Crazy Linguist

White House, New House / Red House, Blue House

2009-09-16T20:37:00.003+07:00

Yeah, I know it's been a while. Work has been quite busy lately (surprising for this time of year) and Kristen and I have been house hunting. Most of you know already that we had an offer on a house and got about half way through the process before it fell through (they had the house listed improperly which affected how we could finance). Anyway, so we're back at the house hunting and have an offer on another house. I hope I'm not jinxing it by mentioning it. I'll knock on some wood. Anyway, everything looks a lot more straightforward with this one so we think it will go through and we'll have a house!!! More to come.

So, changing the subject entirely - I don't get what the big deal is about the President calling Kanye West a "jackass." Seriously, this is a big deal?? He thought he was off the record and called it as he saw it. Honestly, I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone he didn't agree that Kanye West was a bit of a . . . well, jackass. I actually love that the President is not a stuffy old man but a pretty normal guy.

Some of you well know that my kids and food dyes do not mix well. I know that some people kind of find it interesting while others just think we're nuts. Trea is starting to be less affected but Adia will wake up wake up screaming and basically inconsolable in the middle of the night if she's had food dye in the evening. I found that there are a number of groups that are seeking to get a number of food dyes banned in the US because they are linked to hyperactivity and affected children's behavior. The British government has already banned many of these food dyes.Check this out: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/109838.php and this http://www.cspinet.org/
So, if your kids act kind of strange sometimes, try experimenting to see if the culprit might be food dyes. I'm actually starting to notice that dyes affect me as well - especially Reds and Blues. This especially sucks because I'm trying to get off of soda and was switching to Crystal Light powder when I really started noticing it. Nearly all of their flavors have food dyes -- doesn't add anything of value - just color. Anyway, I'll step down from my soapbox now.

No Line on the Horizon

2009-04-18T09:56:00.011+07:00

All right I know you've all been dying to hear my unbiased thoughts about the new U2 album. Well, tax season has finally ended and I have a moment to sit down and type. This isn't as polished as I would like but I'm going to post it anyway.

No Line on the Horizon

When a band like U2 goes off the radar and into the studio after two smashing albums let's just say expectations are high. When that band takes three years or more - expections are really high. Unlike a lot of acts, taking time is one luxury that U2 has. I mean, they're aren't going away after as long and big as they've been. Fans will wait for U2.

So to open the door to their new album the band released the first single, "Get on Your Boots" in January. My first listen was catching the last half of the song on the radio while driving. I've got to admit - it wasn't really what I had hoped for/expected. After powerful openers like "Beautiful Day" and "Vertigo" from their most recent albums Boots just didn't seem to measure up. For the first time I started getting really nervous about where the new album could be headed. "Is this really the best song from the album?" I thought. Come on, you've got to figure a band that's been out of the scene for a few years is going to want to bring their best on the opening single - right? Fortunately, the answer in this case is no. I've got to think that they picked Boots based on its mainstream appeal. Most of the album, though wonderful, doesn't quite say "mainstream" as much as Boots does. With a few more listens the song grew on me but still lacked depth and remains one of the albums more forgettable songs.

Now - on to the album:

As most of you likely know, the album was leaked on the internet a few weeks before its official release date. Leaks are starting to be the norm it seems these days. With the leak, the band made the decision to go ahead and begin streaming the full album on MySpace. As such, my first listen to the album was streaming over the internet. I believe I was working late and listened at work - big mistake. No, I didn't get in trouble. I've since realized that this album is not an album for a casual listen - you have to sit down and really listen to it to appreciate it. Its like a good symphony - when you sit down and really listen, it comes alive.

I thought about putting together a little bit about each of the tracks on the album - but as I've working on this post for over two weeks now I'll just highlight a few.

1. The album opens with the title track No Line on the Horizon. A powerful but subtle song. A lot of the work on the album was recorded in Morocco. The Moroccan influence is immediately recognizable with Edge's bending notes and Bono's fluctuating falseto on the title track. Unlike the previous two opening tracks (Beautiful Day and Vertigo) this song is not a blast to the face - it's powerful but subtle. Beautiful Day was a right hook that knocked you down and dragged you into "All That You Can't Leave Behind" whereas No Line on the Horizon is an outstretched hand inviting you to take the journey that is the album.

2. Magnificent: You've likely heard this track on the radio as it's the album's second single. This really should have been the first single instead of Boots. The bass line that opens this song is awesome. The music video for this song is transcendant. It comepletely captures the song's mood and beauty. If you haven't seen it go to U2.com (or Youtube) and check it out. You will not be disappointed. Unrelated: the video for Get on Your Boots was aweful.

3. Moment of Surrender: Pretty lengthy clocking in at over seven minutes but it doesn't seem like a seven minute song.

4. Unknown Caller: Interesting Greek chorus.

5. I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight: Kind of a long, lame sounding title but this track is one of my favorites from the album. Not exactly sure why as the lyrics aren't all that profound. "Everybody needs to cry or needs to spit / Every sweet tooth needs just a little hit" or the Bono-esque "The right to be ridiculous is something I hold dear." I guess it's the classic U2 optimism that gets me on this one:

Chorus:

It’s not a hill, it’s a mountain
As you start out the climb
Do you believe me or are you doubting?
We’re gonna make it all the way to light
But I know I’ll go crazy if I don’t go crazy tonight

6. Get on Your Boots

7. Stand Up Comedy

8. Fez-Being Born: The intro to this song is a bit strange but the emotion in this song is real. Bono doesn’t actually start singing lyrics until nearly two minutes into the song.

A speeding head, a speeding heart
I'm being born, a bleeding start

9. White As Snow

10. Breathe: This was the first song the band played live on their week with David Letterman. The band really knocked it out of the park with their performance and let everyone know that they could still bring it in a live performance.

11. Cedars of Lebanon: This song too takes a number of listens to really appreciate. U2 has a way of creating a feel for a city. It’s kind of an interesting phrase but most people have been to a city that has a feel – Memphis, Paris, Tokyo, Barcelona, New Orleans. U2 captured the feel of the city with songs like Miami and New York. On a similar thread, by the time Cedars of Lebanon wraps up you can feel what Beirut is like.

Overall impression:

I'd have to say that "No Line on the Horizon" when compared to the previous two albums is lyrically weaker but musically stronger. Not to say that the lyrics are bad but they pale in comparison to songs like, Beautiful Day, Walk On, Peace on Earth, Grace, Miracle Drug, Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own, and One Step Closer; to name a few. Of course, if you've never really paid attention to the magnitude of the lyrics of these songs you might not notice. My claim for musical superiority is this: "All That You Can't Leave Behind" and "How to Dismantle and Atomic Bomb" had all the musical parts perfectly meshed for a quality sound. However, each piece doesn't really have the footing to stand on its own. That's where "No Line on the Horizon" is different; every piece of this masterwork is itself a fully fleshed out solo that can stand on its own is merit.

I'm interested to see how the tour goes. Seems like the last two albums were put together with a mindset on being able to play them live. "No Line on the Horizon" seems to be a departure from that mindset. As mentioned, Breathe sounded great on Letterman but a lot of the songs really stretch Bono's range and that may not translate to the best live vocal performances. Musically, however, the band will sound amazing live on these songs.

Go listen to the album (again) - do it for me.

Here we go again

2009-02-13T10:27:00.002+07:00

What to say, what to say. Seems like it's been ages since my last post but it's been just over a month -- not bad for me. Well, busy season has officially begun. Back to getting in early and leaving late at night again :-). Actually, I'm in the office as I write this - not on the clock but still here. Things are getting interesting though. A few days after my last post one of my bosses was laid off along with a few other people in the office. Actually, the girl who sat right across from me, whose held the same position as I do with more time at the company was let go as well. Stupid economic downturn!! So, things have been on and off stressful. Then, another one of my supervisors tells me that I need to be more proactive and stop keeping to myself so much. Ouch! Yeah I was kind of hurt when she told me but really, she had a point. I've made a point of being more upbeat and social. I don't know if she's noticed but I feel a lot happier at work. This past week I had my midyear review and people had good things to say about me. As of two weeks ago I got shuffled around a bit - taken off a larger engagement and put on to two smaller ones. I miss the team that I worked with but I always like a fresh start and new challenges. I realize I just wrote a whole lot of stuff about work. I guess, when you're at work so much that's where you focus kind of is.

Kristen and I are seriously thinking about purchasing a home this year. We've actually done some looking with an agent and even put an offer on a house - don't figure it will be accepted but hey can't hurt. Although there are plenty of things that suck about the economy right now one good thing is that it's pretty ideal if you are trying to buy a home (not so much for people trying to sell - just ask Zimm).

I'm really, really, really starting to feel all grown up - a car payment, maybe a house, a real job, kids, etc. I'll be 30 next month. Wow! I don't feel old - just grown up. It's actually kind of cool. Too bad I don't act grown up -- just ask my wife. She's says I still act like I'm 12!!

As you might have guessed I'm extremely excited about the new U2 album coming out next month. I know that the new single (Get on Your Boots) isn't exactly their best work ever but I like it. It actually took me a few listens before I liked it. So if you don't like it you need to give it a few more listens. The single they put out for Christmas was fabulous though. Anyway, I'm sure there will be some awesome tracks on the album.

You may also be interested to know that I am the Eco Care Champion for our office. My former supervisor (the one who was let go) actually asked me if I would do it. That's right -- me! I'm actually really enjoying it. Some of Kristen's hippie-Commie views have rubbed off on me. (I'm just kidding sweetheart). Together we've been trying to do little things here and there to be more green.

I've started to realize how much of a dork I am. I really enjoy playing around with Excel and teaching myself new things. Using internet forums and trial-and-error I've taught myself quite a bit about Excel VBA and have put together some pretty sweet (and time saving) macros for work. If you've got something you want put together let me know as I would love the challenge of figuring out how to do it. Just wait until after April 15 though.

Random Thoughts

2009-01-04T13:37:00.004+07:00

Well, the fact of the matter is that I need to blog more often. I know that someone's gotta enjoy reading what I have to say. I mean I really enjoy it when my friends post. Joel you are an inspiration. Obviously I'm awful at following through but you do inspire me to want to post more. Despite the lack of posting I have had a lot going on the past few months. I'll just give you some highlights along with some other random thoughts for you to enjoy.

The curse has been broken!!! For those of you who don't know -- our car was cursed. It's had numerous mechanical problems since last November when we bought it for $4,000. In less than a year we put nearly $4,000 into repairs and that was just engine stuff. The auto locks didn't work and as such we were really bad at locking it at night (stupid). Consequently, the radio was stolen and on a separate occasion someone rifled through the glovebox but took nothing (as there was nothing in the car worth taking). Now, did we learn from these experiences? -- no! Our car was broken into again and this time stolen last month. If you want more details you can read about it on Kristen's blog. Anyway, we got it back about 24 hrs. after it was taken with no damage -- only our carseats were gone. Things seemed to be going back to normal. We had an enjoyable Christmas. We drove to my parents house Christmas Eve and spent the night. Christmas with small kids is so much fun. Adia had opened two gifts and decided that she was done with opening presents. I don't know why we got her more but we did. Anyway, back to the car -- I totalled it the day after Christmas. It snowed a ton on Christmas day and I had to go in to work the day after. The car I crashed into didn't have a ton of damage but our piece of junk was done for. When the collision center called with the estimate it was $8,000 and the mechanic emphasized that it was by no means final as there were areas of the engine he couldn't even access. I hope you aren't bored to tears; I realized I'm kind of rambling. So, we spent the weekend after Christmas car shopping. We bought a 2005 charcoal Toyota Camry and are loving it. We decided to bite the bullet and get a newer car that will hopefully have a lot of life left in it before we have to start doing a lot of repairs. I love driving it. It's nice to have "luxuries" like a stereo and automatic locks that work. Doesn't feel like it cursed yet - but it's probably too early to tell.

Random:

The Utah-Alabama game was awesome. I can't even begin to describe how awesome that game was. Utah didn't just beat Alabama but totally dominated them. I always love to see the underdog win especially when everyone pretty much writes them off.

Wall-E.: I know a lot of people didn't care for this movie but I LOVED IT!! I think it's actually my favorite Pixar movie. I know I'm going to take some heat for this but whatever. Had I watched it prior to Christmas I probably would have asked for it. I thought it was amazing how they could take a movie about two robots falling in love with hardly any dialogue and make it so universal.

Welcome 2009!!

A bed to call my own.

2008-11-03T12:27:00.003+07:00

Yeah, so I've set a goal to blog once a month. No, I'm not off to a great start for November but meant to do so in October (although I didn't really make the goal until about the 20th). I know, once a month sounds really bad but considering that I'm currently doing much less than that it is an improvement. Work is going well, although with the current economic situation things are getting tighter at the firm. Overtime is restricted unless approved by a partner. I'm not worried about losing my job yet, but things are getting different. I'm on the Christmas Party planning committee and we haven't panned the party or had to cut back too much so that's good. I'm still really enjoying my job.
This week was a pretty good one although I had a dentist appointment Wednesday morning and completely forgot about it until I got to the office - such an idiot! The rest of that day was kind of more of the same. Friday Kristen brought the kids to my office for our office Halloween activity and then they got to go trick-or-treating.
This morning I had an interview with a member of the Stake Presidency and . . . I'm now the assistant ward clerk (financial). I think it will be a good fit for me - pretty much only Sundays, doesn't require a whole lot of time, or being extremely outgoing. Looks like it might interfere with us going down to my parents' place on Sundays. Hopefully, we'll still be able to going some. Our meeting time will change in January and I think that we should be able to go down then.
Sports - Most of you know that I love to watch sports but I rarely blog about it. I've got to say that the Texas-Texas Tech game yesterday was one heck of a game!
I almost forgot to mention one of the greatest things about the week. Trea has slept in her own bed in her room for the past two nights (tonight will be the third)!!! The most surprising thing is that when Trea has woken up in the middle of the night and come into our room instead of asking to crawl into bed with us, she asks one of us to come in and lay by her. -- Awesome! So, so far it's been going well and I am loving having my bedroom back and being able to sleep next to my wife again. Hopefully, she'll get used to it and we won't have a big fight.

You want to give me more money too?

2008-09-18T12:34:00.004+07:00

He lives!!!

Well, I obviously suck at at blogging. Honestly I've thought about it many times but don't ever sit down to do it. I've realized one of my main problems - I'm a perfectionist. I don't want to sit down and write unless I can come up with something coherant, have something interesting and it all fits together. Anyway, I'm going to attempt to just forget about all that and just write whether things are exciting or boring.

Also, for those of you out there with blogs - I do read them. I don't often comment but I do get on and read.

Well, life carries on. I'm still enjoying my job. It continues to be a wonderful and rewarding experience. Today, I was informed that I got a raise!!! When I signed on with E&Y my offer letter stated that I wouldn't be eligible for a raise until October of 2009. So this raise was a fantastic surprise. It wasn't huge -- 2.6%. I guess that normal merit raises can be as high as 25%!!! I assume that 25% is rare but still, possibilities are pretty nice. It's nice to be appreciated and shown such. As I'm still learning and continue to make mistakes, it's nice to know that I'm doing well and not at risk of being fired.

Trea and Adia continue to be wonderful. Adia loves to communicate and smile and laugh. Her vocabulary is huge - between the signing and speaking. Yesterday I was just joking around and tried to talk Trea in Thai. She's forgotten everything. It's kind of sad. :-( I have so much fun with them - they love to laugh and daddy can usually make them laugh. I love to come home from work and they both get so excited when I walk through the door. - Daddy!!!

Seems like I had more to write but it's now midnight and I need to get to bed so that I can make it on time to work.

So, hopefully I can just sit down and write even short posts. It's funny, because I almost (without thinking) signed off on this post with

Regards,
John

because I'm so used to writing it at the end of emails. Anyway, that's it for now. Don't leave me for dead - just yet.

So this is what it's like to be an adult

2008-05-11T03:25:00.005+07:00

Okay, I get it I'm a slacker and need to get on and post every once in a while. Seriously though, things were really crazy for a while there. We had moved into our new apartment I was at a new job and it was tax season. In my department at E&Y from about the middle of January until April 15 things are insane! Most weeks for me were 60-65 hours while most of the other employees were working more like 70-75. Needless to say, when I got home at 9 or 10 most nights, getting on and blogging was the last thing on my mind.

I really enjoy my job. I've been doing a lot of learning and growing and the perks are awesome. Let me give you some examples:

During busy season we work a lot of nights and Saturdays - Saturday mileage can be expensed, we get reimbursed for meals on night we work past 7:30, Saturday lunches are reimbursible. After 4/15 we had an afternoon where we had lunch and got to go to a movie on the firm and we got paid for the time. On Friday 5/2 we had an afternoon dodgeball game - paid time. Another time we had lunch paid by the firm followed by golf (we had to pay for the golf) on company time. Donuts and bagels every other Friday morning. I got paid to go to the doctor the other day. We've gone out for ice cream or other treats on at least three different occasions. These are just some of the perks of my job.

The people that I work with are great and there are lots of opportunities for growth. I was recently put on a new client in the Pacific Northwest Area. I don't know if I should mention the names of clients or not so I won't. Needless to say, it's a large company that you have doubtless heard of. I figure that I must not be screwing up too badly or they wouldn't have put me on this account. I got to fly out to San Jose for a couple of days to meet the engagement team there and for some training. It was all business but it's still kind of fun to travel. I wouldn't want to do it all the time but occasionally is nice.

For those of you who haven't heard, Kristen is working part time again. She is preparing ESL lessons for adults. She doesn't actually teach but just puts together the lessons for volunteers to teach. It's really kind of a dream job for her. Right now she works Tue. and Thur. nights with some other time that she hasn't really nailed down. It's a good opportunity for her and she is really enjoying the challenge.

For the first time since we've been married, I'm actually going to do something for my wife on mother's day. I've been a really crappy husband in past years. This year (tonight in fact) we are going out to dinner, to the opera, and I got her a jewelry box. It's a surprise! Well, she knows we're going out and that I got her something but that's it. I'm so excited.

Just the other day our car had some troubles so we took it in and had a huge bill with all the things that needed to be repaired. I hate shelling out money to get the car fixed!! I know it's necessary but I still hate it.

The kids are doing good. Trea is still being a good older sister to Adia. I'm always amuzed by what kids pick up from their parents. The other day, I was going out to get the mail and Trea wanted to come. I walked out and said, "Come on, hurry up." She yelled out the door, "Be patient!"

We're looking forward to our next adventure - buying a house. It's still a bit off (as we're in a lease until February at the earliest) but we're thinking and dreaming ahead. It's exciting to think that it's even a possibility.

PS - Joel, I'm happy for you that your Jayhawks won but had they lost I could have won $75, so I was kind of bummed.

Life has been really great for us lately.

Some recent pics.:

Make your move.

2008-02-17T03:06:00.003+07:00

So far the job is going really well. The trip for firmwide orientation was fun. The actual orientation was pretty boring -- just a lot of sitting around but at least it was in a different city (one I'd never been to before). The hotel was in downtown San Francisco and was super-nice. It was only about four blocks from the Ernst & Young SF office. Unfortunately we didn't get to get out much and see anything but I still had a good time.

So, here I am at the end of my second week and I'm still alive. Actually I'm really enjoying the job so far. The company seems like a great place to work and the environment is great. I know it's not the most convenient time to start because it's US tax season and things are already pretty hectic. My trainer is trying to train me but also stay on top of her things and it's kind of difficult for her. Today is Saturday and I think that a good portion of my co-workers are working today. In fact, I'm kind of thinking that this could be my last Saturday off for a while. They say that this time of year I'll probably be putting in 60-70 hrs. a week. As I mentioned in my last past -- at least I'll get paid overtime. I actually got my first paycheck in the mail yesterday -- that was exciting!!! I put in 48 hrs. this week and I'm not even working Saturdays. I don't enjoy not seeing my kids though. There were two entire days where I didn't see Adia because I left before she was up and was home after she was asleep. I realize I'm not the only one who has to do this but I still don't like it.

I don't even know if I can explain what exactly it is that I do. Even if I could it would bore you all to tears. Let's just say that so far, I manage an inbox and get assignments to the right people so they can do their stuff. Most of my work has to do with employees of clients that are on assignments abroad and have taxes in multiple countries. I get the name of the individual and the countries they've worked in for the particular year and get it to other members of my team (who are all over the US). I do have some different assignments forthcoming but I don't really know yet.

Another great thing is that we get food all the time. Every other Friday is pastries / bagels / fruit day. Any time we have a meeting we get food. I really enjoy it but I have a feeling it's going to take it's toll on the waistline. I've only done my own lunch twice in the past two weeks.

We are moving to Salt Lake this coming Friday. Although actually I won't be doing a whole lot of the moving because I'll be at work. My mom, dad, and Kristen will be doing the majority of it. We are actually moving back to the apartment complex that we lived in before we left for Maryland and then Thailand. We've come full circle. We were originally going to move in on the 8th of March but the tenents moved out in mid-February so the manager said that we could move in. It's been a real blessing to live with my parents since we got back but we're really excited about having our own place again.

Thanks for reading.

Work?

2008-01-25T06:55:00.000+07:00

Well, here we go -- it's already nearing the end of January and I'm just getting to my first post of the new year. I am off to such a great start. Despite the bad start in the blogosphere I'm off to a fantastic start in the careerosphere. That's right folks, Johnny's finally going to start a real job!!! Wednesday I was offered a position with Ernst & Young. If you don't know who they are shame on you. They are one of the "big four" accounting firms in the US. Yes, I'm beginning a career in a field that has nothing to do with my major but I think a lot of people do that. Being a global company they offer competetive salaries and great benefits. I start on Feb. 4. My first three days are orientation. Day one in the SLC office and then they are flying me out to California for days two and three. I don't know why but I think that is so cool. The job will require some crazy hours for about six weeks around tax season (like 60-70 hrs.) but they'll reimburse me for the overtime. You would not believe how excited I am about this. I feel like I won the lottery. I got my offer letter via FedEx yesterday and signed it and sent it back (FedEx). I'll be working at The Gateway in SLC. It's pretty much downtown. So now Kristen and I have the exciting task of finding a place. It's really fun and exciting but at the same time really overwhelming. We're going to rent (probably an apartment or condo) for a year or two and save up for a down payment on a house and hopefully (fingers crossed) then we can get into a home.

You know, it might be kind of long but I'd like to share the story of how I actually got this job. Things just really fell into place and I firmly believe that the Lord had a hand in this one. At Kristen's request I signed up with a temp. company just before Thanksgiving. It's a good thing I did because they had an assignment the following week for me to start. At that assignment there were two other temps working with me. We got to talking about the job search and one of them mentioned that I ought to look into going through a recruiting company (he gave me the name of the one he had used before). This is something that I had no knowledge about and would never have come up with on my own. Anyway, I scheduled an appointment and met with one of the recruiters at this company. I think she was really impressed with me and liked me. I told her, "You know, I don't look that good on paper but if I could just get my foot in the door somewhere I would make a great employee, and whoever hired me would be impressed by my work." A few weeks later (two days after New Years day) she called up and said that Ernst & Young was hiring and would like to interview me on the 16th. Waiting those few weeks for the interview was torture but I did my research and practiced interviewing with Kristen and my mom. My mom was really nervous for me but I just had a really good feeling about this job from the beginning (despite being very underqualified). The interviews went really well and then they actually had me meet with someone about a different position that they were hiring for (a good sign). The next day I had a phone interview with another person in California. When I interviewed they had told me that they hoped to come to a decision by the end of the week. So, the next week was torture as I didn't know but finally on Wednesday I got the call. They actually offered me the job that I hadn't applied for (better pay but more work). Everything just came together in a way that I know had nothing to do with me.

So, my position is Client Support Services and as far as I understand it I will be in contact with corporations that send their employees abroad and the employees themselves so that if they paid taxes in the country in which they were working they don't have to pay US taxes all over again. It will be cool to be working with international offices and such. I don't really know all the details as I haven't started yet.

Now, for those of you who haven't fallen asleep by this point I realize that I have been tagged and intend to follow up with that shortly but just give me a moment to bask in this!

Vacation pics.

2007-11-25T00:31:00.000+07:00

Okay, I finally have the pictures up from our finale trip in Thailand -- check them out here.

Something to Do

2007-11-21T14:11:00.000+07:00

Well, it's now after midnight and I was thinking I ought to catch up on blogs that I haven't read in a while and then thought that I should probably post myslef and save the catching up for another day. Still loving being back but I don't really have a whole lot of exciting things going on. We're still looking for a car although we're hoping to buy one on Thanksgiving day. We've been in contact with a guy in SLC selling an Accord. He's been out of town but will be coming down to Provo on Thanksgiving so we'll check it out then.

I know that most of you that read this already know this but I'm going to repeat it -- Craigslist is awesome. Thus far we've gotten a dresser and desk for FREE and a lot of other things we need cheap. I bought two TVs for $45 - one a 26" and the other a 19".

I finally have some work to do -- a temp job for 2 weeks starting on Monday. I'll be working with Prometric (the company that does the GRE) working on their website. Should be fun!!

Trea turned 3 on the 4th of this month. Doesn't seem like she's been with us for three whole years. She keeps wanting birthday cake. Shortly after we moved in at my parents' home Trea became familiar with The Sound of Music and has watched it about 400 times. She loves all of the songs and tries to sing along. It's so cute to watch her sing and dance. She wants mom and dad to sing too. In the car she asked us to sing one of the songs and then said, "go ahead, sing." She's such a trip.

Kristen's parents are in town for Thanksgiving so we are having turkey dinner twice. We just figure it's making up for last year in Thailand. It's been really nice to see them again. I feel really lucky to have awesome in-laws.

Well, yeah it's kind of boring ramblings -- I'll have to try and post sometime when I'm not half asleep.

Land that I Love

2007-10-17T12:40:00.000+07:00

We're back. Our last few weeks in Thailand were quite hectic as you can imagine. The last few weeks before a move are always that way but going around the world kind of adds to it. You know, as happy as I am to be home there are some people that I'm going to miss a lot. We had some wonderful experiences in Thailand and hope some day to have some more. I really don't miss the ants.

Having my parents come and vacation with us was sooo much fun. What makes it so great is that my parents are so laid back and easy to travel with. We had asked them what they wanted to do and see and they were pretty much of the mindset that we knew the country and they would be happy with whatever we planned. So we did just that and planned everything out. It was kind of fun playing travel agent. We planned it so that we were through by about 4:00 most days and had the evenings free so the kids could take it easy. That worked out really well. The one difficult thing about travelling with my parents is that they ask so many questions that I can't answer. They want to know what all the plants are, everything about Buddhism, dates, and stuff like that. I can't say I blame them wanting to know but I just did a lot of shoulder shrugging and said, "I don't know." I should have just made a bunch of crap up -- they would have believed it :-)

We have a ton of pictures that I still need to get off the camera and post so look forward to another Picasa album from the trip.

It is really nice being back. We've only been back four days but I'm really enjoying it. Mostly there are just so many little things that you don't even think about that make living here so great -- clothes dryers, hot water, potable water from every sink, warm home-made bread, ovens, carpet, and the list goes on and on.

The girls did great on the flight back. We really are blessed with good travelers. Now the problem is getting their little internal clocks to do a 180. Yesterday Trea slept from 2:00 in the afternoon until 11:00 and then was up all night until 6:00 this morning. Luckily Grandpa (bless him) took her outside all day. She really wanted to be outside so he let her "help" on things he was doing around the yard, and played too. It really wore her out and she was a beast when she came in this evening but hopefully she'll sleep a good sleep and make a good step toward adjusting.

Now that I'm not sleeping when you're awake (or vice versa) feel free to call or IM and we can talk (all three of you readers).

Homeward Bound

2007-09-01T00:24:00.000+07:00

Seemingly back from the dead. I'm still bogged down by a bunch of paperwork but I've got some serious senioritis (can you still call it that when it comes to things other than school?) and can't focus on working so I'll finally blog a few random things. Also taking up some time and preventing me from blogging: I reformatted the hard drive and re-installed Windows. I think I'm just going to plan on doing this every 9 months to a year because it works wonders for a sluggish computer.

We are now in our last full month here. I've loved Thailand and will miss a lot of things about it but not that the decision has been made to go back home I just want to get there. Although I love it here there are so many things I'm looking forward to when we get back to the US -- hot water from every tap, washing clothes in hot water, pulling hot clothes out of the dryer, snuggling up in a blanket and enjoying some hot cocoa, home-made bread, and the list goes on and on.

So, we leave Khon Kaen (for Bangkok) on the 3rd of October and then my parents will arrive in Bangkok on the 4th. We will do some vacationing with my folks for about eight days and then we're all flying back together (that will be wonderful with the kids)!

Teaching KG has been great for me. I really love my kids (most of them) and am going to miss them. You get to see so much improvement when they are so young (3-4). Not only with their English but the things that they can do -- gross motor skills, fine motor skills, behavior, social skills, etc. It's really wonderful. I wish I could have been in KG last year. Oh well.

We've sold most of our large things except the car. We're getting down to crunch time with the car and I'm starting to get a little worried.

Did you notice the favicon for my blog (it's the tiny icon to the left of my blog url)? I had a lot of fun figuring out how to do it. (I used this article if you want to try it too). It's a picture of Trea if you can't tell.

Speaking of Trea, this morning she wakes up and says out of the blue, "Jesus is coming." I'm like, "okay." Then she says, "I talked to him." I questioned her, "You talked to him?" and her response, "Yeah, I talked to Jesus."
Okay, so how's that for a kind of weird start to your day -- not bad, per se, just a little weird.

Anyway, don't have a lot for now other than to say I'm alive and I'm homeward bound in just over a month.

Pictures

2007-08-11T16:52:00.000+07:00

Well, I know you're all anxiously awaiting a new post but all I've got is a link to some pictures of my two precious little ones. Hope you enjoy them. I hope to post again soon -- things have just been a lot busier this semester than I had anticipated.

Back Home Again

2007-05-11T15:05:00.000+07:00

Where do I begin?? We just returned from our family vacation (one last hurrah before going back to work). Actually there was a purpose to our excursion but we decided to make a trip out of it as well. Our goal was to get a passport for Adia and get her citizenship (as she was a non-entity before that -- no citizenship). I'm happy to report that she is now an American and a passport is on the way.

Our trip was scheduled as follows: 1 day traveling to Bangkok (via train), 1 day getting the translation of her birth certificate (yeah, her birth certificate is entirely in Thai -- how cool is that?) certified by the Thai government and then a train down to Hua Hin, 5 days in Hua Hin laying on the beach and eating great food, 1 day back to Bangkok, last day getting the passport and then on home.

Day one: The train ride went extremely well. Trea really liked it. She had a whole train car to run around in and tons of people who were fascinated by her (she's getting a little too used to this). The kids sitting directly behind us entertained her for most of the trip. We even got her to settle down for a nap. Mind you she hardly ever takes a nap outside of nursery. We checked into our hotel and then went out for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. The food was great!! Day one had turned out quite nice.

Day two: Got up, took a shower, slipped and fell on my elbow. After a long saga of drs., waiting, x-rays, and rides I was back at the hotel with a half-cast on right arm. (and Kristen was worried about a little scab on Trea's nose in the pictures) So, vacation agenda just went right out the window. People look at me funny when I say I slipped in the bathroom but the floors in this place were that polished granite and the floor sloped about 4" over the span of about six feet (that Asian style bathroom where they expect you're going to get water all over the place so it slopes toward a drain). I'm not the type to sue but this place would have a lawsuit were they in the states. What really ticked me off was the apparent apathy from the hotel staff. We had a special internet rate for the night (about $35 for this normally $130 hotel) and they said they couldn't honor that rate again. Okay I understand that but could you at least pretend that you care that I JUST BROKE MY ARM IN YOUR HOTEL! At this point we're seriously considering just throwing in the towel and going home but we decide to stick with it (I talk Kristen into going on). We drag the kids with us to get the birth cert. legalized (originally Iwas going to do this while Kristen and the kids hung out at the hotel) and just get in before they close. He at dinner (which was an interesting event) and found another hotel.

If you haven’t yet thought about it, yes I’m typing all of this one-handed (LEFT-handed no less).

Day three: We get up early and go straight to the train station to get tickets to Hua Hin. At this point I'm thinking the sooner we get there the better. The only train is regular class (no reclining seats and no air-con). You do what you gotta do. At first the windows are all open and the breeze from outside is quite nice and refreshing but as we get further south the rain begins to pick up and we have to close the windows. At this point the train becomes a sauna. Trea did well on this ride too but she had some moments. When we get to Hua Hin it’s raining and the roads are flooded. “Why did we go on vacation?” I ask myself. Fortunately we can get to our hotel all right. To top things off, the portable DVD player that was going to keep Trea happy in the hotel room broke and wasn’t working. Throwing in the towel came up again in the hotel room as this was beginning to look like a cursed vacation.

Days 4-7: At this point things finally started looking up. The sun came out and we were able to visit the beach and have an enjoyable time. I was able to get into the water up to my waist. As Kristen said later that evening, “It was all worth it to see Trea discover the beach.” She would just giggle and scream in delight as the waves came and hit her. She played in the sand, of course. Along the beach there they have horses that you can ride and I wanted her to go on one but we weren’t sure that she would. At this point in her life she is fascinated with animals AT A DISTANCE. They start coming close and she starts to freak out. I talked her into going and the two of us rode together. I think that she really liked it. We also took her to see monkeys and she got to ride an elephant. She really liked watching daddy feed the elephant which is rather different from our last experience feeding elephants at the zoo last October. Kristen and I had a great time watching Trea have fun. Not that we didn’t but there’s just something about seeing your kids happy. I got the good international food that is lacking in Khon Kaen (Italian, Seafood, gelato, spare ribs, etc.) Oh yeah, Trea got really sun-burned due to my poor parenting.

Days 8 and 9: The last two days were pretty uneventful – a bus ride back to Bangkok (both kids slept half the way). Another night at my favorite hotel (the one where I broke my elbow), appt. with the embassy, and then killing time until our train left. Trea liked the night train and slept really quite soundly most likely due to lack of sleep over the past week. We must have been quite a sight most of this trip. Here I am with a cast on my right arm and holding a baby in my left because Trea’s insisting on being held.

Now we’re home and trying to get back into the groove. I can’t drive so that really sucks. I’ve got a week of prep before school starts back up on the 21^st. I’m going to be teaching 3 and 4-year-olds!! Kristen has had some contact with a few places about part-time work so we’ll see what happens. We had fun in the end but it’s nice to be back on regular speed again.

Check out Kristen’s blog for another take on this trip.

Also, I’ve made a few slight changes to the blog. Hope you like them.

How do you say that in Thai?

2007-04-28T16:43:00.000+07:00

Being the fantastic linguist that I am I figured that I would share some of the linguistic aspects of the Thai language with you (there is sarcasm there). Actually, after sharing some interesting words and phrases with Kristen she suggested that I blog about it. I'll have to say some of these are quite funny but most of them are just interesting. Then again, maybe they're just interesting if you're a linguistic dork like me. Anyway, here goes.

First, here is a handful (of the many) words that Thai has borrowed from English. I'm always surprised by which words are borrowed.

-- free, pack (a pack of something), style, fluke, foot (unit of measure), romantic, sexy, bacon

Additionally Thais have borrowed "dictionary" from English but have shortened it to "dict" and there are a lot of shops that sell the little hand-held translators that will speak the word for you to help you with the pronunciation -- this is a "talking dict" I'll just leave it at that.

So, on to the actual Thai words:

English -- followed by the literal Thai

to understand -- to enter the heart
diarrhea -- to lose your stomach
pregnant -- to have a stomach
jaundice -- yellow body (or "yellow eyes")
thunder -- the sky crying
hippopotamus -- water elephant
starfish -- sea star
honey -- bee liquid
credit -- faith money
savings -- sleeping money
crosswalk -- zebra path
boogers -- nose crap
snot -- nose liquid
sad -- lose your heart
diabetes -- sweet urine
cavity (tooth) -- tooth pimple
elevated train -- fire vehicle in the sky
pedestrian bridge -- floating bridge
sleepers (in your eye) -- eye crap
leader -- head face
ice -- solid water
slang -- market language
neighbor -- house friend
interest -- flower money
lustful -- head of a snake
tear -- eye liquid
sympathy -- heart liquid
to feel inferior -- small heart
to feel inferior -- small face

And a few phrases:

to go to the bathroom (male) (colloquial) -- to go shoot a rabbit
to go to the bathroom (female) (colloquial) -- to go pick a flower

One of Kristen's favorite Thai dishes is:

"stir-fried vegetables together as friends"

Hope you all find it interesting (maybe not as interesting as I do but that's okay).

The Catch-Up Post

2007-04-13T19:16:00.000+07:00

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted what seems like a lifetime ago. Well, actually it was quite a bit more than a lifetime ago – my second daughter’s lifetime that is. Yes, those of you who occasionally click over to Kristen’s blog are already aware of our newest arrival but for those of you who haven’t – SHE finally arrived. She was an early birthday present for her daddy. Her due date was the 13^th of March but she didn’t make it until the 29^th. Many people (myself included) were convinced that she wanted the same birthday as her daddy – the 30^th. She is a sweet little baby and a welcome addition into our home. When she was born she was 3,570 grams (about 7 lbs 15 oz). We had her two-week follow-up appt. this past Tuesday and she had put on nearly 400 grams (about 13 oz) in just 13 days – nothing to worry about as far as getting enough food. After a few days of indecision we decided to call her Adia Nicole. It’s a little different (not too different) but it fits her perfectly. Kristen and I were a little concerned about how Trea would deal with having a new sibling in the house but she has done wonderful. She is kind of testing mom and dad a little bit about boundaries but doesn’t seem to resent or want to hurt the baby. She always wants to help with the baby – change, burp, feed, swaddle, etc. Yeah, you feel bad telling your two-year-old who only wants to help that they can’t but sometimes you just have to. We try to let her help when it’s something that she can do. It didn’t take Trea long to say her name and now it’s “Adia this and Adia that.” For the full details of the birth you can read about it here.

Prior to Adia’s arrival in our home Kristen’s sister, Erin, and her husband came to visit us. I think the plan was to come and visit us AND to see the new baby but it just didn’t work out that way. Their trip to Thailand was kind of a graduation celebration as Chris finished his two master’s degrees. They spent a few days in Bangkok and then came up to see us for about four days before going to a beach down south for a week. I couldn’t help but laugh when I had picked them up from the airport and we were on the way into town and they asked, “So, what is there to do in Khon Kaen?” I think I laughed and promptly answered (truthfully), “nothing.” They had a good time in Khon Kaen just hanging out and seeing the “real” side of Thailand (versus the tourist areas of the south and Bangkok which is a world unto itself). I think Erin was kind of bummed that Adia decided to come THE DAY AFTER they left.

The timing on the new baby couldn’t have been much better. The last day of school was the 16^th of March followed by two weeks of wrap-up and planning for next year. So, we were just finishing up those last few days when Adia arrived and I’ve been able to stay home with Kristen and take care of her. This past week has been pretty dreadful; we’ve all been sick with a cold and are still fighting it.

Yesterday was the beginning of Songkran, the Thai New Year. There are a lot of religious ceremonies and other things that go along with the holiday but really it’s just a 3-5 day water fight. I’ve been told that everyone drinks a lot. Yesterday Kristen and I were driving around and saw people already along the sides of the roads throwing water at passersby (mostly the motorcycles and songtaews where you can actually get someone wet). This was Thursday when most things were still open, Things will be interesting over the weekend. We’re planning on being home most of it but if we feel up to it I’d like to just drive around (with windows up and doors locked) and see how it is.

Well, I have all these things that I want to get done over the break but between having a new kid, a two-year-old, and being sick I haven’t accomplished many (as this is only my first post). Well, that’s a lot so I’ll wrap it up.

Engrish Post 2.2

2007-02-11T19:38:00.000+07:00

If you aren't sure "begerry" is supposed to be "bakery." Not that I asked but I just know Thai Engrish well enough by now. Stop by this place for an apple joice or two.

"Please don't make the noisy" - is this a sexual reference? - that from Kristen. This from our hotel in Laos.

For some reason some of the best examples I've seen are beauty related. Unfortunately I only have one picture. A beauty shop that we have here in town is "Porn Beauty." It's too bad but the word in Thai means "blessing" or "happiness" but for some reason they chose to romanize it p-o-r-n. Additionally, while in Laos I saw a "Beauty Salorn" and a "Beauty Saloon." Wonder what it was like in there? "Assy Nail" is one that I see fairly regularly and I just love it. I had to get a picture of it.

Engrish Post 2.1

2007-02-11T18:33:00.000+07:00

Well, after a long hiatus another Engrish brog is here!!

This is the packaging from one of Trea's toys. It's true, you can indeed develop intelligence with the muscil that this toy plays. Listen to muscil as often as you can! What's your favorite type of muscil?

From a menu:

This was taken at the zoo on our October trip. Welcome to the Honnbill Ganden. Take a stroll through the ganden.

This is one fine specimen of Engrish. Seems like some of the best examples come from China where someone just looked things up in a dictionary and pieced them together. This is from a set of a geometric rulers (protractor, angle ruler and ruler). "Needed the paterfamilias accompany, if the children haven't 3 years." I love it!!

This is Criminal!

2007-01-20T13:05:00.000+07:00

So, after an extremely lengthy hiatus I will attempt to get all of you (the thousands of loyal fans) caught up on my exciting life. Time here has been passing by so quickly. Unlike most schools here in Thailand, our school has a two-week break over Christmas and New Years. They are able to do this because it is a private school and can do whatever they want. The reason that they do it is to accomodate the foreign teachers, many of whom like to go home and see family. There are EIGHT of us. I'm not complaining but it seems odd to change everything for a handful of people but whatever. Anyway, we went to Utah over the break to see family but more importantly to attend Kristen's younger brother's wedding. Due to the wedding we were fortunate enough to get some financial assistance from Kristen's parents, otherwise I don't think we would have made it back to the states quite yet. I am making really good money compared to most Thais but not nearly enough to fly home.

Our trip home was much to quick but was a much needed break for us. Chantrea was a great traveller, all things considered. Her worst leg was the first flight (one-hour) which was from Khon Kaen to Bangkok. There were about 20 minutes of complete meltdown (probably due to cabin pressure and ears that wouldn't pop). During those 20 minutes I thought, "What are we doing? This is going to be a disaster." As I said, that was the worst of it. She was restless and cried some but what kid her age wouldn't be. For a two-year-old she was wonderful!!

We arrived in Bangkok and had a about an hour and a half to claim our baggage and catch our next flight. We knew we would be cutting it close but it was absolutely insane. When we got to immigration the officer there informed me that were we to leave we would be invalidating our visas (which were good through the beginning of May). Kristen and I were both under the impression (obviouly incorrect) that we could leave and come back one time on our then current visas. He informed us that we could get reentry permits there at the airport which would allow us to keep our visas. Unfortunately, we didn't have any pictures, any cash, or any time to apply for those so we just left and figured that we'd get it figured out when we returned. More on this later.

Over the week of Christmas, Kristen's parents had rented a house in Salt Lake City in which the family could all stay together. It was close to the mouth of the canyon and was obviously a rental for skiers but it was perfect for us. We took turns on who cooked dinners. The house had a pool table and pinball machine in the basement, lots of televisions, and plenty of room to just hang out. Christmas was nice and the wedding was wonderful. It's pretty amazing that all of Kristen's siblings are now married in the temple. Trea remembered her cousins and had a great time with them. She impressed everyone with her Thai. They were always wondering what she was saying. Half the time she wasn't even speaking Thai. At one point her uncle Mark was repeating some of the words that he had learned from her and she corrected his tones. It's awesome. It was funny to see her with her older cousins. Their favorite movies are movies like Cars, and Cinderella. Trea -- she prefers Spiderman and U2 concerts. It's so weird. I think I figured out the other day what her first (and probably only) four syllable word is: "elevation" said like it's sung, "el-e-vay-shun."

One thing that made the trip really difficult was that she was up for 3-4 hours (more some nights) almost every night. She finally got just about on to Utah time a couple days before we headed back. Luckily, she readjusted to Thai time much quicker.

I'm really happy that we were able to visit my siblings and there families in Utah even though it was rather brief. We spent about three days with my grandma and it was great. My grandma is one of the greatest people ever! I just love sitting and talking with her. She is so interesting and has tons of stories to tell but even more impressive to me is that she is always learning something new. I feel really at peace at her place.

Interesting: While at my grandma's place the temperature never got above about 35 and then we back to Thailand and it was about 90.

We've now been back in Asia for two weeks. We got visas on arrival which are valid for 30 days. We then needed to go to Laos to try and get non-immigrant visas before those 30 days were up. I decided that since we had a school holiday on Tuesday of this past week we would go up on the weekend, apply on Monday, pick them up on Tuesday (it takes 24 hrs. to process) and could be back to teach on Wednesday -- I want to miss as little time as possible because I feel kind of guilty that it's our fault that we have to do all this. So, we had a nice trip to Laos and found Vientiane to be a very nice city. We enjoyed eating out. Because of the French colonization Laos has great breads (which Thailand does not) and you can find baguettes all over the place. We went out for Italian, Indian, French, and to a Scandinavian bakery. So, that was great but on the visa front we got hosed. Apparently Thailand passed a new law in December that requires that anyone applying for a non-immigrant visa to work in Thailand needs to submit a criminal record or background check. Of course, as with most Thai laws, this is completely stupid and nobody who needed to know about this did (ie the school). So, after a frustrating trip (and an extra day in Laos) we ended up getting 30-day tourist visas and are still trying to figure out how we're going to get everything settled.

I'm sure I had more to say but am hitting a wall after all of these ramblings. Anyway, I've been collecting some more Engrish gems to share with you and I'll be getting those up soon. Hope you like the new formatting but if you don't I don't care because I do and it's mine!

Zoo and More

2006-11-22T01:41:00.000+07:00

Okay so, this post was actually written on the 28th of Oct. but I had saved it to my computer thinking that I would add to it. I completely forgot that it was there until just now. I'm up at 1:30 AM -- can't sleep. The Philippina teacher across the street has the chicken pox (undoubtedly caught them from Kristen's class -- they've had five or six kids get them) and I keep dreaming that I've got them. I've never had them so I really, really, really don't want them now. I'm going to try and go in to get a vaccine for them tomorrow. Anyway, here's the post.

Well, I did promise a post about our recent mini-vacation so here we go. As mentioned previously, over the semester break we took a mini-vacation to Korat. We would have loved to take a vacation to a more exotic place – beach or island but decided that we ought to take things a little slower and easier since Kristen is still recovering from her bout with morning sickness. Therefore we decided on Korat because if things weren’t going great we were just a 2 ½ hr. bus ride from home. The bus ride down was really nice. We went on a VIP bus. They served a small meal and the seats were really big and comfortable. While in Korat we splurged and stayed at a nicer place ($35/night). It was really sweet because we were on the ninth floor and had a corner room so we had these huge windows that opened out and looked over the city – although the skyline in Korat isn’t quite what it is in some cities :-).

The Mall in Korat is huge and we had a great time just walking around and seeing all the different shops. We ate a Sizzler which was another nice treat. The highlight of our trip was the zoo. I had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Trea had a lot of fun too although I’m still not sure if she enjoyed the animals or the small playground more. The funny thing about the zoo was that we were taking pictures of and looking at all the animals while most of the Thais were checking out Trea and some even wanted to take pictures of her. I guess that to them she’s kind of like an exotic animal. They had a couple of elephants (an adult and a baby) out along the sidewalk that you could feed sugarcane to or you could ride the adult. Anyway, we stopped to feed the elephants. This proved to be a hilarious event. Trea FREAKED OUT (FROKE OUT). Even watching daddy feed the elephant freaked her out. Kristen held Trea and tried to feed the elephants. I know it’s bad to get so much laughter out of your child freaking out but it was really funny!

We had decided to stop and see some ruins on the way back to Khon Kaen. Little did we know what this would involve. We had to take a 2 ½ hr ride on a non-air-conditioned bus packed with people and our child was tired and cranky. The ruins (Pi Mai) were nice but once you’ve been to Angkor Wat no other Khmer-style temple is going to really inspire awe. Fortunately, on the way back to Khon Kaen we had air-con on the bus but this time no seats (they were all full).

The ultrasound went well. The baby is doing well and appears to be healthy. Unfortunately, the baby was too small to determine the sex. So, we’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully we can go and get another ultrasound done because I don’t like surprises. It won’t break the bank at $15.

Kristen and I purchased our first car together this past week. Last Friday, Nuansri’s son brought us a car at school to look at. It was a white European car (manufactured by VW but under a different name). It looked all right and we decided that we would think about it. After we went home and had been hanging around for about a half hour we got a “knock” at the door. Nuansri’s son had sent a friend of his over with his car that he was trying to sell – a 1992 dark blue Honda Civic. We liked the way it looked and took it for a test drive and were sold. So, we actually bought the car on Tuesday. I’ve only driven it a few times but it’s SO nice to have a car.

Also, I am now officially the elders quorum president of the Khon Kaen branch. I actually was a bit surprised by this. At first they told me that they were going to call me to be the pres. but then a while later they said that I was going to be one of the counselors so when I got interviewed again and was called to be the elders quorum pres. I was a bit shocked. I am excited to be serving but I’m really in the dark a lot here. I think that I’m going to have to get to know the missionaries really well.

Eye of the Storm

2006-10-21T02:07:00.000+07:00

Well, this happens to be the second version of this post. I’m an idiot and didn’t save a post I was working on and here I am typing it all over again. My lack of posting lately is a result of things being very busy around here. The last day of first semester was the 29th of September. I had to try to finish as much of the material as possible and put together semester exams for my classes. I made it through but with more than a little stress. The past two weeks have been semester break. As a foreign teacher I get the time off. The Thai teachers have to go in to work. It’s laid back and they can dress down but they have to go to work. We’re down to our last three days before we go back. Last week we took a small trip down to Korat (about two hours south of here) for a couple of days just to get out of town. I’ll post about our trip separately. This week has been just running errands and taking care of things around the house. We’ve been taking Trea to nursery this week just so she can stick with the routine and we can get some stuff done. I’ve been able to get a lot of little things done that have been on the backburner forever. We have done some car shopping over the past few days and hope to be able to get a car in the next week or so. Used cars here are so expensive (relatively)!!

We had a coup a few weeks back. Most of you probably heard or read about it. In fact, most of you probably heard more about it than we did. The international media made a huge deal of it. Most of the Thai’s were pretty much like, “whatever.” It’s kind of been something that happens here every 10-15 years. Most of the people were actually pretty happy that the PM was ousted. Things may have been different in Bangkok for a few days but here we had a government mandated school closure for one day but otherwise EVERYTHING stayed the same. I don’t want to get too much into the politics of it all but I’ll just explain very briefly what I understand. The PM was found to be making some shady (perhaps not illegal) business deals that got his family out of paying a lot of money in Thai taxes. The majority of the people wanted him to step down and he said that he would but he didn’t. Without any legal way of getting him out of power they waited until he was out of the country and staged a coup.

School starts up tomorrow (it’s now Sunday) and I’m not excited about going back. I’m always like this after long breaks. Work is just never something I want to go back to. I know a lot of people get some satisfaction out of work and I guess that I do get some (and I know that I should get more) but the fact of the matter is if I were independently wealthy I think I would be a bum and not hold a job. I just like hanging out too much.

Let me talk about the kid some. I’m sure most of you haven’t heard enough. She’s getting to be really demanding. Lately she’s started saying some funny things. About a week ago she was looking at Kristen’s wallet and saw a picture of Kristen’s grandmother. Kristen told her that it was “great grandma.” Trea already has trouble saying “grandma” but when she says great grandma it comes out as “Grape Mama.” It’s so funny!

Also I have to report that I’m very pleased that my daughter can say “MASH” and occasionally requests it. She doesn’t understand it but sometimes just asks for it. Even cooler is the fact that she will ask to see U2. She does this by saying, “watch hello, hello?” again and again; “hello, hello” being a reference to “Vertigo.” She also says “Bono” but it comes out more like, “Bonman.”

Something else that she picked up from Kristen – when I come home and walk in the door she yells from upstairs, “John?” because that’s what her mom always does to make sure that it’s me walking in the door. Yes, at least once Kristen has had someone else just walk in. It’s really funny to hear your two-year-old yelling out your first name. I don’t even think she realizes that it’s my name, it’s just something that mommy does when daddy walks in the door so she does it too.

Over a month ago when we went on our first date and left Trea to be babysat by her nursery teacher we came home to find her with three additional stuffed toys. Teacher Jaw (it rhymes with “cow”) said that she could just keep them for a while and return them to the nursery later. Anyway, one stuffed toy is a blue doll, one is pink, and the other is a baby. So she has named these dolls: one is T. Jaw, one is T. John, and the baby is Trea. T. John happens to be the pink one!! Another instance where I don’t think she realizes that T. John is daddy but it’s pretty funny to think that this is me in doll form.

It’s now Saturday morning (1:45 AM) and I can’t sleep so I’m posting a bit more. Obviously this post was to be posted a while ago but wasn’t. So far school is going well. I took Monday off because Trea was sick and so only had to teach four days and next Monday is a holiday and then Friday is an all-day student sport day. So we have another short week next week – only three days of teaching. I’ve been told by the other teachers that second semester here just flies by because there are quite a few holidays and students have a lot of stuff going on – practicing for year-end shows and what-not.

Kristen and I finally found a car that we like. It will be our first time buying a car together. It’s kind of funny how you do things here because you tell a few people that you’re looking for a car and pretty soon everyone at the school has heard that you’re looking for a car and is on the lookout for you. We asked the head secretary if her husband (he’s retired) could keep an eye out for us because we’ve heard that he’s pretty good at finding good cars at good prices. So, what does she do? Her son’s been out patrolling used car places looking for us and then brings cars by the school for us to look at – it’s crazy. Anyway, on Monday we are buying a 1992 Honda Civic. It’s dark blue with gray, leather interior. We are SO excited to finally have a car.

In other news Kristen also found a great OB/GYN here. It’s been a great week for us. The doctor speaks really good English and is really progressive thinking (for Thailand) and will allow her to do natural childbirth (a rarity in Thailand) and basically do what she wants to do. She’s so relieved and happy to have a doctor finally. Tomorrow morning we are going in for the ultrasound. I’m excited. I’m really hoping for a boy – either that or a monkey. But of course, I’ll be happy with another girl too.

Engrish Brog - Vol. 1:2

2006-09-10T22:11:00.000+07:00

Well, this was to be posted last night with the other one but blogger was being stupid and not letting me upload pictures.

A few weeks ago I was in the mall and passed a shop selling sleeping mats with pictures of VW Beetles and the words "Bettle Bug" all over it. -- Nice!!

Just two days ago I saw a truck pull up to the school to pick up a student with the following painted on the side: "Anun Bakkery." I should write ads for these people -- Anun Bakkery, for all your bakking needs. Bakked goods . . . mmmm.

This is one of my favorites because it's one of those "What the . . . ?"

The front text reads: "Palliates." The back reads: "Relese the tension and welcome palliates of your new life style." That's right folks, welcome palliates into your life and I'm sure things will start looking up.

No caption necessary.

Tasto brand: RIDGE CUT POTATO CHIP NATURE IDENTICAL BARBEQUE FLAVOR. It tastes like all the natural barbeque I've ever found. It's just like the sap from the old barbeque trees back home.

This next one is also great. I bought a pair of dress slacks at the department store the other day. It was really inexpensive so I'm not expecting them to last long. Anyway, the makers of these slacks go to great lengths to try to make them look like they are imported from Italy. In fact sewn on the inside of the belt is "Emponi Givanno." Here is the tag on the inside - Commposition (Italians can mispell words in English), Viscose Kayon (Rayon?), and lastly I'm sure that Italians frequently mispell Italy - Itrly. I spell America wrong all the time.

No caption necessary.

One of the best things about this is where it comes from: The 7-11 catalog. That's right everyone, 7-11 puts out a catalog. It's actually quite good with reasonable prices. In fact, we just ordered a toaster and some glass bowls from the catalog. You don't have to pay shipping because you just pick it up at 7-11 in 3-5 days. Our town seems like it has 20 7-11 stores. Anyway this is a fan cover to give your fan that extra something. Actually it's to prevent your child from getting their fingers chopped off. The design for this one is "Baby Bare." Naked babies are kind of cute but who wants fifty of them on their fan cover.

Another one without a picture. I bought a pen that was actually made in Korea. It has a picture of a dog and has printed: "THE DOGS" and below that: "Artllst Collectlon." The back has the following: "Shih Tuz." That's my favorite kind of dog. I've always wanted a shih tuz.

Engrish Vol. 1:1

2006-09-09T16:45:00.000+07:00

First, I want to preface this post with a few things. First, there is another new post just below this one so check it out. Second, as those of you who have been to Asia before (Joel and Amelia) can attest, Engrish is EVERYWHERE. I'm really bad at carrying my camera around with me so some of these are just some that I can remember and I don't have pictures. Also, the malls and some stores don't allow cameras so that cuts down on a lot of great Engrish pics. Anyway, here is some Engrish for your enjoy. Some are better than others. Also, the formatting is kind of jacked up so forgive me for that.

This is a toothpaste tube -- "squeezy mint." Forget spearmint, wintergreen and cool burst, I want some squeezy mint.

This looks like your average plate, right? Check out the back. If you can't read it: "Scotch: Essence of Chicken." I like my dinnerware with essence of chicken, doesn't everyone?

Whiz: it's the only thing I use on the wwindows in my housee. Keepss the dustt off for monthss.

-- No Title Entered --

2006-09-09T16:19:00.000+07:00

So, what's new . . . we're just hanging in there. Sometimes, just barely, but it's going all right. This past Monday the three of us had to go up to Udorn Thani (an hour north) with Kristen's boss to get Kristen and Trea's visas extended. It was a pretty decent excursion all things considered -- a toddler and a morning sick woman. Actually Trea was really good and Kristen only felt really sick a few times. Luckily we didn't have any trouble with the red tape either. I hear that the guy at the office there likes to show how much power he holds and is a pain sometimes. I think he just wanted to get Trea out of there as quickly as possible.

Well, Kristen had about five days where she felt really good and has since been sick again but hey, at least she isn't throwing up! She does say that she feels better than before even though she doesn't feel great. So, as a result of her condition and me taking care of Trea and not having any time to get any cleaning around the house done we've got a maid coming over two days a week. She's actually working for Jick (Kristen's boss) who lives two houses away from us four days a week and comes to our place on Mon. and Thur. She actually does our laundry too - with the machines down the street. Of course we provide soap and coins. We're paying 170 baht a day which is about $4.55. I almost feel guilty that it's so little but it's a pretty reasonable rate and people here are always willing to take jobs like that (showing how poor a lot of people here are). Also, she's said that cleaning our place is really easy.

Trea is doing really good. Just two days ago I was on gate duty at the school (help see students off) and stopped by to see Trea at the nursery for a moment. She told me to get out (in Thai). Okay. She knows her numbers 1-10 in both English and Thai. She knows a lot of nursery words in Thai - sit down, let's go, eat, no, go to sleep, drink milk. It's funny because when she wants milk she asks in Thai almost exclusively.

For those of you who haven't heard we are coming home for Christmas. I can't wait to see what Trea's like. She's going to be like, "hey, where did all those different people go? Nobody's speaking that funny language." "Where's my adoring audience?" Then she's going to get used to hearing only English and then we'll get back to Thailand. I know it's kind of cruel but I think it's going to be kind of funny.

Semester break is coming up in less than a month. I'm so excited. I just need some down time. Hopefully, we'll be able to get out and see some of Thailand or at least the northeast. It kind of depends on how Kristen is feeling. If she's not feeling good that's okay too. As I said, I just need some down time.

Hopefully, I will get the first edition of the Engrish Post out soon.

What's in a Name Anyway?

2006-08-27T09:01:00.000+07:00

So, I now realize that my readership went from maybe five people down to one but hey I don't know what I expected when I take such long breaks between posts. It's Sunday morning and I should be getting ready for church but I was laid out yesterday by something I ate (I think it was school lunch on Friday) and am still not quite up to going to church. I'm beginning to wonder if it's possible for all of us to be healthy at the same time.

Anyway, I've been meaning to post about student names since I got here and just haven't gotten around to it until now. Nearly everyone has a nickname that they go by in their classes and it's a good thing too because when you've got names that are 30 letters long . . . For example, look at some of these names:

Passawalee Seearamroongruang
Kuntida Chokboonsongsawat
Chuanfachom Navabunniyom

And these are just a couple in one of my classes. Anyway, I really get a kick out of the nicknames that they give their kids here. It's quite funny to a native English speaker. You have to keep in mind that some of these names are nicknames in Thai and they just romanize it into English and you end up with something like "Earn." I'm only going to list the funny and interesting ones.

Noon
Bonus
Plug
Ice
View
Oak
Dragon (Oh wait, that's not a nickname -- that's a real name!)
Earn
Simba
Turbo
Proud
Pee - Pee
Bank
It
Gift
Need
Big
Peach
Benz
Future
Fifa
Dear
Net
Bell
Flash
Arm
Mink
Dream
Alpha
Earth
Pop
Opal
Japan
Title
Donut

One of the other teachers was joking with me the other day. He asked if we have a boy if we're going to give him a Thai nickname. He said that he jokes with other teachers that they're like American Gladiator names -- Turbo, Flash, Bonus, etc. I like Nitro. So, if it's a boy, he'll have an American name but you can just call him "Nitro."

My Life is Run by a Toddler

2006-08-19T12:47:00.001+07:00

It's been over a month since my last post and this month has been an interesting one to say the least. Well, with so much happening, where do I begin? Hmm . . . how about with the fact that we're going to have another baby! After being late and feeling lousy for a while Kristen thought she might be pregnant and so took a pregnancy test. The test was negative. When taking Trea to see the doctor she asked about it and he said that it's probably just hormones (new environment, stress, etc.). About a week later she wanted to check again so we got yet another pregnancy test (this time the $5 imported from the US model instead of the $1.25 one). This too, had negative results. By this point Kristen is really starting to feel lousy (similar to her morning sickness with Chantrea) and is pretty sure that she's pregnant regardless of the what the tests say. In fact, she asked her mom to send her some medications for morning sickness the before we got a positive test. Anyway, we are excited. Giving birth in a foreign country will be an interesting experience but I know that if anyone can do it Kristen can. I'm really hoping that it's a boy.

I think our house has kind of been the sick ward for the last month. We all had a real nasty cold about five weeks ago. Then nearly two weeks ago Kristen gets throwing up and can't stop and has to go the hospital and get an IV. She spent the night. I did all right with Trea. The next day I start getting a really bad toothache in a tooth that had had a root canal two years ago. Anyway, the toothache was so bad that it kept me up half of the night. This on top of Trea fighting us to go to sleep for two hours. Her sleeping habits went out the window when we all got sick and Kristen and I didn't have the energy to fight her and just let her sleep with us -- BIG MISTAKE. Anyway, after a lot of hassle trying to find a place that can get me in and will actually do something while I'm in pain (apparently it's pretty common practice for dentists to give you an antibiotic and say they can't do anything until the pain goes away) I just get the dang thing pulled for a grand total of $12 (with five days of painkillers and antibiotics). Another root canal would've been about $200 plus another $100 for a new crown and the doctor said that the outcome is questionable so I just went for the extraction. That was a really bad week for us. Kristen was ready to go home. She said she would have if she wasn't so sick and could've handled the flight.

So, when Kristen and Trea first arrived Trea was really attached to both of us but particularly Kristen. Anytime Kristen left the room she would cry. I understood why. Daddy had left for six weeks and now Grandma and Grandpa were gone and Mommy was the constant in her life and she didn't want to lose her mom. Anyway, this lasted for about three weeks or so and then she really started getting back to normal and would be okay if we left the room. About two weeks ago she decided that Daddy is the coolest and now she won't let me go anywhere without being at my side or crying. It's kind of flattering for about two days and then it starts driving you crazy. I know it's aweful to talk about your child like this but lately she's like a leech. Weekends aren't a break. It's hard to get anything done. If I'm doing something she doesn't want me to do (typing on the computer, reading, giving attention to Kristen, or anything other than giving her my undivided attention) she fusses. I realize that a lot of this is typical toddler behavior but I'm just venting that I'm going crazy here. Kristen isn't able to help due to being sick but I honestly believe that even if she wasn't Trea wouldn't give me a break.

School is going all right. I had my first parent-teacher conference last month. It was all right I guess. I feel like I'm making progress as far as what I'm doing. I feel like I have a better idea of what I want to teach, how I want to teach it, etc. If only the kid would give me some time to prepare. I've got four kids in fourth grade who are always getting in trouble and getting detentions. I'm getting pretty sick of it but I'm not sure what I should do.

Chantrea has pretty much fully adjusted to nursery. She doesn't cry at all when I drop her off. In fact, she seems somewhat excited to be there. She knows all her teachers names and I'm told the names of all her classmates. She's picking up a lot of Thai. It's so cute to hear her speak Thai. She's really good at wai-ing (putting your palms together in front of you) and all the locals eat it up when she wais.

Hopefully my next post will be more exciting and less whining.

PS -- Anyone reading this who wants to talk: we got our webcam hooked up and a microphone so we can now talk on the internet (Yahoo MSGR with voice or Windows MSGR). The quality is about the same or better than the intl. phone calls and much cheaper.

Rocking Out!

2006-07-16T15:48:00.000+07:00

Wow, it's been so long and so much has happened I don't even know where to begin. I've been meaning to post so many times and have just found myself busy and haven't been able to do it. It's really hard to get my lesson planning done now that I have Kristen and Trea around. Life is really good now that they're here with me. If you want to read some of what has been happening since we've been here check out Kristen's blog at chronicallysleepdeprived.blogspot.com . She's a little more on the ball with blogging lately. Thailand with a baby is quite different than Thailand without one. Although now that I've typed that I realize that everything is different with a baby than without one so it sounds kind of stupid.

The first two weeks that they were with me were . . . let me say . . . interesting. Both of them were having some serious adjustment issues. I hope Kristen won't kill me for saying so. I think I just got lucky and didn't really have any culture shock this time around and kind of forgot to think that it's the normal thing that happens. Anyway, I was stressing out because Kristen was stressing out because Trea was having a hard time adjusting. Anyway, I believe that things have settled down, for now.

We know know somewhat how celebrities feel when they go out in public because a "farang" baby (see previous posts for what a farang is) is nearly unheard of here. People are like in Trea's face like all the time. Everyone wants to play with her and hold her and touch her. Drove her nuts at first but I think she's gradually getting used to it. This past Monday and Tuesday we had off because of Buddhist holidays. Monday we went to a park by the lake here and just let Trea play on the playground. One boy (probably eight or nine) was talking to his friend in Thai, and basically said, "Whoa, a farang baby. I've never seen one before." It was almost like he wasn't sure they really existed. It's nice to be able to understand at least enough to catch jewels like that.

I'm working on taking pictures of some Engrish here and would like to collect enough for an occasional Engrish display/post on the blog. So keep your eyes open for that.

Also on Monday I found out that I have bronchitis. I went to a doctor who lives down the main road from us. His office is probably five mins. on a songtaew. His English is really good because he studied in England and did his residency in the Philippines. Anyway, I saw the doctor, he gave me some cough medicine, five days of prescription meds: for bronchial spasms, an antibiotic, an antihistamine, and a cough suppresant. My bill for the entire visit was 300 baht, about $8. The doctors here sure like to prescribe a lot of medications but I figure if it's gonna cost me $8 (including the visit) I don't care. Speaking of cheap, I've had a couple of pairs of pants that I bought at the super store here sitting in my closet for nearly a month. They've been sitting there because they sell the pants here unhemmed. I finally pulled them out and had Kristen figure out how long they needed to be. We went into town and took them to a seamstress (they just have these sewing machines out on the sidewalks) who hemmed both pairs for about $1.50 and had it done in an hour.

I don't know if it will really happen but we're toying with the idea of getting a car. That's probably the one thing that IS expensive here. It's kind of a pain to get around without one. Especially with a child. It's not like we live out in the sticks but we're kind of on the outskirts of town and it takes like 20 min. just to get into town on a songtaew. So, we'll see what happens. I'll keep you up to date if we do get one.

As Kristen mentioned in her blog we bought a stove a week ago yesterday and have already made good use of it. It's kind of like a glorified propane camp stove but whatever -- it works. It's a "Lucky Flame" and I know that you all wish that you had a "Lucky Flame." Speaking of flames, check out Kristen's account of the school fire drill. It's definately worth a look and I'm too lazy to write my own account.

Last night was the school welcome party. Every year they have a party to welcome all the new teachers and they put off the party until after Kristen arrived. They had some good food. It was a byob affair as some of the teachers had a few drinks of their own (or shared with others). And what is a party in Asia without karaoke!! They have a tradition of making all the new teachers sing. Kristen told me prior that she WAS NOT going to sing. I didn't know what I was going to sing. Kristen, knowing that I knew a few Thai rock songs, told the school owner that I should sing a song in Thai. Now, there was definitely a part of me that wanted to but also a big part that was very nervous about singing in Thai in front of a bunch of people who SPEAK THAI fluently. But once Kristen mentioned it, the deed was done and there was no turning back. So, I got up there and ROCKED THE FREAKIN' HOUSE!!! All the Thais were totally into it and loved it while all the farangs were jealous because I'm the man. I just thought it was a lot of fun.

We are going to get so spoiled here that it's going to be an adjustment going back home. We get our laundry done here for about $25/mo. The lady washes and irons our clothes (we do our own underwear and socks) twice a week and returns them to our doorstep the same day (provided it doesn't rain -- everything here is line dried). It's so awesome. We really could do our own laundry but it's the ironing that just takes so much time.

Yeah, this is my neatly ironed, folded laundry waiting on my porch as I return home from school.

I will try to be more dilligent with the posting but don't hold your breath.

It’s Raining Elephants and Water Buffalo

2006-06-19T19:23:00.000+07:00

Yeah, this post is a few days old but I wrote it on the laptop at home and am just now at a place where I can upload it to the blog.

Well, I’m stuck here at home tonight (Saturday) – not that I had plans to do anything but I was going to get a bite to eat – on account of a torrential downpour. This is way beyond cats and dogs – elephants and water buffalo. Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE thunder and lightning. I used to stay up nights in Houston just watching the lightning and waiting for the thunder. This storm has had a lot of good thunder and lightning but a couple of times I froke out and almost wet myself because the lightning was so dang close.

It’s a good thing that my kitchen is semi-detached from the rest of the house because it leaks like a sieve and it’s pretty much a swimming pool right now. I’m not too happy about that either because I spent the better part of my morning cleaning it. On the bright side, the heaviest leak drains right into the kitchen sink. It’s like someone took a hose draped it over a rafter, pointed it at the sink (which is metal, by the way) and turned it on full blast. It was like that for a half hour straight.

I had a really productive Saturday. I got nearly all of the house clean for Kristen’s arrival on Friday, did the laundry (which I fortunately hung up to dry in the closets because had I put it outside to dry it would be soaked right now), got a haircut, and bought some food for tomorrow. I may end up eating it tonight though. It’s funny, this morning I was sweeping the patio out front and the neighbor was so impressed that I was cleaning. I can’t figure out if it’s because I’m a Farang (the Thai equivalent of gringo or howlie) or because I’m a man. I get the impression that her husband doesn’t do much around the house but that’s actually pretty normal for Thailand. Then, when I was bringing the laundry in the lady across the street was impressed that I did that myself. Man, if only they could see what I can do with a broom and a mop!! Speaking of cleaning: they have a bathroom cleaner here that is way better than anything I’ve seen in the states and it’s made by SE Johnson (how ironic is that). I wonder if they can’t make anything like it in the states because of safety regulations and such. I couldn’t read the label but I could tell it was dangerous if swallowed and corrosive (symbols). It works amazing but I was afraid to get too close because I thought it might melt my hand or something.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of going to Udorn Thani (about an hour north) to get my visa extended for a year. It was a nice drive and I’m glad everything went smooth. I’ve heard horror stories about that place – just think of how pleasant the DMV is every time you go there. It’s kind of like that. I’m just glad the school has someone go with you who knows the routine and can speak the language. I can’t even imagine going there by myself.

Well, right now Kristen is in Utah for her sister’s wedding. I guess she’s probably awake and doing her hair or something to get ready. I can’t remember exactly what time the wedding is at. We talk almost every night but since she left for Utah she hasn’t called. I assume she’s pretty busy. In fact, I think she told me not to expect any calls until after the wedding. I’m so happy that the week has finally arrived. Everyone here has been asking when she’s going to come. I fly down to Bangkok on Wed. evening and then pick Kristen and Trea up at the airport on Thursday morning. We fly back to Khon Kaen on Friday afternoon. Saturday and Sunday we are attending a regional conference of the church in Mahasarakham (about a half hour to an hour east). The church is also celebrating 40 years in Thailand so they’re having some festivities for that on Saturday. I’m actually singing with the branch choir (in Thai) which is quite fun. Kristen will take Trea to the nursery on Monday and Tuesday and start work on Wednesday (the 28th). So, as you can see, things are going to be really busy. I’m so excited for them to share this experience with me. It’s been great so far but the missing pieces will be put into place.

-- Monday:

I got a couple of leaks fixed today in the upstairs bathroom. Nothing a whole lot of plumbers tape couldn't fix. The landlord called and had someone come and fix them. He just wrapped a ton of plumbing tape and reconnected everything. There's no such thing as upkeep here. Things just break down and are put together "with duct tape" so to speak. I'm sure the leaks will most likely return as he just kind of put a patch on a larger problem but whatever.

Exciting Times Going on Here

2006-06-09T13:54:00.000+07:00

Well, I don't have any new pictures to share just yet but I will. Still haven't got internet at the house yet. I'm beginning to wonder if I ever will. I'm at the school computer lab. Today is a holiday. The King of Thailand is celebrating 60 years on the throne (it's kind of like 50 years in the west because they go by 12-year cycles). Anyway, they've been having celebrations in Bangkok for about two weeks and then on Tuesday, parliament decides that they are declaring Friday a national holiday. Gotta love Thailand. One would think that they would declare this months in advance not a few days. Either way, I was happy to hear that I would have a three day weekend.

Anyway, I'm here at the school with about four other kids playing video games with the sound way up and it's driving me crazy. Yesterday was Wai Kruu Day (honor teachers day). The school had an assembly where students were given awards for the best drawings about teachers, and poems and essays about teachers. The students then present the teachers with these beautiful flower arrangements (they made on Wed.) -- I'll try to post some pictures later. It's kind of cool just to see how different holidays are celebrated.

Things are going much the same. I still have a few students that I want to punt but otherwise things are good. I'm really ready to have the family here. Just two more weeks and they'll be here. I know, I always mention how much I miss them or can't wait until they get here but come on you'd all do the same if you were in my position.

Wednesday night I had the pleasure of reliving a memorable experience from my past :-(. I was watching a movie (I rented four last Friday for 90 baht - about $1.25) and noticed a little spider in the air dangling from a web. I killed it and kept on watching the movie. A few minutes later another one. I looked up at the ceiling and there were probably a hundred of those little chumps up there. There were probably about 1 cm across (the leg span - not the body) and they were everywhere. So, I paused the movie and grabbed the can of bug fumigant (I had purchased this in a pinch because I couldn't find regular spray). So, I spray the room for 15 secs. as per the directions and close the door and leave the room. Oh, I must mention that when I looked up at the ceiling I had seen a gecko making a meal of the spiders but I knew that little guy couldn't finish the job by himself so I grabbed the spray. (If there had been five or six geckos I may have just let 'em feast. Anyway, back to the story; after 15 min. I go back in and start airing out the room. Now there are dead spiders all over my bed and probably half of the original population is still running around on the freaking ceiling. By this point I'm so ticked that I start yelling and mumbling at the spiders (as if they are doing this just to make my life difficult and can actually understand what I'm saying). I then spent the next half hour killing the little chumps one at a time by smashing them with a paper towel. GOOD TIMES!!!! Kristen and I had a similar if not quite as distressing experience in Provo a few years ago.

I don't know if I'll get used to the bugs. I'm just going to start using lots of sprays and traps and such. I think I've killed probably 4-5 roaches (and seen as many that were already dead). YUCK!!!

Well, that's the news on the eastern front for now.

Some more pictures

2006-06-03T20:10:00.000+07:00

Well, I don't have all that much to say this time. Things are still going okay. My students are about the same -- I want to drop kick them most of the time but ... I refrain. Still loving it. I'm looking forward to getting internet at the house. That will hopefully happen in the next week but I'm not holding my breath. Seems like everything here takes a while to get done.

I found a great new restaurant about a three minute walk from my house. Last night I had a pork steak (they didn't have beef). It was served with a salad, french fries, and a slice of really good bread with really good real butter. Total cost - 40 baht. About a dollar. I was so impressed that I went back tonight and tried their spaghetti which was also very good. I'm also addicted to iced cocoa. It's so freaking good.

I can't wait until Kristen and Trea get here. These last 2 1/2 weeks are going to kill me. The first three went by so fast because everything was so new. Now I'm just counting the minutes until they get here. It's not that I'm bored I just want them to be here and be a part of all this.

Anyway, some more pictures (hopefully, I don't have broken sentences this time). Last time posting the pictures kind of messed everything up. This is called a songtaew. This is the public transportation around town. They've got a couple of different routes that go around town. The different routes have different colors. Fortunately, I have a map that shows where they all go, otherwise I wouldn't have a clue.

Another way of getting around is by tuk-tuk (below). Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of one of these so I copied one from another site. They cost a bit more but are more direct in getting you where you want to go.

Here's a picture that I took on the branch activity. Just a serene little pond. Speaking of the branch, one of the missionaries came up to me on Sunday during choir practice and asked, "Are you ready for a calling?" I asked if he knew what they (the branch presidency) were thinking of calling me to. Hey said, "One of the counselors in the Elders Quorum presidency or maybe the president." Excuse me, I'm doing okay with the learning Thai but I don't speak that well. If I'm the pres. and my teacher doesn't show, I'm supposed to teach. I don't know how that's going to happen. Well, we'll see what happens tomorrow.

I took this picture just because I get a kick out of these brightly colored and often animated (anime) tour buses.

You know what else is awesome; places like McDonalds, KFC, and Pizza Co. (there isn't a Pizza Hut in Khon Kaen) deliver. I haven't yet taken advantage of this but it's nice because getting to these places takes a good 20 min. by songtaew and if I get a hankering for a burger or something else I can call and have it delivered (that is if I can explain what I want and give my address/directions over the phone). Well, that's all for now.

Yeah, I'm Hanging in There

2006-05-27T19:42:00.000+07:00

Hey faithful readers (all 4 of you), sorry for leaving you all hanging for so long. I really was planning on posting a lot more than I have. You know, teaching takes a lot more work than you think. I think it would be a lot different had I known exactly I was going to teach and had a few weeks to get some preparation done. As it is now, I'm pretty much planning the next days lesson the night before -- hence the lack of posts. Hopefully, I'll be able to get ahead a bit but who knows. Overall, I' but grade four is pretty bad. I've already handed out about 10 detentions in two weeks. I'm really loving it here though. It's hot and I'm sweaty all the time but I LOVE being in Thailand. I just miss Kristen and Trea. I've only been gone for almost three weeks but it seems like Trea is learning m enjoying it. I'm teaching Math and English to 3rd and 4th graders. Grade three is pretty goodso many new words in just that short time. I got a cell phone and I talk to Kristen just about every night. She found some company that specializes in calling cards to Asia and she can call me for like three cents a minute so it's pretty nice that we can talk and hardly spend any more than we would be if I lived across the country.

Seemed like I had a million things to say but I never wrote them down so I'll just ramble. The school that I teach at is just an elementary school (with kindergarten) and nursery. I would guess that they have maybe 350 kids total. It's a private school and most of the kids come from families with money and are therefore pretty spoiled. My house is behind the school. It takes me like 20 secs to get to the school grounds and maybe a minute and a half to get to the teachers' room.
Here's a picture of the students(only the elementary students) lined up for our morning flag ceremony. You can see the far end of my townhouse building on the right hand side of the picture. The kindergarten director lives in the older style house behind the basketball standard. She's one of the owner's daughters and will be Kristen's boss. She's pretty cool.

Okay, I think I mentioned posting some pictures of our townhouse. I don't know if you've seen but Kristen beat me to the punch and posted some on her blog but I'm going to post some here anyway.

Here's what the place looks like from the front. Here's a shot from just inside the front door.

And here's what our bedroom looks like.

Yeah, the formatting of these pictures isn't the best but whatever. I've got a lot more pictures (not just of the place) but uploading them is kind of slow and I want to finish this post so maybe I'll just do another post after this one.

Last Saturday I went to an activity with the branch here. We met at the branch house at 8:00 and didn't get home until 5:00. I knew it was going to be an all day thing so it wasn't any surprise. We went up to a park near a dam and tried to find clues and do things along the way there (we were split into five teams in five vehicles). We couldn't find most of the things on the way there but we had a good time. The park was really pretty. It's differernt going to these kind of things and only being able to catch a few things here and there. I've been to church twice and I learn a TON of Thai but by the time it's over my head just hurts.

So, on Thursday of this week (two days ago) I was scheduled to see the kids off after school. (I do this every Thursday). Anyway, the Thai teachers had the front end taken care of (get the kids into the right car when their folks show up) so I was just supposed to walk around and make sure nobody is doing anything that will get them hurt. So, I play soccer with some of the kids for a while and then a bit later some of the kids ask me if I want to play basketball. I say okay and we start playing. About two minutes into the game I'm driving toward the hoop and roll my ankle. It didn't seem too bad but by the next morning I couldn't put any pressure on it at all. Fortunately, I had noticed upon moving into our new place a pair of crutches in the storage space under the stairs and I took those to school yesterday. Haven't even been at the school two weeks and I'm showing up injured. I'm feeling a bit better now. I can walk on it at least. Kind of a funny walk but whatever.

I love how you find different products made by American companies in different countries. I'm sure most of you have seen this to some extent. They have Lays potato chips here but they have flavors like Nori Seaweed, Grilled Lobster, and Salmon Teriyaki. I've tried them all and they're actually all pretty good. Why don't they have fun flavors like that in the States? I guess probably because there's not a great demand for them there.

Well, I'd better be going. Kristen should be calling soon.

Alive and Kicking

2006-05-10T21:10:00.000+07:00

I made it!! Here is my first post from Thailand. The flight was actually pretty good. It went by rather quickly and I was able to get probably 4-5 hrs. of sleep which is pretty good for me. I watched King Kong and thoroughly enjoyed it too. I spent the night in Bangkok and then we travelled drove up to Khon Kaen today. I got here this afternoon at about 2:30. I have met with some of the teachers at the school but should meet most of the rest tomorrow morning.

The townhouse is pretty good. It's about what I expected. It's pretty basic but will meet our needs. I took some pictures and emailed them to Kristen. I'll have to post some of them here for all to see (I don't have them with me right now or I would).

It's great to be back in Thailand although I of course miss Kristen and Trea. I can't wait until they get here. Then the fun is really going to begin.

I have to admit that I'm still a little nervous about teaching. I think it's just one of those things that I think I will just have to give it a little while and then I'll get into it and be comfortable. The nice thing is that everyone here at the school is so friendly and helpful so I should always feel like I can go to them for help with teaching. From what I've heard it sounds like I can go to them for help with just about anything.

Anyway, just a quick update before I head home and crash for the evening. I haven't had a whole lot of jet-lag this trip which is nice (knock on wood).

I Hope to update often.

Catch you on the flip side.

2006-05-08T08:46:00.000+07:00

So, here it is . . . my last post from the USA. Wow, I don't even know what to say other than this is totally surreal. I can't believe that this moment has finally come. It's now 9:45 PM Sunday and I am just about eight hours away from flying out of Reagan Intl. Airport headed for New York and then on to Bangkok.

These last few weeks have been really nice. I've had a lot of time to spend with Kristen and Trea -- taking walks, going shopping, to the park, playing in the yard, etc. I can't decide if in the end it will make being away from them harder (I've been around them so much and kind of got used to it) or easier (because I at least got a lot of time in before I left). Either way it's been nice.

For those of you who haven't heard, I now know that I have an allergic reaction to something. I haven't a clue as to what it is but something got me really good. I'd never had hives before this past week and at one point I think I had them covering 2/3 of my body -- very unpleasant to say the least. I did get in to see a doctor on Thursday and he prescribed me some Prednisone (sp?) and it's working miracles. I was imagining having those aweful hives on a 17 hour flight. That would have been hell. Anyway, I'm basically back to normal and ready to go.

This time over I'm going to try anything and everything to see if I can sleep. My last flight to Thailand (May 2002) I think I slept for like two hours (out of 23 or something). It was aweful. I've got a neck pillow, eye mask, ear plugs, and Tylenol PM. I'm gonna look rediculous but my sleep is more important. I just hope it all helps. Also, I don't think I'm going to go to sleep tonight.

The other day I found a trip report from a guy who had taken the same flight that I'm taking (direct from JFK to Bangkok). Here's a picture of the route over the north pole. Just reading the trip report got me excited -- Thai Airways is awesome.

Kristen has been practicing learning the Thai alphabet. In just the past three days or so, she's learned all 44 consonants. I'm really impressed!! I have a lot of fun seeing her learn Thai.

Anyway, I will probably be busy for the next week or two settling in, etc. but after that hopefully I'll have all kinds of fun and interesting stuff to post about. Oh yeah, Kristen found some info the other day that it may be possible for us to get DSL in Khon Kaen for like $25 a month. It all depends on if we have a land line or not. I'm praying!! Posting would be so much easier from home with a fast connection.

So, I'll catch you on the flip side.

Johnny You're A Bad Boy

2006-04-22T08:31:00.000+07:00

Yes, I'm a lemming but really, who cares? Those of you reading this have already seen how this works so I'm not even going to explain it. It's really fun to see what comes up. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. I've added a comment or two (after the dash --)

1. in combat boots John looks like a monstrous spined robot with a large amount of weapons in normal activities he looks like a full conversion borg

2. John looks like he has a lot of feelings.

3. John looks like something out of Deliverance here

4. John dolls himself up for Marlena's wedding and sneaks past the troops. Will he be caught?
(The link is titled: Days of Our Lives: John Looks Like a Lady)

5. John looks like he weighs 300 lbs and molests ...

6. John looks like he is testing his new rear springs.

7. John looks like he’s about 5’8’’. -- Yeah, in my dreams.

8. John looks like he wants the cameraman.

9. John looks like he's trying to hypnotize someone with those eyes. -- You know it.

10. John looks like hes gotta pee!!

11. John looks like an angel.

12. John looks like he's sweating in a lot of scenes

13. John looks like hes going through constipation and Hulk is trying 2 squeeze it out of him

14. John looks like a girl!

15. John looks like Coolio

16. John looks like an aging Queen -- (This was actually Elton John)

17. John looks like Jesus especially in the cartoon on the Chit Chat Ledge.

18. John looks like John still.

19. John looks like an ahjushee -- what the?

20. Do you think John looks like a garden ornament?

Yes, these are all real. I just started at the top of the list and went down. I was going to stop at 15 but they were just to good to stop there.

My O My

2006-04-19T09:16:00.000+07:00

So, as usual, here I sit ready to blog and all of the ideas that were flooding my brain have vanished into thin air. I had quite a few things to blog about but now I got nuthin.

My last assignment with the temp company ended last Friday. I figure I may be done for a couple of reasons. 1. We're doing all right financially and 2. I was planning on taking a week and a half off before leaving and the temp company usually takes nearly a week to get me something. So, I've got three weeks to get ready and spend time with family. That will be really nice since I won't see them for six weeks.

Last night we went to an O's game. It was so much fun!! It was my second MLB game ever and the other was a long time ago. My brother-in-law Mark got us some good seats from his company. We were on the box level between home and third. My in-laws took us out and treated. I love going to a baseball game. Watching on TV really isn't my thing but there's just something about being there. Of course, the fact that the O's won made it even better.

Today I got my visa back from the Thai embassy. I was happy to get it so quickly. I was a little worried that it wouldn't arrive until right before I left. Kristen has been in contact with the school and has worked out a deal to work three days a week in the kindergarten for 15,000 baht per month (I make 25,000 a month). As mentioned previously Chantrea will be able to go to the nursery for free. So, with 40K a month we should be doing all right. We'll probably pick up a few hours of private tutoring in the evenings too.

I worked out in the yard today and that was a lot of fun. I don't know why but I really like getting my hands dirty. I think I got that from my dad. He's a real green thumb. I think I'll be one of those people who loves to do yardwork (not mowing -- but planting and stuff like that) when I get older.

We're going to start advertising the car this weekend. I'm not really looking forward to that. I don't know why but I just hate stuff like that.

My parents are flying out to Maryland the end of April to see us before I take off for Thailand. I'm really looking forward to seeing them one more time.

I don't know if I've previously mentioned this but my niece, Lonna (she's just over two years old) calls Trea "shoo-shoo." We're not exactly sure where she came up with that. Every time she comes over it's: shoo-shoo? (ie where's Trea?). This one was good:

Me: Lonna, can you say Trea?
Lonna: Shoo-shoo
Me: Lonna, say Tray-uh. (drawn out)
Lonna: Shooooo-Shoooooo (drawn out)

Yeah, so it's probably a good thing that we're moving or that one could stick. Kristen has a cousin who approaching 20 who's still called "Scoob" by everyone. We don't need anything like that going on here.

We recently counted how many words she says and actually understands and the number was about 70. One of my favorites is "Moo-shoo." That's how she says lotion. Sounds like she wants Chinese food. Also, recently she's decided that everything needs to end in "ie." Her cousin, Bryce, is "Brycie." Her uncle Mark -- "Markie." Book = Bookie and Light = Lucky (?). She's a hoot.

After going back over this post I realized it's kind of lame but I'm too lazy to change it and I've put too much into it to completely erase it so here it is.

I Want to Rip Something

2006-04-09T09:41:00.000+07:00

Does anybody out there have any experience with DVD ripping software? Enough to make a recommendation? I'm interested in ripping video to put on my Zen. I'm currently trying out a few free trials but I thought if any of you had a recommendation . . .
I need something that will decrypt. I understand why DVDs are encrypted but it sucks for someone like me who isn't looking to make copies of DVDs I don't own but just to make the stuff I already have available on my PVP (portable video player).

I wish I could upload video to my blog because last night Trea got so tired that she couldn't stay awake to eat her dinner. Being the loving father that I am, instead of getting her out of the high-chair and laying her down, I got the digital camera and took some video. Kristen thought it was pretty funny but did give me a hard time about not getting her out immediately.

Today is the 8th. Exactly one month from now I will be on my way to Thailand. Wow!! I'm really starting to get nervous but only because it's such a big change and I'll really, really, really miss Kristen and Chantrea.

I am Freakin' Awesome!!

2006-04-06T23:20:00.000+07:00

So, you're probably wondering why my post is thus titled. The answer -- just because. What makes me so freakin' awesome? -- nothing in particular, I just am.

So, I'm sitting at work on my lunch break and instead of running the errands I need to, I've decided to blog. I'm feeling lazy and don't want to stand in lines at the post office. Well, my new assignment is okay. It's pretty boring because it's strictly data entry. I have trouble staying awake it's so boring but it will take me through half of April and that's what I was looking for.

I'm official with the school that I previously mentioned -- Patanadek School. They faxed me a contract and I signed it and am working on sending in an application for a Thailand Visa (the errand that I'm putting off). Kristen was offered a job through the school but isn't sure she wants to take it. We don't really want to have Chantrea in daycare full time. Kristen will probably tutor in the evenings a few nights a week. The pay is better and then I can watch Trea. I'm hoping that we can get Trea into a daycare a few hours a week, more because I want her to get some social interaction with other kids and maybe learn some Thai. If Kristen works evenings she could just go with Trea to the daycare. Anyway, we're still working out all the details but we'll keep you up to date with how it ends up.

We found out last week that Chantrea's renal reflux (I mentioned it last year) hasn't resolved itself and instead has progressed from stage 1 to stage 2. We were told that stage 1 usually just resolves itself so we just kind of figured that we didn't have to worry about it anymore and just needed to get her in to be sure. Now we're kind of bummed that it's not only still there but worse. We need to get her in to see a pediatric urologist but that's proving to be more difficult than it sounds.

My birthday was a pretty normal day but I'm not a big b-day person so that's how they usually go. But this past Monday Kristen's parents took us out for my birthday and it was really nice. We went to a Japanese Steakhouse (I wanted Japanese food) where they cook the food in front of you. At one point they put a bunch of oil on the cooking area and then light it and it creates a huge fireball. It's pretty cool but it freaked out my niece, Lonna. Chantrea, on the other hand, was fascinated with it. She's gonna be a pyro. No surprise for anyone who saw me as a boyscout.

Oh yeah, something else related to Thailand. A ward member had mentioned that her neighbor was from Thailand and would probably love to talk to us. So she set it up last week but Kristen had to work and couldn't come so I went alone. Anyway, the cool thing is that this lady, Ni, and her American husband LIVED in the town where we're moving for like 10 years!! They gave us a bunch of people to contact and some helpful information. What are the chances? I'd like Kristen to meet them so hopefully we can set that up soon.

Kristen now has her own blog. It's called chronicallysleepdeprived.blogspot.com. So go check it out if you get a chance. I know she would love some feedback.

They'll call me "Teacher John"

2006-03-23T01:09:00.000+07:00

So after a lengthy hiatus I'm back. Life has been treating me really well over the past month and a half. I've worked at a couple of different short-term positions and had a good time with them. I was at one for over a week and actually thoroughly enjoyed it. I was helping out the HR director. Maybe I'll have to look into HR someday -- down the road a bit.

The big news around here was the job search. I sent out about 10-15 resumes to schools in Thailand hoping that maybe we'd get a bite. You see, most of the research we've done has indicated that if you aren't in Thailand schools don't usually respond all that much. Well, we did hear back from a number of places. A few that were clueless -- one asking if I could come in for an interview on the 16th or 17th of March (my cover letter clearly stated that I wouldn't be arriving until May 10), another addressing me as Jeffery, and another that was asking me questions about what I'd need to get a visa from the Thai embassy. Those aside I did get a few bites from decent sounding schools and pretty quickly narrowed it down to two schools: The Language Institute of Lopburi (in Lopburi) and the Patanadek School (in Khon Kaen). Financially, the two offers came out about the same -- one offering a higher salary while the other offered paid housing. It was really nice to -- for the first time in my life -- have people really interested in hiring me. After a few agonizing days of going back and forth between the two we have now decided to pursue (we don't have anything official yet) the job in Khon Kaen simply because we feel better about it and it's a bigger town with things to do. Lopburi, although only two hours outside of Bangkok, kind of sounds a bit podunk.

So you can get an idea of where we'll be, here's a map of Thailand. (I say where we'll be simply because it sounds like they're willing to hire me as soon as I give them the go ahead.) Bangkok is on the coast straight below where you see "Thailand" in the center. As I mentioned before, we'll be in Khon Kaen which is located up and to the right of the "Thailand."

I hope I'm not boring you but this is big news in my life. Anyway, some details about the job: I will be teaching about 20 hrs./week but I have to be at the school for a full 40 (8 AM - 4 PM daily). They'll provide us with a two-bedroom, mostly furnished townhouse very near to the school and pay 1000 baht of our utilities ($26). That'll probably be about half. They've offered to let Kristen work full or part-time and Chantrea could go to their nursery at no charge. The English language director that I talked to said that they do everything they can to accomodate the foreign teachers. So, it's always nice to go into a place like that. The school actually has a website -- www.patanadek.ac.th. Although there isn't a whole lot there I could see pictures of some of the teachers that I may be working with. Also, I will be teaching more than just English. I will teach Science, Math, and Social Studies. It's lower grades so hopefully it won't be a problem.

Of course anyone who reads this is welcome to come and visit us any time! :-)

The picture at the top is actually from the school website.

Music post

2006-02-08T10:23:00.000+07:00

Well, I have some thoughts that I decided not to mix with the Super rant so here's another post. You know what is really cool -- finding some good music that you just plain overlooked in the past. Recently, while putting music onto the new MP3 player I found a couple of albums on my computer that I had never listened to but which are really great. The first is, Pearl Jam: Riot Act. I really like Pearl Jam but I'm not a huge fan but when I'm in the right mood, they just seem to hit the spot. I really loved Yield but wasn't terribly keen on Binaural (not that I've even heard most of it). Listening to Riot Act though has been great. It's a good record that I obviously just overlooked. The other album: Hail to the Thief by Radiohead. Honestly I didn't think I'd like this at all. I had listened to OK Computer a number of times and really didn't care too much for it. I think I'll have to go back and listen to it again. Anyway, I really like this album. It's funny because I listen to the songs and in my opinion they all sound like they could be soundtrack music for different offbeat movies (seriously listen to the lyrics).

Also music related: yesterday I heard the new Gorillaz single, Dare and I really like it as well. I'm not really a music afficionado (as most of you who read this blog know) but I'm really impressed with how well they (the Gorillaz) can put together a lot of great songs that all sound completely different. You know how a lot of bands have so many songs that aren't the same but sound really similar. It seems like everything I've heard from the Gorillaz is just different.

Personal news: we are officially going to Thailand. We have tickets purchased!!!

Super Vomit into the Super Bowl

2006-02-08T10:09:00.000+07:00

Doesn't that title just sound gross? I hope so. I know the Superbowl is two days gone but I'm still ticked about it so I'm going to vent my frustrations via this post. My problem is that once I decide to root for a team (even if I'm not really affiliated with that team) I really get into it. I was, as you may have picked up, rooting for Seattle. I lived there for two years, know a lot of people there that doubtless rooted for Seattle, and I have zero ties to Pittsburgh (other than attending a U2 concert there in October of last year) so it was the obvious choice. Besides, I'm kind of an NFC guy. I always root for the NFC contender in the Superbowl unless it's the Cowboys.

Anyway, back to the game. Halfway through the first quarter I was already having some serious issues with / doubts about the officiating in the game. There were just some really bad calls. I'm sure there are plenty of articles out there about how bad the officiating was but I've only read this one but I thought it was right on target. The author, Kevin Hench, had actually picked the Steelers to win but in his article points out that they weren't the best team on the field. Which is exactly what I'm so upset about. The Seahawks, overall, looked a lot better than the Steelers. I will admit that the Seahawks did make some huge errors but the poor officiating can take a team right out of things in a hurry. It seemed to me that the Steelers won an entire football game with about five or six plays.

Seattle deserved to win this game.

Anyway, I'm still baffled by this but can't even coherantly put together a good post so I'll just stop here.

Super

2006-02-08T10:08:00.000+07:00

Yes, I Love Technology -- Always and Forever

2006-01-24T10:37:00.000+07:00

I'm back. I guess the news around here is that we are indeed going to Thailand and almost had tickets bought but are reconsidering our timing. The plan was for me to head over the beginning of May, hopefully find a job and a place to live and kind of get things set up so that when Kristen and Chantrea came over (in mid-June) they could move right in. Kristen's younger sister is getting married on June 17th so she wants to stay for that for sure. Anyway, as I said we were all ready to go ahead with these plans when last night I realized that I don't know how well I'll do being apart for six weeks. I think I'd lose it so we're rethinking the timing. Maybe we'll all just stay and go to the wedding.

In other news Kristen and I just purchased an MP3 player. It was actually part of our Christmas but we just hadn't gotten around to it until now. We went all out and got the newest thing. Actually that was mostly me. I put in a bunch of my personal money so we could get the one that I wanted. Kristen just wanted something pretty basic. I wanted all the bells and whistles. We ended up getting the Creative Zen Vision: M. This thing won best in show at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show. It's basically a competitor to Apple's iPod video. It's got 30GB and plays video (divx, mpeg 1 and 4, and xvid), audio (obviously), has a microphone, FM radio, and can display pictures. I've only had it for about a week but it is awesome! I guess I don't need to go on about it forever though.

This past Wednesday Kristen and I went on our first date in forever. Funny how once you have kids it's really hard to get away. We just went out to eat and window shopping for a bit but it was really nice to have some alone time. And eating out is always nice.

Saturday I went in to get a Maryland drivers license now that we've been here for four months. Actually the only reason I'm getting it is because my Utah license expires in March and also our insurance expires and we need to get new insurance and that requires us to get the car registered in Maryland. I HATE government operations. Needless to say, I still don't have the license and I have to go back again. Such a pain.

Yeah, I'll end on that note.

Start Anew

2006-01-06T07:44:00.000+07:00

Here we are in 2006. A new year means we get to forget the past and start again with the goals and resolutions. For me that usually lasts about three weeks. Anyway, one of my resolutions is to post more often. So, all four of my readers are in for a treat -- for the next three weeks, at least. I don't know why but I always feel like blogging on Xbox night but of course don't get around to getting even close until it's time to get on Xbox live and kick some butt!! Fortunately for me (and you all) Chantrea was extremely tired today (no nap) and I got her down by 7:30. Lately it's been more like 8:30 or 9:00. So here I am at 7:50 getting an early start to this captivating post.

We had a very nice Christmas. It was a lot of fun to see my parents and Justin's family. His kids are still a riot. His youngest, Jacob is six weeks older than Trea and about five pounds lighter. I swear she is such a chunk. A cute chunk, though. My parents have this little Santa that sings when you press a button and for three straight days that's all I heard as the kids just wanted to push the button and dance. They loved that Santa. Chantrea is finally starting to use a few words and some signs. She will sign eat and more, and sometimes please (although she's usually stubborn and just looks at me like you already know I want it). She will say "daddy" (which is funny because she won't really say "mommy"), "ice," and she says "gah" when she's done. She got that from me saying all gone. The cutest thing though is that she does the sign for sleep when she's tired. It's nice because she can usually recognize when she's tired and she doesn't really fight going to sleep (most nights). Anyway, enough about my kid.

So, I have a new LOST dilemma. We have now seen the entire first season but I want to be completely caught up -- NOW. I could buy the second season episodes on iTunes for $2 but I don't want to pay $10 for a TV show. Yes I'm cheap. That's my dilemma, do I fork over the cash to "get my fix" or just be content with having seen the first season. Another thing I've recently thought to myself is this: even though I absolutely LOVE Lost I don't think it's a show that I would like to own on DVD. My reason being this: when the show ends and goes off the air there will be an end to the suspense and mystery of everything. Once you know how it all ends do you really want to watch it again? I don't know, maybe I would but then again maybe I wouldn't. Let's just say it's not like owning a comedy on DVD. I could watch Seinfeld a million times.

I watched the Rose Bowl last night -- that was a great game. I was disappointed that USC lost but the game was a great one. More exciting though was the Orange Bowl. I couldn't believe triple overtime. Congrats to Penn State on that one. Joe Pa's still got it. His effective use of time outs to score at the end of the first half was coaching at it's best. Speaking of sports (what a great segue), what's the deal with every old coach making another go at it? Is there really no good, young talent out there? Bill Parcells, Joe Gibbs, Vermiel (well he's done now but he did give it another go), and Marv Levy, among others. There's probably some Packers fan performing science experiments to figure out how to bring Vince Lombardi back from the dead to coach again. Who else is coming back -- Ditka, Schula, Walsh? I'm just kind of tired of seeing the same old crew. I want some new faces. These guys had a good run. Let's just call it good. There's got to be some young talent out there ready to make the jump, whethere that be college coaches or NFL coordinators. And why are they coming back? It can't be the money. They've got to have plenty of that. They just can't let it go. If I had that kind of money I'd be taking it easy and spending a lot of time with family and traveling. I wouldn't be coaching -- again.
I'm just sayin.

As I'm sure most of you have heard, Bono was voted as one of Time magazine's Persons of the Year along with Bill and Melinda Gates. As an avid U2 fan, I had to make mention of that. The articles in the magazine were very interesting. I've always loved U2's music but I have a whole lot of respect for what Bono has done and continues to do with the influence that he has. A lot of people could use their status for good but really don't. He recognizes the opportunity and takes advantage of it. Anyway, if you haven't read the articles, make time and read them.
Well, to close, I'll update you on where we'll be this year. We are still planning on heading to Thailand. We've actually been looking at some of the finer details lately. We are looking at sometime between March and June. We were planning on heading out in March but Kristen's sister is getting married in June and Kristen's not sure she wants to fly over and then fly back to Utah in June. So, we are working out that detail among others. Also, we are narrowing down our list of possible cities.

I'll keep you updated. We got a new digital camera for Christmas so hopefully, I'll post some pictures of Chantrea soon. My posts never turn out as great as they seem in my head but then again, I think everything in my head seems better than reality so . . .

Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Everyone!!

2005-12-19T08:45:00.000+07:00

Yeah, I stole it from Homer Simpson (the title) but whatever. It's been quite a hiatus for me. My main distraction (at least for the past two weeks) has been LOST. I told myself I wasn't going to watch this show because I would get addicted. Well, I was right about the last half of that statement. I watched one episode with my in-laws and that was all it took. I turned around, signed up for an online movie rental service (instead of spending $5 for each of the seven discs) and am nearly done with the first season. This is absolutely the BEST show on television.

Things are crazy around here now with a brother-in-law, and a sister-in-law (and her boyfriend/fiance) returning home for Christmas. It's fun to have lots of family here but naturally it's harder to find a moment alone.

I'm so ready to go to Ohio later this week. I'm excited to see my parents and my little brother, Justin, and his family. It took me a while to realize how much I miss living close to him. We're like best friends. At least we can talk on the phone. His kids are a blast too. It will be fun to see how Chantrea interacts with them now that she's a bit older.

Justin mentioned to me the other day when we were talking on the phone that he would like to move to Houston and teach after he graduates next year. He was trying to get me to move down there too. I was kind of like, whatever but I mentioned it to Kristen figuring she would be like no way. Of course, she says, "I could move to Houston." Now she's done all this research about housing in Houston and other things. I think she's just nervous about going to Thailand. I really wouldn't mind moving back to Houston. I enjoyed it while I was there but I want to go to Thailand first. So, as always, we're still up in the air. I think that we've decided that we will be out of here by mid-March -- whether that be Thailand or somewhere else.

Tonight Kristen found some research study for acid reflux on Craig's List. The study would require that I go up to New Jersey for six days on three different occasions but pays over $5,000. That's like working for two and a half months!! I don't know if my condition is severe enough for the study but it's definitely worth looking into. That would be awesome if it worked out.

Kristen and I haven't been to a movie in ages. There are so many movies in the theaters that I want to see right now. I just wish I had the time and cash to see all of them.

I'd been gone so long, I'm surprised the link to my blog wasn't removed from the blogs of some of my friends. People do really love me. Either that or their just too lazy. Anyway, I'm back for the time being.

The saga continues

2005-11-10T09:46:00.000+07:00

I've got a lot of random, unrelated things to post about so I imagine this blog will kind of be all over the place. First let me begin with the saga at work. Our meeting last week was indeed about the time sheet. Basically "the boss man" said that we need to be at our desks all day ready to work when the work comes in. He acknowledged that it is a crappy situation sitting around all day and said that if it doesn't work for us we should look for another assignment with the temp co. I thought that was pretty fair -- considering that they're still paying us to do nothing 50% of the time. Then, things went pretty much back to normal. People hang around more (instead of going to their cars) but still come in at 9:30 and put down 8:30; leave at 3:50 and write down 4:30. One girl is a real estate agent on the side -- she comes in most days about 9:30, leaves from 11 to 2, and comes back in from 2 to 4:30 and puts down that she was in from 8:30 to 4:30.
Well, I had had enough and went and talked to "the boss man" (Kevin) this morning at 8:25 when nobody was in and just explained the situation to him. He said he would try to keep on top of it. About halfway through the day I thought nothing would be done but he talked to some other temps (I think those that wrote down 8:30 but came in after) and now the time sheet is on his desk. Hopefully, it will stay there and the problem will be solved. However things end up, I feel good because I've done what I could.

Last Friday was Chantrea's birthday. She's now 1. We celebrated on Sunday. Here are a few pictures -- before, during, and after.
It's amazing how fast a kid can go from having no idea what cake is to attacking it. It was so much fun watching her make such a mess.

As I'm sure you can see I'm having trouble getting these pictures to line up and I'm frustrated so I'm saying screw it and they're staying how they are.

And the after:

I feel like a dork for admitting this but with all this spare time at work (and at home for that matter) lately I've been trying to learn new things -- to challenge myself. I've been doing some reading but I'm not a big reader so the geography bug in me has come alive. I'm going to brag for a second here. I can name all 43 US presidents in order. Also, I can name the capitals to all 192 countries in the world. I can place most of them (the countries)on the map (everything except the small islands). I can name all 50 state capitals. I'm working on the state nicknames. I'd like to start learning the flags for each of the states and countries. I don't know why but I find it really fun.

Kristen went and applied for a job with Red Lobster today because her job at Bill Bateman's Bistro sucks. Get this: the other day she had a table leave without paying. Can you believe that? Well, there are a lot of reasons that it sucks but she got an offer from Red Lobster and will most likely take it and I'm happy about that because I want her to be happy.

So, I'm anxiously awaiting what Shawn has to say about the whole TO situation but I just want to put in my two cents and say that I'm glad that they finally woke up and canned his sorry @$$. My take is that they somehow thought that things would be different for him in Philly. Maybe they just thought that it was a losing team that made him what he was or maybe they just thought he needed a little more discipline. I look at it like a woman who marries a man knowing what he's like but thinking that he'll somehow change for her. Never happens. TO will always be the same old cocky, self-centered, loud-mouthed punk. He's the Dennis Rodman of the NFL and I think that he'll end up like Dennis Rodman. Undoubtedly, he'll get picked up next season (some other team thinking like the Eagles did that he'll change) but he won't be around too much longer because people will (like they did with Rodman) decide he's too much hassle.

Can you believe that we had weather in the 70's over the weekend? It's still pretty dang warm. Saturday we were raking leaves in short sleaves and I was sweating like crazy. Hello, it's NOVEMBER!!

Seems like there was something else I wanted to say but can't think of it now so I'll leave this ugly mess as it stands.

And without further ado . . .

2005-11-03T08:07:00.000+07:00

U2 Vertigo Tour: Pittsburgh, PA: October 22, 2005

Some things in life improve with age and I would submit that a U2 concert is one of them. With over two decades under their belt and an average age of over 40 years U2 still knows how to bring down the house -- perhaps better now than ever before. Mind you, this is not a band putting on a "greatest hits" or "reunion" tour but a band that is putting out new material that they (and their fans) believe in. U2 has asserted that they believe this is some of their best material. Granted, what band wouldn't say something like this but U2 does more than just saying it -- the play it like they mean it.

The October 22 Pittsburgh concert was over two hours in length and the band played an extensive 23 song setlist including seven (of the 11) songs from their latest release, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb." They played many well-known favorites along with some older, lesser-known fan-favorites (the kind of songs that only hard-core fans can sing along with). It was a perfect mix for seasoned fans and new-comers alike.

The show opened with an electrifying performance of City of Blinding Lights followed by Vertigo. The band continued relentlessly through Elevation, I Will Follow, and The Electric Co. before letting up (slightly) with I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. After Beautiful Day they slowed things up a bit with Miracle Drug and Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own -- a beautifully emotional performance dedicated to Bono's deceased father, Bob Hewson, for whom, and about whom, the song was written. He prefaced the song by talking about his father -- the working class Dublin man who loved the opera and would sit and listen to the opera on the radio in the living room and conduct with the knitting needles. At the close of the song Bono broke into a few opera refrains while waving his arms in the air (conducting motions). It was quite touching.
The band returned with three political heavy hitters -- Love and Peace or Else, Sunday Bloody Sunday, and Bullet the Blue Sky. Of course, what is a U2 concert without some politics? Bono talked about the One campaign to help eliminate disease and poverty in developing nations. Also, during what I call the "political segment" Bono talked about how we (the religions of the world) need to learn to co-exist. He wore a headband with the logo below -- the crescent moon of Islam, the star of David, and the cross of Christianity.

Bono is a performer in the truest sense of the word. One does not go to a U2 concer to see him sing. One goes to see him perform. He has a special way (don't ask me how) of connecting with an audience. It's what makes seeing U2 live so special: It's not a concert, it's an experience. Somehow the band can take a crowd of 50,000 and make it feel like 2,000. In the earlier years he was more active on the stage with raw energy but I tend to think that his energy today is equally potent, just more focused. I honestly don't know these guys can get up and play for nearly two solid hours night in and night out. I was exhausted by the end of the show and I was just in the crowd for one show!!

Another of the evening's highlights was Miss Sarajevo, a song which (recorded) features Luciano Pavarotti singing two solos in Italian. At the concert Bono announced that unfortunately Pavarotti wasn't able to attend but was celebrating his (Pavarotti's) birthday. Bono sang the opera parts himself (in Italian) quite beautifully. It was amazing, especially considering that he sounded a bit hoarse during the first few numbers but by this point seemed to be singing with ease.

A couple of interesting moments of the performance: 1. While out on the end of the ellipse (the b-stage) doing an acoustic number with The Edge Bono received a request from a fan to sign an autograph. He said, "I think this is a U2 first -- signing an autograph during a concert." He smiled, signed the pad, and then handed it over to a smiling Edge who signed it and returned it. 2. During the second encore Bono invited a fan up to play with the band. Apparently he had been holding up a sign that indicated he wanted to play Party Girl with the band. As the individual was making his way up Bono turned to the band and said, "We've got live one Edge." The man from the crowd, Alan, didn't seem nervous at all and really started to jam. It was certainly a night he'll never forget.

I was pleasantly surprised by a few songs in the setlist. For example, I was afraid that a song like Elevation might end up being relegated to the Elevation tour never again to see the light of day in a concert. It was wonderful to hear it again. It is one of those songs that brings down the house at a U2 concert. Miss Sarajevo was a surprise. The Electric Co. was amazing. It's a song that a lot of people who don't know old school U2 stuff aren't familiar with. It sounded great.

The band closed with another older hit, 40 -- based on the fortieth Psalm (first three verses). I was ecstatic! This was a song that closed so many of their earlier concerts but I never figured I would hear it live. The song ends with a repeated chorus maintained by the audience. The band continued to play as they left one at a time -- Bono, Adam, The Edge, and finally Larry (after a small drum solo). A perfect end to a perfect evening. Thanks again guys.

How long to sing this song . . .

The complete setlist:

City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
Elevation
I Will Follow
The Electric Co.
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Beautiful Day
Miracle Drug
Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own
Love and Peace or Else
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet the Blue Sky
Miss Sarajevo
Pride
Where the Streets Have No Name
One

The First Time
Stuck in a Moment
Party Girl
With or Without You

All Because of You
Yahweh
40

It's coming

2005-11-02T07:18:00.000+07:00

For those of you wondering about the concert review: it is coming. I actually started it tonight and then saved it as a draft and now I can't find it on blogger and am too lazy to start again. Hopefully it just takes a while to show up and I can finish it later.

In the mean time I have an ethical question for anyone willing to answer. I am wondering not what I should do but what you would do were you in my situation. Now, let me give you the situation: At my current job (see previous posts) there are five other temps who started at the same time that I did. We are VERY loosely managed by supervisors from the company. Anyway, some of the other temps aren't coming in for a full day but are putting a full day on their time cards (surprisingly nobody seems to notice). On the one hand, I know that the company is losing a lot of money by paying these people for a full day when they're only working for a couple of hours (not that I have work to do all day but at least I'm there) but I also realize that if I say anything that all of the temps will know that it was I who said something since I'm the only one not taking advantage of this -- not so great with co-worker relations. On the other hand, it's kind of annoying to get up every morning and try hard to be on time, be the first one in, the last to leave, and doing a lot more work but getting paid the same that everyone else is. I realize that I could "join 'em" but I'm not going to. Anyway, what would you do? If you don't mind my asking.

Yeah well, what can I say

2005-10-21T07:55:00.000+07:00

All right I'm back in the groove (ie - I'm making a post). That's about as extensive as a groove gets for me. Well, I've noticed that people find my life boring. Hello people - it's clearly stated at the top of my blog that my life is boring. I must admit that those comments got me a little bummed about blogging but hey, what do I care, I'm not blogging for anyone but my five (maybe fewer) loyal readers who happen to be friends and family.

Well, for those of you who didn't hear I was getting paid to do nothing for nearly two weeks straight. Now I actually have to work to get money. Actually the last two days have been four hours of work followed by four hours of nothing. The company that hired me and the other temps wasn't ready for us when we arrived so we were just sitting doing nothing for hours on end. After the second day we all starting bringing books, cards, etc. to occupy our time. Now I'm actually doing work in the mornings but we usually finish by 12:30 or 1 and just sit around until 4:30. Hey, if only there were people giving away money like this everyone I moved!

Kristen started working this week. She's working at a restaurant called Bill Bateman's Bistro. I think the names supposed to be catchy with the alliteration. I think it's just plain dumb (the name that is). Anyway, she's working tonight and I got Chantrea to sleep so I found the time to get on here and post. It's going to be weird with both of us working because I don't really get to see her on days like this.

I don't know what it is but people in Maryland don't know how to drive. Kristen thought Utah drivers were bad -- holy cow, that's nothing compared to this. In Utah the norm was 10 over the speed limit; here it's like 15-20. Also, Marylanders (I don't know what they call themselves) don't know how to merge. On my commute to and from work I've been listening to the classical music station and I think it's the only thing that keeps me from killing people. Somehow things roll off my back better with classical music in the background.

Two days from now I will be at a U2 concert and I can't even begin to tell you how happy that makes me. It's different than my other times though, I think mostly because in the past I've gone to see them when the album was still really new and I had only heard it like a million times instead of like five million. I'm sure it will really start to sink in and I'll get pumped soon enough. In fact I'm getting psyched just writing about it.

BTW - I've been working on my family's web site quite a bit over the past few months and now I have just a small page of my own (http://www.artjefferyfamily.com/John.html). Check it out if you get a chance. Nothing terribly fancy but I think it's cool

Anyway, I really don't have a whole lot to say other than, "If I didn't give you a personal invitation to read my blog stay the hell out -- and don't make stupid comments"

Wow - Life is Grand!

2005-09-28T01:41:00.000+07:00

Ah Maryland. We arrived here one week ago this tonight. I can't believe that it's already been a week. Our stop in State College was -- as all of our stops to visit people were -- wonderful. Visiting Joel & Amelia was like visiting Dylan & Kristy and Shawn & Jessica -- like we had just seen each other a few months ago even though it's been quite a bit longer. It was different because they don't have a child of their own so all of their time was spent watching ours and wondering if they ever really want one of those things. J/K They loved Chantrea and she liked them -- especially Joel. It was like he was her long lost best friend. She warmed up to him instantly. Amelia says all kids just like him. Pretty cool if you ask me.

I realized about two weeks ago that I have gained nearly 20 pounds in the last six months or so. It sucks. I think I gained almost 10 on the cross country trip (sitting all day and eating crap will do that to you) and I think most of the other 10 came during our last six weeks or so before the move. Anyway, so now I have to do the diet thing. Well, I'm not really dieting yet. I'm just trying to exercise regularly to burn calories and watch my portions (mostly trying to drink water instead of juice/soda/etc.) and smaller dinner portions. I'm not really avoiding any particular foods. The good news is that I think I've already lost a pound in just a week of doing that!!! I'm sure it's not going to be this easy all the way down but . . . at least it's a start.

Also, in just one week I have a job and a church calling. I registered with a temp company on Friday and they got in touch with me yesterday about a contract that was for two months (40 hrs./wk) and paid $11/hr. Hey, I was on that like (fill in whatever phrase you want here). I think it will be good. It's in Columbia, MD which is about 30 min. away but I'm cool with that. Also, on Sunday Kristen and I got pulled into the Bishop's office during Sunday School and he asks me if I will be the Gospel Doctrine teacher. That's right -- GOSPEL DOCTRINE TEACHER! Of course, I say yes. I'm kind of excited but at the same time a bit overwhelmed. It's not like I'm replacing somebody who wasn't very good. The sister who was teaching on Sunday was really good (she also had a stake calling that required her elsewhere -- for those of you who are wondering why she was released). That just puts even more pressure on me. I'm cool though. I think the calling must be the right thing because I don't normally feel good about things like this (things that put me out of my comfort zone) -- unless they're right. I'm feeling pretty the job as well. Overall, things are going mighty well right now.

Trea is really starting to pick up walking. I think she gets excited about it watching her cousin, Lonna (18 mos.) walk all over the place. She's gotten quite used to meeting new people and now I figure she could meet anyone and warm up to them in about five minutes. We figure she'll adjust much easier than we will in Thailand.

Just Taking it Easy

2005-09-09T05:42:00.000+07:00

Yeah, well I've been out of the loop for quite a while now. I'll blame it on the move and the stress of it all. We've been away from home for over a week now. We visited my grandmother in Delta, UT the weekend of the 28th and then headed off on our cross-country trip on the morning of the 29th. The first few days were pretty uneventful -- which is the way we wanted it -- no car trouble, Trea was pretty good, etc.

Nauvoo was a nice break. We both really enjoyed it -- Kristen for the first time and me again. The temple is beautiful! We weren't able to go inside (Trea) but just the outside -- WOW! At first Kristen was wondering if we would have enough to do in our day and a half there. Turns out we would have loved to stay for a couple more days. On our way out of Nauvoo we stopped at Carthage. It too was very nice. Of course everyone was listening to the audio and trying to have a spiritual experience and our daughter is alternating between laughter and being fussy. Luckily mormons are generally used to kids.

We had a GREAT time in Kokomo, Indiana. I'm so glad we were able to work out our schedule to visit Shawn and Dylan. You know how you can visit some people and it's like you just talked to them yesterday even though it's been a while . . . well, that's how it was with them. I seriously had so much fun just hanging out and playing with them. It's kind of weird to see all my good friends growing up and being adults (at least when we're not together). Both Shawn and Dylan have starter homes and kids and secure jobs -- well, I've got a kid. I think it would be so cool to live close to all my college buddies.

Now we are staying at my parents home for almost two weeks. We got here late Sunday night and have just been relaxing and taking it easy since then. My parents go to work and we just hang out and then play games and talk with them in the evenings. Tomorrow Kristen, Chantrea, and I are going to a storytelling workshop with my mom. She's going for work because she's a children's librarian and does story time and stuff like that. Should be pretty fun to hear professional storytellers.

Well, I hope to post a few more times before we head out to Pennsylvania and on to Maryland. Cross your fingers.

Sorry

2005-08-16T11:06:00.000+07:00

I'm just gonna straight up apologize for being such a slacker. I can't believe that it's been so long. Things have just been so crazy around here. We had a successful yard sale on the 6th. We got rid of a whole lot of our stuff. Although I look around and we still have so much. Knowing we're moving and have like a million things to do in just a few weeks makes it hard for me to concentrate on anything. This past weekend we drove up to Idaho to visit Kristen's uncle and family. We sure know how to pick weekends. Her uncle had stepped on a nail about 10 days prior to our arrival and had a staff infection. We arrived Friday night and his whole calf was bright red. Saturday morning he decided he should go to the hospital (an hour drive away). Turns out they're keeping him until Wed. He's getting medication through an IV. Sunday morning as we (his kids and Kristen and I) are all getting ready for church they have a sewer drainage line back up and the washing machine and downstairs toilet start leaking water all over the place! I think we are the bringers of bad luck. Look out guys (Shawn, Dylan, and Joel) because we're headed your way next. Oh, and to top everything off we got a flat tire on the drive home. Nothing I can't handle but sheesh . . .
Something else that has taken me away from blogging is working on a webiste for my family. It's up now but still kind of sucks (there's not a whole lot there). It will gradually get better though. Part of the problem is that I need help from family members (pictures, etc.) to really get it looking nice so in the mean time it will just have to do. It's mostly geared to my family but if you want to check out "my skills of an [website] artist" feel free to stop on by www.artjefferyfamily.com

Random:
You know at my place of employment there is a store downstairs and throughout the day they are calling courtesy clerks (baggers) to get carts from the parking lot. I was sitting there and thought, there ought to be monkeys to do that kind of thing. I think monkeys should be trained to do manual labor that requires no real thought. I'm sure if anyone from PETA read this I'd get some nasty emails but I know they don't so who cares?

I know I had a lot more to say but I can't think of it now. Sorry this is kind of a crappy post but I say a crappy post is better than no post.

Good and Bad

2005-07-27T11:46:00.000+07:00

I wrote this at work (during my break) and emailed it to myself to post later. I just remembered that I need to post it before going to bed so here it is.

Well the last few days have been some good and bad. Over the weekend I went camping and to visit my Grandma in southern Utah. Friday night we went camping with my younger brother, Justin and his family. We went to a camp site about a half hour away from my grandma's place. I had a really great time. We got rained on a little bit Saturday morning but it wasn't too bad. Also, up in that same canyon I finally found my first geocache, with Justin's help. It was really exciting. I left a few things and took a few, including a gift card to Walmart. I figured that it would have like 50 cents on it or maybe $5. I checked it Monday and it had $25!! How cool is that?! I gave half to Justin since he was the one who actually found it.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun visiting my Grandma. She is one of the coolest ladies I know. I could just sit and talk to her for hours. She's one of those people that never stops learning new things and is always curious. It's awesome. So we headed home Sunday night because I had to work Monday morning (even though half the rest of the state has Monday off for a state holiday). Monday we get to work and after some debating and unanswered calls from supervisors (to make a long story short) decide that we are supposed to be off. Our Ebay account said that the seller was away for a state holiday and wouldn't be back until the 26th. We took off after an hour and a half of work. Turns out we were supposed to have the day off but they FORGOT to tell us. I would have stayed longer at my Grandma's if they would have told us. Needless to say I was not happy -- none of us were.

Today we got donuts, chocolate milk, and OJ as penance for their forgetting to tell us. That was cool but just a few hours later I find out that I have to go back to my previous position TOMORROW (listing **** -- I mean books -- on Amazon.com) because August is a big textbook month. I was told that I probably won't be coming back here before I leave next month. I'm so ticked. I don't want to go back to standing all day and waking up at 5:00. Not to mention the drama over there -- someone's always upset with someone else, etc. etc.

I gotta give a big shout out to my good friend Joel and his wife Amelia for making our lives much easier on our trip back to Maryland. Amelia works for Marriott and helped us get some discounted rooms booked (with requests for cribs even). Hey Amelia, sorry if your phone starts ringing off the hook for requests.

This coming weekend we have a three day family reunion. Kristen's SO excited to go camping for three days (that's heavy sarcasm for the few of you who don't know that she's not a big camper) . We've never been out for more than one night since we've been married.

PS -- Joel I was flipping and ran across that R. Kelly opera on VH1 last night -- they were showing the whole thing. I could only watch the first act. I just couldn't take any more. It is pretty dang funny (in a not-meant-to-be sort of way).

And On We Go

2005-07-21T09:25:00.000+07:00

Wow, it's been so long since I've posted. I feel like I've been putting off a research paper or something. The "I need to blog" in the back of my mind all the time. Things have been kind of crazy lately and I've finally found a moment to sit down and write. Of course, everything I was planning to blog about has left my mind but I figure I can ramble on and on and then maybe some of it will come back.

Well, I missed Xbox Live night with the guys last week because we had family in town. Kristen's youngest sister, Ashley (I guess she goes by her middle name now -- Kay), got married on Friday. Her husband is a really nice guy. It was a great wedding but when you're part of the family, those are LONG days -- with the ceremony, the luncheon, helping with the reception, cleaning up, etc. It was a lot of fun but I was exhausted when I got home.

Our place was the hangout for Kristen's family because nobody here has a place of their own (roommates) except us. It was cool hanging out with her family. Getting a little Xbox time in with the brothers-in-law was especially nice.

Work is work. I let my supervisor know that I was quitting next month. This on the same day that he found out that another good coworker, Liz, is quitting in two weeks. He's happy for me but knows that he's losing a good employee.

Fortunately, we have a lot of our big furniture and stuff already sold to family, friends, classmates (Kristen's), etc. It's so great not to have to worry about all of it!!

There are so many things that I'm interesting in learning and getting into. Brad (my supervisor) started getting me excited about geocaching. I've tried it twice with no luck. I'm really looking forward to trying again but am having a hard time finding the time and energy. If you don't know what geocaching is visit www.geocaching.com. Another thing I've tried a little of and would like to learn a lot more about is html coding. I haven't checked a book out of the library or anything but during my breaks at work I've gotten on a website that has a tutorial that starts with the basics (www.w3schools.com/html/ - if you're interested). It's surprisingly a lot of fun. I've found that I like learning new things -- I think most people do.

Haven't gotten the new Harry Potter book yet but people at work keep talking about it and driving me crazy. We decided that we're going to get the CDs and listen to the book together on our trip out to Maryland. It should be a lot of fun.

Finally saw Black Hawk Down the other day on TV. I thought it was really good -- very intense. I was pleased that the director chose not to focus too much on the politics of the whole situation. Although some people may the politics of the situation interesting (I have no idea why) to the soldiers that were there it was "We're here and we have a job to do. Our buddies are in trouble and we're going to help them." Just a comment about an old movie that most of you have already seen.

Ghetto-licious

2005-07-07T06:25:00.000+07:00

I just had to share some quirky pictures from work. The first one is my office desk caddy -- handmade by yours truly. Entirely made of cardboard (post consumer use) and tape (unfortunately this had to be new). It's ghetto-licious (that's a word we use frequently at my work -- because everything about the place is). I have a water bottle holder, two razor blade holders, a pencil holder, and a couple of bins for random items. I know you're all jealous. The second picture: NO it's not an evening gown (Kristen asked). We got some real chainmail in and I had to try it on. Pretty heavy stuff -- weighs 25 pounds and feels like your wearing a bunch of bricks. Easy to get on and a pain in the @$$ to get off. I already know that a gay comment is coming -- I'M NOT GAY. I think I'm going to have to buy the chainmail so I can dress up and go play swords with those cool guys in the park. -- I shall smite thee! I hope the sarcasm came through.
READ THE POST BELOW -- IT'S NEW TOO.

Update

2005-07-07T06:02:00.000+07:00

All right, all right. I get the hint -- not so subtle. We had a pretty laid back three-day weekend. Some would call it boring but I think it was just right. Saturday we just took it easy and hung out around the house. We took Trea swimming (her second time). I think she likes it. I ended up watching an old John Candy movie called "Summer Rental" because there was nothing on and Trea and Kristen were napping. Just a random observation -- did every movie in the eighties have the same soundtrack? Sure seems like it -- they all sound the same. This from someone who actually likes a lot of eighties music.

Sunday we had my little brother Justin and his family over for dinner. It was a lot of fun because I hadn't seen him in a while and his kids (Joseph and Jacob) are getting big. Joseph talks all the time now and is hilarious. Every time he falls he stands up and says "tada" as if he had just performed a magic trick or something. Falling is pretty spectacular. He calls me "Non" -- that's my name. And he can't say "Trea" so she's "Tia" We had a great visit with all of them.

Monday was another home day. We started soritng all of our stuff into piles and boxes. 1. Stuff to keep (store somewhere) 2. Stuff to sell 3. Stuff to take with us to Maryland and Thailand 4. Stuff to return to people and 5. Stuff to throw away. It was actually a lot of fun. The kind of thing that you feel really good about when you're done. Trea's room has been a mess (storage) forever and now it actually looks decent. We are planning to have a yard sale at my sister's house the first two Saturdays in August. We are selling almost everything. It's weird to be getting rid of everything. I can't believe that we're so close to moving. I'm really excited.

Chantrea is into EVERYTHING. She can pull herself up fairly easily now and she wants to see everything. Just the other day she crawled into the bathroom and started opening the cabinets below the sink. I don't even think she's ever seen us open them. How does she even know that they're there? She's really starting to become aware of everything. She loves older kids and I just found out today got quite a kick out of my sister's little dog.

News?

2005-06-28T08:14:00.000+07:00

Just a couple of opinion articles that I found interesting. You may have read them, I don't know. You may agree or not but they make you think.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2005-05-15-1.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160555,00.html

Camping

2005-06-27T09:47:00.000+07:00

We finally made it camping! We had a lot of fun. We just went for one night (Friday night) and we stayed fairly close to home -- just went to Timpanogas campground on the Alpine Loop. I figured, if you're camping with an eight month old, you're not going to do a whole lot of hiking, etc. so why drive four hours to camp? We just hung out, cooked hot dogs and smores over the fire. That was awesome because I had been craving smores for like a month. It was nice just to get away from everything. That's what camping is all about. Kristen's still not a camper but . . . She has fun it's just not on the top of her list of things to do. Oh well.

We watched Ladder 49 this evening. It was pretty good. Of course, we had heard that it was sad so I figured that the main character dies in the end (Sorry for those who haven't seen it but seriously you can see it coming a mile away anyway). I thought the acting was pretty good and there were plenty of intense moments but I'm just not a big fan movies that are all just a bunch of flashbacks.

Last week at work was kind of interesting with most of the people above me out. Aimee, who's been in the department for about five months or so more than me got to answer all the phone calls. She was a stress case but she's kind of got that personality type anyway. I can't criticize though, because if I had to take all the calls of ticked off customers I would be a stress case too.

I just got all the ticked off emails -- much easier than phone calls. Don't worry I didn't call anyone a "clown-faced moron" even though I wanted to. What is the deal with people from NY state? They are so pissy (for lack of a better word). I had some emails from customers in NY and they were just all whiny and ticked off and . . . I'll just stop there.

Big Time

2005-06-21T11:09:00.000+07:00

I'm tired so this will probably be short but I've been aching to blog today so I will do so briefly before hitting the sack. Today my supervisor started having me do his job because he's going to be gone pretty much the rest of the week and the girl that's just under him will be gone on Wed. and half of Friday so he figured it would be easier to have me answer all the emails for the rest of the week. It's pretty dumb stuff and time consuming if you ask me. I don't know how he does it everyday without going nuts. "Hey can you ship this to Switzerland?", "Can you ship this item to Canada?" Most of the questions that are asked have the answer in PLAIN English on the Ebay listing -- ie "We Don't Ship Outside the US', shipping calculator at the bottom, a picture of the item, etc., etc. It's kind of nice for a change of pace. It's also nice to know that my supervisor trusts me enough to have me do this while he's gone. He may change his mind when he gets back. Anyway, I was just excited about it and wanted to share before going to bed.

2005-06-19T09:11:00.000+07:00

Trea and Luke Ennis enjoying a little playtime. More like Trea trying to take off Luke's socks.

2005-06-19T09:10:00.000+07:00

Just a great facial shot. She's got the brightest and most beautiful eyes.

2005-06-19T09:09:00.000+07:00

Trea's first time on grass

Baby Pictures

2005-06-19T08:37:00.000+07:00

I meant to post some more recent pictures of Chantrea on my last post but I couldn't find the USB cord for the video camera. I'm sorry the quality isn't the best. Also, our new blog, eight cents is up and running. You can read my enthralling review of an Xbox game or Joel's review of Thirty Days. Anyway, we're all excited that things are up and running.

Random Babbling

2005-06-18T05:35:00.000+07:00

Well, I actually started a blog on Sunday and of course got distracted so here I am trying again. This week has just been one of those weird weeks -- not good but not bad. I've been off -- Tuesday felt like Wednesday and then the rest of the week felt off by a day. Let me tell you it sucks when Thursday feels like Friday but it isn't.

It's so funny, because I'm always thinking of these great things to blog about but when I actually sit down to write my mind goes blank. My brother-in-law just got back from study abroad in Bolivia. I guess there were riots going on while he was down there and they were confined to their residence for a while. Man, let me tell you few things are worse than that. I know because Kristen and I were in Thailand in Sept. of 2001 and right after 9/11 we were stuck in our apartment for almost a week!

Kristen's done with her Spanish 201 class (thank goodness) and has a short reprieve before summer term begins and she has another Spanish class. She's happy she's done but wishes she could find out what her grade is. We're working on our plans for the fall. I think everyone already knows but we're driving out to Maryland end of August to live with Kristen's parents for a few months to save up some money. In Jan. or Feb. we're going to move to Thailand for a while (6 months to a year). On our way out we plan on making some stops and visiting with friends and family. Should be a lot of fun.

Next weekend we're planning on going camping -- finally. I haven't been camping since last August. I love camping.

Recently I got one of those blank journals and have dubbed it my "Idea Journal." I get the most random ideas about random things. Anyway, I just like to keep track of them for no particular reason. I'm thinking about sharing some of them with the few readers that I have. Feel free to mock if you want because some of them are just plain crazy.

Idea Corner: They've come up with a Philly cheese steak pizza, a cheeseburger pizza (for those who crave both a cheeseburger and pizza at the same time), I've even seen taco pizzas. How about this for those nights when you're craving pizza AND Chinese food -- THE SWEET AND SOUR PIZZA. Personally I think it's a fabulous idea but I'm nuts. (For those who are wondering -- there would be no tomato sauce because you replace it with sweet and sour sauce. A little chicken or meatballs, pineapple, bell pepper, etc. MMMMM.

Random fact: It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs. -- Who knew?

Gotta Love the Three-Day Weekend

2005-05-30T22:46:00.000+07:00

Well, it's already Memorial Day -- seems like this year just started about two months ago. Time flies. Even more so when you've got a kid. I don't know why that is but it sure seems to be the case for me. We decided to just stay home this holiday weekend. Kristen has a lot of schoolwork and work to catch up on and I didn't mind just taking it easy so we've just been kicking it here at the old apartment. It's pouring today. Feel bad for those who were planning to barbeque today. I was hoping that perhaps we could maybe go swimming now that the apartment pool is open. Saturday and yesterday were so hot and sunny so I was really looking forward to it. So much for that.

Things have pretty much been the same around here, except that last Sunday we had the pleasure of seeing Jessica Ennis and son Luke. That was a lot of fun to see friends that we haven't seen in a while. Luke is just two months younger than Chantrea but he's a featherweight. Trea looks even chunkier next to that little guy. As I said before it was good to see friends again but it made me miss my college buddies even more.

So, I'm getting to the point where I'm trying to decide what I want to do with my life -- with a little push from Kirsten (ie she wants to know where we're headed so she basically gets me to sit down and look at things that I don't even want to think about). It's so hard to make a decision on where you want your life to go. Well, right now I'm seriously considering three major career choices (not that it couldn't change at the drop of a hat). Here are the three: translator (probably Thai), speech pathologist, and development work (working with non-profits, probably abroad). Of course there are pros and cons to all three so I'm having a hard time picking which I would rather do.

Anyway, enough about my anxiety with what I want to do with my life. For now, we're just plugging along. I work and Kristen's trying to finish up her schoolwork. Trea started crawling this week. It's no longer rolling around to get to things. She's got this goofy crawl (kind of like a spastic inchworm). It's really funny to watch.

Well, I'm signing off for now.

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(thought I'd bring it back for kicks)

Ebay Crazy -- Hoowah!

2005-05-09T10:56:00.000+07:00

Don't even ask what the title means because I have no freakin' clue. You know, I'm really crappy at keeping up with this blogging thing. But who cares, really? Well, Cinco de Mayo was . . . let's just say . . . uneventful. But come on how many of you were really partying it up -- besides Joel.

So I am now officially hired -- finally. I found out Friday but I guess my hire date was technically Monday, which makes me happy. I'm now working over in the Ebay dept. for my company and it's WAY cooler than what I was doing before (listing books on Amazon for those of you who can't remember anything). I'm still in a warehouse which will royally suck come summer time but there are a lot of perks.
1. I can now sit. Listing books we had to stand ALL DAY. Now I'm at a desk with a nice soft chair.
2. Things are a lot more relaxed. My new boss doesn't keep track of how fast we are listing which is less stressful.
3. The schedule -- before I had to be to work AT 6:00 (yes, I know some of you do the same -- so you know that it SUCKS) and now I start at 7:30. That hour and a half makes a lot of difference. My body just doesn't like getting up at 5:00.
4. I haven't taken advantage of this yet but my supervisor can get me a set of headphones and I can listen to music and stuff -- he even has Harry Potter on CD if we want to listen to it.
5. I can surf the web on my lunch hour and break. They're pretty relaxed about internet use too. I don't know if I would have gotten in trouble at the old building but they seemed kind of pissy (for lack of a better word) about internet use.

Those are just a few of the many reasons that I like where I am now. I'm sure you're all snoring right now. Kristen loves being at home during the day now. I'm glad that things have worked out so that she can do so. She's kind of stressing out about her Spanish class. She has class twice a week -- Mon. and Wed. night. I don't blame her though. She hasn't studied Spanish since HS -- almost 8 years. Also, 40% of her grade is the final and that's their ONLY test -- now that sucks.

Chantrea is growing a lot. She's 95th percentile for height and 85th for weight. She doesn't crawl yet but is still EXTREMELY mobile. She rolls all over the place! Turn your head for a minute and she's rolled across the room and is pulling at the router or other cables. Her favorite thing though is to have at paper. I've decided I don't need to buy her any toys -- why buy toys when I can get a magazine subscription, read the magazine and keep her happy for like $20 for the whole year (most toys cost that much). Next Christmas -- boxes and wrapping paper, that's it!

I'm happy Spring is here. I'm looking forward to going camping although camping with a baby will be interesting to say the least.

I'm Tired

2005-04-24T11:43:00.000+07:00

Well, I just got out of hyper-sleep. Man that gas really stinks. Everything smells like rotten eggs around here. I try to eat but just can't stomach anything.

Sorry I've been away for so long. I always mean to get around to the old blog but just never do. It's kind of like my letter writing on the mission or journal writing. Also, things have been kind of crazy around here lately. Kristen's last day of work was yesterday. She put in her two weeks so I had to start looking for a job with insurance because we're all on hers. Anyway, to make a long story short my boss didn't want to lose me and said that he could get me on the company payroll which includes good benefits (currently I'm technically contracting through a staffing company with crappy benefits). Well, those benefits don't kick in for 90 days and we've been stressing about it but finally found some short term insurance to cover that period. Anyway that's it in a nutshell.

Monday is my first day full time. I'm not really looking forward to it. I like staying home and taking care of Chantrea three days a week. I'll miss it. Kristen starts school on Wednesday evening -- Spanish 201. I don't know how live night's gonna work for me now.

Seemed like I had so much to write about but now I can't think of anything. Probably because I'm tired. I don't even know if I'm making any sense. Hopefully I do.

Anway, I just wanted to say that I AM alive. Now I'm going to sleep (just regular sleep this time).

Winter (I guess it's technically spring) Sucks

2005-03-30T23:34:00.000+07:00

It's my birthday!! "I'm the birthday king!" Well that' s enough of that.

So, last night we got five inches of snow. I never watch the weather forecast so I had no idea we were going to get dumped on but man do I hate it! Hello, winter's over let's bring on the nice warm spring weather. Speaking of snow I saw something really funny the other day although it probably won't be as funny in the retelling. About a week ago I looked out the window into our parking lot. It had snowed just a little bit (about a half inch on the ground). Anyway there in the parking lot was a skid mark (not a tire skid mark) about eight feet long with duck tracks at the end leading to a duck about five feet away. I guess the duck was coming in for a landing and probably slid and crashed on the parking lot! I wish I could have seen the actual landing! I don't know why I think it's so funny picturing a duck sliding and biting it on wet pavement, but I do.

Monday night Trea had a fever of 102.6 so we had to take her in to Urgent Care and found out that she probably has a urinary infection. I figured "okay so we put her on some antibiotics and that's it right." Luckily that is about it but the doctor said that usually under six months they admit to the hospital for urinary infections (because it can easily transfer to the bloodstream). After she checked Chantrea out she said that we could take her home because she looked really good. That was a little bit of a scare. She seems to be doing great now. Just have to keep her on the meds. for another 10 days.

My job cracks me up because we can't keep any new people. We had another new employee get fired the other day. I felt kind of bad for her because of how she found out. I guess our HR director was supposed to call her but she didn't. So the lady comes in to work but security won't let her upstairs because she doesn't work there any more. She did deserve to get fired but that's a horrible way to find out.

I can't wait to get out of Utah. I don't know when that will be but I'm looking forward to it!
I mean I can't wait to get off this space ship.

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Pictures

2005-03-23T09:39:00.000+07:00

I'm finally going to post again. All it took was Kristen's visiting teachers coming over to get me to sit down. I don't like to sit out and talk to them (nothing against them) so I'm stuck in our room with a sleeping baby on the bed. Life is pretty much the same as it has been. Although it should be getting a bit different pretty soon. Kristen wants to hurry up and finish her degree over the summer (I don't blame her) so I'm going to find another job (with benefits) so she can quit and find a part time job (or contract part time with her current employer) and focus on school. I think she has three classes left and a bunch of paperwork to get some of the classes that she's already finished on her record. I HATE looking for a job. Oh well, I figure it's the least I can do for her to be able to finish.

We finally went and got portraits of the three of us. That was our gift to my parents for Christmas. It's obviously a bit late. Better late than never. Anyway, they look so good. I was really surprised how well they turned out.

So, for those of you who care: we decided not to go to either U2 concert out here (Phoenix and Seattle) and instead bought tickets for Pittsburgh in October (with Joel and Amelia). That's right, I currently have two tickets to three different U2 concerts! There's a possibility that we may be out in MD in the fall and if we aren't we'll make a trip out of it. I'm going to try to sell the others on Ebay but I think I'm going to end up taking a loss which sucks. Oh well.

I'm happy because my birthday is a week from tomorrow. I don't have anything exciting planned but it's still my birthday!! I am such a dork.

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Check this out

2005-03-16T22:10:00.000+07:00

Well, I just wanted to post this really quickly. Of course I think it's awesome. You will probably find it interesting. Enjoy! Hopefully I'll write more again soon. http://www.sltrib.com/homeandfamily/ci_2607257

This Plane is Grounded

2005-03-12T03:29:00.000+07:00

It's Friday and that means I'm home with Chantrea again. So far it's been a pretty normal day. She ate, was up for a few hours and is now napping. This week however was a bit more eventful. We went ahead and bought our treadmill (with tax return money) on Monday. Thankfully, my brother in law and some of his co-workers helped me carry it up the stairs (it weighs a ton!! -- my guess is 400-500 lbs.). Kristen and I have used it a few times each already. It's so nice. This morning in fact I ran while Chantrea watched a Baby Einstein DVD.

Tuesday I found out that the AF doesn't want me -- my eyes. Guess I can't sit in an office and do normal things with eyes like mine (like that makes any sense). Oh well. I was pretty bummed Tue. and Wed. but I'm feeling okay now. We're discussing our options now. I'm considering applying for the Army now but haven't made a firm decision.

Tonight we are going to the temple and then out to dinner. I don't think we've gone out (just the two of us) since Trea was born. I'm excited just to have some alone time with Kristen. Her sister is coming up from Provo to babysit.

So, I got on Xbox live Wed. evening and found that nobody was one. Hello? -- What's up with that? I'm just kidding. I got the emails that Joel and Shawn sent this morning (sorry Joel).

Peace out.

My life really IS boring

2005-03-04T23:48:00.000+07:00

So here we are at another Friday. I've been so excited about this whole blogging thing that I've been wanting to post something else but I've really got nothing to post about. But I figure posting a nothing blog is acceptable if it's only once a week or less. Today I'm home with Trea and fortunately for me she's sleeping (otherwise I probably wouldn't be writing this right now).

So this week at work one of my co-workers got fired. She'd only been there a month but she was kind of lazy. Apparently she took an hour and a half lunch last week (on a day I wasn't there) which at our workplace is a no-no and I swear she was 15 minutes late almost everyday for that month. So, I wasn't terribly surprised to see her go. It's just been a while since I've seen someone get fired. Can you believe that it never happened at the MTC mailroom?

Trea's up now but she's watching ER reruns with me. So far so good (fingers crossed). She really is a lot of fun now. Smiles and laughs a lot. Especially just after she wakes up -- all smiles.

So, I think I've told some of you but we're going to see U2 (either in Seattle, Phoenix, or perhaps both). We have tickets to both but where we go is kind of depending on whether I get accepted into the AF. If I'm going into the AF and will be in training for the next year and a half (between Basic and Language Training) we will be willing to spend a little more money and time on a much needed vacation -- Seattle. If not it may be a quick trip to Phoenix.. The last scenario is if we get a signing bonus with the Air Force we could possibly go to both (I would LOVE that)!! Before I started talking with the AF I met with an Army recruiter. He told me about a kid who scored great on both the entrance exam and the language aptitude test and got a 20K signing bonus (spread out over a few years). The AF isn't as desparate so I don't know if I'll get anything from them but if I do . . . .

You know I really hate reality TV (nothing against those who like it) and I've never been able to put my finger on why. I read an article this week in the Parade magazine that kind of put into words why I hate it so much. You can read it here http://archive.parade.com/2005/0227/0227_shame.html (it won't be available until Monday)
Anyway, the article is about shame in our society (or lack thereof). Reality TV is shameless and that's why I hate it. Well, I think I'll come down from my soapbox now.

Well, that's it for now.

PS -- Fellow bloggers: how do I post a picture or graphic.?

Here goes nothing.

2005-02-26T04:32:00.000+07:00

Well, well, well. Little Johnny's finally gonna give this blogging thing a try. I've been meaning to check in on some friends blogs for ages and finally did today. That got me thinking: hey, I can do this and TADA here is my first blog. I'm already realizing that I'm gonna be horrible at staying current -- journals and letters (similar to posting) have always been a weak point for me. Oh well. Anyway, life is pretty good right now. I'm only working two days a week and taking care of Chantrea the other three (MWF). It's fun but a lot of work. Who knew that taking care of an infant would take more out of you than work? I'm still playing the waiting game as far as the Air Force goes. My fingers are crossed. As I told some of you the other night -- if the AF doesn't work out I may try the Army (they're a lot more desparate and willing to hand out waivers for med. conditions). We'll see. Kristen and I both still have a good feeling about the AF but I'm not going to freak out or lose my testimony if it doesn't.

Kristen's staying busy. She works MWF in the office and T/Th from home (while I go to work). She's been doing this for about three weeks now and it seems like she has to work nights after Trea goes to bed and some on Saturdays as well. She finds it hard to get in eight hours during the day with taking care of the baby. I must say I can't blame her. I try to help out as much as I can but I still feel like I don't do enough.

Hey, we're looking into buying a treadmill. I need to get into shape for basic training (again, assuming I get in) and Kristen's always wanted one and would use it a lot. Even if I don't get in I need to get more in shape. We're excited about that.

Other than that things are pretty much the same as always. Life is pretty good I must say.

PS -- saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow the other day. I thought it was so stupid. Did you guys see it? If so, what did you think?