Brian Stucki

Here are random things to post but that don’t deserve their own post:

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Last Friday, it was garbage day in my neighborhood. Cole and I took the garbage can out to the street nice and early. Later that day, I went to my data center and came back to the garbage can off the street. I figured that Candace took it up to the house.

But when I pulled in, I didn’t see the can there on the side of the house. (We keep it on the side because Cole’s poop+105 degrees+closed garage=a very smelly car interior.)

Candace hadn’t pulled it up to the house and it was no where to be seen. We just assumed someone didn’t want to spend the $90 for their own garbage can so they took ours and drove off. Alright, the positive part is we won’t have to move it next week when we get into our new house.

But yesterday, I come home and see our garbage can in our neighbor’s garage. They are new neighbors since Paul moved away. It’s a group of younger guys so I assumed they made a mistake and thought it was their can.

So, I went up to the door and the conversation went as follows:

“Hey, I think my garbage can may have been pulled up to your house on accident last week. If you guys just want to put it out tomorrow (other garbage day) then I’ll bring it back to my house after it is emptied.”

“Which can?”, they replied.

“The one with the wheels.”, I clarified.

“No, that’s ours. We bought it when we moved in.”

Assuming the good, I walked out there with them to be sure we were talking about the same one. Indeed we were. The one with the wheels and the name “Stucki” on it.

“Yeah, that’s ours.”, he affirmed.

It was a very strange conversation. I felt like a freshman in PE again when Darryl took my deodorant and said, “Yeah, I brought this in. My mom bought it for me.”

So, I just plan to bring the can back to our house after it is emptied today and hope that civility wins out. But if that doesn’t work, I’m going to drill a hole in the bottom put a remote detonated paint bag in the bottom of the can. If it ends up in their garage again….BOOM…a newly painted floor.

Last night, Candace and I watched The Kite Runner. It was a best-selling book a few years ago, and the movie is equally as admirable. It is such a pure story of human tendencies, honor, and honesty. No big stars. No big explosions. Just a great story that made us cry and laugh.

Throw it in your Netflix queue or rent it on Apple TV. It’s incredibly moving.

Cole is having his first birthday party tomorrow. (Though his birthday isn’t until the tenth.)

Candace, in her usual party planning style, has a fun day planned for our family. The theme is a “Monkey Luau.” I’m sure we’ll have plenty of pictures and videos afterward. But in the mean time, we have been polishing up his luau dance skills. Cole will dance for 45 minutes straight as long as I keep drumming. And I love how he cocks his right elbow back and then let’s his left arm just groove.

Here’s a short video (click the image below):

When we first moved into our current house, we tried to meet our neighbors. Paul, the neighbor to our left, has turned out to be a good friend. He was once a highly intelligent physicist but a few years ago he got in an accident that made him severely handicapped, both mentally and physically. And now he lives a simple life at home. His wife runs their salon here in town.

Paul has become a friend. He shoots the pigeons on my roof with his BB gun. I take out and return his garbage cans each week because it is a physically difficult chore for him to do. We talk baseball, stock market and pigeon hunting.

A couple days ago, Paul knocked on my door. I could tell something was wrong. He told me that the night prior, his wife died just after 5:30. It was completely unexpected and you could tell his heart was broken. I joined him in his sadness.

I had two thoughts when he told me the news.

First, the Gospel is an incredible blessing to have in one’s life. Can you imagine how perfectly it could heal the situation? It promises Paul a return to a healthy body and a strong mind. It also offers the knowledge that he’ll see his wife again.

Yesterday, I asked Paul about his beliefs. In an effort to “lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees“, I told him what I know to be true. I invited him to learn more and I think he’ll accept that offer.

My second thought is how incredibly unpredictable life can be. I did not know Paul’s wife as well, but we were friendly. With Paul’s physical challenges, surely they assumed he would pass first and they had been planning that way.

Even with the Gospel and the promise to see loved ones again, losing a family member is incredibly difficult. It’s certainly more difficult when there is little or no notice on their departure.

Paul has reminded me to be clear with my heart and feelings with my loved ones and make time for the things most important.

Tonight I was waiting for Candace and Cole to come home from California so I decided to watch the Academy Of Country Music Awards. I’m usually not much into these award shows. (Mostly because country music seems to be more corny than country for the last five years.) Though tonight I watched as Garth Brooks did a medley of his greatest hits. There’s no way I was missing that. I have so many good memories of my childhood involving his concerts.

Anyhow, can I make three suggestions to those who present and accept the rewards?

First, those microphones that are used for the presentations are put low so they are not blocking your face from the camera. They are made to pick up sound from a few feet away. You don’t need to bend all the way over to talk into the microphone when accepeting the awards.

Second, for the most part you are singers, actors and entertainers. I think some of that talent should be applied to preparation of an acceptance speech. They tend to be quite choppy and scattered.

Lastly, let’s start a tradition to break the seal of the envelope while the nominations are being announced. That way we can avoid the time of awkwardness as the flaps are fumbled.

Well, I missed last month so I thought I better get right on it this month. Here are random things to post but that don’t deserve their own post.

1) A while back I posted about Martin Luther and how much I have enjoyed his writings and his history. I was happy to see a new article posted by FAIR titled, “Will The REal Martin Luther Please Stand Up.” It talks about some of the principles that Luther believed, and how the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is actually more in line with his beliefs than the current day Lutheran church or it’s offshoots. Interesting.

2) I’m on a mission to find a top notch pair of fingernail clippers. The best I’ve been able to find so far are the Seki Edge clippers. I want something that cuts thru nails like a hot knife thru butter. And preferably something that doesn’t have that unmistakable “click” that all clippers make. Let me know if you have any suggestions. As long as it’s under $100, then I’m interested.

3) My company, Macminicolo.net, released a new service a few days ago. So far, the reception and interest has been pretty good.

One of the best things about my company is that the clients are all over the world. Right now, we are in about 30 different countries. It’s great to have good friends in different cultures around the world. It’s especially interesting to see what clients in different countries expect from a service company.

4) I’ve had a couple family members ask for music that I’ve records so I’ve uploaded some songs to my server. They are mostly songs that I wrote, and all songs that I recorded. Some I like more than I did when I recorded, but others I don’t enjoy so much. Some are corny because I wrote them for a class, others are quite accurate of how I was feeling at the time. Regardless, if anyone is interested, they can be downloaded here.

5) Here is a picture of Cole that just makes me smile:

I’ve always wished that the cable companies would allow you to pick and choose which channels you wanted to have on your account. Not only would this allow for a much lower bill, but it’d also allow for much more digital bandwidth to be available so all of our internet connections could be much, much faster.

But if they did allow this…I’d really only want three channels.

ESPN consistently does a good job at producing sports and sport related programs. Any guy I know can turn on ESPN at any time of day and enjoy what they are seeing. (Plus, they show a lot of Red Sox games so I’ll need those of course.)

The History channel does inspiring work. I love to watch shows about wars and findings on the Ancient Americans. They also produce incredible series like The States, which I enjoyed immensely. They went thru all 50 states and gave a short history on each one. I watched with a pen and paper in hand so I could mark down all the places to visit when I travel.

They also do shows on different religions. It’s always interesting to see what truth is in each religion…as well as the things that are a little off.

Easily my favorite channel, Discovery just makes you happy to be alive. It reminds you of how great and how big the world is that we live in. I’ve watched the Planet Earth series too many times to count. Plus the channel brings classics like American Chopper and Dirty Jobs.

A friend of mine recently found this commercial on Youtube. If it doesn’t make you want to go and see the world then I don’t know what will.

The world is awesome indeed.

I’ve had a few requests on a Cole update so let’s get at it.

Here he is his first time swimming in Aunt Rachel’s pool.

Helping Mom with the laundry.

His first black eye.

First visit to San Francisco. (I’ve been dreaming of taking my son to SF forever!!)

And the most fun news is that at just over 9 months, my little boy is walking. Click the image below to watch a short video of Cole (with his walking at the end.)

Random things to post but that don’t deserve their own post.

1) I think that Amazon Prime Shipping is simply the best deal on the web. Nearly anything you need to buy can be found on Amazon.com but the big drawback for a lot of people is the shipping charges and time. But with Amazon Prime, you pay a yearly fee and then everything you buy from Amazon is 2 day shipping for free, or overnight shipping for $3.99 no matter how big the object it.

Keep this in mind when it comes time to go Christmas shopping.

2) Is there anything that goes from really funny to really awkward faster then someone breathing helium. For the first few seconds, the voice is great. But after 10 seconds, the helium-ed person has slid into fake high voice without knowing it, but everyone else in the room can tell.

3) I’m not a big fan on forwarded emails. By “not a big fan” I mean I usually just delete them. Here are my three rules for forwards that I’ll actually read.

What’s so hard about that?

4) A few days ago Cole said “Da da” for the first time. It was awesome. When Candace and I realized what he just said, we were quite excited. All the attention embarrassed cole and he ducked behind a pillow with a smile.

He’s my buddy.