Gunshots in Vegas

I was in Las Vegas this week for a conference. Monday morning, I went to the lobby to find some breakfast and found a crime scene. I could see a person on the ground about 50 feet away surrounded by various officials. The whole casino area had been roped off and closed down including the restaurants. All I could think was 'Man, I hate Vegas'. Apparently some poor guy was shot to death trying to intervene when some other guy pulled a gun. The gunman shot two guards who ended up in the hospital and a third 'Good Samaritan' who tackled the guy and probably saved some lives, but ended up sacrificing his own in the process. I was really impressed by the man's courage when I learned the details, but also feel sad for him and his family. It was a little crazy to think that I was awake in my room when the shootings happened. I could just as well have been in the lobby area, though it's very unlikely I would have been very close to the incident. It happened right outside a night club. But the restaurant where I was hoping to eat wasn't very far away ... crazy, huh?

I don't understand Las Vegas. I just don't get the appeal. There's so much filth there, I can't understand how it continues to draw so many people and so much money. Maybe I'm just weird. But I hate it. I got away from the strip a couple of times and felt so much better. It's actually a very pretty city once you get away from the garbage.

It struck me as really odd that I was in Vegas in the same hotel as an incident that made national news. Reminds me of my experience with an earthquake in DC. That was weird too. How often does an earthquake strike DC? And I got to experience it. And then I was in town when Hurricane Sandy was coming ashore. I drove out of town just before the hurricane struck since the airports had all closed down just as I got there. So now I'm wondering - am I naturally attracted to newsworthy disasters or does my presence somehow cause them? :)

The conference was good. And thankfully it won't be in Vegas next year.

It's good to be home. I missed my family and I missed normal life.

Ode to Fergus

We have a psychotic mutt named Fergus whom, for some reason, we really love. Sometimes we're tempted to kill him, but I guess that's what family is all about. :)

Here's a picture the girls asked me to take. They really like him.

He's pretty cute the way he finds odd ways to relax. Here's a candid shot that is fairly typical of his habit of finding uncomfortable ways to be comfortable.

He's strange, which probably explains why we love him. He fits right in.

Tribute to Ron Paul

Check out this tribute to Ron Paul. I really like this guy.



Apparently they showed this video at the Republican National Convention today. That kind of surprised me ...

Wild Turkey

Random picture from a few months ago. A wild turkey walking around the school parking lot. Weird.

Cool Cake

I'm catching up on some old items here. My wife made this cake several months ago for a baby shower. I was pretty stunned. Not that I'm surprised at her supernatural abilities in general; I've known for many years that I am married to Wonder Woman. But she had never made a cake like this before, so it was pretty cool to see what a great cake decorator she could be.

We talked about her future career, but she reminded me that her passions are photography and making jewelry. I didn't push it. But I'm still amazed.

Eleven eleven eleven

A couple hours ago, it was 11:11 (eleventy-eleven) on the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011. And I missed it! Luckily, I'll get another chance to enjoy the moment tonight.

There must be some mystical significant in this happy circumstance. A good omen. I see happy times ahead. At least until 11:12.

Hebrew

I love languages. Being religious, I have long had an interest in Hebrew and Greek because of their connection to the Bible. Having learned German and a little Spanish, I am really interested in Latin as I've come to see the relationships between the three languages I speak (caveat: my Spanish is really bad) and I understand the power of knowing the language that influenced all of them heavily.

I won't claim any significant expertise in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, but I've dabbled a bit in studying them to help me understand the Bible better and for other purposes. I thought I'd share a couple of interesting things I've learned about Hebrew.

As I understand it, ancient Hebrew had no markings for vowel sounds and the pronunciation of Hebrew words was largely transmitted orally through the years. Modern Hebrew now has such markings. The ancient Hebrews had a word for God that they wrote as JHWH (transliterated to Latin letters), but they considered the name of God too sacred to utter, so they never spoke it out loud. Consequently, we don't know how they pronounced JHWH. Two variants on the pronunciation are commonly used today: 1) Jahweh, where the w is pronounced like a v; and 2) Jehovah. The former seems more likely to be correct on the first syllable, but the second is more commonly used today. No one knows for sure how JHWH was pronounced, so both versions seem to be acceptable. The translators of the King James version of the Bible often translated JHWH as 'Lord', though a few instances of Jehovah can be found.

This leads to a lot of interesting insights on names and words found in our Bible. For example, Hallelujah is a combination of two words 'Hallelu' or a form of 'Hallel' meaning 'praise' and 'jah' or a shortened form of JHWH (Jahweh or Jehovah). So Hallelujah = Praise Jehovah or Praise God.

Names like Isaiah and Jeremiah and any names ending in -iah, -jah, or -ia (all versions of 'Jah') contain a shortened form of the name of God (JHWH). For example, Isaiah means 'salvation of God' where I presume Isa = salvation.

Another name for God found in the Hebrew is Elohim. This is really interesting because the 'im' suffix indicates the plural form of a noun. The singular form is never used, but is thought to be Eloah. Much like JHWH is shortened to Jah for creating other words, the name Elohim is often shortened to El to create names like Samu-el, Ezeki-el, Dani-el, Isra-el, etc. Israel, for example, was the name given to Jacob after he wrestled with an angel and means 'God prevails' or 'one who prevails with God'.

I love languages. I think it's fascinating to learn things like this about Hebrew because of the knowledge that opens up about so many things in the Bible. But it's also just fun for me to learn about languages for the joy of learning. I don't know why, but I get a kick out of it. I think maybe I'll spend some time studying languages after I retire.

Another cool little Hebrew factoid: much like our word for the family of letters we use to make words derives from the first two Greek letters (alpha + beta => alphabet), the name for the Hebrew family of letters is a combination of the names of the first two Hebrew letters (alef + bet => alefbet). I can pronounce the names of the Hebrew letters, but I can't write them. In fact, some of them look so similar, I wonder how people can distinguish them quickly while reading! I suppose you get used to it like anything else.

I think it's fascinating to compare the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin letters and see similarities in names, sounds, and letter shapes. Like Latin has influenced so many of the modern Romance and Germanic languages, there were older languages and dialects that influenced these ancient languages and account for their similarities. But that's about as far as my knowledge goes right now. I would love to learn more about the origins of these ancient languages someday.

More Jobs at the Old House

Last weekend, a friend came to help me finish up the work on our old house. We finished a little bit of work on the retaining wall and then filled in some cracks in the cement stairs leading to the house. The fun part was taking down the playset and fitting it in the van. I'm guessing my friend is really good at tetris because he got the whole thing in there, which was great. We had a few tools we had to leave behind because they wouldn't fit (e.g. ladder, wheelbarrow), but the whole playset went in one trip. It was great! And thanks to him, we were done in time to get home for dinner. Without his help, I probably would have left around 9 or 10.

It has been a lot of work, but we're finally done and we're probably going to close this week. I'm so thankful this is working out for us and I look forward to owning only one house again. And I'm thankful for friends who are so willing to drop everything to help out.

Retaining Wall

The buyers of our old house asked for a few repairs, one of which was the replacement of a rotting retaining wall. I've been toying with replacing that wall for years, but never had the desire/guts to do it. I decided to go ahead and tackle it now that someone else asked for it as a condition of sale. I seriously underestimated that project.

It took me the entire day yesterday. My muscles ache, my hands and arms are scratched and irritated, and I've been humbled by some extremely heavy railroad ties. But I did it. Here's a low-quality picture of the new wall with a few of the old ties sitting by the new wall. Some of the lower ties were in decent shape, so I left them alone. You can see a small color difference between the old and new. I had already hauled away most of the old wood when I remembered I hadn't taken a picture. It looked a little more impressive before, but you get the idea.

The third row from the top is one eight-foot railroad tie. I can't pick up an entire tie by myself. All I can do is pick up one end and move it around that way. After several unsuccessful attempts to get that sucker on top of the wall and several silent prayers, I tried pushing it up the side of the wall. I got it even with the top of the wall, but couldn't get it on top. Then the idea came to me to let one end rest on the tie just below the top and swing the other end around and lift it enough to get it on top of the wall. A little more sweat and blood and I got it pushed into place. It's hard to explain how it worked, but after struggling with it for about 20-30 minutes, I was able to get it where it needed to go.

Every time I take on a new project, things come up that I wouldn't have imagined tackling and the project becomes more difficult and takes longer than I originally estimated. This project was no exception. I had to bring most of my tools from the old house. I ended up borrowing several tools from a neighbor like a reciprocating saw (my circular saw didn't quite cut through the entire width of the railroad ties) and an axe so I could use the butt end to slam the spikes into the railroad ties (that darn rubber mallet just wouldn't cut it). I should have used this as an excuse to buy a sledge hammer, but I didn't want to run to the store again.

My biggest mistake was underestimating the weight of the ties. A little research online tells me new ties might be 150, even 200 pounds. Maybe I'm weaker than I thought, but they seemed like more than that to me. All I know is they're HEAVY! The guy at Lowe's told me he had a friend who at one time carried two of them, one on each shoulder. I have never been and never will be that tough.

Another fun things that popped up was the failure of my extension cord. I had a long cord and a short one. The long one didn't work, so I used the short one for a while, but found it didn't reach far enough to do what I needed. I debated going to the store again (already sick of doing that), trying to repair the cord, or finding some other workaround. After a minute of debate, I sat down for about 15-20 minutes and spliced and taped the wires where the cord had been cut. I hadn't factored that little adventure (one of many) into my original estimate. But it worked.

Anyway, the wall is done; Brett is sore; and he feels pretty dang good about it. Another Saturday should wrap up some small cement repair projects and the disassembly and loading of our old playset so we can set it up at our new home. Our youngest has been praying for several things every night for weeks. Among them are pleas for help in selling our house and help in bringing our playset to our new house. The buyers wanted the playset, but partly because of those prayers, I negotiated to keep it. I figured if God was willing to answer that first request, I could help with the second. It's worth a little extra work to help answer those sweet little prayers. Funny how something like that can tug at my heart and make me do something I wouldn't normally have done.

Missing Teeth

My youngest had an accident a year or two ago where she injured her two front teeth. Recently, my wife noticed a cist-like growth on the gums just above one of the teeth, so one dentist visit later, and ...

no more teeth! I think the abscess is gone now too. The bad news is that the loss of those teeth is a little premature. The good news is she'll be able to sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" a little longer than most kids. Lucky girl.

A few days after the teeth-pulling adventure, she smacked her face on a shelf at the grocery store. I still don't really know how that worked because I wasn't there, but Emily can tell you more about it. She ended up with a really big green bruise above her left eye. I'm pretty sure she looked like an abused child for a few days. Thankfully her eye is looking much better.

Life knocks you around a bit, but thankfully almost everything heals with time and patience. I think with God's help, those things that don't seem to heal with time may end up being healed someday too.

Our Old House, Community Fun, and Old Books

Last week, on the very same day, we got an offer to buy our house and another offer to rent it. We're negotiating to sell and it looks like the deal's going to go through, so I'm really excited. Hopefully we'll have that off our backs in a few weeks.

We were down in the old community working on the house last Saturday and decided to stop by a community event we used to go to regularly. They had a fire truck, armored vehicles, and a tank that the kids could look at and for some of the vehicles, they were allowed to get inside and mess around. There were lots of booths, mostly full of things the kids don't care about. And there were some blow-up bounce houses and slides.

You know what's funny, though? We were there for a couple hours and the biggest draw for all of us was a used book sale going on in the courthouse. We spent more time there than anywhere else including the tank or the bounce houses. I'm pretty sure that makes us weird, but it makes me really happy that my kids all love books.

And even though I really love our new home ... I love our old home too. There are a lot of things I'll miss about it. But I'm also grateful to be where we are now.

Parade

Our community had a parade about a week ago and our kids had a blast. You can't tell from the picture, but trust me ...

Emily and I had a blast too. It was so fun watching them and it was cool to see some of what the community has to offer as various groups came parading by. Seeing the high school bands was one of the best parts. The high school we're slated for has a REALLY good band. That's cool because I played the trumpet in high school in a really high quality band and that was a great experience for me. I'd love to have my kids have that kind of experience if they're interested. I can see at least a couple of them wanting to do that.

Later that day, we went by an outdoor mall and walked around. There was a Borders there and we popped in to look at the clearance sale. I picked up a couple of Shakespeare's works for about $0.15 each. There were quite a few on the shelf, so I guess poor William isn't in as big a demand as he used to be. I think he's great. He's not quite my favorite author, but for 15 cents, I'll take a classic to have on the shelf.

The kids found other entertainment. Climbing on the statues at the mall was pretty fun too.

I love our new home.

New Home Scorecard

Every time I think about it, I feel really grateful for our new home. Here's my latest scorecard:

• House: We loved our old house, but the new one is fantastic. I think it is just about perfect. I have told my wife several times that when we die, I want a house like this one in heaven.
• Neighborhood: Our subdivision has about 30 homes in it. I think we had about 8 or 10 neighbors come by in the first couple weeks to welcome us. Many of them brought gifts. Our kids have made friends with several of the neighbors and they love to ride bikes and play together. Our old neighborhood was great too, but most of the time we lived there, there were no children for our kids to play with.
• Community: Something about the area just feels like home. The community seems really well kept and people seem to really care about their surroundings. We went to a local parade recently and it was a blast!
• School: I've already blogged about this, but the school system we're in now is amazing!
• Commute: My commute is 5-10 minutes shorter each way. One of my favorite things is on the way home, I have several places where, if I see traffic is backed up, I can get off the main road and take alternate routes. Much easier on the nerves.
• Church: Our new ward is amazing! The church we attended in our old house had a lot of really wonderful people in it, but the culture was unhealthy for several reasons that I won't explain here because I don't want to offend anyone. I'm sure our new church has its problems, but I haven't seen too many yet. Maybe it's still the honeymoon stage, but I LOVE our new church family. There are so many fantastic people and the Spirit we feel together is so uplifting and sweet.
• Scouts: My son is in Cub Scouts and he was pretty unmotivated to attend the Scout program where we used to live. Since moving here, he has been so excited to go to every single meeting because it's so well organized, they do fun activities, and he feels like he's achieving some of the scouting goals.

So far, this new home has an A on all counts. Based on what I've seen so far, I'm ready to settle down for the rest of my life. That may be partly because the pain of moving is still fresh in my mind, but I've told several people that I want to die in that house. And the weird part is I think I'm serious about that.

Earthquake!

I was in Virginia yesterday on business when the 5.8 quake hit. It was weird. I don't think I've been in an earthquake since I was a child and I wasn't exactly sure it was a quake at first. I certainly didn't expect a quake in Virginia.

I was in a meeting in an office on the fourth floor with two walls of windows. It felt like that office might just slide off the building and crash to the ground. That might seem unreasonable, but being that high up, seeing outside on two sides of the room, and feeling the whole building sway ... that was kind of freaky.

I've been in stronger quakes than that, but that was quite a long time ago and the memories have faded a bit. Yesterday felt pretty surreal.

I think that by the time I realized what had happened, the quake was over - it only lasted a few seconds - and although it shook us up a bit, we went back to our meeting after a few minutes of animated discussion and finished our work. So it wasn't awful, but it was pretty freaky and I'm glad I don't live on a fault line anymore. California is beautiful, but I prefer the South.

Awesome School

My wife went to a parents' night for our oldest son's class last night and she was so impressed. She told me every single child in the class had at least one parent attending. Some had both. It feels like a different world here. At our old school, maybe half of the kids would have parents attending something like this.

She also told me there were about half a dozen sign-ups to help with the class as a room mom. Woah! Emily was the room mom for TWO of our kids' classes last year because no one else would sign up!! Now we have a class where about six parents have already volunteered?!

I've seen the correlation between parental involvement and academic excellence before, but this is really driving that point home for me. This school is one of the best in the state. I think I know one of the reasons. This is so refreshing to see so many parents who care so much about their childrens' education.

I love our new home.

Two Houses

I never wanted to own two houses. A neighbor of ours (we'll call him Charlie) moved out to get his kids into a different school and his house sat vacant for about three years. I felt really bad for him, but I always told myself there was no way I was going to do that. Hmm ... I should listen to myself more often.

Now I find myself in a similar situation for similar reasons. Our house has been on the market since March and we haven't had any offers yet. About a week ago, someone moved into Charlie's house. They're doing a lease-to-purchase and I talked with Charlie when he pulled up to the house. Odd that we happened to meet when neither of us lives in the neighborhood anymore. We talked about our situations and I described to him my conversations with myself (see above). He laughed and I went on to tell him we felt good about the choice and we felt like God would take care of us. He then told me that although they were really strapped carrying two mortgages, he had seen God take care of him. He said God had placed work in front of him in really amazing ways and although they had very little savings, he has always had enough work to take care of his family and his obligations. This from a small business owner in some very difficult economic times. I felt a really sweet feeling come over me as he described his experiences. Charlie is a good man and I wish him the best.

Now I'm hoping we can find someone to buy or lease-to-purchase our old house. We tried really hard to make sure the two mortgages wouldn't stretch us beyond our capacity, but I'm uncomfortable with this much debt. It will be really nice when we can turn one of those into some cash. Given the state of the economy and the real estate market, I don't know when that will happen. But I'm trusting God to take care of us. I felt like He led us to make these decisions and I believe everything will work out for the best, whatever that means.

School is Fun

New schools, new friends, new experiences. I have been so excited for my kids and they have been pretty nervous. I understand. I remember being the new kid in school.

Their first day of school came recently and I heard it went really well. My oldest came home saying something like "I want to go to school every day!". That's good news because ... he will. :) I was so thrilled to hear that. And it sounds like the others had really good experiences too. My second child, who is generally quite shy, came out of her shell a little and made a friend.

They rode the bus to and from school and that has been great too. At our last school, the bus driver separated boys from girls and typically yelled at the kids. We opted out of the bus system. Their new bus driver sounds really sweet and the whole school seems great! I am so happy for them. I think education is extremely important and knowing that they're having positive experiences makes me really happy.

I love our new home.

New House

We just bought a new house! Cool, huh? There's a beautiful area in the city a little closer to where I work with really good schools and a really nice church congregation that we're excited about. House prices have typically been crazy there, but the recent slump has made it more affordable. We're still paying more than we would like, but we feel like it's worth it and we're excited to be in that community. I'm also excited for my kids to get into some really high quality schools.

Here's a picture of the house from the front. It's really beautiful inside and out.

Here's my favorite part, though. It has a bidet in the master bathroom. Who doesn't want one of those? We'll be living like aristocrats now.

Last weekend, I installed a hot water heater and that was a fun experience! I had never done that before, but thanks to whoever invented Sharkbite connectors, I felt like I could do it. If you ever have to do a plumbing job with high-pressure pipes and you don't want to sweat pipes (like me), check them out. They are AWESOME for the amateur. I wouldn't have attempted the install without those. And thanks to my brother-in-law who pointed them out to me and gave me confidence that I could do it. Our new house now has hot water. And we're going to be really busy moving in this weekend. Maybe once we get settled, I'll have some more time to post random thoughts to this blog. Thanks for reading!

Making Butter

I took my family to a pioneer festival last weekend and we had a LOT of fun. They had dyeing, spinning, weaving, butter churning, candle making, soap making, etc. It was really cool! We spent a lot of time at the butter churning table, each taking a turn with the churn, and watching the process of cream turning to butter. I'm no chemist and I don't understand the process, but it was really cool to watch. They used the churn pictured below from Lehman's. I do NOT get a commission - I'm just showing you the toy.

It took a good 20-30 minutes, but when it was done, we tried the butter with crackers and it was really good! It was the sweetest butter I've ever tasted and I know it was all natural because I watched it being made from fresh cream. Very cool!
The kids got to make their own candles and they thought that was pretty cool. I remember doing that lots of times, but it has been years and it was fun to see it again. We didn't actually get to make soap, but we learned how it's made and we "donated" $5 to get a bar of homemade soap. I didn't know how soap was made, but apparently it's composed of the salts from animal or vegetable fat. Some sort of alkali solution (usually lye) is used to break down the fat. Well, it turns out one way to make lye is to run water through wood ash and lye is found in the runoff. So in a weird indirect way, ash has been used for many years to clean things. I always thought ash was dirty ...

The guy at the booth told us a legend of an ancient Roman city where the women (yes, women - I'm not sexist, just historically realistic) would wash their clothes in the river near a temple where animal sacrifices were done. They noticed over time that a certain part of the river would produce suds as they washed and get their clothes cleaner. The story claims that they discovered lye and soap because of this circumstance - the products were created as the rain would wash away the remains of the animal sacrifices, mingling the animal fat with the lye from the wood ash. I looked it up later and it looks like it's unlikely to be a true story, but it's kind of interesting. It made me think of a prophecy by Ezekiel that a river would flow from the temple in Jersualem and heal the Dead Sea. Ok, that's probably a stretch, but it's where my mind went. I don't claim that my thought processes are always logical.

It was a fun story and a really fun day at the festival. Now go buy that butter churn and tell me what you think.

Tile in the Garage

We've been looking for houses recently and we found one that was a little weird. No offense to whoever did this, but have you ever seen anything like this before?

What's the point of a tile floor in a garage? I'd be afraid to crack the tile by driving my car on it. Maybe they decided to make living space out of their garage, but ... that just seems so weird!