A little of this and a little of that

I am waiting for an agarose gel to stain so I thought I would take a moment and write something. The river is under flood stage as of today. Most roads have been open for awhile now but one of the main roads into town is still closed although it is projected to be open by midweek. The mess is unbelievable. I am going to take some pictures to give everyone a feel for what has happened. One of the bike paths that is normally 6-8 feet above the river now has 2-3 feet of dirt on it. Many businesses are destroyed and the smell is awful. The water completely destroyed the UI baseball and softball fields as well as the UI track. Nobody will be running on that track for awhile. Although this flood has been quite devasting for so many people, it has given members of the church great opportunities to serve. Tonight, a group of us are going to go down to one of the neighborhoods we helped sandbag and do some cleanup. Actually, it will be some demolition. We will be tearing out carpet and drywall as well as doing some mud removal. I don't know how many if any of those houses will be able to be saved. A member of our ward owns two houses on that street and has been out of town for a couple of weeks. I am pretty sure that both of his houses will have to come down since no clean-up of his properties has occurred yet.

Last night for Family Home Evening, we decided to have a movie night. Do you know how hard it is to find a movie that will keep a 15 year old and a 6 year old happy? I think we succeded. We watched Zathura. After family prayer, Caleb and I spent about an hour on Google Earth. I asked him if he wanted to see where I grew up. He said yes and so we found the farm in NE and I pointed out all the fun places where Adam and I used to play. Did you know that they tore out the railroad tracks through Panama that eventually went over 134th street to the infamous railroad bridge? Caleb wondered if the workers ever found Adam's shoe. I showed him where we had the garden, where I got in bike wrecks, how we built the farm, etc... After that, I took him to Sacramento and showed him around there. I think the sheer size of the city surprised him. He really seemed to enjoy looking at the old Air Force bases. It was nice to be able to share some stories with him. I was surprised that he seemed so interested. What a good way to share family history.

My gel is done staining and I have a lot left to do today so I will finish this and get back to what I get paid to do.