Bryce Moore's Blog, page 184

Let’s Diet!

I feel like it’s just been a little bit since I last dieted and blogged about it, but it turns out (going over my entries (yay for tags!)) that it was October 2013. So over 2 years? I guess that’s not as recent as I thought. And in the intervening time, I’ve certainly made some significant changes to my life, between regular exercise and drastically cutting down on the sugary foods I eat.

The good news is that exercise and sugar reduction helped me to stop gaining weight.

The bad news is that I’d already gained plenty by the time I made those changes, and those gains have hung around with me since. And between the funeral, the conference, and the holidays, I’d added a couple of pounds to them. So when I stood on the scale Tuesday and looked at the number, I decided enough was enough.

Back to Dietville. Population: me.

However, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see it’s been a bit of an easier start this time, mainly because I already eat so much healthier. I didn’t have to cut out any really bad, calorie rich foods. I just had to work on portion control. And I was surprised to see how much my portion sizes had increased since I was dieting and measuring everything out.

On my diet, I’d been eating 60 grams of oatmeal for breakfast. I was still eating oatmeal, but I’d stopped measuring it, figuring that I could eyeball it just as well. But when I measured what I was eating now? I’d more than doubled the portion. In other words, in the intervening 2 years and change, my eyeballs had slowly increased that oatmeal allotment until it was twice as big.

So it’s been changes like that.

Some immediate success (as there always is), but I’m probably in for a long haul again. The worst thing dieting does to me is makes me irritable more easily. I’m a stress eater, so when I don’t have that outlet to destress, I tend to get grouchier. My apologies in advance to anyone I snap at.

And because this blog only really helps me if I’m public about numbers, here’s the stats for now:

Starting weight: 217.8

Weight today: 215.2

Sorry to clog all your feeds with diet updates over the next while. Wish me luck.

Relearning to Ski

When Denisa and I moved to Maine, one of the things we both looked forward to was a chance to ski as a family. We have a local hill in our town that provides the chance to ski for a low cost, and it could be a lot of fun. (Full disclosure: Denisa looked forward to this more than I did. She’s always been a much better skier.) Of course, Denisa was also pregnant with DC when we came here, so that plan was postponed a bit. Once Denisa could ski, we were left with the question of who could watch DC. I took one for the team and stayed home with her. When MC came along, we did the same thing.

So the bottom line is that Denisa, TRC, and DC have all had the chance to get plenty of skiing in over the last 8 years (well, 4 years or so for DC), and I’ve gotten . . . 3 or 4 times in? Something like that. Nothing that’s going to turn me into a better skier, that’s for sure.

However, MC is two, and she’s old enough to learn how to ski, which means that we can once again all head over to the ski hill to go as a family. And so we did, over winter break. We get there, and TRC and DC are totally in their element. Denisa is going over the basics with MC, and I did my best to remember what I was doing.

The biggest problem is that the mechanism to get to the top of the bunny hill is the worst possible thing: the rope tow.

I hate the rope tow. It’s hard to get on and off, it’s merciless, and you’re left flailing away on the beginner hill, looking like an idiot.

Or is that just me?

Once I was at the top of the bunny hill, I could ski down just fine. Getting there? I was like a drunk turtle. The rope tow just kept going and going, and there I was, standing beside it, trying in vain to get on without falling down or sliding backward. It didn’t help, of course, that the tow is on a slope, and so as soon as you walk up to it, you feel like you’re going to just start skiing the wrong way down the hill.

At last I fell over, and then I couldn’t get back up. My legs were cramping, and it was all I could do to crawl off out of the way of the more experienced four and five year olds who were going up with no problem whatsoever.

Fun times at the ski hill, no doubt.

It did get better, and I left having had a positive experience, but I’m going to do my best to not have to go back to that rope tow anytime soon. Meanwhile, TRC and DC were skiing in circles around me. Backward. Forward. Sitting on their skis. One legged. Upside down. (Well, maybe not that one.) It was nice to see they all could do it so well, but it’s going to take a while before I’m out there with them . . .

The Wire 3:2 and 3:3

The beginning third of a Wire season is always so much of a stark contrast to the awesome that follows. It’s like watching one of those videos of an artist at work, where it takes quite some time before you have any clue what in the world he’s drawing, and then when it snaps into focus, it’s great from then on.

Cool, but alas, we’re still in “set up” mode in these two episodes.

Episode 3:2

This episode does have one of my favorite speeches from the series: Bunny’s talk about the paper bag. It works so well because we’ve been watching the police bang their heads against the wall of the drug trade for so long at this point. We realize what a pointless endeavor so much of their work is. The Barksdale crew is legion, and if you arrest a Bodie or a Poot for a year or two for drug dealing, what good is it really going to do? They’ll just promote someone else.

And then we see Dozerman get almost killed over one of these petty busts. A bust that isn’t going to do anything in the big scheme of things other than appease Rawls for about a second longer. Bunny watches it happen, and he decides enough is enough.

I’d always been against the legalization of drugs. This show made me rethink that position, and these days, it’s not as clear of an issue for me. I really see what Bunny’s getting at, but I still wish there were some other solution. Up in Maine, heroin use is skyrocketing, and prescription drug abuse is really up there as well. It’s killing people and ruining lives, and conventional approaches just aren’t cutting it. I’m far from convinced that simple criminalization and enforcement are up to the task of solving the problems. Is legalization going to fix things? I doubt it. But I believe the world needs more people like Bunny: people willing to think outside the box for creative answers. (Even though we still don’t know what he’s planning . . .)

Herc and Carv continue to be the resident chuckleheads of the series. They’re all brute force, with no finesse. They do what they’re told without really thinking about why they’re doing it. And while they can be amusing, they’re more frustrating to me than anything else. Especially Carver, because I feel like he’s capable of so much more.

The plot about Cheese and his dog/dawg is still amusing, and the final interview between him and Bunk is great stuff, especially with everyone outside the room celebrating that they’ve won the day, even as we all know they’ve failed spectacularly. That’s a tricky pay off to set up, and the show does a great job of it.

Carcetti. He’s a weasel. You can tell that as soon as you look at him and see how he plays people to get what he wants done. But he’s a weasel that demands attention, because he does get things done, and watching how he does it is very instructive. (And brings to mind House of Cards in many different ways.)

It’s a decent episode. Better than the last one for sure, but still nothing to write home about. 7/10.

Episode 3:3

Another entry in the “good but not great” department. More set up, though things do start to happen . . .

Omar finally gets taken down a notch or three, with Tosha getting shot by friendly fire in a failed raid on the Barksdales. Omar continues to be one of my favorite characters of the show, and he’s also one of the most clear cut characters. True, he steals and kills and isn’t a person I’d ever want to date my daughters (or son, as the case may be), but he’s definitely “good” in terms of the show. He has a personal sense of right and wrong, and he follows those rules closely. And when things go bad like they do in this episode? He feels terrible about it. He wants to make them right.

Compare him to Carcetti, who most of the normal people in the show would say was “good.” It’s a classic case of doing good things for the wrong reasons. He mirrors McNulty in many ways: out to prove how much smarter he is than everyone else. He gets things done to get more power, making sure that they look good, simply to make sure he looks good. And to put to bed any doubt about what a weasel he is, we see him smile and play the family man one moment, then cheat on his wife the very next.

Bunny’s plan becomes clear now: legalize drugs in his district. Free up his force to do other more important things than make petty busts. And to back that up, he decides to stop cooking the books. To present the stats as they really are at this point in time. And of course, that decision gets him in hot water with Rawls. Rawls is great at dressing a person down. he excels at it. but he does it for all the wrong reasons. He wants things to look good, and he doesn’t care at all whether they actually are good.

The policeman’s wake was something that struck me as beyond bizarre the first time I watched it, but it’s grown on me since. The idea of the tradition, and the way the cops band together even in death. I like it, even as I’m disappointed by just how stinking drunk they all get. (Seriously. Who calls that a fun time?)

Stringer’s “40 degree day” speech is another classic. Seriously. Some of the writing on this show is just so impressive, you get to thinking that there’s no one anyone could come up with these lines off the top of their heads. But you don’t care, because you just love listening to the lines. (And then you have the other, less bright characters in the show completely miss the point of the speeches. Classic.)

So why didn’t I love this episode? Why is it just a 7/10 again for me? I think mainly because it lacks the across-the-board greatness of other Wire episodes. There’s no focus to it all yet. Yes, the shootout with Omar and the others is intense, but it’s a one off. Mostly, things are still just assembling at this point without any real ignition. That said, this season has always been the one where things really snapped into place for me. Where I understood just how big the problems the Wire deals with are.

In other words, stick with it.

What have you been thinking?

Downton Abbey 6:2 and 6:3

I lost a week from the funeral, so you get a two for one special from me today on Downton. Good thing, because 6:2 left a fair bit to be desired . . .

My main beef with 6:2 was that so many of the conflicts centered around the same problem: lack of communication. I get that it’s a common occurrence, but who wants to see it portrayed fifty different ways in a single hour? So much of the time, I just wanted to reach into the screen and throttle these people until they started behaving reasonably. Let’s give it a run down:

Edith not telling Mary about Marzipan (or whatever the kid’s name is). I get it. She’s worried Mary will laugh at her. And Mary likely will. But it’s not like Mary’s not already a beast to Edith, so why not make things easier on herself and just get it out in the open all at once? Instead, we have this big crisis that’s a plotline we beat to death last season. It’s like the writers thought, “Well, we had that one plot no one liked last year. I’ll bet if we devote another half hour to it, people will love it!” Then they slammed their heads in various doors, just for kicks. Yuck. (And on a side note, it’s even worse when you consider Edith spends a fair bit of the episode moaning about how she’s got this empty apartment in London, and she just can’t for the life of her decide if she should move there with Margarine or not. Meanwhile, the farmer’s family have lived in their house for over 100 years. They have nowhere else to go. But the “only solution” to the problem is to move. Ironic that Edith and Macarena are probably both going to be in London before the end of the season.
Anna wants a baby. We get it. Anna and Bates can’t be happy until the very last episode of the series. And so they need to concoct something for them to be sad about still. And infertility is definitely a serious problem to have, and it’s reasonable to have them have it. But the way it’s handled? “Oh no! Bates and I have tried two or three times to have a baby, and it hasn’t worked. I’m going to give up and resign myself to a lonely life for eternity.” I have a hard time feeling sorry for her after she admits she’s tried so little to get the job done.
Carson’s inability to talk to the Crawleys about what Mrs. Hughes wants for a wedding. Meh. I had a hard time getting into this plot as well. So much sound and fury over a whole lot of not that much, and it’s not really decided by the end. This felt like wheels spinning to me.
The hospital. Show of hands, people. How many of you really actually care what happens in this plot line? It seems to have been concocted to have Isobel and Violet have something to argue about, but it just feels like an afterthought. An afterthought that they end up spending tons of screen time debating, with no one actually listening to anyone. Move along, please.
Then again, sometimes you’ve got plots where people just won’t shut up. I’m looking at you, Daisy. The girl wouldn’t know a good idea if it tripped her in the street and jumped on her fifty times, and it doesn’t look like any amount of education is going to help with that.

It wasn’t a great episode, alas. 2/5 from yours truly, and a big letdown after last week. Which brings us to this week. 6:3. How did it fare? Much better.

The wedding. After all that, it went off without a hitch. People were happy. We were happy. And to make double triple EXTRA sure everyone’s happy, we get Tom back to boot. Really, all I was waiting for was for Sybil to show up and announce she wasn’t actually really dead, and to have her bring Matthew in tow, who turns out to have faked his death as well. Followed by a gigantic musical number where Anna announces she’s pregnant with quintuplets, which segues into a follow up series focused on the “Next Generation.” But hey. A little bit of fan service now and then never hurt anyone, right? Riiiiiight.
Cora acts like a monster to Mrs. Hughes, as does Mary. But it’s all cool, because here! Have a dress!
Daisy continues to wave her idiot flag proudly, misinterpreting things left and right and presenting suppositions as rock solid fact. Not sure what they’re going to do with this plot line. They might make it into “A very heartbreaking episode,” or they might continue the “Everybody wins!” mentality of the season and have the old man get the house after all.
Edith now has a love interest she can end up happily marrying. And she can be a successful editor to boot. (Seriously, though, it’s nice to see her do something other than mope. Give the girl a project. Wonderful idea. And get her away from Downton.)
Still, it seems like the show is setting us up for some not so happy twists, as Thomas sees firsthand just where all these great houses end up. Kind of tragic, but kind of inevitable too.
Denker vs. Spratt continues to amuse, even if it feels rather random.
Violet is going to die. She’s going to have a heart attack over this stupid hospital plot line, which is a shame of a way for a character to go out, but it seems like the only reason I can see for having this plot at all. Please prove me wrong, Downton.

Anyway. That’s all I have time for today. This episode was much better. 4/5. Not perfect, but much improved. What did you think?

The Value of a Deadline

Well, I’m back from Utah and Boston, but I’m on my way to a library meeting in Bangor today. No rest for the wicked (though I plan on taking some days next week to catch my breath and get my bearings.)

Anyway. Not much time to write, but that made me think about how great deadlines can be. I’m a tinkerer. I like to dabble in this and that, and I can easily get distracted by everything from the news to books to Wikipedia articles. Yesterday at the airport in Boston, I had about an hour and a half. I checked my work email and decided that I’d see how much work I could crank out in that 90 minutes.

The answer? Quite a bit.

Deadlines help me get things done. Not just big deadlines, but little ones too. When I know I have a half hour to do my writing in a day (no more, no less), I’m usually able to get my fingers flying and meet my 1,000 word goal within that time period. When I know I have no real limit? It can take three times as long to get it done.

Just like this blog post. Not a lot of time to write, but if I give myself a set limit to get it done, it’s much likelier that it gets finished. (Even if my brain is mush when I’m typing it.)

Anyway. That’s all I’ve got for you today. Not up to too much abstract thought. Glad to be home and only dealing with driving, not flying today. Thanks for all of your kind words of support, and I’ll catch you next week!

Window vs. Aisle

I’m on my way back to Maine today. (Yay!) So I don’t have a ton of time to post. Todays’ topic? An experiment I ran on the way out to Utah.

For the past few decades, I’ve been a long standing Aisle Man when it comes to an airplane. You have more legroom to stretch out now and then. It’s easier to get in and out of your seat. It just always felt like the better idea. This time on the way out to Utah, I decided to call an audible and sit in a window seat.

I loved it.

I could lean against the window and sleep. (No kidding. I actually slept!) I could look out whenever I felt like it.  When I had to get up to go to the bathroom, I just told everybody else in the aisle, and they all had to move. (Mwa ha ha ha!) Better yet, I didn’t have to get up to move for anyone else. The flight attendants never hit me in the elbow with the cart. People never pulled on my chair back as they made their way to the back of the plane.

True, I was a bit cramped at times, and I got antsy now and then, but overall, I’d say it was a successful experiment. Which leads me to wonder what other people think about it all. I’m going on the assumption that no one likes the middle seat. But what about window vs aisle? Which do you prefer, and why?

These are the pressing questions I ponder when I’m stuck in a plane. Exciting, isn’t it?

The Wire 3:1

Only one episode for you all this week, alas. I watch this show with Denisa, and the plan had been to watch one episode before I left for the conference, and then another when I got back. Well, I’m in Utah at the moment for my grandfather’s funeral, so the second episode never materialized. I’m sure you can understand.

And to make things even worse, it’s the first episode of a season, and not much to write home about. Ironically, the start to season three is pretty much what I’d hoped for from the start to season two: McNulty back on the hunt for Stringer Bell.

And it’s a let down.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad episode. There are parts of it that I love. Stringer Bell using Roberts Rules for his drug dealer meeting? Awesomely hilarious. A brief glimpse of Marlo (longtime watchers know who I’m talking about–he’s here for a moment as the gangster who doesn’t care what happens to Bubs, as long as it’s fast so he’s not late) was a very pleasant surprise. Bubs walking around in his underwear? Classic.

But it’s hard to make riveting television when it’s all set up. We get Carcetti. We get Rawls being a jerk to other police. We get political wrangling. But none of it really means anything to us just yet. It’s foundation stuff, and it’s necessary to make the payoffs work later in the season, but it ends up in an episode that’s just so-so, especially when compared to what just came before at the end of season two.

The biggest difference is that when I watch season three, I can remember what the beginning of season two was like, and I’m much more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I know what they’re able to pull off, so I’m not as antsy.

What does this season seem to be about so far? Politics. That much is clear. How it affects the police, the drug dealers, and the politicians themselves. Cutty (the ex-con) is another interesting figure. He’s muscle from 14 years ago, released into a brand new drug dealing environment he doesn’t understand. (He’ll provide a nice counterpart to the Stringer Bell crew. You can’t help but look at him and think he’s part of the circle of dealers. 14 years, things change. How long will it take before Barksdale’s people are just as antiquated?)

Anyway. That’s about all I have to say for this episode. Not my favorite. (But yay Roberts Rules!) 7/10 from me. What did you think?

Best (and Worst) Media of the Year

I’m off in Utah, but I’ve been wanting to give an update on how 2015 went for me from a books, movies, and television perspective. As you know, I was keeping track of how many pages and minutes I read or watched over the year, as well as rating everything. So here I am to give you a Best Of/Worst Of summary for 2015.

Books

Only a “Best Of” in books, mainly out of professional courtesy. I try to be nice to people in my professional areas, because that’s a good thing to do. I read 16,401 pages over the course of the year. The average rating I gave each of the 38 books I read was a 3.29/5, though I’ll also note that I only counted books I finished, and I generally only finish a book if I’m enjoying it. In other words, there were some books I started and didn’t love enough to finish. If I’d rated those, my average would be a fair bit lower.

The books I gave a 5/5 are:

Old Man’s War–Scalzi’s first. I finally got around to reading a chunk of the series, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Interesting science fiction, compelling characters. 
Seveneves–I’m a sucker for Neal Stephenson books. This one is no different. Steep learning curve, but absolutely fascinating “what if” about how humanity would react if the moon exploded.
Uprooted–Naomi Novik’s Slavic-esque fantasy was a pleasure. Sort of surreal in parts, but I still loved it from start to finish.
The Screaming Staircase–The first book in the Lockwood and Company series was deliciously eerie and tons of fun. It kept me up late at night, not just because it had some great tension, but also because it was a great read.
The Cider House Rules–Decidedly different from everything else I read over the year. A beautiful, thought provoking book. Quite a a bit outside my wheelhouse, but just fantastic.

Movies

I watched 148 movies over the year. 16,477 minutes’ worth. (Look at that! About the same number of minutes as pages for the year. Interesting.) My average score was a 3.17, though again, I think that’s about right. I self select the movies I watch, basing most of them off Netflix’s algorithm. It knows me fairly well.

The movies I gave a 5/5 to (not counting movies I’d already seen before) were:

Touching the Void–An incredible documentary about a real life mountain climbing trip that went horribly wrong.
Starbuck–A French comedy about a man who discovers he’s fathered scores of children through a sperm bank. And he wants to get to know some of them. A crazy premise, but really quite heartwarming. For a French comedy.
Kingsman–A spy movie for the modern day. Irreverent, and a whole lot of fun.
The Martian–Loved the book. Loved the movie. ‘Nuff said.

The movies I gave a 0/5 to were:

47 Ronin–Sorry, Keanu. This movie was an absolute stinker. Nothing redeemable about it. At all.
Ender’s Game–Not cool. One of my favorite books, absolutely butchered. I’ve tried to block it from my mind, honestly.
Amazing Spiderman 2–What a trainwreck. The epitome of everything that can go wrong in a superhero movie.
Cleopatra–Big. Bloated. Overrated.
Fast and Furious 6–Ignores the laws of physics as deftly as it ignores the need for a good plot or characters.

Funny enough, I gave out hardly any o’s in the later half of the year. Not sure why. Did I get pickier with what I watched, or luckier? And I actually even gave one movie a -1/5. Because sometimes rockbottom turns out to be not bottom enough.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire–The book wasn’t all that and a bag of chips. The movie upped the ante significantly. I’ve refused to watch either episode of the finale. Because life is too short.

Television

In the TV department, I watched significantly more. 476 episodes totaling 20,822 minutes. That’s a lot of watching. I rated individual episodes, not seasons, so I’m not sure how best to present the results. Maybe just mention which shows got high marks for episodes and which didn’t?

Series in which an episode earned a 5/5:

Sopranos season two and three–Gritty, for sure. Still an enthralling show.
Agents of SHIELD season one–Some great stuff toward the end. It helped that I was binge watching it.
Downton Abbey season five–It was the best of times.
Justified season two–Some great stuff in this show. I need to start season three . . .
Daredevil season one–Again, some excellent episodes toward the end.
Game of Thrones season five–Jaw dropping now and then. I’m a fan.
House of Cards season two–The antithesis of West Wing. Still great, though.
Star Wars Rebels season one and two–Who knew? This is an awfully fun show.
Star Trek the Next Generation season three–Revisiting it once again. It’s been long enough that the whole show feels new, so I’m including it in the “new” category.
Doctor Who season eight–It took a bit to get used to Capaldi, but he came into his own.
Deadwood season one–An incredible finish to this first season.
Jessica Jones season one–The beginning was brutal, but I’m very glad Denisa and I stuck with the show. Loved the later part of the middle, even if the end wasn’t a home run.

Series in which an episode earned a 0/5:

Amazing Race season one–It was not an auspicious beginning to that show. It’s come a long way since, thankfully.
Under the Dome season two–There’s a reason I gave up halfway through that season.
Columbo season one–In which my Columbo experiment came to an abrupt end.
Downton Abbey season five–It was the worst of times.
Sopranos season three–Even great shows have their stinkers.
Doctor Who season one (of the new series)–Had an awfully rough start in places. No wonder I gave up on the show when I first tried to watch it with Denisa.

Looking back on it, I definitely began to be nice to shows and movies in the last half of the year. I’ll try to do better this year.

Anyway. There you have it. A whole year’s worth of data. It was a fun experiment, and I’ve already started up my spreadsheet for this year. I’m excited to see how it compares. (Yes. I’m a nerd.)

Crisis at Long Distance

I’m used to being there for my family. Well, my wife and kids at least. When something goes wrong, I’m right there, able to pitch in and do something about it right away. But that’s not always possible, I’ve learned. Take last night . . .

I was at ALA Midwinter, just finishing up a reception and gearing up for another one, when Denisa called. I took the call, not really worried about anything. We’d been talking off and on all weekend, and she seemed to have everything well in hand.

“The basement is flooding.”

Yeah. Not the words you want to hear when you’re three and a half hours away and not heading home for another four days.

I went and found a quiet(ish) corner of the convention center and had her call me on Facetime so I could see what was going on. We troubleshot the problem for a while, eliminating different things that might fix it. The culprit seemed to be the sump pump, so it took some trial and error to eliminate the likely easy fixes. Usually, that’s enough to get to an answer.

Not last night.

In the end, I was left with pretty much no way to help. I looked up the problems online. Found the telephone number of the people who installed the system. But I couldn’t be there to (literally) bail her out, and that was rough. I knew she was going through a bad time, and there I was in a hotel lobby, contributing just about nothing.

It all worked out. I mean, the house didn’t drown. She called some friends, and they helped bail, as did TRC. Once the water was down some, they were able to identify and fix the problem. But it still wasn’t an experience I want to have happen too often. I’m glad that my job rarely takes me away from home, and I don’t think I’d love being on the road a ton ever.

Fixed or not, let’s hope it doesn’t rain much more between now and when I get home on Thursday. (Seriously. I moved to Maine for the snow. Not the rain. It’s January, people.)

On My Grandfather

Right before I left for ALA Midwinter yesterday, I found out my grandfather died in his sleep last night. It’s amazing how quickly you can shift gears when big things like that happen. By the time I made it to Boston, my tickets to Salt Lake were purchased. I’ll be heading out right after my conference on Monday. There will be a viewing Tuesday evening and the funeral will be held on Wednesday.

My Facebook feed today has been filled with my family members reminiscing about Bobba. (Didn’t realize everyone else spelled his name with just one B. Boba. Maybe that’s how he preferred it to be spelled? Maybe it’s the geek in me, but that just looks like the name of a Star Wars bounty hunter. I’m sticking to the double-b.) It’s been nice to see all those posts, and I’ve been pretty reflective myself. I’m sitting in a hotel room at the moment, alone, with nothing else really on my plate this evening, so I thought I’d get some of those memories down on virtual paper.

Every summer, my grandmother and grandfather would have all their grandchildren for a week up at our family cabin in the Uintah Mountains. We had a blast there every year. While things changed some as time went on, to me, I’ll always remember it the way it was when I was around 12.

Bobba would come by in his blue truck, picking up all the grandkids and letting us all hop in the back. (It had a camper shell on the back, so it was enclosed. We’d all jam in there for the hour or so ride up, telling ghost stories and having a blast. (And violating many safety rules these days, no doubt.) Once at the cabin, there would be fishing, salamander hunting, swimming, horse riding, spudnut eating, taffy pulling, tons of games, and movies galore. I looked forward to it every year, and I’ve been close friends with my cousins ever since because of it.

In the winter, we’d head up and have sledding, snow mobile riding, more games, and more movies. The Cundick side of my family has always done an awful lot together. Sundays at Grammie’s, holidays together, Christmas Eves were a perennial favorite. While my grandmother has always been the more assertive of the pair, Bobba was a calming, solid force to be relied on at all times. You’d find him in the background (assuming there wasn’t a card game going on at the moment), fixing things, improving things and helping people. While in public he was always impeccably dressed, up at the cabin he preferred cowboy hats and jeans, and that’s always how I’ll remember him.

My whole life in the church, whenever I’ve introduced myself, there was a fair chance someone would recognize the Cundick name. Even in Germany, I’d have members immediately know it from Bobba’s many years as Tabernacle organist. He took me on tours of the organ, and I even had the chance to sit inside it during one of his recitals. Early on, I didn’t quite understand exactly how talented a musician he was. The yearly tradition on Christmas Eve was to have each grandchild come and perform something. One year I had my bassoon out with me to practice during vacation, so I was asked to play it. I had a solo I’d been working on with an accompaniment, and I handed it to him skeptically. It was (I thought) a pretty difficult piece. I reassured him that if he couldn’t play it, I could just play without accompaniment. He smiled, took the piece, and sight read it perfectly.

I didn’t make that mistake again.

I actually named a character after Bobba in OUR LADY. The grandfather of the main character, to be precise. Of course, that grandfather is an expert thief and con man (very different from the real life Bobba), but I did keep one thing true to him: he originally wanted to be a jazz musician. Bobba talked to me about that once, and our conversation appears in the book. He explained that the reason he had to give it up was that his finger span wasn’t wide enough. It’s a conversation that’s stuck with me: sometimes we can have dreams, but reality gets in the way. Bobba took his dream, pivoted, and still ended up doing marvelous things.

I’ve been to many of his concerts and performances of his pieces. He’s composed everything from hymns (my favorite is That Easter Morn) to oratorios. My favorite is He is the Root and the Offspring of David. Here’s a performance by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir of it:

Bobba’s favorite phrase was always “not to worry.” He’d say it all the time. If he were on the Titanic, heading for the abyss, he’d calmly be walking around, reminding everyone “Not to worry” as he went about trying to make sense of the life boat instructions. It’s just who he was. He was also extremely persistent. If he got an idea that he thought was a good one, he’d never stop until that idea was realized. It’s how he managed to get so much done in his life. We Cundicks are known to get pretty focused on projects, and he was the epitome of that. He just couldn’t rest until it was finished.

He was a stickler for grammar and pronunciation. We got into a long debate one year over how to pronounce the word “err,” and he wouldn’t let it drop until he’d looked it up in the dictionary and proved his point.

In the few years Denisa and I lived in Utah after we were married, we’d go up to the cabin with Grammie and Bobba every six months for General Conference. It was usually just us and some of my cousins. A grown up cabin week, so to speak. We loved it.

Bobba worked hard to set up a continuing concert series at the BYU Jerusalem Center, and I was lucky enough to go to several of them when I did my semester abroad there. I loved to sit in the auditorium, which looks out over the Old City, listening to the music and soaking it all in.

That’s the thing with Bobba. I have a ton of memories of time with him and the rest of my family, and I think that would really make him happy. To see all these posts by everyone, and to know that he made an impact. That he helped us become better people and be closer as a family.

I’ll be forever grateful to him.