CREED

I think one of the funniest characters on the office is Creed. Maybe I relate to him because he thinks he is and old hippie. Well it turns out he is, and he just plays himself. His real name is Creed.

Creed Bratton first found fame more than 40 years ago as a member of the 1960s rock group The Grass Roots, known best for the hit "Midnight Confessions." While with the band, Creed had a reputation for mischief making, whether fishing for sharks from a Seattle hotel window, dropping acid on the stage of the legendary Fillmore Theater or regularly running in the nude alongside the band's tour bus, according to his official Web site, www.CreedBratton.com.

Creed Thoughts

"There’s been a lot of bad mojo going on at work lately because of computers. Some kid’s been coming around saying how he wants to replace everyone with robots and calculators and little pieces of fruit. The Bossman listens to him, too, even though the kid’s real scrawny and has a horse face. Don’t get me wrong, I like computers as much as the next Joe, but when they start messing with me, I’m not just going to sit there and take it. I’ve seen the movies. If you want to fight back against a machine, you’ve got to chuck it in acid.

Acid. Oh man. Just writing that word brings back some memories. Not really memories. Flashbacks. Scary ones. I get them all the time. The other day I turned on the TV and everyone on the screen was a caveman. Freaked my bean, man."

And what do we know about him so far?
1. Made love to lots of women outdoors in the mud & rain...possibly a guy could have slipped in.
2. Likes to steal things
3. Had his own radio show called Wacky Weed Creed (deleted scene)
4. Never owned a refrigerator
5. Only has 4 toes on one of his feet.
6. Likes to sprout mung beans on a damp paper towel. They smell like death.
7. Plays a mean electric guitar.
8. Thinks a big pile of crap on Michael's carpet smells like soup.
9. Was adopted by an asian couple.
10. Not only knows what weed looks like, but can name the type ("northern lights premium cannibus" or something like that)
11. Was in an iron lung as a child
12. Was in the band The Grass Roots.
13. Regifts old shirts for Christmas presents.
And much more to come...........

GEOCACHING

A while back I got a small GPS device for the car, it made going on vacation a lot easier since my wife can not read a map to save her, so she makes a terrible navigator. I tried doing some geocaching with it but it would only work if the cache was close to a recognized road. So I splurged and bought a small handheld GPS. It has been kind of fun to go "caching". This past Saturday I took some of the grand kids out to introduce them to the world of geocaching. They had a blast and would get so excited each time we found one. And as you can see in the pictures, sometimes you discover things that you don't expect, like "there are actually cacti in the foothills above Stansbury Park". Next time the girls come up we are going to hide our own cache. Fun!

THE OFFICE

Taken out of context this is not even funny, but I thought I would split a gut. Pam said:
"I saw where it ended, but I didn't see where it started."

CARTHAGE

There is not much I can say that this picture does not tell.
On June 27 1844 the prophet Joseph Smith Jr and his brother Hyrum were killed in the upper room of the Carthage Jail, while awaiting trial.
This picture is taken through the bullet hole that is still in the door, and looks at the window that the prophet fell through as he was shot.
"He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people......and sealed his mission with his own blood" (D&C 135:3)

I spent all this week in Chicago attending the Graph Expo print show. So why the pictures of Nauvoo? Well we arrived on Saturday and then drove 5 hours to Nauvoo, spent Saturday night there, went to church and then looked around Nauvoo for a couple of hours and then drove all the way back to Chicago.
It has been years since I was last in Nauvoo and things have changed a lot. Of course the biggest change is the reconstruction of the temple. What a thrill to see it in person. Across and in front of the temple is a statue of Joseph and Hyrum. The story is that when the two of them left to go to Carthage they stopped at the temple site for the last time and talked about the importance of the temple, and then they rode on to Carthage never to return.
I also found a great model for church meetings. We went to the sacrament meeting they hold for the Nauvoo missionaries. Sacrament meeting ONLY and each week they have a couple speak that is about to leave the mission. I told my colleagues "what could be better? Sacrament meeting only and every Sunday is a missionary farewell.

Grandsons

So, someone complained that I have not made an entry for a while. So life is crazy.
"Grandchildren are God's way of compensating us for growing old."
How true, how true. We started life as grandparents almost 13 years ago. First with 3 beautiful granddaughters. Then I guess all the girl genes got used up, because the last 5 have been grandsons. The last two here (above) Matthew and Zane. I think you can tell who is the oldest of the two, yes?

Last weekend we had them all here for dinner on Saturday. I have said before that there is nothing I love more then spending time with family. Even though it is crazy at times with a house full, after they are gone I always feel a little more empty. Just to be able to set and hold a new born or talk with a four year old about trains, brings a great deal of joy to my life.

So keep 'em coming, at least some of you.

I REALLY HATE MY JOB!!!

Today, I really hate my job!!
I wonder how much money those guys make that suck out the poop from the outhouse. It is starting to look like a job that would be very rewarding. A job that you really feel you are making a difference in the life of someone who needs to go.

YOUTH CONFERENCE

Just got home, after spending three days with the greatest bunch of kids ever.
It was our ward's youth conference. Aug 2-4. We went to Emery county in central Utah
We arrived on Thursday afternoon, had a great meal of hamburgers and hot dogs. Thursday evening we took the group to the Castle Valley pageant, it was very well done and all the youth thought it was good.
On Friday we had a fantastic breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage etc.. We then had a series of activities: started with a marshmallow war (fun stuff) Karen thought it was the most fun of the whole conference. We then walked the youth out into the "wilderness" to give them a lesson on murmuring.
They all went to "Gillies" store and bought post cards to write their testimonies in, we are going to mail them all to our ward missionary. We then took the group to the city cemetery in Ferron, Utah. The young women's president has an ancestor that is buried there, he was one of the first to bring his family to the area and settle, she talked about our pioneer heritage and how important it is to appreciate what they did for us and for what they believed in.
We ate lunch at the park in Ferron and then spent the rest of the day at a small reservoir. The youth all loved the chance to relax and play in the water and the mud.
Friday evening we had a great meal of chicken and ribs, and then had a fireside with a speaker that had been one of Quinton Selin's youth leaders. We then had a testimony meeting and all but 2 of our youth took the opportunity to bare testimony of the gospel. It was so neat to hear from some that under "normal" circumstances would never do that kind of thing.
Saturday morning we cleaned up and headed home. We stopped at the city park in Price, Ut. and had pizza for lunch, again no complaints about the food

The child
I used to be
is still very much alive,
somewhere
very deep inside me.....

LOST AND FOUND

I wonder if there is ever a tube of Carmex that gets used until it is actually empty.
Mom cleaned the house the other day and kept finding partial tubes of the stuff, I think we have 5 or 6 now. And then just to be a comedian she bought another one at the store today. You know you gotta have it, so if you can't find it you just buy a new one. After all it is cheap stuff, at 1.39 a tube it won't break you.
However it is not really cheap; at the price of 1.39 per .35oz that adds up to about $508.00 per gallon. So go ahead and buy another tube, they'll just make more. And the main ingredient is petroleum, so every time you loose a tube that's .35 oz of petroleum that is not going into the tank of your car.