A Look at Facebook

Well, since the beginning of the year, I have been on Facebook. You may have noticed the little picture and logo on the left side.

And honestly, I don’t know that I understand it.

Okay, it has been nice to connect with a few old friends. But that is about the extent of the fun of facebook for me. All of the games on facebook are dumb at best. And there doesn’t seem to be any really useful.

So far most of the “spam” that I have gotten through facebook is from people who want me to rate them and tell them how much of a friend they are to me. While some of these have been in creative ways, none of them have interested me.

Honestly, if your sense of self-worth comes from someone else’s evaluation of you on facebook, then you need to get a life.

I am sure that there are other applications on there, but none of them have found me. I haven’t spent much time looking into them. But what I have found just seems pointless.

Am I missing something here? Are there any facebook junkies that want to show me the rope? Because except for finding a few old mission friends and old neighbors and friends, facebook as proved to be fairly pointless for me.

Twitterpated

Again I find myself using a title that isn’t completely accurate.  Some one is going to take me down for violating truth in advertising laws.  The title just seemed witty and I couldn’t not use it.

I recently decided to give in a get a Twitter account.  I had heard about it before, but I really didn’t see much value in the application.  So, I just let it be.

However, recently some cohorts expressed a desire to communicate with me using twitter.  After a couple of days of thinking about it, I decided that it couldn’t hurt.

Here is where the deception in the title gets revealed.  Twitter is okay.  It is nice for doing an occasional update on what you are doing.  And maybe if more people who I cared about used it more often, then it might be worth my effort.

But for right now, it is a fun toy.  Something that I will play with for a while, but I am sure eventually it will go by the wayside like my old Geocities account from almost 10 years ago (before it was owned by yahoo).

Anyway, if you can’t wait to see what my latest adventures are, then check me out on twitter.  If you want to share more of your life with me, then let me know and I will follow you.

A Review of Prince Caspian

If you have followed this site for any time you know that I love the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.  I also eagerly anticipated the release of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  So, I had similar anticipation of the release of Prince Caspian.

Just like with the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I couldn’t wait until the dollar theater to watch this one.  I am incredibly cheap, and the dollar theater is too much for me.  However,  I am willing to sacrifice for what I hope are great shows, and the Narnia series qualify.  Also, my daughter asking to watch it as a birthday present helped too.

I was tempted to reread the book, because I can’t remember which book Prince Caspian was.  Unfortunately, I didn’t make time to reread the book, and now having watched it, I regret that.  One review implied that the
movie was loosely related to the book.

However, after further study (excluding the rereading of the book), there was only one part of the movie that didn’t stick to the book.  And I will have to give that.  But I could be proven wrong.  Adamson did a great job with the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and I can’t imagine that he would make such a mistaked with this movie.

However, I was a little disconnected with this film.  It seemed that Adamson sacrifice dialog to include fight scenes.  There was one point in the movie, that I didn’t fully understand what was going on, because there was only a brief dialogg leading up to why Lucy had to go into the forest.  And I just wasn’t clear.  Sure if I had the book fresh in my mind, then I would have understood it.

The fight scenes were a little to intense for my liking.  I get that battles are rough.  I understand that war is not pretty.  But in my opinion this movie pushed the limit for me.  I would have personally given it a PG-13 rating.  Which might have kept me from watching it at all.  Maybe I was a little too sensitive because I had two (three if you count the baby) kids that this was probably a little over the top for.

When it comes to the CGI, it was better than the first.  Alsan was more realistic and he appearance didn’t bother my as much as the first Narnia movie.  However, Aslan was not in the movie as much as the first.  So, there was less chance to annoy me.  However, other aspects of the CGI didn’t seem to bother me either.  So, I would say that they got that right.

I have also heard complaints that the Christian themes were dropped in this movie.  However, that was wrong.  It was wonderfully done, and I appreciated the way it was done.  Lessons of temptation, forgiveness, repentance, and faith were wonderfully represented.  I felt inspired from this movie.  Lessons were learned by the Pevensie children as well as the audience.

I can’t find it on the Internet, but Michael Medved gave the move a 2.5 star rating.  And while I agree with him somewhat, I would probably lean to a 3 or 3.5 star rating.  It could have been a 4 to 4.5 if the battle scenes weren’t so intense.

Macro and Micro Government Power

Michael Williams posted about his opinion on whether local governments should have the right to fine people for unkempt yards. And while, I think that a lot of these city ordinances are getting out of hand, I generally agree with him.

Simply put I like to divide the government into Macro- and Micro-level roles. The Macro-government is the federal government. The micro-government is typified by cities and towns.

the level of control they should be allowed to exert is directly related to the level at which they govern. The feds should be primarily worried about military, economy, and interstate relations. Their concern should be about the larger issues that truly effect our nation as a whole.

Cities can worry about such things as lawn length, dog licenses and neighbor relations. While I think that their should be some very significant checks on many of these ordinances, there is some room for them to consider such laws.

Another level that could be considered is Mid-level government. Counties and States have a concern for more mid-level laws like education and roads. Again we are looking at those items that fall between the federal government purview and the local government.

That is a very oversimplification of things. But I have been wanting to post about this for a while, so I appreciate the unintended encouragement from Michael Williams.

Is the Race between Chaffetz and Cannon Really Tight?

Okay we all know that the Deseret News’ cheif editor is Chris Cannon’s Brother, Joe Cannon. And we are all confident that Mr. Cannon would never let his paper show bias towards any candidate, right? (wink, wink, nod, nod).

However, their recent news article on polling shows that bias again in two ways. As with all polling done by Dan Jones and associates, their polling numbers are outrageously low.

For this politcal survey Dan Jones managed to poll a whopping total of 203 potential voters. To see this total look at this lovely graphic and read the parenthetical phrase at the bottom. It is interesting that nowhere in the article do they mention the 203 number.

I will give them credit for sharing the +/- 7 percent with us. But what few people understand is that +/- 7 percent is directly related to the number polled. Had they polled another 200 or even 800 individuals the could have had a +/- 5 percent or +/- 3 percent, respectively.

Sure if the results would have remained 39-37 (for Cannon), then it would have still been too close to call. However, we won’t know because the polling was incomplete.

The second issue is that they polled independent voters and said that would be the key to Chaffetz winning the race. While the numbers here are still suspect. That isn’t the key problem for me. The problem I have is that they fail (complete neglect) to mention that Utah has closed primaries. This is something the Mr. Bernick is aware of, because he wrote a piece about this 2 years ago. Ooops. This point is mute moot. I completely missed it in the article. But I am still suspicious about the stats.

If you are an Independent voter, you need to register as a Republican. Why would Bernick and his editor not mention that in their article? Perhaps, they don’t want the independent voter to register to vote. Perhaps, They would like to keep the status quo.

If you are an independent and you want to see Chris Cannon out, don’t wait for the general election. It is very likely that our next Congressman will be decided on June 24th and not in November. Register yourself to as a Republican, even if you feel like you have hold your nose while you do so.

If you are an independent and you want to see Jason Chaffetz win, then now is the time to act. Go to your county clerk’s office or website and register as a Republican. It is the number one way that you can show your support for Mr. Chaffetz.

To me this is just another blatant example of poor politcal reporting by the Deseret News and another example of the main stream media trying to influence the vote. Don’t let their lack of reporting this properly influence you and your decision.

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Here is a list of counties in the Third District and how to register (or renew your registration as a Republican):

Salt Lake County Voter Registration

Utah County Voter Registration Q & A (form - pdf)

Juab County Clerk’s Office (email)

Sanpete County Clerk’s Office (scroll down for voter information and this form - pdf)

Millard County Clerk’s Office (Just use the same form as the other counties)

Sevier County Voter Registration Information (form - pdf)

Beaver County Clerk’s Office (form -pdf)

SODO: The Great Chicken Dinner

Okay, the title to this post is a little misleading. Because last night’s meal was nothing great.

I guess, I felt that because I had been home all day that I would have enough time to start some dutch oven. But I didn’t start until 5:00 in the evening. And we had kids that needed to be to various church activities. So, I was thinking that this would have dinner done well before 6:30pm.

I was so wrong. At 6:30, the chick was still raw and the potatoes were crunchy. It really wasn’t ready to eat. So, we fed the kids a small amount of left overs and sent them to their activities.

Pride having set in, I decided to keep them on the coals for another half hour or hour. But somewhere in there, I knew that I needed hotter coals. So, after the hour had expired, and American Idol was half over, I broke down and put them in the oven.

I know, it’s horrible. We were hungry and needed to eat.

After another half hour, it was finally good enough to eat. Still some of the potatoes and carrots weren’t fully cooked, but the were still edible.

So, after that disaster of a dinner you my be wondering why the title of this post. I call this recipe “The Great Chicken Dinner” because it was perhaps one of my first exposures to dutch oven, and the chicken usually tastes great. So, here is the recipe:

1-2 lbs. of bone in chicken (last night we did legs and thighs)
1/4 cup of butter
1/2 cup of flour
2 tbs of seasoned salt (to taste)
10-12 small potatoes cut into about 1/2 inch slices
1 lbs bag of baby carrots (medium carrots cut into baby carrot size is okay too).
1 small onion sliced
1 can of cream of chicken soup

First of all start melting the butter in the pan. Then remove the skin from the chicken. In a large bowl or plastic resealable bag mix the flour and seasoned salt. Coat the chicken with the flour mixture then brown in the melted butter. After both sides are browned, leave chicken in dutch oven and top with potatoes, carrots, onions, and cream of chicken soup.

Looking over the recipe, and after a pleasant comment from my wife, I realized that I had forgotten the cream of chicken soup.  There wasn’t enough moisture to cook the potatoes and carrots properly.

Also, the charcoal that I used had been slightly moist from all of the rain that we had yesterday.  Combine that with the wet ground, and I don’t think that my coals were hot enough to reach the needed 350 degrees.  So, yesterday was definitely a learning experiences.

We’re Debt Free!

Two and a half years ago, my wife and I moved into our new home. After that move, we had one goal. That was to get rid of our consumer debt.

We started out by paying $700 extra on the one consumer loan that we had. It was a student loan that totalled somewhere near $32,000. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either. Somehow, I managed to ignore the fact that I was that deep in debt.

I also started this process by reading Dave Ramsey’s book “The Total Money Makeover.” While reading it I felt pretty good. I had not car loans. Our credit card was paid off every month, and I felt that I was on the right track.

Then came the section on Student Loans. That when it hit me hard that I was not different than other people. Sure, my interest rate was less than most. But the reality was that it was still that terrible four-letter word, DEBT.

Eventually, through pay raises and some other tightening of the proverbial belt, we started to pay $1000 every month towards the student loan. We also used the tax refunds and part of a company bonus to help us pay down our debt.

Finally on April 15 2008, I made my last payment on the student loan. I was debt free (at least on the consumer side, I still owe on my home).

I say was, because I then did something sort of stupid. I bought a new computer that cost almost $1000 dollars. I did this because I knew that buy the time the credit card bill came due we would have the money, and because our last computer was literally on its last leg.

Thus, I am waiting until today to officially announce that I am debt free. I paid of the computer and other credit card balance (like I do every month), and I can honestly say I am debt free.

Our next step is to build our financial reserves and my wife and I are adding food storage.  But we need a break from discipline.  So we are buying a few wants over the next few months.  These include a tent trailer (already purchased), a new computer (also purchased), a new washer and dryer, some furniture for our family room, a safe, and some other incidentals.

I just hope these next few months of “frivolity” don’t have us regretting our decision.  But starting in January, we will get really serious about our financial and food stores.

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Just as a final note. Dave Ramsey does not condone the use of credit cards, and for the most part I agree with him. However, after 14 years of discipline has shown, my wife and I can handle credit cards. We don’t use them, unless we have the money to back up the purchase, and we always return to a zero balance at the end of each month. I only recommend credit cards if you KNOW that you will pay them off each month, and will use them wisely.