Prayers

Last night I was saying prayers with Payton, he still asks for help so I get to decide what he prays for and he repeats what I say: Bless that Payton will sleep well. "Sleep well". Bless that Payton won't be scared. "Not scared". Bless that Payton will stay in his own bed all night and not come get in daddy's bed. "I don't wanna say prayers".

Lost in Fantasy Land

Where have I been you ask? Not sure I want to admit that. Life has been crazy busy lately and I have chosen to make it even busier. Holly keeps saying she is going to take over the blog, which I am all for. It would free up a little more time for my real passion.

What is my real passion you ask? Well I wish it was something exciting like rock climbing or spelunking or wake boarding. Or something useful like making cheeseballs or leatherwork. No, I have chosen as my official new passion Fantasy Football (I'll refer to it as FF from here on out because I can't spare the time to type it, I am missing some FF update right now just to tell you why I haven't been blogging).

Let me forewarn you. The following may depress you. It may make you pity me. If you have a weak stomach or are feeling especially emotional today, hit the back button now.

In case you don't know, FF is a real sport. Despite it's name it is not fantasy, it is real. As real a sport as curling anyway. Here's the cliff note version of how it works: I draft individual players and each week I start the players I think will have the best individual statistics possible. I am playing against a guy (or girl) who is doing the same. In the end, add up the points scored by each fantasy team, most points win.

Sounds simple right? Wrong. This is a part-time job. I know more useless football information than any right minded person should ever know. I know the sleepers of the week before the fantasy experts announce them in the hundreds of articles and videos I read and watch during that week. But even so, I read them and watch them anyway.

Not convinced? Read on.

Everyone who knows me knows I love the Bears. Heck my only son is named after the late, great Sweetness. I have a Mike Ditka signed napkin framed and displayed in my office (Heather you are still my favorite btw). And... do you need more proof? I still daydream about the Fridge poster with William Perry and his gappy-toothed grin I lost 10 years ago.

So when I started playing FF, my friend who got me into it tells me that at some point I will root against the Bears if it means winning my FF game for the week. I told him there was no way in hell I would ever root against the Bears and I asked him to leave. It happened two weeks later. Now I am almost to the point of not even caring how the Bears are doing (not too bad all things considered by the way, and if by some twist of fate you read this Lovie: Sexy Rexy sucks, the bench is too good for him, at least charge him admission to watch the game). So maybe I still do care, but they are a mere after thought to my FF team.

And you know what? I have never enjoyed pro football more than I have this year. See you after the season is over. =)

Wasting Time...

Or a day in the Life of Brian (NOT the Monty Python movie, which is hilarious, but so sac relig that I can't even recommend it). Last week we left the kids with my mom and Holly and I headed back home with plans to get a lot of things done at work. Holly did, but I got a little sidetracked.
I have an excuse as to why I didn't get what I planned done: some people I needed to get things from were not around. But instead of working on all the other projects I need to finish before school starts I just played. Like you've never done that!! I wanted to share a couple of the more memorable time wasters here.

1. Tried to break through the Office of Education's security to view youtube, facebook, download torrents (not even kidding my download speed is over 16,000 kbps!!! here at the school, new record: 25,000 kbps - check your speed here), etc. Nothing doing, proxies didn't work, circumventors, nada. Granted I am no authority on hacking through security systems (not a bad thing imo), but I don't think I am a dolt either. Only wasted a few hours trying to hack through. I did have a legit reason, I'm the tech guy here right? So I have to know if students can hack through, hopefully they know less than I do.

2. Has anyone not switched their home page to igoogle yet? If not you should really check it out. To the left is a screenshot of my homepage I created. You can customize just about everything on the page, any bit of news you want, your favorite website feeds, local movie times, etc. all right there on one page.
Not only that, but they have the most comprehensive list of widgets (google calls them gadgets btw) and they make them so easy to adjust and get code for them for your blog. I spent a few hours playing with that one as well. -Oh yeah and you definitely want to get the Frogger and Flood It widgets!!

3. This one took a lot longer than I want to admit, but it was fun!! I am not usually one of those people who walk around laughing at myself like a goof, but this was an exception. Little background first: we have a financial secretary, Millie, who is a total control freak. We call her the paper nazi because at the end of last year she printed off this list of how much paper each teacher used and caused a huge uproar.
Anyway I happen across this office practical joke post on Lifehacker (click here to see it). So one of them is how to change the "READY" message to anything you want: INSERT COIN, GONE FOR COFFEE BRB, DID YOU REALLY NEED TO PRINT THAT?, etc. At first I just changed it to INSERT COIN, pretty funny. But then I was talking to someone else in the office and we started talking about how relieved we were that the paper nazi is quitting this month, and the light bulb clicks on, so I let him in on my joke and we come up with a better one. Every time anyone goes to pick up their stuff at the printer the printer will say to them "MILLIE SAYS YOU ARE OUT OF PAPER". :)
Okay, so in order to actually do this you have to use the telnet command through PUTTY and enter printer job language, so it took me a while to get it down. If you need any help let me know, I am a pro now; it takes me 2 minutes to change all of the printers in the school. I am going to be changing the message every once in a while so if you have any good suggestions, let me know!!!

4. Minesweeper hack. Oh yeah!! Want the best score on Minesweeper? Here's the hack, at least for windows xp: Open Minesweeper, and type "xyzzy", then hold down the shift key for one second. Now when you move the mouse cursor over a Minesweeper square you will see a tiny white pixel in the top left corner of your desktop screen. This pixel will change to black when your mouse moves over a mine. So I played Minesweeper for a while.
Inconspicuous enough that your friends could sit and watch you and still not catch on! Good luck minesweeping!!

5. I hate Windows Paint, but don't want to spend money on a paint program. Ultimate Paint is highly rated freeware alternative if you are interested! I played around on this for a while.

The rest of the time I spent updating the look of the blog and talking to anyone who happened to come visit me. I did actually get a server up and fix a couple things, but for the most part what a wasted day!!

Logan Visit

In June we drove up to visit Great Grandma and Grandpa Gunnell with Grandpa, Aleisa, Kylee and Ashur. We had not been up to Logan for about a year, so it was really nice to see Grandpa and Grandma.



We stopped and got some chicken on the way to eat with them. Mental Note: Walmart makes terrible fried chicken. Lucky no one pulled a Mama Cass.

Zion Narrows Trip

In June Brian went on an overnight hike down the Zion Narrows. Here are a few pictures. It was one of those things that you are glad you did it after it's over.

It was beautiful and difficult at the same time. Imagine hiking 14 miles through 1' to 6' of freezing sometimes whitewater rapid water, over moss covered stones. I'd do it again in an instant, just wait to ask me till next year.

Dance Recital

Back in May Ashley and Brenna had their dance recital. It went really well other than me getting kicked out before the show.








The girls danced beautifully. They really enjoy dancing.









Payton on the other hand has a different opinion of ballet dancers.

Pierce Visit

The Pierce's came to visit this weekend on their way to Disneyland. Here are a couple pictures of the sleepover.

Our New House

Here are some pics of the new house. We will probably be moving in about 3-4 weeks. As you can see there is some work that needs to be done. We opened the windows to help it air out (the last occupants liked cats) :P We will start repairing walls so we can paint, replace the carpet, clean up and should be able to move in. It will be a work in progress and I'm sure we won't have everything done for a couple years.

I ripped out carpet Saturday; there's some of it in the front yard!! There are two levels, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths.
This is part of the backyard. It is on a double lot, .25 acres, so we should have enough room for chickens and Holly says she wants a pig!!


Even comes with our own junkyard/future garden!

And for those cold St. George Winters:
Ashley and Brenna looking over their future abode.
Ashley is still not too sure about it. We assured her it will be cleaned up before we move in.



There are overhangs on both the front and the back of the house that provide kid sized walkways, Payton already claimed this one as his own.










Till next time!!

Education of Little Bigot?

So I have been reading this book published as an autobiography “The Education of Little Tree” by Forrest Carter and have really been enjoying it: great wit, funny, thoughtful, eye-opening, and informative. It is a story from a 6 year old orphan’s point of view. His parents die and he goes to live with his Cherokee grandparents and learns a great deal about life and society from them; he is about a third Cherokee himself. He writes about the racist things that were said and done to his grandparents, but from his 6 year old perspective, which is wholesome and unaware of the cruelty of man. It has sold millions of copies and won the 1991 American Booksellers Association of the Year Award. Oprah even had it on her booklist for a while. Here are a few quotes and comments I have thought about or enjoyed, and then a few surprising things I found out about the author.

Much of what he talks about is the Cherokee “Way”: to only take what you need. The white mountain men kill every deer and every buffalo they see. This is wrong. The way is to take the weakest and leave the strongest to ensure that there will be many more buffalo and deer. The cougar knows the way. He takes down the smallest and weakest game because there is more chance that the strong will have offspring and support him and his offspring. This way there is always enough game to feed your family. I loved this thought. I’m sure there some hunters who will be disgusted by this, but I am thinking on a larger scale. We as a society are always looking for more, more, more: the biggest house, nicest car, flashiest watch, bling bling, best food, the list could go on forever; why can’t I be happy with only what my family and I need to support ourselves? Greed. I know I am far from innocent. Have I ever stopped eating when I have had enough to sustain myself and there is more left? Maybe once, but I was sick. I get caught up in the desire for more way too often. If our society lived by this rule think of how different our lives would be.

Politicians are responsible for just about all the killings in history. Wow, think about that. Maybe extreme… maybe not. First of course are the Hitlers, Stallins, Smuts, Husseins, Kims, and too many others who are infamous for cruelty and murder; but what about our politicians? Leaders set the tone, the standard. And when politicians set a standard of corruption, perversion, hate, and deceit, the nation follows. Look at the turn the country has taken since Bill did or did not have 'sexual relations' with Monica. If we took care of the mentally ill, if public education could prepare our youth for self-reliance, bottom line: if we really cared about each other, would crime decrease? I say yes. Are they responsible for all the killings in history? No, but I understand what he is saying and even agree to a point.

Here is a shortened excerpt where after reading I couldn’t stop laughing. His grandma makes him study words out of the dictionary and use them a few times each day:

“I had been practicing a …word so I hollered to Granpa “I abhor briers, yella jackets, and such.”

Granpa stopped and waited for me to catch up. “What did ye say?” Granpa asked.

“I said ‘I abhor briers, yella jackets, and such,” I said.

Granpa looked down at me so steady-hard that I commenced to feel uneasy about the whole thing. “What in the hell,” Granpa said “has whores got to do with briers and yella jackets?”

I told him I didn’t have no way in the world of knowing, which I didn’t, but the word was “abhor” and it meant that you couldn’t stand something. Granpa said “Well why didn’t you just say ye couldn’t stand it, instead of using ‘abwhore’?”

I said I couldn’t figure that out myself, but it was in the dictionary. Granpa got pretty worked up about it. He said the meddlesome son of a #*@% that invented the dictionary ought to be taken out and shot.”

So I have really been enjoying the book and wanted to learn more about it or the author so I google it looking for a fan site or some more information. Here is what I learn: the author, Forrest Carter’s real name is Asa Carter, and he was a freaking leader in the Ku Klux Klan!! He also wrote all kinds of white supremacy material involving segregation. Here he is making a statement about, what I perceived, is tolerance and acceptance, and the dude is KKK.

He is obviously not Cherokee, not an orphan, no Indian grandparents, grew up in Alabama, the whole story is fiction. He claimed to be part Cherokee, but there is no proof. He later moved from Alabama, changed his name to Forrest Carter, once denied that he was Asa Carter, and perhaps distanced himself from the white supremest movement. He died in 1979.

So I have two thoughts, neither of which I am happy with:

1. His intentions in writing this book were evil and he was being hypocritical of American Indian culture.

Or 2. His beliefs changed, and he felt so guilty about his white supremacy/KKK days that he was trying to make up for it.

If it’s #1 I am obviously not going to finish the book.

I believe people can change and change in drastic ways. I hope #2 is the case and he rethought his life’s path and left the miserable life of hate and contempt behind. The fact that he changed his name could have been a symbol of leaving that person behind. But why later deny who you are? And when it is made public who you really are why not declare your departure from your hateful past?

I believe that life is what you take from it. I decide what is meaningful to me and how I will interact with the world. I was taking the good from this book and loving it. But was it really good? Was it really entrenching me in a stereotype of the American Indian I already had? Since he had no experience living with the Cherokee, there is no other explanation than he did take a stereotyped image of the Indians to create this story.

I still appreciate the messages I gleaned from the book and it has affected my thinking and living to a degree, and it will continue to do so. Can I still read it without analyzing and questioning whether everything I read has some hateful message? I don't know, but if not, I am not going to enjoy it much anyway. I guess it's time to just move on.

Links:

http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/12/20/carter/print.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Education_of_Little_Tree

Easter Week

The week of March 17th was Dr. Seuss week at Ashley's school. Monday, St. Patrick's Day, they had "Green Eggs and Ham for lunch, then there was Whoville hair day, Dr. Seuss hat day, and Friday they had pajama day and an egg launch contest.




We made Ashley's egg container a few days before the contest and took it for a test run, dropping it off the balcony. The egg survived but the container we used got pretty cracked up. Rather than finding a new container we taped up the cracked one and hoped for the best.

On Friday at the contest they actually threw the container from the roof of the school into the air as far as they could. We thought there was no way the egg could survive but after opening it up there it was, probably a bit scrambled, but still intact.


We were all tired on Saturday night, but the Easter Bunny decided to show up anyway. Holly made a big Easter dinner after church and we just lounged around all day.


Easter morning getting ready for church.

The Kids

Our Angels: Ashley and Brenna Rose.


















Our Buddy: Payton.

The Gunnell Family