A day with the Utes

This past weekend was the Ute fan fest. Every year in late August, the University of Utah has a big fan gala. It is held at Rice Eccles Stadium and this year had to be the biggest turnout as it was crowded right from the start.

Carter and Becks love it because they get to walk on the football field, meet some of the players, play in a bounce zone on the field. It was pretty cool too as we saw Coach Jim Boylen (Ute basketball coach) and he saw my boys and he introduced himself to them. I asked if I could take a picture and he bellowed out: "Of course, lets do it!" He then got down to their level for me to take a picture.

We also met some of the hoops players, tennis players and others as well. The boys also got a chance to run out on the field and chase each other and play around. Football season starts this week, Basketball season starts at the end of October and Tennis season starts in January for the Utes. Go Utes!

Yes, I would like that pop tart with hamburger meat and tomatoes

My awesome neighbor 'A' knows just how much I love pop tarts. Seriously, if I could eat pop tarts for every meal, life would be good. Well, she let me know that there is a brand spankin' new Pop Tart store in New York City. Yes, a pop tart store. Yes, that is unbelievably fabulous.

It is a do-it-yourself store when you can concoct some new pop tart creations. I am totally a Brown Sugar pop tart man, but I would be happy to try some new exotic flavors and new ways to eat and enjoy pop tarts. They even give you chance to try sushi pop tarts. And how could that not be tasty? Sushi is cool, pop tarts rock so I am sure that equals tasty goodness.

If you are visiting New York, I am sure that this will be a top priority visit. To read more about this lovely store, check it out by clicking HERE

Dragon casting

Last month, I finished the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. If you haven't read it, you should...but be warned, it can be difficult with some very difficult scenes. I love the story, I love how the story was set up, I love the Swedish background. The movies have been made in swedish and two have been released here in the States. Well, Hollywood will begin filming these movies soon. They just cast Daniel Craig in the role of Mikael Blomqvist. I like that casting.

They also cast Rooney Mara in the Lisbeth Salander role. I don't know who she is, but I like that they picked a relative unknown to do it. She also looks a lot like I thought Salander would look. The first of the three films won't be out till December of next year.

Water in a basement does not equal Awesomeness

You may have heard, we flooded our basement again. Again. Frakkin' again. You can read a much more entertaining post on it by going to Brodi's blog here. But anyway, We flooded it twice in a period of 2 weeks about 4 years ago. It was a backed up line in our house and it flooded our basement. This time, a sprinkler valve broke. Hundreds of gallons of water discharged into our basement.


I hate flooding a basement. It was after midnight when we noticed it and I just stared out the water dumbfounded. I almost just walked out of the house and put a For-Sale sign in our front yard. But, Brodi convinced me to get working. In the middle of the night, Brodi shoveled out water from our window well...and I used a shop-vac from our love neighbors 'The Js' and tried to get rid of some of the water. After doing all we could do, we went off to sleep around 3am.




I called my good friend Judd at Nautica Cleaning and he came over and kicked the Flood's arse. With a cool riding vacuum and big heating fans, our carpets and walls were saved (though a few stuffed animals were drowned). He came in and sucked up the water and set up the fans and was done within 3 hours. Then he just let the fans do their work on the vulnerable water. Party is back on at the Johnsons! And if our basement floods again, I will look to rent an apartment.

Randomness

Over the past few weeks, we saw a couple of movies--Inception, very entertaining. The visuals in the movie were terrific and the story was interesting. Enjoyed it quite a bit. We also saw 'Salt.' Tons of action and over the top and wild. The story often got a bit silly but oh well. It was also cool to see one of the big car chase scenes and running scenes were filmed just outside my old office in DC. If I was still there, I would joined in on the scenes.

School starts in 10 days. That is crazy. The kids love summer and we do too...but it will be good to get them back in school. Carter is having a great time finishing up summer though as he is perfecting his bike riding, working on his skateboarding, wanting to play more basketball and is playing 3-4 hours of organized soccer every week.

I was at the grocery store the other day and these two guys started talking really loud and saying 'Holy cow, TAB!, they still make that drink?' I proceeded to get them a proper dressing down by telling them 'of course they do, because its awesome and tasty.' I offered them a can but they turned it down. Their loss. I will continue to enjoy my pink canned Tab.

Utah site: International Peace Gardens

We went to the International Peace Gardens this past weekend. You can go to this site to learn more about it: Click Here. I was surprised. I really did not know what to expect, but it was much bigger than I thought. It was prettier and well maintained. It is a bit on the west side and the park backs up against the Jordan River.

Different countries throughout the gardens are represented. Sweden, Korea, England, United States, etc, all have small gardens and ornaments. There is a main walking path that will take you all the way around it and then smaller walking paths that lead up to each garden.









The boys had a great time because they could run and run. We went early enough on a Saturday so that there was nobody there and they could laugh, scream and run all they wanted. Just outside of the garden, they had playgrounds and the boys hung out there for a while as well. If you have a chance, it is worth an hour or two to go and check it out.

Secret Ingredients, Dunkball and my Wife came back

Brodi just got back in town from a Writers Conference in LA. Guess what I did? I went to a family cousin party of hers while she was out of town. How much do I rock? How much does she owe me now? I will answer both questions - A LOT!

How can a tv channel called the Food Network be so frakkin' amusing? Seriously. When I first heard that there was a channel like this a few years ago, I thought they were insane. Man, I love that channel. The Next Food Network Star, Chopped and Iron Chef America rock. Here is a clip from the Iron America chef show where the person hosting (pretty funny guy) introduces himself with various clips of a mystery ingredient that the chefs have to incorporate in all 5 course dishes. This program showcases top chefs around the country competing against each other with 3 judges and a winner is named each episode:

I have a neighborhood Dunkball contest tonight - 12 teams, 24 guys competing to be dunkball champions of the world, err, Olympus area. Man, I don't think my body is ready for the abuse. Tennis, walking and jogging are nice sports because your body isn't being beaten up...I tend to forget how physical basketball is. I am not looking forward to the aches my body will be feeling tomorrow morning.