Scott Chester

Thankfully the craziness has not let up and today was no disappointment. I worked a full day and then came home and planted a tree with Brother Lee. We found lots of rocks in the slope in my backyard, so there may be more fun to come as it gets planted further. I do need to work on a landscaping plan so that I at least have a grand scheme even if it is only implemented slowly.

I finished off Head Over Heels tonight. It actually ended pretty well and I enjoyed it. I’m sending two movies back tomorrow - if I remember to hit up the mailbox. Netflix won’t know what to do with me! I think there are only 10 movies in my queue as well, so I’ll be down 20% with two movies coming back to me!

It looks like I’m going to the temple tomorrow morning. Four o’clock is going to come way too fast. I have some things that could be done at work tomorrow, but I guess this is where the sacrifice really comes in. Actually, i think the being at the temple at Six in the morning is the sacrifice! If anyone wants to join me, you’d better be at my house really early in the morning or plan on meeting me there!

Today was kind of an interesting Saturday. I did my usual cleaning stuff this morning, but almost all of it was in Frank’s new room and I didn’t touch much of the rest of the house. Maybe since I feel like I wasn’t home at all it doesn’t need to be cleaned.

Frank, Sabrina and Megan came over around noon and we hung out and got him going. I then went to Bouse’s housewarming party while Sabrina and Frank moved in stuff. I managed to hit my foot on the bottom or side of Bouse’s pool at one point while we were playing volleyball. I guess I didn’t realize that the side of the pool came up so quickly at the bottom. I think I broke one or two of my toes actually in the process. They kind of stung after I did it, but didn’t really hurt. Now when I walk around the house or sometimes even move in the wrong direction there is excruciating pain. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is much one can do about a broken toe other than live it out and take it easy. I have a feeling I’ll be doing a lot more sitting this next week.

I ended up with a quiet evening at home. Melissa didn’t make it and I didn’t feel like inviting anyone else over. I just watched a B movie - It’s a Boy/Girl Thing where this boy and girl change bodies and learn to overcome their problems. Classic story, so nothing new there and the movie wasn’t incredibly entertaining.  It wasn’t bad though, just not the next summer blockbuster.

I made cookies tonight for break the fast - and I finally went to Albertson’s for the first time in weeks. We were starting to run low on milk and I was craving some after the cookies and swimming. I also have been out of raspberry lemonade for weeks. That was the extent of the reason for my trip since I ended up not making dinner tonight. Now that I’m looking at next week, it doesn’t look like I’m going to be around much either, at least not as far as formal dinners go. Monday I’ve got a board meeting and then home teaching, Tuesday the temple, Wednesday we’ll be at Wicked, Thursday is Institute and Friday is out as well (which reminds me I need to find a date!) That’s the whole week! No wonder I’m never cooking dinner anymore.

I spent some time thinking about how we can better do home teaching in the branch today. We seem to have a hard time motivating people to begin with and then the high turnover rate I’m sure doesn’t help. You really can’t get into home teaching when you are only here for a few months, but maybe that is just an excuse and a barrier we need to cross. I realized in pondering that while I have been visiting my people, I too have a long way to go with improving my actual home teaching. I’m anxious to see the changes the new presidency is going to make as to how home teaching is counted and recorded, what changes they will want to make to the home teaching program and if I will even be involved in it after tomorrow which is Zach’s last day.

Wow… too much pondering, it’s tomorrow already and I need to be sleeping. Here’s to fasting for another good month of business!

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.

We had a great home evening lesson tonight on the scriptures. Alyssa shared how she has been able to better connect with the scriptures on a daily basis and I was just thinking recently how I’m doing my daily reading, but not always getting much out of it. I tend to have a hard time focusing and I think I need to spend more time pondering after reading. Maybe if I wasn’t so rushed to get the reading done and get on with the morning it would go better. Alyssa said that she started underlining different parts in different colors. I’ve never been one much for marking things in the scriptures, but maybe I need to try this out and see what I can learn. Maybe I just need to go back to writing about what I read like I was doing at BYUI.

I worked a full day today, and didn’t even leave the office till almost 5:30. We got wrapped up in meetings and such at the end of my day. Things were kind of slow, but good. I tried to spend some time clearing out some things that had been sitting around and finding my desk again. I need to get ready to take on the extra load from Tara being gone when she leaves for Boston on Wednesday.

I got some more entries into familysearch tonight after getting through the mail and other junk. I emailed my dad to see what info he already has so I don’t spend time trying to duplicate work that has already been done. It sounds like a lot of the stuff is hard copy, so I may have to make a trip down there to see what I can find.

I talked with Geoff tonight briefly about moving in. It sounds like he is really just looking for a quiet place to crash which is what I’m looking for as well! I need to ponder on it and come up with the house rules so we are all set from the get go and get him moving in.

Well, I think I’m going to try and get some sleep early here so maybe I can get up on time tomorrow and not be so rushed for my scripture reading. Good night to all!

There are definitely arguments on both side of the renting fence. The major one for renting is that it could give me the money to do the projects that I would like to do to the house. The biggest downside would be some loss of privacy and having to find the patience to deal with others on a day in and day out basis. I think someone who is a hermit would be a great renter. I would love someone who essentially stayed to him or herself in his or her room. I don’t want to deal with entertaining people each and every night and I don’t want to have people over here who I’m not entertaining hanging out and getting in my way. I’m probably too protective of my stuff and wouldn’t want anybody and everybody loading my dishes in the dishwasher or putting something in there that isn’t dishwasher safe. It seems like the money from renting would be great, but does it outweigh the costs of renting?

If I rent one room for $500 or $600/month, what is that person going to cost me in lost sleep, stress, food, extra heating and air, water, etc? What is the liability I am going to have to assume for having someone in the house with access to everything I own? Some help with chores would be great, but am I going to become to go to person when their car breaks down and they need a ride? It almost sounds more attractive to be renting more rooms so that those people could essentially deal with themselves. The problem I see though is that the more people I get in the house, the more I am outnumbered and the less often I am going to be able to use my own living/family room, etc.

I really want to help Geoff out, I just don’t know what to do! I guess I could set rules for what kind of entertaining and such they can do, but I don’t want to be a rule crazy landlord either. This should be fun and simple for everyone involved. I probably need to find people that are mature and understand my desires. Maybe I can sit down with Geoff and figure out what he is hoping to find in a place to live.

Today went quite well. I was actually able to catch Grandma Chester on my first attempt phoning her for her birthday! That essentially made my day and we were able to talk for a while. We had good meetings today all throughout the day. I started working on family history for Sunday School today. Now that I see what needs to be done, or at least I have started on it, it seems like I can do most of the work myself from home and maybe just go to Sister Dowden when I need help with something. It really didn’t help that I didn’t have much information to start with, but I got a good orientation to the program from Larilyn.

Break the fast went well and there was tons of cornbread. I kind of felt bad for cutting mine into such small pieces when there was so much and none of it was really all that good. I’m sure it was because it was all made days or hours before and had been sitting in trucks for hours or such. That, or maybe mine just wasn’t that good since I don’t have the hang of the oven here yet. Nonetheless, I wasn’t impressed with any of the other ones as well. Now, the fact that I’m talking about cornbread for such an extended period of time simply indicates that I need to get to sleep!

We had a baptism tonight and we are going to have another one Saturday! Alysa is finally getting baptized Saturday, and Shelly (who I don’t know) entered the waters this evening. We had way more people than would fit in the relief society room tonight so I was really impressed. We talked a lot about the marriage initiative, proposition 8, today. It sounds like this is going to be an ugly battle, and we have already been asked to do whatever we can to support the initiative. I guess I need to start reading up on exactly what is at stake, but the basis is that we are not against gay’s here, we are just trying to protect the definition of marriage as being between a husband and wife - a man and a woman. President Mattson even shared that one of the designers working on his house is gay and has had a partner for 18 years and was in favor of protecting marriage. We aren’t against the rights that gays have for tax and domestic partnership advantages; we are just worried what our children will be taught in k12 schools if teachers can’t talk about mommy and daddy.

Sister Dowden and I are going to try and make it to the temple Tuesday night if anyone wants to join. I haven’t been for probably at least two months, which is way too long. I think the last time I went was when we went to Denny’s and I was asked to seal my mouth by Maegan. That seems like it was even longer ago, so maybe it was closer to three months. In any event, we need to go - and we need to go ASAP. We’re probably going to shoot for the 7 o’clock session and are open for suggestions beyond that.

Speaking of marriage, I was getting the pressure last night. Grandma & Grandpa were talking about needing to get me married, I think Ron and Kathy mentioned it, my grandma asked about it this morning - or at least the girls in my life, Sister Lee asked if I had gotten any proposals yet with the house (I think she thinks people will marry me for my Kitchen Aid mixer) and it seems like there was even more. I guess I need to start working a bit harder on that front.

I called all my home teachers today and all the people I am home teaching now. None of the teachers called me back to tell me that they had been successful in fulfilling their callings. I’m worried that none of them are actually doing the job and am hoping that some monitoring from me will help motivate them. I guess I just need to start calling each and every week just to see if they have gotten anywhere. Otherwise I’m going to have a lot of home teaching to do myself! I’m anxious to start working with some of these less actives I have now and am hoping that I will have the chance to be instrumental in their lives. I pray that God will be able to use me to do his will and I will be a blessing to them. I know that home teaching can do wonders, we just need to find a way to make it really work in this incredibly dynamic branch. It seems that once you get to know someone, they leave or your assignment changes. We’ve been working hard on it, so hopefully we can instill some positive change.

I probably need to actually get in bed and enjoy some of this air conditioning to sleep…

I was happy with the turnout today for the housewarming party. There were some notable people that didn’t show. I’d still say there was about 50 over the course of the day. It was great to see Taugher, although I didn’t really get to find out anything about her - and also Hauser as I haven’t seen them in a long time. Ron & Kathy made the drive down which was great, and we didn’t get a chance to talk either! I’ll have to start having random people over once a month or something for a get together a little of the quieter side.

On the bright side, I got to try out my new carpet cleaner tonight. We managed to get chocolate on the carpet just outside the kitchen where there were already some spots. I ran the cleaner over them and it all seemed to come out just fine. The water was really disgusting, so I’m thinking that the carpet really needs to be cleaned as I had originally planned. I think I figured out that I could do a room before I went to bed and although it wouldn’t be the best time to clean it, it should give it enough time to dry out overnight and then I would barely be on it before leaving for work in the morning.

Geoff expressed some interest in renting a room tonight and we are going to talk about it tomorrow. I’ll have to start developing the rules for housemates so everything is clear from the get go. It certainly will be different with permanent house-guests, but I really could use the money to put toward the other projects - like landscaping - that really need to be done. Dean said we need to do the next BBQ here and Taugher said she’d drive up, so I guess I need to get started on something out back and a BBQ.

I was also really looking forward to seeing Lauren P, but she didn’t make it. I called her on it and she said something came up. She suggested a movie next Saturday. I’ll have to see if I can make that work and actually get her up here.

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!

I finished the sales and use tax paperwork this morning and paid the bill.  I’ve just been out of things at work this week and have been having a hard time concentrating. I’ve found myself making a few stupid mistakes, like forgetting to put everything in an envelope before sealing it and such like that. I think I’m going to work a short day tomorrow so I can spend the afternoon cleaning the house and getting it ready for the housewarming. I need to start baking the goodies as well, which I guess means I need to come up with a full plan of what we’re going to have.

I’m thinking we may need to serve dinner since it is such a long thing, but I have no clue who is going to be here or when really. I’ve received a few RSVP’s and am hoping that more people show up than have responded. It seems like some people don’t even know about it, so I’m not sure if the invites didn’t make it to them or what.

I was happy I got to go to Institute tonight. We talked a lot about the sacrament and the offering that goes along with it. We learned that we bring ourselves, an imperfect offering and that we receive Christ, a perfect offering, and the blessing to try for another week. It was interesting thinking about how the offerings have changed over time. Sometimes I think we really have it too easy here, but then I realize all the temptations of the world we have today that may have not been so prevalent back in old testament times and maybe it is all fair. Or maybe we just don’t have as great of faith as they did in the old testament.

I still can’t find the remote for the DVD player. Kenny even came over tonight to help look for it. I’m wondering if it somehow wound up in the trash or someone’s purse and will never be seen again. Maybe I need to find myself one of those crazy universal remote controls finally.

I got the electric bill today; it was only $160 for almost a complete month. Some people had been scaring me into thinking it was going to obscenely high. I’m not sure if it is really worth it or not, but I’ve got the windows open tonight and am hoping it will cool off nicely so I can sleep. It is still 78 in the house and about 68 outside, abut five degrees above where I would prefer it to be.

Oh well, I’m off to sleep - or at least to try and get some sleep before I have to go back to work in the morning.

Today was kind of interesting at work. It was quiet without Batch & Pyro and it was busy, but not insanely busy. It was quiet enough for me to get through the large stack of bills that I had been putting off entering into the computer, but not quiet enough to the point where I was ever bored. It really was a good balance. I could tell I was tired though long before the second time that I sealed an envelope without putting everything that needed to be in it inside. I seriously thought about going home about 10 o’clock this morning and saying I’d take phone calls from home, but other than was calling it quits for the day. I didn’t, although I did get a little break when I came home to meet the Verizon tech who came to activate my phone line.

We got the phone going great, even though the POTS light isn’t on at the ONT. Maybe POTS indicates POTS service not through FIOS, I don’t know. In any event it works. I couldn’t get my cordless phones to work though. I’d been charging them for almost a week now and yet neither one seemed to have enough current to activate the phone. Even doing something on the screen seemed to draw more current that the batteries could produce. Maybe they will come back with some conditioning. I just decided to pickup a new pack of phones from Costco this afternoon on my way home so that I would actually be ready to use my phone, not that I ever will!

Shortly after getting home this afternoon I decided to try and tackle this sprinkler thing so I could get some grass planted and maybe have a greener yard before the year is up. Soon after I started digging, the neighbor showed up to ask if they had broken the sprinkler when they poured the concrete. I explained that it was possible, but I didn’t know if it was broken before or not. He immediately jumped in and took over and man was it a good thing he did. He was able to do in an hour what would have taken me about six trips to Home Depot and probably a week to complete. He even had all the parts to make it work in his backyard! What a blessing that was. It was nice getting to spend some time working with a neighbor and talking with him and his family who came to hang out as well. We later found another problem which he promptly fixed as well and everything seems to be working great now. I’ll let it run in the morning and then maybe can throw some seed out tomorrow night.

I was talking with them about their concrete and may end up doing something very similar to what they did. They poured about half the backyard. I could see doing the same behind the house, maybe leaving the side yard and the back half open for grass or future. I could see a pool in there eventually, although I’m not sure I’ll want to spend the money to do so myself. Maybe my wife will want it and we will come up with the funds. Maybe if I started renting some rooms I could start on some of these new projects.

I also found out that hey had looked at this house as well. It sounded like they were in escrow on it, but I’m not fully sure if that is correct. I went to FHE tonight and then came home to start taking care of some finances. I think I’ve stayed right about what I was hoping, well, expecting, to spend on the house and the stuff to get going in it. I need to start shuffling money so I can pay the bills and will have to get used to another bill being due monthly. I’m really not looking forward to dealing with all the receipts from all the stuff I’ve bought, but I figure it is only going to get worse! I need to get some form of organization going here, even if it is just organized boxes.

Well, I think I’m off to sleep now. It was a fairly nice day today, by the way. It is even fairly cool outside now (66). I thought about opening the windows, but figured it is probably just easier to run the A/C and deal with the huge bill later. I do enjoy the fresh air though, even with the traffic noise. I may seriously need to investigate one of these whole house fans soon.

I also can’t decide what to make for the missionaries/dinner on Wednesday. I’ve been kind of thinking about that orange chicken Batch and I made two weeks ago or I could see chicken parmesan again. Too many choices!

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.

I like this dining room. The blue looked killer on TV. I think it is somewhere between what is on the video (online) and what is in the picture (which looks almost white).

Decorating : Dining Room : Elegant Dining Room and Entry : Home & Garden Television

Yesterday went well with the ham radio and FIOS installs. I was home all day and actually never even left. I thought about going out and grabbing some things on my list, but decided that I didn’t need to make a special trip since I was going to be out and about essentially every other day. I also had the electrician take care of a few other loose ends, like the switches in the back bedroom and putting a duplex in the garage instead of the singled edison that was there. It is great to have internet and be moving forward. I also got my TV mounted on the wall, and rehung the evid that was a little bit off from the other night. I should have my in wall evids coming next week, so I can clean that up and then I think the family room will be ready for paint.

I saw this beautiful dining room on HGTV this morning. It was a really light blue with dark wood. They paneled the bottom half of the wall with wood matching the table and made place and seat mats that matched the blue in the walls. I was thinking that might work for my dining room to spice it up a bit down the road. I think I’m going to start with painting the rooms that need it due to the patching of holes in the walls and such and then work on the other ones down the road.

Alison and Nathaniel came over for dinner last night. We just made pasta and bread, nothing special, but it was good. We just hung out for a while after and watched some Get Smart. Alison had never seen the show, but has seen the movie, go figure.

I had Verizon coming back out this morning to fix the set top box for the TV which kept turning off randomly. However, shortly after I called in yesterday, I couldn’t reproduce the problem on the box so I’m figuring it was just downloading software updates or something. Hopefully all is well now. I turned off the wireless in the router Verizon gave me and got a Netgear unit in here that is doing a much better job! Those actiontek pieces of junk just don’t seem to work at all with the macbooks. I couldn’t stream music at all and I actually got to the point last night where I used my aircard to surf the net instead of the fios!

The roadshow went well today. I learned about and saw some new products that I knew had been in the works and some that I didn’t know of. I was interested to find that they released 90 degree versions of all the line array boxes (or most of them anyway). I guess it had been something that was specifically requested enough times they decided to make it a standard order part. I could see the use for it with the tighter beams on the top and widening as you go down to help compensate for the throw distance. I’m interested to see what it does to the specs on the rest of the box and then when the array is working as a whole since I presume that changes a lot.

I rushed out of the roadshow to drive over 100 miles from San Dimas to San Diego (Fashion Valley). Susan wanted to go to Cheesecake Factory for her birthday dinner. I didn’t think I was going to make it, but we got out early enough so it worked out. It was a bit of a long drive (especially considering I’m getting used to my 11 minute commute to work and 5 minute drive to church - when I leave the house, that is). After dinner we went shopping at Crate & Barrel and then Williams Sonoma. I got a lot of stuff at Crate & Barrel and will probably need to go back there with Sib or someone next week after I get a new list of things I need in order to cook and serve. I’m sure I’ll need a bunch of stuff for the housewarming party which I haven’t even started to think about yet.

Maegan and Larilyn came over tonight after institute. Larilyn brought the stuff to make the Boston Cream Cheesecake sometime in the future. While she was here, she helped eat the brownies and then we got into pictures from her trip. I got to use the SD card reader in my blu-ray DVD player which was kind of cool, other than we couldn’t figure out how to zoom or rotate any of the pictures. Maegan then wanted to continue with the pictures so I showed her what I had on my laptop which wasn’t nearly as interesting as Larilyn’s pictures.

I’m bummed I missed institute for the third week in a row and also curious what I missed at the stake priesthood leadership meeting tonight. I think I was in the right place though, so I’m just going to go with it and go to bed!

I got my ceiling fans installed today! I am already loving them and working on getting used to the way they work. Some have remotes, some have switches, some are always on and you just use the pull strings. I’m sure I’ll have it down in a day or two. I’ve already been able to cut my air conditioning bill as it has barely been running since they got installed. I’m going to try sleeping tonight without the A/C for the first time and with just the fan and the windows open. I figure at worst if I can’t sleep, I’ll get up, close the windows and turn on the a/c.

Speaking of windows, I’ve been a bit leery of leaving the windows open downstairs at night. I’ve always slept downstairs with the windows open for the most part, it just seems strange to do it when no one is downstairs. I’m sure the neighborhood is safe, especially with neighbors only a few feet away, it just seems strange. I’m thinking if I get the alarm installed, I can activate the downstairs motion at night allowing me to leave the windows open. I’ll just have to remember to deactivate it in the morning!

I spent most of the day at the house playing, helping with the fans and reading. I finally made it to the office about 4:30 for a staff meeting and to do payroll. Batch came over for dinner, and we were going to watch a movie. I had moved a bunch of the TV stuff around when we ran the coax to the new spot, so we had to take some time and reassemble some of the stuff. I decided to pull out the evid’s and start using them as well, so by the time we got ready to watch something it was after 9. We ended up watching the first episode of 24, season three. I hadn’t remembered most of the episode, so clearly I need a refresher course and he doesn’t think he has seen it, so we may be starting a marathon.

I think that’s about all I’ve got for tonight.

I got my mail keys today. Now I really feel like a homeowner. At least there was only good news in the mailbox today when I went to get it including a check from escrow for about $1000! That will help pay for a small fraction of some of the things I have bought recently. I was expecting the refund since they overcharge you for everything; I just wasn’t expecting it so quickly. I figured it had to still be a few weeks off.

Work went fairly well today although it was a little too quiet for my taste. The shop smells like wood from all the new pallet shelving, which was actually a nice smell. I went to a new dry cleaners today, Green Cleaners, down the street from the shop and dropped off some ties that I have some incidents involving chocolate with recently. I guess we’ll find out on Wednesday or Thursday if they were able to recover them.

I went to FHE tonight for the first time in a few months or so it seems. I stopped going when they pushed the time back to 8 as I figured that was just too late or too long to stay in Murrieta. Now that I live here, and only five minutes away, I can’t really complain much about something starting at 8. I doubt I would have done anything more productive at home anyway. We just watched a video and then talked about it. I was thinking about how quickly people changed from praising Jesus to wanting him to be crucified. I wonder if the slippery slope really happens that quickly to some of us today. Could I go from A to B that quickly?

I spent some time ordering stuff from ldscatalog this evening for the house. I’ll have to go get frames for the proclamations and pictures of the first presidency and quorum. I still can’t find any good temple art - can someone point me in the right direction? I really love the picture (painting) of the Rexburg temple in President Mattson’s office at the Church. I don’t know if it would really work above the fire place (I think it is the wrong orientation) although I am sure I could find it a home in the house nonetheless.

I also got some letters written to Tara and Stephanie and got some errands done today. I got the rest of the ceiling fans for tomorrow at Lowe’s, returned the kitchen lamp to Target and bought a few things on my list, including a birthday card for Susan. It is going to be really strange to be putting that in the mail to her instead of just giving it to her or leaving it at the house. I updated my address with Netflix and that was about as far as I got. I can only being to imagine the nightmare of changing addresses ahead of me. The worst part is when you are ordering something and you can’t figure out if you have updated the address for the credit card you are using yet.

Well, I should probably get to bed, so good night to all!