Cerebrate Good Times

Remember that scene from Jurassic Park when the gamekeeper spots the velociraptor and covers Ellie while she runs for the shed, and then the other raptor swoops in from the side and attacks him? That kind of happened to me last week. Except instead of murderous dinosaurs, it was a virus. And instead of me saying something witty like “Clever girl,” I was mostly saying “COUGH COUGH HACK WHEEZE.” I got this weird chest cold, and I thought I was getting better when it decided to storm the castle, the castle being my head. And so I got to enjoy a second wave of irritating illness. I can only hope this story doesn’t end with a tyrannosaurus defeating the raptors, because that would probably be a flesh-eating virus.

Sleep is such a strange thing. And for me, it's two strange things, because sleeping at night and sleeping during the day are completely different prospects. For one thing, I can lie down for a nap on my back and go to sleep that way just fine, but at night I have to turn over onto my stomach to go to sleep. Also, napping during the day seems to count double for me. If I sleep for an hour during the day, for example, it can take me an extra two hours to get to sleep that night. One of these days I should try sleeping for 4 hours during the day and try staying up all night, in the interest of science. Lastly, sleeping at night is unpleasant when I'm sick (which I am right now, so it's on my mind). When I'm sick, I can't wait for the night to be over because I'm uncomfortable, but napping in the day seems to be fine. Um, I guess that's it. The end.

Have you ever accomplished something that you had wanted to for a long time, and it's so unbelievable that you can't really process it? Maybe you finally got rid of the Christmas tree from 1987, or maybe you counted the number of licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop. For me, running a marathon occupied a significant place on my bucket list. Specifically, under the "insanely pointless" heading. But isn't that the best kind of goal? Also, like most pointless things it took far longer than it should have. I had shin splints, a stress fracture, and a bunch of other little injuries over the last five years. Not to mention my stupid brain. The psychological aspect of the running was arguably the hardest part, and a few times I psyched myself out too much. But on Saturday I finally did it. It was harder just doing it myself (it's always easier to run a race with other people), but it was my main resolution I set for this year so I wanted to do it even if I ...

I was going to write a post about how it sucks to run in the dark winter evenings, and how I can choose between being murdered on the creepy dark parkway or hit by a car in our neighborhood. But then I realized I posted something similar last winter. I was set to link back to the other post, when I noticed a spam comment on there. I tried to delete it, but accidentally deleted a real comment from a human being, and I couldn't figure out how to get it back. And it was all downhill from there. So instead, here's a picture of my cat sleeping on a stuffed gorilla. Enjoy!

Last night I went out to the garage to feed the cat before bed, and I noticed the trunk of the car was open, probably because one of the kids was playing with the remote. So I closed it and fed the cat. Oddly, though, he didn't come greet me like he usually does. I knew he was in the garage, because I'd put him out there a little earlier. I looked all around, and started to wonder if I had just put him outside. Then on a hunch, I opened the trunk, and a bolt of orange lightning flashed out. I'm glad I didn't leave him locked in there all night, to go on a ride to Sam's school in the morning. "Is the engine making a funny noise?"

Michael was telling me to submit our last   pun war   to So Much Pun. And that led to Round 2. We started off with Africa, and then… things kind of went off the rails. Seriously, I LOVE puns, and some of these make absolutely no sense. But it was Friday afternoon. Consider yourself warned. Michael: Kenya do it? Or do you not want to? Michael: You Rwanda punch in the face huh? Joel: Hey, we Congo outside any time you want. Michael: You really want Togo? Michael: Uganda lose! Joel: What’s a Malia with you? Michael: I’m gunna Steven Senegal your butt! Joel: And you’re Ghana see what happens when I get Madagascar! Joel: Oh, I've been meaning to ask you about your car. I was thinking of getting a Sudan like that. Michael: You and Somalia friends can come at me and I’ll still beat you up! Joel: In a fight I’m like a Tanzanian devil Michael: And my car? Harry Potter showed up and used his stupid Rwanda and made it fly away. Mich...

In hopes of our pumpkins not melting into gross, moldy puddles before the holiday itself, we waited until last night to carve them. Sam was very excited to really carve one himself for the first time, tempered quickly by the gooey, smelly reality that is cleaning the pumpkin out. Also, the constantly bending and breaking carving implements is a tradition. I am going to buy this for next year. Anyway, on to the results! Sam wanted to use a stencil that came with our carving kit, but it proved to be rather complicated, so he ended up designing his own scary face that I helped him implement. Behold, look on his work and despair! To even gaze upon this visage is to stare into the depths of madness. And the madness stares back. Katie had a small pumpkin given to her by her visiting teachers, and carved an appropriately cute face on it: Wh-what are you doing with that toaster oven, little pumpkin? Stay back! Back, I say! Moving on. I decided on something a little less tradit...

On Saturday Sam woke up with a severe sore throat and a fever. I decided to take him to the nearby Instacare, which was fortunate because he was diagnosed with strep throat. When I went to the pharmacy to fill his prescription, I was getting the dosage details from the pharmacist when I inadvertently created a new unit of measure: the teablespoon. And it was at that moment that I decided to join the dark side and embrace the metric system. So I burned a yardstick as an offering to the gods Meter and Liter. Then I changed the settings on various electronic devices to display temperatures in Celsius, and the conversion was complete, down to the last gram of my being.

Last night we made and decorated Halloween cookies. Let's see what we ended up with: Here we have a nice, normal pumpkin. I think Katie did that one. Then there's the evil cat with red eyes that I did, and a witch complete with nasty (licorice) hairs on her chin and her nose. I'm pretty proud of the hat with the buckle, though. Moving on. Here we have a fanged pumpkin, I guess, and a... I have no idea what that other one is. I think it's safe to say the kids were involved there, though. Here are a couple of the cookies after Allison got to them, dipping her finger in the frosting and licking it. Here is my angry ghost. He's a ghost of a star-bellied Sneetch , as if it weren't obvious. And a house that has a ghost in the window, blood oozing from under the door, and creepy eyes to let you know that to enter this house is to welcome death. And here's a bat that Sam went to town on. I like it. If it's worth doing, it's worth over...

"Well," I thought as I picked up the staple gun, "At least this will make an interesting blog post." Such was my thought at 3:30 this morning. Perhaps twenty minutes earlier, I had been awakened by a noise in the room. I stumbled out of bed and wandered over to the door in the dark, to see what it was. It sounded like something rubbing against a cardboard box. And as I tried to focus in the dim light cast by the nightlight out in the hall, I saw something moving across the top of a small box next to the wall. "Is that... Monty?" Monty , of course, is our pet ball python. We've had him for three years now, and he did escape once before, turning up behind the dresser in Allison's room. So I picked him up and returned him to his cage, placing a few books on top of the lid. I wasn't exactly sure how he had gotten out, but there were some gaps between the wooden frame of the lid and the screening that it held. I tried to return to bed, but I r...

On the Jordan River Parkway in Lehi there is a section that is fenced on both sides, where cows are often out grazing (privately, I call this stretch the Bovine Highlands). Last night while running I happened upon a young cow standing outside the fence on the path. I didn't see a break in the fence or any other indication of how it had gotten out. I decided to ignore it and run by. But my presence spooked it, and it started running in front of me. I was nearly at the point where I would turn around, so I decided it wouldn't hurt for it to jog a couple hundred yards. And that was when I heard the upset "Moo!" behind me. Mom was coming. Now, fortunately Mom was still behind the fence. But can a couple strands of barbed wire really stop 2,000 pounds of angry beef? Fortunately, I didn't find out. I turned around a little early and ran past the mom without incident. But for a minute there I was a little nervous, and visions of all the burgers I've eaten in m...

Okay, I had to write this post just to use that title. Seriously, though, in our neighborhood there's been a crazy plague of houseflies lately. When I go out in the morning there are dozens in the garage, and they all end up getting in the house. Last night I hunted down 8 of them. I try to snatch them in my hand and just throw them out the door, but the especially tricky and persistent ones get swatted with this: It is awesome, like an electric tennis racket that makes the most satisfying ZAP sound when you get one.

Here's my Saturday, because I'm sure you all care. But sometimes I think it's fun to see the daily goings-on in someone else's life. Get up at 7:30 and go running. The weather was perfect and I was feeling good, so I made it 16 miles, which is about the max I will do without bringing any water or energy gel thingies. Then I had breakfast when I got back. For some reason, I crave plain oatmeal after a long run (with a big scoop of brown sugar, at least—I mean, I'm not a monster). Then Allison was begging us to go see the fish at the store. So she and I went to the pet store and we got some  frozen rats for Monty, and Allison oohed and aahed at all the animals, even though she has been there many times. When we got home, Sam insisted that I play Battleship with him. If I won, I would be allowed to finally go take a shower, and if he won we'd have to play something else. He got frustrated halfway through the game and quit, so I got to go shower. Katie wanted ...

A couple weeks ago, we had some new neighbors move in next door. They have a girl Sam’s age, and we thought it would be nice to have someone his age live so close, since he usually ends up playing with younger kids. I noticed that he seems to act differently around this girl than other people, though, and I decided he must have his first crush. This was further substantiated when he told me that he wrote a note for her yesterday, which said, “I hope to see you again soon. I like you. From, Samuel.”  Awwwwwww, my little man is growing up. No doubt he'll be just as smooth with the ladies as his dad.  (Good thing I don't have to keep a straight face when typing.)

Last week our air conditioning suddenly stopped working. The thermostat indicated that the AC unit just needed a few minutes to cool off, but it wouldn't ever kick on again. Wondering if it was the thermostat, I went and borrowed the neighbor's (the same model) and stuck it on my wall. that didn't work either. So I tried to turn on the heat instead of the AC. Still no dice. I was reluctant to call a repairman, because I just knew it would be some stupidly simple fix. So I talked with several people, including Jer, who realized that the problem must be with the blower fan in the furnace, which is used both for heating and AC. I poked around in the furnace until I found what looked like the blower reset switch and pushed it. Bam, working AC! Still, I didn't think about what had originally caused the fan to struggle enough that it reset. So later that night the AC started acting funny again, as though it were struggling to come on. And I finally took a look at our furn...

On Sunday we were out on a walk. And by "walk," I mean that I was pushing Allison on her tricycle, and she steered us to the park. When we came home, there was a strange brown and white cat leaving our garage. This isn't terribly unusual, because Dortmunder lives in there and other animals get in sometimes and help themselves to his food. This cat ran out back and hid under our porch. I usually try to scare cats away so I don't have to feed a community of strays, but this time I decided to get some cat treats and see if we could get it to come out. As it did, we noticed that it only had one ear. that seemed normal for a stray, so I didn't think anything of it, until Katie came back and said that there was a notice taped to the mailbox that someone had lost a one-eared, brown-and-white cat. She went and got their number, and we called the guy. And yes, oddly enough, the one-eared, brown-and-white cat we found was the same one-eared, brown and white cat they had l...

I've always had a fascination with woodworking. The idea of taking raw materials to create something useful is very appealing, and for years I've thought about how great it would be to have such a useful skill. Then I tried it. I wanted to build this great bookcase that looks like the TARDIS that I saw online. I made a plan, and I started working on the base one day, but I quickly realized that I was in over my head. And the other day I made a primitive shelf that I mounted in the closet under the stairs to hold our modem and router. That ended up ugly as well, but it's out of sight so I kept it. The way I figure it, there are two problems. One, I don't have the right kind of tools. A jigsaw isn't great for long, straight cuts, and I never know what kind of screws or fasteners to use. And nice tools are really expensive. But the real problem, I'm sure, is that I need more experience. So, as foolish as I feel, I think I'll keep working on these silly pr...

Last night I dreamed that a friend (I can’t remember who, unfortunately) gave us a pair of howler monkeys as pets. From Wikipedia: “ Howler monkeys are widely considered to be the loudest land animal. According to Guinness Book of World Records, their vocalizations can be heard clearly for 20 mi (32 km). ” “While seldom aggressive, howler monkeys do not take well to captivity and are of surly disposition …” I was very nervous about having monkeys around, and resolved to take them back to the pet store.

Driving in to work this morning I noticed for the first time that the leaves in the mountains are changing color. I think it's a little early this year, like the trees are thinking, "Well, we didn't get any rain at all this year. Might as well pack it up and wait for next spring." It's always a little sad, though, when summer is on its way out. It feels like a friend is leaving for several months. While I recognize the importance of having colder weather to appreciate the warmth when it's here, and snow is pretty between November 1 and January 1, I'd still like winter to only last about that two-month period. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself, because it will still probably be hot until mid-October, at least. Here's to you, summer. Aside from all the crazy fires and complete lack of rain, you were a good one.

Last year in kindergarten, Sam's teacher was pregnant at the beginning of the year. She left around Thanksgiving to have the babies (twins), with plans to be back for the new year. Then, when she was gone, she decided to stay home with the kids, so he ended up having the substitute for the rest of the year. Fast forward to yesterday. We went to back-to-school night and met his teacher... who is pregnant and apparently due "in August." She swears she is coming back after, but her sister is going to be the substitute in the meantime. I guess what I'm saying is, if you're trying to get pregnant, you have one year to get a job as a second-grade teacher at Sam's school.

Imagine going in to McDonald’s and ordering a beef patty that weighs exactly 3.7 ounces, cooked until the internal temperature is 142.3 degrees, then is served with 2/3 of a slice of whole-milk American cheese, on a whole-wheat bun that is toasted at 400 degrees for 90 seconds, with 1 tablespoon of ketchup and one teaspoon  of mustard, and two slices of dill pickle exactly 3 mm thick placed 1 cm apart on the bun. That’s how I view people who drink coffee from places like Starbucks. A coworker who wishes to remain anonymous came in this morning livid that they had gotten her order egregiously wrong. It was not the hazelnut latte with half a pump of syrup served at 170 degrees she ordered, but some super-sweet cinnamon vileness. Not being a coffee drinker, the fast food analogy is the closest I can come to understanding the specificity of these preferences.

Last night I dreamed that for some reason the new trend was stripping mostly naked, watering yourself down, and covering yourself with flour. I remember taking a long time to meticulously coat myself like a piece of soon-to-be-fried chicken, and have someone take my picture. I think people were posting the pics online, because why else would we do that kind of thing?

This year I decided to continue an old tradition from my childhood. We used to go to Lagoon every year on my birthday, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to take the kids. We had Katie's brother and his girlfriend come with us, to help take turns with the kids so we could all go on some rides. Sam had been dying to ride a roller coaster, so we headed right for the old white one. He was pretty terrified during the ride, but thought it was great afterward. He felt the same way about the scary rides, mostly keeping his eyes closed. We all really enjoyed the train ride, and Rattlesnake Rapids. Katie had never been to Lagoon either, having only Disneyland as a point of comparison, but she really enjoyed it, although she didn't want to go on the really crazy rides. I enjoyed my old favorites like the Colossus and the Rocket, and the new coasters they added recently were great, especially Wicked. But the real surprise of the day was Allison. Out two-year-old is apparently qu...

Someone just called me and asked for a person named Kim. Not knowing anyone by that name, I informed the person that she had the wrong number. Her response: "Ooooookaaaaay..." in a suspicious tone. She didn't seem to believe me. It's odd, now that most of our calls are made by speed dialing contacts stored in our phones, that wrong numbers are almost unfathomable for us. Calm down, lady. Try it again, and if I end up answering, I'll look around and see if I can find a Kim for you. Maybe I'm the one who's wrong.

Imagine this. You're sitting quietly at the table eating breakfast in the morning, all alone. The house is dim and silent. Then all of a sudden you hear a thump. You listen for a moment, then forget about it. But then, another thump, sightly louder. And it continues every few seconds, and now you can tell it's getting closer. Thump, thump, thump. An finally, slowly emerging from around the corner is the face of your two-year-old, who just came down the stairs. I was pretty sure it was her, but it was still surprisingly creepy.

I was visiting with some friends last night, and we discussed how sometimes we do things for them and sometimes they do things for us. It occurred to me how much of a give-and-take relationship friendship is. True friendship is not about keeping score to see who has done more for the other, or that you owe or are owed something, but it’s about giving what is needed when it is needed. It’s similar to marriage in that way. Then this morning I thought of a comparison that seemed apt: Friendship is the give-a-penny/take-a-penny tray of life. Sometimes you need help moving something heavy, and sometimes your friend needs a ride to the airport. When we give because we care about people, rather than from a self-centered desire for them to owe us a debt, we become more than we were. This isn’t particularly profound, or even original, but it’s been on my mind.

Tonight we went over to help our good friends next door load up a few things as they get ready to move out. As we went back and forth, I noticed some other neighbors a few doors down wander over to our yard. I finally went to talk to them, and they said they had noticed that the two-year-old who lives on the other side of us had been wandering around outside unsupervised. And, as it turns out, he had opened our front door and gone in our house, where we found him stark naked. I grabbed him, and we took him over to his house, where the only person who greeted us was his seven-year-old brother. I don't have a clue where the parents were, and I was so bewildered by the situation that I didn't think to ask. But I was tempted to call the police, as this is not the first time he has been wandering around outside without an adult.

Allison turned two in April, and she didn't immediately become terrible. Unfortunately, however, that side has come out in the last few days. I'd forgotten how two-year-old tantrums were. On the other hand, there's this video of her acting like a cat: So I call that a net win.

Well, the other site was fun, but I like the simplicity of Blogger. Plus, I've actually been posting little things on Facebook that I might normally put here. But Blogger plays nicer with Facebook anyway, so I can more easily post in both places. The result is that I hope to be posting a little more often, for all two of you who might read this. Stay tuned!

I love the summer. Love, love, love it. I love the warm evenings, and I even love the scorching hot days. I love having it light until after 9:00. But I always get a little sad the last week of June, because the solstice is over and the days are starting to get shorter again. It's irrational, because it takes a while before it's noticeable, but I do mourn the peak of summer slipping away.

I like to drink water at work. But our dispenser needs to be cleaned, and the water coming out tastes horrible. And because I’m used to the filtered stuff, tap water tastes like chlorinated pool water to me now. But last night I had a dream that I took a bottle that I have in my desk drawer and filled it at home from our filtered fridge water, bringing it in every day. Yay, brain!

All right, this is hilarious. I wasn’t sure whether to add this to the last post or what, but I think it’s funny enough for its own. Here I have been mentally preparing myself for weeks of illness, sitting around all “Woe is me.” Then once I got healthy I would have to take weeks to slowly regain any semblance of fitness so I could start running again. Then this morning I get a call from the doctor’s office, informing me that I in fact have salmonella poisoning. It wasn’t the crohn’s. It was never the crohn’s. It was freaking bacteria. I either screwed up cooking some meat or eggs, or someplace I ate made me sick. A few days before I got sick, I went out to this little burger place with a friend at work, and he also got sick last week, which we assumed was unrelated. But now he’s waiting for test results from the doctor, and we’ll see what they have to say. Is this the first time anyone has ever been happy to hear they have a thriving colony of malicious bacteria in their gut?

Thoughts going through my mind as I prepared to write this: I can literally eat anything I want and still lose weight. Some people would kill for that ability. Can that be a superpower? Six weeks ago I could run for more than three hours. Now, if I stand for more than five minutes I get light-headed. That’s pretty humbling. Whoa, that’s a little bit dramatic. It’s not like I’m dying. Then again, if I lived a hundred years ago, I would be. (I actually posted this on Facebook) I feel like I swallowed a tiny karate class, and they've been pummeling my insides for the last two days. Well, it appears that the moment I have dreaded for the past six years has finally come. The infamous Crohn’s disease has apparently decided to rear its ugly head again in my life. I know I’m far luckier than most people who have had to deal with it, since I went so long with no symptoms. For the first couple years I was worried if I ever had even the tiniest pain in the gut, but then I took my re...

Okay, let’s talk about how we’re all tremendously fat and unhealthy. Everyone wants a magic diet pill to lose weight. But there are multiple ways to attack the problem. Losing weight is just what you’d need to do after the damage was done. What about making healthy foods taste better? I’d love to eat mostly vegetables, but I’m no good at cooking them, and they will never be as delicious as a steak with a milkshake chaser. So why can’t science make broccoli taste like chocolate? Science, get on that. Or we could go one step further and modify our brains to like healthy food, instead of just sweet, sweet, sugar. That would be even more efficient. I’m sure if we took some of the billions of dollars spent on treating obesity and related health problems and put it toward a little brain tinkering, we could figure something out. Scientists, suck in that gut so you can reach the test tubes!

Last night I dreamed that some doctor told me I needed heart surgery. But I couldn't get anybody to tell me specifically what was wrong. I was very upset.

On Memorial Day, my dad and I took Sam up to a lake for his first real fishing experience. And on his first cast, he caught this little guy: [caption id="attachment_1838" align="aligncenter" width="523" caption="I defy you to find a more patriotic image than this."] [/caption] In the end that was the only fish we took home. There were tons of little fish biting, but they were too small to keep. Still, our goal was to get Sam a fish, so that was accomplished. Now, here’s another funny story. Katie had a rough experience at the grocery store on Friday. She locked Allison in the car in the parking lot, but fortunately an off-duty policeman helped her unlock the door. Then, when she got home, she saw that a gallon of milk had broken open and spilled all over the trunk. When I got home, she told me what had happened and said that she had cleaned it up as best she could. Knowing her superhuman cleaning abilities, I didn’t think about it much anymore. T...

I have a very comfortable pair of shoes that I wear even though they have gotten a bit old and ragged. The heels have worn down to the point at which rocks can get into those little air pockets in the sole: The weird thing is that rocks get into your shoe that are way bigger than the little holes should ever be able to accommodate. But they rattle all around when I walk, making it sound like I'm carrying a ton of Yapese change. So the only way to get them out is to enlarge the holes even more, allowing yet more rocks to get in. It truly is a vicious cycle.

I'm not looking up the spelling to see if it's correct. But sometimes it’s fun to take pleasure in others’ misery. What I really want to see, just once, is one of the people driving like an idiot on the freeway every day actually get pulled over. I've never seen it yet. Or how about someone I know, whom I overheard talking about how easy it is to know where the police will be, and how he can’t understand how anyone gets pulled over? Can’t he get pulled over, please? But that’s my thing. What kind of misery would you like to see others suffer?

I woke up at 6:20 this morning, decided "Nope," and set my alarm for 20 minutes later. Then I had a dream in which I lost Allison in a huge, crowded church building and was running around frantically, trying to find her. I was even crying in the dream. Everyone else was being spectacularly unhelpful, and finally I went into the women's bathroom (which was an enormous open room in which the stalls lines the wall and had velvet curtains instead of doors), and she was in there, just fine. The lesson here is that the snooze button is dangerous.

I feel like I've been complaining a lot lately. So let's get started. Last weekend we went down to southern Utah for the wedding of Katie's sister. On Friday we packed up the car, got in and... the car wouldn't start. Eventually we sorted out that the battery had been drained the night before, when Katie had the doors open for a long time vacuuming it. So I got it  jump-started it, and we were off. Everything went fine until that night, when we finally got the kids to sleep in the motel room (which is always a challenge). I didn't get much sleep because I was in the bed with Allison, and she rolled around all night. In addition, there was a screaming baby in the room next to us that was apparently up all night too. The next day we discovered that it was in fact screaming triplets. And the people kept their door open all morning to more effectively share the joy with the world. The wedding itself went fine, and they had a nice outdoor reception with beautiful weather...

We spent the weekend in southern Utah, because Katie's sister got married. In the sprinkler valve box at her parents' house, we found a little surprise. None of the pictures I took turned out very clear, but this is a little toad. It was a cute, fat little thing. And another cute, fat little thing: Oh, I'm just kidding. But it made for a nice segue.

One of the advantages of getting a bit older is that waiting a few weeks for something doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Even 7 or 8 years ago, if I had to wait for something, it was a horrible, long ordeal. And now, while I can’t say I am 100% patient and calm, it’s less of a big deal. Possibly because my memory is also less sharp than it once was, so it’s easier to forget that I’m waiting for something anyway. Also, when I was a teenager my friends told me I sounded like a duck when I said, "Wait, wait, wait."

Are you ready to laugh? At me, I mean. Last year I got our sprinklers all in, except for our little flower bed in the front. I had stubbed it with a pipe so all I needed to add was a drip line for the plants. Then this spring I decided that I needed an extra part to make it work (a pressure reducer, if you care, so all that pressure going through one tiny area wouldn’t blow out the pipe). So I went and got the parts, which required several fittings to make the right pipes connect. Then on Saturday I had to dig a short distance from the flower bed from the main line and add the fittings there. I hooked everything back up, turned on the water, and… nothing happened. I realized that I had left the valve closed at the main box. I went back to open it and discovered that I had put the pressure reducer on that end of the line last year. So I wasted the money on the parts, I wasted the time on the digging, and then the drip line didn’t seem to be working anyway. I called my dad, and he sugges...

Okay, in terms of "the good of humanity" and all that, it's important to cure diseases like cancer. But if you want to help improve the quality of life for a larger portion of the population, and invigorate the economy, someone please figure out a way to safely tranquilize children at night. Whoever does that will become a billionaire overnight, I guarantee.

I love the variety of life. It’s fascinating to me how many different ways there are to keep me from sleeping at night. Sometimes I’m sick, and there’s an endless variety of symptoms that can keep me awake, from a cough to congestion to a sunburn. Sometimes, as was the case last night, I’m perfectly fine but everyone else is sick and the kids wake up every ten minutes. Sometimes they just don’t go to bed until really late. Sometimes the neighbors’ dogs won’t shut up. Sometimes there’s a thunderstorm. Sometimes I can’t get the temperature right. I really am amazed at the sheer number of possibilities, and sometimes I just laugh at whatever it is on a given day.

I'm sure this exists, but I'm afraid to verify it. I'd like some measuring spoons with flat bottoms, so I can rest them on the counter, pour in the vanilla, and leave it there until I'm ready to pour it in.

Saturday was a weird day. I ran 17 miles in the morning. Then I mowed our lawn for the first time ever, which was kind of an interesting experience after all the work I put into things. Then I took Sam to the park for a while. Then I had a bunch of bricks I bought to edge the flower bed in the front yard, but I decided to take them back and get something different. So I loaded them up and went back to the store. Then I had to load up the new blocks, of which I needed twice as many. Then I had to try to push that huge cart with 400 pounds of stone on it, and it was unbelievably hard. So I had to push it around the store and then out to the car. Then I had to load them in the car (I nearly bottomed it out, which I’ve never done before), then I had to unload them again when I got home. Then I spent a while leveling the dirt and laying out the stones. I honestly don’t know when I’ve been that tired.

Last week I was reading this book to Sam, and he made a brilliant observation. I've pointed out before that Sam is surprisingly insightful for a six-year-old. In this case, he very intelligently pointed out that, "There's no problem in this story." He recognized that there's no conflict in this book, unlike most books that we read. I probably would have been in high school (if not college) before I could have made that observation. The kid is pretty amazing.

Last night I dreamed that I was in a Chinese restaurant. It was kind of like a four-sided deli counter, with a space in the middle that was filled with water and a large alligator. I remember it was very aggressive. I was with several people who had ordered and were waiting for me. I was trying to decide but couldn’t. I asked the man working the counter where the sign was that had listed the daily lunch specials, because apparently I had been there before. He showed me the sign, which was on the opposite side of the restaurant from where I remembered it. The special that day apparently involved whole ducklings served in some kind of sauce or soup. I decided to pass. Then, at a different point in the dream I had a pet tiger. It was more or less tame, but I was still very nervous around it and was trying to figure out how to get rid of it. I was going to call a zoo up in Idaho, which for some reason I thought might be interested. I also dreamed that I was involved in the production of a ...

Monty has been biding his time. For two and a half years now, he's been planning this, exploring every inch of his cage, delicately probing at the lid. And Sunday night he decided that it was time to go. Somehow he pushed the lid up and got himself through the opening in such a way that it fell back into place. Then he presumably spent some time exploring, before settling down in the nice, cozy spot behind Allison's dresser. Now, a couple points here. Ball pythons might seem intimidating to people who aren't big into reptiles, but they are super gentle and harmless. If they are bothered they don't bite, but curl up into a ball (hence the name). So nobody was in any danger here. As far as I have been able to determine, there is no record of a ball python ever injuring a human.

It was a pretty busy weekend. Saturday was Allison's birthday, so we finally went out on Friday night to get her some gifts (we're so organized). Then on Saturday we had an Easter egg hunt outside. When we went out, Sam said the weeds in our yard looked bad, and that we should pull them. He went back inside the house to put some gloves on to get working, but we finally prevailed upon him to just do the egg hunt. (I sprayed the weeds later that day, okay?) Just being two, I'm sure she didn't really get the whole birthday thing, but she did catch on to the egg hunt. And she even tried to blow out her candles. On Sunday we were stuck in the church parking lot for a while, so we decided to take a couple pictures. I was trying to get one with both kids, but this other random kid came and was trying to get in the picture.

Last night we dyed Easter eggs together. Sam was a little too anxious, and of the 16 eggs we had, he used at least ten of them. Then, when we had colored them all, Allison started putting them all back in the dye. So we ended up with some interesting-looking eggs, one of which was super awesome: The one with all the eyes and tails and whatnot is Sam's.

Last night I dreamed about an Asian family, the father of which had invented a method for time travel. But his home was attacked by some bad guy, and all he could do was send his son back in time 90 minutes to warn them all that it was going to happen. The son was successful, and then I don't remember exactly what happened, but in the end both the father and the bad guy agreed that time travel was not a good idea.

I haven't posted anything for a while. So here are a couple pics of the kids. [caption id="attachment_1737" align="aligncenter" width="502" caption="Buckets of fun"] [/caption] [caption id="attachment_1718" align="aligncenter" width="502" caption="She likes Sam's sunglasses, and she prefers to wear them upside down."] [/caption]

Last night I had a short horror-movie dream. I was standing near a dirt country road, when an old gray Ford pickup pulled up with a man inside. Also inside was a doll-sized figure. After a few moments, the doll suddenly turned face up and shrieked “Scarecrow!”  The man was literally scared to death, and his body kind of shriveled and shrunk like the doll. I knew that if we left, the scarecrow doll thing would keep popping up out of nowhere and screaming at us (I was suddenly with an unnamed friend), so we cut off the heads of both bodies and buried them (just the heads, for some reason).

We all probably have a few things that are mysteriously difficult to do. For example, I have never successfully built a snowman. The whole "rolling the snowball" thing never really worked for me. On a related note, my dad has been wanting for years to fly a kite with Sam. But, bless his heart, my dad always buys fancy, expensive kites that are just too heavy to fly in anything less than gale-force wind. (Meanwhile, I got a $2 cheapo plastic K-Mart special that worked great.) Anyway, on Saturday there was finally enough wind that they were able to fly this box kite:

Last night I dreamed that I was speaking with Enes Kanter of the Utah Jazz, who is from Turkey. I asked him how to say several things in Turkish, which I tried to remember to look up and see if my brain was super amazing, but I forgot them when I woke up. I do remember, however, that he said that Turkish word order was object-verb-subject, which as I recall is relatively rare among languages. But I just looked that up and, alas, Turkish is subject-object-verb. So I'm not subconsciously a genius. (Note: That doesn't preclude my being a conscious genius.)

Here's a boring running post that I'm mostly writing because this is my current version of a journal. So read at your own risk of boredom. On Saturday I ran 20 miles for the first time, which is 76 percent of a full marathon. It went well, and I'm getting the hang of taking in calories during the run. Most marathon training plans have 20 miles as the longest you do before the full thing, but I am planning a couple longer runs so I'm not in unfamiliar territory on May 5, which is the date of the Provo City Marathon. It feels weird to be so close to this goal that I have been working toward for several years.

Last night I dreamed that I was in school, and Rick Santorum came to ask my class to record a radio promotion for him. A few of us objected, and I told him that some people think he is a little crazy, and that I wasn’t comfortable being a part of the promotion. Then Mitt Romney came to our class in response, and he asked me if I was going to vote for him instead. I was a little annoyed that he asked, but I told him that I would if he secured the nomination. Also, I remember the teacher complaining to him, as if he were the principal, that my little group were being difficult in general, and weren’t doing our homework. In the end it seems like I was in kindergarten, which is funny because it would render the whole voting thing moot.

Do you remember how exciting it was when you were a kid (or possibly a college student) and you found a prize in your breakfast cereal? Why not relive that magical time of your life? All you need is a child who enjoys playing in your flour canister. Just turn your back for a moment, and presto—a necklace chain in your cookie dough!

The days of the friendly door-to-door salesman are long gone. Aside from the worry of letting a dangerous stranger into your house, you can get anything you want delivered to your door sans creepy person who won’t leave, through the internet. Since moving into our new house, we have been constantly beset by salespeople, especially for water softeners. I have no idea if “no solicitor” signs really work, but if they do, I’d like to come up with something more creative, that will at least give them a chuckle as they leave me alone. Here’s what I’ve got so far. Abandon all hope, solicitors who enter here. Solicitors will be subject to merciless mocking. (skull and crossbones) solicitors Flowchart: Are you selling something? -->Yes-->Get off my property He who wishes to sell to me must first answer these questions three: Do you value your life? How much? Do you want to live to your next birthday? Thanks, I already have a water softener. Or whatever other crap you're selling. In fa...

Yesterday morning I went running, then went to the park with Sam, then took him out to practice his fishing skills in the river behind the house, and then played outside with the kids some more. So I was outside for 5 or 6 hours, and I managed to get a mild sunburn. March 10? I think that's a new record for me.

One of the challenges of today’s lifestyle is clutter. In this case I don’t mean the accumulation of physical possessions so much as the use of our time. Periodically I find that I need to weed out some of the things I spend my time on, not because there’s anything wrong with them individually, but because I could be doing more valuable things with my life. To that end, last night I purged a bunch of apps from my phone that I rarely use, which frees up system resources and probably speeds it up a bit. Then, this morning I deleted several of my Google Reader feeds. I had collected a lot of items that I enjoyed reading at first, but after a while it became a chore to read every post. I have also whittled down my TV consumption over the past few months (having no TV reception and no cable/satellite is great for that). I could catch most of what I wanted on various websites, but it has ended up being enough of a chore that even the few shows I used to watch just don’t seem important to me ...

I was thinking recently about some of the possessions I have somehow lost over the years. I lost a couple of important souvenirs from my mission for example: a tie given to me by a great family, and a set of brass chopsticks made especially for me by a wonderful lady we taught. I also managed to lose my original wedding ring, which has since been replaced by a less expensive one. “This is why we can’t have nice things!” (Tangent: I’ve noticed that hand lotion is the cause of 100% of ring losses in my family, as we have had several scares with Katie’s, caused by taking the rings off to apply the lotion.) What have you lost?

We often buy vanilla ice cream, and I usually use it for root beer floats. But we’ve had no root beer for a while, so I’ve been trying a few different things to jazz it up. First I put some caramel-filled Hershey kisses in the cup and smashed them, then mixed in the ice cream. Oh, yes. That was fine. Then, another day I crumbled up some girl scout thin mints and mixes that in. We had another winner! And finally, last night I put a little hot chocolate powder in. Fantastic! Any other ideas?

The world has a lot of problems; I think we can all agree on that point. And each of us, as selfish individuals, contributes to that in our own small way. But we can solve, or at least mitigate, a good portion of those problems, by accepting two simple words: I’m wrong. Stay with me here as I explain. The odds are, each of us has at least one closely held belief that is completely wrong. It may be something as simple as believing that traffic lights always turn red just for us, or a belief that the trees are secretly controlling our every thought. In particular, the vast majority of our problems in individual relationships are caused by our dogged refusal to admit that WE ARE WRONG in a given situation. Politicians refuse to admit that they made a mistake until they are backed into a corner with photographic evidence. Spouses feel they have to constantly one-up each other. When you’re at the grocery store and something rings up “wrong,” maybe you just read the sign incorrectly. Is that...

Can I just say that I love when things happen that make me feel more significant than I am? Last night we were gone for most of the evening, foolishly driving up to Salt Lake in the worst snowstorm we’ve had all winter. While we were up there, we found out from a friend that the power had gone out in our neighborhood. We stayed in SL a little longer than we had planned, but eventually we decided to head back and hope the power was restored soon. As we entered the neighborhood, it was interesting to see where the outage began. We pulled onto our dark street and stopped for a moment to talk with a neighbor out shoveling his driveway. All of a sudden the whole street lit up, and we got to pretend that it was just because we came home. Sam, however, was disappointed. He “wanted to see what it was like” to have the power off at home. We tried to explain that it was the same as when we turn off all the lights, but he would have none of that.

Last night I dreamed that I had been traveling somewhere for about a year, and I came home to find that I was now required to serve a two-year stint in the army. Apparently I was to be stationed in Austria, and I was pretty upset. I distinctly remember thinking that I wasn't homesick when I went to Korea for two years, or wherever I had been traveling in this dream for the previous year, but I started to feel homesick in the dream itself. Very strange.

*Please note that this post has nothing to do with Facebook, which in turn has nothing to do with real friendship. In circumstances such as work and church—instances in which people find themselves in groups they did not organize—we usually find people we enjoy interacting with. Often we don't see them outside of these circumstances, but we still feel they are more than "just" coworkers. But it seems odd to call them friends if we never see each other voluntarily. So what are these people? We need something stronger than "acquaintance," but not as strong as "friend," to describe this relationship. Any ideas?

This is a post more like someone else with a cereal fixation would do, but I still have to mention it. Lately I've been having cereal as a morning snack at work, and I've noticed something. Cereal eaten from a styrofoam bowl, with a plastic spoon, tastes way different from cereal eaten from a stoneware or glassware bowl with a metal spoon. And it's less enjoyable.

In a box I just ran across a list I made as a teenager, entitled If I Ran When I Run the World. It consists of rules for society. Here it is, copied directly, along with my current feelings on the issue in red : Anyone talking on a cellular phone while driving will be killed on sight, or possibly kept in cages for our own amusement. I still feel this is the correct stance, although I have been guilty of it myself from time to time. I suppose the best option would be to change it to texting while driving. All dogs not used for official purposes, such as police dogs, rescue dogs, etc., will be destroyed, probably hung as piñatas and beaten with sticks, or eaten in Korea. Here too, I still agree with the sentiment, but now I realize that the problem is mostly dog owners. So maybe I'd add them to the list. All Ford Expeditions, and the yuppies driving them, will be catapulted off the edge of the Grand Canyon; cash awards for distance. I hadn't seen Hummers yet. All teen pop idol...

It doesn't make you any less of a man.

This afternoon I went out to a certain section of the trail I run on, carrying a pair of snips. With these I cut the piece of barbed wire that caused this yesterday: The end

This comes across as another " complaining about lack of sleep " post, but I really just think it's funny how much we all switch places during the night. I mean, at some point all you can do is laugh (preferably maniacally, as you are carted away in a straightjacket). Bedtime: Katie goes to lie down in Allison's room to help her fall asleep. I am in Sam's room to do the same (he has a hard time falling asleep in his room alone). Allison is having a hard time too, so Katie sends me to bed once Sam is asleep. She comes in at some point. At 12:30 or so, Sam comes into our room crying. I get up and go lie down in his room to keep him company as he falls asleep again. At around 1, while I'm still in Sam's room, Allison wakes up crying. I go into her room for a few minutes and get her back to sleep. At around 3, Allison is up again. Katie goes into her room to try getting her down again. After a few minutes it's obvious that won't work, so she comes back...

The Robot Devil Ron Swanson Richard Sharpe John Dortmunder Montgomery Burns Malcolm Reynolds Harry Dresden Who are yours?

It’s all about context. Seriously, context is way underrated. Allow me to explain. This happens a lot at work, when someone asks me, “Do I use ‘affect’ of ‘effect’?” Obviously, either might be correct, based on the context. Or I will have to make another decision without knowing the big picture. I was once offered a job that seemed like it included a big raise, until I noticed that the insurance cost four times what I was currently paying. I’ve already mentioned how I don’t have a favorite color. What might be a good color for a car may not be the best color of clothing. Choosing a favorite food all depends on my mood and what I have recently eaten. To that end, I ask a lot of questions whenever I talk to anyone. I think I annoy people sometimes, but it’s all in an effort to establish context to know how a situation might relate to other things. So I apologize. I’m also sorry to post this without any context as to where these thoughts came from.

8:30: Allison goes to sleep. 9:15: Allison wakes up. 9:30: Sam goes to sleep. 10:00: I go to sleep. Katie stays up to get Allison down again. 11:00: I wake up to Allison’s crying and, feeling guilty, go to help Katie get her back to bed. 11:45: Allison is asleep again, and Katie and I go to bed. 11:50 to 12:30: The neighbors’ dogs whine and bark. (The neighbors have been gone for 5 days, and the dogs are unhappy to be left out in the cold, because they normally sleep inside.) 12:30: Unable to sleep, I go over to the neighbors’ house to complain. They have just gotten back and were about to bring the dogs in anyway. 12:45 to 1:??: Feeling stupid because I complained just before the problem would have been solved anyway, I am unable to sleep. 2:55: Allison wakes up and won’t go back to sleep in her room. I hold her for a while to get her sleepy again and take her in to sleep in our bed with Katie. 3:15 to 6:20: I sleep on the floor in Allison’s room. 6:20 to 6:50: I decide to set my alar...

I feel like soup is kind of an underrated food. It’s great because you have a whole, (potentially) nutritious meal in one bowl. And it can be pretty simple to prepare. That being said, I had never really tried making my own soup from scratch until this weekend. Sometimes it’s fun when you are trying to squeeze a few more meals out of whatever is on hand before you break down and head to the grocery store. And on Sunday I noticed that we had some chicken, but not enough for what I might usually consider. So I decided to try my hand at chicken noodle soup. I looked at a few recipes to see more or less the common proportion of ingredients and spices, and then, in the tradition of male cooks, sort of made it up as I went along. The end result was not bad. It was just a tiny bit salty, so next time I will fix that. Also, next time I might try fettuccine noodles like my dad (the best soup chef in the world) does instead of egg noodles. Also, I made vanilla pudding last weekend. I usually mak...

Katie and I are both using blue toothbrushes right now; they are just different shades. I felt unusually tired last week, but that still doesn't excuse the fact that two or three times I have accidentally started brushing my teeth with hers.

Here's a conversation I had with my coworker Michael via email. Eventually I veered from the Middle East toward Africa, before finally getting tired of the puns (which I didn't think was possible). Joel : And Iran… Iran so far away… Michael : So, did you hear how most the middle east countries were named? It all happened when Stan came running up to a friend totally out of breath. The friend asks: “Why are you running?” and Stan answers: “I got in a fight!” The friend responds: “well, why are you running away?” in which Stan Responds: “He threw Iraq (a rock), so Iran (I ran)!” “Aren’t you going to get him back?” the friend asks. Out of breath Stan says: “Oh, it Kuwait. (can wait). Not much later, Stan realizes that the sharp rock had lodged into his leg. The type of rock is technically called af-gan…and so there was an af-gan in Stan. (Afganistan) Joel : That story makes me Saudi :( Michael : You are such a Turkey. Joel : Don’t blame me, it’s Jordan’s fault. Michael : I hate J...