cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts
"The week of October 19th to 26th was filled with books. There were other things it was filled with too. And in the spirit of not washing dirty laundry in public, I will not add these events to this diary. I will quote from an e-mail Kate sent me regarding my thoughtlet on Family Secrets (0337.html), which in my mind has relevance, and which she said she did not mind having it included in a Thoughtlet:
For those of you who personalize each thing I write in these
Thoughtlets, specifically if you take them as personal attacks
on your character, I hope the above comment shows that others
often hold back comments for fear of giving offense. And in
the meantime, I continue along as a bull in the china shop.
Andrea has done a wonderful job of refinishing the library/ music room. She took the ugly gray HyperMedia bookshelves and painted them white. She took the two similar wood bookshelves and painted them white also. This was after stripping the wallpaper, and repainting the room. Then her and Sister Burnham rearranged the room and the book shelves. I really like it. I'm still getting used to stacking books flat, and yet I readily admit it looks really nice.
The two other wood bookshelves were moved into the living room, one on either side of the TV console and bookshelves. I took all of the books and sorted them against my Knowledge Backbone (SM). Then Andrea started typing them into a spreadsheet. I expect that by Thanksgiving we will have a majority of the books in our library indexed, the index will be on-line, and any of you willing to pay the UPS or mail charges will be able to check out any book you want from this family library.
There have been comments about conspicuous consumption. I have no defense. A lot of the books are from Grandpa Hafen's library (Uncle Tony, you might be interested in checking some of them out). A lot of the books are from my Mom's library. A lot of the books were bought to support idealistic concepts behind Prime Words and Walden 3-D and my belief in the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I like to think the library is my poor attempt to emulate Thomas Jefferson for our family. Jefferson sold 6,000 volumes of his personal library for $23,950, less than half its auction value, as a nucleus for the new Library of Congress. This was because the British had burned in original Library of Congress during The War of 1812. Certainly in 1815, a 6,000 volume library was conspicious consumption.
I promised each of you an inheritance of an original Ken Turner painting and an education. When I get back on my feet financially, I would like to extend that offer to Bridget and Brian too. Other than not being able to pay for Heather's school so far this year, I've kept pretty much on track with helping each of you get ready and through college. As Ben and Brian learned on our China trip earlier this year, and as Sara and Audrey learned on our trip to London this summer, the education part does not end with college. Hopefully the Grandkids will also pick up on this concept through the weekly Grandkidlets, and you kids will pick up on it through my weekly Thoughtlets. The family library is an important part of our family legacy, at least in my mind. And yet as we struggle to make ends meet, it does seem like we have a lot of books.
One of the tubes in our water bed broke on Monday (at least it wasn't on my side of the bed, even though the bed leans to my side and all of the water drained out of my side). They don't make the tube beds anymore, and after one night in the waterbed upstairs, I went out and bought the only solution available that fit our bed frame at the one store I went to. Ended up driving down past the University of Houston Research Park, where Bowen Loftin's virtual reality lab was, to pick it up and to get the bed fixed. From the experience, I've concluded it is a typical guy thing to fix the problem when one becomes untenable.
On Tuesday the 21st I sent another note to Hill Geophysical, and I have never heard back from them. Oh well! On Wednesday I cleaned up the maps on the Ellenburger Souix and Dakota Prospects and sent them to John Benard and Frank Lott. They were both interested and pleased with the results. On Thursday morning I was once again stopped by a police officer while jogging. He couldn't see me in the fog as I ran up Baker Road, and wanted me to know. At least it wasn't as embarrassing as the last time (../9903.html). There were no screaming women, no running teenager, and no flashing red lights this time.
I spent quite a few hours during the week, and most of the day on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday helping to organize and catalog books. There is no question about the fact we have enough interesting books to create a real good education for anyone interested in delving into them. I wish I had read and comprehended all of the books in our library. Maybe then I would know how to communicate with each of you in a way which would be useful to you.
In High Priest Quorum Phillip Miller(a) taught the class, and said some words which I interpreted could be directed at these Thoughtlets, and at the way I live my life. I turned his words into a possible stanza for Prime Words:
It takes two way communication to effect change. The
issue with books is they are a monologue. The wisdom
is there in the pages, and it doesn't do any good
unless it gets off the pages and into someone's head
and heart. And the same thing is true of these
Thoughtlets. If the words are not read and if there
are not ideas which are useful and helpful to your
lives, the words simply sit on the shelf as yet another
book."