Six Church Talks in a Month (1/21/24)

Camille is the Young Women President of her LDS stake. The stake has 2500 members and 500 teenage girls and boys.  Camille is in charge of church classes and activities for the teenage girls, but she also helps plan joint activities for the boys and girls.  In addition, Camille travels from ward to ward within her stake, talking at general Church meetings.  During January, she gave six talks at Church meetings.  On the weekend of January 20 and 21, 2024, Camille participated on a 90 minute panel discussion at the Saturday night meeting of Stake Conference, along with the stake Relief Society President and the stake Primary President.  She then gave a separate talk at the Sunday morning session of Stake Conference.  The Church theme this year is "Come unto Christ and be perfected."  Camille talked, on Sunday, about her own spiritual transformation as she accompanied Sophie to New York City during the Covid pandemic, where Sophie had radiation treatments for her second bout with brain cancer.  I attended both meetings, at which Camille performed beautifully.  I was flattered to hear Camille say, "Mom, you're my biggest cheerleader!"
 

Art and Conversation (1/20/24)

Dave and I love the BYU Museum of Art.  We visited it on January 20, 2024, with our good friend, Janie Rogers.  Janie has a degree in art history and, with her husband, Ed Rogers, assembled a valuable collection of Utah art.  Whenever we get together, we talk nonstop.  A ride to Provo and back to visit the BYU Museum is a good choice for both conversation and a bit of enlightenment and entertainment.

The new exhibit featured photographs by women photographers for Life Magazine from the 1940s to 1960s.  This photograph was titled "A Week in a Woman's Life".  It shows the hundreds of items a mother cleans and irons in a single week!  The exhibition included photo spreads about union organizing in the garment industry, training U.S. women soldiers during World War II, and the visit of President Tito of Yugoslavia with President Krushchev of Russia in Moscow.

The museum also included a collection of religious art from many times and places.  We asked Janie to stand next to her favorite painting in that exhibit.  She chose "The Sacrament in the Americas," by Santangelo.  The painting depicts Jesus preaching to the Nephites.  

The use of different planes reminded me of Picasso.

Some of the religious paintings were traditional, like this painting of Christ and a child by Benjamin West, the colonial era American painter who finished his career as artist for the British court.

I especially love modern religious art.  This depiction of the crucifixion was painted on rough boards, symbolizing the cross.

Martin Luther King Dinner (1/14/24)

Mia agreed to be my photographer at our Martin Luther King dinner on January 14, 2024. "Fifteen photos, including the food and each of the guests" was what I pleaded for.  Mia delivered.  These photos  are Mia's.  Michael Flindt is another good photographer whom I often draft for service.  I get so busy cooking food that I forget to take pictures.

Martin Luther King was a preacher from Atlanta, George, who spearheaded the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.  In King's honor, we had a dinner of spareribs, mac'n'cheese, biscuits, and peach cobbler.  Afterwards, we each told about an African American we admired.  The suggestions ranged from Michelle Obama to Frederick Douglas to one of Steve's bosses and one of my clients.

Ezra really liked the biscuits!

The mac'n'cheese was pretty good, too.

There was lots to talk about at the "elders" table, although we steered clear of politics during this fraught U.S. presidential election!

The "kids table" was also a great place to be.

Kirsten brought a friend.  I tell my children and grandchildren I love to meet the people they are "hanging out" with.

J wandered about, making friends and exploring the house.

Downstairs, the "guys" luxuriated with TV.  TV is strictly regulated in Jonny and Jenny's home, but there is an exception for Grandma's house!

Stripped Bare (1/13/24)

For 23 years I have had a beautiful office at Durham Jones & Pinegar, which is now known as Dentons.  On January 13, 2024, Camille and Steve came with Dave and me to strip the office bare.  I will retire as a shareholder on January 31, 2024, although I will remain as senior counsel until I tire completely of practicing law.  Camille surveyed my oriental rug, purple armchair, side chairs upholstered in black silk, and array of oriental prints.  She decided they would look great in her newly remodeled Holladay living room.  I was delighted!  I have loved those furnishings, chosen by the same decorator who designed our St. George home.  I am glad someone else will love them, as well. 

The office looked bare after the furnishings were removed.

The view out the 24th story window was still beautiful, however.

 I waited in the lobby of my office building, guarding the furnishings, as Steve and Camille pulled up with their car to take my treasures home.

Away they went, in the back of Camille's SUV!

Deere Jonny (1/11/24)

Jonny invited Dave and me to meet him at the Deere booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on January 11, 2024.  CES is the largest consumer electronics conference in the world.  The conference expands through the huge Las Vegas conference center and throughout large hotels in the city.  Attending it was one of my bucket list items.  

Snowstorms raged throughout the U.S. on January 10, and we were amazed to find snow on the ground in St. George when we woke up to drive to Las Vegas and attend the show.

We picked up our tickets at the Wynn Hotel, and the decor immediately told us we were in Vegas!

The closest parking to the Conference Center was half a mile away.  As we hurried to the Conference Center, we noticed how many attendees were Asian.  "There is a huge Korean contingent here," Jonny told us.  Much technology innovation is in Asia, and many American tech people are also Asian.  

I enjoyed reading the timeline of 100 years of innovation, which brought back memories of our first computer (1986), our first CD, our first cell phone.

We looked over the sea of booths and displays and people, showcasing a huge variety of consumer innovations, from gaming to fintech (banking), to satellites, to home appliances, to vehicles.

When we arrived at the Deere booth, we were delighted to find my brother Scott there, along with his daughter, Liz.  Liz is considering writing her Harvard Ph.D thesis on innovation in agriculture.

Liz took this photo of Scott and me while standing on a rung of one of the three huge agricultural machines Deere had placed in its booth.

We enjoyed watching Jonny "do his thing," i.e. introduce visitors to Deere's machines and innovations.  Jonny was scheduled to show five U.S. senators around the booth on January 12, 2024.

While Dave and I waited for Jonny to finish his work day, we wandered among the health and fitness booths.  Rings that measured blood pressure and other health statistics were a big thing.  The booth above sold a yoga mat that showed, on a nearby computer screen, what you were going right and wrong on your yoga poses! 

We were particularly intrigued by the displays of robots.  

These dog-like robots walked up and down stairs and, when they fell over, they flipped from their backs onto their feet in one smooth jump!

In the evening, we ate dinner with Jonny at an excellent Asian restaurant, "Red," in the Wynn Hotel.

One of life's greatest luxuries is for Dave and me to have leisurely talks with our children and grandchildren.

Jonny spent the night at the Bellagio, with the rest of the 100-member Deere team who set up and manned the Deere booth. 

Jonny spent Friday, January 12, back at the Deere booth, but Dave and I drove to nearby Hoover Dam for a tour deep into the bowels of the earth to see how the dam was built and how it now generates vast amounts of electricity.

The spectacular bridge over the dam is named after Pat Tillman, an NFL player who patriotically left his team to fight in Afghanistan, and was killed there.

Huge pipes pull water from the Colorado River, via Lake Mead, through the dam.

These turbines, 35 stories below ground, turn water power into electricity.

Our guide led us through tunnels deep underground, where we could see water seeping through the rock walls.  The dam was constructed during the depths of the Depression, in the 1930s, and the dam contractors hired 3500 of the 20,000 men who applied for work.

We were intrigued by a sign on a cafe in Boulder City, advertising "Cornish pasties."  I had read about those pies, which miners in Cornwall, England, took in their lunch pails into the coal mine, but I had never tasted one.  I ordered the traditional roast beef, potato, and rutabaga pastie, with brown gravy to pour over it.  It was delicious!

The dessert was "banofree", a pie with grahm cracker crust, caramel, whipped cream, and sliced bananas on top.  Our waitress said that the restaurant served recipes from the owner's Cornish family.

The walls of the cafe had photographs of the 1930's contractors for Hoover Dam.  After our trip to Hoover Dam, we picked Jonny up in Las Vegas and spent seven hours talking with him, as we drove home to Salt Lake!