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.

Utah Site: annual Alta to Brighton hike

We did our annual Alta to Brighton hike this past 24th of July. My family has done this hike now for 30 years, so since moving back to Utah, its been fun going with the family again. We had 29 of us on the latest trip. All of us brothers/sisters/nephews/nieces and 1 grandpa.








It is not a totally easy hike. It is about 4 miles with some good steep climbs and great views. Becks did a good job and hiked probably 80% of it. In fact, on the backside, he ran down the mountain the entire way urging me to keep up with him. He fell about 10 times, but we would dust him off, put on some imaginary bandaids (thanks to his cousin Brigham) and off he was running again.






Carter had a great time leading the hike with his grandpa Frank. Carter had to either stay 1 step ahead or 1 step behind Grandpa Frank the entire way.







Anyway, look forward to next year's hike.

Summer night + Meatball Stand = I'm not quite sure

Carter is obsessed about making money. He is constantly looking for ways to make more money. Well, he may have come up with his most genius idea yet. He came up to Brodi and told her that he was going to set up a meatball stand. Yes, our 7-year old decided that instead of selling silly things like lemonade on a hot summer night, he would sell tasty meatballs.

Brodi asked him how much he was going to sell the meatballs for and he told her, 2 for $5. Brodi smartly explained that may be a little much and he adjusted that to 3 for $1. Or as he would say, '6 for $2. If someone walked by his meatball stand, he would hold up his notepad and say 'May I take your order please?' Every new person that came around the corner, Carter would say to Brodi, 'Looks like another customer is coming up.'

Shockingly enough, his meatball stand did not make him hundreds of dollars but thanks to nice family and neighbors, he was able to bring home a little cash. At the end of the selling frenzy, he let us know that tomorrow that he is going to sell steaks.