30 years.

Well, the 30 year reunion wasn't as much fun as I remember the 20 year one being, but it was still nice. The first evening we met out in front of the school. If you've ever seen any of the High School Musical movies, then you've seen the courtyard in front of my school, that's where the movies were filmed. The building's not the same, they tore it down and rebuild it over a decade ago, but like in the movie, it really is named East High School. Of course we weren't the Wildcats, we were the Leopards, but they even kept our school colors, red & white. Anyway, moving on before I get too narcissistic about the movies, as I walk down the stairs from the parking lot to cross the street one of my classmates is already standing at the corner, waiting for the light to change. I walk up to him and he sticks out his hand, introduces himself and comments on how he decided he was just going to introduce himself to everyone, since after 30 years most of us wouldn't recognize each other. Good thinking, and adopting his philosophy made things easier as I mingled. As I walked up to the crowd, I recognized Tracy immediately, she was with another classmate, and unfortunatley I've forgotten her name. Looking at the pictures I took in back then, we noticed she wasn't in any, and figured out why. It seems that she and Tracy and Gail (who was also there) had a falling out in our senior year, and she was persona non grata in ouor group. Which also explains why I didn't know her as well as the others. The only other person that made it from our group was Annette, who I also recognized immediately. I had really hoped my best friend, Ed, would make it, he had said that he planned on it, but he wasn't there. 10 years ago there were about 12 people from our little group, this year only 4 made it. Which is why it wasn't as much fun as the last one, but the 4 of us still had a great time. The first night we just sat around and chatted, mingled a little bit. The second night was a more formal affair at the Marriott Hotel. I mingled a lot more, talked to some of the parents of students I had when I taught at Churchill Jr. High, and some of the other people I knew a little more peripherally (if that's a word?). I also ran into an ex-student who was working for the portrait studio that was taking pictures for the event. We had dinner, then they had a raffle where the number right before mine, and right after mine was called, but mine wasn't. But that's ok, because the one person in our group that lives in another state won a gift certificate to Emigration Market, a locally owned, independent grocery store, which she gave to me since she wouldn't get a chance to use it. Then they gave out the awards. It was kind of a get to know your classmates kind of thing, the MC would ask something like "Who has more than 3 kids?" and everyone who did would raise their hands, then he'd up the number until only one person had their hand up. (by the way, 9 was our maximum). He asked about grandchildren (Annette won that one with 7), living closest to the school, farthest, most moves and things like that. We also discovered that there was one of our classmates that not only lived in the same house as when she was in high school, but still owned the Jeep she drove. (She lives just down the street from where I lived.) The really funny part was the gift certificates they were giving out. (Those of you who weren't in SLC in the 70's please bear with me.) $50 gift certificate to Saans Photography, $50 gift certificate to The Chalk Garden, $50 to Wolfe's Sporting Goods and $50 to Rick Warner Ford were among the ones they gave out. We were surprised that they include Grand Central or Bill & Nada's. (Get it now you SLC'ers?) I didn't figure it out until the 4th gift certificate, when I looked over at Gail and asked "Hey, didn't Wolfe's close down a long time ago?" Yes, my friends, they were giving out certificates to businesses that no longer existed, but were around when we were in school. That was a lot of fun. The re-creation of the Hawaiian dance from our Senior Class Hello Day Assembly the guys did, with topless 48 year olds, was somewhat disturbing and my friends and I were completely absent in the photo slide show they did, so that had limited appeal. We did laugh at the thought of us brining my photos up and saying, "Now for the seemier side of things..." But we decided not to. Overall it was an enjoyable time, it was nice to see some of the people who were such a big part of my life so long ago, catch up with what they were doing and promise to, if nothing else, see each other again in 10 more years, at the 40th.

AARP, the finger and Olex Manufacturing....

First of all, I'm oficially old. Or at lease I will be in two years when I'm eligible for an AARP card (American Association of Retired Persons). Yeah, my older brother told me that he got us a good deal on our hotel room for our Boston trip by using his AARP discount. Nice! The really nice thing is that we get free walker rentals while we stay there.....

Today I spent the afternoon at a church camp for abused and neglected kids. It was the last full day of their summer camp for these kids, and they celebrate with kind of a carnival. I was in charge of the huge bouncy slide. It was a lot of fun, except for helping to set up and tear down the blow-up slide and obstacle course. Those things are heavy. I mean really heavy. It took 4 of us to roll the smaller one up onto the truck, we had at least 8 working on the slide. And I'm sore. But it's all worth it when a 9 year old whose life has not been the best looks at you and thanks you, by name, for being there so they could play on the slide.

Anyway, on my way to my brother's house to ride up to the camp with a group from church, this curly-haired witch in a white 4-door Nissan zips a right turn through a red light directly in front of me, causing me to slam on my brakes and come within inches of her bumper. Now, normally this wouldn't warrant even mentioning on here, even though there was absolutly nobody behind me, meaning this was to get one car ahead. No, this warrants mentioning because even though I did not blare my horn at her, even though I did not flash my lights or shake my fist or curse, swear or flip her the bird, she flipped me off when she turned right a block later and I passed her. Yeah, she flipped me off, like instead of coming close to her back bumper I should have slammed into a parked car rather than startle her. I don't know what her motivation was, but I swear I didn't honk, wave my hand at her or curse (other than under my breath - the window was up, she wouldn't have heard if I did). Again, it seems I have no right to drive on the roads getting in the way of these other, more important, people.

And finally, on the ride up to the camp we start talking about Opie, Obama and Oprah, and my older brother decides that to bercome a mover and a shaker, he's going to change his name to start with an "O" like the rest of these people. Olex. Well, as we're driving around the reservior we notice that someone is having a HUGE barbeque, it happens to be the Outdoor Retailers Convention. This is where the logo comes in, because bro wants to crash the barbeque, telling them that we're from Olex Manufacturing. Well, it was funny at the time, and I had fun making up the logo, so I just had to put it on here. And that's it for today, except REUNION TOMORROW!

CSI & TT

Want to know what NOT to do while watching CSI? Removing sausages from their casing, that's what. I'm preparing some sausage to go into the spaghetti sauce I'm making and I look up at the TV and I swear the coroner is doing the exact same thing I am, except it ain't Johnsonville sausages HE'S working with. Anybody want some spaghetti sauce, it doesn't sound appetizing anymore.

This weekend I went up to the property with my brothers and my dad. I wasn't sure my little brother was going to go, so my dad and I planned to go it alone. So he shows up in his recently purchased Audi TT Quattro. Or is it Audi Quattro TT? Either way, I look at him and ask "You're going to take that up the dirt road?" He gets this little kid caught in the cookie jar look on his face and says "No, I was hoping your older brother would come down and pick us up." (My older brother was already at the property, and it was only 3 miles to the bottom of the dirt road). Well, that was all fine and dandy, except that the car has only 2 seats, my little brother wanted to go and we weren't going to strap him on the trunk. So, I call my little brother up and ask him if we can go in his Jeep because dad's car is only a 2 seater. Well, actually, I think I started off the conversation with "You owe me big time, I was going to get the chance to drive dad's Audi TT!" My brother, not wanting to hear me bitch and moan about my missed opportunity for the next 20 years (and probably figuring he'd get the opportunity to drive it too, which he did) suggested we take both cars, since dad wanted to take his, and either way the Jeep was going to go. So we went up in a 2 vehicle caravan. And just for the record, that Audi drives NICE! I was going up Daniel's Canyon (curvy mountain road) at speeds up to 80 MPH and the car didn't even feel the curves. Bro's Jeep and my Subaru can take the curves at 80 MPH too, but in our cars you know you're going around a curve. And when you go to pass someone, downshift from 6th to 5th (did I mention it has a 6 speed manual tranny?), kick in the turbo and whatever you're passing is so far behind you can't even see what it was. Ok, not quite, but it was a lot of fun to drive. And my friend Adele is going to kill me when she hears that I got to drive one. She's been working on her pharmacists degree for 7 long years, promising herself that when she gets her first full time pharmacists paycheck she's going to reward herself with an Audi TT convertible. I tried to get my dad to loan it to me one day so I could bring it to her, but he never really answered me either way.

Cleaning up old eMails...

And I found this video (rated G, nothing bad about it). See if you can get it right, I even had to go back to the beginning to see they weren't messing with my mind....

"We stand for things" - Davenport, Iowa, Aug. 4, 2004

A hundred sixty nine days left of what is arguably the worst presidency in the history of our country. Let me put it this way - less than half the people in Utah are happy with our president. (According to the Rasmussen Report on June 23, 2008, only 45% of Utahns think GW is doing good or excellent). When you consider that even George the First at his worst hit 68%, (Deseret News, May 25, 2003) that says a lot. So, in honor of the dwindling number of days left of this walking embarassment of a leader, here are some of the quotes I've gleaned from my "GWBush Official Countdown Calendar";

• "I don't know all the facts, I want to know all the facts. The best place for the facts is to be done is by somebody who's spending time investigating it" - Washington, D.C., July 2005


• "Give me a chance to be your president and America will be safer and stronger and better" - Marquette, Michigan, July 13, 2004 (campaigning for reelection)


• "Justice ought to be fair" - Washington, D.C., 2004


• "No more public scatology." - In a personal note to future Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, July 18, 1997.


• "I wish I wasn't the war president. Who in the heck wants to be a war president? I don't." - Washington, D.C., 2004


• "These people don't have tanks. They don't have ships. They hide in caves. They send suiciders out." - Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 2002


• "I think war is a dangerous place." - Washington D.C., 2003