Plugging the photo business

Hoping to drum up a little more summer business, I've temporarily suspended sitting fees for portrait work. Summer is an excellent time to get family potraits done. The evening sun is better than any studio for flattering light and pleasing colors. 

A few pictures for friends far away

The temple is pretty much done. In fact, the contractor turned it over to the church a couple of weeks ago, and stake presidents and the like have gotten to see it. They are also doing training of various kinds. The open house begins next Friday. The dedication is on my birthday (how nice of President Monson to think of me, don't you think?), Sunday, August 24.

The kids are all getting big. Rather than post a bunch of pics on the blog, I've put a few (too many, I'm sure) on a web album. View them at your leisure.

What a lame friend we have in Clark (or apologies to a Michigan poet friend who was trying to make me cool (ish) from a distance)

It's really dumb, probably, but I actually have two blogs. This one is personal (and not in any way associated professionally or by inference or any other link real or imagined with CSI). The other one is professional (where I pretend to be a professional, obviously). The dumber thing is that they have the same name... I think I'm pretty much the most unoriginal guy on the planet.

I was reading some old posts by my Michigan poet friend, Mark Brown, and I found that he had tagged me way last year. How lame am I that I missed it? Way lame, I assure you.

Anyway, here's what he tagged me for:

Four Places I’d Love to Visit:
1. Detroit. to see my friends Mark and Suzanne (not to mention their too-darn-grown-up daughters).
2. Whiterock Canyon (Uintah Mountains, Utah. Site of our annual "Draney Camp"). We go there every year, but gas prices are making me wonder if we'll get there this year.
3. The inside of a B-17. and go flying, of course.
4. Holland, with Keri. Again.

Four Things I Covet:
1. Mark Brown's sense of style. (No, seriously. Everything he does reeks of class.)
2. Automatic sprinklers.
3. That guy at the boy's ball game-- his Nikon D300 and that HUGE lens.
4. Dianna's sense of who her kids are and how to nurture them

4 Goals I Have:
1. Blog "daily" for a while
2. Pay off debt.
3. Be less critical of everyone.
4. See all my boys go on missions and marry in the temple. Catie is another matter altogether, of course.

4 Fads I Wish Would Pass:
1. Square sunglasses.
2. Lowrider pants (on either gender).
3. Reality shows (except Extreme Makeover Home Edition-- which we should be on).
4. Rice-burners with more amp power than horsepower (both of which exceed the drivers' brainpower, apparently).

4 Delights:
1. Chili Lime sunflower seeds (Spitz brand)
2. Going back to sleep after shutting off the alarm.
3. Cameron's laugh.
4. Colton's "Daddy"

4 Regrets:
That I am:
1. Too impatient
2. Too critical (see above)
3. Too slow to forgive.
4. Too critical (see above and above)

4 Things I Wish I Could Do More Often:
1. See my extended family (mostly in Utah) more often.
2. See stage productions (musicals, opera, etc.)
3. Go out to eat with JUST Keri
4. Paintball with my brothers.



4 Things That I Never Would Have Imagined Would Happen to Me:
1. Live in Idaho. (I don't have a thing against Idaho. In fact, I spent my summers in Idaho when I was growing up, and I loved it. I just thought I'd live right there "at home" in Utah. Idaho is home now, though.)
2. ?? My life is too predictable, I guess.

A matter of semantics

We often talk about the importance of or being grateful for “the gospel in our lives.” I sometimes think we have it backwards (and it reveals a particular mindset). Ought we not to say that we are grateful that our lives are in the gospel?

The first instance implies that the gospel is only one part of our lives, that it is somehow separable from other things like work or play or whatever.

The second instance suggests that our lives our surrounded by, immersed in, the gospel—that the gospel touches any and every part of what we do on a day-to-day basis.

Surely this is part of what it means to be a true disciple, to be living the gospel all the time—not taking time off for vacations or leaving our church membership at home when we go to work or pretending that obedience and diligence are optional on certain days of the week.

Do I have to blog in the summer?

So I make this sort of quasi-goal to blog some--- to keep the "creative juices" flowing during the break. And then I promptly ignore it. I blog twice last week and then I go AWOL. Sheesh.

So what have I been doing instead? Well, let's see...

1. pulling the hose around the yard. We don't have automatic sprinklers, so I get to keep the ole' green stuff wet. Since we're trying to sell the place, we can't have the yard all brown and crackly.
2. doin' laundry. Keri's a little under the weather, so I'm trying to help out. Besides... who says it's her job anyway. I wear clothes from time to time, too.

3. reading. Okay... some reading. Not much. Not NEARLY as much as I'd like, but doing some reading. Still working on that second Fforde book. Laundry and hoses are interfering a little.

4. floggin' kids. Not actual flogging with a whip or anything. Just trying to help them get their homework done, etc.

5. watchin' some old shows... getting "caught up" with ER and Lost and Reaper.

Anyway, here I am again, though. Maybe I'm not a lost cause entirely.

Brainy Silliness

Brainy silliness. That's what USA Today calls Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair (yes, his name does have two "f"s). I think I agree. Steve Poppino, the reference librarian at CSI (the college, not the show) recommended it to me awhile ago when he and I were discussing my upcoming mythology course. I took it to graduation at CSI last week (savvy graduation attendees always take a book and a bottle of water to graduation--it is usually sweltering and always... um... not-yet-scintillating), and I was having a hard time describing it to people in the faculty processional line with me. "What's it about?" they asked me. "Um... it's about... um..." I said, with the cool whit of an action hero. I wish I had seen the USA blurb on the back of one of the sequels. I might have quoted it verbatim to my curious colleagues. "Richly crammed with jokes, ideas, and action. Brainier silliness is hard to find."

Or, I could have rattled off the blurb from the Wall Street Journal review, "Filled with clever wordplay, literary allusion, and bibliowit. The Eyre Affair combines elements of Monty Python, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking and Buffy the Vampire Slayer." And here's the kicker (ha), "But its quirky charm is all its own."

Fforde really loves books, and what's he's done, you see, is elevate books and all things literary to the status of ... of... something high in status. What I mean is that everyone in Fforde's imaginary world loves books in some way. Everyone is obsessed with Shakespeare or Chaucer or Milton or Bronte or Melville (gotta get an American in there somewhere). The protagonist is a LiteraTec, basically a literature cop. Matters involving original manuscripts and the "true" authorship of the Bard's plays are front and center on the national and personal stage. How cool is that.

There are something like five of these cool books, and I've only read the first. I started the second yesterday.

You see, don't you, that I turned in grades last week, I made my obligatory appearance on campus yesterday for my last "contract" day of the term, and I am now on vacation until the end of August. Just like I did when I was in jr. high, I went to the library and checked out a couple dozen books. No, really. I checked out 13 books. Do you think I can finish them before they're due in 3 weeks. We'll see.

Ah, sweet summer. Now if it would only warm up a bit.

I'm a follower (sometimes)

I think I care too much about what other people think. Actually, I KNOW I care too much about that. Perhaps that tendency is also related to the tendency I have to do what other people do--to follow. Instead of fearing God more than man, I often let my fear of what others will think or say influence me to do dumb things. And as a friend of mine at the Redwood Center pharmacy used to say, Don't Do No Dumb Stuff (DDNDS). But I do anyway. I do.

So.. there's this craze you may have heard about. . . blodding, or flogging, or something. I'll have to give it a try some time. Apparently a few people are doing it.

Here's something that my friend Mark Brown did the other day. Sounds fun:

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Our second child, Joshua, had just been born. In fact, he was born during finals week of the Spring quarter and I missed the final exam in Wilfred David Samuels class. He let me make it up. Cameron was born during finals week of Spring SEMESTER three years later when I was in Wilfred David Samuels graduate class. He let me make that one up too. Cameron's middle name is David, after him.
I was also all-but-done with my BA ten years ago. I had just one more class to complete, which I did a whole year later.

2. Five things on my to-do list.
Clean and re-stain the deck
Clean my office.
Drop off some pictures to a client.
Finish my talk for Sunday.
Get ready for the 11-year-old camp on Friday.

3. What snacks do I enjoy?
Pretzels and chocolate, preferably together.

4. What would I do if I suddenly became a billionaire?
Get out of debt.
Get my family members out of debt.
Buy a farm and put my kids to work on it.
Buy a Mini-Cooper.

5. Three bad habits.
Putting stuff off...

6. Three places I've lived.
Neola, Utah
Los Alcarrizos, Santo Domingo
Pocatello, Idaho

7. Jobs I've had.
Courtesy clerk (glorified name for bagger/stacker/hauler/lackey) at Stewarts Thriftway in Roosevelt, Utah
Air Sorter at UPS, Salt Lake City
Computer/electronic rentals for my Uncle Kirk, Salt Lake City

8. Things people don't know about me.
I've been pulled over for drunk driving (you guess whether I was really drunk or not)
I'm a certified pharmacy technician (or I was-- my certification has lapsed, no doubt)
I taught swimming lessons and water safety for several years.

9. Five people to tag with this.
Nobody is going to read this. No tagging, therefore.


See... I'm a follower. Mark did it, so I have to.