Sandra left Boise about 6 hours after I did, and arrived back here around 9:30. I called her when she was about 40 minutes out (how DID we get by before the age of cell-phones?) and determined that I needed to fix a dinner to be served upon arrival. The kids had been eating nothing but snack food since lunch, and needed something “real” to go to bed on.

So I made spaghetti. I won’t bore you with the details, save to say I made sure to prepare it so that the smells were permeating the house. That way appetites would be better stimulated, and kids would be that much more likely to eat.

Well, at the door I discovered one of my kids was missing. Sandra traded Kiki (our oldest daughter) for a little boy cousin Link’s age, whom I will lovingly refer to as “Howler.” Kiki will stay in Idaho with a girl cousin her age for about a week.

We’ll see how Howler and I get on. I suspect I have to return him in good condition in order to get Kiki back. The good news is, of the kids who sat down to eat the spaghetti I prepared, Howler plowed through it fastest and furthest.

–Howard

The drive back from Boise was uneventful. There were fewer bugs smearing my beetle, more cars on the Idaho stretch by about a factor of 5, and fewer cars on the Utah stretch by an order of magnitude.

Anyway, I’m back now.

The one interesting thing I saw… a blue-green Jaguar sedan, driven by a woman with a somewhat aristocratic bearing. The license plate read “MOMOF10.”

Yes, this was on the Utah stretch.

–Howard

Well, it turns out my read on the Mormon view of the constitution is at odds with the recently published official view. This article details the official postion, as released on July 7th, and it’s pretty concise:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints favors a constitutional amendment preserving marriage as the lawful union of a man and a woman.

This raises a number of interesting questions, of which I’ll only touch on two:

1) If the constitution is amended, does this create a constitutionally-supported definition of religion?

2) If my personal belief is at odds with an official statement from the men I believe to be prophets, seers, and revelators, what happens next?

More…

I got a photo in the mail yesterday. It was a picture of Jay Maynard (Tron guy) in his Tron outfit. There’s a picture of it over here.

I requested he send me one. He and I met at Penguicon, which was where his costume debuted. When I saw it I thought “Wow. Cool.” Jay and I got a few chances to talk, he sat in on some of my panels, and I remember thinking he was one of the neater people I met at the show.

Imagine my thrill when I found out that his appearance at Penguicon, and his initial LJ entries about it, had rendered him famous. Then I found out he was actually INFAMOUS because there were those who thought the costume was less than flattering on someone of his admittedly middle-aged build.

This bugged me. Hell, he was a NICE GUY who did something very creative to have a GOOD TIME, and he got loads and loads of crap for it. (Granted, he also got to be on TV, so I guess the whole “making lemonade” thing holds up.)

When I was in high-school, kids would occasionally give me crap at parties for not drinking. One belligerently intoxicated 18-year-old went so far as to tell me I was ruining his party, when all I’d been doing was laughing and joking with others while NOT having beers myself. At that party, one of my friends, who ALSO happened to be drunk, strolled up to this plastered troll and explained in no uncertain terms that if he saw ANYBODY giving Howard crap about not drinking, they’d have him to answer to.

It’s one thing to stand by your principles and be persecuted for it. It’s another thing entirely to endure persucution knowing that friends of yours will interpose themselves, even if they don’t share your beliefs.

Jay, thanks for the picture. I’m going to sit down and ink a “cartoon” version of it, and pop that in the mail to you. You’re a great guy, and all the trolltards in the world can’t change that.

–Howard