Blue Box on Blocks

That is what I have named our new home. A fun tongue twister of a name.


Above is what it looked like the day we made our offer to buy. The grass isn't quite as green any more, what with all the heat.

So far, we are liking it a lot. There is a small back yard with a couple of apple trees, some roses, and other vegetation.

At about 1600 square feet, it is twice as big as the condo where we used to live, and it is still only a 5 minute commute to work (although I now have to drive (or take the bus) instead of walking).

Visitors welcome!

Flashback Friday: Banking in Switzerland

A long time ago, I lived for a few months in Geneva, Switzerland, and came to know and love the city.

A few years later (in the mid-1970's), I worked for awhile at a Swiss bank in Geneva.

A decade later, in 1987, on a Friday as it happened, I was checking into a hotel in Geneva.

The hotel didn't accept credit cards. Moment of panic. But, wait, no problem. All I needed was to find an ATM and do a cash withdrawal. But (unlike everywhere in the UK and France) the city did not have a single ATM! More panic. But wait, no problem. Just find a bank and get a cash advance.

The only problem was that none of the nearby banks accepted credit cards.

I was very surprised. Swiss banking has such a reputation, but they weren't up to (the then) modern standards in the credit card area. The banks were all very luxurious and classically furnished. But, it was clear there were two banking systems: the modern and the traditional.

As the afternoon wore on and bank closing time loomed, I got more and more panicky. Finally, I found a bank that had a relationship with a bank somewhere else who could do it for me. Got across the city just in time, got an advance, and was able to pay for the hotel for the weekend. Whew!

Now, fast forward to the present. I was reminded of this when I tried to stop an automatic transfer at my current bank. This isn't one of the transfers that I can manage myself at their internet site, so I phoned. After identifying myself and asking about the transfer, I asked if I had caught it in time to stop the next one (tomorrow). The girl said, "Oh, no, we need fourteen days."

Fourteen days?!? The Internet website has gotten me used to quicker responses. Fourteen seconds* would have seemed too long to wait.

So, 22 years later, again on a Friday, I discover that there are still two banking systems, even here in America. The modern one and the traditional one.

*Coincidentally, the phone call itself took 14 minutes (much of it on hold).

Don't get old

Such was the advice my father used to give when talking about the frailties of his aging years.

It was partly an attempt at humor to change the subject. Dad didn't like to complain. Even though his health deteriorated pretty steadily over the last 22 years of his life (after a stroke) until his death from (officially) starvation. There was a long way to go from the vibrant, healthy, strong man's man that I knew growing up, and that few of his grandchildren can remember.

Sometimes, I find myself telling my own children, "Don't get old." But, I always try to catch myself, because the only alternative that I am aware of to growing old is to die young. And that is something that I honestly can't wish upon any of my children. Or nieces, nephews, and grandchildren.

Writer's Block

Okay, I really can't claim to be suffering from writer's block, which is an affliction of professional writers.

During the time since my last post, I have been suffering not from a lack of ideas for things to write about, but rather an over-abundance. And, there isn't a lot of time to indulge in this anyway.

Today, I followed the wikipedia page (linked to above) to these places (in the order of my exploration), which I found all to be fascinating. Now, I have to get to work.

1. asemic writing
2. lorem ipsum
3. ETAOIN SHRDLU
4. greeking
5. metasyntactic variable
6. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
7. esoteric programming languages

So, with all this interesting stuff, where is the time to write?

I did a little digging through old computer files*, because, once upon a time, I created an esoteric programming language myself, for the amusement of my children. It was named "dust".

*If you do a "View Source" you'll see that the dust.htm web page was generated from Corel WordPerfect 8. I was tempted to clean it up and get rid of the extra vertical space, but decided to leave it just as it was generated from my original recounting of one evening's experience.

Touching base

I recently received email messages bringing me up to date on the families of two of my school friends. It was very interesting reading, and good to know what everyone was doing, where they were, etc. Rather than responding directly, I decided to post the information here.

My sisters and I are somewhat scattered, but (with few exceptions) all along Alberta Highways 2, 3 and 4 and the I-15 corridor.

As for me, I have found and married the love of my life, Sara Anne, and live in an "empty nest" in Salt Lake City (you can find a picture of where we live in this post). We have been happily married for four and a half years. We met in community theater and enjoy sharing that hobby.

Colleen and her husband LeRon live and farm near Grassy Lake, along with their three sons (Michael, Craig, Eric), while two daughters live near Chicago (Heather, Michelle (husband Andy and son Matthew)).

Arlene and husband Michael have a construction/demolition/cleaning business near San Diego, and live near their daughter (Jenna (husband Bob and children)) and son (Lance).

Myrna and husband Bruce live in Orem, with Myrna being a music librarian at B.Y.U. near to most of their children (Kelline (husband Jonathan and children), Abra and children living in Alberta, David, Nancy (husband Andrew and daughter Rachel) living in Egypt(!), Patrick, and Josie).

All of us are college educated, which is quite a remarkable achievement for our parents, who didn't have that opportunity. Our father left us in 2000, and mother followed him three years later. They lived in Raymond, having retired from farming in 1986. Shortly after retirement, they spent a year and a half in Salt Lake City, on a mission in the granite vaults, which they enjoyed greatly.

My first wife Christine (now going by Marie) has been happily married to Philippe for thirty years and has a son Jean-Christophe who is an astrophysicist, all living in France. We had been married for 7 years before the divorce, and lived in Provo until I graduated from B.Y.U. and then in France, first in a suburb of Paris, and later in Brittany near the coast.

My second wife Judy has been happily married to Wally (a widower with 6 children) for many years and lives in Provo. While Christine and I had no children, Judy brought three wonderful step-daughters into my life (Heather (husband Mel and daughter Madeline), Melinda (husband Jim and children), Carlie (husband Mike and boys)). And later we had Elizabeth (married to Cody and living in Rexburg, Idaho) and Andrew who attends UVU in Orem. We had been married for 16 years before divorcing, having lived in Tucson (while I finished a Masters degree), Raymond (where I taught at the University of Lethbridge), and Orem (where I worked for WordPerfect and Novell).

Sara brought six more great step-children into my life (Eli (wife Sadie and son Lucas), Rachel (husband Jason and children), Ben, Ammon, Helaman, Jessica). We have taken many trips together. One of the most memorable was a month spent in Bangalore, India, along with her three youngest and my niece Josie. Jessica has recently left home, and we are contemplating our options for this new phase of life.

Death and facebook revisited

Well, it has happened again. Another dear facebook friend has passed away.


This time it was my cousin, Harold Conrad, who has been ill for over a year. When I learned of his illness, I wrote some memories that I have of growing up with him, in a post entitled "Effects of a great man." After mingling with many of his friends and family recently, I learned that I am not alone in this high opinion of him.

His obituary gives a nice summary of his life, and includes this photo.

In this case, it turned out that all of his facebook friends are family members, so everyone knew of his illness and passing. A look at his facebook wall will show pictures of the time last summer when his brothers and sisters gathered near Taber, and my sisters and I were able to visit with him there as well. It was a great reunion.


This is another case where it would be nice if he could have selected someone to manage his account after his departure. It would have been an ideal place to post information about his funeral service. His friends could have commented on the link, thus enabling their friends to see the comment and spread the knowledge of his passing further into the network of people who knew him.

For example, one of my facebook friends communicated this to me privately.

I was so sorry to hear of Harold's passing. After we got the message from you via Facebook, we looked for his obituary notice in the paper and couldn't find it until today. If it weren't for Facebook, we wouldn't even have known about it. [emphasis added]

If I had shared a link to the obituary in facebook, they would have been able to find the obituary immediately.

Death and facebook

Facebook allows people to share personal information with their friends on the Internet.

It was written by very young people (college students) and appeals mainly to very young people. Nevertheless, some older people are also using it to maintain contact with friends.

Sometimes, a user of facebook dies. An acquaintance of mine, Don Fisher, passed away last October. I heard about it just recently, through other channels.

So, it occurs to me, why doesn't facebook deal with death? In the edit profile section, there is no way to indicate that you are dead.

We ought to be able to designate some other facebook user as our executor, giving that person the ability to change our profile to show our death. The executor ought to be able to post an obituary on our profile, and our friends ought to hear about our death, hopefully, in time to make plans to attend the funeral.

Facebook isn't the only company that doesn't deal well with death. When my mother passed away, we had to contact Melaleuca, a company with which she had a contract, in order to cancel future deliveries and the concomitant financial obligation.

As I carried out these duties, I spoke with someone on the telephone, and they acted as if they didn't believe she had died. Perhaps others, not liking the commitments, had attempted to get out of them is like manner? In any case, we finally agreed that I would send them an official death certificate, and they would release my mother from her obligations.

Unless there is some way to get an Internet connection in the great beyond, there is no reason for a company like facebook to be in denial of death.