Adios Halloween

Although my green kitchen works well for this holiday, it's simply not my favorite. See ya next year!

Happy 25th to Dave

My Dave turned 25 years old yesterday. I must say that I was a tiny bit busy and I didn't get the chance to say Happy Birthday to him on my blog although I did get to talk to him on the phone. Anyway... Happy Birthday Dave! I love you dear son and I'm so happy you came to our home 25 years ago. You have brought us nothing but joy over those years. I was glad that you weren't a Halloween baby though.

The reason I was a tiny bit preoccupied is that we got two new grand babies within 24 hours. One on the 27, one on the 28 and then Dave's birthday came along on the 29. Wow, it's been quite a week. Jordan and Claire gave birth to baby girls. Mothers and daughters are doing really well. I'll wait for the new mothers to post their info before I say much more about the new little ones. This time is so precious to watch these new little families.

Claire and I made an amazing discovery last night. Our family has birthdays that are clustered at the beginning of the month and at the end. Nothing in the middle.
See what I mean:
Rich - 2
Ellie - 3
Jake - 4
Yevon - 5
Lauren - 11


Andy - 20
Rick - 24
Jordan - 25
Claire - 26
Ada - 27
Skippy
Dave - 29
Courtney - 30

See what I mean - no TEENS and no repeats on dates but a bunch of sequential dates. Wow, we're a growing family. Up to 13 from 2.

A look at the truth about BYU football

OK. I've been saying this exact thing for years. Really I have. I'm not making this up. Now comes an article in the Salt Lake Tribune that states more eloquently than I could what is going on. Now, without further adieu... this article by Gordon Monson. I couldn't have said it better myself.

BYU football is at a crossroads, at the metaphorical intersection of what's real and what's imagined, with only the former authentically leading to what's next for Bronco Mendenhall's program. It is a junction where the Cougars have to face down not just what they want to be, but what they can be and what they are.

What's real right now is the hard-truth highway found in the aftermath of a 38-7 loss suffered in Provo at the hands of TCU on Saturday night, the freeway exit off a 32-7 defeat in Fort Worth last season.

In both cases, BYU was put on that path by an opponent that was more athletic and better coached than the Cougars. That's happened twice this season and three times last, when BYU was throttled by teams with more speed, more polish, more poise, more pluck.

There have been a lot of wins mixed in over the past couple of seasons, too, but mostly against teams that provide little or no measure for true excellence or genuine progress, with the victory over what's turned out to be a compromised Oklahoma team as an exception. Overall, Mendenhall is 9-13 in big games and 2-7 against ranked teams.

In his postgame remarks Saturday night, the coach candidly talked about what was obvious to anybody who watched the TCU game, admitting that many of the athletes at BYU are not on par with many of the Horned Frogs. The delineating factor?

Speed. His solution to the problem was brave, but also partially off-target.

He essentially said BYU's model would never be identical to TCU's, meaning the Cougars couldn't get the same number of athletes as the Frogs, the same kind of speed, but that the players they could get have to execute more efficiently to make up for their lack of athleticism, through their diligence and conscientiousness. He also said he had to do a better job of coaching up his players ... and of coaching up his offensive and defensive coordinators. (OK, I added that last part.)

The problem with that notion is that other programs, such as TCU, have talented athletes who also are diligent and conscientious, who execute and are coached up, in the vernacular of Mendenhall, to a higher level.

If BYU doesn't have the same number of top athletes, and isn't as well coached as some other programs, even if the Cougars somehow were suddenly better coached, does that make up all the difference?

BYU could have executed near perfectly on Saturday night, and it still would have lost to a clearly superior team. There may be rare exceptions to that rule, and those exceptions can be found in the program's past, but they remain exactly that -- exceptions.

There just aren't as many athletes who will take a shot at coming to Provo, attending a religious school, living BYU's Honor Code, which is the equivalent of the normal LDS Church standard on steroids, as there are athletes who won't. The Cougars even miss out on top Mormon athletes who want to go elsewhere.

And as long as that turbo-standard is strictly enforced, BYU's football success will have a ceiling. A troop of Boy Scouts might make you proud, but, in today's world, they won't win a national title. That doesn't mean the Cougars can't win eight, nine or 10 games most seasons, especially playing in the Mountain West Conference. It just means they will struggle against programs with financial backing, with great head coaches who know how to recruit and lead a team to victory. Coaches like Gary Patterson, teams like TCU, and victories like Saturday night's.

It's presumptuous on the part of Mendenhall -- and inaccurate -- to think that he can recruit fewer great athletes, athletes who supposedly will work harder than players in other programs, and then do a better job of mentoring them than other top coaches.

Where's the proof for that possibility?

BYU had two terrific seasons under Bronco in which they finished 11-2. Pretty darn good, but not good enough to qualify for anything bigger than the Las Vegas Bowl.

Utah has made it to two BCS bowls, including last year's game in New Orleans that completed another undefeated season.

Again, the Utes had a bunch of gifted, hard-working athletes and coaches who were committed and knew what they were doing, just like TCU does this year. Their coaches, in fact, were better than BYU's.

Despite the limitations in the kinds and numbers of great athletes he can recruit, Mendenhall refused to lower expectations for BYU's program in his postgame remarks. He said the ultimate goal at BYU remains winning a national championship. Kind of like your kid wanting to be Tiger Woods, like you wanting your kid to be Tiger Woods.

Reason says it ain't happening.

He might, if he's fortunate, become Fred Funk.

Dreaming is one thing, foolishness is another.

And, so, BYU finds itself caught in its dreamy world, somewhere at the crossing of reality and fantasy. It wants to be something special, it wants to be a national champion, but it doesn't have the building blocks or the architects, or the inclination to change the things that limit its reach, to make it happen.

Not that it should change those limitations, if the school is fixed on drawing student-athletes committed to living by the Code. But if that's the case, it should adjust expectations. At a minimum, it should cut down on the pie-in-the-sky rhetoric.

The way things are now, a hundred Cougar players and a million faithful Cougar fans are angry and frustrated and confused by the space between what is fact and what is fiction, what is reality and what is a smoked pipe dream beyond good reason's grasp.

Bottom line: BYU should turn off What's Imagined Lane and head down What's Real Avenue and embrace what it is -- a fine academic institution that promotes clean living and love of religion, with a football team that wins, but, under its present direction, doesn't have -- and can't get -- enough athletes to reach its goal.

Mendenhall is a football coach, not a miracle worker.

Somewhere deep down, he knows that, and so should everybody else.

A day in NYC

Make a Smilebox slideshow

25 ridiculously healthy foods

1. Eggs

2. Greek yogurt

3. Fat free milk

4. Salmon

5. Lean beef

6. Beans

7. Nuts

8. Edamame (soy beans)

9. Oatmeal

10. Flaxseed

11. Olive oil

12. Avacado

13. Broccoli

14. Spinach

15. Tomatoes

16. Sweet potatoes

17. Garlic

18. Red peppers

19. Figs

20. Blue berries

21. Asian pears

22. Lychee

23. Apples

24. Guava

25. Dark chocolate

I love them all but the dark chocolate! How about you?

Elder Earl in New England

One of the reasons I've always wanted to go to Boston and Cambridge is because I knew my dad served his mission there many years ago. He served his LDS mission in the New England States mission from May 11, 1942 - May 1944. I have his missionary journal and I read it years ago. Since going to Boston, I've been reading it again. It is captivating to read about his missionary service and to imagine him in some of the places we visited now that I've been there. Back in 1942 he spent 10 days in the mission home in Salt Lake City being trained and then he and 10 other Elders made the trip from Salt Lake City to Boston Massachusetts by train. In his words he said "Tonight was the night we left Salt Lake at 7:00 pm for Denver. Mother, Edna, Clair, Rex, John, Sarah, Grandpa, Uncle Joe, Reah, Mirt, Laura and Aunt Rodea were there to see me off. I think I will miss "Fat" as much as anyone. Here are the lines of travel from Salt Lake to Boston. Salt Lake to Denver over the Rio Grand. Denver to Chicago by way of Omaha Nebraska over the Burlington. From Chicago to Buffalo by way of Detroit over the Illinois Central, from Buffalo to Boston over the New York Central line."
His mission home address was 100 Brattle Street, Cambridge Massachusetts. From what I've read, the Cambridge chapel that was dedicated over 60 years ago in 1956 was built on the spot where his mission home once stood. The mission home was purchased by the Church from the Henry W. Longfellow estate. It stood where the chapel now stands in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and had to be cut in half to be moved down Hawthorne Street to its present location. That beautiful and historic Cambridge chapel burned down earlier this year. See this article for more information.
His first area was Plymouth, Massachusetts. He was assigned to serve with Elder Lunt. He states on May 25, 1942: we had lunch and went tracking. We had a few conversations. I tried it once - boy oh boy I hope and pray I will be able to do as well as Elder Lunt after awhile.
August 16, 1942: Came in to Cambridge to church today. It was the third time since I got here that I've gone to one of our church buildings. They had a very fine meeting. After the meeting Elders Nilson, Stewart, Hall, Mack and myself went and had lunch. After which Mack and I went to a ball game. Red Socks and Washington. In the evening we went over to the mission home to a social. Very nice. Went back out to Hyde Park for the night.
October 25, 1942: Well we had our first person ask for baptism. Mrs. Bartlett is coming down to interview here and Cora her daughter. Had a swell talk with them.
Later that first year he wrote on December 31, 1942: Had quite a weekend. Six of us went over to Malden and had a good game of basketball. Tonight four of us spent the evening in Boston. Boy what a crowd there was, and what a racket they did make about 12:00 midnight. After the excitement had passed we went to a show and didn't get home till 4:30 A.M.
He then served in New Haven Connecticut, Medford Connecticut , and then he got a transfer to New London, Connecticut. He wrote:
April 2, 1943 - I had a very good day tracking and visiting yesterday, got up this morning and the sun was shinning and here I was not a worry in the world, and I read awhile and when the mail came I went down and got it. There was a letter for me from the mission office, but it wasn't one of the big ones like they send for transfers, so I didn't think much about it. I came up and opened it and this what it said "This is to notify you of your transfer from Medford to New London, Conn. and your appointment as President of the Southern Conn. district. You could have knocked me over with a pin - all I can say is if President Reeder thinks I'm the man for the job, then with the help of the Lord, I'll do my best."
He also traveled all around Connecticut coordinating the missionary efforts in that area. He makes journal entries from Bridgeport, Woodbury, Norwich, New Haven, Conn. and Providence, Rhode Island. He states: I have had the mission car during this time - visited all the members and friends in the district - drove it 1000 miles while here. When out to McBeth and had a fine supper after which I drove the car to Hartford for Elder Hawkens to use...
May 1, 1943 - Elder Mack went tracking this morning so while he was gone I sent letters to all the members in New Haven. I hadn't written home for a couple of weeks so I took a five and wrote. I had a very good talk with a fellow on the train. I told him all about the church and what we were doing out here in the east. He seemed very interested and said he was a Jew. Just as I was leaving he reached in his pocket and handed me a pocket knife. It sure is a nice one, pretty nice fellow.
June 1, 1943: Met the President at 9:00 this morning and we all went over to the Yale library to see the Coe collection. They have more stuff about our church than you can imagine. President Reeder was very impressed. The collection is worth $200,000. We spent about two hours here...
On December 4 he wrote from Watertown, Mass: Got up at 7:00 had breakfast and was ready to go out by 9:00. we spent the whole day visiting people Hammond had met while he stayed there. Had a very nice time. We came in to Boston at 5:00 and did a little shopping. Caught the 6:00 train to Providence.
The last entry was written on December 7, 1943 from New Haven, Connecticut: Spent yesterday tracking and visiting. I let the Elders come up and spend the day tracking with us. We went tracking out in North Haven, walked 15 miles, spent the whole day. Had some good talks...
Obviously, mission rules have changed a bit since 1942! It's so interesting to catch a glimpse of what his mission was like for him. His missionary journal is a gem. I can hear his voice ringing though in my head and I can picture him in action. He was a person who loved to talk to people and he could instantly put them at ease and find something to talk about. He was a master at asking questions and he could engage anyone in conversation. I'm sure he learned many of these skills while serving in the New England States. Just imagine it. A poor farm boy walking the streets of Boston, surely visiting parts of Harvard and Yale while in New Haven. I can just see how handsome he was in his suit coat, hat and top coat visiting with the good people of those areas throughout much of New England. It makes me get teary eyed just thinking of what his mission did for his life. I'm so proud of him and so proud that he chose to serve.

JFK Library

While in Boston, we spent one morning touring the presidential library of John F. Kennedy. It was quite fascinating. If you ever get the chance to tour a presidential library, take the opportunity to learn more about a particular president and the events that were going on in the country while they were in office. We've been to the libraries of Ronald Regan and Richard Nixon in California and we were very interested to see what was in the JFK library. It showed a slice of Americana during the short tenure of his presidency which was about 1000 days (minus any references to his dalliances with Marilyn Monroe...) But I digress. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside of the museum, but I did take one quick picture of the wording on a display about space exploration during his presidency and the spin-offs that came from that exploration. Who knew? I thought it was fascinating to find out that the good little GPS system that guided us carefully the entire trip was a product of space exploration and discoveries associated with it. We loving nick named our (on loan from Dave and Janet) GPS "Eleanor" and she saved our lives. She took us from the parking lot of our hotel in Boston, right to the front door of our hotel in NYC. She then outdid herself and drove us from NYC right to the steps of Mike and Yvonne's home in Washington DC. Unfortunately, I accidentally left her in the console of our rental car and when I discovered the mistake 45 minutes later, she was gone. I'm so sorry Eleanor! That was the only downer of the whole trip. Some dishonest Alamo employee or the next person who rented the car said that she was no where to be seen. Yeah, right. Poor little Eleanor. She is now in the hands of a dishonest person. But we have the instruction manual, so I hope they are frustrated trying to figure out how to use her without it. Dirty Rotten Scoundrel!

a mothers perspective

Check out this very interesting article entitled "My son the Mormon" written by Ann Cochran in the Washingtonian. It's a very interesting look from a mother's perspective, as her son investigates and then joins the LDS faith. It's well written, balanced and thought provoking.

After the article was published in the Deseret News, people commented about the article online. The author herself wrote in and said the following:

Hello all and thank you for the wonderful comments. This story was published in Washingtonian Magazine in 2006 and for some unknown reason was on Twitter yesterday and now I find it here!Harry did go on a mission, to northern Italy. He is back and at BYU now.I hope to publish an article about his mission.

Fenway

Rick fulfilled a life time dream of touring Fenway Park. My motives were good, but slightly different. I wanted to see the park because I knew my dad went there while he was on his mission, serving in the New England States, many years ago to watch a game. Fenway is one of those places that kind of has a spirit to it. It's so OLD and HISTORIC that you can't help but feel the ghosts of baseball players past. We walked around the perimeter of the entire building. I'm sure that at some point I walked in my dad's same footsteps. Kinda cool.

We almost didn't get in. They had a busload of Catholic school kids come to tour the park and they weren't letting other site-see-ers in that afternoon. Rick made a pouty face and said that we had come all the way from Utah to see the park. One of the old tour guys took pity on us and said that we could tag along with him following the school kids. He was a darling man. He told the other workers that he was giving a tour to a bunch of Catholic kids and two Mormons.

We learned a lot about the park such as:

• what the GREEN monster is and why (the paint color is patented)
• how they keep score by hand
• how there are 7,000 people on a waiting list to keep score behind the Green monster with no heat and no air conditioning, not coming out from behind the score board for the entire game, no matter how many innings it lasts
• the secret way that the previous owners left their mark on the ball park using Morse code
• the lone red set and what story goes with it
• how much it costs to have seats in the Green monster
• why they don't replace the old wooden seats with modern seats
• the number of times they've won the World Series (our tour guide has wearing TWO world series rings on his fingers! They were beautiful and I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of his hands. He was a darling old man with a wonderful Boston accent)
• check out this Wiki site here to learn more about Fenway Park!

You don't see that every day

We were walking down the street in DC past the Newseum and passed the front windows where they display one newspaper from every state in the nation. It was at this very place that we found out about President Obama winning the Nobel. We thought it was a hoax. Turns out it wasn't. This headline pretty much summed up our feelings!










And what paper do you think represented Utah that day? That's right! The good 'ole Herald Journal from Logan! Wow, what a well known paper.



We saw some wonderful old Brownstones or "walk-ups" as they call them in all three cities. Since they were built before elevators were common in buildings, they generally don't have any elevators and people must "walk up" the stairs to get to their apartments, usually many flights of stairs. The cities are trying to preserve the facade of these old beauties and keep them from being torn down. We learned a new word that was used repeatedly in Boston and in Brooklyn. The word is "gentrification" and it means the buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upper- or middle-income families or individuals, thus improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses. Kinda sad for those lover income folks to be kicked out.













We saw this unique water feature in the National Gallery of Art in DC. It was a sight to behold - bending water!

Before Pat and I attend South Pacific, we went to dinner at Carnegie Deli, a favorite and popular deli across from Carnegie Hall. Pat remembered eating a wonderful Reuben sandwich there years ago, so we ordered soup and a Reuben for dinner. Here is the sandwich that was delivered for our dinner! Pat's face says it all! An open face Reuben sandwich that would feed a small nation. It had four slices of rye bread on the bottom, about five pounds of corned beef on top of that, approximately a quart of sauerkraut, topped with several pounds of melted Swiss cheese. They charged an extra $5.00 if you shared the sandwich and if they brought you another plate. We shared it without asking for another plate (and even took some back to Rick) and they still charged us the extra $5.00 even though we didn't ask for another plate. That really ticked us off!




































Parking rates in NYC are beyond crazy. We drove our rental car into a garage close to our hotel when we arrived and parked it there for two days. It cost $30 a day and we were required to pay $60 in cash to the garage owner when we left. Some how I don't think that money will ever be reported as taxable income. Take a look at these parking prices! $10.14 for a half hour!! $574.45 for a month!!! $844.77 if you have a high end car. Can you imagine? What's with the .14 the .45 and the .77 on those prices? Seriously? Oh, and don't forget to add the 18.375% parking sales tax. Can you imagine paying that much, just to park your car?















We passed so many wonderful little shops along our route in all three cities. Fresh produce, fall decorations, fresh flowers and other little novelty shops were every where. They were pricey, but so fun to look at, especially in the North End in Boston, Georgetown in DC and at shops in upper Manhattan in NYC. It would be easy to spend A LOT of money in these little shops.

I thought this shop in the North End in Boston was especially ingenious. Whaddya Need? They do it all from dog walking to baby sitting to heavy lifting! Could they do it all at one time?

Inside the North Church in Boston I found the perfect solution for LDS congregations! I don't know why anyone didn't think of this earlier! Each family could be assigned a fenced in pew. That way each family could corral their kids and keep them in check. People could lie down on the benches if they got tired and those conducting the meeting wouldn't be able to see! What do you think? Am I on to something?

And the GRAND FINALE...

Inbetween sessions on the Sunday afternoon of general conference, we went into Boston to look around the North End. We fortuitously came across a movie being shot in Boston. It's called "The Town" and it stars Ben Affleck. The three Boston police cars shown below were being driven by stunt drivers. They did about three or four "takes" while we were watching. On the count, all the cars you can see in the pictures would start driving and the cop cars would "floor it" and peel out. They would weave through the traffic (every car shown was driven by people who were part of the movie) and hit their brakes and do a 360 degree turn right before the bridge. A helicopter was hovering by the bridge and it was all very exciting. Very cool stuff! Then they would back up and do it all over again. You don't see that every day! It was a lot of work for just one little scene...but I can't wait to see the movie!