Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
January 31 Talking about MysticalBall.com - The Amazing Mind ReaderQuote MysticalBall.com - The Amazing Mind Reader January 24 Talking about ScripturesScriptures I taught a class in elders quorum on Rich Treasures in the Scriptures back in June of 2006. We dicussed everyones reading habits and the means each of us takes to find time to read the scriptures (or in many cases, not read). In preparing for the lesson, I thought of a way that I could make some time each day to read. In 2005, I had started reading parts of the Old Testament online (from http://scriptures.lds.org) as a means to accomplish the goal LeAnn and I had set to complete the OT by the end of that year. Based on that experience, I decided that I could set an Outlook calendar reminder each work day to read two chapters out of the scriptures from the web site. So I went into the lesson with that being an example of how we can read our scriptures in our busy lives. Then I decided I should practice what I preached. I started reading the Book of Mormon on June 26, 2006. There were plenty of days when I was crazy busy at work, but there was always a reminder popping up on my computer each day. At 7:45 a.m. I get a popup with the days reading assignment-- i.e. http://scriptures.lds.org/en/1_ne/17 18. Then I would click the link and read those two chapters. I would create the links about a month in advance. That part was a bit tedious, but effective nonetheless. When I reached the end of the month, I wrote a message in that popup reminder to "Create schedule for Helaman and 3rd Nephi". It usually took about 10-15 minutes for me to complete my daily assignment. That type of break sure beats a "Smoke Break"! :) I completed the Book of Mormon in this manner on December 28th 2006. Quite fulfilling. Now I have started up on the New Testament so as to keep up with the Gospel Doctrine course for this year. As of today, I am up through Mark 6. Only 216 chapters to go! That should come out to about 21 1/2 weeks. Ill get back to you at the end of June when I finish that one up.  January 19 Talking about Hot toddy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaQuote Hot toddy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Origin of the Mueller surnameHere is a listing of the orgins of each of our (Miller Family) grandparents surnames. I always heard the Hellewell saying was "Starts like Hell, but ends well"-- but this definition gives it a whole new meaning! :) All of these considered, it looks like we are a bunch of Crooked, Bread Making, Clothing Sewing, Holy Well folk! Mueller German (Müller) and Jewish (Ashkenazic): occupational name for a miller, Middle High German müller, German Müller. In Germany Müller, Mueller is the most frequent of all surnames; in the U.S. it is often changed to Miller. Taylor English and Scottish: occupational name for a tailor, from Old French tailleur (Late Latin taliator, from taliare ‘to cut’). The surname is extremely common in Britain and Ireland, and its numbers have been swelled by its adoption as an Americanized form of the numerous equivalent European names, most of which are also very common among Ashkenazic Jews, for example Hellewell (Halliwell) Northern English (Lancashire): habitational name from a place near Manchester called Halliwell, from Old English halig ‘holy’ + well(a) ‘well’, ‘spring’, or from any of the numerous other places named with these elements (see Hollowell). Cumming(s)
January 15 indoeuro.jpgQuote http://www.bartleby.com/61/images/indoeuro.jpg January 12 The weather outside was "UN"delightful.I left my .NET programming class at 4:45 thinking I would get home in time for LeAnn to head out to her Mutual activity. Boy, was I wrong. The blizzard had started about 20 minutes before that in Bellevue and there was a good inch on the ground by the time I got to my car at the park and ride. I headed out on the street that goes back toward the temple where the freeway entrance is. 30 minutes later I have gone the 1/2 mile to the onramp. 20 minutes later I have gone another 20 yards. 40 minutes later I have almost made it the 3/4 mile to 405. This city gets paralyzed when it snows. 405 was suprisingly steady going, and I made it home 45 minutes later. Easily took me over 2 hours to go the 20 miles. There were many who had it much worse than me though. I thought I was home free when I got the call from LeAnn. The storm had been moving south with me and dumped just in time for their activity. They started sending the kids home, then LeAnn got stuck in a chain reaction going up the hill on 288th. The cars in front of her slid out, and she had to stop too. Thus getting stuck herself. I asked if I should come get her but she told me to hold off for a bit and see if she could get out. About twenty minutes later, after not having made any progress, I decided to "Go to the rescue":) It was about 7:45 when I left. I almost crashed trying to turn left from the park and ride street. Its kind of on a hill, so when I started to turn, I headed right into the curb. I bounced off, gave it some more gas, and made slow, slipping progress up the hill to the overpass. PHEW! I headed toward Military road where I planned on turning right to go toward where LeAnn was stuck. But when I got there, the cars were backed up all the way from 288th and not movings. I made a quick decision not to get stuck in that and drove right to the Penny's house which was a couple of blocks down 272nd. I asked them if I could park there and then walk down to get LeAnn. Then I realized they had a couple of mountain bikes, and asked if I could use one. Charles, who is 15 wanted to come with me to help out, so we took off. We had finally made it about a mile up the hill on Military-- speeding past the stuck cars, when we were about 2 blocks away, LeAnn calls me and says someone just towed her out! she comes driving by us the other way, I yell at her to keep going so she doesnt get stuck again. Then we start to ride the mile back in the blizzard (uphill both ways, of course) ;) We are almost back when we tried to help a driver that was going sideways --and he yells at us to get out of the way! Im like, we were planning on helping you... Then he says, oh, in that case... We pushed him about 50 yards, getting slush and brake smoke all over us and he still is sliding sideways. This guy didnt know which way to turn his tires to get straightend out. Ugh. We finally got back and met LeAnn at the Pennys house. We left my car there just in case there was more trouble ahead. We head back toward our house and get stuck right in front of the Park and Ride for 30 minutes! yet another bakaleft his car right in the middle of the road! we are 3 blocks from home and cant get there. So near, yet so far...sigh We need more Utahns up here that know how to drive in the snow January 10 Man who farts in church sits in his own pew.I heard the line above from the "Dirty Jobs" guy. Hilarious! Last month, on the 14th, I got to to Utah for a business trip to help out with processing PhotoWorks orders down at Rastar, one of our product vendors. They asked for a few volunteers to go down and help, with the incentive that people could stay a couple of extra days for some skiing. I didnt need that incentive as I figured I could sneak attack the family down there without letting them know I was coming. The night before I left, however, there was a nasty wind/electrical storm that took down one of the huge cedars right next to our house. (This one was about 4 stories tall) Luckily, it timbered parallel to our backyard fence and didnt tip toward the house, or we could have been in trouble. The only other problem we had was that one section of the wooden fence was pulled away from its post. The power went out at 8:30 Thursday night, and was out for 3 days. LeAnn took the kids up to her parents house where they still had power in Mukilteo. There were a number of people in our ward who didnt have power for over a week. Some even came to our house to shower as we got ours back earlier than most. The airport still was operational so my flight left as scheduled on Friday at 11:30. I got into SLC about 2:00 and was picked up by Nigel, another PhotoWorks employee. It always feels like I am coming home when I get back to Utah. Its a bit surreal at times as its been 13 years now since I lived there. We drove back to the Little America where I had a room for the night-- granted, I was figuring I would find room and board with some family member the next couple of nights, but I knew I would be working late Friday and starting early on Saturday. We got to the Rastar facility at about 3:30. They gave me the tour of their production plant, where they create the cards, calendars and photobooks for PhotoWorks. Then they put me right to work. The idea of sending a few PW employees down was to help them with the mass amounts of Christmas orders they had and to facilitate the expedition of the process. There were three of us there, and I could see how beneficial it was to help prod our orders to the front of the queue. Rastar does the work for a number of our competitors as well and once the assets were completed, they would get stacked by company. One pile would have Sony, another Snapfish, another Fujifilm. As we were placed in the frontlines, so-to-speak, it was easy to grab our orders and process them first. I worked on scanning the barcodes, placing the items in shipping bins and printing out packlists for shipping. This was a very physically demanding process, with constant moving, standing and bending. After doing that for 11 hours straight, I was sore and exhausted. I felt pretty pathetic after about 6 hours when a regular Rastar employee, who was likely over 60 was walking circles around me. It sure gave me an appreciation of my desk jockey job, but a realization of how out of shape I am otherwise. We woke early for another round of torture the following day. I slept about 3 hours and then got up around 7 a.m. Dan Suiter, the Director of Operations at PW picked me up and we drove back to the plant. They hadnt quite ramped up production for the day yet, so he took me to the Cracker Barrell for breakfast. They had quite a spread there. Got back around 9, and then I worked on collating calendars and order processing until about 4. Nigel asked me how I was holding up, and Im sure he could tell I was about to pass out as we decided to call it a day. He kindly drove me out to mom and dads house where I planned to implement my sneak attack! We drove to Midvale and pulled up to their house. He asked me if he should stick around to make sure someone was home, but I told him I could "break in" if no one was around. ;) I went up and tried the door. Shoot, it was locked. So I pressed myself up against the door so no one would be able to see who it was through the side windows and knocked. Thirty seconds later I could hear mom shuffling around the door and sensed that she was trying to peek out the window to see who was there. She opened the door, stared for a couple of seconds, and exclaimed: "TODD!" She was actually holding baby Ian at the time and started to shake and looked like she was going to cry. I told her calmly not to drop the baby as she let me in. Needless to say, she was quite incredulous at my appearance. Mission Accomplished! Ill have to be careful in the future, as I wouldnt want to cause either of my parents to have a heart attack. ;) I fill her in by telling her I have been working in Utah for the past couple of days. She looked quite excited till I told her it was a business trip and not a permanent position. Phase 2: Now mom wants in on the plan... Brooke and Sergio are to arrive soon to pick up Ian. We decide that I will lay on the couch with my coat over my body and hiding my head. When they arrive about 30 minutes later, I jump to the couch for operation "Sibling Freak Out" Brooke is oblivious that someone is lying on the couch. She chats with mom for a minute. I can sense that Sergio is confused as to who is under the coat. I hear him quietly ask mom "Who is that?" This gets Brooke's attention. Mom doesnt say anything, which is my que. I throw the coat off and yell: "HEY THERE LITTLE SISTER!!!" She jumps back in shock and awe. hehe Phase 3: A bit later, Dad gets home. I jump back to my position. He comes upstairs and I can tell dad is looking down trying to figure out who this is. I guess he was baffled as he figured it wasnt Brian, Brad or Brandon based on body shape. I must be that much more muscular than each of them to throw dad off so much. Jumped out again, SUPRISE!! The conspiracy continued as mom wanted me to suprise all the brothers the next day as everyone was coming for an early Christmas dinner on the 17th since mom, dad, Brooke, Sergio, Ian, Brandon and Becca were heading up to Seattle for Christmas. So I went home with Brooke as mom and dad had a date planned previously. It was cool to stay with Brergio (Brooke, Sergio) and get to hang with my new nephew a bit. I taught him how to stick out his tongue. I had learned that at an early age infants are able to recognize facial expressions and soon mimic them. So I worked with him for a bit and soon he was sticking his tongue out at me whenever he saw me. Hilarious! Brooke was quite impressed. The next morning I took the opportunity to shovel their driveway as it had dumped a bunch of snow on Saturday. Just like old times! I forgot how easy it is to break a sweat when it is snowing. Then we drove back to Midvale to go to church with mom and dad. It was funny when dad was at the pulpit doing conducting and he thanked the organist and the conductor for their service. Then he said: "I have to confess that I am in love with the organist" I couldnt see moms reaction as she was behind the organ, but everyone got a good chuckle out of that. Phase 4: The bruthaz were scheduled to arrive at 6:00. I took a different tact this time. I hid in the closet. Mom was supposed to tell them to go hang up their coats when they got there. Then I would pounce! Brad and his family arrived first (quite a shock-- as he would be my #1 candidate for exercising the "Miller Time" rule) The plan was almost foiled when he beelined for the dining table and saw my name on a placard. I heard him say something about "Why is Todd's name here" (I couldnt hear it all from the confines of the back of the coat closet, but later heard that dad exclaimed it away by telling him it was "honorary"- heh. nice one dad) As I am starting to ache from being crouched in the close confines, he finally makes his way to the closet (after seeing Brads room growing up, I know he has quite an aversion to hanging things up! ;)) The door opens, I hand a hanger out from the depths and then pounce..."NEED A HANGER, LITTLE BROTHER!?" He jumped back a bit, but tryed to play it cool. Kelly Jean seemed much more suprised than him though. Phase 5: 10 minutes later. Brandecca (Brandon and Becca) arrive. I get in my position. OUCH! This time, Brads girls usher them to the closet. "You need to hang up your coats. NOW!" I think they enjoyed being in on the joke. Sad thing was that when I jumped out, Becca was the one with the coat. I didnt realize I was about to scare my newest sister-in-law. What kind of man makes his wife hang up her own coat! ;) After her initial shock wore off, she was cracking up. Good she can take a joke, but we know she can dish it out too, as at her house they throw people into the shower. :) Phase 6: Finally Bremily (Brian and Emily) get there. I went back to my hide under the coat on the couch tactic. This one was amusing, because when they came upstairs I could tell Brian was trying to figure it out by doing a headcount. He must have looked around, saw that all of the regular Utahns were accounted for and was quite baffled. I had a crack under the coat where I could see his feet. As he leaned over to pull the coat off, I jumped out for the last time. Brian jumped and almost hit his head on the ceiling. His was my most favorite reaction. It was a great trip and so fun to see everyone there. |
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