Most of the things I post here are lighthearted and are not meant to be taken seriously; however, I've recently been thinking about something more solemn. I would like to deviate from my standard practice to ask an earnest question: Is it possible to donate your body to Hollywood? It's commonplace to donate organs to either save lives or for scientific use. You can donate your entire body for science, research and education. But could you donate your body to Hollywood to be used as a stunt double for a really cool stunt? There are numerous possibilities and it could be an incredibly cool way to make your final, final exit.

Not that I'm counting, but it has now been 13 days, 1 hour and 7 minutes since Sam and Lisa's blog has been updated. I just don't want them to forget about their little Internet child.

An announcement to the world was recently made - one that turned the blogging world upside-down. On May 18th, Lisa announced to the world (via this web page) that their blog was up and running. Our joy could not be contained, but soon our tears of joy shattered on the ground like so many broken hearts and dreams. Eleven days have passed and still no new posts. If we band together our collective wills, we may be able to revive our ailing friend, but we'll have to do this...together.

Moving on...my ride home from work on Friday was just as exciting as I thought it would be. For the last half of the ride, I was riding directly into the wind, which was blowing insanely hard. I got dirt in my eyes thanks to said wind. It was good exercise, though. I'm still planning on riding as many days this week as I can.

Friday night we celebrated Mike's birthday by getting together for pizza and cake. We played a half-hearted game of Apples to Apples. Most of the other adults were doing something else, so Mike and I played with those who were available. No offense to the other players (primarily children), but it was a little strange to play when you have to explain most of the cards. We had fun, though.

We didn't do much else this weekend, except that today we went to R.C. Willey to look around. More than anything we were just looking around to remind ourselves that we don't have any money; however, I got a screaming deal on Daxter for PSP. Daxter is currently the highest-rated game by GameSpot and the second highest by IGN. It's a new game and is usually $40, but R.C. Willey was selling it for $20. I had to get it.

My parents and Mike came over tonight for a little Memorial Day BBQ. We played some Rummikub, watched some Glenn Beck and Seinfeld and ate some cookies and junk. It was a very fun evening, but I'm still not prepared for another week of work...

Since May 24th was Bike to Work Day 2006 for Reno, I decided to sheep-up and participate. It only took me about five minutes longer to get to work. Plus, I can take a super secret shortcut that is not available to the motorized menace. The weather is superb right now, so I'm taking the opportunity to save a few bucks in gas and get a little bit of extra exercise. I biked in today, also, but it's kind of windy outside right now. The breeze was very welcome this morning on the way to work, but going home might be a little more exciting.

Did you know that today is Mike's birthday? Well, it is!

Chase had an incredibly bad night last night as he tried to go to bed. He was mostly asleep, but was startled by something when he was in his crib. He didn't want to go back to sleep, but I tried to help him resume his slumber anyway. He began to cry, but I just let him hoping that he would cry himself to sleep. His initial cry, which was obviously not real, lasted about five or ten minutes, and then turned into a whirlwind of fury. I picked him up and eventually settled him down, but every five minutes or so he would suddenly erupt again. It was very sad, but he eventually dozed and all was well.

In funnier news, Chase hates peas. We made some video that was downright hilarious. Besides the funny expressions, he dry heaves and everything. Emilie says that she's trying to help him learn to like pea baby food, but I think she feeds it to him just to see the reaction. I'll see if I can get a screen grab from the video...

We recently had the pleasure of going to the temple last week in preparation for David and Elise's wedding. It was Elise's first time to the temple and it was the first time Emilie and I had been since Chase was born, so it was an excellent experience for all.

David and Elise were married last Saturday. They were definitely made for each other, so it's good to see them tie-the-knot. I missed the wedding ceremony because I didn't have anyone to leave Chase with, but amends were made as I partook of some delicious food from Fig Tree Catering during the wedding luncheon. The weather was perfect all day. The only down side of everything is that Elise's car was excessively violated during the reception. The streamers were funny. The window markers were okay, but it went far beyond that...Hopefully her poor car will make a full recovery and serve the new couple for years to come. Get well soon, little car!

I had an experience recently that caused me to have a near calamitous reaction. I went to the vending machine at work to purchase some afternoon refreshment. When the change came out I noticed that there was a new 2006 quarter in the bunch. I flipped it over. You can imagine my horror when I realized that it was the new Nevada state quarter with the wild horses. I lost my appetite for the refreshment - I'm lucky I didn't lose more than that. I thought about throwing the quarter away to get it out of my possession and to take it out of circulation, but ultimately I decided that there are too many Nevada coins out there and I won't be able to make a difference. I just ditched it as soon as I could. I had to. I felt like Frodo carrying the ring. It had a dark, consuming power that seemed to violently eat at my soul. The only difference is that when it came time to ditch the quarter there was no temptation to keep it.

Then there was an owl! You may remember the story about the quail. This was similar, but it happened late one night while driving home after work. Last Monday (the 15th) I had to go in to get some work done. I finished up and left the office just before 12:30a. While driving down Double R I saw a bird flying the same speed as my car on the other side of the road. As we passed the entrance to Double Diamond, the bird flew over the sign lights and I got a good look at it. Seeing owls is fairly uncommon, even though they're all over the area. They tend to be cruising around while most people are indoors and sleeping. Anyway, the owl flew for several blocks right along side my truck, so I got a pretty good look. Very cool.

This is at least the fourth time that I've started writing this post in the past 9 days. This is the magic time that I will finish the post.

The Saturday before last marked the official beginning of the 2006 Carpenter mountain biking season. I wasn't sure how the trail would be this early in the year, but I went up and rode the Whites Creek loop. There were a few small patches of snow, and the trail was a little soggy near the top, but it was mostly an excellent ride. I pushed myself and made it to the creek with any stops or breaks, but my energy started fizzling after that. The water in the creek was much higher than usual, so to cross it I had to wade through water almost up to my knees. The part of the trail after the creek is the hardest part. It is in full sun with no shade and is steep, narrow and often loose. To make it more exciting there are three switchbacks that are nearly impossible to ride through. I made it to the first switchback, but I walked from the first until halfway to the third. I had to walk from the third to the top. One of the things I like best about this trail is the stark contrast between the last stretch and the rest of the trail after it. The last push is painful, but it's all forgotten once you reach the top. On the way down there were a few downed trees in the path, but that just added to the excitement. I'm hoping to go again this week.

This last Saturday I didn't ride because I was competing in the 2006 City of Reno Corporate Challenge Tug O War contest. We were undefeated in our division and won the gold. I even got a sweet medal!

Chase is growing like crazy. He went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago and the doctor said he is in the 98th percentile for height and the 95th for weight. So, besides being massive, he's learning to roll over. He won't do it when he's playing or when we want him to, but when we put him in bed he likes to roll around. We've gone in to check on him a few times this week and found him in some pretty weird positions.

We watched a couple of movies over the weekend - Dreamer and Fun with Dick and Jane. They were both okay, but I think Emilie liked Dreamer a lot more.

Glenn Beck's TV show started last Monday. It's different than I thought it would be, but for the better. It's on CNN Headline News at 4p, 6p and 9p Pacific. You should watch.

Anyway, I'm a little bitter because I'm here at work blogging while I'm waiting for images to copy, updates to run, etc. instead of being home watching Prison Break (season finale) and 24. Argh.

All is not bad, though. I finally defeated all CPU opponents in Lumines. I am a hero.

In keeping with tradition, Microsoft has made another crappy product. It's unfortunate because they had a good start.

The product I'm talking about is Windows Defender. When it was still Windows Antispyware, it was actually a very good product. It caught things that no other application could. It was compact and clean and worked like a champ.

I don't care enough about the issue to gripe about specifics, but I'll say that the new product has less features and is considerably more difficult to configure and use, in my opinion. The only reason I bring this up at all is that my Antispyware tool prompted me to upgrade tonight - my "upgrade" was Windows Defender. Bah.

I came across an interesting story today. You should read this story if you want to find out what gives it that special taste.

The intent of this message was to post a follow-up to my message from a couple of days ago; however, strange happenings compel me to expound.

I had posted the web site for Dana's ministry, but I did not have the address for his blog. The reason I didn't post a link to his blog is that I had been using a U3 drive and it somehow caused my Firefox settings to disappear. I had been using the U3 version of Firefox without any problem; however, after removing the drive my bookmarks, history, etc. were missing from my regular Firefox install.

I thought all was lost. It wasn't a big deal - I just wasn't able to remember the address of Dana's blog.

Anyway, after opening Firefox this morning I noticed that my bookmarks magically reappeared. I checked the address bar history and, sure enough, all my information was restored. I rebooted yesterday, which I suppose could have fixed it. I'm not sure why it happened, though. I also don't know why closing and reopening Firefox wouldn't have corrected the problem. Weird.

ANYWAY, you can now visit Dana's blog. It's fairly new, so there's not much to read. He assured me that he will be taking pictures during his trip to Houston and will post all the juicy details when he gets there. We shall see...

Old South Virginia Street seems to be full of excitement. Rarely do I drive down that street without creating memories - usually not good ones (think hit and run and marmot consumption by vultures).

Yesterday was no exception, but the event was far less catastrophic than usual. I was driving down the street when I noticed that on the side of the road there were two quail flying at exactly the same speed that I was driving. This continued long enough for me to begin to feel uncomfortable. Suddenly, they took a sharp turn and flew over the hood of my truck and crossed to the other side of the road. It was the first time I was cut off by a bird. I was going to take appropriate measures, but I felt weird giving a bird the bird.

Everyone lived and only my ego was slightly bruised.

There is, of course, one piece of incredible news surrounded by crumbs of useless information. Emilie celebrated her 30th birthday on Friday! Although this event is tremendous, the events of the day were less than. We celebrated by going to Applebee's - a risky move considering that we haven't had a good experience there for quite a while. It turned out pretty good, though.

Following Applebee's, we ventured to Babies"R"Us and bought a ton of stuff for Chase. Among the goodies was a Jump & Go™ doorway jumper. Chase seems to like it, although he hasn't quite figured out yet what to do in it. After Babies"R"Us we stopped by Best Buy. Emilie decided to get the newest Coldplay CD as a very exciting birthday present.

I hate to go from talking about something so great to totally bumming you out, but here goes: my allergies have been acting up. While searching through my archives I found a post from this time last year about the same thing. Thanks to the blog archives, I learned that this seems to happen every April. Next year I'll be prepared.

We watched the last half of two depressing movies this weekend - Flight 93 on A&E and Life is Beautiful. Both excellent films, although not really feel-good fodder.

I regret to announce that my friend and cow-orker, Pastor Dana Jones, had his last day at work today. He's moving his family to Houston to pursue his goals there. He's going to be deeply missed. He has a blog, too, but I can't remember the address right now. I'll post it as soon as I remember.