We have gotten a delightful amount of snow this year. Last Saturday the newspaper said that so far this year we had snow on 29 days, compared to 26 days last year. The total snowfall measured at the airport was a bit over 16 inches so far this year compared to a total of 22 inches last year. All of that was before this weekend when the weather systems coming in from the Oregon coast added another ten to twelve inches of snow. For the first time this school year, school was called off on Monday. On Sunday at Church our neighbor behind us (the house on the other side of our fence in the picture) told me that somehow her kids had tossed their sled into our yard and that sometime next spring we might see it emerge from the snow. Well, there’s definitely enough snow out there to bury a sled — more than three feet on average! The snow goes up close to the fence but not up to the fence because of the prevailing southerly wind that circles down along the fence blowing the snow back. I think it’s pretty cool.

Today is an election day across a number of states in the U.S. The press is calling it Super Tuesday. Sunday was the Big Football Game, the Super Bowl, so that day is called Super Sunday. In between we also had a Super Monday as the new First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was announced. As expected, the new president is President Thomas S. Monson. His counselors are Elder Henry B. Eyring and Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf. For the first time in LDS history, a member of the First Presidency comes from outside the United States. It was indeed a Super Monday!

We’ll go vote in just a few minutes. Our voting will be about whether or not the city should use bond money for the renovation of the Holt Auditorium. It’ll raise our property taxes slightly, but well worth it. I’m certain, however, that the project will go down in defeat. The citizens of the City of Pocatello do not know what it means to have a viable and vibrant city infrastructure. The auditorium was originally built by Idaho State University, but the upkeep was the responsibility of the local citizens. The bill has come due and the prevelant letters to the editor say, “The State built it, let the State pay for it!” as though the State of Idaho has some source of magical money. Nevertheless, we’ll go vote YES. The democrats are having a caucus today to allocate the State of Idaho delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The republican primary will be held in May when we’ll go vote once again.

Yesterday Nina and I drove down to Salt Lake City, met up with Heather and a couple of her kids, and went to the Conference Center for President Hinckley’s viewing. We joined the end of one of the lines going into the Center at 3:10 p.m. Heather had talked to some people who had been to the viewing earlier on Friday who said they got through the line in about an hour. An hour later, we were somewhat closer. We’d been ushered into the main auditorium to wait there for our turn to go upstairs to the Hall of the Prophets where the viewing was being held. Because the day was cold and windy, Guest Services were trying to get as many people as possible inside rather than standing outside in the wind. They filled up the balcony and took people upstairs section at a time while they filled the main floor. At 6:30 p.m. we made our way into the Hall of the Prophets to walk by his casket and out the doors back to the car. Everyone in our group agreed that it was worth it to show our respect to this great man.

The news later last night said that more than 60,000 people had attended the viewing and as of 10 p.m. people were still waiting for their turn. While Guest Services were well prepared, I’m certain they were overwhelmed with how many people wished to pay their respects. But, they didn’t turn anyone away and some of Guest Services people had a very, very long day yesterday, which didn’t end until well after midnight and then started again this morning well before 7 a.m.

The funeral is this morning at 11 a.m. and he’ll be buried in City Cemetery in a private ceremony. We do not make any kind of a fuss over the graves of past Presidents of the Church. The focus by tomorrow will have shifted to the new President who takes the helm at a time when the Church is more in the public eye than it has been in it’s entire previous history. There will be little time for mourning on his part. Fortunately, the next President will be a seasoned General Authority with decades of preparation for this position and the entire Church will immediately sustain him as he takes on the mantle of his office.

President Hinckly was a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator. I had the opportunity to spend some personal time with him a number of years ago in Kirtland, Ohio. He was a kind, insightful, delightful person. He had a choice sense of humor. He knew that the Church was the True Church and was tireless in his service to the Lord and to the Church. He’s now united with his dear wife and continues his service on our behalf in the unseen world. I won’t say “Rest In Peace” because he certainly isn’t resting! Carry On, President Hinckley!

I blogged from my Treo phone last Saturday about going to the Idaho All State Choir, Orchestra, and Band concert. It was one of the delightful serendipitous events that happens every once in a while. I had read about it in the newspaper and suggested to Nina that we should go to see the choir concerts. There were two of them, the Treble Choir at 2 p.m. and the Mixed Voices Choir right after. The Orchestra and Band concerts were scheduled to start at 4 p.m. Around noon we decided that we would go to the choir concerts and left about 1:30 p.m. to drive up the the Performing Arts Center.

We arrived to find the place packed and further, tickets were needed. The tickets were $5 apiece. Nina bought the tickets while I parked the car. We couldn’t find any seats on the main floor and ended up in the balcony. The picture at the left was taken from the balcony before the Treble Choir came in to perform. The choirs were astounding. They were so good, in fact, that we decided we’d stay for the Orchestra and Band concerts as well. Both the Orchestra and the Band were outstanding. We were well rewarded for our time to be there. One of the parents of one of the bass players in the Orchestra wondered if we had children playing or singing. She was amused that we were just there to hear the concert.

I did take some video while we were there. I didn’t bring an extra battery or an extra memory card and ran out of space on my 1gb memory card just before the Orchestra piece I was filming ended, so I don’t have anything of the band. I’ve put the videos up on Amazon Web Services so they should download rather quickly. Here’s the links to each of pieces of video:

• Some video of the concert hall. I took a bit before the choir concerts and another bit before the orchestra started.
• Some video of the Treble Choir singing “Holy Is the Lord”.
• Some video of the Mixed Choir singing “Wonder”
• Some video of the Orchestra playing the 4th movement of Dvorak’s Symphony #9, From the New World

When I was going to High School in Soda Springs (way back in the fall of 1959 through the fall of 1962), I went to the All State Band each year. I thoroughly enjoyed those opportunities. At that time the process was a little different. The bands and choir all-states were at different times of the year. Each school could send a few students for the band (Soda Springs didn’t have a choir program when I was there, so we never participated in the choir all-state activities) and I was able to go all four years as a percussionist. My Junior year the All State Band was held in Soda Springs. I remember going to Blackfoot one year, Pocatello one year, and Boise the other year. Now the All State are held at the same time and are held every two years. They are by audition where the student has to send in a video tape and they are then selected based on the audition performance and the places available (they only need a certain number of flutes or oboes, for instance).

We were very impressed with the level of musicianship displayed by these high school kids. The orchestra was just outstanding, definitely one of the best we’ve heard in several years.

The other delightful outcome was that while we were up in the balcony, we found that the sound was spectacular. I think it was better sound up there than down on the main floor.

Finally, I also took some video in dad’s shop after we did some cleanup on Monday, January 21st. Dad had been working for weeks getting his air compressor working once again. Air leaks were causing him lots of problems. After cleaning up the shop, we were able to get the leaks sealed. While I was taking the video, he plugged in the compressor to make sure it was working … and it was.

Our driveway faces east. The wind generally comes from the south or southwest. When it snows and the wind blows, the snow piles up in front of the garage doors. That was the case again this morning. I went out, fired up the snow blower, and moved the snow off the left side of the driveway so Nina would not have to plow through the drifts when she came back from Visiting Teaching. The wind, however, was blowing most of the snow back in my face. I was getting rather tired of that, so I decided to go buy a ski mask and goggles. As I was putting the snow blower away, the city Big Dump Truck with the snowplow UP came down our street spreading anti-skid, turned around, and drove up the street dumping anti-skid. “At least,” I thought, “he didn’t plow in my driveway.”

I went in, shed my wet clothes, and dressed to go downtown ski mask and goggle shopping. As I started to back my car out of our garage, the city Big Road Grader came up the street in front of the house with plow DOWN, scrapped all the anti-skid off the street, and deposited it on the side of the road (and in the front of my driveway).

“My tax dollars at work!” I marveled.

Today I needed to be in Boise for a meeting at 1:30 p.m. with the State Board of Education. The forecast was for snow and bad roads today and it started to snow as I was leaving the house at about 8 this morning. The roads going to Boise were pretty slick in some spots and completely dry in others. Coming home was no problem at all. Four and a half hours going over, three and a half coming back. All for a 90-minute meeting that hopefully something will come out of.

I stopped for gas at the Mountain Home exit on I-86. The Pilot station had gas for $2.97. Directly across the street (and I mean directly across), the Chevron station’s price was $3.14. Seventeen cents difference … or about $1.87 difference on the eleven gallons of gas I bought (at the Pilot station). The odd thing was that people were filling their cars up over at the Chevron station. Why? Inquiring minds want to know….

On another note, the oft-rescheduled Salt Lake City Podcamp will be held on March 15th. Looks to be a good event and worth attending. Signup available as well … click on the link!

President Gordon B. Hinckley, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints died this evening. He had been defying his age (97 years old) for quite some time. He will be sorely missed by millions around the world. He will definitely be missed here! According to news reports, he died at about 7 p.m. this evening (Sunday, January 27, 2007). At 8:14 p.m. the first tweet came across on Twitter from @JesseStay. KSL.com had the news up at about 8 p.m. but newsroom.lds.org didn’t have the information up until 8:45 p.m. Literally as soon as the first news was reported, it went across the world on Twitter. That’s one of the astounding powers of this new communications medium.

A few minutes later, BreakingNewsOn reported via Twitter that Archbishop Christodoulos, head of the Greek Orthodox Church died this evening. Church news across the globe being reported first on Twitter. I have a Facebook page: http://profile.to/rolandsmith/. A short time ago I got an invite on Facebook to join the President Gordon B. Hinckley Virtual Memorial event (you may have to have a Facebook page to see this profile). It’s amazing to me how quickly more than 200 people had joined the event with hundreds of invitations out. This is the new media at its best.