My day with Janette

Silly Nettie

Janette and I went fishing today. She has asked me numerous times to take her, and so today, we drove up to the North Fork of the Duchesne River, 110 miles from home. What a great day, even though we didn't catch any fish. There's still a very heavy run off and the river is higher and faster than I have ever seen it before; add to that the rain that was persistent, and we didn't get to fish all that much.

We had a lot of fun though. We joked, and did movie lines from Bug's Life, Monsters Inc., The Princess Bride, and a few others. We also ate a bunch of Red Vines, apples, and hit the drug store in Kamas for cheeseburgers and onion rings par excellence. I'd call it a fantastic day, and being with my wonderful, beautiful daughter made it all the better.

I'm finally including some pictures! Ye haw!

STYX, fishing, and other things

Jodi and I went to the STYX-REO Speedwagon-.38 Special concert last night down at the new Rio Tinto Soccer stadium. A good concert indeed, but STYX rocked the joint so much better than the other two bands. Awesome show for sure. We saw the concert with our next door neighbors/friends Julie and Chris Christensen. STYX played as tight a set as I've heard in concert only comparable to Tom Petty.

Yesterday morning I went fishing with my older brother Sterling, and his son Clark, down on the Strawberry River below Soldier Creek dam. Beautiful scenery, but nada in the way of catching anything. I have never seen the river that dead before. Oh well, it was great just to be out and have some time to reflect on things.

I had to let one of my best people go at work this week, then I brought him back on for 30 days. It's really, really complicated and I feel no desire to hash out the details because I'll get a migrane just thinking of how things came about.

Jodi finished baby sitting the two little boys next door, Cam and Jax (Julie and Chris' two youngest). I think Jodi is ready for the break, but she had a great time with the boys. Cameron is my little buddy on Friday's, and he and I usually go to 7-11 and get a Slurpee and Kit-Kat bar for a treat. It's a lot of fun to hang around the little kids because to them life is uncomplicated, and the world around them is exciting and fun.

I need to post some pictures, don't I? Well, when I get some worth posting, I will. I would've liked to had some pictures from last nights concert. Middle aged women whose bodies are NOT what they use to be need some serious coverage on them. It was a freak show to some extent, yet greatly intertaining to see those who just can't give up their youth gracefully. Quadruple E breast sizes, one hundred pounds too much weight, and a pack of smokes in your bra cup with them big old jello jigglers sticking out is not fashionable to say the least. Cover those things up or reveive a fine for visually polluting the environment. Sheesh!

I'll make this short

Today, God answered my prayer. Because the answer is so profound to me, I dare not share it because I feel that it will lose its meaning to me. Needless to say, the answer is going to allow me to do with my life that which has been neglected for many, many years. A weight has been lifted off of my chest!

I guess to a certain extent that the talks given during General Conference resonated within my heart with power and light. Now I need to get going with my life and quit thinking of my squandered past. Thank you President Uchtdorf and Elder Holland. Thank you so very much for the words you spoke. Inspirational does not begin to describe their effect.

Oh boy

It has been forever and a day since I last got on here and wrote anything. When I said that I sucked at this blogging thing, I wasn't joking around.

The weather was beautiful today, although I would've liked the temps to be a few degrees higher, but it was a nice day nonetheless. Lazy day, too. Sat around and watched General Conference, napped (Sunday naps are the greatest) and went a little drive with Jodi around west Layton and Syracuse.

I've been trying to get the new bathroom completed downstairs so that Jodi and I can reclaim our personal bathroom and the spare. Janette uses the spare as a dance/singing studio, and Chris always stinks our master bathroom up. Speaking of Chris and bathrooms, Thursday, Jodi calls me up at work and tells me that I need to come home because the spare bathroom toilet is overflowing. So I break from what I'm doing, rush home, and sure enough, Chris clogged up the toilet.

This is not the first time that he has given birth to a small animal and the animal has caused me to completely disassemble the toilet to extricate it. Three hours later, a whole lot of swear words uttered, a new wax ring, flush valve, and two pairs of poop encrusted latex gloves later, the small animal was removed and toilet working again.

I have no idea what that kid goes through when he takes a dump, but I have to think that he's in terrible pain. I asked him if he bled, or might need a spinal block next time. The way I see it, with the time that I had to take off of work, the cost of replacement parts, and my labor included, Chris owes me at least three hundred dollars for emergency turd removal. Yuk, yuk, yuk, yuk, yuk!

In other news.

I have a great dispassion for Barrack Obama, but I'll leave that for another discussion. My job is there-not fulfilling-but just there. At least I still have one and I'm eternally grateful for it. IF only I could get rid of two or three individuals, I'd be fine. (Maybe they want to get rid of me?)

One guy, age 64, needs to retire. Everyday is a new health malady that he has to tell everyone about. For the past two weeks it has been about his hemorrhoids, and at certain times each day he grabs the Preparation H and heads for the head to apply the daily smear. He hocks up lung oysters every morning and to be honest, ENOUGH!

The other two guys have three brain cells between them, the one have two and seven eighths of those brain cells. I wont give out names, but if you met them, you'ld concur with me.

Well, it's past my bed time. I've overused my quota for this month. Later, ya'll!

I suck at blogging

So, what do you think? I'm a terrible blogger, and I will not deny it. Blogging competency is not one of my new years goals, so don't anyone go holding their breath.

Happy New Years' to everyone. I admit that it is good to have 2008 in the history books. '08 certainly had some good aspects to it ,and some not so wonderful aspects to it.

Since my last posting, my dad has been in the Avalon Care Facility not far from his home in Bountiful. He was transfered there after being released from Ogden Regional over a month ago. While there, Dad has emproved for the most part, having gone thru a lot of speach and physical therapy. Dad lost his ability to swallow after his emergency surgery and part of the speach therapy has been in trying to get him to swallow again. He has had to eat thru a feeding tube that goes in thru his nose.
Today, Dad had a feeding tubing surgically implaced thru his abdomen and Mom is bringing him home, hopefully for good. Mom is going to have her hands full taking care of Dad, and she'll be assisted by an in home health specialist.

Anyway, I will try to be better on updating this blog, but as I stated previously, don't hold your breath.

Thanksgiving

Well, this has been one of the most difficult Thanksgiving's I've ever had. Last night, Thanksgiving eve, while I was working on a home project, (installing a new phone line into the office--Nettie's old room) my older brother, Sterling, called me up from Lakeview hospital in Bountiful and told me that mom had to be admitted to the emergency room because her heart rate had sped up and could not be regulated, and that he needed me down there to help give her a blessing.

Mom's problems were the culmination of the tremendous stresses she's been going thru taking care of dad, whose health is deteriorating rapidly. Sterling and I talked to mom for a little while after we gave her the blessing, and she is truly fearful that dad will pass away shortly. Sterling and I had to console her, yet we had to firmly bring up the idea that it is time to put dad in a care facility these last days/months that he will be around.

After Ster and I left the hospital, I went over to mom and dad's house to check up on dad. My older sister, Maureen, was there taking care of dad and trying to get things set up for the Thanksgiving meal today. When I got there dad was a wreck. He was just, there. He has become a shell of his former self, and seeing him lying in his bed all crippled up was excruciatingly difficult to bare. I decided that it would be best to stay the night with dad and try to help him out however I could. I called Jodi and received her blessing, and thus ensued one of the hardest night's of my life without a shadow of a doubt.

I never thought that the day would come where I had to be the caregiver to my dad. I had to help him relieve himself, take his medications, change his clothes, and make sure that he didn't fall down the stairs. I slept the better part of three hours, intermittently, through the night because dad required so much attention. It was a night, I admit, that I cried because this is not what Dad should be going thru, yet he is. I left mom and Dads' house around six thirty this morning and drove home, where physically, emotionally, and spiritually I was exhausted and went to bed.

Jodi called up her parents and told them that we wouldn't be having Thanksgiving dinner at our house today, to which they were agreeable to, and we scheduled to get together tomorrow. I am thankful that mom was released from the hospital this morning, thankful that I have a loving family, thankful that I'm home from Kuwait, enjoy good health, and that my dad is the greatest dad a guy could ask for. Pretty damned awesome if you ask me.

I hope everyone else had a great day today.

Random Thoughts

Drill weekend this weekend, my first since returning back from Kuwait in September. It was good to be back with the 'guys' from my shop. I have a great bunch of guys in my shop, and if it were not for their dedication, my job out there wouldn't be fun at all. Juan Vasquez is my main go to guy, a real equalizer when I get all worked up over something stupid. There's also Brian Scholle, Steve Voigt, Rick Ebert, Eduardo Robles, Brian Teel, and Brent Nielson. Ed and Teel deployed with me to Kuwait.


One thing that did suck today was the flu vaccination. We use to get injections, but now those of us who are under 49 and 1/2 get the vaccine via a nasal mist. Yum. Nothing like inhaling flu serum and having it drain down the back of your throat. I'm a bonafide wimp when it comes to needles, but compared to the mist I'll take the needle anyday. I remember basic training when we would go through the cattle shoot for our vaccinations and they were administered by air injection. The airmen who gave the injections were in training themselves and I think some of them were sado-masochistic henchmen who loved to see the recruits writhe in abject pain and suffering.

November is now here. Where in the world has this year gone? Wow. I love November because this is Thanksgiving time,and that is my favorite holiday time of the year. And fishing should be kicking butt should I ever get out.