Sea Life Aquarium

A new aquarium moved into the Arizona Mills Mall in Tempe and we decided to check it out on their opening day when a lot of our extended family was here for graduation. As you can see below, it's a pretty cool aquarium and we really enjoyed ourselves.

Abby, Caleb and Tiff check out the manna ray.

Grandma Karen and Grandpa Mark

Grandma Barbara, Grandpa Roger and Abby

Tiff and Caleb

Jen, Matt and Abby

Abby liked to walk in the tunnel of water, but wanted to hold someone's hand! Grandma Karen was more than happy to be the one to do it!

Baby Caleb says, "What is this?"

"Holy cow!"

Abby wants to come back again and again (she is jumping)!

ASU Graduation!

Yes, we finally did it and there are many pictures to prove it! We graduated on May 13th and really appreciated everyone that could come. We know that many wanted to come but could not make the trip. It was (and is) strange to be introduced as "doctor." All I know is, it required a great deal of effort! We appreciate so much the experiences and opportunities we have had while at BYU, UNL and ASU. We are very blessed and are so thankful for the immense support we received from family and friends. We could not have done it without you! Thank you for helping our dreams to come true!

Matt and Jen before commencement.
Jen with two mentors: Dr. Gregory Gentry (choral) and Dr. Timothy Russell (orchestral)
Dr. Matt with Dr. Donald Fixico after commencement
Our advisors!
The gang! Matt, Abby, Jen, Fixico, Gentry, Barbara, Roger, Mark, Karen, Tiffany, Caleb
Matt, Jen and Abby! One happy family!
We decided to go ahead and do our individual convocations which were on separate days. After going through mine which began at 8 p.m. and lasted entirely too long, Matt decided to skip his! Here is a picture of Jen, Tiff and baby Caleb!
Happy graduation!

Miscellaneous fun

Besides Mazatlan and graduation we have experienced other fun adventures in the last month or two. Here are a few examples.

Matt, Abby, and I took my seminary kids (whom I love to death) to the Mesa Easter Pageant. They brought a lot of friends and we had a blast!
I also had an incredible final concert with the ASU Women's Chorus. I was fortunate to conduct them for two years (quite unusual for a graduate student) and was so sad to see it end. We had over 80 women this year--more than any other ASU Women's Chorus! I am so proud of them. Here is a picture of me conducting the women's final piece at the concert and one with my wonderful friend, and colleague, Carric Smolnik who conducted the Men's Chorus. I only hope Carric and I have many more opportunities to work together. We make quite a team!
A few days after the concert we went to an outdoor movie at Kiwanis Park with our good friends Richard and Janine Jones. We all had a great time and the kids mainly just wanted to run around! As you can see in the second picture, Abby found the homemade chocolate chip cookies!
Abby loves to be outside and frequently pretends she is outside when she is inside! Here is one of our "picnics" on the kitchen floor.

Conference Realignments

So I watch college football news pretty close. It is part of my morning ritual. Lately the talk about conference realignments has exploded in the Pac-10, Big-12, SEC, and Big Ten. What strikes me as strange is that nobody in the Mountain West Conference seems to take notice, especially when they could be poached in the other conference's rivalries for eminence.

The news broke a few weeks back that the Big Ten was looking to expand its footprint and grow to 16 schools, including several from the Big East and one or two from the Big 12. The word is that with 16 schools the Big Ten thinks it can justify claiming two automatic BSC bids. Also, the fabulous TV contract they have offers to double the annual revenue for any team they invite--a BIG carrot. There was also lots of talk that other major conference might likewise expand to match that growth, and more specific rumors suggested that the SEC might move to take Texas. And just yesterday a Dallas news reporter broke the story that the Pac-10 is moving to snatch up six schools from the Big 12 (Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado) to create a southern conference (along with Arizona and Arizona State) and thereby corner the college sports market in the West. Both the Big 12 and Pac-10 are scheduled to renegotiate thier television contracts in the spring, and both with Fox sports, who may play a role in masterminding this coup.

At least half of our blog readership are Mormon, and have some interest or connection to BYU--Not the Big 12. So why should you care? Well, if the Big 12 crumbles where do you think it will it look to rebuild?

The Mountain West Conference seem oblivious to these changes, except for occasional rumors that the Pac-10 would steal away Utah, but those surface every couple years and never amount to anything. If these new realignment rumors come to fruition they will leave the Big 12 in pieces, forcing it to rebuild. And where would the northern schools from the decapitated Big 12 look for new blood? Nobody is talking about it yet, but if I were in charge of the Big 12 I'd move to take Utah, BYU, TCU, Air Force, and Boise State. That is the ONLY way the Big 12 can retain any sort of reputable membership and keep its automatic BSC bid. The conference would include Nebraka, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, and Baylor and whoever they can steal to improve thier status.

So the question is, would BYU like to be in a conference composed of Utah, TCU, Air Force, Boise State, Nebraska, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, and Baylor, especially if it offers an automatic bid to a BSC game? Automatic bids are reassessed every four years, based on the performance of each school in the previous four years. Despite the success of TCU, Utah, and BYU, the MWC may struggle to get the automatic bid because the poor performance of schools like Wyoming and San Diego State. Would they be anxious to drop those schools for an upgrade? Maybe so.

Abby Dances at Mazatlan

Here is a quick video from Mazatlan. Abby loved to stand on these utility boxes, and sometimes broke out into dance.

So behind! Sorry! Mazatlan first:

Okay, so I am so behind with pictures. Graduation was crazy, I had many more weeks of seminary and other things, and then we left for California! So here are long overdue pictures. Let's begin with Mazatlan:

We had the best time with my family in Mazatlan. The best part was just being together. I just finished a digital scrapbook for everyone yesterday--so I can finally get around to updating the blog! Here are many fun pictures!

Everyone after a dinner on the beach!
We spent a great deal of time at the pool--especially in the large kiddie pool area.

We also loved the beach--here is Abby in the sand.
Uncle Brenty also enjoyed the sand--except when flung in his face!


Here are the Shakespeare girls and Caleb after a barbecue dinner by Mark and Kevin.
Uncle Matt bought the older kids ice cream and I think they enjoyed it!


Brent, Nicole, Matt, Jen and Abby went to check out the local aquarium and saw more than fish. Check out what is behind the fence!


The seal show was the best part of the aquarium!

Matt, Jen and Abby at dinner!

Grandma and Grandpa and the grandkids--some were not too happy!
One more of Matt, Jen and Abby on our last day in Mazatlan.

Hello Bakersfield

This past week I got a job offer from Bakersfield College. It is a tenure track (permanent) position, pays really well, and is located two hours from my family, the beach, the mountains/snow, and Disneyland. Some folks don't think much of Bakersfield, and it has the worst air pollution in the country, but we are quite excited. The population is 320,000 so it is big enough to meet any needs (and close enough to Los Angeles for any eccentric wishes) and like any town that size there are good and bad parts. The community college looks to be in a nice part of town, i think, because I found a massive country club nearby and lots of other parks. Maybe somebody who knows Bakersfield can tell us more. I've also been looking at the cost of housing and found that it is actually VERY cheap to buy a home there, so that is a double plus. I'm so excited to settle down a bit--no more moving town to town every couple years. Of course, I'm still working on publishing my dissertation and other articles so that I will have options to go to a university when the market recovers, I hope. But if we like it there, we could stay for a long long time.

This offer came by phone while Jen and I were taking Abby and our niece Brynley to Disneyland. I already had an offer from Brigham Young University to teach for one year, but that position would not be permanent so we were pretty nervous about the uncertainty of the next year. This position in Bakersfield is a real blessing.

Also, Jen has been dutifully making a photo book of our trip to Mazatlan (last month), so she has been too busy to get new photos on the blog. Rest assured, she is nearly done with that project and will soon get photos posted here from our trip to Mazatlan, graduation, and this most recent trip to California.

Expenses

Today I came across an interesting factoid. The United States military (army, navy, national guard, etc.) employs THREE MILLION people, and another two million are receiving benefits. The military is by far the largest employer in the nation.
Source: Department of Defense web page at: http://www.defense.gov/pubs/dod101/index.html

As I've pointed out before, the US military spends $500-$700 billion/year, roughly matching the combined expenditures of the rest of the world and ten times more than any other country.

Less you think I just hate the military, let me point to some other expenditures.

Social Security - $730 billion
Medicare & Medicaid - $790 billion

Is anybody else troubled by this? These numbers make my eyes bleed. Do you know how many happy meals I could buy with all this money? We've got these three major expenses that eat up 3/4 of our budget, but nobody can touch them because they are all entitlements. That is, somebody is benefiting and they will throw a fit if you take them, and then you won't get re-elected.

So, we just keep spending, to the tune of $3.5 trillion/year. We spend $185 billion just on interest for our debt.

Sometimes I wish we could follow the ancient Greek's system of electing a temporary dictator to clean up theses sorts of problems and then return order to the elected assemblies (obviously I don't really want a dictator to govern us, but I do envy that they had some solution).

What solution can we have to correct our over-spending? How do we get our elected officials to stop supporting the projects/expenditures that get them elected? Do we need to revert to some sort of libertarian utopia for a few years and then rebuild from scratch? I don't think so, but I'm at a loss for a better idea.

Religion & Politics

Who thinks you should avoid religion and politics in civil discussions? Well, for those who enjoy these topics, and their confluence, you might get a kick out of this interactive Religious Landscape study from last year, conducted by the Pew Center:

http://religions.pewforum.org/

It profiles different religious denominations and compares them to each other in terms of political attitudes as well as worship and spirituality. In politics, the Mormons jump out from the data. They are, simply put, FAR more conservative than any other religious group. In terms of worship, the Jehovah Witnesses lead out in most categories as the extremists--the meet together the most often, prey the most, believe in God, etc., but Mormons are not far behind, followed closely by evangelicals and historical black churches. Mainstream christian churches do not appear to have nearly the intensity of worship or personal internalization of faith.

While we're on this subject, let me share with you the result I found in another study at the University of North Carolina. They polled youth on about thier church attendance, worship frequency, prayer, etc. and found that Mormons again stand out as extremists. Generally speaking, Mormon youth are twice as likely to participate in scripture study, read a spiritual book outside of the scriptures, practice a day of rest, share thier faith, and pray alone. They are also far less likely to express doubts in thier faith, and are more likely to share the faith of thier parents. Mormon youth are the most likely to participate in conferences, service projects, attend Sunday School more than once a week, and cite the most adult supporters from church who they feel they can trust and rely upon. Source: Christian Smith, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 20005), ch. 2, passim. In fairness to the Jehovah Witnesses, they were not isolated in this study so they may even be more extreme (as the Pew survey suggests).

Another Doctor

By the way, Jen also passed her defense and is now appropriately addressed as "doctor."

CONGRATULATIONS!

Well, you can all call him "Doctor" now (although he might get annoyed!). Yes, I just walked in the door from Matt's defense of his dissertation and the professors came out with a grin, a hand shake, and a "Congratulations doctor." I was so proud! Matt felt really sick last night and didn't sleep at all, so I was praying he would be okay and he was awesome. He answered all of their questions, presented himself very professionally and they really encouraged him to keep working on the paper and get it published! I just thought you would all want to know!

I defend on Tuesday, so if you have a few extra prayers to give out I could use them. I still am finishing all of the edits from the professors and have to resubmit to the wonderful format people. I need to wrap that all up in the next two days. As long as all goes well for me we both graduate May 12th! Amazing!

We had an amazing trip to Mazatlan with my family which we had planned so long ago! It's hard to believe it is over. I do not have time to put up the pictures until my edits are done, so you might have to wait a day or two!