Princesses and Princesses

This is my 100th post. Anyway, last night Kate and Pat took the girls to Disney's Princesses on Ice at the Energy Solutions Arena (or the 'tox box' as we like to call it). Judging by the pictures, I'd say that a good time was had by all. Patrick and I stayed home and had a bechelor's night, eating junk food and playing Playstation.

Bean didn't really like when the dragon came out and the ice was set on fire.

The Royal Treatment

Whitney's friend had a birthday party at the Hollywood Connection last night. After the party the girls had a slumber party. Whitney was picked up in a limo and thought that she was in heaven. Whit struggled at church today because she was so tired, and we wondered how late she stayed up at the party. The question was answered when I found her at seven o'clock...

Sacked!

Froggy wanted to go too...

Hunting For Timberwolves

My friend James gave me a pair of tickets for tonight's Jazz game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. My Dad also gave me his pair. Since Whitney didn't want to go, she and Bean stayed with Grandma Pat and Kate and I took P and Samantha to the game. Kate and Samanth sat in Seamus' seats while P and I sat in my Dad's seats. As you can see from the pictures, a good time was had by all. You can also tell based on the content of the pictures who was snapping them...

Yes, that is Kyle Korver, and yes, that is our old friend Dick Bavetta...

Kate: He doesn't stay still long enough to get good pictures of him.

Me: That's why he's an upgrade from Giricek.

Story Time

We went live with a new software program at our mental health facility. I oversaw the project, so I had to dedicate most of my time working on it. But I was able to break away on Thursday to attend our Leadership Development Institute. At the LDI we heard from Dr. Dale Hull, and OB/GYN who broke his neck on a trampoline in 1999 and became a quadriplegic. He was told that he would have to use a sip/puff chair for the rest of his life, but in February of 2002 he carried the Olympic torch, running without assistance, and passed the torch to Karl Malone. It was an inspiring story, even for a cynic like me.

Speaking of stories, someone introduced me to a new web site this week: www.goodreads.com. I recommend registering as a user. I have listed all of the books that I have read, along with my ratings on those books. There is also a page to list your 'to-read' books and 'currently reading'. If you register, add me as a friend. You know how much I like to compare notes.

If the Jersey Fits...

Kate and I have been teasing each other about her 'crush' on Kyle Korver for more than a month now. She told me that I should buy her a Korver jersey. She didn't think I'd do it. I went to the NBA store and ordered one without her knowledge. I usually buy shirts XL for myself, so I figured that I'd get her a large. Before finishing the order I downgraded to a Medium, with some apprehension as to whether or not it would be too small for her. It arrived in the mail this week.

As you can see it is huge. This is why I never buy clothes for my wife. One of two things will happen:

A. I'll get it too big, (as in this case) and I'll get hit with 'What? Do you think I'm a whale?!'

B. I'll get it too small and hear 'You wish I was this small.'



I just avoid it altogether. The good thing that came from the Korver jersey is that Kate went down to the Fanzz store to get herself the right size, and while she was there bought Samantha a pink Deron Williams T-shirt. Last night Whitney asked me if she could have one too. I am slowly but Shirley converting my kids to Jazz fans. Maybe one day Patrick will want to wear my old Jose Ortiz Jazz jersey...

Makin' Bacon

When I was a kid there was a popular game called '6 degrees of Kevin Bacon'. The idea of the game is to name an actor and try to link him or her to Bacon through six movies. I hadn't heard of the game for a long time until I read an article in the Utah Daily Chronicle last week in which the writer mentioned it. So I decided to try if for myself. I know I'm not an actor, but here goes:



1. In the fall of 1998 I worked as a projectionist for dailies on a film called 'Drive Me Crazy'.



2. The love interest in the film was an actor named Adrian Grenier.




3. Grenier was also the love interest in the 2006 film 'The Devil Wears Prada'. The star of that film was Meryl Streep.

4. Streep starred in the 1994 thriller 'The River Wild'. The villian of the film was played by Kevin Bacon.

How about that? Less than 6 degrees.

A Monster of a Good Time

About a month ago Kate decided to get tickets to ‘Princesses on Ice’ at the Delta Center. Excuse me, I mean at the Energy Solutions Arena. She asked if she should get one for Patrick. I said no, that they could have a girl’s night out. She asked me what we would do for him. I answered that something cool would come up that he would enjoy. A week later we learned that the Monster Jam was coming to town. So Drew, Stretch, Patrick and I all went down to see the monster truck rally.







There are two reasons to attend an event like this: First is that Patrick loves to go. Second, I go to see carnage of wrecked trucks. Mr. P’s favorite parts were when two real transformer robots dueled it out and one of them exploded and when one of the monster trucks came down so hard that he destroyed the front end of his rig. The hood flew off, the front of the frame was mangled, and one of his tires bounced clear across the field.







Besides the wrecked truck, another truck burned up the engine (see the hummer with the smoke coming out the top below), and another destroyed his shocks and struts when he landed too hard. It was plenty of carnage to keep me entertained. Any time Patrick wants to go to monster trucks, I am in.

All pictures are courtesy of my friend Dan Smith, since I am a loser and forgot my camera.

Where the Buffalo Roam

I am now one week into a study of the nutritional effects of Bison meat. As a big meat eater, it was impossible to pass up the chance to participate in the study. Last Saturday I went in to get weighed, give a gallon of blood and a medical history. The study will watch for changes in cholestrol levels, among other things as I consume the meat week after week.

It is a double blind study. The participants are in two groups. For seven weeks one group will eat bison meat while the other will eat regular old beef. We do not know which group we've been placed in, and the researchers don't either. We will consume 12 oz. of meat every day during the 7 weeks. After the 7 weeks there will be a 30 day washout period, where we will return to our normal diets. Then we will switch meats and begin for another 7 weeks. I am pretty sure that I am in the bison group right now, so I'll be eating beef during the second part.

It's tough sacrificing my body in the name of science. It's a real burden to get 14 weeks of free meat along with a little extra cash in my pocket. My mother-in-law said that she'll start calling me 'Buffalo Bill'. I said that's fine as long as she doesn't call me 'Buffalo Chip'. That reminds me of a rival scout troop from when I was growing up. Their troop name was The Buffalo Chips and their chant went like this:

Buffalo chips,

Buffalo chips,

Soft as gum.

Buffalo chips,

Buffalo chips,

Yum yum yum!

P.S. if you know the difference between bison and buffalo please let me know. No one seems to know. The two terms seem to be used interchangably.

Brevity and Books

I'm Chris Melanoma. Patrick Shirley's wart. Not his wart. Not his wart! I'm... I'm the wart. He's my tumor. My... my growth. My... uh, my pimple. I'm Papa Wart. Just old Chris "Wart" Shirley. That's what they call me, or Melanoma Head. They'll call me that. "Melanoma Head's coming." I'm... father! Patrick Shirley's father!


Remember that kid from school who always had the warts? P boy is that kid. Kate has been working hard to get rid of the warts with the help of Dr. Scholls. He has one on his foot that is pretty big, and in order for the medicine to work, we have to peel off the dried medicine from the previous application. Patrick doesn't do pain. He is a guy after all. Recently I had to straddle him, holding his legs straight and pinning his arms to the side while the nurse worked her magic. My back was facing P's face, so he decided to head butt me to get me off. When that didn't work he resorted to a more dirty tactic. He blasted me with a man sized fart. And it worked. I let him go.


In light of this sordid tale I was concerned when I saw that he had a loose tooth this week. I knew he wouldn't pull it himself, but it needed to come out, and I didn't want to get defiled while doing it. Much to my amazement he pulled the tooth by himself. This is a breakthrough.


Now I just need to give him a quarter to go down and have a rat gnaw that thing off his foot.


I have always tried to instill a love of reading in my kids. I have tried to make time to read to them and help them develop of love of books. So you can imagine how happy I am to have the kids begging us to take them to library nearly every day. I can't take the credit, though. Kate was the one who introduced them to checking books out from the library.


Patrick picks out books that are for beginners, and has become a pretty good reader. Samantha picks whatever strikes her fancy, since Whit will read them to her. Bean doesn't care. She just likes to annoy the librarians with her yelling. Whitney will pick up three 100 page chapter books at a time, then finish all of them in one day.


I don't mind taking them to the library. It's one habit I will gladly feed. If they want to spend all of their time with books instead of Nintendos and cartoons, I can live with that.





I promised to take them to the library tonight. When we got there we found that it closes early on Friday night, so we weren't able to get new books. Whitney and Samantha were so upset that you would have thought someone had shot their dog...

Bean prefers Faulkner...

Rich Mom, poor Dad

For the first time ever I took my whole family to a Jazz game. My friend James gave me his tickets, and my Dad gave me his, so we were only two tickets short of being able to take the whole gang. Well, one ticket really. We only bought one, then snuck Bean in. We sat in our designated seats for the first half, with Kate, Whit and Samantha in my Dad's seats and me with Patrick and Bean across the arena. In the second half we found a whole empty row near the top of the arena, and went to sit up there. It was nice because we could let the kids run amok and not worry about them bothering anyone. It was a good time, even though the Jazz barely won against a woeful New York Knicks team.



We hit dinner at the old Crown Burger, and Kate told the kids to eat well, because she was not going to buy anything at the game. But at half time she broke down and bought them popcorn and soda. Then after the game she stopped and bought them Jazz memorabilia. The kids were shocked that someone would buy them stuff at the game, and the next day Patrick admitted that he'd rather go to the game with Kate than me because of it. "She buys me stuff." He admitted. What can I say? I'm cheap.



I was glad that the whole family went, especially Kate. I haven't been able to get her to go to a game with me for years. It all stems from an incident after game 6 of the 1998 NBA finals, when the JAzz lost to the Bulls. After the game I acted poorly and embarrased her. I think her renewed interest in the Jazz is tied directly to the acquisition of Kyle Korver, a shooting guard the Jazz got in a trade for Gordan Giricek. She thinks he's a handsome devil, and calls him Ashton Kutcher. I hate that she calls him that because I hate that Kutcher bastard and wish he'd die. Korver, on the other hand, is a good kid, and a damn fine shooter. Not that Kate will ever know that...

Sledding, Round Two

I decided to take the video camera along on our sledding trip this afternoon. The weather was sunny, the crowds were light, and the kids had a great time, except for Bean, who made an early exit to go home and take a nap.

Enjoy the video. But before some of you smart arses (Jeff, Chas) point out that I used a song about surfing, let me point out two things: first, the wind was loud enough that you couldn't hear anything, so I need a song, and the one I picked was just the right length. Second, after watching some of the antics of Patrick, Whit and G-Pa Stretch, I felt that the surfing song fit.

When you watch my Dad forget not that the man is nearly 60. And just for reference, I tried the jump that Patrick repeatedly tried, and I too eventually conquered it.

Our Weatherman sucks

Last night I watched the news to see how much snow I was going to have to shovel before heading off to my orthodontist appointment this morning. He predicted 5 inches throughout the day today. I woke up this morning to find a foot of powder on the driveway. By the time I got home (at 9:30AM) we were up to 15 inches. But I can't complain. Anyone who has as good a helper as Patrick will never complain about shovelling too much snow. I guess the kids will get to use that new sled this year after all...

Keeping us in stitches

During a water cooler conversation at work last week I mentioned to a co-worker that Kate and I had spent our fair share of time in Emergency Rooms with our kids' stitches, broken limbs and skull fractures. I also mentioned that it had been quite some time since our last incident. I shouldn't have said anything. I jinxed us.

Sunday night at Pat's house Samantha was running on the slate tile floor while wearing tights and no shoes. As she rounded the corner her feet slipped out from underneath her. She used only her chin to break the fall. She gashed her chin open.

Samantha was very brave as the doctor sewed her up. She didn't even flinch. In the end she had 8 stitches. The scar from this injury will end where the scar from her last stitches starts. It will look like one long scar.

Jet-Patrick

This is a picture of Patrick and his home made jet pack. If you can't tell what is involved, we have Patrick, Spiderman and a pillow all held together by a stolen bungee cord. I don't know where that boy gets his imagination...

Slip-Sliding Away

When Grandpa Stretch suggested that we take the kids tubing on New Year's Day I thought he was crazy. My intention for that day was to sleep in as long as I could and then sit on me arse watching college football. But my kids had never been sledding or tubing, and I decided that we should go. We found a park just down the street from my house, and while Kate and I hiked to the top of the hill with the kids, my Dad set up a space heater at the bottom and heated some water for hot chocolate.

Dad brought two tubes, while Kate and I brought our little orange disc. The tubes were perfect for the little kids because they weren't as fast. A couple of the sled runs had jumps built in. I took the little disc off of one of the jumps, and the kids were impressed. Kate decided to try it, and I warned her to be careful on the landing, as it was really hard. She took off down the hill with P Man on her lap. As she went off the jump Patrick flew up in the air and came down hard on top of her. He was fine, but Kate taught all the little kiddies on the hill a few new words.

This was my first time tubing since I was nearly killed on a hill at the Spruces Campground almost 17 years ago. We were on a Boy Scout over-nighter. We found out later that scouts aren't allowed to go tubing. Based on our experience I can understand why. That Saturday morning after breaking camp we found a perfect tubing hill. Well, nearly perfect. There were several boulders placed about ten feet apart across the bottom of the hill, probably to prevent people from tubing. But being the resourceful scouts that we were, we made a run on one side of the clearing, which curved off neatly before the rocks. We would hike halfway up the hill, place the tube on our ramp, and flew to the bottom, just to come to a nice gentle stop.


Eric and I had hiked to the top of our run when we heard the scout master call 'Last run!' We looked at each other and decided that the last run had to be the best, so we hiked the rest of the way up the hill and got a running start. We were both on the tube, heads pointed down hill. Because we were on fresh snow, we had no control, and missed the ramp. We were in the middle of the clearing. As speed increased I looked up to see one of he huge boulders screaming toward my face. My Dad was standing on top of the stone, holding the square nosed shovel that he had used to form our ramp.


We had no way to stop. As we approached the boulder, Dad reached out as far as he could and whacked the tube with the shovel. The handle even hit me in the ribs. I saw a grey blur as the stone whizzed past my face. I don't know if we would have hit the rock without the bump, but I am glad I don't know. Eric and I skidded to a stop and I rolled off the tube. 'Yep.' I said. "Last run. Let's go.' Coincidentally, the tubes we used this week were the same ones we used all those years ago. Of course my Dad still had them.

Samantha and Hannah on the bigger hill. Note the well-placed tires on the trees.

Samantha and Bean on the small hill just before Samanth rolled of the tube and dragged Bean's face through the snow.

I think Grandpa Stretch wore that same Utah Jazz/Doritos stocking cap on our last tubing trip 17 years ago.

This is me, surfing on the orange disc...

And this is me falling on my head.

My Dad was a little more skilled with the surfing. ButI am sure Chas could have schooled us all.

A good time was had by all. The crowds weren't too bad, and the weather was perfect. The kids have been begging to go again, and I promised to take them out this Saturday. The only problem is that we've had such warm weather this week that most of the snow is melted. They'll have to wait until the next snowstorm.

All pictures courtesy Allison Farnsworth