Chris from Strategic Tactical Group will be the instructor. He does an excellent job and makes the class fun and educational, particularly for those that may not have a lot of experience with firearms. The class focuses on firearm and self defense laws and firearm safety and proficiency. You do not need to bring (or even own) a gun or demonstrate any shooting skills. You must attend this class before applying for the permit.

To get your Utah permit, you’ll then send the application, fingerprint card, photos, a photocopy of your drivers license, and the $59 application fee. It takes 6-8 weeks to receive your permit. The permit is good for 5 years and costs $10 to renew. The Utah permit is the most recognized permit available and is valid in 36 states, including all of Utah’s neighboring states.

Contact me if you are interested in attending or have any questions.

What’s with all the kissing at the gymnastics events?

I know it’s a European custom, but seriously, do they really have to kiss EVERY single person on the sidelines after EVERY single event? If I were a gymnast, I don’t think I could kiss a Russian coach without tossing my cookies. Yuck! Can you imagine this being a common activity at the boxing, wrestling, or weight lifting events? Did Phelps kiss his teammates after winning gold? I think not! Now woman’s beach volleyball on the other hand (which has more than it’s share of hugging)… Stop…… must… visualize… Russian… gymnastics… coach.

And then there’s this doozy:

Granted I am not an expert on European cheek kissing, but this doesn’t really look like a “To the left. Oops, I meant the other left!” kinda thing. Though if girls are going to kiss, I guess this is better than all the fake love we usually see. On a related note, can anyone explain why the lady in red is holding a bear-shaped bottle of honey?

And then there was Alicia Sacramone’s awkward kiss thingy with an Italian vaulter. Apparently in Italy it’s three kisses instead of two. Let me explain what happens. 1. They kiss right cheeks. 2. They kiss left cheeks. 3. Sacramone, apparently all kissed out, takes off. 4. The Italian lunges for her neck in vampire-like fashion. 5. To remove all semblance of eroticism, NBC cuts to a shot of a Russian gymnastics coach and/or Lyle Lovett.

Check it out in this video. (Don’t worry kids, it’s much less erotic than the new Twilight Series book - or so I’ve heard.)

And now for the ultimate in Olympic awkwardness… women’s wrestling, which naturally results in plenty of Kodak moments such as this:

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a new desktop background.

After processing, I noticed the ‘dot’ above the top red band. I checked some software and realized that it is Ganymede, the largest of Jupiter’s 63 moons. Ganymede is about 1/3 the size of Earth and is bigger than the planet Mercury. This photo gives you some perspective of the size of massive Jupiter - 318 times bigger than Earth.

While a substantial portion of humanity is donning tin foil hats and dancing on top of L.A. skyscrapers with “Beam me up!” signs in hand, I was a bit skeptical because radio signals are naturally occuring and rather common in outer space - we’ve detected plenty of them. A closer reading of the article reveals that the announcement was simply that a bunch of nerds built an antennae big enough to detect it’s first extra-solar radio signal. It would be like me saying, “This is the first photo taken of M51 with my telescope” and the world somehow believing that the photo was the first ever taken of this galaxy.

So let’s pretend that this is a message from aliens on a different world, here are my thoughts on what it would likely mean:

- Princess Azura wants to transfer 6 Billion Riles to your account as she is trying to get her recently deceased father’s (an oil tycoon and the previous regent of her planet) funds out from under the newly imposed Military Junta on Sagittarius 19. What she needs from you is your Social Security number, address, phone number, bank details, etc.

- It’s just Jodie Foster’s dad, he wants us to build a machine.

- Is Amanda there? Amanda Hugginkiss?

- Never gonna give you up. Never gonna let you down. Never gonna run around and desert you.

- Hello. We are a very advanced civilization, could you help us get Windows Vista to run faster?

- Hitler at the Olympics

- Is your refrigerator running?

On a somewhat related note, I’ve been asked to present on astrophotography at a big star party tomorrow. Details at http://www.awhc.org/page.php?n=star_party

In an attempt to figure out what she had learned in her primary class, we called the mother of Gracie, one of Abbie’s classmates. Gracie was with Abbie when she broke her arm, so we were certain she would know what happened. When Gracie’s mother asked her what they had talked about on Sunday, she replied, “We talked about those bad guys the Jews. They broke Abbie’s arm!”

Nice. Either they are teaching some crazy form of antisemitism at church or these girls really misinterpreted something.

Determined all the more to get to the bottom of it (and partially because it would be a bit awkward for our daughter to announce to strangers that Jews have abused her), we called her primary teacher. During class they were discussing the story of the good Samaritan and the teacher discussed how the Jews and the Samaritans didn’t get along. They then role-played the story and Abbie naturally played the part of the man robbed and abused - who else but the girl with the purple cast to play the one that gets beaten. Somehow they interpreted it all to mean that the Jews had REALLY broken Abbie’s arm. Mystery solved!

Don’t you love it when kids take the craziest things so literally? Now, we need to somehow convince our daughter that Jews aren’t mean child abusers.

I (that term is loosely interpreted to mean “my wife”) washed my cell phone a few days ago. (Yes, I left it in my pocket, but I blame my moment of carelessness on the fact all of the skin had just been torn from both kneecaps in a softball ‘incident’.) I am 4 months into a two year contract with Verizon and they wanted $320 to replace my phone. I kindly told them they could take my waterlogged phone and cram it up their…

I could either pay the $320 to replace my Samsung Flipshot (I think my feelings about this option are clear), get an el-cheapo, bottom-of-the-line phone for $180 (those ‘free’ phones aren’t when you’re already in a contract), or pay a $150 early termination fee and go somewhere else. I’ve had techno-lust for an iPhone for some time, but I also have been relatively happy with Verizon. I’ve been with them for almost 11 years - since the AirTouch Cellular days. But, the iPhone is friggin’ sexy and I really could use mobile web browsing and e-mail when I’m on the road.

So I made up my mind that I was going to bail on Verizon and get an iPhone, despite the price tag - $200 for the iPhone, plus the $150 to kick Verizon in the balls. So I called Verizon to remove all the extra features from my account until I could officially jump ship. After getting the run-around, I finally ended up with a manager who practically begged me to stay. While I had tried to convince several customer service agents before him that it was in their best interest to do something to make me happy, this guy actually understood that they make more from me in two months in a contract than they would make by pissing me off and taking my $150 cancellation fee. I figure I’ve thrown over $8000 to Verizon thus far.

So Verizon is now going to send me a new (well, reconditioned and “like new”) replacement phone for free and keep me as a relatively happy customer. I’m still likely to bail when my contract is over and get that oh-so-sexy iPhone, but I have to give them props for making things right with me.

As you can see, purple is the color of choice this week.

When Abbie broke her arm 3 weeks ago, it was VERY crooked. The doctor was able to get things set in place nice and straight, but things have since shifted so there is now a 20 degree angle in the bones in her forearm. It’s not freakish like it was when it first happened, but if you look closely, you can tell it is crooked. If you put your arm in front of you with your palm down, the arm angles upward half way between the wrist and elbow.

Today we spent A LOT of time in the doctors office reviewing our options. We could choose to let it continue to grow as is with the possibility that it would straighten out a bit (it won’t ever be perfectly straight) and that she will maintain good rotation of her arm, or we could choose to have surgery where they would straighten the bones and put them in place with some very expensive hardware (hardware they would have the gall to take away from her a few years later). Of three doctors that advised us, one said to definitely let it heal on it’s own, one said to flip a coin, and one said to definitely do surgery. A lot of good those 2nd opinions were!

It was a VERY difficult decision (and I can assure you that the cost of surgery never even entered our minds), but we decided to keep the cast on and see how it it heals. The risks of surgery outweighed the fact that she will have a slightly crooked arm. Did we make the right decision?

Of course, surgery may still be in her future if she cannot regain good rotation of her arm. None of this will affect movement of the arm itself, but will affect rotation of the arm. With your arm out in front of you with your palm down, rotate your hand so that the palm is now facing up. Notice how the two bones in the forearm rotate around each other. With both bones angled, she may not be able to fully put her palm straight down or straight up, which means she would be a very rotten volleyball player and it will always be “give me 5, on the side” for her. It might also affect her ability to grasp things with her palm down (think riding a bike, doing a pull-up, or pushing the lawnmower).

We’re hoping and praying that after 3 more weeks in the cast and after some therapy that she’ll regain enough motion that it will not affect her long-term. We’ll keep you up-to-date.

Now that this rather depressing post is coming to an end, here’s a video of our kids entertaining themselves.

They do that A LOT! Yes, my children have perfect equilibrium.

Abbie fell off the trampoline today and broke her arm. I mean, she REALLY broke her arm. Check the X-ray if you want. Pain, agony, weeping, and panic commenced, and even Abbie cried a little bit. She was a real trooper through all of it. It was, as you can see, a pretty nasty break. Our pediatrician and the ER doctor both told us they wouldn’t even touch it, but luckily an orthopedist, after a lot of effort, got it set almost perfectly. A miracle! She has to keep her arm in the air and on ice for the next couple days and will be in a cast most of the summer, but I think she’s going to be just fine.

I know some people get a bit squeamish looking at such things, but if you want to see pics of her arm, you can check them out here and here (it’s not too bad - no blood, just a crooked arm).