Eric and Lisa's Reception

Friday we went to the wedding reception for Eric and Lisa. I think that everyone that follows this blog already knows that Eric is the widower of my late sister Sheri. I also think almost everyone knew that he was getting married. But, what you might not all know is that the wedding was this past week and that his new wife is named Lisa. She lives in Farmington and teaches at Davis High School.

She and Eric seem like a good fit to me. I still don't know her very well, but her personality seems similar to his: quiet, conservative, goodhearted, and genuinely nice. Like Eric, she lost her spouse not many years ago and has been a single parent ever since.

We all got together before the reception for family pictures. Most of Eric and Lisa's families were there. I hadn't met any of Lisa's family and hadn't seen some of Eric's family in years, so the event was a great way to establish or renew many relationships. Having my siblings there made it entertaining. I really wish my parents could have been there, but they were delayed on their way back from Fiji and couldn't make it.

I can't explain how friendly to us the families of Lisa and her late husband were. These are people that we aren't going to see very often, so a close relationship isn't exactly mandatory. But, we seemed to make an instant connection to them. They gave me every reason to think that all families involved will get along very well.

One special part of the reception was a display of photographs of Eric and also some of Lisa with their respective late spouses, along with their children. One set of pictures had the caption "Because someone we love is heaven, there's a little bit of heaven in our home." The saying was originally written in reference to Eric's loss, but I thought how the sentiment applies to Lisa also, and doubly so to the new home that they will have.

The reception was a special occasion and I hope that we are all able to get together again in the future. I couldn't be happier for Eric and Lisa and look forward to seeing them often since they will be living just up the road in Farmington.

19th Anniversary Celebration

On Sunday, Rita and I completed 19 years of marriage. That's right: 19 years! It's hard to believe it was that long ago that we tied the knot. I must have been like 8 years old.

I was in charge of planning some sort of celebration. It was particularly challenging this year for a couple of reasons. First of all, we didn't want to spend much money. Yes, we are trying to be disciplined with our money, but more importantly this year is an off year. We will spend the big bucks for our 20th anniversary. The second difficulty is that we have both temporarily sworn off of junk food. (I will probably explain more about our new diet in a future post, but basically our whole family is trying to not eat junk food except on specific occasions during the first 100 days of 2012.) Going out to dinner or a treat has been a common date activity since we first met, but without eating junk food our options would be limited to basically a sandwich from Subway--not exactly the most romantic restaurant. I knew I'd have to use my imagination just a bit.

The fun started on Saturday. The first activity I planned was for the two of us to go to a discount movie. We went and saw Tower Heist at the Kaysville theater. Neither of us knew much about the movie, other than it got a decent score on Rotten Tomatoes. We were pleasantly surprised. It has some funny parts, and the plot is pretty good for a comedy. I wouldn't recommend it for young children, but it's definitely worth seeing.

On Sunday we exchanged gifts with each other. Rita got me a trunk-mounted bike rack for my car, which I will use a lot this summer. I got her a set of Conair Xtreme Instant Heat Hot Rollers. These are not exactly the most romantic gifts we've ever gotten each other, but I think we got all the romantic gifts we could think of back during anniversaries 1 through 10. I guess you could say that the romance has dwindled a bit, but did I really want some cologne?

On Monday, we decided to include the kids in our celebration. We all went to the Ogden Ice Sheet and participated in the Layton City Family Skate Night. The skating was only a dollar! We have varying skill levels at the sport. Rita is a good skater, coming from Canada and all. I am just good enough to make it fun. Todd is decent, and Kenna and Alec had never been. Everyone sure had fun.

After some early hesitations everyone was cruising around the rink pretty well.

It was a fun celebration for me. But, it wasn't as fun as what I was celebrating...19 wonderful years of being married to Rita!

New Year's Resolutions

When it comes to New Year's resolutions, I (Brent) normally set one or two, if any. Also, I normally forget about them some time around January 2nd or 3rd. This year I have several goals and resolution and I'm committed to working on them throughout the year. Some of them are pretty aggressive, so I've got my work cut out for me. Here is the list:

• Qualify for the Boston Marathon. This isn't a new goal. I've had it since August of 2010. The qualifying times are more strict this year, so I realize it's a bit of a long shot. It is going to take a ton of work and a lot of luck to even come close. I'm excited that my brother Steve has the same goal. He and I are both signed up to run the Utah Valley Marathon. Wouldn't it be fun if we both qualified together?
• Create and follow a set of value statements. This might be one of the cheesiest goals I've ever set. It seems too much like one of those hokey company mission statements. But, this won't be imposed from above like it is in a company. These will be personal to me and I can customize them to my beliefs and needs. I actually got the idea during Elders' Quorom instruction on New Year's Day. The lesson explained how George Albert Smith had written what he called his "personal creed." The statements were so specific, profound and well-written that I thought it'd be a good idea to try to come up with something similar for myself. Unlike a company mission statement, I won't show my value statements on a PowerPoint slide at a company meeting or anything like that. I'll read them from time-to-time as a reminder of my own personal creed.
• Keep a daily tracker. If you're forgetful and unorganized like I am, you need this. My tracker is just a sheet of paper that lists all the items I should do each day. It's got things like weighing myself, feeding my fish, flossing, and getting to bed on time. You'd think I would have mastered that level of simple organization back when I was a teenager, but I still struggle with it.
• Read 12 books. I like to read. Or, at least I wish I liked to read. I don't do it nearly as much as I think I should. I only read two books in all of 2011, so I'll need to put in a lot more time than I have been.
• Post to my blog 26 times in the year. I blogged a lot more last year than I ever have and enjoyed it. I did it every day for a month, so every other week shouldn't be too hard. The difficulty will be remembering. The posts will be spaced far enough apart that I could easily forget.
• Be more patient with my kids. Of the times I've lost my temper in the last five years, about 99% of them have been directed at my children. It's so obvious that yelling and screaming is counter-productive, but in the heat of the moment it seems so logical. I'm committed to not letting myself get to that point this year.
• Pay off our home equity loan. Last year was a difficult year financially for Rita and me. This year promises to be much better. If things continue to go well and we are disciplined, we can pay back the money we've borrowed recently. I have a lofty goal to never borrow money again. I'm not sure that is a possibility, but paying this off would go a long way to making it a reality.
• Earn a promotion at work. I'm not ambitious at work and have no desire to be a manager, but seeing multiple coworker friends receive multiple advancements has spurred me to try a bit of self-promotion. I'm trying to toot my own horn more often and be more assertive. At my last performance review I announced my intention to complete the steps necessary for advancement on the technical track, so now I'm officially bucking for a promotion.

What are some of your resolutions and goals for the new year? Please post a comment if you have one or two that you are willing to share.

Wind Storm of '11

This morning was perhaps the worst wind storm I've ever been a part of. We had heard the weather forecast yesterday saying that winds were likely, but we had no idea it would be this bad. We could hear the wind howling during the night, then the power went out. The kids had to get ready for school in the dark. When we left the house we could see the ongoing damage. There was a tree across the street to the East that had been uprooted. Then while I was getting in the car I heard a crack and looked across the street to the North and saw that there was a tree that had been broken in half. The thickest park of the trunk had been snapped like a twig.

On the news we heard that there were wind gusts up to 100 mph and the freeway and many schools had been closed. They didn't say that our kids' schools were closed, so I went ahead and took them. There were trees and other debris all over the place. There was a power line down on the way to Kenna's school that we had to go around. When we got to Alec's school, the power was out and they were sending everyone home. As we were driving away we saw a huge tree across the street that had fallen down.

It was hard for us to get back home. I tried to avoid the main intersection in Kaysville because the stop lights were out and the traffic was backed up. But, I couldn't go around because three different roads that I tried were closed because of downed power lines. I had to avoid about 10 different large trees that had fallen into the road.

When I got home I noticed that the neighbors both South and West of us had lost parts of their fences. I had Todd put our plastic lawn chairs in the garage last night, but I didn't think to put away the heavy metal patio furniture. It had blown across the lawn.

I made a video attempting to show how bad the wind was, but you can barely see the trees that fell and the audio didn't work. But, it's all I've got.

The news story about the storm is here.

Book Review: The Hunger Games

Kenna and I just finished reading The Hunger Games. We read it together and liked it a lot. This is the review that I posted on Goodreads:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Before reading The Hunger Games, I thought it was yet another simple-minded book for early teens. It had been highly recommended to me by more than one friend, but I was skeptical that I'd like it. As a general rule, I don't like works of fiction so I'm very selective when it comes to novels. I decided not to read it.

In the meantime, my wife purchased the book after a friend of hers recommended it. Curious to know if it was a book I would enjoy, I encouraged my 15-year-old son to read it. He declined. Finally, I talked my 11-year-old daughter into reading it. To help get her started, I agreed to read the first chapter to her. Well, it didn't even take that long for me to get pulled in by the story.

My earlier fears were unfounded. The book isn't simple-minded at all, and it's not just for early teens. It has a sophisticated plot and an extensive vocabulary. Yes, the main character is a 16-year-old girl, but the book is an action-packed, blood-and-guts, exciting cliff-hanger. Pretty soon I was not only reading the book to my daughter, but reading it by myself after she was in bed.
The book is at times unnecessarily gory, and it does seem to suffer from plot manipulation. However, the fact that it was able to keep both me and my daughter so interested is no small feat. I've already ordered the sequel (Catching Fire). My daughter and I can't wait to read it.
View all my reviews

Africa Heartwood Project

We have recently become involved in a local charity called Africa Heartwood Project. We learned about it from Todd's djembe teacher, Andy Jones, who is the founder and director. They help the needy in Africa in several ways. These are the projects we have been involved in:

1. They buy drums from local artisans in five West African countries and sell them on their web site Djembe Direct. The drums are hand made and very nice. That is where we got our two drums. If you've seen them then you know how nice they are.
2. They help pay for the installation of hand pump bore holes in rural villages in Ghana. These provide clean water to villages that would otherwise get their drinking water from streams that might be far away, polluted or dry at certain times of the year. We have contributed a small amount of money to a couple of the projects.
3. They fund the Refugee Orphan Home at Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana, Africa. There are over 40 children there that are refugees from Liberia. They are trying to help these children return to Liberia but have been unsuccessful so far. We have donated several items to the orphanage. Almost all of the items have been household items that we no longer use. After we donated a set of items, the orphans sent us a letter:

If you click on the image above, you may be able to read the letter. This is what it says:

Dear Sponsors,

We greet you in the name of our lord Jesus Christ amen. We want to tell you thanks for your kind support and love you people have shown us, we also want to let you know that we recieved ever things your have sent us which are listed below.

1. hats
2. mobile phone
3. mous
4. 10 ear piece
5. 1 digital phito viewer
6. with some drugs
7. mp3 player 3

Yours and only orphan:

They then all signed the letter.

The letter made me smile. It was a bit comical: No, we didn't send them any drugs! But at the same time it seemed so innocent and so sincere. We had given them what was basically junk to us and it was clearly something that they appreciated.

We have supported a variety of different charities, but this is perhaps the one that has been the most tangible. With some charities, the only interaction we have is a form letter. With Africa Heartwood Project we feel much closer. We've been able to talk to Andy about the projects. (He travels to Africa frequently.) We've also seen the videos that they've posted on their web site. And the letter from the orphans was special because it was directly from the people we have helped.

One fun aspect about Africa Heartwood Project is the fundraisers. They are most often drum circles or performances. If you get a chance, I recommend attending one. The next one is tonight, November 29. (Sorry for the late notice.) We are planning on attending. There is information about tonight's fundraiser, as well as other upcoming events, on their website here.

Giving to a charity is almost always rewarding, no matter what the organization or cause. But, we've found helping the Africa Heartwood Project to be a unique experience that has helped us be thankful for what we have and to appreciate the value in selfless giving. We hope to continue to support their cause.

My New Phone

I got a new phone today. What is my phone of choice?? I'm a hi-tech guy. Surely I got the latest, greatest iPhone. No. I work for a company that sells software for Android. Then surely I got the a fully-loaded Droid phone. Nope.

What I actually got is an LG Rumor Touch. The name makes it sound like it's similar to an iPod Touch. The fact that it has a touch screen is about the only similarity. This is not a hi-tech phone. It is better than my previous phone--an LG Rumor--but not by a lot. And, I don't have a data plan of any kind. No web browsing. No email. No picture mail. No FaceTime. No GPS. Just phone calls and texts. The lady at the Sprint kiosk in the mall was palpably disappointed with me.

I've been surprised by the social pressure to get a smart phone. I'm not just talking about the Sprint lady. My coworkers think I'm the crazy old guy in the office that thinks the internet is a passing fad. Almost everyone I know has a smart phone and loves it. They use them all the time. They get all the latest apps. It makes me feel like the old guy that stops at the end of the freeway on-ramp because the traffic is coming too fast for him to merge.

Am I living in the dark ages? Am I starting to show my age? Will my next phone be a Jitterbug? That might be a partial explanation. After all, I run Windows XP on my computer at home...and I actually like it. I also find my computer programming skills becoming more and more dated. My language of choice is C++. Some of my coworkers think I may as well just be programming in Fortran on punch cards. I have to admit that as I get older I am slower to adopt new technologies.

But like I said, this is only a partial explanation. There are a lot of technologies that I adopt quickly. I bought an Android tablet over a year ago before Android was even cool. I've had a Blu-Ray player for years. No, I don't think my aversion to getting a smart phone is just because I'm old. It's because I'm cheap. I just can't bring myself to pay for the data plan. The aforementioned lady at the Sprint kiosk told me it was only $10 more. Right. When she crunched the numbers it came out to more like $50 a month on top of what I'm currently paying. And Sprint's plan is cheap compared to most.

If you know how cheap I am then you know that $50 a month is about $49 more than I would like to pay. I'm way too frugal to pay that much. The phone itself cost me precisely $0 because of my credits I've earned. Maybe when I'm willing to buy breakfast cereal that comes in a box or soda that isn't labeled "Sam's Choice" then we can talk about a $50 data plan. I'm almost never far from a computer, so really all a smart phone would do for me is let me web browse while I'm in my car. That's a pricey luxury. Oh, and it's illegal.

What do you think? Am I the old lady that has a million dollars in the bank but still lives off dog food? Am I an old dinosaur? Please post a comment. I'm sure one of my kids can show me how to read it.

Layton Lights

We have a family tradition to visit the holiday lights in Layton. This year it was extra fun because we were able to do it with Rita's parents and with Rita's sister and her family.

The light display is pretty extensive, considering Layton isn't the biggest city around. There are a lot of lights, and they seem to add more each year. I think we enjoy the Layton display almost as much as we do the one at Temple Square. This may seem a bit odd because of how much they differ in quality. The lights on Temple Square are religious, classy, and beautiful. The Layton lights are gaudy, cheesy, and completely disjointed. They are devoid of anything religious or anything having to do with Christmas.

I'm starting to sound a bit like a Christmas lights elitist. But don't get me wrong. I still think they are a lot of fun. They might not give you a feeling of reverence like the Temple Square lights do, but they are very popular, and rightfully so. You can see them all from your car--which is very nice if you're in a hurry--and you can also walk on the path that winds among the trees and other displays. Also, they are free. We have been to more than one lights display that costs money and isn't as good as the Layton lights.

Perhaps the best part about these lights is that our kids love them. While I might find a tree that has been meticulously covered in thousands of uniformly-colored lights to be beautiful, my children have entirely different tastes. They enjoy what I find to be trashy: flashing, multiple colors, animated animals, etc. One particular aspect they like about the Layton lights is that they are memorable. While I wouldn't ever say "I remember that tree on Temple Square from last year," a big part of the Layton display is remembering the frog catching the dragonfly or the ape breaking open the coconut.

If you go to only one light display this holiday season, go to Temple Square. But if you go to two light displays, I recommend you also go to Layton. It will be a memorable experience.

Here are some pictures of the event:

Our family.

Rita's sister Stephanie's family.

The kids being crazy around Rita's parents.

Procrastination

Do you suffer from procrastination? I sure do. I often hear people express their displeasure with their own procrastination. It seems to be a universal problem. I recently read a great article that explains why it is so common. It also explains that we don't procrastinate because of laziness or because of poor time management. Instead, we do it because we give in to our impulses and we also fail to "think about thinking." The article goes on to explain what that means. (It is part of a web site that is dedicated to exploring self delusion. It's called You Are Not So Smart and I highly recommend it.)

An interesting thing I have noticed is that the people I hear expressing the most guilt about procrastination often are people that I consider very hard workers. In other words, the people that I think procrastinate the least are the very ones that think they do it the most. Why is that?

It could be that a result of recognizing your procrastination is that it makes you do it less. If you think you procrastinate you will be less likely to do it. That is probably only a partial reason. Surely there must be more to it than that.

Another possible reason could be that these people are more ambitious. They try to do a lot, which leads them to do more, but also procrastinate more because of the simple fact that they have more things to procrastinate. People like me that are lacking in ambition don't procrastinate as much because we don't really have any tasks to procrastinate. I'm not procrastinating that yard work...I just don't think it needs to be done.

Another article I read talks about "good procrastination" and "bad procrastination." You only have a limited amount of time, but an unlimited number of things that you wish you could do. You will inevitably have to procrastinate something. The key is to procrastinate the right things. The article does a good job of helping you not feel guilty about procrastination, as long as it's the good kind. It also explains the cause of bad procrastination and gives some strategies to help you avoid it.

I am no expert on avoiding procrastination, but I do have a few strategies that I try. Better organization helps, but it needs to be more than just making a to-do list. If I don't look at it again it's pretty much worthless. I find that I need to check the list at least twice a day and schedule my time accordingly. But that is no cure-all. I still need to muster the will power to actually do the items on the list. Also, the list needs to be realistic. A wish-list of anything I ever wanted to do doesn't help, and may actually make me more likely to procrastinate because the items are overly ambitious.

Another anti-procrastination strategy I use is to employ little tricks to help me start on a task. For example, I break it down into smaller tasks and then do the easiest one. This helps me avoid feeling overwhelmed. Once I'm finished with the little task, I get a feeling of accomplishment and have momentum to keep going.

Which tasks are you most likely to procrastinate? What strategies do you use to avoid putting things off? I'd love to hear your comments.

Black Friday

Black Friday and I are not a good fit. The only thing I hate worse than shopping is Christmas shopping, which is fighting crowds to shop for someone else. The thought of shopping on the busiest shopping day of the year has always seemed like torture, which is why I had never been shopping on the day after Thanksgiving...until today. Well, it was actually late last night. My shopping started at 8:45 in the evening and lasted until 1:30 this morning.

I had heard the stories of the crazy shoppers camping out until the store doors open and then scrambling to get the hot items. It didn't seem like something I ever wanted to witness. The motivation to finally join the ranks of Black Friday loonies came when Todd found an advertisement for a very low-priced XBox bundle at Walmart. He had said he wanted an XBox for Christmas, and we had decided that if we could find a good enough deal then we would get one. The deal he found was about $100 less than what I had been expecting to pay, so it seemed like it would be worth waiting in line and then withstanding a bit of pushing and shoving for a chance to get such a great deal. Plus, it seemed like it would be interesting to observe some of the crazy shoppers. I even toyed with the idea of bringing a video camera to document the experience.

Todd and I went to Walmart at 8:45 last night. I didn't have any idea what to expect, but I assumed a lot of waiting outdoors would be involved. We prepared for the worst. We brought heavy coats, soda, the Nintendo DS, and even a football. When we arrived, I couldn't believe how many cars were there. The parking lot for the Layton Walmart is *huge*, and it was full. People were having to park across the street. We found what looked like the last parking spot in front of Bajio and then walked to the store.

We thought the doors didn't open until 10:00, so I was a bit surprised to find that the store was already open. We were able to walk right in. However, no one was able to buy anything yet--the registers were closed. People were filling their shopping carts and then getting in the huge lines at the check-out. The place was a mad house. The special-priced items were on pallets throughout the store, so people were wandering around trying to find what they were looking for. Movies were in the dairy aisle, TVs were by the pharmacy, and the Wiis were in Produce. Every aisle was congested with pallets, wandering shoppers, or people waiting in line. And there were sooo many people. I couldn't believe it. It was like a bad dream.

Depending on the item you were looking for, you might or might not be able to put it in your cart. You could take a normal item, but the hot items were wrapped in cellophane  Depending on the item, you either had to huddle around the pallet until the appointed time--each item had a different time it was available--or you took a ticket and got in line. Just like the lines at the check-out, these lines weren't moving yet.

After wandering around for a while we found the XBox line. It weaved its way through Apparel. After a bit more searching we found the location where the line was forming--the location where they hand out the tickets. Luckily, they still had a few tickets left. We had arrived early enough to get what we came for! It appeared to me to be the hottest item in the store, so we felt pretty lucky.

We were instructed by the lady handing out tickets that if we got out of line we'd lose our ticket, so I left Todd to wait for his XBox and I went to do more shopping. There were a few other items that were on sale that I thought would be nice to get. I knew I could only get in one other line, so I tried to find some of the things that you didn't have to wait in line for. However, they were going fast. The movies had been picked over to the point that I hadn't even heard of any of the ones that were left; the desktop computer I was interested in had been taken; and all of the Wii games were gone. Oh well. We already got what we came for.

I remembered that my sister Andrea was interested in getting a Wii, so I went and got in line for that. In the meantime, Todd was the victim of a bit of "Black Friday Rage." He had been sitting on the ground while he waited in line. He was playing with the DS with his back to some of the shelves. An old woman came up and said "Excuse me." He looked at her, but then concluded she was talking to the person next to him in line and went back to his game. She was evidently displeased with his non-compliance and gave him a little whack in the head with her purse! Shocked, Todd didn't say anything at all and moved out of her way. Crazy.

They were scheduled to start handing out a lot of the items--including both the XBoxes and the Wiis--at 10:00, so I still had a bit of a wait. When the time arrived, people throughout the store started cheering. At first I thought it was a bit bizarre to get excited about being able to buy an electronic item, but then I realized that they were cheering that they finally got to start moving through the line. I'll bet some of those people had been there a really long time.

I got the Wii, then headed over to meet Todd as he got his XBox. Then we got in line for the check-out. When we got in the line we were by the bread. I don't know if you know the layout of the Layton Walmart, but the bread is about as far away from the registers as you can get. This wouldn't have been so bad, but the line was barely moving at all. We ended up being in that line for over an hour and a half. Ugh. We were in line with our friends the Wilkos. That made the time pass more quickly. We also drank our sodas and Todd played the DS. (No, we didn't throw the football.) But, it was still painful.

When I finally got to check out, I lightheartedly told the lady at the register that I hoped they paid her extra for working that day. Her response was "Nope!" That was it. She kept on working without even looking at me.

After we finished at Walmart we still had more shopping to do. We went to Target to join Rita and her sister Stephanie who were already in line. The line was outdoors, so we put the football to use after all. Compared to Target, Walmart was a ghost town. The line for Target was almost all the way around the building. Think about that for a minute. That's a quarter-mile long line. At midnight. For a chance to...buy some stuff.

When they opened the doors it was a stampede. People were running to get it. They were hopping the barricades they had set up in the parking lot. Inside the store it was just as bad. People were scurrying around the store looking for things. They had blocked off the checkout area to cut down on traffic, but that just confused people because they didn't know how to get to the other side of the store. A worker was yelling so that people knew they had to go around. Things were flying off the shelves.

Rita went directly to Electronics and got in line to get an iPod Touch. They weren't out on the shelves like all the other items, which I think confused people. Rita had asked a worker, so she knew to go straight to the line and got a pretty good place. Meanwhile, Todd and I roamed around looking for other items. We got a $10 HDMI cable, a $30 camera, and some board games. Or, I should say Todd did. I don't know that I was the one that found any of things we were looking for.

We had to wait in line for an hour to get the Touch. Luckily we were able to also pay for all of our items at the Electronics register. The thought of waiting in line again would have been too much. At this point, we were exhausted and went home.

It was an interesting experience full of dichotomies. On the one hand it was totally painful, but on the other hand we got the items we were looking for at a good price. It was fascinating so see all the people and all the mayhem, but not fun at all to be part of it. It's great that our society is wealthy enough to afford high-tech electronic devices, but sad that our materialistic nature will make us do some crazy things. Of the crazy things we do in our society, one of the craziest has to be Black Friday.

What I'm Thankful For: Part 3 - Things about Myself

This is the last in a series of blog posts dedicated to giving thanks. The first post included things I'm thankful for in our society and the world. The second post included things close to me such as family and friends. This final post will include things about myself.

Let me warn you now that a lot of the things in this post could be considered bragging. It's not like I need to publicly thank myself for having good characteristics. However, I think sharing this list can serve two purposes. First, it will give you a heartfelt glimpse at what I value. Second, it will hopefully give you an example of a good "daily affirmation." I am a big proponent of a healthy self image and think that everyone should try to recognize their own good qualities.

Things I'm Thankful For about Myself

• My health. There is a saying: "As long as you have your health you have everything." I don't fully agree with that sentiment, but you have to admit that there are very few things in life that matter as much as your health does. I try not to take my health for granted. I'm thankful that I'm able-bodied, active, and rarely sick.
• My intelligence. I'm thankful that I have a job that allows me to use my intellect. It's a good thing, because I'm not good with my hands and I'm a bit lacking in people skills. It's true that I hated school, but I love learning and using the things I learn.
• My knowledge. I'm thankful for the things I've learned. I have a college degree. I enjoy the benefits of living in the Information Age and the immeasurable knowledge that is just a mouse click away. I'm also thankful for my knowledge of the Gospel.
• My analytical nature. If I had to describe my personality in one word, I think I would choose "analytical." I like to analyze everything. I realize this doesn't make me the life of the party in social situations, and it also causes me to be indecisive. But at the same time it keeps me out of trouble and helps me understand technical things. It's a part of me that I've learned to embrace.
• The wise decisions I've made. I've made many decisions that I'd be embarrassed to share, but I've also made some decisions that I'm proud of. I've never done drugs. I have been financially responsible. I decided to marry Rita and chose to be a father. My career decisions have had good results. I have made my share of small mistakes, but as far as major life decisions are concerned I think I've made the right choice every time.

I recognize I have personality flaws, but I have learned to accept myself. I'm thankful for my unique personality traits, both good and bad. In summary, I'm thankful for who I am.

What I'm Thankful For: Part 2 - Things Close to Me

This is the second in a series of a blog posts dedicated to giving thanks. The first post included things I'm thankful for in our society and the world. This second post will include things close to me such as family and friends. The final post will include things about myself.

Things I am Thankful for that are Close to Me

• My parents. Does anyone really appreciate their parents like they should? Sure, you love them more than anything else in the world. But, it's not until you've grown up and moved out that you start to understand their wisdom and their sacrifice. I think my parents are just about perfect. They are successful in their careers, dedicated to the Church, educated, cultured, world travelers, musical, giving, wise, humble. I could on and on. I share the most hobbies with my father and love to discuss so may ideas with him. However, I've recently come to the conclusion that my personality is a lot like my mother's--quiet, frugal, careful, intellectual.
• My siblings. My siblings have made me who I am almost as much as my parents have. Almost every memory I have of my childhood involves my siblings. After Sheri's death I realized that I don't take advantage of the great blessing it is to have good siblings. I get along well with all of them, but we aren't as close as I feel we should be. Rita speaks to each of her siblings in Canada several times a week. I speak to some of mine fewer times than that a year. This blog is, in part, a conscious effort on my part to be closer to my family by sharing with them at least a glimpse into my life.
• Rita. There is no way I can explain in this post how great Rita has been for me--I'd need a series of posts just to scratch the surface. She is easily the thing I'm most thankful for. She helps me in countless ways and inspires me to be better. I often take her for granted and sometimes treat her like my child-care colleague instead of my eternal companion. I admire her and find it greatly rewarding whenever I'm able to help her. She is the epitome of selflessness. Everyone loves Rita.
• My kids. I know that people always think their own kids are great, but I really do think that by any objective assessment I have great kids. Todd is full of a million hidden talents and is never intimidated or shy. Kenna will take on any project and see it through to completion, and she makes everything funner when she is around. Alec is a great "celebrator" in that he gets happy at even small things, and also can never stay sad or mad for more than about 30 seconds. They get along well with each other and love me unconditionally.
• My extended family. I know a lot of people that have cousins they hate, aunts and uncles they don't get along with, or in-laws they can't be in the same room with. So, I appreciate the great relationship I have with my extended family, especially my in-laws. Rita's parents have been in Salt Lake on a mission for the the last year and a half. It has been a joy having them so close. We also recently spent a few days with Rita's sisters and it was so much fun.
• My ward and neighborhood. Service in the Church has been very rewarding to me precisely because of the great people in our ward. I have been fortunate to work with just about the best people I can imagine. The best friendships that Rita and I have outside of our own families are with our current or former neighbors.
• My job. I couldn't think of a better job if I tried. I get to work on some really cool projects with some very fun people. My job duties utilize my esoteric skills perfectly. I have a very flexible schedule and can work from home whenever I need to. It's a bit flattering when I get the occasional call from a recruiter, but they haven't ever offered a position that's better than the one I have now.

It feels like I'm cutting this post ridiculously short--there are so many other people and things I'm thankful for--but I think I've covered the most important areas: Family and friends. When it's all said and done, your relationship with the people close to you is the most important thing of all.

What I'm Thankful For: Part 1 - Society and the World

It's Thanksgiving time, so I think it's appropriate to make a series of a blog posts dedicated to giving thanks. I've decided to make multiple posts, because a single post just wouldn't be enough. I'm going to organize my list of things I'm thankful for into degrees of proximity: The first post will include things I'm thankful for in our society and the world, the second post will include things close to me such as family and friends, and the final post will include things about myself.

Things I am Thankful for in Society and the World

• Earth. Of the estimated billion-billion stars, there is only one that we know about that has a planet that can support life. To say that Earth is special is a huge understatement. Whoever made this planet really knew what He was doing.
• Life. If you've studied biology, biochemistry, or genetics then you know that the complexity of life is mind-boggling...and I think science is still only just scratching the surface of that complexity. Can you imagine if life didn't exist? The entire universe would be so uninteresting and lacking in purpose.
• Civilization. Relatively speaking, civilization has only existed for a short time, and still doesn't exist in some places. Thomas Hobbes described life before civilization as "nasty, brutish, and short." Human nature is to group into warring tribes. It took eons for a culture to develop where people trusted those outside their extended family.
• Modern Society. When we think about "modern" we normally thing about advances in medicine or technology. But, the term modern society refers to much more important advances, specifically the acceptance of reason and of human rights. These are things we mostly take for granted today, but they are luxuries that very few people in history have enjoyed. If you aren't a slave, own property, can vote, don't belong to a caste and are allowed to go to school then you are one of an elite few.
• Peace. The importance of this can't be stressed enough. To me, war is something you learn about in History or hear about on TV. But, it's real, it's common, and it's horrible. Luckily, it's almost completely foreign to me.
• Freedom. I often focus too much on our lack of freedom. But, I acknowledge that when it comes to amount of freedom, we've got about as much as anyone has ever had. That fact that we know our freedoms are secure is, in part, what enables us to do so much of what we do. People are much less likely to take a new job, buy a house, or start a business if they don't feel secure.
• Wealth. Despite all the recent talk about high unemployment, we still live in the wealthiest society in the history of the world. The fact that we have unemployment is actually a sign of our extreme wealth. Centuries ago there wasn't any unemployment because there wasn't any employment. You spent every day of your life gathering or growing food, and if things went bad you starved to death. We are so accustomed to wealth, that if society's wealth doesn't grow fast enough we call it a recession. The average American adult has an hour a day more free time than just a generation ago...and we have so many more cool things to do with that free time.

Well, these are some pretty generic, impersonal things to be thankful for. But, they are still some pretty good things. I promise my next posts will be much more personal.

Web Sites I Use

I'm on the computer most of my waking hours. Most of the time I'm doing uninteresting things for my job--writing code, responding to emails, reading bug reports. But, in my free time I do things that are a lot more interesting. Well, they are interesting to me, at least. Hopefully they are interesting to you too, because I'm about to tell you about them. These are the web sites I use the most in my spare time:

Yahoo! For years this was the site I used the most. It's better than ever, but I find myself using it less than before. There are just so many other sites that have come along that do the same things. Currently, I use Yahoo! for email, news, and to save bookmarks, notes, and other personal information.

meebo This web site is an instant messenger client that works with all the major systems--Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Facebook, etc. I have family, friends and coworkers on all the systems, so I have accounts on all of them. I like that I can log into all the systems at once, and I really like that it's browser-based. I don't have to install any applications at all.

Calorie Count I track my weight every day on this site. I also tracked everything I ate from April until October. I'm not counting calories at the moment, so I'm not using the full potential of the site. But, I still sign in every morning to log my weight. I'll probably start logging what I eat some time in January or February.

Ikariam This is an MMO (Massively Multi-player Online game) that I play. It's a very slow-paced game, which is the main reason I have chosen to play it. In the game you build things. Each thing you build can take from five minutes to five days and you can only build one thing at a time. So, you only play it for a minute or two at a time and then you have to wait and come back later. It keeps me from wasting hours at a time on the game. I am currently ranked 14th on the server that I play on, which has over 1,000 active players.

Blogger I have only started using this site regularly this month. Before that I neither read nor posted to blogs very often. It's been surprisingly hard to make a post every day, but surprisingly fun to read a lot of blogs. This week I found out that several people have been regular readers of my posts without me knowing about it. I was a bit flattered, but mostly relieved that my posts haven't been read by just four or five people.

Google It goes without saying that I use Google. It's been claimed that Google is the most successful company ever. That may be an overstatement, but you've got to admit that they are extremely successful and deservedly so. You just can't describe how much easier they've made the Internet to use. Currently, my favorite feature on Google is the "hangout" on Google+. My coworkers and I share documents on Google Apps and then use the hangout feature to collaborate over video chat. It's made it so that we're nearly as productive when we work from home as we are when we're in the office. The main difference is we don't waste any time commuting. I also use the site a lot to share calendar information with Rita.

Wikipedia I have saved the best for last. The usefulness of Wikipedia can't be overstated. The kids use it for school. I use it for work. It satisfies my curiosity numerous times each day. Rita and I use it to resolve arguments all the time. It's the largest repository of knowledge in the history of the world and it gets updated almost instantly...and it's FREE! However, the thing that makes Wikipedia so great isn't its usefulness--it's how it came into existence. The entire thing exists because of human generosity. Most of the stereotypical great human accomplishments--from the pyramids to the lunar landing--were all government programs mandated from above. In contrast, Wikipedia has involved more people, more knowledge, and more ingenuity, and it's done it all from the ground up. Everyone involved has freely participated in the project with the altruistic goal of sharing their knowledge with the world. In my opinion, Wikipedia is the culmination of all social and technical achievement of the human race. I'm sure humankind will come up with something better, but for now it is the greatest accomplishment of all time.

I'm curious to know what your most commonly used sites are. (Come, on. I know you're on Pintrist at least an hour a day.) Please post a comment and let me know which sites you find yourself using the most.

BYU Footbal Game

Last night I took Todd and Alec to the BYU vs New Mexico State football game. I almost decided against going, but I'm glad I opted to go because the event ended up being surprisingly fun.

There were several reasons why I didn't think the game would be worth going to. The first reason was that beating New Mexico State wouldn't exactly be a memorable win. While the Aggies are having a better season than usual, for them "usual" is pretty bad. They haven't been to a bowl game in over 50 years. The other reason I was hesitant to go to the game is that it started at 8:15 in the evening. That meant that we wouldn't get home until after 1:00 a.m. Also, the forecast early in the week was calling for snow and rain during the game.

The thing that ultimately made me decide to go to the game is that Alec has never been to a football game. My parents offered us three tickets, so it would work out well for me to take both boys. This was the last home game of the season, so it was the last chance I'd have this year to take Alec.

When you get Alec excited for something, it is fun to watch. He loves to count down the days until a big event. For the football game, he started with six days to go. Each morning he told me how many days were left, and he usually followed it up by mentioning how excited he was.

To make the event a bit more special, I told Todd and Alec I would take them out to eat before the game. I said they could go to any place they wanted. I was hoping they'd choose IHOP. They chose Taco Bell. Oh, well.

The weather ended up being better than I'd feared. It was cold--lower thirties--but there wasn't any risk of precipitation and no wind at all. We ended up not using extra blankets we had taken. Todd wore shorts and never put on the coat that he took. Crazy kid.

At the game, I could tell Alec was impressed by everything. He was impressed by the size of the stadium, the lights, all the fans, the vendors selling concession, etc. He was just eating up. He started mimicking everything I did. He clapped, cheered, or fist pumped whenever I did. At one point I stood up to stretch my legs during a timeout. He stood up too. After a minute he asked "Dad, why are we standing up?" Todd played the role of big brother quite well. He explained the rules to Alec, and made sure to high-five him whenever there was a good play.

The game wasn't much of a competition. The final score was 42-7. The fans started leaving in droves during the third quarter. The boys wanted to stay to the end and I have an illogical goal to never leave early, so we were among the few fans in the seats when the time expired.

I thought for sure the boys would fall asleep in the car on the way home, but they listened to music and played the Nintendo DS the whole way. They both thanked me multiple times for taking them to the game. They are a couple of great kids and I'm glad I took them to the game.