Blog – Page 30

Food Storage – It’s In the Bag

May 11, 2010 by rickety 3 Comments

I purchased a useful little book last week called It’s In the Bag by Michelle and Trent Snow. Michelle is affectionately called “The Bag Lady” because of her Bag Meal System. The book is well laid out with easy to follow instructions. Over a hundred recipes extend its usefulness for as long as you need to store food.

The system is simple. I put everything I need for a meal in a bag. As I read through the first chapter it really does turn out to be simple — even a man could do it. Michelle guided me through 12 advantages of Bag Meals from “having organized meals ready” to “an easy way to rotate my food storage.” There are photographs too for the folks that never read the instructions but want to get moving.

The bulk of the book is taken up with bags of recipes — or perhaps recipes for bags? Now in my home I hardly ever cook and when I do it is beans on toast (now that wouldn’t need a very big bag). But a lot of these Bag Meal recipes look so easy to do that I might consider branching out and rustle up some Pinto Beans (page 68) or Spicy Chicken and Navy Bean Soup (page 79) or perhaps a Beefy Bean Casserole (page 58). But the really must try meal is Uglier than Heck Soup (page 78).

There are some other useful sections in the book. One that took my interest is Trent’s Sprouting Methods. I have yet to try what he says but I at least I have my bookmark in place.

According to the cover, It’s In the Bag will have you storing what eat and eating what you store. After reading the book I would have to agree with the cover, the Bag Meal System is simple and realistic.

For more information, see The Bag Lady’s blogs: Michelle Snow and Welcome To The Food Storage Revolution!

Full disclosure: I purchased the book and was not paid for this review. The Trents are neighbors.
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Missionary Dan Email #5 from Vancouver, Washington

May 11, 2010 by rickety Leave a Comment

It was a great week for us. The phone call was fun too, to tell some of my cool stories that I hadn’t yet. We did a lot of biking and walking, teaching lessons etc. We also got general conference in the mail so I’ve been reading that. It was a great conference. How come no one sent what they liked about conference when I asked forever ago? Anyhow maybe you did, but I forgot.

The best thing my companion Elder Harris and I have been improving on is teaching with simplicity. We have improved greatly and we can tell the effect it has had on the people. Danielle is an investigator that says she wasn’t comfortable at all with being in churches and she wasn’t that interested. After a week of her reading a chapter from the Book of Mormon and us teaching her again, her attitude has changed greatly. It shows the importance of having the spirit with us when we teach.

Great job on running Mom. It sounds like you’re doing a lot of things right. Enjoy the pictures of a pond in my area and me with my bike. Thanks for everything!

Love, Elder Willoughby

Elder Daniel Willoughby is serving in the Washington Kennewick Mission. If you want to communicate with Daniel, write in the comments or use one of these addresses.

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Caption Competition #8

May 10, 2010 by rickety 7 Comments

Sarah at Fort Worth Zoo

This photograph of Sarah was taken in April at the Fort Worth Zoo. You are invited to write a caption for the photograph.

Usually the prize is limited to Kaysville and environs but this time it is open to all. The prize is a One Hundred Trillion Dollar banknote. It is not worth anything except that to hold it is very worrying when you realize that your own currency could also end up hyperinflated. Especially with government borrowing at record levels. This 2008 uncirculated Zimbabwe banknote was part of the annual inflation rate of 89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000%.

Rachel holding Zimbabwe banknote

When you submit your caption include your email in the comment form. That way I can contact the winner for their address to mail the banknote. If you are reading my Facebook page, click on “View Original Post” to come on over to my blog. If I cannot obtain your address the prize will go to the second place winner.

Only myself and the judge are not eligible to win. Sharpen your keyboards and good luck with your captions. One hundred trillion dollars awaits you. Rachel not included.
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Graduation Celebration

May 9, 2010 by rickety 1 Comment

Relatives and friend celebrate Paul and Jake's graduation

I was requested to post a few photographs of Paul and Jake’s graduation on Friday. The invitations were sent out and the relatives arrived with varying degrees of gifts. Paul and Jake’s grandpa gave them each a fifty dollar bill. Paul and Jake had present parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, a grandparent, a niece, and a sister-in-law. If you can handle a full resolution (4700 x 3303) 10.8 MB photograph of the relatives click here.

A meal was waiting for everyone with an Adelaide baked cake for dessert. It was a motherboard decorated with wafers but no chocolate chips. Click on the cake that Paul and Jake are holding and you will see that on one of the CPUs my brother Mike is wished happy birthday as well as congratulations to the graduates.

Click to view the cake

After the meal a goodly number attended the University of Utah College of Engineering Convocation at the Jon M. Huntsman Center. Jill was able to get a photograph of Paul and Jake because they were seated right next to the aisle.

The convocation seemed like it lasted a long time mainly because it did. When the people you have come to see only take up 1/200th of the alloted time, just sitting there can get a little boring. However, one must pay attention because sometimes there are fractional moments that cause amusement. For example, one of the names that was read out was “Charlie Brown.” That caused a few chuckles to ripple around those present.

After the ceremony we went outside and took some more photographs. We were slow getting off the University of Utah campus because of a detour around a TRAX accident. The one piece of education that we got out of the evening was that if you must attend a convocation, make it a two-for-one event.

Family group photo credit: Zaapit
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One Hundred Million Marks

May 5, 2010 by rickety 14 Comments

Weimar Republic 100 million mark banknote

The 100 million mark banknote I am holding was mere pocket change compared to the value of the banknotes yet to be issued in 1923. In early 1921 German currency was trading at 60 marks to the U.S. dollar. By November 1921 there were 330 marks to the dollar. A year later a dollar bought 8,000 marks. In December 1923 the exchange rate was 4,200,000,000,000 marks to the U.S. dollar.

The Wiemar Republic did not have the worst hyperinflation in history — Hungary holds that “honor”. Zimbabwe was the second worst offender, followed by Yugoslavia, Germany, and Greece: the top five hyperinflators of all time.

The highest denomination in Germany was a 100,000,000,000,000 mark banknote issued in 1923. Workers were paid three times a day and wives would meet them to rush to the store to pay 200 billion marks for a loaf of bread.

The hyperinflation was caused by the government issuing massive amounts of new money. This caused prices to rise. Germans with money saved had it wiped out, making them destitute. The German government essentially monetized its debt, much like the U.S. is doing of late. Germany failed to raise its interest rate sufficiently, just as in the U.S. at present.

The main force in the 1920s which gave the nightmare German inflation its momentum was the relentless decrease in the real value of currency in circulation.

Just like in the United States in 2010.
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Missionary Dan Email #4 from Vancouver, Washington

May 4, 2010 by rickety Leave a Comment

1-5 bridge connecting Vancouver, Washington to Portland, Oregon

This week we had similar success in finding people to teach. We worked really hard and it was worth it. We plan on doing the same thing this week.

Congratulations on graduating, Paul and Jake. The pictures were really cool. I wasn’t sure if Mom paid you to take them or if you set up your own system to take them yourselves then allowed her to print ’em. Either way they were great.

The blog post was really interesting Dad, I had no idea that there was that kind of crazy inflation.

There is a lot of similar stories like last week I could write. The Lord truly is helping and guiding us in the work. I know it is a great work and that Heavenly Father loves all of His children.

The gloves look great! Thanks Mom.

For this Mothers Day call and I will call Sunday morning to see what time will work best. Happy Mothers Day Mom!

Love, Elder Willoughby

Elder Daniel Willoughby is serving in the Washington Kennewick Mission. If you want to communicate with Daniel, write in the comments or use one of these addresses.

Photo Credit: nsjmetzger

One Hundred Thousand Milpengo

May 3, 2010 by rickety 4 Comments

Hungarian 100,000 Milpengo banknote

I recently wrote that I was concerned about the increased deficit spending by the Obama Administration. I showed what happened to Zimbabwe when the government failed to control their currency and their spending. Although hyperinflation destroyed their currency and their citizens lives, the worst offender of all time was Hungary.

Above is a 100,000 Milpengo banknote if I am reading it correctly. A Milpego is a million pengos. So this note is a 100 billion pengo banknote. However this is small change. The largest denomination banknote in history was in circulation in Hungary in 1946. It was for 100 quintillion pengo or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 pengo.

Hungary had the highest monthly inflation rate ever — 41,900,000,000,000,000% in July, 1946. Prices doubled every 13.5 hours.

When I show friends this banknote and the Zimbabwe note, handling them brings home the fragility of our own Federal Reserve Notes. They know that our printing presses are bigger and faster than any that Zimbabwe or Hungary ever ran. Their economies were destroyed by hyperinflation.

And the same fate could befall us.

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Paul and Jake Graduate in Computer Engineering

May 1, 2010 by rickety 11 Comments

On Friday, May 7th, at the University of Utah 141st commencement, 7,034 graduates from all 50 states and 76 countries will receive degrees. The same day we will be with Paul and Jake at the College of Engineering Convocation at the Jon M. Huntsman Center at 6:45 pm.

With computer scientist parents and an older brother and sister with computer science degrees, perhaps it is not surprising that Paul and Jake chose a similar career path. But why a degree in Computer Engineering? According to U.S. News & World Report:

If there’s an app for something, there’s a software engineer behind it. From video games to missile systems to, yes, your iPhone, almost every big idea in modern business is supported by software. The work of designing, building, maintaining, and integrating those increasingly complex systems continues to be one the fastest-growing corners of the job market.

The job outlook is promising:

Employment of computer software engineers is expected to swell by a whopping 295,200 jobs, or more than 32 percent, between 2008 and 2018. That rate is well above the average for all occupations, as companies continually integrate new technologies and design their own.

Perhaps you are wondering how this is all working out for our recent graduates. Paul is already working full-time in his chosen field for a local employer and Jake joins him May 10.

Credits: Photography and announcement design by Adelaide of Ada Shot Me.
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Missionary Dan Email #3 from Vancouver, Washington

April 27, 2010 by rickety Leave a Comment

Fort Vancouver, Washington

This has been a good week for us. I got my new companion, Elder Harris, on Wednesday and we went straight to work. He is from Springville, Utah and has been out on his mission about the same amount of time as me.

This week we had a lot of good finding experiences. We finally got to meet a family we’d been trying to for awhile. She missed our last appointment because she had a baby. We figured that was a good excuse. Anyhow she is a member and her husband is investigating. He was really open to the message with the baby changing perspectives.

We were also able to contact a member referral and teach him and his son. He wasn’t too excited about any church, but liked to talk about the doctrine. He agreed to meet with us again, so we’ll keep working with him.

Then on Sunday after church we planned to go to a certain area to contact some people that said we could come back later. As we were walking someone called us off the street and told us to come over. When we got there he said in a broken English Russian accent to come into his garden which was in his backyard. We thought it was a little strange, but followed him back there where we sat down and he talked to us about God. We taught him about the Godhead and he said a few times that he really likes the Mormons. He said to come back anytime. We felt very blessed as it’s not everyday where new investigators call after missionaries.

Then we went to try back at another house of a man that talked to us for a while before. He shared the story of when he had been driving a trailer and was delivering it to a house. He was absolutely exhausted and didn’t know how he was going to move so much stuff from the trailer to the house. Plus he had been having one of the worst days of his life, he estimated it would take 4 hours to do it all by himself. Then he asked us, “Guess who showed up?” Some missionaries came and helped him and got the job done in an hour which allowed him to get the trailer back in time and move on to other things. He said, “They were working like I was paying ’em.” It had really softened his heart and he was really open to us teaching him. We are excited and happy for the good work of all missionaries.

So in all we found 5 new investigators this week. It was truly the Lord directing us where to go and to be at the right place at the right time. Along with that we had another really good lesson on Saturday night. We “happened” to come to their house right before she went to work, after he woke up from a nap, and they had just finished discussing all of their many trials. I opened my scriptures to share a thought and it fell open to a scripture in Alma 26:27. It hit right home to her that even through all her trials, the Lord is still there for her. She went to work and worked all night and on Sunday she came to church. She came with her husband who isn’t a member and that completely shocked us as he hadn’t committed to do much by all the other missionaries. I know the Lord led us there to come right at the right time and share what they needed.

My bike is to speed up travel time and to be more effective. We ride to appointments, lunch, to member’s houses, to places where we are going to track, and at the end of the day we ride home. Yep I have a helmet and I wear it, ya it has reflectors too. Feel free to ask any more questions. Thanks for all you do Mom!

Love, Elder Willoughby

Elder Daniel Willoughby is serving in the Washington Kennewick Mission. If you want to communicate with Daniel, write in the comments or use one of these addresses.

Photo Credit: Glen Williams
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One Hundred Trillion Dollars

April 26, 2010 by rickety 3 Comments

When announced, the note I hold was worth 30 US dollars but would quickly lose value

Recently I have been concerned about the increased deficit spending by the Obama Administration. The risk of inflation, even hyperinflation, seems to be in our future. With a little study I was surprised to learn scores of countries have experienced hyperinflation.

In November 2008, Zimbabwe had a monthly inflation rate of 79,600,000,000% and an annual rate of 89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000%. The daily inflation rate was 98% and prices doubled every 24.7 hours.

Even these horrendous numbers do not equal those of Hungary in 1946 that had an daily inflation rate of 195% with prices doubling every 15.6 hours. Other notable hyperinflators were Yugoslavia in 1994 with prices doubling every 1.4 days, Germany in 1923 doubling prices every 3.7 days, Greece every 4.5 days (1944), and China every 5.6 days (1949).

One would hope that we are not headed for the same fate as Zimbabwe. Perhaps this November, by voting out of office members of Congress that are the worst spenders, we can strengthen the dollar and make it worthy of reserve status.