Dentist

Holly and I went to the Dentist today and do not have any cavities! We are so excited! Plus having clean teeth feels sooooo good. I like clean teeth.

My Argumentative Essay

Here is my essay that I wrote in English:

English 960

Kids Are Getting Lazy
Children are getting lazier every day. You don't see kids outside playing any more. Children are not running around the neighborhood, playing basketball, or riding their bikes. They are driving their motorized scooters, or "Segways". Many times they won’t even go to their friend’s house without getting into their parents nice air conditioned car, or truck, with that nice climate control to make it more comfortable for them. I have a friend who will drive across the street to go to the gym. It would take less time to just walk across the street, than it would take to get into a car, drive across the street, find a parking stall, get out the car, and go inside. That is a perfect example of the kind of laziness that is seen more and more often. Some of the ways that we are getting lazy are with the television, computer, and text messaging.
People watch a ton of television, not only in their cars, but at home too. I think that we all would be very surprised to see how many hours of television are watched by our kids. Homework, chores, reading a book, are all being put onto the back burner to watch the "boob tube" (as my mom calls it). When I grew up we had 2 TV’s in the whole house. Now I see my nieces with a TV in their own room, which is causing one of my nieces to be very anti-social. Usually, when my grandma would come over, or anyone else, we would call the family up to visit; my niece would always say "But my show is on!" which would upset my grandma because she is not able to visit with everyone.
There is no need to leave the house anymore. If you want to go shopping you can just turn on the television to go shopping. You can find just about anything on the television, not just objects but a date too. Some of the shows/channels popular with my friends are the Music Video channels or the Video Game channels. They all watch them constantly to become a better gamer. If you are not able to get enough television because of your busy schedule, you can always watch television from your cell phone. There are a number of channels that are available to watch.
Another option on most cell phones is text messaging. A text message is a written message sent from one cell phone to another; it is a very popular form of communication. Text messaging is causing a problem in schools; students are text messaging answers to tests to each other. "Texting" is happening everywhere, you can not go to the mall without seeing people "texting" back and forth. Many schools and places of business are not allowing cell phones to be turned on during business hours due to the fact that their employees would be watching TV, surfing the web, playing games, or "texting" their friends, when they should be working.
When I was a kid, I was constantly playing outside riding my bike or playing in the oak forest down the street. I would run and play in the park or build a fort. I could play from dusk till dawn and it was always outside. I loved it! Now a days, they have computers to do it all for them by allowing you to live through the computer game.
Many games are role playing games, where you create who you want to be, which has had some huge problems as a side affect. I remember hearing about this group of people who were really good at a game similar to Grand Theft Auto. In the game the more you killed the more points you got, if you killed a police officer you got a lot of points, robbing a bank was even more points, and robbing a bank with a police officer and killing him giving even more points than before. This group got really good at the game and they beat it. So they decided to take the game into the real world and become those characters by putting on masks and really robbing banks, killing people and keeping track of all the points, all of this because of a game. The hours spent to get to the point that your mind can not differ between reality and a game is beyond my imagination. Granted this is an isolated scenario but the fact is that it took hundreds of hours to get to that point. And if computer games are not tantalizing enough for them, youths can surf the World Wide Web all day. Either way, the hours that could be spent outside doing some physical activity are spent sitting on the couch munching on potato chips and playing video games. Even homework is affected you don’t have to remember how to spell words anymore, the computer does it all for you; all you have to use is the spell checker.
With all of these choices we have in front of us, the time spent with our families is dwindling faster than a couch potato trying to answer the phone. I remember watching a movie where the dad had to instant message his kids that it was dinner time instead of just telling them. Even then, I think that the food was a TV dinner. I know many families’s that don’t cook at all, well, at least not in my opinion of cooking. Cooking to me is taking all the ingredients and putting them together to create a delicious dish. Instead, they would go to a fast food place and order a fattening hamburger with French fries and a coke. To make matters worse they would eat it while driving; the problem is that this fast food is not healthy and not good for you. I remember last year I was at work and heard that if Americans continue their eating habits that in about 8 years almost all of America will be obese.
From prepared food to motorized scooters, conveniences do make life easier. But the truth is that these products are also making us lazy. It is almost making life too easy. It is making it so that we don’t leave the couch unless we have to go to the bathroom. We have electronics to do everything for us. Our imaginations are being replaced with video games and our work ethic and imaginations are going down the toilet. No one is perfect, including myself, but I can at least not be afraid to go outside and play. I hope that we will all get out of this hard working drought and start getting off the couch and doing something.

School

Well this semester I am taking English 955. It is a fun class, and I like my teacher. She does a good job from what I can tell, so far. Tomorrow I have a Argumentative paper due. I decided to do it on kids getting lazy! Once I have finished my paper I will post it here.

Here is something way cool that I got from an email:
Click here
It is interesting to see how much someone can conseal and take to school. I only show this as an example and a warning to us and our kids, neices, nephews, etc.

More stuff

Well we finally got the inspection report back and now are just waiting on the appraisal. The only things that were wrong were very minor. Such as attaching the drain spout to the house, attach a drain that is being held up by a string. And the only thing that could turn into a major thing is that all the outlets do not have a ground. So I will address this later.

Our weekend was busy as usually. Saturday consisted of working at Lagoon-A-Beach from 8am to 10pm. Sunday was my day to rest, I know that I should of and could of gone over to my parents house for dinner. They invited me since I was home alone and Holly was working all day. But I just did not feel good. I think that my candles that have been burning at both ends is finally catching up to me. Holly is doing good. We have been getting to bed earlier so that has been helping me though. It just seems like no matter how much you sleep you never feel rested. You know? Well it is another day and all you can do is just keep plugging away.

Well today is the 5th anniversary of September 11th. Let us all remember this day! It is a day to reflect and honor those individuals that have lost their lives in it. Not only the victims but the family's and police officers, firefighters, emt's, hospitals that all made miracles that day! Let us honor them today.

What's next?

Well just to let you all know that our house inspection is on Wednesday (tomorrow) at 2 pm. After that we need the appraisal done and then we sign the papers and move in:)

On a different note I just would like to say how proud I am of my cousin Rebecca, many of you know what she has been going through, many of you dont. To read the blog about her struggle go here. She has been an inspiration to MANY people here. Many miracles have happened due to friends and family and their faith in our Savior. She is struggling with cancer. Right now she is going through the chemo therapy. May the Lord continue to bless and protect her! Rebecca we love you!

The rest of the pics

Here is 1 of the 2 bedrooms downstairs

Another pic of the front.
View one of kitchen.

View 2 of kitchen.

Just so that you know that it is a holly house: :)

We bought a house! :)

Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We bought a house. Sorry it has been forever since I have posted anything on here. Anyways, here is what is new: On Friday August 25 Holly and I made an offer on a house in Roy. A few hours later our agent called us and told us that the seller made a counter offer. Well we accepted the counter offer and at 8:30pm we signed it and faxed it over to the seller's agent. :) Yea! So we got it. I will put pictures on here at the end. It is a cute 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house. It has a basement. 2 bedrooms are downstair and 1 is up. Upstairs it all hardwood floors except the kitchen. The laundry room is downstairs. And it has a shed. It is a very quiet neighborhood. There are a lot of kids that play outside on our street. So when we have kids if we are still here they will have plenty of playmates. We have the deadline of getting all the paperwork and everything taken care of by September 28. It should be faster than that. So we are hoping to be moving in the first part of October. :) Now onto the pictures:
This is the front

Back yard

Potty room

Upstairs bedroom

I am having problems uploading more pictures. So I will post more later. Sorry guys.

I havn't been around a while

Sorry I havn't posted anything here in a while. Holly and I are WAY busy. Holly is working a ton and I am right there with her. We have been out of debt for about a month now. So, we talked to a mortgage officer and are pre-qualified for a house. We are looking in the Roy, Hooper, Clinton area. Hopefully we will find one that meets all that we are looking in a house.
Peace-

The Utah State Quarter

Well, Yesterday Governor Leavitt told everyone that the Utah State quarter will be the golden spike one. Here is a picture of all three:
To read all about the history about the "Golden Spike" click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spike

The internet

Ok so I have been little worried about things. Especially my kids when they are here. (mom holly is not pregnant) If you watched channel 2 news last night at 10 p.m. They did an article about a local radio station that does a program called scared straight. You can view what they have written here: http://www.971zht.com/pages/scaredstraight/ it is a hyper link so please click on it. I HIGHLY recommend reading it. What they do is every Thursday morning they bring in their laptop into the office and get online. They pose as a 13 year old girl, and just sit there. Within a few seconds they have someone trying to talk to them. They don't know who is online with them for all we know it is a really old fat man. So they start to chat with the person and try and get a phone number out of him. They call him on the air and start to talk to him. These guys are just gross and nasty. What they say to a 14 year old girl is horrible. So before they start into the nasty nasty talk one of the male radio people gets on the phone and starts to talk to them. From here they give the IP address and the phone number to the internet task force. So after reading/hearing about it I did a little research myself there is a product out there called cybersitter http://www.cybersitter.com/cybinfo.htm it is a great program that filters out bad content as well as recording all chats so that you (the parent) can read what your child is having a conversation with to make sure you child is not talk to a pedophile.

Soap Box

Please understand that the opinions reflected in this post does not necessarily reflect anyone and or any certain company. Nor towards any certain company. It is just about people.

One thing that has really upset me is when people are hired/asked to do certain things and they DON'T do it. It is frustrating. Especially when they just sit on their butt and do nothing and then I have to do it. I am ok with doing it, but the real catcher is when they come and complain to me about how it should be done. They should do there job/duty and let me do mine. It really upsets me! Do the job you are supposed to do and let me do mine. Not me do yours and mine and expect other things. I know this is vague, I need to be vague for certain reasons. Please don't get me wrong, I like to work and do not mind doing more that asked. But please don't complain to me that I am not doing my job when I am. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! O.K. so I am done now. I will get off the soap box and will write more, later, about better, more interesting things. And a big thanks goes out to Blair for commenting. I appreciate it Blair.

Home

Well with much anticipation my dad is finally home. He got home last week. It is very nice to have him home. One of the things that he is most excited about is sleeping in your own bed. Plus you don't have to worry about all the nurses waking you up every hour or so. But he is home and the family is happy now :)

My dad :(

I am sure that many of you have heard that my dad had a heart attack this weekend. IT'S BEEN A LONG WEEKEND! So here is the story and I will have pictures of it as well. (Not actual pictures of my dad, just pictures I found on the internet.)

Friday night and Saturday:

It all started Friday night when my dad ate some ribs. He woke up in the middle of the night with chest pain. He gets heartburn really easy, so he thought it was that. He took some antacid stuffs and it went away so he went back to bed. He woke up a few times that night before he took the antacid stuffs. In the morning, he woke up with chest pain again. He thought it was weird, so he had some milk to help calm his stomach, thinking it was heartburn again. And then started to head down to Jacob's house to help him with his remodeling project he has going on. By the time he reached centerville area his chest was hurting really bad. So he decided that he better get to the hospital so he missed the 500 S. Bountiful exit as well as the 2600 S. Exit. He could not merge over fast enough. So he ended up taking the center street exit of NSL. By this time the pain was so intense he needed to pull over for a bit. Not only was the pain intense but he could not breathe very well. He then started to drive to Lake View Hospital. On the way he pulled over again and lost his breakfast. By this time the pain was stronger and it was more difficult to breath. Had his cell phone been charged he would of called 911. As he was traveling he had to run 2 red lights because he NEEDED to get to the hospital. He was sweating profusely now. He pulled into the ER parking lot and walked into the ER. When he got to the reception desk he was in so much pain he could not stand. He was leaning on the desk telling them his name and that he thinks he is having a heart attack. So the nurse went and got an orderly and rushed him into the back. It was by chance that the doctor that does the heart surgeries was there in the hospital at that moment. They gave him several drugs. One of which was nitroglycerine. The doctor's and nurses were running around trying to do everything to save my dad's life. Had he been 5 minutes longer he would have died. :( It is a miracle that he is here now.

Here is what they did:
The aorta is what was %100 blocked off. Plus another artery was 90-80% blocked.

Here is another picture of the same thing. Just a different view:

Now what I mean by %100 blocked is that there was no blood flow going through the Aorta. What they did to fix the problem is put a stent in. A stent is a cylindrical wire mesh that they put in where the blockage is to allow blood to flow through. The one that they put into my dad was coated with medication to help the blockage free up and the body accept it. It is a total 36mm long. Which is almost the longest ones they make. Here is a picture of an example:

As you can tell from the picture they go through the body with a tube. In my dad's case they entered the femoral artery located in the crease of the right leg and the trunk of the body. They would push the tube up to the blockage and put in the stent. The whole time my dad was awake. He did not feel a thing from them putting in the stent. They numbed up the area and plus he was in too much pain from his heart to feel them doing the stent. After the surgery they put him into the ICU.

Sunday:

This morning my dad woke up with water in his lungs. Also called Pulmonary Adema. So they gave him lasics (spelling?), which helps him discharge the water naturally. Which he did wonderfully. The whole day he stayed up in the ICU. He had a hard time breathing. It was very shallow and forced. Every moment he had it seamed like he would try and sleep and then someone would come in and wake him. Usually the nurse's or family. Sunday he rested.

Monday:

Today my dad moved to a recovery room. He took a shower and got out with difficulty breathing again. He had Pulmonary Adema again. So they took him back to the ICU. At this point in time they gave him lasics again. It did not work as well as it did on Sunday. But it worked. His breathing was a lot more labored and intense that the first time he had Pulmonary Adema. The nurse's called the doctor and told him about it. So he came down and talked with my dad and family about the next step. They were not going to fix his other artery until a few weeks later when his body had healed more. The reason is because it is a lot of trauma on the body to go through what he did. So he told us that my dad was not healing fast enough and they are needing to a stent in the other artery that is 80-90% blocked. The doctor believes that the artery is supplying blood flow to the heart. Particularly the mitral valve. Here is a picture of a mitral valve:

So because the mitral valve was not working properly blood was going back into the lungs and then that would cause the Pulmonary Adema.

Tuesday:

Tuesday morning they took my dad into surgery again. They put another stent in. It was successful and without complications. He is in the ICU, currently, and will be there until they put him in recovery. He will spend atleast 2 days there and then be released. I know that my dad was watch by our Heavenly Father. It is an answer to many prayers and blessings that he is here. A friend of mine works in an ER and said that during that weekend there were 6 heart attacks, including my dad's. 5 died. My dad was the only one that survived. And they were all about his age too. I am grateful that he is here! :)

Something I learned today (I know surprising isn't it)

A word from a not so wise person to the wiser person. Ya know one of the big things for many many people is their credit. As in their credit report rating. People everywhere dont want their credit pulled. Oh it will hurt my credit rating. No, I have worked hard at that and I dont want to hurt it, etc, etc... They are right and wrong all at the same time. If you pull it more than 4 times a year it will drop your credit rating. Well, that is just what I have heard. So here is what I learned from a real experience. When you get old and are more financially stable and only use cash. It is a good idea to have some type of credit card open. Here is the reason why: I guess after 10 years of something being on your credit it goes away from your report. So with that being said, If you are 60 years old and have paid everything off and have been using cash for... 15 years and you decide to buy a car. You will need a co-signer due to lack of credit history. Crazy huh! So always try and keep something open so you dont have to worry about you credit rating going going gone...

Me and holly

Hi everyone,
I thought that I would post a pictures of me and holly. So here it is.
School has been pretty crazy for me. Staying up late and then getting up early is kicking my trash. Plus for school I park near by campus and then I ride my bike to class and then back to my truck. It is fun going down to my class because it is all down hill. It is very tuff going back to my truck though. By the time I get back to my truck my legs and butt are on fire! It is helping me get in shape though. :) Holly is starting another job tomorrow. She is helping out with a scrap book expo/really big sale. It will be held up at the Weber county fair grounds. She did it last year. It was very fun for her as well as very long. She will be doing the cash register and will be stocking the tables with all the products. She will start tomorrow, like I said, and will work until Saturday. She does it with her sister. Well that is it for now.

UMMMMMMMMMMMMMM...

I realize that I have not posted in a while. This last weekend holly and I went out on a date. We went and saw a movie. It was good, I liked it. And then we went and walked throughout the mall. It was fun, just to walk and talk. The simple dates are usually the most fun. And then we went to the shed for dinner. MMMMMMMMMmmmm good food. I ordered the steak and ranch potatoes and holly ordered the BBQ chicken. Holly love's there pickles. So I asked the waiter (cool guy by the way) where he gets them from? Cisco he said. And then I asked (just out of curiosity, I know I am weird) how much it would cost for a jar? And he said that it comes in a 5 gallon bucket, and I forgot the price already. But WOW could you imagine 5 gallons of pickles. I was joking with holly that when she is pregnant I will have to get it for her. :) That and potatoes so I could make her French fries (she loves my homemade French fries too). By the way she is NOT pregnant.

Sunday we went to church. My in-laws gave talks. The whole Macari family. They all did a great job. Holly and I are primary teachers. We teach the CTR 5 class. And well that pretty much sums up the weekend.

Holly started to teach last week. She teaches the EMT class for Weber School District, at Roy fire station. She enjoys it.

School

Well, school starts today. I am taking two classes. On Monday's and Wednesday's I have Math 960 from 7:30 pm to 8:50 pm. And on Tuesday's and Thursday's I have a Intro to Microcomputer Applications from 7:00 am to 8:20 am. Basically it is Microsoft Word, excel, Power Point, etc. In case you are wondering, my major is Pre-Engineering. (Well, that is as of right now ;)) It's changed before. I plan on being a structural engineer. I have no preference on Residential or commercial. I also would like to double major in Drafting.

Holly's Back!!!!!!!! :)

On Wednesday about 7a.m., Holly went to Texas for training. Holly is working for Lagoon-a-Beach again this year. Her training was held at Texas A&M. This is her third year that she has gone there for training. She was trained on lifeguarding skills. She and her fellow co-worker's are now able to train the lifeguards at Lagoon-a-beach. Well she got back Saturday at 11:30 p.m. It is so nice to have her home!!!!! No matter how often your spouse leaves it is hard. :(

All I can say about Holly being home is:

Project "0"

Well at work we did this project called "Project"0"". It is an effort by our company to encourage health. During the holidays, (November to January) the goal is to not gain a single pound. We had to weigh in on November 19 2005. And then weigh again on January 6 2006. Well I weighed in today and am pleased to say that I did not gain a single pound! :) Most of my co-works did not either ( I am still waiting on a couple to weigh in). If more company's tried to make an effort like this I think that America would be much different. I am not trying to condone fat or skinny people. I am not the skinniest myself. I am trying to say that there would be less heart problems, etc. My company told us all a statistic that by 2038 all American's would be obese. Obviously that is if we continue to maintain our laziness (for lack of better words).

Newbie

Hey guys,
I am new here to blogging. We'll see how it goes. Just a few things about me and my wife. We live in Hooper, UT. The way you pronounce Hooper is you say Hooker and now replace the k with a p and so you say Hooper. I hope that makes sense. We'll my wife and I are both going to college. Currently saving up for a house/getting out of debt. I work in a bank (I am a loan officer) and seeing how much debt people have is insane. I guess that Utah's average credit card debt is 35k-40k!!! That is crazy. So after seeing many credit reports and WAY to much garbage my wife and I now have a great disliking of debt. Ok enough of my ranting. We have no children. We live with the inlaws. It's ok. Their cool people. It is helping us out and them too. Well I have to go so I will post some more later.
ralleyclimber