always been the tower

I should note that I also love my little brother Spencer. He's great. And he's 15 now which is weird, but when you actually look at him you realize it's not beyond the scope of imagination.

The tower makes him look shorter than he is. Also the fact that this was like months ago and he's grown several inches since then.

Everybody better look out, this kid's gonna be behind the wheel!

talk about the little ones

My nephew is one year old today! We have had a lot of fun together this past year.

First he was born:

Here we are at the hospital!

Then I got to babysit him sometimes while we both still lived in Provo:

It usually went a lot like this.

And sometimes we just hung out:

Just chillin'

And then he moved to Michigan and the only way I ever babysat him was with video chatting.

But then I visited for Thanksgiving! He warmed right up to me:

Me or my glasses. One of those.

And then he visited for Christmas:

And then in April I discovered the screen capture feature in G+ hangouts:

Poke his tummy!

Clapping hands

He is not always a happy camper when we talk.

So that has been fun. Here's more pictures from our video chats, because he is cute:

This is his mom. I talk to her a lot too.

Sometimes she tries to fix his haircut but he is usually too grumpy.

He is a fast little guy!

Bein' cool.

We're pretty happy to have him around!

This is the only picture we have of him at his birthday party. He was quacking. (It was a duck theme.)

rev up the crowd, rewrite the rule book

For our spring division inservice we had the opportunity to go and tour Rio Tinto Stadium. We saw things that most people never see, which was pretty neat. In case anyone wanted to go on a virtual tour I thought I'd write up our experience.

Here we are at the entrance. That's my physical facilities team right there.

View of the field from the press box. Pretty sweet, right?

Is this really the press box? I don't know what it's called. But it's outside and the press hang out there I think. I was checking to see if the metal tables were warm from the sun -- not yet!

An inside room that also has a good view and is probably also for press. I promise I paid attention to the tour at the time. (Paul says this is the broadcast booth.)

Cables. Many cables.

Another press room. (Wait! Maybe this is the broadcast booth! It's been a couple weeks, okay?)

The A/V room. (Not what it's called! Why is everything abandoning me?) I assume this is where the  Director works. All of the replays and camera angle switches happen from this place.

(It's called the Command Center. I am indeed going through all of these captions after the fact with edits for accuracy.)

By the way, that is Carlos. He was our tour guide and did a fantastic job.

A suite.  This is where cool people who pay money get to watch the game from luxury.

The upper level of the hospitality suite (used to be the owner's suite, but the current owner has a different suite now).

Another angle of the hospitality suite.

Lower level of the hospitality suite. Looks comfortable, doesn't it?

Don't worry. Even working for Real Salt Lake means a soulless cubicle life.

This is the Budweiser Club Room. It can be rented out for functions. I am not all that surprised it doesn't get rented out for receptions terribly often because no one wants to tell their grandma they're celebrating their marriage in a Budweiser room.

Trophy case. Pretty fancy! Our teams do pretty well. (Including the women's affiliate team [probably not the right term] which is that tiny trophy on the left of the big one.)

Now, THIS is the SubAir. It is a very neat piece of technology. It can blow warm air up onto the grass roots to keep them from dying when it gets cold. It can also suck out excess moisture from the grass when it rains too much. That's how they keep the field in such top playing conditions.

Another angle of the fantastic machine, without my face in the way.

And here is the magically green field, kept perfect for games. Fun fact: soccer tears up the green more than rugby does.

This is a locker room. Not the players' locker room (that is too sacred to visit), just auxiliary. but they're about the same.

We visited on a Wednesday, but the Commissary was still full of workers getting food ready for Friday night..

100 Lions Club room. These people have fancy seats in the arena, cushioned and with cupholders and free food, as well as this place where they can chill (probably not literally, but when we were there I was so cold I thought I was going to die). I promise I'm not picking my nose...probably.

We didn't only tour the RioT. Here we are checking out the construction on Draper Seminary. If anyone was wondering how sheltered I am, there was a worker there spending his lunch break with Mary Jane and I didn't know what the smell was. I still don't. I'm still sheltered. I'm just trusting that my coworkers knew what they were smelling.

We also went out for froyo. I'm sad we didn't get any pictures of our lunch: we went to Adobos Caribbean grill, which is primarily Puerto Rican food. I had mofongo (verdict: it was much better for dinner that night). We also had a Jennifer Lopez concert for entertainment. Maybe that's why we didn't get a picture.

Here is a picture of a seminary classroom. The scripture cabinets, to be precise.  Seminary buildings are kind of our thing. That and institute buildings. We really branched out checking out stadium buildings.

There you go! Hope that wasn't too boring -- I had a good day! Also I feel like a lot of people would envy me if they knew all I'd seen. I'm all about promoting envy toward myself.

this is the same place

You know what I think about every day? Elevator etiquette.

I take the elevator fairly often:
Up from the parking garage
Up from the main floor
Down to lunch
Up from lunch
Down to the main floor
Down to my parking level

(Not always this number of times -- when I take the trax I don't include the parking garage in my daily plans, sometimes I bring my own lunch, sometimes I have meetings on other floors)

Every time I get in the elevator is a new experience, a new etiquette question to answer. Where do I stand so  I'm not in anyone's way if they get off at a different floor than I do? That girl got on the elevator before me and we're getting off the same floor. Do I let her go first or do I go first? Is that guy going to follow usual elevator etiquette and let the ladies go first?

(It's usually a relief when I'm the only one on an elevator.)

Conversations on an elevator are also a conundrum. Usually nobody talks at all. But sometimes people will start to talk to each other (usually after lunch: I most often have someone tell me how yummy my frozen yogurt looks). Sometimes there's already a conversation going on and I have to pretend I can't hear it. (Or pretend to be mildly interested.)

Isn't it nice to have something to expand the mind every day? (Not that overhauling the way I take meeting minutes hasn't been an exciting use of time today.)