A Much Needed Break

Sometimes we get a little temporary break from reality that is so needed, it actually becomes therapeutic. I had such an experience this weekend when I joined Spencer and a group of buddies in St George for a golf and March Madness guys trip. The golf was great because we played two nice courses and I actually played pretty well; the sand volleyball was excellent although my current knee problems were a nuisance; the basketball games were good; the food was good; but the company was outstanding. Lots of laughs, including a very unique birthday celebration for one of the guys, seemed to complete the weekend. Until next year...

LOST

I know some of you are deeply entrenched in following the final season of LOST like we are. We have enjoyed the entire 6 years of this show in its amazing ability to keep from getting predictable (except maybe in its consistent unpredictability...). We record the episodes and then wait until we have more than one to watch back to back because they're too crazy and emotionally taxing to just watch one episode and then call it a night.

We will definitely be sad when it's no longer on. That being said, WE JUST WANT IT TO BE OVER SO WE KNOW WHAT THE 'H' IS GOING ON!!!!

Last night's episode was roughly the midway point for this final season. I won't give away anything here in case someone needs to catch up, but someone showed me this very thorough recap article that is an interesting read if you're caught up and want to think more about it. Warning: it's very long - you have to click through like 12 different additional web pages to get through the whole article. I didn't realize this when I was reading, and then by the time I got through a page or two I was pretty much hooked so had to keep going.

stupid car

I've had my Volvo S40 now for about 9 years - maybe 8 1/2. It's a 2000 model, and it's been a wonderful car. My brother Nate had told me at one point to watch out because at around 90K miles, Volvo's will start falling apart. So when I blew through the 90K mile mark with no significant problems, I smugly thought, "Ha! I've beat the system!"

I now have 110K miles, and the car is not doing well. While that's better than 90K, it's not really in the Honda range of long-term reliability. Other than the couple thousand dollars I've spent over the last six months on things like new timing belt and new struts, the problems I'm now facing are: the A/C doesn't work (um, that's gonna make for a long, sweaty summer), the horn doesn't work (can I pass inspection with no horn?), and the car shakes so much when I stop that I feel like apologizing to the cars around me for the vibration noise it's making.

Anyway, this is definitely NOT the right time for this kind of thing to be hitting. But then again, that right there just sealed the deal that of course it will happen, it will be expensive, and it will keep happening.

And just for the record on a not completely unrelated topic, I HEREBY PROMISE I WILL NEVER AGAIN INVEST IN REAL ESTATE OR ANY SPECULATIVE VENTURE FOR ANY PURPOSE OTHER THAN TO LIVE IN SAID REAL ESTATE OR SPECULATIVE VENTURE FOR THE REST OF MY NATURAL OR STRESS-SHORTENED LIFE, WHICHEVER COMES FIRST.

weekly check-in

I neglected to update the blog last week with some awesome news - Brig now knows how to ride his bike without training wheels. Not only are we super proud of him, but he's also pretty proud of himself - I can see it in his eyes when his friends, most of which can't ride bikes yet, all seem mighty impressed. He did have one little mishap this weekend that required some TLC and hugs from Mom for a scraped up elbow, but he's doing very well.

I'm on a countdown to knee surgery, which happens on April 2nd. My nervousness has not been helped by a friend in our ward who just had knee surgery and something unexpected went wrong with his recovery, so his knee isn't getting any blood flow. Basically he's looking at knee replacement surgery, as a result of his previous surgery. While I know this is unlikely to happen to me, it still makes me think how badly that would affect my life if it did. On second thought, maybe best not to think about it at all. I'm really mostly nervous about how immobile I'll be for a while, and how long it will take to fully recover. Probably looking at end of summer before I'm really doing what I want to be doing.

Work has been going really well lately. I feel like the responsibilities I've been given and the work I've been doing are putting me in a good position to shine. While there are always ups and downs, I'm happy to be riding a wave right now of having found a good rhythm with my boss, having a great team working for me, and making great noticeable progress on some key projects. It certainly makes it easier to go to work every day when things are going well.

Brig's still funny, and hanging with Micah

Yesterday Brig and I were dropping off one of the girls at a house that had a lot of windows. Brig asked me what if we had to break the window to get in the house, and I told him we couldn't do that because then he'd be a robber. He said, "I'd smile so you wouldn't know I was a robber."

This morning he came in to my bathroom and asked if I wanted to know how tall he is. I said yes, so he got on the scale and asked me what the number said...

Angela's at the all-Richards-girls weekend, and I'm sure she's having a great time. Last night Micah and I decided that it would be fun to just hang out, she and I, and watch a movie together. So she told her sleepover invitation no, we got the other kids situated, and then we watched the first 1/2 of Lord of the Rings. So fun for me to hang out with her!

the latest

Last week was my 3 year mark at Google. While this is big for me as it is officially the longest time I've been at any company, it is also HUGE in that I now get an extra week of vacation each year. Hello the Good Life!

So we finished our taxes last night. It became clear when we saw the final outcome that Angela and I had had very different perceptions about what was going to show up. I was very worried we were going to get stuck with a large tax bill, and Angela was convinced we were going to get a large refund. Turns out, we were both wrong... We pretty much hit our tax liability on the head this year - we owe a couple hundred to the Federales, and we get a few hundred back from the state. So good news for me, bad news for Angela (which of course in the grand scheme of things means bad news for me... dangit). I know a lot of financey folks who would jump for joy at not having "lent" the gov't their money ahead of time, but I admit that I have loved the large refunds we've grown accustomed to over the years.

Kennan and Morgan are performing in their school talent show today. They're singing a Miley Cyrus / Hannah Montana song, and they sound really good. They're throwing in some simple harmonies, and if they can just sing as well on stage as they do at home, they're going to be golden. I'm heading over for a quick break from work to see them do their thing.

Angela has been incredibly busy. She's in the thick of big school projects, and at the same time her YW camp stuff is also ramping up. I'm glad she's having these great opportunities, but it is also taking a toll on her. Hopefully she'll be able to unwind a little at the Richards Girls weekend this coming weekend. I'm looking forward to hanging with the munchkins for the weekend.

Surgery and Sci Fi

My spring and summer race and training calendar looks like it's just gone out the window. I scheduled my knee surgery for April 2nd, and I'm looking at 4-6 months before I'll be back to normal activity. It's kind of funny that the main thing I'm worried about is how much muscle I'm going to lose in my left leg while it heals. Oh well.

I don't know if everyone out there has seen the movie Avatar - it's been out for a long time and received sufficient hype that I'm sure most of you have seen it. I just saw it last week with a work event, and it was amazing. We saw it on IMAX in 3D, which I'm sure added to the effect, but I imagine it's a pretty incredible experience at any theater. It's most likely not going to be in theaters much longer, so I highly recommend you go see it before you can't anymore - won't be the same on DVD. It's amazing!