Eventful weekends are always a lot of fun. This was one of the nice weekends! It had been quite some time since we’d visited Heather and her family in Orem. I wanted to go to Salt Lake City for the Church’s Sunday School Open House. Stephanie, our oldest granddaughter, had a date to Homecoming at Orem High School. Danielle had a soccer game. All of that meant it was time to go south! We left Pocatello about 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon in the motor home and headed for Salt Lake City. I’ve received a new Church Calling as the Stake Sunday School President. Since I’ve not much of an idea of what all that job entails, I decided to go to the Church’s Sunday School Open House being held on Friday evening from 6-8 p.m. in hopes of learning a bit more about the job. We took Bradica (the dog) with us since we would be in the motor home.

The Open House was interesting. While there wasn’t much information about the specific job of Stake Sunday School President, the material on teaching and gospel scholarship was very interesting. After the meeting was over, we continued on down to Orem. We parked the motor home in Heather’s driveway for the night. That meant we would have our own beds without causing Stephanie to sleep elsewhere. Both Stephanie (who had a date the the Big Dance on Saturday night) and Danielle (who had a big soccer game on Saturday morning) needed to get a good night’s sleep.

Danielle’s soccer game was a lot of fun. She barely missed scoring on this attempt with the ball hitting the post and going right instead of left. But that was OK — a few minutes later she made a great pass from which another teammate scored. Danielle’s Purple Cyclone team went on to win the game 3-1. It was a nice morning — not very hot and quite pleasant — and the girls had a great time playing.

Later that afternoon, Stephanie got ready for her first Big Dance. She looked radiant in her gown. Her date was a delightful young man and I’m sure they had a very good time at dinner and then at the dance. We really enjoyed being there for the day and seeing Stephanie looking so happy and beautiful. After Stephanie left, we had dinner and then we drove back to Pocatello. A very nice day and trip.

Today was as busy as every Sunday seems to be. I played the organ for Priesthood Meeting as well as Sacrament Meeting and taught the lesson in High Priest Group as my normal assignment. Nina was up at the prison for her standard quota of meetings. The weekend is now coming to a close. I did get some pictures which are accessible through the link or by visiting the “pictures!” link on the right side of the screen. I’ve been busy putting up some other pictures from my last Belgium trip, so there should be plenty of pictures to look at.

Speaking of pictures, I’ve decided to build a new picture capability somewhat similar to USA Today’s The Day in Pictures feature. While they use flash technology, the idea is still quite appealing. I take a lot of pictures that don’t get loaded to the “pictures!” pages because they don’t come together in a specific theme. This would allow me to take unrelated pictures and post them as a group. Besides, it’s a great way to learn more about this technology I’m using. In the process of doing this, I’ll upgrade my server to from PHP 4 to PHP 5, implement some Object Oriented capability, and for the first time, try to make use of some clever HTML 4 and Cascading Style Sheet capability. All that means is that it might be some time before I get this capability implemented. But, right now it sounds like fun. It’s been a nice weekend.

Commenting on how quickly time passes is trite enough without me belaboring the point. Nevertheless, Thursday came rather quickly this week. Perhaps it’s because I’ve had so many early morning meetings this week. I have done some work on the computers at home this week which has occupied a lot of my evenings. We also bought some additional foliage for the back yard and because of that I know how my Saturday morning will be spent. Meanwhile, the motorhome is back in it’s accustomed spot with a fixed and now fully functional fridge. We’re headed for Seattle at the end of the month for a couple of days and I’m looking forward to taking the motorhome. It might be the last time this fall before the snow flies and I have to winterize the machine.

All the mainstream news attention is on hurricane Katrina and the blame game. I’ve gotten rather tired of the poor coverage and the fault finding. The storm was bigger than New Orleans and in reality bigger than the surrounding area. The fact is, however, the local governments were singularly unprepared. However, if one listens to the mainstream media, the Federal Government is at fault and we’ve got a president accepting that blame. Very dumb, George W. Very dumb. The Federal Government should the the third or fourth level responder, not the first level responder. Government priorities are mixed up and the mainstream media “reporting” is messed up as well.

Most of those who didn’t evacute probably could not have evacuated on their own. They have no money or means to leave and no ability to sustain themselves should they leave. The reason? They live from the government welfare trough. The government takes care of them. The government feeds them. The government provides them housing, clothing, and health care. These folks were very well trained by the government! Then they were suddenly not taken care of by the goverment. No wonder they were angry and spiteful.

This sordid mess also points out the serious problems with our current governmental welfare system. It makes people dependent and takes away their ability to make their own decisions and to make their own way in life.

Some of these programs are Federal Government programs. Some are State Government programs. These agencies were woefully unprepared. They created a dependent constituency and then left them out in the cold and wet when disaster struck. Unfortunately, in whatever witch hunts that happen in the wake of hurricane Katrina, changing this problem will not be an outcome. These “investigations” will be primarily driven by the Democrats whose mission in life seems to be to make people dependent on the government and then portray them as victims.

One of the stories my dad likes to tell is about Ike and Mike’s mule. “When they finally taught it how to live without eating, well, it died.” When we teach people how to live without contributing back to society, we all die a little.

We spent much of the day outside planting bushes and shoveling dirt. The backyard now has six trees and two butterfly bushes. The north side of the house now has five bushes and two lilac bushes are now planted next to the fence. We had a load of dirt dumped in the hole on the north side of the house — which turned out not to be enough to fill the hole. It still had to be moved and now the hole is half filled. The yard is beginning to look like people who care live here.

Now the problem is that my body hurts! Some soaking time in the hot tub will feel very good tonight. In about an hour that’s where I’ll be found.

After we finished working in the yard, Nina and I went uptown to buy some book cases for downstairs. We don’t have enough places to put books! We first went to Fred Meyers and came away without buying any bookcases as there weren’t any there! We then drove over to Walmart. They had a reasonable selection and we bought three. These Sauder bookcases went together very easily and we’ve now got another twelve and a half feet of book shelves.

Now I’m watching the second half of the Ohio State vs Texas football game. Early in the third quarter Ohio State is leading 19 to 13, but Texas is knocking on the door. I’d like for Ohio State to win this game. Unfortunately Michigan didn’t fair so well against Notre Dame earlier today and Iowa lost to Iowa State as well. Not the best of days for the Big Ten, particularly considering that they went 10:0 last Saturday!

To their credit, I did get a response from USA Network about their dropping coverage in the middle of the last set of the Blake – Agassi match:

Thank you for expressing your concerns about our US Open coverage. Regarding
Wednesday night’s match between Andre Agassi and James Blake, our
commentators announced several times that viewers in the east would need to
switch over to CBS to continue viewing the match. Due to contractual
obligations we could not continue our coverage after CBS’s US Open
Highlights show began at 12:37AM (Eastern). Requests to allow us to continue
our coverage were denied.

While the eastern feed of USA network left the match, the western feed
continued to broadcast the match until its conclusion. If you live in the
western part of the country and had the match cut off, this means you were
viewing the eastern feed. Contact your cable or satellite provider for
information on why you are not receiving the western feed of USA.

USA Network

Only problem is, there is no eastern or western feed on Dish Network for USA Network. Here’s my response:

Something is very strange here.

I’ve spent the last hour on the phone with support people at Dish Network. They are adamant that there is one and only one feed on Dish Network for USA Network — channel 105 — for the entire country.

Why do you tell me that there is an eastern feed and a western feed???? Do you know something that the technical support people at Dish Network don’t know?

I’m still very unhappy with USA Network. If someone working for me (and I’ve a lot of people in my organization working for me) gave me your answer, they’d get booted out of the office and perhaps out of the company. The Blake-Aggasi match was not going overly long, however every men’s match has the opportunity to go to five sets and a tie break. You obviously have not planned your coverage correctly nor have you executed the appropriate contracts in advance of the coverage. There is no reason that your contract for coverage should not allow you to complete broadcast of a match in progress. Because it does not, you screwed up your contracting process in a very amateur manner.

Further, if it is true that Dish Network has only one feed — you should know that and that makes your condescending reply even more aggravating.

Roland Smith
Unhappy Customer

This morning at the office the printer/copy machine ran out of paper. I got a couple of reams and started to kneel down to put the paper in the bottom tray when a woman whom I wouldn’t classify as “young” asked, “Would you like me to do that? I’m younger than you…” That really brought me up short. I must be starting to look old … I sure don’t feel old!

Well, at least not until this evening. Five trees are being delivered and planted tomorrow. Tom, the mower boy, with vacation and school starting, hasn’t been able to mow the grass for about a month. The places were the trees are going were rather deep in grass. Tom couldn’t get here until tomorrow night. So, I’ve mowed the grass once again. I’m pooped. Andre Aggasi is loosing in the semifinals at the US Open. Maybe he’s feeling a bit old tonight as well. I was hoping he’d be able to pull it off and win a Major one last time. Time to go to the hot tub!

Stop the presses!!Three asprin and a soak in the hot tub, I came back quite refreshed to find Agassi had come back! The game went to five sets. Agassi pulled it out in a tie break! Incredible.

A HUGE Thumbs Down, however to the USA Network. I’ve sent them an email with the subject line: How Absolutely Stupid of You!!

The best game of the US Open. The absolutely incredible Agassi comeback.

You break away before the match is finished for an inane rerun of Law and Order.

How incrediby stupid. I remember the Heidi incident from a number of years ago. 
You've managed to be more stupid than that.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

You owe the tennis world a major apology along with eating a big dose of crow.

Roland

Today was canning day at our house. Nina’s friend donated a couple of big boxes of very ripe tomatoes that were canned this morning yielding 28 jars. We took a break in the early afternoon and got lunch out at a local restaurant. This afternoon and evening Nina has been canning the peaches. She’s got one more batch to go in to the water bath and 28 jars of peaches will be finished. It sure looks good and the day has definitely been productive!

I spent the afternoon moving computer equipment around. I’ve had my development server and my web server here in the office in a rack next to the desk. The room gets very warm during the summer months. I put a ceiling fan in a couple of weeks ago to get better air circulation in the room and that helped some, but I finally decided to move these two servers downstairs into the utility room. That room is always cool and in the winter gets fairly cold. Just right for servers! The two boxes are now downstairs and working. The office is at least five degrees cooler and later on I’m sure I’ll need to turn the ceiling fan down to the low setting.

That’s how we’ve spent our Labor Day holiday — canning and moving computers. Laboring away … and those peaches and tomatoes sure will taste good.

It’s a little after 11 a.m. and I’ve a few minutes before getting ready for Church. Today I’m teaching the Gospel Essentials class finishing up the last half of the first Missionary Lesson. I’m also substituting on the organ for Sacrament Meeting. Nina is up at the prison for the Kinport Branch church services. Bradica (the dog) is asleep on the floor, but every once in a while comes around to make sure it isn’t time to eat. It’s a sunny 75 degree day with the temperatures forecasted to climb to about 90 degrees with increasing winds and a chance of thundershowers.

Yesterday was a pretty busy day. We left the house about 8:30 to go to the farmers market where we picked up about 50 pounds of peaches, a dozen ears of corn, and some beans. Then we went to the nursery where Nina bought five trees and a bunch of bushes and plants. From there we went to Fred Meyers and picked up some groceries and some more plants. The cleaners was the final stop and then we came home. We were out the entire morning. After lunch we planted flowers by the back step and in the front near the house. I discovered a problem with the sprinkler system and got that fixed after digging up what seemed to be half the front yard. In the end the problem was a broken wire that was easily accessed and quickly fixed. Not so all the holes in the front yard! Things are mostly back to normal out there, however.

We have a practice of going out to dinner on the Saturday evening before Fast Sunday. Last night we went to Sizzler so we could use a discount check. The meal was nice and we enjoyed being out to eat. After that we went to Walmart to get some more canning jars (Nina bought the last of the jars at Fred Meyers earlier in the day) and a vacuum sealer for the vegetables that Nina wanted to freeze. The final stop was at Dillards where I bought a some suspenders to replace those that are wearing out.

The vacuum sealer works great! The peaches smell wonderful (peaches and cream for desert tonight — yum!). Canning season is well upon us as well as a quick trip to Brigham City to pick up more stuff to can. Life continues to be very good!

I’ve loaded up a few more pictures. Check the “pictures!” link on the right.