Hurt Shoulder

My right shoulder has been hurting me for about 2 months now. It's alternating the way I sleep (I have to have my right arm down by my side), so I decided it was time to go to the Doctor. The dumb thing is I'm not sure how I hurt it. Deni made me an appointment with the same Dr that just did my Dad's shoulder surgery. He took x-rays, which he couldn't see anything, and then suggested that I get an MRI, so next week, I'll be going in for an MRI to see if we can find out what's wrong with my shoulder.

Check the "Ruin your whole Christmas" pocket

I couldn't find my North Face jacket this morning as I left for work. Knowing that I have the receipts to ALL of Deni's Christmas in my jacket pocket, I stuck my head in to the bedroom and kindly asked Deni to not look in my jacket pockets, if she were to find my jacket.

While I was at work, I get the following chat from her.

(01:25:26 PM) Deni Berger: I found your jacket
(01:25:37 PM) Deni Berger: which pocket was it that you wanted me to check?
(01:30:38 PM) Brett Berger: Check the "Ruin your whole Christmas" pocket.
(01:51:29 PM) Deni Berger: he he he

I think she's playing my own game against me.

Sydney is going to be a great mom

Sydney woke up early this morning despite not going to bed on time last night, however she was happy. She crawled into my bed as I was getting up to shower at 6:45am. As I got out of the shower, I asked her if she was going to make me a lunch. She smiled, sat up in bed, and then headed towards the kitchen. I followed her to have some breakfast and she went to work.

She got the bread, peanut butter, and jelly out and began making me a sandwich. She got me an apple, some grapes and even carrots. Sydney is a great little girl and will make a great mom and wife someday.

7,804 lbs of coal

Just in case I get coal for Christmas this year, I was checking up on the going rate for coal (so I could sell it.) Turns out, I'd have to be really bad to make any profit on the coal I would get. However in the process, I learned some interesting things.

First, per the "Howstuffworks" website

The thermal energy content of coal is 6,150 kWh/ton. Although coal fired power generators are very efficient, they are still limited by the laws of thermodynamics. Only about 40 percent of the thermal energy in coal is converted to electricity. So the electricity generated per ton of coal is 0.4 x 6,150 kWh or 2,460 kWh/ton.

That made me look at my utility bill. On average, my family uses about 800 kWh a month.

800 kWh X 12 months = 9,600 kWh per year / 2,460 kWh = 3.90 tons X 2,000 lbs in one ton = 7804 pounds of coal to run my house per year.

That's alot of coal.

As far as the price of coal. It appears that for the Uinta Basin, the going price is about $73.00 a ton.

Ryan's Funny

A few funny things Ryan's said recently.

Ryan was watching a cartoon and one of the characters said that Santa could fly because he used "Pixie dust". I looked at Ryan and said, "I didn't know that is how Santa flies." Ryan said, "Actually, it's the because of the special corn the Reindeer eat."

I've also been teasing the kids that I'm getting Deni a puppy for Christmas. They know I'm not going to get one, but I continue to tease them about it. Ryan said "Whoever buys the puppy has to clean up it's poop." I said, good, then I'm going to use YOUR money to buy it, so YOU have to clean up it's poop." His response was "Sydney needs some extra responsibility." He's always thinking one step ahead of me.

Sydney found the Camera

I was taking the pictures off the camera and came across this little video clip of Sydney. Matter of fact there were about 30 little video clips similar to this. Sydney thought she was taking pictures of herself, but had it on the video mode.

I thought it was funny, it looks like she is jumping or something.



Thanks to her Mom for making her the Elf hat (seen in the video) for Elf Day at School.

Photo Splice

I was playing around with Picasa tonight and took these 3 pictures of my nephew Devin, niece Shawnee and nephew Logan and spliced them together. The cool thing is it makes them look like they all jumped at the same time. In reality, they all jumped at different times and all jumped in the exact same spot. These pictures are from this summer when we went to Goblin Valley.

How cold did you say?

I talked to my dad today. He asked if I wanted to go Ice Fishing this Saturday. I quickly looked at the weather and saw that in Spanish Fork, which is 4000 ft lower than where I go ice fishing, that the high on Saturday will be 16 degrees with a low of 0 Fahrenheit. Don't get me wrong, I love ice fishing, but I'm having a hard time wanting to go when the ice hole I drill will freeze over in 30 seconds.

I still have decided if I'm going or not. Not much more time to make a decision.

Originally, I wanted to go the morning of Christmas Eve and may still do that, guess we'll see.

Shhh Don't tell Deni

Two of my favorite pastimes are:

1. Teasing Deni
2. Surprising Deni for Christmas

When I combined the two, it's twice as fun.

The other day Deni and I were out and driving on I-15. I saw a Billboard about Laser Hair Removal and the idea came.

I looked and Deni asked her which side of the bed she wanted. She looked at me a little confused and I continued to explain that I was getting her Laser Hair Removal for Christmas, but I could only afford one leg, so I wanted it to be on the leg closest to me in bed.

We both got a good laugh out of it. It's fun to tease Deni that I'm going to get her only one leg of Laser Hair removal.

On a side note, I have my kids trained that they DON'T ever want to have a dog. I told the kids that if we got a dog, that they would be in charge of 2 things.

First, cleaning up it's poop and
Second paying for it's Vet bills.

If I ask Ryan if he wants a dog now, he says "No way, I don't want to clean up poop or pay the Vet bills." Awesome.

Ok back to teasing Deni about her Christmas present. We were out as a family shopping and Deni ran into a store by herself. As soon as she got out of the car, I asked the kids if they could keep a secret about Deni's Christmas present. They said they could, so I said "I'm getting Mom a puppy for Christmas". Ryan immediately started laughing and said "Ohhhh, so Mom can clean up it's poop and pay it's vet bills."

Berger Mento Experiment

Last night we went to the grocery store to get a few things. As we walked in, all the Coke products were on sale. 2 liters for 69 cents. Ryan went straight to the Diet Coke. Why Diet Coke? Blame it on Youtube. For some time now, Ryan's been begging us to buy Diet Coke and Mentos and to try the Youtube "experiment".

I agreed and we put the Diet Coke into the shopping cart. After that we had a hard time finding mentos, however Deni finally found them. It was too dark to do the experiment, so I told him we'd have to later.

When I got home I asked Deni if it was appropriate Sunday activity. Neither of us saw a problem with it and decided we'd do it Sunday Morning.

So here it is. one 2 liter of Diet Coke, 12 mentos, one 6 inch piece of PVC pipe and a slip of paper.



This was great family fun, all for under $2.00

A funny note, after we did this and watched the video Ryan said that his voice sounded different. We said that is how you sound. His reply was "Curse you Technology."