No more blogs from me.

I am going to take a little time off from the blogging so that I can focus on being.

that's it for now. (unless I get some good blog topics in my email)

Ode to the Commode

By Feline Nimbus, our Guest contributor. Photos coming soon.

It has come to my attention that the mastermind of this blog will soon be traveling over seas and in particular Germany. This is a travel advisory for the mastermind and anyone else traveling.

For those of you who have traveled extensively you have come to learn that there is no place like home. It is at home that you find your true comforts…nice pillows, hot showers, and yes, normal toilets. Many of you might wonder…are their really different toilets around the world…ohh yes! You see in Japan you run into the luxury liners. You will sit down to do your daily duty and then all of a sudden be pleasantly surprised by a warming seat, or you might be caught off guard by the quick cleaning spray. When visiting New Zealand the toilet really does flush in the opposite direction to here. An oddity that might perk your interest and make you go hmm. Beware in China, Italy, or Hungary it is my experience that you might run into a hole instead of a commode.

The worst toilet that I guarantee you will run into, found when traveling in Germany or the Netherlands, is the dreaded SHELF toilet. How does it differ from our standard thrones here at home? The main stand out feature is of course the shelf. Instead of dropping your kids off at the pool and letting them sink or swim; they are like a beached whale hanging out on the sand with nowhere to go. That’s right your pooh is raised up high just for your own personal inspection. I’ve done some research on this dreaded commode and found out a bit about the Shelf Toilet. It was invented by the Germans…leave it to them to want to examine their own schiez! The Shelf Toilets official name is Flachspueler, translation flat flusher.

Now I’ve come up with some pros and cons to the shelf toilet and therefore I shall leave it up to you the reader to make your own assessment of this style of commode.

Lets start with the Pros:
1. When your coffee kicks in and your daily duty calls, there won’t be any catch22 of back splash. Your butt won’t get wet when that slimy sometimes rock-hard substance disengages from god knows where of you. It will land safely and neatly on the porcelain shelf. Unlike the standard toilet, the so-called substance hits straight down to the water, hence the unsettling experience of back splash.
2. You can with all interest inspect your pooh in it’s original natural state without any complications of floating or sinking. It is this feature of the shelf toilet that allows you to tell all friends with precise detail just how bad it really was. (Feel free to use your imagination.)
3. Probably the best feature of the shelf toilet is that it uses less water than that of a standard American toilet. In the words of Jack Johnson Reduce, Reuse, Recycle…I wonder if Jack has a Shelf Toilet in his home?

Now onto the Cons.
Let’s face it your pooh is sitting on a shelf, in all it’s glory, stinking up everything. At least an American toilet uses the water as a sort of protective barrier from the stink. It gives the user a moment or two before the barrier is broken and the scent begins to waif. NOT the case with the Shelf Toilet. A word of advice get in, get out, and don’t inhale!
Make sure to due a courtesy flush. Once is not enough. The Shelf Toilet is a haven for skid marks on porcelain. Make sure you flush twice or use one of those creepy toilet brushes to cover up the deed you just did.

The Magic Carpet Ride.
Just to finish up I want to tell everyone about the magic carpet ride. As you just read the Shelf Toilet is an apparatus where your pooh just does not want to wash away. It could take many flushes or some actual scrubbing to get your deed down the tube. One simple way to avoid any elbow grease is to take some precautionary measures ahead of time. Take a piece of cardboard…or in Europe they call it toilet paper, and fold it in three. Gently drop it on the self…when the time comes to flush, your pooh flies away on a magic carpet ride!

So good luck to those of you who might be traveling in the near future and come across the shelf. I hope that you are well prepared when you encounter the worst toilet ever.

Shelf Toilets.

For those of you that know what these are, you know the trials associated with them, for those of you that don't, stay tuned, A guest writer will be giving us the lowdown...

New Yorkers are Funny.

Ok so not all new yorkers but some. I am sitting in JFK airport in NYC and watching 4 guys that spent 5 minutes too long in the bar chew out a gate agent for not letting them on the flight. They are screaming this profanity and that. asking why they can't simply call the plane back to the gate and let them on,

Quite entertaining. It's better than the screaming baby sitting near me or the stinky foreigner I sat next to on the flight to boston. He smelled so bad the flight attendant actually allowed me to sit in the jumpseat in the galley while they served drinks. Very helpful because when you sit in the last row of a plane and the guy next to you smells like a shrimp boat, it's tough to get through it.

Overall I think what this comes down to is I thoroughly enjoy people watching, I do not like interactive people watching where it involves smell. That is not so good.

The trip to boston was great, 41,000 people at a trade show and a 10 foot by 10 foot booth that was unbelieveably popular, with 5 of us manning the booth it was clear to everyone around us we had one of the most popular products at all of green build.

Oh and for those of you who care, I have my very first full time Job since 1998. crazy I know, lots of negotiating and batting things back and forth. I started the sale of both my product lines, they have been acquired by a canadian company and they will keep the name and products as is. Pretty cool, what a whirlwind 2 weeks.
I'll have some fancy title that I will blog about I am sure, the company is based in Munich Germany and is based in the commercial and residential energy conservation product category. It will be a great new dierction for me and has virtually unlimited potential. (and no, I will not move to Germany, I will work in SLC.)

Here's where I have been in 2 weeks

SLC
Houston
LA
San Diego
Honolulu
Maui
LA
Houston
Boston
NYC
and in 4 hours I will be back to reality in SLC and see my lovely wife that I miss.

Whew. now it's only hawaii and germany in the next little while

Time Zone Competition.

This is a little competition for my friend traveling through berlin... email me if you can beat this schedule this week...

Sunday: Mountain time, central time, pacific time.

Tuesday: pacific time, Hawiian-aleutian time zone.

Thursday: Hawaiin time: pacific time, central time, mountain time.

I count changing time zones 9 times in 5 days too much, what do you think?

When I get back, I am going to take my new transportation method and head up to mt aire for some R and R.

Sporto, I found you a sitter.

not just for Sporto but for all my friends... It is the latest craze in babysitting and I think we should all try it out tonight. Implement this innovative sitter and let's go to dinner!

No more "kid" excuses, this sitter is always available and cheap! What are you waiting for? It looks simple enough, you can even integrate toys into the sitting.

City Dogs...

For those of you who didn't know, I run a school for dogs born without part of their name.
I take Bernese Dogs and teach them to be Bernese Mountain Dogs, you know, like their ancestors. Check out more photos on the Bettis 08 blog.



It's important to keep heritage and tradition alive in a culture and these dogs are no different. Teaching them to jump 12 feet down a slot canyon over and over again is more important than learning to chase a ball.



These dogs passed with flying colors and and have now reached level 1 of mountain training. I think they are still Bernese City Dogs at this point but they'll get there eventually.

Good Job Bode and Harley for keeping your cool and hanging in there. (literally at some points.)

Yep. I know him.

Wait Until you see that my friend, Chef Peterson is running for office, I never would have thought! I knew I was cool for knowing him, but now I am even cooler. you can see a photo of him in an older post, skiing at Norman's house.

Check it out

I am a winner.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Raney and I have been having a little cat and mouse game with her "new" game of Dig-Dug. Raney received a full size 1982 arcade game for her wedding and hasn't left the house since. She finally did leave the house and I went up there and obliterated her best score on Dig-Dug. Yep, Cat, I killed it. :) (oh and I took second place and 4th place as well.)

According to your husband you will feel better to know that it took me quite a few games to do it.

You may be able to ice skate faster than me but you can't win Dig-Dug!

Good luck in your qualifier this weekend!

I don't care who you vote for.

I really don't care who you vote for, I just have a couple of suggestions.

When you go into the little polling booth, or stand in front of the computer in Utah, Don't vote for somebody because you like their glasses.

Don't vote for somebody because you think they are "hot"

Let's think about this scenario, the lady with the cool glasses and the not too shabby appearance becomes vice president. The actual guy who's running, John Mccain, God forbid, Dies. You now have a couple of firsts, the first woman US president, the First time I become Canadian, the first time the whole country steps back and says, "but she was wearing such nice shoes in the campaign, I didn't know she didn't have experience"

Now like I said, I don't care who you vote for, I actually like(d) John Mccain and what he has stood up for over the last however many years. I just want to see people vote for the person that shares their common goals (not taste) And vote for that person because they are qualified to run the country and lead us in a direction of positives rather than more downhill.

I'm sure that Sarah Palin is a great person and has done good things for Alaska and the small town where she was a Mayor. I'm sure she will deal well with social issues like special needs kids. I'm not so sure she can see Russia from her house and I don't think we know enough about her to elect her to what could ultimately be the president of the USA.

I don't want somebody to be elected to office because they are "just like me" (or you) I want somebody smarter than me, smarter than you (no offense) and experienced enough to know what decisions to make regarding the things that matter to the best country in the world.

If you read this blog you can figure out who I am voting for and that's all fine and great, I voted early already so I am locked in, you should too.

overseas help.

So I was having a little trouble with my computer over the last few days and I couldn't figure out what it was, it started out that I couldn't get in to my paypal account and transfer money into my personal account. so I called Paypal. After what seemed like 15 transfers I finally got to talk to a real live person. His name was John, but I don't think he was convinced of that. His accent was so thick I could barely understand the words "how may I help you"

I told him I couldn't understand him and he said maybe if he pedals faster. Made no sense to me at the time. Once he sent me an update email that included his picture it all became clear.

Happy Easter

I don't know why this strikes me as so entertaining, but it does.

New Road signs in CT

Connecticut yesterday finished the installation of the GW bush Birthplace announcement signs.

Months of research

After a significant effort involving phone records, receipts and personality evaluation I finally came up with the actual phones that the people running for office own, you can tell a lot about somebody by their phone... Of course schaars uses all of these. (at the same time)

My spin on the events.

Apparently there seems to be somebody disagreeing with me regarding my dig-dug high score. and it is my dig-dug rival, the #2 player in the world, Game Name "Cat" She had some things to say about our little competition on her blog.

Cats "silver" Shovel --- Troy's "Gold" Shovel

Apparently, "Cat" who was born in 86 feels the need to claim the game dig-dug as that of her own generation, unfortunately cat's parents must have a sad reality to tell their daughter. They bought all of your childhood games at a vintage store and tried to pass them off as new. sad. I was 7 when dig-dug was released in late 82 and we received the game in early 83, I was a master by the time I was 19 or 20.

Seen Here in 2003 at the milwaukee oval, Marc and Cat are trying to get the gist of the game.

So you can believe Cat, with no photos or you can look at my last post and see that I have a photo of my high score. True Dat.

Dig Dug World Champion

I traveled through snow and sleet this weekend to a mountain retreat for the 31st annual Dig Dug world Championships. This annual event brings together some of the worlds most advanced Dig Dug players. Last year there was near riots when the power went out and all scores were lost. This year thanks to a few players for helping to install a backup generator prior to the competition beginning. there is no way we'll lose my high score this time.

among the elite performers there was current world record holder who goes by the game name "Cat". her score was a nearly impossible to beat 38,500. I had a tough match on my hands.

Here's how it went down. "Cat" went to a WR and PB of 38,900 and appeared to crush my dreams of being dig dug world champion. 7 pm, I was up, we fired up the generator, I drank a Dickens Cider and went to work. at 38,800 I had a run in with one of the dragons, That was close, I pumped him up and BAM he was dead, 40,000 A new WR and PB and national record for the US. It must have been sometime around 1 am, I could barely see straight and ran into a dragon again, this time there must have been 7 or 8 of them, they cooked me. I couldn't believe it when I looked at the score, 158,460. I blew away the old record by 4 times!!

Go me!

David returns to Italy

Michaelangelo's "david" was traveling around the US in a recent tour. he was in most of the major US cities, I think it skipped SLC this time.



David said one of the things he enjoyed most while visiting the US was the availability of Dollar menu's at every stop. "it is a like de greatest giff to a be able to geta de food you wanta at sucha good price, ju know?" He's italian.

The Musuem tour was sponsored by KFC.

Obama Support

Check this out. Courtesy of the Ramona crew.



Sarah Silverman supports Obama

Life of a "Cube-an"

Part one in the "Life of a Cube-an" by smoothie

Phase 1 You are listening to jazz -- Your first day at work is great. Your coworkers are wonderful, your cubicle is cute, and your boss is the best!

Phase 2

You are listening to pop music -- After a while you are so busy that you are not sure if you're coming or going anymore.

Phase 3

You are listening to heavy metal -- This is what you feel like at month end.

Phase 4

You are listening to hip hop -- You become bloated due to stress, feel sluggish and suffer from constipation. Your coworkers are too cheerful for your liking and the walls of your cubicle are closing in. You have started thinking 'WHATEVER' about your boss.

Phase 5

You are listening to GANGSTA RAP -- After more time passes, you r eyes start to twitch, you forget what a 'good hair day' feels like as you just fall out of bed and load up on caffeine.

Phase 6

You are listening to the voices in your head -- You have built a makeshift door on your cubicle to keep people out, You have a dartboard with your bosses picture on it in your cube, You wonder why you are even here in the first place.

WMD's in thailand

George bush announced today that the international union of weapons of mass destruction finder people would launch an investigation into what the administration says is a grave danger to the US national Security.

He warned that stored inside nearly every elephant in thailand is a cache of nerve gas that could be used to bring down the US. He has placed the call to ass specialist Scott Kaiserman based in Park City, UT to determine the threat level. Scott, seen here saving the country.

Scott has been an animal specialist since the first gulf war when he inspected thousands of camel toes in Kuwait that appeared to be infected with some sort of chemical agent. One of his wookies has been mentally tramautized ever since.

Seen in this photo from 1991 scott was an advocate against camel toe testing in the early days.

It's tim's birthday!

We had a great party after having dinner at Este tonight... Tim's favorite beer is of course PBR and him and I drank most of these while the wives watched. We were hammered. He was drunk dialing like crazy. I think he was calling the Norman-Raney camp on this one. you got the message right?

anyway, the night was all fun and games until T and C got home and found that Bode and Harley had gotten into the powdered sugar, they were in some serious trouble. I think it was Bode.

Sarah Palin Debate Card

I received a note from my good friend Sarah Palin today, some of you may know who she is, now. her and I are good huntin buddies. We have killed everything from moose to wolves together. Now the only thing she is killing is John Mccain's chances of being president. But at least she is doing a good job at that.

Good Luck Sarah, I can't wait to get back to huntin and watchin hockey witch ya. Dog Gonnit, we'll have so much fun.

{puking noises heard around the country}

Tim's new Iphone.

Tim (blog co writer) finally got his new iphone today. I think its the latest apple model that has all sorts of Apps, (that's "applications" for you non-mac types) It even has a race car game so if he gets bored with your conversation he can easily distract himself. It may not look like a traditional iphone to you but this is a prototype from steve jobs development center. they feel as though it will replace the iphone soon enough.

It even comes with it's own privacy center designed to keep you from annoying the people around you when you are planning the world domination or simply planning laying sod.
The new hands free feature will be a hit with most people, I think the new windproof microphone will be real minute saver, think of all the time you spend repeating yourself when you use your hands free kit, the windproof microphone will now eliminate 99.9% of the wind noise. This also makes you feel very safe when you are distracting yourself with the race car game and is advised to be worn when your wife finds out you bought the iphone.

First snow of the year

Looking east and south from Norman's deck you can see all the new snow that came down last night. Marc and I were definitely not going to let a day like this pass us up.

It's hard to tell in the picture but we went up to the saddle just to the left of the peak, and quite a ways below the huge cliff bands, it's way too early to ski that this year. Read my blog in January and you'll see photos of this run.

Marc headed down first and enjoyed the nice fresh powder, he said 18" this morning and still snowing, I think it was more.

Marc making sweet tele turns.

We were surprised to see Peterson was already up there and had made multiple runs already on the teleboard, we snapped a quick photo as he went by. Looking like the consumate TC.

It's a good thing the weather held out or we would have played Ms pac man all day! Thanks for the fun skiing, looking forward to more of it this winter.

Rain, Rain Go away.

It started to rain sometime last night, and the rain continues into today, what a dreary day. 6 cups of coffee and the rain still hasn't stopped. I have my "rain vehicle" that I drive on rainy days and so I went out to get some groceries earlier today. When Sherri and I were headed down main street (because according to John and Barack that's where we all live) we ran into this girl who obviously doesn't have a rain vehicle. she appeared to be intoxicated and completely lost.

It's amazing to me that people think that just because there is water they can break out a boogie board and float where ever they want. we immediately called the police and had her arrested. I held onto the leash of her board so she couldn't get away and Sherri called the police.

since the damn store was full of water and the police boat took forever to get there, sugarhouse ended up being flooded and Smith's closed, lame. Oh well, thanks to my sister the red cross worker we had enough MRE's to last us until costco opens tomorrow. that was a close call.

My new watch.

When I was in China last week for the NORBA downhill finals (I didn't place, sorry) I had a chance to hang out with the Chinese national Pedros Grassroots cycling team, what a great bunch of guys. The downhill armor they have is sweet. I had to wear one of their traditional jerseys while I was there and I must say, they are a pain in the ass. The breathing appartus they wear for the pollution filtration is insane.

I don't know why I didn't have somebody take the picture with me in it...too bad. I'll be over there again next week so maybe I will see them again and we can get together and retake the picture. I will be implementing the perfect glove storage spot they use, those chinese are so smart. Glove storage in your kneepads, who would have thought?

They also gave me a new watch as a symbol of good luck. of course the new watch is in Chinese and it's why I didn't place in the downhill, I was 4 days late to the race. But that's ok, we'll race again next week. do you find it weird the name of the watch is in english?

What about yesterday.

I forgot to mention what I did yesterday.

I spent most of the day welding my name into the inside of a submarine hull. Nobody was around so I hooked up the torch, threw on the welding mask and went at it, as you can see, there were sparks everywhere and luckily nothing caught fire.

I would love to be there when the crew got back this morning and found my scrawling on the wall. They would all blame each other, maybe they would blame the crew of the other boats, maybe they really don't care. The hardest part was trying to make sure I didn't catch the grass on fire. not to mention sneaking back off the naval base where it is obviously stored.

Today was fun

I was headed out to shop today and I just couldn't decide between the jet and the propeller. I mean which one is better really. The propeller is slower but cheaper and the jet is faster and cooler.

Plus John Travolta has a jet and he is really cool.

So after several different plane stores and a test flight to Boise I decided to go with the Jet, I mean if I can be as cool as John, that would be really good.

Tomorrow it's off to flight school so I can learn to fly it...