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+---
+title: Index of Life Lessons
+---
+
+_This is a listing of all the life lessons portrayed in the stories of this book and the corresponding story title. It is hoped that this listing will help the reader find the story they are looking for more quickly. The numbers refer to the numbers in the story titles in the collection of digital files that accompany this book._
+
+| Life Lesson | Story |
+|---|---|
+| Be a hero and lift others up | [The Knot Hole in the Old Wooden Bridge](/stories/02_The_Knot_Hole_in_the_Old_Wooden_Bridge.html) |
+| Example of prayer, confirm your love to others | [Adventures on Black Cap Mountain](/stories/03_Adventures_on_Black_Cap_Mountain.html) |
+| Be content with simple blessings | [Dan's First Big Trip](/stories/04_Dans_First_Big_Trip.html) |
+| Money and riches are not vital to happiness | [Essential Ingredients of Life: Food and Love](/stories/05_Essential_Ingredients_of_Life_Food_and_Love.html) |
+| Take life's bumps and bruises with a chuckle | [Growing Up with my Dad Ralph](/stories/06_Growing_Up_with_My_Dad_Ralph.html) |
+| The soft-spoken approach beats yelling every time | [Win Friends and Influence People](/stories/08_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People.html) |
+| We all come from humble beginnings. Keep the humility throughout your life | [Dan's Hobbies in High School](/stories/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School.html) |
+| Don't trust your eyes. Look upon the heart | [Dynamite and the Old Snag](/stories/10_Dynamite_and_the_Old_Snag.html) |
+| Serve others to heal your troubled soul | [Melody's Malady](/stories/11_Melodys_Malady.html) |
+| Don't take simple blessings you enjoy every day for granted. Be grateful for simple blessings | [Chocolate Waterfalls](/stories/12_Chocolate_Waterfalls.html) |
+| The power of giving compliments to lift others | [Dan's Mission in Brazil](/stories/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil.html) |
+| Be cheerful in the face of adversity | [A Date with Eternity](/stories/21_A_Date_with_Eternity.html) |
+| The best way to triumph when you have been assaulted or abused is to adopt an attitude of forgiveness | [The Volkswagen That Couldn't](/stories/22_The_Volkswagen_that_Couldnt.html) |
+| We become the sum of our choices | [Dem Bones](/stories/23_Dem_Bones.html) |
+| Don't let worry distract you from the magnificence of nature and unbridled emotional exuberance | [Emily's War Dance for Hurricane Bob](/stories/24_Emilys_War_Dance_for_Hurricane_Bob.html) |
+| Nothing matters more than loving relationships with family members | [Encounter with a Stubborn Tree](/stories/25_Encounter_with_a_Stubborn_Tree.html) |
+| Compassion and forgiveness are better than anger and revenge | [A Critter in the House](/stories/27_A_Critter_in_the_House.html) |
+| Some sorrow will be experienced by everyone in this life. It's all a part of the plan | [Some Rain Must Fall](/stories/35_Some_Rain_must_Fall.html) |
+| Take care of a problem early before it becomes a monster | [The Blackberry Wars](/stories/37_The_Blackberry_Wars.html) |
+| Opposition enhances our appreciation of the good times | [The Blackberry Wars](/stories/37_The_Blackberry_Wars.html) |
+| Adversity is our friend, not our enemy. Embrace it | [The Blackberry Wars](/stories/37_The_Blackberry_Wars.html) |
+| Give knot-heads the benefit of the doubt | [Tree Frog Sabotage](/stories/38_Tree_Frog_Sabotage.html) |
+| Rely on God's appraisals for what has real value in this life | [Legendary Rocks](/stories/41_Legendary_Rocks.html) |
+| Do things every day to retain that vital eternal perspective that aids our smaller daily decisions | [A Date with Eternity: Epilogue](/stories/42_A_Date_with_Eternity_Epilog.html) |
+| We can choose how we react to adversity. Adversity will ultimately make us stronger | [The Parable of the Sower](/stories/43_The_Parable_of_the_Sower_a_New_Interpretation.html) |
+| The brilliance we can find with our hearts will always far outshine that which can be produced by the minds of this world | [The Progress of Technology During My Lifespan](/stories/44_The_Progress_of_Technology_During_My_Lifespan.html) |
+| Death is not a tragedy in the eternal perspective | [Two Funerals and a Wedding](/stories/45_Two_Funerals_and_a_Wedding.html) |
diff --git a/md/01_Outline_of_the_life_of_Daniel_Dee_Williams.md b/md/01_Outline_of_the_life_of_Daniel_Dee_Williams.md
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+---
+title: Outline of the life of Daniel Dee Williams
+---
+
+_This article will serve as the outline of my life. It describes the
+locations I lived in throughout my life and a few memories from each
+place. Thus, it will serve as an index to the rest of the articles
+contained in my life history. If the incident described in an article
+happened completely at one location, it will be listed in that
+location's description. However, some of the articles are about topics
+where not all of the incidents happened at the same time or place. Some
+of these will not be mentioned in this index._
+
+## Lakeview, Oregon
+I was born in Lakeview, Oregon on July 16, 1953. My father farmed with
+his brother, Frane, and father in the surrounding farmland, but the
+family home was located in the town. I was born 6 weeks premature and
+weighed less than 5 pounds. I spent some time in an incubator before the
+doctors let me come home. I remember a photo, long since lost, of me
+lying on a bed next to a ruler that was larger than I was. It was a
+rather humble beginning to a grand life full of love and adventure.
+
+The first home I lived in was very small and located near the railroad
+tracks. I have no memory of this house or what it looked like. The
+family moved to another small home with blue shutters where I remember a
+few very hazy experiences. On one occasion I was playing with some
+neighborhood children. One of them told me to close my eyes and open my
+mouth. That "friend" then threw a handful of dirt into my mouth. They
+all laughed and ran away. I calmly walked home and showed my mom that I
+had dirt in my mouth and needed help to clean it out. I was too young to
+realize that someone had played a mean-spirited trick on me. I just
+thought it was a game I didn't really understand.
+
+The last house I lived in, in Lakeview, was a three-bedroom home on the
+main road into town. I lived there until I was 6 years old. We lived
+next to a kind old lady we called Grandma Green. We spent hours over in
+her back yard climbing in her apple tree. I remember learning how to
+throw rocks at grasshoppers and catching them in her large, graveled
+driveway between our two houses. Whenever we were able to catch a
+grasshopper, we would carry it over to the dining-room window where our
+pet spider had a huge web in the window well. We would throw the bug in
+her web and watch her descend from her hideout in the corner and wrap
+the bug in a silken blanket. She grew very fat that summer from all the
+tasty bugs we caught for her. When school started, I walked to and from
+school without a care in the world about being abducted by the
+boogeyman. I did this for both kindergarten and 1^st^ grade. It seemed
+to my little legs like quite a long walk, but was probably only about 5
+or 6 blocks.
+
+Our simple life in Lakeview came to an end abruptly one night while the
+family was at a drive-in movie. We were watching "The Greatest Show on
+Earth" when a message came over the speaker that was hanging on our car
+window. The message was something like this, "Would Ralph Williams
+please come to the ticket booth. You have an urgent phone call." When he
+came back, he told us the grain elevator was on fire and we had to leave
+right away. Dad and his brother owned and operated this building which
+processed wheat and barley into pellets of feed for cattle. When we
+arrived at the scene from the drive-in movie, the entire upper floor of
+the building was engulfed in flames. It was all kind of exciting and a
+bit frightening for a six-year-old, but I had no idea this meant a whole
+new life for me and the family. Nine months later, my dad got a job and
+we moved to Hermiston, Oregon.
+
+The following two stories occurred while I lived in Lakeview:
+
+1. [The Knothole in the Old Wooden Bridge](/stories/02_The_Knot_Hole_in_the_Old_Wooden_Bridge.html)
+2. [Adventures on Black Cap Mountain](/stories/03_Adventures_on_Black_Cap_Mountain.html)
+
+## Hermiston, Oregon
+Our first house in Hermiston was a tiny house, but we only lived there
+for a few months. Behind the house was an open field where we played. It
+had one feature that was better than any playground we had ever seen. It
+had a huge old stump with all the roots still attached to it. It had
+been pulled out of the ground by some monster eons ago and left there
+for our personal entertainment. We could climb all over it and pretend
+anything our little imaginations could come up with. It was a castle, a
+bean stalk, an airplane or Rapunzel's tower. It was way better than
+Disneyland.
+
+The next house we lived in was right across the street from the school.
+It had a huge weeping willow in the back yard that was perfect for
+climbing. Behind the house was a huge vacant lot that was swampy in
+parts and had a lot of big boulders and dirt hills near the back end. We
+often brought glass bottles out there and set them up on the rocks as
+targets for throwing rocks at. After a while, all the broken glass made
+the place treacherous, but we didn't know any better and neither did our
+parents.
+
+I learned to ride a bike on the school yard, where we also often played
+during the summer. One time, while playing near the school, I bragged
+that I could throw a rock over the school roof. My friend said, "No way,
+Jose!" Of course, I couldn't leave it at that and picked up the nearest
+rock and let it fly. To my horror, the rock didn't make it to the roof,
+but instead went through a large window and left a gaping hole in the
+glass. My friend wasn't horrified at all. In fact, he wanted to do me
+one better. He picked up a larger rock and through it through a larger
+window. Then we ran away as fast as we could go. I never told my parents
+or anyone else about our crime. I was pretty sure if anyone ever found
+out, I would go straight to prison. I don't think I was eight years old
+yet, so in the Judgement Day, I'm hoping I can get a pass on that one.
+
+## Oregon City, Oregon
+Soon after, my dad got a job with the Federal Land Bank and we moved to
+Oregon City. The house was a big old farmhouse out in the country. I
+expect we rented it from some old folks that didn't want to farm any
+more. There were dozens of climbing trees, a huge old barn and an
+ancient prune dryer building whose roof had caved in. It was the perfect
+place for mischief and adventure. I believe I was in the 5^th^ grade and
+went to school at Carus, a small unincorporated town 7 miles south of
+Oregon City. There were three grades in the same room, only 5 students
+in my grade and only one teacher for all of us. I was the only boy in my
+grade, but I wasn't very interested in girls yet. After Christmas break
+that year, the school moved into a brand-new school built behind the old
+one.
+
+My brother and I built the coolest fort on the ground floor of the old
+prune dryer building. It was built out of stacked up red bricks that
+were just part of the rotting jumble there, but it was our own private
+place where we made candles out of wax and string so we could have a
+little light to see by. I suppose it as a miracle we didn't burn the
+place down.
+
+The following stories happened at this location. The story called Trees
+covered a period of many years, but started during this time.
+
+1. [Dan's First Big Trip](stories/04_Dans_First_Big_Trip.html)
+2. [Trees](/stories/07_Trees.html)
+
+## Vancouver, Washington
+Dad was promoted to manager and was transferred to a new office in
+Vancouver. This meant another move. The new house was a flat roofed
+little affair just off Saint John's Road on the northern edge of
+Vancouver. It was adjacent to a railroad, so of course, we had to leave
+a few pennies on the rails to get flattened by the trains. We spent a
+lot of time playing with the neighbors. Emily Edwards lived on the West
+side of us. She was my first crush. She never knew it because I wouldn't
+have dared telling her. However, she probably contributed to the fact
+that my first daughter was named Emily.
+
+In the woods nearby there was a small lake where my brother and I liked
+to go fishing. We caught mostly Blue Gill, but often caught catfish big
+enough to bring home for mom to cook for us. We were only in this house
+for a year, but it made an impression.
+
+The following story happened in this house. However, it is listed as
+part of the group of pyrotechnic misadventures below.
+
+1. [The Match-Head Bomb](/stories/29_The_Match-Head_Bomb.html)
+
+## Ridgefield, Washington
+My father bought 60 acres from an old guy named Aquinas Fox for
+$20,000. I remember when dad first brought us to the property where we
+would build our home. We drove the car out on the knoll to the home
+site. We were all amazed at the beautiful view of the North fork of the
+Lewis River valley. We could see 3 snow-capped peaks on the horizon and
+forested hills for as far as the eye could see. The house cost about
+$16,500 to build. We moved into the house in about 1964 and became
+residents of the town of Ridgefield, although the house wasn't actually
+within the town boundaries.
+
+I lived in this house until 1972 when I left to go to college at Brigham
+Young University in Provo, Utah. It was here that I learned how to
+drive, bought my first car and several motorcycles, learned how to kiss
+a girl, and spent many lazy summer days in the river bottoms swimming
+and exploring.
+
+The following stories occurred at this location:
+
+1. [Trees](/stories/07_Trees.html)
+2. [Win Friends and Influence People](/stories/08_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People.html)
+3. [Dan's Hobbies in High School](/stories/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School.html)
+4. [Dynamite and the Old Snag](/stories/10_Dynamite_and_the_Old_Snag.html)
+
+## Provo, Utah -- First year at BYU, Fall 1972 to Spring 1973
+I lived in the towers at BYU. This was a group of about 4 thirty-story
+towers of student dorms near the campus. I lived on about the 20th
+floor with a guy from Oklahoma who spoke with a strong southern drawl.
+Dad rented a small trailer to haul my Honda 650 and Tom's Honda 350 to
+school for us, along with our stuff and a whole lot more for my "friend"
+Terri from Salem.
+
+While living in the towers, I got this wild-haired idea to grow a
+world's record icicle during the winter months when the temperature
+often stayed below freezing for weeks at a time. I opened my window just
+a crack and extended my pool que about 18 inches out into the freezing
+air. I then rigged up a large soda fountain cup with a hole in the
+bottom just inside the window. A few straws channeled the water from the
+cup out the window onto the pool cue, where a short piece of rope was
+attached. When I filled the cup with water, it dripped slowly through
+the straws onto the rope suspended by the pool cue. I did this many
+times every day until the icicle grew about 20 feet long. After a while,
+the icicle got so big and heavy that I feared it would bend my pool cue,
+so I ended the experiment before the guy from the Guinness Book of World
+Records could come and measure it. So much for my dreams of being world
+famous.
+
+## Desert Survival Course
+The following group of articles are all about a course I took from BYU
+during the summer of 1973. The first two are descriptions of specific
+events. The rest are all extracts from the journal I kept while taking
+the course.
+
+1. [Melody's Malady](/stories/11_Melodys_Malady.html)
+2. [Chocolate Waterfalls](/stories/12_Chocolate_Waterfalls.html)
+3. [Survival Journal - Introduction](/stories/13_Survival_Journal_Introduction.html)
+4. [Survival Journal - Week One](/stories/14_Survival_Journal_Week1.html)
+5. [Survival Journal - Week Two](/stories/15_Survival_Journal_week2.html)
+6. [Survival Journal - Week Three](/stories/16_Survival_Journal_Week3.html)
+7. [Survival Journal - Week Four](/stories/17_Survival_Journal_Week4.html)
+8. [Survival Journal - Week Five](/stories/18_Survival_Journal_Week5.html)
+9. [Survival Journal - Final Paper](/stories/19_Survival_Journal_Final_Paper.html)
+
+## Brazil -- Fall 1973 to Fall 1975
+I spent 4 months at the Language Training Mission and 20 months in
+southern Brazil. It was a building experience for me because the
+Catholic church was so strong in those days that it was a real challenge
+to find people seeking the complete truth. See the article listed below.
+
+1. [Dan's Mission in Brazil](/stories/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil.html)
+
+## Provo, Utah -- 1976 to 1978. Roman Gardens student apartments
+We sarcastically called the complex the Roman Ruins because they were
+not in the best repair, but I had no complaints. I only slept there and
+spent most of my time on campus studying electrical engineering. I had a
+roommate named Rod and Jeff Rankin, who was the Elder's Quorum president
+in our student branch. Both played a role in my marriage to the woman of
+my dreams, Lori Diane Fooks.
+
+I met Lori on January 22, 1978. She answered the door when I knocked on
+it. I was seeking one of her roommates to get information to request her
+membership records. I was serving as the branch membership clerk in the
+student branch. Since it was Lori's birthday, she was having a party of
+sorts and was in a somewhat "feisty" mood. See the article, "The Day We
+Met" for Lori's own very colorful account of this momentous event in the
+cosmos. Being the socially awkward nerd I was at that time, I was caught
+by surprise and was a bit frightened by her forwardness. I declined her
+offer and walked away, but her disarming sense of humor gave me the
+courage to return a few days later. I asked if the offer of cake was
+still good. She said the cake was all gone, but I could have some Jell-O
+if I wanted it. We began seeing each other more and more often after
+that.
+
+By the time Spring was starting to emerge, we were considered a couple
+in the branch, but not yet engaged. BYU sponsored an event called
+Preference, where the girls were responsible to ask the boys to go with
+them. Lori conspired with my roommates to kidnap me by surprise from the
+apartment just prior to the event. Jeff, the Elder's Quorum president,
+was supposed to arrange to have me present at the apartment at the
+appointed hour. Accordingly, Jeff left a note on my bed that morning to
+ask me to meet him for an interview in the evening at about 6:30 at the
+apartment. When I saw the note, Jeff was already gone to campus and I
+thought it was odd he would ask me to have an interview at that specific
+time when we were roommates, and he could talk to me just about any day
+without an appointment. Like a clueless dufus, I blew it off and stayed
+on campus late into the evening working on my studies. When it was
+evident I couldn't be found, Lori took my roommate, Rod, in my place.
+The date was a candlelight dinner under the stars on Squaw Peak followed
+by a trip to the Salt Lake Planetarium. I never had any idea what I had
+missed until the next morning when Rod told me how badly I had destroyed
+Lori's surprise extravaganza.
+
+I realized I needed to make it right, so I began to do some scheming of
+my own for a big date the next weekend. I convinced a friend in the
+student branch who had his pilot's license to do a double date with me
+and Lori by renting a 4-seater Cessna airplane at the Provo airport. We
+had about an hour of flying over the snow-covered mountains of the
+Wasatch Range. It was fascinating, but a little bit scary. My friend
+wasn't a highly skilled pilot and the landing was pretty rough. We
+bounced quite hard on the runway, but he managed to get us back to the
+airport in one piece and with our underwear still clean. After the
+flight, we went out for breakfast at a pancake house. I think I spent my
+whole month's allowance for that date, but at least I restored the
+prospect that a whole generation of amazing people would yet be
+descended from Lori and me.
+
+The following stories occurred while living at this location:
+
+1. [A Date with Eternity](/stories/21_A_Date_with_Eternity.html)
+2. [The Volkswagen That Couldn't](/stories/22_The_Volkswagen_that_Couldnt.html)
+
+## Provo, Utah -- 1978 to 1980, married couples' apartments
+Lori and I were engaged on June 8, 1978, the same day the church
+announced the revelation about "All Worthy Males" to the world. We
+were married on August 26, 1978. We lived in a building of apartments
+for married couples still attending BYU.
+
+I graduated from BYU with my electrical engineering degree and started
+my master's program so Lori could finish her degree in speech therapy.
+We lived in a second floor, two-bedroom apartment and soon moved up to
+the third floor because they had swamp coolers up there. I also started
+doing part-time work for a small start-up company near campus. Shortly
+thereafter, I ceased working on my master's degree and started working
+full-time for SOS Computers for a starting salary of $16,500. Then, in
+early 1979 we learned that we would be parents for the first time. Lori
+managed to finish her degree just a few weeks before we welcomed Emily
+into the family.
+
+## American Fork, Utah -- 1980 to 1989, SOS, Eaton-Kenway, Signetics
+I don't know how, but we qualified to buy our first house in American
+Fork for $49, 000 and moved into it in the Spring when Emily was still
+only a few months old. Our house payment was about $400. While living
+there, we welcomed Ryan, Megan and Mallory into our family. We had a
+small fleet of 2 Volkswagen bugs, one old green one I rebuilt after my
+mission and an orange one given to us by Lori's dad. I left SOS and
+started working for Eaton-Kenway and had to commute up to Salt Lake
+City. That got very old, and we rejoiced when I got hired by Signetics
+in Orem, Utah for $22.000. After a few years at Signetics, I was making
+$54,000. We had a plan to pay off the house in about 4 years and enjoy
+a life of luxury forever in American Fork. The Lord must have needed a
+bishop in Maine, because the recession hit, and I lost my job. The only
+career door left open was in the state of Maine. I felt like we had been
+banished to outer Mongolia, but Maine turned out to be a wonderful place
+to raise our little family.
+
+The following stories occurred while living at this location:
+1. [Dem Bones](/stories/23_Dem_Bones.html)
+
+## Windham, Maine -- 1989 to 2002, National Semiconductor, Fairchild Semiconductor
+They put us right to work in the Windham Ward, a very dedicated group of
+faithful saints just north of Portland, ME. I was called to be the 2^nd^
+counselor in the bishopric after only living in the ward for about 3
+months. I was then bumped up to first counselor, then the stake hi
+counsel and eventually served as the bishop for 6 ½ years. Those 13
+years were some of the most rewarding of my life.
+
+The following stories occurred while living at this location:
+
+1. [Emily's War Dance for Hurricane Bob](/stories/24_Emilys_War_Dance_for_Hurricane_Bob.html)
+2. [Encounter with a Stubborn Tree](/stories/25_Encounter_with_a_Stubborn_Tree.html)
+3. [The Rogue Wave](/stories/26_The_Rogue_Wave.html)
+4. [A Critter in the House](/stories/27_A_Critter_in_the_House.html)
+5. [The Banana Peel Bomb](/stories/30_The_Banana_Peel_Bomb.html)
+6. [The Basement Window Non-Miss](/stories/34_The_Basement_Window_Non-Miss.html)
+7. [Ricochet Rockets in the Basement](/31_Ricochet_Rockets_in_the_Basement.html)
+8. [The Wedding Proposal Fiasco](/stories/32_The_Wedding_Proposal_Fiasco.html)
+9. [The Picture Window Near Miss](/stories/33_The_Picture_Window_Near_Miss.html)
+
+## Fisher's Landing, Washington -- 2002 to 2006, Flipping houses with Dad, WSU
+These were some of the darker days of my life. The 2002 recession killed
+my livelihood in Maine. We packed up our belongings into a 24-foot
+rental truck and took a week to drive from the east coast to the west
+coast. The house in Fisher's Landing was a tiny 1050 sq. ft., 3-bedroom
+house in a development where the houses were only a few feet apart. We
+bought the house sight unseen for $130,000 because it was affordable
+for a guy without a job. Emily and Ryan were at BYU and Megan joined
+them shortly. It was just Mallory, Lori and I living there where I tried
+to figure out how to rebuild my life.
+
+Lori and I worked with my father for a few years flipping houses.
+Working with my father was a blessing because he passed away in 2005. It
+gave me a chance to spend a lot of time with him before he left this
+world. However, it soon became obvious that doing all the renovation
+work was very hard on my aging body. I was quite happy to be able to use
+a NAFTA program to go back to school at WSU. I earned a second
+bachelor's degree in software engineering and was given a full ride
+scholarship and teaching assistantship to work on my master's degree,
+also in software. I was just finishing my program when my mother invited
+us to live at the family homestead in Ridgefield. We didn't think twice
+about leaving Fisher's Landing. The housing bubble was raging, and we
+sold that house for $219,000, a $90,000 profit after living there for
+only 4 years.
+
+## Ridgefield, Washington -- 2006 to 2018, Hewlett Packard, Powin Energy
+Shortly after moving to the homestead house in Ridgefield I landed my
+dream job at Hewlett Packard in 2007 and started working there
+full-time. It seemed like all the pieces had fallen into place for Lori
+and I to live out the rest of our lives in relative peace and financial
+stability. We spent most of the profits of our last home sale to upgrade
+and renovate the Ridgefield home. Just as it seemed that all our
+troubles were over, the housing bubble popped and the economy dove into
+the "Great Recession". As a new employee at HP, I had no seniority and
+lost that job in 2009.
+
+NAFTA again paid for me to take some classes while on unemployment. I
+earned the Oracle Java Programmer Certification in October 2009 and the
+Oracle Java Developer Certification in March of 2010. I also taught
+"Introduction to Database Systems" as an adjunct Professor at WSU from
+January to May of 2010. I did a little work as an independent contractor
+for a company called Griswold Water Systems until early 2011 and finally
+landed a job with Powin Energy in September of 2011. During those two
+years since losing my job at HP, there was very little income, but it
+always seemed to be enough to cover the basics and keep us out of debt.
+I attribute that blessing to many years of faithfully paying my tithing.
+The job at Powin was interesting because they were a start-up in the
+field of grid-scale energy storage, but the commute to the south side of
+Portland was an hour each way and there was always the hint that the
+company would fail before breaking into the big leagues and achieving a
+little stability. They finally ran out of investment funding and let me
+go in October of 2018.
+
+The following stories occurred while living at this location:
+
+1. [Some Rain Must Fall](/stories/35_Some_Rain_must_Fall.html)
+2. [The Basement Window Non-Miss](/stories/34_The_Basement_Window_Non-Miss.html)
+3. [Rocket Scientists](/stories/36_Little_Rocket_Scientists.html)
+4. [The Blackberry Wars](/stories/37_The_Blackberry_Wars.html)
+5. [Tree Frog Sabotage](/stories/38_Tree_Frog_Sabotage.html)
+6. [Legendary Rocks](/stories/41_Legendary_Rocks.html)
+7. [The Parable of the Sower: A New Interpretation](/stories/43_The_Parable_of_the_Sower_a_New_Interpretation.html)
+
+## Meridian, Idaho -- 2018 to present
+After moving to Meridian, Idaho to live with our daughter, Emily Clark,
+I worked part-time for Dan, her husband, as his warranty issue fixer
+from January 2019 until July 2019 when I qualified for full retirement
+benefits from Social Security. The plan was to build an in-law apartment
+on their lot and enjoy just being "Nana and Papa" to our grandchildren.
+Apparently, the rest of our mortality was not meant to be a breeze just
+yet because we spent over 2 years fighting with the Home-Owners
+Association to allow the project to proceed. While waiting to resolve
+those issues, COVID-19 struck and traumatized the entire world. However,
+with my 67. 8 years of perspective to draw upon, I am at peace with all
+these tribulations. Through everything that has come my way, the gospel
+of Jesus Christ has always given me the peace and assurance that I
+needed to get past them. I can't wait to see what else is in store even
+in these times of so much turbulence in the world.
diff --git a/md/02_The_Knot_Hole_in_the_Old_Wooden_Bridge.md b/md/02_The_Knot_Hole_in_the_Old_Wooden_Bridge.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..da71ee5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/02_The_Knot_Hole_in_the_Old_Wooden_Bridge.md
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+---
+title: The Knot Hole in the Old Wooden Bridge
+---
+
+Circa 1958
+
+This event happened over 50 years ago, but its effects will last
+forever. I was only 5 years old. My father decided to take me on my
+first fishing trip. We drove in the car to one of his favorite fishing
+places on a stream near an old wooden bridge. He patiently showed me how
+to bait the hook, how to cast the baited hook into the middle of the
+stream and how to slowly reel it back in to attract the attention of the
+trout that lived in the stream. He watched me try it a few times and
+then, satisfied that I had mastered the art, he went upstream a short
+distance to try his own luck with another fishing pole.
+
+Now, Dad taught me well the mechanics of trying to catch a fish, but he
+didn't mention that it required a lot of patience and a fair amount of
+diligent effort. After about 10 minutes of trying to catch a fish with
+no success, I began to get weary of doing the same thing over and over
+again. Many times my fishing line got tangled in the branches of the
+bushes by the stream. I thought surely there must be a better way to
+convince a fish to eat the tasty earthworm on my fishing hook. That is
+when I noticed the old wooden bridge.
+
+I walked onto the old bridge and looked around. In one of the weathered
+old planks of the bridge I noticed a knot hole that was just big enough
+to lower my baited hook through it and into the water of the stream
+below. I was quite pleased with myself. This was so much easier than
+casting the hook from the shore of the stream.
+
+Before long, a beautiful 12 inch long brook trout spied my bait and
+ended up firmly hooked on my fishing line. I was actually somewhat
+startled and began to reel in my line with great excitement. It soon
+became evident that my brilliant decision to use the knot hole was not
+so brilliant after all. The fish was simply too big to fit through the
+hole.
+
+In my panic, I began to scream for my father to come help me. When my
+father perceived the nature of the dilemma, he realized he had a choice
+to make. He could either emphasize the stupidity of my decision or he
+could make a fond memory that would last a lifetime. Fortunately, he
+chose the latter. He waded into the water and retrieved my beautiful
+rainbow colored brook trout. His clothes were soaking wet clear up to
+his chest, but he was my hero that day. He reaffirmed his love for me
+even on those occasions when I was not in my best form. The lesson and
+the example are a part of me to this day.
+
+What lessons of life are contained in this story? There are many. First,
+we should preserve these stories of our lives by writing them in a
+journal so they may be passed down to our posterity as a legacy of love
+for the gospel and its principles. Second, we should always maintain our
+worthiness to receive guidance from the Holy Ghost. He will help us make
+wise decisions on those occasions when we must choose how to react to
+difficult situations. Finally, we must never underestimate the power of
+our influence on others. Choices, which seem quite insignificant in the
+moment, might make an impression on someone else that will last a
+lifetime.
diff --git a/md/03_Adventures_on_Black_Cap_Mountain-media/media/image1.png b/md/03_Adventures_on_Black_Cap_Mountain-media/media/image1.png
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/md/03_Adventures_on_Black_Cap_Mountain-media/media/image1.png
diff --git a/md/03_Adventures_on_Black_Cap_Mountain.md b/md/03_Adventures_on_Black_Cap_Mountain.md
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/md/03_Adventures_on_Black_Cap_Mountain.md
@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+---
+title: Adventures on Black Cap Mountain
+---
+
+I was born in a dusty little desert town in Southern Oregon called
+Lakeview. From some of my earliest memories, I recall looking up at the
+range of mountains located beside the town. At six years of age, these
+mountains seemed huge and impressive. The truth is, they hardly
+qualified as mountains at all. They were more like very large hills. One
+in particular had a black volcanic basalt formation at its peak. Thus,
+it was always referred to as Black Cap Mountain. I often wondered what
+the view would look like from the top of that mountain.
+
+Knowing it would be a tough task to obtain permission, I began to ask my
+mother if my friend and I could plan a little hiking expedition. The
+goal, of course, was to conquer the mountain so we could brag to all our
+friends about our brave adventure. I had to ask a half a gazillion times
+to get the answer I wanted, but my persistence finally paid off. My
+mother packed a nice lunch for me. As she handed me the lunch, she told
+me to take my wrist watch so I would be certain to return by 3 o'clock.
+
+At about 11 o'clock in the morning, we set out on our journey,
+determined to return as the conquering heroes we imagined ourselves to
+be. The path that led to the top of the mountain was fraught with dozens
+of delightful distractions for little boys. We turned over many rocks to
+look for bugs. We found some sticks that served as our swords for
+slaying the dragon that lived on the mountain. We sat in the shade of a
+juniper tree to eat our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Before long,
+we realized that we weren't making much progress toward our goal. The
+black cap at the top of the mountain seemed just as far away as it did
+when we first set out on our quest. This was not a big concern for us
+because there were still plenty of places to explore right where we
+were. We continued our imaginary battles with the dragons and trolls and
+pretty much lost all track of the time.
+
+When it finally occurred to me to check my watch to see how much time we
+had left before 3 o'clock, I was surprised to discover that it was
+almost 4 o'clock. Knowing we might be in a heap of trouble, we hurried
+down the mountain as fast as we could go. 20 minutes later, we were
+nearing the first road that ran along the base of the mountain. Just as
+we reached the road, my mother drove by in her car and stopped for us to
+get in. She told me she had been driving back and forth on the road for
+almost an hour, looking up the slopes of the mountain to see if she
+could spot us. The ride back home was very quiet. I studied my mother's
+face to see if I could determine her mood. I was anxious to know if I
+was likely to spend the remainder of the month in the dungeon for my
+crimes. But, try as I might, I couldn't discern what evil punishments
+she was plotting inside her head. All I knew was that something was
+brewing in her mind because she was not her usual cheerful self.
+
+We dropped off my friend at his house and drove the short distance to
+our home. I tagged along behind my mother as we walked in the door. Now
+I would learn my fate. The air was thick with tension. She turned to me
+and said, "Would you come with me into the bedroom?" Expecting a good
+scolding, or perhaps worse, I went with her into the bedroom. She knelt
+beside the bed and motioned to me to do the same. Instead of unleashing
+a storm of anger upon me, she simply closed her eyes and began to offer
+an emotional prayer of gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the safe
+return of her son. Hearing the relief and gratitude that came pouring
+out of her heart, made an indelible impression on mine. Realizing I had
+been the cause of her anxiety, I resolved to never do anything to cause
+her such pain again.
+
+My resolution was short-lived I suppose. As a young and reckless boy, I
+still gave my mother plenty of reasons to worry. However, the knowledge
+of the depth of her love for me helped me try a little bit harder to
+become a son she could be proud of.
+
+![](md/03_Adventures_on_Black_Cap_Mountain-media/media/image1.png)
+
+This photo shows me in the pool in front of our house in Lakeview. Black
+Cap Mountain, with its black rock formation on the top, is seen behind
+the house.
diff --git a/md/04_Dans_First_Big_Trip.md b/md/04_Dans_First_Big_Trip.md
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/md/04_Dans_First_Big_Trip.md
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+---
+title: Dan's First Big Trip
+---
+
+Big adventures that took us far from home were not a part of my early
+childhood years. We had lots of family events near home with
+grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins and church friends, but
+expensive far away trips were out of our reach. I had no sense of
+deprivation or disappointment because I was just a small child and my
+world in the vicinity of Lakeview was enormous. There was never a lack
+of things to explore and challenging things to do, so life was good.
+
+I remember lots of little trips around the area. Dad loved to shoot guns
+and we often went to shoot jack rabbits at the airport and ground
+squirrels at grandpa Williams' farm. Family hikes in the surrounding
+hills and fishing in the local streams were common.
+
+The first actual vacation trip that I can remember was a family trip to
+Disneyland when we lived in Oregon City. We did lots of things as a
+family to earn some extra money for the event. Because we lived in an
+old farm house where there were still a few surviving trees from the
+original orchards, we were able to gather up a large pile of walnuts
+that had fallen on the ground beneath the trees. Dad placed them on some
+drying racks in the basement until they were dry enough to remove the
+outer skins and then crack the shells to harvest the nuts inside. I
+remember sitting with the family in the basement and cracking those
+walnuts for hours while we listened to music from an old radio. After
+all our efforts to earn extra cash for the trip, I think we managed to
+save up about 76 dollars.
+
+The trip was memorable, but full of boring stuff too. The traveling in
+Old Blue, the family station wagon, seemed endless and I remember being
+stuck in traffic for what seemed forever. We had to stand in line for
+hours to go on a 15-minute ride. I only remember the submarine ride and
+the Matterhorn. The crowds and cars and big city were all a bit
+overwhelming for a young boy from the country. I came back from the
+experience wondering what the big attraction of it was. I'd rather build
+forts in the old prune dryer and catch crawdads in the local stream than
+fight with the crowds in the big city.
+
+A loving, supportive family with lots of siblings and extended family
+were enough to build a world of happiness for me. I never felt that I
+needed to escape from the local village to see the wonders of the world.
+I was content with the simple life of a country boy from the sticks.
diff --git a/md/05_Essential_Ingredients_of_Life_Food_and_Love-media/media/image1.jpeg b/md/05_Essential_Ingredients_of_Life_Food_and_Love-media/media/image1.jpeg
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diff --git a/md/05_Essential_Ingredients_of_Life_Food_and_Love.md b/md/05_Essential_Ingredients_of_Life_Food_and_Love.md
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/md/05_Essential_Ingredients_of_Life_Food_and_Love.md
@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+---
+title: "Essential Ingredients of Life: Food and Love"
+---
+
+When I was growing up in Lakeview, food was a simple affair, but it was
+always there and I had no sense of any shortages. There was not a lot of
+variety, but we had our favorites and my mother made them often.
+
+One of the most favorite of all was chicken and noodles. Mom would mix
+up a batch of flour and eggs and roll it out into a big round pie crust
+shape. Then she would cut the noodle strips by hand with a knife. When
+cooked, they always looked quite lumpy and irregular, unlike the pasta
+noodles you can buy in the store. Then Mom made a thick broth of chicken
+stock and chunks of chicken. This was thick like gravy, not like soup. I
+assume she must have thickened this sauce with corn starch, but I didn't
+pay much attention to the details when Mom was doing the cooking.
+Although this was quite a cheap meal for the family, we always felt like
+we were eating like kings when we ate this delicious home-made
+delicacy.
+
+Another favorite was deep-fried scones. My mother made some kind of
+bread dough and proceeded to shape them like donuts. The family would
+all sit around the table with an electric skillet in the center. It had
+about an inch of vegetable oil in it and we were always warned to be
+very careful not to get burned by the hot oil. Mom would add about four
+or five of the donut shaped lumps of dough to the hot oil and we would
+watch with fascination as they floated around in a sea of bubbles. The
+dough turned golden brown on the bottom and then Mom would turn them
+over to cook on the other side. Then she would place the hot scone on a
+plate in front of each person. We would add butter and honey and consume
+them with gusto as soon as they were cool enough to pick up. This cycle
+was repeated as many times as our stomachs could handle. It was like
+eating dessert for dinner and we never got tired of this meal.
+
+A memory that has been burned into my brain by the repetition of the
+ritual happened on Sunday evenings after we came home from evening
+church. My mother always made a big pile of cinnamon toast. This was
+done in the oven instead of a toaster. Mom would butter about a dozen
+slices of bread and sprinkle on the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Then she
+would put them on a large cookie sheet and put it under the broiler in
+the oven until the butter began to bubble and the bread turned brown and
+crispy. She would also make a big pot of hot cocoa to go with the
+cinnamon toast. Then we would eat this yummy treat while we watched "The
+Twentieth Century" with Walter Cronkite as the announcer. I remember
+seeing a lot of footage of things blowing up. The stories seemed to be
+mostly about battles that happened during World War II. We must have
+watched other shows as well because I remember watching the Ed Sullivan
+Show too. One of my favorite acts was about a puppet named Topo Gigio.
+
+![](md/05_Essential_Ingredients_of_Life_Food_and_Love-media/media/image1.jpeg){width="3.6458333333333335in"}
+
+At the end of the act, Ed would always kiss Topo on the cheek and make
+him giggle with embarrassment. It was a magical time for a family of
+little kids.
+
+![](md/05_Essential_Ingredients_of_Life_Food_and_Love-media/media/image2.jpeg){width="3.125in"}
+
+We also ate a lot of venison in those days because we could rarely
+afford to buy beef. My father would always go deer hunting every year
+and it seems that he almost always brought home a deer. My mother wasn't
+very fond of the taste of the deer meat, but the kids didn't know the
+difference, so we thought it was quite good.
+
+My final memory of good eating was breakfast. Mom always made a big pot
+of cream of wheat. The box was not very politically correct.
+
+![](md/05_Essential_Ingredients_of_Life_Food_and_Love-media/media/image3.jpeg){width="3.7604166666666665in"}
+
+I remember adding lots of brown sugar and butter, then a little milk. I
+always tried not to stir it too much so I could concentrate on the
+puddles of butter and sugar first.
+
+The point of this story is that our favorite foods were somewhat poor in
+nutrition by today's standards. They were mostly cheap starches and
+fats. However, there was no shortage of love in our little family. I
+guess money and riches are not vital ingredients of happiness because I
+remember those days as good times with great traditions.
diff --git a/md/06_Growing_Up_with_My_Dad_Ralph-media/media/image1.png b/md/06_Growing_Up_with_My_Dad_Ralph-media/media/image1.png
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diff --git a/md/06_Growing_Up_with_My_Dad_Ralph-media/media/image2.png b/md/06_Growing_Up_with_My_Dad_Ralph-media/media/image2.png
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diff --git a/md/06_Growing_Up_with_My_Dad_Ralph.md b/md/06_Growing_Up_with_My_Dad_Ralph.md
new file mode 100644
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/06_Growing_Up_with_My_Dad_Ralph.md
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+---
+title: Growing Up with My Dad Ralph
+---
+
+Times were tough when I was a little boy, but I never had a single clue
+to trouble my naive little noggin. Our humble circumstances were all I
+had ever known, and our family was full of adventure and love. If
+someone had told me we were poor and destitute, I would have told them
+they must be crazy. My life was just fine, and we were a happy little
+family.
+
+I never was aware of any hint about how much stress my father endured to
+carry the load of providing for our little tribe. Dad never showed any
+signs of worry or wear. To me he was just a fairly sober-minded dad who
+usually faced life's challenges with a subtle hint of mischief. He was
+not the type to laugh out loud and make outrageous jokes, but he enjoyed
+a little humor whenever he could. I'll give you a few examples that
+will illustrate what I mean.
+
+Whenever one of us children broke the rules and was worthy of some form
+of punishment, dad always said, "OK, Knucklehead. Grab your ankles!"
+The idea was that the offender would prepare to receive a swift kick to
+the posterior by bending over and taking hold of their ankles while
+still standing up. The kick from my dad was more of a gentle tap or a
+shove that sent the guilty party to the ground in a heap of giggles and
+laughter. The message was clear that dad never intended to enforce the
+rules with pain or anger. We felt duly punished for our miss-deeds, but
+always knew dad loved us.
+
+Dad usually had goofy nicknames for each of the children and they seemed
+to change occasionally. Carol was "Kedzle" and Leslie was "Saskie".
+Tom and I must have had a few nicknames too, but they escape me at the
+moment. I'll have to ask Tom if he remembers them.
+
+Another one of dad's subtle quirks involved his love for "road kill
+humor." He had a drawer full of oddities such as "The Original Road
+Kill Cookbook" and Boxes of Betty Trucker Roadkill Helper. Fortunately,
+this odd little twinkle in his eye developed after I was gone from the
+nest. See the pictures below.
+
+![](md/06_Growing_Up_with_My_Dad_Ralph-media/media/image1.png){width=49%}
+![](md/06_Growing_Up_with_My_Dad_Ralph-media/media/image2.png){width=49%}
+
+The message is that dad always took life's little bumps and bruises
+with a little bit of a chuckle. Even when things looked a little bit
+dreary, he was willing to look at the eternal picture and count his
+blessings.
diff --git a/md/07_Trees-media/media/image1.png b/md/07_Trees-media/media/image1.png
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/md/07_Trees-media/media/image1.png
diff --git a/md/07_Trees.md b/md/07_Trees.md
new file mode 100644
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/07_Trees.md
@@ -0,0 +1,266 @@
+---
+title: Trees
+---
+
+Trees have influenced my life many times over the years. This little
+memoir attempts to organize all my significant tree experiences into one
+place. The motivation for this odd little treatise is that the item
+"Plant a tree" is on my life's bucket list. After pondering about the
+trees I have planted, I decided to expand the topic to other aspects of
+interaction with trees also.
+
+My first memory of a tree experience comes from my earliest childhood
+playground. My family lived in a small white house in Lakeview, Oregon
+in 1958. We lived next to a kind old woman we referred to as Granny
+Green. In her back yard there was an ancient apple tree. It was large
+enough to support the weight of a 5-year-old boy who was learning to be
+like Tarzan of the jungle. I remember spending many lazy summer days in
+that back yard either under the tree or up in it. I hope to see Granny
+Green again someday in Heaven to thank her for those pleasant memories
+and her kindness to me and my siblings.
+
+## Treehouses
+
+Every healthy child must have a tree house embedded in his childhood at
+some point. My first one belongs to the period when my family lived in
+Oregon City in an old farm-house we rented for about a year or so. This
+would have been about 1964 when I was in the 5th grade of elementary
+school. There was a large old cherry tree in the spacious back yard of
+that farmhouse, not too far from a huge barn full of smelly old hay,
+bugs, pigeons and ancient farm equipment. The cherry tree had a few
+large branches that extended nearly parallel to the ground at a height
+of about 12 feet. With a ladder and some sophisticated engineering
+skills, my brother and I managed to place a few planks of wood across
+those branches to form a crude platform. This platform hardly qualified
+as a true treehouse, but it was our first attempt at this kind of
+construction, and we were still learning the skill. It was just large
+enough for two small children to sit on and contemplate the vast world
+below us. The comforts of this treehouse were fairly meager, but
+occasionally we could eat fresh cherries without leaving the living
+room.
+
+My next attempt at building a treehouse was considerably more
+sophisticated. I can't claim all the credit for the engineering marvel
+we created because our friend Dan Kraus filled the role of lead
+construction engineer in this project. I'm guessing I was about 16
+years old by this time because I remember going to a lumber mill with
+"Old Blue", our old blue Chevrolet station wagon that had been in the
+family since the dawn of time. We paid them a dollar for all the lumber
+scraps we could jam into the cargo hold of that station wagon. It was
+perfect for creating the treehouse of our dreams.
+
+Dan Kraus chose a great location for the treehouse. It was located near
+the top of a steep drop-off that descended about 100 feet to the river
+bottoms below. This land was part of the original 60 acres that my
+father bought when I was about 14 years old. He built the family home
+about 1/4 mile away at the top of a hill overlooking the river valley
+below. We found a clump of maple trees that were perfect for our
+treehouse. There were 4 big tree trunks that rose toward the sky roughly
+in the shape of a 4-pointed diamond. Two of the trunks in the middle of
+the diamond were only about 18 inches apart, but the other two trunks at
+the top and bottom of the diamond were about 6 feet apart. The floorplan
+of the treehouse is shown below.
+
+![](md/07_Trees-media/media/image1.png){alt=""}
+
+As you can see from the drawing above, there is a square hole in the
+floor between the two tree trunks that were close together. This hole
+was the door to the treehouse. The only way to get into the treehouse
+was to come up from below the floor and squeeze through the hole in the
+floor. It was not the best arrangement for invited guests and visiting
+dignitaries, but we weren't too worried about those issues when we
+designed the treehouse. Now this was no ordinary treehouse in other ways
+too. The bottom section of the floor (as shown in the drawing above) was
+the living room and it had sides that rose about 6 feet and then it had
+a roof over it. The top section was open to the air because it had no
+sides, just a couple of boards to act as guard rails. This area was the
+veranda. We also put up guard rails on the tree trunks above the living
+room so you could climb up there and be on the lookout for pirates
+coming up the river. We called this upper room the "crow's nest"
+because you could see a large marsh and lots of water-fowl in the river
+bottoms below us. The view was amazing and made us feel like we were the
+kings of a vast kingdom of wild and untamed wilderness below. I wish we
+had taken a picture of this treehouse. It was a source of great pride
+for about one summer. Then other things like girls and cars become more
+important and the treehouse was left to rot in the forest.
+
+## Climbing Trees
+
+I can remember two specific times when I nearly met with disaster when I
+climbed a tree. The first happened at the same home where we built our
+first tree house. There was an old apple tree near the house that had a
+huge limb that extended quite far over the ground 20 feet below. I loved
+to climb out to the end of that limb and bounce up and down. The limb
+would sway up and down about 4 feet. I thought I was like a cowboy
+riding a wild stallion in the air. I was too young and foolish to
+consider that I might be overstressing the structural strength of that
+tree limb. I just knew it was a lot of fun and wanted to impress others
+with my bravery and climbing skills. On one occasion, I was riding the
+wild stallion when my father came out in the yard. I yelled to him to
+watch what I could do in the tree. I threw all my weight into the effort
+to make the show as impressive as possible. Suddenly there was a sharp
+crack as the large tree limb finally gave up and broke under the strain.
+Now all my bravery evaporated, and I screamed like a little girl as the
+broken limb and I fell to the ground below. Fortunately, I didn't break
+any bones, but my pride was considerably bruised as my dad ran over to
+assess the damage. When he found that I wasn't hurt, he just chuckled
+and said, "Well, I guess you learned a valuable lesson about how
+gravity works, Dan."
+
+The second memorable occasion when I climbed a tree illustrates that I
+didn't learn very much from the first memorable tree-climbing incident.
+We lived in a rented house in Vancouver when I was about 10 years old.
+The neighbors across the road had a small pasture for a horse out behind
+their house. Located in the pasture was one of the largest fir trees I
+had ever seen. It rose about 80 feet into the air and was probably over
+100 years old. To me it seemed like the magic bean stalk from the fairy
+tale "Jack and the Bean Stalk". I often wondered what the world would
+look like from the top of that huge old fir tree. I finally worked up
+the courage to attempt the climb and found it to be quite easy. There
+were plenty of limbs to grab ahold of as I ascended to the top. I never
+really felt any great fear as I climbed up that tree. I didn't tell
+anybody about my daring climb because I was fairly certain that my
+parents wouldn't approve. I made it up to the top of that tree where
+the trunk was not very large and decided that was far enough. I had
+proved I could do it and I was ready to come back down. One false move
+and I would certainly have fallen to my death from about 80 feet in the
+air. If you were one of my children or grandchildren watching from
+heaven, you might have had reason for great concern. After all, I was
+not only risking my own life, but all of yours too. You might still be
+stuck in heaven waiting for your next ticket to come to earth because
+your foolish grandpa fell out of that tree and broke his neck. Anyway,
+you are reading this story, so I must have been OK.
+
+## Planting Trees
+
+The first trees I planted are possibly a whole forest of fir trees now,
+but I will likely never know. The first summer after I returned home
+from Brazil, I was hired to plant fir trees on a piece of logged off
+land owned by Jim Granger, a good friend of my father. I'm not sure,
+but I seem to remember that there was a government grant program that
+encouraged people to replant their land with trees after the mature
+lumber trees had been harvested by the logging companies. Accordingly,
+Brother Granger obtained hundreds of young fir seedlings and hired me
+and another college student to plant them. I remember trudging over the
+hills for many hours with a bundle of young trees and a shovel. It was
+back-breaking work, but it was somewhat satisfying to think we were
+contributing to a program that would make the world a more beautiful
+place. Hour after hour I pushed the shovel into the ground, pushed it
+over to the side to create a space in the soil, shoved a seedling into
+the opening, removed the shovel, stomped on the dirt around the young
+tree, then took three steps and repeated the same sequence. I've often
+wondered what ever happened to those trees, but I never had a chance to
+go back there again.
+
+The next trees I planted were in American Fork, Utah. Lori and I had
+purchased a starter home in a small neighborhood next to the railroad
+track and the freeway. After the house was built and the yard was
+planted in grass, I planted two red-leafed ornamental maple trees in the
+front yard along with a northern pecan tree beside the driveway. In the
+back yard I planted a peach tree, a red delicious apple tree and two
+cherry trees. They were all part of an ambitious back yard garden plan
+that included strawberries, raspberries, asparagus and a vegetable plot.
+
+We waited for several years while the fruit trees grew big enough to
+finally start growing fruit. About the third or fourth year later, the
+apple tree burst forth with hundreds of white blossoms after the winter
+finally gave way to spring. Lori and I were so excited to see all those
+blossoms because they meant we would soon enjoy the delight of
+harvesting our first apples from that tree. Alas, it was not to be. A
+few days later, I came home from work to learn that Emily, our oldest
+daughter, had climbed into the tree and picked every last one of those
+blossoms off the tree. I guess she was making "popcorn balls that would
+smell so sweet" or some silly thing, but she managed to totally collect
+every single one of those little white blossoms. Needless to say, she
+got in big trouble for her sinister prank. Her punishment was that she
+had to give me her most precious stuffed animal for the rest of the
+year. I felt that she needed to understand what it felt like to lose
+something that was very important to her. Then she might understand what
+she had taken from me. Perhaps I over-reacted a little, but it seemed to
+make some kind of twisted sense at the time.
+
+## Living with Trees in Maine
+
+My family moved to the state of Maine in 1989. We lived on an acre and a
+half of forest. It was composed of mostly Eastern white pine trees with
+a little bit of oak mixed in. One scruffy giant was directly in front of
+the house beside the driveway into the garage. It was ancient and
+knobby, but interesting to look at. Due to the location of the house, we
+seldom experienced much direct sunlight because of all the trees.
+
+I did plant a spruce tree in the forest there, but only because it was a
+gift and I didn't know what else to do with it. Now, I always enjoy the
+opportunity to plant a tree, but while I lived within such an abundance
+of trees already, I decided it would also be a bit of fun to cut one
+down. Allow me to explain.
+
+After one particularly long and cold winter, we discovered that one of
+the trees in the forest had died. We had a wood burning stove in the
+house, so I decided I would cut down that dead tree and use it for fuel
+in our stove. The technique is fairly simple, but fraught with an
+element of danger. Trees as big as the dead one are large enough to
+cause a great deal of damage if they fall on something like a house.
+Therefore, I studied the problem for quite a while and came up with a
+plan to make the tree fall in just the right direction to avoid any harm
+to myself or the forest. I used my trusty Stihl chain saw to cut a notch
+at the base of the tree on the side where I wanted it to fall. Then I
+made the final cut on the opposite side of the tree and watched with
+apprehension as the old giant slowly started to lean and fall. It
+gathered more and more momentum as it continued to fall, but the
+direction of the fall wasn't precisely what I had tried so hard to
+engineer. There was a young tree about 40 feet tall and 8 inches in
+diameter in the path of the falling giant. The big tree snapped the
+smaller tree just like a little toothpick and hit the ground with a
+whoosh and a big thump. The ground shook from the impact and there were
+a lot of frightening snapping sounds as tree branches splintered and
+flew in the air. I breathed a sigh of relief after the dust settled and
+I could see that no one had been sent to heaven with my little logging
+stunt. I have to admit that the excitement and the suspense of the
+experience got my heart rate up pretty high. I could get used to that
+kind of destructive fun.
+
+Finally, I'll conclude my little epistle about trees with a description
+of the ice storm. Probably somewhere in the vicinity of 1995 we had an
+unusual weather phenomenon where the air was freezing cold at ground
+level, but not at higher altitudes. The moisture in the air condensed
+into rain which froze into solid ice upon reaching the ground. The ice
+formed on everything to a depth of about an inch. It turned everything
+in the forest into a magical crystal garden. This rare spectacle would
+have been quite delightful to experience except for the fact that the
+weight of the ice caused a terrible destruction of the trees in the
+forest. When we woke up on the first morning after the ice storm, the
+view outside looked like a war zone. Many of the trees had fallen over
+due to the tremendous weight of the ice on their branches. One large oak
+tree on the other side of the road in front of our house split right
+down the middle. Fortunately, none of the falling trees caused any
+damage to our house, but I can't say the same for the power lines that
+brought us life-saving electricity in the winter months. Most of the
+power distribution system in the whole state of Maine had been badly
+damaged. The consequence was that we were completely without any
+electricity for a period of 5 days. We managed to keep the house warm by
+burning wood in our stove, but this only kept the family room warm,
+while the rest of the house was like living in a refrigerator. I
+remember that the greatest hardship was not having any light in the
+house in the evening. We had a few candles to make a little bit of
+feeble light, but it was difficult to even read a book in those
+conditions.
+
+The other frightening thing I remember was the noise in the night-time.
+While I was in my bed trying to sleep, I was often awoken by the sound
+of crashing branches in the forest. Many of the branches of the pine
+trees had hundreds of pounds of ice clinging to them. All this weight
+caused a curious thing to happen to the trees. The branches would
+literally be pulled out of the trunk of the trees. Whenever a branch
+finally lost its battle with gravity, there would be a sharp cracking
+sound followed by a thundering crash as the branch and hundreds of
+pounds of ice plummeted to the forest floor. It was difficult to sleep
+under these conditions. All night long the forest echoed with the sound
+of crashing ice avalanches as the trees were decimated by the load of
+ice. I can imagine it might have been like the bombing raids that were
+conducted at night during the world wars.
+
+Finally, after 5 days, the power was restored and life moved on. The
+experience certainly made me appreciate the simple things we had to do
+without when there was no power. I could go on and on. Trees are still a
+big part of my life in the state of Washington. They are a fascinating
+form of life that brings beauty and richness to my mortal experience.
diff --git a/md/08_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People-media/media/image1.jpeg b/md/08_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People-media/media/image1.jpeg
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+---
+title: Win Friends and Influence People
+---
+
+_Mom had a special knack for teaching without using undue drama. The
+following story illustrates her typical style._
+
+Tom and I had been driving tractors and motorcycles for quite a while
+when we decided it was high time we had a real "classy ride". Neither of
+us had a driver's license yet, but that was no obstacle to our plan. My
+16th birthday was coming up and I would be able to drive our car by
+myself soon enough. So we hatched a plan to go together and buy a car.
+We started looking at the ads in the newspaper and before long we found
+our dream car. It was a 1962 Ford Falcon, almost exactly like the
+picture below.
+
+![](md/08_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People-media/media/image1.jpeg){width="5.935124671916011in"
+height="3.71875in" alt=""}
+
+We told dad this was precisely what we wanted and asked him to take us
+to see the car. The three of us went to the house of the seller, who
+turned out to be an old gentleman with a heavy Swedish accent. He showed
+us the car and let us get inside and look under the hood and kick the
+tires. It was in very good shape, so Tom and I could hardly contain our
+excitement over buying this "classy ride". The asking price was $350.
+We had the money between us and were ready to put our money on the table
+and call it a deal.
+
+However, dad had other ideas. He asked the kindly old Swedish man if we
+could come inside and discuss the deal. Now I started to get nervous. In
+my mind, there was nothing to discuss. Just give the nice man his money
+and let's be on our way. But my dad felt there is always some benefit in
+trying to sweeten the deal when you are buying a used car. The old man
+invited us in and I nervously hoped that dad wouldn't destroy our dreams
+by trying to save a few dollars.
+
+When we were seated in the living room, dad said, "Would you be willing
+to take \$325 for the car?" The old man said, "I vill tink about it.
+Joost a moment." He got up and left the room to discuss our offer with
+his wife. I was holding my breath and crossing my fingers when the old
+man returned and said, "Dat vill be alright, ya." I sighed a big sigh of
+relief as we left with the understanding that dad would return with the
+cash the next day.
+
+I could only drive the car with a parent present for a few months, but
+Tom and I were ecstatic that we were the owners of a car. I wanted to
+make it look as good as possible, so I decided to wash and wax the car
+to make it look nearly new. I thought it would be a good idea to solicit
+some help in this ambitious plan, so I convinced Tom, Kristie and Leslie
+to help. Now I didn't know much about this art, but I had a vision of
+what the car should look like when we were finished. Washing the car
+wasn't terribly complex and we managed to do this quickly. However,
+waxing was a different story. I gave each helper a cloth and assigned
+each person a part of the car to rub the wax on. I didn't know enough to
+give each worker any instructions on how to get complete coverage of wax
+on the surface of the car. Consequently, the shine looked patchy and
+poor. It definitely didn't match my vision of a gleaming new car and I
+verbally told my helpers how poorly they were doing.
+
+Ultimately, my volunteers got tired of my less-than-inspiring feedback
+on the job they were doing and said something on the order of, "OK, Mr.
+Know-it-all! You can just do it yourself!" and walked off the job. I
+suppose they went back in the house and told Mom how abusive I was as a
+car-waxing supervisor. Shortly afterward, she came out to find me rather
+glumly sitting on the washing bucket, a bit mad about how different the
+reality was from the result I had envisioned. She didn't give me a hard
+time about my poor treatment of my brother and sisters. She just said,
+"Have you ever heard of a book called How to Win Friends and Influence
+People?" It was one of my dad's favorite books by Andrew Carnegie and I
+knew he had a copy of it in the house somewhere. From this question, I
+understood that Mom was implying I could benefit from working on my
+people skills a bit. She always had a special knack to help me see my
+faults without resorting to scolding or raising her voice.
+
+This was the pattern in our home. I can't remember my mother ever
+raising her voice at me or at any of the children. We learned from this
+approach to handling conflicts that anger and yelling simply were not
+appropriate. How grateful I am for this invaluable example. I always did
+my best to follow this example when communicating with my own family
+when I became a parent myself. The result of my mother's simple example
+will bless many generations with the knowledge that the soft-spoken
+approach gets better results than yelling and screaming every time.
diff --git a/md/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School-media/media/image1.jpeg b/md/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School-media/media/image1.jpeg
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diff --git a/md/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School.md b/md/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School.md
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/md/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School.md
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+---
+title: Dan's Hobbies in High School
+moral: We all come from humble beginnings. Keep the humility throughout your life
+---
+
+Basically, I was the classical definition of a nerd. Judge for
+yourself...
+
+![](md/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School-media/media/image1.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="4.875in"}
+
+I had the second highest GPA in my class and the big glasses and social
+awkwardness. Instead of being the sports jock with the big muscles, I
+was a member of the chess club. Here we are at a chess match where I am
+playing chess with a member of the club. It doesn't get much nerdier
+than this...
+
+![](md/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School-media/media/image2.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="4.875in"}
+
+Besides chess, I also dabbled in photography. I even had my own darkroom
+for developing and printing my photos. I commandeered the downstairs
+bathroom to set up my enlarger and developing trays. These were the days
+before digital photography. Everything was done with chemicals and
+emulsion films. After several years of training, I managed to create my
+crowning achievement shown below. I combined a photo of our family cat
+with a photo of Sandra Frost, one of my secret crushes from my high
+school class. I thought I surely would score big points by making her
+look like an evil cat woman.
+
+![](md/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School-media/media/image3.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="8.208333333333334in"}
+
+This is "Kitty". She never had a real name.
+
+![](md/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School-media/media/image4.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="6.1722222222222225in"}
+
+Sandra Frost. She was way out of my league.
+
+![](md/09_Dans_Hobbies_in_High_School-media/media/image5.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="7.122916666666667in"}
+
+Needless to say, Sandra was not impressed with my creation. The life of
+a nerd is not easy, let me tell ya!!!
diff --git a/md/10_Dynamite_and_the_Old_Snag.md b/md/10_Dynamite_and_the_Old_Snag.md
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@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
+---
+title: Dynamite and the Old Snag
+---
+
+_I can't remember the precise time of this memory. My best guess is that
+it happened during the Summer between one of my later high school years
+or perhaps one Summer between university semesters at BYU._
+
+Dad was developing a large parcel of land to break it up into smaller
+lots for building homes. This often involved building a road through the
+forest. Dad had a Caterpillar that could handle most of the forest
+clearing and leveling that was necessary to create a good access road.
+However, he occasionally came up against an obstacle that required
+blasting with dynamite. He asked me to go with him to help out with the
+blasting. I was all over that like "ugly on an ape". Anything that
+involved blowing stuff up was high on my list of cool things to do. This
+probably contributed to my later interest in pyrotechnics and "energetic
+chemical reactions".
+
+On this occasion, the obstacle that was too big for the Caterpillar to
+handle was a large "snag" pine tree. It was an ancient old beast that
+was about 5 feet in diameter. The trunk was about 40 feet tall, but the
+top of the tree was missing. It probably snapped off in a wind storm a
+hundred years ago and had been rotting in its vertical position ever
+since then. It was too rotten to attempt to fell like a normal tree. It
+could easily break up and fall in an uncontrolled manner. Thus, the best
+solution was to try to blast it with dynamite from a safe distance.
+
+The first step in the process is to open a hole under the stump with a
+small charge. Dad cut one stick of dynamite in half for the job. He used
+a special pair of plyers to crimp a blasting cap on a 2-foot piece of
+fuse. Then he used the pointy end of the plyers to make a hole in the
+end of the half stick of dynamite. He stuck the blasting cap in the hole
+and Bob's your uncle. It looked like a large fire cracker. Then Dad used
+a 6-foot heavy iron pry bar with a sharp end to make a small hole in the
+ground just beneath a few of the big roots of the ancient tree stump. He
+then placed the big fire cracker in the hole and lit the fuse. Dad
+started walking casually away from the tree stump. This told me there
+wasn't too much to be afraid of, but I had no idea how much power was
+contained in a half stick of dynamite, so I booked it out of there in a
+bit more of a hurry.
+
+The sound of the charge going off was more like a "thud" than a loud
+boom like you see on the TV shows. It was kind of like a big T-Rex
+stomped on the ground just to let you know who is the biggest "baddest"
+dude in town. When we walked back to the old stump, sure enough, there
+was a nice little cave under the stump. It was just right for placing in
+it the big charge that would truly get the job done.
+
+This time Dad got out a five-gallon bucket and poured about 20 pounds of
+ammonium nitrate fertilizer into it. These were the typical small beads
+that looked about like tapioca before you add the water and cook it.
+Then Dad poured about a gallon of diesel fuel into the bucket. After
+stirring the goop with a big stick, he said that should do the trick. He
+then prepared a small bundle of about5 sticks of dynamite that were
+taped together to form a nice tight cylinder. He prepared a fuse with
+another blasting cap crimped on the end and inserted it into a hole he
+made in the side of one of the sticks. Finally, he poured the ammonium
+nitrate goop down the hole under the stump and carefully shoved the
+bundle of dynamite as far into the hole as he could reach.
+
+This time the fuse was about 6 feet long to give us plenty of time to
+make some distance between us and the stump after lighting the fuse. I
+remember running with Dad about 50 yards away where we stood behind the
+truck and watched the fuse burn. It was just like in the old movies
+where the fuse made lots of sparks and smoke as it burned. It seemed
+like we watched the fuse burn for about 5 minutes, but it was probably
+only about 20 seconds. The excitement and anticipation were thrilling to
+a young guy like me who had never seen a real dynamite explosion before.
+
+This time, the sound was much more impressive. It was a big ka-whump
+that shook the ground and filled the air with a big cloud of dust. Rocks
+and chunks of rotten wood were thrown into the air about 80 feet high.
+We had to keep our eyes looking in the air for a while to make sure none
+of those big rocks were going to make it all the way over to where we
+were standing. It took at least a few minutes for the dust to settle
+enough for us to see what had happened. When the dust finally cleared
+Dad started to laugh. The big old stump was still standing, but now it
+was only about 8 inches in diameter. Apparently, the charge had blown
+away all the rotten wood, but there was a solid core of wood that was
+strong enough to resist the blast.
+
+It just goes to show ya that when it comes to people and old stumps, you
+just can't tell what's really inside by looking at what's on the
+outside. We had no idea that that old stump had a solid core of wood
+inside that was strong enough to survive a sizeable blast of explosives.
+And just like that ugly old stump, the funny-looking kid next door could
+have a heart of gold when you really get to know him. The moral of the
+story is... don't trust your eyes when it comes to judging a stump or a
+person's character. The skill of "looking upon the heart" takes a lot
+more effort than a mere glance with our mortal eyes.
diff --git a/md/11_Melodys_Malady.md b/md/11_Melodys_Malady.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3aa077b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/11_Melodys_Malady.md
@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+---
+title: Melody's Malady
+---
+
+By Han Ying
+
+This is another tale from the summer of 1973, when I took a course in
+desert survival from BYU (See Chocolate Waterfalls). The day when this
+incident took place was part of a phase of the course called 'Group
+Expedition'. The entire class of college students participated in this
+phase together. The day was typical for this time of the year in
+Southern Utah. There was not a cloud in the sky and the temperature was
+near 100 degrees. Our group had been hiking in these conditions all day
+long. We were exhausted and parched. The sun was beginning to set when
+our leaders found a place they thought would be a good spot for setting
+up camp to spend the night. We were all quite happy to unload our gear
+and rest our tired, aching feet. Then, to our great disappointment, the
+leaders informed us that we had to continue our march. They explained
+that the water at this place was so brackish and salty that it was not
+drinkable. The nearest good drinking water was still many miles away.
+However, we had no choice but to continue our hike until we reached it.
+Otherwise, we risked getting caught in the desert heat with no drinking
+water.
+
+Amid many moans and complaints, we hauled our tired bodies off the
+ground, loaded up our gear and trudged on. Up to this point, I thought I
+had born our hardships well. After all, this desert experience was not
+intended to be a nice little walk in the park. I expected to be
+challenged by the hardships of living in the desert. But now I was
+beginning to lose my will to bear it gracefully. My tired muscles ached
+in places I didn't know I even had. My throat was parched and dry. My
+feet were painfully sore. My discomfort was so great that my mood began
+to get dark and ugly. I began to wonder why I had been so foolish to
+take this course and pay good money to feel this kind of agony.
+
+While I was thus wallowing in my misery, something happened that changed
+everything. One of our leaders asked me and a friend of mine to help a
+girl named Melody. Apparently, Melody had a thyroid condition called
+hypoglycemia. She was so weak that she couldn't continue without some
+help. My friend and I took her gear and added it to our own backpacks.
+We then placed her arms around our necks, with one of us on each side of
+her. In this manner, my friend and I carried most of Melody's weight as
+we continued on down the trail. The sun fell below the horizon and
+darkness slowly engulfed us as we stumbled and struggled on our way.
+Initially, my inner rebellion was almost to the point of boiling over.
+How could they possibly be so uncaring and insensitive to my plight?
+Instead of relieving my personal suffering, our course instructors had
+had the nerve to add to my burden of misery by asking me to help someone
+else. I had no idea that a small miracle was about to happen.
+
+It only took a few moments for me to perceive that Melody's sufferings
+were far greater than mine. The pain and exhaustion were in her voice as
+she apologized for being such a bother to us. She tried valiantly to be
+cheerful and hummed softly to herself as we trudged on. As I witnessed
+her courage, my own heart began to soften. Instead of concentrating on
+my own troubles, I began to think of ways to help the time pass more
+pleasantly for her. I tried to give her encouragement with little
+complements about how well she was holding up. I tried to hum little
+harmonies to her faintly uttered tunes. My reluctant acceptance of this
+assignment turned out to be a great blessing to me. It made the time go
+much more quickly than it had before.
+
+It was well after midnight when we finally arrived at the good watering
+hole. I didn't mind that my place for sleeping was on the rocks of a dry
+creek bed. My former weariness and discomfort were no longer a part of
+my consciousness. The anger and bitterness had been replaced by the warm
+glow of satisfaction that comes from serving others. I pondered upon
+this small miracle as I drifted into a peaceful and gratitude filled
+state of slumber. Melody's malady had healed my troubled soul.
diff --git a/md/12_Chocolate_Waterfalls.md b/md/12_Chocolate_Waterfalls.md
new file mode 100644
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/12_Chocolate_Waterfalls.md
@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+---
+title: Chocolate Waterfalls
+---
+
+Just after my 20th birthday, in the summer of 1973, I decided to take
+a course at BYU about desert survival. I spent about 30 days in the
+deserts of Southern Utah learning how to live like a desert rat. On one
+hot and sultry day, my group was walking through a dusty little canyon
+when the skies started to grow very dark and ominous looking. The wind
+started to pick up and began to blow sand and dust into our faces. Our
+leaders told us that a thunderstorm was coming our way and that it would
+be a good idea to try to find some shelter. We found a little overhang
+of rock that afforded us just enough room to stand underneath it as the
+thunderstorm arrived. It was a nice spot to watch the show that nature
+was about to perform for us.
+
+The sky continued to darken as the thunder cell approached. Then the
+rain began to fall. First, there were only a few big fat raindrops that
+smacked into the rocks and dust, making little plopping noises. Then,
+suddenly, the bottom dropped out of the clouds as they dumped their
+heavy load of water right on top of us. I was astonished to see our
+little canyon come alive with the motion of rushing water. It seemed
+like the canyon walls almost instantly erupted with a hundred
+waterfalls. These waterfalls were not the beautiful crystal clear
+waterfalls you see in the pictures on postcards. These were dark muddy
+brown waterfalls. They looked like gushing streams of chocolate milk
+falling from every crack and crevice in the canyon walls.
+
+The lightning was as good as any fireworks show I have ever seen. Huge
+branching forks of light stabbed the ground with a mighty cracking
+noise. The sudden crack was followed immediately by a bellowing boom
+that temporarily drowned out all the noise of rushing water.
+
+The gurgling little stream in the creek bed soon became a boiling,
+rushing soup of muddy water mixed with all sorts of desert debris. It
+was deep enough to soak our hiking boots, but we had no fear of being
+swept away by the current. Fortunately, our little overhang kept the
+rest of our clothing fairly dry as the thunder cell did its best to
+impress us with its prowess. Almost, but not quite as quickly as it
+arrived, the thunder cell moved on and the show was over. Within 20
+minutes, the skies began to clear and the sun came out again. Everything
+returned to normal except for one thing. The water in the creek was
+still 6 to 8 inches deep and covered most of the creek bed in the floor
+of the canyon. As we picked up our gear and resumed our march, we had to
+slosh through the muddy water instead of walk on nice dry sand as
+before.
+
+As we marched on, it slowly began to dawn on me that the creek was our
+only source of drinking water in the desert. With some measure of alarm,
+I realized that my water canteen was nearly empty. I began to imagine
+the worst. I imagined that the muddy brown goop that we were presently
+walking in was probably contaminated by all sorts of disgusting toxic
+stuff like drowned jack rabbits, dead scorpions and coyote poo. I
+couldn't bear the thought of drinking such a foul brew. I uttered a
+silent prayer in my heart. Please let me find some other source of
+drinking water before my canteen runs dry. That night I went to sleep
+with a fervent hope that a new day would bring a miracle. My canteen was
+now empty.
+
+I slept fitfully on a little shelf of rock under another overhang in the
+canyon. It was about 20 feet above the level of the canyon floor. When I
+awoke the next morning, I peered over the edge of the shelf to check out
+the water. My heart sank when I saw that the water still looked like
+dark chocolate milk.
+
+Expecting to die of some terrible disease, I slowly picked my way down
+to the water's edge with my canteen. Maybe I could find a quiet little
+pool where the water wasn't quite so nasty looking. To my utter
+amazement and delight, I found a tiny little spring of water bubbling up
+out of the ground just a few feet from the edge of the creek. As I
+filled my canteen, my heart filled with gratitude. The water was cool
+and clear and tasted refreshingly like the mineral water you can get in
+an expensive restaurant. To this day, I have never looked at a glass of
+water quite the same and I certainly will never again take such a simple
+blessing for granted.
diff --git a/md/13_Survival_Journal_Introduction-media/media/image1.jpeg b/md/13_Survival_Journal_Introduction-media/media/image1.jpeg
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diff --git a/md/13_Survival_Journal_Introduction.md b/md/13_Survival_Journal_Introduction.md
new file mode 100644
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+---
+title: Survival Journal - Introduction
+---
+
+This article is an introduction to the history of a month of my life
+from July 24, 1973, to August 24, 1973. Officially, the experience was
+titled "Youth Acculturation Course" hosted by Brigham Young University.
+Unofficially, I always call it the desert survival course. The
+experience had such a strong impact on my life that I want to include it
+in its entirety in my life history. The following set of articles are
+almost verbatim copies of the journal I kept while attending the course.
+Other articles in this book are based on specific events from the course
+and have been embellished by my memory after more than 40 years have
+elapsed. (See [Melody's Malady](/stories/11_Melodys_Malady.html) and [Chocolate Waterfalls](/stories/12_Chocolate_Waterfalls.html)).
+
+The events that led to my signing up for this course are unique. My
+brother Tom and I attended a fireside that was designed as a recruiting
+tool to attract students to take the course during their summer break.
+We were both quite captured by the grand sense of adventure the
+presentation portrayed and signed up to take the course together. It
+turned out that Tom dropped the course for reasons unknown to me, but I
+chose to take it without his companionship. I was planning to go on my
+mission at the end of the summer and hoped it would be a good
+character-building experience that would serve me well in the mission
+field. Before I left home to go take this course, I had received my
+mission call and knew I would be going to Brazil a few months after
+returning.
+
+Below I include two maps to pinpoint the location in Southeastern Utah
+where the course was held. The first shows the general area relative to
+familiar large cities in the state of Utah.
+
+![](md/13_Survival_Journal_Introduction-media/media/image1.jpeg){width="6.958333333333333in"
+height="6.958333333333333in" alt=""}
+
+The map below shows a more detailed zoom-in of the route we took from
+start to finish.
+
+![](md/13_Survival_Journal_Introduction-media/media/image2.jpeg){width="7.083333333333333in"
+height="5.087740594925634in" alt=""}
+
+We started at Keg Knoll and ended in the town of Boulder. The total
+length of the trek was a little over 250 miles.
+
+## Calendar View
+July 24 to August 24, 1973
+
+<table><tbody>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td style="background: yellow">24</td>
+    <td style="background: yellow">25</td>
+    <td style="background: green">26</td>
+    <td style="background: green">27</td>
+    <td style="background: green">28</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td style="background: ">29</td>
+    <td style="background: aqua">30</td>
+    <td style="background: aqua">31</td>
+    <td style="background: aqua">1</td>
+    <td style="background: aqua">2</td>
+    <td style="background: aqua">3</td>
+    <td style="background: aqua">4</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td style="background: ">5</td>
+    <td style="background: magenta">6</td>
+    <td style="background: magenta">7</td>
+    <td style="background: magenta">8</td>
+    <td style="background: magenta">9</td>
+    <td style="background: magenta">10</td>
+    <td style="background: magenta">11</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td style="background:">12</td>
+    <td style="background: darkcyan">13</td>
+    <td style="background: red">14</td>
+    <td style="background: red">15</td>
+    <td style="background: red">16</td>
+    <td style="background: red">17</td>
+    <td style="background: red">18</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td style="background: darkolivegreen">19</td>
+    <td style="background: darkolivegreen">20</td>
+    <td style="background: darkolivegreen">21</td>
+    <td style="background: darkgray">22</td>
+    <td style="background: gray">23</td>
+    <td style="background: darkblue">24</td>
+    <td style="background: ">25</td>
+  </tr>
+</tbody></table>
+
+<span style="background: yellow">Instruction</span><br>
+<span style="background: green">Impact</span><br>
+<span style="background: aqua">Group Exp.</span><br>
+<span style="background: magenta">Survival</span><br>
+<span style="background: darkcyan">Forced march</span><br>
+<span style="background: red">Student Exp.</span><br>
+<span style="background: darkolivegreen">Solo</span><br>
+<span style="background: darkgray">Rappel, testimony Mtg.</span><br>
+<span style="background: gray">Run-in, bus ride home</span><br>
+<span style="background: darkblue">Party</span><br>
+
+The next 5 articles describe each week separately. I hope they don't put
+you to sleep.
diff --git a/md/14_Survival_Journal_Week1.md b/md/14_Survival_Journal_Week1.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0d21807
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/14_Survival_Journal_Week1.md
@@ -0,0 +1,167 @@
+---
+title: Survival Journal - Week 1
+---
+
+_Week 1 consisted of two sessions of instruction and
+3 days of torture, called Impact. The instruction did not mention
+Impact, or it would have scared everyone out of starting the course. I
+guess the theory was that after Impact, the rest of the course would
+seem like a piece of cake._
+
+## Tuesday, July 24 - 5:30 pm
+
+Since this is my first entry, I have a little catching up to do. I feel
+kind of silly, writing to myself like this. The flight down from
+Portland was really great. Flying into Salt Lake City over the lake was
+quite spectacular.
+
+I am presently at Grandma and Grandpa's and have been visiting with them
+most of the afternoon. I will be staying the night with them. Our first
+day of instruction lasted from 9 am to noon. I was greatly surprised to
+find that the girls outnumber the boys 2 to 1. Many are unexpectedly
+very good looking while just as many are the husky, big bruiser types. I
+was very impressed with our leaders. There are eight of them for our
+group of 31. Our patriarch, Chuck, is a returned missionary and a very
+special person.
+
+We spent most of the time being introduced to the course, going over
+equipment needs and learning people's names. They spared few details in
+telling us what to expect from the course. I think it will be a very
+spiritual experience as well as a very severe test of endurance.
+
+## Wednesday, July 25 - 10 pm
+After saying good-byes to the grand folks, I went to another session
+from 9 to 12. We were taught how to make bedrolls, flint and steel fires
+and how to take care of our feet. Afterwards we had a goal setting
+meeting. The kids in my group are really great kids and the meeting was
+a special experience. Many of the kids set their goal to improve their
+communication with and relation to our Heavenly Father. This is my goal
+too, but my main goal is to learn to base friendship on the inner, good
+qualities of people instead of outward appearances or other unimportant
+characteristics. I also want to learn to love others to the point that I
+care more about them than I do myself.
+
+I spent the afternoon making char-cloth and taking care of last-minute
+preparations. I ate my dinner very slowly and took a long hot shower. We
+leave for the desert at 6:30 tomorrow morning, so I won't be able to
+enjoy such luxuries again for a month.
+
+## Thursday, July 26
+The bus finally let us out on the trail at a vast open
+expanse of desert (near Keg Knoll). We were told to tank up on water, so
+I drank 10 pop cans full. It hurt to walk, I felt so bloated, but that
+only lasted about 2 hours. Our last meal was lunch and we started hiking
+at 4 pm. After 3 hours we started descending into Horseshoe Canyon. We
+kept descending until we reached the bottom at about 11: 30pm, our goal
+being to find water. The river bottom was dry when we got there, so we
+bedded down while the leaders went in search of water.
+
+By this time most of the canteens were dry and we were all hungry. This
+first three days is called "Impact" and, apparently, they don't intend
+to feed us or allow us any time to search for food.
+
+The leaders came back in half an hour and led us groping in the darkness
+to a little marshy place. We couldn't see what we were drinking, but it
+was probably better that we couldn't. The water tasted of swamp, but at
+least it was wet.
+
+We finally started to bed down at 12:30. The girls got their fire going
+right away. The boys finally gave up and borrowed some fire from the
+girls. I suspect one of the leaders started their fire. By the light of
+the fire, I could see that the spot we had chosen to sleep in was
+covered with prickly pear cactus. I kicked away enough to make a bare
+spot and I thought it would be okay. However, by departure time I had
+succeeded in impregnating every article of clothing I had with little,
+tiny stickers. I'll be picking those out for days.
+
+We assembled to leave at about 4:30 a.m. They told us to tank up on
+swamp water because it would be our best water all day. Few people drank
+much of it and it later proved to be a major source of trouble.
+
+We followed the canyon out till it joined the Green River. This river
+was so muddy that you couldn't see the bottom of a teaspoon through it.
+It wouldn't strain or settle, so the only way to drink it was to close
+your eyes and gulp. Sometimes you had to chew a little too.
+
+It must have been at least 90 deg. by 10 am and some of the kids started
+getting sick. Our goal this day was to hike about 14 miles to some good
+water, but the sick ones made the going awfully slow. My attitude was
+one of impatience almost to the point of anger toward these people who
+slowed us down so badly. I just wanted to get to that water, rinse the
+grit out of my teeth, guzzle a couple gallons and plop down in a heap
+under some tree.
+
+I should say something about the country we were moving through. Both
+the Horseshoe and the Green River Canyons were breathtaking to behold.
+People were exclaiming all the time when we first started out. By the
+start of our second day, the comments had dropped off a little and by
+noon nobody even cared anymore. While you were busy watching your step
+on the trail, it was easy to walk right beneath a huge monolith or
+balancing rock without even noticing it. I tried to keep looking around
+while we hiked, but truthfully, I didn't care all that much anymore
+either.
+
+Finally, they let about 10 of the healthier ones hike on ahead without
+stopping all the time for the lame and sick. The good water was supposed
+to be at the mouth of the Horsethief Canyon, and we set off at a fairly
+fast pace. I put everything I had into it and thought I was near
+exhaustion when we finally arrived at about 7pm. The little pond turned
+out to be back-up water from the Green River. It had settled a little,
+but you still couldn't see through it and it tasted terrible. I began
+to wonder why I had been stupid enough to go on this survival thing.
+
+When the others arrived and we had rested for an hour, the leaders
+informed us that we would be hiking on up the canyon till late in the
+night. We trudged on after a prayer for strength and watched the stars
+come out. I was carrying an extra bundle that belonged to one of the
+sick girls who was unable to carry it. When it got so dark that we could
+barely see, I traded shifts and helped the sick girl keep going.
+
+I grabbed her belt from behind and pulled her along while she leaned on
+me for balance. Thus, we went tripping and stumbling on into the night.
+Melody was a rather stout girl. She out-weighed me by 20 pounds.
+
+My previous attitude changed rather quickly when I saw how sick this
+girl was and how much courage she showed by still trying hard and giving
+her all. I realized how fortunate I was to not be so sick and how little
+effort I had to use compared to her. There were many similar situations
+in the rest of the group and our love for each other certainly grew that
+night.
+
+We finally came to a little pool of water below an ancient falls where
+we decided to bed down. We offered a sincere prayer of thanks for the
+good water and guidance we had received. I had no trouble falling asleep
+on the rocks at about one in the morning.
+
+At daylight, we tanked up and trudged on. We had to reach base camp
+about 8 miles away to set up for the weekend. This was at the end of Big
+Springs Canyon. No one had much strength left on this third day of
+Impact. It took the combined efforts of all to keep the group going at a
+very slow pace. Several times we had to pray to our source of strength
+to keep us going. We finally arrived at about 1:30 in the heat of the
+day.
+
+The water there was good, and we offered many thanks for our arrival. We
+are now waiting for the supply truck to come with some food. I have been
+catching up my journal but, at least the ordeal of Impact is over. It
+certainly proved our motto, "If it doesn't kill you, it will make you
+stronger" to be true. I have learned much about myself and my
+limitations.
+
+## Monday, July 30 - 6 pm
+I'm sitting here at Mule seep wondering what's
+going on. I hope this [is]{.underline} Mule Seep. Anyway, I'd better
+take up where I left off.
+
+## Saturday, July 28
+The supply truck finally came late in the afternoon.
+They had had car trouble, I guess. First, they gave us 10 gallons of
+tang and a carrot apiece to get our systems going again. Then, we
+organized into cook groups or family groups with a men and women's
+leader. Connie, a very nice RN, and I were chosen as leaders of our
+group. We would fill the role of mother and father of the family group
+for the week. Then the weekend food was distributed to each family
+group. We were given hamburger, potatoes, carrots, oatmeal, flour, brown
+sugar, salt, and milk. We had a fairly decent stew for our dinner that
+night. That same evening, we organized our student branch. Jay Bossardt
+is our Branch President.
diff --git a/md/15_Survival_Journal_week2.md b/md/15_Survival_Journal_week2.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..03bc901
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/15_Survival_Journal_week2.md
@@ -0,0 +1,146 @@
+---
+title: Survival Journal - Week 2
+---
+
+_This week was called Group Expedition Week. It
+should have been rather straightforward but getting lost in the desert
+complicated everything. To this day, I still don't know where we were._
+
+## Sunday, July 29
+We held priesthood meeting at 8am Sunday morning and
+Sacrament Meeting right after that. For the Sacrament we used ash cakes
+and canteens. Both meetings were very special. We spent the afternoon
+carving spoons and recuperating from Impact. That evening we had a
+fireside with singing and guitars. It was all very pleasant and made us
+forget about our previous troubles and suffering.
+
+## Monday-Tuesday, July 30-31
+This week is called group expedition week. Each day a
+leader is chosen by the group to lead them. We divided into one boys
+group and two girls groups. The student leader for the day is given a
+map and told where to go. The staff leaders will hike along with us, but
+they will offer no help after we start.
+
+As leader for Monday, we chose Mark. After breaking camp at about 8 am,
+our first big obstacle was to find a way out of Big Springs Canyon. We
+were very anxious to get a good head-start on the girls groups so we
+could beat them to Beaver Wash on Wednesday. This is where the three
+groups were to come together again. The boys group claimed they would be
+there a whole day ahead of the girls.
+
+After an hour of searching, we finally decided to try ascending a very
+steep cliff. It scared me to death to climb that thing. Several times my
+handholds gave away and sent rocks showering down the canyon. It was a
+miracle no one was hurt on the way up. We gave thanks to the Lord when
+we arrived at the top.
+
+We spent until about 1:30 pm walking on dirt roads. Our progress was
+extremely fast and our confidence of beating the girls rose pretty high.
+
+At 1:30 we needed water pretty badly, so we decided to look for Outlaw
+Springs. Lynn and I were sent out to scout while the rest of the group
+stayed back. Ted later joined us with the map. We were quite sure we had
+found the way to the springs, but we were very thirsty, so we stopped a
+few minutes at a little seep we had stumbled onto. Then Lynn went back
+to bring the rest of the group.
+
+Ted and I had waited for an awfully long time when Lynn came back to
+tell us that the rest of the group was gone. We decided that they must
+have become impatient and went the long way around rather than wait for
+us to find the shorter way down a steep drop-off.
+
+We thought we could meet them at the springs so we forged ahead. We
+didn't see them where we thought the spring was, so we pushed on to Mule
+Seep. Our intended campsite was on Han's Flat Road just above the seep.
+We felt sure we would meet them at the seep, so we waited there for 2
+hours. It was getting dark, so we headed for the road. We came out at a
+ranger station to find that we were 5 miles off course. When we finally
+got to the campsite it was quite dark and no one was there. I was about
+to die of thirst when a guy from the ranger station rode up on his
+motorcycle and showed us where some rain pots were. I was down in the
+valley where the water was when I decided to go to the edge of the
+overhang and give a big shout. 200 feet below was what we thought was
+Mule Seep and I thought maybe the others of our group mighty be there by
+now. I yelled once and got no answer. I heard echoes all through the
+valley and felt that if the others were near, they would have heard it.
+I didn't yell again and was walking back when I heard an answer. Our
+leaders, Butch and Sundance, were over on a far ridge. We yelled and
+made sparks from our flint and steel until we located each other. When
+we got together it was a joyful reunion indeed.
+
+We walked back to the road and set up camp for the five of us. Then we
+sat down to discuss what had happened. Apparently, the rest of the group
+had thought they were supposed to take the long way to the springs when
+we scouts failed to return promptly. When we didn't show up at the
+Springs, they just stayed there the rest of the day while the leaders
+looked for us. Sundance told me that he and Butch had given up and were
+kneeling in prayer when they heard my call. He said he just started to
+cry and finished the prayer before calling back.
+
+The whole incident caused the boys group to lose about 24 hours of time.
+We started hiking again after the main group rejoined us on Han's Flat
+Road at about 2 pm Tuesday afternoon. Since we were late, we hiked until
+1 am in the morning to reach Granary Springs. The hiking was all on
+roads, so the way was easy to find, but it was a real test of endurance.
+I had blisters on both feet and a frayed Achilles tendon on my right
+heel. We often called upon the Lord for strength.
+
+## Wednesday, August 1
+Wednesday I was chosen group leader. This was the day we were to hike
+through Robber's Roost Canyon. We started to work better as a group and
+had no major problems finding the route. The canyon was really a
+challenge. It was my job to go first and decide whether or not to use
+ropes. On one occasion I ended up sliding down a 20-foot drop headfirst.
+I decided we had better use ropes for the rest of the group. We camped
+in the canyon at dark that night and I tasted some porcupine that GI Joe
+(Bruce) had killed.
+
+## Thursday-Friday, August 2-3
+Thursday we were very anxious to get to Beaver Wash ahead of the girls
+groups, so we could go swimming. We came out of Robber's Roost to the
+Dirty Devil River. We crossed the river and followed it toward Angel
+Cove Springs. Just as we were rounding the last bend toward the springs,
+we looked back to see Judy's girls group only a quarter mile behind. It
+was a real blow to our ego, and we felt sure that the girls would give
+us a little ribbing because we hadn't beat them to the wash by a whole
+day as we said we would.
+
+As we left Angel Cove our staff leaders stayed back to persuade the
+girls group to stay at Angel Cove long enough to allow the boys to swim
+a while at Beaver Wash. We still had several hours of hiking to do on
+our own before we arrived at the pool. Contentions soon arose and the
+spirit of cooperation and brotherhood soon left us. Finally, we just
+stopped in Beaver Canyon to talk it out. We decided that it
+
+was our lack of cooperation and unwillingness to fully respect and
+follow our group leaders that had gotten us so far behind. It was a real
+lesson in humility to realize that by working together the girls group
+had performed better than we had. When we started hiking again, we made
+much better progress and enjoyed a much-needed cool swim at the wash.
+
+The girls group led by Judy came in that evening and the last girls
+group came in Friday morning. The girls took their turn swimming, and we
+broke camp and left about noon Friday. It took us the entire afternoon
+to hike to our water drop at the edge of the Burr Desert. After our
+evening meal we decided to cross the nine-mile desert at night. It was
+already dark, and many were nearly exhausted. I knew it would be another
+test of endurance and will. We had a particularly weak girl in my
+family, Janet, for whom we had already had to carry her pack that
+afternoon. We had only gone a few miles when we had to help her along by
+putting her arms around the neck of a person on each side of her. I
+don't know why the bigger ones are usually the weaker ones, but Janet
+was a big girl. The night seemed to drag on forever and for many it
+seemed like a nightmare. We sang songs to keep our spirits up and pass
+the time faster. Finally, we arrived at an irrigation ditch on a ranch
+at about 2:30 am. We all dropped in our tracks after a prayer of thanks.
+We had prayed for strength on the trail many times too.
+
+## Saturday, August 4
+Saturday, we arose and hiked the remaining 4 miles to base camp without
+breakfast. After eating and setting up camp we rested through the middle
+of the day. That afternoon we had a meeting to organize new families and
+stress the importance of life, before we slaughtered our sheep. I was
+again privileged to be a father and our family's assignment was to skin
+the ewe. It was a messy job, but we got it done. The meat was a real
+treat after our bland diets of oatmeal and ash cakes that week. We
+jerkied 1/3 of it and divided the rest among the 4 family groups.
diff --git a/md/16_Survival_Journal_Week3.md b/md/16_Survival_Journal_Week3.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5802b18
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/16_Survival_Journal_Week3.md
@@ -0,0 +1,158 @@
+---
+title: Survival Journal - Week 3
+---
+
+_This week was no picnic because it is called
+Survival Week. It is one week of actually eating only what we could find
+on the trail. In the desert of southern Utah, there isn't much to eat,
+so it was nearly about 5 days of fasting._
+
+## Sunday, August 5
+Sundays in the wild are always special. Priesthood was at
+nine and Sacrament meeting right after. I spent most of the afternoon
+reading. That night at 7:30 we had a fireside. Our family sang a song
+with a couple of made-up verses to the tune of "Where Oh Where Are You
+Tonight". Chuck and Sharon are a married couple, accompanying our group
+as instructors. See the made-up verses below.
+
+> Old Chuck was a desert rat, grubby and smelly.\
+> For some crazy reason the desert he'd roam.\
+> He crawled through the sand on his chin and his belly.\
+> The canyons and badlands, he called them his home.
+
+> Chorus:\
+> Where, oh where are you tonight?\
+> Why did you leave me here all alone?\
+> I searched the world over and thought I found true love.\
+> You found another and phphttt!! you was gone.
+
+> Now Sharon, his sweetheart, was orn'ry and lanky.\
+> Just like a tough snake she was wiry and lean.\
+> She'd blow her big nose on her sleeve or her hanky.\
+> She was tougher than any guy you've ever seen.
+
+> Chorus:\
+> Where, oh where are you tonight?\
+> Why did you leave me here all alone?\
+> I searched the world over and thought I found true love.\
+> You found another and phphttt!! you was gone.
+
+## Monday, August 6
+Monday was the prelude to Survival Week where we live off of the land
+for the whole week. We left our camp near Bull Mountain at noon and
+hiked about 7 miles into the Henry Mountains. It was a steady climb all
+the way and our campsite was at well over 9000 ft. All along the way
+Sharon showed us what was edible and what was not. We found such things
+as pinion nuts, wild onion, elder berries, currents, raspberries,
+dandelions and yaro. Some of it tasted good, but most of it tasted
+bitter or tasteless. That night was the coldest one I have had to endure
+out here yet.
+
+## Tuesday, August 7
+Tuesday morning, we ate the last of the food that we had in our food
+packs. It consisted of unsweetened oatmeal, boiled grain and fried
+jerky. We hiked about three miles that day to Crescent Creek for our
+next campsite. The leaders give us trap making and map reading lessons
+along the way. We also gathered all the food we could find for dinner
+and breakfast the next morning. We ended up with hordes of wild onion
+and only a few handfuls of currents and service berries. I also spent
+several hours roasting pinion pinecones over a fire to extract the seeds
+from them. My effort yielded about 2 pop cans full of green tasteless
+pinion seeds.
+
+That afternoon a Sister Nina Robinson was driven out from her home in
+Hanksville to speak to us. She was an expert naturalist and told us much
+about what plants we could eat. That night we had a short fireside, and
+I ended the day by calling a family prayer.
+
+## Wednesday, August 8
+Wednesday, we rose early for a sunrise service with all of our staff
+leaders. They each took their turn to talk to us about temple marriage
+and the family unit. It was a very spiritual meeting and I enjoyed it
+immensely. After the meeting the entire staff left us, not to rejoin us
+until we reached base camp on Saturday. We now had to function on our
+own as a united group. Before they left, the staff told us that very
+few groups came in after survival week united and together. They
+felt we had the strength to do it and felt the weight of the challenge.
+Before breaking camp, we cooked our morning meal of wild onion soup,
+service berry tea and pennyroyal tea. The onion soup, which we had had
+the night before also was not very nourishing. The broth was good, but
+the onions were like chewing on old hey. I liked the berry broth quite
+well, but the pennyroyal was nasty.
+
+We hiked about three miles that day to our next campsite, gathering
+pinion cones, onions, dandelions, and a few more berries. Already the
+lack of nourishing food was beginning to zap my strength. I found myself
+drawing within not eager to socialize but only wanting to suffer alone.
+I was not pleased with my performance as part of the group that day.
+When we got to camp, we all sat around the fire and roasted pinion
+cones while someone read talks from the April Conference. It did
+much to bring us together and function efficiently as a group. That
+night after dinner of nuts, berries, and tea, we had a short fireside
+and retired to bed early. Before going to sleep I prayed that the Lord
+would lift my spirits and give me the strength to endure this trial.
+
+## Thursday, August 9
+Thursday morning, I felt nauseated and weak, but the spirits of the
+group were high and helped to cheer me up. My suffering was not as great
+as some of the others, for I helped to give a blessing to one of the
+girls who had been a family mother with me in the previous week.
+Breakfast was a handful of green pinion nuts and a little berry tea. We
+hiked seven miles that day to Box Springs. We are still in the Henry
+Mountains and the scenery was beautiful. Our attitudes were good, and it
+was a great experience to feel the love of the group that day as we
+hiked. All were helping one another and cheering each other up. The
+going was slow and laborious. I would pant as if I were running, from a
+slow walk up a slight uphill grade. Once I sat down it was a terrific
+effort to get up again. We collected quite a bit of food that day
+compared to the others. We had pinion cones, currents and elder berries.
+After arriving at the Springs we again listened to conference talks
+as we roasted pinion cones. We were then given an hour of time to
+ourselves at which time I am now caught up with my journal.
+The flies are driving me crazy, but I am too
+tired to brush them off. Actually, I can still count my blessings. Most
+of my feet troubles are gone and with luck we may reach camp tomorrow
+night. I sure do miss my parents, family and the comforts home though.
+
+## Friday, August 10
+Last night we had another short fireside in which we
+read the account of the birth of Christ and acted it out. I was a wise
+man.
+
+The Revenge has finally hit me. I have to run into the bushes frequently
+now. All I had for breakfast was some elder berries and hot water. We
+broke camp early today because our goal is to reach base camp before
+dark. Our destination is Cass Peak Reservoir which is 16 miles away.
+This distance seems an impossibility to me in my present state of being.
+Our group is still united though and together with the Lord's help, I
+know we can make it. We started hiking at 8:15 and I felt sick and weak
+most of the morning. At about the halfway point we found a little creek
+where we stopped to rest for an hour and eat some currents and elder
+berries we had found. It ended up being nearly two hours before we left
+again. We trudged on through the heat of the day and I concentrated on
+putting one foot in front of the other. Finally, we crossed Stanton pass
+and as we descended into the valley, we spied the reservoir in the
+distance. I think I know how the pioneers must have felt when they had
+their first glimpse of the Salt Lake Valley. I nearly came to tears of
+happiness. There were shouts of joy and many burst into singing. We
+still had three miles to go, but our spirits were high, and our tired
+bodies strengthened from the sight. As we rounded the last bend, united
+and together, we sang "Shall the Youth of Zion Falter". We had done it
+and we were grateful. Immediately, we knelt in prayer to offer our
+thanks. It was 7 o'clock when we arrived. It had taken us about 9 hours
+of hiking to cover those 16 miles.
+
+My first action was to unroll my bedroll and collapse into sleep. I had
+to get up and head for the bushes 3 times during the night to avoid
+disaster. When I awoke the next morning on Saturday, I felt incredibly
+weak. I dosed until 11:30 when we held a short service on fasting and
+its purpose. I now know or have a deeper understanding of what true
+humility is. I have never felt so humbled before in my life. The rest of
+the day and tomorrow until fast and testimony meeting will be spent in
+prayer and scripture reading. Saturday afternoon seemed very long. Most
+of us were just waiting it out until the staff came with food. I read
+parts of the D & C and Jonathon Livingston Seagull. My case of Revenge
+has dried up, mainly because it has emptied me completely out. I have
+never had such a hollow feeling before. Saturday night was long too.
+It's like waiting all night for Christmas morning. I often indulged in
+dreams of all the good foods I've ever eaten.
diff --git a/md/17_Survival_Journal_Week4.md b/md/17_Survival_Journal_Week4.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee70090
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/17_Survival_Journal_Week4.md
@@ -0,0 +1,185 @@
+---
+title: Survival Journal - Week 4
+---
+
+Non-journal comment: Week 4 consisted of a forced march on Monday and
+Student Expedition the remainder of the week. Student Expeditions are
+smaller than group expeditions. There were about three students in each
+group.
+
+The staff finally came at 7:30 Sunday Morning. We held a short
+Priesthood meeting and then had our fast and testimony meeting. It
+lasted for three hours and the spirit was strong. We had to use berries
+for the Sacrament.
+
+At 12:30 they passed out food to each family group. First, we devoured a
+watermelon. Then we whomped up some oatmeal and lumpy dick to last us
+until dinner. Dinner was fried chicken, cooked vegetables, and cinnamon
+ash cakes. I was so full of oatmeal that I could hardly eat the dinner
+and soon after my Revenge started again.
+
+At 7:00 we had a meeting at which it was announced that our forced march
+would begin that night at midnight. We were to hike 25 miles to Eggnog
+Cabin as fast as we could. I wasn't exactly overjoyed but slept for a
+few hours with my bedroll rolled and ready to go. The gun went off at
+12:30 when the moon was out to light the way. Everybody took off; some
+began to run, and I was doing fine in second place
+
+when the Revenge struck a powerful blow. I lost 4 places and most of my
+will power. I began again with cramps in my stomach. It was an endlessly
+long, spooky walk through ghostly, moonlit desert canyons and mesas.
+After a while, my pains eased, and I settled into a steady pace. At 6:30
+I watched an incredibly beautiful sunrise and I think I learned a very
+deep appreciation of desert scenery. At 7:30 Lynn, Ted and I all walked
+into Eggnog together and first. We had covered 25 miles in seven hours
+of hard pushed hiking. I thought my legs were going to fall off and I
+grew some prize-winning blisters, but I was there and happy. I am now
+resting in the shade. Kids have been coming in all morning. Most of them
+were in by 10, but some of those poor kids are still out in the desert
+at 12:30. It's very hot here in the shade and I hate to imagine what
+those poor kids are going through. Kelly came in about 7 pm and Doug
+came in with a crutch and bad back at 10 pm.
+
+Monday night we made preparations for student expedition week. This is a
+period of 4-5 days where small groups of students are sent out on their
+own with maps and faith to cover 50-70-mile distances. Ted, Kelly and I
+are one of the groups. We were given food packs for the week and then
+each group met individually with the staff to discuss their expedition.
+We had a final fireside for instructions before we separated.
+
+Some groups left as early as 4 am Tuesday morning, but ours didn't leave
+until 7:30. Kelly was still exhausted from the forced march and the
+going was extremely slow. We finally reached the first water drop 8
+miles out of camp at 11:30. There were three other groups there too,
+some with ill members. We all planned to wait there at the water drop
+until about 4 in the afternoon when it cooled off a little. When the
+time came to leave, we found that there was barely enough water for half
+a pop can apiece. The nearest water ahead was 20 miles away and we were
+quite worried. Ted had begun to feel a little sick during the afternoon
+rest and Kelly was still tired. Since I was the only one with much
+energy left, I decided to walk two miles back to an old reservoir for
+water. I carried two canteens and two billy cans and arrived at the
+reservoir in 40 minutes. I got back at 5:45 and found Ted writhing in
+pain. The rest
+
+of the groups had left, so I was alone and quite helpless to do
+anything. Kelly and I gave Ted a blessing and set up camp since it was
+obvious that we would not be moving anymore that day. A car came by, but
+the most they could do for us was give us some good drinking water for
+Ted.
+
+Wednesday Morning Ted is feeling a little better, but he is still very
+sick. Our water is getting low and I am getting very worried. We are
+very far behind schedule now. I have no idea then we will be able to
+move or if help will ever come if it is needed. There is nothing I can
+do but pray out here in the middle of the desert. Frankly, I am a bit
+frustrated and discouraged.
+
+The back-up truck finally came by to pick up their water buckets at
+2:30. They were very surprised to see us still there and asked what the
+problem was. After examining Ted and talking to him for a long while he
+decided to continue on with Kelly and me. They told him he should depend
+totally upon the Lord to help him face this great physical challenge.
+They filled our canteens and said goodbye once again. We finally left at
+4 pm. even though Ted was in considerable pain. We had to walk some 16
+miles that afternoon to the next water and expected to be walking far
+into the night. It was nearly 10 pm when we made it to the junction
+where the water drop was. To our surprise, two of the other boys groups
+were there too. Ted was feverish and quite exhausted from our long
+uphill climb that day. I certainly admire his courage and determination.
+During the course of our walking, we crossed Capital Reef National Park
+and climbed the switchbacks to the petrified wood junction.
+
+I must tell you about a desert thundershower we encountered along the
+way. First, the air becomes very still, and you see these huge billowy
+clouds come rolling in. Then, the wind begins to blow in violent little
+gusts, and you can smell that newly wetted dirt smell in the air. Next,
+you watch a sparkling sheet of rain roll toward you and before you know
+it you are enveloped in a downpour of huge warm rain drops while the sun
+is still shining and making the wet desert rocks glisten. It's all over
+in about 20 minutes and the desert becomes as dry as it was before.
+
+Thursday morning, we cooked a delicious lentil and dog food (TVP) stew.
+We left camp at 10 a.m. Ted\'s condition was somewhat improved, and we
+made good progress. We followed the Petrified Wood road to the Veda Mine
+Road. Then we finally entered Wolverine Canyon where we shortly
+discovered a beautiful little spring and made camp at 5 pm. We arrived
+in very good spirits and had greatly enjoyed each other\'s company and
+the terrain that day. I was filling the role of head cook which I
+greatly enjoyed. We had a big pot of cracked wheat and milk with brown
+sugar. We finally retired after a good long fireside chat. It is very
+difficult to explain just how much I am enjoying my student expedition
+now that everything is going so well. My feet are fine, the revenge is
+gone, the food is quite good and we have not even been worried about
+where we are or whether we will have water yet. It's all just so great,
+and sadly enough drawing to a close.
+
+Friday morning, we broke camp early because we had a long way to go
+before the day was over. We followed Wolverine into Horse Canyon. There
+we traveled most of the day through high walled canyons and dry
+riverbeds. Towards evening we started to follow the Kings Bench trail,
+hoping to find a cattle trough of water as our camping spot. We found it
+at the base of a steeply ascending canyon at 5 pm. Our meal was lumpy
+dick over TVP (texturized vegetable protein) and it was very good. We
+expected to make the last leg of our journey up the ravine and over
+King\'s Bench tomorrow morning. When we arrive at Base Camp in the
+Gulch, we will have traveled somewhere around 250 miles. Our student
+expedition alone was in excess of 50 miles I believe. The last mileage
+we will have to cover from the Gulch will be our 12-mile run in to
+Boulder from the Gulch after solo.
+
+Sunday\-- Ah, solo is so peaceful and relaxing, but that's getting ahead
+of myself; back to where I left off.
+
+Saturday morning, we rose and had a leisurely breakfast. We napped a
+little before breaking camp and were in no hurry to leave because we
+anticipated a short hike into base camp. Leaving at 9:30, we started the
+steep ascent up the ravine which led to Kings Bench. It took us an hour
+of heavy panting to reach the top, but it was certainly worth it. From
+the top you could see for miles in all directions.
+
+In looking across the bench we could see Long Canyon. Long Canyon
+branches off from the Gulch so we decided to drop into Long and follow
+it to the Gulch. However, several attempts to descend ended in steep 200
+ft. cliffs. Finally, we came to a point where we could see the entire
+canyon. The whole thing was walled with cliffs and there was no way in.
+It was nearly noon when we discovered this and it was getting very hot.
+We had expected to be in base camp by noon so we hadn't carried much
+water.
+
+Worry started to furrow our brows, but we decided to bear southwest and
+try to enter the Gulch through a long narrow canyon. We hiked for
+several hours and entered the top of the narrow canyon. We came upon a
+water pot which had hundreds of polywogs and little green flecks. I
+drank my fill anyway because of my thirst.
+
+The going was pretty tough and several times appeared to be foiled by
+drop-offs. Each time we would discover a ledge or a crack in the wall
+which would let us pass. Finally, as we followed a ledge we came into
+view of the Gulch and shortly found a way down. We came joyfully walking
+into base camp soon after. It felt like a long-awaited home-coming to
+see our leaders and those cheerful girls again. All the girls groups
+were already there, but we were the first boys group to arrive at about
+5 pm. When we got there the girls were rappelling down a 150-foot cliff.
+I was very anxious to rappel too, so we prepared our solo food packs and
+were about to take the path up to the top of the cliff when misfortune
+came.
+
+Great storm clouds had moved in and it began to thunder and lightning.
+Then the rains came in such floods that soon the whole canyon floor
+began to flow. The lightning was spectacular, and the thunder was
+deafening. Most of us were thoroughly soaked before long. I managed to
+stay a little dry by standing under a little overhang. The storm passed
+after about an hour, but it left behind a muddy mess. What was earlier a
+cool, clear little canyon stream was now a muddy red little river. I had
+visions of having to drink that stuff all through solo.
+
+By this time the other boys groups had arrived and we began to organize
+to go out on Solo. Those of us who hadn\'t gotten to rappel would do so
+Wednesday after solo was over. We boys followed the leaders up the Gulch
+where they left us one by one at our own little sites along the way. I
+was given my site about 9 pm when the light was beginning to fade. It is
+a little ledge about 30 feet above the creek. A large overhang juts out
+over it and gives me just enough room to stand. From my little perch
+here, I command a view of the stream below. Nothing can pass below me
+without my notice.
diff --git a/md/18_Survival_Journal_Week5.md b/md/18_Survival_Journal_Week5.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aebb096
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/18_Survival_Journal_Week5.md
@@ -0,0 +1,164 @@
+---
+title: Survival Journal - Week 5
+---
+
+Non-journal comment: This week started with 3 days called Solo. It was
+supposed to be the highlight of the course where each participant
+internalized the life lessons of the previous weeks of challenge and
+hardship. However, I spent most of my time resting, cooking, and eating.
+It took another 30 years of living to fully internalize all those life
+lessons. I guess I'm a slow learner.
+
+Early Sunday morning two big-forked bucks walked below unaware of my
+observance. To my horror, I found that the water in the stream was still
+muddy red. I spent about an hour gathering firewood and cooked some
+oatmeal with the water I had in my canteen. I then went upstream in
+search of a spring I had passed the night before. To my delight I found
+one much closer to my \"home" which issued a small stream of cool clear
+water.
+
+I spent most of the rest of the day doing just that---resting. I cooked
+up little goodies much of the time, read a little and dozed some too. I
+immensely enjoy this experience of quiet, leisure and meditation. I
+cannot think of much else that I could ask for to make me happier or
+more contented.
+
+Sunday night 9 pm - I'm sitting against my base camp bag, staring into
+my campfire and listening to the quiet drone of the crickets. I've just
+finished a fantastic meal of lentil, potato, and carrot stew with
+sugared ash cakes and a bedtime hot totty of warm milk and brown sugar.
+It all gives a man a great deal of peace and satisfaction.
+
+Monday morning, I spent cooking breakfast, gathering more wood, and
+going for water. Now that I have time to examine myself, I have
+discovered how truly grubby I am. I can rub grimy black stuff off of my
+face and arms. I have been wearing the same pair of pants for a month
+now. They have everything from sheep fat to ash cake dough on them. Oh
+well, in a few short days I will be able to take a hot soaker bath at
+Grandma and Grandpa\'s place.
+
+For lunch I cooked up an excellent gravy for my ash cakes. I derive
+immense pleasure from cooking over a campfire and eating my tasty
+concoctions. They have given us a rather large food pack for solo and I
+find that I am spending much of my time preoccupied with cooking and
+eating. I feel a little guilty that I have not used more of my time for
+the purpose it was intended; that of meditation, prayer and earnest
+thought. I should write most of my paper today, a task I don't much look
+forward to. I guess I had better get started.
+
+Evening \-- A gusty wind has begun to blow through the canyon. My house
+is not very well protected from wind and I'm getting lots of sand blown
+all over everything. Fortunately, as with most desert weather, it was a
+short-lived storm and lasted only about 45 minutes. A quiet peace has
+again settled over the canyon. I cooked a delicious stew of rice,
+potatoes and TVP and retired for the night. I kept my fire burning all
+night and my overhang retains the heat well. I enjoyed the luxury of
+sleeping in my T-shirt all night. During the night, my house was
+visited, or I should say invaded, by a big-eared desert mouse. First, he
+attacked my moleskin hatband and when I took that out of his reach, he
+ransacked my toilet paper. He certainly was a daring little fellow.
+
+Breakfast Tuesday morning was cracked wheat mush and left-over stew. I
+whiled away the morning by gathering wood, getting water, and cooking a
+big batch of ash cakes. Then I read until about 2:30 when I decided I
+had better try to finish my paper. As I began to write, the clouds began
+to move in, and it started to thunder. It was another diller of a
+thunder and lightning storm. This time I enjoyed watching it from the
+comforts of my home and was grateful that it is so well protected from
+the rain. It did not even stop me from starting to cook some lentils for
+tonight's dinner, but it did distract me from my writing. This time also
+I was able to appreciate how spectacular the storm was. Large, gushing
+waterfalls seemed to spring instantly from the canyon walls. The little
+creek rose to a torrent in only a half hour. Those raindrops must have
+been as big as marbles and yet, here I sit as dry as a bone. It's really
+neat to see a great flash of lightning and instantly hear and feel the
+great crash of thunder with its following rumble down the canyon. This
+storm lasted less than half an hour. Now, as I write, another one has
+just, passed over. I almost wish they would go away so I could get on
+with my writing of my paper.
+
+At about 6:30 I was surprised to see one of our instructors, Russ,
+walking up the creek bed. It was raining lightly, and he was soaked to
+the skin. He waved and I called out to invite him up to my humble abode
+and warm himself by my fire. I had been expecting him or someone all day
+because they had told us that an instructor would come to interview each
+of us on Tuesday. I had almost given up hope when the storms came and
+was very happy to see another human being after three days of solitude.
+After a prayer we shared our thoughts and feelings of the past month. As
+we talked, I felt his love and concern for me and was very grateful to
+have shared those few moments with such a dedicated instructor. We
+closed the interview with prayer, and he left, still wet, but perhaps a
+little warmer. I then reheated my lentil stew, ate a meager dinner and
+retired for my last night of solitude. The little field mouse came to
+visit again that night only this time I gave him some cracked wheat, to
+keep him busy.
+
+At 5:30 Wednesday morning I cooked the last of my oatmeal and ate a
+hurried breakfast. I then gathered up my stuff and prepared to leave my
+home of the past few days. I said good-bye to my overhang and left for
+the instructor's camp at 6:30. At about 7 they began to rappel the rest
+of those that hadn't done it on Saturday. The cliff was about 140 feet
+high and was nearly vertical except for the last 20 feet at the bottom
+where the cliff face jutted inward sharply. This meant that the last 20
+feet of descending was in mid-air, dangling by the ropes. I went down
+very slowly and carefully to enjoy it as long as I could. It was over
+all too soon. They finished rappelling the rest of us by 11:30.
+
+At about noon we all met together under some big cottonwood trees for
+our final testimony meeting. The spirit of the Lord was very strong, and
+we shared our love for each other for 4 hours. I will never forget the
+special feeling I had at that meeting. It made all the hardship and
+suffering of the past month seem worthwhile. After the meeting we had
+another special treat. A church member sister from Boulder had baked us
+about 15 loaves of home-made whole wheat bread with two big cubes of
+real butter. Each of us were given 2 and a half thick slices with great
+gobs of peanut butter and jam smeared all over them. Then we built a big
+fire and cooked up a big pot of chunky chicken soup. Most of us thought
+we had died and gone to heaven. That meal was our first solid food that
+tasted like a civilized meal for a whole month. Then we had a fireside
+that evening. We sang songs, had skits, and were given awards. I was
+given the mouse-keeper award for my tender care of my pet mouse during
+solo. Then Chuck explained to us about the run-in to Boulder in the
+morning. We were to get up at 4am and be ready to leave camp by 5:30.
+For a final surprise before going to bed, the staff made us a big pot of
+hot chocolate and give us each a candy bar. We were then expected to get
+some rest before the ordeal in the morning, but most of the kids stayed
+up and talked late into the night, nervously anticipating the run-in and
+our entrance back into civilization.
+
+At 4 in the morning, we woke up to GT Joe giving everyone orders to get
+up and get moving. Many were reluctant to face this day and we didn't
+leave camp until 6:30. We were to walk to the top of the hill where we
+would start running the 11 miles into Boulder. At precisely 7 a.m. the
+gun went off and the boys cheered the girls as they took off down the
+road. At 7:15 the gun went off again for the boys. For the first quarter
+mile I stayed with the pack sizing up who would be the hardest ones to
+beat and seeing how the pace felt. It felt a little slow, so I began to
+leave them behind. After 10 minutes of running, I never saw another boy
+until the end when they came into Boulder. I started passing the first
+of the girls after 20 minutes of running. They were very sweet and
+encouraged me to keep it up. After 4 ½ miles of easy downhill and level
+running I was surprised to cross Deer Creek. That first half hour of
+running had seemed so easy. Most of the rest of the way was up hill and
+I began to feel the strain. After 45 minutes I began to feel cramps in
+my legs and my breathing was very heavy and labored. I had to walk up
+some of the steeper hills. I kept passing girls, but I knew I would not
+be first until I passed the girl I knew would be in the lead.
+
+After an hour and 20 minutes I finally sighted her a quarter mile ahead.
+By this time, I was really hurting, and it gave me a boost of energy to
+see Suzy. As I passed her, I smiled and said, "I love you, Suzy". It was
+only another 5 minutes when I rounded a bend to find the first buildings
+of Boulder. I shouted for joy as I ran up to the chapel and collapsed
+into the arms of Chuck at 8:46. I had run the 12 miles in 1 hour and 31
+minutes, 9 minutes from the record time. I had revived somewhat and was
+walking slowly around to keep my muscles from cramping when Suzy came in
+5 minutes behind me. Kids kept coming in for the next hour and a half,
+the last one coming in at 10 am. By 10:45 we were loaded on the bus and
+heading back toward Provo. We stopped in Richfield where everyone went
+crazy buying food at a Safeway store there. We arrived in Provo at 5 pm
+where we unloaded at the Richards PE building.
+
+There were many tears and hugs and happy reunions with parents. We all
+said our good-byes and went our separate ways until we would meet again
+at the party Friday at 10 am.
diff --git a/md/19_Survival_Journal_Final_Paper.md b/md/19_Survival_Journal_Final_Paper.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bbdfa30
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/19_Survival_Journal_Final_Paper.md
@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+---
+title: Survival Journal - Final Paper
+---
+
+_Since the experience of the past month has been a period of great
+learning for me, this paper will be an attempt to express the lessons I
+have learned from survival. Hopefully, it will be a summary of my
+thoughts and realizations as I have come to understand them during solo._
+
+From the hardships and tests of endurance I learned much about my
+limitations. Strangely though, I learned more from observing others than
+myself. The first realization came when we left the little pond at the
+mouth of Horsethief during impact. I thought I had nearly reached my
+limits as we hiked that day and was extremely reluctant to continue on.
+Then as I was given the opportunity to help Melody and saw how tired she
+was, but how determinately she continued on I knew that I had not even
+come close to my limits of endurance. Throughout many of the tests of
+survival I have felt that my trials have not been as severe as those of
+others and each time I knew that if they had the courage to carry on
+surely, I must also.
+
+One of the greatest lessons I have learned is the role that humility
+must play in my life. During group ex. it was humbling to see how well
+the girls groups performed together compared to the boys groups. An
+essential part of cooperating as a group is having the humility to put
+your trust in a leader and his decisions. We boys were too
+individualistic and did not function well as a group until we were
+humbled by becoming separated. Humility also is an essential element in
+a person's relationship to the Lord. Only when a person has enough
+humility to know that he must depend upon the Lord instead of his own
+strength, can he earnestly strive to seek the help and guidance he
+needs. This lesson was not fully realized by me until the end of
+survival week when I felt sufficiently humble. I now have a better
+understanding of how much I must depend upon the Lord not only during
+times of hardship, but in all walks of life.
+
+Survival has also taught me a lesson of appreciation for the sacred
+privilege of living in this beautiful creation. During solo I witnessed
+many wonders, from the graceful motions of deer and great hawks to the
+delicate scampering of field mice and insects. I often studied the
+canyon walls and remembered back to the other beautiful landscapes I had
+seen during the past month. I had time to appreciate their immensity and
+perhaps more fully understand how all these things are filling the
+"measure of their
+
+creation", as Sharon said. My eyes have beheld many of these marvels
+before, but I was not a part of them and could not fully appreciate
+them. It was as if I looked at them only through a picture frame until I
+had this chance to experience some of the joys and pains of living so
+intimately amongst them. For this added appreciation of the sacred
+blessing of earthly existence I am most grateful.
+
+Some of the lessons I have learned are in relation to the goals I set,
+at the beginning of the course. One of my goals was to learn to base
+friendships upon the inner qualities of people rather than on outward
+appearances or superficial, less eternal qualities. From this experience
+of knowing hardships and suffering, of depending upon and living so
+closely with people I did not previously know, I feel I have learned how
+to more easily recognize the qualities upon which I want to base love
+for others. I am continually amazed at how much I can find to love in
+every single person I have met, during survival. I feel I have a greater
+understanding of Christ's love for all his children and His commandment
+that we are to love others as we do ourselves. Another of my goals was
+to overcome my selfishness or to learn to love others to the point that
+I cared more about them than I did myself. From the many opportunities I
+had to serve others and give of myself I learned much about myself. I do
+not feel that I gave as much as I could or that I have overcome all my
+selfish desires, but I have learned much about where my faults lie and
+what I must do to correct them.
+
+To summarize my feelings from survival, I have come to know a great
+peace within myself. It is not a peace such that what I am is entirely
+what want to be, but the lessons I have learned and the knowledge of
+myself I have gained do not disturb me, but confirm my faith in myself.
+I feel a sense of accomplishment at having endured hardships and having
+born them without faltering. I feel, too, that the direction I am going
+after survival will enable me to apply what I have learned toward
+improving
+
+myself. I will be able to increase my faith in the Lord and learn to
+more fully love and serve others during my mission to Brazil. I am
+extremely grateful to have had this chance to learn so much that will
+serve as preparation for mission my experience.
+
+As far as an instructor critique, I'm afraid I have little to say.
+Throughout the entire month of survival I never at any time felt a
+lacking on the part of the instructors. Their total dedication to their
+responsibility always seemed more than sufficient to me. The two
+instructors with which I had the most contact and whom I learned to love
+and appreciate the most were Fred and Russ. I feel that they both gave
+me much more than could give in return and that they both did an
+excellent job of teaching what they were. I will be eternally grateful
+to them and all the instructors for making survival the great experience
+it was to me.
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diff --git a/md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil.md b/md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil.md
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil.md
@@ -0,0 +1,200 @@
+---
+title: Dan's Mission in Brazil
+---
+
+It's been over 47 years since I left home to go preach the gospel in
+Brazil. When it's been that long since a person has done something, it
+has "old geezer" written all over it. I guess instead of avoiding the
+truth I'll embrace my geezerhood and try to make the best of it.\
+\
+Back in those days when a young man started to plan for college and a
+mission, you had to be 19 to even apply to go on a mission for the
+church. I was only 17 when I graduated from Ridgefield High school, so
+the only option was college. I attended one year at Clark Community
+College in Vancouver and then a second year of university at BYU,
+majoring in Electrical Engineering. During the summer of 1975, I decided
+to take a 30 day desert survival course and then go on my mission. I had
+already received my mission call to Brazil before leaving for the
+deserts of Southern Utah.\
+\
+I believe it was late October when I entered the language training
+mission (LTM). I stayed there for the next 4 months, learning the
+missionary lessons and the Brazilian language. Normally, the time in the
+LTM was only 2 months, but Brazil was very slow at approving our visas,
+so we got an extra two months to learn the language as we waited for
+Brazil to finish the paperwork.
+
+![A picture containing snow, outdoor, building, house Description
+automatically
+generated](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image1.jpeg){width="5.697916666666667in"
+height="3.7937412510936133in" alt=""}
+
+This is Allen Hall, where we lived. It was located on the lower campus
+at BYU. The much bigger Missionary Training Center near the Provo temple
+didn't exist yet.
+
+![A picture containing text, building, outdoor, person Description
+automatically
+generated](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image2.jpeg){width="5.75in"
+height="3.828639545056868in" alt=""}
+
+This is my district of fellow Elders. We studied together for many hours
+a day while the snow fell outside.
+
+![A group of men posing for a photo Description automatically generated
+with medium
+confidence](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image3.jpeg){width="5.934569116360455in"
+height="3.875in" alt=""}
+
+Elder Marcus, my first companion, is sitting beside me on our bunk bed.
+
+![A person wearing a hat and glasses Description automatically generated
+with medium
+confidence](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image4.jpeg){width="6.007950568678915in"
+height="4.020833333333333in" alt=""}
+
+Here, I'm trying out my gangsta door approach. It was eventually
+abandoned as unlikely to be effective.
+
+![A group of people posing for the camera Description automatically
+generated](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image5.jpeg){width="5.661654636920385in"
+height="3.75in" alt=""}
+
+Another lighter moment just before lights out. Many of these elders had
+not yet adjusted to wearing their garments at night.
+
+![A picture containing text, person, person Description automatically
+generated](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image6.jpeg){width="5.72745406824147in"
+height="3.8229166666666665in" alt=""}
+
+This is a farewell party for the Fonseca district. We were jealous
+because they received their visas, but we were still marooned at the LTM
+for a while.
+
+One memory I have of this time was the bitter-sweet experience of
+spending Christmas at the LTM. I missed my family and President Lee, who
+signed my mission call, passed away the day after Christmas. We sang a
+lot of Christmas carols together and felt a wonderful spirit of serving
+together in the LTM.\
+\
+When my visa was finally approved, I flew from Salt Lake City to Sao
+Paolo, Brazil. I then flew to Porto Alegre and finally took a bus to my
+first assignment in a city called Criciuma. I left Salt Lake City
+wearing three white shirts because I didn't have room for them in my
+suitcase. I arrived in Brazil in the middle of their summer. I thought I
+was going to perish of heat exhaustion.
+
+![A picture containing text, building, outdoor Description automatically
+generated](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image7.jpeg){width="5.75in"
+height="3.837965879265092in" alt=""}
+
+Here I am in the city of Criciuma. It was a smallish city out in the
+country where most of the people were simple farmers. While there, my
+district of elders went on a P-day trip to the catholic mission ruins of
+Sao Miguel.
+
+![A group of people posing for a photo in front of a brick building
+Description automatically generated with medium
+confidence](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image8.jpeg){width="5.634399606299213in"
+height="3.7708333333333335in" alt=""}
+
+Here are a few of us posing by the ruins. The guy on the right had a
+special talent. He could say the entire pledge of allegiance with one
+burp. It came in quite handy when knocking on doors.
+
+![A picture containing sky, outdoor, brick, old Description
+automatically
+generated](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image9.jpeg){width="5.682471566054243in"
+height="3.8020833333333335in" alt=""}
+
+Here, I'm pretending to be a statue of a saint.
+
+![A statue on top of a brick building Description automatically
+generated with medium
+confidence](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image10.jpeg){width="5.625in"
+height="3.764542869641295in" alt=""}
+
+Now I'm practicing my Samuel the Lamanite approach. Fortunately, no one
+was shooting arrows at me.
+
+![A picture containing text, outdoor, sky, person Description
+automatically
+generated](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image11.jpeg){width="5.677083333333333in"
+height="3.7999726596675414in" alt=""}
+
+Elder Webb was my first companion in Brazil. He taught me how to be an
+awesome missionary.
+
+![A picture containing outdoor, tree, ground, plant Description
+automatically
+generated](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image12.jpeg){width="5.479166666666667in"
+height="8.047525153105862in" alt=""}
+
+I also served in a small city called Alegrete. Four of us lived in a
+room we rented from this kind old lady and her son, who was somewhat
+mentally retarded. They had a little dog who was loaded with fleas that
+often ended up in my bed.
+
+My last city of service was Porto Alegre, a large and busy city of
+nearly a million people.
+
+![A picture containing person, suit, person, posing Description
+automatically
+generated](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image13.jpeg){width="6.211654636920385in"
+height="4.114583333333333in" alt=""}
+
+My last companion was a native Brazilian named Edson de Marques. We
+taught a young couple who were baptized shortly before I came home.
+
+![A group of people posing for a photo Description automatically
+generated with medium
+confidence](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image14.jpeg){width="5.166666666666667in"
+height="7.960839895013123in" alt=""}
+
+This is Elder de Marques with the young couple. His name was Ademir
+Pinto Ribeiro and her name was Iara. Ademir is wearing an authentic
+Brazilian pala that was made for me to bring home.
+
+In those days, missionaries were allowed to do some extra travelling on
+the way back to their homes. I jumped at the chance to take about a week
+to see some amazing sights on the way back to the USA.  My travelling
+companion and I made three main stops: Foz do Iguacu, a huge waterfall
+at the border with Paraguay, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Machu Picchu,
+Peru.
+
+![An aerial view of a city Description automatically generated with
+medium
+confidence](md/20_Dans_Mission_in_Brazil-media/media/image15.jpeg){width="6.431814304461942in"
+height="4.260416666666667in" alt=""}
+
+I took this picture of Machu Picchu. It was amazing and worth every bit
+of effort to travel there, but it caused some big worries in the end.
+
+For some reason I'll never understand, the airlines overbooked the
+flights leaving the Peruvian city of Cuzco, near Machu Picchu. We missed
+our flight to Lima and had to stay an extra day in Cuzco. The next day,
+the Peruvian military flew us out in a paratrooper airplane. I remember
+sitting in mesh netting seats holding a little tube for oxygen and
+wondering if I would ever get home again. I missed the big welcome my
+family had planned for me at the Portland airport and I couldn't even
+get word to them about the delay. I arrived in Portland the next day
+with 1 dime in my pocket and was picked up by just my mother. It wasn't
+the big reception I could have had, but I was certainly glad to be back
+home again.\
+\
+One of the last memories of my mission was of a sacrament meeting where
+I was asked to speak in the Porto Alegre ward. After finishing my talk,
+I sat down next to the stake president on the stand. He leaned over to
+me and whispered in my ear, "Voce fala portugues melhor do que a maioria
+dos brasileiros." Translated, this was, "You speak Portuguese better
+than the majority of native Brazilians." I can't describe how amazing it
+was to receive this complement from a highly educated Brazilian.
+Although this was not my only goal for going to Brazil, I really enjoyed
+learning a foreign language and I put a lot of effort into it. I read a
+lot of Portuguese novels and comic books on my P-days and paid attention
+to the native accent when I talked to the people there. This complement
+took little effort to give, but made a huge difference in my life and my
+own self-confidence. It is a great example of how a tiny bit of
+thoughtfulness can lift someone else immeasurably. I have never
+forgotten the complement and the power of giving them to those who
+deserve it.
diff --git a/md/21_A_Date_with_Eternity.md b/md/21_A_Date_with_Eternity.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1b3490f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/21_A_Date_with_Eternity.md
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+---
+title: A Date with Eternity
+---
+
+I was in my junior year of the engineering program at Brigham Young
+University when my student ward decided to organize a climb to the top
+of Mount Timpanogos near Provo, Utah. It was in the spring of 1978. The
+snow was gone from the mountain, but the weather was still a little
+unpredictable. Our group of hardy adventurers was composed of fellow
+students, most of whom were good friends. We set out one fine evening
+and took our sleeping bags with us to the trail head at the base of the
+mountain. We planned to sleep under the stars and arise at about 4am to
+get an early start up the mountain.
+
+Lori and I were seriously dating at the time, but we were not yet
+engaged to be married. We both looked forward to sharing the experience
+of climbing the mountain together. The trail was not extremely rugged,
+but the distance to the peak was considerable, at about 7 miles. When
+4am arrived, we all embarked together, anxious to meet the challenge of
+conquering a worthy mountain peak.
+
+Until the sun came up, we had to be careful where we placed our feet on
+the trail because of the darkness. Soon, however, the sun began to rise
+and the beauties of the mountain became visible. The day started
+gloriously and appeared to be likely to offer just the right conditions
+for a day of hiking. Unfortunately, our luck began to rapidly change.
+Before we had arrived at the peak, the clouds began to thicken and it
+started to rain. Our group decided to avoid taking any greater risks in
+the poor weather and chose to abandon our goal to reach the top of the
+mountain. It was a long, cold march in the rain as we trudged back down
+the muddy trail. The mood was a bit somber because our lofty goal had
+been demolished by the weather. We were all quite soaked by the rain and
+thoroughly cold and miserable.
+
+It was under these rather dismal conditions when an impression began to
+form in my mind. This impression would have eternal consequences. I
+began to understand how adversity can often reveal a person's true
+nature. I observed how Lori reacted to our present unfavorable
+circumstances and was quite impressed with how well she held up under
+the trial. She looked like a half-drowned cat, but remained cheerful and
+determined to stay positive. She didn't utter a single complaint or
+allow her mood to turn sour. I realized that her strength of character
+would be a valuable trait in an eternal companion. I began to realize
+how much I needed this kind of influence in my life. The impression grew
+and matured until I asked her to marry me a few months later. That day
+on the mountain, I may have lost the contest with nature, but I found my
+soul-mate. She has been my main source of joy and comfort ever since.
diff --git a/md/22_The_Volkswagen_that_Couldnt.md b/md/22_The_Volkswagen_that_Couldnt.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7203a6d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/22_The_Volkswagen_that_Couldnt.md
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+---
+title: The Volkswagen that Couldn't
+---
+
+1978
+
+Shortly after my wife and I were married, we decided to drive to Canada
+to visit her parents. We were still starving students and had to make
+the trip in my wife's orange Volkswagen Beetle. The route required us to
+cross through a few mountain ranges somewhere in Montana. On this
+occasion, my wife was driving. We were following a big freight truck as
+we began to climb up a steep mountain. The truck began to slow down as
+the hill became steeper. This stretch of highway had only two lanes.
+Thus, the only way to get by the big truck was to pass him on the left.
+
+There was another car behind us. We both grew impatient to get around
+the slow moving truck, but the on-coming traffic was too heavy. The
+minutes of waiting for an opportunity to pass the truck became
+agonizing. The tension and the stress were building. Finally, a gap in
+the on-coming traffic presented our best chance to pass the truck. Lori
+pulled the beetle into the left lane and put the pedal to the metal. To
+our great dismay, the Volkswagen did not surge forward with a burst of
+speed as hoped. One quarter mile ahead, another vehicle was speeding
+toward us in the left lane. Our poor little Volkswagen was not making
+much progress getting around that truck. The situation was getting very
+tense.
+
+Meanwhile, the car that had been behind us pulled up nearer to the
+truck, making it impossible for us to move back into the right lane to
+avoid a head-on collision. Now, we were both truly frightened. The
+Volkswagen was not going to get around the truck in time. Lori took the
+only option left. She braked hard to allow the truck and the car behind
+it to move ahead. We slipped back into the right lane and out of harm's
+way just as the on-coming car flew by with its horn blowing.
+
+I will never forget the expression on the face of the driver of the car
+that had been behind us. As we were braking to get back into the right
+lane, I could clearly see a look of amusement as he sped ahead on the
+right. I will never know if his actions that day were deliberate, but in
+my heightened state of distress, I assumed he had intentionally placed
+our lives in danger just so he could have a good chuckle.
+
+For the next 20 or 30 minutes, I was silently fuming. I entertained all
+manner of grisly methods of exacting revenge on this pathetic excuse for
+a human being. My fantasies involved the use of weapons such as sledge
+hammers, machetes and double barreled shotguns. I was so consumed by my
+anger and indignation that I could not rationally analyze what was
+happening to me. At length, I finally realized that I was only
+prolonging my mental anguish by feeding my rage with thoughts of
+revenge. Finally, after a long time, I was able to listen to the still,
+small voice inside me. That voice told me that the only way to become
+triumphant in this situation was to adopt a spirit of forgiveness. Then,
+and only then, was my personal peace restored.
+
+In retrospect, that driver did me a great favor that day. He helped me
+learn a valuable lesson early in life that has served me well ever
+since.
diff --git a/md/23_Dem_Bones.md b/md/23_Dem_Bones.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a6b4c1a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/23_Dem_Bones.md
@@ -0,0 +1,96 @@
+---
+title: Dem Bones
+---
+
+Life Lessons: We become the sum of our choices.
+
+Thankfully, I've never suffered a broken bone in my life, but Lori and
+several of our children have. The most recent occurrence was Lori's
+wobbly-rock incident at Girl's Camp that resulted in a shiny new
+stainless-steel plate in her left wrist. She now has a small collection
+of metal objects in her body, but I'm not the least bit jealous. I think
+perhaps the artificial lenses in my eyes trump the metal she has in her
+wrist and hip.\
+\
+Lori's broken wrist got me to pondering over the children's broken
+bones. I've decided to write about the time Emily broke her arm. I think
+there is a life lesson in there somewhere, but only where you would
+least expect it.\
+\
+We were living in our first house in American Fork, Utah. It was a
+starter house neighborhood with mostly young families and tons of young
+children roaming the neighborhood. Emily was probably about 5 years old
+at the time. As young kids will do, Emily had climbed a fence and was
+demonstrating her balancing skills by walking like a tight rope walker
+along the top of the fence. I don't remember who the culprit was, but
+some other neighborhood child thought it would be funny to chuck his
+shoe at Emily in an attempt to make her fall off the fence. I don't even
+know if he was successful in hitting his target, but he was successful
+at making Emily fall off the fence. She came home with her forearm bent
+at an impossible angle. It was quite apparent that some bones had been
+broken and we needed to get her to the emergency room in a hurry.\
+\
+Not having a sitter for the other kids, Lori and I loaded up the other
+two children and Emily in the car and headed to the hospital. The
+treatment for the broken arm seemed rather bizarre to me. They put
+Emily's fingers in metal springs that worked like Chinese handcuffs to
+suspend her hand in the air. They then hung a bucket from her elbow and
+started adding water to it to use the weight to stretch her forearm as
+they tried to re-align the broken bones prior to adding the cast. I
+believe they gave Emily some laughing gas to calm her down, but it
+didn't work and she was making a pretty big fuss the whole time. It was
+all very stressful to watch my own child suffer so much and the
+procedure was taking a very long time. Lori suggested that she could
+stay with Emily at the hospital and I could take the other children back
+home. My nerves were a little bit frazzled by the harrowing experience
+so I was glad to comply with the suggestion.\
+\
+I took Ryan and Megan back to the car and loaded them into the back
+seat. Now this was before the days when seat belts and child car seats
+were required and my children were quite used to roaming free whenever
+they were in the car with us. It was also before we were affluent enough
+to afford a car with air-conditioning, so the windows were down as we
+left the hospital parking lot. Not long after leaving the parking lot, I
+could see Megan in my rear-view mirror. She was standing on the seat and
+quite happy with herself for her accomplishment. Recognizing that this
+was a dangerous thing for a three-year-old to do and not wanting to have
+to pay for two broken bones on the same day, I told her fairly firmly to
+sit down on the seat. Well Megan wasn't about to comply while she was
+quite enjoying her newly discovered ability to see the world go by from
+a much better vantage point. I told her again with even more volume and
+probably a good deal of anger in my voice to sit down. Again, no
+result.\
+\
+Because I was driving and Megan was in the back seat, I realized I
+couldn't do much under these circumstances to enforce my command to my
+non-compliant child. So, with a bit of steam coming out of my ears, I
+pulled over to the curb and braked hard to bring the car to a stop. I
+turned around and yelled, "Megan, sit down!" as I rather roughly pushed
+her into a sitting position in the back seat. Megan wasn't any too
+thrilled about this kind of treatment and immediately started to holler
+over the affront to her 3-year-old dignity.\
+\
+Satisfied I had reaffirmed that my authority was not to be trifled with,
+I looked up and discovered I had stopped right in front of a house where
+some kind of barbeque event was going on in the front yard. Everyone in
+the party was looking at me with a look of shock and horror on their
+faces. I was totally mortified to realize that they all had witnessed my
+little tirade in front of their house. Fortunately, this was before the
+days when everyone had cell phones and took videos of such spectacles so
+they could go viral on the internet. However, my shame at being caught
+in the act by so many witnesses was such that I determined to high-tail
+it out of there as fast as I could. I put the car in gear and put the
+pedal to the metal to make my get-away.\
+\
+Thinking about this memory more than 30 years later, I can recognize the
+life lesson I didn't really learn at the time of its occurrence. I
+wasn't really mortified by my lack of gentleness and patience with
+Megan. I was mostly mortified that my little outburst had been seen by
+others. I wonder how I would have behaved if I had remembered that
+everything we do here in mortality is being observed by someone. It all
+goes into the Book of Life and becomes a part of the permanent record.
+Our choices become a part of our soul and the cumulative effect
+determines who we become. I think this is one reason why marriage is
+such a vital part of this mortal experience. We have a built-in witness
+to our lives and a greater motivation to try to behave well in front of
+our companion on the covenant path.
diff --git a/md/24_Emilys_War_Dance_for_Hurricane_Bob.md b/md/24_Emilys_War_Dance_for_Hurricane_Bob.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d18d819
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/24_Emilys_War_Dance_for_Hurricane_Bob.md
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+---
+title: Emily's War Dance for Hurricane Bob
+---
+
+August 20, 1991
+
+Our young family lived in Windham, Maine. Our home was located in a
+thick forest of pine trees. Hurricane Bob had arrived in its full fury.
+The roar of the wind through the pine trees was deafening. It shrieked
+through the trees with a sound that was truly frightening. The rain was
+coming down in torrents. The trees were pitching and writhing with
+alarming motion.  I was very worried that a tree would blow over and
+crush my house or harm my family. However, my 11 year old daughter Emily
+had a very different reaction to this spectacle. She grabbed an umbrella
+and ran out onto our driveway to experience the full majesty of the
+storm. She shouted and whooped and jumped with the excitement of the
+moment. She was so inspired by the awesome power of nature that she
+couldn't contain her emotions within her. They came flowing out in great
+shouts of exuberance and leaps of pure, unbridled excitement. I remember
+feeling envious of her ability to allow her emotions to explode to such
+heights. I cannot remember ever being able to abandon all emotional
+restraint like this. I was much too distracted by worry to consider
+extracting some form of joy from this most unsettling occasion.
diff --git a/md/25_Encounter_with_a_Stubborn_Tree.md b/md/25_Encounter_with_a_Stubborn_Tree.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..701c8b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/25_Encounter_with_a_Stubborn_Tree.md
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+---
+title: Encounter with a Stubborn Tree
+---
+
+Winter, 1997
+
+It was our family tradition to enroll our older children in early
+morning Seminary. This is an hour of religious instruction before the
+start of public school classes. My wife and I were quite happy when our
+oldest daughter, Emily, obtained her driver's license. This meant we no
+longer had to get up at 5:30 am to drive them to the church to attend
+the class.
+
+One icy winter morning, we were quite suddenly awoken when our son Ryan
+banged on our bedroom door to announce that he and Emily had smashed the
+car into a large tree on the way to Seminary. The road was very slippery
+from the ice, causing Emily to lose control of the car. That stubborn
+old maple tree had no intention of moving out of the way for a wimpy
+little Ford Fiesta. Consequently, the Fiesta was transformed into a
+mangled mass of metal and broken glass. Fortunately, Ryan was unharmed
+and Emily sustained painful, but not serious injuries.
+
+When all the fuss and anxiety had calmed down, my wife and I gathered
+our little family back into our family room. We knelt in a circle and
+offered a simple prayer of gratitude that our family had been spared
+from the calamity of death or debilitating injury. The words of the
+prayer were brief and heartfelt, but the choicest moments came after the
+prayer. It was always our pattern to conclude a family prayer with a hug
+and a kiss for each child. On this occasion, I lingered a few precious
+seconds longer than usual with each hug, relishing the privilege of
+embracing a child who was still very much alive and healthy. Our hearts
+were very tender as we rejoiced together as a family that morning.
+
+I call them "focus moments", these experiences that remind us with such
+brilliant clarity what things matter the most in this life.
diff --git a/md/26_The_Rogue_Wave.md b/md/26_The_Rogue_Wave.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9394954
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/26_The_Rogue_Wave.md
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+---
+title: The Rogue Wave
+---
+
+By Han Ying
+
+It was a sunny day in late summer. Hurricane season was still very
+active. The latest one to come our way had decided to stay out to sea,
+much to our relief. However, it came close enough to the shore to stir
+up some spectacular waves. Our family decided to go to the rocky shores
+at Fort Williams, Maine to watch the great mountains of water crash upon
+the rocks.
+
+We found the perfect place to watch the giant waves come rolling in. It
+was a small outcrop of rocks at the top of a rock cliff that fell
+sharply down to the water's edge about 20 feet below. It was almost as
+if nature had crafted a comfy little lookout post for us to watch her
+annual contest featuring the waves against the rocks. For a good 30
+minutes or so, we enjoyed the impressive power of the mighty waves. The
+collisions of water against stone created thunderous noises that sounded
+like a hundred cannons firing all along the shoreline. The children
+squealed with delight every time a great wall of water smashed against
+the cliff, sending sprays high above our heads and often sprinkling us
+with salty mist.
+
+It was all fun and laughter until Mother Nature decided to get a little
+ornery. Without warning, a rogue wave, larger than any other we had
+seen, slowly rolled toward us. As it lumbered up the shore I could tell
+its crest was higher than usual. I still remember that feeling of dread
+when I realized we had no time to scramble up to higher ground. In
+seconds it was upon us. This time the explosion of water threw much more
+than a little salty mist on top of us. My wife, Lori, and I were a few
+feet higher on the rocks than the children. We managed to avoid getting
+very wet, but the children were drenched and dripping. The shock upon
+our faces slowly gave way to relief when we realized that everyone was
+safe. The rogue wave had not managed to dislodge any of us from our
+rocky perch and drag the hapless victim out to sea. As we sloshed our
+way back to the car for the journey home, our relief evolved into
+laughter once again. Despite a little scare, it was a memorable
+experience that became a part of our family history.
diff --git a/md/27_A_Critter_in_the_House.md b/md/27_A_Critter_in_the_House.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0ba3966
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/27_A_Critter_in_the_House.md
@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+---
+title: A Critter in the House
+---
+
+Life Lesson: Compassion and Forgiveness are better than anger.
+
+This story happened in the Maine house, probably about 1996. As far as
+I can remember, I was the only person at home, which was a very rare
+occasion. I could be just making it all up because I have no
+corroborating witnesses, but I swear it really happened.
+
+I was upstairs in the bedroom at the time and I heard a lot of
+commotion going on in another room. It sounded like the patter of little
+feet that were running very fast. There were two sets of footsteps, like
+something was chasing something else. It seemed to start in an upstairs
+bedroom and then I could tell the chase proceeded down the stairs at
+breakneck speed, much faster than any human could go. Alarmed, I started
+walking down the stairs to try to figure out what kind of skirmish was
+ensuing in my house and causing such a ruckus. As I neared the bottom of
+the stairs, I caught a glimpse of our cat. She was racing as fast as she
+could go to catch up to a critter of some kind. They were tearing all
+around the house, under the furniture, out to the kitchen and back to
+the living room. I could only stand at the bottom of the stairs and
+watch dumb-founded as the race continued. Finally, as the running
+animals neared where I was standing, the cat caught up with the critter
+and it looked like a ball of fur with a few tails sticking out. It was
+just like I used to see in cartoons when a dog and a cat were fighting.
+I had no idea what to do to save the poor little critter that our cat
+was determined to vanquish, so I just held my stupefied gaze.
+
+Suddenly, the cat popped out of the ball of fur and landed on her feet
+stone-still. The other critter was now on its back, also stone-still,
+with its feet pointing skyward. It was almost like the cat called
+time-out so the two could catch their breath before the next round of
+the battle. Now I could see that the victim the cat was chasing was a
+flying squirrel. It was a beautiful little creature with snow-white
+under fur, a brown back and long brown tail. The cat was looking up at
+me as if to say, "Look what I flushed out of the shadows in our house,
+but don't worry, I got this!" I looked down at the little beastie with
+sympathy. I thought the cat must have killed it because it wasn't
+moving. I reached down and picked it up by the tail. I took a few steps
+over to the front entry door and opened it to set the creature down on
+the landing of the front steps. The squirrel was still acting quite
+dead, not moving a muscle. However, before I had a chance to let go of
+its tail, the squirrel called time-in. Much to my amazement, he was able
+to swing his body up and sink his teeth into the fleshy tip of my thumb,
+which was still pinching the end of his tail.
+
+Now, my reaction time was many times slower than that of the squirrel,
+but when the message finally arrived at my brain about 15 milliseconds
+later, panic took over. I jerked my hand back, but the squirrel was
+still attached to it. Next, I flung my hand away, trying to dislodge the
+little critter who seemed determined to hang on for dear life. This
+time, however, it worked and the squirrel let go. He landed on the
+threshold of the open front door. I quickly slammed the door closed to
+prevent the squirrel from coming back in. Thinking the ordeal was over,
+I examined my thumb to assess the damage. I went back upstairs to clean
+the wound and finish dressing.
+
+About five minutes later, I came back down the stairs. I had a band-aid
+on my thumb, but my indignation and mental state were still somewhat
+inflamed. At the bottom of the stairs, I found the cat near the closed
+front door. She was intently staring at the spot where the squirrel had
+landed on the threshold of the door. Then I heard a faint skritch,
+skritch on the other side of the door. I waited a moment and listened
+intently. There it was again, an unmistakable scratching noise coming
+from the other side of the door. I thought to myself, "Seriously! Is
+that crazy squirrel still trying to invade my house to even the score
+with the mean old cat?" I went through the kitchen to go out the side
+door. I wanted to go around to the front door from the outside to see
+what the squirrel was up to.
+
+Sure enough, there he was clawing and gnawing at the front door. Upon
+closer inspection, I realized he wasn't trying to get back in my house.
+His foot was securely caught between the door and the threshold
+weather-stripping. He was merely trying to free himself and get the heck
+out of Dodge. He was terrified as I approached and tried with renewed
+desperation to dislodge his foot.
+
+My first thought was to find a big stick and put the miserable little
+beast out of its misery. After all, he had caused me quite a fright and
+I could get rabies or Ebola or some other terrible disease from the bite
+he gave me. But now he was in my power. It was the perfect opportunity
+to get my revenge.
+
+Fortunately, that first urge didn't last long. As I watched his
+desperation, my heart softened and I realized that he was just a poor
+little critter that wanted to get back to his home in the forest. Maybe
+it was a mother squirrel that had little babies to take care of or
+perhaps it was a young squirrel that didn't know that humans and cats
+were bad news. I opened the door just enough for it to remove its foot
+and skitter away.
+
+As I watched it run with a bit of a limp into the forest, my anger
+melted away. I then realized that compassion was a much better emotion
+than anger or desire for revenge. I felt my peace restored and a great
+relief that the poor little fellow was once again free to live his
+simple life in the forest. I hoped that the contrast between the two
+emotions would help me make the same choice the next time I felt that I
+had been wronged by someone else. Compassion for my fellow men and
+forgiveness for their human weaknesses will always be the better
+choice.
diff --git a/md/28_Pyrotechnic_Adventures.md b/md/28_Pyrotechnic_Adventures.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9e5dd86
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/28_Pyrotechnic_Adventures.md
@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+---
+title: Pyrotechnic Adventures
+---
+
+I guess I never quite grew up. Most young boys love fireworks and
+firecrackers. They go through a phase of blowing things up or inventing
+ways to use fire and explosives for good fun and excitement. Then they
+move on to more serious and less destructive forms of entertainment. I
+just never outgrew the phase.
+
+When I think back of all the crazy stuff we used to do as kids with
+various forms of explosives, I marvel that I survived my childhood with
+all my eyes and fingers still functional. There were no such things as
+terrorists and una-bombers, yet, so it was relatively easy to get a hold
+of dangerous chemicals and compounds. There weren\'t so many safety
+regulations and liability lawyers in those days. Besides, most parents
+were willing to let their children go unsupervised for most of the day.
+As long as we checked in occasionally when we got hungry, we could do
+just about anything we wanted to without fear of getting in big trouble.
+
+## Home-made Bullets
+
+My first memories of dangerous experiments come from the time when our
+family lived in the flat roofed house in Vancouver. I was about 11 years
+old and the house was located just off St. John\'s Road on the edge of
+the city. There were lots of fields and forests, a lake and a train
+track.
+
+Dad always had ammunition in the house, mostly boxes of .22 shells, but
+they weren\'t available for us to experiment with. My brother and I got
+it into our heads that we could make our own bullets. I had a small
+chemistry set that contained the chemicals we needed to make the old
+fashioned black-powder that was used by mountain men in their flint-lock
+rifles. We mixed potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal together in a
+cup. We would then use the metal tube from discarded ball point pens and
+remove the ink. We then closed off one end of the tube and filled it up
+with gun powder. Finally, we used a rock to pound a shot gun shell
+pellet into the open end of the tube. The finished product was
+essentially a very crude attempt to make a bullet. We then placed the
+small tube in the crack of a telephone pole so the end with the pellet
+stuck in it pointed toward some target. Then, with our bare hands, we
+held a lit candle under the tube to cause the gun power to ignite.
+Usually, we only managed to achieve a little pop. The only thing that
+saved us from serious injury was our ignorance about the proper way to
+make traditional gun powder. Had we only known how to properly make the
+gun powder, it might have been powerful enough to do some serious damage
+to exposed hands and faces. In this case, the failure was actually a
+blessing.
+
+This saga will require many more writing sessions. I will describe the
+heart-wrenching episodes in following articles. I advise all readers to
+be prepared with a large box of industrial-grade Kleenex tissues.
diff --git a/md/29_The_Match-Head_Bomb.md b/md/29_The_Match-Head_Bomb.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4e5e752
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/29_The_Match-Head_Bomb.md
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+---
+title: The Match-Head Bomb
+---
+
+On another occasion when we lived in the flat-roofed house, Tom and I
+were home alone and itching for some mischief. We set up a card table in
+the living room to serve as our chemistry lab. I cut the heads off of a
+bunch of common matches and put them into a small glass Christmas
+ornament. It was the kind that you hang on the tree with a little wire
+hook. We simply removed the little wire loop and the thingy that covered
+the hole in the glass globe so we could fill the inside of the ball with
+the match heads. I didn\'t have any real goal with this dangerous stunt,
+so I started doing some crazy stupid experimenting with this little
+bomb. We had a candle mounted on a small plate that was on the card
+table. I lit the candle and held the phosphorous filled ball with my
+bare hand. I can\'t imagine what ever came over me to do such a crazy
+thing, but I then proceeded to hold the Christmas ball over the flame to
+see what would happen.\
+\
+Well, you can guess what happened next. Pow! The glass ball exploded
+with a nice poof noise. Fortunately, the glass of the ornament was so
+thin that it didn\'t create a very strong containment for the energetic
+combustion reaction that started inside it. Thus, the explosion was more
+of a poof than a big nasty bang you would expect from a well-built bomb.
+Unfortunately, the consequence of this poof caused burning bits of match
+heads and broken glass to be propelled all over the living room. My
+mother\'s living room curtains took the worst of the explosion because
+many of the burning match heads landed in the lacy folds of the curtains
+and ended up as a bunch of ugly black-ringed holes.\
+\
+To this day, I don\'t understand how I avoided a month of being grounded
+over this episode. Obviously, my mother was not pleased that I ruined
+her living room curtains, but perhaps she and dad were just glad the
+whole house didn\'t catch fire. I must have at least learned a lesson
+because there were no more near disasters with explosives in my
+remaining early years.
diff --git a/md/30_The_Banana_Peel_Bomb.md b/md/30_The_Banana_Peel_Bomb.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e16dbfc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/30_The_Banana_Peel_Bomb.md
@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+---
+title: The Banana Peel Bomb
+---
+
+Fast forward about 30 years. We lived in Maine. I was married and had 4
+children. I guess I was having a mid-life revival of my childhood love
+of pyrotechnics. It was all the kid\'s fault, actually. I bought a few
+model rocket kits to fly with the kids. That was what rekindled the
+firebug in me. This quickly escalated into wanting to build bigger and
+more powerful rockets. The internet was just starting to be a great
+source for a lot of interesting knowledge and a way to buy mail-order
+chemicals to feed the curiosity.\
+\
+My goal was to design and build my own rocket motors. I was no longer
+content to buy the feeble little black powder motors you could get for
+model rockets in the local hobby stores. I was a mighty engineer and I
+could do better. After considerable research, I decided to try a formula
+I found in the on-line literature. The problem was that the rocket motor
+design required quite a bit of specially fabricated metal parts. I had
+neither the skill nor the tools to do this kind of work, but I knew
+someone who did. Brother Bibber was a machinist by trade and was willing
+to help me achieve my goal by doing the machining. I gave him the
+drawings and waited. It was nearly 3 months before he had the time to
+make my parts, but finally, he delivered a shoe box of beautifully
+crafted rocket motor parts. The design consisted of a piece of
+chromium-molybdenum pipe with threads at both ends. The concept required
+cylindrical shaped castings of rocket fuel that were placed inside the
+pipe container and then the end pieces were screwed on to enclose the
+solid rocket fuel. It was not much different than those silly home-made
+bullets I made as a child. It was still basically a fancy pipe-bomb,
+just a lot bigger and a lot more expensive. However, I was still just as
+naïve to believe my newest incarnation would work perfectly the first
+time.\
+\
+I thought my test plan was reasonable. I wanted to do a static test
+firing of the new motor design. I built a wooden test stand out of
+scraps of lumber. This stand was supposed to hold the motor in a
+stationary position while it was fired. This would allow me to
+demonstrate that the motor would actually develop enough thrust to cause
+a rocket to fly. After a successful static test, I would then use it to
+send a rocket into the sky.\
+\
+On the fateful day of the static test, I set up the test stand in the
+driveway in front of the garage. I loaded the assembled motor into the
+test stand and installed an electric ignitor. I called the kids to come
+see the test and we all stood about 10 feet away from the test stand as
+I pushed the button to ignite the motor. It worked beautifully for about
+10 milliseconds and then went kaboom with a bright flash of fire and
+smoke. My test stand, which was constructed of sturdy 4-by-4\'s, was
+blown into a cloud of tooth-pick sized splinters of wood. The motor
+itself was nowhere to be seen. I just disappeared into thin air. I
+finally found it a few days later when I spied it on top of the garage
+roof. After retrieving the motor from its perch on the roof, I realized
+how incredibly lucky we had been. The rocket motor looked like superman
+had opened it like a banana. One end of the motor casing had split open
+and the sides of the tube were bent back just like a half-eaten banana.\
+\
+It was evident from the shape of the wreckage that the metal alloy had
+been able to burst open without splintering into deadly metal shrapnel
+that might have seriously injured me or one of my children. This is when
+it finally dawned on me that I was incredibly lucky and still had rather
+poor judgement when it came to assessing the risks of doing pyrotechnic
+experiments. Furthermore, my beautifully machined metal parts, for which
+I had waited anxiously for many months, had been totally destroyed in an
+instant. It put a serious damper on my enthusiasm to become an amateur
+rocket scientist.\
+\
+This dramatic failure caused me to take a new direction in my
+pyrotechnic experimentation. I decided that rockets were too
+complicated. I would use the chemicals I had purchased to make fireworks
+instead. This kind of skill didn\'t require so many expensive tools and
+complicated parts. Most of the fireworks could be made with common
+cardboard tubes and glue. Thus, fate had sent me on a whole new kind of
+hobby pursuit. However, it didn\'t do much to lessen the likelihood that
+I would still experience epic failures. As you will soon see, my list of
+pyrotechnic failures was only just beginning.
diff --git a/md/31_Ricochet_Rockets_in_the_Basement.md b/md/31_Ricochet_Rockets_in_the_Basement.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b85a732
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/31_Ricochet_Rockets_in_the_Basement.md
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+---
+title: Ricochet Rockets in the Basement
+---
+
+Life Lesson: Cleanliness and organization are good habits
+
+The fireworks lab was in the basement in our home in Windham, Maine. I
+was not yet very tidy down there and often left odds and ends from long
+past projects lying around on the workbench. It was on a Saturday when
+this next little fiasco occurred. Lori was away from the house for some
+unknown reason, but at least some of the children were home. However, I
+was working alone in the basement at the time. I don\'t remember what I
+was even working on, but I was using my electric grinding wheel to
+sharpen or shape some piece of metal. The nature of grinding wheels is
+that they quite often produce a lot of bright metal sparks shooting out
+the back side of the grinding wheel.\
+\
+Now, normally, this is not a real fire hazard because the sparks are not
+hot enough to start fires or even cause damage to the surrounding
+surface of the work bench. However, I had left a paper cup of flammable
+powder of some kind on the work bench. It was left over from some other
+project and never properly disposed of. After many months of sitting on
+the back of the work bench, I didn\'t even take notice of the cup or
+what dangerous substance might still be lurking inside. As you can
+guess, the sparks from the grinding wheel ignited this cup of powder and
+caused a large poof of flame that startled me quite a bit. This was not
+the end of the incident, however. Lying next to the paper cup were a few
+fireworks rockets. They were meant for large stick rockets, a lot like
+bottle rockets, but much larger. Whereas bottle rockets are about one
+and a half inches long and attached to a foot long stick, my stick
+rockets were about six inches long and normally would be attached to
+3-foot-long sticks. Well, the flash and flame from the paper cup caused
+the fuses of the rockets to ignite and before I could react they were
+flying around in the basement, ricocheting off the walls and ceiling
+just like a Wiley Coyote cartoon. The whole basement quickly filled up
+with smoke and then the smoke alarm started wailing.\
+\
+All this racket caused Megan to wonder what was going on in the
+basement. She opened the door to the basement, only to discover it was
+filled with smoke and the alarm was still making an ear-piercing noise.
+About this time, I finally got my wits about me and quickly told Megan
+to close the door so the smoke wouldn\'t go upstairs. My first act to
+recover from this disaster was to grab a pillow and stuff it around the
+fire alarm to deafen the awful noise. Then I opened the patio door to
+let the smoke go outside. Gradually, the smoke cleared and the fire
+alarm stopped its annoying wail. It was then I realized that some sparks
+of some kind had managed to get under the cuff of my shirt and caused a
+nasty burn. I still have a nice little scar on my arm that reminds me of
+my stupidity to this day. Fortunately, no other harm was caused by the
+incident and I again considered myself very lucky that I escaped with
+only a bit of a burn on my arm.\
+\
+From this scary incident, I learned that cleanliness and organization
+are good habits to have when working with explosives. A little
+carelessness on one day can cause a serious accident to sneak up on you
+many days in the future when you least expect it to happen. Alas, my
+lesson still didn\'t prevent other fiascos to follow.
diff --git a/md/32_The_Wedding_Proposal_Fiasco.md b/md/32_The_Wedding_Proposal_Fiasco.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f767a1f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/32_The_Wedding_Proposal_Fiasco.md
@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+---
+title: The Wedding Proposal Fiasco
+---
+
+After a few years of doing my own fireworks, I guess I had built a
+reputation in the family as the guy to see about doing something really
+impressive for special occasions. Perhaps Dan Clark hadn\'t heard all
+the family stories about the failures and fiascos, because he seemed to
+have full confidence that I could create a memorable experience on the
+occasion when he wanted to ask our daughter Emily to marry him. It was
+sometime in the summer of 2001 when Dan asked me to create a fireworks
+display where the finale would be a big sparkling depiction of the
+proposal, \"Will you marry me, Emily?\" Dan had already done his duty
+earlier and asked me for my permission to ask her the big question. Now
+he wanted me to make a memory that would become legend in the family
+annuls. In that regard, I was somewhat successful, but not quite the way
+I had intended.\
+\
+For the next few weeks, I planned and constructed the fireworks show
+that would be performed at the Miele farm about a half mile away from
+our home in Windham. My plan was to construct the display for the
+wedding proposal out of sparklers arranged in such a way as to spell out
+the words of the question. The sparklers were mounted on a framework of
+peg board sheets mounted to vertical posts that were sledge-hammered
+into the ground. Now, the professionals often do something similar to
+create a display of some kind of a figure, like an eagle head or some
+other patriotic symbol, for fireworks show finales. However, they are
+usually constructed using tubes of slow burning chemicals, called
+\"lances\", such that the fiery display is visible for about 20 to 30
+seconds. I reasoned that I could create the same effect of using
+sparklers instead of the customary lances. Unfortunately, I didn\'t have
+time to test my new innovation to see if the effect would be the same. I
+simply forged ahead confident that my knowledge of fireworks
+construction was based on sound principles.\
+\
+The only real trick to the display, I reasoned, was to get all the
+sparklers lit in a short amount of time, so the whole display was
+visible at once. To do this, I created hundreds of feet of a special
+kind of fuse called \"sticky match\". It is nothing more than a train of
+gun powder placed down the middle of ordinary clear packing tape. When
+properly attached to the ends of the sparklers, the sticky match was
+supposed to burn very quickly, at approximately 10 feet per second, so
+it would light all the sparklers in a matter of a few seconds. I could
+just imagine in my mind the wonder and awe on the faces of my enraptured
+audience when they beheld the majesty of my creation as it dramatically
+lit the night sky.\
+\
+On the night of the fateful event, I successfully lit the smaller items
+that I had constructed for the early part of the fireworks show. All was
+going well until I lit the fuse for the finale. The sticky match worked
+beautifully. It quickly raced along as intended and lit all the
+sparklers in short order. However, the sparklers burned so hot that they
+didn\'t just burn at the tip, like a sparkler is supposed to do. Instead
+of creating a nice sparkly sentence, the whole display went up in a big
+ball of fire and then went out just as suddenly. Instead of gasps of
+excitement and cheers from the audience, there was only an awkward air
+of confusion. Dan Clark knew it was his big moment and did some quick
+thinking to salvage the opportunity of his lifetime. He quickly ran over
+to where Emily was standing and got down on one knee and asked Emily if
+she would be his wife for time and all eternity. Before Emily could
+answer, I explained to her that I had constructed a final fireworks
+piece that would allow her to reply with more than a verbal \"yes or
+no\". I had made two fireworks fountains for this purpose. If Emily lit
+one of them, the answer would be no, but if she lit two, the answer
+would be yes.\
+\
+The night air was tense with anticipation as Emily slowly made her way
+over to the place where the two fountains awaited her choice. She lit
+the first one, which shot a few paltry sparks about 5 feet into the air.
+Then, she lit the second one. It was a huge monster that ejected bright
+golden sparks nearly 80 feet into the air. It was intended to be a
+dramatic way to say, \"Of course I will marry you!!\" It was a memorable
+contrast to the earlier epic failure. This time, I achieved the effect I
+had hoped to see on the faces of everyone present as the huge fountain
+roared to life and filled the darkness with a spectacular painting of
+fire.\
+\
+Fortunately, the final success erased the shame of the first failure. It
+was a night to remember and an eternity to celebrate. The results of
+that decision have been just as spectacular and will build a legacy of
+love and devotion that will endure forever.
diff --git a/md/33_The_Picture_Window_Near_Miss.md b/md/33_The_Picture_Window_Near_Miss.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7fa144c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/33_The_Picture_Window_Near_Miss.md
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+---
+title: The Picture Window Near Miss
+---
+
+Let\'s skip forward a few years. You would think by now I would have
+gained a little experience and wisdom in the pyrotechnic arts. At this
+point I was perhaps a little over-confident that the days of my mishaps
+were long gone. This turned out to be true in this instance only because
+of blind luck or divine intervention, I\'m not sure which.\
+\
+After hearing of my love for the field of \"energetic chemistry\",
+Emily\'s sister-in-law, Val, invited me to conduct a workshop at her
+home in Eagle, Idaho for her son, who shared my interest in science and
+rockets. I was eager to convert a young and impressionable mind to the
+field and, of course, I couldn\'t turn down an opportunity to play with
+explosives and such. Accordingly, I prepared for a few weeks prior to
+our next visit to Idaho and brought a large box of chemicals and
+supplies for the workshop.\
+\
+Val and her husband Brian lived in a very upscale, multi-million-dollar
+home on a large lot at the outskirts of Eagle. I remember being quite
+impressed with the expansive shop where we started building a few
+fireworks items. We made a few simple things like fountains and roman
+candles and then went outside on the lawn to light them off. The event
+was slated to conclude with a static test of a small rocket motor. This
+was a motor that used the same kind of solid rocket motor fuel as the
+space shuttle booster engines. It was about 12 inches long and used a
+custom machined solid graphite rocket nozzle. I was quite proud of the
+accomplishment of designing and building this motor, which I has
+successfully test fired on several previous occasions. This time,
+however, I planned to use a new static test stand that had never been
+used before.\
+\
+We set up the rocket motor in the test stand and inserted the
+electrically controlled engine ignitor. Brian and Val\'s young son would
+be given the privilege of doing the count-down and pushing the ignition
+button. A successful test-firing would have resulted in a loud roaring
+noise and a lot of fire and smoke coming from the nozzle of the motor.
+All this was supposed to happen while the motor was safely contained in
+the test stand. Well, my young protégé eagerly did his job and pushed
+the button after counting down from five. The rocket motor roared to
+life, just as expected. Then it somehow managed to break loose from the
+test stand and began to fly uncontrollably in the air. My heart sank as
+the motor headed right towards the largest picture window of the house
+at about 100 miles an hour. I was all but certain that I was going to be
+responsible for thousands of dollars' worth of damage to Val\'s
+beautiful home. This is when the miracle happened.\
+\
+It appeared as if the motor hit an invisible force field, just like the
+ones that protect the spaceships in the Star Wars movies. The motor
+abruptly flipped around, right in mid-air and started heading out toward
+the field beyond the lawn. I heaved a huge sigh of relief when the motor
+finally ran out of fuel and landed safely in the field about 40 yards
+away from the house. Once again, I was incredibly lucky that no one was
+hurt and that no damage was done. However, the near miss did some
+serious damage to my reputation as a rocket scientist. I seriously
+considered whether I should retire from this hazardous hobby, but only
+for about 2 seconds.
diff --git a/md/34_The_Basement_Window_Non-Miss.md b/md/34_The_Basement_Window_Non-Miss.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1b1be03
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/34_The_Basement_Window_Non-Miss.md
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+---
+title: The Basement Window Non-Miss
+---
+
+It was as if the dark-side forces were really miffed that I had escaped
+the shame of shattering a very expensive picture widow in my last
+misadventure. They plotted to get even with me on a different occasion
+not too far in the future. Lori and I now lived in the homestead house
+on 29th avenue. My interest in rockets had not diminished. I still
+dabbled in both fireworks and rocketry. I was a bit more cautious about
+conducting tests, as least as far as trying to diminish the risk to
+human beings. But the risks to houses and windows was alas, still
+considerable, as you will soon see.
+
+My reputation as a firebug had grown within the circle of my
+acquaintances in the Ridgefield Ward. I now had a young protege whose
+name was Alex Zwingly. He was the 15-year-old son of good friends of
+ours in the ward. I was quite delighted to take him under my wing and
+teach him all the fascinating knowledge of the pyrotechnic arts I had
+acquired over the years. I suppose the best lesson I taught him was that
+the hobby is dangerous and perhaps not worth the consequences of the
+inevitable accidents.
+
+On this occasion, we had planned to do yet another static test firing of
+a black power rocket motor. I tried to be prepared for the unexpected. I
+constructed a blast shield of sorts, behind which Alex and I would stand
+as we ignited the rocket motor. The test stand was mounted on a table
+placed in the back yard, a good 30 yards from the East-facing side of
+the house. Our launch pad control center was located about 20 feet away
+from the test stand. This was where the shield was located. It consisted
+of a piece of plywood to which I had attached a piece of plexiglass. The
+plywood was mounted vertically, with the plexiglass on the top edge, so
+that Alex and I could view the test stand through the plexiglass window.
+Thus, we would be protected from any deadly bits of flying debris in the
+event that the motor over-pressured and exploded. Again, I was feeling a
+tad-bit overconfident that my high-tech blast shield would prevent all
+manner of consequences from any mishaps due to the test-firing. What
+could possibly go wrong??
+
+Well, Alex pressed the ignition button and the rocket roared into life.
+All went well for about 58 milliseconds. Then, there was a nice loud
+POW, followed by the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. The motor had
+indeed over-pressured, but it didn't exactly explode. Apparently, the
+clay nozzle of the rocket motor had been ejected out of the rocket motor
+tube, just like a cannon ball. I suppose it was a good example of the
+law of averages. All the incredible good luck I had had during past
+disasters had finally run out. The clay nozzle managed to sail all the
+way over to the house and took out one of the basement windows. At least
+it only broke one of the outer storm-window panes. The inner windowpane
+was still intact, so the damage wasn't so severe that the TV room in
+the basement was exposed to the elements. The window is still broken to
+this day, another testament to my lack of foresight. Who knew that I had
+constructed a mortar shell instead of a properly functioning rocket
+motor?? Oh, well.... Alex thought it was all great fun and excitement.
+He will have a great story to tell his grandchildren someday. At least,
+no one could say I was derelict in my efforts to protect life and limb.
+Our high-tech blast shield worked perfectly to keep us safe during the
+explosion.
diff --git a/md/35_Some_Rain_must_Fall.md b/md/35_Some_Rain_must_Fall.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0ca8fd7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/35_Some_Rain_must_Fall.md
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+---
+title: Some Rain Must Fall
+---
+
+The saying goes, \"Into every life some rain must fall.\" As I look back
+I would have to say very little rain has fallen into my life. When Lori
+and I began our lives together our motto was, \"We\'re so lucky!\" It
+seemed like everything was going so well in our early years together
+that we were being blessed much more than we deserved. We even
+considered etching this motto on the inside of our wedding rings.
+Everything was roses and life couldn\'t get much better.\
+\
+There have been only two times in my adult life when my sorrow was so
+great that I was reduced to bitter tears of grief. I have kept these
+times to myself. Not even Lori knows about these two times. I feel I can
+share them now because it is a part of the point I started out with.
+Only two times of overwhelming grief in 45 years of adulthood is still a
+pretty good deal.\
+\
+The first time happened in Windham. I had just returned home after
+attending the disciplinary council for Bill Chase which ended in his
+being excommunicated from the church. Normally, only high council
+members attend these meetings, but I was there as his bishop. I was so
+blind-sided by the whole situation that I was in shock. I was his bishop
+and home teacher, but had not seen this coming. I was alone in my
+bedroom thinking about the gravity of the occasion. The enormity of the
+eternal impact on so many lives overcame me to the point that I was
+consumed with grief and wept bitterly. I felt like a total failure as
+both the spiritual leader and stewardship holder over the welfare of
+these people.\
+\
+The second time happened many years later after Lori and I had moved
+back into the homestead house in Ridgefield. Getting laid off in Maine
+was a severe shock and a personal tragedy, but I held it together
+because there was so much to do to relocate from one coast to the other.
+Through the years of figuring out what I was going to do with myself, I
+just kept my head down and trudged forward. It was one of the most
+difficult challenges I had ever faced. I had to totally re-invent
+myself, at least in a worldly career sense. It was a difficult time, but
+not one filled with grief. I still had Lori at my side and a wonderful
+loving family to fall back on. I actually really enjoyed going back to
+school. I felt very fortunate that I was able to do this and not have to
+accumulate a staggering pile of debt. Then I landed my dream job with
+Hewlett Packard. This was the culmination of three years of struggle and
+effort. I finally felt like I had completed the re-invention process. I
+fully expected my life to return to the earlier state of bliss and
+roses.\
+\
+Loosing this dream job was a total devastation. My brother Tom and I
+were working at the same job site and commuted to and from work
+together. After being laid off, I had nowhere to go because Tom had
+driven his car that day. Upon hearing the bad news, he offered to take
+me home. It was a silent and sober drive home, but I held my grief in.
+Lori was not home when I arrived there and my grief finally spilled out
+in great waves of sobbing that surprised even me. Once again, my dream
+had been shattered. By the time Lori arrived home, I had recovered
+sufficiently to appear somewhat normal.\
+\
+Looking back at these times of sorrow, I can consider them with the
+perspective that comes with time. How can I deny that I have had a
+wonderful life when I can only remember two times of grief severe enough
+to cause me to weep? All the rest has been full of joy and gladness. It
+adds up to a colossal, good deal if you ask me. I wouldn\'t want to
+trade my life for anyone else\'s, no siree bob.
diff --git a/md/36_Little_Rocket_Scientists-media/media/image1.jpeg b/md/36_Little_Rocket_Scientists-media/media/image1.jpeg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a592f55
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/36_Little_Rocket_Scientists-media/media/image1.jpeg
diff --git a/md/36_Little_Rocket_Scientists.md b/md/36_Little_Rocket_Scientists.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..584388d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/36_Little_Rocket_Scientists.md
@@ -0,0 +1,83 @@
+---
+title: Little Rocket Scientists
+---
+
+
+Hopefully, this story is the last one about failures and fiascos of the
+pyrotechnic kind, but then my life might become a real yawner. We'll
+see....\
+\
+This story is about a fund-raising effort by our ward. It was held to
+raise money for the summer camps of our youth. The bishop asked those
+who wished to contribute to offer a service of some kind that would be
+auctioned off at the fund raiser. I decided to offer a family rocket
+science experience. It turned out to be a popular item in the auction
+and was purchased by a young family with 4 aspiring little scientists.
+Here is a photo of the family in front of the barn where the rocket was
+launched.
+
+![A group of people posing for a photo Description automatically
+generated with medium
+confidence](md/36_Little_Rocket_Scientists-media/media/image1.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="4.854861111111111in" alt=""}
+
+First, I went to their house and helped the children build the rocket.
+It was an impressive rocket that featured a video camera at the base,
+near the fins. It also had a rather expensive electronic circuit in the
+nose cone that was designed to use the earth's magnetic field to sense
+when the rocket reached its peak altitude. Then the circuit would fire
+an explosive charge to eject the parachute, allowing the rocket to float
+safely back to the ground.\
+\
+Now, I had already flown this circuit in other rockets. It worked
+beautifully, if I do say so myself. It did have one rather annoying
+feature, however. The circuit worked by sensing when the rocket tipped
+over. This normally happens when a rocket has fired its motor and then
+coasts upward until it finally slows down. The rocket will naturally tip
+over and come back down with its nose pointing downward, just like an
+arrow would. This means that you must be very careful when preparing to
+launch the rocket. Once the circuit has been armed, if you ever happen
+to allow the rocket to tip over, it will fire the explosive charge.\
+\
+Because this rocket was so large, it was impossible to slide it onto the
+launch rail while in a vertical position. The only solution is to slide
+the rocket onto the launch rail while the rail is lying horizontally on
+the ground. Then the rail is lifted into the vertical position for the
+launch. Can you guess what the problem is? This means that the astute
+rocket engineer must disarm the ejection charge, mount the rocket on the
+launch rail and then use a ladder to reach the nose cone of the rocket.
+By carefully lifting up the nose cone, the ejection arming switch is
+then pressed while the rocket is in the vertical position. Then it is
+ready to launch.\
+\
+On the day of the launch, I helped the family do all the preparations
+for the final countdown. We placed the rocket motor in the rocket body
+and attached the electric igniter. We attached the video camera to the
+base of the rocket and tested it to make sure it was working. We even
+held a trial countdown to make sure the chosen launch engineer could
+correctly count down from 5 to zero. I mentally went over all the items
+on the checklist, but I still had a nagging feeling that I had forgotten
+something. Ignoring the feeling as launch day jitters, we all retired to
+the launch control area to observe the launch. Just as the young boy
+said "... two, one, zero" and pushed the launch button, I remembered
+what we had forgotten. Too late.... The rocket roared into the sky and
+flew beautifully upward at breath-taking speed. Then, it majestically
+slowed and finally nosed over at its peak altitude. This is when the
+ejection charge was supposed to fire, but I knew it wasn't going to
+happen. I had totally forgotten to arm the ejection circuit.
+Consequently, the rocket came back to earth and smashed into the ground
+just like a large lawn dart. DOOOOUUU!!  50 dollars of delicate rocket
+circuitry were smashed into oblivion in the blink of an eye.\
+\
+Even though I knew exactly what had happened to cause the failure, I
+acted puzzled and didn't explain my terrible blunder to the family. They
+never knew what had caused the parachute to fail to eject, but I didn't
+want to ruin their excitement. For young kids, a crash is just as
+memorable as a successful flight, so I suffered in silence as we ran to
+retrieve what was left of the doomed rocket. Again, it was a family
+memory that they will probably remember forever, so I reasoned that it
+was worth the expense in the end.\
+\
+It's just so hard to live with my inward shame of yet another failure. I
+resolved to someday make it right by redesigning the ejection system. It
+kept me scheming and dreaming for years afterward.
diff --git a/md/37_The_Blackberry_Wars-media/media/image1.png b/md/37_The_Blackberry_Wars-media/media/image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0d42d60
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/37_The_Blackberry_Wars-media/media/image1.png
diff --git a/md/37_The_Blackberry_Wars.md b/md/37_The_Blackberry_Wars.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..238c723
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/37_The_Blackberry_Wars.md
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+---
+title: The Blackberry Wars
+---
+
+Life Lessons:
+
+- Take care of a problem early before it becomes a monster.
+- Opposition enhances our appreciation of the good times.
+- Adversity is our friend, not our enemy. Embrace it.
+
+Since Lori and I moved into the Ridgefield homestead house in the summer
+of 2006, I have been waging a war with the deadly blackberry invasion
+that has opened up on many fronts around the property. One of the most
+sorely contested spots is on the north end of the barn below the house.
+At this location, the vines have attained a height of about 14 feet and
+threaten to engulf the whole north end of the building. The photo below
+will give you some idea of the seriousness of the problem.
+
+![](md/37_The_Blackberry_Wars-media/media/image1.png){width="6.5in"
+height="4.875in" alt=""}
+
+Now this is a war that can never be won. As soon as the obnoxious vines
+have been eradicated in one place, they will spring up in another place
+and establish a new base of operations for the conflict. Any place where
+the birds like to land and lighten their load, the blackberry seeds in
+their droppings will happily start a new infestation. Thus, the conflict
+is eternal. I can hope to win an occasional battle in one place, but I
+have no hope of ever winning the war outright.
+
+After fighting this war for so many years, I have gained a great deal of
+admiration for the committee that was assigned the task of making good
+on the promise to create the "thistles and thorns and noxious weeds to
+afflict and torment man." These folks must be real over-achievers and
+the blackberry plant must have been their crowning achievement.
+
+However, upon reflection, I have reconciled myself to the importance of
+the lessons learned as a consequence of this war. Lesson number one:
+Take care of a problem early instead of waiting until it has grown into
+a 14-foot-high mountain of terrifying thorns. The effort to fix it is
+many times greater if you put off dealing with it when it is still
+small. Lesson number 2: This mortal experience was not meant to be a
+Garden of Eden. How could I possibly appreciate the beauty of a
+magnificently manicured garden without experiencing the opposite
+condition. In fact, the level of appreciation is directly proportional
+to the severity of the opposition. Sometime in the future, when I have a
+chance to meet the members of the "thorn" committee, I will personally
+give each one of them a big hug for giving me my impressive capacity to
+appreciate the opposite condition. Lesson number 3: We should not be
+afraid of adversity. In fact, every time it raises its ugly head, we
+should be ecstatic. Blessings that can be obtained in no other way are
+just around the corner. I can't count all the blessings that my war
+with the blackberries has brought me. I am stronger and wiser because of
+it.
+
+In fact, I wish you all the same good fortune. May your lives all be
+infested with lots of lovely thorns and thistles. You'll all thank me
+some day, I promise.
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+++ b/md/38_Tree_Frog_Sabotage.md
@@ -0,0 +1,98 @@
+---
+title: Tree Frog Sabotage
+---
+
+Life Lesson: Give the knot-heads the benefit of the doubt. They may have
+a good reason for their behavior.
+
+I was really irritated. Most of my friends kid me about being able to
+detect a mood change. Lori tells me that the best indicator to her is my
+eyebrows. If one eyebrow twitches, I\'ve had a mood swing. If both of
+them have moved, watch out! On this occasion, I suspect both of my
+eyebrows were scrunched into an angry V over my livid eyes. Let me
+explain the cause of so great an emotion in my normally calm and
+controlled demeanor.
+
+I suppose I was expecting some kind of a miracle. For the last two
+years, the heat pump that cools our house in the summer and warms it in
+the winter had been on the fritz. As winter approached in the Fall of
+2017, I was hoping that perhaps the heat pump would miraculously heal
+itself. It was working just fine all during the summer. We enjoyed a
+pleasant 75 degrees in the house even when it was 102 degrees outside. I
+thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a clog in the pipes that
+managed to clear itself and the heating season would be as pleasant as
+the cooling season.
+
+I had told the guy that comes to do a tune-up of the heat pump every
+year that it was acting up during the winter months. If the outside
+temperature ever dips below 40 degrees, the heap pump gets all clogged
+up with ice. Sometimes it was so bad that it looked like a big snowball
+sitting beside our house. The technician said we needed a new \"defrost
+control board\". It would only cost mere \$450 to get it replaced. I was
+skeptical because they are just like auto mechanics. They can use a few
+buzz words from the mysterious HVAC language and convince you to spend
+thousands of dollars needlessly.
+
+So, my hopes were up that this year would be different. I wouldn\'t have
+to turn the heat pump off every few days to let it thaw out. I wouldn\'t
+have to face \$300-a-month heating bills that totally wrecked the
+budget. On the morning after the first night when the temperature had
+dipped below 40 degrees in late October, I anxiously walked over to the
+heat pump to inspect it. Rats!! It was full of ice. Hence my extreme
+irritation.
+
+However, I was determined to avoid the killer repair bill, so I started
+doing a little research on-line. As luck would have it, I found a
+replacement circuit board on eBay for a mere 50 bucks. I figured it was
+worth the risk to save \$400, so I bought it. A few days later the board
+arrived. It\'s a tiny little thing that probably cost some company in
+China 2 dollars to make, but I still had high hopes of winning this
+little personal war with \"the system\".
+
+I removed the old board and set it aside for closer inspection later.
+After the repair was complete, I gathered up my tools and brought the
+old board into the house to take a closer look. The front of the circuit
+board looked totally normal, but when I turned the board over to look at
+the back side, I saw something remarkable that explained why I had
+endured so much misery and worry for the last two years. The board was
+discolored and stained. It was quite corroded and nasty looking. In the
+middle of the mess was a dried-up tree frog. His little body had
+shriveled up to about the size of a raisin, but his little legs stuck
+out straight like toothpicks with feet. I took a picture to enshrine the
+culprit for time and all eternity in my personal history.
+
+![https://process.filestackapi.com/Ai3B5YJwSuyaXbwhz5Zxzz/rotate=deg:exif/resize=fit:max,width:1274,height:2100/https:/cdn.filestackcontent.com/fJWYAnQT3S7o5o2PC7ow](md/38_Tree_Frog_Sabotage-media/media/image1.jpeg){width="6.635416666666667in"
+height="2.46875in" alt=""}
+
+I can just imagine his surprise when he crawled behind my defrost
+control board and caused a short circuit that cost him his life. The
+surge of electricity through his moist little froggy body caused his
+legs to fully extend and he has been frozen in this stance ever since.
+
+After pondering over this little surprise for a while, I realized there
+are a few life lessons captured in the experience. I was mad at a lot of
+folks over the trouble and expense this little incident had caused me. I
+desperately wanted to blame someone or something for my troubles. I was
+ready to point the finger at just about anything that I could imagine.
+When I saw the toasted little tree frog, I realized he was not an evil
+saboteur who wanted to make my life miserable. He was just a poor little
+critter who wanted a warm place to spend the winter. There was no
+sinister plot to destroy my peace of mind. It was all in my head. I
+would have been better off to assume there was a perfectly innocent
+explanation for the problem and I didn\'t need to look for the guilty
+party upon which to heap my scorn and righteous indignation. I think
+this attitude would be a better choice for most of life\'s unpleasant
+surprises. Note to self\....
+
+I also had a great reminder of the reality of the law of opposition in
+all things. The next morning when I went to check on the heat pump, I
+found that it was once again working perfectly. My elation knew no
+bounds. I was reminded of the scripture in Alma 36:21.
+
+\"Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite
+and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son,
+that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as
+was my joy.\"
+
+So, there you have it. Another day, another truly amazing lesson. Who
+would believe it was taught to me by a lowly tree frog.
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diff --git a/md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures.md b/md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..02fc8fb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures.md
@@ -0,0 +1,151 @@
+---
+title: Dan's Poetry and Pictures
+---
+
+I can\'t claim to be a talented poet, but lately I\'ve begun to dabble
+in writing a few of my thoughts in verse form instead of the usual story
+form. You can expect to be a little underwhelmed by my efforts, but
+I\'ve thoroughly enjoyed this new form of expression. I suppose it's
+just a phase.\
+\
+The first one is a bit tongue-in-cheek and contains a lot of detail that
+perhaps only Lori would understand. If you\'re left a little confused by
+some of the wording, feel free to inquire of my sweetheart to whom it
+was written.\
+\
+**My Joy is Nigh Unbounded**\
+\
+Love is more than kindness, \
+And not just simple care. \
+It\'s a hope of endless greetings  \
+Of delight instead of glare. \
+ \
+When I walk into the room  \
+After duty has kept me away. \
+It lifts my soul and sagging spirit \
+To hear you turn and say, \
+\
+\"Oh dah-ling, how was your day?\"\
+\
+But you seldom leave the moment,\
+And expect that I will fill it.\
+You\'ve got much more to say,\
+And are dying just to spill it.\
+\
+With a knowing smile, I hold my breath.\
+Your question to me was but obliga-tory.\
+I know the drill and that I must keep still,\
+So that you can continue your story.\
+\
+\"My day was simply dreadful,\" you\'ll say.\
+\"I lost at every turn. \
+My silly partner did his best \
+To make my money burn.\" \
+ \
+\"I tried Uno, poker, go fish and Canasta. \
+I only managed even then to lose my money fasta. \
+Oh dah-ling, I hope you\'ll understand. \
+To salvage all my tattered pride,\
+I must play another hand.\" \
+ \
+\"Your supper\'s in the fridge, and while you\'re in the kitchen, \
+Kindly disregard my grousin\' and my itchin\'.\
+Be a dear and do me a favor please \
+And fill my cup with chocolate treats,\
+The kind you get from Cee\'s.\" \
+ \
+So you see my dear, it\'s very clear. \
+My joy is nigh unbounded.  \
+The things I hear are oh so dear. \
+My fears were quite unfounded. \
+ \
+I love to greet you every time  \
+And discover what you\'ll say. \
+My life with you is never dull. \
+I\'d want it no other way. 
+
+The next project is a list of things for which I am grateful. I wrote it
+on Thanksgiving of 2015. Each phrase has an illustrative photo below.
+
+The Blessings for Which I am Grateful on Thanksgiving\
+\
+A warm hat on a cold winter day.
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image1.jpeg){
+height="4.875in" alt=""}
+
+A frosty cold drink on a hot summer day.
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image2.jpeg){
+height="4.875in" alt=""}
+
+A rainbow in the springtime.
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image3.jpeg){
+height="4.854861111111111in" alt=""}
+
+A winter scene that takes my breath away.
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image4.jpeg){
+height="4.875in" alt=""}
+
+My eyesight that lets me see the breath-taking world.
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image5.jpeg){
+height="8.666666666666666in" alt=""}
+
+Delicate flowers in the forest.
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image6.jpeg){
+height="8.666666666666666in" alt=""}
+
+The miracle of a newborn grandchild.
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image7.jpeg){width="4.850001093613298in"
+height="8.622222222222222in" alt=""}
+
+A loving family that calls me Papa.
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image8.jpeg){
+height="3.65625in" alt=""}
+
+This is a silly little poem I posted on my Chinese blog.\
+\
+It is said that a hug a day keeps the blues away.\
+Well, one is quite nice and two is okay,\
+But three is much better and four is HOORAY!!!\
+\
+Four awesome hugs below:
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image9.jpeg){
+height="4.875in" alt=""}
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image10.jpeg){
+height="6.5in" alt=""}
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image11.jpeg){width="5.075694444444444in"
+height="9.0in" alt=""}
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image12.jpeg){
+height="6.5in" alt=""}
+
+The final one captures my greatest desire for all of my amazing
+posterity. It also expresses how I imagine our Heavenly Father must feel
+about each of us.\
+\
+The Light\
+\
+Embrace the light, oh child of noble lineage.\
+Turn not away from the path that leads to joy.\
+Thy soul hath greater potential than thou,\
+In thy infant musings, can imagine.\
+Follow the whisperings from deep within thy murky memory.\
+Build the hope that greatness lies within thy grasp.\
+Embrace the light, oh child of divine heritage.\
+Thy soul will be magnified.\
+Thy comfort will be endless.\
+Thy works will be like beacons on the hilltops.\
+If only thou wilt turn towards the light.
+
+![](md/39_Dans_Poetry_and_Pictures-media/media/image13.jpeg){
+height="4.854861111111111in" alt=""}
diff --git a/md/40_The_Strangest_Things_Ive_Ever_Eaten.md b/md/40_The_Strangest_Things_Ive_Ever_Eaten.md
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/md/40_The_Strangest_Things_Ive_Ever_Eaten.md
@@ -0,0 +1,113 @@
+---
+title: The Strangest Things I've Ever Eaten
+---
+
+GI Joe did it! Don\'t look at me.\
+\
+That was the answer the survival student gave the leader when our group
+caught up with them. I was on a BYU survival course in the summer of
+1973. We were hiking in the mountains of southern Utah when GI Joe came
+upon a porcupine in a tree and decided to throw rocks at it until he
+knocked it out of the tree and killed it. I have no idea what GI Joe\'s
+real name was. We all called him that because he wore his army fatigues
+the whole time he was with us in the survival course. Apparently, he had
+spent some time in the army before he started attending Brigham Young
+University.\
+\
+I didn\'t witness the incident when our group caught up with the group
+in which GI Joe was hiking. I only know that the leader was not very
+pleased that GI Joe had killed a porcupine when he saw the crime scene
+and the dead porcupine. They tried to teach us respect for the animals
+of the forest and that we should try to avoid doing harm to the
+ecosystem as we passed through. However, we were on survival and we were
+always hungry, so a free meal of meat wasn\'t totally out of the
+question. \"Well, all right\", said the leader. \"We can\'t waste it, so
+we\'ll have to eat it.\" They proceeded to skin the critter and build a
+fire to cook it on. I wasn\'t involved in the process, but I thought I
+ought to take advantage of the opportunity to taste a porcupine. After
+all, how many people in the world can say they have eaten porcupine
+meat?\
+\
+When the critter was well done, anyone who wanted some was encouraged to
+help themselves. I tried a little bit, but it wasn\'t terribly
+impressive. It could have benefitted from a little salt and perhaps a
+bit of rosemary and thyme, but we didn\'t exactly have access to a
+grocery store around the corner. At least it didn\'t make me gag and now
+I could spend the rest of my life bragging that I had been brave enough
+to eat a porcupine. It was all about the prestige and glory, not about
+staying alive in the wilderness.\
+\
+The following segments describing my other culinary experiments are not
+in chronological order. I simply wrote about them as I remembered them,
+not trying to organize them in a properly ordered sequence.
+
+A Sego Lily\
+\
+These are little bulbs that the saints crossing the plains often ate\
+to stay alive. I found one when I was on survival. They have a little
+white flower that looks a lot like a morning glory flower. The bulb is
+down in the ground about five inches deep. I ate it raw because I had no
+means to cook it at the time. It was a bit like a turnip. We also ate
+wild onion greens, elder berries and roasted pine nuts.\
+\
+Snails\
+\
+My father was good friends with Ed Peats, the owner of the Red Lion
+Hotel on the Columbia River near the I5 bridge. Dad had done some kind
+of favor for Ed, so Ed gave him a free meal for himself and his family
+at the restaurant in the Hotel complex. Ed said we could have anything
+on the menu. When I saw that among the appetizers on the menu were
+snails, I thought they might be a memorable tasting experience. They
+were tough spongy balls that were heavily doused with garlic and other
+spices. They could have been little lumps of rubber tree sap for all I
+knew. They certainly didn\'t look like any snails I had ever seen.\
+\
+Crawdads\
+\
+When we lived in Oregon City in the old farmhouse, there was a little
+stream nearby that had a lot of wild crawdads living in it. I was about
+10 or 11 years old and loved to explore and find new and novel ways to
+get muddy. We often spent hours catching the crawdads, but we always let
+them go again. It never occurred to me to eat them. They were a bit
+larger than a big scorpion and looked about as hideous. Many of them
+were infested with some kind of little white worms on the surface of
+their claws. I still remember being fascinated by the fuzzy little hairs
+that covered the surface of their claws. They wiggled and waved when
+touched, so I knew they were some kind of parasite that hitched a ride
+on the shell of the crawdads. My brain said this is not something you
+would put in your mouth. It just didn\'t look like something that could
+be tasty.\
+\
+On one such occasion, I was with a boy that lived near our house. When I
+showed him the crawdad creek, he got all excited and said he wanted to
+catch some and bring them home to his mother to cook them. Seriously, I
+thought. I gotta see this. So I helped him catch a bunch of them in a
+bucket that we proudly brought back to his house. His mother was quite
+delighted when she saw them. She boiled some water in a big kettle and
+added stuff like lemon wedges and other spices. Then she added the
+bucket of crawdads, worms and all. When they were done cooking, the
+mother showed me how to crack the shell off of the tail section where
+the meat was. I couldn\'t really understand what all the fuss was about.
+I couldn\'t get the image of those worms out of my mind, but I at least
+tried a few because everyone else looked like they were really enjoying
+the feast.\
+\
+Elk Heart\
+\
+I went elk hunting with my father once when I was still a young
+teenager. We went up north somewhere and stayed with a friend of my
+father on the evening of the big hunt. I don\'t know if it was some kind
+of ancient hunter-gatherer ritual or something, but our host cooked an
+elk heart for dinner that night. This guy was a true hunter that always
+got his elk each year. The elk heart was in his freezer from a previous
+year\'s hunt, I suppose. I wondered what other kinds of weird animal
+parts he must have in that freezer. The meat was nothing to write home
+about. It was pretty chewy and tasted gamey to me, but it was edible.\
+\
+I\'ve also eaten roasted ants and deep-fried octopus. Other notables
+were wild pheasant my dad shot and swordfish from a restaurant in New
+York City. The only strange thing I ever ate that I actually enjoyed was
+wild catfish from the lake near the house in Vancouver. But, in general,
+the weird things I have tried were not tasty treats I would ever want to
+eat again. I\'ll stick with barbequed filet mignon and mocha almond
+fudge ice cream, thank you very much.
diff --git a/md/41_Legendary_Rocks-media/media/image1.jpeg b/md/41_Legendary_Rocks-media/media/image1.jpeg
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diff --git a/md/41_Legendary_Rocks.md b/md/41_Legendary_Rocks.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..41db49d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/41_Legendary_Rocks.md
@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+---
+title: Legendary Rocks
+---
+
+Life Lesson: Rely on God's appraisals for what has real value in this
+life.
+
+One of my favorite duties as a grandfather is taking the grandchildren
+on exciting expeditions in the river bottoms near the homestead house in
+Ridgefield. Whenever they come over and the weather is pleasant, we will
+pack a bag full of snacks and pile onto one of the four
+wheelers.![](md/41_Legendary_Rocks-media/media/image1.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="4.875in" alt=""}We ride the four wheeler down to the old Pioneer
+Cemetery and park it at the entrance gate. Next we walk down a road that
+descends down to the bottoms. There we have a great time eating snacks
+and exploring the many ponds, creeks and marshes of the river
+bottoms.![](md/41_Legendary_Rocks-media/media/image2.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="4.875in" alt=""}There are many ways to get dirty and muddy, but
+that\'s the whole point \-- to get grubby and have a good time doing
+it.![](md/41_Legendary_Rocks-media/media/image3.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="4.875in" alt=""}On one of these occasions, I was quite amused
+about what developed as we were coming back home. This was in the Spring
+of 2017. The winter rains had been particularly heavy and washed out
+large sections of the road. There were thousands of large round river
+rocks strewn about, most of which were rather plain grey rocks that had
+been smoothed by years of tumbling in the riverbeds. Occasionally, you
+could find one that was a little different from the rest. Perhaps it was
+white instead of grey. Some of them were reddish or nearly dark purple.
+Some of them had steaks of quarts or other interesting features that
+made them stand out from the other dull grey ones.\
+\
+On our journey back home, as we walked on the road back up the hill
+to the cemetery, Grady decided to assume the role of \"gemstone
+expert.\" Whenever he saw a particular rock of interest, he would pick
+it up and use an appropriate adjective to classify it. The first few
+rocks were described by phrases such as \"Oh here\'s a cool one\" or
+\"this one is kind of pretty.\" Now Madden and Charly were quite eager
+to assume the role of \"gemstone pack-mules.\" They were
+enthusiastically willing to receive Grady\'s choices of the best rocks
+and incorporate them into their own personal treasure trove.\
+\
+Soon, both Madden and Charly had all the rocks they could carry, but we
+were only half-way up the hill and there were plenty of treasures left
+to discover. Madden\'s pockets were so full of rocks that his pants were
+on the verge of falling to his ankles, but he was determined to get all
+his priceless treasures back home. Charly didn\'t have pockets, so she
+clutched all her treasures to her chest with both arms. When Grady
+pointed out another rock on the ground, she would bend over to get it
+and loose several from her collection in the process.\
+\
+It was impressive to observe Grady\'s skill at filling his role. His
+adjectives got progressively stronger as he went on. \"Pretty\" and
+\"cool\" progressed to \"awesome\" and \"amazing.\" Soon he was all the
+way up to using \"spectacular\" and finally \"legendary.\" I really
+couldn\'t tell if he actually believed his own sales pitch. His
+enthusiasm was infectious and convincing, but I thought I detected a
+slight impish grin in his expression. After all, he wasn\'t carrying a
+single rock and yet his younger brother and sister were staggering up
+the hill with all they could carry. Someday I\'ll have to ask  him if he
+was having a little fun at their expense or if he was genuinely
+convinced of the immense value of his gemstone appraisals.\
+\
+It caused me to reflect a bit about the experience. It made me wonder
+about how willing I am to believe the sales pitch of the worldly
+salesmen. Is it possible that I am just as easily convinced to carry a
+burden of stones through life, whose value is probably not nearly as
+high as purported by the \"subtle craftiness\" of those who \"lie in
+wait to deceive?\"\
+\
+As I pondered later over the experience, I became grateful for the
+knowledge that we have a reliable source of appraisals we can trust to
+help us assign value to that which will truly bring lasting joy.
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diff --git a/md/42_A_Date_with_Eternity_Epilog.md b/md/42_A_Date_with_Eternity_Epilog.md
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/md/42_A_Date_with_Eternity_Epilog.md
@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+---
+title: A Date with Eternity Epilogue
+---
+
+Life Lesson: Do things every day to retain that vital eternal
+perspective that aids our smaller daily decisions.
+
+This story is a follow-on to the original article. It will be an
+addition of insights that have come with the perspective of time. I
+suppose a better title would be "The Wisdom of Perspective". Please be
+patient as I explain what I mean.\
+\
+In late Summer of this year (2018), Lori and I traveled to California to
+meet with Angela Salmon and her family to do a tour of some of the
+Redwood forests. It was a delightful drive with great anticipation of
+the wonders of nature that awaited us in the forests of California.
+However, when we glimpsed the first of the redwoods at a distance, I was
+rather disappointed. From a distance, the forest looked a bit like the
+following photo.
+
+![A picture containing tree, plant, forest, wood Description
+automatically
+generated](md/42_A_Date_with_Eternity_Epilog-media/media/image1.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="4.44375in" alt=""}
+
+The forest is a pleasant and beautiful sight, but it didn't seem like it
+was much different from any other forest. After all, we lived in the
+Northwest, where beautiful forest scenes are abundant. What was missing
+was some kind of indicator in the scene that would give our brains an
+appreciation of the scale of these enormous trees. The following photos
+illustrate my point.
+
+![A person and person standing next to a large stone statue Description
+automatically generated with low
+confidence](md/42_A_Date_with_Eternity_Epilog-media/media/image2.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="8.666666666666666in" alt=""}
+
+![A picture containing outdoor, tree, ground, rock Description
+automatically
+generated](md/42_A_Date_with_Eternity_Epilog-media/media/image3.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="4.875in" alt=""}
+
+When you see Lori and me in the picture, you can see how truly enormous
+these trees are. By comparing the size of our tiny bodies with the
+mighty trunks of the trees, this new perspective creates a significant
+difference in the appreciation of the wonder of the experience.\
+\
+Thus, I hope you can see that perspective is vital to the full
+understanding of what we experience in our lives. To illustrate more
+fully, I'll give you another example.\
+\
+Lori and I celebrated our 40th anniversary on August 26th of this year.
+One of the activities to celebrate the occasion was a trip to the
+Portland temple to do an endowment session together. We were asked to be
+the witness couple in the session. While Lori and I were kneeling side
+by side in the endowment room, it brought back a vivid memory of
+kneeling across the alter from Lori when we were married 40 years
+before. However, this experience now included the perspective added by
+the passing of 40 years of time. I was deeply moved by the appreciation
+I had for 40 years of happiness with Lori by my side. Forty years ago, I
+only had an inkling of what was in store, but I had no real perspective
+to add depth to the experience. At this moment of my life, I had not
+only the eternal perspective brought by the temple session, but also the
+perspective of the passage of 40 years. It was a remarkable realization
+of how important perspective can be.\
+\
+It all boils down to a valuable life lesson. We need to do things often
+to retain a perspective of life that will influence every experience we
+have and decision we make. A view into the eternities can be had daily
+from simple practices like reading the scriptures and praying. I now
+have a new resolve to be better at doing the daily things that keep my
+perspective wide enough to fully appreciate the experiences of each
+day.\
+\
+Now I'll try to wrap up the reason this article is an epilogue to the
+original article. The first article explained how I had a glimpse of the
+nobility and greatness of the soul of the person I was hiking with. Now,
+with the perspective of time and a deeper understanding of eternal
+principles, I more fully realize how fortunate I am to be sharing my
+mortal experience with such a wonderful companion. What was only a
+glimpse has become a certainty that will forever grace my life.
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+++ b/md/43_The_Parable_of_the_Sower_a_New_Interpretation.md
@@ -0,0 +1,109 @@
+---
+title: "The Parable of the Sower: a New Interpretation"
+---
+
+Life Lessons: We can choose how we react to adversity.
+
+Adversity will ultimately make us stronger.
+
+Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019\
+\
+Yesterday, I arrived home after a visit to my daughter Mallory and her
+husband Blake in Georgia. While there, we went to a park called Stone
+Mountain Park. Here is a photo to give you an idea of the wonder of this
+natural phenomenon.
+
+![A picture containing outdoor, sky, nature Description automatically
+generated](md/43_The_Parable_of_the_Sower_a_New_Interpretation-media/media/image1.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="4.333333333333333in" alt=""}
+
+It is a huge single piece of granite stone rising above the relatively
+flat area surrounding Atlanta, Georgia. It looks kind of like some giant
+dropped a monstrous granite Easter egg on the ground and left it there
+for us tiny human ants to ponder how in the world it got there.
+
+We rode a gondola to the top of the stone and enjoyed the amazing view
+of the green forests around Atlanta.
+
+![A group of people walking on a path with a hill in the background
+Description automatically generated with low
+confidence](md/43_The_Parable_of_the_Sower_a_New_Interpretation-media/media/image2.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="6.1506944444444445in" alt=""}
+
+While exploring the top of the stone mountain, I discovered something
+that totally amazed me. It was a tree growing out of the solid granite
+rock.![A picture containing outdoor, sky, ground, nature Description
+automatically
+generated](md/43_The_Parable_of_the_Sower_a_New_Interpretation-media/media/image3.jpeg){width="6.1875in"
+height="8.25in" alt=""}
+
+There was not a speck of earth on the rock and yet this tree managed to
+somehow grow there against all odds and logical reason. This encounter
+with sheer tenacity made an impression on my mind that caused me to
+ponder. I thought of the parable of the sower and how some seeds "fell
+upon stony places, where they had not much earth... And when the sun was
+up, they were scorched; and because they had no root they withered
+away." The stony places symbolize people who don't have a depth of
+conviction and when any small amount of difficulty arises, they "wither
+away" and abandon their conviction.\
+\
+I thought of a new perspective on the stony ground metaphor that was
+much more admirable than those who abandon their convictions when
+opposition arises. This amazing tree could be a symbol of those who
+don't whine about the impossible circumstances of their lives. They take
+what they were given in this life and by sheer force of will manage to
+not only survive, but even thrive. This tree did not have the choice to
+simply abandon the stony place and go look for some fertile ground where
+it could live a comfortable and easy life. After all, trees don't walk
+and no amount of whining would change this fact. It only had the choice
+to accept its circumstances and make the best of them or give up and
+die. This tree was probably 30 or more years old, so it didn't merely
+maintain a positive attitude for a day or two, but it consistently
+persisted over many years to reach for the sky.\
+\
+The lesson of life that this tree represents to me is that we ultimately
+control our own destiny by the choices we make. Regardless of the cards
+we have been dealt, we can use them to become strong and successful or
+we can use them as excuses to fail. It's all up to us and our own
+exercise of our ability to choose how we will react.\
+\
+This life was not meant to be a place free from adversity and the more
+adversity we face the stronger we may become. Another representation of
+this concept is captured so well in the following poem.\
+\
+Good Timber\
+\
+by Douglas Malloch\
+\
+The tree that never had to fight\
+For sun and sky and air and light,\
+But stood out in the open plain\
+And always got its share of rain,\
+Never became a forest king\
+But lived and died a scrubby thing.\
+\
+The man who never had to toil\
+To gain and farm his patch of soil,\
+Who never had to win his share\
+Of sun and sky and light and air,\
+Never became a manly man\
+But lived and died as he began.\
+\
+Good timber does not grow with ease:\
+The stronger wind, the stronger trees;\
+The further sky, the greater length;\
+The more the storm, the more the strength.\
+By sun and cold, by rain and snow,\
+In trees and men good timbers grow.\
+\
+Where thickest lies the forest growth,\
+We find the patriarchs of both.\
+And they hold counsel with the stars\
+Whose broken branches show the scars\
+Of many winds and much of strife.\
+This is the common law of life.\
+\
+I suppose this story sounds more like a church sermon than a story from
+my life history, but my life is still happening and I am still learning
+the lessons of life, so I hope you don't mind when I share them with
+you.
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@@ -0,0 +1,271 @@
+---
+title: The Progress of Technology During my Lifespan
+---
+
+This article is a collection of memories about various technologies that
+changed quite a bit as I grew up. I hope the pace of change during my
+lifespan might be interesting and help prepare my progenitors for an
+even faster pace in the future.
+
+# Telephones
+
+When I was younger than 6 years old, I often visited Grandpa Williams'
+farm with my family. They had an old telephone mounted on the wall in
+the living room. To operate it, the user had to pick up the earphone
+from its hanger and hold it to their ear. It looked somewhat like the
+picture below.
+
+![](md/44_The_Progress_of_Technology_During_My_Lifespan-media/media/image1.jpeg){width="3.2291666666666665in"
+height="5.112136920384952in" alt=""}
+
+Then, the user had to crank the handle on the right to get the
+operator's attention. The operator would ask what number you wanted to
+connect with. After verbally telling her the desired number, she would
+manually make the connection at the central phone connection board where
+she was located. Then the user would again crank the ringer to make the
+phone ring in the home of the person to whom they wished to speak. The
+two parties had to communicate by standing by the wall phone and
+speaking into the microphone while listening with the earpiece. I would
+have loved to play with this fascinating contraption, but it was mounted
+on the wall out of reach of grubby little fingers. We never owned a
+phone like this in any of the houses I lived in, but I vividly remember
+my grandparents using it.
+
+While living in Oregon City, I was probably about 9 or 10. I remember an
+experience when I was playing with the phone. When I picked up the
+receiver, I could hear someone else having a conversation with a third
+party. I thought I was safe listening in on the conversation. I must
+have been a heavy breather because shortly thereafter one of the people
+on the line scolded me for listening in on their private conversation
+and threatened to report me to the phone company. In those days, it was
+common to share a phone line with multiple other families. It was common
+courtesy to hang up the phone if you attempted to use it while another
+person on your party line was already using the phone. You just had to
+wait your turn. I learned my lesson that day that if you were going to
+snoop on a neighbor's conversation, you had better be quiet about it.
+
+Most of my life was spent using the common rotary dial phone. I remember
+how exhilarating it was to start using the push-button phones because
+you could dial your number so much faster. We didn't have a cell phone
+until about 2003 when we lived in the little Fisher's Landing house. Our
+first cell phone was a flip phone and we only had one of them for both
+Lori and me. During the 13 years we lived in the homestead house in
+Ridgefield, we had both a land line and personal cell phones. We finally
+made the jump to wireless only when we moved to Meridian. Now the
+problem is that the younger grandchildren are always begging to use our
+phones and iPads for their own personal entertainment system.
+
+# Television
+
+My family had a black and white television when I was a young boy living
+in Lakeview. I remember how temperamental these TVs were in those days.
+You often had to play with the rabbit-ear antennae on top of the
+television box to get decent reception. Sometimes one person had to
+physically hold onto one of the ears to get a picture. Then we had to
+rotate and take turns holding the antenna while the rest of the family
+watched. You had to change the channel on this TV by turning a knob on
+the set box. Remote controllers were still years away. Generally, we
+only had three channels to choose from: NBC, CBS and ABC.
+
+Lori and I got our first color television shortly after we were married
+and living in an apartment while going to school at BYU. Thus, all our
+children only ever experienced color television, but my childhood only
+knew black and white. This is what we were watching when I saw the Neil
+Armstrong take his first step on the moon in 1969. Flat panel television
+was still years in the future too. We used the old cathode-ray tube
+technology all the time we lived in Maine from 1989 to 2002. We finally
+got our first flat-screen plasma TV shortly after I left Hewlett-Packard
+in 2009.
+
+# Calculators
+
+When the family lived in the Ridgefield house, dad worked as a manager
+of a loan office. He occasionally brought home adding machines to do
+some work at home. These were mechanical machines that used an
+electrical motor to turn the gears that did the actual math operations.
+I remember playing with these and having great fun telling the machine
+to multiply a number like 25 times 41. The machine would make a loud
+racket for several minutes, something like ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk,
+ka-chunk...... and finally, ka-ching. The answer would be printed out on
+a white slip of paper. It looked a lot like this picture.
+
+![](md/44_The_Progress_of_Technology_During_My_Lifespan-media/media/image2.jpeg){width="3.6458333333333335in"
+height="3.90625in" alt=""}
+
+One evening dad brought home the first electronic calculator. He was
+trying it out to see if they wanted to replace the old mechanical
+machines with these new silent ones. It looked a little bit like this
+one below.
+
+![]md/44_The_Progress_of_Technology_During_My_Lifespan-media/media/image3.jpeg){width="2.2916666666666665in"
+height="1.53125in" alt=""}
+
+I remember playing with it to see if we could confuse it. It didn't take
+long to push random keys until the electronics got stuck in some
+infinite loop. The number display would go crazy and show some
+flickering gibberish that never stopped. The only way to get it to stop
+was to unplug it. It was my first job as a quality control tester and I
+quite prided myself in being able to outsmart these dumb machines.
+
+After graduation from Ridgefield High School in 1971, I went to my first
+year of college at Clark Community College in Vancouver. I remember
+taking an advanced calculus course, but this was taught from a book and
+didn't require any kind of calculator. My brother Tom and I went to BYU
+in Provo, Utah the next year to begin the electrical engineering
+program. We were told that we would need a slide rule for some of our
+math and science classes. A slide rule looked like the picture below.
+
+![](md/44_The_Progress_of_Technology_During_My_Lifespan-media/media/image4.jpeg){width="6.25in"
+height="2.125in" alt=""}
+
+These were quite effective at calculating the product of two numbers
+quickly, but you could only get about 2 digits of accuracy, so they
+could only be used to get a rough estimate. I used one of these all that
+firs year at BYU and then went on my mission to Brazil.
+
+By the time I got back from Brazil and returned to BYU, the world of
+calculators was about to change. In 1975 when I was back at school, I
+was able to purchase a Hewlett-Packard 25 calculator like the one below
+for less than \$200.
+
+![]md/44_The_Progress_of_Technology_During_My_Lifespan-media/media/image5.jpeg){width="1.8645833333333333in"
+height="3.35625in" alt=""}
+
+I'm not sure if the general school population of students felt this way,
+but in the engineering school, the HP-25 was a very big status symbol. I
+had a little carrying case with a belt loop on it so I could take my
+calculator with me everywhere I went. When I was walking around campus
+with this baby hung from my belt, I felt like I was Mr. Cool himself.
+However, this was probably one of the first things that caused me to
+deserve the label of "Nerd". I didn't care. In my own mind, I was a cool
+dude and could leap over tall buildings with a single bound.
+
+# Computers
+
+When I was going to college, computers existed, but not for individuals
+or families. They only existed as main frame computers that filled a
+large room like the picture below.
+
+![](md/44_The_Progress_of_Technology_During_My_Lifespan-media/media/image6.jpeg){width="4.604166666666667in"
+height="3.0520833333333335in" alt=""}
+
+When I was attending BYU, I worked for the school as a night-time
+computer operator of their main frame computer in the engineering
+building. My shift went from 2am to 6am several nights a week. I usually
+brought a pillow with me in case the demands of the job allowed me to
+catch a few winks. Very few other students were on the computer at this
+time of night, so I took advantage often to get a little rest. My duties
+were similar to what is depicted in the picture. I sat at a little desk
+close to the console printer and waited for a request to load a magnetic
+tape needed by some program. You can see the woman in the background
+loading one of these large reels of magnetic tape onto a tape reader
+machine. I guess BYU was too poor to hire an assistant for me because
+when the request came in on the console, I was the one how had to leave
+my desk, locate the correct tape reel from the big racks on the wall and
+load it onto the reader machine.
+
+Sometimes the computer would just crash. Believe it or not, this IBM-360
+main frame, which cost millions of dollars, crashed quite often. The
+only way I knew this had happened was when all the blinky lights just
+stopped blinking. The solution was to go to the console drawer and fetch
+the fan-folded bundle of punched paper tape that was the reboot tape. I
+would load the paper tape into the console reader and push the reset
+button. The console then rebooted the system and all the lights started
+blinking again.
+
+This large computer room was essentially a big refrigerator. The room
+had massive air conditioners running all the time to get rid of all the
+heat generated by all the electronics in the room. I usually had to wear
+my coat while on the job because of all the movement of cold air. All
+the equipment bays you see in the picture were connected by miles of
+cables, but you can't see them because the floor is raised to allow the
+cabling to run under the floor. If any repairs were ever needed, the
+floor panels could be removed to expose all the cables underneath the
+floor.
+
+You may be wondering how people actually used this computer. There were
+rooms full of monitor screens on campus where students could connect
+remotely to the computer to submit small jobs or check status of a
+previously submitted job. For larger computing jobs, the student had to
+write the Fortran program onto punched paper cards using a key-punch
+machine shown below.
+
+![](md/44_The_Progress_of_Technology_During_My_Lifespan-media/media/image7.jpeg){width="6.5in"
+height="4.875in" alt=""}
+
+There were rooms full of these machines on campus, too, where students
+would sit for hours punching in each line of their programs onto cards
+that looked like this.
+
+![](md/44_The_Progress_of_Technology_During_My_Lifespan-media/media/image8.jpeg){width="4.52455927384077in"
+height="3.2395833333333335in" alt=""}
+
+The cards were carefully collected into decks and placed into a deck box
+for submission to the computer operator. A large program could require a
+deck box that weighed as much as 20 pounds. If you ever dropped the box,
+it was game over, because there was no way to know how to get the cards
+back into the correct order. After submitting your deck to the operator,
+you had to come back in a few hours or the next day to see if your
+program had been executed by the main frame. To execute a program, the
+operator had to place the deck of punched cards into the card reader
+machine to read it into the computer's memory for execution.
+
+You can imagine the anguish caused by a typo in one of your cards in the
+card deck. This meant that the card had to be re-punched and the deck
+re-submitted. Sometimes, you had to wait for many hours for some of the
+research programs ahead of you in the queue. They could run for hours
+before they finished. Still, with all the challenges of submitting a
+program and debugging it if the program had an error, it was simply
+amazing what this computer could do. I was dazzled by all the blinky
+lights and moving tape reels. I considered it quite an honor to be able
+to work with it even at 2am in the morning. I had no idea that within 30
+years all this computing power could be carried around in your shirt
+pocket.
+
+While living in our first starter home in American Fork, another
+computer revolution was happening. It was finally possible to be able to
+buy a computer for personal use. We used a special loan program offered
+by our credit union to buy one of the first models made by IBM. It was
+called the IBM Personal Computer or just IBM PC and it cost about \$3500
+to buy what you see in the picture below. It took us over 2 years to pay
+for it and it really couldn't do much. There was no internet yet, so the
+best use I could put it to was to write a simple program in BASIC to
+help balance our checkbook. I remember buying a book to teach me how to
+implement a graphics algorithm called Bresenham's method for drawing a
+line with pixels. My program was twice as fast as the BASIC language's
+algorithm for drawing a straight line, but I never got to the point
+where I could use all this awesome graphics power to do anything
+entertaining like a video game.
+
+Lori was not very impressed either. She was quite incensed that you had
+to talk to the machine by typing extremely cryptic commands that had to
+be exactly right or it would give you an equally cryptic error message.
+These were the days before Bill Gates have us an operating system that
+made interacting with a PC a much more pleasant experience. The computer
+looked exactly like the one below.
+
+![](md/44_The_Progress_of_Technology_During_My_Lifespan-media/media/image9.jpeg){width="3.125in"
+height="2.90625in" alt=""}
+
+The rest of the computer story is probably familiar to most of my
+children. The next computer we had in the home was a refurbished
+Macintosh that was provided at a modest price by Signetics, my employer.
+It still only had a single-color monitor, whose screen phosphor was kind
+of a yellowish-amber, but the user experience was so much better than
+the previous IBM PC that we never looked back. All the succeeding
+computers in our home were made by Macintosh until I went back to school
+in 2004. I bought a laptop that had the Microsoft operating system on it
+for my classes in computer science. Since that time, Lori always had
+Macintosh computers and I always had a Microsoft one. It's a miracle
+that we could still get along after such a radical divergence in
+computing preference, but eternal principles helped us get through it.
+
+Well, there you go. I have exhausted my memory banks about my experience
+with technology during my lifetime. The main thing I learned from
+writing this article was that the pace of change in technology is
+accelerating. It won't be long before Artificial Intelligence will be
+competing with our own intelligence for mastery of our lives. We must be
+careful to seek for truth with our hearts and not let the knowledge of
+the world dazzle us with its brilliance. The brilliance we can find with
+our hearts will always far outshine that which can be produced by the
+minds of this world.
diff --git a/md/45_Two_Funerals_and_a_Wedding.md b/md/45_Two_Funerals_and_a_Wedding.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..90f5a3f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/45_Two_Funerals_and_a_Wedding.md
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+---
+title: Two Funerals and a Wedding
+---
+
+The first two funerals I attended in my life were years and miles apart.
+They were for my two grandfathers, but they were as different as night
+and day. I remember them mainly for the incredible contrast between them
+and the realization that came from the experience. I classify the lesson
+as one of the most important of my life's learnings.
+
+My mother's father, Eldon Forman, died when I was only eight years old
+in 1961. I still remember the phone call my mother received one evening
+while we lived in Hermiston, Oregon. It was from my Grandma Forman. When
+my mother heard the news of Grandpa Forman's heart attack, my mother
+yelled, "Oh Mother!!" loud enough to scare the daylights out of all the
+children in the house. It was my first brush with death. I was too young
+to comprehend the gravity of the moment.
+
+Our family drove to Portland a few days later to attend the funeral. My
+brother Tom and I were the only ones of all my siblings that attended
+the funeral with Mom and Dad. I remember looking at his still body in
+the casket and Grandma Forman saying, "He's just sleeping, Dan." After
+this, during the eulogies and other remarks, my brother and I were
+blubbering inconsolably. The enormity of death finally sunk in. I
+remember the feeling of loss and the hopelessness of ever seeing him
+again. I was too young to understand the moment from an eternal
+perspective. It was just lonely and so sad for an eight-year-old to have
+to comprehend.
+
+Jump forward to 1985. My grandpa Williams was gravely ill because he had
+difficulties swallowing any food. He went to the hospital for surgery to
+correct the problem. During the surgery, it became apparent that his
+body was too weak to handle the anesthesia for the operation. His vital
+signs were fading fast, so the doctors had to abort the operation before
+they could correct the problem. He was told to go home and say his
+good-byes to his family.
+
+I remember the last visit with him at his home in Provo, Utah. He said,
+"I'm going back home to live with my Heavenly Father." He was very weak
+and frail, but totally at peace with his approaching last day in
+mortality.
+
+A week or so later, the family gathered for his funeral. I was amazed at
+the mood in the Mormon chapel. There was no sadness or somber exchanges
+of "sorry for your loss" phrases, like you see on the TV depictions of
+funerals. Family members who had not seen each other for many months
+greeted each other with delightful happiness. During the service, many
+stories about Grandpa Williams were told that made everyone laugh and
+chuckle. It was a genuine celebration of a life well lived. We all knew
+we would see Grandpa again before long and that he had gone to a place
+where he would continue his mission of doing good things for others.
+
+Before the funeral, I still carried the dark impression of my first
+funeral in my mind. I was not looking forward to the expected gloom of
+the occasion. My attitude was totally transformed by the joy and
+rejoicing that I found there instead. Upon reflection, I realized the
+huge gift of understanding the big picture. I was 32 and had heard all
+the Sunday School and seminary lessons. I even taught these things to
+others in Brazil, but this experience brought it all deep into my heart.
+The impact on my life and the gratitude I still feel is hard to put into
+words.
+
+By the way, I was just kidding about the wedding.
diff --git a/md/46_Dans_Professional_Resume.md b/md/46_Dans_Professional_Resume.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8824de0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/md/46_Dans_Professional_Resume.md
@@ -0,0 +1,135 @@
+---
+title: Dan's Professional Resume
+---
+
+My resume has a history of all the jobs I had in my professional career.
+This seems like a valuable part of my life history, so I have included
+it here. I fully expect to extend my resume to include activities during
+retirement, but the one posted here is a summary of just those
+significant jobs I held in my professional career and the skills I
+accumulated in those capacities.\
+\
+Dan Williams\
+\
+Objective:\
+\
+Software Engineer and Embedded Systems Developer, combining both
+hardware and software design experience to optimize software development
+in a wide variety of fields\
+\
+Summary of Skills:\
+\
+Software:\
+\
+-         Programming language proficiencies: Assembly, Java, C, C++,
+Python, HTML, PHP and SQL\
+-         Applied understanding of Design Patterns, UML, and
+Architectural Design(MVC Model)\
+-         Experience with Micro-C/OS2 Real-Time Operating System\
+-         Developer of relational databases to model enterprise systems,
+utilizing normalization to reduce redundancy\
+-         Proficient in use of debugging tools such as Logic Analyzers,
+Green Hills Probes, ROM Emulators and Oscilloscopes\
+\
+Hardware:\
+\
+-         Sun Workstations, UNIX, Cadence design tools (Analog Artist
+and Virtuoso)\
+-         Design of multi-market logic families of integrated circuit
+devices\
+-         Skilled in Schematic capture and circuit simulation and
+analysis\
+\
+Product Development:\
+\
+-         Capable in use of PC and UNIX tools for project documentation\
+-         Knowledgeable in team building skills for design team
+projects\
+-         Published author and technical documentation writer\
+-         Familiar with CASE tools such as Rational Rose and UML\
+\
+Certifications:\
+\
+-         Oracle Certified Java
+Developer                                                        03/2010\
+-         Oracle Certified Java
+Programmer                                                    10/2009\
+\
+Education:\
+\
+Washington State University:\
+-         MS, Computer Science
+(GPA:3.71/4.00)                    08/2007\
+-         BA, Computer Science
+(GPA:3.85/4.00)                    05/2005\
+\
+Brigham Young University:\
+-         BS, Electrical Engineering (GPA 3.34/4.00)            05/1978\
+\
+Professional Experience:\
+\
+Powin Energy\
+Manager of New Product Development         Sept 2011 -- Oct 2018\
+-         Managing development of embedded control system for energy
+storage systems\
+\
+Griswold Water Systems                                       May 2010 --
+Jan 2011\
+Web Application and Database Designer\
+-         Using HTML with embedded PHP to design web-based product
+configuration tools\
+-         Involved ground up relational database design to model company
+enterprise\
+\
+Washington State University                                        Jan -
+May 2010\
+Adjunct Professor                                    \
+-         Taught a course entitled Introduction to Database Systems\
+-         Authored client-server applications for student SQL projects\
+\
+Hewlett-Packard                                                                  
+2007 - 2009\
+Firmware Engineer\
+-         Developer of embedded software systems to interact with
+stepper motors and sensors in consumer inkjet printers\
+-         Interacted with Mechanical Engineers to tune performance of
+print mechanisms and develop new behaviors\
+-         Debugged software defects using hardware probes, emulators and
+debuggers\
+\
+Washington State University:\
+Software
+Contractor                                                            
+ 2006 -- 2007\
+-         Maintained the completed system and wrote training
+documentation\
+-         Contracted to implement a web-based student e-portfolio
+assessment system which employed MySQL and PHP on an Apache Tomcat
+Server\
+\
+Research and Teaching Assistant                                     2005
+-- 2007\
+-         Prepared and delivered lectures on Software Engineering
+courses\
+-         Evaluated quality of student software projects and assigned
+grades accordingly\
+-         Designed and implemented the user interface for a research
+application that tested quality metrics of UML designs\
+\
+Williams & Williams Real Estate Development           2002 -- 2005\
+-         Part-time student earning BA in Computer Science while working
+in the family real estate business\
+\
+Fairchild
+Semiconductor                                                      
+ 1989 -- 2002\
+-         Designer of small and medium scale integrated circuits\
+-         Design team contributor developing high speed emitter-coupled
+logic functions on BICMOS Processes\
+\
+Signetics
+Corporation                                                              
+1980 - 1989\
+Design Engineer\
+-         Designer of small-scale integrated circuits for multi-market
+consumer functions