Bad Kyle!

I need to stop! I have a problem that I don’t like to talk about... it’s not drugs or anything immoral... I’m a tech junkie. Computers, iPods, scanners, cameras, lenses, miscellaneous gadgets, are all my drugs...

One of my friends just bought a Mac and now I want one really bad. Bad Kyle!! Bad Kyle!!

Let me a quote Raising Arizona:

“I found myself driving past convenience stores... that weren't on the way home”

“I found myself driving past the Biltmore Mac store... and it wasn’t on the way home”

I won’t do it anytime soon – iTunes will drive me back to Windows.

Jaedyn over time

I was tagged

Four places I have lived:
Mesa, AZ
Tempe, AZ
Avondale, AZ
Buckeye, AZ

Four shows I watch:
Battlestar Galactica (the best show on TV)
The Office
How I Met Your Mother
Holmes On Homes

Four jobs I have had in my life:
McDonalds
Paperboy for the AZ Republic
Visa/Mastercard customer service for Bank of America
Tech Rep for Charles Schwab Institutional

Four places I have been:
Mexico
New York
Boston
New Port Beach

Four Blogs I read regularly:
Mela’s Blog (my favorite) - iamtopsyturvy
Erin Fast’s Blog - efast-fun
Lisa’s Blog - BlahBlahBlog
TurleyBenson Blog - turleybenson

Four of my favorite foods:
Italian
Chinese
Rubio's
Grilled Polish Sausage from the BOB (Chase Field)

Four places I'd rather be right now:
San Diego
Mountains
NYC
Riding my mountain bike (too dang hot right now)

Four things I look forward to in the next year:
Loosing 10 more lbs!
Buying BioShock (my wife won’t let me)
My kids getting more cute as they grow up
Fall

Four things I like to do in my spare time:
Photography
Mow the lawn
Play on my computer
Ride my bike

Four favorite things to do with kids/family:
Date night with the wife
Taking the kids to the water park
Spending quality time with kids and wife
Actually having conversations with Andrew and Jaedyn

10 things I can't wait for (part 2)

I wrote ten things I can’t wait for last July. Here’s an updated list.

1. The election to be over. I hate the election season. I can only take so much BS and this year it seems we are getting a double helping.

2. Heroes – whatever happened to Heroes? After the writer’s strike Heroes seems to have dropped off the face of our television landscape.

3. Chuck – same story as Heroes. Dropped off the TV landscape...

4. Summer movies that my wife has refused to see with me: Wall-E (Mela doesn’t like animation movies!?), Hellboy 2 (opening night baby!!), X-Files, The Dark Knight and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. As far as I know none of these are rated R.

5. Date night. Mela and I trade babysitting with two other couples. Sometimes date night is all that gets me through the week.

6. Gas prices to be below $2 a gallon – trust me, I’m not holding my breath.

7. My sweet children to not grow up. I want my kids to stay little!!

8. Family Vacations! We have a couple of fun vacations planned... more details to follow...

9. Get released from the Bishopric. I love my calling, don’t get me wrong. My calling has taught me so much about myself and has pushed me in many ways. I love the other members of the bishopric. I love my ward. I love to serve the Lord in whatever way I am asked. But, I would much rather be a Gospel Doctrine teacher were I can do what I do best, where I don’t have all the worry and where I can sit with my family during sacrament meeting.

10. To lose my last 10 pounds. I really haven’t written about this... I started on a diet last fall. Back then I weighted 243 lbs. Now I weigh 212 lbs. I want to get to around 200 lbs. It has been fun buying new clothes. I had to get a new suit last week.

Andrew Over Time

My boy is growing up.

Bottled Water

Living in the Phoenix area you soon learn water out of the tap is nasty. I’ve been all over the country on business and, ironically, the best water from the tap is in New York City – if you can believe it.

My wife and I have become connoisseurs of bottled water. Here's a list and their ranking in our opinion:

Very Best
Smart Water
Dasani
Fry’s Water (yes the water you get from Fry’s)

Best
Aquafina
Costco Kirkland Brand
Sam’s Choice
Poland Springs

Okay
Nestle Pure Life
Safeway Brand

No better than tap
Arrowhead

Worst than tap
Evian
Fiji

Cost Analysis

Lately I’ve gotten into a cost analysis mode on my transportation needs. Here’s what I have been doing every weekday...

I top off my tank every weekday at the QT on 32^nd Street and Indian School, I check my trip odometer and I reset my trip odometer. I do the same thing the next day. I’ve been doing this for about a month now and from this information I have been able to do a cost analysis on how much it costs me to get to work and back.

This morning gas at my favorite QT was $3.999 (you got to be freakin’ kidding me). I had driven 75.3 miles since yesterday morning. My 2006 Toyota Tacoma consumed 3.966 gallons of gas costing me $15.86. My truck’s miles per gallon came up to be 18.986 mpg.

Let’s just say gas stays at $4 a gallon. Lets increase my miles per day to include trips to the church and the store – say 80 miles a day. Let’s just say my truck was getting 19 mpg. There are about 260 business days a year. I would consume 4.214 gallons of gas for each of these 260 business days. This would be 1095.5 gallons of gas a year. My gas costs would be $4382 per year.

My friend drives truck for a living. Diesel is $4.619 (it may be more) a gallon at the QT on 51^st and the I-10. His truck’s two tanks hold a total of 300 gallons. It costs him $1385.70 to fill up. He must add these costs to the cost of load of what he’s hauling. This is the reason everything is more expensive at your local WalMart, Frys or Safeway. Everything we buy comes to us by truck.

Let me be frank – the price of fuel is screwing every American: young or old; black or white; male of female; legal or illegal. I echo what I’ve heard from talk radio recently: if I was running for president, gas prices and how to fix them would be the only thing I would be talking about.

Water Park Family Home Evening

Mela had the wonderful idea of bringing the kids to the water park for FHE.