Fathers Day (and the Sushi)

Fathers Day weekend turned out to be such a great weekend! On Saturday, Bethany consented to accompany me to a highly recommended sushi restaurant for some teriyaki chicken. Well ... she had the teriyaki chicken and I had the sushi. It was some of the best sushi I've ever had. I understand that many of you don't appreciate this type of cuisine and so I thought I'd describe in non-vomit-inducing language what it is about this type of food that is so appealing to me.

I have to start off saying that I like interesting food. As long as it's not of foul odor, I'm probably willing to try it. (There was that one time in Madame Sprot's French class where she promised us extra credit for eating escargot in a buttery garlic sauce and while it didn't reek, wisdom was set aside for the extra credit. And, might I add, the extra credit wasn't near enough to make it worth it but there wasn't anything I could do at that point. It's not like ANYONE wants to taste snails a second time.)

Anyway, back to the part about me enjoying interesting food...

Take, for example, mashed potatoes. They can be pretty good but I think they are boring. You have some boiled potatoes that get mashed and mixed with some milk, butter, salt, pepper and maybe some garlic salt too. Do you see what I mean? That's boring. You've got to liven it up; give it some kick (and I'm not talking about putting hot sauce on everything either.) Sushi is interesting. You've got a small portion of fish, which is the most repulsive part for most people. Sometimes the fish is just a small cut of meat wrapped with some vegetables like carrot, avocado, cucumber, etc. Other times, the meat is ground up into a thick paste with a variety of spices to enhance the flavor. Then, that stuff is wrapped in a thin seaweed paper which in turn is wrapped in a thin layer of sticky rice. You can eat it plain or you can take it one step further. I like to pour some soy sauce in a little bowl that most restaurants provide along with a little bit of wasabi. Mix it up well and dip your sushi in it for a saltier and spicier experience. The seaweed is never tough. It falls apart in your mouth and a symphony of flavors blend together to make for a tasty dish. Quite honestly, the fish itself has very little flavor when combined with so many other ingredients so if you're worried about that, don't.

After dinner, we went to see Prince of Persia at the movie theater. It was great. There was lots of captivating action with an intriguing storyline. I'd recommend it to most anyone.

On Sunday morning, many of my meetings were postponed or cancelled so I had some extra time to spend with my family. Bethany served us a great breakfast and the kids had presents for me to open. I ended up with some new clothes, a pass for 9 holes of golf at our nearby golf course and a Star Wars Father's Day card that was so funny, my kids almost died from laughter. At church, the sisters from Relief Society handed out a bag of peanut M&M's along with a quote to all of the men. It was great! It's such a heart-warming feeling to be part of a family and have children who love me, look up to me, and want to do things for me in spite of my own shortcomings. I'm glad Fathers Day is a widely celebrated occasion.

Carrots: What a Way To Ruin An Appetite!

There. I finally said it.

I am starting to loathe the stupid little baby carrots that come in these little (or family sized) bags. They aren't real carrots. They are imitation carrots, like krab with a "k" only they're karrots with a "k". The more of them I attempt to eat, the more I feel like they are miserable excuses for the real deal. And just what is the real deal for me? Well, I prefer carrots that are somewhat sweet and not dry or rubbery. The same-size cylinder-shaped carrots in bags are rubbery and usually not sweet. And they start to dry out within a matter of days. I'll bet if Adam or Eve had a bite of one of these lousy processed carrots, they'd hurl.

We have planted carrots in our garden (which haven't started to come out of the ground yet—it's something of a concern) and if these aren't sweet, I'm swearing off raw carrots for good.

Yeah, you probably detected that I'm a little anti-vegetable today. It's happening more and more lately....

Road Kill

I have almost no experience running over living things with my vehicle. As a general rule, I will dodge, swerve, or yield to most any living thing because...I'm nice.

However, with that said, the ride home from work recently involved a hit and run. Let me explain.

I was headed west on a road where the speed limit is 50 mph. I was pretty much maintaining that speed. The sun had set behind the mountains yet the street lights had not turned on. I was on my cell phone with Bethany. I approached a 3-way intersection with traffic coming toward me and a side street to my left. There was no stop sign and I usually motor along the road without so much as a slow down. However on this particular night, I noticed a large bird stroll into the path of oncoming traffic. But my focus turned from the bird for a moment to the oncoming traffic as it came to a halt. Also there was the truck waiting at the intersection on the side road to make a left-hand turn. It looked like the two people in there were smiling and watching this bird saunter out into traffic. At this point, the bird left the lane of oncoming traffic and strolled into my lane. Do you see the problem? I was close enough to see the expressions on the faces of the two people in the truck on the side road which means I was pretty darn close to the bird.

There's some detail about this bird I noticed in the brief fraction of a second I had to look at it. It was a very beautiful bird. The top section of it's slender neck was a dark blue. It had a distinct white ring below the blue and there was a lot of detail in the rest of the rusty brown and yellowish-orange feathers all over it's body. It seemed to stand about 1.5 feet tall which is about eye level with my bumper...

Anyway, my fascination with the colorful detail of this bird was alarmingly interrupted by the realization that it's days were numbered, zero to be precise. I tried to slow down but the cars behind me were following too closely. The bird and I made eye contact just before it vanished behind the front corner of my car. And with that, a shocking thud was felt from the the front of the car followed by two softer thuds below the car. Traffic behind me slowed down as I hit my brakes. In my rear view mirror I watched vehicles slowly pass through a cloud of feathers and dust.

The trauma of the ordeal lasted the rest of the ride home. I couldn't believe what had just happened. I felt bad, almost as bad as when I had caught my first fish at a scouting campout and had to beat it over the head with a metal pipe to kill it before I could gut it. In the coming days I checked for any remnant of the bird but never found anything.

Since then, I've had near misses with two other birds and a mouse, although with the mouse, I'm half tempted to help control the pest population. :)

The Truest Form Of Nerd/Apple Fanboy

I've been a huge proponent of Macs and most everything else made by Apple Computers. Those of you who know me have probably never met anyone with more enthusiasm and zeal for hardware with a particular apple logo on it. I attended Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference back in 2008 on Apple's dime because of a scholarship they awarded me for some code I submitted to them. Also, I have an app in the App Store (GoalMan: www.goalman4iphone.com) that has done well. I'm also about to release my second app. I have several devices from Apple. And sometimes when I hear people dis Apple, I usually get involved in the conversation.

In short, my name is Jason Barker and I'm an Apple Fanboy.

From the audience: Hello, Jason.

So why am I taking the time to point this out. Well, I did something yesterday that made me laugh at myself. Last night, I came across a slew of videos from a recent technology conference called D8. And there were about 10-12 videos that really seemed of interest to me because Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers, was interviewed by Walt Mossberg who has a famous tech column in the Wall Street Journal. You can find the videos here: D8: Steve Jobs. He is truly salt-of-the-earth material and these videos show that side of him. But the crazy part about it all is this: when I had finished watching the videos, it was after 3:00 in the morning! ...and I even watched a few of them again tonight. :)

Welcome to the Jungle

Welcome to the jungle

It gets worse here everyday
Ya learn ta live like an animal
In the jungle where we play
If you got a hunger for what you see
You'll take it eventually
You can have anything you want
But you better not take it from me
In the jungle
Welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your shun n,n,n,n,,n,n,,n,n,n,,n,n,,n knees, knees
I wanna watch you bleed

— Guns N' Roses, Welcome to the Jungle

It has taken be a while to get around to mowing the lawn because I've been busy and I've also been trying to avoid an issue. Our city requires that each residence have these backflow preventers with pressure regulators above ground in our front yard that come off of our culinary water line and become our sprinkler line. Last winter, I didn't quite get mine turned off before the freeze and it busted. The price to replace them is about $180 from Home Depot. The weather has been very accommodating to me with all that I've had to do and so I haven't had to water on my own until this weekend. So, I've been trying some suggestions from neighbors (thanks Shad and James) regarding the use of a cold weld where my backflow preventer is cracked but they didn't quite work so I went looking for a replacement and found one at Lowes for $148. It looks slightly different from what I had and it's about a half-inch longer but I was able to fit it on and I've been happy about that part. However, while testing my sprinklers this weekend, I found out that my sprinkler line is leaking in the back yard so I'll have to dig something up and repair that.

You can see from the photos above that the valve on one end was severely cracked. But I replaced it and mowed the lawn and it's no longer a jungle out there.

Diggin' a Hole to China

We've been working on our yard quite a bit the past few weeks and we decided to put in a few trees. The first of the three is a [tart] cherry tree. I'm really excited about this one because I've always wanted a cherry tree. Bethany wants a lemon elberta peach tree and a fuji or gala apple tree. I would imagine we'll be making some cherry pies later in the summer or the fall (as well as apple pie and peach cobbler) and you're invited to come on over and have a slice with some ice cream. I'll let you know when they're ready. :)

The Fathers and Sons Outing

The weather at the fathers and sons outing this year made for a memorable time. We knew it could rain but we were willing to take our chances. The wind picked up sometime after 11:00 PM and didn't let up until 1:00 AM or so. It constantly shook the tent and I wondered if it would ever wake my boys. They slept through it but I was concerned about them so I didn't sleep much during that time. And then the rain started up just before 1:00 AM and it sounded like it was coming down in sheets. It was so loud. But the boys slept through it and eventually I fell back asleep too. Johnny woke me up around 6:00 complaining that he was really cold. He was standing by my sleeping bag just shivering and was wet from his head to about his tummy. I looked over at his sleeping bag and the whole top part was soaked, including his pillow. I was very concerned about him getting hypothermia. It was interesting because I had a few memories of things that had been taught to me from scouts so many years ago about how to treat someone for hypothermia. So, I helped him change into dry clothes and put him in my sleeping bag. I started to clean up the little bit of water around his sleeping bag. Johnny slept in the middle of the tent with Isaac and me on each side of him. On the floor of the middle of the tent is a seam. The tarp I laid down under the tent was sticking out about a couple of inches on one side which was enough to catch the rain that ran off of the tent and direct it under the tent where it seeped through the seam. Johnny's sleeping bag soaked up much of that water keeping the rest of the tent dry. Anyway, it all turned out fine and he was running around like his usual self after we had breakfast.

Speaking of breakfast, I got to help cook it again this year. I've been in charge of the fathers and sons outing the last two years and have planned an awesome breakfast every time. And then Steve Conger, a local fireman in our ward brings a serious grill from the firehouse and we do scrambled eggs, pancakes and sausage for all of the fathers and sons. It is the second best part of the activity, behind being with my boys. I love seeing the look of satisfaction on everyone's face as they start to eat the food we prepare. This year I made pancakes. Making perfect pancakes is in my blood. My grandpa used to cook pancakes at some of our family outings and he was big on doing them up right. And I've always enjoyed the challenge of getting the heat just right, getting the size just right, and getting them off of the griddle when they are golden brown. It's fun. This year, I watched one of our priests eat nine pancakes for breakfast. Kenneth Stock out ate his dad. I've got a lot of respect for him. I don't think I ever put away that many pancakes before. But he did. We should have had a t-shirt or an award for him for this accomplishment. Maybe we'll do something like that next year.

Anyway, it was a great time and my boys stayed out of the fire and out of the stream and breakfast was a hit. You can't ask for much more than that.