ThePianoGuys: Nearer My God, to Thee

Between LDS General Conference and Easter Sunday, I thought this selection to be appropriate.

A Completed Project

Here is the big reveal. Our bathroom project is (nearly) finished! Okay, so we still didn't get a towel rod. But a towel rod is boring blogging. What I am going to share with you has actually been finished for about a week and a half now, but I suppose I figured the towel bar would have been installed by now. But to install one, you have to buy one. And I just haven't done that yet.

So, here they are: our beautiful bathroom cabinet and lights! (And a monkey shower curtain-only slightly less new.) A bathroom is the Worst place to take pictures, the room just doesn't allow you the appropriate space to get the shot. But here they are. And they didn't get there as easily as one might expect.

Remember the old light/cabinet? Right. The one with the lights IN the cabinet, making a quick change-out impossible? That's right. So, I enlisted (thank you!!) the help of my Dad, the expert on EVERYTHING. He came and removed the old cabinet and light fixture. Guess what he found under them? An electrician's WORST NIGHTMARE. The wires were spliced and bare and scary and I don't even know what else. Plus, behind the cabinet was a gigantic hole where an old medicine cabinet had been recessed in the wall. AND the wires were not even in a ready box. The original ready box was about 6 inches or more above the spot where the wires were.

So, after two evenings of amazing electrical work, (my Dad even put in a new electrical outlet. The old one was connected to the light fixture. Weird?) plus some drywall patching and spackling, I painted the repaired wall, and my Dad came back on Saturday to hang everything. And I could not be happier. It makes my bathroom new and nice and feel bigger (a mirror will do that) and awesome. My boys said it looked like a hotel bathroom. I suppose that's a compliment. Now, to find a towel bar....

Conference Coloring

For LDS General Conference, we sit for four 2-hour sessions (over 2 days) to hear the General Authourities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints speak to us. For two young children to sit quietly, is sometimes difficult. So, I prepare them with things like "Conference Squares"-- a bingo type game where they listen for different words or topics and cover the squares on their game boards. (lds.org/friend has seven different game boards for Conference Squares to print out!) I also print out a few coloring pages, some with color by number and some just coloring pages (also available at lds.org/friend).

My oldest son finished his coloring pages at the end of the 3rd session. So, instead of asking for more coloring pages, he found some blank paper, and drew pictures of his own, like he does during our weekly Sunday Sacrament Meeting. But this time, instead of just drawing whatever comes to him, he decided to draw the speakers. He didn't get all of them, but the few he did were pretty neat. He studied the speaker and then carefully drew what he saw. I thought I'd share 3 of his drawings.


Elder Russell M. Nelson

Sister Julie B. Beck

President Thomas S. Monson


While there is always a moment when you need to remind them to quiet down, my kids did pretty good this General Conference. And I was grateful to hear the Prophet and the Apostles speak.

Bradbury Friday: Here There Be Tygers

This is a story I was unfamiliar with. Even while reading it, I still only remembered a few details. I had to listen to the radio version, just to be sure it was really what I'd been looking for. While collecting the books containing the 13 stories, I had found 12 of them, but could not remember (without my list) what the missing story was. In fact, when planning out the order I would run these, I still did not have a book containing Here There Be Tygers. One source I had directed me to a book that did not contain the story, and the other book I was looking for seemed to elude me at the library.

I did a search, looking through the Harper Collins web site because typically, they allow you to look in the books online. I looked through the table of contents of several books before discovering that the story is contained in A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories (which I had not found at the library). So I did an online search of my library's catalogue. When I typed in A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories, it actually lead me to The Golden Apples of the Sun, which it had on shelf. I was a bit puzzled because I thought that book had been out of print (and retitled A Sound of Thunder...).

When I got to the library, that book was actually a compilation, containing stories from The Golden Apples of the Sun and R is for Rocket. At first I was disappointed because Here There Be Tygers was not listed, until I looked further down in R is for Rocket. There it was. What a chase. Then, browsing a little (who doesn't keep looking at the library?), I found a book called The Day it Rained Forever. What do you know? It also contained Here There Be Tygers. And it also had a story that I'm going to do in a couple weeks, so that was the copy I pulled.

Now, that you've gone searching with me and can hopefully figure out where it is to find the story, I present, Here There Be Tygers.

We open our story with a crew of rocket men approaching planet 7 in star system 84. Chatterton is the head of a drilling corporation, looking for minerals, oil, and things to mine on other planets. His company funds the expedition. Captain Forester and his crew are along to pilot the ship and help with Chatterton's work.

This planet, though, seems different. The crew notices as soon as they land. Coming out of the ship, the air was perfect. Just right for a relaxing time, endless golf, afternoon croquet, tennis, baseball, and bicycling. The grass was green and lush. It even seemed freshly mowed. As Chatterton exits the ship, a small earthquake rumbles through. As it subsides, everyone laughs, "It doesn't like you Chatterton!" The Captain adds, "It didn't quake for us, so it must be that it doesn't approve of your philosophy." Chatterton then notices the grass, "I knew something was wrong! This grass; it's freshly cut!" His pessimism is shrugged off, "Probably a species of dichondra, always short."

No one seems alarmed by the state of the planet. They are all pleased with it, and hesitant to start in drilling. Chatterton, on the other hand is suspicious. He believes the planet is alive. "Any minute now, it can kill us all. It's alive!" He is determined to get his samples and get off the planet as quickly as possible.

The rest of the crew is in less of a hurry. Driscoll, a crew member finds water that tastes like a fine wine. The men find a stream that pours into a boiling water pool. "Fish, swimming in the cold creek above, fell glittering into the hot spring and floated, minutes later, cooked, to the surface." The men are enjoying the planet, finding it suits their needs perfectly. All they ever need is provided right there for them to be happy. Chatterton, however cannot be satisfied; the food makes him sick, the water tastes poisoned. So, what is to happen with this crew, and what of Chatterton? His insistence that like on a map in medieval history, "'Here there be tygers.' Some time tonight when you're sleeping, the tigers and cannibals will show up." Can this be true, on so beautiful a planet?

Read for yourself, and like all Bradbury, the story is not what it seems.