from wsj editorial today:

Items the 40% stock market drop over the past couple months is accounting for under “President Obama”:

Treasury Secretary George Soros double taxing multinationals’ world-wide profits…resulting in full-scale industrial flight from the US.

Health and Human Services Secretary Hillary Clinton fixing drug prices (generously allowing 10% over the cost of raw materials)…destroying the financial health of the pharmaceutical industry (not to mention the nondiscovery of lifesaving drugs).

Energy Czar Al Gore’s five million new green jobs- high-paying, unionized and subsidized-to replace, at five times the cost, what we are now producing without those five million workers.

If the rise in the price of oil from $70 to $140 was due to “greed”, was the sudden fall from $140 to $70 due to a sudden outbreak of altruism?

-George Newman, “The Markets Are Weak Because the Candidates Are Lousy”

and many, many more interesting points. Check it out at the link on the right->

Don’t want to jinx anything here, but I couldn’t help notice that “the U” broke into the BCS top 10 this week:

1. Texas
2. Alabama
3. Penn St
4. Oklahoma
5. USC
6. Georgia
7. Texas Tech
8. Florida
9. Oklahoma St
10 UTAH!!!

Their next big test is Thursday, N0v 6 against TCU (#13). They play New Mexico next. Can’t wait to see the Florida-Georgia game Saturday!! Texas Tech-Texas should be stellar, too.

Saturday was a busy day: Grace had a soccer game at 8 AM. I think it was their first win. The team is really playing well together and made huge improvements. Shannon took Grace, Gavin and some friends to High School Musical 3…most of them really liked it. Next, after some intermittent cleaning, college football, was a costume piano recital. Grace dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and played a song from Oz. Gavin dressed as The Phantom of the Opera and played the main theme. He memorized it, had some rough spots, but did great. He SLAYS it at home…sounds amazing!! After that was hockey, 2 games: Gavin played first: 2 goals and an assist. They beat the other team handily. Dylan’s team also won. He had a pretty bad collision, but shook it off. Then it was off to the church Halloween party. The boys stayed in their hockey gear, put mullet wigs on and became Canadians. Dad wore a mullet and hockey jersey, too. Grace stayed with the Dorothy theme. There was a dunk tank and a 4 year old girl dressed as the Little Mermaid was insistent that she should be able to go in because, “Mermaids can swim”. We all ended the day in the hot tub looking at the stars.

Yesterday was the Primary program at church. Gavin and Grace did great on their parts. Dylan was happiest of all because he DIDN’T have to go up and sing with all the little kids.

Gavin’s team triumphed Tuesday night. Gavin had an assist and a 2 minute penalty (hooking).

Dylan scored the first goal in the game last night. His team beat the only undefeated team.

At 2:30 AM this morning a semi rolled on the 210 westbound ~3 miles from our house. It dumped 80,000 lbs of frozen chicken on the freeway and shut down a couple lanes for 7 hours. There’s got to be a Foster Farms commercial in there somewhere…

This weekend the children got to see both sets of grandpas and grandmas. We met the Wride side at SeaWorld Friday afternoon. They were in San Diego to check out a timeshare and brought Chase along. It was a gorgeous day and we had lots of fun. Chase and I sat on the front row of the splash zone for the Shamu show…got drenched!! Friday night I took the boys to see Weezer at SDSU. Fun show!! Saturday morning we went to breakfast with grandpa, grandma and Chase, then headed back home for hockey.

Saturday night the Rennies were in town for a night on their way to check out a timeshare in Mexico. They got to watch 2 grandsons from 2 families play against each other in an exciting hockey game. After the hockey game we went back to the house to eat pizza, play games and watch the Oilers-Flames game. There is a rumor that area high schools will be adding rollerhockey teams starting as soon as NEXT YEAR!!

Dylan was the youth speaker in Sacrament meeting for the first time. He did a great job.

Gavin and I made a Batmobile for this year’s Pinewood Derby. Turned out pretty well. He won several heats.

Saw a stunning sunset on the way to the derby. The Santa Ana winds are blowing the smog out to sea. That and the smoke from a few fire’s made a nice sunset.

This was the scene a week and a half ago in my parents front yard:

This was the scene LAST weekend:

I remember trick or treating in the snow, rain, freezing cold growing up. At least one year a ski resort or two had enough snow to open for Halloween. In Portland it usually rained on Halloween. Here in So Cal it might dip into the 60s Halloween night. If it does, everyone will be sporting their winter parkas.

Friday night and Saturday I took a few young men and leaders out to Joshua Tree. I set up an easy top rope climb, everyone made it up and down without incident.

Saturday was the usual sports spectacular: Grace played soccer, Gavin and Dylan played hockey. Grace and Gavin had assists and Dylan scored 2 goals.

The kids get out at 1 on Wednesdays, so this week we went straight to Disneyland after school. We got our money’s worth out of the annual passes…this was our 8th trip!! It was HOT, in the 90s, but still fun. The new Toy Story ride is great. It is similar to Buzz Lightyear where you ride around shooting at things, but 3-D, way better graphics and a lot more fun. California Screamin’ died when we were 2 cars away from getting on. Luckily we rode it first thing and were on FastPasses for seconds. Space Mtn also died when we went to use our FastPasses on it.

Gavin played hockey last night: scored a goal, had 2 assists and made lots of great passes. He skates much more confidently this season and you can tell he is having a great time out there.

Shannon and I went to the Craig Ferguson show yesterday afternoon at the CBS studios. I got the tickets to see Nick Hornby, one of my favorite authors, but he didn’t end up being on the show. Russell Crowe was the main guest. He is a short little man. We were on the front row and were just a couple feet away from Craig, right behind the producer. After Russell Crowe left CF went over to the producer and said, “I really like him”. Janet Espinoa (sp?) from the Samantha Who show was the other guest. She had a fun personality and seemed pretty down-to-earth.