On Monday last week I hit the gym for a while after work, watched the introduction of the Professor Moriarty program. I need to get better at getting in and out of the gym fast, there was like an hour of overhead just wandering around work, chillaxing until I was in the mood to get in there. Takes way too much time as-is.

On Tuesday an old math professor of mine was visiting. I only found out because a friend of mine, a fellow member in the singles ward, was a math major and is heavily involved in recruitment efforts, so she knew he was coming up and arranged a lunch, inviting me along. He didn’t recognize me, but he was the professor that taught the last math class I ever took at BYU. During lunch I sat next to a couple of admins from the Math department, along for the trip. I made the mortifying mistake, though flattering I’m sure, of asking if one of them was a student. I didn’t realize just how off I was until she started talking about her own son who was in the middle of his mission.

That evening at Institute we turned out to have quite a few matching outfits.

On Wednesday I had an appointment to see the investigator I’d mentioned last time, with the missionaries. Unfortunately he dropped the elders, saying he just wasn’t interested in what we had to offer at the time. Shame, he seemed so interested when we were there in the lesson.

That evening I was playing some Zelda and it was raining in the game at the same time as it was raining outside. Made me wonder, if the game could geo-locate itself based on the system’s IP address and correlate that with some weather service, it should be able to make the in-game weather match whatever’s happening outside. That’d be fun.

On Thursday I had a shocking realization that I’d completely spaced on a service event the previous Saturday. Oh dear. I IM’d the one who coordinated the thing, apologizing profusely (even threw up a quick-n-dirty apology e-card on my website). Turned out they had sufficient numbers. Still, it was basically Flubber-level forgetfulness.

Friday was a friend’s birthday party. Saturday evening I went out with a couple friends to see Gifted. What an amazing movie, I highly recommend it.

I stayed up that night veeery late to put the finishing touches on a talk for Easter Sunday. It’s pasted in below in its entirety.

That evening we had an Orphan Easter potluck dinner. Good stuff. Played Resistance afterwards for the first time in a while. Went from there to another friend’s house for Settlers of Catan. Hadn’t played that game since I was in California in 2013.

I have a big assignment I need to complete for a job, but I’m continually finding new ways to distract myself. Netflix recently came out with a new original show, Iron Fist (the first three episodes have been real fun). Also, StarCraft [Brood War] is now free for PC & Mac. Ahh, childhood.

Right, so, here’s the talk. Some paragraphs are things I wrote but decided not to say, I’ve struck them out to indicate as such.

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Thanks very much for that hymn, my soul needed some stilling. Whenever I get a chance to speak publicly my body’s just, “here’s all the adrenaline you could ever ask for!”

Now I hadn’t actually realized how awesome General Conference can be to a bishopric setting topics for Sacrament Meeting, it’s like a little vacation from having to come up with anything. Easier for the leadership, easier on the speakers, just pick whatever you want, it’s great.

Also I completely forgot to have my talk have anything to do with Easter, totally slipped my mind until we sang that opening hymn. So I hope the Spirit gives you all some Easterly vibes while I talk about something completely different.

The last time I prepared a talk it was before I’d graduated, and I had a paper whose deadline was 11pm on Saturday night. So I stayed up till four preparing that talk. And, it turned out alright. So, I figured, let’s do that again, see how it goes. It’s kind of like Calvin and Hobbes says, why do teachers bother giving us all this time to do the homework when they know we’re all gonna do it the night before.

Although I must say, whenever you go to bed and you hear birds chirping outside, you know you’ve made a horrible error. I just wanna yell at those birds, like, “Don’t you know I’m trying to pretend this is a reasonable hour to go to bed?!”

So I guess it’s a tradition in these talks to talk a bit about myself first. I grew up in Alpine Utah, the quintessential Mormon experience, full on bubble. You’ve got Utah, which is weird on its own, then there’s Utah County which is its own flavor of weird, from Provo up to Lehi. I’ve heard Alpine called “the ‘Utah County’ of Utah County”, and it doesn’t seem far off. I mean you’re driving down I-15, our one lone freeway, and you see billboards for law firms that read, “Because your home teacher doesn’t practice law.”

So growing up there, I really loved my parents. My mom was great, she’s the kind where, like I’ll be in fourth grade and she’ll be tucking me in asking about my next day in school and I’ll go, “Oh yeah, they want us to dress up as a historical figure in class tomorrow.” And she’s, “Mmm, what?” “Mhm! G’night!” And then I wake up and she’s putting the finishing touches on a cardboard-and-aluminum Roman soldier getup. Man, moms are just the best.

And then my dad was basically my genetic donor, I’m like a clone of him. He went to BYU and is a software engineer. He actually met my mom there, as one does. Which put some pressure on me. My parents met there, my grandparents met there.. Senior year comes and goes and I still hadn’t put a ring on anyone’s finger, so I’m like, “Guess I’ll stick around and do a Masters!” Y’know, job’s not done yet.

So I’m the oldest of four, the first one to really shove off from Utah. We all got along most of the time. My younger brother, who incidentally beat me and was the first of us to get hitched, when we were growing up whenever he’d annoy me I’d sneak into his room and steal all his movie posters and hide them in the house somewhere, really ticked him off. Now I’m older and wiser of course.

And while I never really collected posters, I love desk toys. I’ve got a couple of Taser rounds I nicked from the gun range at the local police department, I’ve got this tube of gallium, this metal that liquifies at body temperature, and there’s this 3d-printed model of my brain from an MRI scan. So any time someone from work asks, “Jeff, why are you so weird?” I can just point there. Y’know, in case show-and-tell ever makes a comeback, I wanna be prepared.

Speaking of my brain, I want to apologize to you collectively, as one of the things I’m really really bad at is remembering names and putting them to faces. I wanna make an analogy that describes this – there’s this thing called the Von Neumann model which basically describes every modern computer ever built, where you’ve got a central processing unit, some attached storage, and then just inputs and outputs. These days we’ve got really fast-but-expensive memory called RAM, and then slow-but-cheap memory called hard drives. You ever notice how when you open a program that you haven’t used in a while it takes a while? But then you use it again and it comes right up. That’s because it took a while fetching all that code and assets from the hard drive, and now it’s in RAM and ready to go.

It takes like a thousand times longer to get something from the hard drive as it does from RAM. You ever want to breathe new life into an old computer, just put more RAM in it.

But anyways, so when I see someone and they say hi, the place where I store names-and-faces is like my hard drive, and it always takes a while to fetch the right name, and by the time that happens it’s too late and I just end up saying ‘hey, buckaroo’. So I’m working on that.

But in general I just like to keep things simple. There are complicated things that I love, like it’s my jam, but it’s all stuff that’s enabling. Like, diagnosing a misbehaving router. Y’know, cause Internet-access is a basic human resource now – gotta have it. Or making a web page. Cause you never know when you need to throw together a last-minute apology e-card when you forget to show up to a service event.

But budgeting, taxes? Ew, no thank you, m-mmm. It’s like Jango Fett said in Attack of the Clones: “I’m just a simple man, trying to make my way in the universe.”

But in general I just like to keep things simple. Don’t like complications. It’s like Jango Fett said in Attack of the Clones: “I’m just a simple man, trying to make my way in the universe.”

And with that wonderful segue, I’m gonna talk about making your way in the universe through service, which is the topic of President Uchtdorf’s message from priesthood session.

In his talk he mentions the Sons of Thunder, James and John. Two lead disciples. As they’re walking along with Jesus towards Jerusalem they stop and ask Him, “Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory.”

And I’ll bet the other disciples were thinking, “Oooh dear, they didn’t check themselves, now they’ve gone and wrecked themselves.”

But the Savior just said, you don’t really know what you’re asking for. “Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?” Can you go through what I will go through? To get to where I’m going?

And they just said yeah, “We can”, and to me, that shows that they really didn’t know what they were asking for. But the Savior said ‘fine’, “But to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.”

And He went on to elaborate that if you want to be great in the kingdom, you’ve gotta minister, you’ve gotta serve. You wanna be chief? Be a servant to all.

And this attitude is reflected in our modern church organization, where the vast majority of leadership roles are completely non-compensated. It’s one of the things we try and highlight as missionaries, “Hey, we’ve got a lay clergy, check this out.” Kind of like those commercials for Shane Co., where they say that their diamond sellers don’t work on commission. The ones that are like “Now you have a friend in the diamond business!”. Phew, never getting that out of my head.

Now I’m not gonna make a joke about diamonds to this crowd. I’ll just joke about not making a joke, and leave it at that. [before it gets any more recursive]

So yeah, I think our lay clergy is something that really contributes to the stability of the Church. There’s a quote from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, that goes,

“One of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

And really, these leadership positions, like bishop, or stake president, are really hard. President Uchtdorf, in his talk, talks about a stake president who’s super busy prepping for a big pioneer celebration parade. He goes to all this work, goes to all these meetings with General Authorities, gets everything in place, and then just before the event his stake gets reorganized and he’s released.

Then he goes and volunteers for this event, because he still wants to be involved, and he’s asked to bring his truck and a shovel, to help clean up after the horses. Now President Uchtdorf uses this moment to show how well this stake president understood the doctrine of chiefs and servants. And I’m sure he does. But to me it also seems kind of straight forward. Like if I were running the show and a few days beforehand given the option to put it all in someone else’s hands and just shovel manure and make that my contribution to the event? Man, sign me up!

It’s something that’s repeatedly drilled into us by Church leaders, that no one calling is better than another, or more important. Some leadership roles may have more influence, but that is of no consequence when Heavenly Father is determining how much love He has for you, or how to bless your life.

In my job, whatever role you’re in, there’s only so far you can go before you stop being promoted, because levels are based on impact, and you reach a point where no matter how good you are at your job, you can’t make more of an impact.

Thankfully, callings don’t work like that; the rewards are not capped. The worth of every soul is great in the eyes of God. So no matter how many lives we touch, even if it’s just our own, we’ll receive blessings for our service.

No matter what calling we have, it is always important to make sure the Spirit has room to guide us. I want to briefly paraphrase a quote from Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon:

“Good process serves you so you can serve customers.” Or, “Good callings serve you so you can serve Church members. But if you’re not watchful, the calling can become the thing. This can happen very easily in large organizations. The calling becomes the proxy for the results you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you’re doing the calling right.”

Now I think it’s somewhat more difficult at this level of Church involvement to lose sight of the end goal of our callings, to build the kingdom and help others come unto Christ, but it is worth keeping in mind.

Something else to keep in mind, especially those entrusted with leadership positions, is the risk of addiction to approbation. The honor and love we show to our leaders is something to be grateful for; but, like when the BlendTec guy learns that yes, an iPhone 7 does blend, “don’t breathe this.” In other words, as President J. Reuben Clark advised, “don’t take yourself too darn seriously.”

And by the way, that word, “approbation”, President Uchtdorf uses it at the end of his talk as well, and it called to mind the words from the hymn “O My Father”. I want to quote a bit of it – because it is somewhat relevant, but also because I just love the lyrics.

“When I leave this frail existence, When I lay this mortal by,
Father, Mother, may I meet you In your royal courts on high?
Then, at length, when I’ve completed All you sent me forth to do,
With your mutual approbation Let me come and dwell with you.”

“All you sent me forth to do”, that’s a heavy thing. We have some resources to help guide us. Patriarchal blessings. Personal revelation. In the absence of specific direction though, I think it’s usually safe to simply see where you are, and lift where you stand.

That seminal phrase was introduced in another of President Uchtdorf’s talks.

I want to read from another of President Uchtdorf’s talks, the one where he introduces the seminal phrase “lift where you stand.” In it he talks about John Moyle, a stonecutter who lived in Alpine during the construction of the Salt Lake temple. During this time he would wake up at 2am every Monday morning so he could be in Salt Lake bright and early at 8am. And then on Friday he’d start back at 5pm and arrive home around midnight. Year after year after year.

Until one day a cow kicked him and gave his leg a compound fracture. Like in Star Trek whenever Dr. Mccoy would be faced with 20th century medicine and just cringe at how backwards it all was, John Moyle had to get his leg amputated.

Now I think he’d deserved a pass at that point, but no. I guess his stonecutting skills transferred to wood carving and he made himself a prosthesis, with an ingenious ankle joint. And used that prosthesis to get himself back on the road to Salt Lake, so he could help finish the temple. If you ever visit and you see the words “Holiness to the Lord”, those were carved by him.

And if you ever visit Alpine you can go check out Moyle Park, a really picturesque historical site.

Later on his grandson became an apostle, and commented that although his own service may be more visible, his grandfather’s was no less pleasing to the Lord.

This man really was a fighter, he didn’t lie down even when he had every excuse in the world to do so. I just want to take a minute to remark on something I’ve come to see over the last few months here, which is that from where I’m sitting, each of you is a fighter. We’re all fighting for something in our lives, whether it’s better housing, jobs, relationships, spiritual growth. And I don’t think anyone could come here and meet you all and fail to see that these folks are just solid, are engaged in the work.

And nope, not gonna make jokes about being engaged either, not me, m-mmm.

But yeah, I always thought, Ok, I just gotta land that internship, just gotta graduate, just gotta finish my masters, just gotta find a job, and I’ll be home free. I’m finding out that the work never really stops, at least, not until my grandchildren are all married off. Then I can sit back and enjoy retirement.

But in the mean time, while we’re going through life, doing what we’re doing, it’s so easy to dehumanize other people. And I don’t mean that in a cruel or vindictive way. Maybe that wasn’t the best word choice to begin with. But what I mean is, it is very rare, I think, outside of a spousal relationship spanning decades, for two people to really know one another. We build up these mental models of each other based on what we know of them and how we see them act, and use that model to infer things, like whether we think that person is worth being friends with, or worth extending forgiveness to. I’m not saying this is wrong, I think this is the best we can do without some form of telepathy. [And some science-fiction writers would claim that that wouldn’t help one bit anyways.]

But as long as we’re judging each other based on proxies we’ve built up in our heads, it usually doesn’t hurt to be a little more liberal in our assumptions of good intentions. “Why’d that person cut me off this morning?” Well, maybe he’s a doofus, or maybe likes to kick puppies for fun. Or, maybe his wife was sick that morning and he had to help get the kids ready for school before darting off and making sure he wasn’t late to work or else he’d be let go and have to come home without dinner that evening. You never know. And since we don’t know one way or the other, it wouldn’t hurt to assume the latter, or something like it. As Captain Hammer said in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog, “Everyone’s a hero in their own way. You and you and mostly me and you.” Just kidding, just kidding. That was part of the song, not my testimony.

Speaking of everyone being the hero of their own story, I just want mention journals. Big fan, I think everyone should keep one. And not just for the big stuff. You never know what your future self or descendants will cherish. And you never know if you’ll end up famous one day. Biographers, when they’re looking through old writings, trying to really get to know someone through the written record, they often get stuck with whatever was written about that person only after they became notable. The real interesting stuff is in the formative material. ‘How did they get to become that person?’

And it doesn’t have to be a book you write in and keep in your drawer. When I moved out my family started up a weekly email chain so we could all keep in touch and know what was happening in each other’s lives. It’s much easier to be motivated to put details in there, where the time horizon on when it’ll be read is measured in hours instead of decades.

So I’ll put random stuff in, pictures of a woodpecker I spotted outside the chapel, or, y’know, 35 paragraphs of a gripping tale involving my latest Zelda adventure. Y’never know. Gotta mess with those historians any way you can.

I want to hop from that tangent to another one, but this one will tie back to the Conference talk, I promise. There was a sermon given by a history professor at BYU, that highlights the difference between two types of Mormons. And this isn’t, like, active and inactive Mormons, or “good Mormons” and “Jack Mormons”. Two kinds of dedicated, active, believing members of the Church. He gives each of these groups a symbol from the Book of Mormon: the Iron Rod, and the Liahona.

The Iron Rod was the Word of God. Hold fast to it, move forward one step at a time, and you’re sure to make it to the end. The Liahona was a compass. It’ll point you in the general direction, but it won’t give you precise instructions.

The differences between the Iron Rod Saint and the Liahona Saint can be summed up in how each group believes that revelation operates. Does revelation “give us a handrail to the Kingdom, or only a compass?”

To be more specific, the Iron Rod Saint is confident that he or she can find, in the Gospel, the answer to every important question, be it through scripture, prophetic authority, or personal revelation through the Spirit.

The Liahona Saint, on the other hand, is not so confident. They all believe in the same core truths: that God lives and loves us and speaks to us; but Liahonas further believe that “no human instrument, even a prophet, is capable of transmitting the word of God so clearly and comprehensively that it can be universally understood and easily appropriated by man.”

The Liahona Saint has more questions than answers, and isn’t confident that they can get those answers easily from the Gospel. But, they find “enough answers to important questions that they can function purposefully without the rest.”

Now, tying this back to the Conference talk. President Uchtdorf gave a story from his time as an Area President, when he was not invited to the temple dedication in Spain. After some angst followed by prayerful consideration, he states:

“Had I been invited to attend, I would have done so gladly. But if I were not invited, my joy would not be any less profound. Harriet and I would rejoice with our friends, our beloved brothers and sisters, from afar. We would praise God for this wonderful blessing just as enthusiastically from our home in Frankfurt as we would from Madrid.”

Now when I read this, I couldn’t help but notice that it lends itself very nicely to being adapted as a quote from a Liahona Saint:

“Had I had a more sure testimony, I would have bore it gladly. But if I were not as confident, by joy would not be any less profound. I would rejoice with my friends, my beloved brothers and sisters. I would praise God for my testimony just as enthusiastically from a place of uncertainty as I would with a more perfect understanding.”

At times it can be difficult for Iron Rodders and Liahonans to understand each other. “How can you doubt this plain and simple truth?” vs “How can you possibly be so certain?”

But, variety is the spice of life, and each ‘flavor’ of Mormon has their own strengths and challenges. And no matter the kind of testimony, it’s critical that we each obtain one of our own. I want to quote from my favorite author, Orson Scott Card, from an address he gave in my freshman year.

“It’s easy to think you have an answer, because everyone around you agrees with you. But you don’t actually have an answer, until you have asked the question. And if you have not asked the question, you don’t have any answers yet, and…you’re…an echo, and I believe that Mormonism is effective as a religion precisely to the degree that it consists of people who are not echoes…. We’re responsible for asking the questions. It’s not a bad thing for a Mormon to question anything. My belief is that you should question everything. I just tell you after a life of living that way and questioning everything, here I am, a believing Latter-day Saint.

Because I have found no philosophy that explains human life better, and that does a better job of teaching people to live well, to live good lives.”

I bear my testimony that God does speak to us, and He directs the work in this ward through His servants in the bishopric, and as we fulfill and magnify the callings we’ve been given, we’ll help each other walk back to the presence of God, and be made more perfect along the way. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

..is the one word I’d use to sum up the trip to the aquarium I went on with a date yesterday. We started out grabbing lunch from Pikes Place, then ate down by the aquarium entrance. A pair of seagulls wandered over looking for handouts, and I was happy to get rid of the 30%-by-volume deep-fried fluff surrounding the actual seafood.

Then the whoaahing commenced.

 

So that was fun. To backtrack, on Friday I had Uncle Tom, Aunt Karine, McCall, and Ryan up for the weekend. McCall was in town checking out the University of Washington. They got to have lunch at my office and meet a few of my coworkers; much fun.

That evening we finished the Star Wars saga with Rogue One. One of my favorite of the set, but some think it’s just horrible. Very polarizing. Also, someone brought an air popper, and I’d forgotten just how delicious salt-and-butter’d air-popped popcorn tastes, after going pretty exclusive on the coconut oil approach. Might have to pick one up of my own.

This morning I arrived at our church building for a Service & Activities committee meeting. I parked in a far out corner, not my usual spot. I noticed that someone had strewn garbage all over the base of some trees on the church property. This would not do. After the meeting I headed back out to pick the garbage up and take it to the dumpster. As soon as I opened the lid a squirrel launched itself out of the dumpster like seven feet in the air before clambering up a tree. Exciting times.

On the way to the dumpster I’d spotted this woodpecker, went back to capture it for posterity.

Before third hour started we had the usual crowd chatting it up in the hallway, I had to excuse myself back outdoors and decompress a bit. Lovely weather and greenery.

Today we had friends over for dinner. Matching aprons:

Unfortunately I had to jet right as everyone was tucking in, since I’d agreed to sit in on a lesson with the missionaries and someone who’d reached out to them, asking to get in contact. This was the very first time I’ve ever done this from the “other side of the aisle”, so to speak. It was very neat; this guy really felt like something was missing in his life, and seems confident that he can find it through the missionaries. We’ll see where it goes.

So, I’ll end this post with another entry in the periodic album of Adventures in Hyrule. It’s a bit of a long one, feel free to hop off the train now if tales from Zelda don’t interest you; nothing else of substance is left in this post.

Earlier I’d mentioned an episode where I steath-paraglided past enemy lines so I could seize a tower, dodging blasts on my way up. My adventure last night puts that to shame; I was straight-up channeling Teancum.

The objective: make it to a certain location. All the intel I have is what it’ll look like from a first-person perspective once I’m there. I spot a castle in the foreground, with some pillars surrounding a circular dais. An old man had suggested that this image was taken from just south of the castle. I checked my map and placed a pin on the likely coordinates, so I could view it on my scope later.

Unfortunately, that area had been completely razed, with hostile automatons roaming free on slender spider legs, ready to blast any intrepid adventurers into oblivion. This was going to be interesting.

I left my horse, Ol’ Blue, in a safe riverside stable, and approached on foot from the east. While many “Guardians”, as they’re called, were fully armed and mobile, many were broken down and stationary, though no less deadly. Unfortunately it’s difficult to tell these stationary Guardians from actually-dead husks, until approached.

Night was falling, and it started to rain. This would make things difficult, as it’s nigh impossible to climb walls when they get slick. I’d have to wait the weather out before daring anything. In the meantime I carefully assessed the situation, noting all mobile Guardians. The only cover available were apparently-dead Guardian shells, along with a few hills. I snuck from cover to cover, trying to judge which shells looked too decayed to possibly still be active. I made it to the wall, just as the rain dissipated.

After ascending the wall, I was able to get a visual on the target. From my perspective it looked like the beacon I’d placed was hovering just behind a large statue in the middle of the courtyard. I’d just need to get beyond that statue to reach my objective. Between me and the statue lay hundreds of yards of bombed out structures, with a small contingent of Guardians patrolling back and forth. I even spotted some quadcopter drones hovering overhead, equipped with searchlights. Luckily they were more focused on the castle entrance.

I was feeling pretty confident. I could only spot two Guardians. Though I knew there had to be more, there shouldn’t be too many more. And of course I’d have to avoid the dormant stationary units, which wouldn’t make themselves known until I was right on top of them. I began my approach, darting from structure to structure.

At once I heard it: the alarm bells of a Guardian with an enemy in its sights. When Guardians move from patrol-mode to attack-mode, their bodies change from glowing blue to red. A target sight appeared on my body, and I followed it to find the angry eye of an approaching Guardian. I quickly darted behind some cover. It would never be enough, any semi-intelligent agent would be able to simply move around my cover and open up with a barrage of ancient beam power.

The Guardian stalked right up to the shard of wall I was cowering behind. It looked left, then right, waited an uncomfortably long several seconds, then reverted to its glowing-blue mode and reverted back to its patrol pattern. I had no idea their AI was that rudimentary. If they weren’t so unbelievably powerful I would’ve felt annoyed, but I was just heaving sighs of relief that my mission was still a go.

I continued to move from cover to cover, ever closer to the center of the courtyard. I passed between a piece of wall and a Guardian husk, when the husk came alive and began to lock on to me. At the same time, an unseen mobile Guardian came into view, and began targeting me as well.

I hurried and climbed the wall I was standing near, with no plan in mind, just desperation. Dropping to the other side, I found myself in a small enclosure, with the only exit blocked by a poisonous bog – such poison lay strewn over the whole area. I could hear both Guardians on the other side: one stationary, the other stalking back and forth. The mobile one repeatedly tried to walk toward me, but was stopped by the wall each time.

Every time I tried to climb up and out of my sanctuary / prison, I triggered the mobile Guardian, who immediately locked on to me, forcing me back. While I was considering my options, I opened a chest and found 100 rupees. Small consolation.

I donned my Hero’s Tunic, which lets me see the life points of any monster in sight. A health meter displays above each monster, with their total and remaining points left. Luckily for me, this meter was visible for the mobile Guardian, even though I couldn’t see it through the wall. This let me know exactly where it was at all times. It also let me quantify just how afraid of this thing I should be, with its 1500HP.

I worked out its patrol pattern, how it moved in a triangle. I waited for when it would be on the far opposite side of my bunker, then climbed out and made a break for a nearby bombed-out barracks. One Guardian spotted me on the way over, but I hurriedly dove for cover and it soon went back to patrol without approaching to investigate further.

It began to rain again. I’d have to be more careful; no more climbing up walls to get myself out of dodge. There appeared to be a low wall in the shape of a ring surrounding the center of the courtyard. I waited until all Guardians were out of sight, then scurried over. Safe.

Now it appeared that there was only one Guardian left between me and the large statue. On the other side of that statue would be the dais and pillars, the target I was risking life and limb for. All I needed to do was reach the location. I could then teleport back to safety, mission accomplished.

This lone Guardian in my way was clearly undamaged, yet completely dormant. I was confident that even if it awoke, I could reach the dais and complete the mission before it would have time to attack. I made a break for the center. Past the Guardian, which rose up and began to target me. Past the statue.

And there was no dais. No pillars. No glowing indicator that this is where I should be. Bewildered, I turned to my map – effectively pausing the game – while I figured out what had gone wrong. And it was immediately apparent: there had been a second location, just a few hundred yards south of my current position, which had been a second strong candidate for where the dais was. In fact, studying the map closer, I noticed that there was a small ring of water around this southern location. Water which I could spy in a corner of the image I was working off of. All the clues had been there, I just hadn’t read them properly.

All my work, all these near-death experiences, for naught. The true location of the objective, in fact, was far less infested with enemies. I could have captured a wild horse and ridden straight there, without too much difficulty.

So I had a decision to make. Instead of teleporting to safety and trying again, I decided to attempt to exfiltrate myself from the center of this courtyard, past the courtyard walls, and into the small copse of trees where certainly laid the objective. I got myself into this mess, and I wasn’t about to use teleportation to take the easy way out when there was still work to be done here.

But I first had to deal with this Guardian which I’d awoken on my approach. It was pacing back and forth, attempting to get an angle on me. I deftly moved back and forth, keeping the statue between us. A bit comic, really. It was fortuitous that there was no Guardian behind me, or I really would’ve had to bail out.

Eventually the Guardian on the other side quieted down, though it remained mobile. I ran straight away from the central statue, keeping the Guardian on the other side of it. Cover to cover I went. Came perilously close to one of the overhead drone searchers, but managed to avoid it. The rain let up. Made it to the outer wall, which I began to climb.

Immediately several targeting lasers lighted upon me. It would take several seconds for them to fully lock on, though. In that time I managed to make it to the top, which put me out of their direct line of sight. Now I had time to look outward. I saw one mobile Guardian stalking the northern edge of the tree line, and a stationary unit emplaced next to the southern base of the wall I was on.

With sufficient distance, it is possible to dodge a Guardian’s laser blast. The targeting is not predictive, and if you move fast enough in a lateral motion relative to the Guardian, by the time the blast reaches you it’s possible to just barely dodge. With my paraglider I drifted down from the wall to the tree line. Targeting sights appeared. More than I’d anticipated. I ran, zigging back and forth. As it was night, zombie monsters rose up from the ground, complicating my maneuvering. I bobbed and weaved in anticipation of an incoming blast, and was promptly incinerated.

I hadn’t properly accounted for the mobility of the Guardian on patrol. It had closed the distance between us and removed all chance of dodging its attacks. Sigh….

I respawned back at the statue in the center of the courtyard. With the Guardian I’d played chicken with standing right in front of me, glowing red. Thanks game, real nice spawn placement. I rushed to the other side of the statue, repeating the tactic that had saved me before. And it saved me again.

Cover to cover to cover, back to the top of the wall. This time I noted a third stationary Guardian I hadn’t spotted before, with a perfect vantage point to cover the entire northern tree line, which I needed to cross to get to the dais. It would really be nice for me if this dude, with 500HP, would just die.

On a whim, I tossed a remote bomb down. These bombs don’t do much damage, but I can conjure an unlimited number of them. I detonated the explosive, and the Guardian went from 500HP to 498HP. I tossed another. and another. This was fun. The Guardian, helpless to move out of the way or to get a clear bead on me, frustratingly fired fruitless blasts in my general direction.

I imagine the mechanized soldier, somewhere in the cogs and gears of its artificial mind, recognized its own mortality, and its impending death. As powerful as it was, I could do this all day, and there wasn’t a thing it could do to stop me. Blast after blast it hurled in my direction, until all surrounding greenery had burned away. But I just kept lobbing bombs. Bomb after bomb after bomb, 2HP at a time. These things were responsible for taking my perfect run away from me, and I was gonna make ’em pay.

Fortunately for this hapless Guardian, by the time I’d drained it to 400HP, I had come to the realization that I didn’t want to spend the time to lob two hundred more bombs. I looked around for another angle, and spotted a spire of sorts along the top of the wall. I could climb this, then leap from the top and glide further into the heart of the trees than I had been able to before. Hopefully I’d be able to land far enough in to avoid drawing any attention from the Guardians on overwatch duty. On top of this, it was now daytime, so the ground would not be offering up zombie monsters to impede my movement.

I set my plan into motion. Upon landing in the trees, this plan began to fall apart. The emplaced Guardian I’d failed to completely destroy, and the mobile guardian patrolling the tree line, were both aware of my presence. Fortunately, I was able to take cover behind a relatively large tree stump. It was just large enough around that it could block both targeting sights simultaneously. I waited with baited breath, as the mobile Guardian stared the tree stump down from five feet away. It cooled off and moved back to its patrol.

I broke for the dais, which I could spot through the trees. The stationary Guardian from before tried and failed to get a lock on me; the trees were too dense. Ahh, the relief, I made it I made it I made it.

You’ll notice I haven’t specified what was so important about this location. The answer is somewhat spoiler-laden, so I won’t put a direct answer here.

Having accomplished my task, I could move back to safer ground. The mobile Guardian was moving on my position. It had acquired a laser lock. It was seconds from firing. I activated my teleporter and was whisked away to safety. En fin.

Couldn’t come up with a way to round off that paraphrasing.

Last Monday we had FHE over at the University of Washington’s bowling alley. It’s certainly swankier thank the one in the Wilk.

On Wednesday I discovered that if I walk ten minutes down the road from my office, I’ll be at this boardwalk that juts out into Lake Washington, with beautiful views. Spotted someone wind surfing, catching ridiculous verticals, 30-40 feet I’d guesstimate.

While I was chilling I met a wonderful two-year-old golden retriever named Taz who was reveling in the freedom of being off his leash. Loved to cuddle.

Also passed some expensive-looking houses on the way.

On Thursday I played volleyball with the gang, then we all went out to our local “fancy Taco Bell”.

Friday was The Force Awakens. Tomorrow we finish up Star Wars with Rogue One. As it goes in the Enterprise opener, it’s been a long road getting from there to here.

This last weekend was General Conference, so we got together and made a meal out of it.

This week’s FHE was human battleship, tossing a beach ball over a tarp-covered volleyball net to try and hit opponent players lying prone in various configurations. There I introduced the missionaries to Laser Chess, and met someone with an interesting condition; every few months a seizure wipes all memories. That evening he’d only been himself for about five hours. Very interesting situation, to say the least.

Yesterday I had dinner with a friend at my office, then went to play games at another friends house. Got introduced to a really fun variation on Apples to Apples. Rather than having the judge just pick who wins, and that player scoring a point, instead the judge secretly picks a winner, and then each player, seeing the other options, bets on who the judge will select as the winner, using two “bet tokens”. One point for being chosen as the winner, one point for each bet token you placed on the actual winner, and the judge wins one point for each token that anyone placed on his/her choice.

Today I had to shorten my beard, which has been causing problems during meals.

Tomorrow I have plans to meet up with Callie and her cohort for lunch, who’re in town for the weekend. Can’t wait!

I’ll leave you with this pic of the inside of a diesel generator sitting behind our office. Someone forgot to lock the door.