Shinob Kibe Paintbrush Near a concrete arrow, an aviation navigation aid from sometime around 1930, atop the Shinob Kibe mesa in Washington, Utah (the community next-door to St. George, Utah where I live), I came across some Indian Paintbrush, booming early admid the unusually green surroundings (unusually green for the desert due to recent unusually plentiful rain).

I got lucky. My camera caught just the angle I was looking for. And this shot filled my camera's compact flash card, so even if I'd wanted to, I couldn't have taken any more pictures.

Today at church I put the image on my notebook computer as my desktop wallpaper. (I bring my laptop computer to church to take minutes at some of the meetings I attend.) I liked the image so much, I decided to stick it on my web site as a new wallpaper selection.

To see or download larger resolution versions of this photo, visit my Wallpapers section of my web site.

What was I doing atop Shinob Kibe yesterday? Why I was there to replenish my Shinob Kibe geocache. Read my Astounding Adventures log entry for more details.

If this post's title rings a bell, then you've revealed that you're as hooked on LOST as I am, and as my parents, sisters, and brother are. This evening I visited my parents house in Hurricane. There we gathered together around the television, and watched the most recent episode of LOST that the TiVo had recorded.

I must say, having a TiVo to record programs for later watching is sweet. We skipped past the commercials and watched a one-hour episode in forty-something minutes, and were able to rewind in a few key spots when someone missed something, or pause when we wanted to talk a bit or just laugh ourselves silly.

I had a blast. I haven't enjoyed family television watching like this for a long time. The last TV series all of my family (at least those of us in southwestern Utah) all enjoyed this much and gathered together regularly to watch was Now and Again, about five years or so ago.

This episode of Lost, titled Numbers was one of our favorite. We laughed and laughed and laughed again and again throughout.

You don't know how grateful I was for the telephone call from my little brother was this afternoon. The afternoon was waring on and I had not been outside once, and it was a beautiful day. I was dying for an excuse to go for a short hike, to get outdoors, to...

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Sun River Golf Course SubmergedI've always had something of a morbid fascination with natural disasters, something of a lingering desire to see a tornado up close (but not too close). The power of nature's fury has a raw sort of beauty that leaves me in awe.

Juxtaposed against that beauty is compassion for those who lose property, or far, far worse, friends or family to the destruction. In this flood, one person has lost his life, and it looks like many others have or will lose their homes and many of their possessions. Such loss is terrible, and painful. The suffering overshadows and overwhelms any beauty natures fury might possess.

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In my family, each year at Christmas, we each have a name of someone else in the family that we focus our gift-giving attention to. Since there are nine of us, seven children, some married with their own families, and my parents, it would be insane to...

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Well I did it. This afternoon, with my sister and parents, I went to see the movie, "The Work and the Glory" in Hurricane at the new and impressive Coral Cliffs Cinema 8 theaters.

But first, I must digr...

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For the heck of it, I'm copying verbatim (mostly -- with just a few HTML tweaks to make it look okay, and any other edits, some flagged with italic notes) my profile from the LDS Mingle web site for single LDS folks like myself. You know, one of those LDS web sites for desperate singles? (That's a joke for the humor impaired—while some site members may be desperate, I think they're the exception, not the rule.) I enjoyed putting this profile together, so why not share it here? Besides, this lets me archive it for future reference...

Here it is:

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The plan last night was to bake four of the pie crusts I bought (I'm to lazy to make my own crusts like I've done in years past), mix up some pumpkin pie filling (using the Libby's recipe, cutting the sugar a tad, and adding a bit more spice) and bake ...

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What a pleasant surprise to visit Orson Scott Card's web site this week and discover four new articles to read, two of which are truly excellent and relevant to Thanksgiving and gratitude, "A Thank-You Letter in This Time of War" and "How I'll Celebrate Thanksgiving".

Thank you, Horsey. I appreciate your...

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Welcome, Scott, back to St. George!

Around 8:30 AM or so, my friend and former roommate who since had moved to Joplin, Missouri, called from the Greyhound bus stop here in St. George. He had arrived at last!

It was good to see him again. As we drove back to my house he talked about...

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