Life's Getting Busier

Life has quickly gone from average to hyper speed. Joi and I were lamenting last night how just two months ago, when our life-group ended for the summer, we were thinking...."What are we going to do with all this extra time?" And now, two months later, life-group is about to begin again and we realize...there really never was any extra time. In the past month, we've had the Hita's and the Broadwell's visit us from California. This Friday, the boys will start their home-school Friday school at H.O.P.E. We have a meeting tonight for soccer, which Gage and Gavin will be playing very soon (Garrison is holding out for basketball in the winter). Joi started watching Morgan (a 9 month old) on Monday's, Tuesday's, and Friday's from 7am - 4pm to earn some extra money. Morgan's a cutie and our boys love her. She is also starting to watch a 3 year old and a new born (due soon) on a few nights a week from 4:30pm - 7pm. We are going to Durango to visit my Dad for a few days coming up pretty soon. We are starting to step up and lead a multi-faceted ministry at church called the Connection Team (coffee/donuts, signs, greeting, hospitality, etc). We became covenant members of our church as they go from being a church plant to becoming a real church, which requires us to attend foundations classes several nights over a few month period. To top that off, we are heading into birthday country. Dylan, our nephew, is on the 14th of September. I'm on the 19th.  Gage is on the 24th. Gavin is in mid-October. Then we move into Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. And then, somewhere is that time-span, Garrison will begin playing basketball. I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. Life is getting crazy. And as jumbled and all-over-the-place as this blog reads, that's how our life is right now.

Bjork Explains How A TV Works

For a little Friday fun, I'm leaving you with a video of Icelandic singer, Bjork, explaining how a television works. "It's like a little town..." and "It's the scientifical truth." Poor Bjork! She should stick to singing and leave electronic gadget explanations alone. By the way, I'm a big fan of her singing and her music career. The jury's still out on her engineering skills.

Ch..Ch...Changes: Turn and Face the Strange

At my job, we hire college students to help with the daily processing of documents. We call them work-studies. I was training one of my new work-studies today and we had to call the IT help desk to help her authenticate her log-in credentials. While she was on the phone, they asked her some questions to help prove that she was who she said she was. One of those questions was when she was born. This particular student was born in 1992. My heart dropped. She was born two years after I graduated from high school. I asked another workstudy when she was born. 1989. I was a junior in high school. I came to realize that college students today were born between my sophomore year of high school and two years after I graduated. Yikes! It never occurred to me until today that I was already a college student when these adults were born. I could feel my bones creak as I realized this. I suddenly hunched over and I swear more gray hairs began to instantaneously appear in my hair. I suddenly felt like I had to hold a paper at arms length in order to read it....and that I needed to complain about the "crazy music" of today's kids. I am feeling old today. I'll be 38 in less than a month. I don't really feel old...but these little revelations are starting to sink in and that makes me realize that I am getting older. It's strange. As David Bowie says "Ch..ch..ch...ch...changes....Turn and face the strange...Ch..ch..ch..changes...Pretty soon you're gonna get older." You said it, David Bowie! The ironic thing is that most college students today have no idea who David Bowie is. Now that's scary!

Don't Ask Me, I Just Work Here

I wear a University of Colorado Denver lanyard with my security ID badge on it. I have to use it to access secure doors throughout the day and it just makes sense to wear it at all times rather than pull it out of my wallet when I need to get into a door. I am rethinking this practice. School is in session again and the new college students are everywhere. Lately, they've been lined up outside my office because the line for the Bursar stretches from their front desk, down a hall, and across the door that offers my only outside access. I frequently have to travel from my office to the Financial Aid office and when I do, I get questions from the students. "Do you know where I can find classroom 1010?" "Do you know why my class was canceled today?" "Where's the computer lab?" "I don't have time to wait in line, can you give me my refund?" "Where's the physical education building for Metro State?" I could go on and on. Students recognize me as an employee because of my lanyard and apparently that opens them up to ask me anything they want. Even if it pertains to a college that I don't work at (since Auraria Campus houses three institutions). Also, keep in mind that I have never taken classes here. I don't know where the classrooms are. In fact, unless they are asking me where my office is, I pretty much can't help them. I did know where the computer lab is, since I pass it on my way in to work each morning. It cracked me up that the person who asked me where the computer lab was located was standing in front of it at the time and I got to answer..."Um...Right behind you!" I think I might wear a shirt that says "Don't ask me, I just work here!" and blankly point to the shirt whenever someone asks me a question like this. Or perhaps I'll break into fluent French and feign an inability to speak English. My luck would be that the person asking me would be a French foreign exchange student. Or maybe I'll just answer "My hovercraft is full of eels!" whenever someone asks me a question. Then I'll pat them on the back and quickly move on down the hallway. Yeah, I like that one.

Biker Jim on Auraria Campus!!!

For the past year, when I wanted to enjoy a gourmet brat (Elk, Reindeer, Boar, Buffalo, Yak, etc) at Biker Jim's Gourmet Hot Dog Stand, I had to walk several blocks to the 16th Street Mall. However, all that has just changed! Biker Jim was recently awarded a contract to serve as the official "Alternative Food Vendor" for Auraria Campus, which serves UC Denver, Metro State, and Denver Community College. They just started serving their yummy awesomeness on campus today, which ironically is the same day that students started classes. Coincidence? I think not! I needed to walk to the Tivoli Student Union to deposit some money in our bank and I walked by his cart, manned by Brian (a guy I met a few times on 16th and Arapahoe). I snapped this picture in celebration and relished the fact that Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs are now just a 3 minute walk from my office. WooHoo!!!!

Gage's First Lost Tooth: Photographic Evidence

As promised, here are some pics of Gage's first lost tooth. The weird thing is that both of his bottom front teeth started growing in behind his baby teeth. They were both almost halfway grown in before one of those baby teeth finally started to get loose enough to pull out. For a while, he had a set of shark teeth (rows of teeth behind the front one). Unfortunately for us (and them), my boys will probably require braces at some point. Anyway, here are the photos. Enjoy!

The Most Expensive Place on Earth

We plan to be out in California next summer for the 90th birthday party for Joi's Grandparents. We will probably spend a week in California and I began thinking how nice it would be to visit Disneyland. It's been several years since we've been there and Gavin has never had the chance to experience some of the rides with height requirements (like Splash Mountain). My other boys have never been on Indiana Jones or Space Mountain due to height requirements when they were smaller. I thought it would be fun to take a day and go to Disneyland while we are out there. I went to the Disneyland website and looked up how much the tickets are running right now. I was appalled. A 1-day, 1-park ticket is $68.00 for kids and $76 for adults. That would mean that just to enter the park, it would cost me $356 for my family of five. That doesn't count meals, snacks, drinks, and souvenirs. If we take into account that each meal is roughly $10 a person...then we'd be spending an extra $100.00 on lunch and dinner. Now let's be conservative and say that snacks, drinks, and souvenirs might cost us an extra $50. That would mean that our day at Disneyland would cost a whopping $506.00. That's insane. I love Disneyland, but I just can't justify going into debt to visit the place. In fact, when I told Joi the costs associated with visiting Disneyland, she said that she would rather just save up and visit DisneyWorld for a week. I'm not sure how much it will be to visit DisneyWorld. I am nervous to even look at their prices. I remember paying $12.00 to get into Disneyland in the early-1980's. When did Disneyland go from being the Happiest Place on Earth to the Most Expensive Place on Earth? It's just not feasible for frugal families to visit the place. It makes me sad.

God's Technological Blessings (and the humans that provide them)

A little background first. A few years ago, we bought a top of the line HP computer from Sams Club. It was a good computer, but about two years in, it just died. Myself and a band of computer geeks couldn't put "humpty" back together again. So, we used an older laptop that we had sitting around. Again, it's a reliable computer, but it's old and slow. Also, it only had an 80 GB hard-drive, which doesn't last long in this age of 12+ megapixel photos and MP3's. When we were in California in May 2009, Joi's Dad offered us an old office computer that he didn't need anymore. We were blessed. It worked great, but it was showing it's age and had lots of software and user info on it from previous users that we could not delete due to not knowing the admin password. We started to make plans to revamp the computer. We were going to buy a larger hard-drive (since we had already reached max capacity due to 11 years of digital photos), some faster RAM, and a few other components to soup it up. My Brother-in-law found a copy of Windows XP that we could use and we planned to rebuild the entire box. So, we started saving for the new hardware. But then....

Russell and Steffanne showed up at our house on Sunday with a brand new HP Pavillion Desktop. They said that they want our old computer for a networking project that Russell wants to do with his sons. As a result, they decided to buy us a new computer. I was flabbergasted, speechless, confused, and completely blessed beyond belief. I couldn't believe it. It's a brand new, in the box, HP Pavillion computer with a 2.70 GHz processor, a 500 GB hard-drive, 3 GB's of RAM, an 18.5" widescreen monitor, a DVD burner, 15 in 1 card reader, etc. I could go on and on with all of the bells and whistles. I couldn't believe it! What a blessing! God provides.

For the past few months, our digital camera cards were quickly filling up and we had nowhere to download the photos since our old computer was full. For the past few months, while Joi wrote her book, finished it, and started her second book, I worried that our old computer would die and she would lose all of her work. We backed it up on an external hard-drive and a USB thumb-drive, but it's difficult to back up those files on a regular basis. Plus, I worried that if the computer died, she wouldn't have anywhere to work on her books. Now, we don't have to worry about any of that. I would like to express a huge and heartfelt "Thank You" to Russell and Steffanne for their kindness and generosity. It took us completely by surprise. It still hasn't completely settled in that we have a new computer. But, we are so excited and blessed! I can't even begin to express how thankful we are. Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! I can hardly wait to move my data to the new computer, begin customizing it, and loading our software. It's like Christmas!

Angry Man Sings Carrie Underwood

I can identity with this man. I feel the same way about this song. In fact, most country songs make me angry and irritable. If I had a band right now, this guy would be my new lead singer.

Creating a Romantic Sanctuary

My wife and I were talking about slowly redecorating our bedroom to make it more romantic. It's difficult where we live now because half of our bedroom is filled with musical instruments and another corner is filled with Creative Memories stuff. When we get a bigger house, getting these things into another room will help. We're not really sure what we want. We both like deep red's and think that it is a romantic color. I like some of the Pre-Raphaelite paintings by Dickee, Waterhouse, or Leighton. I think they are romantic. But, I'm not sure how to base an entire bedroom around a painting...or a color. Here's an example of one of the paintings.

I'm curious what other people would do with a painting like this and an affinity toward deep red colors. What items would you think would look good and yet add to a romantic atmosphere? Just curious...

Bike Stealing

I was eating my lunch today and was looking for something to keep me entertained for a few minutes. I found this video online and I couldn't believe it. Some guys wanted to see how easy it was to get away with stealing a bike in public. They used their own bike, lock, and tools...and did it during rush hour in various crowded places in NYC. They used bolt cutters, a hack saw, a hammer and chisel, and an angle grinder that he had to plug in. No one cared. People walked by, looked at him, and kept going. The hack saw method took six minutes. In one shot, a police man drives by the guy hitting the lock on the bike with a hammer and chisel, ignores him, and harasses the guy shooting the video because he was standing in an open lane. In the same shot, a concerned citizen stops...and you think he's going to put an end to this. Nope! He offers a suggestion about how to get the lock off quicker. Can you believe that? This video appalls me. I've had my bike stolen many times in my life (but so far not in Colorado) and I can hardly believe that people would be so oblivious to it. Even the police completely ignored it. Here's the video. The guy drops an "S" bomb at one point, so if you have kids...watch it later.

Rappo Marx

I introduced my nephews and my sons to the Marx Brothers the other day. We watched "Animal Crackers" and they giggled all the way through...especially whenever Harpo was in the scene. They are already asking for more. I plan to watch "Monkey Business" with them next. I explained a scene from "Monkey Business" to my nephew where Harpo pretends to be a puppet to avoid being caught as a stowaway on a cruise ship. He laughed so hard, he almost fell out of his chair....and I probably didn't even do the scene justice. I enjoy the Marx Brothers! I have enjoyed them since my Mom first introduced them to me when I was a child. To honor the Marx Brothers, here is a funny video I found on Youtube a while back. If you've ever seen any of the Marx Brothers movies, you'll recognize some of these references and jokes. Enjoy!

My Friday Afternoon's

Friday afternoon is the highlight of my work-week. Every Friday, it is my custom to walk down to the 16th Street Mall to the corner of 16th and Arapahoe and enjoy a Biker Jim's Gourmet Hot Dog. That in itself is pure culinary heaven. But, during the last few weeks, there have been free concerts at Skyline Park, which is right where Jim's cart is. So, lately, I've been grabbing my elk...reindeer...boar....or yak brat and enjoying it at a shady table where I have watched local bands play music. It's been a blast. The only bummer is that my brother-in-law hasn't been able to join me the last few weeks due to construction taking place in the building where he works. So, he has been working from home. It's been lonely the last few weeks, but I have enjoyed the time to watch the local bands. Today, based on a recommendation from Chandler (the dude who usually works the cart), I tried a New Belgium 1554 Black Ale, Habanero, Cherry Yak Brat. I told him that I don't care for things too spicy, but he said that it's not any spicier than the Elk Jalapeno that I enjoy from time to time. So, I gave it a try. It was tasty, but a little too spicy for my taste. I prefer the Smoked Yak with garlic and onions. Mmmmmm.....tasty. Anyway, after I got my brat and loaded it with cheese, ketchup, spicy mustard, etc. I walked over to an empty table in the shade and watched a local bluegrass band. It's been a while since I've seen a bluegrass band. In fact, if I closed my eyes and ignored the fact that I was outside, wasn't eating pizza and peanuts, and my Mom and Dave weren't there....it was almost like being at Vincenzo's on a Saturday night again...enjoying the Grateful Dudes. Ahhhh...good times. Anyway, I enjoy Friday afternoons. Since I usually eat at my desk while I work Monday through Thursday, it's nice to get out and enjoy some sunshine, good food, and good music. Next week, downtown Denver is celebrating "Downtown Denver Employee Appreciation Week". So, they've got activities, give-a-ways, concerts, movies, etc...going on all week. Including Friday. Sounds fun!

Lakers and Celtics Rivalry

I always wondered where the Lakers vs Celtics rivalry came from. This explains everything.

Work at a Rockies Game

For being part of the PeopleSoft/Document Management Implementation Project Team at the University of Colorado Denver, they are rewarding us once again. Back in June, they paid for us to have a VIP lunch in the Pepsi Center. This month, they are rewarding us by paying for us to have a BBQ lunch at Coors Stadium and then stay to watch the Rockies play the Giants. Granted, the seats are not very expensive, but who cares? I get to see a baseball game and eat BBQ when I could be at my desk buried in documents. I really enjoy being at a place of employment where they recognize their employees and reward them for hard work. I'm not trying to start another APU bashing session...but I am really pleased to be here. UC Denver doesn't have to reward their employees like this, but I am thankful that they do. I am looking forward to the game. The cool thing is that I can walk to the stadium from my office, which I plan to do. We'll be in Center Field in an area they call the "Rock Pile". Perhaps I'll catch a homerun. Watch the game and see if you can catch a glimpse. The game starts tomorrow at 1:10pm (Mountain time). Enjoy! I know I will.

My Wife, The Author

My wife wrote a book. That, in itself, is quite a feat. Especially since she wrote it while working part time, homeschooling three young boys, and moving twice. After she finished her work, she set out to begin the tedious and time-consuming task and getting her book published. She did tons of research and sent countless query letters to potential publishers. Several asked for her manuscript....but then the waiting began. Each publisher said that they would need 8-12 weeks before they would respond. Finally, this weekend, while we were celebrating our anniversary, she got a positive email. It wasn't a "thanks but no thanks." It wasn't a "we think you have a good start, but your manuscript needs more work." She received a "We like your manuscript and we want to offer you a contract to get it published." This is exciting news!!! I am so proud of my wife and all of the work she has poured into this book.

Joi and I spend the rest of the weekend going over the contract with a fine-tooth comb, looking up info about the publisher (LightHouse Publishing), and writing down our questions. The agent from Lighthouse was prompt and responded to Joi's inquiries within 24 hours. We are still doing research and asking questions before she puts her name on the dotted line. But, this is so encouraging. This isn't a self-publishing company who wants our business and makes us pay $4000+ to pay for editing, printing, etc (which is what they ask for...believe me, we looked into it). The publisher asked for her manuscript, spent time reading it (since May), and wants to publish her work. I am excited beyond words. Great job, Love! I couldn't be prouder of you!!!