Summing the Moments

While she's gone

2010-06-16T08:32:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking that while Megan is gone I should surprise her with a mural painted on the wall above our bed. The wall is about 8 feet tall (5 feet above the bed) and 12 or 13 feet wide. She posted about doing Nacho Libre in the boys room, but I think it would be fun to experiment in our room first (and because the paint is peeling off the wall in some spots there anyway). I don't know what to paint though, a grassy field scene from the Sound of Music comes to mind. But what do all my faithful readers (there's 21 of you now, well 20 without myself) think I should paint?

Lowes Shopping Trip 2010

2010-06-09T13:53:00.002-06:00

A quick story for you while I am on my lunch break:

Recently we have been having some issues with our swamp cooler. Megan can tell you how she is suffering. So last night I needed to go to the hardware store to get a pump hose restrictor clamp . I decided that it was about time I take my annual trip to Lowes to help me remember why I don't like going there in the first place. The following is my story. Once again, if you like or are in love with Lowes, then don't read this. However, if you depend on Lowes to put food on your table, you should read this so that your store can be better and you can make more money.

I arrived with my two sons at about 8:00. We walked in and surveyed near the entrance for where the seasonal items are, cause it makes sense that in Utah a swamp cooler is a seasonal item. We found the swamp cooler aisle and headed over there. We were short on time cause the sun doesn't stay up forever and I didn't want to be working on this thing in the dark.

We straightway found all sorts of parts and pieces and valves for swamp coolers. I quickly scanned the entire aisle and couldn't find the part I needed. I scanned the entire aisle again and again and again, no luck. After about 5 minutes of standing in the same spot, without having anyone come help me, I decided I better seek out the help.

Nearby we found a small kiosk with a button that said push for assistance. So I pushed it and a little red light on the button started blinking, but nothing else happened. Soon a store worker who was already helping someone came to the kiosk and started looking up something for the other customer, but he never acknowledged me. So what did I do, you ask? I said, hey boys, look, here is a button, who wants to push the button? 2-year olds love pushing buttons by the way. Oh, those boys were having so much fun pushing the button! And finally over the loud speaker a voice said "Assistance Needed in the Seasonal Area". But even still the dude who was no more than three feet in front of me never said anything to me or even looked at me. What the?

I was getting mad, so the boys kept pushing that button. About every sixth push of the button would set off the "Assistance needed..." voice. Finally after about five times that it was announced that assistance was needed, the dude kinda freaked out and said, "Look, I'm going to get in trouble if you keep pushing the button!" Then he picked up his phone and over the loud speaker canceled my plea for assistance to the entire store!!

Ouch. I was more than mad, I was hurt. Don't I deserve a little help? Am I a nobody?

Soon though, a fancy mid-aged gentleman in a nice vest that said "Service Manager" showed up. I motioned to him that I needed help and he slowly came over to the cooler aisle to answer my question. He couldn't find the restrictor clamp either. He suggested that I get a regular hose clamp. I agreed that a hose clamp might be a good substitution. But then I asked him, "if I am restricting flow, can I anticipate increased wear on my pump?" He said, "I don't know. You should call a technician and ask him."

WHAT???? Who are you?

OK, I am at a hardware store, if I have the gumption to go all the way to the store and try to fix things myself, why would I want to call a technician? Hello, that's exactly what I am trying to avoid!! Unless you're new to this tricky business we call life, contacting a technician to magically solve all your problems isn't always an option. Only sometimes. We can talk about those later.

So I left and went to Home Depot. And then it was dark, and I barely got the thing put together before all light was gone. And then we used it for a while before it tripped the breaker again. I think it's due to the wire nut and electrical tape splice job someone did on the main power lines INSIDE the cooler. The splice job totally looks like it belongs in one of those emails that goes around showing all the really dangerous things people do with power lines in third world countries. Sorry Brian Hanson if you did the splice job. This weekend's project will be to pull new power lines to the system with connections only in the moisture-protected control box.

The bright spot in this whole story is that I discovered you can buy a digital thermostat for your swamp cooler! Who knew!?! They're a bit pricey, but I am interested. Once we solve all our problems, I think I will get one.

THE END

Best News of the Century!!

2010-04-21T23:26:00.000-06:00

I received a phone call this morning saying, "Congratulations, everything is FINE!!!" That means I am done. 10 years later, I am done with school!! Yahoo.

I'm trying to post an audio file of the voice mail message, but it's not working well. Google is supposed to be inventing a way to post your voice mails directly from your cell phone, but it's under construction or something and not available. Bummer.

Try clicking on the "enclosure link" (I don't even know what that is).

I'm Famous!!!

2010-02-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

A list of 14 things that I love has been featured on Megan's blog as part of her 14 Days of Love project. Check it out here!

Hmmm....

2010-01-31T22:27:00.000-07:00

Know how when you're getting a shot at the doctors or at the dentist and they always tell you to think of a happy place? What do people think of? I think most everyone probably thinks of Disneyland. When you're grown up they let you watch the needle, so that's what I do now.

ARG!

2010-01-24T21:35:00.001-07:00

I think the second most stressful part of being a parent of small kids is getting them ready to go out the door (the worst stresser is waking up screaming at 2 am and then not going back to sleep). The getting-ready-to-go-out-the-door process exponentially complicates itself in the cold winter due to coats and shoes even though you might only be going 20 feet from your doorstep to the car, to another doorstep.

Late last night I was getting the three kids ready to leave my mom's house after the Jazz game. Maggie is at the age where she can dress herself 50 to 75% of the way, but then needs help with one thing or another. She was putting her coat on and had one arm in, but was struggling with the other. She was bending her arm back funny like happens sometimes and so she was missing the sleeve. She asked me for help, and silly mean old me, instead of having her readjust her arm, I just forced it until it went in the sleeve hole, at which point a loud pop was heard. She screamed "OWWW!!!" but didn't cry and her shoulder didn't look dislocated and she still had full range of motion, so being the proud, reassuring parent, I just rubbed it and said, you'll be OK.

So then this morning she was watching me put a coat on one of the twins. After I was done she said, "Good job brudder! Daddy not breaka your arm. Daddy breaka my arm Grandma's house." I had to laugh. She is a good sport. I am glad kids are made of rubber and they don't break that easily. I am surprised that none of them have had to have stitches yet. By the time I was their cumulative age (~6.5 years) I had had stitches at least 3 times.

Here are some pictures of the twins the Sunday before Christmas. Things started out good with a standoff-ish high five and went downhill from there.

Will is really good at arching his back. I think he will make a fine wrestler.

Engineering Tip #1

2010-01-08T10:29:00.001-07:00

Since this is a blog devoted to the art and science of engineering, I decided I should post an engineering tip.

Today's tip is about broken back slopes. I know that sounds risque and improprietous, but it is not what you think, it is a real engineering term. Click here to google broken back slopes. We will break down a broken back slope to understand its features and then calculate an equivalent slope.

Everyone repeat out loud today's objective with me: We will break down a broken back slope to understand its features and then calculate an equivalent slope.

OK. Lets start by examining the case of a retaining wall. A retaining wall with an infinite slope is shown below. The wall height is H and the back slope rises from the horizontal at the angle B (beta). The angle of the backslope (beta) is used in a long equation ripe with trigonometry functions to calculate the active force coefficient of the retaining wall backfill soil that must retained. The equation is called Coulomb Active Pressure (click to see in Wikipedia - oh, and don't forget to donate).

Now we will look at a retaining wall with a broken back slope. If the horizontal distance of the slope to the point where the back slope breaks is less than 2 times H, we should calculate an equivalent back slope called B' (beta prime) to use in the Coulomb Active Pressure calculation. B' (beta prime) is the angle of a line extrapolated from the top of the retaining wall to a distance 2 times H behind the wall.

Please ask questions by clicking here.

Happy News!! It's a Girl!

2009-09-10T23:05:00.002-06:00

Hogle Zoo's baby elephant has arrived!! Watch the video below. You can go to the Hogle Zoo website and see a list of possible names. I think they should name her KHARI (CAYR ee) Meaning: queenly; joyful song; born to bring joy. She will be ready for everyone to see Friday September 11!!

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

The President's Speech

2009-09-04T15:30:00.002-06:00

I hope that all of us can find the tolerance in our hearts and the common sense in our heads to hear and allow the President's speech to school children. The President will not be indoctrinating anything other than telling children that they can succeed and will succeed if they set goals for themselves. I don't want to offend people, but the majority of the people that I see on my facebook that are opposing the President's speech are the very people that could have used a message like this when we were in school. Maybe then they would have learned to be smart enough to use some common sense and be able to think for themselves.

I hope that all of us will respect the President for his role even though we may not agree with his political agendas or his personal habits. After all, I think most of us would agree that as a community "we believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." (Joseph Smith)

When I was a kid I asked my casually republican father what he thought of Bill Clinton. My dad sad that he didn't agree with the things that Bill Clinton may have done or believed in, but respected him as the president anyway. He said he learned that from his mother who cried at the death of President Kennedy even though she didn't vote for him. I just wish people would set aside their false rumors and paranoia and use a little common sense.

More about shopping

2009-08-11T23:34:00.003-06:00

Last time I was together with all my siblings, we shared (or bragged) about our best shopping trips, i.e. where we spent the least amount of money and due to the diligent use of coupons came away with the most food.

Albertsons was having a sale last week where you buy $30 of certain products and then you get $15 back for your next purchase. We did this last night with OK results but not the best because I think it was the last night of the sale and a lot of the good food was gone. We ended up getting over $202.38-worth of food for $49.45 (before tax on both). I prepared extensive shopping lists with item descriptions and attached coupons fer every item. We didn't buy anything without using a coupon on it.

Not too bad and we still have $15 to spend on our next trip. Megan really wants to spend the coupons on a gift card to a nice restaurant but says the responsible thing would be to spend it on diapers. A fancy dinner without kids sounds really nice these days. Who knew that three kids crying/whining at the same time could be so loud?

Shopping

2009-07-27T22:08:00.003-06:00

Megan will tell you that I am surprisingly one of the most opinionated, difficult and pickiest shoppers you will find. When it comes down to it, there's some stores that I love to go to and others that I loathe and would drive way out of my way to avoid. Recently my list of places to avoid has seemingly common themes. I will tell you the stores, and you tell me if you can relate to what I think they have in common...

The stores I hate shopping at are:

Wal-Mart
Lowes
Walgreens

SUDDEN DISCLAIMER: If you or anyone you deeply and lovingly care for works at these stores and if you are easily offended, please don't read past this point. I have a lot of inner grief that will be relieved through this post.

What they have in common:

Unhelpful Staff
Unfriendly Staff
Never quite the right item
Cheap crap from China (identical items across the stores)
A million cash registers that aren't open
What I need is always in the far back corner of the store
Bad reputation

Since they have so much in common, it is a common misunderstanding that Wal-Mart owns Lowes and Walgreens, but I guess they don't.

Though I find shopping at theses stores extremely frustrating and un-enjoyable, I make it a point to go there one or twice a year so I don't forget why it is that I don't like going there. In fact, on Saturday I was really worn out from doing sprinkler work but needed more parts to finish up and since the Lowes is closer than the Home Depot, I thought I would go there. This is what ensued:

As I parked the car some other person in a whitetrashmobile was trying to leave the parking lot by pulling straight through my chosen spot. It was awkward, but I didn't back down cause I totally got there first.
I entered the store and was immediately surrounded by a barrage of ugly and worthless seasonal lawn decorations. There was so many, I was suddenly overcome with bewilderment and fear as if I was being entertained by a group of angry clowns that were closing in on me from all directions, closer and closer...
I regrouped my thoughts and then said OK, I know where the sprinklers are at Home Depot, they are near the front and very easy to find. So I walked toward that area of Lowes, but no, there were no signs indicating sprinklers in that area of the store. I quickly turned around and walked toward the clown mob, thinking that sprinklers are somewhat seasonal and they might be near the rest of the seasonal garden equipment.
I searched row after row of foul cheap imported garden decorations and by then I could smell the clown halitosis and I got dizzy.
Just then I saw someone carrying forth sprinkler parts from the back corner of the store. My beacon in a sea of grossness, I headed toward thence he came.
After passing light bulbs, vacuum parts, shower inserts and toilet bowls, I finally found the sprinkler parts along a dark aisle in the back corner of the store.
The selection was very disappointing. I found some of what I needed. What else I needed was a RainBird rotary head (part number 22SA) that is interchangeable with the 1800 series bodies that I bought a few weeks ago. After diligently searching I found they had the rotary head already connected to a body. But all I needed was the head!!!! I was getting frustrated.
I picked up the head+body and walked around 25% of the store looking for someone to help me. No one. Not a soul.
Finally, I met an "associate" that was heading toward the back break room or something. I asked him if they sell just the head. He said, "if we don't have it over there then we don't." Oh c'mon! What kind of a stupid answer is that? I told him again that I had looked all over and not seen it, but I wanted to know for sure because I didn't need to buy the body and just wanted the head.
So he did what must be basic "Hello, I-work-at-Lowe's-and-I'm-an-idiot" training and he radioed for backup.
Another "associate" came after a while, who knows where he was hiding, and I told him my same predicament. He had to look at the shelves but then told me it came in the head+body package only. I told him Home Depot had it as a head only and he didn't care. He didn't even offer a price match. At Home Depot they will do that and they will take Lowes' coupons.
Then I walked all the way back to the front of the store, past the toilets, shower inserts, vacuum parts, light bulbs and hideous garden decorations to find that all 35 cash registers were closed except for the self-checkouts. I hate self-checkouts. Have you ever tried to buy a lot of tiny, seemingly weight-less sprinkler parts at a self check-out? I hate those scales. One time only the self check-outs were open and I was buying really heavy bags of gravel and I was so mad that a real person wasn't available to help me that I totally piled all the gravel on those stupid bagging scales and I jacked that machine up good. Next time I will sit on it and jump on it if doesn't work good. HA!
Anyway, I am angry.
The lady that was helping the self checkouts was scary looking
I left the store and came home and finished my sprinklers and stayed out working on them under some big halogen lights til midnight. It was like a football field, it was so cool. Then I was really tired. While I was doing that Megan went to Walgreen's to get a prescription and they were closed before the closing time listed on the door and then she got really mad and she swore.
then today we went to Wal-Mart, but we decided to go to the new one in Cedar Hills and that one was not ghetto like the others. It was ok but the price check scanner in the middle of the aisle wasn't working so I unplugged it and after a few minutes it worked again. It was an OK Wal-Mart visit.

So now we don't have any more money, but it's ok because we don't like shopping at those stores.

END OF RAMBLINGS

fhe

2009-07-21T00:20:00.004-06:00

We went to Liberty Land to play mini golf for family night. It was a ton of fun. Liberty Land is an amusement park like a mini-Lagoon except Liberty Land actually has a theme where Lagoon just makes me think of sad teenagers doing bad things. Anyway, it's right by our house and Monday night is half off after 6:00 so you can do lots of fun stuff for pretty cheap.

I thought I would make a video to show something pretty cool inspired by tonight. Check it out. Turn up your sound and go to full screen if available:

Clark Howard?

2009-07-18T07:53:00.000-06:00

The other day I was driving home from the grocery store and the Clark Howard radio show came on and I was captivated. I was completely enthralled. When I got home I sat in the driveway, in the dark and listened to his show. Most of his advice is pretty simple, but is so smart. I love it!

And I've been craving a Subway sandwich for like 2 weeks.

Economics by Dan

2009-07-15T23:20:00.002-06:00

I want to blog, but then I think about how long it will take to write a bunch of stuff out and then I think, "No, I'm too lazy to spend that much time finding and referencing sources to make myself sound smart". So here is a quick thought with no proof of real founding:

Sometime last week Warren Buffet, who apparently knows a lot about money, said something like that we are not yet out of the recession and it will take a little while longer, but things will be better than ever when we come out of it.

I started thinking about that and I agree. I think that we can look at the car manufacturing industry as an example of what he means. The following explains my hope of how this will happen.

To this point in my life I have been a Toyota and Honda guy. I've owned 3 different Toyotas and 2 different Honda's and I loved every single one of them. But you know what car we had that we hated? It was a Saturn. That thing was too cheaply made. Sure it got decent gas mileage but that was only due to 90% of it being made plastic (that's an exaggeration), having a tiny engine and being a 5 speed manual.

When we were done with the Saturn we could only get $500 out of it. My Toyota truck died in the same fashion and we got more than 6 times that much out of it. Then our Honda Accord died and we got $1,000 out of that one. The resale/scrap value is one example of why it doesn't make sense to pay big bucks for an American car when you can pay the same amount for a nice foreign car.

Additionally, in my experience, ALL the Fords/Mercury's that I have driven or had family members that drove had electrical system problems. The seats in most Dodge's seem to be molded for short, fat Americans and they have issues with transmissions, steering mechanics or overheating. General Motors vehicles are cheaply made with bad plastic trims and are ugly. Any General Motors car that is decent looking gets horrible gas mileage. If anyone's interested, ask me, and I can explain my personal experience with these problems.

So back to how things are going to be better than ever… For Dodge and General Motors to come back and thrive, they need a restructuring much like pushing a master RESET button to wipe everything out and start all over. It seems in the past people bought their cars because their deceased grandfather was a steel mill worker and if they bought foreign he would haunt them from the grave. The car companies can't rely on stuff like that anymore. Consumers have to be smarter when the economy is tough and being ”American-Made” now envelopes many more manufacturers including Honda and Toyota.

Once Dodge and General Motors have a completely clean slate, they need to create cars in comparable quality to Honda and Toyota and then they need to develop the technology to have the absolute best gas mileage. If they can do that, people will want their cars for the same reasons they buy foreign. The foreign auto makers will then have to develop the same technology for even better cars and the race will go on. Pretty simple, but I think this is the exact kick in the pants that this industry needs. And that is why I believe that things will be better than ever when we get out of the recession.

Excuse me?

2009-05-26T22:43:00.002-06:00

I have a feeling that some people are trying to make me look bad. Well, as you all pretty much know, I have an explanation for everything (or can come up with an excuse that sounds legit though I have no idea what I am talking about).

Megan keeps talking about how well the kids can play her penny flute. And then I got jealous, so yes, I spent a good hour researching the interwebs to learn how to do it. Who knows? Maybe some day I can play it in church. I'm that good now.

Then a couple of weeks ago Megan was frustrated that I have a lot of stuff that takes up closet space, which is pretty limited in our house. Then the inevitable happened; I realized that the untouched boxes and boxes of Atari games and decomposing 8-tracks need to find a new home.

Well, depending on who you are and how you came to own nearly 150 Atari games, you can't just give those away. I mean, I spent hundreds of weekends in high school scouring all the DI's and occasional yard sales to gather as many Atari games as I could. I fought tooth and nail to buy at lower prices and I am pretty sure that during the economic slow down of 1998-99 my Atari/8-track funds single-handedly kept the struggling Centerville DI in business, which was then able to get a really nice face-lift a couple years later.

That being said, the only reason I was playing the Atari games was to make sure they work before I try to sell them. You have to understand, there is only so much I can write about dirt. I mean, we all know that it is usually black or some odd-shade of brown and it can smell bad or good and we shouldn't eat it. Can't I just make a thesis that says that? I guess not.

So I did a lot of research and am trying to sell some of the games. There's not much of an audience or market for selling 1980's video games, but who knows? The clothes seem to be coming back into style which is a good thing. Check this side story out: So I was at work when Megan called me to tell me I had to thin out my closet. I told a 35+ year-old co-worker about some of the fun junk I had and he told me that I just needed to get it out once a year so that Megan could see that I was still interested in it. He then commenced to tell me that he does that with his old high school clothes or his wife will throw them out. And sometimes he has to pull them out of the DI pile. Well, I will be the first witness to testify that she should get rid of those clothes in a more definite manner and that he wears them more like once a week than once a year. We had a fun time this winter placing bets on how outrageous his sweaters would be day to day.

Anyway. If anyone wants atari games, see some of what I have at KSL.com in the classifieds. Just search "atari". I think there's still some time to play some of the games too. Come on over, we'll have a blast!! Maybe we can get out the projector and play them on the big screen!!

Back to the Grind

2009-05-05T23:23:00.006-06:00

I must apologize for the recent slump in posts. Here I was getting all excited to go through the list of topics and I got really busy working on my thesis, but the thesis was stressing me out so bad and since I don't smoke, I had to start a new hobby to calm my nerves. Well the new hobby became an obsession and then I missed my thesis deadline (again). Then I became more and more consumed by my new hobby, so entranced that this morning as I couldn't get out of bed after staying up way too late for no real reason I realized that I need to write on my blog. So here I am.

OK. the next topic of discussion was supposed to be my kids, but I love them so much and there's so much I want to say about them with so little time tonight, that I will have to save that for the weekend.

Then I was supposed to talk about Bajio, well I am still gathering info on that one. I went to Bajio today for Cinco de Maio, and it was OK, but wait till you hear all the dirt I will present when I am ready for that.

Next was the retaining wall. I started the wall this past Saturday and I like it a lot. I was too busy and dirty to take pictures, but I will get some up soon and with all the details and instructions on how I like to build a wall. I promised an old friend I would send him info on building a small wall, so I will have to get to this one soon.

What I will write about today is the seventh place topic (recent paypal purchases came in 7 out of 10) because it highlights my new obsessive compulsive hobby that you are all so interested in knowing. It is true, I have revived my old coin collection with vigor! It's pretty awesome. I am not a coin expert by any means, but in these tough economic times, I think a coin collection is a great way to have a hobby that makes you save money. On top of that, older coins are made of silver which is a precious metal that will forever retain value as a metal long after the US treasury collapses and all the paper bills disintegrate.

So, my most recent purchase:
two old coins from Brazil :(Click to enlarge)

I bought these with my allowance because I think they are pretty cool and I love the Brazilian national seal that is on the back of the 1901 coin (which might be silver). I have that same symbol on my wallet.

before that I bought this:

These are some expensive pennies but they are special because in 1943 all the copper was needed for the war effort and so the pennies had to be made of steel.

Prior to the penny purchase I thought I might invest in a little silver:

I may have paid a bit too much for this silver, but it sure is cool and old! We've been discussing a lot at work how much of a seller's market eBay is. You have to be careful to not become competitive and senseless when you buy stuff there.

I started the coin buying rampage with this little ditty:

I think it is for kids and it's old and kinda outdated, but had some cool stuff in it. Maggie likes playing with me and the money.

At the beginning of April we bought a new cell phone from a website in China called chinavasion.com . Interesting lot of products.

It took a few weeks but the phone came about a week and a half ago, and it's definitely no blackberry, but we like it. We decided to buy new phones instead of renewing the contract wherein we'd have to pay some for new phones and pay additional fees. Cell phones are ridiculous but we can't live without them. Bad news. This one's cool because you can put two sim cards in it such that me and megs can share the same phone or I can consolidated my personal and work phones.

A few weeks before the cell phone I bought a new video card for my computer so I could do the double monitor thing. It helped me be more efficient in working on my thesis. Obviously not efficient enough, but still is pretty sweet.

before that Megan bought some cupcake toppers off my account. They were cute. maybe her blog talks about them :)

This is probably getting kinda boring. Everything else this year came from buy.com. It included a wall charger and a car charger for my iPod touch, a portable speaker thing for Megan's iPod, and some A/B audio splitter things that I got ripped off on because shipping was supposed to be free but wasn't.

There you have it: a YTD review of paypal purchases.

The Fence

2009-04-12T22:38:00.008-06:00

In doing a bit of research for this post I came across this story from here:

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the ! day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger,they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out.It won't matter how many times you say "I'm sorry", the wound is still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.

Interesting and wholesome until that part about stabbing which is kinda creepy.

OK. so maybe what I did to ruin our fence wasn't out of anger or non-anger, but more just stupidity on my part. One day I thought I could take down a section of fence that separates our front yard to the back yard so that I could drive a truck into the backyard. It seemed like no big deal since I knew the fence section was about 8 feet wide and that the truck was only 6 or 7 feet wide.

Well, I forgot to account for the big bush on the left side that ate up about 18 inches. As I tried to come through, I could tell I was very close to the fence post on the right. I folded in the side mirror, passed it and all appeared to be well. I inched forward and then CRACK! the fence post fell over on top of my little brother Ryan, who was able to catch it as it was falling. I know he has quick, cat-like reflexes, but the way he caught the fence was a little too good. It was only later that he told me that he could see the side of the truck scraping on the fence post the whole time. I was like, "Oh, thanks for saying something." Not only did he not say anything, but he stood right where the thing was about to fall on top of him. Anyway, I might need some putty to fill the holes that my glares left on him that day.

We went through this past winter with no fence on the south side of our house. It wasn't that big of a deal, but the house looked funny and stuff in the backyard seemed a little less safe. Plus we need a place to contain the kids when we're tired of having them in the house. So fixing the fence became our first outside project of this year.

I started by digging out the old post. It came out easier than I thought. Thence I set up a string line and figured where the new post would need to sit.
The fact that the post needed to be replaced presented the opportunity of engineering a removable post system. I remembered that I had some L-shaped scrap metal things at my mom's house, so I used those as a sleeve to facilitate pulling the post out so more vehicles can come to the backyard if ever needed (I want to do a drive-in theater sometime). I wanted a tight fit so that the post wouldn't be too wobbly. As shown, I taped the metal to the post, but as not seen, under the metal I included some asphalt shingles to be spacers.
Realizing that good drainage is key in all earth projects, I planned to sink the hole to 4+ feet below the surface and backfill with gravel before concrete. I got to use the shop vac to get the loose dirt out when I couldn't reach anymore. The soil at about 3.5 to 4 ft below the surface seemed to be somewhat cemented and fairly brittle as if shallow groundwater was once up to that level, which is not all that good considering a mapped spring is fairly close to our house. I will have to do more exploration to see where groundwater really is.

Once the final depth was attained, I set 1-foot of gravel in the bottom of the hole. Similar to laboratory procedures for determining the dry-rodded unit weight of aggregates (ASTM C-29), a tamping rod was used to pack the gravel in.
I thence set the post and placed and rodded another foot of gravel around the post. This step was to aid in drainage and to squeeze the post in place while I prepared the concrete. I mixed 180 lbs of dry concrete mix to a fairly stiff composition and filled up the rest of the hole. Megan and Maggie came out and pushed their hands into the concrete. Maggie was not so sure about it at first but then a couple of hours later I spied her trying to do it again on the other side. She is so cute and a good helper even though she loves to raid my field bag and hoard my tire gauge and markers.
We let the concrete cure for a week and then came the fun part. Holy Sword in the Stone. That post did not want to come out!! So I drilled a big hole through it near the base. I drove a large diameter metal rod through the hole and then grabbed the jacks out of the cars and started forcing that thing out. I had to raise the post about 18 inches before it finally came free. The asphalt shingle spacers worked great. The post was snug, but not too tight and was straight as could be.

I got to use my new cordless drill to attach the hardware to the fence sections. It effortlessly drove those big lag screws. It is so nice to have a macho drill that can instantly sink screws like that. I then hung the fence sections and Voila! It is so awesome! I really like it. I was happy to see that I can complete an idea that comes from my head and still make it look good. It's a good feeling (maybe that's why I want to work at Home Depot).
These are some more pictures of the finished product.

I like the hardware shown here:

I'm a little worried because these are the biggest hinges Home Depot sells. As you can see, the tremendous weight of the big gate is causing the post to bend. This is where the summation of moments comes in handy. For example, consider the big gate to be a cantilevered load. Due to the cantilever, the weight of the gate exerts a lot of pressure on the post and makes the post bend in the direction of the weight. The moment is equal to force time distance. For simplicity the moment acts where the post is stuck in the ground. The moment cannot be greater than the post can bear. The amount of moment that the post can tolerate can be determined by the stiffness of the post material and the cross-sectional area of the post. Those factors relate to the moment of inertia and after a few more calcs that I don't remember, we can know how much moment the post can bear before breaking. Since I'm not all that sharp on my structural engineering, a quick visual observation showed excessive deformation in the post, and I concluded that the moment needed to be reduced if not completely eliminated by allowing the gate to become a span (simply supported beam) instead of a cantilever. So I screwed a block of wood to the other post to allow the gate to rest when not being used. Only problem is that the little gate and the big gate are not even across the top. Maybe that's not such a big deal.

I really like this gate and am happy that we fixed it.

Why I Want to Work at the Home Depot

2009-04-12T22:15:00.003-06:00

This a good question. Why would I want to work at the Home Depot? Well, let's bulletize my answers below and hope my bosses don't read this (it may look like I've recently thought this through--it's all just part of having Plan B like my mission pres always taught us):

It would be fun to have a job that lets you act like you know everything and you have no liability if you're dead wrong (BTW, I don't mean that as an insult to anyone)
I could get lots of exercise while you work because you can walk around and play with stuff
I could get an employee discount
I could rub elbows with management and learn how large corporate business works
I could see what products are missing, and then I could invent them and make lots of money off patents, etc.

mphfm, the more I think about it, I don't really want to work there. I just thought that if I need something temporary I could try that out for a while.

"Choose Your Own Adventure" - The results are in!!

2009-04-12T22:03:00.003-06:00

At the end of this post are the final results of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" blog topic. I appreciate the attention and response of all those who have pitched in their requests.

The results are rather interesting. People voted for topics and rated them 1 through 10, with 1 being the most interesting. The topic with the lowest average score was the most demanded. Statistically looking at the results it's fun to see the multiple requests and the range of rating/importance.

I will start posting about these things tonight. I hope to get through the first 3. If readers don't agree with the average scores below, please speak up!! I will continually recalculate the scores until the list is done!


	Voters' Ratings
	MeganW	Emily	Joel	Mers	Megan D	K	Average
New Car	10	4				10	8.00
Fence	4	1	2		4	3	2.80
Active Pressure	8					7	7.50
Landslides	9					4	6.50
Retaining Wall	3	2				8	4.33
Bajio	6	6	1	1		1	3.00
Paypal	5	5		2	3	9	4.80
Home Depot	2		3		2	2	2.25
Favorite Tools	7		4			5	5.33
My Kids	1	3		3	1	6	2.80

The Future is NOW

2009-04-03T23:53:00.004-06:00

I have been so busy doing thesis stuff and short fuse projects at work that I haven't had much time to spend with family, much less blog this week. Not wanting to disappoint my loyal readers who have come to expect quality educational reading material, I thought I would quickly ask the public what I should blog about next.

My coworker buddy Cheetah helped me come up with the following list of subjects that have been swirling in my head. Everybody please consider the following topics and then leave a comment ranking most interesting to least interesting (number 1 being most interesting). I will then apply a weighted average to all the scores and blog about the highest ranking. I thank you in advance for your participation. The list is long, so you can copy and paste it in the comment field and then give your ranking.

Our new car
The sweet fence I ran over with the truck and then engineered an amazing repair to stun the ages
The topic of active pressures and what they mean to you and me
The discussion I had this week with Dr. Bartlett regarding landslides and reliability engineering
the retaining wall I am building at my house
why Bajio is no longer my favorite restaurant
highlights of my 6 most recent Paypal purchases (or however many you want to know)
Why I want to work at Home Depot
My 5 favorite tools
More about my 3 kids

I can't wait to see what people really want to hear. I am so excited!!!

Confession

2009-03-24T17:43:00.006-06:00

Besides going to two scout camps, I don't remember a dang thing I did during the summer between sixth and seventh grades except for hanging out in the basement, by myself, playing Wizball, a DOS-based 1987 computer game, on our Headstart PC while repeatedly listening to Kiss From a Rose by Seal. Needless to say, I am the only person I know of to have beat this game and to have timed it every time. Alright.

My Want List

2009-03-23T21:26:00.001-06:00

Megan is always successfully posting lists of things she wants, so before I start working on my thesis, for the next 15 I am going to post my "want list". Hopefully this will allow me to vent so that I can be less distracted while I am working on my maps tonight.

1. We just bought a new car (well, new to us). It's a 2005 Honda Pilot EXL with navigation. I want to do to it what this guy did HERE. He never says how much it cost, but with the limited research I have done, I think it must be a minimum of $1,500 to $2,000. I wanted it so bad and I was so obsessed and distracted with it last week that I scared Megan. We had a nice talk and both decided it was definitely something that we don't need. Though not needed, I still want it so bad. I need help.

2. Now that we have 3 vehicles parked at our house (at least until we can sell the corolla), we have realized that our driveway is too narrow. We want to lay pavers down at least one side of the driveway to widen it. This is going to be a fun, family-bonding activity. What frustrates me about it is that we're missing some of the tools we need. We need a big chop saw suited for cutting pavers and a vibrating plate compactor. Those are the needs, now here come the wants: I want to buy my own compactor instead of renting one and I think I can just use my angle grinder to make crude cuts that are good enough for me.

Now you ask: why in the world would Dan want to buy a vibrating plate compactor instead of just renting one? The answer is a well-kept secret: for more than half my life I have dreamed of someday having my own compactor. I dare say that it is not uncommon for dirt engineers and dirt technicians alike to frequently fantasize of owning their own compaction and testing equipment.

Also, a long time I go I had a class called engineering economics. We must have done 20+ problems stating that we owned a construction company and we had to figure out if buying or leasing dump trucks was a better option. The same principle applies to vibrating plate compactors. i.e. I can buy one for a couple hundred dollars and have it to use for ever and possibly re-sale it when I don't like it any more, vs. paying a couple hundred dollars to rent one from Home Depot for a couple of days. In my mind, buying my own is totally the better option.

I have found the most inexpensive one to be here. My only drawback is that I don't know how to arrange shipping from Malaysia for something that weighs nearly 200 lbs. If there are any shipping geniuses out there, please tell me the secret to getting this imported most inexpensively (I don't care if it takes a couple of months)! My other option is from Harbor Freight, but they aren't as cool as an Asian import and cost a lot more. They must have to roll a lot of the import costs in to the extra price.

So that's my list. Post a comment to tell me what you think of the things I want. (Megan, did you notice all the new car and yard work stuff took my mind off of guns?)

Update to Post Below

2009-02-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

I sent a comment to the programmer for the TaxExpress and he replied saying that he had talked to several "Experts" and they said that the 2008 Standard Federal Deduction for married filing jointly is $11,900. Which is fishy because my 2008 1040 says its only $10,900.

So, I guess if you are not itemizing deductions, and are not eligible for additional state tax credits, using TaxExpress might save you money if you claim a stadard deduction of $11,900 instead of $10,900. But then again, that wouldn't be honest unless some one can provide better explanation.

I also found out that you can't use TaxExpress if you want to itemize deductions. It was in the itemization of deductions that we saved the largest portion of the 80% I was mentioning below. Hence, having a good program or spreadsheet becomes even more valuable.

Signing off,
Dan, Dan The Tax Man

Government Rip-Off Alert

2009-02-01T23:50:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that there is a side of me that enjoys conspiracy theories. I remember that one of the very few things I enjoyed at my first engineering job, which was in the dungeon basement of the Layton City Building, was that we could only get one station on our little radio (this was back in the day before internet radio- I think) and on Fridays that station (talk radio, of course) did Conspiracy Theory Friday. The show host let people call in and rant and rave about conspiracy theories. After a minute of talking, the host would make a fool of the theorists and I would get a good chuckle. I also enjoy the stories Dr. Lawton told us of his friend's Cadillac that got 80 mpg and the light bulb that lasted ten million hours.

Well, I found my own and so I thought I better warn the people.

Many of you will be compiling your taxes over the next few months. In our case, due to having ten kids and buying our first house, we will be receiving a very nice refund from the federal government. I did our taxes by hand because then I better understand how it all comes together and works out. I will try a computer program to check my results before I submit.

In spite of the nice federal return, when I did our state taxes online at utah.gov, I owed a considerable amount of tax. As I was filling out the online program I noticed several issues with the program itself that made me uncomfortable. I have always used the state's online program in the past, but this year I found a huge error on entering your standard or itemized deduction. So I researched the tax code and did the state forms by hand, and was able to cut down what we owe by over 80%. I still think it is strange that we get so much back from the federal government, but have to pay the state. I guess it is relative to typical family size, but at this time I think I would rather pay a little extra tax than have a fourth child under the age of 3. I bet Megan even more strongly feels the same way.

Also, according to an editorial I read in the paper today, Utah has a balanced budget whereas many other states and especially the federal government don't. So maybe it is a good thing that we are more significantly taxed in Utah.

Anyway, in the midst of a thousand topics, my conspiracy theory is that the state-promoted online tax submission program called TaxExpress is a rip-off. It does not accurately factor in your deductions and is too simple to allow you to apply for numerous avaliable tax credits. The state tax code is a little funky compared to the federal code. I think Utah could use some fresh blood to renovate and fix numerous grammar erros in a lot of the legislative areas.

Like I said, I did my own taxes by hand and saved 80% of what the state program required. I built my own spreadsheet program to calculate the whole tax form. Let me know if you would like a copy of the tax form to do your own or to compare your answers with other programs.

What is the best tax software in your opinion?

I Must be My Mother's Son

2009-01-10T23:51:00.000-07:00

Today's biggest weekend adventure was our grocery trip to Albertsons. We were going to go last night while Maggie was at Grandma Williams' house, but we ran out of time. So we braved the elements and took all three kids shopping. Today's trip was not an ordinary occasion. You see, every now and then Albertsons has a deal where if you buy $30 of select groceries you get a $15 voucher for your next grocery purchase. You can buy the first $30-worth and then just keep going through the line as many times as you want. And it's not just the same boring things again and again either. I think there's like over 250 different items to choose from. We took advantage of the deal to stock up on some food storage.

In all I went through the line 5 times today. Whew, it was a work out. Megan and I each had our own carts. She would get a cart ready with $30-worth of food that we planned out ahead of time and then I would check out and take it to the car. By the time I came back she had another cart full. At the end of my 5 trips I had bought $273.82 of groceries for $51.26. That's over 80% in savings. I haven't called my mom yet, but I know she will be proud.

We spent some stressful time this afternoon clipping coupons and planning exactly how to group them together for maximum savings. In my best trip I bought $56.66 of groceries for $5.75. It could have been even better, but the lady at checkout convinced me to buy a disfigured 2-lb. block of sharp cheese for $3.00 instead of $10 because the bagger boy was too lazy to take it back to the cheese aisle. Minus the cheese I had $53.66 in groceries and I paid $2.75 (95% savings!!!-some of my coupons were doubled).

Saving money like this is kind of addicting. It was stressful because I can't think as fast with numbers these days(hopefully just due to lack of sleep and not a brain aneurysm). The deals go until Tuesday. We might sneak over on Monday and do some more.

Who's Hungry?

2008-12-16T12:43:00.001-07:00

Some Old Pics

2008-11-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

I recently revived the programs used to do fun stuff on my cell phone (like make ringtones, movies and download pictures). I came across some fun pictures and thought I should share some. The technology we have at our fingeertips is amazing.

We were in the MUSS last year and had a ton of fun eating free food and hanging out in the student section. It was always fun to take Maggie. We always dressed her in sparkly red pants. She is so cute. This was taken about one year ago.

Last year on Thanksgiving we did some Hinckley Family Portraits because we hadn't done them since before Chelsea's mission in 2001. Since those pictures we'd had 6 wonderful additions to the family through marriage and birth. Now with the twins the Wayne Hinckley family has doubled to 16. Here's a picture of the women folk:

When Megan and I were dating we used to joke about how things would be when we ruled the world, so we thought we'd better train Maggie on that too:
I think she liked it.

After pictures we had our Thanksgiving Feast at my mom's house. Maggie and I were excited:
And then later we looked through the ads to see if we could get and super sweet deals in the morning sales:
We didn't get anything much beyond a remote controlled helicopter and some hand tools.

Maggie used to play with a small magnetic necklace. She stunned us the Sunday after Thanksgiving when she put it on her head like a crown. It was so cute that I had to take a picture, even though we were in church, but the meeting hadn't started yet, so I was OK, right?

Megan was in the early stages of twin pregnancy at this time. We didn't know it was twins, but faces like this should have led us on to it.

Near the end of January we had to take our Honda to get inspected and had the brakes and oil changed and had a transmission flush on the Corolla. I didn't think it would take long, so I had Maggie with me at the car place while we waited. They seemed to take forever with the car and in the mean time Maggie was getting tired of sitting around. She started climbing all over stuff and getting in to junk. While she was doing something she slipped and banged her poor mouth on a chair. She was crying hard and I could see some blood on her lips. She wouldn't let me look at her closely to see if she was going to be OK or if she was going to lose a tooth. The only way I could see her mouth was to tell her to smile and take a picture. This was back in the day of Maggie's cheesy grins. Luckily it looked like she was going to be ok.
Maggie loves playing with her cousins. This was taken at the end of April:

Megan and I took Maggie with us to celebrate our third anniversary in May. We went to dinner and then went to test drive a new car that we thought we wanted. Maggie was really helpful in making sure the tires were properly inflated:

These are some more cousins having fun taken on May 14.

About 10 days before the twins came, Megs and I were chillin and so what do we do when we are bored? I whipped out the camera phone and we had an ANTM photo shoot:

She started getting angry there near the end. Being pregnant with twins can slighlty increase volatility and appetite.

Here are the boys on the day that we brought them home:
Maggie loves to play with them and tries to be like them at times:
Sometimes I take pictures of myself on accident. I don't know why all the accidental pics have such strange facial expressions and crazy hair. We've become accustomed to blaming it on the lack of sleep. Megan told me today though that the trick is to convince yourself that you don't need much sleep. That way you won't feel sleep deprived.

And finally, we went to the Utah football game against CSU a few weeks ago. Megan and I sat by ourselves in the Asian Student Section of the MUSS. It was fun! The reason why going to a Utah game at Rice Eccles is so memorable is because where else in Utah will you see this:

It's hard to see, but there was a guy that was wearing nothing but shoes and a speedo walking around the student section, posing for pictures with any stranger that wanted to. What a great sense of team spirit and fan dedication. It was awesome!

2008-11-10T23:42:00.000-07:00

I recently heard an anonymous discussion regarding income taxes. Because I intend to be incredulously rich someday, I decided to do some research to uncover based on the current 2007 tax schedules, at what point will my taxes exceed 50% of my income. This has been a hot topic in the recent election.

I first researched the federal and state income tax rate schedules. I found the federal rates in the 2007 instruction booklet to the form 1040. By the way I have the instruction booklet (all 155 pages) because I did our own taxes by hand earlier this year and it was really cool! Way more awesome than the tax programs. The booklet can be downloaded at irs.org.

I then found the state tax brackets on the state website (http://incometax.utah.gov/rates.php).

After glancing at the information shown in those tables, before any calculations were done, I quickly observed that one would have to be in the highest bracket (over $350,000) to come even close to paying 50% of your income.

I did some quick calcs and observed that the amount of taxed income obviously converges on the percentages of 35% Federal + 6.98% State = 42% total.

I then remembered that I was omitting Social security and medicaid. So i found those rates at this website: http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/colafacts.htm. The website gives 2009 rates in which Medicaid has remained a constant 1.45% and Social Security is increased to 7.65% for employees and 13.85% for the self employed, of the first $102,000 only. Based on my work experience, if I intend to be so ridiculously rich I'm going to have to be self employed.

After adding those additional taxes I came up with the following graph:

As can be seen in the graph, based on Married, Filing Jointly status, even with zero deductions, it is impossible to pay over 50% of your income to taxes if the taxes to which you are referring include Federal, State, Medicaid and Social Security. The graph will once again converge at 35% Federal + 6.98% State + 1.45% Medicaid = 43.43% total

I'll be honest: I don't know if I will ever make over $1,000,000 per year, so I cut the table down to the first million as shown below. Interesting how the burden really levels out.
I don't know how to end this post. I think taxes are cool. I mean, it's hard paying for them, but we have a lot of benefits and protection as a result of them. I guess that's why their always automatically deducted and most people just never think of them. Awesome.

A Timeline: Election ’08 and Me.

2008-10-30T00:17:00.000-06:00

On February 5, 2008, I joined 255,217 other Utahns and voted for Mitt Romney in Utah’s Republican Presidential Primary. Romney won the Utah primary with a decisive 90% of the vote. More statistics from the primary are found here.

I voted for Romney because I liked him. I didn’t know much about him, but I knew that I could trust him and that we had the same fundamental beliefs because we are members of the same church.

I was very sad and angered when certain events transpired and eventually Romney dropped out of the race. At that time myself and the local media suspected that McCain and other candidates had formed backstabbing secret combinations to ensure that Romney never surpassed McCain in the race for delegates. I thought that it was noble of him to step down and instruct his delegates to endorse McCain.

After Romney left the race my attention was drawn elsewhere. Starting in March through May we were busy scrounging every last cent we could find to buy our house. Then in July we found ourselves suddenly expanding from one car seat to three. My mind completely ignored the political arena. I remember hearing about the democratic primaries dragging out for a long time and then suddenly Barack Obama was chosen as the nominee.

Due to Megan’s attraction to the Obama’s and the Democratic Party, we watched some of the Democratic Convention and I was impressed. I didn’t know much about Obama or Joe Biden, but I enjoyed the unity, upbeat optimism and enthusiasm of the party.

Later the Republican National Convention was held and was delayed a day due to Hurricane Gustav. I was hoping that Mitt Romney would be nominated as the Vice to McCain. Instead he chose Sarah Palin, who, I’ll be honest, has annoyed me from the first minute I saw her. Although, I have thoroughly enjoyed Tina Fey’s take on the situation.

A few weeks later the bottom of our economy started falling out. I had never owned a house, had a real job or had a family during any other presidential election and suddenly I identified several issues that were really important to me and my family. Being admittedly unfamiliar with the candidates, I decided that I would wipe the slate clean and intently listen to the debates to aid me in deciding who would be my pick for the next president.

The first debate was on September 26. I was hanging out with Maggie that night and watched the debate on CNN.com while she watched her ABC show. I remember the candidates speaking of several issues pertinent to me. Obama said that he will not change policy on gay marriage, gun control or abortion because those are things that no one can agree upon at this time. I was glad he said that. Gay marriage and legalized abortion are two things that are fundamentally contrary to my personal beliefs and spiritual witness-based convictions and I will not tolerate them. As far as gun control is concerned, I think that there are too many wacked-out nut jobs that do bad things with them. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to get a gun or two, but I do think that improvements need to happen to better keep them away from the crazies.

Later in the first debate I was very impressed by McCain’s knowledge and fluency with regards to foreign policy and the war situation. I don’t think that Obama totally choked, but he was no match for McCain’s name dropping and confidence.

In the second debate I liked Obama’s plan with regards to tax breaks and health care. A coworker had previously warned me that Obama’s health care plan was socialism. But I left the debate feeling like it was McCain’s plan that was socialistic. McCain’s plan did not appeal to me. It was fun to see McCain get so mad at Obama. I was further frustrated with McCain because on a lot of issues he failed to express his policy and instead pointed out the flaws in Obama’s intentions. I really wanted to know what he stood for but on several topics he left me better introduced to Obama and still guessing at what he would do.

We decided to go to Ryan’s final football game in Wildcat Stadium during the third debate. Ryan’s team totally won. It was a good game. Ryan is a quick left guard on the offensive line. It was fun to see him pull and then light up unsuspecting rushers. I played left tackle back in my day. It would have been fun to have played together with him on the left side.

When we got home and listened to the news all we heard about was Joe the Plumber. I was busy at work the next day, so I decided that SNL’s Weekend Update, Thursday Edition would have to make up for the missed debate. To be honest, I didn’t get much out of it.

Since the debates we have heard a lot of sound bites on news clips. The most prominent one to me is McCain keeps saying that Obama wants to "redistribute wealth" instead of "create wealth" like it’s a bad thing. But honestly, somebody please tell me what is wrong with that? I spent two awesome years in a third world country and you know what? I firmly believe that class distinctions are what make a developed/developing nation a third world country.

In my current state, taking it to the man so that I can afford to pay off our medical bills and buy a bigger car for my gaggle of children is not a bad idea. McCain, how is wealth created? From what I have heard from you, I infer that you believe that rich people become richer (create wealth) by taking advantage of the lower classmen. But wouldn’t the world we live in be a happier place if the majority had greater economic opportunity to invest in new inventions and creations? I believe that that is how wealth is created. It has to start at its roots. That is how a tree grows. It does not grow by watering and nourishing the leaves.

If you can’t tell by now, Yes, I have decided to vote for Obama. McCain frustrates me. He gets angry, doesn’t answer the questions, negatively talks about his opponents, can’t raise his arms (that really, really bugs me for some reason) and is out of touch with the immediate needs of the majority of Americans.

Some people have spread bad rumors about Obama. Let me use some common sense to displace these rumors.

1. Obama is not an American. What? Hello? At what point in the application for candidacy to run for president did Obama pull the wool over the eyes of the committee to grant applications for presidency? It is true that only native-born American citizens can be president. If Obama is not American, he could not have applied to be the president. His presidential campaign would have never happened.

2. Obama is a terrorist. Oh really? What part of him working to clean up the slums of Chicago says that he would like turn around and destroy our entire nation? Terrorism is not treated lightly in our country, especially not back in Washington. If you haven’t noticed, even the slightest suspected terrorists are forever blacklisted by the CIA and other intelligence groups. If Obama is a terrorist his campaign would have never gotten off the ground and he would likely be locked up somewhere else.

3. Obama is my 11th cousin. This one is actually true with the caveat that we are one generation removed. The church actually did the research to tell me that.

4. Obama has insufficient experience to be the president. While I agree that McCain has more extensive foreign policy experience, the role of the president is not to be the definitive genius on all issues. For this reason the Presidential Cabinet has existed since the Presidency itself. Based on Obama’s occupational and political experience, he will be able to choose team members that will assist him in making the right decisions.

That is my 2 cents. Let me know your feelings. I'm voting tomorrow at noon, so act quick if you want to dissuade me.

10% off Ebay

2008-10-28T23:59:00.000-06:00

I saw the other day that you can get 10% off any purchase on ebay if you use paypal and your ebay and paypal email addresses are the same. You can get up to $100 off! It expires Thursday night (10-30-08) at midnight Pacific Time. Check out at PayPal before then and type in the code: CFALLSAVINGS10P

You can't beat free money.

Sunday's Talk

2008-10-28T23:41:00.000-06:00

I have pasted below the talk I gave in Sacrament Meeting last Sunday. It's long, so take a deep breath and enjoy! Megan also talked; check out her words of wisdom HERE.

CRITICALITIES OF LIFE

In preparation for this talk I decided I would discuss several questions with respect to adversity. They are:

What is Adversity?
Who does Adversity Affect?
Why do we have adversity?
How do we overcome adversity?
How do we prevent or cope with adversity?

I will answer these questions in that order.

What is Adversity?

Adversity is a lot like Tupperware. For example, it is something that everyone has and it comes in many colors, shapes and sizes and each piece seems to have a different purpose. Some forms of adversity that we encounter in our lives include trials, disappointments, sadness, sickness and heartache. Helping others to overcome adversity can be a very rewarding experience in our lives. Unfortunately, true to the analogy, we don’t typically think a lot about our neighbors’ Tupperware. [pause for laughter]

The adverse conditions that we face in life are directed by our Heavenly Father. In His all-knowing way He allows adversity to enter our lives so that through the principles of free agency, adversity becomes a teaching tool to prepare us to return to Him. Each individual receives trials specific to their needs. As we learn to manage our own trials in life, Heavenly Father can use us as an instrument to serve others in effort to alleviate their pains and suffering.

Last week in Elder’s quorum we had a really good discussion about trials. I don’t know if it was planned that way, but our lesson gave me a lot of good material for this talk. The lesson came from the teachings of Joseph Smith, the prophet of the Restoration and the first president of our church in this dispensation. Joseph Smith’s life was full of adversity.

Wilford Woodruff, the fourth President of the Church, said: “The Lord told Joseph that He would prove him, whether he would abide in His covenant or not, even unto death. He did prove him; and although [Joseph] had the whole world to contend against and the treachery of false friends to withstand, although his whole life was a scene of trouble and anxiety and care, yet, in all his afflictions, his imprisonments, the mobbings and ill treatment he passed through, he was ever true to his God.”2

Who does Adversity Affect?

Again quoting from the Joseph Smith manual, the prophet Joseph taught:

“The destinies of all people are in the hands of a just God, and He will do no injustice to any one; and this one thing is sure, that they who will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution [see 2 Timothy 3:12]; and before their robes are made white in the blood of the Lamb, it is to be expected, according to John the Revelator, they will pass through great tribulation [see Revelation 7:13–14].”4

“Men have to suffer that they may come upon Mount Zion and be exalted above the heavens.”5 [End quote]

Each of us will experience some form of adversity in our lives. Some may be experiencing none, one or multiple trials at any given time. Some trials may be short-lived, others constant and long-suffering. Through our individual attitudes and faith, we may differ in how we manage and allow our adversities to affect us.

This is an essential part of Heavenly Father’s plan of redemption. Heavenly Father has sent us to earth where we are required to exercise the gift of free agency. Maintaining our ability to choose and then choosing to positively react to adversity are important steps in returning to our Heavenly Father.

Why do we Have Adversity?

As an American missionary in a third world country, I was often asked by embittered people not of our faith why a loving God would allow such widespread suffering around the world. Due to the closed-minded attitude of the inquisitors, they never accepted my straightforward answer. My response was typically along the lines of this quote obtained from lds.org:

Trials may come as a consequence of a person's own pride and disobedience. These trials can be avoided through righteous living. Other trials are simply a natural part of life and may come at times when people are living righteously. For example, people may experience trials in times of sickness or uncertainty or at the deaths of loved ones. Adversity may sometimes come because of others' poor choices and hurtful words and actions. Suffering may also come through a loving Heavenly Father as a tutoring experience. [End Quote]

Ultimately, like father Lehi taught his son Jacob in 2 Nephi 2:11, we must have adversity in our lives to teach us the difference between good and bad, and holy and unholy. Knowing and recognizing the difference will then prepare us to return to live with our families and Heavenly Father forever.

Shortly after being chased out of town by the wicked King Noah, Alma the older (the first Alma) said this in Mosiah 23: 21-22:

21 Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to ^achasten his people; yea, he trieth their ^bpatience and their faith.

22 Nevertheless—whosoever putteth his ^atrust in him the same shall be ^blifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus it was with this people.

The Lord tests our patience and faith through adversity. With the help of the Lord, the promise is that we can be “lifted up” to return to live with our Heavenly Father “at the last day.” Each step involved in overcoming adversity will lead to spiritual growth, refinement and progress. In Ether 12 Moroni taught: And if men come unto me I will show unto them their ^aweakness. I ^bgive unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my ^cgrace is sufficient for all men that ^dhumble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make ^eweak things become strong unto them.

Moroni also said:

I would show unto the world that ^afaith is things which are ^bhoped for and ^cnot seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no ^dwitness until after the ^etrial of your faith.

It is through our trials that we can test our faith and then if we’re successful in being patient and hard working, we will gain testimony. The Lord will see that we are sufficiently tried to be purified, sanctified and worthy in preparation to return to Him.

John Taylor, the third President of the Church, said: “I heard the Prophet Joseph say, in speaking to the Twelve on one occasion: ‘You will have all kinds of trials to pass through. And it is quite as necessary for you to be tried as it was for Abraham and other men of God, and (said he) God will feel after you, and He will take hold of you and wrench your very heart strings, and if you cannot stand it you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God.’ … Joseph Smith never had many months of peace after he received the truth, and finally he was murdered in Carthage jail.”8

How do we Overcome Adversity?

Alma the younger, son of the first Alma who was previously quoted, reiterated his father’s teaching in Alma 36:3:

"Whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day"

Adverse conditions can teach us and help us to grow closer to the Lord by putting our trust in Him. In this instance putting our trust in Him means working harder to model our lives after the pattern he has taught us in the church through the modern-day prophets. As always, the scriptures, with extra emphasis to the teachings and life examples of Jesus Christ are an excellent source of inspiration and comfort.

As we exercise our faith through prayer, study and meditation we should ask the following questions:

What am I to do?
What am I to learn from this experience?
What am I to change?
Whom am I to help?
How can I remember my many blessings in times of trial?

Relying on the Lord to ease our burdens and teach us from on high fulfills Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s teaching that

Rather than simply passing through trials, we must allow trials to pass through us in ways that sanctify us. [End Quote]

If the purpose of having trials is just that as previously mentioned, to sanctify us in preparation to receive celestial glory, then the best way to permanently overcome our trials is to make sure that we don’t ever forget the lessons learned and then they will never comeback. Like the sports cliché says, the best defense is a solid offense. That mentality has worked well with positive results for BYU 7 out of 8 times this year, so obviously it’s not perfect. Therefore, let’s examine what happens when we apply both a solid offense and a solid defense, which leads me to the next question.

How do we Prevent/Cope with Adversity?

As stated, if we exercise faith and fully learn and always remember what the Lord expects us to understand through our adversities, we will not necessitate further trials along those same lines. This is a component of enduring to the end.

Tupperware comes with a lifetime guarantee. Likewise, our Heavenly Father offers us a lifetime guarantee with respect to adversity. In Mark 13:13 Jesus taught:

“He that shall [faithfully] endure unto the end, the same shall be saved”

Elder Robert D. Hales said:

If we are patient in our afflictions, endure them well, and wait upon the Lord to learn the lessons of mortality, the Lord will be with us to strengthen us unto the end of our days

We learn to endure to the end by learning to finish our current responsibilities, and we simply continue doing it all of our lives. We cannot expect to learn endurance in our later years if we have developed the habit of quitting when things get difficult now.

Enduring to the end is necessary, but not necessarily easy. Because we are human, we are not perfect and we are prone to temptations as Satan exploits our weaknesses. Our Heavenly Father has promised us this in Corinthians 10:13:

There hath no temptation ^ataken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be ^btempted above that ye are able; but will with the ^ctemptation also make a way to ^descape, that ye may be able to ^ebear it.

Though some of our adversities may be long-lasting, they serve to be a constant reminder of what Heavenly Father desires that we learn and they will not be in excess of what we are able to bear. We can’t become depressed and lose hope for what is in store. For example, some of us will encounter life-long disabilities. I have seen this in my own father who has slowly lost his eyesight over the last 20 years. I know that while he misses being able to see his family and he will never be able to see his grandchildren while on this earth, that his permanent disability of blindness has instilled an everlasting hope and testimony to be able to rise up in the first morning if the resurrection. Sure his disability is difficult, but out of this thorny trial he has gained the ability to be one of the most patient, honest and righteous men I have ever met.

I have found through my own personal experiences that Heavenly Father not only limits my trials to what I can bear, but He has also prepared me in advance of my trials. [Tell story MAYBE]

We can gain deeper testimonies and avoid temptations that may weaken our testimonies of important gospel principles by following Helaman’s teaching to his sons Nephi and Lehi in Helaman 5:12:

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the ^arock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your ^bfoundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty ^cstorm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Megan mentioned that I am a geotechnical engineer, so this is where I get really excited in a nerdy sort of way. To close I would like to metaphorically expound on the importance of building a solid foundation.

As some of you may know, millions of years ago this area was covered by Lake Bonneville. Over millions of years the lake deposited sediments along the valley floor. As the lake receded, canyons were incised and rivers and streams formed out of the mouths of canyons and through the valley.

We now live in what is called a sediment filled basin. The groundwater is relatively shallow and the sediments are several hundred feet deep in some areas of the Salt Lake Valley. The sediments consist primarily of sand, silt and clay. Due to the soft and liquefaction-prone condition of these soils, deep foundations must be used in the construction of critical use structures.

Some examples of critical use structures are hospitals, schools, highway bridges, power plants, and cell phone towers. Critical use structures must be designed to withstand the maximum considered natural disasters so that in the event of emergency safety, medical assistance and transportation routes remain functioning.

In Utah deep foundations used in the construction of critical use structures typically consist of groups of steel piles. Each pile is driven into the ground until a specified resistance or load capacity is achieved. This sometimes requires that each pile be driven in excess of 100 feet.

The analogy is that our lives are critical to our Heavenly Father and he requires us to do our part in return for eternal life with Him. He said: For behold, this is my ^awork and my ^bglory—to bring to pass the ^cimmortality and ^deternal ^elife of man.

Just like the sediment filled basins where we live, if we desire to build our critical foundation on the rock of Christ, we have to punch through the poor soils of adversity and temptation. Driving piles into the ground is not easy and can be a long and slow process. Oft times it may feel like we have reached the more stable layers below, but a test will prove that we are not quite there. He will help us in reaching our goals and staying on target. May we always work to bear our lives on Christ by overcoming and being patient in our trials.

Bear Testimony.

LAST CALL!!

2008-09-07T22:10:00.000-06:00

A while ago I posted that we were in need of unloading some stuff. I made some very attractive KSL classified listings and we were able to sell the chain link fence. Recently Megan decided she wants to keep and refinish the 6 foot shelf. This link will take you to the blog post with links to the merchandise. The stuff that didn't find new owners is still just floating around, so now we have no option but to offer the goods for...

... of course upon the condition that we know you and trust that you will take care of our precious unneeded junk.

Featured Item:Yes, the classic 19-inch Magnavox TV from 1989 is still available.

Come and get it. The first person that does will receive a free meal with us (if you come around meal time).

Other new things that we no longer need (these things probably won't be free):

2nd Generation 4GB iPod mini with CD and stuff
Toshiba A45-S150 Satellite (40 GB, 512 MB) with HP 3650 Inkjet Printer
1994 Honda Accord LX (211k miles, click to see ad)

Let me know if you're interested and we could strike a deal!!

A Couple of Things I Have Learned this Week

2008-09-03T16:59:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, actually more often than not, when I am trying to do a gravel hatch in AutoCAD it looks more like a mess of sticks than gravel. Yesterday I learned that if you redefine the hatch origin in the hatch command window to be closer or even within your intended hatch, it looks like perfect gravel every time! Who knew?

Then today I was researching to find a riprap classification specification. I remembered that one time when I worked for another company that we rented a huge scale and then did a mass gradation by hand. It was a lot of hard work and the guy that was doing it with me had a bad back and had to drive to the site with a blow up pillow. So guess who did all the heavy lifting. The table below is from a USACE document for Best Management Practices (BMPs). I can help spec out riprap now if anyone wants some.

Ostriches

2008-08-03T23:43:00.001-06:00

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. (Ether 12:27)

I read this scripture for the Elders Quorum lesson. In the margin next to this verse, I had sometime ago written GRAFITI. Why did I write graffiti? Is it because I think taggers should be harshly punished? That really doesn’t relate to the scripture, unless taggers do it because they have a weakness in an identity crisis or something along those lines. So I thought a little harder and then remembered this:

This is why this scripture is so true. This was some graffiti on a wall along a well-traveled path in Campinas, Brazil. I took a picture of it because it is so ironic how the natural man tends to act like an ostrich when adversity comes. We must not bury our heads when we are embarrassed or when we can’t face our trials. We must look to God, humble ourselves and plead to Him for strength and encouragement. The promise is that in so doing, our weaknesses are reversed to become our strengths. That is awesome!

Directions

2008-08-03T23:27:00.000-06:00

For behold, it is as easy to give heed to the word of Christ, which will point to you a straight course to eternal bliss, as it was for our fathers to give heed to this compass (the Liahona), which would point unto them a straight course to the promised land. (Alma 37:44)

When we read this scripture in Sunday School today, the words “if you know how to use it and are worthy to use it” popped into my head. One must have the knowledge of how to use the tool to make the tool effective. For example, I often let Maggie play with my tools. I don’t usually think twice about her playing with them because she doesn’t know how to use them. (Megan blogged about this once) However, she astonished us a few months ago when we saw that whenever we gave her our keys she would walk up to doors and try to use a key. We don’t know where she got that from, based on that we use keyless car remotes and go through the garage into the house. When she plays in the car she always asks for my set of keys. She will pick out the right one and then will put it into the car ignition. We are in big trouble when she learns to turn the key.

Back to the scripture: it is stating that the word of Christ (scriptures, gospel, commandments, etc.) and a compass are easy to follow and will equally point us in the right direction. Following directions, especially when compasses are involved, reminded me of a story. All good stories begin with “one time…” so here we go:

One time, the summer before I was a senior in high school, our stake decided to do a stake-wide, all young men’s summer camp. This was the infamous summer camp where we burned the couch. That story has gained immortal legend status in the Woods Cross 2^nd Ward, especially with all the ever changing nuances that Rick Hawley comes up with; it’s best to get the story from him.

Anyway, the stake called on some of the priest age young men who were basically done with their Eagles and merit badges to be merit badge counselors for the Deacons and Teachers that still needed merit badges. I was assigned to teach the Orienteering Merit Badge, which obviously deals with compasses and compass courses for orienteering purposes. As merit badge counselor I was in charge of teaching the boys how to use a compass and then taking them through all the merit badge requirements. This was my first time being a counselor, so I didn’t know what to expect. I just tried to follow the merit badge book the best I could.

I was in relatively good shape back then (actually I was in darn near the best shape of my life), so I thought nothing strange of requiring the boys to record their 100 meter sprint times. To facilitate this requirement, we found the straightest and flattest area we could, which happened to be the main road through camp.

Due to the distracted nature of the video game generation, it’s hard to get 12-year olds to listen and follow directions. Subsequently, if I remember correctly, we spent A LOT of time getting everyone coordinated and passed off, one by one, on the 100 meters. Many leaders watched us and wondered what the heck we were doing. For years now I have received ridicule for making a 100 meter sprint part of the orienteering merit badge. I even convinced myself that I had misinterpreted the merit badge requirement and that we ran all day long for no apparent reason.

Well, it’s time to set the record straight. In preparation of this post, I uncovered this information:

The fifth requirement is as follows: Set up a 100-meter pace course. Determine your walking and running pace for 100 meters. Tell why it is important to pace-count.

So I didn’t screw up after all! What a relief. For nearly 8 years I have had that sad thought looming over my head. I just may be qualified to teach more merit badges!

And that story was related to the aforementioned scripture because you have follow directions. And sometimes people don’t recognize that you are following directions, but you need to anyway, no matter how hard it is or how silly it seems. We have been promised that if we follow directions we will be blessed. We need to follow up on those types of sacred promises. Doing so will strengthen our testimonies and prepare us for whatever challenges lay before us.

In response to a tagging,

2008-07-24T20:50:00.000-06:00

My sister Jill tagged me for to apparently reinvent the meaning of the alphabet. Please be so kind as to bear with me as I complete this endeavor:

A = ADVOCATE FOR: I honestly haven't advocated for anything in years. I'm not off to a very good start here.
B = BEST FEATURE: What type of feature? Feature film? I like the epic movies of the 80's, the Indiana Jones and Back to the Future movies. I also like documentaries.
C= COULDN'T DO WITHOUT: Good food. I can already tell this is going to take a while.
D = DREAMS AND DESIRES: A good career, community involvement and well-roundedness in understanding how people and things work in this world.
E = ESSENTIAL ITEM: Toothpaste. My mom says I inherited a bad tartar build-up problem from my dad. The dentist likes to hurt me.
F= FAVORITE PAST TIME: Sports, friends, yard work, manual labor, relaxing.
G= GOOD AT: Apparently propagating Megan's fertility.
H = HAVE NEVER TRIED: Downhill skiing, but I don't think I really want to try it anyway. Sometimes toasties make me angry.
I = IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS: I would pay off our mortgage and child birthing debts, and then buy us a couple more-suitable vehicles and build an addition on our house and then put some away for family and future needs.
J = JUNKIE FOR: Engineering documentaries, the Panama Canal, dirt and water.
K = KINDRED SPIRIT(s): What the heck is a kindred spirit? That is like the most un-manly thing I have ever heard of.
L = LITTLE KNOWN FACT: I only gained 9 pounds from 6th grade (204 lbs) to being a senior in high school (213 lbs).
M = MEMORABLE MOMENT: I agree with Megan that having the twins and all that happened the day they were born was memorable. Maggie's birth was also very memorable. Having kids in general is memorable; it has a way of erasing all prior memories of being married without kids.
N = NEVER AGAIN WILL I: I'm with Megan on this one: Get married. I got me a good catch and I intend to keep her (I told her to write that when she did this).
O = OCCASIONAL INDULGENCE: Sunday afternoon naps.
P= PERSON I MOST ADMIRE: Those who have been my leaders in family, church, scouts and school.
Q = QUOTE: I don’t pay attention to specific quotes. My inspiration comes from my drive to endure and excel.

R = REASON TO SMILE: I haven’t gone to the dentist in over a year, so I am not so sure I should be smiling all that much.

S = SORRY ABOUT: Hurting the environment because my Honda Accord now only runs on 3 cylinders.
T = TAG SOME FRIENDS: Ryan Charles, David P. Johnson

U = UNINTERESTED IN: Country Music.
V = VERY SCARED OF: Being swarmed by the hornets that I keep trying to kill.
W = WORST HABIT: Being insensitive.
X = X MARKS MY IDEAL VACATION SPOT: All-Inclusive resort somewhere in Mexico.
Y = YESTERYEAR DECADE OF CHOICE: Like Megan, I always thought the 70's would be cool.
Z = ZODIAC SIGN: Capricorn.

Guess Who?

2008-07-13T22:02:00.000-06:00

In a sudden rush of events, we found ourselves with two brand new additions to our family last Tuesday. A lot of people have wondered about their arrival and how it all happened, so allow me to enlighten you all....

The morning of Tuesday July 8, 2008 was nigh unto the typical morning around our house. Though my alarm had been going off for over a half hour, Maggie finally woke us up a few minutes after 7:00. Still feeling the effects of the sicknesses we all contracted during the prior weekend, we were hesitant to get out of bed. Megan had a doctor’s appointment for a non-stress test, so she showered first. Our shower head was acting up and had absolutely zero pressure. I showered next and got it to give me just a little more pressure by playing with it. I quickly dressed and was off to work by 8:10 because I had a site meeting in Draper at 8:30. As I was leaving Megan threw Maggie in the tub.

As I was pulling off the freeway about 6 minutes later I got a phone call from Megan. I have never heard her be so frantic. I couldn't understand a word she was saying and was assuming that something was wrong with Maggie. After a couple of minutes she was calm enough to tell me that the tub faucet wouldn't turn off and that it almost flooded the house. Adding to the hysteria, she couldn't find her cell phone to ask me what to do. She eventually remembered where the house shut-off valve was in the basement. As she ran down the stairs, her increased girth got the best of her, and she lost her center of gravity, falling forward down about 4 stairs. She caught herself but mostly landed on her belly with her knees and feet still on the stairs above her. She was able to turn the water off without flooding the house, but something in all that emotion of hysteria opened additional valves within.

After my meeting I rushed home and was able to comfort her for a minute while inspecting the busted valve. It was toast and there was no other shutoff than the main house valve. She had placed band-aids on her rug burned knees and arms, poor thing. I resolved to call our home warranty and get the valve replaced immediately. I jokingly told her that she jinxed us the night before when we told our friends Dave and Kristin that we were the fourth family to live in our semi-new house and Megan said it wasn't even possessed as far as she could tell.

I went back to work and called the home warranty people who said they would have a crew there in less than 8 hours to fix the dang valve. Megan called and said she was on her way to LDS hospital for her appointment and that she was feeling some contractions. Her mom had come to watch Maggie and had told Megan that she looked lower, like the babies had slid into delivery position. That wasn't quite what we wanted to hear because we weren't in the least bit ready. Megan was 35 weeks and 2 days along and our bags weren't packed, nor was our nursery ready.

While in the hospital Megan called and said that due to her spill that morning she needed to stay and be monitored longer. She was worried because she parked in 2-hour parking on the street. Eventually the nurses and doctors declared that she was in labor. They gave her a shot of something to see if it would stop, and it wouldn't. They told her to go move her car because she was going to be there a while.

So 35 weeks prego with twins and in labor, the nurses made her go out and move the car. How ironic is it that as she approached the car, there was the city parking enforcer writing her a ticket? He said, "This car has been here longer than 2 hours". And she was like, "I know! I've been here for like 5!! I'm in labor and need to park it somewhere else." To which he said, "Well, I’ll take this ticket back but I’m really not supposed to". What a dork. Megan got in the car and started sobbing. What an emotional day, and this was only at about 1:30 pm.

She then called me and told me that she was admitted for delivery and that she was being given pitocin. The only problem was that I was racing home to meet the plumbers to fix the faucet. I met them and frantically grabbed a bag of stuff. They were there for like 5 minutes and then said that they needed to go back to Salt Lake for a part. So Megan's dad came to house sit and wait for the plumber as I raced up to the hospital. I called my dad and brother to come to the hospital so we could give Megan a blessing. We all met there at 3:00 and gave her a blessing. Megan was getting her epidural as I got there. Looking for a doctor, I said "are you just the anesthesiologist?" I think he got mad and offended by that. Whoops. Sorry, it had been a crazy day.

The nurse told me that at 2:40 they had given her penicillin which needed 4 hours before delivery to fully kick in. So we waited, expecting to deliver around 6:40. Soon my dad and brother left us and a little while later Megan's parents and brothers came up. We joked around a bunch, which made Megan’s monitors go funny from all the belly laughter that she was doing.

At about 7:00 they told us that her doctor was out on a date for her anniversary and that we would wait for her. Finally, a few minutes after 8:00, the doctor showed and assessed Megan and told her to wait some more while she changed. At about 8:45 the doctor came in and broke Megan’s water. Almost instantly Megan’s contractions heightened and became very painful. Worried that the epidural was wearing off, Megan requested more. A few minutes later we were rushed to the operating room for delivery in case anything went awry and a c-section was needed. Megan’s mom and I were able to accompany her in the operating room, but we had to wear these sweet suits.

It took about 3 contractions to get Coleman out. He was born at 9:18 and weighed 5 lbs even and was 19 inches long. We didn’t get to really see him as he was rushed to a warmer bed and was given oxygen. Nine minutes later William slid down and was born after 1 contraction. He was 4 lbs and 13 ozs. He was also whisked away so we never heard how long he was. The boys were rushed to the special care nursery without us getting to touch them. Megan returned to her room having delivered nearly 10 lbs of baby, but saddened by not being able to see them.

Soon Megan’s family left and we were left alone. It seemed like it was about midnight before they moved Megan to her postpartum room. At that time we passed the nursery and were able to touch our boys. They were so small and were being monitored for heart rate, breathing rate and blood oxygen levels. They had IV’s in their hands and were on a CPAP machine that was similar to a sleep apnea machine. We just wanted to touch them, but the nurse said that being 5 weeks early, their skin is underdeveloped and that they don’t like rubs, but just solid contact. Did I mention yet that I don’t really like that nurse?

Anyway, it was about 2:00 pm the next day before we were told that we could hold our babies. Megan was able to do Kangaroo time with the boys, which made her feel a lot better. We had a lot of visitors that second day and lots of people saw the boys through the windows, but only Megan and I have held them. They are way fun to hold and they love to just cuddle up on my chest in little balls. The like my red shirts more than my blue shirts.

Since then they have been off and on and back off of the warmer beds, and are now getting decreased amounts of forced oxygen and air through a nose tube just like the football players. These guys are just days old and are already super manly!! We get to go and hold them and help change their diapers and feed them every 3 hours as much as we want. Megan nurses them and they are really good eaters! That’s what we expected. We want to see the chubby sagging baby cheeks that I had when I was little.

They were under bilirubin lights for a day and 2 nights, but are better now. Maggie's been playing with cousins. We owe a lot of thanks to our families who are doing a ton to help us out.

On Sunday we were able to sneak Maggie into their room. Maggie gave them loves, helped with binks and kissed their heads. It was fun to have our family all together finally. She wanted to be the big sister and hold William, but he’s too small and there’s too many wires and tubes hooked up to him. I can’t wait to see them all wrestling on the ground in a few months.

Sunday morning we talked with the pediatrician who said that they will be done taking antibiotics on Wednesday and then after that, if they keep gaining weight and are off the oxygen for 2 days, they can come home. So we need everyone to pray for them and specifically for their little lungs and respiratory systems, so that they will be sustained on their own breathing by receiving the proper oxygen amounts that they need. The pediatrician estimated that they will be in the nursery till they are a week and a half to two weeks old. We can’t wait to bring them home. They are adorable!

Looks Like I'm in Good Shape

2008-06-23T23:03:00.000-06:00

I keep telling Megan that I want to get a gun. I guess according to this test, as long as I have my lucky machete, I should be in good shape. I learned a lot of these survivor skills on my mission. It was like 2 years of scout camp (good old Campinas - that always makes Megan laugh). One time I got attacked by a big hairy German Shepard and I kicked it real hard as it bit me. It was awesome! It bit me on my belt so I didn't even feel it. Missionaries really are protected. After that, I teased a few dogs (small ones only) and got bit like 3 more times, and then I stopped because I could already say that I got bit by a dog. Don't get me wrong, I didn't provoke the German Shepard, it hastily came at me, which always made us laugh because my companion was just as tall as me but about 80 pounds lighter. The dog had an appetite for fleshy meat.

The funny thing about this survival test is that it asks questions about physical prowess, fitness and abilities, but it never asks about intelligence, or quick-thinking except for your reaction time. I think when it comes down to it, size really does matter, but you also need to know how to use your size. I have seen real animal attack books in places, I'm thinking of one with a yellow cover... I can't find it. There are different tricks to fighting different animals and you have to think quick without panic to know what to do to beat them.

Last year at scout camp I chased a badger out of our campsite. I wanted to fight it, but it ran away without giving me a chance. We also saw some moose. I don't think I would ever want to pick a fight with a moose.

When I was 18 I went on a road trip to Yellowstone with a few friends. One of them brought along a book that documented all the known deaths at Yellowstone since its inception as a National Park. That was a cool book.

Anyway, I should be working on my thesis. Good luck to the rest of you.

Shelving

2008-06-18T22:53:00.000-06:00

Back in the day I worked for a supplier/dealer/installer of commercial kitchen equipment called CKS (Commercial Kitchen Supply- that was redundant). One of the owners was my young mens leader throughout the years named Layne Walker, and the other owner was his brother in law, Keith Eubank (yes son and brother of the infamous weather guys, although Keith is like twice the size of squeaky).

I started doing odd things off and on for CKS when I was still in high school. Later I worked for them for a few months before my mission and then started up again with them 4 days after I got home from my mission. That was kind of awkward because I spoke really bad English with a HEAVY Brazilian accent. Sometimes I would talk to other people and accidentally drop a few Portuguese words mid sentence. I never understood why they looked at me weird. It was especially hard to talk to girls. I'm better now, I think. Anyway Seester (Nacho), I then worked for them up to my marriage except for a 5-month intern stint over to the Layton City Engineering Department. I had to quit CKS because I had to leave home to cleave to Megan in Provo. They wanted me to stay, but couldn't offer me the health insurance and stuff that I felt was necessary for my new family. Keith sent me off with his 1989 Magnavox TV (you may have seen this before) and then the CKS crew gave us our barbeque grill for our wedding present. If you haven't seen that yet, then we owe you a bbq. The grill cooks like a champ.

I went back to their office this week looking to buy some heavy duty shelving from them to use in our storage room of the new house. Keith greeted me with a big smile and was glad I had swung by to visit. He said that since I was such a great employee that I could just have some of their surplus shelving. I was overjoyed, what a blessing. The free shelving was not the exact size of what I had come up with in my original request; I actually ended up with more bigger and better shelving than I had anticipated. I just ran the numbers through a website that sells similar stuff and I actually ended up with over $1,100 of free shelving!

One thing that I always did when I worked for CKS was compare the price of the equipment to my car back then, the blessed Toyota Tercel Blue Dart station wagon. That only worked because my parents don't know what a real blue dart is. Nobody better blow that, ya hear?!?!! So, for example, the shelving that I got was the price of 1 Blue Dart (after installation and setup)!! We used to work with some ovens and stuff that cost 25 Blue Darts. We had to be real careful with that stuff.Those pictures aren't my Blue Dart, my mom kind of stole it from me and then sold it for $500. Best $500 car that somebody could have ever bought. I hope to get another one someday and then restore it and really make it ultimate.

I am grateful for having had the experiences to work and for the things I have learned therein. I have been blessed with developing talents that have enabled me to do a lot of different things and I feel grateful for those who have been patient with me and taught me so much. I remember that while I was on my mission CKS had their first million dollar year (grossed business). I have learned that this year they will do around $13M in business. I am happy for them. Keith and Layne are some of the best, most honest and smartest guys I have ever worked for. If I hadn't been so infatuated with dirt, maybe I could have stuck around and had a piece of the $13M pie. I guess I should visit more often, we could really use a new toaster.

Belated Spring Cleaning

2008-06-07T15:30:00.000-06:00

As we were packing boxes to move to Lehi, father of Nephi, we realized that we have a lot of really cool stuff!!! In fact so much cool stuff that we need to dispose of some of it. So like any other resourceful techno-savvy nice guy, I stayed up late last night after the kid was in bed, and I posted it all for super cheap on KSL. Dr. Lawton always said that Ziploc baggies were the best invention for geotechnical engineering, and I say that KSL classifieds is the best invention for us Utahns.

Anyway, here are some links to cool stuff that we are selling. Let me know if you want this stuff. If you are our family or friends we will totally just give it to you because what the heck are we going to do with it?

Vintage 1989 20-inch Color Magnavox TV with Remote!!

6-ft Decorative Hanging Shelf with Pegs!

~50+ ft of 4-ft Chain Link Fencing + Extras! Dog Run

Vintage New in Box Fill-A-Bowl

Webwave Pacific Wireless Rootenna + Extras!!

guess which one of these listings has had the most hits! Who'd a known it's the chain link fence?

What in the world makes chain link fence so popular? Next most popular was the wooden shelf (probably because I used the word "pegs" in the title, LUCKY!). The funny thing is, is that both those things were things that we inherited when we left the land bountiful and came to Lehi's Deseret.

Totally just let us know if you want some of this stuff. We all know how super sweet it is.

things what life's done taught me

2008-06-01T21:12:00.000-06:00

For the last few years I have developed a complex related to bearing my testimony or giving sacrament meeting talks because it seemed like all I could think of were mission experiences. I felt like I was missing out on something about life because I had no other cool experiences besides my mission. Not that it’s bad to share mission stories, but in sacrament meeting and Deacon’s Quorum not everyone has served a mission and the stories at times seem really far away (our house to Campinas is nearly five years and 6,025 miles).

When I’ve had time to ponder, I’ve thought a lot about this complex. A while ago I realized that I just haven’t had enough pondering time to observe the lessons that have actually been amply dished out to me. During Elders Quorum today the phrase “life happens fast” from those credit card commercials kept coming to mind. I suddenly realized that I have been learning a lot and that I do have some amazing experiences to share. They may not be on the same par for spirituality or significance as some of the mission experiences, but they have helped to mold me into who I am today.

The Elders Quorum lesson was adapted from President Eyring’s Priesthood Session talk this past April. He was speaking of the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood. He mentioned what a daunting challenge it is to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood. President Eyring continued to explain some of the blessings associated with being a priesthood holder.

It was the word “daunting” that got the wheels in my mind turning in a blur. Megan and I have faced and will continue to face some VERY daunting challenges in our lives. For example, the very week that we jumped into committing to homeownership, we discovered that we were pregnant with twins. On top of that we have a lovely and BUSY 20-month old and I have a thesis project that needs completion.

Even with all this, as I take a step back to think of what events transpired to get us here, all the priesthood-holding blessings mentioned by President Eyring seem to relate to our lives. For example, the fact that we’re having twins and that I have a really good job and that I have finished school just in time to get the boys, shows that Heavenly Fathers loves us and is fully aware of our situation. Megan and I know that as we work to raise our family in righteousness that we will receive help from others, especially our dear extended family members whom we love and appreciate so much. President Eyring said: “Second, as you will try to keep your covenants, the Savior has promised His personal help. He has said that as you go forward in honoring the priesthood: “There I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”² We know that the Lord’s help will be manifested through others that will be by our side.

If anyone else out there feels like me, like they have been running through life at a million miles an hour and have not had the opportunity to stop and partake of the rose-like scents of living, find sometime to relax, recount thoughts and write them down. I’m glad that I can. I will continue to share some experiences on this blog. Who knows? Maybe some of the high school experiences that I can remember will end up in updated Aaronic Priesthood manuals. But then again, they might still be outdated because I didn’t have a cell phone or an iPod back then (but we did have the internet!).

Remembering Fred

2008-05-13T23:24:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was my grandfather's funeral. It was a sad day, but at the same time it was a good day because of the fun memories and neat experiences. People used to call my grandpa Ivan. Ivan was his middle name and it was also his father's middle name. I always thought Ivan was a cool name. Especially after seeing parts of Rocky IV on TV one Saturday afternoon a long time ago (i've never seen the whole thing, nor have I seen any Rocky movies the whole way through... I grew up sheltered by swathes of chick flicks. The manliest shows I ever saw as an adolescent were Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Herbie and Back to the Future). Anyway, I like the name Ivan. It's Russian for John and the Gospel According to John is my favorite New Testament book.

I have a handful of fun memories of my grandpa Fred Ivan. I remember my mom used to drop me off at his house during the summer, and then he would take me to his mom's house (Gram) and I used to mow her lawn. She would give me 4 quarters, a pepsi and some vanilla duplex cookies. It was awesome and I loved doing it. Back then I would do anything for money , and even still today I would especially do it if free food was included!

Grandpa had several jobs and often worked 2 jobs to support his family of 8 children. His "on the side" job was his own appliance repair business. He took me on a few service calls once. I remember going to old ladies houses and helping to hand him a "screw driver, damn it!". I couldn't ever tell if he was frustrated with me or the busted washer he was repairing. It was cool because sometimes we would go to a supply shop that always had a box of donuts that were free for the taking. I've always loved donuts. (once again, free food just for tagging along)

One really cool memory that I have to share with a few other cousins is that once he took some of us boy cousins to the state fair. As we were leaving the fair he bought us all Whoppers from Burger King. This was my first exposure to one of the best hamburgers in the world. It was so big to me back then. As we headed home in the Astro van, he turned around to me and told me to stop talking so much. I was so embarrassed, I mean I hadn't said a word and here he was telling me to be even quieter.... I didn't understand his sarcasm at first and had to just play along with the joke, hiding tender tears behind a fake chuckle. The pic below is not his astro van, but it is similar.

I guess you can say I was a sensitive kid. I remember being in trouble a lot. I inherited some of his mechanical intuition, but as a child that usually meant that I was always breaking perfectly good things either for to see how they worked, or just because I was curious as to how ceramic items shattered when thrown. Nonetheless, I had a destructive reputation. The summer before first grade we caravaned with him to California for a family reunion. Grandpa was so cool to me because he made mini drink coolers by using golf tees to tamp the little holes in the side compartments of the Astro van. However, he wouldn't let me ride with him because he was afraid that I would ruin things in his gray Astro van.

He was a big kid at heart and had a lot of cool toys, I remember snooping in the closet trying to find cool stuff to play with. Probably feeling pressure to clean out his closet, one Christmas he gave me his Radio Shack remote controlled truck. I still have the truck and play with it all the time. Megan bought me a Tundra for Father's day last year so now I have 2 trucks which makes Williams Easter Daytona 500 way fun.

All the grandchildren remember his magic tricks and his silly jokes. At the beginning of this year I had the opportunity to work with my mom and my little brother and my brother in law to finish the bathroom project he started 40+ years ago. We did a pretty good job. Unfortunately he didn't want to use the new bathroom because I guess it was too fancy, but grandma sure loves it! The following picture is of Grandma and Grandpa at our wedding luncheon, exactly 3 years to the day before he passed away.

Anyway, those are a few of my memories of grandpa Lambert. We have a lot to live up to as we look through the Lambert heritage. Grandpa served in the Navy before going on his mission. He had a 21 gun salute at his graveside service. That was probably the most emotional part of the day to me. My emotions run high when I think of the service that I and others have done because I know that every little bit helps to make the world a better place to live whether it be by protecting liberties or spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for reading my memories of grandpa Lambert.