Mostly about Utah
An index? Indexes are for books, right? But I rather think they are useful for blogs also. When I started blogging at the end of May I never dreamed I would need such a thing. But 175 rickety posts later an index would seem to be a useful addition. I haven’t noticed many blogs that have an index but there is a WordPress plugin that takes care of the construction exceedingly well.
Yesterday evening Jake and I left the car in a Jordan School District parking lot west of I-15. We walked instead of taking the provided shuttle. As we neared the stadium we followed ten other people as they cut through a private parking lot. We walked along a dirt trail and came to a stream. It looked like we might have to try to jump over it but it turned out to be dry. We clambered down the bank in the dark and up the other side. Before us now was a eight foot high rickety chain link fence with barbed wire on top. I asked Jake if we were following the right people. Fans were ducking through a large hole in the fence only to be held up by another fence equally as high but with no barbed wire. This one we had to climb and then drop down the other side. All that was left to do was scramble up a hill to the road outside the stadium.
Steven entertains Bryson
Of course Equality California would head for the courts after the votes counted are not in their favor. I think it is a rickety course to pursue. Andrew Pugno, General Counsel of ProtectMarriage.com, said:
The ACLU/Equality California lawsuit is completely lacking in merit. It is as if their campaign just spent $40 million on a losing campaign opposing something they now say is a legal nullity.
Mr. Pugno further states:
The lawsuit filed today by the ACLU and Equality California seeking to invalidate the decision of California voters to enshrine traditional marriage in California’s constitution is frivolous and regrettable. These same groups filed an identical case with the California Supreme Court months ago, which was summarily dismissed. We will vigorously defend the People’s decision to enact Proposition 8. (ProtectMarriage.com News, Statement By Andrew Pugno, General Counsel of ProtectMarriage.com)
Most people know that the right to amend California’s Constitution is not granted to the People, it is reserved by the People. The People’s exercise of their sovereign power has reversed an interpretation of their Constitution through the initiative-amendment process. Mr. Pugno cites two cases in his statement to explain how the process works.
In a way, one wonders what all the fuss is about. Consider Elton John:
I don’t want to be married. I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership,” said John. “The word marriage, I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships. (USA Today, “Elton John: Where Prop 8 went wrong“)
Back to the lawsuit. Ron Prentice stated:
ProtectMarriage.com also wants you to know that a strong legal defense of Proposition 8 is being prepared. We anticipated that Prop 8’s passage would result in advocates of same-sex marriage turning to the courts to attempt to overturn the People’s affirmation of traditional marriage as a societal good. We will be announcing our legal strategy next week, but rest assured that we will vigorously defend the People’s will to enshrine traditional marriage in the state Constitution. (ProtectMarriage.com News, Statement of Ron Prentice, Chairman, ProtectMarriage.com — Yes on 8)
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. If the lawsuit passes then the final say on what becomes constitutional will be in the hands of a few judges for every future proposition. It will effectively leave the people of California with no recourse. Every proposition result will be subject to judicial review. But for now my congratulations to the historic campaign to pass Proposition 8, a phenomenal effort. Said Mr. Prentice, “This victory would not have been possible without the support of our 70,000 contributors and over 100,000 dedicated volunteers. It was accomplished with the strong participation of about 80% of California voters, or nearly 14 million people participating in this expression of the People’s will.”
Same-Sex Marriage and Proposition 8. Includes LDS documents, interviews, video, and links to websites.
YadYap, payday spelled backward (how’s that for a rickety but innovative name), is the first people-to-people lending platform specifically for the payday loan industry. YadYap is looking forward to an official launch soon. It is interesting that I should hear about YadYap (thank you Jared) so soon after I wrote that “there will be many peer to peer lending websites.”
According to their website, YadYap was inspired by three characteristics of the payday loan industry:
The biggest advantage of YadYap is the almost instant liquidity that comes from offering short term 2-4 week payday loans. Unlike Prosper and Lending Club, no secondary market is needed to achieve liquidity for lenders. When YadYap opens, this may prove to be a significant advantage for them. And maybe there will be a few less “Payday Loans Here” signs on main street as business migrates to the web.
5 Mar 2009 I removed my instant liquidity link to YadYap’s blog. All it returns is a WordPress message that reads:
This blog has been archived or suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service.
Not a good sign. I wonder if they need a payday loan to tide them over?
12 Mar 2009 Restored my instant liquidity link to YadYap’s blog, which has changed location and is now called [link no longer works]. Set aside money for a payday loan to YadYap through their platform once they launch.
19 Oct 2010 Yadyap launched. In this first phase, all lending will be done by YadYap LLC, their affiliates, and other institutional lenders.
25 Feb 2012 ConnectFund link no longer works, replaced all references to it with this bracketeted phrase: [link to longer works].
My wife and I enjoy the Saturday evening session of stake conference. Last night we attended with our two sons which made it even more special. The truth be told it was one of our sons, Jake, who reminded us of the meeting, which was very timely because with my rickety memory I had forgotten about it. Those 18 and over are invited to attend and the stake president mentioned at the start of his talk that many members tell him it is their favorite meeting of stake conference. He thought that maybe it was because the children are with baby sitters. My favorite part is when President Thredgold fires up his laptop and runs through his State of the Stake presentation. This is where he projects the stake’s statistics onto the chapel wall, using it as a screen. It might be interesting for you to see these numbers and compare them to your own stake. The figures shown here are not unusual for Davis County.
Figures are as of the third quarter of 2008.
Total Members — 3,506. Even though we have a very large Stake Center, Stake Conference on Sunday is divided into two sessions to accommodate the large numbers that want to attend.
Sacrament Meeting Attendance — 70% average.
Ward Size — The average size of the stake’s ten wards are from 285 to 500 members. Note that the Davis Park (YSA) Ward has 175 members. President Thredgold said that the number is dropping, which is good, for it is because of a number of marriages.
Families per Ward — 110.
Youth — 600 which is 17% of the stake (12 years of age to 18).
Children — 695 which is 20% of the stake (0 years of age to 11).
Missionaries — 100. Daniel is one of these.
Seminary Enrollment — 92%.
Institute Enrollment — The largest of any stake in Davis County.
Operating Expenses — A goal for 2009 is to save enough money from operating expenses to send a member from Africa on a mission. We should be able to save enough money from cutting back on our electricity consumption to pay the $400 a month cost of the mission.
President Thredgold went on to talk about the current distressing situation with demonstrations, retirement money gone, and a change in government. He mentioned President Packer’s talk that was circulated on blogs and that we need not be concerned about it. He finished with his memories of 2008, particularly mentioning the change in the stake relief society presidency now that Sister Staples is a member of the Relief Society General Board.
I previously wrote about my experience with Lending Club. None of my loans have turned rickety and I have even signed up for FOLIOfn’s Note Trading Platform. Here is what Lending Club has to say about trading:
If you are a Lending Club lender and wish to sell some of your Notes, or buy Notes currently held by other lenders, you can now use the Note Trading Platform operated by FOLIOfn, member FINRA/SIPC. You will need to open an account with FOLIOfn, but you can use the funds available in your Lending Club account to buy Notes through the Trading Platform, and receive the proceeds of any sale of Notes (minus a 1% trading fee) directly into your Lending Club account. Only Notes that were issued after October 12, 2008 can be traded on the Trading Platform.
For years I labored with Microsoft Windows while my son Steven had long since adopted Linux. Now that Ubuntu has won me over, I was curious as to what Steven’s choice in open source software would be. Recently I sent him this email:
What would be your top ten open source software picks? Not including the ones that are already pre-loaded on Ubuntu.
He responded with the names of ten software applications. I list them below in alphabetical order.
Amarok is the music player for Linux and Unix with an intuitive interface. Amarok makes playing the music you love easier than ever before — and looks good doing it. Amarok serves many functions rather than just playing music files. For example, Amarok can be used to organize a library of music into folders according to genre, artist, and album, can edit tags attached to most music formats, associate album art, attach lyrics, and automatically “score” music as it is played.
Blender is a 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems. It can be used for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, water simulations, skinning, animating, rendering, particle and other simulations, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating interactive 3D applications.
As you know, last week Daniel entered the MTC. Earlier that day my wife suggested that I take a photograph of all our missionaries together. No rickety young men here, all strong priesthood holders. These are my four sons and son-in-law (far right) and the flags of the countries where they served. Proceeding left to right in the photograph:
Steven
Chile Santiago North Mission, December 2001 to December 2003.
Jake
Mexico Mexico City North Mission, August 2006 to August 2008.
Daniel
Mongolia Ulaanbaatar Mission, Oct 2008.
Paul
California Oakland (Spanish Speaking) Mission, June 2004 to June 2006.
Derek
Guatemala Guatemala City Central Mission, July 2003 to May 2005.
I am sure that numerous families could post a similar photograph. All these missionaries have worked hard to bring the truth to the world, making it a better place for all to live in. Now they are beginning to raise children of their own, who will in turn follow the Savior’s admonition to “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” (Matthew 28:19)
One of my commenters suggested that I have a photograph with the flags in the horizontal position as that would make a better picture. Good idea, I can do that.
