See John write

So, in a couple of weeks we’re going on a pioneer trek. I decided to try to grow some facial hair to really get into the part.

It’s only the second time in my life I’ve made such an attempt.

It’s wiry, scratchy, curly, and much more gray than I’d like to admit.

What do you think?

Some of you may remember this post from last August:

Dear Winter,

I hereby give up. You win. You’ve proved you’re tougher than I am. You’re more intimidating and cruel than me. You’ve chilled me, frightened me, disoriented me, enraged me, knocked me on my butt, and made me cry.

But this morning—this morning—you broke me.

I have nothing left.

I don’t remember what summer feels like.

I can’t deal with one more snow-snarled commute.

So, Winter, take what you want. You have conquered. Take your spoils. Flaunt your victory.

AND THEN GET THE @!*# OUT OF HERE.

I recently discovered that I’ve totally messed up my classes in my MBA program which means that now the earliest I could possibly graduate is October of 2009 which isn’t really that far away when you look at the big scheme of things but when I had in my head that early August of 2009 would be my graduation, and honestly, August is summer and in March the weather is supposed to turn warm and warm weather means that summer is coming so I was getting really close to only one more year of school—but no, now it’s pushed out even farther and even though we’re talking about taking one more class beyond when I though I would be done, it just feels sooooooo much longer … kind of like this sentence.

So I’m trying to focus on other issues, like how will my BYU Cougars do in the big dance, or how soon we might be able to go skiing, or what do I need to do to get ready for our pioneer trek this summer.

And I’m really ready to reintroduce myself to 80 degrees. You know, “Hey, do I know you? Yeah, I thought we’d met before. It’s been a looooong time. Good to see you again. You look GOOD! And you know what, I’ve really really missed you!”

I’ve got to get back to work. Thanks for stopping by.

I remember a Friday about this time of year when I was a Sophomore in high school. I piled a bunch of my friends into my little tan Datsun 210. We were dressed in our school colors and so pumped we could hardly contain ourselves.
Our basketball team had reached the quarter-finals of the state tournament. I seemed to always be the designated driver for these kinds of adventures. So I told all my buddies I could drive us up to the Huntsman Center to watch the game.

I remember feeling a strange sense of adulthood when I was able to drive right to the arena even though I was very unfamiliar with the U campus.

I remember the energy that seemed to spark and crackle from person to person as we excitedly made our way from the gates to our seats.
I remember how fun it was to cheer our friends and classmates on.

I have a distinct image in my mind of Russ Daily sinking two free throws with the game on the line in the waning seconds to seal the win.

We did stupid high school things like blasting the horn and shouting out the windows as we drove down the hill.

I would never want to go back and do high school all over again. But for me, there are a few moments like this one that seemed magical.

Do you have a favorite Friday memory?

As my Easter gift to you, I offer one of the most powerful songs about the way the Lord’s grace frees us from our own “wretched” selves.

Here’s a link where you can download the BYU Men’s Chorus performance.

Here are the lyrics:

I Love the Lord
I love the Lord, in Him my soul delights.
Upon His word, I ponder day and night.
He’s heard my cry, brought visions to my sleep,
And kept me safe o’er deserts and the deep.
He’s filled my heart with His consuming love,
And borne me high on wings of His great dove.

Yet oft I groan, “O wretched man am I”
My flesh is weak and I’m encompassed by
A world of sin, which holds me in it’s thrall,
If I give in and to temptations fall.
Then strength grows slack, I waste in sorrow’s vale;
My peace destroyed, my enemies prevail.

Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin.
Rejoice, my heart! And let me praise again,
The Lord my God, who is my rock and stay
To keep me strict upon His straight, plain way.
Oh let me shake at the first sight of sin
And thus escape my foes without and in.

I love when I stumble on a new quote that makes me think. Here’s one I ran across today.

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” - Vincent van Gogh

I think this might make it into my Wisdom and Wisecracks page. But I wonder what it says to you. So tell me.

Yesterday my coworker lent me his Death Cab for Cutie CD. The album is titled Transatlantacism. In the midst of my chaotic week trying to deal with big projects at work and getting ready for finals at school and home, this amazingly mellow and quirky-fun album is exactly what I needed.

I don’t know how I hadn’t clued into this band earlier. The few songs I’m familiar with I already really liked. But I’m very much enjoying discovering the variety in their sound and the cleverness of their lyrics. Here are a few lines that I think are great.

Oh, instincts are misleading
You shouldn’t think what you’re feeling
They don’t tell you what you know you should want. (From Lightness)

The glove compartment is inaccurately named
And everybody knows it.
So i’m proposing a swift orderly change. (From Title and Registration)

I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door have been silenced forever more.
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before (From Transatlanticism)

So are you familiar with this band? Do you like them too? Do you have any other recommendations for a crazy week?

I want to meet the blogger who first came up with this 100 Things idea. Why couldn’t it have been 50 Things, or 25 Things?

Oh well, I’m diving in once again. But this time it’s partly for me, to see just how different things are in my mind and life since the last time I made this list.

1. I have a great view out my window at work.

2. I recently purchased a U2 greatest hits album and have discovered just how much I really love their music.

3. Occasionally, when I realize just how much my kids think I know, it scares me to death.

4. I can’t wait for the fresh strawberries to hit the stores.

5. There is something magical for me when, after a long cold winter, you feel the warmth of the sun for the first time in a long time. It’s like heaven.

6. It really bugs me that all my kids friends have cell phones.

7. When I go to parent teacher conferences, I always wonder what the teacher thinks of us as parents.

8. At work, we sometimes have massive Nerf dart-gun wars in the middle of the day for no reason at all.

9. I miss working in the young men’s organization.

10. I love Sunday mornings when the kids come into our room and climb into our bed.

11. When bbqing burgers, I prefer a Morning Star Farms veggie burger to a real hamburger any day.

12. I miss many of my co-workers from FranklinCovey.

13. The professor who taught the marketing class I took in the fall was the most idiotic professional educator I have ever known. I would rather be thrown in a vat of raw sewage than have to suffer through another class from that man.

14. My GPA for my first semester of graduate school: 3.667

15. Most of my childhood memories center around water skiing, family dinner, family home evening, and playing football with the neighborhood kids.

16. Most of my high school memories center around my English classes and wrestling. Oh, yeah, and state tournament football and basketball games.

17. I really, really hope that all this snow goes a long way toward filling up Lake Powell.

18. Being in graduate school this summer, I’m worried that our water skiing trips will be disappointingly scant.

19. I wear disposable contacts.

20. I like to wear baseball caps, but they give me a headache.

21. I’ve never spent more than $12 on a pair of sunglasses.

22. My dreams recently have been really vivid—and bizarre.

23. One of the things I worried the most about in going back to school was group projects.

24. Most of the groups I’ve been a part of in school have been pretty cool. In fact, I’ve made some pretty good friends.

25. I sleep on the right-hand side of the bed. (Well, unless you’re standing at the foot of the bed, then it’s the left-hand side.)

26. When I’m eating a delicious piece of fresh fruit, I like to imagine the first lucky human who found that particular kind of fruit and tried it.

27. I also think about the first human who was so stinking hungry that a crustacean looked appetizing. Seriously.

28. The president of the company that I work for has this strange OCD behavior where he loves to play with scotch tape.

29. I guess #28 isn’t actually about me. But you already know about my OCD behaviors.

30. Like for instance, loading a moving truck.

31. I went for a jog on Saturday for the first time in at least 6 months.

32. I love to make Josh laugh.

33. I love to help Elizabeth work through a problem (with math, with friends, with school, whatever.)

34. I love to watch Nate play soccer.

35. I love to listen to Matt tell a story when he’s very excited.

36. I’m amazed at how much an ink cartridge for our printer costs and how little ink is actually in there. Is there a bigger scam in the world?

37. I’ve never been a good journal keeper.

38. I’m amazed at how each discipline I’ve studied in school is presented as if it is the key to successful business: organizational behavior, marketing, statistics, operations management, and on and on.

39. I am an uncle to 31 nieces and nephews (with one on the way).

40. I have the most amazing Father who knows how to fix everything.

41. My mother is amazingly steady, calm, and thoughtful.

42. There is something magical to me about the sound that 65,000 Cougar fans make when the home team scores a touchdown.

43. I miss summer.

44. I hardly ever get sick.

45. Sometimes, when I really need a day off, I pretend to be sick.

46. I loved my mission, but deep down I really did want to learn a foreign language.

47. Someday, I will learn Portuguese from Janet.

48. Utah drivers drive me absolutely crazy. Just MERGE for the sake of all that is good and holy.

49. I do not consider myself a Utah driver.

50. To prove #49, you should ride with me sometime and see the complete shock on the faces of other drivers when I leave space for someone to merge.

51. I think the raspberry almond concrete from Nielsen’s Frozen Custard is one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth.

52. I love being a Dad.

53. I love to share things I’ve learned.

54. Because of #53, I sometimes come across as a know-it-all.

55. I don’t really like know-it-alls.

56. I love my boat.

57. I love blogging.

58. Sometimes I think the fact that musicians are still creating new melodies is mind blowing. Seriously, with all the millions of songs that have been written, how are they still creating original songs? Awesome.

59. I wish I could sing. But I’m pretty much tone deaf.

60. Despite #59, I laugh my guts out at the tone deaf people who go on American Idol.

61. If I had to choose between a trip to Disneyland or a trip to Lake Powell, I’m packing the boat before you can say Mickey Mouse.

62. Every now and then I check on prices to Brazil, Hawaii, Jamaica, or some other exotic locale and imagine what it would be like to be able to travel the world with Janet.

63. I’m ready to start bbqing again.

64. I wonder why is it that musicians can continue to produce fresh, original material, but Hollywood seems completely devoid of fresh, original ideas.

65. I love doing science fair projects with my kids.

66. Maybe I missed my calling as a scientist. Well, no, not really.

67. But I do think I would have made a heckuva physical therapist.

68. I’m very excited that my sister Leslie and her family are moving closer so that we can see them more often.

69. I’m very sad that my sister Tiffany and her family are moving far, far away.

70. Google Reader saves me at least 10 minutes per day.

71. I love Farmington. It’s a little town that suits me.

72. I think I’ve lost weight since I left my last job because nobody at my new job has a little treat jar that they keep full all the time.

73. I have a list of a bunch of home fix-it projects that I need to get to and I always begin Saturdays with grand intentions. But at the end of the day, I’ve usually done well to finish one thing on the list.

74. Going back to school makes me feel young.

75. Going back to school makes me feel old.

76. I fondly remember when my mom learned how to make fajitas.

77. I haven’t flown on a plane since 2003.

78. I feel bad that we’ve never made it down to visit James and DeDe in Arizona.

79. In a few months, I will start paying car insurance for a teenage driver. Yikes!

80. I firmly believe that the text book industry is the biggest racket in this country.

81. I thank my lucky stars for the way the internet has made it easier to find cheap text books.

82. I like to watch Mythbusters on Discovery channel.

83. The Office makes me laugh out loud.

84. I believe that most people are genuinely nice.

85. I believe that most every person has their own difficult challenges.

86. I have never seen So I Married an Axe Murderer, What about Bob?, Legally Blonde, or Tommy Boy despite being told many, many times how funny they are.

87. I wear my watch on my left wrist.

88. I put on both socks, then both shoes instead of sock-shoe-sock-shoe.

89. I have a constant ringing in my ears—not loud, not super annoying, but always there.

90. I cannot go to sleep without brushing my teeth.

91. When I’m pushing a shopping cart through the parking lot, I feel compelled to push it fast and jump on.

92. It seems I always see someone I know whenever I’m “scootering” on a shopping cart.

93. I love to play volleyball.

94. When I was younger, I played a lot of softball. But I haven’t played on an organized softball team in years.

95. I wish I had played soccer when I was younger.

96. If I could only teach my kids one lesson, it would be to believe in themselves.

97. I worry about halitosis.

98. I worry that our country is heading in a really bad direction.

99. I really like my digital camera.

100. I need a new cell phone.

I have lost a friend. He was a really smart man, brilliant really. But he never made you feel inferior. In fact, he was so incredibly down-to-earth that it felt like we could talk about anything. We covered lots of topics over the years and each time I found myself impressed again at his simple yet profound wisdom.

Perhaps more than anything else, I’ll miss his smile. Every time I turned around, I would hear about some way he had helped people. He had a way of being right there whenever there was trouble or a disaster. It was as if his heart were as big as the whole world. And he had this way of making everyone smile. When he was around, we knew everything would be OK.

He taught me so much over the years. We loved to talk about spiritual things. To my friend, high ideals were of little use unless they were applied in everyday life. He had a way of stretching my mind and then showing me what difference I could make in my life with the new learning.

In his later years, I could tell he was lonely. His sweetheart had passed a few years ago and he missed her terribly. But never once did I see him down or discouraged. In fact, he kept his head up and his pace steady right up until the end—an example I can only hope follow someday.

I will think of him often. And I will smile. He’s back with his sweetheart and with his friends. But I will miss him. Very much.

I’m certain that my trying to explain my thoughts is going to be an act of futility, but nevertheless I’m going to try.

Two unique experiences this weekend.

Saturday night we gathered in my parent’s basement to commemorate 44 years of marriage. We took the time to sit back and reminisce. Memories were shared. Gratitude was expressed. We laughed and cried. We connected.

Then Sunday night, Janet and I attended the first training session for our pioneer trek this summer. Our former bishop and his wife are in charge. And as we looked around the room, we found friend after friend. Some of them from our old ward. Some from our current ward. Some from soccer. An elder from Janet’s mission. People we know through volunteering at the school. And friends we made on our first trek.

I arrived home Sunday night with a profound appreciation for the great men and women—in and out of my family—that I have had the privilege to rub shoulders with. I know there are great people all over the world. I know that if I traveled far and wide, I would make new friends and probably feel much the same way about many others. But as I pondered the blessing of good people in my life, I felt as if I am surrounded by the best people on earth.

I am a blessed man.

My wife has told and retold one of her childhood memories to our kids. It’s a story of how she was headed back to her classroom from an assembly when she was in 1st or 2nd grade. Her teacher had to stay behind for a few minutes so she just sent the kids down the hall on their own. As Janet passed one of the other classrooms, someone threw open the door and slammed Janet right in the forehead. The impact split a gash in her head, but because her teacher had said “Go straight to the classroom,” she obediently went to her classroom with blood dripping down her face.

Nice story, huh? Well, the other night Elizabeth asked me to tuck her into bed. As I was in her room, she asked, “Do you have any stories like when mom got hit with the door?”

I thought for a second and then remembered one experience on the playground when we lived in Boise. I was in Kindergarten or 1st grade. I was out at recess and I think I remember that I had been talking with my good friend who happened to be a girl. As I turned and started to walk away, there was a kid right in front of me. I didn’t know this kid. I had never talked to him. But he was staring right at me as if I had just insulted his grandma. Without warning, the kid punched me right in the nose. I was so stunned, I don’t think I said or did anything for several seconds. The kid walked away and I became aware that a large volume of blood was pouring out of my nose.

I went inside and found my teacher. She was very kind and helped me get the bleeding stopped. I think we tried to identify the perpetrator, but in my memory he was never brought to justice. I still have no idea what I had done to this kid. Maybe he liked the girl I had been talking to and he was insanely jealous. Maybe I looked like someone who just needed to get popped. Maybe his dog died that morning and he just had to take it out on someone. Who knows. Maybe I’ll call Paul Harvey and he can investigate and do a great little piece where we all get to find out “the rest of the story.”

Dear Anne Perry,

I don’t know yo