Real family date

We headed up to Sandy for a Real Salt Lake Soccer game today. We've been to one other game, but haven't been to a game since they moved from the University of Utah Stadium to their own stadium in Sandy.



Real Salt Lake played the Austin Texas Aztex's. The game was open to the public and best of all free. We got there when the doors opened (11am), got a great parking spot and even got front row seats. If you zoom in on the picture below, at the bottom of the "A" in Real, you can see Deni sitting on the front row. The only problem was the game didn't start until 1pm. We were shaded most of that time, which was nice. The time went by fairly fast as it was fun to watch both teams warm up.



Deni, Sydney and Ryan during the game.




Ryan, Sydney and myself during the game.



The team Real played wasn't a MLS team, so the majority of the game was spent on the opposing teams side, which was the opposite goal from where we were sitting, however the 2nd half of the game we had the action on our end of the field and also on our side of the field. The score ended up being Real 3 - Aztex 1. The last goal Real scored was in the last seconds of the game and was amazing.

Brett, the co-inventor

Sounds funny, I know.

A few months back, a co-worker and I submitted an idea to an internal Invention Committee. The submission alone gets you $75 bucks and a T-shirt. It was initially rejected, however my co-worker resubmitted it and apparently explained it slightly differently the second time he met with the committee and it was accepted.

From there a outside patent lawyer was assigned to take the information submitted and translate the technical idea into a lawyered up 30 page document that was ready to be submitted to the US Patent Office.

So what does this all mean.

First, a Patent application has been submitted to the US Patent Office with my name as co-inventor.

Second, with the filing of this Patent, I got a little bonus. Right before we officially submitted it, we signed a number of legal documents essentially saying that my employer owns the patent, and in return I'd get the bonus, which is completely fair.

Apparently it can take up to three years for the US Patent Office to review and either accept or reject the patent.

It was an interesting process and has gotten me a little more visibility to my boss and boss's boss.

Uh Dad, I don't want to be mean, but

Tonight was date night.

We haven't had individual dates with the kids in a while. It's always fun to go out with one of the kids and spend one on one time with them.

Tonight Ryan had a date with his mom, while I got a date with Sydney.

Ryan choose to go to the Jr High with Deni to see the Disney play Mulan, put on by the Jr High kids. Sydney also wanted to go the play, but Ryan was adamant that Sydney and I do something different, as he wanted a date with just his mom. We finally came to an agreement that we'd all go, but we would drive in separate cars and sit in different spots. A win-win for all.

There were a number of kids from the ward in the play and 2 from my Scout group. The tickets were $5 a person. I'm cheap, as that seems pricey for a Jr High play. I think I only paid $15 a seat for Broadway plays in NYC while I was on my mission. However, the play was excellent and enjoyed by all.

On the way home, I was singing to a song on the Radio and Sydney said "Uh Dad, I don't want to be mean, but can we just listen to the song."

Shortly after that we pulled up behind a car in the right lane sitting at red light and Sydney said "Don't they know they can turn on a red light."

Geocaching

Since getting our hand held GPS, we've gone out a few time looking for geocaches. It's quite addicting. Some have been really easy to find and others are trying our patience (I've been back 3 times now and still can't find it, but I know it's there.)

Ryan, Sydney and I have a few minutes on Saturday, so we went out. We found our target, but couldn't get into the container. This geocache was quite different from the others we had found. This one required you to bring a gallon of water, to pour into a tube. So we went home and went out as a family a little while later.

You had to pour the water in the pipe and the container floated to the top. Quite amazing.




Inside the PVC pipe was a log book to sign in and little odds and ends to trade. Sydney really wanted the hot wheels car in the pipe, so I told her to go and find something in the car to trade. She came back with a paperclip. Not really a fair trade, but worked for now. We're going to have to raid the kids toy room to get rid of all the little useless toys we've acquired over the years.



After we made the trade, I screwed the lid on tight and put the pvc pipe back into it's hiding place for the next geocacher.

Miracles in Provo

Tonight I, along with a second Scout leader (Scott), took 7 Varsity Scouts to the Marriott Center for to watch a BYU Basketball game. I'll be honest, I'm not a sports fan, nor do I waste my time watching sport events, however in the Varsity Scout Program, the boys focus on a certain activity for 3 months that lead up to an Ultimate Activity. The Ultimate Activity in this case was the BYU basketball game. They had been planning on attending this game for the last 3 months.

Scott was in charge of getting tickets, however we both agreed that since we didn't know exactly how many boys would actually come, it would be better to buy tickets at the door. Scott left a few minutes before me and when he got to the Marriott Center, the game was sold out. I'm sure it being the last home game of the season, senior night, and the conference Championship game didn't help.

Scott called me to give me the bad news and we talked on our cell phones attempting to make other plans. As we were waiting for Scott and the other half of the boys to come back to the parking lot, one of the boys rolled down the window and asked the car next to us if they had any extra tickets. He said he did have some, but they weren't with him. So the boy got out of the car and began talking to anyone in the parking lot asking for extra tickets. Within 3 minutes, he had gotten 4 tickets, however we needed 9. A few of the other boys started doing the same and within another few minutes, we got 3 more tickets free. 7 free tickets to a sold out game. Not too bad.

With 7 tickets in hand, we decided to start walking towards the Marriott Center to see if we could get 2 remaining tickets. As we walked on to the Marriott Center property, the boys asked a couple a few steps ahead of us if they had any extra tickets. They of course had 2 extra tickets. Amazing.

Finally with 9 free tickets in hand, we went into the game. We only missed the first 5 minutes or so of the game and had a great time watching BYU barely win.

After the game, we went to the Creamery on 9th for some ice cream.

I don't want to

Deni asked me to run with her today. I really didn't want to run since I only started exercising 5 days ago however since I worked through lunch yesterday and didn't get to exercise, I decided (after much weeping/wailing and nashing of teeth) that I'd run with her.

As we left she said 2.5 miles but about 1/2 a mile down the road, she changed her tune to 3 miles. I struggled through the run, stopped a few times but caught up to Deni by the end of the run.

Elapsed Time 28:49
Distance 3.04 mi
Avg Pace 9:29 / mi
Avg Speed 6.33 mph

Christmas in March

No, it didn't snow. It was 60 degrees today. However my new toys arrived.

Ryan and I have been saving our money for a GPS. I told him if he could save up half the money, I'd pay the other half. He's been saving his allowance faithfully and we'd reached a point where it was time to order it. I did quite a bit of research and found a good deal on Amazon. So we finally ordered the Garmin Venture HC GPS. We bought it so we could go Geocaching together (and as a family).

I got a call from Sydney about 4pm saying we had gotten 2 boxes in the mail and she wanted to open them. I told her she could, so when I got home all the packing materials were spread across the front room with my 2 toys. Toy one is the GPS. I didn't have enough time to go Geocaching tonight, but I'm sure we'll have alot of fun stories to tell.

Toy 2 (my birthday cash) was spent on a Kill A Watt EZ. You connect any appliance to this device and then plug it into the wall and it displays the power consumption by the Killowatt-hour. The coolest thing is you can input the amount you pay per Kilowatt from your local utility company and it will calculate how much it costs to run that appliance for an hour, day, month or year. The amazing thing is how much energy an appliance takes that is plugged in but turned off .

For example. I plugged in our Rice Maker (it was on the "keep it warm" setting). It costs $0.11 a day. No biggie, right. But that's 82 cents a week, $3.54 a month or $43.18 a year. These are based off my $0.085 KwH from my local utility company. I can already tell that I'm going to drive Deni crazy by asking her to guess how much it costs to run a certain appliance. My next task it to monitor my TV that is not turned on to see how much money I'm wasting by just having it plugged in and not turned on.

Happy 8th Bone Marrow Birthday

Today is the 8th anniversary of Ryan's Bone Marrow Transplant. 8 years is a long time. I've forgotten so much about that experience, but have a great opportunity to reflect on this amazing day each year. Ryan lives an extremely normal life that we often forget or take that amazing event for granted. Deni and I had heard about others that had Transplants and how they celebrated their Transplant birthday. We thought it was a great idea and decided we would always celebrate Ryan's Bone Marrow Birthday. Some might say he is a lucky kid to celebrate two birthday's. They'd be right, however on the other hand they probably have no idea what kind of pains he went through at 6 months old. 2 weeks of chemo, morphine drip at times to control the pain he seemed to have. The worst part was knowing he wasn't feeling good and him not being able to even hint at how we could take it away from him. He was stuck in a hospital room for 3 months, not having an opportunity to leave with his parents each night. When he did leave the hospital, he was quarantined for almost 2 years not being able to play with kids his age or have a normal life. Taking 4+ medicines each day. Those days are long past however I'm certainly grateful to have him happy and healthy.

Deni had a great tribute to Bone Marrow today.

I don't normally think too deeply about the giving of gifts on birthdays, it just a tradition. Normal birthdays are celebrating the fact that someone was born. Ryan's Bone Marrow birthday isn't much different, as without his Bone Marrow Transplant, he wouldn't be living today.

A birthday wouldn't be complete without a birthday gift. Ryan received a new "large" stitch. Stitch is a much loved figure in our family.


Sydney and I got haircuts tonight. (I wish I could afford a haircut every 2 weeks) I love keeping my hair short. After the haircuts, we decided that it would be fun to go out to eat for Ryan's Bone Marrow birthday. We ended up at the Pizza Factory in town for some pasta. I have no idea how Ryan can each so much pasta, but he out ate his mother and sister.

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to your Bone Marrow, Happy Birthday to you. (sing it) Happy 8th Birthday to Ryan's Bone Marrow. May he celebrate 80 more.