...And I like to do drawings!

As far as artistic talent goes, I may be in the same category as Mike Myer's 'Simon', but I'm giving it a go anyway. I've always like to doodle and even tried painting a couple of times. When I was little I liked entering the Reflections contests in elementary school and grew up watching Dale be a really good artist. It is relaxing for me to pull out the sketch book and draw a few lines. Plus I have to have something to do while Nikki is knitting.

The other day we went to our favorie bookstore, Border's. I bought a little drawing book and I've been reading through it and trying a few things. It is pretty basic. It shows you how to rough in shapes and shade and detail finished projects with the different pencil types. Grapefruit and bottles aren't my final goal so stay tuned for cooler things to come.

Summer Fest

This last weekend was Summer Fest in Orem. There are a lot of activities and things that were going on even though we only went to a few of them. There is a carnival, a car show, a parade, and lots of craft booths and performances of all kinds.

Saturday, after working in the yard for a couple of hours in the morning, we went over to the park on Center Street where all the happenings were happening. It didn't seem like they had as many booths this year as they did last year. We didn't really find anything we absolutely had to have, but it is fun to see what people have to offer. There was everything from art to music to temporary tattoos.

Next we checked out the car show. There were a couple that were pretty cool; a '57 Porsche that looked tiny next to the '59 Impala convertible, a couple of pickups and VW busses. Then there was one of my favorites - the '81 DeLorean. That's right, all that was missing was Micheal J. Fox and a 1.21 jigowatt flux capacitor!

Then there were two really cool hearses that looked like they were straight from the Adam's family. They were Nikki's favorite except for the dead guy in the front seat of the second one. I thought he looked friendly.



After we left the park we went to Smith's and got some chinese food and went back to Nikki's parents to eat and hang out until it was time to walk down to the parade. We walked the couple of blocks and parked our camp chairs in the shade and ate sunflower seeds while we waited for it to start. Nikki really likes parades and I tolerate them. The saltwater taffy and the free tie from missionary mall made a little more bearable. It actually wasn't too bad hanging out and watching all the floats with Nikki. It was a good way to spend a nice late spring/early summer day.

I Think This Is How You Spell 'Croquet'

Here are some pictures of us playing croquet last month. It was for Lesa's birthday and she has always wanted us to play croquet. I won of course ;) Thats why I'm doing the bull dance!

H*A*W*K*E*Y*E

You might think that I’m talking about the famous Benjamin Franklin Pierce from the 4077 MASH, but you’d be wrong. I’m talking about our favorite cat Hawkeye. He’s just part of our family and we like having him around. Whenever someone I meet asks me if we have kids I tell them, “No, but we have a cat”.

He didn’t start out as a Hawkeye though. We found him on the KSL classifieds about a year ago and picked him up for free from a family in Springville that had adopted him. They had named him Paisely and thought he was a girl. Accepting that, we gave him a Hungarian girl’s name, Csilla. After we took him to get declawed and fixed we found out that she was a he. I jumped on the fact that he had an awesome black mohawk, and the fact that Nikki and I both really like M*A*S*H and we came up with Hawkeye.

He is a crazy, fat cat that is very curious and always welcomes attention. I’ll throw some pictures on as proof of his crazy ways. He is fascinated by water (but doesn’t like to touch it very much). He likes to climb as high as he can, and loves to play with everything, whether or not it is his to bat around. Hawkeye also makes a great alarm clock for Nikki. She gets up early to go to work every day and if she isn’t up when Hawkeye thinks she should be, he likes to meow and put his butt in our faces until we wake up and feed him.

As far as cats go, ours is a pretty good one. He keeps it interesting and is fun to play with. We’re never bored with him there and I think we’ll keep him around for a while.

Spring Is Bling

Winter is cold and I hate driving in the snow. Fall is okay for a while, but it starts getting gloomy and you know snow is on its way. Summer has its perks, but the heat gets old soon enough. Spring is definitely my favorite season. The temperatures are just right most of the time. You can't complain about the cool weather at night and the not-too-hot during the afternoon. Throw in a rain shower once a week and I couldn't be happier.

Yesterday was a perfect example of why spring is the best. Nikki and I jumped on our bikes just after noon and rode the couple of miles over to Any and Lesa's for Sunday dinner. The weather was great. Sandals and shorts were the way to go and my shirt was sticking to me with sweat either. As a side note, I won't be trying to ride down the front steps of our house anytime soon. I thought that would be fun until I went over the handle bars half way down and landed face first in the grass. We rode through Scera Park (you can see footloose at Scera Shell on my birthday if you want, July 9th), and past Orem High that they are starting to tear down it looks like.

Later, after some good eats and a nap on the basement couch, we rode home. Andy and Lesa joined us on their bikes and we took the same course home (Abba is coming to Scera Shell the end of July ;)). I could handle seventy degree weather all summer long. An open window is just enough to cool everything down. It almost seems a shame to go to bed so soon after the sun goes down, but wake up time comes too soon and then it is off to work for the week.

Before too long it will be too hot and I'll have to buy double the popsicles to keep cool. I'll have to start watering the lawn instead of waiting for the next sprinkle, and then I'll wait for spring again. It just never lasts quite long enough.

The pictures on this post are actually from a bike ride we took up to Bridal Veil a while ago

Why do my Mariners suck this year?

I’ve been a Mariner’s fan for quite a few years now. I think it all started when I was about ten years old or so. Ken Griffey Jr. was just getting going and there was an awesome team along with him. Jay Buhner, Tino and Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson and the list went on. That was the team that sucked me in.

Living in Utah makes it a little hard to be a diehard, all out fan since there is no television coverage, but I like to think of myself as a dedicated one. I’ve watched their mediocrity rise and fall over the years. With that, I have one question that I could use some help answering… Why do the Mariners suck this year? At 21 and 39, and opening a series with Boston today, they’re a long, long ways away from that team that was in the wildcard race deep in the season last year.

My uneducated guess points to the biggest change on the team. I think the midseason resignation of manager Mike Hargrove has to play some part in it. Not that the new guy, McLaren, isn’t capable, but maybe he just isn’t there yet. I hate to point at management when there is a whole team of guys out on the field that are actually making the plays, but some of the blame has to fall there. Again, I’m just speculating. At the end of last year I was hoping just locking up Ichiro would help out, but even he is having what could be seen as a lack luster performance this year. 17 million a year should get you something right? There is also the year after year disappointment of Richie Sexson. I don’t think they have ever gotten out of him what they expected as a team. Here is an article asking for his sacrifice to the baseball gods.

Whatever the problem may be, they are still no good this year. It makes it hard to want to follow when they have gone from battling it out with the Yankees for a wildcard spot to scraping the bottom of the barrel at the worst record in the league. I guess I’ll have to start hanging out with Cub’s fans and get a t-shirt that says, “There’s always next year”.

Flippin' the birdie

Saturday I played my first round of golf for this year. I’d been itching for a while, but just hadn’t made it out.

I got up nice and early and headed over to Cascade Golf Center in Orem. I’ve only been there once before and decided it was my best choice for the day. Living on the west side of State Street in Orem, I tend to forget the canyon winds that howl out of Provo Canyon. I paid for my bucket of range balls and ducked into the wind and headed to the driving range. The pro shop assured me the wind would die down around nine o’clock or so. I tested out my new-to-me driver that I got for Christmas, (Cleveland HiBore. Mines the one that came out a coupleof years ago, but you can see the new one here) and was really impressed. Even with the gnarly wind I was still getting out past 200 yards. The artificial green launch pads and concrete stalls aren’t my favorite, but not unbearable.

Next I headed to the putting green while I waited for the wind to burn out a little more. With my superior chipping skills, I planted a ball across the green and right under a pine tree. Apparently that tree houses a nest full of new blackbirds. A very protective parent kept swooping and diving at me, and breaking my concentration, while I tried to putt from one hole to the other. That crazy bird even clipped my shoulders a couple of times. That was enough for me since I wasn’t fast enough to club the bird out of the air with my putter. The guy in the pro shop laughed when I asked him if they always have killer birds on the practice green. He had been watching the whole thing and said it almost clipped the back of my neck a couple of times as well.

So I grabbed a tee time and got partnered with a couple of guys about my age and off we went to play nine holes. I always worry about getting paired with the jerks or the scratch golfers, but Zach and Troy were nice enough guys and we had a good time. The pro shop was right as well when he told me that one you get up the first hole, the wind doesn’t factor in much either. Plus, it was starting to die down.

I felt like it was a pretty good first round. Nothing spectacular, but nothing too ugly either. Three putts were my enemy along with that fairway bunker on 4. My best showing for the day was a par on the par 3 fifth hole. I was able to nail the green and two putt. It was not a round to brag about, but anything that isn’t a total embarrassment is good enough for me. Hopefully I can get out and try it again soon.