Shark infested waters...again

Sigh,

You'd think I'd learn to stop messing with computers. So a few days ago our router went out, so none of our laptops could access the internet. We ordered a new one. I got one that was wireless-N but also supports open firmware (tomato). Today, I got the router and set out to get it running. For a moment, I had the wired connection working. Tried a few different things, then I updated the firmware...Got dd-wrt working, then updated to tomato 1.28. Then nothing. It was as if the router was on but not alive, all the lights were steady green, just no internet connection.

While testing I realized my Ethernet port went bad and just stopped working? Seriously? I've been building computers for a dozen years and never seen one of those go bad. I tried everything including alternate computers, cables, direct plug to router. And well, it was just bad. Sigh, anyway...

I basically had no computers working and multiple failed components.

Then I said a prayer (best way to get out of shark infested water)

I then read that tomato does not default to DHCP. A static ip address and gateway fixed that problem. I logged on finally (to tomato 1.28) and I got wireless working. Then, I had to replace the new Ethernet port (I got wireless).

Nothing like a little help from above to exit shark infested waters.

arkivalieronline.dk

Lately, I haven't been able to open the arkivalieronline.dk records because something wasn't right with java.

To fix, I had to set the file extension .aspx to use java webstart.
Specifically

C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\javaws.exe

New Ride

Got a new Ride today.

2007 Shelby Mustang GT.

This thing hungers to tear up the road

You can feel the engine saying, "Please, let me go. Let me show you what I can do!"

Anna made me say the following against my will.

"Okay, so the car really isn't my own. My boss had access to it and let me take it home and drive it for a few days."

If I had $20,000 extra and I didn't know what to do with it, this would be tempting.

Newport Beach

Went to Newport Beach today (June 11) with Shawn and Heather and their family. While there, we went on the pier and of all things, we found a pelican just waddling along.

It let the kids get real close. We think it was injured.

We also saw a bunch of fishermen, they were fishing for Mackrel. They threw in these lines with a dozen hooks on and they would pull out like 3-7 fish at a time. It was crazy.

Went to the Padres game with my lady
(Padres = Major League Baseball)
It was quite fun, we had great seats. Our team hit a homerun.
The Braves beat the Padres 10-1. At least we got to see lots of action!

Maile or Cherstin?

Is this Maile? Or Cherstin?

Wild beasts

Went to the arcade with the kids and won some prizes. Arden got some little capsules that dissolve in water and release a sponge animal and he was reading off the names.

Arden: "...there is a wild beast"

Dad: "It's pronounced wildebeast"

Arden: oh, there is a wildebeast"

Maile: "What's a wilde?"

Hee hee, I love these kids

Preparing for Travel

Today, we booked a trip to Sequoia National forest in September. We are going to stay at Dandy's Cabin. We are pretty excited. My folks are coming down to meet us there.

Tonight, I was reading Tom Sawyer to Maile and Arden and Maile said, "Dad, I've been writing our list to take with us to the cabin. It has Fire, and love, toys, bumpy things, and fruit".

That was good for a deep smile!

I love lego land!

Check out these awesome scenes created from lego land.
They have a whole new Star wars area that just came online a short while ago.

More holiness give me

Sometimes the battle for right and wrong heats up and it becomes blatantly obvious where to be. Other times it is so subtle that a mere distraction could derail you from your course. At times like this I love the words of the Hymn "More holiness give me"

More holiness give me,

More sweetness within,

More patience in suff'ring,

More sorrow for sin,

More faith in my Savior,

More sense of his care,

More joy in His service,

More freedom in prayer.

More gratitude give me,

More trust in the Lord,

More zeal for His glory,

More hope in His Word,

More tears for His sorrows,

more pain at His grief,

More meekness in trial,

More praise for relief.

More victory give me,

More strength to o'ercome,

More freedom from earth-stains,

More quest for the throne,

More fit for the kingdom,

More useful I'd be,

More blessed and holy,

More, Savior, like Thee.

Just a minor set of goals...

A great day

Last week we finally earned our Legoland tickets (the kids read 1,000 books). So, we got the tickets on Friday and have already been twice. It is nice to not worry about "getting our money worth" so we can go and hang out or go on rides, or not. Legoland really is a lego lover's dream come true. There are so many lego things to see! Yesterday Arden and I went on one roller coaster that had a fairly steep initial drop and at the other side of the drop Arden said "I don't think this was a very good idea!" The people behind us got a kick out of that. Afterwards, Arden was pretty excited about it. We had a great day yesterday, I replaced the brake pads and rotors on the van, we went to Legoland, went to the beach, and had brats and hot dogs and homemade french fries for dinner. Just a great day!

My Sweet little Maile

Today for bed time stories I was having the bears play with a train. The little bear got in front of the train. And Maile pipped up and said "Little Bear, you be good or I am going to take off your meat!"

That was a bit morbid, so while trying not to laugh I attempted to encourage her to use polite words.

The next phrase was "Little bear, you be good or I am going to pull out all your soft". Then she looked at me and said "soft, like fur."

I lost it at that point and had to record this moment.

gun laws

"Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

-- Patrick Henry [3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836]

Why I love Carlsbad

So, I've been thinking about building shelves for one of our closets because I know Anna would really like them. It will require 2 sheets of plywood and roughly 5 2x4s. Today I was talking to my neighbor Ivan and mentioned the idea and he said, "Hey, Megan has some wood over there you should see if she would let you have it." So I asked and sure enough, they said I could have it, that they were happy to be rid of it. That haul provided me with 2 of the shelves and the 2 x 4s. So I thought to ask Ivan if he had a saw (he has everything). So, I'm sitting there for about 10 minutes getting the wood together and double checking my measurements and he comes out and gets a mitre saw out for cutting the 2x4's then a circular saw for the plywood. Then a pencil, a square, safety googles, and various drill bits for handling the screws. (He is a construction framer by trade).

I'm somewhat overwhelmed at his willingness to help out (but he is one of the most friendly people in the world.) Then he asks if I like spicy food. I say "Yeah, usually, as long as it doesn't burn me up!"). And then I start cutting the wood. By the time I am done with the first one he has brought a plate of chicken tacos and beans and a soda. How can you not love a neighbor like that!

Then we were talking about cars and things (he is rebuilding his datsun 510-and I mean completely rebuilding) and he offered to help us change our oil on our cars. (He spent an hour doing the brakes today).

Yes, yes, I do know how to change oil, I just don't have most of the tools for it. (Oil pan, something to lift up the car). Anyway, he has all that, so next Saturday, we will plan to fix the car.

Everyone needs a neighbor like Ivan. Everyone should be a neighbor like Ivan.

Going on ... our kids get along wonderfully (his are 14, 12, and 9). Also all our other neighbors are all great. Today there was about 8 kids just playing between the houses and it was just so fun. A little piece of heaven on earth. What wonderful neighbors we have.

Shall we believe science?

Why we should not put all of our belief in scientists. You gotta love it. This study goes back 13 years and has caused enough debate and lost resources that were just wated. Funny thing, when you combine greed with science or religion you get chaos.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html

I'll take two of the non-greedy science and religion please.

Wants of Today vs. Wants of Tomorrow

I read the following in Brandon Sanderson's book The Hero of Ages

“A man is what he has passion about, ... I’ve found that if you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you’ll just end up miserable.”

Boy, I've thought about this idea a thousand times. It seems that time can ALWAYS be spent "better". From a religion perspective, from a work perspective, from a relationship perspective, from a family perspective, even from a personal perspective. Looking back in time I often wish I had made different choices, or at least considered things differently. The problem, of course, being that I was looking at the past with lenses from the future. So duh, of course I would have seen things differently.

One of my primary goals for this year is to "just stop" We can get so busy and scrambled as we try to do more, a little more, and we keep pushing ourselves. As I "stop" I find more peace and ironically, time to do the stuff I really want to do.

I think therein lies the challenge. What are my wants? They come two fold. What I want to do today and what I want to become. (Let's not argue over the merits of what I want to become, just that there are two forces from within). Often they don't coincide, or at least the things I want today, probably won't lead me to what I want to become.

As I ramble on, I have noticed that as time progresses my wants of today more closely line up with my wants of tomorrow. Perhaps I am achieving my goal, or simply lowering my goal.

Long story short. Work towards something better and enjoy today.

Tide pools are cooler than you think

So, I love the tide pools, but this just made our day. Our good friend Drek saw this little crittter but then he eluded us for awhile. After a bit of hunting we were able to find him again and catch him so the kids could see. We were all alone out there and it was too great of a find to not share with others. So Anna went around to tell other people that we found an octopus. Eventually quite the crowd came around and we were able to show a number of kids and parents. We let him go then followed it and caught it again when another crowd came. What a fun day!

Ug...Pictures in blogs...I have no talent here

http://curtis-thoughts.blogspot.com/2011/01/tide-pools-are-closer-than-you-think.html

Yeah...I have no talent whatsoever...Any hints on how to get the text under and over the image?

Tide Pools are closer than you think.

So there are tide pools only 12 minutes from our house. Best time to go is very low tide.





We found lots of sea anenomes. They were great fun. Maile tried poking a little one and it "sucked her hand"





We found a crab with a broken shell (I think someone stepped on it)





And we found a baby starfish. We also saw lots of cool shells, a sea slug and a ton of little crabs.


It was awesome to consider all the life in that great big ocean. I love God's creations.

Progression

This is a great little scripture:

Luke 2:52And Jesus ^aincreased in ^bwisdom and stature, and in ^cfavour with God and man.

It explains so clearly the areas we should seek to improve: Wisdom, stature, favor with God, favor with man.

Leadership and self-deception

Just read a fantastically inspiring book called Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the box by the Arbringer Institute (http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-Out/dp/1576751740) It talked about the fact that we view others as objects, nuisances, challenges, obstacles rather than what they are...people. By doing this we don't interact with them as we should and they often get the feeling that we don't care for them. This then leads to behavior that is counter-productive. People are in it for themselves, not for the group/company.

The solution is to honor people as they are...people with hopes, dreams, fears, worries as real and legitimate as mine. I loved this paragraph from the text on page 123

"I saw in myself a leader who was so sure of the brilliance of his own ideas that he couldn't allow brilliance in anyone else's, a leader who felt he was so 'enlightened' that he needed to see workers negatively in order to prove his enlightenment, a leader so driven to be the best that he made sure no one else could be as good as he was."

This is exactly who I do not want to be. I have often wondered if a leader had to be this way, as it seems that most leaders we read about or see, are this way. But this gives me hope that those I work with can be the best and most brilliant, that I do not have to be better than everyone else. (It is more manageable this way!)

I very highly recommend this read.

Revelation

Joseph Smith said: “This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted-by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed.”

It is all about having the spirit to receive the revelation for your individual situation.

I Love Computers

After whining about it long enough, my sweet little wife did not object to my upgrading the computer. I was able to get Windows 7, a terabyte drive and Microsoft Office 2010. The computer now runs sweet and is a joy to use. The video card works perfectly and I didn't do anything special. I guess 10 years after Windows XP was released, it was time to upgrade. (Wifey comments that it seems the same to her, but she doesn't recognize all the little things, that are measured in terabytes, and gigabits. This marks the first time I have paid for my software on my computer. Previously I used free software from when I was in college.