Star Wars: The Big Reveal

Everyone knows that Vader is Luke's father. Here's a little recap in case you have forgotten how the big reveal really went down, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away":




But what if the Big Reveal had taken place not-so-long ago, in a television studio near you:

MP: Hi, welcome back. I'm Maury Povich and today's special guest is Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith.
DV: Glad to be here today.
MP: Now, Mr. Vader
DV (interupting): Please, call me Lord Vader, or just Lord
MP: Very well, Mr. Vader
DV: LORD Vader
MP: Mr. Vader, no need to get angry
DV: Don't make me force throttle you!
MP: Anyway, we'd like to bring out someone special from your past.
DV (nervously): Padme, uh, what are you doing here? It's been like a year since we broke up.
PA: No, WE didn't break up. YOU broke up with ME.
DV: Baby, I'm sorry, but you gotta understand. It wouldn't have worked out. You were fighting for galactic freedom, and I was aspiring to be the supreme ruler of the universe
PA: Whatever, I'm over it now. That's not why I'm here.
DV: I'll say your over it. You sure didn't waste anytime. A child, even...
PA: What are you talking about? Did Maury tell you why you're on the show?
DV: He told me enough. He told me Obi-Won is the father.
PA: No. You are the father.
DV: NOOOOOOOOOO!
PA: Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
MP: That's right, Mr. Vad- (choking) okay, okay, sorry, LORD Vader, please stop choking me...
DV: Very well
MP: The real topic for today's show is "My Baby-Daddy is an Evil Super-Villain, and I want my Child Support"
DV: Its, its, impossible! You can't prove nothin'
PA: He even looks like you.
DV: Impossible. I won't pay. You can't make me
(audience): Maury! Maury! Maury!
(Cut to commercial)

Utah Trip

Its late and I should be in bed, but I thought "Why not blog about our recent trip to Utah?" Warning, this is going to be one of those boring "travel logs" (like the "quotes"?)
Originally, our plan was to leave on Friday morning after I got off of work, but then we heard a storm was going to be coming thru so we decided to postpone it til Saturday. Really glad we did. We were going to leave by 6am Saturday morning, but we didn't finish packing and cleaning til 2 am and when we woke up, there was chain restrictions over the pass so we decided to sleep a little longer. We slept a couple more hours and, although there were still chain restrictions when we left, the storm had passed and the sun was up so we hoped they would be lifted by the time we got there. We were checking the road conditions the whole way on our phone and they were slowly getting lifted, section by section. At one point we saw the sign that said chains required in 16miles, but then traffic slowed to a crawl and by the time we traveled the 16miles, the chain restrictions were lifted. We finally arrived in Provo at my brother and sister-in-law's house at about 11pm. Sunday we went to Church with them, and afterwards, my sister, whose in BYU's nursing program, came over for dinner. Sunday afternoon, we let the kids play in the snow in the back yard and Will and I made a snow man for the kids. Monday, we went to our friends, Jason and Amanda's house, where we stayed the rest of the week. Our kids became fast friends with their friends and some tears were shed when we had to leave. Monday afternoon, my sister introduced me to one of her professors who has a very important title at the pharmacy school I was interviewing at. Probably the biggest piece of advice he gave me was to make a good impression on the faculty interviewer, don't do anything to make them not like me.
Tuesday, we looked at apartments and picked up some applications. Wednesday, we drove up to Ogden to visit our friends Aaron and Ashley. Had a good visit with them and had a laugh over the brain pizza their daughter was eating. :-)
Thursday, I had my interview at the pharmacy school. The questions were of a different style than I got last year but I still felt good about it. During the orientation, the Dean explained that they received 800 applications, offered 600 interviews and have spots for 245 new students.
Our original plan was to stay Friday and drive home Saturday but Thursday night we decided that it would be better to drive home Friday instead. The kids were getting tired of being away from home and we realized it would be nice to have Saturday to recover from the trip. The drive home Friday was uneventful and their was no concerns about chains and road conditions. The kids did great on the drives and we were all grateful to be home. Now we just gotta get back into the swing of things with work and school and housekeeping, etc. And now we just play the waiitng game to see if I get in. Hopefully good things are in store for us.

Marvel Vs. DC

Marvel and DC are the two biggest mainstream comic book companies in the United States.

DC is famous for heroes like Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, um... Robin?... OK, so that's all I got for DC.

Marvel is famous for heroes like the entire X-men Team, Iron Man (Red Robot, as Jaron calls him), The Incredible Hulk, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, DareDevil, and the list goes on and on.

I was thinking about it today and I realized they have some fundamental differences and yet one very noticeable similarity: Iron Man and Batman. They were both child prodigies born to bazillionaire families, both have no actual super power (therefore, completely self made heroes) both use a ton of cool gadgets, that they invented themselves(!), both have special armour (granted, Iron Man armor is a little more all inclusive than Batman armor). Now, I'm not going to discount the differences. Batman is motivated by revenge while, (if the movie portrayal is accurate to the comic book) Iron Man is basically just a spoiled rich kid out for a good time (although there is the whole "my company has been selling my weapons to the bad guys, I have to atone for this", but he is still out there thinking "I'm flying around in a metal suit I made and that's friggin' awesome!")

Of the two of them, I think I definitely prefer Batman over Iron Man. Don't get me wrong, I think Iron Man is awesome, perhaps it is just because I have more exposure to Batman. The dichotomy is, however, I definitely prefer Marvel over DC any day of the week. I was never of fan of Superman (c'mon, he's an alien with super strength, laser vison, xray vision, can fly, etc. etc. etc. and the only way to kill him is with a space rock). Marvel heroes are all normal people that have had their powers thrust upon them (for the most part) by accident, usually involving radiation. The X-men, obviously, is caused by a genetic mutation, but they are still just trying to cope with the burden they've been given. Another big difference, when you think of superheroes with capes, you think of the DC camp: Superman, Batman,...um...does Green Lantern wear a cape? But I can't think of any Marvel hero that wears a cape. And, as Edna Mode pointed out to Bob Parr on Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles, capes are a bad idea, they get caught in jet engines, snagged on missiles, caught in elevators, etc.




So what do you think: If Iron Man and Batman were to get in a brawl, who would win? Why? My money is on Batman. Also, which is better, the Marvel Universe or the DC Universe? Discuss.

Happy Pi Day (repost)

In Honor of Pi Day (3.14) I've decided to post a few math and science jokes. Hopefully some will make you laugh, others will no-doubtedly make you groan. Enjoy:


Willie was a chemist, but Willie is no more
For what he thought was H2O was H2SO4

A young man from a small, backwards town in the Ozarks received a scholarship to study math at a big university. The whole town was proud of him, seeing as he was the first in their long history to go to college. When he came back for Thanksgiving break during his first semester, the whole town through a big homecoming celebration for him. As part of the festivities, they asked him to stand up at the podium and share some of the great wisdom he was learning. He proudly proclaims "Pi R squared". To which his pa quickly rushes the podium, removing his belt, and beats his son to a pulp. The boy asks his pa what he did that for, the pa said "everybody knows pie are round, cake are squared."

This poem was written by John Saxon (an author of math textbooks). ((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * 4^(1/2))) / 7) + (5 * 11) = 9^2 + 0 Or for those who have trouble with the poem: A Dozen, a Gross and a Score, plus three times the square root of four, divided by seven, plus five times eleven, equals nine squared and not a bit more.

A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street.First, they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while, they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate."The biologists: "They have reproduced".The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again."

"A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there."– Charles Darwin

A guy gets on a bus and starts threatening everybody: "I'll integrate you! I'll differentiate you!" So everybody gets scared and runs away. Only one person stays. The guy comes up to him and says: "Aren't you scared, I'll integrate you, I'll differentiate you!" And the other guy says: "No, I am not scared, I am e^x."

A Mathematician, an engineer and a physicist were traveling through Scotland when they saw a black sheep through the window of the train."Aha", says the engineer, "I see that Scottish sheep are black.""Hmm", says the physician, "You mean that some Scottish sheep are black"."No", says the mathematician, "All we know is that there is at least one sheep in Scotland, and that at least one side of that one sheep is black!"

What is π? Mathematician: "π is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter."Engineer: "π is about 22/7."Physicist: "π is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005."Computer Programmer: "π is 3.141592653589 in double precision."Nutritionist: "You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert!"

Star Wars in Concert...

was FREAKING AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went down to Sacramento this weekend to visit family and deliver things to people (baby swing to sister, infant car seat to sister-in-law, christmas tree to friend, quilts to aunt, etc.) Friday evening as we were driving to our destination for the night, Corrina heard an advertisment for something called Star Wars in Concert thaat was playing @ Arco Arena that night (Friday) @ 8pm and Saturday afternoon @ 3pm. When we got to Corrina's aunt's house where we were staying for the night, her aunt said something about it being a laser light show set to star wars music...sounded cool enough, really tempting. Then Corrina read in the newspaper that it was actually an 84 piece orchestra w/ choir playing John William's music from the Star Wars saga with a 3 story screen that they were playing scenes from all 6 episodes from in chronological order...with Sir Anthony Daniels as the narrator (for those who don't know, he played C-3PO in all six episodes). That sounded super-cool so I called Arco Arena up on Saturday morning to see if there were tickets still available and they say yes there is and the doors open 2 hours early because there was going to be a bunch of displays of things from the movies on display for people to look at. How could you pass something like that up?! This is a once in a lifetime type thing and they are only playing in 55 cities on the tour. So I make the exectuive decision to take the family to it.

(The one time we don't bring our cameras to Sacramento is the one time I wish we had...It was supposed to be a short trip we didn't think we would need them)

It, like I mentioned above, was FREAKING AWESOME! We got our pictures taken with someone dressed like Darth Vader (For those that know what it is, all the characters in costume there were members of the 501st Legion) (awesome!). They had tons of props, including Han Solo in carbonite, various blasters and light sabers, imperial helmets, ewok costumes, Boba Fett costume, etc. (awesome!) They had the voice of Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) be the announcer (awesome!). At the very beginning, they did the THX sound effect and the "20th Century Fox" fanfare (like at the beginning of all the movies) (double awesome!) There was a laser show incorporated into it (awesome!), pyrotechnics (awesome!), humor (awesome!). The music was awesome (awesome!), at times I forgot that it was being played live (awesome!). George Lucas was intimately involved in cutting and editing the video clips for the concert (awesome!). And for the encore, they played again the Darth Vader theme, but louder because they didn't have the video w/ sound effects/dialogue behind them (super double triple awesome!!!) I was half expecting for Vader himself to come out on stage and force-strangle someone :-) And the whole family loved it. Lara was dancing to the music, until she got tuckered out and fell asleep. I am most definately glad we went!

Nostalgia

We are starting the process of scanning a bunch of old pictures and transferring negatives to CD so I decided to post some of the ones I found amusing (if not a little embarrassing):

Any guesses on if this is Will or me? It took Corrina and I a while to figure it out.

Any body remember this big, black behemoth? I learned to drive in this thing

Ah, yes. The skim board Will and I made as a scout activity to prepare for a camping trip to the beach.


Will and I again. Can you believe we would fool people into thinking we were twins?

When Corrina first saw this, she thought it was Gary...Can I pretend that she was right? :-)

There's not much to say about this

This was a fun hike! Look at this group of guys that went.

Will trying to act all serious 'cuz he's on staff...I think that's a dead rattlesnake he's carrying.

Family photo circa 1999 (Wes is on his mission)

Our Family, circa 1997 (I would be 14 yrs old)

Ben Saunders, Gary, Will and I when Will, Ben, and I were on staff for Camporee

circa 1999

I'm becoming my dad!

With every passing day I begin to realize more and more just how much like my father I'm becoming. The evidence:

1. I have to carry a pen around with me everywhere I go
2. My joints, especially knees and ankles, creak and pop when I walk
3. I get my children's names confused
4. I listen to conservative talk radio
5. I wipe my children's snotty noses with the handerchief that I carry in my back pocket
6. I fall asleep in front of the TV no matter how much activity is going on around me

That's just what I've noticed lately...I'm sure I'll find more later. I guess you could call this belated Father's Day wishes since Father's Day was on Sunday.

I love you Dad!

Video-Gaming

GET MORE AT ManBabies.com!

If a Tree Falls in a Forest...

And no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound? With so much ridiculousness happening in the federal gov't, I've been burned out and have desired to make a post on the lighter side. I tried to imagine the responses of professors in various departments of a university if they were asked the above question. I hope you enjoy:

Physics: sound is a compression wave through a medium. In a forest, the medium is air and the falling of a tree produces a longitudinal wave in the air, so yes, it does make a sound.

Psychology: Sound is as much propagation as it is perception. If there is no one around to perceive it, the sound never existed.

Engineering: Let's see if we can develop a better design for the tree to make it so it won't fall in the future under similar conditions.

Construction Management: If a tree fell in a forest with no one around, then it must be dead and rotting and we are not going to want to use that in our next construction project.

Child Development: Oh thank goodness there were no children around when it fell, we wouldn't want them to get hurt.

Sociology: To answer that, we will have to study the indigenous tribe that lives near where it fell and learn their reaction to falling trees.

Philosophy: Ahh, so the student has now become the teacher. I would have asked the same question.

Theology: God is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient so yes the tree did make a sound, and God heard it.

Economics: is the tree located in a capitalistic or communistic economy?

Spanish: En Espanol, por favor.

Any one else have any good suggestions?

Happy Pi Day

In Honor of Pi Day (3.14) I've decided to post a few math and science jokes. Hopefully some will make you laugh, others will no-doubtedly make you groan. Enjoy:

Willie was a chemist, but Willie is no more
For what he thought was H2O was H2SO4

A young man from a small, backwards town in the Ozarks received a scholarship to study math at a big university. The whole town was proud of him, seeing as he was the first in their long history to go to college. When he came back for Thanksgiving break during his first semester, the whole town through a big homecoming celebration for him. As part of the festivities, they asked him to stand up at the podium and share some of the great wisdom he was learning. He proudly proclaims "Pi R squared". To which his pa quickly rushes the podium, removing his belt, and beats his son to a pulp. The boy asks his pa what he did that for, the pa said "everybody knows pie are round, cake are squared."

This poem was written by John Saxon (an author of math textbooks). ((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * 4^(1/2))) / 7) + (5 * 11) = 9^2 + 0 Or for those who have trouble with the poem: A Dozen, a Gross and a Score, plus three times the square root of four, divided by seven, plus five times eleven, equals nine squared and not a bit more.

A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street.First, they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while, they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate."The biologists: "They have reproduced".The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again."

"A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there."– Charles Darwin

A guy gets on a bus and starts threatening everybody: "I'll integrate you! I'll differentiate you!" So everybody gets scared and runs away. Only one person stays. The guy comes up to him and says: "Aren't you scared, I'll integrate you, I'll differentiate you!" And the other guy says: "No, I am not scared, I am e^x."

A Mathematician, an engineer and a physicist were traveling through Scotland when they saw a black sheep through the window of the train."Aha", says the engineer, "I see that Scottish sheep are black.""Hmm", says the physician, "You mean that some Scottish sheep are black"."No", says the mathematician, "All we know is that there is at least one sheep in Scotland, and that at least one side of that one sheep is black!"

What is π?Mathematician: "π is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter."Engineer: "π is about 22/7."Physicist: "π is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005."Computer Programmer: "π is 3.141592653589 in double precision."Nutritionist: "You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert!"

Hello, McFly?!

MOvie Quiz Answers

Hey y'all
Here are the answers to the movie quotes quiz. I put the name of the person that guessed it correctly next to the title:

1. Monty Python and the Holoy Grail - Shirley
2. X-Men - Topher
3. Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers) - Corrina
4. Jaws - Corrina
5. Star Wars A New Hope - Topher
6. The Shawshank Redemption - Shankar
7. Cool Hand Luke - Shankar
8. Big Fish - Topher
9. Princess Bride - Corrina
10. Remember the Titans - Corrina
11. Rudy
12. Matilda - Katrina
13. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe - Autumn
14. My Fair Lady - Shankar
15. Dr. Zhivago
16. Sleeping Beauty - Shirley
17. Secret Garden
18. Karate Kid - Aaron and Ashley
19. Tron
20. Life is Beautiful
21. Batman Begins - Topher
22 Saints and Soldiers - Shirley

I hope you all had fun. I'm pleased that y'all were stumped on a few of them. The only movies that Corrina added that I haven't seen are My Fair Lady, Sleeping Beauty, and Secret Garden (and the funny thing is I think we have all three)

success!!!!!!!!!!

as you can see by the video below, i have finally had success in posting this video off of youtube. this is an homage to one of the coolest planes ever, set to a song by one of the coolest bands ever. as you watch the video, you will see what looks like an orange space suit. that is the flight suit the pilots had to wear because the sr-71 flew at such high altitudes and at such high speeds. enjoy.

video

this is a new attempt to embed a video, this time taking the code from my afore-mentioned myspace page and after reading the blogger help on posting video. i still haven't got it fully figured out, but i'm getting closer to being able to post the one i really want

Monty Star Wars
..