Elder Wirthlin

One last post for the day. We were sad when we found out that Laura's Grandad died. My absolutely favorite talk he ever gave is the one he gave the Conference after Laura's Grandma died. When you listen to it, it is beautiful. Click here to listen to Sunday Will Come.

I'm insulted by my dads pictures of me

I guess he thought it would be funny to put the worst possible picture of me at the bottom of the page. (The one where I look like a four year old who didn't get the "best" tasting lollipop.) To reflect how I feel look at this picture.

The Winner of the Poetry Championship Series

A few weeks ago I reported on the poetry contest that I started at work. I had 31 entries. If you want to see all of them click here. Overall, it was a great time.

I prepare a pretty intricate worksheet to try to simulate the BCS system. The spreadsheet is here. The spreadsheet is sorted from first to last.

Yesterday, at our regular monthly firm meeting, I awarded the first prize to a Ute . . . Unfortunately. Her name is Katy Steffey. Here is the winning poem:

Jan Jorgensen plays for the Y
He's one of their mouthier guys
He says they're the best
but we're unimpressed
We've seen how their quarterbacks cry!


The best part of giving the award was that I got to keep the Best of the '80s CDs. Like I said, all BYU fans are still living in the 80s.

I don't have enough creative power for a title

Hey, I don't know what to do so I'll put on Hitler reacting to BYU's loss.

Thanksgiving

I have had a busy few weeks. Let me report on Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving with Laura's family at noon. Her brother and sister and their children, her parents, and Aunt Gay all came over and we ate a lot. It was really good food. We had planned to have the dinner at Laura's parents house but decided our place might be a better venue since we had lots of toys and fun things to do for the children. Consequently, although we provided the venue, everyone else brought the food. It was a good time.

At 3:00 p.m., we all got in the car and headed to Scott's parent's house. We had Thanksgiving with his brother, Steve, and his children, Grandma Crook. The food was good. The kids were stuffed and we had lots of fun. We've attached a slide show to the right.

What I Do For Fun

As you know, the BYU-Utah game is going to be played in a week and a half. At work, I sent out this e-mail:

All:

Last year was the first year of the BYU/Utah Haiku and
Limerick contest. Although I promised a prize, I never actually bought
one. This year I did. If the winner of this year’s contest is a Utah
fan, he or she will receive a 4 CD set of music entitled Happy Days ‘60s---the
last decade of Utah dominance in the rivalry. If the winner of this year’s
contest is a BYU fan, he or she will win a 3 CD set of music entitled Ultimate
‘80s---the decade in which all BYU fans are still living. Anyone who is
not a fan of either team or is a fan of both may choose between the CD
sets. All are welcome to come to my office to view the
prizes.

Now to the contest. . .

Anyone in
the firm may submit any number of poems in a haiku and limerick format which
will be judged on form, wit, and style. The entries must be submitted
before game time next Saturday.

To better approximate the current
state of college football, any entry from the east side of the office (I have
arbitrarily determined that the east side means anyone east of, but not
including, Eric Johnson’s and Bryan Bryner’s offices) will get preferential
treatment. Additionally, I will ask two other volunteers to be judges with
me. They will each rank the poems from 1 to 25. I will prepare a
spreadsheet that weighs each of the judges’ rankings depending upon my
subjective judgment of the validity of each of the rankings. Additionally,
I have determined that anyone who has practiced for more than fifteen years or
has an office immediately adjacent to such a person will be classified as a
Poetry Championship Series attorney who will get preferential treatment in the
prize determination as well.

I have not had the time to perfect my
spreadsheet but will do so before the prizes are given. Trust me. I
know poetry better than you do.

I have received more than 20 entries so far.

These are two of the poems I submitted:

There is a school to the North wearing red
Who screams about having no cred’.
A BCS bowl?
Nice and lofty end goal.
Try covering BYU receivers instead.

There once were three lawyers at work
Whose assertions made other folks smirk,
“Katy, Matthew, and Dan,
Try hard as you can,
We won’t take Ute tickets as perks.”

I love starting these things. It makes office morale high and we have lots of fun.

Veteran's Day

About six month's ago---I'm not sure of the day but I know it was before Memorial Day---I was flying back from a trip out of state and picked up a couple of magazines to read on the flight. In one of the magazines---it was either Time or Newsweek---there was a story about the plight of soldier's families who are left at home to fend for themselves while their father or mother is deployed overseas. After I quickly thumbed past the article to begin reading another, I felt a very significant pang of guilt. You see, the reason I wanted to look past it was I didn't want to deal with it.

Quite frankly, I was disappointed in myself and quite shocked. The fact that I was the son of a career military man who watched my dad leave hom twice while serving in two different overseas venues,that my brother is currently active duty and has been overseas a number of times, and my brother-in-law is a veteran who was stationed in the desert during Desert Storm makes me particularly ashamed. I know the sacrifice that families make for their soldier parents. I have felt the loneliness that a child feels when his dad is gone. I know the worry that is in the heart of every family.

In fact, at the beginning of the most recent Iraqi war, I watched a Nightline episode about the deploying of National Guard troops. The episode ended with the soldiers marching away. As they were leaving, from the background the sound of a young boy's voice saying, "I love you, Dad," ended the show. I literally cried for most of the night. It was like all of the anxieties I had felt as a young boy that had been buried underneath all of those years came out. (The thought of it is making me cry now.)

Why then did I look past the article? Why would I do that?

I believe it is that it is easier for me to pass over the sacrifice of these soldiers and their families by ignoring them. If I don't read about it, I won't remember. I won't have to feel the pain again.

The problem, of course, is that these families do feel the pain. Their pain has secured my liberty. Their pain has bought me the security to sit in a plane and skip the story written by a free press about their suffering.

Never again.

I owe my freedom, my liberty, and my life to veterans.

The Beginning

Here's the deal. The idea of doing a lot of blog posting doesn't seem that fun. In fact, it could be painful and time consuming. However, the rest of the world seems to be doing it, and this may be a good way to keep everybody informed about the things that our happening with our family.

So. . . . We will give it a try.

At the moment

Scott's a lawyer,

Laura's a housewife,

James is an eight grader at Centerville Junior High,

and Joseph is a 4th grader being home-schooled.

We live in Centerville, Utah. We like people. We don't get out much and we're just trying to survive.

-More to come-