Do I look Fat?

I'm starting to feel fat. When I was younger it was always embarrassing when girls my age would look at my legs and say, "I wish I had your skinny legs". Yes, it was very emasculating to hear those types of comments. So, when I got on my mission, I was able to brag that I got up to a whopping 140 pounds. All of my slacks were very tight and I even had to commission some new trousers from a local seamstress in Ecuador to accommodate my growing waistline. However my current situation is getting very grave. My neck and chin are starting to look like the double chin that Glenn Beck is sporting. My belly is growing further and further out over my pants so that I can no longer see my belt buckle. My pants are all a little tight and I can now see my gut when I'm just standing in a relaxed position. I've definitely got to do something about my weight but at the end of the day, I'm just too tired to actually go out and run around. I guess that is how it starts. Maybe I'll participate in our stake basketball program. It might just allow me to get in enough exercise that I don't feel like a complete fat fatty fatso.

So, as of right now, I weight over 160 lbs. Not much over, but I'm over that. So, I'm FAT. I guess I'll start by eating less twinkies and HoHo's.

hijacked

I was sending and reading email from my gmail account the other day when I noticed a very strange thing.  The email I was sending looked a little different than normal.  I checked some settings and then I noticed that the name on my emails that I was sending, was wrong.  The name that was showing up in my email was Horst Gunter.  Who in the world is Horst Gunter and how did he get into my email account?!?  That is when a cold sweat fell over me as I thought about someone getting into my email account and messing around.  My gmail account is tied to about 20 other accounts around the web.  I quickly clicked my way over to my settings page and found the “Change Password as quickly as possible” button in Google.  I changed the password to a very complex set of letters, numbers, characters and umlauts. I included Capital Letters, small letters, commas, squiggly’s, numbers and infinite values.  To make positively sure that this hijacker did not get into my account again, I think I even put in a couple of values of Pi and integrated integers.

After my frantic clicking, punching of buttons and keystrokes, I finally felt secure again.  It sure did scare me to see something changed like that in a very critical area of my life.

After getting home that night, I took one extra precaution and renamed my dog.  His new name is #m%gZ~2.

Am I paranoid?

Christmas List

I know that I probably shouldn't bring up the "C" word this early in the year but I'm going to do it anyway. Every year it is a struggle to find great Christmas (that's the C word) presents for my wife and for our kids. Deanna does an awesome job of finding great gifts but it is much harder for me. So, to help myself along, I keep a list of ideas in my phone. If I see something on TV, or while I'm walking through a store, I quickly just type it into my phone for safe keeping. Now that it is October, it is time to pull out the list and start finding great prices on the ideas I have come up with. Unfortunately there are some items on the list that never seem to make it underneath the Christmas tree. For example, I have had "stilts" on Coby's list for several years. For some reason, the stores are not filled with stilts as gift items. I think it would be a great "teen" gift. Plastic stilts, FUN!

Not only do I jot down gift ideas for my wife and kids, I have also kept a list for myself. It is inevitable that a few weeks before Christmas, I receive requests from various sources for what I want. I used to just ho hum around and try to think of something brilliant at the last minute which means I would usually say, "a new tie" or "new socks". It makes for a very boring Christmas Morning.

This year I'm asking for something a little unusual (and admittedly a little boring). In our garage, we have been trying to keep a good storage of water. We have filled up milk cartons, 2 liter bottles and apple juice bottles with water. We have around 30 of these mix matched containers sitting on the shelf. Every winter, these containers freeze and expand which means they break. So, as the weather starts to warm, we get a really nice natural spring water fall flowing off of our counters in the garage. Don't get me wrong, I love the sound of a waterfall, but this type of tippity tap sends chills up my spine like nails on a chalk board. I tell you all of this so that I can get to the final punch line of my story.

Here it is, "for Christmas, I'm asking for a 50 gallon drum to store our water.

ldsfamily dot net

I am very excited (excuse my while I bounce up and down excitedly in my chair while typeing) to announce that I will be starting a new blog/website called ldsfamily.net If you like what you see, please add a link to this website from your blog.

I came across a foundation called the "More Good Foundation". They are an organization that promotes positive LDS content on the internet. I became very interested when I saw this blog post by LDS Media Talk that talked about adopting a website and providing content. I decided to check it out and send in an inquiry about the program. I was emailed back and was offered a chance to participate. They seemed very willing to give me a chance to help once they saw that I have a Blog, Personal Web page, YouTube Channel, developed a site for a non-profit organization called Charity Anywhere Foundation and a facebook page.

We discussed the types of things I have been posting and how I could promote positive Mormon content on the internet. We came up with a website called simply, LDS Family. I will be posting things about me, and my family. The posts will be about my everyday life, stuff that happens in our family, things I have been thinking about. I'll post stuff about the Mormon church, Mormon beliefs, Mormon standards, Mormon living. I'll talk about what it is like to have an LDS Family. You know, an LDS family is like any other family. We have the same struggles, the same time constraints, the same issues with children, teachers, work etc. I just hope that I can create content that people will be interesting in reading, following, and returning. Hopefully it will create positive content that will be a tool people can use to learn more about the Mormon church.

To learn more about adopting a website, you can go to this page.

Scout Camp

I know it took me a while but I finally put together the few little video clips I had of Andy at Scout Camp. I know it isn't much but I think you will get a feel for what happens up at Camp Bradley every year.

Enjoy this short video.

Snow, October 4th?

Yes, Snow, October 4th. We weren't expecting snow, we were expecting rain but this morning there was a small blanket of snow all over our yard. Being this early in the year, I figured that it would probably melt away by noon, however, it continued to snow/rain all day long. It snowed enough to get out the winter clothes and have the kids run out and play.

Here is a short video of the event.