Your firearms are useless against them!

I noticed what looked like water damage on the ceiling in one of my rental houses. There was a strip about 4 feet long, in the seam between 2 sheets of drywall.



There is a bathroom on the floor above, but I couldn't see anything that might be leaking upstairs, so I had my handyman Nick cut open the ceiling. He called me up, and said "Uhhh... it's not water." It was some sort of waxy substance, and it seemed to be coming from the plumbing up above, so we thought maybe it was from a melted wax ring from a toilet. But when Nick opened the ceiling a little more, we realized that there was way too much of it to be from a wax ring. I called my old roommate's dad who has a lot of remodeling experience and asked him what the mysterious substance might be. He said he couldn't think of anything related to plumbing, but asked if it might be HONEY...

Nick went up in the attic, and sure enough... "BEES! Bees Everywhere! They’re huge! They’re ripping my flesh off!" Just kidding, there weren't any bees. But there was an abandoned beehive that had melted and created a big mess. The beeswax and/or honey had dripped down to the floor below and caused the drywall damage.

We had to replace a big chunk of the ceiling. New adventures every day in real estate!

Angel's Landing

On my recent trip to Zion National Park, one of the hikes I went on was Angel's Landing. This was actually the 3rd or 4th time I've done that hike. I love it because it has great views all the way up, and the best view at the end. Also because it is somewhat strenuous and mildly dangerous, so you feel like you've accomplished something when you make it to the top.

Check out the footage below to get a feel for the hike:

Almost To The Top



At The Top

Still Shot At The Top

See more pics from the trip here.

Short and Sweet Voice Mail Greeting (Sprint)

When I posted a while back about 10 annoyances, number 3 on the list was:

When I'm trying to leave a voice mail and I have to sit through a long obnoxious automated message, such as "The caller you are attempting to reach is not available. At the tone I will take your message, or press 5 to page this person. Press 6 to leave a call back number. When you are finished with your message, if you are satisfied with your message, press pound, or hang up to deliver the mesage, or press star for more options. [PAUSE...] [PAUSE...] [CALLER COMMITTING SUICIDE...] BEEEEEP!"

I discovered, in my voice mail (which is provided by Sprint), how to eliminate the long automated greeting. Here is how to do it:

1. Call into your voice mail
   
2. Main Menu
   
3. Press 3: Change Personal Options
   
4. Press 2: Greetings
   
5. Press 1: Change Main Greeting
   
6. Press 3: Add or remove caller instructions that are played after your greeting
   
7. Press 2: Do not want these instructions played
   

That's it! Together we can make the world less annoying one voice mail greeting at a time! :)

Remote Control Your PC... For FREE!

I've tried out GoToMyPC a few times over the years, and I always thought it was very cool, but I never needed it enough to pay $20 per month.

I recently came across a provider of a similar technology called LogMeIn, and this one has a free version! It seems to work just as well as GoToMyPC. Check it out!

Semi Annual

Semiannual, last I heard, mean's every 6 months. There's nothing in the definition that would make it acceptable to mean "once a year, but 6 months after the other one that we refer to as annual". But yet that's exactly what the church uses it to mean in reference to general conference!

Can someone explain how they can get away with this? Do they think their tax exempt status makes them dictionary exempt as well?? I think I was confused by this for about the first 25 years of my life. (Me: "Wait, wasn't the last one the 160th??") I'm still outraged by it. I'm tempted to boycott conference or start a Facebook group demanding that the naming convention be changed.

Aside from that, conference was really good.

Tax Credit of $8,000 for First Time Home Buyers

If you are considering buying a new home, you should be aware of this $8,000 tax credit for first time home buyers.