These little wonders, these twist of fate

I had a very unique experience last night. There is a song I enjoy by Rob Thomas called "Little Wonders" The song helps me appreciate my wife and family and recognize the unexpected moments I have with them that bring joy and happiness in my life. Last night was one of those moments that this song will remind me of.

I had heard that the song Little Wonders was in the Disney movie "Meet the Robinsons." So we borrowed the movie from my brother and watched it together as a family last night. If you have not seen the movie, I recommend it. It is about a orphan boy who, by use of a time travel machine, goes into the future and meets his family and sees that he turns from a orphan to a man with a large and happy family.

Something about this movie had an effect on my subconscious. Because near the end of the movie, both my kids suddenly wanted to have a bowl of cereal. So I run into the kitchen and very quickly I grab two bowls, some spoons, the cereal and put two stools at the table and begin serving the cereal.

Then very suddenly it hit me. It was like I had taken my 12 year old self, picked him up and just dropped him into my now 33 year body. And I was just realizing that I was a husband and father of 2 children who were now anxiously looking at me, expecting cereal. As I stood there, holding a bag of cereal in my hand, all I could do was think "How did I get here?" It was not that I was in a negative place, I just suddenly felt like I had no idea how I got to this point in my life.

I guess my epiphany caused me to make a verbal sound of shock, which got Jen suddenly very scared, thinking something was wrong. She began urgently asking what was wrong and I very sheepishly had to respond. "Have you ever found yourself somewhere and cannot remember or figure out how you got there." After I explained to her how I was feeling, she could not stop laughing. But for me, it just suddenly felt so real. But having gone through that feeling, I must admit that I do feel happy with where I am now and I think that if my 12 year old self did see where my 33 year old self is. That I would be happy.

We spent the remainder of the evening watching the rest of the show and then playing together. Our son surprised us by picking up a wrapper off the floor with his toes. Pretty impressive for a 2 year old. He then danced around while singing "shake your body." Karen also joined in the dancing and pretended to get away from her tickling mother, but she loves to get caught by any tickling parent. This was an evening that I will think back on fondly, as a time Jen & I enjoyed our toddler children and the happiness and laughs they brought us.

We also had a busy weekend with Halloween activities. We had a Halloween party with our ward on Friday, which included a trunk or treat. My brother Monte and his family joined us and then we joined them for their ward Halloween party on Saturday. Our kids really clean up in the candy department. And they still have Halloween this Friday.

Been a busy weekend. But we sure had a lot of fun with our little wonders and the twists of fates we experienced.

I hate being sick

Wednesday I woke up feeling strange. Went to work and tried to do all my normal things, but by noon it became clear that something was wrong. So I came home and tried to sleep. By the evening I was feeling even more sick and most of the pain was in my intestines. Somehow I got a bad case of diarrhea and have been suffering from it the whole week. I think I may have gotten the parasite that went around to all the pools last summer. I swim a mile each week and so have plenty of opportunity to catch anything that would be found in a public pool.

It was a total bummer too as I wanted to do a few things this week and could not. I wanted to help a sister in law move, mow the rain forest in my from yard and help pass out door hangers for a candidate I would love to see elected. But all will have to wait for future days.

At least my football team and fantasy football teams were victorious this weekend. My Utes are now leading the BCS pack of the non-BCS schools. If they keep winning they will go to a BCS bowl. If they lose one game, I will not feel terrible about it. Their season is already a great success.

BYU fans need to learn from the chicken

To the BYU Football Players: Don't get down my friends. You are still a very good football team who will continue to have a great season and will enjoy a well deserved bowl. 1 loss does not ruin a season. So pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back to it. There is plenty of football to play and you are still a MWC powerhouse. You should also remain nationally ranked and deservedly so.

To the BYU Football Fans: HAHA. I really enjoy a quote from Abraham Lincoln. "The chicken is the wisest of all the animals. She only cackles, after the egg has been laid." You guys have been so cocky this season. "We are the best, we will be perfect this season, we will bust the BCS, etc." It appears that you spoke way to soon. Starting a season wearing T-shirts haughtily declaring your team is perfect and unbeatable. How goes that quest for perfection now?

May I point you to a example of how to bust the BCS. In 2004 a certain team from Utah start the season with a plan. Take each game 1 at a time and strive to win that game. Once that game is won, then move on to the next game and strive to win that one. Do not start looking to a game that is not the next game until it arrives. You keep that up, you will find yourself undefeated at the end of the season, with all your fans rushing the field. You will also find your self with a BCS bowl berth. That my friends is how you do it.

Good luck next year with being that year's Utah.

Loving football season!

The summer time is a depressing time for me, sports wise. I am not a baseball fan and nothing else, with the exception of the Olympics, catches my eye during the summer months. But when fall arrives, I am in sports heaven with both college and NFL fantasy football. I am cursed to have Dish network for my satellite provider, so I do not get 2/3 of all the mountain west football games. But my Dad has those games on his TV. So under the disguise of saying that I wanted to attend their local temple, I was able to infiltrate my parents place this Saturday and enjoyed both the Utah & BYU games. (Yes I did go to the temple, but was out in time to watch most of the football games.)

I really enjoyed seeing the Ute defense score more touchdowns than Wyoming did in all of its MWC games this season. The Ute offense did score 20 points, but need to improve by November when they face conference contenders TCU & BYU.

BYU finally had some good competition this week. New Mexico kept the game surprising close for most of the game. Their defense did a good job holding BYU to only 1 touchdown in the first half. But BYU's defense was much better by stopping the Lobos multiple times in the red zone. (Sorry cougar fans, just like you can't redefine marriage to include same sex couples, you cannot redefine the red zone into the blue zone.)

I am thrilled to see both Utah & BYU undefeated and nationally ranked. I hope they both continue their winning ways until Nov 22nd when Utah repeats as the MWC BCS buster. This is the season I had hoped would happen in 2004 with their undefeated season. The only way that season could have been perfect was if BYU had a better season and we were able to soundly defeat a good BYU team, rather than beating a rebuilding BYU team of the 2004 season.

The only sad part of this season is the rankings. Both teams win, but move nowhere in the polls. 3 of the top 4 teams lose this weekend and we don't see the Utes or Cougars advance in the polls. Have we hit the glass ceiling already?

I just had to laugh

So the election is in full swing and we have many local candidates seeking office in our area. There is a home that is located on the corner of two busy streets and so has many political signs displayed on it. I drive past the home everyday on the way to work. Whoever lives at this home gave me a chuckle today. Very early in the campaign season they put up a sign for a candidate . Then last week they had another sign posted next to the first sign. This one was for that candidate's opponent.

I always get a chuckle when I see a house showing signs for both candidates seeking the same office. It shows that the home is either really undecided or do not know enough about the people they are endorsing. I would assume that when you endorse someone, you had compared them to their opponents and then decided on endorsing one of them. But if you do not even know who the people are who are seeking political office, are you informed enough to start advising others on who to vote for?

Some one from the candidate's camp who had the first sign up must have approached the home owner and pointed out that they have a sign for their opponent and they then took it down. So I guess that proves that the owner of this home was one of those uneducated voters who did not look at or compare the candidates before they started encouraging us to vote for someone. The funniest thing about this is that this home is not even in the district for the office that these candidates are running for. So not only does this uneducated home owner try to tell me who to vote for, they don't even have a vote in this contest. They should be worrying about their own candidates rather than telling me how to vote with mine.

Is it done yet?

Been very busy . But after watching Washington flip flop on the bailout and the market still fall like a rock. All I can say is, Is the election done yet? Another month of this!? Dang it.