Ben's Blog

New Quest - Operation "Touch the Rim Again"

2012-01-04T14:17:00.001-08:00

So off topic of youth sports since I'm not coaching anything now and have slowed down in that department. I weighed myself the other day ouch! So i'm gonna loose weight. I am embarrassed myself ; since 8/21/2010 till now I've gained 36 lbs. pretty terrible. I look like a pear with legs and a fat head. Anyway back in April of 2010 I weighed about what I weigh now. I lost it all in about 4 1/2 months. I kept it off for about 6 months and have been climbing ever since. So I thought what can I do to 1)lose it again and 2) be more successful at keeping it off. I thought of some good ideas last time but none really worked. They were rewards, like buying things or going on trips - This didn't work because another goal I have is to spend less money. The only other rewards I could think of involved food, so you can see the issue. I couldn't really think of any rewards to motivate myself to stay in shape so i got chunky.

Well this time I think I have it. I'm still going to have some milestone awards Toned down a bit, but the real motivation I'm going to use is basketball. I used to love basketball. I could play pretty well and one of my assets was for a 6 footer I could get up pretty high. I could touch the rim and even came close to being able to dunk. Well last night I went and played at the church. This was a dismal display of my basketball skills, such as the are. I can't even touch the backboard and have a really hard time touching the net... terrible. My guess is because i am trying to put up 50 more lbs than ever and using really out of shape muscles to do it. So here's the deal I'm gonna touch that rim again, maybe even grab it. First I have to lose some weight. Second I'm going to work out more so that my muscles can get back into action and 3rd I'm going to play more basketball.

I will put some pictures from my adventures. If you see me out running know that I'm envisioning me blocking some guy because I can jump so high in my next basketball game. So I may not know you are there because my focus will be on that. I think this will motivate me...Let's Go!

Parents and Youth Sports

2011-11-09T13:10:00.000-08:00

Parents and their roll in their children’s sports experiences is very a very interesting study. I like to look at it as most people are normal calm people that would never fight or argue with other people, but for 2 hours a week are crazy lunatics that think that their kids’ games are life or death. Not to brag but to show you my breadth of experience I will share my youth sports experience. I have coached 21 years (seasons). I have coached football, tee-ball, softball and basketball. I tried to count once and estimated that I have had over five-hundred different kids on my teams throughout the years. That’s about 500 moms and dads and several other grandmas and grandpas, crazy uncles and many other family members. I will detail the experience I’ve had with parents specifically. Just when I think I’ve met with every type of dad or mom, I get surprised so no doubt I haven’t met them all yet. My list isn’t to be all incisive or offensive. I don’t mean to hurt feelings. I do however hope that I help some soon to be soccer mom, or football dad to behave themselves in a way that will make their kid happy that their parents came. I was thinking of writing this for a long time. I had always shied away. Last week when I was on the sidelines with one of my football teams I had a kid come up to me and stand a little closer than normal. I started to pay attention a little better and could hear his Mother just yelling. She was yelling at me, yelling at the kid and at her husband, who was standing clear at the other end of the stands. I looked at this poor kid and smiled and put my hand on his shoulder pad. He said “Sorry coach, I won’t let my mom come to anymore games”. I was sad. It was a tough situation. She was embarrassing her kid and showing some awful behavior. Soon she was sitting alone because no one wanted to be by her. Pretty sad, and if you asked her, I’m sure she thought she was defending and encouraging her son to play better, or for the evil coaches to play him more. For the love of a child she lost her mind. So with that said I will try to classify each type of parent that I’ve had on my teams, however I understand their motivation is love. Love for their kid and the desire that their kid be good in sports and enjoy the game. These are generalizations so some folks over the years have qualified for many groups. Don’t be offended just figure out which one you are in and make sure you are behaving yourself.

Group 1: Future Father’s of a Professional Sports Star
This by far is the largest group. Every team at every level has this dad. One year I think I had about 20 of them on my football team. These guys are the myopic dreamers that get upset quickly at the coach. The coach is the enemy. The coach is who these guys blame all failures on. The coach is the problem. To be this guy you only have to remember one thing: It’s never the kid’s fault all failures are the coach’s fault. One of my first years as a head football coach I had a flag team; 12 six and seven year olds. In this league you didn’t get to pick any of your players. You only got one or two plus your son so that you could pick some assistant coaches. So this particularly little kid was assigned to our team. He had never played before. The first practice the Dad came up to me and wanted to coach. I told him I was all set and that I had my coaches for a while now and we were fine, but thanks. He said “Well my son is your Quarterback.” I kind of laughed inside and wondered if I had his kid and him mismatched. His son was slow and not too knowledgeable of the game. In flag football it’s all about speed at that level and so I picked the faster older kid as my quarterback and moved on. After every game, which we won six that year and only lost one, this dad would come up and belittle me in front of my son (not the quarterback, by the way) about how dumb I must be to not have his son as the quarterback. His son was six.
I have at least two or so of these dads each year. Most want to play quarterback or point guard. I think all of us have this in us a little. I think we all want our kids to be popular, successful and happy. However we need to recognize and be honest with ourselves about how good these kids are. I always tell parents, If your kid is going to play one day in professional sports, I can’t screw that up. Just because I don’t play your kid at Quarterback in flag football at eight years old, doesn’t mean his development is stunted and he won’t make the NFL. Matt Leinardt the NFL Quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner was an offensive lineman all through Pop Warner and wasn’t a quarterback until high school. This type of Parent’s behavior includes at best some speaking with the coach about positions and playing time, just annoyances, but at worst it can be yelling from the stands at the coach, bad mouthing the coach to the player and other parents and making their son quit because of the rotten coach. These to me are the worst kind of parents because they can’t see the truth right in front of them. There are dads that never help the kid out, never play catch with the kid and then show up once in a while to watch a game and wonder why their kid isn’t out there ready for the pros. Sad really. The only way to curb your behavior on this is to try to see it from the coach’s perspective. Try to attend practice see what the coaches are doing. See how your kid does in drills, sprints and other things during practice. Try to see your kid for who he is.

Group 2: The Mom that Questions Everything
This is the second largest group and probably has a lot of crossover with group one. This parent never is happy with anything the team or the coaches do. They need everything explained to them. Their favorite word is “Why” and favorite sentence is “That makes no sense to me”. I always have a hard time with these parents. Why question things? I don’t get it. I had a dad like this the year I coached my first tackle team. He attended every practice, and every game. He showed up early and stayed late. A very good father as far as I could observe. He and his son never were late and never missed anything. But without fail he’d catch me on a break at practice and say “Hey Ben, Why did you run that drill?” or “Hey Ben, why do you have that kid at line backer?” or “Hey Ben, Why is our game at 8:00 AM?” At first I was polite and would explain things but after a while I wanted to punch him. I would just give a curt answer and move on. By the end of the year I was done explaining and would avoid him. I was glad when they moved on to another team. I have at least one of these every year. I guess they just don’t understand, or want to know things that are unclear. I have no idea. Maybe other parents just are more accepting. The problem I have is the judgmental tone to the questioning. Like “why would you do that when it’s so obvious that you should do it the other way”; it’s crazy. I think they are really Dads or Moms that think their kid should be playing somewhere else, playing more or that the coach is a problem, that are just nicer and try to be civil about it. I don’t mind answering questions but there is a big difference between asking a question and questioning a coach.

Group 3: Who are you?
This is a group of dads and moms that think Youth Sports is a babysitting service. As my boys get older I kind of like these parents. But when they were young they made me nervous. Every year there are a couple of parents who I meet at the team meeting and never see again until the team party. I’m like “Who’s that guy?” and someone will say that Jason’s Dad. I had no idea. The problem with this guy is when he wants to come up and tell me what I’m doing wrong as a coach. That’s a problem for me. I had a dad that his son was one of our better players. He was a joy to coach and all of us really liked the kid. He was a funny kid and always wanted to do his best. I knew his Mom well and his step-dad was a great asset to our team. I had seen his dad at a few games but had never spoken to him or had never seen him at a practice. However after a game that we got beaten pretty badly, he came up and loudly with anger wanted to discuss the game. I was already at a boiling point because we had just been beaten and so it wasn’t going to be a productive conversation. I was lucky that one of my assistants was standing there. This assistant coach said “Sir, how in the H*** would you know?” The Dad looked befuddled for a second, and then said “What do you mean?” I said “How many practices have you been to see your son play or practice?” He then came up with about 200 excuses as to why he was too important to come to a practice. So I said if you can’t come to practice to see how your son prepares then you can’t complain about how we use him. It ended the conversation. But these parents are still very dangerous. I do believe that though. If you can’t come to practice and just drop of your kid, then keep your mouth shut on game day.

Group 4: Silent but bitter
This group I don’t mind much. However once in a while they can be a problem. They are the ones that come to most things, practices games, parties, etc. but don’t say anything. They aren’t really friendly, they don’t complain and they don’t have other friends on the team. They just kind of trudge through the season. You can tell that they don’t enjoy it but I have learned not to ask. Once I did. This mom was a single parent and had a couple of kids. Her oldest was on our team and he was a good little player. He didn’t miss ever and was had a good attitude. His mom would come and sit in her chair and watch practice very closely. She wouldn’t smile and when I said “Hi” or “How’s it going?” she’d ignore me or give a one word answer with no eye contact. I just thought she hated me or something and so I asked her one day if I had offended her or if she was mad at us about something. She looked at the ground and said that it wasn’t us. She then went on for about twenty minutes about how she hated men and how she hated football and we were crazy for liking it and how she wished her son would want to quit. I guess her ex husband loved football and she blamed it for all the marital problems. I was glad that it wasn’t us but I was sorry I asked. I felt so depressed after her preaching that I almost hung up my whistle. Another Mom was very similar. I asked her if everything was OK and she said that she hated one of my assistants because he yelled too much. She then spent a half an hour telling me how unhealthy it was to yell at kids and how her son was so devastated when we yelled. Yet she and her son showed up to practice the next night. So were we guilty of abuse or was she guilty of neglect. If we were so awful why do you keep sending your kid? I’ve learned to just assume the best; that these types of folks just have other stuff on their mind and let them come to me if there is really an issue.

Group 5: Helpful to a flaw
This group is fine. Nothing negative to say. They are just really really helpful. I think they wish they could coach. I get a few of these each year and usually their kids are the worst players on the team. Nothing wrong with that. I need players some are good some aren’t all are welcome. I just find it entertaining when we see one of these go-getter dads. I know within two minutes of talking to the dad if the kid will be a player or not. Usually the dad wasn’t a great player and loved the game so he wants his son to be better than he was. So he asks if he can help. Can I get this or can I coach or can I do that? Its something we need so I usually use them where I can. Sometimes though, they ask to do things that we either don’t need or already have someone doing. It’s sad when I have to tell them no because I know their intentions are only positive. Rarely do any of these types of parents complain or cause any problems. This group is great, they help and they are free entertainment.

Group 6: Out of Sight and Out of Mind
This group is the kind I never know. They drop off their kid, the kid plays and they show up at the end. I never hear from them or never even see them. I kind of forget about them. They either think that we are a great babysitting service or that their kid is fine on his own and we are good dudes. I guess both are true. This is a good group until you have an issue like their kid gets hurt and you call them by the wrong name, or when you need parent volunteers. Generally speaking I have no problem with them as I know folks are busy and have more than one place to be most nights.

Group 7: Rare as a Diamond – The Perfect Parent
Never had anyone in this group. Neither has my son’s coach on the team I’m not part of :). I’m by far not the perfect parent. But if there was such a beast here are some attributes:
1. Always on time to everything. Coaches worry when people are late Even the worst player on the team. They’ve worked hard with that kid all week and want them to have success on game day, practice or even smile for the picture
2. Always sell stuff. Fundraisers are the lifeblood to youth sports. Even High Schools have to sell stuff now. I’m not saying sell everything 100 times better but do what you’re asked and then be sure you turn it in on time
3. Time and a Place: there is a time and a place for everything. I’m never gonna say you can’t complain. But there is a time and a place. Please use them. Coaches never want a parent to talk to them after a practice or a game. Email or a text is better. It allows them to answer on their own time. Some coaches would rather talk on the phone. So find out which is better for your coach.
4. Attend with the kids. If the kids go somewhere, go with them if you can. The coach will feel the support just by you showing up. And be friendly with the coach. Remember generally he’s just a dad that had the desire to coach
5. Cheer for everyone. I hate it when dads only cheer for their kid. I see it every year. They don’t even know the other kids’ names because their kid is the only one that matters. While it’s ok to cheer a little louder for your own kid it won’t hurt to learn a few of the other kid’s names and cheer them on. It will show everyone you are about the team, and most of all it will show your kid.

Conclusion
I only bring this up to help a few. I really love youth sports with all of its crazy dads, upset Mom’s and bratty spoiled kids. There is way more “good” in youth sports than there is bad. One of the best kids I ever coach had the worst dad. The kid loved the team, he loved his coaches and he just loved to play football. One day his Dad was really yelling at the coaches. I heard some new words I had never heard about our combined intelligence. It was really starting to get embarrassing. I was about ready to go over and say something to him when I noticed the kid was there talking to his dad. The dad walked away, very sullen, and sat in a chair next to his wife. His wife got up and moved. Soon the other parents moved and the dad sat there the rest of the game by himself. I asked the little 10 year old after the game what he said. He told me he said: “Dad I love to play football, I love these coaches, I love everything about it. I am sorry you hate it so much. If you want we can go home now and I won’t come back”. He said his dad apologized and walked off. I would hate for my son to say anything close to this.

Year Around Aspects of Sports

2011-10-31T14:41:00.001-07:00

So your kid wants to play High Schools Sports? Which Sport? Which School? Who's the Coach, what does he run? Does his offense/defense match your kid's abilities and skills?

Many questions are asked these days about high school sports. A few years ago the AZ Republic did a story about the budgets of some High Schools athletic departments. It was amazing the dollars that they had. I'm not talking a few thousand. It was all crazy money in the nearly 6 figures for small schools and over $100K for the larger ones. The money was used for capital projects, Coach's bonuses, equipment, uniforms, etc. There was large amounts of money. So I state this just to say that there is no denying that High School Sports are a big business and without them most schools don't survive. And that many kids will have a strong desire to play it. Also every started on your high school teams has dreams of playing at the next level.

So back to your kid.

Let's pretend your boy wants to play baseball in High School. He's played little league and was pretty good. Once the season was over the mitt and the bat went in the closet and weren't thought of again until 9-10 months later. If you are planning on going to a big school, you can forget playing baseball there. Kids that make the teams on competitive big time high schools (remember there can only 20-25 boys per team) never put their gloves away. It's with them where ever they are. They play fall ball, They hit indoors in the summer and they play winter ball all before their "season". The only breaks they may get is during the fall if they play football and then they are still hitting and fielding once a week.

When I was a kid we played football, baseball, and basketball in season. We didn't think about the other ones until it was that season. Now that is not the case in big schools. There may be some exceptional athletes that play multiple sports in the big schools but most are specialized. In the smaller schools (like in my area) there are many multi sports kids. In fact you'll see some kids play three sports in small schools. It's purely because they don't have the numbers. I have a friend at work who has two boys. One is 20 years old and is on a baseball scholarship at a major university, his other one is a freshmen at a large high school. Both have been year around baseball players since they were 10 years old. His younger boy in 2009 played 200 plus baseball games (he turned 12 that year). A typical week in this kid's life is school, baseball (3 nights a week) then 2-5 baseball games on Saturday and Sunday. That's it. He's got to go really cool places like Cooperstown NY for a baseball tournament (baseball hall of fame) and many other places to play ball. His older boy was very similar but in High School wanted to play football. He did and was really good. He was a starter on Varsity as a Junior and Senior. When it came to college though he really had no choice but to play baseball.

Let's see what's the point? hmmm well I guess it's that you better be prepared if you want to play High School baseball or basketball at a large school. Football is still a little more clear because they need many kids and it's too physical to play year around. There are some High schools that frown on multi sport players. A different friend of mine was told his son couldn't start on the baseball team if he played football. That's just silly, but that's what he was told.

Basketball is more ridiculous. There is nothing to compare it to. There are websites that rank 8th graders for recruiting to colleges. If you want to be on that list you better be good, but you also better be on a "club" or "travel" team that is well connected (i.e. funded). They are the ones that get you ranked. The kids that play these "travel" ball teams play in 25 tournaments a year. That's nothing to do with their school team. Most recruiting isn't done at High School basketball games anymore it's all done at these weekend tournaments. The schools that win state at the big school level not only allow these kids to play travel ball many of them embrace it, coach it, fund it and require it. By the time your kids is a freshmen you'll know whether they are gonna play college basketball at a high level or not. There are some rare exceptions where the kid grows or is just really good and no one knows but mostly those kids get overlooked and have no chance really. And it's not because they aren't good enough. It's because they aren't in the system. We've had fun laughing at the high school recuriting that goes on as well. Arizona is a haven for recruiting because of the open enrollment law. A tall athlete in the 8th grade is a target for any high school coach that knows about him. I coached a player like that last year. He's a good player but wasn't even a starter on our team, but he "looked the part" played at a club team and was the popular kid at our tournaments because the host high school's assistant coaches were all over him.

Conclusion: Decide what your kid wants and then be willing to be all in. But if you aren't then don't complain to a coach* that cuts your kid. I hate travel ball, club teams and weekend play. Hate it. I like kids that play three or four sports and are all about their "seasons" but those kids aren't going to make teams at high schools that have 2000+ kids at them or if they do they are lucky (or gifted). It can happen. There is a kid at our high school who is a good football player, basetball player and baseball player. He's a good athlete. However he isn't going to be good enough to play at a large college in any of them. If he wanted to quit two of the three and just focus on one, he may have been able to play. However he loves his High School time and he is my favorite kid at the school because he is all about the school, and not so much about himself (he's also in the band). It's interesting how people look back at things once they've left. I think this kid won't look at wins and losses, but more about the relationships, experiances and time that he spent with his teams. I always say "If your kid is meant to play in the pros some day, he will, no matter how much he plays now."

Hope I've helped. I know it's a tight wire because we all want our kids to do well but at what expense? I've struggled with it forever.

*Next blog subject is Parents vs. Coach

High Schoool Football Coach = CEO of Football

2011-10-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

So generally speaking I don't have good ideas. But I think I do here. So if you are stunned, so am I. 99% of you (which means all) won't care about this idea so there. It is just something that I wanted to blog so when the whole world comes to grip with what a great idea this is i can say "I thought of that, years ago" and have a blog post to prove it.

Subject: Successful High School Football program in today's environment

Introduction: Today with HS football being the #1 perception of high school it is important to be successful in football more than anything at the school; including academics, music etc. (wait I know some of you just said "no way!"). It is important to run it like a business and not in the traditional "extra-circular" activity. The head coach should be a CEO of football and everyone involved in the football program should work for him (or her, but I'm assuming "him" for simplistic sake). He should have say in all things related to his program, including scheduling, hiring, and even teachers at the school. Points that I will bring into play will show how this is necessary.

Section 1: Mind shift CEO not a Coach

At most high schools you have more kids involved in football than any other singular activity by 200%. At a normal medium HS you have say 1200 students. 250 of them will be involved in football as players, managers, cheerleaders, student trainers etc. that's a large percentage of your student body. It's also the only sport that has such a community binding influence. You will have 1000+ people attend each Friday night, you have people in the community that come to the football games that have nothing to do with the school, you have kids that aren't even interested in sports that show up and pay to come to the football games. This is truly a large event and should be. They come to watch the boys play football, cheerleaders cheer and the band play. But make no mistake, if there wasn't a football team there are no cheerleaders and the band becomes the Orchestra, something no one knows about outside of the parents of the kids involved.

The point is the person over the HS football team, traditionally the head coach, is the singularly most important person at the school. I know that some folks think I'm nuts for saying this but I’ll get to that. Assume for now I'm right. The head coach needs help to be successful. He needs good coaches for on the field, he needs a good training staff to keep people healthy. He needs a good weight room coach to keep his players strong and he needs good admin type folks to help him with scheduling, travel, equipment, safety, etc. Typically with 3 or 4 teams a football program needs 15 or more on-field coaches. This means that they need these folks to be at every practice and each game that they are assigned. There are training staff usually one full-time trainer and 5 to 10 student trainers. The support staff includes an athletic secretary and an administrator. Also there are equipment managers, and student managers. all included this is a lot of folks that the Head Coach must keep tabs on, direct and assure everything is being done correctly. This is equivalent to a medium size business. Not only that but on game night, pep assemblies and special occasions the Head Coach must be aware of and involved (don't even get me started on the boosters either - much work there too). This is why the Head Coach must a) be a CEO and b) given power like one. A CEO in the business world means "Cheif Executive Officer" and he only answers to the Board of Directors. I am indeed stating this should be the case in HS Football. The CEO should answer to someone like a board of folks like the Principle, superintendent and others. Not to one athletic director that has 20 other sports to worry about.

CEO role should include:
1) Hiring his assistants first and foremost. He must act as a CEO and should be comfortable with the assistants on the field. This also includes trainer, strength and conditioning coach, equipment person and football secretary. This includes getting some of his assistant’s jobs at the school. School should accommodate all of them even if it means not giving existing teachers contracts for the new staff. Remember the assumption is if football is good everything else gets better.
2) All activities on game night. Game nights support EVERY other club and athletic teams in the school. This is the only time the community and students all come together. Every other team does their fundraisers during football season. They sell things, work on things and advertise things at the home football games. Football supports everything, and thus should have the choices of what goes on during their game time.
3) Fields and use of fields. The CEO of football should have full rights to his fields during the season. If he wants youth football teams to practice there he should get them to. It should be his an only his decision. If he wants the freshmen team to practice on a specific field at a certain time then it should be so. These fields are his and should be his during the season.
4) Assemblies and community involvement should be his responsibility. Make no mistake about it this, is important. Kids that are at the district’s elementary or middle schools have no obligation to a specific HS they can go wherever they want. It's important for the football team, cheerleaders and band to be involved. All of this should be up to the CEO of football. He shouldn't have to hassle another district administrator for him to bring a few players to an elementary school or have his own principle not allow it. This can be negotiated so it's often but still in line with academic goals. This is how a community gets behind a football team and a HS.

Section 2: Why so important?
This section will tell you why we should do this. There is no other reason than this: a good football team makes everything better.
A. Money: Football drives money. Not just players but many kids won't come to a school that has a crappy football team that loses, doesn't include everyone, has many issues with players, parents or is generally an embarrassment. They will leave a school to go to one that has a better perception. In today’s world especially with the younger kids perception is reality. And these perceptions change every minute. So the more students that show up to the school the more $$$ the state gives the school, The more students (and thus state money) the more programs can be included, the more involvement from these kids there is and the larger staff you'll need. Every club uses the gathering of a football game as a fundraiser. This is where the basketball team sells things, this is where the softball team works at the snackbar to get money for their season and it's where the volleyball team and wrestling teams advertise events or fundraisers they are having. Every team has money needs if you have a huge crowd at a winning football team's home games it pads the pockets of everyone. It's also the only time a school makes money because of the number of paid attendees.
B. School Spirit. This may be an ancient idea to some. But there is a lot of value of a person having pride in what they are involved in. I'm not talking about yelling at a game or yelling at a pep assembly but there is something to be said about being proud of where you went to school. This is important for self-worth and commitment abilities later in life. Many kids these days have never stuck with anything before. This is the motivation they may need. A successful (winning) football team is where this will start. Also a proud student will be much more successful in the classroom rather than one that "hates" his school. Bad runs quickly downhill.
C. Community involvement is important. YOU must have involvement with the community to have kids start to get excited to come to the HS. They coming makes everything better, the football team gets better, the band gets better and the academics go up just because of sheer numbers. It also gives you a good perception with the folks that don't even have kids in the schools. They buy more fundraising things, get their cars washed by the kids and buy a t-shirt with your school logo. Service hours, parades, visits to elementary schools, and a general presence are all part of it.

Section 3: Execution
Of course the first step is a huge culture change. Today the head coach of football is the same status and power as the head coach of the badminton team in prestige and power at the school (or so the structure is setup to be- no offense to the badminton team I happen to like badminton but it’s not the spectator sport of football). The culture has to change to the large university idea: Football drives everything so hitch your wagon to them and enjoy.

The second step is finding the CEO. Yes they should probably have to have done something in football before. They should have a concept of the football game as either a coach or a player. However I don’t think that experience of being a successful head coach is needed. If they have the personality and the leadership of being a CEO and the “buck stops here” kind of presence they will be successful. Remember their role is to set it up for success. Be a salesman and rally support to himself and his coaches and players. Great coaches (on the field) should be his coordinators. This assures success on the field. Where does a good on the field coach want to be? He wants to be on the field, with the players or in the film room game planning. Does he really want to be at the elementary speaking to the kids? Does he really want to discuss fundraisers with the booster club? Does he really want to discuss game night activities with the principle or other teams’ coaches? Nope this is the CEO’s job.

The final step is to treat it like a company would. Do reviews of folks, evaluate where the program is. Cut brutally when needed and reward huge when needed. CEO’s get fired sometimes. This is a large investment for a potentially large return but sometimes the plug needs pulled when it’s not working out.

Final Summary:
High School football is big business these days. The football team is the face of the school. There is no other singular aspect of the school that can have such a positive (or negative) effect on the school. It drives money, student enrollment, school spirit and every other aspect of the school including academics. Running it like a big business is very important. Hiring a CEO instead of a Head Coach (you can still call him the head coach) and allowing him to run it exclusively is the one way to be successful. It is a culture change from the “everyone is equal” society that we have, however everyone benefits when the football team is run well and is successful. There are plenty of schools already doing this in part. They have a strong willed head coach that takes on more roles then perhaps others traditionally would have. But if you don’t have this culture now, this is the way to go.

Jimmerific!

2011-01-12T08:26:00.000-08:00

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

Hoops, Football and etc.

2011-01-11T07:40:00.000-08:00

Well our basketball season started up again after the two week break for the Holidays. Drew broke his arm so he's out for a while. Skylar played a lot on Saturday and did some good things. He's getting it. His feet are just one second behind his brain. It will all click one day and he'll be fine. He didn't score but his team won by 16. Katy's team won too. My goal for her is just to score one basket... I can't believe that she hasn't yet! oh well.

Football is over for now. But we are doing the ACS Relay for Life again this year. We do this with our Football family. Its a fun time to go raise some money for ACS and enjoy each other. We are doing a football camp this year as our fundraiser. I enjoy doing the camps. It's like having football practice for 3 nights in a row. I'm happy to be able to help the kids do better too.

Another Week

2010-12-14T06:28:00.000-08:00

Another week has passed and a bunch of things going on in the wide world of kids sports at my house. Katy's team the Sharks had a tough loss. We just couldn't make a basket. We took more shots then the other team, most of them really close, we just couldn't make any. Poor Katy struggled to get into the flow. She's getting better but had a really tough game. I hope that she gets better soon as I'm afraid she may get frustrated and not want to play anymore. She's pretty good but just really learning the game. Playing with the boys will be good for her but is very frustrating at first I think. Keep practicing and her getting more confidence is important. Her attitude is good so hopefully that will help.

Drew and Sky's team the Sting won again. Not the best game, like the Sharks we just missed a bunch of "bunnies" that will hurt us against a tougher team. More practice. Skylar played this week since he's caste free finally. He did really well in limited time in. He ran the point while he was in and actually made basket. I was happy that he was so aggressive. He's not scared at all eventough he's the youngest kid on our team. He got right in there and fought for eveything. I enjoyed having him back on the court. He gets upset with losing and not getting in the game as much as the older boys I can tell, but I understand that and would want it any other way. Drew did well too. I don't want diminish his role, but he's one of the best players and leads our team. It's just that he did what he does and sometimes I forget or just take him for granted. He's really working on his jumping ability and wants to be able to play HS ball next year. He should be able to but he's afraid to get left behind. He scored a bunch and pretty much won it for us with his shooting and passing along with Carter and Semone. However he did get into a staring contest with the Ref. That ref is dumby though and has no idea how to ref youth games. He's so inconsistant. I know it's a hard job but my gosh... I still benched Drew for a while because of it though.

Vance is starting running again after a couple weeks off between CC and track. He just ran 8 miles yesterday to ease back into it. He's not as excited about track as he was CC but will run it anyway I guess. Marly's basketball cheer season is in full swing and I think she cheers everynight but one this week. She's busy.

Next up is another Saturday of fun. 3 pm for Katy and 5 pm for Sky and Drew. BYU plays their bowl game at noon so we'll get to see some of it. I haven't seen BYU football even once this year. Very strange. So I'm glad at least I can watch some.

Basketball

2010-11-30T06:46:00.000-08:00

We are playing in a new league this year called the "East Valley Thunder". It is really only for Queen Creek and San Tan Valley kids. There are some Higly and Gilbert kids too. All the games are local so that's nice. I decided to coach Drew and Sky's team. We started practicing and have a pretty good team. Only practice two nights a week and then games on Saturday. Katy wanted to play to so I signed her up. Games start this Saturday. However they still hadn't called us on a coach for Katy. I was getting worried. Sunday an Email came from the league saying that they still needed coaches. Yikes. Stacy looked at me and I at her and we knew what to do. So instead of Katy not playing I get to coach a second team. This will be interesting. Katy isn't that experianced at basketball. She's the only girl on the team and she's never been coached by mean coach Ben in Basketball. We'll see how this goes. Two teams will be tough, my easy two nights a week has now turned into four.

Blog Change

2010-11-18T07:28:00.000-08:00

With Facebook, Twitter, Linked in and a blog I got my "social network" on lock. I think I'm crazy to not segregate. So if you read my blog well, cool. But it's gonna change.

See I'm Cybil a bit. I have "Professional Ben" where I am a Manager of Projects for IT at Honeywell. That puts food on the table pays for Mt Dew and basically keeps kids happy. I also have "Coach Ben", he's the guy that coaches every sport year around from HS football to coach pitch softball, to high level basketball to 3 year olds t-ball. Then there is "Phycho Ben", he's the one that dwells on the negative of the world, to the depressed, crazy, thinks everyone is weird and wrong. Also likes politics as long as he can stay on the fringe and just make fun of it. I also have "Brother Ben" who is very dedicated to his religion, his spirtual side, being a Dad, husband and best friend who will do whatever is needed.

So there are very distinct "people" in my person. So this is how its gonna be: Facebook, that's Brother Ben, the dad, friend and normal Ben, Twitter - Phycho Ben, Linked In: Professional Ben, and This Blog will be Coach Ben.

So kinghornet.blogspot.com will be for my kids and their sports and any other coaching I end up dowing. I'm gonna do game reports, funny things about sports and kids and even some advise to the parent coaches out there. I've had a lot of experiance and want to share, even if very few folks will actually benefit. Maybe some one will or maybe I'll start a trend.

twitter: azbenj
facebook: facebook.com/azbenj
linked in: Benjamin Johnson (ben@gotsting.com)
blogspot: (well you are here right?)

Favorite Time of Year

2010-11-17T06:54:00.000-08:00

Well we went to California for a quick 2 night vacation. We camped at this RV place and rode the trolley and had one really long day at California Advernture and wore out. Drove home and are now back into life. It was worth it. Gas, Camping, and fun at the park was about $300.00. We used our "Give a day, Get a day" vouchers and had a blast. Marly and Vance couldn't come so we missed them. Anny and Derek were great. Best choice ever was to borrow Aunt Allison's double jogging stroller. That thing is the coolest. We enjoyed our time to say the least. The only thing I was disapointed in was the swimming pool at the campground was broken. But i'm not sure we would have had time anyway. Also it was really foggy when we woke up on Tuesday so it might not have been a good "swim" time anyway.

We got back last night. I love this time of year. It's cool outside in the morning and evening and the days are nice. It's dark early and it makes me think of basketball, football and all the teams that are in their seasons. It's a good time to be outdoors in the day but under a blanket with a hot cup of soup watching a movie at night. Its getting close to the Holidays and getting closer to the end of the year. Its for sure my favorite time of year.

I went to the basketball parent meeting last night. There is a group of folks putting together a new basketball league in Queen Creek. It's called East Valley Thunder Basketball. It brought back memories when I was part of the teams that helped bring Pop Warner and Girls Softball to Queen Creek. I was just part of the groups that did this but still got a front row seat to all the issues, problems and accomplishements for each league. This new group is doing just fine too. I think that we will have a successful season.

New Look Homey

2010-11-05T12:48:00.000-07:00

I shaved my head recently, and when I say "I" I really mean me. I shaved it. It was weird to see the really long hair falling. I did it later one evening when Stacy and Derek were the only ones up... Now Stacy did fix a few spots and trimed the edges. But it was strange to do it myself. The next morning when I got up and went strait to work no one saw me. I went to work and since I go in only about once or twice a week no one at the office said much. They figure it's not that new since they never see me. I got home and walked in and kind of forgot that no one had seen me. Tawny was by the door as I walked in and said "Hi Dad, Whoa!" and that's it. I smiled and kept heading in. I walked by Katy and she said "Hi Dad" and kept walking bearly looking up. Next was Stacy, she didn't mention it because she'd seen it. I headed into my room to drop off my bags and there was Anny. She looked at me silently like staring. I said "Hi Anny!" She smiled and said "You look silly" I laughed and gave her a kiss. Leave it to a 2 year old to blurt out exactly what they are thinking. It was too cute (and funny).

whatever

2010-11-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

Yeah well it's been a long time since I've blogged. No reason except lazy and busy. Here are my "excuses"
1) Busy coaching two football teams both perfect just in different ways. Combs Freshmen were 0-9 and Hornets were 8-1. Both awesome love them all, but it was like living two different lives (picture twighlight zone)
2) Having 8 kids is busy...
3) Still breaking in new job - not liking it. Depressing
4) Anger managment issues. - Afraid I'd blog something inapproriate. That's what facebook is for...
5) Fail by comparison. - my blog sucks compared to others like my wife and friends
6) I enjoy blogging but not enough to make it a priority
7) I'm addicted to 3 TV shows, so other wise "down time" would be available.
8) Busy losing 25+ lbs between these last two blog posts
9) Stress makes me shut down instead of doing things like Blogging
10) No one reads it anyways.

New Phone

2010-06-04T10:01:00.000-07:00

Finally I'm cool like Stacy. I got a new phone (yeah!). In fact I think it's the coolest.

I even took a picture.

Combs Softball

2010-05-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

Well, if you didn't know I was a volunteer JV Softball coach at Combs High this year. It was fun. I love those girls (shh, don't tell them). I am really hoping to coach again next year (shh, don't tell Stacy). I will post more pictures when I can and then I will brag more about the pictures. We had our end of year banquet last thursday. It was really fun and good food too. El Rico's in Queen Creek is great, if you haven't been their, you're missing out.

Getting ready for a team picture. Coach LeBeau trying to figure out which camera to look at!!!

Team Picture.

Four girls - good friends Destiny, Rene, Raime, and Gabby!~ fun.

Enjoying Anny

2010-04-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

I'm working from home a lot lately. Anny and me enjoy this time. I enjoy that kid. I think the "terrible twos" should be called the terrific twos. She is really a good girl. She keeps us laughing. She's really smart too. She can figure stuff out. She has the camera on my phone all figured out. She turns it on then looks at it way too close and says "CHEESE". The only problem is she takes pictures of what's below the camera, since she's looking at the screen and the lens is on the back. She's starting a bit of the attitude that all of our kids have had. She reminds me of Marly in this sense. Anny has a major "stink eye". She's not afraid to use it either. She'll mumble under her breath too. Its really funny, but we have to fake anger or displeasure about it. It's hard.

"Let's go to QT Daddy!"

Here are a couple of pictures I took with my phone that I thought were funny or interesting.

Sent this to Lance Jimenez I thought he would like to know where he is!

How bad of a sin is coveting anyway? I mean is it still in the top 10...

Found out the best thing about High School Sports in AJ is that you 1) you don't pay and 2) can take your truck, dinner and chairs and watch from the front row. I wish we had this... (NOT).

Great News Today!

2010-04-22T13:47:00.001-07:00

Since no one reads my blog and since he doesn't have one, I guess it's OK if I spill the beans!

Vance is a genius! He got a full ride Presidential Honors Scholarship to MCC. His Cross Country Athletic Scholarship goes into his pocket...

Daddy doesn't have to pay anything for college. Save that $$ for the mission.

Yeah boy! Thank you. Here are some photos in your honor...!

Vance and younger kids in 1999

Vance in 2001

Vance in 2003 (studly!)

Vance in 2005

Vance in 2009

That's Amar'e.

2010-03-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

I love the suns. I am a long time fan. When I was a kid I only liked the Celtics because my Aunt and Uncle lived in Boston and Ainge, Bird, McHale, DJ, and Parrish were great. I think that I became a Suns fan because we moved to Phoenix and the Suns were on TV a lot. Chambers, KJ, Dan Majerle and others were great. My favorite Sun's player ever is probably Kevin Johnson. He was great. Could score anytime, good leader and could dunk when he wanted. When they drafted Amare I started really liking him. I like Nash, I like others but Amare is why I watch. He does something once a game that is worth the time of watching. I hate it when the Radio/Papers/TV start to say that we need to trade him. He's great. He really makes us better. I don't care who you get for him in a trade, he's better. I don't trust the Suns, so he'll probably be on another team in a year or two. But I'll enjoy him while I can...

Here's his dunk from last night. I think that it was good. But the one when he was younger against the Timber Wolves was better. The thing about this one is it stopped the kid that he dunked on from dominating the game (which he had been doing before). So enjoy Amare in Purple while you can... it won't be long until he's some where else because Steve Kerr is terrible (www.firestevekerr.com)

ch-ch-changes!

2010-03-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

I love newness. Or change, or anything that refocuses. I think that change is always good at some level. Sometimes change is bad, in part, but it usually refocuses me to do different things, better things or sometimes scary things. Things like a new year, a new job, a new boss, or a new home. I think that it gives me a chance to evaluate. I'm great at new year's resolutions. I keep them for a while. I'm not perfect. I give up or I stop doing them. BUT I love them. I really like new jobs too. I used to be a consultant. I'd get a new job about every 6-8 weeks. It was great. At first it was intimidating but after a while I liked it. I was "on" at all times. Absolutely no comfort level with co-workers or managers, and I had to prove myself over and over again. I even try to change my appearance. I think that my wife gets annoyed with this one. I get very bored very easy. Wake up, shower, shave, comb hair, put on deodorant, brush teeth, go to work, come home, go to bead, wake up, shower, shave, comb hair... you get the idea. So I change it. Quit shaving or grow a goatee, grow hair long, shave head, comb hair differently... anything to entertain myself. I need to do these things because 40+ miles to work, doing basically the same job for 8+ years day in day out gets a guy like me extremely bored.

I like my current job because it is stable, I'm home every night, I don't worry about much. However sometimes it gets stale. So I think of new ways to make it interesting. I think about applying for other jobs but always realize this is the one I want and want to keep food on the table. So my idea is to do something different. I can't have changes really (with 8 kids, a good job, a good home and a nice neighborhood, why change?), so I'm going to change my outlook on change. Stability in somethings is a change. There are some things I don't want to change... my family, my wife, my church calling, my friends and my hobbies (GO HORNETS!). But somethings I do want to change... and work to do just that! Hey, if you aren't improving (i.e. changing) then you are getting worse!

Sky's gonna be famous

2010-03-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

Skylar my 11 year old is a good kid with a huge imagination. I call him 'demo' because he can't tell a story without "showing" or acting it out. It's pretty cool, but slows him down on his story telling. We laugh at him about that all the time. Last year he did stand up comedy at the school talent show. He was good. Very unique personality. He told me for his middle school next year he is dropping PE for Drama. He is very excited to be getting older and can't wait to get in front of an audience. He is the host for this years talent show (following in Drew's footsteps) and I'm sure he'll get to do some of his stand-up in that too.

Sky started writing raps recently. Not short ones either. He has full blown verse and chorus. He does it very well. He started doing these and we wondered about them a lot. We thought he was just messing around, he was even accused by the other kids of plagiarism. So he kept writing. He has a few now that are really pretty good. He decided today that he wanted to publish them somehow. So he asked how he could put them on the web. He decided that a blog would work. So he put them on http://djfluffman.blogspot.com so check him out. I'm not sure he's posted anything yet... but videos are sure to come soon. Marly is his camera man and creative director... this should be good (I'm nervous)

Utah in 72 hours or less

2010-03-08T07:03:00.000-08:00

This weekend my nephew Colton was baptized. We were invited to go so we went. Trying to save vacation days and since I've already taken some for Derek's birth this year, we decided to go up early Friday morning and come home on Sunday. This was a good plan for a quick trip. However it didn't exactly work. The Van needed some work and they didn't finish till Friday about mid-day. We took off and made good time and got into Highland, UT at about 11PM. We had a very full Saturday with the Baptism, Mt. Timp Temple (me, Mom and my Sister Candice), Stacy, Derek and Anny to the BYU library for some homework and Grandpa taking the other kids (Drew, Katy, Tawny and Colton) sledding. Afterwards we went to Eric (my brother) and Lindsay's house in Sandy to check it out. They recently bought this home. Then back to Highland for an adult dinner out. AFTER all that we still ran down to this grocery store called Macey's for some shopping before we left for home and for our traditional KONG CONE ice cream treat. If you don't know about KONG CONES trust me just go if you are ever in Utah. Drew ate one and had a stomach ache that he couldn't get over for a few hours. So yesterday (Sunday) we got up and ate and were on the road by 7 AM. It was snowing in southern UT and Flagstaff area so we went to Las Vegas. This was fine until it took an hour to get across the dam. It was funny because we all made a bunch of dam jokes. Like "this is a lot of dam traffic" and "look there's the dam cops" (Hoover Dam does have it's one police department called the "Hoover Dam PD"). So even though it was slow it was still only 1pm and we were in good spirits. The rest of the trip was fine with mixed in rain Stacy studying (how she can type and ride in the car at the same time? I don't know). About ten miles outside of Wikenburg it stopped raining. I turned off the windshield wipers, but they wouldn't turn off. Stacy said: "I think you can turn them off now" I just smiled and said real softly "They won't turn off" She giggled then laughed then eventually just really belly laughed because each kid had the same conversation with me. "Dad you can turn them off, it's not raining anymore". To each I smiled and said "It's broke they won't turn off" Stacy laughing the whole time. I think she had finally gone nuts. We made it to Phoenix only to be delayed another 90 minutes with a huge semi-truck crash on I-10. It was amazing there were parts of the truck everywhere! We finally got home about 10:30 pm and in all were gone just about 60 hours. Vance, Marly and Sky stayed home and all was well (and clean) when we got home.

We have wonderful vacations, and this overall wasn't wonderful in the Van, but in Utah it was amazing and any trip you make it home safe from is a good one. We're glad Colton made the choice to be baptized and we are glad everyone was OK. I for one am glad I got to go to the Mt. Timp Temple and look forward to going to the SLC temple in the summer when we return (for a longer stay then one day).

FHE - Give a day get a day...

2010-02-23T07:49:00.000-08:00

Last night for family home evening we did some selfish service. We went to the store to buy stuff for teachers. School teachers these days have to either buy some stuff they need in the class room or they have to do without. Stuff that we take for granted like paper clips, pens, post-it-notes ect. So there is a group that is collecting "teacher boxes" that have this kind of stuff. We put together 10 of these boxes last night. We all went to the store split up and gathered what we needed. It was fun and pretty quick. Then we came home and put them in the 10 boxes and tonight we'll write thank you notes to each teacher then wrap it up like a present. We then deliver them to the group in Tempe and they will deliver to the needed places. I said it was selfish because four our trouble (and our $$) we get 10 tickets to Disneyland. Yeah. so we get to go in June. should be fun but I don't know what we'll do with Derek and Anny since they aren't going to get to go... (maybe Anny will). Anyway it was fun for the kids to do something for others. They knew exactly why we were doing it because they have the same problems at their schools. Marly took half a ream of printer paper today because her school is out. The funny part was Grandpa Whetten couldn't understand why we needed to do this. We had to explain to him a few times that teachers don't get these kind of things that they should because there is no money in the school district to pay for this stuff. He just couldn't get it... oh well he helped us a lot setting them up anyway. He said "Where are these going?" I said "there are some schools that need supplies for the teachers" he said "why" I said "I guess they don't have the money for the teachers to get this and the teachers shouldn't have to pay for stuff like this out of pocket" and he looked at me like all confused and said indignantly "like where?" I didn't know what to say so I said "I don't know... maybe poorer neighborhoods like South Phoenix"... That was probably not a good thing to say because I really have no idea where and we don't have to know the group we take them to has to know. I felt bad about naming an area but oh well. I've been there many times for football and it does look like they could use a little help, I'm just sayin'

randomness is bestest

2010-02-19T11:59:00.000-08:00

So today I was looking around my cube (padded cage i work in when I go to work), and saw that there was nothing on the walls at all. so I added a couple of things just "beautify" it a bit. It's not beautiful, but it is less dull. So I'm going to add a few pictures to my blog that I've captured via my phone as I have lived lately just because I want to make it a little better.

Mr. Whiting getting an earful from an upset fan at a basketball game at Queen Creek. It's blurry because of the distance but I thought I'd better take this in case Jeff needed evidence in the court case... That guy seemed upset.

Sky on the way to Cody Rothlisberger's house ("But I'm not tired Dad!")

Derek When I baby sit... no matter what time (I'm good!)

A girls soccer team ripped off our football team. I'm not sure how I feel about this (Hmmm....)

Here's how I feel about Stacy's School (yucky)

Here's a picture of the Mesa Temple. I don't know why I took this I just felt like it when I went there the other day :)

I had more but most are inappropriate! ha ha just kidding. I don't roll like that... If you're bored (and you must be because you are on my blog) go to my friend Anjie's blog. She's coolio! http://anjiesantics.blogspot.com/

All good (or not so good) things come to an end

2010-02-16T09:23:00.001-08:00

As you may have heard JD Hayworth is retuning to politics. He has left his job KFYI to run for senate. Most people wouldn't have to leave their job that puts food on the table but he did because we live in a FAIR society. Anyway JD is running against John "Lettuce" McCain. I think this is a good thing. I was hoping that John would "go away" after he lost to BO but he didn't. I was hoping that Jeff Flake would run for Senate once lettuce returned to where ever the H he came from. But he didn't consult me...oh well. JD is a good 2nd to Jeff Flake. I like lettuce A war hero, yes, a good man, yes, a family guy yes, but in the world of politics none of this matters much. I think that what we need is someone that stands for principles and votes accordingly. I think it's interesting that JD is running because he has always been a conservative yet he lost his way with the rest of the republicans in the early 2000s... However I don't really think that we can fault him for that. The Post 9/11 political environment was different, it made us choose differently, it made us a little scared not to watch our own. Lettuce on the other hand didn't really do much more then: threaten to leave the GOP, embarrass the GOP vs. BO and lied about Mitt many times in his campaign for the GOP nomination in 2008... not to mention doing nothing for Arizona. I mean how many of you can tell me one good thing he's done for AZ in the last two terms (12 years). He ran for president twice, passed a well known liberal policy to govern elections that was recently declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme court and generally supported illegal emigration, stem-cell research and spoke out big time against water boarding (being a POW himself its no wonder) but then in the moment of truth voted for it.

Now I like JD as a guy, he's an entertaining talk show host. But is he a senator? I don't know. He is not my first choice. That would be Jeff Flake, however I think Congress is where Brother Flake wants to be. So we have to look at who there is to vote for. I don't believe in voting against someone but for someone, I also don't believe in not voting, so I do. When I look at Lettuce vs. Hayworth I am leaning RIGHT, to JD. Emigration, the Mitt Romney things and time for a change is why.

Peace! What do the Red, White and True bloggers have to say I wonder?

BYU to the PAC 10

2010-02-10T12:39:00.000-08:00

Well religious persecution will never end :) Just kidding (kind of)... most PAC 10 articles about the pending PAC 10 expansion have said that BYU is not an option... They say that it is because BYU isn't a "research" school. That's a big bunch of hoey! What they mean is BYU won't play on Sunday and the ever expanding Sunday basketball schedule is the problem. I think that a review of history will help us understand what is happening now. This is a lesson in what is reported and what is reality and how they are often different.

Roger Reid was a good basketball coach at BYU as an assistant and head coach for a long time. In fact he won a lot. He recruited well and was overall pretty good (not great). Then BYU took a hit on recruiting and Roger got frustrated about it. He was under pressure to beat Utah and others in conference. Also BYU started to lose . So some LDS recruits went to other places like Utah or Stanford, or someplace closer to their home. Along came a big recruit named Chris. He was a McDonalds All American he was LDS and good, very good. He was choosing between Utah and Duke with BYU as a thought. Roger made a mistake and asked Chris to commit. When Chris said no, he said "10 million Mormons would be disappointed". Chris then committed to Duke and ESPN and everyone else ran with the "Disappointed Mormons" quote. BYU went 1-25 the next season and Roger got fired. Roger made a big stink about it. The papers said that Roger was fired because of losing and low attendance and "time for a change". BUT that wasn't it! It was because he made the LDS church look bad. The only reason there is BYU sports is for the missionary efforts of the church. So if a coach, player or fan makes the church look bad then it should be shot down... (not my point). My point is what was reported wasn't reality.

They are now saying that BYU can't join the PAC10 because it's not a research institution. What a joke. ASU is? UA is? ok Cal-Berkley, Stanford and USC I will give you, but most of the state schools are equal or below BYU. Another thing I heard was that BYU didn't have a medical school... Neither does ASU sheesh! does USC? BYU doesn't need one because 50 miles awayat UTAH there is one of the best and could the community support both? BYU's Law school is the best in the whole MTN area. Why don't the just say it: "BYU won't play on Sunday and if they are good in basketball one year (like top 10 or something) we won't be able to case in on it!" Crazy.. well I finally found one guy who almost said it (link at bottom). At least he is saying that it should be BYU and UTAH and not COLORADO (1000 miles from LA -dumb). Here's the reaility if BYU had made a BSC bowl like Utah (big if I know) this wouldn't even be a discussion. BYU has won more games in the last 5 years, been higher average ranked in that last 5 years then any team in the entire west except USC... so UTAH made 2 BCS bowls in the last 6 years... but BYU has more wins and high average ranking at the end of the season... Utah should be taken, but both on the field and off of it BYU is better! In all 29 sports that the Mountain West awards conference champions in BYU won or shared 23 in the 2008-2009 school year. In non-revenue sports they lead at least 8 PAC10 teams in a lot of them (XC, Track (mens), Gymnastics, men's volleyball (2 national championships), and others. It's silly to think that it's because of academics BYU can't join. Just go apply to BYU and ASU/UA and see which one accepts you... Utah should be in... But history tells us that BYU should be in too, but are fighting against more then the normal parameters...

Link:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/09/SPTB1BUVCC.DTL

Family and Fun Weekend

2010-02-08T07:56:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was Derek's blessing day. We have 8 am church and had planned to just go to Sacrament meeting and then leave to have a brunch/family gathering in the park. However Saturday night it rained all night and the park was flooded and muddy. Stacy was very stressed about this. But we got up early and She, the kids and I got the tables and chairs in the house and arranged it (with help from Uncle Matt Angel) so that we could seat 48 people at tables and chairs. It turned out good. We got to Sacrament meeting plenty early and enjoyed a good Fast and Testimony meeting. Derek is officially blessed and on the records as a church baby. We all all went home and enjoyed out breakfast and then people headed home. My parents and nephew Colton were here for the weekend and headed home to Utah around 10 or 11 am on Sunday. I'm glad they came. They were in town a little early because My Dad's Uncle Albert Christensen passed and his funeral was Friday in Mesa. We enjoyed their visit. We will be going to Utah on March 5th-7th for Colton's baptism. We spent the rest of Sunday with fast offering route (Drew and me), Choir practice (Vance and Me) and naps, football game (super bowl 44) and fun with Rocky and Jana Chapman's family. Stacy's parents and little sisters Brittney and Melissa and Brady Garret (Brit's husband to be) stayed all afternoon it was great. The laziness was nice and we also felt like it was a spiritual day. Testimony meeting was great. Vance and Marly bore their testimony about their Patriarchal blessings and the spirit was strong through out the meeting. I also appreciated my friend Jeff Whiting's testimony. Man the change in the brother since the day I met him is fantastic, he's a real hero to my kids and me.

PREACHY: So don't read if you don't want to be preached to (You've been warned)

2010-01-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

Mormon Gossip is the funniest. I guess if you take any small slice of society you can find their curlture or their gossip to be humorous to another small segmant of society. Like if you look at mormons we don't really gossip about who's having affairs with other people (a la Desperate Houswives) or how much money people make we gossip about who's gonna be the next Bishop or who's pregnant with the 8th kid or who is moving or who is speaking in church on Sunday "and are they really a good choice?" I had to laugh becuase I wonder if you dropped a non-member (meaning a person not of the LDS faith) into a LDS gossipy conversation what would think:
Member 1: So did you hear that the Bishop is moving?
Member 2: No, he is?
Member 1: Yeah, like in a month
Member 2: Wow, I wonder who will be the next Bishop? (always first thought/question)
(not "where are they moving?", not "Why are the moving?")
Non-Member: What's a Bishop?

It's not bad. I'm not condemming it. Don't get me wrong I'm as guilty as anyone. I just got a different perspective lately and felt like commenting on it. In fact I'm pretty sure that everyone tries to guess who will be the next whatever in the church becuase it is a mystry to us. In reality it doesn't matter who we think should be or will be becuase The Lord chooses who he will and we are left to pray for a testimony about the truthfulness of their calling. I've been dead wrong on some of my "guesses" and right on on some of them in my life. But you know what? It didn't matter because its the person what who the Lord Called not who I guessed (or even secretly wanted).

Now there are some bad gossip in the church that we should stay away from. Like if somebody blesses the sacrament or something and you comment later about their worthiness. This is wrong. This can lead to some major hurt feelings. Also it is a sin. I'll tell you my opinion on this. If I bless the sacrament unworthily does it make the ordinance invalid? NO. It does bring condemnation to me, but not to those that partake of the sacrament on that particular day. So as we've been counciled many times ("let he who's without sin cast the first stone" "Remove the pillar from thine own eye..." and "Judge not lest you be judged by the same judgement...") What do you Care? I mean really are you trying to make yourself feel better by pointing out someone elses sins? Are you trying to condemn someone? Now ok maybe .01% of the time when WE do this (caps becuase I'm a guilty sinner too) we are really trying to help the person becuase we love them, but I don't think that is often the case.

Gossip is like when we have a good joke to tell. You are so excited to tell it. You practice it in your head, you may even tell one person just to kind of test drive the joke. Then when you tell it to a big group and they laugh really loud and long you feel so proud. Like everyone must really like "me" because of that great joke. When in reality it may be just a good joke and you are just the messenger. What if no one laughs (i know this all too well), and your joke bombs. Well you feel embarrassed and dumb and very disapointed. But really it has nothing to do with you, you are just a messenger and its that joke that is bad. Now you may have wished you hadn't told it, but it doesn't make you bad. Gossip is like that but where it does make you bad. Meaning that the story that you told really does reflect on you. The story may be true and it may be really good story but it's still gossip and its really going to reflect on your character.

I think a good rule is to ask yourself these questions:
1. Would I tell this story in front of the person(s) it is about? (NO)
2. Wouldn't it be better if the person that this is about got to tell the story instead of me? (YES)
3. Can anyone have their feelings hurt by me telling this story? (YES)
4. Am I telling this story because I'm trying to make myself look better? (YES)
5. Does the person(s) I'm telling the story to need to know this information? (NO)

If the answer to the questions are what I put in the parentasis then you should stop. Really just stop. I know once I was telling a story about someone that I shouldn't have. About half way through I realized it and felt terrible. I stopped and "pretended" I couldn't rememeber it. I should have said "this is really gossip so I should stop" but I didn't. It's something that is a hard one to overcome. The key is really #4 question above. We really have to be honest with ourselves as to why we want to tell the story or the info. It's so hard to be honest about that one, because we don't want to admit to ourselves our own selfish desire to be liked or to feel important.

Remember I'm not judging, condemning or referring to anyone. I didn't have a experiance recently or have a particular issue in mind that inspired this blog entry. Just sometimes I want to preach (why? idk) and this is my outlet. So if you are offended or concerned about my preaching then accept my apology and delete my blog from your favorites (bookmarks, does anyone use that term anymore?) and surf away.

Johnson Family Blog dedicated to camping

2010-01-22T09:11:00.000-08:00

We like to camp. We being Stacy and me. I know some of the kids like it too, or have liked it here and there in the past. But we like it. Last year I started a blog for camping or hiking for a specific trip that we took. I've now changed the blog and just will put "camping" or "hiking" related posts on it. Check it out at Johnson Family Camping Adventures!

Sorry Smurf Turf yous ain't the bomb

2010-01-11T13:10:00.000-08:00

Boise State University won the fiesta bowl the other night... YEA! (I guess). But all the talk about the PAC10 expanding and taking Boise St. is nuts. Here's why: They suck! That's right I said it. they have a little tiny stadium (seats 32,000), it has blue turf, the have lower academic entry standards then ASU (if thats possible) and they haven't had a conf. championship in another sport besides football in forever...! They don't even have a baseball team, they don't have a womens sport to hang their hat on and they don't have a natural rival to travel with (this is very important to the PAC 10...). Now that's just whats wrong with the school. Here is why it won't happen even if all of the above reasons don't make sense: SMALL MARKET. Why would the PAC10 want to expand? Only for more $$$$ right? Well the biggest money maker is TV money. Do you think that Boise and Idaho really are going to drive change for $$? NOPE. The population of Boise is 205,000. doh! Phoenix has 3 or 4 suburbs bigger then that. The State of Idaho only has 1.2 million in the whole state! not like it's really a booming TV market. The school only has 18,000 students. ASU and 54,000+ students! There is no way that Boise St. will ever be in the PAC10. This talk is just non-sense. What they should do is join the MWC and increase the MWC's football since that is their one sport. But that wouldn't help the MWC in other sports at all. In fact in Basketball and women's sports it would hurt the MWC. I think that Boise is a fine football team. Chris Peterson is the man and is like Mark Few from Gonzaga Basketball. They are both in great situations winning is expected. But if they were to ever leave their current schools, so would the success of that school's program! Just like Brian Kelly and Cincy's football team, Calapari and UMASS and Rick Patino at Seton Hall (until recent years). If the PAC 10 ever does expand it should take BYU and Utah. Much better in all areas than Boise St and anyone! The repeated excellence in many sports, the natural rivalry, travel partner they bring, excellence in many women's sports and the size of Utah (more then double the size of Idaho) and the two schools (BYU 34,000+, Utah 28,000 + students) is a much better sell then Boise State.

A few posts ago I explained why it doesn't matter if PAC 10 expands or not. So all of this is moot. However some ignorant "fans" still think that only football matters, which sometimes is true, but not to screw up our PAC10.

New arrival

2010-01-06T07:36:00.000-08:00

We've got a newby at our house. Derek William Johnson was born the day after Christmas. He's a great lookin' kid (what would you expect, you've seen me). So we are all very excited. If you want to see pictures cruise over to Stacy's Blog (link on the side bar). What I'd like to blog about today is how blessed I am to now have 8 kids (yep 8) and how ignorant and silly people are that give me crap about having 8 kids... Just for the record we now have 4 boys and 4 girls.

First let me tell you how it works. Your little jokes about "don't you know what causes that?" and "get cable" and "you know there is a way to avoid that" are really funny ha ha ha! I know where baby's come from, I do have cable (satellite actually), and I do know ho contraception works. Here's the thing. I wanted kids. I didn't predict 8 but I'm good with whatever Stacy and I decide. Let me list some things that you "childless" or 1 or 2 child families are missing out on.

(note: If you want kids but just can't have them for one reason or another I'm not speaking to you. So don't be offended when none is intended see this LINK for what I mean by that)

1) You don't get to hear jokes like "What are you going for a football team?" and "Don't you know what causes that"?

2) You don't get to sit at Denny's and have an old lady come up to your wife and say "Are these all yours?" with a half scared/disgusted look on her face.

but

3) When you go on a trip not everyone has someone to be buddies with (and it changes throughout)

4) When you go to church you don't get your own bench

5) When you get home at night from work, there isn't always someone there for you to see

6) When you go on a family picnic your possibilities are limited. Ours are limitless we can do any activity big or small because we have then numbers to do it.

There a bunch of other nice things. We are always busy, don't sit around and do nothing and enjoy sacrificing for each other. I understand people just like to mock things that they don't understand or don't agree with. I had a coworker once say "how can you bring kids into this awful world?" I thought that was very sad and just said that they needed to get help to try to see some positive things in their life. I've also had people praise us for having the "courage" to have so many kids. Courage to have some kids that's nuts! I think it's great. It gives us activities, it gives us love in our home and in our community. It helps us influence and serve others as we can teach our kids to be a positive influence in their lives. I can't imagine not having a house full of kids.

So if you have a large family and are sick of the teasing and mocking attitudes or the "real world" then take solace and know that I hear it too. I think it's silly and ignorant for people to give me a hard time. I hope that people see that and understand that it's our choice and I could give them crap about their choices too. "What do you hate kids?"...

Just kidding I wouldn't do that but I may want too.

BCS - BYU

2009-12-15T08:31:00.000-08:00

Ok, So I'm a big BYU fan. So I am annoyed that a 2 loss BYU (10+ wins for 4 years in a row) will NEVER get into a good bowl game. But a 3 loss Notre Dame, or any other BcS team will get considered. I'm also annoyed by BCS putting Boise and TCU at the kiddie table in their BCS bowl because they are afriad that TCU and Boise would win a la Utah. I've often thought that BYU would or Should get invited to be in a BCS conference like the PAC 10 or the BIG 12. I don't think that will happen. Reason being is that the schools there are not going to share. What I think now should happen is the MWC (BYU's conference) should expand and drop non-qulifiers. a Non-Qualifier is a kid that didn't pass the standards test with a (SAT) 1250 and have a 2.0 GPA. Some schools (UNLV, New Mexico) allow that. Utah and Fresno State used to but have recently dropped that policy. So if the 9 schools in the current MWC stop excepting non-qulifiers and the MWC adds Boise State, Univ of Nevada and Fresno State they would almost force (along with the Washington DC pressure they are already getting) the BCS to include them. If the BCS doesn't like it they can add a 5th bowl + the national championship game they already have. I think the Cotton Bowl would be a good one to add with their long standing tradition and former first class status. So here's my plan with there being two parts 1) the NEW MWC allignment and 2) the NEW BCS affiliations to bowl games.

NEW MWC
So the new 12 member MWC would have to split into a NORTH and a SOUTH division, with natural traveling partners (like PAC 10) and a football championship game on 1st week in December (like the BIG 12, ACC and SEC) at Dever's Invesco Field at Mile High, Home of the Denver Broncos.

North Division:
BYU, Utah, Boise, Nevada, Colorado St, Wyoming
South Division
TCU, New Mexico, UNLV, Air Force, Fresno St, San Diego St.

The Schedule (football): Each team plays everyone in their division and rotate 2 others from the other division. Allows for 8 conference games, clear north /south champions and 4 non-conference games.

The Schedule (Basketball) : Play everyone home and home in your division (10 games), play everyone in the other division once rotate home team (6) and have a big east style conference tournament (everyone in higher seeds get buys).

Pluses: Keeps natural rivalries. Currently MWC had 9 teams, and play everyone twice so they have 16 conference games. This wouldn't change basketball. 4 non-conference football games could be scheduled for big payouts, wins (lesser teams), geographic rivalries or for intriguing matchups TCU/Oklahoma was a good one; or Utah/Utah State could be preserved. Football Conference Championship Game in NFL stadium would work well for the conference exposure since a BCS bowl would be on the line. Bigger basketball tournament on your own network would be great. New expanded conference would only help get The Mtn Network on more cable systems (Nor Cal, Nevada, Idaho). You'd own the the Mountain time zone. Then have your championship game on CBS (basketball game) your MTN partner.

BCS Changes Expantion:
Step One. Include the MWC so there are seven automatic qulifiers.
Step Two. Add another BCS Bowl. Currently there are 4 bowl games (Orange, Rose, Fiesta and Sugar) Plus the National Championship Game. Currently with the 6 auto qualifiers (PAC 10, BIG 12, BIG 10, ACC, SEC, BIG EAST) and 10 spots that makes for 4 "invitation" bids. With the additoin of MWC as an auto qulifier the invitation bids would go to 3 if you don't add another Bowl. If you add another BCS Bowl The spots would increase to 12 and thus even with the MWC there would be 5 "invitation" bids. I suguest the Cotton Bowl. When I was a kid it was one of the Big Bowls. The Old SWC champion went to it. It was/is Played in Dallas. What better place to have a good bowl game (National Championship game every 5 years) then the New Dallas Cowboys stadium. Could you Imagine Texas v. Alabama in Texas Stadium?
Step three: Keep Bowl Affiliations to conferences. Current Auto Qulifiers alignment: Big 12: Fiesta, Big 10/Pac 10 Rose, Big East/ACC - Orange, SEC - Sugar. So Easily add the MWC to the Cotton. So if the MWC team isn't in the NC game then they play an invited team in the Cotton bowl.

Let's use this year as an example: If they had my proposal above.

Rose Bowl (no change) Oregon (PAC 10) vs. Ohio State (BIG 10)
Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma State (BIG 12 - at large) vs. Boise State (MWC - at large)
Cotton Bowl: TCU (MWC) vs. Virginia Tech (ACC - at large)
Sugar Bowl: (no change) Cincy (Big East) vs. Florida (SEC - at large)
Orange Bowl: (no change) Georgia Tech (ACC) vs. Iowa (BIG 10 - at large)
National Championship: (no change) Texas (BIG 12) vs. Alabama (SEC)

So the top 11 of the final BCS standings are taken, Every conference except Big East and PAC 10 have two teams in. The only team not in the top 12 of the BCS is Oklahoma State because the others in front of them are from conferences that already have two teams in. West Virgina from the Big East could be there instead of Oklahoma State but the Fiesta has a BIG 12 affiliation so they'd pick the Next Best BIG 12 Team (since BIG 12 Champion Texas is in the National Championship game).

Some Tweeks that might make more sense but would cause a lot of change. What if Colorado joined the NEW MWC and TCU took their spot in the BIG 12? This would really help both teams. TCU would have more natural rivalries with the 4 other Texas teams in the BIG 12 and Colorado would have an in state travel partner in Colorado State. This would change my North South alignment to an East West Alignment as such:
EAST:
Colorado, Colorado State, Wyoming, Boise St, Air Force, New Mexico
WEST:
BYU, Utah, UNLV, Nevada, San Diego State, Fresno State

Conclusion
I could see some great Games either way. A TCU / Boise State MWC Championship game would have been better then the "Kiddie Table" BCS Fiesta Bowl game that means nothing this year. The other conferences wouldn't be effected at all. In fact my system makes them more money. The ACC and Big 12 getting a 2nd team in the BCS (example above) is only more money then they'll get under the current plan. Now sure.. if you include the MWC in the BCS won't the WAC and Conf. USA and others would get all upset. Well if you include Boise in the MWC that takes all of the WAC's Fire power away since Boise is the only consistant BCS "buster" (Hawaii was a one time anomoly). UTAH (twice) and TCU have done it and BYU is always predicted to do it, the the MWC has more history anyway. Conference USA has never done it and haven't even sniffed it. The other conferences aren't likely to have much fire power until they start to show they are worthy like the MWC has 3 out of the last 4 years. If BYU beats Florida State this year (big "IF" I know) then they are in the TOP 12 BCS standings (#14 as is) and are in the discussion or debate this year. That's 3 teams that the new MWC would have in the BCS discussion. And Just wait; UTAH will be in the BCS discussion next year again (three times in 5 years???) that's better then most teams that are in BCS games this year (Iowa, Cincy, Georgia Tech).

Now do I think it will ever happen? well maybe. But I am more positive about it then BYU, Utah, TCU and Boise State ever getting invited to join an existing conference. It's really up to the MWC to expand an "bust the BCS" again and again until they kick the door down. I also think they should keep the pressure on the politicians to force the issue. If TCU or Boise State win convincinly and Alabama kills Texas (or vice versa) the outcry should be that they got it wrong and TCU(or BSU) should have been included.

40 - ain't nuttin' but a number

2009-12-09T06:25:00.000-08:00

Well today i'm 40... old by standards of where I live and who I associate with. I think it's funny that I'm 40. I thought that I'd be about where I am. It's better in some ways than the dream but worse in others. I knew my Dad at 40. In fact I remember the day he turned 40. My cousins were in town because it was summer. My cousin Brett Johnson made my Dad a cake. It was a unique cake that was shaped like a mountain. I don't know how he did that kind of cake. But he did. Also he made it with green frosting that to me looked like a grassy mountain or hill. Then he put a flag on one side that said "40" and a toy hiker that was by the flag that was my Dad I guess making it over. So it was a unique Over the Hill cake. Anyway my Dad was a good sport ate the cake and moved on. I was 11 I think so about Skylar's age. Funny what you remember. I was thinking the other day, you know comparing my life now that I'm over the hill to my dads. It's pretty interesting because there are a lot of similarities. Here are a few. We used to tease my Dad that he was overweight. Well that was a mistake because I'm way heavier on my 40th birthday then he was. I'll blame that on me having an office job and him building homes and farming. He had 7 kids and so do I. Although his was a bit more of a round about way; step kids, adoption etc. than my path but still same (although I'll have my 8th soon enough). funny how it turns out...

Today I am working. But I plan on not doing much tonight. I will finally get to eat my cake. Mine is much cooler than my Dads... It captures what I like and I wonder if it isn't a bit kiddish. But I am a Dad of many kids so I guess that it is what I am. Thanks to my wonderful wife I had a party the other night that was fun. I couldn't cut that beautiful cake then so tonight I will. Here is a picture of it just in case you didn't see it. If you want to know where it came from I guess you'll have to ask Stacy. It is a lady in our ward that does these edible art cakes. She's amazing.

Saturday

2009-12-02T05:51:00.000-08:00

I had a very tough day last Saturday. It was crazy. I was sick. I wanted to puke every minute. The boys and I went shooting with a friend of mine from work. It was really fun. I got to shoot my shot gun my dad gave me. it was cool. Its a little 410 so it doesn't do damage like we are used to and Drew thought it kicked too much. My friend Denny had a bunch of other guns that we enjoyed shooting including a 9mm and 357 hand guns. It was cool, but I wanted to lie down in the dirt and sleep. We also found a really old train station in a thicket that was cool. One of the little buildings was still standing. After that we went to Taco Bell, maybe not the best choice for me, then headed home to watch the UA/ASU and BYU/UU games. It was a fun afternoon. Problem was i really just sat there from 1:30 until 6:30 that night. Stacy wasn't 100% either and so she watched movies, washed, dried and folded laundry and slept (a little) all afternoon. I guess I didn't accomplish much but I did enjoy the outcomes from my day. UA & BYU are my two favorite teams and enjoyed their victories. I found this cartoon... Enjoy! By the way Happy Birthday to Skylar today!!! 11 is old man!

Holiday time again - I can tell by my TV not the weather.

2009-11-30T07:15:00.000-08:00

I love this time of year. I think people that say "I hate Christmas" are lying (hey its my blog, I can say what I want). I love it. I love the commercialism I love the constant TV ads I love the greedy kids I love it all. I love the Christmas music on the triple 9 before Thanksgiving. I think its all awesome. I love it because it reminds me of where I live, what we (claim to) stand for in this country and what is still (?) possible for each of us. You see each of these ads, each of these "things" that ruin Christmas for some is making it great for others. It seems to me that folks are driven by jealousy more then anything. If you had invented some product like the charge pad you'd be like "show it more" on TV! But you didn't so you can whine that it's on too much already.

A Little History.

I didn't always think this way... In fact I hated Christmas as a kid or at least the season until December 10th each year. Really. See my birthday is December 9th. So I wouldn't let me mom put up the tree until after my birthday. She probably hated it because it was a change from what she was used to. But still to this day she doesn't do it until then. I would whine about Christmas music, I'd whine about Christmas commercials etc. Everything bah humbug! But then I made a mistake. As a kid when we got ready to leave to Oregon to be with family (knowing we'd have to pack all the presents in the car) Mom already had the presents wrapped and under the tree before we left. One night before we left I found I was home alone. So I carefully unwrapped all of my presents and saw them then re-wrapped them. It totally ruined my Christmas experience. See I thought it would be cool to see everything or short cut the experience overall. But it didn't. It made me see that part of the fun of the Christmas season in America is the season it's self.

Arizona

People say, "it's hard to get excited about Christmas in Arizona" My folks used to say that when they lived here. I understand. They grew up where it was snowing and freezing this time of year. However I've had more Christmas' here than anywhere so I like the AZ experience. While our weather may be 80 degrees on Christmas (I have swam before on Christmas day) but it still feels like Christmas to me.

Original Premise

See when you hear Christmas music on the radio in November be thankful. A lot of songs are about your Savior and about giving to others. Be happy that there is at least some people that believe those are good things. When you see the same Christmas commercial on TV for the 50th time, be happy that you live in a country where free enterprise still (in some form) exists. When you have your kids beg you for some stupid thing that you can't understand why anyone would ever want it, just smile and be happy that your kid wants (not needs) for most things. When you hear about bad traffic, long lines and annoying people at stores, just smile and think about how it could be when a piece of hard candy was all there was for Christmas...

Conclusion

I love this season. I'm listing to KEZ all the time. I love that they play the stupidest songs (who really wants a hippo for Christmas...). I think that people are happier and more gracious this time of year. I think I am a nicer fellow to be around too. It is funny how situations or environment or others help push us along to be better. Now good luck. We are all going to be frustrated or disappointed or rude or angry or something negative this season. It'll happen. Just remember Thanksgiving is before Christmas so we can be thankful throughout the holiday season.

Another concept - PORN!

2009-11-20T11:17:00.000-08:00

I put that in the title so you'd read it ha ha gotcha! Yesterday we had our friend Anjie and her boys Alex, Dylan and William at church with us. Gospel Doctrine was about the whole armor of God and really focused on the law of Castity. But really it was about Sex. So i though I'd post on a part of that law that has been on my mind ;)... well sort of.

So anyway it is about porn.

So what's porn? Does it have to be nudity? Does it have to be titillating? Who knows?. I heard a good definition. "It's not what you look at, it's what you see" So to me that's pretty broad, also it's tough to be honest with yourself on what your looking at. I think topless men could be porn, although its very socially acceptable (in other countries topless women are too). Right because it's not what you look at its what you see... do you see "sex" when you see a topless guy? Or do you see a kid with good muscles. I don't know each person's different. There is classic art that is nudity but we don't see it as porn right? The David is a good example, naked yes, sexy... no. But what about movies...hmmm. Ok I like certain actresses I do. But I'm not sure I'd like them naked. I like the way they look and enjoy them but I prefer them dressed. But is it Porn? I'm looking at them dressed and enjoying their appearance, shape whatever. so since I notice certain, shall I say "features" does it mean that I'm seeing porn? maybe I guess. It's a fine line that has more gray then black and white (to me). Like I said it's a concept that is different for everyone. The hardest part is being honest about what you are looking at and what you are seeing. It's amazing how two people can look at one thing and see two different things. I notice things my wife doesn't. But sometimes she'll notice things that I am not even paying attention to. So we are looking at the same thing, but seeing different things. I guess we see it and act on it or "dwell" on it is the danger. I know that we are to avoid all evils. I know that there is no way in the world to day to be perfect. I guess we should do our best to be in the right and stay out of the gray area all the time. I just think that sometimes we are thinking we are doing whats right or OK when we could be doing better. (I'm speaking to myself as if I'm writing to my self, it's just your fault for or privilege to read what I'm saying).

Social Networking... cool, or an easier way to Gossip?

2009-11-19T07:03:00.000-08:00

Ok, So don't gossip (but it is fun). I mean really who doesn't like to get the "dirt" good or bad on someone else. Lets see I found out my youngest sister is having Twins by a phone call from her...NOT! I found out on facebook. I found out my wife's youngest sister is getting married when she called and told her sister NOT! again Drew saw it on facebook and came down stairs and told us. I don't blame the actual participants (the two younger sisters) but other's spreading the good news on a social site in their excitement before the news could be spread first hand. Now those are positive stories where no one really got hurt. But I knew of another story where someone found out about a family function via facebook that was really cool but they found out afterwards and found out that they were not invited! Now they weren't invited on purpose and for a good reason and whatever but if a phone call or email would have been sent to explain it all it would have been cool. But no they found out via facebook and feelings got hurt. So see you have to be careful. I see "facebook fights" all the time. I think they're funny ( I know I'm a bit weird, duh). But I can see how it's hard to read "tone" or "intent" on a computer screen and misunderstandings can happen. Texting, emailing can be the same way. So I guess my point is 1) don't steal someone else's good / bad news. Just because they told you, doesn't mean you can facebook it. Let them facebook it first then copy it if you really need to. and 2) if you want to comment on someone's status be nice. Don't judge. Today I saw a frustrated Mom ask for sincere advise on a parenting question, so she asked her friends on facebook for help. But really all she got was a bunch of judgments from condescending other parents. It didn't seem to me she was getting much help. I really like facebook. I like to know what others are doing. its a short cut to find out about others and tell others about me. However it is really a shortcut to not having to actually socialize with others. So Use it only as that, you still need to call people or talk to people. I can see where soon we won't have to interact face to face with other humans at all... but is that right? Home teaching via conf. call, sacrament meeting via satellite? service projects over the internet? all these ideas on how to communicate better have actually backfired and made us have more misunderstandings and more hurt feelings. Now you're reading my blog and you have no idea if I'm joking, crying or serious, because you can't see me...

2009-11-18T14:01:00.000-08:00

I was thinking closer to 400 lbs by the end there! How's it workin' out for the LeBrons...? Not so good yet.

Because she said so

2009-11-18T09:03:00.000-08:00

Ok, fine STACY I'll blog... (remember you asked for it).
NO ONE READS IT ANYWAY!
I'm boring.
On my mission Korean's were always trying to speak english to us. The greater part of our "investigators" were just wanting to get better at english. We called them "sucks" because really they just wanted to suck english off of us. So we always tollerated it becuase 1) they might someday somehow feel the spirit and actually want to join the church or at least learn more and 2) it would force young missionaries to interact with locals and pick up some Korean too. However in many cases they were also very funny. They would say things that common 19 year old Americans wouldn't say. Like in stead of "how are you?" they always said the more formal "how do you do?" as their common english greeting. Which of course we'd say: " oh, I do just fine" really dramatically drawn out. Also instead of: "I'm going to the store today" They'd say "The store is my desitination today" so just funny stuff. Another instead of "I don't know" or "I don't understand" they'd say "I'm in the dark on that" However my favorite of all was the mistakes. Or just like I'm sure we did in Korean they'd say things incorrect but a nice missionary would just know what they meant and move on. But not me, I'd usually get a chuckle. So though they meant they had nothing to do or they were bored, they would usually say "I'm boring", to which I'd say "You are right!" and I'd go find someone else to talk to...
late.

2009-06-19T09:47:00.001-07:00

Summer Update: I guess summer is ok. it's been crazy it's cool everyday and still isn't too hot yet, at least not Arizona hot anyway. I think that it is screwy everwhere. We like it but the pool isn't getting used as much, at least by me. It seems the kids are as geeked about swiming either. I think that it means that August and September will be totally brutal. Vance and Marly are running int he mornings for CC this fall, Drew and Sky are finishing up baseball and the little girls are cooling off with friends and chores and church stuff all the time. Anny is crawling, walking with help and just happy as ever. She turns one on Tuesday (6/23).

Summer is over

2009-05-28T14:58:00.001-07:00

So today is the last day of school for our oldest boy to be a Junior in HS. He is a good kid. No, he's a great kid. I never have had a real problem with him. He's a kid so I get on him once in a while but not too much, really. He's setting a good example for the underlings. However I came to the realization that today is the 1st and last day of his summer... Stacy always says that kids need "down time". Especially ours since we keep them so so busy. Vance is like me a bit that "down time" isn't so fun. So he's scheduled his whole summer. He's off to eager today to play with his friend Shawn, then off to work in Eloy for a week (5 days of 6:00 AM - 10:00 PM), once he gets home it's YM encampment, more work in Eloy, Trip to Utah for CC Camp then school starts! However it's what he wanted. I admire it I guess. I remember day after day as a teenager of "Mom, What is there to do"...

I heard that if you keep kids busy it keeps them out of trouble. However I think that a side effect is they can't relax. All of the kids are so busy all the time that when they have a day to do nothing they can't do nothing. I'm the same way. I hated being alone as a kid, which I was a lot. So I don't want my kids to have to feel that. So I make sure we do stuff. I mean camping, trips, vacations, activities etc. There would be weeks upon weeks that I'd go without ever getting out of the routine when I was kid. I don't really remember any cool vacations except trips to see family, which is fine, but I've tried to force memories upon my kids in a positive manner. So now what I've done is just that. We have some GREAT memories even just a weekend camping trip they can talk about and laugh about (and they do). It's something positive. BUT now if we do have a weekend with nothing or a week during summer vacation with nothing planned they whine about it. "Dad, What can we do". so I guess with all my efforts I still have same result. Kids need to learn to entertain themselves. I did. My parents both worked and we lived where mostly it wasn't convenient to hang out with friends. So I'd have time to do nothing. I learned to entertain myself. My kids will have to do the same... but not Vance, at least not this summer PEACE!

Camping Trip

2009-05-28T14:53:00.000-07:00

We went on a camping trip on Memorial Day Weekend and had a FANTASTIC time. If you want to read the full scoop check out our hiking blog for the summer of '09

The Predictable Life

2009-05-18T09:21:00.000-07:00

There isn't much going on in my life that I don't expect. I'm happy about that. I think I've always wanted a big family, even expected to have one. I thought a lot about things like family and church and sports and schools. You have these moments in your life I think where you reflect on your life to that point and look forward to what's left. I feel like I'm at summer of halftime... :) It's funny to think that in 2010 we will welcome and new baby and perhaps send our first baby off into the world. We are a revolving door now. I wonder what a 16 year old version of me would say if he ran into the 39 year old version today? would he say "Who are you?" or would he say "Sweet!"... I'm not sure. I remember on my mission once we were sitting around the mission office and there were about 6 of us late at night working and we got to talking about where we'd be at 40. One guy said he'd be a pilot and another said he'd be a bishop (HA HA) and another said he'd have 8 kids and would work for his Dad! Another said he'd be a doctor and he is! I don't know if the one ever became a Bishop, other other had their 8th kid (might have)... But I said that I'd live in Mesa and work at a job in business and have a big family! Funny kinda was right... I guess

I don't like to be surprised much... Not meaning "BOO" but more like a unexpected bill that I can't pay or a new "Problem" that I can't solve. The predictable life is great... as long as it's on your own term.... Here are a few things that I didn't predict.
1) Football Coaching... Don't know how I fumbled into this
2) 8 kids - ummm I think we passed "Big family" a while ago
3) Greatest wife ever... Either the Lord blessed me or cursed her...
4) Kids that want to do whats right... I guess I could have predicted it see #3
5) Living in the QC... I made fun of people that moved this far away before ...

There are many more I'm sure... so is your life as you expected, better I bet! Mine is much better than I expected but about what I predicted. The difference is "It's better then I thought, even though I knew it"

Schedule - whew!

2009-05-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

So a few posts I wrote how busy we are with the summer an what not... Well Here is a snapshot of our summer. Check it out.. I have to use Excel to keep up. Not to mention work and my PMP Certification test one day in June...

Hey You!

2009-05-07T20:06:00.000-07:00

311 is the only band that I've wanted to see this much, now I got my tickets on July 10th.

ROCK IT

New Blog

2009-05-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

Now I'm a geek! I've started a new Blog for our hiking this summer (http://johnsonsgohiking2009.blogspot.com/). If you didn't know we are going to Emerald Lake in the San Juan National Forest in Southern Colorado. I went there three times as a kid and can't wait to share it with the next generation of Johnsons. My first trip was when I was 7. My Dad and I went with his brother and his kids and also My grandpa Johnson went. It was a good three generations trip. I don't remember that much other then the fun of fishing, eating good food and playing in the water with my cousins. My older cousins thought my dad was the coolest because he could fly fish in the river and their dad just sat on the bank of the lake. It's an amazing place... Now my kids can do the same with three generations and their cousins...

Here is a picture of where we are going, looks like heaven to me!

Busy Summer

2009-03-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

We have a lot this summer. I don't know why. But every year it seems to be busier than the year before. EVERY saturday in July is spoken for, 2 of June's are taken and all of May and August are already gone. I think that we have shortened the summers so much that they are now basically 7 weeks. So we try to JAM everything into it that we used to do in 3 months. It's amazing that the kids get any days off at all. Not this summer they won't. They get the weekdays in June and July is spoken for. Vance wants to work this summer but I only see about 3 weeks where he can. thats not much time to earn a years worth of spending money or save for a mission. It's end of march and I'm already worried about summer. But on the other hand it is only 9 weeks away...

An acceptable year to the Lord

2009-03-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

Our Stake has a theme this year which they call "An acceptable year to the Lord". So each month there is a sub-theme or a month theme. This month is "Making your Obediance acceptable to the Lord". so I made a "YES I AM" list and a "NO I'M NOT" list. Unfortunatly the "NO I'M NOT list is longer than the other list. I guess my point is at least now I have a list. Have you ever made a "SIN" list? It's not fun but it is actually very fulfilling. Why? Because at least once you have it on paper then you can work on it. So I challenge you to make one too.

Facebook, Mormon's Social Networking site & Basketball

2009-02-18T12:16:00.000-08:00

So I haven't posted in a while like more than a month. It's because all of my free time on the computer has been hogged by facebook. It's been fun figuring out the facebook system. I've been happy with meeting up with old friends from high school, mission and old wards. It's a lot easier then blogging because you can say really funny things then take them back. though i think that sometimes people try a bit hard to be funny (even me) like with movie quotes or going to the edge of appropriateness. Sometimes people put stuff in their statuses that they'd never say out loud. or maybe I'm just getting to know some people a bit better ;)

Basketball is over our little team did great. Skylar and Drew had a good year. We won 4, lost 3 and tied 1. We came in 2nd but it felt great because we beat the 1st place team in our last game, who we had never beaten. Learned a lot about YMCA ball. Like NEVER play it again, because they are a "feel good" league. I could write all day about a them and their "every one's a winner" attitude. YUCK. Next year back to Wham! who has their problems but at least understands what competition is. When I was a kid I got one Trophy. ONE! it was a 3rd place baseball trophy. I was so proud of that thing. We got it after years of losing and finally coming in third in our league. It was awesome. Drew and Sky must have 30 trophies each. NOT ONE says what place they got; just what league and what sport. Sad. Everyone is a winner turns everyone into a whiner. Anyway I told you I could type all day on this. But now we are off to baseball next.

Is this a racist logo?

2009-01-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

Vote (by comment) if this logo is a racist logo. I will let you know what I find out... by the way I know the answer already.

My Grandma Johnson

2008-12-02T09:45:00.001-08:00

My Gramdma Johnson passed away yesterday on December 1st. I believe she was 92 years old. Florence Payne Johnson was one of my five grandmas... but really my #1 Grandma and my mother more times than not. I lived by her a lot of my life. She did everything for me. From making my breakfasts every day before school when I lived at her house for the 7th, 8th and most of 9th grades. She was my sounding board my target to vent to when jr. high got too tough, or when my Dad or Mom(s) frustrated me. She was the one I would go to with problems I had. She forgave me my mistakes and allowed me to make them. I am who I am because of her. She would always remind me of the Savior's love for me. She would always remind me of what I could be. She would allow me to complain, and complain about somebody and than she'd say "Now Benny, you know that he/she loves you" It didn't matter what I said or did, I knew she loved me. I never have seen her cross. I've never seen her upset with anyone. I HAVE seen her many times on her knees praying, in her living room chair reading the scriptures or at her kitchen stove cooking something that was just special for me. I was blessed to live so close to my Grandma. I was blessed to have her as my one constant adult role modle during my parent's divorce. I was blessed to have her live close to me when I was a newly wed in Mesa. She was on a mission and my folks had moved back to New Mexico and she was who I called or who I leaned on when I needed something. She was a strength to many people, it only seemed like she was just for me. Grandma Johnson made me feel ten feet tall when the world said I didn't matter. Grandm Johnson kept my attitude positive at the darkest moment of my childhood. She made sure that I didn't crumble when it would have been the easy thing to do. Grandma Johnson was the reason I ended up on a mission, Grandma Johnson was the reason I ended up having a testimony. My Grandma Johnson is the best person I've ever known. I now have a lot to live up to. She expected me to succeed in all I tried to do. She didn't hope or wonder about my success, she expected it. I lived up to it sometimes and not sometimes, but that didn't matter to her. Now I suppose she is watching me. Knowing my actions and my failures. I think that I have many things to work on. Being like her and my Savior just became more important.

Hornets lose, terrible weekend, all is well

2008-11-24T09:32:00.000-08:00

The Hornets finished their season as the 2008 East Valley Conference Runners Up. It was a good year and one game short of a state championship isn't bad. I was really disappointed for a few hours but got over it. Thanks to all of my Hornets and their families (except two). I am a bit miffed a couple so I'm glad to take a brake. But that's just their Dads. I'll always love their kids. The relationships with these boys are the best part of the whole deal. I'm not sure if this year could ever be topped. I wonder if I shouldn't just call it quits. Yeah Right!

Saturday was awful, first the Hornets lose than BYU gets bombed in the biggest game of their year, then UofA decides they don't want to win so they gave the OSU BEAVS the win. Terrible. Sunday was better. Church was good. We had our family's 2nd Annual Thanktivis. We have a thanktivis because we are sad that we never get to just our family for Thanksgiving because we are with Stacy's family or my family on Thanksgiving day. So the past two years now we eat a Thanksgiving style dinner on the Sunday before. Its great. We eat the turkey, the potatoes the yams everything including pie and pig out and spend time as a family. We enjoy it together just us. Than we have leftovers just like we should. We tell each other what we are thankful for and than watch a family movie and just have a great time. Its great. I highly recommend it to anyone that wants some holiday "JUST US" time.

Rip The Band-aid Right off!

2008-11-07T09:14:00.000-08:00

Now that we got this president we must reboot the republican party. We are going to suffer for a while. I think we have some stuff to do in here in Arizona. John Kyle needs to re-visit some conservative 101 classes. John McCain should retire and Jeff Flake should run for his Senate seat. I think JD Hayworth is a great idea for Gov since JNap can't run anymore. (besides she's hopping up and down like Horshack trying to get to Obama's white house). I think that Andrew Thomas should be the State Attorney General and then we'd have it all. Perhaps we could then fix this 2Billion Dollar deficit we have and finally fix some things in this state (undocumented squatters, raising taxes, tuition at our state universities, etc.). Next with a true conservative senator (Flake) and Governor we could set a trend for 2012 in 2010 on what we should be like in this country.

Cycles. It always happens. Remember the great GOP wins after Billy boy was in office. So it's just cycles. In two years BO's ratings will be down and everyone will be talking about him the way they do W.

I think we should really start at our level first though. Why is the Mesa city, Gilbert City and Arizona State Government in debt so bad? Because they are trying to fix the world with $$$. Instead they are just making it worse. Pinal county (where I live) is even worse. Everyone complains that the mortgage companies are to blame for all of our foreclosures. Not exactly. In Pinal County they needed money for the growing infrastructure (maricopa, queen creek, florence had terrible roads etc.). So they raised Property taxes 20% in one year (2007-2008). So they screwed us more than the mortgages. That's why some people got huge mortgage payment bumps one month to the next. So let's see, do banks that foreclose have to pay property taxes? yes right, but do they actually pay them (I know they aren't paying the HOA)... So because Pinal County needed more revenue they raised taxes (liberal move), because they raised taxes, people lost their houses, because people lost their houses the county doesn't get the property tax, and revenue goes down to the county. OPPOSITE EFFECT. Now what if they would have lowered taxes on the rich evil building company and left the property taxes low (actually lowered) them on individual homes. More houses get built, people move from Maricopa (higher taxes) to Pinal county, revenue goes up (conservative move). Ahhh! let's review Liberals punish their constituents for the governments overspending by raising taxes, this leads to less revenue or opposite outcome from what was needed. Conservatives make up for bad spending by stimulating growth (remove obstructive government policies to encourage growth), thus raising revenue and than follow it up with more Conservative spending next time (we hope). Anyway what you think will happen (liberals) is very short sighted.

Conservative Underground

2008-11-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

The Ronald Reagan Conservative Underground begins today. Stay strong, don't let your heart be troubled. Also don't accept it. Just peacefully fight it. Start in your area. Reagan conservativism is the only safe way. Small government, low taxes, private permanent jobs and protection of life. What part don't people get? Why would we want to raise our taxes, create temporary government jobs and allow 3rd trimester abortions? WHY? I don't get it. Do you want to know who I blame? MIKE HUCKABEE! Yep that's right. Here's my thinking. If he would have been honorable and just dropped out when he had no chance, but no he stayed in and made problems for Mitt and made a pact with the lettuce McCain folks and Mitt was sunk. If you don't remember go read the archives about Super Tuesday and see what happened in West Virginia that caused so much "perception" that Mitt was done. Then Huckabee won a few south states and "handed" it to lettuce. Mitt would have run a much better campaign than Mac. He wouldn't have had the economy issue. Think about it. If Mitt was the man do you think these economy issues would have been a weakness for the GOP? uh NO! Oh if we could just rewind. This spread the wealth around would have been shot down so quick by Romney but John "weak on the economy" McCain doesn't have the experience or the ability to do it. NEVER nominate a senator. Jeez. It's so easy to see now. Start the underground folks! We have 4 years to find someone who we can get behind and if it's Mike Huckabee I'm moving to a desert island. Who's coming?

Yeah Baby!

2008-10-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah... I'm a fatty, but today after 6 weeks of working out I got a good surprise this morning. I was happy enough I had to blog it. This and the Hornets are 6-0. What a week!
BTW I WAS 230 about 6 weeks ago!

Shaq is the coolest

2008-10-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

Ok,
So you may not like him but I find him to by far the funniest and most real superstar ever. I don't agree with him in everything he says but thats fine. He is funny, is a "clown prince". Check out this espn video. You may not want to watch the whole thing but the first few minutes are great. I'm so sick of the election that I started looking for sports stuff again.

What really happens?

2008-10-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

For those of you who really want to know what Stacy does now that she's not the RS pres any more: Check out this picture. You guys must have worn her out. It can't be the 7 kids, right?

Benson

2008-10-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

I generally don't like Steve Benson the quack biased pigheaded cartoonist from the AZ republic... but he does get it right about once a year.

more biden

2008-10-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

It's getting too easy. Did you see Joe B on the TV with KC? (that was funny) I'm refering to the once cute & perky lib katie couric, who is in way over her head. She interviewed Sarah and was mean and repetative and trying to hide her hate but couldn't. But with biden she was soft cuddely and at some point I thought they were going to make out. Anyway... here's the part that got me. I in fact heard this from Ann Coulter, and couldn't believe it so I went to CBSNEWS.com to verify and it's true... JOEY B said: "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'" well... as I'm sure you know FDR wasn't elected until 1934 and the TV wasn't invented until 1939 and Americans didn't really all have one until the 1950's. OH MY GOSH! Why didn't katie say anything? What a nimrod! she's so "in the tank" like every other media person, talking head obamite! She should be fired now for being too stupid. If this dope get's elected it will be because we as Americans are too fat, dumb and happy with what we have now to know any different than what we are told. What biden's point was, that GWB should have gone on the TV and taken the blame, instead of saying the truth, that the Wall Street CEO selfish "golden parachutte" pigs were at fault. The truth isn't to high on JOEY's priority list. Did you know that JOEY has been in washington since the 1970s? How can we sit here and put up with him... Barack is crazy for picking him, and we'd be crazy to pick Barack.

I hope Sarah demolishes him in the debate tonight. The problem is that it will be Sarah with facts and Joey with "zingers". Zingers are little one liners that are funny and everyone laughs and doesn't have a clue what his point was. Kinda like real Zingers, when you eat them you like them but later you feel bad and ask "Why did i eat that?" Just like in this debate tonight later everyone thinks that he won the debate because they "laughed" when he spoke, but can't remember anything that he said that was real. I laugh when he speaks too, but I'm laughing at him, not with him.

JBiden - Rants on a dummy

2008-09-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

Yikes. So do you know who Joe Biden reminds me of? Dick Martin. It's funny, they don't really look alike but if you ever hear JBid talk its just the same. "uhhh duh, that's funny". If you are too young, than sorry. They do have the same bald head with a comb over.
Couple of things that kill me about this guy
1) He says that if you make $250K that you will get NEW higher (40%+) taxes and if you complain than you aren't being patriotic. He then said that if others would give to charities this wouldn't be needed. HOWEVER He made $2.5 MILLION in the last 3 years but gave only about $4,000! Can you belive it? Thats < 1%.
2) Saying how much he admires Hillary Clinton and how she probably would have been a better choice than HIM for the VP. Duh Joe, you are crazy, she would have been better.

There are about 300 more but those two just made me crazy. He's not too smart. He's like the dumbest guy ever. I have no idea how he's gotten to where he is.

Gov Palin - I told you

2008-09-15T07:36:00.000-07:00

In case you missed my previous blog about Gov Palin (whom I love), she does indeed look like Tina Fey. In fact her eye glasses have caused a rush by women here in the phoenix area to buy them in so much that the Arizona Republic even did a story on it. I think that the eye glasses are what reminded me so much of Tina Fey. I found it funny yesterday morning that I saw on Yahoo! that Saturday night live had thought of it too. Check out this video of their opening this past saturday. (click here)

What a Weekend!

2008-09-08T07:22:00.000-07:00

Well it was a fantastic weekend. We enjoyed everything about it. At least I did. I finished up my job on Friday at Honeywell ERP and spent friday afternoon moving into my new desk area. I met Stacy and Anny for Dinner at a new place called "Cafe Lagoona" I think. It's a fry bred place. You can get a nice dinner and desert there with fry bred as the main ingreadiant. It was good. We split a vegitarian and a apple (desert). It was nice. Also we found out that the owner is a guy we didn't know very well from our ward. (Nick Lara?). After that we went home and g0t ready for Saturday's activities (football football football). Saturday Drew and Skylar's teams both won. Drew's Hornets beat the Sioux 20-18, Drew did great. You can read the summary of this game at http://www.gotsting.com/. Sky's Longhorns beat the Generals 20 - 0. Sky's a star on his team. He played both offense and defense. Katy and Tawny and even Anny dressed up in their blue and gold for the games. They looked so cute and it was fun to sit and watch Skylar's game with them.

Sunday just topped it off. My parents, newphew, brother and sister-in-law all showed up at our house late Saturday night. They were there for Anny's baby blessing and Drew's priesthood confirmation. We woke up Sunday morning and enjoyed time with them. Sky lost his Mohawk and Drew got a fresh cut as well, thanks Vance! We made it to church early along with the Gilespie and Snow families who also had baby blessings. It seemed that between those three families the whole chapel was full by 2o minutes before church started. The blessing was nice. We then left and went home with 60+ family and friends and visited ate some mexican food and generally layed around. About 3:30 Bishop Topol came over and we were able to confirm Drew the Newest Aaronic Priesthood holder. Later that night Marly and Vance escorted Drew to his first youth fireside.

It was a wonderful weekend. Thanks to Stacy and others the meals were great! We were so glad to see everyone. I love the visiting the jokes. I especially liked to meat John, Boofer's new boyfriend (new to me anyway). I am happy to get to see the Tucson and Utah family that we don't see as often as we'd like.

Here is phone pic of my new office. Nicer compared to my old one huh?

last day

2008-09-05T13:16:00.000-07:00

Today is my last day with Honeywell Aerospace ERP Team. I'm so happy to get a new start. It's been a nice 2.5 + years here but I'm ready to move on. I enjoyed some of it but it's been the most stressful job I've ever had. I've learned a lot. One thing I learned is I don't ever want to be on the Honewell Aerospace ERP Team ever again. I had a crummy desk, crummy area in a smelling building with no windows. It smells like a mixture of BO and oil. I'm 48 miles (one way) from home and usually very tired. I rode the Vanpool here so while it did save me gasoline $$ it killed my days. I'd leave at 6:00 am from my house and not get to work untill 7:30 Then I'd leave at 4:00 pm and not be home until 5:30. 11 1/2 hour days are tough when you are used to only be gone about 9. Here is a picture of my work area. IT'S TERRIBLE. I'ts like an old 1950 wood desk with sharp corners in the middle of a room with a fakey cube wall. Me and 4 other people in a "bullpen" type area. Very loud and uncomfortable.

So i start my new Job on Monday at Honeywell Corporate Finance IT. It is a project manager's job. I'll be closer to home and have better work hours. I'll be leaving really early in the morning but will be home earlier in the afternoon. So it will be like 6-3 or so. Also there is a gym much closer and more places to go. It's in Tempe instead of Phoenix so while it is only about 12 miles closer to home it is about 30 minutes closer (maybe more since I'll go in earlier). I'll post a picture of my new work area if I can. Overall today is great day! Also Hornets Football starts tomorrow Game Time 8:00 am! Next week check out www.gotsting.com for a full update of the game.

Drew's Birthday!

2008-09-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Drew's birthday! I enjoyed myself because for his birthday I got a 1/2 day off of work. After I was done working I took Skylar to the barber for a hair cut and this is how he turned out! Save this picture because his mom Says he's not going to church this way.

He looks great. He's still a good lookin' kid.

Later Drew and I and his buddies Armando, Brian and Zane went to Amazing Jakes. it was fun for them but I was pretty bored and let's just say... Don't go to Amazing Jakes if you are on a diet. I ate a lot! Anyway here are some pictures

Armando, Drew, Brian and Zane finishing up the go carts. they were later kicked off of them because Zane can't drive (JK).

Drew and Armando trying to get up the rock wall

Brian made it to the top. Armando on the right is still trying!

Zane and Armando still trying to climb the wall (maybe next time boys!)

UA Football Game

2008-08-31T09:54:00.000-07:00

We went down to Tucson on Saturday to see the UofA play the Idaho Vandels. Maybe the Vandels are the worst team ever, but it was fun to watch the cats kill someone for once. It was any easy drive down to our favorite Mexican food place ever too. We went to El Guerro Canelo before the game. We all had some Carne Asada except for Zane Whiting who had a hot dog. Once we left there we went to the stadium. Once we got there the pagentry and warmups were nice. They had fireworks as the team ran on to the field which scared us all. We were all set for kick off. The UA players were set up for kickoff return. We were very excited. Then it started to storm. They didn't even kick off before the Referees took the players off of the field and the anouncer started saying "For your safety and the safety of the stadium staff please exit the stadium immediatly!" We were disappointed to say the least. We decided to walk over to the McHale center (basketball arean for the wildcats) to look for an ATM. We found a door on the backside of the arena where some kids were milling around. The door was open so we just walked in. We went down a ramp and around a corner then we saw it. Meca for any UA hoops fan. We found ourselves on Lute and Bobbi Olsen Court. It was awesome. We took this picture:

After we milled around the gym for a while, including a guided tour of the weight training area by some really drunk fowl mouthed UA students, we decided to go wait outside for the rain/lighting to stop. We were waiting around for about an hour with some underage drinking baseball players, some other misc. students when we started to notice some rather tall kids coming and going. The first player I recognized was Chase Budinger so I stopped him and shook his hand. This made Drew very upset saying I should have stopped him longer and let Drew meet him. The boys were watching every kid that walked by and saying "Is he on the team? Is he?". Nic Wise came by a little while later and we didn't recognize him at first but then we did. Drew ran into the building and yelled "Nic!" Nic stopped and talked for a few minutes so we took this picture with him.

Soon another starter on the team Jordan Hill came by and Drew stopped him again and took his picture too. Zane and even Alex (ASU Fan) were happy to take this picture because of how tall this guy is.

Overall, despite the rain, lightning and cold wind we all had a good time. UA killed poor Idaho, but it was worth the time. And yes we got to go to El Guerro Canelo (sorry Stacy).

what up

2008-08-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

Well I'm really lame. But that's ok. I'm not really blogging anymore. My wife blogs all the time at her blog. I'm not that good. But I've been up to some stuff lately. I'm happy to report I got a new job here within honeywell. I'm moving back to Tempe which is awesome! I'm really happy about that at least. Other things that make me happy is that I'm going to get a real cube and not just a desk in the middle of a room. I'm also happy to be back in a less stressfull (I hope) position. 2.5 years on SAP will kill you. If you don't know, don't ask. I've been interested in the politics of the US too. I'm very happy with McCain's pick of Great white north's Gov! She seems real. For the first time It seems that a candidate for a national office might have actually had to check her checking account before heading out to dinner with the Fam. I'm not sure that she has but perhaps she has, or at least I could believe it if she said she had. I think she looks a little like Tina Fey, whom I find incredibally funny and a little attactive. I don't know, maybe it's just me. I was glad he didn't pick my man Mitt. I have many reasons but here are two. 1) Mitt can run in 2012 if McCain happens to loose or happens to not run at 77 years old. And 2) I'm sick of hearing how Mormons aren't really people and we run around trying to convert others because we are so miserable. I'm just tired. I can use the 4 year recharge period. Otherwise I'm pretty happy about who McCain picked. Since I can't really vote for him, Yeah McCain isn't in my top 10 of choices, I'll vote for the hottest Gov in the 50 states. You know she isn't really hot I guess but she's pretty and very appealing (Smack you Rodam). I'm happy over all about it now, before I was like a chick at the DNC the other night under a glass ceiling, very disenchanted. Barack is so white already, Bill Clinton was the only black guy there talking. I saw an interview with Barack with Stuart Scott of ESPN. It was comical. SS is a total wanna be ebonics speaker (webonics), and Barack's voice sounds like Eddie Murphy making fun of white people. It was very humorus. Rush Limbaugh had a good observation that there were no "persons of african decent" in the lower bowl area of the stadium last night. Too funny.

Well the Hornet's are kicking butt again this year. I feel bad for anyone that get's in our way...Just kidding. Though we are looking good. Drew and Zane and little Bulldog are really looking good. We have Ray, Mondo and Alex that are returning from last year and doing well. Even little AJ, lonely w/o Sky is doing well. The race is on now that Sky went to the longhorns between him and Drew who will get the most TD's this year. However my bet is on Sky due to opportunities. Sky is the RB and LB for his team. He got two TDs in the scrimmage the other night. Nice. Drew got one in his first scrimmage. We are all enjoying it. Games are right around the corner. Here's a quick vid. Sky's #11

why worry

2008-03-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

Well I'm a worrier. Everyone doesn't know this about me but I am. In fact I'm such a worrier that it bugs me when others don't worry. Vance doesn't ever worry. Or if he does he hides it. Lately I've realized that my worrying makes me irritable (nah!) Anyway in most cases I worry about small things really. Like last night I worried my self into insomnia because I think haven't been brushing my teeth enough. True. I layed there thinking about the UA basketball game and started goal setting about my teeth brushing. So today as soon as I was done eating my wonderful frozen burritos and finishing my yucky diet pepsi (out of dmd at all of honeywell how is this possible, but I've visited the cafe, and 5 vending machines, nothing! ARG!!!!) I went to the bathroom with my boyscout tooth brush and my big ole tube of aquafresh. I proudly starting brushing. Trying to fill two minutes I started to look at the tube of tooth paste and realized that toothpaste has an expiration date. I didn't know that. Why? Does it turn toxic? What is in toothpaste that could expire. Well mine says 09/2002. I suddenly didn't feel well anymore so I guess I have one more thing to worry about. ug.

Awesome Video (I hope this works)

2008-03-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

welcome back - beno

2008-03-07T14:17:00.000-08:00

well, yeah i'm lazy. That's the problem. a no duh moment. I've enjoyed some of the time in the past weeks sin Mitt. But I liked it better before. Now I'm so indifferent I can't believe it. Have you heard the song "Animal I've become" by three days grace. Pretty cool but that's not why I bring it up. It says "somebody get me through this nightmare, I can't control myself" that's how I feel about this election. I know why Mitt lost. Everyone knows why. but no one will say it out loud. ssshhhh. crazy. I am prone to mock people that play the race card too much. "You are only saying that because I'm ". So I guess that's why I don't want to tell you all of my thoughts. I've enjoyed the last AM (after mitt) though really because I was watching so much CNN and FOXNEWS and now I don't watch and so I've been reading. I read the entire BOM since January and am almost 400 pages into GBH book by sister Dew. pretty cool huh, yeah I know I'm a freak! You are impressed you know it. well actually for people like el wifey it isn't much, but for a intelectually challenged person like me it's a major accomplishment. I see you smirking, like "you all dat".

Here's your philisophical input from your pal (me): if you want to get over a loss big or small, read the BOM in 60 days. It'll knock your socks off. You'll either 1. feel so guilty that you will forget what you were worried about or 2. feel so good that you will forget what you are worried about. for me it was both depending on the day or part I was at. You know people are always talking about "power" in the world, they have no idea. Really none.

Ok, so yesterday el wifey tore out a wall at our house then blogged about it. She is psycho. but what was funny was that she emailed me and said "I updated my blog, go read it and see if you still love me" pretty funny huh. Girl, you so crazy. But me lika the crazy girls...

Mitt today

2008-01-28T13:35:00.000-08:00

My Best List from the Mitt Campaign

Best T-shirt: "Romney/Mendenhall '08" if you don't know don't ask; it's not funny to you...
Best joke: Youtube of Mitt's son prank calling his dad with Governor of California's old movie lines: "who's your Daddy and what does he do?" It's about half way down on the page
Best Article: To difficult to say... today's favorite is at Captains Quarters a political blog by a talk show host Edward Morissey. Why he's going for Mitt
Best TV Spot: The momentum one that is a few posts down from Nevada election that was cool, but the original "This is the story." spot will make you cry the first few times you see it. That's enough for now.

On a more important front, my condolences to all who, like me, are saddened by the Great Leader President Hinkley's death, I feel your pain. I was saddened but also my testimony of the truth of the gospel grew. Two reasons one is because of the succession of leadership is well established and we all love and admire President Monson. The second is from my boy Vance. Vance had great insight last night. We were all at a youth fireside. We were singing the song "Come come ye saints" when everyone started finding out (via text message) that President Hinkley had died. Just when Vance found out we started the 4th verse "And if we die, before our journey's through, happy day, all is well". Amen brother, Amen.

Wednesday - "Oh Where to Begin"

2008-01-23T12:45:00.000-08:00

There is so much good Mitt stuff today. I am in heaven. There isn't much negative (much) today. A couple you should look at are this one from the editor of National Review Online. Good line about the "Mormon memo". I enjoyed the Fred Thompson dropping out news since now it helps others, hopefully helping Mitt. Many people are saying that it will help Mitt. Then of course I enjoy seeing anything bad about poor Mike Huck(ster)abee. I guess he, McCain and Rudy are out of cash. Here's an article about Huck specifically. Also there is a great story about Why all the other GOP candidates don't like Mitt. Good read, it will make you realize why I do like him so much.

I guess that's enough. I was able to enjoy these as I ate my lunch so I hope you can find the time too. Also don't forget tomorrow night is the last debate before Florida and Super Tuesday (I think) on MSNBC. I'm not sure what time... It's going to be about the Economy so guess what... Mitt will rule it.

Monday - A way of life at this point

2008-01-21T13:48:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking today that there was going to be some good "Mitt" news. Last night I read a little and found some good news on EFM and a good "good is evil and evil is good" comparison. Those posts were great! but nothing beats this pole. Usually you don't see this for Mitt this early. Also you can say what you want about the poles, however the Rasmussen poles have been dead on for the GOP. They like everyone else missed on the Democrat NH primary but they've been right every other time. I was wrong about the SC Romney result but I was more guessing with my heart then my head. I also was wrong about Nevada. Romney got 50%+ of the votes. It was wild, not even close. It's just too bad that Nevada is ignored but it's all good for Mitt.

Yeah Baby!

2008-01-18T13:43:00.001-08:00

Well, you gotta see it, Mitt's team put together a cool commercial called "Momentum Friday!" It got me pumped up. It's awesome. Turn it up... or use headphones because it rocks. Click Here to see it and many other MITT TV things. Later Mitt Heads!

By the Way... if you want to see Mitt in a "different" setting watch Leno tonight! He's on... Friday night. I guess that's a quick jaunt from LV where he's been campaigning.

About Time

2008-01-17T07:01:00.000-08:00

If you want to know who and why I'm supporting Mitt there are many reasons. Yes is Mormonism made me look at first. But I've also looked at others. I actually like Fred. If there was no Mitt I would go for him, except the whole not a viable candidate thing. A good synopsis is in Ann Coulter's article today. If you don't know who she is then Read about her. A quick synopsis is that she's a very brave leader of the conservative movement. She is tough on liberals, almost mean sometimes, and is very well respected and very well liked by conservatives. She has written several books about her beliefs and political persuasions. It is a good "Mitt" article.

Mitt's Michigan

2008-01-16T12:14:00.000-08:00

Well Mitt won. Very good. I was happy to see that but even though he won, many folks are mocking him today. Saying that he pandered and "changed" his views to win. Crazy. He's a politician so he did pander, that's what they do. Every one of them. Good job Mitt, way to sell yourself. It must have been right, because you won and people believed you. duh! I can't get over the stupid main stream media that wants Mitt out of there so bad, they are trying to get rid of Fred Thompson too. "Do you have to win (state name here) to remain viable?" What candidate would say "yes, I must win or I'm quiting". None, what a stupid question. You have to look at these news reporters and see what their motivation is: Viewers and that's it. That's their paycheck. So they will say ANYTHING they need to in order to get more viewers (or listeners you radio people). enough ranting I guess.

Today on the Rush Limbaugh show 3 ladies called and raved about how much they "loved" Romney. Rush was equating it to a point to 1992 and Billy boy. I guess women would call Rush back then and say how much they liked Bill and thought he was so handsome (gross). Anyway he said that he had heard so many women liked Mitt this time is a bit different because they don't "love" him to want to sleep with him, but because they admire him and he's handsome, good family man and has the love of a good woman; his wife. Where the bill chicks liked him back then because they thought he was good looking and thought that there was actually a chance to "hook up". I guess we should have seen the whole Monica thing coming.

ON to Nevada and ON to South Carolina. Predictions? Another gold and another silver!

Views from Larry King

2008-01-15T10:22:00.000-08:00

While Larry King was really soft on him, I liked his answers. I liked the answer on the "Mormon" thing. He basically said that if you don't vote for him "ONLY" because he is a Mormon then you are a bigot. Also his criticism of John McNasty saying that Jobs are gone and won't come back was dead on to what I think. McStain is saying that jobs are gone and basically Auto workers should just "get over it" and "move on". I was plenty glad that he was on because a lot of independent voters watch that and not the fox news shows that he's usually on. Independents (the growing number of voters) are gonna decide this election today in Michigan and the general (if he get's that far) in November. No one has the majority anymore. In Iowa and New Hampshire the day or two before the voting Romney never was leading, so that left me hoping polls were wrong. Finally it looks like he leads the polls generally although very small. Remember with all the "polls aren't right" uproar they were right in republican in both Iowa and NH. Check out this poll on Poitico.com. It is close but at least we have a "good" feeling going into today. Something we never had before.

Tonight Mitt on Larry King

2008-01-14T14:46:00.000-08:00

Mitt's on Larry King tonight! Don't forget to check him out. Should be 7PM on CNN

Larry's very vanilla and won't be to tough on Mitt. also Larry's married to an LDS lady so he's probably going to be nice. Should be good.

My Time for Mitt

2008-01-14T14:31:00.000-08:00

Just wondering what's up with you. Actaully I'm back to being on the positve side of blogging. I'm not sure anyone cares but...

I've been getting a lot of enjoyment supporting Mitt Romney for President. He's fantastic. I can't get over how smart and up to date he is on everything. I've had to study just to find out what the heck they are all taking about. I am wanting to discuss this race and other things in the State goverment, national government or even local. I'll blog more politcally now, because that's what I'm into now. Also I'd like to talk more about what the kids are doing. So there's your preview of my future posts.

Check out some of Mitt's blogosphere it's amazing.
1. 5 brothers blog - Mitt's five son's blog (cool)
2. Evangelicals For Mitt - Very good Blog. Good for Mormons to get a differen perspective on what other's think of a great man. Also very religous people. And Nancy is one of the people that blogs there is super funny and just a normal Mom that is smart like most are but she blogs about it.
3. My Man Mitt - Good information. I think these guys are crazy. It's about 20 people that blog here about Mitt. They never miss a story. New posts about 5-10 times a day.
4. UltiMitt - New just a good list of Media releases or stories that are written about Mitt. Also a general list of "YouTubes" about Mitt.

Expert from book:

2007-11-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

The boys started coming in one by one. Some were in groups but most saw me and walked slowly toward where I was standing. They didn’t really know what to expect I guess, even though Coach Thompson had spent over an hour explaining the whole process to them. Once the locker room was empty we spent the first five minutes giving practice jersey’s out. Coach Reyes taped their last names on the front of their shirts so coaches and teammates could quickly learn names. This process could have been done earlier when they met with Coach Thompson but I liked being part of that. I had learned over time that if I wrote or read a kid’s name only about three times I could have it memorized. So by the end of this five minutes I’d have everyone memorized. Very helpful. But very frustrating to the other coaches. I liked it and I liked that it made them frustrated. Most of the players kind of freaked out about it. Later in the first practice I would bark at one them and use their name and they were so shocked that I knew it. I was happy because I figured they’d listen to me if I knew their name and said it every chance I got.

ohhh very nice. More to come. I'm in the second chapter now... it gets good :)

Sometimes...

2007-11-05T10:26:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I sit and I wonder what to do next. I am so hot and cold at work. Last week or last couple of weeks it's been so busy and everyone was was yelling and screaming and dancing on graves etc. But now quite, still calm and boring. I wish I had a job that I just sat around and did nothing and made good money, until I have a job where I sit around and do nothing and make good money. Time is slow man. Anyway today I thought of a bout a million things to do that were not work related but that I couldn't do because I was at work. It's all so boring. I think that I need a new job or something. I like my job when we are actively engaged but when I'm not oh man I don't like it. I want to switch jobs with someone that works at home. I don't even care what you do. I just want to be able to fill the boring moments with stuff. Like a nap or sweeping or even cleaning something. I don't care I just am not able to sit here and blog or surf the net anymore. I of course could do some work stuff like call people and see where I can help or go talk to someone that probably could use some help. But I don't want to. It goes back to its easier to sit here and complain then to go out and find something to do. I used to think that I'd like a job where I'm driving around all day. Thinking "how convenient another QT, I'll stop." But on the other hand I'm not sure I'd stick to doing whatever it was I was supposed to be doing. I also think that I'd rather have a job where it's the same busy all the time. Like building or teaching, but then again who knows, I'd probably not like that either. I'll stay here as long as I can because it's the only job I figure where I can blog twice a week and it looks like work!

Musings while waiting...

2007-10-25T12:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a view of the world from my eyes. It ain't half bad.

Everything around me is falling apart but guess what? I don't really care. FUNNY huh? The freezer doesn't work, the AC / Heater doesn't work, my car leaks oil my truck is acting weird the Van is getting beat up and falling apart and If half of my kids venture into the weeds in my back yard I may never see them again. There are more crickets in my house then in the entire state of California and I haven't been past about 1/2 way in my garage in so long because I can't get past all of the crap. I don't watch TV before 9:30 at night and I never ever go anywhere for fun. I think that the only thing I do is work, drive and do football with Drew and Sky and that's it. I'm ready for a break from all this and just work on other stuff (like my house) but then I'll just get tired of that too. However like I said i don't care because busy people are happy people. Does a clean house, perfect yard/home and other stuff equal happiness? nope.

How can anyone be a house wife? No, seriously. I mean I worked from home and barely got up from my desk twice between 6:30 am and 11:00 am. I went to the fridge to get a drink a couple of times and that's it. Both times I wanted to fix this, pick up that, help with something or do something else. My wife does a great job with our home but it is very overwhelming keeping up with it and I'm part time help at best. I don't know how she doesn't walk out with both middle fingers in the air every night when I get home and come back around 10 at night. Honestly.

When you are a dad life is different. Today a person accused me of being an anti-bachelor. Meaning that I'm the opposite of a bachelor. duh. They said I had a "herd" at home. I prefer "flock" but my wife may agree with herd. I wonder how quite, clean and empty the house would be without our flock. I was home all alone yesterday and it was noticeably quite since I'm very rarely home all alone. I liked it but not totally. It seemed foreign.

Today there was a crash on the freeway. So what, right? well except it made me late for work. See as long as I don't get in a crash I don't care about them until it makes me late for work. Do you ever think about all of the tragedies in the world? I don't. Because I think if you do you'll go crazier then you already are. There are too many to count. Besides what's a tragedy? I think if I get in a car crash that's a tragedy. No matter how minor.

My daughter got a cut on her bum the other week. It was huge so the wife had to get some really big band-aids. Like 4"x6" band-aids. We all knew about her cut because she's 4 and isn't too modest about it. Anyway after it quit hurting it was kinda funny and cute when she'd show us or talk about her bum owey. Next I got hurt a burn on my hand so I asked Sky and Vance if they knew where the Ace-bandage was so I could hold the Ice on my hand. Sky says "what's an Ace-Bandage? Is it the band-aid Mom used for Tawny's Ace?" We all had a good laugh. Well last night I took it a step further. Drew, Vance and I were walking home and Drew asked if I'd rather ride his bike then walk. I said "no I don't want to fall off and get hurt and need an "Ace-Bandage" If I was Stacy I'd say "I'm so funny"

Control; Lose it!

2007-10-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

Well today I'm frustrated. I want to control everything. I want to take control, not relinquish it ever, and remain in control. What do I want to control? Myself, others, situations and emotions. See I want to be able to dictate every situation. I want to be able to tell others what to do. I want to quickly fix mistakes and control the situation so the same mistakes aren't going to happen. I want to get in the front of a situation so that I can control the outcome. You know what else would be cool? Rewind buttons. If a situation doesn't work out, just rewind and start again. That would be cool. Ok, ok, I know that one is out there. All of this rambling is. So I think that I have to go to the other extreme. So here's the solution. Control nothing. I think that's the solution. I'll just go along fat dumb and happy. See if you don't worry about controlling things you remain in control of yourself. I shouldn't try to control the outcome of situations because most of the time I'm just going to get frustrated and wish it had gone differently anyway. I think that if I try to control others I'll mostly be disappointed anyway so I'll just stop trying. I'm not quitting I'm just 'letting go'. There's a difference see. It's the difference in allowing myself to try to be in charge to letting others worry about stuff. See we all have a choice. Try to control it or let it go. I'm letting go and man it feels soooo good.

Game Face

2007-10-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

Vance's game face!

2007 Hornets pre-season party

2007-10-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

These are a few of the boys that I work with each wee! My sons are both there. All these boys are Awesome!

And yet again i say YES!

2007-10-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

Well I ran 4 days in a row. That's some kind of record. Today was good. Stacy didn't go with me so I was alone and it is very dark. I went up one way then back down then back again the way I came so it's like running the same street twice. So it's 2.4 mile run. Today was hilarious. I was running along (slowly) like always and as I passed the "white" park I saw a lady walking. She was "speed" walking you know with elbows flying back and forth and barely bending her knees and heel toe heel toe all the way. It looked like she was holding something really small in her crack. It was comical, but yet very fast. It's dark so I'd only see her when she passed under a street lamp. I wasn't catching up very fast I was more like staying 30-50 yards behind her. Pretty soon I could tell that she knew I was behind her. So I thought she might think I am a stocker or something so I crossed to the other side of the street. But her walk was so amusing that I couldn't help but giggle internally every time I saw her. She also was trying to keep her eye on me so every time she'd get a chance she'd look over her shoulder and look at me. That slowed her down I guess because once we go just past the school I had gained on her a lot. We were nearly even I was still watching her though because like I said it was funny to watch her seize as she walked down the road. It was one of those "train wreck" moments where you know you should look away but you can't (like big boobs). Anyway finally I got where it wasn't feasible to watch anymore since I was jogging even with her and by the school it is quite light. So I forced myself to look forward. At that point I did it. I had to I couldn't help it. Yeah I think she'll walk faster tomorrow. I'm just glad I was on the other side of the street. You shouldn't hold those in, it's bad for you. So I didn't. It wasn't silent, but it was deadly.

Fine then I will

2007-10-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

Blogging is supposed to be for me. The only reason I do a blog is because Journals are boring. I was a blogger before bloggers were cool Whetten people! (I CAN PROVE IT TOO). You know I'm right. Anyway. I've been busy too. Blogging is low on the priority list. I've been spending too much time annoying football player's parents, getting fatter and offending football officials and coaches to have time to blog (not to mention working). So here's my blog message today: Only blog for yourself. Don't blog because you want to share your life with other people. It's very much less genuine when you do that. See Stace used to send out an email blog of sorts to everyone on her email address list. I loved it. It was for her. She shared with us her life. But now she quit because she was worried about other people thinking "Why does she send this to me?" When she should have been thinking "I love writing emails to these people for myself!" Here's the thing: You aren’t interesting to everyone. No one is, least of all me. So what you do is blog, email, or type whatever for yourself. It's sincere that way. It's real. If you get someone pissed off or laughing at you, awesome, you don't care what they think anyway. This last weekend in conference the best quote (my blog my opionion) was President Hinkley in Priestood quoted a former President of the church when someone wanted to know what to do when they've been slandered in the newspaper. He said (paraphrase), "Half of the people in town don't buy the newspaper, half of the ones that do won't see that article, half of those that see the article won't read it, half of the people who read it won't understand it and half of those who understand it are of no consequence anyway!" So think of your blogs that way. Because, we that love you will enjoy it more because it is the real you... Love ya and Get off of my butt about my blog! It's mine!

Last days...

2007-06-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

Well we are on our last days before the big race! It's this saturday. Scarry. I'm ready I guess. I've been looking forward to it so I'd better do good. My goal is still 2:30. It's gonna be tight. I hope the hills aren't too tough. We swam in the lake last night so I at least know I'll finish that part. In reality If I don't make my time but I finish then I'll be happy :) I've programmed the fakey Ipod for about 90 minutes of music. I figure after that much I'll start over on the same songs. Or all I'll just turn it off. I'll be walking by then anyway.

Triathalon 1 month away

2007-05-14T07:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I have only one month to my first offical triathalon. We did the "mock" race on Saturday. We started out at the YMCA at 9:00 am on Saturday. We swam our 1000 meters in about 25 1/2 minutes. It was pretty tough. That was the first time I'd swam that far in about 2 years. My shoulder (hurt it skiing in December) was killing me. I mostly just did the breast stoke because the freestyle wasn't working on my right side. But I finished. Then we dressed and headed out for our 14 1/2 mile bile ride. I started out OK. I was good for about 4 miles. I slowly slowed down after that. I did finally finish in 1 hour 6 minutes. I changed my shoes and started out on the 3 mile run. I ran then walked then ran then walked and then gave up and walked the rest. I finished in 55 minutes. My total triathalon was 2 hours 26 minutes. Stacy (wife) finished in 2 hours 15 minutes and Darcey (friend) finished in 1 hours 58 minutes. I was slow, however I beat the estimated time by 4 minutes. I think I can keep training and make 2 hours and 10 minutes by the time of the race. My biking and running is really hard. I can't imagine being able to run after biking that far, but maybe. More to come.

Updated Triathlon

2007-04-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

Update on my Triathlon activity. I am doing it. My wife, me and our Friend Darcey are all running it. It is gonna be touch and go if I can finish it or not. the Wife will. She's been really working on it. The most I've done on the bike so far is 7 miles. And I haven't worked out even once in the pool yet. Who has the time? I'm going for it. If I don't finish then so what. We are gonna give it a shot on may 12th. We will drive to the YMCA pool with the bikes then do our 1K swim, ride the bikes 14 1/2 miles to the elementry school and then run to our house (about 3 miles). If I can finish that in 2 hours and 30 minutes then I'll feel alot better. It should be pretty cool to at least go for it. I've really been busy though and can't seem to find time to run. I'm not lazey just busy (yeah, that's the ticket). Anyway, If I run 3 miles in the morning and bike two or three times a week, I'm just gonna have to trust myself on the swim. I'm not sure when I'll get in the pool. We are going to ride 14 miles this Saturday for the first time, should be fun. More to come D-day is June 9th...

Five Reasons Why I HATE Mark Cuban

2007-03-12T16:54:00.000-07:00

1) He's a silly "know-it-all". I bet he's never said "I'm wrong!" Just read his dumb blog . Also he thinks he's the news story. If you go to the Mav's website under the NEWS menu an item is called "Mark Cuban". You ain't the news man it's the players looser!!! fade away already!
2) His dang Dallas Mavericks are coached by a crybaby, and the whole team are crybabies, because HE is a crybaby. In AJ's defense he was a crybaby as a player so he didn't learn from MC.
3) Mavericks are always good. (Nuff said!) Dang!
4) He has more money then most folks yet dresses like a looser. (actually, I'm kidding, I like that about him). Get a hair cut my man! Also
5) I hate him also because of all of the stupid Cuban wannabees that post to his blog and ask for advise... Dude get over it. Cuban isn't a genius, if he was, the Mav's wouldn't have lost to Shaq & Flash last year! Also we'd all have heard of some of the movies that his company produced, and we'd be watching movies on the Internet instead of the movie theater like MC wants. I think that he should sell the Mavs and get on with his life (Dairy Queen anyone!) and join the Surreal Life cast in 2010.
5b) Because he's in the huddle. If you don't hate him for this alone then you have no right to watch basketball anymore. I'm glad Cuban doesn't have kids (or if he does, he doesn't mention them, good job my man). Because I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have his kid on your youth basket ball team and have him sneak in the huddle and say "Hey coach, you should try this and that..."

All this being said, I do like his players. JET and Dirk are awesome. Dirk is a whiner and a winner. So I guess I can live with him. He's the MVP this year, but he needs to shut up. I don't know how they work for Cuban though. Maybe its the case of he's on their side so its cool, but from the "outside" it looks embarassing.
later

Trust is a weird thing

2007-03-12T16:22:00.000-07:00

You see people don't trust anyone, really. I mean do you? I don't. I trust my wife, but I avoid asking her to do things that I want to do myself. It's not that she can't do it, its just that I rather do it myself. Most people are the same from my observation. In fact you know what? I think most people would not want others doing things for them. I've noticed that it is much easier for people to help others then it is for them to let others help them. That is a lack of trust. I had a friend that had health issues. They were pretty serious. Her neighbors wanted to help her but she didn't want them too. She likes them, they are her friends but does she truly trust them? (no, for you slow readers out there, as if you existed). I don't trust anyone completely. It is something that I need to work on. My opinion is that we all need to trust someone completely. Naturally we don't want to do this. Naturally we want to be independent. That's the way we are made or wired. It's hard to trust someone completely, because no one is perfect and everyone will let you down once in a while. I'm very bad about that. I could never imagine anyone fully 100% trusting me. (I doubt I even trust myself 100%). What's the secret? the answer? Does it exist. In my religion we are asked to be "one with your spouse". Is this possible without this 100% complete trust? No. But is 100% complete trust obtainable? No right because then that would mean that the trusted person would have to be perfect, which by humans is not possible. The reality is that sometimes in order to trust someone you must experience disappointment or frustration. That is the only way, that improvement can be made. I'm not talking about improvement by the person you are trusting, but improvement in you (meaning me too). We also have to be able to forgive and forget. They are both important, because if you don't forget then you haven't forgiven and you aren't trusting. See if you trusted someone and they let you down, but you never ask them to help again in that area, then you 1) haven't forgotten and 2) you don't really trust them do you. Reverse it. If you let someone down and they never ask you to help them again then you never get a second chance to earn their trust. My dad was great at that. He'd tell me "You lost some of my trust with that action." but soon enough he'd trust me again and give me the opportunity to increase his level of trust of me. But what if he never gave me another opportunity? I'd never would have increased that trust, thus improving myself. How are confidence and trust related? You may have a great confidence in yourself or in someone else, but not 100% trust (or belief) in yourself or that person. The action must take place before confidence becomes trust. So Confidence (opportunity) + Correct Action = Increased Trust... However Confidence + Incorrect Action = Decreased Trust. Think about it next time you need help... Asking someone who may have let you down before, but you want to trust, give them the opportunity (a.k.a confidence) to gain your trust. Of course if they let you down again, then you only have yourself to blame...
Later.

Triathlon

2007-02-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

Yeah Right, that's what my wife said (to herself). But today I told her that I am going to start training to run a triathlon. Why? because I did my BMI (body mass index?) and I'm offically clasified as "obese". Yep, me Obese. Wow. I at first thought "High Standards". However I'm just not sure, after I took a shower at the gym today. I guess I'm pretty fat. Oh well, I can't just get motivated this time trying to lose wait. I am gonna do this dang triathlon and I started today to train. I ran 2.2 miles in 25 min, 37 seconds. Terrible. I don't know what to tell you. I can ride the stationary bike for 30 minutes but man running is way harder. I'll update with pictures and update my progress as I can. I hope that someone will join me. We've talked about doing a family "relay" triathlon, that sounds fun. I hope that soon enough I can call my self a "triatlete"!

Oh yes I am!

2006-11-14T14:16:00.000-08:00

Well, here goes. You know its true too. I am funny. No one cares, but I am... I make people laugh all of the time. I know you just said "AT YOU", but you're wrong. "WITH ME". you see I'm not one of these useless wastes of space that takes themselves so seriously. I think that one can not laugh at others until they laugh at themselves. And trust me I do enjoy laughing at others. I know you don't get it. You think "I don't take my self seriously" but today you'll get insanly mad at someone else because of their driving, or they were rude to you in line at the store, or because they looked at you wrong. Trust me, you didn't even enter their mind. They just were thinking about someother person. You are just another schmoe like them. You ain't all that important. However, you should be happy about that. Some folks are very self centered and either think everything is offensive or they think that everything that happens is just to spite them. My wife says I'm paranoid and that I think everyone is out to get me... she's wrong. I let her tease me about it because I think its funny, but it isn't true. Most people aren't out to get anyone because they don't have the time or the energy. Its very tiring being so self involved. It matters very little to most of us what our fellow man is doing 99% of the time. Unless they are your very close friend or your wife or kid, why would you worry about anyone else. BUT, we all think that others are looking at us wrong or thinking bad thoughts about us or that everyone is out to get us. Trust me, don't take yourself so serious, no one is concerned about you, but you. Here's the other thing, don't be intimidated by strangers. Why? Because everyone is pretty much the same. Scared that others won't like them, scared that others are thinking bad stuff about them and worried about what they are supposed to do next to "fit in". Give up! Don't try to fit in, try not to fit in. you aren't so cool anyway, or you are and it will just be natural for you to "fit in". 'A weak minded person changes his likes dislikes and views of things every 7 years' . Why because if they didn't they couldn't conform to society. Want to fit in, just keep changing what you like and believe every so often. Soon you'll be on the popular thing. No worries. But of course tell everyone you thought of it all by yourself. I like popular music, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about real things like religion, politics or how you like certain types of people and dislike others. People are not groups, people are people individuals. You can like one guy and dislike the next, and you should but don't change because its the "popular" thing. Don't change your mind on other stuff, unless you really really feel something differently. Be strong and don't cave in like most folks do. I mean, what if everyone changed their mind every 7 or eight years or so...wait everyone does. Why do you think we have a different political party in charge in our government every other election. Anyway... here's the five bullet point summary 1) everyone is the same scared and worried. 2) Don't take yourself so seriously, it smells in the bathroom when everyone leaves 3) stick to your guns, change when change is needed not just to change 4) Don't let others worry you, they are the same as you, worried and 5) Be who you like. Dont' be who you think others will like.
Later, "Like I hope that everyone likes my blog"

2006-09-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

Me and my Hornets!

Stupid is as Stupid Does

2006-09-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

You are only stupid when you prove it. You know most people are pretty intelligent. Most I said. However that has nothing to do with them being stupid or not. Forget what your IQ is or how smart your mother said you were, if you do stupid stuff then you are stupid. Everyone can plead "temporary stupidity". It never ceases to amaze me how stupid I am and how stupid others are. Like the people who get drunk all weekend and hate there Mondays. Or people who claim to work so many hours and work so hard and never accomplish anything. I wonder who they are trying to impress. I think that "accomplishments" not time put in are what are remembered. I hope that people don't remember me as a guy who put in the time, but rather as a guy who got things done. Off the subject sorry.

Remember while there is no stupid questions, there are plenty of stupid people.

Miss Conceptions

2006-09-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

I think a lot of people like to believe things that are false. It's easier then knowing and accepting the truth. I know that it do. I'd prefer to think that Warren Jeffs is evil, but I don't know it... I think that you and everyone you know believes, in fact knows, at least one thing that is so totally false they'd be embarrassed. I have a friend who at his church his whole life was taught that Mormonism is a cult and should be avoided like the plague. But then he moved a highly populated Mormon area and found out that they were pretty good folks... He was amazed. Also a bit miffed that he'd been lied to. Also I met a guy who thought that all Mormons had multiple wives. Guess what he believed something that was way wrong. Anyway you get the idea. Here's 5 things that I think most people believe that are wrong.
1) All Christian religions are the same. Way off. Most don't know what the other believe but if they did they'd be shocked. Did you know that some Christian churches preach that there was a pre-mortal existence and others don't? What about the trinity, most differ there as well. It seems to me that these are pretty fundamental ideas and peoples can't agree.
2) Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction... What do you think Saddam was?
3) George W. Bush is stupid. Where'd you go to college? I bet it wasn't Yale or Harvard.
4) All wars today are about Money. NOPE! Only the ones we are in are. Most are about religion.
5) Blogging matters. NOPE not unless you are already famous then most of the time even you don't matter either.

Your turn can you think of any... add them in a comment below.

Why Not ME????

2006-08-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

Feeling sorry for myself today, Can you tell?
5) Why couldn't I be taller. I wish that I was because then I'd be the same weight and be considered "normal"
4) Why can't I be way smarter so that I could not make so many dumb mistakes. The other day I took a wrong turn and ended up driving around a neighborhood for about 15 minutes. The time consisted of 3 "U" turns, two times back out on the original road and twice I had to stop at a turn and randomly pick which way to go...
3) Why can't I have a better JOB? Mine is good, I get paid well, but I think there are about 10 billion that are better. I've only met like two dudes in the past year whose job I don’t envy.
2) Why do I have so much time in my stupid car... I can say in one word what I wish for two times every day: Teleportation
1) Why don't I WORRY less? I think that I worry too much, Here's my mind as I fall asleep: Did I close the garage, did I brush my teeth long enough? Floss? What are my kids doing? Do they watch too much TV? Are my kids too busy? Did I permanently damage Skylar by yelling at him today? Is the pool dirty? Why did Stacy roll over just now, is she mad at me? I wonder if that bill is due yet? What did I do with my cell phone? Is Vance home yet? I wonder who he hangs out with at HS? Why doesn't he want to hang out with us as much anymore? Is Stacy happy or just too busy to know the difference? What if my tires are flat in the morning? Why is the AC on, that’s expensive? What am I doing tomorrow? Why can’t I remember things as easy anymore? What are the kids doing tomorrow? And it goes on and on....

5 stupid things I've heard lately

2006-08-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

In reverse order
5) "My son should play "that" position on your football team coach! He's been training for it all summer". What I wish I could say: Whatever yo! he's 9 and doesn't know is left from his right, and what's he been training for? This aint the NFL, let the kid be a kid and "Play" football. What I really say: "Well, we'll see what we can do"
4) "Dad can I have a cell phone" What I wish I could say: Kid can you read yet? worry about chores and home work then when you grow some I'll let you know... What I really say: see above (I got my wish:)
3) "I killed JonBenet"... What I wish I could say: Really? Were you on a grassy knoll with a government agent too, surrounded by aliens? What I really would say: "Finally we can get this stupid news story over"
2) "We are the best team you'll play this whole year" What I wish I could say: Wow! You are that great? How do you know? What is the point of telling me this? You can't even name all of your players yet and you are "the best"? whatever bro...right back at ya slick~! What I really say: "Wow! You guys must be really good, I hope we can just play well against you"
1) "I already told you that". What I wish I could say: Would I freakin' be asking if I had this answer? Why don't you be polite and just call me stupid like I want to call you! Tell me again then you fat liar. I'll let you get away with that once, but next time you better produce an email or a written message where you told me because a past conversation is only "hear say". What I really say: "will you please tell me again, I must of forgot".
Peace! Stupid people are stupid

Thoughts for today

2006-08-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

Here are some random observations that are useless except to me. I think that I'm feeling a lot better about other people lately. Generally I've had mostly good experiences with human kind of late. I can't think when that last time someone tried to "get" me. I wonder if I'm just not paying attention. I also have found that more people seem to be like me lately. Basic "work-a-day" folks that only want to get home and veg in front of TV or a book or something, waiting for that vacation or whatever. The trick is to find a something each day that you can look forward to, then appreciate it and blog about it. Here's mine. Also a tip that will help you now... I had a good weekend because it was my 15th wedding anniversary and my wife didn't get me anything. I can ride that guilt for about a year. I got her two things. :) I am a genius. Do you want to know the secret to a happy marriage? I know of two. I'm sure there are more... Here they are. Even though I shouldn't document them because my wife is probably the only one that reads this blog and now she'll know that I have secrets, but despite that chance... #1 Memorize this phrase and use it: "I'm Sorry, I know I'm an Idiot and I'll try to do better" and #2 Pick something that is "traditionally" not your job and do it always (back off femi-nazi). Make it your job. I mean own it, don't ever let her do it. Mine's Sunday dinner. Sunday dinner in our culture is usually the wife's thing, but in our house it's mine. Has been for a long time now. If she wants to help fine, but I still made the meal. It sure is a lot harder to whine about a meal, especially a big meal like that, when you make it. They've been exceptional lately. Once in a while I have had to humble up a bit and ask her advice . But this is a bonus too. Why? Because she now thinks that she is helping me and so she feels important but doesn't feel that she is being "tasked". These are my only two secrets for married dudes. I'll think of more and try them out on my unsuspecting wife and let you know how it goes. You fictional reader...
Later!

Fact or Fiction

2006-07-31T12:59:00.000-07:00

You Decide
1) If you lend money to someone and then they pay you back who says thank you? I think you shoud. It is way easier to lend money then it is to get it back. Fact or fiction?
2) When I ask my wife out on a date, she should say yes, then discuss schedules and the kids not the other way around. Fact or fiction?
3) When you go to church and no one says hello to you it is your fault for not saying hello to anyone. Fact or fiction?
4) If your coworker takes a day off of work you resent them. If you play golf and its crowded you resent everyone out there in your way. When you go to a new hot store you hate everyone else there that makes the new store busy. People only become annoyed or frustrated with others when they see things that they them selves do, whant to do or have done. Fact or fiction?
5) Familys are more fun in the long run, but in the short run they are way less fun then friends. Fact or fiction?
Post back if you want to argue!

Dumber then ever

2006-07-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

Brilliant thoughts for today
1) I took 3 days off and played golf seemingly a smart thing. The average tempeture for the three days in the phx area was 115 degrees. Nice job on the vaca choice
2) Work is so dumb. I work well with others but they don't work well with me.
3) Working in IT these days is like walking up a down escalator. You work really hard but you don't get anywhere. Your effort is great, and rewards are few. Once in a while there is a dude at the top that shoves you and replaces you with two overseas people that cost less. But those two dudes are doing the same thing, running up a down escalator.
4) If Brazil and Argentina start fighting will the US jump in? Or is it only if they have nukes or OIL. Goodness let's just stay out of every freakin' country in the world. Why do we care so much? Why don't I care so much? I think we should protect our interests and out citizens, but why do we have to protect everyone else? Pretty soon every country will be at war with us.
5) Just wondering: is talk radio crack for your mind? I don't think it plays a part in common peoples lives. do you ever wonder what people who call these stations do for a living? At least on Jim Rome's jungle program he calls his callers "Jobless". If I was a talk show host I wouldn't take calls. I would say " You guys are all wrong anyway, so you will LISTEN TO ME". You can't do that I guess so that's why I blog!
Peace out!

Golf

2006-07-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a while but here goes. I'm a little relaxed today. You see I've played 36 holes of golf in the last 36 hours. Yes It's very cool. I took some vacation off of work because I wanted to so I played golf. It is also the British open this weekend, so in keeping with my theme so far here are the top five facts about golf and why it is a very strange game when normal people play.
1) Anyone can play and wear things that they would never wear any where else. Right Bill?
2) It's 112 outside in Phoenix and we play anyway. Golf makes me dumb like that. Normal people play, in 112 degrees, haven't played in 9 months and miss a 30 foot putt we get all mad like we were expecting play better and think we are the best players on earth.
3) There are three types of golf courses. They can easily be seperated into groups 1st group: professional-Golf carts only, must have a dress codes, small things like tees and course books are free. Tips are also part of the deal. 2nd group: semi-pro - Think they are pros but aren't get mad at you if you forget the dress code, think they are better then you because their job is to work at this golf course. 3rd group Amatures-Usually city course. Reasonably priced, course is messed up, any one can play. Shirts are barely required.
4) Golf is the only game that makes people who don't swear, swear. You can hear it every time you play.
5) Golf is also the only game that lots of people play but hate everyone else that plays too. I call this the Tiger Woods effect. Since el Tigre started playing every dude in the US thinks that he should play too. I think people should be banned from golf courses unless you pass the etiquite test, are 30 years old and can name 5 golfers that won majors before Tiger was born. Of course then I'd play alone. I can dream Right?
See ya!