That can't be good

Brodi and I have been fans of John Stewart and the Daily Show for a long time. On a visit to New York over 5 years ago, we were guests at the show. Too bad, the camera never showed us even though we tried to get noticed by laughing extra hard and wearing big hats and clown shoes.

So tonight, I am enjoying a frosty beverage of my choosing (Diet Pepsi Vanilla...all out of Tab tonight--talk about a tragedy!) when Stewart made a funny. Before I could even think about it, I bust out laughing, spewing precious Diet Pepsi Vanilla all over my laptop keyboard. Now, from the image, it is hard to see it, but trust me, there is liquid all over the keyboard. As of yet, the laptop has yet to short out.

Good for me. I am in no mood to buy another keyboard. Curse you John Stewart and your liberal humor.

Random Randomness

I am waiting to receive the Coach of the Year award. My team of neighborhood kids (7 of them are all kids in our neighborhood that all go to kindergarten together) is taking the Impact Soccer League by storm. My yelling, throwing things around on the field, etc. is starting to really pay off. We are now 4-0 with wins of 4-1, 2-0, 5-4 and 5-2 (though we are not keeping score). I may have to retire and finish with a perfect record. In the least, I should at least get some kind of cash bonus.

Did you hear that they just found a prime number with 13 million digits? This basically means that it is a number that can only be divided by 1 and by itself. So, numbers like 3 and 7 are prime numbers...but it gets harder and harder to find one as the number gets bigger. So, this prime number that has 13 million digits (at the left of this is a picture of the number, minus millions of numbers not printed)--think of it this way, if you printed out each number in regular 12-point type, it would create a number 30 miles long. Yeah, thats a big number. And its prime! And you all could care less. Imagine that pickup line in a bar--Yeah, my name is Sam and I found a 13million digit prime number, whats your sign?

Brodi and I entered in to a mixed doubles tennis tournament. We play our good friends, Brandon and Alissa. If they really value our friendship, they will let us win. We'll see if they do.

We went out to dinner the other night and had a very nice night of good food. We also had a very nice waitress. As we talked, we let her know that she looked like a twin of our friend Heather (sorry we haven't see you guys for a while!). We pulled up a picture of her and showed it to the waitress and she commented that they did look quite a bit alike. The waitress then let us know that a lot of people tell her she looks like some celebrities. We asked who--she told us Angelina Jolie and Jessica Alba. That would be cool to get a compliment like that and have no problem telling other people that--Now I just need to someone to say that I look like a cross between George Clooney and Brad Pitt because if that ever happened, I would tell EVERYBODY, ALL THE TIME. My ego would be so out of control.

Impressionisto Carter

I found this picture that Carter did a couple of years ago. The school gave cutouts of eyes, ears, nose and a mouth and gave it to the kids to make a face out of it and this is what Carter did with it all. How awesome and genius is this? Our kid, without a doubt, is the next Picasso.

Some quick family tidbits

We had a conversation with Carter on being alive (don't ask). Carter went on to inform us that trees are not alive because they don't have mouths, ears, eyes or fingers. We then discussed how a house is not alive, but as we discussed that, we opened the garage door--which Carter quickly informed us that the garage is the mouth, so obviously, a house is alive.

This past weekend, we had a nice dinner at my sister Emily's house. Great food and great company. Brodi and I even brought a cheesecake for everyone to enjoy. We still had a good third of the cheesecake left which I was either going to eat or take into the office (3 pieces of cheesecake is enough for a day, I think). So, being the smart parent that I am, I put the cheesecake down on the car floor below Beckham. He was not strapped in to the carseat as of yet and shockingly enough, he decided to get down from his carseat. Though he doesn't weigh much, he weighs enough that when he steps in a cheesecake, he smushes it. If that picture of the smushed cheesecake is not the saddest thing you have ever seen, then I don't know what is.

Carter loves kindergarten and told Brodi that "I want to stay in kindergarten forever.'

We were talking to Carter and we started laughing and he quickly informed us to stop laughing at him. We explained that we were laughing with him, not at him. He then remarked that Indiana Jones does not laugh at him or with him. To be honest, I did not expect Indiana Jones to be a part of that conversation.

Beckham is our little puker. Yes, our little puker. At least once a month, after a car ride and usually after a ride where he is reading in the car or distracted by watching Carter or doing something, we will stop the car and get out. He will start walking away from the car, pause, puke and then keep on walking. Thats my boy. Carter never gets carsick...Beckham, on the other hand, follows after his daddy.

This is how we roll at church

I saw this posted outside of a local church last night. I think they have figured out how to improve attendance at their Sunday services.

Catchy song and some stupendously great dancing

There are some music videos that are so bad, they deserve to be brought to light. The key board 'star' is my absolute favorite...he is having the time of his life with his perma-grin and his 'white' indian women dancing happily around him. It is mainly acoustic besides some humming and the occasional 'Apache' yell.

creepy clowns and pet petting

My father in law had his company party, so we loaded up the kids in the car and headed to the 'carnival.' It was a nice little setup with good food and different games for the kids.

Then the clown came out. I know that it is cliche for adults to say that clowns are a bit creepy, but seriously, they are. You just have no idea if the man behind the makeup and the attire is just going to snap and do something crazy. This one had bright stringy yellow hair and was named Harry the Hobo...which is better than Harry the homeless man, but still. At the start, he asked the all the kids to: 'raise your hand if you are not here.' Right then, I knew it was going to be a long show.

Surprisingly enough, Carter got a kick out of it all. There were actually some pretty good little tricks where he pulled out a huge duck (Carter is show with his tiger face paint giving a high-five to the duck) and he also pulled a rabbit out of his hat and Beckham had a chance to pet him as well. Hats off to Harry the Hobo for giving a good show even if he was a clown.

Football star

So, I am walking through a Rite Aid and I see the clearance bins and decided to take a peek...and my heart was filled with joy! My old football game. Normally $15 which would be an UNBELIEVABLE deal, but it was marked down and I grabbed one on sale for only $4. On top of that, I found another one, so I grabbed it too just in case the first one were to ever break after hours spent playing on it.







I used to spend many days sitting on a Saturday afternoon watching college football with this handy little game on my lap as I kicked butt. The stupid little game computer COULD NOT HANDLE MY SKILLZZZZ! And now, I get to step back in time and kick more computer butt! Brodi does not know what she is in for...who cares about Playstation 3 or the xbox when you have a crummy little atari-like football game to keep you entertained until late in the night. Life is good.

50 years and going strong

Happy 50th Anniversary to my parents. 50 years. Crazy. They are amazing parents and their relationship has always been a terrific one.

We had the whole family in town to celebrate the past 50 years. My mom and dad and us kids and spouses stayed up in Midway at the Homestead and had a great dinner at the BoarHead Inn, played a great round of golf in the morning and had a nice time hanging out.


It has been rare to have us all in town together at the same time over the years because various family members living in Chicago, Washington DC, London, Boston, etc. so it was a lot of fun to have us all here.

Some of the interesting notes from the past 50 years:

• 6 wonderful (its my blog so I will use the term wonderful to describe us) kids (3 boys and 3 girls...I am the youngest and I used to imagine we were the Brady Bunch)
• Countless moves from Boston to Indianapolis to Bountiful (eek!) to Salt Lake City.
• 27 grandchildren (19 girls and 8 boys)
• Thousands of Sunday dinners. It has to be in the thousands, doesn't it? Let me tell you, their good sized home gets to be feeling small with some adults and kids running around each Sunday.

Anyway, we are lucky to both have good families on each side and it gives us a goal to stay married (I know that I am probably pretty difficult to put up with) for the next 40 years.

Bad back or a Bad case of the Sodas?

So yesterday, I am walking around my office and all of a sudden, I doubled up in pain. Terrible pain in my lower back. I could barely walk. Now you all know me as a 'rough and tumble', 'greek god-ish', 'tough as nails' kind of guy, so it would probably surprise you to know that I was basically in the fetal position in my office. As co-workers teased me, I just sat there groaning and moaning about my fate. For about 10 minutes, I was in bad pain, but I finally picked myself up and hobbled to the car. My lower back was in terrible pain, I felt like I was going to puke and it felt like I needed to go to the bathroom. Trust me, that is not a trifecta that anyone would want.

I got in the car and started to drive home. Still in terrible pain. I had broken out in sweats (windows open, air conditioning full blast). On I-15, I finally had to pull over on the shoulder of the freeway so that I could get out and puke. I dry heaved a few times and got some nice honks from cars passing me. I got back in the truck and continued driving home. On my way home, all of a sudden, I felt my back loosening up and it was gone. Gone like the wind.

I got home, got out of the car and felt great, like nothing was wrong. The good thing about my family is that I had a dad that has had back problems, a brother in law that has had a bad back, a brother in law that is a doctor/surgeon, another brother in law that is a family doctor and a father in law that is a pediatrician. So, I had all of the advice and knowledge at my fingertips.

The diagnosis--probably a kidney stone (the ones pictured at the left are not mine, though that would be pretty cool to save one of those bad boys). A freakin' little rock wrecking havoc on my insides. My back feels great now...but kidney stones can feel like a bad back but with the presence of the need to puke and go to the bathroom as well as it disappearing after less than an hour seem to point to it not being a back problem but a kidney stone problem.



Now you can read the research about soda drinks causing kidney stones. I still have a hard time believing that Tab could cause some of these problems. Tab is so toxic that it is probably eating away all of my organs, not contributing to forming little rocks in my body. With that said, maybe I should cut down on my diet drink obsession...I will probably get fewer kidney stones, but I will definitely get more headaches and be angrier. Not sure which is the best option.

My friends call me...

All growing up, I wanted a cool nickname. Never really found one. I did ask my mom when I was about 6 to call me 'Tom'...that lasted about a day.

When I was in 8th grade though, I finally got my chance to start new. We were moving back to Salt Lake City. Now was my opportunity to pick out a cool nickname and use it among the new people of SLC. Great names like Thunder, Cool Hand Luke, Bitchin' and Thor were all weighed in my mind to how cool it would be. I wanted a nickname that the girls would think was hot and the guys would think was rad. I finally settled on an exciting and cool nickname: Ace.

So, I would introduce myself as 'Sam, but my friends call me Ace.' Seriously, that was the name that I picked out. I would go around and be Ace. Ace Johnson. Well, that didn't last too long. First off, nobody would call me Ace and I decided against ignoring anyone that did not call me Ace. It slowly faded away or in better words, it never faded away because it never started. I did come up with considerably less cool 'nicknames' like Sammy which some of my girl friends call me. Let me just say, Sammy is not a bad name, but nobody thinks its cool.

But now, you too can come up with a cool nickname based on your favorite movie, sport or tv show. Here is what it came up with for me:

Seakul Loyalar--A D&D Character name generator (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20010208b)

Sam Ramone--the Ramones Name Generator: Sam Ramone (http://www.flapjackempire.com/ramones/)

Cap'n Javier Snaggletooth--Pirate Name Generator: (http://gangstaname.com/pirate_name.php)

Chairman Mao--Sawyer, from the tv show 'Lost', nickname generator (http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index?pn=nickname)

Sweetums Chocolate Kisses-Pookie pie--Lover's nickname generator: (http://www.links2love.com/nicknames.htm)

Sam Droolin' Johnson--NBA Player nickname generator (http://www.nba.com/playoffs2008/nicknames/

Lili, King of Durins Folk--Lord of the Rings Nickname (http://www.myprecious.us/name-generator.php)

Johsa Pesal of the Planet Cialis--Star Wars name generator: (http://www.xach.com/misc/jedi-name.php)

Elementary School? That is crazy talk

Carter started Kindergarten. That is seriously crazy. We are in a bit of shock that he is now 5.5 years old and that he is, as he continually tells us, "a big boy that can do things only a big boy can do."







I will say that it was cool that he let us actually take him into his classroom on his first day. But to be honest, he didn't have much of a choice...we were coming in with or without his permission.

Back in the Swing of things

Well, I am back playing tennis and yes, the title of my post is a bad pun. I grew up playing tennis and played 5-10 hours a week from age 6 until I was 15. I played in all of the tourneys. But, then high school hit and I switched to basketball (I realized that more people would watch me play hoops than tennis...yes, I loved bigger crowds and yes, I know that is pathetic) and only played tennis during the spring for West High.

Now, after a 15-year layoff (I played sparingly over the years), I have been active again. I go out and hit with a friend of mine and top tennis player, Brandon Owen, a couple of times a week and hit with my wonderful wife (you may remember her, she is a tournament champion) at night occasionally.

There were several things that I had to do...Buy new rackets. For some reason, my 20+ year old rackets were no good anymore, so I went out and bought 2 new ones. My 2 rackets though quickly become 1 racket as Brodi stole one of them from me. So, I had to go out and buy another one. I also had to buy new tennis balls as the old ones had so little bounce that they seemed to imbed themselves into the ground when I bounced them.

I finally entered a tourney and played in it at the end of last week and over the weekend. I entered the 4.5 singles and I played the #3 seed to start it all off. He won the first set and we battled it out in the second set. I held off a match point and took the second set and eventually won the match 1-6, 7-5, 6-3. It was nearly a 3-hour match. The match was in Park City and I rushed home in time to puke several times that night. Yes, spewing out everything in my belly. I weighed myself the next morning and I had lost 4 pounds. Pretty brutal. I then played in the quarters and won that match 6-3, 6-3. I was now in the semis and I played a teaching pro from the SportsMall. I played OK, but could not get over the hump and lost 6-2, 6-3.

Rod J. Schmidt (1) Sandy, UT Binh K. Huynh Murray, UT George C. Lukes Salt Lake Cty, UT Steven P. Ferris Anaheim, CA Kevin M. Smith (3) Clearfield, UT Sam Johnson Salt Lake City, Brian T. Van Hecke Park City, UT Scott C. Rockwood Salt Lake Cty, Alex M. Venegas Provo, UT Schuyler S. Mastain Park City, UT Peerapong Aramvareekul Salt Lake City, UT Don Droubay (4) Salt Lake City, UT Andrew S. Pearlstein Park City, UT Christopher S. Bruerton West Jordan, UT Len Bowes Salt Lake City, UT Jason H. Grant (2) Salt Lake City, UT

Quarterfinals B. Huynh 6-2; 6-1 G. Lukes Wd (emerg) S. Johnson 1-6; 7-5; 6-3 S. Rockwood 6-2; 6-1 S. Mastain 6-0; 6-2 D. Droubay (4) 6-0; 2-6; 6-3 A. Pearlstein 6-3; 6-4 J. Grant (2) 6-4; 6-7; 6-1

Semifinals B. Huynh 6-1; 6-1 S. Johnson 6-3; 6-3 S. Mastain 6-1; 6-2 J. Grant (2) 6-1; 6-1

Finals B. Huynh 6-2; 6-3 J. Grant (2) 6-7; 6-4; 6-3 J. Grant (2) 3-6; 6-3; 6-3

It is good to be back playing and I am having a lot of fun even if there is an occasional throw up after my matches.