I know I make grammatical errors myself and I try to be forgiving of other people’s mistakes, but sometimes I see examples of bad grammar that are so extreme or numerous that I am almost in awe of the author. One such example came on the packing slip for a garage door opener remote that Devon and I ordered this week. This is what it said, minus the return address and phone number:

Please make sure the remote is the correct one before opening and if the item is sealed and you open it we can’t take it back since we can no longer sell If you did to make a return mail it back to . . . fowlerville Mi. 48836 you must include your order number you have 30 days to return it to us. If you have any question you can call us at . . . thanks for your order Nancy

I’m not sure, but I don’t think Nancy’s English teacher would have given her an “A” for that paragraph.

Devon’s been busy with schoolwork for the past couple weeks, so for a while it’s been rare to see him away from his computer. Tonight I was surprised to come home and see him in the kitchen assembling a nerf gun with these other two guns sitting on the kitchen table:

Devon explained that over their lunch hour some of the students at school have been having Nerf battles in one of the big empty conference rooms. Devon had been borrowing guns but wanted his own set.

After expressing my surprise that Nerf made you put their guns together for them, Devon explained that you can’t use just an ordinary gun. His school is the haven of computer geeks like himself and everyone’s gun is modified to shoot farther. After a little bit of tinkering, the gun now shoots the little Nerf darts so fast that they whistle through the air. Devon is pretty pleased with himself.

A few times this summer a windstorm has kicked up and for a day the mountains disappear under a cloud of dust. The first time I saw it I couldn’t understand what was happening, but after going outside and being pelted in the face with a bunch of fast moving sand I understood. Still, it’s a weird feeling to know the mountains are there and hardly be able to see them.

Utah has great fruit. It was great in the spring when we moved here, and it’s only gotten better now in the summer. I think it has something to do with being closer to California, although some of the delicious fruit (peaches, cherries) is grown right here in Utah. It’s super cheap as well, which means most Saturdays after grocery shopping I unload my purchases and realize I bought way more fruit than we can eat because the deals were so good I couldn’t say no. I’ve heard from someone here who moved from California that if I think this is great, I should go there and try the produce. I told her if she thought this was bad, she should try Minnesota. Not to put Minnesota down, but it’s not exactly known as a tropical paradise. (The fabulous apples grown there are a delicious exception.)

Common Name: The Flapper

Latin Name: Monasteriense pax ‘pendant’ 

Approximate Age: 4 years

Top MPH: The wind resistance caused by overly large mud flaps limits The Flapper to 80 MPH

Average MPG: 10

Natural Habitat: The Flapper, not surprisingly, is most useful in boggy, muddy environments, where its large mud flaps help shield other drivers from mud spatter. In an urban environment the flaps are rarely useful.

Unique Features: A rarety for monster trucks, The Flapper’s sole unique feature (large mud flaps) is something that shows consideration for other drivers, and perhaps the mistaken impression that large mud flaps are attractive and increase the appeal of the truck.

One huge difference between Utah and Minnesota is the lack of mosquitos in Utah. I’ve been bitten twice this summer by a mosquito – twice. In Minnesota it is no exaggeration to say that I was usually bitten twice a DAY by a mosquito. I walked about a mile to work and part of it went through a wooded area and I remember some mornings there would be so many of them that I’d walk briskly through the woods with my arms flailing like a windmill because if they can’t land, they can’t bite you. Here, the first time Devon and I went camping with Ryan and Aubrey & Co, Ryan laughed at me when he saw I had packed bug spray. Needless to say, it’s a neccessity when camping in Minnesota but not necessarily out here. What reminded me of all this was this:

It’s my Minnesota car registration paperwork, which came here because my tabs are up. I switched over to Utah plates so I didn’t need it, but as I was throwing it away I noticed that squished on the return envelope was a dead mosquito. No joke. It seemed very fitting for something from Minnesota. I don’t remember seeing it when I first opened it so I can’t say for sure it came mailed from Minnesota, but since I’ve hardly seen a mosquito here the whole summer I consider it a friendly greeting from the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

I say it all the time, but Devon and I really are spoiled living here at his grandma’s house. We can’t think of anything more that we could want from a place we are living. That includes, for me, some empty flower beds that were just calling to be filled. Luckily, spring was when I was jobless and looking for hobbies (you can only watch so much What Not To Wear) and I could devote some time to planting and weeding. Also lucky is that Devon’s aunt and uncle live next door and have gorgeous gardens and brought over extra plants when they were thinning out their own. Now that they are all planted and mulched, the fun part is watching the plants grow, which they are doing pretty well now. It’s a base of perennials with annuals to fill in the empty spaces. Some plants I just put in a couple weeks ago so they have yet to take off. Devon can attest that I look out the windows and verbally encourage the plants to grow on a daily basis.

Common Name: Wood Truck

Latin Name: Monasteriense pax ‘Wood’ 

Approximate Age: 2 years

Top MPH: Usually below 45 MPH to prevent the loss of pieces of wood from the truck bed.

Average MPG: 12

Natural Habitat: It would seem that Wood Truck would be most often viewed in a forest setting as a work truck. This is not the case, however, as Wood Truck is usually seen in a more urban setting. It is assumed that the wood it carries is for show, as there is little use for gigantic logs in the urban environment and its load never seems to be depleted or added to.

Unique Features: Looking at the Wood Truck just begs the question, “How much would would a Wood Truck truck if a Wood Truck could truck wood?”

This is a website that I made with a group for one of my classes. We are happy about how it turned out and fortunately for our grade, our Instructor is a fan of it too. It was a collaborative group project so we were all responsible for individual pages. The site is about the New 7 Wonders of the World. We each made a couple of pages on our own but the site concept and design were a group decision. I made one page for Christ the Redeemer and another for Petra (that’s where Indiana Jones found the Holy Grail). It feels so good to be done. We only had about a week to do it, and if you take into account the 3 Java labs and 1 Java project that was due during that week, and then throw in Computational Theory (not the greatest class in the world… but maybe the hardest), there really wasn’t very much time to make the site. If you want to check out the finished project you can see it here.

School is going well and this past week wasn’t out of the ordinary for this quarter. It is a lot of work but most of the people that started when I did are also in most of my classes so there is lot’s of help. The class the site is for a class called Topics in Computer Science. No one would disagree if it was renamed to: Linux, xhtml, networking, virtual machines, css, javascript, and more, now go figure it out on your own.  Sometimes it is frustrating but we are all learning to teach ourselves things, and that is pretty much the story behind every programming job.

I made tic tac toe in the same class as we made the website. If you want to play, check it out. The computer AI is really, really smart. Consider yourself warned