Three hundred and ninety-nine and sixty

This week, I went up home again to spend the last few days with my nephews.

Nathaniel, the four-year-old, continues to be funny. Back in December, he would say he had sixteen moms, houses, etc. Now when you ask him, the number of moms, dads, and houses ranges in the hundreds and thousands.

One night this week (Tuesday?) he was a total chatterbox regarding his other family members. He said he had three hundred and ninety-nine dads, and three hundred and ninety-nine and sixty moms, because some of his dads died. All of his moms changed their names to Ya-ping (the name of his one real mom) and his dads are all named Yu-ping. He said he liked to walk to his Jello house in Taiwan; I asked him how he got across the ocean, and he said he just puts his goggles on and walks. All of his houses are made of different substances: Jello, candy, shoes, people (they turn into rocks), and so on. There will even be lots of houses inside the Jello houses. His favorite moms and grandmas live in Jello houses, and his favorite uncles have all the houses in the whole galaxy. He said something about a mile, and Franklin (6) told him that a mile is really long (which, of course, it isn't). I told Nathaniel that last Saturday I walked fourteen miles, and he said, "I can walk 100 miles!" That day I asked him when he was going to go back to his house (for real), and he kept saying, "100 days."

Another day, I asked him how many brothers he had, and he said two. Then I asked how many moms, and he said one. Then he said, "Oh!" as though he just remembered he was supposed to talk about the others. He said he had "wifty hundred," but they weren't there right then.

On the 23rd, we went to my sister's house to watch the Bountiful Handcart Days parade. Pioneer Day is kind of a mini Fourth of July; if I were to add another holiday to the canon of holidays I formally celebrate, Pioneer Day would be the one. We lit off some fireworks after that, but there weren't as many fireworks that night as there were on the Fourth of July.

The next day, I didn't work, and we went to the Lego Store in Salt Lake, since the three boys are obsessed with Legos. Before that, we went to McDonald's, which is the favorite restaurant of kids, even though it's not good. Franklin "decorated" his straw.

Then on Friday they left, and I won't see them again until Christmastime.

Then I came back to Provo, where we have to prepare for more apartment renovations. I have to deal with the messiest roommate I've ever had (but who is otherwise a good guy), a roommate who decided he was too good for us, and a roommate who is a quintessential sweet bro--he's always with his bros and hasn't slept in our apartment for a month, and he doesn't talk to us and always wears polo shirts and eats nothing but protein supplements and Clif bars.

Nephews/Timp/Talk

This week I spent time with my nephews again. Nathaniel, the four-year-old, said some funny things, like always. We were outside, looking at ants, when his brothers told him that red ants are bad. So then he began stomping on the red ones. All three boys are very motivated by money and are always asking for ways they can earn it. Nathaniel was saying he should get money for saving (or "hayving") our lives by stepping on the red ants. That night, we were downstairs, and he was under a blanket, and he asked me to go upstairs to get his water bottle. I told him he could get it himself, but he said, "I'm too cold." I told him it was warmer upstairs. Later, he had left his blankets upstairs, so he asked me to get them. I once again told him he could get them himself. So he used the same excuse not to get his blankets: "I'm too cold!"

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Yesterday, I hiked Mount Timpanogos. And now that it's off my unofficial bucket list, I never have to do it again!

I discovered a few things about myself. I am not in as good a shape as I thought I was. Now, that may not be completely accurate, because I think even those in better shape were sore today, and I was informed that it would take between three and four hours to hike to the saddle, and I made it in just under three. But going up the switchbacks to make it to the saddle, I had to keep stopping, and I thought, "Why did I do this?"

I also realized I'm more scared of heights than I thought I was. It's not like the trail was really scary, but I felt just a little anxious as I walked on the trail. It wasn't like I would die if I fell off; I would just do some rolling on rocks. When I got to the top, I just felt a little uneasy. There was a little shack at the top, but I didn't take any pictures of it, because I felt too uneasy taking pictures (and thereby taking my eyes off the ground) at the top. I felt much safer inside the shack. I had a high school teacher who said she wanted to get a group together to disassemble the shack, but I for one appreciated it. Besides, then people would carve the rocks instead of writing in the shack; there were carvings in the rock from the 1920s!

All the rocks were limestone. From the little bit of research I did, I learned that it is all Pennsylvanian in age; in the Mississippian Period (right before the Pennsylvanian), some mountains formed to the west, and they created a basin which filled with seawater, which is how the limestone formed. I was hoping to see shell fossils--I saw some things that could have been fossils, but I didn't get to look closely enough to know for sure, and limestone has a lot of anomalies in it. But I did just happen to have some hydrochloric acid in my backpack from Geology 210 last August, so I was able to show how the limestone fizzes. (I actually think at that point it was dolostone, limestone that has magnesium in it.)

It was a tough hike. It took three hours to get to the saddle, where we waited for about an hour for some of our other group members to come. Then we hiked to the summit, which probably took about 45 minutes (I wasn't too concerned about time at that point). I spent a little bit of time there and got some pictures from the shack.

It would have been prettier if it weren't so hazy. I wasn't too impressed with the Utah Lake view, just because I get to see it from Rock Canyon when I run up there, although of course I was much higher. Since I am scared of slipping, I knew that I was going to go really slow down back down, so I left before the other members of my ward. I figured they would catch up with me at some point. But it turns out that almost everyone went a different way back down, one where they could slide down a snow patch "glacier." I heard that most of the injuries and deaths on the mountain come from doing that, so I wasn't disappointed I missed that. But since I was by myself (I didn't feel in danger, because there were people all around, just not from my group), at one point I turned the wrong way. I thought, "I don't remember it being this steep," and I had to try hard not to slip going down. Then I realized that I had gone the wrong way, and I thought, "You mean I have to climb back up that hill?!" But going up was actually easier, because I was less likely to slip. Then I was back on the right trail to keep going back. I actually learned that I could have kept going that "wrong" way, but it would have required walking on snow, and I'm terrified of slipping. Going down was harder than I thought, even once I got to the less steep and rocky parts. My legs were really sore, and my feet hurt every time I stepped on a rock. I kept thinking, "It can't be much further now." But it was much further, and eventually some of the group did catch up to me, but we weren't too far from the trailhead. Going down, I knew that I couldn't stop, because it would be hard to get going again.

At one point when I was coming down, I saw some people in BYU shirts, and I said to one, "Hey! We were in the MTC together!" The other guy said, "Really? January 2012?" I said, "Oh, no, I was there long before you. You just look exactly like someone I knew." But there was a guy there who said, "When were you there?" I said December 2007, and as he took his sunglasses off, I realized he was the one; I had been talking to his younger brother. He was in my MTC district, although he went to a different mission. When I told him my last name, he was shocked it was me, saying, "You look so much older." I think the age thing is probably the least different thing about me.

I wouldn't mind hiking part of Timp again, but I don't really desire to go back to the top or even to the saddle. But I hiked to the top of this mountain, and this picture was taken after I'd already been hiking a couple of hours!

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In April last year, I was called as a ward clerk, and last week I was released. In honor of my release they asked me to speak. Here, more or less, is what I said:

I have been in this ward for a really long time. I was here last August when the ward boundaries changed. I was here the August before that when Bishop and Brother Jensen were called. I was even here on May 1, 2011, when we went from being the BYU 22^nd Ward to the Provo YSA 18^th Ward. I think Brother Clasby is the sixth second counselor I’ve had in this ward. But despite being in the ward so long, this is actually the first time I’ve given a talk!

[A previous speaker] gave his qualifications for speaking on this topic. For me, on the other hand, I know exactly why I was given this topic, because of all the commandments, loving one another may be the hardest one. I do love people, but I have a hard time loving people who do bad things. I try to love, but it can be hard for me.

I was thinking about the ways the commandment to love one another has been addressed in different dispensations.

First, we have the Law of Moses. We tend to think of the Law of Moses as a little rough and vengeful, but it actually requires the principle of love. Leviticus 19:18 says, “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.” We know, of course, that when Jesus asked which of all the commandments in the Law was the most important, he chose this one as the second most important, after loving God. Even the Ten Commandments didn’t measure up to this one.

When Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, he reiterated this idea, in Matthew 5:43–45: “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” I think sometimes we don’t think enough about this sermon. In 3 Nephi 11, Christ comes to America, and the very next chapter, he gives this same sermon again. Of all the things he could have chosen to tell the Nephites, this discourse is what he gave. That shows how important it us for us to follow it.

This principle of praying for our enemies reminded me of an experience I had on my mission. My last area was in Lewiston, Idaho, and I had been there for nearly six months. I had already been through the former investigators, potential investigators, and less-actives, so I had combed through the Area Book to find someone else to go talk to. I found a name to go check on. So one October night, we biked over to the house. It was dark, and we were kind of going back and forth to see if it was the right address, trying to shine our bike lights to see the house number. After we had determined it was the right one, we got ready to go knock on the door, putting our bikes down and taking off our helmets. But before we could get there, a man opened the door and was quite rude. He asked if we were the ones who had been in his yard for the last five minutes. Now, we were not in his yard, but his driveway, and we had only been there for like thirty seconds, a minute tops. We said, “We are looking for James and Kathy Skarland. Do they live here?” He didn’t really answer us and continued to be quite hostile. He told us to leave, so we got ready to leave (putting on our bike helmets, etc.) and he said, “Why are you still here?” My companion was like, “Come on, really? We’re leaving!” He said, “I’m going to get my shotgun.” My companion said, “Please don’t threaten me,” and he said, “It’s not a threat, it’s a promise!” We left, and my companion asked for the phone so he could call the police for being threatened. I thought it was a little much, but I gave him the phone anyway. We were walking our bikes down the road, and this guy actually got in his car to follow us. I was like, “Is this guy for real?” I think he saw that my companion was on the phone, so he drove up to me and kind of repeated what he was saying about us never coming back there. I told him we were looking for someone else, and that I certainly wouldn’t go back to his house again, although I couldn’t guarantee anything about future missionaries. My companion was behind me on the phone and called out to me to tell him we were talking to police. I told him that, and he said, “Good.” But he seemed a little worried and left. Then the police came and talked to us; one of them was a member of another ward. They asked if we were okay. That night, during our companionship prayer, my companion prayed for him and that he would be good to his wife. Praying for him is something I would have a hard time with. I wouldn’t pray for these things, but I would wish for his house to burn down or for him to get struck by lightning.

But I do try to pray for my enemies, although sometimes I worry I take kind of a “Rameumptom” approach. I may say the right words, but I may be thinking, “Bless them that they will know what absolute terrible, awful people they are and that they will know they should be more like us.” But I think Heavenly Father knows that I am trying, and that is the important part.

At the last supper, in John 13:34–35, Jesus gives the scripture from which we get the song “Love One Another.” I’ve often wondered whether Jesus was addressing the Apostles, telling them they should love one another, or whether he was talking to them but intending it for everyone. But I really don’t think that matters, because there are plenty of other places where we are commanded to love each other.

After Jesus’s death, James wrote some important words. We usually think of James 1, because of James 1:5, and we think of James 2, because of faith and works, but James 3 is a really wonderful chapter. James 3:8–10 talks about how we need to say kind things: “But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.” He gives an analogy that a fountain doesn’t give good water and bad water. We use our mouths to say prayers and give talks and perform ordinances—do we use that same mouth to gossip about others or judge them? He says these things ought not to be.

Of course, in our dispensation, prophets continue to speak about love. [A previous speaker] used a quote I wanted to use from President Monson's last conference talk, so I had to find another quote, and I found where he quotes another prophet, President Kimball. He said, “Every day of our lives we are given opportunities to show love and kindness to those around us. Said President Spencer W. Kimball: ‘We must remember that those mortals we meet in parking lots, offices, elevators, and elsewhere are that portion of mankind God has given us to love and to serve. It will do us little good to speak of the general brotherhood of mankind if we cannot regard those who are all around us as our brothers and sisters.’”

And I know that when we appreciate other people as our brothers and sisters, and not speak evil or gossip about them, it will be easier to love them.

My Three Nephews

The good thing about working from home is that I can work wherever I want to. And because my nephews are in Utah, I get to go to my permanent home to visit them. I only get to see them twice a year (usually), so I try to see them when I can. Last year I worked on campus, so I couldn't come home during the week, but this year I can.

Preston is nine years old and has calmed down a lot from his younger years. He is very inquisitive. Sometimes he is intentionally annoying. Since he is older, he sometimes laughs at the same things we laugh at.

Franklin, at six, has become a delightful kid. When we were in California, one day we were on a car ride and he began asking me all sorts of "favorite" questions. They started out typical, like "What's your favorite color?" and "What's your favorite book?" Then he began looking around for ideas for more questions, like "What's your favorite window?" and "What's your favorite seat?" (Nathaniel ended up getting into the questioning too, and I ended up having to tell him that I don't think I had a favorite leaf when I was a little baby.) Franklin has also taken a liking to playing games. On the Fourth of July, he wanted to play Monopoly, because one of his classmates had played it. I told him it was hard and complicated. When we were playing it, he said, "I like this game. You said it was hard and complicated." But I was actually doing most of the work, just telling them what to do (it didn't help that the TV distracted them too.) Yesterday, he wanted to play chess with the Peanuts chess set I got for Christmas almost four years ago but never opened. (When I was ten, I was obsessed with chess, even though I wasn't any good at it, but now I don't like it.) Franklin played a very good game, although I had to help him. He was saying that my mom made a good recovery from her broken leg "for an old lady." I said, "She's not that old," and he said, "I know, she's just old. Old for her age."

Nathaniel (Qi-en) is four years old and is adorable, with his big half-Chinese eyes and his huge dimples. He has some major speech problems, which makes it funny, cute, and difficult when he goes off on some long-winded conversation you can't understand. He is very inquisitive and asks lots of questions, tagging a "why" or "how" again at the end. For example: "Why is the GPS telling us where to go if we already know? Why?" This week he asked me more questions about the sun. If I remember correctly and if I understood him, I think he was asking me why the sun shines in Utah but not in Taiwan (he having spent a month in Taiwan earlier this year). On Friday, I went on a walk with him and Franklin. Franklin kept running ahead, but Qi-en would stop and tell me he was waiting for me. He kept telling me he would help me when my legs got tired. I go running on hills all the time, so I didn't get tired, but it was good knowing he was there to help me if I did. He also ranks cuteness on size, so I'm the least cute in my family (since I'm tallest). This week we went to the aquarium (which I was really impressed with) and he saw his second cousins "Wallace" and John. Both of them are cuter than he is, and the baby is cuter than the three-year-old. Although Nathaniel has become a little less happy, he is generally a very happy kid and runs around with a little hop in his step, as indicated by this picture I snapped at Lassen Volcanic National Park.

I felt so happy, if a little guilty, yesterday when I was leaving and he said, "I don't want you to leave."

The bombs bursting in air

I think the Fourth of July is my fourth favorite holiday, after Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Halloween. But I suppose that's not saying much, since there are only eight holidays I formally celebrate, and the other competition includes Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day.

Last Sunday, while wearing my flag tie and flag socks, I went to a patriotic service in the Marriott Center. It was the first time I'd been to the Marriott Center since graduation. They had some patriotic music and speeches about America, and the keynote speaker was Laura Bush. When she was speaking, some rotten person began yelling things at her and he had to be taken out. My first thought was, "I hope that man gets hit by a car." I don't have a problem with people disagreeing with the policies of any given president, but this yelling was extremely distasteful. For one thing, she was the First Lady, not the president. Bush hasn't been the president for more than five years, and he never will be again. It seemed to me that that guy came to the service--which was only about America--and sat where he did just so he could do that, which I find completely deplorable, regardless of one's political views. Yelling at people never solved anything.

I have a tendency to feel guilty when I really know I shouldn't. I tend to hate applause, especially when it is excessive, and I hate standing ovations. There were a lot of those at the service. In protest, I only did minimal clapping and preferred not to stand. Thus when Laura Bush came in, I was still in protest mode, and I didn't stand up, because I was thinking, "Why are we standing up? She hasn't done anything yet!" But then I realized that we were standing not for applause but for respect, and I felt bad that I had been sitting. My standing was late.

I had to leave my apartment this week because they were painting the walls. We had to move a lot of our stuff, so I used the opportunity to take a lot of my stuff home. I needed to visit home anyway, because my nephews were coming. It's nice to have a job where I can go wherever I want.

While I was home, I took the opportunity to pull my bicycle down, pump up the tires, and go on a little ride. I haven't dared have my bike in Provo, since I had one stolen four years ago and had a seat/saddle stolen two years ago. I hope that whoever stole the bike gets in a violent crash and breaks his back and is forever paralyzed. I hope that whoever stole the seat trips while carrying it and has the post go through his eye. (OK, I know that's a little harsh, but I think it's funny to say those things, because that's everyone's knee-jerk reaction.)

Anyway, my little bike rides reminded me why I never learned to ride a bike when I was a kid. I've heard that we live on the steepest road in North Salt Lake, and biking on hills is no fun. I'm so out of practice biking that I didn't dare go very fast downhill, and going up was difficult, both because of physical difficulty and because of lack of practice. I didn't bike for very long, because I didn't like the thought of biking up more hills, and if I went down hills, I would have to come back up again.

On July 3, we went up to the Eaglewood golf course for the traditional firework display. Before they started, I had to take Nathaniel to the bathroom. While we were standing in line, our conversation went something like this, except that Nathaniel's consonants are all messed up:
"Why is the sun in half?"
"That's not the sun, that's the moon."
"Where did the sun go?"
"It went down already."
"Is the sun made out of fire?"
"Kind of." (Keep in mind that I was talking to a four-year-old.)
"Is it made out of lava?"
"Nope."
"Preston said it was made out of lava, but he was lying. Is the moon made out of fire?"
"No, the moon is made out of rocks."
"Why did they make it like that?"
"Because a really long time ago, in space, there were lots of pieces that stuck together and became rocks, and then lots of rocks stuck together and made the moon. And the earth."
"That happened a really long time ago?"

I wondered what the people around me thought of the conversation, because they probably couldn't understand Nathaniel.

Then on the Fourth of July, not too much happened. I watched the only Fourth of July movie I have, Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July. (I know, right?) That night we went to my sister's house for fireworks. Fireworks are sure different from how they were when I was a kid. Now they are illegal in my neighborhood, but aerial fireworks are legal elsewhere. While we set off little fireworks at my sister's house, her neighbors had giant aerial fireworks. They kind of freak me out; I can be a little paranoid. But they are fun to watch, as long as I feel that I'm a safe distance away. Independence Day is a fun holiday.

Then I came back to my apartment all in shambles. Dressers in the living room and kitchen, the beds off of their cinder blocks, and the living room full of furniture.

On vacation, part 2

I have a really annoying camera. Its biggest flaw is that it doesn't automatically flip the pictures when you take them sideways (seriously?), but it's also really annoying to change the settings, which means that in most cases it's just not worth fiddling with them.

So, here are my vacation pictures taken with my cheapo camera!

On June 18 and 19, we visited Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is kind of a mini Yellowstone but not as pretty. Here is some boiling groundwater. There used to be a large stratovolcano here, a volcano that towers high and is composed of layers of ash and lava. The volcano has been blown apart, but there is still heat underground. While Yellowstone's heat is an enigma, Lassen's is not. The oceanic plates are subducting underneath the continent, and water in the ocean floor messes with the mantle and makes magma come up into the continent, feeding the volcanism of the Cascade Mountains.

 We visited a lake called Emerald Lake. It gets its green color because it is shallow, thus allowing green algae to grow. The lake is in a cirque, a bowl-shaped feature carved out by glaciers.

 This is the only picture I got of Lassen Peak. It is a plug dome, meaning that very viscous lava came out and just kind of piled up, creating a dome instead of a peak (like a stratovolcano such as Mount Rainier) or instead of a shield (like Hawaii). It erupted in 1914 and 1915. We saw photographs of that eruption, which was 100 to 200 times smaller than the eruption of Mount St. Helens but was still very big.

 This is the only picture I got of all three of my nephews, Franklin (6), Nathaniel (4), and Preston (9). Nathaniel is prone to having funny pictures taken of him.

 You're lucky to get pictures of Franklin, because he hates having his pictures taken and tells you to delete him. He's a cute kid. Last year I described him as an "adorable, shy five-year-old who sometimes gets possessed by the devil."At age six, I think he's a little less shy. The kids got little books to be junior rangers, and one of their requirements was to ask a ranger four questions. Some of Franklin's questions were, "How much do you sleep?", "How many naps do you take?", and "What is your mother's name?" I think he gets possessed a little less often, although he still has the same sense of entitlement. His speech has really improved. On one car ride, I had a funny conversation with him in which we spoke in weird inhaling voices.

 We went and saw some waterfalls, although I can't remember what they were called. They were pretty waterfalls. Here, you can see where the water is falling from off the surface in some places, and where it is seeping out of the rocks next to it. The water coming out of the rocks seeped into the porous rock layer on top, but then it hit an impermeable layer and traveled underground until it came out here.

 After Lassen, we went to see Mount Shasta, which is the largest stratovolcano in the Cascades in terms of volume. We couldn't get very close to it, however, because the road was closed.

 On our way up, we saw some conical trees.

 On Monday, we went to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Redwoods are really big trees. Often the trees will grow in rings around where a previous tree existed.

 One of the trees had a hole in the top of it! I think this one was actually dead, but a lot of them look like they could be dead but they're not.

 A little bluejay kept following us around.

Later, we went to Fitzgerald Marine Reserve to observe the tidal pools. When the tide is down, you can see all sorts of interesting marine life. I was interested in the rocks, especially these limestone rocks that have little holes in them. While I'm not positive, I think that these holes form from shelled creatures taking the calcium from the limestone to incorporate it into their shells. I think it's pretty cool that millions of years ago, shelled creatures deposited the calcium from their shells as limestone, but today, they take it back.

 We saw sea birds and their tracks.

 I was interested in a distant piece of driftwood, not realizing that there was a colony of harbor seals right next to it. That's the first time I've seen seals in the wild.

 Qi-en makes a lot of funny faces.

 This rock outcrop here is some kind of mudstone. There is obviously a limestone layer underneath it.

 On Tuesday, we went back to the tide pools. The tide was lower, but it was a lot colder. We saw lots of little marine life, including snails, hermit crabs, and anemones.

 On Wednesday, my parents, my sister, and I left the kids behind to go see some cool places. We visited a Petrified forest. Not only was this a place of geologic specimens, it was also a place of grammatical specimens. Notice the unnecessary quotation marks around "concretions of iron." That's not a particularly unusual term. I mean, I would probably say "iron concretions," but I don't see why "concretions of iron" has the quotation marks. Also, I'm annoyed that it's all caps, because that makes it harder to read.

 There were lots of trees here. During the Pliocene Epoch, about 3.4 million years ago, volcanic ash buried this forest. The silica content of the ash leached into the trees and replaced the organic structures, turning them to quartz and silica. There are lots and lots of petrified trees here.

 This is Mount St. Helena (not to be confused with Mount St. Helens), the offending volcano.

 This is an outcrop of the ash-flow tuff, with some large "concretions of iron" in it. (See what I did there?)

 Here, a living tree is growing out of a rock tree!

 This is another grammatical specimen. Notice number 3. There should be an apostrophe after "geologists" to indicate that the pick and brush belong to geologists. But without the apostrophe, it creates a sentence that leads you "down the garden path," because you think "pick" and "brush" are verbs, but they're actually nouns. You start to read the sentence one way, but it's actually going another way.

 This shows a partially excavated tree, so you can see how much ash there was.

After the petrified forest, we went to the Charles M. Schulz museum. As a longtime Peanuts fan, I really liked the museum. They had lots of original Peanuts strips on display and had different Schulz factoids and artifacts. Even the restrooms had Peanuts themes; the tiles were comic strips. We also saw the giant mural of Peanuts strip tiles.

 

Outside, they had different Peanuts sculptures. One of them was supposed to be Woodstock's birdbath, and it had cool holograms of Snoopy and Woodstock playing hockey. I think there were six different holograms which you could see when you walked around it. 

When we came home, we found the kids playing outside. Nathaniel stuck his scooter in the fence and stood on it. "I won't wall down," he said, still not able to master his consonants.

These are about all the details of the trip I have time for, but I've included the most relevant pictures.

On vacation

I got a vacation!

I was frustrated with a lot of things. People, mostly. None of my assistants in my calling responded to an email I sent out. My "sweet bro" roommate/home teaching companion didn't respond to me about when he would be around. My other roommate left the state but he's too good for us so I didn't know it until someone else told me. My FHE group leaders didn't communicate to us. My roommates are very irresponsible with the food they keep in the fridge; I filled up an entire garbage bag of old food. I've become a bit of a tree hugger and recycle things, but I didn't recycle the containers because some of them were half food and half mold.

So it was good to forget about those Provo jerks for a time.

On Tuesday, I drove through September-esque rain to head home, first to go to my cousin Quin's setting apart for his mission. On my mom's side of the family, he's the first missionary since me. It weirds me out that I was in my last area five years ago at this time.

On Wednesday, I left with my parents, my sister, and my niece to head to California to visit my brother and his family.

On Thursday, we headed to Lassen Volcanic National Park, which I believe is the fourteenth national park I've been to, and the third one I've been to this year/in the last month. We met my nephews and their parents there. Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend much time there. Lassen has all four kinds of volcanoes (stratovolcanoes, cinder cones, plug domes, and shield volcanoes), but we didn't get to see much. Cinder cones are my favorite, but we didn't see any.

My youngest nephew, Nathaniel a.k.a. Qi-en, formerly known as Baby, is four years old and he kept asking where the lava was. We told him the rocks used to be lava, but I'm not sure he understood.

Lassen is a small national park, so I was surprised at the quality of the t-shirts. They actually had shirts I would want to wear. Some national parks, such as Zion, have just terrible t-shirt designs, ones that use the Papyrus font and are just plain ugly. I only imagine old people wearing them. (Disclaimer: I have nothing against old people, but I don't want to dress like something I'm not.) Last August I found a decent shirt at Bryce Canyon, but after I bought it I realized it was a woman's shirt, so I gave it to my niece. (Disclaimer: I have nothing against women, but I don't want to dress like something I'm not. Besides, it didn't fit me.)

At Lassen, there was lots of andesite, some basalt, and even some pumice. But I generally prefer sedimentary rocks; they tend to be easier to identify, and I think they tell better stories.

 We stayed in a rental cabin in Lassen, and then we drove to Mt. Shasta, which apparently is the largest stratovolcano in the Cascades. Before we loaded our stuff into our very fancy hotel rooms (my parents have gotten spendy), we needed to go get lunch. And having four kids in tow, they all wanted to go to McDonald's. I don't understand why McDonald's is the default favorite of kids, because it is awful. Even their decent food isn't that good. Anyway, my overly indulgent parents agreed to go to McDonald's six miles away in Weed, CA. That's what it's really called. On our way back, my mom decided she didn't want to go on the freeway again (yes, we went on the freeway to go to McDonald's). So we went on this little road that was quite adventurous. The paved part was really bumpy. Then it wasn't paved anymore. We passed numerous sites with old mattresses, dilapidated couches, and destroyed TVs, just sitting out in the middle of nowhere. Our road ended up going right next to a train track. It was bizarre and slightly terrifying.

Then we came down to Albany, CA, in the Bay Area, to visit my brother and his wife and my three nephews, Preston, Franklin, and Nathaniel. Today we went to the Berkeley Ward. They have an old chapel built in the 1930s; it is very ornate. That would have been back in the day when local members had to erect buildings themselves. It sure is different from all the cookie cutter churches we usually see.

At the end of this week, I'll be back to Provo with all its jerks. (And its nice people, too.)

Current events

I don't always talk about things that are going on in the world. But when I do, I'm glad that my blog is so unknown so that I don't get a lot of backlash.

Another day, another shooting. I share Obama's frustration about America's attitude about guns. Wake up, America! Is this the kind of country you want, where school shootings are commonplace events? Congress refused to pass very neutral policies last year. Opponents of such measures say, "To take our guns away will make only the bad guys have them and is unconstitutional." Well, guess what? No one was trying to take your guns away! The opponents say, "We should try to focus on mental health issues to prevent shootings." Well, guess what? You blew your chance there, because the plan was going to address mental health! You cannot look me in the eye and tell me that existing gun laws work. Because they don't. We need to try something else. Even if it's wrong, it can't be worse than what we have now.

Ordain women. The Mormon community has been abuzz that the founder of Ordain Women was summoned to a Church disciplinary council. Now, first of all, she hasn't been excommunicated, at least not yet. There are four possible outcomes of disciplinary councils: excommunication, disfellowship, Church probation, and no action. The council hasn't happened yet.

Now, I don't think that she is facing excommunication because she wants and is advocating for the priesthood. I don't think that's what it's about. It's about the way the Ordain Women movement is handling their desires. They asked for tickets to a priesthood session and were denied. They're not satisfied until they get what they want. They were respectfully and politely asked not to protest at general conference, and asked that if they did, that they not enter Temple Square. They refused to follow both of those requests. It's the antagonism of their behavior, not their desire for the priesthood, that is leading to Church discipline, in my opinion.

Also, I feel that the implication from them is that women who don't want the priesthood are ignorant, brainwashed housewives who are too dumb to think for themselves. (For examples of this attitude, see this Facebook page, which may soon be taken down.) If that's not demeaning to women, I don't know what is. I know plenty of women who do not want the priesthood--I have personally heard them say it--and here Ordain Women is trying to tell them what they want.

There has been a lot of discussion that we shouldn't judge the women who are seeking the priesthood. That's true. But there hasn't been as much talk for not judging the bishop who called for the disciplinary council. He deserves not to be judged just as much as everyone else.

Elbow room. Recently I heard an opposing opinion to that of the world becoming overpopulated. I don't know whether that is true. But one day I was curious about something I had read for work, and I stumbled across census data for the U.S. population from 1900 to 1999. It does look like the population isn't increasing as fast as it was (at least, that was the case fifteen years ago...). The biggest increases in population were in 1947, with the start of the Baby Boom, and 1950, when Alaska and Hawaii were counted in the population. The population actually decreased in 1918, with WWI.

I kind of hope the population quits growing so fast. Yesterday I was going on a walk to find some goatheads to pull up, and I thought I would go on the trail at the dead end on Constitution Way in North Salt Lake. I remember going on that trail as a kid, and I remember going there in Cub Scouts and finding cactuses, a sego lily, and a snake skin. Imagine my surprise when I got up to the dead end and discovered it's not a dead end anymore--there's an entire neighborhood where that trail used to be! No more cactuses and sego lilies.

All these things that I've done. Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that Brandon Flowers is the lead singer of the Killers and a football star?

Me-yow! Remember the story of the cat who attacked a family's baby and held the family hostage in their bedroom? In a rare instance of watching TV last night, I just happened to catch an episode of My Cat from Hell on Animal Planet, and I found out that that cat was generally a good cat, but it has a disorder that occasionally puts it in some kind of spinal pain and makes it want to attack people. The cat trainer on the show didn't think it would be safe in a house with a baby (it wouldn't be safe for the baby), so a cat foster family adopted it. It's on medications now to try to stop it from attacking.

Second chances. I found it kind of heartwarming to read an article about inmates graduating from high school. I think education is one of the best things for the criminally inclined. A lot of criminals--maybe even most of them--deserve second chances.

But not all of them. I read a story of a man who followed two eight-year-old girls and told them he was a police officer, out of uniform to make it easier to catch bad guys. Then he told one girl to go home, and he threw the other over a fence and sexually assaulted her. This "man" is just too depraved to deserve a second chance. When they catch him, he should be castrated, first of all, then he should be tied to the back of a truck and dragged down a gravel road, then dropped in some boiling saltwater, then thrown in a patch of poison ivy.

Next week, tune in for your regularly scheduled program.