Christopher Beesley and the Return of the PVS Bookclub

Greetings and salutations!  I just got back (about an hour ago) from Southern California.  I attended a stats conference in San Diego, where I had the chance to visit with the one and only Christopher Beesley.  While he claims to have gained and lost a lot of weight, he still looks like the same Christopher we all know and love, with the addition of a few gray hairs and perhaps even more solid muscle.

The gray hairs likely come from being bishop and having to preside over 20 funerals in 4 years.  Incredibly, Christopher is bishop of the ward he grew up in, and he appears to love every minute of it.  I think he secretly gets the most joy out of the combination of bishop and ward music chair and ward organist, which allows him to move back and forth between the pulpit and the organ requiring the ward to sing whatever hymn suits his fancy.

Christopher and his amazing wife, Mary, were incredibly accommodating, feeding us, chauffeuring us around town, and even giving us their guest passes to the San Diego Zoo.  Their four kids (ages 2 to 11) are all well-behaved and appear to be quite smart.  No surprise there.

Christopher shared the story of his faith and bravery in following a prompting that led to his dream job of playing Javert, and prosecuting criminals (or at least shooting down their appeals) from the comfort of his desk.  At night he sits on the board of directors of his children's German immersion school.  I tried working on getting him to participate in the PVS book club, but he has some legitimate claims on his free time.

I am so grateful to Christopher for his help this last week and for his example of happy service, self-discipline, and seeking after things that are good and praiseworthy.  I'm also grateful for a network of friends around the country.


With all of that preamble, I would like to take the initiative to choose a new book. 

I've really enjoyed some of Christensen's talks/articles, and I've been waiting to get this book from the library for a long time.  Before it came, my mom sent me a copy in the mail saying she wants all of her children to read it.  I think it has advice for your careers as well as your personal life, so I think it would be great for even you really busy people.

Can we kick the discussion off on Labor Day weekend?  Is that too soon?  Let me know if you want more time.

Merrill Hall Alumni Alert

I've been listening to a lot of books by Brandon Sanderson lately, a graduate of BYU. Then I finally read one, and which allowed me to read the acknowledgments page, something that often gets left out of the audio.

On the acknowledgments page of Mistborn, the author thanks "the incalculable Peter Ahlstrom". In the sequel, Well of Ascension, another Merrill Hall alum is credited, Nathan Goodrich, and Peter is again given special mention. (For those of you that lived in University Park with me, Stacy Whitman is also mentioned.)

The books may not be the best book club books, as they're rather long, and don't need a lot of discussing, outside of a few 'That was awesome.' comments. Besides, I'm unclear as to if the book club is even still alive. It's been a year since an official book was chosen.

Let the Good Times Roll

I had a conference in NYC last week, so I used it as an excuse to go up to Boston (and then the coast of Maine).



Besides the degrees, the kids, the homes, and the sore backs, Peter and Jesse haven't changed a bit. It was like old times.




Peter's new universal conversation starter, to his wife's chagrin, is the federal budget. It doesn't work much better in real life than it has on this blog.






The Jones and Barnes families were both excellent hosts. Thanks.

Lattin Baby

We just had number 5!

Sarah Elizabeth Lattin
Born Wed. Jan 19, 2011
7 lb. 14 oz.
20"

Happy New Year's Day

Happy 2011 PVS!

I've been less active on the blog than I would like recently. I chalk it up to guilt over wasting spending time writing anything other than my thesis. Of course, I'm not as actively writing my thesis as I should be, so really it just means I'm depriving myself of blog activity for no good reason, but whatever. Did I mention Happy New Year?!

And welcome to mythical Rob. I'm pretty positive I invited you to join a couple of times, but maybe the hotmail address I was using was defunct.

I've been thinking about a way forward for the PVS book club; it seemed to fizzle a bit at the end of 2010, and I had a couple of ideas I thought might make it more enjoyable for 2011. First, I'd like to choose a broad theme for the year, something to tie the books together. I had thought something like "Leadership" or "Death" or "Marriage". This will decrease the eclecticism somewhat (unfortunately), but I think it might make the overall experience more rewarding. My other thought is that we should choose the list of books and discussion dates in advance (set a schedule through June, for example); according to Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, this would be a helpful nudge that might make participation easier.

So, if you like these ideas, or if you hate them, or if you have a suggestion for a theme, or if you have other suggestions on the book club, I'm pretty sure you can find the comment box. And even if you don't have any comment other than "yeah, I wanna keep the book club going," that would be still be helpful to gauge interest.

Quick Mortensen family update

At the end of September I started working with a company that repairs bank-owned homes (foreclosed homes).  My job had me traveling from Maryland to South Carolina for 10 days at a time and we were about to move from Boise to the Raleigh area.  The company called me while in NC one day and asked if I'd take a position in Salt Lake in the office of our largest client (one of those evil loan servicing companies that works for the bailed-out banks).  So, we are moving to a home in Bountiful this week.  We were excited about having an east coast family experience, but the new position is much more conducive to family life (no travel) for which I am grateful.  Plus its closer to BYU football games!

I hope you have all had a great Christmas and may you all have a wonderful 2011!

Long Lost PVS Friends

Last week I got a phone call from this PVS poseur occasional contributor who said he was coming to Boston and wanted to catch up on old times. A few short hours later, there we sat in the Barnes' beautiful front room, reminiscing and catching up, and eating delicious chocolate chip cookies (thanks Laura).

Since James isn't around much, I'll post a brief update on his behalf (and if I get it a little wrong he can correct me). He just graduated from Wharton (Penn) business school and decided to move his wife and 3 1/2 kids (due in December; congratulations!) to Delhi, India to pursue a business opportunity. He and a couple of partners have spent the last few months setting the business up, and hopefully within the year they'll have found success. I don't think James would like me releasing the details over the interwebs, but the idea is great and we obviously wish him all the success in the world (or at least I do; Alvin I'm not so sure).

So after an all-too-short visit, James headed down the Cape to pitch his business plan to some VC investors (I haven't heard whether that particular pitch was successful or not). Today, if I'm not mistaken, his plane is en route to India, carrying him and his family on their wonderful adventure. Safe travels Nuttall family and shubh kaamnaayein (शुभ कामनाएँ).

A Visit to the Van Ordens

Come to visit us and look what you can do...



If you're up for some real excitement, there is also...

Of course, there were also a few games played during the visit, but we've found it's bad form to take pictures of our guests right after they've lost. ;)




Thanks for coming to visit, Glenn!

Introducing Ivy Sophia Jones

Ivy Sophia Jones was born this morning at 6:45. Weighing a healthy 9 lbs. 3 oz., she's the largest of our children so far. These are pictures of friends and family meeting her for the first time today at the hospital.

Next challenge: squeezing three car seats in the back bench of a mid-sized sedan.

Another Photo, but a Goodie... MTC October 1996

Doug Signing In!

Hi guys! I have Facebook to thank for finding Alvin, who pointed me to the site. I have enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts and updates. It's amazing how 1 year together has translated into a lasting comraderie. I'm glad to take part. So here's me...


Family - I married Becky Payne December 18, 1998; 3 months after getting off the mission. It's been a great decade since then. The kids are 7, 5, 3, and 7 months. They're a lot of fun.

Calling - Ward Organist and Perpetual Nursery Worker. None of my kids has been through nursery without my having been the teacher.

Job - Currently a first-year medical intern; Five years of radiology training is forthcoming.

Geolocation - Columbus, Ohio since 2004; will be Durham, NC until 2014.

Last 13 years in 100 words or less: I finished freshman year and moved back to my hometown for one last summer of work and wooing Becky before heading on my mission to Paris, France. (I did have Ryan Larsen as my zone leader for a few months while I was in the office.) As mentioned, I was married 3 months after the mission and back at BYU.

I graduated from BYU in Chemical Engineering , and took a job in Portland Oregon with Intel. I worked in their manufacturing branch on flash memory for cell phones, then later with the Pentium 4 when it was new. Sometime in there, I decided that medicine was really what I wanted to do with my life, so after 3 years we moved out to Columbus for medical school at Ohio State. Besides developing an understanding of what true college sports fanatacism is, I got a good medical education.

I now find myself at the end of the "intern" year, grateful for the legislation of an 80-hour workweek. I don't know how this was done by earlier physicians, at least not by those with a family. I will be moving in July to Durham, NC for Radiology training at Duke University. I have a 5-year course of study at Duke.

More About Me: In my luscious amounts of free time, I still get out for the occasional run, or spend some time at the piano. Our family enjoys road trips and visiting family and friends. Oh, and treats with Family Home Evening.

Blast from the Past

I tracked down my pictures from freshman year. There were a few more than these, but they were mostly just me with a certain brunette girl who shall here remain nameless, and I didn't think anybody needed memories of that sort.

So, I hope you enjoy; I've listed the people in the pictures (when I knew them) below.




Homecoming Dance:
Back Row: Dave T, Jennifer, Beth, Dave W., Dave's Friend & Date
Next Row: Peter, Kristi, Sara, Chris F.
Next Row: Cat, Jared, Jared's date, Amy, Bob, Sara
Front Row: Alvin, Brian, Mary, Doug

Christmas Dance:
Back Row: Ryan, Doug, Karl
Next Row: Andrea, Alvin, Jeanette, Jesse, Jessica (?), Chris G., Sara, Wendy Ann, Kim (?), Kristi, Wendy
Next Row: Maggie, Jamie, Jeny Mindy, Cat, Heidi
Front Row: Laura, Avalie, Mark, Jen, Becky

Christmas Dance (Men Only):
Bob Alvin, Paul, Jake, Doug, Mark, Jesse, Ron, Dan, Karl, Ryan, Chris G.

Planting the Tree:
Dane, Scott, Karl, Alvin, Nathan, Peter, Jake, Paul

Thanksgiving Star Wars Marathon (back when there were only three):
Brian, Dave T., James, Peter, Doug, Dan's arms and legs, Aaron's eye.
Not pictured, but attended (I think): Dave W., Dane, Peter A., Byron, Jeremy, Jesse, Scottie, Alvin

Muscle Tee Power Pyramid:
Top: Ron
Middle: Jesse, Scottie
Bottom: James, Peter, Alvin

Playground Gladiators (Women Only):
Misty Allred, Kim Monte, Libby Farnsworth, Angela Hellwig, Laura Rawlings, Maggie Nakata, Laura Kimball, Laura Sneddon

Playground Gladiators (detail):
Laura never would have gotten by if she hadn't threatened Jesse never to kiss him again. I'm sure their five kids are particularly glad he let her by.

Playgroud Gladiators:
Laura R., Jesse, Angela, Misty, Me, Eric, Kim, Maggie, Cory, Alvin, Laura S., Libby, Bob, Laura K.

Introducing Calvin Barnes

Calvin Daniel Barnes was born Dec 16.  Boy #5!  Laura is doing as well as a mother of 5 boys under 8 can do.

While I'm posting pictures I thought some of you might enjoy the picture below that I found while cleaning out a box the other day (we're finally unpacking in our new house).  Good times (the picture, not the unpacking).

Can you help remember everyone in this picture?

Standing Left to Right:  Dane Willis, Ryan Larsen, Girl from Alaska?, Linda's roommate, Linda Fifield, Mark Alexander, Catherine Duke, Robert Mortensen

Siting Left to Right: Laura Kimball, Alvin Van Orden, Jeanette Baker

Just going through old photos and found this one, but I'm having a mental block on a couple of the names.

New Lattin Baby

Sorry for waxing personal, but pride won over. Greta Lattin born Sunday night.  Click here for more info than you'd ever hope for.

Robert Mortensen

My heart is full of fond emotion to be directed to this blog and I'm excited to renew the fraternal bonds we had during that wonderful year at BYU in Merrill Hall.

I apologize that I wasn't in good enough communication with all of you to get in on the ground floor of this blog. I've got some catch-up reading to do. I've been blogging for a couple of years about a lot of the same topics. I'll try index my blogs by using the labels. www.robertkmortensen.blogspot.com.

My lovely bride keeps up a family blog at www.ickatoadslilypad.blogspot.com



Here's my background post:

Rosario Argentina Mission Aug 1996 - Sept 1998

Married Jessica (Davenport) from my home town of Nampa, Idaho - 22 Apr 1999

Kyle - Feb 2001 (I was a BYU baby, so I had to have my own)

BYU - Construction Management - Graduated April 2002

Las Vegas - Internship with Pulte Homes summer of 2001

Greenville, South Carolina - May 2002-July 2003 - home building superintendent for America's Home Place (Alvin stopped in at my church building one day Sunday on his way back from college football game I think. What a surprise to run into each other there.)

Anne - July 2002 (our southern belle)

Mesa, Arizona - July 2003 - March 2007 - superintendent and the purchasing manager for SunCor (Doug Larson visited me once here)

Victoria - July 2004 (our AZ baby)

Claire - Feb 2007 (2nd AZ baby, but almost a spud baby)

Star, Idaho - March 2007 - present - purchasing manager for SunCor Idaho - www.avimor.com

Current Calling: Primary Music Leader (I know you are all jealous, but it takes a certain level of celestial living to have this awesome and extremely rewarding calling!)

Having been your EQP, one might expect me to be Stake President by now, but the Lord doesn't always work that way. I served as a bishop's counselor in a BYU married student ward for two years and since then I have served in callings in young mens, sunday school, Elders Quorums, and exec secretary.

Kid wrangling at church often made me wish for inactivity, but I have remained true to the faith. With my youngest now in nursery I have had the privilege of renewing my testimony of the 3-hour block.

Although temptations to seek post-graduate education still come and go I have been too greedy to leave a good job that meets my needs and most of my wants. I hope that my mind will forever remain thirsty for knowledge. I devour books and look forward to being part of the book club. I have a goal to read all the books on the BYU honors Great Works List and I give my book reports on my blog.

I love to read and talk about religion, history, and politics. Politically, I am a Conservative with a big "C". I flirted with Libertarianism while in S.C., but I do believe in legislating morality, so I couldn't support legalizing pot. My disappointment with the Republican party recently sent me looking into the other fringe parties. The Constitutionalists seemed very interesting, but my gut tells me that some of them are the nut-jobs that bomb abortion clinics. I'll just call myself a Conservative from now on.

My secular readings of greatest political influence have been "The Law", by Frederic Bastiat and "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand. Ezra Taft Benson's "Proper Role of Government" has impressed me and J. Rueben Clark's "Stand Fast by our Constitution" is currently on my desk.

I was a founding member of Red Mountain Swing, a sixteen piece jazz big band in Mesa, AZ (I miss it more than you can imagine and my attempt to start a big band in Star, ID was like diving into a shallow pool of talent.) I play tenor sax and clarinet. We played paid gigs all the time and now they are making tons of money from what I hear. (maybe because I left?)

Birding has become a bit of an obsessive hobby. I've always loved the outdoors, so this new hobby gives me the excuse to get out there and have adventures.

I love BYU Football and I have adopted the BSU Broncos being back on my home turf. When they go head-to-head the next four years, my true loyalty is to the Cougs.

New addition to the family ... still working on the basement

Girl number 4 arrived last night. Jump over to my blog to have a look.

Howdy from Texas

Well, I suppose it's time for me to stop lurking and finally post something. I've been reading the discussions for a while now and am finally up to date.  I've found it to be a great forum for discussions of many different views.

Anyway, a little about myself. I'm currently a software engineer for Bibble Labs in Austin, Texas. We do photography workflow software, primarily focusing on processing RAW images from Digital-SLR cameras faster than any other software available.  As such I get to play with just about any DSLR that comes out; if only that made me a better photographer. 

I made my way to Austin by first working with Karl at another software company - Corda Technologies in Lindon, Utah.  I actually started working there way back when we were all still in Merrill Hall, at that time it was only me and my Boss.  After I served my mission in the Philippines I returned to Corda and worked there while I finished my BS in Computer Science at BYU.  I graduated in the fall of 2002 only a few days after I got married.

Marriage inevitably took me to New York City where I worked for Nikon doing photography software similar to what I'm doing now.  I lived in the Upper East Side of Manhattan for about 3 years.  This time unfortunately saw the end of my marriage which also indirectly led me to Austin.  Being single again let me entertain opportunities that I otherwise might not have considered.  

That's me in a nutshell.  Throughout most of that time I've had a big black lab named Pungi who is featured frequently in the pictures I post on my blog, Cutterpillow.com.  Unfortunately Pungi hasn't quite mastered the art of taking pictures so there are very few pictures of me there.  One of these days I'll get Pungi trained and then hopefully there'll be more pictures of me up there.

Climate Change

Lastly to contribute somewhat to the discussion I'll share some of my views on climate change.  I must admit that I don't have a large knowledge of the subject, but since when has that ever stopped anyone from having strong opinions?  First of all I despise the term "global warming" as it implies that global temperatures will only ever get warmer and never cooler and that claim is pretty much preposterous.  I tend to agree with the following quote by The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley which I referenced on my blog:

A careful study of the substantial corpus of peer-reviewed science reveals that Mr. Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, is a foofaraw of pseudo-science, exaggerations, and errors, now being peddled to innocent schoolchildren worldwide.

Now when you've got a title like The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, who's going to mess with you?  Seriously though, as for Peter's scale in the previous article I'd have to say that I fall in at #1 and don't go beyond that, that is I believe that on average global temperatures are currently increasing.  I don't have any conclusive beliefs one way or another regarding #2 but I am highly skeptical that we have anything to do with the rise in the average global temperature.  My belief is that the primary force behind climate change is that big burning ball of gas that our planet orbits.  I just don't think that there's enough information to determine that our activity is the driving force behind the current trend in climate change, after all the entire history of civilized mankind is only a blink in the history of this planet.  And the period of time that we've actually kept records of global climate trends is a mere blink of that - a blink of a blink in the history of the world.  To claim that we have any solid understanding of global climate trends over large periods of time is fairly foolish in my opinion, let alone trying to predict how the climate will trend in the future.

Something I like to remind myself of is how wrong science has been throughout the history of mankind.  The one thing that is constant in science is change, yet there are many who believe that out current understanding of science is an absolute authority.  There was once time when we knew that the Earth was the center of the Solar System.  Later a time that we knew that the planets orbited the sun in perfect circles.  I think that our understanding of the global climate system is still in its infancy and trying to enact any policy based on our current limited knowledge is premature and potentially dangerous.  It was only 34 years ago that Time magazine published an article titled Another Ice Age?  The consensus at that time was that "global cooling" was occurring and potentially a problem.  Not to mention that they thought that man might have been the cause.  Whatever the cause of the current change in global climates I believe that it is premature to take any significant actions based on our limited understanding of global climate patterns, especially any actions that might try to significantly change global climates.  Who knows, we might cause our own manmade ice age if we were to undertake radical efforts to prevent "global warming."

I do think that doing things to ensure a clean environment are a good thing.  Everyone wants clean water and air and we should recycle as best we can.  But imposing costly measures on businesses and individuals (Carbon Credits) is foolish in my opinion.

Better late than never...

Here is that little bio I should have posted ages ago --

Family: Married to Mary in 1999; Max (7), Elisabeth (5), and Nathan (1)

Calling: Bishop (now you know why I've taken so long to post something)

Job: Deputy Attorney General (since 2005)

Location: San Diego, CA (since 2002)

Last 12 years: Mission to Canada, school, family, more school, and now, after studying piano and biochemistry at BYU, with more piano studies at Boston U., I find myself working as an attorney -- go figure. I'm a criminal prosecutor for the State of California and work at the appellate level. I argued a case last year in the California Supreme Court, and have two more cases pending in that court; eventually, I'll do battle in the Ninth Circuit. My wife, Mary, served a mission in Hong Kong, is an absolute jewel, and provides an incredible example to me and our children. The kids certainly keep me busy. Max and Elisabeth are wrapping up 1st grade and Kindergarten in a few weeks at a German language immersion charter school. I volunteer at the school every two weeks to help with music and German (you may recall that my mom is German). My youngest, Nathan Robert Beesley, is named after Rob Christiansen (whose middle name is Nathan), and he is a joy most of the time and a little rascal the rest of the time -- I think he takes after his namesake. Overall, the last 12 years have been wonderful; we've been richly blessed and I am truly thankful to our Father for his bounteous and tender mercies to me and my family.

Book group: I'm afraid I don't do nearly as much leisure reading as I would like. My profession demands a tremendous amount of critical and analytical reading; by the end of the day I'm pretty much spent when it come to reading. However, I was pleased to finally get around to reading Wuthering Heights three months ago. I have a list of great books I want to read before I die; unfortunately, my list is so long that at my rate of reading a book once every few years, I'll have to live to be at least 150 years old!

Linda and Ryan Larsen (background post)

Hi Everybody. Thanks to Peter for finding us and inviting us to join. It's good to connect to all of you.

In case you didn't know, we are one of those special inter-freshman ward marriages. We fell in love at the very end of the freshman year, and both went on missions (Ryan: Paris, France, Linda: Vienna Austria.) So we didn't see each other for over 3 years, but now we've been married for nearly 8 years.

We got Master's degrees in (Ryan: Mechanical Engineering, Linda: Composition and Rheotoric) at BYU. Then we graduated, had our first baby, Samuel, and moved across the country, and started a PhD all in the same summer. We spent 5 happy and exciting years in the Boston area where I earned a PhD in Applied Physics from Harvard. We also had our 2nd boy, Alden, during game 3 while the Red Sox were breaking the curse. (We stole the name idea from Jesse and Laura soon after they had their Alden.) Here's a picture of us at Mount Auburn Cemetery about 18 months ago.

Last summer we finished the PhD and moved to Urbana, IL, where I'm doing a post-doc in the Department of Chemical Engineering at University of Illinois, and Sam started kindergarten. We like it here but miss Boston. Hopefully before long I'll be applying for faculty jobs.

I work a lot, and Linda just got a part time job doing some tutoring at a reading center. We enjoy reading books, trying to make friends in this new place, and being outside in the springtime weather!