Handshakes All Around! in which We remember 10 years Ago

Tomorrow.

Though I remember 10 years ago right about this time too. We were at a bowling alley. I was wearing a Jeffrie's Fan Club t-shirt. It was 1999, and things were about to change for me forever.

The next day, November 24th, the day before Thanksgiving, my parents drove me a few miles east of our house and dropped me off to live for three weeks before flying out to Michigan for two years.

I'm not sure about this, but I think that year was the only time they had any incoming missionaries the day before Thanksgiving.

Our first full day we spent going to devotionals, hanging out with nothing to do, and watching Legacy. I'm sure they thought this was a good idea, but observing hundreds of young men recently separated from their girlfriends watching the kissing scenes was kind of depressing.

Ten years. Whew!

And then, there was that time a few days before leaving the MTC that Mikey, Aaron, and Spencer visited me. We have a picture of the four of us (fully clothed) in the "tree of life" showers.

How did I get away with that?

Mom sent me cinnamon rolls one day. And that was awesome.

I weighed 140 pounds.

And Out Come the Wolves, in which I decide this is the greatest punk album of all time

Really. It is.

"Ah, turn it up!"

"Oy oy oy!"

"Na na na na, na na na na, na na na!"

"The radio was playin', Desmond Dekker was singin'..."

Journey to the End of East Bay's bass line and concise telling of the Operation Ivy story: "Four kids on tour, three thousand miles, in a four door car, not know what was goin' on."

"Black coat, white shoes, black hat, Cadillac..."

"Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby Soho!"

That's evidence enough.

Red Head, in which Joshua wears a red beanie to school for Red Ribbon Week

We pulled up to Joshua's school, and before getting out of the van, Josh played a little game with Jack to make him laugh. As he hopped out of the van he said to me, "Take care of him for me."

"I will, dude."

29 years in the Making, in which Holdinator has a birthday

It took me 29 years, but I finally reached my star birthday.

I was hoping that for my birthday the Carolina Panthers would light up the Dallas Cowboys' defense, because then I would have won in fantasy football this week. But that didn't happen.

It's my own fault though, I guess. I'm the one with Frank Gore as a running back (left the game after one carry with an injury) and TO as one of my receivers (first time in many years that he didn't catch a single pass in a game). At least my quarterback, Jay Cutler, is making some improvements from his first game this season.

If you can't tell, during my 29th year of life I discovered another way to be a geek.

66, in which Holdinator misses his Dad

Today is my Dad's 66th birthday. It's really strange that he's not here for us to celebrate it with him.

My intent in posting about this today is very different from my other posts on this blog. Probably for the first time I'm posting solely because I know my family will appreciate these thoughts, and not for any other reason.
Dad isn't in very many pictures, and there's a good (but really not-so-good) reason for that.

Dad is the photographer. He instilled in every one of his children an appreciation for a good photo. He reveled in my taking a photography class as a senior in high school. He helped me create beautiful pictures for my projects, and let me use his really nice camera that semester.

Probably he instilled in each of us an appreciation for goofy pictures. The fish eye lens was a favorite of ours. I don't have any of those pictures here. But we all remember.

There's one of those shirts David talked about at Dad's funeral.
Here's a favorite in our house. In spite of how his appearance changed throughout the last years of his life, his smile was constant.
Each of the kids has adopted a Rich-ism or a few. I find myself almost every day making one of the mini-Holdinators laugh using a game, a face, or a noise that I learned from their Papa. I hope that I don't forget to give him credit.
Jack's memories of Papa. He'll absolutely remember him. We will make sure of that.

13 months ago Papa came to the hospital to meet his little grandson.
19 weeks ago this evening I took Jack with me to the hospital. We were told we needed to hurry. I went through a number of reasons in my head why we would need to hurry, but that we wouldn't be able to talk to Dad or give him a blessing did not occur to me.

It couldn't occur to me.

I was holding Jack at the receptionists' desk in the ER. The look of realization on their faces when I told them who I was, it was a look of sudden quiet and lack of rushing in the midst of a place where everyone was rushing to do everything (why would they slowly lead us to his room? I thought) should have been indicative of the reality of the situation.

It was very comforting, to me, to have Jack there. I could hold him as tight as I wanted, and he didn't mind. Jack didn't know what was going on, but he was good for a lot of hugs; somehow instinctively he understood his role that night. Love and be loved.


Papa made all of his grandkids laugh. That was what he did best with them.

That was one of the things he did best with everyone.

5 glasses during dinner, in which Holdinator learns that he can drink a lot of apple juice

Doggie Sneezes, in which Holdinator thinks a bug flew up Annie's nose

I feel kind of bad, but it was really funny.As you can tell, she's not terribly impressed with my posting about this.

And now for something completely different.

"Dude, this is my first day of Kindergarten. Just chill, ok?""Where's my cupcake? I just had it!"
-Insert your own witty comment here-

Poets Have Day (or Night) Jobs, in which Holdinator blogs about The Undertaking

The chapter in The Undertaking was about children and parenting.

And death.

Because the book is about death, and being a funeral director, and being a poet, and living in a small Michigan town, and life.

It is a much better book than Stiff.

At least, in my opinion.

And I would imagine that most people who are in the temporal proximity of losing someone dear to them would agree.

It's sufficient to say that after having read this book I am appreciative of the work of someone who embalms rather than abhorred by it.

Fodder, in which Holdinator graciously answers a question from his older sister

Who is Dan Belnap?

Don't feel too bad. There is at least one of his fellow faculty members who doesn't know who he is.

But I'm pretty sure the BS (Biblical Studies, is that abbreviation accidental? I have no definitive answer for that; however, our club at BYU was abbreviated thusly: SANE [Students of the Ancient Near East]) graduate students and PhD's on the Bloggernacle know who he is.

I've left the Bloggernacle behind, mostly.

I think my departure coincided with my departure from Saturn, which also coincidentally (not so much really) coincided with the end of my days sitting in front of an internet-limited-but-blogs-still-allowable-computer all day.

He, Dan Belnap that is (this is all off the top of my head), is an assistant professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU.

His PhD is in Near Eastern Languages, University of Chicago. His dissertation was about the ritual use of liquids in the Old Testament and other ancient Semitic cultures (Ugaritic and others). ... I think.

I know he has at least three children. He taught Seminary for a while.

He is an expert on the seating postures of Latter-day Saint men and boys.

He prefers large print scriptures, not a quad but separate Bible and Triple Combination.

His class exams offer the students an opportunity to really demonstrate their grasp of the issues in the texts.

Thus we have spilled my memory.

Completion, in which Holdinator tells some of the rest of the story

I still have five songs total on my iPod. The playlist called "Jack's Sedatives."

Some may say I'm not a very practical man. I may not be. I may be.

The five songs are lullabies, in their own way, for Jack. I mostly only use two of the songs.

My iPod could do its job with only two songs.

One would probably work too. But then I would have to change the name of the playlist to "Jack's Sedative."

The soothingest song for Jack, when I'm in charge of getting the little guy to bed, is "Hope" by Jack Johnson.

And that is why my night, the other night, started, as usual, with Jack and Jack.

Jessica works nights, and on rare occasion I stay up most the night too--just at home. Ideally it's because I'm doing something really useful.

Like working on the library.

You know, categorizing and alphabetizing books.

We have:

Four book cases of fiction, two of those are fantasy, two thirds of one we consider Classics, and the rest are just ... fiction.

One book case of General Inspirational, whatever that is.

Two book cases of Old Testament and Near Eastern Studies. I got stuck here, that night, happily remembering my days at BYU. It was from Dan Belnap that the term "Near East" first struck a chord.

Two book cases of New Testament and Christian History

One book case dedicated mostly to scriptures: different versions of the Bible, and older versions of the Book of Mormon, and a copy of the Koran, two of the Bhagavad-Gita, a collection of the teachings of the Buddha, etc.

One bookcase for biography. It was here that I stopped to read a chapter from The Undertaking by Thomas Lynch, a poet/funeral director. Jessica was the one who suggested I make a bookcase specifically for biographies. I was surprised to see it fill up.

Then there are the Book of Mormon/Doctrine and Covenants/Church History books. They take up the rest.

Jack joined me for part of the night. That's usually about the time that I go full circle and end the night with Jack and Jack.

I wasn't planning on getting much rest anyway.

Prolegomena, in which Holdinator considers different lines with which to open the story of his evening

1. It usually begins with Jack and Jack.

2. My iPod has a total of five songs.

3. It was from Dan Belnap that the words, "Near East," first struck a chord.

4. It was Jessica's suggestion that I create a book case specifically for biographies.

5. At one point I stopped to read a chapter from The Undertaking.

6. I had planned on not getting much rest.

Which one would most likely cause you to keep reading? Even if there were no pictures and the post went on for many paragraphs?

Politics, in which Holdinator gets unsolicited email from this guy:

Dear Fred ThompsonPAC,

Holdinator is registered in the state of Utah as "unaffiliated."

I guess that's all. This is as political as I will ever get.

The Social Networking Site for Book Lovers in which Holdinator Discovers something about the Demographics of goodreads.com

The first social networking site I ever joined, before facebook and twitter ... uh, I think those are the only ones I've joined otherwise. And I haven't been back to twitter since the day I first signed up. I go on facebook every few days or so, certainly not multiple times a day, likely largely because I don't have internet access at work.

Back to our regularly scheduled posting:

The first site I ever joined was Goodreads.com, a site where you can list books you've read, are reading, and plan on reading, and rate them. Your friends do the same thing, and you can discuss books, write reviews, and other things.

Today when I got on the site I went to a page I hadn't visited before, it was the "Best Books Ever" page. I discovered something about the demographic of this site from this page. Click on the link above and tell me what group of people likely frequents Goodreads more than any other.

It would appear that I fit the mold of the Goodreads crowd.

Congratulations David Locke in which Holdinator Voices his Support for the new Jazz play-by-play dude

Not that what I think matters, but after reading the comments on this short news story, dude, I had to say something.

So here it is. The voice of Hot Rod Hundley has been synonymous with Utah Jazz basketball for the entire existence of the franchise in Salt Lake City. Back in my Jazz-fanatic days when I played Jr. Jazz, collected basketball cards, and idolized Blue Edwards, Hot Rod was the TV announcer and I loved to listen to him call the games. I had no idea, and still really don't, what "hippity hop the bell hop dribble" means, but it was really cool to listen to anyway.

A couple years ago, when I started following the Jazz closely again, I discovered that Hot Rod still called the games, but just on the radio. As it happens, we don't have cable or satelite TV in our home, so anytime Jazz games are not on KJZZ, the radio is how I followed the action, and it was a pleasure to listen to that familiar voice use the same goofy phrases attached to different names (now it was D-Will hippity hopping the bell hop dribble instead of Stockton). But then one day this past season Hot Rod took the day off for some reason, and his replacement on the radio was David Locke, host of 1320 KFAN's Locked on Sports and an amazing NBA analyst.

Quite honestly, it was one of the most enjoyable radio broadcasts I have ever listened to. Locke has energy, a lot of energy, and passion for the game, and specifically for the Jazz. He is obsessed with statistics and understands the personalities of the players, and brings it all to the table when he calls the games. He is entertaining and really very interesting. His radio show can be intellectually stimulating because he includes in his arguments extensive research in addition to his very strong opinions. Someone on the KSL comment thread mentioned above compared him to ESPN's Colin Cowherd, but nothing could be less accurate. Cowherd thinks a lot of himself, talks about himself all the time, and formulates his arguments using cocktails and hot tubs as analogies. Locke brings thoughtful statistics and articulate analysis.

Oh, and David Locke is already a Jazz fan. He's one of us, who listened to Hot Rod growing up and thought to himself that he wanted to do what Rod Hundley did someday. Locke is a no-apologies Utah Jazz fan, and can express what thousands of other Jazz fans are feeling with unmatched passion (like during the first round of the playoffs this last season when his war cry was simply, "Beat the freakin' Lakers!!").

When I heard that Hot Rod was retiring (by the way, I heard it when he first announced it, and it happened to be on Locked on Sports that he announced it) my thought was that it was appropo that he would announce his retirement on Locke's show, because it was likely that Locke would be the next play-by-play guy.

And that prospect excited me.

Locke was the first to admit, during his show today when someone calling in said something about his replacing Hot Rod, that Hot Rod would not, could not, be replaced. "No one replaces Hot Rod Hundley," he said, "If the Jazz could retire radio play-by-play with Hot Rod, they would." But someone needed to take over, and in my humble, but very strong opinion, the best choice for the job is the man who got the job.

From the comments on KSL, it seems that most people object to Locke's voice. They claim that they won't listen, and in some cases won't support sponsors, because Locke's voice is high-pitched.

Really? You are going to miss out on passionate, well-thought out, extensively researched, articulate game calling because his voice is high?

That's too bad.

I say, You'll do awesome Locke. I look forward to many seasons of Jazz basketball with you as my play-by-play guy.

Baby Names? in which Holdinator finds this list in Jessica's handwriting on their computer desk:

Myke
Rich
Patricia
Denise
Jiri
Sheryl
Ellycia
Wendy
Amy
Penny
Maryann
Tracy
Joe (beard)
Joe
Linda
Jocelyn
Jeffrey
Ugly Frog
Jenn
Kevin
Tim
Christine
Val
Jodi
Karla
Nacho Gomez
Wendy J
Amy T
Dreamer Enchanted
Brenda B
Jeanne
Julia
Candice
Cheab

But here's the thing: she's not pregnant.

Remembering this, in which Holdinator loved to pretend to be Jeff

The Inept Homeowner, in which Holdinator breaks the Sprinklers

Bless her.

That's all I can say, really. She puts up with a heck of a lot, and so bless her.

That's not to say she wasn't aware of what she was getting into.

You see, when we were dating/engaged (somewhere in there) her car had a problem. I think there was a cable that came loose from the battery. Her dad spent no less than a half hour on the phone with me trying, very patiently, to describe where I should look under the hood to find this cable and reconnect it.

Total time project should have taken: 30 seconds

Total time project took in my hands: 45 minutes (because it took me 15 minutes to find the latch to release the hood)

So when we had a simple sprinkler repair in our front flower bed, and I decided I would investigate and be the superman I ought to be, I unearthed fifteen feet of sprinkler pipe looking for the place where I could unscrew the pipe from the rest of the pipe and take it to Home Depot to find a replacement.

Except that sprinkler pipe isn't screwed together, it's all glued together with these connector things or whatever ("Duh, dork," you're thinking). So all it took was sawing off a couple inches and gluing a new piece in place. Thanks to her brother, that was taken care of a month ago.

Thanks to me, it still doesn't work, because when I got that fifteen feet out, I broke the pipe somewhere else, and now ... well, I tried to at least bury the pipe so it wouldn't be sticking up out of the ground anymore, but the middle of it won't stay under the dirt.

I LOVE YOU JESSICA!

thanks for putting up with me

The Tale of A Weekend in which Holdinator reads two books

I finished two books this weekend.

No joke.

They were both a part of that LDS fiction club of books that we sell at Seagull.

I won't tell you about them.

But I will tell you about the book I'm reading now!

Actually just this much: it's freaking awesome.

This

Is it just me, or did that last comment thread seem a little one sided?

Sundry Books meet Concrete

I'm really clumsy.

I don't know if I've told you this before. 

Probably.

This morning walking out to my car, I stepped on a divot in our front lawn, turned my ankle, and dropped my load of books into the middle of the street.

You see, I'm thinking that I need to get back into studying Hebrew, so I had my Hebrew Bible, a lexicon, a grammar, and a set of scriptures in my arms. I thought I would study them during lunch breaks at work.

I landed on my arm, I guess, and somehow strained a tricep. I've been hobbling around all day.

I hope my Hebrew skills aren't too rusty.