Buon Compleanno

It was Laney's Birthday Yesterday. She turned five years old. She was so excited. There were lots of presents. We let her open half in the morning. During the day while I was at work she managed to persuade three more out of Lenore. So when I got home there were only four left to open. This picture shows her wearing a "dress up" swimming mask and webbed hands for summer water fun. This was gift from the Puggas (Grandparents) in Guam. She looks like the maiden from the Black Lagoon. If she dares to take this toy to San Clemente for our family vacation later in the Summer, I'm sure none of us will admit any consanguinity at all. "Mommy, nobody will play with me." "Go away, little girl." Seriously, Mom and Dad it's a great gift. Did you keep the receipt?

Meanwhile Lenore was inflating some other swimming play toys. There's the Roy Scheider signature model imitation Great White Shark inflatable. Lenore is looking very pale in the face. "Honey, it says right here, CAUTION: Manual inflation of your -Great White Shark Floaty and Plush Toy- presents a Hyperventilation risk. Not recommended for nursing mothers or even wimpy Dads. Disclaimer: If you do not know how to swim, (what are you doing so close to the water?) this toy is not meant as a life saving device. Do not attempt to sue us. Our Law team is bigger than yours.

We had Pudge Brothers Pizza for our family celebration of Laney's Birthday (her request). We are having another celebration with the Smiths tomorrow night. This is the beginning of the 4th of July Weekend. We will undoubtedly use these toys at Leslie's pool on Monday and eat ourselves silly as well. Our 19th anniversary is Sunday so we will be going out to eat on Saturday. Next weekend we are taking a four-day weekend to go to California for Tamsyn's wedding. I had made some good inroads into losing the handful of pounds that I needed to. I don't expect to make a lot of progress again for a couple of weeks.

New Kitty on the Block

We picked up a new kitty today. A male marmalade tabby. It's really for Laney's birthday in a couple of days. Maxine is accepting him okay. But, Ruby is not being nice. I'm no longer the only male in the household. So far we like the name Dobby the best.

We went up to Preston, Idaho today for the Goff family reunion. They were also having the Napoleon Dynamite festival. As we were leaving town we stopped into the RexKwonDo shop to buy some American flag pants for Sifu. We also wanted a shirt that said, "Bow to your Sensei!" But they didn't have any. At a local market we bought a load of caffeine free Mountain Dew for a very good price.

The drive was the normal frustration with lots of drivers camping out in the passing lane and making random decisions that don't benefit themselves and only cause consternation for others. We started talking about the type of people we want to associate with in the hereafter. There are times when I really don't care as long as they don't vex me.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Today's Flag Burning legislation and the Supreme Court's ruling on the use of eminent domain by local governments for the purpose of economic development bring to mind a couple of thoughts. There was a time when we had less legislation, more enforcement and many more people were kept in line through public shame and scorn rather than endless rules and laws. It seems like an ultra conservative thing to say. But, I'm not sure even our Federal Legislature needs to meet year round. Maybe two months out of every year. They're always cooking up new ways to mess with society.

Mouse Update

We found a mouse in the trap this morning. I guess having the trap down in the pantry wasn't working because almost everything in the pantry is better than a ritz cracker with peanut butter on it. I expect there are more mice in the house still. Is there a mouse bomb that works against these things? Hand me my ball-peen hammer. To make it more difficult for this one to find his way back into our house, we took away his little map and compass and released him in the far corner of the yard. I tried to get Lenore to throw him over the fence into the neighbor's yard. Luckily that's where he went after she let him go. It may not take him very long to forget how roughly he was treated at our establishment.

Red Right Returning

On our way home from Bishop's night at Scout Camp. It's being held west of Franklin Idaho (a two hour drive.) Next time I hope it is closer. A car load of Bishops. We considered stopping to buy powerball tickets. The camp is very nice. They have girls on the staff! I would have been a lot more willing to go to Scout Camp when I was young if we had girls on the camp staff. The boys were being their regular dorky selves, playing with fire and terrorizing any unsuspecting wildlife they could find. One of the leaders had a guitar and was singing songs. I wanted to ask him to sing Brendan Fraser's dolphin song from Bedazzled. Mayonayonaise!

Mouse Sighting!

One of our good-for-nothing cats came upstairs yesterday with a mouse in her mouth. It was still alive. Ruby was looking for a good place to play with it. I expect this is the mouse that has eluded capture in our basement for several months. Lenore loves animals. The only trap she would sanction in the basement was a "humane" one. I would have opted for one of the insidious glue traps. Unfortunately, once Lenore realized that Ruby hadn't dealt the death blow, she wasn't going to let her get another chance. Now the offending mouse was last seen in Jensen's room. I told her she missed out on her one good opportunity to get rid of the mouse. The only good thing that came of this episode was the disaster that is Jensen's room got a thorough cleaning while Lenore was searching for the evil thing.

Read about our Italian Trip in 2002

Santita' al Signore

More on Italy from President Henderson: He told us when we were in Italy in 2002 that land had been purchased on the outskirts of Rome for a Temple. Last weekend he informed us that the Church standard for a Temple is that the Country be host to five Stakes. There are presently four: Milan, Puglia, Rome and Venice. He has learned recently that a Stake in Torino is going to be announced within a couple of months. One of the missionaries also offered that Catania is also very close. We told the kids that we will plan on returning to Italy for the dedication of the Rome Temple. So, their part is to pray for it.

Class of 2019?

Laney is all signed up for Kindergarten. She will be in Mrs. Barenbrugge's morning class (yes, that's the same teacher Ailsa and Jensen had, and yes that is a horrible name to foist on little 5 year olds.) She is quite excited. True to her personality she has been trying on different outfits to wear and making sure she is adequately trained and in command of all of her personal hygiene needs. We bought her a set of alphabet blocks with magnetic backing and we have been working with her on spelling, phonetics, and reading some basic words. She is doing very well. We work with word patterns: bat, cat, hat, rat, big, pig, jig and so on. She's usually good and attentive. But, sometimes drops to the lowest common denominator of personal interaction: she tries to entertain us by being silly.

Riunione 2005 JRHIMM

This last weekend was busy. We had a work party and a couple of get-togethers for our Italian Missionary Group. The last time we re-united as missionaries was in Italy in June of 2002. I should post some of my account of that marvelous trip. It was fun this weekend to see some of the Elders I haven't seen in a while. Pres. Lane Henderson who was one of our group and also was serving as president of the Milan Mission when we returned in 2002 (which greatly facilitated our festivities there) spoke to us and recounted how the lives of at least four members who were acquainted with our group were turned around because of our visit. He reminded us that Elder Custer of our group who served as branch president in the town of Asti and met his wife, Monica Berube', there had a son who was one of his Elders and was serving in Asti when we visited in June of 2002. We had two super missionaries who were just ahead of me in chronology who served as assistants to President Halliday together. This was very unusual because you would hardly ever get the chance to be companions with someone who entered the mission the same time as you. President Henderson told us they both had sons who were called to the Milan Mission and at one time served together as companions. We saw Elder Beus whom I haven't seen in a long time and we spent some time visiting with Blake Ostler who is a very deep thinker and philosophizer. We could have talked with him and his wife all night.

Summa Cum Something

In honor of today's revelations about the grades of George W. Bush and John Kerry from their Yale days I thought I would tell a little story about my GPA.

I wasn't a standout student in High School or College, by any means. The only "D" grade I got was in an Art class in High School. I came fairly close to getting a "D" in one of my Political Science classes at BYU. I got by all right and didn't strain any intellectual muscles in the process.

A couple of months after beginning work at NSA, my roommate, Eric Rasmussen, came home from work and asked if I realized that NSA had a GPA minimum of 3.0 for hiring. Neither one of us knew that and neither one of us had paid much attention to our GPA. We figured the degree was the important thing and if we passed, we passed. So we both rummaged through our papers to find our transcripts and see how we had done. I found that my overall undergraduate GPA was 3.02 and Eric's was 3.01. Whew! We had a good laugh at our collective ability to squeak by when it counted.

TWTWTW

At the risk of being sacrilegious, here is a rundown of the previous week in the life of this Bishop. This was an unusually busy week. Thank goodness it is not normally this bad.

Sunday 29 May - One of the ward members has an major anxiety/stress attack at church. She ends up going to the emergency room. But not before it is discovered that she was in major need of help with cleaning up her apartment to ward off triggering DCFS notification. Lenore and I went to visit her in the hospital.

Monday, Memorial Day - a large number of ward members converge on the sister's apartment to help clean up.

Tuesday - About seven interviews with young members of the ward. Later I attend setting apart for Rachel Serna who begins mission the next day. This was at President Daw's house and was quite nice. She had several friends there for support. Three of whom were missionaries who taught her. She bore a very sweet testimony at the end of the gathering.

Wednesday - PPI with Pres. Daw

Thursday - Bishopric meeting. Meanwhile several calls for welfare assistance have been piling up and I am referring people to meet with me on Sunday. Later Pam and Shaun Thomas came to my house and I called her to be the new Young Women's President.

Friday - Sister whose apartment was cleaned up on Monday calls saying she can't find her purse, she is afraid it got thrown out on Monday. The purse is found by the end of the week. High Priest Group leader calls to say that Sister Thomas had a stroke and is in the Hospital. Later, 2:30am call from Spain Madrid Temple. One of our sisters is there to attend and forgot her temple recommend. "Sorry for waking you up..." I told them it could have been worse news. I imagined Sister Thomas expiring. We have about 30 members over the age of eighty years old.

Saturday - Baptism for Noelle Singleton. President Rodriguez needs some things from my office so I run over there. Lenore and I go visit sister Thomas at Cottonwood Hospital.

Sunday - At church for meetings that begin at 7am. We made changes in the Elder's Quorum, Young Women, Young Men presidencies and one of the counselors in Relief Society. I spoke briefly to the Young Women about Testimony. After the block we spent a bit of time setting apart almost everyone. This was another very special and sweet hour or so with these great people. Then I had three interviews with welfare needy/wanty. During these interviews there were three phone calls regarding other church matters.

I had a brief 15 minute break to go home and grab a bite/end my fast. Then there was a special Sacrament meeting for the singles ward that was being disbanded. Another very enjoyable and sweet spirit there. I thought I was going to be able to go home for an hour or so after this. But, I was told the Bishops were supposed to be at the Seminary Graduation 45 minutes early. The graduation was quite nice. Elder Russell M. Nelson spoke. But, I'm sorry, by the time it came to him I think I had about as much Sunday as I could handle. We left the graduation about 6:20.

We did receive some tender mercies during the week: The Blue Explorer started making a horrendous clunking noise in the front. I thought maybe I could ignore it for a day or two. But, It got much worse over night. I jacked it up and looked at it and played with the wheels. But, I couldn't tell anything. I was thinking that there was a CV joint, or something like that worn out. We took it in Friday morning and it ended up that four of the lug bolts were broken off. I know, I know. It would have been very easy for me to figure this out if I had only looked there. I don't know how this happened. But, I suspect that after one or two break, the added stress on the others makes short work of them. We consider it an answer to our prayers that Ailsa wasn't driving on the freeway and have the wheel come off. That would have been bad. Of course the dealer found some other things that he felt needed attention. So the entire bill came to $500. But, at least he didn't tell us we needed a whole new transmission and engine rebuild.

Despite everything else going on and dodging some rainstorms, I was able to ride the tandem with both Ailsa and Jensen this week and I think they enjoyed it.

And I got to sing "How Great the Wisdom and the Love." Which is one of my favorite Sacrament Hymns at the Singles Ward.

And.... This morning it was raining so I didn't have to get up early to ride my bike.

Red vs. Blue

Ailsa has started working at Laser Quest. Right now she is loving it. But, she is kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop. Wait until she gets her first paycheck and learns the meaning of "withholding" and "FICA." I've been several times with the kids and work and church groups and it is terrible fun. You pick a fictitious moniker for your computer score. You get coolth points if it's something relevant to pop culture or gaming or something that pubescent boys would be interested in. I usually picked Aknot for my name. Then you go into the arena and become cannon food for these same pubescent boys. My score was never very good. Once we played with a church group. One of the previous Bishops is a peace officer, trained in firearms. His score was very low. I'm glad a kevlar vest is part of his regulation equipment. I found it the most fun to try to occupy one of the quasi lookout dead-ends on the upper level and then just pick off people who come into your view. I usually would get Ailsa or Jensen to team with me and watch my back. Every once in a while when they weren't paying attention I would turn around and tag their vest, just for the extra points.