When I was a young boy, I remember watching my grandpa burn a ditch. It was fascinating to me, watching the fire consume the dry, dead weeds. Even more interesting to me was hearing Grandpa tell me that the fire would damage and kill the living weeds and that another burning in a week or so would finish clearing the ditch for the water.

I remember smelling the pungent, acrid odor and watching the little tongues of fire consuming the weeds. I also remember watching Grandpa, shovel in hand, as he guided the fire, ensuring that it went only where he desired it to go, extinguishing renegade flames with a spadefull of dirt.

Those memories came flooding back today as I burned weeds in my back yard. When I say "yard," I mean "patch of dirt behind my house." There is still a lot of landscaping to be done.

My wife had raked up the dead weeds and other debris that had littered our back yard and had made a couple of rather large piles. Instead of loading the piles into a wheelbarrow and trying to stuff them into our garbage containers, I decided to reduce the amount of material that would eventually end up in the garbage by burning a large portion of it.

Me manly man! Me make FIRE!

I initially lit the corner of a large pile, and immediately, I could see that I would soon have a raging inferno if I didn't do something, and FAST. I quickly shoveled the burning portion into its own mini-pile which, fanned by a slight wind, quickly burned all of the dry, dead weeds. I then continued to slowly add small piles of weeds to the burning embers left behind.

My sons watched the flames with delight and asked hundreds of questions and wanted to help, much like I did with my grandpa some thirty years ago. I hope that future smells of weeds burning will evoke happy memories of childhood for them like it did for me today.

I've had surgery. When the topic comes up (which it occaisionally does), I'll tell people what surgeries I've had. But what I won't do is go into excruciating detail. I won't give a play-by-play recap of every little thing that happened. It would be less excruciating to watch a video of the surgery, because at least then, nothing would be left up to my imagination.

Certain surgeries are okay to talk about--my LASIK surgery, for example. If someone is considering LASIK, I'd be completely happy to give them a zap-by-zap narrative, mostly to help the person know what to expect and to help them worry less. I've heard people talk about having warts frozen off, strange growths removed, and hair plugs... uh... planted. None of these types of things bother me in the least. They might make me wince in pain now and again, but I have the same reaction when they talk about frisbee football games in the park.

Today, I asked a co-worker about the band-aid by his eye and he told me about the mole he had removed. I didn't expect him to continue and give me an entire recap of his vasectomy including visuals and descriptions of the "hotter-than-most" female medical assistant that was in the room at the time. Yet I was polite and only excused myself when he started talking about his wife's partial hysterectomy.

No. I DON'T want to hear about surgeries on any parts that might be covered by a swimsuit. PLEASE!

Last week, someone I was talking to went into excruciating detail (and I mean EXCRUCIATING) about his hernia repair operation when I mentioned that my wife's boss had a hernia operation. Only, this person's hernia wasn't a simple intramuscular hernia. Oh, no... It extended into the same areas that you might talk about when describing a vasectomy surgery.

But worst of all was when, a couple of months ago, someone I hardly knew vividly recalled how the doctors completely rebuilt his urethra. Yes, you read that correctly. His urethra.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Maybe if I examine my face closely in the mirror, I'll see some subtle facial expression that screams "Please! Do tell me everything there is to know about your genitalia!" I can't see ANY other reason that ANYONE would feel the pressing need to go into such graphic detail about medical procedures carried out on some of the more... *ahem* ...delicate parts of their anatomies, ESPECIALLY in the presence of people that they hardly know at all.

Yes, I understand that such surgeries are part of life. I also understand that people have such surgeries on a regular basis. But when I listen to highly detailed descriptions of such medical procedures I can't help but picture what was going on, and believe me, there are certain parts of certain people that I'd rather not even speculate about, thankyouverymuch.

When Gene Roddenberry created the concept, I don't think that he ever imagined this:

1. Star Trek - original Television Series (79 episodes, 1966-1969)
2. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
3. Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
4. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
5. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
6. Star Trek: The Next Generation (178 episodes, 1987-1994)
7. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
8. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
9. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (176 episodes, 1993-1999)
10. Star Trek: Generations (1994)
11. Star Trek: Voyager (172 episodes, 1995-2001)
12. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
13. Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
14. Star Trek: Enterprise (98 episodes, 2001-2005)
15. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Wow. That's 19 hours and 14 minutes worth of movies, and a whopping 524 hours and 59 minutes worth of television series. If you were to somehow get a job watching Star Trek movies and television series for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, you'd have to "work" for more than 13 1/2 weeks to watch it all. That doesn't count all of the special features and interviews and commentary involved.

Now, Paramount pictures has announced that it will produce an ELEVENTH Star Trek Movie, this one a prequel to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Apparently, it will go back to Starfleet Academy and show the meeting of Kirk and Spock and show their first missions into space. It's supposed to be released sometime in 2008.

Again, I'll say that Roddenberry probably had absolutely NO IDEA what he was creating when he worked on the first pilot back in 1966. I wonder how much money this idea has been worth to him and to his estate. (He died shortly before Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was released in 1991.)

Why can't I have ideas like that?

Really. I AM and I'll prove it to you.

I'm wearing this shirt today:

Photo not preserved: Gravity T-Shirt

That's not enough to convince you?

Well then, let me tell you about the conference I just registered for. It's called CSI NetSec 06. I'm going to conferences entitled "Under the Microscope - Dissecting Bot Code" and "Device Driver Malware" and I'm actually excited about them.

Still not convinced?

Fine. I'm going to change the look and feel of my weblog to look like slashdot.

There. That should convince ANYONE.

Ugh. That's awful. I'm changing it back.

But back to the conference...

It's actually kind of nice that my job values me enough to pay for the conference. It costs $1395 to learn about things like hacking and exploit development and cyber crime investigation. It's only costing $190/night for my room which has a usually overpriced rate of $345/night. But work is paying for that too. The airfare is a couple hundred bucks to Phoenix, Arizona.

What? I didn't mention that the conference is in Phoenix in the summer time and I'm still excited to be going? Now you're convinced that I'm a geek?

I think I'll buy this shirt and wear it at the conference:

Photo not preserved: Sunlight T-Shirt

Laylabean emailed me something called a "meme."

A what??

A meme.

What's a meme?

meme n (mëm): A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. From the Greek mimëma, something imitated, from mimeisthai, to imitate.

I know. Not much help to me either.

Well, in blog terms, a meme is something that is shared and passed from blogger to blogger. Maybe a set of questions that someone poses and multiple bloggers answer the set of questions.

So for my first meme, I'm supposed to put my iPod on shuffle and then post the list of songs it plays as the answers to the list of questions I've been given. It's a musical mad libs of sorts.

So here goes.

1. How does the world see you?
Up On the Roof (The Nylons)
Hmmm... That could be interpreted in many ways. Does the world look up to me or do they see me as snobbish, looking down on them?

2. Will I have a happy life?
Escape From Snyder (Newsies soundtrack)
Apparently, I'll escape from the demons that beset me and I WILL have a happy life!

3. What do my friends really think of me?
No One Mourns the Wicked (Wicked Soundtrack)
Thanks, my dear friends. I love you all too!

4. Do people secretly lust after me?
Forever (Kenny Loggins)
Well, no WONDER I'm up on the roof! I've got to stay away from these hordes of people that secretly are lusting after wicked, wicked me!

5. How can I make myself happy?
Making Christmas (Danny Elfman, Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack)
Mmmmm... Christmas...

6. What should I do with my life?
Believe (The Scarlet Pimpernel soundtrack)
Ok, now this is getting SPOOOOOOOOOKY. And I don't just mean the fact that I have way too many soundtracks in my iPod.

7. Will I ever have children?
A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes (The Amazing Pink Things, Live at the Hilton)
Now that is just silly. Of COURSE I'll have children. I have two already. Although this is even spookier, considering that I WANTED more children, but it just wasn't something that was possible. Now I'm beginning to think that my iPod is possessed.

8. What is some good advice for me?
This Is a Life? (Bugs Bunny on Broadway)
Oh... Introspection. I'm supposed to look at my life and see if it's what I want it to be. Ok, maybe that's some good advice.

9. How will I be remembered?
King of Pain (The Police)
Ouch. I hope that has something to do with broken hearts of all of those people that are supposedly secretly lusting after me. Because if that's not it, then... Ouch.

10. What is my signature song?
Sue Me (Guys & Dolls soundtrack)
A song about a guy professing his undying love to his sweetheart? That's not bad!

11. What do I think my current theme song is?
Prayer (Scarlet Pimpernel soundtrack yet again)
Surprising, but that's not bad either!

12. What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
The Steward of Gondor (Lord of the Rings Return of the King soundtrack)
Woohoo! I'm a GOOD guy! I'm a GOOD guy!

13. What song will play at my funeral?
Almost Paradise (Loverboy & Ann Wilson)
For some reason, I can't picture this playing in an LDS chapel. But what does it mean? Does it mean that my Wicked-ness from question 3 will keep me from making it to where I want to be after this life?

14. What type of men/women do I like?
St. Elmo's Fire, Man in Motion (St. Elmo's Fire soundtrack)
Apparently, I like passionate people.

15. What is my day going to be like?
Wipeout (The Surfaris)
Maybe I should just go back to bed right now.

Ok, so that was fun, actually. And what have you learned about me?

That I have way WAY too many soundtracks on my iPod.

We recently moved into a new home. It's newer, nicer, larger, and better than our old home in pretty much every way.

When we were moving in, one of the nice rounded corners in the house got bumped by the handle on our refrigerator. Nice, rounded corners don't handle bumps well. It dented and part of it popped free from the wall.

Tonight, I finally got up the nerve to try to fix it.

The first step was to re-attach the corner. That was easy enough. Four drywall screws took care of that problem nicely. The next step was to try to patch and cover the damage. I bought some drywall patching compound for that very purpose.

I now have new-found respect for drywall finishers. After I mixed the compound (powder) with water, it was a little bit on the runny side, but when it started curing, it started curing very VERY quickly. The result doesn't look too hot, but the nice thing is that with a bit of sanding and a second thin application, it's going to look nice.

The next step will be to paint it. Fortunately, the previous owners left some paint behind, so I won't have to figure out how to match the color.

As usual, I forgot to take a before picture, so I can't show off how good it's going to look when it's all done.

The previous owners also used a lot of drywall anchors, so I patched a bunch of those holes while I was at it.

When we finish the basement, I'll put up the drywall, but I'll have someone else do the finishing work. In the long run, it'll probably be less expensive to pay someone that actually has experience in this and can do it right the first time around.

I hate seeing my children in pain. I hate it even worse when it's pain that I (more or less) inflict on them. No, don't go calling DCFS. I don't beat my children. I don't remember the last time either of them received so much as a swat on the butt, but I'm sure that said butts were diaper-clad at the time.

Today I took my second son to the dentist.

Neither my wife nor I needed braces when we were younger. Both of us have straight teeth. The problem is the combination of her jaw and my teeth or vice versa. The combination of our genes produces children with crowded (and therefore crooked) teeth.

With our offspring, the primary teeth come in just fine. The adult teeth don't like to cooperate with the way God designed things. In my second son's case, it means that he has now lost twelve teeth, all twelve to dental forceps. He has never, EVER, not even ONCE lost a tooth in a natural way.

Four were extracted back in 2004. Six more followed in late 2005. None of those were very problematic. The two that were removed today had deeper roots that had not yet been eroded much by adult teeth. By the time we got home, his mouth had started to hurt.

Beat me up. Smack me around. Extract MY teeth! Abuse me in any way you see fit. But please don't make me watch my children go through anything similar, because it tears my heart out.

The only small thing I have to console myself with is the fact that, in the long run, this pain will be forgotten and the end result will be a beautiful, functional smile. This whole process really is in his best interest.

But I still feel like crap.

I don't know how far we went yesterday. We made a sort of spur-of-the-moment decision to take a Sunday afternoon bike ride.

I pumped up a few bike tires and we tracked down riding gloves and other accessories we hadn't used since last fall. Finally, we were ready and we headed down the driveway, then up the hill behind our house.

The boys aren't ready for that kind of a hill, though my oldest made it more than halfway up before he had to get off the bike and walk. But when we had arrived at the top, neither of the boys wanted to stop riding. We probably rode 3 or 4 miles, all the way up past the temple, past the High School, and down the hill to the park with the pond.

The pond is extremely full--TOO full due to the abundance of rain and snow that has, so far, kept us from doing much riding. There were ducks and geese chasing each other all over the grass and all over the water's surface.

The weather was beautiful... At least, it was beautiful until we decided to turn back towards home. We rode (and the boys walked) our bikes back up the hill and then we told them that the hard part was over and it was almost completely downhill all the way home. We were halfway right.

It was certainly downhill almost all the way home, but the hard part wasn' t over. We hadn't counted on such a strong wind blowing in our faces all the way home. But we all pushed on against it. It started to get cold - almost a biting cold. For a while, my youngest didn't want to keep riding. There was, however, no alternative, so he pushed on even harder against the wind.

When we entered our neighborhood, both boys were pretty worn out. We must have ridden 7 or 8 miles, half of it into a pretty stiff wind. In the end, despite the challenge of the wind, we were all happy to have done something active together. We're a little sore this morning (I'm speaking for the adults. The children seem completely unaffected), but we're looking forward to the next family ride.

I guess I should clarify.

From Merriam-Webster online:

a piece of sawed lumber of little thickness and a length greatly exceeding its width

This kind doesn't bother me. In fact, many many of them have been used to build a very nice house for me.

a sheet of insulating material carrying circuit elements and terminals so that it can be inserted in an electronic apparatus

This type of board is good too. I use circuit boards all the time. If it weren't for this kind of board, I wouldn't have the job that I have that allowed me to purchase the house made of the other boards I mentioned.

a group of persons having managerial, supervisory, investigatory, or advisory powers

This is the kind of board that annoys me.

It probably annoys me most because I'm currently a member of this type of board.

I'm a member of the board of directors of a local community theatre group. It's an all-volunteer board for the most part, though often, the board members receive payment when they produce or direct a play.

The thing that annoys me about boards is that it's all too often very difficult for a board to come to a consensus.

For two consecutive Saturdays now, I've met with this board. There were very few items on the agenda:

• Review (post-partum?) of the most recent show
• Selection of the fall show
• Discussion of a "tribute" show for the theatre troupe's founder
• Discussion of a script library
• Discussion of board member roles and responsibilities

The annoying thing is that in more than two hours of meetings, we still haven't been able to make a single decision as a board. We should have been able to select a fall show. There are only two choices that have been presented, and one of them isn't very feasible for a small theatre with a small pool of talent and a small budget. The other is relatively unknown, but all of the board members were furnished with a copy of the script at the end of last week's meeting. Only half of the six board members even read the script, and then they didn't want to make a decision without having read the script.

Ugh.

During the actual meetings, the conversation meanders. Maybe it's the dramatic nature of the people involved, but as a group, we can't seem to stay focused long enough on any subject to have any meaningful conversation.

Then there's the fact that we're all friends, and everyone seems to be unwilling to make ANY decision that might not make EVERYONE happy. That reminds me of a workplace that was redesigned by a committee. The end result was horrid. Instead of doing what might be the best thing for everyone, the committee did what everyone hated the least.

That's what a board does. It tries to meet the goals for which it was created, but too often, it tries to do so in a way that couldn't possibly offend anyone, but by doing its job in that way, it ends up crippling itself, doing its job a lot less efficiently and effectively.

And that's why I don't like boards.

Wow. How completely narcissistic of me to create a web log for myself, about myself, name it after myself, and host it on a domain bearing my name. It's probably even more narcissistic of me to use a big word like narcissistic in the first sentence of my first entry.

I used to have another blog that turned into an exercise blog last summer. I've decided to keep it and create this blog to post my musings, rantings, rambling and writings. Why? Well, I just might be narcissistic egocentric enough to think that you might enjoy it. I might actually think enough of myself to believe that I have something so earth-shatteringly important to say that it needs to be said on the Internet so that all will read it and will see how incredibly witty and eloquent I am.

Ok, so maybe not.

More than likely, this will become a blog like so many other blogs on the Internet that are read infrequently by friends and family. Most often, blogs are full of inane drivel that doesn't amount to much. Most often, they are ignored by the masses and cherished by the few that know and love the writer. Yet once in a while, they will contain that rare nugget of wisdom or insight that becomes a window to the writer's soul through which the reader will gain a better understanding of the writer's personality, intellect, passion, or belief.

Why start again today? Do I have something profound to say? No.

Last night, a friend suggested that I should start writing in my blog again and it got me thinking. I don't write as much as I used to. Once in a while, I have a burst of creativity that can only come out in writing. It's never enough for a novel, or even a short story, for that matter. I decided to take the suggestion and start blogging again. I'm sure I'll fill this with much inane drivel, but hopefully, through the process of writing something--anything--the rare creative moment will manifest itself and something here will be worth reading.