I've wondered about this pretty much my whole life. While I don't doubt my testimony and I've felt that it was a marvelously great blessing to be born into a family where the gospel was taught, I've always wondered if I would have joined the Church if I hadn't been born into it.
Recently as I was reading the Book of Mormon one day I was thinking about how I seem to always believe in things that are a little on the edge. Tell me about the Electrical Universe and let me do a little reading about it and I become convinced that the Sun is not a nuclear furnace but a ball of plasma that is part of a great web of electrical energy that drives the cosmos. Tell me about eating low carb to control diabetes and I'll read tens of books about it and start doing it no matter what people tell me about how it's impossible to stay on the diet or is bad for me. Same with colloidal silver (silver water). As I was thinking about this it occurred to me that if I hadn't been born in the Church and someone gave me a Book of Mormon to read and some tracts, what would I do with them? Of course I'd have read them, I read everything someone gives me, and then the Spirit would have had a chance to work on me. Of course this would have depended on someone wanting to give me a Book of Mormon which might not have happened, but I'm sure now that I would have read the book.
It's funny the thoughts that you have answered while you read the Book of Mormon. I'm not sure that I've ever formally prayed about would I have joined the Church, but it's been in the back of my mind for ages and now it's not.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Another Grandbaby and no Jury Duty
Well this blog has a new look, and the last post was obviously about some things that happened a while ago. I'd written that post and then when I got ready to post everything on the Google Blogging site had changed and it took me a while to get a chance to figure out what had happened. Actually the changes were not that great but it took a while to figure things out. Anyway when I went back I found that I had already written that last post and forgotten about it and just got around to posting it.
We've been blessed with another grand baby. This one is Corry Arron Nichols. He was born 12/2/11 exactly one month after his cousin Jonathan Ryan Nield. I think that's pretty cool.
Here's is the account of Corry's birth. He was supposed to be induced the day that he came in to the world naturally. However, that day the hospital was so full that they couldn't induce and Iwalani was very upset, but later that day she went into labor naturally and I was glad because that meant that I was able to go to the hospital and be there when Corry was born. Brian was there with Chantel and he asked me something and I said that I wasn't that experienced with babies being born, and he said that I'd been there when my kids were born and I said that the last time that happened was 20 years ago when Chantel was born.
Anyway it was a super cool I thought. There was one funny thing that happened. Right after he was born I was talking to the other Grandfather and some how we decided that his name was supposed to be Corry Ryan. I thought it was a little weird that he had the same middle name as his cousin. It didn't occur to me I was full of smelly stuff and I sent out a text message to my family with the wrong name. I didn't realize what I'd done until the next morning when Kiki called and asked if kidding about the name, or if I'm just really dumb. I had to admit that I'm just dumb, and then tell all my sisters and brother that I'd screwed up.
Here's a health report, that deals with silver water somewhat. So far this winter I haven't caught my annual bout with bronchitis/pneumonia and that's great. That's also meant that I've been exercising regularly since after the surgery, and I was riding my stationary bike up until just a week before the surgery but I had to stop the body weight exercises sometime before that. I'm thinking that this is good and I was thinking that my Phase 1 physical (which is the physical I get every year with my job that proves how reliable of a person I am). So I'm having my EKG and then the nurse calls in a "Truck on 115653." I'm thinking 115653! That's my Z number, what the heck is a truck? Are they calling an ambulance on me? Then the nurse tells me that my EKG is abnormal and I can't leave until a doctor (or PA) looks at my EKG. Then the nurse tells me that it's probably not a problem because my heart beat was low and that sometimes causes a low voltage which is what the EKG said. So this is the second abnormal EKG I've had in 4 months. No one told me anything about why I had an abnormal EKG last time so hopefully it was the same thing and there's nothing wrong with my ticker.
I'm finishing this up this Monday morning. It's snowing pretty hard here and the Lab closed. It's pretty funny what happened. I drove to the train station this morning and before I left I checked to see if the Lab was on a delay or closed and nothing so I drove to the train station. Right before I got out of the truck I checked again and they had put the Lab on a delay. I came home and went to back to bed. I got up and it was really snowing and I thought the roads would really be sucky to drive on so I called the Lab and they were still on a delay. So I drove to the train station again and right before I got out I called again and the Lab had been closed for the day. So I drove home again. Then Goose called me and I told her the story and she said; "Wouldn't it be ironic if I had both these days off?" That's what I was thinking as well, but the thing about this type of a day off is that if you had already scheduled the day off you can't change it to "Report Pay" (which is how we report the day on our pay report) so I had to have been planning to go to work to get the day off. Unfortunately with my hernia operation and Aaron's funeral and everything else I've barely go enough vacation time to cover going to Kristen's wedding and the time between Christmas and New Years when the lab closes. Anyway I thought it was pretty serendipitous that each time I got out of the car the message for the day had changed.
We've been blessed with another grand baby. This one is Corry Arron Nichols. He was born 12/2/11 exactly one month after his cousin Jonathan Ryan Nield. I think that's pretty cool.
Here's is the account of Corry's birth. He was supposed to be induced the day that he came in to the world naturally. However, that day the hospital was so full that they couldn't induce and Iwalani was very upset, but later that day she went into labor naturally and I was glad because that meant that I was able to go to the hospital and be there when Corry was born. Brian was there with Chantel and he asked me something and I said that I wasn't that experienced with babies being born, and he said that I'd been there when my kids were born and I said that the last time that happened was 20 years ago when Chantel was born.
Anyway it was a super cool I thought. There was one funny thing that happened. Right after he was born I was talking to the other Grandfather and some how we decided that his name was supposed to be Corry Ryan. I thought it was a little weird that he had the same middle name as his cousin. It didn't occur to me I was full of smelly stuff and I sent out a text message to my family with the wrong name. I didn't realize what I'd done until the next morning when Kiki called and asked if kidding about the name, or if I'm just really dumb. I had to admit that I'm just dumb, and then tell all my sisters and brother that I'd screwed up.
Here's a health report, that deals with silver water somewhat. So far this winter I haven't caught my annual bout with bronchitis/pneumonia and that's great. That's also meant that I've been exercising regularly since after the surgery, and I was riding my stationary bike up until just a week before the surgery but I had to stop the body weight exercises sometime before that. I'm thinking that this is good and I was thinking that my Phase 1 physical (which is the physical I get every year with my job that proves how reliable of a person I am). So I'm having my EKG and then the nurse calls in a "Truck on 115653." I'm thinking 115653! That's my Z number, what the heck is a truck? Are they calling an ambulance on me? Then the nurse tells me that my EKG is abnormal and I can't leave until a doctor (or PA) looks at my EKG. Then the nurse tells me that it's probably not a problem because my heart beat was low and that sometimes causes a low voltage which is what the EKG said. So this is the second abnormal EKG I've had in 4 months. No one told me anything about why I had an abnormal EKG last time so hopefully it was the same thing and there's nothing wrong with my ticker.
I'm finishing this up this Monday morning. It's snowing pretty hard here and the Lab closed. It's pretty funny what happened. I drove to the train station this morning and before I left I checked to see if the Lab was on a delay or closed and nothing so I drove to the train station. Right before I got out of the truck I checked again and they had put the Lab on a delay. I came home and went to back to bed. I got up and it was really snowing and I thought the roads would really be sucky to drive on so I called the Lab and they were still on a delay. So I drove to the train station again and right before I got out I called again and the Lab had been closed for the day. So I drove home again. Then Goose called me and I told her the story and she said; "Wouldn't it be ironic if I had both these days off?" That's what I was thinking as well, but the thing about this type of a day off is that if you had already scheduled the day off you can't change it to "Report Pay" (which is how we report the day on our pay report) so I had to have been planning to go to work to get the day off. Unfortunately with my hernia operation and Aaron's funeral and everything else I've barely go enough vacation time to cover going to Kristen's wedding and the time between Christmas and New Years when the lab closes. Anyway I thought it was pretty serendipitous that each time I got out of the car the message for the day had changed.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Jury Duty and a Grandbaby
A few months ago I got a letter in the mail that said that I was called to federal jury duty. Well after I got that letter I filled out everything online, then I got a hernia. Then I got a summons about two weeks before my hernia surgery, and on the day I was supposed to get a colonoscopy. So I freaked out and left them a message that I needed to have these medical procedures taken care of and when I called back they said that I didn't need to show up. That was nice of them.
However, I got another summons on 10/31. That's right Halloween and the last day of my jury duty, but this time I got picked for jury duty, federal jury duty. Actually it was not that bad of an experience and it was pretty enlightening but the situation at work was pretty tense so I was hoping that I wouldn't have to serve. But I did get picked.
First of all it was a civil case not a criminal case so there were only 8 jurors. It was a skiing accident where someone uphill hit someone who had stopped downhill and broke his hip so that he had to have a hip replacement. The first thing we wondered about was why it was a federal case at all. I asked and it was because the plaintiff and the defendant were in different states that it was a federal case. So when someone says don't make a federal case of it they're being realistic you really can make a federal case of something and this is what happened.
We decided that it was an accident and that no one had been negligent. At the end of the trial the judge invited us up to her chambers and we all went up, the jurors that is. This was probably the most enlightening part of the whole experience.
Actually it worked pretty much the way that I thought that it would with the information that I picked up from TV and John Grisham novels. A jury pool is called, there was 28 of us, and they put everyone in random order. I was 12th which is not a very good position to be in. The lawyers ask us questions which is a process called "voir dire" which is a French term meaning "to tell the truth" at least that's what they told us. After they ask us questions the judge and lawyers go in and decide which jurors they will use. They lawyers get to challenge a certain number of jurors for whatever reason they want, and the judge said that the lawyers always challenge lawyers in the jury pool because no one wants a lawyer on the jury. After that they dismiss jurors for cause. After that they take jurors numerically. However, when they called us they again called us randomly so I didn't know it until the judge told us.
We don't really know how they picked us. There was one juror who said that he owned his own business and that if he wasn't there he didn't earn an income. However, during the trial we learned that he had family that was visiting from Germany. When the judge learned about that she said that she would have dismissed him for that but that she couldn't dismiss him for financial reasons. I admitted that I'd tried snowboarding once and hurt myself in the first 1/2 hour. I was trying to be honest, but I was kind of hoping that they would thing that I would be biased against snowboarding, but apparently that didn't work. Turns out that 5 of the jurors said something, 3 didn't, and we were a cross section of society; young, old, middle age, and seemed like a cross section of economic means as well.
I did find one thing interesting about being a juror. In the movies everyone stands for the judge. We stood for the judge at the beginning, but after we were called as jurors everyone stood for us when we entered or exited the court room. I thought it was pretty cool. On a personal level I didn't have to commute to Los Alamos so that's always a plus, and I got to go see Halloween and Trisha's house. Trish said that they didn't even put that much stuff out for this Halloween.
Thennnnnn. Kiki brought little Jonathan Ryan Nield into the world Wednesday. Yeah.
However, I got another summons on 10/31. That's right Halloween and the last day of my jury duty, but this time I got picked for jury duty, federal jury duty. Actually it was not that bad of an experience and it was pretty enlightening but the situation at work was pretty tense so I was hoping that I wouldn't have to serve. But I did get picked.
First of all it was a civil case not a criminal case so there were only 8 jurors. It was a skiing accident where someone uphill hit someone who had stopped downhill and broke his hip so that he had to have a hip replacement. The first thing we wondered about was why it was a federal case at all. I asked and it was because the plaintiff and the defendant were in different states that it was a federal case. So when someone says don't make a federal case of it they're being realistic you really can make a federal case of something and this is what happened.
We decided that it was an accident and that no one had been negligent. At the end of the trial the judge invited us up to her chambers and we all went up, the jurors that is. This was probably the most enlightening part of the whole experience.
Actually it worked pretty much the way that I thought that it would with the information that I picked up from TV and John Grisham novels. A jury pool is called, there was 28 of us, and they put everyone in random order. I was 12th which is not a very good position to be in. The lawyers ask us questions which is a process called "voir dire" which is a French term meaning "to tell the truth" at least that's what they told us. After they ask us questions the judge and lawyers go in and decide which jurors they will use. They lawyers get to challenge a certain number of jurors for whatever reason they want, and the judge said that the lawyers always challenge lawyers in the jury pool because no one wants a lawyer on the jury. After that they dismiss jurors for cause. After that they take jurors numerically. However, when they called us they again called us randomly so I didn't know it until the judge told us.
We don't really know how they picked us. There was one juror who said that he owned his own business and that if he wasn't there he didn't earn an income. However, during the trial we learned that he had family that was visiting from Germany. When the judge learned about that she said that she would have dismissed him for that but that she couldn't dismiss him for financial reasons. I admitted that I'd tried snowboarding once and hurt myself in the first 1/2 hour. I was trying to be honest, but I was kind of hoping that they would thing that I would be biased against snowboarding, but apparently that didn't work. Turns out that 5 of the jurors said something, 3 didn't, and we were a cross section of society; young, old, middle age, and seemed like a cross section of economic means as well.
I did find one thing interesting about being a juror. In the movies everyone stands for the judge. We stood for the judge at the beginning, but after we were called as jurors everyone stood for us when we entered or exited the court room. I thought it was pretty cool. On a personal level I didn't have to commute to Los Alamos so that's always a plus, and I got to go see Halloween and Trisha's house. Trish said that they didn't even put that much stuff out for this Halloween.
Thennnnnn. Kiki brought little Jonathan Ryan Nield into the world Wednesday. Yeah.
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