Praise to the man

"The president and prophet of the Mormon church, Gordon B. Hinckley, died last Sunday at age 97." Link


It's a difficult task to succinctly honor a person who has had a deep and abiding influence in your life. Thus, I'll do what only I am uniquely qualified to do: share my 60 seconds with President Hinckley. In doing so, I implore the reader to tread lightly; to date, I've shared the experience with precious few people.

Hinckley's devotional addresses at BYU campus have long been a perennial favorite of the student body. On November 10th, 1998, I was among a couple dozen students who met President Hinckley before he gave his annual address.

I chatted with my friends as we were led into the underground labyrinth of the Marriott Center. When we rounded the corner to the appointed conference room, my mind did a bit of a somersault as my eye caught his. In an instant, the gravity of the experience washed over me and I felt strangely under prepared.

As the students gathered, Hinckley gave the group a once over, cracked one of his trademark smiles and remarked, "Here are our future professors."


Shortly thereafter, we formed a line for some personal time and associated photo op. I remember that Jonathan Chan was ahead of me in the queue; he produced a photo picturing Hinckley and Jonathan's grandparents posing together many years back. Lacking any kind of personal connection with the prophet, I suddenly felt rather obscure.

Knowing I'd be unable to engage him with ancestral photos, I opted to appeal to President Hinckley's well known wit. I confidently shook his hand and said "I'm Bryan Wheeler and you don't know my grandparents." An eternity passed in milliseconds as I realized I just lobbed the biggest dud of my lifetime. My remarks clearly confused the man and our nascent conversation faltered for a couple of seconds.

Fortunately, Hinckley's 89 years of experience didn't fail him. Our conversation recovered quickly as he turned the conversation toward me. We chatted about Houston,the faithfulness of the church members there, and various other things I no longer remember.

Dazed and confused, I headed for the exit. I almost didn't recognize Henry B. Eyring as he shook my hand on the way out the door.

Conclusions
Over the past week, there has been talk of sadness at the passing of Gordon Hinckley. I don't feel it. His life is a model of a life well spent, ever in the service of his fellow man. Indeed, he's one of the few men I aspire to emulate.

all hail the queen

now there may be a small faction of viewers out there who are tired of hearing me go on about my daughter, but i can’t help it folks, she rocks my world. watching her become a person is the most fascinating and wonderful thing i’ve ever done: it must be shared.

along those lines, i think that maybe summer has received some bad press. i read the other day that the average baby cries one to four hours a day, and i just want to go on record as saying that—assuming we do not travel in the car—summer cries for well under 30 minutes a day.

one might be tempted to say “what a good baby!” HOWEVER, even though i hate to toot my own horn (me??), a truer statement may be “what a good mommy!” as keeping the screams at bay requires constant vigilance on my part (the correct term for her particular temperament is “high maintenance”).

nearly every effort i expend all day is in the sense of “how can i keep her from crying?” left in the arms of another, she would probably cry all day (just ask bryan). i will say this, though, for summer’s contribution: she has never been inconsolable. she never cries for no apparent reason. thus, from experience (we do spend an inordinate amount of time together), i can coax the sobs and screams to an end—and rather quickly at that.

but what about those 15-20 minutes a day of wailing? those are the times when i try to assert my position as group leader. when i unwisely attempt to impose my will upon hers, and my noncompliance is punished forthright: “insolent fool!” then we both end up saying things we don’t mean, kicking, screaming, storming off angry, pouting…only to rush into one another’s arms minutes later and kiss and make up, professing our undying love.

for the majority, summer is a very happy baby: she loves to smile and laugh and talk and play. she is so smart and strong and funny. she very much enjoys socializing with others, and she wants to see the world. but heed my warning: she wants to see it on her own terms. and she must be obeyed.

summer baby is nothing if not a force to be reckoned with.

Patriot dreams

"With unprecedented speed and cooperation, Congress and the White House forged a deal Thursday to begin rushing tax rebates of $600 to $1,200 to most tax filers by spring, hoping they will spend the money just as quickly and jolt the ailing economy to life." Full story

The only hitch in the plan is the possibility that consumers might actually save the rebate instead of spend it. Ever willing to do her duty for her country, Emily assured me last night that she had already devised several plans for plowing her rebate back into the economy. As proof of her valiance in her long running battle against economic recessions, she showed me this:

This is a snapshot of her discretionary spending envelope (or Mvelope, if you will). For you non-accountant types, the signicant column is the one on the far right. As you can see, it's been in the red, well, indefinitely. In short, bad for me, good for you (and the rest of the world economy).

treat yourself

i decided to post pictures of bryan and myself this week, to satisfy our own fans.

summer was tucked neatly inside her moby wrap (finally relinquishing center stage), but as you can see, she's quite the camera hog. plus, it's sort of a little game she likes to play to suddenly 'pop' out and frighten unsuspecting passersby. very alien. or space balls. whichever may be your genre of choice. i've had cashiers nearly scream; summer loves it.

for mlkj day, we braved the car ride and went down to issaquah for rootbeer and milkshakes at xxx rootbeer. the rootbeer was great; unfortunately, the giant shake would definitely not pass my dad's thickness test, but we've had worse.

and for interested parties, i would rate the car ride at 50% as far as the screaming goes (meaning she was upset for 50% of her time in the vehicle). bryan and i both felt this to be a great accomplishment for baby sums. it's all about expectations.

baby in the hood

in an effort to off-set bryan's blog-jacking, i thought it expedient to post a picture of summer for her fans.

i get this look a lot. it's the "lady, what do you think you're doing?" look. she is constantly questioning my authority--little firecracker. lucky for her, i am not easily intimidated.

 

the other look i get frequently is the "this is for babies" look. as we have mentioned before, summer is in a hurry to grow up. how can a ten-week-old be in a hurry to grow up, you ask? i don't know, but she is. if she could talk, she would say:

 

           --pacifiers are for babies, mom

           --cribs are for babies, mom

           --strollers are for babies, mom

           --car seats are for babies, mom

 

but alas, she cannot talk, so instead, she just cries. apparently, that is not for "babies."

The curtain comes off: Syndicated Client Starter Kit (aka News Reader SDK) ships!

Long time blog readers (hi Susanne) may be wondering if our blog has completely devolved into a stream of baby photos and parental musings. The short answer is that it’s a difficult tide to swim against. Fortunately, the baby photos we took this week looked a lot like the photos we took last week so I’ve been given license to write a post on a work related topic:

The Syndicated Client Experience Starter Kit has shipped!


Those of you who are reading the blog out of a sense of familial obligation can stop reading now. Otherwise, brace yourselves, for I’ve employed one of my favorite formats, the FAQ:

What is the Syndicated Client Experience (SCE) Starter Kit?

Simply put, it’s a way to quickly build really sexy apps in WPF. You provide the content (photos, videos, text, etc) via a feed and you get a fantastic user experience for free. With a little bit of styling, you’ll have a highly customized app that will convey your brand with unprecedented fidelity.


What can you tell me about the genesis of the project?
The SCE Starter Kit begins with the New York Times’ Times Reader. I joined WPF a few weeks before Times Reader went public. Bill Gates had given his blessing to the product and there was a lot of enthusiasm for this new way of consuming news content.


The easiest response to the ensuing interest from publishers and developers would have been to write a white paper detailing the Times Reader development experience. However, most publishers have neither the development resources nor the risk appetite to build one of these applications from the ground up. Thus, we envisioned a starter kit which would perform all the heavy lifting right out of the box.


What’s with the name?
Sexy, eh? Honestly, I wasn’t there during the final name meeting (full disclosure: I now work for MSNBC, a Microsoft/NBC joint venture). I was present during other naming sessions though. Oddly enough, a lot of the good names ended up having acronyms that were inappropriate for general consumption.


For much of the life of the starter kit, it was known as the “News Reader Starter Kit” or just “NewsReader”. As the project progressed, it became clear that the name NewsReader implied too narrow a scope. I think “Syndicated Content” does a somewhat better job at conveying the broad potential uses of the product at the risk of being completely incomprehensible to the average person.


What was your involvement?
I joined the WPF team as a Program Manager (PM). To this day, I still have a hard time articulating what a PM does. In an (over)simplified view of the world, developers write code, testers test code, and PM’s do everything else required to get the product out the door. For the starter kit, this meant coalescing disparate ideas to create a coherent vision, writing specs, creating schedules, helping out early adopters, pulling office pranks (it boosts morale, I swear) , writing docs, writing sketchy code that breaks the project upon check in, and much, much more.


What were some of the highlights of the project?
The conference room: Early in our involvement with the Seattle PI Reader app, we had a meeting in the downtown office of the Seattle PI with the publisher, Roger Oglesby, and the managing editor, David McCumber. These days, I recall little of the meeting but I do remember that view of the Puget Sound as a storm rolled in was ridiculous.

The little sign: Chris Han and I went on a road show in the Midwest to talk to potential early adopters. In the lobby of one company was a black sign with pressed on letters that said:

Welcome:
Chris Han
Bryan Wheeler
Microsoft

The people: This project was pulled off by a small, close knit team. The starter kit devs were rock stars. Their designs were brilliant and their code is pure art (if you find it to be otherwise, I take responsibility for imposing the constraints that forced their hands). In addition, I loved working with early adopters all over the world (UK, South Africa, Australia, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, etc).

Any lowlights?
Working with long distance partners doesn’t always mesh well with the Redmond culture (we never schedule meetings before 10AM). I recall a 5AM conference call with some UK based developers at Conchango (fantastic devs, by the way). Fortunately, their British accents lulled my wife back to sleep after I decided to drag the speakerphone upstairs.

Tell me more!

I've far exceeded my blog quota for the week. In the meantime, you can look at what others have to say:

• Tim Sneath
• Rob Relyea
• Lester Lobo
• Andre Henriksson
• Phil Wheat
• Bruno Sonnino

More to come...

she will be loved

the wheeler clan at summer's blessing.

 

our little blue-eyed bird.

the same dress her mama was blessed in not but 24 years ago.

A Cautionary Wail

For those of you who may be a little cavalier in your birth control, I've posted a video of one of my favorite sounds in the whole world. Regrettably (well, Emily is the only one who seems to really regret it), I've developed an uncanny ability to filter out these noises from the hours of 10PM to 5AM.

When we talk about Summer's vocal talents to other parents, we've discovered there are two types of mothers: those who've had screamers and those who have not. Parents who haven't had screamers casually brush off Emily's concerns with lines like "it's OK, all babies are like that." On the other hand, parents who have had screamers will immediately rat out their offending child ("That was my Nick, the rest weren't so bad"). Sorry, Summer, no immunity for you either.

Note: No babies were harmed during the filming of this blog post. No comment on the parents.

merry christmas!

paradigm shift

i am a success junkie:

beginning academically, i maintained prized A's and high scores all through high school, college, and graduate school (uh-hem, excepting for that cursed aerobics class, forever tarnishing my record).

 

transferring this philosophy to employment, colleagues will attest to my continually competitive nature and attempts to "make the grade" be that through promotions, salary increases, reviews, kids reading (even if i have to force them!), or little daily things like just being right.

i also plan for months what to bring to a pot luck and make darn sure it is a dish that everyone loves. nothing screams B- to me like a half-eaten casserole.

and now, here i sit, at home. no one even cares if i get dressed in the morning.  my task-master, a six-week old baby. and i don't think she'll be handing out any pay raises in the near future.

still, i scour my life for little successes. and as acknowledgement is my heroin, i must share them with the world:

1. summer slept for her first full nap--over 2 hours--without being held! (from here on out, i can see myself confusing my successes with my children's; the line is becoming fuzzy...)

2. my sophomore effort at candy making was far more successful than my debut; bryan has officially been uninvited.  

3. i went almost three months without purchasing clothes for myself--you know how hard that is for me. today, i ended my record on (what else?) a sweet pair of jeans.

 

if that's not an A+ day, i don't know what is. 

 

Patterns and practices

Most of my early memories derive from what I would call experience archetypes. Many of my experiences conform so closely to these archetypes that I cannot distinctly remember them. Consider the following:

Hiking Trip Archetype

1. Get up early

2. Start hiking when it's dark and cold

3. Come home when you're reached all of your objectives (it's never too dark and cold to turn around)

 

Ski Trip Archetype

1. Get up early

2. Start skiing when it's barely light and very cold

3. Come home when it's dark (it never gets too cold)

Fishing Trip Archetype

1. Get up early

2. Start fishing when it's barely light and very cold

3. Go home when it gets too dark (it never gets too cold)

Astute readers will notice that even these archetypes share common features. With this in mind, consider my fishing trip last weekend.

1. Leave my house shortly after 4AM to meet my dad and his workplace colleague in Concrete, WA.

2. Meet the guide while it's still dark

3. Learn exotic, double handed fly fishing technique (see Spey casting) while the sun is rising

4. See more bald eagles in 10 minutes than I've seen my entire life

5. Stand waste deep in frigid water the rest of the day

Strangely, it's much more fun than it sounds. We didn't catch many fish (my dad caught a single dolly varden, pictured above), but that's OK because catching fish isn't part of the "Fishing Trip Archetype" and thus not critical for enjoyment.

                  

if wishes were fishes

upon a review of the most lauded and up-to-date literature revolving around newborns, we have discovered there are a few things that, as a baby, summer is supposed to love. among these: car seats/rides, swaddling, and white noise. but instead, she hates them with all her little baby might.

#1: car seats

this one is actually rather problematic and presently constitutes most of her hate. we don't go a lot of places, but when we do, it's such the ordeal. i have never heard summer scream in quite the way she does when she decides she is done with a car ride. so poo-poo on all those recommendations to take your child for a ride in the car to calm them down. unless it's opposite day.

#2: swaddling

very early on in her life, summer decided that she was bigger than her baby body. in fact, most of the time, we think she feels grossly inhibited and frustrated by her own corporeal immaturity. she put up with the swaddling for a little while; then she got bigger, stronger, and louder. the catch-22 with her swaddle-hate is that she, as with most babies, has a hard time sleeping with her arms free (if they are free, they are moving). we are still experimenting with effective solutions.

#3: white noise

instead, she prefers the musical stylings of everyone from beyonce to counting crows to martina mcbride to creedence clearwater. nothing settles little summer down quite like rocking out. just the other night, we had on our usual white noise cd--which was markedly ineffective in calming her--then put in some more hard core tunes, and she was out like a light. my secret weapon is putting her in the baby bjorn, turning up the music, and practicing some moves of my own. dance, mommy, dance! if i stop before she is ready, the peril be upon me.

 

on the upside, she loves the tub.

Me + Tree = Storm

Long time readers may recall our difficulties in obtaining a Christmas tree last year. We forged a path along treacherous roads deep into a US national forest only to turn around, no tree in hand, due to unseasonably inclement weather.

Emily assured me that without a suitable offroad vehicle (more on that in a later post), and more importantly, with a 4 week old baby on board, we would not be plying any forest service roads in pursuit of the perfect tree.

Fortunately, local tree ranchers have long recognized the desire of families to cut down their own Christmas trees with little or no physical risk. Furthermore, said families prefer to cut down their trees within spitting distance of an espresso van. We happily found just such an enterprise at the Carnation U-Cut Christmas Tree Farm.

As luck would have it, bad weather hampered our festivities this year as well. Summer stayed in the car with Granny Wendy while Emily and I braved the snow storm to obtain this lovely Douglas fir (a third the price of its more pretentious cousin, the noble fir).

And since no blog post is complete without a picture of the babe, here she is, ready for a blizzardy car ride.

bushy tailed

baby summer's feats for week three:

--she holds her head up and turns it from side to side while on her belly
--she tries to drink her bath water
--she holds her own pacifier in
--she likes to eat sitting up

--she continues to show forth more of the "Young" half of her genetic code
--she went to a whole three hours of church (truly, an achievement for anyone)

 

this is a photo of what she looks like at three in the morning...bummer for me.

 

(ps: thanks to lisa for the adorable ensemble!)

A fuller spectrum of Bryan

I've been sitting on a significant piece of news in order to not steal Summer's thunder. In an effort to cram two years worth of stressful life events into a single week, I left Microsoft on Oct. 31 (4 business days before Summer was born). On November 1st, I became an MSNBC.com man.

Astute readers will note that this move is not as drastic as it sounds. MSNBC is a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC Universal. This means I get a lot of the Microsoft plusses (resources) without a lot of the minuses (corporate bureaucracy). In fact, my new office is still on Microsoft campus, a mere 300 yards from my old one.

More fundamentally, this shift represents another step along the path I started back in grad school. In essence, I've been travelling along the ideas-technology-business spectrum. Let me explain:

1. Grad School -- This was all about pursuing ideas for their own sake. Although we were solving real problems, it didn't matter if the horizon for widespread application was many years off.


2. Microsoft -- I was on a platform team. Only developers directly interacted with my "product." It was all about the technology. Technical contributors were more or less insulated from business considerations.


3. MSNBC -- With Microsoft as a parent, you can bet we have a strong technology bent. Nevertheless, projects without strong business justification don't see the light of day.

My expectations have not been disappointed. On Friday, we held a kickoff meeting for the first big project I'll be working on. I expected to discuss features and schedules. Instead, we spent the time debating the practical value of the project.

I think I'm going to like it here.

the last sunny day

summer is now a week old. to celebrate, we went for her first walk--which she happily slept through.

also in need of celebration: mama fit into her pre-pregnancy jeans! quite the accomplishment, as those of you who know me well know how tight i wear them...

and one further item of interest: whilst starting out as very much her father's daughter (see previous post), summer is beginning to look more and more like her mom everyday. still, some of her facial expressions are all dad.

 

 

trailing clouds of glory

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
     Hath had elsewhere its setting,
      And cometh from afar:
     Not in entire forgetfulness,
     And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
     From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

--William Wordsworth

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, excerpt

announcing summer elyse

i knew we had an advanced baby:

coming into our lives two weeks early, we got to meet our little girl on tuesday, november 6th at 9:55 pm. i would like to be able to say with harry chapin that she "came to the world in the usual way," but there were a few not so "usual" factors pertaining to her birth.

 

the beginning

the tale begins but two weeks ago at my 37th week check up. i was dilated to 4 cm (not entirely unusal) and my pelvic station was +1 (less frequent, but still nothing noteworthy). my doctor sent me home and told me i could go into labor at any time. of course, after consulting the vast knowledge base that is the internet, i learned that such a situation occurs frequently, and more often than not, the babies are not born early and the women just walk around for weeks at 4 cm.

i had not experienced any contractions and felt really great. i went about my business for the ensuing week, but i did have my mom change her plane ticket and come a week early, and i couldn't shake this strange feeling that i was going to wake up in the middle of the night and find the baby at the foot of my bed.

the labor

still having had no contractions that i was aware of, i went to my 38th week check up. there i learned that yes, i was dilated now to 8 cm; pelvic station +2.  Eight cm, people!, all unbeknownst to me. so abnormal is this situation that a long line of nurses came in to look at me to see what a walking, talking woman at 8 cm and technically in transition looked like. i still felt great.

thinking it a bit irresponsible to have me wandering around like that, the doctor broke my water and 5 hours, 25 minutes later, summer arrived.

while i acknowledge that i cheated labor (i only had about 10 contractions--granted, they were the 90 second, overlapping, physically demanding type, but still there were only a handful), i grossly underestimated pushing. more than half of my labor experience was spent in this stage.

now, i'm not going to romanticize my emotional state here: i screamed for an epidural, i demanded a c-section, i yelled obscenities at everyone in the room (you can ask bryan or my mom about a special moment and some choice words i had for my doctor). but finally, in a sensation i cannot describe, my baby was born.

speaking of screaming for drugs, bryan and i had decided a while back that this was going to be an unmedicated birth, and i am very pleased that we were able to reach our goal (though i will not gloss over my aforementioned moments of weakness). however, we did not previously realize how unusual natural births were in this area. it must have something to do with the demographic, but less than 5% of births at the hospital i delivered are drug free. again, a long line of nurses entered my room both during and after the birth to view my experience, calling me "the natural." ladies, if you are considering one way or the other, i would totally recommend au naturale. recovery has been great and the birth itself was phenomenal.

the baby

of course, summer is beautiful. she looks so much like her father, and her face is incredibly expressive. she was born with a good amount of hair (a curse from my genes that has finally been lifted), my nose, and perfect lips. she is awake and alert more than we thought she would be, hates having her diaper changed, and breastfeeds like a champ. what we ever did to deserve such a pure gift we will surely never know.

 

To the Pumpkin Smashers

To the hoodlums who visited my house last night:

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right

I'm slightly indignant that you did such a poor job of smashing my pumpkin. From the crime scene, it would appear that you were barely strong enough to carry the pumpkin off my door step and may have even accidentally dropped it. When it came time to destroy it, you were unable to raise the pumpkin sufficently high to cause a proper smashing. Next time, bear in mind the following:

1. Patience is a virtue: you must wait for pumpkins to rot; once you've waited long enough the job of smashing will become trivial


2. Real glory requires taking real risks: don't brag to your friends about smashing the pumpkins at the one house on the block with the light off and owners out for the evening. Try smashing all the pumpkins on the street where the police officer lives.

Something to look forward to

The pumpkins will be heavily booby trapped after 9PM on Halloween next year. Please stop by for a visit.

Cheers,

Danger

PS -- To all those parents wondering how to explain pumpkin smashing to small, terrified children, consider making up a mythical creature that only smashes the most fantastic pumpkins in the neighborhood. Next year they'll await the pumpkin smashsers with glee generally reserved for Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

game over

we never doubted the intellectual aptitude of our readership: already, we have a winner for our name game. we thought about continuing to post clues and press forward with the contest, but our attention spans are pretty short, as we imagine most others are also.

the winner will be informed and congratulated here shortly. maybe even sooner than previously anticipated (one can only dream).

on a somewhat different note, we carved that beautiful squatty pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. bryan so loves his job as guts-cleaner-outer. can't you tell?

A Tale of Two Women

Many moons ago, I promised Emily that I would never fill this blog with political rantings. Nevertheless, two of my experiences this last week were political in nature and merit mention here.

For most Seattleites, the pleasure of seeing Senator Clinton in person last week cost $2000. For Microsoft employees willing to walk 10 minutes across campus, the privilege was free. Regardless of what you think about politics (and I expect the readership to be evenly divided), Hillary is an impressive presidential candidate. As wiser men than me have said, "the 50 states are hers to lose."

On the opposite side of the political spectrum (in scope, that is), Vicki Edwards knocked on my door this afternoon. Vicki is running for city council position in our town of 6000 people. Although Emily and I already had visitors over, I invited her in for a chat. Since a buddy of mine is running her campaign, I was already familiar with her stance on a variety of issues. I did, however, express my concern about the lack of sidewalks in our supposedly pedestrian scale community. My concern was duly noted and we parted ways amicably.




Photo Credits:
Clinton -- Jeff Maurone
Edwards -- King County

the name game

after months and months of spreadsheets, algorithms, baby books, and a few heated discussions, bryan and i have finally decided on a baby name. although according to many of my high school, college and early marriage journal entries, i had already chosen names for all my children, it turns out that such whimsies become obsolete when dealing with an actual person who will have to live with the consequences of this decision for the rest of their lives.


early on, we came up with the perfect trifecta of conditions our baby’s nombre would have to meet: easy to spell and say, not too common, and (of course) liked by the both of us. it only took us the ensuing eight months to reach our verdict. and yet, for some reason, i can still here regis in the back of my mind asking, “is that your final answer?”


we have chosen not to reveal said name until little baby’s debut, but instead, as competition runs deep in both our hearts, to encourage our adoring public (yeah susanne!) to vie for a chance to win one of three amazing prizes by being the first to guess the moniker we have selected.

here are the rules:

1. anyone we know can play (sorry random guy from flickr)


2. each individual may submit up to one guess per week


3. submissions may be made via our blog comments section or can be emailed directly to either bryan or myself (though we encourage using the blog so that all players can see the names that have already been guessed)


4. the winner will be announced shortly after we bring the little one home (middle of november-ish)


5. in the event that this name eludes all who participate, we will hold a random drawing to distribute the prize

here are the prizes:

most importantly, respect as the winner AND (bonus!) a choice of one of the following gift certificates--a few of our favorite things:

1. cold stone


2. itunes


3. netflix

here are the clues:

1. begins with the letter “s”


2. 6-8 letters


3. one baby book had this to say about it: “sweet but not silly, and can sound sophisticated when required”


4. no real nicknames can be derived


5. (additional clues will be posted every week)

this is a great way to utilize those 2.5 hours a day the average american worker spends schluffing off at work.

alice in pumpkinland

Seeking to repent of my role in the Candy Massacre of 2007 (see previous post), I was more than happy to spend the last sunny day until next summer with Emily at a local pumpkin festival. Although most children did not attend in utero, our child was still able to convince Emily to buy something we really didn't need (a giant pumpkin sugar cookie for $2.25). I was reminded of my father's sentiment that "festival" is just a fancy way of saying "a place to buy things."

After getting lost in the corn maze and relying on Emily to guide us to safety, I decided to make myself useful by trekking deep into the pumpkin patch and retrieving the largest pumpkin I could find. Soon thereafter, I discovered that my plan was a little rash for someone who spends most of his waking hours in front of a computer. I did, however, find a nice, squatty pumpkin that was more manageable.

taffy pull

it is a relatively recent aspiration of mine to make candy. i purchased a book. i read it. and then i was ready to be (and, as is my nature, fully expected to be) the next willy wonka.

unfortunately, i decided to turn my virgin confectioner pursuits into a family affair, and for fhe this week, bryan and i made taffy. or at least that was the goal.

yet it soon became obvious to me from his ensuing sabotage that it was bryan's alternative goal to dash my candy making dreams to pieces. realistically, though, i can only blame myself for thinking it a good idea to put him in charge of the thermometer (uh, isn't he an engineer?)

due to his ever-watchful eye and precision (please read with oozing sarcasm), the candy mixture was overcooked--for those of you unfamiliar with the art of candy, this is a very, very bad thing. not knowing what else to do, we decided to press forward with the "taffy." i was able to salvage some of the concoction to make hard candies (hopes of actual taffy had long ago been abandoned). and who knows what bryan was doing; please note the difference between our end results. again, i can only blame this on myself, as i should have been supervising him more closely.

to make taffy, one must pull the glassy mixture until it changes color and becomes opaque, roll it into a rope, and then cut it into pieces. bryan just fiddled around with the goo until it hardened and moved on to another piece. thus ruining most of the batch.

he is ever preparing me for motherhood.

Occam's razor

Next time going to church for an hour seems like a drag, consider this: twice yearly, faithful Mormons around the world spend 10 hours over the course of a single weekend watching live satellite broadcasts in an event called "General Conference." I highly recommend the proceedings to interested readers, and I'm always ready to discuss, but that's not the reason you're still reading.

Despite our increasing numbers (13+ million) and an increasing number of high profile members (ever heard of Mitt Romney or Harry Reid?), Mormons remain a bit of a mystery to the populace at large. I recall an anecdote recounted to me by the son of a BYU anthropology professor. The professor, who we'll refer to as JP, frequently worked with other anthropologists who were trying to unravel a bit of the Mormon mystery.

One particular colleague of JP had a theory that speakers at General Conference used special vocal techniques to lull listeners into a catatonic state. In this state, the helpless individuals would be more susceptible to moral persuasion. Ever the scientist, JP invited his colleague to experience a couple of sessions of General Conference firsthand. Needless to say, after awaking from a rather normal nap midway through one of the sessions, he promptly discarded the theory.

On a more personal note, I did rather well this go around in terms of not dozing off. Not something to brag about, but I did want to establish a solid baseline of my behaviour before I can start blaming my napping propensities on late night interruptions from the baby.

Photo credit: cuibel