The CDC Says Utahns are Healthy and Skinny, but Have Lousy Mental Health

StateMaster is an interesting and useful site. It lets you see a broad variety of data as it relates to the U.S. and to individual states. You can see where your state ranks in the U.S. for many different measurements.

But like all statistics, StateMaster’s figures have to be taken with a grain of salt. My statistics professor was fond of saying that unless you knew the methods used to gather, filter, and derive the data behind a statistic, the number was essentially meaningless. He warned that without this essential background knowledge we tend to lend unwarranted credibility to statistics cited in by media organizations, companies, academicians, governments, and others.

I happened to click on this StateMaster report showing Utah’s health status ranking. How is it that Utah ranks as #7 in the nation on the health index? StateMaster doesn’t say. And the links it provides to its main source, the Kaiser Family Foundation’s statehealthfacts.org site are all broken. Fortunately you can get to the right place rather easily on your own.

It is unsurprising that Utah has among the nation’s lowest rates for smoking, alcohol consumption, alcohol related fatalities, illicit drug use, and sexually transmitted diseases. And that it has the nation’s highest birth rate. A little more surprising to me is the obesity rate of 18% (making Utah 43 of 51) and 83.1% for physical exercise (2 of 52). Are Utahns really that slender and exercise oriented?

I became more suspicious when the report said that Utah’s prevalence of poor mental health was 41.4%; the worst in the nation. While this may fit a stereotype fostered in certain circles, it doesn’t seem to pass the smell test. Are over 40% of Utahns actually mentally unhealthy?

I started digging into the sources of the health data, and found that most of it came from the Centers for Disease Control Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. The surveillance system is nothing more than an annual telephone survey.

Many of the figures cited on the StateMaster site come from the 2007 survey. I’m not sure why some figures come from different years. The CDC applies various weighting factors to the results. A few of those factors are explained here, but it is not at all clear how Utah’s or any other state’s statistics were actually derived. The CDC provides this document that delves into data quality, but it doesn’t really treat my question.

Telephone surveys are notoriously faulty. They do provide some value for tracking opinion trends, but they are terribly unreliable at pinning down hard facts. The main problem is that respondents have no incentive to treat questions seriously or to answer accurately. The result for the respondent isn’t much different either way. If something serious, such as financial reward, future status, or a personal reputation were riding on the answers, you can bet that you’d see significantly different answers.

Then you have to ask whether the population of people willing to answer an extensive CDC telephone survey closely approximates the general population of a state. It is reasonable to assume that respondents are more likely to be people with telephone land lines and are less likely to have caller-ID. They apparently have enough time on their hands to answer the extensive survey. Are most people in the state like that?

Next you have to question the usefulness of the information you get from these people. When the CDC survey taker asks how much the person weighs without shoes on (question #12.11), how useful is the information received? It is wholly unverifiable. It might mean that Utahns are lighter than their counterparts in most states. Or it could mean that Utahns are more likely to lie about their weight than people in other states. We don’t know. It would be silly to treat these answers as if they had serious scientific value.

The quality of the survey questions is a major factor. The physical exercise statistic comes from a single unverifiable question (#4.1):

“During the past month, other than your regular job, did you participate in any physical activities or exercises such as running, calisthenics, golf, gardening, or walking for exercise?”

Possible answers are Yes, No, Don’t know / Not sure, and Refused. How would you answer the question? Even if you answered yes, do you get anywhere near enough physical exercise? Respondents’ answers to this question do not provide any serious indication of a population’s level of physical activity.

Getting back to the mental health issue. Section 16 of the questionnaire includes 10 questions about mental health. Several are related to stress and/or depression. Some are about mental health perceptions. The first and third questions try to pinpoint now nervous and fidgety you have felt in the last 30 days. Despite the answer classifications, these questions are very subjective. In fact, all of the mental health questions are highly subjective.

Although StateMaster says that 41.4% of Utah survey respondents (as weighted) reported “poor mental health,” the Kaiser Foundation site, which is supposed to be the data source, pins the number at 38.1%. Even at this lower number, it can only be assumed that the definition of poor mental health is so broad as to include almost any temporary negative emotional perception; a position that would please those in the mental health activism industry.

As with the questions about weight, the value of the mental health questions relative to other geographic areas is dubious. The answers are completely unverifiable. One person’s feeling “restless” on “most” days may be analogous to another person’s sense of restlessness on “some” or few days. Or not. We simply don’t know. As with questions about weight, the answers provided by respondents have little scientific value.

The CDC survey can be a useful tool for tracking trends in a population’s opinions about some health related issues. But there is too much ambiguity in most of the data gathered to provide any real value with respect to geographical ranking.

The StateMaster site pegs Utah at #7 on the “Health Index.” This index is simply a bunch of factors that a group of elites with various unapparent motivations decided was important. Given that the data plugged into the index was poorly controlled and often ambiguous, we should assume nothing more than entertainment value from this ranking and from the rankings of the categories that make up the index.

The Meaning of Memorial Day

We visited my Father-in-Law’s grave on Saturday afternoon. The weather was relatively pleasant. The cemetery was filled with colorful flowers. There were a number of people standing in groups around graves. Some seemed to be thoughtful. A few appeared to be enjoying one anothers’ company.

Yesterday we visited my Father’s grave along with a number of family members. The weather was very nice. We placed flowers and chatted. Some stood, while others sat on the lawn. Many other families were doing the same.

Dad’s grave is less than a mile from my home. I frequently stop by. But other family members that don’t live as close get fewer opportunities to visit. My Dad-in-Law’s grave is across the county, so we don’t visit as often.

I quite enjoyed remembering and memorializing my Dad and my Dad-in-Law. Both were magnificent human beings.

Large swaths of the cemetery where my Father-in-Law is buried have flat, ground level grave markers that can easily be mowed over. This gives the appearance of relatively unobstructed rolling green lawns. The feeling seems pleasant to me.

My Dad is buried in a municipal cemetery that was founded by early settlers. The place is filled with a broad variety of monuments and markers of various, shapes, sizes, and colors. The job of the caretaking staff is much more involved at this cemetery, given that there are few markers that can simply be mowed over. Each marker requires custom trimming. But the place looked fantastic. The staff had done good work.

I have many fond memories of this municipal cemetery. I used to walk through it on the way to and from school. When my kids were younger, I walked them up and down the cemetery’s roads in a stroller. They loved it. I enjoyed the sparse traffic and the rarity of dogs. I know where the most unique monuments are, and I was at least somewhat acquainted with quite a number of grave occupants.

There are several competing versions of the details surrounding the founding of Memorial Day. But most sources seem to agree that it was instituted to memorialize soldiers killed during the Civil War.

Over the past couple of months, I have been very slowly watching Ken Burns’ documentary on the Civil War. And I do mean slowly. Last night I took a rare opportunity to watch an entire episode that covers roughly 1863; the year that the war turned in the Union’s favor after it seemed like the Union could do little right for over two years.

Burns does a good job of mixing moments of valiancy and triumph with the incredible horrors of deprivation, depravation, violence and carnage that were part of that war. As the episode concluded with a reading of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, I was left in a somber mood.

The extreme destruction of life and property seemed so senseless on one hand. But the obliteration of the American institution of human slavery carries an incalculable value, even if one assumes that slavery would have dissipated organically. From my comfortable seat in the 21st Century, it certainly seems as if all of this could have been avoided had any one of a handful of individuals chosen differently.

Given the ongoing controversy about the war — a series of disagreements that will far exceed the lifetime of my future great-grandchildren — I realized that I wasn’t going to resolve the matter in my mind at the moment. But I did comprehend that, regardless of viewpoint, the Civil War was a significant historical event that helped define what it means to be an American. It helped characterize what the United States of America is and what it means.

Thankfully, each of us still has the freedom to arrive at that understanding on our own, though our results may differ.

Do Memorable Graduation Speeches Exist?

A decade ago when I finished my master degree, I was selected as the student speaker at commencement. I had to submit my prepared remarks to an advisory board for approval. The board issued its approval without remark.

I painstakingly crafted my nine-minute speech. (I had a 10-minute time limit.) I selected each phrase with care. My wife helped me rework clumsy sentences and refine structure. I practiced the speech over and over again to get my diction, intonation, emphasis, and body language just the way I wanted — much as a vocal artist would practice to perform a song.

When the day arrived, I sat on the stage of the auditorium in my graduation robes, surrounded by faculty dressed in similar robes. I noted that others that were to spend some time at the lectern were not wearing their mortar boards, so I waited to don mine until the point arrived where graduates were to move their tassels from one side of the board to the other.

The keynote speaker that day was Rocky Anderson, who was then in his first year as mayor of Salt Lake City. Mayor Anderson’s speech was OK, but it was frankly rather lifeless. He droned on about how those of us that had been so blessed by life had an obligation to give back to the community — a sentiment with which I agree. The Mayor ducked out after his speech.

I could tell from audience response that my speech kept most listeners engaged. Among other things, I talked about the value of learning how to learn. I made a few minor stumbles, but overall the speech went very well. I was so relieved when it was over that I almost failed to appreciate the audience’s magnanimous response.

After the conclusion of the commencement exercises, I received many compliments from faculty, graduates, and other attendees. One seasoned faculty member said that she had never heard such a fine student commencement speech in decades of listening to such speeches.

Many remarked that the quality of my speech dramatically exceeded that of Mayor Anderson’s remarks. I explained that from overhearing a conversation prior to the event, I knew that this was the Mayor’s sixth speech of the week and that he left early to attend yet another engagement where he was to speak. The Mayor’s commencement address was just another speaking engagement on his busy schedule. My speech, on the other hand, was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I was determined to make the most of it.

In this season of commencement exercises, I am reflecting on the various graduation ceremonies I have attended over the years. I can’t remember who spoke at most of these events, let alone remember anything that was said. Have I just amalgamated these various valuable messages into my subconscious, or have most of them been simply vapid platitudes?

I recall one university commencement where one of the speakers was an aged, long retired math professor. I remember two significant factors. One was his explanation of the settling in bushels of tomatoes that occurred when as a boy his family hauled tomatoes from the farm to the market. The height of the tomatoes in the baskets was always lower upon arrival because the jostling caused the tomatoes, which had been touching on an average of five points to the basket and other tomatoes, to touch on six points. The other thing I remember is that his speech went on way, way too long.

I’m really having difficulty remembering much else that has been said by speakers at commencement exercises I have attended. Am I unusual in this, or is this experience more general? If the latter is the case, I think that it would be wise for commencement speakers to focus on three things: brevity, entertainment, and dignity.

While it is actually possible to speak too briefly, there has rarely been a case of this in recorded history. Making your remarks concise will force you to focus on saying the most important things.

Entertainment is more than cracking jokes. It is keeping the audience captivated and engaged. It is charming and delighting your audience. And that’s really what you want to do at an occasion like graduation. There is no need for academia to be dull and boorish.

Despite a general societal trend toward casualness and declining decorum, official celebrations of major life events merit a certain level of respectability. As important occasions lose respectability, people have less reason to regard them with seriousness. It is quite possible to be both entertaining and dignified. Even if society in general is moving away from this model, there is still a broad appreciation for class. Your tasteful speech may not be long remembered, but you will feel better about it.

Many of us will sit through a number of commencement exercises during our lifetimes. If you are ever called on to speak at one of these events, you should at the very least do your best to make the event more bearable for the audience. You can do this by making your remarks brief, entertaining, and dignified. After all, that’s the kind of speech you would want to hear yourself.

An Entertaining Vocal Eclipse

About a week and a half ago my local Boy Scout council held a council-wide scouting event in conjunction with the centennial of the BSA (1910-2010). Boy Scout, Varsity, and Venturing units were invited to camp overnight. Cub Scouts and families of anyone involved in the BSA program were invited to come the following morning and spend the day enjoying a broad variety of activities. Thousands attended.

On Friday evening, I was surprised to hear that the a capella group Eclipse would be performing. Our family has a couple of the group’s albums that we quite enjoy. Accordingly, my three older boys and I wandered on over to the event stage at the appointed hour and found ourselves thoroughly delighted by the show.

As soon as the group was announced, the music started. Then one by one, the six members of the group came up the steps and out onto stage, performing as they went. Each was dressed in an official scouting uniform. (Five are Eagle Scouts. They later even announced their BSA unit numbers.) And they were great.

My #2 son is fairly accomplished at beatboxing, so he was enthralled. After the performance, he took an opportunity to chat with Kevin Jones, the group’s vocal ‘percussionist.’

(Disclaimer: I do not personally know any members of Eclipse and stand to gain nothing from this post.)

Each member of Eclipse has a tremendous talent. Their vocal arrangements blend all six voices together into captivating numbers that are enhanced by stage choreography. These guys move around a lot. They’re not just standing in place and singing. Having sung most of my life, I can attest to how difficult it is to maintain vocal clarity and enunciation while moving energetically.

One of my favorite numbers was the group’s rendition of Owner of a Lonely Heart, where tenor Paul Hansen performed the entire main bass vamp line simply by buzzing his lips. (I wonder what his lips felt like by the end of the song.) While the song has never been on my tops list, the innovative arrangement and execution made for great entertainment.

The whole show was pure fun. The youth loved it. My three sons that attended the show with me loved it. I’ve attended a lot of scouting events during my lifetime. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything as superbly entertaining as part of a scouting event. I’d definitely suggest taking an opportunity to see Eclipse perform live. You’ll be glad you did.

Goodbye Soccer

When I was a kid there were three little league sports available in my town. There was baseball in the spring and summer, football in the fall, and basketball in the winter. It seemed like all boys played baseball and lots of boys played football. Basketball seemed to be somewhat more exclusive. You had to have at least some talent for it.

All of these were male only sports. I knew that older girls played softball because I sometimes saw them practicing on fields adjacent to our practice fields. But if there were little league sports for younger girls, I was oblivious to them. I had only brothers.

I hated team sports as a kid. I have never been any good at any game involving a ball. But I played because that’s what my brothers and all of my friends did. My baseball summers consisted of dreading to go to bat for the inevitable strike out and seemingly endless hours standing in right field where the ball seldom came. I swatted gnats and picked dandelions, unconscious of what was happening in the game.

Mom and Dad signed me up for football when I was eight, figuring that I was just like my older brothers. The team was huge. I was so bad that I was fourth string right offensive guard. I showed up game after game, but never played. That was OK because I didn’t want to play anyway. But the coach put me in during the last quarter of the final game of the season. Dad, who was watching the game from the car, had fallen asleep by then. I never signed up for football again.

Once a boy in my town turned 12, his little league days were finished. He could play church sports — softball in the summer and basketball in the winter. He could play school sports — football, basketball, baseball, wrestling, tennis — but only if he was good enough. I heard of a few kids playing on competition league teams, but these were rare in my area back then.

I never even heard of anyone playing youth soccer until I was 17. The first time I actually saw kids play soccer (except as part of gym class) was when I was a young adult living in Norway. By the time I was a father, however, it seemed like all kids played soccer. Plus there were lots of other types of athletics available for both boys and girls (and mixed). Many sports offered competition leagues.

Although I had detested playing sports as a kid, I vowed that as a father I would give my kids the opportunity to play and I would support them. I didn’t want my kids to miss out just because I didn’t care for sports. But I also vowed that I would never make any child of mine play sports if he didn’t want to.

We signed my oldest son up for AYSO soccer when he turned five. (We have never done any soccer other than AYSO.) Back then they fielded a fairly large team on a fairly large field. The kids ran around in a big bunch, all trying to kick the ball at the same time. One kid on each side played goalie. My son was often one of those that was off somewhere on the field picking dandelions.

Toward the end of my son’s second season, he was put in as goalie. An opposing player with a good leg (but lousy aim) kicked a ball right into my son’s gut. The team cheered him for his heroic save, but it had all been an accident. He thought he was going to pass out. At any rate, he was done with soccer. He later played baseball for a couple of seasons, but then decided he was done with all team sports.

My second son was far more adept at soccer. He seemed to enjoy it. Year after year he kept coming back. He played well in the back and mid-field, but was never great as a forward. When he got older, his teammates became aware of his goalie abilities. He didn’t mind playing in the goal, but he didn’t want to be there full time. When he was 16, he received an ankle injury as the result of an illegal action by a non-registered player. It took six months of physical therapy to fully recover. Although he liked soccer, he decided that he was done with it. He also played baseball several seasons, but eventually ran into enough time conflicts that he quit.

I was impressed with the soccer setup when son #3 started playing. They had small fields. Each team fielded three players at a time. There were no goalies. The coaches were on the field refereeing and coaching players. I thought it was a great way to learn. But my boy wouldn’t focus on the game. The next thing you know, he’d be talking to the coach of the opposing team about Pokemon or something. About halfway through the season, he simply refused to play anymore.

The following season, my #3 boy decided he wanted to play again. My wife relented and signed him up. He actually seemed to be developing well. Then after the best quarter of soccer I had ever seen him play, he came up to me and said, “Dad, I’m not going to play anymore.” It was his turn to sit out a quarter anyway. But when it was his turn to go back in, he refused. He said, “I just don’t want to play soccer anymore,” and he was serious. He did baseball for a few seasons and even tried basketball once, but he eventually decided that team sports were not for him.

My #4 son seemed to enjoy soccer, except that he detested the games eating into his Saturday morning cartoon and leisure time. He played for a few seasons, but then he decided that the game was too much of an imposition on his valuable time. He did baseball for a couple of seasons, but then he started developing problems with migraine headaches that would completely wipe him out. The headaches often came on during baseball practices or games, which were held on a shade free field. Maybe the heat had something to do with it. Anyway, he quit baseball.

My daughter has played baseball, but didn’t sign up this year. She was never as aggressive as some other girls on her soccer teams, but she has held her own. I felt like she played quite well this season. When soccer signup started a few weeks ago, however, she asked that we not register her for next season. Even after last week’s final game of the season, where she scored well, she expressed relief that she won’t be playing soccer again next season.

As I walked off the soccer field a few days ago, I realized that it was the last time I would be attending an AYSO soccer game as a parent. The next time I attend will be as a grandparent. That will likely be a number of years down the road. Despite my aversion to team sports, I have attended a lot of soccer games over the years to support my children. My wife has coached some of our children’s teams.

My wife and I are both happy that this phase is done. But oddly, it leaves me with a somewhat wistful feeling.

Is Grounding Children from Church Activities Good Discipline?

The neighborhood where I grew up was a new development full of entry-level middle class houses. That meant lots of young families and lots of children. There was never any shortage of kids to hang out with.

One member of my younger brother’s group of close friends dropped from the group in his teen years. After being widowed, this boy’s father married a woman who brought her own kids to the relationship. The dad and stepmother were decent, caring people that struggled with the challenges of blending two families into one.

All children need discipline. A common method used by parents is restriction of privileges. As the father of five children, I have found that this works better for some personality types than for others. To make it work at all, the restriction has to apply to something meaningful to the child.

My brother’s friend enjoyed attending scouting and church youth activities with his friends. His parents — trying to do their best under difficult circumstances — decided that grounding him and keeping him home from such activities was an effective disciplinary method. As a teenager, this seemed like a very wrong-headed approach to me. Shouldn’t parents be promoting the kinds of positive relationships the boy had at church and scouts?

It didn’t surprise me when this boy started hanging out with some pretty rough kids he knew from school. Before long he was involved in drugs and crime. He spent his young adult years satisfying his addictions, fathering children with various women, and getting in scrapes with the law. I hear that he eventually achieved some level of stability, but his once bright mind has been permanently limited by drug abuse.

I’m not saying that punishing kids by keeping them from church activities is going to turn them into druggies. I do, however, think that this method of discipline for this boy was part of a pattern that exacerbated certain life problems.

I was once teaching a merit badge to our Boy Scout troop as part of their weekly troop meeting. In the middle of the class, one boy’s father (who was a church leader) appeared and told the boy to come home with him. A few days later, this man explained that he had pulled his son from the class as punishment for the boy sassing his mother. He said that his son would be contacting me to set up a time to make up the missed merit badge requirements.

While I respect this man’s right to discipline his son, I admit that I was chagrined. The boy did set up an appointment. The dad saw this as a responsible approach. But the dad had disrespected my time. I am busy too. I had to take extra time away from my family to do for this boy what could have been done in a group setting with time I had already invested. I earnestly feel that this father could have found a different but effective disciplinary method.

This brings me to the question of the appropriateness of disciplining children by keeping them from weekly church and scouting activities. Attendance at these activities follows church leader counsel and brings blessings that cannot be had otherwise.

Where else are these kinds of positive relationships fostered? Where else do youth get this kind of positive mentoring from dedicated adult volunteers? What kind of message do parents send to their children when they purposefully prevent them from attending these weekly activities?

I would not say that there are never appropriate circumstances to keep children from attending church or scouting activities. After all, it is LDS doctrine that the church exists to support families in their pursuit of eternal life. And sometimes well meaning church leaders imprudently overschedule families. (That topic is worthy of its own post.) But I do question the value of grounding children from weekly church youth meetings as a method of discipline.

When I was a missionary, a recent convert to our church asked what members should do if they ever fell into sin. He asked, “Should they just stop attending?” We explained that Christ is the Good Physician — the Healer of souls — and that church is more of a treatment center for recovering sinners than a sanctuary for the perfected. I wonder if keeping children from church when they misbehave might not send the message that they should stay away from church if they sin.

Each parent is tasked with appropriately disciplining their children. I do not question the motives of parents that ground their children from attending church activities. I do, however, think that parents that use or consider using this method may want to consider the long-term effects of such a path.

Traffic Squeeze In North Ogden

Every city has transportation issues, and North Ogden is no exception. While there are a variety of problems, there is one that impacts my family on a daily basis. As with other towns that started out as small settlements, erstwhile farm lanes have developed into heavily used collector roads. This is the case with 2600 North.

Until just a few years ago, the west end of 2600 North terminated at 400 East, which is also known as Washington Blvd and is one of the main north-south routes through Weber County. Since long before I was a kid, the area around the intersection of 2600 North and Washington was part of North Ogden’s business district.

That area used to be mostly small family run businesses mixed with residential use. There has been a bank on one corner for more than half a century. There was a gas station for decades across the way. A 7-11 replaced some small shops years ago. One supermarket and another bank went up in the 1980s. Another supermarket went up in the late 90s. The last residence in the immediate vicinity of the intersection was torn down late last year.

You still don’t have to go very far east of Washington on 2600 North before it turns into a residential zone. But that’s part of the problem. North Ogden has grown significantly throughout my life. Much of the growth has been to the north and east of the intersection in question.

Since the middle of the last century, North Ogden has been chiefly a suburban bedroom community. Most of the people that live here don’t work here. Despite business growth, that is simply not going to change.

All of those homes that have been built to the east and northeast of 2600 North and Washington make for a vast amount of traffic passing through the intersection. Traffic on 2600 North is very heavy during high commute times each day. (You can cruise along the road on Sunday morning at 6:30 without encountering another vehicle.)

A few years ago, the old gas station was torn down and a 5-lane road was put in that connects 2600 North all the way out to the interstate exchange (and much further west). The result has been even more traffic passing through the intersection.

While the intersection has been improved, 2600 North is inadequate to handle its current traffic load. The first few blocks east of Washington were among the first residentialized parts of North Ogden. Projects over the years have widened 2600 North to the point that the road is quite close to the front porches of some of the homes in this stretch.

When cities face heavier traffic loads, they widen and improve roads where possible. They seek to spread traffic flow to other collector roads. All of this has been done with 2600 North, and yet the problem is still dire. It will only continue to get worse.

The only real solution to problem is to significantly widen 2600 North from two lanes with shoulders to five lanes with shoulders — matching the segment of the road west of Washington. The problem with this is that it would cost too much. The city would have to condemn property on at least one side of the road, and perhaps on both sides. The road would probably even end up consuming the current parking lot for the city building, library, and police station.

North Ogden is apparently making no plans for this type of road widening, since new construction has recently been approved and completed close to both sides of the road in recent years. Since widening is not likely to happen anytime soon, stopgap measures must be undertaken.

Last year the city added a concrete median on 2600 North between the west entrances to 7-11 and Wells Fargo Bank. Preventing left turns in and out of those driveways has improved safety, but it’s not enough.

UTA used to have its bus stop next to 7-11. Moving the stop half a block east has helped, but the stop still creates a huge traffic hazard. It is right in a squeeze zone where the road goes from two lanes to three without being any wider. (Shoulders are eliminated.) There are driveway approaches to businesses on both sides of the road in this stretch. Since it is an end-of-route stop, busses park there for long periods, often obstructing traffic and creating a visibility hazard.

The city needs to work with UTA to achieve a safer solution. While it is convenient for drivers and passengers to have a long stop near this intersection, the traffic hazard is unacceptable. This stop should become a quick stop only. Busses should remain there for less than a minute.

The city needs to consider extending the current concrete median to prevent left turns in and out of the east 7-11 and west Smith’s driveways. In fact, it might be reasonable to eliminate the west Smith’s driveway completely. Traffic would be funneled through the east driveway and through the driveways on Washington. When traffic is heavy, it is not even safe for vehicles to make right turns in and out of Smith’s west driveway on 2600 North, since no real shoulder exists and the driveway approach is too narrow to permit a turn close to the curb.

I invite our city’s legislators and executive to consider the worsening situation in this heavily used stretch of 2600 North. Planners need to prepare for eventual widening of the road. In the meantime, additional measures are needed to improve safety in the short term.

North Ogden's Beauty Pageant Battle

For decades the city of North Ogden has included a beauty pageant as part of its annual “Cherry Days” (July 4th) celebration. The pageant has been affiliated with the pageant industry that feeds into state and national contests.

Residents of two adjoining cities have been allowed to enter the pageant. Overall participation has declined in recent years. But more importantly for North Ogden citizens, the number of contestants coming from North Ogden itself has dropped significantly. Pageant winners in three of four recent years have come from neighboring cities that have paid nothing to help host the competition.

Personally, I do not care for the beauty pageant industry. It seems like a throwback to a less enlightened era. Our culture already focuses far too heavily on physical appearance. I question the value of promoting this kind of thing as a matter of public policy. While I understand cultural tradition, I do not see how a show like this improves our community’s quality of life. I would strongly discourage my daughter from participating in such exhibitions.

I know that pageant supporters bill these events as “scholarship pageants.” But if we are honest, we will admit that the quintessential elements of these spectacles are their sensually appealing factors. Without those, the pageant industry would dry up and blow away. With carnally gratifying displays intact, beauty pageants would continue even without the attachment of scholarships or other features that are added to lend respectability.

Still, I have no problem with beauty pageants as long as they are private affairs. I become concerned when my tax dollars are used to make me an unwilling supporter of these events. That has been the case in North Ogden.

Last year, the council allotted $9,600 for the pageant in this year’s budget. Over the past several months the city council has discussed the pageant and made new decisions about the expense. At its February budget retreat, the council decided to finance the pageant if at least eight contestants from North Ogden registered.

The deadline for registration was the council’s April 8 meeting. Pageant supporters signed eight participants by that date, but two dropped out. At a later council meeting in April, pageant supporters (including former contestants/winners and their mothers) showed up in force to lobby the council to fund the pageant this year. They claimed to have signed 16 participants. The council relented.

After reading some of these details in newspaper reports, it bothered me that the council had considered the $9,600 expense of taxpayer money worthwhile, even with only eight contestants. That amounts to spending $1,200 of taxpayer money per person for a fancy dress up party. “Self esteem” notwithstanding, that seems like an unbalanced taxpayer burden.

So I shot off an email to all five council members and the mayor expressing my concerns. I questioned whether there was any other budget item that transferred a sum that high to a private beneficiary for a totally nonessential service.

So far, two council members have contacted me. First I received a phone call from Wade Bigler. During our extensive chat, Mr. Bigler provided a number of details and clarifications about the matter of which I had been unaware. He followed up our discussion with an email.

Brent Taylor responded to my email with additional clarification. He included a PDF copy of the minutes of the February budget meeting, detailing the discussion of the pageant matter. Mr. Taylor’s explanation pretty much matched Mr. Bigler’s account.

I very much appreciate these two council members taking time to address my concerns. After all, $9,600 is not really a large budget item. We’re talking about roughly $2 per household per year. But when all of the ‘small’ expenditures are added up, it makes for a large chunk of the city budget. So I think it is important to see how council members address even these smaller items.

Both Mr. Bigler and Mr. Taylor feel that the pageant should be privately funded. However, Mr. Taylor felt that the city should at least partially fund the pageant for a couple of seasons so that supporters could have some lead time to develop private funding. From what I can gather, most other council members agreed with that sentiment.

However, Mr. Bigler noted the concerns about declining enrollment and winners coming from other cities. He proposed that the pageant be funded this year only if at least eight contestants from North Ogden signed up. This motion carried. But Mr. Bigler told pageant supporters that they were on their own for funding next year.

Following the council’s decision to fund the pageant, Mr. Bigler received information that caused him to suspect that pageant supporters had padded the number of contestants. After repeatedly requesting an actual list of committed contestants, the pageant manager supplied a list of only seven girls. With the nine others having evaporated, the city will not fund the pageant this year.

Mr. Bigler is insistent that pageant supporters could still run the event if they put in the effort to obtain private funding; something Mr. Bigler asserts would not be terribly difficult for them. I agree that pageant supporters should find private parties that are willing to pay for the pageant rather than lobbying the city for a share of limited taxpayer funds.

It is difficult to be an elected official with the authority to spend taxpayer money. When lobbyists come calling, the benefit of giving them a chunk of taxpayer money is very clear. With only $2 per household per year at stake, no taxpayers are going to show up to protest the transfer.

Benefits are concentrated while costs are diffused in these instances. It is easier to play the ‘good guy’ that ‘helps’ the people that are there plying you for cash. It’s difficult to be the fiscal disciplinarian that comes across as ‘mean’ and ‘stingy’ for trying to protect taxpayer interests without any assurance that taxpayers will care or even know about it.

I applaud elected officials that are willing to appear unpopular to keep government within its proper bounds. It is by doing this that we can be more certain that government will have adequate funding to handle its essential duties.

I will add updates if any council members contact me about the pageant issue.

Update: 5/19/2010
Council member Carl Turner contacted me about the pageant today. He noted that his sister won the pageant back around 1980, but that interest in the event has waned significantly since that time. Times have changed, and he thinks it’s time for the city to move on. He is not in favor of the city funding the pageant in the future.

Mr. Turner noted that he actually suggested de-funding the annual July 4th fireworks display due to the tight budget. He quipped, “I almost was tarred and feathered for saying that.”

Mind Games

A friend of mine told me today that when his four adult children were younger, he was constantly yelling at his son for terrorizing his younger sister. At a recent family dinner, my friend’s daughter admitted that in almost all of these incidents she was the antagonist. Once the parents were out of earshot, she would laugh at her brother for getting in trouble for something she had caused. My friend was astonished at this discovery.

A few years ago at a family gathering, my brothers and I discussed a number of incidents from our childhood that were poignant at the time they occurred, but that later seemed humorous. My Mom kept saying, “I never knew about that!”

In real life, I know that Mom was at least somewhat aware of some of these events at the time they occurred. But I suspect that nature has a way of blissfully burying certain memories that stem from the intense years of raising children.

It may also be that you get so numb from the antics of five boys that some things that would otherwise be significant kind of float above the layer of consciousness — perhaps because you’re so stretched out that you can’t do anything about it at the time anyway.

Kids sometimes think that parents are oblivious to what is going on. Other times they think that parents have an uncanny sixth sense to detect what is happening. As a parent of five children myself, I find that the extent of my awareness of everything going on in the family ebbs and flows. It is dependent on my capacities to comprehend it at any given moment.

Even when I am relatively aware, my actions in relationship to what is happening vary based on several factors. My ability and desire to deal with matters depends on how well I feel, how stressed I am, what I have going on, how readily my wife can respond, etc. Sometimes I purposefully stop myself from intervening in the hope that the kids will learn some valuable life skills from working it out themselves.

Given limited capacities, a parent must prioritize constantly. While consistency in parenting is a virtue, prioritization means that sometimes children will get away with things and other times they won’t.

I wonder how unaware my friend really was of the dynamic between his daughter and his son. Perhaps the details have been buried in his memory. My only daughter is our youngest child. I would be lying if I denied that she enjoys special status as our spoiled baby girl. She has had me wrapped around her little finger since she was still in the womb.

Sometimes my daughter is a brat. She can tease, torment, and/or be petulant. Her next older sibling probably catches more of this than any of the other children. But he knows that he will get in trouble if he retaliates. It’s not that we, as parents are unaware that she pesters him. But my son needs to know that lashing out is also improper. It is true that this leaves the boy with limited outlets for addressing the issue.

Conversely, these two siblings can be very close and can play together quite nicely. They share a close bond that is different than the bond they share with any of the other children.

Families have interesting dynamics that can bring great joy and great difficulty. I look forward to someday sitting around with my adult children and finding out about some of their childhood antics of which I was unaware — or have just forgotten.

The Boy(Scout)s of Summer

I just had a chat with my son’s scoutmaster. He is fretting about summer camp coming up in July. Most of the problem stems from one man insisting on bringing his too-young son to the weeklong event.

A little background might be useful. The vast majority of Boy Scout units in our area are sponsored by the LDS Church. Each BSA unit answers to the head of its chartering organization. In the LDS Church, that’s the ward bishop. The LDS Church enrolls boys in different levels of the BSA program based on age.

• Ages 8-10 are Cub Scouts.
• Ages 11-13 are Boy Scouts. But the church has a separate program for 11-year-olds. While the members of the New Scout Patrol are members of the Boy Scout troop, they do not participate in the troop’s full program. They hold few camps and they focus mainly on advancing through Scouting’s primary ranks.
• 14-15-year-olds are Varsity Scouts.
• 16-18-year-olds are Ventures.

Consequently, most boys that go to weeklong organized BSA camps from our area are ages 12-13. It is not uncommon for older boys to tag along. Every once in a while a Varsity team or Venture crew shows up at camp. But these units for older youth usually focus on other types of high adventure summer activities.

LDS Church policy prohibits 11-year-old boys from attending summer camp with the troop. There is a loophole that allows people to skirt this regulation. 11-year-old boys cannot be barred from attending summer camp if they are accompanied the whole time by their parent or legal guardian. And there’s the rub.

One boy that is in our unit’s Cub Scout program turns 11 a week or so after the troop goes to summer camp. He’s only 10 right now. But his father wants to come to camp with the boy. You wouldn’t want a boy that will turn 12 during the summer to miss camp due to an accident of scheduling. But a 10-year-old is a different matter.

When I served as scoutmaster I had a similar situation. I simply went to the bishop — the charter organization head — and asked him to tell the father that the boy couldn’t go with the troop. That worked back then. But the father of the boy in question this year is a member of the ward bishopric.

Perhaps without realizing the difficulties he was foisting onto the scoutmaster, the bishop agreed to allow this man to take his son to summer camp with the troop. Since it wouldn’t be proper to allow only one individual such a privilege, all boys of a similar age in the ward must now be permitted the same opportunity.

This situation dramatically expands the number of people that will be going to camp with our troop. It increases planning and trip execution by orders of magnitude. More troop equipment will be needed. The scoutmaster will have to keep track of the activity and advancement progress of more boys, even while he has far more boys to look after. More people will have to fit in the campsite.

BSA policy prohibits adults from sleeping in the same quarters as youth that are not members of their immediate family. You can minimize tent space by grouping the adults and grouping the youth. But our stake’s interpretation of church policy is that boys under 12 must sleep in the same facility with their father. That means that each sub-12-year-old that attends adds another tent. Since campsites are only so large, we will be cramped.

Meals will become far more difficult, as the number for which food must be prepared nearly doubles. Cleanup becomes a much larger chore. Keeping track of troop members ends up being like trying to hold a pound of sand in your hands. Some is always slipping out between your fingers, no matter how hard you try to keep it together.

You’d think that having all those extra adults along would be helpful, but you’d be wrong. As I have long known, and as the scoutmaster explained to me today, there are low maintenance adults and there are high maintenance adults. Some adults know how to facilitate the boys’ growth and accountability. Some are more of a hindrance than a help. Fathers that aren’t fully on board with the program sometimes thwart their sons’ ability to engage properly.

Having been involved in Boy Scouts for a very long time, having worked on BSA camp staff, and having been to Scout camp more times than most people have gone on overnight campouts, I have developed a different personal philosophy. With rare exception, I do not like to take a boy to camp that is outside of the age range of the target youth group. I have carefully observed this rule with my own sons.

I have found, for example, that when 11-year-olds go to Boy Scout summer camp, they end up being pretty high maintenance campers — even when they have their fathers in tow. Then by the time they’re 13, Scout camp seems so “old hat” to them that many of them end up making trouble.

A Varsity Scout leader once insisted on bringing his 12-year-old son hiking with the team in the High Uintas. At one point during our encampment, the boy broke the buddy system rule while he was out fishing and tried to make it back to base camp on his own. He ended up getting lost, and it was only by a near miracle that we were able to rescue him.

One year when I allowed some 14-year-olds that had been some of my best Scouts to come with us to Scout camp, even they ended up being trouble. There are certainly exceptions to this, but it seems to me that it is usually worth sticking to the age-limit rule.

Having said that, I must now admit that my scoutmaster let me and two of my friends come to camp with the troop when we were 14. (We all turned 15 just a couple of months later.) We acted in the role of junior assistant scoutmasters. That camp was a very important event in my life. A few years later I found myself working on camp staff.

The first time I went to summer camp I was homesick, hated hiking, and was scared of adventure. Who knew that I would someday work on camp staff and would grow to enjoy hiking? That staff experience of my older teen years has very positively colored the whole rest of my life. So, I’d say that there are times that exceptions to the age-limit rule are acceptable. A wise leader will know when it is right to make such exceptions.

Right now I am feeling sorry for our scoutmaster. I have been in his shoes before and have taken very large troops to summer camp. The run-up to camp and the camp experience will present serious challenges for him. I will do my best to support him. But I know from experience that he will breathe a high sigh of relief when it’s all over.

Those &%!#* Solicitors

I don’t like being solicited at home, unless it’s something I invite. I screen out most email solicitations. It still requires time to go through junk mail and decide what needs to be shredded and what doesn’t. But these things are manageable. It’s those pesky telephone and door-to-door solicitations that bother me the most.

Many telephone pests are screened out by the national do-not-call registry. But there are some exceptions and loopholes that for-profit and nonprofit entities exploit.

• The politicians that created the registry cleverly excepted calls from political organizations. Go figure.
• Any entity classed as a charity can still call.
• Pollsters and survey takers can legally bug you. (Another loophole for the politicians.) Some businesses exploit this by taking a survey and then asking if they can follow up. The follow-up is a solicitation.
• Any company you’ve done business with sometime in the last 18 months can call you.
• Bill collectors can call you. (That’s probably understandable.)

Fortunately, the advent of caller-ID has allowed us to screen out many of those excepted by the do-not-call registry. (It is amazing how persistent some of these can be.) But sometimes we end up screening out calls we would like to have answered, simply because we don’t recognize the number. Those that are truly interested leave a message.

When I end up actually answering an unwanted phone call from a solicitor of any kind, I usually simply hang up without saying anything. If they are especially persistent at calling back, I stay on the line long enough to tell them to stop calling. They really don’t want to waste their time talking to someone that isn’t going to buy their product/answer their questions/support their candidate/donate to their cause anyway.

Then there are the people that go door-to-door. We have a “NO SOLICITING” sign clearly displayed by the front door. Most solicitors bypass our house, but some are not discouraged by the sign. I have gotten to the point that I am very brief and blunt with those folks, while trying to remain somewhat courteous.

Last week I saw a guy making the rounds of the neighborhood. He repeatedly bypassed our home. Then one day he showed up at our door with another salesman in tow. I suspect that it was his manager who was going to show him how it is done. One of my kids answered the door and came to get me.

When I got to the door, I asked, “What do you want?” As the guy began talking, he turned his binder toward me. That allowed me to tell that what they were peddling. Before he had said five words, I interrupted. I pointed to the blazingly obvious “NO SOLICITING” sign and asked in a polite tone of voice, “Excuse me, but can you guys read?” The man responded that he hadn’t seen the sign, but the two quickly departed.

A couple of years back, a guy selling some kind of miracle gasoline additive showed up on my doorstep. When I took the same kind of approach with him, he started in on a debate about why ‘No Soliciting’ signs do not pose a legal barrier to door-to-door solicitation. I think the guy could see the fire building in my eyes. I finally said, “I don’t care what your legal manual says. It should be clear to you by now that I don’t want to be solicited!” As I closed the door, he was still saying something about how I was passing up an incredible opportunity. I’m sorry, but that’s simply not the way to win customers.

Once a salesman caught me while I was out in the front yard with a couple of my kids, quite some distance from my protective sign. I nicely explained that I don’t allow solicitation. I think this man was an entertainer at heart. He smiled and started in on a very amusing spiel about how he was brought up to believe that solicitation had something to do with those fancily dressed ladies on street corners in certain parts of town. Before long, the guy had my kids in totally fascinated by his product demo. His act was so fun that I simply couldn’t turn him away.

I do have to say that the ‘miracle’ cleaner this man sold me is probably one of the best cleaning products I have ever used. But I’d probably have bought even if it wasn’t, as I considered his show to be worth the price. If you’re going to be a door-to-door salesman, this guy could teach you a thing or two. But I doubt that a talent like that is easily transferrable.

My wife is too kind to close the door on or hang up the phone on solicitors. She politely listens to phone solicitors until she finally tells them she’s not interested. But she has a very difficult time turning away people on the doorstep.

Perhaps I’m just cruel. But I feel as if I have a right to a certain level of privacy in my own home, and I have no problem making efforts to exclude those that would infringe on that privacy. I take no pleasure in being rude. But I do think it rather offensive when solicitors ignore my sign.

I understand the value of advertising. None of us would find out about products and services that greatly benefit us were it not for advertising, even if that marketing comes only by word of mouth. There are zones I visit where I expect to be confronted with marketing tactics. I just don’t want my front door or my telephone to be among those zones.

The Disney Dilemma

My daughter recently came up and asked if we could plan a vacation to Disneyland this year. My heart sank. I would love to take the family to Disneyland. Or better yet to Disneyworld. But we probably can’t swing it financially this year.

It costs a lot of money to take a family of seven to a Disney (or Disney-like resort). We are incurring a number of new expenses this year to provide opportunities for our older kids. Our investments still haven’t fully rebounded from the market downturn, so we have fewer resources to draw on.

We’ve done the Disney theme park thing a few times, and we’ve enjoyed each trip. My wife and I did Disneyworld before we had any kids. Nearly a decade later we did Disneyworld with four kids after I finished graduate school. It was a deal we cut with them for putting up with me being so involved with school. We’ve done Disneyland a few times, but my daughter was so young the last time we went that she doesn’t remember it.

I went to Disneyland with my family twice when I was a kid; once when I was nine and once when I was 12. One of the hot features back in those days was the Enchanted Tiki Room. Friends had raved about it. But the feature was closed for renovation or mechanical problems both times I was there.

I didn’t get to see the Tiki Room until I was an adult. By then, the technology that had made it spectacular was pretty retro. The show lasted way too long. And frankly, it was pretty lame. What was cool in the 60s was much less cool years later.  Some audience members simply walked out during the show.

The last time we went to Disneyworld, we spent very little time in the Magic Kingdom. We spent most of our time at Epcot, but we also enjoyed the Animal Kingdom and the Hollywood Studios. Although we quite liked the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Hollywood Studios, I was pretty disappointed in the Backlot Tour. It literally looked like nothing whatsoever had been done to update or even maintain it since we had been there years earlier. Peeling paint, and all that. I hope they’ve fixed it up since then. I heard that poor theme park maintenance was Michael Eisner’s doing. He got the boot half a decade ago.

The last time we went to Disneyland, one son had me ride the Indiana Jones Adventure with him multiple times. Another son had the whole family ride Pirates of the Caribbean over and over again. That was before it was renovated to include features from the movie series.

Disney isn’t the only enterprise out there with theme parks in the Anaheim and Orlando areas. The last time we went to Orlando, we spent a day at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. It was a blast, but there are a couple of things you should know. One is that the music and sound effects are so loud in some parts of the park that you can barely communicate with the person next to you. Another is that you need to be prepared to get wet — very wet. There are so many features that are designed to get you wet that one reviewer quipped that you will get as wet as if you had participated in a full-immersion baptism. So wear swimwear (or something like it), and prepare some way to keep your electronics and valuables dry.

The last time we went to Disneyland, we took a trip to Legoland one day, and to Sea World another day. We had to do Legoland since two of my sons are true Lego maniacs. It was fun, but the park is really aimed at the under-12 crowd. It is not maintained or run at the same level you expect from a Disney park. Maintenance and management reminds me more of the Lagoon amusement park in Farmington, Utah.

It was quite rainy the day we went to Sea World. The shows were fun but were often wet even without sitting in the “splash zone.” One of our favorite features was the Journey to Atlantis ride. Since most park visitors had been driven away by the rain, there were no lines. So we rode the thing over and over again. Another fun attraction was the “4-D Theater.” The shows change from time to time. Just be aware that if you go to one of these shows, you will get wet.

When you go to a theme park with young kids, there is always the worry of getting separated. On our last trip to Disneyland, another family showed us their secret. One of the kids turned up his arm to reveal, “Mom’s cell #” followed by a phone number, written in bold characters with permanent marker from his elbow to his wrist.

We have found our visits to theme parks to be important family bonding experiences. Each time we have gone with the realization that everything you buy in a theme park — food, souvenirs, necessities — is horrendously expensive. We have tried to budget enough in advance that we could enjoy the trip without having to worry about every penny spent. When you add up these items with park tickets, transportation, lodging, and other meals, you run into a chunk of money. It’s just not something that we can afford to do very often.

On most of our theme park trips in the past we have avoided the summer season. While the parks have more features running during the summer, the crowds are unbearable. But then you end up taking kids out of school. We have generally worked around school holidays to minimize this impact. As our kids advance academically it becomes increasingly difficult to take them out of school for even a few days.

But we are also looking at the ages of our kids. The oldest two would likely find a theme park trip pretty lame at their current stages of life. But they would probably come with us anyway. The three younger kids are right in the prime range for such a trip. The longer we wait, the less suitable a theme park trip would be.

Unlike some families and institutions, however, our family is not prone to spend money we don’t have — especially for entertainment. Ah, dilemmas. You can’t have everything you want.

What I Did When My Wireless Network Stopped Working

I just had a disconcerting experience with my home network.  The wireless network suddenly stopped working. I checked the router's external displays, and everything looked fine.  But my password didn't work when I tried to login to the router.  It finally dawned on me to try the original default password.  I got in and discovered that everything had been reset to factory settings.

For over two years I have had a Linksys WRT610N dual band router.  It has been remarkably stable.  It is fast and reliable.  However, the internal antennae aren't that great.

The 5.0 GHz connection works great on my laptop, which is usually in the same room as the router.  It functions OK in other rooms on the same floor, but I live in a multi-level house, and the connection becomes somewhat flaky if I take the laptop to other levels of the home.

The 2.4 GHz connection, on the other hand, seems to have a more limited range.  But I have computers half a level down and a full level down from the router.  None of these has an adapter that will connect to the 5.0 GHz band, so they rely on the 2.4 GHz band.  The main interference with this band has been our microwave oven.  But standard human activity in the home has caused problems as well.  Even with a high gain antenna, the adapter on the basement computer was pretty shoddy.

Last year I had had enough of these problems.  I bought a Hawking 300-N Range Extender, which is a wireless network repeater that works on the N protocol 2.4 GHz band.  If it had been available at the time, I would have gotten the Wireless-N Dual Radio Smart Repeater, since it would work with both bands.  But since I don't currently have a computer distant from the router that can use the 5.0 band, the 300-N works just fine.

The 300-N is a very good repeater.  It is very stable.  The 2.4 GHz band is still subject to interruption from the microwave oven, but the repeater regains the connection almost immediately.  It has been very stable.  But if you get one, DO NOT use the automatic installation.  Follow the instructions for manual configuration instead.

I learned by sad experience that the automatic configuration grabbed an IP address for the device without checking whether the address was available.  This caused a conflict that crashed my whole network.  It took me a couple of days to figure out what was going on and to remedy the problem.  Fortunately, resetting the device and following the manual installation instructions worked like a charm.

A good thing to do with any wireless device following configuration is to go to the administration page of the device's configuration utility and backup your settings.  A file will be created, and it is important for you to remember where this file is stored.  Then if you have to reset the device — or if it resets itself — you can get back in business quickly by going to the admin screen of the device and restoring the configuration from the backup file.

I was able to get my router up and running again, but the repeater did not automatically reconnect.  Moreover, I couldn't get the repeater's configuration utility to come up using a web browser.  I had to bring the repeater into the office and connect it to the router with a cable before I could get to the repeater's configuration utility.  I re-applied the network settings, and then the thing worked fine.  I was able to put it back where I had it.

Still, the whole episode was kind of scary.  There was no reason for the router to reset.  My previous router started doing that kind of thing intermittently until it finally completely died.  I suspect that once a router starts resetting itself, it's only a matter of time before it will need to be replaced.  Fortunately, if that happens there are now better devices on the market that cost less than my current router did when I bought it.

Klondike Derby Lasts Nearly Until Summer

Last January I presided over our Scout district’s Klondike Derby — an overnight outdoor winter camping experience, complete with winter scoutcraft games. All Boy Scout units in the district are invited to participate. We had 39 of 68 units attend. Of the 450 people in attendance, about 70% were youth and the rest were adult leaders.

I have a love-hate relationship with Klondike Derby. Let me explain.

I attended my first district Klondike overnighter 31 years ago. I had been on winter campouts prior to that, but just with my own unit, not with a whole district. The event was held at a county campground, the same location where we held this year’s affair. But the location was far more rustic back then. Since that time, I have attended many winter camps, often camping in snow shelters.

While some adventurists go winter camping for enjoyment, that is hardly my purpose. If that were my sole concern, I would never go winter camping again. Ever. As lame as it sounds, I do this for the kids.

Comedian Jim Gaffigan quips that his parents never took him camping as a kid because they loved him. You’d think that would apply to winter camping to the 10th power. But I take youth camping:

• To help them learn the basics of winter survival.
• To help them find out that they can do (and even enjoy doing) something they thought was impossible for them.
• To provide an adventure.

But it takes a lot of work. It takes an awful lot of work to go winter camping. Every time I go, I lament to my wife that it takes as much work to go on one winter overnighter as it does to go to a week of summer camp.

Everything takes much longer when participating in cold weather camping, but you generally have quite a bit less daylight. Moving gear, setting up a shelter, building a fire, preparing a meal, changing clothing, or anything else you usually do when camping takes much longer when you’re winter camping. A good rule of thumb to use when planning a winter camp is that everything you do will take three times as long; even longer if it’s windy or precipitating. Cleanup is a chore as well, because you’ve got to dry everything out before you put it away.

To some that have never been winter camping, it seems counterintuitive to think that a snow cave can provide good shelter from the elements. But a foot of solid snow can provide enough insulation to keep an enclosure much warmer than the outside, especially when temperatures plummet at night.

Despite the wonders of snow caves, I have never liked them. Six years ago I learned to hate them when I had one cave in on me during construction. Since then I have avoided spending much time inside any snow cave, although, I have helped with construction. I prefer to sleep in a snow trench. Or if there’s no wind, I like to set up right on the top of the snow. That works better if you can find a spot that has some kind of natural wind break. But I have found that many Scouts crave the adventure of camping in a snow cave.

Getting back to this year’s Klondike overnighter, some lament the lack of participation by the 29 units that didn’t come to the event, but I’m not unhappy with the turnout. Finding a venue that can handle that many winter campers, most of them camping in show shelters, is problematic. The venue must:

• Be big enough to accommodate the group.
• Be accessible by vehicle.
• Have adequate parking.
• Have decent annual snowfall.
• Be relatively close to the homes of most campers.
• Not be too expensive.
• Have low avalanche danger.
• Be able to be reserved months in advance.

Despite the extensive outdoor recreation possibilities in my area, there aren’t many venues that meet all of these criteria. The venue we use has its problems as well. Almost every year when these problems are noted, I tell those complaining to find me even one other place that would work. They always end up perplexed enough to conclude that we picked the right place.

Another possibility — and one that would be more in line with Leave No Trace principles — would be to split up the event. Instead of inviting all of the district’s units to the same event, several smaller events could be planned throughout the winter. Each event could be for two or three zones so that 15 or fewer units would be in attendance at any of them. Less parking would be needed and impact on natural resources would be more dispersed.

The problem with multiple small events is the coordination effort. A volunteer staff would need to be recruited for each event. Those that work with volunteer organizations know that this can prove difficult. Perhaps an even greater challenge is the cultural shift. One of the reasons that some attend these events is for the camaraderie of being around hundreds of others that are pursuing similar goals. (Of course, there are those that stay away because they dislike big camping events.) Fewer units can also mean less keen competition. Still, the dispersed Klondike is something that I will encourage district leadership to consider.

Last Saturday also brought home another thing I dislike about Klondike Derby. Saturday was the BSA’s national day of service. My son’s unit went back up to the site where we held the Klondike overnighter to do some cleanup. There was still too much snow to clean some parts of the venue, but other parts were relatively clear of snow.

While most units strictly obeyed the rules on having fires only in raised fire pits and hauled out their ashes, a few dunderheads built fires right on the ground and left their ashes. Although vegetation was scarred, none of these fools succeeded in starting wildfires. Scouts — and especially Scouting leaders — should know better. It steams me when Scouts mistreat camping resources. We cleaned up their messes and hauled away the ashes.

The worst offenders were other users of the area, which is groomed during the winter season for cross country skiing. These fires were never near the remains of snow shelters. They were always adjacent to the ski trail and were almost always littered with beer bottles. I suppose it may be too much to ask of the general public to follow the Outdoor Code.

We still have one more major project next weekend to do some rehabilitation and summer season prep work at the campground where we held Klondike Derby. And then we put the event to bed until next fall when we start getting everything ready for next winter’s event.

Although I have been winter camping for years, I still have a number of years left to go winter camping with my kids before I can hang up my snow gear. I delight in the adventure this provides. But I hate doing it.

The Coolhunters

A number of years ago there was a strange phenomenon at the local high school. Many high schoolers just had to have this certain brand of designer jeans. Adjusted for inflation, a pair of these pants cost $128 in present day dollars.

I don’t know about you, but that’s an awful steep price to pair for a pair of everyday breeches. These pricey pants were of no higher quality than much cheaper run-of-the-mill jeans. The “unique styling” really wasn’t very unique at all. But stores that sold these things couldn’t keep them on the shelves. Telephone chains spread the news whenever it was leaked that a store had gotten a new shipment. People would wait in line and stores sometimes sold an entire shipment in minutes.  Ka-ching!

Within a few months, other manufacturers put out specialty jeans, seeking to capture a piece of the hot market. Some even had styles that looked nearly identical to the preferred brand. But snobbish teens with a heightened sense of coolness could easily detect those wearing pants with an inferior label.

I assumed that the designer jeans fad would fade away by the next school year, but it didn’t. The French clothing designer brought out a greater variety of styles and had ramped up production so that stores usually had adequate supplies.

A coworker at that time reported that she gave her high schoolers a clothing allowance. One daughter spent nearly her entire allotment on a single pair of French designer jeans and a pair of “must have” designer tennis shoes (that she didn’t dare wear when it was wet or snowy). The other daughter, deciding that status was less important than variety, bought enough sensibly priced clothes to last the season and put the leftover funds in her bank account.

By the next summer, the French designer jeans fad went bust in our area. Stores were slashing their prices by late spring and the once expensive jeans soon found their way to bargain racks.

After availability increased, pent up demand kept prices high for a few months. But once that demand was met, retailers had a hard time moving the pricey products. Gradually they eased prices to free up space for better selling products. Decreasing prices meant that more people could afford the pants.

As the French jeans proliferated among the high school students, the utterly cool pants suddenly lost their coolness. No longer able to distinguish themselves by wearing expensive designer jeans, the status conscious crowd soon shifted to a different fad.

We like to think that we outgrow this kind of childish one-upmanship as we mature. But I’m not sure that we do. It seems, rather, that we simply shift to more elaborate ways to demonstrate our supposed superiority over others. A certain segment of our adult population is forever on a coolhunt for the next elite status symbol. Most of the rest of us pursue the coolhunt at least in a minor way.

Of course, we don’t ever see ourselves as being into superficial fashion the way some others obviously are. Rather, we seek to demonstrate our superiority in the stuff we own and in our various pursuits; our hobbies, the things we eat or drink. Sometimes we wear the façade of piety either in spiritual or secular religious pursuits.

Latter-Day Saints along the Wasatch Front like to be seen in the finest Mormon Assault Vehicle. Some secular religionists show their devoutness to the god of social consciousness by driving a politically correct hybrid. Aging baby boomers dress like bad boys and gals tearing up the roads on expensive Harleys.

Our continual quest for higher status doesn’t stop with what we drive. We engage in myriad fads, not unlike the high schoolers in my story. One entire line of high end media devices is almost wholly aimed at those that willingly pay more to have products that are perceived to be more elite than the devices used by the masses. Almost from its inception, this company has sought to carve out a niche for smug status hunters. I’ll let you guess which firm that is.

Sometimes we seek to demonstrate superiority in our ability to get deals on stuff, in the amount of food storage we have, in our educational credentials, in the music we enjoy, in the causes we support, etc.

The main goal of our coolhunting is to achieve a sense of being exclusive — of being superior to others. The most elite coolhunters are constantly changing their target because the moment anything that is exclusive reduces in cost to the point that it achieves more general usage, it is no longer exclusive. Thus, the never ending pursuit of the next exclusive thing.

The human tendency to seek for superiority often gets a bad rap. It is frequently viewed as a moral negative. And sometimes it definitely is. But it is also a very important and essential piece of human nature. Despite constant pleas to compete only with ourselves, we simply cannot help competing with others. It is this competition that defines who we are — that helps us discover who we are.

It is this very competition that is responsible for almost all advances in quality of life. But like all good tools, it is a double-edged sword that can be used for good or evil, for mutual advancement or for stupidity. But even in using this tool for what we believe to be good, it is wise to avoid the smugness that so easily accompanies any sense of superiority.

I may know this, but I’m a long way from that ideal.

A (Wonderfully) Fateful Meeting

The first thing I noticed about my wife upon our initial meeting was her smile. When I first saw her, she was seated in the passenger seat of my friend’s car. Her blue-jeaned legs were sticking out of the open door. Her feet were on the ground. She was bent over tying her hiking boots so that I couldn’t see her face.

As I neared the car, she looked up and flashed a dazzling smile at me, gazing at me in a way that said that she already cared about me. My heart picked up a few beats as I felt something inside that told me that she was special.

My wife’s memory of our first meeting is different. She recounts how we had met five years earlier at the local LDS institute of religion. Upon later being reminded of that event, it took quite a bit of work for me to fully retrieve the memory. Following a Friday evening dance at the institute, I was playing a currently popular song on the piano when two girls approached.

Having grown up with only brothers, I didn’t know that girls never do anything by themselves if they can get another girl to go with them. Heck, they even go to the restroom together. One of the young ladies standing near me asked where I had served my LDS mission. Upon answering, she asked if I knew another missionary serving there. I did. In fact, we had worked on Boy Scout camp staff together.

A conversation ensued. Being kind of shy around girls and having only brothers, I was oblivious to the fact that the girl was trying to come on to me. I wanted to ask for her phone number, but I felt uncomfortable asking only one of the girls for contact information, and asking both seemed ridiculous. My limited understanding of female social customs prevented me from realizing that the other girl was merely providing moral support.

As the next five years passed, my wife served a mission for the LDS Church and completed more schooling. I did school and advanced in my career. On several occasions friends ask me if I knew this girl. I didn’t (or at least I thought I didn’t). Several remarked that they needed to get the two of us together because it seemed like we would hit it off well. But no arrangements were ever made.

Then one day I was called by one of my former Boy Scouts. He asked if I would double-date with him on an excursion to the mountains to do some Dutch oven cooking. I said that I’d be more than happy to oblige, but that I didn’t have any prospect for getting a date on short notice. No problem, he explained, because he had already arranged a date for me. I had been on plenty of blind dates, so I didn’t mind, especially since I would be helping a friend.

I was unprepared for how beautiful my blind date ended up being. She was friendly and outgoing, quite uninhibited about the situation. She put me at ease. Then when my friend and I started building the campfire, she jumped right in without being asked. Moreover, she knew what she was doing. I was very impressed. About 4½ months later, my former Boy Scout acted as my best man when my wife and I wed.

A number of years have passed since that day, but my wife’s beautiful smile still makes my heart beat a little faster. We’ve had our challenges. Facing them together hasn’t always been comfortable, but it has strengthened our bonds of love.

I thought I loved my wife the day we knelt over the altar and were joined in matrimony. And I did. But today there is a depth and a breadth to our love that I couldn’t have even fathomed back then. I hope that years from now I will be able to look back on this day and honestly say the same thing.

Our List of Charter School Pros and Cons

In my last post I began discussing our two-year experience with our children’s charter school. In this post I will list some of what we view as the pros and cons we have observed during this experience.

What we like:

• Dedicated and innovative teachers. The expeditionary learning model encourages (requires) innovation. Perhaps that’s why none of the teachers are union members.
• Our kids like the charter school.
• Minimal administration and red tape.
• High percentage of motivated parents.
• Mixed grades and mentoring.
• Collaboration and teamwork are integral.
• Hands-on learning, including frequent forays outside of the classroom.
• Comprehensive learning modules (“expeditions”) where learning from all subjects is actually applied. (This doesn’t work well for some students. More below.)
• Frequent leadership opportunities for most students.
• Personal ownership of expeditions as demonstrated at public events. (More below.)
• Opportunities for motivated parents to actually be involved.
• Quality music band program.
• No extracurricular sports programs.

Expeditions require a high degree of student responsibility and teamwork. This works quite well for the majority of the students, but some students just don’t mesh well with this model. They end up being outcasts. Actually, some of them prefer it that way. But they miss out on a lot of valuable learning. My wife believes that many of these student would actually fare worse in the traditional system.

Older students and students with more knowledge on a given topic are tasked with mentoring and tutoring other students. This seems to work very well both for the tutors and the learners. You learn much when you have to teach someone else. And there’s nothing like feeling needed and performing a truly worthwhile service.

Once each week, all crews in a pod get together for a short student-led program where a particular crew reviews its progress on its current expedition. Every few weeks the entire student body gathers for a similar program on a school level. We recently attended one of these events where our first grader was one of the MCs. It was very impressive to see how these young kids handled the program.

I am frequently amazed at the depth of knowledge our children exhibit about their expeditionary subjects. Our youngest knows more about arthropods than does the average high school biology student. Our fourth grader can still give details about the Transcontinental Railroad (from last fall’s expedition) that I never learned about before.

Some would say that the lack of extracurricular sports programs is a drawback, but we think it’s a plus. Instead of blowing funds on a handful of jocks, the school is able to use those resources to provide more opportunities for field learning for all students. For example, a few months ago I accompanied our junior high schooler on a SCUBA diving activity. Besides, there are plenty of non-school athletic programs available for those that wish to enroll their kids in sports programs without eating up educational funds.

Drawbacks:

• Few schoolmates are neighbors. This complicates friendships. (More below.)
• Inadequate performance feedback mechanisms. We too often find out about problems only after it’s too late in the term to do anything about it.
• Commuting.
• No foreign languages are offered at our school.
• The kids complain about short lunch breaks.

Let’s face it; the social aspect of school is a big part of life. When our kids attended the elementary school a few blocks away, all of their classmates lived fairly close. Now they have friends that live as much as 20 miles away. Moreover, they don’t share school experiences with the kids in the neighborhood, so they have less in common with neighbors.

The local junior high and high school have individual student web portals where parents can see how a student is performing in any given subject. Of course, not all teachers keep these up to date, but enough of them do so to make it a valuable tool. Our charter school doesn’t have anything like that.

Like most bright junior high aged boys, our son sometimes acts like he’s brain dead. Or he fails to turn in assignments. Or he goofs off in class and doesn’t get his work done. Unfortunately, we usually only find out about this at the end of the term when it’s too late to effect any grade improvement. This is perhaps our biggest complaint. We understand that systems like those used by the school district are expensive to obtain and maintain and that the school has limited funds. But the lack of timely feedback is a problem.

With 10 grades in the school, it is a challenge to efficiently move all of the students through the lunch process. Our kids complain that lunch breaks are too short. Sometimes they feel like they don’t get enough time to complete their meals. (This may be perception. The kids might just be messing around. We haven’t actually spent time hanging out at lunch. Perhaps we should.)

Overall, we have to say that we think the charter school is proving to be a better educational experience for our children than our traditional public schools. And that is saying something, because our local public schools actually rank pretty well. Still, we are considering enrolling our junior high schooler in the local junior high so that we can do a better job of staying on top of his performance.

We have a very positive view of expeditionary learning. Even for those that have difficulty with this model, it may be better for most of them than traditional pedagogical methods. I hope that more charter schools come into being. Different schools with different approaches would allow for more educational experimentation and opportunities to fit students into models that most suit them.

How the Charter School is Working Out for Us

We started sending our three youngest children to a charter school at the beginning of the 2008-09 school year. We are now less than two months away from the end of our kids’ second school year with the charter school. I figured that it would be good to analyze how it has worked out for us.

Our kids’ charter school didn’t exist at the time that we applied. A charter had been granted by the state (and believe me, that requires a lot of work and dedication), but no school facility had yet been built. Our involvement began when my wife saw a lawn sign about the school and visited the website shown on the sign. Eventually we attended parent information meetings and we decided to apply.

One of the early drawbacks was that the construction project fell through when the contractor failed to obtain financing. School officials scrambled and arranged to lease a vacant school in the Ogden School District for the 08-09 school year. The building didn’t really meet the needs of the charter school, but they made it work.

The new building was constructed in the meantime and was ready for the 09-10 school year. It’s a decent facility that lends itself well to the school’s methodology. But parking is inadequate for larger evening events to which families are invited. The facility is about seven miles from our home. The drive to or from the school takes 10-15 minutes depending on conditions.

When I say “school officials,” I mean the principal and the all volunteer board made up of parents of students. The school also has a secretary and a part-time vice principle. That’s the extent of school administration. Some administrative tasks are handled by volunteers.

Our children’s school uses the expeditionary learning model. There is a greater focus on hands-on learning, getting out of the classroom, and using all skills learned in a comprehensive way. So the basic teaching style is somewhat different than the traditional public school model. Each teacher must certify in expeditionary learning.

Busy classrooms and field trips are expected in expeditionary learning. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t quiet times. But students often work in teams and participate in collaborative activities. Schoolwork is peer reviewed and improved before being handed in.

The school is divided into pods: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9th (that sometimes joins with the 6-8 pod). Each pod has a number “crews” consisting of a teacher and 25 student crew members. Except for Kindergarten and 9th grade, grades are mixed in each crew. Older students mentor younger students.

The school has a uniform policy that is more like a dress code. Students don’t have to wear official school clothing. The clothes can be obtained from any source, as long as styles and colors are right. Shirts may be one of three solid colors. Pants and skirts may be one of two solid colors. Certain styles are prescribed, including collar size, sleeve length, pant/skirt length, and waist style (no low riders).

Nobody gets uptight about the uniform policy. It provides for plenty of flexibility, but the policy is strong enough to keep students looking modest.

That provides some of the background about the charter school. In the next post I will list pros and cons. Some of the latter are nontrivial. But for us, the pros presently outweigh the cons.

That Old Time Rock and Roll

One day while riding to college with my oldest brother, we discussed some aspects of the music we were listening to on his car radio. I laughed derisively when he suggested that once I hit age 30 I would never listen to rock and roll again.

Well, my brother was at least partially wrong. I have continued to listen to rock and roll in the years since I turned 30. But my brother was also partially right. My consumption of rock and roll (and of all pop) music dropped off precipitously somewhere along the road of life.

I have recently been finding clips on the Internet of artists I used to appreciate. I have also started looking into what has become of some of these people. It has come to my attention that during my teen and early adult years I liked a category of music I never even knew existed. At least, I never realized there was such a classification as American progressive rock. I liked music from various other categories as well.

My first thought on finding more recent clips of some artists I used to listen to was, “Geez, these guys are old.” Some of them look like they’ve seen a lot of years of hard living. Indeed, the profiles available for these artists often tell of difficult challenges they have faced, frequently the result of their own self destructive choices. A few, on the other hand, seem to have lived full and happy lives.

Video clip comment streams are often quite polluted, so I usually pay them no heed. But sometimes useful information is offered. I clicked on a link to a 1996 performance by a band I once enjoyed. The lead singer was terrible; certainly a far cry from his earlier days. But a comment explained that the concert had taken place at a low point in the singer’s life. He didn’t start to get cleaned up from his addictions until the following year. The singer was indeed much improved in 1999 and 2002 performances.

A few of the artists from back in the day have passed away. But it is surprising to me how many are still active in the music industry. Some have been involved in a broad range of activities, from writing ad jingles and video game tunes to performing with symphony orchestras and producing works for other artists.

Another thing that I have realized is how young a lot of these artists were when they hit the big time. I never thought about it back then, but most of these people are only about 10-15 years older than me.

What must it be like to hit the spectacular apex of your career by the time you’re 30? Maybe a life of huge arena tours isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe playing studio backups for obscure bands and TV shows isn’t such a bad life. Less fame, more stability.

The kids of my day (me included) listened to music that drove their parents nuts. Today’s kids do the same. One of my teenagers is a fan of metalcore music. My brainiac son (my wife says he’s got the brain of an engineer and the heart of a poet) is drawn to the genre’s highly technical riffs and breakdowns. He has written metalcore songs for his own band. (To be fair, he has also written and performed classical piano pieces.)

Even though some of the metalcore lyrics my son likes have distinctively Christian messages (if they could be understood), I doubt I will ever arrive at a point in life where I will enjoy such music. I find it harsh and agitating. Even beautiful lyrics can be unpleasant when shouted in a death growl. When my son alerted me to the actual words being screamed in one Christian oriented song, I explained that I find it inappropriate to discuss divine matters in such a tone of voice.

My son’s fascination with metalcore music bothers my wife. I kind of take it in stride, figuring that he will work through this phase at his own pace. Trying to prevent him from accessing this style of music wouldn’t be any more successful than were my parents’ attempts to turn me from the music I listened to during my teen years.

I can’t help but wonder, however, what kind of music my grandchildren will listen to that will drive their father nuts. I hope to have a good laugh at that point in time.

In my mind’s eye I can see my currently teenage son as a middle aged father sitting in front of whatever media device they have at that time, searching out clips of artists he liked when he was a teenager. I see his kids standing in the background rolling their eyes at their father’s odd musical choices as the generational cycle repeats itself.