D. Gardner

I’m writing today to tell you about the generosity of people.
The Scouts are planning a Fund raising Pancake breakfast and so Last Wednesday night we made some fliers and went around to let people know about the breakfast and try to pre-sell some tickets. I was amazed at how many people just donated money. after about 30 minutes with 3 groups we raised about 135 dollars. I gave grown up thinking I was pretty generous, but I don’t know that I would just give money to a bunch of scouts if they came to the door. My friend Jayd posted a quote on Facebook a couple of week ago from President Hinckley.

“Think of what would happen if the principles of fast day and the fast offering were observed throughout the world. The hungry would be fed, the naked clothed, the homeless sheltered. Our burden of taxes would be lightened. The giver would not suffer but would be blessed by his small abstinence. A new measure of concern and unselfishness would grow in the hearts of people everywhere.” (Hinckley, 1991).

we all need to be more generous.

I was called yesterday to be the scoutmaster for the Anderson Mill Ward. I really like being scoutmaster. After having done it several times I have a plan of how to best setup the program. I am going to work out a plan over the next several weeks to put into place traditions that should help the scouting program progress in the ward after I am gone. Many times in the LDS wards they change leaders so often that there are gaps in program. The inertia sometimes get lost as leaders change. Hopefully I can help build something that wont loose the inertia when I leave.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been able to spend some time trying to get some new functionality out of the web application our company offers. To save the non programmers the really technical. I am just trying to solve a problem to make one particular part of the site easier for people to use. While Microsoft has made it easier to build many things it’s harder to get into the inner workings of what is going on and customize things. I will continue to work on the situation until I figure it out. Luckily with this job they are giving me the ability to explore some of these things.

It’s been a week since I changed the spark plugs on the van. The van was running pretty rough and the check engine light had come on. It was about a quart low on Oil so I thought that may have been the problem. I needed to get it inspected so I can get it licensed in TX. So I took it in to get the oil changed and get it inspected. I failed the inspection because my front two tires were bald and the check engine sensors indicated that piston 3 was miss firing. There is about 122,000 miles on the van so I was probably time to change the spark plugs.
The first thing I did was check some stuff on the internet and see what other people were doing with vans like mine, a 2000 chevy venture . A couple said it could take up to 4-4.5 hours to change the plugs. One guy said he did it in 2.5 and didn’t rotate the engine. So I got the Haynes manual just in case. I tried it the way the 2.5 hour guy suggested for about a couple of hours. I believe it can be done this way. But the guy had longer skinnier arms than me and was way stronger. I finally got the Haynes manual out and started to do it that way. I had been too the Home depot twice, and Wal-mart once to get tools. Then about the time I was getting ready to rotate the engine Charles, my brother-in-law showed up. He help read the manual, and get the engine rotated properly. we took all the electrical stuff off and the coil pack. Then I started to try to pull the wires off the spark plugs. it was almost impossible. Charles said there was a tool for that and so we were off to the store to get one of those. The tool help and I was able to finish the job. Over all it took me more than 6 hours to get the project finished. I still don’t consider myself much of a mechanic.

The move overall went very well. I am so grateful to all the people in St. George and Austin that helped me move all my stuff.
It’s great to have my family in Austin and to be back at my job. All went pretty well with the move. I don’t really have anything to complain about.
One comment about being prepared, even with the best preparation something is going to be missed. We rented a Penske Truck. We got a pretty great deal. The Truck had a CD player, This was a complete surprise. That is the first Rental Truck I’ve use that had a CD player. I was not prepare and I had not made or brought any CD’s for the trip. Roman had 6 or 7 CD’s a few were compilations I had made in the past. Needless to say we listened to some of the songs a lot. I really need to be more careful when I make these compilations.

Looking forward to the new adventure.