Birthday Number 26

Happy Birthday, Sarah. We love you. We miss you.

Maybe this is interesting

OK. I remembered something that people might find interesting. I spent an hour listening to a guy from Blendtec talk about how they used viral marketing and their "will it blend?" program. Very interesting ideas. Then he blended a rake (well, really just the handle). I don't know, it's just sooo expensive, even for a chipper-shredder.

Shake it Up

This morning, I had crouched down doing something with my sock or shoe and as I stood up I felt very "off balance" or disoriented. I thought, "this must be what people mean when they say they were dizzy from standing up too fast." But it lasted awfully long and seemed just a little familiar. Sure enough, while I was in the breakfast room the TV had a breaking news report saying there had been an earthquake close enough to feel in Logan. This one didn't make any noise here, though.

Nothing dramatic, and not the most interesting thing of the day for me, but the only thing that anyone else would find even a little interesting.

Space Plants

Today I am at the Diversified Agriculture Conference in Logan. Some of us went on a tour of the research greenhouses where the university is working on plant varieties and growing systems/techniques for outer space. Very interesting. They are working with and developing some amazing ultra-dwarf plant varieties. Here are some interesting things that I'm sure you have been wondering and worrying about that they have had to figure out: how to water plants without gravity to pull water through the soil, how to keep the soil in the mini-growboxes from just drifting up into the atmosphere of the space station, how to give the plants enough light without letting the sunlight overheat the station and what to do with the soil after harvest when there isn't one square inch of room onboard for anything that isn't essential.

OK, so maybe you haven't been wondering about those things, but they were interesting. And the next time you need to pull some radishes out of a growbox at zero-gravity without getting "dirt clods" all over in the space station atmosphere, you'll be glad someone has figured out how to do it.

And a special thinks to Liz for the heads-up on the total lunar eclipse. We went outside at 8:20 and could see the pale red shadow of the moon at totality :)

A Pat on the Back, Please

A few days ago I was sorting through some dusty boxes of stuff that had been packed away forever. I emptied out four boxes and washed and dried the boxes! (no I’m not a neat freak, they were plastic storage boxes) One of the boxes had musical figurines and music boxes wrapped in dusty newspapers from a decade ago. Some of them were mine and some of them were from my mother’s collection.

Instead of just wrapping them in the old newspapers and putting them back in a box, I cleaned them all up and took pictures of them. I had purchased a large roll of bubble wrap a few months ago when I needed a little. The big roll was such a good deal that I bought it, figuring I would be glad to have the extra some day. Well, some day had arrived. I wrapped each one in bubble wrap and packed them into a clean box.

I put all the pictures into a document on the computer and wrote a little bit about each music box or figurine- who it belonged to and whether it had any special significance. Then I printed it and put it in the box with the wrapped figurines.

How’s that for above and beyond?

Stake Conference

Today was our Annual Stake Conference. No general authority visiting so I had to speak three times in two days. Twice for 20 minutes each and once for 12 minutes.

How do you decide what to say to invite the spirit into the lives of your people? How can you make it a worthwhile experience for the time they spend in the meeting? Calculating the value of the time it comes to thousands of dollars in time. What can be said that is worth thousands of dollars?

Saturday evening the subject of my talk was "Why the Gospel of Jesus Christ Makes our lives different." My intent was to remind everyone that we of all people should be happy. We have promises, ordinances and the hope for a life beyond this earthly existence. Bottom Line: be cheerful, you have it all!

Sunday Morning for leadership I talked about welfare and being concerned about people as individuals. I told a story of how people in the little valley where I grew up, rallied around a family when their father was killed in a freak accident. Welfare is something we discuss in general ways, but can only be administered one individual at a time.

For the General Session the president asked for your mother to speak for a few minutes. I tell you, it is very hard to follow your mother in a speaking assignment. I talked about words. The older I get, the more I understand that the words that we say define us more than any other thing. Our actions follow our words. Words are the embodiment of our faith to accomplish anything we do. We should speak with tongue of angels.

I used this quote by President Faust (modified to "liken it to ourselves"):
With all my heart I want to thank my sweetie for letting me share her life and giving me the hope that we can share eternity together. She is more than a wife and sweetheart, because she has become part of my very being. (James E. Faust)

Sweet words that make me want to be a better man.