November 2007 archive
"I need My keys!!!"
I saw a play years ago called The Boys Next Door. It is about a group of mentally disabled men and their social worker. It was funny and dramatic and all around wonderful. There were lots of quirky characters who made you just want to laugh and cry. If it ever is being done by a local theater group, you should go to see it. One of the characters has a fetish for his keys. For whatever reason he gets to carry around a huge key ring full of keys to who knows what. If ever anyone tries to touch his keys, or if he misplaces them, or if he worries that they are in danger for any reason he panics and shouts out “ I need my keys!”
I found myself panicking about just like that this week. To preface this story I must admit, I misplace things often. I also admit, that little critters in our house (AKA little boys) move things around without my knowledge and make it interesting to locate stuff too.
Well, I lost my keys. I did have some spare keys, but that spare set doesn’t have a mail key, nor a key to Bryan’s car. The last time I saw my keys was Tuesday or Wednesday when I went swimming for exercise. By Saturday I was really beginning to panic. I had already checked all my coat pockets and the keys weren’t there. I even had the boys check in the toy corner and we had toys everywhere, but no keys. We took the couches apart to see if they had fallen in amongst the cushions. We opened the sofa bed to see if they fell into the mechanisms somehow. We did find some small toys inside the couch, but no keys. I asked all the family who had been here this week if they had seen my keys and none of them could give me a good lead on where to find them.
So in despair, I decided to check my swim bag one last time (no matter that I had checked it a few times before) and there they were in the side pocket. With the huge Sully monster (Monsters INC) on the key chain how could I have missed them? I am such a nerd! I tore the house apart, got intimate with every nook and cranny downstairs and up, searched the cars, bugged all the family with my pleas for help in finding those keys and they were just in my exercise bag. My only question is this: how in the world did I drive home from the club with the keys in my bag instead of in the ignition? Hmmmm…or, do I have mental lapses and not remember things like slipping them into the bag when I get home? I think I need memory exercises.
So to all of the family that I bothered with my key sob story, please forgive me! I found my keys, and I need to surgically attach them to my wrist so I never lose them again!
Posted by Ily on November 27, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 3 comments
Now Safe From Spambots
I’m continually amazed at the geeky phrases that my peers are able to infuse into everyday living. Megahertz, gigabytes, Internet, http, URL, email, blogs, World Wide Web. Does anyone else ever take a step back and listen to just how silly we all sound calling that punctuation mark that usually goes at the end of a sentence a dot? I wonder if Isaac thought it was weird when his teacher called it a period?
Spam has to be one of the best. I’m not sure where that came from, but I’ve gotten to know some native Hawaiians lately, and they actually like to eat Spam. Apparently it’s big on the islands. I haven’t asked if they are offended that we use the name of a beloved food to refer to unwanted email advertising, but I’ve been tempted.
Here’s one you probably haven’t heard before. Did you know that there are robots crawling the Internet? People write programs that download website after website from the internet. These programs are, for some unknown reason, referred to as robots, or bots, for short, and what they do is called crawling. In fact, this is how Google indexes the entire internet, by crawling it with the Googlebot.
The Googlebot is generally thought of as a good and helpful bot, but there are other more sinister bots crawling the internet. They look for email addresses and blogs that are ripe for spamming. These are called spambots. You probably haven’t noticed, but this website has fallen prey to spambots lately. Weird comments advertising unmentionable things have been showing up on old entries. I’ve been deleted them as soon as they appear, but that’s getting old. While sitting around after having had knee surgery, I added a captcha to the website’s comment system in order to battle the bots. You’ve probably seen these before, actually. If you haven’t, leave a comment on this entry and you’ll see what I mean.
The idea behind a captcha is to require you to pass a test before you can post a comment to a website. The test should be simple for humans, but next to impossible for computers (or bots). Deciphering pictures is one of those tests. Pretty ingenious, if you ask me. I’m sorry that the website has become slightly more inconvenient to use, but I really didn’t want to see another advertisement for, well, you know, on this website. Such is the price for this wonderfully open and “free” internet. Here’s hoping this helps.
Posted by Bryan on November 24, 2007 | Filed under: About This Site Family News Geek | 3 comments
I Should Have Seen That Coming
Ily and I don’t watch much TV. It’s not that we are major anti-TV people, it’s more like, a fear of commitment. Are there any good shows on these days that don’t require you to watch religiously week after week in order to keep track of the plot? I start to sweat just thinking about all the possible obligations.
It turns out that there is at least one show that is very entertaining and makes no demands of long-term devotion. Every episode stands alone. It’s Dirty Jobs, with your host, Mike Rowe.
I was in Corvallis, Oregon this week for a work conference. I spent a full day listening to technical presentations given by electrical engineers and when I crashed in the hotel afterwards my brain needed a rest. On came Dirty Jobs. I told Ily about this when I got home, and for some reason we were talking about it again while out on a date Saturday night. The show often deals with cleaning up smelly messes and wrangling unwilling animals, and Ily mentioned that Mike Rowe really should come shadow her for a day, seeing as how being a mother often fit that bill perfectly. We both had a laugh at that, but tonight, while Ily was at stake choir practice, I couldn’t help but think about it some more as I cleaned up the kitchen.
The boys were in bed and it was just me and the mess. As I dumped the contents of Reece’s high chair onto the floor to join the leftovers of Isaac’s and Micah’s dinner I could almost hear Mike Rowe at my side, “Is that a piece of hot dog? How long has that been there?” I could envision him remarking about just how much gunk was on the floor, “That’s a huge pile we are sweeping up here, Bryan, when was the last time you did this?”
“About 24 hours ago.” I would reply.
“All this food debris mixed with dirt tracked-in-on-shoes and who-knows-what-else all accumulates in a single day?” Mike would ponder in astonished and reverent tones. He would then bang his head on the table while trying to sweep under it, comically mutter under his breath, and then appear appropriately grossed out as he fished out a binky with his bare hands from the large pile of dust, dirt, hair, sausage bits, and bread crumbs that he had just laboriously swept up.
While visualizing this episode I also thought back to what should have been a mundane chore yesterday. Before embarking on most of his tasks, Mike often foreshadows the events to come by sarcastically stating, “I don’t see what could possibly go wrong.” About an hour before we were to leave for the temple, I set out to hang a giant wood ruler that Ily had made at Super Saturday on our bathroom wall. Drill a few holes in the sheet rock, put in your anchors, screw in the screws, easy, I thought. “I don’t see what could possibly go wrong,” is what I should have said.
After carefully getting the proper height measured, painstakingly making sure it was all level and square, and marking the holes, I began to drill. I used a small bit first, to see if I would hit any studs. I hit one with a couple of the holes, no anchors needed there. The rest of the holes felt like they were wide open empty space behind sheet rock. I got out the bigger, drywall-anchor-sized drill bit and drilled into my first hole again and where it felt like empty space with the small bit, the big bit hit some resistance. I had enough time to think, “that’s weird,” before water came shooting out me like a kid was aiming a super soaker right at my face.
I screamed in surprise (a manly scream, of course).
Ily ran in and began to scream too.
Reece heard his parents screaming and started crying his head off.
After pausing in bewildered shock for a few seconds I opened the door to the little cabinet located conveniently right next to where I was drilling and shut off the water. It’s the cabinet that has all the water valves for our house, you see. Right there in the bathroom. All those pipes … (can you hear Mike Rowe saying this?) in a cabinet … right next to where I was drilling … I should have seen that coming.
Posted by Bryan on November 19, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 4 comments
My sweetie
The mushiest sweetest thing happened tonight. During bedtime with the boys tonight, Isaac got all teary eyed and said he never wants to grow up because he wants to be with me forever. He never wants to leave me. Now how sweet is that? My heart just melted and I hugged him and we cuddled and I just thought to myself, “how lucky am I to have a child love me so much?”
I won’t mention that the whole reason he has been thinking about the idea of leaving his family stemmed from his reading of Star Wars episode I picture books that he brings home from the school library. He cries each time he reads about Anakin leaving his mom to go become a Jedi. At least I know he cries because he knows that being with people who love you is special.
Posted by Ily on November 13, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 3 comments
Cool Fishing Pictures
I’ve always heard that our former bishop was an avid fisherman. This week he took a photographer in our ward on a fishing trip and these awesome pictures were the result. Click the link if you want to see a 40 pound chinook salmon.
Posted by Bryan on November 10, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 3 comments
Swimming
I took a friend with me to the club to go swimming today. She was very fast and her flip turn looked much better than mine. So I watched her and we tried to break it down so I could copy it and wow, I could feel the difference it made. It was hard to get down, and really I only do it right like every third flip, but I was able to swim much longer today without as much fatigue. I think I swam 1400m instead of 1150 like I usually do and I hardly noticed a difference. The better technique really helped.
In the lane next to me was a 70 year old woman who looked amazing in the pool. I was so bummed when I realized we were swimming the same speed (I was prideful enough to think that I was supposed to swim faster than a little old lady who could barely walk) so I thought I must really be doing bad… but then I watched her and she just looked great! I hope I can still swim like that when I am 70! So I got to eat some humble pie today to squelch out my dose of pride that was vexing me earlier. And for the record, she walks just fine. She just looked frail at first glance. Or my eyes don’t work right. Either option is possible!
Posted by Ily on November 9, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 1 comment
How to Download Our Pictures From Tabblo
Melinda asked how she could download full-size versions of our pictures for printing now that they are all on Tabblo. If you have signed up for a tabblo account and we have added you to our “circle,” all you have to do is browse through our pictures, find the one you want, click it, then click on the link that says, “Original.” If you don’t have a tabblo account, or aren’t yet in our circle, don’t worry. It’s not hard to fix either of those. I’ve even written up some instructions with nice big pictures for you to follow:
It has come to my attention that it’s not as easy to download our pictures for printing now that they are all on Tabblo. That is a pain, but we were getting a little worried about having our pictures available for just anyone on the internet to get at, so I hope you don’t mind this slight inconvenience. It’s really not hard. First, you need a Tabblo account. They don’t require you to submit your credit card number, any personal information for that matter, so you might as well sign up if you haven’t already. Once you sign up we can add you to our “circle” and then you can download full-size versions of our pictures. If you already have an account, scroll down to where it says, “How To Download” in big letters.
Posted by Bryan on November 4, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 1 comment
Happy End of Daylight Savings
I woke up last Sunday morning all worried that we had forgotten to turn our clocks back. I went downstairs and our calendar on the wall even that it was the end of daylight savings, but the cell phone hadn’t changed the time. I did a Google search and discovered that daylight savings had been extended one week this year. OK, I thought. Don’t forget to change the clocks next week.
Well, today next week came. We woke up and had a really good Sunday morning. We were all ready and in the car on time. We drove to church, got a good parking spot and hurried into the building just before the meeting was supposed to start. And the chapel was dark. Ily and I gave each other puzzled looks and our power-walk quickly fizzled into a stumbling halt while the wheels spun in our heads for a minute. Finally it hit me. Arrghh! We missed our extra hour of sleep this morning! How could I have forgotten after last week? What do we do now? We definitely don’t let the boys run wild through the nearly empty building.
We drove for a bit and then got back to the building in plenty of time to help the priesthood brethren set up chairs. We got a great seat in the chapel too. Maybe we should set our clocks ahead every Saturday night…
Posted by Bryan on November 4, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 0 comments
Broken Camera, Lots of Pictures
Julie requested pictures. Yes, it’s been a while, I’m sorry. Our camera suffered an unfortunate accident involving a folding stroller, which means we’ve been taking a whole lot more pictures lately and have gotten behind in putting them up on ye olde internet. If our camera broke, why have we been taking more pictures, you ask? Let me tell you. HP has a cool new benefit for us employees where, among other things, you can check out cameras for a few days at a time. For free. We’ve been taking advantage of that benefit to shop for a new camera, and when you check out a camera for a couple days in order to decide if you like it, you better take a bunch of pictures with it, right? So here’s a big bunch of pictures for you.
We tested the cameras’ action shot capabilities with some backyard basketball. There was some tension over what the hoop hight should be. With it all the way down Reece could just barely get the ball in, but it was more fun for Isaac with it all the way up. Micah seemed OK either way. ... See my Tabblo>
One evening during a sun break we went to the park and found the beginnings of some acorn artwork. Micah immediately set to work gathering more acorns to finish it. ... See my Tabblo>
Isaac often gets some unasked for accompaniment when he practices the piano. ... See my Tabblo>
I guess this was testing some harsh lighting conditions. Mostly it was the fact that Micah was staying in one place more than the other two boys. ... See my Tabblo>
We tried the Yoda costume on Reece, but it was a bit too big. It fit Micah just perfectly. ... See my Tabblo>
Posted by Bryan on November 4, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 1 comment
Hallelujah!
So today I took a quick jaunt to the auto body shop. I know, it sounds very exciting. It would be if I was there for racing stripes or flames on our oh so good lookin’ van. I was there for the specific purpose of seeing if they can fix our passenger sliding door that no longer opens from the inside. The amazing thing is that they can, and they will, and all for free! Wahoo! It is our lucky day! Since they took the door off and apart to facilitate the repair of the big dent that they fixed, it is under warranty for as long as we own the vehicle. So the big news is that next week, we should be able to undo the permanent child lock situation on that side of the van.
Last night we went trick-or-treating and had a great time. Some kids from down the street met at our house and we all went around the block together. The boys loved it. Isaac was Obi-wan Kanobi, Micah was Yoda, Reece and I were elephants. Bryan stayed home to hand out candy. For family night this week, we went over trick-or-treat manners. A few specific manners we went over were to not ask what something was nor say we didn’t like what was given us. At Sister Coppedges’ home, Isaac kept asking what it was she was trying to put into his bucket in a rude tone. It was a foil wrapped dime and he loved it when he opened it up, but oh how embarrassed we were about his question to Sister Coppedge when he said it. This prompted a reminder discussion of the rules of trick-or-treating. At Steve’s home, a handicap man in our ward, Isaac caught me ask “what kind of candy is it?” as I searched for a chocolate caramel instead of a truffle in his incredibly good chocolate collection he was handing out. So there is the proof that our children learned all of their deplorable manners from me, their mother.
We even chose to go to a few homes of ward members who love the visits. Each time we drove up to a home, Bryan had to get out and play chauffeur by opening the door for us in the back. It got a bit tedious…hence my trip to the auto body shop today. Why, you ask, was I sitting in the back? So I could feed Reece candy… he figured out that each house means candy while you are wearing a funny outfit and he would squawk very loudly if he didn’t get some in transit from home to home. I think each child comes out smarter than the last one. I think Isaac was two when he figured out that Halloween and trick-or-treating mean candy. So either Reece is a super genius, or just plain hungry for junk food.
Posted by Ily on November 1, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 0 comments
