12/02/06

Supp Yo?

It’s Monday morning, yeah, I’m getting an early start on your weekly letter this week. I just got your e-mail and forwarded it on to Mom, Dad, Staci, Shelli, and Suzanne. I also immediately took off the pres. Interview thing as soon as I read that in your e-mail. So don’t worry. It’s been removed. I actually wondered if that might be something you wouldn’t want to share. But thought it was a cool compliment and threw it on anyway. But Pres interviews are personal and sometimes of the sacred nature and I will respect that in the future and not include any comments from things like that in the Blog.

As I was coming in to work this morning, a big wall of white was about 10 minutes south of me and chased me all the way in. It’s going to snow somethin’ fierce today and we actually have a winter storm warning through Wednesday. So we’ll probably have 3 days worth of hard winter action. Hey, it held out past Thanksgiving to give us a nice Turkey Bowl. What more could I ask for? My yard is all clean, winterized, and the house is ready to withstand a harsh winter too with those new windows and reinforced roof (at least until spring). So I’m ready for it. Well, can’t write much right now. I am late getting to payroll and need to get that going right away. So I’ll pick this up in a bit.

Yo, I’m back at work, it’s Tuesday 4:11 PM. I have gone to BK for my Trav’s special the last two days. Not to get back in a rut or anything, but to get those Xbox games. Dude, the King Rules! These games are so funny. Let me put some descriptions in here and some screen shots in hopes that they will work in the e-mail…

Sneak King: The game is Sneak King, and the object is surprise. Now's your chance to step into the royal shoes of the King himself as you silently unleash hot sandwiches on the hungry citizens of this famished world. All of your covert gaming skills will be put to the test as you take on the role of the slickest sneaker on the planet: The Sneak King.

There's an art to sneaking up on someone and surprising them with a hot, delicious sandwich. You might not know that, but it's true. The average person might just knock on a door with sandwich in hand and yell "Surprise!" but something would be missing from the experience. That something is drama, mystery, finesse. And the King has it all in spades.

Here's your chance to learn the King's magic. Step into his royals hose and learn the cunning stealth that elevates his surreptitious sandwich surprises to an art form. Sneak down alleys, roads, and sidewalks. Surprise unsuspecting burger lovers from inside barrels, pipes, and treehouses. The more you sneak, the more you will gain an appreciation for the methods of the true Sneak King.

Welcome to the wild world of pocketbike racing: The tiniest and most back-breaking of motorsports. Swing your leg over your Pocketbike Racer and experience the exhilaration only a knee-high motorcycle can provide.

It might look a bit ridiculous, but being this low to the ground does have its advantages. You have a lower center of gravity, so you can take those corners harder and stay stable. Also, if you fall, there's not so far to go. Best of all, your opponents are on the right level to eat your dust.

So choose your 40 pound, 14 horsepower beast, chose a character, and chose from a series of tracks with long straightaways, tight bends, and treacherous hairpins. Then sit back and enjoy the game, knowing you can always Have It Your Way®.

You've been in a bumper car before, right? It's a simple concept: You drive around and smash into people. But in Big Bumpin', there's a catch. These bumper cars come with big hazards like surprise saws, bottomoless pits, and ice patches that let you dole out bumps so bumptastic we hesitate to even call them bumps! But we still do, because that's the name of the game.

Watch out for the King, by the way. Outside the arena he's a gentle guy, but get him in a bumper car and he will mess you up!

Don't worry about skill, this game only requires you to desire to beat your opponents no matter what. That includes using hazards like fire jets and lightning bolts to your advantage. Even if you haven't ever piloted a bumper car before, don't worry. All you need to succeed in any of the five game modes is a little bit of attitude and a whole lot of bumper.

You know me, I’m lovin’ these games just because the freaky king does some cool stuff. They are fun and funnier than heck! You’ll have to play all 3 with me when you get back.

I have been chatting with Challis this morning and we are going to do a live draft with everyone in one location this next year. I’ll put up the big draft board, use all the stickers, people will be able to trade for draft order, etc. We are also going to allow everyone to keep however many people they want this year and whoever folds in say 10 players for example will have 12 picks to draft since 22 players are allowed. If someone keeps 20 players, they will have two draft picks and they will be the last 2 rounds of the draft. See how it will work? We are still planning all of the logistics, but all of us are in the SLC except for Challis and his 3 other boys. But he’s going to fly everyone in since 3 of them are airline employees anyway and can get here for free and he’ll just pay for his brother in law to come up. When you come back, if we have 100% retention of everyone in the league, we decided to make it a 12 person league for at least that year just to try it out. Then as people drop out, we’ll just bring it back down to a 10 person league unless we like the 12 banger.

We have an induction date set for the baby in case Suzanne doesn’t have her earlier. It will be December 26^th. So the day after Christmas. I think it would be cool to have her on Christmas, then just celebrate her Birthday on June 25^th being the meridian of that birthday, and just so happens to be Grandma’s birthday too. Knowing Grandma, I bet she is pushing for Christmas and will be poking and prodding to make it happen then. We’ll see if she has any pull up there, eh? It would be cool to be born in that week of holiday stuff with Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years Eve and New Years day. Have your birthday be between all that. That would be a fun week!
You are going to like Smallville when you get back. This season has been pretty solid. This week is a re-run for some reason, but all the new episodes have been cool. There are going to be some good developments happening this year. I’d tell you about it, but your buddies like Kyle or someone probably already is. You may not even be all that interested, but if you are and no one else is telling you, AND you want to spoil it before you get the DVD’s let me know and I’ll tell you about it. But if you are like me, you don’t want any spoilers and will banish the thought of any previews before you get the DVDs.

Back once again. Now it’s Friday night at 12:37 AM. So actually, that would be Saturday morning, eh? I finished the B of M earlier this week. Always plenty of new insights every time I read it. Well, that sentence was all I got out last night. I got too tired all the sudden. It’s now Saturday at 9:31 AM. So what do you want for Christmas this year? I’ll need to figure something out and send it soon so I’ll need to know by your next letter you send. Did I send you two Pen refills? How are those going? How is your Journal writing going? Any better since you recommitted to doing better?

I’m sure by now you got my big fatty letters. What did you think of the Turkey Bowl recap? Did it make you trunky for some hard hitting football action? It sounds like you had fun on T-day though playing Foose and Pool, and Ping Pong and Air Hockey. Funny that you and I were probably playing some hard core Ping Pong at the exact same time that day. That sounds like quite the party house with all of those fun features in it. I would love to have the room in my house for a Ping Pong Table and Pool Table and of course a Fooseball table. I wouldn’t waste the space with Air Hockey. I like it, it’s fun, but I wouldn’t play it often enough to use the space for a Air Hockey table. I haven’t ever had fried turkey before. Sounds like you are a big fan though, eh? What makes it so good? What else are you doing on Christmas besides going to that members home, calling us, and chillin’? We as a zone got together and thought of our most needy investigator family just before Christmas and knew that he didn’t have a Christmas tree. So we all pitched in and got him a decent tree. It hardly cost us anything since we all split it equally. Then we took it over as a zone and presented it almost Extreme Makeover Christmas Tree Edition style as a zone. It was super cool. He was way grateful. Something to think about if you wanted to pitch it to your zone. We are all looking forward to talking to you in about 21 days. Then we’ll be having the baby the next day if we haven’t had her already. I can’t believe how soon that’s going to be now till there is another little baby in the family. We haven’t decided on a name yet. Suzanne wants to, but I don’t want to until we have seen her. It’s down to 4 names though I think. It’s either going to be Ainslee, Ashlyn, Taryn, or Lyndee.

I hope you have a good Christmas out there. I know you will. Christmas’s are extra special on a mission. Make sure to send me ideas for a meek and humble missionary gift I can send out.

I’m glad to hear that Preston is so strongly converted to the Parker persuasion and that he is converting other souls. I see pictures like you and Elder Moss, whoever that is, and I see his generic wanna be pen in his pocket and think, man, that is so sloppy to have a missionary all dressed nicely in a suit and tie and to ruin it by putting a cheap generic “pen” in his pocket. Missionaries shouldn’t use “pens”, they need fine writing instruments which is what the Parker® writing system provides. Some day they may have the opportunity to hear the truth and they will have to choose to accept it or deny it. But heaven help them if they deny it. That may be their only chance right then. How is Preston doing out in Oregon? Is he liking the state? What area is he in right now? How’s the weather for him? Washington got blasted with snow, I mean Big Time snow. So I wonder if Oregon got much. Usually those states don’t get a ton of snow because they are more temperate being close to the coast. But that storm is what came down and shellacked us and then worked it’s way to St. Louis and whomped them. I guess it’s still making its way through but I haven’t heard where it’s at or what it’s doing lately. Once it crosses the Mississippi, the West doesn’t care anymore. It’s freezing cold here now though. We went from a nice mild late fall with some unseasonable warm days to full on bundle up in the parka and brave the outside temps and snow conditions if you dare.

So what’s up with your Sunday school lesson? Fist of all, why go that deep in Sunday school? Especially when the missionaries are in there with a gator. People should know better. Second of all, is that all speculative? I haven’t heard ANYTHING about Joseph Smith being one of those two prophets. Have you, before this?

Here are the latest standings in the league. Jake’s G-Unit and the Beats-a-Nators are playing each other this week. I am playing Assassins which have the highest score in the league for one week (138.5) They have been putting up some LARGE points lately. There are only 4 games left after this week. So we are down to it. It’s make it or break it time now. This season has been going fast! I hope I can pull it off against Challis this week. I need Brad to beat John too to get a tie going with him again. Money and Buffalo wings are as good as done though. They don’t have a chance with only 4 games left after this week. If Challis won ever single game from here on and John lost every game form here on, it would still be a tie and would come down to points. The odds are pretty much against that. I think it will come down to Baybaz, Bradiators, Me and John. We’ll see how the race to the finish line goes. I’m hopeful. It just depends on how the next two weeks go.

Team	W	L	T	PCT	GB	Strk	Wks	PF	Back	PA
Jake's G-Men	10	2	0	0.833	0	W8	2	1336.5	0.0	1079.5
Ghetto Fabulous	9	3	0	0.750	1	W1	1	1197.0	139.5	1076.0
The Bradiators	8	4	0	0.667	2	L1	3	1276.5	60.0	1148.0
Baybaz Ballaz	7	5	0	0.583	3	L2	3	1180.0	156.5	1183.5
Ice Cold	6	6	0	0.500	4	L1	0	1115.0	221.5	1073.5
Hip Waders	6	6	0	0.500	4	L2	1	1086.5	250.0	1071.0
Silent Assassins	5	7	0	0.417	5	W2	1	1181.5	155.0	1164.0
Uonlywish Choppers	5	7	0	0.417	5	L1	0	1081.5	255.0	1245.5
Money in the bank	2	10	0	0.167	8	W1	1	1095.5	241.0	1266.0
Buffalo Wings	2	10	0	0.167	8	W1	0	908.0	428.5	1151.0

Alright, I’m back. It’s Sunday night at 8:30 PM. I’m watching Alexander get stuffed on every run against the Broncos right now. No worries though, I have the highest score in the league and will beat Challis tonight by close to 10 pts. John will win too which will put me one game further on Bradiators. I really needed John to lose though. It felt good today though, this was a moral victory to beat the Assassins. Well, I better get going. I have to wake up early tomorrow for Payroll as always. So write me back soon. I’m still looking for this long response you’ve been talking about… eh?!

Let me drop the missionary quote of the week for you here. I’m going with this one because it ties back to my Leadership Epistle. One of the biggest aspects I pointed out was humility. I can give you a lot of quotes on that, but I’ll stick with this one:

You will never be effective as a missionary unless you are humble in your work. The Lord has made it very clear that no man can assist with this work unless he is humble and full of love. -Ezra Taft Benson

Keep up the hard work. Let me know soon on what you need for Christmas.

Love you and miss you!

Trav