Happy Birthday Big D!

Dave turns 32 today. While it is very uncommon for me to remember my siblings' ages, I actually remember Dave's because he was a Bicentennial baby born in 1976. Amazing what actually sticks in this swiss-cheese brain of mine.

I have a lot of great memories of Dave over the years. I'm going to ramble for a while and just share some memories with you in no particular order.

-Dave sitting in the way back of the family suburban, hands clutching the back of the middle seat, bouncing vigorously up and down as we drove home up the Avenues, trying not to pee his pants
-Dave playing basketball with me in the back yard - I remember very well the one time he won when he was much smaller than I was...he launched a beautiful rainbow jumper from the side of the old backyard court, I watched it go through the hoop for the win, but he was already running for his life before it even went through, which was the appropriate reaction because I took off after him...
-playing couch football in the downstairs playroom with Dave
-riding bikes to Northcrest with Dave and Spencer
-Dave as captain and emotional leader of the West High basketball team
-Dave fasting the day he went through the temple, and then having him throw up in a certain part of the temple, after which I had to then occupy the same spot... yuck
-Dave leaving for his mission to North Carolina; seeing him off at the airport and he was sick and even skinnier than usual - he'd been sick for at least a week - MTC food ...
-Dave coming back from his mission a confident and mature man
-Dave's guitar playing and singing
-Dave's homecoming - every time I hear the hymn Nearer My God To Thee I think of him singing it over the pulpit and me feeling the spirit so strong I couldn't stop the tears.
-long rides in all kinds of weather with Dave (sometimes far behind Dave) as he got me into biking
-and many more....

I love Dave so much. I've always felt protective of him (except for the one time mentioned above when I tried to kill him), and that's not because he needed it, just because I care for him. He's a great brother and man.

Happy birthday Dave.

This week

Big week for our younger actresses of the family. The official Bullis Charter School production of The Sound of Music kicks off this Friday and Saturday with Kennan playing the part of Marta, one of the Von Trapp kids, and Morgan is in the chorus with the other kindergartners. Micah is not acting in this production because it's not for her grade, but she's helping backstage and thus gets to go to all the rehearsals. They have all been enjoying it as usual and I'll update you on how great it was when it's all over. They're really excited!

Brig continues to grow and progress, and he constantly cracks us up. He's to the point where we can't even isolate funny things he says and does, because at any given time he's saying something new and surprising - usually just little phrases. He's also getting bigger. I picked him up yesterday and there's starting to be a certain mass to his little body, which is exciting to see him grow. His hair is kind of long and really cute and curly - probably time for a haircut soon, but I'm debating with myself whether or not I can do it with my clippers...probably not (mortal fear of anything that buzzes, and hair a little too thin).

Angela's been running like a madwoman. She's constantly out pounding the pavement every morning, and she's got good running friends who are committed to training with her. As for me, I squeeze runs in when I can, but it's been a little hard lately. I still got 23 miles last week, but it's getting harder to find the time. Luckily we can leave Micah with the other kids in the mornings.

This weekend is also the College rugby final four, where BYU is yet again playing to see who gets to lose to Cal. I'm hoping to squeeze in their semifinal game before the Friday night play (or just miss that night and go to the Saturday night play instead of the final game). Looking forward to seeing some old friends who will come out for the event. Wish Spencer was coming...

Self-Powered Commuter

My goal is to see how long I can go between filling up my car with gas. I'm actually doing pretty well, but I've also realized that my car isn't the one we need to worry about. So I've become a self-powered computer. An SPC (Google talk) is one who gets to work either walking, riding, skating, sailing, swimming, or any other way that doesn't include other power sources. There are many benefits of getting to work this way:

1. I get to ride my bike to and from work and get some exercise (ok, a small amount, but better than none)
2. My car stays at home, so Angela can use my car instead of her big gas-guzzler for her daily errands that don't involve all the kids
3. My co-workers think I'm cool (sometimes)
4. Google makes a donation to a charity of my choice based on how many times I SPC each quarter ($5 per day)
5. Oh yeah, and there's that whole "environmental" thing or some crap like that
   

With my schedule it doesn't always work out, like on bishopric night, or when I need to pick up a kid from piano or something. But last week I rode to work 3 times, and I did today as well. Good job me.

Finally, does anyone else find this strange?

NFL Draft results for Utah schools:

• Utah State - 2 players
• Weber State - 1 player
• BYU - 1 player
• Utah - 0 players

Hmmmm.

A day of great loss

OK, that title makes it sound like something really bad happened...I guess I'm into sensationalist journalism now.

On Thursday night we had two losses within the space of one minute. First, Morgan lost her first tooth! She was so excited when I pulled it out without it hurting, which is good because we discovered she has 4 or 5 other loose teeth already. Then, within a few seconds of that, Micah said "hey Dad, try mine" and I pulled one of hers out too. So if any of you have kids with loose teeth and you need an expert to extract them, I come pretty cheap and do good work.

And I've been feeling a little bad that Angela didn't get adequate representation in the pictures from our trip because she was often the one taking the pictures, so here's this little beauty... (I'm really gonna pay for this one!)

British Nonsense

I rarely do this, but I saw this on a blog yesterday and I thought it would be fun to share. It's pretty funny. The blog I found it on was Dick Harmon's BYU blog (not sure what this has to do with BYU), but he did not write this, and there are other versions available on the internet. I think the most online credit is given to comedian John Cleese for having written the original. Enjoy.

To: The citizens of the United States of America

In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect: You should look up ?revocation? in the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. Then look up aluminum, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter "U" will be reinstated in words such as "favour" and "neighbour." Likewise, you will learn to spell "doughnut" without skipping half the letters, and the suffix -ize will be replaced by the -ise.

3. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.

4. You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen.

5. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

6. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you?re not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

7. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. All American cars are hereby banned. They are disgusting and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

9. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been wrongly calling gasoline) - roughly $9US gallon. Get used to it!

11. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with "ketchup", but with vinegar.

12. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

13. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like a bunch of girls). Don't try Rugby - the Southern hemisphere teams will thrash you, believe it or not, they sometimes beat us!

14. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans, Indians and Pakistanis. Look them up in the Atlas provided on Google Earth first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

15. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season. Dinner should be served after 6 in the evening. The midday meal is called lunch!
God save the Queen?

By Royal Proclamation
Governor designate for the North American Dependency (formerly known as the USA)

A note on Google

Last week while I was on vacation, Google announced its 2008 Q1 earnings results with astounding effect. Companies have to wait until after the markets close on a pre-set day, and then they release earnings reports to Wall Street and media, followed by the earnings call where the CEO and CFO talk about the past quarter, answer Wall Street questions, and in most cases (not Google) give guidance for what the future might look like. Because Google doesn't give guidance, analysts really have no idea what to expect from us when we announce, and a result of this is wild swings and volatility because they usually guess wrong.

This quarter there had been a lot of speculation that we would have a bad quarter, particularly because some outside "experts" had represented that our advertising clicks were down (not true) and that we were in trouble (also not true). In other words, people were expecting a not-so-nice announcement from the Big G.

I logged onto my computer in the late afternoon to do some work, and the first thing I did was check how the quarter announcement has gone. I knew we weren't going to miss the analysts pre-quarter expectations, which is always a good thing, but I didn't actually know the final results. When I opened up Google Finance, I was astounded to see our stock up $75 after hours, which means that people were placing so many "buy" orders for first thing in the morning when the markets reopened, that the price had already been driven up that much. So I guess you could say we had a great quarter.

The downside of our stock going crazy, which of course I'm prepared to deal with, is that I invariably get emails from my business school friends with the words "millionaire" and "loan" in them. Of course that's laughable, and I want to dispel that notion right now for anyone who might have thought that...not now, not ever. Anyway, it's very nice to work for a company that can do well even when the economy is struggling.

Today was bring your kid to work day and there were about 4,000 kids running around the campus, especially at lunch time. Angela brought Brig up for a late lunch to miss the crowds, and it was nice to have him running around with his friend who came too.

Things I'm enjoying lately

It's been a bit busy getting back into normal life, but everything's good. Today's post is going to be made up of some things that are completely unrelated to each other, but that I've been enjoying lately (in no particular order).

Scriptures: On Sunday evening we had a Stake Priesthood Leadership meeting. One of my friends, who is a year younger than I am, is our stake Young Men's president, and he was asked to present to all the bishoprics and YM presidencies who were in attendance. I was so impressed with the depth of his gospel knowledge, and his understanding of tying scriptures together to make powerful doctrinal points. So I've resolved to enhance my own personal scripture study, and I have really enjoyed my late evening studies this week. It helps that I have a brand new set of beautiful scriptures (courtesy of Mom and Dad), and a neat new system of marking scriptures, but I look forward to this time each night. I feel already the difference in my testimony and in my desire to do good.

Playoffs: Jazz have looked really good in their two road wins against Houston so far. I expect them to close out this 1st round series in the next three games at most, possibly even the next two. Houston just doesn't have the players besides McGrady. And I'm sure none of you saw the San Jose Sharks Game 7 win last night against the Calgary Flames, but it was awesome! I seriously love hockey, especially the playoffs - makes me kinda wish I grew up in Canada ... no, not really.

Running & Exercise: Well, I finally got around to actually signing up for St. George yesterday, and I'm looking forward to it if I can get in. Angela and my running partner, Jason, are guaranteed entrance, so if I can get in that'll make a fun little group in addition to a few other friends who are sure to be running. I'm enjoying my running right now even though it's too early to start real training. I also started a weights regimen designed to round out my fitness without adding bulk. I should be sore for the next two weeks.

Family: At the end of our trip, mostly because we were all tired, hungry, etc. we had a bit of a blow up in which no one escaped unscathed. We were all sad about it afterwards, and we decided together that we would try to be better. Of course we are still working on it, but I have felt more peace in our home this week as we all try to be more helpful and more patient. We're all grateful for each other and we love each other very much - even with our faults and weaknesses.