Trees: A Love--Hate Relationship

I love trees. A neighborhood just looks better with bunches of trees lining the street. But, let me tell you--there is a problem with trees. They frakkin' shed their leaves! March till September is fabulous. But then come October, trees decide that they need to shed their leaves and leave it all over the yard.

There is a huge tree next to our house. Love it but it does not decide to let go of its leaves until late November, December and January. Let me tell you--picking up leaves in the dead of winter, well, it aint fun. But I am counting my blessings though to have such a marvelous tree even if I am cussing while picking up all of the leaves. I do have something to be thankful for though--my apple tree only blooms apples every other year and this is the off year...so no applesauce covered driveway this winter. Yay for me!

Late Fall/Early December, I have a different job...I become a professional leaf bagger-er. If it is a sunny day, I head out and pick up leaves. Over the past few years, I am averaging anywhere between 60-85 bags of leaves filled. Right now, I am op to around 50 bags packed. That people, is a lot of leaves. The cool thing though, is that the city of Holladay has a dump off where you can take all of your bagged leaves and leave them there. They have about 20 huge dumpsters on the lot and you just drop it off. Every weekend, the dumpsters are absolutely full and it is surrounded by hundreds of bags.

Rant over.

Impressive--1 load! Not so impressive--Probably took 3 days to pack

I saw this downtown. I do not know what is more impressive--the very efficient packing job or the fact that this truck will still be able to move with that kind of load. Kudos to the driver.

The gym, ignored towels and naked men

We are members of a local gym. For the most part, we use it for tennis and swimming and we have enjoyed it. But let me be honest, there is one thing that just surprises me every single time that I go there. I am sure that I have talked about this in the past, so I apologize for bringing it up again, but I just have to post about it. Again. So, this morning, I have had a fun 90 minutes of playing tennis with my tennis partner Brandon and I head to the locker room to go grab some stuff. That is when it happens.

I do not know what it is about older men and locker rooms. I stress older men because I rarely see anyone under the age of 50 doing this. But, you walk in and there are 2-3 naked men standing at the sinks combing their hair or brushing their teeth. These guys are not using the shower right then. They are not sitting at their lockers ready to change in their clothes. These guys are standing at the sinks, buck naked, brushing their teeth. The worst part of it all? They usually have a towel slung over their shoulder.

I am trying to figure out the thought process here--yeah, I got a towel, but man, I am in the locker room and I need to be free. Seriously? Seriously? Once again, seriously? You can't take the towel off your shoulder and just wrap it around your waist? You need to stand there naked (and these are large men, often, 250 pound men) while you comb your hair, put on your contact lenses, admire yourself in the mirror, brush your teeth or pick your teeth?

My eyes rarely leave the ceiling as I scurry in, dodging large naked men to go and grab whatever I need. I also have to believe that maybe all of these men are concerned with saving our natural resources so they don't use towels which then do not need to be washed. Anyway, good times at the gym.

This hair style will never go out of style!

How cool is this? Becks is now sporting a pretty happenin' tail on the back of his head. This will drive the ladies crazy.

Sam vs. JiffyLube telephone guy

So, I had my windshield replaced and I lost the sticker that shows when I last had an oil change. I am lazy, I take my truck to Jiffy Lube. So, I call there and ask them when I last had my oil change, here is the conversation:

Sam: I just wanted to find out what the mileage was on my last oil change

JLube: What is your mileage now?

Sam: 130,000

JLube: Oh man, you need to bring in your truck as soon as possible.

Sam: Cool. Thanks. So, what was my mileage the last time I had it done.

JLube: Its been 5 months now...you really should bring in your truck as it appears that it is well over due for an oil change.

Sam: Once again, cool to know. Thanks. What was my mileage last time.

JLube: Yep, its been 5 months.

Sam: (silence)

JLube: Your mileage was 126,000 miles. So yes, you should bring it in soon

Sam: Cool, only 4,000 miles in 5 months? Wow...looks like I have some time.

JLube: You should really bring it in to get that oil change.

Sam: Cool...I will see you in a month or so.

JLube: (silence)

Sam: Thanks for the info!!!

ZING! Ok, not much of a Zing, but I was extra chipper to him. I actually like the guys I work with at Jiffy Lube...but I don't appreciate the guy on the phone acting like my car was going to implode due to not getting my oil changed at 3,000 miles. They can see that I am a loyal customer who comes in often, yet they still try and sell me on the service. Somehow, someway, my truck has survived going over 3,000 miles.

the Halloween recap you have all been dying for

Carter loves Halloween. It means that he can go as something really scary. Last year he was one of those Harry Potter death reavers. Pretty spooky. This year, he dressed up as the Grim Reaper. He was mainly excited about the scythe (yes, I had to look up that word to spell it). The parades were cool as both boys are pretty pumped to strut their stuffs around. Beckham went in two different costumes this year--Winnie the Pooh and a snake/lizard/alligator combo.



We also did the whole pumpkin carving thing. Brodi informed me that I should not be using a machete to do the carving. Huge accomplishment though--no fingers were lost. Brodi also decided to use the oven, and we had toasted pumpkin seeds. I would have put a picture of Brodi getting the seeds out of the pumpkin, but she would not have been pleased as she looked like she was going to be sick in every picture (she has a thing with goopy food things on her hands). The boys were pleased.



Halloween evening, we stopped by both sets of grandparents to show off the kids. They were a big hit and they scored some candy there.






The rest of the night was running around the neighborhood collecting candy. After we got home, some of Carter's friends stopped by and wanted him to go out with them again. So, Carter headed off. After about 30 minutes, I decided to go and make sure that they were doing OK. Let me just say, I may have creeped out some people in my area...I was slowly driving around in my truck trying to find him...so everytime I saw a group of kids, I would go real slow by them with me peering out the window. Yes, that night, I became THAT creepy guy prowling for kids. I did eventually find Carter again. Halloween is over.