Event

Christ Like Service
This happened to our family a couple of years after we moved from San Jose, California to Colorado.
We were traveling from Colorado to Longmont. Outside of Laramie Wyoming, about 709 miles from home we had a catastrophic engine failure. Our little min-van was toast. This was before the days of cell phones, so we waited for some help to arrive in the form of a highway patrolman, and got a tow truck who towed us into Laramie. We left the van at a repair shop in Laramie, rented a car and drove home. That was on Saturday.
Sunday, a friend from church found out our predicament. Chuck then served our family. He lent us a car so we could get around. He rented a tow bar and he and I drove to Laramie and towed the van back home – to his home where he had a shop. He used his connections to find us a new engine for our sick little van. Then he helped me to replace the engine so that we could have a car again.
All of that was out of the ordinary Christ like service. It is even more impressive when you know that Chuck was legally paralyzed from a broken neck in an automobile accident. He could shuffle around and do some things, but it was a true sacrifice for this man to do this for us. He served a family that he didn't even know very well. In fact, he chastised me for not calling him while we were in Laramie the first time – he would have driven up to get us.
We learned to love Chuck, and I think his service helped him to love our family.
When I think about this Christ like service, I really think of Christ and his service to us. He brought us and taught us the gospel. He taught us right from wrong. He established his church to aid us in returning to him. And he lived and died for us so that he could bring about the atonement, our only chance of returning to live with him and our Father in Heaven. As we ponder this service to us, perhaps it will help us to realize how much he loves us, so that we can love him more.

Movie Review

May 6, 2011

Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I like this movie a lot (even though I saw it on a small screen on an airliner coming back from oversees.) It didn't seem as hard to follow as the previous two Narnia movies, however you would be lost a little bit if you hadn't seen the other two.
Visually, it was beautiful. The characters were realistic (or as realistic as a dragon and a heroic mouse can be). Let's not say realistic, let's say consistent and for all the strangeness of the story they were developed nicely.
I may need to buy this one just so I can see if I still like it when I am not sleep deprived.

I highly recommend it.

Event – Big Event

May 7, 2011 - Saturday

Mar – Pinned as a Registered Nurse Graduate

 

It has been a hard course for Mar, but she accomplished it. She finished the education as a Registered Nurse, getting her pinning on May 7, 2011. A lot of work, but she is great so we knew she would make it through.

Breanne and Ben and Erica And Rich and Alice and Evy all came to cheer her on. Just as she was being pinned, during the hush of the moment, Alice shouted out, "Yea, Nana." We all had to smile – even Mar and all of her fellow grads.

After, we had a nice celebration – and it also counted for Mother's Day (because Mar really had one more day of clinical to do – accomplished on Sunday.)

A Note

Well - to those who follow my blog - both of you - I am now more or less up to day - at least until tomorrow.  I tell you this so that you can be fore-warned that over the past four or five evening I have blogged enough to have some of the entries "drop off" the end, so you will have to go to older posts to see some of the new ones.

Well peace be with you.

Reading List

May 3, 2011


The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A classic and easy to read. I thought I had read it before, but I hadn't – or at least there were a lot of parts that I didn't remember.

As a comment to the way Hollywood has handled the Holmes/Watson characters – I think Watson always got short changed. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, he is portrayed as an active and physical man, not the portly, bumbling gentleman who is so often before our eyes on the silver screen. I think the latest portrayal of him might just be more of what Sir Doyle had in mind. Oh, it is just my editorial opinion.

This is a good story. Read it. You can most assuredly do it quickly , my dear Watson, because it is pretty short.

This is on the list of 501 Must Read Books. Yes I could recommend it for a book club.

Reading List

May 2, 2011

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin

And my daughter will be proud of me. She was aghast when she found I had never read a Jane Austin book. So now I have. I will probably read more – even though she has a decidedly female outlook on things.
I liked this book. I have seen brief snatches in movies, but never enough to get more than girls trying to get husbands and Mr. Darcy being a creep. But somehow the female audience was always rooting for the Darcy creep to win. I didn't get it.

You see, Mr. Darcy is the "Pride" and Elizabeth is the "Prejudice". Together they . . . wait I shouldn't tell the plot in this. But it all ends up happy for at least a few of the characters. (By the way – in mentally portraying the parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, my mind always envisioned the Buckets from BBC's "Keeping Up Appearances".)

This is a book for adult audiences, not because of anything vile or untoward, but because it would take a mature person to understand. I feel like modern audiences are too much focused on the here and now and the do it and get it done. This is about back then, and seeing yourself in a back then world is imperative to understanding the book.

A good book for book clubs, and it reads much easier than I had expected.

Little Known Facts

In my younger years, I dabbled in golf.  I was never serious.

One day, Mike and I wer practicing our driving at a field on the CSU campus.  We were lazy golfers and didn't want to chase down our practice drives, so we took Ed and Tim with us and sent them out to shag the balls - while we hit them. 

When I say while we hit them - I mean THEM.  Mike, or maybe it was me - I don't remember - hit Ed - or maybe it was Tim -  in the upper arm.

Boy did that leave a mark.

We never did that again.

Reading List

4/7/2011
People of the Mist by H. Ridder Haggard

This is the second book on my list by H. Ridder Haggard, the first being King Solomon's Mines. "The Mines" made the 501 Must Read List. This one didn't. I think it should have been the other way around. Now that is not because this is a great literary work. But this is so much more fun to read. The story is better (even though it is about the same). The characters are better. The action is better and much more "Indiana Jonesish". I just liked it better.

I would recommend it to book clubs, with a little bit of a warning. This is a "romance" in the late 1800's point of view. Sad heroes, beautiful women and, coming from that era, absolutely improbable and unbelievable plot twists. But that makes it so much fun and "Indiana Jonsish".

And one other warning, the ending is good, but melancholy in a way, so beware. 

By the way, I chose this book strictly based on the cool title.  I didn't know what it was about, or even who wrote it.  But People of the Mist - come on.  How cool a title can you get.

Reading List

4/4/2011
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I must admit, when I started this book, I thought it was a different one. For some reason I was expecting Bridge to Teribithia. But let me say I was happy it was A Secret Garden. It is outstanding. Any book club should read it. It has excellent characterization. It has a well done plot. It is finely written. And if you wanted to deal with meaning and symbolism then this is a good volume to pick up. I highly recommend it.
It is on the 501 must read list.

Movie Review

April 1, 2011

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows – Part 1

Yes it is shameful that I waited this long to see this Harry Potter Movie – and then it was just bored chance that I watched it. I was flying to Malaysia and this was an option for a movie to watch.

All I can say is – if you haven't read the book, you will be lost. Visually it is pretty good. The plot is poorly developed. I have heard people call it a "camping movie". No, that is not so. But it doesn't tie things together well.

Yes I would recommend anyone to go see it, but if you haven't read it, see it on a DVD, with someone who has read it, and with your figure on the Pause button so you can say, "Where did that snake come from?", "What is that shining deer?", "Who is he killing in the tower?", "Why do these 17 year olds look so old?".

(And if you watch a movie on an airplane, turn on sub-titles so you can hear what is going on.)

I only give this a 2.5 and that is generous.

Movie Review

February, 2011

Young Victoria

It is a movie about just before and just after Victoria becomes queen of England. Mar and I watched it because she got it at a Blockbuster closing for her Mom – and then her Mom had to go home. We were not disappointed that she got the movie.

At first it seemed – slow – but it was real drama. No bombs. No car chases. Just a look at a young lady who became king and found the true love of her life (who, by the way, got shot trying to protect her).

Would I recommend it? Not to a testosterone, pumped up male – or even a modern female. But if you just want to see a well made movie, this one is pretty good.

Mar and I both liked it – and we give it a 3.

Little Know Facts

Lar broke his right wrist in the 9th grade (not a freshman - back then 9th grade was still part of Jr. High School).

Lighting fire-crackers in the church parking lot - lit a fuse - backed up - triped over a parking block - caught myself wrong when I went down.

Cast - on the right hand - for four weeks.

Enough said about that litte escapade.

Books on Tape / CD

April 29, 2011

My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

Satirical and fun.  Light stuff for driving.