I’ve just come up from the cafeteria with my soup and soda. I’ll use this
time to try and catch up a bit on the past week. I am REALLY tired, even
after a fairly good night’s sleep. The past week has certainly worn both
Nina and me out!!

The drive between Colorado Springs and Soda Springs is a very long day no
matter how it’s sliced. It’s right close to eleven hours of driving plus
whatever stopping time is required for food and gasoline. From Laramie to
Soda Springs last Tuesday took a full eight hours and driving back here on
Saturday was ten minutes less than twelve hours.

We arrived in Soda Springs on Tuesday about 4 p.m. and put the trailer up in
the driveway. Dawnmarie was driving down from Spokane, Washington, and she
arrived about 9 p.m. that evening, several hours longer than she had
anticipated. Her kids were pretty worn out when they arrived. During the day
on Wednesday Heather and her kids arrived, LeeAnn and her kids drove up from
Logan, and Daryl and Jared (along with Daryl’s roomate Jason) came up from
Salt Lake City. That meant we had 18 people there from our family including
11 grandchildren. In addition to our folks, my sister Eileen came up on
Wednesday and my brother Perry and his wife Chris drove over from Green
River. In total we had 23 people needing places to sleep on Wednesday night.

Daryl, Jared, and Jason pitched a tent in the back yard. They were
originally going to go camping somewhere, but waited until it was too dark
to decide what to do. So they ended up in the back yard!! We had our trailer
and my sister Terry had brought over her pop-up camper. LeeAnn and her crew
slept downstairs in the basement. So, we did manage to get everyone into a
reasonable bed.

During the day on Thursday, July 4th, all of Terry’s crew began arriving as
well. They didn’t need beds, but include a number of folks. Terry and Allan,
Amy and her husband Jeff, and Jenifer and her husband Josh plus kids. As the
day progressed, people began to leave for home. However, not before we had a
very enjoyable time!

Perry, Chris, Eileen and I went to the Lion’s Club breakfast on Thursday
morning. We saw a few schoolmates that we recognized. We then staked out a
place to watch the parade, and then I walked up to the Jr. High School to
find the float I was to be riding on. Each of the classes involved in the
All-Class-Reunion were invited to enter a float into the 4th of July Parade.
Several classes do so, including my class, the class of 1963. Essentially we
had a flat-bed trailer with some chairs. A few streamers and a couple of
flags later, and the float was complete. The parade started at the Jr. High
School, came down Highway 30 past Main Street, and then turned north on 1st
West. We went around the block to Main Street, and then past the city park.
The entire route took about 20 minutes at parade speed. It was fun to see
all the kids whooping and hollaring when the float went by. We didn’t have
anything to do on the float except wave! Some of the groups had candy to
toss to the crowd. Judging by how much candy all the kids brought home,
there was plenty of candy to go around.

We had hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch after the parade. Later that
afternoon Perry, Chris, Nina, Eileen, and me went out to Hooper Springs Park
for the next part of the reunion which was a dutch oven dinner. That didn’t
come off very well. It was very hot. The catering company was singularly
unprepared to handle 250 (and possibly more) people. The food was pretty
poor considering that we paid $10 a person for it. Nina and I stayed for
dinner and then left to go back to my folks’ house to be with the family.
There weren’t enough people that I knew who I wanted to stay around and
visit with.

After the kids were settled down, the same crew that went to the dinner went
out to watch the fireworks. There were a lot of people out for the
fireworks! The program included music and narration, but from where we were
sitting, we couldn’t hear the music and narration. The fireworks themselves
were very nice and the City of Soda Springs had done themselves a very nice
display.

We spent the day Friday doing some small errands and visiting in the
morning. In the afternoon Dawnmarie and her kids, LeeAnn and her kids, along
with Nina and I, drove out to Chesterfield to visit the old ghost town and
take some pictures. While it was very hot, we had a good time learning about
the history of that old town. One of the restored homes we toured was owned
by a fellow named Holbrook, who also ran a general store. He would be a
distant cousin to Nina.

Saturday was the long twelv-hour drive back to Colorado Springs. Dawnmarie
followed us in her car and we switched kids back and forth through most of
the day. When we got to Ft. Collins and onto I-25 Freeway, the traffic was
enormous! I don’t think Dawnmarie has seen that much traffic in many years.
We were plenty tired when we got home. We left Soda Springs at 8:00 a.m. and
arrived at 7:50 p.m. The route took us from Soda Springs through Montpelier,
Idaho. Then we went through Kemmerer and joined I-80 outside of Green River,
Wyoming. We followed I-80 across Wyoming to Laramie where we took Route 287
south to Ft. Collins. Then it was down I-25 through Denver and Castle Rock
into Colorado Springs.

Sunday was a hot and tired day. It started with a 7:30 Melchizedek
Priesthood Committee Meeting followed by the meeting block from 9-12. After
church we had the Temple Prep Class at our house and then the rest of the
day was free. I used the time to catch up on the 600 e-mails that had piled
up during the previous week. I think one more good night’s sleep will catch
my body back up and I won’t be so confounded tired!

Transferred from an older journaling system on 29 November 2002

We’ve just passed through Green River, Wyoming, on our way to Soda Springs.
We’ll be there in about 3 hours. It is a fairly hot day — 88 degrees — but
cooler than yesterday. Thank heavens for air conditioning! We’re quite
comfortable in our Chevy Suburban with this trailer stuck on our rear end.

The campground last night was more than adequate. Easy-in and easy-out
sites. The sites were long enough that we didn’t have to unhook from the car
which made getting underway this morning much easier. This afternoon we’ll
be in Soda Springs and will have to back the trailer into the driveway on
the pad that Dad built when they had their 5th wheel trailer.

My cold is making life somewhat miserable. Lots of hacking and coughing. We
stopped and replenished the cold medicine. That stops the hacking and
coughing, but with major dry mouth. But, the cold will go away one of these
days, I’m sure. My diaphram sure is sore from coughing. So, Nina is doing
all the driving today.

Last Sunday afternon we attended the last dedicatory session of the Nauvoo
Temple which was broadcast into our Stake Center. Nina had previously gone
to the rebroadcast of the Thursday session, the first session, so she was
able to attend two sessions. It is so wonderful to have that temple rebuilt
and back into service. Quite a few people from our ward went to Nauvoo to
the open house, but we weren’t able to fit that into our schedule. We would
have had to take a Saturday off from the Denver Temple, and we’re so short
handed at the temple, we didn’t feel we could do that. But, we’ll soon go
over to Nauvoo and do a few sessions in the temple — that is, after it
cools down a bit! Here we have the high temperatures, but the air is
relatively dry. In Nauvoo the temperatures are high and the humidity is also
and that makes for a very sweltery day. We can easily wait for much nicer
weather.

I’m using my laptop computer plugged into the car’s power. It’s amazing how
far technology has progressed, and I’m certain that in another 20 years the
technology we’ve got available to us today will seem very quaint and quite
ancient. To be able to pull into a campground and be fully hooked up (water,
electricity, sewer) and to have cable TV available is very nice. As soon as
I buy a tripod we’ll have satellite TV available to us as we’ve enough
receivers to be able to take one with us when we’re travelling. Most
campgrounds have modem hookups in the office, and the one last night was no
exception. They had a nice facility set up for modem users and I was able to
log onto my e-mail account as well as log into work and take care of a
couple of issues there.

The economic climate is improving somewhat, but several companies have
turned up using fraudulent accounting practices. Enron was the first to
collapse last fall. Since then, Adelphia Cable, Xerox, Tyco, Global
Crossing, Quest, and MCI Worldcom have all been uncovered. These are major,
multi-billion dollar companies using illegal methods to inflate their
revenues or reduce their costs. In some cases, they had also made extremely
large loans to the CEO for other purposes. The net result is that the stock
market is very skittish and stock prices are around their lowest point in
ten years. There’s a lot of money on the sidelines because no one knows
where to invest. Money market rates are also at their lowest point in years,
so even the money on the sidelines isn’t doing much, either.

The work situation is heavily influenced by the overall economic situation.
We just finished our 2nd quarter which looks to be right on target at about
$500 million in revenue. I’d sure like for our stock price to pick up! We
need for it to gain about $18 a share over the next few years which would be
enough to retire. Retirement needs to happen in the next 5-7 years!

I made a trip to California last week. I need to make a couple of trips in a
couple of months to be certain that I retain the Premier Exec class at
United. It makes a real difference. If I make a couple of extra trips, I can
probably become a 1K flier which results in a much greater opportunity for
1st Class upgrades.

So, now I’m rambling. Time to queue this up and send it along to the computer
file.

Transferred from an older journaling system on 29 November 2002

We’re on our way to Soda Springs, Idaho. My class reunion is on the 4th of
July which gives us reason to spend some time visiting with mom and dad.
Much of the family will be there over the same time. My brother Perry and
his wife Chris are coming over, my sister Eileen and her husband are coming
up from Sandy, and my other sister Terry lives nearby in Grace. Our daughter
Heather is coming up with her kids for a couple of days. Dawnmarie and her
kids will be arriving from Spokane. Daryl and Jared are driving up as well.
So we should have a house full of people.

We’re towing the trailer to provide more beds (and in particular, beds for
Nina and me). So, we left about 3 p.m. this afternoon and drove as far as
Laramie. We’re camped in a KOA campground for the night and will drive the
rest of the way to Soda Springs tomorrow. This stop gives me a chance to
drain all the holding tanks before we get to Soda Springs. Dad does have a
sewage drain outside by the driveway, but it’s on the opposite side of the
drive from where the trailer will be parked.

It’s been quite a while since I last sent in a journal entry. Lots has
happened in the past few weeks. While we’re driving tomorrow I’ll probably
write a much longer entry that’ll get sent from Soda Springs when we arrive.

So for now, life is pretty good. I’ve caught a bit of a cold, but other than
that we’re having a great time.

Transferred from an older journaling system on 29 November 2002.

It has been decidedly warm. Record high temperatures and record low
rainfall combined make for a tinderbox outside. Everything is very dry.
Today’s high was 91 degrees, about 10 degrees above normal. Yesterday
was a few degrees warmer. Both cases are record high temperatures for
these dates. There is a breeze blowing which helps cool things off
somewhat.

It’s Sunday afternoon. We just got back from a drive to Woodland Park
and back. We took the Rampart Range Road which starts in the Garden of
the Gods Park and climbs up over the Rampart Range. Turns out it is a
“Once in a Lifetime” kind of a road — it is not maintained or graded,
so it was extremely rough. We won’t do that drive ever again. It took
about an hour and a half to get to Woodland Park and about 20 minutes to
get back on the main highway. It was decidedly cooler up there, however.
I think I got a headache from being bounced around so roughly on the
road. We were driving between 10 and 15 mph and a few vehicles passed
us. They were certainly out of their minds….

Last Sunday we drove over to Heather’s and spent a couple of days. On
Wednesday we drove up to Soda Springs and spent Thursday visiting with
Mom and Dad. Friday we drove back to Colorado Springs, stopping in Green
River to have lunch with Perry and Chris.

We left here on Sunday morning about 6:15 a.m. and got to Heather’s
house about 9 1/2 hours later. We didn’t stop very much along the way —
a breakfast stop at McDonalds in Castle Rock, ice and snacks in
Silverthorn, gas in Grand Junction, lunch in Price, and then on into
Heather’s. We took the Suburban so that we could take some furniture out
to Daryl. The drive along I-70 and the Route 6 in Utah was very
uneventful. Not much traffic, particularly for a holiday weekend.

Monday morning we took a bicycle ride along the canal by Heather’s
house. It about wore us out, particularly after driving all day the day
before. After showers and such, we drove up to the Cemetery where Trevor
is buried. Daryl met us there. We put some flowers on his grave and
stayed for about an hour, then headed back to Orem. We had a picnic
lunch and watched a movie.

Tuesday I had some meetings at Caldera. That afternoon we just stayed
around the house and then went to Pack Meeting with Heather and her
family. Michael received his Wolf badge and was quite proud of his
accomplishment. After that we went to the theater and watched the latest
Star Wars episode — The Attack of the Clones. It was an exciting movie,
but still doesn’t measure up to the original series.

Wednesday morning I took the bicycle back out on the canal road to take
some pictures. I got a couple of pictures that I wanted, but then the
chain broke on the bike while I was trying to cross a road. I called for
help on my cell phone and Heather drove over to pick me up. After
cleaning up I took my bike downtown and got the chain fixed. Turns out
the chain was too short! Shortly after that we left to drive up to Soda
Springs. We stopped in North Ogden to pick up a prescription for Nina —
the last one she’ll get from Dr. Bloom who is moving with her husband to
Mountain Home AFB. We then drove through Logan and Preston on the way to
Soda Springs.

Thursday morning Nina and I rode the bicycles out to Hooper Springs and
a ways beyond. Quite some hills to climb, so we didn’t go as far as
originally planned. I set Mother up with Personal Ancestral File (PAF)
on her computer and helped her get things done for her Sunday School
class assignment. Dad isn’t able to do very much. He has heart problems
and is always very short of breath. So we mostly just sat around and
talked. My younger sister Terry and her husband Allan came over for
dinner and we visited until about 9 p.m.

Friday morning we packed up and drove to Rock Springs where we met my
brother Perry and his wife Chris for lunch at a truck stop restaurant,
Cruel Jack’s. We had a fun lunch. Perry and Chris are a lot of fun to be
with. She was recently (wrongly) fired from her job and has been quite
devastated by that. I told her to go sue the cotton-picker as he
certainly did deserve it. She seemed to be in good spirits, however.
Perry’s daughter Mindy is getting married at the end of July and has
gotten pregnant as well. I sure hope this one works out. They are poorer
than the proverbial church mice.

Of course the reason for driving back on Friday was so that we could be
at the Temple on Saturday. I was thinking this would be a fairly busy
day…. wrong. It was a very quiet day with not many patrons.
Never-the-less, we had a good afternoon at the temple, and didn’t have
to think about the heat once during the day.

Tomorrow starts the work on the deck. I’ll finish sanding it (two
days??) and then start staining and sealing. Maybe by the end of the
week that’ll be done. Stay tuned.

I’ve a few minutes before the next scheduled meeting. That’s only because
the meeting scheduled for right now has been cancelled. My boss Bruce
just came by a few minutes ago to let me know that I’ve been granted
a sizeable set of LSI Logic stock options. This grant is 7,500 shares at a
strike price of $12.80 per share. The grant vests at a rate of 25% per year.
That means, next year on May 1st, 1,875 of these share will be available for
me to exercise. I have ten years from now to exercise the options. What that
means is that I can do a “same-day transaction” of buying up to the vested
number of shares at $12.80 apiece, and then sell them for whatever the
market price is. The gain is then taxed as ordinary income.

For instance, five years from now I decide to exercise all 7,500 shares of
stock options and the market price is $25.00. I would have a net gain of
$91,500 (7,500*25.00 – 7,500*12.80). After taxes and stuff, that would
result in about $40,000 in my pocket. Obviously, if the stock price were to
be much higher by then, this would be an even more valuable transaction. On
the other hand, if the market price is below $12.80, then the options have
no value at all.

The purpose of stock options is to provide incentive to the employee to stay
with the company and help the stock price to increase. These 7,500 shares of
options along with the options I’ve been given previously, make up a
significant portion of our retirement money. Here’s what’s available to me
right now:

9,000 shares at a strike price of $11.188
4,000 shares at a strike price of $20.938
4,000 shares at a strike price of $12.50
4,500 shares at a strike price of $18.50
4,000 shares at a strike price of $55.50
6,000 shares at a strike price of $21.34

If the stock price got to $60 and I exercised the entire shebang — it would
result in a gain of $1,771,226 of which about half would end up in my
pocket, definitely enough to retire on. On the other hand, if the stock
price were to only get to $30 a share, then the net gain falls to just over
$500,000 and that’s not enough to retire on!!

It has been cold here this week, once again (I’m in California…). It
rained on Monday and Tuesday, but they say the rain is over for the week.
Last night one of my managers in Colorado, Porter Harrison, arrived for some
meetings today and tomorrow. We went to a little Japanese restaurant for
dinner and he got his first real taste of Japanese food. I sure enjoyed my
fare … it appears that he did as well.

Bruce’s staff meeting is in a little while. That will take the rest of the
afternoon. We’ve a dinner tonight celebrating our recent renegotiation on
the North American Wide Area Network. I’ll be well fed today….

This entry was transferred from an older journaling system on 29 November 2002.

The day hasn’t been particularly cooperative so far! I can try to blame it
on the day, but that probably won’t stick. I got up at 4 a.m. to get ready
to leave for Milpitas today. I was intending to leave about 5 a.m. but
didn’t get out the door until 5:15. I got partway down the hill and realized
that I had forgotton to pack any slacks. The only pants I had with me were
the ones I was wearing. So, back to the house to get pants. That made it
5:30 before I was really driving away. I then checked my airline schedule —
I thought my flight was leaving at 6:40 a.m. Wrong. It was leaving at 6:20
a.m.

I drove quite quickly to the airport and then got a VERY SLOW shuttle
driver. It was all of 6:00 when I got to the ticket agent. The line for
security was longer than I’ve ever seen it in Colorado Springs. As a result,
I missed my flight. I was going to fly on a new service that United has
established flying from Colorado Springs to Los Angeles and then to San Jose
on a new smaller regional jet. I’m scheduled to fly back on the reverse of
that route and hopefully all will work out for that trip. As it stands,
we’re about 20 minutes into a 2 hour 20 minute flight to San Jose and I’m in
a middle seat. The guy on my left is trying to sleep, so he isn’t taking up
much room. The guy on my right is a pretty skinny guy and that helps a lot.
So far everything is smooth and quiet. I am at least quite close to the
front of the plane so I should be able to get off quickly. We’re over
western Colorado right now and will be in the Salt Lake area in about 40
minutes. I really dislike middle seats! I sure feel hemmed in and somewhat
captive. It gets much worse if the guy in front of me decides to put his
seat back. So far, so good.

I’ll be in Milpitas until Friday mid-day. The other two managers who work
for me in Colorado Springs are flying out to California this week as well so
that we can have a planning session on Thursday morning. Haven’t done one of
those for quite a while. Should be good to get all four of my managers
together at the same time.

Yesterday was Stake Conference. We had the morning session (the stake is
large enough that the conference is split across two meetings. The wards
which meet in the morning normally attend the morning session of conference.
The wards which meet in the afternoon attend the afternoon session). The
Stake Presidency has decided to institute a “Season of Rededication” to
continue through November. This plan germinated when the Stake President
was in China for a couple of weeks on his first
trip to that part of the world. He was quite struck by the poverty of the
Chinese people, particularly when compared to the life of luxury that we
have in Colorado Springs. Then Church Headquarters issued a letter calling
on all the stakes in the U.S. to have a special day of fasting and mighty
prayer on behalf of the missionary program of the church. That will be held
on June 17th. Finally, the rebuilt Nauvoo Temple will be dedicated on June
24th at the time that Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred in Carthage,
Illinois, some 160 years ago. All of that culminated in the “Season of
Rededication.” Three challenges were issued to the Stake yesterday (and were
discussed in some detail in the meetings on Saturday afternoon and evening):
Perfect a soul, Find a soul, and Redeem a soul.

Perfecting a soul has to do with our own personal circumstances. We are
being asked to raise our performance, faith, and commitment to the next
level, whatever that might be. Finding a soul has to do with missionary
work. We are being asked to find and prepare one person to hear the
missionary discussions. Redeeming a soul, or course, has to do with temple
work. We are being asked to do the family history work on one person and
take that person through the temple. All of this is to be done by November
when the Priesthood Leaders will conduct a PPI with every member of the ward
to obtain an accountability of how they have done on these three challenges.

This Stake Conference was memorable for another reason! There was a lot of
music programmed into the meeting. We had an opening hymn by the
congregation along with a rest hymn (but we only sang two verses of the
hymn). The Stake Choir performed two numbers, including the closing hymn. In
addition, two other solos were performed. One was by a 14-year-old young
lady with a major talent and the other by a fellow with a spectacular bass
voice. So there were six pices of music planned along with 8 speakers. Not
bad for two hours. I was particulary pleased with the amount of music! I
need to send a letter to the Stake Presidency expressing my appreciation to
them for the music. It brings a spirit to the meeting that is hard to
duplicate in any other way.

Saturday we were at the temple for the afternoon. We asked to leave a
half-hour early so that we could get back to Colorado Springs to attend the
evening meeting of Stake Conference which both of us needed to attend. It
was a pretty busy day at the temple. This is the time of year when a number
of people come to the temple for the first time for their own endowment. The
college year has just ended and young men getting ready to go on missions
come to the temple or young men and women getting married come to the
temple. Most of the marriages are scheduled for the morning and most of the
missionaries are scheduled for the afternoon to balance out things. In
addition, the third Saturday is Spanish Day when we have a session in the
morning and another one in the afternoon in Spanish. Their afternoon session
on Saturday had 8 people going through for their own endowments.

Next Saturday will also be very interesting. The Shift Coordinator (Br.
Richard Stott) and the Assistant Coordinator (Br. Mike Pacheco) are both
going to be gone, so the shift supervision falls to me. It should be quite
interesting…. Fortunately, most of the brethren know what they’re doing
and are willing to do whatever is asked of them.

We have come into the Salt Lake area — or at least well south of it. It’s
quite hazy today and hard to tell exactly where we are, but as best I can
figure we’re on the southern route. There’s a pretty big fire burning down
below us. It has been a very dry spring resulting in a number of pretty
serious fires burning. We’ve gotten a little rain recently in Colorado
Springs, but are still only at about half of the water we should have
received by this time in the year.

The deck didn’t get finished. We had enough rain that I wasn’t able to do
the staining. I did get the hot tub finished and it looks quite nice. I have
enough stain left over to do the hot tub again next year. When I get back on
Saturday morning before going to the temple I’ll empty the hot tub, clean
out the filter, and refill the tub. The water needs to be replaced every
three months or so and the last time I did that was in December.

Then we’re headed to Utah and Idaho for the week following Memorial Day.
After we get back from that trip, the deck will definitely get finished.
I’ll sand it down and start staining. It’ll probably take two mornings to do
the sanding and two mornings to do the staining and sealing. Then when
that’s done, I’ll get all of the windows washed on the outside. We haven’t
done those since we moved into the house. High time that they got cleaned
up. I’ll need to wash the frames as well as the windows.

Enough rambling. Time to wrap this up for today.

Transferred from an older journaling system on 29 November 2002

The refurbishment of the deck continues. What I thought would take three
or four days at the most is now well over two weeks and it might not get
done before I have to leave for California next Monday morning! This has
turned out to be a substantial piece of work. I started staining the hot
tub today thinking it would take about an hour or so. Two hours later I
only had two side done and had to quit as it was getting too dark to
see. It’s quite tedious and the wood is really soaking up the stain.
I’ve still got quite a bit of sanding to do (tomorrow morning?) before I
can start the deck itself. I was hoping to start on the deck tomorrow
night after work, but the hot tub will need to get finished first. The
two sides I’ve finished are the easy part — the other two sides I have
to do through the railing on the deck and not get the railing stained.

We are in a major drought. Lots of clouds overhead but no moisture
falling to the ground. It’s currently 66 degrees with 44% humidity and
the barometer is rising. There are thunderstorms forecast for tomorrow
which would, of course, further delay getting the deck finished.

Today was a work-from-home day. Spent the morning in phone meetings. At
lunch Nina and I retrieved the camping trailer from its current storage
lot and transferred it to a new home out by Petersen AFB. The place
where it was raised their rates once again, now charging $67 a month.
The new place is about twenty-minutes further away, but charges $30 a
month for a pull-through slot. That is quite a bonus! The slot is a
straight shot from the entrance as well. Much easier to put the camper
away. We’ll use the camper over the 4th of July weekend when we go up to
Soda Springs for my class reunion.

There isn’t very much news! Looking ahead, I’ll be in California all of
next week. Leave Monday the 20th and return on Friday the 24th. That
Saturday I’m the substitute for the substitute shift coordinator at the
temple. Well leave on Sunday to go to Utah for the week, returning that
Friday. We’ll spend Monday and Tuesday in Orem and then go up to Soda
Springs for a couple of days. Dad had another stent put into his heart a
couple of weeks ago so we want to visit up there as often as possible.

My normal assignment at the temple is the shift trainer. My job is to
help folks get qualified to work at different assignments they can
receive. We have two new brothers on the shift so they keep me busy.
We’re also very short staffed, so there isn’t much of an opportunity for
brothers to work in the initiatory and learn that dialog. There are
quite a few assignments:

Patron Guide: This person sits in the lobby near clothing and provides
directions and assistance to patrons coming into the temple. We almost
never have enough staff to give this assignment to someone.

Locker Guide: This person rotates folks through the lockers so that we
don’t have too many people waiting for someone to get finished with
their locker. This is another position that we almost never staff. In
the Oakland Temple, the lockers are out in a common area with dressing
rooms along the walls. It’s a better system, I think.

Initiatory: There are three assignments working in the initiatory —
washing, annointing, and clothing. There is also an Initiatory
Coordinator who often also fills one of the three assignments as well.
We so short of staff that we only have the initiatory working when
someone comes for their own endowment or someone shows up with family
file work to be done. Then we really have to scramble to provide at
least two workers for the initiatory.

Name Issue: This person slices off proxy names if the patron doesn’t
have a family file name to do. He also scans the name into the computer
and stamps it. Quite often this position isn’t staffed and the New Name
person does both jobs.

New Name: This person performs the new name ceremony and directs the
patron into the chapel to wait for the endowment session to start.

Sealing Guide: This person assists a brother who is coming to the temple
to be sealed / married. The major task here is to get the brother
properly clothed and looking sharp for his bride.

Own Endowment Guide: This person assists a brother who is coming to the
temple for the first time to take out his own endowment. The assignment
takes about an hour and a half and consists of getting the brother to
the Recorder, then through the initiatory, and finally to the President
for instruction prior to going on an endowment session. This assignment
is very enjoyable and all the brothers look forward to this assignment.

Session Follower: When there are more than 12 brothers on the session,
or the session is an own-endowment session, then a brother follower is
assigned to be on the session. When there is a brother follower, then
that person conducts the prayer circle as well. We also use this
assignment as a way to train a brother to officiate a session.

Session Officiator: This person directs an endowment session. It starts
with opening the room fifteen minutes before the start of the session
and preparing it for the session. Quite often the officiator will work
New Name for a half-hour prior to opening up the session room. After the
session, the Officiator straightens up the room and closes the room.

Veil Presentor: This person works on the patron’s side of the veil and
assists the patron as needed. Some of the veil positions are for sisters
and will have a sister presentor. The others are for brothers and will
have a brother presentor.

Veil Receiver: This person works on the other side of the veil and
received the patron into the Celestial Room. The temple has four
endowment rooms, two on the north side and two on the south side. There
are 11 veil positions on the north side and another 11 on the south
side. Up to 11 presentors and receivers will be assigned to work on a
session. The actual number assigned depends on the number of patrons on
the session. Sometimes we really scramble to have enough people to work
on the veil when a session ends with a lot of patrons on the session.

Veil Assistant Coordinator: This person assists in staffing the
receivers on the veil and then supervises the operation on the back side
of the veil at the end of each session.

Veil Coordinator: This person staffs the presentors and manages the
front side of the veil. Quite often the two veil coordinators will
switch off the assignments.

Shift Trainer: Responsible for training the brethren on each of the
assigments and verifying that they can perform the assignments given to
them. Also conducts the weekly training session which is part of prayer
meeting at the beginning of each shift.

Shift Assistant Coordinator: This person is responsible for loading
endowment session, assigning the witness couples, and getting the
session ready to start. He also assists the Shift Coordinator and
substitutes when the coordinator can’t be there. The Assistant
Coordinator is responsible for closing up the back of the temple — all
the endowment rooms, sealing rooms, and Celestial Room.

Shift Coordinator: This person supervises the brethren and makes the
assignments for the shift. The job starts with making up the schedule of
assignments, preparing the agenda for the prayer meeting, and then
managing the work on the shift. It’s a very busy assignment and includes
a monthly meeting in the temple with the Temple Presidency.

We generally need about 25 brothers on our Saturday afternoon shift to
be able to handle all of the assignments. Right now we are staffed with
18 brothers and a few of them don’t show up on occasion.

Our first endowment session starts at 1:00 p.m. and a session is
scheduled for each half hour. The last session starts at 4:00 p.m. A
session takes about 90 minutes, so our first veil is also at 1:00 p.m.
The last veil is at 5:30 p.m. It is a very busy afternoon — but very
enjoyable. I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing than working at
the temple on a Saturday afternoon.

This entry was transferred from an older journalling system to this program on 29 November 2002.

It’s coming up on time to head for bed. I’ve been getting up early and
working on the deck for about an hour or so before spending a few
minutes in the hot tub, and then cleaning up to go to work. The deck
hasn’t been refinished, stained, or sealed since it was built about 5
years ago. It was getting into sorry shape. So, since Monday morning
I’ve been working on cleaning the wood so that it can be stained and
sealed. I’ve got at least two more days of work to complete the cleaning
process, and maybe three days. The railing around the deck is taking the
most time and by the time I spend an hour or so, I’m pretty sore. I
still need to finish the railing, do the hot tub, and then do the deck
floor one more time. Then after it dries for at least 24 hours, I can
begin doing the actual staining and sealing. Hopefully when I’m done
it’ll be looking like a deck that has been somewhat maintained.

It has been extremely dry here in Colorado. Some have referred to this
as the hundred-year drought. Today was the first rain in a very long
time, and it only lasted for about a half hour. We’ve had a number of
wildfires around the area, and it will probably get worse as spring
turns into summer. But with the rain today a cold front has moved
through making the evening very cool. We even turned the furnace on to
warm up the house a little bit. It’ll likely be too cold tomorrow to use
the cleaning solution. If so, then I’ll use the morning to do some
repair work on the deck. I need to fix a board on the steps and tighten
up a number of screws.

It’s a Wednesday evening. The noise on the TV is the Colorado Avalanche
in hockey playoffs against the San Jose Sharks. Just at the end of the
2nd period Colorado leads this game 2-1. San Jose leads the series 2-1.

Today the Chairman and CEO of LSI Logic, Wilf Corrigan, visited the
office. He conducted a briefing on the current company situation for
about an hour or so and then took questions. LSI Logic was severely
impacted by the high-tech implosion last year and is just now starting
to recover. He says that we’ll be cash-flow positive by the end of the
2nd quarter (end of June) and will return to profitability in September
to October. Meanwhile our stock has tanked. It got down to below $10 a
share yesterday but last night’s announcements from Cisco and GE caused
a pretty good market bounce. The stock recovered to just over $14 today.
It can stay down around these numbers for another week, however, since
the Employee Stock Savings Program will do their stock buy on May 14th.
The cheaper the better as that sets the buying price for the next year.
Further, I should have been granted a number of stock options last week,
again at a very favorable price. I’ll be retiring in five to seven years
and these options are a key component of our retirement savings program.

I’m headed for bed in a few minutes. I’m worn out and Nina has already
headed that direction. Perhaps more later this week!

This entry was copied from an older journal into this system on 29 November, 2002.