I Need Conference Food Suggestions

It's General Conference time and I'm thinking about what to cook. We've had a bit of a tradition the last several conferences-our good friends the Raymonds come over to watch it with us, and in between sessions we have snack foods and yummy treats that both we and the Raymonds have prepared. It can be difficult to concentrate during the morning session thinking about what's coming, and difficult to stay awake in the afternoon session after sampling all the goodies. Thank goodness we can record the conference for replays!

Anyone have any great ideas for this weekend?

We thought of Santa Maria style tri-tip (grilled beef with garlic and pepper), homemade salsa, and grilled skewers of veggies and meats.

But then how about grilled polska kielbasa, nachos, and zombie boogie juice meatballs?

Wait, wait, don't forget Darlene's incredible guacamole, kid's favorite chili cream cheese dip with Frito's, and charro beans?

And then, there's the recently popular Super Bowl phenom, the bacon explosion!

See my dilemma?

Hillary and the Butterfly, and other Fairy Tales

I heard today that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that Americans are to blame for the border violence in Mexico. I have to give her credit, she is the first person to apply logic to this situation and put it on a level we can all understand. Just one little problem, she didn't go quite far enough in her analysis to really get to the root cause. Chaos theory helps out here:

--A Mexican drug lord kills the mayor of a border town.
--A Mexican border town mayor makes a Mexican drug lord angry by saying he is going to crack down on drug traffickers
--A Mexican mayor feels compelled to do something about drug crime because his city is losing revenue from low tourism rates
--American tourists feel frightened because it's not safe to walk the streets of Mexican border towns due to the high crime rate of crazed druggies who need money to support their habits
--Mexican druggies fall into their bad habits because it is so easy to get the money they need to pay for the drugs by robbing American touristas
--Americans go to Mexico to shop and see the beautiful sights, especially things like the butterflies in the eucalyptus trees
--A Mexican butterfly flaps its wings

The Annual Ritual

So I'm working on my taxes today, grumbling to myself the whole time. Preparing my taxes is an absolute ordeal. I actually took a vacation day just to devote to getting them done. And of course the real reason for grumbling is because of the outcome. Man, do I get taken to the cleaners. Between federal tax, state tax, real property tax, personal property tax, gasoline tax, and just regular old sales tax (did I leave something out?), there ain't much left at the end of the month. And then I have to listen to The Great Redistributionist telling me he wants to make things even worse.

I'm told there used to be loopholes. If that's so, I've never found one. I think all those people who got their MBA's in the 80's applied their learnings to the tax code and closed them all.

So as I was trudging my way through Turbulent Tax, the programmers offered me a glimmer of hope. I came across this screen titled "College Tuition and other Fees". The subtitle said "We'll help you get a tax break for tuition or other fees paid to a college or vocational school for yourself or your dependents. I said to myself, "hey, I'm paying for three college educations right now, I should be able to get a break here!" My heart was pounding as I fumbled with the mouse to answer the question, "Did you pay tuition or other fees in 2008? YES, I clicked confidently and boldly. My mind was racing so fast I began to see the flicker of the computer screen; my neurons were being triggered by every refresh of the 50 megahertz LCD. My palms were so sweaty the mouse slipped out of my hand like a bar of soap in a Japanese bath house (I made that part up). Then, it was as if the world just slowed down-I was in the zone, hyper-focused. Everything was in slow motion, just like in the movies. As the next screen refreshed line by line, from the bottom up, and as the Red-Green-Blue pixels were electronically excited in just the right way to form those Arabic alphabet characters, everything started to go blurry. My eyes were tearing up as I read: You Can't Claim Tuition and Other Fees. Based on what you've entered so far, you can't claim tuition and other fees because... and I couldn't even read the ending because of the flood of salty rivulets streaming down my face, dripping into the keyboard. It was all just a cruel hoax, perpetrated by those insensitive, axis-of-evil programmers.

If I weren't a Mormon I would be calling for a tea party about now. Someone please pass the hot chocolate.

I Have Connections

I finally gave in to the pressure and signed up with Facebook. Wish I had done it sooner! This is a very cool tool to connect with people, especially ones you haven't seen in a while. I'm only up to 34 "friends" so far (that's one day's worth of finding and connecting) but this is going to be fun. My best find so far is a girl I was friends with in high school (just friends, I promise!), from over 35 years ago. How cool is that?

Hey Kids!

You're always asking me what I want for a birthday or Christmas present. I always tell you some socks or a tie would be nice. Well, this year I will be a little more creative. I saw exactly what I want when I was in the aquarium at Xcaret last month. You can see in the picture an air power tool being used to clean the aquarium glass on the inside. How cool is that? So all it takes is the air tool, a hose, and an air compressor. The hard part will be to find a very small man who can fit inside my aquarium. I was going to say that most of the guys in the Xcaret area were pure blooded Mayans, so you might start there, but then we would have all those visa problems, so you need to stay state-side. Better start looking now.

Nice Ride

I got my first ride on a Gulfstream jet this week. We had a meeting in Corpus Christi, and flew from Houston to Corpus on one of the corporate jets. Sweet!
I arrived at the corporate hangar, and was given reserved parking. I waited in a private room until time to go. The pilot came out and introduced himself, and when it was time to go, led us to the jet--no security, we just boarded and took off. This plane holds 14, and we had a pilot, co-pilot, and attendant. The food was fabulous, both going and coming. The thrust on this little plane was tremendous, a real thrill as we took off. Leather seats, tons of room, no annoying instructions on how to fasten a seat belt. I think the coolest feature though was the window shade. You push a button and a hidden window shade (built inside the double-paned window) comes down. Push it a second time and a black-out shade comes down.
One of the guys riding with us told me he really wanted to get his pilot's license, and at one point was even taking lessons. I asked him how much a plane like the one we were on would cost. He said he had looked at used Piper Cubs and they ran about $70,000. So I asked if the one we were on was maybe $2,000,000? He said he subscribed to a some flying magazines and would look it up. He got back to the me the next morning. He found an ad for a used GulfStream G450, just like the one we were on. Asking price--$39,500,000. Looks like I will have to moonlight at Mickey D's to afford one of these puppies.

Today the President Obama proudly reversed an executive order previously put in place by President Bush, related to stem cell research. Obama gave a speech saying such things as idealogies can't be allowed to get in the way of science (my paraphrase). What a shame.
Our nation was founded on idealogies, on convictions, on morals. If science is given free reign, with absolutely no bounds, we may just as well close all the doors to every church in the land, burn our scriptures, and thumb our noses at the prophets, because eliminating moral imperatives obviates the need for all those things.
And one more thing: those cute little "stem cells" that will be plucked out, cut up, probed, and subjected to all manner of experimentation have other names: aborted embryos, fetuses, babies in development.

Research Results From Cancun

This is a photo I took of the view from our balcony at the Fiesta Americana hotel in Cancun. We just returned from a one-week research trip, focused on attempting to prove the theory that the closer one gets to the equator, the warmer the climate. In this blague, we report today the results of our groundbreaking research, which supports the theory. It was 80-85 F each day we were in Cancun and the surrounding area. We further confirm earlier research that it is painful to go from very warm temperatures to colder ones, such as one finds in St. Louis, in just a matter of hours. We may never be the same.

We (Lisa and I) decided to not over-do things on this vacation, so we only scheduled four major events. The first was totally unplanned, but lead to the next three. Event one was scheduled while we were still at the airport. We arrived without transportation to our hotel, figuring we could just find a shuttle. That didn't work out, but a nice man (one of 30 or 40) dressed in a blue shirt and khaki pants greeted us as we exited the airport. We thought he was an airport official. As it turned out, he and all those dressed like him were timeshare salesmen. The Mexican government gives them a huge space in the airport, with a long line of podiums to work from, so they look totally official. Our guy (Jose) told us he would show us how our transportation to the hotel would work, so we listened. He got us a taxi, and then told us about all the major attractions in the area. Then he started telling us about all the discounts we could get, and what to watch out for so we wouldn't get ripped off. Very helpful. Before long, he was promising us so many goodies I knew there had to be a catch--and there was. All we had to do to get the goodies was to give them 90 minutes of our time, to hear a presentation on their vacation club. No obligation! We were on vacation, had no schedules yet, and the goodies sounded good enough that we succumbed.

For our "90 minutes" (which turned out to be 1/2 day), we got: 1) a free cab ride to our hotel (value, 300 pesos, although they charged us 600, but that was ok because they gave it back); 2) a free cab ride to a wonderful resort; 3) a free buffet breakfast (I had tacos, Lisa had watermelon juice, we both nibbled on bacon, everything tasted great); 4) a free shuttle ride to a destination of our choice after the presentation (we went back to our hotel but stopped at Walmart along the way); 5) two free tickets to Xcaret, which included two-way transportation, admission, a fantastic buffet lunch (I had tacos), and a wonderful show at the end of the day; and 6) one free ticket to Chichen Itza (the second ticket cost $90) which included two-way transportation, lunch along the way, a visit to a 60-foot deep sinkhole that was filled with water where you could swim, and admission to this World Heritage Mayan site which I'm sure you know all about.

So, we thought we got an ok deal for spending time with all our new friends at the timeshare presentation. Everyone was so nice. That is, until we didn't buy a timeshare. When we said "no", we were accused of having come to the presentation with a closed mind, and everyone stopped smiling at us. Hey, is it our fault we didn't have an extra $149,000 with us?

After the adventures to Event two, Xcaret (pronounced Eece'-kah-rhet, at least by some) and Event three, Chichen Itza (sounds sort of like chicken pizza with a Spanish accent), we decided to brave the flea market (Event four). That was quite an experience. We took the city bus and told the driver where we wanted to go, Flea Market #28. He said ok, but then didn't tell us where to get off. But we overheard some fellow mid-western Americanos, so we just followed them. The market was huge, there must have been over 500 spaces selling pottery, leather goods, jewelry, all manner of souvenirs, etc. Everything is overpriced, but that's because you are expected to negotiate. Lisa doesn't like to negotiate, so she would find what she wanted and then I would be her agent. After we got our rhythm down we made a good team, as she would walk away as I negotiated, which really made the vendors nervous and they would get to their best price very quickly. Most everything can be bought for about 1/2 the asking price at the flea market. Even the restaurants would offer freebies if you acted disinterested--we got free nachos with our lunch (I had tacos).

So overall it was a great trip. I think next time Lisa will insist on a nicer hotel (ours had tile floors and hard beds), but that water color--hard to beat, no matter which hotel you stay in! When we arrived home, I had just one thing on my mind--I asked Lisa to pick up some tortillas so I could make one more batch of tacos. Viva los tacos, Viva Mexico!

Ready to Try Out?

Want a shot at fame and glory? Just try this. At the top of your lungs, belt out a high note. Hold it for at least 10 seconds. Throw in the most outrageous verbrato you can. Don't worry if the pitch drifts a little, that's not important at all. If you have the first three requirements down, and can speak a little Spanish, you have an excellent chance of becoming the next Mexican Idol! I know. Every song I heard in Mexico last week (at least 10,000 of them) followed this exact same recipe.