Don't be late

It's always nice to get an email appointment from you boss about an impromptu meeting in 15 minutes that says, "Don't be late".

In that meeting, I found out that my team and another team are merging together. Good news is I keep the same boss, and I have some expertice that others don't that will now be on my team. Bad news is, it means that I will be more busy than I have. I guess I will have to reserve my judgement to see how things shake out.

Tonight the family went on a bike ride. I'm amazed at how well Ryan can ride his bike after a month. We were riding and I look over and he is riding with one hand. Then he stands up and peddles. At times, he peddles so fast, I have a hard time catching him. He loves "dirt biking". We go to the undeveloped roads next to our house and we ride around. He thinks it is pretty cool. It is fun to see him growing and learning so fast.

Talking in Church

Got/had/ to talk in Church today on faith. There was a youth speaker, and then Deni. At 1:30pm, 30 minutes into a 70 minute meeting, Deni says: "....and finally...." I froze, but she went on for another 7 minutes or so. Then we had the Primary sing a VERY SHORT SONG. I got done about 2pm, closed and sat down. Amazingly enough, we got out 10 minutes early.

I was pretty funny (at least, I thought I was) When I started my talk, I said something like this.

I have to apologize for my wife, although she had an excellent talk, she must not be feeling well, as I know she can talk longer than she did today.

The thing I hate most about speaking in church, everyone feels like they have to come up afterwards and tell you how much they "enjoyed" your talk. Here's my theory. Everyone "enjoyed" it so much, because they were sitting in the congregation, not having to speak.

a date, a date

Today we watched the BYU football game on TV. It was such a close game, but BYU lost. They were so far ahead at one point, it was too bad.

Deni had the kids pictures taken this last week, I'm excited to see how they come out.

Deni's favorite Grandma (did I just say that), Grandma Bowers, showed up in Utah on Friday morning. She just stayed with us for 1 night, but it was fun to have her here.

Deni and I went on a date tonight. This last week was pretty stressful for me at work, as I carried the after hours cell phone. It's always nice to get woken up at midnight for no reason. I hate sleeping with a cell phone, but it helps with a little extra money here and there, so I continue to do it.

Anyway, we got a babysitter for 3 hours (cost $12 bucks) for both kids. We just went and walked around, talked and spent time together. Much needed. It had been a while since we had been out without the kids.

Busy Busy

When I logged into IM this morning, within 3 minutes, I had 2 different people requesting help from me. And the day didn't slow down. Deni called me to tell me we have a flat tire on the Camry. She had never changed a tire by herself, but somehow got through it. I'm glad she knows how to change her own tire now.

Got my haircut today on the way home from work. It is always nice to have a short, freshly cut haircut.

Deni "got me a job" mowing the neighbors lawn. I think it is a one time thing, but I have been thinking about starting a little lawn business after work to make a little extra money. Guess we will see how it goes.

etrade doesn't suck quite so bad

Well, I got my call from etrade. It was the Supervisor that told me "no one in the company would take the fee's off my account." He called to tell me that the fees were taken off and I should call back to get my account moved over to my Corporate account to keep from having any more fees.

Wow. So I went from getting $40 off my fees, to $80, to $260 bucks, or all of them taken off my account. Interesting. It took me about 2 hrs total at work to get this cleaned up, but 2 hrs for getting $260 bucks back is a deal.

Tonight I went with the Young Men to play Frisbee Golf. I hadn't done that in some time. It was alot of fun. I do have to say that this Young Men's group is way different than the one I am used to working with. Maybe that is why I'm there, so I can help with direction and organization.

etrade sucks

Back in 2000, I had some Phillips Stock worth just over $1,000 and decided that it was better invested in Novell. So I sold the Phillips Stock and bought 110 shares of Novell through an etrade account I opened. Well I bought the Novell stock at just over $9.00 a share. Not soon after that, Novell stock plummeted down into the the 2 dollar range. No biggie. I'll just sit on it. Well I have been doing that. I hadn't forgotten about my stock, just knew it was worthless, so I never checked my account. Well I guess in the fine print of opening the etrade account, it said, the first year is free, then since you can't read the fine print, we will charge you at least $25 a quarter. Apparently, etrade wasn't sucking my money fast enough, so recently changed the fee from $25 to $40 a quarter. I had just under $300 dollars in "fees" for them doing absolutely nothing. When I saw this, I was shocked and immediately called, only to be told the info above. Well I didn't stop there. The guy I was working with was really nice, but couldn't take the fees off my account. The kicker came when the guy I was talking to told me that there were alot of ways I could get the fees taken off. One of which was work for a company that used etrade for corporate stuff. It just so happens Novell is one of these companies. However the supervisor said there is "no one in the company that would take all the fees off my account, maybe $80 but not $260." I told him I wanted to talk to whomever could clear this up for me and I wasn't taking no for an answer. He promised me a call back within 24 hrs.

I can't belive it. Right now my 110 shares of Novell stock are worth about $800, then with about $300 in fees, that means I only have about $500 dollars. Some investment. I would have been better off to put the money under my matress.

I'm not too happy with etrade right now.

Fishing and football

Woke up at 5:45am this morning to get ready to go fishing. I got all the fishing things, along with the canoe, in the truck and was ready to go by 7:00am. Dad showed up at the house a little after 7am and we went to Spanish Oaks Reservior. When dad and I pulled into the parking lot, we were the only car up there. One man pulled in right after us, but we had the whole reservior to ourselves. The wind was blowing, as it always does in Spanish Fork, but it was fun to get out on the canoe with dad and fish. We fished till about 8:30 when Deni and the kids showed up. Our ward had fishing party at the same place from 8 till noon. I caught 2 fish while I was up there, not my best, but it was fun to fish. Some dad was up there from our ward with 2 kids. It was pretty obvious that all 3 of them hadn't fished much. The dad even told his kids he would give them $50 if they caught a fish. He later raised it to $100, knowing there was not way that they would catch a fish. All the while I was getting hits but I couldn't hook any of them. Finally I got one on the my line and I called one of the kids over to reel it in. He didn't seem to be that excited that he was reeling in a fish.

After fishing, we came home, got cleaned up, ate lunch, then headed to the BYU Football game. Dad gave us 2 tickets and I got another ticket from my friend Kevin. Sydney went to Dad's house while Ryan, Deni and I went to the football game. BYU won and scored alot, so it was alot of fun to watch.

A cold front moved in today, so by evening, it was chilly outside. I noticed the trees up on the mountains are starting to change. Fall isn't too far away.

Tailgait party

After work, Deni and the kids met me at Macey's in Spanish Fork for a BYU Tailgate party. They had games for the kids, etc. Ryan and Deni won T-shirts by throwing a football through a hoop. I tried 3 times, but missed each time.

Deni won a bubble blowing contest. I did a rootbeer drinking contest, where you had to drink a whole 12 oz can of Rootbeer. A little kid beat me by a second, but I got a price anyway.

The kids jumped one of those blow-up jumpy things. Kids didn't want to leave because they were having so much fun.

Layoffs

Well it was true about layoffs. A few layoffs happened in Support today. So far my job is safe. I feel fairly safe, but you never know.

Rumors Rumors

Well it has been a few days.

Went and got my teeth cleaned today. I'm not sure why they call it a teeth cleaning, they should call it a mouth scraping. I always seem to walk out of the dentist with a return appointment, usually to replace a filling, but not this time.

While I was getting my "cleaning" I got 2 phone calls to my cell. Both from the same person at Novell wanting to know if my job was safe, as he had heard about layoffs in my department. I made a few calls to some co-workers and they hadn't heard anything, so at this point, it is just a rumor. As always, there will be the yearly layoffs. Novell wouldn't be Novell, without layoffs. I've been through 4, or 5 or 6, I can't remember. Quite a few. I'm not that concerned for my job. I work hard, contribute as much as I can and that is about all I can do. But in my mind, my job is secure.

Tonight I trimmed my bushes. I never had bushes to trim, so it was fun. Yard is starting to green up in a few dead places. I think I'm finally getting the sprinklers where they need to be.

Ryan has been "practicing" riding his bike. We let him ride in the street now, as well as around the "block" as he calls it. He loves to ride that dang bike. I've never seen a kid so excited about his bike. Took some video of the kids tonight riding their bikes. Ryan has been practicing riding his bike, so that he can ride his bike to school (with Deni riding next to him, of course.)