Ok, I'm going to try this whole computer thing again--this time, if I have to drive all the way to Orem to return any defective items, I'm going to bring a baseball bat with me. I'm going with an Asus A7V266-E board, an AMD Athlon XP 1600 cpu, 512MB Micron DDR RAM, a cheap-ass PCI soundcard, and possibly an IBM 40GB drive (7200 RPM), all for around $560. I have to drive up for work on Tuesday anyway, so I might as well get it all then. I don't really have the money to pay for all of it, so some of it will have to go on my credit card. My current computer needs to be rebooted several times daily in order to keep it running smoothly (if you can call 266 MHz smooth), and I'm just getting sick of it. And since I can claim it on my tax return as an unreimbursed business expense, it'll be that much less I have to pay taxes on when I file in a few months.

This just goes to show the lack of separation between church and state in Utah: When the president of the Utah Senate Alma Mansell didn't like how KSL commentator Doug Wright criticised Utah's republican lawmakers, Mansell tattled on Wright by writing a letter to a Mormon church leader.

You'd think that a state senator would be able to accept a little criticism, seeing as how Utah lawmakers are always doing stupid things, but to go crying to the church is just plain wrong. He said the only reason he wrote to the Mormon church was because the church owns KSL--yeah right. He wrote to the church because not only is he deeply mired in the LDS religion, but being a state lawmaker, he probably has quite a bit of pull with the church. I mean, c'mon, he's named after The Book of Alma from The Book of Mormon--that alone points out his strong ties with the Mormons. But being a Mormon and a state senator entitles him to the privilege of not having to go through the proper channels--he simply fires off a letter to the church, and expects them to snap their fingers or wiggle their noses and do their magic.

With as long as this weekend was, it felt shorter than a two-day weekend. I didn't sleep past 10:30 am on any day, and I didn't have a lot of time to just relax. My wife had me putting up xmas lights and crap like that, and I didn't even finish getting the lights up on the house--it was too cold and windy to stay on the roof for too long. I would really like to have gone 4-wheeling in the snow, but that won't happen for a very long time. I'm not even sure I'll fix my truck at all.

Big Russ came to town for Thanksgiving, and he and his woman and G.I. Jorge stopped by for a couple hours on Friday. Then Mikey and his wife stayed over Saturday night, but we didn't do much. The weather wasn't all that great, otherwise we'd have probably gone target shooting or rabbit hunting or something.

I can't wait 'til the weekend before xmas--I'll have 11 consecutive days off work starting then. I used up many of my vacation days when Michael was born in February, so I can't take as many days off this year as I'd like. Next year should be perfect, 'cause I'll be able to take several weeks off during the holidays. Summer should be nice too, because Michael will be old enough that it's not a pain in the ass to take him camping, so we'll probably do that more often. I think I actually get more vacation days next year, because January will be my 5-year anniversary with the company. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but in some respects, it seems longer.

This is turning out to be a damned good thanksgiving, and it's not even half over yet. I woke up this morning, got me and my son ready, then we took a drive up Price Canyon, where it was snowing pretty badly. I took some pictures of stuff (the frozen waterfall, the steam rising out of the coal-fired power plant), then headed back down into town. I ate a little dinner at my in-laws' house, and now I'm at home fixing yams to bring over to my mom's. It's snowing some giant snowflakes right now, but it's too warm for any of it to stick to the ground. Still, it's pretty outside.

Dinner at my mom's should be really nice--I held back at my in-laws' to leave room for my mom's cooking. =) Not that the other stuff was bad, but who doesn't like their mom's cooking better? In addition to the yams, I'm bringing over a couple bottles of champagne, and my mom already has some wine, and only three of us there will be drinking, so there oughta be plenty to go around.

Finally, my ugly beast-of-a-truck is sitting in my driveway once again. It got towed down last night, but sat at the Helper Auto lot overnight and didn't get taken here until this afternoon. The guy who towed it down from Springville left the key in the ignition, turned to the "On" position all night, so my battery was dead. I had to borrow my mom's 4Runner to jump it, then I backed it into the driveway. Someday this week, I'm going to move my camper into my back yard, then find a suitable place back there to leave my truck. I know all the work I need to do on it will make a greasy, oily mess, and I don't want to do it in the driveway.

I surveyed the damage a little today--looks like it's leaking oil pretty badly between the transfer case and the transmission. I think I'll remove the transfer case and check things out there--something I'm not looking forward to. Also, in order to find out whether it's the driveline or the output shaft (or both) that's bent, I'll have to put the truck up on jackstands, have somebody throw it in 4th gear and romp on the gas while I sit underneath the truck and observe. That should be truly scary, especially since there's every chance the whole thing might fly apart again.

Well, it was definitely worth staying up until after 4:00 am to see the meteor shower. We went up Price Canyon and took Emma Park Road for about ¼ mile before pulling off to the side of the road, and we just got out and started watching. We saw literally hundreds of meteors, one of which was huge, maybe even 10 times brighter than the rest. It was worth the trip to see just that big one. After I got home, I woke my wife up, who had stayed home with the baby, and told her how well they could be seen from our back yard. So she got up and we just stood in our back yard, watching the meteors continue to rain down.

I took almost 90 pictures, only two of which captured actual meteors. The shutter on my camera will only stay open for two seconds, so I was basically just pointing it skyward and hoping something would streak across while the shutter was open.

In about a half-hour, I'm going over to Ty's house, then we (me, Ty, his wife, and their nephew) are heading up Price Canyon somewhere to observe the meteor shower. I decided that rather than going to bed at a normal time and getting up at 2:00 am, I'd just stay awake all night--it beats waking up groggy in the middle of the night and not really wanting to climb out of a warm bed. Besides, I didn't get up until after noon today, so I'm not even tired yet.

My wife called the cops on our neighbors tonight...this is the second time in the past month we've had to do so. See, a very old lady used to live there alone earlier this year, and her grand-daughter moved in with her a few months ago. The old lady died, so her grand-daughter was living there alone--but only for about a week, at which time a bunch of giggly college girls moved in with her. Not long after that, there were giggly girls and loud guys over there all the time, often with them shouting and honking car horns long after midnight. The house is set pretty far back from the street, and there's a circular driveway, part of which runs directly next to my house, and that's where the loud-ass fuckers park their cars (just outside my son's window). So we've taken to calling the cops whenever it gets out of hand, but all the cops ever do is tell them to quiet down. We're wondering how many times it'll take for the cops to actually do something, like issue disturbing-the-peace citations. Even if that happens, it probably won't deter them from being loud, since verbal warnings haven't helped so far.

Work has been keeping me very busy lately. I've been put in charge of training a bunch of people, and I think I'm being way too meticulous, because it takes me forever to prepare training materials for a brief 15-minute training session.

Thanksgiving just kind of crept up on me--in fact, November did so as well. Time has just been flying as of late. Mike Marshall and his wife are coming down from Salt Lake and are staying here the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so it should be a fun weekend. (Hey Ty, maybe we could go out shooting then?) I've got to clean my house, especially the guest bedroom and bathroom--it's been several months since they were used, and the bedroom is cluttered with all the xmas gifts we're giving out this year.

I still haven't gotten my truck towed down from Springville, but hopefully I'll get it here next week. It's taking awhile, but at least it's not costing me anything. =) I really need my truck to get my camper out of the driveway to store it for the winter. After that, my truck will probably sit in the back yard until I get the money for new drivelines, a new tie-rod end and a ball-joint, which may end up being all winter.

Early Sunday morning (Nov. 18^th), the Leonid meteor shower may possibly be better than any in the past 35 years. I'm thinking I might hop in the car and drive somewhere high in the mountains to catch a glimpse of it, and maybe get some pictures. The last time I tried to take some night-sky pictures with my camera, they didn't turn out, but I was really close to town when I did it. But being miles away from any town, and with as bright as some of these meteors are supposed to be, some of my pictures might turn out alright.

Michael stood up by himself (for almost 15 seconds!) for the first time yesterday. After getting over the initial shock of what he was doing, I think he finally got scared and almost started crying and tried to sit down. I got him to stand up a couple more times after that, but he's reluctant to let go of my hands at all when he's standing, so I quit trying to push him too hard. Still, I don't think it'll be too long before he's walking, and he's not even nine months old yet.

If you listen to the song Voodoo by Godsmack, about 3 minutes and 26 seconds into the song, I think you can hear Crakhor (from Quake II) do her famous "Oh!" Does anyone else think so?

I just found a cool "feature" of Internet Explorer 5.5. If you are viewing a local HTML document, and you just happen to rename the folder that the document is in (while said document is still being displayed), IE will automatically change to that folder in the address bar. Strange (and useless), but cool nonetheless.

Good, Brighton ski resort found a taker for their billboards poking fun at Mormons.

Here is a good article in the public forum of the Tribune, not just because it points out the strangeness of Mormons, but because it's all true. No other newspaper in the state would print something like that--they fear the truth.

And wow--here is another public forum article that addresses the Women for Decency group trying to ban those "smutty" magazine covers that you see while waiting in line at the grocery store (previously talked about here). It makes a very good point.

As you can probably tell, not much has been going on lately, hence all the spewing forth of Salt Lake Tribune articles. =) This week has been very relaxing--my mother-in-law is out of state for work, so my phone hasn't been ringing off the hook, and my wife has actually been home all week, rather than running around with her mom. Some people just never let go of that dependence they have on their parents, and others can never accept the fact that their children have families of their own now. I suppose it will never end, either--20 years from now, I'll be competing with a headstone for my wife's company.

The LDS church has way too much influence not only on the government in Utah, but also on businesses. First, liquor laws were passed banning the use of religious themes in advertising, and now a billboard company is rejecting advertising poking fun at the church. The nearer the Olympics come, the more pressure the church is putting on everybody to make them look good.

Oh, and the answer given by most LDS church members regarding their religion affecting the laws? Move out of Utah. According to that line of reasoning, the laws are being passed to keep the Mormons from drinking--either that, or to drive the rest of us out of the state.

Fight Club in Price? C'mon, what a bunch of idiots. "The organizer also told officers the club will soon be recognized by CEU and the fights will continue next week." I seriously doubt this will go on for very long before CEU and/or Price City permanently stop it--that is, it won't go on in public anymore.

Driving tests for the elderly--this is a good idea. Yesterday, at the stop light just down the street from my house, I saw an old lady driving a white Buick who treated the red light like a stop sign. She stopped, then she drove right through the red light--I made eye contact with the guy in the car right behind her, and we both had that "WTF?" look on our faces.

Cool...the Salt Lake newspapers actually have election results from all Utah cities. Everybody that my wife voted for won, but my man for City Council came in dead-last.

Y'all remember James from Ramblings, right? Well, he's back with Response Check. He's got a very nice layout (obviously the handiwork of Nate), and he's already updated more times today than I usually do in a week. =)

Today was a surprisingly decent day, especially compared to last Tuesday. I drove up to work rather late because I had to stay late for a meeting. I was completely dreading this meeting, because I've been put in charge of training my whole department--it was the same meeting I was supposed to go to last week, so my truck breakdown was kind of a blessing in disguise. Anyway, the meeting wasn't as bad as I expected it to be...luckily the managers in attendance helped me out quite a bit.

As soon as I got home from work, my wife and I went down to city hall and voted. I'm sure it'll be awhile before we find out who won, just because the only way to disseminate that type of information in a shitty little town like this is by word-of-mouth. The local newspaper only prints twice a week, so there won't be anything there until Thursday, and it's not like anybody has even heard of the internet around here. And I'm guessing the TV news media in Salt Lake won't be covering it--anything south of Provo is considered a different state by them, apparently (we're called Southeastern Utah, even though we're almost smack-dab in the center of the state).

Happy birthday, Mom.

You'd think that the people at the Motor Vehicles office would know better than to close for lunch between noon and 1:30, but apparently that's not the case here. What's worse: that dozens of people try to register their vehicle on their lunch breaks but aren't able to, or somebody at the DMV takes an early or late lunch? Or, even worse, what if the state actually hired somebody to cover during lunch? What a bunch of backwards-assed dickwads.

I looked for a car to buy yesterday, but couldn't find anything in my price range. So my only options were to get my car fixed, or get my truck fixed. Since the only thing wrong with my car is a broken windshield, I figured that was the cheaper route to go. I decided to get a safety inspection before I got the windshield replaced, because I didn't want to spend money on a windshield, then find out later that I needed to dump more money into the car. Of course, the windshield failed inspection, but so did my two front tires. The mechanic told me he'd pass the windshield if I bought two new tires from them--he must work on commission or something. I just laughed at him. I've got a set of snow tires in my garage that'll fit my car, so I'll just put them on instead. A new windshield will only cost me $150, including installation, which is only $10 more than new tires would've cost. And after that, I can sell my car for more than I've been asking, 'cause everything will be in good shape. I think I'll take an advertisement out in the newspaper, because a for-sale sign isn't doing the trick.

As soon as I sell my car, I'll have $1,500 more that I can put towards a different car, which should be sufficient to get what I need. The cash I had saved up for a car, I'm now saving for my attorney. We're finally suing the City over that sewer backup. So I'll have to put part of the payment for the new car on a credit card, rather than getting a regular loan, but the money I lose in higher interest, I'll gain in not being required to have full-coverage insurance.

Jeez...so far, for the past two years, October 30th has been a very bad day for me. I'm becoming superstitious about it--I can't wait to see what happens next year.