Early Morning Racquetball With Old Pals

Vic Hammer, me, Phil, Wayne Smith, Jim Jett

The left handed Vic Hammer who is now 73 was there early warming up, drilling away at his left side forehand kill shot. Phil, who joined this group just before I left GA (my replacement, the 6 foot 6 gigantor challenged Wayne Smith and me to a game of doubles. Apparently he felt he had improved significantly over the past 4-5 years to play at our level... I don't remember ever playing doubles on the same team with Wayne, and there's a good reason for that, we we're the stronger players and equally deadly. But Phil had it in his mind that he was going to serve us up some humble pie and so he chose Vic to be the beneficiary of his shared win. That was very kind of him, but he may have underestimated his opponents.

Wayne and I gladly handed them a big fat humbling "L". And since we were the winners, we then teamed up to play against the winners from the other court, Tom Arnette and Ken. It wasn't really a good idea that Wayne and I play on the same team together because nobody was going to beat us, and we quickly handed out yet another "L" to our opponents.



Phil was still determined to serve us up some humble pie, I mean he's much better (and younger) than the other guys out there and so he insisted on playing cut throat against us (three man racquetball), and so we did. Phil and I didn't play well together (Phil didn't care where I was on the court, he was determined to take every ball) and Wayne took advantage of that and owned us 15-8-8. I decided that Phil was more of a singles player (OK, yes he's a freaking ball hog, even more than me) so I suggested that he and Wayne play each other and that I'd play the winner. I then joined the more civilized players Jim Jett and Vic Hammer for some cut throat. Wayne beat Phil 15-9, his 2nd helping of humble pie for the morning. I won our cut throat game (I should add that Jim Jett was playing left handed because his shoulder hurt, Vic at 73 was by then starting to fade into retirement/nap mode a bit). It was still a kick to be out there with these good men!



I then took on Wayne the Winner in singles and somehow beat him 15-12, a great victory for me (I think he let me win because I was on vacation and had come all that way). Phil was still determined to get a "W" against either one of us at that point and insisted on one more game of cut throat. This time I came out victorious and we sent Phil home in 3rd place smarting a tad. Phil is a good player no question, he just wasn't as good as he thought he was, at least on this particular day. He's a quirky sort of fellow, screaming and carrying on teenager, LOL, I thought he was going to wake Tom Arnette's family and neighbors across the street...

So, it was a good outing for me, definitely worth setting the alarm clock on my vacation day. I especially enjoyed the camaraderie of old friends.

To Tattoo Or Not To Tattoo

I’m pretty intolerant to many things in life and tattoos are no exception, especially on women (Gross!). I’ll admit that I’m somewhat less bigoted toward tattoos than say cigarette smoking or taking the Lord’s name in vain. For instance, I don’t mind so much a tattoo that is very subtle and inconspicuous (and small). But since I absolutely love humor these two tattoos make me LOL a bit. The first is big, distasteful, gross and I would never!

The other one is small, subtle and portrays my sense of humor to a tee (apparently it does to my brother Webb too). Should I go for it?

Blast From The Past (And Looking Forward)

We are getting excited for a particular wedding down in GA involving two very dear families, in just 10 days time. The exciting thing for us is that we lived in the Allatoona ward with the bride's family (Megan Ensign) for several years (Tracy Ensign was Cathleen's visiting teacher and Jonathan Ensign was my home teacher), and then moved into the Sandy Plains ward with the groom's family (Aaron Young) and became very close to them over the several years that we were there. We feel like we are family members to both sides of this matrimony. We knew both these people and their families before they knew each other, and in fact, my wife may have even meddled a bit (as only Mormons know how to do) in causing these two young people to become acquainted (shhh, I didn't say a word about that).

The Ensigns: Conner, Ansley, Megan, Tracy, Jonathan

So it is appropriate that we make the trek there to be with them and to see all of these many wonderful people that we've not seen in 5+ years. We are so excited about that.

The Youngs: Kevin, Adam, Kristen, Daniel, Phil, Jodie, Aaron (still not 100% sure on who is who with the twins, sorry - stop looking so similar!)

We got reconnected with the Youngs through blogging thanks to announcements about this big day. Cathleen has been regularly monitoring the Young blogs and 2 days ago someone - Sarah (Nagel) Wade found Kristen Young and that was like a big score because Sarah had blog links to many other young people that we knew. I taught a Sunday School class that I absolutely loved and I have now touched base with all but one of the kids in this picture below or at least their families (I haven't found Josh Markham - middle back row, where are you Josh?)

Tory (Bishop) Nichols, Kevin Young, Sarah (Jett) ?, Josh Markham, Ben Nagel, Seth Mcleod, Scott Larsen and the old guy

So I've learned about marriages, spouses and babies with these young people and it's all good stuff. This new info discovery is all so timely too since we will be down there next week and will be reminiscing with old friends and family (yes my wife's sister Irene now lives there, married to my best friend Barron from my early Ricks college days - that union is a whole different blog story, but again one of those Baker meddling efforts gone well).

We are sooooo excited to see everyone!


Irene and Barron Smith

Home Teaching

My sister-in-law Theresa's blog prompted me to post this.

Due to Gregory's new atheistic beliefs and desires to become inactive in the church, I found myself without a home teaching companion. I home teach the Bishop so he told me to go ahead and start bringing Christopher, who is a Deacon (normally Teachers - ages 14-16 and Priests 17+ home teach with their dads). Christopher has gone with me a few times now and he's starting to understand what home teaching is all about. Gregory was OK with home teaching at first but he soon got tired of the repetition of sharing the same message with all 3 families (we always do it all in one night which is good). I've been trying to vary the message with Christopher so it isn't as boring but that just puts more burden on me, but that's OK. Gregory was always pushing me to leave after the first 5 minutes. So, I'm expecting similar from Christopher, I just don't know when it will get to that.



So we're at the Bishop's last Sunday and Christopher kicks my foot and tells me we need to leave now (this is after about 25 minutes so he was pretty much on target). That was perfect because the Bishop got the cue and cut us loose. The message was given and we were just rambling at that point.

At our next appointment, I gave a short message (different than the one at the Bishop's) and then we did the small talk thing. Christopher kicked my foot again and I looked at him, he said, "were getting off topic". I'm cracking up looking at him because this is exactly what his mother would be saying to me if she were my companion. I said that we were finished with the message and just doing small talk now. He said, "oh".

We left soon thereafter and arrived at our final visit, the Hazelgrens. Christopher goes to school with the younger boy Ryan (who is also a Deacon) and Ryan always tries to make Christopher laugh (successfully). Usually during the prayer or the entire message, Christopher and Ryan are cracking up. The rest of the Hazelgrens are very patient and understanding. Now I understand why we typically wait for these young priesthood holders to become Teacher's age before they go home teaching. Christopher likes to go to the Hazelgren's, he thinks brother Hazelgren is a crack up.



As we were departing, brother Hazelgren walks us out to the porch and stops and says, "over the past few days we've had a wood pecker pecking on our glass storm door." He said, "I'd go to answer the front door and just as I'd open the door the wood pecker would fly off". Then he would return and do the same thing again and again. Brother Hazelgren thought maybe some pranksters had trained the bird to do that. Their door handle is one of those horizontal lever handles and so the bird just perches there and knocks. He then pointed down at about 6-7 bird poops and said, not only did they train him to ding dong (knock) ditch, they also trained him to poop all over our porch. Of course brother Hazelgren said this with a complete serious look on his face and we beheld the piles of bird poop confirming his story and Christopher burst into laughter and ran to the car because he couldn't contain his laughter. It was pretty funny!

The moral of this story, cats do have a purpose in life, sometimes! Where's my FMZ9?

This Monkey Gone To Heaven

This is a great song

Monkey Gone To Heaven - The Pixies


Read more about this "monkey gone to heaven" Here (Para. 2 Charlie)

April Fool's!

In the spirit of April Fool's Day, I thought I'd share a prank that I was involved in on my mission in Argentina. Before I explain, I should share a few facts that will help appreciate the prank:

-Argentina is predominately Catholic and it is not uncommon to see shrines with hundreds and maybe even thousands of candles surrounding a statue or picture of the virgin Mary. It is their custom to pray to the virgin Mary in this fashion to intercede to the Father in their behalf.

-Mormons believe that there should not be any engraven images before the Lord God and that we are only to pray to our Father in Heaven in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. To do otherwise would be to worship false idols.

-Joseph Smith was a latter day prophet called of God in the early 1800's to restore Christ's true church to the inhabitants of the earth after it had been lost with the death of the Apostles who held the authoritative priesthood. He is a prophet like Abraham or Moses, he is a man and not a God or a Savior.

-Mormon missionaries going to a foreign country attend a culture class once per week for 8 weeks as part of their (MTC) missionary training center experience to learn about the culture of the country that they will serve in. For instance, I learned that it is not strange to see Argentine men kiss each other on the cheek in greeting, and likewise that an abrazo (hug) between men is perfectly acceptable when greeting and bidding farewell.

-The MTC is pretty grueling and sleep deprived missionaries nodding off is quite common. You want to see major head bobbing, attend an MTC Sunday devotional!

The prank: I was part of a small 6 missionary district where we had a few Argies (Argentines that didn't speak any English) and a few North Americans. We got a newbie "greenie" from the States, Elder Sudweeks and he was assigned to an argie to make up one of the companionships in our district, and this was his first time to one of our district meetings. The other North American, Elder Stan Neilson was from San Diego, a bit of a prankster and our fearless district leader. He set up a picture of Joseph Smith with a dozen or two candles at the base surrounding it. Elder Neilson called us in and proceeded to ask Elder Sudweeks to offer an opening prayer to Joseph Smith to invite the spirit to our meeting. Elder Sudweeks did not understand, he became very uncomfortable with this request and he looked at the rest of us for enlightenment. It probably didn't help that I was blowing snot bubbles out my nose trying to retain my hysteria but I was able to conceal it enough to carry on the charade. As much as Elder Neilson and I (the only two North Americans that spoke his native tongue) tried to convince him that we learned this in the MTC as part of our culture class to behave more like the Argentines and "hadn't he been paying attention or did fall asleep during that part???" We did have him questioning himself, but in the end he said, "one of you guys can do it but I'm not going to do it". By then, we were all laughing uncontrollably.

I don't expect non-LDS folks to find much humor in this, there is a certain LDS culture and older members tend to understand things like seasoned missionaries being known to play pranks on newbies. I just thought it was worth sharing in light of April 1st.

This is a picture of my MTC District taken Halloween day 1982. The wild ties were our costume for our Halloween day district photo. They conveniently set the mood well too for an April Fool's day silly blog picture, especially Elder Anderson in the front with his pocket protector and pants hiked up around his chest. To know them is to love them.



Mitch Palmer, Kelly Larson, Tom Ford, Greg Anderson, me, Steve Fowler

Can You Laugh Without Smiling?

My son Gregory shared this with me. People that can do it don't look like they're genuinely laughing... You be the judge.



After watching this video clip, it's probably better that we smile when we laugh, else we look like laughing zombies that need to be institutionalized. Most people on youtube couldn't even fake it.



So,what do you think, is it possible to have a genuine laugh without smiling? Me thinks no! And thank goodness for that!

FMZ9

OK, so I'm not really a gun guy. What that really means is, I'd never own one bigger than say a 22. I have owned bb guns and pellet guns but my wife is passionately against guns so I don't have a problem finding other hobbies and interests. That doesn't mean though that I am not intrigued by a cool gun. One of my room mates at Ricks College had an illegal semi automatic uzzi. There is just something about the idea of an uzzi that makes me feel, well, manly just talking about it. I'm a big fan of shoot'em up movies and games (i.e. the Matrix movie and the Counter Strike video game). In any case, this is a guy video clip and therefore I don't expect to get many hits since I think there is only one other male that reads my blogs (my 13 year old son Christopher). Enjoy this Christopher!

Mullet Madness - They're Still Among Us

Because I ride the train into work each day and because I live in Fredericksburg VA, I have the unique privilege of intermixing with all varieties of “interesting” people. Fredericksburg seems to attract and retain a certain breed of people that I thought had run in its course years ago. Nevertheless, I get to observe a sampling of this species up close each day. F-dude muscle cars of the late 60’s and 70’s such as Camaros, Mustangs and V8 American trucks seem to be common characteristics for most of these specimens, a mustache is yet another, but the mullet is the demarcation that sets this particular group apart from the masses.

DEFINITION Mullet (mulit) aka “neck blanket”: a hairstyle, common among those of lower socio-economic status, short in the front, top and sides but long in the back. It is also described as “business in the front, party in the back”.

This is a perfect example of the classic mullet. The black mesh muscle-T wife beater, digital watch, silver chain, and molester mustache complete the ensemble and add to the authenticity of the overall mullet-tude represented here.

The Mexi-mullet is still popular among the latino population in some parts. Mexi-mullets like to accessorize with snakeskin boots, large metal belt buckles, silk shirts (with rooster prints) and colored jeans



The rock-star-mullet primps mullet plumage for hours before leaving the domicile and takes great pride in his/her style. AKA the perm-mullet is a little less aggressive than his/her counterparts and often gets his/her butt kicked rather than attempt to fight back and risk messing up plumage



The weasel-mullet also gets butt kicked regularly and is ironically a fairly common find amongst the population despite nearing extinction. Weasel mullets are asexual since chances of hooking up with the opposite sex are extremely unlikely. They are often characterized by their flaccid mullets which can only grow to the bottom of their neck. Other distinguishing characteristics of the weasel-mullet are the thin, unattractive mustaches, Faux gold chains and clingy tank top wife beaters purchased at a gas station and worn at night



The skull-mullet or “skullet” for short is growing in popularity across the country. Recent research has shown that skullets are older F-dudes attempting to compensate for upper dome follicle loss



The Vegas mini-truck mullet dudes are extremely vocal and chatty. The unlit cigarette in hand maintains an image of unpredictability and uncertainty. The typical sunglasses on the forehead sweater-over-sweater-over-turtleneck fake gold chain look lends to a false sense of superiority validating his right to ironically judge other mullets with the accusing “L” loser hand signal



The mullet is not just limited to men. In fact one of my Fredericksburg rail observations is a thin Camaro driving fem-mullet (approximate age, 40). Another is more like 50, drives a Corvette and both have bleached blonde neck blankets. Not all fem-mullets are les-mullets (pronounced “lay mule lay”), however most les-mullets are indeed fem-mullets. There are of course exceptions to all rules, as is the case with 1 of the 2 transgender she-males that work in my office. In this case I don’t think the mullet is intentional, just a wannabe woman trying to feminize bad guy hair given at birth.

So here we see a business/office fem-mullet.



Not to be confused with the power-dyke-les-mullet



Or the Retail fem-mullet (aka Wal-Mullet or K-Mullet)



And so we see the mullet perpetuating in society through continued ignorance and likely from continued in-breeding of the species.

My Brother Webb!

The Early Years (Webb left, me right):

My brother Webb has been in my life since, well the beginning. He's 1 year and 10 days older than me. I've always looked up to him, even when he wasn't so nice to me. If you have seen Wonder Years and witnessed the relationship between Kevin and Wayne Arnold, you will have an idea about how our relationship was growing up. He and I were definitely cut from two different molds. He was always confident and adventurous and I was always pretty much, well, a Momma's boy (which he pointed out any chance he could). Nevertheless, I always wanted to be more like him because he represented strength, fortitude and determination to me, things that I didn't feel I was. And, I think because he teased me so, I didn't really like the Momma's boy that I was. Ironically, over the years I have become more like he was and he has become more like I was. Strange! This would probably be as good a time as any to redeclare to him once again that Leslie Bartuska and Keri Anne Conlon love me more than him, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah!



Charlie:

I will share a short little story that I find kind of humorous. Being the Momma's boy, I was never much of a fighter and Webb knew this about me. I watch my own two young boys and my 7 year old Jonathan is not a fighter either where my 5 year old Nathaniel is much more aggressive like Webb. Jonathan is bigger but Nathaniel pretty much owns him. I was however somewhat clever in my revenge antics. You see Webb had a pet stuffed monkey that he named "Charlie", and he was quite attached to that thing. I had a stupid stuffed fish that I liked but I wasn't nearly as attached. So, I discovered the perfect way to get under my brother's skin. I found tremendous joy and great humor in putting our little boy underwear on Charlie's head. The reaction I got, while, often physically painful, was overwhelmingly rewarding. At some point though, the underwear stunt was losing some of it's emotional satisfaction for me, or perhaps the level of revenge wasn't quite equal to the actions that instigated the revenge. So, I may have made things a little tougher for poor little Charlie. My sister has those old stuffed animals to this day, tucked away somewhere in her attic. She questioned me one day if I might be able to explain the multiple pencil stab wounds in Charlie's face and head. I honestly don't remember those aggressions very well but I'll be the first to admit that such behavior is not entirely foreign to my nature... I do kind of wish that I had a picture of little Charlie sitting on Webb's pillow with a pencil sticking out of his forehead. Below is not the real Charlie but rather an attempt to recreate in some degree the image for you.



Maui:

I have come to love my brother Webb dearly. He and I have been through so much together and we have become and are still best friends even though he lives in Maui and I live in Virginia. He asked me to be his best man at his wedding last year, which I considered to be a huge honor for I have never been the best man in anyone's wedding. In addition, it required me to be in Maui in June of 2007, there was no getting out of it, I was the best man after all, shucks! I got to be there with the people whom outside of my own family are dearest to me, whom have been there from the beginning: my Mom, my sister Debbie and Webb (Poppy, Sydney and Seth and his family were there too, also there from practically the beginning, which made it all the more wonderful). We all snorkeled together and for the first time in my life I got be in Hawaii and to swim amongst the beautiful tropical saltwater fish that I so loved as a child. We always had fish aquariums in our homes growing up and I would fantasize of being a little scuba diver in those aquariums. And so, those childhood dreams became a reality and I will cherish that whole experience for ever and ever.



(Sorry for the bathing suit shot folks, obviously what happened in Maui isn't staying in Maui)

One more "thing" on my Wish List!

They have developed a small video camera in Japan which shoots at 2000 frames per second. It is a high-resolution, full color, video camera which does not need a lot of light, as most high speed cameras do. I would think that it would be the size of those shoulder video cameras from the 80's but nope! This video is very cool.

Of course I need (want) one!

In honor of St. Patrick's Day

The only green I adorned myself with on this day could be found on the tip of my finger...

The new Costco Milk jugs

I mean, what's the dealio with these new Costco Milk jugs??? At first I was thinking they looked pretty cool, but when I discovered that it is impossible to pour milk out of them without making a huge mess, I started to wonder what those idiots were thinking. I am almost certain they are LOL'ing their butts off at us consumers just like the inventors of ties and high heels! My Quality Assurance master's program would have had a field day with this one!

While I have the pictures posted, and since it seems to be a common practice to post recipes on blogs, I thought I'd go ahead and post mine.

1 Styrofoam bowl
1 box of cheerios
1 piece of crap jug of Costco milk
1 plastic spoon

Pour cereal in bowl
Pour milk on top of cereal
Curse under breath because of the huge unavoidable mess
Make mental note to write scathing letter to Kirkland and Costco
Make mental note to complain to the world on blog about POC milk jug
Clean up mess (& that of all others before me who don't think it's their job)
Curse some more (note: use only LDS approved swear words such as: Fetch, Flip, oh my Heck and in some cases Barnacles). The neighbor girl says "snap", I like that one but I'm going to have to petition the Utahrd populace for approval and acceptance into the culture.

The Cure - Lullaby

There were problems on the Virginia Railway Express today, so my 40 minute ride home was nearly 2 hours. I was listening to my fave, the Cure and got the spiderman song stuck in my head:

On candystrip legs the spiderman comes

Softly through the shadow of the evening sun
Stealing past the windows of the blissfully dead
Looking for the victim shivering in bed
Searching out fear in the gathering gloom
And suddenly!
A movement in the corner of the room!
And there is nothing I can do
When I realise with fright
That the spiderman is having me for dinner tonight!
--
Quietly he laughs and shaking his head
Creeps closer now
Closer to the foot of the bed
And softer than shadow and quicker than flies
His arms are all around me and his tongue in my eyes
"Be still be calm be quiet now my precious boy
Don't struggle like that or I will only love you more
For it's much too late to get away or turn on the light
The spiderman is having you for dinner tonight!"
--
And I feel like I'm being eaten
By a thousand million shivering furry holes
And I know that in the morning I will wake up
In the shivering cold
And the spiderman is always hungry...

This video is pretty weird!

My Movie quiz thing - A few challenging ones (old)

#1 He's an idiot. Comes from upbringing. His parents are probably idiots too. Back to the Future - Nicole, welcome to blogsville!

#2 Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today. Groundhog Day - Gwen, Yay!

#3 He's a pedantic, pontificating, pretentious bastard, a belligerent old fart, a worthless steaming pile of cow dung, figuratively speaking. Hint: This pen is BLUE, ROYAL BLUE! Liar Liar - Nicole

#4 Mornin', boys! I brung your breakfast! Open Range - Christopher, I knew you'd get this one!

#5 "Time out! I hate to break out of character, but you cannot shout into a persons ear. It does damage. The spitting I don't mind but..." The Man Who Knew Too Little - Tory, I love that line

#6 I just started auditing a woman who told me to get bent. Stranger Than Fiction - Tory

#7 I didn't make it all the way through third grade for nothing. Rescuers Down Under - Gwen

#8 I hate your stinking guts. You make me vomit. You're scum between my toes! Little Rascals - Aleks, Aleks used to go around quoting this when she was like 2-3 yrs old, hilarious

#9 I'm telling you to shut up! I will tell your recorder so that you don't forget! Hint: This is an old school Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton movie. Michael Keaton's character says he loves that Barnie Rubble, he's a great actor. They work at a mortuary. Answer: Night Shift

#10 Hey! What are you doing? C'mon, you're messing up my hair! Whoa! Whoa! Stop it! *Whoa!*... Hey, this might be a good look for me. Hint: think of shrinking head doctor. Beatlejuice - Erin A

#11 My balls are freezin! I never thought I'd say THAT with a smile on my face. Hint: This one isn't as inappropriate as it sounds. Think of Michael Keaton as a snowman. Answer: Jack Frost

#12 We'd have more luck playing pickup sticks with our butt-cheeks than we will getting a flight out of here before daybreak. Planes, Trains and Automobiles - Cathleen, wow this was a hard one

#13 You can trouble me for a warm glass of shut-the-hell-up. Now, you will go to sleep or I will put you to sleep. Check out the name tag. You're in my world now, grandma. Happy Gilmore - Cathleen

#14 Mary... I desperately wanna make love to a school boy. Hint: OK, this is inappropriate but it is snot coming out of your nose hilarious. This character had rehearsed this line differently and had intended to romance Mary, but that's how it came out. Dumb and Dumber - Theresa

#15 Oh, great. If anyone attacks we can blink em' to death. Toy Story - Erin A, thanks for participating

#16 Yeah, Utah. It's wedged in between Wyoming and Nevada. You've seen pictures of it, right? Hint: This is old school, Chevy Chase, he takes on many identities. Answer: Fletch

#17 He hates these cans. Stay away from the cans. Hint: This is old school Steve Martin, a poor black kid who becomes very wealthy. Answer: The Jerk

#18 Hey, little anal-dwelling butt monkey. Time for you to go home, little buddy. Bruce Almighty - Theresa

#19 Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh? Hint: This is old school Chevy Chase and Bill Murry about golf. Answer: Caddy Shack

#20 I don't think so. No one says "whoopsidaisies" do they? Unless they're... There *is* no "unless." No one has said "whoopsidaisies" for fifty years and even then it was only little girls with blonde ringlets. Knotting Hill - Theresa

My brother Chris

I've been thinking a lot about my brother Chris since he just celebrated his birthday a few days ago, he's 1 year my junior. He has always been such an amazing person. He was always so confident, never seemed to have any insecurities and was just a natural leader. He was by far the funniest person I ever knew for the longest time. Witty, silly (Jim Carey silly) and just plain hilarious. He lead a band of us followers on Laguna Beach capers where we wreaked havoc on that quiet little town. If there was anything for free in that town (mints, toothpicks, lolli-pops, coffee and cookies, free samples or tastes, etc.) he knew about it and we raided it. Nobody ever threw us out (we were way too fast) even though we frequented businesses like our favorite bank daily to partake of coffee and cookies, after all, we were patrons.

One day Chris discovered a new supplier to add to our rounds, the Cellar restaurant on Ocean or Forest Ave, in the basement of a building. They kept a jar of mints on the counter near the register. The place was pretty dead during the day and so nobody tended the counter and Chris ran down and disappeared into the dark lobby and quickly emerged with a handful of mints. I was afraid to go down there uncertain of what I might encounter, until I saw his loot and nobody running after him. So I got up the nerves to go down and get my share, after all, I was a patron. I descended into the darkness with my heart pounding with anticipation of my intents being discovered when I spotted them on the counter. Just as I was reaching for the delicacies, Chris shrilled in his loudest voice from atop that dark stairwell, "GET AWAY FROM THOSE MINTS". My heart now relocated to my throat caused me to bolt back up from whence I came in a panic without even a single morsel to tantalize my pallet. That was only one of a thousand such stories. Just picture a little Jim Carey running amok making all sorts of embarrassing noises in otherwise reverent settings like grocery stores, drug stores, hardware stores, art stores, jewelry stores, banks, etc. and me and others laughing hysterically in pursuit and you'll have a glimmer of my brother Chris.

Chris was always extremely competitive and unbeknownst to me at the time, Chris was extremely intelligent (that's a heck of a combination). I knew he had a great memory and a knack for trivia but he went on to use his gifts to pursue a bachelor's at UCLA, a Law degree from BYU and then on to Film school at USC. He hobnobs with the rich and famous and has become quite successful himself. He helped me out of a big jam with a large loan when I was laid off, no hesitations and no questions asked, something I'll always be grateful to him for. He owns the rights to many films and is currently producing the sequel to "Point Break" which featured Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves early in their careers. Chris is the Chief Operating Officer and owns the rights to this Point Break 2 (Indo), which is slated to hit the big screen later this year. I am pulling for his great success, I know he has stressed a lot and has put a great deal of time, effort and risk into this big project but he believes in it and has the passion to make it a success.

I'm including a link to an article where Writer and Director Peter Iliff of Point Break Indo blogs a rebuttal to someone who is accusing him of plagiarism (see his blog to the accompanying article, which has lot's of neat info about the Point Break Indo story). This blog post is a tribute to my brother Chris, in recognition of his birthday. Someone with whom I am happy to have shared many childhood memories and with whom I am very proud of.

Piclens for Mozilla Firefox

I found this pretty cool plugin called piclens for the Mozilla Firefox browser that has a pretty neat museum gallery presentation interface for you to review photos stored in flickr, picasa, photobucket and a few others (unfortunately not Phanfare). Actually, it gets old after a while because there isn't much to it but it's a lot of fun to play around with for a while, very state of the art stuff. Disregard watching my clips below, I happened upon this one on YouTube that narrates and everything.

I know there are software tools out there that allow you to capture screen activity and I will research that and perhaps update the link below as the video clip I've captured isn't very crisp. But it at least gives an idea of how this thing works. The best part of course is that it's free. Once you install it (it will require a bounce of your current firefox sessions), all you need to do is get to one of these photo galleries on the internet (only works with Firefox, not with Windows Internet Explorer) and then click the little blue arrow button in the top right corner and away you go.



OK, so I found a new fun freeware software utility called Camstudio that lets you capture you screen activity (for training purposes and what not). It was discontinued in 2005, it seems Macromedia got involved and it became Robodemo. Then somehow Adobe got it and they now market a more advanced version called Captivate ($700). I haven't done a whole lot of research in this space beyond that, I read one feedback that preferred something called Camtasia ($300) in case anyone is interested...

I'm not sure if it was just my antiquated computer bogging down with the freeware recording software running concurrently capturing the hefty graphics of piclens, but the recording is as choppy as the actual experience was running the two of them together. I read someone slam robodemo for capturing all the lags. In any case, if I were to do this for a living, I'd want a monster fast computer and professional software that would produce a more smooth end result. So, it seems you get what you pay for. BTW, my Camstudio .avi file is 1/10 the size of my video w/audio file (and much more crisp image resolution). I don't like the choppy though and you should not see that in real life use of piclens if your computer is half decent. My dinosaur did fine without Camstudio running concurrently as witnessed in my video clip above!

A day in the life of Greg Baker (yawn)

My schedule is a little crazy, I have 2 jobs. I work four 10 hour days during my regular job (Tuesday-Friday), often working from home on Tuesdays. I work 24 hours on the weekend for the 2nd job, 7am-11pm on Saturdays and 11pm-7am Sunday-Monday. I sleep on Monday 8am-2pm. Fortunately, neither job is stressful and in fact, both jobs are rather enjoyable. The weekend job involves just being there in case of emergencies, and so I have a lot of "free" time. I was able to get my Master's degree making good use of that time. They've locked the firewall down pretty tight now so it's getting harder and harder to do things online during my "free" time.

I have family night on Mondays, racquetball challenge nights on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I try to take care of church work on Wednesdays and Fridays should be date night but we don't get out too frequently because to take Isabelle is hard and to wait until she gets to bed makes getting up early on Saturday mornings difficult. So it's usually a movie with the kids or just hanging out. After church on Sundays, I usually always get a good solid nap and then hanging out with the family or doing my home teaching. My biggest challenge, trying to fit in a little more fitness time into my schedule. 2 nights of racquetball a week isn't satisfactorily balancing out the ice cream and sweets intake during the week...










So, my typical day has me awakening at 5:20 to catch a 6:15 train. My ride to the train station (including walk from parking to platform) is about 15 minutes. My train ride is about 40 minutes barring problems, which I usually spend reading something (Yes, I took that picture of myself on the train pretending to read, wanted to capture "reality" as best I could).



My trip from my connecting lot where I pick up my trusty 1994 Camry (it's ugly but that's OK since it lives out in the elements) with 220K miles on it to my office is 15-20 minutes. I typically catch the 5:23pm train home, usually too tired to read for too long so I eventually listen to music and try to get a power nap and arrive home at around 6:30pm. I'd say half the year I'm arriving to and leaving from work in the dark. But again, fortunately that's only 3 days a week. Saturdays are spent almost entirely in a darkened room with a usual brief run at lunch to pick up food.

My 1995 Turbo M3

My first experience with BMWs was a mint condition 1999 328iS. The car handled amazingly, easily sticking through hard turns at 40-50mph, attributable to the expensive sticky Yokohamas and the highly precise German engineering in the M sports suspension. The only thing it lacked was horse power. It looked tougher than it was, and while it would smoke a Vette through a winding course, it had little raw top end power. People pulling up next to me expected more, which lead me to expect more. This drove me to want an M3. I didn't lose a dime on the 328iS, it was that clean (in retrospect, I should have just kept it).

When I saw it, I knew it had to be mine, a 1995 M3 Turbo with only 63K miles on it and a newer larger 3.2L engine (the 1995 was the only e36 M3 that had the 3.0 liter engine, the 96-99 had the 3.2). Not only that, it had an after market turbo that boosted the horse power by 50-60hp so theoretically it should be much faster than a stock M3, and it was. With nearly $30K just in after market parts (see the spreadsheet in this link), this thing was burning through custom catalytic converters every 2 years (at least that's how frequently I needed to have emissions testing), which translated into a good $1000+ each time. The fun factor was definitely there, but got undermined every time I had to go to Cathleen for the unbudgeted repairs. It doesn't take long to understand what you have to do when dental work has to be postponed so we can pay for Greg's fun factor. I sold the car October 30, 2007, after owning it for 2 1/2 years. I'm now hunting for something fun but slightly more reserved. (All you ever wanted to know about M cars)

I love the uniqueness of the clown shoe M Coupe, which is the same chassis as the e36 M3, underneath is the same suspension and motor. I hated the style at first, but it grew on me more and more, especially since I've only seen 2-3 on the road in my lifetime. I have a tendency toward the non-conformist. I also like the M Roadster, they're pretty common though. The only problem with these, they are two-seaters (not very practical for a man with 9 kids). My justification, I spend 98% of my driving time in my car alone. So, as long as we have another larger 3rd car (we do, a 2000 Volvo S80), we should be OK, right? Plus, I have a 4door 1994 Camry as my train car... The 1999-2000 had the 240hp engine, the 2001-2002 has he 330hp engine. The M Coupes and Z3 Coupes are pretty rare, they just come up for sale on occasion, I of course want the 2002. The Z3 Roadster is the slower cousin to the M Roadster and the Z3 Coupe is likewise to the M Coupe, both of which share the 328iS chassis/motor. I'd even gladly take one of these slower Z3 Coupe cousins, but they too are hard to find. The James Bond GoldenEye movie is what put the Roadster on the map. Cathleen does not want me to be 007, but prefers me to drive a low maintenance, high fuel efficiency Japanese car.