July 2003 Archives

Finally, I got a moment to try to catch up on this Fozzolog business.

The They Might Be Giants "event"

I have added an event to the site for the 23 July They Might Be Giants show. Lots of pictures to look at there.

The rest of the camping trip

I never really finished that journal entry. I think it started to rain a little, so I collapsed by Stowaway keyboard and put my Handspring Visor away and never returned to the journal entry again until I uploaded it to the Fozzolog.

Anyway, after we had lunch on Friday, we went for a drive in search of the Ephraim Tunnel which diverts water from the east side of the mountain range (still within Sanpete County) through a tunnel to the west side of the mountains into the Sanpete Valley near Ephraim.

My parents had happened upon the tunnel almost by accident the last time they'd been there, so they weren't really sure where it was. We searched for over an hour before running into a Forest Service employee who showed us on a map where to go.

By that point, my mom, my sister, and Maya were sick of driving around on dirt roads and didn't really care to see the damn tunnel. They took one of the vehicles and headed back to camp.

The rest of us went to the tunnel and checked it out. Pretty cool.

The Ephraim Tunnel entrance

Everyone checking out the Ephraim Tunnel entrance

My mom wasn't feeling too good Friday. The dust was causing her allergies to act up and her heart wasn't taking the high altitude very well, so my dad and she decided to head back home Friday evening.

Also on Friday -- before lunch I think -- Maya and I went out on the four-wheeler with my nephews to an "ice cave" they'd found. It was a snowbank over a deep-cut stream bed that hadn't melted. It was 2 - 3 feet thick and about 20 feet wide. The kids started chucking big rocks out onto it to see the splash of snow as the rock hit the surface. Then, I told them to go down and stand on the snow and I'd take their picture.

Maggie, Brennan, Maya and Ben on the snow bridge

My brother and I did some astronomy Friday night using a reflective telescope he'd borrowed from a friend and binoculars. At 11,000 feet up and away from all the light pollution of large cities, you can see gazillions of stars. The stars were still a little "fuzzy" because of the heat and humidity in the air, but the sheer volume of stars was breathtaking.

We headed home Saturday morning as soon as we finished breakfast and I packed up the car. We made it to Sandy before 1 p.m.

The frightful exposition

A week before Sunday, the bishop in our ward asked Christine and I if we would speak in church this Sunday. Neither of us had spoken in a Sacarament service in years. I'm not sure I've done it since I was a youth speaker in my teens. In fact, I was somewhat peeved about the fact we'd never been asked in all the wards we've been in since we were married.

I was nervous - a lot more nervous than I thought I'd be. I've done a fair amount of speaking the last few years, just not in church.

Anyway, it went well. Christine took up a lot of time and I filled the remaining time and several people complimented us afterwards. That was nice.

Maya and I are just east of Danish Knoll in the mountains east of Ephraim, Utah. Elevation is approximately 10,000 feet above sea level.

When we got here last night, it had been raining. Well, it had been pouring off and on. We were concerned the camping trip was doomed to be miserable, but it hasn't been so bad.

It has had its share of pitfalls, though. We were supposed to leave around 10 a.m. on Thursday morning, but we didn't really get on our way until about 1:30 p.m. We met up at a Carl's Jr. in Draper and went from there.

We stopped in Nephi to hit the restrooms and tank up. Our next stop was Ephraim, where it poured a torrent of rain while we were at the Wal*Mart there so my mom could get a book to read.

But, the rain stopped as quickly as it had started and, despite warnings on the weather radio of continual showers in the central Utah mountains, we proceeded into the canyons to Ephraim Mountain.

The rain was a blessing because the dirt roads in the canyon and on the mountain top were just barely wet enough to prevent dust from being throw about as we drove, but not wet enough to create a mud issue.

We found the campsite and met up with the other family members there.

Besides me and Maya, my sister Allison, her (new) husband Darvell, Allison's kids Benjamin and Audrey, my brother Tom, Tom's kids Brennan and Cole, and my mom and dad came.

After making it to our campsite, we figured out where we were setting up our respective tents. Maya and I found a really sweet spot under the trees for our tent. Tom and his boys found a similar spot.

We got our tent set up, pumped up the air mattress we bought for this trip, and set it in our tent.

We had a delicious dinner of beef stew over white rice, rode the four-wheelers and the motorcycles for a while, then gathered around the campfire when it got dark.

We roasted some marshmallows and then went to bed.

I had a headache all day and it got progressively worse the later it got. I was hoping I just needed sleep, but it was getting so bad, I couldn't sleep. And, I felt terribly thirsty.

Just after midnight, I slipped as quietly as I could out of my tent to get some water. I also searched my first aid kid for some acetominophen for my headache, but found only buffered asprin.

I found some ibuprofen in my car and took that. My mom heard me looking for water and poked her head out of her tent and shined her flashlight around. I told her I had it under control.

I went back to my tent. Around 2, I still could not sleep and started feeling sick to my stomach. I decided I needed to get up and vomit. As soon as I tried to get out of the tent, the vomit alarm was blaring loudly and my goal was to get as far from our campsite as possible. I didn't want them thinking there was some bear in our camp making, “Roooooowwwwwweeeerrrrrrrghhhhhhl!” noises.

After I expelled the contents of my stomach, I felt a whole world of better
and fell asleep right away.

Maya and I woke up around 9 and had breakfast. It was an excellent breakfast, of course, because my mom prepared it.

After breakfast, Maya and I jumped on a four-wheeler and tried to find a way to the top of Danish Knoll. We didn't make it clear to the top, but we got pretty close. I took some “aerial view” pictures of the campsite and some video.

Viewing our campsite from near the top of Danish Knoll.

We roasted hot dogs for lunch. That was my food assignment and I brought 16 polish sausages and 20 regular weiners. We had a lot left over!

Still here, so I'll post some pictures!

John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants	John Linnel of They Might Be Giants
Chadd at the TMBG show	Me at the TMBG show

Leaving for campout

It's after noon. I was told to be ready to go at 10 a.m., but my family's had some trouble getting everything together. So, I'm back home waiting for a phone call.

Last night's They Might Be Giants show was... good. Chadd and I decided we were definitely spoiled seeing them play in New York City in 2001. The show in Salt Lake City just lacked the energy and charm we saw at Irving Plaza.

But, we did have excellent seats: front and center. I took about 130 pictures.

They had no opening act and the show was short - only about 90 minutes including two encores, but they sounded great and they did a good job entertaining the crowd.

Speaking of the crowd, I would bet this was the largest, and oldest crowd They Might Be Giants had in Salt Lake City. My guess is that the Red Butte Garden is very effective in promoting their events to an older age-group than most concert venues.

Anyway, I haven't had a chance to go through and “do my magic” with all the pictures I took, so I'll do that when I get back from camping... if I ever go. :-)

Tuesday was the first exciting day of the week. I went to lunch with some old buddies and then went to a family outing at the Roy Aquatic Center in, surprise, Roy, Utah.

A reunion of the minds

Jon, Thom, and I were inseparable in junior high school. We attended West Lake Junior High in Granger, Utah and were cohorts and partners in crime in West Lake's Gifted & Talented (GT) program. We also made a number of stupid — but interesting — videos in our youth.

We're almost grown up now. Jon and I work with computers and Thom is a musician and a daddy.

We decided to get together for lunch on Tuesday at a joint that hasn't changed much since our juvenile days: Scott's Drive-In.

Anyway, we had a good visit. We're going to be reunited again on September 10 when we attend the Styx concert at the Utah State Fair.

Here are some pictures.

Jon

Jon, Thom, & Doran

Thom

Free water for the whole family!

Tuesday night was also a pot-luck dinner at the Roy Aquatic Center for families of the staff. Christine's little brother Aaron works there, so we went along with Christine's sisters Melissa, Sarah, and Laura (and their respective familes) and their parents.

It was fun. They kids loved it and it was nice that there were only about 80-100 people there, so you didn't have to wait in line for the slides, and there was plenty of room to play around in.

And... here are some pictures from that:

Adam coming off the peel slide	Adam catching his son Alex as he comes off the slow slide	Benjamin going down the “frog slide”
Lucy going down the “frog slide”	Me coming off the peel slide. No, really, it is me.	Melissa, Sarah, & Josalyn

It's nice to be doing what I love to be doing. I just... love it.

Working on work

This week, I've been doing a lot of programming and website design/implementation work. I love it when my schedule is busy with this kind of stuff. I wish it was always like this.

What am I doing when I'm not programming? Oh, stuff like system and network administration projects, debugging clients' Windows-based workstation woes, and authoring, revision, or pitching proposals.

And then there's some of the management side of the business when I have to write checks, figure out taxes owed, etc.

So, yeah, this week has been great because I've been doing a lot of Perl development and HTML-writing.

Next week

This next week is going to be a short week for me.

On Tuesday, I'll be meeting with Thom and Jon — old buddies of mine — for lunch. This shouldn't interfere with my work, but I mention it because it may generate some text and/or image content for the Fozzolog.

On Wednesday, I'll probably be spending most of the day with Iodynamics partner Chadd (Chadd, would you PLEASE put some stuff on your website? :-)) as he and I are heading to the They Might Be Giants concert at Red Butte Garden at the University Of Utah.

We're probably also going to catch a viewing of the film, “Gigantic - A Tale Of Two Johns” that afternoon before the concert.

On Thursday, 24 July, Maya and I will be heading to a family campout on Ephraim Mountain in central Utah. We'll be there until Saturday.

Holy cow. The ambient temperature in the fiery depths of hell has gone down slightly. :-)

It's been over two months, but Chadd finally posted a new entry on his Fozzolog-powered weblog.

Wow.

This is something you want to print and hang on your boss's door.

I was at a client's office this week assisting with an install of a wireless Internet connection. While the Wireless ISP technicians were on the roof, I noticed a funny label on a component of the fire sprinkler system that was near the ladder going up to the roof. Below is a picture I took.

It was a great day for a roll down the mountain.

Scooting to food

At lunchtime today, I met up with Dave, Thomas, and others at About (or previously from About) in Orem to ride our scooters down Provo Canyon from Bridal Veil Falls to the mouth of the canyon. Once we got to the bottom, most of us had lunch at an About favorite restaurant: Mama Chus.

It was fun! Here are some pictures.

Everyone poses before the scoot	Scoot Fozz Moo! Scoot!	Dav3 exhibits scooting talent.
Thomas & the magic scooter

Hey- a new Fozzolog feature!

I set up the Fozzolog index page to display multiple entries in reverse chronological order if there is more than one entry for the last week. Otherwise, it just displays the most recent entry.

So... this makes the Fozzolog more like a “real weblog” in a way.

Feeling fairly patriotic now that today is the last day of a three day weekend including Independence Day. Feeling jazzed about getting back down to business tomorrow.

The Zephyr Side Of The Moon

Thursday, 3 July, was the night Sons Of Nothing returned to the Salt Lake area with a spectacular performance at the legendary Zephyr Club in downtown Salt Lake City.

(Incidentally, the Zephyr's website sucks, I'm sorry to say.)

And once again, I was there to do the on-screen visualizations and video.

Like at Suede six nights before, the band started out with a set of original tunes and then played two hours of Pink Floyd tunes. The original set was mind-blowing. They did amazing job playing those songs. Randy — the de facto band videographer — told me he thought that was the best original set he'd ever seen them play. I told him I agreed and that I thought it was probably to make up for Tim breaking a string during “Stolen” at the Suede show.

After playing a lot of Pink Floyd, the band played an encore of Brain Damage and Eclipse from Dark Side Of The Moon. The audience (and the manager of the Zephyr) wasn't satisfied and wanted more, more, more. Thus, they cranked out “Fearless”, “Cymbaline”, “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” and a double or triple-length version of “Astronomy Domine”.

All in all it was great and it sounds like both clubs are talking to the band about booking upcoming dates.

In the busy-ness

About six months ago, I pulled out all the Iodynamics sales tax filings for the previous couple of years to see how we'd been doing compared to previous years. Sure, there was a steady increase in our sales revenues each year (a good thing), but the third quarter of each year was always a big disappointment compared to Q1 and Q2. It just seemed like Summer and Fall were a bad time to be in the business Iodynamics is in.

Not this year.

Whether it's because Mike and I are working our butts off to keep the business flowing in or because things are different this year in the industry, Iodynamics is looking to do a better Q3 than Q2 or Q1 and it's great. We've been setting revenue goals for the last couple months and meeting each one and that makes me very proud to be involved with this corporation.

This last week has been stressful for the Iodynamics partners, though. We've been working on some marketing materials for one of our clients that is going to a trade show in about a week. The whole project was done on short notice, so we knew it was going to be a tight schedule, but to complicate things, Mike had a weeklong vacation to the northwest planned next week, Dave had a family campout planned (at the last minute) for the July 4 weekend, and Chadd had some holiday plans that affected his availability as well.

It looks like we're still going to be able to deliver everything on time, but I can tell the overall stress level this last week got much higher than normal as people are trying to get their obligations fulfilled before they head out. I wasn't as involved with this particular project as I usually am because it was something that didn't involve any programming. (for a change)

I guess it's a good sign when you're stressed because you've got too much work as opposed to being stress because you don't have enough.

Baby coming through!

We're about six to seven weeks out from welcoming our son into the world. We don't have a specific name decided upon yet. I suspect we'll do what we've done in the past and wait until the day of the birth to come to a final decision. It helps to assign a name to a face, I guess.

Christine, Maya, Lucy, and I took a short tour of the Alta View Hospital Women's Center on Saturday so we'll know where we're going and what to expect when the time comes to head up there.

DVDs coming through

I finally got a DVD burner!

Okay, let me say that again...

I finally got a DVD burner!

And it feels good to finally be able to author my own DVDs. Tapes are so... 20^th century. I'm excited about being able to record commentary audio and do subtitles and all that jazz. I'm excited about learning all about the DVD format and authoring DVD menus and multimedia. If nothing else, it's something to put on my résumé I guess.

I haven't recorded any DVDs yet. At roughly $1.60 a piece (and that was for a cheap spindle of generic 1X discs), I wasn't about to burn anything “just for fun” yet.

So, right now, as I type this, one of my other computers is encoding Jay and Jennie's wedding video to DVD MPEG streams so I try making that into a DVD.

It'd be really cool if I could do the DVD authoring in Linux.

Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and get a Mac if I'm going to be serious about video editing and DVD authoring. *shrugs*

Recent thought theme

Now, a slight shift of gears to a move intimate, personal level. One thing I've been thinking about lately is the courage and bravery required to do the “right things” in life.

I think it's easy — even popular — to take the easy road through life.

I'm not really going anywhere specific here, just putting some ideas down so I don't have to ponder them so much.

I guess the reason I've been thinking about this lately is because I have these issues about religion and being religious. I've always kind of thought my issues were about “the people” and the cultures surrounding the LDS faith here in Utah. As I've pondered this recently, I've started to wonder if that's all bullshit (pardon my portuguese) and if the excuse that I have beef with the people is just my leaning on a convenient, cowardly crutch.

I mean, if I believe something is the right thing to do, I shouldn't let the supposedly petty behavior of others get in my way. I should just do it.

Anyway, that's really all I have to say about that at this time. Maybe I'll come up with more later.