Tuesday, February 28, 2006

My Two Grandpas

For the past few weeks I have been thinking about my grandpas. It started with a breakfast in McDonald’s right before I took the CPA test. I rarely eat breakfast or at McDonald’s but when the two occasionally collide I always order a Sausage Biscuit. My Grandpa Sherl taught me that putting mustard on a Sausage Biscuit considerably improved the breakfast sandwich.

Grandpa Sherl was not my blood grandfather. My mom’s dad died in a car crash when she was only 18 years old (Update: she informed that she was 20). My grandma got remarried to my Grandpa Sherl two days after my fifth birthday (Update: once again my mother informed me that it was my seventh birthday). Because we were so young my siblings and I never had a problem calling him grandpa.

One of my favorite memories of Grandpa Sherl happened Thanksgiving Day 1993. Grandpa, a life long Dallas Cowboys fan, was watching the Cowboys beat the Dolphins. Everything was going fine until the Cowboys blocked a potential game winning field goal and Leon Lett mistakenly tried to recover the ball. My grandpa stormed out of the house after the Dolphins recovered the ball on the goal line and kicked the game winning field goal. It was the only time in my life that I ever saw him mad at anyone.

My other grandpa, us grandkids called him Papa, is the constant joker. The earliest prank that I can remember him pulling off was when I was six or seven. All of the grandkids were staying with my grandparents at their cabin in the mountains. We were all playing inside when Papa came storming into the house, grabbed a butcher knife, and said something to the effect of, “Dede (my grandma) that bear is back again” before he hustled outside.

We were shocked and scared that Papa was going out to battle the bear. A few minutes later Papa emerged with blood (which turned out to be ketchup) all over his clothes. He announced that he had slaughtered the great beast and wanted to take us kids to see what was left of the bear.

Papa led the way behind the cabin to where the dead bear lay. Suddenly something big cried out as it rustled in the bushes. All of the grandkids, including myself, ran as fast as we could back to the cabin. We were in such a hurry that we did not hear the “beast” in the bushes was just mooing nor did we hear grandpa laughing.

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Grandpa Sherl died of cancer my sophomore year of college. The last memory I have of him was his smile when we walked into the room to visit even though he was in obvious pain. He was a great man and is sorely missed.

Papa is still pulling pranks even though now he is legally blind. When led into a crowded bathroom he will pretend to believe the sink is the urinal just to embarrass the person with him. He has also been know to act as if small bushes are dogs while he tries to “pet” them.

I consider myself very lucky to have such wonderful grandfathers and will forever cherish all the great memories that I have of them.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Forecast: Showers Ahead

Yesterday, on a rainy afternoon, Ginni threw Christina a baby shower. Of course we forgot to bring the camera with us to the shower so there are no party pictures. I guess you can consider the following photos the "after party" pictures.

Here is Christina arranging some of the gifts. Thankfully this weekend Uncle Larry and my grandparents brought up the baby dresser. Now we have a place to put all of the clothes and blankets.

This was Christina's favorite outfit. Sad to say, but it looks as if Baby Nixon will be more stylish at 3 months old then his father ever was.

Of course this is my favorite outfit of the shower. A lot of the outfits that we got yesterday were baseball related but this was the only one that will show all the Giants fans the correct way to raise a child.

Rumor has it that this is a hand-me-down from Ashton Kutcher. Supposedly, Demi Moore bought it for him when they first started dating.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Spring Training

The end of February means two things for me: 1) my birthday is right around the corner and 2) Spring Training is about to begin. It wasn't until 2002 when I realized I could celebrate both of them at the same time.

One advantage of going to FPU was that Spring Break was always the first week of March. This allowed John Wiebe (who was born the day after me) and I to plan our own "birthday trip" to Spring Training our junior year. Our plan was to spend one week in Arizona watching as much baseball as we could while sticking to a college budget.

This article got me thinking about all the great memories of the trip. The very first game we went to on the trip was between the Giants and the Cubs. We had misplanned our time and arrived only a few minutes before the start of the game. A car pulled up next to us as we walked to the ticket window. Out pops the Giants centerfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo in his game uniform and cleats. We were shocked. This is something that should only happen before a Little League game, not a MLB game.

Some other memorable moments were watching all the Diamondbacks laughing at Randy Johnson while he signed autographs, being the only ones around to collect all of the Chicago White Sox home run balls during batting practice, always buying the cheap seats but sneaking in to sit around the player's families, and watching an entire game with only the backscreen seperating us from Mike Scioscia and Mickey Hatcher.

The intimacy of Spring Training was like nothing I have ever experienced as a sports fan. It has been three years since the last time I have gone to a Spring Training game and I hope to go again soon.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Free at last

Finally, I can get back to my life. Saturday Christina and I traveled to Sacramento so that I could attempt to pass the last part of the CPA test. After four hours of testing I walked out feeling like I had passed. Of course I felt the same way the first two times I took the Auditing section of the test. So now I sit and wait for the results, which should arrive sometime in the middle of March.

Now I can read my three new books, work on the house project, and prepare for March Madness.

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While I was busy taking the test, Christina hung out with the Havilands. Actually, Craig was at a basketball camp, so it was just Christina and Sara. Thankfully Christina was able to talk Sara into going with her to Babies'R'Us to register. I hate registering for gifts and was glad to get out of this one. (Note to all of you who may be interested in what Christina registered for: Babies'R'Us was having trouble with their system when Chrisitna registered. She was told that the registry will be online shortly. Thanks for being so patient.)

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This morning we woke up to everything white. The crazy thing is that earlier this week it was 77 degrees and was looking like winter was over.

Due to technical difficulties (I don't know if it is Blogger or my slow speed internet) pictures can not be posted at this time. I will try to get pictures up as soon as possible.

Update: Below are the pics.



Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Bob Vila, Meet Your Match

About a month ago I started my first major project with our house. The reason for the project was because a future Dodger is going to be born in June and my current office was being turned into a nursery. The goal was to turn half of the garage into an office/game room.

I was able to get my father-in-law (who is best described as a meticulous McGyver because he can make anything out of nothing but takes a long time to do it) to come over and assess what would be needed for the project.

We would cut the garage in half with a wall going down the center of the room, creating a 15x24 foot office/game room. Mike, James (my bro-in-law), and I were able to get the frame up one Saturday afternoon. The first two photos show our progress after that first day. (Note: The garage side will have the washer and dryer.)



The next Saturday Mike and I, ok mostly Mike, ran all the necessary electrical that will be needed for the room.

Today, Mike and I hung the sheet rock on the garage side and wrapped the support beams with sheet rock. The first photo below is of the garage and is taken from the same spot as the photo above. The last photo is looking into the office/game room from the garage door.

I should have spent this morning and afternoon preparing for the CPA test, but working in the garage was a nice distraction. Once the room is finished I will post the "after" pictures.

Friday, February 03, 2006

CPA Test

On February 18 I will be taking the last part of the CPA test. It will be my third time to sit for the Auditing part. For some reason I am having trouble passing this last part. I thought I had passed the first time I took the Auditing section, but to my dismay I only scored a 64, a 75 or better passes. The second try netted me a 71. Close, but no cigar.

To my credit I did pass the Business (scored 82), Financial (83), and Regulation (77) parts all on the first try, which I am incredibly proud of. According to my review course,Becker Review, "only 10% of candidates sitting pass all parts." One of the professors of the Becker Review who has his CPA license and is a practicing lawyer put into perspective just how tough the CPA test really is. He says that the CPA test is much more difficult than the bar exam and all of his CPA/lawyer friends agree.

Studying for this test has taken up a lot of my free time. I have estimated that I have spent over 320 hours studying just for the tests. On top of that, the tests themselves add up to 15 hours. Also, each test is in Sacremnto which means 2 hours of driving each way. Some quick math shows that 320 hrs studying + 15 hrs testing + 24 hrs driving = no life for me. I hope you will understand if posting is light for the next two weeks as I begin to really hit the books hard.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Random Thoughts

Here are some miscellaneous thoughts for Wednesday:

Yesterday, I spent some time cleaning my desk at work. My keyboard was getting a little to grimey for my liking so I set out to clean it with canned air, a rag, and rubbing alcohol. In the middle of my scrubbing I kept thinking about that one scene in Gattaca where Ethan Hawke has to do that to his computer every day.

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Why is the thing that holds all of your movies at Netflix and Blockbuster.com spelled so funny? It sounds like a consonant but spelled with four vowels. I hate the English language.

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My protest of ESPN.com is now going on 7 months. The reason for the protest is because they have increased the number of articles that are behind the Insider subscription curtain. One of my favorite baseball writers, Rob Neyer, was the first to go. Then they started placing old Sports Guy's articles behind the curtain. The final straw was when they put Peter Gammons as an Insider. I find it difficult to pay for some information that I read for free one day (Sports Guy) or rumors that can be found elsewhere (Gammons). I also see Insider as a veiled attempt to sell the crappy ESPN the Mag.

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I recently bought a 1 lb. bag of Starbursts that had an amazing amount of reds in it. Unfortunately, pinks were at slim pickings. Somehow the ratio of reds and pinks got messed up. Why couldn't that have happened with the yellow? A public poll would find that yellow Starbursts are the least favorite.

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I am not a big fan of Joel Stein but here is a great opinion article about Grand Theft Auto and the hypocrisy of the recent bad press that Rockstar has received.

I believe that all the heat given to the GTA series from the media and politicians is proof of the ever growing generational gap. As the Nintendo generation has grown up so has the content of games. The generations above me still see video games as a corrupting waste of time. I think my great grandma summed it up best when she said, "Kids these days have big thumbs and small brains." Of course she has no idea of games like this.

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Every time that I go to my parents' house I am always surprised at the amount of growth to Shafter and Bakersfield. This article actually shows some long-term hope for the Central Valley. If Bakersfield, Fresno, etc are considered "Third California" then that must put Sonora as "Fourth California".