Interesting Joke From a 3 Year Old

Audrey: "Knock, Knock."

Em: "Who's there?"

"Willamina."

"Willamina, who?"

"I want some candy!!"

Audrey told Em this joke in church on Sunday. She just made it up on her own, as far as we know. She's really been going with her imagination recently and it's been great to see and hear how her mind works.

Oh Deer!

Do you ever have those moments where you have a near-miss event and you think of the one or two things you could have done differently and that would have been YOU in the circumstance?

I had that happen to me this morning.

I was on my way home from work in a pretty decent mood (because of how well things went for the first day of the week) and wanted to get home a soon as I could. I take a semi-rural route to and from work instead of the freeway because the scenery is better.

Today, the scenery almost got me.

I was coming up to a part of the road where it went from one lane to two for a bit to let traffic merge and there was a slower car two cars in front of me and an older red VW Jetta directly in front of me who REALLY seemed to be in a hurry. When we got to the second lane, the Jetta went around as fast as they could and zoomed off. I decided I wasn't in that big a hurry so I stayed behind the other car as the two lanes merged back into one.

About 15 seconds later a small herd (about 6 or 8) deer came running as fast as they could across the road in front of us. They were far enough ahead that I didn't feel the need to slow down much, but when the car in front of me got the the crossing point, they slowed waaay down.

I thought they were being a bit too overly cautious now, but realized when they went around the fresh accident scene that a deer had been struck. I didn't know it until they stopped a bit further up, but the red Jetta hit one directly and pulled off to inspect the damage.

I pondered for a moment as I passed by them and decided to turn around in case anyone was hurt. It turned out that they were physically ok, but the car was pretty well totaled. Not only had they hit a deer head on, but a SECOND one broadsided the driver side of the car.

I asked them if they needed me to call for help, but they had already done so and asked if I could give the passenger a ride to work. It turned out that his work was on my way home and I agreed. After giving him a ride he thanked me for stopping and helping and asked my name. I told him, and he told me his name was Moroni.

Interesting. (Not tooo out of the ordinary living in Utah, but still...)

Anyway, I was thinking about it the rest of the way home and came to the conclusion that we really are looked over if we listen to the still, small voice inside. Literally, if I had only made one or maybe two different decisions on my way home, it would have been me in that spot at the wrong time.

Making The Sign of the Cross

Do you all remember the saying that Catholics sometimes use to remember the sign of the cross? You know, "Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch"?

Well, with the events of the last couple of weeks, each of those have been on the forefront of my mind.

First off, I got new glasses!



I needed them even though I've had contact lenses for the past few months. I didn't really have an adequate pair of glasses to back them up. I decided for these because I wanted a different look and I feel like they look cool.

I don't care what anyone else thinks, y'all can keep the negative comments to yo'selfs!

As for the second token in the phrase, Emily and I have had many discussions about them (or as one of my brothers-in-law call them- "Thing One and Thing Two"), and we decided it was time to "take me out of the gene pool" (As sung to the popular baseball tune) so to speak.

A week ago Friday I got the deed done and have been walking like I got kicked by a horse ever since. No exercise, no lifting and no relations of the husband and wife type for at least a week.

Ugh.

Things are slowly progressing and I'll be returning to some semblance of normal, and work, next week.

As for the wallet, it seems that things keep grabbing for mine lately. New tires for my car, new TV console, We almost needed a new TV because I PULLED THE CABLE ATTACHMENT out of our TV, but my Father-in-law had me check to see if there were the red,white and yellow Audio/ Video ports back there and now the picture actually looks better than it did before.

And as for the watch, well, TIME FOR SUMMER VACATION!!!! School's out til the last week of August when I start at U of Utah. I hope I fared well in my classes, but I'm ready for a good vacation and hope I'll get to do/ see everything/ everyone on my list.

YAY!

I Got In!!

I've been waiting for the news for a while and it finally came today!

I got accepted to The U of Utah! Woo Hoo!!! I start in the fall and should (hopefully) be done by December of 2011!

Ode To A Gentle Giant

Even though I moved almost a year ago, I still keep up with some of the happenings around the Q. Every few days I'll check the news websites and whatnot, just to see what's up. It's pretty interesting to me to see the contrast between the types of news that gets reported in NM versus SLC.

I was perusing the usual channels when I came upon this story.

http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S1481058.shtml?cat=516

To say the very least, I was appalled. I can't even imagine how desensitized a person has to be at their job to do such a thing to any animal, let alone magnificent creature like a GIRAFFE!!

The reason I bring this up is that, just before Em and I moved our little family up to Utah, My family took a nice outing to the zoo. I took a couple hundred pictures (literally), and a good 40 to 50 of those were of Kashka and her 2 DAY old calf. She was calm but protective of her little one, and at the same time she seemed proud to show off her progeny. She was captivating.

There was something that seemed to connect me to her, as I had witnessed the birth of Henry only 3 weeks earlier. Something inside me seemed to feel like she knew I was in the same boat, looking out for my little one as he was learning the ways of this new existence.

When I read the article this morning I knew right away that it was her. I looked up my photos to check, and yes, those were the same markings. I wanted to cry. She was one of the most beautiful creatures on the planet and someone was so wrapped up in taking the short route to get done with his day that he desecrated her body for the sake of saving himself a bit of time.

I know she was already gone, but what does this say about how this person cares for the living animals in his charge? I know this is an isolated incident. I've met many of the zookeepers there and they are almost as passionate about the animals as they are about their own children.

Kashka was a great being and I know this world was made better by her being in it.