Jake in Ecuador

Jake sent us the attached video of some painting he did with his missionary companion for a church member's home in Ecuador....included in the video is some footage of their lunch.

The video is....uh....interesting.

I don't think Campbell's would sell much of this kind of soup here in the USA. But then again, I'm a vegetarian...except for steaks, hamburgers, sausages, chicken and turkey.

Jake is doing great and as you will see, continues to have his sense of humor.

7.5 months down

We love you Jake.

Go Meat

This post is dedicated to all meat lovers of America. I did give up red meat once except for steaks and hamburgers, but that didn't last for long.

We have one lucky missionary from our ward who is serving in the Milwaukee-Sausage eating mission.

Go Meat

E=MC2

Props to Alec who did another nice job in school - all A's while majoring in physics. Quantum mechanics? First order differential equations? Organic chemistry? Alec is a rocket scientist who wants to be a brain surgeon. My dad was an engineer and an Ivy League grad so this explains it...has to. I don't even balance my checkbook. Mike Leavitt once told me, "It's better to be charming than smart." Maybe he was jokin?

So Alec has 3 quarters of school left, then off somewhere to medical school. The prospect of he and Tiffany going off on this adventure is really cool. Where will they end up?

Keep up the good work Alec. Oh, and the rest of your life will depend on how you do on your MCAT. Kidding.

Sort of.

Olympic Blog #2

Okay, okay....I'm digging the O-games. All cynicism aside, I am captivated by the original and breathtaking venues, and by the exactness of the athletes purpose and dedication to their sport. Jake's gal Amy dropped by for a spell today and that was great. We watched some of the games, and had a wonderful visit.

I believe I speak for many American's when I say "NBC just needs to show the American's winning massive amounts of medals, preferrably gold ones."

I've been watching the men's gymnastics. They are some seriously talented dudes. The kid who was last on the pommel horse absolutely rocked it - legs flying all over the place. My hips hurt just watching his routine. And get a load of the swimmers. They look as if they are chiseled out of hard rubber, and then stretched another 10%.

I just think how funny any of us middle aged guys would look trying to even get up on a pommel horse....or hang from the rings. My body would drop and my fingers would still be wrapped around the rings. Ouch. Or the high bar....(I'm actually laughing out loud with Janae right now as I think of this - I crack myself up)...I'd MAYBE get to swing back and forth a bit and if I tried to go around, well, let's just say it would be ugly (and funny) as I fell to the earth. Gravity...hurts.

Olympic Blog Post #1

I got home late last night and was egged on by my mom to "turn on the TV and watch the Olympics!"

"Alright already," I said.

I'm afraid that nothing will ever compare to the opening of the 1992 games when a Spanish archer lit the Olympic torch with an arrow from 500 feet. Spectacular. Nothing comes close. Last night's torch lighting? I get a better flame from my backyard grill.

My family will be disppointed but I'm just not a super huge fan of the O-games. The Olympic ideal of citius altius & fortius (faster, higher, stronger)combined with an international appeal of peace, love and harmony is nice in theory and we all want to believe it really exists - I did until I was 20 years old - but while the Russians were marching into the arena TWO NIGHTS AGO, their tanks were rumbling toward Georgia.....the Iranians, Syrians, Moroccons, Saudi's et al absolutely hate our westernized infidel guts. It's nice that they at least hate us in the name of their religion. Does this confuse no one else?

China? 1.3 billion people. 1/5 of the earth's population. Big army. Hmmmmmnnn....interesting.

Okay, so let's just set aside all the BS lovey dovey PR and get kicking some serious ass and winning the medal count OKAY?

Some predictions:

I don't think Michael Phelps will win 8 gold medals. The guy is amazing, the best swimmer ever but I just think that something will trip him up...a teammate in a relay may falter, another swimmer will have the race of their lives. I say he gets 6 gold, 2 silver.

Our ghetto basketballers? Nice to see Kobe acting nice and playing with others during the opening ceremonies. And who doesn't love LeBron? Gold Gold Gold. Easy.

Sprints? USA and Jamaica
Marathon? Easy, ALWAYS the guys from Africa. They run everywhere.
Horse stuff: Brits
Yachting: See Horse Stuff
Anything to do with official's scoring: China (tie goes to the host country - it's true look it up)
Beach Volleyball: USA
Volleyball: USA
Boxing: don't care
Baseball: Cuba
Diving: Rigged
Gymnastics: See DIVING
Rowing: don't care
Archery: Shoot an apple off the top of someone's head like William Tell. Then I'll be impressed.
Shooting: Now we're talking.
Modern Pentathalon: Quick, name the 5 disciplines. See, no one cares
Fencing: Use a gun - its faster
Tennis: I reluctantly grant tennis a spot in the o-games....barely. Nadal and Ivanovic take gold.
Table Tennis: Asian's dominate.
Weightlifting: At last, something measureable. Lift the most weight, you win.
Track and Field: See WEIGHTLIFTING
Cycling: Nah, we just had the TDF and no one knows who won that right? We're Americans, we drive cars.
Field Hockey: YAWN. Saw it in Atlanta.
Trampoline: C'mon man. What next? Monkey bars? Swing set? THREE LEGGED SACK RACE?
Sychronized Swimming: I'm outta of there

Too bad about the American citizen who was killed today in Beijing by a nutty Chinaman who then killed himself by jumping off a 2-story building (I would have gone much higher to make sure...you know...). Sadly, we have to expect stuff like this in the world today. I also think we will see more sad news from China.

Peace

The Beach

Back at the beach. Janae's been here for 2 weeks and the rest of the crew came down about a week ago. We have a couple of days left to soak up some sun and then it's back to the 115 degree oven that is Las Vegas this time of year. I must confess that I do miss my dogs. Having them in the kennel for a week is rough on them and I'm sure we'll have some rowdy canines to deal with on Saturday but that's cool.

We trekked to Mexico yesterday. Always an interesting experience. Anyone can basically get into Mexico. There's a Mexican official at the border who is usually leaned back on his chair taking a siesta. Going the other way is an entirely different deal. The line to get back to the United States was long, and as anyone knows I don't like lines - I'll pay extra to avoid any type of line. So this guy comes up and says he can get us to the front of the line for $5 bucks each. I slap him a twenty and hurry off behind him up the left side passing all the other creatures in line. We get to the front and he basically pushes us in the front of some people - no special line, it was a scam. We went through the gate and 2 of the border guards point to Alec and Tiffany and tell them they have to go to the back of the line. Instead of leaving them alone in dusty Tijuana, we ALL went to the back of the line. 25 minutes later we were through. What a hassle.

I woke up this morning to some serious giggling. Pony, Jagger and Alec were on the deck with super soaker squirt guns. Apparently there was a couple making out in the jacuzzi and the kids thought it would be funny to douse them with water. "Make it Rain!" I support this sort of tomfoolery 100%.

Golf the other day was tough. We played the always beautiful Aviara. First mistake: Wade makes the time for 7am. We're the first group off the tee. Usually the only thing I'm looking at that hour is the inside of my eyelids. The grass was sopping wet at this time of the day so if you hit into the rough you needed a machete to hack your way out. The good part was that we were done early and went to Mary's to grab some breakfast and then go to the marine corps shop right next door. I wanted to get a purple heart so I would never have to pay for dinner again, but the lady said I needed papers signed by my XO (executive officer). I did hold it in my hand though. I opted for a tee shirt and dog tags.

Semper Fi.

A Thousand Apologies

I'm at the beach and heading to Mexico today so you know that will be good.

I arrived here Friday night. As the good son-in-law, I flew down with Gram. Our travel was not without some funny escapades.... I'm wheeling her through McCarran Airport, during summer, and people are everywhere. They suddenly stop or weave and pushing a wheelchair at my usual amped up pace required serious manuevering skills. Once we got to the security line I was ambushed by TSI. Apparantly grandmothers in wheelchairs with knee replacements are high up on the list of terror suspects given the thoroughness of their search. They took her one way, and said to me, "you go that way...and take ALL the carry on luggage." Not good. I have a hard time getting through security with just my stuff - cpap machine, computer, pocketful of metal doohickeys, bling, glasses, sunglasses...I'm a 2 maybe 3 bin guy. Now chuck in Grammy's stuff - HER oxygen machine, shoes, carryon and what not, and I have the entire conveyor belt locked up with my gear. Whew....Next up, a walk through the metal detector. Didn't pass. Had to take my belt off. It didn't want to fit in the soup bowl so I just rammed it behind the little curtain all the while a dozen eyes were trained on me. Meanwhile, the people behind me are craning their necks, the line is getting longer, and I'm sweating like camel driver. I REPEAT FOR THE WORLD: When was the last time someone who wasn't a middle eastern man hijack an airplane? You have to go back to DB Cooper in the early 1970's. Profile those cats all day long. Stip search them but leave me and grammy alone.

More from the Baja later.