Staycation!

I've been on vacation this week. For the first time in memory I didn't travel anywhere for my week off. It's not that I don't want to hang with family, but finances didn't permit it this time so I've had a quiet week here in old San-Antone'.

If there was ever a perfect week to have days off down here, this was the week! We are just coming out of a reasonably wet winter and so things are green and pretty and the "famous" Texas wildflowers are out in force! Last year was so dry and brown and dead that I was convinced that this city doesn't know how to look pretty, but I've been proven wrong -- thankfully!

I've spent the week running, biking, napping, eating, reading, writing, socializing, visiting the temple, etc. It's all been very cathartic. I don't want to go back to work on Monday, but at least I don't feel like a need a vacation from my vacation.

Ever Wonder Why Gadolinium is Used for Contrast in MRI Scans?

I don't need another reason to be considered a nerd. Heaven knows I've got that vibe going strong without any help. This post and what it says about me will not help my case for "smooth, cool, Friday night date material" but I can't help myself….

I've gone through a fair number of books in the last year, several that I really liked. Some fun fiction/fantasy, some notable history/biography, some true crime, some science, etc. Nothing captured my interest, nostalgia and brain-juices more than "The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements" did.

This book hit my radar when I was flying out of San Antonio for a wedding sometime around August. A friend of mine who I happened to cross paths with in the airport was just starting this book. At my next opportunity I got my hands on it and pretty much devoured.

In a bit of an esoteric genera that I’ve learned that I really like (science books written by scientists for a non-science audience), this book goes through each element on the periodic table and gives a history and synopsis of it’s discovery, uses and most interestingly some of the stories and scandals associated with each element. Who knew that Mendeleev's creation could be so interesting!?!

Despite majoring in chemistry as an undergraduate, there were facts and descriptions of science that were eye-opening to me. Things that had always been mysterious (probably because textbooks and professors do not always do a good job at teaching these topics) were clarified. Because this book was written for non-scientists there was no assumptions made by the author that certain principles were already well understood and so concepts were put into historical and scientific context that is often neglected in the university classroom setting. I loved that it often felt like a novel yet increased my knowledge and understanding of a topic I have a passion for.

Again, what making this my “book of the year” says about me is probably not flattering, but for anyone looking for something that is deeper than just brain candy and yet manages to be a fun read at the same time, this books is highly recommended!

Books! Books! Books!

I have a dream house...

...I know! Me, a 30+ year old guy who's idea of decorating is keeping dirty dishes out of my sink. I have a dream house, or at least several ideas of what my dream house needs to contain.

The #1 most important feature is the study/library. It needs a lot of bookshelves (filled with books, of course!) It needs big windows looking out over something green and pretty. It needs a fireplace with a La-Z-Boy in front of it -- which I hope to utilize on rainy days when all you want to do is curl up in front of a warm fireplace while the rain pounds the nearby window.

These rooms have bits and pieces of what I want. None of them are quite perfect, but they give the general idea!

Tender Mercies

It's funny what will jog your memory...

I started the night shift today which means that I have weekday daytime hours open for the first time in…well…longer than I can remember. I plan to fit in my sleeping, but also run errands that I have been neglecting for a long time since many such errands require you to be free during weekday daytime hours!

One such errand is getting my car to the mechanic and worked on (bad oil leak…no bueno!) So I took my car in after getting off work this morning. This left me needing to get home, so I loaded my bike in the back seat and rode it home after dropping the car off.

Enter unexpected memory. As I was riding my bike home I passed a run-down corner market (the kind that fill many of the corners in this city. Kind of like a gas station except it does not sell gas), I had a sudden, shockingly powerful flashback to my mission days. I was on a bike, feeling rather exhausted, in moderate weather, with my right pants leg tucked into my sock to save it from the bike's sprockets and a big/cheap/bulky bike helmet on my head. Admittedly I didn't have a fellow-biker alongside to serve as a flashback-companion, but regardless it took me back. I remembered one very specific day in Wodonga. It was similar weather. A day no different than many that sandwiched it on both sides. Not really sure why this day is the one that has stuck in my head all these years versus one of the others. There was nothing to set it apart other than my companion and myself were feeling very tired that day and stopped at a small "Milk Bar" (the Australian equivalent of a corner market) and got ourselves a cheap ice cream to cool off. That was it. Nothing big. Nothing spectacular. But for some reason, almost exactly 10 years after it happened, this memory came back this morning and brought with it many of the emotions I was having at that time and with it yet another realization of what that time in my life has meant to me.

It makes me think of what Elder Bednar taught a few years back:

"This afternoon I want to describe and discuss a spiritual impression I received a few moments before I stepped to this pulpit during the Sunday morning session of general conference last October. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf had just finished speaking and had declared his powerful witness of the Savior. Then we all stood together to sing the intermediatehymn that previously had been announced by President Gordon B. Hinckley. The intermediate hymn that morning was “Redeemer of Israel” (Hymns, no. 6).

Now, the music for the various conference sessions had been determined many weeks before—and obviously long before my new call to serve. If, however, I had been invited to suggest an intermediate hymn for that particular session of the conference—a hymn that would have been both edifying and spiritually soothing for me and for the congregation before my first address in this Conference Center—I would have selected my favorite hymn, “Redeemer of Israel.” Tears filled my eyes as I stood with you to sing that stirring hymn of the Restoration.

Near the conclusion of the singing, to my mind came this verse from the Book of Mormon: “But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance” (1 Ne. 1:20).

My mind was drawn immediately to Nephi’s phrase “the tender mercies of the Lord,” and I knew in that very moment I was experiencing just such a tender mercy. A loving Savior was sending me a most personal and timely message of comfort and reassurance through a hymn selected weeks previously. Some may count this experience as simply a nice coincidence, but I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are real and that they do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence. Often, the Lord’s timing of His tender mercies helps us to both discern and acknowledge them."

It is only in retrospect that I can start to see how important and influential those mission years were. Some of it certainly had to do with me learning to be out, away from my family and "being my own man". Of course it did. But it is much, much more than just that. I have many shortcomings. Many that I recognize and probably many that I don't. Regardless, I feel a desire (a desire that, hopefully on occasion at least, translates into action) to live the gospel. That desire started with righteous parents teaching me correct principals, but it solidified and has persisted largely because of what I felt and experienced as a missionary.

And it was riding my bike past an old corner market that reminded me.

I needed that….