byufan.net

My big project for today was to hang Christmas lights. I’m terrified of heights and ever since we moved into this house I’ve been thinking about how I was going to hang lights on such a high roof. I even investigated paying one of those lighting companies to come out and do it but the cost was signficant. Last year the bishop in our old ward, who is an older gentleman, hung his own lights on a steeply pitched roof. I asked him how he did it and he told me he tied a rope around his waist and then anchored the rope on his chimney – it helped him walk around on his roof. I decided that if he could do it then I could certainly get a rope and do my own lights as well. So, this morning I set off with Diana in tow to get a rope (Nancy took the other kids to their practice session for tomorrow’s Primary Program in Sacrament Meeting). Where to get a rope? Well, rock climbers need ropes. Hmm, where do rock climbers go to buy stuff? How aobut REI?

Diana and I went into REI and ended up with a climbing rope, a harness, a locking carabiner, and a gadget thingy that let me belay my own rope and catch me if I fell. The gadget thingy was more than I wanted to spend but the guy at the store recommended it and I figured it would come in handy. The guy at the store showed me how to put the harness on, how to rig the gadget thingy, and how to lock in the carabiner. I came home with new confidence in my ability to put lights on the roof without killing myself.

Clipping my harness into the gadget thingy

The big problem with my house is that I don’t have a chimney up on top to tie off to. Also, I needed to be able to prevent myself from falling off any side of the house. If I tied off to the concrete porch anchors in the back yard, I would be safe while I was in the the front but I wouldn’t be safe in the back. If I tied off to someplace in front, I would be safe in back but not in front. I needed a place on top of the roof to tie off to. In the end I decided to put in a big eyebolt on the peak of the roof that I could run my rope through and thus belay myself to any side of house. The hardest part about putting the bolt in was dragging the drill up to the top of the roof so I could drill a pilot hole for my 3/8″ bolt. I eventually got the bolt in, rigged up my gear, and set off for the edge of the roof where the electrical outlet that’s hooked to a light-switch inside our house is located. As soon as I got to the edge and realized that I would have to get down on my belly, hang over the side of the house, and reach up under the eaves in order to plug in the lights I became extremely grateful for the gadget descender thingy that the guy at the store had sold me. It was worth every penny. When you’re hanging over the edge of the roof at the top of a 2-story house, the price you paid for the gadgets that keep you feeling safe becomes insignificant. Once I had accomplished that task (I actually plugged in a little extension cord that I’ll probably leave there so I’ll never have to do the belly-hang thing again) I was able to wire up the rest of the house with relative ease. I say relative because although wiring up the rest of the house wasn’t as bad as doing the belly hang, it was still terrifying for a guy that is afraid of heights. I spent the whole afternoon hanging on to my rope and moving a few inches at a time along the edge of the eaves: let the gadget thing slide down the rope a bit, scootch over to the edge, take up the slack and make sure the gadget thingy locked tight to the rope, grit teeth while reaching over the edge of the raingutter to hang the lights, scootch back up to the roof cling for dear life to the rope and the gadget thingy, sigh a sigh of relief. Repeat ad nausuem. I ended up missing the whole BYU game but once I got on the roof there was no way I was coming down until the job was finished.

In the end I was able to wire up the whole front and sides of the house along with some of the back. After a whole day of hanging lights, here is what I learned:

• 300 light strings are worse than 100 light strings because they are harder to control and move with you along the side of the house. Better to work in small chunks and string 3 100 light strings together than to use 1 300 light string.
• Shingles are wierd. They’re rough enough to hurt the skin of your hands and arms yet they’re slippery enough to make me want to scootch along on my bum rather than stand upright – even with a rope.
• For how much work it is to string lights I should have bought the bigger outdoor only bulbs (you know – the kind Dad used to string up when we lived in Arizona) rather than the little indoor/outdoor bulbs. The outdoor bulbs are much brighter than the indoor/outdoor bulbs. If I’m going to spend a terrifying afternoon scootching around on the roof in a climbing harness I might as well get a nice display of light for my troubles rather than the wimpier display that the indoor/outdoor bulbs give off.
• Roofers, high rise construction people, and window washers are probably all severely underpaid.
• While the rope, harness, and gadget made hanging the lights possible, it certainly didn’t make hanging the lights desirable. As soon as I can afford it, I’ll pay someone to hang my lights.

Not as bright as I had hoped

In the end I’m just glad the project is done for now. Even though the homeowner’s association gets on everybody’s case about leaving the lights hanging up past the end of January I can tell you one thing: if there’s even a hint of snow/water/ice on the roof I’m leaving the lights up until June.

In the past few years I have not been able to spend much time sewing because of such things as taking care of 5 kids, building and moving into a new home etc. Just lately though the sewing bug has come back since I made Sam’s costume for Halloween. BYUFan’s sister Kelly asked me if I would be willing to make her an indian costume for a cub scout function and I jumped at the opportunity. I bought the needed materials on Tuesday, started sewing on Wednesday and was finished by Friday afternoon. I could have had it done quicker, but I only sew in spurts because one or all of my children always seems to need me for something. Now I just hope Kelly likes the costume and that it fits well.

Responses to recent comments:

What does “the drumline looks good Danny!” mean?

One of my neighbors coaches the drumline for the BYU marching band. Although I don’t suppose that he reads this blog, he is aware of it’s existence. Thus, I thought I would give him a shout out just in case he is bored enough some day to start reading our blog.

What does “covering the spread” mean?
Covering the spread is a term used frequently in sports betting. In college football, it’s not enough usually to bet on who will win – you have to bet on how much they will win by. Thus, when BYU fails to “cover the spread” it can mean one of two things – they won but didn’t win by a large enough margin to win the bet, or they lost but lost by too great a margin to win the bet. This wikipedia article will give you a good idea about sports betting. Read it and you too can start throwing around phrases such as “Dang! The Cougs didn’t cover the spread but at least I got the over-under. I didn’t break even though because of the bookie’s vig.”

Have we eaten our Halloween Candy?
Yup – it’s all gone. Nancy helped the kids (forced them) to conserve candy and it lasted for several days. Kelly’s method of letting them eat all they can hold in one night and then tossing the rest sounds interesting – we might try that next year.

Did Nancy make Anne’s costume?
Nope – that was a Walmart special. When I was watching Diana after she was done trick-or-treating I noticed that she was wearing the princess dress that Nancy made years ago for Emily. That dress is actually quite a good piece of work – the lower sleeves have a zigzag patter stitched into them that is really nice – you just can’t see it on photos. I think Nancy has a talent for sewing and I try to encourage her to sew more. I think maybe she should start up a custom costume business or something like that. She said she wanted to take more classes first so I went online and found out the SLCC has a “Fashion Institute” that has lots of different intermediate and advanced sewing classes. I told Nancy she could register for class and I would tend the kids while she was in class but so far she hasn’t really investigated it yet.

I’m glad that our audience, while limited, is devoted. Whenever we don’t post for a while we get comments like these:

Dudes, I’m sure you guys are still trying to get back into a routine after your big vacation and are blogged out from your fabulous disney posts, but….

When are we going to get some halloween pictures and commentary???

The problem is that we’ve been busy and lazy. Busy and lazy is a bad combination. It means you have tons of things to do but aren’t doing anything and the old task list really starts to grow.

You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve added some new posts. Of course, I’ve filed them chronologically so you’ll need to backtrack in order to see them.

I don’t like Thursday night games as a general practice but it’s fun to have one every once in a while. The main problem with weekday games is traffic. On a Saturday game I leave 1.5 hours before kickoff and usually have plenty of time to spare – time to see the band march up the street, watch warm-ups, national anthem, etc. Tonight the plan was to leave 2 hours early but I was late getting home from work and that put us 20 minutes behind schedule. Traffic was horrible all the way down to the stadium and we found our seats just before kickoff.

Other than the bad traffic, it was a perfect night for a game. The weather was beautiful- chilly but not too cold, the crowd was spirited, the teams were energetic, and my beloved Cougars came away with a win. How could it get better than that? Well, it could get better if the Cougars covered the spread. Last year BYU covered the spread in nearly every game. This year it seems like they’re winning but not covering the spread in nearly every game.

What is that thing?

I think TCU is a pretty good addition to the conference. The TCU fans aren’t completly crass and vulgar (Wyoming), they don’t have an annoying chant (UNLV), and well, let’s just say they don’t bug me as bad as the Utes. The only drawback to TCU is that they have the world’s ugliest mascot. That horned frog costume has got to be the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.

Enjoying the halftime show (the drumline looks good Danny!)

I convinced Nancy to go (she only goes to one or two games a season and only if it’s good weather) and thus we took Sam and Diana (Diana gets bored easily and has to go potty frequently so I don’t like to take her by myself). The kids had a good time and Sam is starting to enjoy the game a bit more – but still not as much as he enjoys hot dogs and nachos.

The other day Samuel saw a BYU hat in Macey’s and told Nancy he wanted it. She got him the hat and purposely got it several sizes too big “so he can grow into it”. I didn’t think Samuel would last very long with the hat but he surprised me. He wore it the entire time and didn’t take it off to play with it or annoy me with it. He still had it on in the car on the way home.

Driving home after the big game

Nancy and I have been working on a 5000 piece puzzle for a couple of months now. We worked on it here and there whenever we got a little free time. Unfortunately, small kids and 5000 piece puzzles don’t mix together very well. We would often catch Samuel and Diana playing with the puzzle pieces or find puzzle pieces in various rooms of the house. Nancy even found some pieces in the toybox in Samuel’s bedroom. As we got closer and closer to the end of the puzzle we knew we would be missing a few pieces.

Can you spot the three missing pieces?

I’ve always enjoyed doing puzzles. I especially like doing them with Nancy. We can do the puzzle while we talk or listen to the radio. Most stores don’t carry 5000 piece puzzles. They generally only have 500 – 1000 piece puzzles which aren’t really much of a challenge for us. Thus, I had to order this particular puzzle over the Internet. I also had to measure our dining room table before I ordered the puzzle to make sure it would fit. As I was looking for puzzles that 5000 or more pieces I came across several cool puzzles I want to try. This 18,000+ piece puzzle was the worlds largest for a couple of years until Educa came out with this 24,000 piece monster.

At over 14 feet long, the world’s biggest puzzle is longer than our entire dining room. Fortunately, it comes in sections so you can do it on a table. My only problem with doing the biggest puzzle in the world is that it’s not worth the time/effort if we end up missing pieces. Thus, we’ll probably have to wait a few years until the kids are older before we tackle it. Who knows, maybe by that time there will be an even bigger one to try!

The wierd thing about this Halloween was the fact that daylight savings time hadn’t ended yet. This means that it was still broad daylight when the earlybirds came trick-or-treating at 5:00. I hate daylight savings. I wish Utah would join Arizona and Hawaii and not have daylight savings. This year was Nancy’s turn to take the kids while I stayed home and passed out candy. We had the traditional chili and cornbread for dinner and Nancy left with the youngest three kids while Emily and Anne went out on their own.

Emily was some sort of princess this year. Caroline as well. Same for Diana. Anne was a 50′s girl with a poodle sweater and a polka-dot skirt. Samuel’s pirate costume turned out well although he lasted about 5 seconds wearing the eyepatch and hook.

I waited until dusk to put out the pumpkins and light the candles. I also hung up a grinning pumpkin picture that Caroline made in school. We had a steady stream of trick-or-treaters until 8:30 and then it ended all-of-a-sudden. No late-night teenagers with pillowcases is this neighborhood – sweet!

Nancy came back after an hour and dropped Diana off because Diana’s little pumpkin trick-or-treat basket was full. The plan was to dump the basket and go back out but when Diana saw all the candy on the table she decided she wanted to stay home. I tended Diana and unwrapped candy for her while Nancy took Caroline and Sam back out.

Emily and Anne came home about 8:00 – breathless and loaded down with candy. The most exciting thing this year for the kids was a house down the street that was giving out full-sized candy bars. Caroline got a full-size Snickers bar and was kind enough to give it to me because she knew Snickers are my favorite. What a great Halloween!

It’s the Monday night before Halloween. What should we do for Family Home Evening? Why, carve pumpkins of course!

The girls are old enough to carve their own pumpkins without us worrying too much about them cutting off their fingers. Thus, my role is now limited to gutting the pumpkins. Fortunately, this is a duty I don’t mind.

Nancy helped Sam and Caroline carve their pumpkins. We let the kids carve whatever they wanted and we ended up with two smiley pumpkins and two frowny pumpkins.

Nancy is still trying to finalize the kids’ costumes. Samuel originally wanted to be a fireman, then a policeman, then he was going to be Spiderman. Of course seeing the Pirates of the Caribbean ride made the pirate hat in the grocery store too hard to pass up so now he’s going to be a pirate. Nancy’s been sewing away to make Samuel a pirate shirt as well as work with the girls on their costumes. One good thing about being in a new neighborhood is that the girls don’t mind wearing a previous year’s cosutome. Thus, I’m sure we’ll end up with several variations of princesses.

Nancy didn’t want me to take her picture.

Today was our last day at Disneyland. After spending three full days there I can honestly say that I’ve had my fill of Disneyland for this decade. We wanted to get to the park early so that we could get on the Finding Nemo ride without too much of a wait. Well, it turns out that Disneyland opens at 10:00 on a normal day and at 8:00 on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for a reason: the park was way more crowded than the previous two days. What was a 30 minute line on Wednesday and Thursday was now a 75 minute line on Friday. Scratch Nemo. I guess the kids will have to take their own kids on it if Nemo is around 20 years from now.

Tom Sawyer’s Island is now Pirates Lair

We spent the day riding various rides a second time: The raft ride (this time I convinced Caroline and Anne to go on it but Nancy still wussed out), Mulholland drive (Caroline’s favorite), the bug rides (Diana’s favorite), Pirates for about the 5th time, Splash Mountain again, Indiana Jones, the teacups, etc. Our picnic lunch, which seemed so great the first two days, started to seem a little dull and repetetive on the third day.

Aside from the dull lunch; the day was quite fun. One especially bright spot was the parade at California Adventure. They have a “block party” parade where various Toy Story and Monsters Inc. characters come out and interact with the audience – dancing, throwing bouncy balls into the crowd, characters talking over a microphone, etc. The kids seemed to enjoy it and it was a nice close for the day.

Caroline dances at the block party

I knew it was time to go home after the parade when we took the following vote:

“Who wants to stay and go on more rides?” (one or two hands raised)
“Who wants to go back to the hotel and swim in the pool?” (All hands raised – including the ones that had wanted to stay)

Emily and Diana Boogie with Mr. Potato Head

Back to the hotel and pool it was. I would say that three days was about right. With the exception of Nemo, everyone got to go on every ride they wanted, most of them more than once. Also, the incremental cost for three days versus two was small enough that it made three days a much better value at a cost per day than two days. After three days at Disneyland I’ll close with the following random thoughts:

Samuel is a Roller Coaster Dude
Only five years old, he went on the following roller-coaster/adventure type rides with me: Matterhorn, Space Mountain, Star Tours, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Railroad, Goofy Rollercoaster, Mulholland Drive, Soaring over California, and Grizzly River Run. The only two he didn’t go on were California Screaming and Indiana Jones but only because he couldn’t meet the height requirement. (We also didn’t go on Tower of Terror because I knew he wouldn’t meet the height requirement and because I didn’t want to go by myself).

Picnic Lunches Work Well and Save Tons of Money
It costs $12 to rent the picnic locker for the day. Still, $12 is a heck of a lot cheaper than $12 per person for lunch with a family of 7. If you are going to take your picnic lunch, make sure you park in the Mickey and Friends parking garage. That way you can drop your lunch off at the picnic area on your way into the park. If you park in one of the other lots you have to cross the park first and bring your lunch in through the security check. The security guards don’t hassle you but it is still a pain in the rear. Also, the lockers are “vertical” more than “horizontal” so make sure you have a cooler that doesn’t leak when turned on its end or a cooler that is taller than it is wider.

California Adventure is Fun
It’s also less crowded than Disneyland. There are a couple of caveats: if it’s raining, California Adventure seems to close more rides down than Disneyland. Also, California Adventure opens later and closes earlier than Disneyland – not sure why. You can easily spend a day in California Adventure so if you only have one day then stick with Disneyland but if you have two or more days then definitely do a parkhopper so you can go to both.

Disney Runs A Tight Ship
While waiting with Diana for the others to finish a ride, I paid close observation to the way that the ride operators switch off, the way their supervisors manage them, the way they control the ride lines, etc. I also saw supervisors during the block party parade taking notes, instructing the dancers on various improvements they could make, etc. I even saw one supervisor instruct one of the “pirates” in the correct height for his rolled up pirate shirt sleeves. Obviously a job is a job and I’m sure there are issues with coworkers, supervisors, crappy management, and “off-stage” issues but you have to admire the way they run things from an organizational standpoint given their ability to make everything at least look practically perfect “on-stage”.

Today we started out at Calfornia Adventure. The last time we came most of the rides were closed because it was raining. This time the weather was perfect and we ended up having a really great time.

We started off in the “bug” section which has lots of little rides that diana would like such as a little caterpillar train, bumper cars, twirling ladybugs, and flying crackerboxes (all characters/scenese from the movie A Bug’s Life).

Diana enjoyed the “bug” rides

Riding the caterpillar train

The bug section also had a splash area where water would squirt up out of random places. Last time we got rained out but this time the kids enjoyed dodging the water spouts as well as not dodging the water spouts.

Samuel dodging (sort of) the water spout

After the bug area we worked our way over to the “pier” section where they have Coney Island type rides and games. I got to go on the California Screaming roller coaster which was fun and has a loop-de-loop. Unfortunately, I had to go on it by myself because Samuel didn’t meet the height requirement and everyone else wussed out. While I was riding the California Screaming, Nancy took the other kids to ride the carousel and walk the boardwalk. Afterwards we all decided to go on the ferris wheel.

I don’t know why I went on the ferris wheel because I hate heights and this was a very tall wheel. Nancy and I took the little kids in a non-swinging car while the older girls wanted to ride on one of the cars that slides back and forth on tracks as the wheel turns. I basically just closed my eyes the whole time and clung to the side of the car but the other kids seemed to enjoy it. Even in the non-sliding car swayed a bit in the wind and I knew that Emily and Anne would freak once they were up high in one of the sliding cars.

Because the line for the sliders was longer than the non-sliders, Nancy and I finished up before Emily and Anne had even boarded their car. They were fairly close to getting on when the ferris wheel had a major shut down. It turns out that someone had barfed on one of the slider cars. They had to get the cleanup people over to disinfect the barfy car. It was at that point that Nancy and I decided there was no way Emily and Anne were going to get on a slider car. We ordered them out of their spot in line and, amid much frumping and grumping, put them in the line for the non-sliders. Nancy went with them on the non-sliders while I took the younger kids over to play in the arcades. I called Nancy on her cell phone when they were way up high and she said that both the girls were glad they hadn’t got on a slider car – the slight swaying of the non-slider was plenty of action for them.

Our next stop were the Jumping Jellyfish – a kids ride that takes you up a little ways in the air. I was going to put Caroline and Samuel on the ride by themselves but at the last second the ride worker told me I had to ride with them. I felt a little silly riding the Jumping Jellyfish but Caroline and Sam enjoyed it.

We went on a roller coaster called Mulholland Drive that was just like the rickety old Wild Mouse ride at Lagoon. I didn’t think Caroline would really want to go on it but she was game and after we got off she yelled “That was SO MUCH FUN!”. She is definitely starting to like roller coaster type rids a bit more.

Our next stop was the Grizzly River Run ride – a big raft that goes through rapids, down a “waterfall”, and around geysers. I was a little worried when the signs for the ride said “you will get wet and you may get soaked” but I decided to go on it nonetheless. Emily and Sam went with me but Caroline was too chicken for this one and Nancy and Anne didn’t want to get wet. The ride turned out to be a complete blast with only one problem – I got soaked. Of course, Samuel was even more soaked than I was – a wave came over the side of the raft and hit him head on. Emily got off with hardly a drop on her. The rest of the day Samuel and I wandered around with wet clothes on but it was definitely worth it – a totally fun ride.

Getting soaked on the raft ride

After the raft ride Nancy took the kids on Soaring over California while I waited outside with Diana. One of the fun parts about going to Disneyland is people watching. There is a never ending stream of people parading by in all manner of outfits. Ladies with their boobs hanging out of their tank tops, kids in costumes, grown ups in costumes (lame), herds of teenagers, grandmas and grandpas – you name it. Disneyland is a people-watchers paradise.

Diana taking it easy

After taking it easy for a while, Diana and I went exploring and found a cool little place where you could get your picture taken with some of the cars from “Cars” (I think that’s the name – I just call it the Lightning McQueen movie). When the other kids got off the Soaring Over California ride we went over and got their picture taken with Mater and Lightning.

Hanging with Mater

Hanging with Lightning – notice that Samuel is soaked from the earlier raft ride

California Adventure has lots of theatre type shows – 3d movies, animatronics, etc. but the kids didn’t seem interested in any of those and only wanted to go on rides so we decided to break for lunch and then head back to Disneyland to go on more rides and catch the evening parade.

The kids liked the giant candycorn decorations for Halloween

We had the same picnic lunch as yesterday but we were a little bit smarter about it. Instead of me hoofing it back to the car to get the cooler, we simply took the cooler straight to the picnic area and put it in a locker at the start of the day. That way we didn’t have to ride the tram back and forth at lunch time.

The afternoon was spent riding favorite rides (Pirates, teacups, etc.). As it started to grow dark I took Diana to the parade route and started saving a strategic spot with a park bench and curb space. When the curb started to fill in I called Nancy and she brought the kids over to save their spots. They whined a bit at coming over early but I think they were glad in the end because the parade route filled in quickly and they had prime spots. In fact, Samuel got up for a second to talk to me (I was sitting right behind them) and someone came and took his spot on the curb. They other kids squeezed in a bit to make room for Samuel and the kids learned their lesson about saving their spots.

The old light parade has been retired but the new parade quickly evaporated any sentimental feelings for the light parade. The new parade has amazing floats and tons of characters dancing down alongside them. The characters do acrobatic moves, swing from trapezes, play with flags and balls and props and get right up close to the crowd.

The kids sat mesmerized during the entire parade and I had fun playing with the night-time photography settings on my camera. Unfortunately, I was only able to make a few pictures work. I could get a good night-time picture with flash but the action in the parade made it blurry. Or I could get a good action picture but the lack of flash made it too dark. All my meager photography skills could produce was the Cinderella Castle at sunset but that is a fitting end to another great day at Disneyland.