A Daily Slice of Awesome

Last week I had the opportunity to meet the Governor of Oregon, Kate Brown. I was invited to a small party held at an incredible house in Portland. Now, let's be brutally honest. I met her for all of like one minute. It didn't change my life. It was another interesting experience in a life full of them. She was likewise unchanged, and I'm sure has forgotten me. I think what's most interesting about this experience though is how incredibly out of place I felt. I'm lower management in a relatively small company nobody has heard of. I'm not a minority in any sense but as vanilla white male as they come. Other than chatting with a former co-worker for a few minutes, I conversed more and enjoyed talking with the valet than anyone else. We talked about the weather, politics, things we'd learned, and how neither of us felt like we belonged at the party--he as the help and me as the odd guest there to slush government a little. Nobody was unwelcoming by any mean

We have done it, another section of this gargantuan puzzle down!! Two section down, six to go. It's a big project, but we persevere.

So, I'm a little out of shape in a big way. On a glorious Friday morning, having decided to take the day off from work, I set out to reclaim my riding prowess. I used to be pretty diligent. In fact, in undergraduate school (because if I say college I have to explain that I went several times and have to provide details on which  college) I rode up Provo Canyon nearly every day. I was the slayer of mountains then. Not so much now. It started off pretty good. I got up the hill out of our neighborhood and then rode down to West Salem via Glen Creek. It's a little up and down, but nothing my two pistons of manliness can't overcome. I got down on Wallace, and then turned down Edgewater for the return part of the brief loop I set out to conquer. When you get past the Safeway, you turn on Eola Drive to head back up to the neighborhood I call home. Now, when I say up, I mean up . From the perspective of a bike rider, a hill is at least twenty degrees steeper than it is in a car

In our church, usually around the time of the yearly Priesthood Commemoration, we have a father's and son's campout at a nearby campsite. I've taken my son twice--I think we were sick last year unfortunately. This year, however, we were both healthy and ready to go hang out, play with the fire, and get virtually no sleep. I think the older I get the more my body needs my bed to get a proper nights' rest. Anyway, we started off the adventure with canoes. The boy got bored in about one spin around the pond. Seeing as how I have to all the rowing, I can't honestly say I was broken up about that. I think the fact people were catching salamanders out of the pond had something to do with his enthusiasm for dry land. I'm not huge on touching wet, slimy things. Especially when they wriggle. My son dived right in and probably would have played with the salamanders the entire time had I let him. I'll have to remember to bring hand sanitizer with me next time becau

We were on our way home from my wife's sister's place where we had an exquisite dinner. Our son was trying to convince us that he should have more containers in his room in which to place his beloved objects. He is a hoarder. Any box, old can, or bag can be made into his new treasure chest. My wife wanted to limit the amount of possession-safes he had in his room. He led out with five, which seemed like a pretty good starting point. In negotiation, they teach you that most times, it's better to give the first offer--they call it 'anchoring.' He anchored a bit high, but it wasn't absurd, like ten, thus preserving the negotiation to the next step. My wife countered with three. He thought about it for a moment, and countered with four, right in the middle. The way he hesitated was perfect. You could tell he wanted to stick at five but knew he needed to give up some ground to succeed. A compromise was struck and a deal made. He can now have four receptacles in h

We have finally moved into our new house. It's awesome. It quickly got increasingly more awesome once we took the water regulator out of the shower head and turned our sprinkler into a hose. Yeah, the environment probably takes another small hit for the team, and I'm a horrible person, but I really like it. A drizzle in the shower is pathetic. A jet stream is luxuriousness. I suppose the best part of a new house is the house, but for me its going to be the pool table that I can stick inside it. It should come soon. It's also nice to look out the window and see trees instead of my neighbors' houses and cars. Unpacking boxes is decidedly un-awesome, as was the truck that I procured to move everything into it. I have to say, U-Haul let me down something fierce. I made a reservation for the biggest truck in the fleet and for whatever reason, that reservation was cancelled and I got the 10-foot minnow in exchange. Despite being a gutsy little thing, it doesn't fit mu