Saturday, April 18, 2009
Photo Booth on a Mac
I found these old pictures that had been taken with our little computer camera. I can spend hours making faces at myself and laughing. Honestly. Aaron, you know what I'm talking about!
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Free Firewood
After a lovely 66 degree summer day on Monday, we woke up to six inches of snow this morning. WHATEVER! The saddest part.... I was awake at 2:30, yes a.m., when there arose such a ruckus. The biggest ruckus I've ever heard on the roof of a house. Probably louder than 9 reindeer! It made me jump right off the couch. In that very next moment I saw the motion detector light turn on outside. Somewhat terrified, I peeked my eye through the crack in the curtain to look out the window. That darned six inches of snow came so suddenly that the 800 year old tree in front of our house finally gave in to the Utah winter madness. The tree broke in half, fell on top of the house then rolled off into the yard. This broken tree broke my heart. 
I went outside to get a better look and while I was standing there I heard another huge crack. I screamed and bolted for the front door. Yes, another branch came down! Afterward I laughed at myself. If somebody had seen me in my jammies, screaming and running while trees were falling in our front yard, they would have laughed too.
And THEN, while driving to work I saw multiple trees that had suffered the consequences of an April snow day. They didn't have just broken branches, they were completely split down the middle, like a lightning bolt had dissected them right in half!
There are still branches caught, dangling up in the tree, waiting to fall to their death. Morbid!So, so, so sad. I hope Mr. & Mrs. Boucher will spend next winter on the beach!
These are the survivors.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Organic
Working where I work, and with the people who work there.... I hear some crazy things. But what I learned last week was very enlightening. It turns out that non-organic banana peels are really bad for the environment because they don't biodegrade the same way an organic peel would. I have wanted to be organic all along, but this was the egg over the pudding-- or however that saying goes. With organic bananas only costing about 20 cents more a pound, I figure I'll probably spend an extra $5 every year to begin saving the planet. Decision made. The end.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Welcome to Earth Jace Thomas
Jake and I were lucky to have a fun visit with
Joe & Jen & Jace yesterday.
They grilled up some juicy steaks, yum!
And then we googley goggled
over baby Jace. Isn't Jake cute?!
I mean, isn't Jace cute?!
That's one more tough guy in the Boucher army I'm secretly forming. Don't worry Shumways.... you're all protected too.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Jake's version of last Monday
I wrote the record story in less than ten minutes because I never feel like writing much on posts. That trip to D.I. was so great that I told Jake he should share the story in his own words. He sat right down and busted this out. He's a great story teller/writer. It's long, but it's good. And I LOVE that he has now done a post of his own!
It was a gloomy Monday that Cody and I took off from work to (1) get the cars registered, and (2) drive to Vegas to see my friend play in a jazz combo that he’s in. The morning started about an hour after we went to sleep and we were greeted by a fresh 4 inches of snow all over. Maybe Cody has rubbed off on my attitude toward snow, but it is kind of ridiculous to be constantly tortured by a few teasing warm days followed by 2 weeks of snow brushing and window scraping.
I headed off to get a new tire for the car so that it would pass inspection. Walmart. I really don’t know why, maybe I thought it would be cheaper, and maybe I thought that it would be better to walk around a store than just sit in an uncomfortably cold chair and smell that weird, oily, snake in the grass smell of a mechanics shop. The kid I talked to seemed like he wasn’t a morning person and had a small 666 in the bottom corner of his nametag. After I paid and went to the car, I noticed that they had changed the wrong tire. It took them 3 times longer to change the right tire and put the old one back on. Finished, finally.
I picked Cody up and called to tell my friend that we wouldn’t be coming to Vegas. He cried, so I hung up. What a weenie. When I went to pick Cody up, I found business Cody instead. For those of you who don’t know, I’m almost sure that these are 2 different people, because Cody is someone who you could spend a week with nonstop and she would make you feel like a million bucks every single second. However, business Cody is eerily empowered, she gives you a feeling like she’s going to call your parents and tell them how bad you’ve been and then fire you. True.
So business Cody gets in the car and forces me to drive to a chiropractors’ office that falsely charged me 560 dollars for a free visit and then turned it over to a collection agency. I guess business Cody is good to have around sometimes. I waited and shook in the car for about 5 minutes when regular Cody came out and told me that she had taken care of it. Who knows.
With nothing else to do Cody and I went up Provo canyon finally ending up at a burger place in midway. I tried to order extra onion rings with my double bacon cheeseburger, but Cody conned me out of it by substituting her fries for onion rings. So what? I was hungry. Big family, big stretchy belly. Cody got a rubber Ruben that she acted like she liked till the last 5 minutes when she came clean with a pained jaw from the ladylike carnivorous ripping and tearing of the roast beast.
We headed through Park Yuppie City and into Salt Lake to Randy’s Records where Cody had bought me some records and a record player for Christmas. Good gift. I always heard music critics say that vinyl sounds so much better than CD’s or MP3’s and it just seemed like a snooty thing to say, but I must be more snooty now or they were right all along. They sound grittier and more personal, and you have to listen to at least 5 songs in a row from 1 artist. Randy’s was closed.
We went to DI instead. There were 2 in a few blocks and we found a bunch of horrible records that nobody should have bought in the first place. We got a pink Rod Stewart album and a creepy sound effects record. No real finds. Feeling like the day started out with sky-high hopes and feeling like failures, we started to drive home. I must have heard the spirit of the chemically laced 60’s calling from the past and knew that we weren’t finished. I called my brother Joe, as I often do when I’m aimlessly navigating SLC. Joe answered in his hushed I’m working voice, “Hey,” he said with hardly any air. “You workin?” says I. “Yeah.” Says he. My turn again, “You know that DI that’s right off a freeway exit?” “Yeah, it’s like 46th, I think.” Joe whispered to me. It was actually 45th, but I often call Joe without a hesitation because I know that his brain thrives on grids and maps and names and facts. It’s probably just as fun for him as it is helpful for me. “Thanks, Joe. See ya,” says I. “Yeah, see ya,” whispers he, and I clicked on the blinker to exit on 45th.
DI looks the same no matter what store you go to. The smell, old and used. Cody pointed to the same abnormally wide, collard, pale yellow woman’s shirt at all 3 stores. We headed straight to the records and I grabbed a chair from a dining set nearby so I wouldn’t have to crouch again. I don’t workout. There must have been 400 records, I started on the top shelf which was at a foot and a half from the floor and Cody started with a crouch on the bottom. She works out. I flipped through row after row seeing 50’s 60’s and 70’s David Archuletta equivalents. I got to the very end and saw a stack of disheveled records that were probably set down in a hurry by someone in the traditional dark red DI smock vest thing.
I grabbed the top one, “McCartney?” and Cody looked at me with eyebrows raised. “Johnny Cash Greatest Hits,” I said as my blood pressure rose. I audibly read a few more glancing at Cody each time. I’m not sure if she believed me until I started putting them on the floor in the this-is-mine-don’t-touch-pile. I instinctively grabbed the whole stack and put it on my lap so I wouldn’t have to karate chop off any hands that came to investigate my exclaims.
I looked through the whole lot. Pretty much all of them were in good shape. I read through the rest to Cody and we automatically formulated a story of how and why this collection of records was there. Cody’s went like this: Someone died. But I think it went more like this: middle-aged guy with 4 kids and a second wife who left his parents house about the time I was born, and like many of us do, left load of crap behind to take up space in his parents home. Sure, they don’t mind, for the first five years. No need for vinyl, middle-aged guy thinks. I’ve got cassettes. + years, I’ve got CD’s. Mom and Dad see the pile of stuff for too long and when they’re yard-selling a bunch of their junk, middle-aged guy’s stuff doesn’t make the cut. They put post it notes on the records and the rest of his rat’s nest, but out of guilt they overprice the records. 10 for this 15 for that 5 for this and justification for Mom and Dad. Probably just Mom. They don’t sell, no surprise. One day out of 80 that’s warm and you have a yard sale? I’d guess March 21st. The neighbors, who hit the sale, were probably just as old and trying to work the winter out of the hips. Devil’s music. Darkness creeps in, the air gets cold and Dad puts everything in the pickup and drives 10 MPH under the speed limit to DI. Mom is probably waiting for the day when middle-aged guy comes home to reminisce and she’s caught. Mom says Dad took them to DI. That’s what Dad’s do.
And that is how it happened.
I know that it will never happen again like this, but we don’t need duplicates either.
Here’s the list: Led Leppelin, Woodstock 3 record compilation, 2 Bob Dylan records, The Cars, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel, Grand Funk Railroad, Janis Joplin, Deep Purple, McCartney, The First and Best Festival of the 70’s compilation. Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and The Last Live Recordings of Billie Holiday.
I may have missed some, but it was 18 dollars at 1 dollar a record. Jackpot.¬
It was a gloomy Monday that Cody and I took off from work to (1) get the cars registered, and (2) drive to Vegas to see my friend play in a jazz combo that he’s in. The morning started about an hour after we went to sleep and we were greeted by a fresh 4 inches of snow all over. Maybe Cody has rubbed off on my attitude toward snow, but it is kind of ridiculous to be constantly tortured by a few teasing warm days followed by 2 weeks of snow brushing and window scraping.
I headed off to get a new tire for the car so that it would pass inspection. Walmart. I really don’t know why, maybe I thought it would be cheaper, and maybe I thought that it would be better to walk around a store than just sit in an uncomfortably cold chair and smell that weird, oily, snake in the grass smell of a mechanics shop. The kid I talked to seemed like he wasn’t a morning person and had a small 666 in the bottom corner of his nametag. After I paid and went to the car, I noticed that they had changed the wrong tire. It took them 3 times longer to change the right tire and put the old one back on. Finished, finally.
I picked Cody up and called to tell my friend that we wouldn’t be coming to Vegas. He cried, so I hung up. What a weenie. When I went to pick Cody up, I found business Cody instead. For those of you who don’t know, I’m almost sure that these are 2 different people, because Cody is someone who you could spend a week with nonstop and she would make you feel like a million bucks every single second. However, business Cody is eerily empowered, she gives you a feeling like she’s going to call your parents and tell them how bad you’ve been and then fire you. True.
So business Cody gets in the car and forces me to drive to a chiropractors’ office that falsely charged me 560 dollars for a free visit and then turned it over to a collection agency. I guess business Cody is good to have around sometimes. I waited and shook in the car for about 5 minutes when regular Cody came out and told me that she had taken care of it. Who knows.
With nothing else to do Cody and I went up Provo canyon finally ending up at a burger place in midway. I tried to order extra onion rings with my double bacon cheeseburger, but Cody conned me out of it by substituting her fries for onion rings. So what? I was hungry. Big family, big stretchy belly. Cody got a rubber Ruben that she acted like she liked till the last 5 minutes when she came clean with a pained jaw from the ladylike carnivorous ripping and tearing of the roast beast.
We headed through Park Yuppie City and into Salt Lake to Randy’s Records where Cody had bought me some records and a record player for Christmas. Good gift. I always heard music critics say that vinyl sounds so much better than CD’s or MP3’s and it just seemed like a snooty thing to say, but I must be more snooty now or they were right all along. They sound grittier and more personal, and you have to listen to at least 5 songs in a row from 1 artist. Randy’s was closed.
We went to DI instead. There were 2 in a few blocks and we found a bunch of horrible records that nobody should have bought in the first place. We got a pink Rod Stewart album and a creepy sound effects record. No real finds. Feeling like the day started out with sky-high hopes and feeling like failures, we started to drive home. I must have heard the spirit of the chemically laced 60’s calling from the past and knew that we weren’t finished. I called my brother Joe, as I often do when I’m aimlessly navigating SLC. Joe answered in his hushed I’m working voice, “Hey,” he said with hardly any air. “You workin?” says I. “Yeah.” Says he. My turn again, “You know that DI that’s right off a freeway exit?” “Yeah, it’s like 46th, I think.” Joe whispered to me. It was actually 45th, but I often call Joe without a hesitation because I know that his brain thrives on grids and maps and names and facts. It’s probably just as fun for him as it is helpful for me. “Thanks, Joe. See ya,” says I. “Yeah, see ya,” whispers he, and I clicked on the blinker to exit on 45th.
DI looks the same no matter what store you go to. The smell, old and used. Cody pointed to the same abnormally wide, collard, pale yellow woman’s shirt at all 3 stores. We headed straight to the records and I grabbed a chair from a dining set nearby so I wouldn’t have to crouch again. I don’t workout. There must have been 400 records, I started on the top shelf which was at a foot and a half from the floor and Cody started with a crouch on the bottom. She works out. I flipped through row after row seeing 50’s 60’s and 70’s David Archuletta equivalents. I got to the very end and saw a stack of disheveled records that were probably set down in a hurry by someone in the traditional dark red DI smock vest thing.
I grabbed the top one, “McCartney?” and Cody looked at me with eyebrows raised. “Johnny Cash Greatest Hits,” I said as my blood pressure rose. I audibly read a few more glancing at Cody each time. I’m not sure if she believed me until I started putting them on the floor in the this-is-mine-don’t-touch-pile. I instinctively grabbed the whole stack and put it on my lap so I wouldn’t have to karate chop off any hands that came to investigate my exclaims.
I looked through the whole lot. Pretty much all of them were in good shape. I read through the rest to Cody and we automatically formulated a story of how and why this collection of records was there. Cody’s went like this: Someone died. But I think it went more like this: middle-aged guy with 4 kids and a second wife who left his parents house about the time I was born, and like many of us do, left load of crap behind to take up space in his parents home. Sure, they don’t mind, for the first five years. No need for vinyl, middle-aged guy thinks. I’ve got cassettes. + years, I’ve got CD’s. Mom and Dad see the pile of stuff for too long and when they’re yard-selling a bunch of their junk, middle-aged guy’s stuff doesn’t make the cut. They put post it notes on the records and the rest of his rat’s nest, but out of guilt they overprice the records. 10 for this 15 for that 5 for this and justification for Mom and Dad. Probably just Mom. They don’t sell, no surprise. One day out of 80 that’s warm and you have a yard sale? I’d guess March 21st. The neighbors, who hit the sale, were probably just as old and trying to work the winter out of the hips. Devil’s music. Darkness creeps in, the air gets cold and Dad puts everything in the pickup and drives 10 MPH under the speed limit to DI. Mom is probably waiting for the day when middle-aged guy comes home to reminisce and she’s caught. Mom says Dad took them to DI. That’s what Dad’s do.
And that is how it happened.
I know that it will never happen again like this, but we don’t need duplicates either.
Here’s the list: Led Leppelin, Woodstock 3 record compilation, 2 Bob Dylan records, The Cars, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel, Grand Funk Railroad, Janis Joplin, Deep Purple, McCartney, The First and Best Festival of the 70’s compilation. Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and The Last Live Recordings of Billie Holiday.
I may have missed some, but it was 18 dollars at 1 dollar a record. Jackpot.¬
Friday, April 3, 2009
Spiritual Trip to D.I.
Jake and I had an out-of-body experience the other day when we visited Deseret Industries. Actually, we visited 3 different D.I.'s but the last one was a treasure. We've become record rummagers since Jake received a record player for Christmas. We usually find one or two records that we think we might like. So far, no gems that create a good base for a record collection.
Note: On March 30th, two thousand and nine, we discovered something wonderful. And this is how we figure it happened... Somebody really cool, and kind of old, must have passed away. It's not a sad thing because they most likely went to a better place. Then, their not-as-cool grandchildren were cleaning out the house and decided to throw sticky notes on everything to price items for a garage sale. When these items didn't sell, they went straight to D.I.
Lucky for us. We are now proud owners of 18 records that most likely came from the same residence. How do we figure this? As both Jake and I sat on 2 chairs we pulled from a D.I. dining set, we combed through hundreds of albums. Jake pulled one off the top and thought to himself, "wow, this one's a good find for D.I." Then he saw the one sitting beneath it. "What? Another good find.... wait a second." So he pulled the entire pile onto his lap as to deny access to any other bystanders with good taste. He looked over at me and said, "Jack Pot!"
He read the titles to me one by one and dropped them into a pile saying, "done." As in, SOLD. Who had let these prizes out of their possession? And most of them in very good condition. In the past, the original owner/rocker had treated these records very well. So....18 dollars later, and 18 records later, we have the necessary infrastructure to our so-called music room.
Some of these titles include: Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, McCartney, Grand Funk Railroad, Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson, Sly & the family Stone, Johnny Cash, Deep Purple, Simon & Garfunkel, the 3 album Soundtrack to Woodstock, and multiple Bob Dylan records! It was a good day at Deseret Industries.
Note: On March 30th, two thousand and nine, we discovered something wonderful. And this is how we figure it happened... Somebody really cool, and kind of old, must have passed away. It's not a sad thing because they most likely went to a better place. Then, their not-as-cool grandchildren were cleaning out the house and decided to throw sticky notes on everything to price items for a garage sale. When these items didn't sell, they went straight to D.I.
Lucky for us. We are now proud owners of 18 records that most likely came from the same residence. How do we figure this? As both Jake and I sat on 2 chairs we pulled from a D.I. dining set, we combed through hundreds of albums. Jake pulled one off the top and thought to himself, "wow, this one's a good find for D.I." Then he saw the one sitting beneath it. "What? Another good find.... wait a second." So he pulled the entire pile onto his lap as to deny access to any other bystanders with good taste. He looked over at me and said, "Jack Pot!"
He read the titles to me one by one and dropped them into a pile saying, "done." As in, SOLD. Who had let these prizes out of their possession? And most of them in very good condition. In the past, the original owner/rocker had treated these records very well. So....18 dollars later, and 18 records later, we have the necessary infrastructure to our so-called music room.
Some of these titles include: Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, McCartney, Grand Funk Railroad, Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson, Sly & the family Stone, Johnny Cash, Deep Purple, Simon & Garfunkel, the 3 album Soundtrack to Woodstock, and multiple Bob Dylan records! It was a good day at Deseret Industries.
Chili Cheese Fries
We had another deep fried afternoon with John and Jade. John can chop potatoes like an iron chef with his eyes closed while the peel just flies off and lands in the trash can.
After stuffing ourselves there was some relaxing that took place. And some craziness. Cody tried to make her hair really big. And Jake strutted around in his new shoes.
After stuffing ourselves there was some relaxing that took place. And some craziness. Cody tried to make her hair really big. And Jake strutted around in his new shoes.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
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