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.

Katie Davis, Registered Dietitian

I would like to congratulate my wonderful wife Katie. She took and passed her exam to be a Registered Dietitian today. She has been working hard for three years and has studied hard for the last two months, and now she is official. She can even sign patient charts at hospitals now. Now we are off to her family's cabin up at Alta to celebrate our new-found freedom.

Back from the Dead

I'm sorry that I took such a long break. July was a crazy month. We bought a house, packed, moved, unpacked, studied for the bar and took the bar. But I finished the Bar yesterday and it feels great. I feel pretty good about it, but you never know with such a difficult test. More than anything, I'm relieved its over. To celebrate, I went and saw Mission Impossible III late last night and I saw Pirates of the Carribean this afternoon. On a more unfortunate note, I also had a large, infected, pussy abcess under my arm drained by the doctor this morning. All I can say is, "thank goodness for pain medication." I knew it wasn't going to be pretty when the doctor asked the nurse to hand her the goggles.

Anyway, while I never made time to write a blog in July, I did think about a few ideas, so watch for some upcoming posts! For now, I have to go to one of Katie's showers.

gooooooooolllllllll

Let the World Cup begin! I don't follow soccer closely enough to make any predictions about who will win, but it will surely be fun to watch. I am cheering for the US, Argentina, and England to do well (all countries where I have lived, if only for a time).

We don't have ESPN at home, so I was worried that I would miss most of the games or have to ask my dad to TIVO the ones I really wanted to see. But thank heavens for Univision! It turns out that Univision is televising almost every single World Cup game, and you don't need cable to get it.

And as an added bonus, watching soccer in Spanish is way more exciting than watching in English. I watched the first half of the England v. Paraguay game this morning on ABC, and the announcers were so boring. The play-by-play guy knew very little about soccer (the extent of his commentary was that David Beckam is married to Posh Spice) and was not a bit animated. I switched to Univision for the second half and was very entertained. The announcers are so much more animated and make watching the game so much more exciting (but you do need to speak some Spanish to get the effect). There's nothing like an announcer yelling "Goool, goool, goooooooooooooooooollllllllll, goooolllllllaaaaassssssooooooo" for several minutes after a goal, or even yelling "se le fueeeeeeeeeeee" in a near miss. The Spanish announcers also have clever phrases. In Argentina's game this afternoon, Argentina had a breakaway, but the Ivory Coast's ("Costa de Marfil") defender was so fast that he recovered in amazing time (it truly was amazing how fast he was), and the announcer said, "Mira como se recupero el Marfilseno. Que rapido" and then yelled, "Como se dice ferrocarril en Costa de Marfil!" It was really funny.

Anyway, I hope everyone can take in a few World Cup games this time around, and, for you Spanish speakers, do it en Espanol.

Vamos Argentina!!!!!!

Best BBQ in Utah

A few weeks ago, Cblakes, Judd, and I met up on a Monday night and headed out looking for the best BBQ in Utah. We went to a place called Pat's BBQ (www.patsbbq.com) first. I had been there before and knew it had some amazing BBQ. It's location is a little sketchy, which, as it turns out, is a pretty good indicator of good BBQ. You drive up, and it looks more like a warehouse than a restaurant (that perception isn't helped by the fact that its in an industrial zone). Katie was very skeptical, but I went in to scout it out and found it very clean inside, so we went in and ordered. It was awesome! I ordered a half rack, but the ribs were so huge that I could only eat three. The ribs were nice and smoky, and they had a variety of sauces available at your table, so you could sample a number of different sauces. In addition to the great food, the atmosphere was outstanding. The tables are nice picnic tables to eat at, and there is a large bag of peanuts available to snack on while you are waiting for your food. They also have cool blues music playing in the background. Right then and there I declared Pat's BBQ the best Q in Utah, and I was looking forward to repeating the experience with Cblakes and Judd. But, unfortunately, they are not open on Monday nights, and we were turned away disappointed.

Determined, we called Katie and had her look up the address of the only other BBQ place that could compete with Pat's--Q for You in West Valley. We headed west and found Q for You in an appropriately sketchy, although not industrial, area. Fortunately, it was open, so we went in and ordered ourselves a couple racks of ribs. The ribs were just as large as those at Pat's, and they were nice and smoky, but they only provided one kind of sauce. The owner was a huge ethnic guy (I couldn't tell if he was black or Polynesian) that would walk around the tables and shoot the crap with other cool dudes, which was pretty cool. We were very satisfied, but, in the end, I must give the edge to Pat's. It had a greater variety of sauces, and it had a much better atmosphere. I found myself longing for Pat's peanuts, picnic tables, and blues music, while I was sitting in a ghetto table/booth, surrounded by rain forest decor (complete with a fake parrot), and lame music.

So, until proven otherwise, Pat's BBQ retains its title as best BBQ in Utah.

Neglect

I'm sorry that I have neglected my blog lately. This is finals week, so things have been really busy lately. On top of studying for finals, we've been house-hunting, which is very time consuming (especially since we're trying to do it without a realtor to save some money). But my finals will be over this week, and I'll soon be back to making regular posts. Until then . . .

Congratulations to Katie

If you will allow me to brag about my wife for just a moment, I just wanted to say a quick congratulations to Katie. She was awarded the Utah Dietetics Association Intern of the Year Award today at the Association's annual conference. I got to go to the conference's luncheon today, where they announced Katie's award, along with a few others. Basically, she was recommended by her teachers at BYU, and the Utah Dietetics Association chose her from a number of other interns who were nominated from BYU, Utah State, and the University of Utah. Its a great honor, and she has worked very hard, even when she was terribly nauseous from the pregnancy. She very much deserves the award. I have often said that during her two years in her dietetics program and one year in her internship, she has worked much harder than I have in my three years of law school. That says something about the rigorous nature of BYU's dietetics program, but it also shows what a great worker Katie is. She really knows how to wear herself out for a good cause.

Of course, in her acceptance speech she thanked her wondeful husband because, if he hadn't regularly ironed all of her shirts, she would not have had anything to wear to her internship.

Book Review: Devil in the White City

Upon Jayme's recommendation, I checked this book (on CD) out of the library and listened to it as I drove around town. The books full title is Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. It is extremely well-written, especially for a work of non-fiction, and is filled with interesting tidbits. I now find myself a little more educated in a wide array of different fields.

Its hard to say what this book is about because it covers so much ground. Principally, it is about the World Columbian Exposition (the Chicago World Fair held in the early 1890's) and its influence. Basically, after the World Fair in Paris (an enourmous spectacle that brought us the Eiffel tower), we (the US) wanted a fair of our own that would outdo the Paris Fair. This book is about our efforts in that vein. But you could also say that the book was about one of Chicago's greatest architects; one of America's first serial killers; America in the 1890's; the city of Chicago; American architecture in the 1890's and its effect on subsequent architecture; landscape architecture; the invention of the Ferris Wheel; the American spirit; Buffalo Bill Cody; and much more.

Because the book covers such a wide variety of topics, you are sure to be more interested in parts of this book and less interested in others, but because the writing is so good, all of it is readable.

Overall, I would recommend the book. Here's the Amazon.com link. You can check out some other reviews there, if you're interested.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375725601/sr=8-1/qid=1144432365/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3306506-0480060?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Ears to Hear

Katie is now almost 20 weeks into her pregnancy (that's half way, I think). We went to our 19-20 week ultrasound last Friday to check to make sure that the baby is developing on schedule (two arms, five fingers, two ears, four chambers of the heart, one brain, etc.). Everything looked great.

And this weekend, we read in one of our pregnancy books that babies start being able to hear at about 19-20 weeks. For us, that means two things: (1) Katie needs to start watching her language (just kidding, Katie ;)) and (2) we can start reading to her. So last night, she was exposed to her first bits of literature (yes, we are fanatical first time parents; at least we aren't trying to use flash cards). We read her Wordsworth's poem Dafodills and then Curious George Goes to the Museum. I'm sure she liked them.