Carroll Reunion

We had lots of fun at the Carroll reunion on Saturday in Heber City. So much fun, in fact, that we came home exhausted and slept for three hours. Check out these cute pictures of my hubby and some of our family participating in the festivities.

Jeff & Emi having fun at the cemetery

Great-great grandmother Charlotte Moulton Carroll, part of the famous Moulton family who survived the ordeal of the Willie Handcart Company.


Susan? (I know she's related), Carrie, Dad, Mom, and Grandma Petersen

Cousins Eloise, Emilia, & Elijah pose in front of the Moulton plot in the Heber Cemetery

Thoughts Occasioned by the Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

*WARNING: No one under, oh, twelve years of age is to read this. Seriously.*
*WARNING: Spoilers galore."

So I finished it early Sunday morning (like 4:00am early):

1. Violent.
2. Violent.
3. There is literature, and then there is literature, and then there are books that make me feel like Santa Claus is alive again.
4. The Helaman Halls cluster in 1999-2000 was an awful lot like Hogwarts, bless it.
5. England--Great Britain, really--is a dreary, damp, beer-soaked, luddite-filled place that, in many respects, makes me shudder and take excessive Advil. Why do I constantly think about going back?
6. It's a good thing that I wasn't younger when the series emerged, because I wouldn't have gotten anything done. And all the brooms in the house would've gone missing.
7. I really, really like the music of 10,000 Maniacs. Go figure. ("These Days," anyone?)
8. I'm glad the editors included more anglocentric phrases.
9. I'm glad J.K.L. used "ruddy" instead of the stronger alternative.
10. Snape is the Pepsi, man.
11. Shouldn't have read it.
12. It's over, man, totally over.
13. This could be the next Star Wars, with novels coming out using the Potterverse as setting.
14. My wand would be ebony.
15. And long.
16. And reinforced with goblin-forged, Ollivander-enchanted metal of some unpronounceable varietal. I'd kick the pureblood out of Slytheryns by the baker's dozen, that stick in my hand.
17. But I wouldn't necessarily be a member of Gryffindor.
18. I would probably be Ravenclaw, actually. Nice commons room, to boot.
19. But, even if that were the case, I'd hang out with Gryffindors. They throw the best parties.
20. It bugs the crap out of me that he left the stone in the forest. I mean, sure, don't use it or anything, but don't just leave it in the forest. The way things go at Hogwarts, some berk'll probably use it for slingshot ammo and simultaneously kill and resurrect someone.
21. J.K.L. didn't live up to her word completely--where is the information about future occupations? Who learned magic later in life?
22. J.K.L. has a habit of rushing things--going to the headmaster's office should've happened much, much later in the book's sequence of events. There were dead bodies rotting downstairs, for crying out loud.
23. J.K.L.'s writing style has improved--she no longer leans on her Britishness to make up for poor prose. (Although there were still a lot of "it was a beautiful day"-esque phrases, which nearly stopped me.)
24. Violent. What rating will this get as a movie?
25. The deus ex machinas weren't as bad as in previous books, but they were still enough to make me uncomfortable.
26. So was Dumbledore always pretending to be asleep in his portrait before this?
27. The names got a little heavy-handed, and often strangely self-contradictory--"Amycus" and "Xenophilius" for bad guys?
28. What'll Snape be doing in his portrait?
29. Was it Snape or Dumbledore who corrected the person who said "Mudblood?"
30. I've got to stop thinking about this so much. I'm twenty-six.
31. How much is airfare to Gatwick?

Pioneer Trek

A little break from the Wyoming sun

The kids pushing and pulling the handcart

Lindsy Nelson, Kenna Salisberry, Heidi Prowse, Ma Tucker (aka Melanie), and Meagan Braby

Jeff as our fearless flagbearer. The "T" stands for Team Tucker.

Further clarification

Dear all,

In answer to a question posed previously:

Yes, El Pollo Loco is quite good for you; true, it's got a lot of sodium in it (probably because of the beans, which taste horribly bland without tonnes of salt), but--aside from that--it's not bad at all. I love it dearly. In fact, back in my cross-country racing days, I'd eat two BRCs before every race. I'd love to get a franchise going in Utah, but I haven't the time.

Of course, this may be one of those "I-was-raised-on-the-stuff-and-I-love-it-when-it-really-isn't-anything-to-crow-about" things (like fry sauce) (which I don't care for, except for a couple varieties I've found), but I don't think so.

-Z

Mariachis, El Pollo Loco, and the Millenium Falcon

Dear all,

The auto-format that Blogger apparently has built into it is giving me fits; please excuse this (and other) posts if the spacing is weird.

Well, we're back from another weekend in Orange County. This time, we were down there for the wedding of our good friend, Elena Rhoads, who is now Elena Baeza. Melanie met her in Illinois when she (both of them) were attending grad school at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaigne(sp?). Elena actually got baptized on Melanie's birthday, thus making November 10th Mel's birtday and, simultaneously, Elena's rebirthday.

The wedding was quite a hoot--her husband, Jose Baeza, is Mexican, and they had a full-on mariachi band blasting away throughout the reception. I mean, three-and-a-half hours into the reception and they still hadn't even cut the cake--they were in it for the long haul. I don't know Jose very well, but the guy can throw a party.

Anyway, here are the pictures:

Here is the happy couple at the reception--along with a very zealous mariachi sawing away at that fiddle.

There was champagne and sparkling cider available for every guest--the groom's family spent a pretty penny on that shindig, here you me. Sorry about the blurry picture, but this was about the time when the reception started heating up...

Again, sorry about the blurry picture. These were the mariachis, a real talented bunch. I want one of those bass guitars--I'd just sit out on the balcony on sweltering summer afternoons and pluck the hours away.

Here we all are. Both Jose and Elena are studying to be doctors (indeed, Elena's earning a joint MD-PhD, which earns her infinite respect in my book), so, once they pay off their student debt, they'll probably be high-earning specialists.

All in all, a good trip, especially when we got to eat lunch at El Pollo Loco and drive around in my dad's new Lexus, which I have christened the Millenium Falcon, since it goes so fast that Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity gets tested. (During one period of intense acceleration, I felt myself not aging; indeed, Mel and I arrived at our destination a few seconds before we left.)

As always, more will come.

-Z

When the Tuckers Come Back to Capistra-ah-ah-no

Dear all,

Last week, my sister, Courtney, graduated from El Modena High School (School Motto: "Due to budget constraints, we have abandoned the school motto"), so Melanie and I went down to witness her graduation. It was great--I'm one proud brother.

I confess that my opinion of high school isn't, well, high. I generally feel that high school is something that we trudge through so that we can go to college and receive an education in things we actually care about. Nevertheless, this doesn't diminish the fact that graduating from high school--especially El Modena High School (School Alma Mater: "Welcome to the Jungle," Appetite for Destruction, Guns 'n' Roses)--is an enormous accomplishment, especially when you've been president of the National Honor Society, taken boatloads of AP credit, etc., like my sister has.

So, Courtney, you deserve a Tucker Boo-Yah: Boo-Yah!

We also got the chance to maraud around Orange County for a couple of days, since Courtney had parties and such to attend.

Here're some of the pictures we took. Enjoy!

Behold: Courtney and her best friend, Elisse Ota. They're both geniuses.

Here's the whole group that attended graduation (please pardon the cheesy smiles--it was hot). My grandpa and uncle, Biron, are also pictured.















My mom's cousin, Patty Smith, was there, along with Patty's family (George, her husband, pictured here, and her daugher, Carrie, not pictured). They really got a kick out of my orange tree--apparently, those don't grow in Tennessee.
















Here's Mission San Juan Capistrano, one of the first Catholic missions built in the late 1700s in southern California. It's still a functioning church--well, part of it, at least--and the grounds are really quite striking.















Here's my lovely wife sitting by one of the mission's fountains:

The next day, we went to the Richard Nixon Birthplace and Library. Did you know that Nixon was from Orange County? It's yet another reason to like the place, right?

They've got Nixon's presidential helicopter there:

That morning, we went to breakfast with our good friends, Chelsea and Michael Christensen (notice the Danish spelling, Petersens?). We went to Ruby's, one of those places that's as much a part of my youth as El Modena High School (School Disclaimer: "El Modena High School may or may not be an actual high school").

The baby is Talon Christensen, their little babe. He's a fun kid:

Isn't Orange County a great place? Now I just have to strike oil, pioneer a successful technology IPO, become a plastic surgeon, and sell arms to rogue nations, and Melanie and I can afford to live there. (The budget would still be tight, though.)

More pictures will, as always, follow.

-Z

Shoshone Falls, et al. (Part two of "Idaho: The Reckoning")

Well, I still haven't been able to collect all the pictures I want from family members; thus, my plan to present our Idaho trip photos in chronological order seems, presently, difficult. However, reality doesn't preclude my posting several additional nifty photos (and, right now, I'm having a hard time remembering what day we did this, so I guess the chronological thing is a moot point) (I'm pretty sure we did Shoshone Falls on Saturday, though).


So here is a picture of us at Shoshone Falls, billed as the "Niagara of the West" by the park's promoters. It was very nice, don't get me wrong--and this was on a day when the water level was deemed "low" by park officials. It's kinda hard to tell, but the falls wrap around a little on the cliffs, so the camera doesn't capture everything.



Melanie makes genealogical breakthroughs all the time, so I don't want to say that one breakthrough is any better than another--I mean, a breakthrough is a breakthough, and I recognize them as full-blown miracles, all of them. I'm very grateful. However, every once in a while, Melanie finds something that's just a little more interesting to me, and this was one of them--see, apparently my mother's side of the family DID have a member of the church in it back in the pioneer days. He would've been my, what, great-great-great-uncle? Turns out that James (I think that's his name) is buried in Filer, Idaho, just outside of Twin Falls, so we visited the cemetery, which was, for many years, operated by the International Order of the Odd Fellows.

On Sunday, we made it up to Sun Valley, the famous resort north of Twin Falls. (My dad used to go there quite a bit when he lived in Utah, so I've heard stories my whole life--I wanted to see it.) It was nifty (read: posh). The Petersens were very nice to accomodate my wish to visit Ernest Hemingway's grave, who is buried just outside of Sun Valley in Ketchum (well, it's really just a marker, since his ashes were scattered on the hillside behind the cemetery).

Now, bear in mind that I'm no Hemingway devotee; on the contrary, I really don't care for his writing all that much. I like even less what the man stood for, a philosophy that was largely anti-religious and anti-deistic, and which, I feel, ultimately did him in, along with his depression. There was, though, something noble in his quest for meaning in life; he had a determination--albeit misguided, from the Latter-day Saint viewpoint, but a strong determination, nonetheless--to find purpose in his mortal existence, a desire which I wish more people shared. Perhaps because of all this, I wanted to see his grave. Here it is, with Ryan in the foreground:

I've been told the coins are for wishes. There's also supposed to be a bottle of Jack Daniels on the grave (according to Erika's mom), but someone must have been thirsty.

Well, as always, more will follow.

Cauldron Linn (Part One of "Idaho: The Reckoning")

Howdy, all. Well, it's time to start showcasing our photos from the Idaho trip we took over the Memorial Day weekend. These pictures were taken at Cauldron Linn, a section of the Snake River that's made of lava rock. As you can see from the pictures, the river has sculpted the heck out of the lava rock, creating all sorts of formations--waterfalls, placid oxbows, strata of varying colors. It was really quite dramatic.

Here's Val surveying the scene:















Here are some of those rocks I was talking about. Beautiful to behold, a heck of a time to hike over:
















Blake really wanted to take the raft out (I wondered about that one, because there were two deadly waterfalls not too far downstream), so here they are launching it at a peaceful section of the river:
















The rocks were weathered in bowls, potholes, and even tubes (poor Abby's face doesn't look too comfortable):





















Kaitlin has a bright future as a sea captain:
















The comparisons to SpongeBob were inevitable (Libby actually said, "No pictures, please," but we didn't listen; we'll be trotting this one out twelve years from now, on prom night):
















Oh, aren't we cute:
















I suppose that this is the linn part of Cauldron Linn ("linn" means "waterfall" in Scots Gaelic, I'm told):

Well, that's all the pictures for now. More will follow--be sure of that.

-Z

The Long-Awaited Table

Can I say how much I love this table?

I gave it to Melanie on Mother's Day Eve, and we were able to use it when the whole Petersen gang came over for enchiladas--it worked out very nicely, if I dare say so myself.

I need a site.

16. Get a website.

This is a huge, monstrous goal. See, I was reading some business article on the internet the other day (probably on Yahoo! or something), and it said that, as a resume-building, brand-enhancing, public relations-maxxing (yeah, one of those buzzword-laden articles that seem to be everywhere) strategy, people should have their own websites, sites which show off their skills and stuff.

This struck me as a good idea, because my good friend, Pat Madden, has his own website, http://www.quotidiana.com. It's an essay-themed site, since Pat's an essayist. He has essays that he's written, essays that other people have written, instruction about essaying, etc. He even uses it as a teaching tool, assigning homework from his site. And it works really, really well.

Now, it's not the easiest thing to do, I'm sure. One must worry about intellectual property infringements, posting all of that creative work up there. Plus, there are the associated fees with web hosting and web design (since I don't know how to code a website). I mean, it's a substantial undertaking. But it'd be worth it, I bet. Potential employers could look at my resume, see the website, and actually read some of my stuff, as opposed to merely thinking about how many things as written, you know? Now, maybe that would work against me, if they didn't like my writing, but I think that it would be impressive.

More resolutions

Dear all,

Well, I've been doing my part--I hope--to fulfill my birthday goal. (A side note: Right now, I'm listening to "Light Up Ahead" as performed by Fields Forever, an acoustic project by Jon Bunch of Sense Field and Derrick Cordoba of Futher Seems Forever--get it?--and it's reminding me of why I should stop living my life in musical silence.) Anyway, I have a few more things I want to learn. I don't think it's cheating if I list a few new things I've learned, since I often learn--and do--new things without posting my desire to do them on the blog first.

13. Learn to make bread from scratch
14. (Pursuant to #14) Learn to make pizza from scratch

Those are done. Nice!

15. Take voice lessons

This idea scares the ________ [fill in favorite exclamation] out of me. There's a reason why I play guitar--I'm not big on singing. I mean, sure, I sang in the high school musical and all, but that was always in character. Singing, it's like--hear you me!--you'd better be good.

My Cousin the Spy

Dear all,

So Melanie and I went to the last session of General Conference yesterday, which was, predictably, wonderful. Our seats were pretty decent (although Mel said, "There isn't a bad seat in this house," which is true) and perfectly oriented to see a few members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir come in late, working their way toward the stand through the audience. Mel and I later found out (from Mel's aunt Jan, who sings in the choir) that the late choir members had been stranded on the massive roof of the Conference Center, which is a large landscaped garden where the choir eats lunch. The lesson of the story, I suppose, is that, if you're a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, get your lunch and then get out. You might be serenading the crowds outside the Conference Center if you're not careful. (Jan, by the way, is very careful and wise. She gets off the roof ASAP.)

And it seems that she's passed that wisdom, that savvy situational awareness, that world-weary acumen, onto her daughter--my cousin-in-law--Dani, because Dani has become a spy. She's such a good spy, as a matter of fact, that she doesn't even spy for the government. No, Dani is a spy for a private corporation, which I shall not name, because I don't want to disappear in the middle of the night. That's right--Dani spies for one of those shadowy conglomerates that's always trying to achieve world domination in James Bond movies, a group of clandestine power-brokers that flies under the radar of conventional scrutiny...

Actually, I hyperbolize. Dani works for a large construction company; about the only thing they've ever staged a coup d'etat over is a pile of cinder block (even though I joke with her about her ballpoint pen really being a gun). However, she really is a spy--she goes around to competing businesses and checks them out, photographs their facilites, gets information from them while not letting on that she's from a competitor. (After all, if she waltzed up to a competitor and said, "Hey, I'm from X Construction Company and we're thinking about how we can better compete against you--or buy you out--so give me a list of your prices," about the only thing she'd get would be a snicker and a quick trip out.) So she travels around the country, doing in-depth research on her business peers.

And I think that's really cool. I mean, there's been a lot of talk, lately, about the government's sad lack of "HUMINT," or human intelligence--meaning on-the-ground, people-based intelligence about our enemies. Some people postulate that, had the government been able to amass substantial HUMINT before the invasion of Iraq, we wouldn't have invaded--but, as it was, our intelligence-gathering capabilities were focused on satellite images and recon flights and the like, and we couldn't tell whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs or not. Now, I'm not going to turn this into a forum to debate the Iraq War (Gulf War II?), but I think it's cool that Dani serves as a positive role-model for our nation's intelligence community.

So here's to you, Dani. Kudos. I hope that this blog post doesn't blow your cover.

#6: Chainsaw technique learned

So I helped my uncle chop down a cherry tree yesterday. (George would be horrified.) So there goes ol' #6. At this rate, I'll be done in no time.

I thought of another item:

12. Learn how to turn wood on a lathe. (Then I can make bannister spindles and such truck.)

Chef Jeff

Jeff with the new chef's hat and improved apron he got for his birthday.

Put Me in the Zoo!

The weather was so nice today, we couldn't "bear" to stay at home. We spent the day at Hogle Zoo!

Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday was a fantastic birthday, due to my wife Melanie. She's wonderful and, truth be told, I'd rather just talk about her.

However, my cousin-in-law, Brooke, came up with a great idea on her birthday, which wasn't too long ago. She decided that, over the course of the next year, she'd learn/do a new thing/skill/whatever for every year that she's been alive (in her case, twenty-eight). Thus, I think I'll try to come up with twenty-six things that I'll learn in this year of my life. Here they are:

1. Learn how to use a sewing machine
2. In conjunction with #1, learn how to tailor clothes (I'm terribly difficult to fit)
3. Guitar technique: "Sweep picking"
4. Learn Portuguese
5. Learn how to make a good confit
6. Learn how to use a chainsaw (I've done it in the past, but I'd be afraid to try on my own, now)
7. Climb Mount Olympus (the one in Salt Lake City, not Greece)
8. Learn how to build furniture with drawers
9. Learn how to grain-fill in porous woods
10. Read the entire Bible again (yes, even those Law of Moses parts in the Old Testament)
11. Learn how to use a pressure-cooker (and hopefully not blow up the house in the process)
12. Hmm...

Okay--I'll have to think of fifteen more at a later date. Anyway, that's a good start, I'd say.

A cute picture of my mom and dad who are living it up in Hawaii right now!

Outing at the Salt Lake City Cemetery

For FHE, Jeff and I went to the Salt Lake City Cemetery to find my Bradford relatives' gravestones. This was our second attempt at the task; our first outing was cut short by mountain standard time and by our tardiness (sorry Drew and Jess--the food afterward was great!)

I recall visiting the cemetery with my Carlson relatives in the late eighties before my grandpa died. I remember the place well, and explained it very simply to Jeff, "It's on a hill and there were lots of trees around." You'll notice that I was correct (observe the slight slope and the bush in the background), but we learned that this description could well be true of all 140,000 graves at the cemetery. It took a call to the cemetery office and two maps to locate the graves.

Being the resourceful person I am, I tidied up the graves with an ice scraper and had Jeff document the occassion. Since I'm not an expert on my family history (only on Jeff's family history), we took pictures of all the graves with matching surnames in the vicinity, just to be sure.

Above is the grave of my great grandparents, Rose and Hial Bradford.

After our family history jaunt, we decided to find some graves of famous people. We had no idea where to locate said graves, so we drove around and looked for all of the big markers figuring they must be someone of importance. It worked!! We saw the Hinkley family marker and the graves of David O. McKay, John Taylor, Heber J. Grant, J. Golden Kimball, and Joseph Fielding Smith to name a few. We also learned after awhile that many of the pioneer graves have a little square gold plaque that glitters in the setting sun. This further helped us in our quest.

Blurry pictures are cool

Perhaps it's due to my indie-rock background, hanging out in sweltering punk dives during my high school years, but I have a soft spot for artfully blurry photographs, which the aforementioned dives often use for décor. And, now that Mel and I have this ultra-high-definition digital camera, blurry photos are no problem at all. The key, though, is making sure that the pictures are just slightly blurry--and blurry in the right places--not a whirled mess.

Therefore, here are some of the better blurry pictures taken from my sister-in-law's wedding (and the activities pursuant thereto) on Saturday:

The neti pot in action

Here we go (this post is rated "PG" for pretty gross):




Here I am mixing up the saltwater

...and pouring the saltwater into the neti pot...

...in one nostril and out the other!

Adventures in nasal irrigation

So I fell victim to another sinus infection this past weekend; bummer. My mother gets them quite a bit, too, so I reckon that I inherited my sinuses from her. Not that that's a bad thing, of course--the woman has a lovely nose, very fine facial bones, etc. However, our sinuses are like sponges for nastiness, filling up with automotive-grade gunk at the drop of a hat: changes in temperature, changes in climate (seasonal, political, or otherwise), we look at ourselves sideways in the mirror, etc.

So I sat there, asking myself if I really wanted to go on antibiotics again. I'm always worried about antibiotics, about the bacteria getting immune to zythromycin or whatever and then I'll end up with flesh-eating bacteria crawling all over me at the age of thirty and there won't be a darn thing I can do about it. I mean, really.

So I started crawling the internet for holistic cures--you know, herbs, potions, whatever. (Did you know that honey is a natural antibiotic?) And that's when I found nasal irrigation. The University of Wisconsin's medical school did a study where they had people with really bad sinuses flush their faces out with saltwater every day, and they GOT BETTER. Seriously. Turns out that the technique actually belongs to yoga, and there's a special kind of vessel to hold the saltwater and pour it into a nostril. It's called a neti pot.

So I got one and, yes, it's sweet. It actually really helps, as long as you don't mind the sensation of warm saltwater rushing through your nasal cavities (which is, I must confess, a little weird still, but I can dig it). Weirder still is the exercise where I pour water through my nose, down the back of my throat and out of my mouth--but that's the exercise that really helps.

Here's a picture of the pot--it kinda looks like Aladdin's lamp or something. But, I'm telling ya, it works.

An old shirt, but--ah!--so much more

I made this shirt when I was dating Melanie. She had the lovely idea of going ice skating, and I decided to surprise her. (Granted, it's not the biggest surprise in the world--not a diamond ring or anything--but life's made up of the small surprises, you know? It's the small surprises that make life interesting.)

I also wore it on several other (sometimes painful) occasions, as you can tell from the improvised script. I found the shirt the other day when I was cleaning out my closet, and, while I had to part with it, I had to take a picture. There's a lot of time and other sticky-sweet sentimental stuff invested in that shirt.

Another picture where I look a little better...

More than I've ever...

...traveled in my entire life--that was this Christmas break. Good stuff, don't get me wrong--but, man, I'm beat.

First, Melanie and I went to California for Christmas with my family. It was, in a word, sublime--beautiful weather, lovely company, meaningful temple service, all supported by haute cuisine crafted by yours truly. It's always wonderful to see my family--in particular, it was great to see Courtney, my budding photographer sister. That girl's going to be the next Diane Arbus, albeit without the high risque-ness factor.

It was home for a day, and then Mel and I took flight with her family for Honduras. (Honduras. Motto: "Burning Trash Since 1811") It was really interesting to go back to Central America. I mean, Costa Rica wants to paint itself as the Switzerland of Central America, and, in some regards, it is (mainly in its political orientation), but all of Central America is largely similar. Thus, going to Honduras was a lot like going back to the mission field.

We mainly stayed on an island to the north of Honduras called Roatán. It's pretty. I guess that it's surrounded by the second-largest barrier reef in the world, which we snorkeled. Poor Melanie got stung by fire coral, which is a funky cross between a jellyfish and coral. It was really nifty seeing all the fish, though. (My first time snorkeling, it was.)

The highlight of Honduras for me--aside from the iguana farm we visited, which blew my mind--was visiting the Copán ruins. See pictures.

As you can probably tell by my torpid prose, I'm bushed. So I'll conclude.