13 September 2026

 13 September 2026

Hello Isaac,

Just to get you up to date: The Red Herring keeps sinking into a deeper hole.

We got it back from Kevin last week with instructions to get a wheel alignment done so he could continue working on it. Seemed sensible enough. Having the wheels aligned would help him know what parts were questionable.

I took it to Bybee’s Wheel Alignment on Friday, and they reported that the rear upper control arms were so worn out it wouldn’t hold an alignment. So I drove it straight back out to Kevin’s. He hadn’t mentioned the rear upper control arms in his list of items that needed fixing. When Mom talked to him later, he sheepishly admitted he was concerned enough with the front that he hadn’t even looked at the rear components. So he’ll get all of that stuff fixed and back to us, hopefully by the end of the week. We’ll see how much that is going to cost us, but it still seems worthwhile to fix it all, rather than try to replace the car with something that would have other problems that need fixing.

I did find a nifty Nash Metropolitan on Facebook Marketplace for only $12,000, though:

The photo pretty much shows the car as actual size. I imagine it would be a lot of fun to try to fold myself into this thing every morning, but wouldn’t it be a lot of fun to drive around until you had to repair it and can’t get the parts anymore. That’s the kind of car you have to buy two or three of so you have one that’s working and two others you can cannibalize for parts.

Mom taught her first Sunday School lesson today on the short schedule, and ended right on the dot, prayer included. She was pretty happy about that. I get to try to do the same thing next, week, but with the first 12 chapters of Isaiah. We both think we should just spend the next few weeks sharing highlights from Handels’ Messiah which, of course, uses Isaiah as inspiration. I’ll have to remember that as I prepare my first short lesson. Handel saw a lot of inspiration in Isaiah, so I should try to do the same.

We hope you and Elder Pixton are getting along and working hard. I remember my trainer, Elder Smith. He worked me like a dog. I remember we got a challenge from our mission president that we should just keep contacting and contacting and contacting until we could give away one Book of Mormon (France was a challenging place to be a missionary). As I recall, we worked hard for more than a month, skipping lunches and working as early and as late as we could, before we gave away one book. I remember being pretty dog tired and a little discouraged during that time, but I also look back on it as probably the most productive time I spent on my mission. We tried that trick with later companionships, and though we never really saw much “success,” we did plant a lot of seeds. I hope someday to find out one of the seeds I planted helped a missionary further down the line see the kind of success we were hoping for.

If, for some reason, you’re missing home, I’ll fill you in on the excitement so Arizona seems a lot better by comparison. This weekend, I accomplished five things:

1. Fixed the step in the garage. The particle board was starting to cave in, to the point even your sister noticed it when she stepped on it. I replaced it with some redwood I had left over from the back porch project.

2. Drained the fresh water from the camper. Now it won’t freeze come winter.

3. Stripped, sanded, and repainted the trim around the back door.

4. Took some junk to the dump.

5. Got a haircut.

I know. I am a wild and crazy man.

We look forward to hearing from you, and hearing your missionary stories.

We love you.

Love, Dad

A Constellation of Honey-Dos

This weekend, five items fell off the list:

1. Repair step in the garage.

This is the after picture. I always forget the before. But this step had a 40-year-old bit of particle board as a tread, and for the past few weeks it's been caving in. Finally replaced it when our daughter, a small person, said she was afeared it was going to collapse under her nonexistent weight.

So I fixed it, but not necessarily how I wanted to. Two of the boards are redwood, while the third is pressure treated lumber. I wanted to use wood I had rather than buying any more. So I had to do it this way. I may eventually replace the pressure treated lumber later, but not now.

2. Hazardous waste, gone.

Not that we had a lot, but it is nice to have that Body Armor bottle with about an ounce of bad gas in it off my shelf, along with an AC recharge bottle and a massive lithium battery from the camper.

3. Back door trim stripped and repainted.

Again, no before picture. But now the trim has two coats of primer, ready for the finish coat. I also replaced the threshold between the stairs and the house. That needs to be stained.

4. Camper fresh water drained 

A simple task, but one that does take time as the tank was nearly full and took a long time to drain.

5. Haircut.

Which I had not have done since May. So very needed. I had to go to a barber since I couldn't talk Liam into shaving my head. Would have been cheaper and lasted longer. Alas . . .

Remember September 12th

Remember September . . . 12th.

I remember people helping people.

I remember friends checking on friends, family checking on family.

I remember messages of hope and courage and resolve from politicians and pundits and ordinary people.

I remember people putting differences aside to unite in  prayer to whatever deity they deemed appropriate.

The messages didn't ring hollow. They were not filled with backhanded snipes, exclusionary talk, me-better-than-youing.

September 12, 2001, was much closer to tragedy.

Today, we are much closer to the ugliness that causes tragedy.

A Definite Weirdity

 

So a day or two ago, blogging along as I do, I was unable to upload photos to a post.

I eventually figured out a workaround -- I had to upload the photo into Google Photos in order for it to appear. I couldn't load it directly from my desktop.

That got me to thinking that since both Google Photos and this blogging platform are Google products, that they were forcing us to us Google Photos for photo uploads.

That theory was shattered today as I posted this and uploaded this photo directly from my desktop. But maybe it's already in Google Photos.

I just know there are strange happenings at the Circle K.

Nichification Proceeds Apace

I recently joined, and then left, a Facebook group touting the Scholastic books I used to read and enjoy and occasionally buy in elementary school.

Those of the Gen X vintage likely remember this -- getting a book pamphlet; some called it a catalog but that's a bit grandiose -- and trying mightily to convince your parents to part with a few bucks to buy some books. I recall buying a few. I still have at least this one:

Seeing some of the covers of books I read as a kid, remembering I have some of them on my shelf, and seeing a few I remembered passing over time and again was fun.

But the group was, well, a bit anal.

If someone posted a vintage book but it wasn't of a specific Scholastic era, the posts were removed. Someone made a post about Newberry Award winning books, and it was taken down as it was only distantly-related to the specific Scholastic books the page was dedicated to.

There were some fun discussions. A lot of potential to discuss books we enjoyed. But it all came with a rind of prissiness.

I guess I can see the reasoning -- open up too much discussion, not limited to these specific Scholastic books, and you'd lose the flavor of that specific niche. Maybe you'd have a fun page that a lot more people would like to visit and share and enjoy, but the message would be muddled, and in this day and age we can't have that, apparently.

So I left them to their niche. I can babble about books on my own. But it's a shame to see that political balkanization get into books, no matter the reason.

San Tan Valley

We heard from Isaac this morning!

He did indeed make it to Gilbert, or at least San Tan Valley, his first mission area.

First thing he did in the field was get sick. I remember something similar happening to me when I landed in France -- just the change in climate can bring things on, and of course he was at the MTC with a huge crowd of missionaries, which of course is a petri dish for illness.

He's in good spirits and walked us through some of the adventures he's had, including a long list of sacrament meetings they went to on Sunday.

Hoarder's Conundrum

Yesterday, our daughter stopped by the house and casually mentioned she and her husband are prowling the thrift stores looking for a filing cabinet.

I happen to have two four-drawer and one two-drawer filing cabinets at the house, and mentioned I could probably spare one of them if they were interested. I specifically mentioned the one in the garage because it's currently in an awkward spot that I'd rather have free for other items.

But as I thought about both filing cabinets - the other four-drawer is in the basement study - I thought it might make more sense to empty the basement one out as the one in the garage, though in an awkward spot, has some utility in that it stores tools and other random objects I don't really have room for elsewhere in the garage.

So today I thought I'd start looking at what it would take to empty the basement cabinet.

And ran straight into the Hoarder's Conundrum.

Specifically, how important is it that I hold onto receipts and other associated paperwork for bathroom remodeling projects completed in 2020 and 2022? I mean, if I need proof the bathrooms were remodeled, all I really have to do is go use them. It seemed important at the time to hold onto all the records. But I have not consulted any of it since I filed it away.

Specifically, is that Amazon credit card still active? (Pauses blog post to see if the cards themselves have expiration dates on them) Sweet mother of mercy they're expired so I can shred the paperwork and the cards and not have to deal with them anymore.

You can see the problem.

I read somewhere the Gen X is bridging the digital divide by accepting we can have digital copies of things but we also cling to paper like nobody's business. Add to that my general hoarder tendencies and, well, you can see why we have two four-drawer and one two-drawer filing cabinets in the house.

I've long been working to move the "important papers" to the two-drawer filing cabinet, and I have tried to be diligent to filter those, though my hoarder tendencies still insist I have to have at least a digital record of, say, our water and sewer bills from a decade ago in case the utility has an audit and they demand a poop payment proof from 2018.

But that leads to a filing mess on my computers . . . Good thing I'm still hoarding those recordable CDs and DVDs.

A Used Book Era Has Passed

I have slowly come to realize something:

The many fruitful years I've spent scouring bookshelves at local thrift stores is likely at an end.

I *might* find a few more books from my childhood, but it's more than likely that people donating books nowadays are donating books their millennial children and even older read as kids, and the stuff I read as a Gen Xer is going to be a lot harder to find.

Until, of course, Gen X bookworms start to die.

Take E.W. Hildick's McGurk mysteries. I used to find them regularly at the local thrifts. Then I kept finding copies of books I already had, though I mostly bought them so I could decide if the new one was in better shape than the old.

Now, I just don't find them at the thrifts anymore. And the one pictured above is being sold as "vintage" online for $12. I used to find these for 50 cents, and on good days, ten for a dollar.

No more.

I may need to expand my search of thrift stores, go further afield -- though I note in Rexburg the book choices are even more paltry than they are locally.

End of an era, I guess.

Writing Our Own Psalm of Praise

 

I'm teaching Psalms in Sunday School this week, and it would be the week we're starting on the 25-minute lesson, so the chances of me being able to play any of the musical renditions of these songs of praise are pretty slim.

So as I prepare, I ponder: How would it be if, as a class, we wrote our own psalm?

The psalms are pretty varied in form. They don't necessarily rhyme. Some of them contain many ideas and shapes and thoughts and praises.

We could do it. Start with a few basic ideas, but then really dig into what class members praised God for this week -- and if they maybe can't remember anything, maybe encourage them to write things down this week, or make efforts to praise God for *something* that happens in the coming weeks.

Vivaldi's "Nisi Dominus - Cum Dederit" is his setting for Psalm 127:

Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Their use of it in Bob's Burgers always confused me a bit:

But certainly Louise ate the bread of sorrows . . . 

Photographic Proof

Late last night we got this photo of Isaac with we assume his companion, send by members welcoming him to the ward:

Then today, this photo from the mission office, with his mission president and wife, the De Wets.

We don't know yet exactly where he's serving, but we hope to find out soon.