You Tube Music Fun! New Wave and New Romantic

Another Great Genre of 80's music was New Wave. This initially referenced the "wave" of "new" punk music from London and Berlin, but soon encompassed New Wave, Punk, New Romantic, Mod, Ska and Gothic, or what was known in the 80's as Alternative Rock. These genres really launched MTV as the synth bands loved themselves so much they made videos of themselves to watch. It changed music and television forever.

Isn't music great! I can do this all day long. This is just the tip of the iceberg! Next time, Rock and Hair Bands!

January Leah

I love this picture of Leah. It really shows her playful and sweet nature.

It's just a glimpse of what fills my heart every day.

Leah playing with one of her new toys.

It's so cute when about four times a day she will bring me a book to read to her.

Curiosity often leads to trouble. So true!

We found Leah cleaning her plate at dinnertime. Boy she loves her some noodles.

Looks like she missed a couple noodles.

Boy Leah is cruising everywhere now. Ever since our trip to California and Mexico at Thanksgiving she really got the hang of walking. She kind of has this Charlie Chaplin gate that is so cute!

I found Leah pushing her Bliss Bear around in her toy stroller.

Leah loves this toy and it makes me laugh when her hair blows in the breeze like this.

Here's Leah talking on the phone. Oh how she loves the phone, or whatever resembles one. My ipod, the remote, the camera anything will do. Unfortunately the fun is over when there is someone on the other end. Sorry Grandmas!

It's short, but I captured one of Leah's first real words on video.

Teeth! One day I gave her her toothbrush and said, "brush your teeth",

and she did this very thing.

Some of Leahs' other words are Kitty Cat, Horsey, Duck (and the sound quack, quack, quack), Cookie, and Doggie (everything is doggie now-even bears and cows).

She also says, "who is it?" about 200 times a day. Have I mentioned her curiosity?

Here is Leah playing in the cabinet in my bedroom. She likes to cram herself in theses little cubbies like a circus act. Sometimes it's just a fun place to sit.

Woah, Baby Einstein. This is some serious bedhead.

Yeah! Leah is learning to ride her little bike on her own.

She still needs my help to turn around or back out of a corner, but look at her go!

"Now it's time to say good-bye to all our company...",

Well, this has been fun. I'll be back with more of Leahs' tricks in the near future.

Stay tuned for socks and stairs!

The 80's Live On!!!

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

So, maybe you know, maybe you don't. I am a product of the 80's and I am turning the big 4-OH! Sarah loves birthday parties. Me? Not so much. We came to an agreement a few years back that she would back off my birthday celebrations for five years until my 40th birthday and then five years after. The exchange would be that she could throw a huge 40th birthday party for me with an 80's theme. I agreed. She has not forgotten. I turn 40 on the 5th of February and we will celebrate in 80's style on the 6th. If you would like to go, let me know. It should be fun. Sarah always does it right.

20's Jazz to 80's Punk to Today...Music Rocks!

Anyway, I have been diving into my old 80's music grab bag and it makes me happy. I love just about every genre of music from Punk to Classical and every decade of music from the Jazz of the 20's to whatever you call today and everything in between. I love music! But the 80's just does something to me. Maybe it is the nostalgia it creates from a happy childhood and adolescence. You know the music was something special. This is when MTV began and actually played music videos! Of course, you would be hard pressed to find a music video on MTV today as they have sold their soul to the reality TV gods.

MTV, GET OFF THE AIR!!!

I was once asked what type of music I listen to when no one is around. My answer was the punk bands of the 70's and early 80's before it became a fad and too fast and loud. I was listening to some of these bands on my MP3 player and it made me search out some You Tube fun. I thought I would share. Maybe I will do this more often with all genres of 80's music as we lead up to the 80's party on February 6th. Enjoy...or don't...the choice is yours.

PUNKS NOT DEAD!!! It is just badly maimed!

Seychelle Water Bottles Aid Haitians

Many don't know, but Sarah and I have an online business related to emergency preparedeness. that sells Seychelle Water Filtration bottles and products. You can visit it here, at www.purelyfiltered.com. There was an article in this morning's Deseret News regarding a church's support and aid of the Haitians that were affected by the 7.0 devastating earthquake near Port Au Prince earlier this week. This church used to provide bottled water, among food, clothing and first aid, to those around the world that experience natural disaster such as this earthquake or hurricane Katrina. This church is the number two provider of these emergency services with only The Red Cross before them. Of course, this often goes unrecognized, but that is another story. They continue to provide these things, with one difference. Rather than providing bottled water, they now provide our Seychelle Water Filtration Bottles. The benefit of a bottle of water is only as good as how long it lasts. The benefit of a Seychelle Personal Water Filtration Bottle is that it can filter up to 400 gallons of water and remove 99.9% of harmful pollutants. These bottles will bring days and weeks of aid and support to those displaced by this awful event rather than a day or two. This church is sending 30,000 of these bottles with plans of purchasing more. Here is the article found in the Deseret News.

This brings me to my next point. A year ago, our ward and neighborhood participated in an activity that brought emergency preparedness and self-reliance to the front of my mind. I made it my goal to prepare myself and my family for any financial, natural or other disaster. We are not finished completely yet, but in the past year, we have managed to obtain 4-6 months food supply, cooking necessities, a gun, first aid mega kit and water filtration systems. We still need to work on blankets and heating sources, but we have come a long way. No emergency preparedness system should be without our products. They allow you to turn just about any water body into a consumable and vital survival source. With the new year upon us, we are about to jump our prices up. In the meantime, I would like to encourage everyone that reads this blog to consider purchasing these products. If not from us, then from someone. Luckily, our prices are comparable if not lowest and shipping is included. Seriously though. Consider this. What if it was your home town that was just destroyed or heavily damaged by an earthquake, tornado or hurricane? You could wait for help, and hopefully help will come. Why not be prepared in the smallest of ways?! Think about it.

We, purelyfiltered.com will donate 20% of all profits made in January and February from sales on our website, to the Haitians by way of The Red Cross. This is an opportunity for you to help prepare yourself and your loved ones while helping those in a distant land that need your help more than you may ever understand.

Below is a link to the product shown in the Deseret News Article. Thanks for listening to my rant. Thanks in advance for your purchase, but mostly, thank you for caring for those less fortunate.

http://www.purelyfiltered.com/product/1-10203-HI-SEYCHELLE

80's Music! Does It Get Any Better?!

I love music. I love just about all genres of music. I really loved the 80's...all of it! New Wave, New Romantic, Punk, Hair Bands, Heavy Metal...all of it! As Sarah plans her 80's bash for my birthday, I have spent a lot of time listening to 80's music on Sirius Satellite First Wave and KROQ 80's online. I just love it! As you can tell by the timestamp, it is quite late and I can't sleep. Out of boredom (and for love of all music 80's) I thought I would see if I could list 80's bands A-Z. Let's see. I may need some help.

A - ABC

B - Blancmange

C - Cult

D - Dead Kennedys

E - English Beat

F - Frankie Goes To Hollywood

G - Go-Go's

H - Howard Jones

I - Iggy Pop and the Stooges

J - Journey

K - Kajagoogoo

L - Los Lobos

M - Madness

N - New Order

O - Oingo Boingo

P - Polecats

Q - Q Feel

R - Rush

S - Stray Cats

T - Thompson Twins

U - U2

V - Vandals

W - Wham

X - XTC

Y - Yazoo

Z - ZZ Top

That actually wasn't hard at all. I got stumped for a moment with "L" and "N", but not much. Music is such a great thing.

Shut Up and Realize...USC is Good for College Football!

Everyone likes to see a giant fall. Too many people are excited to see SC experience things that prove the institution is not indestructible. What they don't realize is that USC Trojan Football is good for college football. More importantly, those fans of other PAC TEN schools need to realize is that SC is good for the PAC TEN. Below is an article from Nick Daschel's blog:

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Throughout the Pac-10, hands are furiously rubbing together in glee. Tongues are working overtime.

The King is dead.

You know that theme is playing out in sports bars and locker rooms in Eugene, in Seattle, in Corvallis, in Berkeley, in Tempe. Pete Carroll is gone and so is USC as the Pac-10’s immovable object. Finally, the nation is going to notice the Pac-10 for being something other than USC and the nine dwarfs.

Not so fast.

First, it’s not a foregone conclusion that USC’s dynasty is finished. The Trojans still have the Pac-10’s best recruiting classes from 2007, 2008 and2009. If USC hires a first-rate coach, there’s reason to believe the Trojans could string together two or three consecutive Pac-10 titles.

Even if athletic director Mike Garrett hires someone in his likeness – a bozo – USC will spoil more than few Pac-10 dreams just because of its talent.

But more importantly, why do many want to see the Trojans fall on hard times? A strong USC football program is good business for the Pac-10. When the Trojans are down, the nation considers the Pac-10 to be down.

It’s like Lakers-Celtics in the NBA, the New York Yankees in baseball, theDallas Cowboys in football. Love them or hate them, when those franchises are going well, so is business at the box office.

Let’s use the ACC as an example. This just in: the ACC is a BCS conference. But few around the country take the ACC seriously as a football league, even though as a whole, it has fared quite well in out-of-conference games in recent years. The reason the ACC is an afterthought is the lack of a superpower. When Florida State fell on hard times, so did the ACC.

The same is true with the Big East. It doesn’t have a bellcow football school, a program that is considered truly elite. Like the ACC, the Big East holds its own in non-conference games, but without a marquee program, it gets lost in the noise.

USC is the only program in the Pac-10 that can carry the water of a national power. Oregon may have sex appeal and the money bags of Phil Knight, but it’s a relative new shooter without a large television market. Washington is located in a large metropolitan area with a large TV base. But the Huskies have been down for so long, they’ll have trouble recovering even a small piece of their former status as a national program. California can’t win the Pac-10 title, let alone the nation. UCLA is only good for so long, and then basketball season starts.

The last time USC football was down for a period was the late 1990s through early 2000s. It might have been the worst period of football the Pac-10 has seen in decades. How else can you explain Tyrone Willingham winning a Pac-10 title (1999, Stanford) and Washington State getting to the Rose Bowl twice in five years?

If you want to see the Pac-10 become as irrelevant as the ACC and Big East, go ahead, root for USC to fall apart.

So, Shut up and root for SC to dominate once again. We all will be the better for it. FIGHT ON!!!

Truly Inspiring!

Many of you may have already seen this. If you have not, make sure you have a sleeve to wipe your eyes with before hitting play. A friend recently sent it to me again and I thought it was worthy of sharing here. This kid is truly inspiring and really understands life and happiness. I have often thought that the number one principle a parent ought to teach their children is the power of positive thinking and the benefits of a great attitude and outlook. Kudos to his parents as well.