Stop the hate in 2008!

How's that for a New Year's Resolution?

I don't think I can do it. Just goes to show how much confidence I have in myself, eh?

Yeah. Whatever.

Hershey has a new dog run. Bought it and put it together today. And my entire upper body aches tonight.

Responsible pet owner?

I think my dog is the dumbest dog EVER!

I've been bringing him inside each day when I get home from work and then putting him back outside each morning before I leave. That's where I've become a responsible pet owner.

But if I think I've got a stupid dog, does that eliminate any pluses I may have earned by bringing him in out of the cold?

Or maybe he's not dumb. Maybe he's got a neighbor somewhere that comes over while I'm gone and feeds him. He just doesn't eat what I provide for him. At least not while he's in the house.

Tonight, I made myself a couple grilled cheese sammiches and put out some food and water for him. He just sat there looking at me and drooling all over the kitchen floor, leaving his dinner completely untouched.

I don't know.

I've tried isolating him in a smaller room with his food, but he doesn't touch it. And that's why I think somebody else might be feeding him. He just doesn't eat what I give him. When I do leave food outside for him, it's always gone, but I think the neighbor's dogs come over and eat it.

I wonder if I posted a sign up, if that would do anything? (not that the dogs eating the food would pay it any mind... but the neighbor might.)

I definitely need to get a more secure outdoor enclosure for my dog though. (that WOULD keep the dogs out of his food...)

Christmas Day @ Mutual Dell

Well, Christmas Day at just about 3:30 MST.



After the kids left to go back to their mother's, I went over and visited with my grandparents for a while, had some lunch, and then went up to the Dell to spend the rest of the afternoon with my parents.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve and the snow is/was flying. The picture isn't the best, but if you click on it, you'll get the big version and you can see the snow in the air. Oh well.

My kids will be over later. Three of them anyways. We're doing omelettes in the morning so I thought I'd practice tonight before they got here. Tastes OK, but it doesn't look all that great. The salsa should go on the omelette AFTER it's been cooked. If you try to cook it with the salsa in the middle, it gets too messy.

'Twas the day before Christmas Eve...

And I just spent $85 on stocking stuffers. And a bed for the dog.

Haley sang in her ward's Christmas program. Apparently she was first and I got there a bit late. Missed it.

CLEANING HOUSE

Literally.

I cleaned the front room tonight. Most of it anyways. Addi helped a little. Looks good though. Still needs some work, but I'll have it done before Christmas Eve.

With the winter weather hitting us with a couple of really good storms over the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to be a responsible pet owner and have brought Hershey in during the night. Poor dog. Full-blooded chocolate lab with some weird recessive gene (apparently from inbreeding somewhere along the line) that's cursed him with long hair. It was rather cute when he was a pup. He looks a lot like a golden retriever--so much so that I'm going to call him a chocolate retriever. But he sheds a lot. I had to empty the canister and clean out the fur on the vacuum twice tonight! I think I ought to get him a bed/cushion thing for Christmas. Yeah. Good idea. Way to be a responsible pet owner.

Sunday night is the BIG Johnson family Christmas party up at my folks. 3 of 4 of my kids are coming for sure (I think). The oldest may come and she'll probably want to bring that thing she calls a boyfriend along. And because I love my daughter, I'll let her.

20 years and change...

On the back of the picture, it has the date 11/27/87 and the following explanation:

Our present investigators and my tongue. Pretty, ain't it.

20 years old and 2,080 miles from home. With the ducks.

Yeah, I think I even made Christmas cards with this photo that year.

MOOBS

Do I have moobs?

A gal in my dept. at work says I do. She was looking at the pictures that pop up on my computer screen (the screensaver slide show), and got quite a kick out of this picture:

She was laughing so hard, she had tears streaming down her face. I didn't think it was quite that funny, but what to I know.

And I don't think I have moobs.

Cars...

My car has been idling fairly high the past couple of weeks and it's caused me no small amount of concern. Seeing as how it's Christmas time, I don't really have a lot of money laying around the house to cover automobile repair costs, so I've been searching the internet for a do-it-yourself site that would help me do just that--fix the problem myself.

Well, I came across one site that suggested that it may be as simple as the car's computer needing to reset. The explanation behind that being that a computer will "sense" that a driver may need the idle normally a little higher for whatever reason. Well, I completely disregarded that and went on to the more difficult and involved explanations and solutions. It got me absolutely no where.

I came home from work tonight determined to give it one more shot and then I was going to take the car into a shop. Well, I propped open the hood, and removed the battery cables while I inspected the vacuum and air flow hoses and connections for clogs, holes, or filth. I found none of that so I put everything back together and hooked the battery back up.

I started the car and it seemed to be idling fine. But the problem is more evident as I drive, so I took it for a short spin. Again, it seemed to be idling fine--when the gas pedal was released the tach went right down to 800 or so rpms whereas before it would hover up around 1500 to 2500 rpms for 10 to 20 seconds. If the car was in gear, it seemed to idle at the high rpms for much longer than that.

So, maybe the solution was as simple as cutting the power to the car's computer which caused it to reset itself. If so, how much money did I save myself?

And, as a special note, Turbo, my bestest girlfriend, was also granted entry into the 2008 Squaw Peak 50 Mile Run coming up in June. She's almost as excited as I am... Happy now?

For better or for worse...

I'm in. The Squaw Peak 50 Mile Trail Run that is. My application was one of the 240. An no DNF this time around by golly!

The tools I needed to replace the crank arrived the other day. And I replaced the crank:

Old:

New:
The large chain ring on this one is a bit bigger than the one on my old crank though and it's going to require adjustments to the front and rear derailleurs (I think) to accommodate that. Not sure I'm going to be able to do that on my own. But the crank sure looks good. Whether I get someone with knowledge to come help me with the rest, or if I take it into a shop, I'll probably have them inspect the crank installation just to make sure I did it correctly.

It snowed a good 4+ inches here yesterday afternoon/evening. Took the kids up to the Dell to go sledding and then last night they dragged me outside at 10:00 for a snowball fight. Good times.

It's cold.

Haley is coming over in a couple hours to finish up her Senior Project report. Good times.

I am freaking amazing!

OK, not really, but sorta.

I made macaroni and tomatoes for dinner tonight. Mmmmmm. Good stuff. Here's how you do it--and it only takes like 15 minutes!

Cook your macaroni. In a separate pot heat up your tomatoes and add onions and garlic. When they're all hot and done, drain the macaroni and pour in the tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. I used about 1 1/2 cups uncooked macaroni and a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes. Made enough for 3 healthy servings.

No, I didn't eat it all tonight--I'm taking a bowlful to work with me in the morning.

The other night, when Haley came over, I made chili. 30 minute chili. Yeah, that was the night I almost burned down grandma's house. Want to know how to make it?

Half a pound of ground beef, browned. Throw it into a pot with 1 can of black beans, one can of chili beans (pinto beans with the flavorings already added), and 2 cans of tomato sauce or diced tomatoes. I used the diced tomatoes because I love 'em. 30 minutes start to finish. And it's good! Salt, pepper, onions, garlic--whatever else you like--go ahead and throw it in. Oh! And chili powder.

Hay loved it.

And lastly tonight, I swear, if I see or hear one more commercial for a jewelery store and/or diamonds, I might blow up!

Email

You know how it goes. An email account is an invitation for spammers and those good-hearted folks who forward things that, if forwarded by you, will save souls...

Well, my mother, apparently, has a difficult time if I don't respond to her emails. Today, my sister was helping my mother out--inquiring as to whether or not I had received certain messages. It got to the point that I had to make a statement--and I made it to the entire family so as not to single out any one person (mom).

This is the statement:

Lest there be any more confusion regarding my email address and whether or not I am receiving the emails you send me...

I have two email accounts:

One here at the hospital that should only be used for work related stuff, but seeing as how internet access has been limited at work, I have instructed you to contact me, if necessary, during working hours at this address: *******.*******@*****************.org. (As an FYI (and to really confuse the issue) starting Monday, 12/10, my work email will become *******.*******@*****.org, but the longer one (*******.*******@*****************.org) will continue to work. Intermountain made the change because the *****.org domain just recently became available.)

Another at Yahoo.com that is my personal email account (and there are actually numerous addresses I have at this account). There are two primary addresses that I use: *******_******@*****.com (there’s a _ between the ******* and the ******) and *******.*******@*****.com. Both work just fine assuming you have them plugged into your email address book correctly.

Should you not receive a reply from me on an email, please do not automatically assume that I didn’t receive it. Chances are that I actually did, but felt a response was optional. If a reply is required, please make note of that in the email and I will gladly reply to your query if only to say, “Ugh!” or “Bite me!” Additionally, please don’t assume that I have slighted you or disregarded your email as unimportant or not worth my time (although I may very well have). I’m just not the type to hurry up and hit the reply button unless I am profoundly impacted by the contents of the email or fear severe repercussions due to a failure to reply.

If, by some small chance, I have offended any of you as a result of the content (full or partial) of this dissertation, please respond to the following email address: got.a.dime@whocares.com.

Sincerely and with all the love an email can contain:

Me

PS: if you forward this email to 13 people within the next 7 ½ minutes, Microsoft will deposit $12,059 into your personal account and you will be admitted into the highest heaven—no questions asked.

I thought myself rather clever.

Sad day...

Helaman, my parents 9 1/2 year old St. Bernard, died today. The dog that had become a friend to literally thousands of people over the years will be sorely missed, but infinitely more so by mom and dad.

"We will miss our loyal friend. He has been so much fun here at the Dell. He will be missed by a lot of people. He became over the years the center of attraction here at the Dell. We even had people who were just driving by stop in to say hello to Helaman. He is such a great dog." -Mom

Nearly burned the house down tonight...

My Hay came over to look up some stuff on the internet tonight for her Senior Project. I figured it was a great opportunity for me to fix her dinner. I made chili. Addi ended up tagging along but she doesn't like chili. I heated up some chicken noodle soup for her. Anyways, long story short, I was re-warming up the last of the chicken noodle soup (cause I hate to throw stuff out) when I got sidetracked and left the soup warming up on the burner. 20 minutes later I walked into a kitchen filled with smoke and black scorched to the bottom of my small pot. Tonight, and quite possibly for some time to come, I'll be smelling that burnt smell.

I'm off to bed now though. I'm going to try to get up fairly early in the morning (6:30) and into work before 8:00. Somebody hold me to that, will ya?

Gonna do it myself

I've ordered the tools ($46 worth) and am actually looking forward to replacing the crank. The only hesitation I felt throughout the decision making process and the purchase was whether the tools would end up being one-use-only tools. I don't think they will be though. In fact, I think I'm going to go out of my way to make sure they're not.

It snowed this morning. A good 3 to 4 inches. Lovely!

And I filled out and mailed the application to the Squaw Peak 50 Mile Trail Run. So far, I'm 0 for 2 on this brutal 50 mile course, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure I don't go down 0 for 3!