Beneath the Wraps

        Sometime between the birth of brother Corey and the arrival of my sister Kayla, my parents decided to finish the basement.   I moved from my upstairs bedroom to the coolness of the basement.   They also had a phone put in at the end of the hall next to the laundry room.         I don't know how old I was, but suspect it was after I had graduated high school when I heard the phone ring.   Mom had already answered the upstairs phone by the time I got to it.   Out of curiosity, I went upstairs to inquire about the phone call.   Mom said that it was her visiting teaching partner and she'd be leaving pretty soon.         She had just started watching the movie "The Shop Around the Corner" with Margaret Sullivan and James Stewart and asked me to continue watching it for her so that I could tell her what she had missed.   We had a VCR, I think I...

It is not my intent to promote or dissuade my followers with the following ads.  They're just observations. I really like CenturyLink commercials, particularly this one: I think the editing of this commercial is cleverly done. As Jenna and I have experienced both city and county life, it is something that we can relate to on both sides. There is one commercial that shows us the talents of a guy performing on a pogo stick as he does flips in the air and bounces back to a green stage, and another of a girl on the same green stage performing a song. She strums the ukulele and starts out singing, "Early in the morning . . ." and finishes the song with yodel before she takes a bow. Yodeling is not my favorite form of music - though I would put it above Opera and Rap.  I really do enjoy this girl's enthusiasm.  Reminds me of the girls that I once was, or Jenna is now (though not everybody has had the opportunity for knowing that) I couldn't find either com...

          When I was 7th grade, the mandatory history class focused on American history and Utah history.   We had first did a brief study on Europe and the reasons given for explorers making their way to the American continent.   I don't recall a lot on either Revolutionary or Civil Wars though I'm certain that each was mentioned.   We cruise through Utah history as 95% of the class had been raised in the LDS church and obviously knew more about Utah's history than the text book - which had Joseph Smith martyred by hanging - in Utah.   Joseph Smith was not hung nor did he live long enough to see the Church move toward the Utah territory.             That is just one example that I remember.   The instructor was not LDS, but he could see that the class wasn't going to budge - weather right or wrong. I think we ended up skipping three chapters.   It was t...