The Cure for Back Pain

From a social perspective, Kennedy seems to be fitting in well. She gets lots of compliments on hour cuteness. She did leave the flower in her hair for the picture, but likes to pull it out, mostly to frustrate her mother.

The days are long, and the sunsets are beautiful. For the most part we have had good times. Kennedy does seem to want her Grandpa to hold her or to walk with her, which leaves him in some level of pain most of the time. It is relaxing, but the cure for pack pain is not merely watching the sunsets.

We drove out to the north shore. The traffic was a little tense which definitally was not the cure. We were able to see a couple of large green sea turtles getting their own beach therapy. Although this was very thrilling, this also was not the cure.

We have seen some amazing areas.

We went snorkeling at hanauma Bay. The water was rough, as you can see in the video below. Still, we saw some fish we had not seen before. I was looking for some eels, and apparently one swam right below me. I was snorkeling in water that was less than 2 feet cover over the reef, and it swam between the reef and me, but I did not see me. The healing waters help, but they did not provide the cure.

We took a ride out to the USS Arizona Memorial. This was a very moving and sacred time, but it did not help my back.

This is the cure. Kennedy spent a lot of time with Grandpa, but having her lie on my tummy while I enjoyed the ambience took away the pain for a short time.

Its called ...

I messed up at work. It actually happened in March or April, but I found out yesterday afternoon. I didn't sleep well. I have enough insecurities at work anyway, without this hanging over my head. I developed some options to deal with the mistake, but the fact is it cost the company several thousand dollars in bonuses that should not have been paid. Do we take them back? Do we take it out of my pay? do we suspend me for two weeks and use those savings to pay for the unearned bonuses? Do we just let the thing go, and learn from the mistake?
I feel bad for myself ('cause I'm no longer perfect), I feel bad for the my boss, ("cause he paid money out that should have been his') and I feel bad for those around me because I am morose and hurting and in a grumpy mood.

When people come into my office and talk about this kind of stuff, I usually say something like, "Its called being mortal and human. So you're not perfect, so what? If God expected you to be perfect, he would not have provided a Savior."

It still hurts to encounter something like this.

QUESTION ==> Do the healing waters of Hawaii also heal this kind of hurt?

Birthday wishes

Today is my dad's Birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad. He passed away 16 years ago, but I think of him often and the of the lessons he taught me. I remember once walking into the house with him. He was ahead of me, but he paused, turned and said daid, "I am proud of you."

Dad was not a man of many words of that sort, so those words have stuck with me for a long time.

I hope I can continue to not shame him in any way.

Getting Older

This is a picture of me when I was just a few months older than Ben is now. The picture was taken 53 years ago.

When I returned from my mission to Germany, I attended BYU. This was taken for my BYU Picture ID. I was 1/4 inch short of 6 ft. tall. I think I weighed about 165. I had my tonsils out when I was five and knee surgery when I was eighteen, Other than that, I felt pretty healthy. I was married in 1979 to Kayleen. We lived in Boise, ID for a few years and moved to Tucson, AZ in 1986. This picture was taken shortly after I moved to Tucson. I had a "procedure" for prostitises in 1989, and had my appendix out in 1996. I still felt pretty healthy.

I went back to school in 1992, and graduated with a Master's in Organizational Magement in 1994. This is my graduation day with Phillip and Timothy. We left a few days later for Disneyland.

We did not travel at all (other than to Utah, Idaho or Disneyland) until our 25th anniversary. We traveled to Kuai to celebrate. Lecia got sick (Tianna took care of her) , but Kayleen and I enjoyed the time together. We seem to have traveled a lot since that time. I like to experience the sunsets from the beach.

Our children have grown to become respectible members of society. We have 7 wonderful grandchildren. I have good employment. I try to serve the Lord. Unfortunetly, I do not have the energy and stamina that I had when I was Ben's age, or even Mike's age. I live with chronic back pain, which is a pain. I can not do many of the things I used to enjoy doing. I still spend time and energy with my grandchildren. Maybe it helps me capture some of the exuberance of youth.

So now that Geoff has become a reality. Oh, many of you do not understand the connotation. In the movie "Men in Black II", there is a 600 ft worm named Geoff, that lives in the New York Subway. I was going to title this post "A Hemroid Named Geoff," but thought better of the title.
Kayleen still loves me. I'm not really sure why. I've lost my looks, my trim figure, my athletisim, and my hair. But she goes with me still, and we will walk together. SOmetimes I look forward to going home to see Father. But there are places in Hawaii and other tropical islands that I have not seen. I wish to spend more time with my grandchildren. I want to change a few things still in my life. Getting older is not for wimps, but we are doing what we can.

BONUS

Kayleen and I went to the ballgame last weekend. On Saturday, the Diamondbacks were losing. But I did get this Homerun on tape. We were cheering so the video is a little shaky, but it is a home run, cutting the lead to 6-3. That was the losing score.

The Circle of Family

We traveled to Utah for the Name & Blessing ordinance for Hunter. First event on the docket - Peter's Soccer game. I have included a short video for viewing enjoyment.




We went to dinner at the Old Spegetti Factory. Lecia & Matt were there.

Mike and Tara were there.

Kennedy enjoyed the company and the food.

DJ & Laural came to the blessing on Sunday, but missed the lunch at the Old Spegetti Factory on Saturday. They did add to the entertainment on Sunday at lunch.

Saturday night we watched Kennedy while Matt and Lecia went to Prom. Then Sunday was Hunter's day, and he was Looking Sharp!

He did well, not crying or filling any diapers or that kind of stuff. He was surrounded by good men, who called upon the powers of heaven to help him and to welcome him to mortality. Afterwards, we took some pictures. Ben was finally willing to allow us to take one picture of him. As fun as he is, he seems to be camera shy.

We had a great visit, only problem is that it was too short.

Who woulda thunk?

Okay - On Thursday we rented a car and drove around the north shore. The water was pretty roiled up. Snorkeling in Sharks'cove would have been on the stupid end of the spectrum. We did see some beautiful beaches. On Friday, we walked along the canal and down to the Army Museum. Those pictures will be shown in another post. My new camera will let me take up to 3 pictures and then it bolts them all together, giving some good landscape views.

We found Kayleen's true calling, as a priestess to worship at my feet. (lol)

We found a new area down by the museum to watch the sunset.

At 3:30 AM, we got a phone call from one of Kayleen's friends, telling us we better move to higher ground. We turned on the news, and sure enough, there was a tsunumi warning. We were evacuated vertically ( at or above the 3rd floor.) we checked out of the hotel, but stayed in our room. Security actuall would not let us out of our room after about 10:00 AM. Here is a video of the sirens going off, and police cars trying to clear the beach area.


When the surge hit it was not immediatelyy noticable. Here is a picture of some rocks sticking out of the water about an hour before the surge hit.

This is a picture of the same area after the surge hit. This tsunami was more like going from low tide to high tide in a five minute time period, and then repeating that sequence 5 more times over the next 90 minutes.

The largest surge was the 3rd one to hit. Here is a short video of the waves over those same rocks.


We changed our flight to Sunday, checked back into the hotel, and went for a walk. Again, the sunset was beautiful.

An interesting, but crazy day.

A Change of Plans

The intestinal issues that have been in and out of my life the past 3 months were back in this morning. I stayed close to the WC while Kayleen walked down to the Aquarium for a couple of hours. When she got back, I was feeling better. We had canceled the rental car, so we decided to WALK out to the light house. This is a view of Diamond Head point from a park. It took us about an hour and 15 minutes to walk there. This is a view from the road.

A lady in our ward told me there was tide pools down below the light house, so we found the path and walked down. It was mostly surfers on one end of the beach, and single men in thongs at the other. This is a view from the beach below the light house.

We really didn't have proper footwear to go into the water, but it was neat to see the tide pools.

On the trolley this evening, we saw a sculpted palm. It almost looks like a Kachina doll, that one would buy in Tucson Arizona.

The sunset this evening was beautiful.

We will try to rent a car tomorrow and go out to the North shore and stuff that we did not do today.