From Dallas To Kansas

My sister and her two children came to visit this weekend. I drove along with them from Dallas to Kansas, and I believe we made the trip in record time.
While his big sister was sleeping we let Will hold the portable DVD player--a privilege which he relished.

The kids loved the farmstead near our home. Will kept saying "Oh-oh-oh" at all the animals, including this pig shaped rocker.

Savannah went nuts crazy on her horse.

I think she also set a new land speed record for toy trackers. You can't see her intensity in this picture, but she would have made her dad proud with the way she attacked that race track.

Of course I had to take a token picture of the most photogenic animals at the farmstead, namely, the pigs.

New Car

We recently replaced the Golf with this 2002 Honda Civic we found on Craigslist. It doesn't have as much personality as the Golf, but it has airbags, an air conditioner, and a windshield that doesn't leak. We are really quite happy with our new car. The biggest problem that we have now is distinguishing the keys to the Civic from the keys to the Accord.

Springtime

That was one of the longest winters of my life! After what hopefully will be one last batch of snow flurries last weekend, we are finally getting some warmer weather. Today we noticed the first birds using our new bird feeder. We hung the feeder last fall, but as far as we know it attracted no birds until recently. We think the birds may have been coming for a while because the cat has been extremely interested in the balcony lately.

Goodbye Golf

I'm both saddened and pleased to announce that the Golf was sold on Monday to a mechanic who loves to fix up old cars and sell them. It is with high hopes that we sent the Golf to yet another owner. After nine years and trips that span many of the Western states, I have to say we really got our money's worth out of the Golf. I have to particularly mention my Father in law, Scott, who purchased the Golf for my wife when she was Sophomore in college and then turned the title over to us when we were married. Thanks, Scott; we owe you for this and a million other things you do for us. Below are our final pictures of the Golf being towed away to its new home.

I posted the Golf on Craigslist and had an offer within two hours. No, seriously, they made me an offer over the phone within two after the posting. I subsequently received two other phone calls. I think the part that got people's attention was, "Make me an offer, and it's yours."

The new owner has restored several VW's. In fact, he had an experience that was very similar to mine, so he knew what it was like to loose a faithful car like the Golf. That makes me wonder how many other VW owners are out there with similar stories.

I admit it was sad to turn over the keys to a non-working car. When people actually offered me money for the Golf, I had to make sure they understood that the car didn't actually run. The car needed a new distributor (which I actually pulled off of an old Jetta last week in a wrecking yard), so hopefully it won't take much to get it going again. My dream is to see the Golf driving around Kansas City sometime in the future. That would be awesome!

Finally, we say goodbye to the Golf. I know that families are forever, but when we die do we get to see our pets again? What about our old cars? I've always wondered what happened to a certain 1980 Mercury Zephyr or that 1984 Toyota Camry. I've been way too sentimental in this post, but I just can't help thinking I may never get another car quite like this. (Now that I think about that leaky windshield, maybe it's a good thing.)

Congratulations KU!!!

2008 NCAA Basketball Champions.

The End of an Era

The last couple weeks have been sad ones in our house because we've come to realize that it is time to say goodbye to a stalwart friend, The Golf. Lately the poor, 22-year old Golf has needed more maintenance than we can afford. This blog is a tribute to The Golf and the many years of service it gave us.

In the spring of my Sophomore year of college my Mom came to visit me from Colorado. She picked me up from the airport on my return from a track meet. On the way out to the garage she handed me a card, which I thought was strange. What was the occasion? The front of the card said "There are many things I need to teach you." I opened the card and the inside said, "but first ... how do you like your new car!" And that was my introduction to The Golf. I was so surprised. Over the next few days my Mom taught me how to drive a car with manual transmission. Here I am with The Golf during those first few days.

It became clear pretty quickly that The Golf was a real treasure with a lot of guts and pep for such an old car. The Golf made countless trips from Provo to Colorado Springs without any problem. It also made a trek from Provo to Seattle. Nicole, Jill, Jessica, and Paige and Nate all took multiple road trips in The Golf. Here's a picture of The Golf in Colorado.

It also became clear pretty quickly that The Golf had a few quirks. The door handles were a disaster. I was always coaching people on how to open the car doors, and my friends who could open the doors themselves knew they were really good friends. All of the door handles have had to be replaced. Thanks to my Dad and Sam for going to the junkyard to find some old VW door handles. Also, after I had driven The Golf for a few years the car started honking every time that I turned left, which was pretty embarrassing. My Dad disconnected the horn. I never realized how often the horn would come in handy until after it was no longer available. The speakers broke and my brother attached a new one. It doesn't fit into the car, and you can see it below just sitting on top of the backseats. Speaking of the interior, one of my favorite compliments to my car came from my friend Heather who said that she thought it was the perfect college car. Just admire that tweed interior.


After I got the car, we realized that the odometer was broken. We have no idea how many miles that car has driven. This was always difficult to explain to mechanics who usually expected me to at least guess. The broken odometer is probably my favorite quirk of the car. I started telling people that I drove a 1986 Volkswagon Golf with unknown mileage.

In 2004 I loaded up The Golf with most of my possessions and drove it to Kansas. You'd be surprised how much stuff can be crammed into that car. Here it is fully loaded.


Nate and I have been driving The Golf for three years. Every time that the car broke down we would fear it was for the last time, but it usually wasn't a big fix. After a while we started to say that The Golf wanted to be immortal. Over the years the air conditioning broke, the windshield started leaking, and various other little things went wrong, but The Golf just kept trucking along.


Even this last breakdown is fixable. The car needs a new distributer. The problem is that the part is so expensive because the car is so old. We will miss our faithful Golf.


I know many of you also loved The Golf. We invite you to post your own tribute in our comments section.

Another Visit to the Farm

After three years I think we can say with certainty that a family tradition we have is visiting the Deanna Rose Farmstead between the Sunday sessions of conference. It's fun to see the big goats and the new baby animals. Here a few highlights.

JoLee was instantly popular when she entered the baby goat pen with a bottle in hand.

The goats were all over both of us, and when we returned home Zephyr sniffed us from our hands to our feet. She has never met a goat, but I bet she would like to.

This turkey was new to the farm this year. Wow, what a big, ugly creature. It kept sneezing and shivering at us to scare us away. I guess if you were the national dinner of choice, you would be a little skiddish as well.

I can't believe this was my idea.

The new milk barn housed several new baby cows, all of which were wonderful to pet and watch. The milk barn has a few stations where you can learn about cows and practice your milking skills.

Girlfriends

Shannon wanted to go to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and she took me and Karen along. We had a great time. I hope I wasn't too tour-guidish for them, but they said that's what they wanted. Karen showed off all the knowledge she gained in Humanities 122, which made me feel like a proud teacher. Then we went to dinner on the plaza. It's so nice to have girlfriends.

The ABC's

Thanks Paige and Peter!

JOLEE:

A - Attached or single: Attached

B - Best Friends: Jill, Nicole, Nate, Paige, Abby, and Karen (I earned that last one)

C - Cake or Pie: Chocolate Chip Cookies (that’s three C’s) made by Jill or with the family recipe.

D - Day of choice: February 19^th, Copernicus’ Birthday

E - Essential item(s): Books, IPod, laptop, the library, the internet

F - Favorite Movie: Singin' in the Rain and Pride and Prejudice

G - Gummy bears or worms: bears

H - Hometown: Colorado Springs, CO

I - Indulgences: Books on tape, High School Musical soundtrack

J - January or July: July is my birthday month but it’s too hot in Kansas in July.

K - Kids: not yet

L - Life is not complete without: laughter

M - Marriage Date: February 26^th, 2005

N - Number of Siblings: 2

O - Oranges or apples: depends on what looks good – bad apples and bad oranges are both equally disgusting

P - Phobias or fears: heights and jumping from them, going too fast downhill, layovers, old food, pro-wrestling, being hungry (Nate wrote this list. Apparently he thinks I’m afraid of a lot of things.)

Q - Quotes: “Be grateful you’re not in the forest in France/ where the average young person just hasn’t a chance/ to escape from the perilous pants eating plants/ but your pants are safe, you’re a fortunate guy/ you ought to be shouting how lucky am I” – Dr. Seuss

R - Reason to smile: Zephyr, blogs, inside jokes

S - Season: Fall and Spring

T - Tag two friends: Katie and Katie

U - Unknown fact about me: I love to be at home.

V - Very favorite store: Gap

W - Worst habit: I usually have to listen to my IPod in order to fall asleep

X - X-ray or Ultrasound: X-Ray

Y - Your favorite food: Taco dip, good pasta

Z - Zodiac: Cancer

NATE:

A - Attached or single: Attached

B - Best Friends: Toby, Aaron, Chad, JoLee

C - Cake or Pie: Chocolate Cake and Mom’s Apple Pie

D - Day of choice: Saturday

E - Essential item(s): toothpick

G - Gummy bears or worms: worms

F - Favorite Movie: Chariots of Fire

H - Hometown: Sacramento, CA

I - Indulgences: Potato Chips, Star Trek

J - January or July: July

K - Kids: not yet

L - Life is not complete without: JoLee

M - Marriage Date: February 26^th, 2005

N - Number of Siblings: 2

O - Oranges or apples: oranges, if they are pre-peeled

P - Phobias or fears: being buried alive

Q - Quotes: "This corn is an angel." - Dan in Real Life

R - Reason to smile: Mr. Monk, JoLee, a trumpet played well

S - Season: Summer

T - Tag two friends: what she said.

U - Unknown fact about me: I’ve been hit by at least 7 cars. Well, that I can remember…

V - Very favorite store: 7-11 (age 5-12), Computer World (age 12-16), REI (age 16-25), Cost-co (age 26+)

W - Worst habit: Staying up too late.

X - X-ray or Ultrasound: X-Ray but MRIs are the coolest

Y - Your favorite food: Tostadas

Z - Zodiac: Pisces

Stick Figures

When I was in high school stick figures were all the rage. Jessica recently reminded me of our love for stickmen. I give you one of my stick figure masterpieces. It contains all the classic elements of a stick figure drawing, including the exchange between the guy with the bagel and the guy with the orange, Mr. Clark with his stopwatch, and the guy with the really long neck wearing a turtleneck. Enjoy. (A side note, I made this particular drawing back in 1997 while I was "taking" notes during General Conference.)

Kansas City Auto Show

This post is dedicated to all those guys (all three of you) who read this blog and wonder when we're going to post something more manly than the pet cat playing with her latest toy.

This morning I went on my first visit to the annual Kansas City Auto Show in Bartle Hall at the convention center. There were a few concept cars, but mostly the show was about displaying the 2008 models. I've included a few highlights below. I took my camera, but I left the battery at home, so this post relies on images taken from the internet. (I also left my wife at home, because she is preparing for Murphy Madness, which starts this week.)

Bartle Hall: The convention center is an impressive structure that is built over the freeway. There are four "smoke stacks" that use cables to hold up the roof. The interior is larger than eight football fields. This year, the Kansas City Auto Show displayed over 500 cars from 40 different car makers.

Cheapest: The cheapest car on the floor was this Chevy Aveo that has an MSRP of just over $10k. Ten thousand dollars sounds like a lot of money until you find out what it will buy at a new car dealer.

Most Expensive: The most expensive car that I could find was this Cayenne Turbo. It listed for $105k. That much money would buy a whole fleet of 1986 Volkswagen Golfs (we originally paid $1k dollars for the Golf). I guess an SUV like this would get your kids to soccer practice really fast, because it pumps out 500hp. It made the enormous, fully loaded Suburban look like a relative bargain at $60k.

Lamest: The lamest car by far was this Zenn (Zero Emissions No Noise) vehicle. I'm a huge supporter of all-electric vehicles, but this thing has a range of 35 miles and a top speed of 25 mph. With this car, I wouldn't be able to turn onto our front street without getting eaten alive. I don't know who would pay the $12k they are asking for this souped up golf cart.

Most Sat In: While far too small for my comfort, I think the Smart Car shows promise. I like the idea of a fuel efficient, inexpensive car. This car was so popular at the show people actually stood in lines so they could sit inside.

Most Likely to Be Owned by Toby: The Jeep Hurricane was awesome to behold. It looked wildly out of place next to the other SUVs. It comes with four-wheel independent steering that creates a turn radius of zero. There are no doors and the body is largely made of carbon fiber. If I could have taken one vehicle out for a spin today, this probably would have been it.

Stuck in Wichita

JoLee is writing a paper this semester on Paul Meltsner's painting, Martha Graham Dance Class (c.a. 1939). She wanted to see the painting in person, so we trucked down to the Wichita Art Museum yesterday morning. Wichita is a three hour drive, so we intended to return last night; however, our car's alternator broke and we ended up stranded in the middle of Kansas with no bags! With the help of the Honda dealership that happened to be on our way into town, we were able to contact a mechanic and find a hotel before it got too late. The hotel supplied us with a toothbrush and toothpaste, and we found food and a bookstore at the strip mall across the street. We were very fortunate to have everything we needed within walking distance. In the morning, the mechanic fixed our car in less than three hours and we were back on the road. With the exception of a costly repair, we both enjoyed our little adventure in Wichita.

JoLee spent an hour observing this painting and taking notes. She set up a few folding chairs for us to be comfortable. I highly recommend touring art museums with art history majors. It makes you feel like you know what you're doing.

I know not all art is beautiful, but I thought this painting was. The colors and the forms and the subject matter (i.e. modern dance) make this painting wonderful to look at.

The museum had a space for kids to explore and learn about art. I put this series of ramps and tubes together.

This one was JoLee's design.

After the art museum, we visited the Exploration Place (which is somewhat similar to the Exploritorium in San Francisco). Wichita has a rich flight history, so a big portion of the museum was dedicated to aeronautics. Here I am trying to fly the Wright Brothers' plane at Kitty Hawk. I'm pleased to say that I crashed spectacularly.

The nature section of the Exploration Place had this exhibit of a decomposing rat being consumed by maggots and a giant slug. This one's for you, Blake!

The drive between Kansas City and Wichita is spectacularly beautiful in my opinion. It takes you through the flint hills, which is some of the only tall prairie grass left in the world. What makes the flint hills so unique is the lack of trees. Under a thin layer of soil lies solid rock, making the flint hills useless for farming but excellent for grazing. In the winter time it's a little bare, but come springtime it will be miles and miles of rolling green grass. This drive should be beautiful when Jen and I drive it in June, but I'd argue that it's beautiful even in the winter.

We had incredibly powerful winds on both legs of our journey. A storm was rolling in as we drove home, but we were lucky to arrive before it started to rain.

The last time a car broke when I was on a road trip was in Salt Lake City. My dad got our family a hotel room downtown and we all went swimming with our friends in the hotel pool. Unfortunately, we didn't have our swimsuits in Wichita, but we still had fun.

Zephyr's Toy

Mom sent Zephyr some toys in the mail (despite the fact that Zephyr has been a very bad cat on our walks lately). As you can see from the video below she thoroughly enjoyed her present. Thanks, Mom!

A Plug For Google Reader

A few weeks ago, after watching my wife go through her regular routine of checking for new blog posts, I decided to hook her up with Google Reader. For those of you who already know or use a feed reader, you can skip this post; this will tell you nothing new. This post is for those of you who are checking a handful (or several handfuls) of blogs on a regular basis by going to each one hoping to find something new.

In simple terms,Google Reader consolidates blog posts (and any news posts) into one source. It's like reading a newspaper that is full of only stories that matter to you. It's incredibly easy to use. All you need is a Google account. Here is how Google Reader works.

1. Go to www.google.com/reader and sign into your account (or create an account if necessary).

2. Subscribe to a blog by entering its URL into the subscription window. Here I'm subscribing to this blog, joleeandnate.blogspot.com.

3. Read the latest posts within Blogger. You don't have to visit the blog to read read the latest posts, but if you decide you want to visit the blog simply click on the name at top and it will take you there.

4. Read about old post by scrolling down.

5. Subscribe to as many blogs as you want to and organize them into folders (technically they're tags). Notice that this menu will tell you how many new items there are to read in each blog. In this example the blogs are organized in two groups: the Jensens and the Walters. Notice that all of there are 38 new "Jensen" posts in all, "The Stephens" has no new items, and "A Flat and Two Cats" has 3 new posts.

A reader not only saves you time in checking multiple posts, it actually helps you find new posts more quickly. You can also share items with friends, star favorite items to be referenced later, and even access items on your mobile device. Finally, there are a few tools to show you how often you check your feeds and which ones you read the most.

The Birthday Boy

Today is Nate's birthday! Last night I surprised Nate with a birthday celebration because I teach a night class on Thursdays. Here he is with his presents.


This is exactly what Nate wanted for his birthday. That is why he looks so excited. He told me that he used to read Consumer Reports from cover to cover when he was a kid, kind of like how I used to read large sections of National Geographic when I was younger. I'll let you judge for yourself which is nerdier.


As many of you know, Nate is not a big lover of treats. In fact, if I ever make cookies he will only eat two, which he feels is rather generous. So, I was racking my brain to think of what we could do for a birthday cake. And then I had an inspiration ... Donuts. Nate loves donuts. They are practically the only treat that tempts him. He was really excited about the donut birthday cake.


Zephyr liked Nate's birthday too. Mostly because I let her play with the wrapping paper after he opened his presents. She was quite a pest while I was trying to wrap the presents.

Happy Birthday Nate. I love you.