President Hinckley Passing -- My Thoughts at the Time

****I realized that I never published this post for some reason almost 2 years ago. I thought I would go ahead and put it up, even though it has been so long. Did I mention that I loved President Hinckley?****

Originally written February 2008

"I believe he was a true prophet but it didn't hurt that he was a genius, too."
Elder Marlin K. Jensen

I know that there have been many eulogies written for President Hinckley since his death a few weeks ago, but I thought I would write down a few thoughts of my own. I have been surprised at my own emotional response to his passing. I think just about every member of the church sensed what a special prophet and leader he was. He definitely left his mark on the church, nation and world.

I read the Sherry Dew's biography of President Hinckley about 6 years ago and I don't think I have ever been so thoroughly inspired by a book. In some ways his life was so ordinary, but he humbly transcended his simple roots to be the most important and inspirational leader I have ever personally followed. His good nature and sense of humor allowed him to teach me that life is tough sometimes, but accepting that truth, there is always something positive to be accentuated and to be grateful for. He believed deeply in simple, true principles of living a good life and being a good person.

I felt such a personal connection to him when he spoke. I cannot count how many times I testified to people on my mission that he was a true and living prophet of God.

His teaching style usually avoided the doctrinal nitty-gritty. And yet, he was a master of wrapping the most complex doctrines of the gospel into basic principles of honest living and hard work, two hallmarks of his long and fruitful life. Of course, he was no doctrinal or historical lightweight. In fact, he was a scholar of church and world history. In many ways he literally "wrote the book" on how the modern church sees itself historically.

When he died, I cried as I read some of the online published accounts of his life. Not really because I am sad, although I do feel like I have lost a close personal friend. He left a huge, indelible mark on my spiritual identity that I will cherish forever.

Not Much Response....Probably Because I'm Such a Cruel Human Being

People,

I can tell by the response to my last post that the collective Internet community of bloggers let out a joyful cry when the news came out that I would be updating my blog more frequently. (Sarcasm)

Actually, like I always tell my wife when I think she is being overly sensitive: "Nobody cares!" I'm usually wrong, she reminds me because SHE cares. However, in this case it turns out that I am right because apparently not even she gives a crap about what I am writing here.

As I shared in the title of this post, I probably should not be surprised by my lack of readership. After all, I am one mean son of a gun. As I type, both of my children are screaming out in emotional agony from their bedrooms, just begging their Mommy or Daddy to come in an snuggle them to sleep. Actually, Max is crying, "I want Daddy!" right now. A few years ago, that little trick worked really well on me, but I have become so hardened and emotionally calloused to the screaming and crying that I am just going to continue to type without so much as batting an eye. I do love them however.

Anyway, whoever is reading this, try to look past the crusty exterior. I am a nice person on the inside...really, I promise.

A New Era Begins...

People,

I am letting you all know that I have turned over a new leaf and reset the clock. In other words, I am starting out fresh. My blogging reliability has been suspect but here is my pledge: You can expect more frequent posts from me on my blog. Note that for the record, I didn't promise any sort of depth or substance to those posts, just higher frequency.

Also, since it seems like this whole Internet thing just isn't "going away" like I thought it would, I have decided to ally myself with the enemy and join Facebook. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! The main reason is I want more friends than my wife. So please help me out and be my friend, if not for friendship's sake, than for the sake of a good old fashioned rivalry between a husband and wife.

Jump on the bandwagon! In a little over a day, I already have almost 50 friends. Help me keep up the pace.

Thanks

Furnace Problems

Here are some pictures of the burned out circuit board I found on my furnace this morning. It is cold today and we are getting record amounts of snowfall. What a day for my furnace to go out on me!

Fortunately we were able to supplement our single space heater by stealing one from our nice neighbors (who are out of the country right now) and we have a gas fireplace so we are not freezing, but I gotta do something about my furnace.

Like a Speeding Bullet

Sorry this took so long to post. On February 2, 2008, we had the opportunity to go over to the University of Washington to watch Drew run in the Husky Invitational Indoor Track Meet. Drew represented the BYU Cougars well and ran a 1:52:80, which wasn't quite as fast as he wanted but was still a very impressive showing. Sorry the video is a little shaky, I was trying to zoom so you could see Drew which makes little tiny hand movements seem like earthquakes. Plus, I was standing on some bleachers on my tip toes trying to get the camera up high enough to get a good vantage point. Basically, I am preempting the complaints I will receive for my shoddy camera work by saying "Get over it!"

Go Goose and go Cougs!

This Is How I Feel.....

In case you are either visually impaired or just couldn't tell from looking at the picture (in which case you probably have some kind of social disorder), I am very excited about the news we got this week that we will be having a baby girl in February. I had a feeling that it would be a girl, but I think it had less to do with father's intuition than it did with just kind of wanting a little girl as well as getting lucky with the favorable 50-50 odds.

We thought Max was going to be a girl for about 3 weeks and it was amazing to me what a psychological shift had to take place once we found out that he was a boy. We were excited about a boy, but there was a little disappointment that our hopes of a girl would have to wait. I think we are pretty sure this time but I guess you never really know until they are in you arms. Max is going to be a very cute big brother, but it is hard for Dana and I to imagine how we will have the capacity to love another baby as much as we love Max. I'm sure we will find a way!

She looks incredibly cute on her ultrasound pictures.

How Much Longer?

"How much longer, Dad?"

"About 2 hours, Son."

So annoying...but I see myself doing the same thing to my own kids someday. It doesn't matter where you are, you are two hours from where you are trying to get. Two hours is long enough to be in agony (especially if you really gotta go!), but short enough to think that you might be able to make it.

Just as I began to understand under the careful tutelage of my loving father in the above example, I think everybody eventually comes to this simple realization in their life: Time is a funny thing.

Time's rate of progression seems to be directly relative to our own state of mind. We all know that it flies by when you are having fun. Conversely, it seems to drag on forever when you are bored out of your mind or stuck doing something you do not want to do. One cold, hard fact remains. Time is a finite, limited resource; and therefore subject to the laws of scarcity. That is why we can never get enough of it.

I have always been a poor judge of how long it is going to take me to accomplish a given task, and yet I never seem to learn how bad my estimates are. I like to challenge myself sometimes when I have a list of jobs to accomplish. "I will do a, b, c, & d in the next hour and twenty minutes." Usually at the end of the allotted time, I have gotten through the first half of a and thought about d, or less.

When I started painting my house well over a month ago, I estimated I could finish it in a solid week's worth of effort. Oh, how wrong I was! As of tonight, it is still a work in progress. It is "progressing", mind you, but at a snail's pace. I still have over half of the trim in all the hard places to do! I have been thinking in my mind that I will finish by the end of the week, but I have a feeling that is just another one of those self-delusions I am talking about (note: it hasn't helped that I have been sick for a couple weeks now, which I am just getting over. That has sapped my normally vigorous work ethic a bit).

We like to try and plan our lives out for the future, but invariably, our plans are way more ambitious than anything in our pasts would indicate is actually achievable. But we never seem to learn.

In college, my graduate advisor helped me understand this principle of time management. He told me to make my most wild estimates about the time it would take me to complete all the tasks I planned out for my graduate work, trying to envision all that possibly, conceivably go wrong in the process. Then take that number and double or triple it.

When it came down to it, the actual time spent was more like quadruple.

This whole discussion boils down to this simple point: Stuff takes way longer than you think it is going to.

I've learned that in my heart, but yet I can never seem to learn it in my head...