Ben rant of the week: “Ground beef is so, sooo overrated!”

Ben rant of the week: “Ground beef is so, sooo overrated!”

Oh hi kid!

How the freak are you doing this week?

Did you get to go on the temple trip tonight? Grandma and grandpa came over for dinner tonight, we had cream cheese chicken and baked potatoes, yum. Mom made chocolate Texas sheet cake with strawberries and whipped cream, super yum. Right now we’re watching the second disc of the fellowship of the rings. Things don’t change around here too much, for which I am ever grateful. Ethan’s dad asked about you, he said Ethan is helping him out at his work, that he wants to follow him in orthodontics. 

Things here are stable, they are really good considering what’s going on in the world. The Russians have been advancing through the Ukraine. They’ve taken over a couple of cities in the south, taking at least two nuclear power plants (which is clearly against the rules of war). The Ukrainian people are holding strong, even heroically. But now the Russians are attacking them directly, killing them openly and destroying homes and apartments. It’s bad. But the Russians should be making better progress. Some people think they only have the resources to go for another few weeks, I guess we’ll see. The Ukrainian President Zalinskie is holding strong and doing a heroic job, Washingtonian like. But he’s begging the US and NATO to enforce a no fly zone over the country. The west is reluctant because it could lead to a direct all out war, and Putin is acting more and more unstable. He says the sanctions are “an act of war”, which means that they are working. Every day there are images of brave Ukrainians standing their ground or even shooting down aircraft. Only trump still openly supports him.

Onto better news, at least least less depressing stuff.

I was gratefully not sore after skiing like I thought it might be. Friday night ben made some pretty good pizza for dinner. After, mom had made appointments to do sealing at the temple. Neither of us was really in the mood, but we managed to go. I had a bunch of names on my side. Once we got started the Spirit was strong and I was really grateful that we went. We came home and watched disk one of the fellowship.

Yesterday was a pretty typical Saturday for the Rivera’s. We hung out with Joey in the morning before he went to work around 11. Ben got home early so it was nice to be together for a bit in the morning. I made some progress on my 4Runner. I FINALLY got my lights and switches hooked up and working. I also replaced my CB radio with a dual band HAM radio. I need an antenna and a license, but it’s a much better radio for communication. What is still kicking my butt is my compressor. The wiring is far too overly complicated. It may just come down to two wires, but I didn’t have time to figure it out. Once I do, I just need to hook up the air fittings. Next I want to get a better rack, but I’ll need to wait for a freelance project or some extra money for that. I also have a few projects for the trailer. I got a shower enclosure that attaches to the rack, and hopefully be quicker to set up. 

Later Saturday we met Joe for his lunch break at 3:30. We went to rancharito’s. It was dependably good as always. We came home after and a few minutes after we got here there was a huge thunderstorm with hail and sleet. I didn’t think too much of it but then mom got a call from sister gates. She was pretty upset, she was coming home over on rock hollow road over by the baseball fields in the slick and slid all the way to the bottom and hit one of those big utility boxes. Turns out that was pretty lucky because she could have gone even farther down that hill or hit the giant power pole that’s down there. By the time we got there some of the neighbors had already pulled her out and she had calmed down. I, in my dad way, called the cops because that box was wide open with all of these wires just out in the open, I was afraid someone was going to get a shock. After that, mom needed to run an errand to target. It was really slick all the way there. It was kinda crazy because just on our side of the neighborhood it was mostly just rain. But on the north side it was like 3 or more inches of that snowed, slushy, Icy stuff. It snowed more overnight too.

Ben’s on spring break this week, so I won’t be getting up super early. Joe has his ACT on Tuesday. The rest of the week will be normal and getting ready for the camping trip. Since we planned it, the forecast keeps getting colder. Two weeks ago it was supposed to be in the 30s at night. Now the forecast says the teens. Mom had been planning on coming, but now she’s not so sure. I should have kept our plans for Death Valley.

Well, I guess that’s all I have for tonight. Love you elder, so much.

Pops