My Cheese has Moved

A lot has happened in the last year. The most important thing though was that our family was sealed for time and all eternity this past week. We went to the St George Utah temple. We chose this temple because Korina's grandfather lives in St George, his health prohibits him from traveling too much, and we both really wanted for him to be involved. It worked out really well since our family is split between Idaho and Arizona, St George worked as a mostly in between meeting point.

Our sealing was special. And not just in the way that a familial sealing is special. The Lord really helped us out with it. The temple workers had told us that unless we had court paperwork showing that Kyle and Shyanne's father no longer had rights to the children they could not be sealed to us at this time. We had won in court two weeks beforehand and the court was supposed to file the minute entry that same day. They of course dragged their feet about it. We knew we would eventually get a copy and we were to the point where we figured that it was not a big deal and we would have the kids sealed to us in the Mesa temple whenever the court paperwork got to us. Our sealing was on Saturday March 24, 2012. The Thursday before Korina was having strong impressions to call the court. Seemed strange, we were already in St George visiting with her grandfather at that time. And when she decided to go ahead and call they were already closed for the day. She called them the next day. They told her the minute entry had been filed that morning and she would receive it in the mail in a couple of days.

Korina was ecstatic. She called the kids court appointed attorney Stephanie Stromfors (she is amazing by the way and was a HUGE help to us through this whole process), the kids had an attorney so that their best interests could be represented. She had felt that the best interest of the kids was to stay with us and have their fathers rights severed, so she gave us advice on how to proceed with things since we could not afford an attorney ourselves. Ms. Stromfors received the minute entry by email, and she was more than willing to forward it to us so we could have it in St George. Korina printed it out and called the temple within seconds. Then it was all ready, the kids would be sealed to us.

Usually when people are sealed their guests don't have to wear white as is usually the custom when going into the temple. However, the sealing room we had been scheduled for is off the celestial room of the St George temple. Meaning to get to it people would have to go through the celestial room, and so everyone had to wear white. It was really neat to see everyone in there dressed all in white. It was how I had always pictured a sealing looking until I actually went to one.

I think my favorite part was before Korina and I went into the sealing room. We were told to wait in the celestial room until the temple workers told us to go in. While we waited the kids were all brought in, all three of them all dressed in white. And they were being kids. Kyle and Shyanne both felt compelled to jump up onto the stairs, and Jayda was in a very pleasant mood. Mom had made white dresses for the girls to wear and Kyle was in borrowed temple clothes. His tie was the right length for a change and he was keeping it on. The sealing itself was special, but I had to smile when the kids came in.

Jayda, is our little addition. She is also the reason I haven't blogged very much anymore. She was born on July 21, 2011. She weighed in at 8lbs 3oz. She is the most fun baby to be around. And she loves to kiss me. She doesn't quite do it right. She just opens her mouth and presses it against random parts of my face, but she is the most fun baby in the world!

Other than that Korina currently works at Deseret Industries and they are paying for her to get a CNA certification. Kyle is in pre-school and they have helped him immensely with his speech. Shyanne loves to sing, she can recite Disney's The Princess and the Frog as she watches it. The other day I listened as she sang along with the JG Wentworth commercial.

Meet Kyle Busch

Meet Kyle Busch. In the past I have always been kind of mostly not interested in NASCAR at all. But for some reason, when it started this year I just want to watch it all the time. It's weird. So it would be fair to say that I am not completely of all the factors involved with what I am about to tell you, but this is my perception of the whole thing.

In NASCAR there are many different levels of races, much like in baseball there is major league, minor league, AAA, and so forth. The top two levels of NASCAR races are featured on television every weekend. The highest level is Sprint Cup racing, the next level is Nationwide Series racing. Nationwide races are not as long, and the winning purse is not as heavy as a Sprint Cup race; but usually they are at the same track every weekend. Nationwide drivers are allowed to enter in Sprint races, but they are not eligible to earn points toward the Sprint Cup, and Sprint Cup drivers are allowed to enter Nationwide races and again are not eligible for points toward earning the Nationwide title. Now I may be wrong about this next part, but again this is how I perceive this; the two series use different race cars. A Nationwide car cannot be entered into a Sprint race and vice versa.

Back to Kyle Busch. Kyle Busch is in fact a very good race driver. He is a top contender for the Sprint Cup victory this year and seemingly every year. He has a tendency to lead laps for most of the race and then win the race in almost every race this year. But he also enters every Nationwide race as well. He says he does it to try and get a feel for the track. This makes sense, he will be racing in a Sprint Cup race the next day and knowing the ins and outs of the racetrack could be very helpful. He also drives in the truck series, when the trucks are at the same track as Nationwide and Sprint Cup it is not unusual to see him race three days in a row. But he's a cocky jerk and here is why.

He owns his own race team. He has a couple years of Sprint Cup racing under his belt and has been successful at it, therefore he has a bit of money to use when building his race cars. It seems to me that for a guy who is ineligible to win the Nationwide title he has been winning a lot of Nationwide races! You might think, oh so what, the leading Nationwide driver still gets the points for the Nationwide series. However there is so much more involved with this. You see, the day after the race can you tell me who finished second? Third? Tenth? There are forty-two other drivers on the track that mostly will be forgotten to have been racing that day. The best thing to help you build a winning race car is money, the best way to get money is to have sponsorships. The best way to get sponsorships is to win races. It's sad to watch a Nationwide race and see so many plain cars! Drivers without sponsors! Barely making it from track to track on whatever the purse was for whatever position they finished in!

The other factor that comes immediately to mind is the winning purse. No driver that makes it into a NASCAR race goes home empty handed. Even the guy that finishes last gets a winnings purse. But the guy that wins gets a really big purse. The value steps down a little with each finishing position after that. Sprint Cup driver or not, if you win you get the big purse. There is no discrimination there. Nationwide drivers with no sponsors could really use that winning purse. A Sprint Cup purse is HUGE compared to a Nationwide purse. Kyle could do without the Nationwide winnings and still be able to fund his race team just fine.

Kyle Busch is a Sprint Cup driver, he has plenty of money and he gets victories in Sprint Cup races. I understand the value in running the track in a race the day before to be able to know how it will be when you are in a race that matters. But there is no reason to win a race that you aren't even eligible to take the series title with. Maybe if he would just focus on feeling out the track instead of winning he would have less stress in his life. This would make him more at ease the next day and he might get even more Sprint Cup victories! Not to mention saving wear and tear on his Nationwide car. The financial impact from that alone should negate the lack of Nationwide winnings by itself!

Now it's true, a Nationwide driver won the Daytona 500 this year. But at that point most of the big name Sprint Cup drivers had been taken out of the race due to crashes. Also, even though he has been driving in Sprint Cup races since that day, he has not come close to winning a single one of them. And really a Nationwide driver winning a Sprint Cup race is such a rare occurrence that it is negligible for the other side of this argument. Kyle Busch goes out and wins every time!

Anyway, enjoy the rest of the NASCAR season and have a good day today.

P.S. Kyle isn't the only Sprint Cup driver to crash the party, on average I notice the first eligible Nationwide driver doesn't usually cross the finish line until fifth or sixth place.

My Apocalypse Truck!

I will start by saying nothing more than to refer you to this article from Car & Driver.

Did you read it?

If you are a guy then you are convinced that this thing is the COOLEST THING EVER!!! I could imagine myself crashing through the forest taking out small trees (and maybe some large ones) in the name of getting my game! This is like a camping trip in a truck! Never have to unload the thing, just go. And then I got to the price tag. $340,000 is a bit steep for me. But I am not deterred.

I have been dreaming about this thing all night and I think I have come up with a plan to build my own. Of course this would involve a ton of trial and error. And I would probably end up spending about $340,000 after all is said and done, but at least it would be spread out over time.

First off I would need a frame. Obviously a large one. Since I am no engineer (besides an audio engineer) I would have to start with one that already exists. Or as I think of it, two. My father drives a '92 Ford F-350 dually (four wheels on the rear axle). I think I would need two of these frames and weld them together with substantial overlap in the middle. This beast needs to be 20 feet long. I need to practice welding.

Second I would use a boat as the body of the truck. I would have to get inside the body of the boat and reinforce it somehow depending on what model of boat I buy. I would use a boat because:
1) fiberglass is lightweight and the boat is already built to support itself
2) I want to make this thing amphibious
I could put plates of steel around the outside of the truck body once the boat is satisfactorily in place. I would replace all the wood inside the boat with more steel. I could also use the boat trailer (won't need it anymore anyway) as a source of steel to put in places around the vehicle to make it stronger and look cleaner.

The builder in the article uses a big block GM motor to power his. I would use a medium sized diesel motor. Likely a Cummins because I am familiar and comfortable with those ones. The transmission this builder uses from Allison, is designed to be hooked up to a diesel motor anyway so that would be all set. I'm not sure yet how I will take a drive line through the bottom of the boat to power both wheels and a propeller for amphibious use, but I will find a way. I also need to figure out how to make the boat more buoyant because it is going to have to keep a lot more stuff floating than it was originally designed to do.

I like how tall this truck is, I will keep the height by building just like he did using ideas from monster trucks. The wheelbase will have to be wide, but I want to drive mine on highways and city streets so it has to fit in the lane size. Shouldn't be too much trouble, military trucks fit in the lanes and they are about as wide as I'm going for.

I would use canopy from the military surplus store for the overhead canopy. I would design mine to roll down and fasten on the sides so it would be an enclosed tent for rainy nights. I might go junkyard shopping and take several roll bars from jeeps to build my canopy.

I don't yet know how I'm going to build the staircase on the back. I think the hydraulic lifted one would be awesome! But maybe an electric one would be easier. Or maybe keep it manual. I would of course keep all the creature comforts listed in this article, as well as the gun racks, gun rests, and the crane on the back. I would possibly add a fish finder to it. And it would need a snorkel as well. So when the apocalypse happens, I will have the funnest truck around!

What in the name of blogging!?!

I'm in a blogging mood. But I'm not quite sure what I will write about, so just follow me here...

We are officially being kicked out of our little hovel, and I couldn't be happier about it! Even though it is quite stressful having to move (what do we pack, what do we still need to use), I was never comfortable living there and am ecstatic to be out of the place. Of course this means we will be crowding into mom's house for a little bit. However we are working on purchasing and moving into a home. Hopefully this doesn't take more than a few months. Home ownership will be good for us. I need to be able to do what I please with my living space.

Korina is now officially into the second trimester of her pregnancy. This is good because now she shouldn't be as sick as she has been (at least that's what the dr says...). She had to have an "emergency ultrasound" on her last dr visit. The nurse couldn't hear the baby's heartbeat. The ultrasound technician said that was dumb because as far along as she is the baby should still be hard to find with just a stethoscope. However we have new pictures because of this ultrasound. We believe the spawn will be a boy. It is still too early to tell definitively what the gender will be, but they thought they saw a third leg...

That's all I got. This post is going nowhere fast so I'll just wrap it up now. Have good one folks.

The New Year Wail.

Well the new year is upon us. This time of year always seems to encourage reflection on our past as well as a look forward into our future. This past year has really been something! I met and married the most wonderful woman ever. She brought two kids from her previous marriage with her and we have a wonderful and happy family. I have been promoted to full-time at KNXV-TV ABC15 and I even worked about a six month stint at 100.7 FM KSLX. But all these things are my past.

This next year I think I will try harder to be a little better. I know I don't usually make "New Years Resolutions", but I'm willing to make an exception this year. You see here in Phoenix the county has been declaring "no burn days" every day it seems like for the past couple of weeks. Ordinarily I think this is dumb, how dare they tell us what we can and can't do with our own property! But now here I am sitting in the middle of Phoenix and I have a pretty clear view of Four-Peaks. Not only that, the air has been getting clearer and clearer. I can only hope that residents have gotten used to the idea of not burning fire because the air has been smelling pretty crisp and clean lately. Don't misunderstand, we are all still driving, and the rain we've had recently certainly helped to clean the air! But it snowed here the other day. It snowed on ME the other day! I was driving and the rain hitting my windshield got to be sort of slushy. The weather has been really nice and the air has been really clean and I kind of feel inspired.

So, to get back on track, I will be making some resolutions this year. And I need to post them for all the world to see otherwise I won't do them.

1) Pay off the credit card. This seems like a steep negotiation, but I have been planning to use my tax return this year to do just this. I should get a pretty penny, being married and having two kids is a pretty heavy deal when it comes to tax returns. Factor in that my job is a pretty low paying one (we barely make it) and Obama got to have another stimulus passed and I should be looking at a large enough return to make my credit card debt go away. Then the plan is to take the amount I have been paying toward the credit card every month and start putting it toward the smallest of my student loans. I don't like having debt and I know that paying more than the minimum payment will help me save tons of money on interest in the long run.

2) Purchase a house. We have been saving money for a down payment, and frankly the cost of houses is pretty cheap at this point in time. I know I said above that we barely get by, that's because I have been being stingy so that we can save a sizeable down payment. We can afford a house payment, and the utility bills with it. For what houses are going for, the total expenses on one would probably be cheaper than paying rent in an apartment! Also, my mother has discovered a food bank that also gives down payment assistance to first time home buyers! They only ask that you save $1000 of your own money to be able to qualify for their help. I intend to jump all over this. I could get us into a house and 6 months later I should be able to refinance and consolidate all of my student loans into the house payment. This would lower my total monthly costs (minimum payments) which for me would help us to get out of debt faster!

3) Take the GRE. I have pretty much decided that I need to go to Grad School if I'm going to be able to provide any kind of comfort for my family AND be able to retire at a decent age (fixing the lottery just isn't working out for me). I have been looking at grad programs, I believe a Masters in Communications would be the best degree for me to pursue at this point. Of course I have my pride and sensibility, I will only go to an accredited, pretty well-known school. Right now I'm kind of leaning toward BYU, but that could change. I really don't want to go back to ASU at this point. I would really like a change of scenery. I realize that I probably won't be able to go to grad school without stepping into a classroom, I'm OK with that. I just hope I can at least do a years worth of courses online so that I can stay at my job and build up time for my resume.

4) Do some writing for the web. I mean professionally. I have time every Saturday at work that I can go in to the web department and see if they have anything for me to write. I do have journalistic training, and against my best wishes, I like to write and I seem to do it pretty well. I don't want to get to carried away though, the people in the web-department are paid a LOT more money than me to write stories for the station website. My goal is only to get noticed and have the higher-ups see that I do know what I'm doing, and maybe I can get that writing promotion I keep applying for. One story a week should be plenty I think.

There. I believe that should be good. What's more, these are actually attainable resolutions. This is a list that I believe I am capable of accomplishing. I believe this list will be the best for me and my family and will help us to better ourselves as we go along.

What is a MOPAR worth now?

This is not my Durango, but it looks just like it. We have a 2001 Dodge Durango that we use to cart the kids around. It is nice to have a decent sized SUV for this. However, since acquiring this vehicle it has been a drain on my wallet and vehicle repair knowledge. I thought that I was a super expert after replacing the transmission in my '89 Mustang, this Durango is trying my patience. Within a week of getting it we had a tire blow out. A week later the alternator died and killed the battery with it. About a month after that I tried turning left and had something physically blocking the wheel from turning, I took it to Big O Tires at 51st Ave and Peoria (they have been taking care of my dad's cars for a long time so I trust them) I was told that the entire front suspension was destroyed and needed to be rebuilt. So $1500 later I had a new front suspension. We intended to use the Durango on our honeymoon to go to Las Vegas. A day before the wedding all the idiot lights suddenly came on and the steering became very stiff. This usually means the belt came off. Well it did, because one of the pulleys had torqued itself off track and would need to be replaced, along with the spacer plate it uses and the bolt that holds it in. We took my truck to Vegas and I fixed it after we got back. A couple months later it was time for emissions, should have been easy but the check engine light came on. I took it to Pepboys because they do free scanning to tell you what your trouble code is. Wouldn't you know it, the code came back as "undefined". How can I fix something if the car itself doesn't know what to fix? I gave it a tune up and hoped for the best. One morning the check engine light went off and I rushed over to the emissions check station, right when it was my turn to go in the light came back on. At this point I didn't know what to do. We began praying that the light would go off and we would be able to go through emissions. Two temporary tags later we were able to do just that. The code given was a 1710. When I researched it online I learned that usually it means something is up with the transmission, particularly with the torque converter. I checked the fluid in the tranny and it was low, so I filled it back up but this was to no effect, the light was still on. And now the transmission has been acting up, nothing serious though.


The new bane of my existence is drum brakes. The secondary return spring broke in the passenger side drum causing a couple of parts to spin around the wheel and be ground to dust, as well as destroy the usability of the brakes. I have had to order parts from Dodge, and when they got here I started to put the brakes back together and had another part break. Now I am waiting until Thursday for the new part to get here. What I need now is the adjuster lever for any of you who know what that is. At least the front brakes were done when the front suspension was done. When this part gets here I will have almost a completely new car. Except that the transmission is going to need work in the near future. And while doing the brakes I noticed an exhaust leak in the muffler (maybe this is an excuse to get an aftermarket muffler?). But this car is almost brand new now. Dad had just rebuilt the engine before selling it to us.

Drum brakes really are a bad design, even 60 years ago when they were first thought up. Bicycles had been using the theory behind disc brakes for years and yet cars needed to have this drum system? I think not. I believe they were more of a play to get people to bring their cars into the dealer shop for service instead of doing it themselves. I hate drums. From now on I will only do rear disc conversion when I need to do rear brakes.

I have an announcement to make....

Well everyone who reads this already knows, but we're pregnant! Korina is pregnant and our little spawn is due on or around July 28, 2011. Now she will have to give birth through C-section because she has already done it that way twice. So the docter usually does those a week before the due date. I'm slightly perturbed because I will now have to share my birthday month... but I'll get over it. In a couple months we will get good ultrasound pics. Then I will post those.