Author Archives: Zach

Know Your Roots

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Yesterday I was on my way home to Knoxville from visiting family in Northwest Ohio.  I figured I’d take a detour and try to find the origin of my Cochran ancestors.  The first record I’ve been able to find of any Cochrans puts a James and John Cochran in cabins in what would become Higginsport in 1819, when a Stephan Colvin moved in.

There’s a stream north of the town named Cochran Run.  It’s not much to look at.

2010-03-30 Higginsport 003

James Ziba Cochran, the first recorded Cochran in our family tree, was born in Higginsport in 1824.  His son, James Mason Cochran, was born in the same town in 1854.  Sometime after that they pulled up stakes and moved west. 

I stopped at the cemetery in Higginsport to see if I could find any other ancestors.  It was in shoddy repair; gravestones toppled and illegible, many markers destroyed.  I looked at every single stone I could find to see if any of our people were there.  They might be; there are many unmarked graves and many with just a small, square, marble marker with a number on it.  There was no sexton to ask and no parking except at a home business (a trailer with a crude “bait shop” sign) next door.

I’m not holding my camera funny; everything really was slanted.

2010-03-30 Higginsport 006

I asked at the people at the bait shop if they knew anyone named Cochran.  The man there said he used to mow lawns at the cemetery in Felicity, and that there were lots of Cochrans there.  It was a dead end; there were a few kind of similar names, but no Cochrans.

I had hoped to stop in Maysville, Kentucky, just across the river, to find another ancestor.  By the time I got there, it was getting late in the day and I had to head for home.  The cemetery there is much larger and in better repair, so I think I could call ahead and have someone to direct me.

Posted in Family History

Another Road Trip: Pensacola, Florida

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2010-02-27 Pensacola - Dad, Isaac, Charlotte 004 

So my best friend David has been down at NAS Pensacola for some training, and I thought this was the best time to go see the National Museum of Naval Aviation with him.  I’ve always wanted to visit; they have a great selection of aircraft.  Naturally, a road trip these days means bringing Isaac with me; bringing Isaac usually means bringing Charlotte too.  Hit the jump for a boatload of pictures and a quick summary.

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Posted in Adventures, Friends, Kids

Zach at 33

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On my birthday I’ll take some time to be a little self-indulgent and describe myself and some of the ways I’ve changed. 

I’m a bit plumper than I once was.  I’m about 185 lbs these days, where just a few years ago I was 155.  My hair is receding just a bit, but it’s at an awkward in-between place and has been for a couple of years. 

I’m still a Mormon boy, true blue, dyed in the wool, through and through.  I’m not always very good at it, but that’s what I am, and that’s what I’ll stay.

I’m still a little bit cranky, especially when I feel like my living space is out of sorts.  More than ever, I like things a certain way.  This causes friction for visitors, and I try to be less particular (without much success).  Outside of my own “cave”, I’m more sociable.  I have a decent sense of humor when used appropriately and generally have no trouble making friends and getting along with people. 

I still play the piano and guitar.  I left my grandfather’s accordion with my parents in Utah and I sold my trumpet a long time ago.  I have experimented with composition on the computer, but it’s not serious and just for fun.  I don’t take time to write music seriously anymore. 

I like the Colts, Cougars, Vols, and Jazz.  I hate the Utes, Gators, and Lakers.

I was a lot more physically active last year.  I climbed Mt. Nebo, Provo Peak, and Deseret Peak for the first time.  Now that I’m in Tennessee, all the mountains seem too small and climbing them is less interesting.  They are pretty, though.

I still love gadgets, but not so obsessively.  We have three Roombas of various types; one sweeps, one vacuums, and one mops.  I got a Kindle for Christmas.  I carry a BlackBerry, but work pays for it.  My mp3 player is an old brown Zune; haven’t found a pressing reason to upgrade it.  I’ve had the same digital camera for about 4 years now.  We don’t have an HDTV, but we’ve had DVRs of some sort or another for at least 7 years.  I have 4 computers; my main computer, running Windows 7; my work computer, which runs Windows XP; my netbook, which runs whatever version of Windows or Linux I’m in the mood for, and my “other” computer, running Ubuntu.  My main computer’s processor is about 4 generations old, and the graphics card is about 3 generations old. I guess the point is I’m a bit more discriminating about my technology and waste less money on it.

I love all kinds of music.  I have a penchant to really love melancholy songs, such as “This is Just a Modern Rock Song” by Belle & Sebastian, “Over Yonder” by Steve Earle, “Word on a Wing” by David Bowie, “Miami” by Counting Crows, “I Wish it Would Rain” by the Temptations, “Take it Back” by Pink Floyd, “Hearts and Bones” by Paul Simon, “Sleeping In” by the Postal Service, “Fast Train” by Solomon Burke, “Going to California” by Led Zeppelin. 

I like upbeat songs too, especially rock and blues (and alt-country/bluegrass, surprisingly): “Sitting on Top of the World”, especially the Cream and Carl Perkins versions, “Sukie in the Graveyard” by Belle & Sebastian, “Sugar Magnolia” by the Grateful Dead, “Gone Gone Gone” by Carl Jackson and Emmylou Harris, “Dreamin’" by Weezer, “99 in the Shade” by Bon Jovi.

I love to read history, especially military history.  Sometimes details or individuals make a great impact on my mind and remain with me.  Most recent have been histories on the 6 Days War and the Yom Kippur War.  I like Paul Johnson’s work too.

I love fiction, when it “has a price”.  My favorite book this past year was Suttree by Cormac McCarthy, which is coincidental since it’s set in Knoxville.  I also still love epic fantasy when it’s well done.  Robert Jordan was the best world-builder with his Wheel of Time, and Brandon Sanderson is carrying that work on fairly well.  George R. R. Martin is the best for plot and very good with characters, too; try his Song of Ice and Fire.  I recently enjoyed Anathem by Neal Stephenson.  I’d also recommend the Hyperion tetralogy by Dan Simmons for my SciFi friends.  I enjoy Jack Vance for his precision of language and excellent stories.  I love John LeCarre, especially The Night Manager, Little Drummer Girl, and all the Smiley books.  I read All the King’s Men this last year, by Robert Penn Warren.  It was heartbreaking and amazing.  He paints a vivid picture, but he also exposes emotion brilliantly. 

I like to read about culture and its decline, too.  Most recently, Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neal Postman.  My favorite authors on culture are Victor Davis Hansen, Theodore Dalrymple, and James Bowman. 

My favorite TV shows: House, Top Gear, How It’s Made, South Park, Futurama, The Office, American Idol, Parks and Recreation.  Mostly Top Gear.  All other TV is terrible by comparison.  Even if you don’t care about cars, it’s great television.  And if you do like cars, it’s Nirvana.

I’m still indifferent to most movies, though I did finally watch “Once Upon a Time in the West” and “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” this past year and was amazed at the perfection of acting, cinematography, and score for each.  I don’t mean to be a curmudgeon, but most movies today are crap.

Blogs I follow:  Engadget, Big Government, Big Hollywood, Michelle Malkin, Camille Paglia, Jay Nordlinger, Michael J. Totten, James Bowman, Gizmodo, WhichTestWon, Lifehacker, People of Walmart, Art of Manliness, ty.rannosaur.us, mental_floss, Bleat, Autoblog, FAILblog, Claremont, Michael Yon.  Honorable mention to James Taranto and Best of the Web Today, which no longer has an RSS feed but which is the most pithy thing I read in any day.

My blogs (all infrequently updated): Virtute.org, Modstomp.com, slingandstones.org.

Podcasts I listen to: Radio Derb, History of Rome, History Network: Military, BYU: New Speeches, BYU: Classic Speeches, Mark Levin.

I read stories to Isaac and Charlotte every night, and often I get to tuck Nicole in too.  I spend a lot of time with Ila when I can so Kathleen can have her hands free.  I feel just a little nuts: we have 4 children, all 5 years old and younger.  This is a hard thing now, but it will be a good thing soon.  With them close together we can do more as a family and hopefully they’ll bond together really well.  I’m pretty sure we’re not done at 4.  The world needs more Cochrans.

Well, I think that sums me up as much as a blog post can. Happy New Year, everybody.

Posted in Family History, General

Charlotte’s Magic Car

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Here’s a little video of Charlotte and Isaac playing with her birthday present:

She wanted “a magic car that goes by itself”. I think this works.

I also think Nicole is destroying a book in the background.

Posted in Kids, Toys

Happy Thanksgiving

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For all our struggles and trials, we have so many things for which to thanks our Maker.  I love the WSJ editorial today, recounting the trials of the Plymouth colony.  Our ancestors were sturdy souls.  Here are a few things I’m grateful for:

  • I have a great job.  I work with a great group of people for an interesting company in interesting times.  I am challenged each day, but I enjoy the work.  I’m finally doing the type of work I begged Omniture to let me do, and I’m finding I’m very good at it.  The pay is much better than Omniture as well, which is badly needed with a new baby on the way.
  • I have bright and curious children.  It’s a blessing to have kids who are interested in many things, who can stare wide-eyed at a simple crow in the yard or be amazed by a book about fossils.  I love each one of them.
  • My wife of nearly 10 years sticks with me, in spite of all my faults.  She’s thoughtful and kind and works hard every day.  She’s suffering exhaustion and discomfort to bring another child into the world, for which I’m more than grateful.
  • Tennessee is a beautiful state.  While no place is perfect, this is a good place for our family right now.  I love watching the mist on the rivers I cross when I drive to work in the morning.  I love the sunsets.  I love the wonderful Tennessee accent and the kindness of the people.
  • I am thankful for the chance to work closely with the missionaries.  I loved my mission, and it’s wonderful to help teach.  It makes my faith stronger and blesses my life. 
  • I’m thankful for my family.  I don’t think we took for granted having them so close for so long; we knew exactly how great it was.  I bought a cheeseball at the store the other day and caught myself thinking I could have my family over to eat it.  I’m also thankful for all the technology that makes the 1900 miles seem less.

Here are a few more things I’m thankful for with links to deeper thoughts where appropriate:

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Posted in Family History, General

The Second Drive, or “Orem to Knoxville in 27 Hours”

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2009-10-24 The Crazy Drive - Orem to Knoxville 003

Get a good night’s sleep.  Pack a lot of caffeine.  Bring all the sessions of General Conference and a couple of Robert Jordan books to listen to.  Bring food, water, and extra newspaper for the cats.  That was the plan, and for the most part, it worked out well.  After 1900 miles of driving, I found myself in a new house, far from home, and completely depleted mentally, physically, and emotionally.

After two weeks, it’s faded a little bit and blurred together.  I headed out from Orem and up Provo Canyon, through Heber, and up onto I-80.  When I’m driving by myself, I can drive pretty hard, not stopping much, and that’s what I like to do.  Here’s the view in back:

2009-10-24 The Crazy Drive - Orem to Knoxville 004

Cats, some clothes, and everything the movers wouldn’t take.  I headed out across Wyoming.  A lot of people tell me they dislike the drive, but I enjoy it.  I like views like this one:

2009-10-24 The Crazy Drive - Orem to Knoxville 006

I wasn’t too far into Nebraska before it got dark.  I left I-80 in Lincoln and skirted east and into Iowa, where I hit I-29 and went south.  I passed Mound City in the dark; I didn’t have time to stop and check for Lamanites.  I passed around Kansas City through Independence, and onto I-70. 

About this time, I thought about sleeping, but the cats were getting upset.  Late night is their play time, and they wanted to get out and be free.  They were scared and sad.  Their unhappy meowing meant no sleep for me, so I grabbed another energy drink and kept driving.

2009-10-24 The Crazy Drive - Orem to Knoxville 007

My GPS suggested I cut off on I-64 into St. Louis, which would have been a great shortcut, except it was closed.  After a little route-finding, I made it over the bridge and into Illinois.  Sunrise that next morning:

2009-10-25 The Crazy Drive - Orem to Knoxville 001

I-64, I-57, I-24.  Then a jump over the Ohio River, and into Kentucky.

2009-10-25 The Crazy Drive - Orem to Knoxville 009

The drive through Kentucky was beautiful.  It was a sunny day, with leaves changing all around.  Can you see the extra day’s beard growth?

2009-10-25 The Crazy Drive - Orem to Knoxville 007

Soon I crossed the Cumberland River and was in Nashville:

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Here I grabbed I-40, which is my new “home freeway”, the way I-15 was to me growing up.

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Almost to my new home:

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I left about 10 in the morning Mountain Time, and arrived at about 3 in the afternoon Eastern Time that next day. 

That night, after I had the van unloaded and the cats settled, I went over to Rick and Dee’s for dinner.  I was kind of a bad guest, I’m sure; I was weird and tired and wound up all at once.  After dinner I found myself in a state of emotional disarray.  I think the exhaustion and the caffeine combined with loneliness and homesickness to really smash me.  All the uncertainty piled up on me at once; alone on my air mattress on the floor, with no family, no TV, no internet, none of my usual outlets.  I read from the New Testament, called Kathleen, and finally fell asleep.

The next day, I felt better.

Posted in Adventures, Family History

Trilobites and Topaz

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One last hurrah in Utah.  I’m lucky enough to have found friends who like the remote places in Utah as much as I do.  Yesterday I went out with Jim to roam around in the deserts of Western Utah.  I love the House Range in particular.  It’s got the formidable Notch Peak, one of the highest cliffs in the world and one of the most staggering views I’ve gotten from a summit.  It has Wheeler Shale, which means great fossil beds.  It’s miles from anything, which means you’re usually alone with just the sound of the wind in your ears and the occasional Air Force presence overhead.

Notch Peak

We headed for U-Dig fossils, which is run by a very nice old man and his two dogs.  It’s a pay site, but there’s the advantage of them pointing you right to good layers of shale and having it broken up in advance with some heavy machinery.  It makes finding fossils very rewarding; I estimate we found more than 50 nice trilobites.

Some nice trilobites

After spending a couple of hours breaking up layers of Wheeler Shale, we took our haul and hit one of the long, lonely, gravel roads.  We drove along the east side of the House Range, with the Drum Mountains to the east of us.  One thing I expect to miss when I leave Utah is the long sight lines. 

2009-10-21 House Range with Jim 010

Topaz Mountain is open to rock hounds, provided they use hand tools only to extract the crystals.  The best rhyolite formations are higher up in the canyons west of the main dig sites.  We parked and climbed about 300 feet up, but weren’t having a lot of luck breaking up the rock.  After about an hour I started back down, but just about that time Jim found a nice pocket and gathered up some topaz.  Below is the view from the spot we were working.

View from our topaz quarry on Topaz Mountain

I will miss the hundred-mile vistas.  I’ll miss the dry, harsh desert.  I’ll miss being the only one on the long dirt road.  Nothing gold can stay.

Posted in Adventures

Leaving the Cradle

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This weekend I’ll be driving to Knoxville, Tennessee.  I’ll be starting a new job, finding a new home, and making a new start. 

I have mixed feelings about this change.  I’m a Utah boy; I’ve sweated my way to the tops of the mountains, raced up and down the canyons, listened to the wind blowing over the deserts, and knelt in the temples.  I’ve raged at the lingering winters and rejoiced in the lingering autumns.  I sat on a hill in the first green of spring and watched rainstorms blow across the lake.  In summer, I’ve baked happily in the dry furnace heat.

Utah was the base for my adventures.  I’ve taken the roads in all directions.  In old station wagons I’ve spiraled out to all the great Western cities and down the whole length of the Pacific coast.  I’ve seen the Sangre de Cristo mountains and driven up Going-to-the-Sun Road.  All these wonders are only a hard day’s drive from the cradle.

I can’t count the times I’ve come home over one of the passes to the sea of warm lights nestled in the valley by the lake.  Every wanderer loves the trail home.

I tried once before to start fresh in a new place.  After Superdell fired me, I went to Ohio and tried to sell computers.  After six miserable months, I came home in worse shape than before.  This time, I’m going on my own terms.  I have a job at a good company.  I have skills and experience.

My ancestors gathered to Utah to build Zion.  From this cradle of strength, maybe it’s only fitting we go back out to bring Zion to the rest of the world.

Posted in Family History

Snowbird with Heidi and Grandpa Bird

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2009-09-07 Snowbird (13)

We’ve had Grandpa Bird in town, and so we thought it would be fun to have an adventure together.  The last few times Grandpa Bird has visited, I’ve dragged him through Utah’s exotic deserts.  I thought it would be a nice change to go to the mountains this time. 

Normally I like to avoid crowds, so I stay away from the mountains and national parks when it’s a holiday.  This was really our only chance to go, though, so off we went.  It was Oktoberfest at Snowbird as well, so there were longer lines and some crowds, but nothing too bad.

Isaac noticed the alpine slide right away, so I went ahead and got a ticket since we were having a day out.  He enjoyed riding the chairlift to the top, and after a bit of a wait in line, we raced on down.

2009-09-07 Snowbird (5)

After this we were ready for some lunch.  Grandpa Bird treated us to some sausages and sauerkraut, along with German potato salad and potato pancakes.  We listened to a silly little Bavarian band while we ate.

We’d planned to go to Snowbird for the tram ride to the top of Hidden Peak.  It’s the easiest way to get to 11,000 feet in Utah, and is certainly the easiest peak I’ve done this year. 

At the top, Isaac was full of excited questions about the tram:

2009-09-07 Snowbird (29)

After a few minutes walking around the peak and taking pictures, Isaac declared he missed his sister.  “Which one?” I asked.  “Both of them!” he replied.  So we went back down and headed home. 

It was a fun excursion, and great to have Grandpa Bird and Heidi along.  More pictures below.

Posted in Adventures, Kids

Deseret Peak

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I was very impressed with this hike.  One of the most beautiful places I’ve been.  I think Deseret Peak and the surrounding wilderness area compare very favorably to Timpanogos.

I’m a little thrashed; due to a road closure and some “scenic” route choices, we wound up going about 17 miles today, gaining about 4500’.  We were expecting about 8 miles and 3600’.  Still a great day in the mountains.

Here’s a slideshow:

Posted in Adventures, General

Squaw Peak

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I had a chance to do another nice hike with  my friend Jim yesterday afternoon.  Squaw Peak is the prominent peak above Provo, and the backdrop to those pictures of the Provo Temple you often see.  (Speaking of pictures, here’s a link to the whole hi-res slideshow on Flickr.)  After the trip up Provo Peak two weeks ago, I was a little gun-shy; that was more than I expected.  My conditioning is still not great, but I think it’s getting better each week as I keep lifting weights and working my heart at the gym.  Jim brought his dogs, who are a bit old and fat, so we were able to take our time.  Still, we made the 7-8 miles in just about 3 hours.

The trail starts at the mouth of Rock Canyon, which was one of my favorite haunts as a kid.  It seems like I was up there all the time once I was able to drive.  My best friend David and I even started to get into rock climbing a little bit, playing in some of the easier routes.  I don’t think I’ve been in Rock Canyon more than once or twice in the last ten years.

I forget what a remarkable place I live in.  Here is a terrifically beautiful place, right in my backyard, and how often do I remember to go and enjoy it?  It’s been great to get back in the mountains a little more.  Click the link below to see all the pictures.

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Posted in Adventures, Spiders

Provo Peak

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EvidenceI decided it was time to stop talking about mountains and finally hit another peak. It’s been long enough since my last peak.  I’ve been in pretty bad shape physically, letting myself get fat and lazy.  For the past couple of months I’ve been in the gym almost every morning, so I felt up to a bit of a climb.

The target was Provo Peak, and my gym buddy Jim and I left work at 3 PM so we could get to the trailhead.  Provo Peak sits behind Rock Canyon, and rises to 11,068 feet according to most sources.  The trailhead (such as there is) is at about 8600 feet.

To get to the parking area, you drive up the Squaw Peak Road from Provo Canyon, turning left to go towards Hope Campground rather than right to go to the overlook.  The road is decent until about Rock Canyon Campground, but then became a little bit rough.  In fact, an avalanche blocked the road at one point, and we had a bit of a crawl in Jim’s Tundra to get over it.2009-06-05 2009-06-05 Provo Peak 032 by you.

The path to the summit seems pretty straightforward: find the prominent west ridge, and go up.  In practice, this turned out a bit more complicated.  Click the image below to see details of the route.  We started out following an ATV trail, but that took us past the ridge.  We then cut back to the south, through mud and snow and brush.  After this detour, we were able to find a light use trail up the ridge.  This was quite steep, and we were exposed to high winds; I estimated sustained bursts at about 60 miles per hour.

Provo Peak Route

Not only was it windy and steep, but the terrain was loose.  I was glad to have my poles as we climbed.  After a couple of hours, we gained the summit.  With the clouds and haze, views were limited, but still quite good.  Nothing feels quite like standing on top of the Earth’s high places.  I called Kathleen to tell her I was fine so far, and not to send helicopters yet.  Then we headed down.  After an hour or so of steep, knee-killing descent, we were back at the truck and headed home.

Slideshow below for additional pictures, and take a look at the Summit Post page for more details on the peak itself.

Posted in Adventures

Adventures with the Toads

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I took some days off this week, so I thought I’d spend a day with each of the older children.  When I asked them what they wanted to do, Isaac wanted to go to a mountain far away, and Charlotte wanted to look at fish.

So Thursday morning, Isaac and I set out for Arches National Park.  It’s not the best for mountains, but it’s accessible in this cold spring.  When we set out, we had a solid foot of new snow; I had to put Grandpa’s truck in four wheel drive to get out of our driveway.  Things were sloppy on US 6 through Spanish Fork Canyon and on into Price as well.
  2009-04-16 April Snowstorm 004

That little Toyota is probably the finest piece of 20th-century automotive technology.  While it’s a little underpowered and noisy at any kind of speed, it’s pretty near indestructible.  With 275,000+ miles on it, it’s still sporting the original clutch, transmission, and motor.  On top of that, any trail I’ve thrown it at (and I confess I haven’t gone too nuts) has been no problem.  There are some quirks; as we hit Soldier Summit, the right side wiper popped off.  A helpful clerk at Checker Auto in Price got us the right part (these pick-ups don’t have j-hooks for the wipers, so you need an adapter) and got us on the road again.

When we got to Arches, Isaac and I headed up to Delicate Arch.  Isaac is a chatty kid when he wants to be, and he had questions and thoughts about everything.  I use a pair of trekking poles when I hike, and when they’re not extended, they’re just the right size for him to use.  He calls them “hikers”, and talks about how the help us not to fall over.  Any time we’d go up a hill or along a ledge, he’d talk about how we were helping each other not fall.  We would look for the cairns of stones

Isaac is a good hiker.  Delicate Arch is 1.5 miles each way, and he did just fine.

After we hiked to Delicate Arch, we went down and roamed around in the Double Arch area.  He was a pretty fearless climber there, and scrambled all over the rocks.

The GPS recommended the Willow Springs road to get out of the park, and I figured since we had the truck, we could give it a try.  It was very bouncy, and by this time, the boy was very tired.  Even going slow there were a few obstacles that tilted the truck a lot or bounced it.  Once we hit pavement again, though, he got a nap in.  Then it was off for home.

Charlotte wanted to see some fish, so we went to the aquarium in Sandy.  It was very crowded, and while they had a few nice displays, it was just a little underwhelming.  Charlotte still liked it, though.  She especially liked one of the Amazon displays, where they had little caiman, turtles, and fish swimming together.  I showed her an octopus; it made her very nervous, though.  When we were done with the aquarium, I took her to Cabella’s so she could look at a lot of fish without a crowd.  She fell asleep on the way up and on the way back, so I didn’t push it; we’ll have lots of times together if I have my way.  Unfortunately, it was really dark in the aquarium, so my pictures didn’t work out well.  Here’s one of Charlotte helping me admire a spider.

2009-04-17 002

Posted in Adventures, Kids, Spiders

Stable fish

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Well, it looks like we might have some survivors.  We’re on version 2 for Polar Express, and Cheese has been replaced by Curious George.  We also have a little otocinclus to keep things clean; Isaac named him Cleaning Up Loader.  Which I guess works.  So, pictures: Polar Express is blue, and Curious George is orange.

Posted in Kids, Pets

Mouth Pain

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I had a little spot on my tongue where once I had bitten it.  After the first bite, it grew a little lump.  This made it more prone to biting.  As time went on, the vicious cycle continued.  A couple of weeks ago, I gave it a really good chomp.  Well, it got big enough that I figured it was time to have it out.

So I went in for the slicing.  It seemed to go pretty well, but after I got back to the office it started to swell and hurt a bit more than I expected.  Then the pain pill made me loopy.  Then I realized how whiney this post is getting.

Anyway, it hurt a bit more than I expected, and I’m hungry from not eating, and I’m grumpy from all the meetings where I was talking with a funny mushy diction.

Being a true stoic, the children got their stories.  One long one was vetoed.

Posted in General

Zach’s Bible Hour

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I thought I might experiment with putting some of my thoughts from my study out on the blog.  I don’t know if this will be a frequent practice or not, but I think maybe writing out what I’m thinking will be helpful.  I hope it doesn’t seem preachy; my intent is to just sort my thoughts out and maybe start some discussion. 

We had Elder Wood of the Seventy for our Stake Conference this week, and I was very moved by the talks he gave and the scriptures he shared.  My notes led me tonight to Ephesians 4, most commonly cited for its support of the 6th Article of Faith.  There are some critical key phrases here for the times we live in, however: “vanity of their mind”, “understanding darkened”, “ignorance”, “blinded”, “alienated”, “past feeling”, “deceitful lusts”. 

How much of that can apply to the response to the church’s support of Proposition 8?  And for our part, how do we respond?  See verses 31 and 32:

31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and aanger, and clamour, and bevil cspeaking, be put away from you, with all dmalice: 
32 And be ye akind one to another, tenderhearted, bforgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

I’ve always found the doctrine in the epistles comes thick and fast.  I have to slow down my reading and think about one small section at a time.  Taken as a whole, though, Ephesians 4 and 5 have some of the finest instruction on how to be a good Saint in the middle of the culture war. 

The other part of Ephesians 4 that relates directly to the Prop 8 controversy regards the familiar verses, 11-14.  We’re blessed to have men like President Monson, who stands as a watchmen to lift a warning voice.  Thus we’re not “. . .carried about with every wind of doctrine. . .”, but we have a prophet who “. . .[speaks] the truth in love. . .”

I may have some thoughts from my notes about the word “temperance” in the future. 

I’d welcome any comments or discussion.

Posted in LDS

9 Strange Years

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It wasn’t what I was expecting.  I’d just broken off a relationship with an interesting but insane girl from Ukraine, and I was not really in a mood to be serious.  I decided I was going to date the next fairly normal American girl I met, and behold, there was a young Kathleen.  A Mormon girl at BYU, from the boring mid-west, and seemingly pretty nice.  After 11 days of dating, we were engaged.  4 months later, we were married.  We’d known each other less than 6 months.  And here we are 9 years later.

In that time, I’ve had 6 jobs and started 2 companies (it sounds less stable than it was).  We’ve had 3 children, each one stranger in new and interesting ways.  We’ve moved three times: from our home in Springville to Ohio, back to our Springville home, than back to good old Orem, my home town.  We’ve had 5 cats, 3 of them still with us.  We’ve also had mice, rats, a hamster, and 3 tarantulas (one still with us).  We’ve gone through 7 cars; 2 Japanese, 4 American, and 1 German.  We’ve driven to both the east and west coasts.

We’ve learned an awful lot.  Utah folks forget how different we are; I was 23 and Kathleen was 21 when we were married.  That’s pretty weird in a world that seems to celebrate perpetual adolescence, but it’s nothing unusual here.  The point is, 23 is awfully young, and I had to grow up pretty quickly.  I wasn’t even employed when we were married (I lost my job during a bout of mono).  Things haven’t always been easy.  At one point, we sold nearly all our possessions to pay our bills when one of my businesses foundered.  We both worked graveyard shifts for about a year after that as we caught back up.

Even in our struggles, life has been sweet.  While this life isn’t exactly what I would have expected, Kathleen has made it far better than I could have hoped.  9 years isn’t any particular milestone, but I’m grateful for every one of them.

Posted in Family History

Family Squabbles

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This needs to stop.  I haven’t heard one assumption tonight that’s anywhere close to true.  I’m sick to death of the gulf between my siblings and the ridiculous ideas that widen it.

Everyone is hurt.  Everyone is oversensitive to the slightest rumor.  Everyone judges too quickly and too often.  I’m not excluding myself.

I challenge each of my siblings to write five genuine, honest, true, kind things about each other sibling over the next week or so. 

It’s 1 AM here, so I’ll start my lists tomorrow.

Posted in Family History, General
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