08/19/07

Hey Yo,

It’s been an exciting week this week for me. We went to Lagoon for the FC Lagoon Day. That was fun. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden a lot of the big kid rides. Last year was the first year we went in quite a while and Suzanne was pregnant with Aynslee and Brinlee was too small to go on anything outside the little kid rides. So I only went on a few kid rides with Brin. But this year, I had some extra tickets, so I hooked up Clint and Rachel and Austin. So we went on some fun rides this time around. They have a new ride called Wicked this year. It’s a new coaster. It’s awesome! Have you heard much about it? It starts out in a tunnel and you come around this corner slowly. Then stop. Then you hear a big boom and you go rocketing out of there on a slope that goes from a slight incline to a perfect straight up and down 90 degree angle and all you see is you are blasting at an instantaneous 50 MPH on a straight shot to the clouds above you and you can see the track run out. So it looks like you are seriously going to launch off this super high, straight up and down track and fall about 500 feet to your death. But it curves and goes straight back down. You have no reaction time. It pulls you so hard back down this hill because there is literally only a 2 row deep car length between straight up to the straight down. So what happened is my Oakley’s started flying off my face and luckily I caught them on the top of my forehead before they did fly off, but then you are in a free fall straight back down at another 90 degree. It’s not a hill, it’s a free fall down. You are back to 50 MPH by the middle of this fall and that gives you the momentum for the rest of the ride. In fact, they have to brake a little bit in a few places so you don’t go flying off the track because it’s so fast. It’s faster than the Colossus for sure. In fact, the beginning of it, when it makes the big boom and you shoot out of this tunnel from a complete stand still, you are being propelled by massive powerful magnets repelling each other and thrusting you at a mind boggling speed. Way faster than even a plane takes off. Cool use of powerful magnets I must say. It throws you in a couple of 360 barrel rolls, but not loops. You just barrel roll while you go forward. It’s pretty crazy! It was so fast and furious that I was seeing stars half way through the ride because of the velocity we were going I think and the way the hard ups and downs and barrel rolls make the blood rush to your head. It was just Austin and I that went on it because everyone else chickened out. But you have to check this thing out when you get home. It’s crazy fun. You should be home by my next work Lagoon day, so I’ll take you next year. It’s way fun to watch the girls on rides anyway. You’ll have a blast. At the rate Brinlee is growing, and her fearlessness for these rides anyway, she will join us on a few big kid rides next year maybe. It was way hot at first, but we hit rattle snake rapids as our second ride of the day and got drenched to the bone. We never fully dried off the rest of the day, so it kept us cool the rest of the day. That made it nicer. They fed us hamburgers and hot dogs and cokes and salads and cookies. All you can eat. So that makes it good too. After mortal fear of these new rides, you can work up an appetite.

We also had our fantasy draft yesterday. I shouldn’t waste anymore time before getting to that. You need to hear the results. It was the best draft ever. Just because we did it cool in many ways. First, doing it live with everyone in the same place is the way to go! We did it at John’s new building in a big classroom. We all had our own laptops that john provided, we all had fast internet access, we all had our own sections. John had the projector on the movie screen up front, we had the draft board up, a white board for writing out some stuff (it’s where I wrote out an example of how draft order and priority would be set). Let me explain how that went while I’m on the topic. Since I had people want to keep quite a few peeps and those who wanted to limit the keeper numbers, I came up with a plan that would appease both. For those who wanted to keep 12 for instance, could, they just wouldn’t enter the draft until the 12^th round. If another team only kept 2, then the next smallest keeper number was 3, the 2 keeper team would draft first in the first round, and also draft first in the second round followed by the 3 keeper team. So I changed the order to go 1-10, rather than the traditional snaking order of 1-10, then 10-1. So it was in your best interest to cut deep if you wanted some incoming rookies or others that got dumped into the pot. So Austin kept only 2 and cleaned up pretty good in the draft. I think he had the best draft actually. I kept 12 and felt like I got left in the dust. By the time I got a pick, I was picking up scraps. But everyone was happy and it put an interesting new strategy to the whole draft and ended up being a lot of fun.

I will just send you my team for now since it’s too overwhelming to plug in the whole draft recap in here.

Ghetto Fabulous
Player	Next	Bye	Guru	Own %	Start %	Pos
Bulger, Marc QB STL	CAR	9	18.4	98	78	QB
Alexander, Shaun RB SEA	TB	8	16	99	94	RBRB-WR-TE
Jackson, Steven RB STL	CAR	9	16.2	99	97	RBRB-WR-TE
McGahee, Willis RB BAL	@CIN	8	10.8	97	65	RBRB-WR-TE
Colston, Marques WR NO	@IND	4	8.6	97	64	RB-WR-TEWR
Crumpler, Alge TE ATL	@MIN	8	3.8	95	79	RB-WR-TETE
Vinatieri, Adam K IND	NO	6	8.4	98	88	K
Briggs, Lance LB CHI	@SD	9	7.7	82	69	ID
Bulluck, Keith LB TEN	@JAC	4	9.6	90	82	ID
Merriman, Shawne LB SD	CHI	7	6.5	88	77	ID
Smith, Alex QB SF	ARI	6	13.9	61	13	QB
Peterson, Adrian RB CHI	@SD	9	n/a	2	0	RBRB-WR-TE
Portis, Clinton RB WAS	MIA	4	7.2	42	5	RBRB-WR-TE
Turner, Michael RB SD	CHI	7	2.8	64	3	RBRB-WR-TE
Curtis, Kevin WR PHI	@GB	5	4.1	21	3	RB-WR-TEWR
Edwards, Braylon WR CLE	PIT	7	6.9	87	39	RB-WR-TEWR
Ward, Hines WR PIT	@CLE	6	8.6	94	47	RB-WR-TEWR
Scaife, Bo TE TEN	@JAC	4	3.1	23	5	RB-WR-TETE
Nedney, Joe K SF	ARI	6	7.4	24	10	K
Barnett, Nick LB GB	PHI	7	6.8	32	14	ID
Jones, Sean DB CLE	PIT	7	6.5	33	26	ID
Peterson, Mike LB JAC	TEN	4	6.2	15	6	ID
TOTALS	Active: 10, Reserve: 12

If you want to see anyone else’s team(s) or know where a specific player is, just let me know and I’ll hook you up. We’ll probably continue this strategy when you get back. There really wasn’t much mercy when it came to bringing you up in the draft and how we would do that. They basically all said, we had to rebuild, so he can too. I have no doubt you will rebuild quickly and rise to the top again. The two years is just a minor set back. Austin rebuilt pretty well, so I know you will do it even quicker. He’s only been in a couple of years and he’s having the best draft of everyone. Well, it’s off to ma’s and pa’s for their birthday. I got them season one of Battle Star Galactica. It’s awesome. I can’t wait to watch it when they are done. It’s super addicting. It’s the show that’s been on Sci-Fi channel. It’s better than Stargate by far. Hard to believe you say? Doubt that very much you say? Well, come home and prove me now herewith saith the giver of great gifts and I will pour you out a wonderful season of great episodes. You will see.

Back in a flash for you. Back in a few hours for us.

K, I’m back. It’s 8:21 PM on Sunday night. Ma and Pa loved the DVDs. Mom has the week off, so I think she’s going to pound a bunch of those this week. Good timing for those. Dad might get into it too, but he’s not as big a sci-fi geek like mom and I are. I didn’t realize that you were too. Mom said that you were all into Stargate too. They said on the sites I was shopping for these DVD’s that people who bought stargate also bought Battle Star Galactica and vice-versa. It was nice to sit and visit for a bit with them and Grandpa. He was over having a Sunday night visit too.

We are still full swing in the house hunting/selling action. We showed it to another family this week. They have to sell their condo before they can buy a house, but ours is at the top of their list. We also wanted to make a contingent offer on this house we love, but they won’t take a contingent offer. Contingent upon the sale of our house. Because it basically removes their house from the market without getting the money. It’s understandable. There is another family who want this house who also offered the same contingency and they said no. So it’s whoever can sell their house faster I guess. Whatever! I’m not going to be butt-hurt if we don’t get this house. We really like it a lot, but if we don’t get it, we weren’t supposed to be there and there is another place we are supposed to be anyway. That’s how I see it. So we’ll just plod on until it all takes shape.

So how has your week been? What kinds of happenings have been going on? Did you ever get my 20 spot for your B-day? I never heard back on that. I’m not sure when Mom and Dad sent it, but they said they had a package going out soon, so that’s why I had them send it. I had a little hand written card with it too. Nothing big, just wondered what you got with it.

Time to drop in your quote of the week…

“The missionary servants of the Church of Jesus Christ today are sent forth, not to assail nor ridicule the beliefs of men, but to set before the world a superior light, by which the smoky dimness of the flickering flames of man-made creeds shall be apparent. The work of the Church is constructive, not destructive.”

- James E. Talmadge

That guy is hard not to love. What a quote. I can’t add anything to that. I just love it. Let that sit in your heart this week. Ponder the power of that statement this week as you are out there emitting that superior light of truth. I want to put a copy of this in my Jesus the Christ book just to remember it. I don’t have it anywhere; I just read it in a flyer today at Church and loved it. I knew this would be your quote this week after I read it. Speaking of that, I’m not going to prattle on much longer. I want to spend the rest of the valuable evening hours with the fam upstairs and take some time to get sort of caught up with my PMG. What kind of response have you had from the others? Any? Let me know what you are getting back and I can work the homeland battles for you. But the encouragement and rebukes both are most effective coming from you. No one wants to disappoint and they feel the urgency when you bear testimony with your letters on that. So keep it up. It will spur them to action and it will be great for all of our spirituality, testimonies, and knowledge.

I had a good couple of visits to some Elder’s homes today. We do visits as a presidency, to a few of the quorum member’s homes a week. Today we gave some blessings at a visit and it was a pretty good spiritual high. I love the few opportunities I get so exercise some priesthood as a service to families who need it. So that was a high for me this week. We had great lessons today in church too. I’m really going to miss my ward when we leave it. Whether that is sooner or later. Either way, it will be sort of sad. I have good friends over here.

Well buddy, keep up the hard fought battle. Lengthen your stride and quicken your step. Who said that by the way? Write me that back in your next letter.

Love you. Miss you, especially as the football season is rolling around again and the last draft without you has been completed. It’s time to not just dial in my team now, but time to dial in the physical fitness and get ready for the crowning event of football of the year in a few short months from now. Last turkey bowl without you too. Exciting.

Talk to you soon.

Love,

Trav