Six Flags - Magic Mountain

Back when Alex was still in High School I agreed to go with him to magic mountain. As life happens however the date kept getting pushed out until he was gone to University and our date was long forgotten. Alex is now down for spring break with some friends and they planned a trip to magic mountain so I thought I might see if he was still interested in our date. I was afraid I would be crashing his party but when I brought it up he seemed sincerely happy so today Alex and his friends and I got up early and headed to magic mountain.

Boy did I abuse my body today. I'm sure we walked at least ten miles and I rode some of the best roller coasters in the world. What made it tougher than normal however is that there were no lines. We walked from one ride to the next ride and we never gave my stomach a chance to settle down between rides. I've always had a bit of a problem with car sickness but I've never had a problem with roller coasters before. Of course I've never been in a situation where I was able to go from one ride to the next with no breaks. My only saving grace was the fact that Frank was always just a little bit more nauseous that I was and so when they gave him a chance recover I was able to recover. Once we stopped for lunch however we stopped long enough that I got a chance to recover and I was great for the rest of the day.

It was great because I moved so fast that by the time we stopped for lunch we'd ridden every single major ride in the park. In the afternoon we basically just re-road our favorites. Let me see if I can remember the rides we road.

X2
Tatsu
Dejavu
Terminator
The Riddler
Batman
Tidal Wave
Goliath
Screem
Superman

After lunch we road some of them a second and in some cases a third time. I think my favorite was Superman and a close second was Tatsu.

Of course one of my highlights of the day was meeting Flash and Batman. That was pretty cool.





This was Batman - not my favorite ride but that might be because I was starting to get sick when I rode it.















Tatsu - On this ride you were held horizontal and it truly felt like you were flying. You were also up very high. I loved this ride, especially the barrel rolls.
















Deja Vu - This ride was great as long as you were going forward but when we repeated the entire ride backwards I started feeling nauseous for the first time today. I didn't really like this ride after that.














X2 - This was probably the most exciting ride in the park. It was a bit too aggressive to be my favorite but I have to admit it was very exciting. It went fast, it rolled you in every direction you could imagine and it kept you completely disoriented. A very crazy ride but I kept worrying that I was going to lose my glasses. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I'd worn my contacts.







Superman - This ride was short and sweet and perhaps my favorite ride. It used 17 induction coils to accelerate you from a standstill to 100 mph in something like 5 seconds. You then shot straight up a vertical track and then it was 100 mph straight down. We would hold pennies in our hands and when we started down we watched the pennies float up in the air. A very fun ride.












Goliath - This was your more conventional roller coaster. It took you right to the top of a very high roller-coaster and then it was straight down and very fast. It was a fun ride.









Terminator - Another somewhat conventional roller coaster.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Clocks made before 1687 had only one hand, an hour hand.

---------------------------------------------

Mitt Romney

What an exciting day this was. Let me start at the beginning. A couple of weeks ago Alcyia and Trevor went to a speech that Mitt Romney gave in Salt Lake City. I was quite jealous, especially when I learned that they were going to get an autographed copy of Romney's new book, "No Apology". Imagine my excitemnt when Lisa sends me an email about a book signing that Romney was doing here in San Diego. I was talking to Alycia about it and when I told her I was going to buy a copy of his book Alycia was all bummed and told me she was going to give me her autographed book as a Fathers Day present (or was it birthday?). I told her that she needed to send the book down with Alex and then I would take her book to the book signing and get Mitt to write "To Fred" in it and then I'd give it back to her so she could give it to me. Sure the surprise is gone but hey, I have his autograph.

So today I left work and headed straight to the book store. It started at 6:00 and I was right there on time but imagine my dissappointment when I noticed that the line up went completely around the store, out the doorway, down the entire length of the mall, out the front door and almost completely down the length of the mall. I was going to be there for hours and I was afraid that they'd close up before I got to Mitt and if I was ever lucky enough to get to him he'd probably have major cramps in his hands and his writing would be illegible. After surveying the line I decide to head for the end and there was Richard Collard and his mother. Richard was one of my scouts and is now a Sophmore in high school. We visited for a while and when I said that I'd better get to the end of the line before it grew even more he suggested that I just wait with them. I quickly won the battle with my conscience and graciously accepted the offer. They were actually inside the mall still and had been waiting there since 4:30.

Mitt must have been signing quickly because it didn't take too long before we were inside the store. They gave us special instructions that he was not personalizing the autographs and they told us exactly what page to open the book up to and everything. When my turn finally came I decided to break the rules and asked him if he would sign "Fred". He smiled and personalized my book. Richard took a picture of me and if he sends it to me I'll post it later. They also had a photographer there who will post pictures on line but they're not up yet. For now I'll post these pictures. Now I'm supposed to give my book back to Alycia but I've already read a couple of chapters and I don't want to wait to read it.

Thank you Belle

--------------------trivia--------------------

The United States is the only known country to win a war and not take land from the conquered country.

---------------------------------------------

Elder L Tom Perry

Well I guess we should have known better but if we had wanted to be in the chapel for stake conference today we would have had to be there before 8:00AM. As it turned out we didn't get there until about 8:40 which is plenty early enough for a normal stake conference but not if an apostle is going to be there. It was still wonderful and we were only about ten rows into the gym. The first speaker was our stake president ( a wonderful man who gave a wonderful talk) followed by our mission president (who I'm sure is a wonderful man but I haven't gotten to know him very well) and the it was Elder Perry. The choir also sang two wonderful songs. They are really very good.

I've been wondering all along why we had a special conference because we just recently had one but there was nothing mysterious. They had a priesthood training meeting in the area and the prophet told him to visit a stake who hadn't had an apostle in a while. Since we've never had an apostle I guess we were the lucky ones.

After having been spiritually fed for 90 minutes he stayed and shook hands with anyone who wanted to. Alex and Sarah both went through the line twice. The second time Alex went through was with Lisa and I. I thanked him for taking the time to meet with all of us and then I told him that he had visited my mission in 1978. He totally ignored me and looked directly at Alex and said, "And when do you leave?". Alex smiled and said, "June 16th". It was obvious that Elder Perry was pleased. So am I.

--------------------trivia--------------------

If you change the height of a stair by just 2 millimeters, the average person will trip over it.

---------------------------------------------

Alex is Home

In our old age Lisa and I are developing very different reputations. Lisa is getting a reputation for spending a lot of time on the phone and I'm getting a reputation for never answering my phone. I know my problem is that I work at a very intense job and I'm often in the middle of an experiment or a technical discussion with the other engineers. Lisa has always loved to visit and since her kids are now mostly out of the house she loves to call them or she loves it even better when they call her. It is probably just my imagination but it seems like my kids are calling me more often now that I don't ever answer the phone. In reality they are probably calling me the same but I just notice it more. Usually when they call me at work I can't answer the phone so I try and remember to call them back when I have a spare minute but this week something very odd happened. Brandon called me Thursday and it so happened I had some time and I talked to him for about ten minutes. Immediately after I hung up with him Alycia called me. I figured I had just talked to Brandon so to be fair I should talk to Alycia so I answered the phone and we talked for about ten minutes. I had barely hung up the phone from Alycia and Kira called me. By now I was starting to get a bit antsy wanting to get back to work so even though I felt bad about it I only talked to her for about five minutes and what do you know but as soon as I had hung up from Kira, Sarah called me. I figured I had talked to all the others so I should talk to Sarah too so Sarah and I talked for about five minutes. Lisa didn't call me until an hour or so later so now I'm beginning to wonder if Ben and Alex don't love me. More than likely they've just given up on me.

Track season has now started and I'm quite disappointed that most of the meets are on Thursday. That means that if I go to Sarah's meet then I'll be late for the temple. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal except that I'm an assistant coordinator which means I'm supposed to be a good example for the others. I missed her meet last week because the coordinator was sick and while two coordinators can run a shift OK it would be pretty tough for one guy to run it on his own. I picked the wrong week though because last week she had a good time and this week she performed quite poorly. She still came in third but they weren't running against a very good school. She was quite disappointed but I thought she looked beautiful.

The other great news is that Alex came home yesterday for spring break. He also brought a couple of friends with him. Harrison Hinz is from Lehi and Tyler Griffin is from St George. The weather couldn't have been better either for those poor frozen souls from Utah. It was in the 80's today and I spent most of the day working in the yard. I love working in the yard and even though my back is killing me I feel like I played all day. Tonight we barbecued some burgers for the boys and they were pretty good.

I'm very excited for tomorrow. We're having a Stake Conference and Elder L. Tom Perry will be speaking. For those who may not be familiar with the structure of our church, Elder Perry is one of the twelve apostles and so it is a big deal to have him come to our lowly church. We did have an apostle (Elder M Russel Ballard) come once before but he was just in town visiting family and his visit was informal. I'm told that this is the first official visit our stake has ever received from an apostle. I'm looking forward to it. As you can imagine we're planning on getting there quite early.

--------------------trivia--------------------

In the year 2000 for the first time in the history of man, the number of obese people in the world exceeded the number of starving people.

----------------------------------------------

Happy St Patricks Day

I thought I would add this cartoon as my contribution to St Patricks Day. Have a great St Patricks day everyone.

--------------------trivia-------------------
The strongest earthquake ever recorded was a 9.1 in Chile in 1960.
--------------------------------------------

Priest / Laurel Conference

It looks like my blog has turned into a weekly blog. I'm not quite sure if my days have become so boring that I only post on the weekends or if I've become so busy that I only have time to post on the weekends. The week really was quite uneventful but the weekend was a bit more interesting. This weekend was the Priest/Laurel conference. Just in case you don't know who the Priests and Laurels are they would be the youth in our church age 16 and 17. Sarah is a Laurel. Friday night they had a formal dance that everyone fondly refers to as "Mormon Prom". She went with a group of six kids and they had a blast. Saturday morning I went to help the Havertz fix up their house getting it ready to sell. Mike is an FBI agent and he's been battling Parkinson disease for several years now. It has grown so bad that he has had to retire early and they are moving to St George. I've noticed that St George is becoming a very popular retirement destination for people in Southern California who can't afford to retire in San Diego but can't bring themselves to endure the frigid Salt Lake City winters. Mike loves to go boating so I think St George has the added attraction of a close proximity to several nice lakes. We painted fences, eaves and general yard work. It is always quite sad when we see a great family like theirs leave.

Saturday was also day two of the Priest/Laurel conference. The main speaker was Brad Wilcox, the author of several books. One of his books is called "The Continuous Atonement". Coincidentally Sarah bought and has been reading that book so she took it with her to get him to autograph it. I think he was surprised to see someone as young as her reading his book. It sounds like they're now best friends. After the conference we ran her out to Cameron's JROTC ball. That was another formal dance. The girl is partying way too much.

While Sarah was at the youth conference Lisa and I attended the wards St Patrick day party. The highlight was these little Irish dancers. They were very cute and it was a thrill to watch them dance. I'm not sure why but Irish dancing has always fascinated me. The cutest were these two girls who must be identical twins. The number two highlight was a story told by Marilyn McPhie.

Today I was asked to teach the "Gospel Doctrine" class in Sunday School. That would be the adult class and I'm always very intimidated to teach the adults. I do great with the youth but people my own age scare me. They are also much harder to get to participate than the kids are. They don't interrupt me though so I guess that's a plus. I gave an OK lesson but it wasn't stellar. I didn't embarrass myself though so I guess that is good.

So that was my weekend. Let's hope this week is a bit more exciting.

--------------------trivia--------------------

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television was Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

---------------------------------------------

Steel Implants

A couple of weeks ago I was grinding up some PbTe into a powder using a home made morter and pestle. I was banging on the steel pestle with a hammer when I suddenly realized my arm was wet. I looked down at it and there was blood running down my arm. I thought to myself, "hmmm, that's weird, I guess a piece of steel must have chipped off of the pestle and cut my arm". I wiped away the blood and sure enough, there was what appeared to be a rather deep cut in my arm. I put a band-aid on it and carried on with my work.

Over the next few days I noticed that the cut didn't heal real well but sort of puffed up like a zit. I just figured there must have been a bit of an infection and didn't worry about it. Today Lisa noticed the giant zit on my arm and asked me what it was. I told her the story and she immediately said that I must have something in the cut. Again I thought, "gee, why didn't I think of that?" When we got home tonight she took a pin after my giant zit and after digging for a bit she found a small black thing in the hole she'd made. She finally dug out a relatively large piece of steel that had gone all black from spending two weeks trying to be metabolized by my body. Very strange.

--------------------trivia--------------------

During World War II, a German U-boat was sunk by a truck. The U-boat in question attacked a convoy in the Atlantic and then rose to see the effect. The merchant ship it sank had material strapped to its deck including a fleet of trucks, one of which was thrown in the air by the explosion, landing on the U-boat and breaking its back.

------------------------------------------------

The Hay Field

The weeks are just zipping by lately. For a while there I was updating my blog almost daily but now I'm only managing to update once a week but I feel like I did when it was daily. To review the week, it was sunny and beautiful and I worked long and hard every day. I've made good progress on my project but it was hard fought for. There, hows that for a quick "week-in-review"?

Today they were predicting rain and I figured I needed to get my lawn mowed before the rains came. I wasn't going to post a picture because it is quite embarrassing but I never get home before dark and every weekend for the last several weeks has been raining or else we were out of town or something. My lawn was totally over grown with clover. I'm sure I harvested at least a couple of bales of hay. The lawn was still quite wet so it was not easy mowing and the grass kept building up on my wheels but I managed to finish just as the rain started coming down. Here we go with some more rain. At least it is a warm rain unlike the past when it was quite miserable.

Tonight Sarah had some girlfriends over for a girls movie night. It is turning out to be an evening of chick flicks. Oh well, I've got plenty of other things I need to be doing. The funny part is that one of my old scouts just called me and asked if he and some friends could crash the party. I told them to just walk in the house and don't bother knocking. I think the girls about wet their pants. It was quite funny.

--------------------trivia-------------------

Due to obesity, today's young generation may be the first generation of Americans who have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

--------------------------------------------

Sheba - Olympics

Let me start out by saying that I love my cat. I think she is beautiful, classy, she has a lot of character, she is unpredictable and in her prime she was the queen of the neighbourhood. In spite of my love for my cat I've never been very cuddly with her mostly because I didn't like her falling asleep on me. If she fell asleep on me then I felt obligated to not move because I might disturb her. If she ever did fall asleep on me I would just boot her off and so Sheba and I always had a mutual respect for each other but we rarely snuggled up to each other.

Something has changed with that cat lately and I suspect it is because Alex is not living here anymore. She comes running to me in the morning, she sits on the table while I eat my breakfast and if I sit on the couch she is instantly on my lap. It is driving me nuts but I feel bad tossing her off so there we are with me watching the Olympics and Sheba asleep on my lap. Apparantly I'm not the only one. The other day we were watching the Olympics and Lisa says,"Fred, look at this". Sheba had crawled onto Lisa's lap and she had her nose literally a fraction of an inch from Lisa's nose. It was the funniest thing. Her nose was so close that her whiskers were tickling Lisa's nose.

How about the Canada / USA hockey game. What a great game. I loved the closing ceremonies too. Now maybe I can get to bed on time.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Ammonium nitrate fertilizer was invented in 1947 by Fritz Haber. Without this invention 2 out of every 5 people alive today would not be here because we couldn't grow enough food to feed them. Fertilizer is considered by many to be the most important invention of the twentieth century but have you ever heard of Fritz? No? That may be because he also invented explosives for Hitlers war effort, poisonous gas (ammonia and then chlorine) for his chemical warfare & Zyklon B that was used in the gas chambers to kill millions of Jews.

----------------------------------------------

Alex's Mission Call

I'm sure this news is hitting the web enmasse tonight but how can I not join all of those excited people and tell everyone that Alex received his mission call tonight? Unfortunately Lisa and I are stuck here in San Diego while Alex is up in Utah but through the miracle of modern technology we were able to share in the experience through Skype. We watched him open his call and boy was it exciting. Alycia took a video and if you'd like to see it just click here. Alex is going to the Chile, Santiago West mission and he reports on June 16, 2010. I am really glad that he will be learning Spanish. That means that all three of my boys will speak Spanish plus Justin speaks Spanish and pretty much the entire continent of South America speaks Spanish. All of central America, part of Europe and within just a few years most of the United States will speak Spanish. We are all very excited.

I know Alex would have learned to love what ever mission he was called to but I think he was really worried that he would be called to Utah or Idaho or something like that. I think he really wanted to go foreign and I'm glad that he is. In addition to learning much more about people and dealing with all of their various issues I think you learn just a little bit more when you can get outside of the United States and see what it is like to live in a third world country. He will come home a much better person. It will be tough to say goodbye for two years but I'm excited for him and it is quite obvious that he is excited as well.

I just learned an interesting fact about Chile. Lisa's ancestor was Anson Pratt, a brother to Parley and Orson Pratt. Anson and his wife died early and left a daughter who was orphaned and raised by Orson Pratt. As it turns out I am told that Uncle Parley served a mission to Chile. How exciting.

--------------------trivia--------------------

The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it. A chocolate bar in Chile probably has the whole insect in it.

---------------------------------------------

The Omnivores Dilemma

I was at work the other day when Lisa gives me a call. She told me that she had heard a big "bang" outside our door and so with a little trepidation she went to check it out. To her surprise there was a package laying on the doorstep. She was a bit upset that the delivery guy handled our package so roughly but Lisa loves to receive packages so she quickly grabbed it up to see what surprises she had received that day. She was quite surprised (and a little disappointed I imagine) to see that it was addressed to me. The only things I ever receive addressed to me are bills so this was quite unusual. She then proceeds to open the package; I never get to open anything in our house (except for the bills of course) and she was even more surprised to see that it was book addressed to me but the "bill to" address was Marilyn McPhie's. That is when she promptly called me to ask me why I would receive a book in the mail from Marilyn. I too was quite surprised and then I remembered a fascinating discussion I had last Sunday with Craig McPhie about the environmentally sustainable farming methods. I found the concept extremely interesting and I told Craig that he would have to let me borrow his book when he was done with it. Apparently he decided to just send me one instead. I am now well into the book and it is every bit as interesting as Craig told me it was. The book is called, "The Omnivores Dilemma" and if you read a few of my trivia's in the future that are related to food it will probably be from this book.

--------------------trivia-------------------

25% of all the food in an average supermarket originates from corn. Beef, chicken, turky, lamb & pork are all corn fed. Most of the fish are corn fed and even Salmon which is naturally a carnivore is being genetically altered to eat corn. Many of the alcoholic drinks are fermented from corn. Virtually every edible product in the super market contains one or more corn products including, corn flour, corn syrup, corn starch, corn oil, lecithin, mono-, di- and tri-glycerides, food colorings, citric acid, glucose, maltodextrin, ascorbic acid, lysine, maltose, HFCS, MSG, polyols, xanthan gum, margarine, mayonnaise, mustard, salad dressings and even many of the vitamins. Radioisotope testing shows that an American's body is made up from more corn than a Mexican. Mexicans eat far more corn than we do if you don't count all the processed stuff.

----------------------------------------------

A Weekend in Orange

When Lisa was in Utah Ben and Sharley came down for a visit. While he was here he received a phone call from his Ward secretary asking him to give a talk in Sacrament meeting on February 21. I wrote it on the Calendar because I thought it would be cool if we could go up and listen to him give his talk but then I promptly forgot about it.

Last Wednesday Lisa was looking at the calendar and she said, "Why did you write 'Ben talk' on the calendar?" Aren't calendars a great invention? So somewhat spontaneously we decided to go up and visit Ben and Sharley this weekend. The timing was perfect because it is Ben's birthday this week so we decided to celebrate his birthday while we were up there. Lisa also had a regional convention for her new business so we were able to kill three birds with one stone. We visited, watched movies, ate steaks and pizza's and soaked in the hot tub. It was an all around great weekend.

Our presence I'm afraid caused Ben a bit of anxiety. Because we were there he was too tempted to play rather than prepare his talk so Saturday night after we all watched a movie and went to bed Ben stayed up and worked on his talk. I went to bed at 1:30 and Ben was still working on his talk. I don't know what time it was when I heard his alarm go off but when I got up around 8:00 he was still working on his talk. His hard work did pay off however and he gave a wonderful talk. His topic was basically how we can be happy and enjoy life even during a time of great trials and obstacles such as the economic down turn and the hardship it has created for many of us. We then barbecued steak and had a great birthday dinner after which Ben opened the presents we bought. For several years now Ben has requested a dozen Crispy Creme donuts for a birthday cake. As you can tell, this year was no different. We got him a book, a shirt and tie plus the new Spanish Bible the church recently published with Topical Guide and the Bible dictionary.

And then of course there was Blue. I have scratches all over my hands and arm from playing with that vicious animal. We had a blast. That is definitely one hyper-active cat. She is also vengeful. I seriously believe that I made the cat mad and later when I was unprepared she attacked my foot when I was totally unprepared and then she ran away. I really like Blue. Happy Birthday Ben.

--------------------trivia--------------------

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon

---------------------------------------------

Global Warming, "Ooops", Make that Climate Change

On July 6, 2009, the San Francisco Chronicle reported the following:

The Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it's about to get even foggier.

That's the conclusion of several state researchers, whose soon-to-be-published study predicts that even with average temperatures on the rise, the mercury won't be soaring everywhere.

"There'll be winners and losers," says Robert Bornstein, a meteorology professor at San Jose State University. "Global warming is warming the interior part of California, but it leads to a reverse reaction of more fog along the coast."

This week, the Telegraph headline reads "Fog over San Francisco thins by a third due to climate change". Fog over San Francisco thins by a third due to climate change :

The sight of Golden Gate Bridge towering above the fog will become increasing rare as climate change warms San Francisco bay, scientists have found.

The coastal fog along the Californian coast has declined by a third over the past 100 years – the equivalent of three hours cover a day, new research shows.

And it is not just bad for scenery, the reduction in the cooling effect of the fog could damage the health of the huge Redwood Forests nearby.

No matter what the weather does these guys will blame it on "Global Warming". Except now they don't call it Global Warming anymore. Since the Earth has been cooling for the last few years they now call it "Climate Change". How can anyone possibly take these guys seriously?

--------------------trivia-------------------

28% of Africa is wilderness--38% of North America is wilderness

--------------------------------------------

The Olympics

Ever since Sarah got her drivers license I have been much more rested throughout the day. I’m really enjoying that but today I was talking to one of my guys and he was complaining about how tired he was. I also realized that I was dragging too and I was wondering why I’m so tired when I get to sleep in until 7:00AM every morning. And then it dawned on me…. Ever since these crazy Olympic Games started Lisa and I have been staying up and watching them until 1:00 AM. Let me clarify, Lisa sleeps on the couch beside me and I wake her up when one of her favorite figure skaters comes on so she can watch them. I’m loving it but this year is kind of strange. They give these personal histories on people and I start rooting for them to win because I like their story. My allegiances are torn all over the place. I want the Russian pairs skaters to win because I feel bad for the poor Japanese girl who defected from Japan to Russia to skate under that very successful coach. I want the Chinese pairs skaters to win because they’re married, they're old and they've won every medal in the book but still don’t have an Olympic gold. I want the Australian freestyle skier to win because I love how he told Canada to take a hike because they didn’t like that he was an internet millionaire at 15. I want the Canadians to win any gold because they’ve never won Gold at home yet and I love that Alexander Bilodeau won it because he looks very wholesome, he has a handicapped brother and his brothers name is Frederick. I really want Shaun White to win because he’s from San Diego and he loves his family so much and because he seems like a nice boy. And then there’s Apolo Ohno. I want him to get the American record for the most medals in a Winter Olympics. I’m hopeless, I want everyone to win. Meanwhile, I’m really enjoying watching the Olympics while Lisa sleeps beside me.

--------------------trivia--------------------

The flag flying over the parliament buildings on the Canadian $10 bill looks an awful lot like the US Stars and Stripes. Upon very close examination you can tell that it is probably the Canadian Ensign.

---------------------------------------------

Happy Valentines Day

When Kira was just a toddler I brought her home a little daisy on Valentines day. I've done that ever since for all of my daughters on Valentines day up until they left home. Since Sydney was here yesterday when I brought home flowers for Lisa and Serene I also brought Sydney a little daisy. She was speechless and that is something for Sydney. She's never speechless.

This morning when I got up there were heart shaped pancakes that Serene had made for me and chocolate covered strawberries by my plate. What a wonderful way to wake up. This year our Sacrament meeting doesn't start until 12:30 in the afternoon. I don't like that too much because by the time you get home from church the day is gone. It does make for a very relaxed morning however so since we don't get to choose our meetings time I'm making the very best of the relaxing mornings. That is very nice.

In honor of Valentines day I have two interesting bits of trivia to share with you.

--------------------trivia--------------------

2% of all Americans who get married met on e-harmony.

---------------------------------------------

80% of all married American men say the would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again. Only 50 % of American women say they'd marry the same man.

---------------------------------------------

I'm Coming Hayley

Right now my life seems terribly boring and I don't have much to talk about that you would find interesting. The most exciting thing that has happened is that Brandon went to Utah for some law convention (or something like that) so we invited Serene and the girls to come down for the weekend. At the moment I'm babysitting Hayley and Sydney while Lisa and Serene went out to run some errands. Sydney is down for her nap and Hayley is really wishing I would pay more attention to her. This morning we all went up to the park and Sydney must have spent an hour on the swings the entire time yelling "Higher Grandpa, Higher". Of course I felt compelled to oblige but Serene made me stop when Sydney was going so high that the chains began to go slack.

I'm still going through withdrawals from my scout calling. It was mixed feelings Tuesday night when I would normally go to my Scout meeting but I got to stay home instead. Right now my boys are on a scout camp at Big Bear that I'm missing as well. Oh well, if I was camping I would be missing out on visiting with Hayley.

This week at work we had visitors all week long. There are still many challenges but we're making good progress and exciting things are happening. I'll update you on all of that when I can.

--------------------trivia------------------

Living at a high altitude increases your metabolism so people living at high altitudes are generally thinner than people living at low altitudes.

--------------------------------------------

The End of an Era

What a sad day. Today in Sacrament meeting I was released from my calling as the scout master. I have been in this calling since Alex was a deacon and as best as I can remember I think it has been about seven years. If you add that up with the other two times I've been in scouts I think it totals nearly fifteen years. I'm really going to miss it. Since I'd been told it was coming I went prepared. Sarah suggested that I make my boys a batch of cookies. In the end Sarah was a sweetheart and she whipped up a batch of "no-bake" cookies for them. What a wonderful child she is. I was scheduled to teach the lesson today so at least I got to sort of say good-bye. It is funny but every single young man who is in the young mens program in our ward today was in scouts with me at one time. I even had Alex in scouts and now he will be going on a mission before long. I'm really going to miss those boys and I think they might miss me too. Other than that tho, this has been a pretty good weekend. Friday night Sarah had a party with some of her friends from church so I was home alone. I took the opportunity to go through some old mail that I've been procrastinating on and then watch a movie. Saturday was my chance to sleep in but instead I went over to the church at 7:00 AM and helped set up some chairs for a womans function that they were having about gardening or something like that. I got home just in time to send Sarah over to the school to take a practice SAT test. It went from 9:00 until after 1:00. She came home briefly to grab something to eat and then headed back to the school to record the stats for the wrestling team. In her brief visit home she managed to let me know that the practice SAT was perhaps the most miserable experience of her young life. It was Math and before she could finish it switched to English and then before she could finish that it was back to math and then English and then math and so it went for four hours. The poor girl. I just pointed out that if she thought that was bad wait until she does it for real. Meanwhile I was puttering around the house knocking items off of my to-do list. I know I've discussed this before but I do love crossing things off of the to-do list. Finally, around 5:00 Sarah came home and while I'm sure there were plenty of things for her to do she told me that she wanted to stay home with me and we could do something fun. We then whipped up some semi-healthy junk food and rented a movie off of the cable. By semi-healthy I mean things that won't bother her IBS too much. It's been acting up lately.

This morning as we were getting ready for church we got a call from Ben. As you may recall the super bowl was today. Ben & Sharley had been invited to some super bowl parties but they decided that they would rather come down here and watch it with us. How fun. I whipped up some sloppy joe's and in deference to Sarah we served them on whole wheat buns. Cameron also came to church with us so he came over after to watch the game as well. What a great game it was. Both teams played very well and made few mistakes. Both Ben and Lisa told me that I was rooting for the Saints. They gave me some very good reasons to. 1) Drew Breese used to play with the Chargers, 2) Reggie Bush is from San Diego and Ben has actually played against him in High School, 3) The Saints have never been to the super bowl before and 4) even though we don't hate Peyton Manning specifically, we just hate the Manning name in general. His Dad was a jerk and his brother was especially a jerk. Apparently he was drafted by the Chargers but he refused to play for us. Sounds like good enough reasons to me. On top of all that we just don't like the colts. I've learned that sports are much more fun if we are able to hate one of the teams.

Almost as much fun as the super bowl however was Sharley's camera. If you read her blog, she talked about it and if you noticed my comment, I suggested that she bring it down here for me to play with it. Guess what? She did. I sort of doubt she brought it just for me but I like to think she did. It was fun to see them though and we did have a good time. Sharley even made a very delicious lemon cheesecake thing. Anyone who knows me knows that I love anything citrus. This cheesecake was good and the best part is that it is apparently easy to make. I think I'm going to try it next Sunday for dessert.

What a Restful Feeling

What a great day this has been. It all started at 3:00 AM. My normal bedtime lately seems to be midnight or later. I have no excuse except that it is often late before I can get started on some of the things I really enjoy and then when I get into it I find that before I know it, it is after midnight. Last night Sarah went to bed early and I did a few things around the house and then I looked at the clock and it was only 10:00 and I decided why not go to bed? Well five hours later I woke up in the middle of the night. I guess my body figured that after five hours of sleep I normally wake up so I should wake up tonight as well. I looked at the clock and thought "that's weird" and promptly went back to sleep. I never wake up in the middle of the night.

I had set my clock for 5:45 to wake Sarah up for seminary but at 5:44 she pokes her head into my bedroom and says, "bye Dad, I'm going to seminary". She had set her own alarm for earlier and so had gotten herself up. If you read my blog yesterday you will remember that Sarah has her drivers license now. That meant that for the second time on this wonderful night I just rolled over and promptly went back to sleep. My alarm finally did go off at 6:50 AM and so after nearly nine hours of sleep I got up and got ready for work. I can't remember the last time I had more than eight hours of sleep on a work day but I'm sure it has been many years. I felt great. I also think that eight hours of sleep when you go to bed early and get up early is more effective that eight hours of sleep when you go to bed late and get up late. I can't think of any logical reason why that would be the case but it just seems to be the way it is.

I think I'll try going to bed at ten o'clock a little more often. I like this.

--------------------trivia--------------------
In the 40's, the spelling for the Bich pen was changed to Bic for obvious reasons.
---------------------------------------------

Drivers License

Today was a day of some crazy ups and downs. It started out with a big down, Lisa left me. At least she's gone for the weekend. We had everything timed to perfection. I'd run her to the airport and get back just in time to wake Sarah and run her over to Seminary. We were just a few miles from the airport when Lisa realized that she'd forgotten her cell phone. What a dilemma, if we went back for the phone then we would risk missing her flight and to make things worse, I wouldn't be back in time to get Sarah to seminary. If we didn't go back for the phone then Lisa would be in Salt Lake for six days with no way to keep in touch with Alex and Alycia not to mention Sarah and I. After about 60 seconds of deliberation we took the next exit and headed home at 90 mph. Lisa grabbed her phone, I woke up Sarah (who was quite confused), we ran Sarah to the church and left her on the doorstep wrapped in a blanket and then off for the fastest trip to the airport that I've ever made. As it turned out, not quite fast enough. Lisa was there 25 minutes before her plane left and they would have had no problem getting her on the plane but they couldn't get the luggage on the plane. I actually think they could have but they didn't want to try. The problem is that they won't put her luggage on another plane unless she's on the same plane. That meant that she had to rebook on the next flight out and that cost us an extra $50. Oh well, I guess it is worth it for her to have her phone. That is one of the reasons why I never check my luggage. If she'd had carry on she could have made her original flight. Oh well. She's in Utah to see her babies. I'm jealous.

Meanwhile, back on the home front, I got to run Sarah around. First we took her to her orthodontist for a retainer check. Guess who never took her retainer? Pretty tough to do a retainer check without a retainer. From there we headed to the California DMV office so Sarah could take her drivers exam. She was so nervous she about wet her pants. I must admit I was a bit nervous myself. As I was sitting there watching the other kids come back into the office I would see them smiling or frowning but pretty much under control. All of the sudden I see Sarah jumping and bouncing down the side walk and then screaming the whole way she ran and jumped on me. Yes, she passed. Sarah is actually a very good driver, perhaps one the best of all my kids but she has one very bad flaw that scares me to death. She is very easily distracted and doesn't always check her surroundings. Of the ten demerits that she got, six of them were for "traffic check". I guess the examiner agree's with me. She's allowed fifteen demerits so our baby is now driving. Tonight we went and made her a set a keys. She's one exited girl. Guess what? Tomorrow I get to stay in bed while she drives herself to seminary. Yay.

--------------------trivia--------------------

The Gutenburg bible used the skins of 300 sheep for each bible printed.

---------------------------------------------