This Is Bran Signing on

Christmas was good. Michelle and I got digital cameras, and so I have material to blog about.

<- yes, we had picture battles. one of the joys of digital film.


Cameron, before he goes to a job interview. [/jk]

that day, Michelle did not change out of her tick pajamas. the freak.





Our lovely Christmas tree. Some ornaments were hand painted.




























Black goes with everything.


























Granma sent us some ornaments with $20 stuffed in their torsos. Thanks Granma!

The blue head is mine. I like it better that way.




Taking pictures from a moving car. so much fun.


















If you want to see my blog, it is here: http://tatterofmime.blogspot.com/
So, there's 7000+ words for you. Ja ne!

Setting a Record

I seem to be setting a record for how long I can go without putting up anything in our blog. I've decided to follow the good advice of a friend (hey JP!) and start doing shorter less thorough entries, and also encourage my family members to put up their entries as well.

In that spirit, here is my latest entry. We are very happy to have been able to arrange to have Cameron come home for Christmas, so we will have us all together for Christmas, which we haven't had since 2005 (which I can't believe!). We plan on taking a family picture or two, which we'll post sometime. Another big recent event is the boy's friend Andrew Tryon recently left on his mission (Las Vegas, Spanish speaking), and so we got one last picture of the four pals together. Andrew and his brother Josh, Kevin Groesbeck and Brandon have been a friend group for years, and I had them all as scouts. They were an interesting bunch; much more likely to go for merit badges in reptile study, nature, or leather working than climbing, hiking or fishing. Indian Lore is another merit badge that seemed to generate interest. Anyway, they are growing up and becoming more independent.

That's all for now. I have a few reviews of movies, books, and songs that I will post sometime around the new year, but taking good advice, I will post this instead of waiting until it is all ready. Merry Christmas everyone!

What Doesn't Kill Us...

well, you know. I finally turned in my promotional materials to apply for full professor last week. It was a huge burden, and now...well, I would feel lighter, except I'm behind on everything else because of it. Soon I will be sane (he feverishly whispers, preparing to cackle madly as he fades into the night). Maybe not sane, but at least only as crazy as I used to be.

Other things that have been going on: Jamie took Lauryn and Brandon to Nelson Ledges, and they went through "The Squeeze". Fun was had by all.

Michelle was part of a Young Women activity where they had them come up a red carpet, and then read about their YW projects as if they were Oscars. The picture is Michelle in her new dress and shoes. And yes, I'm buying a gun. :)

Two comments overhead recently:
1) It took a Carter to get a Reagan.
2) Now we'll be living socialism in a way we have only read about before.

I guess it is always a matter of perspective. My only comment on politics today is that for a guy that was all about positive change and reaching out to help everyone, Obama sure is surrounding himself with a lot of contentious, "old guard" kind of democrats. If I were an observant Obama supporter, I imagine a few seeds of doubt would be entering into my heart about now.

Mini Book Reviews

Left To Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza (Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust)

This was a fairly quick read, and very inspiring, once you get past the sheer terror and horror of the happenings. This story has been told in other ways (Hotel Rwanda, Shake Hands with the Devil, etc.), but never in such a faith-affirming way. Imaculee was a college student when the holocaust-level killing went into effect in Rwanda, and her story is harrowing and horrifying, although her suffering was mostly due to extreme discomfort in her hiding spot, and having to witness seemingly countless killings. In many ways it reminded me of the ending of the Book of Mormon, and it made me think of how the Book of Mormon was edited to be relevant to our time. The most compelling aspect of the book was that it documented how a person can go through such horrible events and come out with love in her heart. It is a testimony of the power of the Lord to help us forgive and thereby become free. My one negative comment about the book is that the Tutsis and Hutus relations are portrayed without substantial context. Reading her account you almost come away with the idea that the Tutsis were not involved in substantial violence, which is not the case. A simple consultation of the wikipedia entry for Rwanda will fill you in on some of the history. There is definitely enough blame to go around on all tribal (and colonial power) sides.

Maxwell Institute - http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/

There are some great articles here highlighting excellent Book of Mormon scholarship. A few of my favorite articles so far are:

DNA and the Book of Mormon: A Phylogenetic Perspective by Michael F. Whiting
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=12&num=1&id=311&cat_id=488

This is probably the most complete article I have read on the limits of DNA testing in assessing Book of Mormon claims. Highly recommended.

Nephi's "Great and Abominable Church" by Stephen E. Robinson
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=7&num=1&id=168

This does a great job explaining how "great and abominable" can refer to one specific church among many others that are not "great and abominable" at one point in scripture, and the apparent contradiction that comes in 1 Nephi 14:10, in which we are told that the devil's church consists of all those organizations not associated with the Church of Jesus Christ: "Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil." It is especially relevant to us out here where about 35% of our ward are former members of the Catholic church. He makes it clear why the term cannot be applied with any accuracy to the Catholic church as we recognize it, and yet how many churches and organizations could have the term applied to them in a different context.

Long time, no write

I missed the whole month of September...my apologies. I can only plead chronic busy-ness. With our Criminal Justice program director on sabbatical this semester, I am running the criminal justice program as well as the sociology department and that has stretched me to the limit, I'm afraid. I had to cancel a conference in November in St. Louis (with apologies to my friend Theron - yes, that is not a typo - who lives there). We have been internet friends for over 10 years and have never met, and we were hoping to change that, but alas, my rapidly fleeing sanity will not allow that. Maybe he can come for Thanksgiving?

Well, on the Cameron front: he finally went up to Grandma and Grandpa Lawson's place and came back with his car. He is pretty excited. Of course he'll still have to put gas in it, so he may not be driving that much. His classes are pretty rough this semester, so he is doing a lot of homework, and not enjoying the student life quite as much as he had hoped. There is always next semester, son. Or summer. Or...wait, we are supposed to enjoy the moment, so I guess we should all try to focus on the good and worthy aspects of where we are.

We had a great stake conference last week. One family tip that I enjoyed was, "The secret to changing your kids is that you can't change your kids. You can change yourself, you can change elements of the environment you share, but then you have to let them take the opportunities to change themselves. The best you can do is to provide change opportunities." I may have done the quote a little damage, but you get the idea. Jamie and I are in a Sunday School class about families, and we have decided to focus our family home evenings this month on teaching the kids how to teach. We are using the "Preach My Gospel" book - I think it starts around p. 175, but I don't have it in front of me so I'm not sure. "Lesson one" seemed to go well. We discussed the importance filling your mind with the words of life, and of asking commitments of the people you teach. Then we committed ourselves to a half hour of private spiritual study a day, so that our hearts can be filled with the words of Christ. I have high hopes for us. We'll see how that goes. Maybe writing it here will keep it in my mind. More later...

Jay Saves the Day! (and summer stuff)

Update on our family status - I am temporarily a single parent while Jamie runs around the country having fun. Okay, not quite. Cam's car broke down in Laramie, Wy., and things were a little stressful for our weary sojourners. A bishop in the area helped them get situated, but the biggest hero in the tale is Jay (Jamie's dad), who borrowed a trailer from a friend and drove from Idaho to save the day. This was at no small cost, because his back gives him trouble, but he was willing and so they made it the rest of the way out west.

Michelle is back in school (and hating it), and Brandon is still working at Western Enterprises in the warehouse. It is boring work, but fairly decent money. He plans on working a bit longer and then submitting his mission papers. One benefit of his work there is the time we get traveling together. We have had some great conversations.

Pictures: Michelle thought she was clever buying her "toy-letry". The boys have "assumed the position". In the evening after work, when we weren't doing something else, the guys would huddle around the shrine to all things virtual and comment on strategy and give advice. I don't think they got into a disagreement all summer, unless you count the informal competition to see who could push Michelle over the edge with that last sarcastic comment. Michelle was glad to have them back, and she won't mind seeing them go. If you want to see the results of teasing Michelle, you can check out the last picture. In this one though, I think it was me with a comment about the cats that set her off. It is a tough life living with the guys, but Michelle holds her own most of the time.

Music - You HAVE to listen to or see John Mayer's Where the Light Is. The DVD is amazing! He plays an acoustic set, a blues/rock "power trio" set (just for Jamie!), and then does his hits and other assorted miracles with his band. If you don't have any John Mayer, this is a great collection of his songs, and all the tracks are very good. I can't believe he did it all in one night. That much talent is almost sickening. Almost.

Here is a link to my favorite acoustic clip from the DVD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG7ltZ4dg2A&feature=related

It is called In Your Atmosphere. I have learned the first part, but I'm still working on the middle.

Book recommendation - Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. It is a clever and engaging book that explores the basic assumptions we make about how we think. We are often wrong, and I found him quite enlightening and amusing. Here is the preface from his website:

http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/gilbert/excerpts.html

And praise from other clever authors:

"Stumbling on Happiness is an absolutely fantastic book that will shatter your most deeply held convictions about how your own mind works. Ceaselessly entertaining, Gilbert is the perfect guide to some of the most interesting psychological research ever performed. Think you know what makes you happy? You won't know for sure until you have read this book."

—Steven D. Levitt, author of Freakonomics

"This is a psychological detective story about one of the great mysteries of our lives. If you have even the slightest curiosity about the human condition, you ought to read it. Trust me."

—Malcolm Gladwell, Amazon.com

More coming soon...

Breaking Dawn, etc.

Well, dear readers, there were several book stores having Stephenie Meyer parties last night, and while I didn't intend to stay at one until midnight to obtain the next installment of our favorite vampire chronicles (or the "sparkly, twinkly, beautiful vampires" - as Brandon refers to them - he read the first book and thought it was okay, but is now able to mock and lampoon the series with greater accuracy as well). Anyway, the local stores couldn't guarantee they would have enough to sell one on Saturday morning, so we went up to Borders around 10:00 (Jamie, Michelle and I) to get an arm band so that Michelle could have some priority. Well, to make a long story short, by the time we got the arm band, and hung out for a few minutes it was 10:30, and we figured...in for a penny in for a pound, why not just stay? And we could save gas. :)

Well, it was quite an experience. There were about 200 "Twilighters" there, and they had crafts, trivia games, modeling (people dressed like the characters), and a Jacob/Edward debate - the other two parts of Bella's love triangle for those of you uninitiated. It was a little strange. I would guess the average age of the fans was about 15 or 16, but it was hard to tell since some younger fans probably needed drivers. There were also a handful of males, although literally that. One guy had on a funny shirt. It said, "I'm not gay. I only twinkle because I'm a vampire." It was a big hit with the crowd. The other funny thing that happened was that early in the evening (in relative terms) Michelle was a little uncomfortable with the idea of wearing the bracelet and figuring out where she should be standing in line, so she said that one of us should. I told her yeah, right. As if I should stand in line as a 47 year old guy with all the teeny boppers. Parental doting behaviors do have limits. It would be pretty funny though. She calmed down when she saw how it was done and was fine eventually. Today she is tired, but has her "baby", so she is happy.

One other thing I will write about Michelle before I get off: the other day we were in the car and I had changed the radio station at her request (after a short delay to remember who the artist was - Iron Butterfly - I know you were dying to know what band would stump me for a minute), and I put out my hand for my usual request. "Give me five if you love me, 25 million if you don't." This of course forces her to give me five, reaffirming her undying love for her father. When she is in a mood though, as she was at the time, she repeatedly gives five and begins to count..."five, ten, fifteen, twenty...". She rarely gets past 25 though without cracking a smile and giving up.

I hope you all have a good weekend. We have been busy here, but 1) Brandon has found meaningful work at a pump and valve warehouse, 2) my big reports are almost done, and 3) we are making end of summer plans. More info upcoming, but it looks like Jamie will be driving out to Utah with Cam, and then flying back. More later...I haven't forgotten that I still owe stories to you. Oh, and I have been amazed at the Facebook explosion among family and friends in the last two months. See you all somewhere...

New York highlights (part 1) and music comments

Some favorite NYC moments:
Talking to a homeless guy everyday outside my hotel - he was pretty cool. I talked to a few homeless people, and a lot of natives in Central Park. I explored almost every square foot of that - there was little else to do on Sunday.

Visiting Ellis Island - I was not expecting to be moved, or that it would be so interesting, but it has some great displays, and I learned a lot about historical immigration patterns while I having fun there.

Within two hours of arriving I went to look for the temple - which doubles as a church meeting house - and on my way there I was taking in the sights which were interesting. It is the neighborhood where "You've Got Mail" was filmed, so it is a nice area, but the people are still...colorful. Anyway, as I was walking along about a quarter mile from the temple, I saw a young woman who looked very wholesome and I thought, "Well, I suppose there are all types everywhere". She came up to the same stoplight I was at dragging her rolling luggage behind her. Then she turned to me and asked if I knew where the Mormon temple was. She was from Utah, and I was the first person she talked to after arriving. What are the odds of that?

I hopped off the bus tour down at the southern end of the city and walked most of the way back to the upper west side, which was a lot to explore, but I enjoyed it very much. I finally got tired after several miles and took the subway (very easy to navigate with) to Times Square, because I had not seen it at night and I wanted to see the huge displays. Upon arriving I noticed that the police were setting up barriers and weren't saying what they were for, so I decided to hang around to wait and see. I talked to a couple of teachers from the mid-west and told them my little miracle of finding my glasses (another time, dear readers), and we had a nice testimony as well as a discussion of the city. I helped them plan out the rest of their trip because I knew where everything was by then. Anyway, pretty soon a band started to set up on the platform above the entrance to the Hard Rock Cafe, and it turns out it was Ozzy Osbourne. I could of thrown a rock and hit him - "missed opportunity" some of you are probably thinking. Anyway, I listened until they played Crazy Train and a few other songs and left.

I also loved Grand Central Station - I have a poster in my office and it was as cool as the poster, and had a great atmosphere. By the way, if you want to see a good prank done there, here is a cool site for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo

It is the same link that is on my Facebook site if any of you ever go there. I'll tell the rest of the NYC story later.

Music:
Lately I have been really into Neal Morse. He is a progressive rocker (along the lines of Kansas, Yes, and early Genesis) who was the lead singer/songwriter and multi-instrumental genius behind the band Spock's Beard. Anyway, he left the band a few years ago to do Christian music, and some of it is quite amazing, although a lot of it is still progressive rock. My favorite disc is called simply "?", and it is a theme album about the tabernacle in the wilderness, of all things. It is quite amazing.

This first link is actually a live performance of a Spock's Beard song called June, which I think is amazing. If you don't like live music, there is a video accompanied by the studio version right beside it at the linked site:
http://www.last.fm/music/Spock%27s+Beard/+videos/+1-P9NLFpzh9d4

This last one is my favorite - although it is not progressive, like most of the rest of the "One" album that it comes from. It is called Cradle to the Grave. It is a song written with a verse for man and a verse for God, then their two parts mesh together. You can find it here. There are a few other songs as well, although some of you might be shocked by the distorted opening of Solid as the Sun.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=285998991
You can see the lyrics here if you want.
http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Neal-Morse/Cradle-To-The-Grave.html

That's all for now kids, other than to note that we are still having a good time with all the runts, at least when the boys are not making our lives miserable by tormenting Michelle. For her part, she gives us all a trial when her emotions heat up, but overall we are having a great time with our fun children this summer.

I just put up my NYC mini-slide show

I'll write a couple of stories about it later.

Music and Movies Part I, etc.

Hello Everyone. We are having a good if busy summer. I thought I would take a minute to comment on a movie or two and some music you might like. Before I get to that though, I have to tell you about some silliness. Last night at scripture study, we were reviewing the teaching of searching for the one lost sheep and leaving the 99. As part of the teachings about that, I mentioned that the scribes/pharisees and priests sometimes thought they were above repentance, and asked if anyone was actually above that. All three of our children raised their hands at the same time. So much for the lesson. I was hoping that at least Michelle was just asking a question, but no, she was also claiming the state of perfection. Sigh. My kids...we did laugh pretty hard about all of them doing it at the same time though. : )

Movies: We recently went to see Prince Caspian (Narnia 2.0) as a family, and it got mixed reviews. I thought it was alright, but a little light on plot. Cameron (who has read the book about 10 times) hated it because it was too far off the mark. The rest of the family liked it reasonably well. Cameron and I preferred Martian Child, because of just the right amount of wacky weirdness (like John and Joan Cusack are perfect for), and very heart-warming moments. It was flawed by one or two formulaic elements you could see coming a mile away, but it was a good film, and I liked some moments A LOT. In case you don't know about it, it has to do with widower writer trying to get his life together and how he looks into adopting a little boy (who has a few problems, one of which is that he thinks he is from Mars). At the risk of sharing a lot of the charming parts of the film and thereby diminishing the impact of it, here is the link to the trailer. If you get interested enough to see it, you might stop watching to keep some great fresh moments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo--9mYFpVM

Music: I got a great steal at our local music store, and am listening to The Thorns right now. They are sort of a supergroup made up of Matthew Sweet (100% Fun - my favorite disc of his), Shawn Mullins (Soul's Core and Beneath the Velvet Sun), and the sort of folky Pete Droge (http://www.myspace.com/petedroge). The one I have has the original disc (which has electric and acoustic songs), as well as an acoustic only session with them doing all their songs with just an acoustic guitar or two, a bass, and occasional drums. It is great. If you want to hear their music, you can find it at: http://www.myspace.com/thethornsmusic

My favorite song on their player at that site is "No Blue Sky". They are little like Crosby, Stills and Nash.

Another band that resurfaced at the Quist house is an old favorite "Toad the Wet Sprocket". They are my favorite 90s band, and Brandon has just found them, causing a bit of a resurgence. They were pool fodder at our pool exercise/fun time this morning. In Light Syrup is an odd collection of their weird stuff that never made it on a regular album, but it may be their best album. The song "Good Intentions" on this page is from that album.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=69945434
The song Walk on the Water was a hit for them as well, although it is not one of my favorites. It is one of Jamie's favorites. The other songs on the page are not very indicative of their best music. My favorite albums other than In Light Syrup are Dulcinea and Coil. Check them out at your local library! : )

For those of you who don't remember Shawn Mullins, here is a link to a video of his biggest hit, "Lullaby": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sQIX1NTkcQ

This is a link to an acoustic version of Lullaby (live) where he tells a bit of the story behind the song. The sound quality is not the best, but it is interesting, and you can see how he plays it (open G).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgyA-6Br1HA&feature=related

Happy Birthday, Michelle!

Well, today is Michelle's birthday, and we did something special for her. Actually, a relative or three did. Michelle's favorite author is Stephenie Meyer, and we recently discovered (a couple of months ago) that she is my second cousin. Anyway, to make a long story short, Carol Corpus (my department office manager) and I hatched a plan to use my connections (Hi Mom! :) to try to surprise Michelle. To make a long story short, we arranged to have Stephenie send Michelle a birthday note, and Stephenie's mom (Candy -thank you!) sent my mother a few books that were autographed, so Michelle got an autographed copy of Twilight as well. She was more than thrilled. I probably shouldn't write this, but after grinning ear to ear and waving the note around like a complete weirdo, she finally exclaimed, "Holy Crap!". I don't think she meant anything disrespectful by it. We have a little video of the event, and Cam took a few pictures of Michelle ("Chella" - our little inside joke for you Twilighters). I'll post them another time. In the meantime, here are pictures Michelle took while convincing herself that it was all real. (She really was very excited, and after about a half hour she started to pull on her cheeks to make herself stop smiling because her face hurt from grinning so much).

Wow!

We had a spectacular rainbow yesterday, as the setting sun illuminated the whole eastern sky line. The picture here is just a fragment of it (Ohio treelines can be annoying on occasion). The other picture is of the Serpent Mound. For those of you who don't know, there are dozens of digs and mounds in Ohio. So far, the most complete book I have seen on them is Bradley Lepper's "Ohio archaeology : an illustrated chronicle of Ohio's ancient American Indian cultures". It has many illustrations, maps and pictures. I just got it from the library, but it is so great I'm picking it up for our family. A couple of interesting things about the serpent mound is that carbon dating puts it's origin at about 1000 b.c., and the people who lived in the region at that time seemed to disappear around 400 a.d. It is somewhat unclear exactly who they were - anthropologists are still debating about it. Of course other tribes have been here off and on since then. The other interesting thing about the serpent mound is that it has some astronomical orientations, much like Stonehenge and other early sites (the head/tail line orients to the north, various features point to sunrise and sunsets at solstice and equinox times as well as lunar events) . I'm trying to talk the family into an archeology-themed camping trip this summer.

Here is some info about the serpent mound from Wikipedia:

The Great Serpent Mound is a 1,330-foot-long, three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound located on a plateau of the Serpent Mound crater along Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio. Including all three parts, it extends about 1,370 feet, and varies in height from less than a foot to more than three feet. Conforming to the curve of the property on which it rests with its head approaching near a cliff point, the serpent winds back and forth for more than seven hundred feet and ends with a triple coiled tail. The neck is stretched out off a gentle curve from the seventh coil from the tail, ending with open mouth around the east end of a lengthwise one hundred twenty foot hollow oval feature, thought variously to be an egg, the sun, the body of a frog, or merely the remnant of a platform serving to support something. The effigy's extreme western feature is a triangular mound approximately 31.6 feet at its base and long axis. It is the largest effigy earthwork in the world.

While there are several burial mounds around the Serpent mound site, the Serpent itself does not contain any human remains and wasn't constructed for burial purposes. The Cherokee relate the legend of the Uktena, a large serpent with supernatural appearance and power. The question raised regarding such Indian legend asks whether the ancient native people actually created very large totemic shrines based upon platforms made of earth and stone. Subsequent changes in the form of inheriting cultures or war could conceiveably have deconstructed such a marvelous effigy, leaving merely its platform.

Astronomical significance

The oval-to-head area of the serpent is aligned to the summer solstice sunset. This calendrical alignment was first noted in print by Clark and Marjorie Hardman in the journal Ohio Archaeologist 37(3):34-40 (1987). William F. Romain, a northern Ohio resident, suggested an array of lunar alignments using the curves in the effigy's body, but these sightlines are over a much shorther distance than the head and oval summer solstice sightline, and their legitimacy is therefore less plausible. A link to this image and others is noted below.

The carbon dating attribution of 1070 coincides with two significant astronomical events: The appearance of Halley's Comet in 1066 and the light from the supernova that created Crab Nebula in 1054. This light was visible for two weeks after it first reached earth, even during the day. There is speculation that the serpent mound was to emulate a comet, slithering across the night sky like a snake. However, it must be noted that Halley's Comet's tail has always appeared as a long, straight line, and in no way resembles the convolutions of a serpent. Also, Halley's comet appears every 76 years, and there are an untold number of other supernovae that may have occurred over the centuries than span the possible construction dates of the effigy, so that such suggestions are at best tentative speculations.

The Serpent Mound also may have been designed in accord with the placement of the stars composing the constellation Draco (Draco), an idea admittedly as speculative as the theory of its construction being associated with either Halley's Comet or the 1054 supernova. The star pattern of the constellation Draco fits with fair precision to the Serpent Mound. An image of this and other astronomical information regarding the Great Serpent Mound is available through this link:

http://greatserpentmound.info/The_Draconian_Serpent_and_Stonehenge.pdf

There are other articles by the same guy available online, but fair warning: the author is a little nutty. : )

Catching Up

Here are some recent shots of us. The first one is Michelle at girl's camp with some friends. Unfortunately her back is to the camera, but she is still cute. Both Jamie and Michelle went, and they had fun. The theme this year was Heros of the Heart, and each level had a superhero mascot. Michelle's level was supergirl - notice the cape? - Thank you Gae Lambert! I was up there for a day with the bishop and we had a good time. The girls did dances and cheers along the lines of their mascot. Jamie did one of Rosie the Riveter, and I got a picture, but my impending doom did not seem like a good exchange for sharing it with you, so...

I also put up a picture of Cam as an Arab. He is tan from landscaping and his beard has a week or so of growth because he had some poison ivy on his face. He's better now. The other one is a quick candid of the boys in the hall. I was trying to get a good one of Bran smiling, but he is a tough customer. Cam is looking surly on purpose. Wierdo!

The last one is of Jamie, Cam and I taken by my nephew Wade when we visited Kirtland with him and his wonderful wife Jessica. Wade isn't bad either. Hi guys!

Two More

Cam kept hiding and peering out like "Kilroy was here" throughout the day, so I put this in here to remind us. I also put one of me with the kids, so Jamie doesn't complain - she hates having her picture taken, and made me pose for this one as turnabout, fairplay, or something. : )

Nelson Ledges

We checked out a location for a Girl's Camp hike out near Johnson Farm, and here are some pictures. It was amazing!

My Home (Office) and My Baby

Here is my new office configuration, featuring an Eric Claption painting (that I got from the bishop), my CD library, my Grand Central Station poster, and most importantly my new baby - my cool new Stratocaster. Alpine Jennings (our bishop and my guitar hero) rebuilt it, and even has the instructions for how to build it on Youtube. You can find under his user name "Rolijen". You can also hear him play it, which shows both how great he is, and how good the guitar sounds.

After many years, my wonderful wife has agreed to have an electric guitar in the house as long as it is in stealth mode, or is played while she is away. They have new software which allows you to get the tones of many different guitar players and play through your computer (Line 6's Gearbox), which makes it convenient and quiet. I can play louder at work, if and when I get the time. Watch out on Wednesday nights after class!

Michelle and Hillary

Michelle occasionally makes "pithy" comments about politics, but here is a more basic statement. The picture is of a target she made for Cam's blowdart guns that he brought from Malaysia. It is a stick figure of Hillary saying, "Global warming, blah, blah, blah", and in case you can't see, there are about a hundred dart holes around and through her. I've always said Michelle was interesting or funny, I never said she was subtle.

The Boys Are Back in Town

Excuse the rock reference, but it seemed appropriate. We love having both of our guys back. This is probably the last summer we will all be together, so we are enjoying it. The pictures are of Cam after getting home from his landscaping job while Brandon is helping out at the stove. It is kind of weird to be living with two other "men" after being awash in a sea of estrogen for the last months - just me and Traveler overmatched by the girls. : )

The other picture is our guitars. The boys are both getting into guitar lately, and we have a lot of music going on at home. I saw the guitars sitting in their usual positions and snapped this shot.

Missionaries

While waiting for Cameron to return, we seemed to have a great relationship with all of the missionaries that came through. This one is Sister Leavitt. She is a political science major, and will be running for president in 2024. Apparently Jamie will be running her campaign. We wish her and all the other great missionaries luck in their future endeavors. Drop us a line now and again if you like...

A Taste of Malaysia

The Wednesday of spring break I took the day off and took Cam to an Indian restaurant - his favorite ethnic food. It was pretty good, although he enjoyed it more than I did. We then went to downtown to a large Asian market on E 36th (called Tink Holl), and looked around for a couple of hours. We had a nice time browsing through things, and telling each other stories. We met some nice people, and bought several bags of Asian groceries, including a durian, which is the stinky smelling but good tasting fruit that Cam wrote about months ago. Actually, only one of the descriptors is correct. It does stink. It was still fun to try it. Cam about laughed his head off looking at my face as I spit the first bite in the sink. It was overripe, and I thought I had perhaps bit into a rotten portion. I hadn’t. It only tasted like it. Cam thought it was extremely funny. I tried a few more bites, and I did get more used to it, but it was like…imagine biting into something with the texture of an avocado, the flavor of an avocado mixed with a bit of papaya, and then permeated throughout with garlic. Now you are getting close. After he ate a bit more, we threw it out and by the next day it was MUCH smellier than the cat droppings cleaned from the kitty litter (used by three cats).

Cam also brought back some sarongs and other cultural souvenirs. One thing that surprised me was a Singaporean sitcom DVD. He would often talk about how he was worried about his broken English, and frankly I thought he was maybe exaggerating the level of difference a little. However, upon watching this sitcom, I found that I only understood about half of it the first time through, and that my eyes kept dropping down to the Malay and Chinese subtitles for help (which actually helped not at all of course). In speaking, he only has one or two habits that are hard for him to break - mostly having to do with ubiquitous use of the word “can” in unusual contexts.

Dad's Visit

Dad came out and visited after Cam returned. It was a lot of fun. We took him around to a few more obscure church sites - like the place Parley Pratt ran from the sheriff's dog, and where he performed some baptisms. Here are pictures of Cam and I with Dad.

Fun With Chelle

Here are a couple of pictures related to my darling daughter. The first is something she made after seeing an internet Easter comic. The second picture is the "vacation pic" for her pencil and eraser. She has a pencil named Sally and an eraser named Emily. She decided that even if she had to go to school, that was no reason that her friends should suffer, so she left them home and let them have a vacation. This is one vacation picture from their time away.

Cam after...

These are pictures of Cam after being up for most of 40 hours or so. The first is at the airport, the second is about a minute and a half into family scripture study at the end of a LONG day. : )

Beginnings

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to Quist World, source of all relevant information on our family and our doings. We plan to have pictures, comments, reviews, and who knows what else. I will be putting up some pictures from Cam's mission shortly, and you can see his recent pictures upon return. More to come...