Our Newest Baby Takes Off

After several long years of waiting the 787 has finally taken off. (Only 2 and a half years late) I spent over a year with my "desk" in front of the left wing while it was in the factory. And it has been constant work since then.

I'd like to say thank you to all my coworkers who put in many hours to make the flight a reality. I wish I could say we were done but now we have to get everything taken care of so we can start delivering the airplane.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. Although I wish I had a better camera.



This helicopter flew all around taking IMAX movie pictures.



CNBC cameraman

I love it when a plan comes together

Debbie's 50th birthday is Sunday. She has been wanting to do something fun together and has let me know. She also has been amazingly patient in not knowing what we were going to do.

Sherri called me 4 to 6 weeks ago and asked if we were going anywhere for Debbie's birthday. I had not planned anything yet so she asked if they could all make a surprise visit and I said yes.

In the meantime, Debbie has brought up what we are doing for her birthday a few times. When I didn't know what to tell her, responding with worthless answers like usual, she made a booklet up for me with ideas. It was actually a pretty good booklet. I had not heard from Sherri in weeks and was kind of nervous. I called Sherri to ask what was going on and she let me know they were all coming up on Friday.

I had scheduled to take Thursday off so I could do something with Debbie before all her sisters came. Everyone had got colds a couple weeks ago and I ended up catching it the end of last week so I actually worked from home Monday through Wednesday or laid around depending how I felt.

I told Debbie we would go somewhere Thursday but I was sure where to go since I didn't know what her sisters would want to do. I decided Wednesday we would go south for the day and she had also decided that is what she wanted to do. I had not figured out how to handle not staying at a hotel. She finally asked a question that gave me an out. I have a lot of meetings with Japan on the phone and computer. So when she asked, I said yes I had a meeting Thursday night at 7:30 that I had to be back for. I then told her not to worry about the rest of the week - that I had it planned and I would tell her about the rest of the week Thursday night.

She was amazingly good about it. We went out Thursday and had a great time. We came home it the evening for my meeting. Sherri called and told me Marcy's plane was late. So when 7:30 came by and Debbie asked about the meeting I answered that they didn't need me. That worked.

Sherri called again to say the plane was later. Debbie asked if I was going to tell her about the rest of the week. It was 8:30 and she was ready to go to bed and there was no keeping her up. She had been up since 4:30. I told her I needed to go work on it and could tell her about it at 10 if she was awake. She went to post her blog about the day and then go to bed.

Luckily the girls were smart enough to tell Brian and Jody to come to the house since they were already in Marysville waiting for the others. They rang the doorbell just as Debbie finished her blog and I answered the door. I looked at them kind of strange for a sec until I realized who it was. No one had told me they were coming. They came in and spent the next one and a half hours talking with Debbie on the couch. Debbie was starting to wonder when they were going to leave.

The door opened at 10pm and the five girls come in yelling like they were mad at each other as they walked up the stairs. Debbie had no clue what was going on until she saw them and then she screamed. It was lots more noise for the next hour and a half. A great day. Thank you everyone.

So Happy Birthday Debbie!!!

And

Happy Anniversary Brian and Jody.

More school: Obama would curtail summer vacation

So President Obama has figured out something else that ails our nation. This time it is summer vacation. To be fair, Obama isn't the only one who thinks this way.

"Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe." Do we always have to keep up with the Joneses.

We have child labor laws that were enacted to allow children to be children. We send then to school 6 hours a day to learn. That turns out not to be enough for many people. Many teachers seem to think if they are not giving kids a bunch of homework they are not doing their job. So the poor kid has about 8 or 9 hours of education a day if the want to get a good grade. Now the president thinks that is not good enough. So much for the child labor laws doing the kids any good. What ever happened to the idea that children should be able to enjoy being a child.

Sometimes I get the idea that some people think that children just new assets for corporations that need to be correctly programed to serve the good of the whole.

Apparently how many hours children spend in school does not necessarily make them smarter. "Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days)."

How about instead of lengthening the school year we go back to teaching the basics. There is really no reason a kid in elementary school needs to use a calculator to do his math and having memorizing multiplication tables would not hurt. I think we are easily caught up in all the new fangled methods when many times the old methods work just as well.

President Who

President West became Brother West on Sunday.  The Elders Quorum has a new president.

It's amazing how simple the keys are passed to another.  I realized I was going to be released a few weeks ago and I was disappointed.  The spirit takes care of how we feel.  I no longer have any desire for the call and I'm looking forward to serving in my new calling which you will hear about after I am sustained.