Yesterday was my 30-30-10 day

I rode thirty miles on my trusty recumbent, jogged for thirty minutes after riding, and then about an hour after I finished my jog, I swam ten laps in the Fruita high school pool. You'd think after all that, I would be in terrific shape. No such luck. I am still a fat old man. I didn't sleep very well last night because the old bod wasn't quite up to that much exercise and decided to protest. I had to take a couple of aleve to get to sleep.

Also, you notice that I said jog instead of run. I am pretty slow still, but getting better. I will call it a run when I actually run.

So, to add insult to injury, I rode in to work this morning, and then on the ride home my front tire decided that it had lived long enough and failed on me. Cathy had to come and pick me up. I can't be upset about it, though, because it was the original front tire from when I bought the bike. I have had three or four rear tires since then. Anyway, no more riding to work until I can replace it. It's a good thing I have the stationary bike in the garage to ride to keep up my training.

In my last post I talked about all the evil spirits ganging up on us. I didn't think they could work on messing up bicycles too.

I figured out why life is such a challenge sometimes.

I went to the internet and learned that it is estimated (by somebody) that up to now there have been 110 billion people who have lived or are living on the earth. Since people are still being born, I SWAGed that another 10 billion would be born before "the end." That makes 120 billion. It also makes the math a little easier.

So, let's say that those 120 billion are the "hosts of heaven" mentioned in the scriptures. If one third of them rebelled and were cast down to earth, that's 40 billion on Lucifer's team that are hanging out here, with nothing better to do than bug us and tempt us and try to discourage us; all that bad stuff.

Now the population of the earth is expected to be 6.8 billion by 2010, which is next year, so I will use that number. Divide 40 by 6.8 and you get 5.88 bla bla bla. That's 5 bad guys for each one of us and some rovers who can go and help out on whoever they think needs to have an especially bad day. No wonder life is a challenge, with each one of us being ganged up on by at least five evil spirit dudes all the time, who have lots of practice and experience and are ticked off enough to want us to be as miserable as possible. And then there's the rovers who jump on the pile when the want to.

It's a good thing we have our Savior and the Holy Ghost, which makes us a pretty much unbeatable team, even though it's still 3 on 5. Or more.

Just something to think about.

Here's a few more shots...

...Of our Denver trip a couple of weeks ago.  Jen & Erik already posted their photos of Kendall's birthday, but here's a couple of mine anyway.  

The house is pretty quiet right now.  We were supposed to have a bunch of family down for the weekend, but the weather had other ideas.  We understand, but miss everybody.  

P.S.  The photo of Kendall wearing the monkey leash may be a repeat from my last blog, or a slightly different pose.  They are all a bunch of cute grandkids though.  We love'em to death.

Da Zoo!

Well, last weekend we were in Denver visiting the grandkids and their parents, and we went to the zoo.  Here are a couple (five actually) shots of our trip.  There are more to come later, but five is enough for one post.  As you can see, the birds were very colorful.  The chipmunk is not, and almost blends in with the ground.  We had fun.  We saw a lot more than just birds, but they had the most color.  I have a couple of elephant shots and a tapir, the birds were the coolest.  The primates were cool too, but somehow I forgot to take pictures of them.

What's a trillion?

It's 4:20 in the morning and I can't sleep, which is strange because I haven't had any caffeine in a while.  Anyway, yesterday while reading Townhall.com I found the following little paragraph in an article called "Nobody Knows the Troubles We'll See," by Kathleen Parker.  It is interesting, and puts a graphic face on just how much a trillion dollars is.

Chris Martenson's online "Crash Course" in economics explains a trillion this way.  First, picture a million dollars as a four-inch stack of thousand-dollar bills.  A comparable billion-dollar stack is 358 feet tall.  A trillion-dollar stack of thousand-dollar bills stands 67.9 miles high.

Sorta makes you think about the debt the federal government is  piling on our heads, doesn't it?

Now I am going back to bed. 

Here's a food storage tip

You guys may already know this, but if you are a soda drinker try to buy bottles instead of cans.  I learned that plastic soda bottles do not break down, so they are great to store water in.  You can use the little ones in your 72 hour kits, and the bigger 2 liter ones for regular storage.  If you use tap water, it's already treated and you don't have to do anything else to it to treat it.  So, get your soda in bottles and rinse them out after they are empty and re-fill them with water.  

I also heard, and I have no idea if this is true or not, that if you need water and there is not a clean supply handy, you can fill up a clear plastic bottle with the water you have and if you put it out in direct sunlight for 24 hours, the ultraviolet rays in sunshine kill the bacteria and the water becomes drinkable.  Not sure I want to try that one, but in an emergency....

Our trip to Utah

We didn't take too many photos during our trip.  It was cold outside and there weren't many opportunities.  Here are a couple of Loralei though.  I'm sure you can recognize the location.  She loved the fountain, and had a great time throwing pennies into it until we ran out of pennies.  Her smile says it all.  She is such a sweetheart!

It was great to see Ashley too.  We wanted to stay longer but came back early because Cathy was getting sick, and we wanted to
be home for the worst of it.  Ashley, we hope you didn't mind too much that we didn't stay, but when you're sick you want to be home in your own bed.  We do love you though.  Thanks for grabbing those prints of George Washington for us.  Ours has a prominent place on a wall in the living room.  

Next visit will be in warmer temperatures.  That's all for tonight.  We love all you guys!