Swan Man

Adventure Night

2011-07-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I told the story of "Adventure Day 2010", and the sequel - "Adventure Day 2011". Well I'm home alone again this week, so yesterday at work I decided to have "Adventure Night". When I got home from work, I grabbed the telescope, my camera, a sweater, some food and jumped in the truck for "Adventure Night 2011"! I drove straight to Shaver Lake, pretty adventurous huh?

Wow! the water was right up to the top of the dam -

I clicked a quick pic, then jumped back in the truck to continue "the adventure". I went straight up the hill to Huntington Lake. The sun was getting pretty low by this time.

I was almost out of time. You see, the goal was to make it to the vista point above Kaiser pass before the sun went down. So I took a couple of quick snaps of Huntington and then jumped back in the truck to race to the top!

Kaiser pass is 9,100 feet above sea level. Once you get there, you can turn right off the paved road and head up a "Jeep trail" for two more miles, to a lookout point with an excellent view of the "Crest of the Sierras", a portion of the "Great Western Divide". You can see Edison Lake from there, and you have a pretty good view of the entire sky.

This is the first thing you see when you round the last turn and drive out into the opening at the top -

It's July in Central California, so the air-quality is not very spectacular. Hence the hazy appearance to the pictures. I made it to the top just in time to see the alpine-glow on the peaks, which is one of my favorite things. For the next 15 minutes, I ran around looking for some good shots. The poor air-quality didn't help, but it did add a lot of orange to the pictures. Here's the sun, just as it was going down -

I brought along my tripod, and a remote shutter release for the camera. I've never made any long-exposure pics of the night sky, and that was part of the "adventure"!

I was surprised at how they came out -

I've seen how photographers will shine a flashlight on objects in the foreground while making a long exposure, so of course I had to give that a try -

You know, it gets pretty cold above 9,000 feet, even in California in July. So I packed it in at 11:00 and headed back down to warm, cozy Fresno. Adventure night was pretty fun. Maybe I'll do that again in 2012.

Adventure Day - 2011

2011-07-09T14:47:00.000-07:00

Last year on July 29th (2010), Tracy and Nick were out of town, so I got up early and went on a little road-trip. I went to the top of Fremont Peak, then to Pacific Grove where I biked around for a while. Then I went North through San Francisco, over the Golden Gate bridge, and ended up in Petaluma. I had fun posting pictures on Facebook throughout the day, and I started referring to it as 'Adventure Day'. So I thought I would have another 'Adventure Day' this year. Here are a few pictures from the first Adventure Day last year -

I stopped along Highway 99 to take this shot of the sun rise -

This was a little foot bridge on the trail to the top of Fremont Peak -

This was the vista I enjoyed when I arrived in Monterey -

Foggy in San Francisco, as usual -

This year's Adventure Day was hiking to the top of Yosemite Falls. Nick came along, and we had a nice little hike. Here's an HDR Panorama I took from Yosemite Point, which is a vista point about a mile past the top of Yosemite Falls. You'll want to click on the picture to open the full sized image -

It was pretty hazy that day, but there were some nice clouds that came along in the afternoon. Here is another HDR picture I took on the way back down -

Is There a Cure for Arthritis? Perhaps Sometimes!

2011-02-14T19:47:00.000-08:00

I’ve had back problems most of my life, but for the most part, they were relatively minor and would go away after a few days, or after visiting a Chiropractor. But as of last November, I suddenly had much more than a back problem. I had an arthritis ‘flare-up’ unlike anything I’ve ever had. I realize now that I’d been dealing with the problem for over a year already. In April 2009, I began to have problems with the metatarsal joints in my right foot (diagnosed as metatarsalgia, which can be caused by arthritis). It was probably around that same time or before that I was experiencing pain in my right hand, and began to have seborrheic dermatitis on my scalp. Just before the arthritis flare-up in November I began to have pain in my left foot metatarsal joints, just like the right foot. I was also having new pain in my right foot which was diagnosed as plantars fasciitis. I had obvious swelling in the balls of both of my feet, and my right wrist. My neck was ‘out’ making it very difficult to turn my head from side-to-side. I also realized that for about the last year and an a half I had pain in my sternum every time I coughed, and especially when I sneezed.

As I fought with this new major flare-up of what appeared to be arthritis, I was really wondering why all of this would be going on. I am only 47 years old, and live a relatively healthy life style. The podiatrist gave me custom orthotics, stretching and icing instructions, but none of that seemed to help, and I couldn’t help but wonder why I should have to do all this stretching and icing just to feel normal when I had no injury or other apparent problem to rehabilitate from. I never had to do these special therapeutic things for the previous 47 years of my life, and I couldn’t believe that my body was falling apart from age that quickly!

My primary MD suggested that it was probably just arthritis I was experiencing brought on my colder weather or something that may have changed in my life-style. I was exercising regularly in the Summer, and then slowed down with the exercise in the Fall, and he thought something like that might have brought the new arthritis on. That just didn’t make sense to me.

Blood tests revealed that I had a significant amount of inflammation going on (no duh), but the rheumatoid markers were not showing up, which was of course good news. I was taking one naproxen twice a day, and that allowed me to function, but still with pain. The most pain I experienced was walking into work from the car each morning. I was getting desperate to find out the cause instead of just treating symptoms (which was all the doctors seemed to want to do).

My research revealed that arthritis and seborrheic dermatitis can both be related to an auto-immune system problem. Was it a coincidence that I had both of these things going on, and they started around the same time?

During the last two weeks, I began to suspect that I was having a reaction to some kind of food. This idea was based on Internet research, so I began to cut out various types of food. I cut out, or significantly reduced the consumption of –
• Sugar
• Caffeine
• Citrus
• Salt
• Red meat
• Dairy products
• Additives
• Corn
• Flour
• Soy
• Nuts

Last Tuesday (2/8/2009) I received a book I ordered called “Conquering Arthritis, What Doctors Don’t Tell You Because They Don’t Know” by Barbara Allan. I found the book while doing arthritis research online, and there were quite a few positive reviews on it. One reviewer explained that the book and ‘cure’ would only work for someone with reactive arthritis, not someone with osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis. I figured I didn’t have much to lose; at this point I was open to all suggestions.

I began reading the book on Wednesday and by Thursday night I decided to do exactly what Barbara Allan prescribed – a juice fast designed to determine if the problem was related to a “food sensitivity” or not.

It’s Monday night right now and the last ‘normal’ meal I’ve eaten was last Thursday night. I already had organic carrot juice in the refrigerator, which was one item she recommended drinking during the juice fast, so I was ready to start on Friday morning. I didn’t follow her prescription 100% - I didn’t do the enema. And I didn’t go buy a juicing machine to make my own organic juice with carrots, cabbage and celery. I just stuck to the store-bought carrot juice, and that’s all I had for 3 days. By this morning, I estimated that the pain in my feet and hands was 80 to 90% gone. I could see the swelling in my left foot had decreased. Hallelujah – I have a food sensitivity! At least, that appears to be part of the problem.

Today I had an apple and carrot juice for breakfast and lunch. So far, so good. Barbara Allan suggests that you only introduce one new food every 24 to 36 hours when you break your fast. That is because the symptoms may not reappear right away, and you won’t know which food you are sensitive to if you’ve had more than one new food item in the last 24 to 36 hours. I broke that rule by having yogurt for dinner tonight. The problem with that will be, if I seem to be having more pain tomorrow, then I won’t know if it was the apples or the yogurt. But I decided I would take the risk, especially because I was getting tired of carrot juice and I didn’t want to eat an apple and drink carrot juice for every meal today. The apples, yogurt and carrot juice are all organic, so there should be fewer chemicals that would cause a reaction, helping me to know if my sensitivity is specific to apples (or yogurt) rather than sensitivity to pesticides.

I plan on having oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow morning to test oats. If that causes no reaction, and I don’t feel worse from the apples or yogurt, then that will be 4 food items on my ‘safe’ list!

Yosemite HDR Pictures

2010-11-16T20:12:00.001-08:00

We went on a quick trip to Yosemite a couple of weeks ago. I got a chance to try out my new Canon EOS 60D. I took a lot of exposure bracketed shots so I could make some HDR pics when I got home. We rented a couple of Beach Cruisers and rode all around the Valley floor. It was very fun!

It was kind of hazy in the late morning when we arrived, but in the afternoon, the clouds turned wispy and then puffy, and the sky turned crystal blue.

We rode all the way out to Mirror lake. The view of Half Dome is most excellent from that perspective.

I didn't take a tripod on the bike, so all of the pictures you've seen so far were hand-held bracketed images. I held my breath and stood really still!

Neither one of us has ever ridden bikes around the Valley before. It was the best! I highly recommend it.

Yosemite Falls wasn't much more than a dribble.

This close-up pic of Yosemite Falls is not HDR. All the preceding pics were.

The puffy clouds were casting about shadows through the Valley as we stopped at Inspiration Point (Tunnel View) on the way out. This is another HDR shot.

I don't know why we don't go there more often...

Wawona in April, 2010

2010-05-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

Tracy and I went for a quick get-a-way to Wawona last week. We got a two-fur-one deal in the mail a month or two ago, and we decided to buy while the price was low (they know we're impulse shoppers)! We were excited because a cold storm was coming down from the North the day before we went, and we were looking forward to some snow. We saw some pretty scenery at the higher elevations on the way there.

One of the things we look forward to when we go to Wawona is dinner. Yeah, I know, it doesn't sound very exciting, but we're not as young as we used to be. Inevitably, they cook-up a mean entree, or two.

The next morning we got up, had breakfast and headed for the Valley. This is what the hotel grounds looked like that morning -

When we got back in the afternoon, the scene was very different -

On the way in, there was still snow on the trees and some cool misty clouds lingering all around. (Click the image to open full-size.)

The misty clouds were camping out on the Valley walls when we arrived at Inspiration Point. Both of these are HDR pics -

The only draw-back to Wawona is, no AT&T cell towers in range. AND, the hotel doesn't provide any WiFi, can you imagine that? They don't have phones or TVs in any of the rooms and that's OK by me, but come on, a guy's gotta have his iPhone available. No network access on the iPhone just isn't right. Somehow Tracy is OK with that. Sometimes I don't understand girls.

iPhone-o-phile

2010-04-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

Do you have an iPhone? Do you think it's sic? Do you have 9 pages of apps? Do you watch the news about the next iPhone? Did you see the whole thing with Gizmodo and the iPhone 4? Have you browsed the Apple Store?

If you're an iPhone-o-phile like me, then you're going to like this -

Click this link to see a hilarious clip from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

2010-04-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

I don't get 'on the Band Wagon' very often. But I have to say, I like what Jamie Oliver is doing. It's a good start to solve an issue I think is a big problem.

Click this link to see what it's all about!

I Have Been Assimilated

2010-03-12T21:01:00.000-08:00

For years, I've heard about the iPhone. How fantastic it was, how all the other phone manufacturers were trying to design and build the iPhone killer. I never thought I would actually be interested in an iPhone; I mean, it can't open MS Office apps without special software, right? But I do have to admit, I was envious of the large screen.

Well, the day came. My 2 year old HTC AT&T Tilt began to die and I needed a new phone. The Corporate standard was now the iPhone. I was still on the fence. Did I really want an iPhone? I wouldn't be able to open and edit Excel files without special software, that's just not right! Oh well, I didn't really have a choice. I got the iPhone. I was a little disappointed because the Telecom guys have this great idea - they'll buy old model iPhones (3G 8GB) that are refurbed for $50, and save a bundle. What, no compass? No extra speed? Only 8GB of storage? How could I possibly survive with that? I'm a Power User for Pete's sake!! Oh well, life goes on.

It only took a day or two for me to realize, I've been deprived all these years! Why didn't I have one of these things a long time ago? The apps are so easy to find and install. There are over 150,000 apps available for the iPhone. You can find an app for whatever you can imagine, and a ton of them are free. The interface is smooth. Scrolling by flicking and swiping is technically satisfying.

I can blog, I can listen to radio stations, I can play scrabble with friends, I can surf the web (iPhone Safari is way better than Windows Mobile Internet Explorer), e-mail is way easier, it's and iPod, it's a GPS, it's got a nice big clear and colorful screen, it's the defacto standard of PDA phones! I'm not sure how I ever survived without one!

Resistance was futile. I have been assimilated...

Weather You Like It Or Not...

2010-01-23T21:29:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I reported that the weather-dudes (Meteorologists) were predicting rain for the entire week, perhaps longer. So far they were right. We had four storms come through from Sunday to Friday. We received almost 2 inches of rain in Fresno during that time. The local ski resort just up the hill received about 10 feet of new snow! It was clear today, but not for long! Check out this Satellite pic my dad just e-mailed to me -

That's a nice storm! And it's headed right for us! Should be a fun week!

Coos Bay, Oregon for Thanksgiving

2010-01-21T20:20:00.000-08:00

We had a great vacation trip for Thanksgiving last November. Tracy's mom, dad, sister (Sandra) & family all caravanned with us to Coos Bay Oregon to visit Tracy's other sister (Alice) and family for Thanksgiving. It was a 13 hour drive from Fresno to Coos Bay (with a shopping stop at Costco in Medford Oregon).

Nick read more than two books during the drive time -

We drove right by Mt. Shasta - nice...

We had a great time visiting, cooking, eating, watching the rain, and chillaxin. Tracy's sister's husband (Gordon) manages an ATV rental store. On Saturday we all went to the store, geared-up and went ridin'.

Here's Heather, Joey and Nick gettin' geared-up!

Tracy was ridin'

Heather was ridin'

We were all ridin'!!

It was a pretty nice day -

On the way back, the caravan stopped at Mt. Shasta for a group pic -

One day we went out for a little excursion while is was all stormy. We ended up at the end of the road, and jumped out to take a few pics. I've discovered this new photography thing called 'High Dynamic Range'. It's a techy thing you do with your pictures, while taking them, then during the digital editing part of the process. Here's two shots from that day where I did the HDR thing -

It Never Rains in California

2010-01-17T13:50:00.001-08:00

It's supposed to rain in California - for the next week. That will be different. Some are even saying it may rain for 2 or 3 weeks. It will be interesting to see if they are right. It's 1:51 PM, Sunday afternoon, and indeed, it is raining! Here's a recent radar image -

If you're interested in learning more - here's what Samuel Y. Johnson of the Pacific Science Center has to say -

Currently, the strong El Nino is reaching its peak in the Eastern Pacific, and now finally appears to be exerting an influence on our weather. The strong jet has been apparent for quite some time out over the open water, but the persistent block had prevented it from reaching the coast. Now that the block has dissolved completely, a 200+ kt jet is barreling towards us. Multiple large and powerful storm systems are expected to slam into CA from the west and northwest over the coming two weeks, all riding this extremely powerful jet stream directly into the state. The jet will itself provide tremendous dynamic lift, in addition to directing numerous disturbances right at the state and supplying them with an ample oceanic moisture source. The jet will be at quite a low latitude over much of the Pacific, so these storms will be quite cold, at least initially. Very heavy rainfall and strong to potentially very strong winds will impact the lower elevations beginning late Sunday and continuing through at least the following Sunday. This will be the case for the entire state, from (and south of) the Mexican border all the way up to Oregon. Above 3000-4000 feet, precipitation will be all snow, and since temperatures will be unusually cold for a precipitation event of this magnitude, a truly prodigious amount of snowfall is likely to occur in the mountains, possibly measured in the tens of feet in the Sierra after it's all said and done. But there's a big and rather threatening caveat to that (discussed below).Individual storm events are going to be hard to time for at least few more days, since this jet is just about as powerful as they come (on this planet, anyway). Between this Sunday and the following Sunday, I expect categorical statewide rainfall totals in excess of 3-4 inches. That is likely to be a huge underestimate for most areas. Much of NorCal is likely to see 5-10 inches in the lowlands, with 10-20 inches in orographically-favored areas. Most of SoCal will see 3-6 inches at lower elevations, with perhaps triple that amount in favored areas.
This is where things get even more interesting, though. The models are virtually unanimous in "reloading" the powerful jet stream and forming an additional persistent kink 2000-3000 miles to our southwest after next Sunday. This is a truly ominous pattern, because it implies the potential for a strong Pineapple-type connection to develop. Indeed, the 12z GFS now shows copious warm rains falling between days 12 and 16 across the entire state. Normally, such as scenario out beyond day seven would be dubious at best. Since the models are in such truly remarkable agreement, however, and because of the extremely high potential impact of such an event, it's worth mentioning now. Since there will be a massive volume of freshly-fallen snow (even at relatively low elevations between 3000-5000 feet), even a moderately warm storm event would cause very serious flooding. This situation will have to monitored closely. Even if the tropical connection does not develop, expected rains in the coming 7-10 days will likely be sufficient to cause flooding in and of themselves (even in spite of dry antecedent conditions).

In addition to very heavy precipitation, powerful winds may result from very steep pressure gradients associated with the large and deep low pressure centers expect ed to begin approaching the coast by early next week. Though it's not clear at the moment just how powerful these winds may be, there is certainly the potential for a widespread damaging wind event at some point, and the high Sierra peaks are likely to see gusts in the 100-200 mph range (since the 200kt jet at 200-300 mb will essentially run directly into the mountains at some point). The details of this will have to be hashed out as the event(s) draw closer.
In short, the next 2-3 weeks (at least) are likely to be more active across California than any other 2-3 week period in recent memory. The potential exists for a dangerous flood scenario to arise at some point during this interval, especially with the possibility of a heavy rain-on-snow event during late week 2. In some parts of Southern California, a whole season's worth of rain could fall over the course of 5-10 days. This is likely to be a rather memorable event. Stay tuned.

Wawona Hotel in Yosemite National Park

2009-12-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

Tracy and I had a little 'get-away' trip the week before Thanksgiving. We drove into Yosemite via Mariposa on Highway 140. It's been a long time since either of us has driven in through the El Portal entrance station. It's a beautiful drive. There was still a little Fall color, and we had the Park to ourselves!

El Capitan was still there! They're just getting ready to decorate it for Christmas.

There was just a little bitty dribble of water trickling over the edge of Yosemite Falls.

We hiked around The Valley and enjoyed the views. We had lunch in the Cafeteria at the Yosemite Lodge. Then we hiked up to the base of Lower Yosemite Falls.

Then we drove to the Wawona Hotel and checked-in to our dinky little room. This picture pretty much shows the entire room. We thought we would try a room without a bath this year. It wasn't too bad (it cost a lot less). There wasn't anyone there, so we had the 'shared bathrooms' all to ourselves whenever we showered, etc.

It's a grand old hotel that was built in 1879. There's a lot of history to enjoy if you're into that stuff.

On Thursday morning we hiked around the meadow Loop trail. In the afternoon, I hiked up the Chilnualna Falls trail. It didn't take long to find some very pretty scenery.

At the end of Chilnualna Fall Road was this little mountain cabin. Wouldn't you love to live there!?!

Kayaking on Shaver Lake

2009-11-15T13:35:00.001-08:00

I went Kayaking yesterday with my buddy Joe, and a group of people from the Fresno Kayak & Canoe Club. Click this link to go to the Fresno Kayak & Canoe Club website to see pictures that Joe took. His pictures from yesterday start with #16. Joe took a lot of pictures of the people, I took pictures of the landscape.

It was cold and frosty when we arrived at about 8:15 AM. There was an erie mist hovering over the water -

After paddling for a couple of miles, we pulled over for a break. We had pumpkin pie and cheese cake. Is this a Kayaking club, or just a front for eating sweets?

Jeter brought along Anne. She just jumped in the back of his Kayak and came along for the ride! She loved to play fetch.

It was a beautiful day.

Kayak parking lot -

We paddled for 6.5 miles (Matt brought a GPS). The clouds came in full force when we got back to the parking lot.

Then it got really cold.

Anne went for one last swim before we all loaded up and headed out. Here she is after being dried off.

Malawi 2009

2009-11-08T20:09:00.001-08:00

The Northside Christian Church Youth Group went on a short-term missions trip to Malawi Africa this summer. Nick decided he would go along! They left on July 21st, and traveled for about 36 hours to get to Malawi. They had a 12 hour lay-over in Frankfurt, Germany. The plane out of Frankfurt had problems. They waited an hour on the plane, then got off the plane and waited 2 hours in the terminal, then got another plane and waited another hour. Their next stop was Johannesburg, Africa. Because they had plane troubles in Frankfurt, they barely made their connecting flight in Johannesburg.

Here they are in Frankfurt -

In the Airport -

This is John (the one on the right), he is the Youth Pastor at Northside. He coordinated the trip -

They got to play with and encourage a lot of kids in Malawi -

They got to see some amazing scenery -

One night, they had a chicken dinner. It may have been the freshest chicken they have ever eaten (considering they had to slaughter, pluck and the cook the chicken themselves) -

They had to walk a half a mile (round trip) to get their drinking water -

Occasionally they would travel, and they usually rode on these small buses (standing room only) -

They painted a church while they were there -

They also went on a safari. Here's their group picture that day -

Nick reports that it was all very "amazing!". He is starting to save his money so he can go again in the summer of 2011!

They arrived home on Thursday, August 6th (after about 48 hours of traveling).

You can view a lot more pictures from the trip at this PhotoBucket site.

Of course I haven't even touched on the amazing details of the trip. To know more, you'll have to talk with Nick!

The Voca People

2009-08-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

Found on Facebook - Thanks Scott Amaral - This is very cool...

Fish-Bag!

2009-07-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

We like to buy salmon fillet's from Costco. They come individually wrapped, in a large 're-closable' (zip-lock) bag. A couple of months ago, Tracy opened the freezer to get some salmon out for dinner that night, and there was no salmon left, but the salmon bag was still there! I happened to be walking by, and needless to say, I was correctly chastised for leaving the empty bag in the freezer the last time I pulled out some salmon. Tracy handed me the empty salmon bag and said, "now throw this away!" Nick was within earshot, and he and I thought it was pretty funny. Tracy headed down the hall to another room, so I thought it would be even more funny if I put the empty 'fish-bag' back in the freezer, so I did!

Within just a few hours, Tracy re-discovered the fish-bag. And of course I heard about it! I thought that was that, and life would now continue as normal, prank-free and happy.

I don't remember if it was the same day, or the next, but I'll never forget that night when I went to bed. I pulled back the covers, and there on MY PILLOW, was the stinky fish-bag! Ewwwww! The fish-bag battle was on!

Nick was very amused by the fish-bag fiasco. He suggested that it should show up on mom's computer keyboard. Her desk has a keyboard drawer. So Nick placed the fish-bag on her keyboard and closed the drawer. Not long after we heard the now common cry, "Ewwwww, stinky fish-bag!"

Not long after, I was at work one day innocently going about my business. I opened my portfolio (which sometimes comes home with me), and what had I brought to work that day? Ewwwww, stinky fish-bag!

I decided to hide the fish-bag in the glove compartment of my truck for a while. I went home and we laughed long and hard about the 'fish-bag portfolio incident'. Nick kept egging me on, trying to get me to put the fish-bag in Tracy's side of the bed, or some other spot for her to discover. I kept claiming that I had thrown the fish-bag away, but he didn't really believe me.

A week or two later, Tracy suggested that we put the fish-bag in Nick's luggage when he went to Africa. I immediately dismissed that idea, thinking that would be gross, and he wouldn't want to find the fish-bag there. But after another week or two, while at work one day, I envisioned Nick opening his luggage in Africa, and finding a 'stinky fish-bag' with cards and letters inside that he could read during his trip. Tracy thought that would be a great idea.

So I cleaned out the bag so it wouldn't be 'stinky' (it was never really stinky anyway, each salmon fillet was vacuum-sealed inside a separate bag). Then we each wrote three or four notes to Nick, and put them in the now famous fish-bag. Nick's Grand-ma even wrote some notes. Tracy slyly hid the surprise in his luggage on Monday night before he left.

We did hear from Nick last night that they did get their luggage (see this entry on the Northside Mission Ministry blog for more on that story). Tracy texted him, "Bags yet?" he texted back, "Yep Christmas in july". She replied, "All your stuff". He just texted this morning saying, "Yep everything- where did we put batteries- i think there gone".

No news about the well-travelled stinky fish-bag! I'm looking forward to hearing about that.

7/21/09 - 2009 Malawi Missions Trip

2009-07-25T12:44:00.001-07:00

We got up at 4:00 AM on Tuesday and went to church. The plan for the day was to deliver 30 Youth Group Mission Team members to LAX where they would begin their long journey to Malawi, Africa. We offered to pull a large trailer full of luggage with our Toyota Highlander. We arrived at Northside at about 5:15 AM. The entire team was soon packing duffel bags with donations, weighing luggage, tagging luggage, packing luggage into cars and onto the large trailer. I figure there was about 1,320 lbs of luggage on the trailer alone! This flurry of activity took a little over an hour. We took team pictures, and then a small caravan of vehicles headed out to LAX. The Northside Youth Group has been planning and preparing for this missions trip for at least the last 6 months.

Tracy and I had the privilege of taking our Nick, John (the Youth Pastor), Sarah (John's wife), Layla (Sarah's BFF) and Nic (another Nick!) in our car - 7 seats, 7 people, it was cozy. Needless to say, we didn't drive up the Grapevine grade at 65 MPH. It was more like 40 MPH at a few spots. When we stopped near Bakersfield, one of the other drivers looked at the trailer, and our little Highlander and said, "you would think they would have had someone with a V8 pull that thing!". I had to agree.

Somewhere near that point, John the Youth Pastor realized he had forgotten a camcorder. So he got on the phone and within 30 to 45 minutes, we had a camera ready to pickup just off Interstate 5 in Castaic (just North of 6 Flags Magic Mountain). That detour only took 15 minutes, and we were off again!

We had a rousing good time on the way. There was a fair amount of nervous excitement in the car, which made for some good traveling-fun. I learned a lot about the Bachelorette, the latest iPhone tricks, a few words in 'Malawi-ese' and got to know some great people for the first time!

We all met up near the airport, so we could all drive in and unload at the same time. We needed to do this because you are not supposed to camp-out in the unloading zone waiting around for others to arrive. The caravan all hit the road together with just another mile South to the airport. We were all looking good, except for the one car that got on the North-bound freeway entrance (they arrived at the unloading zone safely after everyone else was probably gone).

Just as we were entering the airport, we were stopped at a security check-point. The Security guy motioned for me to stop (I guess we looked a little suspicious with our big trailer full of something mysterious covered by large tarps). He asked me what I had. I told him we were a part of a group of 30 people who were departing for Malawi Africa on a missions trip. He immediately understood and told us to go on through. I'm sure he heard a similar story from the next 8 cars.

When we found the international departures- Lufthansa Airlines drop point, I felt like we were on a Swat Team prepping for an emergency situation. We were double-parked, with a small bus also double-parked in front of us. The trailer was sticking out into the lane of traffic to our left (there was not enough space for me to pull forward and get the trailer out of that lane). We all jumped out and immediately began ripping off the bungee cords and tarps covering the luggage. Then we hauled 30 bags off the trailer and made 3 piles of ten bags each on the sidewalk. Everyone had their carry-on bags out of the car, and Bobs-your-uncle, we were ready to go. We gave Nick a very quick hug, and told him we loved him and to have a good time. We said goodbye to everyone else, then jumped back into the car and hit the highway. It wasn't exactly the way I wanted to say goodbye, but oh well, what cha gonna do?

Check the Northside Short-term Missions blog for details on their trip. The blog will be updated frequently while the team is gone.

Nick sent us a text message yesterday. He said, "Arrived late yester - bags have not - having an amazing time - love u both"

We can't wait for his next text message!

Attitude

2009-07-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

Ever notice how much someone’s outlook makes a difference in how they do things. A good example of is Tiger Woods, he simply knows he can win. I bet a major part of his ability to win, has to do with the fact that he knows he can. One small example from my life came years ago. When I was downhill skiing back in my younger days, I came to realize something. As I was headed down a challenging hill, I would sometimes find my tips crossed, or for some other reason I would get off balance and begin to fall. I discovered that if I gave in to the thoughts of falling, I would usually fall. But, if I ‘knew’ I would recover, then I usually did recover, and avoided falling. I suppose some would just call this the ‘power of positive thinking’.

I saw this quote that goes with this line of thought –

“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” – Gandhi

Here are some other famous quotes –

“Don’t think you can, know you can” – Morpheus
“Do, or do not, there is no try” - Yoda

The First Night in the Brown House

2009-06-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

The stucco guys showed up at 7:00 AM. They were done by 2:00. We like the color. We've spent the first 17 years together in a yellow house. The next 17 (give or take 10 or 15 years) will be in a brown house...

The Last Night in the Yellow House

2009-06-22T18:37:00.000-07:00

The 2009 Summer project is just about to hit its climax. Last year the priority was replacing the fence. That was a lot of work, and relatively expensive. The next priority is the stucco. It's not quite as much work, because we are going to hire someone to do it. But it is more expensive! We've got a fair amount of damage to the stucco at the base of the house. Plus we're not to thrilled with the yellow color of our house. Those issues brought it to the top of the priority list.

Here's a shot where you can see how badly the stucco is coming off at the bottom of the walls. This was just after I went around and knocked off all the loose stucco the day before Joe, the "Stucco guy", came to do the patch-work.

All the patch-work was done last week. Joe wanted to get that done a few days ahead of time so it had plenty of time to dry. In this shot you can see some of the patch-work Joe had to do.

Since we are going to re-dash the house, we also plan to re-paint all the trim, doors and gables. That means we have to do something about the gutters. They were in a sorry state so we've decided to rip them down and put up new gutters. So I pulled all the nails out, and they fell right off the house! That was easy...

We also had an old dog-pen at the back of the garage. That was another Saturday project. The dog-pen fence was held in place by five steel poles in concrete. I bought a saws-all and cut off all 5 poles at the concrete. We cleared everything off the back patio and away from the house. This is the most clean the back of the house has ever been!

Last Saturday's project was to put trim around the sliding glass door on the patio. We replaced that door 7 or 8 years ago. I've been waiting for the 'stucco-project' ever since. I wasn't sure if the trim needed to be installed before or after the stucco work was done. The final answer was, it needed to be installed before the stucco was done.

Here's the 'before' picture -

And about 4 hours hours later (I'm getting familiar with this trim-work) here's the 'after' picture -

Today I dug a couple of inches of dirt away from the base of the house and checked Joe's patch-work. There were a few spots that needed further touch-up (I know, I'm an anal-retentive detail-fanatic). So I did some final patching before the big day. Here's a sample of my patch-work. It's the darker gray area below the drain spout.

We had a 'sample page' showing the different colors of stucco we could choose from. We wanted a medium brown color, so we picked that off the sample page. Joe picked up samples of the specific colors we selected and put a small patch of each on the side of the house. After 2 tries and 5 colors, we still hadn't found our medium brown color. Finally we told Joe, "We just want brown!" He came with two more samples and finally, one was brown. 'Canyon Clay' is third from the left...

Tonight will be the last time we sleep in a yellow house. Tomorrow night our house will be brown.

4/24/09 - Avocado Tree Removal

2009-06-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

We had some guys remove one of our Avocado trees. It always gave us small avocados that weren't very good to eat. And to top it off, there were hundreds, maybe even a thousand of them some years - a lot of avocados to clean up every week. So I hired a tree company to remove it. They also trimmed our Juniper trees.

Here's the before picture -

I'm glad I didn't try to do it myself, it would have taken the whole weekend. These guys did it in a couple of hours.

These guys had some manly power tools. My testosterone level went up just standing near them...

Here's the after picture -

4/18/09 - Yard Sale for Malawi

2009-06-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

Nick is going to Malawi, Africa this summer with the Youth Group from Northside. He leaves on July 22nd and he'll be gone for 2 weeks. They are planning on helping out at an orphanage a few days. They will also run the church services on the weekends in a village, among other things. Nick has to raise the money to go, and so we decided one thing we could do was have a yard sale.

I stopped parking my truck in the garage a few days before, and we began gathering all the yard sale fodder in my parking space. By Friday night, Tracy couldn't park her car in the garage either. I was surprised at how much fodder we gathered. We just had a yard sale a year or two ago, how do we accumulate all this stuff?

We got up at a little after 5:00 AM, and began moving the fodder to the driveway. It was only 5:30, and still dark when the shoppers began to arrive. One lady had a flashlight she used to get a good look at the fodder in the dark (she was obviously a professional yard-saler).

Another couple from Northside brought over their fodder to see how much money they could raise for Malawi too. The husband (John) is also going to Malawi this summer with the Youth Group. There was an ad in the paper for the yard sale, so we had a pretty good turn-out.

At around 1:00, Nick and I delivered an old exercise bike to an older lady who wanted it, but didn't have a way to get it home. She was trilled to get it, and even more thrilled that Nick was going to Malawi this summer. It's weird, I'm not a people person, I'd rather get together with two friends than go to a party, but I kind of enjoy doing yard sales. There are some very interesting people that come by, and there are interesting conversations that are shared as the shoppers look through my old junk. It was hard work, but it was fun. Nick raised about $275 for Malawi!

Easter at Northside

2009-05-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

We had a couple of guests for Easter this year at Northside. Tracy is usually the Hostess for our guests on Easter. Nick usually hangs out with Tracy since there is not a separate youth group service on Easter. Suanne was Tracy's 'hostess partner' this year. She took some pictures while they all hung out in between services.

Here's Tracy and Nick -

Here's Nick with Jim Morris. A feature film made by Disney called The Rookie was released in 2002 about Morris's climb to the big leagues. Jim was interviewed by Pastor Dave near the end of each service. He has a great story to tell.

Matthew West was our guest performer. This is the second year in a row he has been our guest performer on Easter.

Here's a pic of Nick hanging out with Matthew. What a great guy! He's smart, personable, full of talent, yet modest. He likes to laugh and generally enjoys life! And Matthew West is a cool guy too...

Front Door Finale

2009-04-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

It's been 5 and a half months since I put in our new front door. It's about time I finished it! A month or two ago, I worked on the trim, putting in some 'filler' pieces that were required. Today I started by putting a masonry blade on my circular saw, and using it like a grinder to remove some areas of stucco that were sticking out too far for the final trim to be installed.

Here is a close-up of the pieces I had to put in a month or two ago, to prepare the area around the door frame for the final trim -

To finish the trim, I had to put in another 'filler' piece that would create a base that would allow the final trim pieces to be flush with the stucco. Here is the door before the final 'filler' pieces have been installed -

And here it is with the final 'filler' pieces (most of the day was spent putting these pieces in place) -

To get power out to the front yard on these projects, I run a power cord through the mail slot -

I plug the cord in next to the toaster. I hope the U.S. Postal Service doesn't find out, I'm sure there's some kind of law or federal regulation against using your mail slot for this kind of thing!

I had to notch out a portion of the trim where the bricks were. I had to make this one cut by hand -

I got smart today however... I brought my DeWalt Double-bevel Sliding Compound Miter Saw out to the front yard! My DeWalt is the best tool I own - thanks Jim C.! I probably only walked 1 or 2 miles compared to the 5 miles I walked last time when I did all the cutting on the back patio!

I put some small trim pieces in between the door and the side light -

Here's a close-up of one corner with the final trim in place -

And here are a couple of pics of the final result -

Webcams and iGoogle

2009-04-04T17:06:00.000-07:00

I've setup one of my iGoogle tabs with a bunch of webcams. It's fun to check out every day to see what it's like at various beautiful locations around California. A couple of days ago there was some very nice looking pics - here's how it looked. Click the picture to open the screen shot to 'actual size'! The location of each shot is seen above the picture.

Speaking of Flowers

2009-03-25T20:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a photo-inventory of the current flower activity in the yard. I took these pictures on Saturday.

Japanese Maple Tree flowers - I never noticed they had flowers before (but then again, this is only the second spring we've had them).

Avocado Tree flowers - Turns out, the Avocado Tree flower is very unique!

There are a number of Tulip flowers opening up. Not as many as last year, but there are a few good ones...

Someday I want a really nice digital camera so I can do these flowers justice!

Poppy Planting

2009-03-22T20:37:00.000-07:00

Some of the Poppy's have already sprouted!

I think there may be just a few too many in some areas... ;-) I thinned them a little today. We'll see how they come out later!

Flowers in the Front Yard

2009-03-16T20:43:00.000-07:00

I spent a few hours in the front yard over the last two weekends. I pulled all the moss out of the flowerbeds, removed the sticks, acorns, oak leaves, and the occasional grub. I tilled most of the dirt in each flowerbed. Then I carefully sprinkled poppy seeds throughout most of the flowerbeds. Here's what they're supposed to look like -

Then I covered the seeds with a light layer of Miracle Grow top soil. Then finally, last night at about 7:15, I watered all the new seeds.

The dark dirt is where the seeds are planted -

I planted the seeds all around the tulips too, so when the tulips are gone, there will be Poppy's everywhere!

If you look closely in this picture, you can see Tracy peeking out the kitchen window!

I put some along the front of the long flower bed too. In this picture, you can see the CPPD (Cat Poo Prevention Device). It's the wire laying on the wall blocks - I cover the fresh dirt with this 'chicken wire' to keep the cats from pooping all over my poppy seeds.

Stay tuned... I'll post the 'after pictures' in a few months (if there's anything to take pictures of). The package says, "sow seed in the Fall / Winter for Spring / Summer bloom". I'm a little late. The package also says not to add "additional nitrogen fertilizer". I'm pretty sure that Miracle Grow dirt was loaded with nitrogen, so it will be interesting to see what happens. I'm guessing either I'll have 'the Poppy flowers that ate New York' or wimpy little pathetic things that look like they just need to be thrown into the compost pile.

Snow Shoeing at Balsam Meadows

2009-02-28T11:30:00.000-08:00

Nick and I went snow-shoeing with my buddy Joe and his daughter Emily last Saturday. It was a very nice day. There were lots of clouds, and it was not too cold. Check out more pics in this Picasa album.

TV Upgrade

2009-02-18T21:50:00.000-08:00

I just ordered satellite TV. I know that's probably not exciting for most people, but it is for me! We haven't had more than basic cable (the $20 version with the local channels plus a couple others) since the last millennium. I went for the cheap one (Dish). I know a guy who installs DirectTV and Dish and he said most of the complaints I may have heard from people about Dish are related to poor installation. I guess I'll know for myself pretty soon! Here's what I'm really excited about - all HD channels and an HD DVR! Our current DVR doesn't record HD programming, so watching any recorded program is visually un-appealing (especially since we have a nice Panny 42" 1080p plasma TV).

Check out this HD DVR I'll be getting! I'll be able to geek-out for at least a week if not a whole month tweaking and playing with it. Just think, I'll have to re-program my remote and figure out just how I want all my home theater components connected - what fun! Stay tuned for an update after next Friday when it is installed.

Playing Music

2009-01-28T20:56:00.000-08:00

I’ve played the guitar some in the past. I guess the main reason I’ve played is because when I’ve listened to really cool guitar music, or watched someone really talented playing, I always think to myself, “I wish I could do that. I bet I could do that. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could do that? Etc. Etc…” This started when I was a teenager. I took some lessons. I hung out with my buddies who also wanted to be cool and play like Eddie Van Halen and Yngwie Malmsteen. I wanted to play like those guys too, but I also wanted to play like Steve Howe and Andres Segovia. Back then and even now, I’m really not driven to practice every day to be that good. I learned at least 5 songs (finger-picking style) over the last couple of years. I must have played some of those songs more than 1,000 times. I carefully and diligently practiced. I played slowly and correctly, carefully increasing my speed without going so fast that I would make mistakes. And after all that practice, I still just don’t ‘have it’. I mean, I don’t just sit down and play the song clean, and beautifully like some people would. Did you ever see the move Amadeus? Remember Antonio Salieri? He loved music, and he could play and write. When he heard Mozart, he could hardly believe his ears. Mozart was the most gifted writer and performer he had ever known. Salieri prayed that God would give him the gift that Mozart had. And when God denied him that gift, he got all mad, and cranky, and eventually committed murder. I have gone through my times where I feel like Salieri praying, “God, how come I can’t play like Rich Severson and Tommy Emmanuel?” Am I the only one who thinks like that?

I’m trying to stop dreaming about being someone I’m not. I’m trying to be content to listen to great music and enjoy it without unnecessary envy. I always seem to fall back into that, “I could do that” thinking. Maybe when I make it to Heaven where I have eternity to practice and masters to personally give me lessons, then maybe I’ll ‘have it’.

The Mountains and the Valley

2009-01-18T16:41:00.000-08:00

No, this isn't a deep, insightful blog post about the mountains and valleys of life. It's just little note about how we got to drive from the valley (where we live) to the mountains (where we wished we lived) last weekend.

Here was the view once we got above the fog (yes, it's 'blog fog') -

Then when you turned about 180 degrees the other direction, here's what we saw -

Much nicer view.

We got to stay in a very nice cabin for two days. Tracy worked on a quilt and I formatted the hard drive on my laptop and reinstalled all the necessities. Nick played video games and watched movies. Tracy's mom and dad visited on Saturday. It was a very nice weekend.

Diet and Exercise

2009-01-06T20:28:00.000-08:00

About a year-and-a-half ago, I discovered I had high blood pressure. That happened because I signed up for Community Medical Center's 'C-Fit' program. It's a free program they offer all employees. The first thing you do is fill out an online health assessment, then go to the lab where they do a blood draw to get your numbers - total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, triglycerides and fasting blood sugar. Then you go meet with your Wellness Advocate, who weighs you, measures your waist, your body fat and your blood pressure. Then they get you to set some health-related goals, and off you go with a $75 gift card for joining C-Fit! You can get up to 3 more $75 gift cards throughout the year. In my opinion, it's a very cool program. There have been a few people that signed up and immediately discovered they had a very serious health condition (one cardiology related; one cancer related). They took immediate action and are still around to tell about it. I bet they think it's a cool program too.

Ever since that time, I've become more aware of my health. My eating habits weren't that bad, but they could have been better. I hardly ever got any regular amounts of good exercise. Diet and exercise - where have I heard that before?

I am happy to say that I have made some decent progress. For the first time in my life, I've been exercising 3 to 4 days a week. I 'ride' my elliptical for 30 minutes, then do some stretching and strength training. I've been doing that for 3 months now. I started long before that trying to do regular cardio exercises. It took a while to get to this point. It's hard to imagine that this will be what I do 4 days a week for the rest of my life, but I try to keep telling myself that, so it will happen.

On the diet side, I've been trying to eat better by cutting out bad things like caffeine, sugar, white flour, bad fats and bad carbohydrates. I recently read that if you're trying to loose weight, the most important thing to do, is to keep track of the number of calories you consume every day. I bet that wasn't very easy 5 or 10 years ago, but now of course, we have the Internet and that has changed. Thanks to our friends Scott and Paula, Tracy discovered http://www.sparkpeople.com/.

Tracy signed-up first, and I just started using it 3 days ago. This is a great health and fitness website that makes it super-simple to enter all the things you eat and drink during the day, so you can see exactly how many calories, carbs, fat, protein, sodium, fiber, etc. you're getting from your food. You tell them your height, weight and weather you're trying to loose weight, gain weight or maintain, and they give you recommendations on how many calories, carbs and other nutrients you should have each day. All this - for free!

It's been very interesting to see just how many calories, or sodium or fat is in the food I eat. Did you know a small package of Planters Peanuts has 330 calories!?!? It has actually given me more incentive to eat better, so my numbers will look good that night when I plug in my food for the day.

Speaking of calories - check out this page that shows the 11 worst foods of 2008.

If you're becoming a health-fanatic like me, check out SparkPeople - It's cool!

Computer Memory - the Reverse Inflation King!

2009-01-06T18:51:00.000-08:00

Back in 1990 when I was 27, I worked at a computer store - OnLine Connecting Point at the corner of Blackstone and Herndon. The Mac SE was the hot item around that time. You could upgrade the memory to - hold on to your seat - 8 MEGABYTES! Wow! That was amazing. I think it was somewhere around that time that Bill Gates was quoted as saying, "640K ought to be enough for anybody." Even more amazing was the price. Memory prices have always gone up and down. Some time near 1990, a 1 Megabyte SIMM (memory module) cost one Benjamin!

That's right, $100 for 1 megabyte of RAM. Occasionally a Doctor or Lawyer would drop in and upgrade their Mac to 4 Megabytes of RAM - just $400!

Today, I ordered 2 GIGAbytes of RAM for Nick's computer. With tax and shipping, it was $30. That's 13 times less cost for 500 times more memory. This economy problem does have a few advantages.

Windows Mobile 6.1 Upgrade

2009-01-04T20:52:00.001-08:00

I upgraded the ROM on my PDAPhone today to Windows Mobile 6.1. Sounds simple enough - huh? Not so much. It's like formatting your hard drive - everything gets wiped! Everything (including a few seemingly insignificant settings) had to be backed-up, or written down so I could get hooked back-up afterwards. I have reinstalled almost all my important applications, it's surprising to think about all the things I do with my phone.

I counted and there are 9 different programs I use on a regular basis. Here's the ones I use the most - Internet Explorer (a 'Mobile' browser), Opera (a full Internet Browser), eWallet (a password 'vault'), Google Maps (which takes advantage of the built-in GPS and includes Street View), Pocket Bible (I always have multiple versions of the Bible with me wherever I go), Windows Media Player (with an 8GB memory card, I've got music)!!

This was supposed to fix a couple of things. The only problem I've experienced is the fact that, occasionally, I have to turn off the data connection and turn it back on again to get Internet Explorer to connect. We'll see if that goes away, or not.

Seven Pounds - The Movie

2009-01-04T20:38:00.000-08:00

We saw Seven Pounds today. It was very emotionally moving. If you don't like to cry, then don't see this movie. I give it a thumbs up. Will Smith definitely has a talent for acting. The movie requires you to put a lot of pieces together on your own. Not until the end do you get the final piece that makes the entire picture. I like movies like that. Unlike most movies that somehow reveal where the title for the movie ties in, "Seven Pounds" was never even mentioned. If you didn't already know what was "Seven Pounds", then you'd have to ask someone afterwards. I won't say anything else because I don't want to be a spoiler!

http://www.sevenpounds.com/

Looking Forward to Heaven

2009-01-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

It's fun to dream about Heaven and what it will be like. Randy Alcorn always has fantastically intriguing insights which are based on the Bible. I'm sure this is a controversial subject. Check out Randy's latest blog entry where he again gets me excited about Heaven!

http://randyalcorn.blogspot.com/2008/12/snow-on-new-earth-and-new-years.html

Oral Hygiene

2008-12-08T19:29:00.000-08:00

I don't even remember how I discovered this one. I wonder if this will catch on? It looks like fun AND may help prevent cavities. Make sure your volume isn't turned up too high before clicking play...

Thanksgiving Big Bash Blow-out Pictures

2008-12-04T21:11:00.000-08:00

OK, so it wasn't THAT big of a party, but it was GREAT having a bunch of family over for Thanksgiving dinner! I also enjoyed the prime rib and yummy yams. Here are the pictures -

First of all - there was a whole lot of cookin' goin' on! I didn't take many pictures, but trust me, it seemed like we were cooking for two days straight!

There were so many people, we had to set two separate tables. That's Nick and Sandra's friend Patrick in the background -

Did I mention that the food came out pretty good?

Lots of family were on hand to help celebrate everything we have to be thankful for!

Greg & Tracy's moms - Mickie and Judy -

Tracy's sister Sandra and her daughter Whitney -

Sandra's son Joey -

Tracy's cousin Marshall and his wife Amy -

Marshall and Amy's littlest one, Addia -

Tracy's dad Richard and others around the dinner table -

And the Swans -

I didn't get any good pictures of my dad, or Addia's sister Chesney. We had a great time! We should be rested up and ready to do it again in about 3 or 4 years!

Fixing Your Pictures

2008-12-03T21:51:00.001-08:00

You know how you can click on a picture on a Blogger blog, and it will open the picture at it's full size? Did you ever discover that your pictures on your blog won't open like that? I just did. It took a while, but I found out how to fix it. Here are the instructions that worked for me -

http://ted-image-test.blogspot.com/2008/08/restore-image-clickability-compose.html

I just knew that everyone was asking themselves this question, so I thought I would satisfy your curiosity and post this answer!

Thanksgiving - Thankful Pie

2008-12-02T19:18:00.000-08:00

We played a game on Thanksgiving. Tracy and Linda Stephens invented the game. Tracy said, "Why don't we have everyone write down something they are thankful for on a piece of paper, then we can read them before dinner". Of course I'm always looking for someway to up the ante, so I said, "Lets call Linda, the 'Game Queen' and see if she has any ideas along those lines". Linda said, "Cut the pieces of paper into pie-shapes, then you can put all the thankfulness together to make a pie!". She got that idea from one of her son's school projects. So that's what we did! Somewhere around noon, I thought, "Hey, why not invite all the other family members across the country and around the world to participate via e-mail?" So that's what I did. Here are the results!

Now you can play a game - see if you can guess who is thankful for what! You'll probably need to click on the picture to open the image so you can zoom and rotate if necessary...

Pie Number 1

Pie Number 2

Pie Number 3 (we had a lot to be thankful for!)

12/3/08 Update - re-linked pictures so you can click on them to open a large version.

YouTube - "Star Wars" - an acappella tribute to John Williams

2008-11-22T09:14:00.000-08:00

I found this posted on Facebook by Scott Norvell. I've loved John William's music ever since seeing Superman in 1978. That was the first movie music album I ever purchased (it was an 'LP'). I didn't know how many movies he has written the music for until I looked him up on Wikipedia just now. It's amazing! He's 78, and still writing music (the latest being Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). Here's the Wikipedia site if you're interested -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Williams

If you go to YouTube to view the video, click the 'More info' button, there is a lot of interesting info about the video. And now, the video...

Yosemite in 'Hi-Rez'

2008-11-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

If you like Yosemite and photography, check out this web site (link below).

My Dad sent me this hot piece of cool tech.

What you need to know - The program, Silverlight, is needed to be able to view the images and you will be asked to download it if your computer does not already have it. When using a mouse with a middle roller, first click anywhere on the image, and then roll in on the graphic until you see pictures in various locations. Left click to move the images and continue to roll in on a picture to understand the detail involved. You can see people on the top of Half Dome!

http://www.xrez.com/yose_proj/Yose_result.html

Salmon Dinner Night

2008-11-15T19:42:00.000-08:00

Nothing much going on in my life lately, just busy with work, and the usual tasks at home. So I'm reduced to blogging about dinner. Let's hope I can keep your attention! Tracy is gone this weekend, so I was cooking for Nick and myself.

I discovered a unique Teriyaki sauce a month or two ago at Trader Joe's. So far I've used it on Salmon, with some tasty results. Here's what I do... (Keep in mind, the most advanced cooking I do is eggs and bacon for breakfast, so this isn't going to be complicated.)

First of all, I go to Trader Joe's and get some fresh dinner fixin's -

This afternoon I picked up two fresh Norwegian farm raised salmon patties with citrus butter and an Organic Whole Grain Loaf (plus a couple other necessities). I know, farm raised salmon isn't as good as wild salmon, but that's the salmon I got. Next time I'll look for wild salmon.

I threw the citrus butter away, and marinated the salmon in a bowl of Trader Joe's 'Soyaki' sauce. This 'Soyaki' sauce isn't the most healthy part of the meal. It has 490mg of sodium and 4g of sugar in every tablespoon. But I'm just marinating the salmon in it, so I'm certainly not ingesting any more than 1 tablespoon or less (at least that's what I like to think).

The Organic While Grain Loaf looked good. It has 'Organic Millet' in the list of ingredients. I think that's what's in the bird feeder hanging in front of the house... hmmmmm? Oh well, we are Swan's after all!

I have a gas bar-b-que, so the grillin' part was pretty easy. A friend of mine (Mike) taught me a long time ago - put some olive oil on a paper towel and rub it on the grill just before you throw the meat on. That helps prevent the meat from sticking and seems to keep the grates nice and shiny.

I read in a little brochure I picked up at Save Mart a month ago - you're supposed to put the Salmon on the grill with the skin up to begin with. That's because the fat is in the skin, and that makes the fat drizzle down through the meat. And as you know, Salmon fat is a 'good fat'. That is, it's loaded with healthy stuff like Omega-3 fatty acids (which may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease). Since 'I is smart', I put the salmon on, with the skin up!

Back to the kitchen to make the rest of dinner. I've been getting into salad lately. I buy these bags of lettuce at the store - it's so easy! You just cut the bag open and throw the lettuce into a bowl. The '5 Lettuce Mix' is pretty good. I buy another bag of spinach so I can be strong like Popeye. I also like English cucumber and tomatoes. I mix it all together and then, following my step-mom Angela's lead - I use extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground pepper for a salad dressing. I know, I know, more salt won't help my blood pressure, but I have to have some salt, right? After all - Sodium is the main component of the body's extracellular fluids and it helps carry nutrients into the cells. Sodium also helps regulate other body functions, such as blood pressure and fluid volume, and sodium works on the lining of blood vessels to keep the pressure balance normal.

Quick - back out to the grill to turn over the salmon! Just in time - it didn't burn...

Back to the kitchen. Next I painstakingly slave over the preparation of the peas. I cut open the bag of frozen peas, pour a few into a bowl, add water and pop them into the microwave. Did you know Clarence Birdseye invented the process of flash-freezing food? That's right, quick-frozen vegetables, fruits, seafoods, and meat were sold to the public for the first time in 1930 in Springfield, Massachusetts, under the tradename Birds Eye Frosted Foods®. I'm starting to sound just like Cliff Clavin sitting at the bar in Cheers. That's what the Internet will do to you...

Then I noticed the bread said it was 'slightly underbaked' and I should 'Crisp in a preheated 400 degree oven for 5-7 minutes, for a crisp crust and moist interior'. Well, everything was just about ready, and I didn't have time to preheat the oven to 400 degrees. So I just threw it on the grill.

That would have been a good idea, if I had pulled it off the grill in time. Unfortunately I didn't. So it turned out to be more of a 'Millet toast' rather than nice moist slices of 'Organic Whole Grain Loaf'. They were still pretty good with some butter.

Time to open the wine. I got a bottle of 2005 Cool Fish Chardonnay from Monterey for $5.99. You can tell it's a good wine just by looking at the label. I mean just check it out - it has all kinds of different cool fish on it. And - it's from Monterey. And - it was only $5.99. So it has to be good! (Actually it is pretty good for a six dollar bottle of wine).

And now, the final result!

Notice that no food touches the other food on the plate. I'm pretty sure there is a command in the bible that says, "thy peas shall not touch thy salmon, thy salmon shall not touch thy bread, etc." So you see, I'm just trying to be obedient. One thing to note - Tracy made the cool Fall table runner - that was way more complicated than cooking this salmon.

Nick's plate was a touch different, notice - no peas, he takes after his mom! And he doesn't go for the healthy salad dressing either. Oh well, some day he'll go for the healthy stuff!

I've noticed the salmon is very moist when it's grilled this way. The Soyaki sauce gives it a great flavor, and no other sauce is necessary!

I'm Not Into Politics

2008-10-27T21:49:00.000-07:00

I've never been into politics. For some reason, politics haven't been of much interest to me. Maybe it's because there seems to be an inherent competition (us vs. them; democrats vs. republicans), and I'm not very competitive.

So today, I want to explain why I'm voting for McCain and Palin. I am simply directing you to Randy Alcorn's recent blog entry where he explains a viewpoint that I agree with. Here's a teaser quote from one of Randy's recent blog entries -

What would you think if a politician said "I'm not pro-rape, I'm simply prochoice about rape. And though I would not choose to rape a woman, I believe that every man should be free to rape a woman if that is his personal choice." And what would you do if that politician promised the rape lobby that if he is elected president, the "first thing I would do" is to sign legislation that would invalidate all the state laws that restrict rape in any way?

Well, I think I would say that man is pro-rape, wouldn't you? But technically, no, he is simply prochoice about rape. Well, okay. Be prochoice about whether someone should eat Mexican food or Chinese food, or cheer for the Phillies or the Rays. But don't be prochoice about whether men rape women or kill children. Because that is to be pro-rape and pro-killing.

Did that get you interested? Here's Randy's blog entry - Why I’m Voting for 98% Pro-life John McCain rather than 100% Pro-legal-abortion Barack Obama

What's Wrong with This Picture?

2008-10-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

I'm sure some economics guru has the answer to this conundrum...

Every day at work I hear someone talk about how they don't have enough staff to get all the work done. I hear this from people in other departments, people in my own department, people working for other companies, and I've even said it myself a time or two!

Every day at work I hear someone talk about how we need to cut back on staff because we can't afford to pay for all these employees. I hear this from my bosses, from other peoples bosses and bosses in other companies; however, I've never said this myself!

Every day I hear that the jobless rate is climbing and that is bad for the economy. I also hear about how companies are striving to automate their processes to reduce the number of employees they have so they can save money.

There's a basic problem here, shouldn't we be seeing something about this on the 6:00 news?

The Perplexities of Working with Government Agencies

2008-10-09T19:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a bit of irony. I work in a large hospital. I take care of patients records. Three years ago, we began scanning the patients hand-written chart documents so they would be available on all the hospital PC's. We have two California state government agencies that pay us for certain health care services we provide. Let's just call them MCal and CCS. To decide if they are going to pay us for the services we have provided, these California state government employees need to review the patients records.

CCS is adamant that we provide full access to ALL the scanned patients records for their review. They are unhappy that we limit their access to ONLY the patient records they NEED to see. They don't like that because the way the system limits their access to only certain patient records makes getting to the patients online record a little more cumbersome. They say if they don't have full and unencumbered access to records, it will slow them down and cause their payments to us to suffer.

MCal on the other hand does not want to use the computer at all to view records. They want us to print out all the records that we have scanned and provide large stacks of paper to them each day for review. We've recently had some success getting them to review some records online. But they complain that the computer is too slow, and if we required them to use the computer instead of paper, it will slow them down and cause their payments to us to suffer.

To recap -

CCS says, "We need the records online, and since you can't provide them to us the way we want them, your reimbursements will suffer."

MCal says, "We need the records to be paper, and since you can't provide them to us the way we want them, your reimbursements will suffer."

Keep in mind these are both government agencies. I'm not trying to bash government agencies, but I think you can see my frustration! What is the world coming to?!?!

September in South San Francisco at Six Sigma Training

2008-09-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

Six Sigma Training? What's Six Sigma? Yeah, that's what I thought until today.

I arrived at the Residence Inn last night at 8:00. It's not so bad. I'm in a "Studio". Here's the kitchen... A refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave, pantry and bar. OK, maybe I can handle this.

There's a nice little sitting area with a fireplace. Nice artwork...

I can sit at the desk, enjoy the fire and watch Monday Night Football... I could get used to this.

Here's the view out the window (Ok, it's the window by the elevator, not the window in my room) -

Look at this office building. These workers can go out their office back door, and stroll along the walking path next to the San Francisco Bay. What a life...

So what's Six Sigma anyway? I'm glad you asked. In today's class, Jeff taught us that Six Sigma is a process improvement business strategy that began at Motorola. It has changed quite a bit since it was first used at Motorola.

If you really want to know what Six Sigma is, read what Wikipedia says...

"Sigma (the lower-case Greek letter σ) is used to represent the standard deviation (a measure of variation) of a statistical population. The term "six sigma process" comes from the notion that if one has six standard deviations between the mean of a process and the nearest specification limit, there will be practically no items that fail to meet the specifications.

Taking the 1.5 sigma shift into account, short-term sigma levels correspond to the following long-term DPMO (Defective Parts per Million Opportunities) values (one-sided):
One Sigma = 690,000 DPMO = 31% efficiency
Two Sigma = 308,000 DPMO = 69.2% efficiency
Three Sigma = 66,800 DPMO = 93.32% efficiency
Four Sigma = 6,210 DPMO = 99.379% efficiency
Five Sigma = 230 DPMO = 99.977% efficiency
Six Sigma = 3.4 DPMO = 99.9997% efficiency"

'What?' Yeah, that's what I said. Jeff didn't explain it that way (and I think you can see why). He actually did a great job teaching us how we can use Six Sigma at our businesses to improve our processes, be more efficient, save money, and make our customers more satisfied. Now that's what I'm talk'in about!

The Great Front Door Experience

2008-09-14T19:10:00.000-07:00

I finally did it! Our new front door has been standing in our garage for the last 5 months. It's taken a while, but I finally scheduled a day to install it! Here's a 'before' pic...

That's the original 45 year old door.

I got up at 6:18 yesterday morning and went right to work. This is me at 6:29 AM - somehow thrilled and ready for action (very un-characteristic). Notice the open door behind me - it's still dark out.

Here we go- first I tear the stucco off because I'm replacing the entire thing - the door AND the side-light.

The side-light window is out, and I'm ripping out the frame.

About this time (the sun is just on the horizon), a young couple is walking down the street in front of the house. I can hear that they are arguing. Then the girl starts walking up my driveway. She asks if she can use my phone. She kept asking the guy to give her cell phone back, and he wasn't cooperating. I said, "yeah, sure you can use my phone". So I went in and grabbed the cordless phone and brought it out to her. She began to call various numbers, and apparently there was no answer at the other end because she never did talk to anyone. The entire time she was crying and asking the guy to give her, her cell phone. Being the 45 year old man of wisdom, I figured it was time to get involved. So I asked the guy, "do you have her cell phone?" That obviously irritated him because he then started to get all puffed up and ask me why I was sticking up for her and getting into their business. I had a hammer and a small wrecking bar in my hand, so I wasn't too intimidated. Plus he was probably only 5 1/2 feet tall. I said, "hey, I'm not sticking up for her, I'm just trying to help the two of you". That gave him the cue to launch into a long explanation of how bad things had been going for him and why I should feel sorry for him. He said something about her hitting him in the 'privates' and she said that was because he was touching her and she didn't want him to touch her. I told the guy, "relationships are hard huh?" He said, "YEAH". It was obvious she didn't want anything to do with him and he didn't want her to leave. I told him, "look, you can't force her to love you. And if you did, what kind of love would that be?". I said, "It's the same thing with God, He doesn't force us to love Him. And a lot of people run around ignoring Him, but He doesn't push Himself on us." He seemed to think about that and talk a little more, then he finally handed her the bag he was carrying and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and handed her that too. That was all she wanted, so she was out of there. He started to walk the other way, then he turned around and started to follow her and ask her to stop and talk with him. She kept walking and I hope she kept on walking.

So that was my counseling session for the day, back to the front door!

Now I'm ripping off the drywall on the inside.

Just one 2x4 left!

8:48 AM - Ouchy! I got a splinter! I hate it when that happens. So I put my 'scientist' goggles on and performed surgery. No cause for alarm - I got it! Back to work.

Demolition done! Time to prepare the 'rough' opening for the new door. But first...

9:45 AM - It's going to be a long day, so coffee and donuts are a well deserved mid-morning snack! Nick liked that part too!

Here's an important part - the 'sill'. That's right, a door has a 'sill' too (just like a window). I learned that from the guy at Home Depot. I got this one weather-proofed, perfectly sized and ready to go, then... the first set-back. I discovered that this 2x6 sill would be too tall - Argh!

OK, no use crying about it. I just need to find a hunk of wood that wasn't quite so thick and move along. Fortunately I had just such a piece of wood in my 'spare wood' supply.

All I had to do was rip the board to the right width, give it a couple of coats of weather-proofing stain, and I'd be ready for action!

Oh - look at the pretty flowers! Hey - there's a job to do! Quit messin' around with the camera and get back to work!

3:40 PM - The rough opening is finally ready! I had to add a 2x4 on one side and a 1x4 on the other, and of course the set-back on the door-sill cost me a lot of time. But finally, I'm putting the new door in place! That's Nick's arm sticking out from behind the door. He was too shy to actually show his face.

Time for shims! This is actually the trickiest part - getting the door straight, level, and not tweaked. I learned a lot about all of that on the side door a couple of months ago. That helped a lot, this part didn't take too long!

I was a little worried about the heat, since I was going to have a large gaping hole in the front of the house all day. Fortunately it didn't get that hot! And the house only got up to 80 inside.

5:00 PM - The first screw! Yeah - I'm starting to put screws in - that's a major milestone in my book!

6:12 PM - Been at it for almost 12 hours now. All the screws are in and the shims are cut off! It seems like I should be done by now, but wait... do I want to be able to lock the front door before I go to bed tonight? If so, I'd better put a door knob and deadbolt on. Next task...

I thought the door sill height was a set-back!? It turned out, the door hardware was fraught with issues. The door manufacturer did a poor job cutting the holes. The holes in the door didn't line up with the holes in the door jamb, and there were other problems. I had to do a lot of chiseling, dremeling and adjusting to get all the hardware to fit correctly.

About this time, I did my next 'good deed' of the day. We live by Fresno State, and Saturday night was the big game - Fresno State Bulldogs vs. the Wisconsin Badgers. The local ABC affiliate said it was, "Perhaps the biggest home game in school history". Lot's of people walk past our house to get to the stadium on game nights. A rather large group of people was passing by when I notice on guy split off from the group and head straight towards me, working on the front door. He had obviously been very careful to prepare for the game with many libations. He asked, "I was just wondering, can I use your bathroom?" Being very sympathetic to his situation (I've had a few moments of desperate need in my day), I had no problem showing him the way down the hall. Didn't his mom teach him to go before he left the house? He was very grateful, and ready to run catch up with the group after, 'the pause that refreshes'.

Next order of business...

7:46 PM - Tracy prepares a DELICIOUS dinner! New York steak, green beans and spinach salad with strawberries! You can just see Tracy and Nick thinking, "Isn't he done with that stupid door yet?!"

8:40 PM - YEAH! I'm snapping on the final piece to the doorknob hardware! I'm done! It's finished! I can't stand this door any more! I've been working on this thing for 14 hours now! Can't I go watch TV? No, I have to clean up - nuts!

Did you ever try Corona mixed with Limeade? I can attest - it's pretty good, especially after you've been working on your front door ALL DAY LONG!

That's the story. The major work is finished. Next I have to insulate and figure out just how to do the trim on the inside and the outside - another tricky part. But the door is finally in, and I've reclaimed that space in the garage! Counselor, Construction and bathroom Concierge, it was definitely a full day.

The Blogger's Apprentice

2008-09-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

I discovered today that I'm still just a 'blogger-in-training'. I had to go for milk on the way home from work. As I left the store, I noticed a lot of smoke coming up from behind the store, so I drove that way home to do a little rubber-necking. To my amazement, I saw a big group of bushes next to Bullard avenue (across the street from College Church of Christ), totally engulfed in flames! An area about 10 feet wide and 25 feet long was at peak burn, with flames shooting 40 feet into the air! There were power lines directly above, and they were on fire too! My first thought was, "maybe I shouldn't be driving right next to this?" Then I wondered if some transformer on a power pole would explode soon. So I called home and warned everyone to, "turn off the computers for Pete's sake, the neighborhood power grid is about to explode!" Once I got home, I hit myself on the forehead like one of those V8 commercials and said, "why didn't I stop (a safe distance away), get out and capture some exciting blog-worthy video!?" I mean, that's why I carry a PDA-Video-Phone around with me everywhere I go, right? So it's obvious that I'm still green at this blogging thing. You should be watching some fantastic fire-devastation PDAPhone video right now, but instead you're just going to have to use your imagination. Here - This might help -

This Old House

2008-09-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

I was working on the house yesterday, dreaming of the kind of house I would really like to live in (as well as a more desirable location). A thought crossed my mind-- "I have a house!" How many people in the world would love to have my house?!? (The answer is 'lots'.) The other thing that strikes me is this-- I've always enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together. I like working with my hands, making things, fixing things, etc. If I lived in a house that didn't require anything to be done to it, I would be bored. So, from now on I will realize just how blessed I am, and I'll whistle a tune while I work on this house!

And while I'm on the subject, every year we go for a few days to a 'Sunset Magazine' house in Carmel-by-the-Sea. It's definitely one of those 'dream' houses I used to envy. And now you can have a 'Look-i-loo' at this remarkable house and it's remarkable owners! Here's the link --> http://stories.lookiloos.com/2008/08/artist-in-resid.html

School's Back In

2008-08-27T19:39:00.001-07:00

Nick started school last week. He is a Freshman! He has - Biology, Sociology, Geometry, PE, Lunch, English, and Art - in that order. Biology, Geometry and English are GATE classes (harder than usual). I'm guessing GATE stands for Gifted And Talented Extraordinaire.

He has Mr. Trutna for Geometry. Mr. Trutna says he's in a Gang! He says his gang goes around and tags driveways with chalk. They draw hopscotch squares and flowers, and the occasional math problem. He likes to mess with his friends by saying things like, "That Starbucks is located on the vertex of Blackstone and Barstow".

So far, Mr. Trutna appears to be the best part of High School (plus the other GATE classes). Not much homework yet. I imagine that will change soon.

Back to Carmel

2008-08-20T19:59:00.001-07:00

Yes, we went to Carmel, again... can you tell, we like it there? It was 2 nights, and about 2 days, much too short of a trip. We drove South on Highway 1 to find McWay Falls, and went on a Safari (on the Elkhorn Slough). It was foggy and cold the entire time we were there, which was just fine with us. Here are some pictures --> Carmel August 2008

How Good Is Good Enough?

2008-07-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

ABC News ran a story recently titled - Faith in America - Insight on how people view their own religion, and the beliefs of others. Watch the video here --> Faith in America - 6/23/2008 They revealed some interesting stats -

Many people say the belief that, "there is only one way to Heaven" is unfair, or intolerant. Those people would probably say, "I think God isn't tuned into a particular belief system, I think He is looking for a particular kind of person". That assumption leads to the idea that, "good people go to Heaven - you just have to be nice, and do good deeds, then God will let you in". That brings up a few questions --

How do you know if you've been good enough?
How are we graded?
What if you're not a good person most of your life, but then have a change of heart and want to be good and go to Heaven, but there's not enough time left to do enough good deeds to make it in?
Where is the 'check-list of goodness' that I can use to see if I've made it? Who makes up that standard?

This logic would show that the "all roads lead to Heaven" theory isn't fair. If there really is a good God in a good Heaven, wouldn't He have come up with a fair way to qualify for Heaven? Jesus said everyone qualifies, no matter how good or bad you've been. You only need to trust in Him. Everyone is welcome, everyone gets in the same way and everyone can meet the requirements. What could be more fair?

I can't take any credit for this logical construct. I heard it from Andy Stanley at North Point Community Church one day long ago.

Randy Alcorn recently blogged about this. He is way better at this blogging stuff than I am! Read his blog here --> American Evangelicals Believe There Are Different Ways to Heaven

Yosemite's Wawona Golf Course

2008-07-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

Tracy and I went golfing in Yosemite on July 4th. The Wawona Golf Course is beautiful, and challenging. There is very deep rough lining all the fairways. The greens are small. So accuracy is critical. Missing a fairway or a green brings steep penalties! The golf was hard, but the setting was worth it. I've uploaded a few pics here.

New Side Door

2008-07-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

On May 31st, we put a new door on the side of the house. I learned that replacing a door isn't too hard. Today I made some adjustments to the frame (one corner of the door was rubbing a tad). Then I put on the trim on the outside. Next I need to put the trim on the inside. That will require some painting. Then the door and the outside trim needs to be painted. We are planning to re-dash and paint the house, so that's when the door will get painted!

Before -

After -

Tagged!

2008-07-01T22:50:00.000-07:00

I've been tagged by the Thurman8er! He's one cool dude, so I'll play along... here goes -

A. Attached or Single: Attached.

B. Best Friend: Tracy. She lights up my life, she gives me hope, to carry on. She lights up my days, and fills my nights with song. If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that Id like to do, is to save every day till eternity passes away, just to spend them with you (her).

C. Cake or Pie: Cake (Chocolate...heavily frosted)

D. Day of Choice: Saturday. Day off, need I say more?

E. Essential Item: I'm gonna have to say my PDAPhone - the HTC TyTN II (a.k.a. HTC Kaiser, a.k.a AT&T Tilt)

Windows Mobile 6
Tilted 2.8” 240x320 QVGA touch screen
Sliding QWERTY keyboard
Built-in GPS
3 mega-pixel auto focus / macro focus camera
GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS/EDGE; UMTS/HSDPA
HSDPA up to 3.6 Mbps HSUPA - 3G - Fast data access!
256MB ROM and 128MB RAM
MicroSD card slot
WiFi 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2

With all that hardware in my pocket here's what I have with me wherever I go -

MP3 music/video player (with up to 8GB of storage on an Micro SD Card!)
Wireless stereo bluetooth headphone capability (I have yet to decide on the right set for me)
Internet Explorer (the Internet in my pocket - oh yeah!)
All my contacts (syncronized with my work and home computers)
All my schedule appointments
All my notes on everything from bible verses to work and personal info
3 Megapixel still/video camera - in my pocket!
WiFi Scanner/network access
MS Excel / Word / PowerPoint mobile versions (a bunch of useful files in my pocket!)
MS Outlook Mobile (my work e-mail in my pocket!)

Gillions of MS Mobile applications - many are free! Here are a few I've discovered -

Free Google Maps Mobile (satellite views, driving directions, business listings, live traffic info, it's the bomb!)
eWallet - secure password database app, syncronized with a Windows version on my home PC
PocketBible- I have the ASV, KJV, MSG, NIV, NIV Study bible notes, The Works of Josephus and two devotional books
Free Peek Pocket wireless scanner
Multiple free GPS tracking/routing/geocaching apps
Free Unit conversion utility (converts any unit to other units- distance, speed, etc.)
Free Games - Yahtzee, Pente, Backgammon, Bejeweled, etc.
Best of all - FreeCaddie - it's a SkyCaddie, only free!

Oh yeah, and it's a telephone too... OK, I've beat that dead horse... moving right along -

F. Flavor of Ice Cream: Cold Stone Mud Pie Mojo (coffee ice cream with lots of fat and sugar - how can you beat that!)

G. Gummy bears or Worms: That's just nasty, just give me chocolate...

H. Hometown: Born in Mariposa, CA. Grew up in Mill Valley, Death Valley, Harper's Ferry, and Cape Cod. Then moved to good ol Fresno.

I. Indulgences: Carmel-by-the-Sea, Yosemite's Wawona Hotel and Golf.

J. January or July: Can't I pick March or October? Those are way more hospitable in Fresno. I guess I'm a skier, not a surfer, and I don't have a pool, so I'd have to pick January.

K. Kids: 1, male, 14 years old, all around stellar dude. We went for quality, not quantity.

L. Last Movie I saw in a Theater: Iron man. Can't wait to see Wall-E! Pixar is number 1!

M. Middle Name: Greg - Ha! Gotcha!

N. Number of Siblings: 1

O. Orange or Apples: Apples. Oranges have all that pulpy junk that gets in your teeth, eww!

P. Phobias or fears: That I'll fail or let someone down who's counting on me. I gotta get over that, it's a real downer - stress, anxiety, fear - bummer dude!

Q. Quote: C.S. Lewis: A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must take your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else he was a madman or something worse." [Mere Christianity]

R. Reasons to Smile: Salvation in Jesus Christ. (I copied and pasted Steve's. But really...is there a better answer here?)

S. Season: Fall. Not too hot, cool weather comin'!

T. Tag 1: Dad. Nobody else blogs!

U. Unknown fact about me: I got my 'Single Engine Airplane-Land' pilots license when I was a teenager. Turns out there's a lot of stress involved with flying an airplane, and it costs a lot of money, so that was that for me!

V. Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animals: I like a lot of vegetables, but meat's good too (especially Weaver's slow cooked baby backs!)

W. Worst Habit: Procrastination.

X. X-rays or Ultra-sounds: Ultra-sound - who would like x-rays when the techs have to hide behind that lead wall every time they zap someone?

Y. Your favorite food: Seafood - most any.

Z. Zodiac: Virgo. But I'm a bigger fan of Verga - that cool looking rain that doesn't reach the ground!

Carmel 2008 Trip Report

2008-06-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

Well, by now you're figured out that we went to Carmel for a few days in June (if you've stayed current with The Swan Man Blog). This is something we have done 11 out of the last 12 years in June. We are extremely lucky to have wonderful sharing parents, who are lucky enough to have wonderful sharing friends, who are nice enough to allow the Parents to house-sit every year in June for 2 weeks. And what a house it is! Sitting high in Carmel-by-the-Sea on Santa Rita Street, the house is surrounded by Carmel 'old-forest' trees and has a nice view of the ocean and Point Lobos from the second story deck on the back of the house.

For the last 4 years I've ventured out onto the Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course. This year and last, Tracy came along for the adventure! She beat me this year, because she finished the 18th hole using the same ball she started with (a nice new TaylorMade Noodle+ Lady). That's right, her golf ball is named after pasta. I, on the other hand did not finish using the same ball I started with. So I had a 2, and she had a 1, and of course in golf, the lowest score wins. And that's how I score when I play golf.

Since I love golf, that was a really great part of the trip. But we had other fun too! We visited the Carmel Mission on Thursday morning (for the first time!). We hung out at the beach one afternoon. We drove 17 mile drive and then ate lunch at Lover's Point. We ate gourmet dinners and watched sunsets. We thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the trip as usual. This year was a little different, in that, the tempurature was hitting the 90's on Thursday and Friday. I think that's the hottest it's ever been while we have visited in the last 12 years. But it was worth it because of the thunderstorm that kicked off and boomed past the house on Saturday. Here's a small taste of that...

Carmel 2008 Vacation Pictures

2008-06-23T22:03:00.000-07:00

I've put pictures of our Carmel vacation on Picasa. I tried to pick out the best ones! The pictures are nice, being there was better! The thunderstorm video is coming next!

Carmel 2008 - The California Oak Moth

2008-06-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

We've just spent a few days in Carmel-by-the-Sea and the Monterey Penninsula. One thing we noticed was that the California Oak Moths are thriving in Carmel this year. Just like Tracy and I, they seem to like Carmel a lot. They flutter all around, taking in the sights and enjoying good meals (just like Tracy and I). They appear to be more active in the morning, then they all take naps in the afternoon (Tracy and I stayed awake). On Wednesday morning we went for a walk near the Tor house. Not only where there thousands of Oak Moths fluttering all around, but there were thousands of little tiny flying bugs. They were swarming all over the place! I also got some shots of them in some ivy under an Oak tree, and of course there was the one hanging out at every Oak Moth's favorite hot-spot - Starbucks.

8th Grade Promotion

2008-06-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

Nick's last day of 8th grade was today. We attended a 2 hour Promotion Ceremony this morning. Nick was mentioned at least 3 times besides the time he came up for his 'Certificate of Promotion'. Here's a look at the awards he's received in the last few weeks...

Some of the items in this picture are -

Scholarship Award
President's Education Awards Program - Outstanding Academic Excellence
Track Coach's Award
Slick Rock Student Film Festival - Best Documentary
Honor Roll
Character Counts - Responsibility Award
He had 320 AR Points which was the highest in the 8th Grade

Plus - He was one of only 3 students that had a 4.0 grade point average throughout the entire 7th and 8th Grade.

Can you tell? Tracy and I are very pleased.

We tell people we went for quality, not quantity. He's continually proving that statement is true!

Generational Picture

2008-06-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

Nick and I went for a quick Petaluma vacation on Memorial day weekend. Here's three generations of Tom Swans! From left to right - Thomas Gregory (Greg), Thomas Sydney (Tom) and Thomas Nicholas (Nick).

The 2008 Presidential Election

2008-05-31T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well, it took a while, but I've finally got Nick's documentary and subsequent SlickRock award presentation video ready! See the previous post for other details about SlickRock.

Enjoy...

Nick Goes to the Track City Finals!

2008-05-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

Nick went to the FUSD City Finals at Sunnyside High School last week (May 21st). He ran in the 4 x 100 relay and the hurdles.

Here he is running the hurdles. He didn't win, but he was in the finals which makes him a winner in my book!

The Lizard Whisperer

2008-05-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

Nick and I were in Petaluma last weekend. On Sunday, we went for a little adventure trip to Napa Valley and the Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. We were going to get burgers at a place called "Taylors" in St. Helena, but the line was longer than the wait to get tickets to Indiana Jones, so we went down the street to A&W/KFC and got a burger in 5 minutes! Then we drove over to the Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, just North of Sonoma. We found a nice trail to go hiking on and set-out for some adventure (not really). It was a nice hike up a trail towards Bald Mt. Here's some scenery -

We saw a deer -

We saw many lizards as we hiked along. On the way back down, I came across a particular lizard hiding along the trail. His camoflauge hid him perfectly in the dry weeds. But I was able to feel his presence with my lizard sense...

I slowly moved closer to get a better picture. As I moved in, he made no attempt to run away. I thought I would test his resolve and see if I could put my hand next to him, he still layed motionless in the grass. I thought I'd see if I could touch him, and low and behold, he layed still as I stroked his tiny little back. I called ahead to Nick, "hey come check this out!" As Nick came over, I thought I'd see if I could pick him up. I went to reach under his little lizard belly, when he made a dash through the sticks, over next to my foot. As I stood up, he jumped up onto my leg!

I had made a friend! Did he want to come home with me? Or was he just looking for a free ride down to the parking lot where he might find some little Triscut bits left behind by snacking hikers? Perhaps it was my gentle lizard whisper as I scratched his back and became one with his little lizard spirit... the force is strong with this one...

I reached down to touch him and he ran around my leg and jumped onto my other leg. I started to get a little leary that he might run up my pants and crawl under my shirt, and as if on queue, he ran down and jumped back into the grass and rustled away with the wind...

A chance encounter with a lizard? A brave adventurous lizard? A lizard whisperer and his small reptilian friend, you be the judge.

Video Editing School

2008-05-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm an aspiring videographer, what have I leared in the last 2 weeks? I've learned that a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 laptop with 512 megs of RAM and a Radeon 7500 video card doesn't cut the mustard when it comes to editing video with Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0. Isn't it funny, half of you reading this are saying, "well DUH!" The other half are saying, "what did he just say?" So I'm happily accepting donations toward a nice new Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8500! Everyone who donates $1,000 will get a free video shoot and final DVD of the event of their choice (within a 50 mile radius of Fresno, California, certain restrictions apply - I reserve the right to censor, reclassify, revise, edit or reject any video shoot request not meeting my standards of acceptance).

Eventually, I'll get this SlickRock video posted!

2008 SlickRock Student Film Festival Awards

2008-05-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

We went to the 2008 SlickRock Student Film Festival in Visalia this evening. This was the 5th annual SlickRock Film Festival (or SlickRock 'V' as the Master of Ceremonies referred to it). The first year (2004) there were 18 films from 7 schools. This year there were 220 films from 39 schools. The students made films in these categories- Foreign Language Film, Animation, Documentary, Music Video, Advertisement and Five Minute Blockbuster. These were very short films - 5 minutes was the longest. Nick made a Documentary- "The 2008 Presidential Election". He won! He made off with some nice swag - a 4GB iPod Nano, a $25 Walmart gift certificate, an In-N-Out gift certificate, a Starbucks gift certificate (they give those to middle school students?) a plaque and of course the obligatory tee shirt. More pictures and video to come!

Other Blogs of Interest

2008-05-06T22:23:00.000-07:00

Tonight, as dad and I were chatting on the phone, he was teaching me about a feature of Google's Blogger that I hadn't yet discovered. As we were perusing through the millions of blogs in Blogger cyberspace, I stumbled upon Sean Cooney's blog. Interestingly enough, at the exact same moment I found it, dad was saying, "you could even find a blog from someone involved with the Walk to Emmaus". It was a Twilight Zone moment. Sean passed away last March. A little more than a year prior to that, he received a heart transplant. Sean was a great guy! He loved God with all his heart and wanted to please and follow Him. The first time I worked a Walk to Emmaus retreat was November, 2000. That was the first time Sean worked too. We were on the same team together. Sherrill Ankenman was our team boss. I had heard that Sean had a blog, and I even searched for it after I started blogging this March. It's interesting to read his blog. I suppose it will be there forever now, unless Google has some kind of time-out where blogs are deleted after a certain period of in-activity. Let's hope not.

New and Improved Comments!

2008-05-06T22:14:00.000-07:00

I turned off the 'must login' option for comments, so now anyone can easily leave comments!

Talk to you later!

More Family Pictures

2008-05-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

Here's one of my dad and my other grandfather (my dad's father). Dad says this was taken somewhere around 1952 when he was 15. They were at a duck hunting club near the town of Niles which is on the East side of the San Francisco Bay. The duck club owners were Forest Davidson and Walter Jenkel. Forest probably took the picture. Apparently Forest was into photography. Forest and Walter owned an Optometry business which is where my dad worked sometime around this period. This picture was scanned from a slide. Dad says slides were just starting to be used back then. My grandfather was about 48 years old in this picture. Dad said they would arrive at the club at 4 AM! They would get into the duck blinds (barrels with camouflage covers) and start blowing their little duck quackers when it started to get light. Then the hunting began. By about 10:00 AM, the hunting was done and it was time to go back to the club-house and commence the drinking (not Coca-cola). Dad would go out and shoot at the mud hens for practice while the men were imbibing inside. Dad sent this picture to me with this comment, "Here are the other male genes that gave you your laughter, quick wit, and delightful sense of humor!"

Baby Avocados

2008-05-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in these little buds are some tasty avocados we'll be eating this next December and January! There are truck-loads of these little bud-clusters on both avocado trees right now. They are sending little bud-bits all over the yard. One year, we got over 200 avocados. I wonder what this year will bring.

Old Family Photo

2008-05-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a shot of my dad and my grandfather just before they left to go fishing. They were somewhere near Tioga Pass in Yosemite. This must have been somewhere around 45 years ago - is that right dad? This picture was taken by my mom. Grampy knew a thing or two about fishing. Dad was probably more interested in the geology and terrain. Any ability I have to fix things, organize, plan and come up with creative solutions comes from the DNA in these two men!

Finally, Golfing in 2008

2008-04-27T21:56:00.000-07:00

We went golfing for the first time in 2008. We went to Fig Garden and played 13 holes (then the sun went down!). It was great. Tracy did fantastic! I was 11 over after 13 holes. On 8, 9 and 10, I got par, par, birdie! Tracy had a number of holes with double bogeys, which is excellent considering this is only the second year she's played!

The sunset was pretty nice. This camera phone picture doesn't do it justice!

Yosemite In April

2008-04-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

We went to Yosemite yesterday. The weather was nice, and a few thousand others had the same idea. Here's the line to get into the park -

Once we made it in, it was Yosemite at it's best! They cut down a bunch of trees at Inspiration Point. The view has been restored!

Could you think of a better place to have lunch?!

We hiked up to lower Yosemite falls -

Then we continued on - along a trail north of Yosemite Village. Lost Arrow Spire is just above Tracy -

The view from the meadow was - gorgeous!

Some day, I want to hike to Columbia Rock -

Thankfulness

2008-04-21T19:15:00.000-07:00

We had a guest speaker at Northside last weekend. His name is Bob Russell and he's the pastor of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. The sermon was "Jesus, The Cure for a Thankless Heart". He said, "Weather you're a contented, happy person is a whole lot more determined by your attitude than it is by your circumstances". That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Chuck Swindoll -

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company ... a church ... a home. The remarkable thing is, we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude ... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you ... we are in charge of our attitudes."

Here's an excerpt from Bob's sermon. It's not a very positive description of Americans. I'm not trying to bash Americans, but I do notice the negative, complaining attitude many people have. And on the flip side, I live with and work with many very grateful and positive people!

The Fence is Coming Right Along (notice how I didn't say it was 'complete')

2008-04-21T18:57:00.000-07:00

Just as promised, we painted (water-sealed) the West section of new fence last weekend. There's just a few little 'tidy-up things' to do, and then I can pronounce the 'Great Fence Project of 2008' complete. I wish I could pronounce the 'Great Kitchen Project of 2003' complete. I'm still procrastinating on the last small bits of trim that need to be installed at the bottom of a couple of cabinets. Let's hope the fence project 'tidy-up things' are done by the year 2013!

14 Years and One E-mail Address

2008-04-16T21:55:00.000-07:00

Nick is 14 now. He's spent a lot of time in front of a computer in those last 14 years. Above is an early picture of him playing "The Tortoise and the Hair" when he was about 2. He's never been especially interested in the Internet, My Space, e-mail, or any of that popular stuff (thank goodness), but yesterday he finally asked me if he could have his own e-mail account. I thought he would want an e-mail account years ago, but he just wasn't interested. So we set him up last night with his very first e-mail address - PinkZink@SBCGlobal.net. Today I figured out why he wanted an e-mail address. It seems that World of Warcraft isn't working quite right, and he needed to send an e-mail to their support staff to report the problem. "Necessity is the mother of invention", or the mother of an e-mail address in this case!

Nick - age 14 (now he's allowed access to the keyboard)

Climbing Mt. Lyell in 1958

2008-04-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

My Dad made an attempt on Mt. Lyell back in 1958 (he was 21), and today he sent me a couple of pictures from that trip. Here's what he said -

"I thought you might enjoy this picture scanned from a slide. The person waving the hat is your old dad on his way up the Lyell Glacier headed for the top. As you know, I (nor the girl in the photo) made it to the summit because of the crevasse at the top of the glacier and the steepness of the rock above it. We did, however, make it to the saddle between Lyell and McClure. The year was probably 1958, and I bet the glacier has retreated a great deal since then.."

"If memory serves me, this photo was taken at the upper base camp, and Mt. Lyell is in the upper right hand corner."

One of the cool parts about this is, a long time ago (I was probably around 21), my friend Scott and I hiked through the Lyell canyon and climbed Mt. Donohue which is just Northeast of Mt. Lyell. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures.

Mood For A Day

2008-04-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

I started learning this song about 25 years ago. Back then, I only learned the first part of the song, then I stopped playing the guitar. 2 or 3 years ago, I got a wild hair and decided to try to learn the entire song. Fortunately computers and the Internet had been invented. That made learning the song a lot easier. It was easier due to 3 things...

1. I was able to find the 'Tab' (easy to read guitar sheet music) for the song. This could have been more helpful if it was more accurate.

2. I could rip the song off the CD and open it with an audio player that allowed me to see the waveform and select any portion the song to listen to (so I could listen note-by-note if necessary).

3. I discovered that you can find just about any song you can think of being played by people all over the world on YouTube. After finding a YouTube video of someone talented, playing the song, I could then figure out the fingering (like I said, the Tab wasn't very accurate).

With these 3 things available, I simply needed to sit down and learn the song! So after 2 or 3 years of practicing, I was ready. I went to the bathroom (I thought that would give the audio a nice reverb effect), sat my little Panasonic digital camera on the back of the toilet, set it on 'movie' mode and recorded this video. That explains the poor sound and video quality (at least that's what I like to think). Then I discovered that I needed a video editing program to cut out the part of the video where I'm walking to and from the camera to start and stop the recording. A buddy gave me his copy of Adobe Premiere Elements that he wasn't using (thanks Gary!) and for the first time, I tried my hand at video editing. Adobe Photoshop has always been one of my favorite programs, and I've always thought I would enjoy movie editing on a computer (vs. moving editing with a splicer and clear tape like I did on Super 8 film in the 70's). Now I may just have to go and buy a video camera...

So here's my first Internet performance in my first video ever, who knows what will be next!?!?

Wax on, wax off, paint the fence...

2008-04-15T21:16:00.000-07:00

I said the fence was complete, but what I meant was, "the major construction portion of the great 2008 fence project is complete". Last weekend we put on some nice Behr Waterproofing Wood Protector - Natural No. 300. That made the fence quite a bit darker. Much to the dismay of my son, we dragged him out of the nice air conditioned house and forced him to help paint the fence. Next weekend, we paint 70 more feet on the West side of the yard!

The Fence is Complete

2008-04-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

All that was left to complete the backyard fence at the beginning of the weekend was to build the gate. That seemed easy enough, although my gate is 11 feet wide, and it is actually 2 gates in one. It is made so the entire 11 foot length can swing open, or, a smaller 3 foot section can more easily be opened and closed for quick access. I didn't think it would take too long to build, but by 7:00 on Sunday night, I realized I was WRONG!

Try spending 12 hours over the course of a weekend in this position and see how your legs feel on Monday!

I built the large portion of the gate (seen above) on Saturday. I spend a lot of time calculating and analyzing because, well quite frankly I do paperwork for a living, so I'm rather green when it comes to construction. I felt like some guy in the middle ages trying to figure out how to build the first backyard fence gate. On Sunday I needed to go to the store to buy more gate parts. I needed more screws to finish, so I started browsing the Screw Isle. After noticing there were more kinds of screws than colors of red in my new redwood fence, I decided I should actually read the boxes to see what kind of screws I should be using (that was a mistake). I discovered to my delight that there are screws that should be used for drywall - "not to be used where rust would be undesirable". Then there are screws that you would use out-of-doors on things like a deck, or YOUR NICE NEW FENCE GATE YOU BIG MORON! Why did I use all those drywall screws on my gate? I don't know, but I was at least smart (anal) enough to know that I should get these deck screws and simply replace the drywall screws in the part of the gate I built on Saturday; "that won't be too hard, right?" was what I thought. So when I got home, I simply started removing the screws from the pickets and replacing them with deck screws. Oh, and then there were the screws in the brackets, oh and the screws in the rails, and the screws underneath the hinges, and HOW MANY SCREWY SCREWS DID I PUT IN THIS THING! So after about 2 hours I had build the large portion of the gate - for the second time!

So, now all that's left is to build the small gate - that should be easy, because it's a lot smaller! But wait, I have to do a lot more analysis, because I wouldn't want to put in a screw, and then have to take it out later because I put it in, in the wrong order! As I'm happily putting screws in using my trusty old Black & Decker drill, I smell a touch of that burning electronics smell that's generally not something you want to be smelling. That brought back the memory of the day my wife gave me that drill 18 years ago. I thought, "boy, this old drill just keeps on going, just like the Energizer Bunny®. I ought to call Black & Decker and give them a glowing customer testimonial about how great their drills are!" Well, it wasn't ten minutes later that, all at once, a large puff of smoke emerged from the casing of the drill, and it promptly stopped 'drilling'. Oh great! Forget it Black & Decker, I'm not calling you now, this piece of junk just burned up, and I've only been using it for every drilling job for the last 18 years! Just kidding, that poor old drill should have died years ago. I certainly got my $39.95 worth out of it, so I gave the drill a proper burial - that's right, I quickly tossed it in the recycle bin and jumped in the truck to head to Home Depot - wooooo whoooooo - I get to buy a new drill! Unfortunately the first Home Depot I went to was all out of the drill that was just right for me, so I had to drive to another Home Depot, and luckily, they had it in stock. No wonder it took so long to build this gate! Just a few more touches and the gate will be 100% done. Then I can move onto cleaning up the dirt and flowerbeds around the rest of the new backyard fence.

And here's the gate, in all it's over-analyzed glory!

Family Portrait

2008-04-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

This is an old picture, but it's one of my favorites. It took all day to convince all the characters to meet us at the hub at noon, but it really paid off! I was disappointed that Goofy couldn't make it, and Cruella was not very happy, but other than that, it was a great picture! That's Rasmus, our foriegn exchange student next to Mrs. Incredible (Elasti-girl). Nick was only 10!

Fencing (with shovel and hammer, not rapier)

2008-03-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

One of my neighbors and I replaced our fence yesterday. He had a couple of buddies come over with all the fencing gear (post-hole digger, compressor, nail-gun, and one long piece of string). We fenced all day long, here's the result -

We still need to finish our gates -

That was about one third of my fence. I still have 2 more sides to do! The other neighbors want to pay someone to do all the labor. Right now my body is saying, "I like that idea".

2008-03-23T22:01:00.000-07:00

We had Matthew West at Northside this weekend as our special guest performer. He was great! It's so cool to worship The Creator of the universe with someone He has given a special gift to. Matthew went over to hang out with the Youth Group after the Saturday night service. He was great and the Youth Group had a blast. After hanging for a while, he borrowed a guitar and sang some songs. He had a lot of fun with everyone. My wife and son actually got to hang out with Matthew some during the weekend (since my wife was one of the hostesses for the special guests). Now my son wants to go to Spirit West Coast this summer to see Matthew perform again! Here's a short video I made with my phone up in the Youth Room.

My Celebrity Look-a-Likes

2008-03-14T22:19:00.000-07:00

Yep, these are the dudes that I look like. I always knew I was a lot like Chuck Norris, but I didn't know just how much until I did this Look-a-Like deal. Starting at the top left it's, Michael Rosenbaum, Mark Wahlberg, Patrick Swayze, Paul Allen (I wish my wallet looked like his), Heath Ledger, Brian Littrell, Alec Baldwin, and of course Chuck Norris. Actually most people mistake me for Brad Pitt, this face recognition software must be faulty. Well, there it is then...

Distractions

2008-03-10T22:26:00.000-07:00

Today, I am struck by the distractions we have in life. Each day, I have a chance to spend time on my priorities, but how much time do I waste on distractions? Lots. What are these distractions you ask? How about - a cool flat panel plasma TV with some High-def programming; a computer with e-mail that needs to be read; a guitar with songs that need to be learned and practiced; a yard that needs mowing; a tree that needs trimming; weeds that need pulling; TaylorMade r7 irons and Burner metals that need to hit little white balls. And now, a BLOG that needs writing! Do I need to do all these things? No. What do I need to do? What do I have to do? Of course I have many things that have to be done - I have to go to work; I have to sleep; I have to maintain the house, the car, the yard; and a zillion other things that always need to get done. What should I be doing? I should be spending time with Tracy, Nick and other good friends. I should be spending time with the Creator of the Universe, who wants me to hang out with Him. The tirany of the urgent is always nagging for my time. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to spend some time on the important stuff!