Grandpa Moves On

JB's beloved Grandpa Arbuckle passed away Saturday. He was 91 years old.

Since JB came into my life, so did my having a grandpa to spend time with for the first time in many years and first time since I've been an adult. (All of my own grandparents were gone by the time I was 10 or 11 years old.) Most every Wednesday night (unless weather or illness intervened), we took him out to dinner locally and simply enjoyed his company, listening to his many great stories about serving in the U.S. Navy, a career in HVAC filled with opportunities serving others, or just his love for his many children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

More than anyone else, though, he almost always would speak of his beloved wife and how much he missed her. They were married for over 60 years. She preceded him in death by nearly seven years, and he missed her desperately. While we mourn his passing, we are also grateful he is now reunited with his sweetheart and is free of the pain he endured in this life.

Today is, in fact, our first Wednesday without Grandpa. His viewing and funeral will be held next week, so I will post more about it here on this blog. We love you and miss you, Grandpa.

Plowman Family Dinner/February 2019

On Sunday, we gathered for monthly Plowman family dinner at Mom's home in North Salt Lake. Well, that is, most of us were there, except Kylee was unable to make it this month, and Jenna was on a class trip out of state. Anyhow, most of the cast of usual suspects were there.

We also celebrated our birthdays for the month (Jeff's and Dave's):

JB and I were more than happy to provide the cake, which was ice cream cake from Coldstone. Thanks to a number of gift cards people had given us for Coldstone, we were able to provide said cake at zero cost to ourselves.

"Peter Pan (Junior)"

On Saturday evening, we traveled up to our 10-year-old nephew Jackson's elementary school in Kaysville to see him play the role of Captain Hook in their production of Peter Pan Jr.

I may be a bit biased when I type this, but Jackson was phenomenal in this role and put his little heart and soul into every moment. He both recited his lines and sang with stage presence and confidence you just can't teach many 10-year-olds.

This was the stage version of the Disney movie from the 1950s, so there were a lot of familiar songs and funny moments.

Our Dinner with the Aronis 2019

My old friends, the Aroni family from Cusco, Peru, whom we visited at their home in Spanish Fork in August, came up to Bountiful for a visit Saturday afternoon. Armandito's father, Armando Sr., is in town from Peru, so it was, likewise, good to see and talk to him for the first time in nearly 20 years.

We first met for lunch at one of our favorite local restaurants for some Chinese food. After that, we congregated at our house, where both Armandos; Armandito's wife, Mariela; JB and I talked about old times and looked over my old mission photos. Meanwhile, the kids watched Incredibles 2 on Netflix, so everybody had something fun to do.

Armando Sr. was an investigator of the Church when I first met him in 1996, and he remained that way for many years after. He told me Saturday that he had heard nearly 100 total discussions with the missionaries (including myself) over those years. Finally, just a couple of years ago, he finally took the plunge (literally) and was baptized into the Church. It gave me such joy to learn of it at the time, and I was happy to be able to tell him about it face to face as we talked about the principles of the gospel and how his family has been doing.

It's great to have life-long friends like these good people, and I'm glad JB has got to meet them, too.

The (Mostly Former) Improvables at Desert Star

Last Thursday, my old friend and Improvables colleague Ian asked if I'd take part in an improv show for his workplace's luncheon and party. I was more than happy to accept, as it meant I'd get another chance to perform along with him, two of my siblings, and two other past and present troupe members. Our stage would be at the Desert Star Theater in Murray, which marked another theater first for me. (JB and I have season tickets there this year, and we've both loved their many shows we've been to over the years.)

This is what it looks like backstage (pretty neat, huh?):

Here are Parker, Ian, Brittney, Steve, Biz, and I as we finished warming up and prepared to take the stage for our hour-long set:

And this photo features Biz, Brittney, and Parker playing "Advice Panel" during the show:

It was a most enjoyable afternoon with some of the best in the biz, and we picked up a nice check in the process, to boot.

Muggsy Cracks Up Again

For the third time in about three years, Muggsy's windshield cracked last week and subsequently needed replacing. Thank goodness for auto insurance!

I was on the freeway driving north on I-15 Wednesday when a rock or another large object bounced up onto the windshield (it happened so quickly, I could hardly tell what did it), leaving this mess:

Fortunately, nothing shattered or otherwise broke. I was able to get in to TechnaGlass yesterday to have a new windshield put in. Muggsy now looks like this:

The moral of the story is: I'm older and have more insurance.

Star Wars Pack Meeting

My brother Ben is serving as scoutmaster of his ward's Scout troop in Centerville. On Tuesday night, they held their monthly pack meeting, and the theme for the night was Star Wars. (And why shouldn't it be? There's never a bad time for Star Wars.)

The Scouts played games such as a Jello-e eating contest, eating through the Jell-o to get to Han Solo trapped inside, which I thought was very clever.

Ben invited me to dress up as a Star Wars character, along with a few other adults (we had a Kylo Ren and a stormtrooper), to help them with the festivities, and I was more than happy to do so. When I showed up dressed in my Jedi robes, I found these two kids running around together:

I was informed that the girl's name is Kenzie, and that she and Graham have been inseparable friends at ward activities. All four of their parents confirmed to me that they're going to get married someday (remember, you read it here first).

I also found Graham hiding under one of the pews in the chapel:

Here's a shot of the group of us from the night: Christian as a stormtrooper, Ben as Kylo Ren, Graham with the extra-large helmet as a stormtrooper, Kenzie as Captain Phasma, and yours truly.

And so, the evening was enjoyed by all.

Valentine's Day

I have a pretty great Valentine, 365 days of the year (366 days in leap years!). The story really checks out on this marriage thing.

Semantics

se·man·tics

Dictionary result for semantics

/səˈman(t)iks/

noun

1. the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There are a number of branches and subbranches of semantics, including formal semantics, which studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form, lexical semantics, which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual semantics, which studies the cognitive structure of meaning.

   • the meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text.

     plural noun: semantics

     "such quibbling over semantics may seem petty stuff"

Words matter!

I'm getting particularly tired of hearing the F-bomb, particularly in public from adults who have no regard for children or others who may be overhearing what words are carelessly coming out of their mouths.

You can hear it most anywhere. Every few days, I can overhear a couple of my co-workers jawing down the hall, dropping in an F-bomb seemingly every third word. The sound carries very well down the halls of our office, so you can't help but overhear it, and it's particularly annoying when I'm on the phone with a customer who can, likewise, hear it quite well, too.

I don't know why people do this. They use the F-bomb for every conceivable part of speech: not only interjections, but also nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and probably all of the others. It's not only annoying and crude, it's just plain lazy speech.

Though it may seem like quibbling over petty stuff ... just my thoughts for today.

That's all I have to say about that.

Arbuckle Family Dinner/February 2019

Due to a large snowstorm that moved in this afternoon, monthly family dinner in Grantsville was unfortunately canceled. However, we still had the Davis County-based members of the family (JB's brother's and youngest sister's families) over at our house tonight for makeshift family dinner.

The theme was breakfast for dinner, and the food, which included Texas French toast, German pancakes, and bacon, was delicious.

The company was even better.

Groundhog Day 2019

Groundhog Day fell on a Saturday this year, and so did our annual family Groundhog Day party. We gathered at Ben's and Adi's house to enjoy good food together with a few close friends and to watch the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, as is our tradition.

The real Punxsutawney Phil apparently did not see a shadow Saturday morning, so for whatever that's worth, there's still six more weeks of winter, or only six weeks until spring ... whichever comes first.