Scott Chester

Today was pretty crazy. I managed to mis-order a piece for a system that needed to go out today. Fortunately I was able to drive up to Anaheim to get a piece to make it all work. I do really like the fact that we live in a place where we can typically get anything we need within a few hours. It makes me wonder how people ever get used to living on small islands or in remote places. I’m sure they don’t lead as complicated lives and I know they enjoy themselves.

The great thing about having to run to Anaheim is that it meant I got to be in Anaheim around lunch time. You all know what that means, right? For those that aren’t geographically oriented, Anaheim is very near Buena Park. Buena Park is where Fuddruckers is located. Anaheim + Lunch time = Fuddruckers! It was so good; I mean soo good. I think the Buena Park location is just better than Oceanside. Maybe it is the bold and spicy A1, maybe it is just the years of history there. Maybe it is the grill has been seasoned to perfection. I just love it there! I got some brownies (not the cream cheese ones since they don’t have them anymore) and some buns to take home. Now I need a plan for the buns.

As I was driving back from Anaheim, I hit some traffic on the 91, as always. Shortly thereafter I saw a Caltrans marquee that said some to the effect of don’t speed, save lives, save gas. Well, as soon as we passed this sign (going well under the speed limit mind you) we were able to resume normal operations. I wonder if people slowed just for the sign or what.

I had dinner tonight with the Lee’s. This is originally what I got the buns for as I thought we were going to BBQ. Sister Lee decided to make lasagna instead, which I would never complain about! It was good to be there and I nearly lost track of time to go home teaching.

Maybe before people decide to advertise on electronic screens they should inquire as to what is powering them. I mean, why pay to advertise how horrible windows is? We already know it crashes constantly - is it really necessary to advertise that at the gas station? Insist that your advertising displays run on a Mac. Maybe people will see what you are paying for.

I spent some time this morning catching up on blog reading and still trying to figure out twitter. I think I’m starting to get the idea behind it, although I still can’t understand what it does for me more than the status in facebook does. I guess it is just another one of those independent services we all have to deal with. I wish everyone could just have their own domain with whatever works best for them running on it sending out RSS feeds. That would I think essentially solve the need for all these different sites we have now. I realize it will never happen, but I think that is one of the reasons why I am so slow to adopt some of these new technologies/sites that others jump on right away.

I spent a good chunk of the day cleaning the house. I also spent time working on this console situation for the show this weekend among other things. I watched some TV, made some phone calls for home teaching and made orange chicken for dinner. It was essentially a pretty quiet day at home. I thought Lauren was going to come up, but she never did. Alison and I were going to try and meet for lunch, but that didn’t happen. I thought about going to dinner with Bouse, but he wanted to go to Outback and I’ve officially given up on that place. It’s hard to believe it, but I’ve actually stuck by it when I said I wasn’t going back. I can’t stand that they can’t figure out how to cook the meat right.

In fact, I would have spent the entire day at home if Maegan and Larilyn didn’t drag me out of the house to have dessert with them at Johnny Carino’s. I decided to try something new - the cannoli i think it was. It was actually pretty good, although Maegan will attest that the cake something or other she got was amazing and much better than anything I could possibly have chosen to get. This is why we had to have two desserts - so she could have the cake and I could try something new. They invited me to the movies as well. I just came home to finish off my boring day at home, home alone. I ended up watching an episode of CSI, which surprisingly, I hadn’t seen before!

And now, I can get to sleep at a reasonable time instead of still being locked in a movie theater for another 40 minutes and not getting home until tomorrow. I’m very anxious to find out what is going on tomorrow with President Mattson being released. From the calls I made today regarding home teaching, I can see that we have a lot of work cut out for us with people leaving. There were also a few who didn’t know they had assignments, which I think means that I must have never gotten the new assignments to them. I guess that is where calling comes in!

Today seemed pretty crazy at work. I’m still just falling farther behind on my email, although I am taking care of the important things, I hope. My desk is starting to get a bit cleaner though so that is a good thing seeing as how I need to get things ready for next Wednesday.

I came home from work and nearly fell asleep on the couch watching TV. Just as I started cooking some dinner Sister Rodriguez called and told me they were having chicken enchiladas and I said I’d be right over. I was ready for a nice quiet evening at home, but I figured a nice evening with the Rodriguez’s and the Dunagan’s would be just as good. Or maybe even a bit better since Alyssa was there tonight and I rarely get to see her. The enchiladas were amazing, so much so that I had to stuff myself with even more than I should have possibly considered eating.

We sat around and looked at old pictures and such till about 10 and now I’m working on getting to bed. Alyssa invited me to the movies tonight, and I almost went even though it would have involved being out way past my bedtime tonight. Since tomorrow is going to be a longish day at work, I figured I probably should try and get a good nights sleep. I get to work a wedding for the first time in a while, woo hoo! And on that note, I’m going to bed, before I get busted for being up just as late as I would have been if I had gone to the movies!

As I have received multiple requests for this recipe, I figure I’d better post it for everyone else who was too shy to ask!

Dot’s Blondies are a mom’s secret weapon | The San Diego Union-Tribune

Dot’s Blondies With Chocolate Chips

Makes 2 dozen

• 2 sticks unsalted butter (plus more for greasing the pan)
• 1 pound (2 cups firmly packed) light brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (see note)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped pecans, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch-by-12-inch baking pan well with butter. Set the pan aside.

Melt the two sticks of butter in a 2-quart microwave-safe bowl covered with a paper towel. Remove the bowl from the microwave, and add the brown sugar. Stir well. Add the baking powder, salt and vanilla extract, stirring until completely incorporated. Stir in the flour, again stirring until it is well mixed.

Crack the eggs into a small bowl, and beat them well with a fork or whisk. Add the eggs to the batter and stir with a spoon until they are completely incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips (and the nuts, if using).

Spread the batter in the greased pan. The batter will be stiff and sticky. You may have to spread it to the edges of the pan with the back of a spoon, but don’t worry too much about getting it exactly even, as the batter will spread as it bakes.

Bake until the top begins to get golden brown and the blondies just begin to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 20 to 25 minutes. (Baking time will vary depending on your oven and the type of pan.) Do not overbake. Cool for at least 20 minutes, and cut into small squares. Store in an airtight container or cover well with plastic wrap. These bars freeze very well and improve in flavor after the first day.

Note: To get the proper texture, do not use an electric mixer. You do not need to sift the flour, but spoon the flour into the measuring cup so as not to pack it down too much. Use the spoon handle to brush away extra flour and level the top of the measuring cup.

Start to finish: 7 minutes preparation, plus approximately 20 to 25 minutes baking time and 20 minutes cooling time.

Per blondie: 216 calories (41 percent from fat), 10 g fat (6 g saturated), 38 mg cholesterol, 2 g protein, 31 g carbohydrates, 1 g dietary fiber, 59 mg sodium.

Note: For the housewarming party I doubled the receipe and put it in an 11 x 13 glass pan I believe. I cooked them for much longer than the intended time, trying to get the inside cooked and pulled them out when the edges and top looked like it couldn’t take any more time in the heat. I also made them the day before as I think they need about 12 hours to cool so they don’t fall apart as you try to eat them. They are great hot out of the oven as well though!

Today seemed like a long day at work. I miss doing Tara’s job, it is so much more fun than my own. I did start to get my desk cleaned up a bit, which was good and am starting to catch up on my email. It was just a boring day though.

I came home and got started with laundry. Batch came over and we made spaghetti and meatballs and then watched The Illusionist. I had watched about half of it Saturday night before watching videos of Natalie Wiess. I must admit I was a bit busy text messaging and not paying too much attention to the movie the first time around either. I was really impressed with the movie tonight though and was not expecting the end at all. There isn’t much to say that wouldn’t ruin the movie, let’s just say I was happy that I couldn’t see the ending from the beginning.

President Smith talked today about how we don’t need to be perfect, we just need to have our life in order. I have the exact quote downstairs, I’m just not going down to get it now. Zach had earlier pointed out that the church isn’t a retirement community for saints, it is instead a hospital for sinners. How true both of these statements are and yet how often do we not think of it that way.

Today went pretty well. There was some disappointing news I would almost have rather not received. I know that Heavenly Father has a plan though and we just can’t see it from here. President Mattson is going to be released next week. I almost felt this was coming recently and when he said something about changes in the office during branch council this morning I almost knew it for sure. For some reason I didn’t think about that when I saw President Smith on the stand, I think I just had too much on my mind at that point.

The rest of the day went well. My family came over for dinner tonight. Well, they brought the pizza and just wanted a place to eat it. I really enjoyed walking to branch prayer tonight. I almost felt as if I was in rexburg walking down the street to prayer. That was great! I had a good time talking with Brother Lee before anyone else got there as well.

Let’s backtrack a bit here. I don’t remember much of Friday other than the girls wanted to come over for a quiet night at home. It was just Larilyn, Maegan and I to start it off. Melissa joined us and then so did Megan. They kept me up way too late and then I did not sleep well all night. Lauren says it is cause I was thinking about her, which is probably true.

Lauren came up after building cleanup on Saturday and we hung out together for most of the day. She was supposed to be coming up to go to the activity, but when we got to that point of the day, she decided she didn’t want to go. There were lots of people at the activity, although I don’t think most of them were actually doing anything on the inflatables.

I made it down to Fallbrook tonight for dinner, tritip of course. It actually worked out well because I wanted to get down to Fallbrook to take a look at the genealogy files he had and get started on some family history work. I started getting things inputed while I was there and then came home and kept going. I was able to get one of the lines back to early 1800s mostly from information my dad had already collected. The real work will begin here once I get through the info that he has and actually have to get going.

I was really interested to see that one of my ancestors had like 12 children, three of which died at a young age. Three of them were with his first wife and the other nine with the second. It was also crazy what information I could find in family search and then how there seemed to be gaps or many duplicates of the same person. I’m sure by Sunday I’ll have lots of real work for Sister Dowden. I was also impressed to see some of the temple work had already been done, so that is great.

I finally got Sib over here tonight. It nearly involved kidnapping her, nevertheless she came peacefully. We started talking about ideas for painting and she realized what a big job it is going to be. With dinner and then being rushed to go home teaching, we didn’t get anything settled, so we will have to finish it up another time.

Work went well today. Time seemed to fly and I can’t really pinpoint what exactly I was able to accomplish. My desk is still a mess…

Sister Dowden, Larilyn, Kenny and I went to the temple Tuesday night. I hadn’t been in a really long time - I think she the last time I went with Sister Dowden a few (two-three) months ago. It was good and so was the Cheesecake that followed. I got home way too late though and have been having a hard time getting up all week. I’ve barely made it to the office on time and haven’t had the leisurely time in the morning I like to have. That also means I haven’t had a chance to dive deeper into scripture study.

Larilyn was over last night and made cheesecake. Lauren and Michelle came and helped us eat the ground beef tacos that needed to be gone ASAP. Again I was up too late.

I was thinking tonight on the way home from home teaching that I could get to sleep early. Then I decided that this was my only chance to carpet clean Geoff’s room before he moves in, so I decided to do that. Then the hallway outside the garage. After the third time I filled the machine up, I decided it was time to call it a night! I’m glad I did it though because it appears that it pulled a lot of dirt out of the carpet. I need to work on doing a room a night or something so I can get the whole house done.

Geoff is moving in tomorrow, so my peace and quiet may be gone. I’m thinking that maybe I’ll start actively looking for more roommates once I’ve got him settled in so I can bring in the cash to keep working on the project list. Sib told me tonight not to get married, just so I could keep both sides of the closet! Oh the joys of sharing…

I’ve got dinner plans with the family tomorrow night and am hoping to get some family history done at the same time although I understand Tom won’t be home. Then I’m hoping to get the first movie night in this week and we’ll see what fun projects the weekend brings.

My plan of taking the day off to get the house ready for the open house tomorrow really didn’t work out. Not only did I have to go in for payroll this morning, but after coming home in the early afternoon, I had to go back after regular hours to meet a customer. I did get some baking done and some cleaning, just not the huge scores I was originally hoping to get done. I should be able to accomplish the vacuuming that should be done tomorrow morning and I would love to clean the rest of the windows if possible.

There really isn’t much too report from today. I talked to Ryan for the first time in a long time today and he actually came over this afternoon to check things out since he may not be able to make it tomorrow. I finally finished Fools Gold tonight as I was eating dinner (at 10 o’clock mind you). I thought it was pretty good - I don’t know exactly why no one else wanted to watch it.

Well, I think I’m going to call it quits there and see if I can get some sleep tonight. I’m not sure that it is going to be cool enough to have the a/c off tonight, but I’m going to try it. In the worst case, I’ll just get up, close all the windows and turn it on, right?

P.S. I don’t suggest doubling the dot’s blondie’s recipe, unless maybe you do it in a really large pan as it gets too think to really cook well. It still tastes good though, just extra gooey!

Dinner tonight:

Parmesan Chicken - Allrecipes

It turned out good when Maegan and I made it last week, let’s hope we can do well again tonight.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 (4 ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
• 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

DIRECTIONS

1. Flatten chicken to 1/4-in. thickness. In a shallow bowl, combine bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese and basil. In another bowl, beat the egg. Dip chicken into egg, then coat with crumb mixture. In a large skillet, brown chicken in butter and oil over medium heat for 3-5 minutes on each side or until juices run clear.

From the Cheesecake Factory:

In celebration of our 30th Anniversary, on Wednesday, July 30th, The Cheesecake Factory will offer every delicious slice of our more than 30 varieties of cheesecake for 1.50 per slice to dine-in guests (limit one per guest) - just like we did when we opened our first restaurant back in 1978!

It’s no coincidence that Wednesday, July 30th, also happens to be National Cheesecake Day. After all, what better time to enjoy the cheesecake you absolutely love!

As you know, sharing is part of the fun at The Cheesecake Factory so feel free to share the news about this special offer with your friends.

So, come celebrate with us on National Cheesecake Day. And, stay tuned for more news about our 30th Anniversary Celebration!

I’m sure all the local Cheesecake Factories are going to be a zoo tomorrow. I already have dinner plans or else I might have to consider making a run for it. Maybe we’ll go for lunch though…

Everyone was back in the office today, although it was pretty quiet down at my end. I was able to spend some time catching up on things and pressing forward I guess. I’m trying to wrap my hands around some of the new PR things we are looking at doing and getting myself motivated for them.

I came home and started trying to clean up the front yard. Once I got some more trash out of it - it seems to collect it with the high weeds, I mowed and then manually tried to take out the weeds, either by hand or by hoe. That only lasted so long, but I got the big ones taken care of, root and all. I then decided to try and aerate the ground. Some spots are hard as rock though and I don’t know how well it worked. I used a mix of tools with the varying soil. I clearly need to eventually plan on flattening the front yard and filling it with soil - and of course probably starting over with the grass. Maybe I can start a compost pile and slowly bring dirt to the front without completely covering the grass.

In any event, I started running the sprinklers to check for runoff and after a few minutes I realized that where one of my sprinklers probably should have been, I couldn’t find anything. After pulling grass (it is really think in this corner - which I now know why), then digging and digging some more, I finally found the sprinkler. Surprisingly, it just wasn’t screwed in to the pipe! I got that back together and it seems that I only have a bit of water getting sprayed onto the sidewalk which may turn into runoff, I’ll have to check in the morning. In any event, I’ve got some seed out there now and just have to hope that I’ll get some grass growing soon. It actually has been nice weather lately since it hasn’t been too incredibly hot, maybe I’ll have a chance.

Matt’s birthday part was tonight at Pat & Oscar’s. It went well and the breadsticks were fairly good this time. Not great, but good. I came home to take care of some more paperwork. I wrote my first mortgage payment, how scary was that! As much fun as having the place to myself is, I think I may need to seriously start looking into renters.

We had a sweet earthquake this morning. It was a 5.something (it was 5.6, then 5.8, then 5.4, I don’t know what it ended up at). I think it lasted 20-25 seconds which was great. The waves were almost on top of each other and there was some good shaking. Tata was scared, while I was just enjoying it. Nothing fell off shelves or any of that, so that is great - and the house seems to have survived as well. I did call to add my earthquake insurance today. Western Mutual didn’t seem to like that, but after I explained that I was offered it as part of my policy they said they would see what they could do. In any event, I wonder what is in store for us down the road. Our office phones were down for outgoing calls for at least an hour. I imagine Verizon’s network was just too overloaded. We started routing our calls out trough the Internet - it’s great to have voip, while inbound calls worked fine. Verizon’s cellular network seemed to be crowded as well, although my Sprint phone allowed me to make calls. I guess it just shows that there is a reason for ham radio after all!

I spent most of the day in meetings. We started trying to tie up the loose ends with home teaching this morning at 9:30 and that went straight into PEC, then church and so forth. We didn’t have any meetings after church, so it wasn’t as long as it could have been. Lauren came over and made dinner and Larilyn, Megan and Alsyssa joined us. It was quite good and was nice to have people over, cooking and such. Alyssa even went over and above and washed all the dishes that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher. I’ve got to invite her over for dinner more often! I mean for her company of course, the dishes is just an extra.

I got to see the world traveling Emily at linger longer today. it was great to see her and I hope we get to spend some time together before she runs away again. I guess her family is moving to Utah, so she will be gone for good. Maybe I need to get that guest room up and running quickly so she can come back and visit.

I had fun today cleaning floors. I got a steam cleaner to do the carpets, and it also said it did hard surfaces. I ended up spending the afternoon cleaning all the hard floors in the house. I didn’t think it was doing that good of a job at first, but I noticed the water was fairly dirty. Later I realized walking around that the floors felt really clean. I don’t know what that is worth, but I had been noticing that my feet were getting really dirty walking around the house. I’ve vacuumed so many times that I figured there was just dirt that didn’t want to come out of the carpet and such so it needed a deep cleaning. I got the only Hoover model that they had at Best Buy, and used my 10% off coupon for moving on it.

The family came over for dinner tonight. Well, they came over to eat Papa John’s pizza. I have a feeling my dad really likes having a place he can come and eat it and I think I’m going to be seeing them every three weeks. They also brought some stuff from the house - as I figured they would - that I promptly threw away most of. I can’t figure out if the Apple posters are worth anything. I tried searching online for ipod lisa poster and such regarding the 2004 remake of the 1984 Lisa poster/ad and couldn’t find anything on eBay or really much talking about it. I guess if I make an Apple museum I’ll want to keep at least one of them - and if I put them all in one container they wouldn’t take up that much room.

Kenny and I watched Definitely Maybe tonight. I thought the movie had a good premise and liked the story telling of his life, and the interactions from the daughter. It kind of reminded me of Princess Bride with the story telling. While not a fan of some of the things they did in the movie, I thought it was funny how intertwined the lives of these women were and how you supposedly couldn’t see what was coming - and definitely didn’t know who her mom was. It was clear early on how the movie would end, as with most. It was enjoyable through the end though and that is what matters.

I discovered the other night that I have a broken sprinkler line. I’d like to say the neighbors probably did it when they poured concrete, but i can’t be certain. I picked up the stuff to start digging today and maybe can get out there and get going on Monday night. I need to start working on a food list for the housewarming party next weekend so I can start doing some form of planning ahead.

I have been up way too late every night for about a week now! It’s been lots of fun and games, but I’m sure this is going to catch up with me sooner or later.

Let’s start with a quick recap. Friday I went to Fallbrook for a tri-tip dinner. I drove back to Temecula before finding out that I had left my laptop there, so I had to go back which meant by the time I finally got home, it was starting to get late. That was probably the earliest I’ve been to bed all week. Friday morning Bouse and I got my new door installed and picked up and assembled the new kitchen table after making breakfast. Of course, it ended up being almost an all day thing once we had lunch. I finally made it to the office to get some things straightened up for this week.

Saturday I went with the branch to the flight museum in Chino. It was pretty cool although I got tired of walking and standing - and carrying the camera - after a short while. It was neat to see all the planes and learn about them and to have Brother Prosser take us around and show us one of his loves. When I got home Saturday afternoon I just crashed on the couch. My head started hurting and I didn’t feel like doing anything. I finally decided to invite some people over for a movie and we watched Jumper. It was pretty good. The whole concept of the movie was kind of interesting and quite predictable as most of them are.

I had meetings early Sunday and was able to come home between them which was nice. Of course, it got me into trouble coming home as I was almost late for the next meeting, but it was way nice to get the break from the building. Church went well along with our meetings. Lauren came over and saw the house really quick and then I was off to go home teaching. I went to the Dowden’s for a bit before branch prayer and then came home. Larilyn had to come over and give me trouble for not going to branch prayer, and Maegan and Andrea (Maegan’s friend) came along. We were up till almost midnight talking and so forth.

On Monday I spent my first full day at the office in a while. That was kind of weird, although I had a lot of work to keep me busy, especially with a board meeting on the horizon as I was busy preparing the docs for that which I should have done last week. Kenny and I tried installing some remotes for the ceiling fans, but gave up when they wouldn’t work reliably. I called in Batch and he and I worked on it for a few hours. We finally gave up and figured that they aren’t wireless and without a direct connection on the AC line within about 40 feet it isn’t going to work. I missed FHE since he was here and we were playing. Maegan came over again and we all watched Music and Lyrics from Kenny’s iPhone. It was a bit (or a lot) pixelated on the big screen, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Today was about the same. I spent a full day at work, then went grocery shopping and came home. Maegan and I made dinner, Chicken Parmesan, which actually was quite simple and delicious. I think we had fun cooking together with our differing opinions while Larilyn slept on the couch. I bought a lot of chicken as I wasn’t sure who was going to show up and Maegan decided to cook it all. Needless to say, I’ve got lunch for the rest of the week I think. Larilyn started making a boston cream cheesecake while we watched P.S. I Love You. I realized shortly after we started it that I have in fact seen the movie already. Megan, Nathaniel and Kenny joined us as well and were here till almost midnight.

Now I’m starting to wind down and will hopefully be able to get good enough sleep in the five hours I have left. Maegan is going to Utah for a week or so shortly, so maybe that will help quiet things down around here so I can get caught up on some sleep, although I kind of doubt it. Our board meeting was interesting tonight. We did it all by phone for the first time since Larry wasn’t going to be able to make the drive up here. I think it worked out kind of well although I wouldn’t want to do it on a regular basis that way.