Sunday, November 17, 2013
Gordon family testimonies
Friday, July 1, 2011
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Thoughts about LIFE
In the ED 206 class I am teaching we had a unit today which covered blogs. Teaching the unit reminded me I had one...
Yesterday for Family Home Evening we played the Milton Bradley game of LIFE for the activity. The game was a lot of fun and a little spooky that I drew the trailer, what do you know...
I found it interesting that for all of the thought and emotion that goes into the game, by the end of the game there are only 3 or 4 decision a player makes that makes a difference to their outcome in the game and the impacts are very minimal. The entire game it feels like you are making decisions, but really you are simply making decisions about how you feel about what happens to you, not anything which affects what will happen to you. I'm not sure that really is a good model of life, but it definitely feels that way some times. Indeed how a person feels about what happens to them probably is more important to their happiness than what happens to them anyway.
Another thing I found funny is that as a kid I remember getting really excited if I could fill the little life car up with children, not much has changed :-)
Yesterday for Family Home Evening we played the Milton Bradley game of LIFE for the activity. The game was a lot of fun and a little spooky that I drew the trailer, what do you know...
I found it interesting that for all of the thought and emotion that goes into the game, by the end of the game there are only 3 or 4 decision a player makes that makes a difference to their outcome in the game and the impacts are very minimal. The entire game it feels like you are making decisions, but really you are simply making decisions about how you feel about what happens to you, not anything which affects what will happen to you. I'm not sure that really is a good model of life, but it definitely feels that way some times. Indeed how a person feels about what happens to them probably is more important to their happiness than what happens to them anyway.
Another thing I found funny is that as a kid I remember getting really excited if I could fill the little life car up with children, not much has changed :-)
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Priesthood thought
I was asked to share a thought in Priesthood meeting today. I decided to share it here as well...
My son Dallin along with Jackson Pettit and Christine Kunzler were baptized and confirmed members of the Church yesterday. Preparing for and having this wonderful experience has me thinking about the Holy Ghost. The thought I am going to share today is from the book of John chapter 14. This is an account of Jesus teaching his disciples about the Holy Ghost and his comfort, John 14:15-27
15 ¶ If ye alove me, bkeep my ccommandments.
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another aComforter, that he may babide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
18 I will not leave you acomfortless: I will bcome to you.
19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
21 He that hath my commandments, and akeepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be bloved of my Father, and I will love him, and will cmanifest myself to him.
22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will alove him, and we will come unto him, and make our babode with him.
24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26 But the aComforter, which is the bHoly Ghost, whom the Father will send in my cname, he shall dteach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
27 aPeace I leave with you, my bpeace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be ctroubled, neither let it be afraid.
Let us focus on our love for Jesus. There are many distractions in life. Many of the things we are called on to do are difficult and challenging. Everyday we are called on to choose between the things of the world and the things of God. As those choices come before us, let us remember the Savior and that he has left us the Gift of The Holy Ghost which will lead us in the path we need to follow. Let us have the courage to point our feet in the direction they need to go and to take the next step. Even though we may not have the strength to make it a very big step, let us remember that when our steps lead toward God it is with his strength we step. He has not left us comfortless, we will find peace in him.
I share these things in the name of Jesus Christ; Amen.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Jan. 31, 2010
Thoughts of Spring
For everything we left when we sold our house and left for the road we have missed nothing more, and it is even close, than the garden. A dishwasher, a king sized bed, a downstairs playroom, a basket ball court in the back yard really haven't been items that have pulled on the heart strings the way our oversized weed filled garden has. We weren't crazy about the weeds of course, we were just too __________________ to keep them out. I left a blank there because I'm not really sure what goes in it. Not lazy, I don't think the word should be inexperienced, the word is probably undisciplined, but it is less painful to put in the word busy. Yeah, let's go with that, we were to busy to keep the weeds out of the garden. So even though we were to BUSY to keep the weeds out of the garden, we loved it and miss it.
We are very excited that it looks like this spring we will have an opportunity plant a garden on my parent's land. Like the plans go every winter, next year will be the best garden we have ever had. I have been getting carried away thinking about all of the possibilities with the almost 5 acres available here. It seems that it would indeed be possible to grow enough food for the family for the entire year right on the property. I don't believe we will be able to get every little thing, but I think we could possibly hit all of the major things and that possibility excites me. Potatoes are my latest bit of excitement. We have been reading the Swiss Family Robinson together as a family and I know some of the book (quite different than the movie) is rubbing off on me. It occurred to me in a way that it never had before, what a significant portion of our families food needs we could meet with potatoes. When ever I get the chance as Lexie and I are talking about potatoes in the garden I like to joke "Oh, do those grow well here?". For the information of anyone reading this blog not from the planet earth, potatoes grow well in Idaho! The science of economics is not lost on me to the point that I do not understand that it would be more efficient to get a job at Mc Donald’s pushing fry and drink buttons and then using the proceeds to buy potatoes, than it would be to undertake the time and effort required to manually plant, raise, and harvest potatoes. The difference however is much like the difference of climbing a mountain to the top and riding in a helicopter to the top. Many times the most important things in life have a lot more to do with process than they do with results. I am very enamored with the challenge of being able to bring up my own food off my own land (borrowed from the parents :-)). I have been spending the afternoon day dreaming about how good a loaf of bread that was baked with wheat I planted and harvested would taste (The loaf of bread I was eating during this day dream was quite tasty too, Lexie makes great bread).
Unaswered Prayers
I am really confused about the track my life is currently on, however I am traveling it with the calm assurance my path is the correct one. I had a finalist interview for a position in the IT department at BYU-Idaho in the middle of the January. At the time it seemed like everything was lining up so well for me to get the position that up until the time I was shocked with the news that I had not been selected for the position, I had it in my mind I would be working at the university this spring. I know some of my shock was just a good healthy dose of arrogance. I know I still haven't settled it in my mind that they selected a candidate that would be more capable of their desired job function, my mind has only accepted that they chose someone that more closely matched the candidate they had in mind hiring. It was very disappointing not to get hired, but not in the way I thought it might be. In as much as BYU-I is a church school I had been afraid that I might feel the rejection in terms of the job offer was rejection from God. I was pleased that in the end I did not feel that way. Indeed with 27 applicants for the selected position, I felt honored to be given the chance to be interviewed as one of the final three candidates and I am very happy for the person they selected. I don't fully know the will of God (I have my hopes), but I do feel confident that if I live correctly I will be able to fulfill my part of it for him. If it was his desire that I started work at the university right away, I believe it would have happened. Since it didn't happen and I know that I put every bit of possible effort I could have into interview preparation, the lack of a job offer was not a failure on my part, but rather a manifestation that the will of God was not for me to get that position at that time.
That is part of what has me confused. Working for the church seemed like such a great idea. I would be around my family, I would have a steady income that would provide for needs while allowing for a few fun family trips, and it would give me an opportunity to apply my God given talents toward building and bettering a university that I truly love. With that said now that events have passed it is obvious that me getting that position was not the will of God (or the hiring manager, but I really believe things happened over his head). So knowing that it isn't, I feel good about going on and looking forward. I will keep my eye open for positions in the department, because I was very impressed with the people and the environment and I do believe that if it is supposed to work out that I am working at the university, I eventually will be, whether it be 10 months from now, 10 years from now or 50 years from now.
Before the interview when people would ask me "What are you going to do if you don't get the job?", I really didn't have a good answer. All I could come up with was “cry”. For what ever reason I am not a very good crier, so I didn't actually ever get that good cry, even though I was feeling absolutely crushed and lost. Lexie was great and took a walk with me around "the block" (a square loop of roads near the house that is about 4 miles long) as we were on the walk and talking about what we were going to do, the conversation kept coming back to the Spelling Castle. By this time I had given up on the games short term financial viability, but the more we talked the more I realized what a shame it would be to leave it "on the table". Even though my focus has always been on my family, as far as my vocational efforts go I truly have given everything for this game. Since not getting the position at the university I have put in two more grueling weeks of work (a pace I can't keep for long) to get the game to what is very close to what I would consider a market ready state. Being the game's designer and developer I am extra sensitive in that I am aware of several flaws in it, and even though I am very proud of what it has become, like the difference between a dream and reality there really are some gaps between what I wanted to get and what I have been able to accomplish to date. With that said there are some places where I have gone beyond what I believed I was capable of doing.
For everything we left when we sold our house and left for the road we have missed nothing more, and it is even close, than the garden. A dishwasher, a king sized bed, a downstairs playroom, a basket ball court in the back yard really haven't been items that have pulled on the heart strings the way our oversized weed filled garden has. We weren't crazy about the weeds of course, we were just too __________________ to keep them out. I left a blank there because I'm not really sure what goes in it. Not lazy, I don't think the word should be inexperienced, the word is probably undisciplined, but it is less painful to put in the word busy. Yeah, let's go with that, we were to busy to keep the weeds out of the garden. So even though we were to BUSY to keep the weeds out of the garden, we loved it and miss it.
We are very excited that it looks like this spring we will have an opportunity plant a garden on my parent's land. Like the plans go every winter, next year will be the best garden we have ever had. I have been getting carried away thinking about all of the possibilities with the almost 5 acres available here. It seems that it would indeed be possible to grow enough food for the family for the entire year right on the property. I don't believe we will be able to get every little thing, but I think we could possibly hit all of the major things and that possibility excites me. Potatoes are my latest bit of excitement. We have been reading the Swiss Family Robinson together as a family and I know some of the book (quite different than the movie) is rubbing off on me. It occurred to me in a way that it never had before, what a significant portion of our families food needs we could meet with potatoes. When ever I get the chance as Lexie and I are talking about potatoes in the garden I like to joke "Oh, do those grow well here?". For the information of anyone reading this blog not from the planet earth, potatoes grow well in Idaho! The science of economics is not lost on me to the point that I do not understand that it would be more efficient to get a job at Mc Donald’s pushing fry and drink buttons and then using the proceeds to buy potatoes, than it would be to undertake the time and effort required to manually plant, raise, and harvest potatoes. The difference however is much like the difference of climbing a mountain to the top and riding in a helicopter to the top. Many times the most important things in life have a lot more to do with process than they do with results. I am very enamored with the challenge of being able to bring up my own food off my own land (borrowed from the parents :-)). I have been spending the afternoon day dreaming about how good a loaf of bread that was baked with wheat I planted and harvested would taste (The loaf of bread I was eating during this day dream was quite tasty too, Lexie makes great bread).
Unaswered Prayers
I am really confused about the track my life is currently on, however I am traveling it with the calm assurance my path is the correct one. I had a finalist interview for a position in the IT department at BYU-Idaho in the middle of the January. At the time it seemed like everything was lining up so well for me to get the position that up until the time I was shocked with the news that I had not been selected for the position, I had it in my mind I would be working at the university this spring. I know some of my shock was just a good healthy dose of arrogance. I know I still haven't settled it in my mind that they selected a candidate that would be more capable of their desired job function, my mind has only accepted that they chose someone that more closely matched the candidate they had in mind hiring. It was very disappointing not to get hired, but not in the way I thought it might be. In as much as BYU-I is a church school I had been afraid that I might feel the rejection in terms of the job offer was rejection from God. I was pleased that in the end I did not feel that way. Indeed with 27 applicants for the selected position, I felt honored to be given the chance to be interviewed as one of the final three candidates and I am very happy for the person they selected. I don't fully know the will of God (I have my hopes), but I do feel confident that if I live correctly I will be able to fulfill my part of it for him. If it was his desire that I started work at the university right away, I believe it would have happened. Since it didn't happen and I know that I put every bit of possible effort I could have into interview preparation, the lack of a job offer was not a failure on my part, but rather a manifestation that the will of God was not for me to get that position at that time.
That is part of what has me confused. Working for the church seemed like such a great idea. I would be around my family, I would have a steady income that would provide for needs while allowing for a few fun family trips, and it would give me an opportunity to apply my God given talents toward building and bettering a university that I truly love. With that said now that events have passed it is obvious that me getting that position was not the will of God (or the hiring manager, but I really believe things happened over his head). So knowing that it isn't, I feel good about going on and looking forward. I will keep my eye open for positions in the department, because I was very impressed with the people and the environment and I do believe that if it is supposed to work out that I am working at the university, I eventually will be, whether it be 10 months from now, 10 years from now or 50 years from now.
Before the interview when people would ask me "What are you going to do if you don't get the job?", I really didn't have a good answer. All I could come up with was “cry”. For what ever reason I am not a very good crier, so I didn't actually ever get that good cry, even though I was feeling absolutely crushed and lost. Lexie was great and took a walk with me around "the block" (a square loop of roads near the house that is about 4 miles long) as we were on the walk and talking about what we were going to do, the conversation kept coming back to the Spelling Castle. By this time I had given up on the games short term financial viability, but the more we talked the more I realized what a shame it would be to leave it "on the table". Even though my focus has always been on my family, as far as my vocational efforts go I truly have given everything for this game. Since not getting the position at the university I have put in two more grueling weeks of work (a pace I can't keep for long) to get the game to what is very close to what I would consider a market ready state. Being the game's designer and developer I am extra sensitive in that I am aware of several flaws in it, and even though I am very proud of what it has become, like the difference between a dream and reality there really are some gaps between what I wanted to get and what I have been able to accomplish to date. With that said there are some places where I have gone beyond what I believed I was capable of doing.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
December 13, 2009
A quick update about the back pain... For the most part it is gone. I read a very amazing book which I highly recommend to anyone experiencing pain or who has a profession which deals with people in pain or even people who are a pain. The book is titled "Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection" and written by John E. Sarno. The pain I was experiencing in my back apparently was directly related to what he discusses in the book in that I experienced a miraculous recovery almost immediately after reading the book. I'm still stiff hear and there, but that is very different than on the floor crying pain.
At risk of giving away the book's content to people who might read it and at risk of scaring people away from the book who would otherwise read it, I will divulge the thesis in it, as I understood it. The main idea is the body will generate pain as a coping mechanism to distract a person from uncomfortable emotion. I am not going to give the author's explanation any justice so I will restate my recommendation that you read the book, but he explains that the unconscious (subconscious) mind generates several thoughts and as the thoughts try to surface, in some cases, our bodies will use pain as a way to prevent the ideas from surfacing to the conscious mind. If there is a great enough magnitude of pain even the most unpleasant emotions can be blocked. The primary emotion he focuses on in the book is anger. When I first read it I thought I had wasted money on the book. I thought to myself, "that's a ridiculous idea, I'm never angry, how could anger be causing me any pain?". Of course after a little bit, the light went on. I am never angry because my conscious mind is never realizing the anger because my body will attack itself to prevent the anger from surfacing.
That lead me to the next book I found quite profound, "Anger Management for Dummies." I am normally much to proud of my intellect to buy, or be caught reading, "For Dummies" books, however referring back to my last entry, a purpose of pain may well be that it is humbling. Anything that might be of any use in freeing me from the pain I was in was very welcome. Actually, I will admit that I have read other "For Dummies" books, and even though I really hate the title, the series is extremely well written. The "Anger Management for Dummies" book referenced the "Mind-Body Connection" book a couple of times and brought up other health links to anger as well. After reading the books I gained a new insight into the link between a person's emotional health and their physical health. I am almost to the point that I believe that the start to the cure for almost any ailment begins with addressing emotional issues. Amazingly enough that even includes things like broken arms and sprained ankles. There have been studies which show a person is up to 12 times more likely to have a work place accident if they are very angry.
I don't have a firm enough understanding of the psychology of anger to give it really good treatment here just off the top of my head, but I will say that anger isn't quite what I thought it was. Before my reading I thought of anger in terms of being angry at someone. The feeling is much broader than that. Anger is a root of disappointment, jealousy, frustration and a lot of other emotions. In fact as I understand it any intensity in an emotion could be rooted in anger. I didn't ever get a finger put directly on what the source of my anger was that was causing my back pain, but as the "Mind-Body Connection" book states a person doesn't really need to, they only need to know that their pain is caused by the body trying to avoid uncomfortable emotion from surfacing. My best guess is that the emotion that I was trying to block was tied to stress around getting ready to move into uncertain circumstances and getting close to releasing the Spelling Castle game. I have tried to explain a couple of times in the blog how and why the release of the Spelling Castle is difficult emotionally, but frankly I don't really know myself, so it is probably even more confusing to the reader. The emotional difficulty is a weird mix of being afraid of failure and afraid of success at the same time. Right now I believe I have worked through the emotion (life sometimes works better when you lie yourself) and am limited to tactical business items that need to be resolved before game release. The game still does have a couple of bugs which I believe are still blocking to a sensible release.
Skipping details of some personal items... ha, I'll bet you didn't think I did that in here :-) I will say that any anxiety I had when leaving Oregon was well justified. Life has felt like I was the ball in a pinball game ever since I got here. Plans have seemed to go back and forth at very violent extremes. Work on the game came to almost a complete stand still between recovering from back pain only to get a really nasty case of flu and then get buried in a lot of home improvement chores. After more than a month I am finally making progress on the game again. So the fall out from my ride through the pin ball machine is that the plan to travel to Texas and possibly on to Florida this winter was replaced by a play to stay in Rexburg on my parent's land indefinitely and freeze our's off. On the surface that looks like a dumb plan, but it really has been working out quite well so far and even makes sense in some places.
We are excited with the idea of starting a small family farm. The land in Thornton (which by postal addresses is part of Rexburg, but still remains its own township) offers a way that we can get a few chickens, maybe some ducks and possibly a pig without having to shell out for a large mortgage. We have a very nice camp site here which, with some amazing help from my dad, has become even nicer. We did two major home improvement projects. The first was to tie our water supply to my parent's new well by installing two freeze- free hydrants. We really only needed one, but it made sense to put in the other while we had a big hole in the ground. The big hole in the ground was by far my favorite part of the project. We rented a small track hoe which I used to dig the 5 foot deep 200 foot long trench needed to connect the water lines. The digging took longer than we expected and I wound up needing to rent the track hoe half a day longer than anticipated. That dampened my enjoyment of the project a little, but as I told my dad the real expense in the project wasn't the $300 I spent renting the track hoe, the real expense was the need I created in my mind to own such a nifty little toy. So despite what QuickBooks says, I put the project cost of installing my water line at around $25,000. Fortunately $24,300 of that is deferrable expense.
The second major improvement project we did was to add a little eight foot by eight foot enclosed porch to the front of the trailer. As accustomed as we are to the small space in the trailer, the need for winter clothing really overruns us. Adding the porch has given us a great place to hang heavy coats and a double entry to minimize the effects of the cold during ingress and egress, which anyone with kids understands can happen with an average interval of about 45 seconds during the active part of a day. So far the little porch is an outstanding success. We have insulated it and have a catalytic propane heater which we run in it. In fact, I am out on the porch now typing as the family is still sleeping. It is very nice to keep the shoe mess out of the trailer and we have been able to keep cozy and warm even with temperatures dropping into double digit negatives.
Now to the negatives of negative temperatures... We have not been entirely successful in our combat there. I think through the course of the last couple of weeks we have frozen every pipe possible to freeze. Fortunately, to date, the only one we have broken was an external drain pipe. The current cold snap is over, for my friends in warm places, cold snap over means our low temperatures are above 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-17.8 degrees Celsius). We may see one or two highs above freezing, but I am not holding my breath. We were thinking that our plans to get four seasons out of our three season RV were going to fail because it really is so difficult to keep pipes thawed when temperatures drop below zero. However, we decided that we do want to stick to the plan of being in Idaho through the winter and that during break from the most bitter cold I am going to install a few extra circuits to run strategically placed heaters. I will stress that we are very warm and comfortable inside even in the most bitter cold, it is simply that it is a very difficult living situation when the toilet won't flush because the drain is blocked with ice.
My in-laws have graciously offered us their basement if we do indeed find that we cannot win the battle of the cold. So with that as a fall back plan we are going to persist in our idea of staying here, thinking that the worst that happens is we need to make a hurried move.
I still don't fully understand all of the details of our decision to stay in Idaho. I know a lot of it has to do with tactical issues such as time and money management (we loose a lot of both time and money moving) and a lot of it has to do with enjoying being around both sets of grandparents for the kids. First and foremost, every time Lexie and I talk about it and pray about it, staying seems like the right thing to do, or at least leaving doesn't seem like the right thing to do.
I have applied for a position at the local university BYU-Idaho to work in the IT department as an application analyst. I have been very conflicted about the idea of returning to a traditional job in that the time and mental commitment required by a full time job will be a great hindrance to my game development. The hindrance to my game development however isn't the big issue. The big issue is the hindrance to my life that is implied by the hindrance to the game development. So there, I've said it, or written it rather. The game development is my life. Fail at the game development and I've failed at my life. OK I just gained some clearer insight to some possible sources of anger. Failing at life could really leave a person feeling foul. Really, I don't consciously believe that if the game doesn't sell 1 million copies my life failed. I do however believe that if I quit and don't put every energy I have into making my life meaningful to myself and others I will have failed. If I let fear overcome me in my pursuit of what I believe to be right, I will have failed.
I really want something from my life. I don't exactly know what it is, but I want to have a positive impact on the world. The Spelling Castle, although just a cheesy little computer game, fits that in its own way. I hope I can do more than just that, but it is very representative of what I want. So with that decision to return to traditional work really is at odds. I have been highly selective about where I will apply. This has nothing to do with an aversion to work. It has everything to do with wanting to be sure that fruits of my efforts are in line with the goals of my life. If shoveling manure moves me toward my life goals I will be shoveling manure, in fact, as stated earlier, that is the plan for this spring and summer. Working at BYUI is very attractive because I love the school and the church that owns it. It is very exciting to think about the opportunity to make both better through my efforts. I think the position is a great fit with my skills and talents. So with that said, I believe that given an offer I will accept the position. I believe in fact that I may do much better in my marketing efforts if I can use my skills and talents to do something I actually understand, and then contract the marketing efforts. It is very heavily on my mind that this position may be the reason we have felt so strongly impressed to stay in Idaho. Back to my life in the pinball machine reference, I have thought that about other things that were not the case, so I don't really know, but I still entertain the idea that it could be.
I really don't know what my chances of getting the BYUI job are, I just believe that if it is supposed to happen it will happen. I've heard several stories of open job positions getting assaulted with hundreds of resumes. Rexburg isn't exactly overflowing with salaried positions. We passed two days that I believed were the last possible day for me to expect a phone call for an interview. After passing the first day I phoned trying not cry asking if my application had been over looked (I did succeed in not crying). I was assured that there was another week of application review. I spent the next week wondering if I had done something atrocious on my resume like misspell the name of the school, BYUI, nope, I think I got that... was my GPA too low?... my experience not deemed relevant?... and so on. Late in the next week I had fully resolved that it was time to move on and that application to full time work was a mistake in that it distracted resource from game development and I was a fool for even looking at it. So of course, with that fully resolved in my mind, I received a call Friday afternoon asking me to come in for a job interview after the holiday break January 14, 2010. Now I am off the pin ball paddle headed up the ramp toward the bell thinking that getting the BYUI position would be wonderful.
At risk of giving away the book's content to people who might read it and at risk of scaring people away from the book who would otherwise read it, I will divulge the thesis in it, as I understood it. The main idea is the body will generate pain as a coping mechanism to distract a person from uncomfortable emotion. I am not going to give the author's explanation any justice so I will restate my recommendation that you read the book, but he explains that the unconscious (subconscious) mind generates several thoughts and as the thoughts try to surface, in some cases, our bodies will use pain as a way to prevent the ideas from surfacing to the conscious mind. If there is a great enough magnitude of pain even the most unpleasant emotions can be blocked. The primary emotion he focuses on in the book is anger. When I first read it I thought I had wasted money on the book. I thought to myself, "that's a ridiculous idea, I'm never angry, how could anger be causing me any pain?". Of course after a little bit, the light went on. I am never angry because my conscious mind is never realizing the anger because my body will attack itself to prevent the anger from surfacing.
That lead me to the next book I found quite profound, "Anger Management for Dummies." I am normally much to proud of my intellect to buy, or be caught reading, "For Dummies" books, however referring back to my last entry, a purpose of pain may well be that it is humbling. Anything that might be of any use in freeing me from the pain I was in was very welcome. Actually, I will admit that I have read other "For Dummies" books, and even though I really hate the title, the series is extremely well written. The "Anger Management for Dummies" book referenced the "Mind-Body Connection" book a couple of times and brought up other health links to anger as well. After reading the books I gained a new insight into the link between a person's emotional health and their physical health. I am almost to the point that I believe that the start to the cure for almost any ailment begins with addressing emotional issues. Amazingly enough that even includes things like broken arms and sprained ankles. There have been studies which show a person is up to 12 times more likely to have a work place accident if they are very angry.
I don't have a firm enough understanding of the psychology of anger to give it really good treatment here just off the top of my head, but I will say that anger isn't quite what I thought it was. Before my reading I thought of anger in terms of being angry at someone. The feeling is much broader than that. Anger is a root of disappointment, jealousy, frustration and a lot of other emotions. In fact as I understand it any intensity in an emotion could be rooted in anger. I didn't ever get a finger put directly on what the source of my anger was that was causing my back pain, but as the "Mind-Body Connection" book states a person doesn't really need to, they only need to know that their pain is caused by the body trying to avoid uncomfortable emotion from surfacing. My best guess is that the emotion that I was trying to block was tied to stress around getting ready to move into uncertain circumstances and getting close to releasing the Spelling Castle game. I have tried to explain a couple of times in the blog how and why the release of the Spelling Castle is difficult emotionally, but frankly I don't really know myself, so it is probably even more confusing to the reader. The emotional difficulty is a weird mix of being afraid of failure and afraid of success at the same time. Right now I believe I have worked through the emotion (life sometimes works better when you lie yourself) and am limited to tactical business items that need to be resolved before game release. The game still does have a couple of bugs which I believe are still blocking to a sensible release.
Skipping details of some personal items... ha, I'll bet you didn't think I did that in here :-) I will say that any anxiety I had when leaving Oregon was well justified. Life has felt like I was the ball in a pinball game ever since I got here. Plans have seemed to go back and forth at very violent extremes. Work on the game came to almost a complete stand still between recovering from back pain only to get a really nasty case of flu and then get buried in a lot of home improvement chores. After more than a month I am finally making progress on the game again. So the fall out from my ride through the pin ball machine is that the plan to travel to Texas and possibly on to Florida this winter was replaced by a play to stay in Rexburg on my parent's land indefinitely and freeze our
We are excited with the idea of starting a small family farm. The land in Thornton (which by postal addresses is part of Rexburg, but still remains its own township) offers a way that we can get a few chickens, maybe some ducks and possibly a pig without having to shell out for a large mortgage. We have a very nice camp site here which, with some amazing help from my dad, has become even nicer. We did two major home improvement projects. The first was to tie our water supply to my parent's new well by installing two freeze- free hydrants. We really only needed one, but it made sense to put in the other while we had a big hole in the ground. The big hole in the ground was by far my favorite part of the project. We rented a small track hoe which I used to dig the 5 foot deep 200 foot long trench needed to connect the water lines. The digging took longer than we expected and I wound up needing to rent the track hoe half a day longer than anticipated. That dampened my enjoyment of the project a little, but as I told my dad the real expense in the project wasn't the $300 I spent renting the track hoe, the real expense was the need I created in my mind to own such a nifty little toy. So despite what QuickBooks says, I put the project cost of installing my water line at around $25,000. Fortunately $24,300 of that is deferrable expense.
The second major improvement project we did was to add a little eight foot by eight foot enclosed porch to the front of the trailer. As accustomed as we are to the small space in the trailer, the need for winter clothing really overruns us. Adding the porch has given us a great place to hang heavy coats and a double entry to minimize the effects of the cold during ingress and egress, which anyone with kids understands can happen with an average interval of about 45 seconds during the active part of a day. So far the little porch is an outstanding success. We have insulated it and have a catalytic propane heater which we run in it. In fact, I am out on the porch now typing as the family is still sleeping. It is very nice to keep the shoe mess out of the trailer and we have been able to keep cozy and warm even with temperatures dropping into double digit negatives.
Now to the negatives of negative temperatures... We have not been entirely successful in our combat there. I think through the course of the last couple of weeks we have frozen every pipe possible to freeze. Fortunately, to date, the only one we have broken was an external drain pipe. The current cold snap is over, for my friends in warm places, cold snap over means our low temperatures are above 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-17.8 degrees Celsius). We may see one or two highs above freezing, but I am not holding my breath. We were thinking that our plans to get four seasons out of our three season RV were going to fail because it really is so difficult to keep pipes thawed when temperatures drop below zero. However, we decided that we do want to stick to the plan of being in Idaho through the winter and that during break from the most bitter cold I am going to install a few extra circuits to run strategically placed heaters. I will stress that we are very warm and comfortable inside even in the most bitter cold, it is simply that it is a very difficult living situation when the toilet won't flush because the drain is blocked with ice.
My in-laws have graciously offered us their basement if we do indeed find that we cannot win the battle of the cold. So with that as a fall back plan we are going to persist in our idea of staying here, thinking that the worst that happens is we need to make a hurried move.
I still don't fully understand all of the details of our decision to stay in Idaho. I know a lot of it has to do with tactical issues such as time and money management (we loose a lot of both time and money moving) and a lot of it has to do with enjoying being around both sets of grandparents for the kids. First and foremost, every time Lexie and I talk about it and pray about it, staying seems like the right thing to do, or at least leaving doesn't seem like the right thing to do.
I have applied for a position at the local university BYU-Idaho to work in the IT department as an application analyst. I have been very conflicted about the idea of returning to a traditional job in that the time and mental commitment required by a full time job will be a great hindrance to my game development. The hindrance to my game development however isn't the big issue. The big issue is the hindrance to my life that is implied by the hindrance to the game development. So there, I've said it, or written it rather. The game development is my life. Fail at the game development and I've failed at my life. OK I just gained some clearer insight to some possible sources of anger. Failing at life could really leave a person feeling foul. Really, I don't consciously believe that if the game doesn't sell 1 million copies my life failed. I do however believe that if I quit and don't put every energy I have into making my life meaningful to myself and others I will have failed. If I let fear overcome me in my pursuit of what I believe to be right, I will have failed.
I really want something from my life. I don't exactly know what it is, but I want to have a positive impact on the world. The Spelling Castle, although just a cheesy little computer game, fits that in its own way. I hope I can do more than just that, but it is very representative of what I want. So with that decision to return to traditional work really is at odds. I have been highly selective about where I will apply. This has nothing to do with an aversion to work. It has everything to do with wanting to be sure that fruits of my efforts are in line with the goals of my life. If shoveling manure moves me toward my life goals I will be shoveling manure, in fact, as stated earlier, that is the plan for this spring and summer. Working at BYUI is very attractive because I love the school and the church that owns it. It is very exciting to think about the opportunity to make both better through my efforts. I think the position is a great fit with my skills and talents. So with that said, I believe that given an offer I will accept the position. I believe in fact that I may do much better in my marketing efforts if I can use my skills and talents to do something I actually understand, and then contract the marketing efforts. It is very heavily on my mind that this position may be the reason we have felt so strongly impressed to stay in Idaho. Back to my life in the pinball machine reference, I have thought that about other things that were not the case, so I don't really know, but I still entertain the idea that it could be.
I really don't know what my chances of getting the BYUI job are, I just believe that if it is supposed to happen it will happen. I've heard several stories of open job positions getting assaulted with hundreds of resumes. Rexburg isn't exactly overflowing with salaried positions. We passed two days that I believed were the last possible day for me to expect a phone call for an interview. After passing the first day I phoned trying not cry asking if my application had been over looked (I did succeed in not crying). I was assured that there was another week of application review. I spent the next week wondering if I had done something atrocious on my resume like misspell the name of the school, BYUI, nope, I think I got that... was my GPA too low?... my experience not deemed relevant?... and so on. Late in the next week I had fully resolved that it was time to move on and that application to full time work was a mistake in that it distracted resource from game development and I was a fool for even looking at it. So of course, with that fully resolved in my mind, I received a call Friday afternoon asking me to come in for a job interview after the holiday break January 14, 2010. Now I am off the pin ball paddle headed up the ramp toward the bell thinking that getting the BYUI position would be wonderful.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Too long for facebook status
This was written as a facebook status, but facebook wouldn't take it because it was too long so I am putting it here ...
It looks like facebook got rid of their notes, or at least early this morning half awake I am not finding them. This is probably more fit for a blog entry than a facebook status, but oh well, I'm here and so are you. Oh by the way I did finally get the blog sort of up to date in case you are interested. Much thanks to Lexie for the encouragement and a significant portion of the writing through the summer.
I had my back go out a couple of weeks ago and have been in pain like I haven't been since my back played the same trick on me half way through my time as a missionary in Korea 14 years ago. I am confident that I will get through the pain in less time and more smoothly than I did then, but it still isn't easy. The experience is making me a bit reflective. I've been up since about 4:30 mostly looking at the ceiling and thinking. A project I hope to get to some time, but will forgive myself if I don't, which I have been designing in my head this morning is a "belief mirror". Being a life member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints and not ever really taking time to study other religions in any real depth, I don't have enough background to expand the project to the scope which I would like to get it by myself, but I think I could get a good start. The idea is to come up with a series of belief questions such as "Do you believe in God", "Do you believe God loves you" and so forth. Each question would allow a person a 0-10 rating to give them a range in answering. In my design the results would be private and the intention would be simply for a person to be able to make a snapshot of their current state of spirituality. While the results would be very interesting I would think it better to just leave it as a service that people could use as a way of exploring themselves rather than making the results anything to study or publish. It seems it would be nice to have a journal section on it and have people come back to it at a regular interval such as each year or maybe even each month to take a look at how their life view might be changing.
So as you might guess I have been running through some of those questions myself. With out the nifty little tool I have in mind writing someday I don't have a very clean picture of my results and as I put down earlier, I don't really intend to share the results or have the results shared. What I will share today as it relates to my current thoughts is that I am wondering about the purpose of pain.
I do believe in God as a creator. With that as a premise it follows that unless there was a design error, pain was intended. I have been going back and forth in my thinking as to whether pain increases one's sensitivity toward others or one's spirituality. My conclusion is that it can but it won't necessarily or automatically. I think it is as easy for a person to become bitter as to become loving, to become believing as to become agnostic. So I suppose in some ways it is simply accelerates the character development of an individual. On the other hand sometimes it seems that pain can be so overwhelming as in the cases when it leads to depression that it can just crush what would otherwise be a strong person. The same way there is not a level of physical conditioning that would prevent a person's physical demise if they were hit by a train traveling at 50 MPH it seems that there are levels of pain that could overcome a person at almost any level of "spiritual conditioning". I suppose a point of many of the stories in the scriptures is to talk about the people who didn't fail under stress, but does that mean there isn't an unpreventable failure point? I don't think I am anywhere close to that point right now, I've just been thinking lately that it is possible that one could exist. I really don't understand the combination of the church doctrines that "people are not tempted above what they are able to resist" and "no unclean thing shall enter into heaven". To state my confusion more clearly the New Testament teaches even thoughts can be sins. I know I have thoughts come to me even before it seems like I have a chance to resist them. It seems that I am pushed to unclean before the choice is even in front of me, or much in the same way that it would have been possible for the disappointingly too slow BYU cougars to beat TCU yesterday in the football game it didn't happen. In the same way there are a lot of times that I know it is possible I could have done something better, I just don't. I'm not sure where that leaves me with God. Then again, giving both teams an "A" game was it possible for BYU to beat TCU, should it have been?
Something slippery about the pain experience is that it is so easily forgotten. It is interesting as I have been going through these last experiences how many flash backs I have had to Korea. In some ways it has been reassuring. I have lived with some self doubt and still do with regards to my performance as a missionary. There were several days that I didn't even leave the house because my back hurt so bad. Being separated from the pain for a while I would find myself wondering if I was just weak and lazy at the time. Having my latest experience reminded me that indeed I may have been weak, but there really wasn't any other reasonable expectation of a person in the same physical condition. Pain will simply reach levels which are not tolerable and a person really can't even remember how bad they are unless they are in the middle of a similar experience. This forgetfulness of pain is well evidenced by the fact that there are several women who have more than one child, in fact if women do not average 2.1 children born a population will shrink in a modern industrial society. I am obviously doing a bit better now with respect to my pain as evidenced by the fact I am writing. In fact this episode has been different from the time I was in Korea in that the pain comes and goes. I have been able to enjoy some almost completely pain free time. Now I just have a slight headache which is just annoying and not worth the level of whining I'm doing now.
I'd really like to think I am learning something from my experience. It seems like too much cost to take on without some of reward. I feel like I am getting close to some sort of enlightenment, but not necessarily there. Writing sometimes helps clear things. As I have been writing an impression that returned to me that was part of my thinking along with my belief project was another project that I feel even more doubtful I'll ever get to, but would be nice... The project was to go through all of my facebook friends and maybe even a few of my friends who are facebook hold outs and give them a quick note to let them know something I appreciate about them. I do have some "friends" on facebook that I don't really know, but for the most part if you are reading this you are a person who has touched my life in a positive way and I give you a thanks for that from the bottom of my heart. The positive relations we are able to share with others are the most beautiful thing I have found in life. You are the wonderful part of my world. So as I said even though the chance of me overcoming my procrastination and personal inhibition of expressing myself to complete the project of telling you personally why you are meaningful to me is very low, know that you are and I appreciate you as a friend. Thank You!
It looks like facebook got rid of their notes, or at least early this morning half awake I am not finding them. This is probably more fit for a blog entry than a facebook status, but oh well, I'm here and so are you. Oh by the way I did finally get the blog sort of up to date in case you are interested. Much thanks to Lexie for the encouragement and a significant portion of the writing through the summer.
I had my back go out a couple of weeks ago and have been in pain like I haven't been since my back played the same trick on me half way through my time as a missionary in Korea 14 years ago. I am confident that I will get through the pain in less time and more smoothly than I did then, but it still isn't easy. The experience is making me a bit reflective. I've been up since about 4:30 mostly looking at the ceiling and thinking. A project I hope to get to some time, but will forgive myself if I don't, which I have been designing in my head this morning is a "belief mirror". Being a life member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints and not ever really taking time to study other religions in any real depth, I don't have enough background to expand the project to the scope which I would like to get it by myself, but I think I could get a good start. The idea is to come up with a series of belief questions such as "Do you believe in God", "Do you believe God loves you" and so forth. Each question would allow a person a 0-10 rating to give them a range in answering. In my design the results would be private and the intention would be simply for a person to be able to make a snapshot of their current state of spirituality. While the results would be very interesting I would think it better to just leave it as a service that people could use as a way of exploring themselves rather than making the results anything to study or publish. It seems it would be nice to have a journal section on it and have people come back to it at a regular interval such as each year or maybe even each month to take a look at how their life view might be changing.
So as you might guess I have been running through some of those questions myself. With out the nifty little tool I have in mind writing someday I don't have a very clean picture of my results and as I put down earlier, I don't really intend to share the results or have the results shared. What I will share today as it relates to my current thoughts is that I am wondering about the purpose of pain.
I do believe in God as a creator. With that as a premise it follows that unless there was a design error, pain was intended. I have been going back and forth in my thinking as to whether pain increases one's sensitivity toward others or one's spirituality. My conclusion is that it can but it won't necessarily or automatically. I think it is as easy for a person to become bitter as to become loving, to become believing as to become agnostic. So I suppose in some ways it is simply accelerates the character development of an individual. On the other hand sometimes it seems that pain can be so overwhelming as in the cases when it leads to depression that it can just crush what would otherwise be a strong person. The same way there is not a level of physical conditioning that would prevent a person's physical demise if they were hit by a train traveling at 50 MPH it seems that there are levels of pain that could overcome a person at almost any level of "spiritual conditioning". I suppose a point of many of the stories in the scriptures is to talk about the people who didn't fail under stress, but does that mean there isn't an unpreventable failure point? I don't think I am anywhere close to that point right now, I've just been thinking lately that it is possible that one could exist. I really don't understand the combination of the church doctrines that "people are not tempted above what they are able to resist" and "no unclean thing shall enter into heaven". To state my confusion more clearly the New Testament teaches even thoughts can be sins. I know I have thoughts come to me even before it seems like I have a chance to resist them. It seems that I am pushed to unclean before the choice is even in front of me, or much in the same way that it would have been possible for the disappointingly too slow BYU cougars to beat TCU yesterday in the football game it didn't happen. In the same way there are a lot of times that I know it is possible I could have done something better, I just don't. I'm not sure where that leaves me with God. Then again, giving both teams an "A" game was it possible for BYU to beat TCU, should it have been?
Something slippery about the pain experience is that it is so easily forgotten. It is interesting as I have been going through these last experiences how many flash backs I have had to Korea. In some ways it has been reassuring. I have lived with some self doubt and still do with regards to my performance as a missionary. There were several days that I didn't even leave the house because my back hurt so bad. Being separated from the pain for a while I would find myself wondering if I was just weak and lazy at the time. Having my latest experience reminded me that indeed I may have been weak, but there really wasn't any other reasonable expectation of a person in the same physical condition. Pain will simply reach levels which are not tolerable and a person really can't even remember how bad they are unless they are in the middle of a similar experience. This forgetfulness of pain is well evidenced by the fact that there are several women who have more than one child, in fact if women do not average 2.1 children born a population will shrink in a modern industrial society. I am obviously doing a bit better now with respect to my pain as evidenced by the fact I am writing. In fact this episode has been different from the time I was in Korea in that the pain comes and goes. I have been able to enjoy some almost completely pain free time. Now I just have a slight headache which is just annoying and not worth the level of whining I'm doing now.
I'd really like to think I am learning something from my experience. It seems like too much cost to take on without some of reward. I feel like I am getting close to some sort of enlightenment, but not necessarily there. Writing sometimes helps clear things. As I have been writing an impression that returned to me that was part of my thinking along with my belief project was another project that I feel even more doubtful I'll ever get to, but would be nice... The project was to go through all of my facebook friends and maybe even a few of my friends who are facebook hold outs and give them a quick note to let them know something I appreciate about them. I do have some "friends" on facebook that I don't really know, but for the most part if you are reading this you are a person who has touched my life in a positive way and I give you a thanks for that from the bottom of my heart. The positive relations we are able to share with others are the most beautiful thing I have found in life. You are the wonderful part of my world. So as I said even though the chance of me overcoming my procrastination and personal inhibition of expressing myself to complete the project of telling you personally why you are meaningful to me is very low, know that you are and I appreciate you as a friend. Thank You!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
