OK….I finally got Nicole’s pictures.  It took an act of Congress to get them.  But here are some of my favorite ones.

Nicole and James announcement picture.

Another picture that I liked but not chosen.

Another picture I liked.

Gage and Grandpa before we start.

Ashley, Kelsey, Nicole and Wendy – Bridesmaids

Kelsey, Nicole and Mom.

It’s late, and I’ll finish later.

May I just say how disappointed I am in myself today?  I’m in our Chicago office.  OK, it’s in Naperville.  About 30 miles west of Chicago.  My paralegal brought in his old POC (ok, it’s a POS, but trying to be politically correct here) computer and I of course offered to fix it for him.  Well, of course it’s about an 8 or 9 year old eMachine (they have to be the worst computer ever created) and they’ve tried to rebuild the computer with the restore cd that came with the machine.  Well, ok.  What the restore cd does is wipe the hard drive, which fortunately they had already done.  Then it’s supposed to restore the computer software.  Well, the restore file on the cd that came with the computer was THE WRONG ONE!  So, now they have a 20 pound paper weight.  And yes, I’m the one who told them I’d fix it for them.  I guess no good deed goes unpunished.

One side of the "Toys"

Well, it’s that time of year and Ryan is heading off to work.  FINALLY!  He’s heading to the Chicago area, Naperville specifically.  The firm that I work for has an office there.  In fact, their apartment is less than 2 miles from the office.  Last year Ryan went to Pittsburgh and drove the entire way there.  It was not a pleasant experience for him.  So, he asked if I would go with him this time.  Of course being the traveler that I am, how could I say no?

So, we left on April 22nd at 6:30 in the morning.  We stopped in Adair, Iowa at about midnight.  380 odd miles from Chicago.  So we drove just over 1000 miles in one day.

On Thursday morning we got over the Mississippi river in Moline, Illinois and found out that John Deere has their headquarters there, and a museum.  So we figured, what the heck!  Let’s stop.  So we did.  Here are the pictures.  A VERY cool place for boys of any age and even girls.

The other side of the "Toys"

The Deere....

The deer is just as you walk into the museum.

Ryan in the "thresher"

These pieces of equipment are more than high tech…they are quite comfortable.  Here is the inside of the thresher.

Nice.....

How it used to be.

My, how things have changed.

Now, THAT'S a tractor!

Ryan next to the wheels.

A tree harvester.

They call it a scraper

Ryan in the scraper

In the front end loader

The dump truck

Saving the most sophisticated for last....The End.

Kelsey and Tyson – Just before Junior Prom.  Isn’t she cute.  And look how modest she is.  Something that is missing in our world.  And she’s proud of it.  They are pretty cute.  Just think.  Tyson leaves on a mission in a little more than a year, and gone 2 years…..He almost dresses like that to go to school.

OK, I got her eyes closed, but she’s still pretty cute.

It was a beautiful day as well.

These pictures aren’t the best, but my camera doesn’t take good night time pictures.  You really need a real film camera for night work.  But here goes nothing.

The capital at night.  Kind of a crappy time lapse.

The organization of American States building.

The White House from the Pennsylvania side.  All of the roads are closed around the White House now, so it’s easy to walk around and not be bothered by anyone.  If you look real close on the left hand side of the building, there is some guy in the shadows lurking.  He was carrying some big gun, probably looking for weirdo’s like me that might think they could do something funny.  I’m surprised how much we pay for security around the White House.  I bet I saw 2 dozen cops, and probably another 2 dozen security people, and that was probably just the start.

The White House from the left side.  I took this picture because of the Washington Monument in the background.  You might be able to see that security guy again just left of the building.

The Treasury Building.  Just as you walk past the White House, this is the building that you see.  The White House is the oldest existing government building in Washington.  The Treasury building is one of the next oldest.  It’s a very large building, taking up an entire block.

The front of the Treasury Building, walking along E street.

The back side of the White House, or what is called the cortico side.

A final shot of the Washington Monument.

A better picture of the Capital.  Again, my camera does not do well with the dark, but then I probably don’t know how to manipulate it that well.

At this point, I head up the freeway to Philadelphia for some College Basketball.  That should be fun.  Pictures tomorrow!

Just some pictures of my trip to Washington D.C.  I had nothing better to do for a half a day and toured around town for a bit.  Spent an hour walking around the White House, albeit at dark, but it provided some interesting pictures.

The Lincoln Memorial, one of my favorite places.  I’m all about equality, whether you are man or woman, black or white and regardless of religious beliefs that you have, as long as you abide by the law.

Many people feel the same way I do.  There were many people just sitting on the stairs enjoying the weather and the crowd.

Abraham Lincoln.  One of our greatest leaders.

Looking from Lincoln Memorial towards the Washington Monument.  The capital is behind it.

This picture is taken from the right side of the Lincoln Memorial.  You can see The Capital to the left of the Washington Monument.

Walking along the reflecting pool towards the World War II exhibit and the Washington Monument.

The World War II exhibit.  Quite a interesting site.  No names, just stones representing all the states and territories that helped.

Looking towards the Atlantic part.

The Utah Stone Pillar.

The Pacific Pillar.

Another view, but towards the Pacific side.

Another view.

Another view of the Pacific side.

The Womens memorial at the Vietnam Veterans memorial.

The Vietnam War memorial.

One more.

The reflection of people looking at the memorial.

The next post will be of Washington D.C. at night.  Have a great day, and remember what a great country we live in.

Finally,

The Big game.  All over town a ton of Alabama fans….cocky, arrogant, confident.  The Utah Fans, just confident.  I think we all knew something special was going to happen today.  We weren’t positive, but I think we knew.  Doesn’t make sense, but oh well.

Walking to the game there was a lot of excitement, and humidity in the air.  It had gone from cold, as in the mid 20’s at night to probably about 60 at night in 2 days.  So the walk was warm.

A bunch of Ute fans walking to the Superdome.  The Superdome is in the back ground.

The Superdome up close.  Just going in.

Our vantage point for the entire place.  They were awesome seats.  You could see the plays develop.  Something that is hard on the sidelines.  Very cool seats.

The guys before the game.

Warm ups.

Kickoff.  Alabama to Utah.

Before the end of the first quarter, it was 21 – 0 Utah.  Wow!  Never would have expected that!

Watching one of the plays develop.  Utah on offense.

Half time it was 21-10.  Utah was still doing quite well.

Alabama’s Million dollar band.  They dwarfed Utah’s band.  Very good.  The girls you see were high stepping dancers.  Very good.

Utah ahead 28-17 in the 4th quarter.

The upper Utah fans.  There were I would say about 18000 there.  A good showing for a “little” school like Utah.

The lower deck Utah fans and the band.  We were louder than the Alabama fans and they had 3 times as many as we did.

Final score…..Utah wins!  31-17.  It was the best game I’ve ever been to.  The atmosphere was electric.  Of course it helped that the Utes beat the mighty Crimson Tide from Alabama.  That sure helps.

Celebrating the Utah victory!  Way to go!

The University of Utah 2009 Allstate Sugar Bowl champs!  Pretty awesome.

The last picture before we leave.  Great game!

One of the Ute fans at the game.

After the game we went to the hotel and mingled with the players and got autographs, as best we could.  It was utter chaos.  But for a good reason.  We got back to the hotel room at 2:00 and didn’t get up until 9.  But we had to leave in the morning as well.  Dang it!  We got back home at about 6:00 Sunday morning.  It was a great ride home.  But after a win like that, it would be a great ride home.  We ended up going through Oklahoma and Kansas, Denver and Wyoming to get home.  Took about 3 hours longer.  Scott thought it would be shorter, and I told him it wouldn’t.  Oh well.  We made it all in one piece.  4400 miles later.

Can’t wait until next year.

While wandering around New Orleans on New Years Eve night we ran into an old friend, Tom O’Conner who lives in New Orleans.  We go back a long ways when he used to work for a firm called Hillyer and Irwin.  We had some good times…and….some interesting times.  One of the things that we share an interest in is college football.  For him, specifically the Notre Dame Fighting Irish…..well duh.  With a name like O’Conner, who else would it be!

When BYU and Notre Dame used to play way back in the 90’s Tom and I would meet somewhere either in San Diego or L.A. and we’d watch the game together.  One game he was happy, the other one I was.  We also went to the AFC Championship game I believe in 1993 when San Diego beat the Miami Dolphins.  That was a fun game as well as it went down to the wire. 

One thing that Tom has a passion for is New Orleans.  He’s a history freak and appreciates the city and what it stands for.  So he offered to take us on a tour of the city.  How could we resist!  So the 6 of us climbed in the suburban, and off we went.  He showed us the continuing devastation in the Ninth Ward district of New Orleans.  What used to be row house after row house is now cement pad with a weed patch after weed patch.  The area has been basically ignored.  But Brad Pitt is trying to help.  Here are some of the pictures I took.

This area is an example of what it looks like now.  this area used to be house after house.  You can see the cement pads and the grassy areas.  But there are some houses here.  They have to be at least 5 feet off of the ground to get a permit to build and to get insurance. 

Here is one of Brad Pitt’s houses.  He builds them and then gives them to a needy familyh.  They have to commit to keeping it up, and they have to pay a small rental fee.  But they look like beautiful houses.  If you look just to the left of the house you’ll see the industrial canal right behind the house.  This is one of the large canals that breached.  Basically what happened is that the wind pushed water from Lake Ponchatrain into the canals, kind of a reverse motion.  There was nowhere for the water to go, but out of the canals.  This is what caused all of the flooding.  The Army Corps of Engineers never thought this would happen.

Anyway we move on.

Here is one of the many cemeteries in New Orleans.  All of them are above ground.  New Orleans for the most part is below sea level, so the water table underground is basically at the surface.  You can’t dig a 6 foot hole.  It would fill up with water.  So they “bury” their dead above water.  You will be put into a crypt like one of these for about 7-10 years and then they take you out of the crypt (what’s left of you) and put you in a small box and put you into a smaller crypt or into a wall.  Similar to Europe simply because there is not room for it all.  After Katrina, there were numerous bodies from the cemeteries that were found floating around.

Here is everyone but me with Tom. 

After our tour we went on the ferry that goes from New Orleans across  the Mississippi river to the other side.  That was interesting.

Here are all of us on the ferry.  Don’t look at the white legs!  It was about 85 today, on January 2nd.

Some of our new friends on the boat.

For dinner we went to Papa Joe’s Barbeque….probably the best dinner we had in New Orleans.  And it’s not even New Orleans food!  Here we are with Papa Joe.  If you go there, this picture is up on their wall of fame.

And finally….THE BIG GAME!

It was pretty warm and muggy as we walked to the Superdome.  A pretty amazing place.  It’s lovingly called the Nuclear reactor, basically because it looks like one.

The team bus.  Just as it was about to leave with the team on it.

Ryan and me walking to the game.  Notice his hair.  We both got it cut from a REAL barber in New Orleans.  They had been cutting hair in the same location for 52 years.

That’s it for tonight…..tomorrow?  THE BIG GAME!  Good night!  It’s midnight on the east coast.

Well, it’s only taken how long to write this?  Let’s see.  The Sugar Bowl was the 2nd of January.  And we are more than half way through March?  I know.  What can I say.  It’s been a long year already.  Work has been super busy, family….lots going on there.  More on that later.  Here are a bunch of pictures we took.  It was a lot of fun!  And Go Utes!

Here we are, just getting ready to leave.  It’s cold, lots of snow.  From left to right is Dave Stewart, our resident seminary teacher, Scott Jackson’s kid Tyler, Rya, who is my oldest kid, then me and then Scott Jackson.

This is what we were leaving behind.  No hard feelings there.  We left at 1:30 in the afternoon and we went through Provo, Price, Green River, Moab, Monticello and then through Cortez Colorado, then through Shiprock New Mexico.  From there we hit Gallup New Mexico, then Albuquerque New Mexico.  We hit Albuquerque at midnight.  From there we drove to Amarillo Texas and then to Dallas.  We got to Dallas at around 8:00 in the morning.  Then we went through Shreveport Louisiana, and then to Lafayette Louisiana.  From there we hit our last freeway!  I-10!  From Lafayette we hit Baton Rouge and then New Orleans!  We got to New Orleans at about 6:30 their time.  So, 29 hours later we get there.  This was New Years Eve night.  So, let the fun begin.  Here are some of those pics!

Our first drunk partier in the French Quarter!  It was cold tonight.  In the upper 20’s.  And I don’t think we realized how cold it was going to be.  Be we hung out all night.  We had dinner at one of the local seafood places.  I don’t remember the name.  I’ll update this with the name later.

My dinner….all fried.  Fried Catfish and fried shrimp with a twice baked potato.  Pretty good.

Dave showing his eating manners.

Mr. Photogenic…Ryan.  Notice his hair.  It was like this until the day of the game.

Dave and Tyler, Scott’s kid.

All of us at dinner…fat (literally, it was all grease) and happy.

Out in the French Quarter, some drunk guy took our picture as long as we took a picture of him and his drunk girlfriend.  Most people were drunk, but there was no nudity whatsoever.  (Dang!)

This is Tyler……it was the only bathroom around, and….there was a line for it……men….and women.  I’m serious.

Fireworks over the Mississippi River.  Notice, everyone is freezing cold.  It was cold.  We ran back to the hotel it was so cold.  Fortunately the next couple of days warmed up dramatically.

More fireworks….we were running back…it was cold.  Oh, by the way, each night we were in bed at 1:30 or later.

Friday – January 1st, New Years Day.

We decided to go to Mississippi and maybe Alabama for the day.  This is one of the buildings across the street from the hotel.  We were in the Warehouse district.  A strange place.  Kind of down trodden, but at night it livened up with a bunch of night clubs.  The girls?  Really cute.

At the Mississippi rest area.  We stopped, got out, took pictures and left.  We decided we wanted to go to Gulfport and go on the beach.  They all fell asleep in the car and we ended up in……

…Alabama.  This was at the rest area in Stennis.  This is an area where NASA tests their rocket engines.  They usually have tours, but there are 3 days they are not open: Thanksgiving, Christmas and yes, New Years Day.

From Alabama we went to Gulfport and went to the beach.

We found a bunch of unlit fireworks on the beach….who cares about the water…and the sand…and the birds….and the scenery…let’s light fireworks!  Just goes to show…boys will be boys regardless of the age.  (those girls in line at the night clubs????  Cute!)

Katrina damage was everywhere.  This is the second time in a year and a half I had been here and I showed everyone some of the damage.  It hasn’t changed much in that year and a half.

This was the pep rally.  I was late.  I dropped everyone else off, and they got to it just in time.  I went to the hotel and dropped the car off and ran as fast as I could.  Oh well.  We got some pretty cool pictures.

Ryan, me and swoop.  It was a lot of fun just meeting some of the players (Paul Kruger, Matt Asiata and others)

After the pep rally we all went out on the French Quarter.  Posing with New Orleans finest.  Everyone there was totally cordial and welcomed us to their city.

Posing with more police.  Everyone was having fun.

Dinner on Friday nights….now THIS was good.  This is where AM 700 radio station was.  It was pretty fun there.  A bunch of Utah people there. 

OK….it’s late.  Game day will be available tomorrow.  Enjoy!  You know who you are.

OK, I admit it.  I’ve been missing in action.  It’s not that I haven’t done anything fun, or not been anywhere cool.  Just too much going on in life.  But this was worth putting up on my blog.  The firm I work for, Jones Waldo does a yearly Sub for Santa project.  We collect money, assign kids, and this year we had a breakfast and a raffle to raise money.  It was a lot of fun. 

Then we take the gifts over to The Christmas Box House and they distribute them to the needy kids.  I thought you’d like to see the process that they go through.  2000 kids and a mess of gifts and other things scattered around a vacant 1st floor of a building.  Here they are.

Sorting through thousands of gifts.

Just more stuff.

Each kid has a pile of stuff. There is information on a sheet and then stuff is put on a bag.

More Stuff

A large pile of blankets

Each kid also got new pajamas.

The Pajama Room

The pajama elves

Tables of clothes and stuff

Toys, more toys and more toys! Walmart actually donated a good portion of these. So, they do a lot of good.

Need a diaper? They are quite important too.

Underwear and socks

More blankets. Most of these are done in senior centers.

All of the different elves. Stuff in the hallways.

More stuff in the hallway.

What’s interesting is that there is always a need for new clothes.  I learned something while I was there.  If a child is taken out of a house that has been deemed to be a “meth” house, their clothes are basically discarded because of the chemicals that are used to make “meth”.  So, these kids need all new clothes.  Everything.  So, there is always a need.

If you are interested in helping, please feel free to contact me.  It was a great experience for me.  And it was fun to shop to!  Our family did 3 kids for our Sub for Santa.  They commented how fun it was to buy stuff for those that they don’t know.  (Plus, they were using my money.)