Name the Decade Contest

What are we supposed to call this next decade? I need both a working title and a nick name. We floundered around for 10 years not knowing what to call the last one, though I have heard that Time Magazine has nicknamed it the decade from he**. Hopefully, we can come up with something a little more sprightly for the next half score of years.

Any suggestions will be appreciated. Prizes will be awarded.

Regardless, I wish you all the best in the new year.

(I'm personally running with the p-20s. aka pre-twenties or maybe decade X, i.e. 10's to you non Romans, or Y2KX, or XX:double X)

Retro #6 - Light up the Sky Like a Flame

As I drove my two oldest girls to a youth dance tonight, I was reminded of a New Year's Eve of long ago. When I was about 9 years old our Stake (Church Organization) held a New Year's Eve dance. Towards the end of the dance, as it was nearing midnight, the live band held a dance off. The song of choice was 'Bad, Bad LeRoy Brown', that old get down and boogy song of the 70's. Well, I pulled out all of the stops and busted a few of my best moves. Sure enough when it was time to announce the winner, I just happened to rise to the top. I think that the angel flights that I was wearing gave me extra style points.

The prize for winning was to be the first in line for refreshments. That was when it struck me, that this was Saturday night and the next day was fast Sunday (a day in our church where we refrain from eating two meals and donate the money that we would have spent on those meals to those in need). I had started my fast, but everyone was waiting for me to load up on goodies and start chowing down. All eyes were on me and I felt a tremendous amount of pressure. I panicked and I grabbed a big sugar cookie and took a bite and then ran out into the hall where I promptly dumped the incriminating evidence in a garbage can.

I remember feeling very guilty for a while. After that, I have been very hesitant to dance like I was the one who inspired the movie 'Fame'. Still, I always wondered if I could have become a 'Solid Gold' dancer.

Meant to be Seen not Worn?

This coat gets a lot of mileage but is never worn. My youngest daughter is frequently requested to not leave the house during the winter months without a coat. She will then grab this coat stubbornly when walking out the door. I figure that when she realizes that she is cold, she will be glad that she has the coat and will put it on. So, she then walks tirelessly around with it under her arm, never once putting it on. Even at the outdoor concert that I blogged about earlier this month, where I thought that I would freeze to death, it wasn't donned. I and another daughter used it as a insulation pad underneath us as we sat on the bench.

Even as we went sledding yesterday in temperatures that were in the teens, this was the result (as seen above)

Not a Creature Was Stirring

There are a lot of surprises and a little anxiety that normally accompanies the arrival of Christmas morning. This year was to be no different. After a late night of preparing for the morning unwrapping fest, I laid in bed early, wondering at what time the little chitlins would arise wanting to rush down and tear into their holiday booty.

That's when it happened. The phone rang. I did not have long to ponder who would be calling at this pre-dawn hour. Was it the kids who were circumventing our security system to get to us? We, of course, had locked our door and nailed a sheet to the walls in the hallway blocking the view of the Christmas Tree downstairs. There was to be no unauthorized access to us or those awaiting presents. The realization came as my wife rolled out of a deep slumber to murmur, "It must be your parents." This was confirmed as I looked at at the caller ID and it said 'the grandparents'.

You see, my parents have always been early risers, and of course, the disease only gets worse with age. At times the genetic defect has manifested itself in me, but I've been able to control it for the most part without medication. Going to bed really really late often cures it on the spot. As of yet, it appears that the early riser gene is dormant in my kids.

I answered the phone to hear my mother asking if the kids had opened all of the presents yet. I said, "Mom, the kids have not even stirred yet, and I don't expect it to happen for quite some time." My mom was aghast and said, "It's already 6:00 a.m., are they not feeling well?" Now when I was a kid and we raced into my parents room at 4:00 on Christmas Morning, it was no skin off their backs. It was like sleeping in to them. They thought that it was totally normal. My mom let me know that she and my dad didn't want to waste the day away. They were ready to see what the kids got and if we didn't get going really fast that we would lose the spirit of Christmas.

I told my mom that I would call as soon as I heard the first peep out of any one of my kids. So she hung up. I felt the the disappointment in her voice. I could envision what she was thinking, "Where did we go wrong with our kids? We thought that at least this one had some potential." The guilt lasted for a good 6 seconds before I drifted back off to sleep.

The next thing that I realized was that the front door bell was ringing. I turned over to see that it was 6:30 a.m. My wife once again rolled out of a deep slumber to say, "It's your parents". I knew that she must be right. I hurried down to the door to let in my parents and my older brother. They were flabbergasted to find out that the kids still weren't up. My dad said that he was just going to find out what the kids got anyway and proceeded into the front room where the presents were. Some of the gifts were wrapped and some, because of their shape and size were not wrapped. My dad started announcing gaily all of the presents that he could identify.
Fortunately for him the kids were still so dead asleep that they couldn't hear him and that my wife does not believe in capital punishment, so his life was spared. Though, I'm sure if she were fully awake she wouldn't have been opposed to a little caning.

They waited patiently for about 10 minutes and finally decided that it was a hopeless cause. They decided to head off to my other brother's house a hour away. Of course my brother's kids would have been up for at least 6 hours and their gifts would be worn out by the time my parents got there. But for them they were salvaging what was left of Christmas Day.

It was still another good 1 1/2 hours before the kids rolled out of bed.

I've learned that in life their are two kinds of people: Those who wake early on Christmas Morning and those who never have seen a Christmas Morning.

What type are you?

Cats and Dogs Living Together

My Father dropped a bombshell on my kids the other day. He called and wanted to talked specifically to the kids. He said, "Did you know that Santa's reindeer are girls?" I thought, yeah right, what type of crazy talk is that. I know that my dad is always trying to pull your leg and tell wild stories that are not always based in pure reality just for the effect (Thank goodness that he didn't pass that genetic trait onto me...right?). Besides, I'm Mr. Trivia and of course would know something like that..wouldn't I?

He laid out the facts: Both male and female reindeer grow antlers which are shed each year. The Bucks (that's guy reindeer to you and me) drop their antlers in early winter, like the end of November to mid December. The Does (pronounced doughs not dues to you more ungulately challenged folk) keep theirs until they calve in the spring. Thus only the females have the head hardware when it comes time to pull the big guy's sled.

Whoa, am I glad that he didn't spill that one on me when I was a kid. That would have totally messed with my brain. My kids took it in stride, though. They're such the hardened generation, nothing seems to bother them. Still, could this be true. Could the visions of sugar plums that danced in my head as a youth really be soured prunes?

I had to research and find out for myself, no matter how long it took. Thanks to wikipedia the agony lasted for a good 15 seconds. Yes, it is true that the male reindeer do generally drop their antlers early, but, and this is an important 'but', some young, strong, buff, able to fly over a continent in a single bound bucks can keep their antlers until spring. So there you have it, paradigm left perfectly intact. Thank you very much!!

But then I started to think about Santa and had the thought, "In Italian and Spanish isn't Santa a 'feminine form' word. Wouldn't the masculine be San." Maybe Kris Kringle is really short for Kristina Kringle.

Stop!!! don't mess with my mind anymore.

Saloon Building 101

The dinner conversation somehow moved to talking about the Shooting Star, the Local Bar. Apparently, I'm the only one who has ever been in it in our family. Go figure, what the heck are those four kids of mine doing in their spare time anyway...But I digress, here is a portion of their conversation:

Daughter 1: I've seen in it before, once when the door was open.

Daughter 2: Yeah, me too. It's not like what I thought it would look like.

Daughter 1: There are dollar bills all over the ceiling.

Daughter 3: Cool.

Daughter 2: That is such the waste.

Daughter 1: What do you mean? I think that is totally normal. How is it a waste?

Daughter 2: Let's see you build a house and see how much money you have left over to paste all over the ceiling!

On the Third Day of Festivus My True Love...

I was thinking to myself as I was listening to some Christmas music the other day on the radio that it seemed rare to hear a new song and not just a remixed version of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer". I was guessing that the ratio had to be at least 20:1 of original new and remix new.

Well, this is the latest 'Holiday' song from our own Senator Orrin Hatch. There hasn't been as much excitement out there for a new song since Mr. Sir Paul McCartney came up with that forever classic, "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime". I'm not too sure of what I think of Senator Hatch's song, but I am certainly glad that he took the time out of his busy schedule to actually do something productive (health care reform is such the drag). I'm not sure if he has gotten the details all correct, after all he's a mormon singing about Jewish history. What's next, a Jew singing Christmas songs...Oh yeah, Neal Diamond's all ready done that. He even had his own Christmas Special to boot.

All I can say from this clip is that Senator Hatch sure looks good on camera.

Eight Days of Hanukkah from Tablet Magazine on Vimeo.

By the way, what is your all time favorite Christmas song? I think mine is "Silent Night". "Feliz Navidad" may be a close second.

What's a Nubbin and Do We Need Them?

My youngest daughter had an outdoor choir performance in minus 'the temperature to freeze your nubbins off' degrees Fahrenheit last night. Of course the performance was a plus, but the weather was definitely a minus. Unfortunately, for our youngest, he got sick and couldn't make it. Fortunately, for my wife, our youngest got sick and couldn't make it. Thus, requiring her to stay home to nurse the ailing.

So, it was me and the three girls who braved the cold. While I was sitting there chattering, one of my girls got after me for forgetting to bring the camera to document this momentus occasion. The other daughter, apparently who was a little more tech savvy, suggested that I use my cell phone to snap a photo. I, therefore, reluctantly dug deep into my 50 layers of clothes and pulled my phone out. I then took off my gloves and attempted to take a shot. I only had space enough on my phone to take one photo. I ended up taking that one photo several times because each time I took it, it would show up blurry. After a bit, I finally gave up because it seemed like the photos kept getting worse and worse the more times I went through the process of taking the picture, looking at the picture, erasing the picture, and then starting again. I finally just emailed what I had to myself and threw back on my gloves.

Eventually, when my brain warmed back up enough upon sipping some hot chocolate, I realized what my problem was. I had been so cold that my hands were constantly shaking. Oh well, my daughter will have to be satisfied knowing that she is one of the blurry blobs in this photo.

Worth Your Weight in Roadside Hazards

Do you know how the Utah Department of Transportation measures the worth of a man? If he stops along a road, that he has no responsibility for, and pulls off fresh road kill out of the travel lanes.

Clean Hands and a Pure Heart

Emails will always come back to haunt you. Here is an email that was sent to me and others that was attached to a room being scheduled. unfortunately, it was intercepted by the librarian. The best case of "whoops" that I have ever seen.


Rex has graciously volunteered to bring down a bootleg copy of the movie he made for this year's Engineer's Conference. Bring your lunch to the library conf. room at noon, but make sure the Nazi Librarian doesn't see it. Or we could eat lunch at 11:30 and then go in and view the movie with clean hands and a pure heart. It's only 15 minutes long, but I scheduled an hour just in case we want to see it 4 times (if it's really good).


Now we know that big brother is always watching, because here is the intercepted reply:

I should warn you that the "Nazi Librarian" sees all, and prefers the "clean hands" and allegedly "pure heart" course of action. But she has been known to enjoy smacking around Anarchists who torch the rule book. So choose well.



Seig Heil!


(name withheld)

Nazi Librarian

I don't know when I laughed harder: when I got this email or when my friend had to pass the librarian when we went into the library conference room. Only one word comes to mind for my friend: BAAAAA! (sheepish sheep sound)

The Faux Pas

Have you ever experienced any socially awkward situations? My wife says that I can't experience anything but. Here are my top three categories of embarrassing situations:

1. The Misintended attention grabber. This one tops my list, I think by far. It can come in several forms. The first is when someone waves and you wave back only to realize too late that they were waving to someone else. Ouch, that one stings. Even worse for me is when you are in a meeting and someone from outside the room tries to get your attention. Upon engaging some form of contact back with this person you suddenly realize that they were trying to communicate with someone behind you. To make matters worse is when you leave the room to join them only to find out you weren't the person that they were trying to get the attention of. To solve this problem, I simply have the policy to just ignore the person regardless of how frantic they get with the arm waving.

2. The Misunderstood word. This one is so commonplace for me because I am deaf, that it doesn't warrant much attention. Everyone experiences this one from time to time. Like when someone asks if you want a raspberry tart and you say something like, "fart? No I haven't fluffed for at least five minutes." The kicker for me on this one is that it extremely bothers my spouse, who is so embarrassed when this happens to me that she usually falls on the floor writhing in embarrassing agony, which generally causes me a little embarrassment.

3. The Trip and Fall. This one can have so many variations that it warrants mention. It usually entails catching your toe on some edge or bonking your head on something. The situation usually is worsened by the fact that you doing something totally stupid right after you do it to cover up the misstep, which generally draws more attention to yourself. For instance, this last Sunday I had to conduct some pretty important business in front of a religious congregation. As I finished and turned around to head back to my seat I tripped over a small chair that was placed strategically in the wrong place for an upcoming children's program. Well, immediately upon tripping I start doing a little soft shoe dance routine as if the whole thing had been choreographed. Not a very smooth thing to do when in front a large body of people who are trying to feel the spirit. I can visualize Jenny now writhing on the floor after reading this.

Has anyone else ever experienced any embarrassing moments?

If at First...

They're Back! The little furry things with black and white stripes, and this time they have followed me to work. My office is out in the trailer trash section of our work complex, where we have set up a several modular units because we grew too large for our building. Now I realize that there is some benefits to dieting.

Well, a family of skunks have moved in under one of the units and they let us know every now and then that they are in the neighborhood by letting off a little squirt here and there. Well, even folks in my trailer trash part of the world had enough of that so they became determined to put an end to these skunk's doctrine of manifest destiny.

Of course they came to me to address the problem because the stories of my adventures with these wily critters have become legendary. Well, more specifically, the tales of my wife's release program have kept the crowds going at the water cooler. So obviously they demanded that my wife and I should team up to get rid of the skunks. I flatly refused. Not because I didn't think that I couldn't catch the little guys, on the contrary, I knew that I could, which was the problem. The difficulty being, as President Bush found out, is the exit strategy. I knew all about the shock and awe with the guns a blazing, but my removal strategies, though I think are quite efficient, have been criticized by the leftist media (my wife's blog).

So, I left our grounds crew supervisor on his own on this one, though, I did give him a lot of advise of actually how to proceed in the operation, of which he ignored most of. This was something that we all would soon regret.

First of all, he bought a trap that could have caught a bear. Oh boy, wouldn't that have been fun if we showed up one morning with a bear in our trap. I mean, a skunk could perform a highwire circus act in there, being able to wave his bushy little tail anywhere he darned well pleased. Next, he placed the trap down a long narrow corridor between buildings with only one way in and one way out. I guess he thought that it would be wise to corner these guys down a long dark alley. Obviously, he hadn't done his homework on war strategy. This may work with destroying tanks in urban warfare, but it only helps a skunk's howitzer when it only needs to aim it's barrel in one direction (effective use of foreshadowing and figurative language, my high school English teacher would be proud of me).

Thinking that this may cause some sort of problem for himself (but I think, not really realizing what this problem could be) he tied a rope onto the trap, leaving the untied end out in the open, out of the alley. Could he have been thinking, "hey, instead of walking up to this trap where I can be sprayed, I will pull the trap to me bouncing it over hard ground, with every tug bringing the trap ever so much closer to myself." Get the visual.

There's not much left to the story. The skunk was caught and the detonation occurred right under my window. Needless to say, we have not seen the grounds guy since then.

I guess this supports the change that I have made to an old adage, "if at first you don't succeed...DON'T BECOME A SKUNK TRAPPER!!!!

And BINGO Was His NAME-O

Once a year my work puts on an employee appreciation luncheon. It is an opportunity for our senior leadership to thank us for all of the hard work that we have shown in the last year, yada, yada, yada. You get the picture. Well, to liven everything up, a few years ago, I suggested that we play some BINGO. I was joking, but they took me seriously because they view me as mister fun and excitement. What can I say, I work with a bunch of engineers. They hired me on the spot and now year after year it is my job assigment to be the annual BINGO caller.


So tomorrow, I am hosting the seventh annual BINGO event. It has actually been kind of fun and I have added my own twists to it. Its kind of been a combination of 'deal or no deal', 'let's make a deal', 'the price is right', and 'the Apprentice' or was that 'the Bachelor'. Whatever ever it is, it is the one with the married guy acting single with the wacky hairdo. There is nothing like being able to fire your boss, even if it is pretend.



It is amazing to see that there is actually something that gets people more worked up into a frenzy than a 4:00 a.m. after Christmas sale at Walmart. All you need is a little gambling with free money. I usually get a pocket full of $1 bills donated to me that I use to try and buy some nice prizes back from the winners. It's amazing how someone will give up a $100 gift for 10-$1 bills.

Then I remember how these are the same people who voted in our last election and I get really depressed.

Hobo Update

Yes we are well into Hobo spider season again. This year we have moved slightly from the "dad would you squash this one...and that one... and oh, that one for me" strategy. Oh, there is still plenty of that that goes on, but this year we have also have made a small investment (into the six figures) on sticky traps. We have them laid out everywhere. It is like we have actually mined our own house. We ourselves are in constant danger of trapping our selves, and these things really do stick. I always fear that somehow, I will get one stuck to the side of my face with at least a dozen or so spiders stuck there with me. You know, they don't die right away when they get caught on these things. You can watch them do push ups for many days after they get caught. So the last thing that I would want would be to have a full aerobics class going on next to my nostrils as they try to get a piece of me in a counter attack.

We usually place these traps in strategic locations where we know they like to roam, kind of the 'hobo highways' for a lack of a better term. Regardless of how many we catch they love to follow certain paths. They just keep piling up on top of each other on these traps. There is a series of traps at the bottom of our door in the laundry room. Every day I count how many we are getting on the trap. Until yesterday. I went down to get a fresh spider count and the traps were gone.

I guess that we need to replace the traps when we reach 45 on them, otherwise, they can walk off on their own with the trap.

MARCO!....POLO?

My fifteen year-old daughter, Alicia, got invited to a movie party at a friend's house the other night. She was excited to go and decided to ditch the rest of the family, who were going up to the park, where the town was showing their own movie. I was impressed that Alicia at least was responsible and handed me the address of her friend and a phone number as she ran out the door to catch a ride with another friend. I, in turn, set the address aside without looking at it, as my wife had mentioned that she would pick her up after it was over.

Can, I say, right up front that 15 is the weird, awkward age for parents. Your teenager wants to do everything that totally irresponsible teenagers want to do but don't have a driver's license to accomplish it. So, the parents end up driving these critters around, essentially making us accomplices to everything that they do.

Well, anyway...After our park movie was over, Jenny graciously volunteered me to go pick up Alicia from her party. So, being the adorable hunk of burnin' love that she refers to me as, I headed off to pick Alicia up. I hurried home and grabbed the address that she left and headed toward the opposite end of the valley. When I looked down at the address I suddenly realized that the address did not make sense. The Northing and Easting of the address did not match up with the town that she had listed on the paper. But, being the intelligent genius that I am, I noticed that if I swapped the north and east around, it did fit the town. So I drove to that address. I arrived at the location and there was not a home there. I criss-crossed the entire town, arriving at the same conclusion that the house was simply not there.

I realized then that I was in a little dilemma. It was after 11:00 p.m., well after the time that reasonable people make house calls on total strangers, plus I also realized that I was more of an idiot than a genius because I left my cell phone at home. So, I saw a family pull up to a house near by and I thought to myself, what a perfect opportunity. I could go and catch them as they were getting out of their car and it wouldn't be that much of an inconvenience for them. It wasn't like I was going to be waking them up or something.

What I didn't realize was that I was down a long country road and when someone who is sitting in a car suddenly comes up to you, as if they were waiting for an opportunity to attack you, it might not go over so well. Well, the husband and wife got out of their car and when they saw me coming, they took a defensive position and I thought that I was about to be maced. To make matters worse, I could smell the alcohol on the husband's breath at twenty paces. After breaking the ice of the initial part of the conversation, they ended being quite friendly, but nonetheless hadn't a clue where this address was, though, it should have been right next to their house.

I then had a strange thought that maybe this home was in the wizarding world and I was just a mere muggle not knowing how step through some warp to get to Hogwarts. I then went to plan B. I dug up $.50 in change in the car and made it over to the nearest pay phone. Alicia did leave a phone number. So, I called the number. After, the parent who answered, not quite knowing it my daughter was at his house and then searching for 9 minutes of my 10 minute pay phone call, Alicia finally came on the phone. She was excited to hear from me and wanted to tell me about all of the fun things that they done at the party. I eventually got her to turn the conversation to the topic of how and the heck was I going to find where she was and I only had about 30 seconds left of the call to accomplish this. I first gathered that the address was correct, but the town was wrong. ok. We were getting somewhere. Secondly, no one at the house could figure out how to give me directions on how to get there. So, I just said as my time on the phone ran out, I am heading to this address and try and look for me when I come.

I drove to the new town and headed into the hills to where this address was. Dang. Hills and address do not go together. Brigham Young , in his wisdom, made everyone live on flat ground with 5000 foot wide streets in a grid pattern for a reason. For him it was so he could find his wives, I guess. Dang again. If only I had brought my GPS, this would be a cinch. So. Now I was faced with locating a physical address on hilly roads that went every where, with driveways that did not list any address on them, and driveways that were at least a 1/2 mile long. If only people would get along a little bit better with their spouses so that they didn't have to live so dang far away from everyone else so they wouldn't hear them fight with each other.

So, I started to methodically drive up and down every dark windy driveway in the general area that this address should cover, hoping that when whoever came to the door, wasn't wielding a shotgun, but would be in fact my daughter. I made the driveway circuits several times, successfully not being shot at, but at the same time not finding my daughter. I was now about to plan xxx, and it was now well past midnight.

I almost lost hope and came to the conclusion that I would just head home and hope that the remaining children would decide not to have friends or get their drive's licenses before they got any friends. I decided to drive down one last driveway that I had been down several times before. I parked in the driveway for a few minutes and no one came out, so I dejectedly started heading back down the driveway, thinking that I had one less mouth to feed. When all of a sudden, in my rearview mirror, I saw the porch light flick on and off.

I had at last found the prodigal.

Retro #5 - Lions, Tigers, And Bears, Oh My!

I thought it was time again to throw in something from my childhood. The following are the three things that scared me the most, and occupied much of my waking hours thinking about, when I was between the ages of 6-10 (probably in this order, too):

1. Killer Bees
2. Soviet ICBMs
3. Bigfoot

Killer Bees - I don't know who to blame for this, but they were coming. I had been told by a reliable source, that they could be identified because they flew in a distinctive doughnut shape and they would be coming from the south. The only thing that could save your life was your ability to hold your breath for 3 minutes underwater. This was the time it would take for them to lose interest in you and then fly off to attack someone else. I spent a lot of time looking for doughnuts flying over Trappers Loop (the hills to the south)




Soviet ICBMs - Yep, I grew up in the height of the cold war. When I wasn't looking for bees to the south, I was looking to the East for contrails of missiles heading to take out Hill Air Force Base. Why from the East? I don't know. I would practice my reaction time in looking away quickly when these things would detonate so my face wouldn't be melted off.






Bigfoot - I guess I have Steve Austin (you know, the 6 million dollar man) to blame for this one. Not only was bigfoot big, mean, and hairy, but he was bionic too, thanks to those sneaky space aliens. He only makes it to third on my list, because you only had to worry about him when you were in the woods.






Here are a few other things that did not make it into the top three, but nonetheless, were fearsome during these crucial years :

Piranha
Bears
UFOs
Ghosts
Mean Dogs
Old People
Heights
Tetanus
Drowning
Play Ground Supervisors
Public Speaking

What were you afraid of during the years from 6-10?

He Ain't No Octogenarian, At Least

One of my friends from work asked me if I wanted to do a bike ride up to Snowbasin (local ski resort) on last Saturday morning. I thought that would be great. My friend is part of a group of guys that I have been riding with. They are really good bike riders and are kind enough to let me draft more than my share.

I was a little nervous to be riding alone with him because he would be pushing me really hard, which is a good thing. Well, we plugged along. I was pushing it really hard and felt good about how I was doing. I thought that I was making a respectable show of it. As we rode, my friend was talking to me ( he was doing most of the talking, as I was doing most of the gasping for air) about his dad who is 75 and is still an avid bike rider. I know his dad. He is pretty spry but still looks like someone who is getting up there in years. I was thinking to myself that, yeah, this dad is pretty cool, until my friend said, that he climbs at about the same pace as me (of course he meant no offense to me).

My opinion than totally changed of this over achieving father. I was thinking to myself, "oh yeah, bring it on old man, we'll see who will win the green jersey for the best hill climber. I might be half your age, but I'm not going to let you show me up at the finish line."

Oh well, I guess I shouldn't get too competitive. You know we're all getting older...and I'm sure when he hits 80, I'll be leaving him in the dust.

Fulness of Times or Baseball Apostasy?

Our family was the fortunate recipients of some baseball tickets given to us by a very kind lady who was not going to be able to use her season tickets for a recent home stretch of games for the Ogden Raptors. The Raptors are a minor league team. We had two tickets each night for three nights in a row. So my wife, Jenny, graciously told me that it would be a great opportunity for daddy-daughter dates with our three girls. Something tells me that if we had 200 free tickets, Jenny would have graciously offered all 200 to other people. She's just that type of a person, sacrificing so some unfortunate homeless person can catch a ball game, so she doesn't have to.

I was excited for it. I hadn't been to a professional ball game for quite awhile. What we experienced was well worth it. I was hoping to gather in all of the experience by eating peanuts and hot dogs, so I stopped off at a teller machine to empty out my bank account because I knew what type of costs that I was in for. Unfortunately, the teller machine was down. I only had $7 dollars in my pocket. I told Megan that if she could hold out that we would buy food after the game. We were able to scrape enough money together to buy two small hotdogs. The next two nights, I came well prepared to buy all the sugar and fat loaded food that I could get my hands on.

The experience was really entertaining, not only did the Raptors win all three games, but all of the side stuff that goes on in these games really was fun...strange, but fun. You see, baseball is a little bit slower paced that some other professional sports that constantly run up and down a court or field. So this leaves plenty of time for the crowd to get caught up in some wacky stuff. It really is sort of a religious experience in a way, in that the game probably started out in some sort of pure form where the spectators just sat quietly, being proper and not embarrassing themselves in anyway. Over time things have morphed or changed to meet the inner needs of the spectator just like most religions do today to meet the needs of the penitent soul. I mean, at first glance it is as wacky and ritualistic as any fanatic denomination is to the outside observer.

I found myself saying that baseball fans are really weird. They have some sort of catechanistic litany that they unfailingly have to follow. For instance, when the announcer announces the other team before the game starts, everyone has to yell out, "who?!!", after the announcement of each team member. The announcer then repeats the name and then everyone yells, "oh!!!". They do this for every single player announced. Once when the announcer started and after he read the first name and he felt that he didn't get a loud enough mocking response, he started over again so all of the cat callers could get a fair shake at him.

Then, a lady comes down to the front behind the back stop as if to offer an invocations and yells, "What time is it?!!!", which everyone responds, "baseball time, ugh!!!!". This was like her calling in the congregation. Everyone knew her and she did this everygame. There were numerous people in the crowd who had their own individual cheer, that they utterred at specific times in the game, and the crowd was ready to follow along with them. There are die-hard regulars at these games. I felt like a outside pastor listening to the weekly confessions of those who just needed to let everything out.

Then there is the 'organ'. I don't know if there is someone in a small little room playing this thing or if it is totally computerized. This noise, at first, totally got on my nerves. Who could think that this was a pleasant sound. And I know what they are trying to do. It's just like Pavlov and his dogs; once you hear the noise you must respond no matter how hard you try not to. People instantly begin clapping or chanting rediculous phrases like, "Charge!!!", whenever it played. I mean, what were we charging? I would think to my self that these people were mindless sheep, don't they realize that they are being manipulated. Boy, talk about weirdos.

Then there is the things that people wear. All the strange and unnatural things that they do to their ball caps, the monestanastic chanting by the food vendors, the seventh inning rest hymn, etc. Even the umpires had their own quirky styles.

At the first game I was thinking that this experience was just plain weird. At the second game, I came to expect and tolerated the weirdness. By the third game, I was wearing my rally cap, and belting out, "buy me some peanuts and kracker jack...", and once I found myself clapping to the organ.

Has anyone else had a born again baseball experience?

Post Raginess

Well, better late than...well, don't answer that. You'll have to suffer through these regardless. Michael, the guy on the far right of this picture, passed along a few photos from the Wasatch Back race, and these are the ones with adorable little me in them. This is 10 of 12 of our team. That's me in the center with the gray hoodie and ball cap.





















This is at the start of the Guardsman pass climb. Little did I know what was ahead of me. (pain and misery)



















Optical illusion. That girl is about 10 feet behind me. I appear to be grimacing before the start of my Huntsville leg.



















Darin and Jon look on as I contemplate the meaning of life at Liberty park before the start of the Van #2 legs.

Hellenistic Lubrication 101

I walked in late to a meeting this morning. The first words that I heard were from a guy that I hadn't seen before, and he said, "To answer that question, we need to talk about the history of grease." This caught me as strangely funny, and it put a smirky smile on my face, but what made me almost bust a gut was that everyone in the room had an extremely serious look on their faces as if that statement was as common as Obama handing out stimulus checks.

You see this guy was a machine parts lubrication salesman making a pitch to our shop mechanics on the finer attributes of his product over his competitors. Kind of like a corporate version of the jr. high cheer, "we got spirit, yes we do, we go spirit, how 'bout you, and your stinky axle grease."

Has anyone ever noticed in your vocations or circle of peers, conversations, that if someone who was unfamiliar with what you do or haven't caught the original context of a conversation,would come across as really strange to the normal bystander?

Retro #4 - It Will Take More Than That to Lose Me

This is the time of year that most families are taking 'family vacations', and with any luck, I may eventually convince my family to go on one. This reminds me of a day when family trips were a little more death defying: vehicle breakdowns in the middle of nowhere, sleeping in a beat up old tent in the middle of a hurricane, feeding bears as if they were a member of your family, etc. We could really relate to the Brady Bunch on their outings to the Grand Canyon and Hawaii because these were real life situations experienced by us all, including the tiki idols and Navajo boys. Now,it seems like the biggest dilemma that we face is who gets the bed closest to the bathroom and trying to balance out the tv time with the pool time.

Well, I am reminded of one particular life and death type vacation when I was 9-years old. My family took a trip to San Fransisco in the 'old Travelall'. Oh, of course we had our share of broken down vehicles and botchalistic sun baked potato salad, but what I'm reminded most of, is that I got lost twice on this trip. Yes, you heard me right...not once but twice. This seems too much of a coincidence. Could there actually have been a plot to take yours truly out of the picture?

The first time occurred in Palo Alto, California. We were staying at the home of some friends and my brother decided to take me to the local park. After playing for what seemed like a very short time, my brother decided that it was time for us to leave. He sprung this information on me right in the middle of me pumping myself to max height on a swing set. Of course, he must of known that this was an inconvenient time, so by the time that I decided to coast down to idle he was long gone and I didn't quite know for sure which direction that he had taken off in. I didn't panic and like all good boy scouts that get lost in the woods, I did the thing that comes as instinct in these situations...I wandered around aimlessly for a while. About the time that I figured that I was abandoned for good and started making a makeshift shelter out of a covered slide, I heard my mom call out my name. They had come to my rescue. But had they. It seemed like it was quite sometime before they came looking for me. Was my brother in on this alone and he just withheld this information of me being missing for as long as he could, or did this go deeper? Did something go awry in a larger plot? Was it that they realized that Palo Alto is the location of Stanford University and that my siblings, by some twist of fate, like Joseph who was sold into Egypt, would some day come crawling back to me looking for a way to get a higher education after I had become the President of the University? So, maybe possibly, they thought of a better plan.

They laid low until the Travelall broke down in Virginia City, Nevada. My dad and several of my siblings, headed down into town to look for someone to tow our vehicle. Always trying to keep everyone second guessing my moves, I decided to go with them, after they had all ready gone about a block. Everything was going great until, they noticed when I wasn't watching and hid themselves in some side alley. I spent some time looking for them. When I couldn't find them, I eventually decided that I better head back to the car. Well, they had all gotten back to the car before me, and though I had wandered around aimlessly again for sometime (is there a pattern developing here?), no one seemed to have missed me that much.

Now if any of these two incidents had occurred by themselves, I would not have thought much of it, but to have it happen twice within the span of one trip, made me mighty suspicious. From then on, I have kept a close eye on my brothers and sister.

Has anyone else had any interesting 'incidents' happen on any family trips while growing up?

Don't Call Me Sheldon, I Prefer PP

Once again the siren call of home town entertainment beckoned to our family. Jenny and I were part of our town's 4th of July Melodrama in a play called "Pineview Pete's Revenge". I got to be Pete. That's me with the gun.

Jenny got to be 'Town's Woman'. That didn't sound sophisticated enough so she officially named her self, "Ethel". Her sidekick husband was her older brother, who they Named "Emer".

The picture below show's Jenny, her brother (one with the hat), and her niece. We also had our daughters running lights and curtains behind the scenes.

The premise of the play is that Pete is seeking revenge on the local town. On the side he likes to rob banks and leave the bank managers in dresses, or as he would say it, in "Something Frilly, off the shoulder, with a boa." The town, with a clutzy deputy, and a new woman sheriff, come to the rescue and save the town from the affects of Slim's (one of Pete's sidekicks) six alarm chili, and Pete's poor taste in evening gowns and small town theater (you have to see the show to understand this...sorry).

My favorite line from the Play: "You think it's not, but I know that you know that you think it is."

Though the town's people agreed that Pete's initials PP were juvenile, they sure were a lot better than his real name's, Sheldon Orville Bottomly, if you can catch my drift.

The Old Grey Mare

When they say that the old grey mare, she ain't what she used to be, in my case you can leave off the 'what she used to be'. You can just say the old grey mare, she ain't because she never was. At least that's what I feel like when it comes to running. I know I'm not fast, but I love to be competitive. So when I lose, I just whine and complain about getting old.

Well, I ran a 10k on the 4th of July. I finished in 46 minutes 38 seconds. I was hoping to do it in 45 minutes. Conditions were good for running, I just think that I took off a little too fast, which hurt me in the middle miles. I finished 4th in my age group and 13th overall.

Two of my daughters ran in the one mile. They both did great with the oldest finishing 4th in the women's category and winning a ribbon.

I think that my last great hope for glory now resides in the accomplishment of my children. Way to go kids!!!! you did awesome.

The Magic Number is 1.6

Sometimes I wonder if people are setting me up, just to see how I will answer them, so they can laugh at me or if I truly am the straight guy in a comedy routine. Here are two sound bites from recent conversations that I had with a couple of people surrounding the race I ran on the 4th of July:

Conversation One:

Person One: "Hey, what race did you run?"

Me: "The 10k"

Person One: "How far do you run in that race?"

Me: (Not knowing if I'm getting caught in a trap for stating the obvious or if they really wanted to know if I knew that it was 6.2 miles. So I took a gamble and kept up with the straight face routine and said), "10k."

Conversation Two:

Person Two: What race did you run?

Me: The 10k.

Person Two: Did you see that amazing runner that blew everyone away, with the great stride, cross the finish line?

Me: (Worried if I was falling into another trap). "No, that would have meant that I won the race."

From both of their reactions, there must have been option three to these situations...I'm an idiot.

Can You Hear Me Yet?

One of the necessary evils in life is the periodic trip to the local Jiffy Lube for an oil change, and if you are really lucky you get to add in emissions and inspection at the same time. Today was such a lucky day. The long wait is painful enough on its own, but worse than that is suffering through the poor phone etiquette. They place you in a small waiting room, where anything that is said is unfortunately heard. Here are some excerpts from two phone calls I was forced to listen to:

Call One:

Lady: Hey, I'm going to be late, this is taking forever, some jerk got here before me (I'm guessing this is me, because I could see no other jerk besides me there that got there before her)

Call Two: (This guy actually made this call with the speaker phone on)

Guy: I just called the pharmacy and they said that they didn't have my (some drug). I really need it because I am starting to have a panic attack.

Doctor's Office: Oh yes, we want to get you that order called in for you, because we know how bad the last one was. We don't want you to cause any harm to yourself or anyone else around you like last time.

At this point, I kind of had mixed emotions if it was a good thing or a bad thing that I had become so personally acquainted with these people.

I know that I wanted to get on the phone with my doctor and say, "Hey, this is the jerk. I think I'm about ready to have a panic attack."

Has anyone else had any interesting phone conversations that you have overheard?

Retro #3 - Bottle Rocket Wars

When I was growing up the biggest holiday of the year was July 3rd, or aka the 4th of July eve. This was the day that the annual bottle rocket wars were held. Before I go on, I must say that I in no way condone these less than intelligent actions I did as a teenager. I have long since reformed my ways. Besides, Jenny will not allow me to buy fireworks. She's afraid that I will corrupt the next generation, which is probably a valid point.

The bottle rocket war festivities began promptly at dusk. All teenagers just a few bricks shy of a load were invited to attend, that generally included everyone in town. Team captains were selected and by the flip of a coin decided which team had high ground and who had the low ground. The loser of the toss got to choose first, usually the person with the best ammo. Once teams were selected we headed on down to the Honda Trails, a strip of land on Forest Service ground next to the lake.

The weapons of choice were firecrackers, bottle rockets, fountains, jumping jacks, roman candles, and the occasional M80. For weeks prior to the event, launch weapons were built, tested and modified. They usually consisted as such things as sawed off ski poles and small diameter pipes with sights built onto the barrels. They were amazingly accurate at 150 feet.

This is typically how the battle went. A fountain was lit on the old road between the two opposing sides to signify the start of the battle. In the mean time, the teams were strategically placing people along the battlefronts with a few members doing some sneaking around the side ready for a flanking maneuver. The long range bottle rocket guns were sent off firing to keep the opposing teams lying low in their foxholes, while the roman candle brigades moved in and laid down heavy artillery from the flanks. This was a sight to behold as this totally lit up the sky as fireball after fireball was launched down on those brave enough to remain in their foxholes. Once the enemy was sufficiently shell shocked, a lone man would run up to the fox hole and launch a grenade which consisted of a brick of several hundred firecrackers that would usually roust any remaining troops. The victorious side would then move into this territory and repeat the process again until the entire enemy territory was captured.

Ok, I admit, this was totally stupid, dangerous, and completely irresponsible. I am amazed that we didn't put any eyes out or burn down the town. If I saw any kids doing that today, I wouldn't wait for the cops to arrive, I would simply go and kick teenage hiney myself. But...for some reason I remember those times as some of the funnest of my life.

Diary of a WBF part 3 (climax to the trilogy)

Part three of a three part series


SEGMENT THREE: THRILL?!! THAT AIN'T NO BLUEBERRY HILL

We were now finished with the middle segment of the race walking back to the sturgeon at Kamas High. I think that we were all feeling the affects of the lack of sleep. I personally was in that loopy state where you kind of feel silly and everything becomes funny to you. That is when we saw the wolf man. As we were pulling out of the parking lot to head on down the road, there was this guy without a shirt on that had to be the most hairy creature that I have ever seen. Probably for the next 30 minutes we were making the most silly jokes and comments about this guy. It was maybe not a nice thing to be doing, but it sure was a nice distraction from having to think about my most dreaded segment that was still ahead of me: Guardsman Pass.

By the time we drove by Heidi, she was well into the last leg of her race. We all...well mainly me, was complaining that van #1 was going to be done with their race pretty quick, and most of their last legs were 2.5 to 3.5 miles long. At this point, those legs sounded really good too; like a stroll in the park on a nice cool summer's day.

We pointed the sturgeon towards Heber City to go and get some breakfast. Funny thing about food, at about this time in a race, everything begins to become community property. Not because that is the way anyone planned it, but I think that you get too tired to figure out if you are eating anyone else's treat before you gobble it down. I unfortunately, drank Lisa's gatorade when I mistook it for one that I had in the other cooler. Darin was chowing down on a bag of licorice and so I joined in with him. After a while I got a little nervous when I remembered Darin's eating habits and asked him whose licorice it was. Darin said that he thought it was George's. Whoops, all I can say is sorry Lisa and George.

A couple of things struck my interest as we drove to Heber. First was that we passed a man in a wheel chair in the race that was climbing a huge hill before you get to Heber. You could see how difficult it was to push the wheels up the incline. It was so steep that if you stopped for a split second you'd start rolling backwards down the hill. He was an inspiration to me. If he could do it, then I could make it through my last leg as well. The other thing that struck me was that no matter how many people we passed, that there seemed to be a never ending supply of people running and plodding down the road. Were we all crazy? What was it that kept us all going? I thought to myself, there really is something spectacular about accomplishing something hard. I like a quote that I heard by a parent of a contestant at the national spelling bee competition, in a documentary called Spellbound, "The only things that we truly value in life are those things that are difficult to achieve." or something close to that.

Food choice was difficult to make in Heber. It was still morning and we wanted some breakfast, but we didn't have a lot of time. We finally settled on MacDonald's, I think mainly by default. Lisa didn't eat anything because it was getting too close to her run time, and the Mickey D's grub, I don't think would clear her system in time. Good decision, Lisa. Jon bought food but hardly ate anything. I think his digestive track was starting to cause him problems. As for me I would have eaten a horse if they served it. I think the same goes for Darin. I don't know, he might have had a horse packed away in the sturgeon. By any means we wanted to get to our last major exchange point as quickly as we could so that we could try and get some sleep.

We arrived at the exchange point with about 1 1/2 hours before Lisa's leg would start. All morning the clouds had been building and there had been some small showers even back to the end of Jon's leg earlier in the morning. Darin and I had a good view of the mountains and Guardsman Pass at this time. The clouds were laying heavy on the mountains as storm squall after squall was passing over the pass. Great, this meant that not only would we have the pain of the climb, but we would probably end up doing it in the rain as well as on muddy dirt roads. Also, we were a little concerned about lightning. The more I thought about it, maybe a well placed lightning strike near the start of my run would end all of the misery for me quickly. I had to keep morbid thoughts like that out of my head.

I quickly whipped out my sleeping bag and set an alarm so I wouldn't over sleep, and looked for a place to sack out. The grass was all wet from a recent rain shower that had just passed through, so I settled on a concrete sidewalk. I was so tired, it really didn't matter. I was just blissfully drifting off to sleep when I started to feel the rain drops on my head. I wasn't about to let it deter me. Jon and Darin who had sacked out next to me on the sidewalk gave up and headed for shelter. I tried to stick it out until, the drops became a pretty heavy drizzle. That's when I became resigned to the fact that I wasn't going to get any sleep during this race. I toughed out the rest of the time semi-reclined in the sturgeon.

The time we had predicted that Lisa would start had come and gone. We drove the sturgeon out onto the road and parked a ways from the start so that we could make a clean get away. Lisa, we left on her own to make the exchange. When almost 10 minutes had passed from when we thought Lisa would run by, I started having thoughts that maybe she had passed us before we got out on the road and that she was going to be done with her leg wondering where we went. So Jon got out and started walking back to the start. It wasn't long after this that Lisa came flying by. Once again, she was flying down the road, making it look easy. While a large majority of the runners were really looking beat by this time, she was looking as strong as ever. As a curious side note, We noticed that most of the people running during this leg were women. We couldn't decide if it just was that more women ran this leg or if there were actually more women in the race. By any means, no one passed Lisa and she passed maybe close to a dozen. The rain started coming down pretty good on George on his leg. His leg was over 6 miles long and had a steady climb up into the town of Midway to the base of Guardsman pass. It really wasn't that easy of a leg. George was a trooper, though, and hung in there.

With about a mile and a half to go for George's leg we drove up to my exchange point. I was really getting nervous. Though, I had never run this segment before, I had tried to simulate it in my training by running Snowbasin and Trappers Loop. Darin and I ran Trapper's the week before, to give us a final taste of what we were in store for. I started wondering if there was a connection between adrenaline and having to take a pee. It seemed that one always followed after the other. I then started wondering if I was peeing out all of my adrenaline. I needed to keep it right in side of me where it could do some good. Better judgment finally prevailed and I decided I better go before I had an accident on the course. I was afraid that I wouldn't get back to the start in time for the exchange so I ran as quickly as I could over to the port-a-potties. I was in such a hurry that I forgot to lock the door, and yes, as you would expect at times like this, a lady came right in on me with my pants down. I didn't have time to be embarrassed. I managed to get an "I'm sorry" out as she lectured me about locking the door behind me. Not locking the door to a port-a-potty may be common practice to some of you, but I can't think of a worse thing than to have yourself exposed to the world in such a humble circumstance. So, I thought that the lecture was a little overboard.

I got back to the start before George arrived. Unfortunately, someone just ahead of George arrived with no one there to make the exchange. We had seen this done a few times along the race. I would have been totally upset by this, but it appeared that all of these people took it in stride, maybe just happy to be done with misery of their race legs. My leg started out on a little bit of level before it started into a steep climb. My plan was to run this as quickly as I could and then when I hit the steep stuff to shift it down into low gear and just methodically grind it out. I had been finding that I wasn't getting enough oxygen to my limbs when I had been practicing hills. I found that if I changed my breathing to a hyper ventilating state, that amazingly, my legs seemed to respond better. This is a little bit dangerous, though, because if I were doing this while not running, I would probably pass out from being light headed. This also is a hard thing to maintain. It is actually hard work and takes a lot of focus and energy.

George came and made the pass off. He was looking like he was glad the race was done for him. I started off with a guy right ahead of me and one right behind me. When I felt how my legs were responding, I quickly decided that the mad dash to the base of the hill plan was going out the door. I instead settled into a moderate pace. I caught and passed the guy ahead of me and the guy behind me, whose name was Mark, passed me. Mark and I would get real acquainted on this leg. Mark made some comment to us as he passed about how much fun we were going to have on this climb. I made some flippant comment back that I was going to break out my bungee cord and strap it onto him to pull me along.

We left the third guy behind, as I shadowed Mark up the hill, maybe 50-100 behind. By the mile mark we were well into the climb and I knew that I was in trouble. Another one of my plans was to keep running for as long as possible. I knew that there might be a possibility that eventually I would be reduced to walking. I knew that once you walk, it is always hard to get back into a rhythm of running. If you just keep running, that eventually you might be able to maintain a meager pace. The climb between mile one and two was brutal. Much harder than the climbs up Trapper's and Snowbasin. Similar to one I would do up the old Trapper's Loop road, but then it was only about 1/2 mile long. Mark and I had been closing in on a couple of women ahead of us. I was so focused on what was going on up ahead of me, I forgot to maintain my breathing technique. The pain was pretty intense. I recognized the symptoms that I had suffered once on a hike with Darin and Jon on Mount Nebo, which is just shy of 12,000 feet. On that hike I had experience the effects of pulmonary edema (high-altitude sickness). That is where your lungs start filling up with water and you are not able to supply your body with enough oxygen. I remembered how my legs felt. It was like my brain would give the commands to the legs but they were not able to respond. Though, in this case my lungs were not filling up with water, but I recognized the signs of my limbs not getting enough oxygen to work effectively.

And then it happened, I saw Mark ahead of me go into a walk. My body instantly reacted and went into a walk as well. Dang, I was mad at myself. I was going to have a hard time, establishing a run rhythm again. I immediately revised my plans to accommodate the new situation. I knew that the walking needed to only be a short rest to get my wind, but I still needed to push it hard in a power walk. I then started a 3:1 system, where I would walk for 20 paces and then run for 60. I passed the sturgeon a few times during this part of the climb. It just so happened that I was always in a walk at these times. I felt like I was letting my team down. The method was not entirely unsuccessful. I was able to pass a couple of people. I caught up with Mark, and for a time, I would go ahead of him, and then he would go ahead of me. Sometimes we would be walking or running along side of each other. There is nothing more bonding than doing that. During this time, a little kid, maybe 12 years old, passed me. This really bugged me because I didn't want to be passed.

There was also a girl that was just ahead of Mark and me, that I had closed the gap on, but could not seem to pass. I struggled to try and keep up with her. By this time I was starting to leave Mark behind. I would almost catch her and then I would stop to walk a little more. Finally, I saw the mountain get the best of this girl. She slowed temporarily to a walk. A sign of weakness. I knew then that I could and had, to catch her. With a little more that a mile to go in my 3.6 mile leg. I decided that I was done walking and that I had to tough it out and keep running. I caught and passed this girl and eventually passed a couple of more guys. Eventually, I think that the grade got a little flatter or I got back a running rhythm again, because the running became a little easier. I rounded a corner that exposed itself out on the ridge of the mountain, and I could see down into the valley. I thought to myself, I have climbed a lot of elevation in a short time. I had about 1/2 mile to go. I could see no one behind me, and I kept plugging along. With about 250 yards to go, I could see someone behind me 100 yards making good time. I vowed that I was not going to be passed again. So I put my mind into sprint mode and made off to the finish line as fast as I could. My mind was thinking I was sprinting, my body was in as much pain as I remember when you are running the 400 meter race (most painful sprint that I know of), but in reality I probably wasn't going that fast. But I did it and made it without being caught, and in fact, I think that I lengthened the gap to that runner.

When I handed off to Darin, I was actually mad because I felt like that I could have done better. I didn't want to get back in the sturgeon admitting defeat to the mountain. So, I wanted to keep going up the mountain. I power walked a couple hundred yards more before I got back into the sturgeon. The one blessing of the whole thing was that I realized that I had just run through a break in the rain. Darin was getting the same break, as well. I ended up running the leg in 42 minutes. I was shooting to be under 40. My pace ended up being an average of about 11:50 minute miles.

I was surprised that I seemed to recover quickly. By the time we caught up to Darin, who was just past his first 1/2 mile, I wanted to get back out and run again, to avenge myself of the walking that I had done. It is true, though, that everyone that I saw on the mountain when we ran this RAGNAR section, did some walking. I'm sure that those darn BYU cross country guys didn't though. Dang it all.

Darin was complaining when we passed him and he looked like I must have when the mountain was kicking my butt, but I knew he had plenty in him and he kept plugging on. At his two mile mark we offered him some gatorade and he tried to drink it and could not swallow it and had to spit it out. He said that he felt like he was going to throw up. He kept on going. Here again I was glad that it hadn't rained on us but was cool and overcast. We couldn't have asked for better conditions. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be running in the hot sun on this climb. When Darin neared the top, close to 9000 feet. The run turned into a series of up and down hills, that I think helped him catch his breath. Darin finished his 4 mile leg in just over 48 minutes or a pace of 12:08 minutes per mile.

Next up was Michael, who now was going to run his specialty: the down hill run. His leg was 7.3 miles and dropped 2000 feet into Park City. First, he had to climb a couple of hundred feet to the top of the pass, and then cruise. When we caught up to him, he was all ready in his down hill run, just flying. He was passing people left and right as he was going. He did have one little section where it turned back up hill for a minute, but then it was back to going down again. Almost immediately, the rain started falling on him. He was pretty wet by the time he got to the bottom. He averaged somewhere in the 7 minute range per mile.

Jon took off on the final glory leg. It was a 5.1 mile leg that dropped just over 500 feet. We cruised down to the end to get ready for the final run across the finish line. Everyone on your team gets to meet up with your final runner and you can all run across the finish line together. The traffic jam at the end was incredible and we thought that we weren't going to get to the finish line before Jon. We parked and walked quickly up to the finish line. This was at the Park City sports complex. The final 100 yard run was across astro-turf with a narrow runway lined with people on either side cheering wildly. It was a great party atmosphere. We got up to the spot where the runners meet their final runner. Our van #1 folks were lagging behind somewhere and we were afraid that they wouldn't arrive before Jon got to the finish line. Sure enough, Jon came along and the rest of our people hadn't got there yet. Jon ran his last leg at a nice comfortable pace, but as I said before, his pace is very deceptive. As he came in, there was a group behind him that decided that they were going to make a mad dash sprint to the finish line. All of a sudden Jon turned it on and made a incredible sprint to the finish line with the rest of us trying to catch up so we could finish with him.

Our time flashed up on the electronic board. I noticed that we had finished in 27 hours something. Later the official result showed that we had finished in 27 hours 31 minutes and 4.4 seconds. This placed us at 106 out of 679 teams or in the top 15%. During the whole race there was really no way for us to tell where we were compared to everyone else. I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with our finish. They then placed a triumphant medal over heads that weighed, it felt like, 39 lbs. to signify our completion and participation in the event. I'm sure that the winner's won a bottle of coke or something. Speaking of bottles. I noticed that the medal was actually a bottle opener. I'm sure that it was going to be used by many a team in celebration later that night. Just as we crossed the finish line, the rest of our team showed up. We were then able to make take a triumphant photo of the team. Hopefully, when Michael sends this to me, I'll be able to post the picture.

We came to find that the most difficult part of the race was actually getting out of Park City. When we got back to the sturgeon we found that we had cars parked at a stand still nose to tail in both directions. Finally after much consternation and with a little help from some race volunteers we were able to get turned in the right direction of the flow of traffic and got out of town. That felt like it took us 28 hours to do.

In all it was a great experience and I look forward to doing it again. Where else can you, as my wife puts it, "spent $85 plus dollars to go sleep deprived and run yourself to death all night long to get a shirt and a bottle opener."

Yeah Man, count me in.