I had an awesome summer and I’m sad that the nice weather is about gone.  It won’t be long until I’m hauling snow, mud and sand into my garage every time I come home…. I hate that. Even though October was chilly it was still a fun month. Speaking of October- this makes one year that I’ve been blogging!

We took one last trip up to the Alpine Loop this past weekend. We have a spot up there that we really enjoy and have spent many lazy afternoons relaxing there. The fall colors were gorgeous and I sat near the river while the kids threw rocks. Nothing brings a smile to your face like one of your kids shouting “Watch me, Dad!” Claire found several rocks she liked and really wanted to take them home.

Each October we go to Corn Belly’s (a corn maze in Lehi by Thanksgiving Point). The corn maze was a little disappointing this year (not high enough) but we entertained ourselves by throwing corn at each other.  There’s a good deal to do there besides the maze: hay ride, slides, giant trampoline-esque bubble, pedal cars, haunted monster, shows and a handful of other attractions. Definitely worth a visit each year.

One of the reasons I love summer is the car scene. Nearly ever Friday I venture out, meet up with the crew and we drive around town and periodically park and talk about cars. Some nights it’s straight out of the Fast and the Furious. I’m not sure why we do it, but it seems important. During winter it’s too cold for car driving and we use the downtime for modding.

That little beauty on the left (below) is a gear box that I just put in this past week.  My car originally had 2.56 gears for high top end speed (200+ mph). Since it’s not really practical to go that fast I’m sacrificing some of the top end for low end acceleration. The new gears (3.15’s) make a huge difference- I reach 3000RPMs in almost no time which means my turbos spool faster and coupled with the gearing difference my car is way quicker all around.  I’m thrilled.

And on the right is a methanol injection kit. Methanol is one of the simplest types of alcohol and you can increase your engine’s power by spraying a bit in with the fuel and air. The methanol injection is something you only use once in awhile when you need a little extra boost. I’m hoping to get that installed sometime this winter. Should be a blast (ha ha!). Maybe a new stereo too… we’ll see how much time there is.

I’m constantly reorganizing things at work. With limited room it’s important to figure out what the best use of space is. For awhile I thought there should be shelves everywhere. As you can see (below, left)  it was cramped and unpleasant (“bad chi” as my wife says). It’s been slow, but the evolution of our store is going pretty well. The shelves have been moved into the warehouse (we made our current shelves higher which is more efficient) and we’ve created a little break room. Seems to make every one happy. We put in some book cases (everyone gets their own shelf), an arcade (Super Street Fighter II- mentioned in another post), a couch, an SNES and some cozy decorations. They say if you make work a place where people enjoy being then everyone is happier and more productive. So far so good!

And on the subject of work, how about that economy folks? Let’s give it a big hand. I’m not talking about clapping- I’m talking about spending. If we act like there’s no recession everything will just go away. Okay, it’s not that simple, but it would help. To be honest the economy has me a little worried- so far we’ve been mostly unaffected and I think we’ll be fine though the end of the year, but next year… next year scares me.

I don’t want to brag, but when I was a kid I built some awesome forts. I’m mean forts you could live in.  My forts had separate rooms, vaulted ceilings, hidden passages, and they took hours to build. The other day I realized we had a ton of couch cushions and so I went to work and build this little beauty below. Even though it only had two rooms it did have vaulted ceilings. I think it lasted about an hour. We did another one the next day, pulling the cushions off the couches in the theatre and I got 4 rooms and we went with a coffered type of ceiling (it was pretty cool). Almost lasted over night. I’m sure there are many more forts in our future!

The Sabins hosted yet another awesome Halloween party. The decorations get better and better each year (I think Rachel said something about them not being up to par becuase of her ankle- such a bizarre girl).  I went as Utah Jones (like Indiana Jones, but but not quite as adventurous or buff). Fran went as a Hindu woman (I picked her up in India while returning some stolen artifacts to a village),  Mike was Iron Man, Claire was Spider Girl and Gabe was a lion.

And then there was Halloween night. Fran took the kids out trick or treating and I stayed home to man the fort. It seems like Halloween gets less and less special every year. I’m not sure if that’s becuase I’m growing up or becuase something is really changing. I opened the door and discovered two Suburbans in front of our house with tons of kids streaming out. Coupled with the giant neighbor hood hordes there ended up being about 30 people in a giant line. It didn’t feel fun to me. After about 20 minutes our candy was gone so I killed the porch lights. They kept coming (isn’t there a rule?). I had to kill all our decorations before the madness stopped (really too bad because Fran did a great job this year). Anyhoo- my kids came back and they had made bank. They gorged themselves on treats until bedtime. Gabe didn’t go out this year so he waddled around harvesting samples from his brother and sister- he literally stuffed as much in his mouth as it woudl hold. Well… I guess they all did.

Andrew noticed this price discrepancy when we were at Walmart (picture quality= camera phone). You can get 4 cars for $10. Or if you’re a savvy shopper you can get 5 cars for $10 if you buy them separately. Same cars- I checked.  This reminds me of what I used to work at Great Harvest. The owner created a combo meal (1 smoothie, a soup and piece of bread) and I pointed out that if a customer bought the combo it would cost more than buying the items separately. Anyway- I was shocked at how many people got the combo. Suckers

I feel like I should say something profound- you know, have some kind of closing statement.  Doing one blog post for a whole month feels really weird to me. Ah well, I got nothing. Rock on.