April adventures

During Easter dinner with my mom's family last week, I asked my grandma if I could take pictures of my grandpa's journal, which they had put on display at his funeral last June. In March I learned about Kindex software and signed up for an account. I took pictures of the pages of the journal, and then I was able to upload them to Kindex and pay for the software to transcribe the handwritten text. And I was amazed at the job it did! Now I have to go through and clean it up. It uses AI to help with the transcription, so it guesses some things wrong—for example, it transcribed Fillmore as Illinois. But I was astonished that my grandpa drew a picture of one of those WWII banners that hung in people's windows, and the software described it as "_[drawing of a scroll with stars]_"!

On Monday, I had some extra time because of the way my jobs work, so I wanted to go try out a new trail. On October 26, I went on a fourteen-mile run and saw they were building new trails in North Canyon. Then the snow came, and I haven't been back. But Monday I was able to try some of the new trails out. They took me to the top of Cave Peak, which I have heard of, but there haven't been good trails to take me there. But now the trail took me there easily! The climb was gradual, so it wasn't too difficult. I climbed about 1,100 feet in seven miles round-trip. But it wasn't very shady, in part because the trees don't have their leaves yet.

That night I began taking down Easter decorations. This set of Peeps novelty lights finally died. I believe I got them on clearance after Easter in 2001. They had a good run. 

Tuesday was Earth Day, and I ran on Wild Rose. I felt a little guilty that I didn't really do anything to help the earth on Tuesday, especially as I passed all this myrtle spurge, which is visually striking but ecologically destructive. Sometimes I go on the trail to pull it up, and last year I organized a church service project for it. But it isn't my job to save the world. And I did pick up a couple of pieces of litter (one of which had been there awhile) and threw them away in the park's trash cans.

Thursday I attended a lecture at Signature Books about queer joy, where I bought The Book of Queer Mormon Joy, which has some short essays by some of my friends.

Then on Friday, I got up early to drive to Logan to attend the Juanita Brooks Utah History Conference. (Juanita Brooks was a twentieth-century historian who was the first to seriously publish about the Mountain Meadows Massacre.) Unfortunately, it was one of those nights when I was awake for two hours, which often happens when I have too much sugar, but I thought I had been careful about sugar. That meant I was tired all day.

As I was heading north on I-15, I noticed that there was a car that got next to me as though they were going to pass me, but instead of passing me, they slowed down. What is going on!? I finally looked over, and it was my BYU boss! He was on the way to the same conference (where he was presenting), and he just wanted to wave at me. He later told me he honked at me as well, but I didn't hear it. (I didn't think my podcast was that loud!)

As is typical of any conference, some presentations were more interesting than others. There was one interesting one that showed how antipolygamy laws prevent people in polygamous communities from accessing needed healthcare and other resources. And one presenter is a seminary teacher—I was jealous that those kids get a nuanced, scholarly teacher instead of the teachers I got with fundamentalist views of the scriptures. It was good to meet some of the scholars whose names I have seen but not met in person, and it was good to catch up with some of my colleagues from the Church History Library.

Then yesterday (Saturday), I went back to the new trail, because it looked like there was another portion of a trail near the top of Cave Peak. I started on it, but it began to go on a north-facing slope, which meant there was still a lot of snow, so I turned around. I want to go back when the snow is gone, but you have to go through a lot of less shady portions to get there. So it might be better for the fall, when the snow is gone but the sun is less harsh.

The rest of Saturday was low-key and relaxing. I have a busy May coming up, so it was nice to have some time to myself.

Easter Week

I was able to go trail running six days in a row this week. Monday through Thursday, I was on the Wild Rose Trail every day, and I was able to see the leaves on the trees grow over the course of a few days. And the season of arrowleaf balsamroot has begun—I saw my first specimens on Monday, and there were quite a few more by Thursday.

Monday

And here's the same plant on Thursday

These were from Thursday, and I don't recall seeing them in bloom on Monday

Still lots of glacier lilies

On Saturday evening, I went on a six-mile run that I don't do too often, but I have done it before. It has a rather steep portion east of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail from Tunnel Springs Park, and sometimes I will do the steep portion when I have less time so it's a good workout in a short amount of time. But for some reason, it was harder this time, and I had to stop a lot. I did one mile in twenty-three minutes, which is exceedingly slow! But oh well, there are a variety of valid reasons why it was harder for me. I don't have to be at full capacity all the time. 

The lighting at this time of day made the Depression-era terraces especially visible

Yesterday, the City of North Salt Lake hosted a community event to purge myrtle spurge from Springhill Geologic Park. Since I use that trail all the time, and I have an intense disdain for invasive plants, I went and participated, which seemed like a fun thing to do on the day before Easter and the Saturday before Earth Day. It was a good turnout, especially since there was a youth mountain biking club there, and they have to get hours maintaining trails. I personally pulled up four bags of spurge, and collectively we volunteers filled up the back up a pickup. But there is so much spurge there that we barely made a dent.

It was fun to be among the igneous rocks, since most rocks around here are sedimentary. All those flowery bright green plants are spurge, which is native to the Mediterranean and takes over the foothills here.

And there were plenty Eastery activities this week—I colored eggs with my family. 

These are all the eggs I did. I was first introduced to using regular crayons on eggs in 2010, and I really like doing so.

This is super silly, but I bought some eggnog that came in Easter packaging, mostly because I thought it was funny. I mean, eggs are more associated with Easter than Christmas. And there was a 1965 Easter episode of McHale's Navy that revolved around eggnog—but McHale's Navy was a terrible show that I rate 3/10. 

We had Easter dinner with my mom's family. I recently had a dream about chocolate carrot cookies, so I thought it would be fun to make a chocolate carrot cake. My mom found a recipe on Pinterest and sent it to me, so I made and decorated this cake. It was amazing! Carrot cake is my favorite dessert, but I might like this chocolate version even more. The frosting is chocolate cream cheese.

I'm in the choir in my ward, and today we sang the three newly added Easter songs. There were seven women and two men in the choir today, so I was the only tenor. For years, I have loved the song "Were You There?," and I was delighted that they added it. I asked the choir if we could sing it, and during practice, they asked me to sing it so they could hear it. Then they asked me if I would sing a solo for the first verse. So I did! And it went well. It was the first time I've sung a solo. But I didn't sing the "ohh-O-o-ohh . . . tremble" by myself; the choir joined for that part. I think I got the rest of the choir to love the song too. Here's one of my favorite versions of this lovely song.

As I've been on a faith journey over the last three years, in many ways I'm more comfortable with the Jesus aspect of Easter now than I used to be. The messaging I always picked up was "You need to know this is true, and if you don't, then you need to pray harder / study better / do more." But now I think, Of course it's preposterous. Of course it's hard to believe. That's the whole point of faith, and Christians have been practicing faith for nearly two thousand years.

And I have enjoyed my Easter playlist more this year because I made an abridged version in which I took out the terrible songs. Last year I added three albums for Lent/Easter/Pentecost by the Soil and the Seed Project, which have enjoyable Christian songs in a variety of genres. And of course, the newly released soundtrack for It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown has helped too.

Anyway, people have told me they like my AI dream images, so here's this week's to close. 

Mark tries to sell CDs for charity from a cart at Walmart, and Christian organizations try to sell Christmas cards

a motivational speaker sells Addams Family vinyl records

a hot tub next to the podium of a church

the street is flooded because a family drained their swimming pool

Mark walks next to a girl on a snowy sidewalk, and a dog follows them, so Mark wants to throw snow at it

Mark hopes to buy a New Year shirt at Walmart

Mark keeps a sewing machine on the lower bunk bed

Mark rides a slow train to a gift shop that sells sweaters with bison and saguaro

Mark worries he dislocated the jaw of a baby bear that has latched on to him with his mouth

during work hours, Mark sits on a boulder in a stream

Appropriate for April

Now that springtime has returned and the snow has melted, I was able to get back on the trails this week. 

On Monday, I ran about six miles to and from the radio towers on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. Unfortunately, I got a side stitch, which I haven't had in a long time. Usually that only happens if I eat a lot or if I have had dairy products recently, but that wasn't the case this time. But I pushed through the discomfort.

Then Tuesday, I went on the Wild Rose Trail, where glacier lilies were out. These are the first wildflowers of the season, so it's always good to see them.

Then that was the end of my free time for several days, because issue 5 of Wayfare magazine was ready for proofing. There are several editors on the team, but I get the final say on the proofs. I am probably the most experienced copyeditor on the team, which means that the articles I already read were cleaner than others.

The magazine has some great articles, and I'm glad to help out. But it does make a few difficult days where I work my state job, and then I work my BYU job, and then I spend my evening hours editing, even though that's what I've been doing all day.

On Friday, someone in my ward invited people to go see the Improvables, an improv group in Bountiful. It was good to have something to break up the hours and hours of editing. Some of the sketches were more entertaining than others. They were very talented, but sometimes it felt like watching a group of friends playing games.

Then Saturday, I pounded out the end of Wayfare. Whew! I did some shopping, since I had been so busy all week. And in the evening, I went on the Woodbriar Trail, which is short but steep. The trail had some glacier lilies, but it also had tons of springbeauties and yellow bells. Glacier lilies, springbeauties, and yellow bells are the trinity of early spring wildflowers. They aren't the most spectacular, but they kick off the wildflower season.

Later this month, we'll have arrowleaf balsamroot and longleaf phlox; in May, we'll have mulesears, western waterleaf, smallflower woodlandstar, Utah sweetpea, and various penstemons; and in June we'll have sego lilies and sticky geraniums.

I am happy that Easter is late this year, and I'm also glad that Easter seems to be getting more attention than it has for much of my life. For example, my mom just bought this Easter equivalent of a nativity.

And, of course, let me geek out about the seasonal foods and treats I've been able to have this week. I classify these foods as category 2A, which means they take iconic seasonal flavors and apply them to something else. 

Near my office is a bakery called Pie Party, and I tried them for the first time this week. They had a carrot cake pie, which I have never heard of before! It has a carrot custard, then carrot cake, then kumquat jam, then cream cheese frosting. I love the idea of this pie, but I didn't think it tasted that great. It was just OK. It was also expensive (seventeen dollars for a five-inch pie).

And they also had an Easter quiche! (Well, that's what they called it on their Instagram post, but not in the store.) It has ham, peas, and green onions. It's rare for savory Easter foods to get much attention.

And there are two ice cream shops, Rockwell and Blacksmith, that have both carrot cake ice cream and Cadbury Mini Egg ice cream.

One of the most iconic Easter treats is the chocolate bunny, but how to you make that into something else that's not just chocolate? Well, there's a cupcake shop in Farmington called Sprinkles (a national chain) that made a special chocolate bunny cupcake. It's different from their regular chocolate cupcake, and it has a candy bunny on top. 

And Target has a Peeps Icee, which doesn't taste much like anything, just like Peeps themselves. (Five years ago, 7-Eleven had a Peeps Slurpee.) When I bought this, the cashier was slow in more ways than one. I brought a reusable bag, and she put one item in that bag, then tried to put my other items, including milk, in plastic bags, even though there was plenty of room in the reusable bag. And she tipped my Icee sideways to scan it!

This week's dreams weren't that interesting, but here they are anyway.

Mark buys a chocolate carrot cookie that comes with an ornament, and he is annoyed that he gets fake money as change

the grocery store bakery has pink roscas de reyes, shamrock bagels, lime bread, and carrot cake

Mark closes the door on the naughty cat

Mark tells his coworkers the Mickey Mouse Squishmallow is his boyfriend

the receptionist at the dentist office can't hear Mark