I still haven’t been able to get copies of the Santa pictures to put in this post but I’ll do it as soon as I get them.
Here are some random pictures I’ve taken of people here at the Damron home. It has been fun partying with Lisa’s family. I’ve included dorky pictures too because this is my site and I can do stuff like that if I want. Please know that in most cases when you see a picture of someone that looks really bad that it isn’t really what they look like. Take this picture of Becky for example:
Becky is actually a very attractive young woman who is married to my brother-in-law. I took this picture of her and thought it was funny so I’m including it here.
Here’s my Father-In-Law:
This picture is what he actually looks like most of the time.
Here’s a picture of my new nephew Skyler with his grandpa:
Finally here is a picture of Lisa sitting by her dad and our new nephew:
There should be more pictures to come. Corryn is having too much fun playing with toys and running around on her sugar high to possibly have time for pictures but I’ll try to get some today.
I hope everyone is having a nice Christmas vacation! I know we are.
I just got finished reading Lileks account of his Christmas week. Read each day. This link starts on Monday and you can read the whole thing. It takes about 30 minutes or so but its worth it.
I got up at 5:20 MST this morning. Since that is 7:20 at the Manning house I get to feel like I’ve slept in even though I’m up before 5:30 AM! Nice. It is going to be hard to get used to the time change when we get home.
Things have been fun. The Salt Lake valley got the storm of the decade yesterday. Of course Utah valley’s storm was less than spectacular so all we got was enough moisture to freeze on the roads and sidewalks and make everything very slippery. It was a fun day though. Christmas was fun too. I joined in with the Damron family tradition of going to catch a movie on Christmas Day. We saw Peter Pan. I think I liked it. I know Corryn liked what she saw of it.
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The trip wasn’t without its mishaps but we made it here anyway and we are happy to be in the Beehive State.
If you do happen to see this site while we are out of town and you want to get a hold of us (we’re here until Dec 30) call (571) 594-2631 or send an email! The temporary email address where you can reach any of the Manning family this week is Christmas2003@TheMannings.org.
Thank you Ellisa and Andrew for house-sitting while we are gone!
(This entry should be updated to include several pictures later today)
My wife’s family has always celebrated Christmas a little differently than my family did. They do all the opening of presents on Christmas Eve. We opened presents last night and I made out pretty well…and Corryn made out even better! She has a great pile of loot that we will have to somehow pack up and take home with us after this fun week in Utah!!!
I think my favorite part of Christmas Eve was when Santa came. Before the kids started opening presents last night they had a visit from the ‘bearded man in red’. The older kids (Corryn two and Taylor almost four) were scared of Santa. He had presents for all of the kids but those two couldn’t be coaxed to go sit on Santa’s lap to receive the gifts. Corryn was clinging to her mom as tight as possible. She wanted nothing to do with Santa.
I have to say that at first I was kind of pleased by this. I’ve never been a big fan of the whole idea of Santa. I’ve never wanted to go to great lengths to convince my kid that the Santa myth is true. When she gets older and finds out that Santa is a lie why wouldn’t she then question some of the other fantastic sounding things we’ve taught her…things like a living prophet who talks to God and the stories about Jesus? I’m probably over-reacting but that is how I’ve felt about the whole thing.
Corryn was clinging tightly to her mom when Lisa whispered into her ear, “Sweetheart, its just grandpa wearing a Santa costume.”
Corryn lifted her head up from Lisa’s shoulder to look at Santa. She listened for a second to his voice then immediately ran to his lap and accepted her present. That moment I thought–this is how I want my kid to know Santa. Santa is “Crampa” dressed up in red with a beard yelling, “Ho, ho, ho!” and handing out presents. Corryn really loves “Crampa” so it was no problem for her to go sit on his lap even though he still looked like the scary guy she was afraid of just a couple seconds before. I think the reality of Santa is much cooler the myth…and it was clear last night that Corryn agrees.
At 10PM tonight I got a call telling me that the flight that my family is scheduled to take to tomorrow at 11:30 has been cancelled because of “work crew limitations”. We now leave DC 3 hours later and don’t get to Utah until after 11PM. This is with 2 connections instead of the one we were bummed about having to do.
There are lots of reasons this really stinks. If the flight is cancelled because of “work crew limitations” NWA should have known about this situation before 10PM this evening. Second they should have had a human call us. I was notified by a computer that my family’s vacation (we’ve had the tickets for over 3 months now) has been hosed and that if I want more information I can check the website (which has nothing). I have been on hold with the airline for 20 minutes now…
I try not to swear on this website…so I’d better stop typing. Suffice to say…I’m really ticked off right now.
A warning to all readers. Never fly Northwest Airlines.
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I was at Pizza Hut last night and saw this sunset.
Sometimes I miss my mission. I’ve never seen sunsets as pretty as those I saw in New Mexico. Most of that state is pretty ugly but they do have pretty sunsets. Once I got into a wreck in our truck with my coolest companion. We spent the whole day digging the truck out of the sand (we were doing some ‘tracting’ on the back roads of New Mexico. We had to rip the windshield off the truck and drive home without it. As we were driving home the sun was setting and the site was amazing.
There are some images you see that are permanently burned into your head. That sunset and the memories attending it are things I’ll never forget. I remember being very nervous about getting in trouble for the truck (Pres never found out about it because Elder Farnsworth was awesome)…but I also remember that as one of the funnest days of my mission.
Here is my favorite exchange from all of the ‘Saddam is Captured’ news from the Washington Post:
“Why didn’t you fight?” one Governing Council member asked Hussein as their meeting ended. Hussein gestured toward the U.S. soldiers guarding him and asked his own question: “Would you fight them?”
Lets hope the rest of the slimy garbage who are still fighting against U.S. troops in Iraq start to feel the same way.
(Link via The Corner)
Salt Lake City is beginning to ask the questions it should have asked quite some time ago before it signed on with UTOPIA.
The last four paragraphs of this story bring up an issue with government created data networks that I hadn’t considered:
…Municipal involvement in a network such as Utopia also raises the question of how much influence city governments will have over the programming on their system — programming Utopia’s Black acknowledges likely will include pornography.
“It is a content issue that our service providers will have to deal with and offer in a competitive way,” he said. “We are not concerned with what specific programming they want to offer. Our job is to provide a fiber-optic network.”
Murray Mayor Daniel Snarr conceded there may be some taxpayer fallout when residents discover they are being asked to guarantee the payments for a system that carries pornography.
“Some people may be upset but most are wise enough to know that with the wonderful things the Internet provides, there comes content that make some squeamish. But I’m not anticipating too many problems. We have a sewer system full of crap and nobody seems to mind paying for it.”
Mr. Snarr is a ‘Grade A’ moron. I’m sorry for the residents in Murray. They really should fix their mayor problem next election.
UPDATE 12-11-03 9:04 PM
Dan started a pretty good discussion. Even Kelly weighed in with a nice summation of why UTOPIA and other government funded schemes to create data infrastructure are misguided and wasteful.
Lots of kids like to sleep with one or two of their toys. Corryn is no exception. Lately though she hasn’t been choosing a doll or stuffed animal. Corryn now insists that she be able to sleep with her hammer. I think that is cool.
I told Corryn that we were going to the grocery store this evening. This announcement invariably sets of a very predicable chain of events. Here is a brief rundown of the typical exchange Corryn and I have before and during a trip to Giant. (You’ll note that Lisa doesn’t have a role in this dialog…she’s feeling pregnant right now and can’t deal with the smells that great her in the grocery store without spewing. When she isn’t with child she usually fills my role in the conversation.)
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I read a lot of news from Utah. I happened to read two articles about former governor Mike Leavitt today. It is interesting to see how two different papers handled issues dealing with Leavitt. To be fair they are on completely different topics…but topical content wasn’t what I was comparing.
This “news” story from the Deseret News couldn’t be any more sympathetic to everything Leavitt did as governor if it were a piece of campaign literature. Sure Leavitt had some good ideas in the area of technology and policy but he had some pretty crappy ideas too (e.g. his plan to tax internet sales). The author of this article didn’t even pretend to try to be balanced.
This article in the Trib is very anti-Leavitt but it is clearly an actual news story…it doesn’t display either venomous hatred of the ex-gov or fawning love.
In this case I’d have to say: Advantage Tribune.
(The Tribune story also quotes Dan’s dad. Pretty cool.)
Mr. Robert Prather posted an excellent version of the 1812 Overture today on his website, Insults Unpunished. Cool.
Go there for the music…stay for the excellent commentary.
I don’t often give the Deseret News kudos for getting things exactly right on their editorial page. They deserve them on this editorial.
Yes, fiber optic is far superior to anything currently available. Yes, it is inherently superior to wireless communications. But 20 years is an eternity in the telecommunications realm, and private markets tend to have minds of their own. It would be dangerous to leave taxpayers vulnerable to an industry that is best wrestled with by men and women who want to risk their own cash.
…When the market is ready, private companies will build fiber optic networks, or perhaps something even better. The good thing about that approach is that taxpayers will benefit, rather than having to pay.
Read the whole thing.
I guess I deserve to be yelled at for this post. When I was planning on making the announcement I thought about the best way to tell people…then I remembered that I have a webpage that goes to everyone in the whole world.
I guess I have too much pride because the next thing I remembered was the bitterness I have sometimes felt over the fact that so few people ever even check our websites. I figured I’d leave a slightly understated version of our big new announcement and let it sit there for a couple weeks to see if anyone would catch it. It came as no surprise to me that the only one who commented on it was my mom.
I know it was an unfair experiment but I thought it would be a fun way to scold my friends who ask how I’m doing and what’s going on in my life but who never even look at my webpage. Now I feel bad about not quickly and boldly telling people I love and who are very important to our family. I’m sorry…seriously I’m very sorry. It isn’t fair for me to make people read through much of the garbage I post on this website to get important information. Sorry about that. I’ll do better in the future (starting today). I’ll have an appropriate announcement up on Mannings.Org by the end of today.
