Lakers got out their brooms…

Lakers 4, Nuggets 0.

JP owes me a burrito.

I will give the Nuggets this, they played a very good game in game 4. Unfortunately it was too little too late. They didn’t win a single game. I can’t believe that. I never expected a Lakers sweep. Now the Lakers get plenty of time off before they have to play another series. That should help with a few of the little injuries they’ve gotten in this series.

I’m really looking forward to my burrito.

Lucky for JP, the burrito is cheap. Illegal Pete’s is my preference for burritos. So good. To be honest, I’d buy it myself… but I won my burrito fair and square so I’ll enjoy my tasty treat on Jimmy Cracked Corn’s tab.

My parents are nuts… and I love them!

I haven’t posted this weekend because I had some unexpected events go down.

Friday morning as I was sleeping in on my day off, my phone rang. Since it was my day off, I let it go to voicemail. Moments later it rang again. So I just laid there for a minute. Sure enough, a voicemail sound came from my phone. So I got up and checked it. It was from my parents who had apparently decided on a whim to road trip up to Montana!

So I started in on the projects I’d planned for the day. Then I started cleaning. Fortunately the house wasn’t too bad but there was plenty that needed to be touched up. I spent the whole day “working” instead of goofing off like I normally do on a Friday.

They made it to town late Friday night. (Almost Saturday) We got up Saturday morning and joined them for breakfast. Then they came over to check out the house and see the progress we’ve made in decorating and stuff. Then we spent the day checking out the shops in town and the sights of our little community. We went to a movie (Leatherheads) and dinner too. It was a pretty fun and full day.

They got up this morning and we once again joined them for breakfast. We also celebrated a very early Mothers Day since we likely won’t actually see mom on Mothers Day. Then they loaded back up in the car and headed back to Colorado.

What a whirlwind trip! It was great to see them though and spend some time with them. I needed a little visit from my fam. It’d been a long time since I had seen them. Now that the weather is warming up we’ll likely see them a bit more often through the summer because they’ll be able to fly up here. That’ll be great.

What a crazy weekend though. My parents wore me out! I’m exhausted!

Another one down

It’s the weekend again. I’m living for the weekends these days. I haven’t had a vacation of any sort since Christmas. I’ve worked 5 days/week for four months. I need a break. Unfortunately I don’t have one coming up too soon. Not until after May.  I have 88 hours of vacation to use before the end of September. Working backwards… I have a trip at the end of August and the beginning of September. That’s going to use seven days worth of vacation. I’ve got a trip in July to Flathead that will use up two more days. That leaves me two days worth of vacation time. After Memorial Day I’ll have an extra one. So the running plan is to spend them all at once during June.

I have no idea what I’ll do. Jess doesn’t have the time to take off with me so I’ll just have to find something to do around here. Hopefully it’ll be good weather and I can get out and have some relaxing time in the wilderness. I just need a break from the paper. It’s a bit of a grind at times and I’ve been doing the office two-step trying to keep everything running smoothly. I’m ready for a break.

For now though, I’m thankful for the weekend. It’ll be nice to sleep in and get some non-work-related stuff done. And of course, hang out with my lovely wife. I always look forward to that.

Lakers 2, Nuggets a big fat 0

I thought I’d put in a video that might make JP smile a little. I’m sure he’s sad because his Nuggets just can’t find a way to stop Kobe Bryant. Admittedly, the Nugs did pretty well for three quarters. Unfortunately for them, the game is four quarters and the Lakers went off in the fourth.

It’s great fun watching these games knowing that my bro-in-law is 1,000 miles away doing the same thing. I only wish I could have been there so we could go see one of the games in Denver together. Unfortunately it didn’t work out this year for me to be able to go to a Lakers/Nuggets game with Big Jim but maybe next year.

The video up there is one of a series of commercials for freecreditreport.com which I know next to nothing about… but I dig their commercials. They always make me laugh. I think Jess is getting tired of them because I sing along when they come on TV and I’ve kind of got them down at this point. Especially the one above.

I wrote the editorial again. The good news is that the editorial board finally met this week. I ended up with the two editorials for this week but now I’ve got a few weeks off from writing before I have to do another one. If my job was to write editorials that’d be fine… but I’ve got a lot of other responsibilities too so it’s nice to not have to worry about them for a couple weeks. At any rate, here’s the editorial… click HERE.

Happy Earth Day

April 22 is Earth Day.

I’ve been a pretty big environmentalist ever since my days at Camp Redcloud. Working in the mountains so much gave me a pretty strong appreciation for unspoiled beauty and returning to the nastiness of modernity made me want to protect the environment.

I have dreams of the day Jess and I finally get to build our own home. I want solar panels and a wind turbine to offset our electricity use. I want bamboo floors because they’re way better for the environment and bamboo is one of the most easily grown woods on the planet. I intend to have tankless water heaters because they use less energy and are way more efficient. Plus, who can argue with endless hot water?

I love being able to walk to work. It makes me feel good, I get to be outside a little bit and I don’t have to drive my truck. This is both good for the environment and really good for my wallet. The more expensive gas gets the harder it is to justify driving.

Being a skier, I’m also pretty concerned about global warming. This major climate change could have a huge impact on the sport I absolutely love. Glaciers around the world are disappearing and there may come a time in my lifetime that they’re totally gone. There are some worried that the ski industry could be virtually wiped out within the next 50 years. Unreal. I hope it’s not too late to make a difference. The next election can’t happen soon enough… assuming McCain doesn’t get elected.

Anyway, happy Earth Day everyone. Oh, and check out my editorial. Yeah, I wrote yet another one.

Hey buuuuuuuudy!

Yesterday (Saturday) was national husband appreciation day. Jess planned out a full day for us and we had a good time. We slept in first. Sleeping in is always nice. We got up and then drove into Missoula and watched the new movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” It was pretty funny but if you didn’t like movies like “Knocked Up” or “SuperBad” then I wouldn’t bother with this one. Same kind of humor. If you DID like those movies (I did) then you should go see this one.

After the movie we went to Costco and picked a few things up. After Costco we rolled over to Cracker Barrel  and had some good southern food. I had fried catfish. Not as good as my mom’s or Uncle Kenny’s… but pretty good nonetheless.

To end the night Jess took me to see Josh Blue. (That’s the youtube vid up top there) Josh was on Last Comic Standing a couple years ago. I took Jess to see him in Denver while the show was still on. Josh ended up winning the whole thing and when we saw he was coming to Missoula we talked about going to see him. We never really made a decision but then Jess decided to take me for husband appreciation day. It ended up being a super fun day and I had a great time. I felt very appreciated. I have a good wife.

Today was the icing on the cake though… The Lakers beat the Nuggets in game 1 of the playoffs. JP says he’s not worried… but we’ll see if he says the same thing after game 2.

Gauntlet

First round of the NBA playoffs is AWESOME. Why you ask? Because I’m a huge Lakers fan. My bro-in-law, aka Jimmy Cracked Corn, is a Nuggets fan. They will be going head to head. The Lakers, the 1 seed in the West… the Nuggets, the lowly 8 seed, barely making it into the playoffs. This is going to be AWESOME.

Actually it should be a great series… the West is super competitive and the teams aren’t totally far apart in terms of talent… but the Lakers did sweep them this season in the three games they played. So I’m feeling pretty confident.

That being said… I’m challenging Jimbo to a series bet. Loser buys burritos. It’s a cheap bet cause I ain’t rich. Plus, he has to support my sister… and that costs a lot. That and I’m just not that creative. So let’s see how confident JP is in his team. Is he willing to put a $7 burrito on the line?

I just realized this is actually kind of ironic… All season Del Taco has run a promotion at Staples Center in LA. If the Lakers keep their opponent to less than 100 points everyone at the game gets a free taco. In sticking with that… If the Lakers allow the Nuggets to score more than 100 I’ll buy JP a taco. If they hold them under a 100, he owes me a taco. (Honestly I’m pretty sure to lose the tacos… the Nuggets are all offense) I’ll trade a burrito for a few tacos though.

Go Lakers!

Happy Birthday G’ma!

Today was my grandmother’s birthday. She turned 83 today. Go Grams! I called her after work and had a real good chat with her. She’s such a great lady. I was surprised she was still up. I don’t exactly get off work early these days and she’s an hour ahead of us. She must be a night owl. It was good to get to chat with her for a little bit though. It’ll be great to go down to Arkansas this summer to see the farm again and show Jess the place I spent several weeks over several summers when I was a kid.

And because I know she likes my writing… here’s tomorrow’s editorial. I wrote it again. Click HERE!

It’s all about paying taxes. I’m not a huge fan of taxes though I understand the importance of having government properly funded. Like many people though I recognize that our government isn’t exactly “efficient” when it comes to spending money. I believe in government funded social programs. I don’t believe in giving breaks, incentives and subsidies to industries reporting record profits (i.e. oil) while citizens pay higher and higher prices for products. I wish that I had a larger say in what my tax dollars were spent on.

Now there’s an idea… The government should set up a standard tax rate. Say, 5% of income. (Just to pick a number) Then, on your tax forms, instead of claiming exemptions and loopholes and whatever, the tax form is a big list of government departments/programs. On the form you’re allowed to choose where your part of taxes goes. Administration of this could be an issue but you could set aside 1/100 of a percent of everyone’s taxes for administration. That should cover everything pretty well. Then I wouldn’t feel so bad about paying taxes. I would know my tax dollars are being spent on things I agree with. I wouldn’t have to feel like I was supporting a war I disagreed with, or funding big oil or any industry contributing to global warming.

I should be a politician. This is a plan that needs to be implemented.

Rest in Peace

President Cook was a big man on campus. When I went to Biola he was pretty easy to pick out. Hard to miss a guy that stood, literally, head and shoulders above the rest of the campus population. Plus, everyone knew who Clyde was. He spoke in chapel from time to time and always had great things to say. He was also one of the funnier people ever to speak to the students. Most speakers tried to be funny but failed miserably. Clyde was just himself and had students rolling in laughter.

I had lunch with him several times. He would often go to the student cafeteria to have lunch. He’d quietly, unassumingly, go through the line, get his lunch like everyone else and sit down at an empty table. For some reason people rarely sat down with him. I always thought it was sad to see the University president eating by himself so I’d just tell whoever I was with we’d be eating with Clyde that day. He was great company over lunch. He’d be interested in how our classes were, how our time at Biola was going and inevitably he’d share a great story.

I got so used to him being “Clyde” rather than “President Cook” that when walking past the administration building one day with my buddy Konrad, I just said “Hey Clyde” as President Cook walked by. He said hi and kept walking. A moment later Konrad freaked out saying “You can’t call him that! He’s the president of the university!” I don’t know if that says more about me and the lack of awareness I had that day or how personable and cool Clyde Cook was.

You can read all about all the things he accomplished by clicking on the picture above. If you don’t have the time, believe me when I tell you that he accomplished a ton in his tenure at Biola.

Heaven is getting a great, great man. Not a doubt in my mind that God will be sitting down with him and telling him “Great job my good and faithful servant.”

Across the Universe

What a strange yet super cool movie. I’m a pretty big Beatles fan and for those that don’t know, this is a musical montage of Beatles songs. Jess rented it tonight and we sat down and watched it. I was not disappointed at all. That said, I don’t recommend it for most people. It’s a pretty “high concept” movie. There’s definitely some trippy things going on in that movie. It definitely pulls in some of the Beatles penchant for hallucinogenic substances. If you can deal with a movie that doesn’t always make a lot of sense and you love Beatles music though… definitely watch this one. It weaves together a large chunk of the Beatles catalog really, really well.

In other news…

I cleaned me little office today. The one at home, not the one at work. I keep my desk at work clean… but the one here at home tends to get pretty dirty pretty quickly. Our house is small so anytime there’s a little bit of stuff left out it looks dirty. I cleaned that up. Today was my first post-ski-season Friday. It was kind of depressing. I think next weekend I’m going to go hike for some turns.

We are supposed to get real “spring” weather this weekend. Supposed to get into the upper 60’s tomorrow. Sunday is supposed to be in the mid 70’s. That’s just nuts. It snowed here yesterday.

I managed to work out four times this week. That’s a good thing. I also found out that I’m about 10 pounds lighter than I thought I was. That’s good cause it means I have less weight to lose than I thought I did… Of course I still have plenty to lose to get down to where I want to be… but at least it’s not as much as I thought it was.

We got a pretty entertaining post card from my Uncle Steve. He banned being sick from our household. We appreciate that as we’re pretty tired of all the sickness we’ve gone through. Fortunately I think we’re finally pretty much back to normal.

Our lovely little cat decided it’d be appropriate to wake us up at about 5 a.m. this morning. She found some stuff in the bathroom that was up on a counter and for some reason she just couldn’t leave it there. Instead she knocked it off causing quite the noise. It, of course, jerked Jess and I awake. She got in trouble. She’s been in a bad mood all day since then.

I worked out hard today. Go me.

This has been a pretty random update. I think I’ll go to bed now.