Rees' Birthday Puzzle

Rees loves jigsaw puzzles. I can spend all day putting together a puzzle, taking it apart and then putting it back together again. He has several large floor puzzles. One of his favorites is one that his Grandma has. It is the United States where every piece is a different state. I bought one similar to it for him and gave it to him today. He spend the rest of the morning putting it together and then taking it apart. I helped him on one of the iterations and at the end we were missing two states.

"Rees, we are missing two pieces." I informed him.
"Where are they?"
"I don't know. Let's look for them. Stand up."
He stands up and shakes his body violently.
"Nope. Not there. How many pieces are there Daddy?", he asked while looking for the answer on the box.
"70 pieces."
Then without skipping a beat he said, "That means we only have 68 pieces."

That is one sharp kid.

Today is Rees' 5th birthday.

Today is Rees' 5th birthday. Hard to believe. Wouldn't trade him for anything. Happy birthday buddy!

10s, 100s, 1000s

One of the things I gave Jess for Valentine's Day was a 4.5 lb of Mike & Ike candy (hopeless romantic I know). When I was gone this past week, Jess put the candy in a large jar and placed the jar in the middle of the kitchen table. Rees was really excited to tell me about it when he picked me up from the airport.

"Dad, guess what?" he asked.
"What?"
"Mom got a big jar of jelly beans. There are hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Billions. Trillions."

After each quantity, both Jess and I were wondering how high up he would go. I am not sure how he learned to go beyond thousands.

Yo no soy marinero

Rees asked me the name of the silliest captain.
"Ummm... Captain Silly Pants."
"Nope."
"Captain Doodle-Doo."
"Nope."
The James suggested, "Captain Peter Pan."
"Captain Potato Pie?" responded Rees. "No James. It is Captain Einsteins."

Admittedly, James can be difficult to understand at times but Rees' interpretation was great.

Navy Seals Training

While I was out at Fallon NAS this past week testing robots, the navy seals were on the range at the same time running some training exercises. Seahawk helicopters were whirling around overhead with 50 caliber machine guns (shooting blanks) shooting at imaginary bad guys on the ground. A couple times they blocked the road I was driving on and was forced to wait for their operation to move up the road. As I was waiting, I shot this video using my cell phone.

Round Table Pizza

One fond memory of my childhood is of Round Table Pizza. There used to be one up on Wasatch Blvd. I used to bike up there to play video games and play songs on the jukebox. I remember the King Arthur's Supreme pizza but I don't remember how often I ate it. I think that they sponsored the intramural program at Churchill Jr. High which could explain why I would eat there since my Dad was a coach there. A lot of my youth is interlaced with that school. Most of the pictures of me growing up are of me wearing some sort of Churchill branded clothing. I imagine I also got some coupons for the King Arthur's Supreme from time to time. I can't imagine how else a 10 year old could afford to buy pizza. The restaurant closed its doors long ago. I think there is a Wasatch Pizza there now. We have eaten there a couple of times and it still looks the same as when Round Table was there but it is not the same restaurant that I used to bike to just to listen to some really lame music on the jukebox (lame since I would not be caught dead listening to it now).

Last night as I was driving through Fallon, NV I saw off to the side of the highway a Round Table Pizza! I made up my mind right then to stop there today for lunch.

It. Was. Delicious.

The King Arthur Supreme was just as I remembered it. Now that I think about it more, I subconsciously compare all meaty pizzas to the KAS. Just freakin' awesome. There was not jukebox but it did have the same type of arcade games that I remember from the old one up on Wasatch.

One more photo:

Crowd Control

I am reading "An Ordinary Spy" by Joseph Weisberg. One of the lines that stuck out was this:

In American cities, large groups of people divide naturally into lanes to facilitate getting down a crowded street. Here, two masses just pushed forward, bumping and weaving as they went.

It struck me as funny since I had just gone through the airport terminal and found no order, no lanes. Just masses randomly moving, stopping on a whim and then quickly doing a 180, barely missing anyone nearby. The airport must be an exception.

I think about that quite a bit though. How natural it is to walk on the right side of the hallway or moving to the right if someone is walking towards me. I imagine people in Europe must move to the left. I then think how interesting it would be to study. Maybe I can find a book on fluid mechanics and how it applies to traffic and travel.

Maybe then I can find the answer to why people don't use both doors of a double door to enter and exit. Instead they queue up, squeezing in through the one door that someone happened to open. If no one had opened that door, would they line up and wait? Come to think about it, it is always the right door that is used.

Hats

For some reason James has a fascination with hats. Knit hats. Here are a couple of shots that I took tonight.

Everyone's a Critic

Almost every night after the kids lie down, we talk about something. Usually we sing two stanzas of 'Old McDonald' (horse and cow), then sing 'Lady with the Alligator Purse', and end with 'Silly Sally'. Lately the kids have been shouting out how to sing 'Lady with the Alligator Purse'. Things like 'Faster!' or "Super fast!' and sometimes 'Slower'. Tonight as I was singing the song 'Faster!' Rees shouted 'Better!'.

National Champs!

I saw this sign the other day on 300 West near downtown. Today I snapped this picture. If you can't read what it says, it reads:

CONGRATULATIONS
UTAH UTES
2008-2009
NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
13-0

Sledding

A couple of weeks ago, I went sledding with the stake young men at Sugarhouse park. It has been a long time since I have been sledding. Jason always gets on my case for not going tubbing anymore. I just keep telling him I am too old. Probably not true but I am too lazy. Anyway sledding with the young men. Grabbed my sled and sprinted up the hill. Once at the top, I got a running start and launched myself head first down the hill.

It. Was. Awesome.

I flew down the hill and almost made it to my car. I got up and sprinted up the hill again. This time I went down on my knees holding the side of the sled with my hands. I chattered across the ice, got back up and hustled up the hill. When I got to the top I noticed that I had forgotten to put on my gloves. Not only that, I done a real good job of cutting up my hands, which were now bleeding quite profusely. Luckily I had borrowed Jess' mittens which did the job of staunching the blood.

I continued to go down and up the hill, with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I would make it all the way down unscathed, other times I would biff it big time. One such wipe out found me upside down in the air, launching square on my back on the ice.

It. Really. Hurt.

At that time I thought I cracked or bruised a rib. I knew that if I stopped it would begin to hurt more so I kept the blood flowing. Don't know if that made since to do or not but I am okay now. I did go to the doctor this past week because it still really hurt. No cracked or broken rib. Just the order to stop playing basketball for a couple of weeks. That advice lasted about seven hours. Should have listened to him. Playing basketball with bruised rib is not pleasant.

So now I am sidelined for another two weeks.

Second and Third Coats

I decided to paint over the sharpie on the wall. Everyone here was pretty pissed about it. It only solidifies the general mindset of working to not screw up instead of doing your best. Here is a picture of the primed surface.

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Stranger Danger

Last night I took the boys with me to my ward basketball game. They had fun at the game and we went home and I put them to bed. When they got up this morning they asked about a bag of animals that they had last night at the game. Rees said that they left the bag at the church. I knew I'd be thinking about it all day so I went by the church on my way into work. Just as I pulled up, a large white van pulled up next to me. I got out of the car and walked up to the door. At that moment Jess called to tell me that the boys had found their bag of animals. As I walked back to the car, the man from the van had gotten out and said,
"Do you have keys?".
To which I simply replied, "Yes."
He then looked at me expectently and finally asked, "Can you let me in?"
"Umm... Why yes random stranger with a large white van, allow me. What's that? You need a hand carrying out that large TV? Certainly.", I thought.
I asked, "Who are you?"
"We're doing the drapes. The other worker has the keys. Who are you?"
"I'm the guy with the keys so keep your trap shut", I thought.
Then another van pulled up with keys and I was off.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T take out the R-E-S-P-E-C-T

There are days where I wonder why I still work here. Days where I come in to the office and find that the boss has taken a sharpie and written on the wall, venting his frustrations at us peons. Today was such a day.
A close up:


I wonder if I have a file somewhere. I imagine a ledger with tick marks for all the stuff that I have done wrong (pretty big ledger). Maybe I have a list of demerits. "One more demerit Berrett and you can't have a lollipop!". Or maybe I will have to stay after work and write on the chalkboard 500 times "I will not screw anything up based on a set of arbitrary set standards."
Here is a shot of the last rant. This one was epic. I left work the day before around midnight (yes. 12AM). When I came back in around 8AM this was on the wall.

If you look closely at the first two pictures, you may be able to see where the wall was repainted from this incident.
In all fairness, it must be difficult for him to work with us mere mortals, fallible as we are.

It is better to be good, than to not

Yesterday, one of my friends from high school posted online that she was having computer problems and wanted to know if anyone could help her solve them. I quietly ignored the post. Today she asked if anyone knew how to rescue the pictures and video that she had on her hard drive since her computer would not boot. For some reason I decided to help. I am glad I did. It was fun to catch up with her while I was waiting for the files to be transferred off her hard drive on to a USB drive.
The best part was "dinner". She offered me a pear or a banana. I took the pear. She then offered me some low-fat blueberry muffins. I accepted. The file transfer started and I took my dish up to the bar in the kitchen. I sat next to her son and chatted with him as he ate his dinner. My friend then put some apple slices on my plate and then her son's. Then she gave us a yogurt. Later as I recounted the meal to Jess, I realized that not only was that the same food that we give our boys but that my friend unconsciously fed me a meal just like she was feeding her son.
Good times.

New Toilet and Training

We got a new toilet recently. It is a corner toilet. Took a bit of effort to install it. One of the features is that it is dual flush or as we explained it to Rees, this button for pee-pee and this button for poop. I was helping him clean up after using the toilet the other day when he stopped to think and then said, "I think I did both." He then pushed both buttons on the toilet and the same time.