Phoenix Zoo

Grandma and Grandpa Bigler took the whole family to the Phoenix zoo.

Although today was the warmest day (high 80's) of our trip, we had a great time with Kati, Boston and Katelyn, Jessica, Mataya, and Camden, and Grandma and Grandpa Bigler.

This isn't a great picture of Syd, but it a very funny picture of her cousin Mataya (notice she's drinking straight from the teat.)   This is a fake cow, that you could "milk" and water would come out.

Long lost sibling. Ryan, the baboon, and Sydney.

Deni and me

There was a little water park on the inside and because it was high 80's the kids took the opportunity to plan in the water and cool off.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Bigler for taking us to the Zoo.

Bibs for Babies

You can never find the "I love Uncle Brett" bibs for babies. They have plenty of "I love Mommy" or "I love Daddy", but no "I love Uncle Brett".

So I decided to make my own. It needs a little polishing, but for now, it serves its purpose.  This is Katelyn Bryce (Kati and Boston Bryce - Kati is Deni's youngest sister.)

Drive in Movie theater

While we were in Arizona, we wanted to do a few things as a family the kids would remember as part of their vacation.  One of those things was going to a Drive-in Movie theater.

The last Drive-in in UT was torn down probably 10 years ago, so we thought the kids would enjoy watching a movie from the comfort of our van.

We choose to go see "How to Train your Dragon".  We got there just as the sun went down, opened the back of the van, threw down a few blankets and with a few treats, we were ready for the movie.

It was a double feature, but the 2nd feature didn't start until 9:30pm, so we headed out after the first movie.  he movie was fun and the kids enjoyed the change of venue for the movie.

Easter Egg hunt

We went to Jessica's house on Easter Sunday. We watched the last session of General Conference on TV and then the kids had an Easter egg hunt in Jessica's back yard.

I forget that our kids are big, until we visit Deni's side of the family.   A little blurry, but an action photo of Ryan and Sydney and their little cousin Mataya looking for eggs.

Ryan on the run.

Sydney  with all her loot.

We were told that back home, everyone woke up to 6 inches of new snow. Easter in Phoenix is awesome.

Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple

Every Easter at the Mesa Temple, an Easter Pageant is put on. It was a tradition of Deni's family to attend, however I had never been.  So we planned this trip so that we could attend.

Deni and the kids went early to save us a spot on the lawn, while Boston and I went to the Priesthood Session of General Conference.

Once the Priesthood session was over, we quickly changed and then met up with our families.

Ryan, Katelyn, Deni and Sydney.

I really like this picture of Deni and Katelyn. They are both pretty cute.

Right before the pageant, some of the actors walked around and talked to the audience. Ryan and Sydney with one of the "Roman guards".

Phoenix - here we come

We needed a break from the cold and wet Utah weather and we'd never seen our new niece, Katelyn Bryce, (4 months old now) so we decided to head to Phoenix, AZ for the week.

Kati and Boston were nice enough to let us stay at their house all week.

Jury says Novell Owns Unix Copyrights, Not SCO Group

For about 80% of the time I've worked for Novell, the SCO vs Novell lawsuit has been going on. It's hard to remember a time before the lawsuit.

However after 8 years, SCO vs Novell finally had its day in court, and SCO lost. A federal jury decided today that Novell owns the Unix copyrights.

SCO's stock didn't do so well today.

BrainShare 2010

BrainShare is back.

Last year, due to the economy, BrainShare (Novell's yearly technical conference in SLC, UT) was cancelled. BrainShare's been going for 20+ years, so it was a downer that it was cancelled. It's always fun to get away from the office for a week and work at BrainShare in SLC.

Over the last few years at BrainShare, I've helped teach a number of technical sessions, however I've always been the 2nd presenter. (Where the 1st presenter created the presentation, then asked me to help teach.) Although I had helped revise presentation, I had never actually submitted the idea, it been accepted and then create the presentations myself.

However this year I decided to submit a few ideas for a technical session I wanted to teach on Privileged User Manager (the new product I took over about 9 months ago). I submitted two ideas, but they were combined into one session.

In addition to the technical session, I also helped man a booth for the product and showed demos to customers.

This is the only picture I captured.   It's the back of Rich, a co-worker of mine from the UK, and the booth that I spent most of my time at.

BrainShare was fun, but very tiring.  I drove back and forth each day.  Not sure I could ever commute an hour each way.  A typical day was leaving the house by 6:30am-7:00am and getting home around 7pm or 8pm.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

We have a flowering pear tree in our front yard. Years ago (before we bought the house) the original owners allowed a shoot to come off of the roots (with the roots being a  real pear tree). So we have a flowering pear with the main trunk of the tree being a real pear. The problem is, the pear tree would drop it's fruit and make a mess.  So I decided to finally take the pear trunk down and leave the flowering pear (even though there is a huge whole in the middle of the tree now.

Deni came out to watch and took this action picture of me cleaning up afterwards.

Us