Scott Chester

Cynthia and I went to the open house for the San Diego Temple Presidency tonight. We both thought it was a fireside for the incoming presidency, but it was an open house for the outgoing. We were expecting a big spiritual uplifting and instead got cookies. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Spiritual uplifting or cookies? Definitely the cookies, right? Well, sometimes it just isn’t what you expect.

In any event, this guy sat next to us who was hilarious. We had some chit chat and of course, he thought we were married. I guess the serving on different days and lack of rings didn’t clue him in. Cynthia and I kind of looked at each other and I think decided to go with it. At least he didn’t ask any questions we had to make up answers for. It might have been bad to lie at a temple function.

Well, in my usual fashion, I’ve let this get carried away and we’ve been continuing to play this up. We don’t have anyone to even play it up to anymore, but we have decided that today is our anniversary, our first anniversary that is. Because I’m a slacker and didn’t get her a present, I’m going to have to get working on that. it looks like the typical first year gift is stationary, so we decided on address labels - with my address because I pay the bills. Of course, I still have to make up for missing the anniversary and will do that later this week with cheesecake and a movie. Isn’t she amazing? How forgiving of her! She really is a winner! How did I get so lucky?

I guess we need to continue to work on our cover story if this is going to work out.

Another night I’m up past 1 in the morning? Are you kidding me? I don’t even think there is a stretch to blame this one on Melissa either. We went down to the Haunted Trail at Balboa Park tonight. Other than the long waiting and no parking, it was pretty good. I wasn’t scared, but was startled a few times. Mandi was freaking out though and I was pretty much attached to her side the entire time. Melissa, her sister, was attached to the other side firmly. We made Melissa M. and Krystal lead the pack. Krystal kept saying things like “oh hi” to the guys when they tried to scare her and I was just cracking up. Melissa M said at one point no me gusta dolls and the girl replied back but we me gusta you! That’s was pretty good.

Today was kind of crazy. I’m looking forward to a relaxing Sunday now. I got started with some laundry this morning and then Melissa Davis and I went up to Lake Elsinore to pick up some money and then went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to get a present for Jim & Leisha’s wedding, which we then drove straight to. It was a little different attending the wedding in the chapel. We then had some break time at which point I took Melissa home and came home to finish up my laundry and grab a bite to eat.

The reception was good other than I didn’t know many of the people there and it was a bit warmer than I would have liked. I came home and tried to break my website for a while and then it was off to the trail.

Wowsers! It’s after 1 in the morning and I wasn’t even out doing anything tonight! I came home after work, made dinner and watched Made of Honor. Larilyn has been wanting to see it for some time now, so I got it in a few weeks ago and just haven’t had an evening to watch it. Melissa and I discussed last night that tonight could be a good night. I texted Larilyn this morning and she said it would probably work even though she already had other plans. Well, Melissa invited Michelle and Michelle said something to Larilyn, so naturally I got in trouble for proceeding with plans before it was even known if Larilyn could come. I guess I was just hoping it would all work out or I would have watched it twice.

After the movie Larilyn made Cheesecake, so that took a few hours and then Michelle kept showing us funny things online. Next thing you know, Geoff is coming home and that’s when we know we’re up too late!

So these two cats from next door, kittens actually I guess, that Maegan found shortly after I moved in have been around a lot lately. I keep telling her that they miss her. They will follow me into the house, into my car, etc. They really need some love and companionship. One of them ended up in my garage tonight and was just purring up a storm when I went out there to let him out. Are they not getting any love at home? I wonder if they are even ever allowed in the house cause it seems that they are out roaming around all the time.

Normally I’ll bring whoever follows me in and then send him back out the front door. Tonight I decided to let the little guy hang out for a while and watch CSI with me. He was right at my heels the entire time I was going around the house and once I got on the couch was just right at home. He kept trying to do something to my face though and he was drooling all over the place.

Work was pretty busy today and then I went up to President Mattson’s to take a look at his home theater. I need to help him with some final wiring things, but it is coming together nicely. The house is amazing!

Institute at the Dowden’s tonight was kind of a small group - and it ended up being people who weren’t there last week, so we got to do a repeat which was great.

I have been so exhausted lately I haven’t had a chance to write. Monday night I went to dinner and FHE at the Lee’s and was there until after 9. I was up early on Tuesday for the temple and then decided to ditch work. I just wasn’t feeling like going into the office Tuesday afternoon for some reason. After I stopped to get Pumpkin Spice doughnuts (Krispy Kreme) and some strawberry lemonade (Cheesecake Factory) there wasn’t going to be much time spent in the office anyway.

The temple was interesting Tuesday morning. I continued demonstrating at the veil for the most part of the day. I served as a patron in initiatories for a while as well. I felt really close to the people I was serving as proxy for this time. It was really touching. When we had some sisters from Idaho show up who wanted to do baptisms, I got to officiate in those ordinances as well. They didn’t bring any priesthood with them, so I was able to baptize them and I was happy to have had the opportunity to assist them.

I spent some time around the house and then went over to the Dowden’s. Maegan and I went and got some Pinkberry with Megan and then ran into Lauren S. Well, actually, Lauren nearly ran Maegan and I over as we were walking around trying to find a mailbox. After that I had a meeting to go over perfect home teaching districts. We were at the church until after midnight, but I feel that we were getting good work done.

I spent most of the day today playing behind computer monitors. I had six of them going for most of the day installing software on new machines and so forth. We went to Claim Jumper for Mandi’s birthday and then had cake at the Dowden’s. Melissa had a little problem with the candles, but the cake was delicious.

Maegan’s little black cat has been around a lot lately. This morning he wouldn’t let me leave at all and I was nearly late to work. He jumped in my car and when I would put him out he wouldn’t get out of the way. I was so nervous I was going to run him over so this went on for almost ten minutes! He’s been running up to me every-time I come and go lately. I’m trying to convince Maegan that is because he misses her and she needs to come around more.

I’ve just been so exhausted lately I haven’t had a chance to write. Thursday went well with class and so forth. I tried the Twin Cities Grill Thursday night. It was really good and well worth the wait. I’ll definitely going back there. It wasn’t cheap, but it was good. I had a delicious steak for a little less than one would pay at Ruth’s Chris. I managed to miss the first few minutes of CSI back at the hotel and then kept getting interrupted during it. I also watched whatever weird show was on after CSI and then just about fell asleep on the couch.

Friday morning went well as we tried to wrap things up with the class. I passed the written exam and now just need to complete my project. I made it to my flight ontime and it was another full one. I was kind of hoping it would be oversold and they would be looking for people to bump, but of course it never happens when I could actually take a later flight. I sat next to a woman who was coming in on vacation for a week with her daughter and we talked for a while. I eventually decided to try and get some work done, but it was just too hard with the laptop. I then started watching Amazing Grace, but only got about 30 minutes into it before I was asked to cease and desist for landing.

LA Traffic actually wasn’t that bad coming back home as it only took me about two hours once I got to my car. It did take me an hour to get from the gate to my car which is a joke. Nonetheless, I’m sure in this case it was better to take the direct flight than having a layover somewhere else along the line.

It turned out that something was wrong with the recording of the Price is Right, so we didn’t get to see Krystal. One of her other friends apparently has it recorded and is going to transfer it to DVD for her though. I was really looking forward to getting home to see it, and was quite bummed that we couldn’t watch it.

I woke up super early Saturday morning and couldn’t sleep. After playing on the computer for an hour or so I decided to go back to sleep. When I got up the second time I enjoyed a bowl of Crispix and then watched a few things off the DVR before I got started with cleaning the house. I was thinking about going to the temple to makeup for Tuesday, but realized I just had too much to do. I did make it down for the baptisms though. We were way short on people, so I’m glad I went and am very thankful for the help we had from others last night as well.

After the temple, the group that wanted to come straight home decided they wanted to stop at In-N-Out to grab something quickly. I mentioned that if we were going to do that, we should go to Fuddruckers and I got everyone on board. That probably happened because when we got there two people ordered something other than a hamburger which they clearly couldn’t have gotten at In-N-Out! It was apparently homecoming for Mira Mesa or some other area schools and they thought we were there for Homecoming since we were somewhat dressed up. Brother Clark asked me if I was class of ‘08 and I just laughed and said yep! I just want to know what the two of us guys were doing wit the three girls.

My counselors finally got called and set apart today. It will be huge having their help and I’m hoping we can figure out who our secretary is supposed to be and then we can really get this home teaching thing whipped into shape. It sounds like we aren’t going to be swapping the hours, so we will be stuck without the guys from mission prep. It sure would be nice to have them, but I guess we will just deal with another challenge.

President and Sister Clegg spoke today. Other than President going way over, it was good. He spoke about sexual morality, coming clean using the atonement and damaged goods. He relayed a story that hit me about a missionary who was planning on marrying his girlfriend after he returned. Shortly after he left she got into some trouble. After she left the other guy and went through the repentance process with her bishop she was pronounced clean again. This elder though didn’t see it so clearly. He had saved himself for her and he thought she was damaged goods. President Kimball (?) told him that he just didn’t get it. She has been made clean through the atonement, her sins have been forgiven. Yet, this elder struggled with that as I expect many do.

I went over to the Dowden’s tonight to post Mandi’s video of us trying to swallow cinnamon. Maegan also challenged me to a game of Blockus. I had never played before and didn’t do so well. I tried to get Cynthia to help me, but Maegan kept coming up with reasons she couldn’t. Eventually, Maegan gave up and everyone worked to finish off my pieces as best we could.

I’m so exhausted, I’m thinking about just going to bed and not even writing tonight. I really need to not stay up so late! I’ll try and keep it short. I’m still enjoying the beautiful colors and weather out here. Still learning a lot in class and having fun here.

We went over to the Mall for dinner at some Italian place which was really good. I came home (is it bad that I’m calling the hotel home?) and worked. I had to do payroll and figured I’d try and take care of some other things while I was in there. I really don’t have anything life shattering to share, so I think I’m going to call it quits while I’m ahead and before I get sidetracked.

Good night!

Hello again from beautiful Minneapolis. Things are cooling down here and starting to get really beautiful. It probably is a good thing I didn’t bring my camera, cause I’d probably be outside freezing right now trying to take pictures of something. Heck, I probably would have gotten lost exploring and needed to geotag my pictures to find my way back.

I’ve been learning a lot. I don’t think I had ever really grasped how powerful this stuff is. I’ve known about a lot of the features, but I think I always figured you needed more to make things work. We haven’t even gotten into NetMax and have only been playing with the cards in the RL amps. I’ve been starting to ponder what I’m going to do for my project. It makes sense to do a real job that we have coming up, but I also kind of want to tackle the church buildings as they are pretty complicated for a ceiling speaker system. I’d like to see what I come up with before seeing how they actually do them and see if I’m any good.

I went to the Mall of America tonight for dinner. I was going to try the Twin City Grill, but they had a wait so I decided to try Kokomo’s. I had their tidal wave fettuccine alfredo. It was good, but definitely not the traditional dish like from Macaroni Grill. Next time I’d probably try the Bahama Burger.

I came back to the hotel and watched What Happens in Vegas. I thought it was pretty funny and of course believe that people can work to love each other once they get their mind straight. I don’t understand why it is so hard for some people to see sometimes. I guess we all have problems seeing what is right in front of us.

I did the WM 6.1 update on my phone tonight as well. So far it seems like things are working.

Now, as usual, I’ve been up too late, chatting online. Thanks Melissa!

We got a good introduction to the product today and spent most of the day just talking about technical aspects of various products that related to Netmax. We started getting into the IRIS-Net software this afternoon. I can’t believe I went the entire day without seeing Carla. I’m sure she is busy getting things together for Maui. That girl works so much!

After class we went to TGI Friday’s for dinner and were there for a few hours. I was hoping to get back to the room and catch a movie tonight before falling asleep, but I got wrapped up in work and now am so past ready to go to sleep. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have a bit more free time to relax, or I’ll get wrapped up in something else.

It is so beautiful out here, it makes me miss living in the North. The trees are losing their leaves and they are changing colors. The driveway at Bosch was covered in autumn colored leaves it was so amazing. I’m really glad I’m here now instead of having come back in July. Maybe I can come back this winter when there is some snow on the ground!

We had the concluding session of stake conference this morning. I got there about 45 minutes early and the chapel was already full. I knew I should have kept sleeping this morning! I can’t think of anything major that I learned from conference today, but I was thinking about the testimonies that people kept bearing. I totally kept thinking last night I was going to get called up, so maybe that’s why I’ve been thinking about it so much lately. I probably don’t give mine often enough, which is also probably why it isn’t very eloquent. I did enjoy conference even if I was a bit squirmy in the hard seats. I think I’m going to bring my own recliner next time!

I high tailed it out of there to get things finished up for the trip. I really didn’t like having the business trip on my mind during conference or really having to deal with it today, but sometimes things have to be done. I think I learned some patience though and that things will work out on the Lord’s timeline, mine isn’t important. It did seem like I kept hitting things talking about keeping the Sabbath day holy and such and I felt like I was really letting the Lord down today. There are probably bigger things I should be worrying about, but I guess it’s a start.

In any event, I had a good drive to LAX and made it there with plenty of time to go. I had thoughts about calling people about home teaching, but I didn’t feel the airport was a good place to be doing it so after a few calls I stopped. I also remembered I needed to send out the branch weekly email which sidetracked me too. The flight ended up being overbooked and they were looking for people to bump. I guess since we had a full flight, we were able to get going early and there was practically no wait for takeoff at LAX. We ended up arriving almost half an hour early which is great since it’s after midnight here now. I sat next to a doctor and we talked for a good portion of the flight. We talked about prop 8 and what is already happening. We really agreed on a lot of things which was pretty cool.

The hotel here has improved since last time. I guess the remodel did them good. They’ve got new suites with 32″ LCDs, granite countertops in the bathrooms, a good size work area and more. I’m impressed. Let’s just hope breakfast has improved as well. If not, I’ll be hitting up the IHOP again. Well, I should get to sleep as I need to be up in less than 6 hours, I think. Maybe I should find the itinerary again and double check.

I got started this morning getting new lappy (darkpeanut) setup for next week. I ended up going with Vista Ultimate as it seemed like the easiest path to take. I had to spend some time re-downloading and installing drivers, and I think I still need to fix some minor issues. I’m a bit worried that the DC-One software won’t work, so i don’t know if that means I have other problems or their software just isn’t happy. I was going to try and install XP on a partition, I just haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve heard mixed reports on if it will work or not.

I had to run by the church to turn in some home teaching things, then it was off to the bank to get things going for next week and home to keep working on lappy, get ready for the trip and stake conference this evening.

We had a discussion for most of priesthood which I always like better than the lecture format. Four wards ended up with 100% home teaching which I thought was pretty impressive and all wards improved. We were at 63% which isn’t great, but I think is an improvement from normal. A method of checking on the districts week by week was suggested. At weekly PEC meetings, one should be getting (or giving) a report on about 1/4 of the membership based on their perfect home teaching district. So week 1 would be districts/groups 1 & 3. Week 2 would be 2 & 5, then 4 & 7 followed by 6 & 8. This doesn’t mean members wouldn’t be taught until those weeks, but it would be expected that it would be done by then.

I had been thinking about a similar plan and am ready to get something like that implemented. The problem I see is letting people know what district those people they home teach are in. I don’t think most members know about the ranking system and it may take work to educate them in something they don’t really need to worry about. I’m thinking maybe we could just reach out and ask each home teaching companionship to make sure certain people are reached by each week. I think there are still some more changes we need to make to the perfect districts and also to our districts in EQ. I want to get more of a hierarchy going so each supervisor is only responsible for 4 companionships or so and we have more of a tree than we have now. I’ll probably have some time to work on that next week while I’m traveling and I think I will be able to make some calls to checkup on how things are going this month. I certainly don’t want to let things falter with the few off weeks we’ve had to start off this month.

We also learned that the percentage of endowed members in the stake has gone up to I think it was 80% from 60-something 6 or 12 months ago. The focus now is to get members going to our assigned week in the temple (which of course this month is the week that I will be out of town). I think they are going to change the focus during the offering in righteousness from as many sessions as possible to as many members as possible serving at least once during the week in the temple. I think both are good.

All I remember from the adult session tonight was President Smith talking about his future son-in-law calling him on the phone to ask for his daughters hand in marriage. I thought that was funny. He said that he then flew up to BYUI and the guy asked if they could go to the temple. I guess this one President Smith’s favor and he suggested always interviewing future in-laws in the celestial room.

I was thinking about trying to watch Made of Honor tonight, but I forgot about the tradition of going to Claim Jumper. Krystal came over briefly and I showed her the setup so she could come watch The Price is Right on Thursday. I’m so bummed that I am going to miss it. I hope I’ll get to watch it when I get back next weekend. We then went to join the group at Claim Jumper, but they made us sit at our own table. It actually worked out for the best probably as we got our dessert first and were able to checkout before everyone else and get home at a reasonable time. Oh wait, it’s still going to be 1 in the morning before I get to sleep. Bad plan.

As an indication that I have gone crazy and doing Tara’s job must be getting to me, yesterday when we were discussing lunch, I actually suggested Taco Bell! I don’t know what has gotten into me, but I’m not really liking it. I’ve actually been eating out a lot this week it seems, which is even worse since I will be eating nothing but out all next week. I’m going to be so craving a bowl of Crispix when I get home.

I may completely freeze tonight. Well, I doubt it will be that cold, but it is almost getting to be CLOSE the windows weather because it is too COLD! Today was pretty calm for me in the office. I was able to clear things up for my absence next week although I will still probably be putting some time in tomorrow. I worked a wedding in Fallbrook and then went around looking for a laptop. Dell kept promising me that I would have one by this weekend and then decided today that it probably wasn’t going to happen. It’s kind of a shame, cause I kind of wanted that machine, but I guess the Vaio I picked up from Costco will do the trick as well. I just now have the problem of dealing with installing Vista Business on it and trying to install XP Pro. I just hope it works.

I was going to go to Knott’s Scary Farm tonight with Melissa and her gang, but work kept me out too late and I was just exhausted when I got home. I think I’m going to call it a night now as there is just nothing left in me.

I feel like I was actually able to make some progress at work today. I was able to get through a lot of my email and even check a few things off my to do list. Dell can’t seem to get their act together though and the laptop I was promised I would have by tomorrow at the latest isn’t scheduled to ship till Monday. I’ve informed them multiple times now that if I don’t have it this weekend, I don’t want it. They are now proposing to ship it Saturday for Monday morning delivery I think. I really don’t want to cut it that close but I guess if that is what it comes down to. Otherwise I may just have go find one locally.

Institute was great as always tonight. It is so hard to quantify what we learn each week, but I am really starting to get a better understanding of so much of the old testament that I’ve never had before. It is slowly sinking in and I am very grateful for Sister Dowden’s help.

I found a few comments on my post regarding prop 8 from last night which was kind of exciting. I hope we are on the right track. I completely understand why people are against the proposition, I just know what we need to do everything we can to make sure it passes to protect marriage.

We had our broadcast tonight from Salt Lake City regarding Proposition 8. We were encouraged and given more counsel regarding voting yes and doing all that we can to support Proposition 8 in order to protect the sanctity of marriage. We need to do this as a moral issue and in fact to support tolerance. The worry is that our freedoms will be taken away by the minority that are always looking to press the envelope further. We’ve been asked to continue spreading the word to educate and now to persuade voters to vote Yes on 8.

PreservingMarriage.com - an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
ProtectMarriage.com - the coalition of churches and other organizations working to protect marriage in California with a Yes on 8 campaign.
Church Readies Members on Proposition 8 - article from the LDS Newsroom

I just saw that Google is openly opposing Prop 8 (not sure if I should link or not). I think this just goes to show how much work in education we need to do. They say they don’t want us taking away rights, well we aren’t taking away any rights. In fact, the argument is that by allowing Prop 8 to fail, we will be taking away the rights of those that believe in traditional marriage. Shame on you Google. All that information at your fingertips and you can’t figure out what is really going on.

In other news, things were crazy at the office today. I tried to get through things to clean some things up before I leave next week, but it just wasn’t happening. I think I’m going to be spending some more extra time at work the next few days to get things ready. And stupid Dell isn’t sure if they can deliver on their promise to get me my new laptop by the weekend. I don’t think they understand that if I don’t have it by the weekend, I just don’t want it as I will have no use for it. Maybe I can twitter to get some results tomorrow.

My second week as a temple ordinance worker went well. I even got there a bit earlier this week which was cool. I think I did a better job getting to sleep last night which certainly helped with getting up this morning. Maybe it was just cause I didn’t blog!

I decided on Cheesecake for lunch today. The strawberry lemonade sounded really good. Come to think of it, I only drank two though! What’s up with that? I was thinking as I was driving to work if it really makes sense to go into work on Tuesdays. I think the real advantage is that I can get through some of the stuff so i don’t feel like I’m behind when I come in on Wednesday. I could probably do that just as well from home though too. That could let me take my time returning, i.e. I could go shopping (no more Crate & Barrel).

Alison came over and we made dinner. Actually, I was making dinner and then she took over as she didn’t approve of how I was going to make it. That’s fine by me! I watched some Without a Trace and now I’m going to sleep.