Nicole's Sealing to Kristy and Chris

Nicole was sealed in the Albuquerque Temple to Kristy and Chris on Saturday, July 12, 2008. Chris's adoption of Nicole was finalized in March (see earlier post), so this was the final step in "completing" their family. All of the other kids attended the sealing -- Zach and Alexis having been previously sealed to their parents in 2007, and Maddison and Hailee having been born in the covenant. Nicole is a sweet and beautiful girl, and as always we're happy she's part of our family.

More on Darren's Mission

Here's a recent photo of Darren taken on the pitch of the local stadium in Comayagua, Honduras, an old colonial city that lies about an hour by car west of the capital. (As is evident in the pic, it's now the rainy season in Central America.) Darren has now been gone just shy of ten months, eight "in-country," and he just turned twenty years old on Monday. I'm very proud of the service he's rendering, and I pray constantly for his health, safety, spiritual growth, and success. No one who hasn't served a mission really knows what a sacrifice it is to leave family and friends, and to put one's personal life and schooling on hold, for a two-year enlistment in "God's Army." Likewise, no one who hasn't sent a son on a mission really knows how long two years can seem -- only now do I realize what it took for my parents to send four sons to the mission field.

Law School

It's now been twenty years since I graduated from law school (receiving my MBA at the same time); it's amazing to me that so much time has gone by. Occasionally, such as when I found a cache of my old papers while we were remodeling our family room several years ago, I remember what a strain school was and how hard I had to work for my degrees; however, mostly it's a blur in my mind now. Given that I didn't make much of my legal career, I tend now to regard law school as having been a waste of time -- or worse, in view of the fact that I took the easiest liberal-arts path possible through college in order to get to law school as quickly as I could, thus not majoring in anything that might actually have been conducive to a rewarding, lucrative career. (Even my MBA essentially had a "law" concentration.).

The photo above was taken shortly before graduation in 1988 -- I'm the fourth from the bottom on the far left side, wearing a shirt, tie, and sweater, with my hair parted on the left. I graduated ranked 18th in a class of 92, receiving the award for top tax-law student in the class. (I was always good at anything that involved interpretation of statutes or other complicated legal language.) By the way, I'm not attending the reunion advertised in the flyer.

The summer of 1988 was also memorable to me inasmuch as Darren was born on July 7 and I took (and passed) the New Mexico bar exam at the end of July.

June-July Utah Trip

We spent six nights in Utah visiting family and friends, driving up on Friday, June 27, and returning on Thursday, July 3. We spent the night of the 27th in Pleasant Grove with my brother Robin and his wife Karolyn, and then we drove up to Salt Lake City early the next day to pick Kiley up at EFY at the University of Utah. In order to conserve gasoline, we spent that day in town visiting Dorine's Aunt Frances (who lives in Dorine's dad's old family home off 7th East one block south of Liberty Park), her Uncle Bob (who lives in Holladay, near 39th South and 23rd East, with his wife Marilu), and her Aunt Afton (who lives in a retirement complex at 1st South and 1st East). Afton took us to see a concert in the atrium at her complex by a male vocal trio named "Sun Shade 'n' Rain," whom I remember seeing perform at BYU when I was a freshman in 1977 -- it's amazing they're still performing after all these years, although they still sound good.

That evening we drove out to Grantsville, where we stayed the next four nights with Dorine's brother Brian and his wife Dona and their kids, and we attended church with them on Sunday. On Monday we stayed in the general vicinity, taking one trip into Tooele so that the older kids could see a movie. Dorine and I shopped for a couple of hours there, trying unsuccessfully to refill my prescription for Ambien CR at the Wal-Mart (which doomed me to a couple of bad nights until I could get back here to Albuquerque). We planned to drive up into one of the canyons southwest of Grantsville for what has become our traditional family home evening picnic, but first I hurried over to the Grantsville HS stadium, intending to run a couple of miles on the track there. (It was hot as the infernal regions, however, and all I could manage was one-and-a-half miles.) The picnic was enjoyable, as usual, and the kids had fun playing in the stream.

The next day, Tuesday, Dorine, Kiley, and I drove up to Bountiful to pick up Ali Limburg, whom Dorine used to baby-sit when her parents, Doug and Amy, lived in our ward in Albuquerque. The four of us then spent the day at Lagoon, the large amusement park in Farmington. I probably had as much fun at Lagoon as I've ever had in six or eight trips there, as it wasn't too hot and I managed to steer clear of the most nausea-producing rides. Kiley and I rode the "Rocket" (which shoots the riders up in the air on a system of rails and then drops them back down) five times in a row, and we stood in line twice to ride the newest attraction, "Wicked," which is somewhat reminiscent of the "Excellerator" at Knott's Berry Farm in that it accelerates quickly and goes straight up and down over an arch (see photo above), although the seating configuration is different. That night we drove back to the Limburgs' house in Bountiful and had dinner with them -- steak, with Neilsen's frozen custard for dessert! -- later playing a card game with them that Ali called "Mormon Bridge" (which essentially is the same game we know as "Diminishing Rook"). Doug and Amy are traveling up a storm, just having returned from Hawaii and planning to fly down to Peru to see Machu Picchu in September.

We spent Wednesday morning playing with Brian and Dona's kids -- Miles is the undisputed "Carrom" champion, and Kiley and the girls made a video for the old Allan Sherman comedy number "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" -- before we returned back to Pleasant Grove. (The second photo above shows Kiley, in back, with her cousins [L-R] Rhea, Miles, Ellen, Linsey, and Olivia.) We stopped off at Brian's place of employment in SLC, Dynapac, to see him for a while before heading south on I-15, and then we stopped off at my brothers' (Jeff, Roger, and Robin) place of employment, DME Health Services in Pleasant Grove, to see them before going shopping in Orem. We spent that evening visiting with Robin, Karolyn, and Roger, also playing with my niece Meredith's twin boys Zander and Aidan, and then we drove home the following day (yesterday).

My MTC District - Puente Alto (January-March 1979)

This photo shows my MTC district (Puente Alto) in early March 1979, shortly before we departed Provo for the mission field. Standing (L-R): Gene Whiting (Grand Junction, CO), Steve Arbuckle (Van Nuys, CA), Wayne Illes (Mississauga, Ont., Canada), Ronald Dunn (Tacoma, WA), Scott Kimball (Long Beach, CA), Joe Grigg (La Cañada, CA). Sitting (L-R): Steve Timm (West Valley City, UT), Mark Anderson (Sacramento, CA), and Kevin Kartchner (Albuquerque, NM).

I could probably write an entire book about the MTC and all of my compadres in Puente Alto, but for purposes of this blog, I think I'll pass. I will say the following, however:

1. The MTC often seemed to me to be calculated to impose the utmost in adversity on the missionaries passing through it, and time hasn't altered that perception. Thank goodness, however, that someone finally saw the light concerning the "Speak Your Language" program as it existed then: nowadays, according to my son Darren, the "requirement" to speak exclusively in one's mission language doesn't kick in until after four weeks, and there is no longer a daily self-rating system (an odious guilt-trip mechanism that instilled in most of us little more than a strong tendency to rationalize).

2. Puente Alto definitely was composed of a bright bunch of guys, which stoked a fairly stiff level of "competition" in the classroom. I remember that we were the guinea pigs for a pilot program called "Teaching Skills," which was an early, unsuccessful precursor to today's teach-it-in-your-own-words missionary lessons. We were supposed to go out and dazzle our trainer companions with what we'd learned, a misguided notion at best; the worst part was that after our mission president later formally instructed us to scrap the program, we had to go back and re-memorize the "canned" discussions, putting everything back in that "Teaching Skills" had cut out or rearranged.

3. Except for Gene Whiting, who served somewhere in California, all of Puente Alto went to the Chile Santiago South Mission (which, as other missions were created in the metropolitan area and the mission boundary gradually moved southward, later became known as the Chile Rancagua Mission).

4. My companion in the MTC was Wayne Illes (although Joe Grigg was our companion in a "threesome" for a couple of weeks after Joe's companion Elder Hubbard went home with health issues). I think Wayne and I got along pretty well, given that we didn't share too many interests; however, he almost certainly regarded me as overly serious and self-focused, whereas I thought he had a few too many distractions in light of the task at hand. I remember one occasion when Wayne wanted to go to the mall in Orem on p-day, whereas I wanted to stay at the MTC, write letters, and unwind a little. We tried to arrange for an unofficial "split" with two other missionaries so that each of us could do what he wanted; however, our branch president, Max Caldwell (who was later called as a general authority), found out about it and gave me a pretty good dressing-down, telling me that I'd have to go out into the world soon enough and that I might as well practice for it by accompanying my companion to the mall. (In that light, I find it extremely ironic that missionaries routinely aren't even allowed to leave the MTC these days except to attend the temple.)

5. Ron Dunn, our district leader, was thirty years old when he began his mission, and of course he seemed ancient to the rest of us. I think the church has since imposed a maximum "starting" age of 26 for (single) male missionaries, and thus Ron couldn't have served today.

6. Looking back, it seems odd that Steve Timm was the only one of us who was from Utah. I think it says a lot about how demographics in the church have changed in the last generation that a much-greater proportion of young men who serve missions now, at least from the U.S. and Canada, seem to be from Utah. (Not only are Utahns the most fertile of Mormons, but many church members who grew up elsewhere -- my four brothers being good examples -- later settled in Utah, all of which serves to explain why the Wasatch Front is a mass of humanity and a giant traffic jam.)

As I stated above, I could write a lot more -- and perhaps one day I will -- but this is a good place to stop.

Juan Carlos Duque's "Promesas"

I recently was able to identify and locate a song, by a Chilean artist, that has long haunted my memories of my early days as a missionary in Santiago, Chile in 1979. One reason I'd had such difficulty locating it was that at least a couple of Chileans I'd known had unwittingly given me inaccurate information about the artist and the title of the song; thus, for decades I thought the song was called "No tengo a quién amar" and was sung by someone named Juan Antonio Laura. It's no wonder I could never find references to it on the Internet, inasmuch as the true artist was named Juan Carlos Duque and the song was actually titled "Promesas." I only discovered this recently when it occurred to me to do a Google search on "'no tengo a quién amar' + chile"; mirabile dictu, I found a few links that enabled me to ascertain the artist and title. Moreover, I was able to find another blog, http://pamaco.blogspot.com/2007/10/juan-carlos-duque-promesas-y-otros.html, which has a link to download a .rar file of Duque's greatest-hits album. (I want to make clear that I'm not in the habit of downloading copyrighted works for "free"; I will only do it if the music is otherwise unavailable. I'll be happy to buy a CD of the album if someone tells me how I can get it for a reasonable price.)

It turns out that "Promesas" was Chile's entry in the international competition in the 1979 "Festival de la canción" in Viña del Mar, Chile, and that it took third prize. That particular Festival took place just before my MTC group arrived from the U.S. in March 1979, which explains why the song was popular at that moment and why I associate it strongly with my first area in the comuna of La Florida in metropolitan Santiago.

The original recording of "Promesas" is somewhat clunkier than I'd remembered, as it has that annoying sort of late-70s/early-80s synthesizer vibe that doesn't even attempt to sound like another instrument. (It reminds me of the Vangelis soundtrack for the film Chariots of Fire, which sounded cool in the 80s but which now sounds completely incongruous with the subject matter and period depicted in the movie.) However, I still like the tune and the lyrics, and I'll probably try to work out a guitar arrangement and learn to sing it. I especially like the image of the man who has lost his love and thus feels shipwrecked and cast-away:

Soy un náufrago, un desierto,
y no tengo a quién amar.
Amar no es cosa de uno;
es algo entre tú y yo.
Tú te fuiste y solo estoy;
ya no siento más tu voz.
Murmullo de tristeza
un canto de soledad.

This tune also points up something interesting about Spanish-language poetry, which I would not have learned had I not majored in Spanish in college. It is that whereas poetic meter in English depends heavily on where accents fall, it is acceptable to "misplace" accents in Spanish poetry. (It's notable that a sonnet in English must be written in iambic pentameter -- ta-DA-ta-DA-ta-DA-ta-DA-ta-DA -- whereas a sonnet in Spanish must only have a specified number of syllables per line.) This explains why the word "canto" in the last line of "Promesas" comes out as "cantó" when it's sung. When I was going through the MTC, I remember that I was often a little dismayed by the "misplaced" accents in the Spanish translations of LDS hymns; in fact, I remember one of our teachers, "Elder" Rob Smead, telling us he didn't like how many of the hymns were rendered in Spanish for that very reason. However, knowing what I know now, I realize that phenomenon was perfectly normal in the context of the Spanish language. What dismays me now is the fact that the church has gone back and re-translated many or most of the hymns from the old Spanish hymnal to give them a more-literal rendering from the English, which to my way of thinking destroyed most of the poetry inherent in them. (I wonder whose idea that was!)

(Update: I couldn't find Duque's original version of "Promesas" on Youtube; however, I did find a "modern" version done by María Jimena Pereyra. Note that she changes the last line of the chorus to "Murmullo de tristeza mi canción en soledad," which causes the accent to fall "naturally.")


[Update January 31, 2009: There is now a Youtube video of Duque's original recording.]

Mid-June Update

I'm really running out of things to write about these days! I thought about writing about the upcoming fall elections, especially now that the candidates (for president, for U.S. Senate [Pete Domenici's seat], and Congress [Heather Wilson's First District seat]) are known. However, I don't have any particularly original observations to make, although I will say that whereas I don't regard the Republicans' slate of candidates (John McCain, Steve Pearce, Darren White) as ideal, they're way preferable to their Democrat opponents.

Devery and Easton are headed to Puerto Peñasco, Mexico next week to spend time with Easton's family (his parents are part-owners of a large house there). Kiley will head off next Saturday with the Phelps family to Utah, where she'll be attending Especially for Youth (EFY) at the University of Utah with Samantha Phelps. We plan to drive up to pick Kiley up from EFY, although I have to say I'm less than enthused about yet another trip to Utah, notwithstanding the fact that it will probably be our big "vacation" for the summer. (Sometimes I really miss the Las Vegas of old!) My mother is flying up to Utah on Monday to attend the wedding of my brother Jeff's daughter Jamie, although air travel (especially getting in and out of the airport) is becoming a greater ordeal for Mom all the time.

Darren has received a transfer to the Honduran city of Comayagua, which I believe is about 50 miles west of metropolitan Tegucigalpa / Comayagüela. He's also now a senior companion, and his companion's name is Elder Guymon -- I wonder if he's related to Jim Guymon, a local Albuquerque high-school basketball legend from the mid-1960s (about whose Pistol Pete-like skills my brother Roger still raves just about every time he and I talk). I hope Comayagua turns out to be a good area for them!

We've found out that the Albuquerque Youth Symphony (AYS) will indeed be taking a tour to Australia next summer -- of course, it will be winter there -- which, where Kiley is concerned, means we have our fund-raising work cut out for us. The tour will entail several performances, including one at the Sydney Opera House (!), a stay of several nights with an Australian family (selected by a local youth or school orchestra), and, I think, three nights in a beachfront hotel on the Gold Coast. It should be the trip of a lifetime for Kiley, and thus I'm excited for her.

Tubing on the Rito Blanco

This photo shows Kiley, Devery, and Easton innertubing on the Rito Blanco, right at its confluence with the larger Rio Blanco (which confluence is near Pinegrove cabin). Right now the "Rito" is running higher than I've ever seen it before (some years it's completely dry at this time of year). The main river not only has diminished flow due to the San Juan-Chama Diversion Project (which channels water across the Continental Divide into the Rio Grande for use by the City of Albuquerque), but it also has numerous rock structures, intended to deepen and narrow the river channel, that impede any kind of rafting. In contrast, the 300-yard stretch of the "Rito" between the first upstream bridge and the confluence made for very fun (if cold) innertubing on this trip. The kids hit on the idea of lashing three tubes together, which made it easy to avoid running into tree branches and the bank.

At Pinegrove Cabin

I'm posting this from Pinegrove Cabin, the timeshare near Pagosa Springs, Colorado in which my in-laws invested almost thirty years ago. (See my earlier post about it from January.) It will be an annoyingly short stay--we drove up last night and will drive home tomorrow afternoon--but, well, we're here. The kids have been in the river, which is running higher and colder than normal, and we'll be going into town this afternoon for our usual extended shopping jaunt--food store, candy store, outdoor store, Alco, and the malt shoppe. (Thankfully, we'll be skipping our usual drive to Treasure Falls and the overlook located up the road from the falls.) This is actually Dorine's brother Don's week, but he and his wife Margarita invited the rest of us to come up. Kristy and Chris (and kids) are here, along with Devery and Easton, Kiley, and Don and Margarita's daughter Rosita. This photo, taken a half-hour ago, shows me (and Chris) on the deck. I look forward to taking a long walk later with Dorine, and maybe we'll put together a puzzle and watch a movie tonight.

Next week is girls' camp -- oh, joy!

Chimney Canyon Hike

A day spent hiking in the Sandia Mountains is almost always a good day, and today was no exception. I hiked up the difficult Chimney Canyon "route," and then back down the La Luz Trail, with my friend John Brewer, John's son Jeff, and Jeff's friends Andrew and Bo. Chimney Canyon is one of the wildest places in the entire Sandia range, as evidenced by this photo, which shows the "Chimney" formation from about half-way up the loose, steep (and spooky) couloir that one must scramble up to reach the top of the "route." I was a little anxious about how I'd do on the hike with my 49-year-old body, but I did fine: well-fitting boots, plenty of ibuprofen (the true "fountain of youth"), my trusty trekking poles, lots of good conversation, and all the miles I put in on the treadmill saw me through. John and I also have plans to hike up the North Crest Trail (probably in July) and up to South Sandia Peak (via the Whitewash and the upper portion of the Embudito Trail, probably in September). John loves the Sandias as much as I do -- and we're pretty close in age and have similar interests -- so we make good hiking companions.

Family News Update

A few things have happened recently that deserve mention. First, Easton H_____, Devery's husband, was able to secure a summer job at Bradbury Stamm, a large local commercial construction contractor. He probably couldn't have found a better job, as it pays well and gives him some good project management experience for his resume. Devery regained her "L" clearance at the end of her first week at Sandia, so she no longer has to be escorted everywhere inside the limited area. Kristy and Chris are now settled in their new home, and we're hoping Chris will have time to do some repairs to some of our cars, especially the 1990 Geo Prizm and the 1994 Dodge Shadow that we've kept for Dorine and Kiley, respectively, to drive. Kristy's twins, Hailee and Maddy, are both doing well, although they still look hardly anything alike. Heidi and Dion drove down to El Paso to pick up a new Nissan truck after Dion's old truck was stolen out of their driveway several weeks ago. Dorine and Kiley, out of school for the summer, will be going to stake girls' camp at Tres Ritos (a boy scout camp in northern New Mexico) in a few weeks. Our stake decided to cancel the youth handcart trek it had previously scheduled for late July and has rescheduled it for next June -- which is a relief to us, since Dorine and I were called to be a "ma and pa" and we weren't sure how the whole thing was going to come off this year. We will be going to the cabin in Colorado in a couple of weeks; I'm hoping Easton and Devery can both get that Friday off, so that we can drive up on Thursday night and spend three nights there. (With gas being as expensive as it is, I consider any trip of less than three nights to be not worth the travel expense.) Kiley is still very excited about having made AYS for next school year, and she almost can't wait for the AYS camp in August (at the Hummingbird Music Camp in the Jemez Mountains), although she has both girls' camp and EFY in SLC to do first. Darren still doesn't say much in the e-mails he sends us on Mondays from Honduras, but I think he'd like to get out of the city and off in the sticks somewhere. I hope he still enjoys the missionary work and is acquiring greater love for the Honduran people. I'm still not sleeping well at night without medication, but I do have an appointment to see the sleep specialist this week -- we'll see if he has any ideas. I'm also not thrilled about certain developments that are taking place on the admin side of the house at Sandia Labs, but since it's all beyond my ability to control, I have no choice but to roll with the punches.

Congratulations, Kiley!

The results of the 2008-2009 Albuquerque Youth Symphony auditions have been published (http://www.aysmusic.org/), and, to our intense delight and relief, Kiley was selected for the Youth Symphony cello section! The larger Albuquerque Youth Symphony program, which arguably is one of the best youth orchestra programs in the country, has two high school-age groups -- the Youth Symphony (AYS) is the "A" group, and the Youth Orchestra (AYO) is the "B" group -- and Kiley, having been in AYO the last two years, was going to be extremely disappointed if she didn't make AYS this year as a junior.

I have a few observations to make:
1. We knew the competition for cellos would be stiff this year, but the results demonstrate it was positively brutal; the fact that Kiley came out of it with the desired result is something for which she and her parents can feel richly blessed. (The competition should ease considerably next year, as eight of the twelve '08-'09 AYS cellists are seniors.)
2. At least one cellist who was in AYS last year was relegated to AYO this year, which is strong evidence to us that the audition process truly is blind and impartial, and that, as the standard investment disclaimer goes, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns.
3. My enthusiasm for Kiley's placement in AYS is tempered a little by the fact that one of her friends and fellow cellists from her high school, who'd already played three years in AYO, still didn't make AYS as a senior. That fact, combined with the fact that an incoming freshman cellist (from another high school) did make AYS, served to dispel the idea I had that a senior would have an inherent advantage over underclassmen in the selection process. (A perfect result from my perspective would have put both Kiley and her friend in AYS; it wouldn't have killed the ninth-grader to serve a one-year apprenticeship in AYO, no matter how good a cellist he is.)
4. Several capable cellists apparently (and surprisingly) didn't even audition this year, probably not wanting to play another year in AYO yet sensing how tough the competition to get into AYS would be.
5. Kiley's friend from church, Bethany Roper, a harpist who also played in AYO the last two years, likewise made AYS this year (although Bethany's "promotion" was nearly a foregone conclusion after both of last year's AYS harpists graduated).
6. Kiley is excited about playing in AYS -- for one year, anyway -- with her good friends from the school orchestra Aaron Feeney (cello), Alex Doerfler (violin), and Kristin Cordwell (violin), seniors all.
7. Kiley is happy for her younger friends Jessica Robertson (cello), Dylan Reames (cello), and Samantha Parker (bass), all of whom made AYO (although Samantha's family very probably will move from Albuquerque this summer when her father takes an out-of-state job).
8. There is a rumor that AYS will take a foreign tour next year, perhaps to Australia, and Kiley is excited about the prospect of traveling overseas for the first time in her life.

None of this will come cheap, of course, especially for a family of relatively modest means, but of course we think Kiley's worth the sacrifice.

The 6th Ward Junior Basketball Team, 1977

This washed-out photo shows the Albuquerque 6th Ward junior (young men's) basketball team in 1977, my senior year in high school. It was taken right after the stake tournament championship game, which we lost to the Los Alamos Ward due to two factors. One, we decided to play by the "rules" (at least as we understood them at the time) and play only one non-member at a time. (At that precise moment, we had three non-members -- Brian Bennett, Tracy Carroll, and Chris Carroll -- although Tracy and Chris were only days from joining the church.) And two, the refereeing was so one-sided, in Los Alamos' favor, as to be completely laughable. (I won't name the culprit, as he still lives in our stake, but suffice it to say that he always had it in for our ward and, especially, the Kartchner family. He made so many bad, obviously biased calls against us that day that he finally started making up rules by the end of the game.) If we had played Brian, Tracy, and Chris at the same time that day, we'd have wiped up the floor with Los Alamos regardless of the pathetic refereeing, but c'est la vie. We looked forward to doing well in the regional tournament after Tracy and Chris were baptized, but then Tracy, our best outside shooter, came down with the flu and couldn't play; consequently, we ended up losing to 1st Ward, a team we had beaten easily earlier in the year in a holiday tournament. My junior basketball "career" then ended with a win in the regional consolation bracket against a team from the San Luis Valley in Colorado, in which I remember sustaining a bloody nose from an elbow that a kid on the other team threw during a jump ball. (It seems weird to write of jump balls now after a generation of the "alternating possession" rule.)

That year, we probably had the best starting five (me, Brian, Tracy, Chris, and Carl Prestwich) of any junior team I played on, and I think we would have won regionals if we'd had all our guns. I was at the apex of my basketball abilities; Brian, though he didn't play on his high school team, was good enough to go on to play college ball at McMurry College; and Tracy and Carl both eventually became better basketball players than I ever was. I always loved basketball when I was a teenager and was very grateful for the church sports program, which was, at least in those days, a good missionary tool -- during the three years I was in high school, at least five kids who played on our basketball teams converted, and I believe three of them are active church members to this day. However, I have to say that I don't miss the strife and contention that naturally resulted from competitions among various church members with overinflated opinions of their own athletic prowess (among whom I count myself).

My interest in playing basketball tailed off dramatically as the result of serving a church mission (during which two years I played hoops maybe 5-6 times). I played on church, city, and/or base league teams for a number of years after that, but I lost a lot of ground during my mission and never really got it back, and my RK surgery in 1994 pretty much ruined whatever hand-eye coordination I had left at that point. Nowadays, a basketball might just as well be a large rock for how foreign it feels in my hands!

The people in the picture are: (Top Row, L-R): Kevin Kartchner, Tracy Carroll, Brian Bennett; (Middle Row, L-R): Ken Foley [head coach and my best friend in high school and beyond], Chris Carroll, Carl Prestwich, Rick Baca [assistant coach and my first cousin]; (Bottom Row, L-R): David Williamson, Bryan Porter, Rick Foley.

"I'm an Elder"

Recently I was reminded of a tongue-in-cheek song I wrote in 1979-80 while I was a missionary in Chile, titled "I'm an Elder." It's sung to the tune of the Spencer Davis Group's "I'm a Man," a great live version of which (from Finnish TV in 1967) can be viewed in the following Youtube embed. (The photo at left shows the Spencer Davis Group, featuring Steve Winwood, as it existed in the era of "I'm a Man" and "Gimme Some Lovin'," before Winwood left to form Traffic.)

The words reveal a measure of irreverence on my part -- I've never been one to bow down before sacred cows. In contrast, it seems like LDS church members with any kind of sense of humor are becoming a scarce commodity (especially in our ward), so it's doubtful that many of them would appreciate the irony in my lyrics. Nonetheless, I think most people who have served LDS missions can identify with my attempt at making wry observations about mission life, even if they cluck their tongues at me personally.

I'm an Elder

Well, I'm out here on my mission--
No better place to be,
If I could get my mind off
All the snakey chicks we see.
My comp is pretty silent--
Doesn't say too much to me--
But I will say one thing for the dude:
He loves to watch TV.

(Refrain)
I'm an elder, I am, and I got to put up with it.
I'm an elder, I am, and I got to put up with it.

Well, I got to keep on knockin',
'Cause we ain't got no families.
Diarrhea's got me trottin',
And I got a million fleas.
The water heater's busted,
And I'm just about to freeze.
I'll eat those fresh strawberries,
Just don't feed me no beans, please.

(Refrain.)

Well, the prez and the assistants
Are gettin' down on my case;
They think my attitude is rotten,
And my character is base.
I don't know what I did
To become such a big disgrace.
All my dreams aren't what they seemed--
It's all a big rat race.

(Refrain.)

Well, I've finally seen the light,
As you can probably tell.
I didn't think I heard right
When they told me I'm ZL.
I wasn't quite so blind
Not to see eternity,
But I blew my mind just trying to find
The spiritual side of me.

(Refrain.)

Caving Again

On Saturday, May 10, I guided another church youth group -- this time, the priests and Laurels from my home ward, the Indian School Ward -- through Alabaster Cave, which, as I mentioned in my original post on caving in January, is located near San Ysidro, New Mexico. It was another successful (if bruising) outing, despite the fact that I still couldn't find the "normal" route through the cave; somehow I keep ending up at the second-to-last "exit" and having to squeeze past it, although at least "my" way still leads to the "bottom" of the cave. There one faces a choice between wading out through the "lake" or taking the upper passage through the infamous "Birth Canal" (and having to do the little climbing problem at the end to traverse over the last part of the "lake"). I talked most of the group into going through the "Birth Canal" (Bishop Morrison still demurred, but at least the "lake" wasn't as deep this time); a couple of people had a few problems getting through, which made me think twice (more like twenty times) about doing it myself, especially since I'd had such a hard time the last time through (see the photo in my January post). However, I finally sucked it up and did the squeeze, and, since I did it in the "correct" orientation this time (left arm up), I basically went right through. That made my day, at least until I got back to town late and barely missed Kiley's performance in a cello recital.

Our party consisted of Steve Morrison, Joshua Merrill, Anthony Lucia, Rachelle Thompson, Jessie Raney, Aaron P_____, Tyler Kiernan, Forrest Mike, Nohemi Aldaco, Samantha Phelps, and me.

(The photo above shows Rod Williamson going through the "Birth Canal" on an earlier trip; it gives a good idea of what the squeeze looks like going in. It's only about four or five feet long, but it's pretty claustrophobic just the same.)

Another Update on Darren's Mission

Darren has now been in the mission field for eight months, including six months in Honduras. When his last companion, Elder Herrera, went home, we thought Darren might be made senior companion in his existing area; alas, he was assigned a new senior companion, Elder Shumway (second from left in photo), who's from somewhere in southern Utah. They share a small house with Elder Hall (far right), who's from northern Utah (and reportedly was Elder Shumway's companion in the MTC), and his companion Elder Aguilar (far left), who's from El Salvador. Darren probably has relatives in common with Elder Shumway, as I have Shumway first cousins -- the offspring of my father's sister Merle Kartchner Shumway and her husband Carroll Shumway -- one of whom is Eric Shumway, formerly the president of BYU-Hawaii and currently the president of the Tonga temple. We got to talk to Darren on the phone for Mother's Day, and he sounded good. He may have to wait until his birthday in July for his next package, but I'm sure we'll make it worth the wait.

The Knobs

This photo shows me (left) with my college buds from BYU -- Bob Maes, Galen Kekauoha, and Jeff Aldous. Collectively, we were known as (and continue to call ourselves to this day) the "Knobs." I'm certain the appellation has crude and antisocial origins, but it seemed to fit; it was even the name we gave our intramural basketball team. We all got to know each other during our freshman year, 1977-78, living in Penrose (T) Hall in BYU's Deseret Towers dorm complex (which, incidentally, is in the process of being torn down now). Bob and I were roommates in T-720 -- we were both from Albuquerque, although, being from opposite sides of town and different stakes, we hadn't known each other previously. Galen and Jeff were cousins who, though they didn't know each other particularly well, decided to room together, and they lived next-door to Bob and me in T-721.

We all had a lot of interesting experiences together as freshmen, but two of our favorite pastimes stand out in my mind. The first was a basketball-based game we invented in which all of the participants (generally 3-4 persons) worked together against gravity. The aim was to see how many consecutive baskets we could make without having the ball touch either the ground or a person who was touching the ground. The ball was put in play by someone's shooting a free throw, and if the shot missed, someone either had to tip the ball in the basket or at least keep it in play by jumping off the ground and tipping it to someone else who could make the shot. I don't remember all the specific rules we made up, but the game always ended when the ball hit the ground or someone couldn't quite get off the ground when handling it. Due to all the funny bounces a basketball tends to take off a rim, it was a lot harder than it sounds; however, I remember we set a record one night at the Smith Fieldhouse (during a dance that we'd skipped out on) of something like 130.

The other pastime I remember was the late-night bull sessions we used to have: we'd pack about 8-12 guys together in someone's dorm room, turn out the light, and shoot the breeze in the dark about anything and everything for a couple of hours. You'd think that would get boring after a while, but we never seemed to get tired of it.

The above photo was taken during a Knobs reunion we had in 1999 at Zion National Park in southwest Utah, which was memorable to me for (a) our hiking up to the airy summit of Angels' Landing, and (b) our sloshing our way up the "Narrows" and Orderville Canyon. Bob and I have since gone backpacking together in the Grand Canyon twice, in 2001 and 2006, but the four of us haven't really gotten together in a while now. Bob and Jeff live in Utah Valley (Bob in Cedar Hills and Jeff in Provo), and Galen lives in Van Nuys, California.

May 5, 2008

I turned 49 years old today, the same age my father was when he baptized me in 1967. (My father, were he still alive, would turn 90 in another week and a half.) Last year, some journalist whose name I don't remember now put some rather withering perspective on the passage of time by noting that the same number of years -- forty -- had passed since the so-called "Summer of Love" in 1967 as had gone by in 1967 since the height of the Roarin' Twenties. I often go back in my mind to earlier times in my life that perhaps I'd like to re-live; however, as I've often said, there hasn't been any part of my life that I'd care to revisit if it meant that I'd also have to live out all the intervening years again. It's been a long journey to get where I am in life, and if I'm not always happy with the road I've taken, at least I'm smart enough to realize that there's no turning back now. I just wish I felt assured that the rest of my life -- whether it be five years or forty -- will be worth living, because from my perspective I see only more and more of the same. Such is the pall that a long-term sleep disorder casts over someone's existence.

Late April Update

Lately I've been running out of topics about which to write essays. I find that irksome, although it was more or less inevitable that this blog, to the extent that I continued to post to it, would devolve into a diary of sorts. Thus I feel a need to write something about what is happening in our family right now. I seem to be doing pretty well with my new sleep meds; the most critical thing in the short term was to get off Temazepam, but I think I'll also be able to get off Lunesta soon as well, which will leave me taking only Rozerem. And I think it will be much easier to wean myself off Rozerem than it would have been to go "cold turkey" off the combination of Temazepam and OTC "Simply Sleep" that I was taking every night. The "VPAP Adapt SV" machine, apart from "curing" my problem with complex sleep apnea, has the added benefit of filtering out most of the nasty pollen that permeates the air in Albuquerque at this time of year.

Dorine, who works for the Albuquerque Public Schools, will have the summer off work. She's our ward YW camp director this year, and of course she's playing softball again this summer with her team the "Lady Saints" -- although she only actually plays when she has to fill in, as softball for her is much more a social event (giving her a chance to see and converse with friends whom she doesn't otherwise see much) than an athletic one. I usually go with Dorine to the games, as I enjoy keeping score and engaging in a little badinage with the team.

Kristy and Chris are about to move from their current rental home into a newer, larger one (belonging to Jimmy Romero, a member of our bishopric, and his wife Joy), which will be a boon to them and their suddenly large family. Their kids are all doing well, and the twins are thriving, although I'm certain Kristy can't wait for them to start eating solid food so that they'll sleep more at night.

Heidi and Dion are likewise doing well. Heidi will probably work more shifts this summer in her job as labor-and-delivery nurse at Presbyterian Hospital, now that Dorine will be more available to babysit Kayla. Dion's business installing satellite-TV systems is as "dynamic" as usual, and he stays pretty busy. Kayla is still a lot of fun, at least when her mother isn't around and she has no reason to be fussy.

Devery and Easton will be living with us this summer as Devery does another student internship at Sandia National Labs. With Devery working at Sandia (and Easton beating the bushes to find summer employment here as well), and with their living rent-free in our home for 2-3 months, they saw that they could save quite a bit of money to help get them through next school year at BYU. (Devery hopes to graduate in December, and Easton reportedly has another year of school after that.) And, of course, we're really happy to have them and look forward to doing some fun things with them this summer.

Darren's missionary companion Elder Herrera is about to finish his mission and go home, and we're anticipating that Darren will stay in the same area and receive his first assignment as senior companion. (I'm hoping he has at least a few baptisms in the first 2-3 weeks to get him off on the right foot as senior.)

Kiley just received an academic letter from her high school and is working hard to prepare for her audition for the Albuquerque Youth Symphony cello section on May 12. She's also trying to log enough driving hours this summer to get her provisional driver's license by the time school starts up again in August.

I look forward to this summer -- hiking, bouldering, a trip to the cabin in early June, family camping trips, a vacation trip in late June and early July, maybe a little overnight backpacking in the Sandias, the stake youth handcart trek in the latter half of July, maybe a trip to Ft. Stanton Cave, and hopefully a backpacking trip with Bob Maes to the Pecos Wilderness in the early-September timeframe. I need all the outdoor activities!

Sleep Disordered, Part 4

I've now gone back to see the nurse practitioner at our primary-care physician's office about trying to kick my dependency on sleep meds. For months, I'd had to take a combination of one 30mg Temazepam (Restoril) capsule and two caplets of "Simply Sleep," (Tylenol-PM without the Tylenol, or diphenhydramine hydrochloride [i.e., benadryl]) to sleep through the night. Temazepam is a pretty nasty med when used habitually, and it was starting to have a few side effects that made it clear I needed to get off it. The NP has prescribed a protocol that at least will get me off Temazepam and on Rozerem, which supposedly isn't a sedative but, rather, is supposed to help restore the body's natural sleep rhythm. For the first two weeks, I'll be taking 2mg Lunesta with 8mg Rozerem, then cutting down to 1mg Lunesta with 8mg Rozerem, then cutting down to just the 8mg Rozerem. Eventually, I'd like to take nothing (and like it!), but we'll see. I've been on the new protocol for three nights, and each night seems to be better than the last; I think I'm actually suffering a few mild withdrawal symptoms for leaving off the Temazepam, but that could be simply the effect of the mulberry pollen that's at high levels in Albuquerque currently.

My Favorite Websites

I probably spend too much time on the Internet, although nowadays it is far and away my biggest source of news and information. Over time I've tended to gravitate to a central core of websites, and here are my favorites:
1. National Review Online (http://www.nationalreview.com). I regard National Review Online as my most-indispensable website. The quality and quantity of conservative political commentary on NRO is extremely high, and the tenor of the articles is almost always thoughtful and measured.
2. SteynOnline (http://steynonline.com/). Mark Steyn is simply the wittiest, most cogent, and most tell-it-like-it-is political writer of our time. His prose must be the envy of every left-leaning pundit in America.
3. Best of the Web Today (http://online.wsj.com/article/best_of_the_web_today.html). "Best of the Web Today" is really just a feature of the larger Wall Street Journal website, written by James Taranto. Taranto is masterful at deconstructing other people's writing and putting it in a logical context.
4. YouTube (http://youtube.com/). I'm constantly amazed at all the old video clips of bands from the 1960s and 1970s that can be viewed on YouTube. Just one example: Someone uploaded several clips from Finnish TV of the Spencer Davis Group (featuring a very young Steve Winwood) performing live in 1967. Who could have imagined, even ten years ago, that video that old, from that obscure a source, would find a world-wide audience?
5. Real Clear Politics (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/). A great source of political commentary from across the philosophical spectrum.
6. Lucianne.com (http://lucianne.com/). Lucianne.com is, in essence, a conservative version of DailyKos, where one can post links to articles and then comment on them. The quality of the commentary isn't always great (although it's certainly much less profane than that found on DailyKos), but it's often as instructive and insightful as the articles themselves.
7. eBay (http://www.ebay.com/). I've sort of reached a saturation point in terms of buying things on eBay, especially as sellers in general have become more savvy about the market value of the items they sell (thus making bargains increasingly hard to come by). In short, I buy things that I perceive I need or want (and can afford), and gradually I've met all those needs and wants; however, eBay remains a great place to find merchandise that you can't find at the local Wal-Mart.
8. SuperTopo Climbing Forum (http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/forum.html). SuperTopo is a commercial concern started by Chris McNamara, aid-climber extraordinaire, to sell rockclimbing "topos," or route maps/descriptions. The forum, despite being the cyber-hangout of scores of burnt-out old hippies with paleo-liberal views (and the inevitable ad hominem attacks that seem naturally to flow therefrom), is special for two reasons: (1) the regular participation of dozens of living rockclimbing "legends"; and (2) the posting of many interesting and hard-to-find climbing photos and articles.
9. Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com/). The Weekly Standard is another conservative political site that often contains even-better content than NRO; I rate it lower, however, due to the limited quantity of online articles.
10. Classmates.com (http://www.classmates.com/). This site embodies a great concept -- bringing old school friends and acquaintances back together -- but it has two drawbacks from a practical perspective. The first is that much of the content is only available to paying members. The second is that most people's level of participation is so low (or non-existent, in the case of many of the folks I'd really like to know about) that the content isn't really worth paying for. (I'd say people generally aren't all that interested in being contacted or in revealing much about themselves, perhaps with good reason.)
11. ESPN (http://espn.go.com/). I used to visit this site much more often than I do now, but it's still the best overall Internet source for sports-related news and commentary.
12. ICECAP (http://icecap.us/). A great place to find articles and commentary concerning the overblown nature of herd-science's claims about anthropogenic climate change.
[13. Albuquerque Tribune (http://www.abqtrib.com/). The Trib website used to be one of my favorites, at least until the paper folded and they stopped updating the website. I liked the layout, the high level of content (we took the paper itself, but really only so that Dorine could do the puzzles), and, especially, the forum that followed each and every article, which was much nicer than having to write to the editor.]

[Update 1/14/2011: At this late date I'd include Facebook and Amazon.com in this list, and I probably would leave Classmates.com off but for the yearbooks it has uploaded to its site, which is its only feature worth paying for.]

My Fifty Favorite Films

For some time, I've been considering making a list of my favorite movies and writing about why I like them. Here goes..

1. The Sting (1973): I've watched The Sting so many times now that I'm tempted to shove it further down the list; however, if I had to take one movie with me to a desert island, this one would be it. Simply put, I love the way it captures perfectly both a moment in American history and the Depression-era "con man" criminal subculture. Its plot twists do seem pretty manipulative after the first couple of viewings, but that's my only criticism of it. (Favorite line: "Sorry I'm late, guys.  I was taking a crap!")

2. North By Northwest (1959): I regard North By Northwest (followed closely by Rear Window and Psycho) as the pinnacle of Alfred Hitchcock's film art. The plot grows increasingly unbelievable as the movie goes on -- culminating in the contrived chase scene across the face of Mt. Rushmore -- but Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill makes a great protagonist, and no film villain was ever better than James Mason as Phillip Vandamm. It wasn't a period piece when it was made, but it has turned into the perfect snapshot of the late 1950s as the U.S. was then experiencing the Cold War. (Favorite line: "Now, what can a man do with his clothes off for twenty minutes?")

3. My Favorite Year (1982): Most people would consider this film an obscurity, at best, but it's probably my favorite movie comedy. Peter O'Toole is masterful as the aging ex-movie idol Alan Swann, and Mark Linn-Baker makes the perfect "little jiminy-cricket pest bastid" -- the young TV writer Benjie Stone. The film is full of memorable one-liners and physical comedy, and I never tire of watching it. (Favorite line: "This is for ladies only!"  (zip!) "And so is this, ma'am, but every now and again I have to run a little water through it.")

4. Lord of The Rings (Trilogy) (2001-2003): I won't even try to distinguish among the three parts of the trilogy (The Fellowship of The Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of The King); except for the nine-plus hour length of the complete story (and the fact that it comes on three DVDs), I regard it as seamless. I've tried several times to read the book, but I always get bogged down in Tolkien's insufferable minutiae; the film, in contrast, distills the essence of the story -- and all its good parts, changing them as necessary -- down to a great epic-movie tale. (I do have one question, however: If it's so easy for Gandalf and his eagles to come rescue Frodo and Sam on Mount Doom in Mordor after the Ring of Power is destroyed, couldn't they simply have surreptitiously flown Frodo there in the first place?) (Favorite line: "Fool of a Took! Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity!")

5. The Odd Couple (1968): I remember going to see this movie three times when it first ran in Albuquerque's Hiland Theater in 1968. (What a different world it was when a mother could drop off her precocious nine-year-old at the movies on a Saturday and not have to worry about him for several hours!) The film is a classic of humorous dialogue and, again, the perfect snapshot of a time (late 60s), a place (Manhattan), and a circumstance (the effect of divorce on middle-class joes). (Favorite line: "Never mind, I can't wait that long. How about five quick minutes behind the cash register?")

6. Dumb and Dumber (1994): Many people would regard D&D as coarse and disgusting (if they could bring themselves to watch it at all), but I've always been a fan of ironic humor, and this film fairly drips with it. It combines two time-honored types of cinema, the buddy film and the road film, but it is Lloyd and Harry's (Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, respectively) utter cluelessness that gives rise to most of the humor. My favorite sequence is where Lloyd, while driving, fantasizes about sweeping Mary (Lauren Holly) off her feet; it includes one bit of scatological humor, which is hilarious not on its own terms but because the audience realizes Lloyd is imagining that sophisticated people would find it entertaining. (Favorite line: "What happened, Harry? Some little filly break your heart?" "Nah, it was a girl.")

7. Shrek (2001): Shrek was a groundbreaking film in various ways. Not only was the computer-generated animation astounding in its day, but the script's humor operated on multiple levels, allowing almost everyone to find it funny. The movie sort of falls a little flat after Shrek and Donkey rescue Princess Fiona from the dragon's lair -- that is, when it turns from a humorous adventure into a beauty-and-beast love story -- but over time it will go down as a film classic. (Favorite line: "All right, you're going the right way for a smacked bottom!")

8. Murder On the Orient Express (1974): I love the star-studded cast, the fact that the movie takes place mostly on a train, and the intricate details of the conspiracy leading to the killing of the gangster Ratchett. Some of the music seems incongruous for a murder-mystery, but then it quickly acquires an ominous air at appropriate moments. Some people don't like Albert Finney's portrayal of an epicene, overly conceited (and no-neck) Poirot, but it wouldn't be the same movie with another actor and a different interpretation of the character. (Favorite line: "Now you have accidentally said something valuable!")

9. A Knight's Tale (2001): This film, starring the ill-fated Heath Ledger, works on a number of levels. It's a history of medieval knighthood and jousting tournaments. It's a love story. It's a rags-to-riches tale of "changing one's stars." It's a vehicle for presenting 1970s-era "classic" rock music to a new generation. And it sketches out a number of memorable characters. (Favorite line: "Yes, Master Falhurst, I'm well aware a good fonging is on the way.")

10. Casino Royale (2006): This film is an inspired take on the James Bond series, featuring less camp, more depth to the character, Daniel Craig (a real man's Bond), three-dimensional villains who seem nearly invincible, a heck of a poker game, and a constant reminder that Bond stays alive by the slimmest of margins, relying not only on his wits but also happenstance. (Favorite line: "You like married women, don't you?" "It keeps things simple.")

11. Harry Potter (Series) (2001-): The Harry Potter movies, much like the J.K. Rowling book series on which they are based, started wandering off-track after the fourth installment, leaving me without much hope for the last two episodes. However, the magical backdrop of Hogwarts and the friendship and adventures shared by Harry, Ron, and Hermione sort of stand above the mounting over-seriousness of the story line (as well as its obvious flaws, such as why no one thinks to seek official sanction to administer "veritaserum" to Harry in Year 5 to ascertain whether he's telling the truth about the return of you-know-who, not to mention the notion -- if, as the story suggests, magical "combat" is necessarily reduced to a question of who can attack with the quickest draw, the best aim, and the baddest curse -- that people wouldn't be dropping dead in droves from the "Avada Kedavra" killing curse). (Favorite line: "You've got dirt on your nose, by the way. Did you know?")

12. Monty Python and The Holy Grail (1975): This movie marked a milestone in irreverent humor -- heck, it even makes fun of itself all the way through -- and thus I can't help but love it. (Favorite line: "Oh, Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade, that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits...in Thy mercy.")

13. Indiana Jones (Trilogy) (1981-1989): I love a good adventure film, particularly if it plays light, has well-defined characters, and produces a bit of laughter. The second film in the trilogy (Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom) becomes a little dark for my tastes once Jones leaves China and ends up in India, but otherwise I like what came of the material, particularly the supernatural angle that each of the three movies has. (Favorite line: "It's not the years, honey -- it's the mileage.")

14. From Russia with Love (1964): I regard this film as the best of the early James Bond films, before all the gadgets and puns wore thin. I confess that I probably wouldn't like it as much if it didn't have the long sequence on the Orient Express, as Bond and Tania try to escape Istanbul with the Russian decoding machine; however, I love how Sean Connery, about to be dispatched by Robert Shaw, plays to the latter's greed and tricks him into opening a "Q"-supplied briefcase and spraying himself with tear gas. (Favorite line: "By good fortune, I was resting on the settee for a moment.")

15. The Shawshank Redemption (1994): It's hard to recommend this film with all the bad language (the f-bombs are just the start), although of course profanity is probably an integral part of prison life. However, the manner in which Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) deals with adversity, and the patience and determination he displays in ultimately escaping from prison and turning the tables on his corrupt captors -- and, more importantly, in elevating the spirits of his fellow prisoners (especially Red [Morgan Freeman], from whose perspective the story is told) -- amounts to nothing less than a complete triumph of human will. (Favorite line: "I've had some long nights in stir. Alone in the dark with nothing but your thoughts, time can draw out like a blade." [Okay, so the dangling modifier in the second sentence is pretty egregious -- it's still a good line.])

16. A Hard Day's Night (1964): I didn't see this movie for the first time until several years ago, when I bought a DVD of it. It is nothing short of amazing, especially given the low expectations one would otherwise have of the "rock 'n' roll film" genre. All of the Beatles were natural actors and comedians -- never mind musicians and songwriters -- and it's no wonder their popularity soared after this piece was released in 1964. As Roger Ebert has noted, many aspects of this film, revolutionary at the time, have become fundamental elements of the film-maker's craft. (Favorite line: "Hey, look at the talent. Let's give 'em a pull!")

17. A Christmas Story (1983): An absolute comic masterpiece about childhood and growing up, this film has dozens of great lines that have become ingrained in the American dialect. (My wife and kids accuse me of having the entire movie memorized.) (Favorite lines: [1] "My old man's spare tires were actually only 'tires' in the academic sense: they were round; they had once been made of rubber." [2] "Over the years, I got to be quite a connoisseur of soap; my personal preference was for Lux, but I found Palmolive had a nice, piquant after-dinner flavor -- heady, but with just a touch of mellow smoothness. Lifebuoy, on the other hand....")

18. Beetlejuice (1988): Still Tim Burton's best film and the high point of Michael Keaton's acting career, this offbeat comedy about the afterlife, and the weirdness of the still-living, has always appealed to the eldritch part of my sense of humor. (Favorite line: "I wonder where a guy, an every-day joe like myself, could find a little action.")

19. Napoleon Dynamite (2004): Everything that can be said about this movie has already been said, but I love Jared Hess's deadpan directorial style and the understated acting of Jon Heder, Tina Majorino, et al. (Favorite line: "I see you're drinking one-percent.  Is that 'cause you think you're fat?")

20. Dead Poets Society (1989): This movie really captured my fancy when it came out, as I could identify with prep-school students trying to discover their individuality in a cookie-cutter world and being guided on the way by a non-conformist teacher. However, the suicide of Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard), and Mr. Keating's (Robin Williams) ultimately being blamed for it, is a complete downer that negates most of the romance of the first three-quarters of the treatment, despite the small tribute that some of the boys pay to Keating at the end. (Favorite line: "Now, medicine, law, business, engineering -- these are all noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love -- these are what we stay alive for.")

21. This Is Spinal Tap (1983): I've loved This Is Spinal Tap ever since its first run in the theaters in 1983. I think a lot of aging rock stars felt, and continue to feel, just a tad uncomfortable with how close all the film's irony came to hitting the mark, but almost everyone can get a few good laughs out of it. (Favorite line: "The musical growth rate of this band cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry.") I also like the Mormon-themed take-off of Spinal Tap that Will Swenson did, 2004's Sons of Provo.

22. Groundhog Day (1993): A wonderful tale of redemption and making oneself worthy of the love of another, this movie traces Bill Murray's path from narcissistic misanthrope to suicidal depressive to all-around great guy. (Favorite line: "I really don't know. They've been hitting on me all night.")

23. The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976): I remember thinking, when this film first came out, that it was too fantastic and over-the-top, but curiously it's now my favorite of the entire Pink Panther series. Peter Sellers as Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau is one of the great comic characters of modern cinema, and he's funniest in this episode. (Favorite line: "I thought you said that your dug does not bat!" "That is not my dog.")

24. American Graffiti (1973): For my money, American Graffiti is still the best film George Lucas ever made, propelling Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, et al., to stardom. It's a great document of the early-1960s cruising scene in central California and how much impact one night can have on the lives of an entire circle of friends. (Favorite line: "What a babe! What a bitchin' babe!")

25. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969): I'm not overly fond of this picture after the point where Butch, Sundance, and Etta arrive in Bolivia, but the first half of the film is priceless for its humor and, especially, the sequence where Butch and Sundance are being chased by a super-posse hired by the railroad. (Favorite line: "Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?")

26. The Princess Bride (1987): I'm almost surprised that I like this movie as much as I do, given that it's more fairy-tale than action-adventure; I think it's the characters (and the actors who play them) that give it added life. (Favorite line: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.")

27. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964): A nice send-up of Cold War tensions and the inherent absurdity of mutually assured destruction. I always get a kick out of the characters' names: General Buck Turgidson, President Merkin Muffley, General Jack D. Ripper, Soviet Premier Kissov, Major "King" Kong, Colonel Bat Guano, etc. (Favorite line: "I do not avoid women, but I do deny them my essence.")

28. Forrest Gump (1994): Forrest Gump was another film that fired my imagination when I first saw it, filling me momentarily with compassion for the human race and all its constituent members. Its basic question about our existence -- whether it has meaning independent of the moment or is a completely random notion -- obviously struck many other people equally hard, given the awards it won. (Favorite line: "Have you ever been on a real shrimp boat?" "No, but I've been on a real big boat.")

29. Rear Window (1954): My second-favorite Hitchcock picture after North By Northwest, this movie contains an amazing amount of action (and interaction) considering 99% of the story takes place either in L.B. Jeffries' (James Stewart) apartment or looking out its large back window. As others have noted, Grace Kelly looks simply stunning in her role as Jeffries' girlfriend Lisa Fremont. (Favorite line: "Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence.")

30. Charade (1963): This movie is a mere frolic filled alternately with comedy and suspense, but it's notable for its sophisticated humor and romance, as well as its Paris setting. Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn had great screen chemistry. (Favorite line: "Any morning now you could wake up dead.")

31. Jeremiah Johnson (1972): I guess I like this movie because I can identify with the twin notions of (a) wanting to get back to nature, and (b) wanting to be alone. I wouldn't have either the "proper wit" or the "adventurous spirit" required to be a mountain man, but the idea is sort of an appealing one nonetheless. (Favorite line: "The injuns put you here?" "'T'wern't Mormons!")

32. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962): The screenplay does a good job of wringing the essence of the story out of the novel. I now think that Gregory Peck was a little too "earnest" in his interpretation of Atticus Finch, but perhaps that was intentional; after all, the story is told in hindsight from his daughter's perspective, and she obviously remembers him as a serious person of few words but courageous actions. (Favorite line: "Not until Atticus agrees to play football for the Methodists!")

33. The Kids Are Alright (1979): Being a life-long fan of The Who, I couldn't help falling in love with this documentary, for which principal photography ended shortly before Keith Moon, the group's drummer, died of drug-related causes in late 1978. Jeff Stein, the director, did a great job of juxtaposing various stages of their career, in search of an artistic thread, and of intercutting footage shot specifically for the film. (Favorite line: "You can't write a ten-minute song! Rock songs are two minutes fifty, by tradition!")

34. The Commitments (1991): Another movie laced with f-bombs, but funny as the dickens. This film is notable for the fact that Alan Parker took young Irish musicians/singers and taught them to be passable actors, instead of the reverse. The soul band giving the picture its name is Ireland in microcosm: full of promise but torn apart by internal strife. (Favorite line: "There's a band around called 'Free Beer' -- they always pull a big crowd.")

35. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1987): Even after twenty years, this film seems fresh and up-to-date, pitting impossibly boring high-school teachers and administrators against impossibly bored high-school students. (Favorite line: "Oh, he's very popular, Ed. The sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads -- they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude.")

36. Animal House (1978): Dirty, dirty, dirty, but funny, funny, funny. The perfect college spoof, this flick has every larger-than-life stereotype imaginable in it. I remember I felt guilty when one of my brothers took me to see it two weeks before I started my church mission, but I felt a little better when the most "spiritchal" elder in my MTC district confessed to me in a candid moment that he'd seen it eight times. (Favorite line: "But that doesn't relieve you from your responsibility for this material...I'm waiting for reports from some of you. I'm not joking! This is my job!")

37. The Trouble With Angels (1966): This movie was a childhood favorite of mine; I guess I've always been a sucker for films set in boarding schools! It provided Dorine and me with a name for the first daughter we had together -- Devery, the last name of Mary Clancy's (Hayley Mills) sidekick Rachel (June Harding). (Favorite line: "Cloister Tours will show you that mystery of mysteries: where Mother Superior sleeps!")

38. Ocean's Eleven (2001): Full of improbabilities and even impossibilities (e.g., the idea that one underground vault could connect the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand in Las Vegas), this picture is still filled with fun, intrigue, and cool, interesting characters. (Favorite line: "I hope you were the groom.")

39. Amadeus (1984): One of the best period pieces ever made -- even if it's full of historical inaccuracies -- Amadeus is made special by F. Murray Abraham's astounding performance as Antonio Salieri. (Favorite line: "Aw, shut up! I'm sick to death of that tune!")

40. Hasta el viento tiene miedo (1968): This movie is a cheesy Mexican horror film, but it's loads of fun and pretty scary, too (at least I found it so when I first saw it in a theater-style setting at BYU in 1981). The fact that it has a totally gratuitous striptease scene (heck, what else would upper-crust Mexican girls do to entertain each other in a strict boarding school?) makes it clear what kind of audience the movie was aimed at, but, weirdly, it all works. (Favorite line: “¿No sería bueno preguntarle a la Silvia?  Ella sabe interpretar los sueños – ha leído a Freud.” “¡Por eso es tan loca! ¡A mí me dijo que yo tenía una frustración sexual!” “¿Y no?” “¡Mensa!”)

41. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993): Robin Williams at his best. It's a stretch to think that his wife and kids wouldn't recognize him and his voice despite the cross-dressing disguise and "muddled" English accent, but if anyone is capable of suspending our disbelief, it's Williams. (Favorite line: "If I find the misogynistic bastard that invented heels, I'll kill him.")

42. Blazing Saddles (1974): Sophomoric but satisfying, this comedy does precisely what it was intended to do -- skewer the traditional movie western through the heart. (Favorite line: "'S'cuse me while I whip this out!")

43. Casablanca (1942): Atypical of the standard studio fare of the time, this film is both smart and unflinching in its treatment of complex matters of the heart. Who, having watched this film even one time, can forget characters like Rick, Ilsa, Laszlo, Renault, Sam the piano man, Major Strasse, Karl, et al.? (Favorite line: "How extravagant you are, throwing away women like that. Someday they may be scarce!")

44. Citizen Kane (1941): No true movie aficionado's list of favorite films would be complete without a mention of Citizen Kane, a piece that broke ground in so many ways that one cannot count them all. And, of course, what's truly astounding is that Orson Welles was a complete novice at making movies when the RKO studio gave him carte blanche to make this one. (Favorite line: "I have a hunch it might turn out to be something pretty important -- a document, like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution...and my first report card at school.")

45. JFK (1991): Bad history but great art, this film represents Oliver Stone at the height of his creativity. (And boy oh boy, does he get creative -- he's got about nine or ten internally inconsistent and mutually exclusive conspiracy theories going on at one time in this movie!) (Favorite line: "I find your story simply not believable." "Really? What part?")

46. Caddyshack (1980): The prototypical "snobs vs. slobs" comedy, this film has a number of memorable tableaux, and Rodney Dangerfield, playing a nouveau-riche and extremely gauche contractor, completely steals the show. (Favorite line: "I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber -- I didn't want to do it, but felt I owed it to them.")

47. It's a Wonderful Life (1946): I can certainly identify with James Stewart's character in this movie, the smart guy who, due to inbred generosity and selflessness, fails to fulfill his talents and dreams and then is left wondering what it was all for. "No man is a failure who has friends" -- words to live by, I guess. (Favorite line: "And I'm gonna have a couple of harems, and maybe three or four wives.")

48. Die Hard (1988): This film is the gold standard of action-adventure movies, even if various references in the script, as well as certain elements of the art direction, will always date it to the late 80s. I love the me-and-my-wits-against-a-group-of-major-baddies premise, the high-rise setting, and Bruce Willis's take on a NYC cop caught up in an international conspiracy to commit high-dollar robbery in LA. (Favorite line: "Actually, I was always partial to Roy Rogers. I really dug those sequined shirts.")

49. Dr. Zhivago (1965): This movie is somewhat depressing in that it leaves all the major characters dead, unhappy, or unfulfilled (or, in the case of Rod Steiger's evil Victor Komorovsky, unimpeded), but it is a wonderful work of art nonetheless. It is best understood as both a history and an indictment of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the conditions that provoked it. (Favorite line: "Good marriages are made in heaven, or some such place.")

50. The Wizard of Oz (1939): I can remember the days when this movie came on network TV precisely one Sunday evening every year, usually during church. To millions of American kids, it was every bit as big an event as the Super Bowl has become since that time; even today, the film stands out in the crowd of family-friendly movies. (Favorite line: I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers, consultin' with the rain/And my head I'd be scratchin', while my thoughts were busy hatchin', if I only had a brain.)