The Book of Julia

Julia likes to read scriptures with our family.  Each night we try to let her "read" at least one verse.  We read it a few words at a time and she repeats what we say.

Tonight, Julia pulled out her Book of Mormon and asked who wanted to read a scripture.  She says a few words at a time, and we repeat what she says.  So far, she has a couple of favorite scriptures "memorized":

"And it came to pass . . . . that I Nephi . . . . did go . . . . go to the wilderness."

"And it came to pass . . . . that I father . . . did die."

"And it came to pass . . . that I Nephi . . . go and get the plates."

She's obviously his upon a few of the literary patters of Nephi's writing.  It is also interesting to see which things she is remembering from our reading.  (The second verse she likes is referring to Lehi dying.  Apparently this was pretty memorable.)

Michigan Minutiae

We've been in Michigan for nearly 2 months now, so I thought I'd let you all know what it's like:

- We live in a small town. How small? Between 10pm and 6am, most of the traffic lights in town are turned "off". They blink yellow one way and red the other.

- It's cold here. The lowest we've seen thus far is -4, I think. The wind chill at that point was something like -11. It's snowing right now, and Julia and Shannon have just come inside from playing in it.

- The butter is a different shape here. It has a smaller cross section, and is longer. Why? I have no idea what the purpose is. But it does mean that our butter tupperware doesn't work now, unless you've used at least 2 tablespoons.

- Back to traffic, they've got blinking left turn lights here. Blinking yellow means yield.

- Back to weather, it's cloudy here. Every day. We've been told that there are as many cloudy days here each year as there are in Seattle.

- Lots of houses and apartments don't have overhead lights inside, particularly in the bedrooms. We now own a lot more lamps than when we used to.

Now, back to watching the BYU football game, where UTEP has -40 yards rushing so far. (Their QB apparently doesn't know how to take a 5 yard sack. He avoids those so he can run back and lose 12 yards. I like this guy.)

Bum Jokes

Julia is officially 2 1/2 how, which means we've hit the age where anything can be made funnier by replacing any word with "bum". Examples:

From Blues Clues:

"We just got a letter, we just got a letter, we just got a letter, wonder who it's from"

becomes . . . .

"We just got a bum shake, we just got a bum shake, we just got a bum shake, wonder who it's from"

Or, if you're feeling slightly sacrilegious:

"The Lord commanded Nephi to go and get the plates"

becomes . . . . .

"The bum commanded Nephi to go and get the bum"

While Julia makes the jokes, the rest of us try our best to pretend they aren't funny.

X-ray vision

In my previous post, I made reference to x-ray vision. The typical view of x-ray vision is that it lets you see through or inside something. Let's clear up how x-rays actually work.

X-rays let you see through your skin and look at your bones. This is true. What happens is that the x-ray go through your soft skin that is mostly made up of light elements. Carbon, oxygen and hydrogen are probably the three most abundant elements in your skin. They have atomic masses of 12, 16 and 1 amu, respectively. The x-rays react very weakly with the light elements and hit the x-ray film. Your bones are made up of many of those same elements, but also one more: calcium! Calcium has an atomic weight of 40, so it stops a lot more of the x-rays, leaving a white spot on the film. Ta-da! You can now see your bones.

The problem is in adapting this to other uses, like Superman's x-ray vision. It only works if you're looking through something made of light elements, to see something made of heavy elements, which has a film behind it. But apparently Superman can shoot x-rays out, which travel through walls (note: sheetrock is made of gypsum, which is made of . . . . calcium! (and sulfate ions, and water)) (also, cement or cinderblock is pretty good at stopping x-rays, because cement is made from limestone, which is made of . . . . calcium carbonate!) bounces off of soft people, goes back through the walls and then is processed by his hi-tech x-ray eyes. It just doesn't work.

So, even with fancy x-ray equipment, Julia would have been hard pressed to identify the sugar and paper sucker inside the paper bag. (Sugar is made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and sadly, no calcium.) We're down to exceedingly impressive spelling skills and ESP as the top two explanations. And ESP isn't looking too likely.

Or maybe it was ghosts.

Julia the Psychic

Somehow, Julia seems to have developed special powers. She is constantly coming up with stuff that we can't figure out how she knows it. And this isn't stuff that she could have over heard, or seen on TV. As we are driving towards Target she says "there's Target". Can she read road signs? We just moved, and we went a way to get there that she has never been on. Maybe she can read, or at least recognize the Target logo.

But then puzzle me this one: A few weeks ago we drove past PetSmart. Julia says "can we go to the pet store?" She's never been to a PetSmart before. In St. George we had a PetCo that she loved to go to (its our poor person's zoo). How does she know what these buildings are?

And finally, we went out to eat at A&W a week ago. I don't know that Julia has ever been there. She got a kids meal. We pulled out her food, leaving the treat in the bag. I looked in the bag to see what she got, and told Shannon it was a "t-o-o-t-s-i-e-p-o-p". Shannon told her if she ate her food she would get a treat, and she said "a sucker". I asked her "how many suckers?". She said "two". I asked what color. She said "red". I asked for the color of the other one. She said "blue". But she was wrong. There was one red and one brown sucker. HOW ON EARTH DOES SHE KNOW THESE THINGS??? The bag was never tipped over such that she could see in. I checked, and the bag is not translucent enough to see what is inside when it is held up to the light. Either that girl knows what "t-o-o-t-s-i-e-p-o-p" means, or she has x-ray vision, or she has ESP. I just don't get it.

Small Things

I don't expect everyone one out there to appreciate this, but this afternoon at work I put my pen in my drawer.  Yes folks, that's right, I put my pen in my drawer.  It was a big day for me.

Update from MI

We are live and in Michigan.  Today was the first day of work, and things went fairly well.  Our stuff has not yet caught up to us, so we are still living in a hotel.  But, we managed to get library cards today, so the library is our new best friend in town!  (Because we have oh, so many other friends in town for the library to compete with.)

 

The drive went about as well as any 2,500 miles trek across the country with two small kids can go.  It was long, and very windy.  We did get to stop and see friends/family/former residences important people in Canon City, Lawrence, Olathe, Omaha and Nauvoo.

 

It's a bit early to have much to report at work.  After 1 day, I have a badge and a computer.  There is a phone there, too, but I'm not completely sure if it works yet.  I have my own little cubicle with my name plate already afixed outside!  (And a real desk with an actual drawer!  This is the big time FOR SURE!)  The first week(s) will consist of getting lost in the building, reading and asking dumb questions.

 

Our stuff should arrive here soon, so then we can start getting back to "regular" life.  (aka: life with constant internet access)

Update from the Road

This is a total psych-out blog post. I wrote this like a week ago! We're still driving across the country. I totally fooled all of you! Ha ha!

Incommunicado

96% of our stuff is all packed up. At this point we have beds and a computer. Obviously these are the things we can't live without. Chairs, dishes, food. Meh. Who needs 'em.

Once we tear this thing apart tomorrow we will have very sparse internet access for about 2 weeks, give or take. The rough outline has us pulling out of here Sunday morning. We plan to make stops in Canon City to see my sister, Kansas City to see multiple old friends, Omaha to look at houses and cemeteries (a Blockburger vacation standby), Nauvoo and then finally Michigan. Provided no one goes insane along the trip, we will be in Midland in time for the ward Trunk or Treat on the 30th.

By the way, I know of a great home for sale in St. George, if you know anyone looking to over pay for some property!

Marathon

It's been 2 1/2 weeks since the St. George Marathon. And now that its receded a bit into my memory, it almost seems like a story, not like something I actually did. But, I did it. Here's a recap of the day:

Got up about 4am. Brian (and family) stayed at our house and Chet (and dad) came to pick us up at 4:45. We headed into town to get on a school bus to take us to the starting line. I was 1st! (on the bus). Never forget that folks: I was the very first in the entire marathon to get on that particular bus. The starting line was packed with people. Not surprising since there were 7500 of us. They had food (I had some banana) and music and big fires. The fires were ok, but not super necessary, as it wasn't that cold, even at 5200 ft at 5:30am. This was a theme that would build throughout the day. We packed into the masses for the start. Just behind us were 2 guys running the first of 2 marathons in 2 days. Just in front of us was a woman with a prosthetic leg from about the knee down. It took 5 1/2 minutes from the gun for us to get to the starting line.

The first few miles were very crowded, and very normal. An interesting phenomenon is that when you are running with that many people, it is kinda stinky. 7500 sweating bodies spreading out along the course. With the fastest running doing about 5 minute miles, and the slowest runners doing about 15 minute miles, the pack stretches out quickly. About 2 miles in my friend Luke suddenly appeared next to me, which was very nice. (Particularly since my regular running buddy ditched me at about mile 7.) (To be fair, he did end up beating me by about 20 minutes, so I can't blame him too much. I expected him to beat me, but figured we would stick together until 15 or 20 miles, and then he would get about 5-10 minutes on me over the last half dozen miles.) Luke and I stuck together until about mile 20.

After so many Saturdays running all summer long, and doing a number of them on the course, it kinda just felt like a regular Saturday morning run, only about 7300 extra people showed up. I hit the half way mark at 1:59, which was essentially where I wanted to be. They have people with balloons and signs that run at a designated pace to help you out. The 4:00 guy "balloon boy" as we called him was safely a few hundred yards behind us for much of the first 2.5 hours of the race. If only it would stay that way. . . .

Turns out, it was warm. St. George experienced some triple digit days around the 1st of October this year. While it wasn't that hot at 8 in the morning, it was still too hot for running. As things heat up, everyone slows down. Balloon boy caught up around mile 18 or 19, and officially dropped me at about mile 20. Also, there is a stretch of road here in Southern Utah that hates me. On the marathon course, it is the stretch from mile 20 to 23. It is the steepest downhill, mixed with short uphill. Oh, and you've been running for 3 hours when you get there. And it was hot. Luckily, at this point the aid stations were every mile. My routine was: 1 cup of water on my head, followed by 1 cup of gatorade to drink, followed by 1 cup of water mixed between my head and drinking. I slowed down a lot during that stretch. I only stopped moving forward once, which was to stretch for 30 seconds or a minute.

I'll admit that there was a nagging though in the back of my head that I could stop at any aid station or ambulance along the way and just say "I'm done". And it would all be over. I can't say it was some sort of supreme victory of will that kept me going, but it was just what you do. You keep running. More than anything else, that's what marathon training is. You train yourself to just keep going, hour after hour.

The extreme hydration routine actually made me start feeling better, and the last 3 miles went better than the 3 proceeding them. The last 3 miles is also where there are actually people along the course. The bibs all have the runners first name on them, so it was interesting when people would call out my name to encourage me. The last 3 miles were a very interesting experience. Exhaustion. In every conceivable way. Muscles tightening up, brain shutting down, people cheering you on, and still nothing to do but to keep running.

I hit 25.2 miles right at 4 hours according to my watch, so I told myself that surely I could do just one more 10 minute mile. On through downtown St. George I went. I passed quite a few people over the last couple of miles. (Mostly those who had passed me half an hour before, I think.) In the end, I finished in 4:10:00. (That's 2585th place, out of 5694 finishers and about 7400 starters.) 26.2 miles at 9:32 per mile.

Turns out, it was the hottest St George Marathon ever. I'm not sure that anyone beat their expectation for the day. You'll have to quiz others about my state immediately after finishing. I was too exhausted to think or remember much. Physically, I did pretty well though. I could walk around reasonably well later that day, and could certainly move better than Brian the next day. For the next 10 days or so any time I took even a few steps running, I could feel it in my knees. It was over 6 miles further than I had ever run before in my life.

So, that was my marathon. Will I ever do another? I'm not sure. For now, I'm happy with a few weeks "off" where all I have done is quit a job, pack a house, plan a move and now I get to drive across the country.