… something to write home about.

Growing up, whenever we’d visit Park City, Utah, we made a point to stop and have pizza at the Red Banjo Pizza Parlor. We had to eat there at least once; preferably more. They served a wonderful soda mixture of Orange, Root Beer, Sprite and I think Coca Cola - the menu called that wonderful concoction a ‘Suicide’. We found that the Red Banjo Pizza Parlor in Park City served it, along with wonderful pizza (with a lemon wedge on top), a vintage jukebox and a dark and dreary, almost dismal, atmosphere.

It wasn’t unclean, but it had very high ceilings as vintage building do and the retrofitted electric lights didn’t have the umph to illuminate every nook and cranny. There was a long bar on one side of the room with a cash register dating back long before electricity gave the world something else to worry about. Along the wall behind the bar were various bottles, some labeled, some in use, with a mirror running the length of the wall. At the end of the bar was a doorway into the kitchen and if you walked around the wall back into the dining room you could look through the large picture window and try to figure out which pizza was going to be yours.

Over the years, the Red Banjo opened up the downstairs as an arcade to draw in the kids (and their parents) which seemed to work for a while. I remember that there was usually two people working - a waitress and a cook and we’d never see the cook. The waitress was always bustling about though.

This was before Park City became the popular winter and summer destination for the Hollywood flora and fauna. It was becoming famous as a ski resort though and we thought that the 26$US price for an all day lift ticket was outrageous! My parents owned part of an apartment at the top of Main Street and the different owners traded off who was staying there. At least once each winter and usually more we’d spend a week there, skiing and getting into trouble roaming the halls. When I stopped skiing lift tickets at Park City were up to 50$US or so and I’m sure the price went up from there.

Alas, time changes everything. We visited the Red Banjo Pizza Parlor recently on a vacation to Park City and it was still there! The pizza was fine, but the salad dressing isn’t the same (but close) and they no longer serve Suicides. The two kids running the restaurant were ready to go out to play so they closed the place down early, turning away customers. The jukebox now plays CD albums or single tracks and lists many of the more recent titles. It just wasn’t quite the same though - the lights were too bright, the waitress too bored.

On the plus side, while David and I were finding something on the Jukebox we played a Queen song, a Jack Johnson song from the Curious George soundtrack and a Grateful Dead track! David saw the cover with the skeleton and had to play at least one song.

It was a pleasant evening, but I don’t think we will be going back as an ongoing tradition. I will always be comparing it to my memories and as it wanes I’d prefer to remember it in the glory in my head. I’m not imagining its decline though; the missus and I would go for pizza when we were first married and she thought it wasn’t “quite right” either.

Well, Bill reminded me that I haven’t posted in over a month. Sorry about that.

We went on a camping trip to Payson Lakes which was cold and then got snowed on. The missus didn’t much care for that and didn’t care for the boy getting all muddy and wet so we packed up a day early and went home. I found out later from some friends that stayed that it was rather… cold… that night.

Anyway, on top of that, we went on vacation, the boy and the missus went to Oregon for a weekend, a family reunion and relatives vacationing here from Texas… I haven’t posted much.

I’ve thought about you all though - I’ve got to figure out a way to post with the Pocket PC offline and upload them later that is easy and bulletproof. I have great ideas and comments while I’m out and about but when I get back to the PC I have too much to do to post. I’ve mastered Sudoku as much as the Pocket PC version can give me so I need something else to waste time with.

Someday.

Oh, I also modded my XBox and put XBox Media Center on it. SWEET! Seriously, this turns the XBox from a games platform into an entertainment platform to play music, video, photos, games - whatever you want to do.

So, watch the slideshow above since I don’t know how long I’ll keep it up there and I’ll make an attempt to post on a more regular basis. Perhaps I’ll bore you with the drudgery that is my existence - especially as I enjoy reading so much about all of your lives (except for Bill who is still holding the high ground and won’t blog).

Chow!

So, I bought my reason-for-living a new mobile phone. Her previous phone had, well, issues, and we had replaced the phone on Verizon’s dime three or four times. It wasn’t the best experience for either side, I’m sure.

Having gone the route with Verizon where they will replace the faulty phone with the design that leads to failure with THE EXACT SAME PHONE, I was looking for a different way to buy a phone with some confidence that the vendor would provide some value. Being a very long time patron of our local Costco (I’ve been going there since 1982 and had a card of my own since 1984) I stopped by the in-store kiosk to ask some questions.

Sweet. Costco offers to refund the cost of the phone, even if I don’t like it anymore, for the life of the phone. Far better than the 15 days offered by Verizon. Even better, Costco only sells phones with a low return rate… so, I splurged. I got her the LG VX 8100 phone, which satisfies the geek in me and it feels good and you can set an alarm which satisfies most of her concerns.

Fast forward a week or so and I’ve just got a MiniSD card, since the phone has a MiniSD card slot. A bit of experimentation with some free software called SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder and Renderer at http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html) and I had a couple of episodes of The Muppet Show and an album of MP3s on her phone.

So where does the digital campfire come in?

I’m trying to get the boy ready for bed, but he is … reluctant. So, I pull out the missus’ phone and show him the Danny Kaye episode of The Muppet Show and he is hooked. I curl around so I can watch over his shoulder and we veg out to Miss Piggy and Kermie. After a few minutes, I realize that the missus is behind me also watching. So, we all are watching a TV show that we could have watched on the TV across the room but instead are watching on a little, tiny screen at a horrible resolution.

And we loved it.

Web Sudoku is a logic game (follow the link for the rules) that I started playing while waiting for my mum to get out of surgery yesterday. I have now played a total of six an unknown number of games…

(updated at 2:30 A.M. 3:15 A.M. since I switched to Medium Hard Evil level and have a new personal best)

Now that I’ve got the hang of the rules, it is getting easier. Kind of like Minesweeper where you set up rules and do what you can, then re-evaluate the ones that you couldn’t do before. My best times on Minesweeper were around 150 seconds on the expert level…

On a side note, do you know how cool it is that St. Mark’s Hospital has free wireless internet throughout the hospital? Not only could I distract myself while waiting (after reading the National Geographic) but today mom can read and write email and surf to take up time while recuperating.

Now, to be perfect, they need more power outlets…

Update: I just set a new personal best on the Evil level. 6 minutes 33 seconds. Sweet!

Update 10/16/2005: I just beat my previous best time! 4 minutes 29 seconds. I think it is time to do something else for a bit.

Doran, Wendell, Brenda, Warren

David discovers ‘The Court Jester’ starring Danny Kaye while on the road to Portland.

Learning The Lessons of Nixon » Free set of steak knives

Oh, I’m going to remember this one! I’m still giggling - mind you, I’ll have to remember not to use it on a person that I still want to talk to me in the future, with the possible exception of my brother (who wouldn’t make the offer anyway). He’d just laugh and zing me back later…

My son rode the school bus yesterday for the first time. By himself.

Now, I know that many millions of kids ride the bus every day. It shouldn’t be a big deal.

But, it is. He is only three and I could tell that he was a little nervous - but he said goodbye and climbed up. The driver made sure he was in his seat and I waved as they drove away, all choked up.

He was fine, had the time of his life. Me, I’m going to try to make this one more milestone on the path of his life. Still…

[Update Thursday, January 22, 2004]
Now he’s an old pro at riding the bus. Gets on, gets off all by himself and today he even did the seatbelt by himself.

Last Thursday, however, when he got home he was covered in blood. Seems he was looking out the window on the way home with his face pressed up against the glass when the driver hit a pothole. His nose bonked the glass and gave him a bleeder. No real damage, just scared him a bit.

So, in about 10 days or so, my schedule will change a bit dramatically. The Missus goes back to school, so I get to be Mr. Mom in the morning until she gets home. It makes for a long day…

However, I love it! I get to have 4 hours or so of quality father and son time. Sometimes we clean house, sometimes we have sword fights in the backyard. I really love this time and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

As an added bonus, the shift change puts me more in sync with our programming group in Hong Kong, China, which will be nice as the grueling development schedule takes hold.