Monday Morning Musings

Here are a few things for Monday morning.

1- Teething children aren't fun (explanation to come later).

2- Here is a photo taken of me on Friday at work.

It is a fun photo. My boss (who really was going above and beyond his duty to jackhammer out some concrete) was using the jackhammer as I was walking by. I asked him if he needed a break, since neither of us generally use the jackhammer unless things need to get done (which it did in this case). Well, somebody got the camera out and decided to take a picture of it. This job is the first job in about two-and-a-half years that has allowed me to be on site a lot and as a result get to do cool stuff like use the jackhammer and drive big machinery like this one (the John Deere Loader... that's the big yellow one if anybody is wondering) that I drove last week (photo from tricitymaterials.ca):

3- I used this video for a priesthood lesson yesterday. It shows the church growth by stake and year since 1847 (I believe). It is a pretty nifty video that the church has made available on their website for download. With it comes my tech tip of the day. You can download any of the church videos from their website (found here) and put them on your iPod. Then you can buy a little device like the one shown here (photo and item from Radio Shack) and watch the video on TV! It works great for church lessons (you can put PowerPoints on iPods too and get them on a projector or TV too) or any presentations. Also, any show you buy on iTunes is high enough resolution to be shown on your TV, so with this cable hook up you can watch anything off of iTunes on your TV as well as your iPod.

Anyway, here is the video I was originally talking about. Enjoy:

Thanks Everybody!

Not just thanks for my ring (which many of you contributed to for a graduation present), but thanks to the many, many of you who have helped us get through college in one piece. To say that college was difficult for me would probably be a severe understatement. Not that I didn't enjoy learning, etc., but the whole work full-time, go to school full-time, be a husband and father full-time thing was a lot to bear. As I look back, it becomes especially remarkable when I think of going through such events as pregnancy, loss of a child, aftermath from loss of a child, adoption of a child, and fathering an infant. I look back and really don't know how I did it (of course I do, we all do) When school finished in late April, I thought it was no big deal. I figured that I was just fine. I didn't realize, however, how mentally, physically, and spiritually drained I had become over the past few years. The end of college was the cue for my body to relax for a bit; and it took full advantage of it. I pretty much just shut down (with the exception of those things that couldn't be missed) for a while. It was not until a week or so ago that I actually felt like doing anything again.

As for my degree, I graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Construction Management Technology. I have to say that I am a bit defensive of my chosen field of study because of the more than a few times over my college life when I would tell someone what I was studying and they would say, "There's a degree in that!?" Yup! And it's a good one. We graduate with one of the higher starting salaries out of college and have nearly perfect placement of students. Of course that's due to most of us working in the industry full-time while we go to school, but for those who don't the placement is still remarkably high.

Also, the degree is a good one because of the fact that a specialized college degree was never the norm in the industry until just recently. The construction industry is one of the last industries to have a major computer technology integration and therefore people with specialized university training are needed. I like to say that the days of sketching up drawings and building as you go are done.

The industry is trying to get away from the above perception

I have been trained to use, and get to use several highly advanced software programs to make sure that highly advanced buildings worth millions of dollars get built correctly. College grads. come out with the skills to run a business and be a good businessman or businesswoman, run the accounting operation for a business, read and understand highly technical building plans, estimate costs for buildings, and knowledge of how to manage these projects. As I said and as I am sure you can tell, I am very proud of my degree. But as I said before, there was no way Faith and I could have made it through without the help of too many people to fully mention (family and specifically mother's especially). You are all angels to us and we are very grateful for your help in getting us to this point.

On a final note, if any of you want to visit me, I am working downtown and would be happy to receive a visit from anybody. Here's our project:

It's not much to look at right now, but it's getting busy. Here's what it will kind of look like when we get done:

Videos of The Week

Okay, so now that I have started to think about the internet videos that I want to publish here I want to post every funny moment I see. Bot alas, I have to limit myself. Here are some funny videos that I thought I should post this week:

This one is from SNL. It is a parody of the show "Rock of Love" on VH1. It is pretty hard to avoid any exposure to this show, if for nothing else than to see how true this clip really is. My favorite is how well the guy plays the star of the show.



Number two is a Geico commercial I saw this week that had me in stitches. I really don't even like NASCAR, but this little guy is hilarious:



Lastly, my blast from the past this week is Duck Tales. C'mon Duck Tales??!?! Yup, I didn't miss an episode of this show. I loved this show! I always wanted to know how Scrooge McDuck could swim in the money. It just seemed like the physics of it would be difficult, even at such a young age (okay, I probably wasn't thinking about the "physics" of it, but you know what I mean).

I Love Internet Videos

You know why I love internet videos? Because in this great age you can remember funny things that you saw when you were a little kid and actually find them somewhere online. Up until two years ago we were left with just quoting lines from Dumb and Dumber or remembering scenes from Thunder Cats. Now we can find those on youtube and post them on our blogs!!! It may just be that I post more internet videos here than actual photos because I am just like that.

Here are some recent funny vids:

Faith got mad at me the other day for singing this song to Ava before bedtime. She said that it showed our age difference. For me, I just love this song:



Faith and I saw this one on SNL last Saturday night. It was the last skit of the night, I believe, so it probably wasn't meant to be one of their best skits. There is really no plot to the skit, but for some reason we were laughing our heads off:

TIme Goes by Quickly

I always intended on keeping up on this blog a bit better than I did. Unfortunately for the family, that whole college thing got in the way. College is over now- thank goodness- and I'm quite enjoying having a life again. Let me catch everybody up on a few things. Obviously college is over now (until hopefully grad. school comes along one day). It was surprisingly fulfilling to attend graduation ceremonies. Here are some pictures from graduation day:

The week before graduation (great planning on my part), Faith and I went on a family vacation to Cancun. I fully recommend Cancun as a vacation to anybody. It isn't nearly as expensive as Hawaii and has to be just as beautiful. You get the best of both worlds: you are in the Carribbean, so you have some of the most beautiful water in the world and the worlds second largest coral reef, and yet you are in Mexico- so you get the cultural experience of being there. Grandma and Grandpa Furniss paid for the trip for the entire family (which ended up being whoever could go), so we are greatful to them for that (they have blogs in Heaven, right?). All things considered, it was a great trip. Here are some photos from that lovely event:

Finally, I can't leave without having some photos of Ava shown. Here are some recent photos from Mother's Day. They aren't the best photos because it is hard to keep her in one place long enough to get a good photo (as one might imagine a walking 13 month old would be!):

Six Months Already!!?!?

It is so hard to believe that Ava is already six months old. She is growing so quickly and pretty soon she will be crawling. We really don't know what we will do then, because we are quite certain that she will literally be all over the place. She is curious enough as it is in a stationary position! The next few weeks will be very interesting.

The Good Boy

Rarely have I laughed quite so hard as I did watching this video of Donny Osmond. Faith says that it my humor to a tee and hypothesized that my dad probably laughed at it too. He did.

Five Months and Counting

Here are some photos of Ava at five months with the comparisons for each previous months. Thanks to The Big Rick for suggesting that we do this when she was born. I really enjoy seeing her next to the teddy bear to compare growth. These have been some of our funnest photos of her that we have.

Yellowstone

It's a little late, but thus is the life of a full-time college student/full-time employee/full time father & husband. Man, that's a lot of full-times! Anyway, here are some photos of our trip to Yellowstone and Island Park in August.

For Faith

It's the first week of school for Faith and she is in the adjustment phase. I'm sure she is in need of something to make her laugh- and she frequently refers to this clip from Conan and is mad that we ever deleted it off of our TiVo. Well lo and behold it is on YouTube (isn't everything). Enjoy: