Speaker for the Dead

I wrote a review for Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead for Scott Danielson's website, SFFAudio.com.

Here it is

Here is the main page to the site
http://www.sffaudio.com/

Where are they now?
(Glory-Day Ramblings, so if you aren’t on the list and get irritated when people make obscure inside jokes you might not appreciate the post).

(make sure and check out the "comments" at the bottome of this post. I started laughing so loud the people in my office wondered what was going on. Laren mentioned some of his memories, I hope the rest of you do the same.)

I had the best group of friends in grade school/high school/early college that I have ever known anyone to have. I thought I’d review what we are all doing nowadays. If you’re a high school friend of mine and your not on here, it’s probably because I don’t what you are doing. Leave me a comment and let me know.

I’m going to put 1) the nickname, 2) what they are doing now, and 3) a reference to a memory.

If I got your information wrong or you don’t want your name on the internet let me know. If I messed up on a name or occupation let me know too. It would be typical for me to do something like spell someone's name wrong.

Shane Hayes
1) “Mr. Ed” – (don’t ask where that came from, you can’t handle the truth.)
2) finished college and runs a Hunt’n’Biz business; Hunter extraordinaire. Mission: Tennessee.
3) bootleg fireworks entrepreneur (it was “highly” illegal); and no, Shane, I didn’t hold your girlfriend’s hand in the back of your car . . . or did I? And I'm the one who shot the pheasant!

Garth Steed
1) W.E.S., Mango
2) owns his own farm; kills not-so-innocent rabbits and coyotes. Mission: Vacaville California.
3) oh, the blood of so many pumpkins is on our hands! Can’t . . . get . . . them . . . clean. Garth did the over-the-head, behind-the-back pass that let me get a dunk at the end of a tournament basketball game.

Laren Boyce
1) Aircraft – (ask him where he got that name)
2) travels to places like China to find the right kind of packaging material for his company; golf, tans (Shane would call him a metrosexual, and he would be right in the best sense of the word.) Mission: Oakland, California (Cantonese & Mandarin speaking).
3) “funny you should ask,” One, one good friend, ah, ah, ah, ah. "Thank you officer, may I have another?"

Justin Pabst
1) nicknames based on “Pabst” beer, which is odd since none of us drank. Or “Justine,” which wasn’t really funny either. I bet Terran or someone has a better nickname for him.
2) runs his own stucco-kind of business (Stylo Wall Systems) and he is honestly a master at his craft. His work is extremely high-end; plays when his wife thinks he’s working. Mission: Denmark.
3) thank God we didn’t kill anybody with that brilliant toilet-paper-across-the-road-prank! Talked me into leaving my car in an obvious place when we tried to toilet-paper Erica’s house again, which led to the car chase. How we didn’t kill ourselves and everyone around us I’ll never know. “Just a minute, I need to take a shower first” meant “It’ll be a couple of hours yet, so get comfortable” in Justin-speak.

(Those toilet papering incidents deserve their own blog!)

John Radford
1) I don’t remember what we called him, probably something based on his red hair
2) I think he manages a Barnes and Noble in the Tri-Cities area in Washington State. Mission: Michigan.
3) um, remember when I drove your motorcycle in the canal? Sorry about that.

Rhett Lee
2) Owns a framing company (RNL Builders?) in Utah County. Mission: Argentina, Bia Blanca.
3) Rhett was a childhood friend of the quality they make movies about. His parents thought I was a bad influence, and they were probably right. We owned Menan through grade school. Remember when the bus drive pulled over and shook a stick at us? Quote from hunter’s education class: Teacher: “Now guns are . . . “ Rhett: “fun to use, fun to use!”

Layne Taylor
2) I think he teaches Ag somewhere . . . let’s see, last I heard it was in Colorado I think. Mission: can't remember -- someone remind me.
3) I remember having a lot of fun with Layne. I can’t remember anything extra funny or traumatic.

Matt Hancock
2) He is a Social Worker. I think he is a School Social Worker or School Counselor in Eastern Idaho. Mission: Mexico (Mexico City?).
3) I’m sure we did plenty of deviant things in scouts. Repressed memories . . . beginning . . . to surface. Oh yeah, he about killed me racing his old white truck. Well, he just turned off the engine when it kept accelerating. I would have panicked and rolled the truck or something.

Terran Lohman
2) He is a Parmedic?/Fire Fighter in Montana. (Is this you you in the blue hat?) He is the only one who can beat my work stories (like the one where they had to do a jaws-of-life thing to get a 400 lb. man out of his home). Mission: Sao Paulo Brazil.
3) “I’m going back to Idaho, to Idaho, to Idaho, to get some spuds,” or “down, double D, double down, double trouble, double rubble . . .” I failed you, Terran. I should have blocked the shot you put in the wrong basket back in Junior High. Fumes from Fresh Pack made it so I couldn't think straight.

Russ Tibbits
1) Tibbie
2) Just moved to Morgan, Utah to teach Seminary. Mission: Argentina, Mendoza.
3) just how many Chevettes did that guy own? And did any of the seat-backs work?

Mitch Jephson
1) Lightning Boy
2) He is a Chiropractor in Rigby, Idaho. Mission: Phillipines.
3) Mitch is probably the one that came up with most of the nicknames for the rest of us that actually stuck. He and John and I used to be in scout together. When camping once he was holding on to a fallen tree, around the stump that was too big for his arms to reach around, and was about to fall into the Snake River by the Twin Bridges campground. John and I were laughing so hard we couldn’t pull him up. He was laughing too.

Mike Hinds (me)
1) Mike D., after the Beastie Boys guy.
2) I’m a Marriage and Family Therapist in Logan, Utah. Mission: Taiwan, Taichung.
3) There was that one time we went to that one place . . . whew! Good times.

Between us we speak seven languages (Cantonese, Dutch, Spanish, English, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Mitch speaks some Filipino language – maybe Tagolog?). We ended up a pretty diverse bunch. Not bad for a bunch of rural Rigby kids. Again, as I review this list I’m amazed what good people I had as friends. Any one of these people is someone you could trust your life with (um, except Justin – see above).

How Gullible Are We?

(emailed to me by Shane "Mr. Ed" Hayes)

A freshman at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair on January 26.

In his project he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide." And for plenty of good reasons, since it can:

1. cause excessive sweating and vomiting
2. it is a major component in acid rain
3. it can cause severe burns in its gaseous state
4. accidental inhalation can kill you
5. it contributes to erosion
6. it decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes
7. it has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients

He asked 150 people if they supported a ban of the chemical.

One hundred forty-three said yes
Six were undecided
Only one knew that the chemical was...

Water!

The title of his prize winning project was,

"How Gullible Are We?"

He was attempting to show how conditioned we have become to the alarmists practicing junk science and spreading fear of everything in our environment.

The conclusion is obvious.

Kristi H.
District Conservationist
USDA/NRCS
Panguitch, Utah