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Symantha sent a dozen or so stories, and I struggled with the the process of posted them. I suggested to her that she learn enough HTML coding to be able to post them herself, and (to my surprise) she agreed. She ended up posting them, and they are referenced in the start page to grandmasweb.com/tc. I am impressed...

Ameilia and I had a misunderstanding. Last Christmas, I suggested I would like a CD containing the Standard Works. I envisioned being able to convert the text into a Word document, which I could then search using the "find" feature of that program. This desire was based on the observation that search features appertaining to the web based scriptures were either not exhaustive or cumbersome to employ. What Ameilia heard was that I wanted the ability to listen to the scriptures using a portable audio device. The result was that this year she (and others--in conjunction with e-bay) procured for me an i-pod, on which she downloaded the entire Standard Works (available gratis from the church website [Jesus, The Christ is also available for download...]). Contrary to my first impression this is turning out to be a useful acquisition. I listen while en-route to and from work and while bicycling at lunch. My main difficulty is marking my place. I have to charge the i-pod every evening, and engaging the recharger resets the device to the main menu. Any suggestions?         I have listened to the Book of Mormon, and the New Testament twice (plus). Listening to Paul's letters (as opposed to reading them) has given me a different perspective on the problems that confronted him. The Jewish Christians continued to live the Law of Moses. (Acts 21:20 ...Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe: and they are all zealous of the law.) Paul's converts were mostly non-Jews (called Greeks or Gentiles), and they (after some relatively fierce contentions [see Acts Chapter 15]) were not required (or even encouraged) to live the Mosaic Law. This caused no end of contentions in the early church, and was a major reason Paul was prosecuted (particularly by Non-Christian Jews). In most of his letters, Paul talks about the works of the Law (of Moses) and how they fail to produce salvation, but salvation comes through faith in Christ. Some, in this latter-day, misconstrue this to imply that faith alone is sufficient. Listening to the complete work allows one to see how all these peices fit together.

Lately, I have experienced a few car problems. Once you establish that a vehicle is problem free, it is difficult to stop thinking of it in that way, but perhaps this is the beginning of the end. On the way to work one morning a couple of weeks ago, the heater blew only cold air. I added coolant to the radiator, and the problem subsided. Then last Friday, it resurfaced with a vengeance. In addition to the frigid blast of heater air, the temperature gauge indicated that the engine was overheating. I coasted down the hill, and pulled off at the San Manuel Junction. After popping the hood and adding some water to the radiator, I noted a substantial effluence from one of the two sections of the lower radiator hose. I made it to work by alternatively running the car up to the speed limit, and then turning off the engine and coasting to the point that traffic backed up behind me. At lunchtime, I visited the auto parts store across the street from my work, only to discover that they lacked a radiator hose having the proper bends. So, I purchased a length of straight hose (that kinked slightly when installed) and limped back to Oracle. Saturday, after procuring the proper hoses, I replaced both sections of the lower radiator hose. This necessitated removal of the battery and the platform on which it sat, the radiator fan and its support brackets, and one end of the upper radiator hose. This I accomplished in only 2.5 hours (much of which was spent searching for the proper tools [Who stold my 3/8" drive, metric sockets?]).

I have been looking at new vehicles with the idea that I will have to replace the Ford Geo in about 5 years with a car then that's about 5 years-old. As far as I can tell, there just isn't anything on the market that will match or exceede the mileage that I now get. The highest highway mileage (with the exception of hybrid cars [potentially a great idea, but not yet economically feasible]) is 38 mpg. Mine is rated at 42 mpg, a figure I usually exceed. When it comes to vehicles, I am obviously marching to the rhythm of a different drummer. For me, the bottom line is the bottom line, and all that babbling about styling is just verbiage used by advertisers to tout an inferior product. "The Heartbeat of America..." Bah!

Then I had another car problem. On the way home from work, I was stopped and had a nice little chat with our friendly local Arizona Highway Patrolman. Among other things we discussed were: the angles at which the sun reflects off the crack(s) in my windshield, and how the Arizona Revised Statutes frowns on any sort of reflection. The final outcome was a Repair Order, suggesting (actually, mandating) that I replace the glass with a similar piece that lacked fissures. Of course, I had to do this within five days. The Officer, upon learning that I lacked glass replacement on my vehicle's insurance, commented that when he added that protection to his insurance; it raised his premium by about $6.00 per month. An auto glass site on the internet suggested that the average vehicle needs its windshield replaced every seven years. If you do the math ($6 X 12 months X 7 years) that comes to slightly more than $500.00 I think I will stay with the "everything down and nothing a month" plan.

Even the friendly Officer agreed that I probably could not accomplish that task within the allotted time frame but, after a perusal of offers available on the internet, I made arraignments with a Gentleman who resides in the Phoenix area, speaks heavily accented English, and has a business that he refers to as "Mobile Windshield Replacement" to install a replacement for a paltry $150.00 The catch was that the mobile service only reached as far as Mesa. So, two hours before the pre-arranged time, I departed for Mesa. My comment to Barbara, as I left, was that I needed to enjoy sightseeing along the drive, because the probability of being successful of connecting with the man was small. (For the nth time, I again grumbeled to Barbara that this would be a REALLY good time for us to have a cell phone.) I hate it when my inconvenient prophecies come true!

I then asked Barbara to call six numbers out of the Tucson Yellow Pages, under the "Auto Glass" section. She had previously driven by a place called A&F Auto Glass and, so on late Monday afternoon, she made her second call to them. They quoted a "New" replacement windshield for the paltry sum of $130.00 That's a lot of money, but still less than the amount I was willing to drive to Mesa to secure one. (On Tuesday morning Ethan and Kyle came to stay with us.) So, on Wednesday morning, we visited my neurologist at 9:00. (I had taken the day off as a vacation day.) Then we drove Barbara to the VA for a dr's appointment; I then took the boys to Sabrina's for a lunch of their favorite macaroni and cheese; then went back to the VA, picked Barbara up and then we delivered my vehicle into the kind care of A&F Auto Glass. The job took longer than I anticipated, but I am happy to report that the Geo is again compliant with the Arizona Revised Statutes.

It went so well, in fact, that I arraigned to have a used windshield ($150.00 used, or $300.00 new [given that a windshield has no moving parts, I elected to go with the use item]) installed in Barbara's Saturn the following Saturday. Now, I no longer cringe when I drive past a law enforcement agent. I am even (Are you sitting down for this one?) considering having the same shop replace the cranking mechanism in the driver's side door of the Metro along with the door latch mechanism ($85.00 used or $130.00 new). Can you imagine, Me not having to open the back door to open the front? My only problem is getting time off from work to get the car to the shop. Barbara offered to take it in, but I don't like the thought of her having to sit in that South Tucson shop for 2-4 hours.

Apparently, one of AJ's storms got loose and covered Arizona with that nasty white stuff! Nathen reported 8 inches, and I guess Ameilia got so much that her phone lines are down (at least I haven't heard from her). Oracle received 4 inches (6 on the cars) and San Manuel even got a dusting. On my way down the hill to work, I encountered a snowplow working and two cars off the road. What wimps!

A snowplow for an inch of snow seemed a bit of an overkill to me, but I guess if you have cars off the road, it may have been needful. I have to admit that the snow is pretty (at least at first glance) but, in the future, I would appreciate it if AJ would keep his storms to himself...

I am feeling the urge to undertake another bicycle ride, but I'm having trouble choosing a destination. Perhaps it will be a short jaunt, maybe to Taylor or Woodruff. Or, perhaps, I will ride to Yuma and thence to the sea... Any suggestions? It is difficult to prepare physically for such a trip, because it is cold and dark in the mornings and I have not sufficient motivation to ride to work. Riding at lunch is an option, but commonly I have to work part of my lunch break. Since we have posted hours of operation for the lab, I feel I need to be back here at 1:00 to reopen, even if I only got 40 minutes. Then too, there has been some precipitation (surely not in the same league as NW Washington State) and again I lack sufficient motivation to ride in those conditions. Sigh, I don't remember it being this difficult when I was younger...

I have long known that you can't get something for nothing, but that doesn't keep me from trying... I read somewhere (the internet, it think) about a building material called, "paper-crete." It is similar to concrete, but made with paper pulp in place of cement. Recently, I played with the concept a bit. That is kind of the end of the story. In the beginning, I was hoping to make insulation out of paper pulp, and some weeks ago experimented with pulping waste paper. I stopped by the post office (at an hour when no one else was present to witness my theft [technically, empting a trash container isn't theft, but I didn't want anyone asking questions]), filled a couple of buckets, dumped them in my cement mixer, added water, and let it run.

Other than the fact that the process took a lot more water than I anticipated and the starting material contained a fair amount of plastic, it worked quite well. What didn't work well was the finished product. It took almost a month to dry, and then had a density much too great to function as insulation. I tried grinding the dried pulp (which turned out to be difficult), and produced a material that has potential, even though it creates a fair amount of dust. The problem is that it compacts with the slightest amount of weight. It was then, I thought of paper-crete. I pulped some discarded forms from work, and added a couple of shovels of sand/gravel (which by the way speeds up the pulping process considerable), then poured the final product into molds (the hollow space in a couple of blocks) I had lying around. I just guessed at the relative amounts sand and paper pulp, and need to give that question some more thought. I think the most important attribute is compressibility, but have yet to determine how best to test it. At this point, my fantasy is to double the length of the shed (not the rabbit house) using blocks (perhaps four feet long, eight inches wide, and six inches high) of this stuff as the building material. What do you think? Some people fantasize about hot cars. I think about cheap building materials...

Then, in my quest for the perfect free building material, I hit a bit of a snag. I went on the internet and read up on the subject of paper-crete, and learned that all the "professionals" use cement in the mixture. My trail block take two to three weeks to dry (depending on the number of snow storms we get), so I have been unable to reach any definitive conclusions from my own work, but given what little I can see, I suspect they may be correct. It appears that when there is enough paper to give the block good integrity, the block is spongy and liable to crush. When there is enough sand to prevent crushing the block tends to crumble. Perhaps cement is the answer. But that takes all the fun out of it. Anyone can pour cement blocks...

As we mentioned before, Ethan and Kyle stayed with us during the time that Terre was hospitalized from Tuesday through Saturday. It was kind of fun having rug rats underfoot again (even if they aren't as smart as my kids were [but don't tell Nathen that]).

Barbara enjoyed having them here, but she also was happy to see Nathen, Terre and baby Rachael come on Saturday to take them home. Children of that age seem to have an inordinate amount of energy. When you successfully channel it in a positive direction, things tend to go very well, but when you slack off just a bit, that energy finds another outlet. You forget just how much energy it takes just to think of things to keep them busy and then to follow thru.

There is a concept in chemistry called entropy. There are relatively simple mathematical formulas (though I didn't find them simple when I was in college) that describe and quantify entropy, but in general terms, it is a measurement of disorder. Increased entropy means less order. In any closed system, entropy is always increasing (which, if you consider it in depth, is a compelling argument for the existence God). Scientists even refer to entropy as, "time's arrow."

That short discussion was intended to give you the background to understand what I mean when I allege that children are the agents of entropy. Given five minutes alone in any room, and the entropy of that room increases sharply, sometimes by several orders of magnitude. Does that give you an insight into what the visit by Ethan and Kyle was like?

While they were here, I undertook more culinary experimentation. Barbara had previously bought some Tang. You remember the orange flavored drink? The young men liked it, and Barbara, after extolling its' virtues, left the can sitting out while I was cooking waffles.

So... I sprinkled it over the top of a waffle just prior to shutting the lid. The result was "interesting" and didn't taste half bad (if you can imagine a tart waffle).

Unfortunately, the Tang powder in direct contact with the top plate of the waffle maker scorched (for want of a better description). This in and of itself was not problematic, but subsequent waffles stuck to the top plate, and it took several washings and oilings before the waffle maker was again functional.

Next time, maybe I'll stir the Tang powder into the waffle batter before cooking. You think?

Recently I finished reading the Koran, the holy book of the Muslim world whose official religion is Islam. My motivation for reading this text was the thought that if I have a person (or group) who insists on being my enemy, it behooves me to understand their thinking and motivation. The Koran purports to be a compilation of revelations given to the Prophet Mohammed by the angel Gabriel in (or about) the year 610 A.D. The Arabic word Koran means: "The Recital" and reflects the fact that (in the absence of printing presses [not invented until circa 1429 A.D.]) things that were thought to be important were often committed to memory. This oral tradition is still practiced today where students in the Muslim world instead of studying chemistry and engineering, memorize scripture. As I read, I underlined and in a future posting on the internet (and probably with an abbreviated copy to you) I plan to compare and contrast the teachings of the Koran with those of the Bible and modern scripture. The similarities are striking, but then, so are the differences.

I have made a concerted effort to become conversant in internet related concepts, to the point of purchasing and reading text books on the subject as well as trying to eek out a living by designing web pages. Still, deep inside, I harbor the suspicion that anyone born prior to the invention of the transistor will never be completely comfortable functioning in cyberspace. That incredulity was strengthened over the last few weeks by my experience with the Churche's new genealogy tool, called FamilySearch. After establishing a user name and password by entering my membership number and confirmation date, I attempted to access my personal information. Ten days and thirty attempts later (including an unsuccessful one under the tutelage of Zora Bingham at the Ward's Family History Center), I finally realized that familysearch.org led to a different website than new.familysearch.org, and was finally successful. At that point, I noted that the order in which my children are listed was scrambled (though the birthdates are correct). I have encounter people who assure me that the order can be corrected, but I have yet to encounter anyone who actually knows how. I also noted that my mother's brother (Tom K. Allen) is listed as not being sealed to his parents, although they (Grandma and Grandpa Allen) were wed in the Salt Lake Temple, and Tom's seven older siblings are all listed as being BIC (Born In the Covenant). I was excited about this program because it was supposed to prevent problems like this. Perhaps it will in work done henceforth. I was, however, able to ascertain that the last of my direct line ancestors who converted to the church was Hannah Brinkerhoff, baptized 18 January 1878. That was over a hundred and thirty years ago. By comparison, my biological children's last direct line convert was Grandpa Cocks on 6 July 1957. That claim of mine sounds reminiscent of the Jews at the time of Christ saying, "We have Abraham as our father." At any rate, the reason I started rambling on about this subject was, because I set a goal of getting the templework for Grandpa Paul (Barbara's Father) completed. One Monday evening, Barbara and I sat down together and using the new.familysearch.org, attempted to complete the pre-temple steps. She and I differ widely in our approach to problem solving and (while we didn't actually come to blows) it will be awhile before my tongue recovers from being bitten (It really didn't take long.) Eventually, however, we were successful, and I was able to present to Brother Sherman the Family Ordinance Request--only to learn that the youth temple trip he was spearheading had been postponed. Arrgh! That was a mite frustrating, but stay tuned--I don't give up that easily.

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