Steve Oliphant’s Musings

It is Sunday afternoon and church is over, dinner is served and cleaned up after, a couple of batches of popcorn have been made and eaten, a cake is cooling on the table waiting to be frosted for Michael’s birthday party. (His birthday was weeks ago, but we have set aside today to invite family over to celebrate.)

Michael is a special kid. He has turned five, but due to brain hemorages when he was born premature, hydrocephalus and cerebral palsy, he is at the level of a precocious three year old.

The party won’t be anything special to him. For Michael, every day is a party, and every moment has something to be marvelled at. When opening presents, he enjoys the wrapping paper more than the presents themselves. He can’t eat the cake - he gets fed through a special tube in his stomach wall called a G-Tube. But he loves to sing Happy Birthday and blow out candles.

But that will come later, for now, in between the popcorn, and the birthday cake, we are blowing bubbles.

“Daddy Look!” he exclaims as he manuevers the bubble wand into the bottle and brings it out dripping with bubble solution. Then he blows and shiny translucent magical bubbles appear and go drifting down the lawn in the breeze. 4 kittens of various ages and sizes have come to investigate and are soon stalking and chasing and pouncing and rolling - only to be disappointed when the shiny thing they have caught immediately dissapears.

We blow bubbles for perhaps half an hour, joined by two older siblings, before all lose interest and stray away.

I hope that I can always find the magic in the moments - even the in-between moments like in between the end of dinner and popcorn and waiting for the cake. The bubble blowing was my idea. But even if we had done something else, the real treasure and reward was Michael’s lit up eyes and happy grin as he makes something magical happen.

My wife and I ate at Sai-Savanh’s in Payson Utah last night. They are located at 86 South, Main. This is right towards the end of where main street in Payson goes one way. We really like Sai-Savanh’s because their booths are enclosed making it a very quiet and private place to eat. Their food is great also.

We ordered 2 fresh springrolls, Sweet and Sour Chicken, and Chicken with vegatables, and cashews. (I forget the exact name of that last dish, but it was good.)

All the food was very good. The spring rolls came with peanut sauce and sweet and sour sauce for dipping - and they were very large! About 1 inch in diameter, and 6-7 inches long.

The entrees came with a pot of sticky rice and it was (almost) too much food for two people. I was also very reasonably priced.

My wife commented on the beautiful bar in the building. It looked like something that would come out of a good movie. Dark polished wood and swivel barstools, mirrors, and the overall length and height of the shelves in back, all added up to an impressive and beautiful piece of furniture. Don’t get me wrong - they don’t serve alcoholic drinks, they just have a beautiful building.

All in all, it was a very pleasant experience - good company, good food, and not very pricey.

801-465-8685

Last night my wife and I watched Lady in the Water. I had previously seen Signs byM. Night Shyamalan and had enjoyed that so I was hopefull.

I was not disappointed. One thing I look for in movies is that it is family friendly. There was no gratuitous profanity or sex or violence. Actually, I don’t remember any profanity or sex at all. It is scary. There are half a dozen jump scenes and some slash type wounds on Story’s legs from the creatures that are after her.

But I would not hesitate to let any of my children (ages 5-15) watch this.

For me this was a very fun movie. I enjoy fantasy - especially crossover fantasy where seemingly mundane people and situations turn into fantastical ones. This movie is that and more. I also enjoyed the very obvious directors dream of how the film critic in the movie acted and was treated. Lady in the Water is hard to talk about without giving away spoilers, but if you are looking for a family friendly movie, and don’t mind some scenes or off-screen nudity, then this is a good one to go to.

On the other hand, my wife didn’t care for it. She said she couldn’t relate to any of the characters and I suspect she found it boring.

Very interesting and potentially evil tool.

www.fakenamegenerator.com

It will create fake information for you that looks real. Including
credit card number. Supposedly to use either for websites that require
info including a valid seeming credit card. Or for generating data sets
to test your database applications.

Possible good uses:
Character creation for fiction writing
Spam avoidance - sign up for things on the web, but give them false
info to avoid getting spammed to death.
Database testing without the security risk of using real data
.. . .

Possible evil uses:
Fraud
Access to porn sites that require credit card to prove you are old
enough
screwing up competitors or targets database by submitting tons of bogus
signups
.. . .

The credit card numbers generated appear valid and pass the Mod 10
check, but would not be able to be charged.

Here are some sets of data from the website:

title="Search for your name on Blingo">Alex A. Britton
2567 Washington Avenue
Jackson, MS 39201

Email Address: href="http://dodgeit.com/run/checkmail?mailbox=Alex.A.Britton">Alex.A.Britton@dodgeit.com

Phone: 601-934-9429
Mother’s maiden name: Johansen
Birthday: title="A person born on November 26, 1971, would be 34 years old.">November
26, 1971

MasterCard: title="These numbers are fake. They will not work at a store.">5499
0247 9124 0218
Expires: 12/2007

title="Search for your name on Blingo">Veronica C. Parsons
3557 Oakwood Circle
Anaheim, CA 92801

Email Address: href="http://www.pookmail.com/mailbox.php?email=Veronica.C.Parsons">Veronica.C.Parsons@pookmail.com

Phone: 949-300-4581
Mother’s maiden name: Martin
Birthday: title="A person born on May 26, 1961, would be 45 years old.">May 26,
1961

MasterCard: title="These numbers are fake. They will not work at a store.">5555
8173 2111 0798
Expires: 4/2008