The Mystery Is Solved

Oh hi Elder Rivera,

You had a big week. I saw the pictures from your mission conference. You were only in the background of a few of them. You looked happy and like you were having fun in them. I also noticed that you didn’t take a picture with the President and his wife. We hope you got your pants and shirts.

This week was fairly quiet around here and at work. Monday night I changed mom’s front brakes. The pads weren’t as worn as I had thought but since I bought all of the parts I’d change them anyway. Better now than in the cold weather, plus, mom wants to keep her car for a long time so I’m trying to keep on top of it. Several neighbors on walks stopped by to chat. They seemed semi puzzled that I would do my own brakes. Like it was either beneath them or inconceivably too complex to do on your own. Weirdly, I enjoy doing brakes. 

All week last week I was feeling off. Not really sick but just tired. So I didn’t do too much during the week. Also, I must have held my poop too much on that trip, because every time I got the urge it hurt down there. Oh, and when I needed to fart? Holy crap, literally, it killed! Like a dagger from the inside bottom out, not kidding. I know you wanted to hear that, but I’m better now.

Last week a couple of cool things happened. There’s this website that I go to to look at 4Runner mods and accessories. It’s a cool site and pretty informative. They had a banner up offering free accessories for review. I filled out an application which called for a sample of photography skills and some article ideas. I submitted the application and heard back right away. He loved my photo and all of my article ideas. So In going to write an article about that modification I made to that rack. I’m going to have to rebuy some of the parts for the article, but it shouldn’t be too bad. Hopefully it turns out well enough to get some cool gear to review. Also, on Saturday Mr. Rip Mason contacted me and wants to chat next week. I don’t assume he has another life altering offer for me, but it will be fun to chat with him. Calm down, I have no interest in moving again, ever.

This week was the last episode of the Obi-Wan series. Jacob, it was awesome, this surpassed the Mandolorian for my favorite Star Wars show. There was a light saber battle between Obi and Darth Vader, IT-WAS-SOOOO-FREAKING-COOL! I told Ben that Obi-wan had taken over my favorite fictional hero over Aragorn. It close, but he is better. (I’m being nudged by Argeorqui reminding me that HE’S my favorite fictional hero)

The big event this week was the Hill AFB Air Show. Ben and I went with uncle Tim. I had agreed to meet at his house at 7am, but for whatever reason I totally spaced it and didn’t get there till 8. Oh well, he was chill about it. He volunteered to drive and with gas prices as they are, I quickly agreed. Well, the long running mystery of why Aunt Lithia drives has been solved. Oh man. His car has this radar guided cruise control. All you do is set it and it will keep a constant distance between you and the car in front of you. He likes to use that to make driving easier. Well, when you get on a sparsely filled freeway, get behind the slowest moving semi truck, and stay there for miles despite the other five lanes being traffic clear, aggravation ensues. Well, he was chill about me being late so I was going to be calm about this. Then we decided to stop at McDonald’s. There’s one just off the freeway in centerville. He got off in the wrong lane and tried to cross three lanes of traffic in less than a block. Thankfully, he didn’t. He then decided to flip a u-turn. As he was looking for a place to do that he came dang close to going through a red light. I kept my calm and just pointed at the light. But then I noticed a mom and a little girl running across right in front of him. That’s when I vigorously suggested he use his brakes. He swore, I tried not to laugh, but It even rattled Ben.

We got to the base and had to walk about a mile to the security line. Two minutes after we got to the line uncle Tim started to talk to the random guy next to him. As per his super power, he chatted him up long enough to realize that they went to byu at the same time and that there was a slim chance that they had crossed paths at some point. They then caught each other up on every aspect and detail of their loves in the 45 minutes that they were in line. I realized something about myself at that point. If I see someone who looks familiar but that I can’t place, I purposely avoid eye contact. I have a long way to go if I want to have uncle Tim’s super power.

The air show was spectacular. I’ve been going since the 80s. I remember going with my friend and his grandpa when I was a kid. I’ll bet that his grandpa was about my age at the time. I also remember going with my brother. We actually were at one where one of the Thunderbird F-16s had an engine failure and crashed. It was crazy. It was far enough away that we only saw a black mushroom cloud from the crash. The rest of the planes didn’t come back for a long time. When they finally did, they flew over in the missing man formation, signaling a lost squadron member. It was weird because the thousands of people that were there walked out silently, almost reverently. We verified that the pilot did die, he had radiod just before impact that he wanted to avoid hitting a camper. He did avoid it and probably save lives, but he lost his.

No such tragedy thankfully this year. There was a huge variety of planes on the ground, we checked every one of them out. There were great air demonstrations too. The highlights were an F-35 demo, at one point he flew with a P-51 from WW2. Am A-10 flew with an F-22 raptor. An F-18 Super Hornet like from Top Gun. And obviously the Thunderbirds. I got some pretty cool pictures that I’ll send along with this. 

There was a lot of people there and it was hot. Actually, more bright and sunny than just hot. Standing on the almost white runway reflecting the nearly equinox summer sun down on you will bake you. We all got fried. But uncle Tim especially. He looked like mr crabs by the time we got home. Ohh…the drive home. He cut across four lanes of traffic twice on the way to the freeway. And he got flipped of on the freeway once for not letting someone in. It seemed much less life threatening than the drive in though.

After Ben and I got back in our car we decided to get dinner at Hires. We almost never go there anymore. But oh dang was it good. After, we just came home for cold shower and shade,

Today at church we had a talk where this one lady literally made up stories to use as proof points for her talk. Told everyone how great her kids were for singing in a choir. It was worse than it sounds, trust me. But Jacob Carver also spoke and did a really nice job. Oh, but the highlight was that the two loudest male singers in the ward plus bishop Marchant did the musical number. Complete with a narration to get it started. I told Ben I’d buy him the Cd of his new favorite vocals group. 

Dinner tonight was burgers at grandmas, nice summer food including corn on the cob and watermelon. Yum.

I think that’s all I have for tonight kid. Love you. Talk tomorrow.

Pops