Politics and Trick-or-Treating

Ok, so in my family we all get along pretty well, as long as we don't bring up the two things that you are never supposed to talk about - Religion and Politics. Well if you want to see pictures of Owen Trick-or-Treating you are going to have to first deal with me talking about the later taboo topic. (Of course you could always just skip down to the pictures, but there is that little bit of you that is curious about what I am going to say, so I know that you are going to read what I have to say anyway.)

Politics
How do you vote? When someone asks you that question, what is the first thing that you think of? Do you respond "I vote Democrat," or "I vote Republican?" If you did then I want to say to you "STOP IT!" (That is a stop it while hitting your nose with a rolled of newspaper.) I feel that a large portion of what is wrong with our country is that people decide that they are a certain party and they just show up at the polls and vote for the people with the (D) or (R) by their name. Voting Democrat or Republican is not "how" you vote, that is simply "who" you are voting for, and it is a STUPID way of doing things. What if you got into the voting booth, and there was no (D) or (R) next to the candidate's names? You would probably recognize the names in some of the big races: Governor, U.S. Senate, U.S Representative, but after that I would bet that you have no idea who is running for your State Senate or State Representative. What about your State Attorney General, County Council, School Board, should those judges be retained?

The problem with choosing based on party affiliation is that you are basically letting other people, i.e. "The Political Machine," choose for you. Look at George Bush, he was sold to the masses as a Republican, but if you look at the traditional tenets of the Republican Party - limited government, fiscal responsibility, etc...- Bush was definitely not a Republican. Yet because he had an (R) next to his name, people voted for him. You can make the same argument with Obama, he is not exactly what people thought a Democrat should be.

So how do you vote? Rather than simply being a mindless sheep choosing the "Vote Party Line" button at the polls (I can't believe that they even have that option, it offends me, and it should offend you too) why don't you take some time right now to download a sample ballot, and look up the candidates in each race. Look at their stance on the issues that are important to you, find the one that has the same philosophy as you, and vote for them, regardless of what party they belong to. And watching political ads on TV doesn't count as research. In the Maryland Governors race both candidates - a former governor and the current one - are busy making claims that the other one raised taxes and spending and that they cut spending. Well, one of them is lying (or stretching the truth if we give them the benefit of the doubt) and it took me 2 clicks with the mouse to find the information in the State of Maryland Archives that tells me exactly which one it is. If you don't do the research and just believe whatever your "party" tells you - chances are you are being misled, and they are counting on it. So take an hour, find out the issues, find out the candidates, look at your state issues, look at the bonds that your county wants to pass (and remember that every bond you pass will be coming out of your pocket eventually).

In case you are wondering, and I am sure that you are, I will be voting for 12 Democrats, 5 Republicans, 1 Libertarian, for 1 Maryland State Constitutional Amendment and against 1. I look at the decision record of the judges up for renewal, and see no reason why they should not be renewed, and of the 6 different bonds that my county wants to pass (totaling $267,798,000) I will be voting in favor of two of them.

Ok, on to what you really want - pictures of the boy Trick-or-Treating! I know that you are shocked and are thinking, "Wait, good little Mormon boy Chris took his son out Trick-or-Treating on the sabbath?" Yup, we did. Our cul-de-sac has 10 houses and 4 children. Because we are kind of secluded and off of a main road without sidewalks, the entire trick-or-treating crowd that visit these 10 houses is 4 children. So really, Owen going trick-or-treating was more to make the holiday fun for our neighbors that for the boy to get candy that we all know I am just going to "tax" anyway. (Out here in Maryland you have to teach kids about taxes really early.) We went out right as one of the other little girls came out, so Owen and Harmony went around the cul-de-sac together.

 Looking cute for Mommy

 Mommy took too many pictures, so the funny faces started

 Trick-or-Treat! (And the Boy is so polite he even remembered to say "Thank You"!)

 We should have taken a video of the Boy going from house to house, he is such a spaz - arms and legs everywhere

 Harmony missed a house, Owen was very quick to point this out.

 We probably shouldn't have let them go to the door by themselves, they would each ring the doorbell...multiple times

 The glass doors on the houses always got in the way. I tried explaining that they needed to watch out for the door, but they were like "No, I must stand next to the door, that is where the candy is!"

 Looking for something tasty!

 Which should I eat first?

The candy bar won, but notice the skittles were close by. The pictures ended at this point because we spent the rest of the night chasing the boy around the house!

Why it is called "Fall"

It is definitely fall back here on the east coast, the weather has turned a bit cold, the wind has picked up, the leaves have changed colors, and they are falling. I know that you are all thinking that it is because of the leaves that we call this time of year "fall." I used to think that too, until I lived in a house with 16 oak trees in my yard. If we were naming the season after the leaves it would be called "flutter," the reason that it is called "fall" is because of the acorns. Before the leaves ever even change colors, the acorns start falling, and they fall in ridiculous quantities. You have to wear something on your head because after falling from 70-80 feet, the little bastards hurt! And if you don't go out and clean them up, the squirrels get to them, like this guy: 

                                      

Look how fat he is, just sitting there outside my door. We have quite a few of those brick pillars that he is sitting on, and every single one is covered with leftover acorns. They do it just to torment me. Oh well, we'll talk a little bit more about the wildlife later.

Funny Random Pictures of the Boy

Before we get to the Halloween pictures, here are a few random pictures of the boy doing whatever he happened to be doing when we took his picture.

This is just the Boy hanging out watching a movie on netflicks. Beki found the sweatshirt at some thrift sale, a pretty good deal if you ask me.

 We are pretty sure that the Boy is going through a growth spurt, mostly because his food consumption has almost doubled. We had chicken nuggets one night, and apparently 5 was not enough for him, so he insisted on sitting in front of the oven and watching more cook.

 Owen got a Halloween card from Grandma Nettie...

and his cousin Maddy wrote a book for him! It was really neat, Maddy is such a good artist, Owen really enjoyed it.

Owen's school class was supposed to go to the Pumpkin Patch a couple of weeks ago, but it got rained out. Now the public schools would have just said "too bad," but Owen's school just rescheduled it for a later date. Owen had a lot of fun, he got to ride on a school bus and that was just as awesome as can be. But the thing that he was most excited about was his little pumpkin that he picked out. He had been waiting to turn it into a Jack-O-Lantern, and finally Beki and I got our pumpkins and we had a little carving party.

 The Boy tried scooping the guts out, but quickly decided that Papa was much better at it, lucky me.

 Mommy and Owen drew a face on his pumpkin - it was the same face as the one on his trick-or-treating bucket. Then when mommy turned her back, the Boy figured that he would have a turn with the cutting saw.

 Yup, I was soooo good at scooping guts that I "got" to do all three.

Owen with his Jack-O-Lantern

We are pretty sparse on the Halloween decorations, but our Jack-O-Lanterns do a pretty good job of setting the mood.

                                      

Unlike the public schools out here, which do not allow holiday parties, Owen's school did things the way that they should be done, and after the students had spent the afternoon partying, they had a parade with all of the elementary students. The 6th, 7th, and 8th graders don't get to wear costumes, they come out to cheer on the other kids.

 So in case you don't know which one is the Boy, he is the one that the teacher is telling to hurry up. There was a big fire truck parked in the parking lot, and it really was distracting.

 He had never seen Toy Story until this summer when he watched #1 and #2 on the way from Utah to Idaho, but he loves Buzz Lightyear. He has a Buzz Lightyear backpack, so when he saw a Buzz costume at the thrift store the decision was easy.

 Giving the older kids high fives! I don't know why, but all of the older kids know Owen. Probably because he is ridiculously funny. His big thing now is calling you "Nacho." It comes from a CheeseIts commercial, it makes no sense, but I would rather have him saying that than some other things he could be saying.

At the ward Halloween party with his friend Moroni.

 It was like a trunk or treat, except that everyone took a room and decorated the door, then the kids went around the hallway and scored their loot.

 Hmm...which one to eat first....

Apparently he chose one he wasn't even holding.

So these last four pictures have nothing to do with Halloween. The weather was nice one day, a little cool, but not windy and not rainy, and I was feeling particularly motivated - it must be the new meds the doctor has me on - so I took all of the crap out of the right side of our shed. (Quick side note: Our shed is divided into two sides. The right side is unfinished, and looks just like you would expect a shed to look. The left side is finished, like it is sheet-rocked, has a linoleum floor and a big window. People used to live in the left side of our shed..)

 As I was taking everything out, I found that our shed was inundated with stink bugs. Stink bugs don't really make any effort to escape, I guess that they figure that their chemical warfare is enough to send people running. Well, apparently I have superior genetics, because the smell of stinkbugs doesn't bother me. I must have squished hundreds, maybe even a thousand stinkbugs and I didn't smell a thing. They do however, make a delightful crunch when you squish them!

Nice and clean, and no stink bugs!

And lastly, when we got home from Stake Conference today - by the way Beki is now the 2nd Councilor in the Stake Primary Presidency - there was a visitor in our neighbor's back yard. Beki picked up the Boy so he could see, and he kept saying, "Get closer...Get closer."

Looks like we'll be eating this week!

In case you are wondering, No, I still don't have a job, I'm not sure how we have survived for the last two months, and I have no idea how we will survive the month ahead. Right now I am rooting for us winning Publisher's Clearing House.

Renaissance Festival

So I am a geek for all things old and historical, but I have always avoided the Renaissance Festivals because I am afraid that if I went to one I might not come back. The second largest Renaissance Festival in the country is a half hour from my house, and so we had made plans to go with Dean (Owen's best friends) and his family this year. When my work situation exploded we decided that it was not something that we could afford, so we hadn't planned on going. Well, Dean's mom is the Stake Choir Director for our church, and she wanted a hymn arranged, and since I don't have much to do, I arranged it for her. As a way to say thank you, Dean's family took us anyway.

The Renaissance Festival here in Maryland is awesome. It is seriously a little town in the middle of the woods. There are numerous stages for all sorts of performers - some for kids, some for adults, and some for everyone. There are knights and jousting and sword fighting, and everything awesome like that. There are lots of food vendors (plenty of beverages of an adult nature of course) and all sorts of vendors selling clothing, jewelry, trinkets, swords, art and everything else you could probably ever imagine. And then there are the people who dress up; I'm not just talking about the performers and vendors. Probably 30% of the people who attend the festival are dressed up. Most are tasteful, some are slutty, and a few are just plain wrong: (YOU CAN NOT UNSEE WHAT HAS BEEN SEEN!!)

Owen was excited to go, and more than anything else, he wanted to go on a pony ride. So one of the first things we did was find the ponies:

Mount Up!

The Boy was so excited to be on the pony, he was leaning forward and petting it.

This was right before our pony stopped and let everyone know that he was a boy pony...Beki took a picture while he was taking care of business, but I decided to use restraint.

You only get to go around the little path once, but the boy was super excited that he got to ride a pony.

One of the knights before the joust.

This was my favorite performer of the entire day. Hilby the Skinny German Juggling Boy. His humor is just up my ally - he says lots of funny things as asides that most people don't get, but it had me in stitches.

This music group was not very good, but the Boy still got up on the bench and danced.

This is the Fairy Godmother. Owen had been a wuse when it came to interacting with performers, but the Fairy Godmother got him to come up and take a "'Bravery Stone" from her.

And of course there was a play place for kids with slides and a Pirate Ship and all sorts of climbing things.

The Boy handled the rope ladder like a pro.

Owen waited very patient for a turn to be spun around like crazy on the tire swing.

I got sick just watching.

At the end of the day we were sad to leave, but we managed one last smile from the boy for a family photo.

Oh, and next year we will be dressed up with the 30%.

White Trash Home Repair

This is my Water Heater...notice how it is not as tall as yours?

That is because it is supposed to be used in a mobile home. When we first moved in the Water Heater quit working within a week. Luckily my wife and her family are awesome, and instead of buying a new Water Heater, we replaced the elements, and everything was lovely. This last weekend as we were getting ready for bed, Beki and I heard a tremendously awful noise. It lasted about two seconds, and it sounded as if someone was jackhammering something in our house. We looked around for a half hour, but couldn't figure out what it was, so we went to bed hoping that our house wasn't going to explode during the night. (We would much prefer it to explode during the day.)

Monday morning Beki woke me up with good news and bad news: The Good News - she knew what the sound was. The Bad News - It was the Water Heater. New Elements should not burn out in a year and a half, so we were thinking that this time we might have a serious problem on our hands. In case you have never had to deal with changing the elements on your Water Heater, I shall explain how this is done.

Step #1 - You have to drain the tank. This seems like it should be straight forward, there is a drain on the bottom, you hook a hose up, turn the water off to the tank, and drain. Except that during its life, your Water Heater builds up sediment and junk in the bottom, which sometimes get in the way of draining. We were having a rough time getting the drain clear, and we were throwing ideas around about how we could get something to loosen the sediment. Beki wanted to hook up the air-compressor to the drain hose and blast the sediment back, but we didn't have an attachment that would let us do this. If only we had someone in the house with extensive experience blowing into things...

Yup, I had to blow into the drain hose and see if I could generate enough pressure to get the sediment to move and allow the water to drain. The good news is that it worked, and the bad news is that it worked, for once I got the sediment to move there was 40 gallons of water and gravity working against me. At least I got my mouth closed before I got hit in the face by nasty sediment water...

Step #2 - Take out the old elements and look for damage. Evidently there is a special tool that you need to do this, and apparently we own one, I had seen it in the shed before, and had no idea what it was. If your element looks like this:

then it is broken. (Notice how there is a hole burned completely through it?) But why would it burn out in only a year and a half? Beki checked in the bottom of the tank, and we had so much sediment that it had actually come into contact with the element, which burned it out. So somehow we needed to get the sediment out of the bottom of the tank. This is where white trash awesomeness pays off. 1 Shop-vac + 1 regular vacuum attachment + 1 clear plastic drain hose + duct tape = SEDIMENT SUCKER OF AWESOME!

I don't know what surprised us more, the fact that we came up with this, or the fact that it worked!
It was pretty gross work, sometimes the chunks were too big and Beki would have to pull them out of the tube.
In the end we got most of the grossness vaccumed out, and we were able to get back to fixing our Water Heater. Here is what we ended up with. (Warning, this is gross)

Step #3 - Put the new Element in, tighten everything up and turn the water back on!

(There are some steps that I didn't mention, such as "Turn off the electricity to the Water Heater" and "Go to the store and buy a new element," but I think you are smart enough to do that on your own.)

So it took most of our evening, but once again we can take a hot shower!