I'm a Genius

So, on NPR last Friday they talked about Carbon Dioxide cap and trade schemes. It got me thinking about an idea that I have had for a long time and I've decided to fling it to the blogging world for the voluminous feedback that I always recieve.

You see, we are releasing so much carbon dioxide into the world by burning everything we can lay our hands on that of course global warming is all our fault. The earth has a fever and is going to die.

So here is my solution. You set up a huge pipe line running straight out of the ocean, through a desalinization plant, and into the Sahara. You begin growing trees on the most remote part of the desert so that you can purchase millions of acres on the cheap. Then you start selling "carbon credits" to the industrial countries for all of your new grown jungle. Heck to get the project running you could presale the credits to beat future carbon emission limitations. They get to keep burning their fossil fuels. You get to terraform a useless chunk of the world into a huge carbon sink that undoubtedly would generate piles of tourist cash. The Al Gore's of the world name you the hero of the planet. They'll probably name the new river that forms in the desert after you.

In theory once the terraformed area is large enough and wet enough, it would become a self sustaining habitat.

Genius.

Please send your save the planet checks to:

Presidential Campaigns

So I just learned yesterday why so many presidential hopefuls toss their hats into the ring so early. You see, to become president requires boat loads of money. The first one asking for the money has a couple of advantages. 1. There is less competition for the money, because there are less options. 2. If you can earn enough early enough you get front runner buzz. Which in turn will generate more money for you. It seems like a smart stategy. This campaign will likely be the most expensive presidential election ever costing over $1 billion, just for the CHANCE to hold the reigns.

I hate to say it but I feel more and more like a low born Plebian and unless you have all of the right credentials, parents, and money you will not be considered a patrician.

Nevertheless, while I don't have money to give to candidates (except for telling congress to give $3 dollars to the official candidates when I file my taxes) I still have seen enough of the candidates to settle on my choice.

If you don't know much about Mitt Romney I recommend you follow my link and spend five minutes getting aquainted. Right credentials, right parents, a SUCCESSFUL business man (which in my mind says a LOT), and has a firm moral compass. Definitely the best of this years patricians.

I'd love to hear anybody else's better suggestion out of the declared candidates.

Rabbits

For those of you who know my family well I apologize for recycled story telling. I was reminded about a family story today while reading a foody blog that I enjoy and thought that I would share.

When we first got our rabbits for free (the cage cost $45) I intended that we would be cooking them up as little rabbit hot wings to the children and oh wasn't this such a great idea?

I got this idea from eating some at a church social once and having eaten several helpings was finally informed that I was not eating chicken it was rabbit. So yes, rabbit really does taste like chicken...sort of.

Therefore, my first couple of experiments into rabbit preparation were using chicken cooking recipes. Guess what? Not a good idea. Most of the poor bunny got left on the plate.

I finally thought I had struck recipe gold when I cooked up a good plate of hasenpfeffer. It tasted good and, finally, the meat wasn't too rubbery.

I served some of the good stuff up for lunch and my wonderful Angel Face sat down and ate it up.

"What is this?" He asked after finishing half of his first helping.

"It's hasenpfeffer." Was my coy reply. Of course I wasn't going to tell my extremely sensitive five year old what he was really eating.

"Really, dad. What kind of meat is it."

A direct question and just like George Washington, there was no escaping this cherry tree. He'd asked it straight out.

"Its the rabbit." I replied.

I expected that he would stop eating which really wasn't a problem because he had already eaten enough. Then, much to my suprise....he threw up. Right there, at the table, on his plate.

I think it is my sister-in-law who doesn't really like Oreos any more for the same reason. No, Oreos aren't made out of bunnies.... ... I think. But, you know, she tossed her cookies and now she doesn't like them.

I can honestly say that I've seen many people pretend that they are going to throw up when you tell them that you've got broccholi or some other undesirable veggie planned for dinner. I never thought I would see that kind of a reaction in real life. He tossed his bunnies.

Next time I'll call it Coniglio and try to dodge the questioning a little better.

On being guided by the Spirit

I am grateful for a father and mother that tought me the importance of the Holy Ghost. The importance of doing what is right all of the time. The importance of being worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

So many times in my life I have known what path to take and taken those first steps onto that path not with fear and anxiety but with confidence. Even though I didn't know what would happen next, the spirit reassures. The spirit enlightens.

Some would say we're crazy for having a seventh child on the way. I say simply, "I know its right."

Some would say we're crazy for not moving on to a better paying job, the spirit said stay.

The best part of this whole equation? When I'm working with my wife on a problem, we always get the same or complimentary council from the Spirit. Two seperate witnesses. That means that when the world calls us crazy, I can confidently move forward, not doubting that oh so subtle prompting.

Getting out of bed

Most mornings I wake up one of the children a little before six and we make breakfast together. Waffles were supposed to be on the menu this morning; however, when I went to wake Miss M (who is one of my true larks) she let me know that she was too tired to wake up and make breakfast. I stumbled back to my bed for twenty minutes more.

I had a good chuckle at the girls expense too. Lucy had her head on Miss M's chest like she was a pillow.

Unfortunately, I did miss my normal time with Miss M. With six kids you don't get a whole lotta 1 0n 1 time with each kid.

So... Here's a short poem for my Miss M

Bleary eyed and incoherant
Not a good time
to make a decision
I head back to bed

So looking forward
when opportunity returns
I'll let my convictions win
and some sleep be lost.

My Wife Left Me

I know this is not the typical forum for this kind of an announcement, yet it is true. My wife has left me...

Of course, she'll be back Thursday night. She's gone to Mesa to help out a dear friend of ours and that is part of why I love her so much.

The past few weeks there has been a sister in the ward that has been helping my wife with some of the house chores. Mind you, my wife had the house mostly under control...its not like we live underneath piles of junk. All the same this sister has felt compelled to come and help out around the house. I'm grateful to her as my wife is also. It is nice when someone offers a no strings attached bit of service.

So my wife, when she found out her friend would need some service after a surgery, volunteered. She made all of the arrangements to have the children cared for during her absence and there we are. She's left me.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Someone Else's Blog

If you read my blog you know I like poetry. I recently posted one of my grandfather's poems.

Last night as we cleaned our room my wife tossed me a poem she had written. Its one of her best. So, while this is hardly my blog, today I'll blog for my wife.

Elixir

Weariness furrows my brow,

frustrations fill my view.

Daily toiling takes its toll

Upon my heart and spirit.

.

The joys of our lives

Bring sorrow too,

angry words and looks,

disobedience and defiance.

.

Amid the daily struggles,

One bright light can cut through any trial...

Your voice, your touch, your smile,

Renews my waning tolerance.

.

Renews without requesting anything,

No demands of selfish nature here,

Just joy, complete and whole,

As our day ends...within each others view.

.

KMJ 2006

.

I love this poem. It could so easily come from me to her. She is my Elixir.

***I can hear the Austin Powers voice in my head saying, "Yeah, baby!"***

I Envy My Father

I envy my father. When I was born the doctor told him that he would have to wait in the lobby. He got the good news of my birth and that was it, he was a father. He had no say in the matter. He just sat there with his mouth shut waiting. Now, to become a father you have to ‘share’ in the birthing experience. Now, don’t think that I didn’t want to ‘share.’ I love my wife very much and when we went to the hospital I was anxious for her. I would do anything to get rid of her pain. She definitely had the harder job between the two of us. What most men don’t realize though is that the moment they enter the hospital they are walking a tightrope.

You see, when she gets to the hospital she’s already uncomfortable. Every five minutes she’s in pain and it is very likely that she’s feeling a touch embarrassed that water is leaking out of her and she can’t stop it. So when we got to the hospital with our first child it was with some excitement and a whole lot of naiveté. The first thing they do is verify you’re in labor. You may think this is a simple process, but if your water hasn’t broke, it could be false labor. They send you home and your wife has built herself up to have this baby NOW. Being a man the natural tendency is to tell your wife that the hospital is right, and isn’t it a good thing the doctors and nurses are doing their jobs so well? DO NOT FOLLOW THIS TENDENCY! Your job is to help your wife through the process AND survive until after the baby is born. When they send you home because it’s too early, you be just as indignant as she is. “That’s right honey, those stupid nurses don’t know a thing about you.”

So, when you finally get to the room, they start jabbing and poking your wife and covering her with straps and tubes. This gives them all the control. You won’t get it back until you leave the hospital after the baby is born. All the jabbing and poking doesn’t go very far for putting your wife into a better mood. But with our first child, my wife was very excited so I got to phone all the relatives to tell them we were at the hospital. With our first child everyone was so excited they all came right down to the hospital. While we were waiting for them to come they gave my wife a mild pain killer. It didn’t take any of the pain away it just got her buzzing. My clean wife, who has never had narcotics of any kind in her life, including alcohol, is buzzing. She hates it and is even more uncomfortable. So I put a movie into the hospital supplied VCR. I thought it would be a distraction that would take her mind off the pain. Nope, she’s hurting, buzzing, being poked and prodded, and now I’m trying to take the remote. We turned the movie off. I was glad when some family and friend showed up.

You would think that women would have some sort of innate connection that allows them to know just the right thing to do to help each other out. At first that seemed true. Kristine’s best friend showed up and started cracking jokes. That did help for a while, but Kris wasn’t in the mood for humor, she stopped laughing. Uh-oh, she must really be hurting. Even the dumb guy in the room can see that. Well her mom can tell too. So she sits by her and starts stroking her hand. Why is she doing that? I know my wife and I don’t think she’s gonna like that. Sure enough, after just a minute she pulls her hand away and tells her mom to stop. If her mom was smart like a guy she would have just backed off and given the woman space. Not mom though, this is her daughter and she doesn’t like seeing her hurt. So she takes a cool wash cloth and starts cooling my wife’s forehead. Hey, that’s a good idea. But then she decides to sooth her daughter by waxing poetic. She starts saying, “It’s a beautiful day outside, the wind is blowing, the palm trees are blowing in the breeze…”, “Mom … Shut up.” I’m glad my wife said it. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to speak yet. We all had a good laugh and decided Kristine just needed some time concentrate on what was going on. My mother-in-law kept the wash cloth going that was a good idea. When my mother showed up I thought, “well, she’ll have some good advise, she had eight children, she knows what she’s doing.” So the first thing my mother says is, “Are you hurting?” What? Well duh. Next comes the clincher and she says, “Well, I hate to tell you sweetheart, but it just gets worse from here.” All my wife had to say was, “Mom...” My mom figured out the rest.

So now we’re all there, one big happy family. We’ve got me and my wife, my wife’s best friend, Susan, Kris’ sister, Becca, my sister, Coleen, and my wife’s mother in the room and both of my parents out in the hall trying hard not to put feet in their mouths. We’re having a little get together, just me and the girls. I’m trying to help my wife be comfortable so we all chat and laugh for two minutes and get serious for one while the contraction hits and passes. One minute out of three my wife just needs my attention. But I’m a guy who likes to joke. After a few jokes though I finally realize, she’s not laughing, so she didn’t say it but she thought it, “Pat...just shut up.”

The process has taken several hours, my wife got an epidural which we all thought would make things better; however, my wife is almost as tall as me. They miscalculated the dose and she ended up feeling everything. This didn’t help with her mood much. Now the pain is so frequent that we can’t joke very often without incurring certain wrath. It’s better just not to talk. When the nurses finally determine that Kristine is about ready to push they start reminding me to help her breath, I’m thinking, “I don’t think she really wants me to talk right now, are you sure?” The doctor comes in and he can talk at normal volume. She won’t get mad at him; he knows what he’s doing. I just hold her hand trying not to speak except to convince the nurses that I do know about the breathing. I kind of whisper, “Okay now, take a breath…” I hope the nurses heard me.

I’m not a macho man; I don’t try to hide my emotions normally. But I have to admit I was quite conflicted. Here I am in a room full of women and when the baby was born, I tried not to cry. I gave up after a few seconds. It is truly miraculous how birth happens. How the heck did he fit through there? That had to be worse than all the contractions combined. (I don’t say that out loud either.) The good news is that now that the baby is here, everyone can talk again. Kris’s mood changes completely and now everyone is happy.

My wife is very tough. Throughout this whole labor and delivery she doesn’t cry or scream. She just wanted everyone quiet and helping her out, a reasonable enough request. The girl in the next room was noisier than anything. I’m sure her husband wasn’t allowed to speak either.

What I saw on the way to work this morning.

My drive to work every morning is just more than 15 minutes (covering 13 miles.) I must confess that I wasn't too sad to leave the house this morning. The God of stink had struck again.

As I pull out of my house I am surrounded by a beautiful mixed pine and juniper forest. I drive one mile, hit the highway, and head out of the junipers into a rolling grassland. It was right at this point three years ago that I saw what I thought was a big coyote...I found out the next day that it had been a wolf from the reintroduction program. (A program that stirs quite the controversy around here. Imagine if they tried to reintroduce the eastern grey wolf into rural Virginia.)

I wiz past the entrance to the town of Tyrone about nine minutes from home and start climbing up the pass that leads to the mine where I work. Just up in front of me I see my manager in his car and then, perfectly framed in a stand of yellow grass I see a regal bobcat, standing shock still waiting for the traffic to pass. At work I asked my manager if he saw the cat and he didn't. It was a perfect setup and the cat knew he could hold still to remain less visible even though he was standing tall.

Last spring when my mother-in-law was visiting and again when the cousins were over on the Fourth of July (and sleeping on the tramp) we heard a cat screaming. It was very cool to clearly see one for the first time though. (I saw the screamer's tail end as it ran away when I went to investigate the noise.)

I love where we live.

Pain

Last week with the Boy Scouts we worked on the Personal Fitness Merit Badge. It required that the boys all test a baseline for how many push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups they could do. They also have to run a mile. At the end of six weeks they need to show improvement on these exercises.

I decided to do the exercises as well. I couldn't do a single pull-up; however, I beat all of the boys (not the two other adults) in sit-ups and tied the best boy in push-ups. I'm not dead yet.

Of course the next day I was a little sore. The day after that I was REALLY sore. The last of the pain subsided a full six days after the workout. Which leads me to a quote I read recently that I really like.

"Pain is weakness leaving the body."

At first flush this saying is kind of insulting. I mean, what about the chronically ill person that through no fault of their own, is wracked with pain? Or the person that suffers from back pain for years with no relief?

Even then, I believe, God is giving us a chance to strengthen our character. I have met some people that have been to depths of physical pain and they can come out of it much stronger in character. I have also met one or two that have come out of their pain wounded and bitter.

So, once again, I am amending someone else's saying:

"Pain helps weakness leave the body."

There, that should take it from Gym cliche' to profound.