December 22, 2003

It is nearly Christmas and I have been slacking majorly. Well, I suppose it would be worse if people actually read this regularly. Not having a big or regular audience has its pluses.

Where to begin? I suppose I should continue where I left off last time. A couple weeks after Kari and I came back from Tucson (in July), Lars and his girlfriend (fiancee?) came to visit Kari, Elijah and me in Utah. That was a nice visit. Their flight was late, and with the new airport rules, we got to wait in a special area where we saw about four missionaries come home from their missions. Always interesting to watch. Anyway, Lars stayed longer than Karen did, because she had to get back to work, I believe. We got to have fun with them just hanging out, watching movies (specifically Pirates of the Caribbean, which we both loved), playing lan games (my old roommate Phil even came down to visit from Salt Lake to see Lars and me) and just being together. Lars is a good friend. I hope he and Karen . . . I don't know, get engaged soon. They keep talking about it. We shall see.

Anyway, September saw me turn 29 years old. Weird. A part of me still wonders where the 21 year old went. Don't think I'd want to go back much further than that. Actually, I don't think I want to go back at all. I'm pretty happy where I am. Well, I want to progress career-wise, but I have a great family and I've become a relatively well-adjusted person. Well, we won't get into that. At any rate, I am still surprised to think I'm almost 30. Kari got me the Harry Potter books in hardback for my birthday. I read them all in a week. Ok, yes, I am a Harry potter junkie. Sue me. I read the first two in Oregon while visiting my sisters Liz and Christina and their families. The movies are ok. I do enjoy them. The books (I'm sure you've heard this before) are so much better. But I don't mind watching the movies. Heck. After the Lord of the Rings movies, the longest Harry Potter movie will seem like short matinee. Anyway, Kari's gift (8 days later) for her birthday was a new computer. Yes, I built a computer for her. It was fun. Did it from scratch. Well, I didn't make the parts, but I put all the parts together. It's not the fastest machine on the block, but it is pretty nice, and a much better computer than her old one (which is currently acting as a test server for me). Kari and I got sick during our birthdays, but that has happened several times. Almost doesn't surprise me any more. We also ate at the Spaghetti Factory and Carrabas (an Italian Grill) for Kari's and my birthdays, respectively.

October was a blur. Um, actually, I don't remember much about it. At work, half my company (very small company, at that) went to New Jersey to sell books at a convention-type thing. I stayed and opened up shop every day, made sure things were running smoothly. Sadly, it was busy all of October getting ready for New Jersey, then after they returned, it has been busy since, with one project or another (including putting everything away after returning from New Jersey). We have since run out of our biggest selling book, one that needed a revision and shouldn't be reprinted as is. So, the next edition is being worked on and the old one is gone. Yup, people have been upset (especially since they couln't get the book as a Christmas gift. Ah, well. At work, we also translated one of our other big books into Japanese and just started getting orders faxed to us ever night. We ship it Fed Ex, thanks to me. I was the one who toiled away for several weeks, negotiating with UPS and Fed Ex, researching until we got a solution that made my boss happy. I think we will be shipping everything through Fed Ex soon. And that's good. It will save us some money in the long run, and seems to already be giving us better service than UPS.

Oh, in October, Elijah had his 18 month check up. He is still doing well. The doctor measured him at 37 inches (and if at 2 years, you can double their height to estimate adult height, he's going to be taller than his dad) and absolutely still skinny. He also entered into nursury. Actually, the truth is, he went into nursury early. His mom and dad were called to work in the church nursury. Usually, a child won't enter until 18 months, but because we started while he was 17 months, it was natural for him to come with us. I mean, where else would he go? Of course, I heard a rumor that one of the people we replaced asked to be released because she was afraid of working with Elijah. Yeah, he can be a handful, but he's a good boy and she (the lady who was released) is a coward. Bleagh!

Anyway, I will write more soon.