Author: midder

It’s good to be back in Arizona for the weekend. The first few things I noticed about being back were:

1. The roads sure are nice, compared to up there;
2. This is a big city!

I started sweating once I landed and got things out to the car. It’s amazing how one can get relatively acclimated in a short period of time. We’ve had a busy 24 hours since I got home. Lots of chores to do, the yard to clean up, floors to mop, boxes to sort out, kids to squeeze, etc. We somehow made it out to Sean & Jana’s house in Mesa for the annual look at the Christmas lights get together. It was fun. Lucy had a good time and was pretty tired by the time we got back. Everyone seems well.

While we were walking around looking at the lights, my dad told me that I was waxing philosophic in my old age. I guess when you move you become old. And when you blog you’re philosophical. So I guess it fits. I finished John Adams on the flight home last night. I’ll end this short post with some more philosophical waxings that I found in the book. Then it’s back to ornery old me — until I find another book, that is.

John Adams lived a long time. I’m too tired to look it up, but he was 89 or 90 by the time he died. He lost children, grandchildren, his wife, and many close friends. He died on the 4th of July, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the same day as his one-time close friend, later fierce rival, and ultimately again close friend, Thomas Jefferson. McCullough writes:

That John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died on the same day, and that it was, of all days, the Fourth of July, could not be seen as a mere coincidence: it was a “visible and palpable” manifestation of “Divine favor,” wrote John Quincy (his oldest son and 6th President of the United States) in his diary that night, expressing what was felt and would be said again and again everywhere the news spread.

To one of his granddaughters, Caroline, Adams wrote:

You are not singular in your suspicions that you know but little. The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know. Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.

And, finally, he wrote just after his wife, Abigail’s, death, through correspondence with Jefferson:

I believe in God and in his wisdom and benevolence, and I cannot conceive that such a Being could make such a species as the human merely to live and die on this earth. If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God. This universe, this all, this totality would appear with all its swelling pomp, a boyish firework.

Indeed.

That’s all for now, dad. Philosophical and all. I uploaded a few pictures tonight. Those you can see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

I have been reading David McCoullough’s John Adams with all of my time up here. I’ve been reading it for about 3 months, but this last week or two I’ve really been able to dive in and I’m nearly done. The language of the time is mesmerizing to me. People spoke so formally and matter of factly. The quote in the title of the post was spoken by John Adams while he was in Paris trying to maintain relations with the French during the earliest days of our country. I love reading about the people who lived during the American Revolution. What courage, conviction, and faith they had. Though it was certainly far from all roses. Some of the language between political parties makes today’s rhetoric look tame by comparison.

One of the things that I have enjoyed the most about this book is being able to look into the relationship between John and Abigail Adams via the many letters they wrote to each other. John Adams spent many years in Europe, and a few of those years were spent without Abigail. Further on, when Adams becomes President, he spends time away from her, first at Philadelphia, and then at Washington, DC, once the White House had been completed enough to live in. It makes me think of the relatively short, though seemingly endless, time I’ve been away from Julie and the girls. I don’t wish it to happen again.

I will fly back to Arizona this Friday evening. I hope that Gwenyth remembers me.

How do you like the new Christmas theme?

It’s been a cold first week here in Utah. Snow and ice and all that fun stuff. It was 4 degrees yesterday morning at the airport. When I got in my car to go to work yesterday, my windshield slowly started cracking. It was like it was happening in slow motion. Unfortunately, my buddy who does auto glass doesn’t have an office up here yet. For any of you wanting good glass service, here’s his site: http://www.clearcutautoglass.com

I hear that it’s also been pretty cold down in Phoenix, with lows in the 30s and highs now getting out of the 50s. Julie said she had to turn on the heater for the first time. Must have been downright chilly.

The new job is going well. There seem to be some interesting dynamics and certainly no shortage of things to do, which is better than the alternative. There are a few projects (or initiatives, maybe) that seem destined to fail, so we’ll see how those turn out. I’m loving the commute, though. It’s not even long enough to bother with talk radio. It’s about a 2 song commute, if that. I’m starting to feel like I don’t know what’s going on in the world, with no talk radio and no internet at my in-laws’. I’m writing this from David and Marilyn Jenkins’ home. Julie says it’s good for me to be disconnected, trying to recover from my addiction.

Speaking of Julie, she’s having quite the time with the girls. She tells me that she wouldn’t be the greatest single mom. I don’t plan on her having to be, so hopefully she won’t have to struggle through it much longer. She has her Super Saturday thing this weekend, which is pretty much for the birds as far as I’m concerned. But no one ever asks me my opinion (though they often get it anyway). Once that’s done, she should be able to focus on other things. I’m flying home next weekend (Dec 8 I think) to hang out with my girls. I’m pretty excited. Julie’s mom has been spoiling me, what with packed lunches and hot meals in the evening. I’m not sure what they think about their house guest, but he sure appreciates it. Julie says not to get too used to it . . .

Things seem to be going along well as far as the homes are concerned. I’d really like to sell the rental and rent our home. I have a good prospect for the latter and a decent one for the former. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Housing up here is a little more confusing. I’ve got a few things I want to do and Julie’s got a few that she wants to do (or pretty much just one). She usually wins, but I’ll see if I can pull something off this time around.

I don’t have a camera up here, so no pictures for a while. More later.

What a week it’s been.

Last Monday, we all piled in the trusty mini-van for our trek up to Utah. We somehow made it in a day. The next few days were spent looking at homes,  being discouraged, getting more encouraged, and then back again. It’s an interesting market up here — surprisingly few homes for sale. I guess that’s the cycle of things in Utah. In the wintertime, people just take their homes off the market. We’re still weighing the buy vs. rent thing. We’ll see what wins out.

Thanksgiving was spent in Lehi at Jim Jenkins’ home. It was fun.

We left Utah on Saturday, arriving in Surprise around 9pm. Gwen wasn’t too thrilled with all of the travelling, but she survived. She didn’t spend the entire time in her carseat, as listening to her scream for hours on end got a little bit tiring. We tried to clean a few things up and get a few more things together. Then Sunday morning around 10:30 I left again to come back up to Utah.

The title of this post is in reference to the Chief Yellowhorse shops on the side of the road. These are the ones that are maybe 30 miles north of Flagstaff. He’s got all of these signs before and after his table stands telling you that his stuff is coming up and then more afterward telling you to go back. The last few say “Ol Chief Sez Turn Back Now” and “Hurry, It’s Not Too Late.” I tell you what, it was all I could do to keep myself from turning back and going all the way home to Surprise. I left home thinking that I didn’t really want to do this, so why was I? I can be such the drama queen.

Today I started my new job. After assurring both security and the head of HR that I was, indeed, supposed to report for work today, I settled in and met some people. It seems like a good bunch. My computer was hurting (kind of like those south of Rittenhouse, mid), so it took quite a while to do even the most menial of tasks. Supposedly I’ll have a new machine in short order, though not short enough. Snow and traffic jams greeted me at the end of the day. All of the traffic seemed to be going North, so maybe that was a sign that I don’t want to live up north. We’ll see. More later.