"Daughters are Special People"

If you're like me, you regularly ask yourself the question: "I wonder what I'll be doing in 10 years from now?" Despite the regularity of my speculation about the future, I rarely step back 10 years to consider how I would have reacted had I known the answer.

Today was an exception. As I reached up to get a mug for my hot chocolate I chose one of my favorites - the now ever-popular "daughters are special people" mug you see. Although it seems like a natural mug to have as the father of 4 girls (a likely present from a new grandparent or Father's day gift), I actually picked it up as a college student from someone who left it in our old apartment. At the time I was into collecting bizarre, eclectic things (as evidenced by this mug and my prized fridge magnet of Elvis shaking hands with President Nixon that my dad got me in an airport full of Elvis impersonators). So today, as I pulled down the mug I realized the irony and seeming foresight of the message. I'm just glad nobody left an "I See Dumb People" mug like the one Maren gave her dad :)

So today, me and the girls made up a new game. We like to call it Noodle Ball. It's a spin-off from Hockey, but slightly less dangerous since we use swimming noodles for hockey sticks and a balloon for a puck. Here are the general rules, although you can feel free to modify them as appropriate:

• What is needed: one balloon, a "field" (a.k.a. semi-large room without any fragile items such as lamps), two goals (hockey goal size - but no net needed, a nice duct tape rectangle would work), and 2 or more players, each one armed with a single Noodle.
  
• Goal: to hit the balloon into the other teams goal.
• Rules: players should hit the balloon with the Noodle (no intentional kicking and hitting with hands) in the air or on the ground.

Those are the basics. You may have to add a few other rules based on the temperament of your children. For example, we had Domba sit in the "injury chair" after taking a direct blow to the head from a team-mate's noodle. We didn't have any rules about high sticking because half of the game happens in the air, which makes it quite fun - especially if you are twice as tall as the other players (something I rarely experience).

All in all, I think everyone had a really fun time except perhaps Domba who claimed that it was "the worst game I've ever played in my life." So, with that ringing endorsement I'd encourage you to give it a try.

A few choice words

Sedona's been at it again with her bizarre sense of humor. She made up a new verse of "On Top of Spaghetti" that was about her "persuading her meatball" to come back on her plate. Wondering if she even knew what "persuade" means I asked her. She gave a perfectly reasonable answer: it's when you try to talk your meatball into coming back on your plate.

Later tonight I was entertaining the kids with the "when I was a kid" old man comments (taken originally from SNL). Sedona's were much better than mine. Picture her saying them in a fake old-man voice and her serious-acting face:
- "When I was a kid we didn't have fancy pants and clothes. We were just naked. And we liked it."
- "When I was a kid we didn't have doors. We couldn't open anything. But we liked it."

Silent Night

Here's a clip of Adia playing Silent Night - the first "real" song she's mastered on the harp. Ash provides the backup vocals.

Graduation Day

Well, I've officially graduated, for what had better be the last time :) Apparently the outfit you have to wear gets increasingly bizarre (see below for proof).

All in all, it was a very memorable day. The foot of snow that fell throughout the day kept things interesting - and sadly kept my grandma J. from coming. My dad, sister Heather, and Maren's parents all made it though.

We had a small ceremony for the School of Information grads in the morning, and then the University-wide one for everyone later in the day. It was fun to see my adviser Paul R. again. He is an outstanding person and an exceptionally insightful individual. I especially appreciate his open-mindedness and ability to inspire the best in others. We had a fun talk with him about his great-grandfather who started a Jewish colony (called Clarion) in Central Utah at the turn of the century in a town very close to Scipio and Gunnison where many of Maren's ancestors lived at the time.

One nice thing about having my dad around is that he is a great photographer. To keep them entertained during the LONG afternoon ceremony he took these great pictures of the girls:

During the photo-shoot various "important" speakers gave their rehearsed speeches, and accolades. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that the commencement speaker was exceptional. The invited speaker was Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome project (who used to be a U of M faculty member). Coincidentally, I had read through a nice chunk of his interesting book The Language of God on one of our regular Barnes and Noble date nights a few weeks ago. When they announced him I wondered if he would speak about faith at all. Sure enough, he mentioned the importance of asking and searching for answers to the important questions that faith inspires (why are we here? where did we come from?). As in the book, he reaffirmed his belief that science and religious belief in a personally loving God are not at odds with one another - despite the fact that many scientists and religious people put them at odds with one another so often. It was nice to hear and certainly a view I have held since my days at BYU where I took at course on the history of science where we talked extensively about the interplay between science and religion. (For those of you interested in the topic I highly recommend Henry J. Eyring's Reflections of a Scientist). Anyway, it was a very non-traditional, but inspiring speech - especially unexpected at the University of Michigan. But the clincher was his final suggestions for all of us - to keep life fun - which he demonstrated by playing his guitar and singing some alternate words to the song "I did it my way" (something about being a student and doing it "you're way" until he was a professor and now his students do it "his way").

After the talks I had my moment of "glory" where I walked next to Paul, got "hooded", walked across stage, and had my name read off of a 3x5 card, got to shake Mary S. Coleman's hand, and posed for my mug shot which I can buy for a premium :) I also managed to see Lynn's friend Melanie who was a flag-bearer (apparently she has some hidden talents) and graduated as well (she's the one on the end).

While sitting at graduation I had a memory jump out at me of a visit that I made to the School of Information prior to applying for the program. I remember standing in the Ehricher room as Sue (one of the administrative staff) took me on a tour and feeling the spirit confirm to me that we would end up there. It turned out to be the same room that I defended my dissertation in all these years later. Maren and I have had other similar confirmations and have recognized the hand of the Lord guiding our lives. I am sure that the associations that I have made in Ann Arbor (and elsewhere) are more than happenstance and I appreciate the way in which my life has been guided - and look forward to seeing where we still have to go...

And here is one more of Ash who missed out on the photo-shoot, as she was getting her beauty sleep:

Babe Moves in Mysterious Ways

Here's a choice video clip of babe showing off some sweet dance moves. (If your connection is slow then pause it for a couple minutes while it loads and then come back and push play.)

Little known facts...

In what I can only assume is an attempt to get back at me for not doing the dishes this weekend my wife "tagged" me. Apparently I'm supposed to list 7 "interesting" things about myself. I assume those include things that people don't already know about me like my love for Ultimate Frisbee, the fact that I have the 4 cutest girls on the planet, and how I hate shaving. So here they are...

1. Under considerable peer pressure (from an unnamed 8-year old living in my home and a 5-year old named after a quaint Southwestern city), I joined the masses and purchased the High School Musical soundtrack with my iTunes gift card I received for my birthday. If you happen to be the one who gave me the gift card, I hope I haven't let you down and that you'll consider another donation. But, if you don't want to subsidize the cheesy Disney teenybopper scene you may want to reconsider - especially given my poor track record (Yes, I did buy the sound track to High School Musical 2 with the remaining money on my gift card and a few of my own hard earned cash.

Wow, I feel like I just stepped out of the confession stand.

2. I used to love creating digital art with my 1980s mac. Back then digital art was a lot simpler. It was created using MacPaint and it consisted of clicking pixels on and off and zooming in and out. Most of my pieces of "artwork" were based on some pewter figurines I have of various characters from some fantasy world (no I'm not a D&D player, although I did wear a bit too much black in high school and the Smiths were once my favorite band). If I can hunt some printouts down maybe I'll post them later.

3. I was nearly a history major as an undergraduate, until I got married as an undergrad and realized that I needed to make a living when I graduated - so, I switched majors to Economics and graduated a year earlier (since it was such a short major) and got a job that paid twice as much. Don't worry, I repented, went back to school for enough years to more than make up for my missed year as an undergrad and got an academic salary job :)



4. My friends gave me the nick-name of Speedy Gonzolas in elementary school. I like to think that it had more to do with my running ability than my height, although the fact that I was the second shortest kid in elementary school doesn't bode well for that hypothesis.






5. Many of you know that I lived in Siberia, Russia for a couple of years as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. However, perhaps fewer of you know that while I was a missionary my companion and I were nearly attacked by robbers. Two men came knocking at our door (on the first floor of the building) late at night and told us they were policemen and needed us to open the door to speak with them. Having lived in Russia long enough I knew to be suspicious, especially given that one of them was standing at the entrance to the building making sure nobody was coming by. When they couldn't show me any proof that they were cops I shut the door which had been chainlocked shut and bolted it shut all the way. Right after doing that the man at the door started kicking it off the hinges. The first kick broke the deadbolt and regular lock right off. The second kick knocked the chainlock right off. Fortunately, my companion (who was about 6 feet tall, although he was about as skinny as Twiggy) had retrieved a frying pan as a weapon while I was talking to them and made his way to the other side of the door in time to push it shut after they broke the locks (I think he'd seen one too many Disney movies). Meanwhile I had dialed the real police from the entryway and was acting like I had them on the line, although i was really just waiting for them to pick up - all this while my knees were literally banging together while shaking. The would-be robbers apparently got scared off when they realized there were 2 of us and perhaps thought the police would be there soon, so they ended up leaving without a confrontation. All-in-all it made for a nice story that I made sure and tell only after I'd returned home - mainly so my mother would still sleep at night for the next year.

6. Wow, 6 interesting things. Now it's getting tough... Ah hah. Got it. What does "shakmatt" mean? Well, since you asked, it is checkmate in Russian. You already got the russian connection. I also like playing chess (although I'm not particularly good at it). I started using shakmatt as a username for that purpose and it kind of stuck. Now there's not going back, even if it does mean getting called Matt on occasion.

7. I used to be a nationally ranked tennis player. I peaked (compared to my peers) at about 12 years of age, so don't expect much from me now. I still play on occasion, but mostly get frustrated because I haven't played consistently enough to get back up to the level I was at, but am hoping to rekindle the flame one of these days. My tennis experience payed off well in High School when I taught lessons to the neighborhood youth and made some decent money - even if it did result in me getting heat exhaustion on occasion and required me to hide my laughter and look stern at the 8-year olds who thought it was funny to hit the ball over the high school tennis court fence into the busy street next to it.

Guess that Emotion

It's been quite an eventful couple of weeks. I had a nice trip to Milwaukee for an academic conference - the city wasn't too exciting but it was nice to meet some new colleagues and see some old friends. I had a nice little crowd for my presentation and I heard that it was well accepted.

I've really enjoyed spending time with the family since getting back. Below are some pictures of Adia and Sedona taken with my MacBook camera. I would give them an emotion or scenario and they would pull a face. For example, after telling them "you just smelled your sister's diaper" I took the following photo:










Now it's your turn to play:

Guess that Emotion

Rules: Each picture below is numbered. Add a comment with your guess of what I told the girls prior to them pulling the face. Just number your comments to correspond with the picture number.

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#10

Dreams

Where to begin? We are finally getting settled into our new home and life is starting to get as "normal" as it can with 4 girls and Maren as my wife :) Need I say more than these photos taken (along with 300 others) from the webcam in my new Macbook Pro)...

Everyone's been asking how my new job is so here's the update. I've been really enjoying teaching at UMD's College of Information Studies and am trying to choose among the many research opportunities that have recently emerged. I feel a bit like a kid at Chuck-a-Rama. I'll likely put too much on my plate, some of it good and some of it disgusting, but it all looks decent now and I'm pretty hungry for anything at this point. But at least I get to choose what I want now and don't need to take scraps from my parent's plate. I'm really enjoying the company and am looking forward to what's ahead.

However, I have to admit that, if my dreams are any indication, I must have some anxiety about my new job and our life here. You thought the dream where you aren't prepared for an exam is bad. How about the dream I had a few days ago where I was standing in front of my class and realized that I had forgotten to prepare - frantically going through my mind wondering how I could fill 3 hours. I thought that was pretty bad until last night I dreamed that I had to sing an unaccompanied Beatles song at a Timpview High School reunion in front of an auditorium full of my peers. After sharing my dreams with Maren she topped both of mine with a dream about her marrying Donald Trump. I'll let her tell you about that one - I don't even want to think about what it implies about her mental well-being, let alone our marriage :)

I've been really impressed with how well the girls have transitioned to life here. It doesn't hurt that they make friends as fast as Ashlinn can destroy puzzles. Adia is looking forward to her birthday and baptism both coming up soon. We picked out her new bike yesterday! Sedona is getting used to all-day kindergarten, which is quite a bit, but she has a great teacher and is getting used to the schedule. Brynn started pre-school at a really nice place a couple days a week. She's really grown up in so many ways. She loves make-believe play and has type-cast me as the hansome prince (I suppose it could be worse), which works out nice since apparently Derek is the name of the Prince in at least 2 movies they've seen this week. Ashlinn is still smoothing the carpet with her bum-scooting and having fun exploring our house. Now if she can just get all her teeth in and get rid of her mysterious rash she'll really be doing well.

Well, I suppose that's enough for now. I'll make sure and post next time Maren has a dream about marrying another infamous 70-year-old.

A New Virtual Home

We had so much fun moving all our stuff from Ann Arbor to Silver Spring MD that we decided to move virtually as well, so we ditched our boondoggle blog that I was hosting and conformed by joining blogger like all our friends and relatives (and enemies). So enjoy...