Scott "El Cubano" regresa

Melinda's brother, Scott, came home from his mission today. He went to the Florida, Ft. Lauderdale Spanish speaking mission. He looks pretty much the same, albeit a little older and a little wiser, but still the same old Scott we love.

We had dinner up at Grandma and Grandpa's house with some extended family and the kids got reacquainted with Scott; they are glad to have him home. Saffron even gave him a kiss. When we left for the evening some of us cajoled him into giving the family prayer in Spanish. He finally did once we counted in the room and about half of us there speak Spanish (there were two Portuguese speakers, which is close enough.) So he gave the prayer with a great Cuban accent. Most of us (5) learned Chilean Spanish and two of us (Lisette and Melinda) learned Mexican Spanish, but Scott sounds completely different than any of us. He sounds great and I was so proud that he knows how to use the subjunctive and past subjunctive!

Of course his work teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and all the people he helped to live a more righteous life is more important than his command of the language, but it's great fun having another hispanohablante around.

All nighter

Monday night after our bonfire in the canyon, I connected to some servers at work to do some security updates. It went pretty well, but our Citrix remote gateway server didn't come back up after a reboot. Since it was already after midnight, I debated just going to bed and dealing with it in the morning, but I thought I better go in and check it out. It's good I did, because that server's fan died and it was running really hot and wouldn't boot.

I had to take the hard drive out and put it in a another machine. It still wouldn't boot, so I had to run the chkdsk utility. It still wouldn't boot. I ran the Windows 2000 repair and it still wouldn't boot. Finally I got the second drive which was mirrored to boot. Then I just had to rerun all the updates. I finally left at 6:30 AM.

I debated just staying there, but since I was wearing shorts, Crocs, and a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, I thought I'd better go home and at least change. I slept for an hour and half and came back to work. Thankfully everything was working. Nobody even noticed that anything had been down. Thats how you want it to be, even if nobody knows you sacrificed your sleep for them.

Tuesday I came home at about 2 and crashed. Melinda took the kids to their book club, but Ian stayed home and snuggled up in bed and napped with me. Ian is very loyal, he likes to be with me even when I'm boring, which is very flattering.

Working all day and night makes for a long day. I kept thinking it was Wednesday. I can't imagine having to be in a job that requires 60 or 80 hours weeks.

S'moreos

We had an Elders Quorom leadership get-together in Millcreek Canyon tonight. We had a package of Oreos leftover from Miles' birthday party, so we decided to take them. Miles said, "lets use them with the roasted marshmallows and make S'moreos!" They were actually very tasty. We bought some stuff from Harmons before we went up, but I didn't feel like hot dogs so Melinda got a roasted rosemary and lemon roasted chicken. I thought it was kind of cheating, but someone else just brought take out from Arbys, so I didn't feel too bad.

The kids really liked it. The fall leaves were very pretty, and and it was fun to see some early snow on the ground. It was a little chilly, but we had a blazing white man's campfire, so we kept warm. As soon as we got home we all had to take showers to get rid of the smoky smell and we threw all our clothes in the washer. We are all glad we don't have to cook over an open fire on a regular basis.

On a side note, Saffron's cuteness never ceases to amaze us. Yesterday Melinda was play biting me and Saffron said "Don't bite my daddy!" Then she wrapped her arms around my hand and arms and said "I save my daddy!" Cute, sweet, loving, and funny; that's our Saffron.

Choose ye this day

Kevin and Brian had an extra ticket to this afternoon's Priesthood Session, so they invited me to go with them. It was a very nice experience. I remember the last time I went my knees ached so bad because of arthritis and lack of legroom that it was just painful. This time I was fine and I enjoyed the talks immensely and felt the Holy Spirit there.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does a wonderful job of teaching it's people how to live. The church is truly centered on Jesus Christ and his teachings and it helps it's members to become better people and how to be a disciple of Christ. It's amazing to see so many men and boys assembled not for a sports activity, but to listen of Christ and how to live righteously. These are some of the many fruits of the church.

Tonight we were taught to control our emotions and not become angry. We were taught to have vision, be faithful, be virtuous, and to work for good causes. We were taught to avoid pornography and the sins of this world.

The righteous men who taught us today were true examples of how to live. When we left the conference there were many protesters shouting at us. The contrast between the protesters and our Priesthood leaders tonight could not have been greater. It is not hard for me to choose which ones I would rather be like.

Donald or Donny?

I saw an interesting website yesterday, My Heritage. At first sight it seemed like a serious family history site. At second glance it seems much more frivolous. It has this face recognition feature that seems really cool and scientific, but I have my doubts.

OK, so here are the celebrities who supposedly resemble me:



No, wait. These are the celebrities who I really look like.



So which is worse, resembling Donny Rumsfeld or Donald Osmond? Just call me Rummy Osmond.