Dave Parker's Home Page

For everyone who was worried¹, Janine and I were among the survivors² of the Bald Mountain Massacre³. The shooter unleashed dozens of rounds⁴; bullets were flying everywhere⁵. As soon as we heard the shooting⁶, Janine and I instinctively threw ourselves into the line of fire⁷, thus protecting the people behind us from danger. We kept the shooter under close⁸ surveillance until the police and SWAT teams arrived, and we warned off newcomers from the area. About 20 police cars and SWAT vehicles arrived at the scene. After the police checked the license plates of all the vehicles in the parking lot, we learned that we had parked right next to the shooter's van. The shooter was finally surrounded and arrested by four SWAT team members with assault rifles. We were there for over 2 hours, until the police had taken our statements and released our cars. We didn't hike Bald Mountain that day because it was getting late and thunder clouds had started to gather, so we returned the next day for the hike. We met some other survivors on the peak and had a mini-reunion⁹. Bald Mountain is Janine's favorite mountain in the Uintas¹⁰.

Link: SWAT team called to Bald Mountain, 08/14/2012

¹ No one. Janine.
² Everyone survived. Janine.
³ No one got even a scratch. Janine.
⁴ About 0.83 dozens. Janine.
⁵ Before we arrived. Janine.
⁶ We arrived just before the last shot. Janine.
⁷ To get a better view. Janine.
⁸ A quarter of a mile. Janine.
⁹ Where the men embellished the story to make themselves sound like heroes. Janine.
¹⁰ It's much better than Tall Dark Handsome Rich Mountain. Janine.

I shamelessly took advantage of the HTML that Janine wrote for her home page.

David Parker
3007 East 3215 South
Salt Lake City, Utah 84109-2123
801-865-8331
daveparker@flamingthunder.com

Born: July 7, 1957. Janine's husband. Rebecca, Michael, Daniel, and Jonathan's dad.

If you are searching for a Dave Parker (or David Parker, or David B Parker, or David Blair Parker), then I may be the person you are looking for if you know of me in connection with: James Logan High School, Churchill County High School Class of 1975, Stanford University Class of 1979, SLAC, MIT, artificial neural networks, backpropagation, assembly language, AcroSpin, DPGraph, Texas Instruments, Derive, Referentia Systems, Flaming Thunder, Electronic Arts, momentum field, force field, Michelson-Morley experiment.

"How to explain the Michelson-Morley experiment in ordinary 3-dimensional space"

Updated August 16, 2012.

Some of my favorite photographs:

1983. We stopped at the Grand Canyon on our way from California to MIT for the start of Janine's graduate work in physics.

Wedding 1984

1984. The happiest day of my life. The demurest day of Janine's life.

Parents 1984

Janine's parents Sheldon & Barbara, my parents Annette & Morgan, 1984. Janine and I were married by our parents, who served as judges, jury, and elocutioners.

Me Carrying Becky 1985

Me, Becky, 1985. We bought the baby-pack at the Salvation Army and found Becky inside.

Becky Running 1987

Me, Becky, Janine, Michael, 1987. Becky would dash out of our yard the instant we took off her shock collar.

Taina 1987

Michael, friend Taina, Rebecca, Janine, 1987. Janine dropping a tarantula down Taina's shirt.

Daniel Discovers 1988

1988. Daniel discovers subatomic particles in Janine's ear.

Joy 1989

1989. Becky, me, and Michael seeing how long Daniel can hold his breath.

Camping 1989

1989. Mountain woman Janine. Janine makes all of our towels by chewing tree bark.


1989. Milo of Croton.	Venus de Milo of Croton

1991. Late-night buddies. While Janine caught some sleep, Jonathan caught air molecules.

Pinata 1993

1993. Daniel whacking at one of Janine's homemade pinatas. Janine put a blowhole in the top so that Jonathan didn't suffocate.

Seaworld 1993

Janine, Jonathan (in Janine's lap, wrapped in swaddling clothes), Daniel, Ronald McDonald without makeup, my Mom, sister Deb, nephew Wes, 1993.
Drenched at SeaWorld, where we learned that killer whales have huge bladders.

Monopoly 1993

1993. Janine, Michael, and me enjoying Monopoly, although we didn't find any monopoles.

Drama 1993

1993. Our life is full of drama.

Kids 1993

Daniel, Michael, Jonathan, Rebecca, 1993. The secret to cute kids is to let their father cut their hair.

Nana 1993

Grandmother Nana, 1993. Nana required powerful meds.

Met 1997

Janine, Rebecca, friend Jane, 1997. The ladies enjoying an outing at the NY Met. Beck liked watching the pigeons, for about two more seconds.

Family 2003

Top: brother Phil.
Bottom: father Morgan, sister Deb, camera glare, brother Jay, mother Annette, 2003.
Janine and I do all of our own yard work.

Rebecca Self Portrait 2007

Rebecca, me, 2007. Beck left some photos on a camera that she lent to me; I discovered that great minds photograph themselves alike.

Homemade Ice Cream

For decades, Janine and I have experimented with ice cream recipes. Instead of ice cream recipes that involve separating eggs, cooking a custard base, or other complications, we've developed recipes that are simple and quick. And disgusting! Our salmon ice cream made people retch. On the other hand, and melting between my fingers, some of our ice cream was voted "Best Ice Cream In The World" by a distinguished panel of me and Janine. Below are two of our favorite basic recipes.

WARNING: These recipes use raw eggs. If you think that raw eggs might cause you any health problems whatsoever, please make any modifications that you feel are necessary in order to include me in your will.

The ice cream maker we currently use is a Cuisinart ICE-21. Williams-Sonoma sells it with an extra freezer bowl, which is really handy for making several batches of ice cream in a row. Our deep-freezer (-10° F) keeps the bowls cold enough so that we can make 2 batches of ice cream per bowl, for a total of 4 batches of ice cream in one session. http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/cuisinart-ice-cream-maker-extra-freezer-bowl/

Cheesecake Ice Cream, makes about 1½ quarts

8 oz package Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese (we've tried some store brands, but they usually have more liquid and less cheese, so the ice cream turns out tasting less rich).
¼ cup sour cream.
1 cup sugar (dark brown, or light brown, or granulated white, whatever you like best; when we make 4 batches we usually make 1 dark, 2 light, and 1 white because at our taste tests that's about the ratio of peoples' favorites).
3 large eggs.
12 oz heavy whipping cream (make sure the label says "heavy" because regular whipping cream won't deposit enough fat in your arteries).

Put the cream cheese, sour cream, and sugar into a mixing bowl.
Using a mixing spoon, mash them all together.
Using an electic beater, beat the mash until the lumps of cream cheese disappear, leaving the mixture with a consistency like creamy peanut butter.
Crack in the eggs.
Using the electric beater, beat in the eggs.
Pour in the heavy whipping cream.
Still using the electric beater, beat in the heavy whipping cream.
Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and let it run till it's done. In our ICE-21, it's usually done in 15-20 minutes. We then reuse the bowl for a second batch, which usually finishes in 20-25 minutes.

Blackberry Cheesecake variation: reduce the sugar to ½ cup of granulated white sugar and add ½ cup of seedless blackberry preserves at the same time you add the eggs. Or, use whatever your favorite seedless preserves are.

Chocolate Ice Cream, makes about 1½ quarts

5 oz cocoa (as weighed in a bowl on a postal scale (remember to reset the scale to 0 after putting the bowl on, so that you're only weighing the cocoa), but if you don't have a scale then measuring cups are probably accurate enough - maybe try making a batch using 1½ cups of cocoa to see if that works for you (the exact volume depends on how fluffy or dense the cocoa happens to be)).
1½ cups granulated white sugar.
5 large eggs.
11 oz heavy whipping cream.

Put the cocoa, sugar, and eggs into a mixing bowl.
Using a mixing spoon, mix everything together until all of the cocoa is moistened. Don't mix too hard or the cocoa will billow out. You should end up with a cakey mass.
Pour in the heavy whipping cream.
Using an electric beater, beat in the heavy whipping cream.
Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and let it run till it's done.
NOTE: we are not convinced that chocolate ice cream is the best use of chocolate. It may be that ice cream is too cold for the proper appreciation of chocolate. Would it be better to make chocolate mousse, which is served chilled instead of frozen? To research this question we received a $787 billion stimulus grant, in case you were wondering where it all ended up.

QUICK NOTE: we may have come up with a recipe for chocolate ice cream that doesn't need an ice cream maker, and that if put in the refrigerator instead of the freezer, becomes chocolate mousse. We're still playing around with it, but here is the ingredient list for our most recent experiment:

8 oz cocoa (whole can).
6 large eggs.
2½ cups granulated white sugar.
12 oz heavy whipping cream.

NOTE TO SELVES: Next time, try letting sugar dissolve in whipping cream while mashing together cocoa and eggs. Also, add some flavorings (vanilla or orange extract, etc).

Music/audio links that I don't want to lose: