Category: Uncategorized

I started out 2017 with three consecutive ultimate championships: indoor league, spring outdoor league, and the Memorial Day tournament. Every season is, of course, a completely different team, which makes it even more fun.

My summer league team came close to winning with a second-place finish, but then my fall league team had the worst record I’ve ever endured, losing all but two games in the season (but somehow managing to be absolutely the most fun team I’ve ever been on).

Well, I managed to wrap up the year with one last championship, this time in the Royal Rumble indoor tournament.

I had a great team and in the preliminaries we played some close games, but then in the championship game something clicked and we completely dominated. It was one of those “leave no doubt” moments, and a really fun group of players.

2017 championship bookends!

Zaque was at a friend’s house today and I guess they were short of ideas for lunch, so he said he poured himself a bowl of milk and added a bit of cereal to it. He called it “creme bru-let’s find something else to eat”. For some reason that cracked me up.

Many years ago– fourteen, to be exact– I came up with a great name for a business: Thought Monkeys. Through the years I had some fun with it, even registering a domain name and receiving official letters addressed to a fictitious company.

But a couple of weeks ago, I actually created a company called Thought Monkeys LLC. Yep, it’s real and official and even has a federal tax number.

Why, you ask? Because I talked to a lawyer who recommended I make some changes to my financial holdings (stocks, really) and said the best approach is to create an LLC. Since it really doesn’t matter at all what the company is called, as long as it’s an official LLC, I seized the opportunity.

Imagine my pleasure when I logged into my brokerage portal and saw my new account.

(In all caps, no less!)

Who knew the world of finance could be so much childish fun?

Another year has come and gone, and we managed to have a great time on Christmas.

It started when Zaque’s friend Ma’ata gave him a miniature “finger horse”.

What’s hilarious about this is it’s exactly what Zaque wanted, and he hadn’t said anything to her. Rather, she commented to him that she’d seen it in a store and thought it would be perfect. Yep, she knows him well.

See my joy at opening a Jack Sparrow bobble-head. I mean, who wouldn’t want something like that?

Continuing a long-standing tradition, I gave Laralee some office supplies. Yeah, that’s how much the love of my life means to me. This year it was scissors (only the best: titanium blades!) and a mousepad.

Zaque loved his Bob Ross shirt:

And Alex thought the Mr. Peanut shirt was an absolute riot:

Kathy replenished my supply of CoCo Wheats, which aren’t available in Colorado and have to be imported from Missouri.

The most-anticipated gift on Zaque’s list was, of course, “fingers for fingers”, which he put to hilarious use throughout the day.

He was also thrilled to open a heavy package (because heavy means it’s awesome, right?) and discover a 13-pound bag of baking soda. I’d put it there to fool him, of course, and hide the nature of the true gift: dress socks.

Upon opening another gift from Kathy, La was excited by the note that read, “This was the most beautiful thing I saw at the art fair”. A box of tuna and chicken lickable bisque treats!

After we finished opening gifts, we played my new card game, Exploding Kittens. It’s simple but a lot of fun.

… and it involves a lot of tension when drawing cards. “Will I get the exploding kitten?”

We wrapped up with a video call to Kyra, who’s serving her mission in California. It was good to talk to her (and see her) after the many months she’s been gone.

All in all, it was another good Christmas and a good year.

It seems like every year, Laralee and I continue two long-standing disagreements revolving around Christmas:

1) I can’t believe the LDS Church changed the lyrics of “Joy to the World”, thus ruining my second-favorite Christmas hymn. (“Just let it go already” is what she tells me, every year.)

2) Die Hard is indeed a Christmas movie.

On that latter point, she argues that just because the movie takes place during the Christmas season, that doesn’t make it a Christmas movie. It’s certainly not like It’s a Wonderful Life or How the Grinch Stole Christmas or even such questionable “classics” as Elf and Home Alone. Yet, in countless internet surveys over the years, you’ll find Die Hard consistently listed in the top ten Christmas movies of all time.

Evidence: the Nakatomi Plaza gingerbread tower:

Or some Nakatomi-themed Christmas cards:

(I need to remember these the next time I throw a Christmas party– classic.)

And even the Christmas card idea I stumbled across a few months ago:

Yes, so many things prove that the movie is, indeed, a Christmas movie. I guess La and I will just have to continue to agree to disagree…

This evening, Alex and Zaque were talking about an upcoming Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Apparently Zaque has a character who is a house elf named Doobie. He has no strength and virtually no charisma, but is apparently quite powerful because he can apparate (teleport, in Harry Potter speak). He also has an enchanted tube sock that makes him invincible. In the last campaign Zaque was in, Doobie was in a bad situation and decided to teleport away, but ended up apparating right out a window and falling to his death.

Yep, this is the kind of stuff my boys do.

This morning we woke up to a bit of white in our trees…

There’s some pretty impressive work, thirty feet up in the big tree. But there are also signs of amateurs at work, because they left about a dozen mostly-full rolls of toilet paper on the ground… perfect for us to use in our revenge. Now we just need to figure out who the culprits are…

On his mission, Alex wasn’t allowed to have facial hair. He’ll be leaving for BYU in a few weeks, where beards are forbidden (mustaches are okay, but they’re definitely not in vogue). So, in these few weeks, he’s decided to grow a bit of a beard. Here’s the progress:

Like me, he doesn’t get much action along the lines of his jaw, and I guess above his lip it’s all blond hair that really doesn’t show. So he decided to just keep the fuzz along the bottom of his chin. It’ll be interesting to see how far along this gets before he has to shave for school.

How many kids have turned up their noses at dinners they didn’t like, and then given the excuse they’re “not that hungry” so they won’t eat it? Zaque is a master, as evidenced by a recent dinner:

As Yoda famously said to Luke, “How you get so big, eating food of this kind?” I have no idea how Zaque is the size he is, since he rarely has much dinner…

At Zing we’re talking about changes to our employee health-care program, and at the same time I’m watching the slowly-unfolding train wreck that is the Republicans’ tax bill, all the while tracking the unbelievable increase in health insurance premiums from year to year.

That’s why this quote by Cory Doctorow resonated with me:

Although I understand there are drawbacks to fully socialized health care, I can’t believe people still think the American health care system is reasonable.

(Oh, wait, the people who do think that are the ones who stand to profit from it! Of course…)