Snow Day!!!

I think this is a very sublime photo.

The Hunter and the Damage Done

Tommy got spooked early Christmas morning. Jensen reached for him and sustained near emergency room injuries.

Vampire Christmas Kitty

Unretouched except to remove a wall socket from beside his head.

December 2008

Nore and the kids have been very diligent about walking after they drop Laney off at school in the morning. On two mornings in a row last week they came upon seemingly stray pets. Maybe there was unusual sunspot activity?! In each case they brought them home and called their owner or the shelter. This picture is a particularly nice looking dog. He had a blond companion with him who is out of the picture.



This is Nore at the ward Christmas party waiting with Laney in line to see Santa Claus.

This is Laney all gussied up for her latest dance recital. She doesn't do that well at the dancing. But, you should see her smile on stage. She just lights up.

A Google a Day

Like Amanda Tanen and Gene Simmons I Google myself every morning (not). However, I did do it today and found some interesting things:

While finishing my undergraduate degree at BYU I worked for Dr. H. Donl Peterson translating some old texts. One of these is listed on the "internets" and attributes the translation to me. I never knew what happened to that work. You can find it right here. I don't expect it is a very good translation though since it was translated from French and I know very little French.

There are three websites that list me as a horrible despicable contributor to the Prop 8 campaign. I'll try to put their names here in such a way that that their Google ranking doesn't benefit from it:

qsaltlakeDOTcom
pridedepotDOTcom
kiltzeDOTwordpressDOTcom

I think in retaliation I am going to list them on a website that I will name, idontwantyoutodoanythingthatmightruinmyday.com

Todd Thinks:

City of Ember wasn't that great. Glad I didn't pay full price. Quantum of Solace was better than Casino Royale, and Wall-e may be better than them all.

And, I want to know what is this new large city in India I've never heard before, Mumbai?

If we are trying to pronounce everything the way natives do, then why don't the news people call it Deutchland? or Italia or Suomi? Why all the deference only to the noble eastern countries of the world?

Ailsa Drawing

CRat Cage

Recent Past/Near Future

I gave the annual tithing talk on Sunday (my fifth one.) I'm hoping I don't have to do too many more. It's difficult to come up with new material or a new angle. You feel like saying, "Look, just do it. Okay?" It went well enough, though. I also spoke briefly about supporting the Church in the current political climate.

Lenore and I sat down on Saturday and planned out Jensen's BYU classes for her. It took a little brain power. But, we have it worked out pretty well. Just have to get her into some housing now.

I have to do my annual performance review at work in the next couple of weeks. This is one of the most onerous tasks invented by man. You would think after 19 years you could just call it in. I should keep all my old papers and recycle what I've written before. They make a big deal about this being our thing. We are in charge of it. Well, if I'm in charge, let's cancel!

We are looking forward to the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday and also Christmas. With vacation days and extra days off I will be off early on the Weds before Thanksgiving (through the weekend) and then off the day before Christmas for 5 days and then one day of work and then another 6 days off. We should have fun. However, this could all change a little if anybody in the Ward dies. But, we are almost home free.

I think I've only had two funerals this year and one of those was for someone who moved out of the Ward years ago. We now have 9 people over the age of 90 and 35 over the age of 80. Poor Bishop Peaden. He's only been in 6 months and already done about 5 funerals.