"To Help Other People at All Times"

It didn't look like this today,
but you get the idea.
Image via Wikipedia Today I was riding my bike along toward Lehi north of Utah Lake. I hear a motorcycle approach but it doesn't pass. A lady and a little boy pull up next to me and match me speed. She says "do you know where we are going?" I reply that we are headed toward Lehi. Turns out that she's trying to get to the other side of Utah Lake. So I encourage her to follow the Utah Lake Century Epic Ride (ULCER) markings then start turning left.

I was amazed that she could keep her motocycle straight and upright at my slow bike speed.

Hopefully they found what they were looking for and it was nice to be helpful even while out on a ride.

Close call for BYU Football

This morning while driving across BYU campus, I stopped at a crosswalk to let a guy finish crossing the street. Consensus between my wife and I was that it was one Bronco Mendenhall (he looks even younger up close). The guy in the other lane almost didn't stop and almost ended all discussion of whether or not Bronco would stay at BYU by taking him out in a crosswalk.

Fortunately all ended well and we are looking forward to seeing him (on TV) at the game against NIU this weekend.

Most of my Personal Money Management Dreams Have Come True

Image via WikipediaThanks to mvelopes.com which is everything I hoped MSFT Money would be in 2004. It slurps in all my credit card, retirement and savings account info. It lets me categorize spending, it lets me make an envelope-based budget, it lets me track spending. It runs in the cloud. It's awesome.

That said, there are some issues. The user interface is pretty good but not great. Classifying new transactions is oddly painful due to a clunky drop-down menu system. The report functionality is laughably bad. The excel reports seem to use some kind of multi-column merge thing to get horizontal lines. That's fine except it makes actually working with the report impossible. In some panes, clicking an envelope opens the envelope, in other panes it does nothing. The process of funding a spending plan is bizarre and confusing.

Even after all that, we signed up (but only 3 months a time, going to need some more history before I commit more money in order to save money).

Oh, and a friend of mine claims that his home teacher is the CTO or CIO or something. So they are a Utah-based company. Keeping it in state--even better.

More Free Time in July

Image via WikipediaI put professional cycling on a 5 year doping ban and have made no effort to follow, watch or even know the stages in this year's Tour de France. That certainly frees up a lot of time in July, it's been nice.

Bangkok Grill in Orem

"A rural scene in Utah County"
Image via Wikipedia
In our never ending quest to try all the Thai restuarants on the Wasatch Front, we visited Bangkok Grill in Orem last night with the Barney's. We deviated slightly from our control order which was pad Thai, massaman curry, green cury, tom kha gai and a surprise dish. It was hot and a hot bowl of soup didn't seem to fit the bill so we got satay and a waterfall beef salad instead of pad Thai and tom kha gai.

Anyway, the first thing you should know is that Bangkok Grill is not at 852 S State St, Orem. Here's a picture of where it used to be.

Bangkok Grill is actually at about 344 East 800 South in Orem and here's a picture of that location while it was still a tanning salon. Well, as soon as Evernote comes back, I'll put that up.

The massaman cury, beef waterfall salad and satay were divine. It made me glad to live in Utah County again (I was a little worried that I would never find good Thai in Utah County after the Mekong Grill and that one place in American Fork). The green curry was best described as "tom kha gai with green dye in it." The seafood king was bland and uninspired--and I even like bland food.

But the massaman, beef waterfall and satay were very good. We'll be back for the pad Thai.

Thank "U"!

Image via WikipediaIt looks like the University of Utah has lost my identity information for the second time in 6 years. The good news is that I keep getting a year of free credit fraud monitoring! No identity theft detected yet, though we did have quite a scare a month or so ago. That turns out to be a case of mistaken Mike Jones identities (who knew that two of us would live in the same city).

Voters may have got one right

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeI think the voters got the Cannon/Chaffetz race right even though I voted for Chris Cannon yesterday. I started to think that when I read this in the Des News this morning:

"If I don't win I'll do exactly the same thing I did before and essentially what I'm doing now. I'll go out and make money, which I can't really do now"

Hopefully Jason Chaffetz will work out well as our new representative.

Oh, I mean, assuming he beats the Democratic Challenger. Hold on a sec while I look that up... looks like it's going to be Bennion Spencer. Should be a fun race.

Welcome Back Lee!

Image via WikipediaLooks like Lee Cummard will be playing in the Marriott Center again next Winter. Works for me. Cummard's a great work-hard player. A friend of mine is in the Cummard's ward. They tell us that the Cummard's are a solid student family.

Deseret News | Cummard is turning NBA heads: "Said Rose: 'He's out to find what the likelihood of his going in the first round is. There are three to six teams that have a lot of interest in him, but if he's going to be a late second-round selection, I think he will decide to come back and finish his career at BYU.'"