My Home (Office) and My Baby

Here is my new office configuration, featuring an Eric Claption painting (that I got from the bishop), my CD library, my Grand Central Station poster, and most importantly my new baby - my cool new Stratocaster. Alpine Jennings (our bishop and my guitar hero) rebuilt it, and even has the instructions for how to build it on Youtube. You can find under his user name "Rolijen". You can also hear him play it, which shows both how great he is, and how good the guitar sounds.

After many years, my wonderful wife has agreed to have an electric guitar in the house as long as it is in stealth mode, or is played while she is away. They have new software which allows you to get the tones of many different guitar players and play through your computer (Line 6's Gearbox), which makes it convenient and quiet. I can play louder at work, if and when I get the time. Watch out on Wednesday nights after class!

Michelle and Hillary

Michelle occasionally makes "pithy" comments about politics, but here is a more basic statement. The picture is of a target she made for Cam's blowdart guns that he brought from Malaysia. It is a stick figure of Hillary saying, "Global warming, blah, blah, blah", and in case you can't see, there are about a hundred dart holes around and through her. I've always said Michelle was interesting or funny, I never said she was subtle.

The Boys Are Back in Town

Excuse the rock reference, but it seemed appropriate. We love having both of our guys back. This is probably the last summer we will all be together, so we are enjoying it. The pictures are of Cam after getting home from his landscaping job while Brandon is helping out at the stove. It is kind of weird to be living with two other "men" after being awash in a sea of estrogen for the last months - just me and Traveler overmatched by the girls. : )

The other picture is our guitars. The boys are both getting into guitar lately, and we have a lot of music going on at home. I saw the guitars sitting in their usual positions and snapped this shot.

Missionaries

While waiting for Cameron to return, we seemed to have a great relationship with all of the missionaries that came through. This one is Sister Leavitt. She is a political science major, and will be running for president in 2024. Apparently Jamie will be running her campaign. We wish her and all the other great missionaries luck in their future endeavors. Drop us a line now and again if you like...

A Taste of Malaysia

The Wednesday of spring break I took the day off and took Cam to an Indian restaurant - his favorite ethnic food. It was pretty good, although he enjoyed it more than I did. We then went to downtown to a large Asian market on E 36th (called Tink Holl), and looked around for a couple of hours. We had a nice time browsing through things, and telling each other stories. We met some nice people, and bought several bags of Asian groceries, including a durian, which is the stinky smelling but good tasting fruit that Cam wrote about months ago. Actually, only one of the descriptors is correct. It does stink. It was still fun to try it. Cam about laughed his head off looking at my face as I spit the first bite in the sink. It was overripe, and I thought I had perhaps bit into a rotten portion. I hadn’t. It only tasted like it. Cam thought it was extremely funny. I tried a few more bites, and I did get more used to it, but it was like…imagine biting into something with the texture of an avocado, the flavor of an avocado mixed with a bit of papaya, and then permeated throughout with garlic. Now you are getting close. After he ate a bit more, we threw it out and by the next day it was MUCH smellier than the cat droppings cleaned from the kitty litter (used by three cats).

Cam also brought back some sarongs and other cultural souvenirs. One thing that surprised me was a Singaporean sitcom DVD. He would often talk about how he was worried about his broken English, and frankly I thought he was maybe exaggerating the level of difference a little. However, upon watching this sitcom, I found that I only understood about half of it the first time through, and that my eyes kept dropping down to the Malay and Chinese subtitles for help (which actually helped not at all of course). In speaking, he only has one or two habits that are hard for him to break - mostly having to do with ubiquitous use of the word “can” in unusual contexts.

Dad's Visit

Dad came out and visited after Cam returned. It was a lot of fun. We took him around to a few more obscure church sites - like the place Parley Pratt ran from the sheriff's dog, and where he performed some baptisms. Here are pictures of Cam and I with Dad.

Fun With Chelle

Here are a couple of pictures related to my darling daughter. The first is something she made after seeing an internet Easter comic. The second picture is the "vacation pic" for her pencil and eraser. She has a pencil named Sally and an eraser named Emily. She decided that even if she had to go to school, that was no reason that her friends should suffer, so she left them home and let them have a vacation. This is one vacation picture from their time away.