Earlier this year (actually it was like December 29th), I was asked to chair the committee that would put on this winter family event. I was nervous and even a bit scared at first, but I was so thankful when I’d call people and they said that they would be willing to help out. Yay me!

I was able to assemble a group of 15 or so people who are totally awesome and great leaders. They all did an awesome job. The families and kids seemed to all have a fantastic time. We had sledding runs, cardboard and duct tape sled building, snow sculptures and snow shoeing, snow bowling, and great food. We had prizes and patches for all the kids (except some kids took more than they should have, as well as some of the staff gifts – but they were excited and probably didn’t do it on purpose).

Being on this committee also helped me get back into helping my oldest son (8) work on his Rank Advancements. We sat down and marked off lots of things the day after Family Freeze.

I am contemplating doing it again next year. If we did it, we’d probably have 4 sessions spread out over 2 days so that we could get the best bang for our setting-up-buck.

There is much I would do better/differently next year if I do decide to help out.

But, one of the best things for me is that I’ve been contemplating about what things I am truly passionate about. I was having trouble coming up with anything. But, then, how could I forget about scouting? I am definitely passionate about it. If I could make a living with it (or if I was independently wealthy), I would definitely love going into work at the council office (as a District Executive or something) every day.

I had a great time at LTUE (Life, The Universe, and Everything) – the BYU SciFi and Fantasy writing conference – this past weekend. I had been debating on whether to go, but finally decided to at kind of the last minute.

I really needed to hear Dan Wells’ presentation on plotting and pacing. It is exactly where I am right now in the tree.love novel. And it helped me get through the little block I was having. I was able to get some great brainstorming in during some of the more, shall we say, content-light presentations of the conference.

I’ll share my notes about this soon.

I know, a weird title. But they do go together.

I was talking with my mom recently about our youngest, who had H1N1 last week (he’s much better now, thanks!).

My parents live in California, where the H1N1 stories in the news are fairly common and tend to highlight cases that seem to be people who are not in the “high-risk” groups, providing details about this pandemic. While, here in Utah, I really don’t hear very much on the news, and the stories tend to be about ways to stay healthy and about how this is just another flu and the death rate is as expected.

So, while we weren’t too worried, I’m sure my mom was kind of freaking out.

It got me thinking about why a Democratic state would focus on the negatives and a Republican state would be more optimistic. (This is where the “party” lines comes in). After all, I am a fairly optimistic person.

I’m not so sure this has to do with pessimism versus optimism as a nature of certain parties, though. While some may argue this, I think it goes deeper, into the world view of those in each party.

Democrats tend to be more focused on the poor, the downtrodden, the under-represented. Republicans tend to be more focused on free markets and improving from the top, keeping government out of our lives. These are simplistic definitions, obviously, but I feel they are useful here, if not completely black-and-white.

In California, the focus seems to be on these suffering people and how bad this is, how we need help to fix the problem. In Utah, the focus seems to be on how we can handle this problem ourselves and reassuring us that we can do it.

In some ways I think these world views tie in with how people take on the “global warming” issue, even. From the, in my opinion, exaggerated sky-is-falling outcries on the left, to the nothing-to-fear-but-fear-itself, we-are-not-the-cause anti-response of the far right. The answer here, and for H1N1, is somewhere in the middle – a complex, problematic issue that is not easily solvable, nor should it be ignored.

At a writing conference I attended Thursday, Stephen Covey was speaking about changing universities to be more involved in communities as a way to lower crime.

Interestingly, one of the audience members asked him how to change universities to be less liberal. The idea being that liberals would need to change so they could help people.

And yet, isn’t the definition of “conservative” that of someone who does not want change? Therefore, in order to get universities to change, by definition, we would need them to be less conservative.

Sometimes people are so blinded by their world view (on both sides) that they don’t see the illogic in their stances.

Iiiiiiii’mmmmmm Baaaa-aaaccccckkkkk.

I’m still really tired, but I got back Saturday night from Akela’s Council (Cub Scout Leader Training). I was on staff and felt like I was still a participant in many ways – I have a lot to learn still about the scouting program.

But, I had a great time and really enjoyed being there, despite the lack of sleep.

Hope I get asked again some time – it was way awesome!

Uugaa chucka, Cherokee!

6 months out from corrective eye surgery and I am stabilized at 20/15. Woo hoo!

Now to remember all the things my mother told me – don’t read in bad light, don’t sit so close to the tv, don’t stare at the sun, and so forth.

My last post, I wrote about sending off my short story. Well, I just got a response back yesterday. It was a no.

But, the note was kind and didn’t totally tear down my dreams of fame and fortune.

It said:

Thanks for submitting your story to IGMS. It had some good qualities, but in the end I only have a limited number of slots and your story didn’t rise high enough to make the final cut.

Makes it sound like my story was at least considered. Of course, this is probably a form rejection, but it is still nice and positive.

The next step for this story is to put it up for my online writing group to critique. That should help me figure out where it is weakest.

I have no idea where else to send this, so I’ll have to do some more research on that too.

Well, last night I sent off my first short story submission to Intergalactic Medicine Show. It is a bit frightening.

I originally created the story at Liberty Hall Writers as part of a flash fiction contest. I liked the story but haven’t done much with it for a couple years.

Then, I needed something for my Writing Group (The Point Writing Group, to be specific) and pulled it out, dusted it off, and totally revamped it. My writing group gave it a pretty good reception, with some much needed advice on how to improve the “surprise” for the end, and I rewrote it again. That was a couple months ago.

Then, yesterday, I pulled it out again and added in more world building-type detail to bring it even more to life.

I felt like I’d done all I could for this story and so I sent it out into the big bad world.

It will probably be rejected (it is my first submission after all), but the experience has been good for me.

One of my writing group friends pointed us to this website, and I thought the comics are all pretty funny (but mostly just if you understand Mormon culture).

But, these comics about Twilight take the cake:

http://www.9thwardcartoons.com/2009/01/did-you-get-your-visiting-teaching-done.html

http://www.9thwardcartoons.com/2009/03/on-which-side-do-you-stand.html

Tags: Twilight, humor, Mormon