As we do on most Friday’s, Nina and I were at the Idaho Falls Temple bright and early. We left the house at 4:45 am with our oldest son James and his wife LeeAnn following. They wanted to do a session and decided to attend the first session of the day.

We had lunch at the Temple after our shift ended and came back home. Nina wanted to go onto the reservation where the old washing machines were along side of the road. Jim said that his camera hadn’t taken him on a drive for a long time, so we piled into the car and went to the reservation. The place where the washing machines are was easily found, but well occupied with people trimming trees and such. We’ll go back on another day.

I also had two meetings for the Pocatello 50 ultra marathon. The race organizers had a meeting at the start/finish line with everyone who could be there who was participating in the race at 5 pm. That was a pretty interesting briefing. The race organizers emphasized a couple of times that this was a hard race. I remarked that it was “going to be fun to watch them run!” These are some crazy people…

Then at 8 pm we had a meeting for the folks who will be manning the ham radio stations for the race. It’s not possible, because of the terrain, for all of the aid stations to be able to talk to each other without the assistance of repeaters and we discussed in detail how this system would be working. Jim and I will be working at the City Creek aid station, which is about 1/3 of the way into the race. The race starts at 6:00 am sharp and we’ll need to be in place by about 7:30 am. It should be a LOT of fun!

TTFN!

On Thursdays Nina holds a craft class at the women’s prison from 1 pm to 3 pm each week. She took our daughter-in-law LeeAnn (our oldest son Jim’s wife) with her, so I took Jim and his three kids over to Soda Springs.

The most important project was to get the flag up on mother’s flag pole so she could fly her flag. We had enough muscle to pull the flag pole out, lay it down, string the new rope, and put the pole back in it’s hole. The flag is now proudly flying. Mother clapped her hands in delight when we ran the flag up the pole.

It’s a pretty tall flag pole, actually. Getting the flag as well as the people all into the picture wasn’t easy. I took the picture from a neighbor’s yard!

We had a nice weather day … but the forecast for Saturday looks dismal. That’s the day the Pocatello 50 ultra marathon will be run in the mountains west and south of Pocatello.

I spent the evening visiting with a couple of Ward members in the Ward that I’m assigned as a High Councilor. Once a year members of the Stake leadership team up with members of the Ward leadership to go visit families in the Ward. I was partnered with the Bishop of the Ward and we visited an elderly gentleman and a younger single mother. The elderly gentleman had some skin cancer removed a few days earlier and was complaining that at 88 years of age, he wasn’t bouncing back as fast as he has before. Two days ago he was only able to play 9 holes of golf, the next day 12 holes, and this morning 9 holes before they got rained out.

TTFN!

The election results are in and the incumbent Assessor lost the primary election. She was rather soundly defeated by a former employee whom she defeated in 2006. Persistence pays off, I guess. This is one of the races that’ll be further contested in November as there is a well-qualified Republican also standing for election.

Today was the start of a six-week weight management program being put on by the Veterans Administration. It consists of a weekly weigh-in and a discussion of various aspects of weight management. I get to keep a food diary … perhaps starting later this week. There’s too much good food to be had with family visiting!

Oldest son James along with his delightful spouse and three outstanding children arrived this afternoon for a few days. It’ll be busy as we’re going to pack in a whole bunch of things in the three days we’ve got available. His oldest sons turn 14 later this week and we’ll go to a big birthday bash in Logan on Sunday at their other grandparent’s home. They turn 14 and will be ordained Teachers in the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday.

TTFN!

Primary elections today included two contested races, one on the Democratic ticket and one on the Republican ticket. I generally vote Republican, and today was no exception.

It was a busy day. We went home teaching to our two families and had very nice visits with them. In one case they’ve been doing some remodeling and expansion on their home. The results are quite stunning. She has an incredible eye for color and decor.

The day also included my weekly Rotary Club meeting. The program I had arranged was by a fellow I had been associated with at AMI Semiconductor who now works for an investment consulting firm here in Pocatello. He’s also the president of ValleyPride, a local organization working to improve the look and usability of the town. I didn’t know much about the group and came away from the meeting very impressed with their work to beautify our city.

TTFN!

I got a letter from the Pocatello Mayor’s office a couple of days ago informing me that I didn’t make the “short list” for consideration to be appointed to City Council. I was one of 26 applicants. I’m satisfied with the short-listed folks and pleased about several who were not on the short list. That all bodes well for the City Council. I’m not well enough known in town to be able to compete with some of the folks that are on the short list. The final selection will be presented to the City Council for ratification on June 17th.

The website I’ve been struggling with took a major step forward today. I met with the client and showed him the issues with proceeding the way we were headed. We had a great discussion … that is, a discussion that resulted in a very good alternative that will be much simpler to implement and accomplish the same goal. I did some testing this afternoon and verified that the new approach will work. That was a big relief!

I posted a picture the other day of a car with a couple of canoes on the top along with other stuff atop the canoe. I saw the same car today in a parking lot and stopped to get some more pictures. They’re along the left side of this blog entry. Click on the pictures for some more detail and then click again for a full-sized view.

Mother had an appointment with an allergist here in Pocatello. We’d prefer that she not drive herself over here and back (we’d be devastated if something happened while she was driving and we could have driven her ourselves). So, Nina went over to Soda Springs and brought her in to see the doctor. Afterwards they had lunch together and did some shopping which resulted in a fun afternoon for

the two of them. Afterwards I drove mother back to Soda Springs so Nina could get some other things done here at the house … which resulted in a blog post and picture of one of the birds frequenting her bird feeders on the back deck.

Our weather continues to be more like winter than spring. Driving over and back to Soda Springs, not only did I safely get through two speed traps, but drove through two hail storms on the way over and two more on the way back. These were pretty intense storms for the few minutes it took to drive through them.

Two years ago today Nina and I were driving across Idaho to Boise for a Big Event where my cousin Cheryl was to be sealed to her husband and family. On the way I learned by way of Twitter that a Utah friend had taken his 2-year-old daughter to the emergency room, that she was transported to Primary Children’s Hospital, and there diagnosed with leukemia. The prognosis at the time was grim. We were literally glued to the iPhone and Twitter updates as we made our way across the Interstate. It’s nice to be able to report two years later that she’s doing well, is in remission, and growing up to be quite the young lady. I still love Twitter!

Finally, I simply don’t understand the big hubbub over Arizona’s new law to codify into state law what is the Federal Law of the Land (but not being enforced). I applaud their efforts to curb illegal immigrants and hope that other states will follow to make up for a Federal Government doing worse than ignoring Federal Law by condoning illegal immigration.

I have Church meetings usually starting about 7 am on Sunday mornings going until late afternoon, depending which Sunday of the month it is. Consequently, I usually don’t have the opportunity or the inclination to be involved in the digital world until after all my meetings and commitments are done.

There is an exception, however. I fairly often have the opportunity to substitute for a teacher in a Sunday School class in the Ward that I’m assigned to as a High Councilor. I really enjoy spending some time with these teenagers and getting to know them a little bit better. So, usually sometime during the week I read the upcoming Sunday School lesson and think through how I would present it. Then, if the opportunity arises, I can use my iPhone to call up the lesson manual for use in the classroom.

Today I had the opportunity to substitute for the 14-15 year old class. Normally there are 5 students in the class but today there were only 3. They were fun, attentive, and engaged with the material. I think they may have even gone away knowing a couple of things they didn’t know before and feeling good about that. The lesson material was about Joshua becoming the Israelite leader, the charge to be of good courage, and how he and the people of Israel responded. I think I also picked up some new insight as well.

TTFN!

The Pocatello 50 super marathon is on the 29th of May and the local ham radio operators are going to provide the communication services for the race. The race is considered the hardest mountain super marathon in the United States and teams from all across the country come to run the race. This year two teams from Japan have entered the race. It’s 51.8 miles long with several big climbs of 1,500 feet or more along the course.

Several of the aid stations are located where there is no cell phone coverage and most of the course has no cell phone coverage at all. Consequently, communications are an issue. The local ham radio emergency services club has volunteered to provide communications from the aid stations to the start / finish line.

The Saturday before the race was the day to check out the communications for all but one of the aid stations. The idea was to verify that we can reliably get a signal into the start / finish line from each of the aid stations. The radio communications are intended to be able to get help should a runner have an emergency as well as to communicate runner status and times information.

There race will start with 150 runners. Not all of them will be able to finish the race. As each runner comes into one of the six aid stations, they are logged into the station. Food, water, places to rest, and some first aid are available at the station for the runners. The runner is then logged out of the station when they leave to proceed to the next station. We will transmit back to the start / finish line the runner identification and the time leaving the aid station as well as the runner identification for any runners who have decided not to continue on the course. The race starts at 6 am and the last runners will be coming across the finish line about 10:30 pm. That’s a pretty long day! Some runners will finish the race in the mid-afternoon, around 2:30 pm or so.

The motto of the amateur radio emergency services is that when all else fails, amateur radio gets through. So, we spent the morning under quite stormy conditions checking out the primary communications plan (Plan A) as well as Plan B and Plan C. All three plans worked well during our testing. The proof will be next Saturday when we will be actually doing the job.

One of the aid stations is located in a very remote area and the trails into that station haven’t been opened yet by the Forest Service. That should happen sometime this week for at least foot traffic. That aid station is literally down in a ravine with steep canyon walls on either side. Radio traffic out of there requires a relay to be setup on top of a nearby knoll. Hopefully the radio relay will work well. Otherwise the relay will have to be a human relay … receive the message, write it down, and then send it along to the start / finish line.

I’m really looking forward to working this race. It should be a lot of fun and we’ll learn a lot about handling message traffic and communicating out of difficult circumstances. Besides that, Number One Son James will be here to be my assistant … and perhaps to get some good pictures of the operation.

As usual, click on the pictures to get information about each photo. Then click on the picture again to get a full-sized view.

TTFN!

My entire afternoon was spent working on some modifications for a website. The work isn’t going very well at all. I’m also certain that the outcome isn’t going to be what the client is looking for. Time to meet again with him and show what the issues are.

We had a fairly busy day at the Idaho Falls Temple Friday morning. The Temple attendance seems to vary with the weather … the worse the weather (within reason), the better the attendance. It’s been quite cold with lots of rain and snow showers the past few days. The gardens at the Temple are very pretty with hundreds of tulips in full bloom. And the attendance has been up as well. For the past several weeks after our shift has ended (usually about 11:45 am) we’ve gone to the cafeteria to get lunch before driving home. I rather like the practice. I eat breakfast around 4:15 am and by 11:45 I’m ready to eat! The cafeteria at the Idaho Falls Temple is pretty good and we usually come away from there having eaten our fill (and perhaps a bit more).

TTFN!