Rachel's Latest Idea ...

... was to dress up Esther like Cindy Lou Who. I like the results! 

#givethanks

I just watched President Russell M. Nelson's message of hope. (President Nelson is the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and a prophet, seer and revelator.) He encouraged us to #givethanks on social media and express gratitude daily in prayer. I will.

I have a few blog posts in unfinished states and feel extremely busy right now as I try to finish a project involving database development I am doing. I am not always filled with gratitude during such times. Instead, I think I often feel anxiety, irritation, disappointment and critical thoughts about myself and others. I am relatively certain that is quite normal.

21st Century Wows and Woes

I geek out about modern technology a lot. I couldn't really imagine a technology career when I was a kid in New Plymouth, Idaho. I remember creating a program on a TRS-80, a "microcomputer", and saving and running the program from a cassette tape. We created a white humanoid (that's as good as you do with pixels larger than the type you are now reading) on black field waving, with words of greeting. I was told it was the future. I couldn't tell how.

Buckaroo Benge in the 21st Century. And Related Chimichangas.

I've always wanted to watch a football game at Layton Christian Academy. It is on the edge of the ravine leading down to Hobbs Reservoir below, and I find it very picturesque. 

Footloose (Not Fancy Free)

The musical Footloose, starring the lovable, talented and hard-working Lucy Benge as whomever she needs to be for each scene the director puts her in, starts November 13th! Tickets here.

Weird times, so you may not be able to come. But, you are invited!

Storm of the Century, Again

When was the last "Storm of the Century", where we cleaned up all the fallen trees and replaced neighborhood roofs? 2010? So, I guess we now get a Storm of the Decade. 

I am very grateful wind doesn't blow any of our trees into our house. We lost a little roof cap, but otherwise our home itself is fine. And, unlike some, we measured our power outage in hours, not

Here are just a few picture at our place of the storm on September 8th:

Lovely Morning Cacophony

Yesterday morning I felt I need to record the sounds of the Benge household in the morning. It is pretty amazing.

The high school bus leaves before seven, so Lucy can't play her instruments Monday and Wednesday mornings anymore. But when she is around, we have five children practicing at the same time, and the neighbor girl that Susie is tending shrieks along with them. 

Wonderful.

Enoch's Gift

 Susie had to pay him a dollar, but I think this is a lovely gift:

Corolla, R.I.P.

On the way to work on August 28, Andrew had an accident turning left off of Antelope Dr. Most gratefully, Andrew and the people in the oncoming Toyota Sienna were fine. But, the Corolla has gone the way of all the earth. R.I.P.

Kwutisms

This morning, we were reading in 3rd Nephi, chapter 3. Esther read verse 11, and were it read that Lachoneus wrote an epistle, Esther made it sound like "latch-on-yous espittle". We couldn't help but laugh. Then, in the next verse, Joshua read that Lachoneus was "just a man" instead of "a just man". Good, righteous humor this morning!

A while back, Susie asked Lucy and Rachel to take a neighbor family some food, as the mother was bed-ridden. When they returned, Lucy said she hoped she took it to the right house, as she didn't recognize the family, and asked if the father had a beard. No. Susie had fixed some extra so I took Lucy to the Steed home -- the right one -- and gave them the food. I then apologized for the lack of dessert, and encouraged him to visit his neighbor as it had been delivered to him. 

Home Work

Like many, I now work from home. And, things have been going well enough that the presiding Bishopric has asked us to pilot some work-from-home patterns to see what works, and we were asked to submit a proposal, following some basic guidelines. Our team has proposed to work from home every day except Friday, possibly coming in on Tuesdays if we feel we need more face-to-face meeting time.

My desk is in the downstairs family room, and it is really noisy sometimes, especially when children come over. But, I hate trying to get everyone to be quiet when I am in meetings. And, my set up is pretty sloppy. So, I took some steps to make my "office" more conducive to work.

I started by purchasing a very expensive set of Bose noise cancelling headphones, with speakers that also block out most everything except my voice. So far, they have been excellent.

Nothing Is More Romantic than ...

 ... the Complete Calvin and Hobbs: 

Someone is gonna get anniversary smooches tonight!

I believe it was Isaac that gave the idea. Thank you, my friend! And thank you, Gideon and Regan, who will be here to help out tonight.

This afternoon we are going to watch "Mary Poppins" at the Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy and spend the night in a hotel there. 

Part of the reason we asked Gideon and Regan to come is because Andrew had surgery to fix a deviated septum just yesterday morning. He is doing extremely well, though, and is in good spirits.

Valentine's Day 2020

    

Here are a few photos and video from our Valentine's Day party this year. Click on anything to see it bigger. Well, excerpt for a couple of pictures above -- the new blog edit tool can be really hard to work with, and seems quite buggy. 

Esther's Birthday 2020

Esther is seven! She has a unicorn friend.

Some Things You Might Want to See (End of 2019, Early 2020)

In December of 2019, Rachel performed with as an ensemble member in one musical song, and was Pinocchio in the other:

Bengester's Dictionary Entry: Ingratitude

in·grat·i·tude

/inˈɡradəˌt(y)o͞od/

1. Insisting that your teeth are really really really crooked and you must get braces and so your parents shell out over $2,500 to an orthodontist to put them on you and after you get home you scream at your mother for ruining your life and making you get them.

2. What Andrew did today. (See definition 1.)

Abusing Charity

My parents bought a new car yesterday, and traded in their old one. I love it. I told them they should trade in both it and the CNG car I have been driving. But, Dad just wouldn't take it back. I think he feels like I have sorta-kinda earned it by not being a child that doesn't owe him money. 

Yesterday I mentioned that if he really wanted me to keep it, then I might want to trade it in, as there isn't a CNG station around here anymore, and I don't drive in to work. And, to top it off, it looks like I will only have to drive in to work once a week when the pandemic is over. So, I decided I would look to get something else. And I found a good deal on a 2015 Toyota Prius. 

Our Latest Release

I found out this morning that our latest release of the Church History Catalog was mentioned in the Deseret News. Nice!

A Few Pandas Walk Into A Bar ...

Pandamonium ensues.

(Rimshot.) (After sending this as an email, I wonder if I should have titled the email "A Few Black and White Bears Walk into a Bar". Or does that add nothing?)

A bunch of sick pandas would likely result in a Pandamic, but my brain said that was 7.3% less funny.

I found some old notes from way back before the pandemic took over.

1. Enoch was really sick. He got sick again later. If anyone around here got COVID19, it might have been him. He was pretty sick for awhile. He is fine now. Allergies seem to be our biggest problem currently.

2. It off the fly. Susan said that. She had to do something spontaneously (off the cuff) while doing something (on the fly), and so she had to do it "off the fly". I don't know how she does it. I don't know if I could ever come up with something that clever, especially off the fly.

Sprinkler Immersion

Everything takes too long: digging, figuring out what pipe used to connect to what, standing in line at Lowe's every day ... but, I'm getting there!

May 2nd:

Today, May 6th:

Our New-ish Baby

She ain't new, but she is was fully restored, fixed up and I think quite lovely:

I hope we like her. 

I shall call her "Pearl". 'Cause that's her name.

Fwd: Thoughts on cell phones, old age, & a warning to hide your beautiful daughters!

I thought you might enjoy my dad's latest email.

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Wes Benge

Just a note to let you know that we are doing okay.  Going a little "modlin", the British equivalent of "stir Crazy."  But that seems normal.  Now, I must forward some cartoons that I felt conveyed some important thoughts:

I am the fellow on the right.

Mellow "Yellow"

Isaac recorded a relaxing version of Coldplay's song "Yellow" on SoundCloud. Very nice. I wonder how things would sound with a nice studio recording.

My cousin, Nathan, has a nice set-up. Here is his daughter singing "Moon River". I don't even know where I could set up a place to record, let alone know where to get some decent stuff. I guess I need to make more money or get rid of few more children!

I hope Hannah can get with him and try doing some of her songs with a decent recording. It would be fun!

Things As They Really Are (or Are Not)

My dad recently shared this bar joke with me, and I loved it:

A time traveling space alien walks into a bar, and says, “I was gonna tell a time-traveling joke, but you guys didn’t get it.”

Some recent non-happenings and happenings:

• I believe the Northridge High School production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers should be underway now. Mrs. Coates is instructing everyone to be ready to perform it in the summer. Hmmm. Maybe. This announcement freaked Andrew out, but he had a good chat with her and will likely not be part of the production in summer, as he has other priorities.

COVID-19 Meetings

This made me laugh. Why are online meetings so awkward?

Quaking

Note: this was sent originally as an email to family this morning, all of which were already aware of the earthquake. I forget to set my alarm properly, so the earthquake woke me up after seven this morning, as our house shook back and forth and our bed and doors and other things all made noises!

In case you are interested, I looked at the USGS (United States Geological Survey) this morning. (I'm sure some of you already have!)

As you can see from the key, the size of the circle shows the magnitude of the quake, and the colors show how recent. The blue means I clicked on it for more information, so the blue dot on the map is Magna's 5.7 magnitude earthquake:

"Hanging by a Shoelace" or "Tied Up in an Emergency"

I went to the Neighborhood Walmart last night. Susan always buys milk on Saturday, but when I got home the realization hit that the recent run on supplies might make that difficult. So, I volunteered to go. Besides, I enjoy watching train wrecks, tornadoes, WWII bombings, and other devastation.

Milk was gone ... except for the 1%. It was low, but there was 1% milk to be had. Maybe they had extra 1% milk? Or, is it not a cool thing to buy when grabbing emergency supplies?

This morning, I filled up the car and also went through a McDonald's drive-thru and asked for a coronavirus-free sausage muffin and drink. The lady taking my order laughed. Traffic was light, so I stopped at the big Walmart near my Riverton Office Building to get the oil changed. I walked in and asked for coronavirus-free oil. The attendant smiled and told me he had some. Things were looking good!

I went in to the store while I waited. The sliced bread shelf and the canned goods were ransacked and gone. I wandered over to the bakery. All of those bread products were plentiful.

Because of this, and my 1% milk experience, I started making mental notes of what is needed for an emergency and what is not. I know this is not scientific. It is just kind of fascinating. My conclusion: sliced bread is a necessity, rolls and buns and muffins (and donuts) are not.

Significant Digits

Happy Palindrome Date Day! Or whatever we should call it. 02022020 is pretty neat. You all probably prepared for it. I didn't. Instead, it snuck up on me. I noticed it's shadow and went back into my hole. And now I am trying to prepare myself mentally for snow tomorrow.

Here is something neat that Enoch drew during sacrament meeting today that I liked:

Position Deux Jour

My father sent the following response to my "Position Du Jour" (I think I shall call it "Position Deux Jour", which really doesn't make any sense.) 

I thought it was hilarious:

I could have been a k-12 Prevention co-ordinator.  However, I am so old fashioned, I spell coordinator with a dash.  I "red" a sports article recently where the writer (Deseret News) used the word "lead" five times as the past tense of "lead."  I think he has been misled (or is it mislead) about the quirks in English.  Incidentally, my former superintendent made a presentation to the district's entire teaching staff, using the word "misled", twice.  The word was on a large white board.  He pronounced the word "mizzled" both times.  No one seemed to notice.

Position Du Jour

This may be my favorite title for an employee ever:

She works for the Davis School District. Talk about putting yourself out of a job!

Of course, she is actually over a crisis team that tries to prevent suicides.