Month: July 2024

Jersey Mike’s is my third-favorite sandwich chain. A few years ago, I was elated when one opened in Kalispell, and I was a frequent visitor.

When we moved to El Centro, a new Jersey Mike’s was under construction. But according to multiple sources, it had been under construction for many months. Nothing seemed to change, and one rumor was that they’d aborted the effort and abandoned the restaurant. Disappointing.

But on Sunday, there was suddenly a new sign on the side of the building: “Grand opening in 3 days!” Sweet! Wednesday came, and we headed there for lunch.

It was an absolute madhouse, packed with people who were so excited to have a sandwich shop that wasn’t one of the four Subways in town. We talked to a couple of the workers as they furiously built our sandwiches. They were brothers who’d been flown out here from New Jersey (of course!) to oversee the first week of operation. With a crew of a dozen employees bustling behind the counter, these two were calmly and efficiently putting together sandwiches for the dozens of people in line. I could see why the company sends out their elite squad for a new store.

The excitement will likely die down soon, and then I can start getting weekly sandwiches there. Woo hoo!

It was almost two months ago when we visited the Imperial Sand Dunes with the young missionaries serving in our area. Well, after transfers we have some new faces in the group, and they wanted to see the dunes as well.

So we all got up at 4:30 in the morning and headed out there. We beat the sunrise, which is important for two reasons: first, it’s really pretty when the first rays of the day peek above the horizon.

And second, it’s a nice cool 85 degrees. Once the sun is up, you can feel the temperature start to rise. Within maybe half an hour, it’s climbing past 100.

Of course you can’t go to the dunes without snowboards, and we had three this time. We all took turns riding down the steep dunes.

This little group of yahoos is sure a blast.

I’m currently reading The Lord of the Rings for the tenth time (hey, it’s been a while). So it brings me great mirth when I see something like this on the internet:

A few weeks ago we met Gloria. She’s one of those people whose personality is just huge, and you instantly feel like you’ve known her for years. She invited us to her wedding ceremony, which surprised us… normally you’d only invite family and close friends. We’d only known her for a few weeks! But she said we already felt like old friends, and she’d be honored to have us join her on the big day.

Who are we to refuse? We drove out to the Redlands Temple, which (like all temples) is beautiful.

There were about thirty people in the ceremony, so it was a pretty small crowd. Afterward, we waited outside for the newly-married couple to join us.

Although we weren’t in the valley (where temperatures were around 115), it was probably 85 degrees, so standing outside for photos was pretty hot. The couple wisely posed under a tree.

Everyone drove back to the valley for the big party that evening. The reception probably included three hundred people…

… and of course it included a mariachi band.

Around here, you can pretty much find mariachi bands at every wedding, graduation party, and quinceañera. They’re a ton of fun (although they look pretty stoic in my picture).

We met some new friends at the table where we ate dinner. Mari (“like Maria without the A”, she said) and her sister Lorena were a riot.

They’re both in their seventies but have the spark of thirty-year-olds. Lorena knew Gloria (the bride) through her son. Mari didn’t know her at all, but has worked at Costco for twelve years and literally knew people at the wedding just because of that. Mari and her husband ride Harleys and make an annual pilgrimage to Sturgis; in fact, that’s where he proposed to and married her a few years back. It was a blast to hang out with them for the evening.

I can also say it was the hottest wedding I’ve ever attended, because the air conditioning was on the fritz and the reception hall (or “gym” as the uncouth would call it) was easily 85 degrees. Add a few hundred people and little airflow, and it was a bit rough. But hey, if nothing else it’ll give the bride and groom a good story to tell their kids someday.

Here’s wishing all the best to Gloria and Carlos as they start their new life together!

One of the senior missionary couples we know is in charge of employment assistance and small business opportunities in the area. They mentioned an online group they manage, where members discuss ideas about starting a business, or help one another with challenges they’re facing as they get their business off the ground. As it happened, they were having a guest speaker at tonight’s session: none other than Grandpa Beck!

If you know card games like Skull King or Cover Your Assets, you’ve heard of Grandpa Beck. He’s the creator of these immensely popular games, and was literally a 65-year-old grandpa when he got the idea of starting a game company. In tonight’s meeting he talked about his experience designing, producing, marketing, and selling his games.

It was tremendously instructive for a guy who designs board games and even attempted to market and sell one on Kickstarter last year. I learned about the process he used, the challenges he faced, and the sheer joy of seeing something he created really take off. It inspired me to get back into design (and maybe even marketing) when I finish my mission. Thanks, Grandpa Beck!

A few days ago, someone broke into an AT&T system and stole the call and text records for all AT&T subscribers– some 100 million or more people. Today AT&T sent an email to me, and presumably to the other 100 million people, admitting to the incident. As I read it, I couldn’t help but “translate” in my head what they said.

What happened?
We found out AT&T call and text records were accessed by cyber-criminals who have claimed responsibility for unlawful access to other companies in the past. At least one individual has since been arrested.

Translation: even though these folks have attacked other similar systems in the past, we didn’t bother to learn from those companies’ mistakes and secure our own systems against the same attack. Oh, and the bad guy was arrested! (Which we had absolutely nothing to do with.)

What is AT&T doing?
Protecting customer data is a top priority. 

Translation: making money is actually the top priority, but protecting customer data is definitely one of our top priorities. At least in the top ten. Or maybe top twenty. It’s hard to say for sure, because that kind of stuff costs money, and spending money takes away from our top priority.

We hold ourselves to high privacy standards and are always looking for ways to improve our security practices.

Translation: we’re not really going to do anything about this, except tell you we’re “looking for ways” to make it better. Oh, and we’re not going to compensate you in any way for screwing up.

This kind of stuff happens all the time these days. Companies can’t be bothered to spend the money to properly secure their customers’ data, and then when someone (inevitably) breaks in and steals it, there are no repercussions. They issue a boilerplate apology and move on. There are no penalties, no requirements for them to do better, and frankly no incentive for them to actually effect change.

Although this particular incident isn’t terribly damaging to me, the data could be used by malicious parties to do some real damage. It’s only metadata, not content, but it would be a treasure trove for abusive or dangerous stalkers, ex-spouses, and the like. There are real-world consequences for people. But, as we see yet again, not for the corporations.

Harumph.

We had another “small world” experience today. At our monthly mission conference, we had a chance to talk with one of the leaders, President Monroe. Along with two other couples, he and his wife oversee the entire San Diego Mission.

He wanted to meet us (because we’re the new kids on the block) and as we chatted we learned he grew up in Montana. Montana’s a big place, but not so big in the church. Naturally he knew some of our Bigfork friends, and we swapped stories about them and about life in northwest Montana in general. It’s so fun to run into friends of friends…

Today we were driving back from San Diego and took a different route than usual. We passed through Indio, which is the name of the first serious board game I designed. And yes, I got the idea for that name whilst driving through California on our San Diego road trip a few years ago. I saw Indio on a road sign and thought it would make a good name for a game.

Anyway, as we approached the exit for Indio today, we saw this sign:

The “Other Desert Cities” the sign is referring to are El Centro and Brawley, our stomping grounds out here. It felt a little hurtful that they couldn’t even be named on the sign!

When we packed for our mission, I intentionally didn’t bring many board games. Although I have almost a hundred in my closet, many of them are complex and take a while to play. I didn’t figure I’d run into people who have the same passion for gaming as my group in Bigfork. Also, space was at a premium and games take up a lot of it. After discussing it with Pepper, we did agree to bring King of Tokyo and Catch Phrase, both of which are fairly simple and fun for a group.

Now that we’re here, I’ve found that many of the young missionaries enjoy games. Skull King is a classic; here are The Boys in the middle of a hand:

Earlier this week we played Scum, and ended up with twelve people in the game. We found two decks of enormous playing cards and laughed as we awkwardly shuffled and played them.

Inspired by their enthusiasm for these simple games, I decided to expand my meager game collection here by adding a few party games:

These are all easy to learn, good for a group, and inexpensive. Unfortunately I already have them in my collection back in Montana! I guess we’ll enjoy them here, and then donate them to a worthy cause when we finish our mission. In the meantime, I’m excited to teach the young missionaries some real games…