Lets end this year by killing something.

Well... Hm... This post isn't one that I've really been looking forward to writing but I should write it anyway at least for my own benefit. My dog died on Sunday, he was ran over by a car that didn't even bother to stop or brake just outside our house. We found his broken body a few minutes after it happened.

My wife absolutely loves dogs, I figure the reason for this is because though out her life she has always had a dog. Her mom dropped her off at her grandparents house when she was really young and she was practically raised by her grandparents and her 13 aunts and uncles, but her childhood was not exactly happy. Most of her aunts didn't want her there and were very mean to her. One was so mean that to this day you can see the scars on my wife's hands. Nevertheless there was always a dog at her house, and she loved it. Her only memory of her biological father was when he came to visit her and he brought a dog with him, she never saw him because her mother rushed her out of the room while her mother shooed him away, but my wife remembers clearly playing with the dog under a bed. In fact some of my wife's most happy memories of her childhood has something to do with dogs. So the death of our current dog was devastating to her, and the worst part is that we can't get another for a while.

So although I did love that dog, it hurts me more seeing my wife hurting. I've never seen anyone get so attached to an animal like her she did and as I've stated above I think she has some good reasons for getting so attached.

On top of my wife's pain I took it upon myself to try and explain to my daughter that her dog wasn't coming back. My question is how far do you go to get the message across before you start to be just a jerk about it? I explained to her that the reason we don't let her go out in the road is because she might get hit by a car. Then I told her that her dog went into the road and isn't coming back, and that he's now with Jesus. She cried with us for a while and I felt that she understood but I think she thinks he's lost. I tell her that he's not going to come back and that Jesus is in heaven and so is her dog. She still can't get past the idea that he's lost. I thought about showing her the body, but I really began to think that I was crossing a line at that point. My wife and I decided that there really isn't any point in pushing it. Death isn't something we believe that there is any hurry to learn about, she has her whole life to learn about it.

Farewell my little furball, you'll be missed.

The 2008 Christmas Letter

Last year I started a little tradition. That of adding a little family letter to our Christmas cards. I've tried to stay away from the standard format of general boasting and just wanted to give people a laugh.

Once again the Breakdown family is sending you the most valued gift a person can hope to receive during the Christmas season. A greeting card and a piece of paper that you can display in your front room so that you can show everyone that visits your house that you really do have friends and family that go through the trouble to mail you something at least once a year, and probably you have more of them then the person that is visiting you. Awww, the spirit of the holidays. So without further adieu, I will now fill the page as to impress upon anyone glancing at it that I have a lot to say without actually reading it, because if they did happen to read it, they would find the opposite to be true.

As for me, Breakdown, this year I have made a number of wonderful accomplishments. The first and foremost being that I have achieved the long sought after title of every father and man of any household across the nation if not the world. That of no longer being the hairiest member of the family, or the stinkiest, but since we still have a child in diapers I never really got the title of being the smelliest. We got a dog. I also installed a fence at our house, that is to say I installed it by calling a couple of guys, got a couple of bids and then paid them to put it in. The fence and the dog has resulted in a dispute with the post office as both are in the way of them getting to my mail box. I told them to just hold my mail, I'm at the post office everyday anyway, but they refuse to hold it. I guess it's only fun to hold a person's mail if it's an inconvenience.

Mrs. Breakdown also has had a number of wonderful accomplishments. The one that she is most proud of is that she continues to kick me out of the house everyday to go to work at a very unreasonable hour leaving her the ability to stretch out across the bed in pure, blissful comfort. Mrs. Breakdown also believes that the fact that her mother visited us this year was also an accomplishment but the jury is still out on that. Oh yeah, and there is that thing about becoming an American Citizen but like I told her, “Who isn't?”

Litte Miss Breakdown has reached the delightful age of five. Which means she is a sixth of my age and a quarter of my wife's age, which is the age at which my wife will remain no matter what her diver license says if I know what's good for me. As she reaches the age of five she has started kindergarten and has already let me know that although I am her father it doesn't mean that she has to be seen with me, especially around her friends. Little Miss Breakdown has begun to discover the wonders of language. She finds that if she doesn't want to do something that she can dispute it with her teacher just long enough so that time will run out and she won't have to do it. She has also taken to giving fashion advice to my wife as to type, style and model of clothing she wears. I can say with complete confidence that any and all hair loss that I have suffered this past year is in direct relation to my daugher's actions, or because my grandfather was bald. I tend to believe the former.

Little Breakdown continues his education in the very complicated art of little-brothery. He has mastered the art of getting his finger close enough to annoy his sister but not actually touch her resulting in Little Miss Breakdown's cries of “He's touching me!” Little Breakdown's reply “No I'm not,” my inevitable shout of “Keep it down or I'll tell your mother!” and my wife's exclamation of “Why do I have to be the bad guy?” Little Breakdown's exploits have had such lasting effects as can still be seen in the form of a purple crayon on the living room wall, a slightly darker stain on the downstairs carpet and the smell of decaying Cheetos emanating from somewhere in the house.

Somedays your the giver, somedays your the reciever

I think I can say with a fair amount of confidence that I grew up in a proud family. I don't think that we were haughty, but we were not a people that really went outside of the family if we needed help. For that reason I feel kinda odd about the world right now.

I've spent most of my life were I've been self-sufficient. I had enough for my needs, sometimes a little more that I could share but not often. On the whole I didn't need extra help. Although there have been times when my family have swooped in to give me an extra hand. I've always been very thankful for those times but I really wish to be in a position were I could do a little more giving than I do.

As I have had a family of my own we have gone to extraordinary lengths to stay out of debt. Most/if not all of our stuff is second hand. The only things in my house that we have counted as having bought as new are: Our bed (2004), Our TV (2002), Our computer (2003), Our DVD player (2000) and that's it. Everything else has started out their lives with someone else and we are just trying to make them last. Often I feel as if we should be better off then we are but every time I look at our finances I see that we aren't. Sometimes the feeling of just being out of debt isn't quite enough. Especially since we just had to buy a new furnace and water heater, we didn't need the water heater but they gave us a good deal on it and ours is 18 years old. So we find ourselves in debt yet again.

Nevertheless last month a little form came home with our daughter asking us if we could use some help this Christmas. We just needed to fill out a couple of things about our income and see if they choose us. I was a little stand offish on the idea, but I told my wife to fill it out anyway because I didn't think they would pick us. Well, they picked us and that's when it hit me that our financial situation may be a little more bleak then I thought. Now, we aren't on the edge of poverty or anything, but when a local charity group wants to help you out for Christmas then suddenly you realize how close to the lower end of the spectrum you really are. I agonized over the gifts for almost a week, asking myself how is it we got here. Should I just consider it a blessing? Should I take it as a sign that we really should be trying harder? Should I take it as a sign that the Lord needs us to try harder in our spiritual lives? Is the Lord trying to make me more humble so that I can be more willing to accept help when it's offered and not be distraught about it? Is it all of the above? Or none of the above? Or could it be that the Lord needs people to be on the receiving end of people that need to give?

I really don't know. I hope that one day I can start looking for people to help out. But I guess for today we get to be on the receiving end. Thank you for the gifts.

Closing Doors and Closing Windows.

Overall it's been a tough year for furnaces. Must have something to do with the winter starting as late as it did.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been getting this feeling of impending doom. Not the regular feeling of impending doom that I'm used to, but a different kind. I have been increasingly worried about how precarious our financial situation is. I know we could be doing better if my wife was working but we made the decision a long time ago that it was best for the kids if she could become a full-time mother and so we have persuaded that avenue ever since. Well, the big problem with our plan has always been that we can't save much, or anything at all, and if something big happens well, we're pretty much doomed.

Not an easy way to live, but so far it's worked out. Until maybe yesterday. Turns out my the pilot light on my furnace went out. I got home from work and my family was freezing but I was able to restart the pilot light but after a few minutes it went back off, again I lit it praying that this wasn't going to be the 'BIG' problem that we have been so fortunate to ward off these past couple of years. It lit, the furnace turned on and I was elated. I went about my business of the morning but when I went back to check on the furnace I discovered that the pilot went out again. This time it didn't light, no matter how long I held the little button. I did it over, and over, and over. Every time the pilot would light as soon as I released the little button it would go back out with a little hiss, almost as if it was stifling a chuckle at me. Often when things like this happen I get angry, bent out of shape and I curse the Lord for not fulling his promises. I've been trying not to do that and just thank him and ask him that it's not as bad as I think it is.

I still don't know what the problem is because a heating guy is going to come over later today. But He blessed us with a fireplace that we hardly use, mainly because I am terrible about starting and maintaining fires. Nevertheless last night I was able to start a fire, keep it going and the house has maintained a very comfortable temperature ever since. I was beginning to think that we were never going to be able to use the firewood that we had stockpiled in the garage. So although it would have been nice that my furnace not have had this problem, it is really nice for the Lord to guide us through this problem as we face it.

So I guess it's true that whenever a door closes the Lord opens a window, but I told him to close it again because he's letting the heat out.

A House of Order

Since becoming a husband and father there has been a scripture that I have referred myself to with reasonable frequency. That is D&C 121:41, I will cut and paste it here just to go over it, "No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned." Oh sure we all know that it would be great if all of our leaders would do this but that isn't the case and it isn't what I wanted to talk about.

Since I've been married and even more so since I've had kids I've had a problem with finding ways to get my family to church on time. Seriously this is the number one problem my family has. This problem has only been compounded by that fact that I have to work up until a half-hour before church starts. This usually consists of me coming home from work and finding my wife and kids still in their pajamas and me asking how is it possible for all of us to get to church on time with only twenty minutes before church. I'll let you know that we never make it. Over the years I've tried every possible idea that has popped into my head in order to "persuade" my wife to get up a little earlier or at least start the process of getting the kids ready a little earlier. I've called from work to remind her, I've left notes, I've just let it go, I've helped out, I've cried, I've spoken quietly about it, I've yelled about it, I've ranted about it, I've gotten the Bishop involved. Despite my efforts I still come home from work twenty-minutes before church start to find everyone still in their pajamas. Did I mention that we have the 11:00am session? Perhaps in this case I should quit trying to persuade her and start the part about long-suffering. The one thing I do know is that I shouldn't get upset about it.

The story of the Shher.

As a Mormon I've had to accept a couple of things about the world around me. For one, I have to realize that I'm am never going to be able to understand everything that the Lord passes down, at least in this life. Another is that Mormons, for the most part, are about families and like it or not families are loud.

In our building we have an English speaking ward, a Spanish speaking ward, and a singles ward. For whatever reason the singles ward always gets the 1:00pm slot, a fact that bugs me because I don't get off work until 10:30 am, so every other year I have to miss the church instead of every 2 years. Nevertheless, as I was walking around the building after church with my son and a young man came out of one of the classrooms to ask the people in the hall to please be quiet because they were going to pray. Ah, to be young and naive again. It wasn't that people were yelling, screaming or the like. People were talking, kids were playing. General inter-family chaos. If you have a family or go to a family ward, you know what I'm talking about.

This little incident reminded me of another incident a couple of years ago when I, at least I think I was the primary cause, chased off the BYU ward that was in our building (the singles ward replaced them after about 6 months). I was the scoutmaster in the young men's program. I would sit in on the meetings and help out. Our classes were pretty close to the chapel and every time we would go to class we would walk by this single guy who's calling was to shhh people in the hall. "these walls are paper thin," "we are having sacrament," "please be quiet," were the kind of things this guy would tell us. Made me feel like we were in a library not a church. We did our best but you try to keep about 2 dozen adolescents quiet. On one particular Sunday one of the more rowdy boys decided it would be fun to just run out. One of the young men's consulars and I ran after him. We grabbed the kid and began walking back to class and the shhher was right behind us. "You guys need to keep it down!" I turned to him and said, "you try and keep a teen quiet." I was a little short with the guy because it bothered me a little more then I should have allowed it that this guy's whole calling was to shh people, and he had been especially vigilant toward my boys. Suffice it to say, I never saw the shher again and two weeks later the ward moved to another building.

I understand that reverence invites the spirit and it's nice to have when you can have it. But sometimes I can still feel the spirit through the chaos of children playing and general well-being of all.

Militant Home Teaching Companion

I think I am around the lower side of average when it comes to home teaching. I usually use my job as an excuse to why I don't do my home teaching but as everyone knows an excuse is just an excuse. Either way I'll do it when the opportunity presents itself, but since I've been banished to the primary the opportunity just doesn't present itself.

Anyway the ward just finished reorganizing the home teaching companions and their families and I got the militant home teaching companion. I wish I was lying but I'm not. This guy just got back from the Marines training camp and he's a medic. Not only that but he is currently trying to finish his flying hours. So I get to go home teaching with a guy that does almost every branch of the military that we have. I always feel like a weenie when our families ask what we do for a living. He goes on and on about what he does and all the cool stuff he's seen. I get to talk about how I know all the addresses in my town. Yea, I'm lookin' good.

Not to say that he isn't a nice guy and it's nice to get a home teaching companion that really gets me out and doing my home teaching. I just need to stop with the envying. And maybe I shouldn't let him intimidate me as much. Maybe.

Everyone needs a challenge

Along side my Xbox and in it's hard drive I have a number of games that are great for playing with others. I have a couple that are just incredible for comparing high scores.

But what happens if nobody among your friends/family want to challenge your dominance? Not that I don't think they would try if they could but it seems to me that a lot of them just don't care or are interested in the same kind of challenges that I'm interested in. I've always thought that there is a desire for competition buried deep within the male psyche, of which I count myself. Although I am not a big fan of sports I really enjoy games of the mind, and a good sporting event isn't lost on me, but I still like the trivia stuff a little more.

For example last year my wife was kind enough to buy me Scene It for the Xbox 360. A very good game although the humor is dry and the animation scenes are mediocre. But the trivia about movies is great. I played it with all of my one friends once, and I beat his wife and him without breaking a sweat. I didn't gloat, I didn't boast, but they never really wanted to play with me again. The same goes for my family. I played it once with them a couple of times and I won every time. Except once, but I threw that game because my wife said that my brother-in-law was getting kind of irritated that no one could beat me, I don't know if he realized that I threw the game, but he should have. Come on, I missed questions about Back to the Future. I grew up watching that movie! Nevertheless not one member of my family has wanted to play that game with me again.

I'm not good at every game out there and I really believe that I am a good sport. It just breaks my heart sometimes when I really want to challenge someone and nobody I know wants to be challenged. What is a guy to do, I guess I'll just try beating the computer on hard again.

Unnatural pleasures

I do a couple of things now and again that drive people nuts, and when I say people I mean my family. I don't know what it is that attracts me to these kind of things but something about them brings me some kind of enjoyment.

1. I love to put syrup on my scrambled eggs. It drives my wife nuts because she puts a lot of salt on the eggs then I go screw them up by adding a sugary goodness.

2. Sometimes I like to melt ice cream and then refreeze it. Something about separating out the cream, the liquid and them eating them separate.

3. I love tomato soup, catsup and anything made with tomatoes. But I HATE tomatoes.

4. I love orange juice with lots of pulp. I HATE oranges.

That's all I can think of right now, but I know there is more.

Considering Children

I am a bit of a News nut. I'm obsessed with what is going on in the world today, and if you read my other blog you'd see what I have to say on the subject. I don't want to go on those kind of rants here but there is a bit of concern for me in the news that I certainly need to address here.

My wife and I have two kids. We are very happy with the both of them and certainly feel blessed by who they are and we pray that we can be the parents that they most certainly deserve.

We want to have more kids but one problem that we face in the world today is that families are being assaulted on all sides. Kids don't really have much of a chance out there without a consistent parental influence. Now I don't mean that parents should be in their kids lives 24-7, but my wife and I feel that we need to always be available and attentive to our kids needs. On top of all that the job market is such that the reality of loosing a job and not being able to find a equal paying one is very, very real. We are luckily enough that my current job is reasonably stable, but the pay isn't such that we can support three kids. We have cut our budget so that my wife can stay at home and be a full time mother, which we both believe is very important. On top of all that I am going to be going back to school next semester.

Some people say that we should just have faith and let the Lord bless us. At the same time I've always felt that a person should not throw everything on the Lord. Perhaps we just don't have enough faith, then again perhaps it's just not the time.

Getting in touch with your feminine side, and having her take over.

As I was growing up I was not as masculine as some of my peers and much less so then my older brother. I was never really interested in sports and the like and to be perfectly honest until I was reminiscing with one of my friends five years after-the-fact did I realize that one of the most popular girls in the drama club was only popular because she was, shall we say, endowed? It just didn't occur to me at the time.

I grew up with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Pirates of Pensanze, The Music Man, My Fair Lady, Phantom of the Opera, and Les Miserable. The worst part was I enjoyed it. I'm sure my mom really liked that she had a son that could enjoy those kinds of things and it did great things for getting me in with the ladies (although only a few times was I able to escape from the 'Friend Zone').

Nevertheless through the years I have begun to enjoy some of the more manly activities. I can watch an entire football game and not get bored, I've even begun to feel an affinity toward baseball. The downside is that in turn I've gained a slight distaste for musicals. I avoid them whenever I can. Unless my wife insists. When she does get her way, like the other day when we went to see Mamma Mia, I dig deep inside myself and find that part of me that was entertained by musicals. So for the most part I'm able to enjoy myself.

It's nice to get in touch with your feminine side for those kind of occasions. That way the wife enjoys herself that much more and when the wife is happy, every one's happy. Especially the husband.

The One I Feed

Throughout my church attending career there has been a quote that has stood out among all the others and that I try to live. I really wish I could say who said it or the circumstances but all I remember is that a older gentleman is talking to a small boy and he says to the small boy "Inside me I have two beasts, one that wishes to do evil and one that wishes to do good, and they fight continually." The boy frightened responds "Which one will win?" The older gentleman looks down to the boy and responds "The one I feed."

Sometimes I feel that I could have a mental illness if only I would go see a doctor to tell me so. I've chosen not to do that because I've felt that I can handle whatever my mind can dish out. Nevertheless I have found that this quote to be very true as to what comes and stays in the forefront of my mind. Often I will feel overwhelmed with my own sense of inadequacy and I can remember with perfect clarity (if I have one gift from the Lord it is my memory) a number of horrible things I've done. Ranging from the theft of some candy when I was a kid (I didn't think it was stealing at the time, it's a long story but any child wouldn't think it was stealing), the way I broke up with an old girlfriend and finally to the evil thoughts I have concerning the things I want to do as a form of vengeance toward my latest enemy. I'm overcome with feelings that I am not a good person and I also feel the hopelessness that for the most part there is nothing more I can do to remedy the situation. When I get feeling like this I have to choose which beast I am going to feed. The one that leads to depression, or the one that will glaze over it and give me a sense -if only fictitious- of overall well being.

Watching TV on a budget

As I've stated before my family and I have been doing everything we can to reduce spending in our household and save. The reducing spending part has been going really well, while on the other hand the part about saving still seems to allude us. I'm not quite sure how that works, I've looked over the numbers more times than I care to count and I've even had my nifty pirated (well, it's not quite pirated, just really out of date and my brother gave it to me) make all sorts of graphs in order to try and figure out how we are cutting our bills but still don't seem to have any money available to save. I think it is one of those little things that people like Alan Greenspan couldn't even figure out.

Anyway, we quit the cable/satellite companies a long time ago. I don't care what people say in church but it took some getting used to for me and overall I still miss the options and the movies. Nevertheless, not to be a man that doesn't do his best to get his way, I've swaryed into a realm that allows me to enjoy a little TV without having to pay for it, legally.

The Internet: NBC, FOX, ABC are the big guys for the shows I watch, and all of them have their big shows online. The quality isn't as good, and you need a high speed connection (We're trying to be cheap, but I've stood firm on having a high-speed connection) but you only get one 30sec commercial every 10 minutes or more. I'm still able to watch my favorite shows without the hassle of getting my rabbit ears calibrated, my VCR set (I still can't believe I still own one of these things) and not letting any of the kids touch the TV until after the recording. Some cable stations put their shows online but since I'm not as up-to-date on what is on the cable channels I don't go looking for them. Except The Middleman.

PBS: Say what you want about PBS but since it's the channel that comes in the clearest on my TV it's what I watch most of the time. Most of the day their programming is children's programming and it's educational. Most of these shows are mildly entertaining but since I took a stroll around Saturday morning brainwashing I've come to the conclusion that PBS kid's programming is superior. I can't even begin to tell you the loss of intelligence I suffered after watching five minutes of Yu-Gi-Ho, "I do this and now I will win," "Oh, now I will place this card that does -long boring explanation- now you will die" "-inner monologue- Oh, how can I out do that card with just -piece of crap-" Never before have I wanted a group of cannibals to come storming into my house more than at that moment. Anyway don't disregard PBS, especially when you have few other options.

I will go over some of my favorite shows another day.

A Return to Edumacation.

As my family grows (two-adults, two-kids and a dog) my wife and I are constantly looking toward the future and wondering how it is all going to work out. As of now I have a good job with good benefits and is overall pretty stable. The only drawback is all the government crap that goes along with it, but what won't we do to protect our families from crisis and financial trouble? Either way I got my associates degree some years ago and up till now it's been little more than a very expensive piece to a collection of junk on my dresser.

Nevertheless, for years my wife has been bugging me to go back to school. It's been hard with the good job and all. To be perfectly honest I've never been a big fan of schooling since most of the time it's learning stuff you don't really have any interest in, but this year, well, next year I am going back to school. I've got all my paperwork done and I've spent a very unenlightening hour with a academic counselor. I just hope that I get all my classes and that I can turn a blind eye to the amount of student loans I'm going to be getting.

Then there is that whole problem with the parking. Just gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

A couple of frustrations

There are a lot of things that set me off. Over the years I can safely say that this list has gone down but still there are a couple of things that really get my garments in a bunch.

Stay on Task!
I recently took a calling to teach the 4-6 year-olds in primary. I did it back when I first got home off my mission so I felt that I could certainly do it again. My big problem is with the Primary presidency. First, if you have any announcements for the teachers you can do it over the podium and the beginning of primary. Second, once sharing time starts you and all your councilors are doing a certain job. You don't go off to do other things or talk with other teachers. You can take care of business before or after church, sharing time is about the kids, give them the attention they deserve. Third, if there aren't enough teachers to keep the kids calm, then get more teachers. I shouldn't be the only adult during sharing time trying to keep the kids in their seats and paying some kind of attention. Forth, if I'm teaching a class then you should wait until after if you need to tell me something. There is no reason to interrupt my class to tell me to prepare a game for the Halloween party.

Just like Banker's hours, just shorter.
So I've been preparing myself to go back to college this next year and as I do so I've been trying to find out what classes I should be taking. So I got an e-mail informing me of the academic counseling and that I could call from 8-5 so I called at 4:00pm. Turns out all the councilors leave a little earlier than 4:00pm. At least they still had a secretary to tell everyone that they don't work their whole shift.

Good Boys, Good Boys what you gonna do?
So we got a dog a couple of months ago and overall he's been great. The one problem is that when we leave him home he barks to almost no end. We got a complaint from a neighbor so we started to tie him up in the garage when we leave. Well, the other day we left the garage door open. When we came back two hours later we found the animal control officers leaving a nasty-gram (ie. your pre-citation) the cop was very obtuse about the whole thing and as cops usually are very arrogant. Suffice it to say that I've never had a good relationship with cops. I've always been on the good side of the law, but when they pass sixteen-year-olds out past curfew to grab a guy heading home on his bike after midnight then I start wondering about their intentions. They've even pulled me over for not stopping behind the white line at a stop sign, hey I usually do it but this one is set way to far back. Nevertheless, there is a house not a block away that everyone knows is a drug house and the cops are hanging around my house to give me a citation for a dog that was barking for no more than two hours and doesn't do it hardly at all.

The Scream Asylum

I can't say that I am a connoisseur of spook alleys but I can say that I've been to a couple. I don't spook very easily, in fact in all of the haunted houses I've ever been in not one has really gotten me spooked. Except for that one I went to as a kid and that a guy actually hung himself and no one noticed until they were closing that evening. But that more spooked me when I read about it the next day. My favorite one was the one in Provo that was a fund raiser for the Mental Hospital, I stood in line for almost two-hours to get in and it sure was a lot of fun. It's a shame they closed that one down.

Anyway, my wife and I had the rare opportunity to have a date night, so I thought it would be fun to take her to one of these haunted houses, especially since she has never gone into one. She thought that it was going to be hokey and tawdry, but I insisted that The Scream Asylum has sounded like it could be pretty decent. She took my word for it. I really had no idea, I had heard the commercials and seen the signs, but you can't ever trust them.

When we got to the The Scream Asylum it was in an old warehouse in downtown Provo. Their address says they are 600 South University Ave. but I'd say they are more 600 South 97 West, almost beneath the overpass that goes over the train tracks. They have a part that uses 3D colors and you are provided with 3D glasses once you pay your entrance fee ($15 regularly, $13 if you bring a coupon that can be printed from their website). The price was a little on the high side for me but I wanted to give it a chance. They certainly did not disappoint. My wife was freaked out almost right from the start to the very end. All of the players seemed really into it and most if not all were very intimidating in their presentations. We went on a slow night so the actors were available to follow us around which made for some very entertaining screams from my wife, who spent most of her time screaming, hiding and cowering (afterwords she confided that she almost peed her pants, twice). At one point they scared my wife so much that she grabbed onto another client and almost scaled her to escape from some of the actors, I was forced to pull my wife away from the woman, which only worked to scare my wife even more since she thought it was one of the actors that was trying to pull her away.

Overall I would certainly give The Scream Asylum, 3 1/2 of four stars. My only problem was that it didn't really scare me but certainly made me feel uncomfortable. Which is more than the other houses I have been at.

A big thank to all of the actors there for making a very entertaining evening for my wife and I.

The only consistent feature in all your unsatisfying relationships

One of my favorite demotivators is one called Dysfunction. It says The Only Consistent Feature In All Your Unsatisfying Relationships Is You.


Today of all days is way I feel. My worst fear for my kids is that they end up as friendless as I am, as I have been and probably as I will remain. Now this isn't for lack of trying, I have a very acute distaste for social gatherings but I have spent a good part of my life going to them despite how I feel and I make the decision to have a good time. More often then not I do have a good time, but as always, if offered the opportunity not to go to a social function I will always choose not to go.

In high school I had a number of friends but once you break that High School barrier then something happens. People move on. Only two of my friends have remained friends from graduation through the mission and partly through marriage. When kids start to come into the mix then things get even a little more strained, especially if your friends don't have any kids.

Nevertheless, over time I've been left with one friend of which I only see every couple of months. All of our other attempts to cultivate new friendships have usually led to very little if anything at all. The last couple that we got along well with just vanished from one day to the next, we tried to maintain contact but it felt kind of one-sided. We kind of understood it because they had moved to another town, but recently they moved back to town and never contacted us. I feel like the hint is that they don't really want to have much to do with us, my wife feels the same way.

So here we are pondering on what it is that makes us so unlikable. My wife says that it's not us, but I think otherwise. Heck you have to have something wrong with you when you've been in a ward for over 4-years and they've never asked you to talk in sacrament once!

Then there is that little thing about how I can't even seem to be able to get my family to read my blog, but that's a whining session for another day.

It's so much fun bieng a Dog owner

If you've spent anytime looking at those wonderful pictures that I have on my little slide show then you know that I have a dog.  There is one primary reason we own a dog and that is because my wife loves dogs.  She grew up with dogs and some of her fondest memories of her childhood have to do with her dogs.

We had a dog once before but she ran away.  We believe that she was stolen, but we don't have any good evidence so we are just going to say that she ran away.  Anyway, it's been a few years since we've had a dog and I finally gave in, again, to have a dog.

The best part about having a dog is the house training.  I can never get sarcasm to come out the way I want it to when I write it down.  Nevertheless, it took a couple of weeks but our little Shelby is house trained and only has accidents when we don't pick up on the signs he wants to go out.

Well, yesterday since it was my day off my wife and I stayed up late and watched a movie. ("Hitman" to be exact, not a bad filc, but not for the faint of heart and not to be watched more than once.)  Once the movie was over we went to our bed where our daughter has taken up residence ever since our son was born and also where Shelby sleeps.  My wife crawled over my daughter and left the opposite side of the bed for me.  Once I walked around to the other side of the bed and sat down I came to the very sudden and horrible realization that our dog had vomited in the bed.  I immediately shuffled off to the shower leaving my wife to clean up the mess.  Sitting in dog vomit I think excuses one from having to clean it up.

The Funk

Every little once and a while everyone, at least I believe everyone, falls into a funk.  My wife had it last week, and still kinda has it.  This week I've got it, bad.  Often I will try and do something I've been putting off in order to get a feeling of accomplishment, the idea is that the feeling of accomplishment will overcome my feelings of uselessness, worthlessness and all those other icky feelings.  Most of the time it works but this week it doesn't seem to be working.

It's not depression pre se, it's just an overall feeling of apathy.  I should go out and try to do something else I've been putting off.  I can think of at least two more things I've been putting off.  Either way this mini-depression is no fun whatsoever.

Even some of my favorite readings aren't as interesting as they usually are.

A Fun Discovery

So the other day I'm helping my Mom clean out her basement so my sister has a place to put her stuff when she moves on to graduate school.  When out of the blue I discover a box of some of my old stuff, as it turns out I had kept some old lazer-tag toys back when Star War Episode I came out.  I loved these things and my friends and I would play for hours with these things.  Turns out I had at least five of these things, I imagine I had six since the packages came in sets of two, but five seem to have made it to my adult years in good working order.

I pulled these out the other day and since there are four members of the family we all got one gun and we reenacted the battle of Naboo.  Good times.

Scraping to get a few extra cents.

As our government gears up to hand out $700,000,000,000 to people who just couldn't seem to live within their means, there are those of us that are doing what we can in order to make every last cent count and finding new and interesting ways to find a couple of extra cents.

Long ago I discovered that I couldn't just raid the couch for change anymore.  Couches just don't seem to attract change like they used to, or it could be that we just don't have many people stopping by to chat, or maybe because most people just don't carry around change anymore.  Either way hidden stores of change and cash are still there but just not as noticeable.

One thing that we started doing is keeping track of the loose change that we end up with.  This little do-dad shouldn't cost you more than about $10 as takes up all the time you'd spend counting all the change in your jar at home and doesn't rob you blind like that coin-counting machine down at the local market.  Also we like this little thingy because it lets us know how much is in that jar at any one time.  So if we are feeling tired and the kids are asking for pizza we can look over at the jar and see that our loose change can give us the night off.  The one drawback to this jar is the fact that you have to put each coin in one at a time and not too quickly, what do you expect for $10?

I like to tinker, but as a father of two young children and not much money to speak of, well, I just can't get around to it.  Because of my desire to tinker over the years I've offered to take junk off the hands of my parents or people I know.  I have a pretty big garage (used to be a small barn) so I've been storing this junk in it.  For the most part this junk that I had acquired had amounted to a couple of washing machines and a dryer.  At first I thought it was going to be great to pull the motor out of those things, make an adapter so that they would run with a car battery and built a little electric car out of the whole mess.  It was sure nice to think about, but as you can all imagine, it didn't really work out that way.

So the other day I said to myself "I'm going to get rid of some of that crap in my garage!"  Usually I would call the DI, they would come and pick this stuff up and from what my wife would tell me (she used to work at the DI) they would bring in appliance repair students to practice on the machines and if they could get them working then the appliances would go to needy families.  Well the DI doesn't do pick up anymore, they would take them if I brought them in.  As my family and I have continued our search for more money we've been taking aluminum cans to a local metal recycling center so I thought that it might be fun to call them and see if we could get any money out of this crap in the back of my garage.  Turns out they pay $.03 a pound for misc metal garbage, and in the end I got about $12.60 for crap taking up space in my garage.  Hurray!

Bike Repair

Ah, my little bike shop.  Just like most Americans with the rising price of gas I've decided to start taking my bike to work.  Truth be told I've been biking to work for over a year now and luckily enough I haven't had a bike problem for the better part of this year, not even a flat tire.

Well, the other day I'm riding home from work and I hear this 'TWANG!' and my rear brake partially engages.  I was only a couple of blocks from my house so I just unhooked my rear brake and rode the rest of the way home at a slow pace while depending only on my front brake.  Once home I set my bike aside and since the next two days were my days off I simply forgot about it, until the night before I had to go to work.  I opened up my rear brake thinking that my rear brakes just dropped out of alignment and when I got on my bike to go to work I discovered that the problem was more than my brakes.

As it turns out that TWANG! I heard was one of my spokes, and when you loose a spoke your wheel warps thereby causing your wheel to hit the brake on certain parts of the wheel.  I learned that by visiting a bike shop website.  I didn't have even the faintest clue on how to replace a broken spoke so I took it to a bike shop that I trusted.  I would have taken it to the same place that the website recommends but the last time I was there they screwed up my derailleurs and wanted to charge me to put them back.  So I took them to Mad Dog Cycle where they charged me $25 to replace the spoke and true the tire.  I thought it was a steal since they originally told me it was going to be about $35.  Hopefully later on today I will be able to take a ride just to make sure everything is okay.

Canning

Every year since I can remember my family canned.  I always wondered why we called it canning when there were not cans involved.  It's more like bottle-ing.  The main event was and is always the tomatoes.  

As a rule I don't like tomatoes.  My family has always grown them in the garden and almost everyone in the family loves them but I don't, although I love everything that comes from tomatoes.  I love tomato soup, ketchup, tomato paste and tomato sauce, but I don't like tomatoes.

Anyway the big draw for the canning season is the tomato sauce that my Mom makes and every years since kids have been moving out of the house my Mom makes an effort to go around to every one's home and can what we all hope will be the yearly supply of tomato sauce.  This tomato sauce is a family recipe that my Mom keeps close to her heart and she doesn't share it with anyone.  Without this tomato sauce spaghetti just isn't spaghetti.  Meat loaf ceases to be meat loaf.  Our family with rather fast then face a meal that called for tomato sauce and didn't have this sauce in it.  Sometimes when my Mom would run low on the stuff she would add half store bought and half of the real stuff.  Even then it was bearly tolerable.

So Happy Canning!

On the dull edge of technology

I love technology and all the things that surround it, but ever since my wife and I made the decision that it was better for the kids that she become a full-time-mother then I haven't been able to enjoy the fullness of technology like I used to.  Nevertheless over the years as my kids have grown I've been enjoying the cheaper things and I am amazed by all the stuff that isn't new to most but is new to me.  I want to share a couple.

Open Office

Once upon a time I used to go to the local software store and drool over the new office suite, but as someone that can't justify buying the latest office suite instead of 4 new boxes of diapers I never got it.  Over time I discovered Open Office.  It's open source and does all the things I got to love about Office 2003.  The best part is that it's free and I haven't had a problem with it the whole time I've had it, it's been able to open all my old Word files without a problem and save my documents in a way that Word can read them.

Woot

Woot is the place were I get my latest tech.  So far I've bought a 2 gig sansa mp3/photo/recorder for $20, a 4 gig sansa mp3/photo/video/recorder for $40, 2 SDmini 2 gig cards for $5 a piece.  I always want to spend more there but again my budget doesn't stretch that far.  From Woot you can access Shirt.Woot, Wine.Woot (I don't drink, but if I did I would go here) and Sellout.Woot.

Pandora

Free Internet radio that only plays the stuff I like.  You can't really beat that.  In fact that's what I'm listening to now.  It works with some cell phones so everyone should give this a glance.

Twitter

This wonderful little program allows me to blog on the go (as you can see on the right) and if my friends are hooked up they can get the same updates.  I like this little program because it wants you to be brief (140 characters), it makes an interesting challenge but can be a lot of fun, kind of like a commercial.  Not to long ago this little program saved a guy's life, or at the very least, got him out of jail.

Diner Dash

This game has been out for a while but my wife (who doesn't like video games as a rule) loves this game and as it turns out we are about the same skill level so it makes for interesting competitions between us.  Don't pay the $20 that the manufacturers are asking, go to Best Buy and get it for $10.  Supposedly you can play it online for free but I don't trust those kind of things.

The Tracphone

Who lives in today's world without a cell phone?  We did for the longest time, until we discovered Tracphone.  For $10 bucks we got the cheapest phone on the market, and when I say 'cheap phone' I mean CHEAP.  This phone's ring tone reminds me of the time when the only sound to come from a computer was from the PC speaker.  It's that cheap.  Nevertheless if you work your minutes right you can end up paying less then $5 a month for phone service.  I spent $30 on minutes back in May and still have plenty left to use.  Texting costs .3 minutes so it's kind of economical although I call people and spend the one minute and I can communicate all I need to.

Ubuntu

So my parents gave me a computer that was on it's last legs, so I had to format the hard drive in order to have some hope of getting to work for any length of time.  Once I did that I had to put a new operating system on it.  I couldn't find an old copy of Windows 98 and sure wasn't willing to pay very much to get this dinosaur up and running so I found Ubuntu.  It's a operating system brought to you from Africa and it comes built with all the open source software you could want, from Firefox to OpenOffice.  I had no problem getting it connected to the Internet, I didn't even try to get it to work with my home network.  So as far as being able to get this computer to access the Internet and do basic tasks it worked great.  The only thing you have to be aware of it that it's Linux based to if you want a printer to work with the thing you are going to have to find the right drivers.

Blogish Laments

I've stated before that I have been blogging for a while.  In the past my blogs have more or less been just ramblings.  I've drifted from topic to topic, sharing my opinion as I went along.  The main reason I created this new blog is because I wanted a blog that had a specific purpose.  That purpose being one that I plan to spend my time in reflection on myself and spirituality.  I'll hit and I'll miss but at least I have a target and perhaps with time I may actually get it right most of the time.

On one of my other blogs, the random one if you look at my list to the right, I've been blogging for almost a year.  I've never been popular among the community primarily because the community does not appreciate a religious point of view, let alone one that comes from a member of the LDS faith.  I've never let that bother me, until the other day.  For the most part I would ignore the trolls that would frequent my posts, but from time to time I felt compelled to respond.  Often when I would respond a kind on online argument would ensue and eventually they would make personal attacks against me.  I would end the discussion when this would happen by ceasing to respond, because I felt that any further response would be useless.  Nevertheless I posted an entry that brought a troll that would misrepresent my point entirely, of course I tried to clarify myself and as history would indicate eventually the discussion degraded into him insulting my character.  At that point I decided that these comments and discussions were taking up more of my time then I liked and I really would like to take the time to create a post as one would a work of art and know that no one could defile it as I had placed it.  So I disabled my comments and posted an entry explaining myself and apologizing to those that enjoyed my blog and to those that would make intelligent comments.

Suffice it to say this created a whirlwind of hatred toward my blog and incited several posts defaming me.  In turn I reported every one as being abusive and defamatory.  I do not know if I did the right thing or not.  I despise how often good bloggers are run off that site because of these trolls and I've decided myself not to be one of them.  I reported them in the hope that blogging on that site might be a place of real discussion instead of trolls.  Perhaps I should have let it be.  I guess I will have to live with the consequences.

The Need for Sleep 2: The Ornery and the Stupid

So the other day I was asleep and my kids started running around and having a good time and just being kids.  Needless to say, they woke me up and that is never a good thing.  I couldn't get back to sleep and I was very ornery.  I've told my wife that when I'm like that she needs to let me burn off the anger so the tiredness can set in, but I shouldn't rely on that to stop me from being ornery even though I'm tired.  So I yelled, made a big deal out of nothing and eventually it was time for me to go to work.  There was no excuse for my actions and in my ranting and carrying on I hurt my wife's feelings.

So there I was at work on only 1 hour of sleep in about 32 hours and I don't really remember most of it.  I only remember that I couldn't think straight and I would start to rant and rave about anything if someone got me started.

There are two things that really suck about fighting with your wife when you've been married for a while.  First, she remembers every time you've screwed up in the same way so there is no easy way to brush it to the side as a one time thing and the more you do it the harder it is to convince her to forgive you.  Luckily my wife understands that when you've been up for 24 hours and someone wakes you up the no one is going to be in a good mood, but that doesn't keep her feelings from getting hurt, or me from hurting them.

The second thing that sucks about fighting with your wife when you've been married for a while is just the fact that there just isn't the incentive to make up like there used to be.

Everyone has challenges that they have to overcome, one of mine is not to be a jerk when I'm tired.

More than animals

I read an article as I was preparing an entry about being more than animals and I accidentally came across this article if there is no God and it inspired most, if not all of this entry.

I've supposed that as human beings we are not like the animals, and this got me thinking, well, I can't say so much as to thinking as to watching my dog. The palindrome made me smile as I thought about God as I looked toward my dog.

When my dog is hungry he searches for food and he eats, when he is tired he rests or sleeps, when he is (darn my christen upbringing) "In the mood for love" he finds a mate or a nearby leg.
As human beings I am under the impression that we are, or at least should be above that. To believe that we are merely animals is to subject ourselves to the most cruel form of slavery, slavery to our own desires. If we believe that this life is the only one that we have and that there is nothing beyond then there is nothing that would inspire us to desire the well-being of those around us, because logically if I do not look to my own happiness then I will never be happy. Our short lives would be taken up in the pursuit of worldly joys and because our lives are short why would a person think twice about doing whatever it takes to acquire said joys?

As human beings we are capable of the most horrendous atrocities and those atrocities are not fueled by a man's belief in God but a man desire, ambition and short-sightedness. Those things do not come from God as any God-fearing man knows. Those qualities come from men, take away God, what will remain?

Belief in God challenges us (or at least should) to be better people. There are those that take a belief in God and twist it, just like a person can take any cause, tool or thought and twist it. Nevertheless for those that really pursue God they find that God wants us to be better people, to be better people to everyone. God wants us to be free of our desires and not do as our bodies push us to do. We all know that our bodies can lie, they can tell us to eat junk when we should eat vegetables. We should play with our kids even though we are tired. We should restrain ourselves from anger, etc...

Belief in God has done more good than it has ever done evil.

The New Curse of Adam

Oh, sure in the early days of the earth Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden of Eden. Eve got cursed with having to bear children in sorrow while Adam had to work to earn his living by the sweat of his brow. Well, here we are some time later and I think that the curse of the sexes are merging. Women are unfortunately forced to work more and more then ever before making it a woman's job to not only bear children in sorrow but to earn a living by the sweat of their brow. While men are still exempt from bearing children in sorrow we are now cursed with something new.

I don't know if every man feels this way but it seems to me that I am under constant suspicion of being someone capable of doing something terrible with women and children in general. As a missionary the rule came down that as male missionaries we were no longer able to put children on our laps. Today, I am never asked to babysit, even if I'm sitting my own kids at the same time, and my wife has expressed that she will never leave my daughter alone with any man (other than me, and I think she still holds some reservations) no matter how well she thinks she knows him.

I think the new curse of Adam is that as men we can no longer be trusted completely with women and children. It hurts my feelings sometimes.  Oh, and just in case you are wondering, no I'm not guilty of any previous sex crimes or on the sex offender registry list, shame on you if you thought I was.  Shame!

Adiscerning of spirits

Some people I know have these superpowers. My mom has a type of spider sense. She can sense danger before it happens, well, she doesn't really sense it, she dreams about it. Very close to every time something bad happens to someone in our family my Mom has dreamt about it first. There was a day my Mom woke up one morning having dreamt that my brother was in a car accident (He was on a mission at the time). Later that day we got a call from my brother's mission president letting us know that my brother was in a car accident but everything was okay. He even got a contact out of the whole thing. The only time my Mom has been wrong was when she dreamt about me getting hurt while on my mission. I never had a problem so I hope that Lord decided not to put me in that situation for my Mother's sake.

My wife on the other hand has this uncanny ability to judge people's character. A couple of years ago a friend of hers got a new boyfriend. He seemed nice enough to me, but my wife didn't like him at all. Months past and I never picked up on anything, but my wife hated him all the more. Soon enough the guy shows up one night asking if my wife could lend him some money. She thankfully refused. Soon after he disappeared leaving my wife's friend pregnant, broke and with a bunch of maxed out credit cards. Then there was that issue about how my wife picked up on that her aunt's best-friend of twenty years was a lesbian after only spending about an hour with her.

I figure that I have the gift of speaking tongues. Since I do speak two.

House guests and fish

I've heard it said that house guests are like fish. They get rotten after three days.

I don't agree, in the past year we've had four people living with us for a period of time. The most recent was my aunt-in-law and her daughter and they lived with us for about a week. I didn't mind them at all mostly because they only slept at our house, most of the day they spent getting the daughter ready to attend BYU. Also having my aunt-in-law in town gave me a front row seat to when she found out that her best friend of almost 20 years was a lesbian and my aunt-in-law was the last to know. My wife only spent an hour with this best friend and picked up on the fact that she was a lesbian. The husband thought the fact that since her best friend slept in the same room in a two bedroom apartment a tip-off. Still my aunt-in-law only just found out because her best friend needed some consoling because her partner just left her. Is it just me or do pronouns become a lot more cumbersome when you are dealing with a homosexual person?

My mother-in-law lived with us for almost three months this year. She stayed with us for six months a couple of years ago, this time went a little better. I had some concerns the last time around because my mother-in-law didn't like to go upstairs in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, so she kept a little bucket in her room to pee. Then there was a problem with a questionable person calling her from Peru that my wife suspected to be a gentlemen caller. My mother-in-law is married so you can see my problem.

Now we currently have living with us a friend of my wife from Peru that is attending a specialized ESL (English as a Second Language) school nearby, and she will be staying with us until the second week in October. She is a really nice girl and my wife really likes having her around. There is just something that my wife gets from having people around that she's known from Peru. Just yesterday some friends of my wife came to visit because they had a performance in a nearby town. They all started talking and looking at pictures, soon enough they were all laughing and screaming as girls in large groups will often do. I haven't seen my wife like that in a long time. I love to see her like that.

Good Friends

Since my wife has come to this country she has been plagued with a very distinct lack of friends and the few friends that she does have aren't in the 'good friend' category. I've done everything I can and could so she could make more friends but to no avail, until recently.

Recently a family of three (mom, dad, 6-year-old daughter) were baptized into our ward. (Did I mention that we go the the Spanish ward?) Since the family started investigating the church our daughter and their daughter have gotten along really well and since most of the time our friends are extensions of the friends of our kids then it seemed only natural that my wife and the mother of our daughter's friend. I know that this doesn't always work, but it always sounds good when you write it down.

In the past my wife's best friend has been a little wanting at least in my eyes. My big problem with my wife's friend is two fold, but in the interest of not criticizing too much I will only mention the one problem that angers me the most and that is the fact she tells my wife that my wife is fat. I'll take a deep breath before I write this so I can avoid a long rant (in, out), okay, you are only allowed to tell a person that they are fat when you are a very close friend and when your overall goal is to help them. Oh yeah and you can only tell a person they are fat when they really are. My wife is NOT fat. She is larger then she was when I married her but since she was a size 0 when we got married I'm pleased that she has filled out a little, but she certainly hasn't reached "fat" proportions. It really irritates me when my wife's friend lowers my wife's self esteem. My wife already misses her pre-marriage body but she doesn't need anyone to tell her she's fat.

Now this new friend that my wife has begun hanging out with has been wanting to get back to her pre-baby weight but hasn't found the strength of will to do it. My wife has had the same desire for a while too. I've tried to help, but when it comes to exercises men and women have some big differences. My wife doesn't like to work the weights and I feel like a real dink going to an aerobics class of women. So lately this new friend of my wife has been going to the gym with my wife in the evenings while I'm asleep and my wife has been enjoying Yoga and some class called Somba.

I cannot express how happy I am that my wife has found a friend that she can hang out with that builds her up instead of tearing her down. Now I don't have to come up with excuses on why I can't go to Yoga.

Hmmmm, Drugs.

When I was on my mission in Peru an investigator once asked me if it was against the Word of Wisdom to self-medicate. At the time, and to be honest I still feel this way, I told her that for the most part it would be a bad idea, but the exception would be if you know what you have and what needs to be done to treat it. For example I always get an ear infection after I get a cold. Every time. So while I was in Peru and I began to feel the ear infection coming on I would go down to the pharmacy and buy 30 pills of 500 mg of Amoxicillin. I would then take those pills three times a day for 10 days. I knew this because every doctor I have ever known has given me that prescription and to this day that is what they prescribe (since here in the US we can't be trusted to have antibiotics on hand). So I know what I have and what has to be done.

The problem that I've come across lately is the OTC drugs. I don't know, I guess that I've come to take them for granted or at least think that if the government thinks that these are okay enough for any moron to buy then they must be safe. Since I've had a cold these past couple of weeks I've been trying (although not on purpose, or at least not with a full and rested mind) some different cocktails of these drugs and let me tell you. WEEEEEE!!!!! but not the 'weee' as if I want to do it again. Now that I'm finally coming off the cold, I can't sleep, so now I'm tempted to start taking some sleeping pills. It's so easy to fall into take-this-to-feel-better kind of thinking. Personally I don't like to be like that kind of thinking and I would go so far as to say that for me it's against the WOW.

Your a Sick, Sick Man!

Among all of the problems I have one of the most annoying ones is the fact that my body seems to have this problem processing vitamin C. I have to take at least 1000mg of vitamin C a day in order to have the proper amount everyone else seems to have as they go through life. The problem that comes from having this kind of problem is the fact that if I don't keep my vitamin C up then my body will not heal as quickly from daily cuts, scraps and bruises. On top of that it seems that every single strain of Cold out there is put on high alert and is given my home address no matter how many times I wash my hands. Once I get a cold than it's here to stay until I drown myself in fresh (not from concentrate) orange juice.

The big problem is above all, and you think it would be the easiest problem, is remembering that all I have to do is take Vitamin C everyday, especially when I'm sick. Once I start feeling like a normal human being I stop taking the vitamins and in a couple of weeks BAM! I'm sick with a cold and for some odd reason I can't seem to think through my Cold-like stupor that all I need to do is drink lots and lots of fresh (not from concentrate) orange juice. I would hope that my wife would remind me but I don't think she wants to because when I get sick I usually lie around for a while then suddenly I'll get, edgy, and when I get edgy I clean the house. This last round I've gone three weeks with a cold and finally my Mom reminded me to drink orange juice but by then I'd cleaned the living room, our bedroom, my daughter's room, and the downstairs playroom. And when I say cleaned, I mean I put everything away, wiped down the walls and shampooed the carpet. I guess I can't blame my wife for not pointing out the obvious while I'm sick, I'm such a good helper around the house.

Man, I hate being sick.

Attempting to be honest

So a little while ago I ordered some stuff for my bike online, I've done it several times and have never had a problem. When I got this particular package of the two items that I ordered. One of the items was not something I ordered, I was just going to send it back with the proper slip and ask for them to send the right part, but on a whim I called them first. I told them my problem and they said that it was no problem and that they would send the correct part out to me immediately and sorry for the inconvenience. I asked them if they wanted me to send the incorrect part back (secretly I was hoping to keep it because although it was not a part I had ordered I knew that it would certainly come in handy in the future) and they told me not to worry about it.

Now when they asked for the part number for the part that I was suppose to receive I was a little tired so I gave them the wrong number and so yet again they sent me the wrong part, but instead of the wrong part it was a copy of one of the parts I had already received, so I called them again and told them that I had screwed up and that I would be sending the correct part back and if they would please send me the correct part. I filled out the form and sent the repeat part back. A couple of days later I finally got the right part, a couple of days later I got a repeat of the part I just got. I assume that someone saw the form I filled out and assumed that the replacement part hadn't been shipped and then shipped it themselves.

So now here I am with the two right parts I ordered, one part I didn't order, and a repeat of a part that I did order. Sometimes I wish being honest wasn't so time consuming.

Preschool and Kindergarden

My little girl has been going to preschool since she was about a year-and-a-half. You might be thinking 'how does a postal worker pay to have his year-and-a-half old daughter go to a preschool?' Well, welcome to the world of little known government programs and living in a bilingual household. For some reason the public school system hasn't figured out that a child can grow up in a bilingual household and learn to speak both languages just fine. They still seem to think that bilingual children need special help in their language development skills, and as I am not one to turn down cheap additional education for my kids I accepted. I feel sometimes that I should let them in on the joke that kids are quick learners but I'd hate to spoil the surprise.

So my little girl started kindergarten this week and for the very first time she cried when she went to school. After classes she told us that she cried because there were too many kids, 29 to be exact, and the teacher only gets one assistant. My goodness, I knew teachers were underpaid, but this seems to border on the ridiculous. My job isn't easy but I don't have 29 eager smiling faces looking to me to explain the work around them everyday of the week. Heck, I think that babysitters make more money when you break down the kid to guardian ratio. I hate to think that most if not all of these kids have only had home schooling up until now. At least I worry if their parents teach like me, because I have to idea how to teach. I usually just try to explain what I'd doing (or trying to do) and hope that some of it sinks in to my kids. My wife is usually the one that sits down and goes over the basic skills like that. Man, I love that woman.

The Need for Sleep

I'm a grumpy person when I don't get enough sleep. The worse part is that I work at 2:00am so I have to go to bed in the middle of the afternoon, which is really hard when you are out and about with your family and you have to head back home so you can get to bed by 5:00pm, more often then not I can't do it and when I don't do it for a couple of nights my whole sleep schedule gets thrown out of whack and you don't even want to see me on a night (or day?) like that.

The problem is trying to remain calm when I have been running on three to four hours of sleep a night for a couple of nights. I just like spending time playing with my kids and having to say goodnight to them in the middle of the afternoon is gut wrenching, but if I don't get to sleep then I become as my daughter likes to call me 'an ogre'. Unfortunately my wife often gets the blunt end of my ogreness because when I am trying to sleep and the kids are being just kids then I will of course emerge from my cave and ask why she isn't doing more to keep the kids quiet when once I've had some sleep I realize that if I had only gone to bed earlier then the sounds the kids make wouldn't have waken me at all, after all I am a heavy sleeper.

This situation has Catch 22 written all over it. (A fine book I might add if you like dark humor) Miss time with your kids so you can sleep, don't sleep and eventually become grumpy with your kids. If only I didn't want to go back to school and just take a day job.

Problems with bieng bilingual

Most people like to congratulate my wife and I on the fact that we are doing our best to make sure our kids learn English (my native tongue) and Spanish (My wife's native tongue). In fact Spanish is all we speak at home. The problem that my wife and I are having is the constant struggle with our kids' vocabulary. As you can imagine our kids are surrounded by English, the TV, most friends, stores, school and my half of the extended family. Spanish has been grounded to Sunday meetings, some DVD's with the Spanish language track and the home. I will often have to teach my soon-to-be five-year-old daughter the translation of some word in English because if she doesn't know the Spanish equivalent then she will just use the English one. For example, "papa, pajaros tienen wings, no perros" Translation: Dad, birds have wings, not dogs.

I heard some time ago that Socrates said that a man that speaks two languages speaks with two souls. I've tried to verify this quote but to no avail. Nevertheless I like it so I quote it. The problem is that I think that there is an English side of my daughter that I don't know. I don't speak to her in English unless I have to but the other day my mother took my daughter out to go buy a birthday present and the little girl that my Mom described to me didn't sound like the daughter I know.

My Mom congratulated me on the way I was raising my daughter the day after she took her out. I asked why? And my Mom told me that when she took my daughter to Wendy's for lunch she asked her if she wanted apple sauce or french fries, and my daughter asked for apple sauce! Never in her entire life has my daughter ever asked for apple sauce, especially in the face of french fries. My mother also told me how my little girl started to tell her some knock, knock jokes. At this time I cannot express to you my surprise because my daughter has never told me a joke despite all the ones I tell her. I asked my Mom if she had picked up the right little girl.

Suddenly I've discovered that there is a whole other half of my daughter that I never knew. Obviously that Spanish side likes french fries and doesn't tell jokes while the English side eats apple sauce and is a stand-up comedian.

How I came to know.

A dear friend of mine is going through a crisis of faith as he has never had before. I grieves me so that I cannot contain my disappointment with him as he shares with me his slowly degrading faith. I tried time and time again that there are things that are important and that he should spend his time with those things, I for one had a crisis of faith some time ago were I doubted but I will get to that in a minute, but he insisted that the things that he was concentrating on were important at least to him.

I did the standard thing to do in a situation like that and shared with him my testimony but that resulted very little in his way of thinking. I suggested that he return to the basics and study the Book of Mormon again and he stated that he understood the Book of Mormon enough. I cannot express in words how I lament for him at the way he allowed and continues to allow himself to be taken along this way whose path with certainly lead to nothing but more doubt and perhaps the destruction of the things he holds dear.

Some time ago starting before my mission and lasting during it my soul hungered. I had plenty of doubts. Something happened in my mission that I had to deal with on an almost daily basis and what had happened was so disturbing to my mind that my faith was shaken to the very core. For some reason though and I to this day do not remember who or why I was brought to recall the test that Alma tells the people, he tells them to compare the word of the Lord to a seed and plant it in your heart. I knew then that if I was to come to an understanding of whether the church was true and that the Book of Mormon was true I needed to live what was taught. I needed to go all the way and cast aside my disbelief and live what I was teaching, every last bit. Wouldn't you believe it that the words filled my breast as promised, but what I didn't expect was the fact that I didn't realize that my heart had been changed until I asked myself what I believed and when I really began to share it with others.

I wish that I could say from that point on I was as faithful as a member could be, but the fact of the matter is I'm not, I try but I often fail. The difference has become that I know that the church is true, God lives and the Book of Mormon is the word of God. That despite my failures I still know where I need to be heading. I sure hope one day I will be able to work out all the kinks in my life and maybe be a better example for my friend.

The key is to be humble and simply believe

Once upon a time I used to look at things in a very factual light. I would take whatever facts were available at the time and draw conclusions so that I might make informed decisions or at least as informed decisions as I could make at the time. Sounds like a good way to go about things doesn't it? For me at least it wasn't.

You see my wife is quite the character. I love her dearly even though she doesn't always think before she acts. In fact that is one of the many reasons I love her so much. She really is my better half. A problem that kept occurring when we first got married and come up from time to time is that certain unintentional conclusions can be drawn but what she does. Especially when it comes to me. She would do things from time to time that would leave me with the impression that I wasn't important or that the things I would say aren't important. It would drive me crazy while she would say "I don't do it on purpose." My response would usually be "Then try not doing it on purpose!"

This kind of thing continued for quite some time until one day I realized that I was somehow overlooking the fact that she loves me and trying to objectify it. Love cannot be objectified. Shouldn't I be able to take all of her actions and be able to draw the conclusion that she loves me? Why can't I just trust that she loves me and accept any oversights of hers as simple faults?

Once I began to humble myself before my wife did I finally begin to experience a love for her that I had not had before. Some might call it submission but for me it cries of faith.

Guilty as dreamt

I had a dream during my mission that caused me a lot of grief. It really racked my soul and I spent a lot of time trying to understand why I had this kind of dream. I cringe at the idea of writing what kind of dream it was but allow me to say that for a 20-year-old healthy male it shouldn't be a surprise. Yes, go ahead allow your minds to tip a toe into the gutter for a second just so you know what I am talking about. Got it, good.


Anyway, I was fraught with confusion on whether or not I had committed any kind of sin. I worked all day everyday with diligence in my perception and I never taught young women without the appropriate member present and in fact those lustful kind of thoughts never entered my mind during the day. So why did those ideas enter my head at night?

I had a long talk with my Mission President and he assured me that those kinds of dreams are normal for a boy my age and that as long as I was diligent not to occupy my mind with those kinds of thoughts then I would be just fine. I felt the calming presence of the spirit with these words so I knew that when it came to dreams I wouldn't be held accountable. (as long as I didn't concentrate on the content of said dreams)


Fast forward to a time when I'm happily married with two kids. From time to time my wife wakes up very upset with me. Often she will go several hours angry as she can possibly be and in her own passive aggressive way, punish me. I will spend all my mental abilities trying to understand what I did so I could hurry and apologize for it or at least know what to put on the 'I'm Sorry' card when I bring her flowers. Once I can pin my wife down I will find out that I did something in her dream that really upset her. Just the other day I guess I was really flirting with this young woman and I had made her a pair of pants and I was going over to her house to deliver them while my wife stayed home with the kids. She knows that I didn't really do those things but she says she can't help looking at me and remembering the horrible things I did in her dreams.

I guess sometimes I'll be held accountable for what I do in dreams. For the most part my wife will now openly accuse me so I can start apologizing from the time she wakes up in the morning.