Old Friends and Sentiment

Today I Ran into an a friend that I grew up with, it has been 20 years since Ive seen him. (note: the fact that I can say something happened 20 years ago and it does not involve me learning to walk, scoring a touchdown or some other youthful memory is disconcerting but that is another blog for another time.) This friend is someone that I admired while growing up. He was a hard worker and a high achiever, He had a positive influence on my life that is still part of who I am today. We were only able to spend about 5 minutes catching up and chances are I will not see him again for a long time. I realized how little contact I have now with those who influenced me when I was younger and it seems really sad that they may or may not know the influence they had on my life. We all have people in our lives that influence us to be better people, it is important to express gratitude to them when you have the chance. My friend probably still doesn't know the positive effect he has had on my life, and it would have been difficult to convey in a 5 minute conversation, but I certainly had opportunities before today.

"If I have seen far it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" Take time to thank the giants in your life you never know if you will have an opportunity again.

Challenges in Technology

We have a fairly new computer and the other day the hard drive started to crap out. Fortunately there was 14 days left on the warranty. The bad news was we lost all of information on that drive because HP could not recover any data. Many years of pictures, Marilyn's recipe book and who knows what else is now gone. I know about backing data up but did not do it as it should be done. Maybe its time to look at a drobo I do not think I want to trust an online service yet. I love technology but sometimes it bites you in the butt. The moral of the story back up... especially those things that really matter.

Follow up on the fish

So in my last post I blogged about killing 2 of my son's fish. A new chapter in the fish saga started last night. Kyle was looking at the tank and said "I think we need to clean this again" Then an excited yell. There are baby fish in here, It looks like we have about 100 baby fish in the tank. There are 2 adult fish standing guard and keeping the others at bay. We now have to separate the babies from the rest of the fish so they do not get eaten.....

Nate do you still want me to take care of your cat?

Somtimes I am too Helpful

So I decided to help my son clean his fish tank. All was well until I started refilling it. All of the sudden Alex said "dad the fish are starting to swim upside down" I looked at the thermometer and realized the water was too hot. We started draining the tank quickly and cooling the water down. When it was all said and done we lost 2 fish but saved the rest. I had to tell Kyle what I had done when he got home. I'm not sure I will help with the tank again. I almost cleaned it too well.

"Camping"

I do not really like to camp. Roughing it for me is a motel 6. Two years ago they made me the Varsity scout leader in the ward. I want to be a good scout leader and I figure I need to camp at least once a year. For my first summer camp as a scout leader I decided that a back packing trip to Grand Daddy lake in the Unitas was just the ticket. I went there with my dad on a scout trip when I was 14 and remembered it was fun. All the info I read said it was a moderate hike (lying jerks) I made it, but after almost collapsing on the trail on the hike in I decided the following year a change of pace was in order.
This year we went to Jordanelle State Park (http://www.utah.com/stateparks/jordanelle.htm)
The Park is beautiful and about 15 minutes out of Park City. It was still pretty rough we were able to drive right to the camp site and had to carry the gear about 5 feet to set it up. There were flushable toilets and showers (much better than bury or carry). There was also a sign for WI-fi.(had to draw the line there we were suppose to be camping after all)We had good food, good times and hit the weather window perfectly. It started raining as we hit the highway on the way out.

After these two experiences I can conclude the following
Backpacking
Long walk with all your gear uphill (both ways)
Bathroom in the woods
Trail food
No air Mattress
= Bad Camp

Car Camping
Easy to cary gear
Toilets that flush
Good Food (bacon with every meal)
Air Mattress
= Good Camp

I know there are scouters out there that are thinking that I am a wimp. I say to them that I am wise beyond my years and have learned a fundamental element to true happiness

The Day the Music Died

I love music and it is a love that I am trying to help my kids discover also. They all have MP3 players and they use them constantly. I have one as well and I cant believe that I used to use something as primitive as a record or cassette tape.(my parents even had an 8 track) For you kids out there google it so you can see how pathetic portable music use to be.

So a tragedy happened at our home about a week ago. Alex comes to me and says that the screen on his Zune cracked. He was devastated, he has always taken good care of it, never takes it anywhere without its cover, and it has fewer scratches and dings than mine does. With the LCD cracked it was impossible to see anything, it would still play and hook to the PC but its a Zune not a shuffle not being able to see and pick what you want is kind of pointless. After spending a few minutes with Google and discussing it with him we decided to try to repair it ourselves, figuring that it was already broken and we didn't have anything to loose.

Using eBay to do some scavenging we found a player that was non functional but had a working screen and possibly a working hard disk that we could sell at a latter time. We bought it for $23. While waiting for its delivery My zune decided to crap out. One minute I lost 1/2 my music the next the player was giving me an error message and would not reset. Based on what I had learned I decided that my hard drive probably died.

On Friday the Zune arrived with the tools that I ordered. We had what we needed to attempt the repair. After an hour Alex's Zune was functioning again. I decided to see if a hard drive would fix mine. After another hour my zune was good as new. I am pretty impressed with myself, I do not normally attempt this kind of thing.

Broken zune from eBay $23. Tools needed for the repair $19. Bringing 2 Zunes back from the dead in one night Pri..... well not priceless but pretty darn cool if I say so myself.

I'm glad that in my house we do not have 2 30 gig paperweights. Props to http://www.rapidrepair.com/ who had great guides to help with the process.

If I was a good blogger I would have taken pictures of the process, but I forgot and I am not going to take them apart again just for my blog.

You put your Chocolate in my Peanut butter

I cam across this clip and it amused me so I thought I would share. Star Trek and Monty Python two great tastes that taste great together.




And Yes I know I am "such a geek" I gave up on being cool when I had kids.