I wish I could tell you what I've been up to this week, but it's top secret and it would probably bore you anyway. It's pretty darn exciting to me though, and it's really consumed pretty much my every waking hour -- Julie was ready to divorce me Saturday night at 11pm, going on my 80th hour or so this week, and I had said about three words all week to anyone (unless muttering to myself counts). I just had my head wrapped around this project and I was trying like a mad-man to get it coded.

You ever see a comic where the dude has a light-bulb go on over his head? Yeah, that's pretty much what happened, only times 1000.

I haven't done math like this since grad school, and I remember now why I got into engineering in the first place. Yes, I'm uber-geek, but that's okay, it pays the bills. I'm actually chomping at the bit right now to get back to it. It's still running through my head and I'm just dying to get back to it. But a day of rest will probably do me a lot of good.

Juliette and Chris, I heard, are moving to Colorado! Yay! They couldn't be much further away and still living Colorado, but they are technically in Colorado. Grand Junction, actually. It's a very nice place to live, like totally incredible. There are places within an few minutes drive there that are mind-bogglingly beautiful. The area itself is pretty much ideal, I think. Good luck to them in their move. I hate moving, so I'm sure they're not thrilled about packing everything up and moving into the unknown, but it is an adventure.

There's a pretty cool bike race there I'll have to do so I can stop in and see their new place.

After reading Grandma Gwynne's auto-biography I'm pretty sure that we have no idea what adventure even means these days. Putting all your stuff in a comfy large moving van and driving in air-conditioning a few hours away is not quite the same as breaking down in interior Alaska, winter setting in, in an army surplus jeep which contains all your family and all your posessions and $50. And then say, "hey this is nice, I think we should live here." That's truly an adventure.

Layoffs came and went. I am still employed at Seagate. That was a relief to me, as well as the other members of my group. There were a few people around the area that were let go, and it was tough to see them packing their things...especially with times as tough as they are now to get another job. Looking around at other job prospects as the rumors circulated, I found a few things that were very specific to my experience, but they are much more rare than in years past.

I told the kids and Julie that if I did get let go I was going to go be a bush pilot in Alaska. The second choice was to move to India and start growing the branch there. My Indian friends here at work tell me I could easily get a job there and that with my income I could live like royalty. There is the whole thing about raw sewage flowing in the rivers and such, but the education is top notch!

I've been flying X-Plane a lot lately. I got the flu over the weekend, and it was about all I could do to stand up, so I had a good excuse to play a lot. It's a pretty amazing flight simulator. It's so good, actually, if you have the right hardware, it's the same software that has been certified by the FAA to log actual hours and get your pilot certifications. The long and short if it is....I have GOT to get an airplane soon. It's just too much fun. Bush pilot. Definitely.

Mom's blogging now, and mentioned I haven't updated in awhile. Reminds me of a quote I heard about blogging "Never has so much been said by so many about so little." Pretty much sums it up.

So, I'm in a holding pattern at work, I guess. The rumors of layoffs have been going around for awhile -- well not so much rumors as an announcement by the CEO, who said in December "I look forward to discussing the re-org with you in January". Odd turn of a phrase, but whatever. Well, it's January and the hammer is coming down. Word is this Wednesday there will be something like a 20% layoff. That's never good for anyone. Times like these are tough, I hope things work out.

I've been looking at various jobs out there for the likes of me, and it looks like it's not as terrible as people are saying. There are still some good positions open, but I'd probably have to move, or take a government job, or both. I'm not overly concerned about losing my job -- but layoffs always get you thinking about such things.

Morale has been pretty low. Some of the best people I know are like "I'm not about to start anything that requires any brain power until after Wednesday." I mean, sure, why would you? I told my co-workers I'd rather be a week behind next Thursday than caught up and laid off.

The family is doing well, though nothing new. Jordan is 15 1/2 now and wanted to go meet a girl at a basketball game last night. Denied. I figure now is the time when teenagers really try to start blurring the line, so I told him it sounded like a date. He'll thank me later.

Christmas is coming fast. Two full weeks off for me. Sweet. I've got my computer all upgraded and ready to go. New motherboard, RAM, Video Card, Processor, HD....pretty much everything except the actual box it went int. I must say, it's been awhile since I upgraded (probably 2 years) and it never ceases to amaze me the speed at which things are going now.

I was particularly impressed with my new Seagate Hard Drive -- which I designed...well one feature of it anyway, which is advertised prominently on the front of the box. It's called Native Command Queuing. I did a lot of work on that, and it was kind of cool to see it there on the product. It's noticeably faster booting Windows, and applications just pop up almost instantly. There were a few times when I thought the computer was reading my mind -- because I didn't even think I had even quite clicked the mouse yet, and there it was already open.

I'll probably do quite a bit of video editing and see how that goes. I imagine it will be awesome -- but you absolutely can't have too much power editing videos.

My desktop is the best top.

Looking forward to Mark (Julie's brother) getting married at the end of the month. Traveling to St. George and Cedar city for that with the family. Jordan might not make it, he has his first football game that Saturday. He's been working so hard, and he's gained some recognition as an outside linebacker. He's grown so tall in the last year, over six foot one now and no slowdown in sight, it's not even funny how big he is.

Seminary starts for me in a few weeks. I've got a ton of stuff to do before then, probably wont get it all done. Oh well.

The roofers finished with the roof and siding. It was amazing how fast they worked. Julie's painting the upstairs, I painted the basement. Life continues onward. Ever onward.

Finished the "triple-bypass" on Saturday in record time (for me).

Some highlights from the ride:

12,854 feet of climbing.
120 miles.
We averaged 16.2 mph.

It was a lot of fun (not) and, as I can only presume women feel immediately after childbirth, I have no intention of doing it again (this was something like my fourth time). The first two passes felt great, I felt like I could have gone much faster, but wanted to wait for the friends I was riding with. The last pass I had run out of water and food (we skipped most of the rest stops) and started bonking big time. I found a conoco and stopped for water, gatorade, and some very over-priced fig newtons, and jumped back on the bike. About 20 minutes later, I was fine, and managed to pass many people on my way to the top of Vail pass.

The stay in Vail was fun, the kids loved it. They swam and biked. I ate food pretty much constantly after I finished, and never felt quite full. We stayed in a very nice condo, except that about 2:30 a.m. the stupid smoke detector started chirping -- which wouldn't be a huge deal, except the ceiling was at least 15 feet high, and I didn't happen to have a ladder with me. Instead of calling the fire department (which I seriously considered) I decided to stack furniture on top of each other until I could reach the smoke detector. I got a coffee table up on end, balanced on the top of a large dresser. Standing on that I managed to rip the detector off the ceiling with extreme prejudice, yank the battery out, and throw it out in the kitchen. Ahhh, and then my sleep was uninterrupted and it was glorious.

Overall, a good weekend in the Rockies, much cooler up at altitude than it is down here. A good time to be in the mountains, and the weather was perfect.

We're anxiously watching Aaron and Kaylene's twitter about the birth of Daniel. He's had some breathing problems, but it sounds like he's doing okay. Our prayers are with them, and congratulations to them on the new addition.

Lacey was on the Denver Fox News. She was at the pool yesterday and the news people were there. Here's a link to the video clip. Bonus points if you see Alan in the clip.

Here's the Link: Fox 31 News

Busy day Saturday...started with a 5k Julie ran with some of the kids. I watched with Dyllan (but I rode there on my bike, pulling him in the trailer -- so that counts for something). The kids were all jazzed because the new boat rentals were free all day -- so we went home and did all the chores and then rode back to do some boating. Jordan and Alan went ahead of us and were already on the water by the time we got there. They were screwing around a bit much and got kicked out, but not before Jordan took an oar to the head. Julie had gone shopping with Dyllan, and wasn't home yet, so while the lifeguard gave him first aid, I rode home to fetch a car. I don't mean to brag, but I got home in just under six mintues -- towing Cassidy in the trailer -- it took me just as long to drive back. Then I took him to urgent care, where they super-glued his face shut.

Father's day was fun, I was king for a day, and sat around while they did everything else (I know what you're thinking -- and no, that's not always typical). I got some cool cards and stuff, but, come to think of it, no gifts. I specifically asked for no gifts, but they always cheat and get me something anyway. This time, nothing. Hmmm. I did get the most awesome dessert ever, some kind of layered angel food cake, pudding, fresh berries thing. It rules.

The insurance adjuster looked at our house because of the hail damage, and totalled the roof and a few windows. This was actually surprising to me, because I don't see anything wrong with it. Whatever. You can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting a roofing contractor. They're everywhere and they're making bank off this whole thing. The only reason we got an adjuster out here was because we've had several contractors come by the house and tell us our roof was ruined. We didn't believe them and thought they were just scammers, which of course they are, but they were right about the roof -- apparently. Because of the whole town being a disaster, etc., FEMA will even pay our $500 deductible. Sweet.

The van is finally done today. $3,300 damage to it. It'll be nice to have two cars again.

A video I posted on my meteorbike site of 2007 in pictures (3:49)

We are now RSS (feed) enabled.

Thanks, Aaron.

Good morning to you, too.

My brother-in-law, Aaron, complained that I didn't have RSS for this blog. I had no idea you could do such a thing, so I think I enabled it now. I thought I'd post some follow up on the tornado adventure, as well.

Windsor is getting put back together at an amazing pace. The Mormon yellow shirts have been huge, on Sunday we had over 600 volunteers wearing yellow "Mormon Helping Hands" t-shirts (including Jordan and me). We had an early, short sacrament meeting in our jeans, and then straight to work. It was very impressive, and hard to miss all that yellow in the "zone". The entire scene of the disaster has changed for the better in just a few days. Crews of 10 each went door to door doing everything they could, removing debris, helping people move what was left out, doing heavy lifting.

One of my well-to-do friends who has two houses right now (he's selling one) offered one non-member family to move into his house. We did the move for them. This house is just huge, 7000 sq ft, pool, movie theater, and fully furnished -- brand new carpet and paint to help it sell. Offered it up to this family for as long as they need it. I think he's crazy, but he's a saint.

The church response has been amazing. The organization and the ability to pull together this many people, in teams, with supplies, is just mind-boggling. Many of the local companies are donating things directly to the Bishop. Lowe's, for instance, asked us what we needed -- total blank check, said they'd give us anything in the store. We asked "can we get a generator?" They gave us three - 5 KVA generators. We gave them a list of things we thought we'd need, they had that and more on a truck to us within hours. Chainsaw? They gave us 15 chain-saws. And they did this all directly to the church, because I think they really knew how this stuff would be used, and well. The National Guardsman mentioned, "you guys can get in anywhere with those yellow shirts." We had no problem moving about. No questions asked. The police, etc., were stopping everyone else.

600 of us. I can't tell you how impressed I was at our turnout. There were lots of volunteers from other organizations, etc., but nothing like this.

Julie stopped by one non-members house that had been damaged, parents of one of Lacey's friends at school, and asked if there was anything we could do. They said, "thanks, but your people have already been through here, cleaned up the whole cul-de-sac." It's also interesting to note that a few years ago these same people sort of stopped letting Lacey play so much with their daughter (they used to be best friends) because they learned we were Mormon.

I'm telling you, the organization of the Church alone is reason enough to at least consider that it might be divinely inspired. There's nothing else like it. It works in every imaginable case, from teaching the gospel, to providing disaster relief. It's just amazing. And it goes for the most part unheralded. The local preacher was giving a huge sermon on Sunday, talking about coming together and healing (yada yada yada) as a community, in front of cameras and news people, all the while others were out doing. The contrast was telling. The first counselor in the stake presidency had a chain saw and was piling downed trees onto his flat-bed trailer. Our Bishop was running what looked like the Normandy invasion out of his living room, with coolers and food available for all who passed through his house.

Anyway, tons of good stories out of this. This kind of thing is what kids remember years from now. It's been a great experience for all of us, and not having any power for a few days really brought us together (plus we wont have to go camping for a long while!)

I made a video documentary style of the incident with commentary from all the kids as to their own experiences. It turned out well. Maybe I'll post it on you-tube.

On the photo below, if you zoom into the middle section, you can see an entire line of train cars (tankers) that were blown over. Pretty surreal. I didn't know that's what I was taking a picture of at the time, or I would have gotten closer, but noticed it today.





Here are some more pictures.

This is the view from a friends house in Windsor, which got hit by the tornado. Our house is fine, thank goodness. It's a good long story about what we all went through, and I'll post the video of that when I get power back to my house.

We have water, cold and hot, and the kids are actually having a blast "camping" -- we even set up the tent in the back yard. Why not? We're cooking on a camp stove, and using camp lanterns for light, might as well go all the way. Of course I'm sleeping in my own bed. I had enough of camping last weekend.

I bought a 'tiny' camera for camping, cycling, hiking, etc., a Casio something -- funny, that was my first digital camera. It has better video than my (5 year old) $800 video camera -- and it's digital video, so there's no capture involved (which can only be done in real time -- a total pain). Pretty awesome. The depth of field for scenery and group shots is really good. Anyway, I took it on father and sons with the boys, took hundreds of photos and videos, and after downloading it to my computer, through a series of unfortunate events (pretty sure it was when I was downloading photos from someone's web site to put together a slide show for swim team), that the entire directory got purged. Sucked bad. I found some undelete software (called "undelete plus") which worked great, and recovered a few dozen pictures, but the rest, including all the movies, were gone forever. Oh well, at least it wasn't someone's wedding! The sad thing is I spent probably three hours sorting, cleaning up, etc. the pictures before I lost them.

Father and Son's camp-out was a riot. It's always fun -- all except the whole sleeping outside thing. I'll never get used to that. The daylight hours were really a good time, though. Ryan, Alan, and Jordan were all there. I took Friday off and went up early with the boys, we took our time getting there, and did a mountain bike ride when we got there.

Saturday was a lot of hiking. Ryan did great, outlasting us all. He's like a mountain goat. We hiked up hill from about 9am to 1pm. The kid's amazing. Jordan and Alan spent their time bouldering everything they could find. Mom was not happy with some of the pictures of the boys hanging off rock walls. Mom's will never understand that sort of thing. It would have been more fun had we remembered our rock climbing gear...so we tried to stay 20 feet or less off the ground....but that was a grey area.

I'll put some of the pictures up that I salvaged. My favorite one did survive, luckily enough, because I made it into my desktop image right off the bat.

Happy Mother's day!

Jordan finished his swim season with his best time in breast-stroke, beating his old time by almost two seconds. He was excited to do so well, and lettered as a freshman this year. We're looking forward to seeing him progress through High School. He's also excited to start up again in football this summer.

It's going to be a busy summer for all of us here. Too much to do, every day will be packed. We've got some fun family vacations planned already. Now, if I could just figure out how to play hookie at work for a few months. Think they'd miss me?

Lacey finished a play she was in, she had a good role as a tree -- a talking tree, and she did great.

I did a 125 mile bike race last weekend (still recovering from that ordeal), but I finished in the lead group, technically tied with two other riders (there's no sprint finish). It was pretty cool.

Dyllan is just insane lately, pretty sure he's figured out how to take over the house, and he's planning a coup. If he gets Cassidy and Lacey on his side, my only hope is that I can use Ryan as a spy, and Jordan as my muscle. Alan could go either way, but he's mostly pre-occupied with his own world domination plans, and probably considers a take-over of the house beneath him.

We're glad we all have our health, at least, and are stoked for the school year to end. Julie may be fearing having four extra kids home all day but she's always managed to plan awesome activities for them most days...especially days when I work from home and plead for her to have a field trip.