Comedians

I can't stand crass comedians, they remind me of zoo monkeys flinging "stuff" at the onlookers. Despite the fact that everybody's laughing, they're still nervously shifting in their seats...

Anyway, Seinfeld is a favorite, as his "crass-quotient" -- the ratio of crass jokes to non-crass jokes -- is quite low. Kyla and I went to see him in Tucson, and those were some of the best $60 tickets I ever bought. I think only one or two jokes out of probably 150 were crass. 1% is amazing these days. We loved it...

Bob Newhart, on the other hand, I think is essentially a 0%. I've never heard anything crass out of him -- but he's not funny at all. I know when I'm supposed to laugh, it's just too much effort.

Now that we have cable, however, a new favorite is arising:



Stephen's probably 4-5%, but still impressive for these days. And, he's hilarious, my biggest risk for a hernia these days. Clap, clap, point, point. =)

Pictures from my trip to Japan

Enjoy these pictures from my trip to Japan last week.

I wish I'd gotten a picture of a sticker on a door of a cartoon guy getting his thumb snapped by a giant crab. "What's that?" I asked the other folks with us. "Watch out for crabs?"

"No, don't get your fingers stuck in the door."

Oh...uh. So why the giant crab again? And are there a good number of folks so unfamiliar with doors that they need this reminder?

I loved the trip, by the way, more later on it.

"Their own erroneous and stereotypical image..."

"It is one of the ironies of religious history that many mortals err in their understanding of the nature of God and end up rejecting not the real God but their own erroneous and stereotypical image of God." - Neal A. Maxwell, Sermons Not Spoken, p. 17.

*Much* better half

Once a year in February, my dear sweet wife heads off to the annual "Sisters Reunion", where she and her 6 sisters flee from husbands and kids and life in general and hang out. As far as I can tell they mostly just pretend they're teenagers again, which we could all stand to do a little more often. The trip is sacrosanct, it's not up for debate or dispute, and somehow they all manage to align schedules and gather enough money to make it happen. That's not a small miracle, considering the number of people involved -- amazing how certain things just happen.

What also happens about this time every year is that I get a rude awakening as to what my wife's life entails. It was hard last year, now I'm running a small 24-hr preschool. This year before we even started we learned that all 3 kids have ear infections. Then, the first night Regan threw up in her bed (not a little, either), and Kendy was up periodically crying while Kinney had a fever. Since then it's been better, but whenever I'm not directly overseeing them, they're meandering around.

I have a new metric for describing my children: MTTFM. That's "mean time to food mess", how long on average do I have of non-direct supervision before one of them has made a mess with some sort of food product. Right now, that figure is somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes -- not enough to get going on any serious project. Kinney with the grapes, Kendy with the whole wheat (?), Regan with the cheez-its, etc.

So it's on. Am I keeping the house clean? Not really. Am I buying food, or getting exercise, or doing laundry? My dear sweet wife has figured out how most of the time to do all of those things, keep the kids on track, and maintain some degree of sanity. Nice. What a great lady.

Junk mail rebellion

I just realized how much junk mail solicitations I get. Seems like every day someone like the "National Information Center" wants me to buy insurance for my mortgage or get a new credit card or to contribute to Bill Gates' retirement fund.

So I figured out how to get back at those irritating companies. See, each solicitation comes with a "No postage necessary..." envelope that I'm supposed to put my application in to mail back. But I don't. I shred the application, then seal up the blank envelope and throw it back in the mail, no application or writing on it.

Why? So they have to pay return postage! If everybody did that, their mail costs would double, and their processing costs would go way up too for having to open them all. Take that, "National Information Center"!

I'm sure someone will say -- "Hey, why don't you start squeezing 6 oz worth of discarded butter stick wrappers and used toothpicks in there? Their mailing costs will be huge!" Good idea, but I'm not that mean, and I don't have that many discarded butter stick wrappers.

President Gordon B. Hinckley dies

One of the greatest men to live in our day.

I'm not sad, really. Until you die, your story's not over -- the race is still on, and there are plenty of hurdles ahead, likely to wipe out many of the early leaders, and give those looking for their second-wind a chance to find it.

But President Hinckley is like the Olympic hurdler who in the Final race is a full half-track ahead of the next guy, but with a few hurdles still separating him from the finish line. Him passing away is like clearing that last hurdle and heading for the finish. The soul swells just to watch as a true champion takes the ultimate crown, and in a way to have been there to see it.