HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRANDON!!!

Hi Babe!!! Happy 31st Birthday!!! I'm so glad we get to spend it together.
I hope you have a great day today!! Love you!

Thanksgiving 2004

Brandon's new boat was nice enough to let him have Thanksgiving off this year and so we got to go home and spend it with family. A bunch of family met at Norm & Dawna's B&B and we had a great couple of days!



Thanksgiving Dinner and the extended Eitner Family

Heather, Brandon, Mom & Dad

[Update]

This is a new picture sent to me by Brandon's Grandparents.

My new calling...

Well, the 1st counselor in our ward bishopric called me last Tuesday night and asked if he could stop on by. I knew I was in for it at that time. The only thing a 1st counselor would stop by for is a calling or if they were worried about our family and wanted to check on us. I didn't think they were worried so I was pretty sure I would get a calling. I was right. I am now the Relief Society Secretary. It's exciting but very nerve wrecking for me. I have to admit that I would rather sit back and not have a calling. It will be fun though. I'm sure I'll meet a lot of awesome women in our church and that is what I am really excited about.

Should publicly displaying the "Ten Commandments" be made legal???

From the American Family Association's website:

As you know, the Supreme Court is currently studying the Ten Commandments issue. The Supreme Court is not immune to the will of the people. While we cannot directly influence the outcome of the decision by the Supreme Court, we can express our desires as citizens of the United States.

I urge you to join with other Americans in expressing a desire that the Ten Commandments can be legally displayed in all public places. It is important that we have a moral basis for our laws. The Ten Commandments are in essence the foundation for our laws. Should the foundation be destroyed, the building will fall.

Please join me in supporting the display of the Ten Commandments in all public places, including schools and courtrooms.

From time to time the number of Americans who have expressed a desire to see the Ten Commandments legally displayed in public places will be released and forwarded to the Supreme Court. It will take millions of Americans participating for us to be successful.

I happen to agree with this legislation. I reject the notion that this Country's Founding Fathers created our government on the idea of freedom *FROM* religion... nearly every single one of them were religious and subscribed to a common code of ethics... what they in fact created was a government based on the idea of freedom *OF* religion... and there is a very big difference between the two! Let all major religions' code of ethics be displayed, that's what I say! But the day we decide to *illegalize* the display of such codes is a very dark day for America... and by and large we are already most of the way down that path! if there is any question to the intention of our Founding Fathers, it is because the truth is being misrepresented in our history classes and books. Take a moment to read the Declaration of Indepence and the U.S. Constitution and you will the overlaid theme of a Divine Providence.

If you agree with me, go to the AFA's website and sign their petition today! If we can get enough of our voices in front of the Supreme Court, maybe they will decide to the right thing and stop all of this nonsense by those crazy North-Californian courts!!!

A Week in the Woods

After having spent a week at home we packed up some stuff and went for our annual free week stay in the cabin up at our camping resort. It was very nice! It wasn't so much like camping as much as it was staying in a hotel since this place had running water, electricity, heating, a gas stove, satellite TV, etc... but it was great, a free 1-week vacation but instead of in the thick of the city it was out in the middle of the woods... it was really nice and relaxing! Most days started out with a 20-minute jog around the property, and the rest of the day was usually spent lounging around playing Monopoly, Scrabble, watching DVD's we had rented before-hand, napping, reading books, and playing Heather's Nintendo... it was a great time! Here's a few photos of our cabin:



Heather & Tazzy in front of the cabin


Brandon & Tazzy on the porch


Sitting on the couch


Heather w/Tazzy in the loft



Reading a good book

Brandon the Plumber

Yet another D.I.Y. project completed successfully! What started out as a "simple" "1-hour ,max!" project, quickly turned into a 2-hours past bedtime, call the plumber the next day and wait around the house all day for him, find out the plumber doesn't know what's going on... project!!!

I came home to a simple request: "Hooooonnnnneeeeeyyyyy..... the hot water faucet in my tub drips hot water on my toe while I'm taking a bath... do you think you could call our home warranty company and have it fixed while you are at home this week???" Heh, simple enough...

"No, sir, I'm sorry, but we cover the *PIPES* only not the fixtures... your problem sounds like it is with the fixtures", said the Customer *SERVICE* Rep. on the phone...

Ok, I thought, no big deal... I'll just grab my trusty $29.94 Home Depot "Fix-Everything-In-Your-Home-Yourself-Book-With-Nothing-More-Than-
A-Hammer-And-Screwdriver-And-Us-Here-At-Home-Depot!" book and look up the references for leaky tub problems... oooohhh, look here... it says here that water leaking out of a handle means the "stems" are worn out... just go to Home Depot, buy new stems, and in less than an hour you'll be good as new! "WOW," I said, "what's an hour??? It sounds so simple!"... "yes, in fact, lookie here, it even says: 'Difficulty: 1 out of 5'... I like simple!"

So off I went to Home Depot with one of my handles to try and match up to get the parts...

Turned out, the Home Depot guys said my hardware is REALLY old-fashioned... they didn't sell most of the stuff for my tub, but they *DID* have the stem and shiny new knobs... just what I needed!

First problem: new springs were longer than the old ones... and they really just didn't seem to fit... oh well, I'll just use the old ones...

Second problem: after installing the new stems, turning the water to the house back on: TADA!!! No more leak! Out of the handle, that is... but now the entire faucet leaks!!! A LOT!!!! No matter which way I turn the knobs, I can't get the water to stop! After turning the house water on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off I don't know how many times, and pulling out the stems, switching the parts around a bit, turning the stems around, trading the stems... combining them in almost countless ways that surely the manufacturer neither intended nor imagined, still no luck: WATER ON, NEVER OFF! Ok, no big deal, says I... I'll just put all the old hardware back in, turn the house water back on, and tell "sweetie" to just not put her big toe under the handle next time she takes a bath!

No luck.

With the old hardware installed, still WATER ON, never water off!!! Two hours past bed-time, I secured the water to the whole house, told "sweetie" she'd have to go to work 'au natural' tomorrow, and went to bed...

The morning didn't start out much better... I called the plumber we used in the past... he didn't answer... it's 7AM and this is this guy's own business, why isn't he answering??? I left a message too... 8:30AM, no return call... I call one of the plumbers in the book that state: "On-site in 45 minutes or less, GUARANTEED!*"... but they said "ok, we can be there in 4-8 hours"... turns out, I missed the fine-print that stated: "*Call for details" -- uugggghhh!!! After calling numerous of them, and getting the same thing, I settled on one that said 2-4 hours... as it turns out, they didn't get here until about 5 hours... pathetic...

He tinkered with it a bit and said "$178!", and I said "whatever, just fix it!" -- he tinkered with a bit more and said "oh, you've just installed the hardware backwards, I'll just put it in the right way and charge you our $69 service fee"... "whatever, just fix it!" I said. He tinkered some more and said "nope, turns out you've got the WRONG hardware altogether... I'll give you the old hardware and the address of a shop that sells the old stuff, they'll hook you up and I won't charge you anything"... "kewl, says I, but I'm leary..." -- so off I went to the "old" hardware store...

And in that store sat an "old" plumber... and he heard my story and said "look, here's the hardware that I'm gonna sell you, and here's the piece that you are going to put it into... show me how you are doing it back at your home"... and so I did...

And, as it turns out, after aaaaallll those many, innumerable combinations and ways that I installed that hardware, I missed *1*... and it just so happens, it was the *RIGHT* one: I had installed the seal before the spring instead of the spring before the seal!!! Uuuuugggggghhhh!!!!

They really need diagrams to go with all this hardware, I mean HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW??? You see, with computers you just don't have this sort of thing... everything is label "TAB A" and "SLOT A" and you just match the two up... you know if you are putting the wrong things together because "TAB A" obviously wouldn't hook up to "SLOT B"...

But, yes, my tub works great now, and it doesn't drip, and "sweetie's" big toe won't get burned anymore (which, BTW, I am very grateful for, even if my humor here sounded a little pointed! Hehehe...) -- and if you read this whole story, you are either my mother, or very very very bored and you deserve a medal! Hahahahaha... HI MOM!!! :)

Stumptuous.com

I want to share this awesome website with everyone. Some of you know that I have been lifting weights for a while now. I love it! I feel better about myself and I love not having to run for an hour to get a proper workout. There are a lot of taboos about weightlifting that so many people believe. I had always been told to lift lighter weights and more reps so I don't get huge muscles. Which is totally not true. Brandon found this website for me quite a while ago and it has motivated me and has so much good information about what to do if you have a bad back and things like that. The girl that writes the website is really funny too. This website says it's for Women but there is a lot of really useful information for men too.

I suggest you check it out.

"Super Size Me"

Brandon and I watched the movie Super Size Me this last weekend. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. It is a documentary where this guy does an experiment where he eats only McDonald's food for 30 days straight. He only walks the same amount as an average American and he eats an average meal but if they ask him if he wants it Super Sized he will get it Super Sized. He was a very healthy man before he did this experiment. By the third week the doctors are telling him to stop because he is having liver problems, he's depressed, and much more. Everyone was really worried for his health and telling him to stop but he stuck with it for the 30 days. It is a very informative movie and really makes you think about things.

As most of you know Brandon and I have been trying to live the Low Carb Lifestyle for over 2 years now. We have been on the maintenance phase for a long time and ready to revamp our diet. This movie became our motivation to do something different. We both still strongly believe in the Low Carb Lifestyle but we both are very close to our ideal weights right now and would mainly just like to eat healthier. So, we are going to try to follow more of the "Mormon" diet as talked about in the Doctrine and Covenants. We are going to eat more natural foods. We are not going vegetarian but we are going to try and not eat meat as much. Brandon and I also eat out ALOT and so we are going to only eat out once a week except for sometimes before we go work out we might stop and get food on the way. Also, when we eat out we are going to eat wherever we want and not worry about eating natural foods or if it's meat or anything like that. To try and make sure that we don't get natural foods that are still sugary or not going to help us weight wise we are going to keep it a low calorie diet.

Don't worry the movie doesn't tell you to do any of this stuff. It just motivated us to do this. We're trying it out for now. So far we've made some excellent salads and been really happy with that and some other snacks like raisins, grapes, string cheese, nuts and triscuits.

I've already been told "That's stupid! and called "Carol" because I work with a guy named Carl that's an extreme Vegan that doesn't eat anything that's cooked. Whatever! We'll just see how it works.

Brandon: if you have anything you want to add to this or modify you can.

Our New Sleep Number

We got our new Sleep Number bed this weekend. It is SO awesome. Everything came in boxes or bags and we watched them build the foundation and the mattress right in our bedroom. It only took them about a half hour to put it together when it would have probably taken us all day to put it together with the instructions. We both laid on each of our sides of the bed for atleast an hour trying to figure out which sleep # we liked best. So far I think I'm a 35 and Brandon was at a 60 but he's still going up. So, we'll see. In just the few days that we've had it I already feel less tired and I haven't woken up achie which before this bed I woke up almost every morning VERY groggy and achie. Also I used to toss and turn all night long and I have slept very well the last few nights.
So far I am very happy with our Sleep Number bed.

(This is not a paid advertisement.) :)

Welcome Home Brandon!!!

My Honey came home! His flight was scheduled to come in at 7:38pm on Friday the 5th but he got to the airport really early so they gave him an earlier flight. I had planned on going home and changing, touching up my hair and makeup, pick up some last minute things around the house and making him a Welcome Home sign but I wasn't able to do that. I had to leave work a little early. Believe me I'm not complaining though. It was really nice to have him come in at a decent time so we could actually have a full evening together.

We had a great weekend together. We bought a travel Scrabble game and we played it all over the place. We went to Coco's and played it at the table, we played it in the car while we were trying to charge Brandon's car battery, we played it in bed and we played it in line at the movies.
We saw the movie "The Incredibles" too. That was a really cute movie. Poor Brandon was so tired though because of the time difference from Chicago to here that he fell asleep and missed a lot of the movie.

Yesterday it was SO great to have a reason to hurry home other than needing to take Tazzy outside.

Welcome Home Brandon!!! I love you!!!

FireFox v1.0 is released!

Well, everyone is celebrating the release of the BEST FREE BROWSER ON THE MARKET!!! Mozilla's Firefox v1.0 is finally available for download! It's safer, faster, slicker, and cooler than MS's Internet Explorer and it's FREE... so why not DOWNLOAD it today and try it out??? Guarantee you'll love it!

Brandon Graduates IT "A" School and Heads Home to San Diego!

Well, it's official... I just graduated, I'm all signed out, the bags are packed and I'm walking out the door! Goin' home to the wife and kids in San Diego! (Ok, wife and DOG!!) :)

~ IT2(SW) Gresham, Former STG2(SW)

A Nation United Against Radical Liberalism

Wow... the last few hours have been pretty revealing of the state of affairs here in the U.S. -- in case you haven't heard yet, President Bush has officially won the election and Senator Kerry has called the President and conceded the election.



The current map of affairs in the election process. As you can see, not all of the votes are actually in yet, but it is widely recognized that it is statistically impossible for Senator Kerry to come back and win... so much so that he has conceded the race to President Bush.

Another 4 years to Dubya! And here, we are VERY glad of the outcome, and fully support our President!

That being said, the other outcomes of the election are very revealing of a bigger, larger issue in this nation... take a look:



It is very obvious that across the nation the Republican party has absolutely dominated the nation's politics, on all fronts and the Republican party controls the highest level of government across all facets except the Judicial branch. That is very telling of the state of affairs in our Country. Some will be quick to "hate" the Republicans or secretly foment that the Republicans have "stolen" the election somehow... but really what's happening is, as we have been told in the many past months, the country is getting more and more divided... or IS it??? By these results, it would appear the vast majority of the country is getting sick and tired of far-liberal ideas being pushed down our throats.

I don't believe this is a Republican vs. Democrat divide; not at all. I think it is a Conservative vs. Radical-Liberal divide. The Democratic party has brought the "fringe" liberals of their party to the forefront and has begun to push their radical ideas down all of our throats, so much so that it's not just irritating the hard-rightwingers but also the moderate conservatives, the moderate liberals, and the centrists.

The Democratic party needs to take this as a wake up call and realize that most of America is not going to just sit by and watch their age-old values just get flushed down the toilet.

Moderate Democrats need to take the control of their party back from the extremists of the likes of Michael Moore, "Hollywood", and people like Senator Kerry, and align themselves back to their original, moderate, DIVERSE make-up. Democrats were founded on the notion that they accepted all types and all ideas. But in modern times they have so much aligned themselves with special interests that they have fully alienated the average middle-America. That is why they lost so bad. That is why they are going to keep losing. They have allowed the radicals in their party to hijack their party in an attempt to force us to accept their insane ideologies.

Republicans, on the other hand, need to realize that many of their supporters do not consider themselves Republicans and only aligned themselves with the Republican party because of the "values" war that has been heating up, and also because of the huge support for the President and his position on the Global War on Terrorism. Take a lesson from the Democratic losses: DO NOT ALIENATE MAINSTREAM AMERICA by using your power to push through hard-right extremist ideas.

We all need to come together and move our political views a little more to the center; and on an individual level, while we should retain our values and our personal morals, we all need to realize that in this vast great Nation we need to learn to respect each other and come a little closer together and remember that our great Nation was founded on the idea of the collective unification to ensure our COMMON defense, both physically and ideologically.

A Union of 49???

CNN's Tucker Carlson ("Crossfire") said, in regards to Florida's difficulty in counting its absentee ballots for the 2004 election:

The state had four years to prepare and couldn't count the ballots before Thursday. I think we should give Florida to Puerto Rico.

It's time to get serious about your health: Make a Contract With Yourself!

We are always talking about doing something to improve our health. Most of us have made several attempts to "get healthy" in the course of our lifetimes, but many of us feel like we just never quite follow through with it. Putting the junk-food-eating and couch-potato-sitting habits behind you is to many of us a lot like getting rid of the bottle is to millions of others; or quitting smoking, or drugs, or any other number of bad and unhealthy habits.

Habits can be hard to recognize and admit to for the addicted. Once recognized, they can be even harder to "kick", and are almost always a life-long struggle. As we struggle against our bad habits, we tend to "fall off the wagon"... 'AA' members are probably the most seasoned veterans of "falling off the wagon". :) However, as you overcome the fall and get back on, it gets easier and easier to stay on track.

I don't have a huge problem with exercising, mainly as long as I am doing an exercise that I enjoy and generally it is a BIG help if I am able to exercise with a good friend that I enjoy spending time with. Most people find these two factors to be big keys to their success in exercising properly.

But my real weakness, as it is for many people, is eating properly. I admit it: I AM A JUNK-FOOD JUNKIE! It's true! If you put a nice, healthy, homemade steak and vegetable meal in front of me and then next to it you put a big, fat, greasy Taco Bell meal... I guarantee you the vast majority of the time I would choose the Taco Bell meal!!! Gross, I know, but true. And sad...

Experts say that the best time to set New Year's goals is *NOT* at New Year's time; did you know that??? They say that you should set your goals about this time of year, get on track, make some progress and try and loose just a few pounds... it will put you in a MUCH BETTER POSITION to deal with the Holiday meals! If you focus on eating healthy starting today and getting frequent exercise, when Thanksgiving Dinner comes around, you can eat it to your heart's content without feeling any shame or guilt... or added calories to the belly! One big, fat, ridiculous meal will not hurt you at all; it is the FREQUENT eating like that that will hurt you! The day after Thanksgiving, get back on the wagon! Stay on the wagon and by the time Christmas comes around, you'll be ready to take on the sweets head-on! And as long as you keep the snacking to just a couple of days and IN MODERATION, you'll likely come out of the season having gained no extra weight... that will fuel and stoke your desire to "get healthier"... and the New Year's Day will just give you more momentum to "rededicate" yourself to your goals; goals that instead of being new and hard to deal with, you already have some success with and will more likely "stick with it"!

A great article, written by Chris Zaino, called "Contracting Your Fitness Goals" explains an excellent way to commit yourself to your health and if you take it seriously can be a highly motivating way to charge-ahead with full steam! I have reprinted his article, with his permission, HERE. Here is an excerpt:

"Why not make contracts with yourself? Yes, a real contract, signature and all, to achieving your goals. I am going to give you a simple outline of a contract that you can use to put yourself on track to reaching your goals once and for all... [and] if you followed your ACTION PLAN perfectly for that day, initial that day on your calendar. It will give you a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day and to see how discipline you are staying towards achieving your goal."

And, of course, this contract idea can be applied to any other goal you wish to set for yourself. Your comments are very welcome!

So, what is this LINUX-thing I keep hearing about???

So, you've been hearing a lot of talk about this "Linux" thing over the last few years and you're sitting there wondering "ok, I get it... it's NEAT... but what IS it???"

Linux is an operating system designed to replace the one that most of us use, "Windows"... and, it's "free". In the linux-world, "free" basically means two things: 1) you can download it and try it out without paying any money (and "try it out" means "forever"), 2) individuals are allowed to modify any part of the operating system that they want to, thereby creating a constantly evolving, constantly improving computing environment.

Linux is quite a bit like Windows, and yet a lot different "under the hood"... it runs faster on slower computers than windows does, and can do almost all the same things that windows does (plus many many more things that windows can't do!)

Wanna try it out??? "No way," you say, "I've heard it's really hard to use and if you install it on your computer, you won't know what to do and you'll lose all of your data!"

Naaaahhhh... it's pretty easy to use, actually... and now you can TRY IT OUT ON SOMEONE ELSE's COMPUTER FOR ***FREE***... just head on over to WorkSpot and you will find an awesome new service that allows you to try out linux OVER THE INTERNET! That's right, it runs on someone else's computer and you are just using your browser to tell their computer what to do! It's REALLY NEAT!

But first things first. First, you need to realize that because it is doing this over the internet, IT IS GOING TO BE SLOW... it won't be fast like linux would be if it were actually on your computer... BE PATIENT WITH IT, it will be painfully slow... but it will let you see that linux is very easy to use, JUST LIKE WINDOWS!!! Secondly, this is just a "demo" version and you will only be able to use it for 10 minutes at a time.

After you try it out, if you are interested in trying out a real version, you can head over to MandrakeSoft and check out the EASIEST version of linux out there! It's VERY user friendly! And what's more, they make a version called "MandrakeMove" that lets you boot the ENTIRE thing from CD and it RUNS FROM A CD so that you never have to change or erase your windows on your computer... if you decide you don't like it, just reboot your computer, remove the CD from the drive, and your windows comes back! HEY, IT'S LIKE MAGIC!!!

If you have more questions about Mandrake, don't hesitate to email me and ask: I'll help!



Check it out! Here you see me surfing our website via the WorkSpot site! See the browser window inside *MY* browser window??? Isn't that KEWL???? :)

My opinion gets published in the Navy Times!

A few weeks ago a letter to the editor appeared in the Navy Times. The letter was from an Army Reservist, and was pretty critical and condescending to Active Duty military service members. It was pretty unfounded and very unfair. I felt it deserved a response, so I wrote one. Apparently, I wasn't the only one... so far the Navy Times has published 5 other responses to the Army Lt. Colonel's letter, and all of them have been very critical of his views. My letter has just been published in the most recent edition, though severely chopped for space... I understand an editor's need to chop a piece for space, and my article still read nicely so I'm not upset. Though, I wanted my full article published and even though the readership here is nearly null, I'm putting it here anyways, JUST BECAUSE I CAN! :)

Still, the Navy Times is among the largest distributed newspapers throughout the military... the fact that they published my opinion is pretty cool and it was satisfying to see my name in print! :)


Here is the original letter from the Army Reservist: "Non-Tangibles Add Up", Navy Times, 18OCT2004.

Here is my response, as published in it's edited form: "Chopped Letter to the Editor", Navy Times, 8NOV2004.

Here is my full response: "Letter to Editor", published for the first-time ever HERE! :)

Election Day: T - 1Day and Counting

"... I was always impressed with the fact that [President Bush] was such a straight shooter, that he treated the First Lady with a degree of tenderness and reverence that you don't always see, and the unabashed love that he showed his daughters and his parents. I like the fact that he's a strong man of faith who's the same kind of guy on a Saturday night that he is on a Sunday morning. I just liked the man... I was one of those Americans who had grown weary of seeing our country attacked and we not responding... on each and every one of these attacks on Americans, there was absolutely no response, or an inadequate response. It was almost as if we were sending them an engraved invitation to attack us. And finally they did. And I am so thankful, and America should be thankful, that George W. Bush was president at that time. I thought that he met that challenge head on. He's a very plain spoken man, and I think when he says that he's going to carry this fight to the enemy, the enemy knows that he's a person who will... and I longed for a leader that had a little Churchill in him... I don't think we could have a better man. He's a man who means what he says, says what he means, has a strong backbone... He will best protect my family in a time of war, and make no mistake about it: we are at war... this country is much safer because George W. Bush has been president... We've taken out or made neutral countries like Afghanistan where the Taliban ruled and Al Qaida trained. That's changed. Pakistan, where they did most of their recruiting, now is more friendly to the United States. That's changed. The Saudi's had helped the terrorists by raising money for them. That's changed. Qaddafi has suddenly gotten religion and he's no longer harboring terrorists or seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb. It's a much safer country, and it's safer because George W. Bush had the discipline and made hard choices."

-- Zell Miller, Democratic Senator from Georgia, and served 2 terms as one of the nation's most popular governors. A life-long conservative Democrat.