Darren's Back!

Darren has, at long last, returned from Honduras. This video was shot by my brother-in-law Mike, although obviously he couldn't quite remember where Darren had served his mission. Darren's homecoming was an emotional experience for all, especially since his flight from Miami to Dallas was almost two hours late and there was a lot of doubt whether he'd make his connecting flight from DFW to Albuquerque. However, he got here all right, even if his luggage was left stranded in Dallas. I am extremely thankful that he made it out of Honduras without difficulty.

Me as a Senior in High School, Spring 1977

My mother took this photo of me right after I bought my Gibson SG electric guitar, just a few weeks before my high school graduation in 1977. I knew at that point that I was headed to BYU for college, and it was at about that time that I allowed myself to be talked into starting school in the summer, living with my brother Kelly and his wife and infant son at a small apartment complex in Provo called the "Hacienda," which I can't even place now. (It was located, I'd guess, at about 400 North and 200 East.) In retrospect, it was a mistake to leave home that soon after graduation, even though it did help bridge the gap between living at home and being on my own that fall.

This is the quintessential me as a teenager -- skinny as a rail; hair parted in the middle (sort of); wearing Levi's super-bells, Tiger (later ASICS) running shoes, and my favorite knit shirt; hanging out at home; sitting on the third of my dad's four Ford LTDs; and holding a guitar. I can't remember if I liked any particular girl at that time, although I had ongoing crushes on a couple of girls (one a cheerleader, the other a gymnast) at my high school, neither of whom I ever addressed in conversation.

Ft. Stanton Cave

Today I was pressed into duty, on two days' notice, to guide our 11-year-old scouts through the upper main passage of Ft. Stanton Cave. (Steve Plimpton, who had secured the permit and was to be the tour leader, had a bicycle accident this week in which he separated a shoulder, and I was at hand.) The route we took was pretty casual, as we went down the main passage, past Crystal Crawl (see photo), to the Lunch Room and then back out. (In the end I decided to steer clear of "Skinner's Squeeze" and what I refer to as the "Big Muddy" passage -- through which very long, beautiful extensions of the cave, including one called "Snowy River," have been discovered in recent years.) However, the kids all seemed to eat it up.

Going on this overnight trip were Andy Greenwood, our scoutmaster (and de facto 11-year-old scout leader, since we currently have no active deacon-age boys in our ward), Adam Greenwood, Ray Mocho, Lucas Smathers, and Onesimo Chavez. The cave is about 170 miles from Albuquerque and lies about five or six miles east of the town of Capitan.

Random Thoughts, Part 2

1. Menstruation is often referred to as "the curse," something that we men, obviously, don't have to deal with at any time in our lives. On the other hand, I've become convinced that there is a male "curse," which really only manifests itself later in life. It is simply that we retain so much of our youthful libidos way past our "shelf life" as sexual creatures. I wonder how much more agreeable life would be if our hormones diminished at the same rate as those of women in general....

2. I had a conversation recently with my father-in-law in which it became clear to me that membership in the LDS Church used to carry with it a much-stronger "brand" or sense of identity. It lay largely in the various sorts of recreational and social activities that used to be commonplace throughout the church: dance festivals, sports programs (including all-church tournaments), theatrical productions, the annual "Gold and Green" Ball, roadshows, the "Singing Mothers," regular ward and stake socials, etc. Somehow, in the push to strip church membership to its essentials (which is perfectly comprehensible in light of the growth of the church in the last two generations), that sense of identity has gone by the boards in large measure. Moreover, I'm not sure it's something that could be recovered at this juncture -- if, for example, someone in Albuquerque had the idea to stage a Mormon-themed musical like Promised Valley (as happened locally back in the early 1960s...my father had the male lead role for one of the performances), I'm highly doubtful that there would be much interest in it, from either an acting perspective or an audience perspective. Simply put, members like me are now so accustomed to seeking out their own recreational activities that social events at church (to the extent they still happen) tend to seem bothersome and annoying. And yet it was the social and athletic activities that once provided one of the church's primary missionary "hooks," especially for families.

3. I'm still somewhat mystified by the Obama administration's support of ousted Honduran president Mel Zelaya. The Honduran government has three supposedly co-equal branches, and the congress and the supreme court acted in concert to remove Zelaya from office for clear and blatant violations of the Honduran constitution. In fact, that document states that a president who takes any overt action toward changing the presidential term limit stated therein automatically forfeits his office, so by Honduran law Zelaya had, technically, already ceased to be president! So why, precisely, is our government so insistent about restoring him to office -- treating him as though he were the very embodiment of Honduran democracy -- and about not recognizing the new president, Roberto Micheletti? And why have our mainstream media been publishing a stream of stories about supposed agreements to reinstate Zelaya, when the Honduran government has apparently assented to no such thing? Does the rule of law have no meaning for "the big Oh" and his sycophants? The implications are positively scary.... (In the meantime, I keep thinking, "Let the stalemate continue for two-and-a-half more weeks, until Darren comes home!")

4. I've long since concluded that Democrats and others on the left are fundamentally unserious about their twin pet causes of combating "climate change" and "reforming" the country's health-care system (with the supposed aim of driving down costs). How do I know? First, no one thing would serve to lower (or at least limit) man-made CO2 emissions -- while serving the energy needs of the American people -- more than the immediate construction of dozens of nuclear power plants. Yet nobody in Congress would ever suggest such a thing. And second, two of the principal reasons why health care is so expensive in the U.S. are (a) the practice of what some have called "defensive" medicine -- the ordering of multitudinous tests and procedures to attempt to limit exposure to malpractice liability -- and (b) "jackpot" jury verdicts (or the threat thereof) in malpractice cases, the cost of which is generally absorbed by insurance companies and passed on in the form of higher premiums. Yet none of the various health-care bills floating through committee on Capitol Hill mentions anything about tort reform, because it would do damage to trial lawyers, a major Democrat constituency and source of donations. I understand it was H.L. Mencken who said, "The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it," which pretty much sums up my opinion of the Democratic agenda in this Congress.

The BYU 65th Branch, 1977-78

I just received the attached photo from my friend Jeff Aldous, which dates back to roughly September 1977. At first I thought it was a photo of the guys from the 7th Floor of "T" Hall in Deseret Towers at BYU; however, then I realized that some of these guys actually lived on the 6th Floor, so it must have been intended to be a photo of all the males in the BYU 65th Branch. (The 65th Branch encompassed the 6th and 7th Floors of "T" Hall for the guys, and both the 2nd Floor of "Q" Hall [at D.T.] and all of Young Hall [in Heritage Halls] on the girls' side. It held church meetings at Wasatch Elementary School on 900 East in Provo.) There were upwards of ninety guys in the branch, so the turnout obviously wasn't overwhelming for the photo shoot (I suspect I was in class or at the library); however, I still remember a lot of these fellows. My roommate, Bob Maes, is on the far right of the back row. Our buddies (and fellow KNOBs) Jeff Aldous and Galen Kekauoha are at the far right of the front row and third from the right in the middle row, respectively. Scott Hansen, who was Chuck Canfield's roommate (and sort of an "adjunct" KNOB), is on Jeff's right.

At the time, Bob's family lived on the west side in Albuquerque; Jeff was from Metairie, Louisiana; Galen was from Los Angeles; and Scott, like Chuck, was from Magna, Utah. Deseret Towers has now been completely razed (with the exception of the Morris Center [a/k/a the "Morbid Center," or the "Morose Center"], which once served as D.T.'s cafeteria, offices, and all-around gathering place, but which is now sort of a conference center), the thought of which brings a bit of a tear to my eyes. I was much too psycho about school ever to have had much fun during my freshman year; I think I went on two, maybe three, dates all year, one of which was a blind date to a stake dance, also at Wasatch Elementary, with the friend of a friend of Bryan Whatley, the guy on Galen's left in the photo. (If memory serves, Bryan was from somewhere in Oregon, as were his friend and her friend -- cute girl! -- who were just visiting in Provo.)

July 2009 Utah Trip

Dorine, Kiley, and I took Dorine's dad Lynn Wilson up to Utah on Monday, July 20, and we stayed in Grantsville with Dorine's brother Brian and his wife Dona, until today, Sunday, July 26. (Lynn is staying another week and will fly home.) This was really Dorine and Lynn's trip, and, as it turned out, I didn't really get to visit with my brothers, although we did get to spend quite a lot of time with Devery and Easton. On Tuesday, I got to go out to lunch with my friend (and ex-BYU roommate) Bob Maes, and then I spent a couple of hours with him at his office while Dorine and Lynn went around visiting Dorine's aunts Afton Woffinden and Frances Wilson. Later, we went to see Lynn's brother Bob Wilson (and his wife Marilu) in Holladay before going out to eat at the Marie Callender's restaurant on 3900 South; this was the first time I'd been at that particular Marie Callender's since Dorine and I ate there during our honeymoon in December 1984. Later that night, after we'd returned to Grantsville, it was decided to go down to the Maverik service station at the other end of town to get fountain drinks. I'd already taken an Ambien tablet to go to sleep, but I didn't think it would take effect very soon, so I drove. I was okay on the way out, but I started losing my faculties on the return trip, and I nearly ran over several mailboxes and a fire hydrant when turning around at the end of the cul-de-sac (before parking first on the curb and then out in the street). I think I can say with some assurance that it will be the only time in my life that I'll be "guilty" of DUI! Needless to say, I was the object of quite a bit of twitting after that.

On Wednesday, a bunch of us went to the open house at the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple (located in South Jordan near the intersection of Bangerter Highway and 11400 South -- see photo above). The group included (L-R) me, Devery, Easton, Kiley, Lynn, Dorine, Brian, and Brian's daughters Rhea and Olivia. Dorine happened to see my brother Roger and his wife Lynnea (and Lynnea's daughters Jenna and Andrea) there -- they went through with the group after us, but we were able to communicate by cell phone (not while we were inside the temple) and arrange to meet at a nearby Quizno's after the tour. It turned out to be the only time I actually saw any of my brothers on this trip, although I did talk to Kelly and Robin on the phone. Afterward, we drove Devery and Easton back to Provo, deciding to take the "back" route (through Lehi and past Sarasota Springs and Eagle Mountain) to return to Grantsville. That resulted in our biggest adventure of the trip, as we missed both of the two turns that would have taken us to Grantsville (while bypassing Tooele); consequently, we ended up at the Dugway Proving Ground, having to explain to the guards at the gate how we'd gotten lost, and then having to take the "long" way around, via I-80, to get to Grantsville ninety minutes later than expected.

On Thursday, Dorine and I went and did an endowment session at the Salt Lake Temple, which I believe was the first time I'd been to that temple in upwards of twenty years. (I'd almost forgotten what it was like to do a "live" session!) Kiley was able to do proxy baptisms there at that same time with her cousins Rhea and Linsey, after which they went to the Joseph Smith Building and the Gateway Mall, where we picked them up later.

On Friday, the big event was our going to see a matinee showing of the new Harry Potter movie in Tooele, and yesterday, Saturday, Brian and Dona conscripted their home teacher into providing his collection of kayaks (along with his trailer and his person) for a family outing at a reservoir near Grantsville (see photos). Devery and Easton had Friday (Pioneer Day in Utah) off work, and they came up and spent a couple of nights with us at Brian and Dona's house, so they were there for Harry Potter and the lake. Kiley, who didn't want to go to Utah in the first place (and who complained mightily for much of the time we were there), took along her cello and spent a lot of time practicing her Youth Symphony music in preparation for camp next week at Hummingbird Music Camp in the Jemez.

Now I get to go back to work. Oh joy!

My Dream Guitars

Here they are -- the guitars I would buy if money were no object. One, a shell pink Fender Stratocaster. (The one pictured was made in Japan; perhaps, if I were rich, I'd order a custom-made American Stratocaster, but it would have to be in shell pink -- man, I love that color!) Two, a Gretsch Double Jet. (The one pictured was made in Korea; again, if I were rich, I'd probably buy an American-made model, but I love the silver-flake finish.) Three, a Martin D-45 acoustic guitar. (The D-45 was the Cadillac of mass-produced acoustic guitars in my youth; nowadays, there are other brands that sell for as much or more than Martins, but I still feel partial to the D-45.) And four, a Gibson Les Paul Standard. (I would finally indulge my teenage dream of owning what most people still regard as the ultimate rock 'n' roll guitar. I might waver between a flamed sunburst finish or a gold-top finish [as pictured here], but it would have to have the standard-size humbucking pickups and cream-colored trim.)

Future Missionaries at Philmont, 2004

This picture is now five years old. It was taken on June 30, 2004 in Pueblano Camp at the Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico. Jordan Roper, the kid sitting to my left in the green shirt, just returned last Saturday from his church mission in Los Angeles, where his assigned areas ran the gamut from Compton to Malibu. (Jordan and I both spoke in sacrament meeting last Sunday -- boy, was he a tough act to follow!) My son Darren, the one in the middle with the camo pants and hoodie, now has only five weeks left on his mission in Honduras, which, given the current political situation there, are bound to be the longest thirty-five days of my life. Curtis Twitchell, the blond kid in the brown shirt, is now eight months into his mission in Peru, although now it appears likely that he will soon move over to Bolivia (the country he was originally called to) as the church starts sending gringos back there.

Looking at this photo makes me remember just what a good time we had at Philmont in 2004. Our crew got along extremely well together, and we wrung just about all the fun out of our trek that there was to be had. I want to go backpacking again soon!

More of My Favorite 60s Music

Sleep Disordered, Part (yawn)

I hesitate to devote yet another post to my ongoing sleep woes, in large part because of all the wishful thinking incorporated into my previous posts on the subject, but I am trying a few new things. One, I'm currently taking Temazepam every other night, except that it will probably work out to three times a week, with my taking it on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. On the other nights I've been taking a whole cocktail of over-the-counter supplements or meds: melatonin, L-Ornithine, Valerian root, and diphenhydramine hydrochloride (i.e., benadryl). This "OTC cocktail" produces some fairly profound drowsiness while at the same time not inducing sleep, at least immediately, which is a strange sensation to say the least.

Moreover, even when I finally fall asleep on my "OTC cocktail," I haven't been staying asleep for longer than three-plus hours, and then I lie awake the rest of the night. I can't blame that on swallowing air from the "VPAP Adapt SV" machine, because I reduced the "EEP" (End Expiratory Pressure) setting on it from 10.0 to 6.0, which immediately alleviated the air-swallowing problem. (I've since raised the "EEP" gradually to try to find the point at which I start swallowing air again, and that seems to be right at or near 8.0; last night I set it at 7.6, which seems to be the maximum I can tolerate before I start swallowing what feels like gallons of air; I guess I'll find out over time how much of a breathing aid the machine really is for me at that setting.)

I'm also trying some "cognitive behavior therapy" (CBT) techniques to see if I can develop better, balanced (and hence more positive) thought patterns respecting sleep. I'm working on becoming more-optimistic that my "OTC cocktail" can take the place of heavier meds like Temazepam, and that I can ultimately drop the antihistamine ingredient in it and rely wholly on its herbal constituents. I would certainly consider it an acceptable long-term result to be able to sleep 6-7 hours on most nights through (a) using the "VPAP Adapt SV" at a setting that causes me to swallow only a minimal amount of air, and (b) taking only melatonin, Valerian root, and L-Ornithine.

I'm wary, for several reasons, of taking prescription sleep meds on an indefinite basis. One, it's not a pleasant feeling to be dependent on them, especially when various people (e.g., pharmacists, insurance reps) seem to regard you as only one small step removed from being, say, a tweaker or a crack addict. Two, most of them are controlled substances, which makes it dicey to get prescriptions for them in the first place. And three, it's easy to develop a tolerance for them and to require larger doses of them to get the same effect. Herbal remedies don't pose any of these concerns -- if I can get to the point where they help me sleep more than they do currently. However, that will require that I get my mind working for me instead of against me, which is where CBT enters into the picture.

Now we'll see....

Happenings in Honduras

Well, our hope that Darren would come home from Honduras without having to deal with civil unrest there has gone unfulfilled. The Honduran military, acting under order of the Honduran Supreme Court, ousted President Manuel Zelaya yesterday and carted him off to Costa Rica, igniting a great deal of controversy in the region. Predictably, the Obama administration immediately condemned the action, citing concerns about "democracy" and "constitutional order" in Honduras when it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that Zelaya was doing his chavista best to subvert those very notions, and that the legislative and judicial branches of the Honduran government weren't simply going to sit by and let him do it. (It's telling that Zelaya's successor in office is a member of his [Zelaya's] own party!) Just why else would a close ally of Crazy Hugo (not to mention of "Compa" Fidel) attempt to force a referendum on the question of abolishing presidential term limits -- when the Honduran constitution expressly provides that only the Congress has the power to initiate such a referendum (actually, due to the nature of the change, I understand it would require a full-blown constitutional convention) -- if he weren't angling to become another socialist "president for life"? I doubt that the Obama administration will use any real clout to try to get Zelaya reinstated, but what worries me is that Crazy Hugo is just crazy enough to start a regional war with precisely that aim in mind.

Of course, all of this is of secondary concern to me after Darren's safety. We received a call from his mission home yesterday after the ouster, and we were told that all of the missionaries have been ordered to stay in their apartments for the time being. It's conceivable that an emergency evacuation of American missionaries will be necessary, and in that case it is likely that Darren would simply come home earlier than planned. I can't say I'd complain about that, but it would be a disappointment to Darren, who truly has loved his time in Honduras.

Bouldering at U-Mound, II

This video shows me doing the left side of the "Brett and Jill" boulder at U-Mound in the Sandia foothills on June 27, 2009. (I was there on an outing with the 11-year-old scouts in our ward.) I hadn't climbed it in a while, so I was a little "sketchy" -- hence my having to grab the edge of the arete at one point, a move that turns what is otherwise a V1 problem (steeper than it looks from this angle) into a V0 problem. But at least I can still get up the thing. What strikes me most about this clip is the fact that I'm not quite as flabby, at least when viewed from behind, as I tend to think of myself. Watching this video also causes me to realize what limited range of motion (due to bone structure -- not, say, arthritis) I have in my hips, which explains why my running stride is so short and choppy, and why my footwork, when rockclimbing, tends to be less-than-optimal.

South Peak Hike, 6/26/09

John Brewer and I finally got to do the South Peak hike today that we've been talking about for some time. It turned out to be a pretty brutal route. We started at Canyon Estates up near the village of Tijeras, hiking up the South Crest Trail to the junction with the Upper Faulty Trail, which also marks the beginning of the CCC "route," an extremely steep trail that traces a pretty direct path to the South Peak area. That took a lot more out of me than I expected, as I was having to stop every 75-100 yards to let my heart rate go down. The Sandia hiking guide says that CCC "route" is only 1.8 miles from end to end, but John and I have a running joke going about "Forest Service miles" and how they always seem to understate the actual distance. (Anyone who's read Norman Maclean will know what I'm talking about.) From there we hiked up to South Peak, where we ate lunch and then dropped down off the back through the hidden little canyon there that has a thick stand of aspens. Then we descended the west side of the mountain, taking the Embudito Trail to Oso Pass and then heading west on the ridge route (or "Whitewash" Trail) all the way down to the top of Menaul Blvd. In many ways, the hike down was almost as hard as the hike up the back side, but we wanted a challenging hike and definitely found one; however, in the end I had a great time. The photos above show (a) me striking an heroic pose on South Peak, (b) the view northwest from South Peak, (c) me in the aforementioned aspen grove just off the back side of South Peak, and (d) John on the spur trail leading to South Peak.

National Public Radio

I got into the habit some years ago of listening to "Morning Edition" on National Public Radio (NPR) for twenty to twenty-five minutes every work day (i.e., while shaving, showering, and grooming in the mornings). NPR's news coverage gets a bit of a bad rap from a lot of conservatives for having a liberal bias. Some of that bad rap is justified in my opinion, but "Morning Edition" is diligent about presenting both sides of a lot of issues, anyway. On the other hand, a bland style of delivery (which NPR can afford, due to its being heavily subsidized by the federal government) isn't quite the same thing as complete objectivity. And, as many have pointed out, a news organization can be just as biased in terms of the stories it chooses to cover (or ignore) as it is in how it presents those stories. But I have to say that the one thing that drives me to distraction when listening to "Morning Edition" is NPR's utterly uncritical acceptance of the notion that increasing levels of human-generated carbon dioxide are warming the Earth and rapidly rendering it uninhabitable -- when, in the last ten years, CO2 emissions have continued to rise but global temperatures have not followed suit. In that light, one would think that a news organization without an agenda would at least start to ask questions around the margins of the accepted dogma!

Late June Family Update

Not much is happening right now, but I thought I'd write down a few things. Darren is now less than eight weeks away from coming home from Honduras, and the excitement I'm feeling is already growing unbearable. We've talked to Kiley about possibly getting her into a better cello in hopes that she'll practice hard this next school year and win a college music scholarship somewhere. She's still trying to decompress somewhat from her trip to Australia (see photo). Devery and Easton are still living in Provo, and now Easton has begun a summer internship with Oakland Construction in Salt Lake City -- which means that both of them are commuting by bus for the time being. (I mentioned to Devery the idea of their moving to SLC for the summer, but she didn't think it was feasible since they'd just have to move back to Provo when it came time for Easton to start fall semester at BYU.) They found out that the baby Devery's carrying is a boy, and the name they've tentatively selected for him is "Mason."

Heidi and Dion are still here in Albuquerque, and Dion's son Nolan is living with them for the summer. Kayla is now two-and-a-half, and Heidi, like Devery, has found out that she's carrying a baby boy (tentatively named "Tyler"); thus we'll have two more grandsons come October or November. Kristy and Chris are still living in our ward, and Chris's car-repair shop (which he operates with his friend John) has continued to do good business. Chris now has his car-dealer's license, and their plan is to acquire cars cheaply at the auctions, fix them up, and sell them. Nicole is about to start high school; Zach is currently playing on his Little League all-star team; Alexis will be going into first grade; and Maddy and Hailee are both walking now.

I continue to struggle with sleeping at night. I'm taking Temazepam every other night now, but the nights in between have been a marked contrast, and the usual over-the-counter remedies -- diphenhydramine hydrochloride, Valerian root, L-Ornithine, melatonin -- don't even come close to having the effect of a good prescription sedative. I'm experimenting with the settings on my "VPAP Adapt SV" machine, hoping to find a happy medium between (a) not swallowing so much air that I become nauseous, and (b) not gaining sufficient benefit from the machine, in terms of addressing my sleep-apnea issues, to justify using it.

On a happy note, I plan to go hiking in the Sandia Mountains this Friday, and I look forward to traversing the mountain, from east to west, by a relatively untraveled route -- up the "CCC" Trail and down the "Whitewash" Trail -- visiting South Peak on the way.

"Well, that explains a lot...."

The following comes from the Mayo Clinic website:

Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration. They believe that they're superior to others and have little regard for other people's feelings. But behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem, vulnerable to the slightest criticism.

This definition sure seems to describe a fair number of people of my acquaintance! I read where someone described narcissism as a very labor-intensive sort of condition: in short, its exemplars find it necessary to spend vast amounts of time and energy reinforcing their aggrandized image of self at the expense of, shall we say, "healthier" avocations and relationships in general. Someone else called these people "emotional vampires" -- I'd probably use a more graphic metaphor to describe them, but it serves to illustrate why they should be avoided, even if some of them are victims of a mental disorder that possibly is beyond their control.

[Update 5/19/10: I was just thinking about how people in the "mainstream" (i.e., leftoid) press were accusing Sarah Palin of having NPD after I wrote this post. I've never seen a clearer case of projection in my life -- if anything, it's the media who think they're superior to others and whose self-esteem crumbles under the slightest criticism.]

[Update 12/1/10: I read today that NPD, along with four other personality disorders previously recognized as such, will be omitted from the new DSM-V when it's published in 2013; I guess narcissism is the new "normal."  Jim Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's "Opinion Journal" website has implied that he believes the timing of this omission is not coincidental given the current occupant of the White House.  All I know is that the vast majority of the people I know who display the characteristics of NPD have significantly left-of-center political viewpoints, and they certainly regard themselves as normal, however nutty and unpleasant they appear to others.]

Kiley in Australia

Kiley is back from her Australia trip now, having had a great time with the other kids from the Albuquerque Youth Symphony. They performed a total of five concerts while "down under," including a charity fundraiser in the Sydney Opera House (see the group picture, above, taken across the harbor from the opera house -- Kiley is eighth from the right on the bottom row). Their itinerary was ultimately modified drastically due to predictably overblown concerns about the spread of "H1N1" influenza, which barred them from staying with Aussie families as was originally planned, but that meant they had time for additional tourist-y types of activities. One of the things they had planned to do, anyway, was to visit the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, where the kids got to pose for pictures with a koala (see other photo, above). Overall, it was an expensive trip, but I'm glad Kiley got to have such memorable experiences.

As I expected, Kiley did make AYS again for next school year, although the group's three-year "tour rotation" will have them doing only a "regional" tour next spring, probably staying somewhere within the Four Corner states. (They do a "national" tour in the second year and an "international" tour in the third year.) Coincidentally, whereas the entire group (so far as we know) had "only" four LDS church members this last year, next year's cello section alone will have four LDS kids in it.

More On Our Colorado Trip

Here are a few more photos from our trip: (1) Dorine, Judy, Mike, and I at the Strawberry Park Hot Springs complex near Steamboat Springs, CO; (2) Mike and I at the Continental Divide on the Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park; (3) me at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO with a display of photos from the ABC miniseries production of The Shining, in which the hotel was featured prominently (and which I own on DVD -- the commentary on the DVD set indicates that the Stanley was where Stephen King actually conceived the story line for his book [notwithstanding the disclaimer he put in the introduction to the book], which I think is cool); (4) a pair of elk grazing in someone's front yard in Estes Park; (5) outside our suite at the Worldmark resort in Steamboat Springs; and (6) Dorine and I in front of the Stanley Hotel.

[Update 12/22/10: I might also add that the Stanley Hotel was featured in the movie Dumb and Dumber.  It -- at least the exterior, and I don't know about the "interior" shots -- is the hotel where Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels stay when they get to "Aspen."]

Trip to Colorado with Mike and Judy

We're currently on vacation with Mike and Judy P_______ in Colorado. We first spent two nights in Red River, New Mexico, and right now we're in Steamboat Springs, Colorado; we'll spend a total of three nights here, and then we'll stay two nights in Estes Park, Colorado before heading home on Friday. It's been a fun trip so far -- we haven't done a whole lot, but just being able to get away from it all and relax means a lot to me these days. In Red River, we got to see a "classic car" show, which was cool, and we drove down to Taos, saw the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge (see photo above), and shopped and ate lunch. The drive up to Steamboat Springs was longer than I expected; we actually were snowed on in Leadville, Colorado while en route. Today we went to go see Fish Creek Falls, and we saw the town botanical garden; we'll probably find a hot spring to soak in either this evening or tomorrow. Kiley is in Australia at present, and from what we've been able to gather so far, she's having a good time.

The photos above show: (1) Mike walking on the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge (near Taos, NM -- where an important sequence of the most-recent Terminator movie was filmed); (2) Dorine and I on a bridge in Red River; (3) the four of us at Fish Creek Falls near Steamboat Springs; and (4) Dorine and I at the Steamboat Springs "Botanic Garden."

Darren's Last Area?

Darren is now serving in a part of Tegucigalpa (or Comayagüela -- I'm never quite sure where the line of demarcation is between the two) called "Country" (pronounced "cone-tree"), and his companion is a hard-working Guatemalan named Elder Polanco. This could very well be Darren's last area before he comes home; he wanted to serve in another small town before he finished, but possibly not at the cost of moving again so soon. His reports indicate that he and Elder Polanco currently have quite a few good investigators, and I'm sure he'd be happy to finish his mission with a few (or a bunch of) additional converts. This photo shows his district. Top (L-R): Darren, Elder Polanco, Elder Chuquimia, Elder Prescott; Bottom (L-R): Hermana Medal, Hermana Hernández. (Is it just me, or do those sister missionaries seem a little too attractive?)

[Update: I've been advised, with a chuckle and an elbow in the ribs, that just about any woman in her early 20s looks attractive to a 50-year-old man. Maybe so!]

"Gee, I always loved to write before...."

I'm finding these days that I have less and less will to write, either on this blog or in my journal; I'm not sure how many people really care, and writing doesn't even seem to have much of a therapeutic effect on me anymore. I used to sit around thinking of topics to write about here, but no longer. I don't really want to try to be a political blogger; frankly, I can't bear to think very much about politics these days. I've already written too many little autobiographical articles. I've expounded on my favorite rock 'n' roll songs, movies, and websites. I've posted too many things that could be construed (or which can hardly be construed otherwise) as critical of the LDS Church. My struggles with cognitive dissonance (bounded on one side by my belief in the divine origin and nature of church teachings and priesthood authority, and on the other by the every-day reality that highlights the seeming absurdity of it all) are ongoing. Unlike many church members, I can't seem to tuck away all doubt into some small corner of my subconscious, or else neatly separate the life I live during the week from the image I try to project to others on Sunday. I could continue writing about my sleep disorder, but it's essentially coming down to this: I can't sleep without my "VPAP Adapt SV" breathing machine, but I also can't sleep with it unless I sedate myself sufficiently to tolerate the nausea resulting from the air the machine causes me to swallow. Either way, I see myself as doomed to having to take prescription sleep meds for the rest of my life -- but, then, I've come to see that the alternative is even worse. Darren now has a little more than eleven weeks left on his church mission in Honduras; it's hard to fathom that the little boy I baptized in 1996 (see photo) will be a full-fledged returned missionary before we know it. I'm almost as scared with respect to his coming home as I was about his leaving! I really need to do more hiking in the Sandia Mountains -- on Memorial Day, I did get to hike up the La Luz Trail, south on the Crest Trail, and down the Cienega Canyon Trail with John Brewer and a group from his ward (who were training for the stake youth handcart trek that's coming up soon), but it only left me wanting more.

Darren's Eagle Scout Project

The three satellite images above show three "zoom" levels of the Carlito Spring area at the southern end of the Sandia Mountains, where Darren did his Eagle Scout service project back in 2005. Carlito Spring was originally a homestead, and back around the turn of the 20th Century it was turned into a dude ranch/resort; in recent years Bernalillo County acquired the property and at last report was trying to make it into a conference center of sorts. Darren's project was to build a footbridge over the creek at a location downstream from the spring.

The broadest view shows I-40 in the Tijeras area--Carlito Spring is the area left of center, to which the dirt road (actually two dirt roads that converge) leads. The intermediate view shows the general area where the bridge is located, slightly northwest of the dogleg in the road. And in the close-up, you can actually see the bridge, which is the lighter-colored structure in the clearing at the center of the image. And, of course, the top photo shows Darren after the bridge was completed. We haven't been back up there since the project, but hopefully the county will open the area up to the public one day soon.

[Update 5/23/12: Only now do I notice that the Google Earth images above date to 2004, or before Darren did his project; thus the bridge does not show up in them.  However, they do show where it was later constructed.  We still haven't been back to the site; I don't believe the county has ever opened it to public access.]

May Update

Not having much to write about these days (or else too much -- where would I start?), I thought I'd post a quick update on what's happening in our family. I didn't do well with Neurontin, the last "leg jerk" med prescribed by my sleep doctor, as it ended up having very debilitating side effects for not much benefit. I've since seen an internist at my employer's medical clinic, and she's given me a few ideas. I will use a steroidal nasal spray, and practice nightly sinus-rinsing with saline, to try to keep my nasal airway more open at night in hopes that I will swallow less air while sleeping. And she prescribed Temazepam, one of what I call the "big three" (i.e., most-effective) prescription sleep meds -- the others being Lunesta and Ambien -- for use on every third night, which I think is a good compromise against the advent of another every-night dependency. (I took it last night and was amazed at the profound effect it had; I hadn't realized how much of a tolerance I'd developed for these medications before quitting them last August!) I'm also going to consult with a staff psychologist about my tendency toward depression; I'm still not sure whether my sleep deprivation drives my depression, or vice versa, but I do know that past a certain point it all adds up to a downward spiral.

Dorine and Kiley are looking forward to their summer break, although both have a lot to do before the school year ends. Kiley will be going to Australia in a few weeks with the Albuquerque Youth Symphony, and, based on her audition last week (which I think was the first one I've ever seen her come out of smiling), I'm confident she'll be in AYS again next year. Darren has been out on his mission now for almost 20 months and has three months and change left; based on my own experiences, I know how hard it is to stay focused on missionary work with that little time remaining, but he still seems pretty engaged. We'll be talking to him on the phone this Sunday for Mother's Day.

Devery and Easton, of course, are still in Provo, where Devery, now 15 weeks pregnant, continues to commute to her job in Salt Lake City and Easton is attending spring classes at BYU. Heidi, who's probably about as far along as Devery is in her pregnancy, seems likewise to be doing well. Chris's auto-repair shop thus far has done good business, and we certainly hope things continue that way. The twins, Maddy and Hailee, are still cute as buttons and I love to play with them whenever I get the chance. Dorine and I hope to take a vacation with Mike and Judy in Colorado while Kiley is in Australia -- we'll see how that works out.

I can't wait to start hiking in the Sandias this summer; the first hike I want to do is an east-to-west traverse, from Canyon Estates (in Tijeras) to the eastern end of Menaul Blvd. (in Albuquerque), via the CCC Trail, South Sandia Peak, and the Whitewash Trail. John Brewer, who by a curious turn of events is now my supervisor at work, wants to do that hike with me, and several other people may come along.

(The attached photo was taken right after Darren's birth on July 7, 1988, at what was then called St. Joseph's-West Mesa Hospital.)

On Turning 50

Well, I turn fifty years old today, which I guess is a notable event in one's life, although I don't see much cause for celebration. When I turned forty, I still felt pretty young, even though it became apparent over time that my body could no longer do what it once was capable of. However, I find that at fifty I feel much older -- I guess a decade of sleeping badly will do that to a person, but understanding the reasons why I feel old doesn't make it any easier to bear, nor does it make the future look any rosier. I think I read somewhere that Frank Sinatra was fifty when he recorded "It Was a Very Good Year." I'm sure it still strikes some people as strange that Sinatra recorded such an elegiac number at a relatively young age (after all, he lived another thirty-plus years), but I too find myself looking wistfully to the past, wondering if all my best years are behind me and wishing I'd done more with the opportunities I had as a young man.

On Marketing the Mormons

I remember the marketing class I took in the summer of 1987 as part of the "core" requirements for my master's degree in business administration. One of the things that struck me most about the course material was the comparison made between American car manufacturers and Japanese car manufacturers and how each did business in the 1960s and 1970s. The upshot was that American companies essentially designed and made cars that they liked, leaving it up to their dealers to sell those cars to the public, whereas the Japanese companies actually went out and researched what the public wanted and/or needed, and then designed and made cars that essentially sold themselves. This comparison served to underscore the difference between selling, on one hand, and marketing, on the other. In the years since, I've often contemplated the missionary program of the LDS Church, concluding time and again that the church is still stuck in "selling" mode, as opposed to concentrating on improving the "product" it is offering -- that is, making church a place where people actually want to be, instead of the place where they go on Sundays, if at all, out of a sense of guilt or obligation. (And I'm not advocating offering door prizes and holding a drawing at the end of sacrament meeting.)

Thank goodness we haven't arrived at the point...yet... where we go to church for the specific and masochistic purpose of being excoriated by a minister preaching hellfire and damnation (I keep picturing Ian McKellen's "Church of the Quivering Brethren" in the 1995 film Cold Comfort Farm: "Well, I'll tell ye! There'll be no butter in Hell!"). However, in many ways, the message we typically receive on Sundays isn't much more encouraging -- and if "men are that they might have joy," one might wonder to what end we have Sunday church meetings! I'm well aware of my own faults -- I don't need to be reminded of them at every turn, as if that were going to "inspire" me to improve myself. Needless to say, there's no joy in it so far as I can see.

And, of course, this doesn't even address most of the social aspects of church membership, which often seem calculated to elevate and emphasize our differences to the near-exclusion of what we have in common. The resulting tension and disunity among members -- and don't try to tell me I'm imagining it -- is a huge impediment to the whole notion of missionary work. My in-laws mentioned to me the other day how the ward in which their daughter and son-in-law live in Connecticut has an 85% activity rate, which of course is phenomenal by modern standards. The members there often spend time together outside of church and seem to enjoy each other's company, instead of being at unspoken odds with each other. Now, it is an affluent area, and thus the ward undoubtedly is pretty homogeneous in terms of social class and income bracket -- in contrast with our ward here in Albuquerque, which has annual incomes ranging from $200K+ down to less than a tenth of that -- but, notwithstanding, they must be doing something right to achieve that kind of activity rate. The church missionary department would be wise to do some research in that respect.

April Update

Darren has received another transfer, this time to an area called Lempira, which is still in the city (and in fact is in the Comayagüela Zone, where he served previously in Flor del Campo). His companion is Elder Pac (see photo), a Guatemalan who was in his previous district in the Torocagua Zone. Darren is about to hit 19 months on his mission and, because he and his mission president have made tentative plans for him to come home three weeks early (so that he can attend fall semester at BYU), he only has about 4½ months left. He's still enthusiastic about the work and has been blessed, in the main, with excellent companions.

My sleep situation is still rife with uncertainty. I'd more or less come to the point where I decided I needed to go back on prescription sleep meds, actually asking my sleep doctor for a couple of prescriptions. I tried, for the third time, to take Mirapex, the doctor's preferred med for restless legs/"leg jerks," but it simply wasn't having any positive effect (and in fact was having very annoying side effects). However, I finally agreed, rather than go back on Lunesta and/or Temazepam, to try an alternative "leg jerk" med called Neurontin, which I understand is an anti-convulsive when taken in larger doses. I've taken it the last several nights, and it does at least have a mild sedative effect (although it isn't strong enough to put me out for the entire night), and thus far doesn't seem to have noticeably bad side effects. Thus I think I will be able to take it for a month per the doctor's instructions, and I'll just wait and see what it does.

I still don't think I have any significant problem with being roused by my own "leg jerks" at night, but the sleep doctor seems to think that if a person's inability to sleep isn't attributable to sleep apnea (and my "VPAP Adapt SV" machine seems to be treating that part of my problem well), it is, by default, due to restless legs syndrome or "leg jerks." (Sure, I tossed and turned during the sleep studies I've had done, but I defy anyone to sleep soundly when wired up like that; it seems preposterous to me to base a diagnosis of restless legs on such an unnatural and unrepresentative situation.) For that reason, I'm relatively convinced that sleep medicine isn't in a very advanced state of understanding, and that the "experts" are still really only guessing most of the time. Meanwhile, in cognitive terms I only barely function, and I find it all too easy to fall into profound fits of depression.

Chris and a friend have started their own auto repair business, J&C Auto, which is located on east Central here in Albuquerque. I've long known that Chris would need to open his own shop if he ever wanted to make really good money doing car repairs, but it's a precarious time right now to be starting any kind of business, especially one that depends on the rapid development of a loyal clientele. We're praying for them.

Kiley has now taken the ACT, and she's working on the material for her AYS audition for the '09-'10 school year, which will take place on Friday May 1. One would think that with eight graduating senior cellists, the competition won't be as stiff for next year's group, but of course Kiley doesn't view it that way and is already nervous about it.

It appears that Dorine and I probably won't have to be a "ma and pa" for the stake youth "handcart trek" in June. Our ward will have only a handful of youth going on the trek, and since there is another (younger and hardier) couple called to go, we'll probably be let off the hook. Inasmuch as Kiley will be in Australia at that time with AYS, Dorine and I might actually get to go somewhere by ourselves -- I don't suppose she'd want to go to Las Vegas.

Oh, and in case anyone reading this doesn't already know, Heidi and Devery are both pregnant and are due in late October. They seem to be doing relatively well, especially given their heinous work schedules (Heidi works nights as a labor-and-delivery nurse, and Devery commutes to Salt Lake City from Provo on a UTA bus, which results in very long days). It will be interesting to see if either of the babies is a boy, given the high percentage of girls in our family!

Mark Steyn - The Canary in the Coal Mine

I've been thinking a lot lately about how America, especially under the Obama administration and with a Democratic Congress that is seemingly willing to spend the country into oblivion, is following Europe down a toilet of its own peculiar making. (And, given that high tax rates are invariably death at the ballot box in the U.S., our country may follow an even more direct path to the sewer in light of the astronomical budget deficits we'll be running, and the inevitable inflation -- and the mounting risk associated with owning U.S. Treasury debt instruments -- that such deficits will cause.)

As usual, Mark Steyn has captured all of my unexpressed feelings perfectly in an essay he's published on his website, titled "The Europeanization of America" (http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/1931/26/). As a Mormon, I believe that Thomas S. Monson is God's prophet and mouthpiece on Earth, but no one has given us a clearer vision of America's future -- by illustrating the culturally, spiritually, demographically, and economically enervated state of the Europe that the "progressives" in this country are trying so hard to emulate -- than Steyn has done. When historians write about the whimpering death of western civilization, they'll note that Steyn saw it coming and practically no one listened to him.

Update: Here's a link to the article at a different site: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2218768/posts

Utah Trip - March 2009

Dorine, Kiley, and I went to Provo, Utah last Friday, March 20, staying until yesterday, March 26. The primary reason for the trip was to see our daughter Devery and her husband Easton (D&E), but we ended up seeing lots of family and old friends. We left Albuquerque at about 6:00 pm on Friday and made pretty good time, arriving in Provo at 3:15 am on Saturday morning. We crashed that first night (i.e., morning) at D&E's apartment in south Provo, but then we spent the next five nights at the Provo Super 8 Hotel on Canyon Road at University Parkway. (That particular Super 8 is a decent hotel for the price, having all the amenities that I require, anyway -- free wireless internet, a continental breakfast with waffle machines, an exercise room with a treadmill, and an indoor pool and spa.) We have acquired the habit of listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks on long trips in the car -- for which Kiley's 30-gig iPod comes in handy -- and on this trip we finished off the seventh book (Deathly Hallows) and started over on the sixth book (Half-Blood Prince).

On Saturday, after sleeping in to recover from the long drive up, we went to eat at a Village Inn, and then we did some shopping at the mall in Orem. That evening, D&E took us out to eat at a Training Table restaurant on University Parkway, and then we went back to their apartment to watch Cold Comfort Farm, a British comedy that we fell in love with (and which I have since bought on eBay and can't wait to watch again). The next morning, we went to sacrament meeting with D&E in their BYU ward, and then we had lunch with them at their apartment. That evening, we took Devery and drove out to Pleasant Grove and had dinner with my brother Roger and his wife Lynnea at their home.

On Monday, we went shopping at the Provo Towne Center in the morning. Later we went to visit my brothers Jeff and Robin (and their wives, Marlyn and Karolyn) at their place of work in Pleasant Grove before driving on to Salt Lake City, where we picked up Devery from work and then went out to Grantsville to visit Dorine's brother Brian, his wife Dona, and their kids. On Tuesday, we spent most of the day with D&E, as Devery took the day off work and Easton had only one scheduled class. We shopped around town all day, then went and had dinner with Robin and Karolyn at their home in Pleasant Grove.

Wednesday was a "guys' day out," as I spent the day with Bob Maes, my old BYU roommate, who lives in Cedar Hills with his wife Marti and works in Salt Lake City as a postal inspector. (Dorine took Kiley up to Salt Lake City to visit with Dorine's relatives.) Bob and I had lunch at Iggy's Sports Grill in Orem with Jeff Aldous and Chuck Canfield, who also lived on the seventh floor of "T" Hall in BYU's Deseret Towers dorm complex during the 1977-78 school year. (I hadn't seen Chuck -- a physician who lives just down the street in Highland from Lenard Brunsdale, one of our old bishops when he lived here in Albuquerque -- since the end of winter semester in April 1978. I also hadn't seen Jeff, a lawyer who lives in my brother Kelly's stake in north Provo, in a number of years.) We sat at Iggy's and talked for a solid three hours, catching up on the events of the last 31 years; the attached photo, taken with my cell phone's camera, shows (L-R) Chuck, Bob, and Jeff. Bob and I talked about going backpacking this summer in New Mexico's Gila Wilderness -- I need to look into possible routes. That night, Dorine, Kiley, and I went out to eat one last time with D&E, also inviting Devery's cousin Hillery John and her husband Kevin, at a decent Chinese buffet out on State Street in, I think, Pleasant Grove. And later, D&E came back to our hotel for a swim before Devery had to go home to bed.

We came home the following day, Thursday the 26th, running into some bad weather and snow-packed roads, especially in Price Canyon as we left Utah Valley. However, we took it slow and made it through the canyon okay, and the roads were clear the rest of the way to Albuquerque. (Then it snowed last night in Albuquerque.)