I listened to one of Dave Ramsey’s online shows, and I enjoyed it. Nothing new or earth-shattering so far, but it is good to have reinforcement for the principles I already believe in. It’s good to have something worthwhile to listen to while I work.
I find Chinese culture fascinating, as it is just so different from the west. Function is important, but form is so highly valued, which I think is sorely missing here.
Here’s a cool photography presentation of a traditional chinese teahouse. Don’t expect I’ll ever visit one, but they are some great pictures.
A couple of pictures of an Intel building in Haifa, Israel, that was hit by Hezbollah rocket attacks on 8/11/06. It was a Friday so few people were around, and the alarm was sounded well in advance. No one was hurt. The rocket actually landed ~150m from the building, and the damage was done by shrapnel.
This is the site where I was hoping to be working at this very time — I had been planning a five-month rotation to the site for the second half of this year, along with my family, but it was cancelled back in June (after we got the passports and visas all done).
Two highlights this week: Trent was in the newspaper, pictured mowing the lawn. The lawnmower looks way too big for him, but believe me, he does a great job of it. Second was that Caleb and Trent ran in the Kids Triathlon on Saturday, and had a lot of fun. They are excited to do it again next year, and Alec will also be old enough to participate. He was bummed not to be able to this year. Trent finally got the medal he’s “been waiting for [his] whole life.” Visit the gallery for more pictures from the events.
Colin spoke in Sacrament Meeting today, on the topic of prayer. He gave an excellent talk on the blessings associated with prayer, starting first of all with Doctrine & Covenants 130:20-21:
20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—
21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.
He related how during his time in Tonga, he learned to rely on prayer, and was blessed in many ways, but specifically with protection, knowledge, and comfort. Well done, Colin.
Today was also my dad’s birthday. We enjoyed dinner there with all the local Slades. I returned later in the evening for a game of Settlers, which I lost as usual. Darn robber.
It was also pleasure to meet one of my mom’s cousins and her husband, Gary and Valerie Stringham. He took voluntary severance from HP, and is now back working as a consultant for them — straight out of Dilbert. The conversation also turned to genealogy, and she related how at a family reunion, they talked about all the stuff the different people were doing. One of the family offered to gather it all up and put it on a website. The problem currently is that requires someone very technically savvy. I hope to be able to make that process very easy for any and all.
I had the privilege of participating in three blessings today. I did the annointing in all three, which was rather nice, actually. I still have lots to learn about priesthood service, especially in using my priesthood to bless my own family. I’m glad I have the opportunity.
Based on the suggestion from Ramit Sethi’s blog, I decided to go to http://www.annualcreditreport.com to check my credit report. This site allows you to go to each of the 3 credit reporting agencies. Thankfully, the one I went to first was Equifax, which turned out to be the easiest to use and most complete report by far. If I had gone to either the TransUnion or Experian sites first, I would have given up. They just made it too hard to get into (account creation, verifying my personal data).
I did also pay the $7.95 fee to get my credit score — credit report (details of open accounts, balances, payment histories, etc) and credit score (aggregate number in the range of 300-850) are not the same thing. I got a whole lot more out of the credit report (which was free) than the single credit score (which I paid for) — go figure.
I was surprised to see in the credit score that basically every account I’ve opened in my adult life was listed — student loans, credit cards, mortgages, etc. Most of them are paid and closed, so I guess it helps my score to have them listed in my history?
I need to create a design for http://jkslade.net/ (including wiki, blog, gallery), as well as http://home.jkslade.net/, which will eventually provide various site services such as a slideshow.
Anyway, I wanted to jump right into the slideshow bit, but got sidetracked with basic setup issues - subversion for revision control, and freezing edge rails. Seems like a lot of my isues were related to network flakiness…
So I set up the subversion repository for managing both the site services app (done in RoR) and the stylesheet / layout stuff. I could have just use local file:// access to the repository, but decided to set up svnserve instead. This page was most helpful for that, since my system is ubuntu-based.
Next step was to get on edge rails, and set that up as a svn:externals source — this guide is pretty clear, but there are others. It seems that right in the middle of the process, rubyonrails.org stopped responding, so I couldn’t actually test it. I decided to call it a night.
The first thing I should work on is a common layout and style across all the parts of the site. But that’s not much fun. The first think I want to work on is the slideshow app to serve thumbnail images at random in a scrolling div, and have those linked to larger-sized images. The goal is to get to where it automatically serves images from my PhotoshopElements collection instead of me having to upload images to gallery all the time.
I was just messing around with some searches in google, and I came across a link to a memorial my grandfather, Glen Pehr Lofgreen, in the Journal of Animal Science. Pretty cool, I think.
I also saved a PDF of the article.
It’s been a few weeks since my last update, so a quick recap:
Week 29: Caleb wrapped up swim team competing at the city meet. He missed qualifying for the state meet by .04 seconds - a bit disappointing for him, but all in all he had a great experience. All the boys are enjoying swimming, each is progressing a lot. Kim and I look forward (hehe) to many hot summer days of swim meets…
We also enjoyed a visit from the Daniels as they came through on the way to their new home in Utah. We haven’t seen them much the last few years that they’ve been in Virginia, so that was good. Our boys always enjoy being with cousins, and we hope that continues.
Week 30: I spent the week in Portland, OR at a conference for work. I enjoyed most of it, as it was generally interesting stuff and basically no responsibility for the week. I also enjoyed eating out at different ethnic restaurants (lebanese, ethiopian, chinese, thai, lebanese again 
… ) I’ve been to the Portland area now 5 times in the last 13 months, I think I’d like to go someplace else now.
Last Sunday, Kim taught / led the 5th sunday discussion for combined Priesthood / Relief Society. The topic was self reliance, and she is the food storage / production specialist for the R.S. She shared some good quotes from a few different talks — here’s the one I was most impressed by:
I should like to address a few remarks to those who ask, “Do I share with my neighbors who have not followed the counsel? And what about the nonmembers who do not have a year’s supply? Do we have to share with them?” No, we don’t have to share—we get to share! Let us not be concerned about silly thoughts of whether we would share or not. Of course we would share! What would Jesus do? I could not possibly eat food and see my neighbors starving. And if you starve to death after sharing, “greater love hath no man than this …” (John 15:13.)
Now what about those who would plunder and break in and take that which we have stored for our families’ needs? Don’t give this one more idle thought. There is a God in heaven whom we have obeyed. Do you suppose he would abandon those who have kept his commandments? He said, “If ye are prepared, ye need not fear.” (D&C 38:30.)
Of course, the promise is that we need not fear, but it is not that we will not suffer. Preparation is what will allow us to call on the Lord with full faith in the time of need, but it is not and never has been a garuantee that we will be delivered from all affliction. But I really like the statement here that we are to do this because of obedience — we have no idea what the storage and other resources will ultimately be used for. It may be to see us through a time of unemployment, it may be to aide ourselves and others in the time of disaster, it may be to last us through months of famine. Or it may simply be to prove our obedience.
Week 31: This week we got to go to the airport to welcome uncle Colin home from Tonga. The boys had been praying for weeks for Colin to come home safely, and asking when we would get to go to the airport. It was fun to see him, but very short as he and Grandpa and Grandma hopped in a car to drive out to El Centro for a Lofgreen family reunion.
I also flew out for the reunion on Thursday, leaving Kim and the boys at home. Last time we went to the reunion, Kim was pregnant with Alec, now she’s pregnant again. Considering the drive, the heat, etc, we decided it would be best for just me to go. The whole travelling part pretty much stunk (planes delayed both ways, driving to El Centro is just no fun), but I was very glad that I was able to go.
I didn’t arrive until 1am Friday morning, then Colin and I chatted until about 3am. Everyone headed to the beach for a day of sand, sun, and surf (a very unsuccessful day of boogie-boarding), then back to the desert for dinner and skits. Merrit, Colin, Damon et al were a riot in their rendition of Beauty and the Beast. We started Saturday with a breakfast at Kjersti’s and some music / testimony time to finish it off. I consider it a privilege to be together with that group and enjoy the influence of the gospel in our lives.
It’s pretty much impossible to stay in touch with everyone with any sort of regularity. But I really appreciate these opportunities to strengthen family ties, to learn about and from each other. We may go our separate ways and not hear much from each other for a few years, but I find great power in the relationships we have.
Saturday was Merrit’s birthday, so we Slades that were there drove into San Diego to spend the rest of the day together. After dropping off Kezia at the airport, we had mexican food for lunch, then drove out to Point Loma for some sight-seeing. It was a very pleasant, relaxed afternoon, though it was strange not to have a spouse or children around. Then back to the airport for another 9 hours of joyous airport-plane-driving to get home. It was worth it.
“The order of the church is less volunteer and more assignment.”
That’s what our bishop (Rulon Stacey) said in priesthood meeting today, as we were doing the normal quorum business issues of temple service and moving assistance.
I agree 100% with the temple service assignments. We are commanded to be engaged in doing many good things, not waiting for specific assignments before we serve. But many things in the Lord’s church do have to be done by assignment, if for no other reason that to do it in order.
However, I have a big issue with the expectation that the Elders Quorum is a standing moving service for anyone who asks. Asking friends within the quorum to come over and help is one thing, but making that official quorum business with assignments is quite another. Why don’t we do the same thing for painting each others’ houses, or planting gardens, or landscaping, building fences, installing sprinklers?
I believe that is a false tradition in the church. I am quite willing to go and help someone else when they ask me as a friend — which I hope to be with all the members of my quorum. But I definitely bristle when it is treated as official quorum business, that someone just assumes they will get free help in packing up and cleaning their home. In my mind, that is totally in conflict with the principles of the gospel.