1. Today was one of those milestone days. I finally finished building an antenna for my ham radio setup, connected everything up, and it actually works! My first contact was with a fellow in Idaho Falls who was also testing out a new antenna. The radio I have works on only one of the ham radio bands, the two-meter band (144 mhz to 148 mhz … for comparision, FM radio is in the 89 mhz to 107 mhz range, not too far away from the two-meter band). Signals on this band are line-of sight and don’t travel very far.
2. My ham radio license has arrived in the mail and I’ve gotten information in email that my application to get my original call sign back (K7OJL) is under review and should be issued soon.
3. One of the service opportunities for ham radio operators is to assist in community events. On the day after Thanksgiving Pocatello has a Christmas Parade of Lights. The amateur radio club provides logistics support for the event by helping get the parade staged and started. Hams using hand-held radios are stationed around the area where the parade is lined up, helping floats find their correct spot, people searching floats to find them, and any other logistical support as needed. I was there with my new (to me) handi-talki (as they are called) guarding a cross street. I had a lot of fun. After the parade got started, we all went to a local restaurant for food and conversation.
4. We spent Thanksgiving at our daughter Heather’s place in North Salt Lake. We drove down late Tuesday night and came back Thanksgiving Day afternoon. We had a delightful time and great food. Thanks, Heather, for your wonderful hospitality. Unless the weather turns horrible, we’ve decided to go out to Dawnmarie’s for Christmas. The Idaho Falls Temple is closed on Christmas Day and on New Years Day, both days we would normally be working. That gives us almost three weeks of time to travel.
5. I went down to Provo for a conference on November 18-19 having to do with some very interesting technology for inserting information into web pages. I had a great time catching up with many of the friends I’ve made over the past couple of years down in the Salt Lake – Provo area.
6. Every once in a while a seat opens up on the Pocatello Airport Commission. Whenever that happens, I’ve put in an application without much luck. A seat opened up in late October, so I not only put in an application, but enlisted the support of a couple of other people well known to the (now lame duck) mayor. I was appointed to the commission effective December 1st with the first meeting on December 2nd. It doesn’t pay anything, but should be a very interesting experience. The airport director is also president of my Rotary Club, so I’ve had the opportunity to talk a bit about the airport with him. He’s planning a big-deal Airport Appreciation Day this summer. I’m looking forward to being part of the planning for this event.
7. A member of our ward was hiking on the treacherous Angels Landing in Zion’s National Park yesterday and fell to her death. It’s quite a shock. Her husband is an excellent engineer at the company I used to work at, and was part of the motorcycle group that went riding on Thursday evenings. This is quite a shock.
8. The local liaison person for our Senator Risch was the guest speaker at our Rotary Club last week. He didn’t have much information, unfortunately, but then again I wasn’t surprised. Right now all the Republican contingency in the Senate can do is bemoan the health care bill without doing anything about it. I think everyone agrees that the current system is broken and cannot continue. There seems to be a consensus that what is currently proposed is not a fix but an expensive abomination. So, Senator Risch, start proposing alternatives.
9. In addition to completing my new antenna, today has been a day full of football. We’ve watched a number of rivalry games and seen some pretty spectacular football. One of the games was the traditional University of Utah vs BYU game. BYU won in overtime in a penalty riddled game. The sportscasters put it up to being a rivalry game. My opinion is a bit different. Rivalry is no excuse to play dirty football.
10. For the past decade or more the Pocatello Highland Stake has sponsored the annual Messiah Sing. It was held at the Highland Stake Center on the 2nd Sunday evening in December. This year the event is being moved to the new Performing Arts Center and will be co-sponsored by the music department at Idaho State University. I’m really looking forward to singing in that building! I’m certain that many more people will attend because the event will have more of an appearance of being non-denominational.
11. Between studying (and passing) the ham radio tests, the conference in Provo, working at the Temple every Friday, I feel like I’ve become pretty busy. The ham radio activity has been a lot of fun. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes. It’s not particularly inexpensive!
12. This blog has been neglected. Scheduled blog time is going to be reinstated.

1. We’ve gotten to know the road between our house and Soda Springs very well. We’re actually quite entertained by the road construction between McCammon and Lava and between Fish Creek Pass and Soda Springs. It’s interesting to see what has changed since we were through there last. Last usually means yesterday.
2. Life insurance companies definitely aren’t interested in talking to you. I’m sure it’s because they will have to pay out money. In every case they send a claim form in the mail, which we should receive in seven to ten business days. After verifying the claim, they’ll make a payout in six to eight weeks.
3. Of all the agencies and companies I’ve talked with in the last several days, the most helpful, courteous, and quick was the Veterans Administration. They had the shortest wait time before answering the phone, and were very quick and efficient. Kudos to the VA!
4. Social Security was an interesting phone call. I was put on hold six times during the conversation so the guy on the other end could enter some information in the computer. While on hold, music would play for about ten seconds followed by an announcement that they’re sorry I’m having to wait so long, but stay on the line and I’ll surely get helped. However, maybe I could do whatever it was I was doing using the internet. Then ten seconds or so of music and a repeat of the announcement. Each of the holds was fairly long, six to ten minutes, and it didn’t seem like it should take the guy that long to do something. I got very tired very quickly of the announcement.
5. A Power of Attorney isn’t much help if it doesn’t have language that provides for survivor rights. Otherwise, the power of attorney becomes immediately null and void when the principle dies. The lawyer in town is doing up some new power of attorney forms for mother on an emergency basis. We need them right now.
6. Funerals, particularly those for people who have lived long, good lives, are great family reunions as well. It looks like sixty or seventy relatives will show up for the funeral and burial on Saturday.
7. Dad’s absolute favorite beverage was Caffeine Free Diet Coke (and his most disliked beverage was plain old water). Mother, being the frugal and prepared person she is, has six cases of Caffeine Free Diet Coke in the hallway. No one else there drinks the stuff (who wants water that has been artificially carbonated and then laced with chemicals to make it taste sweet with a Coca Cola flavor?). The suggestion on the table is to take it down to the nursing home so they can have a party….
8. It’s impossible, I think, to write an obituary that is absolutely correct. Errors of omission are much more difficult to spot than mistakes in what is written. I got a phone call from someone in Blackfoot, Idaho this morning. Dad’s obituary was printed in today’s Idaho State Journal where that person had read it. They called with condolences and to point out two errors of omission. The obituary is posted in this blog … but I’ve already corrected it so you’ll not know what I left out.
9. My sister Eileen suggests that proof reading has to be done by the most obnoxious person associated with whatever is being printed. They’ll be sure to ridicule every mistake. On the other hand, close friends / relatives don’t make good proof readers. They assume I know what I’m doing.
10. Nina and I have been called as Ordinance Workers at the Idaho Falls Temple. On Friday mornings, starting tomorrow, we need to be in the Temple, dressed in our white clothes, and in the chapel ready for prayer meeting at 5:00 a.m. That means getting up at 3 a.m. and driving away from the house at 3:45 a.m. I’m not looking forward to the early mornings, but I am really looking forward to working in the Temple once again.

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2. The road between McCammon and Soda Springs has some major construction going on. Between McCammon and the Iron Bridge is a very complex set of road construction that’s somewhat difficult to figure out how the whole thing will look when it’s finished. From the bottom of the Fish Creek hill to the Grace intersection is also under construction. Both of those pieces will add a significant amount of four-lane road. It’ll be nice when finished. My only question is whether or not Bannock County will find that there’s enough four-lane road between McCammon and Lava Hot Springs to raise the speed limit from 55 to 65.
3. I continue to be very impressed with the care and attention that dad’s getting in the nursing home in Soda Springs. There are currently 29 residents in the nursing home, down nine from December. Dad is no longer responsive and cannot help himself or them, but in spite of that, I think the caring attention he receives is amazing. There are some real angels on that staff.
4. Usually around here by June everything has turned brown and somewhat ugly. We’ve had enough rain though that the hills are just starting to turn. It has been a beautiful summer this year.
5. After we got home from the Big Trip East, I needed to move the motor home out of it’s parking spot. I went to retract the slideout, it moved in a couple of inches and stopped. Checking underneath where the mechanism is, the motor was turning but a necessary gear wasn’t being engaged. It wasn’t immediately clear to me how to disassemble, so my choices were to go online to see if I could find information, or take it in to be fixed. Nina agreed with me that having someone fix it would probably be a better option. Last summer an excellent trailer and camping supply store, along with a repair facility, opened in town, State Trailer Supply. I called them last Saturday morning and they said they could take the motor home on Monday, but that it might be better if I drove it over that morning when there wasn’t as much traffic. Good idea. They called Monday afternoon. A pin had sheared. It was replaced and the total bill was about $40. Wahoo!
6. We spent the afternoon in Soda Springs, a short visit at the nursing home and a longer visit with mother. She needs and wants the support much more than dad does, now. I think dad has had his last conversation with any of us.
7. In the picture above (click on the picture for more info), there are green eggs. Today I learned that there is a breed of chickens that lays green or bluish green eggs: Aracuana.
8. Ten things on Tuesday hasn’t been working out. I’m changing the name to Ten Things for Today and hopefully at least once a week I’ll get something written along these lines.
9. Over the past three months I’ve been keeping track of and categorizing my email. I get almost all my family and friend news today on Facebook and on Twitter. My source of national and international news is almost exclusively Twitter where the BBC, CNN, and a couple of local TV stations post a brief tweet with a link to the longer and more detailed information. That’s caused me to think about what email is good for today. It turns out, not much. It’s getting so that I may check email once or twice a day whereas I check Facebook and Twitter much more often than that. While email is probably still the most important news and information source within a corporation, I expect that will change quickly to social networking as well, much as companies try to keep it out.
10. Finally, thanks to my sister Eileen for all her work getting Aunt Marj’s estate settled. It looks like everything will be done by August 20th. The estate isn’t large, but it was somewhat complicated. Funeral homes are never easy to deal with (they know they’ve got you captive) and the mortuary in Tooele has been no worse (and no better) than others. Perhaps in September we can get the gravestone ordered and that should just about wrap things up.

1. I really dislike colds.  This one has hung around for what seems like a very long time … eleven days so far … with no signs of abating. However, yesterday after the funeral (which I conducted amid occasional coughing episodes and lots of nose blowing), someone commented that no one would really know I had a cold. They’d just think I was emotional about Aunt Marj’s passing.
2. My daughter Heather wrote an outstanding blog entry about her husband’s funeral plans along with a picture of Aunt Marj that is more like her than any other I’ve seen. Thanks, Heather!
3. I lived in Tooele, Utah for a little less than a year from the fall of 1951 until the summer of 1952. Grandfather Gillett’s third wife (and older sister of his second wife) had a debilitating stroke and we lived with grandfather so mother could help take care of her. She died in May, 1952. In late summer 1952 we moved to Soda Springs as dad had taken a position teaching English at Soda Springs High School. During my growing up years we went often to visit grandfather Gillett and other relatives in Tooele. All of my remembrances of Tooele (pronounced two – ill – uh) are that it was always hot and dry down there. It still is hot and dry! I think I recognized two buildings in downtown Tooele…. Not much has remained the same in that town.
4. I attended the first grade in Tooele (the school has been replaced with a much more modern facility). My first grade teacher was my Aunt June. I’d often get mixed up about when to call her Aunt June and when to call her Mrs. Gillette.
5. We had a delightful visit on Saturday from my cousin Merrill Gillette and his wife Jean. They returned in January from a mission in South Dakota and were going to the homecoming of their mission president in Blackfoot. They came Saturday around noon and spent the night before going on to Blackfoot on Sunday morning. I think this is the first time we’ve spent any significant time with them and found they’re just delightful people. We want to do it again!
6. The list of things needing fixed on our motor home is rather lengthy and most of them will be complex. Time to get feeling better so I can get them done. We’ll be wanting to go camping again Real Soon Now.
7. I’ve been building up a desktop computer I’ve got here at home, converting it from Ubuntu to Windows XP so I can give it to a relative who really needs a computer. Why does this have to be so hard? Finding the drivers needed to make the computer work is very complicated, particularly the ones needed to connect to the Internet! There’s something wrong with this process.
8. Funerals for people who have lived a long and good life are more like family reunions than a funeral. Aunt Marj’s funeral fell into that category. I really enjoyed meeting again some people who I’ve not seen for many, many years. “Now, who are you?” was a common question at the viewings on Sunday evening and Monday morning. In addition, the Gillette Family Reunion which normally happens the second weekend in August on odd numbered years was generally planned during the various funeral events. Since Aunt Marj was one of the driving forces behind the Gillette Family Reunions, she was probably morbidly pleased by the planning that went on. The odd year reunion has been held in Hanna, Utah for the past couple of decades, I think. We’ve been once. We probably should go this year.
9. On the even years, the family holds what is called a “cousins reunion” which is held at a park in Bountiful, Utah on the second Saturday afternoon. It’s mostly attended by my generation as all we do is some potluck food and sit around and visit. The kids don’t particularly enjoy it as there’s nothing for them to do.
10. Forty years ago the first moon landing occurred. That was one exciting night, glued to the TV and being mesmerized by the TV broadcast from the moon. Forty years later we’ll still asking, “What’s next?” and aren’t getting any good answers.

Inspired by daughter-in-law LeeAnn (each picture is a link). All these pictures were taken with my iPhone:

1. Tuesday we drove across the eastern half of Nebraska, all of Iowa and Illinois, and a third of the way across Indiana on Interstate 80. We collapsed into bed in a campground near Elkhart, Indiana. No ambition to write the Triple-T. Wednesday we finished up Indiana, drove across Ohio, thru Erie, Pennsylvania, and into a campground in Farmington, New York. Well, excuses abound, but the fact of the matter is, this is the first real opportunity to actually sit for a few minutes at my computer since we left Pocatello on Sunday.
2. Rain seems to be our constant companion. It had been raining for about ten days in Pocatello prior to our leaving on Sunday afternoon. Since then we’ve had only a few hours without any rain. I think we’ve been moving east with the same storm! On Thursday Nina and I decided that we’d had enough of rain dominating our life. While we couldn’t stop the rain, we could change our attitude about it. It isn’t cold rain, it’s not really stopping us from doing anything. That was a significant change in my outlook for sure.
3. We spent Sunday evening camped in my favorite brother’s driveway. We left home at 2:06 p.m. and arrived in Green River about 6:30 p.m. They were waiting for us and we had a great visit and a nice dinner. We toured their new house (a very nice place, it’s going to be!), and talked and visited some more. We always have a fun time with my brother and his wife Chris. Hopefully it’ll work out for us to stop there on the way back home. We haven’t settled on the route back home yet as there are still too many unknowns about what we’ll be doing in Connecticut and where. Our goal is to be home by Saturday, July 4th.
4. With all the rain, the countryside through Wyoming, Nebraska, and on eastward was very green and lush. By this time of the year Wyoming is usually pretty barren. It was nice to see all the green as we drove across the state. I’m sure that means a possibly bad fire season later on when all the lush grown turns into dry tinder. It’s interesting to me how when things get out of balance that bad things are the usual consequence. Too much rain … bad fire season. Not enough rain … bad growing season.
5. We spent much of Thursday in the area around Palmyra, New York. We met our daughter Dawnmarie and her husband Kirk  on Wednesday night when we arrived and spent the next day with them. We started the day at the Palmyra Temple on the 9 a.m. endowment session. What a beautiful temple! The windows and motif all remind us of the Sacred Grove where Joseph Smith learned from our Heavenly Father and the Savior what course his life was to take. His life was changed and ours has been as well.
6. After the Temple we visited a couple of the Church historical sites in the area, ending up at the restored E. B. Grandin press and book store in Palmyra where the Book of Mormon was first printed. The Church always does a first-class restoration job and the Grandin store is no exception. They built a big visitor’s center enclosing three sides of the building, keeping the street front of the building unchanged from its original. That was an impressing tour and very informative.
7. From Palmyra we followed Dawnmarie and Kirk back to their home in New Wilmington, PA. We’re parked in their driveway. Three grandchildren will probably be sleeping with us in the motor home tonight. Kirk’s parents are here also. Boyd and Jo are really fun people and we enjoy spending time with them. They’ve been down to see us in Pocatello and we’ve been up to their place in Montana. They’ll be here until Tuesday, so Dawnmarie’s house is rather busy.
8. Tomorrow is the Big Reason for the Big Trip East. Dawnmarie and Kirk’s daughter Kate is being baptized tomorrow afternoon. She was born on Dawnmarie’s birthday. The day she was born was Father’s Day eight years ago. The day that Dawnmarie was born (in Tachikawa, Japan)  was Father’s Day. Our oldest two daughters were “made in Japan”.
9. Gasoline prices have been generally in the mid-upper $2 range. That’s a dollar less on the average than the gas prices when we went out for Daryl’s wedding last October. The most expensive gasoline is still ahead of us. The prices in Connecticut are rumored to be outrageous.
10. When we stopped at the campground in Elkhart, Indiana, it turned out to be the same campground we stayed in a few years ago … and probably in the exact same spot (or else next to the exact same spot). The last time we were there a huge thunderstorm came through and we were worried about tornadoes. While it rained the entire night we were at that campground this time, there was no worry about thunderstorms.
11. Driving Interstate 80 through the southern part of Chicago in a massive rain storm is a very nerve wracking. The visibility seemed to be about 10 feet. So much spray was coming up off the road that the rear view mirrors were almost unusable. I’m sure the locals were cursing the out-of-state motor home driving under the speed limit!
12. As we were entering the Indiana Turnpike to get the toll ticket, the car ahead of us had a couple of women who were completely clueless and very confused. One of them kept trying to feed money into the place where the ticket comes out. They stopped far enough away from the machine that dispensed the ticket that the ticket came out the high output point (the one for tall trucks) rather than the lower output port. It turned out they were going to Michigan and were certainly going the wrong direction. Eventually Nina convinced them to take the ticket, go to the next exit where there would be a person, and ask for directions. A couple of minutes later we passed them … driving about 30 miles an hour on the turnpike, still confused about what to do and where to go.
13. Palmyra has the distinction of having a main intersection with a different denomination church on each corner. Those same denominations were in the same location in the 1820’s when Joseph Smith was there. I’m not sure if the big steepled church buildings that now grace this intersection were there back then. Unfortunately, without being in an airborne vehicle, there’s no way to get a picture that takes in the entire intersection.
14. I think it’s been thirty years or so since we were last in Palmyra and at the Sacred Grove. Nothing was recognizable, and understandably so since the Church has moved the road! I’m thinking that’s not particularly an inexpensive proposition to move a road as part of a restoration project.
15. The Palmyra Temple has the unique distinction of being the only Temple with a clear glass picture window inside the building. The window was put in at the request of President Hinckley to overlook the Sacred Grove. The Church negotiated with the city to cut down some nearby trees to provide a better view. Now from the pathway into the Sacred Grove there is a place where you can see the Temple.
16. I’ve really enjoyed having a “down” day today. I slept in late and have not had to do much today. It’s a nice interlude as the next couple of days will be very busy, once again.
17. From here we’re headed further east to a campground near Hammonasset State Park in Connecticut. The big question is whether or not the weather will allow for swimming!

And I’m finished.