Mowing the Lawn

Did you happen to see this picture of the southern rock band Jeff the Brotherhood? That's Jamin on the left.  He's sporting a $1500 shirt and $1300 pants.  The cheapskate on the right is Jake whose $1400 shirt needs to be a little longer so I don't have to see his $830 pants.  Personally, if I had that kind of money to spend (and already had a wave runner), I'd get me some of Jake's hairdo. ❖ ❖ ❖ Did you happen to read the Sherlock Holmes mystery " The Adventure of the Speckled Band "?  If so, did you happen to laugh as I did when you came across this passage: "I should  be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket....  That and a tooth-brush are, I think, all that we need." I've been trying to come up with a way to slip those sentences into casual conversation. ❖ ❖ ❖ Did you happen to read or hear about the book " Lost in Transition " in which Notre Dame professor Christian Smith sh...

In my last post, I said I'm craving "riding a wave runner until my body aches." I was speaking figuratively, but Braeden didn't get the message. As we were riding on Lake Chelan this weekend, he jumped a wave at about 30 MPH and then skipped into another one sideways. I flew off the back of the wave runner. The ensuing moments are still a bit blurry, but a few highlights stand out. After my third skip across the water I thought, "Wow. Braeden's a long way away already." After my second summersault, I was hoping that I'd tied my shorts. After four seconds or so underwater waiting for my life vest to bring me back to the surface, I realized that every part of me that could hurt did—and still does. At least it is a happy hurt.  

A list of things I'm craving: Something interesting to design A veggie sandwich on great bread that's too big to eat Chocolate chip cookies Riding a wave runner until my body aches Pizza, any shape, any quality Basketball season A solution to my landscaping dilemmas Another month of summer A way to easily hang bicycles from a 16-foot ceiling A compelling reason to use Google+

I just returned this evening from three nights of camping with Braeden and the 14-15 year old boys from our ward.  Officially, it was a high adventure.  The cliffs and trees and bridges off of which they jumped were high.  Mt. Constitution was high.  But it was probably the most laid back high adventure I've been part of.  Sun and swimming with a smattering of hiking and biking thrown in for good measure. Thankfully, the food was not a high adventure.  The boys have been well tutored in the art of camp site cooking by a series of culinary campers from Eric "Fajitas" Jorgensen to Keven "Steak and Broccoli" Jackson; and now on to Brother Jensen.  (Kudos to Brother Jensen for bringing the full compliment of condiments from for some seriously good burgers.) I've posted the pictures from the week here .  For parents who are interested, my web albums also have photos from Scout Camp 2010 and Scout Camp 2009 . I've also posted a few videos on You...

You have to check out what is going on over at The Shepherd's Watch .  I mentioned it in my last post , but it's better when you can see it in action.  Different members of the elders quorum in my ward are taking turns sharing their personal scripture study with the rest of the quorum.  What's interesting is that the idea of scripture study is extending beyond the traditional definition of scripture—the standard works of the Church—to include the words of living prophets and apostles.  It may not be the conventional definition, but it is a doctrinally sound one. I'm looking forward to the next few entries and then getting together on Sunday to discuss the exercise as a quorum.  Here are some highlights from what has been posted so far. Bill Bailey  shows how much there is to gain from reading even a few verses a night with young children who may not be able to handle much more.  Whenever I read 1 Nephi 11:31 from now on, I'll think of Bill identifyi...

I'm writing this post in response to an assignment from President Williams, the Elders's Quorum president in my ward.  He asked our quorum for a different volunteer each day this week to share insights from their personal scripture study.  I accepted the challenge for today.  My experience will be posted on our quorum blog, The Shepherd's Watch , along with experiences from other quorum members throughout the week. I wasn't sure what to study.  Usually when I study the scriptures I either read slightly ahead of where my family happens to be studying The Book of Mormon or I study something I've been asked to read by a priesthood leader.  This afternoon I decided to go with the first approach and read 2 Nephi 16 which is roughly the same as Isaiah 6. I was struck by one verse in particular which has perplexed me in the past.   2 Nephi 16:10 : Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes—lest they see with their eyes, ...

Our bones might crack this weekend in the Pacific Northwest as we experience our first real warm spell of the year.  It's raining now (which is great for my lawn), but the temperature is expected to reach the upper 70s on Saturday.  It shouldn't be a big deal, but anything over 68 qualifies as sweltering in my book. The onslaught of solar oppression has me thinking about fans and air conditioners.  Sadly, my trusted fan is on it's last leg.  For some reason, it will occasionally wait a few minutes between the time I turn it on and the time it starts to blow.  Maybe it's old and needs a breather.  Maybe it's time for me to accept that life is brutish and short and I need to move on. Thelma mocked me when we bought the fan at Costco.  I saw it one day and came home all excited to tell her about it.  It's a tower fan, so it doesn't have the hazardous legs that jump out to viscously try and trip you.  That's an important consideration for me...

Here's a collection of things that have caught my attention lately. The Dangers of Time Travel Apparently, when the Chinese authorities aren't busy funding our national debt, they're busy policing the television airwaves for unhealthy programming.  The latest danger to the Chinese population:  time travel. In "Palace", a woman travels back in time and falls in love with Qing Dynasty princes. According to the Chinese government, television shows that depict time travel "lack positive thoughts and meaning."  The broadcasting guidelines discourage these shows, pointing out that they often "casually make up myths, have monstrous and weird plots, [and] use absurd tactics."  In other words, they are too much like The Disney Channel. Personally, I think the Chinese are still mad that Bill and Ted chose to travel back in time to capture "the very excellent barbarian" Genghis Khan—the "dude who 700 years ago totally ravaged Ch...

I feel uneasy tonight. I'm not sure if I helped or was had. In what has become something of a Thursday-evening-post-basketball tradition, I drove to Walmart for some late night shopping. Two weeks ago it was new shorts and an exercise shirt. Last week it was another exercise shirt (because I liked the first one so much). This week it was new insoles and laces for my basketball shoes. (Thelma, who has thoroughly documented her distaste for shopping at Walmart has driven me to these shopping trips under the cover of night.) Approachable is not how I would have described myself as I trudged across the Walmart parking lot in my wife-beater sleeveless shirt, shorts and coordinating fleece vest. Sweaty, yes. Beleagured, perhaps. Approachable, no. But a woman did approach. Something told me to stop and wait for her. She was caught somewhere between out-of-breath and verge-of-tears. I could see she was nervous talking to me. She tripped quickly over some desperate story that I co...

The latest hidden camera exposé by a conservative crusader finds a senior NPR fundraiser saying NPR would be better off without Federal funding while disparaging Republicans and the Tea Party movement.  Combined with NPR's  firing of Juan Williams for honest but impolitic comments made on Fox News, the recent events have become the perfect fodder for the vocal chorus of NPR haters who want to see Congress cut off funding for NPR by eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The argument is simple.  NPR is a biased, left-wing media outlet subsidized by taxpayer money it doesn't deserve. The argument is also wrong. Does NPR have a liberal bias?  Speaking as someone with a conservative bias, I think they do.  So do some people working at NPR, though they might prefer the term "sensibility" instead.  But so what?  Everyone has a bias toward issues they feel are important and the things they care about.  And organizations...

What would you change if you could amend the constitution?  Would you circumscribe or maybe expand the government's role in controversial topics of the day like health care or deficit spending or owning private industry? Would you add something entirely new? (Consider President Bush and his support for a constitutional defintion of marriage.)  Would you leave the document alone and allow legislatures and courts to interpret it in light of current values and interets? (Consider President Obama's changing position on gay marriage.) Would you clarify passages and remove room for interpretation? One hundred fifty years ago, seven southern states had this chance for change when they declared their independence from the United States of America and set about adopting a new Confederate Constitution .  Given the opportunity to start from scratch, the Confederate framers chose instead to improve upon the United States Constitution.  And why not?  Part of the justifica...

I arrived home from work with just enough daylight and just enough Spring to mow the lawn.  Braeden and I reveled in the straight lines and greening blades.  "It's the awakening," he said. — I sat in the temple and smiled at the sight of Emma and Braeden sitting side by side, quiet and content.  Outside the temple, we stared up at the stained glass, the angel, the glowing walls.  I asked Emma how she felt.  "Light and airy," she replied. — Driving home from the airport, I listened to my mother describe her trip to Disneyland with Megan, Talia and Jackson.  "If your dad were still alive..." she began to say.  For the first time, I smiled and laughed instead of fighting back tears. — Awake. Light. Laugh. Alive. Again. — Everyone is asleep.  I sit down to write.  I don't cry.  I don't turn away.  It's a change.  I can write again, at last.  But it's not the same as Before.  Everything seems differ...

Speaking of getting an "F"... I'm reminded of one of my favorite Volkswagen commercials.  So many great aspects.  Removing the F from "flame" to make it "lame".  Sticking the F on the chest.  "You got an F."  "We just dropped it like it's hot."  Enjoy.

The book is now closed on Day 2 of trying to replace Thelma as homeschooler, mother, confidant, chef, tear dryer, maintainer of sanity, chauffeur, coach... I've earned an F for Failure to Perform, Forgetfulness and Lack of Fortitude. This is hard work.  In years past I would whisk the children from the Woodland Park Zoo to the Ballard Locks to the Vancouver Aquarium to swimming with Grandpa to the library to McDonalds and Alfy's and teriyaki.  It was high energy, but not terribly difficult.  Thelma would come home mildly disappointed to find that life with Dad had been nothing but fun and none of the kids seemed to have missed her. Things have changed.  Our children are older.  They have more commitments.  The school work is harder and can't be left for later.  I actually have to teach school instead of running a three-day stay-cation.  It's not that teaching the subjects is particularly hard.  I like doing math with Brae...

Day 1 in the books as a single parent while Thelma is away at BYU for her yearly pilgrimage to  Women's Conference .  Traditionally, life without Mom has meant an orgy of fast food and takeout.  No sooner had I dropped Thelma and my mother off at the airport then Braeden was calling me to see what I had planned for lunch. "I was thinking we could go to the Grand China Buffet," he suggested in his sweetest voice. I'm determined that this year will be different, though.  We aren't going to eat out every meal.  We're going to make our best attempt at cooking for ourselves, controlling our portions and choosing (moderately) healthy ingredients.  That's our plan and we're sticking to it... starting tomorrow. Tonight, it was the Grand China Buffet after all.  Braeden speaks of it in reverent tones.  Eight tables of Chinese and American food plus a Mongolian grill and sushi bar.  He must have been playing it up behind the scenes because E...

A popular refrain in the ongoing debate about the cost of health care in the United States accuses health insurers of making record profits at the public's expense. During a press conference last year, President Obama put it this way: "There have been reports just over the last couple of days of insurance companies making record profits, right now. At a time when everybody's getting hammered, they're making record profits, and premiums are going up." The inaccuracy of that statement is pretty easy to prove, but let's take it at face value for now and agree with the assertion that record profits are a bad thing, especially when the customers who fund those profits are hurting economically. (Let's also agree that President Obama doesn't really think we're all staggering around drunk when he says "everybody's getting hammered".) What then should we make of the fact that the Federal Reserve just announced record profits of $47.4 bi...

It's not exactly like making a secret wish and blowing out the birthday candles, but I've usually been hesitant to share my New Year's resolutions because experience tells me that I probably won't keep them.   I don't like goals--or at least the discussion about goals.  Anytime someone starts going on about the importance of setting goals I feel like I'm being forced to watch an infomercial or listen to a pitch for a timeshare at Shady Meadows Family Resort and Oil Change. For a few years I've tried to be cheeky about the whole thing.  "My New Year's resolution is to keep my New Year's resolution."  I know it's not particularly humorous, but that will teach people to ask. This year, though, I've tried something different.  I decided to set a goal and actually try to stick to it.  I'm proud to say--now that we are more than a quarter of the way through the year--that I have managed to stick by my resolution with near perfect accu...

(This is my experience evaluating Facebook for my daughter.  It turned into a technical exercise in CSS.  If you want the full narrative, read on.  If you just want the steps for using CSS to block ads on Facebook, jump ahead .) Emma asked permission to create a Facebook account so she can keep in touch with some of her cousins and friends.  Emma has been very responsible using our family computer and does a good job keeping our rules about what to do and how to behave online.  So, Thelma and I decided that it was probably OK once I had a chance to check out and become familiar with the privacy settings and parental controls. Even though I work for an online business and Facebook is a frequent topic of conversation when it comes to reaching out to and retaining online customers, I have to admit that I have rarely used the service.  I created an account for business purposes to become a "fan" of a client so I could keep tabs on some social marketing campaigns.  That's it. ...

Braeden has been bitten by the family history bug lately.  We spent a few hours this weekend signing him up for and exploring the new Family Search web site .  I haven't had much experience with the old site , but the new one feels fairly slick and isn't too hard to use.  It's a simple premise.  The site sits on top of a massive genealogical index maintained by the LDS Church .  You log into the site and enter your personal information.  Then you start building out your family tree one person and generation at a time.  If the person next in your tree is living, then you enter the personal information you know about that person.  If the person is dead, you search the index for a record of that person.  If you're lucky, the record of your ancestor will already be linked to other ancestors and your family tree will begin to fill in on its own.  You suddenly have access to the work of others and others can benefit from the connections and corrections you make. You will come...

My mother joined us for dinner on Friday night.  After the kids went to bed, we sat in the family room discussing this and that.  I started talking about something I'd come across the other day when researching words that have crossed over into English from the Chinook Jargon —a trade language that developed in the Pacific Northwest. Thelma commented that I know the strangest stuff and she has no idea where I get it from.  She told my mom how we had been visiting Vancouver earlier in the week to soak in the Olympic atmosphere.  As we were walking from the torch to the train station, we came across a small mass of people and cameras buzzing around somebody outside the media center.  We stopped to see who it was and I recognized the man at the center of the crowd as Gordon Campbell , the Premier of British Columbia. "I don't know how he knows this stuff," Thelma said. I couldn't tell if she was impressed or mocking me.  More than once, Thelma has reminded me that I ...