It looks like the second Sunday of the month will be a busy Sunday for the foreseeable future. It starts with a High Council meeting at 7 a.m. and ends with a regional Single Adult fireside that gets over about 7:30 p.m. I did have a bit of time for a sandwich for lunch and dinner before the fireside this evening. It was a good Sunday, though, and I’m enjoying the work … but it’s only the first full Sunday in this calling!

Tomorrow we’re headed east. I want to go to Montpelier to check into the newspaper published in that county. Then we’ll go to Soda Springs to take care of the swamp cooler and outside water for mother and dad.

Dad took a very hard fall last Monday on the concrete on the north side of the house. He really banged up his elbow and scrapped a chunk of skin off his forehead. By Tuesday he was really hurting. He’s made several trips to the doctor for checkups, x-rays, and a CT scan but nothing is broken. Never-the-less, he’s having a lot of pain. He’s also fallen twice more in the past couple of days in the house. This is not a good sign.

Well, this lovely Sunday is coming to an end. Good night!

When we were living in Colorado Springs there was a den of coyotes not far from the house. Whenever a reasonably full moon would rise, they’d start howling until the moon was at least half way up the sky. Now that the wolves have been re-introduced into our area, I wonder what they sound like when the moon is rising. Coyotes would yip and yowl which is probably a poor imitation of what wolves do on nights like tonight.

This evening we were at the Kinport Branch picnic. That’s the Church unit that serves at the Womens Prison and where Nina is the Relief Society President. There was a good group there, lots of food, and a good time for all. We played a kind of a bingo game that I’ve never even heard of before, called Playing Card Bingo (or something like that … the name doesn’t come up on a Google search).

We played with eight people and three decks of cards. One deck is dealt out to one group of four players, the other deck dealt out to the other four players. All cards are turned up. Then the third deck is turned up one card at a time. Whomever has that card, turns the card over. The first player to turn over all thirteen of their cards wins the hand. We had a fun time playing and visiting.

Tomorrow morning starts early and goes late. First Sunday in my new Church assignment. I’ve gone from being fairly unbusy to being very busy. It’ll soon become routine, I’m thinking.

We haven’t had any measurable precipitation for about three months. Today I mowed the grass and trimmed the edges and that’ll probably be the last time this year. We’re going to be doing a fair amount of traveling over the next six weeks so I shouldn’t have to be concerned about the yard while we’re gone.

Well, wolves may howl at the moon, but I’d rather be studying the back of my eyelids!

For the past couple of years I’ve had an absolutely delightful set of Church assignments. I served as the Stake Sunday School President and as a teacher in our Ward’s High Priest Group where I taught the lesson on the second Sunday in the month. As the Sunday School President I visited ward and branches throughout the Stake on speaking assignments as well as Sunday School coordination assignments. Perhaps my first love in the Church is to be a teacher.

Perhaps some clarification and definition of terms is useful…. The Church I speak of is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also called The Mormons. A Stake is a geographic region within the Church, kind lf like a Diocese in the Catholic Church, and is usually made up of eight to ten Wards and Branches. A Ward is a congregation of members in a specific geographical area and is expected to carry the full spectrum of Church organization and activities. A Branch is also a congregation of members in a specific geographical area, but generally has a much smaller membership than a Ward and doesn’t necessarily have sufficient membership to carry the complete Church program. A member of the Church attends the Ward or Branch in whose boundaries the member lives. If the member moves into the boundaries of another Ward or Branch, then they become members of the new Ward or Branch.

Since the Church has no paid clergy, it is staffed entirely of volunteers at the Stake and Ward levels. However, a member doesn’t volunteer for a position, but rather is “called” by someone in leadership to serve for a period of time in a specific position, such as a Sunday School Teacher. Every two or three years a member can expect to be “released” from the position where they are presently serving and be “called” to do something else.

With all that done….

Last Sunday I was released as the Pocatello Stake Sunday School President. This Sunday I was released as a teacher in the Juniper Hills High Priest Group. Today I was set apart by the Stake President to be the junior member of the Pocatello Stake High Council.

Each Stake has a High Council consisting of twelve men. The role of the High Council is to advise the Stake Presidency on matters concerning the Stake and to oversee specific programs as well as specific Wards or Branches in the Stake. My assignments in this new calling are:

1. Attend the meetings of and advise the Bishop and leadership of the Cedar Hills Ward. That means that most of the Sundays during the month I’ll be attending the leadership meetings (Bishopric, Priesthood Executive Committee, Ward Council, and Ward Welfare) as well as the normal worship meetings (Sacrament Meeting, Sunday School, and Priesthood Meeting).
2. Oversee the programs for adult unmarried men and women (never married, widow, widower, and divorced) in the Pocatello Stake
3. Oversee the emergency preparedness programs of the Stake
4. Oversee the music for the Stake
5. Provide training for Melchizedek Priesthood Leaders on quorum and group committees and Church ordinances
6. Conduct Personal Priesthood Interviews on odd months with the Cedar Hills High Priest Group Leader and on odd months with the Cedar Hills Elders Quorum President
7. Attend and participate in High Council, Stake Council, and Stake Welfare meetings as well as a monthly personal priesthood interview with the First Counselor in the Stake Presidency
8. Speak once a month in an assigned Ward or Branch
9. Other assignments as given by the Stake President

I’ve definitely gone from a fairly straight-forward and relatively light set of Church assignments to being very busy. But, it should be very rewarding and a lot of fun!

As we were driving home, Nina said that she really wanted to stop at a house to take some pictures of the flower garden, as we passed the house. So, I turned right on the next street, right again on the alley, and right on the street beside the house. “Just pull over there,” she said, gesturing to the left side of the road, “even though it’s illegal. You won’t get a ticket.”

So, as a dutiful husband / driver, I pulled over on the left side of the road with the car pointed into traffic, while she took a number of pictures of the garden.

The flower garden is very pretty and very nicely maintained. The elderly woman who lives in the house has certainly put plenty of work into developing and maintaining the flower garden. There also had to be around a hundred bees making their way from flower to flower in the garden. I’m certain the bees were as happy as Nina was.

Nevertheless, it’s not often that I get asked to do illegal things. It made me laugh, it made her laugh, and it made my day.

I’m also in the process of making some changes to the blog. The two Amazon ads on the blog have done absolutely nothing. A couple of people have clicked on the ads, but nothing more. Meanwhile, they are problematic for me and for people reading the blog because they are constantly updating the ads with Amazon. So, these ads are going away and will be replaced with ads much less intrusive. If you ever see anything interesting on the ads, feel free to click on them. There’s no obligation!

I got home this evening from the Utah Open Source Conference that was held last Thursday, Friday and today. The conference dealt with a particular class of computer software programs which are distributed for free (that is, no up-front or ongoing licensing fees). The three days were filled with presentations on various open source programs, how to use them, and why someone might choose to use those programs over proprietary programs.

Essentially, the Internet runs pretty much on open source software while most people are using proprietary software on their own personal computers. For instance, Microsoft Office is an example of proprietary software and Microsoft charges a fairly significant license fee for people to use these programs. There is an open source alternative called OpenOffice which has a small but growing following.

One of the sessions I attended was about an open source picture image management and manipulation software called The Gimp. I had played around with it a few years ago and gave up as how to use it wasn’t particularly intuitive. I have generally been using proprietary software from Adobe called Photoshop Elements. The Elements program is a scaled-down version of Adobe’s premium software simply called Photoshop. Elements costs about $100 while Photoshop costs about $500 or more. The Gimp has most of the functionality of Photoshop and it is free.

So, at the conference I downloaded and installed The Gimp on my Macbook computer. The presenter went through a number of examples of using the program to manipulate a picture. One of the examples was to take a picture, turn it to black and white, except for a certain part of the picture which would be in color. I was singularly surprised at how easy that was to do. So much so, that I did that to a picture I had taken last week out near American Falls, Idaho of an abandoned phone booth. I think the result isn’t bad for a first attempt! I might become dangerous with this new tool!

It is good to be back home. However, I really enjoyed the three days being with a large group of computer geeks. I met some people in person whom I’ve only known through Twitter. I met some other people who are now in my Twitter community. I learned a lot about what the LDS Church is doing with all of their genealogical resources, and that is quite mind boggling. I’ll definitely have more to say about that in the future.

But, tonight I get to sleep once again (and in a very few minutes) in my own bed. That is quite enticing at the moment. I’ve got an early morning tomorrow for some Stake meetings. After that I’ll be going up to the womens prison with Nina where I’ll be speaking in their meetings. Life is returning to normal once again.

Today I’ve spent most of the afternoon in the basement of the Science and Industry building on the Salt Lake Community College at the Utah Open Source Conference. There’s no cell service down here so I’m pretty much out of touch with Nina. We use text messaging often as it works so well on our iPhones. No cell service = no text messaging. Dang!

The conference is very good. I’ve attended several excellent sessions. It’s been worth my time. The conference goes through Saturday when I’ll go back home the Pocatello.

Garland, Aug 27, 2008

Originally uploaded by Roland K Smith.

Farmers burning their fields. Forest fires in the hillsides. Lousy air quality. The Salt Lake valley actually looks like it’s on fire!