My 500 Words

I live under the flight path of the Salt Lake International Airport and have become very accustomed to seeing airplanes overhead. In fact, a couple of nights ago I was looking at five planes as they made their approach to land. On September 11, 2001 and the days that followed, the air went silent. Except for Hill Air Force Base. At the time, my commute provided the chance to drive by the base a couple of times per day. But, the Air Force was  running so many drills, you could see the fighter jets all over the sky. But commercial airline traffic stopped and I noted the absence. In the face of the tragedy and all the different things that came to define our new normal, we also experienced a unifying spirit of resolve and community. In the days and weeks after September 11, our society made a concerted effort to support the people around us who would be negatively affected by the attack on our country and the disruption to air travel. People said, if we stop living the attackers...

One night I was driving through fog that was so dense I couldn’t see but a few feet in front of my car. It was so bad that I stayed at a friend's home instead of driving the few miles to get home. I have been in rainstorms that have forced me to pull over and hope that all of the cars behind me have done the same. I’ve also experienced blowing dirt that forced me to take cover and simply wait before I could proceed. Today’s political climate reminds me of the fog, rain, and dirt combined together in a torment so dark that any path forward is unknown and seems uncharted. For many, these circumstances seem paralyzing and people just want to wait until the storm passes over so that they can see their way and continue on their journey. Others who are so convinced of their positions sit in the eye of the storm and wonder why there is so much commotion when everything seems so clear. Unlike the fear while driving blind I have experienced an overwhelming calm in the midst of a very...

When I was eleven years old I began to deliver newspapers. For the first couple of months I delivered a morning paper after my older brother got a real job and so I got up early and helped his twin. Then he got a real job. Fortunately, I was offered an afternoon newspaper route. For me, it was as close to perfect as a job could be. I did it after school, it took a little over an hour and I made a couple of dollars per month for every subscriber. In my mind I was rich. I opened my own savings account and with every deposit I was able to see my bank account balance grow. One funny thing was that almost every day as I would fold the newspaper I would see the report on the Dow Jones like a flipping comic strip that never changed. Yes, I’m old enough to say that I remember when the Dow was below 1000 points. I’m pretty sure I remember it in the 600s. That early exposure led me to research the stock market and how to invest. When I was thirteen or fourteen, I had accumulated a few thous...

My 92 year-old dad isn’t doing so well. He’s more quiet, and confined to a hospital bed in his living room. But when I saw him a few days ago, he remembered who I was and he told me stories about his childhood, his church mission, and even recent events. Some of them might even be true. I asked whether he ever owned his own bicycle. Growing up in southern Alberta during a time of general economic scarcity he never had his own bicycle. He said, “The bicycle was given to the girls.” He would ride the bicycle on occasion, but he never had one of his own. My dad loved to golf. I wondered whether he had played golf in the early 1950’s when he labored as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Samoa. My dad created a beautiful story about a tee shot along the shoreline. The day was beautiful and the water was clear and blue as the sky. The trees were green and still, as no wind blew. He hit the ball square and it sailed on a line with a perfect arc as far as...

I opened  my Facebook app and was greeted with the following message:. If you are going to make a meme, can you please stick to the same font? The combination of serif and san serif made me question whether the creator had any grasp of the fundamental nature of the human condition. When you stop and think about it, wisdom demands greater attention to detail when dealing with intrinsic practices like the worship of God and the limits on how to do it. Perhaps a much less interesting meme, but the period should really go after garbage. I could get behind any movement that endorses not treating people like garbage. Unfortunately, people do treat others, at different moments in time, like garbage. So it isn’t so much that we cannot treat people like garbage and more like we shouldn’t. This meme caught my attention because it linked the bad behavior of treating people poorly with the ability to worship God while treating people like garbage. If that’s the case, I’m in big tro...

 Once I started to practice law my reading for pleasure plummeted like a lead ball. But I knew that I could escape. Even during law school I made reading for pleasure a priority and it helped me enjoy the law school experience. I took time away from the serious studies and imperative learning, and reading kept me grounded and gave my mind the space to relax. Many of the tasks I did for work I could do on the bus and because my office was right by the courthouse, I didn’t need to drive myself. What fortune to discover that  a route that stopped a mere ten houses from my home and dropped me off less than a block from my office. At first, I spent my commute accomplishing tasks that I used to do behind my desk. But, I soon noticed that many of my fellow travelers were reading for pleasure or personal fulfillment. Soon, I followed the example of my peers. I used the time to eliminate the stack of books that I intended to read; someday. My love of reading returned and I experi...

I love the movie A Beautiful Mind because it introduced me to the work of John Nash. I will be the first to admit that I lack the capacity to work out the equations that express his theories on equilibrium. John’s subset of the larger umbrella that is game theory goes far beyond the scope of what we would consider games. The prisoner’s dilemma helps explore wars and international conflict. Nash’s theories and their applications have extended to botany, economics, anti-trust regulation and, perhaps most naturally, sports. John Nash had the capacity of devising an original idea, a way of seeing the world anew so that the world could become a richer and more dynamic place. His theories went beyond explanation as they provided opportunity for decision makers to consider paths that they would have otherwise missed because of unknowing ignorance. John’s Equilibrium’s Theory was his original idea, his Eureka moment. For similar reasons, I enjoyed the NOVA series The Fabric of the Cosmo...