Pumpy-Kins

It's that time of year again. If you recall, last year Shannon and I created Chester our hand-turkey-Thanksgiving-o-lantern. This year, we went a little more classic Halloween style. (Incidentally, that brings my lifetime pumpkin carving total up to 2, I believe.) I'll let Shannon post pictures of hers, but here are a few shots of mine:

And then we started having fun with the camera:

And then we decided to go extra freaky with the camera work. I think it's pretty cool.

Taxes

Physics man (not what he calls himself, but what I call him) had an interesting post about bad graphs and tax plans today. Really, it's about bad graphs, but the example is a graph about the proposed tax plans of McCain and Obama. So, I've got a political question for the better informed people out there.

As I understand it, Obama wants to raise taxes for the very wealthy and cut taxes for the non-very wealthy. I don't know if this would yield a net increase or decrease in revenue for the government, but clearly they would at least partially cancel each other out. Obama would also increase spending in some areas (health care) while decreasing it in others (military).

McCain, on the other hand, wants to cut taxes for everyone. This will clearly produce less income for the government. What is his plan for decreasing spending to match this decrease in revenue?

In general, I wish candidates would take at least a short break from promising us everything but the kitchen sink and spend a minute or two explaining what programs they plan to give the ax to. I realize it's unpopular, and unfortunately the presidency is all about being a popularity contest, not about making good (and sometimes tough or unpopular) decisions. So, for either candidate, what fat are they going to cut out of the budget?

(I can already hear certain people out there salivating over the chance to say "NOTHING! They both want the government to just grow and grow and spend and spend.) (Hey, I'm not saying you're not right.)

Halloween

Alright folks. Halloween is in 3 days, but our (old) ward party is in just over 48 hours. I have no costume. I don't feel that I need one, but I'm not necessarily opposed. These are our assets (Italicized items have been added since the original post):

• Junk laying around my house
• My wardrobe (pretty boring)
• Shannon's wardrobe (but I'm not cross dressing)
• A clown nose
• Glasses (just plain glass lenses, so I can wear them w/o bumping into things)
• Long hair (I haven't cut it in a month, so it's pretty shaggy)
• Long beard (well, long for me. Again it hasn't been touched in a few weeks, so it's long.)
• A beret (actually from France!)
  
• Suspenders
• Straw Hat
• A baby
  

Any costume ideas?

If I listed it in the assets, its pretty much free game. So if you can come up with a costume that involves cutting my hair weird, I'm open to it, provided I can get it back to something reasonable afterward. Same thing with the beard (hmmm . . . I could shave half of it off and go as a Nair commercial?) The current top idea is just to slick up my hair, put on the glasses and pretend to be someone else. Hey, it worked for Clark Kent. (Yes, I realize that he slicked up his hair and took off his glasses, but the principle still applies. Comb hair + adjust glasses = perfect disguise.)

p.s. As an interesting note, I can't currently shave my beard completely off. I can trim it down pretty short, but I simply don't have any sort of razor at home of any kind that I could shave it all off with.

Tooth!

I found it, so I get to report on it first. Julia's got a tooth! There will be no photos, because it's near impossible to get a finger in there, let alone a camera. I haven't seen it myself, but I've felt it. While watching the football game, she was gnawing on my finger and I thought it was a bit sharper than normal. So she's got at least a part of a tooth poking through on the bottom.

I choose to blame the tooth for her super cranky behavior last night, and not the fact that dad was left alone at home to take care of her.

Vibrate

I just realized that my cell phone was on vibrate. I put it there on Tuesday when I was at Shannon's choir performance. You know, in the extremely, super unlikely event that someone would call me during the performance. 3 days later, I realized it was still on vibrate. And I missed zero calls because of it. Why? Because, as it turns out, my phone has not sent or received a call or text message in 3 days.

But I do use it every day as both an alarm clock and calculator.

Funny thing is that 15 years ago, that's what I used my watch for . . .

BCS Busting

No, this isn't about Utah, Boise State, TCU, Tulsa, Ball State or BYU going to a BCS bowl. Each year I root for the situation that would cause the greatest embarrassment to the BCS system. 2 (and only 2) undefeated teams from BCS conferences meeting in the championship is the worst. It means that the BCS system worked that year. So, I root for things like 5 undefeated teams (2004), or 2-loss 'national champs' (2007).

So, here are the top two methods of making the BCS look (even more) foolish this year:

The first possibility is hard for me to root for, because it involves both Utah and Boise State being undefeated and ranked in the top 12, but Boise State not getting a spot in a BCS bowl. It's not that I have a problem with either team doing well, it's just that it would require Utah to beat BYU which I simply cannot root for. Recognizing, however, that my rooting has no effect on anything, should BYU lose, this would be a potential silver lining on an otherwise terrible day. Tulsa and Ball State remaining undefeated would be nice, too

Scenario number 2 involves Oregon State and USC both winning their remaining games. This would leave Oregon State at 9-3 and USC at 11-1. These would be the only 1 loss teams in the Pac-10, making Oregon State the Pac-10 champ and punch their ticket to the Rose Bowl by virtue of their head to head victory. Then, I need top-10 teams to start losing, and quickly in order that USC (currently #5 in BCS standings) end up in the MNC (Mystical National Championship) game without winning their own conference. This would likely require something like Missouri winning the Big 12, and then the SEC to beat each other up, or perhaps a freakish Minnesota Big 11 championship. Maybe these things aren't too likely, but it could happen.

So, what other potential fiascos are out there waiting for the BCS? What are you rooting for?

Running

I've taken up running again. Since moving to St. George, my main sources of exercise have been basketball and cycling to work, but neither has happened much for a long time. My ward just couldn't get behind basketball, and I tired of the low turnout, so I quit that. Cycling only works in spring and fall. I quit cycling early in the spring because of Julia's imminent arrival (no one wants to get the phone call at work that the baby is coming and then have a 20 minute ride in the hot sun to get there!). Then for the fall, I moved further away from work. It would be 30 + minutes to get there now. So, I'm running. This is also spurred by Brian, who has been running lately. I've had a good time reminding him how I used to run much faster than he does, but really, I know that he could out run me right now.

Yeah, health, weight, etc. None of those are good enough to get me running again. But get me to be competitive w/ Brian and suddenly, there I am. So I'm running . . . but slowly. Really, I'm out of shape. But, thankfully, it gives me something to blog about. I've been twice. Here's the update:

Trip 1:
My plan at the start is to run for 20 minutes. I set my watch for 10 minutes and run away from my house, and then when the time is up, I turn around and come home. The first trip led me 1.07 miles away (all stats are from Google Earth, unless I say otherwise) with a net elevation gain of 124 feet. The return trip was only 1.01 miles; I didn't quite make it back in my 10 minutes. At that point, my lungs hurt, and I felt pretty bad. That's 9:37 per mile. Ouch. I knew it would be bad, but I didn't think it would be that bad.

Trip 2:
Same plan. Same route. I came up just short on the way out, but more than made up for it on the way back. Instead of coming up a half dozen houses short of home, I made it a block and a half past home before the 10 minutes was up. And, I feel tired, but not ready to die. I could actually speed up at the end. A lot of the improvement is just from not going too fast at the beginning. Anyway . . . that's 1.02 miles out and 1.11 back. 2.13 miles total for 9:23 per mile. 14 second improvement. So that means . . . . about 3 weeks and I can run 6 minute miles, right?

Sometime soon I'll have to take out my GPS and check it against my straight line approximations from Google Earth for distances. At least I know that the numbers I get from Google Earth are minimums for distance, so if anything, I'm faster than I think.

Yuck

Thoughts from a disappointing football game last night:

- BYU did not play terribly. It was disappointing, but not terrible, but not good either.

- TCU is better than 24th in the nation. They will move up in the rankings, and deserve to.

- Let's look objectively at BYUs games so far this year:

• Northern Iowa: a pretty good I-AA team, which translates to a mediocre to poor I-A team. BYU played well, but not great against them. BYU looked like a ranked team, perhaps, but not a top-10 team.
  
• Washington: a winless I-A team. BYU won by a point. The closest Washington came to beating anyone else so far is a 7 point loss to Stanford. Is Stanford ranked?
• UCLA: a poor Pac-10 team. (Sorry, that was a bit redundant.) BYU absolutely crushed them. Beating a poor team 59-0 is just what a top 10 team would do.
• Wyoming: a bad WAC team. Wyoming has been outscored in conference play 153-23. They are 2-5 with a 1 point win over Ohio and a 3 point win over I-AA N.D. State. They lead the nation in turnovers. Beating them isn't exactly a big accomplishment.
• USU: a bad WAC team. BYU looked ok against them, but not like a top 10 team.
• UNM: an ok MWC team. 21-3 victory, that probably should have been 21-10, because that was a pretty cheap holding call.
• TCU: 32-7 loss to a good team, where BYU never looked like they had a chance.

- My point is, the UCLA game is the only game where BYU has looked like a top 10 team. Even before the TCU game, BYU was either a top 10 team that had played a bad game 3 or the last 4 weeks, or they were about a #20 team that had played one excellent game where everything went their way. TCU confirmed that the latter is more accurate.

- I give Bronco credit for going for it on 4th down. Rather than trying to kick a few field goals and make the score look a bit better, he played for the only chance his team had to actually come back and win. He played to win, rather that to keep himself from looking foolish for missing a 4th and whatever.

- If Utah had been in Fort Worth last night, there is little chance they would have won. I've seen a couple of Utah games this year and I know what we all know: Utah plays just good enough in 1 half to make up for their lapses in the other half. Utah has not played only 1 game against a I-A opponent with a winning record at this point (Air Force) and Air Force has 4 wins against SUU, Wyoming, Houston and SDSU.

- I've only seen 1 TCU game, but I'm ready to say that they are the best team in the conference.

King Louie

I hereby command everyone to not misunderstand me.

Utah has a very good kicker named Louie Sakoda. He does both their punting and their place kicking, and he is better than average at both. But people (fans?) have taken lately to calling him "King Louie" and that's where it starts getting weird. I don't know about the rest of you, but when I hear "King Louie" I think of the Jungle Book, and the orangutan named King Louie. It doesn't make me think of any kings of France because it isn't followed by a number, and besides, they spelled their names Louis, not Louie.


Now, I generally frown on the over-sensitivity of some people over things like this, but we must separate out how the world ought to be, from how it really is. In a perfect world, you could give Louie Sakoda the title of "king" because you think he's the best kicker around, and it would be ok, because we would all know that you're not implying anything else. But, it seems potentially problematic to give someone a nickname that is going to cause some people to think that you've named him after a big monkey. (So my sister doesn't have to clarify, orangutans aren't monkeys, they're apes, but again this isn't about what is true, it's about what people think.)

To sum it up: I don't have a real opinion on Sakoda. He's a good player, and I've never heard of him doing anything stupid or jerk-like, so I assume he's a decent person. I'm not accusing those supporting the King Louie nickname of anything at all, but if it were me, I'd think twice before naming a person after an ape.

Qwest sucks

Still no internet at home.

We've had Qwest DSL for 2 years. When we moved down here, we set it up, it took one rather painless phone call and it worked without fail for 2 years. So, when moving, we figured, why change? They're no cheaper (or more expensive) than anyone else, so I made a phone call make the switch.

Phone call #1: I talked to 2 people, the latter of whom had big problems getting the addresses to work out right, but we eneded with the agreement that we were cancelling our phone, moving our internet and it would work by Thursday (last Thursday).
Time of Phone Call: 1 hour 2 minutes.

Phone call #2: Shannon called on Thursday (last Thursday) to see at what time she could expect the internet to be working. She was told that our phone line was connected, but that there was no order for DSL, and, better yet, that DSL was not available at our address.
Time of Phone Call: 20 minutes.

Phone call #3: After Shannon called me to tell me of phone call #2, I called Qwest to see what the deal was. The confirmed that the phone was hooked up, but DSL was unavailable. I pointed out that three people had already confirmed that DSL was available, and then after looking harder, it was decided that we really could get DSL after all. We started working through the process, when I was put on hold, and then the call dropped. Maybe it was my cell phone's fault, but given the increasing load of evidence pointing to Qwest's incompetence, I'm voting on it being their fault.
Time of Phone Call: 15 minutes.

Phone call #4: I called back, and re-explained my problem. The other fun part is that I get to talk to 2 people per phone call. I explain my issue, and then I get transferred to "loyalty" where I go through the whole thing over again, get put on hold for ridiculous periods of time, and they "fix" the problem. This phone call was no different. It started at work, I drove home, and it continued at home for a long time. The call ended with the agreement that the phone would be canceled, and DSL hooked up. They were to call back in "30 to 60 minutes" to tell me my new account number, and tell me when I could expect the DSL.
Time of Phone Call: 45 minutes.

Phone call #5: They didn't call back. So, Friday, I called again. Lo and behold, upon calling, it was 'confirmed' for me that I had orded phone, but no internet. I once again informed them that we wanted NO PHONE and YES DSL. It took a long time. This phone call once again hypothetically ended with the understanding that we would have no phone, but we would have DSL to be hooked up by Thursday (next Thursday)
Time of Phone Call: 53 minutes.

Summary: Qwest is utterly incompetent. If you can get a service hooked up, it might work well for you, but good luck getting there. I keep telling myself that it should only take one competent employee to get things sorted out and then I won't have to worry about it any more. Unfortunately, we seem to have hit 12 incompetent employees in a row. We'll let you know on Thursday if it works.

P.S. Shannon hates not having any internet, as she can't read blogs, or talk to anyone. But her phone works, so you can call her if you're bored. Or, if you live near by, you can go visit. She'd love it.

Football game

I watched a game last night, and I won't say which one. But I will give a small tip for any fans out there wondering what to do at the end of a game. If you are ranked in the top 20, playing at home, against an unranked opponent, in a non-conference game, against a non-rival, in the middle of the season, and you're a double digit favorite, and then you win on a last second field goal, DO NOT RUSH THE FIELD. Rushing the field is to be a rare and special event. Big upsets, conference titles, knocking off ranked rivals, knocking off top 10 opponents while unranked.

Watch out Utes

Tuesday night I had a dream. I don't remember the real point of the dream (do dreams have a point?), but I remember one little tidbit. In my dream, someone told me that Utah put up 45 points on Oregon State. Unfortunately, the Utes gave up 72. Be warned. There is a non-zero chance that my dream will come true.

Interesting, I think, that even in my dreams, sports scores jump to my attention and stick in my memory. Again, the dream was about a slew of other stuff, and the Utah/OSU score was just something I saw on the computer screen.

We moved! This has several results:

1. We've been cleaning our old apartment a lot
1a. We're too tired to blog.
2. We have no internet access at home..
2a. We couldn't blog even if we had the energy.

We should have internet access at home tomorrow (I think) and as we get our new lives sorted out our blogging should probably return to it's old levels.