Unmoderated Thoughts

We just got back from a fun little family trip to La Verkin and Las Vegas (we tagged along with Morgan, Jordan and Brynlee) and I had a few thoughts that I wanted to post.

• We went to Church this morning in La Verkin and I counted no less than 11 men wearing bolo ties. No offense to the cowboys out there but...
• When we are in La Verkin we stay in my great-grandparents old house (that is now owned by my grandparents). We're so grateful to them for sharing their house and allowing us to take a cheap vacation. When we got there Wednesday night, the house had been toilet-papered and there was toilet paper all over the grass and in the trees and bushes in front of the house. wth? [what the heck, people]
  
• Last month we spent upwards of $1300 keeping our two cars running (25 years and "all most" 320,000 miles between them). We were nervous about driving home tonight because our car is suffering from a couple of misfiring cylinders (and our fuel economy dropped from 30 mpg to 22 mpg). Hopefully, the news tomorrow from the shop will be for an inexpensive fix.
• We took a pleasant drive up to Lava Point in Zion National Park (elev. 7,890). As far as I know, it's the only place in the park you can get to without having to pay the $25 entrance fee. I'll post a couple of panoramic photos that I took from the viewpoint in 6 months or so.
• We went to the Brick Oven in St. George for dinner on Saturday night and sat waiting for a waiter for 20 minutes. I found a manager who was embarrassed we had waited so long and gave us drinks and desserts on the house.
  
• When we got home this evening I checked our sprinkler controller and the date & time had been reset. I went to set the date and the default year setting is 1887 - so I had to scroll up 1 year at a time to 2010. I had no idea they had programmable sprinkler controllers back then.
• I'm reading The Death of a President, November 20 - November 25, 1963 by William Manchester and am loving it. The book essentially spans 5 days from the time President John F. Kennedy and his wife left on their Texas trip to his assassination and State Funeral. From reading this book and biographies or historical accounts of other presidents, I have come to the conclusion that to be president you have to be amazing and have qualities that allow you to connect with people on a personal level while maintaining the bigger picture in view. (I'm not sure if that makes sense, so let me know if I need to elaborate).
• Work is busy (I'm not complaining), but I am looking forward to slower days. Up until this last week, I had 8 straight weeks where I worked 52 hours+. From the looks of things, this schedule will have to continue for a couple more weeks. I'm blessed to have a job that I enjoy working at every day.

As Tigger says, ttfn (tata for now).