Dream Come True!

Well I can officially say that one of my dreams has come true.

I now have my own Chest Freezer in my back yard. I have wanted to get one of these for the longest time. I love to buy things is big bulk and now I have the storage place to do it.
When I was growing up, my parents always bought beef from a slaughter house, a lot of the time this beef was from one of the cows that we had purchased in the spring. We would go to the cattle auction with my grandfather in Vernal, Utah (actually it was Maeser, Utah) and purchase a cow. My grandfather would then raise it through the summer, and then we would slaughter it for beef.
As a kid growing up, this was one way to make money. I would purchase the cow for about $0.97/lb and then sell it for about $1.50/lb. The extra money would go to pay my grandfather for feed and maintenance and the rest would go to the bank.

Not a whole lot of money, but about $250 per year. It was more fun than anything.

Anyway, this past weekend I bought a 7.0 cubic foot chest freezer and put it in my back yard. Now I can stock it full of excess food and beef. That just means more BBQ time for me, as the main reason I don't cook more is cause it is always at the spur of the moment.
BBQ here I come!

The car is sold!

Well, after posting my car for sale on KSL.com 2 different times, it is finally sold. I actually got what I expected to get out of it. $3800, it was blue book at $4246, but there was 2 small things wrong with it and they were about $500 to fix. So all in all, I consider it a great sale.
The funny thing is; the guy that bought it was so excited to purchase it, I could barely get the keys in his hands before he gave me the money and drove off. He didn't even test drive it at all. And by that I mean, he started the car and said, "sweet, here you go" and gave me the money.

I guess he was stoked about it, and so was I.

I paid off my wife's new car, the 2002 Ford Explorer and now I drive her old car, 2000 Oldsmobile Intrigue. Not a bad car, but the first day I drove it, the driver's side window gears broke. That is like $500 to fix, so I went to Auto Zone and bought some glue and put the window back in place. Total repair = $3.99 and 2 hours. Definitely worth it.

Now I can't roll the window down, but I wasn't going to spend $500 to fix something that I don't really need to fix. I am planning to run the car into the ground, so no need to fix it....right?

It has been too long!

So I have been told by a number of people that........I SUCK! I hope it is mainly because I have not blogged in almost 2 months. I have just had so many things going on that I have not been able to take the time to do so.

When I say so many things, I am talking about:

A) Fantasy Football Draft




B) Setting up another Fantasy Football League







C) Playing Softball with my co-workers, and

D) Trying to sell my car, and buy a new one.....to keep the wife happy. :)








As you can see these things are all of the up-most importance. Especially the Fantasy Football, I am in a record 6 leagues this year. 3 are with the same basic group of guys. However each team is of the up-most importance. However 2 of them are only a "PICK-EM" League, so it will only take a couple of minutes each week.

Other than that, I really don't have a very good excuse for sucking it up that bad. i hope you can all continue to view my blog, it is still my goal to keep everyone informed on my life as well as my families life. And by the way, we sent my daughter, Jayla, off to San Diego for a week and we can't wait to see her again on Friday. We have missed her a ton, though it has been really quiet while she has been gone.

Oh yeah and I also had a new baby....well my wife had the baby. Sadee Lilianna Preece was born on July 26th, at 2:52pm weighed 8 lbs and was 20 inches long.









And by the way, we sent my daughter, Jayla, off to San Diego for a week and we can't wait to see her again on Friday. We have missed her a ton, though it has been really quiet while she has been gone.

What's in a name?

"A name is an artificial and meaningless convention", as Juliet (Capulet) so eloquently put it.

At this time I find myself struggling to find that perfect name for my unborn child. Of course I don't have to worry about the battles between the Montague's and Capulet's, but I do need to worry of how my daughter is going to go about her life. No disrespect intended, however my wife and I grew up with pretty common names, where there were other Josh's or Laura's in our classrooms growing up. We do not want that for our children.

"Joshua" in 1979 was used 31,106 times and was ranked #9 most popular. "Laura" in 1984 was used 14,801 times and was ranked #19 most popular. My name outranks hers by over 16,000; however we both feel that her name was still just as popular growing up.

I don't want my kids to have crazy names, but something a little less popular. Jayla's name was ranked #99 in 2006 and used a total of 15,209 times in the past 8 years, even though we made it up.

So now I am at a stand still, how do I compete or compare my next daughter to Jayla in regards to the name? How do I come up with a name that can compare to that of her sister's. We have come to the conclusion of the following names:

Sadee - (that spelling) Has not been in the top 1000 names in the past 18 years and is not even on the charts yet this year.
Lilianna - Has been used only 904 times in the past 3 years, and was not on the chart prior to 2005. And has not climbed above #815 of most popular.

So tell me what you think. They are both well below the averages.

*Name data are from Social Security card applications for births that occurred in the United States.

Oil Myth, 3,000 miles or not?

I saw an interesting article on Yahoo about the amount of miles in which you should change the oil in your vehicle. It made me really think about why everyone changes the oil at 3,000 miles. I have done it just because that is "what I was told to do".

Not only are people changing their oil more than needed/required, we are also helping to pollute the environment. In fact this article states "Californians alone generate about 153.5 million gallons of waste oil annually". Question is, How much of this oil is due to changing your oil too frequently?

I know many people that would argue one way vs the other, such as Jalopnik, however in the state we are in with oil prices on the rise, we should at least consider the benefits of waiting a little longer than we are used to before changing the oil. Not so long that your engine ceases up, just enough to do our part for the economy.

Or at least take 2 minutes and read what "the experts" say. I was very intrigued by the knowledge and options that have now been presented.