Netflix

We finally dropped cable.

We've been talking about it for some time for many reasons, save money and to get the kids to watch less tv were the main two. We have had comcast for a few years and dish before that since we've been married. We picked up Netflix in place of cable, we can get Netflix on our tv through the Wii. Two things.

1. We love Netflix. They have a million and one movies you can rent and they have a pretty good selection of movies and shows that you can stream. I can't believe that it took us so long to sign up for Netflix. It should have happened years ago. The kids love it. I think they enjoy that they can see the picture of the show they want to watch. Cash has become a pro at using the Wii remote to watch shows, he has even shown T a thing or two on how it works. We can watch shows on our computer/laptop which makes it great to watch shows in the other rooms. And best thing, no commercials! Our kids are not bombarded with commercials! I love that the most.

2. We havent' watched less tv. I think I watch more now. The kids are glued to the tv now that they can choose what shows they want to watch. We have a harder time turning the tv off and getting them to do other things. I'm pretty sure I watch more tv now. The good thing is I watch less commercials, by which I mean, NO commercials and I watch less tv just for the sake of watching tv. You know what I mean? You don't feel like anything, you just want to think of nothing so you just turn the tv on? Now, when I watch tv I watch a show. I've picked up several shows. I just finished the first season of Dexter. Great! Loved it! A little disturbing. We finished the first season of Weeds, love that one. We were half way through the first season of Psych when they made that a dvd only so we started the second season. And we've been renting the Tudors and are in the middle of the third season of that. I love the number of documentaries they have. I could watch documentaries all day and then some.

We don't have a HD converter box yet, so we don't get any of the local stations. I think we'll be getting one of those soon, mainly for news. I do think overall we do watch less tv and have the tv off more now that we don't have cable. I enjoy the quiet or at least the lack of background noise. Really wish we would have dumped cable years ago.

The Girl who took up two full days

After I posted my last post where I stated I was going to write one post everyday for the month of December, I finally made it to the good part of "The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo" and haven't had time to blog. It took me two weeks to read 150-200 pages, then I couldn't put it down and finished the book in a day and a half. I'm not a fast reader, wish I was, probably wouldn't have taken so long.

Everyone I've talked to about The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo have said basically the same thing, takes a long time to get into the book but once the book starts going they cannot put it down. Overall it was a good book with a good underlying theme. Well, really not good, it's sad and disturbing but good that it's being talked about. Give you a hint of the underlying theme, the original Swedish title of the book is "Men who Hate Women". Parts of the book are pretty disturbing and it boggles my mind that in 2010 we still have slavery, women/girls who disappear, violence against women and to a certain extent treating women bad is acceptable.

The book is about 200 pages too long. There are many "details" in the book that really add nothing. I cannot think of a book that talks so much about what they are eating and the amount of coffee drunk is unbelievable. I'm amazed that they slept at all with all the caffeine consumed.

I would recommend this book, though there are disturbing scenes, which are necessary to the storyline. I will be starting "The Girl who Played with Fire" soon!

Wednesday Tunes

My goal for December is to post daily for the whole month. We'll see how that goes. Its been a really long day so I'm glad it's Wednesday and I can just post a music video.

Baby Its Cold Outside - Will Ferrell & Zooey Deschanel


If it doesnt work go here

I never thought about it but someone on facebook suggested that this really isn't a good song. She's saying no, he's saying yes and there's something in her drink. I don't know but I love ELF.

Picture book

I recieved a free photo book from Shutterfly for placing reviews on Trip Advisor

Here's the book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Voting Time

I voted early. I hate voting early. I love voting on election day. It's a very exciting day for me and voting in the morning is a perfect way to start it off. But alas, I will be unable to vote next Tuesday so I had to vote today. I'm going to post some endorsements for a few of the candidates I voted for and why. So, if you don't want to read politics, this is my fair warning. But even if you dont agree with me, make sure you study the candidates and the issues and vote. I don't believe people should vote just to vote. Whats the purpose if you don't know why your voting for someone besides their party affiliation? In fact, voting just to vote without a clue why your voting for someone I believe is worse then not voting at all. Oh, and never vote straight party! If you happen to vote individually for all of one party that's fine but don't punch the straight ticket. If you do, learn to think.


STATE CAMPAIGNS

GOVERNOR
Well this one was easy. Peter Corroon has lead Salt Lake County extremely well. Corroon knows how to govern and how to run a large bureaucracy and govern it well. He was able to take a balance approach in balancing the county's budget, making cuts where he could, even cutting pay while raising some taxes. I honestly Corroon would make an outstanding governor because of what he has done with the county and what he plans to do as governor. Corroon's economic focus would benefit the whole state without doling out millions to out of state companies. Corroon would focus on funding education fully as well.

After being placed as Governor when Huntsman left, Gary has pretty much riden the coat tails of his predecessor. Gov. Gary has been laying low and not doing much of anything. Its pretty bad if UDOT can spend $13 Million to cover a mess they created and he didn't know about it until it was brought up by his challenger. What kind of governing is that? $13 million in a year where budget cuts and more cuts to come next year. I work for emergency managent, if we have a disaster we cannot spend more then $500,00 without asking the Legislature for more money. Gov. Gary has also approved a strip mine near Bryce Canyon. Funny thing about it, the permit was going through review and after Gary meet with some of the mine's representatives and donated to his campaign, magically the permit was fast tracked. I really think that Gov. Gary's true side will come out further if he wins his first election as Governor and his true side is more back room deals and lack of governing.


US SENATE

My vote went to Sam Granato. Sam has been a business man for most of his life, not that I place much into that but some people do. Sam's a hard worker and gets things done. Sam is more moderate and fiscally conservative. He will be willing to cross party lines to get what he feels is the best policy to help Utah move forward. I honestly Sam will best represent me in Washington DC and do what's right without all the rhetoric and lip service.

Utah 1st Congressional District

It's really too bad that Bowen didn't run a better campaign. I have met Bowen and like him a lot. He's a great guy and would do a fantastic job as our Representative. Bowen is qualified to be our representative and would do a much better job the current sloth that is in that office.

I love how Utah Republicans complain about "pork" projects but mister Bishop is all quiet and pulling in all sorts of pork. (I dont' mind pork, its how you get things funded, its the hypocrisy I don't like). Bishop hasn't done anything any other rep wouldn't have done.

It will be interesting to see how the draw the congressional districts when we get the 4th district.

Thats all for tonight. I'll throw in some county candidates later.

To Cut or Not to Cut.........

Here I am the proud father of my first son, the family name will live on. As we hold our preciouses son in the hospital room nothing could be better. Then the nurse comes in and says it's time to get him circumcised and whisks our poor unexpected son away. We had never discussed circumcision, no one had warned us, it never crossed our minds. It would have been nice if maybe our doctor who T had been visiting on a regular basis for the previous 9 months, half of which she knew we were having our first boy, would have at least mentioned it to us. Instead we were put on the spot, right there and then, not really asked, just told. Being young and foolish we followed and I watched them botch my son's circumcision.

Well, since that time I have become a confirmed believer that the practice of circumcision is a sad and misguided "tradition of their fathers" type of thing. There is not one reason for circumcision. The highest rate of circumcision in the US was in 1965 at 85% which has dropped to just above 50% in 2005. So, no your son will not be the only uncircumcised boy in the locker room. With our last boy our doctor told us she was maybe circumcising 50% of the boys she delivered. She also thought that the rate of circumcision was higher in Utah.

Unfortunately, because our first boy was cut, we felt we had to do the other two as well. We didn't one of them being different from the others one way or the other. Although, it would have kinda been cool, they could have compared and swapped stories when they got older.

So, if you haven't had a boy yet, research circumcision and talk about it with your spouse before hand. Hopefully you make a better choice then we did.

Wednesday Tunes

It's a little past Wednesday but have to get this in. We just finished "Funny People" - it was pretty funny in parts and really crude in other parts. Anyway they finished the movie off with this song which reminded me how much I love it and being that John Lennon's Birthday was this past weekend thought I better get this up for Wednesday Tunes.

New Addition

Chase Jones decided to finally join our family last monday. Well, he still hadn't decided but we didn't give him a choice and made him come. The whole pregnancy/birthing process is just weird. Everything about it. It blows my mind that enough babies survived throughout history to make it to where we are today. Really, could you imagine giving birth 1000 years ago let alone 100? Now we have technology, modern day medicane as well as all these comforts of life.



We have the hardest time naming our babies. We were pretty set on Charlie, we love that name. But when he popped out, he just didn't look like a Charlie. To me he looked like a Deaken and that's what I pushed for. Obviously I lost out. We were ready to leave the hospital by 11:00 am but didn't leave until after 1pm cause we were debating the name. You can leave the hospital wit out giving the baby a name but it's a pain to fix. We have had a hard time naming every one of our babies.



Everyone loves Chase. Cash and Jet are excited and love showing him off and holding him. Though Jet only holds him for a few seconds before he is done. B loves to help and is actually excited to change diapers. We will see how things go when the three boys are fighting over the same toys, blankets and where they're sitting!

By the way, I'm going to open up a "feed my teenage boys" account for anyone who would like to donate.

Wednesday Tunes

Some weeks I forget what day it is. This is one of those weeks.

Watched a movie a while back called "Wind that Shakes the Barley". After visting Ireland, I decided to watch it again, makes more sense now that I know more about Irish history. You don't have to go to a place to learn the history but visiting Ireland peaked my interest and I've been reading books and watching movies (well one movie) about Irish history. Great movie and highly recommended by me. Anywho....... here's a song that is in the movie - "Óró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile"



Óró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile -


Here is a full version
The Dubliners - Óró Sé do Bheatha Bhaile




Here are the words

English translation
(Chorus)
Oh-ro You're welcome home,
Oh-ro You're welcome home,
Oh-ro You're welcome home...
Now that summer's coming!

Welcome oh woman who was so afflicted,
It was our ruin that you were in bondage,
Our fine land in the possession of thieves...
And you sold to the foreigners!

Chorus

Gráinne O'Malley[5] is coming over the sea,
Armed warriors along with her as her guard,
They are Irishmen, not foreigners nor Spanish...
And they will rout the foreigners!

Chorus

May it please the King of Miracles that we might see,
Although we may live for a week once after,
Gráinne Mhaol and a thousand warriors...
Dispersing the foreigners!

Boy Names

Boy's are soo hard to name!! Must be why we're having three of those and only one girl. So, not sure if you're vote will count but go ahead and throw your 2cents in on which of the following names you like.

In no particular order
Charley
Alex
Landon
Chase
Chance (maybe spelled different)
Gage
Wyatt
Ezra
Oliver
Trey
Parker
Deacon (maybe spelled different?)

Middle name will more then likely be Jones but could be Ralph or Richard (all family names)

Probably going to go any minute...........course T has been saying that for a week and a half now. But this is the week, then we'll have to decide on a name.


The voting lines are open............

Picture Collages

I've noticed that many blogs have picture collages. I've looked around and really can't find a program that I like or that does what some of you do. It seems like a much better way to share multiple pictures together instead of having 10 separate pictures.

So send me where you all do your collages to post on your blogs.

Thanks!!

Irish Food

As I mentioned before one of the main reasons we choose to visit Ireland was because it was foreign without being too foreign. Ireland really felt like visiting another state and their food was no different. One of my friends who visited Ireland a year before we did, didn't try much of the food and said they ate mostly at Italian restaurants. Boy did he miss out! Every place we ate had fantastic food! I don't remember not liking any of the places we ate at. Well, there was one that I'll talk about later.

I had Irish Stew and I did ask for 'bangers & mash' but the waitress wouldn't let me, she gave me a disgusting look and told me "NO". So, I ordered something else. Wish I could remember every place we ate, but I don't. But if you do go to Ireland, just know that anywhere you do eat, it's good.




I don't remember which restaurants these pictures are from, they are the only food pictures I did take. The one below is Irish Stew, I love Irish stew!! Wish I would have had it every night for dinner but only tried it once. Since we had pre-paid for our Irish Breakfasts with the vacation package we got from Exploring Ireland, we decided that we could get by only eating dinner and snacking for lunch. Most of the time we just walked around looking for restaurants that looked good which more often then not ended up being pubs, especially in smaller cities/towns. We did eat at subway a few times but manly because it's expensive to eat out every day and we were trying to save the budget. They don't have regular mustard in Ireland - no where in Ireland! Which really changes the taste of a subway spicy italian. We also found a great Chinese restaurant in Dublin next to our hotel that was practically free it was so cheap.



There was a bar we went to our first night in Dublin by one of the trendy areas that wasn't so great. I ordered a hamburger (yea, not Irish I know) plain. I thought that plain ment that it would come with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup. Yea, it didn't come with any of that! It came with a bun and a piece of meat! And then since they don't work off of tips and we didn't order beer, we didn't see our waitress again!! We avoided places like this and ate great the rest of the time.

Some other FYI's.....
Coke is more expensive then beer and comes in a 12oz bottle
They do give you ice with water
Waitress's don't work off tips, so you rarely see them (wish we wouldn't have tipped so much)





The pictures of us are at the Brazen Head, Dublin's oldest pub and a fantastic place to eat. I highly recommend that if you do visit Dublin that you visit the Brazen Head. Not only is the food great but it's got an awesome atmosphere.