Fun in church

This past Sunday we slept in a bit and ended up having some issues getting to church on time.  In fact, for whatever reason I took Emma and Mary with me in the van and Genni brought Josh a few minutes behind us.  The girls and I walked in after the meeting started and got the latecomers’ bench near the front of the chapel.  Things were ok for a while.  The girls were happily sharing my lap (which is unusual).  They were sitting quietly and coloring and all was good.

Then, just as sacrament was about finished, Mary decided she wanted to go into the aisle.  When Mary wants to get somewhere she has several techniques to get there.  She struggles and fights and then starts to loudly state what she wants.  So imagine a quiet chapel, people pondering, when all the sudden the little girl in the front starts yelling, “I want to shake my bootie!”  She had decided it was time to go in the aisle and start dancing, or “shake her bootie".  Of course, since I wouldn’t let her, she repeated her desire several times, getting progressively louder each time.  Genni wasn’t there yet so we couldn’t just escape, but a coloring book saved me.  She was distracted by the coloring book pictures, but not before the damage was done.  My hope is that everyone got a good laugh out of it.  I sure did.

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Windows Live Writer Test

Microsoft released new Windows Live Beta software recently (yesterday) and I wanted to try it out.  This post is being written on Windows Live Writer.  We had the company meeting today and they demonstrated lots of upcoming software.  A couple things we can talk about are this software and also Live Mesh.  We will get to Live Mesh in a minute.  First, let me post a picture from Windows Live Photo Gallery.

 

That is Emma and Mary on the first day of school.  This blogging editor allowed me to just insert the picture and put it to the size I wanted.  Cool.   I like it.  You can also do formatting of the picture.  As you can see, I made this picture have rounded corners and made it black and white.  Search for Windows Live beta to get the programs.  You should try it out.

Live Mesh allows someone to share files among different computers without having to copy them to a thumb drive or a network drive.  You have a folder on each computer or device that is part of the mesh.  Then, when you change something in that folder on one device, it will update all the other devices with the same change.  Check out Mesh to learn more about it.  It is pretty cool actually.

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Skype is cool

We have a video camera that can double as a webcam and we use it to talk to folks on Skype. This has especially come in handy with Genni's parents spending a few years in Australia. The other day I turned on the computer and there was a chat message from a person in Brazil asking if I was Elder Pulsipher a few years ago. I responded in the affirmative and learned the person on the other end was the daughter of the branch president in one of the areas I served in. We had a chat and she filled me in on the all the stuff going on there. It was very nice to get back in touch with someone from there.

We have also used skype to talk to my sister, Sara, as she starts school in Rexburg. Genni talks to her sister, Kim, and we had a chat with her brother, Nathan, the other day. It is really neat to not only talk, but see the people on the other end. We will probaby be using it more often since we moved to the far corner of the country.

Are there any other clients out there that do video chat? I think Windows Live Messenger does and even allows the user to leave a video voice mail for someone. Not sure though. Let us know if you ever want to talk and see my kids running around like wild maniacs.

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Beware of Costco

Costco is a dangerous place.

I stopped by there yesterday to pick up some surge protector power strips and decided to take a look around, "just to see." We have been in need of something for clothing storage and they had a nice dresser with a mirror attached. I don't really care about the mirror, but the dresser could be very useful. Our closets here are about 1/10th the size of the closets in our Sahuarita home. My clothes are falling off the shelves. It just so happens Costco was trying to clear out the furniture to bring in the Christmas stuff. The dresser was marked down almost 40% from its original price. I made a rather hasty decision and bought it.

The only issue was my Saturn parked in front of the store wasn't quite big enough to fit the dresser. In fact, I wasn't sure it could fit in the van. The Costco people suggested renting a truck from the Lowes close by. The not so friendly Lowes people informed me you actually had to buy something from their store to rent their truck. Dangit! I headed home, helped the kids to bed, and headed back to Costco with the van. Turns out the thing wouldn't fit in the van very well either. The Costco dude helped me out and we laid it on its back. It fit. I just hoped nothing was broken in the process.

At home there was a new challenge waiting. Getting it inside. I called a friend from the ward (hopefully still a friend after this). He came over with his wife and we hauled the thing into the house. It was heavy and much larger in the room than it looked in the big warehouse, but Genni likes it and that is important.

The moral of the story (and one you would think I would have learned before): Beware of checking things out in Costco "just to see."

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