Dad, Tell Me About the Time (69)

Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Have you ever been lost?

Only once, but I don’t think I was as lost as I thought I was at the time. I was probably four or five and we were in a strange town. I remember we were on a busy street, and I remember looking around me and I couldn’t find my parents. There were a lot of people, and I started to panic, I was scared, and I didn’t know what to do. I did have the good sense not to start running looking for them but that is what I wanted to do.

I just stood there frantically looking for someone I knew, and after just a minute or two my dad came and took my hand. I was so relieved but my dad didn’t seem at all concerned so I’m sure it wasn’t a big deal, but it was a major event in my young brain.

Which political party do you support?

Philosophically I support the Libertarian party but since they have no chance of winning, I vote Republican. My more conservative friends and family tell me I should vote Libertarian just to support their cause but I can’t bring myself to do that.

What it comes down to is that I support the guy who will promote the following:

A balanced budget                  Reduced spending

Secure borders                        Reduced taxes

Pro life                                    Reduced bureaucracy

Support the second amendment  

Revise the prison system

Less involvement in foreign affairs

Just to clarify a few things, I am pro life, but I would support abortion if the mother’s life were in danger. If it was safe to do so, I would encourage the mother to wait until the baby was viable and have a “C” section.

If the mother was raped, I would support an abortion, but I would encourage the mother to give birth and give the baby up for adoption.

In supporting the 2^nd amendment, I will grant that people with mental illnesses should not be allowed to have guns, and I would support background checks to watch for this. 

What is a little-known skill or talent you have?

I’m kind of an open book and not much about me is hidden. I can’t think of any “hidden” skills that I might have. The only thing that I can think of is that I like to draw. As a kid I used to draw cartoon characters from the Sunday funnies. They were actually pretty good, but I could not draw people or animals. As I got older, I didn’t draw so much but then Lisa signed me up for a painting class and I loved it. As long as I stayed away from people and animals, I think I did OK. I wish I had time to try that again.

Can you ride a bike?

While we lived on the farm, I never learned to ride a bike, but not long after we moved into town, Lester and I decided we needed to learn to ride bikes. We used Jackies’ bike, and because it was a girls bike, it was easier to start and stop.

We got pretty good at riding, but we were having a rough time learning to put the brakes on. These were the kind of brakes that you had to pedal backwards to stop.

We would walk the bikes to the top of our street and then coast down the hill on the sidewalk and turn into our driveway. We were going too fast to make the turn, so more often than not, we would crash into the fence. We did this over and over again until we finally got the hang of the brakes but by this time the fence was in pretty bad shape. Dad just took the fence down, and we never had a fence after that.

The next Christmas when we came down the stairs, there were two beautiful red bikes parked in the middle of the living room.

Dad, Tell Me About the Time (68)

Monday, September 15, 2025

What is something you feel you do well?

I think I am a good problem solver. If something isn’t working, I can usually figure out why. That is basically what I have done my entire career. I design a product and then build it, but then it doesn’t work. I have to be able to figure out why it doesn’t work. That is also true for things around the house. Some examples are, if a plug in the house all of the sudden has no power, I can follow the wiring back to where the problem is. When I was twelve, I rebuilt a lawn mower motor that wasn’t working. I fix cars all the time. I fix washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators and computers. You name it, if it is broken, I can usually fix it. The exception is software. I can rarely fix computer software problems.

Another thing that I think I do better than the average engineer is explain scientific concepts to the average person.

What hobbies do you enjoy?

I enjoy just about any noncompetitive activity that is done outdoors, hiking, running, walking, biking, water skiing, downhill skiing, cross country skiing, camping, swimming, in pools and in oceans, body boarding, gardening, and camping. I also enjoy photography and dancing.

Do you know how to swim?

Yes, I learned to swim when I was about eight years old.

Which Olympic event do you favor?

That is a tough one, I have mentioned that I’m not a big fan of sports, but when it comes to the Olympics, I enjoy watching all the events. I usually get most caught up in the ones where the USA (or Canada) is doing well. It doesn’t matter if it is swimming or gymnastics, I love the competition and the excitement of doing well.

I also love the backstories, so if there is an Olympian who has a compelling backstory, I love that person no matter what the sport. One example is the comeback of the bob sledder who was hit by a bob sled in a previous Olympics, and she made a huge comeback and she medaled.

Dad, Tell Me About the Time (67)

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Do you have any allergies?

Not really, when I was a teenager, I bought a wool jacket, and it made my arms itch terribly and I’d get welts on my arms. I was eventually diagnosed with a wool allergy. It wasn’t bad and all I did was wear long-sleeved shirts with that coat. The wool was very rough and I’m fine if I wear a finely woven wool jacket. Like a wool suit. In reality, I know I have dermographic skin and I believe I was reacting to the rough wool.

Here is the definition of dermographia:

Dermatographia is a skin condition characterized by the development of raised, red welts (wheals) in response to pressure or scratching.

The doctor who figured it out took the cap of his pen and wrote his initials on my arm. Within two minutes his initials were a raised welt on my arm that looked remarkably like a scar. Dermographia can be quite fun, especially if you’re bored. It does itch though so I don’t do it often. As I’ve gotten older it isn’t as pronounced either, but it was amazing as a teenager and young adult.

Have you ever ridden a horse?

I started riding a horse as a young teenager at the Lybbert family reunions in East Castle just north of Waterton. I have ridden quite a bit since then.

What gave me the most confidence on a horse was one time the kids were riding their horses into this deep pool in the creek. My horse refused to go until Uncle Lloyed came up behind me, slapped the horse on his rump and yelled, “get on in there” or something to that effect.

The horse reared up on his hind legs, pawed the air and then jumped into the pool and swam to the other side. I stayed on the horse, and I’ve never been too worried on a horse since then.

In times of trouble in your life, who did you turn to for advice or help?

For the most part I don’t ask for advice or help. That is probably a bad weakness but with big decisions or serious trouble I just keep it between me and the Lord. I don’t remember ever talking about my career or problems with my parents. Now that I’m married, I do of course talk to Lisa about things that affect us as a couple, but my personal problems, worries or concerns I keep to myself. I guess my answer would be that I turn to the Lord. I take every decision, fear, or concern to the Lord.

Have you ever had a serious illness?

Not that I remember. I’ve been pretty healthy. I should clarify that by saying that without modern medicine I would be blind and deaf and crippled.

I had surgery to correct my strabismus (eyes), I had surgery to replace my stapes (ears), and I had surgery to fix my meniscus (knee).

What is one of the craziest things you’ve ever done?

I’ve done so many crazy things that I would have a hard time picking one. I guess I would have to say that putting touch powder it a guy’s locker in high school. I picked that incident because that would probably put me in jail if I did it today. Let me cut and paste that story from an earlier post.

By far my favorite touch powder story is Jeff Gregson. Jeff was a bully who tormented me mercilessly in high school. By the time I got to high school, most people had matured to the point that no one teased me anymore and life was for the most part pretty good. The one exception was Jeff Gregson.

Jeff was still quite immature, and he loved to tease me every chance he got. To make things worse, he was very popular and always had the prettiest girlfriends. One bit of satisfaction is that his girlfriend ended up marrying a nerd in the end. Kind of like Lisa did, she was very popular in high school. I digress.

I decided to get my revenge on Jeff in the only way I knew how. I took a huge piece of my touch powder to school. Understand that a piece of this stuff the size of a BB will scare the wits out of you. Something the size of a pea will make your ears ring. I took a piece the size of a marble. During math class I asked to be excused, and I put my little bomb into Jeff Gregson’s locker.

After class I rushed out into the hallway to relish in my revenge. For my kids in California, when I say hallway, I'm not talking about the outdoor "hallways" that we have in our schools, this is indoors, it's dark and dingy and lined on both sides with metal lockers from floor to ceiling. They are crowded with so many people that you have a difficult time wedging your way through to your next class. The noise is also deafening with everyone talking.

Amid this chaos, Jeff opened his locker door and threw his book up onto the top shelf where my surprise was waiting. The explosion was extremely loud and greatly magnified by the rows of metal lockers that continued to resonate long after the initial shock wave.

Everyone went deathly silent, and the only sound was the sustained high-pitched ringing that was in my ears or perhaps it was coming from the rows of metal lockers. As the high-pitched ringing sound began to fade away Jeff broke the silence with a very loud "HOLY SH*T".

Cardston of course was a Mormon town with at least 90% of the students being Mormon. That exclamation just added to the shock on everyone's faces. It was one of my proudest moments, but unfortunately, I didn't dare claim credit for fear of reprisal. I will claim credit now; I scared the crap out of Jeff Gregson.

Do you like to dance?

I love to dance. When I was a freshman at BYU I audited a ballroom dance class. I did it for fun and not for credit. Since BYU had twice as many girls as it did men, they would take any guy who would go, and were happy to have me even if I was only auditing. I learned a lot of dances but the only ones I remember are the waltz (which I already knew), cha cha, tango, Latin hustle and swing dancing.

I made sure that each of my kids learned how to swing dance and they all still love it.

Ben & Sharley

Monday, September 2, 2025

Forty three years ago at this moment, Lisa was in full on labor and not a happy girl. Sometime around noon, our first born child arrived and we were both ecstatic. Happy Birthday Kira!

Right now Kira and Evan are on the road driving to Auburn, Alabama to drop Evan off at college. It has been a very hard week for her and I hope her and Evan can have a great day even though they are away from her family. They are at Brandons today so I hope she can have a good day.

We just finished a great long weekend. Ben and Sharley were going to bring their family out for the Fourth of July holiday but complications with the foster system prevented them from bringing all of the girls, so this was a makeup day.

They arrived late on Friday evening and went promptly to bed. We started the day Saturday with a pancake breakfast. 

At one point in the morning I heard actual music coming from the piano. When grandkids are visiting, it is usually one of the pre-recorded songs in the piano blasting at full volume but these were simple, but pretty songs. Who knew that ___ could play the piano. I loved it.

After a relaxed morning we headed to the beach. We went to Terra Maar beach which I don’t ever remember going to before. We had to hike down a cool mini slot canyon to get there and while I thought that was the best part of the beach, some of the kids were less than thrilled.

Coming down the trail a group of people heading up the trail got Freddie all freaked out by telling us how dangerous the trail was. That kind of got him off to a bad start, but once Sharley pulled out the kite, he quickly returned to his happy self.

Jack and I would catch waves together. Some times we ended up bumping into each other.

Everyone loves Grandma

The weather was amazing.

Thank goodness for the kite. After that, it didn’t take long before Freddie joined everyone in the fun.

If you get the right water depth, pulling little kids on a board has close to zero friction.

There were some good waves for boogie boarding.

Does Jack look like he loves boogie boarding? He’s pretty good.

Kit would rather stick with the sand.

The weather was amazing, but eventually we were all completely tired out we headed back to the house and mom and I finished up some tasks that needed to be done while Bens family headed to Belmont Park. It sounds like the kids all had a blast.

Kit brought me a stack of books and wanted me to read to her.

The kids have come to associate our house with lemonade and that is the first thing they wanted to do. For the first round of lemonade, Jack, Freddie, ___ and ___ made a double batch of lemonde. A huge portion of that was spread all over the kitchen. For Sunday dinner we made a second batch and that was mostly just ___ and I.

On Sunday while we were at church Ben and his family took the kids to the Delmar beach. Freddie liked that beach much better than the Terra Maar beach.

After dinner we gave the kids several options of things to do and they all opted to head up to the park. We had a lot of fun and stayed there until it started to get dark at which point we headed home. This is when they wanted to do some of the other options we had given them earlier. They were not happy that it was now time for bed.

I love Kits hair in this picture.

There were no more swings available so ___ offered to go doubles with Kit.

Ben is teaching Freddie how he can pump the swing to go higher without needing someone to push him. He caught on rather quickly.

Monday was Labor Day so we had a relaxed morning and then kissed all the kids and said goodbye. It was good to see them.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Up unit 1974 single women couldn't have a credit card under their own name.

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Dad, Tell Me About the Time (66)

Friday, August 29, 2025

Have you ever experienced a natural disaster?

Not really, living in California we do feel an earthquake once in a while, but it has never done more than rattle the cupboards. The “Northridge” earthquake on January 17, 1994, at 04:30:55 PST woke Lisa and I up but while it was a major earthquake, it did nothing more than rattle our closet doors. The epicenter for that earthquake was near Vicky Conrads (Cormack) home in Woodland Hills. It did a lot of damage. There are only two other events in my life that might be considered natural disasters.

We have had two wildfires that have forced us to evacuate but while we know several people who lost their houses we were never in any kind of danger.

The only other “natural” disaster would have been in was the spring of 1990 while living in Rosemary. I’m guessing at the year, but it was close to 1990. We had just experienced a major spring snowstorm. It was one of those storms where it is very wet snow and you get a LOT of icicles.

The power was out but George Riel and I headed in to work anyway. We noticed that a lot of trees had been brought down by all the ice, but we had only gotten a couple of miles down the road when we noticed that the power line was down across the road. It was hanging about 18” above the ground and George nearly ran right into it. We drove around the power line and eventually got to work only to find that the power was out at Global as well. We could do little at work without power, so George and I headed home.

Listening to the radio we learned that the storm had brought down hundreds of miles of high voltage power lines all across southern Alberta and that it would take a week before power was fully restored. A small town like Rosemary could be without power for even longer. We packed up everything in the fridge and put blankets on top of our freezer and headed to mom and dads for a week.

List all the musical instruments you play.

Today the only musical instruments I can play are my lips. I can whistle and make a trumpet sound. In the past I have done the following.

From eight years old until about ten, I took piano lessons. I never got very good, but I still understand the basics and could play a simple song with a lot of practice.

In my first year of high school (grade ten) I took band. About a year before I started learning a tenor saxophone because mom happened to have one. I don’t know where it came from. I got to the point that I could play simple tunes. 

Once in band, they switched me to a trombone. 

I got to the point that I could play simple tunes on that and then they decided they needed a second baritone and switched me to that. 

I got pretty good at it and even marched in the Magrath Cardston Marching Band. It was fun and I enjoyed it but in my Junior year I had the option of taking shop classes such as wood shop, auto shop and drafting. That was the end of my musical career.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

If I could retire today, I would continue to do exactly what I am doing today. I love to design and build things. Since I already do that for eight hours a day, in my spare time I love to read, run, bike, go to the beach, garden and anything like that.

If you received a gift of a billion dollars, how would you spend it?

That’s easy, in this order I would…

1) Give half of it to Uncle Sam
2) Pay off my house
3) Let mom retire
4) Buy a fully equipped shop and continue doing exactly what I am doing now
5) I would pay off all my kids houses and get them in their dream houses, within reason, no mansions here
6) I would set up a fund where my kids and grandkids could write me a proposal for starting a business and if it passed certain criteria, I would fund their business.

Dad, Tell Me About the Time (65)

Thursday, August 28, 2025

What is your favorite country?

That is a tough one to answer, I guess I’ll say something about each of my favorites.

Canada is obviously my home and perhaps my favorite country, but it is also the most beautiful country I have been to. The people are good, but it also has the worst weather.

United States is also beautiful, but has the best standard of living of any place I’ve been. The weather (in San Diego at least) is amazing. The opportunities are endless, and the people are good for the most part.

Europe has so much history, but the houses are cold and damp in the winter and hot and muggy in the summer.

Philippines is probably the most beautiful place I have seen. It is a jungle, and I love jungles. To be fair, the one time I was in the Philippines I was staying in a luxury hotel in Cebu surrounded by well-manicured beaches and I had people waiting on me hand and foot.

Korea is the Asian country that is most like the US. They have technology, friendly people and their buildings have good heating and air conditioning. It is probably my favorite Asian country.

Which States have you visited?

This is going to be tough. I will do the best that I can. I will also add Canadian provinces to the list.

Alberta 

Montana

Arizona

British Columbia
Utah 

Idaho

Yukon

Saskatchewan
Nevada

California

Washington 

Oregan
Ontario 

Texas

Nebraska 

South Dakota
Wyoming 

Colorado 

Iowa 

Wisconsin
Illinois

New Mexico

Indiana

Michigan
Ohio 

Mississippi 

Georgia 

Tennessee
Alabama 

New York 

Maine

Maryland
New Jersey

Florida 

Hawaii

I think that adds up to 35 states and provinces out of 60 possible. I suppose I need to do some more traveling.

Dad, Tell Me About the Time (64)

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU?

Have you ever snow- or water-skied?

I have done both and I love both.

What kinds of things do you like to make?

I love to create anything technical. I am most fond of mechanical things but chemistry and electronics also interest me. As I child I made an electric go-cart with the starter motor from a car, rebuilt lawn mower engines, car engines, made and distilled alcohol, made gun powder, touch powder and I made a pipe bomb.

As an adult I had fewer projects since raising children took up most of my spare time, but I still did all the maintenance on our old cars, even replacing the engine on one of them and completely rebuilding the motor of another one. I built a reactor to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, made a potato canon, and I automated my house with an Amazon echo. My latest project was to rebuild our deck and rebuild our back yard with pavers and retaining walls.

Which professional/amateur team do you follow?

As I said earlier, I have no interest in competitive sports and that includes watching them as well as playing them. What I do love to follow is new technology and the companies that create it. If we viewed tech companies as professional teams, then my team would be SpaceX. Just last night they launched Starship 10 meaning their tenth attempt at successfully launching and landing a Super Heavy Starship. Everything went perfectly, but instead of capturing the booster and the Ship they hovered over the water as if they were going to capture them and then let them fall into the ocean. It was quite amazing.

Have you ever been in an accident? What happened?

Nope, never have.

Which bones have you broken?

Well, up until a few years ago I could have bragged that I’ve never broken any bones. Unfortunately, while visiting Brandon, I tripped over the curb and dislocated my ring finger. We all thought that it was only dislocated, but x-rays showed that I did have a tiny fracture in one of my joints. There was no cast, and all I did was buddy tape it for a few weeks.

What are the worst injuries you have endured?

That is a tough one, I’ve never been seriously hurt, but perhaps the most dramatic accident was on my bike when I was around fifteen years old. I was coming down the hill from Cameron Falls in Waterton, and I was going fast. I went past the swimming pool and turned into the swimming pool parking lot which would have been roughly straight across the street from Justins cabin. I was going so fast that my bike launched into the air and I landed about a foot from the curb that separated one parking lot from another. It was as if everything went into slow motion and obviously, I couldn’t steer while I was air borne. I remember thinking that this is going to hurt.

My bike hit the curb, and I flew completely over the median and landed in the other parking lot. I skidded across the asphalt and ripped the sleeve off my shirt, scraped the entire side of my arm from my wrist to my shoulder and scrapped the side of my head. I was in a lot of pain.

I made it home and mom cleaned me up the best she could and while the pain went away in a few days, I had scabs all over my arm and face for a couple of weeks. It was embarrassing.

List the countries you have visited.

I created a list once but I’m too lazy to go find it so I will do my best from memory.

Canada 

United States 

Mexico 

Belgium

England 

Ireland 

Wales

Scotland
Holland 

France

Italy

Germany
China 

Japan 

Hong Kong 

Philippines
Thailand 

South Korea 

North Korea 

Jamaica
Bahamas 

Cayman Islands

That’s all I can come up with right now. Perhaps I should explain North Korea. I visited a South Korean company one time and they took me on a tour of the DMZ. It was fascinating but I have no time to talk about that right now.

We ended up on a road that crossed the river and took us to the North Korean border crossing. The driver was about wetting his pants, but he couldn’t turn around until we got to the other side of the bridge with the guards all pointing their big guns at us.

The driver explained his mistake, and they let us turn around and go back. I don’t know for sure that I was on North Korean ground, but it was north of the river and I’m pretty sure that is North Korea.