Someone Cool Wants To Buy My Car
On my way to work today, while waiting at a stop light, a guy in the car next to me leaned out of his window, smiled and signaled that he wanted to talk. I took off my sunglasses, pulled my earphones out and rolled down my window.
“Want to sell your car?” he asked. I admit to being a little taken aback. My car isn’t for sale. He was in a van obviously owned by his employer with another guy driving. He’d seen my car and had the guts to ask a complete stranger waiting at an intersection if he wanted to sell the car he was driving.
“Sure,” I smiled. I don’t really want to sell my car. Not for market value anyway. It’s too much hassle to replace. But if he’s really interested, maybe I could get a good deal. I suppose he already knew how awesome an old Honda Civic can be.
“How much?” he wanted to know. “I have no idea,” I shrugged. He asked how many miles it had (about 200,000) and got my phone number as the light changed.
“I’ll call you,” he promised as we drove off in different directions. I guess I’ll find out. Meanwhile, I am taking a look around my life to see if there is something I want that I haven’t had the guts to ask for.
Family Pictures Summer 2010
We took the kids down to get their pictures taken recently. We ordered digital copies of the pictures this time because I’m too lazy to scan them into the computer. They turned out great.
Cold Water Shaving
After reading about shaving with cold water, I’ve tried it several times over the last few days. It’s a much better experience for me.
Shaving with cold water seems like a hardship, a practice that must be endured in Spartan living conditions. After all, it’s wet shaving doctrine that a man must always shave with hot water. It not only feels nice, it softens the beard and supposedly gives you a more comfortable shave.
But what if that advice is wrong? What if it’s actually better to shave with cold water…?
Well, according to a bunch of authors in the 19th century, cold water shaving is indeed superior to shaving with hot water.
The biggest improvements for me were:
- Much easier to cut my hair. I have a smoother shave with one pass than I was getting with two.
- Getting fewer nicks and cuts on my face.
I have to admit, I’m sold.
Family Pictures Fall 2009
A few months ago, we dragged grandma up into the mountains and took some family pictures. We took a lot of pictures, but very few seemed to turn out. Now that we’re finally finished sifting and editing, I’ve uploaded some of the best ones.
We got some really good pictures of Grandma with the grandkids.
And Cheryl always seems photogenic.
The Cheerios Sugar Factor
Like many people, I often eat cereal for breakfast. When my wife went on a no-sugar diet a while back, it wreaked havoc on our cereal eating habit because, you see, most breakfast cereals are stuffed with sugar or high fructose corn syrup.
Reading the nutrition labels, however, taught me something interesting: Cheerios has by far the lowest sugar content of any cereal we eat. While shopping, I found myself in disbelief, telling random people in the super market, “Do you know this stuff has twelve times as much sugar as Cheerios?” I started calling it the Cheerios Factor.
To give you an idea, here is a list of some breakfast cereals and their sugar content. Full nutrition information is available online from General Mills, Kellog’s and Quaker. However, Post prefers to summarize it for you.
| Cereal | Serving Size | Sugar | Factor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Jacks | 28g | 12g | 12.0x |
| Froot Loops | 29g | 12g | 11.6x |
| Lucky Charms | 27g | 11g | 11.4x |
| Frosted Flakes | 30g | 11g | 10.3x |
| Golden Grahms | 31g | 11g | 9.9x |
| Cinnamon Toast Crunch | 31g | 10g | 9.0x |
| Honey Nut Cheerios | 28g | 9g | 9.0x |
| Raisin Bran | 59g | 19g | 9.0x |
| Cinnamon Life | 32g | 8g | 7.0x |
| Honey Bunches of Oats | 30g | 7g | 6.5x |
| Multigrain Cheerios | 27g | 6g | 6.2x |
| Frosted Mini Wheats | 51g | 10g | 5.5x |
| Life | 32g | 6g | 5.3x |
| Total | 30g | 5g | 4.7x |
| Wheaties | 27g | 4g | 4.1x |
| Special K | 31g | 4g | 3.6x |
| Rice Krispies | 33g | 4g | 3.4x |
| Corn Flakes | 28g | 3g | 3.0x |
| Kix | 30g | 3g | 2.8x |
| Corn Chex | 31g | 3g | 2.7x |
| Rice Chex | 27g | 2g | 2.1x |
| Grape-Nuts | 58g | 4g | 1.9x |
| Cheerios | 28g | 1g | 1.0x |
| Fiber One | 30g | 0g | None |
Yes, Cheerios has half the sugar of Grape-Nuts. The only cereal I’ve found that beats Cheerios at its own game is Fiber One, which I’ve never actually eaten.
There’s No Progress Like Personal Progress
My wife works with the young women in our church and is helping with the New Beginnings program this year. During one of the planning meetings, someone suggested singing a song with custom lyrics to a popular tune. Cheryl is good at that sort of thing and immediately piped up with “There’s No Progress Like Personal Progress.” The others liked the idea and asked her to come up with something.
So she wrote some lyrics.
And sang them.
Then asked me to mix it with the music from the original Broadway show.
And here is the finished version:
There’s no progress like personal progress
To help your testimony grow
Getting your medallion is so thrilling
There is so much more for you in store
If you just keep your feet a-moving
Then you are proving that you are more
Than before
There’s no people like you people
There’s no people I know
Setting goals will help you and you will go far
It doesn’t matter where you are
This is your movie and you’re the star
Let’s get on with our goals
Let’s get on with our goals
They are planning to perform the song for the girls during the program. Should be fun. :)
We’ve places the lyrics into the public domain. Please feel free to use them.
UPDATE: Here is a video of the leaders performing. Cheryl was disappointed she was out of town and couldn’t be there.
Dear Tooth Fairy
When our 9-year-old lost her most recent tooth, the tooth fairy was a bit slow in paying her. Each morning, we’d hear all about how the tooth fairy must be on vacation or overly busy.
One evening, our daughter spent some time relating the situation to her grandfather. That night we found the following note on her door:
Dear Tooth Fairy,
I charge 10% every day you haven’t come to pick up my tooth. I lost my tooth on Monday June 29, 2009.
P.S. A molar tooth is special so it costs more money. Do 10% more.
The next day she was paid in full, interest included. She was thrilled, though I don’t like to think about what she learned from this. I’m going to have to have a talk with grandpa. :)
My First Mountain
I live along the Wasatch Front which is surrounded by beautiful mountains. Not quite as pretty as the Tetons in Wyoming perhaps, but I’ve always wanted to climb the nearby Mount Timanogos.
Of course, I thought I’d start with one of the smaller mountains closer to Spanish Fork and work up to the 12.4 mile round trip hike up Timpanogos. But when my employer Mozy sponsored a company hike, I decided I’d jump on the bandwagon. About 20 people took the hike that day, including two who got to the top (the vertical elevation gain is almost a mile at 4,652 feet) in less than two hours.
I started out keeping up with those guys. I’m sure that the embarrassment of having a newcomer like myself tagging along is what caused them to pull ahead after about 10 minutes. Yeah, that was it.
We hit the trail at 6:17am. In my rush to keep up at first, I didn’t notice much of the scenery. But it’s a gorgeous hike.
The trail consists of the following:
- Steep climb
- Bushy semi-flat walk
- Steep climb
- Meadowy semi-flat walk
- Really steep climb
This is the view of the top (on the right) from the second meadow area. Well, I thought it was the top. It turns out that you can’t actually see the peak from here. It’s a higher point behind the peak on the right. There’s nothing quite like thinking you’re at the top only to to realize you aren’t.
From the meadow, you go up this trail to the saddle where you can see Utah Valley for the first time.
This is what the trail up to the saddle looks like from the peak. The saddle is just above and to the left of center.
The climb from the saddle to the peak was, by far, the most exhilarating part of the hike. Slower going and entirely rock, but with victory close at hand.
Reaching the top was awesome. I got there in 3 hours 23 minutes.
Five of us summitted fairly close together. Mark (back left) took much better pictures with the nice camera he lugged the whole way up.
After getting down, I found out that Mount Nebo is actually the tallest peak in the Wasatch Front (and Utah County). Since Nebo is about as far south of me as Timpanogos is north, I guess it’s next on my list. Just need to get rid of this limp first.
When It’s Okay to Hit Someone
A while back, I found my boys arguing with each other. As I was about to intervene, one hit the other. Normally, this happens only when something incredibly important is at stake. In this case, I think it was over who got to play with a particular Lego figure. R2-D2 is pretty cool, so I can see why they were arguing. :)
I took the hitter up to his room and explained that hurting his brother wasn’t acceptable. After some time to cool down, they were friends again and everything turned out alright.
The conversation got me thinking though. There are times when it is okay to hurt someone else. I realized I wasn’t being fair to my kids by telling them it was never alright to hit people. I don’t want them to shy away from protecting themselves or others who need it, if that time ever comes.
I knew that discussing the principle of justified violence would be over their heads. So I came up with 3 simple rules my kids need to follow before hitting someone.
- They are hurting you or someone else
- You ask them to stop and they don’t
- You try to get away and can’t
As far as I can tell, these rules cover the situations where I’d want them to act — mostly in defense of themselves or others who are being hurt. When they get older, I’m going to teach them how to hit so they won’t be afraid to act if they ever need to.
When one of my kids has forgotten the rules, I’ve been able to review them as part of the discussion about why they’re in trouble. And they get it. Even my 4-year-old understands.
The list has worked well for us. It helps my kids pause to think before acting when they’re angry. And each of them realize there is a line beyond which they’re going to get smacked without any protection from Dad. :)
Duck Creek Village
A few weeks ago, our family spent a few days at a cabin in Duck Creek Village, UT with Cheryl’s family. We rode ATVs, visited some cool cliffs, hiked around several lakes and rented a boat somewhat spontaneously. And we took advantage of the gathering to take family pictures.
I think the kids really liked riding the ATVs. It was scary for them at fist as they learned. By the end, the level of fear (and caution) had dropped noticeably. The boys both liked the motorboat too. They each took a turn steering.
Of course the best thing was playing with their cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents while exploring the forest, discovering stuff and having new experiences.
See more pictures in our picture gallery.
