I bleed red (not pink)

Every 8 weeks the University and ARUP sponsor a blood drive, and being the good citizen that I am I donate. Today was my 8 weeks, so I rolled up a sleeve and dropped a pint.

The phlebotomist who took my blood was a nice young lady and I thought that she was good, because she could probably put people who are nervous about needles at ease.

After the donation she asked which color of bandage I wanted. Looking at my options of purple, bright pink, green and light blue, realizing that I was wearing a white shirt I said, "Well, since I have a purple tie on, how about purple?"

She tied the bandage off and then before I realized what was happening she had adorned it with a little pink bow. I looked at the bow and said, "I guess this means that you think I'm gay, huh?"

I think I hurt her feelings.

Father’s and Son’s campout 2007

When it comes to updating the blog, it’s either feast or famine. Right now it is ‘feast’. The month of July is typically the busiest of the year for me and my family. So while there is no shortage of blog-worthy material, the time needed to post is scarce. So if my events are a little late, please excuse me.

Every time I post I get questions about Omnibot. Everyone wants to know when they will be able to hear from him again. The answer to your question is: As soon as I hear from him. He found a little blonde that he refers to as ‘Paris’ and the two of them skipped. I will let you know when and where they turn up. And just for the record, it wasn’t my ‘Ostertag’ hands that caused his amputation. The little turd was wriggling around like a fish on a hook and mumbling something about ‘the promised land’ when he slipped from my grasp.

But that’s not why you came. Last weekend my Dad’s ward had their annual father’s and son’s campout at Rockport reservoir. So P-Boy and I tagged along with my Dad and Chas. Patrick was so excited to go with me that five minutes after arriving he ditched me to go fishing with some other little boy and the boy’s father. So I stayed to help set up camp, which was immediately under the dam spillway, which didn’t seem quite right to me.

Dinner consisted of the camping staple hamburger and veggies wrapped in tin foil. Can you really go wrong with that? I say no. But the highlight of the night was dessert. Grandpa Stretch was in charge of desserts, so he brought several Dutch ovens and made 4 different flavors of cobbler. I brought my Dutch ovens and made my usual raspberry bread pudding which was a hit. I also made an applesauce cake, which was a first-time recipe, so I figured Dad’s ward could be the guinea pigs. We stuffed ourselves with desserts until we slipped into a coma.

Pay attention to the picture of Patrick with a box on his head. He was goofing off, and it reminded me of an incident Chas had when he was about the same age. Chas had been walking around our driveway with a large cardboard tube over his body, which pinned his arms down; only his head protruded from the top. Alley’s boyfriend of the time, Russ thought it would funny to push him over and then catch him at the last second. Russ missed and Chas had no defense against the oncoming concrete. To this day, over 15 years later, that still remains the most awful sound I have ever heard. I asked Chas if he was also reminded of the incident, and he said no. Of course, he doesn’t remember it…

I have also included some pictures of my Dad’s walking stick, because I think it is cool and I am jealous that he has the skills to carve. Each time he goes camping he carves an image relating to a theme of the camp. The stick includes an Indian head, and eagle, snakes, square knots, spiders, a canoe, a tower and the angel Moroni.

Saturday morning we went waterskiing, and though Patrick didn’t ski, he was my flag man, since I spent more time in the water than up on the skis. I have found that I am one of the few people who still uses skis. It’s all about the wake boards nowadays. Chas wasn’t able to get up on the wake board and became incensed when the bishop suggested that he should be good because it is just like surfing. “They’re nothing alike.” He maintains.

All in all a good time was had by all and we look forward to next year’s father’s and son’s campout.

Circus McGurkus

We spent last week in Las Vegas on family vacation. The drive down there from Salt Lake takes about six hours. We made it with only 1 and two-thirds stops. I say two-thirds because I don’t count pulling off to the side of the road for Patrick to barf as ‘stops’. Before coming home we stopped and bought some Dramamine, which was like manna from heaven.

While down there we got together with old friends Eric and Cathy Roberts and children for ice cream and Cathy seemed stunned that anyone would voluntarily go down there in July. “What do you do here?” she asked. Mostly we spent our time swimming. The condo had two great pools, and we let the kids stay up late, sleep in and swim to their hearts’ content.

We also got together one night with Jordan and Nikki Brown so that the kids could spend some time with their cousin Warren.

On Tuesday we went over and got the kids day passes to the Adventure Dome at Circus Circus. Bean didn’t appreciate the rides that much, but we discovered that Samantha is the real daredevil of the kids. After dinner time the place cleared out, and some times the kids had the whole ride to themselves. We even got Whitney to go on a huge roller coaster all by herself.

On the way back we got an up close and personal view of the fire that a week earlier had jumped I-15 and has burned down most of Utah. I would show some pictures, but everyone was asleep except me, and I couldn’t drive and take pictures at the same time.

We thought that our last night in Vegas would be spent in the ER, as Patrick (who else?) gashed his eye open on the corner of a dresser. He may have a scar, but hey, we saved a co-pay.

On the whole it was a fun trip and it was hard to come home and go back to work.

Home Improvement

When it comes to home improvement projects it is fair to refer to me as Tim, the Tool Man Taylor. My father may be a genius when it comes to manual labor, but he didn’t pass it on. Hopefully it just skips a generation. So I was not surprised when I read in an article a couple of weeks ago that men are 10 times more likely to get hurt during home improvement projects than women.

However, this week Kate proved that article wrong, at least for now. The paint in all bedrooms has become worn and gross, and Kate has been working hard to get a fresh coat up. She did a bang up job in the kids’ rooms, and Wednesday night we started on our room.
Of course, before we started Kate had to add her signature self aggrandizement on the wall. She never fails to do this.













Kate cut in while I followed her with the roller. Near the end of the first coat, I was hunched over getting more paint on my roller when I heard a crash behind me. It seems that Kate had the idea that if the TV stand could hold a set that weighs less than her that it could hold her too. She was wrong. She had been standing on the edge of the cheap particle board construction when it gave way. Fortunately she escaped with little more than a bruised ego and a huge bruise on her arse, which she wouldn’t let me photograph for the blog. I told her it was for posterity. She said her posterior was not to be shown to posterity.

But when Kate fell she arose such a clatter that Whitney burst from her room to see what was the matter.

Whitney: Mom? Did you break the TV?

Kate: (Groaning) No. The TV’s fine.

Whitney: So we can watch cartoons in here in the morning?


I’m glad to know that Whit has her priorities straight. I’m also glad that Kate didn’t spill any paint…

All joking aside I must publicly say how grateful I am to have Kate as my bride. Today marks 9 years since we were wed. She still hasn’t become sick of me yet, which is a tremendous reflection of her patience and character.

Charles Barkley was Wrong

This week I was reminded why I love my job. I had the opportunity to travel to Oakland for a site visit to another hospital. After listening to the Chuckster on TNT during the playoffs I was expecting to descend into the 7th circle of hell. I thought it was rather nice. Although I must concede that I actually stayed in Walnut Creek (isn’t that the town from Little House in the Prairie?) which is not really Oakland. Nonetheless it was a nice, albeit short trip.

The flight from Salt Lake to Oakland wasn’t too bad, even though I had the middle seat. The young lady next to me nearly drove me insane with her fidgeting. Lean forward, peer out the window, lean back, try to cross legs. Lean forward, rummage through bag, lean back, try to take a nap. Shift left, shift right, do the hokey pokey and turn yourself about. The man next to me who had the aisle seat I coveted was so large that, according to the flight attendant in the unlikely event of a water splashdown he could be used as a floatation device.

The flight back was even more entertaining. We took off just as some thunderstorms were rolling in, so we had a really rough start. It wasn’t too bad, and reminded me of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. The woman behind me became the first person I have ever witnessed actually using one of ‘those little bags’. The best thing about the flights was that I was able to finish 1984. For my comments on that book look for them on http://admittingsbookclub.blogspot.com/.

The trip would have been uneventful had it not been for the fact that the vendor who invited us lost one of our party. We spent the morning Tuesday on a site visit in another hospital. After the visit we piled into the Escalades that they picked us up in and headed for a nice restaurant. We were continually changing vehicles from stop to stop just to mix it up, and no one noticed that Sandy, our house supervisor had been left at the hospital. At least she hadn’t been left there when we left to go to the airport.

The hospital we visited was much like ours. The bed count was similar, they also had multiple buildings with inpatient units and, most importantly, like us their official company bird was the one-legged yellow crane.

At dinner Monday night I had the following exchange:

Vendor: Glasses up! I would like to propose a toast. (Pause) Hey, you can’t toast with
a glass of water! Get some wine.

Nursing Director: He doesn’t drink. Don’t you know you’re in the middle of a bunch of
Utah ‘Mo’s?

Vendor: Mos?

Director: Mormons. We’re all a bunch of Mormons, but Chris is the only good one who
doesn’t drink.

Me: Except I’m not the only one who taught Sunday School yesterday….

Despite being singled out as the only Latter Day Saint in the group, I was somewhat vindicated when I got back to the hotel and opened the drawer expecting to find a Holy Bible when what to my wondering eyes should appear?

No Bible, just a trusty Book of Mormon.

And strangely enough I was the only one who was up on time and didn’t have a splitting headache during the site visit on Tuesday morning….

Back in the Saddle Again

It has been a couple of weeks since my last post, because our home computer was on the fritz. I realize that I could have updated the goings-on of the Shirley crew from my lap top, but I couldn’t take pictures from the camera to the lap top. And since everyone has made it abundantly clear that they only care about the photos, I waited.
We have spent most of our time recently moving Pat and Drew to their new house. But more about that later, after I think about how I can make fun of them.
The big news is that Patrick graduated from pre-school. Now if he could just wake up dry in the morning, we’ll be happy. Anyway, being that dead beat Dad that I am I didn’t make the big event. But I was amused at the pictures Kate took. Take a gander and see if you can notice the tell tale sign of which kid is mine.

Did you see it? Yes, mine is the only child who showed up to graduation bare foot. Supposedly he had shoes when they left the house, but they mysteriously ‘disappeared’ only to be found when they got home. Go figure. He will not wear shoes. So be it. He can just turn out like uncle Chas.

A Little Fruity

We weren’t going to have a bog hoo-haw on the 4th of July, but the day before I found out from Brett that Alley was not going to host a party, so we had the crew over to our place, and it was a nice party. We were hoping that Jeff would bring some fireworks, but he couldn’t grace us with his presence. You see, he’s getting married on Saturday, and he is already on a leash. Somehow I don’t think he will give me a hard time about Kate not letting me do things with the guys anymore.
In preparation for the 4th of July feast Kate made a chocolate dipped fruit basket. When I took pictures and mentioned that they were blog-worthy, she threatened that if I made fun of it on the blog she would kill me. I explained that I thought her creation was very clever, and that there was nothing to make fun of. Anyway, I only make fun of Pat on the blog, since Pat cannot threaten me with ‘no sex’, like Kate can…

Bean discovered a new friend in Tara. I hear the two are planning a girls-only vacation together.