Ryan & Griff - Established Jan 2003

2011-09-29T12:18:00.001-07:00

First game for the Steelers!

Not sure what's up with the quality, but it stinks! Let me know if it's better for you...

2011-09-29T11:37:00.001-07:00

Um, you're doing it wrong?!?!?

2011-09-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

This is the pic that should be below...

Abandoned Site!

2011-09-29T10:53:00.000-07:00

Poor site, hasn't been touched in months. Hmmmm Gotta remember how to automatically upload pics here. I've been putting them all on Facebook and frankly, I'm sick of Facebook except for a few event and business things. SO, I need to get Griff's goings-ons back on here. He's been a busy boy lately with soccer, flag football, school, play - everything an active 8-year old should be doing! And yes, he plays way too much video games (is that right? Much or many???) Either way, he plays too much so we've been going to the park to practice soccer or football and it's been a blast! There is nothing better to me and I actually get to feel like a dad.

Anyway, I'll get things figured out and get this place hoppin again! Watch for it!

Bumper Boats

2011-06-27T11:38:00.003-07:00

Yep, he's pretty wet! Huh, Not sure what happened to the pic? Weird.

Griff and I - May 2011

2011-05-27T21:25:00.000-07:00

Blood and kneecaps at 2nd base

2011-04-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

**This is NOT for the faint of heart**

When I saw it at the ballpark, my adrenaline immediately kicked in!

The first nurse who saw Griff's knee almost gagged.

When Griff finally saw it, when he was in the ER, he said, Wow. (yep, that was it.)

So, here you go - I call this film, "The First Stitch" Enjoy.

2011-04-01T20:34:00.003-07:00

Griff making our dinner!

2011-04-01T20:34:00.001-07:00

The boys grocery shopping!

2011-02-16T21:00:00.001-08:00

Having the boy here makes me happy - even when he's conked out.

2011-02-06T13:03:00.001-08:00

This kid is hilarious

One of my fave pics of me and Griff

2011-01-28T19:20:00.000-08:00

There is nothing better than spending time with the boy! And you gotta love that he's hauling his Nerf Gun around. So funny.

Pinewood Derby!

2011-01-24T22:44:00.000-08:00

Griff had his first Pinewood Derby. He was super excited and he built a super cool car.

He learned how to sand (though we didn't do enough, it was still fun and he learned about grit):

How to Spray Paint:

And how to pose with the finished product, I guess?

He Picked the Gold color and the racing stripes. Not sure if you can tell but there are flames over the wheels too.

The line-up (the green and blue wavy one behind Griff's car was the overall winner):

If you blow up this pic, you can see a Storm Trooper Driving the light-blue car - awesome!

Pretty crazy designs!

Griff had a great time watching the races despite the results for his car (the video will explain it):

And here's the video:

One more - the mechanical failure was catastrophic and I take full responsibility as the pit crew Chief.

I'm super proud of Griffin and his desire to win, have fun, and work on his own car, yet his grace in disappointment at losing every race...badly. He showed some good sportsmanship and didn't freak out too badly. We'll get em next year Griff!!! (now that we know what to expect, we'll get Uncle Sean and Uncle Paul to help. hahahaha)

Thanksgiving/Christmas 2010

2010-12-29T10:50:00.000-08:00

Wow, I haven't posted anything since Halloween? I am a serious Blog slacker!!! I guess since Griff hasn't been around as much I haven't really cared. ANYWAY, here are some pics from Thanksgiving and Christmas, at least he's been here for the Holidays, which has been awesome.

Hanging out at G'ma and G'pa H's

The Nativity. Stacy did a great job putting this together and the kids were all about it, it was super funny and well done.

Cousins opening Christmas Eve presents. Griff also got his traditional PJ's and books. I think those are Paul's giant feet in the pic.

Blakey as a present. Hilarious.

Christmas Eve, Griff wanted to make sure Santa (or Elves apparently) knew right where to put his presents so he made this sign, "Please places [sic] presents here Santa or Elves. P.S. I love you Santa." I was laughing so hard (inside). The boy is pretty funny!

This is the back of the above sign.

Thanks Santa! You know Santa is a Utes fan, the guy is always wearing RED!

Griff was super stoked about this present. He let out the yell and described what it was while yelling, you know, that reaction?!?! Perfect.

Getting started on the Legos!

Santa's loot at G'ma and G'pa H's.

West chillin' at the Hadlock traditional Swedish Pancake Christmas breakfast in a killer Track Suit. I want one just like it!

Griffin deep in DS play.

More Legos...

And it's done. Griff was all about it and knocked this out in a couple of hours! Pretty dang cool.

October weekend with Griff!

2010-10-27T22:46:00.001-07:00

I am definitely happiest when Griffin is around. And this was a fun weekend!

Amy put together an awesome Halloween party for the kids and Griff had a total blast (even though he got in trouble for scaring little Blakers with his Yoda mask)!

Yoda Griff! He even had the voice down, it was so awesome, I was cracking up. He was saying "May the force be with you" and "The force is strong with this one" and "There is do or do not, there is no try." And he had the light saber working too! Perfect Griff costume.

This might be one of my favorite pics of all time. Yoda and Cinderella, and Cinderella is holding Yoda's arm. At first Q and W were a little freaked out by the Yoda mask, but once they knew it was Griff, they loved it.

Here's the whole Gang (L to R) Quincy, Maia (Dave's Cousin), Griffin, Ozkar (Dave's cousin), Jaxon, Kaja, Blake and Cowboy West in front. Good Looking group of kids!!!
--------------------

You can see the Utes game we went to in the post below - and then Griff and I just had some nice father and son time. I need a lot more of it, but I certainly treasure the little bit I have.

A little church time - Griff definitely picked the right Sunday to come home, they had a full on picnic lunch in Primary with Turkey sandwiches, chips and candy bars. They had Capri Sun to drink and apparently, Griff is the only kid in America that doesn't like Capri Sun?!?!?

Had to do a goofy face pic.

Getting ready to get on the plane for Texas. He's an old pro at flying now, and he'll tell everyone within earshot. Awesome kid.

Griff's First Utes Game!!!

2010-10-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that Griff hadn't been to a Utes game before this, but in previous years, somehow it just never worked out. I was SO excited to take him, and he was stoked too. He's looking forward to playing football so he's been excited to watch game. And what team is better to watch than the Utes? I say none!!! And we got to wear ponchos, I mean come on, how do you beat that!?!?!?!

I give you, Griff's first game:

Matching beenies and hoodies to stay warm! Griff had worn his all day (except when he was Yoda)

Griff had to have a pic with the Ute Van. In all fairness, he didn't notice the part that says, BYU Sucks...but I certainly did - hahaha.

Chillin in our Ponchos! It was a really wet game til the 3rd quarter and then it dried out and warmed up a little...

And there was a rainbow right above the game. And, as you can see by the look on his face - Griff was a bit cold. Maybe next time - long johns too.

Touchdown right in front of us! Actually, there were a lot of these, it was 59-6 - Utes over the Rams.

Definitely going to make this a yearly tradition with Griff, along with our Utes basketball game! Love having a son, it's the best.

Donut Falls Hike

2010-09-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

Griff and I went hiking to Donut Falls in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was a PERFECT day! Griffin LOVED it! He is a little climber! I couldn't believe how easily he just went right up the rocks. He told me he practices at school on a rock-climbing wall. The best part was when he told me he can climb hard challenging sections by just staying calm and singing a song in his head. I asked him what song he sings and he said, "A 311 song". I about died laughing (and I was SO PROUD! hahahahaha!!!) So, I asked him which 311 song (he does sing along when we're in the car, so I didn't doubt him at all!) and he said, "I don't know the name of it, but it says 311 in it." I was chuckling the rest of the hike, that kid is pure comedy.

Starting off the hike - the weather could not have been better, it was perfect.

Griff liked the Camelpak water bottle with the hand grip, though it turned into a water gun at one point on the hike.

We reached the bottom of the falls and there's this cool old log there - makes for good pics as you can see.

Crossing the river without getting wet. Griff didn't go in the river once on the whole climb, he was very coordinated on the rocks and logs - so he never slipped off!

Griff scaled these rocks like a goat, he absolutely loved it. Said he wants to go hiking every time he comes home.

The camera angle doesn't do this justice, it was pretty steep and Griff went right up it, no problem.

This is the hole in the rock that give the falls it's name "Donut". I guess the water was kind of low, or erosion has changed the path of the river a little because the water used to pour right through here.

Griff wanted to keep going, so this is up above the falls, just a beautiful area and the leaves are starting to change.

Can't really tell because of the lighting, but this is looking back down into the canyon we just hiked up.

The bridge near the middle of the hike. Griff needed to stop and throw rocks in the river, of course.

Griff coming off the plane from his first solo flight!

2010-09-17T21:55:00.001-07:00

Everyone who sat by him sure liked him! But that's nothing new - hahaha

Me, the boy and a huge hole in the ground

2010-09-16T08:59:00.000-07:00

This post is a long time coming. For some reason, I haven't gotten around to posting these. Griffin and I went to AZ to visit with Payce and Gwen and to see some friends. On the way back we went to the Grand Canyon and Lake Powell (kind of). We had a great time, as we always do. Griff loved the Grand Canyon and discovered he really likes photography! I'm going to get him a "point and shoot" and maybe he'll join the thousands of stay at home moms who are now photographers on Facebook! (I'm kidding!) I think his favorite part besides the Grand Canyon and the pool at Payce and Gwen's was finding Red Box locations all over the place to see if they had any different "Sonic the Hedgehog" movies. It was really fun, the kid is a really good road-tripper. We even got to sleep in the car one night and he thought that was awesome (we reclined the passenger seat all the way back for him and he was out in seconds!) I was not so comfortable, but I survived. Enjoy the pics!

There it is, the giant hole in the ground. Explaining to Griffin how it has evolved was interesting. I think he really liked it once he understood how the canyon was made and saw the river way down at the bottom. And once we saw the display at the Grand Canyon Visitor's center, he was pointing out sandstone the rest of the way home, pretty funny.

Griff was really digging this raven. There were a lot of pics of it on the camera.

He even tilts the camera to the side a little bit, just like the pros! hahaha

Funny kid, he really enjoyed the Grand Canyon.

Griff and the giant hole - sounds like a weird kids' book...

More of the boy...

The artistic, deep in thought shot. I think he was actually looking for the raven.

Griff has a lot of different smiles, I think this one is the - "I'm sick of pictures, let's just find the raven"

REALLY surprised this turned out. Somehow the person I ask to take the picture for me is European. I've had more than a few headless photos taken by Europeans...weirdies...

Griff likes this one because I'm on the edge of the cliff and the raven is right below me.

Look closely (or click on the picture to blow it up, there's the raven again.)

Good landscape by Griff

Griff climbing up from chasing a lizard.

Glen Canyon Dam.

Lake Powell on the way home...

I was teaching Griff about perspective, so he was messing with the telephoto lens, this one came out pretty well.

Showing him how to use the timer...

Griff's pic of Lone Rock - he just had to see it but the Ranger wanted to charge us $25 just to go take a picture, so this is as close as we got.

2010-09-03T08:31:00.001-07:00

Kickoff at Rice-Eccles - Utes beat Pitt by 3 - pretty fun game!!!

2010-08-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Some Great pics of the boy. He is getting so big and so grown up. I miss him every second of every day he's not here.

Hurt in the Dirt!

2010-08-01T14:11:00.001-07:00

July 31, 2010 - I took part in an endurance duathlon called the "Hurt in the Dirt" in Ogden. It was 4 miles trail run/10 miles mountain bike ride/4 miles trail run/1o miles mountain bike ride. There was a 4 hour time limit, I did it in 3:19 - if my run had been a bit stronger the time would have been much better because my bike laps were really good. ANYWAY, it was a total blast - I'll give you a little detail as we look at some pictures:

This is getting ready to take off on the shotgun (they literally started and ended the race with a shotgun blast) start. The run started with a 100 meter dash to jump over a fence (see below)

and then proceeded into densely forested areas where we had to jump logs, duck under branches, run through the river (twice),

(missing a head, but that's me in front!)

climb a looooong set of stairs to a plateau in the park and then descend the steps on the other side, only to have to run up a steep embankment and immediately descend a sandy slope to a, what I like to call, duck and jump - there was a fallen tree to jump over with a low lying branch right above it - so I, being somewhat tall - had to duck and jump at the same time, pretty funny looking, I'm sure! We had to zigzag through thick undergrowth, dodge branches, run through gravel and do it all 4 times! (2 laps per leg to equal 4 miles) Then we transitioned to mountain bikes (and yes, I intentionally left out the part where I had to walk for 5 minutes to shake off cramps in my calves! you don't need to hear about that...) -

(taking off after first transition)

The mountain bike course had fallen trees to bunny hop, gravel beach along the river to dig through, 5 climbs (some had names - heartbreak hill, "Ouch", pain in the ash (a section that had a fire a week ago or so) - two of which were so bumpy it was like climbing up the buzz strips on the side of the freeway - you know, the ones that wake you up if you drift over too far??? Yeah, SUPER bumpy (not to brag, but I made EVERY climb! Riding with Sean and Paul definitely gets the climbing skills honed)! Then there was the "hike a bike" about a 1/2 mile section of 1' deep sand that you could not ride your bike through, I tried every time - hahahaha! By the third time through, I was ticked, but then SO happy when I could get back on the bike and hightail it out of there! There were a couple of really technical downhill sections that I bombed down (again, riding with Sean and Paul is the key!) and had a big grin on my face the whole way - the climb is the work, the downhill is the payoff! There was more zig-zagging through the forest on some TIGHT single-track, lots of dodging obstacles, a couple of places to jump off the bike and climb rocks or fallen trees, just good old-fashioned crazy fun!

So, I finished pretty strong, I was very happy the race ended on the bike because I could really push the last mile or so, whereas running I probably would have limped over the finish line. When I finished, a bunch of my friends had shown up to cheer me on - they were awesome during the race - screaming for me to get going as I passed them on each lap - and Roosters pub had mugs of root beer for the racers - strange recovery drink, but REALLY tasty, I highly recommend it!

My cheerleading crew! Adam, Marcee (who was also my coach on this race), Syd, Christine - who found her new love at this race as he ran by her, took a triple-take, and made a good enough impression that she went and got his number after the race, and Jess - who has been to 3 of my races now! These are some awesome friends!!! Thanks guys!!!

So, that was a fun race - 20 miles of biking and 8 miles of running through a crazy course. Luckily it was fairly cool for most of the race. We even had a little rain to keep the dust down and me cooled off! I had a blast and I will definitely be back next year!!! Those of you reading this, should be racing with me ;-)

Griff at the Soccer Clinic

2010-07-21T15:34:00.000-07:00

Real Salt Lake has been doing free soccer clinics in SLC lately, and we finally made it to one! Griff did really well on most of the skills, juggling was a challenge, as it was for all the kids his age. He was really good on passing and the power on his shot was very strong! Shooting accuracy needs a little work and dribbling was OK - can work on keeping the ball a little closer as he runs with it - he did get through the cones pretty quick though. But, as always with Griff, he just smiled, laughed, goofed around and loved it!

Waiting for the coaches to divide up the kids. I would say there were 200 kids and about 20 - 1 Mexican to White kid ratio. It was a bit annoying, they had everything in Spanish and even had a Spanish language radio station broadcasting non-stop and it was SO annoying. ANYWAY, here's Griffin-bug in action! The best part was when one of the coaches asked for the kids' "Papers" (actually, the scoring sheets keeping track of each drill) and all the Mexican kids got really nervous...

This is the power shot test, Griff performed very well in his age group! Good looking form there!

The passing drill, again Griff was very solid with this skill.

In line for he dribbling station. The scratch on the nose is from a spill he took earlier in the day. He's a tough kid when he needs to be!

Start of the dribbling drill, in and out of flags to a cone and sprint back!

Looking solid! Good concentration!

Sprinting to the finish line!!! GO GRIFF!!!

Run up to the shooting accuracy drill, looks really good.

Looks like the foot plant is a little early, but he did hit the 20 point marker on the money! (there were 30 and 40 pointers too)

Ugh, toe poke, but he got it off the ground to hit the target.

Fabian Espindola of the MLS Champion - Real Salt Lake. Really nice guy! Signed a t-shirt for Griff too. Griff gave him a high five and got this pic. Pretty good!

Really cool that RSL is getting involved in the community like this, now they need to develop an academy like they do in Europe!

Griff's Green/Yellow test

2010-06-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

Griffin doing some Tae Kwon Do kicks for his Green/Yellow belt test. He knows the stuff, just could be a bit crisper I think. Still, he does a good job and he was practicing on me today and he knows how to do the stuff he's been taught!!!

(Oh, this was quite a bit longer but I got a text right in the middle of it that shows up on the screen??? That is weird!)

Griff is my HomeBoy!

2010-06-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

The Griffster and I sporting the "Nick is My HomeBoy" t's on Father's Day! Couple of good looking boys right there if I do say so myself...

*Nick* is Nick Rimando the Goal Keeper for RSL. If you need a reminder, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayKR8m-DBA4

Skip to 2:40 (Robbie Findley goal) and then to 5:14 for the PK's!

Memorial Day Weekend!

2010-06-03T16:08:00.000-07:00

Got a nice surprise this last Memorial Day Weekend, and got to have Griff from Sunday to Tuesday. We had a blast as always. The weather was awesome, we played football, Frisbee, Croquet, went hiking, the whole 9-yards! Here are some pics:

Big Griff looking ready for summer!

Griff and Blakers!!!

Griff on a bridge on the South Fork Trail (made me wish I had my bike!!!)

A couple pics of the two good-looking guys together!

Blakers and Aunt Amy. Blakers was a hiking maniac!

Griff and Jax skipping rocks with Paul.

Jax getting ready to hike! With Amy and Andrea bringing up the rear.

Griff, Paul, Blakers, Kaja and Dave heading to the trail.

Griff up skateboarding at Gramps' place with Kamas.

G-n-Q

2010-05-27T13:15:00.001-07:00

Griff loves hanging out with all his cousins. I think the two that love to hang out with him the most are Quincy and Jaxon, which is so funny! Just a side note, I'm really happy Griff gets to play with his cousins so much, I think it's something I missed out on growing up. So, I'm glad all us kids are close enough that we want our kids playing together, I think it's really cool watching them all grow up together!

Anyway, the other night, Quincy was copying EVERYTHING Griffin did, it was so funny. Here are a couple of pictures:
Q had to drink when Griff was drinking, sit just like him, and she even tried to go play baseball with the big boys when Griff was practicing with his team...she is so dang cute! Then when she couldn't play with Griff she went over to terrorize some little blonde kid on the big toy. Not sure why she was so attracted to him, but she'd gravitate to his mom too. Sean thinks it's because she was skinny with long brown hair like Stacy. Hahahahaha.

This was dinner time. Q would watch intently to see what Griff would do and then do and say exactly the same thing. Griff would say he did something at school and Q would say she did the same thing. Griff would sit in a catcher's squat while he was eating and so would Q. It was pure comedy.

We really like hanging out with Sean, Stacy, Q and W - thanks guys!!!

Grand Slam update

2010-05-27T13:13:00.001-07:00

Griff got his Grand Slam last night at his game!!! The hit wasn't as good as the other day, BUT it was deep and this time he actually hustled! I think the official scoring might include an E7, but everyone came around and scored this time. Pretty fun, he loved it.

2010-05-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Big Griff had his second coach-pitch game today as a member of the Angels! This should be a good season for Griff. He has a coach that (other than what you'll read in a minute) is really teaching the boys some good things and it's already showing. The boys hit and fielded really well today. And all I can say is Griff may have found his sport! Here are the pics:

Griff in his catcher's mask. I think he mostly just liked looking like a Star Wars character, but he did well behind the plate!

There he is in action, not a bad catcher's squat. He even got after the opposing coach for pitching too fast, so Griff couldn't gather all the baseballs fast enough, pretty funny.

This is a second before he DRILLED a deep shot to left field with bases loaded!!!! The bases cleared but his coach held him at 3rd for some dumb reason and cost him the grand slam! I loudly told the coach not to hold him, but apparently we're playing new-age wuss baseball where we show compassion for the other team (another dad told me to show some compassion, I just laughed to myself and let it go.) Regardless, it was an AWESOME hit by Griff, I'm so proud of all the good things that kid is doing! :-)

That is a big 7-year old! Hope he likes football too! He does tend to tackle people on the soccer field, so maybe that's a sign. :-D

Oh, we did go out shopping on Thursday when he came over and we got me a matching Angels hat so I can rep the team. B-)

2010-04-21T17:41:00.000-07:00

Amy's mission companion - Melanie Hanna - invited all the kids over for horseback riding. Kaja was the only one who got to ride the horse alone, because the big boys spooked the horse (he's not used to big people apparently) and he didn't want anyone riding him. Jaxon did get to ride with Mel for a little bit and Kaja went a 2nd time with Mel as well. Here are a few pics (blow them up, they're pretty good) from our outing to Mapleton - Thanks Mel!

Princess Pey Pey :-D

Blakers and Peyton

Griff, Ryder and Jaxon

Jaxonian

Miss Q

Miss Kaja - I like this pic, it actually kind of looks like she's riding him on her own

Big Griff in his clothes that he has ALREADY grown out of, with his new haircut, courtesy of moi!

After hanging out in Mapleton, we went over to Paul and Andrea's for pizza and garlic bread, it was a really fun time with the fam!

Soccer Season!

2010-04-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

The EPL is winding down, looks like ManU will take second, not too bad I guess but a bit of a let down after 3 straight championship years. RSL has started up and has looked OK. I think we expect more after a championship year, but really they had a crap season up til the end and pulled it out, sooooo, let's just hope for a better season and a similar ending. And finally Griff has started his soccer season! The other day in practice, the kids chose the name Red Devils all on their own, I was so stoked! (That's the ManU team name, for those that don't know). However, in the days since practice, it changed to The Rockets - lame. I'm guessing some uptight mom made them change the name, so no more Red Devils. At least their Uni's are still red.

Griff played Goalie and Defense last night to great success and the Rockets won 1-0. A teammate of Griff's should have had like 4 other goals, I've never seen someone so unlucky! He hit the post, scooted two just past the uprights and had the opposing goalie make a phenomenal stop on one (seriously, I even cheered for the stop, it was unreal for a 7-8 year old.)

Here are the pics, I can't wait to see the team pics, there is one other kid who might be as tall as Griff, but no one else is as big overall, he looks like he's 10 :-D

Clash of the Titans

2010-04-07T21:02:00.001-07:00

I remember seeing this film when i was pretty young, maybe 10 or so? And I think the original, despite it's lack of technology may have been better than this modern version. I'm sometimes amazed at the quality of actor that these low-budget (well, I'm not sure that's the right term, as I'm sure this film cost a fortune to make) B-movies can pull. I mean the producers must be shelling out a fortune to get the likes of Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes to play these hokey parts, right?

This story is LOOSELY based on the story of Perseus, demigod son of Zeus, but they don't even really stick to the accepted origins of his life. So, we suspend all belief in the movies anyway right, I mean the Kraken? Really? Looked like Alien and the 20,000 leagues under the sea squid had a kid - ridiculous. Soooo, I just went into this hoping for some cool effects and maybe a cool fight scene or two and to hang out with some friends. Didn't even get that - well, I guess the scorpions were kinda cool (and the friends part happened, so PHEW!) Medusa was 100% CGI and not well done - kind of Sci-Fi channel-ish, I mentioned the Kraken, Fiennes as Hades was nowhere near as good as James Woods in Disney's Hercules (yep, I just compared this "real life" Hades to a cartoon version and the cartoon won.) And Sam Worthington who played Perseus was just the main character in Avatar, so I couldn't stop thinking about that and expecting him to turn blue, or grow a tail that would meld with the flying Pegasus, or SOMETHING. I can't say TOO much more or I give away the whole story, but even the comic relief was SO weak and way too thin to almost even notice. Oh, and the fact that Muse isn't included in the soundtrack detracts from the films potential epicness. The Muse concert the other night was more epic than this "epic"film. bah.

I left just praying that someone like Jerry Bruckheimer redoes "Jason and the Argonauts", which I always felt was the superior movie anyway. And lo and behold: 2012 - "Jason and the Argonauts: The Kingdom of Hades". Apparently, Hades is SO HOT right now. IMDB doesn't say who the producer or director is, so let's hope for the best.

Save your money, wait for RedBox. Maybe 2.5 out of 5.

I may have created a monster:-))

2010-03-22T00:05:00.001-07:00

We went for a walk at Nunn's park in Provo Canyon today and of course we were taking some pictures. Well Griffin walks toward this tree and says, "Dad, take a picture of this" and proceeds to throw his Blue Steel at me - on his own, with no prodding. The camera does love him! :-D

Griff and his Legos

2010-03-21T10:30:00.001-07:00

Griff has a pretty good imagination when it comes to building things with Legos. And he's pretty detail oriented (look at the landscaping of the front yard of his Lego house!) However, on this house, somehow the diving board ended up on the wrong side of the house (yes, it's coming off the roof of the house - he's a boy - that sounds awesome!!!) Otherwise the design is pretty solid. The Airplane is amphibious - thus the propeller on the back of the vehicle as well.

The Lone Star State

2010-03-10T07:36:00.000-08:00

I got to spend a few days back in the old stomping grounds of Dallas Texas. It's always kinda weird going back places I've lived and checking things out - what's new, what's the same, etc. Dallas was especially interesting for me this time because I actually stayed in the same hotel I basically lived in when I was working for PriceWaterhouseCoopers back in the day. It's in the same location, but is completely updated, it was actually pretty nice! I did have to drive a ways to get to the gym - back in the day they had a deal with the LA Fitness right next door instead of a workout room. And I'm not a fan of hotel workout rooms, so I went and found the nearest Lifetime and went there. I also had to hit some of my favorite restaurants, of course:

Pappasito's is actually not a place I'd ever been but Curt raves about it. I'd been to Pappadeaux's before, which is also really good (those Pappas Bros know how to cook!!! Their Steak house is really great too.) So I went and got the chicken and shrimp fajitas - PHENOMENAL! The grilled veggies they serve with it are SO good!!! It was worth it smelling like fajitas the rest of the day! The mexican butter sauce you see in the little dish (forgot what they call those???) is pure evil it's so good! Definitely 2 thumbs up!

Sonny Bryan's was a favorite when I worked and lived in Dallas. I went a LOT. Their brisket is as good as anywhere I've ever been. However, I seem to remember their sauce being a LOT better than it was this time??? I think maybe I got the wrong stuff, but I didn't see any other options. It was like spicy ketchup. So I just ate the food without so much sauce. The sides there are really good and the roll was very tasty. (yes, I spent an extra 30 min at the gym after this! :-D )

Dallas from the 35. It took me - no lie - an hour to go MAYBE 15 miles. There were 4 wrecks, one of which I'm pretty sure had been a car fire earlier judging from all the fire retardant material on the freeway. This is one thing that never ceased to amaze me about Dallas. People here drive SLOW and yet there are ALWAYS wrecks on the freeway!

Me, stuck in traffic. One good thing about Texas being SO flat, the radio stations work for a LONG way away from the source. So, I didn't go completely crazy.

Recognizable Dallas landmark. I could Google it and find out what it is, but I don't care that much :-)

American Airlines Arena where the Mavericks play. Cool arena...for the Jazz to win in!!!!

I then got to drive down to Waco, TX for a presentation there. In the few minutes I had to look around I found this:
That's right! The Home of Dr Pepper! They make it with real sugar here instead of corn syrup, it is AWESOME!!!!

I'd post all the pics of the sites I saw on my drive...but there weren't any. Not even any Longhorns. I did see some on the way back, but I was so mesmerized by the road by that time that I couldn't get the RiPhone out in time to take any pics. Sorry.

I always liked Dallas just fine, and this trip didn't do anything to change that. I still like it. (the stupid "Never Lost" in my rental car did get me lost before I even left the airport, but that's not Dallas' fault :-D )

Blog Slacker!

2010-02-25T15:55:00.000-08:00

Yep, I'm a blog slacker. For those of you who don't have me on your Facebook friends list here are some recent pics of the boy:

Griff and Q practicing their putting strokes. Q was copying everything Griff did, it was pretty cute.

Griff and Jaxon at Home Depot - had to post this one because Jaxon's face is hilarious (and of course the pick is awesome)
The saw was loud, but these two are kinda pansies about it :-D

Griff likes to bowl, he almost beat me! We had a good time with Sean and Quincy.

Alkaline Trio

2010-02-25T09:31:00.001-08:00

A while back on Facebook, I had a conversation going about what bands/performers people would want to see in concert - their top 5. Interestingly enough, Sean and I had Alkaline Trio on our lists and well, they came in concert last night so we went! It was at "In the Venue" in Salt Lake City. Two bands opened for them - The Dear & Departed, whose lead singer MAY have been from New Zealand, or maybe South Africa, he had an odd accent for sure. But they were decent, I didn't mind listening to them for 45 minutes or so. Then Cursive played, and they were just ok, but they did have a couple of balding, middle-aged, chubby guys playing bass and guitar, so they made me feel a little more at home with this young crowd :-D

Alkaline Trio played a pretty good set. They had a couple of brand new songs that I hadn't heard before, but they also played quite a bit of their older stuff that I really like. This band is kind of unique in that they have two singers - I know some other bands do this as well, but it's definitely an exception, not the rule. Well, the singer who also plays bass lost his voice about 3 songs into his contribution to the performance so the remaining songs he tried to sing were pretty rough. For some reason their mics were way low too, so you couldn't really hear him very well anyway. So, that kind of stunk but for the most part the show was pretty good. There was a pretty funny "fight" with some really nerdy looking kids, during one of the set-up intermissions, and Sean and I were entertained by that for a few minutes. Also, another entertaining little tid-bit, when the kids would crowd surf, there was this security guy who would grab them and take them out of the crowd. I've seen this at many concerts, when people need to get out of the mosh-pit, or a very crowded area because they can't breathe, or something. Well, one guy kept doing it, he must have crowd-surfed and been snagged and dragged out like 3-4 times. It was pretty funny, I think he might have been messing with the security guys. I mean the space in this venue is pretty small, so it's not like he couldn't just walk out of the congested area pretty easily.

Anyway, we enjoyed the show, had a good time and look forward to the next concert. I think Sean had Ray Charles on his list, which will be hard to accomplish. I'm trying to get to 311 again, and I'm sure there will be others this year. :-)

Go Utes!

2010-01-25T07:32:00.000-08:00

I try to take Griffin to a game or two every year to properly indoctrinate him into being a true Ute fan. He's getting there, though in all honesty - all he really cares about right now is the popcorn, hot dogs, lemonade and dibs he can talk me into getting him while we're at the Huntsman Center. It's pretty much like any activity where there are concessions or vending machines. He does however LOVE to do the cheers and to yell GO UTES when the time is right. Also, he thoroughly enjoys the "Everybody clap your hands" cheer/activity, whatever you want to call it - but really, who doesn't?!?!? I do wish they would play the whole thing where it gets to the "how low can you go" part, that's always fun.

Somehow, every year Griff and I seem to catch the Air Force Academy (AFA) game. I'm not sure why, but we've seen it the last 3 years. At least we have a pretty decent idea that it will always be a Utes Win, so that's a bonus. This year was no different. The Utes pretty much controlled the game from about the mid-first half on - at one point going up 25 points. The downside is the Hunstman Center is not very full at all - even the student section is thinned out for this one - I guess that's a product of a crummy team coming in, but it's too bad more fans don't attend all the games. I know I should attend more, so I can't fault others for not going more. The atmosphere is still pretty good and very loud for the 10k people that were there. And to me, it always feels good to be on campus. Being surrounded by Y fans at work gets old sometimes, so being amongst kindred spirits on campus is a good thing. And, when the Utes made great plays the place still got loud, which is always a good sign that the fans are lively. To be fair, the football stadium wasn't full for Utah State this last season, so I guess expecting the Hunstman center to be full for AFA in hoops isn't realistic. The guys played hard, put on a good show and made sure to entertain a little too, I would say.

All that said, it is kind of a letdown that the Huntsman center isn't always full like it has been in the past. Was that because of the level of talent on the court? Maybe. Was it because the Fatman coached a better brand of hoops? Maybe. Is it because football is king at the U? Maybe (though it was not TOO long ago that Hoops was king, I still have significant issues stemming from the 1998 Final Four). Whatever it is, I'm going to work on getting to more games. It was fun, Griff and I had a great time - he loves cheering for the "Go Utes" (hasn't quite realized that's a phrase not their name, but it's cute, so it works) and the concessions aren't ridiculously priced like at a Jazz game or the movies. We have a great time going, make some fun memories, and he'll be able to tell his college buddies, when he gets to the U, that he's been coming to games since he was 5! We'll definitely keep up our tradition of father/son trips to the games.

We were trying to find Swoop to take a picture but he was gone already. He should really come up to the upper deck - there were lots of families up there with little kids that would have loved to meet him. We'll find him next time!

Griffin is 7!

2010-01-18T22:12:00.000-08:00

Every time one of the kids in our family has a birthday, I like to say it like Kaja did when she was 2. She would put a ton of emphasis on I'M then say two! I'M two! Always cracked me up.

Anyway, Griffin had his party at Pirate Island and LOVED it. They did a really great job and all the kids had a blast and the adults didn't have to do much, and we had a private room so it was all very calm, which I think we all appreciated. The game area was a different story, but it was super fun too.

Here are the pics...(and it's late on the 18th, so I'll do more another time...)

Griffin and some of his buddies in the room we got at Pirate Island! It was pretty cool.

The remnants of one of the giant "Kracken" pizzas the group ate - surprisingly good - way better than Chuck E. Cheese for sure.

The two pirate cakes Aunt Amy made for Griffin, she did an awesome job, they were really cool and very tasty. Thanks Am'!!!

Amy getting some help cutting the cakes from Jax-onian (or Jax-onville, which I like to call him because he'll always say, "I'm not Jax-onville, I'm Jaxie :-D )

One of the many cool gifts Griff got from his friends and family, probably my favorite - the remote control Audi R8 - super sweet!

DSi games from Grandma and Grandpa H - what were you guys thinking??? :-D

Uno Attack from Paul/Andrea and kids and Dave and Amy, pretty excited to play this! Griff and Aunt Amy have been cleaning up on regular Uno lately.

Q helping Griff open cards - she does enjoy a good party and So helpful too!

Griff got about 10 Bakugan - if you don't know what that is, just Google it. He and his buddies got to playing with them right there at the party. So good job those of you who got these for him :-)

Opening gifts with friends and Q looking on. Great party, thanks to everyone who came!

Griff and Cap'n Jack Sparrow! The guy was awesome - did the character perfectly, it was really funny. Quincy was scared of him though :-D

Jump On it!

2010-01-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

It had been a long time since we'd been to Jump On It. It's still one of Griff's favorite places. There was almost no one there when we arrived, so we pretty much had the run of the place. Griff did find a little friend to play with and they had fun.

Taking a quick break from the action!
Bounding along from trampoline to trampoline!
OK, enough pictures already...
...yeah right (which is why he's trying to hit me with a ball in this one :-D )

Costa Vida for quesadillas!

Snowbird

2010-01-14T07:54:00.000-08:00

It's been a little while since I posted, so I figured I'd dig out some recent pics and make a post.

For those of you who may not know everything about me, when I was 11 I received my first set of skis for Christmas. I also got ski lessons at Sundance and I would go with a couple of my friends from the neighborhood - Danny and Greg, if I remember correctly. Anyway, I spent the next 7 winters skiing as much as I could. My senior year of High School I bet I was at Sundance more than school :-D (That's probably an exaggeration, but not by much.) Long story short, I was pretty good...until that fateful Saturday in December of 1989 when I landed a jump at Solitude, got hung up in some scrub oak, flipped foward and broke my elbow into many little pieces (if you're in Utah you can come check out the scars and maybe even still feel one of the titanium pins in there!) Sooooo, with that and with living in AZ, IL, and TX for 10 years, I didn't ski at all for a long time.

Since moving back to UT in 2005, I've been skiing a grand total of 5 times - just never got around to getting back on the horse and I didn't have equipment (I borrow Reece's stuff still - thanks Reece!!!) I took Griff a couple of winters ago, and that was fun, but I think he's going to want to learn to snowboard since that's what all the cool kids are doing these days...

So, I decided I need to hit the slopes and went up to Snowbird. This was my Christmas present to myself :-) It was one of the best days on the slopes I can ever remember - topped only by the time Mike Smith and I got to make first tracks in Bishop's Bowl at Sundance - that was so surreal just floating through the fresh powder - amazing. Well, I'm tired of typing, here are some pics...

I'm not in skiing shape yet, but it was a great day!
Look how beautiful that is! It wasn't even that cold, which made it really nice!
No, I'm not upside down because of a wreck, just thought it would make a cool pic.
Getting into some powder - that is real fun! The bumps and cruising were fun too!
This is the last run I took. I got kind of lost since I'd never been to Snowbird before and ended up on a run with a sign at the top that said "Cliff area, ski at own risk" Hmmmm, yeah. Well I made the run successfully (it was exhilerating! Luckily some people went right before me and showed me the line or I may have slid down on my bumb!) Reece's skis may need some p-tex repair though (is that what they still call it when you get the rock gouges in the bottom of skis repaired? :-D )

The Soloist

2010-01-01T12:44:00.001-08:00

Since I've become a pretty big Robert Downey Jr. fan (for reasons completely different from Rylee's I'm quite sure! :-D ) I decided to rent this from Red Box the other day. I remember the previews, thinking it looked good, but then a friend told me it stunk so I never watched it.

I'm not sure how this review should really go either so...

Really I initially decided to rent this movie because I wanted to see if RD Jr. stuck to his typical character in this type of movie as well. And well, he totally does. However, it is really interesting, and one of the reasons I REALLY liked this movie - despite some pretty disturbing imagery at times - that it almost seems like this is the way RD Jr. is in real life and this movie exposed some of his weakness behind the cocky, sarcastic facade. Things didn't work out well in ways he wanted them to and he freaked out a little - or a lot. Jamie Foxx's character wasn't malleable like people RD Jr's character is used to dealing with, he didn't fall under the spell of the character's charisma and it shook him a little. He had to dig a little deeper for something innately human and not just a show of confidence or even arrogance. He had to TRULY care about Jamie Foxx's character, for HIM and for no other reason. I found it really honest and expressive and almost real - not like a movie but how I'd think he would react in a real situation like this. I'm not sure I've ever watched a movie where I thought this is SO disturbing yet SO real?!?!?!?! I didn't know if I wanted to love it or hate it and for that very reason I love it. A drama that isn't trite and over-cooked (despite the obvious politicizing of the plight of the homeless in LA), that isn't TRYING to be an Oscar-nominee, that is just a real story told very well by some pretty good actors.

There are parts of this movie where I felt disgusted, where I could see why someone would hate this movie and yet it really made me feel something. I liked that. I give it 4.5 stars just for that. Just for letting me turn this movie off and not think Hollywood has tried to teach me something fake or manufactured. Anyway, give it a shot if you're interested in a drama one of these nights.

...Elementary my dear Watson!

2009-12-30T07:59:00.001-08:00

Went with some of the fam to see Sherlock Holmes on Christmas day. I know I've totally slacked on the movie review, I've actually been trying to make some money in December, it is not a good month for sales :-)

This is definitely not your father's Sherlock Holmes movie and I liked it all the more because of it. Is the plot unique? No. Is the story particularly compelling? Not really. Do the actors turn in Oscar-caliber performances? No, but I don't care for Oscar-type movies anyway! Is the movie, REALLY COOL?!?!?! YES! Robert Downey Jr. is easily my favorite actor right now, he is just cool and his sarcastic, devil-may-care attitude with all his recent characters (in Ironman, Tropic Thunder, and now Sherlock Holmes anyway) is very entertaining. Is it the same character with different accents? Yes. Does he do the accents very well? Yes! matt Damon could take a lesson. Jude Law, who has never even been on my radar for good actors, since I'm pretty sure I've never seen a movie with him in it (???), is really good in this and plays off of RD Jr, perfectly as the more proper, staunch (yet, with a very adventuresome side) Watson. And Rachel McAdams is just hot, no matter her role and she does not disappoint in this movie either.

The action is good, I really like how Holmes goes through his thought process while fighting, and while deducing a situation, and I really like how he just throws himself into the fray and gets after it. Not a lot of sitting around mulling things over, just action and taking care of business.

The ending to the movie isn't particularly compelling, but there will be additional movies, which is cool, and Moriarity will be the antagonist, as it should be (for anyone familiar with the classic stories). So, I'm very much looking forward to that. For sheer entertainment value, which is about the sole reason I go to the movies, I give this a solid 4.5 - and it was really fun going with the fam on Christmas Day. Good times, good times!!!

Oh, Ironman II is coming this summer!!

YESSSSS!!!!!

Christmas 2009

2009-12-25T11:19:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics from Christmas Morning - mostly for Jim and Jill in New Zealand, but feel free to enjoy them even if you're not in New Zealand and Merry Christmas to all of you!!!

The hat was Griffin's Stocking with BK gift cards, lemonheads candy, Beef Jerky (for dad :-D ) and Bakugan.
The loot before the carnage
Bakugan

Nerf Tag - so the boy will actually run around a little! :-)

Nintendo DSi and holder but Santa was a little color blind and got a pink holder - it's being traded in ASAP
Books from Grandma and Grandpa H
Cool History book from Dad
DSi games from Grandma and Grandpa H
Mario Kart with steerin wheels from Dad
All the loot
Immediately playing with the DSi - it takes pictures too, so he was loving that.
Everyone going through new presents
BLAKERS!!!!
Auntie Amy with the kidlets
Kaja!
Jax
Gramps too.
Miss Q

Griff and the DSi

Invictus

2009-12-16T08:50:00.000-08:00

Went and saw Invictus the other night at the District. Yep, I love the District - holds a special place in my heart - I think from the time I ran out of the theater to get the car in the pouring rain and ATE it on the slick cement between the doors and the fountain they have there. It's a pretty funny story, if you haven't heard it, I'll be happy to tell you in the proper setting, because it's pretty comical - well, I can laugh about it now.

ANYWAY, I knew this story before the movie came out, I remember South Africa shocking the Rugby world and winning the World Cup in 95 over the mighty All Blacks of New Zealand, and the positive effects it had on post-apartheid South Africa. GREAT story, to say the least.

The movie is moving. It is a great story, as mentioned. I really enjoyed it.

BUT, as you may know if you read my reviews, it's rare that I can't find something off about even really good movies and this one definitely had somethings that bugged me. 1) Matt Damon's South African accent - HORRIBLE!!! Very distracting, and just ridiculous. Back in my consulting days, one of my bosses at PwC was South African, so I'm familiar with the accent, and Matt Damon missed it across the board. 2) The production value of the film is oddly poor. I thought maybe it was because it was shot in South Africa, but was then informed that Sector 9 was filmed there and was excellent, so who knows. For some reason it felt like it was shot in the 70's or 80's. Not a huge deal, but still strange. 3) the Soundtrack is ridiculous, and not good ridiculous. Truly lame. If you've spent any time on my blog, you may have seen the poem "Invictus" on the side bar (from whence came the name of the movie, because Mandela in his 27 years of imprisonment found solace in the words of the poem). They tried to make a song out of it and it is just bad, like movie of the week on The WB bad. Not sure why a movie with big name actors, directed (or produced) by Clint Eastwood, has such poor quality? Anyway...

So, overall, despite the aforementioned drawbacks, the movie is really good. I would have liked some more Rugby scenes, but I imagine Rugby is a hard sport to simulate, so there isn't a lot of really good action, but there's enough that when the Springboks win the match with the All Blacks, you get chills - at least I did. It was really awesome. So, I'll recommend this movie. It's not quite as touching as the Blindside, but uplifting in other ways, so I enjoyed it. I'll give it 4.25 out of 5. I don't think anyone will be disappointed if they go see it.

Hopefully, the next review will be of Sherlock Holmes, it looks awesome - Christmas Day!!!

Jazz Games '09

2009-12-08T11:38:00.000-08:00

I love going to the Jazz games. Big surprise. I've been to 3 or 4 this season, and I just love it - can't get enough of it (fortunately they've won each game - my feelings might be a LITTLE different if they lost, but I still enjoy going...) By the way, THANK YOU to the people who have invited me to go with them to games, I truly appreciate it :-)

Last night was SUCH a great game!!! The Jazz fell behind early and were down by as many as 15 in the second quarter and fought back to 8 at halftime.

Halftime for this game wasn't nearly as funny as the Memphis game. At the Memphis game, they had two contestants dressed up in those puffy "sumo wrestler" suits and they had to run blue or red balls over to a barrel and deposit them. The contestant with the most balls of his/her color in the barrel won some prize. Little Bear, was in the way trying to slow the contestants down a little, to make it a little more challenging. It's pretty funny (for those of you who haven't seen little bear, he's hilarious). Then, Big Bear decides to get in on the action and lays a hit on the red contestant, and this person was down for the count, while the blue contestant just kept scoring points. The trainers came out and had to assist the red contestant off the court. It was pure comedy. I bet Big Bear was SWEATIN it, thinking he had a lawsuit on his hands. Maybe the contestants had to sign a waiver to participate. I bet the red contestant didn't think he'd be leaving with a concussion!

Anyway, the Jazz came back in the 3rd Quarter and just smacked the Spurs to go up by 10 at the beginning of the 4th quarter - punctuated by this Deron Williams dunk over Tony Parker Just awesome and the place went nuts!!! (I was a little disappointed the place wasn't full, but the roads were pretty crappy - still - the true fans were there ;-) )

The 4th quarter started with SA going back up by 1, yep an 11-0 run, ridiculous. But that is the NBA, anyone can make a significant run at any point in a game. It just made the end of the 4th quarter SUPER exciting, edge of your seat stuff and the Jazz pulled out the win in dramatic fashion, showing some real heart and tenacity. It was just a great game to attend!!!

If I could afford it, I would go to EVERY game. GO JAZZ!!!

2012 - Movie Review

2009-12-02T12:52:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, you see a movie that makes you think you should never go to the movies again. This may have been it (or Where the Wild things Are...) This movie was SO dumb. What happened to lots of good movies coming out during the holidays? I am looking forward to Sherlock Holmes, that looks awesome, and Robert Downey Jr. has been nothing short of amazing since his stint in jail for drub possession, or whatever it was. So, that looks like it might redeem the season of garbage movies. Christmas day!

So, I'm really disappointed in John Cusack for doing this retarded movie. I guess it's like the Rock doing kiddie Disney movies almost exclusively now, but Cusack can actually act, so it's not really an apples to apples comparison.

Basically, the Mayan Calendar ends on 12/21/12 signaling the end of the world due to increased activity from the Sun heating up the earth's core and hilarity ensues, like California sinking into the Pacific, a mountain in Africa becoming the highest point on earth and Asia shifting 1500 miles to the East, conveniently enough so Cusack's plane can make landfall after running out of fuel (because they couldn't stop in HI, because it had been reduced to a Volcano again). Blah, Blah, Blah. DUMB. Don't see it in the theaters, MAYBE on Red Box, but it is LOOOOOONG, so be sure to have plenty of Red Bull or something to make it through. 1 out of 5 stars, good luck with this one...

The Blindside -Movie Review

2009-11-24T13:47:00.000-08:00

Went and saw the Blindside on Monday night at the District. I'm pretty sure that's my favorite theater around here. It's not super close but for some reason I like it best.

Anyway, I thought this movie looked really good from the previews and it did not disappoint. Honestly, this has to the maybe the first drama I've seen in a while (I'd have to go back and look through my posts here to be sure).

Here's the basic plot (I don't know where the links go, I just cut and pasted from another site)

“A poor, undereducated 344-pound African-American teenager in Memphis, whose father was murdered and whose mother was a crack addict, is shuffled through the public school system, despite his low grade point average and absenteeism. But his tremendous size and quickness attracts the interest of a wealthy white couple who take him in and groom him both athletically and academically to become one of the top high school football prospects in the country.”

The Blind Side movie is based on the true story of football player Michael Oher, whose incredible track was traced in Michael Lewis’ book “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game”.

That isn't a completely accurate assessment of the plot, but I don't think this was the official statement about the movie either. The Touhy's (Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw) take Michael in because he has no place to go, not because of his size or athletic ability. That does become a focus for him and them, but so does academics. They really do make this guy's life 1,000,000 times better than it ever would have been otherwise. In fact at the end they show one of his buddies from the hood has been shot and killed in gang violence - which, it's implied, could have just as easily been Michael if he hadn't been taken in by the Touhy's.

Anyway, I was warned that the movie was really sad and I should be ready to cry. It wasn't that sad. In fact it was actually a really nice story. There was one scene where Sandra Bullock has gone to visit with Michael's actual mother, and she becomes very emotional and Sandra holds her hand that was sad-ish, but not tear worthy. Bottom line is a black kid from the hood of Memphis ended up getting a really great deal from a very giving and caring rich family from the "right side of the tracks" in Memphis and got a much better life out of it. He now plays for the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL - pretty dang cool!

I really liked the movie. At one point it did seem to be dragging a little but that didn't ruin it for me. I'd say 4.5 out of 5 stars. Tim McGraw's hairpiece was VERY distracting it was so bad. Every time he was on screen I couldn't take my eyes off it. He should have just gone bald. I mean the Movie family was WAY more attractive that the actual family (as it should be for the movies ;-) ) so Tim being bald would not have taken away from his role at all.

I'd recommend this movie, maybe the "feel good" movie of the year. :-D

REAL SALT LAKE TAKE THE CUP!

2009-11-23T15:13:00.000-08:00

In an amazing, I mean AMAZING turn of events, RSL won the MLS Championship last night.

Kyle Beckerman celebrating the win

They just barely got into the playoffs on the last day - and EVERYTHING fell into place for them that day (including Colorado getting bumped completely :-D ). They had to GO to Columbus in the 2nd leg of their first round matches, and yet they won 3-2 there and 4-2 on aggregate. For those who don't know, in the first round they play a home and away "tie" to determine who moves on by aggregate. RSL won at home 1-0 - the boys were there, I think I posted that pic in my birthday post, and then RSL won in Columbus against the #1 seed (RSL were the 8 seed out of 8!) Next they had to beat Chicago IN Chicago, and did so in miraculous fashion after 90 minutes of scoreless regulation time, 30 minutes of scoreless extra time they won it in Penalty Kicks when Nick Rimando saved 3 straight attempts from Chicago to seal the win! Sean and I watched this together at his house and we were jumping up and down and screaming and loving every second of it, it was pretty funny.

Then the finals last night! I put together a Facebook event and had 60+ people say they were comingto watch the match...and then the snow hit. The roads were miserable and we ended up with about 25 people or so at Sky Box in South Jordan to watch the game. This time RSL were facing the LA Galaxy as pretty big underdogs. Yet again, RSL played great in regulation and it ended 1-1 after 90 with Robbie Findley getting the tying goal after LA had taken the lead in the first half. After 30 minutes of pretty even play and no scoring in the extra time (though RSL really should have scored right at the last second, but Andy Williams missed a cross in the box that he surely could have put away for the win. I think his legs were really tired.) RSL were off to PK's again! Needless to say, the tension at the Sky Box was palpable! My heart was jumping into my throat! Amazingly, Nick Rimando came up HUGE again and saved 2 PK's while Landon Donovan of LA, the league "MVP" whiffed his attempt up and over the cross bar to miss as well! RSL's guys came up big under a lot of pressure and Robbie Russell, a defender sealed the victory and the championship with a lovely PK into the right corner while the LA keeper dove to the left.

The Sky Box went CRAZY. There is video of the last few PK's and the final victory celebration, but I can't copy it from Facebook for some reason. It's hilarious because it is sheer pandemonium, hugging, yelling, cheering, I think there was even some crying, it was surreal. I wish I could hit rewind and do it all over again, it was that cool.

So, here are some pics, and congrats to RSL!!!! Finally Utah has a professional sports championship!!! (maybe the Jazz will take notice and step up for #2, eh?)

Fish tacos with Ben during the first half. Pretty crappy, but I was starving and they didn't have the bacon-wrapped shrimp. I almost left because of that. SO glad I didn't.

We thought Robbie Findley had scored the game winner late in regulation...

Alas, it was just side-netting and I was like WHAAAAATTTT????

This is during PK's - there wasn't much tension, can you tell???

PURE JOY after the win. I really don't think I've smiled this big in a VERY long time - it was AWESOME!!!! Russ is ALMOST smiling as big, not quite though.

Oh and this is from when I met Nick Rimando last week to get my Nick is my Homeboy t-shirt that you see in the pics above:

Movie Review - Where the wild things are

2009-11-16T16:21:00.001-08:00

I think Sean said it best when telling Amy about this movie, "If Griffin had been old enough to realize how depressing this movie was, there would have been three of us wanting to kill ourselves." Worst Movie I've Seen In a LONG Time, 0 Stars, it has NO redeeming qualities, is nothing like the book, and may have scarred two adults for life. Horrible, No Good, Very Bad!!! Not even Red Box quality.

Return to an old favorite

2009-11-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

The weather on Saturday was pretty cold. SO, the boys went out goofing around and we ended up at an old favorite - NICKELCADE!

Sean teaching Griff the fine art of Snowmobile racing

Griffin perfecting the art

Nickelcade is pretty fun. $5 lasts FOREVER in my hands, not so long in Griff's. He decided he wanted to play the ticket games. 2 minutes into being in the Nickelcade, his little baggie of Nickels is empty and he has a fistful of tickets. He came running up to me and claimed he found the jackpot ticket machine (this is a holdover term from when we actually did hit the jackpot on a ticket game at 7-Peaks 2 summers ago, for something like 500 tickets on one quarter). His "jackpot" was 130 tickets or something, and he happily jogged off to trade in the tickets for prizes. He came back with a "baby cheetah" stuffed animal, a para-trooper, and a black spider ring. Pretty good haul for $2.50 in nickels :-D

As you're reading this, you're probably thinking, "How fast is the swine flu sweeping the Nickelcade while you're playing games?" We had the exact same thought (the place was pretty busy). Fortunately, they had a Costco-size drum of Germ-X (or the Kirkland equivalent) on the counter and we pretty much bathed in it while we were there, and we're all swine flu-free. Successful trip to the Nickelcade, and we all had fun.

Birthday Weekend

2009-11-09T07:33:00.000-08:00

Another year has come and gone in my life and I'm amazed at how fast time goes by, seemingly.

As I sit here eating my breakfast contemplating my weekend, I realize how blessed I am. Is everything perfect in my life? Of course not! Right now it's not even close! But I realize all the positive things going on and the negative things don't seem to have as much impact as they could. I'm always a bit amazed when I hear people complain that their lives aren't great and they aren't happy. I think to myself, well that's a choice you make. You let the negative aspects of life weigh on you too much and they seem to take over. I just refuse to let the negative things take over. Of course I have my moments, some of my friends and family are unfortunately aware of a recent cranky spell, but it's always very temporary and really happens very rarely. So, as I think about my 38th year on this planet, I'm pretty happy! I got to spend a lot of time this year with people I truly care about and ultimately that's as important to me as anything else. Hopefully, in my 39th year I get to spend more time with the people I missed in 38 :-) Anyway, enough with the ruminations and on with the Birthday weekend post!!!

Thursday Nov 5 - The beginning - My High School and College buddy Rich came to town, and he treated me to a Jazz game for my birthday. Thank heaven it was the Spurs game where they played SO great and just ran the opposition out of town. We had 3rd Row seats and had a really great time. Nothing like being able to yell at referees knowing they can hear you. :-D We also went to Market Street for some amazing seafood and a lot of catching up. I hadn't seen Rich since last year's Utah vs Oregon State game, so there was a lot to talk about and we had a good time doing that. All I knew was, the weekend was off to a marvelous start.

The Jazz Bear during the Player Introductions. I need a new camera.

D-Will hitting freethrows, see how close we were? It was really cool. Thanks Rich!!!!!!

Friday Nov 6 - The celebration of the day of my birth 38 years ago (everytime I try to type 38, it comes out 28 - I think my computer is trying to tell me something) - Since I started my new job in April, I haven't taken a single day off (hard to take a day off when you're 100% commission), so I figured I was due, and it's my birthday, so I deserve it! It was so sweet! Nothing like being able to sleep in a little bit in the morning and then go do WHATEVER you want all day long on a work day! I kind of felt like I did on those days OH SO long ago, when Mike Smith and I would sluff school and take the Had' Bug or Mav' (I think usually the Mav') up to Sundance to ski. It's just a little piece of liberation that feels very good. So, I went and had birthday breakfast at Hagermann's.

They have some of the best french toast anywhere, and it's all you can eat for like $3, HOW can you beat that??? They make it on their freshly baked cinnamon swirl bread and provide all the powdered sugar and syrup you can handle, Buddy the Elf would be in heaven. Look at me, I didn't even bother getting ready for the day, I just got out of bed and went to breakfast - excellent.

Then I went to help a friend build a filing cabinet. WHYYY would I be doing work on a birthday weekend, you ask? Well, I like little projects like this and I like helping, so it worked out. The filing cabinet was of fine Swedish design and construction and excellent instructions with no words were provided, making this project a snap! For some reason I didn't take pictures, not sure why - too focused on creating such a fine piece of furniture, I guess.

The office where I was assembling the cabinet is located up by the U and happens to be about 2 minutes from the "Bobsled" mountain bike trail. So, with some forethought I had packed up my biking gear and was prepared to try out this trail for the first time, I was pretty excited. After a bit of a climb to get to the trailhead (you have to put in the work to get the payoff, you know!) I was ready to go. I launched myself into the downhill and literally was laughing like a kid on a rollercoaster the whole way down, it was THAT much fun! I would do this run every day of the week if I could. This REALLY made my day.

View of downtown SLC from the trail leading to the bobsled...

The car jump that I skipped on the bobsled trail, it was way sketchy looking...

The car jump that I took! I actually got a little too much air and almost flew the landing. Luckily it was set up with a great landing and it didn't jolt me too badly when I landed. Nitro Circus here I come!!! Though I'm sure the Nitro Circus guys would do this in their sleep, on a tricycle, blindfolded with one arm tied behind their back.

After getting home and getting cleaned up, I relaxed for a while and then had dinner and a movie to wrap up a great birthday day. Unfortunately the sushi I got was REALLY bad, so I won't be saying any more about that, other than I won't be going back. The movie was GI Joe on Red Box, and it was OK I guess. I'm used to the REAL American Hero - GI Joe, not futuristic soldiers who wear robotic gear??? For what it was and for a dollar, it was good I guess. Maybe 2.5 stars. Anyway, after hanging out for a while (a loooooong while) I finally went to bed at 4am :-)

Saturday Nov 7 - The aftermath. I awoke a few hours later to find a truly glorious November Saturday awaiting me. First thing on the agenda? Flag football in Sandy!!! The game was So much fun. Again, no pics because I was playing and I left the RiPhone in the car. I know, amazing. It's kind of like leaving one arm in the car. But I couldn't text and play football, so it got left behind. It was coed flag football and at least one play in four had to go to a female player. Coming up with inventive ways to get the ladies involved in the plays was pretty fun. We ran a lot of end arounds and flea-flickers. In the end, the ladies scored a few touchdowns, the guys got to show off a little and it was a lot of fun. We're scheduled to play every Saturday morning until the weather cuts us off. Hopefully, thanksgiving will be good weather so we can play a Turkey Bowl too!

After the flag football came some tailgating at the U and the Utes vs Lobos at Rice-Eccles Stadium. As is becoming our yearly tradition, Rich went with me to the game (the tradition isn't the UNM game, just A Utes game at home each year). Rich fit right in with the crazies around me in the area where I sit and we had a really fun time watching the Utes dismantle the hapless Lobos (they're 0-9 now). Again somehow, no pics, I don't know what was wrong with me Saturday. After the game (and it went a while, since it was on TV - the commercial breaks were excrutiatingly long) we headed back downtown for some REAL sushi. I had a recommendation for Ginza, so we tried it out. It was sooooooo good! Everything was SO fresh and tasty. Octopus, yellow tail, Mars roll, X-roll, and Ham and Eggs roll. I liked it as much as Tsunami, but they don't have the large selection of rolls that Tsunami has. I did find out too late that they have quite an extensive off-menu selection, so if you ever go, ask them about it. Luke Wilson was our Sushi chef, man that guy is talented! Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenenbaums, Charlie's Angels, Old School and now Sushi Chef! Amazing. (Actually, it was just his doppleganger, but we called him Luke as he prepared our food. Luckily he took it in good humor and didn't feed us bad puffer fish or anything.) Again, we hung out for a while and Rich retired to his hotel to get ready for an early flight home the next morning and I headed back home to chill before heading to sleep myself.

Sunday - Nov 8, the conclusion. I was again feeling like a good breakfast was required this morning, so I took a drive up to Emigration Canyon to Ruth's Diner. This is another "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" location, and it was really, REALLY good. The wait was about an hour. And it was NOT warm up the canyon. It was, as you can kind of see in this picture, a beautiful day, just very chilly:

Once I got to my table, I asked the server what the specialty was. I kind of already knew, but I wanted to make sure. Sure enough, it's the "Mile-High" biscuits and gravy. I'll tell you right now, I have never been a fan of biscuits and gravy. BUT, I was determined to try the specialty as I have at each of the other DD&D locations I've visited in the SLC area. Let me just give you a visual of what I thought of the Biscuits and Gravy at Ruth's:

BEFORE:

AFTER (after like 2 minutes):

Yeah, it was unbelievably delicious. The biscuits were fresh and flaky, the gravy was so flavorful and not gelatine-like (you know what I mean, when gravy congeals a little and gets that gross, semi-solid gelatine consistency - bleck!) and the sausage patty and hashbrowns just added a nice bit of variety to the meal. I personally would add an egg or two to this meal, but who am I to question something that has obviously worked so well for so long??? No one! I just ate and enjoyed every bite, and thought to myself - could this weekend GET any better??? I just don't know how it could.

You're all probably wondering why this post is sooooooo long, well it's 4 days' worth of posting and I'm long-winded :-) You may also be wondering why most of the post is about various dining establishments? It's my birthday, so it just is. :-D You could also be curious to know if I got any presents. I did go get myself a present:

I got these boots. I'd been looking for some new boots for a while and everything is WAY too bedazzled right now, and these were the most plain ones I could find. I got them home and I think I hate them, so they're probably going back. But it's the thought that counts. Maybe I'll go to Costco and get a new point and shoot camera instead...

Finally, to wrap up the weekend, we had family dinner with all the local Hadlocks (except Griff, but I did call him :-) ), Donahoes and Grandpa. Amy made a really good chicken enchilada dinner, and there was Andrea's famous bean dip too! And Amy made Lemon-jello cake. As I told her while I was eating it, if there was one more drop of lemon juice in this cake, it would cease to be a solid and transform to a liquid. It was SOOOOO dang good, I could have eaten the whole cake with a little vanilla Ice Cream, it was awesome. I told Amy she did a great job filling in for mom on my birthday dinner, and she really did. Thanks AMY!!!! :-)

While everyone was sitting around talking and looking at Payce's amazing New Zealand pics, the weekend finally caught up to me and my eyes got HEAVY. So, it was off to an early night's sleep and back to reality on a beautiful Monday morning. THANK YOU to everyone who remembered my birthday and even just sent a Happy Birthday text. I'm not a big birthday guy, but I appreciate those who remembered and said something. Here's to a great 39th year!!!!

Halloween

2009-11-02T12:26:00.001-08:00

I would say we had a pretty successful Halloween, and I'm pretty sure Griff would agree! Friday, we went to the Trunk or Treat with Paul, Andrea, Kaja, Jaxon, and Blakers. Griffin had a very hard time containing his excitement and was almost always 2-3 trunks ahead of us. He had a very successful haul, as did the other kids.

Saturday, after working at Grandma and Grandpa H's house for while (are you kidding me with the leaves dad??? Jeez!) Griff, Paul, Sean and I hit the REAL match for some playoff soccer. It was great, they won 1-0 in the 88th minute, so we went home very happy. AND...Griff knew there was more trick or treating to be had...

So we went out again, this time with all the local cousins. Even Auntie Amy came along, despite just showing up from VA a few hours earlier. All in all, we had Stacy as a Vampire, Griff as a Clone Trooper, Kaja as a witch, Jaxon as a pirate, Quincy as a Bee, Blakers as a bat, and West as a frog. Quincy's cousin Avery came along too, she was Tinker Bell (because her mom was Captain Hook and her dad was Peter Pan - tights and everything - I was speechless when I saw Rob dressed up and all I could do was laugh. That guy is truly a good sport when it comes to costumes.) Griff also went out with his buddy Kamas and they scored lots of treats, but I didn't get any photos of that for some reason...

(Photo courtesy of Stacy)

I did happen to discover "chewy" Lemonheads & Friends, which was not a good thing because the are DELICIOUS and I ate way too many of them. Then, Stacy and Sean had Baby Ruth's and I ate a ton of those. Needless to say, I ate more candy in 2 days time than I had all year, so I'll be living at the gym this week. Luckily, I sent all the candy with Griff yesterday, so I don't have any more temptation.

Commander Rex - Clone Trooper

2009-10-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

I went and got Griffin his Halloween costume at Target the other day, to make sure they still had one. Come to find out the had TONS of them (and they were on sale thank heaven - so cheaply made and pretty expensive!) so no worries there. I truly can't remember ever buying this kind of Halloween costume when I was growing up, we had these really funny monster masks (one was Frankenstein, can't remember the other) that had foam of some sort in the top to make the head square and then the face was mesh with the monster face silk-screened on it. It was made of mesh to allow you to breath when you pulled it on over your head, but it didn't work, you'd always have to pull the mask off or it felt like you'd suffocate. We had those for YEARS! I wouldn't be surprised if my mom still has them somewhere. I wish I knew what to Google so I could find a picture of them. A Google search of 70's or vintage Halloween Masks yields pages and pages of results with no luck, and Bing was even worse. Soooo, anyway, here are some pics of Griff as Commander Rex, Clone Trooper (from Star Wars for you laymen):

He needs a gun for this outfit, I'll see if I can find him one...
(side note: maybe I'll go as Obi-Wan Kenobi and wave my hand at people and say, "this is not the clone you're looking for")

Yes that's a Tae Kwon Do stance, he's ready to do battle. He did these poses all on his own, I'm a little worried :-D

Griffin with his Clone Trooper mask on, playing Lego Star Wars on Wii. It's true, he's addicted to Star Wars!

I think I told some people that I thought if I showed Griff his Halloween costume, he'd want to wear it all the time? Yeah, I was right - this is in the car on the way back to drop him off.

I got him some new winter clothes too, the kid grows so fast, the jeans I got him in March are easily 2" too short. Thank you Shawn White for Target!!!

Sky Box

2009-10-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

Normally I don't think I would do a restaurant review of a sports bar. The food at a sports bar is So hit and miss. Sometimes it's decent and edible, other times it almost makes you want to be Vegan (ALMOST!)

Sky Box is different. I went last night to watch the UFC fights (super boring last night, not even worth discussing) and didn't plan on eating much - it was pretty late after the REAL match (WAY TO GO REAL!!!! Spanked the Crapids and made the MLS playoffs, great job!!!) and I'm trying to avoid the winter 15, so a lot of fried food at 10pm was not on the agenda.

However, Darryl, our server (nice guy!) came over just about as excited as I've ever seen a server in any restaurant and he was just dying to tell me about the special. I had already ordered my mango lemonade (D-licious at this place, the Peach is also very good!!!) and was pretty much resigned to ordering some cheese fries, I know, I know, I had already calculated how long I would have to be at the gym, to work those off, but I rationalized and I was ready to order. So Darryl starts telling me about the special. Get ready for this. Bacon-wrapped shrimp with jack cheese and jalapeno. So, hearing him describe the special had piqued my interest. But I hesitated. He then offered to get me one so I could try it, and he did. And I immediately upon tasting this culinary delight ordered a full plate of them! As I sat and ate possibly the tastiest thing I'd had in a while I wondered why ANYONE would give up eating bacon, it truly makes everything better!!! And the slice of jalepeno in there was such a nice touch, giving it just a touch of spice with the deliciousness of the bacon. Really, the shrimp and cheese were there just to hold things together I think. While I like both things, I could have gone with the bacon-wrapped jalepeno. :-D Oh, the plate also came with some nice mexican rice and steamed veggies, SO I got a nice serving of veggies into my diet for the day too! (actual veggies - squash, brocolli, carrots, zucchini, etc.) Really very nice. Good job Sky Box chefs! :-)

The Sky Box in South Jordan is actually very nice too. If you want to get a group of guys together (or girls, whatever) for a televised sporting event, I highly recommend the place. Clean, good service and surprisingly good food!

First Grade SupahStah!!!

2009-10-21T07:33:00.000-07:00

There he is! First Grade Griff! (Not sure what's up with the squinty-eyed smile, but I'm sure they didn't take a bunch of shots to choose from.) Amazing how fast this kid has grown, and he is LARGE! he is way taller than his buddies that he plays with when he's with me (and one of them is 8!!!) and must weigh a metric ton by now. I can't wait to get this kid into football and basketball, he's going to be a bruiser (if he can develop a little attitude!) And I'm definitely seeing him as a Tim Howard type goal-keeper, which would be awesome because then I could go watch him play in England :-D

I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am of this kid. He has been through things no kid should have to go through, but he is a total trooper and is so nice and so sweet and funny, and so even-keeled (I just re-read that, is he really my son???? Yep, just check the forehead! :-D ) I just love him and I'm so glad he's my son, I definitely wouldn't trade him for anything in the world.

My Commute

2009-10-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

Since I totally forgot to take pics of me and Griff the other day, I thought you'd all be interested in what my commute looked like this morning. The traffic was surprisingly light, but I came over the POTM (Point of the Mountain for you non-Utahns, is the dividing line between Salt Lake County and Utah County. I live in Salt Lake county and work in Utah County.) Click the pics, they get bigger and you can actually see things. :-)

The fog (once again, forgive the RiPhone, and my dirty windshield):
You should be able to see Lehi and the rest of Utah County from here, but the blanket of fog in the valley was pretty thick. Looked really cool. Some of the buildings were poking up out of the fog and it reminded me of San Francisco :-)

Timp in the Fog, looked kinda cool, I don't think you can really tell from this pic...

Timp in the clear with the sun coming up. A little depressing that the sun isn't up at almost 8am, but still pretty...

And for Mom, I did get copies of Griff's first grade pics, SO dang funny. I'll scan it and put it up here for you.

The pic post

2009-10-02T12:49:00.000-07:00

I had a few pics on my Nikon that I needed to take off because a friend is borrowing it (yep, I'm that nice of a guy - but he knows full well if he breaks it he buys it, so it's all good.)

These are all chronologically backwards again, but this is just a pic dump post anyway...

With that, let's begin:

The Zoo:
Baby Giraffe, such a weird animal, and it's neck was totally crooked like it needed a serious chiropractic adjustment. Do they have "witch chiropractors"?

I think Griff was tired of pictures by this time. For some reason, he was always 2 cages ahead of us, like he didn't think we'd see everything so he was running to make sure he got it all in. If you're not first you're last! :-D

We all liked the penguins, they were pretty funny. By now we were all melting however, so the standing in the sun was short-lived.

I think the Zebra is back behind there somewhere, but the lighting is jacked up, I need photoshop.

Not sure what's going on here, I think it was at the bear cages? Looks like these two are being monkeys...but that's normal.

The baby elephant is the star of the show, and she was pretty cute.

I think I officially have to announce that Griffin is too big to hold like this anymore. It's like what I would imagine picking up John Stockton would feel like.

After lunch, planning out our group's next move. Paul's MBA class at the U held this event and it was cool, we got lunch and a free pass to the zoo, thanks Paul! Thanks UofU :-D

More planning with Kaja getting interested...

Kaja's soccer match, Jaxon being clingy, maybe he's afraid of the camera? Nah.

Kaja in action on the soccer pitch!

Getting ready to celebrate a goal from her team!

Griff hanging out at Kaja's soccer match.

Griff's team waiting to kick off for the 2nd half kickoff.

Griff in goal, throwing the ball out to his team, well where his team is supposed to be...

Not sure what this pose is, but it's the last match, so go crazy kid!

Cool action shot of the Griffster taking the ball around the opposing team. Judging by where their goalie is standing though, I think he's going the wrong way. :-D

Griff meets Jet

2009-09-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

Jet is Payce and Gwen's new dog. He is WAY more mellow than Buddy was but when he met Griff he went a little crazy. Not too bad, but he was pretty excited. Jet is super cute but didn't sit still long enough for me to get a good picture with the RiPhone (this is becoming a theme). I may have to get a camera to carry around since the Nikon is too bulky to put in my pocket, even on my cargo shorts.
Anyway, Griff and Jet are good buds now, I'm sure we'll go over and play as much as possible...

Pearl Jam 09

2009-09-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

Paul and I went to Pearl Jam! First time in 11 years that they've been to Utah. I think it had something to do with Utah being very republican and PJ's intense dislike of former President GWB. Pretty dumb if it's true, and they went to AZ in that time frame because we saw them in AZ in 2003, and AZ is just as conservative as UT, so who knows. All speculation aside, here's the skinny on the show. The E-center stinks for concerts. They had seats on the floor - the GA section, if you will, and had them packed in with nasty little security guards making sure we didn't spill out into the aisles, heaven forbid we actually enjoy a rock concert, jeez. Pearl Jam then proceeded to play a lot of odd song choices! They have a new album but really only played 2-3 songs off of it. Paul and I were about to get ticked when they left the stage the first time and had only played about 1 of our favorite songs and 2-3 other good songs. BUT, Eddie and the gang had some surprises for us. They came back for a pretty good 5-song encore, but them came out for a 2nd encore and nailed a few more of our favorite songs - Alive and Yellow Ledbetter, for those who know the band! So, they made up for it in a lot of ways. Here's the playlist:

Main Set: Of the Girl, Breakerfall, Hail Hail, Severed Hand, The Fixer, Low Light, Marker in the Sand, Even Flow, Unthought Known, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town, Got Some, Given to Fly, Immortality, Satan's Bed, Amongst the Waves, Do the Evolution, Blood

Encore 1: Bee Girl, Just Breathe (stupid song, see below for explanation), Red Mosquito w/ Ben Harper, Daughter/Sympathy for the Devil/W.M.A., Supersonic, Spin the Black Circle

Encore 2: I Believe in Miracles, Crazy Mary, Alive, Yellow Ledbetter

One down side was the goof who got up on stage because he had written a letter to the band, and went ahead and compared his love for his girlfriend to the energy one feels when you go to your first Pearl Jam concert (really? How touching - barf!!!) then he actually asked her to marry him in front of all of us. I mean really? Paul and I were seriously worried that this was going to eat into real music time. Luckily it didn't, jerk. We were all yelling for her to say NO, she said yes and Eddie saranaded them with some song I didn't care about. :-D

So, we left the concert not completely satisfied with our experience, but they ended on such a good note that we didn't really mind. Though, anyone who schedule shows in that venue when the weather is still good enough for Usana has to have their sanity questioned, it's ridiculous. Here are some pics, though the RiPhone's camera kinda blows.

This is actually the huge finale, but the pics loaded backwards, and I don't have time to fix it right now. They had a bunch of different signs in back, and they were constantly changing, kinda cool

Mike McCready blowing us away with Alive. The guy can play some serious guitar!

Eddie Vedder on Alive, the guy went almost 2 full hours and never faltered or sounded bad once (no thanks to the sound system at e-center - it is not good, my ears didn't even hurt. :-D )

The RiPhone doesn't do self-portraits so great with the touch screen and this is the best I could do, I'll keep working on it...

Stella grill

2009-09-24T07:24:00.000-07:00

I realize I haven't posted anything for a while, so I figure a restaurant review is an easy enough post. I got a recommendation for Stella Grill in Murray - it's on about 4300 South and 9th East. I forgot to ask for a recommendation on dishes so, this was a complete experiment.

I asked the server what the specialties were and apparently they're not really famous for any one dish so he recommended several. We started with this really good goat cheese appetizer (very tasty but not as good as the rosemary flatbread at Trio - my absolute favorite) then had the red trout salad and the pork chop, with chocolate pie for dessert. I'm usually not a huge fan of trout but this dish was really good, highly recommended. The pork chop came with some funky fried mashed potatoes (not deep fried, like lightly pan-fried or something) that were AWESOME. The pork chop itself was just good, and reminded me why I never order a pork chop at a restaurant, I was left wishing I had gotten the open-face hanger steak sandwich - ALWAYS go with your first instinct! Then the chocolate pie was just ok, I've had way better.

The service was top-notch, very fast and friendly, the ambience is excellent, very calm and relaxing, the prices are very reasonable (nothing over $17) and the food is great (pork chop notwithstanding). I'd give Stella solid 4 out of 5 stars and I'd certainly go back. Thanks for the recommendation Chal!

Moochie's!

2009-09-07T21:20:00.000-07:00

I was in SLC and decided I'd drop in to Moochie's for a Philly Cheesesteak. This is another "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" recommended location. They did not disappoint again - that's 3 in a row.

The philly cheesesteak is a sandwich that is often just made however a restaurant wants and they call it a philly cheesesteak. There really is only one style of real philly cheesesteak, and that's kind of "roach-coach" style where the steak and the other ingredients are all cooked up on a grill together with some melted american cheese (or Velveeta, but I don't like velveeta). This place actually grills up the bun on the sandwich filling, and it is scrumptuous (spell?) I only got a 6", and that was plenty! I also got the macaroni salad because it looked good, but I'll tell you right now - if you go, anything besides the sandwich is completely superfluous! I almost didn't even want to drink my water. They do have their own jalapeno sauce, which I tried on the last 2 bites (I Was so into this sandwich that I totally forgot about the sauce!) and it's good but completely unnecessary.

So, there is something wrong with my blog right now and it looks screwy and isn't giving me an option to upload pictures. Who knows. I'm sure it'll be fixed soon and I'll show you how delicious this sandwich is :-D I'll be going back ASAP for the meatball sub that looked ridiculously good, and I don't even like meatballs!!! For the philly cheesesteak, Moochie's gets the 4.5 stars. Great sandwich, not as good overall as Lone Star's fish tacos.

Big Griff on the skateboardie :-D

2009-09-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

Griffin had on his flip-flops as you can see, so riding the skateboard was challenging except on his bum.

Jaxon loves Griffin's skateboard and calls it the "skateboardie." So, that's what we call it now.

The kids and the waterslide at P&A's

2009-08-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

Griff on the slide getting ready to go. He's almost too big for it!

The kids climbing up the slide. Griff helped Kaja and Jaxon get up sometimes.

Griff at the bottom...

Griffin looking to make sure Kaja is looking at the camera. He thinks cuz he's six, he's in charge. These kids do play really well together 99.9% of the time!

Live from Soccer! Go Griff!

2009-08-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

As you can see, Griff's uniform color is yellow. His team name is the Lemon Squirts. Not AF United, not Rangers, not Real AF, not even the Kickers...the Lemon Squirts. *pause* This is an ALL boys team. I guess you can tell they have a woman coach...anyway...

Griff played in goal for most of the 2nd half and I think he might have found his soccer calling. I know I'm his dad and I'm a bit biased, but he made 3 SPECTACULAR saves! DIVING saves no less! The goal-keeper in the first half let balls just roll right past him without even moving - yes, coaching is an issue with this team. Anyway, he cleared one ball off the line to his left that I thought was a sure goal, but he laid out and snagged it with his left hand fully extended. It was amazing. Didn't change the fact that his team had given up 7 goals in the first half, but they had fun anyway, and Griffin just smiles and enjoys himself through the whole game. Good job Griff!!!

griff & kaja play leapster before church

2009-08-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

Live from Rio Tinto - GO REAL!!!

2009-08-15T18:33:00.000-07:00

Griff and Jax Wii'in it up!

2009-08-14T15:26:00.000-07:00

griff playing keeper

2009-08-12T18:50:00.000-07:00

Griffin got shorn! Says they used a 1!

2009-08-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

Ready to mow (lasted about 2 strips) :-D

2009-08-09T13:50:00.000-07:00

Griff workin at Gpa & Gma H's

2009-08-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

Lunch w/Kaja, Jaxon, and Griffin

2009-08-08T12:04:00.000-07:00

Griff on the ride mowers at Lowe's

2009-08-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

The face is because he's making the lawnmower sounds as he's "riding" along. It is my dream to have a ride mower, I'm glad the boy takes after his pops. :-D

Griff on a girl's scooter shakes head

2009-08-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

Tacos a la Familia

2009-08-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

Ben and Chalyce Wilde invited me over for dinner and they made Fish and shrimp tacos. They were SOOOOO good. Their friend Rick made some amazing pico to go with them, Ben grilled the tortillas to get them nice and soft and the fish and shrimp were just lightly fried to give them a very nice taste. Plus the sauce and guac were top notch. I seriously must have had 5 tacos they were so dang good.

I like going out to eat and everything but nothing can compare to home-cooking. Plus with great company (the Wildes have some GREAT friends that are so fun!) it is so much better than eating at a restaurant. Plus you know the kitchen is clean and there aren't any rats running around (well, maybe some naked rug-rats, but not nasty rodents! :-D )

One of these days, I'll have to return the favor, but the Wilde's house and backyard are just perfect for entertaining, and well, I have no backyard, sooooo, might be a little cramped for a dinner party - but the thought is there.

Thanks Ben and Chalyce, you guys can feed me anytime you'd like :-D

Restaurant Review - Lone Star Taqueria

2009-07-31T13:08:00.000-07:00

Curt and I had appointments in SLC today so we hit the next stop on the Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives SLC list - Lone Star Taqueria. Is it definitely a dive. It has a beat up old car on the outdoor patio, the chairs are all ancient metal chairs, old boots adorn the fence aroundthe patio and the place looks like it's 100 years old. However...

The food is AWESOME!

This is the guac, bean dip and chips. Sooooooooo good! The guac was pretty spicey too! The beans were mixed with fresh grated cheese and some kind of flavored sour cream - whatever it was, there was nothing left when we were through.

These are the fish tacos. I wasn't TOO excited when I saw the fish of the day was Salmon, but we vowed to try the house specialty, and this was it. I was NOT disappointed. It's fresh salmon, not battered, and just lightly fried - oh man, after these 2 I was ready to eat 5 more. The fresh, soft corn tortillas were delicious and the sauce was very light and flavorful! Seriously, just awesome. I may not be able to eat at Rubio's anymore after these fish tacos...OK, I still can, but I won't enjoy it quite as much :-D

I gotta give this place 5 stars, it was absolutely delicious! 2265 Fort Union Blvd - put it on your list of places to eat for sure!

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!

2009-07-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm officially the worst son ever. I missed my dad's birthday on Friday. But it wasn't my fault!!! I ran out of gas! I got a flat tire! I didn't have change for cab fare! I lost my tux at the cleaners! I locked my keys in the car! An old friend came in from out of town! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT!!!

Actually, I have no excuses, I have no alibi. It simply skipped my mind. And I know when his birthday is, just lame on my part.

So, Dad, HAPPY BIRTHDAY. I know you're not a big fan of birthdays since you hit the big ** (numbers deleted to protect the OLD!) but it's nice to remember you once a year at least. :-D

You are a GREAT Dad and Grandpa! Griff and I love you a lot. You're a terrific example of how to be a man, a father, a grandpa, a husband and missionary! Thank you for everything you do for me and Griff, you are very important to us.

I'll dig up some pics and add them here later (I don't have them on my work computer, and I need to get back to work :-) )

I hope your birthday was a good one down there in New Zealand, we miss you and appreciate the example you and mom are showing by sacrificing 18 months of your lives to help others. And for what it's worth, you don't look ** - so have an orange whip...or three. :-)

Incubus

2009-07-17T13:51:00.000-07:00

Went to Usana for the Incubus concert!

I will let it be known that I tried to sell these tickets. When that became a non-option, I decided I better go and not let these great tix go to waste. And I'll let it be known right now, this may have been THE best concert I've ever been to!

All day long I was worried that they would play new stuff because they have a new album coming out. 311 just did this to us and played a lot of new stuff instead of the classics. It was still really good, but just a little disappointing (plus the new stuff is all mellow, we like the loud stuff!) Anyway, my fears were allayed immediately when they shot out of the gate with 3 straight songs from Make Yourself and Morning View and 5 out of 6! The other song was Megalomaniac, which they flat out ROCKED! I was immediately in a great mood and bouncing along with the other crazies in "The Pit" (these are by far the most fun tickets for a Rock concert at Usana - anything else is just weak by comparison.)

Then, instead of taking a break where the drummer or bass player has a super long solo, they hit a couple of acoustic songs that were truly amazing. On one song the drummer sat on a wooden box and beat on it like a bongo, it was So cool as it went along with the song, reminded me of the little kids in Chicago that would sit on the side of the street playing the 10 gallon paint buckets. I think it's SUPER rare that a rock singer can actually SING, and this guy has amazing range and rocks when needed and lays down a killer ballad when it's called for. The way they could change speeds, seemingly effortlessly, from one style to the next was SO dang cool. And this guy knocks out the songs start to finish and NEVER waivers, never hits a bad note, his voice never gives out, never cracks. It is really incredible. The guy must not talk to anyone between shows to save his voice. He must sign, or draw on a big white board to communicate. That and he drinks honey and lemon tea all day long, or something...

Anyway, after the acoustic songs, they hit the old school S.C.I.E.N.C.E album for 3 straight songs, and the place got CRAZY! I think I may have a cracked rib, and I definitely have a headache, but it was SO much fun. I've discovered I have really good balance and I'm pretty tough. When I got out of the pit alive, and wiped the sweat from my 5-head, I continued to enjoy song after song. No kidding, they played every song I could have hoped for except maybe 1 or 2, but with how many of my favorites they did play, I was super happy. I mean they played my favorite Incubus song 2nd, so I was stoked all night long. AND on one song they incorporated the cow bell, and on another the singer whistled a whole section. Everyone knows there isn't enough cowbell in rock, but do you realize how little whistling there is? It is a nice addition! :-D

Bottom line is, this concert did not disappoint even a little bit: hard rockers, love songs, acoustic, even a cover of Prince's "Let's get crazy" and everything in between! 5 out of 5 stars, I'd even give it a 6 if the scale went that high!

Red Iguana - Restaurant Review

2009-07-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

I've long heard of the red Iguana, and it made it onto The Food Network's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" http://www.foodnetwork.com/diners-drive-ins-and-dives/index.html

Curt and I went at lunch after a client meeting in SLC and this place did not disappoint! I believe what I said several times was that the "Killer Nachos" were quite possibly the best thing I've ever eaten. And I cleaned the plate! I was about ready to lick the plate when they were gone, but we had gone ahead and ordered Enchiladas Suizas too! WHY we ordered so much food it beyond me, but I'm glad I was able to try the enchiladas (and yes, I TRIED to eat them all, but there was just no way after the Nachos.) The Suizas come with the Mole Poblano, which when you read the ingredients you might think would taste pretty weird. In fact it was VERY tasty! Maybe not spicy enough for my liking, but very flavorful. Oh, the chips and salsa are really good too - just how I like it no chunks and really spicy!

The Red Iguana is right up there with Joe Vera's on the Mexican food list for me. I give it a solid 4.5 out of 5. I think if I had ordered fried Ice Cream as well it may have gotten the 5 (if they even have it, I didn't dare look at the dessert menu). If you're a fan of Mexican food, do NOT go at lunch time, the line was down the street. But DO go to the Red Iguana if you're in the area, it's just West on North Temple maybe 1/2 mile from the I-15 overpass. Go hungry!!!

great pic of Griff

2009-07-03T00:07:00.000-07:00

"Oh yeah, I look good!" "Hey Everyone...come see how good I look!" :-D

We went to the park in the river-bottoms of South Jordan with some friends a while back and we trespassed on the waterfall out in front of Lifetime fitness and got this great pic!

Griff's last at bat of the season.

2009-07-02T19:48:00.000-07:00

First pitch swinging, good contact right up the middle and showing some serious speed up to first base. He was 3 for 3 hitting off his coach, made 2 plays from the pitcher position to first base and one play at 3rd base - an unassisted out.

The other team was REALLY good, really well-coached, and their kids could really hit and field. I have to say I was a bit jealous. However, they had a cute little girl with downs syndrome. Well, she was on first base and her teammate hit a ball right up the middle that the 2nd baseman scooped and looked around. I yelled TOUCH YOUR BASE, not realizing the little girl was the one running to 2nd (slowly) and I got some stink-eye looks for sure. I'm going to hell.

Anyway, I'm super proud of Griff, he played really well, had fun, and I think learned a little about the game. And he really liked it, which is important.

So, NICE JOB GRIFF! Soccer is up next!

Haha, caught riding a girl's bike! :-D

2009-07-01T18:04:00.000-07:00

He claims it was the only choice, I think he looks like he's enjoying it :-D

Hangin' at the Jeffs' cabin!

2009-06-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

Andrea's family was nice enough to invite Griff and me up to their cabin in Midway. We've been before (ask me about the Mountain Lion story if you haven't heard it, it's pretty funny) and we have a great time.

Here are the pics:

That's a good lookin' kid! Ready for Transformers too!

SUPER SWING! You've never heard kids laugh so loud as when they...

...get SUPER high in the air! The big kids (read: adults) can get up above the roof to the entry way.

Blowing past the cousins and Uncle Paul.

Griff, Jax and Kaja waiting for another turn on the super swing!!!

Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen

2009-06-28T08:53:00.001-07:00

Yes, I chose the movie poster with Megan Fox on it - BIG surprise huh? :-D

This is obviously the blockbuster that a lot of people were waiting for this summer. No, not gay vampires, no not mini-wizards or even frozen mammoths, sloths and sabre-tooth tigers (though I am seeing that one!) but Alien Robots that turn into GM cars and Megan Fox (oh, and Josh Duhamel for the ladies.)

As you are all well-aware of the "Romantic Comedy formula" there is also a blockbuster sequel formula - "Bigger = Better" (though it's debatable, that's the formula) and Michael Bay is a master of the HUGE summer blockbuster formula as well as the sequel formula, and this one does not disappoint!

More alien robots turning into vehicles (and they used the prototype Corvette in this one, which is SICK!!!), more explosions, more Megan Fox and a new hottie that plays a decepticon babe trying to get to Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), killer fight scenes, killer explosions, the biggest decepticon ever and special effects that are downright amazing. I was a little ticked that the Audi R8 was a decepticon AND got killed by the corvette, but GM is desperate to get out of bankruptcy and so they're trying to trash Audi to get more Americans to buy American. We'll see if their plan works, I tend to think going negative doesn't work - focus on your own features and benefits GM, don't disparage others.

Some will say the story is lacking in this sequel. I have to say...SO WHAT? The story in the first movie was so compelling? No, the story is the same - good vs. evil and attractive people beating the odds and somehow surviving giant aliens trying to step on them or blow them up. It begs the question, are attractive people impervious to explosions? Are they able to dodge giant alien feet more easily than less attractive people? Frankly, I have no problem with that, it's just darwinism helped along by alien robots disquised as construction equipment (by the way, shouldn't the bad buy construction vehicles be called destructicons instead of constructicons? I mean they come together to be called Devastator! Just a thought).

Overall I'll give this movie a 3.5 out of 5. If you're not a big Transformers fan, or a big summer blockbuster fan in general, then wait for Red Box. The rest of the world will be there this week and Michael Bay will make an obscene amount of money - it's the payoff for the formula, and this one definitely fits the bill and it is pretty cool.

Griff & Mark playing after a huge storm!

2009-06-26T23:50:00.000-07:00

I wish I could have backed this pic up a little more without making the boys look too small, but the rainbow was so tight (and I don't mean like "cool", though it was that too) in that it looked like it started and ended in this neighborhood, it was the clearest,brightest rainbow I think I've ever seen! The boys just wanted to soak each other with squirt guns and other water toys. Pretty standard.

Movie Review

2009-06-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

Went and saw the proposal with a group of friends. I'm truly not sure why we saw this movie, but it turned out to be pretty good.

I'm a fan of both Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock, so it worked out well. It's actually pretty funny. I've always thought Ryan Reynolds was funny, ever since his stint on "Two guys a girl and a Pizza place". In fact, I'm going to go see if I can find it on DVD, it was hilarious.

So this movie follows the romantic comedy formula, and does it well - kudos to the guy who read "Romantic Comedies for Dummies" and created a fine example.

If you've seen the commercials for this movie, you know what's up - Sandra Bullock is Canadian and is going to be deported and lose her job, so she ropes her assistant, Ryan Reynolds, into marrying her. They go to visit his family, hilarity ensues. Of course, there is an old love interest back home for Ryan, so there is the requisite tension there, and Betty White is the crazy grandma and she is really funny. Good times.

So, if you have 2 hours to kill and $6 for a matinee, go see it. If you're on a date and it's too cold to go to Boondocks, go to this movie. If you're with a cute girl (or boy, depending on your preference), hold her hand. I'll give it a 3.5 out of 5 and a solid gold star for sticking to the formula.

The Cardinals find a bug.

2009-06-18T17:56:00.000-07:00

Yes this is in the middle of the game and the kids found a bug of some sort that was interesting enough to delay the action. Of course, Griffin is right there inthe middle of the kids checking out the bug. Pure comedy.

Live from the Bees game!

2009-06-17T17:50:00.000-07:00

Weird pic but it's the only one of the two of us from the game.

Griff and I went to the Bee's game with some friends and Griff had a great time as usual with his buddies! They decided they wanted to be human bowling balls and rolled down the hill toward the fence. They were having a great time! Rain cut the night short but it was still really fun while we were there!

Griff "lawn bowling" (Sydney jumping over the boys as they roll, pretty funny!)

Griff with his buddies Gavin and Bailey

Dealing cards for the kids during the game. The kids had great poker faces! :-D

Kids at play!

2009-06-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

311 concert post

2009-06-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

COMING UP, YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS THIS ONE!!! B-)

The parade

2009-06-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

Griff at the Orem Days Parade

2009-06-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

Griff had a blast at the Orem Days Parade. He claimed he had never been to a parade, which I find hard to believe, but he had a great time with Kamas and Winny and their cousins! Thanks Lance and Jodi for inviting us!

Here's how the parade ended: (with the picture in the above post that I can't get to copy over - stupid blogspot) I'll edit it later...

Anyway, the weather got nasty fast and the roads had several inches of water flowing down them! It was craziness. We got to see most of the parade and Griff even saw his Tae Kwon Do teacher in the parade, he was pretty happy about that. Good times...I guess.

Movie Review

2009-06-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

We went and saw "Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian"

(pics won't work right now for some reason, so I'll add it later)

This one is the continuation of the Ben Stiller Character's evolution. Where in the first movie he was a struggling inventor having to take a job to survive, he is now a successful entrepreneur and gets sucked back into the night watchman gig to save the museum artifacts (his friends fromthe first movie) from being put into deep storage in the National Archives in DC.

Hilarity ensues.

Actually, I like the first one way better than this one. Though Hank Azaria as the bad guy is pretty funny. General Custer makes an appearance in this film and he too is very comical. He's the guy from SNL, that I don't want to take the time to look up his name.

Griff liked this film, as did the other kids, but he didn't LOVE it I don't think. He paid attention to his buddies and the popcorn more than the film. I had just run through a torrential downpour and some old guy decided to sit RIGHT next to us, despite the theatre being half-empty, so, I'll give it a 3, it's not bad but probably wait for Red Box.

South Fork 2009

2009-06-07T16:51:00.001-07:00

This seems to be becoming an annual trip to South Fork for a picnic of Ernie's sandwiches (YUM!!!!!) and frisbee with Paul and Andrea's family. The weather was SO perfect, it was amazing! Here are the pics:

Kaja started us of on pictures be saying we should all lay down and smile for a picture, so she did.

Look at that backdrop! Just an amazing day to play some frisbee!

Kaja jogging back to the picnic site for a drink after playing hard for a while!

Big Griff taking a break from throwing rocks in the river with Jaxon.

Big Jax giving us his surprised face!

This pic took 10 tries, no joke and the last 3 tries Griff was rolling his eyes at me, thus the laughter...

Movie Reviews

2009-06-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

I've seen WAY too many movies lately! It's getting a bit ridiculous, but I like movies and some good ones have been coming out. I can't wait to see Land of the Lost, looks HILARIOUS!

Anyway, here are the reviews for today - Star Trek 2009 and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Let's start with Star Trek.

To start and to be totally fair, some of the guys at the office hyped this movie SO hard, I don't know if any movie could have lived up to it. But, I did like it. I've heard people say it's this year's Ironman, and for my take, it's nowhere near as good. It was cool - and I know I'm waffling back and forth here, and here's why: The movie does a killer job as an homage to the original TV series. All the characters get really good background build-ups and that was pretty cool. I'm not sure if you would like this movie as much if you didn't know some of the things about the TV show. I did know a lot of what was being referenced, so it was cool in that respect. The story gets a touch crazy because JJ Abrams of "LOST" fame is the director and the time-travel thing plays a huge part in this and it gets almost as ridiculous as LOST trying to figure out who's from where and how he got there, etc. etc. etc. And that drove me crazy! But the action was excellent, the story was OK, and the acting was pretty good. I really liked the Scotty character, really funny. And Uhura is in love with the LAST person I would have expected in this movie, and that was kind of funny.

SO, overall I'll give the movie a 3.5. I wish I'd waited for Red Box, but it was a good movie. If you're a HUGE Trekkie, you'll love it 100%. If not, your opinions will vary.
--------------------------------------------

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the story of a boy/man (Brad Pitt) who ages backwards. He's born looking like an old man and as he ages chronologically he gets younger physically. It's definitely a different film from any I've watched recently and despit the length, it was actually pretty good. I even managed to stay awake watching it late at night. Julia Ormond is also in this movie, so I immediately had flashbacks to "Legend of the Fall" and how boring it was. :-D I didn't think this movie was as boring. There is the predictable relationship with Cate Blanchett's character - Daisy (this part actually reminded me of Forrest Gump - But Brad Pitt has Tom Hanks beat for the ladies' interest all day I'm sure) but they both give a pretty good performance. I was curious that no one ever took a scientific interest in Benjamin. I would have expected doctors and scientists to want to check him out and learn about his condition, but it never happened. The movie is set in New Orleans and they have plenty of freaks there, so maybe no one really noticed :-D

Anyway, I'll give this movie a 3 out of 5. I'm glad I saw it on Red Box, but I didn't hate it. It actually had a few parts I really liked and there are some good messages in it. So if you like dramas with little to no action and some good acting, this is a good choice for you.

My new favorite picture of Griffin :-D

2009-05-31T21:47:00.000-07:00

On our way to swimming, Griffin gets my attention from the back seat and says, "look Dad!" And this is what I saw. Funny kid. :-D

UP!

2009-05-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

Griff and I and the Gang went to see UP!

This is the latest animated movie from Disney/Pixar and it was REALLY good. I laughed so hard a few times a little pee might have escaped! It's kind of interesting that the first 10 minutes of the movie seriously have about 3 speaking lines. It was an interesting way to do an animated film. Griffin was having too much fun with the other kids and eating popcorn to notice I think. The story and the characters...SQUIRREL!!!...are both really good. I think everyone really enjoyed this one. I need to see it again because I was laughing so hard at parts I'm pretty sure I missed some good one-liners. This is a 4 out of 5, kids will love it, adults will love it. It's going in the DVD collection when it comes out. Nice job Disney/Pixar!

live from the alpine slide 2009!

2009-05-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

Reece, Rylee, Ryder and Payton driving to the Slides :-D

The Gang in Park City

Me and Griff getting ready to go "medium" fast.

Post Park City, waiting for the BBQ!

Memorial Day in Park City was SOOOO nice! The weather was mostly beautiful (it got breezy for a few minutes on the ski lift, but after that it was perfect - I even got a bit sunburned), all the kids behaved very well for the most part, the Slide was a blast as always - Griffin wanted to go again and again of course - and he talked me into taking him again sometime this summer, so looking forward to that.

I think the thing I like the most about the weekend, and I know Mom is going to flip when she gets home and sees this, is all the cousins running around, playing nice (usually) and enjoying being together. Everyone loved baby Blake and Baby Payton (Kaja could not get enough of Payton!) and it was just a really nice family weekend. Obviously we missed Sean, Stacy, Quincy, Payce, Gwen, and Dave but really that would have just meant less of Paul's famous BBQ tri-tip for me, so it's all good!

Griff' and Ryd' having eggs and toast!

2009-05-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

We got to spend some time with Reece, Rylee, Ryder and CUTE baby Payton over the Memorial Day weekend. Griff and Ryder pretty much loved it and played practically non-stop. Fortunately they did take some time to have a delicious breakfast of eggs, toast, yogurt and milk. I need to spend more time with families that have kids because, for some reason, Griffin eats a lot better with other kids around! And when this kid gets hungry - look out! He can wreck a pantry and fridge in no time - it's no wonder he's getting so big!

Ryan & Griff - Established Jan 2003

Abandoned Site!

Bumper Boats

Griff and I - May 2011

Blood and kneecaps at 2nd base

One of my fave pics of me and Griff

Pinewood Derby!

Thanksgiving/Christmas 2010

October weekend with Griff!

Griff's First Utes Game!!!

Donut Falls Hike

Griff coming off the plane from his first solo flight!

Me, the boy and a huge hole in the ground

Hurt in the Dirt!

Griff at the Soccer Clinic

Griff's Green/Yellow test

Griff is my HomeBoy!

Memorial Day Weekend!

G-n-Q

Grand Slam update

Soccer Season!

Clash of the Titans

I may have created a monster:-))

Griff and his Legos

The Lone Star State

Blog Slacker!

Alkaline Trio

Go Utes!

Griffin is 7!

Jump On it!

Snowbird

The Soloist

...Elementary my dear Watson!

Christmas 2009

Invictus

Jazz Games '09

2012 - Movie Review

The Blindside -Movie Review

REAL SALT LAKE TAKE THE CUP!

Movie Review - Where the wild things are

Return to an old favorite

Birthday Weekend

Halloween

Commander Rex - Clone Trooper

Sky Box

First Grade SupahStah!!!

My Commute

The pic post

Griff meets Jet

Pearl Jam 09

Stella grill

Moochie's!

Big Griff on the skateboardie :-D

The kids and the waterslide at P&A's

Live from Soccer! Go Griff!

griff & kaja play leapster before church

Live from Rio Tinto - GO REAL!!!

Griff and Jax Wii'in it up!

griff playing keeper

Griffin got shorn! Says they used a 1!

Ready to mow (lasted about 2 strips) :-D

Griff workin at Gpa & Gma H's

Lunch w/Kaja, Jaxon, and Griffin

Griff on the ride mowers at Lowe's

Griff on a girl's scooter *shakes head*

Tacos a la Familia

Restaurant Review - Lone Star Taqueria

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!

Incubus

Red Iguana - Restaurant Review

great pic of Griff

Griff's last at bat of the season.

Haha, caught riding a girl's bike! :-D

Hangin' at the Jeffs' cabin!

Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen

Griff & Mark playing after a huge storm!

Movie Review

The Cardinals find a bug.

Live from the Bees game!

Kids at play!

Griff on a girl's scooter shakes head