Girl Cooties

I've not been to a Mormon singles event in years. Until last night …

Good Morning World!

I love how light reflects off its myriad planes … and how the passing of the day brings such a panoply of variation.

On Veteran's Day …

My family is light, when it comes to veterans… and perhaps this isn't all that unique — but I can't name a single ancestor who's been a veteran. My great-grandfathers on both sides weren't alive during a war … and both grandfathers were too young for WWI and too old for WWII. Dad was too young for Korea and too old for Vietnam. So it shouldn't be surprising that I never really thought to much about veterans, as a kid.

That is, until junior high… the junior high I attended used the ASVAB test (a standardized military aptitude test) to gauge school successes on a number of fronts. For their generosity in providing the test, the military was given access to our scores. I scored in the 99th percentile. Unsurprisingly, I was soon barraged with all sorts of recruiting proposals. I wasn't hip to the idea, so I registered as a conscientious objector. The proposals stopped almost immediately.

It was also around this time that I became politically aware… and fell in love with a number of more liberal causes (no nukes, the Dukakis campaign, and the like), and any appreciation for our veterans was sidetracked by a certain level of distrust.

Fast forward a few years, and today I can't help but tear-up when I think of the sacrifices asked of our armed services — and the invaluable part they play in our enduring freedom. Don't misunderstand: I'm still very leery of the military-industrial complex, and an ardent opponent to our current military engagements. But I learned somewhere in the intervening years that I could hate a war without hating our soldiers.

So today, on Veterans Day, I'm thinking of our men and women in uniform. And I'm grateful. Thank you.

NB: Yes; I re-wrote the post completely. I can only think that maybe I was tired or hungry when I posted the original.

An Affirmation of Faith

A few years ago, I was asked what Mormon piety looked like by a pastor-in-training, and I answered with a three-part series on the subject (I II III). To this day, these posts are among my most favorite…

But yesterday, Margaret Young responded to a much more nuanced question of personal faith: "What does it mean to be LDS?". And respond she did… with one of the most beautiful statements of personal faith I have ever read. I could say more, but fear that anything I say might cheapen her tender, heartfelt, and lyrical response.

The Snowman... and His Evil Twin

Have you seen The Snowman? The British, animated short featuring a boy and his snowman? It's one of my favorite holiday treats... but nothing that good stays un-tarnished. Marketers love a good hook, and the folks at Irn Bru ( a not-so-soft-drink from the UK ) found theirs.

See a grainy snippet from the original ( you really ought to buy the full short ):



And now, for your delectation, the advert from Irn Bru:

Poem: Flower

A bloody flower
in an alley dark.
Absently people walk by.
The flower is but a woman.

____________________


This was the first poem I ever wrote. I was in 5th grade, and it was a gift for my teacher ( it was pre-Colombine, so no one thought to lock me up ). My sister had just been murdered, and I coped through writing and drawing... I'll have to rummage around to find some of my others.

That teacher was great... she just posted them on the coat closet behind her desk, and told me how good it was. No mention of the macabre flower drawing... just pure, unadulterated, teacherly love.

( Thank you. )

Did you see it? Did you?

Late last night... sometime around midnight, I was out on my 4th-story balcony chatting with a neighbor when a shooting star cascaded through the night... lasting a few seconds (an eternity for these ephemeral beauties), I watched as it burst: 1, 2, 3 times.

Absolutely amazing.

I hope you saw it, too.

A Rose by any Other Name

This is a post about my brother.

You see, I realized a while back that he didn't know about this blog, but thought he'd enjoy seeing me in this setting, so I decided I should send him a couple links... but I got caught-up in work and whatnot, and didn't get around to it until a day or two back... and that's when it hit me: I don't think I've ever mention him here.

It's not strange, really: I live in a small universe of family, friends, loved-ones, and pretenders... so I couldn't possibly be expected to mention everyone. But he's my brother... and you'd think he'd come up more often. But that's just it: as much as I love and respect him, our planets swing wide of each other... We're Saturn and Jupiter: coming into each other's lives infrequently but not insignificantly.

Anyway.

But now that he's here... what shall we call him? The Crow's Nest is nony-less, so he definitely needs a nick. Sure, my sister T is just "T"... but that wouldn't do for him. Nope: he needs a full-on handle.

So I call T, and ask if he had any nicknames growing up.

[ Pregnant Pause ]

"I don't think so."

We laugh.

"Why don't you call mom?"

"Okay... I'll call you back with the scoop!"

[ Hang-up ]

[ Dial Mom ]

"Hey mom... "

[ Pops the Question ]

Mom then proceeds to give me a nickname that I'm pretty certain had never seen the light of day until that very moment. Mom's funny that way.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just curious... T and I were talking and we couldn't remember if he ever had a nickname..."

Mom said something and I returned: "Well, he was always grown up."

"That's not true! Why he had asthma when he was a kid and he decided to join track ( "Track?!" T would later exclaim "He was never in track!" "Yes, he was... I remember the pictures, and thinking how cool it was that he was in track..." "Oh. I don't remember any of that..." ) and he would come in last during every race... and I asked him why he stuck with it, and he told me that 'someone has to come in last and it might as well be me...'."

[ Pause ]

"Mom: that's the definition of being grown-up."

[ Pause ]

"A'ight, mom, I've gotta jet... and you're driving... talk to you later, love you!"

So yeah: no childhood nicknames to speak of.

Of course, I could mine our lives for something...

I don't know how your mind works, but mine is filled with two types of memories: the crystal-clear snapshots/videos of moments or recordings of things said; and then the vague collections of sentiments ( "I don't remember what happened, but I remember feeling... " ).

Of the latter sort, I "remember" how much I looked up to him growing up, and feared him... not the fear you have of an enemy, but the fear you have of a parent or an authority figure: he was the Hand of God ( T, by comparison, was always the tender embrace of a savior — when she wasn't pushing me down stairs ). I also "remember" how much I stood in awe of him. I "remember" how much I bragged about him to my friends. I "remember" thinking how brave he was — that he was the paragon of manhood.

Of the former sort, I have maybe a dozen memories from my childhood: a winter ( back when it actually use to snow ), when he built a "pillow" of snow that we all jumped into from our second-story deck; he and his friend teasing me as I tried frantically to get a pre-pubescent itch in my shorts taken care of; him playing catch with me in the backyard and me wincing, closing my eyes, and squealing when the ball hit me... and him saying that I'd do better if I opened my eyes, with me replying that I'd open my eyes if he'd stop throwing things at me; him "stress testing" my Lego creations and then teaching me about sound building processes, until — once mastered — I could barely get them apart when I wanted to; him out in the back yard, chopping the heads off of scores of chickens, with the occasional one running about ( lurp! lurp! lurp! ) without its head — leaving a trail of blood in circles behind it on the lawn; him teaching me the difference between being "scared" and being "startled" — and that men got "startled"; playing hide-and-seek with him ( oft-times without his actually knowing ) by hiding in the middle shelf of the linen closet, or on the top bunk under a sheet and practicing breathing without moving my chest; and, finally, a wonderful road trip when he drove me from Spokane to Pasadena to see T... with lunch at a hat-shaped A&W on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River Gorge, a stop to take a picture of a sign declaring that we had just passed the half-way point between the North Pole and the Equator, waking-up in the middle of the night in a blizzard in a forest and him telling me that he thought it would be cool to show me Crater Lake but that he hadn't expected the late spring storm, driving through the wasteland of Klamath Falls, and then dropping into Sacramento Valley and seeing the smog and thinking we must be really close to Los Angeles.

( Okay, I take it back: I apparently have more memories than I thought... they just needed a little prodding. But I'll stop here, as I'm considerate of my audience. )

But someone is not just a tangle of memories — sweet, sour, and occasionally just-plain-odd ) — they're also the echoes of those memories: the tug-and-pull they have on you when they're nowhere to be seen. My brother is no different... he's the voice in my head urging me beyond mediocrity... my cupid when I first fell in-love with computers ( though his love was always computers-as-puzzles, and mine was always computers-as-tools ). In fact, I credit him as a very real contributor to my current life as a former software company co-founder, and now a computer-aided designer.

So this brings me back to the beginning... what shall we call him?

Flash? Jupiter? Coach? Jove? ... Nah.

I think I'll keep it simple...

"Brother" ... with a capital "B".

So welcome to my blog, Brother!

罂粟的夢。

When I was attending BYU, I took 3½ years of Mandarin ( three years of language and a semester of calligraphy ).

I loved it.

Loved loved loved.

During my first year, I did something quite daring: I signed-up for the year-end speech contest... and instead of reading a passage or something other from some well-known author, I decided to write my own.

I've always loved poetry, and I've written a great deal of it in my life ( though most of it during my youth ), and the idea of writing a poem and *performing* it was more than I could resist.

I prayed over it, and thought over it... wrote and re-wrote it... And then finally performed it.

Prior to the performance, one of the judges pulled me aside and told me how much he loved the poem, and that he would like to have it published back in China ( presumably in some collection of English-speaker-authored poetry ). He then gave me a suggestion on the last line which I smiled at ( then dismissed... I liked it as-is... I'm stubborn that way ).

After the contest, I put the poem aside. My life had become VERY BUSY, and I forgot about the poem for a while. When I went to look for it, I couldn't find it. Every year or so, I'd think about the poem and dig through all of my old paperwork — to no avail.

Fast forward 12 years... I'm returning from church the week before last, and I walk into my store room. I just stand there and look at all the boxes of books waiting for my shelves to be built ( I do this a lot... not having my books out on shelves is really hard on me ). And I think to myself, spying a box filled with old Franklin planners, "I wish I knew whatever happened to that poem". I go to the box, pull out a binder with 1994's archives, and let it fall open.

And there she is.

My poem.

God heard my prayer, and gave me a gift... Even now, my eyes well-up with tears to think of God's tender mercies.

It's such a small thing, really... to Him. But it was a perfect gift for me. I can't really ever repay Him... but I think all He really wants is my honest gratitude. And what better way to thank Him, than to share His twice-over gift with others. So it is with joy that I finally present my little poem about fireflies and August skies...

罂粟的夢

在罂粟中間、
我静静地躺。
看夜募降臨
停! 聽星星唱。
看螢火虫慢慢地飞
分享星星的舞劇。

I hope you like it.

In passing, though, I should mention that after 12 years, my Mandarin has faltered a bit, and I had to turn to my dear friend Cam, whose Mandarin is impeccable. He helped me publish it here by providing the pinyin. Thanks Cam! You're a super-star!

KSL in Kansas

So I was driving across country this weekend to deliver my good friends' car to them, and I was crossing into Kansas from Colorado on I-70. Whatever NPR station I had managed to snatch from the ether had finally faded, and I was itching for something else to distract me from the monotony of a night drive (and my all-too-frequent — and dangerous — episodes of falling asleep at the wheel)... when I remembered capturing the signal from KSL 1160 one cold night years earlier as I crossed the Mojave on one of too-infrequent pilgrimages to see my brother (not to mention the nearby IKEA).

At any rate, I decided to try my luck, and I dialed-up 1160... and there, in the middle of the Great American Prairie, was Doug Wright, et al. It was so surreal. Even though I prefer KSL 1160's daytime programming to its evening fair, I was mesmerized by the distance these voices had traveled — on gossamer wings, it seemed — to entertain me.

The signal was strong through to the border with Kansas, and then weaker — disappearing and then reappearing with every dip of the road — all the way to Salina, where I pulled-off for the night.

Maybe in 10 winters, I'll be somewhere else, and rediscover my erstwhile road companion — well, if satellite radio or something new doesn't kill him off altogether.

Snow on Timp

It happened.

Snow returned to the summit of Mt Timpanogos yesterday morning... before all the snow had melted on its South face.

Glorious.

I've lived in the valley 12 short years, which is nothing (I realize) in the great scheme of weather patterns, but I've not seen snow on Timp for an entire year. And the human mind is wired to rejoice in pattern (and breaks in pattern).

So I'm rejoicing.

The Hummingbirds Return

It's that time of the year again: the hummingbirds have returned!

I just saw the first one of the year buzzing about the porch this afternoon. Delicate as they are, and brave — they just love dive-bombing the cats.

It's strange: I can't imagine that this one was even alive last year, but there he was: buzzing around the spot where, last year, the feeder hung. I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm certain there's an explanation, but in lieu of an explanation, it just seems a little magical.

And I appreciate the magic in my life.