Whazzup?

Hey, I'm just thinking about the whole Christmas thing. I'm a mail carrier, and often find the Christmas season to be stressful and hard to take. I've often thought about quitting the postal service so that I can begin liking Christmas as I once did long ago. It was like that this year too. But then the last couple of days I've had some things happen to me that have changed my perspective just a bit. Last night I was able to go to Temple Square with my wife and my RM (Returned missionary). We checked out a few of the displays and of course, the lights. What a beautiful night it was. We had taken Traxx, which is our public light rail system, downtown and as we waited to return, the three of us broke out into some Christmas carols. An older couple who were standing next to us commented on how good we sounded. Maybe it was the attitude of the people around us, or perhaps it was the act of spontaneously singing, or even the company I was with, but somehow that feeling of stress that had predominated the last couple of weeks fled, and I was left feeling exhilarated.
And then again, maybe that's what God wants me to feel this time of year and perhaps the whole year. As I further contemplated life, I felt the greatest sense that He is involved in our lives and cares about us as individuals. I know He lives. I know this. I know Jesus Christ atoned for our sins that we could live with Him again. I know Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, that the Book of Mormon is true and that Gordon B. Hinckley is our living prophet today.
Those things that I know give me comfort in this world of turmoil and sin.

w00t ain't a word, irregardless of Meriam Webster

The internet word w00t, that's "w" followed by two zeros and a "t" has been named "Word ऑफ़ the Year" by Meriam-Webster. Check this link: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071211-the-wisdom-of-crowds-w00t-voted-word-of-the-year.html However, this "word" isn't really. English words can only be created using the 26 letters of the alphabet. A zero isn't a letter. If I can't spell it using Scrabble tiles or Boggle cubes, it ain't a word.

Racial Hatred in Louisiana

The recent racial tensions that have erupted in Jena, Louisiana show that some of us in America aren’t all that far removed from the tenets of radical Islam. Think of what spawns incidents such as these–it is the way children continue to be raised to hate. In much the same way that Wahabism is preached to the school children of Saudi Arabia, so too racial hatred is still preached in many homes across the south and other areas of our country. Shame on all of you who continue to build hate instead of bridges. Shame on you for your shortsighted doctrine that only leads to bloodshed and violence and never to peace. One day, you will grow up and become a caring human being. Until then, shame on you.

And Now a Proud Grandpa Brags

Here are a couple of pics of my two grandchildren. . .That's Gillian with the Easter basket, and the other cutie is Anna.

A Visit to the Shrine

On July 4th, my wife Ann and I visited one of my family's old hunting grounds. I added a postscript to my dad's old "Roe Clan" tree. Here's the pic:

Here's a Picture of My Son Sam

That's him on the right. The other two people are President and Sister Ringwood of the Korea Seoul West Mission.

Here's a Picture of My Son Ben

This is Ben on his mission in Peru.

Death of a Good Man

My dad died Sunday, June 24th. Here's my journal entry from Monday: My dad died yesterday. For genealogy purposes, it was June 24, 2007. I don’t know if it’s sunk in yet. It’s hard to have your father die. I keep thinking about him and all the things he did, and the places we went together and that kind of thing. He died of a heart attack, and I think that’s what it would have had to have been to kill him as he had a big heart. He may not have gone to church, and he may have actually turned against religion, but he was good to his family and he had reasons why he turned away from God. His life was mixed up in some ways, and I think those ways formed him in the way he was—kind at times, rough at other times, smart, yet letting reason and intellect get in the way of intuition and allowance for there being a God. In many ways he was heroic, but in some ways, he was childish. Like all of us, he had his moments of greatness–and his moments of blackness. I loved him, but disagreed with him on any number of important issues.
Dad was the finest hunter and fisherman I knew. He knew more about the woods and the wildlife in them than most people who have ever lived. He knew how to make things with his hands–he was a very creative person, one who figured out how to do things and then did them. I think everyone close to him has something that he gave to them that he created. He was generous, and thought little of his money, thought of it as a means to share good times with his family and others—not as something to horde for a future time. He lived life big and he lived life hard at times, but he was my dad, and by golly, I’m going to miss him.

The NBA Playoffs part two

It looks like I was right about Cleveland finishing off Detroit. Now the question is, will the Spurs win in a sweep, or will Cleveland somehow squeak out a win or two? Only time will tell.

The NBA Playoffs

With the demise of the Utah Jazz, losing 4-1 to the San Antonio Spurs, we need now only wait for the ending to the exciting Eastern Conference series between the Detroit Pistons and the Cleveland Cavaliers. My prediction is that LeBron James and the Cavs go on to beat Detroit, only to lose to San Antonio and the great Tim Duncan in the finals. I'm not sure about the popularity of this match up across the nation, but to those of us who are basketball lovers, it sounds like a great match up. And should the Pistons handle the Cavs, that shapes up to be a good match as well.

Kansas Abortion Doctor and Boulder School Fiasco

If you want to be outraged, check out this transcript of the Bill O'Reilly Show.
Here's the link: Dr. George Tiller Performs Late-Term Abortions for Any Reason
I heard the young girl interviewed who had been forced into getting an abortion by her parents. Talk about a profound influence on a life. Great parents she has. Speaking of great parents, in Boulder, Colorado recently, there was a mandatory school assembly, in which the panelists recommended that the high schoolers have any sex they wanted with anyone they wanted to have sex with. They also recommended experimenting with drugs, including ecstasy and other drugs. Basically, to these panelists, anything goes. If that isn't bad enough, there doesn't seem to be any parents in that town who care enough to demand the resignations or the firing of the school administrators who allowed these people into the school. Hmmm. More great parenting.
I guess my bottom line is that if people don't speak out, then, like the rise of Adolf Hitler, things continue to spiral downward (yes, I consider Hitler's rise to power to be a downward spiral in the larger scheme of things--something that could've been stopped in its early stages but wasn't). I guess too many of us are engaged in the latest reality show to make the effort to speak out against some of these things. Too bad really, because the world we get is the one of our own making.

The Cravens and Cowards in Congress

What we have in Congress these days are a bunch of cowards, too afraid of not getting re-elected to do anything for the real benefit of our country. Let me just give you a few examples of what I’m talking about. Number 1, immigration reform. The Dems are too nice, willing to pretty much let anyone come across our borders for humanitarian reasons. Their well-meaning, yet misguided mantra is saving humanity from the evil of poverty. The obvious flaw to their plan is that not only does it allow good, hard working folk to come into the country, but it also allows those who are bent on evil and law breaking. On the other hand, we have the Republicans who think it’s good for business to hire illegals who become a cheap source of labor. Both parties kowtow to the illegal immigrants in order to gain votes–feeling that once these people are given amnesty, there will be a ready and willing group of voters to keep whomever in power. To give them credit, there are some Republicans who actually believe in the rule of law in America, and are fighting to toughen our immigration enforcement, but there are too few of these voices dangling in the wind. Craven and coward, congress marches on as a bunch of do-nothings, continually showing their contempt for the American people.
The second example is Social Security. In a few years, Social Security is going in the dumper, with far more going out than coming in. Yet when President Bush tried to do something to fix the problem, he found a Congress that was unwilling—again due to re-election concerns—to work with him to try and solve the problem.
The question is, what do we as Americans do about it? My suggestion is to bombard them with letters, e-mails, phone calls or personal visits. Not that they’ll listen. They’ll of course, pretend to. The more I think about it, the more I believe that term limitations would help alleviate that problem. Do I think this bunch of morally bankrupt individuals would do that to themselves? Think about it.

Here's a great website for guitarists:

guitar.zentao.com/forum

You Look Like the Borg

Okay, I know a lot of you have those cell phones that fit right over your ear, and you can talk and all that without using your hands etc... Yeah, I know all that, but you kind of remind me of those borg people on Star Trek Next Gen... Also, many of you are ill-mannered, stopping from talking to a live person in the midst of a conversation to begin speaking to some invisible being on the other end of that borg device.