08/26/06

Opeldoper Opelopexopendoper,

I got your Xd card and short note to go with it. Thanks for sending it. I’m going to Sam’s club right now to see if I can get it developed since my Dazzle drive doesn’t fit your card. (update) I just got back from Sam’s and that didn’t work out either. I put the card in the kiosk to do it myself and it took about 15 minutes to read 87 pics out of 220. We were on the waiting list to eat at Johnny Corrinos too and were already going to be late. I started browsing the pics and hit a wrong button which cancelled the whole thing. Stupid thing!!!! Then we started it over and waited it out till it loaded all pics. Then found out after all that, that we would have had to use another kiosk if we wanted them transferred to CD. WHAT??? That is some great information I could have used 45 minutes ago!!! You can tell that I was pretty happy. I said bag it and bought a whole new drive that will hook to my computer and read your card so I can just do it at home. What a pain. So now I’ll rip it all to CDs and give them to Mom and Dad to develop photos with. Let them deal with the Sam’s or Smith’s peeps. I saw just a few pics. Pretty cool. I’ll have to zoom in like you said and see who is who. Well, then we rushed back to Johnny Corrinos and I dropped Suzanne off at the door to tell them we were there and I drove around looking for a park. I saw a mini van leaving a stall right in the front, so I pulled up close and waited. You can already tell what’s about to happen… Well, he stopped backing out because some people were walking behind him. OK, we can all wait a few more seconds. Then he started backing up again, but stopped once more for a car driving by him. OK, a few seconds more, then another car pulled up behind him and stalled him once more. But backed up to let him out. He pulled out slowly and drove off and that car, occupied by a crusty 55 year old dude, looked at me and saw I was waiting for that spot forever. But he darted in regardless. I was already hot about the freakin’ kiosk at Sam’s and wasn’t in the mood for a jerk to blatantly steal my spot. Well, I pulled up right behind him and stopped. I figured if he was going to put the screws to me like that, he could look me in the eye as he got out of his car. I waited… I waited some more. Finally, I realized he was in his car crapping himself because the guy he just jipped was waiting outside of his car for him. Just then, a spot opened up around the curb, so I turned and went over to the open spot and parked. I saw him in my mirror jump out and run inside. I knew the wait inside, so I patiently stomped in the door to face my friend. He wasn’t there. Suzanne saw I was in a huff. I explained what had happened and she told me that she saw him come in and ask how long the wait was and then asked where the restrooms were and ran away. Well, anyway, our table came up quick and we were walking back and my buddy was coming out of the restrooms and walking right toward us. I asked Suzanne if that was him since I recognized him and she said yes. He almost stopped and turned back to the restrooms. He had a sheepish look on his face. I almost balked at him just to make him flinch as we got right next to each other, but I didn’t want to risk him flopping onto another customer’s table and food. What a jerk. But he’s my brother, right? So I’m glad I didn’t say or do anything inappropriate. Shelli watched Brins. I think they had fun, but didn’t have as much time as Shelli (or Brinlee for that matter) would have liked. I had to run home to get to the draft that was set up for 8:00. Since the draft didn’t go through last week, I did an e-mail draft over the week and got through about 8 rounds. So tonight was to finalize everything with 10 more rounds. I am enclosing the results…

I think this year is going to be the most competitive yet. I think we have the most parity between teams we’ve ever had in the league. You always have a gimp team that’s an easy win every week, but I don’t think we have gimp teams this time. All these guys are pretty competitive. I’m a little sketchy on Buffalo Wings and Ballaz though, they didn’t show up for the final draft and gained a bunch of QBs as a result. But they will pull through. I can’t wait for the season to start now. I have some really young players on my team this year, but I’m managing them effectively. A couple of rookie sleeper picks that could become part of my dynasty if my bets pay off.

We are going to have some pics to send you I think in this next letter. We will be picking them up tomorrow at Sam’s.

Thanks for the Missionary Handbook. This one is 2 pages longer than my old original. I wonder what is extra in there. Looking back at the beginning of this letter, have you been teaching any Elder’s Horse Latin? Opits opalwopays fopun topo spopeak opin hoporse lopatopin whopen opothoper popeopople dopont knopow whopats gopo-oping opon. How the Parker® set working out for you? Any converts yet? Don’t forget your commitment pattern and really let people learn by the spirit. Challenge them to find out for themselves and they will know that Parkers are the true pen if they ask in faith. Don’t forget our little Parker scripture either. That always helps when inviting souls to partake of Parker®.

So tell me all about the morning you left the MTC. Did you have as hard a time leaving as I did? What about flying out, how was the flight and the long layover? I had a 2 hour layover in Cincy. It didn’t seem that long though. But the hour long hold pattern over LaGuardia seemed like 5 hours since we were flying in circles with a bunch of other huge planes buzzing around us at the same time since the storm was so bad to land. We almost got diverted to Philadelphia. I was travel leader too and freaking out about what I was going to do if a kink got thrown into the plans like that. We were praying that we could land because we thought for sure we’d get lost and have no place to sleep if we got went to Philly. Luckily the clouds broke and we landed shortly after that. The power of prayer!!! What was the mission home like? What was your mission president like? Describe your first night in the mission home and the transfer when you met your trainer. Who is your trainer? I need all the juice you can produce for your blog including pics and tons of personal info. What is your area? What are the boundaries? All this will be the best for your blog updates along with the pics I’m developing. I’ll have your card back soon so you can send the other one with pics of your apartment, trainer, mission home, area, bike, etc. I can’t wait to hear from you. This is one of the most exciting times of your mission, just getting the lay of the land and a feel for your trainer. Do you have any roommates?

Shelli came over to watch Prison Break’s premier and we watched another show after that called Two a Days. We are both way into that show now. It’s a new reality show about a High School in Alabama called Hoover and their football team which is ranked 2^nd best in the country, but is trying to win the High School Championship for the country. It follows these players and their lives and pressures of being as good as they are expected to be and their coaching staff, the games they play, their personal lives, etc. It’s way good. The football action is really good too. Half of this team could play on a collegiate level already, it’s crazy.

Well, I just burned your pics all over to CD. It takes up two CDs for that one card. So I had to go through 10 CDs to get your MTC peeps, Mom and Dad’s and your own copy when you get home that will stay preserved in a CD wallet till you are back, so they don’t risk scratch or wear. That took half of my day. At least this will be the only time you hand out copies to other peeps. That was understandable for your district boys. This new card reader works well. Mom and Dad are coming over tonight after eating at Skybox to see them. I haven’t looked at them yet either so I can look at them with them. I’ll update your blog tomorrow with some pics and video. Those should last a few updates too since I can’t put even 1/10^th of those pics on there, it would hog up way too much space, so I’ll just put the highlights on.

Well, it’s almost 1:00 AM Sunday morning. I’m going to have to get to bed soon so I can wake up for church. I just did a blog entry and then even pre-made 4 more to follow and saved them as drafts. I’ll pace everyone on the release of those. It’s the new strategy. Like pre-filming the Harry Potters or Pirates of the Caribbean or Lord of the Rings and then releasing them in a timely manner. So I’m set for 4 more blog entries after tonight’s just went out. They are good man! I’m loving the pics. I even rigged up some video to be released in two blogs from now. It’s cool.

Mom and Dad came over and checked them out. In fact, John and Si’i were over here too helping me move the treadmill downstairs, so they checked them out too. Si’i and I played some Halo 2 with Austin and his buddy. I’m actually finishing 24 to his 25 almost every game in a tight, tight match! It drives me crazy that I can’t beat him. Keep in mind that this is without a handicap on or anything. It’s always playing my custom game variant StickShot though, but who cares. He loves StickShot and is super good at that too, it’s just that the playing field is leveled when I am at close combat and using shottys. Si’i had fun too. Everyone liked your pics. It was way fun going over them with everyone at the same time too. I’m ending the night with Austin mad at me because I won’t trade him my rookie sleeper sensation DeAngelo Williams to him. He’s proposing some decent trades, I’m just holding out. I think I might actually get Willis McGahee for him. He’s this close to pulling the trigger. He is quite the negotiator, I’ll tell you what. I’m grooming him to be a serious negotiator too. Anyway, he just logged off messenger in a huff and wouldn’t say goodbye to me because I wouldn’t deal. He’ll figure out that no hard feelings go into these tough trade talks. It’s all in good fun. Well, with that, I best be off. Oh, I built a new bookshelf today in my room where the treadmill used to be. It looks great. I’m moving my books in on it now. Well, anyway, always good to see you even if it’s in pictures or video. Keep it up. Make sure you are deleting the waste pics though just to conserve space. But still take as many pics as possible since it’s so great to have those memories forever.

I’m way proud of you for doing what you are doing. Keep up the hard work. Show your trainer what kind of hard working stallion that you are. Learn everything you can from him (assuming he’s a super star missionary). I can’t wait to hear all about him and your area and your experiences. Work Hard, Pray Hard,! I think that is going to be my new motto for you. I should come up with some bumper stickers for the Missionary Emporium or something. I’d make some coin off of those from moms sending those out to their missionary kids. You should start using that too. But not for a while. Let me look into seriously making some stickers for envelopes and bumper stickers. What do you think? Do I have something here? You know the Mormon market. They blow some serious bank on all things kitchy and Mormony like that. Tell me if I’m just too tired to be writing at 1:00 AM.

Anyway, even if I don’t turn this into a little profit maker, I’ll still used it signing off on my letters to you. You can use it as your war cry to your missionaries when you are DL/ZL or AP. Work Hard! Pray Hard. Maybe Work Hard, Pray Harder! How’s that? I like that maybe even better.

Anyway, I’ll keep on this idea. Don’t use it just yet. I don’t want some missionary writing home to a gung ho mom and having her steal this idea and make all my money before I can get it started.

Ha ha ha, anyway. Write back soon.

I love you and miss you. Brinlee and Minka, her new kitten say hi. Suzanne says hi and good luck.

Talk to you soon.

Trav