Of Nertz at the Williams'

Today after church I went to the Williams' for company.  We played Nertz, it was hilarious, everyone was in a very silly mode and Karen was laughing so hard she had tears streaming down her cheeks.  Two of the kids had to get up in the middle of the game to go to the bathroom because they were laughing so hard.  It was really really fun.  They call me comic relief, tonight, I had way more comic relief than they did.  It reminded me of home, growing up and watching mom just die laughing.

Alone with a psycho cat

So, today I was eating lunch and Haiku (the kit) was sitting on the table in front of me, all of a sudden she looks past me with this psycho fixed stare and starts chatting her teeth.  No kidding!  She started making this weird clicking sound. I tried to get her attention, but her eyes were glued on something outside (thankfully not me!)  It freaked me out enough I had to get away as I could only think of poor old yeller.  I looked where she was looking and there was a crow in the top of the tree.  Poor cat, now I realize their problem. I think Haiku is just mad that she can't move in 3D! 

Gingerbread houses out of Gram Cracker

We made gingerbread houses this year at Christmas time, it was great fun, we cheated and used Gram Cracker because it is way easier and faster and less hassle than regular gingerbread. Arden and I chose a bunch of different candies (like 20) to decorate the houses. Here the kids are eyeballing the candy knowing full well that candy is to be eaten not put on houses!

Here is Arden's House

Here is Cherish's

Here is Riley's

Here is Mary's
(I love the jeep in the garage)

Here is Alli's

I always thought gingerbread houses (or maybe they should be called gram houses?) were too boring if they look anything like houses, so I decided to make a marble works gram house. Here is a picture and a video

Negotiating with Children

Today at Dinner, Arden quickly ate some corn then got down. After much discussion and some threats about why he shouldn't leave the table early, he finally said (for real, and he's only 4): "Look, you want me to stay at the table but I'm already done. I want to get down because I'm already done and you two will take a long time to finish, it doesn't make sense that you want me to stay at the table so it should be okay for me to get down."

To witch Anna and I replied: "OK" and marveled at our budding negotiator while wondering how parents every "guide" their children.

Huckleberry Hunting

Recently, Anna had a friend go huckleberry hunting and she offered us some of the rewards from her trip. The look and taste of the berries inspired Anna to plan a trip with our family to find the origin of the huckleberries. So, we loaded up the kids and the car and headed to Kelly Canyon. On the way I asked what part of Kelly Canyon the berries would be found and she said, “oh, just up by the ski resort. They should be quite a ways off trails” On the trip Anna made cute little buckets for the kids to carry, she made them out of old sour cream containers and yarn. We also had little zip lock baggies to store our haul while we gathered more and more. So…off we went. Upon arriving at the base of Kelly Canyon we traversed the road three times to find the perfect spot, this spot was clearly the one as it was designated by a tipped over tree, a small stream and the smell of cow manure. That is how you know where the huckleberries are.

Upon arriving at the perfect location, we unloaded the kids and put Maile in her little backpack and off we went. Two feet later, Maile screaming in her backpack, we took our first water break and Maile was given freedom of movement. Our first encounter with berries was some small red berries 20 feet from the car, to which I asked, are these huckleberries. The reply,

“no…they are darker than that…more like blueberries. So, on we went. At this point, since I had no idea what huckleberries or their plants look like, I asked some find-out questions…

”So, what are we looking for”

“Huckelberries”

“Yeah...what do huckleberries look like?”

“Blueberries, maybe a little bigger, more purple.”

“What do the plants look like?”

“Short, not taller than 5 feet or so. There are ones that look like huckleberries, but if they are taller than 5 feet they are probably “service berries”

“Are service berries bad?”

“I don’t think so, but they aren’t good.”

(Now, I must clarify, the reason I am asking all these questions is because our internet was down for the time from the decision to go huckleberry hunting to the time we left, so I had no way of gathering the information prior to leaving.)

Anyway, so on we continue. About 100 feet from the road (not far from any trail) we came to a plant with some purplish berries on a plant (I still don’t know if they are bushes or trees).

“Are these huckleberries?”

“I don’t know. Let’s taste them and see.”

This did not resonate in my mind as the best idea as images of poisoned children and family and hospital visits went streaming through my mind, but on voicing concerns, I was met with, “Let’s just eat a few and see what they taste like.” So we tried a few. Now “tasting” something the size of a pea, does not give a good sense, however, we decided that since they weren’t horrible, we would gather these and call them huckleberries. The rule though was that no one, especially the children could eat them, just in case they were poisonous (The kids of course ate some while we weren't watching).

We picked 4 full quart bags of these “huckleberries” all the while sharing our hopes that they weren’t poisonous and that they could be eaten and used in pies. On the way out, we saw some smaller berries that were on smaller plants, and because these were also purple, and shorter than 5' we wondered if we had the real huckleberries or not. So, naturally, we tried some. These we immediately spit out because they were horrible tasting. While praying that we didn’t just cement our fate, we headed back to the car, but not before gathering a sample from the two plants to bring back to have someone determine how edible these berries really are.

We stopped at the county extension office and found out that the ones we picked four bags of are “service berries” (I thought those trees of 10’ were somewhat over the 5’ limit) and the other smaller berries were...well, Anna talked to the guy and that information never made it out.... So, our lesson, be sure to taste any berries you find and if you like the taste, just gather them, because they can't be bad for you if they taste not bad.

Installing eric4 IDE on windows xp

This is what I did to install Eric4 IDE on Windows XP, Most of this came from http://www.toadz.dk/install-eric-python-ide-on-windows/

1. Install Python (I used 2.5.2)
2. Install PyQt4 (I used 4.4.3)
3. Install Eric 4 (install.py) (I used 4.2.0)
4. Run Eric4 \eric\eric4.py

Global Warming

So, there is lots of news about global warming and how humans are speeding the world to a disaster. My question is this: What is the concern with global warming? Where is the evidence that MAN is responsible for this, and where is the evidence that things are going to be worse for the world?
Here is the way I see things. Man and vehicles input O2 and output CO2. Plants intake CO2 and output O2. If there is global warming, would that not increase the number of plants and the vitality of them? Would that not then create more/O2? Wouldn't it just be a similar cycle to what is happening now? I know there is a law-suit pending against Al Gore for the fraud he has led on global warming. There is just no evidence to back it up. Anyway, just some thoughts.