Chris & Martha

Jane's 1st Birthday (Two months late.)

2011-02-27T16:58:00.004-05:00

Happy Birthday To Jane!

Jane enjoying her cupcake.

Joey had fun helping Jane open her gifts and playing with them.

We had to give Jane Joe's computer because he stole her new phone.

We had a great time. My parent were there, taking all the pictures.

We also skyped with Chris' parents and sister.

Jane we are so happy you are one. You have had a great first year.

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-29T21:30:00.012-04:00

A Farmer and his Lamb.

Our first real Halloween was a success. We attended our churches Halloween Party and Trunk or Treat. At first Joe was scared, more people in strange cloths then he had ever seen. Jane ate it up, everyone smiled and said she was cute.

Check out Joe's ghost bag. I made it in about 45mins.

This is our lamb who loves the camera.

Farmer Joe!

This is the cake Joe won in a version of musical chairs.

Joe painted this pumpkin all by himself.

Happy Halloween to everyone!

Making Cookies

2010-08-15T21:34:00.006-04:00

I have been sick for several weeks and thus not wanted to do anything with Joe. We needed an activity today while Chris was sleeping after working all night. So,

We Made Peanut Butter Cookies.

We has a great time.

Joe keep is eyes closed because of the "lights."

Jane had Cheerios while we baked.

Here are some pictures of some of Jane's mad skills.

Jane is On the MOVE!

2010-06-29T08:15:00.004-04:00

This post was suppose to go up on June 29 a few days of Jane turning 6 months.

This morning Jane woke up at her usual 6am. I fed her and she was ready to go but I was not. I took her in the living room to play and I laid down on the couch.

She got around to all her toys.

Then,

I dosed off.

I woke-up to Joey laughing. Jane was no where to be seen in the living room.

She was not in the kitchen.

Then I look in Joey and Jane's room and

there she was smiling with her brother.

Jane had army crawled out of the living room,
through the kitchen,
and into the bedroom
to find her big brother.

Heating Oil Tank Removal

2010-06-28T13:52:00.004-04:00

Martha Jane Rolls Over, and Later Crawls

2010-06-13T21:10:00.000-04:00

The first video is from April 2010 (3 and 1/2 months old), the second is from June 2010 (5 and 1/2 months old).

Joey and Foot Foot

2010-04-25T21:32:00.003-04:00

Joey and Foot Foot, Foot Foot and Joey, it is hard to have one without the other. Foot Foot is Joey's best friend and baby all in one. We all love the Foot Foot.

More pictures of Joey and Foot Foot when I can get them.

P.S. Some of you may recognize Foot Foot from Chis' childhood. Yes, Foot Foot lives on.

Spring Break at Toughannock Falls

2010-04-02T21:31:00.010-04:00

Today we took advantage of one of the first sunny and warm days this year in New York.

Lloyd & Mellanee Kilpack Visit Endwell, New York

2010-03-14T21:39:00.010-04:00

Mom and Dad visited recently. They met their new granddaughter, Martha Jane, and we celebrated my 30th birthday. Mom helped out in the yard--you can see her in both pictures taken outside. With the melting of the snow, a small stream gurgles from the earth and runs down the driveway. I blessed Martha Jane in church on Sunday, March 7; the third-from-last picture shows her in the Hollist-family blessing dress.

Humanitarian Services

2010-02-18T08:15:00.003-05:00

New Paint on Kitchen Cupboards

2010-01-31T22:00:00.005-05:00

With a long-held yearning to rid ourselves of the crackle paint--although I admire the audacity of the crackle painter--we've painted our kitchen cupboards blue and painted the walls a very light brown.

It involved scraping off the old, crackled white paint using a heat gun and a 3" metal scraper.

Above is a cabinet door after I scraped it.

Martha picked out the blue, and I think she made a nice choice.

The Martha Jane Photo of the Day

2010-01-07T20:16:00.003-05:00

A New Photo of Martha Jane - Jan. 6, 2010

2010-01-07T02:02:00.003-05:00

A few days after being born her face is less swollen.

Photos of Martha Jane

2010-01-05T00:03:00.003-05:00

Martha Jane Nickname Comments Here:

2010-01-04T17:39:00.001-05:00

Martha Jane is Here!

2010-01-03T10:08:00.006-05:00

Martha Jane arrived Saturday night. 9 pounds 0 ounces, 20 inches. She and Martha Lee are doing great.

Playing in the Snow

2009-12-31T20:47:00.005-05:00

Today we got about three inches of snow. We got all bundled up and played outside for a while this afternoon. Joe did not want to go back inside because he was having so much fun.

Joe's First Haircut - December 23, 2009

2009-12-31T15:04:00.003-05:00

Martha's Limerick

2009-12-31T01:59:00.010-05:00

In days, not in weeks, I'll give birth to
A daughter a joy and a virtue.
But discomfort and heartburn-
You know what I mean, Vern?
I'd hasten the day she is due.

My Overall Grade from Professor K.

2009-12-21T23:03:00.002-05:00

The Newest Addition to Our Family

2009-12-19T14:39:00.009-05:00

Before; old and leaky:

During:

Drunk People

2009-12-14T01:26:00.019-05:00

"He needs a room, he's drunk, he'll drink no more;
Give us a key, we'll take him to his door."
Who is this man they're walking down the hall?
A stranger? No; I've talked with him before!

This Christmas Time is good for some--not all.
The front desk phone: the man has placed a call,
"What room am I in?" "Twenty-one-oh-eight."
"The blond who works behind the bar, the doll,

"Send her with coffee. Will she demonstrate
For me how to watch TV?" But I wait,
I want to leave this man alone. It rings,
I go; hot drink might calm and make sedate.

I knock. "Come in." "How many sugars, creams?"
Just, "Two." And, "two," his eyes are low, dark things.
"What else is there for you that I can do?"
"Bring a priest," as gold Christ on necklace swings.

John Jones and the Nutty Putty Cave

2009-12-01T01:50:00.008-05:00

If you've been following the story (here and here are a related news articles) of the death of John Jones, you know how sad it is. Here is a blog post I found by Google searching; it's by one of the adults who was in the group in the cave at the time that Mr. Jones got stuck. I thought it was helpful to read something so first-hand.

The Pilgrims, Ancient and Less-Ancient

2009-11-25T17:11:00.013-05:00

The Americas have a long history of receiving religious pilgrims.

"They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against the winter, being all well recovered in health and strength, and had all things in good plenty. . ." (Bradford 62). This is from William Bradford's account of the New England Pilgrim's first thanksgiving, he was the Pilgrims' governor.

Days after their arrival in North America, a small landing party of pilgrims set out from the anchored Mayflower to explore Cape Cod. They found a spring of fresh water, and then they found "heaps of sand newly paddled with [the Indians'] hands, which [the pilgrims], digging up, found in them divers fair Indian baskets filled with corn, and some in ears, fair and good, of divers colors, which seemed to them a very goodly sight (having never seen any such before)" (Bradford 62).

The men decided to take some of the corn with them back to the ship, "and buried the rest, and so like the men from Eshcol carried with them of the fruits of the land, and showed their brethren, of which, and their return, they were marvelously glad, and their hearts encouraged" (Bradford 62).

Who are the men of Eshcol? This is a reference to a story in the Book of Numbers: Moses, as the Israelites approached Canaan, sent out twelves spies, one from each tribe, to reconnoiter the Promised Land: "And [the spies] came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff. . ." And upon their return, they said, "We came into the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey" (Numbers 13:23).

The Book of Mormon records a much earlier group of religious immigrants, the Jaredites; they had a grateful response to their arrival in the Americas after many days at sea (Ether 6:12). Hundreds of years later, when the Lehites arrived, they were able to plant the seeds they had brought from Jerusalem, and to have them produce excellent crops (1 Nephi 18:24). Just as it had done for those ancient pilgrims, America also would prove bountiful for the New England pilgrims.

Bradford, William. "Of Plymouth Plantation." From the Original Manuscript. 1897. Quoted in The Norton Anthology of American Lierature. Nina Baym, ed. New York: Norton & Co., 2008.

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981.

A Note on the Nazis, and Another Note on Nietzsche

2009-11-18T22:17:00.007-05:00

In my college studies of the Holocaust, one of the things that has stood out to me among the incomprehensibility of Nazism, is how the Nazis could simultaneously perceive Jewish enemies in the form of Western capitalists and in the form of Communists, when these two economic systems seem to contradict each other. In 1943, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, explained the Nazi rationale:

The Jewish race always master of camouflage. They adopt every political position that can benefit them, according to country and circumstance. Bolshevism, plutocracy - behind Roosevelt, behind Stalin there are Jews, their goal, the goal of this war is Jewish world dominion. But our propaganda is gradually having an effect, even in the enemy camp. The victory of our ideas is certain (Klemperer 304, quoted in Friedlander 477).

***

On a separate note, Nietzsche came up again in another book about the Holocaust. In the preface to Nora Levin's The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933-1945, she says:

Yet the Nazi disruption of Western traditions did not sweep over Europe out of a vacuum; its antecedents lay in German history, and its portents were signaled in the post-World War I literature which described Europe as being on the verge of disintegration, and earlier, in the brilliant and frightening insights of Friedrich Nietzsche. "There will be wars," Nietzsche had written, "such as have never been waged on earth. I foresee something terrible. Chaos everywhere. Nothing left which is of any value, nothing which commands: 'Though Shalt!' Nietzsche and others prefigured and predicted the moral nihilism of the twentieth century, the revolt against reason and the limitless pursuit of the irrational. Nazi Germany materialized the progression toward this chaos.

Levin does not claim that Nietzsche's writings contributed to amoralistic thinking (although I think it may have); she claims that he merely "prefigured" and "predicted." This disagrees with Professor K___ who answered differently (and I probably had put him on the spot when asking this) by saying that Nietzsche had probably not imagined anything more violent that the French Revolution. What Levin quotes from Nietzsche above is vague, but I do think 18th Century Enlightenment thinking helped pave the way for non-religious, anti-religious Nazism.

Fridlander, Saul. The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945. New York: Haper Collins, 2008.

Klemperer, Victor. I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1942-1945.

Levin, Nora. The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933-1945. New York: Crowell, 1968.

The Answer to Piles of Autumn Leaves: Taxes

2009-11-18T20:53:00.015-05:00

In my judgment, this is not a bad use of tax money. I looked out the window this afternoon wondering what the noise was. It was the giant leaf vacuum. In my town, all one needs to do with one's leaves is to rake them into the gutter, and then the city will send this crew out to suck up the leaves. I ran out to help with the large pile at the bottom of the driveway.

ABD: It's as Easy as 123...

2009-11-15T21:51:00.008-05:00

Okay, so this post is going to be a little or a lot of bragging about myself and then some resent pictures of Joe.

First the bragging:
ABD: Not I did not miss the C but rather it means All But Dissertation. That is right my friends, as of Thursday November 12th his forever college girl has to take no more classes, no more finals, no more teachers dirty looks. I do, however, have my work still cut out for me. I have to do my own research and come up with enough previously unproven math to make up a dissertation.

So you want to know what I had to do to become ABD. At every University and every program it is a little different. For my program I had to finish all requirements for the Master's; which I did at Hunter College. I had to take more classes in my chosen field of study, do well in them and find an adviser or mentor to work with. Last fall I started working with my adviser and studying in an area he thought would have some undiscovered theorems in it. By the spring I had gotten a few result and he said that I was ready to prepare for my admission to candidacy exam.

In the fall I put most of my attention to this. I had to study an article or two that related to my research, learn it well, then come up with 2 one hour presentations on the articles. The presentations were open to anyone but I had a committee of 3 professors that would decide my fate. I was ready and I did my presentations this last week on Tuesday and Thursday.

I was of course very nervous. My first presentation was good but I had a few ruff spots. I recovered well, my adviser said (he is one of the committee members). Many of my classmates said that I did a good job on my first talk. There was on professor that was not on my committee that had questions for me after and I was able to as all of his question to his satisfaction. That made me feel good.

The second talk I was more worried about. It had much harder information and less to really talk about. I was well prepared and the talk went well. When the talk was over my committee kicked everyone else out and asks me questions. This was the part I was most worried about. In the end it was not bad at all. I had answers to most of the question and when I did not know I just said so and that was fine. (I think they sometimes ask you question they think you do not know to see how you will handle it.) At the end of the questions I got one complement; one of the professors said "You gave us meat." In this he meant I gave them something that made them think.

The three committee members then kicked me out and talked about me for about 5 minutes. This seemed like forever. They opened the door and just said congratulations and shook my hand. My adviser said that he was very impressed with one of the proofs that I went through. He knew that I had not seen that kind of proof much and he was impressed that understood it and that I was able to explain it so well to others.

Chris showed up from his classes just after I had put away the projector. I was talking to Chris when my adviser walked by. My adviser said, "Did she tell you?" Chris said, "She told me she passes." My adviser said, "She did more then just pass. She had a very good presentation."

We celebrated by going out to dinner with my parents, who had been watching Joe.

Now, the JOE:
So that people might actually look at this post here are some pictures of Joe.

A Boy and His Apple

At Grandma and Grandpa Hollist's House.
I love the fall leaves on the ground.

Eating Tomato Soup and Cheesies.
Joe loves to dip the the cheesies in the soup.

To end with I have to give some thanks:
-Thanks to Joe, for being a sleeper and sleeping through the night so I can sleep and get work done when he sleeps.
-Thanks to my parents, who spent lost of time watching Joe the past few weeks so that I could finish up my work for my presentations.
-Finally, thanks to Chris who has also given me time to get work done and who has had to deal with a stressed out pregnant woman for the past few months. (Now he just has to deal with a regular pregnant woman.)

I currently am feeling happy, free, and like I can tackle anything.

A Visit with Professor K___

2009-10-28T22:26:00.025-04:00

After reading this, dear readers, you may think lesser of me. Sorry. I visited Professor K___ today. After introducing myself he immediately paid me a compliment: "Yes, of course; I recognize you; you're one of those who laughs at the appropriate time," referring to the humor that occurs, often originating with the professor himself, just about every class meeting. He invited me to have a seat in his nice office in Library Tower - it was an office with windows and a nice view, a nice desk, nice carpet, and a nice glass coffee table around which were several simple-but-nice chairs. He invited me to have a seat in one of those, he came from behind his desk and sat in another one of those chairs.

I brought up the issue of my paper. Once I explained that mine was the one written on The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, he remembered it. The problem with my paper, he said, was relevance, although it was well written. I said that was fair enough; and I mentioned that I was nervous when writing it about not having significant overlap (something, by the way, the professor had emphasized that we must have) between the film and the book I was comparing, but I thought the overall quality of the paper would make up for my lack of overlap; but I said that his critique was what I had expected it would be. He suggested that I give him back the paper so that he could have another look at it.

Earlier in the semester he had jokingly said to the class that nobody would read more than the first two pages of a paper that any of us would turn in; the thing about that is, he was probably not joking, and I got the impression that he had never read all of my paper when he said, "I remember enjoying your paper, and reading more of it than I had the others." I can't say that I really blame him for not reading all of it; this is a class of about 150 students, and these were on average 8-page papers. The teaching assistants do most of the grading of the papers, and from what he explained, it sounds like they bring to him only those papers that pose a problem. I said that I didn't feel that it was necessary for him to review my paper, even though he promised that there was no danger in me getting a worse grade. I said no thanks, even though I think just about anyone else in my position would have handed the paper over to him. It just would have been a little too humiliating for me to have the professor re-examine my paper and give me a better grade, as though I can't do this college thing without special help. I've always had a bit of a do-it-myself attitude. He insisted that I revisit him before the end of the semester to discuss my overall grade, and I did agree to that, although I wasn't thrilled about meeting for that purpose, but it just would have been too undiplomatic to refuse that. I have to admit, though, that it's good to know I can talk to him if I do have a real grade problem in the future.

I asked if he had seen the film. He said of course he had, but it was about ten years ago, but that he remembered it as a good, impressionistic film.

I asked him about Nietzsche, and he basically agreed with my other professor on Nietzsche: Nazism is in no way attributable to the him.

Finally, he asked me what I thought of the test, which I and the rest of his class had completed only minutes prior to our meeting in his office (I went directly there after the test). I said it was a fair test. He asked if I liked the way he put the 1933-1939 identification questions on the 1940-1942 section and vice-versa. Now by way of explanation, the test consisted of two "blocks," each block consisted of an essay question and four identification questions. The first block dealt with the time period 1933-1939, and the second dealt with 1940-1942; we were to choose one block and answer only those questions within that block. I responded to the professor that, unless I had made a mistake, the identification questions did correspond to the essay question, and at that he appeared chagrined. I did not say the following to the professor, but the identifications matched the essay question so closely that one had to write down a significant amount of information twice in answering the identifications and the essay, an ironic and unfortunate case of significant overlap.

Owego, NY Stake Conference

2009-10-25T22:06:00.011-04:00

The Owego, New York Stake held its stake conference yesterday and today; the theme of the meetings was service. Here are some highlights:

Within the family is an ideal place to practice giving Christian service to others.
There are over 101 values that we can use to support our spouses. The speaker listed twenty-six of these in alphabetical order. The first three were, "Be attentive," "Be benevolent," and, "Be consistent." For the letter "X," the speaker said, "Do not be xenophobic."
The stake president said that Jesus' earthly ministry is the best example we have of service, and that women are the next best example. Motherhood is near to divinity, he said.
A recent convert told how his interest in the church developed through following BYU college football, and then by becoming a closet BYU-TV watcher. He, a former Marine, described the LDS church as the Marine Corps of churches because of the three-hour meetings on Sundays and because of strict rules like the Word of Wisdom.
The person who gave the closing prayer today thanked God, that, in spite of the error on the program, we had enjoyed productive meetings. The programs printed for the conference said "November 25" instead of "October 25."

A C Minus on My Dr. Mabuse Paper. Ouch.

2009-10-23T18:49:00.014-04:00

I wrote a paper for a class and got it returned to me today. The teacher's assistant approached me before class and told me I had gotten a C minus on my paper. This was highly unusual; I was the only one he spoke to; everyone else had to wait until they got their papers returned to them at the end of class to learn their grade. Here is what the teacher's assistant wrote on the last page of my paper:

Chris- This essay has many excellent features, and you obviously enjoyed constructing it. Your writing is quite sophisticated, and in some points, brilliant. However, I took this paper directly to Dr. K____, and he graded it as "C-," while agreeing with me on these points. Please feel free to speak with him if you have questions.

The teacher's assistant also put brackets around the final sentence of my opening paragraph and wrote, "Excellent thesis," so, there is no explanation why I got a C minus; except that the professor announced in class that everybody was getting generally a poor grade on the paper. And he suggested that this might be a motivation for us to do well on the test. I consider the ethics of this "strategic grading," if such is the case, questionable and confusing.

When I recorded my prayer as "Help me not be a loser," a couple of blog posts ago, what I think I really meant was, "Help me not go insane," precisely because of instances like this, where I hand in a paper that I think is worth at least a B, to have it returned with a C minus, with no explanation, no comment on why my paper received what is basically a failing grade. Some people may think that I should go and talk to the professor and find out what the deal is. Well I probably won't, even though I would like to know if he's ever seen The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. What a great film.

A Note on Nietzsche

2009-10-22T22:56:00.008-04:00

I read a little bit of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) the other day. There is something magical about his writings. Part of that magic is just the sheer intelligence of the man. Another part of the magic is that he has no problem stepping way out and seeing a very big picture -- of society that is -- and this perspective is refreshing. Beyond this magic though, his atheism makes some of his ideas non-starters for me. For example, he proposes that morality has no guaranteed foundation, and that the aristocratic winners in a social-Darwinistic system should be the definers of what is "good" and "bad." This theory may go far in explaining the workings of the natural man; Nazism, for example, seems to have been a large experiment in social Darwinism.

Nietzsche readers, your thoughts? Does anyone read Nietzsche outside of a college class?

My Prayer

2009-10-14T22:20:00.004-04:00

Help me not be a loser.

More Amazing Science

2009-10-12T23:18:00.003-04:00

Here's another one. On the bright side, I don't know of any military applications for fundamental modes of vibration.

Source: Wake Forest University Department of Physics, http://www.wfu.edu/physics Sam Eisenberg and Peter Scherpelz/HMC 08, Hendrik Orem/HMC 09, Hyung Joo Park/HMC 08, Patricia Sparks/ HMC Physics, Jon Jacobsen/HMC Math, produced by Flora Lichtman; via ScienceFriday.com

Amazing Science

2009-10-12T22:48:00.004-04:00

As I've said before, war is a awful, but it motivates some amazing science; this seems to be another example:

Video source: Stephen Morris, featured at Sciencefriday.com

Movie Review: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

2009-10-08T22:05:00.013-04:00

The film, sometimes called The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse, was shot in Germany in 1932 and is excellent. (It is available on DVD from Netflix and has English subtitles). There are some seriously insane characters in this film. But more than being insane, Dr. Mabuse is also a genius, and he has a special, telepathic-hypnotic power which he uses for criminal purposes. The detective who has to chase down these crazy criminals is Inspector Lohmann; Lohmann is an excellent detective and just an all-around good guy. He, reformed criminal Tom Kent, and Tom's girlfriend Lilli are also sympathetic characters who represent average, healthy humanity. I think this film is a good indicator of how normal German culture was and could have remained if not for the rise of Nazism.

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse was shot in 1932, the year prior to the Nazi party taking control. It was set to release in March of 1933, but a few days before its scheduled release date, Nazi officials viewed the film and banned it from being shown in Germany -- because, ostensibly, it depicted too much crime and was basically a guide book on how to commit crime.(1) Some people think, however, that the real reason the film was banned was because the depicted empire of crime bore too strong a resemblance to authoritarian Nazism, although no Nazi documents record this as the reason -- not that they necessarily would.

The director of this film is Fritz Lang. He was born in Austria. Lang's mother was Jewish. After the banning of The Testament of Dr. Mabuse in Germany, Lang moved to Paris; then in 1934 he immigrated to the United Sates, to Hollywood, where he made many more successful movies.(4) Working alongside Lang was the producer of this film, Seymour Nebenzal, who was fully Jewish; he also left Germany in 1933 for Paris, and came to the United States (to Hollywood) in 1939, and he too continued to make movies.

Sources:

Aurich, Rolf, et al. eds. Fritz Lang. His Life and Work. Photographs and Documents. Berlin: Retrospective, 2001.
Friedländer, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews: Vol.1, The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939. New York: Harper Collins, 1997.
Gunning, Tom. The Films of Fritz Lang. London: British Film Institute, 2000.
McGilligan, Patrick. Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast. New York: St. Martin's P., 1997.
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. Dir. Fritz Lang. Janus Films 1933.

Face on My Bathroom Door

2009-09-29T16:13:00.007-04:00

I think this blob of off-white goop on my bathroom door looks a lot like a human face.

Beulah Kathleen Hurst Meikle

2009-08-26T21:51:00.003-04:00

My grandmother (right) was born January 11, 1916 in Pawnee, Oklahoma; she died August 4, 2009 in Bountiful, Utah at the age of ninety-three. She was married to John "Jack" Hind Meikle on November 15, 1933. They were married sixty-two years.

Breaking Up Concrete with a Jackhammer

2009-08-26T20:59:00.006-04:00

Removing the broken-up concrete with a wrecking bar and a shovel took me a couple of days to do.

Now I need to take down a ten-foot-high concrete wall; which I think I'm going to do with a skid steer with a jackhammer attachment. That's phase one; after that I will need a lot of fill dirt. Too bad school starts on Monday; the garage ruins are an eye sore.

One of Our Ultrasound Photos

2009-08-26T20:50:00.009-04:00

This is from Martha's ultrasound today. Joe and I were there when Kathy, the nurse performing the ultrasound, said, "I know what you're having . . . a girl." Martha's due date is around January 4. The baby is about twenty-one-weeks old here.

I Think This is Pretty Cool: Martha is Teaching Calculus this Semester

2009-08-25T00:07:00.007-04:00

What Joe Had for Lunch Today

2009-07-27T14:11:00.007-04:00

Here is what Joe had for lunch today - I'm surprised at how much he eats sometimes -: Eight ounces of wax beans, four ounces of diced peaches, about eight cherries, and a corn dog. After this I wasn't sure if he was full or not so I gave him half a banana and he took a few bites of it.

Improvised Parking Brake Cable

2009-07-26T22:15:00.007-04:00

Pictured is my improvised intermediate parking brake cable on my '95 F-150. I purchased the parts from the hardware section at Home Depot. And, now my parking brake pedal actually moves when I press it.

For some reason, the old cable was an inch or two short so I couldn't reconnect it after I replaced the cable that connects to the foot pedal - that one I replaced with a manufactured - not improvised - part.

Salamander and Slug

2009-07-23T23:47:00.005-04:00

I pried up some old concrete in my backyard and found these creatures underneath.

Baby Name Genie

2009-07-13T21:58:00.006-04:00

I just clicked a couple of times on the "wish" button at babynamegenie.com and here's what I got: For a boy, Davis Bo; for a girl, Audrie Lara. I'll run them past Martha.

Joe Has Something to say!

2009-07-09T20:17:00.005-04:00

"I am going to be a big brother."
(On or around January 7th.)

New Line Installed

2009-07-09T12:15:00.016-04:00

Here is the installed, new steel line running from the transmission to the top of the radiator. I put four-and-a-half quarts of transmission fluid into the transmission to fill it back up, so the pin-hole-sized leak in the old, rusty steel line would have been happening for I think at least a week to let that much fluid out. I haven't driven the truck yet, but I've let it run for a while and I don't see any leaks. But I'm not done fixing the truck yet.

The parking break broke last year, but I then felt too busy with school and work to fix it myself. When it was time for the truck to get a new safety inspection, I asked the mechanics to fix the parking break, too. After I picked up the truck, when I pressed down on the parking break pedal with my foot, it did not really move. So now I'm fixing the parking break myself, but I'm not sure what the exact problem is yet. I discovered the transmission line leak while trying to figure out the parking break.

I will also say this: I could use some more instruction and practice on bending steel tubing. There were two places where I would have liked to have a nice, 90-degree angle in the tubing. Whenever I tried to use the pipe-bending tool that I borrowed from Auto Zone, I kinked the tubing, ruining a portion of it. I ended up having to start the tubing installation over again with a new piece of tubing, and then I did all of the bending by hand. Either I need better technique, better quality tubing, better quality tools, a combination of these three, or all three together.

The Double Flare

2009-07-07T21:20:00.010-04:00

Ah, for adventures in things automotive. Pictured is my first-achieved (second-attempted) double flare of 5/16" steel tubing. My plan is that once installed, this tube will carry transmission fluid.

Someone Just Turned One!!!!!

2009-06-22T09:38:00.016-04:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOE!!!

We cannot believe that you are now are 1 year-old little boy.

We love you and this is your life...

Grandma Zanne holding you on your first day with us.

You at a baseball game with Grandma and Grandpa Kilpack.
You were about 4 week old.
Many of your Hollist cousins were there too.
Can you find Dad and Parker?

Your first trip to Disney Land.
This was right before Uncle Jonathan's Wedding.
6 weeks old and you got a trip to Disney Land
and you even got to go with Aunt Abby and Uncle Brian.

When you were about 6 months old you discovered
how to tip over your toy ottoman.
What a cleaver guy!

You love the dishwasher!
This is you at about 10 months putting
a stop to getting the dishes done.

You had a great first word at 10 months or so.

Grandpa Taylor loves to swing you.
He took you and Cousin Emily in Aunt Jennie's
back yard and you both were happy for
more then an hour.

You finally grew tall enough to clime.
This was about a week ago.

You took your first steps at about 9 1/2 months.
You are still working on getting it down.
You were almost a year here.

And now this is your Birthday Fun!

You just loved the cake!

We love you so much and are excited
to watch you grow more and more.

Progress

2009-06-11T12:16:00.013-04:00

Some may dispute that this photo depicts progress, but to me it does.

I'm tearing down our detached garage. It is downhill from the house, built around 1920, its door is three feet from the now-widened road, and its only use for us has been to house our lawnmower. And, because it was built into a hillside, two of its three walls are caving-in.

How to Play Catch with a Less-Than-One-Year-Old

2009-05-31T20:11:00.009-04:00

Ever wanted to enjoy a good old-fashioned game of catch between you and a child? Here are two fun ways to play catch with a less-than-one-year-old. You will need the following supplies: 1) a high chair with an attached tray, and 2) a ball that bounces softly.

Method 1

or, try Method 2

Matt Asmus: Not Your Typical Piano Performance Student

2009-05-29T13:25:00.006-04:00

Story and photo by Pfc. Andrya Hill.

Another great article covering First Lieutenant Asmus and 2nd Platoon, Headquarters Battery, 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division.

Matt Asmus Jr. in Eastern Afghanistan

2009-05-29T09:29:00.008-04:00

Story and photo by Pfc. Andrya Hill.

Here is an Army news article about Matt Asmus and his platoon in Afghanistan. It's about his platoon finding an unplaced landmine at a man's house and then taking that man in for questioning. This all happened this month, on May 12, and the article was published on May 25, 2009. From Googling "FOB Salerno" and "Khowst Province, Afghanistan," you can see that Matt is in Eastern Afghanistan, not far from the Pakistan border.

Something Else About Wide as the Waters

2009-05-27T02:05:00.004-04:00

Benson Bobrick says, too, that much of England didn't even know how to read before the Bible was printed. So the printed Bible in English started a political revolution toward democracy, and it allowed common Englishmen to learn how to read, standardizing the English language.

Wide as the Waters

2009-05-25T23:22:00.016-04:00

I just finished reading Wide as the Waters: the Story of the English Bible and the Revolution it Inspired by Benson Bobrick. The book starts off with John Wycliffe, the first man to try to translate the complete Bible into English. He died in 1384. The next big translator of the Bible was William Tyndale, who was burned at the stake in 1536 for his opposition to the in-power church and king. I especially like the two chapters on Wycliffe and Tyndale; these men had the guts to do exactly what the authoritarian church did not want them to do. Next is a discussion of that King, Henry VIII; and the remainder of the book follows English politics down to King James, who ordered the "King James Translation" made; then to his son, Charles, who was beheaded by parliament; and on down to the Glorious Revolution, where the English monarchy became constitutional and thereby officially subject to a higher law, whereas before, the King or Queen was the law. So, as the Bible spread, politics changed; Bobrick says that because the Bible spread, politics changed.

Basically, Bobrick puts forward that the whole idea of individual rights in England (and the ideas that started America) got rolling with the King James Bible, which was printed, widely distributed, and really popular. Here is a quote from the book:

Before the advent of the vernacular Bible, which was made available to the general public by printing, most people did not know what the Bible actually said. Thereafter, they could read it for themselves and decide, for themselves, what it meant. . . . Without the vernacular Bible - and the English Bible in particular, through its impact on the reformation of English politics - there could not have been democracy as we know it, or even what today we call the "Free World" (269).

Bobrick spends almost all his time discussing events and attitudes around the English Bible, but talks very little about what it is within the Bible that would instill the idea of individual liberty in people. He does say, though, that the idea of all men (not just kings) being created in the image of God is part of the cause (297).

If you're interested, here is a an interview (text and audio) with Benson Bobrick by Ray Suarez on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer from 2001, the year the book was published.

1LT Matt Asmus, Jr. Serving in Afghanistan

2009-05-10T23:56:00.009-04:00

Here is a video (Army-made) featuring Matt Asmus, a friend of mine from Bountiful, UT. He's in Afghanistan now. He's normally stationed in Alaska. He's married with three girls and they are expecting a boy in June.

Fun with Joe

2009-05-06T18:40:00.005-04:00

We went out side to our dandelion lawn and had some fun! (Need I say more.)

Yesterday when my mom was watching Joe, Joe would tease her by almost giving her things.
Here he is doing it to me.

I hope you enjoyed that. I have had fun watching them over and over already.

Missing My Family

2009-05-03T20:57:00.005-04:00

Often on Sunday afternoons Chris has to work. This of course leaves Joe and me on our own. For some reason I miss my sibling the most at this time. I have a theory that I usually miss them but on Sunday afternoons I slow down my life and I realize I miss them.
Being the youngest I do not have many memories of the "crazy" years with lots of us still at home but I do remember many things.

Here are a few:

Larry (most likely other too) loosing Hollist rules around the world to take Jonathan and me to Polar Bear for ice cream.

I loved Christmas time when people would come home or any time when people would come home. I used to think the airports worked just on the days that my siblings came home.

I remember being little and having to go to bed and hearing you guys (my siblings) down stairs and just wanting to hang out with you. I know, I know, I went to be much later they you ever had to.

I remember Anne coming home and always making time to spend just with me. I loved the attention.

I learned to love MASH with Kaylynn. In the summer mom let me stay up until she got off of work at Friendlies and we would watch an episode.

Joseph, you made taking every thing that could possibly be wash and going to the laundry mat some of the best times I remember. I never understood why mom would make us clean the house before you came home from college. I knew you would have us do it again and it would be much more fun.

I was so glad to have my sister Jennie as my Beehive leader if we did not call her "the young and fun one." It was fun to have you at home and then so close right before you got married.

I guess this just leaves Jonathan. When I was young (5 years old or so) I said that I would never miss him. Boy was I wrong. We had great times. So great that I had to follow him to USU.

So I got a little off topic but ...

THANKS FOR BEING GREAT OLDER SIBLINGS!!

Some New Joe Things.

2009-03-29T21:13:00.005-04:00

Here are just some fun things from the life of Joe.

Joe making a mess with the books while Chris and I are cleaning.

Joe with a mo hock.

This is just a cute picture of Joe when Chris was getting him to laugh.

I was sick of getting Joe out of the printer and stereo. We did not want to put them in the "library", so I created this guard.

I would like everyone to look at the boom-box Chris has had since high school.

It still works and we listen to Car Talk and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me every Saturday Morning on it.

Last but not least. Here is a video of Joe. I used to put a blanket or something over his face and say,"Where's Joe?" until he pulled it off. Now he does it by himself.

My Little Black Book (Reciepe Book)

2009-03-29T16:45:00.007-04:00

I hate coming up with meals to cook. Not just an idem but a whole meal. To make things easier on me when there is a meal both Chris and I like, I write down all the parts and the recipes in a black note book I have. Then when I am planning meals for the week I need to flip through the book and make a shopping list.

Some meals are easy like Tacos. Some meals take more effort like baked fish with lemon mini potatoes.

We recently have had two wonderful soups we have added to the little black book. One Chris made and I loved. One I made and Chris loved.

Lets start with the soup Chris made.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

We had this soup at my Aunt Martha's. We both loved so Chris got the recipe from her and made it. Chris even made the homemade noodles for it. I love homemade noodles. This was great on the day Chris made it and great for lunch at school. (We had a salad to go with it.)

Now My Soup.

Black Bean Chipotle Soup

I found this recipe in a Crock-Pot recipe book. It has black bean, carrots, and I can not remember what else. You put sour cream and cilantro on top. We also added the chips. This is a spicy number that Chris loved. Some my even say "It was to die for." The soup was great on its own. No need for a salad.

For your information, in case of a fire we get us and Joe, then the little black book.

Lazy Sunday

2009-03-22T20:27:00.003-04:00

No, I did not wake up in the late afternoon, but I did take a late afternoon nap.
I enjoy having a nice quite Sunday at home with my family. I do not always get this treat; Chris often has to run to work a little after church. I thought that I would share with you this nice afternoon we had.
We came home from church and while Chris got Joe some food I finished making egg salad sandwiches for us. (Side note, every time I eat egg salad sandwiches I ask myself why do I not eat these more.) It was quick and easy and we had had our Sunday lunch and we were both very full. (We also had leftover salad to go with it.)

After lunch we sat on the couch while Joe played. Chris read to me from a book he was reading and I fell asleep for just a little bit.

Chris took care of Joe and put him down for a nap. I went for my late afternoon nap, but Joe woke up, but Chris took care of him.

I like to have quiet Sunday afternoons, spend time with Chris. It was also very nice of Chris to take care of Joe and let me rest. (He needs the rest just as much as me.)

This Sunday will soon be over but I hope that we can recreate it again another time. Maybe next time Chris can nap with me instead of Joe.
(Wow, I used a lot of ()).

A New Video about the Temple

2009-03-21T10:21:00.003-04:00

Why Mormons Build Temples

2009-03-13T00:41:00.002-04:00

President Uchtodor, Mormon Messages

2009-03-12T11:06:00.002-04:00

A Quote about the Faith of Atheists

2009-03-09T11:54:00.013-04:00

I've wondered sometimes, how if a man is an atheist, what then motivates him to get out of bed in the morning, to go about his day, and to move forward with a purpose. Arthur Henry King suggests that, in fact, atheists have faith, and in some cases, not a little:

Many people don't wake up to what faith is. . . [T]hey only realize very late, and sometimes not at all, that something they have been in the habit of doing or feeling all their lives has been faith. For example, I remember an atheist undergraduate friend of mine at Cambridge. . . He was ebullient and springy: he always got up in the mornings full of spirit, and he lived his life that way. He was never uncheerful. That man lived from some kind of fundamental faith which had to do with the health of his body, but also with the health of his mind. He lived in faith as he lived in air and drank water. In my opinion, only people who are full of faith could possibly have the courage to be atheistic" (17, emphasis added).

Arthur Henry King. "An Account of My Conversion." The Abundance of the Heart. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1986.

It's the little things that keep you going.

2009-03-02T22:27:00.004-05:00

Some days you really just want to say, " I give up, you win." Who ever "you" is I am not sure. There are just so many things that need to get done, should get done, and not to mention what you want to get done.

I am glad for the little things that help me play another round and even win a few. (I am winning tonight.)

Here are some things that get me through the day, in no particular order:

1.) Little breaks to look at blogs, email friends, and just zone out.

2.) Coming home from school and seeing Chris and Joe asleep on the coach.

3.) Joe's giggles, especially at night when I am tired.

4.) Kisses from Chris.

5.) Seeing Joe learn from things around the house quicker then I learn from my school books.

6.) That time just before I go to bed at the end of the day, quite, still and peaceful (this is why I stay up late and I am always tired).

Here is one of Joe's learning things. We have posted him walking with a chair but this works better for him.

The Quilt is Finished!!!!

2009-02-12T17:59:00.006-05:00

Since school has started I have not been able to do much else but school and house stuff. I did not have any classes today so I took the chance to finish the quilt for my in-laws. I even got it in the mail. It feels good to have it finished.

The Finished Quilt.

Here is Joe testing the quilt out.

What About Joe?

2009-02-11T21:01:00.005-05:00

So you have heard about school and the cardinals, but what about Joe? "Do you still have a kid?" you may ask. Well the answer is yes we do have a wonderful boy and he is doing great. To show you just how great hear are some videos:

Joe Walking with a Chair

Joe and I have a nightly routine, bath (sometimes with dad), stories, a few verses from The Book of Mormon, a song, and prayer (as a family if Chris is home).

Joe likes story time. Although I sometimes sneak in other books, Joe has to have one book every night, Good Night Gorilla. He loves to turn the pages.

Thanks Aunt Abby for the great book.

Northern Cardinal

2009-02-06T07:50:00.025-05:00

Martha was a little disappointed about my purchase of the "Backyard Birds" calender back in 2008. We've--in her opinion--upgraded to a majestic landscapes calender for 2009. I tried for much of that year to persuade her how pretty the birds were. She gained some interest in cardinals as one month, the calender's photo was of a male northern cardinal, which is the bright red version, and another month had a female, which are more conservatively colored.

I've liked cardinals ever since my Grandma Meikle introduced me to them via bird-illustrated, laminated place mats set before me at lunch at her house. I understood that these birds were a strictly Eastern-United-States phenomenon, and not to be found in Utah.

What I like most about this photo (taken from my Eastern-United-States back window), and why I feel it's worthy of being posted on our blog, is the bird's exquisite detail.

(Belina Blue Eyes and Mel Mel, please note: The above is the thirtieth photo from the second file. I usually don't respond to so-called "tags." Never have.)

School Has Begun

2009-02-01T16:00:00.009-05:00

I seem to write mostly about anything but school.

So here it goes.

For the last year and a half I have been in school working in my PhD in Mathematics. For about a year I have been studying an area of math called lattice theory.

This is an example of a lattice.

The element on the bottom is the smallest. The element on the top is the largest.

The lines tell you when one element is less than another.

Lattices have different properties and I am studying some of those properties to see if I can come up with some new information. The properties I am lookong into are closure properties on sets and lattices (that is for another post).

I hope that helps you know how I spend most of my days.

"Stuff like that always seem cooler {harder} then it is." - Harry Poter

Good (and Bad) Plumbing News

2009-01-21T21:54:00.016-05:00

Well, let's start with the good news. I'm pretty much finished in the bathroom. The silicone beads look a little unprofessional, but they're functional.

The bad news is that while moving around in the bathroom this morning, I accidentally knocked my hammer from its temporary resting place on the cupboard above the toilet. The toilet's porcelain shattered and some water leaked out onto the bathroom floor. (By the way, when that happened, my mind immediately reverted to an article in the Deseret News about a man who accidentally let his handgun fall from its holster while in a bathroom stall at a Carl's Jr. in Centerville, Utah; I now have more empathy for that man.)

So I ran to Home Depot and got a new toilet.

And I'll tell ya, I really like the Home Depot 123 book. It's got instructions on just about all these household projects.

While Chris was plumming I was quilting.

2009-01-20T18:45:00.008-05:00

Yes, How very men and women's roles of us but there you have it. I have learned that I like to sew. I can only do such things on a school break.

Project #1:

Christmas present for Larry and Lori (my brother and sister-in-law).

Place Mats

Project 2: Christmas Present for my parents-in-law.

The Cutting
The Layout

The Quilt

Quilting with Anne (my sister)

Quilting with Aunt Martha and Chris."Only real men quilt."-Lloyd Kilpack

You may ask, "Martha why make a quilt for your in-laws?" Well, first a classmate made Joe a Sudoku quilt. My mother-in-law loves Sudoku, so I always thought it would be fun to make one for her. Second, I was in Joanne's I was trying to kill time while Chris was at home asleep after working a night shift. There was a big sale going on, so I started to look. First I found 5 blue shade fabrics together. Then I started finding others I liked. Soon I had 9 fabrics and all I needed was a boarder. I soon found that as well. I was on my way to making a Sudoku quilt.

"What makes this a Sudoku quilt?" you ask. Well in each row, each column , and each block of 9 squares, there is one and only one of each of the 9 fabrics I choose. I had a completed Sudoku and I just assigned a fabric to each number and way I went.

I have to say that this has been very fun. The quilt is not finished yet. I was able to finish most of the quilting in Utah thanks to my two wonderful aunts that came to help, Martha and Nancy, and of course my sister Anne. We had a great afternoon while they were there.

I will put up the finished product soon hopefully.

Yo-Yo Ma on Cello, Itzhak Perlman on Violin, Gabriela Montero on Piano, and Anthony McGill on Clarinet

2009-01-20T15:44:00.002-05:00

I thought these musicians did a great job at the inauguration.

My Mom Has Started Blogging, and, Plumbing at My House

2009-01-18T22:28:00.017-05:00

Dear friends, my mom has a blog now: bellybugblues.blogspot.com; I recommend it. She uses the term "bucket of sass" in her first blog post--a nice variation on one of her trademark words, "sass", and reason enough for wanting to read her.

I would like to talk for a second about plumbing. I replaced the bathtub faucet after Christmas. I had to turn off the house's main water valve before I could take apart the bathtub plumbing. Well the main water valve (the one inside the house, I mean) was old, so in the process of opening and closing the valve, it began to leak.

So I had to call the city of Endicott and ask them to come and shut off the water to my house (using the valve outside my house and down by the curb). Once that was done I removed the old valve and went running around town to find a replacement. Well the replacement valve I found didn't exactly fit with the old fitting. In order to make it fit, I would need to cut the old pipe and make a new fitting; the problem with this was that I would have to flair the pipe, and I didn't have a tool to do that. Also, I only had three or four inches of pipe to work with; after that the pipe goes into the foundation and then underground. So I was nervous about cutting that pipe, plus Martha talked me out of trying to do it myself and and persuaded me to call a plumber. Who knows how long it would have taken me to get the parts and tools to do it, and all the while we would not have any running water in the house.

The plumber showed up just an hour or so after I made the phone call, and he had it all fixed in less than an hour. I called the city to come and turn my water back on, and they showed up twenty minutes later while the plumber was still here, so the plumber was able to check the system to make sure there were no leaks.

In New York State they place water meters inside the house. You may wonder how does the city check my water usage if my water meter is inside, does someone from the city have to come inside the house? Actualy, a wire runs from the meter to a port on the outside of the house, so the guy from the city just has to place his reading device onto the port to get my water reading.

Before Josh the plumber:
After Josh the plumber:

Christmas Morning!

2008-12-25T10:33:00.005-05:00

Merry Christmas!

We have already open our presents and have some fun times this morning. Here are a couple of video gems.

Yes, that is right; Joe is now crawling!

We had a great time opening presents and just having a good morning. I hope you guys had a good day too.

P.S. Brian, I think you might like Joe's PJs. Oh, yea, cowboys.

A Letter From Chris and Martha (and Joey).

2008-12-19T22:11:00.009-05:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We are writing you this letter from a snowed-in house. We got about 6 inches of snow today. We will shovel the driveway in the morning. We are all done with finals so we could just stay home and relax. Chris watched 2 episodes of the orignal Star Trek. Martha made some hasbrowns from scratch and watched Balikissangel. And last but not least, Joey crawled backwards. Also, for our entertainment we watched cars getting stuck going up the steep road we live on.

P.S. Joe is getting a tooth.

P.P.S. [u-iyh` vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvrxsdy mnujhyk5hhhhk (From Joe)

Happy Birthday, Martha!

2008-12-14T14:30:00.006-05:00

Happy birthday to my wife, Martha. She's 28. This morning we had a mini birthday party before church. (I apologize for Joe's undressed condition in the photo.) We are going to do some more celebrating, but not until Thursday because we have some final exams this week.

It's cold and wintery here in New York. How is everybody else doing?

A Frenchman, a Low-Earth-Orbiting International Space Station and Space Shuttle, and the Sun

2008-12-13T11:06:00.006-05:00

I came across a cool image in Popular Science magazine, then I googled up the photo's official website. Here's what I know:

The International Space Station is not in a geosynchronous orbit; it is in a "low earth orbit," and so it orbits the earth 15.72 times per day.

A man in France named Thierry Legault sat down one day and did some figuring. He, using computers, figured out a time and a place (it ended up being a place in the countryside of Normandy right next to a cow pasture) where he could get in his car and drive to. At this certain time and place he, the international space station, the space shuttle, and the sun would all align. He drove to the place, set up his telescope and camera equipment, waited for that moment of alignment, then once that moment arrived, he took some pictures.

Favorite Countries Thursday: Jordan

2008-12-11T15:55:00.010-05:00

So in connection with some school work, I've found out a little something about that country known as Jordan. Jordan is located west of Iraq and east of Israel. It's location plays an important role in it's politics, but more on that later.

Jordan is a monarchy; King Abdullah II is the king. In constitutional monarchies--like Great Brittain, for example--the monarch may play some political role, but a constitution establishes a legislature, courts, and a bill of rights.

Jordan does have a constitution, but every member of the legislature's upper house is appointed by the king. And in the lower house, where legislators are elected based on popular vote, the governorates (which are like states in the U.S.) have a disproportionate allocation of representatives. So one governorate may have a certain number of legislators, but another governorate with a greater population may have less legislators.

One of the big issues that Jordan is struggling with is Palestinian refugees. Most of them within Jordan have Jordanian citizenship, but they are often the ones who are under-represented in the parliament.

Another monarchical element to all this is that the king can dissolve either house of parliament at any time with the stroke of a pen.

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin and a Geosynchronous Satellite

2008-12-10T00:10:00.010-05:00

My respects to Joseph B. Wirthlin (1917-2008).

The other day I spoke with an engineer who knew something about satellites. He said that "geosynchronous" satellites are the ones that people use to bounce television signals around the planet; geosynchronous satellites are the ones that pretty much always stay in the same position over the Earth's surface. So in February 2004, while Joseph B. Wirthlin was in Utah and I was a soldier in North Carolina, it was thanks to a geosynchronous satellite in space and a satellite dish outside my church in North Carolina that I was able to listen to a speech by Joseph B. Wirthlin about the two great commandments: to love God, first; and second, to love my neighbor as myself.

And he explained things pretty clearly, I think, when he said, "When we love our Heavenly Father, we leave behind the grudging 'have to' and embrace the enthusiastic 'can't wait to' attitude." Those were always the best soldiers, too--the ones who eagerly listened and obeyed.

Homage to Orb: Highlights from National Blog Posting Month

2008-12-06T11:12:00.011-05:00

I would like to take a moment to recognize some of the great blog posts that Belina Blue Eyes gave to us during her one-post-per-day participation in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo). While the energy of her blog posts wained toward the end of November--NaBloPoMo coincided with the end of the college semester and, therefore, final assignments and tests--many of her posts were gems. Here are a few of those gems:

Halloween One Year Ago Check out Abby's Halloween Costume from 2007. Wow.
Favorite Places Tuesday To me, the top highlights of Abby's November blogging were the weekly "Favorite Places" posts. Plus, she posted a "Favorite Places" post on December 3rd, so hopefully we've not seen the last of this series.
Glossophobia, 52 Gajillion. Humans, 2 (Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama).
I Have Spread My Dreams Under Your Feet I think that more of us should go straight to our blogs right after we wake up in the morning, and put our weired dreams up on a post. Dreams can be so strange, and entertaining.
I Have Fought My Way Through Religion is good.
Birthday Girl
Favorite Places Tuesday...On Wednesday, An Addendum
Advice Upon The Week Ending What a poet, that Wordsworth. This poem is a gem.
Favorite Place Tuesday...On Wednesday
Favorite Places Tuesday...On a Tuesday! Abby and Brian took Martha and I to the Old World Deli in January. It is a one-of-a-kind restaurant.

From the Archives. . .

2008-12-04T22:44:00.005-05:00

Joseph at 3 weeks old. (He's about 5 1/2 months old now.)

Martha's First Post

2008-11-29T21:27:00.006-05:00

Chris has now given me permission to post on the blog.
He has always said I could but now it is official.
Being new to the blogging seen, not reading, just writing, I thought I would start small.
Here is a video of our son.

We have long days, Chris, Joe, and I, and like many of us, Joey gets silly at night.

It is a good way for us to end the day.

P.S. You may hear Mom (Kilpack) in the back ground; she was on the phone.

A Recent Picture of Joe

2008-11-28T08:16:00.007-05:00

Martha suggested to me that we take some new pictures of Joe. Above is Joe a few minutes after he woke up this morning.

Special thanks to Mike, Kaylynn, and their kids for the Mega Saucer.

Happy Thanksgiving and Martha and Joe Side by Side

2008-11-28T07:38:00.005-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Martha and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving at the Hollist home. Dan and Clarissa and Abigail were also there. Too bad for us that they are moving back to Utah this week. Good luck, Dan and Clarissa!

Also, can you see the resemblance between Martha and Joe? I can.

Really Good Enchiladas

2008-11-14T20:37:00.011-05:00

I would like to tell you about some enchiladas--delicious enchiladas--that Martha made.

Flour or corn tortillas
Rice
Black beans
Jalapenos
Green chilies
Cilantro
Enchilada sauce
Cheddar cheese

Place the stuff listed above inside tortillas, pour enchilada sauce and sprinkle some cheese on top of enchiladas, bake at 350 until cheese on top is thoroughly melted. Serve hot. Squeeze fresh limes over enchiladas and enjoy.

These enchiladas were excellent. We had butternut squash with them, which is probably non-traditional, but squash is in season here and the squash tonight--with a little bit of butter--was ridiculously tastey.

Joe and Chris Side By Side

2008-11-12T22:20:00.003-05:00

Homage to Myself

2008-11-12T15:14:00.004-05:00

While I'm on the topic of old photographs. . .

Happy Birthday to Abby

2008-11-11T18:31:00.007-05:00

Happy birthday to Abby, my sister, (blog name Belina Blue Eyes). She's the big 2-5.

Homage to Lee Spencer

2008-11-09T23:47:00.010-05:00

Belina Blue Eyes pointed out to me this video about a man who observes fish at a certain place on a stream. He protects the fish from people who place dynamite in the water.

The video was on my mind this afternoon, so I drew this picture:

Halloween 2008: Joe is a Math Professor

2008-11-02T14:32:00.006-05:00

For Halloween Joe was Professor Guzman. Martha and I were college students.

Lasers

2008-10-31T00:45:00.004-04:00

War is awful, but it motivates some amazing science. Here is an article from The Economist about laser technology the U.S. government is currently sponsoring.

25 Years of Cell Phones

2008-10-25T15:21:00.005-04:00

This blog entry at LDS Media Talk shows a picture of the cell phone that made the first commercial mobile phone call 25 years ago.

October 18, 2008 - Joe Rolls Over

2008-10-18T17:05:00.004-04:00

A Thought on Censorship

2008-10-17T00:43:00.011-04:00

The story of censorship in the Western world is a story of decentralization. Once, the authority to censor rested in a large lump with the politico-religious authority of the pope and the king. The Roman Catholic Church and European monarchs so thoroughly protected their cooperative hegemony that during the Middle Ages, those who wrote texts or spoke doctrines in opposition to the church were sought out, punished, and sometimes murdered. Martin Luther and the printing press intervened and publishers printed copies of the Bible in German and English, the languages of common people! Post-Guttenberg, the Church’s ability to censor was greatly diminished, and nationalism among Europeans largely replaced Catholic authority. What is the status of censorship today? What can we say then about censorship post-world wide web? Isn’t the ability to censor now dead and buried? I will argue that the answer is no: with the advent of instant world-wide publication by almost any individual, the power and authority to censor has shifted from a political and religious authority to the authority of the individual and to that of the household.

Attractive ideas, even without the catalyst of advanced publishing technology, can spread in spite of censorship. Such was the case with John Wycliffe. Some of his ideas ran contrary to those of the established Church. But his ideas resonated throughout Europe, even without the advantage of the printing press. The Church took issue. Wycliffe himself was able to die a natural death in 1384, but not before being kicked out of Oxford University, and after his death “a handful of openly defiant [Wycliffites] went to the fire” (Bobrick 73). Luther, of course, discerned some discrepancies between biblical doctrine and contemporary Church practices. By then (1517) Europe had the printing press, and that technology combined with Luther’s and William Tyndale’s persuasive ideas were too powerful even for the Holy Roman Empire to suppress—even though the Church did manage to also burn Tyndale at the stake (Bobrick 135).

Since then, publishing technology has marched even further on, and with computers and the internet, we have seen an increase in the power to publish. Any person with a computer and a connection to the internet can click a button and publish for anyone in the world who has the same technology. By the way, while the individualization of publishing and reading has dissolved politico-religious censorship in the western world, that is not to say that some political, religious, or economic philosophies in the West do not to some arguable degree continue to censor public education or dictate the agendas of a consumer culture. We might also keep in mind that in the East, China’s government actively censors even the internet. But for those in the West, it might seem that censorship is dead, but censorship is not dead; it has relocated.

This authority now lies with the individual and within individual families. Internet content (and television content) is so accessible that even children can see basically all the published text, images, and sounds available. Given the grand quantity and varying quality of published works, now individuals and families employ censorship authority to seek what they feel is the best content (Oaks).

Works Cited

Bobrick, Benson. Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Oaks, Dallin H. “Good, Better, Best.” Liahona. Nov. 2007. 104-8.

Dishwasher

2008-08-31T22:06:00.012-04:00

We've moved into our new home in Endwell. Being a homeowner is great because of the plethora of fun and rewarding projects. I recently assembled a book case and the instructions advised that assembly would be "fun and rewarding." Since then I have been mentally evaluating how rewarding and fun my home improvement projects actually are. It turns out that a lot of them are indeed fun, and a many are rewarding--but they are usually especially rewarding to Home Depot and Lowes who profit monetarily from my ventures.

I have to be careful, though. My spouse does not receive the same reward from these projects. Especially if I take up so much time in completing them that my wife, in taking care of our two-month-old, feels neglected.

The latest item on my radar is our dishwasher; many of the dishes and glasses placed therein come out dirtier rather than cleaner.

Orange Juice

2008-07-21T06:55:00.013-04:00

I love orange juice lately. I haven't been feeling the greatest recently because of seasonal allergies. But I'm telling you, there is something about orange juice that helps slightly ill people like me. Even if orange juice's "benefit" is partly a psychological placebo effect, it still has a real effect just because it tastes so good.

It seems like I might be susceptible to these kinds of remedies; as a child, I was miraculously healed by strawberries administered to me by my grandmother.

Lloyd and Mellanee Kilpack Visit Otego, New York

2008-07-11T14:39:00.016-04:00

On July 9, my dad and mom, Lloyd and Mellanee, arrived here in Otego to visit with Martha and me, and to meet Joseph, who is three weeks old today. Tomorrow night we'll be in Palmyra, New York to attend the Hill Cumorah Pageant.

Thank you to Travis and Vicki, Matt and Meghan, and Josh and Amy (who, I'm sure, all read this blog religiously) for the baby clothes, blankets, and the crib!

Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf Visits Aaronic Priesthood Restoration Site

2008-07-04T13:46:00.010-04:00

On June 28, 2008, Taylor and Suzanne Hollist (my wife's father and mother) lead Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on a tour of the Aaronic Priesthood restoration site in Oakland, Pennsylvania. The area was known as Harmony, Pennsylvania in 1829 when Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the Aaronic Priesthood from the resurrected John the Baptist. Kaylynn's blog has a post with photographs taken of that tour. Taylor is one of the experts on local Church history, and Oakland, Pennsylvania is a little more than an hour's drive from Oneonta, New York, where Taylor and Suzanne live.

A New Photograph of Joe

2008-06-25T20:22:00.007-04:00

Joseph Alan Kilpack, 5 days old. Photo taken on Wednesday, June 25, 2008.

Pictures of Joseph Alan Kilpack

2008-06-24T21:39:00.002-04:00