Book Review - Breathless by Dean Koontz

What do you do when you're right in the middle of a good book, and Sweetie hands you Koontz's lastest novel?  I don't know about anyone else, but for me, it's drop everything and read!

This one, while not my favorite Koontz novel, by far, was pretty darn fun.  Four different stories don't come together until the last couple of chapters.  Four stories that seem utterly unrelated.  One story is a new twist on Koontz's nasty bad guy.  He's bad, too right, but he's also a bungling idiot.  Best laid plans gone completely wrong.  Of course the bad guy is a politician.  No surprise there, when did politician's best laid plans go any other way!  And, of course the politician has a tantrum when things come to their logical conclusion.

You're going to really love Dean's extensive treatise completely disproving evolution.  Careful though, I don't want any fundamentalist Christians getting too excited; there is logic involved.

Of course the central theme of the book is that things are not necessarily what they seem and that even science is evolving at such a rapid rate that we can hardly count on anything we think we know.

If you'd like to think outside the box for a few light breezy hours, pick up this book.

Why Not Me?

There are reports of so many strange unexplained phenomena.  Here and abroad unusual things transpire and are even witnessed by thousands sometimes.  How is it that I never get to see such stuff.

This week a spiral light appeared over arctic Norway.  It is pictured above.  Now, wouldn't that have been cool to see?  Back in the sixties several friends of mine, even some of worthy repute, saw UFO's in our valley.  I stayed up night after night watching and never saw a thing.  I've been to the Northwest, but never saw Sasquatch.  I've been on the Skinwalker Ranch but have never seen a skinwalker.  I've been in a haunted house but have never seen a ghost.

Do I somehow repel such things?  I've long wanted to attract strange occurrences, but the harder I try the worse I do.  I wonder if I had one front incisor removed if that would do the trick?

Now, in the interest of fairness, I have seen some pretty neat stuff.  I once saw a meteorite cross the sky that was seen from California to Colorado and from Mexico to Canada.  That was pretty neat.  Just not neat enough to be unexplainable.  Just a couple of weeks ago I watched the International Space Station cross the sky followed by the Space Shuttle.  I was moved by what that represents, but it made sense and was identified.  I'm interested in the stuff that can't be explained.  Mysterious stuff is a lot more fun and of course, mysterious.

Am I forever doomed to see swamp gas as just swamp gas?  Must I take peyote to see skinwalkers or be drunk to see UFO's?  It just doesn't seem fair that I have to miss out on all the fun.  Why am I relegated to a world that just makes sense?  Does that make sense?  I'm crazy too you know!  I want in on the action! 

Maybe I just don't have a well enough developed imagination.  I'm going to work on that.

What The Heck Is An LDS Clock?

According to Deseret Book's TV ad this (drum roll please) is a LDS Clock!  So does this mean it is eight years old?  Has it been baptized?  If I buy one do I need to have the Ward Clerk send for it's membership records?  Does it tell time by a gift of the Spirit?  Will my Home Teachers give me a better report if they find one sitting on my mantel?  Do I need to get a mantel?  Does it chime when its time for Family Prayer?  How much more to I have to pay for it than a Gentile Clock?  Does a Mormon Clock keep better time than, say, a Catholic Clock?  If I don't buy one is my Temple Recommend in jeopardy?

My question for Deseret Book is this, "When are you going to start selling Chia Pet replicas of the General Authorities?"

Up In The Night

I'm rather stuck in an adjustment period.  I worked the graveyard shift last night and will do so for five out of the next seven nights.  The transition is always hard.  I went to bed when I got home this morning but could only stay asleep for three and a half hours.  That isn't enough to sustain me very well tonight.  Writing is going to be my primary means of staying awake.  I don't have many duties.  Just a bed check every 15 minutes.  It will be easy to nod off if I'm not very careful.  I think I'll keep this particular post open and report my progress and maybe some of the antics I have to pull in order avoid getting fired for sleeping on watch.

I think, in the long run, I'll prefer to work graves.  It is quiet, will afford me plenty of time to write and once I'm adjusted, shouldn't cause too many problems schedule wise.  It's moving back and forth from days to nights that is the biggest problem.

Sweetie and I watched the Grand Finale of  The Biggest Loser this evening.  Dan won!  I was so thrilled for him. He lost over 55% of his original body weight, that's over 230 pounds!  All of the participants did amazingly well.  It was so inspiring to see the transformations they made, not only in their bodies, but in their emotional and spiritual health. I think I'll have to work out some this evening, both to burn a few calories and to help me stay awake.  I can also see that I need some emotional and spiritual assistance and hope to gain in that area as well.  I've been highly unmotivated lately and really need to get going on a program of productivity, creativity and progress.

Currently, I'm working part time.  I hope this changes to full time soon.  I need the consistency in my life that regular employment affords.  I wish it were different, but right now, at least, it is not.

I've spent a good productive couple of hours writing on my book Revelation.  I have to get up every 15 mnutes and do a bed check.  I only have one child in my charge this evening.  So it's all pretty easy.  The hard part is staying awake.  I did a few jumping jacks moments ago.  That helped.

My book is getting exciting.  I rarely know much in advance, where the story will take me.  I have a general outline, but the details are always as big a surprise as though I were reading what someone else wrote.

I had to quit working on my book.  Can't think well enough to create.  I did manage to write about 3000 words though and I over came a pretty big obstacle in the plot while I was at it.

It is going to be very good to do this with a good night's sleep under my belt.  I have managed to stay awake though.  I'm glad of that.

A Tribute to Lester Draper

Lester Barton Draper passed away on November 22, 2009.  He was 65.

Les was my first cousin and pretty much the standard bearer for the family.  He had gone for a bicycle ride and suffered a heart attack while riding.  He was found still astide his bike, lying at the side of the road.

Les was the only one of our generation who had much memory of our Grandpa Eph.  We loved hearing him tell stories of his boyhood alongside Grandpa on the farm in Provo.  He reminded me of Grandpa.  Both were short and a bit portly in their old age.  Both died of heart failure.  Both were jovial and gregarious.  I was always grateful to be around Les and his cheerful nature.  Everyone who knew him knew Les loved and enjoyed him or her.

Les had the most endearing laugh.  It was such a delight to hear his joyful laughter that you just longed to be funny enough to make him do it again.  Les was funny enough for all of us.  We didn't have to make him laugh, he made us laugh.  I would love to have a bottle of that delightful sound that I could open and enjoy at will.  At the luncheon, I listened for it.  I hoped to hear him laughing from the other side.  It never happened.  I hoped the his son or brother, might somehow sound the same.  No such luck.  Les' signature giggle went with him and we'll have a long wait before we hear it again.

Lester was an outfitter.  He would take folks on horseback outings.  He was the whole package.  He was a ferrier and could keep the horses shod.  He was a great camp cook.  He loved to play the guitar and sing.  He'd done a lot of research digging up old cowboy songs and loved to share them.  He was an excellent carpenter and was often out helping people with this project or that.  He did a lot of work on Christmas projects for people.  These are all service opportunities and avocational activities.  Careerwise, Les was a Driver's Licence Examiner.

He was a member of a couple of bands and played a lot around Central Utah.  Every Tuesday he was found at the Old Folks Home entertaining.  How he will be missed there.

When Lester's brother spoke at the funeral he quoted Elder Jeffery R. Holland.

"And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal."

Then he reminded us that Lester was an angel, a seen, known and mortal angel.  How very true it was.  The funeral was attended by Bishops in suits and Cowboys in jeans.  Lester had been an angel to us all.  At the funeral Kate gave me a copy of a CD Les recorded of some of his songs.  I enjoyed them all the way home. One is about a Cowboy who has died and gone.  A phrase in the song says that it would be wrong to question why, "it's just that some of us don't know how to say goodbye."  The only way I can stand to say goodbye is to imagine Les and Grandpa each elboing their way through heavenly crowds for a chance to gaze into each other's eyes and be embraced in each other's arms.