February 2007 archive

2008 Presidential Campaign

An unattributed quote was just emailed to me by my good friend, Lane. I had resolved not to talk politics on this website, but this is so awesome it has to be shared:

There’s no doubt history is in the making with the 2008 presidential race. We may have either the first Black president, the first Woman president, or the first Mormon president. Why not go really big – elect Gladys Knight president and call it a day.

UPDATE: A source for the quote may have been found.

Posted by Bryan on February 27, 2007 | Filed under: Family News Politics | 2 comments

New Geek Blog

I’ve decided to put my geeky stuff on its own blog. For all one or two of you who read this, please continue following along here:

http://bryan-murdock.blogspot.com/

Posted by Bryan on February 7, 2007 | Filed under: Geek | 1 comment

Why A Professor Believes

There are a few books that managers at work love to cite. One of them is titled, The Innovator’s Dilemma. I haven’t read it, but apparently it describes situations that arise in our big business quite well. I learned today that that book was written by a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a professor at the Harvard Business School, Clayton M. Christensen.

It also turns out Brother Christensen (I can call him that now, right?) has written an article for the February ’07 Ensign, and he has recently posted a longish essay on his personal website entitled, Why I Belong, and Why I Believe. I took a few moments to read this today and I highly recommend it to anyone. He does a beautiful job explaining the effectiveness of our volunteer organization in The Church, as well as how he gained a witness of the truthfulness of of the gospel from the Holy Ghost. Go take a look.

Posted by Bryan on February 6, 2007 | Filed under: Family News Religion | 0 comments

Uncle Erik

For those who know that my uncle Erik was in a coma last week, Erik is home from the hospital and doing great. The nurses started calling him the miracle man. He can’t drive for two weeks until both the cardiologist and neurologist give him approval. He has gone through some speech therapy and I heard he will continue that.

Other than that, there are a lot of details that would take forever to write down.

Posted by Ily on February 4, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 0 comments

We got a piano!

Isaac has been taking piano lesson since September and we finally got a piano. He has been using this great keyboard we have that has piano sized keys until now. The keys on the keyboard aren’t weighted though so he has had a hard time actually playing the real thing at his piano lessons. It feels different.

Last weekend we looked on Craigslist to see what we might find and we found a great deal on a little spinet style piano for a whopping $240. Spinets are shorter and smaller, and it weighs a whole lot less too when you pick it up and put it in the back of a pick-up truck to transport it to your home (in the rain). We looked at it and found it to be in good condition. We even talked to a piano technician about if it would be worth it and after describing it he said, “Wow, that is a great deal!” It is a little on the rugged looking side, but we figure that with 3 young boys, we aren’t ready for a beautiful baby grand yet.

So today we got a bunch of guys and a friend with a truck together to help us with the piano transport. It has been sunny all week and today it rained of course. It still made here in one piece and not much more banged up than it was before.

They boys think it is really cool and have already inspected it inside and out. Those hammers look cool inside when you play! Reece already managed to lose his binky behind it. We decided it will be totally broken in when find a binky inside it.

UPDATE: There are pictures of the piano now.

Posted by Ily on February 3, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 1 comment

Phonics

Isaac is learning to read and write and he is doing really well trying to sound everything out phonetically. He has some words down by sight now and he is getting much braver with his writing. He loves to write books, letters, and draw pictures. all of this is part of his expanding capacity to write.

Tonight he was drawing a picture and decided he wants to give it to his Aunt Melinda and Uncle Benj. When it was all colored nice, we folded it up and put it in an envelope for them. Then he sounded out everything to write this:

I think he really sounded it out quite logically, but it sure is going to be hard to resist calling my brother-in-law “Bang” from now on! I think that name actually suits him too.

Posted by Ily on February 2, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 0 comments

Happy Groundhog Day

It’s time to admit that I’ve had a special place in my heart for Groundhog Day ever since seeing the movie of the same name. Going even further back in my memory, I can still recall the confusion I had when it was first explained to me by one of my elementary school teachers. “If he sees his shadow, that means it’s sunny, right? If it’s sunny that means winter will last longer? That’s totally backwards!” My young logical mind got all twisted in knots.

I can report that today in Vancouver any groundhog that dares take a peak above ground will most definitely be scared by the rarely seen sunshine that we are enjoying this week. I guess it’s another 6 weeks of winter for us. As long as this sunshine stays around, I won’t mind.

Posted by Bryan on February 2, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 0 comments