Alex is gone

I'm sad to see this week end. The University of Utah had the week off and so Alex came home for the week. It was so fun to come home from work and see him here. He also brought a friend from Lehi (or one of those small towns south of the point of the mountain). I think he enjoyed his visit, They arrived on Saturday and Sunday he saw his old buddies at church, Monday they went to the zoo, Tuesday they went to the beach, Wednesday they , Thursday they went to Disneyland and visited with Ben and Sharley and Friday I think they unwound and relaxed around the house. Friday as he was going to bed I went in to his room to talk to him and I saw Sheba intently staring at a spot in Alex's room. I figured she must have spotted a spider or something and was about to take it out. When I looked closer I saw that Tom (Alex's python) had escaped from his aquarium (again). The problem is that when Tom gets hungry he tends to strike at anything that he thinks might be food. Once it was my thumb and another time it was Alex's big toe. Alex and I sat on the bed for a bit both of us thinking that Tom hadnt eaten for a week and we were trying to decide just how hungry he might be. We kept telling the other person to pick up the snake but in the end I finally had to be the brave one and pick up Tom. He seemd quite relaxed so I wasn't too worried but even still I moved very slowly and made sure I didn't do anything to startle Tom. Now the big mistery is "who took the bowling ball off of the lid?" Tom is getting quite big now and very capable of lifting the lid on his aquarium so Alex keeps a bowling ball on top of it. The ball was on the floor. I really don't think Tom is strong enough to lift it off but who knows? I'm quite sure it wasn't Lisa or Sarah and I know it wasn't me. It must have been Katlyn. Or maybe Tom is strong enough to lift it off.

Today Alex and Katlyn headed back to Utah. It was sad to see them go and I will surely miss him.

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

Modern day cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, brussels sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli were all bred by man from the same wild plant about 200 years ago.

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Kempler & Struass

Today in 1983 Motorolla sold the very first cell phone for $3,500, the DynaTAC 8000X. Compare that with some of the phones you can get today for little or not cost.

This watch phone is actually made by a very good friend of ours. Many of you probably know Mahonri Sanchez. We've come a long way haven't we?

Happy Birthday cell phones, how did we ever survive without you?

Happy Birthday Sydney

This morning we got up early and drove to Malibu to attend Sydney's birthday party. She turned two on Thursday. We were going to pick up Ben and Sharley and take them with us but they had school work to do and weren't able to come. The party started at 10:00AM and it was a lot of fun to watch all those little kids icing cup cakes and decorating them. They made a pretty good mess. As you can see, Sydney got a lot of cool presents and the other kids were right in there helping her out. Of course they saved the biggest present (the one Mom and I gave her) for last.

We gave her a rocking horse. Rocking horses have progressed quite a bit since our kids were little. Both Brandon and Sarah commented on how ripped off they felt because they only got stick horses when they were little. When you pinch the horses right ear he makes galloping sounds and neighs. His tail also randomly wags. If you pinch the left ear he doesn't gallop but only makes the neighing sound and wags his tail. It is pretty cool but it doesn't take long for the sound to drive you insane. All of the little kids loved it and they all tried to climb on the horse at once. Sydney didn't really grasp the concept of riding the horse so she didn't really mind other kids climbing on but once she figured out that you could sit on the horse no one else was going to get a chance to do so.

The party went until noon at which point Brandon went to his football practice and we pulled out the vacuum cleaner. Yes, you heard me correctly, Brandon went to football practice. It turns out that there are only two groups of guys at Pepperdine, the guys who go surfing and the guys who play flag football. Since he doesn't have a surfboard (or the time to go surfing) he decided to hang out with the football guys. It took some time to get an invitation to go and practice with the guys but today he had his first practice. He figures if he doesn't play football then he isn't going to have any friends at school. It seems like he had a lot of fun. He commented that it was easier to catch the football than he thought it would be.

Of course one of the things I was looking forward to the most was seeing Hayley. She is such a beautiful baby. She is also very mild mannered. As long as she has a clean diaper and a full belly she is quite content to just lay in your arms and enjoy the cuddling. I loved it.

After Brandon finished his practice we visited for a while and then headed down the road back home. We were going to drop some of Ben's things off at his house so instead of going down the 405 like we normally would have we continued on down the I-10. I will never go down that road again. I went that way once before for another reason and the road was just as bad this time as it was then. To make things worse there is no car pool lane on the I-10. I can't even imagine living in Los Angeles. How can those people stand it? It took us an hour and a half to make a drive that should only have taken forty five minutes. Very frustrating. The cool thing is that Ben called us and told us that they decided they would like to come home for the weekend. They actually left about the time we got to their house and they arrived home before we did. Too bad they didn't decide to leave before we got onto the I-10. It could have saved us nearly an hour if we had gone on the 405 instead.

One of the reasons we wanted to hurry home was because Alex is down for the week. The "U" has next week off so he decided to come home. He also brought a girl with him. Katlyn is a very sweet (and very tiny) girl from Lehi. Since Alex is home Frank came over and since Ben is here Patrick came over so it is a full house and I love that. I love it when there are a ton of people and a lot of noise. It has been very quiet here for a long time. The kids all decided to go to a movie so while Lisa was watching a movie I went for a run. I'm remembering how much I loved running and it is good to get back into it. The best part is that I'm feeling no pain in my knee at all. I am taking it easy though and so far I haven't gone over a mile and a half at a time. Just to give my knee's the best chance possible I'm going to increase my miles very slowly.

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

Shortly after the arrival of Columbus 95% of the native Americans were dead from small pox and other diseases. In some villages the death rate was as high as 99%.

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Throwing Papers

As the kids got older our expenses grew and it became more and more difficult to make ends meet. Finally the dentist told us that Ben needed a palatal expander and if we didn't take care of it right then, the roof of his mouth would become more and more "bony" and it would require surgery to fix it if we waited too long. If we did it right away it could be fixed with braces. That is when I decided to take on a second job to pay for Ben's braces. After much consideration I decided I would throw newspapers. I didn't want to miss out on my kids lives and since newspapers are delivered at 3:00 AM I figured there would be little conflict with a job like that. I had no idea how to get a paper job so I made a few calls and learned where the paper distribution center was. I got up in the middle of the night and walked into the center. As it turns out, the area is divided into several "districts" and each district has their own manager. It is up to the individual managers to hire people so I found all the managers and finally found someone who had a carrier who wanted to downsize their route. I took part of the route and after a few days with no "errors" I was given a full route.

At first it seemed like the job would work out well but I soon realized that with my life style I just wasn't going to be getting enough sleep. Sundays were the toughest days, the papers didn't arrive until late, they were huge and if they weren't delivered on time people would complain and complaints are not well tolerated by the managers. I finally started taking the older kids with me to deliver Sunday papers. I paid them well and for a while it turned out to be a lot of fun. It didn't take long however for the kids to get tired of being woke up in the middle of the night and before long it was only Brandon and I throwing papers on Sundays. We have a lot of fond memories from those nights.

One day I asked Brandon how much money he had saved. I was quite surprised to learn that he didn't have anything. I was paying him quite well but every week after I paid him he would take the money to school and spend it in the school store. I pointed out that if he had saved it he could have paid for a brand new bike but he didn't seem too phased by that. He had really enjoyed his weekly treats at school and that is what counts in the end, right?

The other problem with throwing papers is that you have no breaks. Every single day the papers have to be delivered. Probably the toughest night for me was Christmas. I couldn't go to bed early because I didn't want to disrupt our Christmas Eve traditions and then I had to be up early because what young children want to sleep in on Christmas morning?

Before long I began to feel trapped. I was constantly exhausted, a couple of times I even found myself asleep at the wheel stopped at a traffic light (that was scary), I never got to talk to Lisa and we never went out or did anything. Perhaps the worst part was that I was so exhausted I was no longer saying my prayers. That is when I made a wonderful discovery, there was an area on my route where I had to get out of the car and walk through a small apartment complex. It was beautifully landscaped and as I walked among the trees it was extremely peaceful. I decided that if I was too tired to say my prayers before I went to bed or when I got up I should probably say them right there in the middle of that peaceful park. The combinatioin of the quiet of the night, the beautiful surroundings and a very troubled heart made for some of the most spiritual and meaningful prayers of my life. Before long my prayers in that park became the highlight of my existence. During that time I felt like I came to know my God like I have never known him before. I was pleading for a way out of my desperate situation and while no immediate solution was given to me I was given peace and I was assured that a path would be shown to me.

Over the next few months I quit my paper route (after almost exactly one year), I started a masters program at UCSD (paid for by my employer) and I went in and talked to my boss about a raise. To my dissappointment he told me that I wasn't worth the money I was asking for. That is honestly how he said it but what he meant was that an engineer doing what I was doing wasn't worth what I was asking for. I showed him some data that showed that in California engineers doing what I was doing made much more than what I was asking but he blew me off telling me that in those surveys people exaggerated their responses.

At school there were a few students who worked at Qualcomm. Qualcomm was growing very fast and hiring a lot of engineers. Through one of my class mates I got an interview and was offered a job making much more than I had asked for at Hi-Z. After much prayer I realized that this was the right decision for me and I gave my notice at Hi-Z. That was very difficult for me because I loved my work at Hi-Z and I would much rather work there than at Qualcomm but that wasn't to be. Of course Hi-Z offered to match my offer from Qualcomm but I realized that if I stayed on there would be resentment on both sides and in reality it would probably have been a burden for them to pay me what I was getting at Qualcomm. I did offer to consult for them as much as I could and as it turned out that was a really good situation for us both. We stayed friends and I entered a new phase of my life.

The Miramar Airshow

My face hurts. It is quite sunburned because I have been outside in the bright sun all day long. Today we went to the Miramar Airshow. It is held at the Miramar Marine Corp Air Station which is only five miles south of our house. Lisa's Dad has been threatening for years that he's going to come down sometime for the Miramar Air Show and this year he actually followed through on his threat. It is great to have him and I have been looking forward to seeing the show since he announced his intentions. We did come years ago when the kids were little but it's been way too long. The Miramar Marine Corp Air Station used to be called the Miramar Naval Air Station before the Marines took over the place and it was the home of the Top Gun Training school. Top Gun is where the movie "Top Gun" was filmed which was based on this school. The school really existed. In any case, the air show was great. So much so that I took way too many pictures and while I thinned them down a lot I'm afraid I'm testing the limits on how many pictures "Blogger" will let you post. If you don't care to read about all the pictures then just browse through the pictures and enjoy. It was a great day even though I now have a three day blush. I really hate putting on sunscreen so I purposely wore long pants and a long sleeve shirt and a hat so I wouldn't have to. The only problem is that I didn't wear a hat with a brim so my ears and cheeks are burned. Oh well, you don't have many nerve cells in your face so it doesn't really hurt that very much.


We arrived around 8:30 and by the time we got to the grandstands this guy was flying. I think it may be a mustang. In any case, it is a cool looking plane.

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I loved this jet powered truck. He puttered up and down the runway a few times making lots of fire and smoke and about the time I decided that it was all a bit stupid he lit up his engines and took off down the runway. It accelerated very fast. I was very impressed

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This hang glider sort of appeared out of nowhere. Sarah and I finally figured out that he was towed up by a rope. It was pretty cool to watch but when he landed they announced that the guy flying the hang glider is a paraplegic. I decided right then that if I ever lost the use of my legs I'm getting a motorized hang glider and flying all over the city. You do need your arms so if we're going to get Evan a motorized hang glider it's going to need a joy stick. I'll work on that one.

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I'm not sure but I think this might be another mustang.

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This glider was towed up by another plane. Gliders are so graceful to watch. It really does bring a sort of peace to you.

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This is the first time ever that the Canadian Snow Birds have come to the Miramar Air Show. The guys in black are the mechanics for the planes and the guys in red are the pilots.

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First of all the mechanics walked out in front of their parked planes. When they reached a plane the mechanic for that plane stopped in front of his plane. The pilots then did the same thing.

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The pilot and the mechanic then saluted each other.

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And then they shook hands.
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They checked out the plane together
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And then the mechanic stood by while the pilot made himself comfortable in the plane.

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The mechanic put on his ear muffs.

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Marched out to the front of the plane.
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And then one by one the planes all pulled out and left.
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When the mechanics plane left he turned to his left and watched it leave.

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The planes formed up on the runway.
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And flew off into the sunset.
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The Snow Birds are known for how tight their formations are.

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One of the freakiest things that they do is one plane fly's from the right and another from the left and they fly right towards each other. It looks like they barely miss when they meet in the middle but I'm sure they leave themselves a safe distance even if it looks like mere inches.

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They made several very beautiful formations.
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Another one.

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These planes are so close together than when I took the picture I thought it was only one plane. It is actually three very closely stacked up on each other.

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Look how close they are.
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And then they landed and it was over. Near the end of their show they stopped the formations and one of the pilots landed his plane. We were wondering what was up when they announced that the formation leader hit a bird with his plane. Grandpa talked to them after the show and learned that the bird hit just inches from the intake of the engine. If it had gone into the engine it would likely have been the end of the engine.

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At noon a couple of parachutes jumped from a plane. The first one carried the Canadian Flag to honor the Snow Birds.

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Thje second guy had a US flag. We stood for both flags.

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They demonstrated in flight re-fueling techniques for the F-18 hornets.

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The marines demonstrated how they might perform a ground attack.

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Once they're on the ground they blow up their targets
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I love the F-18. It is a beautiful (and powerful) plane.
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And it carries a lot of very destructive weapons.
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Of course the Marines have to show off some of their heavy artillery
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These guys are not military, I think they're a private group.
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The Hercules is Grampa's favorite plane. He was a mechanic for one for years. He can tell you where every one of them (by serial number) is. I guess one of them (or whats left of it) is in some jungle in South America.

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Nana's favorite jet (and perhaps mine) is the Harrier made by the Brits. Here it is coming to a stop right in front of us.

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And then he turned and looked at us.
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After briefly landing he nearly "leaped" off the ground and took off in a real hurry. This plane is VERY loud. Every body were plugging their ears. I loved the sound of the power so much that I wanted to thrill in every decibel. I think I'm paying for it today with the ringing in my ears.

--------------------------------Fat Albert (another of Grandpa's Hurc's) is a support ship for the Blue Angels.

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They say the Canadian Snow Birds are known for their tight formations but the Blue Angles seem to be in a pretty tight formation as well.

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I love the F-18. It is fast (nearly twice the speed of sound), and very powerful.

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The Snow Birds do have more planes in their formations. The Snow Birds have up to nine planes but the Angels only have six.

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Top view.
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Side View
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Here they are once again trying to make you think they're going to hit each other.

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Don't they look like they're nearly sitting on top of each other?

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It looks awfully close to me.
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The picture doesn't do it justice but they looked very cool with the setting sun reflecting off of them.

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Cool
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Oracle had a very agile little stunt plane there.

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The F-18's in the rising moon.
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This is a view of the back of the bleachers. We sat on the very back row right above these porta potties. Sarah of course is on her phone the entire day texting everybody she knows. I forbid her from texting during the Angles and Snowbirds but there was enough down time in between that it didn't make sense for her to just sit and wait. At one time she dropped her phone (she always drops her phone) and barely stopped it from falling down below the stadium. I warned her then that if she dropped her phone it would be replaced with the cheapest thing I could find. Right now she has a Palm Treo. Well guess what? That's right towards the end of the show her treo took this twenty foot drop to the concrete below. With horror on her face she ran down the bleachers to recover the parts. Amazingly enough, she found all of the separate pieces and the screen was uncracked and the phone fully functional. She stuffed the phone in my camera case and it took nearly an hour before she succumbed to the temptation to pull it out and continue texting.

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Here is the Hurc with eight rockets assisting a very quick take off. Or as Grandpa would say, eight "bottles". Grandpa has taken off with two "bottles".

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This is our paraplegic hang glider at night trailing some sparklers.

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You can't see the F-18 but if you notice the diamond shapes in his after burners that is what happens in a gas flow that is super sonic. I work with plasma guns that shoot plasma at super sonic speeds. There is actually a brand name that calls their guns "diamond guns" for that very reason.

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The show ended with another "bombing" run but at night it has a special appeal.

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You can actually feel the heat wave and feel the shock wave when it hits you. It is also a good lesson in physics because you see the explosion and feel the heat a good two seconds before you feel and hear the shock wave. So if the delay is two seconds who can tell me how far away the explosion was?

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

The latest thinking is that black holes can't exist. It has been shown that as the gravity gets very large in a "would be" black hole, a quantum force called vacuum polarization grows large enough to prevent the star from collapsing below the event horizon. They are now calling these things "black stars".

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