Picnic at the Park

Kent had to work late last night so the kids and I took our dinner down to the park. It was a beautiful evening and we had a lot of fun picnicking and playing.
P.S. Thank you for all your kind condolences for the untimely death of my mac.

R.I.P Mac 2003-2008

 

"Ode to Mac"
My little computer died last week.
although you did your job
a replacement I soon will seek.

You could talk and tell jokes too,
oh, mac you were so cute
But your screen is black, and now I'm blue.

Free of power cords, keyboards and mice,
now to computer heaven you will go,
where all old macs and PC's meet-and it's nice.

Saturday Morning Run

I hate to be a bore and have two fitness related posts in a row, but I couldn't resist sharing these pictures. Last week a friend invited me to go running with her on this trail that is in the hills just above our neighborhood. We went at about 6:00 a.m. so it was dark and the lights down in the valley were pretty awesome, but I wondered what it looked like during the day. So I ran the same trail last Saturday morning by myself and was just loving the landscape--I decided I had to come back again and bring my camera (which was kind of a pain-but hey, what's a photographer to do?).
This first one is on the uphill side and as you can see, having the trail lined with lovely sunflowers makes running up this hill only slightly more pleasant.

These two are the view from the top (that's Utah Lake on the very left).
The last one is evidence that the native hillbillies have been here. All in all it's about a 3.5 mile run, and with some good music on my ipod it makes for a beautiful workout.

100 Pushups or Bust!

A couple weeks ago Kent and I started the hundred push up challenge. It's a 6 week program, and at the end of it you should be able to do 100 pushups, hence the name. Kent and I are about half way through week three, and it's getting kind of tough! Last night after all our sets were compleate Kent had done a total of 105 pushups and I did 71-woot! So I'm calling you guys out to join us in the pushup challenge. You can find the program at www.hundredpushups.com. Everyone starts at a different level, so no excuses!

Back in Time

Lately I have decided to start taking more pictures with my "real" camera--my big SLR. In my camera bag I found a roll of film that I took last September when we were visiting the in laws in Hamilton, Montana. There are a few pictures of the parade we went to that was celebrating the opening of the Ravalli County fair. The great thing about small town parades are that they are A)short. B)you can always find a good spot. C)everything is considered a "float" from tractors to truck beds. D)you get lots of candy. and last but not least, they are E)short. There are a couple of other photos of the kids playing at the park etc.

Where there's smoke, there's...

Well, we were going to keep the suspense up for another day, but we have to share. The picture in the last post is a parked fire engine. Parked right outside our house. You don't see the ambulance that is also parked outside our house. Nothing to worry about, so don't get your heart rate up.

Late Sunday night there was a storm with a LOT of wind and a LOT of rain. Bethany and I were watching a bit of TV before we went to sleep. Beth said that she smelled smoke. I retorted that her nose was broken, and kept on lounging in true pre-Labor Day fashion.

And then I started to smell something funny, too. It smelled just like a campfire. I inquired if Beth's feet had been washed with soap lately, and she didn't reply. Plus Beth's feet don't smell like they're on fire usually, so... We sniffed around and thought that the smell was coming from the basement area. Our basement is unfinished, and all concrete-y, not very combustible. But, the smell was definitely stronger in the basement than upstairs. (Don't worry Scott, your stuff is still safely tucked away under your drop cloths.)

We couldn't see anything smoking or on fire, and did the rounds of the inside of our house a few times. Nothing.

So, we decided to get the right people involved -- we called the police. Yep. And they sent the fire department as well as an ambulance just in case something exciting was actually happening. We could hear the sirens coming even though I distinctly remember telling the dispatcher on the other end of the phone line that nothing was on fire. The big, noisy trucks with the flashing lights drove past our house, down to the end of the street (we live on one end of Pumpkin Patch Drive) and started backing up to find the right house. Bethany called our next door neighbors to try to mitigate the panic and inevitable heart attack that would follow. I flagged the fire truck down and the crew unloaded in full regalia -- oxygen tanks, fire axes, etc.

To make a long story slightly shorter, the fire crew (in full fire gear, mind you) swept our house from top to bottom, inside and out, to find the source of the woodsy smell that we though was coming from our basement. And the best part? With 3 firemen in full gear walking around our house, the basement, the attic -- it didn't wake the kids!

Well, they smelled it, but they couldn't come up with anything more than Beth and I had. So they went back to their firehouse and commenced to play poker and smoke cigars. Probably not. Beth says that the firemen were "hunky". and more than likely, they went back to the firehouse and commenced watching "My Turn on Earth". It IS Utah, after all.

And with the firemen's assurance that our house was in no apparent danger, we went to sleep.

Then Monday, we made the last post, still not knowing what had caused the smell, but having an experience to share.

Fast forward to today (Tuesday), and I came home from work early because Norm, whom I car pool with each day to work, was having some severe allergies and went home early from work. My family was gone to the in laws in Sandy, so I strolled around the grounds to see how many of my newly spread wood chips had blown into my neighbors' planter beds during the weekend storms. More than a few.

Sorry for the length of this post. I should write a novel.

In the course of my inspection, I found this:

This is just under the eave of our deck, right next to the house. That's an electrical transformer that plugs into the outside power outlet, some wire, and a joiner (can't think of the real term just now) right in the middle of the charred area. These components used to run the landscaping lights in the southwest portion of our yard. What I imagine happened is that with the heavy rain, the joiner/junction got wet enough that it shorted out and super-heated the wire coming from the transformer to the joiner. An electrical fire erupted around the wire, and was then put out by the continuing rain. Here are some more photos that show more of the damaged components.


As the photos show, the wiring was charred right into the transformer box and just past the joiner thing. I'm not sure whether the transformer box is still functional. Those things that I'm holding are some of the wiring that is fused with the wood chips it was on and what's left of the joiner that was in the middle of the charred, burned area by the house.

Before the firemen were at our house, the fire must have gone out. Plus, with it dark, wet everywhere, and windy, you wouldn't see this spot at all.

Now you know what almost went down Sunday night. As my mother would say, we thank our lucky stars that we have a house that isn't black, smoky and mostly open air.

Wake Up the Neighborhood

This photo was taken last night at around 11:00 p.m. Leave a comment and tell us what you think happened!