Book Review: All Over but the Shoutin'

I just finished "All Over but the Shoutin,'" and it is the best memoir I have ever read (and I've read a few good ones: Life & Death in Shanghai, When I Was Puerto Rican). It is written by Rick Bragg, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist. He has had an amazing life. He grew very poor in a tiny little town in Alabama. His father was a Korean War vet, an alcoholic, and a terrible father. But he had an amazing mother. Most of the book is really about her.

Bragg is an amazing storyteller, and the book is really just a series of well-told stories. The book is very well-written (if a little over-punctuated). He tells stories about growing up poor in the South, about the Korean War, and about his mother. Then he tells stories about being a journalist and the stories he covered. He specializes in telling stories of sadness and heartbreak, and he shares many such stories through his memoir. He only had 6 months of formal college education at a tiny little community college near his home, but he was a talented storyteller, and that took him all the way to a Harvard Fellowship, to a job at the New York Times, and to a Pulizter. I would highly recommend this book. Its only about 200 pages long, its easy to read, and its quite worth the effort.

BBQ Sunday, Anyone?

I know that I have already crowned Pat's BBQ the best BBQ in Utah--and that still stands--but new information has come to light that solidifies Q4U in second place: the BBQ sunday. Yes, Q4U features a BBQ sunday on their menu. It features a fine blend of pulled pork, beans, and coleslaw. Can you think of anything more appetizing? This is pure genius.

More Halloween Pics

As promised, here are some more pics from the Halloween party. That way you can see all of the costumes/contestans. Here's the link to Allison/Owen's web site: http://web.mac.com/spencerallison/iWeb/Owen/Halloween%20Party.html. Enjoy

Gracie's Blessing

We blessed Gracie a few weeks ago. Sorry I'm a little slow getting these pictures up. It was such a privilege to be able to bless her, and we were very greatful to all out friends/family that traveled to be there. Gracie did great. She did not cry, and when I held her up to show everyone how cute she is after the blessing, she flashed her winning smile. We had everyone over after the blessing for a brunch/open house. We had breakfast caseroles and sticky buns to go along with the fruit and the pina colada slush. I think everyone had a great time. Here are some pictures of the day.

Colbert + LOTR = Hilarity

This is funny, especially for those LOTR buffs out there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZnxNfBVr0U

The Annual Halloween Party

Spencer and Allison hosted another succesful Halloween party this past weekend. The theme was "The Amazing Race," and, after enjoying some hourdorves at our home, the couples were pitted against each other in a race across Salt Lake. The first stop was the church near our house. There, the contestants got their first clue, which directed them to find Mountain West Small Business Finance. At MWSBF, they had to show off their dance moves, and no one could advance without advancing a few levels in "Dance Dance Revolution." After MWSBF, the couples had to go to a store and buy a quart of ice cream and take it to the church by Katie's parents' house. Each couple had to eat the whole quart of ice cream before they could advance. To speed up the process, most couples microwaved their ice cream and drank it. Keler tried to cheat by spooning ice cream into the garbage can, for which he received a penalty. Then the teams had to race to my parents house in Bountiful, where they had to complete a 100 piece puzzle. We enjoyed more snacks there, and the winners of the costume contest and the race were revealed. I am pleased to announce that, for the first time, Katie and I won the costume contest. I don't have pictures of everyone's costume. If I get more from Allison, I'll post them (Or, if she posts them on her web site, I will provide a link). For now, I'll post what I have.

Katie and I as Kip and Lafawnduh.













Gracie as a cute bunny













Keler and Melissa as Sergei and Petrova, Russian figure skaters.

My Midevil Name

The other day, I overheard someone talking about seeing The Quill and the Sword club (Q&S) down on BYU's campus. For those of you who don't know, The Quill and the Sword is an awesome club down at BYU for those fascinated with the midevil period. As a rule of thumb, if you see someone walking around campus wearing a cloak, a large, puffy dress, chain mail, or armor, then they are members of The Quill and the Sword. You will often see them practicing their sword-fighting skills with their wooden lances in the early afternoons. I always longed to join them. Twice, I went to lectures by professors on Lord of the Rings-related subjects. The lecture was awesome, and I was surrounded by Q&S members. It was awesome.

Out of curiosity, I googled them and came across this fantastic web site: http://clubs.byu.edu/qands/. It appears that the larger club is broken up into smaller "guilds" according to area of interest (i.e., armory, dancing, cooking, and web design). What I find even cooler, however, is that it appears that each member of the Q&S takes a midevil name for him or herself. There is 'Ravishing Pixie' and 'Isabella Slayrock,' among others. That got me thinking: I wish I had a cool midevil name. So I started thinking of what my midevil name would have been had I shed my false pride and joined the illustrious Q&S. I think I would have liked being called 'Ian, Bright Scales,' or 'Ian the Gray.' Perhaps I would have totally dropped my name and gone as 'Durin Stonerocka' or 'Sir Blade.' Any of those would have been cool.

If you were a member of Q&S, what would your midevil name be?

General Conference

I thought General Conference was great. We say that every year (or, more accurately, twice every year), but it is always true. The major theme that I saw emerge was a general need to do more. At least I felt consistently motivated to work harder at work, to do more community service, to become more educated, to do more missionary-related activities, to put more into my church calling (when I get one), etc. Maybe that's just what I needed to take away from Conference because of my own personal sloth, but it seemed to be a recurring theme. Anyway, there were plenty of great talks, and I'll enjoy listening to them again on my ipod over the next few months (http://www.lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,49-1-646,00.html).

Some more pics

Gracie is growing fast. She is now up to 8 pounds, 3 ounzes. That seems like a lot to us, although I realize that baby Lukas (congrats, Jayme & Katie!) is over one pound heavier and he was born this past weekend! She is starting to smile a little bit, which is really fun.

The Office

What did everyone think of the season premiere of The Office last night? I thought there were some funny parts, especially Dwight's gay-dar, but I was a little disappointed. I guess I was bothered by the fact that the opted to go with a major cliff-hanger at the end of last season and that they just told you how it got resolved over the summer as part of a sub-plot in the first episode. This episode would have been more satisfying, I think, if it were the second or third episode of the season. Everyone wanted the juicy details about what happened with Jim and Pam.

Stuck in an Elevator

The other day, I got stuck in an elevator. I was heading home from work at about 5:15 (ah, government hours) and hopped in an elevator and pressed the button to take me to the first floor. Well, the doors shut, but the elevator didn't move. I pressed all the buttons there were to push, but no luck. I had to call maintenance and wait for almost an hour and a half while the elevator maintenance guys came and got me out of there. It was miserable. You might think that being stuck in a broken elevator on the fifth floor alone for an hour and a half might have caused one to do some self-reflection or soul searching or something like that, maybe turn into a life changing experience (kind of like a near-death exprience). But it didn't. I wasn't scared; just bored and glad I didn't have to use the bathroom. Maybe if the elevator was shaking or something; that might have lead to a more significant experience. But I just sat around and scared Katie by pretending that I might run out of air (at least my phone worked).

Gracie

She's making a funny face here, but I thought this was a cute picture.

Soccer and YouTube

As some of you know, especially Katie, I really got into the World Cup this past summer, even after Argentina crashed out of the tournament. And momentum has carried my interest into the current European club soccer season. I like keeping tabs on the Argentinians playing abroad and on things generally. The problem is that I don't have satellite and I don't have Tivo (which makes it almost impossible to watch any games). But I have found that highlights from most of the major games get posted on YouTube. So, every once in a while, I will search for the names of the teams that played and get to see a few highlights.

Here's a good example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrREN6kzm-w. The early stages of the Champions League started this week, and Lyon beat up on Real Madrid pretty bad. I searched in YouTube for "real madrid lyon" and it brought up a number of different highlight videos. I thought I would share this one because it has some really cool highlights (mostly from Lyon b/c they dominated almost the entire game). The other thing that makes this link awesome (at least for Spanish speakers) is that it is taken from an Argentinian highlight show (at least the announcer is Argentinian--you can tell because his accent is way cooler than any other spanish accent imaginable!). He's got some great expressions.

But you can find more than just highlights of recent games on YouTube. I have also found some cool highlight videos on certain players--just search for Leo Messi, Carlos Tevez, Cesc Fabregas, Ronaldinho, Steven Gerrard (this one's awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWzQn-FpEOU), Maradona, Zinadine Zidane, etc. There are also highlights of teams as they have made their run through tournaments and seasons.

Book Review: All the Kings Men

Just in time for the release of the new movie, I finished All the King's Men. When I started the book, I actually didn't know that they were remaking the movie (there was a movie made in the 50's I think), but the movie has quite a star-studded cast (see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405676/). I haven't heard any buzz about the movie, but I hope its good.

I quite liked the book. Robert Penn Warren (America's first poet laureate) wrote the book. At times, he gets a bit wordy and goes off on long meditations/diatribes (I found myself skimming fairly often, especially the first 50 pages), but, still, the language is spectacular. The book is most often sold as a political masterpiece (its loosely based on the life of Huey Long, the Louisiana governor/demagogue who rose to power by championing the cause of the lower classes), but I read it much more as a classic character study. The characters, especially the main characters, are all rich and deep. They are complex and real. The book charts the reactions of these characters, who are all very different and who act very differently as they encounter a variety of circumstances. The political/historical background is only an instrument that Warren uses to explore the psyche of his diverse characters and to explore rich themes such as fate, right and wrong, the nature of justification.

The book is fascinating and highly enjoyable. I recommend that you all read it before the movie comes out.

The Power of the Internet

So here's a cool story: my friend Rob flew into SLC from Florida last Thursday and we met up for some lunch. After considering a number of options, we decided to revisit Pat's BBQ (in addition to having great food, it had the advantage of being out of the downtown area, which was a little hectic b/c of the visit from our good friend Bushie). Anyway, we went and had an excellent meal. It confirmed the fact that Pat's is the best bbq in Salt Lake (see my previous post). But the cool part of the meal came when we went to pay. As they were processing our cards up front, I was looking around the restaurant. They have a wall where they have posted newspaper articles, thank you notes, and, apparently, blog entries--including my blog entry! I was shocked. I started reading one that started out, "Judd, Cblakes, and I . . ." and my jaw dropped. It was my post on the best BBQ in Utah. I have no idea how it found its way into Pat's restaruant itself, but I was very excited. I know Cblakes gets a lot of outside traffic because of his movie reviews, but I thought my audience was always pretty limited. At least in this instance, I was wrong. Anyway, I thought that was cool.

Here are a few more pics of baby Gracie. She is going great and is so much fun.

Book Review: Death and the Penguin

Upon the recommendation of my esteemed Cousin, Jayme, I picked this book up just after I finished the bar. I finished it a few days ago and quite liked it. I'm not sure I liked it as much as Jayme did, so I invite his comments on what he liked about the book (unless he is planning to do an independent post on his blog). And anyone else who has read the book should also feel free to comment.

The book takes place in post-Soviet Kiev (Ukraine) and, in large part, is an illustration of what life is like for the average Ukranian. The main character is a writer who has adopted a penguin from the Kiev Zoo (because the zoo couldn't afford to feed it any more). The book traces his life as he gets a job as a obituary writer for a local newspaper and comes into contact with a variety of interesting characters, some likable, some bizarre, and some sordid. For me, the book got a little boring at times, but Misha the penguin is very loveable, and the last 50 pages are quite good. The book deals primarily with themes of death and depression (the penguin--far from his natural habitat--is quite depressed). But the book also explores the post-modern idea that things and occurences have multiple meanings and that it is difficult to know what is real.

Overall, I would recommend the book.

Daddy Time

Baby Gracie is still doing great. She keeps Katie up most of the night, which is too bad, but she is so cute its hard to begrudge her that. Katie manages to sneak in naps while Grace sleeps during the day, which helps. The benefit of the situation is that, when I come home from work, Katie is pretty tired, so I get to spend a couple hours of good, quality time with baby Gracie while Katie lies down or takes a bath. I get to sit and rock her in the rocking chair, read her books, tell her stories, and take her on walks (sometimes Katie joins us for the walks). It is so much fun. I always thought that little babies were a little boring because they just sleep all day. I was always much more excited to have kids that were 2 and older because you could play with them. Boy was I wrong. Maybe other people's kids are a little boring in longer doses (for other people, not for the parents), but I could just sit and hold Gracie for hours while she slept, and I would be having the time of my life.

Little Gracie

Here are a few more pictures of little Gracie. I think these ones show how little she really is.

Baby Gracie

At long last, baby Gracie arrived. She was born Saturday night around 8:00. She weighted 5 pounds, 6 ounces. She is a tiny little thing--her premie diapers don't even fit her--but she is healthy and fully developed (she doesn't even have jaundice). She is still sleeping all day an all night, except for every few hours when she wakes up to eat and to tell us she needs her diaper changed

On a side note, Gracie was born during the Real v. Real game, and I take it as a good omen that David Beckam was gracing the soccer field at the time of her birth and that TomKat (that's right, Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes) were present in the stadium watching the game. I suppose that TomKat's baby, if, in fact, they really did have a baby, which is debateable, was also in town. With all that star-power just a stone's-throw away at the time of her birth, I figure that she will either be a brilliant soccer player, a famous acress, or a scientologist (after all, Katie (Davis, not Holmes) is certified in Dianetics).

Bratfest '06

In honor of Chris, Emily, Mary, & and unnamed baby boy leaving us to go to grad school in Wisconsin, we held Bratfest '06 at our home over the weekend. It was, by all measurements, a huge success. We had Wisconsin cheese (ok, so it wasn't Wisconsin cheese, but I am sure that it is very similar to the cheese you can get in Wisconsin) and crackers for appetizers. Judd provided a nice selection of root beers drafted in the Wisconsin area. Then we moved on to the main course where we sampled Bratwurst and some spicy Italian sausage (the faint of heart opted for masterfully grilled hamburgers). Then for desert we had ice cream and root beer cookies. That's right, root beer cookies. Katie found a recipe for them, and we had to try them. They were actually really good. I think the next time we serve them, we will serve them hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, kind of like a root beer float. But I can't think of a good name for such a desert. Any suggestions?

Anyway, everyone had a great time, and we missed those who could not attend. Chris, Emily, Mary, & baby will be missed. We'll have to hold the next Bratfest in Wisconsin itself.