I was just bedding down for the night when my building shook. It was too forceful to be my stupid upstairs neighbors bouncing around… so I checked it out online

It was a 2.5 on the richter scale… listed as the “Greater Los Angeles Area”.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/ci14262680.php

freaky…

OH… so much stuff I’d like to talk about. I’m going to start typing, and see what falls out.

… Friday while I was walking from my car to my desk something funny happened. I was doing that quick meaningful walk. You know that one you do when your just a little behind schedule, and you’re trying to make up time. The thought is that if you do the quick meaningful walk nobody will stop you and make you further behind schedule.

So I got through security and was walking across the TDA hard-scape (this is like the big concrete courtyard area in front of the yellow Frank Ghery designed office I work in) with a smattering of other folks walking in to work. I’m about 10 yards from the door of the office building and I see Mickey Mouse in his traditional black and red tux come around the corner on the opposite side of the courtyard area. Now keep in mind this is backstage… no guests will see mickey here.

He was all alone… this was not normal. Mickey almost always has a ‘handler’ just like our executives. He just rarely goes anywhere apart from his normal places without a host. Anyway, so he was alone. As he passed me I gave him a simple wave and he gave me a friendly nod. A few more steps later a woman in tech blacks said “hi Mickey”. Mickey waved at her, and kept on his way. I’m not sure if it’s coming across in the text here, but it was just so neat to see Mickey Mouse just walking along with everyone else heading in to work. Just like another guy… heading to wherever he needed to get something done. Something I’ll always love. It reminded me of one day when I first started with Disney. I was backstage in Town Square and Snow White and Aurora came walking over just chatting with their purses hanging off their arms. They were just casually on their way in to make some magic. A scene that was strange to get used to… and again, something I will always love.

… Last night I was up late trying to teach myself a new programming language and framework (Ruby and Rails for those who care). I was trying to get into that late night zone where I just got into it and it would click for me. I was in need of some caffeine so I made the decision to head down to the corner store for a Diet Coke refill.

My apartment complex has those outdoor staircases on the ends of each building. You go through a door out of the carpeted hallway and into the tiled staircase. I make note of the different floor covering, as it plays a major roll in the story.

As I went out the door a large set of events all happened in what seemed like an instant. It all started before I arrived when some wonderful passer-by spilled some sort of creamy drink on the tile floor on the landing at the top of the stairs. As I passed through the door my feet left the solid carpet for a much more uncertain stance on wet tile.

One leg kicked out in front, while another stepped back to get under me. That foot slipped in the opposite direction, and I was on my way down. I took a moment to utter a few expletives while contemplating the distance to the floor. I put my left hand out to brace for impact while the cup in my right hand sailed into the air. My left hand hit the floor just about the same time as my left hip. and just a moment later I was laying in the wonderful pool of creamy drink on the tile floor above the stairs. As if to add insult to injury, the door came swinging back to close on my legs.

It was a good 100 feet until the anger melted away and I started to laugh out loud. It was a really good fall, and my hand did slap the ground (something that always makes me chuckle when I see it happen to others)

… I found out today that my sister, through the course of her chemo therapy, has begun to lose her hair. I’m sure that is something that can put your spirits in the toilet while so many other things are going on. I also found out that she and her family are coming down here to CA for a short trip. They will be here in the morning.

I wanted to show her that ‘it’s all good’. And that while we can’t know exactly what she’s going through, we can show her that we’re willing to be with her and support her. So… I shaved my head today. All the way, totally bald.

Jac… I’m with you, It’s all good, and we’re both going to be growing our hair back soon enough.

love you.

Great story about my Grandpa was in the Utah paper this morning. check it out…

Weathered warriors — WWII vets meet every week for eggs, table talk
By Stephen Speckman
Deseret Morning News

LAKEPOINT, Tooele County — Inside a truck stop on a cold fall morning, they look like just another bunch of old guys.
Image
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Morning News
Lamar “Bish” Davis shows his friends a photo of himself when he was a Marine in WWII. Davis is an Iwo Jima survivor.
They park in handicap stalls and wear hearing aids — or admit they should.
Mickey Bailey, a radio operator in the Navy during World War II, is blind and needs someone to cut his food. Fellow seaman Jim Hales uses a wooden cane when he walks.
Nine men from the “Greatest Generation” who once joined this dwindling group for breakfast every week have died.
For about 15 years as many as 20 World War II veterans have been meeting on Wednesday mornings at eateries around Tooele County. It’s nothing formal, just some eggs, hashbrowns, pancakes, coffee and usually light conversation.
If you ask why they started getting together or who first organized the gatherings, you don’t get a straight answer. Near to the truth is that most or all at one time worked for Kennecott and most saw combat during World War II.
Brothers Andy Nielsen (Army) and Eldon Nielsen (Army and Air Force) were both in the war.
But when they meet, everyone already understands what the others went through during the war. It’s the reason they give for not talking much about how one of the men still has shrapnel in his hand and hip or how another dug holes in the sands of Iwo Jima to escape being shot.
These days, they come from the Salt Lake and Tooele areas to gather at tables pushed together near a buffet at the TA truck stop just off of I-80, north of Tooele. They don’t, however, need many tables anymore.
World War II veterans are dying at a rate of about 1,000 per day — the U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2004 there were 3.9 million left.
Those from this breakfast club who have died, like Navy seamen Sheldon Bliss and Keith Reid, have taken whatever war stories that went untold with them to the grave.

Keeping it light
They have funny names for their group: ROMEO (for “retired old men eating out”) spelled out on hats they wear; and March of the Penguins (some of the men, most in their 80s, waddle or hobble as they walk).
On a recent Wednesday, someone brought an obituary of a woman the group knew, an old photo taken near Brigham Young’s house in Salt Lake City and a news clipping about the cremation of a 700-pound man.
The pieces of paper are talking points, lying next to Bob Davis’ bifocals on the table.
Davis and Calvin Coon often go at it. Davis poked fun when Coon couldn’t remember his own telephone number. Coon and Davis were Merchant Marines.
Coon had the upper hand a few moments later when Lamar “Bish” Davis (no relation to Bob) couldn’t remember the name of the man, Bob Pollock, who was sitting right next to him. Pollock saw action as a Navy seaman during the battle for Iwo Jima. Bish, the man with the shrapnel in his hand and hip, is an Iwo Jima survivor.
These World War vets cover all four branches of the military. Their ranks vary. A few had stints in the Merchant Marines and Naval Armed Guard during the war.
At one end of the table, Lewis Welcker (Marines) and Keith Dangerfield (Navy) sat across from each other, recalling how the communities of Garfield and Magna used to be, about starting out in life after the war working for Kennecott.
The Garfield homes in which many of the men sitting at the table lived after the war are now gone. Which leads to another joke about how all the places they lived, worked and went to school when they were younger have vanished.
Once in a while, a quick war vignette is slipped in the mix, such as how the ring Jack Bowers (Naval Armed Guard) wears on his right hand was made from metal off of a kamikaze plane. Or how Hales spent three years aboard a destroyer and how his ship survived the Japanese bombing of Okinawa.
Image
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Morning News
Ed Slater, left, and Eldon Nielsen share a laugh at a truck stop in Tooele. For about 15 years the veterans have been meeting every Wednesday.

A reason to meet
Not many of these men miss too many Wednesdays at the truck stop.
Nielsen’s brother, Eldon, and his friend Ed Slater (Navy) showed up for breakfast on another Wednesday. Slater, a hiker and mountain climber even in his 80s, is clearly the most fit among a table filled with frail or failing bodies.
Their voices are weathered by age.
Chatter drifts in and out of weather, politics, current events and that obituary sitting next to Bob Davis’ glasses.
Coon picks up the obit for Ruth Hickman Coon, a relative by marriage. “She was a jolly woman,” he says to himself, staring at her photo.
But loss isn’t something dwelled on here. A few words are spoken about Gale Westerman’s brother, Jack, a Marine who used to join this group before he died.
The same amount of table talk is allotted for Dangerfield’s brother, Harold, a World War II veteran who passed away at age 87. Somewhere, Dangerfield isn’t sure where, there is a written log of his brother’s wartime experience.
Suddenly, without warning, two men at the table shoot off a snippet about how ships Westerman crewed were torpedoed. Westerman (Naval Armed Guard) says it was two ships that went down — others at the table say it was three.
If there’s a far-away look in someone’s eyes, it’s gone in the next breath as a joke flies through the air, twice if someone didn’t hear it the first time. Westerman’s brother Gene, who drives them to the truck stop, has one about a “cereal” killer that gets a few chuckles.
A conversation about the Iraq war lasts less than a minute, with a few bursts about how the United States shouldn’t have attacked in the first place. Coincidentally, President Bush is on a television nearby, which prompts two men in the group to snap about how few people in Congress have a son who has served in Iraq.
Even as they leave, it’s an opportunity for one more joke about how they hope to see one another next week and not before then in the obituaries. Or, as Coon likes to say, “God willing and the creek don’t rise.”