The Musings of a Space Nerd

On Home Inspections

2012-01-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

The social worker assigned to inspecting our house came by yesterday. Her intent for the visit was to go through our household to determine if it was a safe environment in which the State of California can place foster children. This is yet another step in our ongoing efforts to foster some children with the intent of adopting them.

The inspection was extraordinarily intrusive to our household, and we had a lot of preparatory work to go through to be ready. For example, we had to take everything that says "keep out of reach of children" and put them into a locked drawer or cupboard. This means we had to first install some locks on the drawers and cupboards around the house. I spent hours with a drill in my hand installing some nifty (and pricey, but they're worth it) locks called Tot Locks. Being the not-so-handy guy that I am, I was very pleased that I only punched through one hole in a cupboard during all of the installations that I did! (The repair process is going to take some time ...)

As we wandered the house looking at labels, we discovered that all sorts of stuff have those terrible words on them. I urge you to look at stuff in your own house, just for the education of it. Turn stuff over in your kitchen, your bathroom, your laundry room, and you'll find that such seemingly innocuous stuff such as toothpaste, sunscreen, and chap stick all are labeled thus. All told, we ended up putting locks under the kitchen sink, in a cupboard above the sink, in two cupboards above the laundry machines, in three drawers in the two bathrooms upstairs, and under one of the bathroom sinks. And those spaces are crowded!

The most painful one? Putting the sharp kitchen knives in the locked cupboard in the kitchen. As my wife cooks or bakes every day, several times a day, this was most distasteful to us.

In addition, we had to make similar preparations in our garage, so we ended up buying a large garage cabinet to put paint, fertilizers, and weed and pest killers. Just going through the garage and the house, we found that we have so much "dangerous" stuff hanging around that by all rights my entire family should be dead.

We also had our cars inspected by a mechanic (we ending up replacing some wipers and tires), installed baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs, adjusted the water temperature down (bummer), had somebody from the gas company come and inspect our appliances, and bought a lock for the outside freezer.

One interesting challenge was to clear the room we intend for the new children of all of our other stuff, including the closets. This doesn't sound so hard, except that we've been using that room largely for storage for the last few years. We had to move all that stuff to other places around the house. My bedroom now has a craft table in it with all the related accoutrements, and my wife spent many hours going through the closets of the other kids to retire old stuff and to look for efficiencies in the utilization of their space. All we could leave in the foster children's room was baby-related stuff. It was quite a challenge!

So, now that we've passed our home inspection, we only need to complete one more regular training session and a CPR training session. Once that's done in a few weeks, we will be certified to be foster parents! It's all very exciting, but also somewhat emotional, too. It's been a long road traveled, but we know the road stretches out far before us, too.

In any case, for your kicks and giggles and "for the record", I'm here posting the checklist that the social worker left with us. Frankly, she was surprised that we passed on the first attempt, which, according to her, is quite rare. Apparently most people still have some things that need to be tweaked before they are ready, but my wife and I went through this list very carefully and ensured we had everything ready. It was a lot of work, but we're confident it will be worth it!

So, without further adieu, the list ...

Physical Plant (General):

Walls and ceilings (paint/wallpaper) are clean and in good order.
Windows, screens, and curtains/blinds are in good condition and operate properly.
Doors are in good condition and operate properly.
Smoke detectors operate properly and fire extinguishers are properly charged.
Furniture and fixtures are in good repair.
Equipment and supplies are not stored in the ayrd or areas used by children. Tools safely stored.
Weapons are locked up and ammunition is locked separately from firearms.
Toxins, pesticides, insecticides, paint, bleach, cleanser, nail polish remover, disinfectants, cleaning solutions and any other items which could pose a danger to children are inaccessible (locked).
Knives, scissors, razors, and other sharp objects are inaccessible to children (sharp knives must be locked).
Passageways, stairways, and doors are not blocked or obstructed.
Handrails and deck rails are securely fastened.
Rooms are clean, safe, sanitary, and free of odors.
Room temperature is a minimum of 68 degrees and a maximum of 85 degrees (in extreme heat, maximum temperature is 30 degrees less than outside).
Pools, ponds, spas, hot tubs, and other bodies of water are made inaccessible through fencing at least 5 feet high, with a self-closing and self-latching gate that opens away from the pool, or a cover labeled F1346-91 by the American Society for Testing Materials, that can support the weight of an adult. Pool is properly maintained for sanitation.
Above-ground pools that are five feet high shall be made inaccessible when not in use by removing or making the ladder inaccessible or erecting a barricade to prevent access to decking. Above-ground pools under five feet high must be fenced.
All in-ground and above-ground pools which cannot be emptied after each use have an operative pump and filtering system.
Windows that face a pool are separated by a fence.
Fireplaces, open face heaters, and wood burning stoves are inaccessible to children. Use of a fireplace screen or similar barrier will meet this requirement.
There is a working phone on premises.
Building and grounds are free from hazards and rubbish (e.g., broken glass, exposed electrical wiring, protruding nails, dog droppings, etc.).
Fence is in good condition.
Home is free of flies and other insects. Wood pile has been re-stacked and checked for spiders in the last six months.
Glass doors have decals at children's eye level.
Lead-free paint for refinishing toys and furniture was used.
Freezers or other large chests are locked and inaccessible.
Home and yard checked for poisonous plants and out of reach of small children. Examples are dieffenbachia, foxglove, rhubarb, potato leaves, laurel, azaleas, rhododendrons, castor beans, lantana, and oleander.
Furnace and water heater have been checked within the last year.
Parent is able to shut off gas, electricity, and water in case of emergency.
Emergency items maintained (flashlight with batteries, first aid kit and instructional handbook, fire extinguisher, etc.)
Keep a safe home environment by securing water heater, tall bookcases, etc.
Breakout windows, ladders for homes with more than one story, etc. have been inspected. If the home has bars on windows or doors, do they release easily and quickly from the inside without use of a key or other tool?

Client Rooms:

Sheets, pillowcases, mattress pads, blankets, bedspreads are clean and in good condition.
Mattresses, box springs, and pillows are in good repair.
There is adequate dresser and closet space for children's clothing and belongings. Closets and drawers cannot be used to store any of the foster parents' belongings (considered a personal space intrusion). Clothes in dresser and closets are clean.
There is a well-lit space for studying (if applicable).
There are no more than 2 children to a room.
Children of the opposite sex, including those of the certified parents, do not share a room unless under age 5.
Children, including those of the certified parents, do not share a room with an adult unless they are under 2.
No room commonly used for other purposes shall be used as a bedroom. Such rooms shall include but not be limited to halls, stairways, unfinished attics or basements, garages, storage areas and sheds, or similar detached buildings.
No bedroom shall be used as a public or general passageway to another room (this includes the garage or back yard).
Linen is changed at least one a week and more often if necessary.
Bunk beds have a rail on the upper tier, have no more than 2 tiers and are not used by children under five or by children unable to climb into them unassisted.

Bathrooms:

Hot water is 105-120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sinks, tubs, toilets, and showers are clean and operable.
Common towels and washcloths are not used.

Supplies:

Equipment and supplies for personal hygiene are available for children in sufficient amounts.
There is a sufficient supply of clean linens to permit changing weekly or more often as needed.

Food Services:

Food storage and preparation areas (pantries, cupboards, freezers, stoves, microwaves, refrigerators, counters) are clean.
There are no pesticides or toxins (ant spray, rodent poison) stores in any food storage or preparation room or with utensils.
Cleaning supplies are kept in areas separate from food supplies.
Contaminated or spoiled food is discarded.
Food supplies are kept covered and inaccessible to pets.
Frozen foods are properly wrapped. Recommend that food supplies be dated and rotated to use old items first.
Kitchen and outdoor trash cans have tight fitting covers.
Snacks and beverages are available in the home at all times (e.g. fruit, milk, juice, etc.).
Dishes, glasses, and utensils are clean and in good condition.
Modified diets are provided as needed.
Powdered milk is not used as a beverage.
There is an adequate supply of fresh, perishable, and non-perishable food in the home to prepare the next three meals and snacks. A 7-day supply of non-perishables is required.
Infants younger than 7 months of age are held during bottle feeding.
Children in placement have their meals with family members and are served food of the same quality as that served to family members.

Medications:

All medications (including over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, alcohol, aspirin, inhalers, etc.) are locked.
All medications kept in the refrigerator are locked.
Psychotropic medications are double-locked.
Medications are stored in compliance with label instructions.
There are no expired medications (including over-the-counter medicines).
Each prescription medication bottle has been logged on the medication count record.
Destroyed medications are logged on the medication count record.
There is enough medications left in each bottle to order a refill before the current supply runs out.
Medications are given according to label/physician instructions.
Prescriptions and non-prescription (over-the-counter) PRN medication (that is to be taken on an "as need" basis) is only given after documented permission from child's doctor.
Medication labels are not altered.
Medications are not transferred from their bottles to other containers.
There are no permanently discontinued medications or medications for former foster children in the home.
There is documentation of contacting the doctor when children refuse medication.
Current Psychotropic Medication Authorization is on file with expiration dates listed and reviewed every six months.

Activities:

Available activities include: activities requiring group interaction, physical and education activities, leisure time, and instruction in daily living skills.
Toys, games, books, and recreational and education material appropriate to children's ages, and mental and physical development are available.
Voluntary attendance at religious activities is available to children.

Personal Rights:

Children are accorded dignity in their relationships with the foster family.
Children are free from corporal or unusual punishment, infliction of pain, humiliation, intimidation, ridicule, coercion, threat, mental abuse or other action of a punitive nature including but not limited to: interference with daily living functions, such as eating, sleeping, and toileting; or withholding of shelter, clothing, medication, or aids to physical functioning.
Exits from rooms and building (home) are not locked in a way that prevent children from leaving.
Children are not placed in restraining devices.
Children are allowed visitors unless prohibited by court order or the child's authorized representative.
Children are allowed access to phones to make and receive confidential calls unless prohibited by court order or the child's authorized representative.
Children can send and receive unopened mail unless prohibited by court order or the child's authorized representative.

Miscellaneous:

Changes in family composition reported immediately, with a social worker having completed an immediate assessment and written a home study update within two weeks.
Vehicles used to transport children are maintained in safe operating condition and have the State's required auto insurance.
Children are secured in car seats designed for their age, weight, and in accordance with current law.
Individuals without appropriate fingerprint and child abuse index clearance (friends, family, neighbors) are not used as babysitters. Foster or birth child cannot be used as a babysitter.
The home is equipped with first aid supplies (sterile first aid dressing, bandages, adhesive tape, scissors, tweezers, thermometer, antiseptic solution) and a current first aid manual. Commonly used items (such as band-aids) have been replenished.
Medications and poisons that are commonly found in a first aid kit (such as aspirin, hydrogen peroxide, etc.) are kept in a locked medication are, not in the first aid kit.
Dogs have had their rabies shots, and a record of current rabies shots is kept.
A list of emergency numbers (emergency/disaster plan which includes indication of meeting place) and a floor plan (indicating emergency exits) are posted by the telephone. Family's goal should be to evacuate their home within 90 seconds.
Fire/disaster drill completed every six months.
Foster parent Certificate of Approval (certification) available and posted.
Training hours for annual re-certification have been completed.

Providing Care for a Child 0-36 Months:

All electrical outlets are protected by outlet covers.
Foster parent reports that poisonous plants are kept out of reach of small children.
A safety gate or door at the top and bottom of stairs prevents a child's access to stairs.
The crib has no knobs or sharp edges.
The crib is placed away from windows, pictures, and shelves.
Infant sleeps in a crib that has a firm mattress (waterbed mattress not permitted).
Quilts, blankets, comforters, sheepskin, or other similar soft material are not being placed in crib or under infant.
Soft stuffed toys, pillows, bean bags, sheepskin, or thick blankets are not placed in the crib with the infant.
The mattress on the crib is kept low enough so the child cannot climb out of the bed.
The slats on the crib are less than 2 3/8 inches apart (a soda can, held vertically, is unable to fit through the opening).
Cords to drapes and blinds are out of reach of children.
There are no more than two infants under the age of 2 (both foster and birth) in the foster home without obtaining additional household help, or an exception from Licensing.
A rear-facing infant car seat is used for children 0-19 pounds, and is placed in the back seat if tehre are front passenger seat air bags.
A front-facing car seat is used for children 20-40 pounds, and is placed in the back seat if there are front passenger seat air bags.
Foster parent has been notified that the baby is to be placed on his/her back or side only, to sleep (SIDS prevention).
Foster parent reports that they do not smoke around an infant.

Personal Property:

Children's cash records are current.
Children's cash records balance with cash being safeguarded.
Personal property list is updated with additions and deletions.

On Boy-Yow and Unanimous

2012-01-28T20:16:00.000-08:00

So, my oldest son, being 12, is learning all sorts of interesting turns of phrases. One he slaughtered tonight was when he attempted a sarcastic use of the term "boy-yow".

Me: "Boy-yow ... what's that mean?"

Him: "Er ... never mind."

Me (after contemplating what he said and how he said it): "You mean boo-yah?"

Him (red-faced): "Uh, yeah."

Love it. Then, later when he was embarrassed that I was actually posting this to my blog, I reminded him that there's no names posted here, so it was extraordinarily unlikely that his friends from school would see it, he said, "Oh, so it's unanimous."

I just looked at him, then asked, "You mean anonymous?"

Too funny! It's one of life's greatest joys to be able to embarrass your pre-teen ...

A Feel Good Moment

2012-01-17T06:44:00.000-08:00

So the social worker came by yesterday from L.A. County to have interviews with my family as we continue our preparations to foster a few children with the hopes of adopting them. The purpose of the interviews is to enable the social worker to write up a biography of my family so that she can add it to the record and make it available to judges who will place children in our home.

The best moment of the interview was when she looked at me and said, "I would describe your build as 'athletic'." AWESOME! Never in my life has anybody said such a thing to me, and I was wonderfully flattered.

I mentioned this to my wife with my kids in earshot, and my daughter, bless her heart, suggested that the social worker was just flirting with me.

Hmm ...

Gratitude Day 30 - Done!

2011-12-21T06:16:00.000-08:00

So for my final day, I'm cheating a little. I'm recycling aspects of my previous lists in order to highlight the top #3 things that I'm most grateful for. The irony is that none of them are "things":

1) My Heavenly Father, who has given me a compass to follow, a moral code that improves my life, a belief system that inspires eternal hope, and a village of like-minded people in which to raise my family.
2) My wife, as my marriage to her was simply the best decision I have ever made.
3) My children, for they bring joy to my life and hope for the future.

So, I did it. I finished 30 days of my Gratitude List. At times, it was actually pretty hard to think of things that I hadn't done before. For today, I cheated a bit but this was really how I wanted to end this anyway. So ... what are you grateful for?

Gratitude Days 27-29

2011-12-20T21:27:00.000-08:00

Ack, so another few days have gone by without me posting my Gratitude List. I've only got a few more days, which will be somewhat of a relief because life is, frankly, busy, and being required to write every night has been a pain. Anyway, here's my list for today, related to events from the past few days:

1) I'm grateful for good friends who bring us Christmas goodies. Even though my hypoglycemic wife can't eat any of it, I sure do appreciate it! And she does appreciate the sentiment, even if not the goodies.
2) I'm grateful that my children have a great piano teacher that cares about them and encourages them and, the meanie, forces them to have bi-yearly recitals to show off what they've been learning. Without those, I'm not sure they would learn anything at all!
3) I'm grateful for the good people that work for me. I lead a small team of software developers -- one of many of the duties that I do at work -- and each one of them is a reliable, responsible, and effective worker. A few years back, when I was assembling my team, I was throwing the dice looking for a few good programmers, and the team that I have is awesome.
4) I'm grateful that my oldest son has finals right now. He hates studying, but my wife and I are having a wonderful time torturing him. We're so glad that he's being forced to be responsible with his schooling and take things seriously.
5) Related to this, I'm grateful that my wife is such a great teacher. She has bachelors degrees in elementary education and special education, and even though she's never used those degrees in a professional setting, I can honestly say that whatever measure of success my children have had in school is a direct reflection of her amazing influence. Right now she's drilling my oldest son on the structure of the federal government and how certain states rights are limited. Awesome.
6) I'm grateful for Christmas. I think I said something about this before, but my previous item was about the holiday season. I really am grateful for Christmas itself, and how it is an opportunity to remember the great gift of the Savior and all the amazing things he has done for us.
7) I'm grateful for the U.S. Postal Service. I know there's lots of people that want to do away with it, but I appreciate the fact that I can send a letter for a reasonable price and that mail is delivered to me reliably. At this time of year, we use this service quite a bit exchanging Christmas cards and the like, and I am grateful that we can count on them.
8) I'm grateful for Christmas cards. We take all the ones we get in the mail and tape them to the back of our front door. This has been a tradition that I got from my parents, and it is a wonderful thing to see, at a glance, many of the wonderful people that we have crossed paths with in this life and who, at least for this one time of year, think about us and we about them and how they are doing. Despite the evident cost savings that come from sending digital "cards", I hope that social inertia keeps people sending physical cards around.
9) I'm grateful for my health insurance which I get through my work. I hate unexpected bills, and my HMO keeps me from getting nasty unexpected bills in the mail at random times. The fact that my wife and I can go and randomly visit the doctor for various purposes (including getting physicals and blood work done for our adoption efforts) and never worry about the overall cost to us (okay, I admit that I detest paying out for co-pays) is something that I actually do think about and appreciate.

So, that's it for tonight! 2 more nights to go!

Gratitude Days 23-26

2011-12-17T15:52:00.000-08:00

Wow, so I totally fell down this week in doing my Gratitude lists, so I'm going to do them all in one blow. A few notes from this week ...

Wednesday I came home late from work and found all well with my family. My wife was still suffering some of the worst effects from her cold, but she was doing all right. We did nothing noteworthy that evening.

Thursday I went to work in the morning for a review to determine the readiness of my software to be deployed for use the by Mars missions (which went very well, as usual) and then came home early so I could get a nurse to look at where I had my TB test done on Tuesday. I met with the wife and daughter and we went out to lunch and had a great day. I tried to work from home the balance of the day, but it was scattershot due to my wife still not feeling very well and me volunteering to go pick up my younger son from school. My older son, though, went to volunteer at the library (2 hours of sorting books -- woo hoo!) and then he and I went to the church for a white elephant party with all the young men and women from our ward and our neighboring ward. It was sorta silly, but I wouldn't say it was "fun" because people didn't bring very inspiring stuff (the hottest gifts were some pink Christmas socks, a Christmas blanket, and a remote control spider that supposedly climbs walls).

Friday (last night), I went to Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles with my oldest son. The occasion was a field trip for the kids in his grade who are taking Spanish. We took the Metro (1 hour both ways!) to get there and he was grouped with a bunch of nice kids. We wandered the street for 4 hours! We didn't need anywhere near that much time, but that's how the Spanish teacher scheduled it. Myself and another father were the chaperones for our little group of six kids and it was quite nice to visit with him. It took us a few hours to figure out that we were both members of the church, and he actually attends our old ward over in Valencia. It's funny how we Mormons tend to find each other ...

This morning (Saturday), I went with my kids over to Lowe's for a workshop where they assembled a little wooden train. This was the third Saturday and the final one to get the complete Christmas train. Afterwards we went to the mall and wandered around. 3 hours later we returned home nearly empty handed ... I had some light bulbs for some nightlights that we've needed and my younger son had purchased a little gift for his mother. Ah, gotta love shopping right before the holidays. We had some funny discussions about how when we go shopping for Mom for Christmas it's a tough job because it has to be a combination of something she wants or needs, but at an acceptable price, which is tough to do knowing what a bargain shopper she is. We giggled about how she's not averse to taking things back that she gets for Christmas and all the kids thought it was funny when I said, in a high-pitched voice, "You paid how much for that?" mimicking my wife. Okay, it wasn't funny, but ... well, okay, it was funny. Meanwhile, my wife was off at Costco braving the crowds and not having any fun at all.

Now, I'm blogging instead of cleaning the toilets ...

So, my Gratitude List:

1) I'm grateful for being a salaried employee, so that I can take the time to be home when I need to be home, and make it up at other times.
2) I'm grateful that my work supports telecommuting and teleconferencing, for without that, it would be so much harder to make up those times ...
3) I'm grateful for the ability to telecommute and teleconference, in all its various flavors, so that I can work with people all across the country and in Europe and barely flinch at the differences in time zones and environments.
4) I'm grateful for my older son's voluntary attitude. Sometimes he volunteers to help a little too much (example: he will on occasion offer to help people do the work that they are paid to do), but his willingness is always surprising.
5) I'm grateful for Christmas parties and that they only come once a year. If they came more often then they wouldn't be so special.
6) I'm grateful for the school my oldest son goes to. It's a charter school and is focused on college prep, and it actually hard for him. As a smaller school with a dress code, it doesn't harbor many of the problems that run rampant through the regular junior high schools.
7) I'm grateful that my daughter is being home-schooled. It's a wonderful blessing for her to be home with her mother and I appreciate the time they have together. One of these days she's going to go back to public school and I think my wife is really going to miss having her here, and my daughter, I know, is going to miss having that time with her mother.
8) I'm grateful that my younger son has the wonderful 1st grade teacher that he has. He had her last year in a kindergarten/1st grade split, and he's been cycled back in for his 2nd year. She's a fantastic teacher that loves her students and I'm grateful that he has her as a teacher.
9) I'm grateful for my wife and that she is a very frugal woman. She makes it possible for our little family to always have what we need because she uses the resources that we have so well.
10) I'm grateful that I have time to be with my children and to be able to go places with them. Just walking the mall with them (and telling them "No, we're not buying that" about a million times) is such a rewarding thing for me, as I feel so blessed to have them.
11) I'm grateful that each of my children are healthy. Talking with the other chaperone last night, I discovered he has a Down Syndrome 2-year-old, and I can't even imagine how challenging that must be and the long road he has ahead of him.
12) I'm grateful for Christmas lights, for they make everything look so bright and cheerful.

There, I think that catches me up ... a little random, but there you have it!

Gratitude Day 22

2011-12-13T16:17:00.001-08:00

I stayed home from work today in order to go get a tuberculosis test this morning. My wife also had the same test and also had a physical examination by the doctor. We had to do these things as part of our paperwork to get ready to adopt. Apparently, they want to know that we're not going to fall down dead the second after we get children in our home. I can see their point, but it's a terrible hassle. Worth it, though, we think.

The mid-day interruption, though, completely killed my productivity for work. Ah, well. That's the way it goes sometimes. It didn't help that my wife wasn't doing very well this morning, so I took the time to take my boys to school. This killed a good 45 minutes, but on the way, somehow my oldest son and I got talking about anti-trust laws. It's so weird to have these kinds of conversations with him, as this is quite a grown-up topic. Even so, he was fascinated as I shared with him the tale of Microsoft and their clobbering of Netscape in the browser wars, and how they were taken to court due to their anti-competitive policy of bundling Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system. Crazy stuff.

Later, I heard some interesting news from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) that is now recommending that all handheld usage for texting and talking be disallowed due to such activity being such a prominent cause of accidents. They would make it illegal for drivers to use these kinds of devices, including in so-called "hands free" modes. They make no such statements for passengers. I can totally see their point, and I know I am not a great example when it comes to using such devices while I'm driving. It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

So, my Gratitude List is an odd one today, related to these three topics:

1) I'm grateful for doctors, because it is very nice to be able to go to somebody who -- most of the time -- can provide words of wisdom, direction, and help when I'm not feeling so well.
2) I'm grateful for the NTSB. Really, I am! I watch The Amazing Race enough to see what the rest of the world is like for drivers, and I'm very, very grateful that we have such a governmental organization whose sole purpose is to seek for better transportation solutions. They're not a flawless organization, to be sure, but I'm confident we're better off with them than without them.
3) I'm grateful for anti-trust laws. The fact that we, as Americans, can go into pretty much any kind of store and be confronted with such an amazing assortment of choices at prices as low as they are (yes, they really are low compared to most other places in the world) is testimony to me that having businesses compete is by far more beneficial to the consumer than otherwise.

These things are a little random, but I do appreciate them!

Gratitude Day 21

2011-12-12T20:34:00.000-08:00

Today was my second day back at work since getting sick. It was ... well ... it was. I had a decent day. I finished reviewing a 51 page document, met with some people to dispel some misunderstandings they had about how expensive it is to do some of the work that I do, and made plans to attend meetings in the near future in places that will be much colder than it is here. I'll have to

1) I am grateful that I live in sunny southern California, where even when it's not sunny, the weather is still better than pretty much anywhere else in the country at any given moment in time.
2) I am grateful for opportunities that I have to travel to other places. I prefer doing so with my family but I don't mind so much when I need to travel for work. I appreciate that I have the freedom and the resources to do so and I most especially enjoy being able to explore new places and to experience new things.
3) I am grateful that I have the job that I have because, well, I actually like it. This is huge, I know. The other day I was looking through some stuff from my past and came across the final report for my senior project. When my daughter asked what it was, I told her that it was the source of all things that enable her to live a comfortable life. She didn't get it, but it is absolutely true that the genesis of all of the success I have seen in my career is that little spiral-bound senior project report. Funny how life is ...

Gratitude Day 20

2011-12-11T20:18:00.001-08:00

Today is Sunday. It is supposed to be a "day of rest", and today kinda was. I ended up flying solo to church with the kids because my wife still isn't very well. She seems to be bouncing back today, though, and we'll see how well she is doing tomorrow.

Sacrament meeting was pretty darn peaceful. My kids were well-behaved and the speakers were quite good. There was a musical number by seven sisters in the ward who played a musical number on the flute. It was quite good and I was very impressed. Playing the flute seems to be a dying art, and it was surprising that there were so many in our ward who play.

True to expectations, I didn't get a chance to share my lesson during deacon's quorum today. The new secretary needed to be set apart, and the boys needed to debrief from the campout, and we needed to do some training on how to appropriately stand when they pass the sacrament. All this ate up all the time, and when they finally turned the time over to me, we were already due to end the meeting. So much for my preparations, but at least I was able to give the boys something to walk away with. I had prepared a flyer on the Duty to God that outlined steps for finishing their deacon duties. It's another tool they can use to help them make progress ... and another one for them to ignore, if they choose.

Anyway, after church we came home and had some quiet time and then I took my oldest son over to the church for a board of review so he can advance to the rank of 1st Class in the Boy Scouts. He was well-prepared and I didn't worry about him at all. The rest of the family joined us and we went in to visit with the bishop for tithing settlement this year. It was a nice meeting, but my wife still wasn't doing well, so I sent her home pretty quick.

The rest of the day my wife and I called our parents, we played with the kids, dinner was made, dishes were washed, laundry was folded, and we watched The Amazing Race from 2 weeks ago. The kids were happy and they each did what they each like to do ... the two oldest kids read and my youngest played with cars and Legos.

A good day.

So, my Gratitude List for today:

1) I'm grateful for the Boy Scouts of America. It's a great program, which has given so much to me personally and to my family collectively.
2) I'm grateful for Legos. They're expensive, but worth it.
3) I'm grateful for books. My children are readers and it is special to be able to share so many ideas with them.

Well, there you have it. Good night!

Gratitude Day 19

2011-12-10T20:06:00.000-08:00

Today was a strange day. I actually got up and went garage saling with my wife, and we found a few really great things. One was a baby gate, which we managed to get for a song, and we also got a bunch of winter clothes that we've been needing, which we later found was worth several hundred dollars. Score!

Later in the morning, we went over to Lowe's for their workshop, where the kids made a "coal car" for Santa's train. Next week they'll build the actual engine, which should be interesting.

After that, we stayed home and mostly did laundry and picked things up. We started reorganizing the room where my wife's craft stuff was kept, which we will be turning into an honest-to-goodness bedroom again for the child/ren we hope to adopt in the new year. This meant we also needed to do some cleanup in our room, as most of that stuff is going into there. We've done some furniture shuffling (I moved the treadmill and a bookshelf twice!) and have even gone through and weeded through some books that we've been hoarding for years. It's been therapeutic in a way.

We also did some cooking to prepare for the Ward Christmas Party, which I went to without my dear wife, who is still quite sick from the cold she caught. It seems clear she caught my daughter's version of the cold, as the symptoms are not quite like mine and she seems to be bouncing a lot faster than I did. We'll see, though.

My oldest son finally got home from his camping trip a few hours before the party, and he was safe and happy, so we are, too.

The party was great. As always, the ward did a fantastic job pulling it together. There were a few songs, a performance of "The Night Before Christmas" (including an appearance by Santa!), and, best of all, a video about the birth of the Savior. They had tri-tip steak, baked potatoes, corn, rolls, and brownies with ice cream to eat. The kids were in heaven, though I'm grateful my wife stayed home as she couldn't really eat any of that except the meat (we brought a lot home for her). As for me, I was mostly anti-social. I remember a time when I used to visit with everybody, but tonight I mostly just felt like sitting and watching.

The kids came home happy from the party, and quite full. I tried to be Responsible Dad and only let them have one serving of the dessert, but after the kids were so insistent about it, Cool Dad made an appearance.

Later tonight, I prepared a lesson for church tomorrow, which I probably won't be able to give because the quorum meetings are so darn slow going.

Quite the day!

My Gratitude List today includes a bunch of random stuff sort of related to this:

1) I'm so very grateful for our great ward, with such good friends whom we love and appreciate.
2) I'm so very grateful that we live in a safe place where we can enjoy peace and tranquility and where we can have civility enough to enjoy these kinds of things.
3) I'm so very grateful for meat. And brownies. Seriously, I love them both.

Gratitude Day 18

2011-12-09T17:14:00.001-08:00

Yesterday my wife began exhibiting signs of a cold. I felt horrible for her, because what I've had has been no party. Her symptoms, however, are more like those of my daughter, and my daughter was able to get over her cold relatively quickly. I'm hoping that's what my wife has instead of the long-slog cold that I have.

Today I actually made it to work for the first time since before Thanksgiving. It wasn't exactly a party, and I spent most of the time in meetings that have been put off forever and the rest of the time frantically testing to finish up what I needed to finish yesterday.

My oldest son went camping tonight with the Boy Scouts from church. Normally, I'd be there with him, but seeing as I'm still recovering from my cold, it's probably best for me not to go sleep in the outdoors in near-frigid temperatures or brave a 10-mile hike that they'll be doing tomorrow. Feeling the way I do, I don't feel too bad about not going, though I do regret that I can't participate in their breakfast. No joke, the boys planned the breakfast menu to exclusively consist of doughnuts and apples. Clearly this was boy-planned and there were no women in the room when they did so. The very thought makes me laugh!

So, tonight my wife and I are going to find a way to put the kids down early (or something else distracting), so we can just sit on the couch and be bumps on a log while watching TV. We'll probably watch Survivor, which we're 4 weeks behind in watching.

Anyway, my Gratitude List tonight includes the following:

1) I'm grateful that I was able to go to college and get the college degrees that I did so that I could get the job that I have so that I can take such good care of my family.
2) I'm grateful that my wife also went to college and got the college degrees she has, as it is ever so evident that smart moms make smart kids.
3) I'm grateful that my entire family has a love of reading, and that we can enjoy many of the same books and talk about them and experience them together (well, not at the same time, because, you know, it's tough for 5 people to read the same book simultaneously). I'm thinking here of the Harry Potter series, but there are many others, particularly the scriptures.

That's all for tonight!

Gratitude Day 17

2011-12-08T17:20:00.001-08:00

Today I've been busting my tail doing some software testing for work. I'm still home, blowing my nose ever 5 minutes and coughing every 2 minutes, but this work needed to get done and get done today, which it isn't. Oh, well. I have to finish it up tomorrow, I suppose. And my head hurts, too. Did I say that I have a headache? Some funky sinus pain right above my right eye, related to blowing my nose, I think. My heads hurts. I said that, didn't I?

Anyway, so right now I'm sitting next to my 6-year-old as he's doing a writing assignment. He's very distracted right now, and my poking him in the side to motivate him isn't really helping. He's writing about how "someone" comes on the night before Christmas to deliver presents. And he keeps giggling about the fact that Christmas has the word "Christ" in it, which he knows is kind of the point, but he still finds it funny.

This reminds me of a conversation that I had (don't ask me why, my head hurts) with my daughter not long ago about how she wishes that we could live in an environmentally friendly manner. I asked her what she thought that meant, and she talked about living outside. I asked her what she would do when it got cold. Or hot. Or rainy. She then said it was more about living simply, without electronics, and I asked her about giving up TV, and movies, and music. She didn't like the way the conversation was going, and I reminded her that everything we have that enables us to live comfortable and content lives is related to the industrial world we live in, including all the clothes she wears and all the food she eats. It has to get transported to our house, and we use cars and trucks to do that, but somebody has to build the cars, and they need all the stuff to build the cars, and it takes industry to do that. The book she had on her lap represented a marvel of modern industry, which included everything from logging trees to chemical treatment of that wood, to the chemical composition of the ink to print on the page, to the metal industries required to build the paper rollers, and the oil industries required to make the glue to hold it all together. The fact that we spent only a few dollars for all of that amazing industry to come together so she could sit on the couch under a warm blanket with soft pillows and enjoy the words printed thereon, made her head swim with its implications. I like reality checks sometimes. Tree huggers and environmentalists and Occupy people need to get off their high horse and appreciate what they have sometimes. Did I say my head hurt? A little stream of thought, this is. Like Yoda, I am.

So, my gratitude list:

1) I'm grateful for the industrial revolution, which has led society to this point where I can sit in my house with a laptop on my lap typing out something as unfocused as this here blog post. I'm reading a book right now about Columbus's voyages to the Caribbean and it went well.
2) I'm grateful for the fact that while I do this, my young son is actually sitting with paper and pencil and struggling to get words on the page, and that I can sit next to him as he does so. This is an important skill so he can learn to be more like his old man.
3) In general, I'm grateful for homework. Given in appropriate amounts, it can reinforce within my children's heads the lessons they're supposed to be learning throughout the day. The much harder part aside from doing it is actually getting them to do it, meaning that once they sit down to do it, it's usually not all that hard.

Anyway, wow. I need some Tylenol. I'm grateful for that, too ...

Gratitude Day 16

2011-12-07T21:00:00.000-08:00

Today I worked from home (I'm still miserably sick) all morning and then in the afternoon a social worker came by to do her first evaluation of our household. This is a necessary step for the State of California to ensure that we aren't some crazy family (which we sorta are, but don't tell her that!) that wants to adopt children for the little bit of money that comes with them (which we aren't). The meeting went well, and much of our anxiety about changes we'd have to make in our household to accommodate another child were dispelled.

For example, we had previously been told that we couldn't have children in the house sharing a room that had an age gap greater than 6 years. We figured she would tell us we'd have to move our oldest son to a different room from our youngest son (despite them only being 5 1/2 years, and we were prepared to argue the distinction). This would've seriously caused problems in that we don't have 2 extra rooms available (1 for our oldest son and 1 for the new child). Nevertheless, this turned out not to be the case.

In addition, we were worried that she'd go all Nazi on us about earthquake proofing the house, which also wasn't the case. We do need to get some child safety locks to lock up our medicines (expected), anything chemical-related that is marked "keep out of reach of children" (mostly expected), and the chemicals in the garage (unexpected). In the end, we felt buoyed up and quite prepared to take on another child, which is good because, you know, we already have 3 and they live safely with us, too.

Some of her questions made us laugh. My favorite was when she asked if we have enough food in the house for 3 days. We reminded her that we're devout Mormons with a substantial food supply. But, really, 3 days? Who doesn't have enough food on hand for 3 days?! We showed her the fridge (full), the cupboards (full), the closet under the stairs (full), and the shelves in the garage (full). Yeah, we're not worried about that one.

The two things that surprised her quite a bit were that my wife has dual-degrees in elementary and special education (she kinda knows how to take care of and teach little ones ...) and that I have been CERT trained, both the normal training and the psychological training (I kinda know how to respond in the event of a major disaster). The astonished look on her face was priceless when we shared these tidbits with her. She was also surprised that we had done so much homework on the whole process and that the children were so well-informed and supportive of the idea.

A few things that pleased her was that we are interested in a child that is older than an infant, up to about 4 years old, and that we're open to adopting more than 1 child if that is an option. Our only caveat is that at least one of them must be a girl (to maintain balance in the household).

This interview by her was the first of 3. The next one will be lengthy one-on-one interviews with each member of our family. The last one will be a "final check" prior to getting certified. We also have to go through some training classes, which will eat up our Saturdays in January.

So, my Gratitude List today is related to this experience:

1) I'm grateful that the state has programs in place to keep children safe when their parents don't. I wish they were even more effective. It is troubling to me that somewhere there is at least one child that we will be adopting that may be in unsafe or neglected conditions right now.
2) I'm grateful that my wife and I feel confident in our decision to adopt another child.
3) I'm grateful that my children are not only willing but anxious to adopt another child.

Gratitude Day 15

2011-12-06T21:06:00.001-08:00

My list today includes things that are related to comforts we have in our home.

1) I'm grateful for electricity. It's a marvelous thing that provides so much benefit to us that we often take it for granted until it's gone. Everything about our modern life utilizes the principles of electricity in one way or another, and some of the scariest literature I have ever read discusses life (and death) after losing it. A temporary power outage has hit some local people recently due to the wind storms and that is terrible enough, and I pray that we never experience any catastrophe that makes it anything more than a little temporary.
2) I'm grateful for air conditioning. See here, this wouldn't be possible without electricity, but I'm grateful for its application to make our homes, cars, stores, and places of work conditioned with air that is comfortably cool. Here in the deserts of Southern California, when it gets hot, it can get really hot, and it is no exaggeration to say that I most definitely would not be living where I do without air conditioning.
3) I'm grateful for heaters. See here, this little convenience could be possible without electricity, but the modern form that I have in my household utilizes electricity to sense the household temperature, to light burners (that burns natural gas that is piped here using electricity, naturally), and to turn fans to move warm air around. I was talking to my oldest son the other day and he was complaining in the car that it is always either too hot (and so we need the air conditioner) or too cold (and so we need the heater). I told him that people are fickle that way. He didn't appreciate that comment.

I'm grateful for these things today, and I'm usually even more grateful for them when I don't have them.

Gratitude Day 14 - My Children

2011-12-05T19:01:00.001-08:00

Wow, these 31 days of a Gratitude List is turning into my ode to being sick, because this cold just won't let go. This weekend the head faucet (i.e. the nose) started running and I just can't get it to turn off. I keep hoping I'm getting better and with my undeserved sense of optimism I keep making myself believe it. "I'm feeling much better! I think I'll go for a walk!" Right after I take a hot bath to warm up ...

So, in honor of my cold, my Gratitude List is NOT related to it:

1) I'm grateful for my oldest son, who is a great young man and makes me proud with every success he achieves. On the flip-side, I roll my eyes at him when he does incredibly stupid stuff, but, as a pre-teen, he just rolls his right back. Even so, I'm very grateful for him.
2) I'm grateful for my daughter, who is a wonderful young woman and makes me proud with every success she achieves. Her good nature and peacemaker attitude keeps her brothers alive, and I'm so very grateful for her.
3) I'm grateful for my youngest son, who is a wonderful young man and makes me proud with every success he achieves. His love of life, curiosity, good-natured boyness, and quickness to laughter is such a delight and I am very grateful for him.

Okay, I realize I'm cheating a little today. 3 kids = 3 items for the Gratitude List. And I realize I said the same thing, really, for all three of them, but isn't it true that I can be grateful for each one of them? They are three of my greatest blessings, and in hindsight, I'm a little surprised it took me 14 days to get to them because, frankly, they belonged on Day 2 right after my wife. Better late than never, I suppose!

Gratitude Day 13

2011-12-04T20:09:00.001-08:00

Today has been pretty miserable. The faucet in my head keeps running, so I've got a sore nose from dealing with that. I stayed home from church today with my daughter and we spent the day watching Christmas movies. We started with The Santa Clause, moved on to Miracle on 34th Street, then finished up with the Muppets Christmas Carol. We normally don't watch all that much TV on Sunday, but nobody was feeling very good. Even my wife took a nap this afternoon, which is practically unheard of.

As for me, I am improving a little bit. I think yesterday marked the worst day of my illness, so if I measured that day as a 10 out of 10 on a sickness scale, today was probably about a 9.

My Gratitude List today is related to the stuff I was able to do, between blowings of my nose:

1) I'm grateful that I was able to mindless watch these movies with my daughter, and that she seems to be doing a lot better than me in her recovery. It is a wonderful thing to live in a time when media is so available and that I can share these things with my children.
2) I'm grateful that I was able to sit and read quietly with my youngest son, as it is a very special thing to be able to do. He is doing very well with his reading, and it is wonderful when he bursts through unfamiliar sentences. He hasn't taken to reading as voraciously as his siblings, so his progress is heartening.
3) I'm grateful that I was able to make my oldest son work on some of his Duty to God stuff, because I want what is best for him. The new program seems to not be taking too well anywhere, but at least I can say that I, as a parent, am doing my part to help him succeed in it.

So, that's it for today. Good night!

Gratitude Day 12 - Paraphernalia to Manage a Cold

2011-12-03T19:18:00.001-08:00

My cold, which has kept me home all week giving me false hope that "tomorrow" will be better, has doubled back and walloped me a good one this weekend. I'm far sicker than I was earlier this week, and the cold has moved into head (well, mostly my throat and nose, which is running incessantly). Therefore, my Gratitude List tonight is dedicated to the paraphernalia that comforts me when I'm miserable like this:

1) I'm grateful for a warm bath, which I can draw without a second thought as to how the hot water was collected, cleaned, treated, and delivered to my house so that I can soak in it until I finally get warm.
2) I'm grateful for Kleenexes, which I use without reserve as I nurse my ever-running and starting-to-get-sore nose.
3) I'm grateful for warm blankets, which I can throw across me to keep me warm as I lay like a log on the couch staring mindlessly at whatever is on the TV.

This whole gratitude thing is getting pretty easy. All I have to do is think about the things that made me the least happy in any given day, then look on the bright side and voila! I've got my list ...

Well, 12 days in that's how it is anyway ... ;)

Most Pointless Sentence Ever

2011-12-02T12:09:00.001-08:00

I have to tease my daughter a little bit for this sentence that she constructed on a trip she would like to take to Hawaii. This sentence followed another sentence that listed a few things she would like to do:

"Those things are things there, but there are things there to do, too."

Awesome.

Gratitude Day 11 - Parties

2011-12-01T20:37:00.001-08:00

Okay, so maybe doing this Gratitude List during the Holidays is too darn easy because we're in the midst of parties, shindigs, and all other manner of social events designed to celebrate the Christmas season. That said, here's my list for tonight:

1) I'm grateful that my wife throws a cookie/ornament exchange party every year because I get to try lots of great cookies while my wife gets some adult female interaction that she so sorely needs. "Happy wife = happy life."
2) I'm grateful that we have family Christmas traditions so that we can use the time to remember these special times and enjoy their familiar and heartwarming uplift. While I wouldn't say my little family is overburdened with tradition, we have just enough to suit our needs but not too much that they ever feel like a burden.
3) I'm grateful that Christmas traditions aren't just a family thing, but largely a cultural one as well, that we can feel a kinder bond to our neighbors, friends, and coworkers. Even my Jewish friends, I think, feel differently at this time of year, even if for other reasons.

So, that's it for tonight!

Gratitude Day 10 - Electronic Entertainment

2011-11-30T21:03:00.001-08:00

My list for tonight is related to electronic entertainment:

1) I'm grateful for worthwhile television and movies, because they are a great escape from regular life and I can enjoy them with my family and talk about them with them, which brings me closer to them and provides opportunities to teach my children. (We've been watching a lot of Star Wars related stuff lately ...)
2) I'm grateful for clean video games, because they allow me to turn my brain off and relax, even though they have no real redeeming qualities. (You know, I got to thinking that video games are modern man's equivalent to whittling a stick and sitting around singing campfire songs ...)
3) I'm grateful for quality music, which can be soothing to my soul as well as move me emotionally, something that's actually pretty hard to do. (My phone has some pretty random music on it, which can take me back decades to strange memories as a teenager.)

My Silly Cat Lily

2011-11-29T21:38:00.001-08:00

So, I vowed that I would never post a funny cat video. Ever.

I lied. I can't resist because it was so silly and it made me laugh.

Gratitude Day 9

2011-11-29T21:37:00.001-08:00

So, remember yesterday I posted about being healthy? Well, I'm more sick today than I was yesterday. I don't think I'm going to work tomorrow.

1) I'm grateful that I have sick leave at work so that when I am sick, I can stay home.
2) I'm grateful that, at work, we are well-practiced in the art of teleconferencing so that I can dial in for the important stuff.
3) I'm grateful for my cat, Lily, because she makes me feel paternal because I'm her favorite person. You'll see why in a minute when I post a video about her ...

Gratitude Day 8 - FHE

2011-11-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

Tonight was Family Home Evening, where we spend some time talking about a Gospel topic or do an activity or have a treat (or all 3!) ... basically just being together, which is great. Tonight, I shared with the kids the story of when Alma met the sons of Mosiah after their 14 year mission to the Lamanites, and how happy they were to be reunited after all that time and to find that they were all still faithful in the Gospel. We likened this to the importance of keeping the commandments and always doing what is right, even when it is hard, which it most certainly was for Alma and the others.

Afterwards, I took my oldest son and we went to deliver some cookies that I had made (thanks, wife, for the recipe!) to the families that I home teach. I didn't get out to actually teach my families this month, so this was my penance.

Today, too, I was home with a cold, which is never fun, and worked roughly 3/4 of the work day.

So, with all this, my Gratitude List goes as follows:

1) I'm grateful for my health. Even though I have a cold right now, I am usually quite healthy, free of disease and long-term illnesses, and have been blessed with a strong body that enables me to do the things I really want to do.
2) I'm grateful for Family Home Evening, where we can have time to weekly remind the kids about Gospel topics that we need to cover to help our children be more respectable individuals.
3) I'm grateful for The Book of Mormon, because not only does it contain the fullness of the Gospel and is a second testament of Jesus Christ, but it has awesome stories in it that I enjoy reading.

Gratitude Day 7 - Church

2011-11-27T20:21:00.001-08:00

As I've reported in this space before, I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We worship on Sundays, and so this morning I went to church with my family and some of my in-laws. It was a great day, and so my Gratitude List is related to that:

1) I'm grateful for my faith that God exists and that He is concerned about me individually and all of us collectively. This gives me confidence that what I do actually matters and that there is a purpose in life.
2) I'm grateful for my faith that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to Earth to make it possible for all of us to be forgiven of our all the sins (i.e. all that stupid stuff we so easily do to offend God and those around us) we commit throughout our lives. This gives me confidence that even though I'm not perfect, I can look forward to a better future with so much more cool stuff to do!
3) I'm grateful for the church, which is God's own church upon this Earth designed to strengthen and uplift us and to teach us better ways to enjoy life here and to prepare for life beyond this mortal existence. This gives me the tools I need to try to be a better person, so that I need to utilize that whole repentance thing even less. Yeah, it's a cool system.

So there you have it for today. Good night!

Gratitude Day 6 - Extended Family

2011-11-26T19:57:00.001-08:00

So quite a few of my wife's family members have been staying with us for the last three days, which was crazy, noisy, busy, and downright wonderful. We live very far away from most of them and so whenever we see them it is a great experience and always seems to end too soon -- it's made even better by them coming to visit us instead of the other way around.

That said, my Gratitude List tonight includes the following:

1) I'm grateful for my in-laws who not only tolerate me, but actually seem to like me! This helps me feel like a worthwhile person and that my wife wasn't totally off her rocker when she married me.
2) I'm grateful for the space program. This morning, the next rover to be sent to Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory (or Curiosity) launched successfully and this bodes well for us at work. Successes like this (well, there's still a long way to go and a lot could still go wrong) make my personal career move forward and ensure my continued employment in the field I love.
3) I'm grateful for the internet because I "know" practically everything when I have a browser in front of me. I like being smart.

Well, that's it. A little random, but that's the way it is sometimes.

Gratitude Day 5 - The Beach

2011-11-25T18:49:00.001-08:00

Today, with many of my in-laws staying at my house, we decided to head to the beach so that their Utah selves could brag about how un-cold they were in the frigid water and crisp, breezy wind. My Gratitude List is related to this:

1) I'm grateful that I live within an hour of the beach, so that I can go and enjoy the beauty of that natural setting. Today, the tide was VERY low ... lower than I'd ever seen, with an extensive expanse of beach and tide pools for everybody to enjoy.
2) I'm grateful that I have a kayak that I can take out on to that ocean because I find it so enjoyable to be out on the water.
3) I'm grateful I survived attempting to get the kayak out past the water today so I can be grateful another day, because any sane person would've taken one look at those waves and would have realized they'd have been crazy to attempt to try to swim past the crashing breakers. (I ended up taking the kayak to the marina, carrying it over my head with the help of my nephews-in-law until we finally arrived and could enjoy the serenity of the marina.)

So, there you have it for today!

Gratitude Day 4 - Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T19:05:00.001-08:00

Well, today is Thanksgiving, so of course my list is going to be along that theme:

1) I'm grateful for excuses to take some time off of work to get together with family and eat copious amounts of food, because it's good for me to do that so I don't become a working drone.
2) I'm grateful that I was able to take my oldest son to play football in the annual "Turkey Bowl" for the first time this morning so that I have the great memories of him making a lateral pass (even if it was in a panic), pulling somebody's flags, and bobbling a few catches.
3) I'm grateful that we have the resources to have a comfortable life with a roof over my head, food on my table, and all the comforts of modern society so that I can have time to relax and enjoy myself doing "useless" things.

Well, there's my list for the day. Thanksgiving rocks! We have many of my in-laws in town and the house is quite full. With 10 children under feet, it's also very loud, but we're loving it. Tomorrow we expect to go to the beach and go kayaking, and then on Saturday we'll probably put up the Christmas lights. It's looking to be a great weekend!

Oh, and yesterday I took my youngest son to Six Flags Magic Mountain and we rode a total of 3 rides (Revolution, the Sky Tower, and Ninja) but we had a great time together.

Gratitude Day 3

2011-11-23T20:37:00.001-08:00

Tonight my items of gratitude have no theme:

1) I'm grateful for my youngest son, whose quickness to laughter and bright-eyed wonder at the world makes me so very happy.
2) I'm grateful for extended family who will drive 12 hours (okay, one family made the trip in 9 1/2 hours?! with their teenager behind the wheel at times?!?!?) to come see us for Thanksgiving, as it always warms my heart that people will make such a sacrifice to come and see us.
3) I'm grateful for Thanksgiving, as I don't spend enough time being grateful and it is a good reminder to be so.

Well, that's it!

Gratitude Day 2 - The Temple

2011-11-22T21:37:00.001-08:00

Tonight I took my oldest son to the L.A. Temple to do baptisms for the dead. It was a great experience, and so my 3 things for my Gratitude List are related to that:

1) I'm grateful for the temple, and the blessings that can be had there, especially those of eternal marriage and eternal families, and that I can be sealed to my dear wife and children (and ancestors) and be with them forever.
2) I'm grateful that my oldest son is now old enough to go to the temple to do baptisms for our ancestors, as it was a great bonding experience between us.
3) I'm grateful that my oldest son is mature enough to appreciate the great work that goes on in the temple, as this means a lot to me that he is beginning to glimpse what that sacred place means to me.

So, there you have it. Note a few things about tonight's entries ... as I write each item, I'm trying to write why these things are important to me personally. This is harder than it looks! Typically, one simply says one is grateful for things, without really saying why. I think this next month is going to be illuminating for me ...

A Month of Gratitude - Day 1

2011-11-21T19:35:00.001-08:00

For Family Home Evening tonight, my wife gave a lesson on gratitude. Even though this is a seasonal topic, it is one that we always need to keep in mind a little more than we do. As part of her lesson, she challenged each member of our family to record three things every night that we're grateful for. I suggested we target doing so for a month, and since this blog is my sort-of-journal, this is where I'm going to record it. So, for the next month, I'll have a blog entry each day with three things listed that I'm grateful for.

So, without further ado, here's my list for tonight:

1) I'm grateful for my wife who is far more spiritually in tune than I am and that she encourages me to be a kinder and gentler person.
2) I'm grateful that my wife provides service whenever called upon to do so, and makes dinner for people who are in need, just like she did tonight.
3) I'm grateful that my wife is grateful for me, because I do not underestimate the importance of spousal validation.

Now, don't think that I'm cheating by always complimenting my wife, as the challenge was to be specific -- none of this "I'm grateful for everything you do" nonsense. So, we'll see how this goes. If I run out of time, or forget a day or two, I hereby commit myself to go back and make it up, so there will be no fewer than 90 items listed by the time I'm done. (You know, when I think of it that way, it doesn't sound like this will be all that hard ... Even so, I think developing a better habit of expressing gratitude is a worthy endeavor.).

So, let the experiment begin!

On Merit Badges

2011-11-12T20:26:00.001-08:00

I am an Eagle Scout. I am "proud" of being so for just about as long as it takes for me to remember that if it wasn't for my mother's encouragement, prodding, and not-so-subtle insistence, I wouldn't be one. So it is that I have a fairly long history with the Boy Scouts of America. While a Boy Scout, I went on more campouts than I can remember, attended the National Boy Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia; and even went so far as to keep going with earning merit badges until I had earned an Eagle Palm after getting my Eagle.

That said, I was always on the "scout" side of the Boy Scout program. More recently, though, I've been more involved in the "leader" side of the program. A decade back, I was asked to help with the 11-year-old scouts in my ward, where I was specifically tasked with the objective to help the boys under my charge reach the rank of 1st Class before turning 12. That was my charge, and I took it very seriously. I am once again "proud" of the fact that many of those boys that came under my wing at that time continued to pursue scouting until they, too, became Eagle Scouts. Once again, this pride remains with me only as long as it takes for me to remember that it is the boys who accomplished that feat, not me.

So it is that my oldest son is now formally a Boy Scout, having reached the mighty age of 12. Having completed the requirements for his First Class, he is now entering the wonderful world of merit badges. He has recently been attending some events sponsored by the stake -- something called a "Merit Badge Midway" and other merit badge workshops sponsored on Thursday nights. At these events, he can complete most (if not all) of the requirements for the merit badges he works on. So far he has completed 4 merit badges, and he's only been working on them for a few months.

This mode of scouting, namely the mode where the focus moves away from a checklist of skills to be learned (knot tying, first aid, outdoor cooking, etc.) and instead moves towards earning merit badges, seems to suit him particularly well. It certainly is a much less stressful thing on my wife, who previously was always poking and prodding him to do the tasks for the lower ranks. She is delighted that he is now moving into this realm where he must take more personal responsibility for advancing in rank, and even more delighted that he seems to be up to the task.

As for me, my previous experience with the 11-year-old scouts mostly ended at 1st Class, and I only dabbled in helping the boys earn merit badges, something that at the time I didn't enjoy at all. Now, however, I'm having a great time. As I'm working with the 12- and 13-year-olds as the Assistant Scoutmaster, I am enjoying pretty much everything -- the planning, the training of the boys, the camping, and the encouraging of the boys to get the merit badges. I never thought I'd actually like doing this, and yet I do.

I'm getting a kick out of constantly asking my son, "So, what else do you have to do for that merit badge?" and him responding with a well-timed roll of the eyes and a grumble as he trundles off to get the binder with his merit badge paperwork. I'm of the opinion that these boys should finish with their Eagle before they turn 14, as I recall how difficult it was to finish things up when I was 15-turning-16. Hopefully my son can pull that off, but again, the best part about this whole thing? It's now on his shoulders, not mine.

After all, I already have my Eagle (thanks, Mom!).

(Irony noted ...)

An Interesting Night

2011-10-24T22:33:00.000-07:00

Here's the rundown of my evening:

Got home from work.
Played Lego Indiana Jones with my youngest son.
Had dinner with the family.
Watched a Charlie Brown cartoon with the kids (It's Magic, Charlie Brown).
Skipped soccer practice for my daughter because she's not feeling well.
Read Harry Potter to all 3 kids, who were paying rapt attention.
Put the kids to bed.
Couldn't find the cat, so I spent the evening walking the neighborhood calling for her like an idiot, posting signs all over the place, only to have her show herself right when I walk through the door in exhaustion. Then I had to go out again and take down all the signs. Glad we found her, but ... Stupid cat.
Now my wife is downstairs blow-drying the bread she made tonight. (Don't ask.)

Yeah, weird night.

Geobraking

2011-10-20T12:37:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article on some of the progress made when studying the samples from the Genesis spacecraft. One sentence made me snort (yes, actually snort):

On September 8, 2004, the spacecraft's sample-return capsule came to rest in the Utah desert after executing what might euphemistically be described as a geobraking maneuver when the parachute failed to deploy.

I'm well-acquainted with aerobraking, having helped with the aerobraking operations for both the Odyssey and MRO spacecraft, and as I was actually in Utah watching the Genesis return (see here) when it performed this so-called geobraking maneuver, this new word just made me laugh.

Gotta love it.

On Adopting Another Child

2011-10-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

My wife and I have been trying to have another child for about 5 years, with no success. We were able to conceive a few years ago, but that ended in a miscarriage. Since then, things haven't gone well for us in that regards. My wife's hypoglycemia has continued to monkey with her biology and though she remains quite healthy, her reproductive system appears to no longer be functional.

So, we've elected to adopt. This isn't a new thing for us ... we've actually been contemplating and researching this for several years. My wife's brother adopted a baby boy twelve years ago through LDS Family Services when they believed that they couldn't have any children after their first son was born. (And there they now are with two more biological children, for a total of four! Go figure.) Having watched their lengthy and sometimes painful experience, we have no illusions about how easy this whole process will be.

Even so, we feel that it is something we should do. Our family of three children, which is wonderful and which we greatly appreciate and love, just doesn't seem ... complete. There's no way to really describe it and -- for those who aren't in tune with their spiritual sides this won't make any sense -- we have felt for a long time that our family should have at least one more child. We're open to two more children, if that's how the adoption process works out, but we'll be happy with just one more.

Our children are delighted at the prospect. Our daughter, in particular, is keen on having a little girl join our family, but she knows that the sex of the baby is completely outside of our control. Yesterday I caught her (the mighty 10 year old that she is) cuddling a baby doll in her arms and carrying it gently up the stairs. I said nothing, but she bashfully smiled under my bemused regard and went on her way.

There are many options for adopting a child. The one that seems to be the "easiest" is to go with an international adoption. This approach, however, is prohibitively expensive for us.

A second option is to go through Los Angeles county's adoption services. This approach, however, is coupled with the courts system, which implies that any baby that we might get would likely come from an abusive or drug-exposed home. In addition, the county is more interested in keeping families together than in placing adoptive children. To make matters worse, the training and "certification" programs are designed around first-time parents and are very lengthy and intrusive. We already have a family that needs my wife and I here in the home, not spending many weekends off at some ineffectual training course. Neither are we interested in a "special needs" child (fault us in this regards, if you must). The uncertainties in the court process, however, was the killer for us -- we don't want to have a baby in our home for up to two years, only to have it yanked as some judge decides to return it to the birth mother.

A third option is to use LDS Family Services, as my wife's brother did over a decade ago. We began looking into this and were refused help due to a recent policy change that declines to provide services to couples that have more than two children. So much for that. However, they did say that they will help us with the legal stuff if we were to find our own adoptive mother.

(An aside: The policy actually reads that they won't provide services to couples who have more than two biological children. We grumbled at the fact that we noted prospective adoptive couples on their website who have mixed biological and adopted children who number more than two, and it was clarified for us that the policy is for all children, biological or adoptive, and that those couples on the website who have more than two are "grandfathered" in -- implying that they've been waiting for a long time to adopt another child.)

Which brings us to option four, which is to find our own adoptive mother. This is the path that we've elected to take. It has only a small chance of success, but we figure that given everything else, it's the best option for our little family. To that end, we've begun reaching out to everybody we know. Some years ago, I joined Facebook as an experiment to see how many people I could friend from my past ... I was stunned by the magnitude of my results, but now find that my connection to all those people is a great and wonderful thing. We'll see if it works out.

The crazy and ironic thing about this whole adoption thing, which is intended to be a virtuous and noble (albeit somewhat selfish) endeavor, is that we seek to take advantage of somebody's misfortune. We're looking for a young woman (though we'll take a not-so-young woman, too!) who finds herself pregnant without desiring to be so (though we'll take a woman who simply likes to be pregnant, too!).

Despite the circumstances of this woman's life, we hope that this woman will respect and love her unborn child enough to care properly for herself so that when the baby is born, it will be healthy and strong, even though this birth mother would not be the one to benefit from the effort it takes to do so.

We equally hope that this mother might see within my family a place where her child can be placed with confidence that it will be cherished and appreciated, loved and adored. We also recognize, however, that emotional attachment is not everything, and we would hope that this mother would also recognize that my home is one that is safe and secure, where I am able to provide the resources to rear her child with all the appropriate educational, medical, financial, and social opportunities that can enable a happy childhood and a stable environment in which to grow into a responsible adult.

It's a lot to ask. We ask for a mother to simply give her child to us. In return, we promise to take care of her baby to the best of our abilities and with all our resources as if the baby was one of our own. This promise, this covenant, is one we take with the utmost of seriousness, yet we are so powerless to bring it to fruition.

So we wait. And we talk to people. And we post blog entries like this one, and Facebook statii, and make phone calls, and talk to people at work and at church and in the supermarket and on the street with the neighborhood kids and, well, you get the picture. We've set up a blog dedicated specifically to a prospective birth mother, that she may get to know our family a little and see a little about what we're about. Check it out: http://royandangel.blogspot.com. We've even set up an email where contact can be made specifically on this topic: royandangel@yahoo.com.

So, please, if you know of somebody who might be in a position to let their child be adopted, please pass a note on to her. We would be most appreciative. Until then, the wait continues ...

Life Changes

2011-10-03T06:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't written in this space for a while because, well, I've been busy. It's clear that sometimes actually living life prevents you from documenting it. That said, this post is a quick run-down on what I've been doing, for all those who have been holding their breath:

I went to Utah to visit with the in-laws for my wife's parent's 50th wedding anniversary. If you recall, we went to see my parents for their 50th wedding anniversary earlier in the year. To be blessed with those examples of marital fidelity from not one, but both sides of the family is a real treat, and I wish I could express to everybody what an amazing accomplishment I find that to be. In today's world where everything seems temporary, it's wonderful to see that some people still know what it means to make a promise, and keep it, forever.
I went to Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, again -- this time for a peer review that served as a pre-meeting for a design review that has now been moved to the new year. A "pre-review" is a "pre-meeting". Yeah, we laugh at Dilbert where I work, but it is painfully reflective of the truth sometimes.
I went to ESA's Spacecraft Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, again - this time for a one-day "technical interchange meeting" on lots of topics we needed to address. I went with only one other fellow, so it was a whirlwind trip, but it was well-worth it. We got a lot done.
We took a vacation and went to the beach during one our kid's fall break. We went up to El Capitan State Beach and camped out. We hauled the beach gear and the bicycles and the kayak, somehow managing to cram it all into and on our van; and ended up only using the first two. Even so, we had a wonderful time, even though the freight train that blew its horn and seemed to come through our tent at 2 am still makes me a little twitchy when I think about it.
We've installed the latest version of the software for which I'm the task lead at work, which was quite a feat given that I've been out of town the bulk of the last month.

Some other changes in the family:

Our oldest son is in the process of getting braces.
My two younger children are participating in soccer, and between practices three times a week and games on Saturday, we're BUSY.
My wife and I have decided we'd like to adopt another child. I'll post more on this later, but see here for the relevant blog.
I conferred the Aaronic Priesthood on my oldest son and ordained him to the office of a deacon. He's very excited about being with the bigger boys, and he is maturing into quite the young man (in fits and starts).

So, life is busy, but good. When people ask "what's new" in our lives, I don't have anything really to say, as life just keeps moving onward. This is a great blessing, and I only wish that I could somehow bottle how good life is right now and keep it affixed in my slippery memory.

Another Thing to Make One Happy

2011-09-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

My six-year-old is downstairs singing "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus", occasionally interrupting that with car vrooming sounds from his toy cars.

On Jealousy

2011-09-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

The other day I was perusing Facebook killing a few minutes (because there's really no added value to your life when you're on Facebook ...) when I saw a post by somebody who was so excited to be going on a cruise. This post followed other posts by and pictures of this person and this person's family spending gobs of time boating and off-roading. When I saw this post I was struck with a very sharp feeling of jealousy of this person. This took me by surprise and disturbed me greatly (hence this blog post), because I'm not a person who is prone to jealousy. My life is really quite good, and I generally want for nothing.

Even so, over the past few days, I've been thinking about this quite a bit, and trying to reconcile my jealousy, which hasn't gone away, with my own life. Why is it that this person, who isn't any better than me (see? I have a very well-developed sense of self-importance, so this jealousy is not derived from low self-esteem or self-worth ...), able to have all this free time and money to do these expensive and time-consuming things?

This is difficult for me to answer and I can only guess at the nature of this person's finances, so I have been forced to turn the question around: How is it that I do not have all this free time and money to do those kinds of expensive and time-consuming things? This question is much easier for me to answer. I work hard for the money I earn, and even if I had gobs of extra money, I don't think I'd choose to spend it that way; and, well, I work and when I do have free time, I choose to spend it visiting with family and going on other more pointed family vacations (see here for this summer's travels).

So, why is that I still feel so much jealousy when I wouldn't choose to spend my time and money doing what this person does, even if I had more time and more money? I'm not really sure, but it probably has something to do with how I'm wired. I have always want more out of life. I never feel like I have enough time to do all the things I want to do, and, much to my dismay, I often find I simply don't have the strength or brain-power to well-utilize the time I do have. It's a terrible conundrum.

This whole experience reminds me of a cartoon I once saw, which I was able to find:
Is it really true? Do we always want more because we feel entitled to it, even when we clearly aren't? I am not entitled to taking long vacations with a boat and ATVs any more than the next person, and yet when I see somebody else do this, it makes me want it.

So I'm in a tricky spot. How can I suppress this jealousy? Just internalize it and let it eat away at me? Or ... and perhaps this is WAY better ... I should try to convince this person to take me on their next vacation ... and pay for it, too.

Is there a third option?!

On Manual Labor

2011-09-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

Last night was the 5th Wednesday in the month of August. Our ward has a tradition of allocating that evening for the young men and young women to provide service to people of the Bishop's choosing. All the youth from ages 12 to 18 typically attend and are sent out to spend roughly half an hour helping one or more families in the ward, often those who are sick or otherwise infirm.

Last night, I went with two other adult leaders, four boys, and two girls; the youth were all between the ages of 14 and 16. We went over to one man's house (who has recently been quite ill) in order to do some yard work for him. When we arrived, this man had already meticulously done more than half the work, and the lawn mower and an edge trimmer were already out and ready to go. Pretty much all that needed to be finished was the edging of the front lawn, the mowing of the front lawn, and a few branches trimmed off a tree in the front yard.

Frankly, I was NOT impressed with the youth. I understand that young people of every era aren't typically voluntary. But they all knew why we were there -- we were there to help in any way that we could. Instead, they goofed off most of the time, being silly with each other, until the adult leaders actively prodded them with an instruction to do something specific. Sometimes, even after a direct instruction, the youth would resist doing what they'd been asked, making an excuse of some kind or simply not responding.

Most infuriating was one boy who stood and stared at me as I instructed him to go get the leaf blower from the man who we were there to help and to do what he was doing. Another sad example was when one of the girls, when asked to use the edger and after I had shown her how to use it, told me she couldn't do it because she's a girl. Really?!

With six able bodies, we should've been done in about ten minutes. Instead, it took us the full half hour to prod these children to do the job.

Only one of the boys had actually used a lawn mower before. Only one! I know for a fact that every teenager that was there lives in a house with a yard, which implies that either their parents don't have them help with the outdoor work, or their parents hire gardeners. I can't fault the parents for using their probably hard-earned resources to pay for a gardener, but sometimes I wonder if we (and I include myself here) often do what is easy, rather than what is right. It is certainly easier to hire a gardener. It is certainly easier to do the work ourselves so that it gets done promptly and the way we want it done. Nevertheless, I feel that parents do their children a great disservice when they fail to provide them with opportunities to do some of this menial labor around their own homes. Last night crisply illustrated the point for me.

Now don't get me wrong. Usually, I'm quite impressed by the moral character and the spiritual strength of these youth, but last night, I was downright disgusted by their laziness and ineptitude. It seems to me that these youth do not have an understanding of the value of manual work, nor did they carry with them the spirit of volunteerism that is held by people who provide service to others. I could make excuses for the youth, citing how busy they are with school and extracurricular activities and church responsibilities, but I'm not going to, because there was really no excuse for the behavior I saw last night.

Personally, my wife and I have had a long-standing policy that the kids help with the chores in and around the house. My 11-year-old son actually mows the lawn now, and does a fine job of it, too -- and he is a full 4 years junior to most of the youth that were there last night. Am I perfect in this regards? Not on your life, but at least I'm making sure he gets exposed to hard work in the sun and the heat, and learning the value of hard work.

So, parents out there, my challenge to you: let your gardener go and get your teenagers to mow the lawn. It won't result in perfect lines in your lawn and beautiful edges, but it may just result in a more perfect child.

Bed Time

2011-08-30T06:55:00.000-07:00

What is bed time? For an adult, bed time is generally considered to be the time when the adult has finished doing whatever that adult is doing and no longer wishes to remain conscious. At that point, the adult will generally find a soft horizontal surface on which to lay and will then be silent and motionless until a state of sleep is achieved. This is how it normally works.

For a child, bed time is the time at which that child's primary authority unit (typically a parent) says that the child should also find a soft horizontal surface on which to lay, be silent, and remain motionless until a state of sleep is achieved. Generally, it is helpful for the child if the place where they lay is quiet, dark, and comfortably warm (or cool, depending on the time of year).

For my three children, bed time has three very different meanings.

For my youngest son, bed time is immediately preceded by a drink of water, a hug from one of his parents, and a story. This child will usually then climb into his bed and will then proceed to chatter for several minutes about very random stuff until his parent eventually makes an excuse to leave ("I really have to go to the bathroom!"), says goodnight for the thirtieth time, and walks away. He will usually be found asleep ten minutes later.

For my daughter, bed time is a process whereby she turns on a lamp that shines a dim rainbow across her walls (and in her face! despite her parents telling her not to do that) and stares at it until it turns off after it's ten minute timer expires. At that point, she will turn it on again and stare at it some more. This sometimes will happen three or four times until she finally drifts off to sleep.

For my oldest son, bed time involves at least one act of dishonesty. Every night at the appointed hour, he is instructed to go to bed, and every night, with a yawn, he agrees that it is time to do so. He will then go to the bathroom (slamming the toilet seat down in the bathroom right next to his sleeping sister's and brother's bedrooms), get a drink from the bathroom sink by noisily turning on and off the sink, and then slamming his door shut as he goes to bed. All this is done without any thought -- any thought -- on his part as to the effect it may have on his siblings.

Last night, he took a book with him into his room as he was closing the door. Knowing my son very well, I told him not to take the book in his room with him, as it was bed time and he needed to sleep. He then told me he wasn't going to read, but wanted to keep it in his room so he knew where it was in the morning. I told him to leave it in the hallway and he could get it from there in the morning. I also reminded him that he typically doesn't have time to read in the morning because he is often slow moving (and grumpy) when getting ready for school. He then assured me again that he wasn't going to stay up and read, and insisted that he would be quick when getting ready for school in the morning. Skeptical, I allowed him to take the book with him.

Half an hour later, my wife and I decided to go to bed, too. As I always do, I checked on the kids before I went to sleep, and sure enough, I found my daughter was still staring at her rainbow, my youngest son (happily) was sound asleep, and my oldest son had his reading lamp on and was reading. I took the book away, told him he was being dumb about this as he knows he needs his sleep, and threatened him that he better be quick to get ready and not give his mother trouble in the morning. His totally lame response? "I wasn't going to read when I went to bed." Uh huh.

This appears to be a regular routine for us for his bed time. Why doesn't he recognize how noisy he is being when he does his final stuff before going to his room? Why doesn't he recognize how hard the next day will be if he doesn't go to bed on time? Why doesn't he comprehend that the process of falling asleep requires that he be inactive, with the lights out and his mind idle? And most importantly of all, why does he insist on breaking his insistent promises to not stay up late reading? Because he's a stupid pre-teen, that's why. Studies have shown that children of that age don't reason properly, logical decision-making is impaired, and selfishness and self-centeredness is common.

I shake my head in bewilderment. I love my son, and I am grateful for him. Even so, I look forward to him getting through this stupid phase. I hear it will take another ten years ... *sigh*

New Calling with the Deacons

2011-08-25T06:51:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back, I got a call from the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric of our ward. I answered the phone with some trepidation, expecting that I was about to be asked to give a talk during sacrament meeting. Instead and worse, he asked if he could stop by the house to visit with me for a minute. At that moment, I knew with 99% confidence that I was going to receive a new calling.

Judging by the fact that it was the 2nd counselor who was coming to visit with me, I could assume it was going to be a calling in the Primary or something else in the Young Men's organization. I also knew that they were in the process of finding a new Ward Mission Leader, and that was the only reason I could think of for why they would move me out of the Teachers Quorum, where I was finally settled and was planning to re-kickstart the Duty to God program among the boys. Bottom line, I was NOT ready to be moved as I felt my work was not yet done there.

Even so, he showed up and eventually asked me to be the Assistant Scoutmaster and the Assistant Deacons Quorum Advisor. I was stunned, mostly because I had no initial expectation that I'd be moved out of the Teachers Quorum. Frankly, though, I was mostly relieved that I wasn't going to be called as the new Ward Mission Leader.

The other day, my wife suggested that my time with the Teachers Quorum, abbreviated as it was, was really a time for me to get "trained" in the Young Men's program in preparation for this new calling. I can always count on her to think of these things. The Teachers Quorum was a delightful place to be and I felt comfortable there, so it makes perfect sense that I couldn't stay there for long. As it is, I do now feel quite prepared to be with the Deacons Quorum, a feeling I know I wouldn't have if I hadn't first spent a year with the Teachers.

The two men I'm working with, the Scoutmaster (who is mostly responsible for the scouting side of the boy's activities) and the 2nd Counselor to the Young Men's (who is mostly responsible for the Sunday/religious side of the boy's activities), are wonderful men that I consider to be good friends. I'm looking forward to working with them, and I understand very clearly how I can help them: I'm an organizer by nature and can help them plan to get these boys moving forward with their scouting, and, having had experience with the Teachers with regards to the Duty to God program, I can help get that moving, too.

My oldest son will be joining the quorum very soon, and it will be good to have a direct hand in what he does once he gets there. I also look forward to the regular campouts that we will be having; camping is something I greatly enjoy and I know the boys love it, too.

It was very strange, though, on Sunday, when I went to the Deacons Quorum for the first time. I was struck by just how little the boys are compared to the Teachers. Most of the Teachers in my old quorum are taller than me, so looking down to these boys was just plain weird. My wife reminded me that most of the boys just turned 12 and will likely sprout up in the next few years while under my care. Even so, it was still very strange to me.

It was also very strange to stand in front of them and attempt to have a serious discussion. They are prone to interrupting, silliness, and random expressions of thought, and few, if any, of them have filters between their brains and their tongues. I was able to find out where they are in scouting, and I'd consider most of them to be "behind", and, as far as I can tell, none of them have done anything with Duty to God.

*sigh* There's a lot of work to do ...

My Birthday!

2011-08-12T20:20:00.001-07:00

Today is my birthday and I have now officially entered my early late thirties! It's a terrible thing, I know, but, despite my best wishes, I can't seem to slow time down. Even so, I'm grateful to still be marking the passage of time.

I also happened to have the day off from work, as it is my regular Friday off. It's been a good day, and I had a decent list of things I wanted to do. For the run-down, this is what we've done:

Woke up late (well, all the way until 8:15!).
Went to Chick-Fil-A for a free breakfast sausage biscuit for breakfast (a few shopping errands followed).
Opened presents (a few great movies, a book from my parents, and a bag of peanut butter M&Ms -- awesome!)
Played Super Mario Brothers 3 on the Wii while the kids watched the old-school game play and proclaimed they could do SO much better than me (as if).
Had delicious homemade hamburgers (thanks, wife!) for lunch, with an amazing Asian cole slaw (double thanks, wife!) and some melon.
Went to Captain America with the wife (I quite enjoyed it, but felt the ending was a little soft).
Played Jungle Uno and Sorry Spin with the kids.
Went to Claim Jumper for an amazing dinner (the Grilled Cob Sandwich with the Spicy Peanut Thai Slaw on the side - wow!).
Had cake at home with the family.
Watched the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with the two older kids.

So, it's been a strange day full of food, media, and family. It's been very restful, and I feel very blessed! Happy birthday to me!!

Movie Smackdowns

2011-08-03T06:43:00.000-07:00

So in this past week, I've managed to watch most of four movies, an unprecedented feat that is even more astonishing given the craziness of my family's summer so far. The movies were each pretty good in their own way, but I had thoughts about which were the better movies in the two pairs I watched. One pair was a set of "kids" shows. The other was more PG-13 fare. So, a quick rundown, then the smackdown.

The Lion King: Yeah, I know it's an old movie (we have it on VHS!), but my kids hadn't seen it in a very long time and most certainly didn't remember it. This is still one of Disney's finest cartoons of that era, and the children were entranced. I put it on just to listen to the opening sequence to test the surround sound connection to our VCR. One by one, the kids came over and sat down and didn't move. This, of course, had a stellar message about taking responsibility.
Rango: Okay, this one was a PG movie that had a lot of buzz. I'd been told it was weird, but, wow, was it weird. I wouldn't have actually rated this as PG, either, because of all the swearing that's in the movie, all of which could have been left out. Clearly in PG-13 territory, the kids were complaining about the swearing and it frightened my youngest son in all the wrong places. Yeah, it was weird. I did appreciate the messages it was conveying, especially the one about how you are what you choose to be.

Smackdown result between these two movies? Clearly, The Lion King wins. Rango was too inappropriate for very young children.

Okay, so the next set:

Source Code: I had heard lots of great things about this movie, so we got it from Netflix and watched it in one sitting (that's a feat for my wife and I). We enjoyed piecing the puzzle together through to the very end. I won't spoil it here, but I thought the ending was satisfying.
The Adjustment Bureau: I hadn't heard very much about this movie, but Netflix suggested it as a good choice. After reading about it and watching a little video online that showed how they constructed one of the "doors" scenes, I was intrigued. My wife was completely clueless about the movie, but we were enthralled from the first scene. It was a great movie, with interesting theological suggestions, and had a satisfying ending.

Smackdown results? I think The Adjustment Bureau wins. While Source Code had a stronger and more emotionally fulfilling ending, I have to fault that movie for being derivative. My wife and I are well-schooled in alternate realities and diverging timelines thanks to our passion for nearly all things Star Trek, so we weren't wowed by the big reveal at the end. The Adjustment Bureau, on the other hand, posed some very fascinating questions about the nature of free will, God's (oh, excuse me, The Chairman's) divine plan for humanity, and how unrestrained freedom can run amok to cause so much trouble. Wrap this up with a solid romantic plotline and both my wife and I were satisfied with the results.

Okay, so, with this smackdown, a few recommendations:

Re-watch The Lion King. It's just good-hearted fun.
Watch Rango ... once. But only if you have nothing else to do.
Watch Source Code.
Definitely watch The Adjustment Bureau.

Ah, summertime ... Who knew I'd have time to actually watch these many movies, let alone construct this blog post about them? (And, please, please, don't remind me of any of the million other things I should have been doing instead ...)

Where Have I Been?

2011-07-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

So I must really apologize to all of my extraordinarily devoted readers out there ... all 2 of you! Thank you for your patience as I have been traveling a whole lot the last few months. I was going to try to do a blog post to tell a little about where I've been, but I think it's easier to just look at a map (click it for a bigger view):

Yeah, I've been a few places. Most of these trips have been in the last two months, too. Quite a summer!

And all this has been on top of the usual stuff nearby my house, such as temple trips, and excursions to Six Flags Magic Mountain and Hurricane Harbor. We've even managed to squeeze in a few movie nights and hosted/participated in a few dinner parties, too! It's been quite a summer, and it isn't even over, yet! (Un)happily, it looks like things are slowing down a little as the kids have their last few weeks before going back to school. We're still struggling to schedule that garage sale we've been meaning to have since April, but, hey, we'll get to it eventually!

Our Favorite Scripture Stories

2011-05-31T06:08:00.000-07:00

Mondays are a little crazy around our house right now. We normally set aside Monday evenings for Family Home Evening (FHE), where we pray together, have a little spiritual lesson, play a game, and eat a treat. Since my oldest son has been in 7th grade, though, we've learned that Mondays are complicated by the fact that his teachers load up the kids with their weekly homework on Monday. Since our son goes to Boy Scouts on Wednesday and the homework is usually due on Thursday, it is imperative that he get his homework done on Monday or Tuesday. Also, since he is a procrastinator by nature, we make him do as much as he can on Monday. This collides badly with our hope of having a quiet FHE.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there, as I wanted to write briefly about last week's FHE. Last week we simply sat down and went around the circle to ask what everybody's favorite scripture story was. Here's the results:

My older son likes the story about Ammon. Typically, when most people talk about Ammon, they remember the story of him hacking off all the Lamanite arms, but he actually likes the story that follows where King Lamoni became converted. He surprised me by sharing that he appreciates that Ammon's service had the effect of helping others to become converted to the Gospel. Sometimes my older son can be so mature ... not often, but sometimes.
Our daughter likes the story of Alma the Younger when the angel of the Lord came and told him to quit being an idiot and to stop fighting against the church. She was impressed by the fact that he changed his heart and later became a prophet and leader to his people.
Our younger son loves the story of Noah and the ark. Usually, when it is his turn to share a lesson during FHE, he will pick this one to share with us. We were not surprised.
My wife loves the story of Alma the Elder, and how he had such incredible faith that he risked his life to stand up for Abinadi and then later led his people to freedom in Zarahemla.
There's lots of stories I like and I struggled to pick a "favorite", so I shared the story of Nephi building the ship, and how he showed such faith and followed the directives from the Lord even though his stinker brothers weren't very cooperative.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that.

Holy Unexpected Truths, Batman!

2011-05-25T06:49:00.000-07:00

So I read somewhere that if you click the first link in a Wikipedia article that is not in parenthesis or italics, and then repeat this, you will eventually land on the article for philosophy.

I tried it out with the word "Stargate" (since I kinda liked that show and everything related to it), and followed this chain of links:

Stargate
Military science fiction
Genre
Literature
Latin
Italic languages
Indo-European languages
Language family
Language
Communication
Meaning (philosophy of language)
Philosophy

Say what?! Not only did it lead to the article on philosophy, but it did so rather quickly, in my opinion. So I then tried it with a physical science, figuring it couldn't reasonably lead back to philosophy:

Volcanism
Volcanoes
Rupture (this lead to "ductile fracture" under ...)
Fracture
Stress (mechanics)
Continuum mechanics
Mechanics
Physics
Natural science
Science
Knowledge
Facts
Information
Sequence
Mathematics
Quantity
Property (philosophy)
Modern philosophy
Philosophy

Okay, by this time I was annoyed, because there had to be something that didn't relate. So then I tried it again with something I figured would have no possible chance of leading in that direction:

Lady Gaga
Stage name
Pseudonym
Name
Noun
Linguistics
Science
Latin
Italic languages
Indo-European languages
Language family
Language
Communication
Meaning (philosophy of language)
Philosophy

Not only did it get there, but it got there faster with Lady Gaga than it did for volcanism! Truly amazing. I'm sure there are other things you could check, but with 3 data points that uphold it, I'm satisfied that this theory holds ... for now.

How about you?

Perspicacious

2011-05-19T06:29:00.000-07:00

Wow, I'm a nerd. I actually used the word "perspicacious" when writing up a performance evaluation for somebody at work. I'd be willing to bet that the supervisor who received my evaluation has NEVER seen that word before and will have to look it up ... *snicker*

Perspicacious : of acute mental vision or discernment : keen

On the Pronunciation of Jaguar

2011-05-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

A silly thing to post, I know, but this blog is about my musings after all, and I think about all sorts of random things.

Here's a pet peeve of mine: on the radio the other day, there was a Jaguar ad spoken by a guy who had a weird accent. It was most definitely not a British accent, but something elsewise European. Anyway, so he kept repeating the name of the car he was advertising, as he should have, but every time he said it, I flinched. I recognize that I'm a pseudo-redneck unsophisticated American hack with no hope of being considered truly pretentious, but seriously, the word "jaguar" in the United States is pronounced ja-gwar. Look it up. Yet he kept pronouncing it ja-gyoo-ar.

Now, I recognize that in England, the latter pronunciation is correct, but the radio spot was not delivered in England! I can understand the desire to sound sophisticated, particularly for that brand of automobile, but even so, it was downright annoying.

Here's how sophisticated I am: when I think of the word "jaguar" I think of Mater from the Pixar movie Cars when he says, "You know, I once knew this girl Doreen. Good lookin' girl. Looked just like a ja-gwar, only she was a truck! You know, I used to crash into her, just so I could spoke to her."

It's just me, I totally know it.

On Missing Two Front Teeth

2011-05-01T14:24:00.001-07:00

My youngest son's second front tooth just came out yesterday. Even though the other one is coming in and you can see it's white nub, he now has a very marked speech impediment. My favorite quote so far, spoken when he was wrestling with his shoelaces before church this morning: "My latheth are tho thlippery!"

We try so hard not to laugh, but it's so adorable that we can barely contain ourthelveth!

Vacation in San Francisco

2011-04-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

Last week I took my little family on vacation to San Francisco. We were originally planning on going during the summer, but I figure we cut the cost by about 40% by going during our oldest kids' spring break instead. The risk, of course, was that the weather would be bad, but in the cold calculus of our cheapitude, a lot of money saved outweighed the threat of a little rain. Even so, we still spent a pretty penny (there goes our tax return ...), but it was well worth it. As there is absolutely no way that I have time to do a complete run-down of our experiences, I'm going to show one picture from each of the places we went, most of them NOT the typical tourist pictures, which hopefully will give a feel for what we did ...

Sunday, April 17th

We drove up north on Sunday, which is something we always try to avoid, but it just didn't make sense to do anything different. Even so, we wanted to have some religious content to our day, so on the way up we stopped at the Oakland Temple, where we took a lot of pictures. Again, I'm only going to show one, but suffice it to say that we took pictures of the temple, of the awesome view from the temple (we still have to assemble the panorama shots), of the inside of the visitors center (there's some amazingly beautiful paintings in there), etc. In what was to become a pattern over the next week, the children each had their own cameras, which they used to take pictures of everything from their legs to black walls.

Of course, being in Oakland, we were on the wrong side of the bay, so we went across the Bay Bridge. My wife had purchased a San Francisco travel guide, and read to the kids the history and information on the bridge. The older two didn't really care, but our youngest son, who is into all things mechanical, thought it was awesome. Their biggest complaint was that they couldn't see the bridge very well from the back of the van.

We were hoping to see Fort Pointe Sunday night before it got too late, as it is only open Friday through Sunday. Alas, in making our way there, we got stuck due to construction and by the time we figured out how to get there, it was past closing time. Even so, in part of our unexpected detour, we found ourselves in the Presidio military cemetery. My wife had never been in such a place, and it was a good reminder to everybody of the sacrifices that people make so that we can enjoy our freedom. We noted many tombstones that showed many people had actually participated in more than one war.

Even though Fort Pointe was closed, the wiggly part of Lombard Street, arguably the crookedest street in the world, doesn't ever really close, so we went over there to show the kids. We made the mistake of going east on Lombard Street towards the top of the hill, which meant we were in a row of cars many blocks long all trying to go down it. While waiting, I had the wife and kids get out of the van and walk up the hill a few blocks to get there and they actually were able to walk down and then back up it and return to the van before I had moved more than two blocks closer. We eventually bailed from the long line, and determined that we could skip it altogether by coming from the south along Hyde Street and simply turning right at the intersection. The kids were alarmed that we were "butting in line", but to me it was a demonstration of great wisdom rather than a show of a lack of ethics. Note to all future Lombard Street tourists: do what we did.

Monday, April 18th

Monday morning we set off for Golden Gate Park, a beautiful tract of greenery cutting a swath through urban San Francisco. Within the park was the Japanese Tea Gardens, which was free to go into if you got there before 10 am. We arrived just after 9 and walked through the gardens. It was slightly drizzly (the worst weather we had all week, actually), so the kids were a little anxious about that (remember, they're Southern California children ... rain is very much akin to a meteor shower in both their frequency and their potential impact). Even so, the walk through the gardens was beautiful and we were able to convince our daughter, at least, to just be still and enjoy the peaceful surroundings.

After we went to the Japanese Tea Gardens, we walked across the street to the Academy of Sciences, a museum that had lots of different sections. We walked through the butterfly infested rain forest, stared down the albino alligator, grinned at the sharks, and played with the starfish. The kids love that kind of stuff, even if they'd rather look and run rather than gaze and read. We spent nearly the whole day there, and were so very happy that we were able to get in to the planetarium for a star show. The children had never been to anything like that and they were truly in awe as we appeared to zip through the stars and swerve between planets. It was very, very cool.

After we left the Academy, we went over and, after a bit of difficulty, found some parking near the Children's Playground. The kids had a great time going down the concrete slide and climbing the rope tower. My oldest son was too afraid to go all the way to the top until his younger sister showed him up (after I demonstrated to her it could be done -- yeah, I'm a big kid). I think it was that night that we came back to the hotel and went swimming at the hotel pool, which waters were quite warm, but the air was SO cold. The kids got in, but my wife and I didn't. In fact, my wife stayed back at the room because she was so cold. Undeterred, the kids had a blast, though.

Tuesday, April 19th

No trip to San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf would be complete without stopping at Pier 39 to watch the harbor seals. The noisy, smelly, rude animals always make me laugh. The kids were under-impressed, though, so we moved on.

We walked over to the Aquarium of the Bay and got there just as it opened. A relatively small aquarium (we were used to the likes of the Monterrey Bay Aquarium), we only spent a few hours there. The kids enjoyed it, though, particularly the really long tunnels that wrapped around under their big tanks. The kids had their cameras out and were taking picture after picture of sharks and rays and schools of fish floating over their heads. It was a great time.

When we were done at the Aquarium, we walked down the street to Joe's Crab Shack for lunch. It's totally bad for your body, but it is arguably one of my favorite places to eat. I'm a big burger fan, so when I saw their "Surf 'N Turf Burger", I was sold. It's a big hamburger with shrimp on top with deep fried onions and sauce (okay, there's lettuce and tomatoes on it, too). Again, it was totally bad for my body, but it was so totally worth it. Oh, and the wife and kids enjoyed it, too.

After lunch, we walked/sauntered/rolled over to the Hyde Street Pier. We just wanted to take a quick look at the ships from the pier, but then discovered that all of them were open to visit for free that day. Never ones to turn down free stuff, we happily clambered aboard each of the ships in turn. Our favorite of the bunch was most definitely the Balclutha, which not only had an interesting story, but was well-fitted for visitors. The kids were well-engaged and had a great time walking its decks. There was actually some kind of a youth program going on at the time, too, with people pretending to be sailors instructing a bunch of pre-teen kids on how to take care of a ship. Judging by all the sleeping gear left in one of the cabins, I think it was an overnighter for them. Such an amazing ship, we were stunned at its size and, given how we are used to such a mechanized world, amazed that such a huge thing (fully loaded, even!) could be moved just by wind power alone.

That night, we drove over to the Financial District. The kids wanted to see the Transamerica Pyramid. We drove around and the kids again took lots of pictures, most looking up at the buildings around us. They're city kids, but not city kids, and thought it was really neat. I still don't think they comprehend just how many people live in the big city, being so densely packed in compared to where we live.

After the Financial District, we drove up to Coit Tower and were stunned to find we could drive all the way to the top and get parking! All the previous times I'd been there, traffic to the top was a nightmare and we ended up parking down below and hiking up, so parking at the top was a real treat. We went inside, but declined the ticket to go to the top. Even so, we enjoyed the murals on the inside (the kids finding the part where a guy was being held up) and the view from the outside. We took some playful pictures, and also some great shows of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Wednesday, April 20th

Wednesday morning we went to the U.S.S. Pampanito. See my innermost thoughts on this here. We had a great time climbing through the submarine, and the children were very impressed by how cramped the quarters were, how tiny the kitchen was, how the sailors just slept wherever there was space, how there were pipes and wires and knobs and dials practically everywhere in sight, and how huge the torpedoes were. I don't think they truly appreciate the challenging life of a sailor, particularly one at war, but I'm confident I don't, either.

Later that afternoon, we took the ferry over to Alcatraz Island. For a place with such a dark past, the island is actually quite delightful to visit. The National Parks Service has done an excellent job, and the ranger/guide we followed for a 45 minute walk was engaging and entertaining. We were regaled with stories of people who attempted to escape from the prison, which was a wonderful lead-in to the actual audio tour itself. Each of us donned a pair of headphones and walked the halls of the prison. I walked with my six-year-old son as we listened to the stories of the place. Occasionally, he would hear something and look up at me with a long face and surprised eyes. It was priceless to watch his expressions change as he heard about the inmates' misbehaviors. I think each of my children appreciated that prison is not someplace they want to be. We'll be renting "Escape from Alcatraz" soon.

Thursday, April 21st

Thursday morning we went to the Exploratorium. My wife and I had visited there when we lived nearby just after getting married, and loved it then. In the years since, it hasn't changed beyond recognition, and still was quite enthralling to the kids. (Okay, and us, too. Blast it, it's just so hard to hide that we're nerds!) Again I went with my youngest son while my wife stayed with the older two children; their paces were just too different to stay together. We had a great time exploring each section, and actually ran out of time (which made the kids kind of grumpy when we left). They wanted to stay all day to play with the various exhibits. I think that of all the stuff there, a few favorites were the iron filings that could be assembled into structures on two opposing magnetopoles (you could actually see the magnetic field lines in the structures that could be assembled!), the sound tube that ran for 100 yards that you could talk into and hear yourself echo, the camera that took multiple frames that superimposed images with slight time offsets (my wife had, like, 30 arms!), and the wall where you could assemble tubes and ramps to make marbles roll down. My older children also really enjoyed all the stuff on electricity on the upper floor, a concept my youngest didn't quite understand (though he did really enjoy putting wires together in random, meaningless ways).

After we left there, we walked the Palace of Fine Arts briefly, so that we could take some pictures. Even with how beautiful the place is, its history is equally enthralling. However, I was struck with a sense of disappointment in that there really wans't much symbolism or meaning associated with the place. In comparison to the monuments and churches and other things we have seen in London and in Germany, it just seemed kind of ... second-hand. Still beautiful, but without the emotional resonance.

That night we took the cable cars over to Chinatown. Our first stop was the Sam Wo restaurant in San Francisco. I remember that place from over 20 years ago when I went there with my parents and siblings. Ever since then, every time I go to Chinatown I have been able to stop for dinner there. It is such a quaint little place with wonderful food. You have to walk through the kitchen area to a flight of stairs that takes you to the seating area where the waitress, if that's what she is, took our order. The food was delivered by dumb waiter to the second floor and we had to be careful to order water in cups, otherwise they bring bottled water and charge you for it. My youngest really doesn't do mixed or saucy foods, so he pretty much just ate rice, but the other two children really enjoyed it, as did I. My wife had a great meal of mostly meat and vegetables, which is just what she needed to keep her hypoglycemia at bay. We all walked out with smiles and slightly distended bellies.

Walking around the rest of Chinatown, we wandered the streets somewhat, stopping at a fortune cookie "factory". It was really just a garage where fortune cookies were assembled by two older Chinese men. I'm not really sure how food establishments pass food inspections in Chinatown, because nothing seemed terribly sanitary, but the kids thought that was interesting. We also did our shopping for souvenirs there, and the kids loved spending their hard-earned money on random things. Between the wooden sword, the really cool dragon paperweight, and the Baoding balls (and more!), we got sufficient touristy stuff to keep everybody happy.

Friday, April 22nd

Friday was our last day in San Francisco. We had ridden the cable cars the night before, but wanted to ride them again during the daytime. We took a different line this time, which still landed us in the Financial District, but this time we were able to get better pictures. The kids enjoyed the ride, especially my youngest son, who would often turn around and just watch the cable car operator as he worked the handles. We spent a bit of time learning about how they worked (which was different than we thought ... check it out). My two older children were excited to be able to hang off the side, and while they were somewhat disappointed that they weren't allowed to jump off it while it was still moving, and that they weren't allowed to hang out over the street, they greatly enjoyed themselves nonetheless. Truth be told, the time I ended up standing was actually a better experience because you can see a lot more of the buildings around you from that vantage point.

After that, we checked out of the hotel and drove up to Twin Peaks. Having lived near San Francisco, in hindsight I'm surprised that I'd never been up there before. The views were great, but that particular morning it was cold. We originally anticipated that we'd have a leisurely lunch and climb the nearby hills to the top, but it was just so cold that we had a quick lunch, snapped a few pictures, and left as soon as we could. The next time we're in town, we'll try again.

We then drove over to Fort Pointe. After finally navigating there successfully, we had a very nice visit at the fort. The kids like climbing all over the place, and while they weren't interested at all in the historical exhibits, they did like climbing the neat stairs and looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay.

Finally, we actually drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped on the other side. By this time, everybody was cold and tired and had sore feet. My daughter being the most vociferous of the bunch, she actually threw something of a tantrum about not wanting to walk out across the bridge. After much difficulty, we got her out there in time for her to see a few seals playing in the waves. It was really cute to see my youngest periodically stick his head between the rails so he could see if we were over water. We walked out to the first/north tower and took lots of pictures there.

We had a wonderful visit to San Francisco, and we are so glad we took a week to see the sights. As always, I was happy to be able to spend the time with my wife and kids.

I think there was much more we could have done, and it would have been good to have a few more days, but we all left satisfied with the experience. After the long drive home, we found all mostly well at home: our cat was still alive, we only lost one fish, and only one of our two frogs had croaked (sorry, couldn't resist).

(Postscript: it took me a week to assemble this! *phew!*)

The Missing Magnitude of Accomplishment

2011-04-29T06:41:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the chance to visit the U.S.S. Pampanito in San Francisco. Frankly, it was incredible. I'll not talk much about that experience here, because I have something else I want to muse about.

Whenever I learn about stuff during the World War II era, be it flying fortresses or concrete bunkers built into the side of giant craters or aircraft carriers or atomic bombs, I'm always struck by just how awe-inspiring it was that these things came to be.

You look at today's technology, so carefully crafted with smooth and sleek curves (see Apple, Inc.), and things just seem so ... modern. But then I look at things like the Pampanito, and I remember what a heady time World War II was. It was a time when science and mechanics (and budding electronics) walked hand-in-hand with raw willpower under the demands of pure expedience to create some of the most amazing technological breakthroughs the human race has ever seen. The shape of the world today, for all it's flaws, is the result of World War II.

People of that time just built stuff. Their engineers planned, sure, and they tried to be just as deliberate as we try to be in their designs, but when it came right down to it, if there was a need to put a wire here or a pipe there, they did just that because they had to and they didn't look back. They tried things that had never been tried before, and often failed in the effort, but with each failure they learned something which they would incorporate into the next attempt. Clambering through the "spacious" decks of the Pampanito makes this every so apparent. (Okay, I'm no doubt grossly generalizing, but from the vantage point of 50 years removed and being poorly informed, that's the way it seems to me.)

I'm not saying that reckless design is a good thing, but as an engineer who occasionally gets so fed up with paperwork and process and review, I am in awe that they did what they did. I sometimes think that our modern engineering world is so frightened of making mistakes that we make the even worse error of failing to even try.

I love the world we live in today. I love that, at least for me and most around me, it is a comfortable and secure and content place. Nevertheless, I look back at the accomplishments of the early half (ok, 2/3rds if you include the Apollo program) of the 20th century and I look around at the world of today, and I just don't see the same frequency or magnitude of accomplishment, on such a grand scale.

With all the posturing in the hallowed halls of Washington and the budget uncertainties and the shaky economy and the media fear-mongering, I yearn for days when we can try and not fear. I don't think days like that will come anytime soon.

(See here for a similar rant on the absence of audacious goals in today's world.)

Full disclosure: I manage a small team of engineers developing software to help coordinate activities at Mars between various spacecraft operating there. This is pretty cool. However, the least favorite part of my job is that every year I have to spend gobs of time begging for money from the higher-ups to pay for this work, when to me it is obvious that it is important and necessary. I love my job, but hate that aspect of it, particularly since I don't need very much money to do what needs to be done. This post is very likely a reaction to that frustration and a desire to be free to do what I want and not have to account to anybody. This doesn't make me a bad person ... it just makes me like everybody else in the world with an ounce of ambition.

Sometimes I Really Love My Job

2011-04-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in a meeting just now watching as representatives from four different spacecraft operating at Mars were coordinating how they were to work together to transmit data between them. The meeting had broken up, and everybody stood to leave, but lingered to discuss other details of what had to be done to make the next planning cycle go smoothly. I also stood to leave, but paused at the door to marvel at the spectacle. Since my job is focused specifically on trying to get these various projects to work together, the sight brought warm fuzzies to me.

Smart people + working together = great things accomplished.

Sometimes I really love my job.

Gifts My Youngest Son Got for His Birthday

2011-04-04T06:54:00.000-07:00

My youngest son had his birthday yesterday, and we had a wonderful time visiting with the in-laws and watching General Conference. All the while, he quietly (really! well ... mostly) played with some of his new toys that he got for his birthday. Here's the run-down on what he received:

Some money from his paternal grandparents, which he promptly stated he wants to spend on a model with wheels he can paint.
Stinky The Garbage Truck, which his maternal grandparents miraculously found for a steal at $15.
Tickets to a monster truck rally in a month.
A TRIO blocks wrecking ball crane, which my wife and I miraculously found at Ross for $15, which includes a dump truck.
A chocolate cake with a monster truck on it.

Does anybody detect a theme to all these gifts? Yes, my youngest son is indeed a boy and loves trucks and planes and trains and pretty much anything that moves. The other day, he put a push-broom on the front of his tricycle in the back yard and proudly proclaimed, "Look, Dad! I made a machine!" That's my boy!

His sister gave him some candy and his older brother "gave" him the upper bunk, which he was so happy to sleep in last night. We also let him stay in his pajamas all day long, which, for some reason, is a treat to the kids.

He feels like such a big kid now, and it is very strange to us to know that he is now 6 years old! He's still our "little guy", but he is getting bigger all the time. You can see his missing teeth here, which is so indicative of the age:

We love him so much, and are grateful that he is such a good-natured and happy boy. He really does bring great happiness to our family, and I feel greatly blessed to be his father. Love you, kiddo!

Temple Trip With the Young Men and Young Women

2011-03-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago I had the privilege of going with the young men and women from our ward to the L.A. Temple for a night of performing baptisms for the dead. It was an awesome trip. I drove 6 of the young men with me -- boys between 13 and 17 -- on the quick drive down to the temple.

Nobody had a "real" camera, so I ended up taking pictures with my DroidX, which has an 8 mega-pixel camera on it. (Still absolutely love it. You want one, you know it.) Here's the result (click for full-size picture):

After that, we went inside to perform the baptisms. Two of the youth had a whole pile of names that they wanted to be done, which were supplied to them by their loco-for-genealogy grandmother. I ran the names upstairs to have the cards printed for them, and returned with a stack of roughly 60 cards that were relatives of these two youth.

One of the counselors from the temple presidency came down to the baptistry and told us a story. He explained that an uncle of his was nothing short of a villain, and how when he, the temple presidency member, had joined the church he firmly believed that nobody would want this man's temple work done because, frankly, everybody believed he was going to hell anyway. He then explained that he eventually came to realize that those who never had the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this life have the opportunity to do so in the next, and that the baptisms we do in the temple afford those who have heard that Gospel and accepted it in the hereafter an opportunity to receive the saving ordinance of baptism for themselves.

Once he finally came to this understanding, he himself did the work for this villainous family member, and had an exceptionally moving spiritual experience where he felt that his uncle had accepted the Gospel and was so very grateful for the opportunity to have his sins washed away. He reminded us that we here on Earth are not to act as the judges of people's hearts and minds, and that that privilege is reserved only for the Savior. It is our obligation to do the work and make those opportunities available for those on the other side, and allow the infinite Atonement of the Savior to work.

It was a great story, and the youth seemed to understand that the names for which they would be doing the ordinances weren't just names on a piece of paper, but rather names of actual people who have passed away, who had lived lives with experiences both good and bad that we can't begin to guess at.

After this, several of the men who were with us took some of the youth to do confirmations, and I went to the baptismal font with several others to help the youth actually be baptized. We started with those who had brought the names, and it was a great experience for them (and for those of us who were there). The man who was in the font did a great job with each of them, explaining how to stand and how to go all the way under the water appropriately, and took his time with each of the youth.

I recorded that the ordinances for each name had been performed, while two others acted as witnesses that the ordinances had been performed properly. The experience was great for each of the kids, who seemed happy to be there. For a few of the youth, it was their first opportunity to do baptisms for the dead, and for others, they were well-familiar with how things went. Several of them seemed honestly moved to be there, and I was pleased to find out that some of them had prepared themselves to have a spiritual experience by fasting throughout the day.

When all was said and done, each of the 23 youth had been baptized and confirmed for about 10 people for each ordinance, including those 60 or so relatives from the youth who had their own family names to do.

As we separated to go home, each of the drivers selected someplace to go for dinner with the boys. For me and my car full of ravenous teenage boys, they wanted to go to Souplantation for dinner because they wanted all-you-can-eat. It took us 20 minutes to get there, and then they all concluded that $10 was too much for them to pay for dinner. So, we made our way over to In-N-Out -- another 20 minutes -- for burgers and fries. We went through the drive-through, which worked well, but the timing wasn't so good for one of the young men in my van, who was diabetic and had elected to fast that day (which didn't go well). Unfortunately, there wasn't anything I could do to help him, except to get him home as quick as I could, which didn't go well due to the excessive traffic.

Despite the difficulty in getting home, I have confidence that, at least for those in my van, the experience was a great one, and I am very grateful that I had the ability to be a part of it.

On Nuclear Power

2011-03-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

A very good friend of mine is kind of a nuclear nut. He loves the stuff, and can rattle off how different radioactive isotopes decay quicker than he can tell you his phone number. (Okay, perhaps a slight exaggeration ...) In any case, in light of the mess that is Japan in the aftermath of the 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami, I was curious to know what his thoughts were regarding the explosions at the nuclear sites there.

And, of course, he not only has thoughts, he has insights. I highly recommend that all 2 of my regular readers take a look at his two (as of now) posts regarding the nuclear reactors there:

The content of these posts are very informative and explain much about what has happened and why much of the media-induced panic shouldn't be.

My friend is a huge advocate of a "new" style of reactor that uses thorium, called a "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor", or LFTR. This reactor is a much safer, much simpler reactor, without all the mess of weapons-grade waste products being created. The technology has been around for decades, but the political will to build them just hasn't been there. Perhaps this disaster can help some of the right people see some sense, and put some weight behind this technology.

Books to Make You Panic

2011-03-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

... Or Books to Encourage You To Be Prepared

I love my family, and I always worry about their well-being. I also love to read books, particularly science fiction books. Sometimes, these science fiction books are set in the not-so-distant future and describe Really Bad Things happening. I'm reading such a book right now, which is making me think about ways I can better prepare my family for just such a catastrophic event. As I was writing this blog post, it occurred to me that it is fairly rare that a book does this to me, and I can actually count them on one hand. Here they are for your amusement:

One Second After, by William R. Forstchen. This is the book I am reading right now, which describes the events in a small North Carolina community in the aftermath of a nation-wide electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack. It makes me concerned about being able to store refrigerated medications in a no-longer-electrical world, having enough water available for my family, and storing fuel for both cooking and transportation. It has also caused me to contemplate my own powerful dependence on electronic devices, most especially including my car.
Mariposa, by Greg Bear. This is a book I read last year, which describes a near-future history where the ability to create biological weapons becomes more available to terrorist groups. It makes me concerned about my ability to keep my family isolated in the midst of a highly communicable disease.
Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. This book I read several years ago, which describes the aftermath of a cometary impact on Earth. It makes me concerned about having a long-term store of food and water, as well as bringing into question my ability to protect my family from those who would take what we have.

These three books have caused no small amount of thinking on my part. My wife and I already do try to keep a supply of food, at the council of our church (see here for tips), but we are notably unprepared in storing water (which is very bad given where we live in the desert) and fuel.

It makes me wonder all sorts of things, such as how desperate our neighbors might become if the grocery store no longer had food for them to purchase on a near-daily basis and the eating-out establishments were to close. Would they try to take what they know we have? I'd like to think we'd be willing to share, but would I do so if the Really Bad Thing that happened didn't look to be resolved any time soon, and we needed to be prepared to dig in for the long haul?

A few years back, I attended a training class sponsored by CERT (see here for details), where I learned all sorts of things about how to help in the event of an emergency. We talked about all sorts of scenarios, including earthquakes (the most likely event for where we live), building fires, and chemical spills. The one thing that the trainer, a fireman, kept saying throughout the course was that when things get really bad, "We ain't comin'." This was a good reminder to all of us in the class to pay attention, as in the event of a major disaster of any kind, the firemen, policemen, and hospitals will be so overwhelmed that we should have no expectation that they will come to save us.

Having read these books, I feel a bit wiser as to what to expect, but one thing these books don't really talk about is how specific groups of people would band together for their common good. I think specifically of my own church, which has a very clear organization of authority and an infrastructure to look after and care for the needy. This organization is no small thing, with tiers and redundancies that flow all the way down and ensures that every single person that is a church member has several people looking after them.

I have no doubt that if any of these Really Bad Things were to happen locally, my church would be a source of order and help for the entire community. We see evidence of this whenever an earthquake strikes in some of the more obscure places in the world, from Haiti to Samoa to Indonesia. This is not to say that the church can swoop in wherever there is trouble and make everything better -- clearly this is not the case (see: Haiti) -- but it certainly can be a moderating influence to help avoid the bands of marauding hordes that these books suggest will roam the countryside eating everything in their way.

Even so, there are plenty of things to be learned from them. First and foremost is that one's priority will naturally be to look after oneself and one's own. This natural instinct will drive the behavior of those who have and those who have-not in dire circumstances, which means that one can, if not plan for it, at least anticipate it. Read into that whatever you will.

As for me, these books encourage me to be better prepared.

When Discovery Ends

2011-03-10T06:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, so the title of this blog entry is intended to be clever, believe it or not. That said, I have been thinking a lot about the end of the Space Shuttle program, and it's long term implications. With Shuttle Discovery touching down for the last time, prior to becoming a museum piece after having spent a cumulative year in space, only a few more Shuttle flights remain until the program ends.

When Discovery launched on February 24th, I was at work and turned on NASA TV to watch the launch. I was terribly disappointed by the coverage. I know that NASA likes to portray a professional, we-do-this-all-the-time attitude, but watching the launch coverage was about as exciting as watching grass grow. It's no wonder the American public is ho-hum about the ongoing space program. The NASA PR people just can't seem to figure out how to make the whole thing exciting. The irony is that the public really does get excited about it, despite the failures of the NASA outreach folks.

Here it was, the last flight of one of the most iconic spacecraft ever built, and there was nothing discernible in the way of fanfare and glory. I quipped to a friend that day, "So this is how America's space dominance ends ... with a yawn." I was a little miffed at the time, but several weeks later, I still don't apologize for it.

I have written in this space before (here and here) about my thoughts on the Obama Administration's handling of the Space Shuttle retirement. I do appreciate and understand the rationale behind it, and I still have high hopes for the future, but I still worry.

Thus far, even the best of our nation's private industry hopes, namely SpaceX, has yet to produce a human-rated launch vehicle. When it does, it will be more of a throw-back to the Apollo era than anything akin to what the Space Shuttle represents. Listening to the radio the other day, some space pundit said that "the Shuttle could do anything except leave low Earth orbit." That last "except" is a big one, but the first part of that quote (the emphasis was his ...) is nothing to scoff at.

So, even though NASA doesn't seem to have any clue how to gracefully retire the thing, I'm doing my best to help my children appreciate the end of the era. And it really is the end of the era. For the foreseeable future, with no end date in sight, our great nation will have no means to delivery people into space. That's just sad.

But that didn't stop me from taking my kids out on Tuesday night to watch the bright spots of light rise above the horizon as Discovery passed overhead, followed shortly thereafter by the International Space Station. We went to a nearby treeless/lightless park and oohed and aahed in excitement. The kids tried their best to find them in the binoculars, which they quickly, wisely abandoned; and I could only grumble when my oldest son, the dope, announced he left his glasses behind and couldn't see a thing. Even so, the children all thought it was great stuff, and I hope it will have some positive effect on their hopes and aspirations for the future.

And I will continue to do so, because I'm a conscientious parent. Even and especially since NASA can't figure out how to do it ...

On the Fire Alarm Low-Battery Warning in the Middle of the Night

2011-02-28T06:46:00.000-08:00

Every day contains 24 hours. Of those 24 hours, there are 1,440 minutes. Within these minutes are 86,400 seconds. That's a lot of seconds when you think about it. Seriously, it would take you a whole day to count that high if you counted once per second.

Consider now that during any given day, most people get somewhere between 6 and 8 hours of sleep. Me? I'm running on about 6 1/2 hours these days, which consists of 23,400 seconds. This seems like a lot of seconds, but not really when compared to the total of 86,400 in a day; it's just over 27%.

Yet, for reasons I can not even begin to fathom, it's in this 27% of my life that the fire alarm low-battery beeping almost always goes off. I have to include the word "almost" there, because I have one errant data point which prevents me from excluding it. Indeed, in the entirety of my adult life, only one time -- one time! -- has the fire alarm low-battery beeping begun during daylight hours when I was not comfortably sleeping.

Why is this? One would think that this incessant beeping would occur rather randomly, as every battery should have a fairly even chance to discharge below the needed threshold at any time of the day. Nevertheless, it is not so. I didn't ace statistics, so I can't precisely quantify the chances that the alarm would (almost) always go off in those 23,400 seconds, but just looking at the percentage, I'd assume the odds should be roughly 1 in 4.

Yet, so it happened that last night at 4:08 in the morning, I was very rudely awoken by the incessant PEEP! of the low-battery alarm. I knew immediately what it was. I also felt pretty lucky that I knew which alarm was going off -- the one in my room. (Last time this happened, it took me about ten minutes of stumbling around to figure out which one was actually going off due to the acoustics of my house ... I ended up pulling the batteries from 3 different alarms in the middle of the night before I found the right one!)

So, you might be able to image me, half-awake but fully-annoyed, stumbling around looking for a chair so that I could climb up and pull the battery. The first chair I was tempted to grab was the one we keep in our room which has a broken leg. It's stable enough to sit on, but only when properly positioned. I was wise enough to skip that one.

Instead I went out into the hallway and got a folding chair from by the computer desk. Turns out that folding chairs aren't very tall. Since I'm not, either, this wasn't very convenient.

Getting the battery out of the alarm involved me, still half-asleep, balancing on the rickety folding chair and standing on my tippy-toes with my arms fully extended above me trying to remove the battery. The little door that holds the battery in didn't want to open. After several tries that hurt my blood-deprived (remember: arms above my head) and sleepy fingers, I finally got it open and took the battery out.

Then I went back out to the hallway where we have a drawer full of batteries, turned the light on (I squinted in the bright light, trying very hard to not wake myself up even more), and dug around until I found a new 9 volt battery -- still in its case. I tore the box open and went back to my room, expecting to quickly pop the battery in and go back to bed.

Well, it didn't quite go that way. After installing it in a manner that I thought was correct, I attempted to close the little door that holds the battery in place. It was even more uncooperative upon closing. I tried hitting it gently to close it (keep in mind that I'm still half asleep, standing on my tippy-toes on a rickety chair, stretching my arms high above my head) and the whole alarm came off the ceiling! Somehow I had managed to jar it loose and it was then dangling from the ceiling by the wires that plug the alarm in to the house power. The loose wires caused the alarm to beep several times in rapid succession.

By this time, I'm keenly aware that my fumbling around was causing my hypoglycemic wife, who sleeps rather poorly, to wake up more and more. I finally gave up, unplugged the stupid thing altogether, put the chair aside with the alarm on the floor next to it so we wouldn't trip over it in the stupor of our morning, and went back to bed. I rolled over, annoyed but still quite sleepy, and quickly went back to sleep.

An hour later, much too soon, the morning alarm went off.

Without going through the rather difficult effort of studying the hardware in question, one could easily conclude that the fire alarm companies have actively created alarms that go off in the middle of the night. Perhaps it's a ploy on their part to ensure that somebody is around to hear it when it does. And why do they have to make them produce that really high-pitched PEEP!, which screams at you in the middle of the night? Given today's electronic capabilities, can't they program in a kind and gentle voice that casually says, "Excuse me, but the battery in this fire alarm needs to be changed."?

Or perhaps the batteries' discharge rate is more directly related to thermal cycles, and discharge more in the relative cold of the night. Or perhaps the time that I insert the battery (i.e. during the day) is directly affecting the time when it discharges (i.e. late at night). I would assume this would be rather random based on the battery's make, model, and production batch.

It could be any one of these things. However, absent any direct scientific explanation, I'm unfortunately forced to conclude instead that this whole thing is a manifestation of my typical bad luck.

Snow Camping 2011

2011-01-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

I went snow camping last night. For all you initiates out there, snow camping is when a group of boy scouts go out to some high-altitude camp site where there is a whole lot of snow, pitch tents on top of that snow, and try not to freeze their tails off while attempting to sleep in sub-freezing temperatures.

Well, last night was just like that, except for the sub-freezing part. The temperature was actually in the upper 30s, but the wind chill, I think, took it below the line.

Being the First Counselor in the Young Men's Presidency puts me in a position of responsibility for the boys in the ward who are between the ages of 14 and 16. The scouts go on this snow camp every winter, but this year their scout leader, to whom I am the assistant in all things scouting, couldn't go. No problem, I originally thought, I could handle that.

Then I was informed, the Sunday before the trip, that the plan was to have each group do their own meals. It took me about two seconds to begin panicking, as I have never been responsible for feeding half a dozen ravenous teenage boys before, and had no idea what to prepare. In theory, the boys are supposed to plan and prepare for themselves, but at the last minute that wasn't terribly practical. I called the leader of the priests (the 16-18 year-olds), the Young Men's President, and told him that it was just silly that we were doing meals separately and, in very clear terms, I told him that I desperately needed his help.

He was reluctant at first, but I was quite insistent. In the end, he did all the planning and purchasing and preparing for the meals. I am very, very grateful for that, and, having now seen how it can be done, I will be much better prepared next time.

We gathered at the church starting at 3:30 pm, and by 4 we were on the road. The drive was about an hour long, so by the time we got there, twilight was upon us. We drove all the way to the top of the road towards Mt. Pinos, and found an almost empty parking lot. It seemed not many people planned to sleep over night in the winter conditions.

The wind was blowing, and it was bitterly cold. We later found that the temperatures were in the low 40s, but with the wind chill I'm certain it was below freezing. We started loading our gear out of the vehicles and all the adults and boys carried several loads of stuff from the parking lot about 500 feet off the road to a camp site that we barely recognized as one. The snow was 2 to 4 feet deep, but the top of the snow was frozen into a slippery and hard crust. On occasion our feet plunged through the surface layer, but most of the time we remained atop the snow.

Once we got things loaded to the camp site (I only slipped and fell once, and that was far better than most), everybody variously went off to go sledding (yes, in the dim light), putting up tents, starting a camp fire, and eventually starting to cook dinner. I was greatly surprised to find that none of the boys were particularly skilled in the art of fire-starting, and it took us a long time to get it going, and then only after using some lighter fluid.

Despite the temperatures, we weren't exactly roughing it. One of the leaders brought a generator to power a spotlight, and several propane tanks, one of which he used as a standing heater to keep warm.

Dinner commenced chaotically, with garbage going in every direction. (That said, in the finest scouting tradition, the next morning we did indeed leave things cleaner than when we arrived, packing out quite a bit of garbage that we found upon our arrival.)

For dinner, we had barbecue chicken on hoagie buns, with potato chips and trail mix as sides. It didn't even approximate a balanced meal, but the boys ate it up, and I didn't have to prepare it, so I'm happily counting it as a blessing. S'mores rounded out the evening, though I was surprised to find that many of the boys were rather indifferent to them.

As people wound down for the night, the cold started making itself felt. The boys began filing away to their tents for the night, with three of them deciding to sleep out under the stars. Keep in mind that the temperature was hovering around 40 degrees, so it was cold. By about 9 pm, most of the boys were headed to bed, and I went that way myself, finally going to sleep by 10 pm.

I slept in my little tent that I've had since I was a boy scout. I have a lot of fond memories with that tent, which is no stranger to cold temperatures. Once when I was a kid I actually slept on Utah Lake, and I remember that being much colder than I was last night.

Last night I slept well enough, and was actually quite comfortable, despite the slightly lumpy snow upon which my tent was pitched. With the wind whooshing through the treetops and a gibbous moon waxing above us, it was very peaceful, even with a tent full of boys inanely yakking away about cars 30 paces away.

The next morning, I woke up at 6, but it was too darn cold to get out, so I went back to sleep until about 7:30. At that point, I supposed I should get up and be helpful, so I did and helped get breakfast started. We had "eggs in a bag", with bagels and pop-tarts also available.

Many of the boys spent a lot of time sledding, the conditions being nearly ideal: steep hills, icy snow, and windy pathways. Actually, when all was said and done, it proved to be a little too ideal, as several of the boys got spooked by hard landings and decided to call it quits before they got hurt. I think kids these days are less resilient (or more wise?) than I used to be, because I'm pretty sure I would have kept sledding until somebody actually did get hurt.

Later in the morning, several of us went snow-shoeing up to the top of Mt. Pinos. One of the leaders rented 10 sets of snow-shoes. With 15 boys under foot, I was really worried that we wouldn't have enough to go around, but very few of the boys actually wanted to go snow-shoeing, something I couldn't even fathom. For all of these boys, snow-shoeing is so far outside of their normal experience that I thought they'd all jump at the chance, but most of them actually complained about how they went last year and how they wanted to go sledding and how they didn't want to walk all the way to the top of Mt. Pinos again! Granted, this was the older boys talking, but I was still surprised, and quite a bit disappointed in them.

Nevertheless, with only 5 boys actually agreeing to go, there were snow-shoes to spare, so I decided to go, too, because, really, how often do you get to do things like that? I most certainly wasn't disappointed, either.

The hike up Mt. Pinos was about two miles each way, with a well-formed trail to follow. With the snow as deep as it was, we were a little concerned we'd have trouble finding our way, but there were plenty of tracks to follow and some of those in our party had been there before. In truth, we were able to actually make the trip shorter because we didn't stick to the trail but instead went over the intermediate hills towards the top.

At the top, it was beautiful. We found large open spaces that made me yearn for a snowmobile, a solar-powered radio antenna (which, oddly enough, wasn't distracting), and amazingly wide vistas. I was happy to be there, and when we got to the bottom, all who went were glad they did.

Those lazy boys who didn't? It was their loss. Apparently they spent most of their time just sitting around doing nothing, watching other people who showed up in the morning to recklessly go sledding. They reported seeing several ambulances arrive to take people off the mountain who had head injuries and the like. Thankfully, none of our boys shared that same fate.

We finally left to come home at around 1 pm. I had 5 boys in my van, and they were all fairly muted during the drive home. The one in the passenger seat to my right tipped his head back and immediately went slack-jawed as he passed out, his neck kinked in a weird swan-like pose. It was quite funny.

Even with my initial fears of being "in charge", it wasn't that intimidating. Most of the boys were helpful (though a few were downright lazy, actively seeking ways to not have to help), and they were very respectful to each other, to their leaders, and to those around us.

So, a few final thoughts. One time when I was moving something from the camp to the van, I walked by one of the young men, a very tall and sturdy athlete. He was standing beneath a tree with a shovel and digging the snow out from beneath it. Stacking the snow chunks up in a pile around the tree, I was at a loss to know what he was doing, so I asked him. His reply? He was building a snow fort. Why, you ask? His reply was heart-warming: "Ever since I was a kid I've always wanted to build a snow fort, so I'm building a snow fort." I was moved because here was a kid from Southern California making good on a childhood dream. It was, to my dismay, short-lived, though, because his peers mocked him and he soon gave it up. Such a pity.

Another time the boys were sitting by the cars watching others sled down the hills. It was hazardous sledding, which they had learned by experience earlier in the morning. One of the boys, who has a well-documented history of adrenaline-sport-related accidents (he got a fairly severe concussion a month or so back), was shouting out warnings to people who were doing things that were clearly unwise. At that moment, one of the boys deadpanned, "Listen to him. He's like the Holy Ghost, saying, 'Don't do it!'" The boys and I looked around at each other, and then we started laughing. We all recognized the irony.

All told, I had a very good experience, and I'm very glad that I went.

Utah Trip 2010

2011-01-06T15:28:00.000-08:00

A quick post because I keep starting one and hating how it goes, so I'm just going to type ...

We went to Utah the last few weeks. The snow seemed to chase us from place to place. We brought home the flu. We exchanged presents with family members, and saw a sister of mine that we hadn't seen in years (which was great). We had family dinners (with fewer than expected people due to the snow), and had a great time.

It was very cold, mostly staying in the single digits. In one part of our drive, the thermometer in the van read 0 degrees. COLD! Our children were more than happy to go out and play in those temperatures, though, the novelty being a powerful motivator. My oldest son quickly wised up, but the younger two children had a wonderful time. We made snowmen and a snow fort, and the kids actually wanted to shovel the walks (yeah, I know, they're weird).

We ate all sorts of bad food for us, and I put on 2 pounds -- a smaller weight gain than I feared. We had a great time visiting with both sides of the family. We spent some good quality time with both sets of grandparents, a privilege that is not lost on my wife and I, even if the children don't know how lucky they are.

We took with us boxes full of baby clothes, both boy and girl clothes, to give away to relatives who have new babies, having decided that five years of storage (eight for the girls clothes) is long enough. It was emotional to let it all go, and both my wife and I tried our best to just deliver the goods then turn away.

It was a whirlwind trip, and we slept in four different places in the eight days we were gone. We were very tired and very satisfied to return home, which is still in disarray after Christmas. All our lights are still up, and my wife still plays Christmas music, and we're expect Saturday to be the day when all that is undone.

As it is, most of us are suffering from the flu or a cold. I think I have an eye infection, which I think I caught from my daughter. Children = carrier monkeys.

Fricative

2010-12-10T21:17:00.000-08:00

AWESOME new word I stumbled across. Seriously. Look it up. (Or you can be lazy and watch this.)

Random Pictures from My Old Phone

2010-12-10T12:32:00.001-08:00

A few months back I got a new phone, a DroidX, which I absolutely love. (You still know you want one ...) When I happily dumped my old Blackberry phone, I copied all the files off it and found that there was actually quite a random collection of random pictures. My wife suggested that I blog about this stuff that I discovered, so that's what I'm doing here. I tend to avoid "photo blogging" as a general rule, but as sharing the pictures is actually the point of this post, so be it.

As you look through these pictures, be aware that there is no theme. This is just a collection of memories that, at the time I took them, I wanted to capture in pictures. Out of context, they are rather meaningless, but on the whole, I think they provide an interesting display of what is important to me in my life. I've sorted the pictures by date taken, and this is only a sampling of the stuff I found on the camera. So, here goes ...

My wife being silly in the car when we were going to the Los Angeles Temple on 27 Feb 2009. I think this was actually one of the first pictures taken with that Blackberry:

My youngest son, with a messy, chocolatey face on 7 Mar 2009:

My wife and I on a date in one of our favorite eating establishments, a small Thai restaurant here in town on 21 Mar 2009:

My youngest crouching down in the church cultural hall on 28 Mar 2009:

Me and my oldest son at a Dodger's game on 6 Aug 2009:

My daughter at the same game on 6 Aug 2009:

My wife sailing a pirate ship at Finz Glo-Zone, a black-light miniature golf place nearby, on 23 Oct 2009:

This next picture is actually one of my all-time favorites. It is of my lovely wife, looking stunningly beautiful, taken when we were at Six Flags on 7 Nov 2009:

The Saturn V rocket outside the space museum in Huntsville, Alabama, on 28 Apr 2010:

My youngest son so tired during a campout that he can barely eat his s'more on 14 May 2010:

The airplane I flew on to Germany for a business trip on 16 May 2010:

Some cobblestones in Darmstadt on 17 May 2010. I'm not sure I meant to take this picture, but whatever:

A Viking-looking dude at a park in Darmstadt on 18 May 2010:

My oldest son getting his awards in cub scouts on 26 May 2010:

My daughter all wet at a swimming pool during a trip to Utah, where we stayed with my sister in Mt. Pleasant on 5 Jul 2010:

The greenery during a hike with my oldest son's cub scout group up to some a waterfall on 9 Oct 2010:

My daughter with her hero, Wonder Woman, at Six Flags on 9 Oct 2010:

My daughter being a superhero outside of the Goliath roller-coaster at Six Flags on 9 Oct 2010:

Well, as you can see, it's quite an eclectic collection. With cameras being ever-present in our lives, it's interesting to look back at the detritus that's left behind. Some of these pictures tell stories, some just ... are. Even so, you can see the flavor of things that I've captured, and glimpse a little peek into what is important to me in my life, my family (not that it isn't fairly obvious to anybody who knows me at all ...).

Something Totally Cool

2010-12-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

I like numbers. I'm becoming increasing convinced that I need to be an economist (as statistics still annoy me) in my next career ... assuming I ever tire of the one I have. As it is, I stumbled upon this video, which made me have warm fuzzies all over for a variety of different reasons:

On Snow Storms and Being Cold

2010-11-23T16:00:00.000-08:00

Apparently Utah, where much of my family lives, is getting hammered with harsh snow storms right now. This reminded me of the fact that I tell people an "Oh, yeah? You think you've experienced cold weather?!" story when they tell me how cold something is. Well, I did a little research, and sure enough, my story has basis in fact!

For all my doubters, here goes the story with the evidence to follow:

Many of my older siblings went to the same university that I eventually attended. As a kid, they had always told me that the winters were harsh and when I was preparing to go, they suggested that I be ready for very cold times. So, I went there with "low" expectations, and wasn't disappointed.

I distinctly recall one morning waking up and it being bitterly cold. Not just cold-cold, but so-cold-your-face-freezes-solid-cold. My only means of transportation was a bicycle, which I used to get to and from class. That morning, I got up as usual, showered, then headed off to class. The snow that morning was (and I am totally not making this up) up to my waist! Biking wasn't really an option in that weather, so I began to trundle on my way to class on foot, pushing my way through the deep snow, leaving a collapsing trench behind me. The wind was blowing harshly out of the canyon above campus, with bitter cold air biting at every part of my body that was uncovered. I was too foolish to wear a hat, so my hair, slightly damp from my morning shower, literally froze solid. My face and cheeks went numb, my lungs hurt from breathing the cold air, and snow was sticking to my clothes, only breaking away where I was bending as I made my way toward my class.

Being a dutiful student, and also somewhat oblivious, I didn't notice that I was pretty much the only one headed to class that morning. It took me twice as long to get where I was going, but I was still on time! Upon arrival, I was most pleased to get inside and went to my classroom. There I found many of my classmates had also made it to class! (You go, unflappable and reliable engineering students!)

I took my seat and began to thaw out. I couldn't feel my nose and ears, but soon the numbness turned to pain as they began to warm. My hair started to drip as it thawed out, and my clothes began to soak through as the snow frozen to them began to melt. I was chilled and miserable, but I was present!

The only problem? The professor was not. The usual 20 minutes elapsed (again, we were engineering students, and we liked to learn, so we extended the traditional 15 minutes to 20 ...), and then we finally, slowly decided we should leave. I was not terribly happy to do so, and was perfectly content to stay at the engineering building, but alas, it was one of those days where I didn't have any more classes until later that afternoon, and I knew I wanted to eat sometime.

So, I steeled myself against the cold, and made my way back to my apartment. The trip home was worse than the trip there, because all the water that had melted and soaked into my clothes began to freeze. It was horrible. When I got back to my apartment, I stripped down and headed straight for a leisurely shower, where I enjoyed the hot water. I think I ate Raman noodles for lunch that day (hot) and probably macaroni and cheese for dinner (hot) and eschewed all things cold. What a day!

The funny thing was, I didn't know that the miserable weather was anything out of the ordinary. My siblings told me the winters were harsh, and so I just expected it to be that way. Because of that, to this day, I don't have a lot of sympathy for those who complain about the cold. I've been there, done that. And notice where I live now: sunny Southern California. I don't miss the snow. Sure, it's nice to visit and go sledding and all that, and it sure is pretty, but I actually have a choice, so I'll take the sand and the sun instead.

Okay, now the evidence: At this link, there is an article about the coldest winters in Utah. There, it states:

1993: A whopping 23.3 inches of snow fell at Salt Lake City International Airport, the greatest single storm total, between Jan 6-10. For the month of January, 50.3 inches of snow fell, an all time monthly record.

At this link here, check out the winter of 1992-1993, where it indicates that between November and February a total of 71.3 inches of snow fell on the city where my school was located. And here, it indicates that the total average temperature for those months was 24.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Yeah, it was cold. And I had no car, so I walked or biked everywhere. Ah, the memories ...

On Chickens

2010-11-23T06:10:00.000-08:00

There is this very weird phenomenon going around the country today where people are "getting back to basics", or other such rubbish, and deciding to get chickens. Phenomenologically, I don't understand it, but the recent salmonella scare certainly hasn't hurt its spread. (By the way, I heard somebody use "phenomenologically" in a sentence the other day, and I, first, wondered if that was a real word (it is), and second, realized that I just had to find a way to use it!)

A few years ago, my brother-in-law-in-law came home with a chicken or two, and, to put it kindly, since that time he has gone loco for el pollo. Living in a place where people have big backyards, over the past few years he has slowly been evolving his yard into a chicken paradise. A full quarter of it (something like a quarter acre, but since I don't really know exactly what an acre is, I'll just say it's something like that) has been allocated for the exclusive use of his chickens. What was once just a few chickens has exploded into several broods of chickens, of varying kinds! (I had to look up what a group of chickens is called, and got various answers, including "clutch", "flock", and "peeps" -- I'm absolutely sure he knows which is the right word to use ...)

Is he a chicken farmer now? I'd say yes. Does he live on a farm? Most assuredly not, but his neighborhood is zoned for that kind of stuff as it is a very old neighborhood. Happily the chickens are quiet, clean, and mostly odorless; otherwise his neighbors would probably go buy pitchforks. The chickens, of course, produce massive quantities of eggs. With four teenage boys living in his house, this is not usually a problem, but he has so many chickens that even with four ravenous boys under his roof, he still has enough eggs to give or sell away.

Now that he has made himself into That Chicken Guy (he even subscribes to chicken magazines!), he never lets pass an opportunity to extol the virtues of having your own chickens. Salmonella is never a worry, you get free eggs (well, not quite, there is a cost ... but he doesn't talk about that), they're recession and inflation proof, and when the chickens stop producing eggs, you can have a good chicken dinner. He is regularly suggesting with a wink and a nod that my wife and I would be wise to get chickens.

However, we live in Southern California, with something like 1/100th of an acre available in our backyard. I always used this as an excuse, which suited my needs well, but to be honest, I just can't see ever owning chickens. We are definitely not zoned for chickens, but a good friend from up the street has had several for many years and it has worked out well for them.

So, imagine my surprise when I find out that my wife has been talking with said neighbor and discussing the possibility of taking her chickens off her hands! I love my wife dearly, and my first reaction was vehemently against it. But I love my wife, and she finds a way to get what she wants. Soon she had sold away the kids play yard/slide (which they didn't play on anymore), and pointed out to me that since the grass was already dead underneath that, it wouldn't be a big deal to put a chicken coop there.

I told her I had no interest in taking care of chickens (but think of the fertilizer for the garden!), and that I wasn't going to feed them (the kids are excited to do that!), and that we didn't have the space for them (but it will fit right where the play yard went!), and that we aren't zoned for them (but our neighbor has had them forever and they are quiet and not smelly), and that we'd have to buy food for them (but we already buy barrels of grain to make our own flour!). Drat, she had thought of all of my arguments against it.

I gave my grudging approval.

So, imagine my delight when I asked said neighbor about it on Sunday, and found out that it turns out that she hadn't actually spoke to her husband about it, and that he actually is rather fond of them and wanted to keep them. She seemed rather embarrassed by the situation, but I assured her with all the feeling of my heart, that it was totally okay with me. My wife and kids? Not so pleased.

I still can't even fathom being an owner of chickens. We have a hard enough time keeping our fish alive, and gave up on hamsters a few years ago. Also, consider for a moment that the focus of my professional existence is on the care and maintenance of robots that have been hurled to other planets -- that's a far cry from taking care of chickens.

Well, in any case, I may have dodged a bullet this time, but I'm pretty sure I haven't heard the last of this, because the kids are terribly disappointed and that dead spot in the grass is still there.

Worst of all, if we do end up with chickens, I will never live it down with my brother-in-law-in-law.

Mother Appreciation Night

2010-11-16T20:53:00.001-08:00

Tonight the Teachers Quorum had a "Mother Appreciation Night". Each of the young men contributed in one way or another to putting together a dinner, and they all sang a very silly song, which turned out rather well.

Each one of them had an assignment to fulfill relative to the evening. One young man put together a presentation of photographs that each young man contributed of him and his mother. He set this to music, and it turned out rather well. Another was responsible for putting together invitations and a "program" of the event:

Others had different responsibilities for the food that was to be served. The boys served their own mothers a three-course meal, starting with a Caesar salad, followed by the main dish of lemon pepper chicken over pasta with a lemon sauce with rolls and buttered corn on the side. Dessert followed, which consisted of red velvet cupcakes, which a few of the boys made the night before. Each of them contributed supplies, and collectively they did almost all the labor for the evening.

My wife volunteered to help in the kitchen, and she was basically the boss, telling them to do this, then to do that. It went very well. The other adult leader and I, we also wandered around and pretty much made sure everything was in order. We tried our best to not actually do anything, but instead to direct the boys to do the work. Now that it's over, I'm tired from all the directing, but I am very pleased with the results of the evening and I think the boys felt ownership and pride in how well it went.

During dinner, each of them got up and shared some reasons why they love and appreciate their mother. The true miracle of the night was that these young men, all between the ages of 14 and 16, stood up and told their mothers that they love them in front of each other. Between that and the unabashed singing, it was truly a marvelous night. I am very proud of each one of them, and I feel grateful that I have the calling that I do where I can work with these young men.

It was a good night.

A Bad Combination

2010-11-10T21:11:00.000-08:00

Tonight after dinner, my youngest son was sitting at the table drinking some blueberry juice, which he absolutely loves. I turned my back to do something else, and behind me I hear him happily state, "Chocolate milk!" I didn't think anything of it, as his sister was drinking chocolate milk, but when I turned my attention back to him I see he is stirring some Nesquik into his blueberry juice! He took one sip and the most hilarious look of distaste came across his face, then he started to cry!

Being the totally awesome Dad that I am, I told him he shouldn't waste the juice, and that he needed to drink it. He asked if he could have some new juice. I told him he already had some juice. He asked if he could have some chocolate milk. I told him he already had some chocolate milk! He was not amused, and cried even more. Of course, I reminded him that juice and chocolate milk is not cheap, and he had just wasted a whole glass, and, again, he was not amused. I was, though.

In the end, I relented and let him go to dump it out, and then I poured him a fresh glass of juice. I went "from zero to hero, just like that!"

It was a funny moment, and, yes, I did try it, and, yes, it was awful.

The Best of EFY

2010-11-06T20:32:00.000-07:00

My calling in the Young Men's program at church is kind of weird. Most of the time, I don't really need to do anything, except be where the youth are going to be. Today was one of those days. Every year, our stake participates with 8 other stakes in something called "The Best of EFY".

EFY is "Especially For Youth", and is basically a summer camp for youth in the church to attend for a few days to hear speakers talk about gospel topics and to spend time with other fellow youth in the church. It usually happens in the summer, and usually caters to those who live along the Wasatch Front in Utah. However, on a rotating basis, one of the 9 stakes will sponsor a few of the EFY speakers to come to Southern California to visit with the youth and share with them a few topics on a given Saturday. It's rather small in comparison to the real thing, but it is wildly popular to the local kids and they love attending.

Today, our stake sponsored two speakers to come down, and coupled their talks with dinner and a dance, as is tradition. My wife had been asked to lead a youth choir between the two speakers, so she was able to be in attendance through the first talk. We sat together, which was great.

The first speaker, a fellow named John Hilton III, gave a talk titled "Dare Not to Compare". He spoke about how we need to be less concerned about what others have or what we look like. He cited several things that the kids seem to be focused on, such as grades or clothes or makeup. For the boys, they also tend to be worried about who is most athletic or who has the best skateboard or who has the newest gadget.

He shared the story from Matthew 13, about a householder who hires people throughout the day, each for the same wage, and how at the end of the day the ones who labored the longest complained that they didn't get paid more than those who arrived at the end. This he likened to the "It's not fair!" syndrome that is so easy to identify with. Each of the laborers had happily agreed to the terms of the work and the compensation to be received, yet at the end of the day, those who saw what others had received for their work felt that it was unfair. We each would probably feel similarly, but this comparison to others can be destructive.

He also said that pride can also lead to unwise comparisons. When we compare ourselves to those who may be "below" our standing, we often fail to realize that less is often expected of those who have received less, and thus we feel "better" than them. Conversely, when we compare ourselves to those who are "above" our standing, it is easy to fall into the trap of not appreciating those things which we do have because another may have something that is nicer.

A few interesting comments or references he made that I noted:

If we break the rules, the rules can break us.
The Lord looks on the heart (1 Sam 16:7)
The grass is almost never really greener on the other side.
We should avoid the traps of "can't wait until ...", "I wish I was ...", or "Wouldn't it be great if ..."

He encouraged the youth to not put themselves down, but instead remember who they are as children of God. He indicated that we should each work to build ourselves and others up, rather than wreckers who pull both ourselves and others down. Then he issued a final challenge: we should each try to spend the next 48 hours not comparing ourselves to anybody, and see how that goes. Hmm, interesting!

The second speaker was a man named Hank Smith. He was really quite funny and, ironically, compared his own name as being somewhat unsophisticated to that of the previous speaker, John Hilton III. It was rather silly, and I'm not sure if it was intentional, or just plain ironic, that he would spend the first few minutes of his talk comparing himself to the previous speaker. He also made a joke about how tomorrow, the first Sunday of the month, is going to be fast and testimony meeting, but how it would be totally awesome if there was an "e" in the fast, to make it "feast" and testimony meeting. If that were the case, I'm certain that many people would happily and eagerly pray and "feast" for others' well-being, something a little tougher to do when prayer is coupled with "fasting".

He then began talking about great break-up lines. A few samples:

We need to talk ... (You always know where that conversation is going ...)
It's not you, it's me. (Ditto.)
Roses are red, violets are blue, trash is dumped, and so are you!
I think it's time you know ... I'm Batman!
How will I know if I want to spend eternity with you unless I date other people?
(This one's to be sent via text.) Welcome to Dumpsville. Population: You!
You're like a lava lamp. Fun for a while, but not very bright.
There's only room for two guys in my life, Ben and Jerry.
(This one is a scripture reference.) You draw near unto me with your lips, but your heart is far from me.

Then he started talking about how, to the culture of the world, you can never have enough. You can never be pretty enough, or rich enough, or smart enough, or strong enough. There is always some way, in the eyes of the world, that you will be found inadequate. Compare this to the Savior, who always accepts us as we come to Him, and "hath purchased [you] with his own blood." (Acts 20:28)

Then he spoke about sacrifice. He shared the story of Abraham and how he really had only one thing that was so special to him that it would be difficult to give up: his treasured son Isaac. And yet it was this that the Lord asked him to sacrifice for Him, not because He needed him or even wanted Isaac to be sacrificed, but because He wanted Abraham to demonstrate a willingness to give up anything that the Lord may ask of him.

In this same way, we are asked to give up things as well. Not our children, as it may be, but instead we are asked by the Savior to give up our sins. The speaker challenged us to find something in our lives that is inconsistent with the teachings of the Gospel and to give it up, whether it be some form of clothing, music, media (pornography especially), energy drinks, moral behaviors, etc.

By giving these things up, we make a commitment to ourselves and to the Lord, hopefully permanently, that we will never do these things again. He shared the story of the Lamanites, who were a bloodthirsty and war-making people, who buried deep their weapons of war once they were converted unto the Lord, and committed that they would never take them up again, even when faced by enemies who would not have mercy on them and would slay them. This kind of commitment to turn our backs on our sins is what the Lord really wants of us.

The speaker reiterated that the Lord does want each one of us, unlike the world that will always find us wanting. He paid for all our sins, and calls us His people. The speaker urged us to not buy into what the world says, that looks are everything, for the world offers nothing but loneliness and sorrow, where the Lord says in John 14:27, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

Good words.

It was a great evening. Following these two speakers, it was about 6 pm and they sent everybody outside to each sub sandwiches (I had a turkey sub). The youth swarmed the food tables, and there wasn't anything left by the time the dance started at 7:30.

For me, being at the dance was an interesting experience. The last dance of this nature I'd been to was back in college, almost 12 years ago. There, I was with my wife and we most certainly were being goofy. Here, though, I was an "adult leader" (when did I get old enough to be that?!) and expected to monitor the kids.

Truth be told, there wasn't anything for me to do. I'm kind of a mother hen to the boys in my teacher's quorum, though, so I wandered around and challenged each one of them to dance with somebody they normally wouldn't dance with. I'm not sure if they did, as I ended up leaving just after 8 pm (again, there wasn't anything for me to do and there was plenty of adult supervision), but my heart was warmed as I witnessed each one of them out on the floor dancing (and with girls!). One of the boys did arrive late, showing up after the dance started, but he immediately waded into the fray and found people to dance with. I was so proud I was grinning from ear to ear. My boys, dancing with girls!

A few observations, though:

Teenagers today dance differently than we used to. They gather in groups (even the boys), and don't ever really pair off unless it's a slow dance, and even then sometimes they don't.
It was quite funny to see people flee the room when a slow song started, both boys and girls. (However, each of my boys stayed in the room!)
I'm not familiar with much of the music of today's youth. Apparently much of it was from Radio Disney, or was Miley Cyrus or Taylor Swift, or other young artists.
It was so loud I could hardly understand the words, but the kids were singing along to it and seemed happy.
They raise their hands over their heads when they dance. I don't get the purpose of that.
There was a TON of cute girls there. Being who I am today, I would've been in heaven having all those options to ask to dance with me. However, I get that the boys were shy -- I was, too. What they say is true, "Youth is wasted on the young ..."

All in all, it was a very interesting evening. I am very glad that I went, and I look forward to more of this kind of stuff with the youth in the future.

On Birthday Surprises

2010-10-29T06:50:00.000-07:00

My wonderful wife had her birthday a few days ago. I managed to get through it without too much stress, and actually felt pretty good about how it went. For all those who really know me, you know that gift giving holidays of every flavor fill me full of dread. I just hate, hate, hate having to come up with gift ideas for people, and the whole process of going to a store and buying something (or much, much worse, trying to be crafty and make something) is a horrifying experience for me. My dear wife loves me even so.

Nevertheless, as her birthday was approaching, I really wanted to do something nice for her. For her birthday, Christmas, Valentine's day, and anniversary (and I mean this in all honesty) I never fail to unimpress my wife. I have a major problem picking up on the little hints of things that she says that she wants, so it usually comes down to her (I'm totally not making this up) sending me a link on Amazon.com or circling something in a catalog, putting it in front of me, and saying, "I want this."

Because of this, whenever she opens a gift, it's a rarity that she is actually surprised. Usually when she is surprised, it's something that isn't quite right, and either needs to be returned altogether or exchanged for a better fitting model. She loves me dearly, and even with my bumblingness (is that a word? it is now), she always smiles at me, expresses her gratitude, gives me a kiss, and then later I find that she has quietly found the receipt and put the item in a pile of things to be returned.

I've long since learned not to be offended.

Nevertheless, while I struggle with the whole process of gift-giving, I do want to do something special for my wife, and get her something that is not only nice, but that is a total surprise and that she won't return.

This year for her birthday, I ended up with one that fit all three categories, and one that hit two out of the three. I felt pretty good about it, but still wish I'd been able to hit a grand-slam.

The first one I got was a kitchen appliance that my wife had been eyeing for a long time. Anybody that knows my wife knows that she loves cooking and spends a lot of time in the kitchen. She's always looking for new recipes and new things to try, and so I've been hearing that she wanted a hand blender. About a month ago, I went to Amazon.com and looked at her wish list there, and discovered that she actually had one marked that was a reasonable price. I jumped on it and ordered it as soon as I found it.

Well, last weekend, she actually dragged me off to Kohl's to do some shopping. She had a 30% off coupon that she wanted me to take advantage of, and sent me with a short list of a few things to pick up: new slippers (got 'em -- happy unsurprised birthday, honey!) and a hand blender. Hmmm, I wondered, how was I going to get out of buying the hand blender for her while at the same time not telling her that I already had one for her in a box at home? It was a conundrum until I found out the price of the one there ($60), which was more than double the price of the one I'd got online. Knowing the frugal nature of my wife, I figured I could honestly proclaim that I wasn't about to spend 60 bucks on a hand blender for her. I'd come off sounding cheap (which she appreciates, thank heavens!), but it would certainly throw her off the scent.

Bottom line, it totally worked. Come her birthday, she opened it, and was delighted. At first she called me a liar, thinking I'd bought the really expensive one from Kohl's, until she looked at it and realized I'd actually bought the exact one she had on her Amazon wish list. Ah, tricky me! So, even though she had told me to buy it, I still managed to surprise her because she didn't think that I had actually bought it. She's quite happy with it, and has already used it several times.

Now to the second gift.

For months I've been hearing that she wants an MP3 player. She totally expected me to go get her a $15 model from Best Buy or something, but I also knew that she was secretly jealous of the new phone that I got from work (a Droid X -- I absolutely love it! Forget the iPhone, just buy one. You know you want it already! And no, I don't currently own any Google or Motorola stock ... it's that awesome.) She's been watching as I've been downloading apps and playing games and organizing my stuff and she was doing her level best to keep the green envy monster in check, but she totally wanted one. However, I knew she'd be really mad at me if I paid hundreds of bucks to buy her one, nor did I want to monkey with anything that would make our combined telecom bills any bigger.

So, what to do? Then it occurred to me that I have all these frequent flier miles hanging around ... and they have electronics that you can "buy" with them ... and they have MP3 players there ... So, yes, I used my frequent flier miles, which I've been collecting from work travel for almost 10 years, to buy her an MP3 player. But I didn't want the little cheap one. I wanted one where she could download apps, put the scriptures on it, play games, show videos, etc. So, looking through the menu of players they had, I noticed that they actually had an iPod Touch available. I looked at the features, then at my available miles, then at the features again, then I clicked "Add to cart", and it was on its way to my house.

But then she started making my life even more complicated, starting to talk about how she was thinking of getting a new phone that could do more stuff like mine. She was really interested in being able to download apps, have a decent MP3 player in it, etc. She even found some models she could get for free, with certain data plans. There I was, with a gift that would meet her needs literally in the mail, but I couldn't say a word about it for fear of ruining the surprise. Well, Mr. Cheap came to the rescue again: "Honey, I really don't want to pay anything more for our telecom bills. I mean, the data charges alone ...!" It worked, but I could tell she wasn't satisfied. All I had to do, though, was put her off until her birthday. She must've got sick of hearing me say, "You don't need a new phone. The one you've got works fine!" It must've been small consolation for a woman who had download needs, but that's where I was. I don't think she noticed that I found ways to leave the room when the subject came up.

Well, before it arrived, I threatened my wife that she wasn't to pick up (let alone open) any packages that arrived at the house for a few weeks or else ... something. She was a good girl, and did as she was told, and this little box showed up. I'm absolutely certain she figured it was an MP3 player. However, when her birthday came, she unwrapped the box, opened it up, and this look of total confusion went across her face. At first, I'm not sure she knew what it was. Then it dawned on her. Then she got mad at me for spending too much. Then I told her I hadn't spent a dime. Then she got mad at me because it was too much. Then I told her she'd been wanting an MP3 player. Then she insisted it was too much. Then I told her it does everything my Droid does except make calls. Then she opened it and we had some arguments with the kids over who's iPod it was. Finally, a while later, she started smiling.

And all was happy.

Until ...

She asked, "Does this thing have a camera?" My heart sank. No camera?! Of course it has a camera! See, it's right ... um ... Yeah. No camera. I got online and tried looking for the product description again, but it wasn't available anymore. We had a little discussion about how, when she realized what it was, she was really excited to use the built-in camera to take pictures and videos.

I thought maybe they'd sent me the wrong one. I emailed the frequent flier people, who promptly responded with, "As stated in the Terms & Conditions of the program, no exchanges or returns on Apple products are permitted." The person who replied even sent me the invoice with the model number and product description, which clearly said nothing about a camera. Grr. So, I called customer service. Ironically, the person who answered was the same person who sent me the email! How can that be? Seriously? I mean, what are the odds?! And worse, she was absolutely unyielding. No exchanges or returns. Period. And, no, sir, it wouldn't help to talk to her manager because it's in the terms and conditions. Ack.

So, here we are "stuck" with a perfectly good iPod Touch, which is "3rd Generation", which is totally awesome, but now it has the stink of something that just isn't quite right. To add insult to injury, the frequent flier catalog now only has the 4th Generation version, which, of course, has a camera. I missed it by only a week or two. Curse my luck!

And now, here I sit, having given my wife some wonderful gifts that were really nice, a total surprise, and that she won't (or, in the latter case, can't) return. But still I feel strangely unsatisfied about it.

*sigh*

And Christmas is less than 2 months away, and I'm all out of ideas ...

Tribe Names

2010-10-06T21:19:00.000-07:00

My daughter was grouped with three other kids into a "tribe" and they are supposed to be making up their own rules and stuff as part of a project. Their tribe name? The "Awesome British Gummy-Bears of Doom". I'd totally join that tribe!

Dangers Right Beneath Our Feet

2010-10-04T06:55:00.000-07:00

I had a bad dream last night. I was out in the desert, surrounded by scrub brush and dirt and a lot of people. It was daytime, and we were in a fairly large depression that had been surrounded by earthen walls on four sides. My children were off playing with the other kids, basically running around in hordes and laughing hysterically.

As my children played, I went to go climb one of the walls to see what was on the other side. Just as I rose above the crest, I saw an old F-104 Starfighter amble overhead, largely flipped over so that it was almost top down. Soon, two F/A-18 Hornets screamed by in formation, and I knew they were supposed to bracket the old Starfighter and bank left. One of the Hornets got too close and clipped one of the wings of the Starfighter, which was clearly going to crash.

The pilot of the Starfighter miraculously managed to right the slow-moving plane and do a belly-landing in the soft desert dirt. Nobody was hurt, but the pilot immediately popped the top and started running from the smoking ruin. To my horror, I watched all the children swarm the plane, laughing and climbing on the wings and fuselage, which was starting to smoke more and more. I ran over and started yelling to the children to get away. I was keeping my own distance, knowing that the jet fuel in the plane could explode at any second, when I saw my own two oldest children climb right up on top of the cockpit. Where my two oldest children were, I was sure that my youngest child was sure to follow, but I did not see him.

I started yelling frantically for them to get down off the plane and waved for them to come to me, but they did not hear me and ignored my motions. My daughter, in her innocence, even began waving for me to come to her! Just as I was steeling myself to run in after them, knowing full well that it was going to be futile, I awoke with a start.

Some dreams carry residual emotions with them when you awake, and I retained the fear of losing all three of my children in that horrible accident this morning. I didn't sleep so well after that.

As it was General Conference this past weekend, I've been in a mode of contemplation, and I immediately began to consider the applications of this dream.

First off was the practical: it is simply impossible to warn your children about all the potential dangers that might occur to them in their lives. Seriously, have you ever warned your children that if a plane crash lands in the desert, you shouldn't climb on it because it might explode? (I probably will later today.) That kind of situation just doesn't come up in normal day-to-day life.

We warn them against all sorts of physical dangers: look both ways before crossing the street, don't run with scissors, keep your fingers out of wall sockets, and even brush your teeth really well or they'll fall out someday. At some point, however, children need to start thinking for themselves, and consider for themselves the dangers that there are in this world. For my own children, they seem to have a healthy sense of self-preservation, but not such a good sense of how their actions can injure another. They also haven't shown great wisdom in unfamiliar or unusual settings, such as illustrated in my dream.

So, I ask myself, how do I help my children to recognize dangers that could quite literally be right beneath their feet? Clearly I need to help them to recognize the promptings and direction that can come from the Holy Spirit. My two older children have been baptized and have received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, which means that they have the right to be guided by the Spirit of God at all times in their lives, if they live worthily. I can certainly teach them how to live worthily by modeling and encouraging good behaviors, but how do I, as a parent, teach them how to actually listen to the promptings of the Spirit?

So often my children get so excited about things that they don't stop and think about their surroundings. In my dream, it was quite evident that they were just following the crowd, all in the name of fun and excitement. This put them in a place that was dangerous to them physically. This panicked me, and I was deeply afraid of losing my children.

To draw the comparison, I think that it is all too easy to follow the crowd into places that are not only physically dangerous, but spiritually dangerous. I find myself wondering if my children would be discerning enough to recognize these types of situations, and to avoid them from the beginning. At this writing, I'm not so sure.

The dream certainly shook me, and I now know what we will be talking about during Family Home Evening tonight.

Tick-Tock

2010-10-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

I was bringing my youngest son, who is 5, home from karate practice yesterday when I heard his little voice call from the back of the car, "Daddy, why are there tick-tocks in the front and the back?"

Uh, okay. First, I hadn't the faintest idea what a "tick-tock" was, and second, the front and the back of what?!

So, I replied most eloquently, "What?!"

He repeated his question, to which I replied even more eloquently, "Huh?!"

Then he said, "You know, on cars. Why do they have tick-tocks in the front and the back?"

At this point, realization dawned on me that he was asking about the turn signals, otherwise called "blinkers". (Understanding 5-Year-Old = Awesome Dad Moment.)

Thereafter ensued a discussion about how turn signals are put on the back of cars so that people who are behind them can see where the cars are going, and how turn signals are on the front so that people in front of or beside them know similarly. I'm not sure he got it, even though he said he did.

After I had this discussion with him, I was amused, but also fairly sad. Now that I'd informed him what they're really called, I'll probably never hear his cute little voice utter "tick-tock" in the same context again. The term "tick-tock" is sooo much more adorable than what they're really called, and so much more poetic. Such a pity.

Hmm, makes me wonder what other adorable sayings I've completely wrecked in my children's youth, all in the name of precision.

Triathlon

2010-09-25T14:23:00.001-07:00

This morning was the big triathlon. It's an annual event sponsored by our stake (I think) and the teachers and priests from all over the area are invited to participate. A few months back, when I was called to be in the Young Men's Presidency, I decided that I wanted to participate as an adult, in order to show some solidarity with the boys. The other two adult leaders with whom I work are athletic, so it made natural sense that the three of us could form a team to participate. The triathlon wasn't a full triathlon, as the swim was "only" 400 yards, the biking was 5 1/2 miles, and the run was about 3 miles. Having just finished training for a 5 k (~3.2 miles), I was quickly able to press the other two into participating with me to do the swim and the cycling.

Then I had my appendix out.

Despite my best intentions and my seemingly quick recovery, the doctor thought that participating in a triathlon that soon after my surgery would be a little too much too soon. When I told my wife the doctor's misgivings, she jumped on the bandwagon and made the directive to not participate even more strict.

So, I had arranged to participate in the triathlon with a team, and suddenly was no longer able to participate. I still am grumbly about that. The other two, bless them, planned to participate and one of them had one of his adult sons fill in for me. (Truthfully, I think he was pretty happy about it, because he didn't want to do the cycling -- his assigned piece of the triathlon -- and his son was more than happy to do it.)

So, instead of my smiling mug here, you get this:

In keeping with my general policy, I won't be naming names on who these people are in this space, but they know who they are. I'm jealous. That was supposed to be my team, but whatever. *pout*

Anyway, the morning started beautifully with nice and cool temperatures that slowly rose as the day went on. By the time the triathlon was finished, the temperature was in the 90s, so it ended well.

All told, we had the two leaders, two other non-leader adults, and 11 boys participate, most of them from the teachers quorum. Four of the boys did an "ironman", running the whole race themselves. And they did great.

I helped get them all registered and ordered and teamed up, and then pretty much just wandered around taking pictures the whole time. It was pretty fun capturing the candid moments. There was this one where the boys were acting cool before the race:

And this one where one of the leaders was posing with his two participating boys for his wife:

And this one where everybody was standing around just waiting for the first leg, the swimming, to start:

My personal favorite is this one where one of the boys was flirting with a few young women who were there:

After each leg, I tried to capture pictures of all the boys as they came out of the water, cycled to the end, or clambered home at the end of the run. By the end, everybody was hot and tired (even the non-racers, like me), and felt a sense of accomplishment.

There was one boy who felt he had let his teammates down, and another who had crashed on his bike during the cycling portion:

Even so, I think most people went home happy. I heard several of the non-racing adults occasionally mutter, "Maybe next year ..." It really did look like fun, though exhausting. If I'm still in my calling next year, I definitely plan to race, maybe even doing it iron man-style! Assuming I don't have to have my appendix out, that is ...

Something That Makes Me Happy

2010-09-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

My youngest son loves cars and Legos and trains and anything even remotely related to wheels. He is also five years old, which means that he doesn't naturally clean up after himself. In fact, being who he is, he tends to pretty much drop whatever is in his hands where he happens to be. This means that we regularly find Lego parts and Hot Wheels cars all over the house. As a parent I'm supposed to get annoyed when this happens, but, truthfully, it actually brings great joy to my heart. I love finding these little treasures all over the house, and I know for a fact that one of these days I am really going to miss it.

Insult to Injury

2010-09-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

So I'm well enough after my appendectomy to finally go to work. Then I catch the flu.

A Glorious Day!

2010-09-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I had to mark today as a Glorious Day. There are certain times in your life when you reach very special and extraordinary milestones, and sometimes we let those times pass. Well, for me, I just had to record it for posterity: Finally, my oldest son has mowed both the front AND the back lawn! A truly Glorious Day!

If Ye Are Prepared ...

2010-09-06T10:06:00.000-07:00

It is a mantra that I've applied to my life in many aspects, from being a Boy Scout as a youth to taking finals in college to gathering food storage for my family. The phrase "if ye are prepared ye shall not fear" comes from the Doctrine and Covenants and is found in the midst of a whole pile of instructions to The Church regarding caring for each other.

In the last few days, however, as I've contemplated the appendectomy that I just had, many people have asked me if I was afraid at the time, or if I was worried about it. I can honestly state that never once did I fear for my life during the whole ordeal. I felt truly and terribly awful, for sure, and in the throes of my agony I stated more than once that "I feel like I'm dying!", but never once did I consider that I would actually die.

I do have a healthy sense of self-preservation, though my wife would sometimes disagree when I express my desires to go bungee jumping or skydiving (I'm still forbidden by her, by the way ...). Perhaps I still have an "invincibility complex" that I've never quite grown out of from when I was a teenager. Or perhaps, worst of all, I just simply didn't imagine it was a possibility. (By the way, a failure of the imagination in failure-mode scenarios is a huge no-no at my place of work, and has literally lost spacecraft before.)

Either way, it never occurred to me. I fully recognized at that time that appendicitis was an infection that people used to regularly die from. One of my brothers even had a brush with death because of appendicitis. Even so, I let the nurses knock me out and wheel me off to the operating room with barely a backwards glance to my wife. I said no goodbyes and fully expected to see her within a blink of my eye.

In hindsight, I think I was prepared for the worst, so I never feared it would come. It's like putting fire alarms in your house -- it's a really, really good idea to have them, and pretty much everybody does, but nobody expects to actually need them. Indeed, the only time most people pay attention to them is when the "low-battery tweet" starts to go off at 3 am (why is it always in the middle of the night?!).

My own preparations for the worst include the following, from short-term to long-term:

I have piles of sick leave available at work. I'm a generally healthy person so this has just accumulated over time.
I can do much of my work remotely, if need be, by computer and by phone, so I didn't worry about being gone for a long time to recover.
I have two very good and reliable wing-men for my calling at church on whom I can wholeheartedly rely for everything.
I have a will that clearly states my beneficiaries.
I have enough life insurance that would pay off all my debts and keep my family in order for several years.
My wife knows where all the important documents are kept.
My wife knows all the important passwords for my online life (financial websites included and especially).
My wife knows where to bury me, if that needs to occur (though we haven't purchased lots, yet -- we still think we're a little young for that and we don't know where life will eventually take us in the long run).

In the midst of all these preparations, my ultimate demise, while a serious blow to my little family, would not leave them uncared for. And while I am certainly nowhere near being perfect, I feel sufficiently comfortable in my religious well-being that the prospect of "moving on" does not fill me with absolute dread.

This is not to say that I feel "ready", not by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, I still feel like I have so much to do before that eventuality occurs! However, the saying is true: "if ye are prepared ye shall not fear". Trust me, I just tested it.

Appendectomy - 7 Days Later

2010-09-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

My state of being, 7 days after having my laparoscopic appendectomy:

There is still no pain around any of my incisions. However, I recently went off all my pain medications, and I've noticed that the tape covering the incisions occasionally grabs the skin and hurts a little (big deal, I know, but hey!). I also notice that when I press on the incision sites, two of them do not cause pain, but the third, which is just below my belly-button, causes me to pause.
The itching from the hair regrowing on my belly has been slowly decreasing. It is still a regular nag in the back of my consciousness, but it's getting better.
Bowel movements and other associated acts are regular now. No pain or other issues at all.
Urinating is normal now. No pain or other issues at all.
My stomach still makes some weird gurgly noises on occasion as my innards continue to reorient themselves.
My appetite is still not full-strength -- hovering around 80%, I think. Of course, since I'm just sitting around all day, this is probably good.
My shoulder joints still hurt all the time right now. In fact, it got so bad that I went in to see the doctor on Sunday evening. The doctor wasn't very helpful and basically told me to tough it out, which I expected. She did give me a prescription for slightly more powerful pain medication (very slightly), which I ended up taking only once. On Monday morning, I elected to go cold turkey on the pain meds and see what happened. I did all right through the day, and kept a hot pad handy to put on the most offending shoulder. As of now, I'm no taking any of the prescription pain meds, but I did take some Tylenol.
Breathing is normal, with deep breathing possible now. Occasionally I still get a catch in my chest when I lay funny and my shoulders are giving me trouble, but I'm doing much better here.
The bruising on my largest incision appears to be healing. From the last post, I expected the bruise to widen across my stomach, but it appears to be dissipating now. Things are looking much better, and the redness and swelling is almost all gone now.
I only took one nap yesterday. That's progress.
My weight is currently 3 pounds below where I was before the surgery, and I expect it to stay steady as my appetite rises commensurate with my activity level.
My range of motion is pretty good, but I'm creaky. I raised my arms earlier to stretch and got all sorts of interesting popping noises through my chest and back. I think this is a side-effect of the largely sedentary life-style I've been living.
I can lay down without issue, on either side, though sometimes I still need to reconsider when I'm having certain shoulder problems. I still have not attempted to lay on my stomach.

All in all, I'm feeling better than I was, except for the lingering aches in my shoulders.

In other news, some of the kids from the ward came over last night to do 20 minutes of service. My wife had them wash the windows on the back of the house, which they did well. It was nice to see them, and I'm grateful for their service.

Appendectomy - 4 Days Later

2010-08-28T19:48:00.001-07:00

My state of being, 4 days after having my laparoscopic appendectomy:

There is really no pain around any of my incisions.
The giant square they shaved on my belly to do the surgery now ITCHES like mad as the hair begins to grow back. My wife said it was this way at first for her when she started to shave her legs, but she's used to it now. I'm not going to start regularly shaving my belly, though, so I'm enduring it.
I finally had a bowel movement this morning ... 4 days later, which was a little disconcerting as I'm really quite regular. A little personal here, I know, but for all those scientifically inquiring minds out there, I figured I'd give a rather complete record.
Urinating is still preceded by a weird flash of pain, but otherwise goes normally now (no more fits and spurts).
My guts still seem to be reorienting themselves, as I hear some rather bizarre gurgly noises on occasion. Mid-day, after getting up from a nap, I could swear I felt something move two inches across my stomach.
My appetite isn't back all the way -- still about 60%.
I pass gas on occasion, which, apparently, is a very good thing as during laparoscopic surgery the doctors inflate you with air, and the doctors are somewhat nervous about where all that air goes in the days after surgery. Supposedly it eventually gets absorbed by the body, which is why the passing of gas is a rather important milestone. My frequency and, um, volume is down compared to pre-surgery, though, so things aren't quite normal, yet. (Again, this is for the record, people!)
My right and left shoulder joints hurt all the time right now. I think it's because of the aforementioned gas, some of which has migrated to my shoulder joints, and from all I've read on line, it'll go away in a day or two (I hope). This is the single most painful thing right now about my recovery, and is keeping me humble (and slightly grumpy).
I took a shower yesterday for the first time. It was a glorious event.
I still have issues, on occasion, getting enough air, and yawning deeply is a challenge for me.
My stomach is starting to look more like I had surgery, and the ugly green of the bruising is starting to spread out from the incisions.
I usually need a mid-morning nap, and some mid-afternoon solitude away from noisy kids. I feel so overwhelmed that I literally find myself fleeing to the quiet places in the house.
The painkiller does its job, and wears off on schedule. I'm extremely diligent about taking it, because I really notice it in my shoulders when I don't.
My weight is currently 2 pounds below where I was before the surgery, and I expect it to fall a little more, but with my appetite slowly recovering, we'll see.
My range of motion is pretty good. I'm being cautious about bending forward, and always lift with my knees, rather than with my back, but I was in the habit of doing that before. This whole thing is an excellent excuse to get the slaves -- er, the kids -- to lift everything for me.
Laying down is still a slight production. I always lay down by first getting on my knees, then sort of leaning to the left until I'm down. Then, depending on how I'm feeling, I'll sometimes roll to my back. If I'm feeling really well, I'll actually roll all the way to my right side. Never once have I rolled across my front. I'm not that adventurous, yet, and until the weird chest pains go away (let alone the shoulder ones, which hinder my breathing), I'm not going that far.
Did I mention my belly itches?!?
Seriously, did I mention the itching?

All in all, I feel pretty good, except for the miserable aches in my shoulders. I'll report again in another few days.

Appendicitis

2010-08-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

Well, the title gives away the big surprise of this blog post to all my faithful readers (all 2 of you), but so be it.

It still came as a surprise to me. My wife this past weekend has been suffering from the flu, so it came as no surprise on Tuesday morning that I was feeling somewhat queasy in my stomach. Nevertheless, I wasn't "too bad" at that point, so I got up and went to work. As the day progressed, my stomach pains continued to increase in intensity. I left work slightly early (for other reasons) and went home. At that point, I was still queasy in the stomach, but I wouldn't say I was feeling nauseous in that I had no need to actually vomit.

Well, that night, I was feeling pretty bad, but went over to a scouting Court of Honor that I needed to attend. Before it even got started, though, I knew I was in bad enough shape that I should go home. So, I helped get things set up there, then left to come home.

Upon my arrival, I was still not feeling too hot, and my stomach pains continued to increase. I felt cold and clammy, and so I took the opportunity to go get in the hot bathtub. At about this same time, I asked my wife to go to the store to buy me some Pepto-Bismol, as I was feeling severe pains in my stomach area. She left, and the pains in my stomach continued to get worse.

I was so uncomfortable that even the hot bath was not helping, so I got out and headed to the computer. I remembered that my brother had had his appendix taken out and that it was a close call for him, so I've always been somewhat on the lookout for symptoms like what he had. I typed "appendicitis" into my search engine and found a list of symptoms, which seemed to match what I was experiencing pretty well.

I got dressed into some loose fitting clothes and started pacing, the intensity of the pain getting more severe. My youngest son was already asleep, my daughter was on her way, and my oldest was reading, so as soon as my wife returned to the store, I clambered into the van and told her we had to go to the hospital right now. She was a little unhappy about leaving the kids, but I knew things were not right with me, and that I had no little stomach flu.

Eventually, my wife called a wonderful neighbor of ours to go stay with our kids for the night. I knew it must have been terribly uncomfortable, but I am so very grateful for that kind woman's service.

As it was, we arrived at the E.R. at about 8:45. I was doubled over in pain, pale, sweaty, and clammy. Even so, they made us wait. And wait. And wait. For over 5 hours, we waited there before I was finally admitted. The entire time I spent rocking back and forth, trying to manage the pain. They wouldn't even consider giving me anything for the pain because I hadn't been seen by a doctor.

As it turns out, apparently on the night of the full moon everybody likes to get into auto accidents. From our perspective in the waiting room, which is separate from the ambulance entrance, we could not see all the traffic of people being wheeled in, bloodied, beaten, and bruised from other tragic events. From our perspective, looking around at the others in the waiting area, I was the only one in obvious severe pain, and even other people in the waiting area couldn't understand why they were waiting to admit me. One kind fellow, who eventually tired of the waiting and left, even offered to let me go in when they called his name. I hope he ultimately got the help he needed.

As it was, my wife and I went through multiple scenarios. I may have been admitted earlier had we called 911 arrived by ambulance. We may have been able to get in had we gone to a more-distant, but usually better managed, hospital. Several people around us joked that I needed to pass out, vomit all over the floor, or clutch my left arm and proclaim I was having heart problems. I wasn't very amused, but I appreciated the sentiment.

So it was that I pulled a chair over and placed it adjacent to another one. I crawled into it, curled into a ball, and tried to sleep. Several times I think my body just shut down, even with all the noise. There were kids crying, loud televisions (playing Animal Planet's "Monster Animals Unhooked"), and otherwise grumpy people (aggravated by their equally long -- and sometimes longer -- wait). Even with all this, I managed to sleep.

My wife, bless her, was a real trooper. She managed to keep her emotions in check. I know how she felt -- helpless. I always felt the same way when she had our babies. As it was, when the triage nurse asked me how I felt, I remembered my good wife's pains of childbirth, and told her it was an unfair question. Clearly it was not equivalent, but I ranked it as the most intense pain I had ever felt, which was a true assessment.

Well, after what felt like days, I finally managed to get admitted. They brought me in, put me on a bed, and very quickly gave me a morphine shot and something to manage nausea. All the medicines I was given, it seemed, started with the letter "z". Zoltron, Zeratul, ... something. Anyway, the morphine kicked in right away and I felt much better. The nurse was fantastic and was able to put the IV line in on the first attempt. She had a wonderful bedside manner, which was very refreshing after the stonewalling we had in the waiting room.

It wasn't too long until I was in having a C.T. scan. And not too much later that the doctor came in and indicated that yes, indeed, I did need to have my appendix removed. At this point, he could've said I was growing a third arm in my lower intestine. I didn't care, I just wanted whatever it was to be dealt with as soon as possible.

Well, I fell asleep several times for the next several hours, and my surgery was scheduled for 6 am. I was a little surprised they could do it that quickly, and at that early hour, but all the doctors and nurses seemed surprised by my surprise. It's the shift they were working, and it was all in a "days" work. They put a line in and I passed out quickly -- it wasn't really hard as I was exhausted anyway from the night of pain.

I woke up unaware of where I was and remember rubbing my head a lot trying to clear the fogginess in my mind. That didn't really work, but I eventually came to well enough to remember where I was and why I was there. I just stayed put, though, and they eventually took me to a room where I would stay for the balance of the day.

My wife had stayed long enough to talk to the doctor after the surgery, then ran home to relieve our good neighbor and friend. She stayed home the balance of the day, dealing with life with children. She later reported that the doctor told her that the surgery went very well, largely to the fact that I am fit (which made me feel really good -- losing all that weight has again helped me out in life). He was able to do the appendectomy laparoscopically, meaning that they made three tiny incisions, and used little cameras and knives to chop out the offending organ. Indeed, I have only three sets of bandaids on my belly right now, none of which are on the right side of my belly where the appendix is located, which surprised me.

All morning long, I pretty much slept. It was fitful sleep, though, as the doctors and nurses kept coming in to check on me and my room-mate, a teenager who had suffered from a major bicycle accident and was recovering from some internal injuries, had his monitors keep beeping. It seemed he was calling the nurse ever five minutes to ask for some painkillers. I was way better off than him.

In any case, it was a weird day. I felt like I was in the twilight zone. Twice I woke up and had unexpected people in the room. My good friend and new bishop showed in the morning on his way to work, and my good friend and home teacher showed up in the afternoon on his way home from work. Both visited for while, and it was wonderful having them there. The latter actually left his iPad with me and I was able to watch Iron Man.

Later that morning, I spoke with the nurse, who told me that I could be released anytime I wanted to be. This surprised me, as I was sure they were going to insist on me staying a few days. When she told me this, though, I had a new mission in life, and that was to get home where I would be far more comfortable. After some consulting with my wife, we conspired to get me out at around 5 pm, and I ended up arriving at my house at 6 pm. So, 12 hours from surgery to home. Wow, you gotta love modern medicine. The nurse said she had never seen anybody go home that quickly after an appendectomy. I was honored, but just wanted to go home.

A few difficulties I still am suffering from:

* Breathing deeply still hurts.
* Eating and drinking causes me to have trouble breathing, and especially causes trouble for me when laying down.
* Laying down hurts when I lay on my right side. I can lay on my left, and sometimes on my back, but definitely NOT on my right side.
* Urinating comes in fits and spurts, and still slightly hurts.
* I still haven't had a bowel movement, and that prospect makes me a little nervous.

Once I got home, my good friend and home teachee and one of the counselors in the Elders Quorum presidency came over and gave me a very nice blessing. I was just glad to have them there. All of these good men I appreciate and respect, and I am grateful for them.

One of the sisters who visit teaches my wife brought us some dinner, too, which we all enjoyed. I can eat pretty much anything, but my appetite is still pretty small.

I was afraid to try to lay down last night, but with the pain killers that the doctor prescribed, which I am faithfully taking ever 4 hours, I was able to lay down (on my left) and slept through the night without too much difficulty. I'm pretty tired now, though, and think I'll go take a nap. With all my guts jostled around, apparently putting everything back into place is hard work.

I'm grateful for lots of things right now. Grateful to be "fit" enough that recovery looks to be fairly straightforward. Grateful for a wife and kids who are understanding and can take care of themselves while I'm working through this. Grateful that I have a good job that is not at risk because of this and where I have sick time available and patient co-workers who will make progress even in my absence. Grateful for my good friends and neighbors, especially those in my ward, who are kind and generous and have checked in to see if there's anything they could do for us. Grateful that my appendix didn't actually burst, and that this was largely a preventative measure. Grateful that we have modern medicine that makes this largely preventative measure possible, and drugs to make the recovery bearable. And that's just the short list.

Through all of this, I managed to escape the hospital without having to give a urine sample. Can't recall ever accompanying anybody to the hospital for an admissible illness or injury where that wasn't required ...

Things Are Funnier When You Don't Feel Well

2010-08-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

Consider the following:

My oldest son was reading some jokes out of the comics and this interchange happened:

My son: "Who fixes an astronaut's car?"

Me: "I don't know."

My son: "A quantum mechanic."

Me: "Hah, that's funny. Do you know what a quantum mechanic is?"

My son: "Uh, don't they build the rockets?"

At this point, my wife, who has a really bad cold and isn't feeling well at all, starting laughing and insisted that I blog this hilarious interchange.

My son and I just looked at her, but I love my wife, so I obliged.

Hmmm ... so, yes, it's funny, but not that funny -- at least not to me. Or is it? Did I just not get it? Or is this a clear example that when one doesn't feel well, one appreciates even modestly humorous things much more?

My Jury Duty Experience

2010-08-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

In all the years I've been a registered voter (going on 18 years here ...), I had never been called for jury duty. This past May, however, I finally received the "dreaded" summons in the mail. I had seen them before when my wife received them, but she was always excused as she is the primary care provider for our children. My anxiety in opening the envelope was more about the timing of the service than the need to go. With work being somewhat chaotic, and my presence needful, jury service was likely to be not just inconvenient, but rather intrusive to my professional life.

When I opened the summons, I immediately took note of the dates: report the week of June 28th. It took me about 3 seconds to realize that serving at that time would likely impact our plans for the 4th of July, so I went ahead and called into delay my jury duty until mid-August (this week). No problems so far.

This past Sunday night, I made the call to determine if I was to report, and was surprised when I was. So many times people tell me that they end up calling in night after night, never being called in, until their week of service is finished. That was not to be my luck; I had to report on Monday.

This caused me to have to shuffle a lot of things at work. While I knew that I was supposed to do jury duty this week, I didn't actually expect to have to be present at the courthouse for the majority of the week. I had to re-schedule some things, ask others to present for me at some meetings, have others run other meetings I'm responsible for, etc. With email, I was at least able to keep a thumb on the technical interchanges, but not in a very timely fashion.

Monday came, and I arrived at the courthouse at 7:50 am, prior to the 8:15 reporting time. I went to the San Fernando Courthouse and walked up to the front doors. There, I had to go through security where they made me drop my keys, phone, and book in a bowl for being X-rayed. Everybody did it and nobody complained and the line moved swiftly. It was a downright pleasant experience compared to going through airport security.

Once inside, I made me way to the "ground" floor, which is the basement, where they had a very large room filled with chairs and people. There, I found a chair and sat. And read. And waited. For a LONG time. It wasn't until about 9:15 that somebody came and gave us our "orientation" for the day. Some of the highlights:

* We were to treat our parking tag as sacred -- a replacement would be difficult to come by.
* We were to report back to that room when we were excused by a judge to return.
* We were to no longer call the 800 number to determine if we needed to report -- now that we were there, we were to report back until instructed otherwise.
* We were not to discuss anything about the cases with anybody. Not with our friends, our kids, our spouses, our church leaders, our dogs, and most especially not with our goldfish. You never can tell about those fish -- they tend to be rather slippery.
* We were to wear our badges ALWAYS when we were in the building and the local vicinity so that the chatter-box lawyers wouldn't accidentally spill secrets they weren't to share. (Hey, it's not MY fault that lawyers have loose lips ... yet it was I who had to look like a dork wearing my badge all the time ...)
* There were plenty of places to eat in the local vicinity. The lady gave a big plug for a nearby place that, upon my later inspection, looked rather unsavory.
* We were to return any given paperwork back to them, because their budget had been cut for copies. She was clearly disgruntled about that, but, ironically, after reading the material I was no better informed, and found that I didn't need anything within it.
* We were to be paid $15 a day (wow!) plus mileage for our troubles -- except for the first day. I don't know why the first day isn't covered.
* We could be excused from jury duty for reasons X, Y, and Z; none of which applied to me.

After the lady finished talking, she invited anybody who thought they should be excused to come to the front of the room. Swarms of people went that way, and many of them eventually returned to their seats, rather than walking out the door. I drew an obvious conclusion from that, and continued reading my book.

Finally, at about 10:45, the lady announced that we could go to the 3rd floor to "Department G" where the bailiff would take charge of us. Everybody swarmed to the elevators and me and a bunch of other people headed for the stairs, only to discover that you can't get to the 3rd floor from an interior stairwell, and the exterior stairwells are emergency exits only. I sat and waited for an elevator and squished in when an otherwise full elevator of people from the ground floor arrived on the 1st floor where I was standing.

At the third floor, we all stood around looking uncomfortable waiting for something to happen. I found a chair and started reading again. Finally, at about 11:30, the bailiff came out and told us all to go in, and to take a questionnaire, which we would need later. Once inside, we were seated, he gave us some instructions, and the judge finally came in and gave some more instructions.

The judge pointed out the defendants there in the room, two young men who were charged with residential burglary and several counts of assault on one or more (couldn't really tell) police officers; it was a criminal trial. She was careful to remind us all that in the U.S., people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, so we were to think of them as innocent even as the charges were read to them, with wording that assumed guilt. An interesting dichotomy.

She read the names of the alleged victims, and asked if anybody knew any of those people or the defendants. Nobody did, surprisingly enough, particularly since I later found out that many in the room were from Santa Clarita (including myself) where the crimes supposedly took place. The two defendants did look familiar to me, but I still don't know why.

The defense lawyers, both of them, looked us all over carefully. One in particular looked at us like he was contemplating whether or not he wanted to squish us. The prosecutor, the District Attorney, was calm and collected, and later proved to have quite a sense of humor. The defense attorneys were an interesting duo -- the desire-to-squish-you one was older, dry, and tended to issue very obvious and leading questions. The other was younger, a little more quick witted, and seemed to really enjoy what he was doing.

At noon, after all these instructions, the judge finally had the court clerk call out 18 juror ID numbers. Those people came forward and were instructed to sit in one of the 12 jury seats, or one of the 6 seats in front of them.

Then ... the judge called a lunch recess and we were all to return at 1:30.

So, went off for lunch. I ate my lunch then walked around a bit, looking at the different restaurants in the area. There were quite a few, as the jury lady promised. It was boring, and I ended up going back to the hallway outside the jury room by about 12:45, where I sat and read my book some more.

1:30 came around, and I sat in the hallway and read my book. 1:45 came and went. Finally a few minutes before 2:00 the door opened and the bailiff ordered us all in. Taking a head count, the judge finally got things going.

The 18 "prospective jurors" were to read through the questions in the questionnaire, telling everybody in the room their profession, marital status, parental status, and the profession of any adults living in their household. They were also to indicate if they had prior jury experience.

After that, pages 2 and 3 of the questionnaire asked questions about whether or not they'd been victims of crimes, had committed any crimes, knew police officers, understood that they could be excused from jury duty at any time for any reason (and not to take it personally), and if they had any religious or philosophical reason for why they couldn't be on the jury. If anybody had reason why they didn't want to share their information publicly, they could speak with the judge and lawyers "privately".

As things progressed, a few patterns became apparent:

* Very few people admitted to committing a crime until pressed by the judge, who specifically asked -- in every single case -- if they had ever received a traffic citation. By the third day, people started realizing that they should admit to it right away.
* Most people had been the victims of a crime, usually a home burglary or a car break-in.
* There were a surprising number of people who were students in the room (all of whom were released so they could get to school one to two weeks later).
* Most people had friends who were in law enforcement of one type or another.

The judge regularly asked people if they could be fair to both sides, and almost everybody said yes. Those who didn't were clearly just being belligerent and wanted out of jury duty (they were all obliged). She also grilled people when they mentioned they were in a medical profession about whether or not they knew anything about bone structure, particularly in the hand and lower arm.

By this time, it was 2:20 and the judge told us to take a break and to be back at 2:40. We left to the hallway where I, surprisingly, read my book. Eventually, at about 3:10, the bailiff came out and brought us back in. The judge then let each of the lawyers take 15 minutes each to address the prospective jurors. The first was the squish-the-bug lawyer for the defense who got up and ran circles around his own questions to the point where there was only one possible way to answer. He was particularly uninspiring, almost always starting his questions with "Do you think ...", which meant that he always got a yes or no answer, and the most obvious answer to the question.

The second lawyer for the defense got up and he was much more personable. He actually cracked a joke. At one point, he was talking about the police profession and was pushing on how people tend to believe what one in their position of authority has to say. He cited this as faulty, as law enforcement officers are just regular people and are therefore subject to making mistakes and, worse, often have an incentive to lie to cover those mistakes. He indicated that their training is strictly law enforcement, and not focused on more esoteric things such as ethics and honesty. As a supporting example, he began a statement by saying, "Take for example lawyers. We are not trained to be honest ..." He trailed off, the courtroom burst into laughter, and he flushed red with a smile and a laugh. It was a faux pas, clearly unintentional (or he's a really good actor), but it was quite funny.

Without having seen any evidence, we were beginning to draw a picture of what the case was about: these two dudes were accused of burglarizing somebody's house, wrecking it in the process. At some point, the policemen apparently attempted to arrest them and the two attacked the police (it was specifically highlighted that the charges were not that they had attacked the police with a gun), and managed to injure at least one of them in the hand and arm in the process.

Every step of the way, the defense lawyers were asking questions about whether or not the potential jurors could declare their clients as innocent when there was no concrete evidence. Even the question of race was brought up, which made the potential jurors squirm.

Around 4, the judge dismissed us all with instructions to return the next day at 10:30, but be early because the security lines to get in can get crowded and she wanted to start on time.

So, the next morning, I'm there by 9:50. I sat in the hallway reading, of course. About 10:50 the bailiff finally lets us in at which point the D.A. had the opportunity to question the first panel of 18 people. Contrary to the defense lawyers, the D.A. was asking questions about whether or not the potential jurors could make up their own minds about the truth based on witness testimony, even in the absence of "CSI-style" concrete evidence. I got the impression that the case would be settled as a competition of testimony.

At the end of this questioning, the judge asked each of those who had said they wanted to visit with the judge in person to come to the back hallway with the lawyers. One by one, they there spilled whatever embarrassing information they needed to, and then returned to their seats.

At this point, the judge dismissed several of those people to return to the jury room in the basement for further instruction. At that point, the judge allowed the defense lawyers and the D.A. to excuse, in turn, one juror at a time until there was only 11 people left. At that point, the judge asked the court clerk to read off 7 more names to add to the "panel". Once seated, the fun started again with the questions answered, the judge following up, and the lawyers each getting their 15 minutes.

We broke for lunch again at noon, with instructions to return at 2 pm. I ate my lunch, and, what else? sat in the hall and read my book. At 2:20 we were let back in. Throughout the day, the show continued with a second set of 7 selected, then a third set. Towards the end of the second day, another set of 7 was to be selected, and I was finally called forward. I sat down as prospective juror #14.

I answered my questions to the judge (Yes, I've had speeding tickets and, yes, I know some police officers. How well do you know them? Quite well. Do you ever talk with them about their work? Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I do; just like most people in their profession, they are rather fond of telling stories about dumb things people do. Thank you, Prospective Juror #14.).

Then the squish-the-bug lawyer got up and had nothing to ask me. Then the other defense lawyer got up and he asked me what kind of engineer I was. He then asked me what I was reading ("In the Court of the Crimson King" by S.M. Stirling. Is it good? Quite good. Would you recommend it to me? I'd recommend it to anybody who has an interest in science fiction. Thank you.) Then he started going off on how it is in engineering that there is usually only solution to a problem, and I interrupted him and told him that I'm an engineer, not a mathematician, and that in most engineering problems there are many solutions and my job is to find an acceptable one. He moved on.

Eventually the D.A. got up. He had no questions at all for anybody. The judge excused a few more jurors and I moved to the seat of Prospective Juror #7. At that point the D.A. asserted he was happy with the jury as presently constituted, but the defense released one more juror which meant we'd have to call forward more prospective jurors the next morning.

The day ended at 4:30. On my way out, the recorder asked me the title of the book, as she hadn't caught it before. I told her and she entered it into the official record for the day. I found that amusing.

The first two days of jury selection, I had intentionally under-dressed. I hoped to not show my true nature, for whatever reason, so I wore shorts, my Star Wars T-shirt, and sandals on Monday; and jeans, a junky T-shirt, and sneakers on Tuesday. By Wednesday, since I was in seat #7 and the D.A. was happy with the jury, I was totally expecting to end up on the jury. To that end, I figured there was no sense being something I'm not, so I wore what I would normally wear to work -- business casual khaki slacks and a green and blue plaid button-down shirt. I was wearing my typical brown belt, brown work shoes, and my phone on my belt.

The next day (today), I arrived at 10:00. I sat in the hallway reading my book until 10:55 and then walked up to my seat #7, which I assumed I was going to be residing in for many days. That morning, however, when the squish-the-bug lawyer looked at me, I could tell he wasn't comfortable with me like he was the day before, but I figured there were bigger targets to remove from the jury before me. The morning progressed with the seven new prospective jurors called forth and the ensuing questioning. We broke for lunch at noon, as usual. I went to McDonalds and was hit up by two separate people for cash; being the credit card person that I am, I honestly couldn't help them.

Upon return at 1:30 (getting in at 1:45, only 15 minutes late that time ... improvement!), I took my place and the releases began with the judge releasing a few who were clearly not going to work. Then it was time for the squish-the-bug lawyer to release somebody. He hesitated only two seconds, then asked, "The defense would request that the judge thank and excuse Prospective Juror #7."

I was stunned. I stood, attempting to suppress a smirk, and strode out of the court room. I went down to the basement, picked up my release form and left.

So ended my time on jury duty.

Throughout the week, I had been vacillating on whether or not I wanted to be part of the jury. I had the feeling that I had seen these two young men before, even in the same setting, strangely enough, but couldn't place that memory. I also could easily envision them committing the crimes of which they were accused, so perhaps I was somewhat unfit for the job. Perhaps it was their demeanor -- they honestly looked and acted like guilty kids who got caught and were hoping they could weasel their way out of it. Even the demeanor of their defense lawyers spoke that they knew their clients were guilty, and their questions to the prospective jurors heavily leaned towards "well, if you can't prove they did it without any reasonable doubt, then you have to say they are innocent" rather than "these boys are innocent and it's up to you to say so".

Even so, now that I've been released, I'm somewhat relieved. I was very stressed trying to defer things at work, and was constantly checking my email and dealing with things day by day. If I had been put on the jury, that would have ultimately been fine, because I could have at least planned to be gone for a few weeks, but the intermediate state of not knowing was a burden.

It was an interesting process, and one I somewhat enjoyed, and someday I do think I'd like to serve on a jury just so I can have that experience. This time, however, it took 3 days to know it was not to be.

Ah, well. Despite the uncertainty, I really did like sleeping in ...

Two More Weeks of Summer!

2010-08-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

I've written in this space before about my increasing disillusionment with the public school system. To that end, early this calendar year we pulled my oldest son to home school him, and we have now enrolled him in a charter school. We wanted to get the two younger children in the same place, if for no other reason than to synchronize their schedules. Having two sets of school calendars to keep was going to drive us crazy. Therefore, we put the two of them on the wait list to get in to the charter school, as well, with high hopes but a healthy cynicism that they would actually get in.

Well, yesterday I got a call from the school saying that both the younger kids also got into this school! The lady on the phone identified herself, told me that the kids had been accepted, and then proceed to start to ask me if I wanted to enroll them. I didn't even let her finish her question, and interrupted her to answer, "We'll do it!"

We are so excited. They were supposed to start school today over at the public elementary school. My youngest, in particular, was going to be in all-day kindergarten (something we did not want), so we were struggling with having them start.

With their acceptance at the charter school, though, things have changed quite a bit. My wife immediately called the other school and told them we were pulling our kids. Apparently the school were not very happy about that, as they've been struggling with enrollment. She also whirled around the house collecting all the stuff that was needed to get them enrolled at the charter school, including:

* Filled out applications to attend the school (many LONG forms to fill out)
* The kids birth certificates
* Copies of their immunization records
* Proof of our residency in the area, namely her drivers license or a utility bill

She'll be taking all this stuff over today to make it all official.

Now we have two more weeks of summer to play with all three of the kids. This is wonderful, and I greatly look forward to it.

To top it all off, today is my birthday. Since I need to be at work, we're kind of stretching out the birthday celebrations all weekend. Yesterday we went out to eat for dinner, today we'll be having birthday cake, Friday we'll be going to the beach to use my birthday present, the kayak we bought a few months back. Saturday, my wife arranged for us to go to a Harry Connick, Jr. concert at the Hollywood Bowl (many thanks to our good friends in the ward, who made that possible!). And Sunday is stake conference at church, so I get to spend nearly the whole day with my family.

Awesome.

I think most normal parents can't wait for school to start so they can get the kids out from under foot. While we do have some of those feelings, we actually have felt unprepared about the whole thing, and weren't quite mentally ready to send them off. Having those extra few weeks will be much better!

Spaghettify

2010-08-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

My oldest son made up a new word today:

Spaghettification: The act of being made into spaghetti, usually while being sucked into a black hole. Other forms: v. spaghettify, adv. spaghettified, n. spaghettifier.

Awesome.

Unhappy Day Today

2010-08-04T19:55:00.000-07:00

Unhappy day today. Even with a majority of people agreeing with me, I've just learned that it is not okay for me to believe that an institution that has been around for millennia should remain as it is, because there is a small minority of people who want to redefine it to include relationships that are by their very nature characterized by behavior that I consider to be sinful (along with pretty much everybody that follows any world religion). Marriage has been hijacked and the collective will of the people flaunted. Unhappy day.

Judge overturns California's ban on same-sex marriage

Bucket List

2010-08-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

I found this list on somebody's Facebook page, and as I started reading through it, I realized that I've actually done quite a few things on the list. Does this mean I'm near to "kicking the bucket"? I certainly hope not!

Anyway, so the list is as follows, with items I've done marked with an "X" and items I have not listed with a zero:

(0) Gone on a blind date (Somehow I've never done this. My wife'd be miffed if I tried to do that now, too ... so this will have to be left undone.)
(X) Skipped school (don't let my kids see this!)
(0) Watched someone die (I'm going to mark this "no", even though I've seen people die on video -- disturbing)
(X) Been to Canada
(X) Been to Mexico
(0) Been to Florida
(X) Been to Hawaii
(X) Flown in a plane
(0) Flown in a helicopter
(X) Been lost
(X) Gone to Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep (oh, those teenage years ...)
(X) Played cops and robbers (oh, those pre-teen years ...)
(X) Recently colored with crayons (with my kids, okay?)
(X) Sang Karaoke (ditto, and I don't like it)
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only (once bought pizza with pennies)
(0) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
(X) Made prank phone calls
(0) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose & elsewhere (the nose, yes, but elsewhere? no, not really)
(X) Been to the top of a 100+ story building (the Empire State Building)
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(0) Danced in the rain-naked (hmm ...)
(X) Been skinny-dipping (my parents owned a pool, okay?!)
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
(0) Been deep sea fishing
(0) Driven across the United States
(0) Been in a hot air balloon
(0) Been sky diving (my wife forbids it ...)
(X) Gone snowmobiling
(0) Lived in more than one country
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
(X) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
(X) Seen the Statue of Liberty
(0) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
(X) Been on a cruise
(X) Traveled by train (light rail counts, doesn't it?)
(0) Traveled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding (as a kid ... it's been a LONG time)
(X) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
(0) Been to Disney World
(X) Truly believe in the power of prayer
(0) Been in a rain forest
(0) Gone Scuba Diving
(X) Been to Niagara Falls (as a baby)
(0) Ridden on an elephant
(0) Swam with dolphins (technically, swimming in the ocean with dolphins nearby counts, I would think, but I'm marking this 0, as it wasn't deliberate)
(0) Been to the Olympics
(0) Walked on the Great Wall of China (REALLY want to do this one ...)
(0) Flown in a Glider (ditto)
(X) Been water-skiing (love it)
(X) Been snow-skiing (don't love it)
(X) Been to Westminster Abbey (awesome)
(0) Been to the Louvre
(0) Swam in the Mediterranean
(X) Been to a Major League Baseball game (go Dodgers!)
(0) Been to a National Football League game
(0) Been to the SuperBowl
(X) Been on television ("Go" for launch!)
(X) Stayed in a hotel by yourself (very restful)
(X) Had your name in the newspaper (helps to be from a small town ...)
(X) Have gone to a restaurant and eaten by yourself (very calming)
(X) Have gone to the movies by yourself (very peaceful)
(X) Kissed someone IN another country (love my wife!)
(X) Can speak another language, besides English (I'm marking this with an "X", as I can do minimal French)
(0) Have had knee surgery
(0) Have run a marathon

You know, some of these I actually intend to do someday. Some of the others I intend to skip. Knee surgery? Watch someone die?! Really? Don't think I want to. Even so, 47 out of 75 ain't bad, though (62.6%!). And I think I still have plenty of time!

New Calling: Young Men's 1st Counselor

2010-08-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

I was sustained and set apart today in my new calling. Officially, the calling is actually three callings: 1st Counselor to the Young Men's President, Assistant Varsity Scout Coach, and Teachers Quorum Advisor.

The first one means that I'm supposed to provide counsel to the president of the Young Men's, who is also new in his calling. He's been in the program for a while, though, having been moved from being the 2nd counselor to being the president. He also just happens to be an ex-stake president, and has had plenty of boys in the program -- he's well-qualified. In practice, though, it mostly means that I am to teach the boys, all of whom are between 14 and 16 years of age, during Sunday meetings. I am also supposed to encourage them in their Duty to God program, which is currently being revamped.

The second one means that I'm supposed to help the Varsity Scout Coach, the adult leader of the boys during the weekday activities that they have. This particular age group is in between as far as scouting is concerned: old enough that many of them are already Eagle Scouts, but young enough to still be interested. Even better, they're old enough to do a lot of the "high adventure" stuff. In fact, the boys just got back from hiking along the rim of Zion's Canyon, which was an amazing experience for all of them, apparently. (I'm not sad I couldn't go, but instead I'm totally excited to go on their next excursion with them! Probably snow camping ... yeah, call me crazy.)

The third one means that I'm responsible for ensuring that the boys "learn their duty" in their priesthood office of being a "teacher". This means I need to ensure they know how to properly prepare the sacrament, go home teaching, provide service to those in need, and perform their old responsibilities as deacons when called upon to do so. It also means I need to mentor the boys, particularly the leaders, to teach them how to run meetings, organize themselves, plan their activities, uplift each other within the quorum, and to prepare to become priests.

Hmmm, looking at these previous paragraphs, it looks rather daunting. But I'm not really nervous. My two assistants in the quorum have been in there for a while and they know the boys and have good relationships with them. While I'm technically in charge, they are both good men and I expect that we will work together to do whatever is needed to help these boys.

For me, though, I'm most excited about two things:

1) I get to teach the boys as often as I want. Totally fun.

2) I get to go on their "high adventure" excursions. Also totally fun.

In my old calling, I often would sit with these boys and visit with them while they waited to meet with the bishop or his counselors for their six-month interviews. I have had conversations with every one of them, and while I wouldn't say that I am close "friends" with any of them (okay, maybe a few on Facebook ...), I know them by name and know somewhat of their personalities.

I really do love the scouting program. Some of the things they do, I think, are rather silly, particularly at camps and all the stuff they do trying to amp up the boys with scouting "spirit". Even so, I earned my Eagle Scout when I was 15 (thanks, Mom!) and absolutely loved all the campouts and excursions we'd go on. I have great memories of being with the other boys and hiking and freezing to death at night and getting swamped in canoes and making fire -- lots of fire. My scoutmaster was a retired marine, so didn't suffer teenage belligerence -- he was tough as nails, but treated us with respect and, most of the time, like adults. At least, that's how I remember it. Fond memories.

So, now I'm on the other end. I always figured that I'd be a scout leader someday, but I never knew when or how. Now, I know. And now I'm going to be on the receiving end of youthful hyperactivity, inattention, and just plain stupidness. It should be fun!

Want

2010-07-29T20:12:00.000-07:00

I want Starcraft II. There, I said it.

Released as Executive Secretary

2010-07-25T21:54:00.000-07:00

I was released from my calling today as the Executive Secretary. This job, which I've been doing for almost 5 years, had become second-nature to me -- it was just something I did and something that I was. For years, I haven't really thought much of it. I've just enjoyed being with the great people at the church weekly, helping the Bishop, visiting with people in the hallway, setting up interviews, calling people, and participating in Bishopric Meetings, PECs, and Ward Councils. I was always in the know about things around the ward, and I loved it immensely.

Lately, though, I've been feeling keenly aware of how much I really just want to be home on Sunday with my family. It kind of crept up on me, I think, and was probably prompted by the switchover with the new Bishopric. I love the new Bishop dearly -- I consider him a good friend -- and his counselors are wonderful men, too. So it wasn't as if I wasn't happy with the society I was in. I was just feeling ... antsy, I guess.

Even so, I was prepared to stay in that calling for the long haul. I fully anticipated staying there for years to come, helping the new Bishopric get their footing, and serving them as best I could.

So it was last week that the Bishop handed me a list of people who he wanted to visit with. I recognized all the names on the list as people who we had discussed relative to some callings that need to be filled, but at the bottom of the list the names of my wife and I were included. This surprised me, as I figured that she was going to stay in her calling for a while and we hadn't spoken recently about making any changes with her. But I was absolutely sure that I wasn't going anywhere.

I went about my business of arranging the interviews and helped to shuttle people in and out of the Bishop's office all that day. Come that evening, the Bishop and one of his counselors came to our house to visit with my wife and I (it just worked out that way, not that it was a special trip ...), and the conversation started pleasantly enough with them praising my wife for her services in her calling. But just when I thought they were going to tell her they have something new for her to do, the Bishop said they wanted to keep her in that calling and looked forward to her continued service.

I was stunned. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks that they weren't there to visit with her, but to visit with me! And when they told me what they wanted to do, I was inwardly laughing. My wife later commented that I didn't start jumping on the couch for joy, which surprised her, but I was honestly trying to listen to what they were saying and to understand exactly what they were asking of me. The new calling will be something that suits me well, and I am excited for it. They called me to ... well, I can't say until next week.

Today, as my last day as the Executive Secretary, it went pretty much like any other, but I could tell that things were different. I met with the High Councilor for our ward and he gave me the official release before church meetings started this morning. All day, I was somewhat dazed to realize that I was going through the meetings and talking with people and setting up interviews and doing all the stuff that has become so natural to me for, possibly, the very last time in my Earthly life. One "adventure", if you want to call it that, was coming to an end, with another just about to begin.

Sacrament meeting came and I was released from the pulpit. A good friend of mine from behind me leaned forward when they asked for the gratitudinal raising of the hand and whispered, "If I don't raise my hand, can they still release you?" I smiled, and appreciated the warmth of his question. Throughout the day, several people came up to me and told me how grateful they were for my service. One woman whom I home teach told me that she sees the Executive Secretary position as one where unsung heroes shine, and I was moved. Throughout the day, many people gave simple and quiet expressions of gratitude for my service, and I felt honored to have been able to serve. Later that day, another good friend brought his family with him to drop off some cookies to thank me for my services, and I felt truly and deeply loved and appreciated (cookies have that affect on me).

After church, I spent a few hours with my replacement, going through the binder that had been my constant church companion for these many years, showing him what was in there and how I managed all the various and varied tasks that were my responsibility. He nodded a lot and seemed a little overwhelmed, but he seems competent enough (he's new in the ward, so I don't know him well) and I am just going to let him find his own way. I'll be around for questions, but I have new things to worry about now.

But it was really weird. I went home from church about 4 pm, which is early for me, and spent the afternoon and evening with my family. It was wonderful. I literally wrestled with the kids (something we never do), and played games, and read the newspaper, and listened to good music, and just talked; and I was happy.

I am grateful for all the blessings that came into my family because of those years in that calling, and I am definitely better for it. While I will miss that wonderful calling that I had made my own for so long, my new one awaits. This church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is such an amazing thing. It takes ordinary people -- okay, and space nerds like me -- and gives them opportunities to serve in ways that are unexpected, undeserved, and unanticipated, and lifts them up as they do their best to lift others. Only the True Gospel can accomplish that. Let there be no doubt, for I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, and I know it to be true.

Now, I desperately need some training for my new calling ...

Weird Weekend

2010-07-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I took Thursday off of work with the intent to go camping with my family. As it was, we decided not to go due to a major heatwave smothering Southern California. It cost us $50 to cancel, but the last thing we wanted to do was to go sit at a campground in the dust, with no decent shade, and attempt to not get dehydrated.

Even so, I still took Thursday off (Friday was my regular day off from work) and we enjoyed a 4 day (okay, 3 day, but I'll get to that) weekend together as a family. Pretty much we goofed off. Seriously, that's what we did. Thursday, the day I took as a vacation day, I pretty much hung around the house with the kids, playing on the Wii, building stuff with Legos, and puttering around the garage.

Speaking of the garage, I finally got the kayak hung and it is really weird and somewhat discomforting seeing it hanging above the hoods of our cars in the garage. I keep telling myself that my engineering and my knots are sound, and that there's nothing to be concerned about, but ...

That day was an awfully hot day. About mid-afternoon we discovered that one of our air conditions -- the one we have for the ground floor -- was not working. Happily the one from upstairs was content to crank away all day, and kept the ground floor at a reasonable 85 degrees. This made things more comfortable, and after a few phone calls to friends looking for references to a good air conditioning guy, we were able to get in touch with a fellow who was willing to show up at 9 pm that night!

We were delighted. First, with the worst heat wave of the year upon us, we didn't expect to actually get him to our house that day, and second, when he did show up, he actually had the right part to get our air conditioner working again in about 20 minutes! 350 bucks poorer (we burned out the air conditioner's capacitor, which was swollen from abuse), but feeling much cooler, we sent him on his way with an earnest promise to call him in a month to service both of our 6-year-old-and-never-once-serviced air conditioners.

That night we let the two older kids stay up late and watch Star Wars Episode 2, which they hadn't seen, and they really enjoyed it. Then, to make up for not going camping, we let them sleep in the family room. We pulled out the really lumpy and miserably uncomfortable sofa bed, and my oldest son crashed there without complaint while my daughter crashed on the adjacent couch. Oh, to be kids again.

Friday morning, I mowed the lawn just after 8 am, and it was already in the 90s. Clearly it was going to be another hot day, but our air conditioners were working!

That afternoon we went over to a place called Sky City, which is a business where they have large inflatable slides and play areas where people can hold birthday parties. Apparently they charge half price for general admission on Fridays, so we spent $5 each for our three children to go there and goof off for two and a half hours. They were so sweaty and gross when they were done, but they had a great time and were downright exhausted.

The next day, Saturday, we woke up and headed out the door to go to Chuck-E-Cheeses. Still a favorite place with all three of our children, they had 32 leftover tokens each and had a great time burning through them. My oldest burned most of them playing racing games, my daughter was all about earning tickets, and my youngest just kind of meandered and did everything else. My wife and I? We sat and read books. It was awesome.

After we got home from there, we packed up our stuff and headed out for the beach. We went over to Ventura, where finding a parking spot was a major challenge. We ended up sitting at the end of one block waiting for somebody to leave. We had a lunch with us, so everybody got out of the car and ate while we waited about 20 minutes for somebody to show up and move their car.

Finally getting parked, we ran into some friends from our ward, and, together, we found a decent spot of sand to plant our families. We had a very nice visit with them -- they're a very nice family with three kids of their own that are each respectively, slightly younger than my own. After getting the kids slathered with sunscreen, taking a hike to the super-gross bathroom, and sending them off to play, my wife and I sat down and finally had some time to quietly talk with our friends and do a little more reading.

About this time, my wife started sun-screening herself. As we would find out later, it was way too little way too late. She is torched, and she absolutely hates getting sunburned because her burns typically fade to a tan, which lasts forever (okay, about a year -- which is a crazy-long-time for a tan). This sounds like a good thing, but when she has a very white swimsuit line, it bothers her immensely. So, not only is she suffering the pain from the sunburn, she also has an ignominious tan line that she will be unable to erase for a long, long time.

Come Sunday morning (five or six layers of aloe vera later for my wife), I woke up and did my "usual" Sunday thing. My wife now attends Ward Council with me, so when she showed up at 9 am, she told me that our oldest son wasn't feeling well, and that she intended to bring the kids for sacrament meeting and then go home to be with him. This turned out to be an inspired move, because after she arrived home after sacrament meeting just after lunch time, he threw up all over the family room carpet. Messy, messy.

Our theory? He picked up a nasty stomach virus at Sky City. A natural thing, but we immediately went into quarantine mode; after all, it is summertime and the last thing we need is our other two children to get sick. He spent the day moaning and dry-heaving into a bowl while planted on the couch while my wife spent the day telling the other kids to stay away from him and disinfecting the house. She even had him sleep on an air mattress on the floor of his bedroom instead of his bed so he wouldn't have trouble getting to the bathroom if he needed it.

I, on the other hand, spent nearly the entire day doing church stuff. 7:30 am Bishopric Meeting, 9:00 am Ward Council, 11:00 am Church Services, home from 2:20-2:50 for a quick bite to eat, 3:00 pm interviews, home at 6 for another quick bite to eat (thanks, wife, for the great dinner!), and then off to home teaching from 7 'til 9 pm. It was a long day, but I got a lot of stuff done. And got another calling ... which I'll write about in a few weeks ...

Busy weekend, but very nice. I feel mellow, and don't really want to be at work now ... summer vacations are wasted on schoolkids.

On a Botched Lyrics Translation - Dites-moi

2010-07-20T06:42:00.000-07:00

Last night I was running on the treadmill and watching the newer version of South Pacific, with Glenn Close and Harry Connick, Jr. (which my wife and I like better than the 1958 version, by the way), and there is this little song in it called "Dites-moi". For some reason, I really love this song. Perhaps it's because I find it's simplicity charming, or perhaps it's because I took 5 years of French when I was in school and I still retain a minimal capacity to understand it. Either way, I enjoy the song quite a bit.

So this morning I'm in the shower and this song is going through my head, but I couldn't remember some of the words. Once I got online, I went to go look up the lyrics, and was stunned to find a translation that goes like this:

Tell me why
The sky
Is filled with music
Tell me why
We fly
On clouds above
Can it be
That we
Can fly to music
Just because
Just because
We're in love

I was appalled, astonished, and slightly enraged. This particular translation is absolutely, completely, and wholeheartedly false, and loses the entire intent and beauty of the song. To wit, the actual words are as follows:

Dites-moi
Pourquoi
La vie est belle
Dites-moi
Pourquoi
La vie est gai
Dites-moi
Pourquoi,
Chere Mad'moiselle,
Est-ce que
Parce que
Vous m'aimez?

This actually translates, line by line, to the following:

Tell me
Why
Life is beautiful
Tell me
Why
Life is happy
Tell me
Why,
Dear young lady,
Is it
Because
You love me?

I can hear it gently in my head as I type, and I love it. As for that other translation, well, you can keep it. I'll keep singing it in French.

FunnyTranslator.com

2010-07-19T07:27:00.000-07:00

So I stumbled upon this website called FunnyTranslator.com, which promises to totally mess up anything you put in there. It tells you to "Write funny, original, non offensive stuff" and then press a button after which it will translate your words back and forth from English to a bunch of other languages.

I gave it a whirl just to see what was up. "Why me?" became "Why?" on my first attempt. Not so inspiring, but I tried again.

"To be or not to be" ends up as, simply, "Yes or no."

So, I decided to go for gold and put in "I am a doodoo head."

The response?

"I am the president of the hunt."

So, the next time you see a bunch of guys in the woods with guns, you can honestly call him a "doodoo head" and mean it with no offense ... ;)

Hit 5k Again

2010-06-29T06:16:00.000-07:00

I was running on the treadmill last night for the fourth night of actual running, and I decided to push it to the 5k mark to see what I could do. The first night, as mentioned, I did 1.5 miles. The second night I ran 1.7, and the third night I ran 2.0. Last night, at a steady drone of 5.5 mph, I made it to the 3.2 mile marker without major issue. I was quite sweaty, but made it without getting queasy or overly exhausted.

I marvel at what my body can do now that I'm not hauling around those extra 40 pounds. I'm as good as ready for the July 24th run, but I'm going to continue training over the next several weeks to see if I can bring up my speed, and to alternate the running speed to improve my robustness, etc.

Back on the Treadmill

2010-06-23T06:45:00.000-07:00

I got on the treadmill last night for the first time in a VERY long time. My goal was to run a mile and a half. I'm working up to a 5k = 3.2 miles that I'll be running on July 24th, and figured I should start small.

As I got going, I felt kind of stiff at first, and at about the 0.5 marker of my run, I looked down at the distance I'd gone and thought about slowing down to walk for a little rest. But I just kept right on going, and kept it up at a constant pace of 5.5 mph with an elevation angle of 4 degrees.

At about the 0.7 mile marker, I was feeling pretty good, and realized I had pushed through a "wall". As I kept on running, the rhythm felt really good and when I hit my 1.5 mile marker, I really felt like I could have kept going. Even so, I wanted to end well, so I did a cool-down walk and finally got off the treadmill at 1.75 miles (0.1 before, 0.15 after).

I wasn't shaky, I wasn't overwhelmed. I was just sweaty, but felt really good. I was a little surprised at how comfortable I was, and I'm kind of excited to get back into shape again.

My wife told me she was kinda sad that I was going to keep up with the treadmill only through the race on July 24th. I know she was totally just digging at me, as she totally knows how exhausting my 11 hour work days are (9 hours of work + 2 hours of driving). Add to that the time I spend with the kids and that leaves very little time to spend with her when I'm actually functional, and I really like my time with my wife. I think I surprised her, though, when I said I hope to keep on the treadmill at least twice a week after the race.

We'll see. Maybe I'll work up to a half-marathon or something. It's a big commitment to make, and I'm like her, I don't like feeling chained to anything. Isn't there a way to sit around all day and still be fit?!