Monthly Archives: January 2008

Blog Voyeur

Posted on by

Blogs are interesting little windows into other’s lives. My wife posted a slew of blog links on our family page. Friends, church members, strangers… all with their own links to other blogs. It’s an endless network of life online. Sometimes the information is very general, but sometimes it’s very personal. I wonder how many people read blogs and experience a degree of vicarious enjoyment. I suppose I’m guilty to a degree.

 There’s no blog I read religiously (except for mine of course- yeah, I go back a reread my blog every day… gives me a rush, you know?), but it’s fun to see what other people are up to. So and so built a new house, the whose its had a baby and the what’s their heads switched jobs. Who doesn’t get some twinge of pleasure from reading a blog? Sure, there are blogs so boring that that the voyeur blog rush (VBR) is not present, but they are pretty few and far between. You just need to make inappropriate comments on those blogs to spice things up.

 And then there’s the pleasure derived from sharing information gleaned from a person’s website with that very same person. “How on earth could you know that?” they wonder. Somehow the fact that they posted it on the Internet where it is accessible to the entire 6 billion inhabitants of earth just doesn’t cross their mind.

Still, technology has made the world a very small place in some ways. The amount of available information is overwhelming. One can consume only so many blogs, myspace pages, facebook something or others and social networking doodads a day. As a blog voyeur you have to be a little picky.

Cold and Old

Posted on by

snowmobile.jpg

For the last five years we’ve gone snowmobiling in January. We’ve tried out a number of different locations such as Bear River Lodge & Daniel’s Summit. This year we went to the Aspen Moose Cabin in Timberlake Estates.  My selfless wife watched our children while I ventured out an an Arctic Cat with Tom, Andrew and John. The snowmobiling was very good, with Timberlakes offering up some good paths, hills and fields. It also offered up a river bed which I didn’t see until it was much too late. I drove right into it at nearly full speed. I think I may have ended up with a concussion. I was going to post pictures of some of my bruises, but I’m not a pretty man to begin with…   All told we probably logged about 4 hours on the snowmobiles. 3 days later and I’m still a little sore. Getting old.

The snowmobiling rental process seems to get longer and longer every year and I’m considering just getting a couple of my own. I could take a few extra trips during the winter and do some reconnaissance as well. We’re still searching for the perfect spot to snowmobile and relax. Timberlakes was good, but I think the snowmobiling at Bear River was a little better. However, I liked the accommodations at Daniel’s Summit more; the bathrooms at the Aspen Moose were ridiculously small and uncomfortable. All in all a good trip. My brain is seizing, so that will be it for now.

“Where have you been?” Yeah, yeah…

Posted on by

I’m finally getting caught up from last year, in regard to work. It’s been a great year for the business. However “great year” translates into “lots of work.” Two weeks into January and we’re finally settling back into our normal routine… whatever that is. Lots of good things coming up- I’ll be posting more about those in the near future.

This past week proved to be both heart wrenching and stressful. Most of the info is available on our Family Blog, but I will summarize a little here. On Jan 6th I arrived at church around 11:15. As I pulled into the parking I saw people running out of the church building. I realized that they were running toward someone on the ground. My first thought was that the person has slipped. However, getting closer I could feel the tension in the air, see the blood on the ground, and the tears in the eyes of onlookers.  I went inside to find Francoise, knowing she would be worried. We soon learned that Kristy Ragsdale has been shot and killed by her estranged husband, Dave. Church was cancelled and we went home confused and shaken. I couldn’t help but wonder if I could have done something if I’d been five minutes earlier (I probably would have been shot). One of the bullets from the shooting entered our car thought the radiator and did some damage. Hopefully we’ll have our car back soon sans the bullet.  A memory blog has been set up for Kristy here.

Other stuff: Mike had a birthday on Dec 3rd. He’s four now! My personal memory really kicked in around four. I imagine he’ll remember stuff from here on out… I’ll have to start being nice to him. Christmas was good. We kept it pretty low key this year.  New Year’s was fun. The Sabins posted about it over on their blog (have a look at the “Going Greek” entry). We purchased Rock Band and have been playing it steadily since (Everyone is welcome anytime to play- invite yourself right over!).  It’s 4:30 in the morning right now, so I’d better get back to work!