From the archives: I love missionaries!!!

From time to time, I add posts from my old myspace blog onto here, so I can keep them all together. I think I only have a couple of more entries to go. Here's one from almost three years ago about seeing some missionaries at the Olive Garden by where I live.

Sunday, April 09, 2006
I love missionaries!!!Current mood: amused Category: Life
Amy and I went out to dinner last night after walking my dog, Jewely, on a four mile walk along the Vallejo waterfront (we're getting ready for the Young Women's third-year hike in June). We were hungry and decided to go to the Olive Garden. Towards the end of our meal, Amy said, 'Hey, there's a missionary walking by himself.' For those that don't know, our missionaries are always supposed to be in close proximity of their companion - to keep an eye on each other, sort of. We soon found a group of missionaries leaving from another area. As our table was right by the walkway, they passed by us. As the last one left, I said something like, 'Bye Elder'. He kept walking, then must have realized what was said, and he came back to say hi to us. They were from another area (Roseville) and went down to the temple in Oakland to see a family sealed, and were now on their way back. Missionaires in California are used to not seeing a lot of Mormons around, especially if they came from Utah, so when they meet some members, they're always happy to say hello. It was fun, and I love missionaries and the sense of brotherhood (and sisterhood) that we share in the Church!
9:48 AM
1 Comments
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Dragon_Fire

Oh yea. Nothing like running into the missionaries!!!!! Life is great. It's such a beautiful, wonderful day.....with lots of love
Posted by Dragon_Fire on Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 1:24 PM

Pet peeve

OK, for those that don't know (like evidently most people at work), Windows Vista is an operating system, how you're able to operate (get it) and interact with your computer. It doesn't create documents.

Windows Office is a suite of software including Word and Excel. It does create documents.

They're different. So stop saying your work computer can't open up a new document created with Vista. Vista doesn't create documents.

Thanks, had to get that off of my chest.

So my nephew got stabbed on Sunday...

I was talking to my mom on Sunday night when she got a call on the cell phone (I was talking to her on the land line). I could tell she got upset with something and then told me quickly "Timmy's been stabbed. I've gotta go!" I called my brother and during that conversation, he got called as well.

So here I was 300 miles away wondering how badly he was stabbed and wondering what was going on. I finally found out that he went to a show to see a few bands play. He didn't even like the bands, but some friends from high school wanted to get together, their first time getting together since he graduated in June. He went to use the restroom and when he came back out, he noticed one of his friends had been punched, so he went to check it out. A group of gang bangers started attacking him too, and he thought he got punched in the back, but realized later he was stabbed. They took him to the hospital and luckily it missed any organs. It got in about 2 1/2 inches, which evidently isn't very far, but looking at a ruler right by me now, that be deep enough for me.

He's doing fine now, and the doctor told him that now he has a scar to impress the ladies. It's scary to think though just how quickly life can change for you. I thank God he wasn't hurt more. He's got long crazy hair, which might scare some people, but he's a good kid.

Missing Disneyland

One of the problems with having a season pass to Disneyland is my constant desire to go there. In previous years, I'd go to Disneyland and really miss it after I left, but I wouldn't get back there for a year and a half to two years. It wasn't the cost of the tickets, but hotel rates. So now that I get the discount with my brother, I can go there more often. But now it's the cost of transportation and the time it takes to get down there that's the detriment. Plus the fact that I do want to eventually buy a house, and if I waste all of my money on hotel rooms and food down there, it'll take even longer.

But still, I miss it. I have some friends going next weekend and I'd just love to go with them. I really wish I lived even a couple of hours closer to there.

No soda

I've decided that as the first stage to losing weight, I am going to not drink soda this year. At least this year. The carbonated water, the high fructose corn syrup, all of it just isn't good for me. So I'm cutting it out. The only soda I really like is Dr. Pepper, Root Beer, and Sprite (and similar products like Mr. Pibb and 7-Up, to a lesser extent). I've never been a cola fan.


I did make an exception that I will drink a couple of root beers when the new A&W restaurant opens up in town. I just have to enjoy a couple of those root beers. The good thing is that root beer is made with regular sugar and not the high fructose corn syrup, which is evidently very bad for you. It's just a limit of two, though, and then it's done. And speaking of root beer, I did already accidentally break this ban when offered a root beer float at FHE one night. It was only afterwards that I realized what I had done.

Now along with that kind of comes a ban on fast food eateries. Not really a complete ban (obviously, I'm going to places like A&W when it opens), and when travelling, it's hard sometimes not to go somewhere. But I'm avoiding it as much as possible, and when I do go, I'm not getting french fries. which are dang good but so bad for you.

My biggest test so far was when I went down to Disneyland a week and a half ago. I forgot how much I savored a big bottle of Dr. Pepper on a long drive. I had to compensate with something else, as water alone wasn't doing it. So I settled for chocolate milk. I know that's not a good alternative, but it helped me get past not having the soda. It also helped that Disneyland doesn't offer Dr. Pepper.

So there I am. I still need to work on other portions of this. I need to stop with the chocolate milk as well, and I need to work on portions. Some coworkers are starting a contest - you put in $50 and whoever loses the most weight by percentage of body weight wins and gets all the money. I don't care so much about getting the money, but losing the money might be the motivation I need to actually do something.

Finding my freshman friends

I had the greatest freshman ward at BYU. We were all very close and ALWAYS ate all together in the Morris Center Cafeteria. We'd take up a whole table, and as some would leave, others would come in. It was always so much fun to go down for dinner, and I really hated the times I'd be late and have to sit with just a few people from the ward instead of at least 50. But of course, over the years, we've all grown apart, and only one of them I knew where she was (since she is one of my best friends).

Any way, I have now been able to find many of them on Facebook. I've been on Facebook so long, that I was on before most of them were even on, so when I searched for any of them, they weren't there. Now they seem to have found Facebook, but unless they do the new trend of including their maiden names, it's hard to find some of the girls.

But with the prominence of the Romney family, I was able to use my contact with Josh Romney, who is the son of Mitt Romney and was also in my freshman ward, to find others. Since he's well known from his father, I knew people would be likely to find him on Facebook, and now I have about twenty friends from my BYU 19th ward. I love Facebook! It's been so great remembering the great times of our first ward away from home

If I could do it over again...

I keep thinking recently that if I could go tell myself what to study in school, I would tell myself to study archaeology. I have always been fascinated with finding out old lost civilizations or figuring out what an area was like even 50 years ago.

One of my favorite places to think about now is the area that used to be Montecello, CA, but is now at the bottom of Lake Berryessa. I love to hear stories about how when the water level is really low, you can see the bridge that used to go into town. Or to see the pictures in our lobby at work that show how the county used to look, and the area of town where our work building is, but 80 years ago. That sort of thing fascinates me, and I love to see shows on the Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, or History Channel where they show you some of the secrets of ancient civilizations. It would be so interesting to be able to study an area and determine what it used to be like.

But alas, I instead will have to watch the work of others and be fascinated by their discoveries.

Celebrating my birthday!

My birthday was on Tuesday, and I decided to take advantage of Disney's offer of a free ticket on your birthday. Now, I knew when my niece wanted to go to Disneyland for Christmas that I wanted to go for my birthday, and then Disney offered this promotion, so I decided to get a season pass to Disneyland.

Now, when you get a premium season pass (no black out dates), then you have a few options for what you get. Since you don't need the ticket to get into the park, you can either get about four fast passes, get a ticket for later in the year, or get a gift card for the cost of a one park ticket. So that's what I did.

I went home to visit my parents on Saturday and had a little birthday party with my parents and my brother's family. It was fun to play with my nephews. It was just a quiet get together, but it was fun to be with my family. Then the next day it was off to Anaheim.

I have always wanted to go to Disneyland by myself. Not that I don't like going with my family, or with friends, but I always wanted to experience it on my own. Doing what I wanted to do, not running around if I didn't quite feel like it. And it was awesome! I decided to do a lot of rides and attractions I wouldn't usually get to do with others I go with. I went to Tom Sawyer Island, I rode on Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, I saw a performance of Billy Hill and the Hillbillies. I spent a little extra time to ride up front in the monorail and spent a lot of extra time to ride up front on the tender of the Disneyland Railroad. It was so much fun! I got to ride on whatever ride I wanted to.

I look forward to going with friends again soon, but would definitely love going by myself again. Now that I've been on everything I've wanted to go on (other than the Davy Crockett canoes, which I still haven't been on), the next time I go by myself will really be the time I can do whatever I want to do, with no restraints. Hopefully I'll have time to just sit down and listen to some of the much in New Orleans Square or Main Street.

It was a great birthday, and a time to think of some things on my own. You wouldn't think someone who lives by themselves would need that, but I did - free from work, church, or doggy responsibilities. Maybe in one of my next posts, I'll talk about my 'magical moment' at the end of my stay.




I love Tigger.......


...even though I look more like Winnie the Pooh. Oh bother!

DON'T buy a Honda

So, I took my two year old car in today for it's scheduled maintenance, which was already going to be overpriced at $147 for a tire rotation and and oil change when they called and said all the breaks needed to be done. So now I'm staring at a $700 bill. I foolishly said yes and when I called back ten minutes later to say no, I'll take it to somewhere else where I only need to give them an arm (not an arm and a leg like they want at the Honda dealership) they conveniently were too far into the process and couldn't go back. Next time, I'm buying American, like I should have in the first place. At least I'll be supporting the American economy then.

So much for my church history trip.

EDIT: The total came to $740, and that's with a 10% parts and labor discount because I complained enough. Ridiculous!

They keep me up too late...

All day yesterday I kept thinking, 'I'm supposed to go somewhere tonight' but I couldn't remember where. I stopped by the mall and got some calendars on clearance and as soon as I drove into my parking space at home, Amy called me. And then it hit me - I said I'd go to the temple with the Young Single Adults! So I told them I'd be there in ten minutes. I had to rush inside, change clothes, grab my temple bag, and take the dogs out to quickly do their business. Then I headed to the Vallejo chapel, only to realize that they must have met at the Benicia chapel, and called again to say it'd be another 10 minutes for me. Anyway, we got there, and I planned on assisting those doing baptisms for the dead. They ended up not really needing my friend Jill and I, but we still enjoyed ourselves.

Then afterwards we went to Fentons. Since I hadn't got a chance to eat dinner, I ordered a burger. But then I really wanted ice cream, so I ordered that too. $20 (since Amy chipped in $5 to help me eat the ice cream). Ouch! But it was good! And then I finally got home - at midnight! I really need sleep! Oh, and I drove up with the Youngs. They're so much fun!!!