Cadet Chapel

The Air Force Academy has a visitors center where you watch a 10 minute movie on what it’s like to be a cadet (too tough for me) and then you can check out the cockpit of a jet, buy Air Force Falcon’s gear, check out the various kinds of uniforms, and read all about the founding of the Academy and its glorious history. You can then take a little walk through the woods to the Cadet Chapel.

Protestant Chapel Organ

The Cadet Chapel is a very impressive building and probably the signature building of the Academy (every other building looks like a 1970s college dorm). The chapel has two main chapels – one upstairs for the Protestants (the biggest one) and one downstairs for the Catholics. There is also a Jewish room and several rooms for those that fall in the “other” category.

Front of the Protestant Chapel

I thought the coolest thing about the Protestant chapel was the organ at the back. Supposedly they can hold services in both the Catholic and Protestant chapels simultaneously without disturbing each other but I wondered if they Catholics could hear the Protestants organ coming from upstairs. The second coolest thing was the height of the chapel and the stained glass and lights. We tried to go into the Jewish section but it was locked.

Catholic Chapel

The Air Force Academy is a beautiful place. I’m not sure I would want my kids to go there but I have only respect for the cadets do go and eventually become officers. When I called Nancy that evening she mentioned that the kids were worried about the fact that I didn’t go to church that day. I was pleased to inform her that I did indeed go to church – it just wasn’t an LDS church.

I definitely think I’ll need to prioritize the things I spend my time on. That means less computer games and less TV. Thus, I actually think it will be good for me.

BYUFan
- Grill brush
- Pair of jeans. I wrecked my current pair scootching around on my bum on the roof. (I’m down to a size 40 now. Hopefully those jeans will only be used for 3-4 months because I’ll have dropped down another size or two).
- Dark dress socks
- BYU Gear (sweatshirt, hoodie, golf shirt, etc.)
- Jigsaw puzzle 5000 pieces or greater. If you really want to go all out you can always get me the worlds largest jigsaw puzzle.
- A paid off mortgage (A guy can always dream can’t he?)

Nancy
- Cookbooks – We have plenty of Asian cookbooks so I would like something European or Meditteranean. Greek, Italian, Scandinavian, French, etc.
- Spa/manicure/pedicure
- House plants/plant stands
- Dry erase whiteboard that I can hang in my kitchen

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.

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