided to eat at an authentic restaurant where the locals eat. We walked into this hole in the wall place. If you see the picture of me standing by a little sign, that is the front door to the restaurant. I also took a picture inside the restaurant and yes, there are two tables and you have to walk sideways down the aisle. There were three little old ladies running the place and I really think these little ladies decided to go into business just so they could sit and visit all day. They loved us and waited on us hand and foot. It was a total surprise what we were getting since neither of us could figure out the menu and there were no plastic models of food like the more touristy restaurants have. The food was really good and I'm sure they charged us less than the menu said. I left a dollar tip and the lady came running after me to give me back my money that I left. It was funny and I'm sure she thought I was nuts. After lunch we headed to the Kyocera Dome. That’s right, they have a huge stadium here called the Kyocera Dome. Too bad we don’t have one of those in San Diego. After the Kyocera Dome we headed to the bay for a ride on the Santa Maria. By this time we were ready to sit down. Both of us were about ready to collapse. It was very relaxing to sit on the Santa Maria and enjoy a cruise around the bay. I think Christopher Columbus would have killed for a boat like this one. First of all it was made of steel and not wood, it was equipped with a nice big diesel engine and electrical lighting, radar etc. By the time the cruise ended (also entirely free) we wanted to go straight back to the hotel room but we figured we had better eat in town rather than at the airport. Once again we just headed down some random street and looked for a good place to eat. This time we had to find a place that would take credit cards so that we didn’t have to take out more cash. After all we leave town tomorrow morning. We ended up at a barbecue place. By barbecue I mean meat on a stick. We got five different kinds and they all very delicious but my favorite was chicken breast with plum sauce and some leaf that I can’t remember. Very good. So that was my day. I left my room this morning at 8:00 and I was on my feet continually until 8:00 tonight. Tim and I were both dragging.

Osaka - day 1

This has been one very long and exhausting day. Have you ever been so tired that it physically hurts to get out of bed? This morning I had to get up at 5:00 in order to get to the airport on time but last night by the time I got to bed it was after 2:00. To make things even more difficult, my strategy for beating jet lag is to stay awake all day so that when I get to Asia I can go straight to bed and because I’m so tired I sleep through the night. That gives you a really good start on getting back on track. The problem is, when you’ve only had three hours of sleep it is pretty hard to stay awake. One piece of good news. After my big "Fathers Day" lunch yesterday I still wieghed in this morning at 199.5, I'm still under 200 pounds. The flight got off to a bad start. We all boarded the plane and then they tell us they have problems with one of the engines. Pretty scary. A half hour later and we're on our way but I'm really hoping the mechanic knew what he was doing. I can't believe the seat I had. I got an exit row right by the door everyone enters through. I had literally ten feet of leg space. How nice. I was actually the first person to exit the plane. I've never done that before. I've been the last person several times but never the first. The pilot also gave a really nice tribute to all the fathers on board the plane. We actually arrived here in Osaka earlier in the day than I’m used to. We actually had tail winds coming over here. I’ve never heard of that before. How can you have tail winds when you’re flying west? We got here an hour early making the flight in about ten hours. I think that is a record for me. The movies were not very impressive. Actually, they had two movies that I’d already seen before that I really liked. I was hoping to see some good new ones. The two movies I’ve already seen were “Mad Money” and “The Bucket List”. The new ones that I watched were, “Definitely, Maybe”, “Under the Same Moon” and “Spiderwick”. None of them were too exciting but Under the same Moon was definitely trying to promote illegal immigration. It was a touching story but VERY one sided and not very realistic. The movies I didn’t watch were, Shine A Light (about the rolling stones) and “The Other Boyle Girl” (about Henry the 8^th and his beheaded wives. Not topics that really get me too excited. I did finish my book though. I hate it when I finish a good book. It is so depressing because I want the story to continue. This was a Tom Clancy book called “End War”. It is one of those books that actually isn’t written by Clancy but he somehow gets his name on it. This one was pretty good though. It was very weird. It is about world war III and takes place in Alberta. Supposedly the Russians deploy troops from the Arctic Ocean and take over Yellow Knife and High Level and major battles take place in Calgary and Edmonton. The Americans blow up the High level brigde in Edmonton and the Russians plant nuclear bombs in the top of the Calgary Tower and the Parliament buildings. It was very weird reading it. The Americans also blew up a convoy of Russian Vehicles on Highway 2 just south of Red Deer heading for Calgary. I’ve driven that highway more times than I could count. It was a good book but it doesn’t really end. I guess there is going to be a sequel. Japan’s immigration is now doing what I keep saying the Americans should be doing. They have a camera and a finger print machine at the immigration counter and every person entering is checked. If we did that then no one on the terrorist watch list could get into the States. It just makes perfect sense to me, not just for immigration but for boarding planes and getting jobs. It would be a form of identification that couldn’t be forged. Oh well, hopefully we will catch up some day. So we landed at Kansai airport in Osaka. Osaka had the same problem that San Diego has. They really needed a new airport but they had no room for it. The Japanese, however aren’t as worried about environmentalists as San Diego is and they simply built their airport in the ocean. This whole airport is all man made by chopping the top off of some mountain and dumping it in the ocean. In the picture taken from my hotel room you can see a new runway that they are building. My hotel is right at the airport and was very convenient to get to. We got off the plane and walked to the hotel room. Very convenient but very expensive. It is also a bit of a disappointment. The room is small and I’m stuck with two little twin beds. Oh well, the convenience is worth it. In the baggage area it was very strange. They had several people walking around with drug dogs. They would walk up to you and the dogs would smell your luggage. I saw at least four dogs and was smelled by two of them. Just having the dogs was pretty effective in deterring smugglers. Well, because we got in a bit early we are going to take a train down town and see what we can find for dinner. I’m going to go shower first.

The Lost is Found

You won't believe what happened last night. Anyone who was here will certainly remember the night we had the family dinner for Ben and Sharley. After we all got home and were beginning to relax Lisa noticed that the ruby out of her ring was missing. We went back to the church and searched everywhere but couldn't find it. There was one bag of garbage that we hadn't hauled out to the dumpster so I brought it home to go through it. It was late at night and dark and we were all tired so I waited until the next day to go through the garbage when it was light and I was more alert. Well as it happened, the next day was the wedding, Sunday Brandon, Kira, Justin and Evan left, and then I was off to Toronto and you know how it is. All this week Lisa has been complaining about the smell in the garage because that garbage was full of old food and decomposing avocado's etc. so last night after work I hauled the bag into the back yard and started going through it. You can only imagine the smell, the stuff was now two weeks old and all green and fuzzy. Lisa saw me gagging and told me not to bother, we'd never find the ruby but I figured it was our last hope so I persisted. About half way through the bag you will never guess what I found. Well, I suppose you've already guessed what I found. Sitting there among all the rotten food was a little red oval. You're right, I found her ruby. Amazing isn't it? This morning was the first day I've had since before the wedding where I could actually get some stuff done around this house. We were actually quite productive. First thing this morning we took my scouts out to the canyon to pass off their orienteering requirements for their first class rank. To see pictures of the canyon refer to my blog on bike to work day. It is a beautiful canyon. We went out about a mile with the compasses but hiking back to the cars one of the boys (Andrew) was complaining about how boring it was to stay on the trail. He wanted to go through the bush. We told him to go ahead but he had to have another boy with him and a map and compass. No one else wanted to go so he was out of luck. I finally told him that if he was bored we should run back to the cars. I was feeling pretty good about myself with my new found energy from running so I offered to run with him. So off we go, he headed out quite fast and I'm lumbering along in my hiking boots. Don't run in hiking boots, they weren't made for that. I remember thinking that this was going to be very embarrassing if he kept up his speed. I was quickly getting left in the dust. Thank goodness he only lasted about a quarter mile and he stopped and walked. As I ran on by him I told him to get running but secretly I was hoping he wouldn't. I figured I could probably make it the mile to the car but it was really going to hurt. Well Andrew did start running again but he didn't make it very far so I figured I should be the good scout master and walk with him. Thank goodness. This afternoon we were making good headway on the house and yard, I had fixed all the broken sprinkler, picked up the dog poop, repaired Alex's outlet and was ready to clean up Ben's left over mess in his bedroom when Lisa suggested we go out for lunch since I won't be here for Fathers day. It was a lot of fun. We went to "Chi Burgers". So far since winning the bet with Brandon I've kept my weight under 200 pounds. I'm quite proud of that. I don't think I will weigh myself tomorrow. I'm quite sure that huge shake, huger hamburger and all the fries and onion rings will have sent me over. Oh well, I lost in once, I can lose it again. It was fathers day. Tonight Sarah went to the stake dance and had a great time. In this area they have a stake dance about every weekend and they take turns between the various stakes in the area. Our kids normally go the the Penasquitos Stake (that's ours), the Poway Stake, Escondido South, Escondido North and Del Mar Stake dances. There are others but they are farther away and we don't often go to them. Today was Escondido North and it is about 20 miles away. That is the farthest of them all. Because I leave early tomorrow Ben and Sharley came over tonight to wish me a happy fathers day. It was very nice of them. Brandon also called from Alaska and it was nice to talk to him too. I sure ripped myself off this time. I can't believe I'm leaving on fathers day. I have to head for the airport at six in the morning. I'm going to miss fathers day. Oh well, I didn't really have a choice. It was either miss fathers day or miss the fourth of July and I wanted to be here for that and Lisa's birthday which is the next day. Wish me luck, I'll try and send some nice pictures from Japan and China.

The Sarah Box

Sarah has a good friend who is moving and since this is the end of the school year she is sad to see him go. She had a cool idea as a going away present for him that I thought you might find interesting. She decided to give this boy a "Sarah box". The Sarah box is a small wooden box and in it she put little items to help him remember fun things that they have experienced together. Here are some of the things she put in the box and why.

Picture of Sundance Park – where they used to hang out all the time
Picture of Blake in 8^th grade – they’ve been friends for a long time
Picture of Sarah – so he won’t forget her
Skateboard – when he tried to teach her how to skate board and she ate it
Smiley face – for all the times he made her smile when she was down
Ring – for all the times she stole his twirly ring
Cell phone – call her sometime
Car Pez dispenser – he will be sixteen soon and he can drive his car to come and hang out
Tooth – to remember when she brought him icecream after he had his wisdom teeth pulled
Heart-because they're such good friends.
There is really nothing too exciting about today, except I couldn't get out of the house this morning. Lisa always gets up before I do. I don't really understand why except that she says she can't sleep. I can't understand that either because I can always sleep anytime anyplace. In the car, in the plane, in important meetings and even in church. My biggest fear is that I will snore. How embarrassing. Last night, however, Lisa went to the grad night party. The schools around here always have an all night party for the graduates. They have tons of cool things to attract the kids so that they don't go out and party. I guess too many kids were getting killed by drunk drivers and other related problems with such parties. The party is relatively cheap but there is no coming and going. If you're not there by 10:00 then you don't go in and if you leave you don't come back. They have tons of food, a casino, a dance, dozens of games, movies, a money machine, a hypnotist etc. You get the idea. Lisa has been on the grad night committee with every single kid that graduated and several years in between. Next year Alex graduates so last night she volunteered to see if she could get any new ideas for next year. I'm not sure what time she wandered in last night (this morning) but I think her shift ended at 2:30AM. I vaguely remember her crawling in bed. So this morning I got up before she did but when I went to kiss her good bye she wanted to talk. I stood in the doorway for half and hour trying to leave but she kept talking. I then barely get to work and she calls me and talks for another half hour. I don't know why the woman can't sleep.

Last Day of School

It is a quiet place in the Leavitt house now. This morning I kissed my little granddaughter good bye and gave my daughter-in-law a big hug and sent them off to the airport with Lisa. Alycia left for Europe yesterday at the unearthly hour of 5:00AM (or something like that) and now with Ben married that leaves us back where we were all last year. Just Alex, Sarah, Lisa and myself. I guess we have Peter now but he is so quiet you forget he's even there. I think Peter is starting to get a social life, he came home after midnight last night. We had all gone to bed so I wasn't able to interrogate him or anything but I'm sure he was enjoying himself. Today is also the last day of school for the High School kids. I love it when the kids aren't in school. School just gets in the way of doing fun things because they have to study, do homework and go to bed early. All things that mess with having fun.

Torn Meniscus

About twenty five years ago I was dancing with my wife at a new years dance in Cardston. It was at the new first ward church building and it was during the time that they thought it would be a good idea to carpet the gymnasium floors. I clearly remember I went to twirl my darling wife and as I turned my body my foot remained fixed to the floor due to the high coefficient of friction between the sole of my shoe and the carpet. I felt a stabbing pain in my knee but being young and healthy it eventually healed and went away. I do remember it taking much longer to heal than most pains took when I was young and my body regenerated quickly. Now if we fast forward about twenty years, as I entered into my forties I once again started feeling a pain in my right knee. It really was no more than a nuisance but it was a new thing and I really hoped I wasn't getting arthritis or something that was going to get worse as I got older. Now, jumping ahead to a few months ago when I started running I was quite concerned about this pain in my knee. I didn't know if running was going to make it get worse or if exercise might actually help it to heal better. At first I actually thought it was improving but then when I went to three miles a day it seemed to be getting worse. Yesterday was really strange. When I started running the pain was excruciating to the point I almost didn't run. I then decided to try and run through it thinking it might actually go away. After about half a mile it almost felt normal. I decided not to push my luck and switch to a one mile run rather than the three but by the time I finished my run the pain was negligible. Very weird. I decided it was time to get a professional opinion so after I showered I called the doctor and made an appointment. He thinks that I probably made a tiny tear in my meniscus those twenty five years ago dancing with my wife. He told me that a torn meniscus will never heal so it is very possible that it is the very same tear that is giving me grief now. He told me that it is very possible that I could continue to run and it will not get any worse but depending on how it is torn I could wear my bone unevenly and that would lead to further complications. He has recommended that I go for an MRI and check it out. I asked what we could do if it is a torn meniscus and he said they go in arthroscopically and clean up the torn edges so that the jagged edges don't rub on anything. That sounds disturbing to me but I guess the first step is to go and see just what it is. The good news is that I don't have arthritis.

Journal Entries

June 9, 2008 - I am now back to the more boring routine. Yesterday I went to work, tried to catch up on those 1000+ emails and get ready for another road trip. Way too much to do and no time to do it. I was going to go into Hi-Z last night but since Grandma and Serene leave this week I thought I would go home and visit with them. Not much else to report on.

June 10, 2008 - Just another day at work. My to do list is growing rather than shrinking. I've got some batteries from our accessories group that need to be tested plus some other batteries are coming from some customer who has some very old inventory that they say isn't performing well. It amazes me that people think they can stick a battery in an un-air-conditioned warehouse for three years and then expect the battery to work normally. We're also trying to line up some factories in China that we can visit while we're there next week. Grandma left today and I never had a chance to say good-bye. I thought she was leaving tomorrow for some reason but she left today. It's starting to get quiet around here. Tonight for mutual the kids had a pool party. I'm totally bummed that I forgot to take my camera.

Journal Entry

I love Sundays. It is funny because when I was young I thought Sundays were so restrictive but now it is a kind of family day where we spend more time together, eat meals together and just relax a bit. Today was nothing different except somehow we ended up with fifteen people for dinner. To make things more exciting we hadn't really planned ahead what we would eat. Lisa did a wonderful job with the chicken breasts that I found in the freezer. We had our family, Ben and Sharley, Tiffanie and McKenzie, the missionaries and Sharley's twin brothers who actually didn't eat. They had already had something. Tonight was Seminary graduation and then Alex and I came home and watched an episode of Star Trek Voyager together. Sarah and I then studied for a test she has tomorrow. I downloaded some pictures from my trip yesterday and I thought I would share a couple of the video clips from Niagara Falls. Seeing it in action and hearing the sound helps you better feel the majesty of these falls a bit better.

So Alycia has now decided to join the blogging world. I guess she started a few months ago but didn't think the backgrounds were pretty enough so she never carried on with it. Today she took the time to figure it out and so look for her link in my headers.

Father Daughter Campu Out

I want this blog to be more of a journal and not a photo album so I try not to over do it with the pictures. Today I'm going to make an exception. I tried to narrow the number of pictures down to just two or three and I couldn't even come close so I'm going to post twelve pictures. That is how much fun today has been. Last night and today was father-daughter camp out and as always, we had a blast. Sarah was born in August and her first father-daughter camp out was the following June and I took her when she was just ten months old. We haven't missed one since then except for the occasional time when we were out of town as a family or otherwise committed. As an example, I think we missed it the year Kira got married. I decided that if I could take Sarah when she was a baby then why couldn't I take Sydney, after all she is already nine months old and I don't think I've forgotten how to change a diaper. Some of the guys at the camp out thought I was nuts but we had a blast. She was a perfect little angel. I also took Alex's girlfriend camping with us as well. She's never been camping before and I thought that was quite a shame. We tried to keep Sydney up as long as possible in the vain hope that she would sleep a little later this morning but alas, it wasn't to be. Serene gave us a bottle of broccoli and carrots that we were supposed to feed her for dinner but she wouldn't have anything to do with them. Lisa asked me to buy a box of baby cereal on the way out so I had a box of "multi-grain" cereal with us, thank goodness. I didn't really believe the girls when they said that Sydney would not eat the veggies so when we got to the campground I tried to feed them to her and she wouldn't touch them. I then pulled out the cereal. You should have seen her snarf that stuff down. She polished off the bit we made and started screaming for more. We made three bowls of the stuff before she would slow down. We finally settled in the tent and watched a movie on my laptop. I've now seen "27 dresses". It was OK for a chick flick. Sydney was in her crib watching it with us but I don't think she made it past the opening previews. She was out. One of my favorite parts of camping is laying in bed in the morning watching the sun shine into the tent and listening to the birds singing. I guess you could say this was almost one of those experiences, except the birds singing were crows. Around six in the morning the four of us were sound asleep and all of the sudden, about four feet from our tent a dumb crow let out a very loud squawk. It woke all of us with a start and then Sydney started crying. It scared all of us. I suppose she may have gone back to sleep if we'd tried but Sarah decided to get her up and I figured that they normally start making breakfast early at these things anyway. I do know that they make breakfast long before anyone in our family is awake. I got dressed and took Sydney for a walk around the campground. Nobody was up when I started but after I finished my first loop people we getting started on the pancakes. We ate breakfast and then went exploring. William Heise park is far enough out of town that it is in the true wilderness. I love to explore when I am in the wilderness. We headed out into the bush for about a mile (no trail) and made a loop and came back to the campground. It was still early in the morning but there was only one other family left when we got back. I really don't know what the rush is but we decided to break camp as well. The best part is, I still haven't changed a diaper. There were plenty of little "mothers" at that camp out. When the kids have a sport they always have a year end party, usually a banquet where they acknowledge the kids accomplishments etc. It is extremely boring but pretty cool for the kids. For Volleyball they have a barbecue at a park and they setup volleyball nets and have a fun time. Well this year for some reason they decided to have a two on two tournament. Either I've always managed to avoid this other years or this is the first year they've done this but Alex signed us up. I was scared to death. When I hit a volleyball it is anyones guess where the ball is going to go but Alex was a great sport and reminded me that we were just doing it for fun. To make matters worse, our first game was against a friend of our family's and the dad is a real sports fiend. One of those guys who always goes and plays basketball at the church. You know the type. Well guess what, we beat them. I have no idea how but we did. Not only that, Alex and I made it to the the semi finals. What it really came down to was the father who messed up the least was the team that won. The kids obviously are all good.

Toronto - day 4

Today was my last day in Toronto. The meetings were scheduled to go until five o’clock so I booked my flight out at seven. Well, as luck would have it, we finished up by noon. They had lunch provided so I ate and then Tim and I hurried into the airport to see if we could get on an earlier flight. Once again, as luck would have it, I can’t. So here I am sitting in the airport with a five-hour wait ahead of me. I really don’t think I can read for that long no matter how good the book is. We cleared customs here in Toronto so when I land in Minneapolis I can just head to my next flight, which will be nice. I had an interesting experience at the security screening. I don’t know what they were doing but normally if you set off the alarm on the x-ray machine they take you off to the side and wand you. I didn’t see if the guy set off the alarm or not but when I got to the point that I could walk through the x-ray, the guard was wanding the guy right in front of the x-ray machine so we all had to wait. I am dead serious when I tell you that we all stood there for a full three minutes waiting for her to wand this guy. She was searching every little detail too. I even commented to the lady next to me (we had a huge line at this point) that I really hoped that I didn’t set off the alarm. Well guess what, I didn’t set off the alarm but she searched me anyway. I think she as in training but I’m not really sure. She spent a full three minutes on me too. She found a tiny piece of aluminum foil in one of my pockets that was from a Rolaids wrapper, I had to undo my belt and show her the back side of my belt buckle, but the scariest thing was when the zipper on my pants beeped. She actually called the male gaurd from the next machine over and he stuck his hand down my pants to make sure I didn't have a bomb there. I was really getting worried. These Canadians know how to scare a guy away. So that brings me up to where I am now. If everything goes without incident I will be home before midnight. My plane lands at 11:00.

So I’m sitting in Toronto thinking all is well and I notice on the board that my flight was delay by 15 min. No problem, I can handle 15 minutes, then it is delayed by half an hour. I’m now starting to worry because my connection in Minneapolis is only a little over an hour. Then the flight is delayed by more than an hour. I check with the gate agent and they tell not to sweat it, there are thunderstorms in Minneapolis and my connecting flight is also late. To make a long story short, my flight was supposed to leave at 7:00 pm and it left after 9:00. We are then told that the reason we waited on the ground is so that we wouldn’t have to wait in the air. Right! We ended up circling over some place called Eau Claire for another half hour. So I land in Minneapolis (pretty green around the gills because it was a rough ride in) and I ask the guy at the gate if my connection to San Diego has left yet. He tells me they are still there and tells me where the gate is. It is in a different terminal so it was a long hike. Did the guy mention that it left in 20 minutes? Nope. Even still, I hustled my buns over to the other terminal and just because I had that nagging voice in the back of my mind I didn’t stop for a bio-break even though my bladder was nigh unto bursting. I come up to the gate and I can see that my plane in still at the gate but there isn’t a soul in the waiting area. They were all boarded. I called out to the gate agent and I said, “I’m sure glad you waited for me”, He takes one look at me and yells down the ramp, “Don’t close the gate, we have a runner here!” I hustle down the ramp and the planes door is shut and the agent is banging on the window to get them to open it again. I’m really glad they did. When I boarded the plane there was a guy in my seat and he didn’t look at all thrilled when I made him move. It was a long flight and I wasn’t about to be cramped against the wall. I like my isle seat. I stowed my luggage and sat down and the next thing I knew we were almost to San Diego. I landed at 1:30 AM, which for my body was 4:30 AM. I slept in this morning.

Toronto - day 3

This morning I didn't get to sleep in. Darn. I did manage to stay awake in my meetings however. The day was rather uneventful but then
at 4:30 I ran downstairs and rented a car. Tim and I decided that we would run down south and take a look at the Niagara Falls. The concierge told us that it was a 45 minute drive but talking to a fellow in our meetings I learned that it would be over an hour and possibly much longer if we were driving during in rush hour. Well, leaving at 5:00 was definitely during rush hour. It took us about an hour and forty five minutes to get down there. Niagara Falls are very majestic. It was well worth the trip down there. We parked the car in the area above the falls and walked down river. The mist was so heavy that we were drenched within minutes. There is a gift shop right at the top of the falls and I couldn't help thinking how depressing it would be to work in an area where it rains 24 hours a day 365 days a year. The grass grows well though. At one point the mist was so thick that I could hardly see anything. If you notice in my picture my shirt tail is untucked. I felt stupid when I saw that in my pictures but I had my shirt tail out to keep cleaning my glasses. We walked along the river for a ways and I took a whole bunch of pictures. I've heard about Niagara Falls all my life and here they were, right in front of me. This is where my Mom and Dad went to on their honeymoon. I sure wish Lisa could be with me. I was really worried as we were driving down there because the fog was starting to roll in but all of the sudden it cleared up just before we got there. I've always figured that it was a rip off because the Americans owned Goat Island (between the two falls) but after seeing it I realized the Canadians definitely have the better deal. We have a beautiful view of both falls and the Americans can't see them at all from their side. After about a half hour we piled back in the car and headed north again. The drive down was about an hour and forty five minutes but the drive back was barely an hour. Before we went back to the hotel we headed to a Thai restaurant for dinner. I had Mongolian beef and it was very good. The restaurant had water running down two of their walls and it was rather noisy. I complained to Tim about the noise the water was making and he laughed and said, "Fred, we just came from Niagara Falls and you're complaining about that?" It was really quite funny. I'm quite excited now. Tomorrow I get to go home.

Toronto - day 2

This morning I got to sleep in. I thought my meetings started at 8:00 but when I got up and made a call I found out that they didn't start until noon. It felt soooo good to crawl back into bed. I finally got up around ten (that would be 7:00 for my body) and down loaded all my emails from last week. I had more than 700 emails. What a pain. At noon I loaded up my laptop and headed down the elevator to the meetings. I'm on the fourteenth floor. As I expected, they were quite boring but I tried to stay focused. After the meetings, Tim and I decided to catch a bus and head into Toronto. We are actually in Mississauga here. We wanted to see the CN tower. The problem is that it has been quite rainy and miserable all day. Once we got to Union Station however we looked up and couldn't see the top of the tower. Once we got to the tower I wanted to have proof that I was actually there so I took a picture of myself inside the entrance to the tower. They confirmed that a trip up the tower would be a waste of our money. From the tower we decided to go down to the harbor and look around. I have actually stuck my hand in lake Ontario. Walking back to Union Station downtown Toronto looked real pretty. I also saw the Rogers Center where the Blue Jays play and I also think I saw the place where the Maple Leafs play but I don't know what it is called.

Toronto - day 1

Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Brandon and Fara, happy birthday to you. For those who don't know, Brandon was born on my sister Fara's birthday. Happy birthday to both of you. All day yesterday I was thinking that my flight left this morning at 10:30 or 11:00. Imagine my surprise last night at midnight when I decided to check and realized it left at 8:30. That meant that I had to get up at 6:00. Groan. What a wonderful week it has been. I hate to see it end. The school kids no longer have seminary so they all got to sleep in and I was the first one up. I chose to sleep rather than eat so I quickly packed up and by then Lisa was up so I kissed her and headed out the door. I have a good book to read but once I was on the plane there was no way I could read it. I was asleep before the plane left the gate. I was stuck in a middle seat and I really hate that but since I was sleeping it made little difference. I sure feel sorry for the people on either side of me. In case you don't know, I have sleep apnea and I snore very loudly. I wake myself up sometimes. Other than waking myself up occasionally and then going right back to sleep I slept for at least three hours. I makes for a short flight when you sleep the whole way. We landed in Detroit and that is a first for me. I've never been to Detroit before. Does it count if you don't leave the airport? The decent into Detroit was very rough. I'm sure if I hadn't been reading my book I would have been fine but I suddenly got a bad case of motion sickness. I started looking for the little barf bag they supply but thank goodness the plane landed and I didn't end up needing it. The problem is that it takes hours before you feel normal again. The airport here is quite nice. I'm walking down the terminal and then right overhead along comes the train. It was quite startling to see a train running overhead down the terminal. The other cool thing here is the big water fountain they have in the middle of the terminal. It is one of those fountains with the dancing water. It is also pretty cool because the water in the fountain runs over the edge of the wall onto the floor and then back underneath the fountain. I really liked it. The flight from Detroit to Toronto was less than an hour. Thank goodness I had an isle seat this time. I called the hotel from Detroit to ask if they had an airport shuttle and they told me they didn't. When I asked what the best way to get from the airport to their hotel was they said to just take a taxi. They told me the taxi would be $30 to $40 so I didn't figure that was too bad. Cheaper than renting a car and since the meetings are right here in the hotel I didn't really need a car. When I finally landed in Toronto I called Tim, the other engineer I work with, and he had paid about $35 for a taxi. Tim landed before me. So I walk out of the airport looking for a taxi and there is a limo. I ask the driver how much it would cost to go to the hotel and tells me $37. Not bad eh? I figured for an extra $2 I could handle the limo. The ride was about half an hour. The room is really quite nice. The hotel is out in the boonies and there isn't much out here but I have a clean room and a king sized bed so I'm not going to complain. Since I had eaten no breakfast and only had a "Coney Island" hot dog in Detroit I was quite hungry. I was also tired so I just ate here at the hotel. I have a real bad habit that comes from being cheap. If I pay for food I feel like I need to eat it all or it is a waste. My stomach has shrunk a lot over the last month or two and I couldn't finish my hamburger. It was a huge hamburger too. I was stuffed buy I had to force myself not to eat the whole hamburger. Dumb eh? I did find out a cool new food though. I'm trying hard to cut back on refined carbs and go for more fiber filled carbs. One of my all time favorite foods is french fries but they are poison to me. It is a real sacrifice to cut out potatoes but I've been substituting in sweet potatoes lately because they are high in fiber and I like them. Well the restaurant tonight had sweet potato fries. How about that? They were real good too? I think I'm going to ask Lisa to buy a sweet potato every now and then and I'm going to deep fry the thing. Well I'd better get to bed because the meetings start early tomorrow and they're going to be boring.

They are all leaving

Today was a nice relaxing day after the whirl wind week we have had. For me it started early. Brandon had to head back north to continue earning money for his very expensive law school tuition and his flight left at the insane hour of 6:30 AM. That meant he had to be there by about 5:00 which meant that we had to get up around 4:15. It was sad to see him go and I know it was tough for him too. He left his darling wife and little girl behind so we could get a chance to see them for a bit after the commotion of last week all settled down. I'm so glad that they are going to be living within a reasonable distance to us next year. I expect we will be making a few trips to Malibu. I then came home and promptly went right back to bed. Our church meetings this year don't start until 12:30. That makes for a nice and peaceful morning but you have no day left after you get home and eat dinner. While I was sorting through the 700 pictures that I took yesterday Grandpa was teaching Kira how to play the bag pipes and Peter, Justin, Alex and Sarah played a rip roaring game of "Settlers of Catan". That really is a fun game and I wanted to play but sometimes there just isn't enough hours in the day. It has also the first time that Grandpa and Nana have been able to see Evan so we made sure we too a four generation picture. Grandma Shaw had her four generation pictures at Christmas time when everyone was home. The first Sunday of every month is a "Fast and Testimony" meeting at church. This is different from other meetings in that members of the congregation who feel so inclined can get up and express their feelings over the pulpit. The Fast part is because we go to church fasting and the testimony part is because we normally testify to the divinity of God and Jesus Christ. This Sunday was especially wonderful because all of our children who were there (Kira, Alex and Sarah) took the opportunity to bear their testimonies. Brandon had already left for Alaska, Ben was on his honeymoon and Alycia had to work but it was still very cool. I really wanted to get up and say something but I think if I had it would have only detracted from what my wonderful children had said so I stayed put. It was a wonderful and relaxed morning, a beautiful service and afterward we polished off a huge roast. Later in the evening we had another sad event. We had to drive Justin, Kira and Evan to the airport and send another portion of my heart off on an airplane. It's just too bad we have to work. It is very clear to me that true happiness in this life comes from our children.