Jr. Marketer

For a marketing guy like me, there's nothing cooler than when my kids identify with a brand or catch the meaning behind a marketing campaign. I'm interested in observing kids connect with a logo or advertising message (hopefully good ones), so I watch the boys a lot.

If you've read Jenny's post about Nathan getting lost you know that happened yesterday. Eli was telling me about it and said something like it would have been better if Nathan had gotten lost in Home Depot. If he would have, he could have just found someone wearing an orange apron because "you can do it and they can help."

I think he's going to be just like me when he grows up.

This one's for Pop

Our community distibutes a free weekly paper called The Sun. Our favorite section is called "TalkBack" which features phone messages readers call in and leave on whatever they wish. It is usually peppered with political rhetoric, but there is usually plenty of random rambling to make us laugh. This week's TalkBack featured two back-to-back rants that reminded me of Pop. Pop 1) has a beef with yard sale signs and 2) is a card-carrying member of AARP.

Enjoy, Pop! Since you won't blog, you could always call the TalkBack line at 913.381.4884 if you have something to complain about.

Who the heck is Dennis Hwang?

Think you know art? Ever heard of Dennis Hwang? Probably not, but you're probably very familiar with his art work. His work can't be found in art museums or at sidewalk art fairs. Nope, Hwang is the artist who does the Google logo artwork. Yea, the logo artwork that shows up around holidays and special world events. I'm a HUGE fan of the logo artwork, but it wasn't until today that I really gave it much thought. CNN.com ran a story on Hwang today that I found very interesting, and I thought I'd share it here. (the link was too long and it was causing some issues when I post it together, so I had to separate it. The first half ends with / and the second half starts with internet. You'll have to copy and past each half into your browser. Sorry) http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/
internet/07/19/google.logo/index.html

Don't stop there. You have to check out
http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html, too. This is the site where you can see seven years worth of logo art of Hwang's. It's cool to look back at the "early days" and see how his work has matured and the depth of his creativity. In another article I found on Hwang, he said that the "o"s and "L" are the easiest letters to work with. The "e" is the most rarely used letter in his art. My favorite, though, uses the "e" in a cool way. See the above example of the logo he created in 2005 to celebrate Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday. The other neat thing is that he says he likes planning artwork that celebrates otherwise unthought of holidays and makes a point to create artwork that celebrate international days, not just those known in the U.S.

Finally, to test your Logo IQ, here's a quiz. The first one to comment with the correct answer wins a day off work/day away from kids. (You'll just have to tell your boss or spouse you won a contest and are taking the day off). Ready to play? QUESTION: What was Google called before it was Google?

Daniel and the coat of many colors

If you have young children, you have probably seen at least one Veggie Tales in your day. These are the videos that teach "Sunday morning values, Saturday morning fun." Using scripture stories as a base, they are cartoons that teach children about God's plan and how to be a good person. We checked out "The Ballad of Little Joe" at the library; it's a re-telling of the story of Joseph who was sold into Egypt. Eli liked it so much that he asked for our family home evening lesson to be about the Little Joe story.

Armed with a Gospel Art painting of the real Joseph being sold into slavery and Genesis 37, I proceeded to tell the more acurate version of the story. My first question was"Eli, do you know what Little Joe's real name was?" "Um, Daniel, right?" was his response. [enter clarification between Daniel and the Lion's Den and Joseph]. I proceeded to tell him what happened to Joseph.

When I got to the part about Joseph becoming part of Pharaoh's court, he corrected me. "Dad, his brothers made him go to work in a restaurant, and Egypt's not right, either. He lived in Dodge Ball City," referring to the western saloon where Joseph went to work in the movie.

Moral of the story: there's still a need for parents to teach their children the gospel, despite "Hollywood's" attempt to make it easier for them to understand.

Happy 150,000th

On July 9th, our '98 Mazda 626 turned over 150,000 in the middle of the Iowa stretch of I-29. Oh, the memories...and repair bills...we've had over these first 150,000 miles. Here's to 15,000 more, ...please. That's all we ask. Just get us through another year. Then you can take that empty spot on the street in front of our house reserved for our "2nd car".

What teenagers wish they knew, but don't know they want to know it

My friend Darin and I took seven of the young men on a campout last night meant to be a practice prior to our High Adventure trip next month. Camping was fun, despite the outragous heat. The main point to the overnight was a 4.5 mile hike we would do this morning. We have an 8.7 mile hike planned for one day on our High Adventure, so we wanted to take the boys on a psudeo-rigerous hike to test their stamina. Below is a listing of things I am hoping they learned this morning. They're things they need to know, but of course they're too cool and smart to listen to me. Hopefully they figured it out on their own. If not, they're going to be in for a rude awakening on our trip next month.

• I know this one will sound silly, but spending one's summer days on the couch playing X-Box games does NOT count as physical activity.
• Running up a rocky hill might not be the smartest thing because the rocks are loose and one could get hurt. Unfortunately for one boy, he figured this one out on his own. Too bad he figured it out 1/2 mile into the 4.5 mile hike. YES, we made sure he was ok before pushing on.
• Yes, yes they look cool, but soccer cleats are NOT the best choice for a rugged hike. Despite fair warning to bring hiking boots or sturdy shoes, four of the seven showed up in soccer cleats.
• The coolest spots on a hike through nature are NOT the ones where they get five bars on their cell phones. We forgot to do the pre-departure contraband shake-down.
• And finally, guys in their thirties really are smarter than they look.

I bet this is the first cholesterol post you've read today

When I turned 30, I decided to go in for a complete physical since it had been nearly 10 years since my last one. I even had bloodwork done. As a kid I was told I had high cholesterol (you could find me in the Husky section at Sears), but I don't remember it being a big deal since no one made me do anything.. and I was pretty good at doing nothing. Not much had changed at 30 when my bloodwork came back and my total cholesterol was 278. "High Risk" is 240 or greater, so I was at the top of the class. That was September 2004.

A few weeks ago, I donated blood at the blood drive held at work. Today I got the cholesterol results back from my donation. Can you believe it is down to 234?! That's a 44-point drop since two years ago. I won't bore you with exercise talk anymore (by the way, did I mention I took 1st place in the Chief Joseph Run?). However, I guess eating oatmeal for breakfast every morning really DOES work, in combination with regular exercise. "Borderline" cholesterol level is 201-239, so I'm at the high end of "borderline", but that's better than the high end of "high risk".

Sorry if you don't care; I was just pretty jazzed about it, and it's my blog.

George Castanza

George Castanza. Do you know him? If not, don't worry about it. If you do, I'm feeling like him right now. I've been linked on a friend's blog (http://letsgoflyakite.blogspot.com) with a disclaimer that says I’m funny. While I’m flattered to have been deemed as such, I’ve got to admit it’s a lot of pressure. Back to George, I’m reminded of two situations from Seinfeld. Let me describe them and then you may see why I feel a bond to him now.

- Desperate for a date. George and Jerry were on a double date with two women and the scene takes place in a restaurant. George’s date finds Jerry, a stand-up comedian, very funny. This upsets George because Jerry’s coming off to George’s girlfriend as funnier. George’s girl tells him later that she likes Jerry because he’s so funny. George later tells Jerry that he can’t be funny around her anymore so that she’ll think George is the funny guy. Jerry respects George’s wishes and begins acting dark and depressed when around her. As you might remember, the plan backfires and George’s girl then becomes attracted to Jerry because she really likes guys who are mysteriously sad. Finding this out, George tries to tell her that HE’s the one who’s sad, not Jerry, but to no avail. He looses the girl.

- Leave ‘em laughing. George’s co-workers thinks he’s funny, but he has a tendency to take the joking too far and then looses his audience. Jerry coaches him to “leave ‘em laughing”. By this he means that as soon as he makes people laugh he should excuse himself. What he accomplishes by doing this is that peoples’ last impressions of him is that he’s funny. As soon as he reaches that point, he say’s “I’m outta here.”

I’m outta here.

News of the day

If you've read or listened to the news today, you probably heard the story that brings into question the efforts of Homeland Security to compile a comprehensive list of potential terrorist targets in the US. Among the locations on the list are a donut shop, a Tennessee flea market, and a petting zoo. NPR had a very intersting report that gave equal air time to the Homeland Security folks explaining why such locations would be on the list, and the story didn't seem so bizzare or stupid as many of the news reports made it seem.

So why am I mentioning this? The petting zoo threat reminded me of something Eli said on our vacation. On the way to Montana, we stopped in Sioux City, Iowa, for gas. When we opened the car doors, Eli said "This town smells like a petting zoo!" And it did. So, be safe and steer clear of petting zoos, and Sioux City, Iowa.

Extreme Makeover - Blog Edition

For a while now I've been wanting to make some cosmetic changes to my blog, including adding a custom header. I created this one and was very excited to make the change tonight only to find out from Jenny that it took her four hours to get hers changed and add a picture header to hers a while back. I guess it will have to wait until this weekend when I have that kind of time to commit. However, since I was really proud of the one I created (yes, at work, where else?), I decided to just post it here, especially since Jenny said you can only use an image that has a URL. This is the easiest way to get a URL for my picture. Let me know how you like it. I've also been toying with the idea of replacing the picture of Dwight K Schrute on my profile with an actual picture of me (thanks to Joel and Maria for the new digital camera). Any objections (Susan)?

Also, just to clarify since there have been some questions about why my blog is named Home on the Range from someone who will remain nameless, but if that person weren't nameless her name would be Emily. I want to be sure that that person, and anyone else who cares, understands why, and since I'm not sure her informant (Jenny) told the whole/correct story.

• I am a native Kansan
• The official state song of Kansas is "Home on the Range", not "Over the Rainbow" or "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" as some might think
• My blog is my "home" on the web, or "cyber range"
  

Kitchen Cupboard Confessional

We've now been on vacation for one week, and I'm burdened with a transgression I have to bring to light. I've gained three pounds. Shameful, isn't it? I've decided to list the offending accomplices here, but I don't feel too bad since it's vacation AND I've been trying to run or walk as many mornings as I can (or feel like it).

• Wilcoxson's Fudgebars and Ice Cream Sandwiches - at least one a day, some days I've eaten two
• Lay's Sourcream and Onion chips
• Pringles
• Asparagus and Jalepeno dip (serving size is two tablespoons. yeah, right! I've put that much on each cracker.)
• Half a pan of cheese breadsticks at Mackenzie River Pizza
• Capn' Crunch
• About half a pound of salt water taffy (Can you believe we found Dr. Pepper taffy? It was close but not quite the same.)
• Close to a 12-pack of various sodas (In my defense, most of it has been diet, but I've had hardly any water. We've discovered Black Cherry Fresca while we've been here - it's so good. I usually drink about two liters of water a day when I'm at work.)
• Chocolate chip cookies
• Lemonade ice cream dessert
• George (see recipe)
• Godfather's pizza with sausage, olives and mushrooms (at least I'm getting my veggies)
• Fried chicken
• Potato salad (yummy! Momma K's potato salad rocks!)
• Hostess Ding Dongs and Twinkies
• Jumbo marshmallows
• and, still to come, Caramel Cookie Waffels (www.caramelcookiewaffles.com), a must-have when in Billings.

Final disclaimer: no one tied me down and force-fed me any of this. It was all of my own free will and choice.

Post-post: one of my biggest pet peeves is when businesses change the spelling of words (mostly words that start with C) thinking it's cute. I hate that! For instance, Krazy Korn Kountry (a corn maze in Billings we saw). None of those words start with K so why don't they say Crazy Corn Country? I see it a lot with children's stores - Kozy Kids Korral, Kountry Kids Klothing, and so on. As if English weren't hard enough for kids to learn, why do people komplicate it by spelling things wrong? Why am I writing this? I could have easily named this post "Kitchen Kupboard Konfessional," but that'd be worse than gaining three pounds in my books. (Yes, I know I spelled complicate with a "k". I was trying to be phunny.)

18.15

Run a two-mile race and finish 1st in my age group: CHECK! Today (July 4, 2006) was the day you've all been waiting for...my appearance in the Laurel Montana 9th Annual Chief Joseph Run. Up at 5am to snarf down a Snickers Marathon Double Chocolate Crunch Energy Bar and knock back a tall one (ice-cold lemon-flavored Gatorade Propel Energy Water), I was ready to go. We (Jenny, sister Emily, Tom (Emily's husband), and sister Susan) headed to Laurel for the 7am start time. Our groupies (Grandpa Andersen, Eli, Nathan, and Liam) were also up early and took their place along the course to cheer us on.

I have to say to the organizers, though, that I was completely disappointed they didn't start the race with a gun. All the races I've seen in movies start that way, and I'm sure that my $15 entry fee would have covered it. You can get cap guns at the dollar store, you know. Anyway, the T-shirt is nice (not from the dollar store). I was also excited to grab a Dixie cup of water at the half-way point, take a sip, then crumple it up and toss it aside just like they do on TV. It's the little things, you know...

After months of training and 35 pounds of lard gone, I was off on my first race. I had a blast! The hill was daunting (yes, Jenny used that adjective in her post, too, but I think I was the first one to use it when we saw the hill yesterday). The half-way point was at the top, then it was all downhill from there, literally. I sprinted about the last 1/4 mile, and finished with a time of 18.15. Not bad. In fact, good enough to "sweep" my age group and take first place. Oh, just in case you're wondering, my plaque does not say "1st out of 1" (although I WAS the only 30-39 year old in the race). It just says first place, so that's my story.


Other notable results: Jenny took 2nd in her age group! Take that, deep vein thrombosis. Emily took 1st place in her group (same group as Jenny). To his surprise, Tom took 1st in his age group (20-29) and Susan, who entered the four-mile race, finished 2nd in her age group. Tom and I are considering retirement now, though. I mean, where can you go after a 1st place finish, anyway?