Fishing, a Great Way to Return to the Blogosphere

I am wondering if I will finally get inspired to start blogging again now that it has been nearly a year since my last post. Maybe the problem is that all my thoughts are coming in short tweets now instead of full on blogs. Or maybe life is so busy that I have not taken the time to sit down and write about it. Whatever the reason, I felt like getting back to it today in church, so here I am.

A couple of weeks ago I took the scouts on a spectacular on my favorite fishing creek. It was the first time that Ryan could legitimately go on the hike, and although I had been looking forward to this moment for years, I must admit to approaching it with some trepidation. What I feared was that he would, like the vast majority of the boys I have taken up there in the past, sit by the river and complain that he was bored and couldn't we do something interesting. As is a constant theme in my life, I needn't have worried. Before some had put up their tents, Ryan was out on the river casting into just a few inches of water to practice.

Then next day we finally got our chance to fish and at times, our luck was not all that good. But still he was out there, long after I would have given up, fan casting into the water trying to get the fish he knew was out there. Soon he was rewarded for his patience with a very nice cutthroat. We moved to another hole and he began again in earnest. This time, he found a 22+ in steelhead at the base of a riffle and reeled it in, all on his own. I can't tell you how happy I was to be a dad. Then he turned to me and said, "Dad, this is the greatest day of my life". Yup, I could have died happy right there. Though the fishing was not nearly as good as it usually is, and even the small ones were harder to come by this trip, I never heard a word of complaint from him, and I would always have to be the one getting him to put his lure away and move on. He even caught his first fish on a fly rod; something that took me till I was in my mid 20s.

He slept with me in my tent. This proved to be a bit of a challenge since I guess he is not really use to the dark. The first night, he woke up and started yelling about something getting him, even standing up at one point. The second night, one of the other boys gave him a glow stick that we hung in the tent, and we all got a lot more sleep.

I can't wait to get out again.

Observations

I wonder if there is a store out there that carries my wife's stove. To her, there are only two settings on the range: high and off. The first time I noticed her using High to incinerate some eggs, I pointed out that there were several other possibilities on the dial besides High, and some, even, that could get better results. I later realized that this was not the point at all. To her, life's more mundane tasks are to be done at light speed, thus leaving more time for the joys in life, like reading a book or writing a story. Sometimes the consequences of this approach can be a little unexpected. Like the other night when we were eating Dago Red (writer's note: What is the origin of Dago? A quick check of wikipedia did not shed any light on it. Each time I take it to work and people ask me what it is, they always comment on the apparent ethnic slur). Kersten, who has taken to eating her own meals full of garden goodness, served up this delectable dish to the rest of us, complete with rather chunky looking pieces of meat interspersed around the rotini noodles (writer's note: the rotini, not macaroni, noodles were close at hand, case in point). When asked by our oldest, Kersten was definitively caging about disclosing the exact origin of the meat. After being pressed, she admitted that it was cut-up meatless portobello mushroom burgers that had been first to identify themselves in our chaotic freezer. Exceedingly happy to have dinner hot and ready, I tried to put a brave face on the meat, but admitted that hamburger would have fit slightly better. With a worried look on her face, she wondered out loud if she should have brought it over to a family in our ward who was in need of a dinner. At least she got some reading time that night. Are stove with only High any cheaper?

Final note: Bad sports years (like this one) are actually pretty good for us. I have had far less stress lately because I know that all my teams are truly the worst teams out there. Still, I have to wonder why Cal's coach would call a time out late in the first half up 39 points. I think that is pretty classless. I think we won the kicking game though.

Been there, done that

I read my last blog and saw that I was going to tell you more about the camping trip. I am still not sure I have had enough time to get over it. We went on a four day trip to my secret creek. After an initial day of hiking, the bishop and I (the only adults) had one of those "Chicken-Out Narrows" experiences where we thought "Ha! This is really not that bad. Let's get down to some serious hiking". We planned out what we thought would be a nice 3 hour hike up to the next fishing hole. Trouble is, the trail shoots up to several hundred feet above the river and provides no stopping points before you arrive at the next hole. Once we started, there was no turning back. Three hours into the hike, we finally found our first water where we gratefully filled our bottles. Three more hours and we still had not found the descent back to the river and I was getting worried as night was coming on. The boys were intractable and only constant threat of hiking in the dark and/or dire consequences kept them moving, albeit at a snail's pace. It did not help that my nephew was wearing Mom's old outer frame backpack that was old enough that she had even received it as a gift from grandpa, who had found it as a "steal" at a yard sale. I knew it was the pack because the very cheery "Have a nice day" patch was dancing happily on the top flap. I am not sure who came up with the plan of putting that on a pack, but I can tell you they probably never had been hiking; it did nothing for my mood as I proclaimed "you CAN keep going" for the thousandth time. We finally hit the river again just before dark and we were all completely exhausted. The irony was that at this "remote" fishing hole, there were two guys in lawn chairs sitting on the other side of the river (and in the only camping spot) drinking alcohol from flasks and enjoying a pleasant fire. We had to sleep on a bridge. It was hard to imagine what had made me think it was a good idea to hike all that way with boys who were not prepared. After a difficult night of waking of and trying to figure out what we were going to do to get out of there, I got up in the morning to a brand new, beautifully sunny day. Everyone woke up with a positive attitude. We broke camp quickly and headed back down the way we had come. Halfway through, I began to sing grandpa's old campfire song and soon the boys and I were belting out "The other day" and "Alloweta (sp?)" at the top of our lungs and moving out. We made the return trip in under four hours and were feeling great. Having conquered such a difficult hike inspired the boys to realize they could do a lot more than they thought they could and helped the Bishop and me realize that they are capable of a lot more than we think. All told, we covered 26 miles in two full days of hiking and a couple of half days. We were tired, and were needed a break from the young men, but we had a good time (generally). The moral of the hike was get the boys out practicing before ever attempting that again.

This week we got to visit the operations center for the Phoenix Mission. This is something I had always wanted to see. I took some pics from our visit with I will attach. Most of the mission personnel had left to go back to their day jobs because it had passed its 90 life span so there were relatively few people there. However, they were still getting things lined up for the mission (funding was extended due to the continued life of the space craft) and we participated in a couple of those conferences. They have not done nearly as much with the probe as we would like, but we left them with some ideas of things they could use if for but have not done yet. Several of the science team members were surprised to learn that they could bury it next to the ice layer in the soil and detect the liquid water in the soil/ice mix (there will always be liquid water to some degree in the soil). So, our visit was timely because it opened the opportunity to try to get them to do more things with the sensor than they have (only four total measurements, three of which were in the same general spot and the fourth was not all the way inserted). We'll see what happens. The pictures I am attaching are of the lander they use to run all the programs they send to Mars and the Senora National Park.

Too many movies

Don't have much time to write, but I had to relate a couple of things Micheal said lately. We got Superman Returns from Netflix a couple of weeks ago and, after an initial screening with the older kids, they apparently had a few private screenings with just the kids. I did not know this, and only figured out what happened when, at dinner, Micheal turned to me and said, in classic Lex Luthor style, "I just wanna bring fire to the people". This is what Lex says as he talks about Prometheus who gave the gods fire to man. All of this may have gone unnoticed but for today in church when Michael asked me "is that the bad man?". I asked him where, and he said it again. Finally, I got him to point to the man he was referring to; a young, very nice member of the bishopric who is bald, but does not look much like Lex. Still, when I asked him, Michael told me that he thought they were one and the same.

Michael also loves to sing songs. Different from our other children, it does not take much to get him to belt out a primary song that he has learned in nursery. However, I guess he is not that impressed with Kersten and me as he always sings: "...has given me an earthly heart, with parents kind of dear." When corrected, he tells us we don't know what we are talking about.

I got back from a 4 day trip with the young men this week. When the memories are not so fresh, I will try to tell you about it. We didn't lose any of them at least...or not on accident.

The plot thickens

Last week I got my NEW smart phone. It turned out that I still had three weeks left on my warranty. That was particularly great news since I had hoped all the time to have the model that they sent me. Plus, with the replacement phone, I really now have only paid $200 for the first phone and $200 for the second. I could be a presidential press secretary with this kind of spin. The new phone is fabulous. It fixes much of what I did not like about the old phone, and is much more compact. Hopefully this euphoria will last longer than that with the last phone.

I went out to a conference this week in Pennsylvania. Most of the places that I go I don't care for very much, but central PA is beautiful. Doug convinced me to bring my fishing pole along and we stole a few odd moments to fish a bit on a stream that was close to where were were staying. The fishing was fun (but not very fruitful, 3 fish), but the river was spectacular. Wending its way down through several rural communities and farms, the river ducked through some small, limestone hills that gave it a secluded feel. The foliage was wonderfully green and a touch of fog from an afternoon rain settled on the water to give the place a look straight out of the travel magazines. I wish I had my camera for a few pictures but, since it is integrated with the smart phone, and because I am prone to going for a full body dip when wading around in streams in sandals, I don't have anything to show for our adventures (plus, I am not sure I could convince them to float me a new phone so soon after the last one). So, you'll have to take my word for it. We were curious why we were the only ones walking around through the dense underbrush in shorts (everyone else had waders), but the answer was a little clearer when Doug helped me identify the prolific poison ivy that grew everywhere; my first experience up close and personal. Thankfully, I still don't know what it feels like as I was able to avoid it. What was the saying..."Leaves of three, leave it be"?

Cell Moan

Any of you who are tired of hearing about my smart phone need to raise your hand right now, cause there is another short installment. One of the beauties of having smart phones is that you can take them on vacation to read scriptures instead of packing around the large heavy variety. Not only are they lighter in weight, they also have back lighting which comes in very handy when you only have one flashlight in a seven person family. The second night of our St. Joe vacation, I turned on my phone to find it happily displaying nothing but white. Try as I might, I couldn't revive it. Seems the display has gone south. Not sure why. I did see the kids looking at it, but they assure me that they didn't do anything. This came as no surprise. When Michael ran into the room several weeks ago painted head to toe in mascara, nobody did that either. Still, there is not a scratch on the phone, so I suspect that they are telling the truth. The upshot of it all is that I get to find out what my $400 phone has for a warranty. I suspect it ran out last week.

On the way home from the trip, my car started to feel left out on the big spender sweepstakes. I tried to explain that there was no need to overreact as the phone had a legitimate excuse; a $400 phone is born to give grief. Still, the car would not listen and started flashing the oil light. Never having had that happen before, and with Grandpa Campbell's voice ringing in concert with the warning bell from the console, I stopped immediately and got out to look and listen. After shutting it off, I added a quart of oil I had on hand (it was on the low side) and started it up again. The oil light disappeared and the car sounded great; no grinding, clicking, splashing of oil, sucking sounds, or anything of the like. It made it from the far side of Potlatch home without any problem. As we were turning into the driveway, it went on again, but only for a moment as we were home and I shut it off. It is at times like these I wish that I had run happily out to the Rabbit when Dad said it was time to rebuild the engine instead of perfecting the disappearing act to my room, an act that has now passed down a generation, manifest each time I mention to our oldest anything about loading the dishwasher. The upshot of all of this is that tomorrow, I will be heading back to see "Marty" (check here for background) to learn what the damage will be this time. I am sure he will only want my second-born child.

Finally, I just have a question: Is it just me, or does the whole Orthodontics business seem like a scam? Now don't get me wrong; there are lots of people who need the services of these fine men and women. Straight teeth are exceptionally important, both from a cosmetic and mouth-health point of view. But I have to wonder; have we gone to far? After many fabulously benign trips to the dentist, last week he tossed out the opinion that our oldest might benefit from a trip to see Orthodontist when we got around to it. A week later, I was face to face with the happiest lady I have ever met. After sing-song-ing her way through the ins and outs of why we all should have braces (teeth wear my boy, teeth wear!), she flashed her beautifully set, fully clear-braced teeth and told me that I could cover the $5000 price tag with only one arm down and two toes a month for 22 months. Wow was I happy!!!! All to fix a 68% overbite. And, the best news was that they could start right away. Whoaaaaa! We'd only just met. Now the matching outfits, movies, games, and swim parties were starting to make sense. I don't know what kind of people can plunk down $5K without doing a little planning, but I thought this was all a little bit too much. I am interested in what all of you think. Have we Americans gone straight teeth mad? Does the fact that neither I nor K needed braces mean that we had uncaring parents? Has our quality of life been so terribly distorted?

I'll leave you with a couple of pics for our fabulous St. Joe trip this week.

Day off

Although it may seem that we are doing more sight seeing than working, the last three days made up for it. Wednesday, I gave a seminar at the Volcani Institute, followed by a 2.5 h drive south to Sede Boker, the site of Daniel's former Kibbutz as well as Ben Gurion University of the Negev. I met a friend of mine there for two days of instrumentation discussion, visiting research sites and an evening walk in the spectacular wadi that forms the back yard of the institute. There is a lot to say, but I want to go to bed.

Last night, we returned to Tel Aviv to spend the weekend with Marcel and Zahava. They have been wonderful. Marcel took us to Masada and the Dead Sea today. Tomorrow it is back to work for me (we had planned to visit Jerusalem) with one of our reps here. Hopefully, we will have some free time later to head there. I will leave you with some pictures of the days. Me swimming in the Dead Sea, the wadi at Sede Boker, Marcel and Kirby in the bath house at Masada, store rooms at Masada (year supply :-)).