Lana Del Rey - Summertime Sadness

Summertime Sadness

Go Cougars!

Rise and Shout!

BYU in miniature...featuring the musical stylings of The Imagine Dragons.  This makes me miss this place!

24

I used to love the show "24" starring Kiefer Sutherland.  The premise of the show was that each season was one 24-hour period in the life of anti-terrorist agent Jack Bauer (Sutherland).  Each episode showed one hour in this day and through various cliffhangers and improbably (if not impossible) plot twists, his day just seemed to get worse and worse until--by the end of the day--truth and justice had prevailed.

24 hours ago, I was hating it.  I had two briefs to draft and file by today, I felt like I was coming down with some sort of cold (most likely) due to stress and lack of sleep, and I really wasn't sure how I was going to get everything done.  Labor Day weekend?  Was I really even going to make it that far?

Newport Harbor...the view from our table at lunch...

Fast forward 24 hours (minus the plot twists and turns) and things seem to be falling into place.

• I caught a flash of inspiration on one of my briefs.  The client loved my idea and I saved us all several hours (at least) of tedious work.
• I found just the research that I needed on the other brief and sent it off for the client's comments. He/she loved it too.  Not too shabby since I had been told that we had no chance in Hades of winning on this on, but somehow, I felt like I was able to craft a winning argument.
• The court ruled in my favor on a third brief that I had filed last week.  I was going to have to drive down to San Diego to argue this one this morning, but the other side agreed to accept the judge's ruling which requires them to pay my client over $3,000.00.  Not a lot of money, I know, but it's better than a kick in the pants.  And it's always nice to win.  ;-)
• I got a good decent night's rest.  (A rarity for those who know me.)
• Both briefs got filed this morning.  On time.
• My sore throat disappeared after I took my mom's advice to gargle salt water.  (#motherknowsbest)  (There might have been a Jamba involved in there too somewhere...)
• My boss took me to lunch at his favorite restaurant in Newport Beach.  The above picture shows my lunchtime view.
• At lunch, we laughed hard and out loud about "Triple Threat" associates.  We also laughed about "Bad Form."  They are a couple of inside jokes that I think will make me laugh for a long time.  (If you see me sometime, ask me about it...)  Laughter really can be great medicine.
• I got an invite from a friend on FB to play some game called Dragon Crush(?).  (Just kidding about that last one...even though it really did happen!)
• And finally, I got back to my desk after lunch, only to get a call from one of our legal vendors apologizing that they had overbilled me personally for some services and would be refunding me the difference--nearly $200!  Yay!

Yes, things are not perfect.  For example, Summer is almost over (where did it go?) and in college football, Utah State lost last night to the Utes....  Tomorrow or the next day or next week, I will undoubtedly have more challenges and struggles.  But what's important is not that we have trials and challenges, but rather how we respond to them.

Happy Labor Day!

Throwback Thursday - Take Me Out to the Ballgame Edition

Go Padres - August 29, 2007

Six years ago today (as near as I can tell), we took this picture at the Padres game together.  As you can tell, the seats were up in the nose bleeds, but we still had a lot of fun.  My two youngest brothers have both gone on missions (to Argentina and Florida) and come home.  Another brother got married and had his second kid just recently.

I think that B.S. and I still have those Padres shirts laying around somewhere.  Even though it looks huge on me, I'll always love it--mostly because B.S. gave it to me and it reminds me of him.  He is so generous about stuff like that and seems to have a knack for giving me cool gifts that I would never get myself (and wouldn't even think of asking someone else to give me).

This picture also reminds me of how important family is.  In the intervening years, we five brothers haven't always been together at the same time.  At times, we've been separated by oceans and continents.  Most recently, we got together for the Camp Pendleton Mud Run...good times!

World Famous Camp Pendleton Mud Run 2013

A mis hermanos queridos, les quiero mucho.  Gracias por ser tan buen ejemplos para mis hijos y para mi.  Estoy muy agradecido por ser parte de esta familia.  Un abrazo!

Shocker!

Bachelorette News Flash

I was walking through Walmart this evening, minding my own business, when I happened to look up as I whizzed past the checkout stands and this magazine cover caught my eye.  Is anyone really that surprised?  What may be surprising is that it's only been what? About 3 weeks since the season finale?

I feel bad for Des especially because she seemed so likable and I think she really gave her heart to What's-His-Face, only to have him casually toss it away.  Unfortunately, while the show can be entertaining (and some would doubt that there was much entertainment value in this past season due to the crop of duds bachelors dredged up by ABC's casting department), its track record for producing lasting relationships is abysmal.

Let's hope that Juan Pablo has better luck...  :-/

Driven Into The Ground...

A recent pic of the Saturn

My car is getting a little long in the tooth.  I recently documented its demise on this blog as well as its near miraculous rejuvenation.  It now has more than 250,000 miles on it, but I'm proud that it has held up as well as it has.  In fact, my car has even outlasted the company that built it (Saturn--a victim of the GM bankruptcy restructuring).

Yesterday, I notice (all of a sudden) a terrible grinding noise every time I had to apply the brakes.  I was actually worried about the safety of driving it any more than necessary, so this morning--after a quick trip to the courthouse--I dropped it off with my local mechanic.

You know your car is old when the mechanic looks at you funny and asks questions like: "Does it really have 250,000 miles on it?"  And you know in the back of his head he's thinking: "Are you really going to dump more money into this car?"

Well, yes, in fact, I am.  As crappy as it is to keep the car maintained (and pay for the maintenance), it's cheaper than making car payments every single month on a depreciating asset.  My car is very cheap to drive and I love that I don't have to worry about putting too many miles on it.  Someday, I will buy a new car, but it won't be until this one has been driven into the ground.  Literally.

Anyway, just got word from the mechanic.  As I suspected the brakes are shot.  The serpentine belt is cracked.  And (apparently) the air filter is dirty.  I can change the air filter myself and save $20 bucks.  When  a repair costs as much as this one does, it seems like the least I can do to mute the budgetary impact.

The other good news is that the last time that I had to have a complete brake job on this car was nearly 3 years (and about 85,000 miles) ago.  The rear brake drums lasted me even longer--150,000 miles and 5+ years.  My mechanic said that I can't really expect much more life out of them than that.

Que va...I'm just glad to have a reliable car that gets me where I need to go; doesn't look its age; and is (or at least should be) good as new in good working order.  I suspect that I'll be able to squeeze a few tens of thousands of miles out of this one before we have to part ways...Hope your cars are holding up a little better than mine is at the moment!

Tuesday's To-Do List

Post Project Pic

I go through phases with my house and with projects.  Sometimes, I become obsessed with the idea of doing a certain project and I can't really focus on anything else.  Other times, I will go for months without doing anything.  Last night, I came home from our meeting with the Scouts (where I volunteer as a Scoutmaster for the 11 year old kids) and I felt like I needed to do something useful.  I don't know why I felt that way all of a sudden, but I couldn't rest, couldn't hardly eat until I had finished the following four projects.

In my mind, I thought that I could do all four simultaneously and that it would take about an hour total.  It took longer--all night in fact and two separate trips to Lowe's--but I got it all done.  And I went to bed feeling like I had actually accomplished something.

The License Plate Project:

Before...

I have this really license plate holder that I like because it reminds me of the community where I grew up.  Unfortunately, it broke a while back and it was bugging me.

I figured that with a little epoxy and the right part from the hardware store, I could fix it right up.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the exact size that I wanted for the part, but I decided to try and perform the "surgery" anyway.  I'm kind of curious to see how the epoxy holds and whether it breaks again.  If it does, I guess I can always go buy a new one.  :-/

...After

The worst part of the project was that I left the two screws on the car bumper when I removed the license plate.  I figured it was a great place to keep them safe until the project was done.  It was...until I had to run to Lowe's for a second trip because I needed to exchange the part.   I forgot to pick up the screws and then I couldn't find them in the dark!  Luckily, I went to look first thing this morning and found them--safe and sound--in the middle of the street.  Phew!

If you look closely, you can see the mending plate at the top right corner (it was a little bit wider than I wanted) and some of the epoxy.  What's the verdict?  Is it too ghetto?  Should I just dump it and buy a new license plate holder?

The Cook Dinner for a Week Project:

Since my family is gone, it's a bit of a challenge to eat healthy.  I decided to cook up some brown rice and add it to some Summer Squash soup that I froze and brought home from our family reunion at Bear Lake.  I'll eat pretty much anything if I'm hungry and I figured that this would be both tasty and nutritious.  It didn't look like much, but it was good.  And it cooked while I finished up my remaining projects.

The Wireless Garage Door Opener Project:

Tools of the trade...

When we moved into our house, I bought a wireless garage door opener.  You probably have one at your house. It allows you to punch in the code and it opens your garage door, without having a key or a separate garage door opener.

I bought this little unit over 2.5 years ago!  I hadn't put it in, because--to do it right--I knew that I would need special screws that are made to anchor into the stucco securely and solidly.

I finally bought my stucco anchors last night at Lowe's and tackled the project.  It went off without a hitch and I'm excited that I don't have to worry about carrying a key if I go for a late night run.  

In addition, when friends and family come visit, I can just give them the code and I won't have to worry about giving them a key or giving them our spare garage door opener.  I'm hopeful that we are going to have some visitors soon, so this could prove fairly useful.  It was also one of the reasons that I felt like it was time to finally install this gadget that had been sitting on the shelf in my garage for so long!

All done!

The Keep S. Happy by Fixing the iPad Project:

Remember my fiasco with getting the iPad fixed?  S. asks me every single day if the iPad is back yet.  And every day, I had to answer "No."

I even ordered an iPad mini for the kids--but S. wanted nothing to do with it.  I don't think they've even set it up yet.  S. wants his iPad and he wants it the exact. same. way. it. was. before.

Well, the replacement iPad showed up at my office this week and I managed to get it all set up last night, thanks to iTunes and Apple's ingenious customer-friendly software.  I think that S. is going to be very happy when he sees it.  :-)

Once the projects were finished, I had to get everything cleaned back up.  As much as I liked doing the projects, I maybe felt the best about the way the kitchen looked (Ground Zero for all four projects) when I had finished.   (See above.)  I think that my mom would have been proud of my cleaning skills!  ;-)