too many to count, but close to 90

I have to wear a tie to work most days. I wear a tie to church every Sunday. I served a mission to Italy, and I anticipated both of those things, and therefore I bought a lot of ties while in Italy. I only took 6 or 7 ties with me when I went into the MTC, and in my first area, there was a closet that had a built-in tie rack, for 30 or so ties. I thought it was a pretty nice way to hang up ties.

It looked a bit like this, only instead of pegs, it had little hangers that rotated in against the inside of the closet door. (Picture it on the inside of an armoire door.) Well, I bought several ties in my first area, and in later areas, but I never had a tie hanger as nice as that first one. When I got home, I found tie hangers like this one, and bought a few for my tie collection. Each hanger holds 24 ties, and I needed three of them to hold all of my ties. That means I had somewhere between 48 and 72 ties when I got home from Italy.
After buying so many ties over the course of 2 years, I was hooked, even though my initial plan was to never buy any more ties in my life. It got worse a year or so ago when I found out that there was an Andrew's Ties store here in Las Vegas (it's in the shoppes at the Venetian/Palazzo upscale mall). Andrew's Ties was my favorite tie store in Italy, so last Christmas I finally checked it out, and bought three ties. They cost a lot more here than in Italy, in case you wondered.

Well, eventually, I needed more tie hangers. Right now I have four tie hangers and they are almost full (four of those hangers will hold 96 ties, but I do have a few open spots). I have two more hangers in case I need them.

Kelsea always thought my tie collection was a little weird, and always tried to convince me to get rid of the oldest, or loudest, or any that were worn out. I let her use some to make patchwork pillows once (though she actually wanted to make a quilt, I didn't let her destroy that many ties). So now she suggested I wear each tie once, until I wear them all. I started yesterday, and it is going to take a while. At 5 ties a week, I think it will take me until July or so to get through them all. I do have a few ties that are kind of loud, so I know I will get comments on them (and I am hesitant to wear a few, like my toilet tie), but there are probably only 3 or 4 like that. Before anyone asks, I have worn every single tie in my collection at least once already (yes, in public), a few just get into the rotation much more frequently right now. I'll let you know how this little project progresses.

Pretty much all grown up

Jay's first birthday is this week, and it amazes me how big he's gotten. He can walk now, you know.

That video was taken a couple of weeks ago, and he's made a lot of progress. He doesn't really fall like that any more, even when one of his sisters tries to knock him over. He's also taken the offensive against his sisters, occasionally trying to tackle them. It's pretty hilarious.

Jay loves to be involved in what's going on, and gets very upset if he's excluded. He gets really excited about the chance to play Rock Band, and screams when we don't let him hold both drumsticks. He knows where we keep them in the extra room, so any time that door is open, he makes a bee line for the drum set. I came home from work yesterday, and he was trying to reach the mouse to use the computer. I sat him in the chair and turned on an episode of Woody Woodpecker on Hulu. Then he started pushing keys on the keyboard, so I had to move that out of the way.

Mia is a musical person. She sings things, and dances to her songs. Not just songs people teach her, but she will sometimes sing to herself, or sing to other people, using as lyrics whatever it is she wants to tell you. Sort of like she thinks she's in a musical. Sometimes Jay will dance along with her songs.

Holly is doing well in kindergarten. On the weekends, she looks forward to Monday so she can go back to school. She has learned 110 words by sight, but she reads all by herself already. She takes cues from the pictures, but still does amazingly well. I don't mean books with three words on a page, either. She's been reading books with paragraphs on each page. And Dr. Seuss books, too.


They continue to amaze me.

No regrets

A friend of mine did a post about regrets today.

She had some funny regrets on there that made me consider what regrets I might have. Also, she ended the post by saying "How about you guys?" So I had to think about it. It was, like, homework.

Going down her list, I was surprised at the list of her regrets, because so many of them were things I considered regretting or did regret, at one time. Like study abroad. I always wanted to study abroad, but I also wanted to finish school, and not go into too much debt during school. I accomplished those other goals by sacrificing any opportunity to study abroad. Also, she regrets not practicing the piano enough. I used to wish I could play the piano better, and I still do a little, but I did not like piano lessons, and I still maintain that I was tricked into it. In third grade, I wanted to join a soccer team. My mom said I could if I started piano lessons, and I thought that was ok. So I started both. I played soccer for one year, and I took piano lessons for 8 years. I think I plateaued around year 5 or so, but I was never really into it. I can play the piano well enough for me, and I'm ok with that.

I have no real big regrets. I wish I had learned how to better interact with people. I think I do an ok job, but I'm very timid. In the past I have come across as someone who needs help, or someone threatening. (I never understood how I would be perceived as threatening.) So, after a while of not talking much, if at all, people would become curious, and start a conversation. I was rarely the initiator. Some people think I'm a good listener, and maybe I am, now, but I've mostly always been a bad talker.

I do have one oddly specific regret. When I was young (8 or 10) I had a crush on a girl in my ward, who had been in my school classes too. So at a Pioneer Day party one year, there were handcarts that some people were supposed to ride in, and others could help push. I managed to hop into the same cart as this girl, and we were riding along and she said we should go faster. So, in my child-like attempt at chivalry, I hopped out of the cart to help push faster. But I fell. And I was dumb enough to jump off the front edge, so I had to try a backwards somersault to avoid getting run over. I almost made it out of the way, but the wheel ran over my rear end. (I remember it being almost like a pinch between the wheel and the road, but thinking back, I don't know if that makes sense.) So I had to sort of waddle over to the grass to recover. I still wish I hadn't done that.

Trip pictures

Ok, here are the best of the pictures I took on my trip to Elko. Most of them aren't actually from Elko since I was working while I was there. I'll keep the captions short and sweet, and below the pictures.
This made me laugh: the display of an irrigated garden with sprinklers right down the middle.

Salt Lake temple, as seen from the top of the conference center

Sunset in Tooele. (Alternate caption: Choose the Right.)

My hotel room in Elko. The decor had the right feel.

Me, not smiling.

The hotel pool; it was probably frozen.

A view of a mountain with an E on it, and the trailer park that was adjacent to my hotel.

My rental car.

Deeth Star Valley, which I assume is where they invented and/or built the Deeth Star.

Me, at Bonneville Salt Flats, contemplating the salty flat expanse.

Me and Jay, sleeping after a long trip. Jay didn't go on the trip, but he was as tired as I was.

Elko

Last week, I went to Elko.

I keep meaning to do a comprehensive story of my trip, with pictures, but I get motivated at times when my camera is not handy. So now I'm going to do a shorter version, no pictures, to be hopefully supplemented by a picture post of the scenic high desert west, at a later time.

First of all, if you have no idea where Elko is, you are not alone. Airplanes don't know where it is either. At least no airplanes that leave Las Vegas. And those that can be persuaded to find it charge greatly for their services. Thus, I flew to Salt Lake City, rented a car, and drove due west (on I-80) for about 3 hours to get there. Oddly enough, once you leave Salt Lake, there are only about 4 towns along that stretch.

Anyway, I had to get to Elko for some depositions I was taking on Monday, so I flew to Salt Lake on the early flight and met my old pal Joey Schmutz in Salt Lake, and we went to temple square. It was a pretty quiet morning on temple square, and we did the tours of the Beehive (or Lion?) House and the Conference Center. It was cool to wander around and see that stuff. I've been to Salt Lake just the right number of times, I think. It's always interesting to me.

After that, I dropped Joey off, cause he had to work, and I went to visit my grandma. My grandma recently moved to Syracuse, which is west of Layton. I had never been there, and I got lost twice along the way. Fortunately, I made it. My grandma currently has a basement apartment in my aunt and uncle's house. It was nice to see her. I gave her a copy of Holly's recent school picture. She asked me questions about people's recent Facebook statuses. That's right. My grandma is on Facebook. And though she doesn't update her page, she monitors mine. And my brothers and sisters. She was amazingly up to date. Don't underestimate your grandparents.

About that time, and thanks to getting lost along the way, I had to backtrack to I-80 and head to Elko. I got out of the city by dark and enjoyed singing at the top of my lungs across the desert. I even honked my rental car's horn a few times, just for fun. The highway was very empty. Much of the time I couldn't see any lights at all. I also searched the AM radio for Sunday night football, and remarkably found clear stations based in Albuquerque, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and Salt Lake, but not Elko, Reno, or Las Vegas.

I got to the Gold Country Inn at about 7, if I remember right, and watched the rest of the game. For those of you who travel across state lines occasionally, you know the adjustments that requires. It was doubly odd to travel to Utah, then back to Nevada, but not home, in the same day. Two time changes, and I had to coordinate Utah time with people in Utah, so I couldn't just ignore it.

I had depositions in Elko all day Monday. I had a great breakfast at my hotel's cafe, and an interesting lunch at a Basque restaurant. By the end of the day, I had a headache and was not feeling well, so I got takeout from the hotel restaurant and watched TV. The blackened chicken with linguine wasn't that great.

I didn't sleep well Monday night, and got up at 5 a.m. after I got a small chunk of sleep. I started east before 7 and stopped in West Wendover, then at the Salt Flats. It was interesting to see how empty it is up there. I'm used to the desert, and even dry lake beds, but salt flats are just empty and white. Interestingly, people try to write things with darker rocks along the freeway. Names, mostly, from what I could tell. I wondered what those people were thinking. I'll probably never know.

Getting back to Salt Lake was bittersweet, because it is a whole lot more interesting than Elko, but I was ready to go home. The plane ride was uncomfortable, though I did discover that the emergency exit row is the roomiest row on a plane. No more comfortable, though.

Also, Elko is isolated, rural and probably pretty cool if you had time to explore a little bit. I didn't have much time, and it wasn't terribly pleasant to be there. I do have to say that I noticed several nice hunting trophies while there, and the game warden appeared to favor the restaurant at my hotel, at least for breakfast. I saw at least 8 racks of antlers in truck beds. You just don't see that very often in Las Vegas.