I’m on vacation! I’ve got a connection to the Internet! The weather is delightful! I’m lounging in the shade! At least for today, I’m not sure how life could get much better.

We’re at Mueller State Park, altitude 9,500 feet. We’re in the furthest camping spot from the entrance in the park. There is a wild turkey a little ways off calling for a mate, there are several birds in the trees, and it’s perhaps as quiet as nature can get, me thinks. We got here a little after noon yesterday and found that we’ve made a very good choice for a campsite. It’s a pull-through site with electricity. Water is a community spout on the other side of the road but within hose distance, so we could fill up the water tank in the trailer. We’ve got trees on all sides so there is a lot of shade. With the awning out on the trailer, we’re in a very nice spot.

Jared came up on Sunday and spent the evening. He came up here to the park and left about 7 p.m. last night to drive back to Denver. He and Nina took a 6-mile bike ride which, at this altitude, is a pretty strenuous ride. Nina and I will take a much less strenuous ride this afternoon. We’ve been out with the cameras taking a lot of pictures and are now back at the campsite taking life pretty easy for a while.

I discovered last night that my Sprint PCS Wireless Card had signal up here. It isn’t a very strong signal, but enough to make an internet connection fairly reliably. I was able to log into work and dispose of all the weekend Spam that came through. The connection is good enough that I could get some work done here if needed. I left my cell phone at home, so this won’t be the trip. But, we may come up here over Labor Day weekend and this would give me the ability to spend an extra day here without having to take vacation.

The Ward breakfast went well. The day dawned bright and sunny with no wind, so the turnout was more than I had expected. We had enough pancakes and eggs for everyone, but ran out of sausage and bacon. No one seemed to be complaining. It did cloud over yesterday afternoon after we got to the park and we had a couple of thunderstorms. It didn’t stay clouded up very long and the sun came back out after each storm.

We’re here today and tomorrow morning. Checkout time is noon. We’ll take the trailer home, unload it, and go to The Lord of the Dance downtown tomorrow night. I’ve got an assignment at the Bishop’s Storehouse on Thursday morning, but that is turning out to be a possible problem. I may have to cut that assignment short because of a work meeting. We’ll see. But, by Thursday we’re back into the real world once again, so I’m really enjoying life right now.

We’ve experienced four Memorial Day Weekends in Colorado Springs. Every one of them have been chilly, if not downright cold, and it rained at least part of every weekend. This weekend is no different. Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, but by 10 a.m. the clouds had moved in and haven’t left since. There hasn’t been much wind, but there’s been a lot of very heavy rain showers. We’re hoping that the back side of Pikes Peak has different weather than we’re having here!

Tomorrow morning is the annual Ward Memorial Day Breakfast. We’ll finish packing the trailer and head for Mueller State Park right after that event. I’m looking forward to a couple of days of peace and quiet. Nina and I got the trailer out of the storage lot last night and it’s sitting in front of the house. Since we’re only going to be gone for a couple of days, we don’t need to put much in the trailer. It’ll be a nice dry run for July when we’re going to be out east for two and a half weeks.

Jared came up this morning from Denver and will go up the park with us tomorrow. He has to work on Tuesday and will come back up to the park after he’s finished with his work. We’re looking forward to vegetating with Jared for a couple of days! I sure hope to use up a whole bunch of film while we’re up there.

What we now call Memorial Day used to be called Decoration Day. That’s how I grew up remembering the holiday. It was always on May 30th — no matter what day of the week that day fell on. Lyndon Johnson changed the name and the date of the holiday in 1971. The change was intended to provide federal workers with a three-day weekend; I’ve always believed the change was made so that the Indianapolis 500 could be run on Sunday, the middle day of a three-day weekend. The day is intended as a remembrance of those soldiers who gave everything they had in defense of our country and our freedom. Thank you all.

It’s Wednesday on what is proving to be a busy week following an extremely busy week last week. But, my brain cells seem to be leaking!

Last night I went over to a church member’s home to help them load up a U-Haul truck as they’re moving to Utah. The loading went pretty well, but as the truck was almost full, it suddenly started down the fairly steep driveway. The parking brake along with the automatic transmission’s Park system had given way. As the truck got to the bottom of the driveway and started out on the street, the front of the truck had reached level ground, driving the back of the truck into the driveway. The truck was definitely "Low Centered" and unable to move under it’s own power in either direction. The drive wheels just spun … no traction.

We went through a whole bunch of options

• try to jack up the truck and get something underneath the wheels, but we didn’t have a strong enough jack.
• Let most of the air out of the front tires to lower the front end and possibly get the back bumper of the truck off the driveway.
• Finally we had to begin unloading the truck.

After unloading about half the truck, it looked like the bumper had a little "wiggle room." But the drive wheels still spun without gaining traction. So I pulled our Suburban nose to nose with the U-Haul truck, put it into four-wheel-drive-low, and pushed. Bingo! The U-Haul was able to back up the driveway and was free! For the fellow going to drive the truck to Utah, he had some issues to resolve — like getting the brakes fixed and air back into the front tires and then driving down the driveway at such an angle that the truck wouldn’t get hung up once again on the way out!

My issues were a little different. I couldn’t get the Suburban to go back into normal two-wheel drive. So, I didn’t say anything to anyone there (I didn’t want them to feel responsible for my damaging the transmission on my Suburban) and drove home in this configuration (top speed: 25 mph).

This morning I got up, got ready for work, and drove the Surburban to the local Chevy dealership and got there a few minutes before the service center opened. When they opened up the center, I drove in and told the service guy my problem. He got in, started the engine, put the transmission in neutral, and pushed the button to shift to two-wheel drive. It immediately shifted. The change had to be made in Neutral, not in Park. Then he showed me where that was written in the user manual. Now, I had checked the user manual under the index entries for four-wheel-drive and it didn’t say anything about that. It was clearly described under a different section about how to drive the vehicle. Needless to say, I had very mixed emotions! I was very happy that I didn’t have to put in a new transmission; I was also quite embarrassed….

We are planning to take the camper up to Mueller State Park on Memorial Day afternoon and stay a couple of days. I was worried that the Suburban would not be fixed in time to make the trip and we’d have to cancel. I guess that concern went away in a real hurry!

Our lives are very busy, it seems. Last week we had something major happening every day or evening. Sunday (Mother’s Day) we had a Stake Choir practice to get ready for Stake Conference a week later. Monday evening I mowed the grass. Tuesday we left about 3:30 to drive up to the Temple where Nina and I were substituting for someone else. Wednesday night we had the missionaries along with another couple over for dinner and then I picked up the trailer and brought it back to the house. Thursday morning I took the trailer to the service center to have the wheel bearings repacked and the brakes checked. That evening our Home Teacher came over (and delivered a wonderful lesson), following which we took the trailer back to the storage lot. Friday night we had a special meeting of Stake Conference oriented to couples. That meeting started at 7:00 p.m. and went until 9:30 p.m. (Nina got another church calling assignment after the meeting). Saturday we drove down to a field near the house to spend a half-hour taking pictures of wild flowers, ran a couple of errands, and then went to Denver to work at the Temple.

Another family in the Ward was also in Denver staying at the Children’s Hospital with their son who had open heart surgery earlier in the week. They had been given tickets to Les Miserables and needed someone to stay with their eighteen-month-old son. We (of course) volunteered, having had some experience with hospitals and heart surgery. We were there until about 11:30 p.m. and got into bed about 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning after driving back to Colorado Springs. A very few hours later we were up and headed to the Stake Center for choir practice at 8:30 a.m. That was followed by a conference session from 10:00 to noon. After a quick trip back to the house for lunch and to let Bradica out, we were back at the Stake Center for the afternoon session from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. (which was pretty much a mirror repeat of the morning session). Another quick trip home, feed the dog, grab a bite to eat, and we were off once again back up to Denver for the annual Denver Temple Worker’s Fireside. When we fell into bed about 11:00 p.m. Sunday evening, we were pooped!

Nina’s life was further complicated as she was taking a training class on tutoring English as a second language. She has volunteered to be a tutor for adults trying to learn English or to become literate in English. The class was in downtown Colorado Springs, started at 9:00 a.m. and ended around 1:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. She starts tutoring sometime this week.

This week is supposed to be less busy. We’ll see…. It’d sure be nice!

We were very impressed with the Denver Children’s Hospital. It is very well set up for children with lots of well-equiped play centers with a play center manager whose job is to help the kids have some fun. The snack lady comes by a couple of times a day with free snacks for all the patients (of course, regulated by what the child was able to eat). The cafeteria is open around the clock and is well stocked. The decor is very pleasant. If a child has to have a serious medical problem, this is a good place to receive care.

The Temple Worker’s Fireside happens once a year and all the ordinance workers and temple volunteers are invited. Elder Bills, our Area General Authority Seventy was the main speaker. It was well worth our time to be there and we came away with a new insight. He talked about the three levels of membership and leadership in the Church:

1. Newly called / baptised, excited, learning about what we are to do
2. Handbook and Manual level, using these to bring consistency and order into our service
3. Obedience level, where we are willing to listen to the Spirit and then do what is asked of us.

He told a story about his first assignment as a General Authority. He was to meet with a number of Stake Presidents, a couple of members of the Quorum of the Twelve, and a couple of other Seventies in an instruction meeting. His assignment was to prepare a ten minute talk on revelation. Elder Bradford suggested that he should write out the talk and read it. The talk was to be ten minutes long, not eleven or nine. Like most experienced Church leaders, Elder Bills didn’t write out his talks anymore. He would prepare an outline, but definitely wouldn’t read the talk. He discussed it with his wife who’s counsel was, “Bob, do what you’re told.”

So, he wrote out a talk and practiced it so that it was a few seconds short of 10 minutes long. The fateful day arrived and he was surprised at how nervous he was. The meeting started and he learned that he was the first speaker! He stood up and read his talk. He worried the rest of the day that the talk was not as good as it would have been had he delivered rather than read the talk. Later that evening, after dinner, Elder Bradford came to his hotel room and thanked him for his talk. It had been exactly what was wanted and needed. Further, Elder Bills learned, this was a small test. Could he follow instructions? Would he do precisely what was outlined? He had passed the test. Many assignments followed, as he had proven that he would be obedient. He noted as how many members needed to learn this basic obedience. How many times does someone have an assignment for a ten-minute Sacrament meeting talk and then go on and on and on, not understanding that other people have assignments in that same meeting as well. So, I did come away with a little different insight to the concept of obedience, even in the smallest things.

Well, the Suburban is done. As long as it was already at the garage, I had the front brakes redone and the transmission flushed and refilled. We’re ready to head for the mountains — in standard two-wheel drive.

Apologies to those who looked at the video on the last post — or had the patience to wait for it to download. The file turned out to be 18 megabytes large and the entire file had to be downloaded before anything would start playing. I made another, smaller file by using the smallest picture size available and going for about 37 seconds. That file turned out to be 1.8 megabytes long. That file is located here. On a fairly fast connection, this file took about 4 minutes to download and start playing.

Obviously, this isn’t the right final technology. I’ve been looking at streaming video servers — that would be a significant improvement. The file also must be able to be compressed — mpeg2 at a minimum rather than .avi! So, stay tuned, there will be changes!

For a Friday evening, this one has been fairly productive. We were originally going to go down to Denver with some other friends to an organ recital, but they had to cancel. That gave us back a Friday evening!! Tomorrow is our ward’s Preparedness Fair and I’ll be doing some parts of the fair. I’m responsible for providing internet connections, the internal network, and for presenting the Church’s provident living website. It should be a good event — as long as someone shows up. Sometimes these church things are not well supported.

I’m taking down my home network tomorrow for the fair. The firewall appliance I use has eight internal network ports, two WAN ports, and a dial-up failover capability. All we’ll have available is a dial-up connection so this device will provide us with the ability to share this 56k modem connection amongst the two or three computers that need access to the internet. I’ll also have a printer set up and will have that shared out as well. That’ll give folks the ability to print if needed. The setup shouldn’t be too difficult and will be (for me) quite instructive. I might just want to buy a smaller version of this appliance to use when Nina and I are traveling so we can share a connection.

Another thing I’ve wanted to do is set up the ability to have the occasional video log on this journal. The first version of that is now available!! I’ve got a small Logitech camera on top of the monitor and have recorded the first installment. While this may not become a regular feature, it was fun to set it up. You can see the first video log by clicking here. Let me know if you can actually access this video log!

I’ve been working on staining and sealing the deck. Everything is ready — except the weather. We had wonderful weather for a couple of weeks. The deck has to be done every year, so I might as well do it when the weather isn’t terribly hot. I cleaned off the deck and swept it down on the last warm day we’ve had. Since then it’s been downright cold (high today was 50 and it’s currently 33 and raining possibly turning to snow overnight). This weather can’t hold out for too long, but it never fails that when I’m ready to do the deck, the weather begins to work against me!

After a long day of meetings at the office it is nice to be home with an almost-empty agenda! There was originally going to be a church meeting tonight, but it has been postponed until Sunday. A marvelous gift is an evening with a fair amount of free time available. So, I’ve caught up on the e-mail, handled some minor work stuff, and after this post, will wind down the night. Nina just finished watching a move Two Weeks Notice. It must have been a pretty good movie as she chuckled several times. I wasn’t much interested in a movie tonight.

We’ve just finished a very stressful week at work. Last Wednesday the company I work for not only released it’s first quarter earnings, but it also did another reorganization. The figures released to the financial community were that 11% of the workforce was impacted. My arithmetic suggests that’s around 500-600 people, but I don’t know the real figures. A few people in my organization were "impacted", the euphemism for loosing their jobs. I think that the hardest job a manager has to do is to lay someone off.

I remember vividly the first time I was laid off. In September, 1980 a good friend persuaded me to transfer from the Automotive Worldwide group and a pretty good job into another part of TRW and take an inside sales job. It’d look good on my resume to have sales experience and all that. The job was to sell Datapoint computer hardware into TRW. I was reasonably good at this job, but within a couple of weeks of joining this group, TRW announced that they had sold the business back to Datapoint Corporation. The sale would be consumated in August, 1981.

For about nine months there was no further word on what this sale was going to mean. Then one day I got a phone call from a fellow in Personnel (what we used to call Human Relations) in California. He was going to be in the area the next day and wanted me to meet him for breakfast at a nearby hotel. I arrived, quite naively ate a good breakfast, while he extolled the virtues of working for TRW. After the check arrived and he put it on his room bill, the axe was lowered. Datapoint Corporation was buying back the business, alright, but none of the people were going with it. On September 1st, I would be without a job. I would be paid through the end of August, could look around the company for another opportunity, but on September 1st, my job ended. There was no severance package; I guess they thought the three-month’s lead time was sufficient.

I left the hotel and as I walked to my car in the parking lot, I sicked up the entire breakfast, the previous evening’s dinner, and lots of meals before that. Then I had to go into the office and tell the folks working for me that they would be out of a job on September 1st. We then locked up the office and all went home for the day.

In the end, as they usually do, things worked out. I did find two other potential jobs within TRW, but turned them both down to take a consulting position with Systemation, Inc. I was able to close up the office at TRW on August 31st and show up for work at Systemation the next morning. Never-the-less, I still have the name of the idiot who laid me off and hope to meet up with him in the hereafter! Maybe it won’t matter then, but even today some 22 years later, I still bristle at the remembrance of that day. I’m still not ready to discuss the second time I was laid off. Lots of anger remains over that event. Oh well! Time to wind up the day.

On Friday morning, our local paper The Colorado Springs Gazette carried a story on the first page of the Metro section about a hiring decision made by the Acadamy District 20 school board. The story, by Jeanette Jackman, headlined: Kids, parents protest D-20 decision. A couple of excerpts from the story are in order:

Academy School District 20 officials faced a roomful of protesters Thursday night over the decision not to renew the contracts of two popular Rampart High School teachers.

About three dozen students, former students and parents told the Board of Education that Tom Stout and Rosemary Taylor should not have been among the probationary teachers whose contracts were not picked up for the fall semester….

Before hearing the protests, the board voted unanimously not to renew the contracts of 84 probationary teachers, including Stout and Taylor, angering many of those who attended the protest….

Board President Richard Valorose declined to give a reason for the decision on which teachers would be returning.

"I hope you will continue your level of involvement with your school no matter how it goes," Valorose said….

Rampart senior Kimberly Hartsfield obtained Stout’s evaluation from the teacher.

According to the evaluation, Hartsfield said, Stout apparently lost his job because he has a hard time relating to authority figures and grades harder than most teachers.

That last really got my goat. I know Rosemary Taylor and think she is an outstanding teacher. I’ve heard of Tom Stout several times and would consider him to be an excellent teacher as well. So, a letter to the School Board copied to the newspaper was certainly in order:

April 26, 2003

Board of Education

Academy School District 20

7610 N. Union Blvd

Colorado Springs, CO 80920

Gentlemen:

I read with shock and dismay in the Gazette about District 20’s decision not to renew contracts with two probationary teachers. The Board’s actions further solidify the public’s dismal opinion of the state of education in the public school system. Both Mr. Stout and Mrs. Taylor have been outstanding teachers, worthy in every way of the title "Educator."

I am particularly disturbed at the report that Mr. Stout’s evaluation criticized him because he "grades harder than most teachers." If true, that statement is a serious indictment of Rampart High School’s administration and management. Grade inflation is a significant concern throughout this country’s education community and the eroding of educational standards is a serious concern of citizens in the State of Colorado and in Colorado Springs. In my employment, I make hiring decisions about high school graduates being considered for employment in our call centers and customer support systems. I am appalled by the number of graduates who cannot spell, cannot write, and cannot think logically, all the while touting their 3.0+ grade averages in high school.

The Academy District 20 Board of Education had an opportunity to do something worthwhile and to take a stand for quality education in the district. Instead, the Board has taken the low road once again and bypassed excellence in favor of mediocrity. Shame on you. The pity is, all of us in Colorado Springs are the worse off for it.

Regretfully,

Roland Smith

cc: Editor, The Gazette

And mediocrity wins once again. Why is it that School Boards never strive for excellence?

Today is Easter Sunday. That brings up the question, "When is Easter?" The rule is fairly complicated:

Prior to A.D. 325, Easter was variously celebrated on different days of the week, including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. In that year, the Council of Nicaea was convened by emperor Constantine. It issued the Easter Rule which states that Easter shall be celebrated on the first Sunday that occurs after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. However, a caveat must be introduced here. The "full moon" in the rule is the ecclesiastical full moon, which is defined as the fourteenth day of a tabular lunation, where day 1 corresponds to the ecclesiastical New Moon. It does not always occur on the same date as the astronomical full moon. The ecclesiastical "vernal equinox" is always on March 21. Therefore, Easter must be celebrated on a Sunday between the dates of March 22 and April 25. (see The Easter Page — Traditions, History, and Dates of Easter

The dates for Easter for the next five years are:

• April 11, 2004
• March 27, 2005
• April 16, 2006
• April 8, 2007
• March 23, 2008

Today is a beautiful day with clear skies and a bright sun — very different from yesterday which was cold with rain or snow most of the day. It was nice of the weather to move out so we could have a lovely day today! Our son Jared drove down from Denver yesterday afternoon to spend the day with us as well. This is a very good day!

Nina and I are singing in an Easter Cantata. For the past twelve weeks we’ve been going to choir practice at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning and having to leave a half-hour early at 10:30 to go to Denver to work in the Temple. Yesterday was Dress Rehearsal so we made arrangements to stay for the entire practice. The 90-voice choir sounds wonderful and it’s exciting to sing beautiful music together with so many people. Sally DeFord (Web Page) wrote the music and is conducting the choir. My favorite music in the cantata is titled "In the Silent Garden:"

Come at the dawn to the silent garden; brightly beams the morning sun

Come at the dawn to the silent garden; see what wonder the Lord hath done!

Come to the tomb in the silent garden; Lo! the stone is rolled away

Linger in awe, for the tomb lies empty; see the place where is body lay!

     He is risen! He is risen! Risen unto endless life

     Weep no more in the silent garden

     Death is swallowed up in Christ!

Seek him no more in the silent garden; seek him not among the dead

Find him in glory among the living; risen even as he said

Victory is wrought in the silent garden; joy is born of an empty tomb

Sing for the morning of our salvation; Christ hath brought us life anew!

We sang the cantata last night and the final performance is this evening. Music has such a wondrous effect on our souls. He is risen. I add my witness on this beautiful day, a day when we celebrate the most wondrous event in the history of mankind!