Monday morning started with a blizzard. Heavy snow and furious winds created near white-out conditions. Since I live only a little more than a mile from the office, I was able to get there with no real issues. Much of my staff, however, spent the day working from a snowbound home. With today’s broadband internet connections and laptop computers, most of my staff can be just as effective working from home as they are in the office, at least for a couple of days, before things begin to bog down. By early afternoon the snow had stopped and by late evening the wind had died down. By tomorrow the snow should be history as we’ll have temperatures in the upper 50’s.

Tomorrow is memorable for an entirely different reason, however. The final installment of The Lord of the Rings debuts tomorrow. The Return of the King is probably the most anticipated film of the year. I’m taking my staff to the movie … at least all who wish to go. We’ll be at the 10:00 a.m. showing and some of my staff will be seeing the movie for the second time by then. My son-in-law Kirk is going to the midnight show tonight! He is a major J.R.R. Tolkien fan and has been telling his children bedtime stories from The Hobbit or from The Lord of the Rings from the time they were born. I’ve caught a cold and stayed home from the office today. I watched the first installment last night and the second this afternoon. I think I’m ready! Bring on the movie!

Little Jillian has made a detour on her way home to the Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital. She was not able to nurse and breathe at the same time. Since breathing is an important activity for her, she needed to be checked out. She has been diagnosed with reflux and is now on some medication and a different formula. Perhaps she’ll be able to come home by the end of the week. Nina flies home on Friday and her being there has been quite helpful. Dawnmarie and Kirk can make the hour-long trip to the hospital and not have to worry about the other four kids (most of whom also are sick with colds and strep throat)

The big news of the world yesterday was the capture of Sadaam Hussein — the ousted dictator of Iraq. Will he become another footnote in history? I certainly hope that he becomes nothing more than that. He has been a ruthless maniac responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s. He will not be mourned for very long, me thinks.

Dawnmarie gave birth this morning to her fifth child (our 15th grandchild), Jillian Marie. Welcome to this world, Jillian. It’s a turbulant, crazy place fraught with danger, pitfalls, and pratfalls. There are evil people, wierd people, sleazy people, and delightful people. You have come into a wonderful family who will teach you how to live, even thrive, in this sphere of mortality. More importantly, they’ll teach you about our Savior, Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation. I hope and pray that you’ll learn to cherish these principles and engrain them in your life. I’m so excited by what you’ll see and experience as you grow up and old. I can’t imagine what wonderous things will be at your beck and call. I even wonder if this short note on your birth day will be available to you then? I’m so happy you’re here! Welcome, Jillain Marie!

It’s just Nina and me at home now. The Utah contingent left about 8:30 this morning. Jared headed north to Denver about an hour later. We’re getting things ready so we can go to Church. We’ve got the afternoon schedule this year. Because this is the fifth Sunday, I didn’t have any meetings this morning (always a blessing). It’s kind of quiet…. a “lack of sound” not heard for several days.

Driving up to Denver on Friday afternoon for a shift at the Temple I passed a car with a large Dennis Kucinich for President sticker in the back window. How in the world does anyone in Colorado know anything about Dennis Kucinich, let alone know that they want to vote for him eleven months from now? I have vivid memories of Mr. Kucinich in the late 1970’s when we were living near Cleveland. We moved back from Germany shortly after Mr. Kucinich became mayor of Cleveland. He immediately set about bankrupting the city! Within a year the city had defaulted on several million dollars in debt and had become the laughing stock of country. He shared the headlines with the Cuyahoga School Board Chairman (I think his name was Gallagher) who provided “comic relief” by mooning other folks while driving down the freeway. Kucinich was soundly defeated when he came up for reelection. I thought that was the end of a pretty bizarre political career, but I guess some folks get addicted to politics. He was elected to the State Legislature for a single term in the late 90’s and then, rather than run for reelection, ran for Congress and was elected. He is so liberal as to be dangerous in the extreme. If a person has any money at all, Kucinich believes it belongs to the government for redistribution. He would have no military at all. In an earlier era he would have been branded a communist. And with that and more, someone in Colorado thinks that Kucinich should be elected President. I guess political machines can spin anything, but this just leaves me dumbfounded! What is normal, anyway?

We’ve had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. Everyone arrived safely on Wednesday evening for which I’m thankful. Thanksgiving Day started with Ty and me taking all of the kids bowling. Some years before we arrived in Colorado Springs someone started a Ward tradition of fathers taking the kids bowling on Thanksgiving morning to give mothers some space to get things ready at home. I think this is the third time that Ty, Heather, and kids have been here on Thanksgiving and the third time we’ve gone bowling. Of all the years we’ve gone bowling, this was by far the best experience. All of the kids are old enough now to be able to get their own balls, tie their own shoes, and have a good time. In total eight of us were at the bowling alley leaving Heather and Nina at home.

The traditional meal was traditionally delicious. It sure doesn’t take very much time to devour a meal — certainly not in contrast to how long it takes to prepare such a feast. Even the cleanup took longer than the eating! There doesn’t seem to be much justice in that. In any event, the food was great, the conversation was delightful, and all too soon we were cleaning everything up.

Football was the primary noise event for the rest of the day. Ty, Heather, and Daryl are involved in a football activity with other family members and they’re very interested in who wins, who looses, and by how much. Daryl picked both of the underdogs to win, and win they did. He was off to a good start on the weekend professional games. Heather, however, has a significant lead over the rest of the gang and probably can’t be beat. We finished the evening by watching the second Lord of the Rings installment, The Two Towers. The extended DVD version was released a week or so ago and is about four hours long. I could (and will) watch it a couple of more times before the third installment is released on December 17th.

Before the video and after the games, several folks spent a couple of hours building picture books for the Church’s Humanitarian Center. These books consist of six pages of pictures cut out of magazines, pasted on paper, and put in sheet protectors. Heather will take these books back with her to turn over to the center. This has been a fun project and just about everyone can particpate in putting together these books. They’ll be given to schools in other parts of the world so that kids can have their own books. We had several piles of magazines laying around the house. They’ve all now been sliced up and the remnants tossed away. I think this is a good use for old magazines. Some of the photography in these magazines is quite impressive!

So, on this Friday morning, we’re taking it quite easy. We’ve had a big, sumptuous breakfast. The kids are playing, the adults are lounging around, and we’ll just take it easy. Many other folks are out shopping on this biggest shopping day of the year. We won’t be among that group. Family time is much more important, thankfully!

Today is not busy. In fact, it is very quiet here in the office. Most everyone is at work today primarily because we have to take five days vacation during the last two weeks of the year so people don’t want to burn vacation time over Thanksgiving. While I think that some work is getting done, there just isn’t a lot to do today.

I have a new Sprint PCS phone which is capable of taking pictures. The pictures aren’t all that great and it takes a long time for the phone to take a picture and then send it in e-mail. The phone takes a picture at 640 x 480 resolution, but when the image is sent in e-mail it’s about a third that size and resolution upon arrival. It is kind of fun, however. I took this picture in my office. I’ve got a fairly new Dell laptop computer running Windows XP. One nice feature in XP is the ability to run dual monitors. So, I’ve got the laptop set up on the right of my big 21 inch monitor and can put stuff on that screen for reference while I’m working on something on the main monitor. This is particularly useful during web conferences as I can put the video on the other screen. I like the capability a lot and think I need to do something similar at home. Two monitors at home would be pretty cool! Don’t know where I’d put both screens….

Heather and family are on their way to Colorado Springs and will arrive sometime in early evening. Daryl is coming over with them and Jared will also be down tomorrow. I enjoy having people here for Thanksgiving! A significant sign of becoming a grandparent is when the kids start coming to you for Thanksgiving rather than you going somewhere else. We’ve arrived at that point! It’s hard to think of myself being almost sixty years old. Even when I look in the mirror I don’t see a really old man; I just see me. I’m sure I look like an old man to others, however. I’ll probably be saying the same thing when I’m eighty. Meanwhile, my boss’s staff meeting starts in a few minutes. It’ll go for a couple of hours and then I’ll be done for the day. Happy Thanksgiving!

I’ve spent most of the week in Milpitas, California. I’ll fly back to Colorado Springs this evening so I can get a flu shot tomorrow morning. It’s been a good week, most of the meetings have been worthwhile, and the weather has been quite good. The shopping trips to Frys have also been fruitful. It’d be nice to have a store like that somewhere in the Colorado Springs / Denver area!

This morning I drove over to another building for a meeting. We have people in several buildings in a four or five block area, so we call it a campus, but in our case it’s a campus with lots of other companies interspersed. As I turned into the parking lot, this large sign was positioned right at the entrance into the parking lot. It caused me to chuckle a bit. Our’s is the large building in the background. Unlike the buildings on both sides (which are vacant), men are working in this building? Or is it that there are only men working? It might also possibly mean the men are working but women are not? After I got into the parking lot, I discovered that there were folks in the trees trimming them. Perhaps it means that only men are in the trees, or it might mean that although anyone can be in the trees, only the men are working…. I’ve pushed this far beyond what it’s worth, but it gave me a chuckle this morning.

It’s quite possible that this sign is intended to limit liability. A year or so ago there was quite a wind storm in the area causing a large tree in the back of this building to break down and drop a very large limb on a very expensive sports car. The car was smashed beyond repair. Even though people were working in the trees around the building this morning, cars were still parked underneath the trees. I’d guess that if someone drove past this large sign, parked under one of the trees being trimmed, and had a debris fall from the tree doing damage to the car, that the sign might possibly limit the tree-trimming-company’s liability. But, this is California where logic rarely prevails. There are people here who would deliberately park underneath one of these trees just in case something might happen and they could sue….

Bright and early Friday morning, Nina’s kid sister Pam headed back east after about a ten day visit here in Colorado Springs. A great time was had by all! Nina and Pam were literally on the go every day she was here. I think Pam’s three favorite places would have been Pikes Peak, Victor, and the Garden of the Gods. The best day probably was her first Thursday here which we spent at the Denver Temple. They did the temple work for their mother and some other family members and were sealed to their parents that afternoon. We did indeed have a great day at the temple, which was perhaps the busiest day of the year so far. However, the Highlands Ranch Stake took over the top spot a week later!

Pam’s visit was a lot of fun. It’s often surprising to me how much they sound alike. They are indeed sisters in every sense of the word. So now it’s put life back into normal gear and get back into everyday activities for Nina. For the most part I just went about my normal business while Pam was here.

I’ve also been working on pictures. In a previous incarnation of my website I had several sets of pictures posted. I’ve been working through some of these and getting them loaded into this website’s photo section. I’ve added a series of pictures taken at a mini-family-reunion in Yellowstone Park, a few pictures when Nina visited Trevor and Kendra in Washington, and a series from our New Year’s trip to the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo several years ago. I’m now working through a large number of pictures from Bangkok, Thailand, and will post that whole set of pictures as well. Although most folks aren’t interested in these pictures, I certainly am and this provides me with a good way of cataloging the pictures of most interest to me. I think I’ll move over exclusively to slides since all I really do with the pictures I take is to scan some of the more interesting ones and put them on the computer. Slides are cheaper than film and actually take better pictures. Ive been scanning a whole bunch of slides and putting them into the Ancient History category and am quite pleased with how well recent slides scan and can be manipulated. I’m using Adobe PhotoShop Elements to work with these pictures and I’m quite impressed with the capability of this program. It can make a bad picture presentable and can make a good picture impressive. Just being able to fix perspective so that buildings line up properly is a big capability.

I’m headed for California tomorrow for the penultimate trip for this year. I’ll go once more in December to wrap things up for the year. I’ll only be there through Thursday this week as I need to be back in the office on Friday for our quarterly Corporate Finance Officer’s briefing as well as to get my annual (dreaded) flu shot. This will be a pretty busy week, but perhaps I’ll have time to put up another post or so. I read a statistic somewhere that suggests most web sites are never updated after being setup and most weblogs fizzle out after the first month or so. We’ve survived longer than that, so I’m pleased.

Nina’s sister Pam arrived yesterday for a couple of weeks. She’s been "impacted" by Harmony Kingdom’s inability to pay attention to their customer base and has been reduced to a part-time employee. So she’s taking a couple of weeks’ vacation with us here in Colorado. It’s fun to have her here. Nina and Pam have been working on family history almost nonstop since she arrived. On Thursday is the BIG DAY! Nina and Pam will be sealed to their parents at 4 p.m. in the Denver Temple. Heather is driving over to participate as well. It’ll be a great day in the temple!

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I was sitting in my cubical in Milpitas. I decided I should document that cubical! Because I’m a Director, I should have a director-sized cubical but since I’m not in California all that often, I have a manager-sized cube. Also, since I’m not there all that much, it serves as a kind of a meeting place and has a small fridge for keeping sodas and water cool for my team out there. I make up for not having a Director-sized cubical in Milpitas by having a hard-walled office in Colorado Springs.

It’s interesting to me how often we move people around in California. Cubicals make it much easier to move people and rearrange things. I’ve the opinion that people often get moved just because it’s so easy to move them to a new location. Hard-walled offices don’t move nearly so often. I think that in a normal year about 20% of the cubicals get rearranged and people get moved. That’s a lot of money and wasted time. When someone gets moved, they loose at least three days of work. One to pack up, one to move, one to unpack. It’s often much more than three days. Cubicles themselves are fairly inexpensive, until an occupant has special needs such as repetitive stress injuries or other handicaps. Hard-walled offices are much easier to adapt than cubicles, which were meant to have no variations!

From the outside, cubicals are equally nondescript. This is cubical row where my office in Milpitas is located. Just for the record, my cube is the first one on the left. It’s in the center of the building, far from any windows. In this same row are a group of people who work for me. A few months ago they moved out of this area over by some windows in a kind of a power play. The cubes over there were empty. In fact, much of this part of the building consisted of empty cubicles, remnants of the downsizing that had been going on. Further, this particular building was the most expensive building in our campus in Milpitas, making it less interesting for folks to take up residence there. Some changes were made to the way that Facilities charges for space and whole bunches of IT folks were moved into the building from other locations around Milpitas. In that move, my folks were sent back to their original location, well away from the windows and the natural light.

I’d like to figure out how to have a large office building with lots of windows and light around where people are working. People just do better when their light is something other than florescent lighting, no matter how much green-filtering is put into the light fixtures to make the light more "natural." People want to see what’s happening outside, even if nothing is happening. I always keep curtains open in hotel rooms, for instance, as long as it’s daylight.

Speaking of California, the recall election is finished, the current governor Grey Davis has been recalled, and Arnold Swarzenegger has been elected to replace him. The changeover hasn’t happened, yet, and all kinds of backoffice things are happening as lame-duck-governor Davis is ending his term in office. It’ll be interesting to see in the future whether or not this change makes any difference.

Yesterday was election day here in Colorado. Voter turnout was low — about 26% — but those that voted were pretty emphatic with their votes. Every state money issue was soundly defeated. The stupid proposal to put slot machines into race tracks was soundly defeated. The incumbent school board members were voted out and replaced by a group that sounds interested in bringing some educational reform into District 11 schools. That would certainly be a breath of fresh air. I can’t imagine how our schools could get much worse than they are.

So, we’re headed to the temple tomorrow to seal a family together. It’ll be a great day. Welcome to Colorado, Pam!