Fall, as in ...

... the garden goodies end is nearing, the federal fall from grace (assuming the grace part ever existed which is doubtful), and the beauty of fall leaves....

Have about BLT'd myself and gardenless neighbor enough to last until next summer's tomato crop.

Work is actually going smoothly thanks to online apps - and hopefully my saying so doesn't jinx this coming week (which is normally the worst week of the entire year).  This week's overload brings me to the point I have to bite my tongue the most often in response to thoughts about bureaucracy.

Which brings me to easing my angst by posting this parody, a clever well-made vid by students in Kanas in reaction to all the new fed food regs.  (Currently almost 713,000 views, posted September 17th.)   Details on the Nutrition Nannies FB page (up to 3,100 likes at the moment, only "born" September 14th) and also recently commented upon by Shepard Smith, a national news commentator (who, per usual, winged it and didn't get it quite right, lol).

Keep in mind that our district trays look much better than those posted on NN FB, because we know how to merchandise.  (See ITSMealsProvo on FB.)   Which may become a thorn in our side financially I must admit.  (And hopefully those in charge face/admit it in time.)

Got invited to dinner in Midway, by my CCH (BYU-Hawaii) roommate.

(Her family is from Switzerland, hence the love of the Midway area.)

The drive up Provo canyon was an amazing plus!

As you can see though, as I neared Deer Creek Dam,

the sky warning was getting iffy.

Half way around the dam, my car was pelted with very angry raindrops.

This is the house, 2011 properly tax values it $640,000, 3,295 sq. ft, .98 acres.

They bought it in 2008, when it was new.

Finding it in the daylight, with the help of the i-4S map update, was a snap.

Finding my way out of there in the dark was another story!

(Figured I'd skip the phone since it was on the mountainside, so would be

a matter of heading down in a southerly direction.)

Finally gave up and pull out the phone after 15 minutes of wandering.

Had a great meal and visit with Erika and look forward to seeing her again ...

would be a nice drive to her cabin home, 40 miles out of Missoula.

She's doing well - has a keeper husband who took her to the temple.

Her first husband, the one I knew in Michigan,

is under lock/key for a ponzi scheme, convicted in 2010.

His then-wife became friends with Erika,

has since gone through the temple,

and others in her immediate family have joined.

So I guess you could say the in absentia ex-husband's bad example

became the opportunity for the good ex-wife's missionary conversion platform.

It's Not Over Until Its Over

Summer, that is.  Don't think we'll get up into the 80's again, however.

 But it will be awhile before it freezes.

This was my biggest cantaloupe.  Yum!

Actually never thought I'd ever have the pleasure of eating

one so yummy, after Daddy died.

 Only had two watermelons.  On the small side, but still delish.

This bell is seven inches tall!  One of many.

I've told you about the bureaucratic mandatory fruit/veggie edict.

We also have to "offer" so many servings of beans per week, so this concoction

is out at every school daily.  Don't have to make them take this one

put it basically ends up in the trash once its serve-ability expires.

(It has a bit of zesty Italian dressing on it which actually doesn't taste half bad.)

 School has been busy.  Note our dancers who are enjoying

lying to the gullible younger students when they ask questions about the future.

So cute.  The little kids, as well as the dancers, who are sisters.

The dance they're teaching this year is the cleaned-up version of

Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas.

 Speak of peas, we're have veggie contests at the elementaries.

This day it was for eating all their peas at Timpanogas.

This student got his hand marked for eating every single one.

I told him to tell his mom - she wouldn't believe it!

We also used our smart phones to post to a digital scoreboard,

 and there was plenty of cheering/screaming as the score changes,

boys against girls.

All the kids got sunglasses - 'cause cool kids eat all their peas,

and their "future" is "bright"!

 Speaking of bright - a recent sunset

... and rainbow

 And fall leaves in the mountains.

Red in both Grove and Battle Creek Canyons,

with a bit of yellow higher up.

The Three Week Blur (but with a very special ending)

Every year our new school year theme is a secret until our August trainings.

I missed the first of three days because the state chose that day for their training

and I was elected to represent us.  It was at UofU.

Nice drive to/from along Foothill Drive.

 This theme was our boss's attempt to work up some enthusiasm

for the latest (ridiculous) federal regs.

 Did you know your students have to take a half cup fruit or veggie,

even if it goes straight into the trash can?

Never mind the added fact that fresh produce is costly.

(Not that eating that much produce with lunch is a bad thing;

it's the mandated cost/waste factor that's ridiculous.)
We actually already upped the produce last year,
hoping to influence by familiarity,
but it was offered not enforced.
If a child gets to the end of the line without the required amount,
he/she HAS to go back for it.
Teachers and principals not happy about the slow lines
since there are many of them trying to escape having to carry/look
at the offending morsels.

We had this cool chef do a presentation on fresh produce the second training day.

Chef Jason Kieffer out of Park City.

 We got to sample this drink.

Definitely delicious, but beyond my pocketbook!

 The last day of training was "mine" - kitchen managers and clerks -

refresher on running lines,

getting their school's family reapplications for free/reduced meals,

 and adapting to many new regs -

all meant to make it easier to accommodate free meals -

easier for patrons, not easier for the crew.

By Friday, two weeks later, averaging 12-hour days including Saturdays,

I'd about had it, and was a bit sharp with one of the clerks.

Standard procedure is not to call me for things they can figure out themselves.

First her manager has a parent call me for info the manager can readily provide herself.

So it's a wasted call for the parent and my time already stretched to the limit.

I send a refresher to one and all,

how to tell if families are approved per last year or this year,

and reminding managers if they don't have time, to have their own clerk take care of it.

So then the same manager has her clerk call me,

again wanting to know what either can readily/easily figure out on their own.

My response was that I was not a wizard, and since it all funnels down to one person

I couldn't -nor would I!- magically iron out the details as it applied to her school,

and calling me to do their job was taking unfair advantage.  Sigh.

Now to be honest, I do have two helpers -

one stuffs envelopes and files, and one knows the whole system and is fantastic

but can only help me one day a week.

(So it definitely could be even worse.)

Add to that the patron (keeping in mind the customer does no wrong),

who came in with a stack of papers,

saying she needed her income calculated, 

and said as I proffered one, "I don't do calculators" -

meaning....

(I did luck out in the sense that I spotted a case number,

eliminating the computation need altogether.  Whew!)

Didn't sleep well even Friday night, passed exhaustion,

but got to do a most delightful thing on Saturday:

Laura Janeil Olsen, baptized and confirmed a member

of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

by Carl Eldon Olsen.

 

Culminating point of my talk:

"Put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good–yeah,

to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously;

...this is my Spirit."  (D&C 11-12)

And fit well will this necklace:

(The stones in the center spin.)

 Laura, proud to have Dad doing the honors.

 Proud to be a good example for her sisters.

 Proud to be a member of a beautiful family.

 Proud to have lots of friends there in support.
(More than in this picture - the kids lined up on the floor to watch the baptism,

and spontaneously clapped with Laura was raised from the water.)

 I suspect Grace and her friend shared the same

hairdresser on this special day.

(Bishop Derksen in the background.)

 Gift from mom and dad.

 I swear, though, I take my life into my own hands

when I go to Taylorsville/West Jordan/Salt Lake City/84129!

If I recall correctly, it was for Grace's winter baptism that I crawled home

on the freeway, dodging half a dozen black ice sliders!

This time it was hydroplaning autos!

 Barely got home this time before the hailstorm hit!

(Warned on the radio just before the Point.)

Small "potatoes" I have to note, however,

compared to what Saratoga Springs dealt with -

half dollar hail and 60 mph wind

(on top of their fire scorched earth - many homes filled with mud).

 Definitely worth the white-knuckle driving though,

to get to spend time with loved ones!

(The head of my driveway.)

Ruby Ordella Williams Fugal...

... was born August 11th, 1912.

                                      Here's a picture of all of us when she was 44.

Lois suggested we go to the temple today in her honor.  

Neither of us had been through the Oquirrh Mountain temple.  It "glows" when you drive by it.  The word "Oquirrh" means "shining mountain".  The exterior stone is Uinta Gold Granite from the Quanzhou/Xiamen area in China.  (Interior stone is light limestone from Morocco and darker limestone from Egypt.  Woods are rift-cut white oak from Indiana and Kentucky. Veneers are white oak and sycamore from the German Alps.)  It's very small - 50 chairs in the endowment rooms.  It was swamped with weddings - hard to find a place to park - but we got right into a session.

I apparently didn't instruct Lois correctly on taking my picture,

but here's hers, proof we were there:

 It was fun going with Lois, because she's a temple worker and it's always nice to get her perspective.

Before we went we joined the Bunkers from Bunkerville at the Blacksmith shop.  Milt was giving them a tour and called to invite me - Brad Nielson, son of Lyman and Norma (and Bishop of the Third Ward in the building next to me), was dressed up and ran one of the coal fires for the kids to brand themselves a small piece of wood, about the same as when we did brands for our reunion keychains back in the day.  He used the same family brand, the boot.  Some of the kids did merit badges.  It was cool.  Well ... hot! actually.

We took the tour of Chris's house.  My neighbor has done some cool stuff in there - including stripping the stucco from one of the living room walls to expose the double brick, and the whole house has the restored original wooden floors.  I'm jealous, of course, she still has the pocket door.  Hers is two doors, which meet in the middle.  We went up to the single room upstairs with the east and west dormer windows. There was not one closet in the whole house when my neighbor bought it.  (She added a large one across the whole east wall in the master bedroom, and cubby closets along one short wall in the dormer room.

Roger Bunker's wife, Regina, put pictures of the remodeled interior in a book she made - can purchase it from Shutterfly, and she put several pages in it of the Niels journal I typed, that referred to Chris.  She missed a few though - said she read it solid for a day-and-a-half, long into the night, was under the gun to publish in time for the reunion.  Too bad she wasn't computer savvy enough to realize she could word search it.  (I didn't point that out.)  She used some of the pictures I included and she had pictures we don't have.  I made my neighbor swear she'll get her email address when she toured after us, so I can get the pictures, and I can at minimum point out where in it she can find the part where Chris makes up his mind to find himself a wife and picks Delilah, and the part where he describes building the house.  I gave Milt the single sheet of shop stationery, but I tried to duplicate it on the computer so it looked very close, and put it in the journal pdf.  She put it in the book, which pleased me.  The journal, BTW, is at www.fugal.net.

We found out the Sonny Fugal (Alan) is married to Paul Fugal's first wife, Judy!  Lives in American Fork.  We found out that even after Daddy died, Norma would have Milt service her car.  I was talking about how she "made" Dan plant new trees in front of my house and how I worried about the tree trucks becoming bigger than the space they're in.  (Which was prompted by his memory of Delbert visiting and digging out all the sidewalk cement slabs, to flatten out the tree roots underneath.)  Milt said Norma would walk out and tell him it was time to service her car and then stand there, giving him the message that he was to do it NOW.  Made us laugh.

Great day.  Thanks, Mom (and Lois).  Love you!

[Oh my goodness! (Or Oh my stars! as Mom's sisters would say.)  It's late and I'm lazy, so I was looking online for a picture of Chris Fugal's house and I found a ZILLION Fugal pictures at:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=mediaphotopublic&rank=1&sbo=t&gsbco=Sweden&gsln=Fugell&gss=angs-d&gl=&gst=

You gotta take a look at Jan Fugal ... for one.  Some of Andreas I've never seen before.  There's a Martha Fugal.  ??  And one of Christian Fugl I don't think I've seen.]

Nibley Would Be Appalled!

Need a do-over now I know more.

Diane wanted me to come up to specifically do three things:

Eat at The Cheesecake Factory;

Watch the dancing fountain,

which I found out from her, is synced to music on the hour evenings;

Go to a free park concert.

We looked at this from across the street when Jewel came up last week.

Much more dramatic up close!

The almost roar of cool rushing waters.

The water is from artesian wells.

This is the eastern side of the top of the buiding,

what the pioneers saw as they came out of mountains.

The western side represents what they came into -

the desert (no picture).

In front of this fountain:

One of the pictures etched into the black marble is one of David O. McKay.

Before Diane got off work, I took advantage of a very good sale at:

 Here's the appalled part (sorry, Hugh, I was duly impressed):

 The fanciest Deseret Book (I'm a bettin') in existence.

 Note the half-gallon Ball jar lighting.

 Display/ad for a smart phone LDS tools app.

 Books of Mormon in all the published languages.

Lots of Kenneth Packard bronzes, such as:

Can't remember the price on this one, but there was one marked $16,000.

The 7 p.m. "show"
(they add fire - Diane figures must be when it gets dark):

                                          

There are two restaurants at City Creek that serve liquor, 

The Cheesecake Factory and Texas de Brazil.

(Jewel says both are in Vegas.)
They agreed not to display it.

They are also both open on Sunday, the only establishments

in the mall which are.

Diane said the church required them to purchase their property.

Everything else is owned by the church,
liquor-free and closed on Sunday.

It was interesting seeing The Cheesecake Factory with Jewel at lunchtime,

then with Diane at dinnertime - very dramatic lighting changes.

One last thing I learned for our next visit, Jewel:

Right in front of The Cheesecake Factory inside the food court

there is a huge dinosaur land playground.

Amazing:

I found out the retractable roof is opened only when the weather is mild -

Otherwise it's closed to retain heat/AC.

Hayden would have appreciated this:

Falcon nest on Hotel Utah ... I mean The Joseph Smith Building.

Diane says you can watch them on webcam.

When Jewel and kids were on top of the Church Office Building

(where Diane works), I snapped this:

It's across the street, east, the seating for free concerts,

Brigham Young Park, part of his original farm.

Demonstrates the art of irrigation:

We saw Mercy River.

(Would love to go back to Fire on the Mountain

August 24th, but I'll be buried and holed up at work by then.)

Last treat of the day was leaving

the Conference Center parking lot only

to discover it was an unannounced free day

(normally $10)!