Category: Uncategorized

Alex is in the market for a laptop for college, so he and I have been looking at the various options available. He’s narrowed down his search to a Dell XPS or an Asus Zenbook.

On the Dell web site, you can get a pretty “loaded” XPS for $1,000. I have an account rep at Dell for my hosting business, since I’ve purchased over a hundred servers from them, so I figured I’d contact her to see if she could offer a bit of a discount. For, you know, being a long-time client who’s spent well over a hundred thousand dollars there and stuff.

She came back with a quote for $1,600.

Umm. So I reminded her that the web site price– for the average plebeian consumer– was $600 less. For the same hardware. She apparently hadn’t noticed that, so she put together another quote for me.

$1,300.

I was a little flabbergasted again. She explained that buying it through a corporate channel means I can get two years of Dell support, instead of just one. Wow! What a bargain! If this laptop croaks in a year I’m going to be very, very disappointed in Dell’s products. (I have servers that have been running 24/7 for almost fifteen years.)

Anyway, I told her no thanks and if Alex decides to go with the Dell, he can just buy it through the web site. What a surreal experience.

I bought something on Amazon and received some kind of mysterious “Extra Savings”.

I have no idea why, but I won’t complain…

What do you believe?

I asked that question of my seminary class this morning.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect; often deep questions elicit a few wisecracks, silence, and occasionally a profound, thoughtful answer. I guess it wasn’t surprising when one girl said, “I believe I’m sixteen years old!” Taking it in stride– and aiming for a way to talk about faith, which was my goal– I replied with, “Well, your parents told you you’re sixteen. Do you trust them? Do you truly know without a doubt that’s true?” That provoked a few chuckles but I could tell the mental wheels were turning for a few of the kids.

Imagine my surprise when another girl raised her hand and said quietly, “I believe I can accomplish anything.”

I didn’t have a response for that beyond, “Wow, that’s awesome!” Because, hey, it is awesome. I love that a high-school girl has that kind of self-confidence. She’s going far.

It’s been twenty-five months since Alex headed to Peru for his mission. He had an amazing time, but all good things come to an end, and despite wanting to stay and continue the work, he came home today.

Wow. What an amazing feeling to see him after two years– when the only communication we really had was via a weekly email message (and even that was spotty at times). It was immediately obvious that he’d grown as a person: he’s more thoughtful and mature, although he discovered to his chagrin that he’s not as tall as Zaque.

We headed home from the airport, and when we were home I noticed his shoes.

That’s two years of walking miles every day through the dusty, rocky streets of Lima.

It was also cool to see his passport, showing the day he left and the day he returned:

Now we’ll have two months to hang out with him until he heads off to BYU for college. We have some weird Peruvian soda in the fridge…

… and who knows what else is still to come. I’m waiting for him to whip up a big bowl of suri for us…

Well, last night was the tournament to finish the fall ultimate league. My team’s record was abysmal. We went 2-12 for the season, which is the worst team I’ve ever played with. And yet, the whole team was a barrel of fun… we were positive every week, had a great time together, shrugged off our losses, and celebrated our wins. After our games we went to grab some food together, and almost the entire team went every week (most teams get maybe 3-4 people for social hour after games). In short, despite how much we sucked on the scoreboard, we were one of the most fun teams I’ve ever been on.

Every season there’s a survey to the players, and for the first time there was a question specifically about the team captains. How did they do? Did they promote a positive atmosphere? Did they help players improve in ultimate? The survey was anonymous, but I was tickled to get this feedback:

So, I guess it wasn’t a total loss…

Today was our annual Halloween party in seminary (a three-year running tradition now) so of course I dressed up, along with my fellow teachers. It was a lot of fun. Jodi was the gold plates, and Suzanne was a dust bunny. GET IT?

My nephew Jake left for his mission at the same time Kyra did. He’s serving in Kiribati, which is a tiny speck in the south Pacific. Most of the thirty or so islands are uninhabited. He was told to bring a fishing pole, which might seem like an unusual requirement for a mission, until you realize that pretty much the only thing the islanders eat is fish, which they catch themselves. It’s regarded as one of the least developed nations in the world, and makes Alex’s mission to Peru look like a first-world paradise.

Jake doesn’t have reliable internet access, but he was able to fire off an email with a few photos. He described the living conditions as “like camping, but worse”. This is his house:

And the “bathroom”:

Apparently they shower occasionally. This is what the shower looks like:

Despite the primitive conditions, Jake says it’s one of the most beautiful places he’s ever been.

One of Zing’s clients puts together a Christmas card every year, and in that card they include photos of their entire team. The card is sent to all of their clients, which number in the hundreds. Since they consider us “part of the team”, every year I’m asked to send some photos of Ben and myself (since we’re the two who work on the project).

Ben had the brilliant idea of posing like one of those horribly cheesy stock photos where businesspeople are all pointing and looking at a computer screen. Although we didn’t have a multi-racial or multi-gender crowd to draw from (like all the stock photographers do), I think the results are pretty awesome.