News from Chistmastown

We just got back from 10 days (or so) of Disneyland. I took some time off for a gaming convention in Anaheim and B'Andra took the opportunity to go down early with her sister and start the marathon early. She and Gidian bought annual passes and proceded to go every day from that Saturday until the following Saturday. I drove down that Wednesday and geeked out for a few days and spent evenings with them in the Park. It was pretty fun and very, unseasonable warm. I believe records were broken.

I then spent 3 days doing audit work for 2 clients in Southern California, which allowed for 3 more days of Disneyland for B' and G. I ended up not having work on Wednesday and instead spent the day with Gidain in the park running around Tom Sawyer Island and Pirates of the Carribean and a few other rides, while B'Andra spent some quite, prayful moments in Mecca er Main Street USA.

We decided to make Thanksgiving at Gordon's house, instead of eating a buffet at Las Vegas with Cousin Eddie. This required leaving at 6 or 7pm and with the entirety of So Cal having the same idea, we were in stop and go traffic for 3 hours, traveling about 50 miles. It finally opened up and I filled my tank with energy sodas and drove as long as I could. B'Andra then took over and somehow managed to make it to St. George by 3:30am. It was ugly, but we were able to break bread with Gordon before he went to work at 1:30pm.

It also allowed us to drive home that night and get to B's sister, DeLys, and spend some time eating pie and stuffing there. Finally it allowed us extra time to hang with CJ, Lisa, Ty and Slone and Boo. We had a good time hanging out. We ended up going swiming at the Zermott where CJ was staying. They have a cool pool with a sky-blue ceiling with lights that slowly switch between blue and red, so the sun rises and sets every 5 minutes. There is also a little channel where you can go outside and swim in the cold. There is a little hot tub out there and one inside, complete with massaging waterfall.

It was nice. B'Andra and I intended to take dad up on the offer and stay up there this week or next. It isn't free, but cheap for how nice it is.

Gidian is getting excited about Christmas. He is enjoying the speacials on tv and on DVD that we have. He likes the decorations and baby Jesus, but really doesn't 'get it'. For all cognitive and practical purposes, this is his first Christmas and should be fun to wake up with him.

B'Andra has outdone herself with the decorations. We have a little magical kingdom of Christmasland here. It makes it fun and festive. It is really beautiful. We even have lights and garland on our headboard. We have the house lights on both a sun-activated lighting system (so it will be one when we get home) and a remote (to turn them off without having to go outside). It is pretty slick.

I'm of the mind that an annual pass and 10 days of Disneyland is as much of a Christmas that anyone needs and therefore have no plans to do any shopping whatsoever. I'm sure this plan will not go over well and will be vetoed shortly.

We watched Glenn Beck do his Christmas show yesterday at Kingsberry Hall. It was nice. He told Christmas stories and used some gospel music to build up to his main point, which was that Christmas was not about TV Specials, Food, or even family, but is about the redemption provided by the Savior. His mother had killed herself when he was 13 after a divorce and battle with alcohol and poverty and felt the world was better without her. Glenn, was on a similar track and after a lot of success in radio, lost his job, wife and kids and finally ended up joining the Mormon church and though he felt equally worthless, he discovered that he was able to be relieved of that burdon by following God.

Ultimately he shared his conversion story and the fact that he really feared the storm that was coming and thought we all ought to listen to prophets, living and dead, and gets things in order: financially, food storagely and spiritually so we can weather out that chaos that will be coming whether it be WWIII or terrorists attacks or more naturaly calamaties and the effects on the economy. I have been felling similarly worried lately (probably from listening to his radio show).

I'm still teaching the high priests once a month. I'm excited about the new year, which will be on Spencer W. Kimball. Someone, I actually remember. Pres. Woodruff was cool, but a little harsh. It will interesting to see the difference between someone who crossed the plans and someone of our own generation and what kind of lessons they extract from his talks.

With home prices in the valley, we have felt pressure to upgrade and move into a bigger or newer home. We have decided, for at least another few years, that we will stay here. I really like our little house (not a good time for more debt, I'm thinking). Not much for parties, but who has time anyway. This area is recovering rapidly and the houses are selling for a lot. There are not a lot of cities with nice neighborhoods this close to downtown.

I was recently in Seattle for training and told them how close I lived to where the Jazz play their games. They said, you can live that close to the Seattle NBA games, but you will pay $400,000 for an 800 sq. ft house. Crazy. (not that anyone in their right mind would ever want to live in Seattle).

Innocense lost

Driving through Midway alwasy gives me a sick feeling in my stomach. The haunting, lonely, helpless feeling of watching good things go away never to return like childhood, an infatuation-based love or a delicious cheese burger, one depressing bite at a time.

Everywhere you look, fields are being subdivided into half-million dollar homes. Where are these people getting their money? Who knows?

B'Andra made a good point. Where we live, the only change is for the better. Tear down old building and put in new, restore houses and yards that have been neglected. We never have to mourne the loss of beautiful things, only be excited when we see ugliness removed and watch our home value increase.

Blog entry: 17485

Back by popular demand, I approach the keyboard once again. You good people are very fortunate. I’m almost jealous of you… Almost.

So, where do I begin? Work, work, blah, blah, sick, church, work, sick, D&D, work, play my guitar. That’s about it.

Gidian has become a three year old in every evil and misbehaving connotation that phrase can communicate. I have always heard of the terrible twos, but two was a blissful walk in the park compared to this stuff. I miss my old, sweet, happy Bubba. In his place is a whiney, mouthy, slap-happy, little shit. But we are working with him and based on his older nephew, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We hope to get their soon. For our sanity and his life’s sake.

My computer started acting up, but luckily I have a friend who runs the customer service department at eMachines, which was recently bought by Gateway. So, I called him and he extended my warranty and after a few disastrous phone calls, and a total of nearly 2 hours, I became a sort of ‘secret shopper’ telling him how his team was working and things that were not quite working, like the hold music (it was so splotchy, it sounded like listening to a radio in the mountains, when you only hear 1 out of every 3 seconds). So, he took mercy on my soul and upgraded my computer. Now I have a super fast computing machine [3 gig processor, 3 gigs of RAM, 200 gig hard-drive, 2 gig video card, DVD burner, etc.]. I’m grateful and gleeful.

So, with my new computer and new speed and memory, I now download TV shows and movies. I do this with a free software called uTorrent. I recommend it. Just go to www.utorrent.com and download the application. Then you use their search function, which is just a web-based torrent search (there are many) that will find your desired file. Then you download it into uTorrent and leave your computer over night.

They way it works is people prepare ‘Torrents’. A Torrent is a file: music, movie, game, whatever, that is divided into small pieces and labeled individually. This allows for files to be downloaded small pieces at a time and from multiple sources. This in turn allows for much larger files to be downloaded. For instance, I can download the entire music catalog of AC/DC which is 2 gigs. Normally, it would tough to get a file that big because the person you downloading it from, turns off their machine or something else interrupts it. But now you can download pieces from all over. In fact, someone might be downloading pieces from you before your download is even complete.

So far, and it has only been a week, I have every song written and recorded by Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Judas Priest (the trifecta of heavy metal), the movie CARS, Scooby Doo cartoons, He-Man cartoons (for B’Andra), the first season of MY NAME IS EARL and the first two seasons of THE OFFICE-BBC. So, as you can see there is no limit to what you can get. I highly recommend it. Oh, the tv shows are commercial free, so that makes it even better. I’m going to download STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE – all four seasons next, since I missed that one. It sure beats wading through commercials, being chained to the tv at a certain time every week, or even setting your tivo. Happy hunting.

In other news, I have been playing guitar a little with some friends. My old friend Jason, and some a couple of fellow Mormon, returned missionary, married metal heads like myself. It is really just a fun way to play some brainless music we all like and to use our expensive guitars for something other than playing alone and dreaming about becoming rock stars someday. I’ll be sure to record some, once we get good enough and pass it along. I know how you all love my taste in music. J

The best thing we did this summer is buy an above the ground pool from WalMart. One of those lame, inflate the rim, fill it with water and let the sun warm it up. It is just the right height for Gidian to stand in and what I thought was a silly, wading pool became the highlight of our backyard and summertime play once it got hot. We look forward to using it next year. Without central AC, it is nice to have an escape from the heat. Sadly, even though it is only early august, it is already cool enough that we're no longer as desperate for the cooling waters. But hopefully we can use it for another month or so.

Finally, Gidian is fully potty trained. A big day for us. Strangely, it happened very quickly. B’Andra spent 20 minutes with him reading books to him while he sat there until it happened. Once it did, he has been consistent ever since. Like magic. With the money I will save in diapers, I’m going to buy more little plastic miniatures.

Everything I know about Parenting, I learned from owning a dog

Lesson: First of all, don't take a dog into an environment that is going to create situations where the dog is going to 'misbehave' by simply being a dog. This is frustrating to the owner and ends up with a dog that gets disciplined over and over. You end up with a confused dob with a sore butt and a frustrated owner who wonders why he tries to spend time for such a naughty dog.

Case in point:
I had to plant flowers in my yard. Knowing my dog is sorely neglected, I let her out to run around and spend some quality time with the old man. Every time I dug a hole, the dog would jump the carefully sculpted mound of dirt, stick its nose in the hole and smash the flowers that I had pulled which had been previously pulled from their plastic, protective shell.

After swatting the bitch a few dozen times, I finally had the presence of mind to lock her up until I was finished and then played ball with her. The act of locking her up may have seemed cruel, but I was clearly doing both of us a favor and then could focus on her and have fun.

Lesson: Discipline quickly and often over small things and establish clear boundaries of behavior. Micromanage has negative connotations in this world of ours, but that is the adult world. Dogs love micromanagement and crave the attention and they will be understand their role in the world well before they perform an act so heinous that there is no recourse.

Case in Point:
The first time my dog started barking at night, I went on patrol and kept my shoes by the bed and my shorts and t-shirt on. Every time she barked, I went out and said in a loud, menancing whisper, "Shutup". After three times, I grabbed a broom a put it to dog flesh. Rapped her right on the rump and yelled "shutup", then I hit the broom on the ground next to her head three times and yelled "shutup" each time. It only took one more trip out that night before she got it. And though she has barked a few times, it has been infrequent and usually for something very disturbing to her like fireworks, firetrucks, other dogs, etc. And she knows very well what 'shutup' means.

I found a few items of mine chewed up one day. I wanted to put an end to it and made a big deal. I kept yelling no, show the glove, throw it down right in front of her face, yelled no again. Threw it AT her a few times; chased her around the yard yelling no, then put her in the dog run. She ended up chewing only a few more things, with accompanying displays of anger and outrage by me, until she was done. Just this past week, I felt comfortable and safely left out my work gloves and $130 leather boots and she doesn't touch them.

I similarly took precautions against her jumping up on me. Though this one is not as refined, because I sometimes let her lean against me when I'm in work clothes. So what she does now is give me a 2 second window when she rears up and when she puts her feet on me. If I'm in good clothes, that is enough time to say no and back up. A puppy that barks, chews and jumps around at will is soon to be a dog that nobody wants to have around. A 4 year old kid who tells his dad to shutup and punches him without a slightest reprimand or correction will turn into a teenager who tells his dad to F@(*0ff and gets his girlfriend pregnant.

More photos

Just remembered that it might be easier to upload pictures on the web photo album, so go there.

http://www.cool-larsens.com/v-web/gallery/

Easter Egg Hunt

Gidian had an Easter Egg hunt today at his daycare place. They went across the street to Liberty Park and found them. There were loads of eggs and he walked away with way more candy than he should ever eat. Luckily I stepped in to help and ate most of it.

Here are some photos of the action.

Fine, I'll post something

Got back from China. Had a good time and meant to blog about it, but I couldn't access this website from there. Apparently the Great Firewall of China prohibits the use of Blogs as it creates political unrest when people can write anything they want.

I read the local paper there, The China Daily. It was funny it was so self-congratuatory and full of propaganda.

Here are some email posts I wrote about the dinning experiences:

Today was just some simple Indian Chicken.

Came with some great chili/bean puree mix and some red chili pepper infused

with soy sauce over rice.

Tasty stuff.

I think I'm going Korean tonight.

I love Korean anyway, so here in the center of the best food I have ever

found, I'm expecting good things.

Last nights hits were the skewered chicken with peanut sauce. I could have

eaten the peanut sauce like a soup and been happy!

The actual soup was brimming with shell fish. Big crab, shrimp, muscles

and scallops. They are the big white shells that

they use in bathrooms and such. Anywho, the actual soup was orange with

more spices than I can image. I ate bowl after bowl. Disneyland for the

tongue.

Heavily seasoned beef cubes were amazing. Breaded and fried fish with a

small bowl of seasoned salt which she squeezed a lemon into for dipping.

I'm not a fish eater, but I could have eaten that stuff all night long.

The appetizer course had spring rolls: fried and boiled with Oyster Sauce.

I could eat a stick if I had oyster sauce to dip. I don't know what it

is, but it is Go-OOD! Also a small piece of chicken wrapped in a banana

leaf. Wow.

There was a salad with iceberg, cabbage and chicken. Any other attempt at

an 'oriental salad' will fall tragically short.....

Oh and my beverage was mashed up watermelon. Prepared on the spot. The

decoration and table settings were amazing. I'm not usually impressed by

such things, but this was cool. The pottery was excellent and cool.

Yet another meal report, since all I really did was eat and fly and sit in meetings:

Korean was a disappointment as far as the cuisine goes.

But the table setting and colors and presentation were worth all the money.

And on top of that was the fact that they cooked our meal right at our table. They lifted a metal lid out of the middle of the table and this old dude, (see pictures, if I can find them) brought out these rocks that were so damn hot, they were glowing red and kicked out heat a good 3 feet away. On that, they dropped a frying pan type cover and brought out veggies and plates of meat with various seasonings and gave us dips and seasonings of our own to use.

Of course there was the Saum Jaun, pepper and bean curd puree which I have loved for years. The stuff in the states comes in a can and is AMAZING, but this stuff was freshly made and very tasty.

So, they cooked everything and we wrapped fresh lettuce around them and ate until we were sick. :)

Tonight, I'm in Hainan province, Haikou city. Well, I'm on the plane now, leaving Haikou. Long day of traveling. We are on our way to Cheng Du. Anyway, we were treated like royalty by one of our clients and treated to a 10 course meal, complete with private room, 4-5 serving girls, tons of good food. First course, chicken feet. Bob wouldn't touch it. I nibbled as much skin and meat as I could get and then noticed everyone else and realized they were eating the whole damn thing. Bones and all. I bit one toe off at the knuckle and chewed away, but that was all I could handle.

Duck with a tropical fruit chutney. Awesome.

Boiled chicken served cold with a sauce.

Fresh celery and a vegetable only found on Hainan that is kind of starchy. The only think I can compare it to is the root that is served with Polynesian food, but I don't know the name. So kind of like a potato but not really.

Breaded eggplant with an amazing sweet/hot sauce.

Chicken/Fish soup. Very, very tasty. And the fish melted in one's mouth.

Main course was 5 year old mushroom imported from the mountain region in the mainland. It was an inch think was the consistency and texture of liver and was served with a very unique sauce. Never tasted anything like it. But it was so good, one dude poured it over his bowl of rice and chowed down. Another guy poured his rice into the fish/chicken soup. That was good.

I made the mistake of asking (since Hainan is China's Hawaii) if pineapple was grown there. A quick battery of Chinese to the serving girls and bam, we had a plate of fresh pineapple complete with small dipping dish of sea salt. No, the salt didn't show up, but I asked for it and the president of the company, a lady, was very impressed with me for asking for salt. Like a native.

I was on top of my game. Witty. I had them laughing. I'd throw out the very little Chinese that I do know at the perfect time. When we left dinner for the plane, she said, 'You are very welcome next time.' So, I guess I'll be going back to the island paradise. It is a really good company and they are making tons of cash. Pretty cool.

Took pictures of the entire Korean menu. The smallest menu so far. And a picture of the urinal and sink. They seemed cool. The other urinal: bit of an oxymoron....

Other pictures are of client, Shanghai airport and me eating duck stomach on the air plane 5 minutes ago. Given to me by the Shanghai partner in a foil, small package. You know I can pass up meat stored at room temperature...

One more. Last one, I promise:

Ok.

Final food report.

Here were the menu items:

o Pigeon. Very tasty. The strange part was that the plate was covered with heads. I asked the CFO how one eats a pigeon and head and he grabbed one and said, “first you do this” and pulled the beak apart and started munching. The heads were fried, so the beaks were chewable, but I didn’t try it. I figured the leg was enough.

o Pig feet. Here we go again. Gnawing skin and fat off a nasty animal foot. Damn thing was so slippery, I had a hard time eating it. The best thing about Chinese dinning is the COMPLETE lack of table manners. Slurp, chomp, hold the plate up to your mouth-shovel food in, suck noodles up, whatever you want. The weird part, that KILLS the germ freak in me, but I have already grown accustom to is the fact that nobody really as a plate of food. What you have are about 10 plates of food on a round piece of glass on a wheel and you just wheel it around the eat off those. So, yes, double dipping is a way of life here. Not bad when you are with cute Asian girls, but a little freaky when with nasty, old, smoking men. J

o Beef knee soup. Just soup with potatoes and large bones. But Henry, the Shanghai partner grabbed a big bone and put it on his plate and started sucking marrow out, I was a little shocked.

o Shredded root in soupy sauce. Kind of potato.

o Green, slippery noodles made with some root. Strange stuff. I had a hard time holding on to this stuff. It looked and felt like seaweed and served with peppers. Actually the entire meal took place in Sichuan, so you can correctly imagine that nearly every dish was loaded with spices.

o Fried greens

o Slow roasted bacon. Imagine thickly sliced bacon, roasted in spices with some sort of vegetable. The quivering chunks of fat were delicious.

o Fish and eyuta. Big fish with small potato like balls. The resulting mouth full of tiny bones made enjoying this dish difficult.

o Cold chicken in sauce.

o Cold bacon – barely cooked.

o Fried breaded tofu

o Mushroom sauté – long. Some sort of seaweed looking dish. Very long, difficult to chew mushrooms with peppers. I coughed a little after eating a pepper and nearly choked when the pepper nearly went up my sinus. Very hot, but I ate so much of the hot stuff, the CEO sent his driver out for 4 bottles of local/ Sichaun spices in a bottle.

o Rice

o celery carrots

o soy milk with honey for the drink, served warm

o beef soup with noodles

o peanut, seaweed mushroom.

As you can see, these are large fests. 2-3 hours long. With dish after dish coming in and everyone spinning them around and picking at them. We cam no where near eating it all. I didn’t have my camera, so can’t send a picture, but it was impressive.

The culture seems to be what may have been in America during the 20’s with the industrialists being wealthy. All of these businessmen and few women are having the time of their lives. They are respected and feared. The CEO today kept getting saluted by his security guards like they are his own private army. They smoke, drink, drive BMWs and Audis and Volvos. They do what they want; get special treatment from the government and everyone around them. They are loving life. And now, seeking additional funding from US markets to expand their companies. The rest of the country is quite poor, but since everyone is better off, nobody is complaining about the unequal wealth.

Today I’m in Kun Ming. The weather here is amazing. They call it the city of spring because it always feels like spring. They grow tobacco here, but it is actually quite dry. They landscape looks much like south central Utah, but more like Italy and northern California. High mountains, temperate, Mediterranean climate. And they are near the sea and equator so the temperature is the same all year, but high in the mountains 5,000 feet, so it is cool and dry. It is beautiful. I wish I could live here.

Update

It is 8:30 pm and I'm in the office, so this is going to be quick. I miss my buddy and bubba.

Christmas was fun, though we still have recovered financially :)

Gidian is a great kid. He learns new words everyday. He is daycare full time now as B'Andra is doing taxes for my firm 40 hours a week. It is funny because we work at the same place, but I never see her as I am always, and I mean always, out of the office doing audit work in the offices of clients.

We finally have got Gidian to stop sleeping with us and B'Andra's brother is living in an apartment next door, so that has been a relief.

B'Andra just bought a His and Her beach bike set. HUGE handlebars and big fat tires and wheels. It will be fun to ride them around the park when it gets warmer. We will need to get a trailer for Gidian.

That's about it for now.
Peace out.

Old post that never made it online

Gidian is going through a really daddy bonding period. I'm not sure why. But when I walk through the door, he yells my name with delight and runs over to me and grabs my hand and takes me off to play. Maybe because I'm actually willing to play toys with him.

Last night, he found one of his Christmas presents, a $5 hot wheel track with a little crash canyon with rubber bands, so you can send two cars into each other and have them blow up the cliffs.

I figured it will be better to open this one by itself and get a few weeks of hard core use out of it, rather than have it be cast aside when compared to all the other loot he is bound to get on Christmas proper.

He has a great sense of humor and can get silly. Sometimes, he'll start singing and do a little arm flipping dance while staring you in the eyes. It is really quite funny.

Last night, while in the tub, he started humming Pirates of the Caribbean, so hummed it too, only I used my finger to pull down my lip for each new note. He thought that was the coolest thing he had seen in a while, so immediately started doing it, only he couldn't get his lips to relax enough because he kept smiling. Pretty soon, we were making each other laugh and I nearly drowned from laughing so hard.

We have had fits of laughter before where we feed off each other's mirth in the same way. He is a great buddy. The only problem is, he has been insisting on sleeping with us. After over a week at Disneyland, he got used to sleeping with mom, and he LIKES it. So, though we get him to fall asleep in his bed, he usually joins us around 4am.

This morning I'm quite ill, so I didn't have the energy to fight it. He is a good snuggler, but he has a big problem with kicking, especially the bed covers...off. He gets pretty hot at night, apparently.

He is definitely a two year old, but he is so sweet and funny, he is no problem. His new favorite song is THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Some company used it on a commercial and he instantly picked up on it, so we borrowed SCROOGE from mom and I play the song over and over. It actually appears in two different spots, so he really gets into it.

Christmas is going to be blast. He calls it Ist-criss. And it when it snows he says, "Look daddy, its soo-ning!".

Oh, in the spirit of the holidays, we have a homeless, ex-junkie living with us. That has been fun. B'Andra is helping him go to Narcotics Anonymous and get a job. Boy, he sure does eat a lot of food.