Fond Memories

The other day we were in Aldi, the grocery store. This grocery store is an off-shoot of a store we used to shop at when I was in Germany, Albrecht's. It's laid out very similar and both stores have expanded their inventory and offerings. But they're still a discount, no frills grocery store. Just the kind of place missionaries like to shop. Anyway, at Aldi's the other day I noticed they had a cookie like we used to get all the time in Germany. Just a different brand. But they're still packaged just like we used to get them in Germany.

We used to get Prinzenrolle, a yummy sandwich cookie. This brand was Doppel Keke, same cookie. So, of course, we had to get a package.

Once out of the package, they look and taste identical. The thing about these cookies that made them so memorable, aside from tasting really, really good, is that we used to use them in our district meetings. In my last city, Herford, Germany, in the northern part of my mission, we had district meeting once a week. We'd use the cookies for scripture chase.  Educational and recreational. Whoever was the first to find the scripture got a cookie. Whoever won the most cookies for the day got the traveling trophy, a toy car.  Heaven forbid that you should come to district meeting without the trophy!

Every few months we would retire the car to the day's winner and get a new car.  There was one car I really liked, and, as luck would have it, I got to retire it. And I still have it.

It's a cute little souped up VW Beetle.  Hot little red car.

Lots of personality. One of my most prized mementos from my mission.  I love that little car, I'm proud of that little car, I used to be pretty good at scripture chase on my mission. Better than when we'd do it in seminary. Lots of happy memories around that little car.   Good times, good times.

A Story of an Ice Box

We have had used refrigerators for quite a while. Each time our fridge has approached the end of the trail we have been blessed to be able to replace is with a used one, at a good price and a nice savings over new refrigerators, which can get quite expensive. In fact, the last brand spanking new fridge we bought was just a couple of years out of college, when we were living on the west coast. It stayed with us for quite a while, through three interstate moves but it finally did give out.

That was over forty years ago. I know that fridge didn't last forty years. Anyway, we noticed the other day that our fridge didn't seem as cool as it should so we began watching it pretty close. We'd catch it up in the 50 degree range but then it would go back down where it belonged. One time we even moved a bunch of stuff into the freezer downstairs and borrowed a couple of coolers and moved stuff into them, out in the garage where the temperature was still pretty cool. But then the temperature went back where it belonged and stuff began working its way back into the fridge. Up and down for several days, until we finally called a repairman to come look at it. He did but the day he got here it was behaving well and the temperature was down where it belonged.  He checked this part and that, listened to hum this and that, checked all the coolant levels and everything else he cold think of. Everything was where it belonged. He found no problem. We talked about trying to catch while it was not working but that's near impossible. By the time we noticed and called him, then he would have to fit it in his day's schedule and get here.  And all that had to happen quick enough that it was still not working when he actually showed up. Yeah, right. That was never going to happen.

So we kept a close eye on it and talked about what we might do about it, what our options were.  Over the next several days it continued it cycle of working and then not working and then working and then not working. It was apparent that something had to be done as it just wasn't going to last much longer. We felt like we were on borrowed time. So we began looking around for a replacement. We found ourselves looking at the new fridge market because there just wasn't a whole lot on the used market right now. This whole process was also made a little more interesting by the fact that everything in the state is on lock-down because of the corona virus business and only those stores deemed "essential" were allowed to be open. And those that are still open are required to observe "social distancing", all to reduce the possibility of spreading this virus. But we found most appliance places were open, some required appointments to avoid having too many people in the store at once. Fortunately, the first place we actually went to, our favorite appliance repair shop which also sold a line of appliances, was open and didn't require an appointment. They were the folks that came and looked at our fridge when it was on its best behavior. So went there and looked over what they had.  Just as we had been blessed all those years to find used fridges just when we needed one, we were blessed this day as well.  He had a nice one in stock, which was actually a return, returned by someone who could live with the flaw it had on one side, a slight bulge that was nearly imperceptible, even when he specifically pointed it out.  They offed such a good discount that it was well within what we had planned to spend.  Plus it was a cubic foot bigger than what we had.  Such a deal. It was a little taller and deeper so it would stick out into the room a little farther.  But it was close enough, it would fit.  We bought it.

Two days later they brought it by and installed it. That was nice. And they hauled off the old one. So there it was, installed and working, and all the food transferred from the old fridge to the new. The interior is a little different and we had to arrange things differently inside. But it all fit easily enough. We're getting used to the new layout.  We're still deciding whether or not the freezer space is the same.  Its hard to tell.

The final step was all the stuff that decorates a normal fridge.  We had to take it all off to make the switch out.  Not everything survived the transition, just the important stuff.  But enough went back on that it still looked like it belonged.

Especially all our magnets from all the places we've visited in the last couple of years.  We haven't always collected magnets from our travels but since we started it's become a fun way to remember some good times.  And a couple of the kids have given us magnets from their travels, too.  That's been fun.

A Quiet Easter

Easter this year has been like no other.  With a plague sweeping the earth and all society trying to survive, Easter celebrations have had to be different than tradition would normally call for.  For us, its been a quiet day of remembrance.

It has been fitting. The first Eater was also a quiet day. No trumpets, no heavenly choirs, no angelic heralds. Just a quiet, empty tomb, found by a woman deep in mourning. But oh, how her heart leaped when she found her risen Lord, another witness that all He had said was actually true!

And so likewise it is with us.  All that He said is actually true!

Commonplace Book

 A Commonplace Book. “Commonplace”, from the Latin 'locus communis', meaning “a theme or argument of general application.”  For me, it is a collection of thoughts, ideas, anecdotes, poems, observations, and quotes that stood out and caught my attention, some with comment, some without. Essentially a scrapbook, a repository of thoughts too good to just pass over and let go.

"Come with full purpose of heart, and cleave unto God as he cleaveth unto you."

(Jacob 6:5) 

"As evil increases in the world, there is a compensatory spiritual power for the righteous. As the world slides from its spiritual moorings, the Lord prepares the way for those who seek Him, offering them greater assurance, greater confirmation, and greater confidence in the spiritual direction they are traveling. The gift of the Holy Ghost becomes a brighter light in the emerging twilight.”

(Elder Neil L Anderson, A Compensatory Spiritual Power for the Righteous, BYU Devotional, August 15, 2018) 

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

(Viktor E Frankl, 1905-1997, Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocast survivor) 

"When you think about the fact that a distinguished medical doctor is the President of the Church at this time, and that over the past two years he has led changes that prepared us to be able to teach our families at home, and to minister more personally to fellow Church members, it appears the Lord knew what he was doing in calling Elder Russell M Nelson into the Quorum of the 12 so he would be in a position to lead us during this crisis.”

(Raymond Swenson, Line Upon Line, Meridian Magazine, March 13, 2020) 

"And the moon said to me, “my darling, you don't have to be whole to shine."

(Anonymous) 

"Striving to better, oft we mar what's well."

(Shakespeare: King Lear; Act 1 Scene 4) 

"One of the things I learned that will stick with me the most is your quote “If you are not failing now and then, you are not reaching high enough.” I was always afraid of failure, but now I realize it is a normal part of becoming better."

(Daris Howard, What Students Learned in Math Class 2020, Meridian Magazine, March 3, 2020)

Conference Goodies

I've been wanting to make  this cake for a little while, its a cinnamon swirl cake.  So, in keeping with the tradition of treats for general conference, I decided to make it today, between sessions.  That's' as good an excuse as any, right?

So, first I dumped all the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl.  That's easy enough.

After thoroughly stirring all the dry ingredients, in went the wet ingredients.

Then it all got mixed up.  The happy thing about that is that someone has to lick the beaters and since there were no kids around to do it, I had to.

Next came the cinnamon mix that was to get swirled into the cake batter.  This is a good thing.  I really like cinnamon rolls and this cake promised to be all the yummy deliciousness with much less of the work of rolling and cutting.  So, again, everything got dumped together.

Then it all got mixed and stirred.

Once it was all in the pan and swirled together, it went into the oven.

Forty minutes later it came out, smelling, oh, so good.  A couple of people commented on how they thought it smelled just like cinnamon rolls.  That was promising.

Then it came out of the oven and got set aside to cool while we had dinner.  Alas, Himbeere got to it before I could get a picture of the finished cake, with the glaze on it.  But, take my word for it, turned out very good.  We might have to do this again!  This could become a family conference tradition!

Working from Home

I work for a big company, I am one of thousands of employees.  I've been around long enough, and risen through the ranks far enough, that I had a pretty good workstation.  Everybody "nests" to some extent, brings in or collects stuff to decorate your work space.  Me, too.  This is what my desk looked like about a year ago.

I liked it, it was comfortable enough to make being there eight hours a day not too bad at all.  I didn't have my own office but I wasn't in the smallest cubicle the company puts people in either.  It was okay.  Then about a year ago the company built a new building and had my department move in to it.  So I had to pack up my stuff and move.  I actually did a lot of the coordination of the move for my department, bringing people and materials together to make it all happen on schedule.  We had people moving into the new building from three different buildings.  It was quite the enterprise, particularly since we didn't want to lose productivity any more than necessary. In the midst of it all, I also had to pack up and move.

We moved in  "waves" and I was in the first group.  I thought it went well.

Now, a year later, all of American society has decided all at the same time that we need as many people as possible working from home to keep commerce going as much as possible while reducing, or slowing the spread of the plague of the 21st century.  That's probably for the best but its having an incredible affect of society and the economy.

So my company has decided that I, and 95% of the other employees, should work from home until this whole thing blows over.  Everybody hopes that is soon.  Unfortunately, "soon" still means at least two or three months of working at home, in isolation.

My company was actually pretty well positioned for this before all the craziness started.  The company went "paperless" a few years ago; all incoming mail is now scanned and distributed electronically. I decided to fully embrace being paperless and try to handle actual paper as little as possible.  All my "files" are all electronic now, on the company's network.  That's down a lot from the amount of paper I used to keep several years ago when I had a couple of five-high cabinets and bookcases full of paper files and notebooks. And everyone has collaborative software so meetings can be held with everyone attending by logging into to online meetings rather than being physically present in the room.  The company has several offices across the country and I attend meetings on a regular basis with people who are in different cities and states.

I have actually worked from home two other times, once while recovering from a surgery several years ago and the other time just last fall when I was recovering from my accident.  But both times I did that simply by setting up my laptop on the kitchen table and logging into the company network.  Nothing but my laptop.  For this they wanted us to take some of the equipment at our desks home with us.  That was nice because working with a keyboard and monitors is much more comfortable than just a laptop.  And I changed my phone set-up so I could get my phone calls through my computer, which is a Surface, and headphones.

So I packed up the equipment I needed and, over lunch hour a few days ago, moved home.  The one thing we don't really have is a good place for an office at home.  We have four bedrooms but they're all still being used as bedrooms.  So I set up in a corner of the family room in the basement.  That way I can be off separate from everyone else, which is particularly nice for when grandkids are here.  I brought my stuff home and got all set up and back to work; it went well and I had everything working pretty quick.  The one thing that was a little difficult was getting my phone to work through my computer.  But we got it working.  I had to learn how to answer the phone, including how to end a call, by clicking on buttons and icons, rather than just picking up and hanging up a handset.  I thought that was kind of funny.  But I figured it out and it works well enough.

In the days since moving home I have made a few little tweaks to my desk and stuff, trying to get it a little more comfortable and workable.  I thought about bringing my chair home but didn't.  So I switched out chairs and keep a folded blanket on it for padding.  It works.  With this set-up I actually have more leg space than I had at work.  That was the one thing I noticed right away when we moved into the new building, the smaller leg room.  All our heat ducts go to the upstairs so the basement gets a little cooler.  That's nice in the summer but its a little too cool in the winter.  So I dug out an old space heater we bought a long time ago, cleaned it up, and plugged it in.  Fortunately, it still works just fine so that helps.

So now I'm all set up and working from home.  It occurred to me that if this "lock down" lasts long enough, I may actually retire from home.  That'd be something.  I'm hoping all this doesn't last that long, though.  Even though, over the years, I have asked my boss a number of times about working from home, there are some nice things about being in the office.  And my commute isn't so long that it takes a big chunk out of my day like some people have.  But mostly, I would like things to get back to normal, where you can go out and be around other people without having to worry about getting sick.  That will be nice, to get back to that point.

Back on the Bike

A while back I was involved in an accident on my bicycle.  It took a while to get my bike back from the police, they held it a while as evidence.  I had heard that it took quite a beating but I really had no idea what kind of shape it was in until the police finally released it to me three weeks after the accident.  Brombeere had gone to pick up a copy of the police report shortly after the accident but they wouldn't let her see the bike.  Pretty secretive.  Anyway, they were finally ready to give it back so we went down and did all the paperwork they wanted and got the bike.  We brought it home and took a few pictures

It really was in better shape than I had imagined.  I had been picturing images of it all mangled and broken but when we finally got it back it didn't look too bad at all.

Yeah, the back tire was all bent and crooked but everything else seemed remarkably intact.  I was encouraged.

While the back end looked pretty bad, the front didn't seem to have much damage at all.

We flipped it over and Himbeere, who had helped me get it, tried to get that back tire off but it was so firmly wedged in there that we gave up.  I was glad Himbeere was there to help; I was still too banged up to be able to do the lifting it took to get it in and out of the car, or even to turn it over to play with the tire.  While I had gotten to where I could be up and around (with help), there was still a lot at that point that I was unable to do.

So it went into the garage and there it stayed for the rest of my bike season and on through the winter.  Then, as I realized bike season was fast approaching, it occurred to me that I'd better see about getting it fixed if I was going to get out as early as the weather allowed.

So I loaded the bike into my car and headed to my favorite bike shop.  I was actually able to do it myself by now, everything had healed up quite nicely and it went pretty well, except for the part where I banged my shin on the bike pedal.  Anyway, I took it in and let them look at it.  Alas, the news was not good.  The frame was bent.  Bike frames don't straighten very well and to fix everything else and leave the frame bent would mean problems, like trouble with the derailleurs and shifting gears, among other things.  So it appeared that my bike was not repairable; I was going to have to get a new one. I had really hoped to be able to fix the old one.  I'd covered a lot of territory with that bike, over 1,700 miles since I started riding five years ago.  And I really like the paint job on this bike; its very unique now days.  Maybe not so much when it was new, but I've never seen another bike like it.  So I had to start the job of finding a new bike.  At the shop I talked to them about it and they gave me some stuff to look at on couple of possibilities they had there in the shop.  Then I went home and began looking on the Internet to see what was out there.

I was looking at it again at the shop and it still looked pretty bad on the back end.

When I bought this bike I had looked around a bit but I hadn't really given much thought to fitting the bike to me and the kind of riding I wanted to do.  I had bought it from a guy at one of the bike shops here in town and we had talked about what I wanted out of the bike but in the end, I later concluded that I should have been a little more selective in picking the bike.  So this time I was.

It reminded me of when I was on my mission. When I went into my first city I just bought the bike, a three-speed, that had been left by the missionary I was replacing, sight unseen.  It turned out to be too small for me so the whole six months I was in that city, using that bike, I was constantly repairing it; it kept breaking.  Toward the end of my time there I used to say I had repaired or replaced everything on that bike except the seat and the bell, which was nearly true.  The next two cities I worked in were bus cities so we use the local bus system for transportation instead of bikes.  But then, when I had eight months left on my mission, I transferred back to another bike city.  Even though the missionary I was replacing wanted to sell me his bike, I turned him down.  And I was glad I did; he went to a bus city and left it so I was able to see it.  It was an antique and would have been too small again.  I'm not sure it was even a multi-speed bike, it was that old.  This time I went to a bike shop and bought a bike that they fit to me.  It worked so very well and I almost never had to do any repairs on it.  I went home from that city and actually looked into what it would cost to ship the bike home.  Unfortunately, it would have been more than just buying another one once I was back.  But I loved that bike.  So, this time when I bought my bike I was more careful.

I ended up getting a Kona Splice, a nice bike.  The guys at the shop fit it to me, it actually took nearly an hour to try it, adjust it, try it again, adjust it again, try it again, adjust it again, on and on until it was finally set.  This model of bike was available in only one color.  I had actually hoped to get something a little brighter than pale blue.  But everything else I wanted was there so that's what I got.

They had it set  up in a rider-rack when I got there so I'd get on and we'd do the seat.  Then we did the handlebars.  We ended up adding a little riser so the handlebars would be a little higher and closer.  The whole frame of this bike was not quite as long as my old bike.  I was looking to give my shoulders a little relief by not having to lean forward quite so far.

After we got the seat and handlebars where I wanted them they transferred over a few items from my old bike; the seat, the rack, and a couple of water bottle holders.  We had to straighten out the water bottle holders a little.  They had gotten bent a bit in the accident.  But they were salvageable so I wanted to keep them.  The rack was a little scuffed up but it didn't appear to be bent so I kept it.  At last it was all done.  My new bike also has more gears than the old one; that was the other thing I had really wanted.  On my old bike, as I rode around the roads and trails, I would frequently "top out" in the gears so I couldn't go any faster except by pedaling faster. In fact, in my highest gear was where I normally would cruise unless I was doing a hill or a rough stretch of trail.

So, once we were done at the shop, I loaded my new toy in the car and brought it home.  And then waited for some good weather.  It had been right about freezing, 32 degrees, the day I picked the bike up.  That's a little colder than I like to ride in.  It had also snowed lightly the day before and the day I picked it up.  Not my kind of bike weather.  So I brought it home and started watching the long range weather forecast, waiting for the day I could try it out on an actual ride.

Days and days came and went without the weather getting good enough to go for a ride.  Then, after having my bike sit in the garage for nearly a month, Brombeere said she wanted to go for a walk. She asked Schwartzbeere to go with her and offered to have me ride my bike along with them.  It was still a little cooler than I prefer but it was one of the warmer days to come along since I got my bike so I decided to to tag along.

So I got my bike out, dug my helmet out (Brombeere was particularly happy to see that), and set to getting ready to go for a short ride.

I've owned this helmet for quite a while but I don't think I've ever put it on before.  When I tried it on it was a little tight so I tried adjusting it.

Pretty soon, Schwartzbeere was there helping me; he had a better angle on it.  Pretty soon he had it to where it was more comfortable and I was all set.

Out the drive-way (carefully checking both ways for any traffic) ...

... and out into the street!  This new bike has 24 gears where I old bike only had 16 so there was some adjustment as I learned how the gear settings corresponded with the feel of the old gears.  But that didn't take a long time.

I stayed with Brombeere and Schwartzbeere for about half a mile.  Then I wanted to go faster, wanted to try it out at higher speeds.  So I told them I'd meet them up the trail another half mile.  When they got there and we talked about where Brombeere planned to go next, I decided we would part ways.  And so we did.  I took off.

My plan, when we parted, was to do a big circle to get back home.  But the route took me passed the entrance to a small park.  So I turned into the park and headed through it, back to the trail we'd just been on when I left them.

In the end, I did about 3.5 miles total on the trip.  That's pretty short as these first rides of the season have gone.  But it was still not bad at all.  It was enough because I was starting to get cold.  And because I had stayed with Brombeere and Schwartzbeere the first little ways my average speed for this ride was pretty low, too.  I still need to raise the seat a little.  And I didn't go far enough to find out if this new bike will be any easier on my shoulders but it felt just fine for the time I was out.  So I did it - I got out on my bike and the season is now, officially underway!  Wahoo!

Home Centered, Church Supported

On March 11, 2020 the church announced that all gatherings worldwide were suspended until further notice, in an effort to limit, or at least slow the spread of the coronavirus.  That sent the lay-leadership of the church all the way down the hierarchy scrambling to figure out what that would look like in all the wards and branches around the world; how to continue to support all those members while not meeting with all those members. Where we live, gatherings of any kind are currently limited to no more than ten people.  So, yeah, that pretty much puts an end to regular church Sunday meetings for a while.  I got the job of putting up signs on each entry door of the church advising that no meetings or services would be held until further notice.

It's been interesting.  When I went on my mission my first area was a city that did not have a branch or ward in the city.  There were only two active families in the city.  One was a family with youth aged children and the other was an older, single sister.  We used to visit them regularly but to go to church they had to travel to the neighboring community to where the branch met.  As missionaries, we were only allowed to go if we had an investigator, since it was outside of our assigned work area.  Alas, we were never able to get an investigator to make the train trip, even though it was only 30 or 35 miles.  For us, it would have involved a walk to the bus stop, a bus ride to the train station, a train ride to the next town, another bus ride to the nearest bus stop, and a walk from the bus stop to the building.  And then all that again to get back home. Apparently that was too much for any of our investigators so we never made the trip. We got to the train station a few times but each time the investigator never showed.  So for about the first four or five months of my mission I did not attend church. A couple of weeks before I was transferred out of the city an American serviceman was transferred to a small listening post in our area.  He was a member and we were able to get permission to ride to church with him. That's when I began going to church again.  We even had a dinner appointment with the branch president's family, my first "DA" on my mission.

For those several months that we were unable to go, we missionaries would get together each Sunday.  There were two companionships in the city, we formed a district.  So we'd get together for district meeting and the sacrament, usually in the other brethren's apartment since my apartment was a room in our landlord's house; not quite enough space or privacy for our meeting.  Each week we'd get together, one of us would be assigned to have a short lesson ready so it was more than just the sacrament and district business.  I actually enjoyed those meetings.

Switching to the "Come Follow Me" curriculum of home centered, church supported learning last year has born out the inspiration of that change, in more ways than simply preparing families to be better prepared and situated for this "lock down" of society that we've entered into.  The greater emphasis in having families take on more responsibility for their own spiritual development has been great practice for our current situation.  In our own family, we have decided that each Sunday at 1:30 we will gather together for our own church services.  We are not trying to replicate sacrament meeting, but it reminded me today very much of all those times we met in my first city to teach each other and partake of the sacrament.  It is our desire to keep the structure of having church services even though we are not meeting together as a full congregation.  Perhaps it will make returning to church, when all this craziness ends, less of a systemic shock.

"Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings."  (Leviticus 23:3)

Commonplace Book

A Commonplace Book. “Commonplace”, from the Latin 'locus communis', meaning “a theme or argument of general application.”  For me, it is a collection of thoughts, ideas, anecdotes, poems, observations, and quotes that stood out and caught my attention, some with comment, some without. Essentially a scrapbook, a repository of thoughts too good to just pass over and let go.

"We are constantly deluged with economic studies and statistics, implying that economic outcomes are the only ones that matter. The reality is that any national scorecard of well-being must take a much broader view. How well families do in preparing children for adulthood and how well they transmit important values is a much higher standard for success."

(Robert J Samuelson, An unlikely cause of our bitterness: The nuclear family, Washington Post, 2/16/2020))

"And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies."

(Hosea 2:19)

"Most of us have much that needs to be forgiven, and how can that happen unless we ourselves are prepared to forgive."

(Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, It’s love that guides our feet along the path to joy, delivered on BBC Radio 4, 14 February 2020)

"You meet people coming and going in this life. Be careful how you leave them."

(Anonymous)

"Genesis is not about power. It is about families. Because that is where life together begins. The [scripture do] not imply that there is anything easy about making and sustaining a family. … Yet there is no diminution of the significance of the family. To the contrary, it is the main vehicle of blessing."

(Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Family, Faith and Freedom, Vayechi 5780, January 8, 2020)

"Focus on the love you have to give, not the places you can’t give it."

(Carolyn Hax, Washington Post Advice Column, January 28, 2020)