Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We are traveling to AZ this week to spend Christmas with my family, and so had decided to celebrate our Christmas on Saturday the 15th.

We had a lot of fun. Dallin and Thatcher loved opening their gifts. Dallin's favorite by far was his new Spiderman Scooter! He kept telling everyone about it at church on Sunday... anyone who would listen :)

I too was very excited on Christmas morning. Jen bought me a wakeboard! I love it. Here's some pics of Dallin helping me open it... I think he was about as excited as I was :).

Surprise Visit

Two weeks ago Shawn and Crystal paid us a last minute surprise visit. They had taken a trip to Hawaii, were flying home "non-rev" (something like standby) and their flight to Phoenix was full, but a flight to Seattle had available seats. They called us up and asked if they could crash at our place for the night.

It was loads of fun to see them here even if it was for a short time. We got to catch up some that night. They went to church with us in the morning and then only had a few hours before needing to leave for the airport to catch a flight to Phoenix.

On the way to the airport we took them by Snoqualmie falls, which is only a ten minute drive from our house. This is always a fun site to take out-of-towners especially since it's so close.

Jen snapped this picture of us walking back to the car.

Capture Streaming Video and Audio

We're in Utah for Thanksgiving and Jen talked her family into doing a little talent show as part of the festivities. She wanted to do "The Fools" lip sync with her sisters. However, she left the cd at home. She asked me if I could rip the audio from her youtube video on her blog. After a little searching I found this page that describes how to download the actual *.flv file from youtube. Then I was able to demux the audio from the flash video file. Here's the three steps and the software I used:

1. Use the demo version of Replay A/V (retail $50) to locate the actual URL of the flash video being played. This software can be used to actually do the capture, but the demo version will only capture up to 5 MB. This doesn't matter since we only need to use it to find the URL of the source video being played since it is embedded in the swf file embedded in the html.

2. Paste this URL in the address bar of internet explorer and select "save" when prompted.

3. Drag and drop the saved *.flv file into FLV_Extract to demux the video and the audio and poof you've got yourself an mp3 file to burn to CD.

Kiera and Craig

As part of our trip to Utah we drove down to Pleasant Grove to visit Kiera and Craig in their new place. We had a nice evening catching up with them over dinner and roasted marshmallows :).

Dallin LOVED playing with the kids... of course that has been a common theme this whole trip... Dallin just loves being around his cousins both on my side and Jen's side.

Here are some pictures from our visit with the Conovers:

Do I snore?

After I read Dallin his bedtime story, I gave him a good night kiss and told him to go to sleep. I normally lay down with him for a few minutes, unless I fall asleep (most nights)... Once I finished the book and turned off the light Dallin said,

"Daddy... Don't snore"

Beautiful

Dallin and Jen were in Utah when I bought my new truck. I told Dallin about it and showed him the pictures below when we were in Arizona for my reunion. Well... when we drove up to the house to see it for the first time I prepped him a little saying, "Are you ready to see Daddy's new truck?". I got him out of the car and turned him around so he could see it sparkling in the drive way.

He said, "It's... It's," ...pauses to think of the most appropriate word to describe this new vehicle... "Beautiful!"

I raised him right :)

10 Year High School Reunion

It's official... I'm getting old :) Today was my 10 year high school reunion. It was a lot of fun to see so many old friends and acquaintances. We got to catch up on what everyone else has been up to and what not.

Todd Watson and the rest of the committee really did a nice job planning the event. Friday night was a pizza party followed by a family picnic Saturday afternoon. Both of these events were much less attended then the main event but it was fun to get to see everyone's kids.

Saturday night was the main event at Rustler's Roost. It was a lot of fun. It's a pretty casual venue with excellent food. Everyone mixed and mingled most of the night, except for a brief moment when Todd presented awards for the most change, least changed, most kids, furthest traveled, etc. It was a fun night.

Jen took this picture of ourselves overlooking the Phoenix valley. You can't see many of the lights since the flash was turned on... plus both of our smiles look a little tired after a couple hours of mingling with old friends :)

Hiking at Camelback Mountain

We are in Arizona this week to visit family and to attend my 10 year highschool reunion this weekend. It's fun spending all day with Jen and the kids. We made a picnic lunch and went up to Camelback mountain to do a little hike this afternoon. The weather in Arizona has been wonderful. It's a little warm in the sun but beautiful to sit in the shade and enjoy the cool breeze.

Naturally with Dallin and Thatcher we didn't hike to the summit, but instead we did a little .5 mile hike to Bobby's Rock. Dallin did really good hiking all the way up. He had fun exploring and looking for bugs. Just before we got back to the parking lot he started getting tired and wanted to be held, so the hike was just the right length :)

New Truck!

This is my new truck! After months of looking and weeks without a vehicle I have finally found the perfect truck to replace my S-10.

I found this truck a few weeks ago on craigslist, but the owner had it listed a little higher then I was looking to pay. I explained that the truck was just what I was looking for, but I wasn't really interested in paying the price for the nice rims and other chrome accessories. I offered him what I thought was a reasonable price to by it without the rims. He could put the stock rims and tires back on and then sell the fancy rims separately to recoup more of his asking price.

We went back and forth over email for a while. He explained that he was more interested in selling it with the rims just to clean out the garage and not have the extra set of tires taking up space and was willing to come down to a pretty fair price with the rims. It still wasn't quite at my price range. I gave him my top offer that I would pay (with the rims included), and then didn't hear back from him for a few days. I figured he thought my offer was too low and gave up on negotiating with me. Well, while we were at Lake Powell on vacation I got an email from him explaining that he was out of town for the weekend (hence no email), but that he and he's wife agreed to sell it to me at my price! woohoo!

I still hadn't seen it in person yet only pictures. I replied explaining that we were now out of town and I would come by Monday night to see it and test drive it, and if it looked as good in person as it did in the pictures then I would hold to that price.

Over the last month there have been 3 trucks that I have contemplated purchasing, each time that I finally decided I wanted to buy the truck I called up the owner/dealer and it was sold! So... I was certain by the time I returned to Seattle the next week that he would have sold it to somebody else.

Well, I emailed him on Monday and he said that it was still available but that he just returned from the Infinity dealer and they were working a deal for a new 2008 which included the truck as a trade in. However, he told them that I may still be interested in purchasing it and if so he would sell it to me since he had already committed to the price. It turns out that they were going pay him only $500 less then what we had agreed to, plus he would have saved at least $1000 in sales tax on the new car by trading it in the truck. It was very nice of him to still sell it to me, and to hold to the price that we had agreed upon.

Anyways, I went to test drive the truck last night. Many times the vehicles look 10 times better in their pictures on craigslist then what they look like in real life... NOT THIS TRUCK... This truck looks BETTER in real life! Seriously, the pictures I have posted here are the pictures from the craigslist add. At first, looking at the pictures, I thought the rims and chrome accessories were a bit much, but once I saw it in real life I simply fell in LOVE with this truck. It is absolutely immaculate. It seriously is in just as good condition as the brand new trucks that I test drove at the dealerships. It only has 17,000 miles which is remarkable for a 2004. There's not a scratch in the paint, or a blemish in the interior. Plus, it's got a spray in bed liner, cruise control, and dual zone climate control for the AC and heater.

I talked it over with Jen on the phone since she is still in Utah. I told here how nice the truck looked and she agreed that it was a good price and that we should go for it. So I drove out to his house this morning after a stop by the bank, and traded him a couple envelopes full of cash for a smokin' hot silverado...

I am now quite happy that the other 3 trucks I almost bought didn't work out. Honestly, I would have been happy with any of them but, I am most pleased with the one I've ended up with :)

I absolutely love it!

Lake Powell

I can't let too much time go by without mentioning our annual Pidcock Family trip to Lake Powell. Unfortunately I don't really have any pictures to help illustrate the event. My sister in law Becky has a nice camera and was kind of dubbed the week's photographer. Since she was snapping plenty of pictures of everyone we didn't feel to compelled to pull out our camera to duplicate the pictures. We were supposed to get a DVD from her with all of the pictures she took before we left Utah but forgot to do so and as such will probably never see the pictures, since we'll probably forget about them the next time we are in town... oh well :).

This year we decided to take our trip to Lake Powell a little bit later in the year. Instead of the usual trip in July we took a week off in September. We only spent 3 days at Lake Powell in Page and spent the rest of the time just visiting Jen's family in Utah.

Mark and I rented a nice demo wakeboard and had fun wakeboarding behind Mike's rented Reinell. The water was great and of course the scenary was beautiful as usual. We all had a great time.

Jen did get this cute picture of Dallin and Sage hanging out at Bashful Bob's Motel in Page:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Wow... Check this out...

I am now qualified to apply to be an Astronaut for NASA!

Where do I sign!

The following was posted on slashdot.org by the user cited below:

codewarrior78411 writes:
"NASA posted a hiring notice for new astronauts Tuesday, on usajobs.com, seeking for the first time in almost 30 years men and women to fly aboard spacecraft other than the shuttle. The agency is seeking 10 to 15 new faces for three to six-month missions aboard the international space station." Requirements include 'Must be a U.S. citizen between 5-foot-2 and 6-foot-3 in height (to squeeze into Russia's three-passenger Soyuz capsule)' 'At least a bachelor's degree in engineering, a biological or physical science, or mathematics' 'three years of relevant professional experience' and most interestingly 'Vision correctable to 20/20. For the first time, the space agency will consider applicants who have undergone successful refractive eye surgery.'

Superman... se fue

Yes, it's true... Superman has gone.

I've sold my truck. I was actually really sad to see it go. I've really enjoyed my little superman truck. I bought this truck just a few weeks after I got home from my mission. I believe it was on Shawn and Crystals wedding day to be exact. Justin and I were in his line. I had been eyeing this truck for a couple weeks and finally decided I was going to buy it. Grandpa had agreed to co-sign a loan with me since I didn't have any credit after returning home from the mission. In between Shawn and Crystals luncheon and the time we had to be back for the reception I called up Grandpa and asked him if he was up for heading down there and workin' his magic... and that is just what he did. The truck was 3 years old when I bought it. The dealer had it marked at $12,500 I believe. When I had talked with one of the salesmen he said he could probably get it for $10,000. Grandpa and I both researched what the truck was worth and with Grandpa's incredible haggling skills we walked out of there with a hot little pickup for only $7,700. I was thrilled.

This truck took me back and forth between BYU and home many times. I remember leaving my apartment after class one Friday afternoon, hopping in the truck and driving to Mesa to surprise my family in order to attend Hunter's baptism the following day.

Jen and I took our first date, and many other dates in this pickup. We drove probably more than 2,000 miles in this pickup with the phrase, "Honk we're finally hitched" written on the back window on our honeymoon.

I remember after we had been married for a little over a year we drove the truck through the night from Pleasant grove to Mesa, stopping to sleep for a few hours in the truck bed at the rest stop outside of Kanab, UT. We did as much of this trip as we could at night or in the early morning because my AC was broken! ...and it was the middle of the SUMMER... Jen had a spray bottle filled with water and a battery powered handheld fan to use as a swamp cooler :) ...it got quite HOT driving through the desert.

When we finally made it back to Pleasant Grove after that trip Jen told me she wouldn't drive with me in the truck to AZ anymore until we fixed the AC.

Dutifully, I bought a new AC compressor for $300 bucks, and being the poor college students that we were I replaced it myself instead of paying a professional. I did a pretty good job, if I say so myself :)

I've put over 100,000 miles on this truck (for a total of 140,000) and drove it for 7 years. It's been a vehicle with character that I've enjoyed driving, but it was finally time to let it go. I'm now looking for a new truck, preferably something bigger with a tow package. I'm hoping the next 100,000 and 7 years brings us a nice wakeboard boat to tow.

I sold it to a teenager who just graduated from high school. I could tell he really liked the truck. I listed it at a pretty fair price, since it's got a few quirks that need fixing (i.e. the hazard switch requires a bungee cord to keep it from flashing :). I came down only $200 from my asking price and we settled on $2700. I was excited to see my truck find a good owner that will get good mileage out of this stylish little pickup.

It's been a good run.

Counting

As the proud father that I am, I believe Dallin is quite intelligent. He'll be turning three years old next month. Most kids his age can count at least to ten, as he can. But what surprises me is his understanding of humor.

I read to him at night from a book that has numbers in it where we will count together. I'll randomly point to a number and say, "What's that?" Most of the time he will get it right. However, after a little while he'll get bored with this and then he'll point to a number... two for instance, and say, "That's a four."

He'll look at me with a mischievous grin until I say, "No silly that's a two." This is followed by Dallin laughing and insisting,

"No, it's a four."

He thinks he's pretty funny. We'll go back and forth debating the numeric value of the digit 2 for a while until I reverse it on him on the say it's a four. That always throws him for a loop for at least a couple seconds.

He'll also play this game on a page full of objects... He'll insist that the submarine is an airplane and that the airplane is the submarine.

The cutest thing is that he thinks he's so clever and funny.

More Wakeboarding

Here are some highlights from another Friday morning wakeboard session. I'm already getting bummed that we're getting close to the end of the season... Enjoy.

I love primary

I've got a new calling in our ward. I'm teaching the 9 year old's in primary. It's a lot of fun. I'm team teaching with another guy who's about my age. They're a good group of kids... they like to talk, but they are also excited to participate in the lessons. You know I even feel like I'm probably making more of a difference in the lives of these 5 kids with the lessons they'll learn at this age then any of the lessons I taught to the elders quorum in my previous calling. And to top it all off I still get to go to elders quorum every other week... it's great!

Dallin was tired after Sacrament meeting today and didn't want to go to the nursery. This is pretty rare now, he usually really enjoys the nursery, it's only on days like today where he wakes up early and is ready for a nap right after sacrament meeting that he doesn't really want to go to nursery. I tried to get him to play with the other kids for about 5-10 minutes but finally gave up and decided to take him with me to my primary class. I figured the kids would kind of like having him in there, and I was right.

He sat with me for a little bit while I taught the lesson. Then he drew on the chalk board next to me for a few minutes. A little later we looked over and he was laying on the floor sound asleep.

He woke up when we went to sharing time but still sat still on my lap for most of the time. He liked looking over my shoulder at the bigger boys on the row behind us.

About halfway through he pointed up to the pictures of the First Presidency and apostles and said, "Daddy!" I was quick to explain that those were pictures of the prophet and apostles, but none the less I was flattered that he thought I fit into that crowd!

I sure enjoyed taking my son to my primary class today.

Twilight: Just say NO

(Twilight is a teenage vampire romance novel that's spreading through the female population like wildfire)

I mean it... Just say NO.

I am a self professed expert at the technique of understanding others. In an honest self evaluation I feel that I'm pretty good at putting myself in others shoes to attempt to understand what they feel and why they may feel the way they do. This is only one of my many super powers ;) This skill even extends in to the female species. I've always scoffed at the old cliche that men don't understand women and felt that I was high above the average in this regard. I can even appreciate a decent chick flick every once in while if it develops realistic characters that you can relate too... okay... I'll admit it... I even enjoyed all 6 hours of Pride and Prejudice.

Well... I've been stumped.

A few months ago Jen started reading this new teenage book series known as Twilight (written by an LDS author but not necessarily to an LDS only audience). She raved and raved about how good this love story is between a teenage girl and a vampire.

... that's right... a vampire.

She finally convince me that I should listen to the book on CD. She placed it on hold for me at the library and rushed to pick it up when it arrived. I have to admit I was interested to listen to it if not just to understand what it was that Jen liked so much about this book.

I've usually enjoyed Jen's recommendations in the past, and began listening to this one with an open mind, trying the best I could to listen to it from Jen's perspective to perhaps learn more about my wonderful wife.

I didn't hate the book... It was mediocre. The action/adventure portion of the plot was perhaps enjoyable, but I simply cannot understand what everyone sees in this love story! I thought I understood girls to some extent, but this just throws me for a loop. I don't understand why all the girls that read this book just go goo goo eyed for this fictional vampire character.

My biggest complaint about this love story is this... there isn't any... It's just *poof* we're in love! Where is the human emotion in that... Where is the development of true devotion to each other... come on! I thought girls out grew the valiant knight sweeping me off my feet and carrying me off into the sunset fantasy at about age 15. I expected they traded that in for a true perspective on love, one that includes serving, giving, understanding, as well as attraction and passion. You know... like Clint Black says, "Love isn't some place that we fall, it's something that we do". Love is something that is layered through the experiences you share together, which is what makes it grow over time. This teenage infatuation fantasy is so shallow compared to what really can exist between a husband and a wife.

So as the wildfire continues to spread rapidly through ranks of our wonderful wives, sisters, daughters, and friends. I stand as one lone voice against the fury calling husbands everywhere to stand with me and warn their wives when they are pressured into reading Twilight to just say NO.

PS. To Stephenie Meyer I mean you no disrespect. Your book is much better then anything I could ever produce. My satirical remarks here are not so much a critique of your book as a desire to understand what it is about teenage infatuation that makes even grown women weak in the knees.

Blessed

Count your many blessing... la de da dum dum.

This weekend I've just been thinking about how happy my life is and how blessed we are. I have a wonderful wife, two incredible boys, a job that I enjoy and plenty of friends in the ward. I have many hobbies that keep my free time always occupied. I can't think of much to complain about. Sure we have our trials as everyone does but it sure seems like we've got are fair share of blessings as well :)

I think the biggest factor my rosy attitude has been my new position at work. As much as I enjoyed the technical challenges that my previous position presented I wasn't passionate about our teams charter. Now I'm working on a product that I'm excited about as well as growing my technical skills. I really enjoy going to work everyday. Considering work takes up at least a third of my day each day it's not profound to conclude that a more enjoyable job will equate to a happier me :)

Yesterday was our annual ward salmon bake. This is by far our favorite ward activity of the year. I think the reason for this is three fold:

1. It is an adult only activity so with all the kids home with the babysitters the adults are all unfettered to mingle and truly enjoy each others company.
   
2. It's held in the Folkman's backyard on their private beach on Lake Sammamish (weather permitting), which includes boating activities before and after the dinner. While I've been lucky enough to go out on the lake many times the past few seasons, the salmon bake is usually the only time that Jen and I get to go out together. Yesterday Jen and I both water skied, and I also got to wake surf and wakeboard all in one evening.
   
3. Last but not least the food is always excellent. We've really grown accustom to the excellent sea food found in the northwest, and the high priest always find delicious was to prepare the barbecued salmon.
   

All in all it was a very enjoyable evening.

Cooking

Cooking has become one of Jen's new favorite hobbies... Yum! And I'll say she's become quite the cook. For instance tonight she wipped up a flank steak covered with carmelized onions and sprinkled with broiled fetta cheese, served along side asparragus and a spinach salad. That was of her own creation as well.

Dessert!

We had icecream cones for dessert today... One of Dallin's favorites!

Share "My Pictures"

Warning... this may be a "boring post" so feel free to skip :) ..I know Jen always skips over any of my "technical" posts event though these types of post are not really targeted towards "technical" people but rather those that use technology and may not know how to get the most out of it.

I really prefer to have separate accounts for each person in the family that uses the computer. This way each person can have their own file organization, internet favorites, etc. Plus then you don't have to constantly log the other person out of your internet mail account just so you can use yours.

However, I really don't like having pictures downloaded from our camera randomly land in the "My Pictures" folder (now called only "Pictures") of the person who happened to be downloading the pictures that day. This puts you in the situation where you always have to look through at least two accounts for the picture you want... plus I believe Vista won't have the other user's pictures indexed when accessed under a different user account, so searching will be much slower as well.

I recently wiped my hard drive and reinstalled Vista... this was with the intent of moving away from a dual booted XP and Vista machine into a computer with only one OS the new and improved Vista (trumpet fanfare). Jen had previously been familiar with using separate accounts under XP, but whenever the computer was booted into Vista she would only use my account. In order to break this habit I not only created her an account with her usual name and password, I also decked it out with a new background image I thought she would like and a bundle of Vista gadgets that I thought would suit her taste... including the Flower Clock. She was impressed.

So the last thing to solve was the how to have both of our user accounts share the same "Pictures" folder. Unix has had the notion of "links" for a long time, but that concept has not really existed in windows at least not as a built in feature. In windows I could create a "shortcut" in Jen's Pictures folder titled something like "Jason's Pictures" that would then jump the user into my Pictures folder and likewise create another shortcut in my folder jumping to Jen's. However, this doesn't really solve the problem the pictures are still going to be scattered thought out both locations.

The problem is increased due to the easiness of the picture import tool in Vista which with very few clicks will import all of your pictures into the "Pictures" folder of the currently active account. This means that it's unlikely that Jen or I would take the time to tell Vista.. "No, actually I want you to import the pictures into the folder pointed to by this shortcut."

The solution is to create a "junction point". NTFS has included support for junctions for some time but there was no built in utility for creating them. You had to download the resource kit or support tools in order to get the appropriate tools for doing so. Not so with Vista... a new command was added called "mklink". Some of the features of junctions were also modified to make them mimic UNIX links more closely.

There are three different types of links you can create using mklink:

1. A "symbolic link" which is kind of similar to a shortcut, except that it actually works from the command line and not only the GUI.
2. A "hard link" in which the link is really just another name for the target. For instance if I create a file called a.txt and a hard link to the file called b.txt both a.txt and b.txt are two names for the same file. If I delete one then the other will be deleted as well.
3. A "directory junction" which is a hard link from one directory to another. That is like in the example above if I create a directory a_dir and a directory junction b_dir then both a_dir and b_dir will look like separate directories but the contents will be the same.

Naturally I used mklink to create a directory junction to solve the "Pictures" folder dilemma. I moved all of the pictures on our computer into the "Pictures" folder on my account. I then deleted the empty "Pictures" folder on Jen's account and then in Jen's user folder I created a directory junction called "Pictures" with my "Pictures" folder as the target. Now when Jen logs into her account and clicks on the word "Pictures" on her start menu it will jump into what looks like her "Pictures" folder, but is really a junction into my "Pictures" folder. More importantly when Jen connects the camera to the computer and says import these pictures they will all be dropped into the correct folder.

Here is the command line I used:

mklink /J C:\users\jenofarc\Pictures C:\users\joswing\Pictures

Note: In order for this to work Jen's user account has to have access to my "Pictures" folder. If you need help doing this just ask me in a comment.

I did the same thing for videos as well. I've considered doing it for music also to create one flat music collection on our computer... but then I realized I don't really want "Jenny Phillips" showing up in my music collection ;)

I've also discontinued the use of sub-directories in the Pictures folder. I used to have a directory for every month of each year in which all the pictures that were taken during that month would live. I now use one flat pictures folder with no sub folders. I then use Vista's built in "Photo Gallery" to view the pictures. It has links on the side that you can use to view pictures based on the date they were taken. So now instead of only being able to view all pictures taken in one month I can select any date period, such as all pictures taken in 2003, or October of 2002, etc. I'm also in the process of tagging all of our pictures with the names of the people in the picture as well as keywords for the activity being displayed. This enables Vista's built in search capabilities to function more appropriately when searching for pictures. When this is complete I can then simply type "Dallin black and white guitar" to find the black and white picture of Dallin playing the guitar. The search functionality also works in file open dialogs, such as trying to find the picture you want to attach to an email or upload to your blog.

Now if windows could simply do away with using backslashes for directory delimiters I think I'd be happy :)

Diaper Beanie

Dallin likes to goof around while we try to change his diaper... Sometimes I'll get frustrated at him if we're in a hurry, but other times I'll play along. He didn't want me to put his diaper on so to play along I asked if I should put it on his head... He thought that was funny!

A great morning on the lake!

I LOVE Friday mornings!

Today was a beautiful day on the lake. The water was very nice, there was a little rain... very little. It felt like a little mist while we were boating. I didn't even notice it while wakeboarding. Scott, Taylor, and I all had excellent runs.

I was getting some great jumps (much better then in the video I posted earlier). Taylor pulled out is cell phone and managed to get a very well timed photo of me on the first jump that I have ever actually got the tail grab! That takes quite a lot of talent... to get the photo with a cell phone camera... the delay on the camera is like 5 seconds or more so he had to hit the button while I was starting my cut and got very lucky :)

Last season I saw Mark (Jen's brother) do a 360 on the surface of the water passing the handle behind the back. I've been trying to do it off and on all season, and today I finally got it!

It was a great day on the water.

Dallin's New Bike

Our neighbors were getting rid of their son's old bike since he grew out of it and asked us if we would like it for Dallin. He's still a bit little for it but he still enjoy's riding around the cul-de-sac with a couple of training wheels.

A couple of times he's taken a turn to sharp and fallen so he's a little more aprehensive now about riding it, but he still enjoy's it. We can never get him to come in once he starts.

The Boys

My two boys... It's nearly impossible to get both of them smiling at the same time for a picture. Thatcher sure is happy and they are both looking at the camera at the same time which turned out to make a nice picture.

Blog Up-To-Date

Ok guys... I've finally got this new blog up-to-date. I've just spent nearly all Sunday afternoon and evening posting pictures videos and stories about what's been going on for the last two months. So, scroll down a bit and you will see lots of new content.

I'd also like to throw in here that so far I am completely unimpressed with Google's Blogger utility. I was truly expecting a "canned" blogging utility designed by google to be much easier to use and more bug free, neither of which are the case. In the last few hours that I've spent blogging I've hit 3 unkown errors while trying to publish posts. These spit out some random error code with a message saying I should use this error code when discussing the issue with google... yeah... sure. At least they autosave drafts of my posts so I didn't lose too much content when this happened.

I'm mostly dissappointed with the post editing tools. The window that they give you to edit your post in is about 3" tall by 7" wide and not resizeable. When I insert pictures they always go directly to the top of the post instead of where my cursor is located when I clicked on insert picture. And trying to get the pictures to layout the way I want using their tools is just about impossible without actually editing the html which is not formatted very well to say the least. The pictures take forever to upload. When selecting which pictures to upload I can't select a group of pictures at one time, I have to click on add another picture, browse, find the next picture, and okay for each picture that I want to upload for one post... Ughhh! And last but not least I'm not too thrilled with any of their preset templets, I'm going to have to spend some time tweaking it some to at least get the layout I want.

To be honest I expected a lot more from Google... since they are the reining King of the Web. Of course it's also 1:30am and I'm really tired... so please just ignore this rant!

Breakfast in Bed

Jen had a few piano students this morning and I was sleeping in a little since I was up late working last night. Dallin was trying to wake me up for sometime pushing my shoulder and telling me to wake up. He finally gave up and went downstairs. A little bit later he came back into our room and saying, "Here daddy". He had gone downstairs, got a cup out of the cupboard, filled it with ice and water from the dispensers in the fridge, added a plexi-straw and brought it up to me in bed :)

Cute little guy thought I must be thirsty. I drank it all and said thanks, a few minutes later he brought me a refill :)

I gave in...

Well... my blog has been down for nearly two months now and today I'm finally giving in... throwing in the towel and creating a "blogspot" blog hosted by google :(

Here's the deal. The family with whom we are currently staying subscribes to comcast's "home networking" package. This package differs from a regular account in that they let you "rent" a preconfigured linksys router running firmware with their own "features" added in... Among these features include only allowing 5 dynamically allocated IP addresses and only allowing those 5 computers access to the internet. So, you can add a network printer with a static IP that won't have internet access but won't take up one of your 5 slots for internet access. While this "feature" is quite annoying I was able to move enough network devices to static IP address to allow my laptop to connect to the internet.

The more severe problem with their router is it doesn't allow me to forward inbound http requests to my web server... I guess their EULA doesn't allow for running a web server and they use their router to enforce the restriction. So, naturally we could use my own router and cancel the "home network" package. However, since I've taken my new job with windows mobile I don't have as much of a need to work on my C++ at home since I get plenty of C++ projects at work. I've had less desire to finish up the features I've been wanting to add to my web server and figured I should just go for a "canned" solution.

So, here it is... the "Hep and Happy" blog. I'll work on importing my previous posts into this location as well.

Enjoy!

Sprinkler Time

After the pancake breakfast this morning it got pretty hot. Dallin wanted to cool off by running in the sprinklers. The sun was at an interesting angle that made for some pretty cool pictures.

Fourth of July - Flag Raising

We had a very literal "flag raising" this morning at our ward building to celebrate the 4th of July. One of the scouts put in a new flag pole for his eagle project. The whole ward met early this morning for the regular pancake breakfast and then we all raised not just the flag but the entire flag pole Iwo Jima style.

It was a great ward activity and very patriotic.

Jen snapped an adorable picture of Thatcher sleeping in his car seat. She also got a candid shot of Dallin and me out on the grass... I was trying to build up Dallin's courage to go over and play with the girls but he just wanted to watch what they were doing from a safe distance :)

After the flag raising all of the kids had a bike parade. They had decorated their bikes with red, white and blue streamers, flags and what not. It was really cute. They just kept riding in a circle around the parking lot having the time of their lives!

Dallin and Thatcher

Jen dressed Dallin and Thatcher in matching outfits today just for fun. We got a cute little picture of them laying by each other in our bed. I think Thatcher is actually starting to look quite a lot like Dallin.

Twin Falls

Jen, Dallin, Thatcher and I all decided to go on a hike today. We hiked up to Twin Falls. This was the first time that we had done this hike. It was really nice. It was steep enough to give us some decent excersize (especially carrying Thatcher and chasing after Dallin), and not too steep that Dallin could hike it himself. Dallin hiked almost the entire trail to the falls and back all by himself. I carried him only the last hundred yards or so since he slowed down to about a crawl.

We had a lot of fun and took some nice pictures.