Green River and Crystal Geyser

Hide and Seek in the canyons

Hide and Seek is one of those games that never seems to get old.  We played it as kids, and nowadays it remains a popular option when we get together for night games.  But in the process of growing up, we've also acquired new tools that can enhance our play.  We have cars now, and maybe even gas money sometimes.

So, why not play hide and seek with our cars?  Pick a canyon, for example, and send someone up with, say, a twenty-minute head start.  They park somewhere, then it's the seekers' turn to find where they ended up.  While they wait, whoever is hiding can take pictures or walk around or start a fire for marshmallows, or whatever.  Then when everyone's back together again, they can explore the area or find some other part of the canyon in which to hang out and enjoy the scenery.

Perhaps a more challenging variation could take place in the city.  Choose some boundaries (for example, 4100 S., I-215, 4700 S., and Redwood Rd.), and try to find the hiding car in that section of town.  Once everyone's together, do whatever's nearby (if there's a park, go swinging; if there's a laser tag arena, play there; if there's a restaurant, eat there; if there's a museum, visit it; etc.).

I think I'd like to try this sometime and see how it works.  Thoughts?  Takers?

Inspiration came last night when I made my first trip to Big Cottonwood Canyon since getting off my mission.  The plan was to meet a friend near Dogwood, but I must have blinked at just the wrong time, or something, because I overshot my target and ended up in Brighton.  It was a very enjoyable drive, though, and I took pictures to my heart's content.  So, for those who wouldn't want to play . . . consider the scenery!

Let's play.

Scratching away at the old violin

Back in November I wrote about how I'd joined the Taylorsville-SLCC Symphony.  That was an enjoyable time for me, and it felt good to get back on stage during the Holiday Season.  But due to a schedule change I had to leave the orchestra again after our Christmas concert series.  My brief season with the Taylorsville-SLCC Symphony got me playing the violin again after my mission, but it wasn't enough to graduate me from "rusty" status without individual practice.

And, well . . . I haven't been doing that.  I probably have time to practice, but the violin isn't like the piano: it's not just sitting there open in the living room, with a bench handy for me to sit on.  I can sit down at the piano without even thinking about it (there are occasions when I'm so tired I don't even realize I've gone to the piano until I'm pressing keys), but the violin requires a little bit more effort to pull out of the closet and make sure the bow is tight and the strings are in tune.

But I'd like to start practicing regularly again, at least a little.  I had so much fun in the high school orchestra.  (By the way, it's been four years since high school.  Weird.)  I wasn't a virtuoso back then, or anything, but I felt comfortable with the violin.  I could pick it up and just play, and that made me happy.  And really, that's all I want out of the violin.  I'm not out to become first chair of the Utah Symphony; I just want to play without making a bunch of awkward squeaking noises.  Maybe I'll learn some hymn arrangements for church, or something.

This thought was inspired by a meeting with Joey, an old friend from the orchestra.  We get together fairly often, but today was the first time I can remember that we actually thought, Hey, why don't we play some violin?

So we did.  And (mainly due to my rustiness; Joey still practices a lot more than I do), one can imagine what that sounded like.  It didn't exactly turn out like this:





Actually, it was more like this:





I've learned, however, that things generally go okay with the music if I stay in the background. On this one, we even managed to get through the whole song!





In any case, we had fun, and that's what the orchestra was all about for me back in the day.  It was nice to play the violin with an old friend again, and indeed, pulling out my violin itself was like seeing another old friend.  It was the kind of experience that made me think.  I may talk more about my summer goals sometime, but practicing my violin more than just once in a long while is definitely on the list now.  I think that'll be good for me.

Scottish Festival

Personal radiation

There is one responsibility which no man can evade; that responsibility is his personal influence.  Man's unconscious influence is the silent, subtle radiation of personality--the effect of his words and his actions on others.  This radiation is tremendous.  Every moment of life man is changing, to a degree, the life of the whole world.

Every man has an atmosphere which is affecting every other man.  He cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character, this constant weakening or strengthening of others.  Man cannot evade the responsibility by merely saying that it is an unconscious influence.  

Man can select the qualities he would permit to be radiated.  He can cultivate sweetness, calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice, loyalty, nobility, and make them vitally active in his character.  And by these qualities he will constantly affect the world.

This radiation, to which I refer, comes from what a person really is, not from what he pretends to be.  Every man by his mere lilting is radiating either sympathy, sorrow, morbidness, cynicism, or happiness and hope or any one of a hundred other qualities.

Life is a state of radiation and absorption.  To exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the recipient of radiation.


--David O. McKay (emphasis mine)

A Scout is Friendly

A Scout is friendly. And while it is easy to be friendly with our friends, we also need to be friendly with those who don't know us, and who aren't our friends. This also means that we need to be friendly to our enemies. Although a difficult thing to do, there is a story of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865, 16th President of the United States of America) and his unique way of dealing with his enemies.

An associate once took him to task for his kind attitude toward his enemies. His friend advised, "Why do you try to make friends of them? You should try to destroy them." To this, Lincoln gently replied, "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make them my friends?"

--Ron Wendel, The Scoutmaster Minute, p. 120