Hurricane Ike

So, I imagine most people have given up looking at my blog. That's okay, so have I apparently. I never have been very good on this communication and friend business.

Anyway, I have some cool pictures to show. This is what I saw on my way to (and from) work on Monday, the day after Hurricane Ike decided to blow through Louisville, KY. Unfortunately, all I had was my cell phone camera. And as you'll see, the sun causes a lot of glare.

But first, here is a nicely fallen tree on an old house in Crestwood, KY. The poor workers at the Dairy Queen next door didn't know what to do with all the power out. (All of Crestwood was without power.)


Ok, now here's a tree at a house just a little way around the road from our house. They're fortunate that they had no car there.


But this person's car was not so lucky.


Here's another person who's car is trapped in the garage. This tree is large and full, and like the first, was uprooted. The second picture is from later in the day after much of the tree was been cut. At this point, it is completely gone.


Here's a tree that demolished a fence. This one is rather tough to get around. I've thought about hoping it, but the trunk is about 12 to 18 inches off the ground, and I'm not that skilled on the bike.


Here's another tree that broke through a fence, but is about 6.3 to 6.8 feet off the ground. I can duck under it while riding my bike, but all the branches still come up and bite me and the bike.


This tree was blocking Westport Road. I had to be careful here because there is no biking lane and I had to dodge the branches anyway. It is blocking a person's driveway.

Michelle's Mission Moments

So, my sister Michelle received a mission call recently and was called to the Argentina, Buenos Aires North mission. She will be leaving for her 18 month service on Tuesday. For my non-member friends, missionaries for my church leave for 18 or 24 months. During this time they have very little contact with their family, but devote their entire energies toward the study and preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are called by the Apostle's of the Church to serve in various parts of the world. I was called to Salt Lake City, Utah, of all places. My wife was called to Bahia Blanca, Argentina. So it is pretty cool that Michelle and Noelle will have served in the same country. Michelle will be in the Mission Training Center for the next 8 weeks to study the Spanish language as well as she can, then she'll be thrust into the country hoping she remembers enough to hold a conversation AND understand the responses. In any case, the family set up a blog for her at http://michellemission.blogspot.com/.

Books

My beautiful and smart wifey posted a list on her blog listing the top 100 books and bolded the ones she read. I'm only going to post the ones I've read.

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (all 3 books)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling* (entire series)
6 The Bible* (started, I got half-way through Isaiah)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (really, just the prequel to No 2)
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (unfortunately, stupid book)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (great sci-fi book)
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis* (entire series, great adventure)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis* (okay, this is one of the series from #33, but if it makes me look well-read, then that's great)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (They killed Piggy!)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (started it, first chapter, great opening, though)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I've read some of them, one or two, Hound of the Baskervilles.)

Not on the list that should be:
Princess Bride

Strange findings

I couldn't help it. It's time for another silly video. But a video that took some time and was excellently executed. What do you think? Are these girls cheerleaders? The song is Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger by Daft Punk.


And now for the weird image of the day:


Noelle and I went to see the Video Games Live concert a couple weeks ago. It was a lot of fun. This video reminded me of it and would have been very appropriate at the concert:


That last video recommended a video by the BYU Vocal Point group in which they did Thriller. It was okay, but this video was excellent: Vocal Point - Home. You really can't beat a good bass.

Silly Faces

I took some really silly pictures of myself... I can be crazy like that sometimes. In any case, here's a good one:

I didn't realize I could make one eyeball go in a slightly off position than the other eyeball.