Jan 9 Skate Skiing

January 9, 2010


Dear Bret,

It is a wonderful winter day in Wisconsin. The sun is shining and everything is covered with fresh snow. It is 15 degrees which is not that bad so long as you are working hard or in your car with the heater turned on. I am sitting at the kitchen table and watching one of the neighborhood kids trying to snowboard down the little hill next to their house. Yesterday afternoon my friend and I went and rented skate skis from REI. We went to the golf course by our church at about 10:00 a.m. The temperature was less than 10 degrees when we started but we were dressed comfortably and soon worked up a sweat. It was only my second time on skate skis and I was horrible. I wondered whether maybe I am too old to try and start something new like this but then I decided there is no reason I cannot learn, the only real obstacle is laziness. As we were skiing we stopped a number of times to catch our breath. When I looked around it was a beautiful scene. Except where the ski trails had been packed, the golf course snow was completely undisturbed. There were no tracks of any kind. The bright sunlight sparkled on the snow. I thought that even if I am a lousy skate skier it is sure a lot better being outside than riding my bike in the basement. We skied for almost three hours and I wore a heart rate monitor to see how hard I was working. At the I determined I had worked a little harder than if I ridden my bike for three hours. The muscles at the top of my legs are really sore and I wonder if I will be able to get out of bed on Sunday morning. My friend who went with me did not have a good time and I may not be able to get him to go again.

One day last week at lunch we had a discussion about ice fishing. Some outsider like me suggested that it was just a reason to go out and get drunk with your buddies but we soon learned otherwise. I found out there are sheds that you have to pull out on the ice with snowmobiles and there are pop-up huts that are built onto a sled and then there are guys who just go out and drill a hole. One man said his father in law goes out ice fishing alone several times a week because it is his chance to fish parts of the lake that are otherwise accessible only by boat. I guess one type of fishing involves drilling a bunch of holes and dropping the bait down the hole tied to a flag and when the flag pops up you go get the fish. I think fishing is boring as it is and nothing about ice fishing made me think that it would be another thing for me to pursue.

Things are definitely back to normal after the holidays. I have lots of work and feel like I am not keeping up very well. This next week we have to spend several days doing personnel reviews which will keep me from getting any of my real work done. On the other hand being busy is much better than the alternative. This week I have had to get involved with a lot of compensation issues in order to allow our company to comply with some unusual New York regulations. All of our internal sales people are part of a union and there compensation is the result of negotiations with the union. I have never had to deal with union issues and it has been interesting to see how this works in real life. What will be even more interesting will be if we determine that the union negotiated agreement violates the New York regulations.

It started snowing on Wednesday night and snowed all day Thursday so we had 7 or 8 inches of new snow. Janice and I had someone coming to stay with us on Thursday night so I wanted to be sure our driveway was clear of snow. I used the snowblower before work and cleared the driveway. Janice called me at 10:00 a.m. and asked if I had shoveled because it did not look like it. She used the snowblower and cleared it again around noon. Although the snow had stopped I had to clear it again at 9:00 p.m. because the wind was blowing drifts across the driveway. In the evening our visitors came and the walks looked pretty good. There is a young couple in the ward who just had their third child and live in an apartment much smaller than Brooke’s condo. We offered to let his parents stay with us when they came to see the baby and they are here now. They are a nice older couple in their 70s. The grandfather was a missionary then mission president in Tonga. I think they appreciate the room with the king size bed. They said when their daughter-in-laws parents came before the baby was born one of them had to sleep in the hall.

Sunday

I did get out of bed after skate skiing but I am pretty stiff with muscles that just don’t get used much. Sacrament meeting was not too exciting. The speakers rehashed conference talks. Each of them spent just a minute talking about their own conversions and some personal spiritual experiences. I wish they had spent the whole time discussing their own experiences because they are much more interesting and there is a much stronger spirit when they speak from their heart. Janice and I attend the family relations class and we have a teacher who is very well prepared and I think does a good job with that class. One thing that I notice is that when the teacher spends so much time preparing and is so well prepared it motivates me to be better prepared for the class because I don’t want him to think his efforts are unappreciated or unnoticed.

Janice and I were slow sending out Christmas cards but we finally got them out and we are still getting responses back from people who had not had our new address. The Hardings sent a nice note. They said David Nichols in your mission is from their Ward in North Carolina. Do you know him? They also said that Corrine is engaged to be married in April to a young man headed to law school. I bet that will feel weird when the Young Women you knew start to get married. Alex Barrow called me last week because I had sent his father a link to apply for working on the river. I will let you know if he decides to go.

There is not much else going on here. Brooke said that at her last Dr.’s appointment they estimated her baby’s wait at more than 6 lbs. so he will be a pretty big baby in another month when he is born. Janice seems to be looking forward to going to Southern California when the baby is born. I am not sure whether she is more excited about helping with Zachary or going someplace warm and sunny. Jenny said that she likes her internship at the school so much she is going to go four days a week instead of just three. I think it is great that she has found something that she enjoys. Clint said that Taylor called him looking for a referral to an attorney in Utah County. Clint said he told Taylor “I can go to Utah County” but Taylor said the clients told him they wanted someone who lived near Provo and not someone from Salt Lake. Clint said it was nice to talk to his cousin and funny talking about professional things not just family stuff. My parents went to Arizona. I will find out how they are doing tonight. Janice is singing on the phone with Ali right now. Her favorite song is “You are my Sunshine.”

In our Family Relations class we were talking about the fact that the biggest indicator of successful marriage is “unity” and one way to measure unity is by seeing how successfully the couple shares leadership. Sharing leadership is an indication that each party recognizes the strengths of the other. The flip side is that the unsuccessful marriages are characterized by a lack of unity. No recognition of the other party’s strengths. I thought the same thing applies to missionary companionships. The most successful companionships are those where they are unified and each person contributes based upon his strengths. It sounds like you and your companion are doing well. It is good to hear of your successes. Keep working hard and work together taking advantage of one another’s strengths.

Love,

Dad

P. S. Janice says you probably don't read my letters because they are too long. Let me know if I should edit them down to the most important facts and leave out the ice fishing stuff.