Labor Day

I had a funny thing happen at Yesterday's Labor Day family pool party. I got in the pool and climbed on an air mattress to relax. The mattress was a little slipperier than normal and it took me a little while and some concentration to get on and situated. I had my ear bud in so I could listen to music. I had a previously opened bottle of soda that I had put in the freezer to cool down and forgotten about. It had frozen solid and was now partially re-thawed. I'm not sure but, I guess freezing soda does something to the carbonation because when I tried to open the drink, the gas in it wanted to expand a lot and wouldn't stop. I tried a couple of abortive attempts to open the bottle and let the steam off slowly, then I just pulled off the top and let it do its thing. After all I was in a pool. It wasn't overflowing a lot. But, I still didn't want to make a mess and lose half of the drink. In all of this I guess I was moving around a little too much for my precarious purchase on the mattress and I slipped off. I went all the way under the water. But, I managed to save the drink, holding it dry and aloft triumphantly with one hand. I was concerned about my earphone which had now gone through a complete, albeit very brief, submersion. I quickly turned it off and shook as much water off/out of it as I could and left it just for a short while. Within a half hour I checked it and turned it on and it was still working. For a while the volume control seemed to be ineffective. But, it works just fine now. Dodged a little bullet on that one.

San Clemente 2011

We had a very lovely time for our annual trip to San Clemente in August again this year. We encountered very little traffic on the way down and the way back (thank goodness, we must have hit Las Vegas at the right times.) Driving the old Explorer with its old driver's seat for long distances is starting to get to my back. We stopped at grandma and grandpa's both coming and going and we always enjoy our stays with them. I didn't concern myself with any bike rides in Saint George this time.

We went to the beach as soon as we could after we arrived on Saturday afternoon and it was glorious. The whole two weeks we were there the water temperature fluctuated between 64 and 68 degrees. This is at the low end to the almost comfortable part of the spectrum for me. The weather was a little more iffy than normal. We had 2-3 days where the sun really didn't come out. I've found now that I rather prefer the days were there is a little cloud cover so the sun isn't simply blazing forth all the time.

The surf was probably more “up” than normal. And, there is a story or two to go with that. I was having fun with the body surfing (since I didn't do any last year, and I didn't bother to get the surfboards this year from Ed and Sean, just didn't have the gumption.) On the second Tuesday (16 Aug), the surf report was 4-6 feet and started with yellow flag conditions. I like the waves to be biggish. I have surfed and body surfed even in 10-15 foot waves. But, I am getting old

Anyway, I was out and the bigger waves were only coming one at a time. I caught a couple and then missed a couple because I wasn't in position to catch them. A lifeguard came out to tell some people that we were in a rip. He asked me if I was okay. I said sure. In the past they have left me alone because I was using fins. A couple minutes later I caught a big one and got a little pounded in exiting the wave. Years ago I developed the habit (perhaps bad) of exhaling through my nose when under water while body surfing to keep from getting water in my nose. (Maybe I should use a nose plug instead.) This may be fine on smallish waves. But in bigger surf sometimes you really need to hold your breath.

I came up from my wave sputtering a little. Right on its heels were 5-6 more huge ones. I was stuck in the impact zone, and drifting nearer to the pier. (The lifeguards don't like you to get too close to the pier. There is almost always a current that pulls swimmers north into the pier. This current is stronger when the waves are bigger. When I am waiting for waves and treading water, I am almost always swimming south just to stay in roughly the same spot.) I was getting worked by the pounding waves and breathing hard. At the lifeguard station on the pier they sounded a sort of siren/klaxson and I wondered if they were trying to warn me or everyone about the newly dangerous conditions. At this point I might not have minded a little assistance from the staff, preferring, of course, the girl lifeguard. The set of waves finally passed and I soon made my way in. Right after that they changed the flag warning to “RED, dangerous for all swimmers.” I really didn't do anymore body surfing after that, I think. Partly, because I tweaked my back again the next morning. But, overall I had a lot of fun and still can do well. I just don't have the stamina I used to.

The same day Alex wanted to go to the Wedge because of an exciting surf report from there. He and Britty and Ailsa went. I thoroughly coached Ailsa on how dangerous it could be and to stay out of the way of the serious surfers. Of course they all had to go in the water and Ailsa came back gushing about how fun and wild it was.

Still on that same Tuesday, the weather had finally been fairly sunny all day and we languished late on the beach. Around 4pm Lenore and I started a walk toward the south and the kids decided to join us. We just went at a leisurely pace. We thought we MIGHT walk down to the old Western White House, which I have never done yet. But, we went at such a relaxed pace that we were only probably at the most 2/3rds of the way there when we needed to turn back. Still, it was a wonderful walk together with the family. We searched for shells and rocks and skipped stones in the water. (I threw out my shoulder doing so. But, that's not hard to do.) The sun shone down. The water was nice. The beach, once we got past T-street, was almost deserted. It was pretty much an idyllic adventure as sort of the capstone for this year's vacation.

With the aging of the grandkids, we are at a point now where just about everyone is mature enough to get along well. The kids did lots of things together and often took walks in the evening down to the beach or into town. One evening while strolling the pier the kids saw that someone had reeled in a small sand shark and left it to die on the pier. So Ailsa picked it up by the tail and threw it back in. I think Kharma should guarantee her never to be bothered by any sea creatures for the rest of her life.

The pattern for many years has been to rent one apartment for the first week and then two for the second week. Our numbers have grown over the years and we are sometimes packed in cheek to jowl. While we sometimes do have fewer people at the start, they trickle in during the first week and by the end of that week our facilities are stressed. I hope in the future as we continue this tradition, we can convince people that one apartment is not enough for the first week and that it would be okay to take on some of the rental cost so that Poppa doesn't have to bear it all.

Poppa brought some Shirley Temple DVDs to watch in the evenings. I have often thought that the kids should watch these. However, the kids weren't that enthusiastic. I think they watched one or two of them and in reality they really didn't want to hang out with the adults at night. But, we introduced the clan to Doc Martin (quirky British sitcom) on Netflix and the adults were soon hooked. I think we got through two seasons or more while we were there.

Once again I took the tandem bicycle and my own road bike. It's gotten to where the kids (especially Ameer) won't let me go on rides by myself. I got in 8 rides and 6 were on the tandem. Ameer went on 3 of those. I also rode with Shazia, Jensen, and Sajid. Last year we started a thing where at some point on the ride we would sprint to see how fast we could go. Last year it was at the “landing strip” on the marine base. This year we started doing it on the downhill going northbound right near where you can see Lower Trestles. Ameer and I got up to 37.9 the first try. Every other try after that fell short. Ameer finally is starting to understand how consistently you have to exert yourself on a serious bike ride. He started to pay attention to our average speed and contribute more and more. On our last ride we averaged 17.97 mph, which isn't fantastic but respectable for an old guy and a kid who really doesn't know what he got himself into yet.

The girls took some shopping trips into town and we also went down to the Spectrum one day. They had spied a beautiful cat in an antique store up on Del Mar and I decided on the last morning I had to go visit her and get a picture.

I've been trying for a while to get together with Laura Bounds and her family at Old Man's. On the last Friday, while we terribly wanted to stay with the family and spend our last afternoon and evening playing with Laney in the waves and repeat our walk down the beach, Ailsa, Jensen, and I loaded up the car and went to San Onofre. I took the 8 foot foam board and tried to surf on it a little. Last year with Sean's  I had a lot of fun. This board is at the bottom spectrum of what I can knee paddle on. I am out of shape for too much belly paddling. So, I mainly paddled out a ways and turned around and caught one wave in. We all tried Laura's SUP board and had a lot of fun. It's a little different than I expected. I didn't have much trouble paddling around. But, when it came to trying to catch a wave, I couldn't see what was going on at all. I wanted it to be like a Venetian gondola where the bottom of the boats are shaped so that the gondoliers can paddle all the time on one side. I only caught one wave after knee paddling into it. I also tried out Larry's long board. It was somewhere in the 11 foot range, which is longer than what I usually use. Again I mainly paddled out, turned around and caught one wave in. It was simply too much work for my out of shapeness.

We had a wonderful at San Clemente for two weeks. We still love the beach and hope that Heaven has something like it:)

Ward Campout

Here.

We had the ward campout last weekend. Laney loves to go to this. Last year it was canceled (because of rain, if I remember correctly.) So, we had to go this year no matter what. There wasn't a huge crowd attending and it was mostly leadership/people in charge. But, a fun time was had by all. It is kinda neat to fall asleep under a mostly full view of the sky in our tent with the meshy walls.

Some Screen Captures From Italy Trip Video We Forgot About (We forgot about the video, not the trip.)

Ci Vediamo a Roma

This last weekend was the triennial JRHIMM reunion. Michelle bravely headed this up. Jay and I did our best to keep her from giving us the whole thing. I think she was fairly stressed about it. Anyway, it came off great with only one small survivable hitch.

Shortly after I arrived at the Friendship Park Pavilion to start setting up, members of the Hillside ward Elders Quorum also showed up. We were double booked. We decided to work together and we just (mostly) kept to one side and they the other. (We did have some people without knowing help themselves to their food, yikes!)

The weather was nice, we had some of our regulars show and a good mix of faces we haven't seen in a while, or ever. There was quite a bit of wind for an hour or so. But, overall it worked out fine. Ailsa went home briefly to gather up some books she had borrowed from Blake Ostler before her mission to give back to him. Also, Steve Young went to our house at one point to watch the end of a Stanley Cup game.

Saturday morning we went to the Draper Temple to have a session in Italian, officiated by our own Mark Scoville. This was a very nice thing. Susan Ashby had provided some Italian Family file names for us to do. At one point Ailsa sat for a little while next to sister Jeanne Fillerup. They figured out that Jeanne's son had been in Ailsa's district in Houston.

Afterward we chatted and took some pictures outside the temple. From our vantage point you could see the other three temples in the valley. The Temple itself is gorgeous. It has a Celestial room that is 4 storeys high with an amazing chandelier. They do a very good job of keeping patrons reverent there also. Only problem was with the layout it wasn't clear how you accessed the Celestial room. Lenore, Ailsa and I all tried to go the wrong way. Hmmmm, I think there is an analogy there somewhere. The temple setting and grounds are very nice too. Just up the hill from the parking lot, though are a handful of 8000 square foot McMansions that are nice looking but quite ostentatious.

Lenore and I got acquainted with Ron Hilton who it turns out is the son of Darrell's friend, George Hilton.

The Saturday evening dinner we held at Spaghetti Mama's in Jordan Commons. This was also very nice. Just a tad pricey. But, you have to remember, in this case you are not just paying for the meal. You are also paying for the use of the room all evening. (What really could have been possibly 3 meals for the restaurant.

Really, everything came off without a hitch. They made me MC. But, that was okay. President and Sister Dunaway gave very interesting and stirring talks. There are 7 stakes now in Italy. (Once they got the temple announcement I stopped paying attention. Baptisms have been on the rise. They now have lots of multigenerational families there. He also brought along TOP SECRET/Nulla Osta Segretezza pictures/renderings of the inside of the Rome Temple. The food was actually better than I had remembered, right on par with Buca.

Steve had wanted to see the movie Super 8 afterward. But, we went quite long and didn't get out of there until about 10pm. Have to do the movie next week.

June Gloom

I've only run the sprinklers twice so far this year. When I started my bike ride Friday morning the temperature was 44 degrees. We've only had our air conditioning on for a week now.

HOPE It's Just to Gain the Moderate Ground - Don't Expect Him to CHANGE His Tune

While I still like Mitt Romney and support him as a candidate (I think he has the best chance of winning the election and the best chance of being able to turn this country around), I think he is wrong on the Climate Change thing.

Yes, yes, ridicule me all you want. I am a denier. Well, kinda. I don't deny that our climate fluctuates. Temperatures rise and fall. Even if there is a small rise in temperature over the last couple of decades (and I contest that claim for reasons I will state later) it likely has only an infinitesimally small chance of having to do with man's activity.

Years ago the bugaboo was the Ozone layer. You see we kept making holes in it. When that campaign failed to generate the concern and change that liberals wanted to see in the world the topic was dropped and Global Warming, now Climate Change have taken its place.

The two biggest sources of heat for our world are the Sun and the molten interior of the Earth. To think that a fractional increase in a naturally occurring element of our atmosphere can have more influence on the temperature of the Earth than the enormous ball of gas that is burning at more than a million degrees (at its core) (and is close enough that it influences everything else about our world) and the spinning molten/solid/radioactive core of the planet that reaches almost 10,000 Fahrenheit is like blaming the excess heat in your home on the match you just lighted rather than the furnace burning in your basement or the stove that is heating up your dinner.

Now, about the "science."  Scientific inquiry should be motivated by one thing alone: The search for truth. Unfortunately, it is not always motivated by that. Sometimes it follows political or social trends. There is evidence that the stations and instruments used to record weather data are increasingly and incorrectly influenced by their locations near heat sources or "urban heat islands." There is also evidence that researchers have also cooked their data to achieve an aim.

Cool Memorial Day

Although Memorial Day was not a stellar day as far as the weather goes, (since it is the defacto beginning of Summer, I should be a nice, sunny, warm day) I did have some fun interesting thing going on. I was invited to a “man date/breakfast” with several other men from our ward. We went to the Midvale Mining Company and had hearty breakfasts. It was quite enjoyable and a fun thing to do. I don't think I've ever had a man date before.

I thought maybe I had successfully dodged going the the Salt Lake City Cemetery this year. But, We had some time before the afternoon festivities were to begin as Leslie's and Lenore suggested we should go.

We usually have a hard time finding the Lane family markers. We finally did again this year. They are located only slight north and slightly east of the Smith family plots.

The big thing this year was that Christopher Nemelka (not dead yet, NOT a Smith) has erected a marker with his name on it (and also Hyrum Smith's and the url for his website, (Mr. Nemelka's, not Hyrum's)) on a plot right next to Lenore's grandparents. Lenore said we should be charitable in our remarks about him because Muh would just say, “that poor, poor man.”

As we were leaving and making our way back toward the Smith plots we saw Gloria Irion and Elder Nelson and others of their family nearby visiting some graves of their own loved ones.

Dan's Project

“Uncle Dan,” Lenore's brother, has a cute little 425 square foot home in South Salt Lake on a nicely wooded lot. He bought this property in 1996 for about $63,000. He had to do a lot to fix the home. But, he did a very nice job.

I guess he had grown tired and bored and maybe cramped in his little space. He does have a lot of stuff.

He started house hunting maybe a year ago or more. Well, he recently bought another house and last Saturday we went to help him clean it up so he can move in.

I say “we.” Lenore did the lion's share of the work. I mostly walked around with mouth agape. It was so overwhelming for me I couldn't stay long. I washed a few windows and stuff. But, then I left.

Every square inch of the place SCREAMS “tear me down!” Nothing to code. Nothing finished. No window or door that was square or operated correctly. No baseboards. No casements. Lots of kludged repairs and additions. I had to channel the late Norrick Long and say, “it's a piece of crap.” He's basically spent $115 cash for a quarter acre lot in South Salt Lake.

However, Lenore likes the house. It reminds her of Marin. So, we have now wagered a dinner of choice for the person who in 10 years doesn't eat their words on this house. Sorry Dan. I came home with a greater appreciation for the state of our home.