A Toilet- to flush no more!!

So I don't know how many people hear about the guy that shot his gun and destroyed a toilet at the Carl's Jr. in Centerville a while back, but KSL today put out a article that the Carls Jr. has a funeral service for the toilet. I had a great o'l laugh about it and thought I would share. The article is as follows:
- A toilet will be laid to rest today in Centerville.
Earlier this month, a customer at Carl's Jr.
accidentally shot and destroyed a toilet in the
men's room. Workers and visitors will hold a
funeral today for the now-famous commode.
On Carl's Jr.'s Facebook page, a spokesman says,
"Our thoughts go out to the surviving men's room
urinal and porcelain sink."
The first 50 customers to attend the service will be
given Kaboom brand bowl blaster toilet cleaner,
which workers say was the toilet's favorite.
"It was such a shame," said Centerville Carl's Jr. manager,
Christian Martinez. "We have received e-mails
and cards from all over the country expressing
condolences for our loss.
Now just when you thought it couldn't get any better I want to add some of the thought people left on the comment board of the story. They are the best. I find this whole thing hysterical and fun for a Friday. As did other that took it all in fun. But here are a few comments-

• It's just something done in total jest to lighten the mood on a Friday, for petes sakes. It's a refreshing change from overdosed babies, the wretched economy, gang shootings and the latest missteps of our politicians.
• Mah, wasn't all that funny, but they tried. I personally don't come to KSL for humor, I come for the news, so I was a little surprised. If I want humor about the news I'll go visit the Onion News Network (www.theonion.com), since their whole job is to be funny or satirical.
• RIP my friend. You were always there when we needed you, you took all the crap we gave you over the years, and you did it with dignity and style. I can't wait to see you on the other side!
• Worker Comp, I hope the family gets a decent settlement, after all, he was killed in the line of duty!!
• FIP- May he Flush In Peace or "Pieces"

Anyway I had a good laugh about this whole story. Its sad that they're are people who cant take a joke and think news need to be serious all the time. I thought it was a great story for a Friday morning. I am sure more funny comments will be made throughout the day. May the Toilet be remembered forever. I am going up that way tonight maybe I will stop and give condolences myself.

New Year excitement at ICS

This year at Intermountain Concrete has some new twist, that I am really excited about and figured I would write about it on my blog. Ken (my boss and main purchaser) and Bob (estimating) has decided to make things easier and get everyone on the same page. We are going to try and work every ones job descriptions into one job between the three of us. Yes, I said three- I guess I am not just the grunt worker in purchasing. Not to boast but I was told I am a valuable asset to this new plan(although, if to ask Ken about that statement he would deny it). We are going to try and train each other to be able to accomplish purchase product, estimating quotes and knowing mark ups, keep track of inventory and make sure products stay in stock through out our store, without any problems. We are deep into the works too, we got the OK from the President of the company and now just have to go through the Executive committee of the company.

I think this new plan will be beneficial to ICS and prepare us for a great future as a company. The only fear is summer when we really get busy if we can keep this idea in tack. I believe we can, we will just have to be flexible in our schedules. I see this helping the company to grow and take pressure off of each one of us, especially when we are swamped with too much work. We can kick it over to some one else who might not be as busy. Its a great idea. And the fact they are going to be using more computer technology then before is great. I believe we only use a small percent of the computer capabilities now and this new plan will expand that. We might make it to the 21st century in technology after all. It might not make sense now in this blog but I am excited for it possibilities.

Tim Tebow

So I wanna to start this blog entry by posing the questions- Is Tim Tebow over rated? Is he actually as good as everyone says?

My honest option is yes and no. I am kinda bias though to the whole Tim Tebow excitement. Every where I read everyone talks about how great he is and the best quarterback ever in the college profession. I would have to agree. I like him on and off the field. I like him because he is a good player on the field and a good leader to follow. Off the field he is a great humanitarian, giving and caring. Doing a mission last summer is amazing (too bad he's not LDS), and the fact that he decided to come back for his senior year shows youth that school might be more important then money. What bugs me is how much attention the media gives him. They over hype how good he is, its always Tebow this and Tebow that. I feel that is why people do not like him. He is very into his faith and christian like and people might feel inferior to him because of that. Not that its bad to be christian like, but too much media attention about his charitable acts can be bad thing, when other athletes don't get recognition he does.

I also worry that as a option quarterback he will not make the transition into the NFL, not many have as QB. I would hope he can, because he will be exciting to watch on Sunday as he was on Saturdays. The media is just setting him up for failure if he can not make the transition to Sundays. I don't want to see him be the next Tim Couch. However, I am excited that he is back for another year of college ball and a chance make a greater stink about this college career. Something about college ball makes watching so much better. And outside of BYU/Utah football country (the heart and soul of my life), Florida is a team I like to watch.

Spring Semester

I have now begun school again at the great college of SLCC.

Oh what a great institution to attend as well (did you pick up the hint of sarcasm). This semester I will finish up all my generals and graduate(fingers crossed) at the end of the semester. I decided to take a Statistics class for math, so if anyone knows stats look me up. And also a english, psychology and film class. I was excited for the film class. A class that you go to for a couple hours, watch movies and report on them; how easy will that be? I am here to say its not easy. Four hours of class, watching two movies back to back, oh my gosh!! I am so ready to go and never see a movie again. I just want to hide, curled up in a ball and rock myself to sleep after the class is over. I actually think I come home mean because of it. You can only stand so much Documentary films and Michael Moore.

I know I even found a pic of him at UVSC. Although I found the whole matter really interesting after watching the documentary "A Divided Nation." I have to agree that Orem/Provo area aka "Happy Valley" is a little too over optionated and critical of out side thinking. Really irritating and depressing to see some Mormon faithful make a joke out of this whole mess. It was sad. However I did find the movie entertaining. But four hours is a long time to stay focused on movies. The class will be fun and a well rounded discussion of movies that we may or may not like.

As for Statistics, I have a Bangladesh teacher who has a dry humor. He is great but just funny. I am already lost in that class and its only been a week or two. I am sure I will pick it all up. His first introduction with us was his job outside of school is an engineer at Maverick (gas station). He then went on to say don't judge me on just that. Gas is gas and Maverick gas is just like any other. If you think of Abu from the Simpson's saying all of this. It is actually funny. Anyway Its going to be a long but eventful semester.

Body Worlds in Salt Lake

So on Friday (Jan 9th) Alicen, Spencer, Jayson and I went to see this exhibit at the Leonardo on Library center. I was really excited to go see this display because it has been getting great reviews and just getting out of another Anatomy class I wanted to see this new Plastination process, that preserves these bodies. We finally got tickets for the final weekend, we had to wait in line for an hour and a half but it was well worth it. They kept us entertained with a Skeleton on the wall- that you could text message and it would be posted on the wall. They did not allow photography so I got these pics off of the Internet, and KSL.

These two pics above are really cool, the first shows all the blood vessels in the head, I don't know how they got the muscle, skull and other material out of the head to leave the veins but they did. The other is of a fetal baby. It was really interesting to see the development of a baby. They had fetal development from 8 weeks to 36 weeks. To see the little first weeks development was really cool, you could see the littlest toes and fingers and then to see the older babies, it made me just want to hold them. They had developed and now just had to plump up to weight and be born. It was really interesting. Once you entered that room, you could feel a peaceful feeling and a reverence for what was in the room. Way cool!

These pics are just some of what they had. The first is at the beginning. Since the theme was the Heart, they had this body with a heart in the middle. You could see all the veins, vessels and parts of the heart. The second pic is of a body balancing on three balls and has one arm stretched high with his whole abdomen section in tact to where it would fit in his body above his head. His back was open to see that cavity and where it would all fit. The last pic was actually not at the show but we saw pics of it. Its a body holding it skin in its right hand. I wish I could have seen this one in real life, it was really intriguing to me. Just to see the skin off the body.

These two pics show the movements of the body and what muscles flex and relax. The first is of a women or known as "the Archer." She had her skull open on the other side so you could see where her brain would fit. Spencer and Jayson were surprised to see how the bones in the skull had pieces that held the brain and that it had movement but not just floating. The second pic is called "the Javelin." The one they had was not so opened bodied. But it was about the same. All the bodies where shaped so you could see how the body moved and which muscles flex where and in what motion. It was interesting to see what worked together.

This first pic is the same as the top one, except a side shot. Still cool to see the vessels in the head and how it goes all the way around. I forgot to say that this head also still had the brain inside. So we could see the veins around the brain. There is a lot of blood movement up there. The second pic is called "the Hurdler." They had all the muscle movement but on this one they opened the muscle on the back of the head and back to show the littler muscles that work too. Also the brain was cut into sections so that you could see different parts of the brain as well.

The rest of the exhibit had tables with different body parts- like the lungs had regular lungs, lungs with cancer and lungs with emphysema. They had smokers lungs that where pitch black. Yuck! They had a slice of a heavy person, we could see all the fat around the heart, stomach and body. Makes me want to eat healthier and work out. The whole Body Worlds shows the body in a whole new light and that we are all the same below the skin. This display also had animals, a whole camel that was preserved, cat, bird and bull hearts (a bulls heart can have a weight of 15 pounds, a human is only 7-12 ounces. That is huge!). The whole Body World was impressive and enjoyable to walk through. It took us a good 2 hours to look at everything. I was happy we all went. If anyone gets the chance to see it, go through it. Its really great!

New Year Resolutions

Here is my resolutions for this year- if you have to write them down might as well do it where people can read some of them (if any one reads my blog).

1. Stop drinking soda pop
2. Drink more water
3. Finish my Associates Degree by summer
4. Exercise regularly and drop some unwanted pounds
5. Read my scriptures more then on Sundays
6. Pray as a Family
7. Take my wife out more on dates
8. Do home teaching- just do it a couple months out of the year.
9. Treat others with more respect and less criticism.
10. Better my financial situations- a lot intertwind in that.

Now I just need to make these resolutions last longer then 2 weeks to 3 months. If I can do that its an accomplishment. Goals are good to set and if not written down will do no good. Blogging them might help but still need to write down where I can over look it. Oh what a list.

BCS is a joke

I need to weigh in on this whole BCS thing. Utah breaks the bowls this year (Congrats by the way), by beating the socks off of a so called great Alabama team in the Sugar Bowl. That looks really good for the Mountain West Conference and all Div 1 colleges and show the nation that something needs to be done to fix the BCS. Then Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff wants to get in on the debate to find out if the BCS is not breaking any rules. Which I think is a great idea but is it really going to change anything. I say NO! We need to face the facts that the wins we get in the BCS will always be side stepped because they find excuse to how bad the other team was. Not how good the small team played.

What makes this thing worse is the fan base in Utah. When all the fans on both sides (BYU, Utah) argue about which team is better it does not help out the situation. They need to see that this will help both teams and set up a chance at a national championship. Then need to find neutral ground and work together (I know fat chance). But with Utah winning the Sugar Bowl and now BYU facing Oklahoma next year, this could open a huge door for the Mountain West. BYU needs to win at Texas stadium and win big. Then someone in the Mountain West needs to step up, whether it BYU, Utah, TCU or any other school and get into the top 10 again. I think some one will too. What the teams in The Mountain West need to do is continue to play and get ranked and schedule the so called "Big 6" teams and beat them. Then and only then will respect come to the conference.

Good for the Utes for starting the ball rolling in the BCS over the last couple of years, and for BYU to step up and schedule big teams. Recognition will come over time. Or at least we can hope so.

Poor gingerbread house- stood no chance!!

So we found a gingerbread house at Sam's Club on Christmas sell and thought it would be fun to make one for FHE. So we picked it up. As we started to make it we had troubles from the get go. The walls of the house where not even, one of the roof pieces had a major bow in the cookie and McKinley only wanted to eat the candy. Guess that's what we get for a on sale item. As you can tell from the pics below we got the house built but then the problems started.

The roof and side wall of the house started to slide. The frosting was not strong enough to hold the bowed roof and the wall, that was just not made properly by the frosting Masons (crappy work don't recommend them).

Then everything went down. Like I said the wall and roof, then everything else just came down. We were all laughing so hard that we did not try to stop it. All that was left standing was the poor gingerbread man home owner. Man good thing he is a cookie or we might have a major court battle on our hands.

Demolition was oh so sweet! McKinley continued to eat the candy and I started on the gingerbread walls. Although I only got through one piece before throwing it away. It was for the best to clean up quickly because we are horrible gingerbread house makers. Hide all the evidence so there is no proof. At least McKinley liked it and Tait well he just sat there and laughed when we did. It was a good time.

Next year we will have to start earlier and make one that holds up and can show off.

Christmas 2008

This christmas we had a little different events then usual. We had christmas on other days rather then on Christmas. On Christmas Eve we went to the Formans to get out PJ's we get every year but to also see Spencer. He had to work Christmas day so we met the day before and had him open gifts and eat a turkey luncheon. After we headed for the annual Duehlmeier Christmas party at the Duehlmeier house. The had remodeled their house and it looked great. Nice open area for a living room, dining room and kitchen. It was way nice but different to see it in their house. But we had a dinner and then had the traditional Wise guys come. We use to do Santa but now we have three of my cousins that dress up and crack joke and give out presents. This year was derk, Corbin and Scott. I would have to say they are the best wise guys. But for presents this year they got creative and handed out shirts to my aunts and uncles that had a pic of my grandma and said "Kiss me, I am Irish" it was really a nice idea. But that as our Christmas Eve.

As for Christmas morning, we got out early yet again. I beleive Alicen started that but she will deny it. We were up at 7 am to open presents. McKinley had a grea time opening her presents, then Dads present, Moms presents and Taitan presents. She just like to unwrap her gifts and move on. Not really looking at what she got. At least she was excited to see what was under the wrapping paper. Tait like all the toys that made noise and a tonka truck we got him. He is for sure a boy. McKinley loved the M&M we got her in Vegas and eat them all before we where done with stockings. She loves chocolate! Kinni got a couple dolls, a talking baby (which she loved until it moved, then not so interested). Taitan got a farm animal set and the truck. I got an Ipod shuffle for working out and Alicen got one as well. So that was out Christmas morning, the rest of the day was traveling to the Formans house, Grandma Formans house and then to the Kettenring house. It was a day full of giving and getting.

I added this picture for just kicks and giggles. This is McKinleys first time on a Santa and I had to share her terror of being on him. This was taken at a ward party our ward put on. It was just funny. Once she got the candy she was fine. But everyone needs to have a kid shot of this.
On saturday we had the Kettenring Christmas because my Dad had to work Christmas day and so we did it later that week. On saturday we played the wii and just messed around. Alicen and I went to the doctors because Kinni had strep. So that put a damper on things. However on Sunday we opened presents and cooked dinner and opened stockings. My Dad was the only good one to go to church. It was a good time and a long week. I dont think I like a long Christmas like this. Just doesnt seem like a one day thing anymore. Oh well.

Guitar Hero- World Tour

On Christmas my little bro Jayson got the new Guitar Hero World Tour, and when we got their that is all we played. I was really into it because of all the new songs and bands. I actually knew the music and like the bands. I was so involved in it that the next day, I went out and bought the game. Alicen says she bought gas with her gift card and I got the game. I just say its all about priorities myself. Anyway as I played McKinley wanted to as well. So from the pictures it shows her wearing the guitar and thinking she is playing. Every time I would start a new song, I would tell Kinni that the song was starting and she would grab the guitar to play. It was way cute.
What was really funny was when she played she would sing and Tait was just laugh and get all excited. He loves McKinley! I have to say though, I think he is tone deaf because I would sing to him and he would get excited too and just grin ear to ear. We spent a lot of time in front of that game and every time Alicen wanted to play she would have to fight off McKinley for the other guitar.
If you have never played Guitar Hero it is well worth the try. Its a lot of fun and when you play against each other you really get the fun out of it. That was really all we did the weeks off during the holiday because of McKinley being sick with strep throat. Poor little girl. She made the best of it though.