I’ve had a home page on Earthlink for quite a few years which gets almost no traffic. I last updated that web page about four years ago. It’s a very difficult web site to maintain. Everything has to be built in native HTML (the arcane language of web pages) and the web pages are then uploaded using File Transfer Protocol (FTP), another fairly arcane method. About the only thing useful on that Earthlink web page were some links to stories from my family history. This is information that others in my family might be interested in. So, I decided to also populate these stories on my website where they might get a bigger audience. The link is on the right side of the page.

I downloaded some Wiki software from pmwiki.org. Wiki’s are web pages that generally look like other web pages, but which can be edited by anyone who has the appropriate privileges. As these web pages are set up, anyone can read them. A password is needed to edit them. Anyone who wants can have the password (send me an email and I’ll send you the password). Also, if anyone wants to add new pages, they are also welcome to do so. Send me and email and I’ll send the password. Writing stuff on the Wiki is quite easy and doesn’t require any understanding of HTML!

Now that the few stories that I have are now on the wiki, I’ll think about how this should be organized. I think I want to add some of my own rememberances (some are fading!!), hopefully without embarrasing anyone too much. But, the current organization doesn’t lend itself to that activity. Suggestions are always welcome.

It’s Sunday afternoon — a bright, clear, and cold day. Yesterday was supposed to be our first major winter storm. I think it stormed in a few places around, but in reality it was pretty much a bust here in Pocatello. The morning started with rain and snow. Light rain continued for much of the day, but the promised snow never materialized. All of that is unfortunate because we were going to drive over to Green River, Wyoming, for a baptism. My sister-in-law’s granddaughter was being baptized in Rock Springs. The original plan was for mom and dad to ride over with us. First, mother came down with the flu and dad picked up a cold, so they had to cancel. Then the weather forecasters painted a major doom-and-gloom forecast. Saturday morning seemed to validate the forecast, but by mid-day it was clear the storm was not going to happen. A couple of places between here and Green River did indeed get quite a bit of snow, but that would not have been a problem. Sorry, Perry and Chris: We could have been there after all. Hindsight clearly says so. I hope that the ceremony went well and that your granddaughter had a nice day.

The other event of the weekend was our Stake Conference. This was a regional meeting this time. Each stake had their own Saturday meetings. This morning at 10 a.m. at 76 stake centers in southeastern Idaho we all joined in a regional meeting broadcast from Salt Lake City. Our speakers today included Elder Neil Anderson from the Presidency of the Seventy, Sister Bonnie Parkin, General Relief Society President, Elder Dallin Oaks from the Quorum of the Twelve, and President James Faust. It was a good meeting and the messages were very pertinent. Yesterday afternoon we had our Priesthood Leadership Meeting at 4 pm and the Adult Session at 7:00 pm. The evening meeting was particularly good — and it’s the only meeting that Nina could attend as she needed to be at the prison this morning during the general session.

So, I’m here at the computer, listening to some lovely Beethovan (Piano Concerto #5), writing in my blog, and thinking about how to organize some family history stories. Nina’s delivering some goodies to a recently-released inmate. The sun is shining and it’s a very nice day.