Before and After

Dylan got a haircut last night. He looks quite a bit different now. It was his second hair vut. The first hair cut didn't take very much off, so it wasn't such a dramtic change. He's a pretty good looking kid.

He's No Reggie Bush

The Niners signed their #1 draft pick today. He is now making more money than any other tight end in the league, and he hasn't played a game yet. I read that this guy is some freak of nature that weighs 250 but runs a 4.3 40 yard dash. If only he could play defense, running back, maybe wide receiver.



He did do this, so he is pretty tough. Hopefully he can do that against NFL defensive backs.

I still think it's dumb that the 49ers didn't tank their last two games so they could get Reggie Bush. Davis here might have some crazy dreds, but I haven't seen highlights of him jumping over people and juking people out or anything like that. All they had to do was lose their last two games, and Bush was theirs for the taking. But no. "Let's go out on a good note. Let's get some momentum going for next season." Yeah, that's a great idea. Now they have a freak of a tight end, but now running back and well, not much of anything. I wonder who they'll pick when they're picking first next year. I hope they get going in the right direction soon. I don't want my kids spending their formative years cheering for the new Detriot Lions.

Spaghetti

We had spaghetti last night for dinner. I guess the kids wanted to make sure they got a bath last night. I think we can rule out taking them to Olive Garden for a while.

Bank Robbery

I heard a story on the radio this morning. A guy at a Wells Fargo bank in Reno called 911 and reported that there was a bank robbery. So, the cops rush there expecting someone holding up the bank with a gun. They find out that the guy who called was saying that the bank was robbing him with all the fees that they were charging. He was arrested for missuse of 911.

Lost

Last Saturday we were at the video store trying to find something to watch. There really isn't anything good in the New Release section lately (Although I'm secretly dying to see "She's the Man".) I went by the TV section, and saw Lost Season 1. I had heard some good things about the show, but never started watching it. So, we rented the first disc to see what it was like.

Lost is cool. It's one of those shows that peaks your interest from the first episode. From what we've seen so far, they do a good job of telling you who the characters are while advancing the overall plot of the series. It's interesting too. The episodes are over before you know it. We've already watched 3 1/2 of the discs because we'll get to the end of an episode, and want to watch more. (We did the same thing last summer with 24, and that was really cool because they had 4 seasons out on DVD.) I'm not going to be one of those dorks who give their own summaries of what happens on the show. Those people bother me. I'll just say it's pretty darn cool, and leave it at that.

Lost Superbowl commercial. Cool stuff.

I Feel So Cheated

Mmmmm Pop Tarts

This morning I was in a hurry to get to work, so I didn’t have to time sit down and eat any breakfast. (Fruity Pebbles aren’t as good as when I was a kid). So, on the way out of the door I got into our pantry and grabbed the last package of Pop Tarts. Boy was I lucky they were there. On the way to work I was looking at the shiny silver package and wondering if I should open it to curb my hunger pangs. No, I thought, I’ll save it for when I get to my desk so I can really enjoy it.

So, I get to work and sit down at my desk. I do the usual morning stuff like log on to my computer, get some water to drink, throw a crumpled paper at my geeky co worker. (Wait, I’m the geeky one, it’s not so funny). When all that’s done, I go to open my Pop Tart. Ah, I could already taste the sweet deliciousness of the Cinnamon and Brown Sugar package of calorie packed goodness. But then I notice that something is wrong. The package had already been opened. There was one Pop Tart missing! No!!! I’ll only get to enjoy half as much. Well that just ruined my morning.

After a while, I recovered from that devastating psychological blow. I took the one Pop Tart out of the package, and took a bite. Who replaced my Pop Tart with this stale piece of cardboard? Sick! So, not only did someone in my household take one of the Pop Tarts out of the last package, they left the other one in there to get stale and nasty. That nasty, stale Pop Tart was a shimmer of hope for me to get through until lunch. Now my hopes and dreams are dashed and scattered forever (until lunch). I guess I can make it until lunch on water and stored body fat (I have enough of that to make it two weeks). But I don’t have to be happy about it.

Superman Returns

We took the kids to the theater on Friday to see Superman Returns. Everyone else went to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Anyway, the kids were all excited about the movie, and were bouncing up and down and saying "Superman!" before it started. Since the theater is in the flight path of the Reno airport, all the planes taking off fly over the theater, so the kids pointed out all of those too.

Hey Superman, nice boots!

Anyway, when the movie came on and the Superman music started up, it was great. Andi and Dylan were really pumped up about it. Then the movie started. It took like 30 minutes or so for Superman to even show up. He did do some pretty cool stuff like save a passenger airplane from crashing, and stopping bullets with his chest and one with his eye (which was pretty darn cool).
But the cool stuff seemed to be overshadowed by my disappointment of the movie. I guess X-Men and Spider-man, who fight against supervillains in huge battles, left me expecting more from Superman than just keeping a bald guy from creating a new continent.

Plus, they made Superman seem like a pansy. I asked Andi about the movie, and she couldn't stop talking about Superman being beat up by the bad guys and being thrown in the water. Is this the Superman that my kids are going to grow up knowing? A pansy who falls in the water after getting his rear kicked, and then later ends up in the hospital? What the heck? He's SUPERman, not Pretty-Slick-Man or Can-Beat-Up-Your-Daddy-Man. And who's bright idea was it for Superman to father an illegitimate child with Lois Lane? Sure it'll make for a Superboy movie 15 years down the road, but who wants that?

So, overall I was disappointed in the movie. It's probably because I was expecting too much from it. I wanted it to be better than X-Men and Spider-Man, but it wasn't. When they make the sequel (because of course they're going to do that), they need to have a Supervillain, and they need to make Superman super again.

Some NFL News

There was a story today on ESPN.com about a football player who was suspended for taking a banned substance. I thought "Hey, at least they're starting to crack down on some people". Then I read the article, and it turns out that the suspended player is the punter for the Broncos. Way to go after the big fish, NFL. You don't want those punters to be too hyped up on the juice, things might start to get out of hand.

What's even more disturbing is that I read the article, and the guy is going to lose $328K for the 4 games he's suspended. His yearly salary is $1.395 million. For punting? Really? How hard can that be. Some games he may come out 3 - 4 times, and all he has to do is kick a football? This guy's not even the kicker, who scores points and whose kicks matter. The punter is the most useless player on the team, and he makes over a million dollars a year? Can I try out for his job? And since he plays for Denver, half of his games are in thin air where the ball sails with no problem. $1.395 million? For one year? Do they give him extra money because of the eminent danger of squirrel attacks in the Denver area? Hey, Denver Broncos, throw some of your extra money my way. I cheered for you in Superbowl XXXII, you owe me!

Stocks

I'm not expert in the stock market or anything, but I don't think it's a good sign when your company's stock does something like this:



Wow, am I glad that I signed up for the company 401k. Isn't compound interest supposed to work in your favor? Turns out this happened over the weekend when I was gone. Man, I can't even leave work for two days without someone screwing something up.

Bedtime

So, what exactly do kids have against bedtime? I would really like to know. If I could go to bed at 8:00 at night, I’d be totally fine with just hoping right in there and catching some Z’s. The same thing with naps. If someone shut me in a room at 1:00 in the afternoon and told me I have to take a nap I would do a little dance and happily hit the sack.

But if you try to get a kid to do that, they fight you tooth and nail about it until they pass out. Sometimes it’s a passive aggressive thing with them asking for countless drinks of water and every toy in their toy box. Other times it’s a scream fest. I guess they think that if they scream loud enough, bedtime will be extended by an hour or two. Dylan has perfected a bicycle kick on his bedroom door that would make Liu Kang proud. (Sam, Liu Kang was a character on Mortal Kombat who had a bicycle kick move, kind of like what Dylan does to his door.)

I just don’t understand. Maybe they’re scared of the dark. They should stop taking their night light out of the socket. Maybe they’re thirsty. No, this can’t be. I give them a gallon of water each before bed. Maybe they’re afraid of monsters. Come on, Monsters Inc. was supposed to take care of that one. Maybe they’re just trying to find another way to torture their parents. Hey, I may be on to something there.

Whatever their reason, someday when they’re all teenagers and they need to go to sleep, I’ll start kicking my door and screaming about water and a Nemo blanket. They may come in my room and look at me like I’ve lost my mind and tell me to be quiet and go to sleep. But it’ll be worth it, because then. . . Wait a minute. Then I’ll be that much older and that much more tired. Forget that idea.

Cory's Wedding

Cory and Misty.

Cory got married this weekend, on June 30th in the Logan Temple. Despite the the long long drive, getting to see the family was fun. We don't get together all that often any more since we're all grown up, so when we do it's nice. Jared was on call for work, and I had to be at work the next Monday, so we didn't have a whole lot of time together. Jared and I had some "Baby, it's what's for dinner", and "Get in my belly!" jokes at Peyton's expense. It was good fun.

Grandpa is Dylan's buddy.

It was nice to see my dad this weekend. His blood pressure has been 210 over 130 for a while, so we're all worried about him. His doctor has said that he could have a stroke or a heart attack at any time because of it. He has an appointment on Thursday with a cardiologist in Salt Lake. Mom told me today that if they need to, they'd take him into surgery right away to fix any problems. That's kind of scary. You never know what can happen. So, I'm hoping that dad didn't want to see us so bad because he was expecting this to be his last chance to see everyone. That would not be good. So, we'll just wait to see what happens I guess.


So now we're back home and ready to get back in the swing of things. It's nice being home after a long trip. It's just so nice to stretch out your legs, move around, and not have to worry about closing your eyes. So I think we're done with traveling for the summer, except maybe a trip to Sacramento for the temple open house. Now we can start paying off the credit card for all the gas and hotel rooms we've had to get the past two months. Now that's fun (or something).