Neil Dennis

The end of school is coming, so is the deadline for year end projects. Eric of course put his Spanish class video off until the last night before it was due, most of it was due to scheduling the actors. I was able to use my new iMac and the video editing features to help them out. The entire project is way to long to post, but DVD's are available for those who order now (while supplies last).

I did include the trailer to the video:

Eric loves the piano and has found a new piano teacher here in Ogden that he likes. He had a piano recital today, shortly after he started taking lessons, so for this recital he just played a couple of his favorites. The two he selected are not the most technically challenging, but he loves the emotions of the music.

We have a tradition of coloring Easter eggs, so today we carried on that tradition. We are getting a bit old for this since our youngest is 17 years old, but how else can I get unlimited hard boiled eggs? Camille thinks they are bad for me.

We also have a neighbor who decorates cakes, they are fun to take around and even more fun to eat :)

If you ever want a cake for a special occasion then order one yourself.

More signs of spring are around, this is a waterfall up the canyon on the way to Pine View Reservoir. The river is running really high in that they are releasing water from the dam to accomodate spring run off. You would never see something like this in Iowa.

We have a funny pet bird that thinks he can fly. About once a year he attempts an escape via a closed window or screen or something similar. Due to the sudden stop there is a nice dust mark created and outlines the bird. This year he tried to escape via microwave door??? What can I say he only has a pea sized brain. If you look carefully you can see the print of his right wing.

It has not been what I would consider a very hard winter, it has been cold and a bit snowy but the snow was not nearly as heavy as I remember it being as a child growing up in West Bountiful, Utah. I don't know if it is because we are in a location of the valley less snowy or if my perception is off. Anyway we saw the first signs of spring approaching... Ducks!!! We saw these two hanging around in the fall. Well I'm not sure it was these two exactly, they look the same to me, it is hard to tell the difference me not being a duck and all... Looks like they made it back safely.

We purchased a new dishwasher from Lowes, we had the option of installing it ourselves, but knowing my schedule I decided to have them install it. The installers goofed and didn't attach the drain correctly and it was leaking. We finally figured it out today.

It dripped down into Eric's room and made a bubble in the paint

The installers were quick to respond and their insurance sent us a check for damages. Of course we took the check and spent it elsewhere... we will fix the damage as needed when we repaint.

To day is π day... March 14 or in other words the 3rd month and the 14th day. We celebrate today be eating pie, in honor of Pi (π) which is approximately 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412737245870066063155881748815209209628292540917153643678925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116094330572703657595919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119491298336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798609437027705392171762931767523846748184676694051320005681271452635608277857713427577896091736371787214684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235420199561121290219608640344181598136297747713099605187072113499999983729780499510597317328160963185950244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311881710100031378387528865875332083814206171776691473035982534904287554687311595628638823537875937519577818577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989

I have heard it said that the decimal representation of π truncated to 11 decimal places is good enough to estimate the circumference of any circle that fits inside the Earth with an error of less than one millimetre, and the decimal representation of π truncated to 39 decimal places is sufficient to estimate the circumference of any circle that fits in the observable universe with precision comparable to the radius of a hydrogen atom. So really you don't need to memorize the 1,000 decimal places listed here.

We had the Hampton family and Krystal Ruiz over with us and they celebrated as well. Can you think of a better reason to eat pie???

Eric's prom was today, he isn't able to drive with other teens yet, so we were able to double with him. We started off bowling, then to dinner at Eric's favorite place to eat "Olive Garden". Camille and I then dropped him off at the dance and later picked them up to go to Farr's to get some frozen yogurt. We all had a great time.

When we picked her up, her family had a backdrop and a professional type camera to get pictures... the gave us some of them.

We headed back home today... on the way we saw something rarely if never seen back east. 80 mph speed limit :) Camille took this picture as we went flying by. This is one of the nice things about living in the west.

It was getting close to time for the Tournament of Kings and we were pretty sure that Eric wouldn't like the medieval dinner. So we stopped in at i <heart> burgers. We all ordered hamburgers and each ordered appetizers so we could sample them all. By the time the burgers came we were too full to eat, and couldn't take them back to our hotel so we ended up spending $100.00 on burgers we didn't eat...

We finally made it to the Tournament of Kings and ate our dinner with our hands (as they would have back then). We were entertained with live jousting and king type combat.

On the drive home we viewed the Bellagio fountains at night.

We spent a lot of time at the M&M store...

By the way, do you know how many colors of M&Ms there are? This store had 22 of them, but I believe there are 25.

We visited the Lions at the MGM Grand

Had our pictures taken with street actors

We spent some time at the Bellagio and saw the water show

And then rested before going to the Phantom of the Opera. We had center front row seats in the "Golden Circle" I enjoyed the presentation but not as much as I enjoyed the San Francisco version. I found that this was an edited for Vegas version. It was only 90 min long so they cut out a lot of the story. This was Eric's first time seeing it so he loved it. (Sorry, no pictures were allowed)

I should also mention that I was on medications when I saw Phantom in San Francisco. The doctor said that the meds would "put me in touch with my feminine side" ... it was the best show ever and I even cried during it... sniff sniff

This year for our anniversary Camille really wanted pie... not the traditional pie, but pizza pie, not just the traditional pizza, but the pizza at the Pie Pizzeria...

And not just any pizza at the Pie Pizzeria but the huge mondo 23 inch loaded pizza with a 14 inch Pull-A-Part cheese stick pizza.

Of course we brought Eric along on this anniversary dinner, he was happy.

What you see in the photos is about how much left over we had.

We woke up to no water in the house, at first I thought that it might be a frozen pipe, but after doing some research it turns out it is most likely the pressure regulator. I was able to unscrew the existing pressure valve but it didn't have any universal which made it a little more difficult to get off.

Secondly the existing turnoff valve was an old style gate valve. I figured while I'm working on it I should replace it with a new ball valve. So I had the city com out and turn off the water. And I removed the old valve.

This meant of course that I needed a torch. So, just three weeks after I thought I wouldn't need a torch I went out and got one. I started with a small one that I thought would do the trick.

It was fun trying to figure out all of the pieces that I needed. Soldered to threaded, and back again, inserting universal joints for quick access in the future and keeping it all in the same space as the original. After about 30 minutes of laying it out on the store floor, I think I have all of the parts that I need.

The small torch worked for getting things apart, but when I went to start putting them together it couldn't generate enough heat with the water that was in the pipe just a few inches away out of reach. So back to store I went and I picked up a Fat Boy...

The new larger torch easily boiled the water out of the pipe and let me put on the valve. I also added a universal joint for easy of replacement for the future. At this point I had the city turn back on the water.

A few cuts and joints later it was all put back together again and we had water :) Oh the little things that make me happy... like running water.

Camille got an iMac some time ago and I was still using my old MacBookPro laptop. I figured it was time for me to have an upgrade, so I got me a new iMac. Next to my 30" monitor it has all of the space that I need, and the performance is much better than even my old Mac Pro. Compiling used to take about 20 seconds, that is now down to 2 seconds.

Another site not commonly seen in New Hampshire (too many trees) or Iowa (too flat) is snow covered mountains. In our back yard just off of our deck we have a beautiful view of Ben Lomond Peak.

This peak is believed to be the inspiration for the Paramount logo in that W. W. Hodkinson grew up here and based the logo on childhood memories of the mountains. More recent versions such as the 90th Anniversary logo that came out in 2002 was based on Mount Everest. However the mountain in the Paramount logo has really never been an actual rendition of a real mountain.

Earlier versions of the logo where not as steep as later ones:

1914 Logo

More recent version

Mount Everest

I grew up with soft water and have never really liked the taste of hard water. Our new place had some plumbing for a water softener but no softener. So today we got one and I installed it. The flexible connection pipes were way to big, but I found a way to "ram" them in there...

The skills I learned working for the church sweating copper air pipe came in handy. Though I used way too much solder it still looks and works OK. I left my torch in New Hampshire since I couldn't transport the flammable tank, so I borrowed my dad equipment to do this job. I would have purchased my own but in a finished house I can't ever see needing it again.

No school today so Mom and Eric took a drive and found another "cool" thing in Utah. Just up the canyon from where we live there is a waterfall. Well it is a waterfall in the summer, in the winter is is just ice.

We will get a picture when it turns to water again.

New Years Eve, Eric and I went to a youth dance... Eric for fun, me to try to be an adult and chaperone :)

They had bungee run that looked like a lot of fun, at least more so than my last bungee experience (Death by Bungee) The object is to run as fast as you can down the path and put a velcro marker on the wall to see how far you can go before the bungee cord wins.