I'm Still Here

After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II. "Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark,Belgium and the Netherlands" stated Goober Von Nuesbaum, chief architect of the BCS computer software. "Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work--including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule and significant margin of victories in most battles--our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking." Questioned about the #2 ranking of the United States the BCS stated "The US only had two major victories--Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren't influenced by head-to-head contests--they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event. So even though the US came back from way down to beat Germany and used a couple of last minute long bombs to beat Japan, those issues aren't factoredin." German spokesperson Bobbi Shtuppesengrubber said "Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 France on the road in only 6 weeks. It took the US several years to beat us." Germany was criticized by many for seeking dramatic victories to earn 'style points' to enhance Germany's rankings, using their first team Stormtroopers all the way into the final minutes of several lopsided battles with their "Blitzkrieg"offensive scheme.

Sorry I haven't written too much lately. Been working long hours and some weekends. Hope things will let up a bit soon, but praying they don't let up all the way. The plant has been temporarily idled for the month of December and possibly longer until the market improves. So far no lay-offs, but that won't go on forever if we can't get running again.

Hope you have a good week
Love
Dad

And The Winner Is. . . . .

Brandon wins the $5.00 grand prize and the free visit to Lovely Beaumont TX for the closest score pick in the Utah vs BYU "Holy War" as they called it on the TV. Matthew & Brent tied for 2nd place and Mom pulled in 3rd.

Congratulations Brandon!

Why don't we try the same thing for the A&M/UT game to be played this week. Get your predictions in right away. Same grand prize will be offered -- same methodology. Picks must be dated no later than midnight Wednesday November 26th

Mom already has hers UT48, A&M 21

Have a wonderful week!

Dear Fellow Business Owners

As a Business owner who employs 30 people, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barack Obama, wll be our next President, and that my Taxes and Fees, will go up in a BIG way. To compensate for these increases, I figure, that the Customer, will have to see an increase in my fees to them of about, 8%. I will also have to lay off 6 of my employees. This really bothered me as I believe we are family here and didn't know how to choose who will have to go. So, this is what I did. I strolled thru the parking lot and found, 8 Obama bumper stickers on my employees' cars. I have decided these folks will be the first to be laid off. I can't think of another fair way to approach this problem. If you have a better idea, let me know.

FOR SALE?

I have really loved riding my motorcycle this summer and the cold weather is even funner (no bugs). I've gone on some early Saturday morning rides out in the country a ways and that is a blast too. But all that being said I have to ask myself about the true practicality of a motorcycle. A couple of weeks ago a bike was T-boned by a car on the very road that I ride to work on. The speed limit at the spot is only 40 MPH and the rider had a helmet. Still he suffered severe head injuries and it was no fault of his own. The impact was bad enough that it knocked him out of his boots. I always tell critics of motorcycles that you can fall down in the shower and get hurt, but I guess at my age I'm thinking about it a bit more.

Tell me what you think. By the way if I sell it, by law, it cannot be sold to an immediate member of the family

Quote of the week

I don't know if this is spam or not, but in any case I thought it quite representative of this weeks activities.

"Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions... Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome's, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.' Julius was always an ambitious villain, but he is only one man." - Cicero

BYU vs Utah

Okay its time to liven things up a bit, all though the Tech vs UT game would be hard to beat. As we all know the game of the year will be coming up soon. So here is what we will do. Send me your picks for the winner with a score for both teams. Who ever picks the winning school and has the smallest total difference between picked and actual score (absolute value of the differences) wins the grand prize of $5.00 and a free weekend stay in Lovely Beaumont (transportation not included). Remember you have to pick the winning school AND have the smallest point difference. (I think it would be possible to pick the loosing school and yet have the smallest point difference, so you have to hit both parameters)

example: Pick Utah 54 BYU 21
Actual Utah 56 BYU 20
Total Difference 3

In the event of a tie, the grand prize will be split equally and the free weekend stay in Lovely Beaumont will be applied to all winners.

The Call!

Well Saturday afternoon we got one of those dreaded phone calls announcing that Benjamin had been in a wreck. While the lady was saying he was basically okay and not for us to go crazy, getting up there, all kinds of things run through your mind, especially when you have 2 hours to drive and think about it the whole way. She was telling us that the car was totalled, but that Bug was okay, but that they were taking him in an ambulance . . . so your mind plays pretty weird games.

Anyway we got to Nac and the hospital and they let us in to where they had been working on him, but he was gone to get Cat Scans and Xrays. While we were waiting I noticed that the floor was covered in pine needles and leaves and stuff, so I figure he definitely did some time in the dirt.

Finally they bring him back and he is still strapped on the board with the neck collar and his head all immobilized. But the xrays showed his neck, back, & head were all okay, so they were able to get him off the board and remove the collar and untape his head. When I first saw the MD said he was doing okay, but had a serious case of MVT. I looked sort of puzzled and he said "you know, Man vs Tree". He was really a nice Dr. After all the tests were back and he managed to go wee wee in the cup, they released him. The EMTs had cut his clothes off except his jeans they pulled off (we later found out they were all female, so that explains that), so he left the hospital in jeans and a hospital gown with mom's fleece jacket on to keep him from shivering.

Then we got a bite to eat and decided to drive to Tyler to get the lost wallet which was the start of the whole mess in the first place. It was a very long way up and back on dark dark Deep East Texas roads, but we made it and were back at the apartment by 12:00 including the time change. On the way out there we drove past the site, it was pitch dark so we couldn't see much, but there were some serious skid marks going across the blacktop right out into the grass and then trees. Evidently from what we can figure his right tire edged off the pavement onto the soft shoulder and in the process of getting back on the road, he over-corrected and crossed the oncoming lane and went off the other side. The lady that called us was coming the opposite way and had passed him, but saw him go off in her rear-view. He has no recollection of the actual event, and really can't separate what he remembers from what people have told him.

We feel very blessed and know that we are all protected each and every day in answer to those simple words uttered each morning and evening. The church is a pretty amazing organization. While driving up, I called our Bishop -- he goes on line and gets the Bishop's name and phone in Nac. We call him, but he is conducting a baptism at the moment, but sends the EldersQ Pres and another guy over and they get him a blessing before we are even there able to see him. By the time we left Bug's cell was ringing non-stop with people checking up on how he is doing and how they can help etc.

Other than all that, we are all fine here in Beaumont. Hope you have a good week!

Heavenly Father put a preview of the Celestial Kingdom here on earth, just so we could see what it might be like. I hope that in the last days when the mountains are laid low and the valleys raised up that somehow this little corner of the world gets over-looked and it remains just as is.

When we were going through New Mexico we saw this semi pulling a low-boy trailer and at first we thought it was empty, but as we got closer we could see were mistaken. We thought this would go really well with Benjamin's car carrier pictures. Maybe they get paid by the number of vehicles they haul?

Mom thinks that I have a screw loose, (probably more than one, and she would know better than anyone else) but I have a fascination with the modern windmills. So when I went to Hi-Willow on our vacation, I stopped and shot a few pictures. Here are only two of many I took. They have installed quite a few of them there, and Tom said they are producing about 25% more electricity than planned. They aren't without some problems -- they have a crew that goes around to them regularly and picks up the dead birds so the environmentalists/PITA people don't cry about that. Then Tom was saying that they have lost a few blades, evidently from someone shooting at them. Go figure!! We saw quite a few parts being trucked on the road during our trip, and they are huge. They truck two blades at a time on an extra long trailer. The square box that sits on top of the column fills up a whole semi trailer by itself. The nose piece must be pretty heavy -- they truck two of them on one lowboy trailer. The columns seperate into about 3 pieces and they are huge. Anyway I think they are cool even if they aren't a viable alternative for generating power.

Don't put that grass on me!!

So do these Glade Boys just not like grass, or are they nervous about being around where dead people are buried. In any case I hope that their Mom and Dad can find a place in LA with some grass and get them over their grassaphobia

Befoe & After

I know that you have all seen pictures of the devestation of Ike, but this was a beach house located on Crystal Beach, owned by a lady that worked for me at Huntsman in Accounts Payable. As a lot of these cabins were 2nd homes and the insurance was very expensive many owners did not carry insurance or were under-insured. The problems caused by flooding in Bridge City and Orange continue to surface. Galveston will probably take years to recover and maybe some of these places shouldn't recover. Its easy to say when it isn't your home/property.

Take a hike Ike!

I think it the last time we boarded up windows was hurricane Gilbert, which never came, so maybe we will have the same luck this storm. We were able to cover up all the south facing windows and the kitchen windows on the south-east. I called Home Depot at about 2:00PM and they answered "We are out of generators and window units, can I help you in some other way" I laughed and said how about 1/2" plywood and they were out of that too. So I called Lowes and they said they had some plywood and several lifts of 1/2 OSB -- so off we went and got 8 sheets of OSB. We already had 3 bags of clips, so mom and I got started about 3:00PM. By 6:00PM we had everything done that we wanted to do with one sheet remaining. Mom wants me to cover up the front door because of its windows, but I think it will be fine. In any case we aren't as young as we used to be -- we are both tired and sore tonight, but feel good we got so much done in a short period of time. We hope Benjamin and Michael and Heather do okay also as they could stand to get some strong winds and a lot of rain. We are praying that it will stay a catagory 2 and go in south west of here -- it is a pretty big storm in terms of diameter some 500 miles across. We will keep you posted as things progress.

The demise of an old friend

I have carried my Spyderco knife for so long that I have worn the rubber grips off of it, but it has still been very functional and a knife that I really, really liked. Yesterday I was working in the shed trying to fix a vent cap on an hurricane gas can, and I was prying the cap with my knife a bit, not on the tip, but way down in the middle of the blade. Well you guessed it, there was a snap and a pop and about a third of the blade broke off. I was sick about it -- so never never never pry with a knife unless you want to go knife shopping.
Once we got Gustov out of the way, things here have been pretty normal. Mom got two days off besides labor day, so she enjoyed the break. I was back at work on Tuesday and we were restarting the plant. During testimony meeting today we didn't have a single hurricane testimony. I was quite surprised. Now we are praying Ike doesn't take a shot at us -- it is too early to call -- it looks like the models have it going in from Florida all the way to Mexico. Probably by Thursday this week we will have an idea what our chances are.
With the potential hurricane and the end of the hot season about here, I started draining the easy set pool today and hope to have it put away by mid week. It is sad to see it shrinking down as I have really enjoyed it, but truthfully the past few weeks, it has received less attention and been harder to keep up with all the storms, so I think the time is right.
Mom is giving her fireside to the youth right now on the law of chastity. She has been nervous about it all week long. She is well prepared and will do a good job and as you know there won't be any beating around the bush.
That is about it for our news. Happy Birthday to Sarah Today!! Have a good week! ;o)

I think Pharaoh would have given in the first time if Moses would have tried Love Bugs. (Maybe I've said that before.) What happened to the idea that they only came around in the spring? Riding a motorcycle through a cloud of them at 65mph is quite a new experience. Thankfully between my windshield and visor all the essential facial parts of me are covered up. What would life be without having something to complain about. :op

I thought y'all might be a tiny bit impressed that you are acquainted with someone who has been published in a nationally distributed periodical of the up most quality and distinction.

I don't know if you will be able to see this or not, but the tip about overheating your router is from some guy named Bruce Glade from Beaumont, TX. If you click on the image it will blow it up screen size and you will be able to see all the details.

SOSDD

This has been a pretty regular week, busy but regular. Monday we had Bro. Ward over for supper as his wife was out of town. Tuesday we went home teaching to an elderly (in their 80's) couple. She is a non-member but always very kind to us. They are both originally Cajun folks and they have quite some stories to tell. Wednesday we had the Elders for supper and that was nice. They both seem to be hard working good missionaries. We have a new mission president in our mission and it is always interesting to see the changes that come along with that. Thursday our home teacher came. Friday we just chilled. We have been spending too much time in front of the TV watching the olympics, but I do enjoy them very much. I think we have all over-dosed on Michael Phelps, but despite is inability to string two sentances together that don't include "I really don't know what to say", his performance in the pool is pretty amazing. Then the sprinter, Bolt from Jamica who actually pulled up the last 15 meters and still set an Olympic Record in the 100M - that was amazing too.
We have had a lot more rain this week. It has trashed our pool and Saturday evening I spent an hour and scrubbed the sides and added chemicals to get it cleared up. I also spent some time in the shed working on the frame for the cork board. I think that it will be cool so I'm excited to get it done. Making it out of rough ceder, usually I spend my time working to make wood smooth, so it is sort of funny figuring ways to keep it rough while I work it and not let any smooth sides show. I have some old saw blades from Grandpa Glade and I picked out the worst looking one and put it in my table saw to rip the boards to width and it put a "perfectly rough" edge on them. There is an argument for never throwing any "junk" stuff away, you never know when you need a tool that doesn't perform perfectly. I ordered a new drill press table that should facilitate the ability to drill 2 holes in the same spot, which sounds easy enough to do, but from frustrating experience is actually pretty hard. I think the quill on Grandpa's old drill press doesn't have the tight tolerance needed for really precise work. Maybe I will have to someday look at a new one, and then I can keep the old one in case I need to drill an oblong hole.
On some of your blog lists, I see that you have them set somehow to tell when the last posting was. If someone could tell me how to do that I would really appreciate it. Also we want to get rid of our old ATT dial up service to save some money on our bill (should have done it months ago), and with that we may loose our "sbcglobal.net" addresses. So to be prepared we are going to switch our mail addresses to Road Runner in advance and I'm not sure of all the consequences of that yet like with this blog if I can change my account name without loosing my old postings, so we will have to see how all that goes. I hate banging on a keyboard all the live long day and then coming home at night and doing it for some more.
Hope you all have a wonderful week. Hugs and pats -- Dad

When I was a kid it seemed like the circus would come to town most years in August. So every few years we would go to celebrate mine and Grandma Glade's birthday. We thought we would continue the tradition this year and go see it here in Beaumont. Ringling Bro's has various shows that are sized for the particular town they are visiting. Our circus only had one ring, but you are able to focus on a single act and it had a very personal feel to it. I guess there is still part of a kid in me as I enjoyed it very much and was pretty mesmerized for the entire two hours.

The muscular Gunther Gable Williams (the Lion Tamer of my day) has been replaced by a woman in a purple cape. She didn't put her head in a tiger's mouth or anything too dramatic but it was still better than the guy that got in a tank of water with an alligator and threw it around a few times.

The tigers were pretty, but they sort of acted like they were bored and wanted to go to sleep. I'm sure the heat and humidity has it effects on the animals too.

This guy was a funny Frenchman that kept showing up the entire show. He had a trick bikes that did all sorts of crazy things. OOOlala!

This picture doesn't reflect it, but it was the act that looked like the most dangerous. One of the guys went on the outside of his cage and jumped rope while it was going around. He kept pretending to fall, but it was pretty wild. They had mom screaming several times and grabbing my arm. I am happy to report that we all survived. Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Just to let you know in the event that you were oh so worried about us, Edouard went right over the top of us, but we have regular thunderstorms that were a lot worse. It has stayed rainy and windy most of the day, but looks like it is lifting this afternoon. We lost power here at the house for about 4 hours which I think was due to the power company protecting their sub-stations rather than a real power loss. Mom and I went to work and had a pretty much normal day.
Ciao

It is a wonderful country we live in!!

Thought y'all would enjoy this.

This has been a pretty normal week. We continued to move furniture around the 2 bedrooms and have finally pretty much got things set. Mom now has a nice sized sewing room (Sarah's old room) that she will be able to spread out a bit. It will take her a while to get it organized like she wants.



We are accumulating various pictures and have had a debate about what to do with them, so I am making a 3' x 5' cork board to hang that will provide 15 square feet of picture posting space. I am making a frame for it out of rough cut western cedar which will give me some practice for some picture frames that Benjamin and I need to make. Over time I have seen a bunch of patterns/methods for making picture frames. Some seem pretty easy to make, some seem overly complicated. Anyway when I get it done, I will take a picture.



We are contemplating a trip in September that would have us loop around the west to visit non-Texas family domiciles. To do it all will mean that we can't land in any one spot for very much time, but it would be fun to see everyone. We will get it mapped out and request the days off and let you know as plans develop.



I put a new set of blades on the lawn mower this spring while I was replacing the rear wheels and drive rachets, and I have been so disappointed in how un-even it has seemed to cut. I even went to the effort once of cross-cutting the front lawn and it seemed to make little difference in how it looked. This week when I started a couple of rounds around the back yard I stopped and looked and it was just horrible. There will all kinds of scalp marks and stuff that made it look like I was picking it up and dropping it every few feet. I stopped and took a closer look at the mower and found that all four wheels were set at different heights. I guess they had been bumped around over time, and I hadn't paid any attention to it. I sort of laughed at myself and straightened it out, and guess what, it cut the lawn as smooth as an ice rink. Mom did the front whilst I trimmed and when we were done it looked like a putting green. I was asking a brother in our ward who has a teacher-aged son, if his son would be interested in earning money by doing some yard work. He said that the son hates yard work and that a sister in the ward this spring had offered him $100 to help her plant some flowers and he had told her no. Another teacher aged boy's father is an OBGYN and they spend the summer at a lake house. Another one I'm not too sure if I would trust, and the last one would probably cut something off his person and I would get sued. Anyway it seems kids are of a bit different mentality than when you kids were chasing lawns around every week.



I guess that is about all my rambling -- y'all have a good week

This week mom and I did a little driving around. On Thursday we went over to the temple and did a session and then saw one of mom's YW girls (Ashley Harris) get married. It was a very nice sealing. It rained good ole Texas buckets that day and I thought of what a hard time the photographer was going to have. When we came out of the temple though, the rain let up for a bit and allowed them to snap some pictures. Funny how that seems to work. On Saturday we ventured into Deep East Texas to visit Bug for his Birthday. We had a very nice drive up and back, and though the thermometer was showing 101, it didn't seem that hot without the humidity that we have on the coast. It is really beautiful up there, and certainly warrants some more looking around at some of the territory. If any of you ever want some good Italian food and happen to be in Nacogdoches, Auntie Pastas is your place. It is housed in what was originally an ice house (back in the days when the ice man brought ice around to your ice box, not a beer place). The construction of heavy wood and brick reminded me a lot of going to Sugarhouse with my dad to Hygeia Ice to get a big huge bag of ice to bring home to make homemade ice cream. Anyway the food was great, Benjamin turned a year older and we had a nice visit. Mom and I are still working on moving things around the house, but things are looking up. You can actually see the bed in the Blue Room, and the floor in both the orange room and green room. Mom finished 3 quilts this week which I will let her tell you about, but that completes some of her WIP's for the summer. This week should be as normal as weeks go. It is hard to believe this week will get us into August. Time flys on wings of something or other. The fly part is certainly accurate. Hope you all have a good week.

Well happy 24th of July to everyone. This is a significant day for our family not just because the Pioneers entered the valley today, but because 32 years ago Mom and I had our very first date. As you all know we went to the Rodeo in Idaho falls with all the Loertscher clan and Grandma and Grandpa Glade. Grandma Glade sat right by mom just to make sure everything was kosher (JK ). We had hamburgers cooked by one of the wards that was manning the booth. They were very good. The rodeo was great -- back then, Michael, there were cowboys that could stay on their rides and rope and bulldog to your heart's content. A couple of the Loertscher kids went to the greeeezed pig chasing contest, but thankfully didn't catch one of the messy little squeelers. The best part was Mom held my hand on our first date woooooohooooooo. No kiss at the door however with 15 people in the 3+3 mud-covered truck all hanging out the windows cheering us on. I thought the first date went pretty well, until the next day, Sunday when I saw her again, and she pretended not to recognize me, and walked around holding hands with Brad Connell. I guess she either liked to hold hands, or had poor circulation and they were always cold. Anyway Brad took a vacation to Mexico and made a mistake at the border on the way back in by showing them his 30-06 deer rifle. He was put in jail down there for six months which luckily gave me enough time to move in and take control of the situation. And as they say, the rest is history. So y'all have a wonderful day and give a little prayer of thanksgiving for Rodeos, hamburgers, cold hands, deer rifles and Mexican border guards and of course Pioneers. If they all hadn't come together in a proper fashion, none of us would be where we are right now reading this blog. Happy Anniversary Mom xoxoxo

2nd Post

Okay, I think I got the basic deal down so here goes number 2. With the 4th of July weekend, I have had three weeks in a row of 4 day work weeks. It has been pretty nice actually. This week will be 5 days long, and I don't know if I will be able to make it or not. I have really enjoyed the 9/80 schedule, even though as accountants we wind up having to work about 1/2 of our scheduled Fridays off.

We have the bedrooms torn up pretty badly right now. Mom is moving her sewing room to the green room, with the orange room becoming the grandchildren room. The blue room will remain visitor's suite. We got a shelf reliance unit that we have assembled that is going in the orange room. Anyway stuff is all over the place, but I'm sure we will get it straightened out.

I haven't done much in the shop -- sort of looking for a valid project. I have wanted to build a wooden rocking chair for quite a while, and I have a pattern or two so maybe that will be next. doing the rockers and the joinery will be new a new trick. The joints are mortise and tenons, and the rockers are made by bending laminating strips over a wooden mold. Yesterday I took inventory of pen kits and blanks, and I have enough stuff to make pens for a month or two, but for some reason I can't get going on any. Friday I was driving to get a video to rent and a cleaners had a sign out that said there were only 24 weeks left till Christmas. That sort of jolted me a bit with regard to cranking up the toy shop, but I'm also at a bit of a loss there. I just haven't seen any projects that strike me as winners for the grand kids. Maybe I should make them all pens this year and take care of both issues. If you parents have any reasonable suggestions for the kids, they would sure be welcome. I love doing projects for them, but I feel a little trapped into the bigger and better routine, lost in the one project fits all vs something unique for everyone etc etc, and as always the time crunch. Please let me know any thoughts you might have in this regard.

I take my bike in for it 800 mile check up tomorrow. I have been riding it to work fairly consistently. Another older guy in the ward just got a 750 Shadow and we went out one evening together. It sort of reminded me of that movie we watched a Christmas -- I think it was called Hog Wild or something. Anyway we have been joking today about a name for our biking club i.e. Moroni's Angels, Moriancumur's Marauders, The Cumorrah Cruisers, The Shadow Saints to name a few of the best ones. That gives you an idea of how bad the worst ones could be.

Well I hope you have a wonderful week
Love,
Dad

First Post

Well here I am trying to figure out this new blog and not being too successful up to this point. I will get on to it sooner or later, but for now this will do as a test