So Long 2009!

As you can see this was the last day of my 2009 Page-A-Day calendar. It seems a fitting end to what has been a roller coaster of a year. I for one am very much looking forward to 2010! I wish you all a very Happy and Safe New Year!

PhotoShuffle #4

Congrats to Caity who won the previous PhotoShuffle and the MisterE Xmas music mix along with the 10 bonus points. Keep playing for your chance to to rack up those bonus points. Also you never know when I might feel like adding a prize to go along with those must have bonus points. This weeks photo will be the 20th photo down and the 10th photo across from my adventures over the Holiday weekend. As always best caption wins.

Songs for Christmas Eve

Have Yourself A Very Merry Christmas

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!!

Christmas WishList: Autos

Do you ever wish for a gifts you know you will never get? I do. Really I find nothing wrong with wishing for things. Now if only I could do something about the hard work and discipline it takes to make those wishes reality...perhaps someday. For now I am content to wish and wait for my lottery winnings. Once I have cashed in my winning ticket, I fear that I would buy enough cars to fill an airplane hanger. Here in no particular order is my automotive wish list this year:

Jaguar XFR

Lancia Delta

Dodge Challenger

Jeep Grand Cherokee

Ford Taurus SHO

Cadillac SRX

Vote for the car that would earn a spot under your tree in the poll on the right.

Whats In A Name

Awhile back a few of us were bored and decided to look into what our names meant. I found out a few interesting things, some I knew and some I didn't. Thought I would share what's in my name, according to this internet site at least.

First Name:
Usage: English, French, Swedish
From the Old Norse name Eiríkr, derived from the elements ei "ever" and ríkr "ruler". A notable bearer was Eiríkr inn Rauda, a 10th-century navigator and explorer who discovered Greenland. This was also the name of several early kings of Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

Middle Name:
Usage: Scottish, English
Scottish form of RAGNVALDR, a name introduced to Scotland by Scandinavian settlers and invaders.
RAGNVALDR: Usage: Ancient Scandinavian
Old Norse name composed of the elements regin "advice, counsel" and valdr "ruler.


I always knew that my first name meant ruler, I didn't know that it meant ever ruler. That's right you can bow to me now and forever! I also didn't know that my middle name meant advisor or counselor to the ruler, so basically I advise myself. Or in other words your word means nothing to me but as the great ruler that I am, I will still allow you to express yourself...for now. Does your name have a good story or meaning? Feel free to share it in the comments, I am curious.

Photo Shuffle #3

Congrats to Jess for winning Photo Shuffle #2. You are now 10 Bonus Points closer to a fabulous prize. This weeks Shuffle is brought to you by Guam (You know why and if you don't feel free to ask). As an added benefit the winner will receive a MisterE Christmas Mix CD. May the best caption win.

An Instant Classic

LED it Snow, LED it Snow, LED it Snow

The other day my brother bought some new LED Christmas lights to put up at my parents house to replace the icicle lights that had seen better days. While I would love to say that I am all behind these earth saving diodes, I just can't do it. First off is the look. Are they plastic, crystal, glass, a lollipop? I just don't think they look very festive-y and that is when they are turned off. Then comes the light part of these lights. When you turn them on the effect doesn't have that same Christmas Vacation effect that I have come to expect from Holiday light displays. The lights just look dull and somehow off color. How are you ever going to "out do" the neighbors? You would have to use about 5 times the amount of LED lights to equal the same show quality as one strand of old fashioned lights and at that point would you really be using less energy. I just don't get why these lights seem to be this years must have, new cool thing. Am I missing something? Tell me how you feel by voting in the poll to the right. There is one kind of LED that I can get behind though...this.

Photo Shuffle #2

Congrats to Becky who won 10 Bonus Points in the last Photo Shuffle for using a line from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. You will be glad to know that you only need 10 Billion points to be able to redeem them for a prize!




In honor of today being the first day of December, today's Photo Shuffle will be the 12th photo from last years Christmas Album. 10 more Bonus Points will be awarded to the best caption.

Wishing You A...

Photo Shuffle

I have decided to try something a little different on the ol' blog. Every so often I am going to post a picture that corresponds with the date (or something equally random). For instance, where today is November 22 I am going to go to my 11th photo file and post the 22nd photo. Your job is to post the caption for the photo. Winner gets all the bonus points for that day. So...here we go:

The Sky is Falling

If you were awake in Utah after midnight on Wednesday you might have seen this, if you were asleep like me you can see it here:

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

What's the ApPOINTment?

I haven't been feeling all that great the past few days so yesterday I finally went to see a doctor. After going I had to ask myself why I even bothered. Here's why: After arriving ten minutes prior to my "appointment" I sit and wait to be called back. And sit and wait for what turns out to be 35 minutes. It is then that I see the little blurb on the TV that says if you have an appointment and have been waiting for more then 25 minutes please see the front desk. I look at the front desk and what do I see? Another line. So, now I can stand up and get into line or stay camped out in my corner of the waiting room and I hope I get called up soon. I choose to sit since I see the person that checked in front of me still sitting a few chairs away listening to very odd music on his phone, without earphones. Really Guy? No one wants to hear that when they are well let alone when they are sick. I wait another ten minutes and I am finally called back where I am placed into another room to wait. Luckily this room has a National Geographic from 2006 to keep me entertained for what I hope will be a short wait. Wrong. I finish my historic magazine and can now hear the doctor outside talking to the nurse on a wide variety of topics. This must mean that my visit that should have started an hour ago will soon start, right? Wrong again. After another 10 minutes the doctor comes in and I sit up from a table that must have been designed for an elf or gnome or some other small species other then a human. He pokes, prods and does all those doctor things. Then tells me that it might be strep throat but doesn't look bad enough (nor does he want to test for it) so it is most likely a viral infection of some sorts and tells me to rest and take some over the counter drugs, then sends me on my way. Total wait time: 65 minutes. Total Time seen by the doctor: 4 minutes. So glad that I could pay a co-pay for this experience, it's like Disneyland without the fun rides at the end of the wait. Next time I am sticking with Dr. Google, who cares if he tells me I have tiny brain clusters? At least the wait time will be less and that's without even making an appointment!

Beep Beep!

This is what I miss most about living in Southern Utah...the desert wildlife. I am always amazed at the wide varity of plants and animals that live in the desert. Pictured above is a Roadrunner that I spotted outside of The Canyons Softball Complex in St. George. To give you an idea of what size he or she was, at first I thought that it was a skinny chicken, so not really a small bird. It was fun to watch as the bird followed us along the trail taking as much interest in us as we did in it. After this we were all on the look out for the coyote that surely was trying to catch the roadrunner!

Returning Soon

I am heading south for a bit (to where this very picture was taken in fact) and will be back to blogging around the mid part of November. Until then, keep on keeping on!

Greener Pastures

The hill is always greener on the other side, or so the saying goes. This past week has felt like the green hill packed up and moved 10 hills over and didn't leave a forwarding address. But it's almost the weekend so I am going to try to get out of the bitter barn and play in the hay. I will also be taking a break from posting for awhile, I just feel like I am out of things to say for the moment. I will be back in an undetermined amount of time; hopefully with loads of fun, interesting, crazy (feel free to insert the word of your choice) stories soon. Until then I invite you to read through old posts or visit anyone of my bloggerhead buddies listed to the right. Now, I am off to find that elusive green hill!

Computer of Doom

Yesterday I got to work and discovered that my computer was taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r to load. I don't mean like five or ten minutes (I like to think that I am pretty patient with most things), I mean 25 minutes. After trying two reboots and waiting longer each time for anything to happened I called Tech Support who told me to reboot yet again, even though I told them I had already tried this tried and true technique. So I rebooted and this time it took 40 minutes to load. Let me back up when I say load I mean that is when the error messages stop long enough for me to click one icon. After clicking one icon it takes another 20 minutes to open said icon. By 1 pm, yes 5 hours later, Tech Support (where technically we support you -The Muppet's) I was told that my computer was beyond hope and that I would need to mail it to Portland for them to look at in person. I am told to use three day UPS because it's cheaper to which I ask what am I mailing the whole machine? The answer: Yes, unless you can take out the hard rive then you can just send that with the overnight package. Let's see...2 days without my computer or 4? Which ever will I choose? Besides ripping out the hard drive might make me feel better about wasting my whole morning! I ripped it out and sadly didn't feel that much better. Perhaps because I had to now go try to find an old computer (think island of misfits toys only for old computers) and then try to get that to work and then get the programs I needed loaded to that machine. Phew. Take a breath. Oh, look its 4:45pm and it looks like everything is finally loaded and working. Now about that 5pm cutoff time, how firm is that? Lesson of this story? I have no idea. The computer is broken and the only lesson I learned is that I am far to dependent on it and it is not at all dependent on me. Shouldn't this be the other way around. Isn't this what leads to The Terminator movies, the machines being smarter then the humans? Only in this version Skynet keeps crashing so John Conner has nothing to worry about. Can't wait to go back to work and start this all again.

Dreaming of Snow Days

This past weekend I took a drive up and over Big Cottonwood Canyon. It made me wishful for snow days and all that goes with it. Luckily there was enough snow at the top of the canyon to hold me over till winter and the perfect Fall day left me dreaming of longer weekends. For more Dreams around the world click on Jane's Spain Daily link on the right.

Fall-ing

This past weekend was the perfect fall weekend. Here is a photolog of some of the highlights.

(Notice the snowball aimed at me!)

Same Old, Same Old

Do you ever get that sinking feeling; you know the one where you think, man this isn't going to end well? Tonight I have that feeling and I think it might be due to all the empty dark chocolate Reese's containers scattered around me. Really, I should know better but I just couldn't help myself. They were so little that I figured one more couldn't be all that bad. I was wrong. I have that sinking feeling.

L-O-V-E

I love to travel, be it the long trip to somewhere new or the short trips to places that feel like old friends. While traveling I love to take random pictures that will remind me of the places I've been, the memories I've made and the people I've shared them with. I recently saw a billboard that said "Life is Fun. Pictures prove it." Here are a few pictures that I love that I have taken whilst out n' about.

From top to bottom: NYC, NY; St. George, UT; Red Cliffs, UT; Chicago, IL; Volcanoes N.P., HI; Maui, HI; Cancun, MEX; Las Vegas, NV; Snowbird, UT; Disneyland, CA; NYC, NY. Travel on over to Jane's for more to love.

Smile Shutter

What happens when you combine a camera's smile shutter feature with a lazy susan turntable? This: