All Grown Up

            What can I say?

Tagged

Looks like I've been tagged by Sara. I might be able to come up with six things about myself, but I don't know whether I can come up with six people to tag. 

1. My boss gave a little class last week on how to present effectively. He said we should stay true to our own style and personality. One of the personality traits was introvert versus extrovert. Extroverts can stand up and start talking with little preparation, often walking among and feeding off the audience. Introverts prepare carefully for presentations and practice them, sometimes for hours before presenting. After I spoke at church one time someone told me I was a natural speaker. I thought, Sure, after I just spent six hours writing this 20-minute talk and the past two hours practicing how to deliver it naturally. I am an introvert. 

2. I like to drive. I enjoy the adventure of going anyplace. I look forward to getting away from the everyday and doing something different. Driving usually means new adventures, getting away, and avoiding the ordinary. Flying has a bit of the same feeling, especially if I'm going to Japan or Italy. But if I can drive, flying deprives me of the adventure of getting there. I'd rather drive two days and feel like I've really gone someplace--and seen the in-betweens--than spend two hours flying there and feeling like I just went next door. When I bought an old GMC pickup from our neighbor several years ago and drove it over about 90 miles of dirt road along the old pony express trail, I thought it would be fun to drive every mapped dirt road in Utah. But that wouldn't be possible in one lifetime. One time I drove on that dirt pony express trail in our Astro Van on Presidents' Day in February. When I stopped to put chains on the tires to get over an icy pass, I found a 16-penny finish nail in the sidewall of a tire. I pulled the nail out, and air hissed out, too. So I stuck the nail back in, put the chains back inside and drove the remaining 90 miles of dirt road to Wendover and then back to Salt Lake on I-80. That was fun. 

3. Foods. There aren't many I don't like. There are some. I don't like the little fish eggs in some sushi. There's a lot of authentic Chinese food that I wouldn't mind if I never knew existed. Chicken feet aren't the worst. If my eating senses went on cruise control, I'd probably eat beef steak, baked potatoes and asparagus every night. But I also love real ramen--the best ramen in the United States is chaashu tonkotsu ramen at Santa in San Mateo, California--Italian, Greek, and seafood. My favorite seafood includes scallops, king crab, salmon, and halibut. I was on a quest once to find the best fish and chips in North America. There's a place on the pier in Victoria, British Columbia that's really good. I was also on a quest once to find the best barbecue in America. When I was in Atlanta once for a trade show, just before the Olympics were there, I decided to try all five BBQ joints listed in "Parade Magazine" as the best in the city. I made it to only three, but Fat Matt's Rib Shack was the best, and I stopped there every time I went to Atlanta. I even ate there three times one week. Last summer we bought a small smoker. BBQing is a great hobby that comes with great rewards. We've tried salmon, turkey, baby back ribs, and brisket. Ribs and brisket are the best. 

4. The outdoors are inspiring and invigorating. Mountain biking, hiking, camping, fishing, sitting, smelling the evergreens, anything you can do outside that isn't an extreme sport is great. Someday I'd like to road bike down the coast highway through Washington and Oregon, but road biking is a little bit scary with all the traffic and little room for bikes on most roads these days. 

5. I like to tease kids, mostly challenging what is obviously true. I don't know why. Sometimes I tell myself it teaches them to be on their toes. For example, if they have a book, I might say, "That's a nice shirt you're reading." They have to be thinking and willing to defend what they know. But that's not really why I do it. It's just fun. And they're gullible. It's not fun if they're too gullibe, though. They have to catch on at some point. I usually make the stories more unbelievable until they finally catch on. When I was about 17 I dated a girl in American Fork. I remember visiting her at her home once with my friends, and we started telling her wild stories about the rules at Murray High, something about going to jail for impersonating teachers and more. The more she believed us, the wilder our stories got. She never figured out that we were making it all up. She was too gullible. 

6. I need to lose weight. About 60 pounds. I love Dr. Pepper. It's been my favorite refreshing drink since I was a young teenager. Randy and I used to ride our bikes to the Cottonwood Mall, stop at the Walgreen's store there, and buy a quart bottle of Dr. Pepper and half-pound Hershey chocolate bar with almonds. All the people at Hart's quick stop know me from my daily visits. And the 7-Eleven down the street. And the Phillips station on State Street. Pepsi, too. Novell had soda machines in the halls, with a can costing 50 cents. I almost always had a can of Pepsi on my desk. When it got a little warm, I'd dump it and buy another one. I used to say that if I quit drinking Pepsi, Pepsico stock would crash. Last June I decided that if I am going to lose weight I need to quit drinking sugared soft drinks. And if I'm to quit drinking the sugared drinks I need to give up the caffeine drinks. At first I thought I'd quit slowly, allowing myself one 20-ounce bottle a day for a few weeks. The first day I drank one bottle. The second day I drank half of a bottle. The third day I drank the second half of the previous day's bottle, but I didn't enjoy it. That was then end of that. I have still been drinking caffein-free, sugar-free drinks, but none of the loaded stuff. Now I need to cut down on the fats and carbohydrates, and I need to exercise a lot more. 

THE RULES

1. The player lists six facts or habits about himself or herself. Try to find six you haven't already posted. 

2. At the end of the post, the player tags six people and posts their names, and then goes to their blogs and leaves a comment to let them know they have been tagged and to request them to read the player's blog for the rules. 

I don't know six people with blogs who haven't already been tagged. 

More Ticket Woes

More than two years ago, Monty Python's Eric Idle created a Broadway play called Spamalot. It's based on the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." I promised myself I'd go see it. I downloaded the soundtrack on iTunes. I was determined that the next time I got a chance to go to New York, I would be sitting in the Shubert Theatre watching the show. Then last Christmas we went to New York City. But Chieko has never been excited to see this show, and we were with Sara and Jared and their kids. So we didn't consider going. I had to wait for my next opportunity. 

My boss asked me recently to manage our relationship with a research partner based in New York, and I said, "Sure, that would be a great opportunity to advance my career." What I thought was, "That means I'll likely have to go to New York and see Spamalot." I mentioned to the research partner that I should meet everyone and go over our objectives and strategies. We decided that December 11 would be a good time. Even before I arranged the travel, I bought a ticket for a great seat in Center Orchestra in the Shubert Theatre on the evening of December 11 for $120.50. This was going to be a super business trip.  

But then I read in the paper two weeks ago that the stagehand union called a strike and shut down most Broadway shows, including Spamalot. Maybe the strike would be resolved before December 11, I thought. After all, the last strike, by the musicians, lasted just four days. The strike previous to that was way back in the 1970s. However, this time the union and producers weren't talking. But then they spent all last weekend negotiating, and surely they'd come to an agreement before the Thanksgiving holiday. Nope. The union said the producers weren't generous enough. Now it looks like this strike will go through Thanksgiving and possibly through Christmas. December 11 is not looking good at all. I could see Spamalot in Las Vegas or even the traveling show coming to Salt Lake, but those shows have been cut shorter than the Broadway show. The intermission has been eliminated. Worse, they aren't Broadway. I'm really bummed. 

Going to See Celine Dion

Chieko is a Celine Dion fan, and since we resisted the $600 to $1,800 tickets to see her in Las Vegas, we decided to go to Celine's concert in Salt Lake at the Energy Solutions Arena next week, the day before Thanksgiving. Actually, Chieko said it would be fun to go. I said, "Uh huh." Then she mentioned it again about 10 times, and I said, "Sure, whatever." When the full-page newspaper ad for the concert appeared on my desk I decided I should try to get tickets. They were to go on sale Saturday morning at 10 o'clock.

I knew enough about Celine Dion to understand that the tickets would go quickly, so I logged onto the Tickemaster website about 9:50 a.m. A message said the tickets weren't available yet. About 9:58 I started hitting the "refresh" button. At exactly 10 a.m. the tickets became available. I hurriedly selected two $125 tickets. "Not available." So I selected "Best available." Two tickets showed up in Section 10, Row 5. Good seats for $125 each. I selected them. On the next screen, I had to enter my email address twice and a password, twice. And I had one minute to do so. I entered the information, but I typoed the email address and had to redo it. Then I got a message that said I already had a Ticketmaster account. So I went to the other computer, looked in my password vault, and found the account info. I went back to the Mac and entered the password. A message said that my minute had expired. Too bad. Go back to the beginning. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Do not sit in Section 10, Row 5.

I started all over and zipped through all the screens, past several error messages (the site was busy), and finally got my tickets. With only a minute on the selection screen and on the credit card page, I didn't look at the details. And when I did, I discovered we had tickets in Section 130, Row 5. This is officially called the Nose Bleed Section. I think the seats are suspended from the Goodyear blimp over Rice Eccles stadium. With powerful binoculars and Celine Dion playing on our iPods, we may get the feeling of actually being in the concert.

But the story doesn't end. Later Saturday night I was looking at the tickets and I noticed that the date said, "Friday, November 21." I thought this must be a typo, since November 21 is on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Then I looked more closely and realized it said, "Friday, November 21, 2008." This concert is next year, in 372 days. I just hope Celine doesn't retire before then, or we don't lose the tickets, or we don't forget we even have tickets.

Weekend with the Grandkids

Jamie and Brian went to buy a new home in Colorado this past weekend, so Chieko and I tended their three kids. We learned three things: 1) Kids are a lot of fun, 2) Even young grandparents get tired quickly, 3) Forget trying to keep any room within three blocks of the kids orderly.

They came over late Friday night while we were at the movie "Martian Child." Good movie. Three and a half stars.

Jamie and Brian were gone when we awoke Saturday. Chieko cooked French toast using thick French bread. The kids also ate scrambled eggs, and so did I.

Later, I finished putting cedar trim around the door I built for our shed at the back of the patio last week. Now no one can mozy into the backyard and walk off with our bikes, firewood, mice, and spiders. Kali and Caleb were going to help me, but when I pulled out the circular saw they high-tailed it into the house to watch from the kitchen window. No loud noises for them.

They did a great job after that sweeping up the sawdust and leaves from the patio and dumping it into the black garbage can, while I raked the leaves from the Japanese maple in the front yard into a big pile. Then Kali and Caleb jumped into the pile and made a mess. But they also grabbed big armfulls of leaves and stuffed them into a black bag until almost all the leaves were gone.

They joined me on the east side of the house to scoop up the rest of the leaves, but their interest was waning at this point and no leaves made it into the bag. I suggested they call Marcus to come goof off with them, so they did but ended up going to his house. Janet also came by on a walk by herself. She was her usual happy self.

About 5 p.m. we all (including Marcus) went to see "Bee Movie." It was cute for children. The kids shared a big barrel of popcorn. I think Caleb likes movies only because they mean popcorn. When I told him beforehand to be prepared to go to a movie, he said, "You mean bring popcorn?" Emeline drank half of my 20-ounce bottle of diet rootbeer. I then cut the top off the bottle and filled it with popcorn. She ate about five bottles full of the popcorn. She's unbelievable.

On Sunday we went to church. Emeline was happy to go into the nursery. Caleb was a bit shy to go into his class, so he went with Kali to Primary. They were all good in sacrament meeting, although I had to drag Caleb out once. He stood with his face against the wall for a while. I told him to tell me when he was ready to be reverent so we could go back in. He said he was ready, so we went back and he was pretty good the rest of the meeting. I was impressed that they were able to sit quietly through three hours of meetings with such little hassle.

We ate pot roast for dinner and made chocolate sauce from cocoa, butter, powdered sugar, and water for banana splits. The kids had never had a banana split and weren't that impressed. They didn't eat the bananas.

We visited Grandma and Grandpa Great and headed for the kids' house about 8 p.m. We forgot a key, so Kali broke into the house like a burglar, climbing a rail and sneaking into a patio window. They all brushed their teeth and went to bed very nicely.

I was very impressed that they were so easy to tend, even if our house looks like the aftermath of a typhoon. Kali is very mature and ready to please and help out. Caleb is a bit of a handful, kind of like a five-year-old boy. I don't have a lot of patience, so he didn't get away with much, and he listened pretty well. Emeline is just a sweetheart. She smiles and laughs a lot, and loves to be held.

We're sad that they're moving, but I'm really glad we had this weekend to spend with them. They won't be too far away, so I hope we'll still get to visit them often, and maybe they can spend some time with us during the summers (I don't know about all three at once, though).