Merry Christmas!

I hope all of you have a very merry Christmas. This is the season to spend time with family and loved ones (see how I separated the two groups). A time for us to remember the true reason for the season, the birth of our Savior. There are presents and parties and a lot of hustle and bustle, but we whould slow down and take a moment to thank our Heavenly Father for what we have. Once that is done we can get on with our holidays!

Merry Christmas!

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Chloe's Orchestra Concert

It has been two days of performances for the kids. Today is Chloe's turn for orchestra. She is very excited to be playing the violin.
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Chloe's Christmas Dance Concert

You probably thought I was done blogging for a while, but here I am at Chloe's Christmas Dance concert and I thought I better blog about this since I did for Jordan's concert.

Chloe sure is becoming a good dancer.

Jordan's Band Concert

Hello there. Tonight is Jordan's band concert. You can barely see him in the picture, but he is there with his friend Tanner. Tonight he is playing two songs at the Christmas concert "Joyeux Noel" and "Ding Dong Merrily on High."

It was a good night.

An American Hero

I did my civic duty today and voted for a bunch of people that will probably lose. Tough luck for me, but I just don't think we should send the same people to the capital every year.
If I had my way these government positions would be filled by the public by random drawing. Kind of like The Hunger Games, and then you go for a year to prepare and then do 5 years or so of service. This would keep career politicians out of the government, and the people would not owe any lobbyists or political action committees and those are the people and groups that are killing the government.
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Not My Kind of Fun Bus

I went to SmashBurger with Chris this week for lunch. If you have not been to SmashBurger before you are missing out on a pretty tasty burger - a little more refined than 5 Guys, but no where near as tasty. SmashBurger has more than just burgers and dogs too - they have chicken and specialty burgers. The only bad part - and this is a biggie - they are way expensive. Almost to the point of being over priced. If you have never been, you should try it to say you have been there. Well, that is enough about SmashBurger, let's move on to the point of this post. I grew up by the Golden Living assisted living center, I have been there for Christmas carols and other types of service. Let me tell you, that would not be a "fun bus" as we know it for sure. As I entered the SmashBurger not a one of the old people looked like they were having fun. They should rename it the "dazed and confused bus" and would be right on.
I still remember driving by Golden Living one time and someone had removed the G and the E from Golden, so it read "old n Living". Now that is a good joke!
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Delayed

Here I stand in JFK airport. I used to be on a plane, but we had to get off. Many people are very angry, but what is the alternative? Going down in a blaze of glory over the middle of America? I don't want to take that chance.
Hopefully I can get some shut eye on the plane. Going to be a long flight/short night.
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Workroom

I am sitting here in my hotel room reviewing my current big project. I had an all day meeting Monday and then spent a lot of today (Tuesday) in meetings refining what was discussed Monday. The good news is that I am pretty confident that I have nailed the process and the requirements for the project. That means I will be able to sleep easy tonight. Only one more day until I am reunited with the family. That is good.
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Smells Great Here

Don't remember if I updated the blog, but the In N Out burger closer to the house is open and busy.
I really like In N Out but the wife hates it so my opportunities to go are pretty limited. Chloe does like it, so her and I can sneak over sometimes.
I have yet to go to this location, but I have added it to my bucket list.
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Anniversary Fun

Today is my 15th anniversary. Last night me and the wife went to The Lion King at Capitol Theatre to celebrate. It was pretty good. Seeing it has actually made me think that we should do these things more often. We have a couple other fun things planned. We are going to see Avatar in 3D. I know, we must be the only people in the free world that have not seen it (I actually saw it on a plane, but people tell me that does not count).
It is great being married to your best friend. It makes things pretty easy most days, especially when the funnest thing to do is just hang out with her.
This is 15, but I am excited to see what will be over the next 15!
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Inception

I saw Inception on Tuesday night with the wife. It is a great movie. I highly recommend it to everyone. This movie is about entering people's dreams and learning their secrets or trying to give them ideas. The Leonardo Dicaprio charcter has a lot of emotional baggage and it is getting in the way of his job (he is one of the people entering others dreams). Leo's dreams are infiltrating other dreams and causing havoc. Anyways, this movie is great at storytelling and leaves you wanting more. Inception has a great story, great action, good effects, and good action.

You should see this movie and then let me know what you think.
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I Love You Beth Cooper

Last night me and the wife watched I Love You Beth Cooper. It was not very good, but had promise.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The movie starts out funny enough as the school valedictorian professes his love for Beth Cooper during his speech. He also makes fun of the snooty girl, the class bully, and the boys that never leave high school and are part of ROTC. Here is where things go off track. After graduation Beth tells him his speech was sweet and he invites her over to his house for a party. Of course, she shows up and hilarity should ensue, but not many actually funny things happen. Our main character just spends time getting beat up as Beth Cooper drives him around town like a psych. As our main character starts to not like Beth Cooper once he gets to know her, she starts to see that the things she does are not good and they both start to have feelings for each other.
There is also a running subplot regarding our main characters friend who does not he is gay, but decides he is bi after spending the night with two of Beth Coopers friends.
END SPOILERS
I don't recommend this movie to anyone. The funny start and kind of funny ending are not worth the middle of the movie that is just stupid.
Final note: never ride in a car that Hayden Panettarie drives.
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Hole in the Wall Update

Here is the wall repair I am working on. I keep assuring the wife (and myself) that it will dry to the right color. We are just a couple hours from finding out. This is just the first coat. One more coat tonight and then re-hang everything tomorrow.
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Flags

I am an Eagle Scout. That is how I know these flags and poles are wrong. The taller pole should have the American flag. If the poles are the same size the non-US flag should be hoisted slightly lower. The nation is above all is how it should be, but this is Utah you know.
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Can We Fix It? Part: I've Lost Count

Got a text from the wife today. The curtain rod in our front room was pulled down (accidentally). Now I need to repair the hole in the wall, repaint, and rehang the rod. Fixing the hole and repainting is easy. I just don't know where I will put the new holes for the rod. By the way, the yellow you see is the patch that is lightly covered with spakle. Once I sand and paint tomorrow you won't even notice it.

Updates to come.
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Somethings You Cannot Explain

Driving home from work yesterday I saw the above. Yes, that is Luigi walking down the street. He is not holding a sign or advertising anything, he is just walking. My question is, if he was working somewhere else, why did he not take the head off or change clothes before leaving?
Seeing Luigi did brighten my day though. I like Luigi way better than Mario. Luigi is the unsung hero. He goes around saving the world not for the princess like Mario, but because he just likes to hang out with his brother.
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Hello? part 4

The quotes got a little better today. Hold tight, cause the end of the week is nearing.

• Take them, love them, have fun with them.
• I will bring you an abacus for after lunch.
• I don't care about how you feel.
• I'm glad to see you are not sucking on that.
• Nice one, mustache.
• Did you put on cologne?
• I'm glad I didn't wear my dress to the game, we would have clashed.
• No, he said golden goose.
• Ivan, you got something stuck to your butt.
• There's an identity monkey choking me.

Hello? part 3

Long day yesterday. Not a lot of funny stuff happened, but I still got some quotes.

• I can hear you crying on the inside and it makes me giggle.
• It's more magical than Flipper.
• There's a lot of idiocy going on around here.
• Am I going in to learn something or be murdered?
• You once shopped there, but threw the bottle away after one sip.
• Furcal! You're killing me.

Wish I had more, but just not in the right state of mind. Maybe once this day is over we can get to the normal amount of quotes.

Hello? part 2

More quotes from the event this week:

• I'm good with a pole, Matt
• Please, no pictures of our scantily-dressed women as superheroes
• But...I'm not in marketing
• God may not require it, but Matt does
• I'm not going to let 23 other people judging me slow me down
• If you are suicidal some free bread can really cheer you up
• Matt is going to cry
• There's Superman sleeping in the foyer

Hello? part 1

In San Diego for the North American version of our conference. More quotes will be coming (with which you can see early versions on Twitter @mattroblyer). Here are the first couple days worth of quotes:

• I am ready to be punched
• It's not like its Fort Knox
• I am actually tri-lingual because I speak Pig Latin
• People often stop me on the street and ask, "Are you a world traveller?"
• No undead for you
• I am a leprechaun
• No, I forgot my flute
• That's a good song
• I care not for the Vampire Diaries
• At least do them the courtesy of not killing them a violent death in the back of a limosuine
• There's Captain America and his lesser known friend

Trash Bins

I know we have a lot of trash but the city did not need to bring our own dumpster.
We have the dumpster in front of our house for neighborhood cleanup, which is ok, but what is weird is that the first day it was there a bunch of people I did not know all pulled their trucks up and emptied truckloads of yard debris from their jobs in the day. Anything to save a buck I guess. One guy even dropped off a bathroom he remodeled.
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Super Mario, Super Video

This is one of the coolest things I have seen in a while. All of Original Super Mario Brothers, displayed on a long wall/ground in a motion capture. It is pretty cool. I found this on Gizmodo by the way.

Blowing Stuff Up

Fourth of July this weekend. Pyromaniacs dream. I can see that in the early years of America blowing things up on the holiday was important. We had to show our dominance of the world. Now, it is just a reason to blow things up, things that were made in China even. I don't really get it. We blew some stuff up with friends this weekend. The girls ohhhh'd and ahhhh'd like us men were professionals and we had no sparks over 12 feet in height.
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Hello? part 6 (try #2)

This will be the last quotes (until the next Catalyst). These quotes cover the last day of the conference as well as the flight home. Without further ado:

• Carissa's here
• I blame you Matt
• He's a happy little elf today
• Would Karl? I would give him a receipt.
• I'm gonna get so rowdy the rest of you will look mellow
• You're going to get a hernia in your teeth
• You let people beat you down, we are going to have to show you the door.
• So I don't lick my stitches
• I like my pigeon on the bone
• That is why she is a manager and you are a coordinator
• Anne, hold on...now go
• Instead of any real security I will ask you questions
• If I get cold on the plane I just snuggle with myself
• He's a swiss army knife of style
• I'm so sick of you
• Ain't no one playing me like a puppet
• It was like finding out Darth Vader was Luke's father
• Sid is more quotable today because he drank last night
• Let's get our check from the Russian

Hello? part 5 (try #2)

Catalyst is almost over. Sorry for the short quote list today. It was a long day, but I tried to focus on work and not quotes. I am sorry. I will try to do better tomorrow.

• Do you want me to start a list?
• He's an angry elf
• That's what makes it a great shortcut
• Am I hot?
• You need some FloMax
• Listen!
• The pimp is responsible for compliance
• I wonder if that guy just killed those tourists