1491

I just finished the book 1491. It was a pretty good book, thought not as interesting as many I have gotten through. It is basically a book about the state of the Indians (which term the book uses, though at the beginning something along the lines of “Obviously, this term is incorrect, but, I use it because it is what the overwhelming majority of native people call themselves.”) It was about their cultures and religions and all sorts of other things. One would assume that, being a member of a church that has canonized scripture that is based here in the Americas, one would hope to gather a lot of useful information about the Indians that might help ones faith. Such was not really the case. There was really no information about the Indians that would support the Book of Mormon. However, the general theme and feeling of the book is very useful to what we believe. In large part, the book is a review of academic articles, summarizing their more interesting parts for a general audience. The book would often talk about what is generally believed about the Indians by the public, what the academic literature says that disagrees with that, and then how there are still many other academics who sharply agree with the general consensus of academics. The general message I got from the article is that scholars really have no idea what pre Columbus America, and are constantly shifting ideas as new evidence arises. Thus, anyone who seeks to discredit the Book of Mormon using archeological evidence probably stands on shaky ground, as that same evidence may very well be interpreted differently by scholars in 10 years. The book even outlines several DNA studies done to discern the ancestry of the Indians, and they all reach different results. The most important thing I got from the book is a special case of Thomas Kuhn’s general thesis in his book “The History of Scientific Revolutions” – that science changes and that what we know now may be overturned in the future. I would like to add to that that the only things we can really know, the only Truth we can be sure of, is revealed truth.

President Gordon B. Hinckley

(image found at www.lds.org)

On Saturday I was contemplating the life of our beloved prophet and wondering if we would hear him speak at General Conference in April. I remember glancing at our bookcase in the living room and seeing my copy of his biography on the shelf, thinking of how glad I was that I read it in 2006. I was dealing with some of my usual day-to-day frustrations of not getting up as early as I'd like, not being as productive as I'd like, and not going to bed as early as I'd like while I was recalling some of what he says in the book. To paraphrase, if you go to bed at 10:00 and arise at 6:00 you'll be able to get done just about anything you want in a day. To hear of President Hinckley's passing just the day after recalling his words of sound advice was bittersweet. I am grateful that he can be reunited with his sweet wife again, but it is hard to imagine not hearing him speak at General Conference in a couple months. He spoke at BYU just 2 days before Jacob was born, on September 18 2007, and his talk is in my copy of BYU Magazine this quarter - a wonderful address. We really have been blessed by his example, teachings, and his service to God and fellow man. I never had the pleasure of meeting him personally, but he touched me in a way that I felt like I was a good friend of his. I remember when I felt my testimony of him as Prophet, seer and revelator become absolutely unshakable. I don't know how else to describe it; I felt that I knew before, but after this I knew. It was during the last session of General Conference in Fall 2006 when the congregation joined the choir in the last verse of the closing hymn - "We Thank Thee, O God, For a Prophet" - I was sitting in the upper balcony on the far right in the Conference Center with Jeff and there was a marvelous feeling as we stood with 22,000 other Saints to sing of our gratitude. I am thankful for President Hinckley and for what he has taught me over the years.

Jacob updates!

Here's our favorite little guy trying out his friend Amy R.'s Bumbo seat that she was so nice to let him borrow. He only likes it for a little while and then he arches his back a LOT and struggles for a bit so I'll take him out. Doesn't he look cute when he's not trying to escape?? Last Sunday Jacob celebrated his four month birthday with the usual teddy bear photo taken whilst sitting in the big blue chair. Being that it was Sunday, he chose to be a bit fancied up for the occasion of picture-taking: At his 4 month checkup these were the statistics: Height: 24.5 in. Weight: 15 lb. 12.5 oz. He's healthy as a horse - albeit a bit smaller than one, at least for now. At his current growth rate he will be approximately 486 inches tall and 586 lbs when he is my age, 24. Jacob helped me by decorating a thank you card for our friends this past Wednesday. They were so nice to watch him on Tuesday while we were up at Soldier Hollow. I held the paper for him and he let his inner Jackson Pollock come shining through! See for yourself. All I can say is, "Here he comes, MOMA!" Jacob has a great time jabbering these days, whether with me or his dad, or on his own, at home in his crib as seen here, or right in the middle of Sacrament meeting in the MARB.

My Pen

So, I washed one of my pens in the washing machine. The ink cartridge just has not worked well since. So, rather than spend $1.50 on a new one, I came up with this ingenious plan. Watch and see.

Random Stuff

So, recently, we have been posting a few things here and there, but it has been a while since we have posted much about what we have been up to. This post will be dedicated to writing about a few things that we have not previoulsy mentioned that we have been up to in the last month. Over the Christmas break I built three snow caves. Here is one I built in my parents backyard. I dont know why I like building them, but, I do. I am eager for someone to be willing to go out and help me build a big one and sleep in it with me. Let me know. Over the Christmas break we went up to see Stacey's grandparents (which I wrote about), but we also went to the Rexburg temple. It was a very nice temple, very nice inside with painting and all, and it was a very pleasant experience. We went up with my best friend from Globe, Aaron B, and it was very nice to spend an evening with them. The blue thing seemingly floating in front of me is Jacob. Jacob is still cute. Chickens were on sale at Smiths. We bought 7 of them, and they were, on average, about 1.50 a chicken. Mmmmmmmmmm. We are eating one tonight. Jacob got a present from a classmate, Emery W., that celebrates their upcoming graduation (give or take a year). He seemed pleased by it, as evidenced by the photo. We went to Soldiers Hollow, a place for tubing, with the singles ward. It was alright, but there was fresh powder, and so the slopes were very slow. You can see this because of the happy look I have on my face. Our ward paid a lot of money to rent the place, and then, the conditions were pretty lousy. Though they have all the grooming equipment, they did not use it. For this reason, I would NOT recommend it for a ward activity - if the snow is good, then it is way fun, but if it is not, they refuse to help, and you walk half way down the hill.

Here I am at Soldier Hollow. Like I said, it was very, very slow, and so you had to get a good running start to even make it half way down the hill. Here is me doing just that. Jacob is still cute.

Realization

So, today I was going to and from church, and as I looked in the back of my truck, I came to a realization. The evidence has been mounting for some time, and as it has accumulated, I have basically been in denial. But, I have reached a conclusion. I truly am white trash.

Into Thin Air

So, this year I resolved to get through more books. Last year I did good at the beginning of the year, but did not really do anything with non-school books all fall semester. So, I am starting back up. I decided after every time I finish a book, that I will leave a post on it. This last week I finished "Into Thin Air" by John Krakauer. Krakauer was hired by Outside magazine to hike up Mt Everest with a guided tour. The trip had some problems, and many people died, including two of the best guides Everest had ever seen. It was a pretty good book-I enjoyed hearing about how the whole guided climbing works, about climbing Everest, and basically the whole book. It was a pretty good book. Nothing deep or inspirational, but, a very interesting story. At the beginning it talks about how many people die on Everest, and that as a result, anyone who decides to climb Everest is not acting rationally. It talks throughout the book about "summit fever", about these climbers who have put so much time and money into the climb, they want to get to the top so bad, that they make bad decisions and end up dying. "Thus, the slopes of Everest are littered with human corpses." This made me think a little bit about life, about how there are goals we set and things we want to do, but in the end, they may not be the best decisions for us. For example, coming to BYU, I intended to graduate with a 4.0 GPA. Is that a noble goal? Would I, along the way, make bad decisions, and leave dead relationships, lost fun, and unhad experiences behind as I sought the holy perfect GPA? Anyways, something I thought about. Other than that, there was not a whole lot of thinking involved in the book, and it was pretty much just a good tale of climbing up a mountain. Here is a quote from the introduction:

It was the afternoon of May 10. I hadn't slept in 57 hours. The only food I'd been able to force down over the preceding three days was a bowl of Ramen soup and a handful of peanut M&M's. Weeks of violent coughing had left me with two separated ribs, making it excruciatingly painful to breathe. Twenty-nine thousand twenty-eight feet up in the troposphere, there was so little oxygen reaching my brain that my mental capacity was that of a slow child. Under the circumstances, I was incapable of feeling much of anything except cold and tired.

Note to Erin M.: This post has no pictures. Use your imagination.

The day no skeet should die

So, my brother and I (the brother who has been mentioned several times by several different names on this blog) went skeet shooting today. For those of you lefties out there, skeet shooting, or clay pigeon shooting, or trap shooting, is when you throw a clay target out up in the air, and shoot it with a shotgun. We did not shoot for long, as we had some visitors, but, it was fun.

Kevin decided that, along with shooting, he would establish a small piece of land to be known as the "Kevin Hoopes Skeet Sanctuary", and as part of this process, tried as hard as possible to kill as few skeets as possible. He thus shot only 10/15 skeet (compared to my 11/12). Again, we didn't shoot for long, but, it was fun.

As part of the competitive process, of course, accounting came into effect, and it was debated whether we should count our record per skeet, or per shell. If, for example, you shot at a skeet, missed, and were able to shoot again and hit it while it was still in the air, would that could as 1/1, or 1/2? If it counts as 1/1, as Kevin said it should, that would carry the perverse outcome of being able to hit the same skeet twice, and then get 2/1, having a higher than 100% shooting average. Also, it would allow one to retrieve thrown skeet from the ground and shot at them again, and thus improve ones record.

So, logically, we went with the record based on the number of shells fired.

So, that is that.

So, since Kevin lost, and since he has always been good at computer games, perhaps he can redeem himself here, with this online version of a skeet shoot:

http://www.greatdaygames.com/games/rungame.aspx?gameName=skeet-shoot

Home

If down were up And up were down If the biggest city Where the smallest town If the vicious lion Were a harmless mouse If the kings castle Was a poor cobblers house If the burning hot sun Were a cold block of ice If the torturers touch Felt very nice If the most beautiful woman Were the ugliest hag If the iron man's muscles Started to sag If the mightiest mountain Were the smallest stone Only then Would I be at home

-Don Loper

Books

Following the example of an esteemed colleague of mine, here are the books I read/listened to in 2007, to the best of my memory: 1984 – George Orwell An hour before daylight - Jimmy Carter Animal Farm – George Orwell Brave New World - Aldous Huxley Collapse – Jared Diamond Dawn – Elie Wiesel Endangered Values – Jimmy Carter Freakonomics – Steven Leavitt Good to Great – Jim Collins Into the Kingdom – Carmen Bin Laden John Adams – David McCullough Lord of the Flies – William Golding Made in America – Sam Walton Miracles – CS Lewis Mornings on Horseback– David McCullough My Life – Bill Clinton Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki (garbage) Straight from the Gut– Jack Welch The Book of Mormon The Enoch Letters – Neal Maxwell The Screwtape Letters – CS Lewis Tipping Point – Malcom Gladwell Truman – David McCullough Winning – Jack Welch A couple are old favorites that received encores, and I liked most of them. The problem is, most were not all that deep. So, here is my question. What are some good books I can read, or, even better, listen to, this year. The following would be desirable criteria:

• For listening, any length will do.
• For reading, shorter is better, as I have a very small attention span.
• Take into mind the sentiments in "Music without Words"
• I have to be able to check it out somewhere for free
• I prefer it not have the word "Rabbit" in the title
• I prefer more liberal slanted books, as I get enough conservatism at BYU and just thinking to myself
• I like books about or by *famous* people
• Things that apply to business or economics are good, as I can use them in my teaching

Let me know if you have any suggestions. I also love dystopian novels.

Music without words

So, yesterday Stacey and I went to a concert of music that was, for the most part, enjoyable. There were, however, a few pieces that I did not particularly enjoy. They all were music without words. I don’t know what it is. I just never really liked music without words. This is a problem, as much of classical music, and thus the key to cultural musical refinement, lies in music without words. I just never particularly liked music without words. Yesterday as I sat listening to the music without words, it made me think a lot about myself. I thought at first that my dislike for wordless music is a sign of my lack of creativity or imagination, something which may or may not be the case. However, I decided, in the end, that my musical preference is very much a symbol for who I am. Three recent examples are helpful. My wayward brother (who currently is a self proclaimed Indian chiefery major) is considering a psychology major. This seems completely unreasonable to me. It rings of utter uselessness, and I don’t know how anyone could enjoy being a psychology major. However, this last week, I have been writing a paper on auditor litigation for publication in a business ethics journal that focuses on different psychological phenomena that bias judges, juries, the investing public and auditors, all contributing to the problem of auditor litigation. I read many different purely psychological papers from the psychology literature, and enjoyed them a great deal. I got to thinking, it is not a dislike of psychology that makes the thought of that as a major for my brother so distasteful—in fact, I enjoying a great deal thinking about how people think. However, I find repulsive the contextless setting of studying psychology for psychology's sake. Applied to some situations like auditor litigation, I love it, in abstract, I do not particularly care for it. Similarly, I am getting a minor in economics, and I enjoy it a great deal. However, I enjoy it, in large part, because I can apply it to concrete examples I know about from my other classes. I am much more drawn to accounting and finance, with their concrete basis in actual facts, than to economics, with its grounding and termination in often unapplied theory. A true economist is just as happy discussing problems where craisins are traded for corn, whereas in finance and accounting we deal in cash. Lastly, last winter semester I took a calculus class, to brush up so I could do better in my economics classes. I love calculus, and especially love how utterly useful it is in solving so many of life’s problems. However, I hated the class, because whenever someone would question the usefulness of the material, the teacher would respond, “I am just here to teach calculus, not to show you what it is useful for. Ask whatever major is making you take this class for calculus’ uses.” That irritated me a lot. So, back to my dislike of music without words. To me, wordless music is just like economics, unapplied math and psychology, pleasant, but only when put in some useful context, such as words to listen to. I love theory and abstraction, but only inasmuch as I can readily apply them to some useful and concrete problem. Rather than swim freely in clear water, I would much rather plunge into pudding, swimming in substance instead of speculation.

Over 100 posts!

Congrats** to Faith for being our 100th consumer! Er, blog post... Balloons! Banners! Pinatas! (there could be repercussions for this) Confetti! Shouts of hooray! Party music! Disco ball shimmers! Prizes! ** This celebration was made possible in part by Readers Like You. It was brought to you by the letters J, S, J and H.

Faith

Stepping into darkness

Without benefit of light

Moving ever forward

Into the pitch black night

A steady course of action

Yet an unseen destiny

Forward, faithfully forward

Into obscurity

One foot, then the other

Steadily in beat

Faith's no shining lantern

Its what makes you move your feet

Letters from Kids

So, here is a darling little letter from an innocent little girl to her grandparents. As always, she is most concerned about Bud. Oh Bud. Also, I wish I could see this little girl dressed up as the pink power ranger. That would be sweet.

Here's to some things

Here's to the glorious 70's, when collars for shirts were wider, and ties were much sweeter. Oh that I could live in those glorious days.

And here is the product of unions from the 70's, spilling over into the early 80's. I must say, the smallest little girl is pretty cute. I wonder what she ended up doing.

Bicycle Wreck

So, 2.5 years ago, I went on a biking tour of downtown DC. They told us before the tour that talking on a cell phone while riding on the bike was not allowed. I thought to myself, "What crazy idiot would/could ride on their bike and talk on a phone at the same time?"

Well, I have become that idiot. I often talk on my phone as I ride. However, today, it had bad consequences--it led to my first accident on my bike.

I was riding on campus, going about 1o mph, and wanted to shift my right hand gears. I was using my right hand to hold my phone. SO, I tried to cross over, lost balance, and the bike wanted to fall. I smartly hopped off, landing well on my feet, while the bike went sliding across the pavement. Luckily, I was not hurt, my bike was not hurt, and my phone conversation was not interrupted.

Gloves

So, one of the most irritating things in life, for me at least, is to lose one glove. On the one hand (get it), you no longer have a workable pair of gloves. You have one single glove--not useful for anything. On the other hand, you could simply solve the problem by throwing the remaining glove away. However, this, for me, is bad. It is as if you are giving up hope of ever finding the last glove. It is not allowing for the lost and wayward glove to return back to the fold to its mate. So, that is bad. So, that is my story.

I thought of this this morning, not when I lost a glove, but, when, in the dark, I accidentally picked up one glove and one sock to take to school. I didn't know what to do. Do I wear one glove? Do I wear one glove and the sock? Do I wear nothing? The first two options are awkward looking, and the last option is cold. What is a guy to do?

Seats and Taco Soup a-plenty

Tonight we had 27 people over at our house from Jeff's singles ward (he is the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric). They had family home evening here and we served dinner. It was fun, but there were many more people than I was expecting. (I was told to expect between 10 and 20, so Jeff planned for about 15 or so...but I really was thinking 10 all the time I was preparing.) One of the nice single gentlemen remarked to me: "The first FHE of the semester is always the best-attended one. Everyone is coming to check the other people out. It's shallow I guess, but it's true." Having had my fair share of singles ward experiences, I was duly reminded and had to agree. Needless to say, I hadn't thought of that in all my preparations of the day. Our living room is quite small, or long and narrow anyways, so it was pretty tight in here once everyone was here. There were chairs all around, with people occupying them, and then while I was changing Jacob's diaper more people came and so Jeff even pulled out our food storage buckets (our bed is approximately 5 gallons high off the ground...) so more people could sit down. It was great. I had made two batches of taco soup that would each serve 8-10 people. Jeff had the Elder's quorum president run out and get some Little Caesars five-buck pizzas so we could be sure to have enough food to go around. In the end all but one person (she ate before she came over) had a bowl of soup and then those who wanted more food could eat some Hot-N-Ready goodness. The soup really turned out well and seemed to keep on lasting. I was pretty surprised but felt blessed and considered it a miracle of my day. I think we can look for evidence of miracles every day and this was a good reminder that I need to remember to do that.

Sweet Days of Yore

I am just sending out this post to that dearest person depicted in this picture, in remembrance of better days when large gavels were wielded by powerful and prestigious women, and when jobs were offered on the merits of ones penmanship.

The Farm

So, Stacey's grandpa is a farmer. He has had other jobs during his life in order to have more steady income, but, they have always raised crops and cows--crops consisting mainly of alfalfa and cows always consisting of beef cows. In his retirement, farming is all he does.

We have gone to visit them on the farm many times, and each time I feel the same way. I get this nostalgic feeling of a simpler life where things are not so complicated, and the things that matter seem to matter more.

Let me explain two things that I experienced on this last trip to the farm:

The House: The house where Stacey's grandparents live is very, very old, but has seen a lot of different changes. It is the house her greatgrandfather, grandfather and her mother grew up in. It is on a farm that has been there well over 100 years (a long time for Idaho). It is an interesting house, obviously built first in a different time period, and added on to in even other different periods. One interesting thing is that it has two bathrooms, almost side by side each other. They are both about as far away as they could possibly be from the three bedrooms in the house. Here is a picture of the house, I think taken about 100 years ago.

When Stacey's grandma was explaining this picture, I asked where the brick on the outside went. She gave the story, the brick let moisture in so the paint on the inside would peel off, then they put another layer on that helped, but didn't work all the way, and then they added a third layer on the outside, and their moisture problems went away. These renovations started in the 50s, and yet she knew the full story. It made me think--so many people have problems with small little things these days and they just buy something new. Back then, you fixed it up, wore it out, made it do, or did without. These are different days, with everyone looking to satisfy their desires instantly, often willing to leverage their futures to do so.

The Cows: The cows mean so many different things. I went out with Stacey's grandpa twice to go feed the cows. It was impressive to see him, with all his health problems, loving the cows, and willing to work hard for them. He could pick up the bales of hay and throw them around as if he were a teenager working to make a little extra spending money. (Incidentally, this is what Stacey's uncles did for extra money as teens--they bucked hay.) One of the times were where out there, we had unloaded they hay, and the cows were eating. We were walking away, and getting ready to leave. Grandpa Adams looked at the cows and said, "I think we are missing one," and he walked, slowly and slightly bowlegged, through the cows, recounting them. They were all there. Nevertheless, he knows how many there are, and none will get lost while he is around.

A couple calves were born a couple days ago. It may very well have dipped into the negative numbers these last couple nights--a very cold time to be newborn, wet, and bloody on the farm. But, the new calves do it. There is no barn or anything, they are just born among the trees and the snow, and mostly, they survive. I asked Grandpa Adams if they always survived, and he said that if the cow does a good job licking the calf off, and feeds it right away, that they usually do alright. If they don't lick the calf off, which sometimes happens when it is very, very cold, Grandpa Adams said sometimes he will put the baby calves in the cab of his truck to help them warm up and dry off.

Nevertheless, sometimes, a calf dies. This happened this week, they lost a newborn calf. It was interesting to see Grandma Adams talk to her husband about the calf--she expressed her sorrow, and said she was sad to see it happen. It was apparent it was also something neither of them like, not only because it means less money at selling time, but, it is apparent they have a genuine interest in the welfare of the cows.

As I started to think about this, it presented a very ironic situation. Grandpa Adams loves the cows, he sacrifices for them, works hard to care for them, he knows them, and is sad to see one die. But, every year, a great number of them are slaughtered, and, his freezer is full of beef he raised himself. While ironic, this is natural. This is the way things work on the farm. Society, and my generation in particular, is not willing to deal with such issues. We wont take the good with the bad. We want only good, without having to sacrifice, without having to deal with death, without having to suffer. Such is not the case on the farm.