Tropizm Family Website

For those of you who don’t know, I won a Nintendo Wii for Christmas.

I wanted a Wii more than any other video game console out right now because I figured Erin would be able to play it easier than a regular console.  This is because you don’t have to have great finger dexterity to play.  You simply move the controller around to do whatever you want to do.  If you are playing baseball, you swing it like a bat to hit the ball.  Erin really enjoys it, and she kicks major butt on the boxing game. 

Anyways, I won the Wii from 98 KUPD.  You can listen live at www.98kupd.com if you like.  It is a rock station that I have listened to since I was a youngster.  The morning show is called “Holmberg’s Morning Sickness” and every Friday morning they play a game called “Guadalupe Squares”.  Its a silly game that is played like the Hollywood Squares TV show.  I was fortunate enough to get through on the phone, and play with guest comedian Pablo Francisco.  Needless to say, I won the game and won the Wii. 

If you are wondering why it has taken so long to write about this, it is because I wanted to post a copy of the game so you could listen if you like.  Well, they never added my game to their podcast.  Dick Toledo is the morning producer and he graciously emailed me a copy and said if I gave them full credit, I can post it here.

If you would like to listen to the MP3 of me willing a Wii, click here.  It is somewhat racy, but not vulgar.  Thank you to the Morning Sickness show for a really great gift.  My daughter and I love it.

Tropizm

This past weekend Glendale was host to Super Bowl 42.  I admit, it was pretty cool to have it here again.  Its fun to watch all the locals go nuts over “super” stars, the parties, and anything that mentions the Super Bowl.

Me being me, I could care less about all the hype of who is AT the game, I care about who is IN the game.  I don’t get to watch too many games during the regular season from beginning to end.  Usually I get to watch the 4th quarter of one game and the first 1 or 2 quarters of another game.  But the Super Bowl is different.  I like to watch some of the pre-game, and all of the game.

This year I paid more attention to game than usual.  Not only because of the quest for the “perfect” 19-0 record, but because it was here.  Since neither team was one I liked, and you can’t go into a Super Bowl and not cheer for one side or another, I choose the NY Giants as the team to root for.

The three reasons for my pick were simple.  I don’t like the Patriots, as they come off as a bunch of jerks.  There is no reason to “go for it” on 4th and 1 when you are up 20+ points.  Just plain unsportsmanlike, in my opinion.  Not to mention, Boston won the World Series a couple months ago, and one championship a year is plenty.  Being from Phoenix, and having one championship in my lifetime, I can call them greedy. 

Second, I work with a guy from the Boston area.  See my first reason, and you will understand why this is my second reason.

Third, one of my best friends is from NY, though he now lives in Ohio.  And with the Buckeyes losing so much the last couple years, and my dislike of the Patriots, I had to root for the Giants.

Needless to say, I am glad the Giants won the game.  Plus, it was one of the best football games I have seen in a long time, and probably the best Super Bowl I can remember.

But now that the Giants have won, and the Pats are not as “perfect” as they hoped, I have reverted back to my dislike for both teams.  Thanks NY, but I will now boo you.  Boo.

And if you wondered, my team is the Cardinals.  Hey, someone has to like em!

Tropizm

Realized today its been a while since I posted anything.  So here goes.

First, I hope everyone had a good Christmas, great New Years, and are having a good 2008 so far.

We had a pretty good New Years.  We opened the year with a vacation.  Real relaxing, a week in Sedona.  Did alot of checking out the area, and even went to play in the snow.  I have some pictures of the vacation posted.  There are pictures of the place we stayed at, some of us playing in the snow, and pictures of “Out of Africa” wildlife park.  Its basically a zoo where they rescue “African” animals and let you see them.  There was a show called Tiger Splash where they get the tigers to chase them and then they jump in the water.  After the show, Erin and I fed a tiger.  Real cool.

We also went to Montezuma’s Castle.  I won a Wii video game console off the radio and there is a picture of Erin playing Wii Boxing.  Lots-O-Fun.

The house is coming along.   The inside walls are finished, two of the bathrooms have their tubs/showers in.  We have A/C and electrical is starting today.  We are almost done with the BIG stuff, then will come the tedious detail stuff that will take a while to do.  I will post new pictures after I get a few more to post.

Anyhoo, thats it for now.

Tropizm

My friend Jon showed me this video today.  I think its funny, smart, and truthful.  Jon got in trouble at work for sharing this with his co-workers.

I think its funny how no one is allowed to offend or discriminate any class or group of people in this country unless you are a Christian.  Look around, and you will see.  I am not allowed to say Merry Christmas because “someone” may be offended.  But if you think about it, all of the “holiday” sales, parties, days off, is because of Christmas.  The sales are not because stores want to be nice and drop the prices because Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years are close together.  They are having sales because people are buying gifts to give to others on Christmas.  If this were not true, then the question asked in the video would have an answer.

What are you getting your kids for Thanksgiving this year?

I rest my case. 

Tropizm 

Check out the controversial video here: http://www.citizenlink.org/Stoplight/A000005834.cfm?eafref=1&eafref=1

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.  Faith’s sister, her boyfriend, and son came to visit AZ.

They stayed a week and we did the usual Thanksgiving things.  Eat and shop.  We did make a day trip to Sedona.  We are going to spend a week there next month, but David and Cindy wanted to go and see it.  It was a nice trip, though it was short.  We only spend a few hours up there.  Long enough to take some pictures, do some window shopping, and eat lunch.  It was real cold there too, for AZ at least.  It was 44F and windy.  Stop laughing, Jon.  It was cold.

We spent the whole weekend pretty much at Faiths parents house, as that was where they were staying.  The last night they were in town we went over for dinner, and Erin joined the after-dinner dice game some of them were playing.  She also put on a show of dancing, singing, and just hamming it up for all of us. 

You can check out some pictures in the Tropizm Photo Album if you like. 

Tropizm

Its been a while since I updated this, so this post may be longer than usual. 

First, Faith and I went to watch the Diamondbacks in the NLCS Game 2 against the Colorado Rockies.  It was a great game, meaning that every inning had the potential of swinging the game one way or the other.  The DBacks were down 2-1 until the 9th inning until they tied it up at 2-2.  The game finished with the Rockies winning 3-2 in the 11th inning.  Simply put, the DBacks blew it.  Valverde had control issues and loaded the bases.  Then walked in the winning run.

As you may know, the Rockies won the series 4 games to 0 and went on to lose to the Boston Red Sox in the World Series 4 games to 0.  The irony of it all is that the DBacks played the Rockies the last series of the regular season.  AZ needed to win 1 game to clinch the NL West.  The Rockies needed to win 2 and other teams needed to win/lose for the Rockies to make it to the playoffs.  AZ won a game, then basically let the Rockies win the other 2.  The other teams won/lost to where San Diego and CO had to play eachother and the winner goes into the playoffs.  Of course, the Rockies won, and then came back and beat the tar out of AZ.  Goes to show, every game matters.

We took Erin and Trisen to the AZ State Fair.  Dad and Pat also went, so we would meet up with them, then seperate, then meet up.  We all had a great time and both Erin and Tristen won a prize playing a game.  Tristen got a little bored with the kiddie rides and so he went on an adult ride by himself, and a couple of the bigger kids rides.  Erin went with Tristen on the bigger kids rides.  She looked nervous on the ride but as soon as she got off, she wanted to go again.  She wanted to go on the giant ferris wheel, but we didn’t.  I want to wait another year or two to take her on that. 

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House update.  The last couple weeks alot of work has been done.  The trenches for the stem wall were dug, forms made, and the stem wall was poured.  The stem wall is what supports the outter walls, and keeps the foundation stable.  The plumber is currently getting the under-foundation pipe work done.  We are hoping to have the foundation poured next week and after that walls will start to go up.

That is about it for now.  I will try and post more stuff more often.  In case you didn’t know, clicking the pictures will take you to the Flickr page and you could see more pictures.  Also, you could comment on a post or picture if you want to.  Just a reminder, since there isn’t too many comments, I wanted to make sure you know that.

God bless to all.

Tropizm

Saturday night Faith and I took our friends daughter to see Casting Crowns in concert.  For those of you who don’t know, they are our favorite Christian band.

It will be Kandice’s 16th birthday in a few weeks, so we thought it would make for a great birthday present.  And since she has dedicated her life to worshiping The Lord through music, it was also a fitting present. 

It was the second time Faith and I have seen them in concert.  The last time was a couple years ago and they were at our old church.  Though the church as 6500 seats, the place was packed solid, and the show was great, this time they was even better.  It was at the Glendale Arena aka Jobing.com Arena (boo on the name).  With a true concert sound system and light show, it made the show even better.

But for me, what made both shows so great was the atmosphere of praise and worship.  It wasn’t a concert, it was church.  The band would explain the song they were about to sing and how it came about.  It was usually how God helped them in a particular situation, or how to talk to a friend in need.  Several times during the show, they would pray for a situation.  There was even the chance to accept Christ as your Savior.  It truly was a worship service, not just a concert.

At the end, the music stopped, and each band member took the microphone and prayed for the audience.  One for the moms, one for strength to make it through the day, and so on.  That, in our opinion, was the highlight of the evening.

And of course, the music rocked.

Tropizm

For those of you who have not traversed 163rd Avenue for a long time may be in for a little shock.

Some of us have remember when it used to be a dirt road, and the railroad crossing was just some dirt piled up with a layer of asphalt covering it.

Once it was paved we thought it was the best thing ever.  And that was as much “improvement” we wanted. 

This morning, while I was driving to work.  The street lights were on.  That’s right, 163rd Ave now has street lights, sidewalks, and gutters.  They do look a little odd, sidewalks next to the desert.  But I guess they are going to be adding a ton of stores and shops.  I am mixed if I think this is good or not.  It will be nice not having to drive 15 minutes to go to the store.  But I don’t think I will like all the extra traffic, noise, and lights.  Who moves out in the middle of the desert to have a Costco move in next door? 

I just hope they make it at least somewhat pleasant to the eyes.  The bridge they are building looks nice.  Yes, I said bridge.  There is some wharf like thing they are building too.  Oh, and a brick wall about 2 miles long down Grand Ave.  They have a sidewalk there too. 

It took me a little getting used to the new homes, but street lights are a little much.

Oh well, I guess its progress.  To someone.  They probably don’t live out there either.

Tropizm

This July 4th I want to encourage everyone to remember that this nation was built by a group of men who believed, loved, and followed Christ.

 I also want to give all veterans, past, present, or future my prayers and great thanks for their hard work to ensure we can have the freedoms that we all take advantage of.

 Read The Constitution too, you may be surprised what is in there.  What powers do the courts really have?  What about Congress, or the President.  Most important, what powers you we, as Americans have.  Check it out here  http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html .  Its a shame that nationalized citizens know more about US history, and government than Americans that have lived here their whole life.

Thank you, and God Bless America

Tropizm

For those who don’t know, I have been working every saturday night almost since the beginning of the year.  During the down time of working midnight to 8:30 am, I figured it would give me plenty of time to update both www.gimmiesomecakes.com and this site.  Frequent readers may have noticed there hasn’t been anything new to read here in quite some time.  Working on the upgrade is mostly to blame.  I didn’t want to spend alot of time updating the site when I knew the core of it would be gone soon.  Then the site that hosted my blog disappeared, without even a courtesy email, and now I knew I needed to do something.

I admit, I have spent more time working on gimmiesomecakes.com then on this site.  This is because it is a commercial site, our customers constantly visit the site, and I basically had to learn most everything I wanted to do to the site.  So every single step along the way I had to research, test, fix, retest, yay!, now on to step 2 of 500.  It quickly became a daunting and frustrating task and after a while I stopped working on it as often as I should have.

Now, I have a real good friend who has been like a www mentor to me.  He has been a tremendous help with my programming all my sites.  His website is  www.jonlabass.net and you may notice some similarities with our sites.  I was talking with him the other day and I mentioned how little I wanted to work on my sites.  He told me where he got the template for his site, and since I liked it, I downloaded the template program he uses, and BAM! new web blog.

I promise I will post here more often then before.  You could also comment on my postings, which I think is kinda fun.  We will see how this all works out.  After nearly a year of nothing new on the site, I hope you will start to visit more often.  You will have to bear with me while I transform all of the old pages to the new format.  Some pages will be removed, others completely transformed, others will simply have the new theme and thats all.

Feel free to comment on this or other posts, knowing that you are reading, enjoying and commenting lets me know this isn’t a waste of my time.

Love to everyone, and God Bless

Tropizm