Toy cats and economics

Somewhere in our travels we acquired some toy cats which eventually became Bryan's special friends. The first was a simple, pillow-like feline that Bryan named "Butterscotch." Butterscotch has led an interesting life, most recently traveling to Washington DC with me to attend a big conference. Here he is catching a few minutes of a Bulls game on the flatscreen in the fancy hotel.


And here he is relaxing before calling it a night.



The second cat was "Snip" and he's a "Beanie Baby." As you may recall, these little bead-filled cloth critters were all the rage back in the nineties, and you can see why after watching kids play with them. Bryan has been nuts about Snip, and he tells imaginative stories about how Snip does backflips, fights the bad guys, flies through the air, has ears with "magic powers," and makes cute little sounds. Sort of a cuddly ninja, a concept that speaks to the very depths of a four year old boy's soul.

Snip has become such a fixture in our family that John has attempted to lure Snip away from Bryan and into his own camp. At one point we decided we needed to provide some cats for John to ease the contention, so we logged onto ebay to test the market.

We found that the Beanie market has dropped considerably since its heyday. We found 12 of them for $10, which we decided was a pretty good deal. We snapped them up and about a week later, we had a dozen fabric kitties named things like "Zip," "Chip," "Flip," "Nip," "Pounce," "Prance," "Scat,"and even a brand new "Snip." The kids immediately "clipped" off the tags and started to snuggle.


When I came home from work and saw twelve heart-shaped tags lying around, I couldn't help but think of how those tags had been carefully preserved for about 10 years before meeting their fate. As you may recall, some people began to think of Beanie Babies as investments. I remember seeing a news story on TV (back when I watched network news) that reported how Beanies "NWT" going for hundreds of dollars each. One of the cardinal rules of maintaining your portfolio's value was keeping the tags on. If your tag was cut off or crinkled, the value went Enron. But eventually, the market fell out of the bottom anyway.

The real shame of the Beanie Baby bust is that it all happened before these government bailouts became so popular. If the market could have held on for a few years, those happless investors could have had some recourse. They could say how they were tricked into buying them, that the Beanie Baby company overpaid executives that new the end was coming soon, all the usual stuff. You can almost see those with especially big holdings carpooling to D.C. in their minivans to convince Congress that they needed some bailout bill bucks.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Doesn't it?

I thought I would take some photos of the boys in their Sunday duds.



Bryan and John looking cute.

The lovely Carolyn was a more willing participant than John.

Trunk or Treat

Here are some photos from the the Trunk or Treat we went to at the Church this year. Even I, the resident party pooper and official stick in the mud, decided to wear a costume this year.



Here are the kids with their Jack o' Lanterns, and some goofy faces of their own.

Carolyn's Birthday

It's true, Carolyn has turned 11, and enters that long long year before she escapes from Primary and enters the Young Women's program at Church. She seems to be holding up under the strain so far.

Birthday Fun

We have two birthdays in November. Last week we celebrated Amy's 9th, which was very fun. Here are a couple pix I thought you might enjoy.



We found a cheesy "Hammy the Hamster" DVD, which we suspected would be a big hit with Amy. Looks like we picked a winner based on her reaction.



I got luck with my digital camera for this one. What a sweetheart. Happy Birthday, Amy!

Thank goodness, Thanksgiving

Finally, Thanksgiving is here. It's always one of my favorite holidays. And it's not only because you get to eat great food, think of your many blessings, get time off at work, and eat more great food. I can finally listen to Christmas music at work without getting strange looks from my colleagues. I usually start in August, but this year I managed to hold out until October.

We've had a very nice time this year. We had contacted the military branch president to try to feed some LDS troops going through Air Force basic training, but when I went to pick them up this morning some relatives had already managed to come scoop them up. I was a little disappointed, since we enjoy having company for dinner. We managed to find a family in the ward that didn't already have plans because they are moving tomorrow. We had a nice time.

We also followed our tradition of writing things we were thankful for on construction paper feathers, and taping them to a paper turkey, cleverly put together this year by Carolyn and Amy.
If you look very carefully, you might notice that someone said they were thankful for Jerry Sloan. Must have been Baby John.

We really do have much to be thankful for this year. We were very blessed to find a home on base so we didn't have to buy a home in this crazy economy. We are all in good health. We're expecting yet another baby (due in April). I'm really enjoying my job. The kids are fun to watch grow. All in all, we're very blessed and grateful for the blessings Heavenly Father has given us.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Jazz win home opener

Most people who know me well know that I'm a big fan of the NBA in general and the Utah Jazz in particular. What most people don't know is that I only watch a handful of NBA games every year. We've only had cable TV once our marriage, and that was last year in Washington DC. I was able to watch a few regular season games and then the playoffs, but that was it.

This year we have Dish Network, having signed up for the "big spender" $20 a month plan so we could get BYU TV and Fox News. By flipping through the channels, I discovered that they unlock NBA League Pass the first week or so of the season to try to sucker you into buying the whole thing. As a result, I was able to watch the Jazz squeak past Denver on Wedndesday night.

It was a close game, and interesting because I found myself thinking things I never have thought before. The first one was, "Gosh, Memo Okur almost looks chiseled." I had read that he was in good shape this year, but one look at him and it's obvious.

The next unexpected thought was, "Wow, Boozer actually tried to play defense on that possession."

The last one was, "Nice haircut, Kyle Korver. You look like you just got off a mission."

There were lots of non-surprises as well, however. For example, C.J. Miles getting sent to the bench after throwing away the ball and committing a silly frustration foul. Morris Almond camping out on the pine. The Jazz trying to give away the game in the fourth quarter.

All in all it was fun to watch, and it led me down another unexpected train of thought: "I need to buy League Pass." Here's how the conversation with Rebecca went:

"Rebecca, in tough economic times like these, it's very important to stay on a budget, right?"

"I'd agree to that," she said.

"And we should try to get the best value for each dollar, right?"

"Yeah," she said, eyeing me suspiciously.

"Good. That's why we should get NBA league pass. It would actually cost less than getting a better Dish package for the next year, and you don't get many Jazz games on ESPN anyway, it's $20 off right now, and think of all the quality family time I would have watching games with the kids, and it could be my Christmas present and President Monson likes the Jazz, too."

"I'm going to bed now," she said.