Pictures.

Just a large pelican on the pond by my house (click for bigger).

Here's a wider shot of the pond that pelican was swimming on.  It's the smaller of the two ponds in my backyard (click for bigger).

I love where I live.

The Story of Cancelled Church

So... church was cancelled last Sunday.  Not because it was the day after New Year's Day or anything fun like that, but because the firemen told us that we couldn't be in our building that day.

The friendly firemen arrive.  That's me in my new suit, freezing.

There were just a few of us in the building that morning, as we had just started our 7:00 bishopric meeting.  We were sleepily going through our ward business when the fire alarm went off.  Mildly concerned, our bishop sent his first counselor -- "the expendable one" -- to go check it out.  A minute or so later, he came back and said that something didn't smell right and he could hear a 'whooshing' sound.  Not sure what the problem was, we evacuated into the 8-degree morning air.  We didn't see or smell any smoke outside, although I fully expected to see our building burst into flames at any moment.  

Here's an action shot of our bishop, sauntering over to talk to the firemen.

Our bishop spoke with the fire captain, who told him that our fire suppression sprinkler system had malfunctioned somehow.  He said that water and glycol (hence the funny smell) were gushing into our building (hence the 'whooshing' sound).  Bishop came back to us, told us that church was cancelled and that we needed to go home and come back in work clothes to help clean up the mess.  He also instructed his counselor (the expendable one) to call the Relief Society President, the Elders Quorum President, and the High Priest Group Leader so that they could start a phone tree to inform the ward that church was cancelled and to request a handful of men to come with Shop-Vacs to help in the clean up.

Some firemen cleaning up water in the cultural hall, obviously happy that our fire alarm woke them up.

When I got back to the church after changing from my suit into jeans and a sweatshirt, the firemen had shut off the water to the fire sprinkler lines and were already busy squeegeeing (hey, that's a real word, apparently... no red underline to tell me it's misspelled) the hardwood floor in the cultural hall.  Shortly after I took that picture they got a call to go on a real fire, so they had to leave the bulk of the clean up to us.  (As I write this, I'm starting to wonder if maybe they weren't having any fun cleaning up the mess so they made up the fire call as an excuse to leave.  Hmmm...)

A bunch of guys hard at work with their Shop-Vacs.

So about 25 or so guys came over, ready and willing to help clean up the mess.  Then, with all the vacuums running, they started tripping circuit breakers.  Apparently the circuits in that church building weren't designed to have 25 vacuums running at the same time.  Weird.

More guys working hard.  It's a fuzzy picture because I take fuzzy pictures.  I also do weddings.

We got most of the water cleaned up over the course of a few hours.  And then the firemen showed up again to collect the equipment and squeegees they had left when they went to that "other call."

The firemen, returning from the "fire" to collect their stuff.

I went back to the building Tuesday night for another bishopric meeting.  By that time, a professional disaster clean up company had been called.  They had set up a big heat bubble thing in the cultural hall to extract any remaining water from the hardwood floor.  That was pretty cool to see, so of course, I forgot to take a picture of it.  Just imagine a huge sheet of plastic covering the floor, then imagine that sheet of plastic inflated so that it was about 6 feet high at the highest point.  If you are imagining correctly you will be thinking of something like this...

I didn't take this picture.  I found it on the Internet.

...only indoors and not so big and not for tennis.  Anyway, this bubble thing was covering the floor, and they were pumping 120-degree air inside it and sucking water out of the floor.  It was pretty impressive.  

We still don't know if we're going to be able to have church in our building this Sunday.  If the fire suppression sprinklers haven't been fixed and recharged, then we won't be able to meet there.  Also, if the carpets haven't been shampooed yet, then we won't want to meet there, since the rooms that got the worst mess were the nursery and primary rooms.  Maybe we'll have to have church at another building.  If that's the case, then we will probably only have Sacrament Meeting.  And that will be just fine with me!

So that's the story of cancelled church.

Oh yeah, I have one more picture to show.  It's our church building's attic.  I went up there for a few minutes at one point when I wasn't squeegeeing or taking pictures of other people working.  Here it is:

Church attic.  Pretty spectacular, isn't it?

There is joy once again in America!

Do you hear the trumpets heralding in a new era?


The reign of terror is over!


The unholy monopoly has ended!


The heinous rationing of happiness that has for so long been unfairly imposed on Americans far and wide is done!

I am, in a word. . . Happy!

Keebler and their lovable elves are on my Christmas card list because they are now selling these little beauties:

YOU:  Wait! Those 'Coconut Dreams' look an awful lot like the 'Samoas' that the Girl Scouts sell.

ME: By golly, you're right!  And they taste just like 'em, too!  And for less money!  (Insert giddy laugh here).  Now do you see why I am so happy?  Just look at them and try not to salivate:

Yum.

No longer do I have to wait for that single time of year when little girls peddle their overpriced and stingily-packed baked goods to the American public.  Now I can have the goodness of chocolate, caramel, and toasted coconut -- combined with a cookie crunch -- any time I please!

Hooray!

What took Freddie Keebler and his elves so long to start making these Coconut Dreams, I'll never know, because they have been selling their version of Girl Scouts' Thin Mints for quite some time.  And in my humble opinion, the Keebler Grasshopper cookies are much better than those Thin Mints.  Maybe it's because they cost less, maybe it's because they're available any day of the week at my grocery store (except Sunday... they're closed on Sunday), or maybe it's just because they actually taste better.

Whatever the reason, I don't care.  I have found my new happiness, and it comes in a package with an adorable elf on it.

Say what you will about how dastardly it is for a big business like Keebler to compete with an innocent non-profit organization such as the Girl Scouts.  It's not dastardly... it's not nefarious... it's not even a little icky.  It's smart business!  Believe me, the Girl Scouts brought this on themselves.  If they didn't have such delicious cookies, Keebler wouldn't even try to compete with them.  If their cookies weren't laced with secret ingredients that make you crave them fortnightly, forcing you to eat (against your better judgement) ALL 12 BOXES you bought from the dealer little girl down the street -- you know, the 12 boxes that were supposed to last the entire year (or at least longer than a month), making you crave them all the more, when you can't possibly buy more because it's not "Girl Scout Cookie Season" anymore so you resort to searching eBay for some black-market cookies that you know aren't going to fully satisfy your craving, but you buy them anyway because you have to have your fix, and that little Suzie Mae or whatever the @#$& her name is has seemingly disappeared, leaving you acting like you're detoxing, you know, with the shakes and the nervous twitches and the -- WHERE IS THAT LITTLE TRAMP WITH MY COOKIES!?

Where was I?

Oh yeah.  The Girl Scouts brought it on themselves.

To sum up:
Keebler = Smart
Girl Scouts = Not so innocent
Coconut Dreams = Delicious!

One way? Nah... it's MY way!

A few years ago (like nine years ago), my wife and I and a bunch of friends took a trip to Hawaii.  We rented a van so that we could all drive together on the island, and since I was the oldest I was elected to be chauffeur.  Lucky me.

One night we were driving around Honolulu, looking for a specific restaurant.  I was at the wheel, and we were all on the lookout.  Someone noticed that we had just passed it, and so I turned down a side street so that I could turn around and find a place to park.  If you've ever been to Honolulu, you may know that there are a lot of one-way streets in the city.  A lot.

After turning down this particular road, I immediately noticed all the cars that were parked on the street were facing me.  Crud... wrong way on a one-way.  Luckily, there wasn't much traffic on this side street, but I immediately noticed a car coming towards us.  I decided I would pull over, wait for it to pass, and then I would turn around and no one would be the wiser.  As the car approached, however, I realized that it was one of the fine Honolulu Police vehicles, and that it was slowing down so the officer could have a little chat with me.  Just my luck.  Of all the streets in Honolulu, I chose to drive the wrong way down one that had a police officer on patrol.  He pulled up next to us, and we had the following conversation:

Him: Good evening, sir.  Are you from out of town?  (Gee... wonder how he guessed that?)

Me: Yes, Officer.  We made a wrong turn.

Him: Yes, you did.  Where are you from?  (At this point he was poking his head into the van to see how many of us there were and, no doubt, to see if there was any trace of an alcohol smell.)

Me: We're from Utah.

Him: Utah?  Are you Mormons?

Me: Yes, sir, we are. (I'm also an idiot, but thanks for not pointing that out.)

Him: Go to BYU?

Me: Some of us do.

Him: (Chuckling) Well, you're obviously not drunk, so have a nice evening and pay closer attention to the road signs from now on.

Okay, now fast forward a few years in my life to just a couple of years ago.  The end of tax season for me perfectly aligned with the end of winter semester for my wife.  Since this rarely happens, we decided to take full advantage of the timing, and we planned a trip to Williamsburg, Virginia, and the surrounding area.  It was one of our most favorite trips we've taken.

One of the friends we went to Hawaii with -- Camille -- lived in D.C. at the time, and we arranged a day when we could meet up with her and spend some time together.  We decided to spend much of the day in Richmond, Virginia, taking in many of the Civil War and Revolutionary War historical sites.  We met her at a shopping center parking lot, and she rode with us for the day.

At some point in the day, we were looking for the Maggie Walker National Historic Site.  I had directions and I had the address, and we were driving around Richmond trying to find it.  As we were moving along a street, we noticed we passed it so I turned onto a side street to turn around and find a place to park.

Yep.  One way.  The wrong way.

This time (thankfully) there wasn't a policeman to discuss the situation with.  There wasn't even another person within eyesight to see what a moron of a driver I am.  That was nice, especially because we discovered that Maggie Walker was closed that day.  It would have been a shame to get a ticket on a wasted effort.

To my recollection, those are the only two times that I have gone the wrong way on a one-way street.  I think Camille might be bad luck.

Spam

Like everyone in the world who has an email address, I am not immune to spam.  On a side note, I wish I was immune to SPAM... that stuff is nasty!  A girl that used to work in my office would eat it at least once a week.  She'd slice it and microwave it and stink up the entire office.  Yuck.  At Scout Camp when I was a kid, SPAM was on the lunch menu on Thursdays.  Every year.  Lunch on those days would have been much happier for me -- and more satisfying -- if I was immune to SPAM.

But I digress.

Today's post is not about Hormel Foods' atrocities... although I do feel they should be tried for their crimes against humanity.  How else could I say this?  If Hormel was President, they'd be impeached because of their High Crimes and Misdemeanors.  If we both were in the Old West, I think I probably would have led the mob that ran Hormel out of town on a rail.

You: Wow, for a post that is not about SPAM, you are devoting an awful lot of screen space to the product.

Me: You're correct: it is awful.  Moving on...

No, today's post is about spam... those annoying messages that fill your inbox, in the hopes that maybe you will click on a link and give up personal information, or buy some crappy product, or infect your computer with a virus or other nastiness.  I see a correlation here: crappy products... infecting you with nastiness... that HAS to be why they call it spam!  So much like Hormel's canned cr....

You: Again with the SPAM?

Me: Sorry.

Anyway, most of the spam that is sent to me gets filtered straight to my junk folder where it is nicely corralled and sent to oblivion.  Every few days, I'll skim through that folder to make sure no important messages are accidentally filtered there.  I get the usual garbage... ads for numerous pills and supplements to enlarge various bits-n-pieces... products to help me reach my financial goals... cruise deals... timeshares... messages in broken English that purport to be from a national bank of which I am not a customer... you know, the usual.

Lately, though, I've noticed I've started to get a lot of Russian spam.  Written in Russian.  Like this:
Вам нужна хорошая, качественная реклама?
According to Google Translate, this says, "You need a good, high-quality advertising?"

Or this:
изучите английский за неделю до путешествия! 
Which means, "Learn English for a week before the trip!"

Yep.  Little ol' American me, getting ads for some Russian to teach me English or take care of my advertising.

The latest -- and perhaps most intriguing -- spam I've received came just yesterday, and it was sent straight to my inbox, not my junk folder.  It's written in Danish.  Here it is:

konfektkage

  

1500 g kranse xx

14 æg

675 g sukker

350 g nøddeflager

675 g chokolade i små stykker eller knapper

350 g blødt smør

4,5 tsk. bagepulver

Det hele røres sammen, puttes i bradepande, 180 grader i 30-40 min.

Looks like I'm now getting recipe spams.  (NOT recipes for SPAM, mind you.  All of those should be properly and promptly destroyed).

As near as I can figure, it's a recipe for something called candy cake.  There are 14 eggs involved.  And more than 5 cups of sugar.  I don't know what nøddeflager is, but it sounds delicious.  It looks like there is chocolate involved somehow, so that's a good sign.  Kranse translates to 'wreaths.'  I'm not really sure what that's all about, but you add some soft butter and baking powder and bake it for 30-40 minutes.

Even with the 14 eggs and tons of sugar, this recipe spam is bound to be a healthier choice than eating actual SPAM.

Enjoy your sugary-chocolaty-egg-wreaths!

Guilty Pleasures

I did something last night that I'm not proud of.  But it was fun and made me feel good, so that makes it okay, right?  I don't know if I'll do it again; I haven't thought that far in advance.  I try to be a good person, but sometimes temptations get the best of me.  So what if people judge me for it?  I know who I am, right?  I know I'm generally a good person, but this is really eating at me, and I just need to tell someone.  I hope that you won't judge me too harshly when I tell you what I did.

I went here last night on my way home from work:

I went there for a birthday party.  For my sister-in-law.  She's 27.  Yep.  I think it's been about 25 years since I've been to Chuck-E-Cheese's.  I really didn't know what I was missing.  Okay, I definitely knew what I was missing, and I was okay with that.

Anyway, my SIL (as I notice people write nowadays) went to Chuck-E-Cheese's many years ago, and she had really fond memories of it, so she told her husband that she wanted to go there for her birthday.  My brother-in-law can be a good sport with his wife, so he agreed.  Then he and one of his wife's co-workers arranged a small surprise party there.

She loved it!

By the time I got there at about 9:15, the place was pretty empty.  Other than our little group, there was a family who was finishing up their party (their kids looked exhausted from so much fun) and there was a couple who came with their little baby (I guess they love the over-priced pizza and the chance to trade tickets for trinkets?).

Like I said earlier, it was actually pretty fun.  For one thing, the band was awesome!

And I did get to play skee-ball, which is my favorite ticket-dispensing game of all time.  I remember playing that at the 49th Street Galleria whenever I went there as a kid.  I'm realizing I need more skee-ball in my life.

Chuck-E and the gang even sang happy birthday and did the whole song and dance number for her.  I really felt sorry for those workers, but hey... it's what they're paid for, right?

I neglected to mention that my BIL and SIL don't have kids.  My wife and I were joking with her brother that when they do have kids, the kids are going to outgrow Chuck-E-Cheese's a lot sooner than their mom will.  We imagine my SIL's 40th birthday will go something like this:

The kids will be saying, "Dad, we're tired of going to Chuck-E-Cheese's..."

And he'll reply, "Shut up and humor your mother!  You WILL go to Chuck-E-Cheese's tonight and you WILL pretend to have fun!  When the guy in the suit says 'Happy' you WILL say 'Birthday' and clap your hands."

Then the kids will say, "Do we have to hug Chuck-E?"

"No, don't be ridiculous."

And we we went on and on.  Because we're hilarious like that.

Anyway, the whole experience was... um... what's the word?  Oh, maybe I'm at a loss for words... or there just might be too many words to describe it right now.  Whatever.


So, yeah.  We closed down Chuck-E-Cheese's last night.  We are a bunch of wild and crazy people!

Here Comes Santa Claus...

So far this Christmas season, I have gone to two events dressed as Santa Claus.  This is a little odd, because I'm not what you would describe as a "jolly old elf."  I'm 32 (not old).  Jolly?  Okay, I've been known to have a good time, but I'm not really so jolly.  I do have a bit of a belly, and it might jiggle a little when I laugh, but definitely not "like a bowl full of jelly."
So how did I get these two Santa gigs?

One word: Family.

My dad owns a Santa suit and used to play Santa before his head injury a few years ago.  My mom made me a fat suit when I was in high school (that's a story for a different day).  Add these two bits of costume together, and voilà!  A recipe for success.

My brother, who of course knows about the Santa suit and the fat suit, is on the activities committee in his LDS ward, and so he was involved in planning their annual Christmas party.  He asked me to come make a visit to his ward Christmas breakfast party thing.  So I put on my fat suit, and my dad's Santa suit, and my jolliest of moods, and this is what resulted:

(That's my awesome wife on my lap.)

The next day, I got a phone call from my dad.  He said their ward Christmas party had to be changed to a new night and the Santa they had originally arranged couldn't make it on the new night.  He talked to someone on their activities committee and kinda volunteered me to show up to their party, so he was calling me to see if I would be available.  So I gladly donned the costume and reprised my role.

So I got to be Santa for a bunch of kiddos in Utah.  It was really fun.  And yes... it's VERY HOT in all that getup, but playing Santa has been one of the most fun things I've done.  It's a great feeling to enter a room and have people cheer and clap because you're there.  Even if it's not really *you* they're cheering.  Then to have kids line up and crowd around you with such anticipation.  Sure, there's a bit of pressure there, but you're Santa, so it's all good.

The little kids that are about 3 to 7 years old or so are SO DANG CUTE!  Most of them would eagerly, and somewhat shyly, climb onto my lap for their little interview.  I would ask them their name, and they would tell me, while staring deeply into my eyes.  I would ask if they've been good, and they would earnestly tell me they have been.  Then I would ask them what they would like for Christmas.  Some knew exactly what they wanted and were so excited to tell me.  Others would sit there for a moment, deep in thought, before telling me their greatest Christmas wish.  Then I'd give them a little treat -- a candy cane or whatever -- and send them on their way with a pat on the back and a "Merry Christmas!"

Some kids were very nice, and brought Santa a gift of their own.  I got a cookie from one little boy, hand-colored pictures from a couple other boys, and a jingle bell on a ribbon from a little girl.  So cute!

There were a few kids that were so excited to have Santa near them, that they just hung around, watching.  Santa would be busy with other kids, but out of the corner of my eye, I would see a few kids lingering in awe, hoping for a chance to talk to Santa again.  Then when it was time to leave, these same kids would follow Santa to the door and wave at him while he left.

My small role as Santa was a heart-warming experience, and my favorite part was the kids that would just stare into my eyes with such wonder.

Merry Christmas!