Mowing the Lawn

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 ...

Check out the terrific set of maps  produced by the New York Times  about the 8.8-magnitude earth quake in Chile earlier today.  The set includes maps depicting the tectonic plates in the region, the approximate location of the epicenter and the predicted tsunami height and arrival times across the Pacific Ocean. I'm struck by just how quickly the wave moved.  I spent the morning refereeing basketball games and learned about the earthquake from Thelma.  I was surpised when she mentioned that a large wave was expected along the Washington coast later in the day.  That's fast.  Looking at the estimated arrival times, I wondered whether it would be quicker to fly from Santiago to Seattle or simply ride the wave.  Amazingly, the estimates were about the same. According to arrival data from the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center , the quake struck at 10:34 PM PST on 2/26.  The estimated wave arrival time in Seattle was 4:41 PM PST on 2/27.  That is 18 hours and 7 minutes ...

As you will have read on Thelma's blog , we celebrated Valentine's Day by cooking and enjoying a seven course meal as a family.  Our children loved it.  It felt novel and luxurious.  They keep talking about "our seven course meal" as if it is something we now own—some badge of honor for us to proudly wear.  That night, Mark prayed and gave thanks that we were able to attend church and have a seven course meal. Thelma came up with the great idea close enough to Valentine's Day that I was willing to discuss and dream with her about how to pull it off.  Ordinarily, Thelma likes to plan our holidays six to eight months in advance.  I prefer to start thinking about things a few weeks ahead of time at the most. Thelma and I have had a few multi-course meals, but not many.  I'm sure any meal where some of your food is served at separate times technically counts as a multi-course meal, but I don't think a meal should really get credit just because the kid behind ...

I stepped out of my car yesterday and smiled at Thelma.  "It's a good grass day," I said.  She just laughed.  She humors my obsession with—and general failure at—trying to maintain a healthy lawn. There are two growing seasons around here.  From late Spring to early Fall the grass is usually growing.  The rest of the year the moss is growing.  (The weeds, of course, grow year round.)  We're in the thick of moss season now, but the weather has been unseasonably warm.  Already the primroses are in bloom, the tulips and hyacinths are peeking out of the ground and the grass is growing again.   Saturday, I dusted off the lawn mower and gave our yard its first clip of the year.  The air was too cool for the scent of fresh cut grass to linger, but I did get to stare and soak in the beauty of an evenly trimmed lawn.  I know my 2o1o grass growing adventure will be full of the inevitable frustration and fretting, but for a few days at least everything is perfect. I've deci...

Too often I find reporters trying to strike a balance in their reporting by publishing comments that have little news value.  For example, take the following quote from an article in the New York Times about possible Republican health care proposals .  The comment seems to have little to no news value and sullies an otherwise useful article about the types of proposals that might become part of bipartisan health care reform: Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, said, “If the Republicans’ health care plan was a plan for a fire department, they would rush into a burning building, and they would rush out and leave everybody behind.” The statement is inflammatory.  It is contradicted by the article.  It does not benefit the national discussion on healthcare.  It allows partisans a cute sound bite for avoiding the debate about whether our nation should invest in sweeping changes, incremental improvements or more of the same.  Surely there is at least one Democrat who can p...

I found myself with ninety minutes to kill in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport this afternoon while waiting for a connecting flight to Grand Forks, North Dakota.  It was just enough time to learn a few valuable life lessons. There I was facing the semicircle of food court fare.  Should I have a hamburger from A&W?  It would probably taste good, it would sit in my stomach like a rock and I risked special sauce or some other condiment dripping down my front.  Maybe a prepared sandwhich from the cold case at the looks-like-a-Starbucks-only-more-expensive coffee stand?  No.  I've had the best at Pret a Manger and everything since just disappoints.  What about sushi?  I wan't to like it.  I really do.  But I don't.  Besides, it brought up bad memories of a run in with a bento box last week.  Pizza?  Maybe in hindsight, but the little express boxes looked like they had been baking under the heat lamp a little too long. I settled on the Chinese food.  Blah.  To borr...

My sister-in-law Jennifer posted a terrific story about trying to extract a wild cat from their house.   Read the story and then check out one of my favorite Super Bowl commercials about herding cats . "You see the movies, you hear the stories, it's...  I'm livin' the dream." "Anybody can herd cattle.  Holdin' together 10,000 half-wild shorthairs, well that's another thing altogether."

The Democratic leadership in the Senate unveiled their health care bill on Wednesday: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  With a name like that, what's not to like.  Who doesn't want to protect patients?  Who doesn't want affordable care? In my quest to know more about the bill, I'm steering clear of the radio, TV and blogs.  Tomorrow morning will find my radio fixed firmly on the sports talk stations.  I'm not quite ready to be inundated by punditry from the left and right.   Still, I want to know what the bill contains.  Until about an hour ago, everything I knew about the bill I had learned from NPR.  It will reduce the deficit by $130 billion.  It is 2000 pages long.  There aren't enough votes yet (60) to bring it up for debate.  I needed more, so I turned to the New York Times for an (unhelpful) overview and have been perusing the analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Here's what gets me after a quick read.   The headlines a...

I'm cranky. Maybe it's because I'm in an airport for the seventh time in two weeks and I still have one more airport to go tonight. Maybe it's because I nearly missed my third flight in those same two weeks. Maybe it's because I gave myself a full two hours to make the 30-minute trek from my office to the airport, but it took me 90 minutes instead thanks to Seattle's fabulous new light rail system. Maybe it's because the lines to clear security were nine miles long and I had to be screened twice because of the mysteriously dangerous-looking fresh zucchini in my bag (which I had picked that morning from our garden). Maybe it's because I was a sweaty mess by the time I sprinted from one end of the airport to the other in just enough time to make my flight. Then again... I did make my flight afterall and that's something to be thankful for. Plus, the seat next to me was empty and I had a spectacular view of the Cascades. And we did take a flight...

Oh what do you do in the summertime, when all your family leaves? When boredom sets in? When you can't stand to look at another Kakuro puzzle or watch another minute of basic cable? When you've read the online edition of the Economist from cover to virtual cover? Well, if you're anything like me, you wonder why the packaging for the Safeway Select™ Supreme Pizza shows 13 black olives on the pizza while the actual pizza cooking in your oven right now has 44 olives on it (not counting the 17 that you already put down the garbage disposal). Or, if you're like me, you spend a few minutes while writing a blog post trying to figure out how to type the ™ symbol. It's Option-2 on a Mac keyboard in case you're wondering. Perhaps you spend countless minutes each evening positioning and repositioning the sprinklers in your yard in the hope that sprinkler configuration #429 will finally be The One that gets it just right. Or maybe you'll amuse yourself by saying sil...

It seemed like an easy enough task when I planned it yesterday.  Fly from Seattle to San Francisco before breakfast.  Spend the day in San Francisco meeting with a client.  Slip across the bay to Oakland in the late afternoon.  Fly from Oakland back to Seattle and be home just in time for reading the scriptures and family prayer.  A perfect plan for an experienced traveler familiar with the Bay Area.  Sure, it would have been easier to fly down last night, but that would have meant less time with Thelma.  Besides, Braeden and I had finally managed to get a home teaching appointment with a new couple in our ward and we didn’t want to miss the opportunity. Simple?  Yes.  Doable?  Of course.  Doomed to failure and misery?  Apparently. I should have seen it coming when my alarm went off at 4:15 this morning.  Nothing good happens before 6 AM.  Nothing enjoyable happens before 7:30.  Case in point:  at 6 AM I was staring longingly out the window next to Gate N16 as my flight to San Francisc...

(Here's my response to Thelma's moment of irrationality .) Of course it will fit.  All of it.  Every last bit, whether put there for reasons selfish or charitable, whether soft-sided or hard, whether it causes me to roll my eyes or jump for joy that we're finally getting rid of it.  It will all fit. Packing is my super power.  Superman defies the laws of gravity.  Spiderman defies the laws of good taste.  (A unitard on a grown man?  Really?)  I defy the logic of constrained spaces.  Neither trunk, nor satchel, nor man-made bin of any kind has yet to conquer me. Lest you forget, we successfully stuffed two small children with car seats, a television, expansive diaper bags and two weeks worth of essentials into a 95 Saturn for a cross-country trek. Lest you forget, that same 95 Saturn magically expanded to hold a 6-foot oak table on another occasion.  Lest you forget, I lived in London for two weeks out of half of a carry on bag so I could subsequently stuff it so full of you...

Thelma claimed recently that I'm " just as lackadaisical " as she is when it comes to ensuring our children have good oral hygiene. Phooey! On a scale of 1 to 100, where 1 is lackadaisical and 100 is totally enthusidaisical, Thelma is a 4. I'm a 7, easy. Seven and a half, probably. That's almost twice the enthusidaisitude, which of course means I only need to worry about my kids brushing their teeth half as often as Thelma. (I know. Enthusidaisical is not technically a word. Yet.) Besides, I don't even like teeth. I mean, I like the purpose they serve. No one wants to gum a steak or drink a margarita pizza through a straw. But teeth are a source of physical and emotional pain. There. I said it. My teeth hurt my feelings sometimes. They have no sense of propriety. No self restraint. They just pop out one day and shove other teeth around in the process. One day you're a cute little kid. The next day you're a freak of nature with two ivory ...

At the entrance to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, there is a set of stone reliefs showing characters from The Wind in the Willows . The inscription below Mr. Angus MacBadger reads: Offers Sage Advice So Often Scorned. It inspired me when I read it. So, to wrap up our three days in Disneyland, I've compiled a list of lessons, tips and tricks Thelma and I have learned. Some funny, some practical. All 100% true. Let Thelma do all of your you planning. What looks and acts like a drain in the bottom of your Grizzly River Run raft also turns into a water spout when you plunge into the water below the falls. If you happen to find that drain/spout positioned between your legs as I did, it might be a good idea to put your foot over it. Two days in a row is not enough to see everything.  Three days in a row is too much walking and too many crowds. Take a day off between day two and day three. Your feet will thank you. We wish we would have inserted another day at the beach. Enter as early...

Note: More photos from Day 4 are posted in my Picasa public gallery . Ordinarily, when I think of Bliss, I think of a town in Idaho . For a while, at least, I'm going to start thinking of the perpetual looks of glee I've seen on my children's faces today. Today was our second day at Disneyland. Thelma, the master planner, had us up at the crack of dawn so we could enter the park an hour early. Brilliant. Peter Pan was a 20-minute wait instead of the normal hour or more. We were able to jump right on the tea cups, Snow White, Pinnochio and other rides. We took an extra long lunch break to rest our tired feet and go swimming. During that time we got the welcome news that we'd been moved to a larger hotel room. Braeden is the most grateful. Instead of sleeping on a few couch cushions lined up on the floor for a makeshift bed, he is now on the top bunk in the children's suite. Thelma is resting easier in the loft with a king mattress to replace the queen we h...

Note:  A selection of photos from Day 3 are posted in my Picasa public gallery . As a missionary I learned to warn people that as soon as they began to feel God's spirit more fully in their life, they could also be sure that temptation and trial were just around the corner.   One follows the other .  Light and dark.  Good and evil.  Chocolate and Kraft macaroni and cheese. So, I should have figured that something would come along and try to spoil my fun now that I'm a full three days into this vacation.  It happened tonight.  I saw hell.  It looks like a rainforest, the food is overpriced and the waiters are dressed in khaki.  Thankfully, I managed to buy my escape for $65 plus tip. The Rainforest Cafe may seem like a nice place to eat, but I've said the same thing about KFC on occasion.  That doesn't make it right.  The food was OK.  I had a mild paella with muscles, calamari, shrimp and andouille sausage.  Unfortunately, I was sitting across from a pair of animatronic...

As we walked out of the California Pizza Kitchen this afternoon into the brilliant Santa Monica sunshine, I noticed a sign on the church across the street advertising a "stimulus package for your soul". That's the perfect metaphor for these past few days.  Two days into our Southern California vacation and my soul feels light.  The hotel room may be a little bit small.  No matter.  The mattress may be a bit too hard and a tad narrow.  I'll manage.  I have sunny skies, big waves and a happy family.   The beach was our first destination yesterday as soon as we landed at LAX and picked up the rental car.  Thelma was smart enough to pack swimsuits separately so the kids could change into them when we got to the beach.  They couldn't wait, though.  No sooner had we parked than the doors to our rental car flew open and all three of our kids raced for the water.  Thelma called after them to stay out of the water.  I could tell she was frustrated and didn't want them ...

Good music is one of the joys of my life. What is it about good writing set to music or just the right combination of sounds that lightens the soul? Maybe that has something to do with why I enjoy folk music and the singer/songwriter tradition. The words and instruments seem more accessible.  While writing this post, I'm listening for the first time to a song called Gravity by Eddie from Ohio.  Why bury lyrics like these under an overproduced sound: I've got this fear of falling that I'm trying to overcome. You and I know I'd never jump. Whom I'm trying to kid. But just imagine the sensation. There's no such thing as an atheist on the thirty-second floor. As an adult, I've also developed an appreciation for the power and wonder of classical music, especially when I can listen to it live. Thelma and our kids probably remember the summer of 2007 when I returned from London positively brimming with excitement after attending a performance of Elgar's En...

All I could see was "is that chicken?" I had just pulled the mail from our mail cubby. One of the great, modern suburban tragedies is that mail boxes have been replaced by the oversized mail cupboard with each house allocated a puny cubby. It's depressing to the very core. Bland, file-cabinet grey. Institutional locks. Our particular version is tipped slightly to one side from a collision with a car. The whole scene resembles a lopsided morgue refrigeratior for mail. (My personal favorite, by the way, is the KH500 with the 26-gauge, corrosion-resistant, stucco-embossed, coated steel interior walls.) Insert key. Open door. Slide out letters. Shut door. Remove key. Try not to drop key in the strategically-placed storm drain directly below. Throw mail away. Curse Wilmington, Delaware, for the avalanche of credit card applications. There is, occasionally, some mild drama when you're anticipating a package. The package—if it's a respectable package of a ...