Day's of 47 Youth Parade

As it got close to the 24th of July (Utah State holiday), JoAnn had the great idea of taking PJ to the Youth Parade. I was actually OK with it because it happened to start on the street in front of the building where I work (I knew I could get a good parking spot). I also knew that it wouldn't be as long and tedious as the main Day's of 47 Parade which I hated as a child. One thing that didn't change, it was hot!

After the parade, there was a big carnival at Washington Square where all the climbing and jumping things were free. I heard later that it was for the parade participants, but I didn't know that when we took PJ over. You may remember I lamented the fact that PJ didn't get to get in one of the "jumping things" at Bluffdale Town Days. He was so excited to get in the jumping thing at the post parade carnival.

There were also big inflatable slides where you had to climb up the back of the slide using foot holes and hand holds to grab on. PJ amazed me by climbing up one slide that was about 15 feet tall and had flimsy hand holds at best. He is definitely a climber.

As I mentioned above, it was a hot day. When we got in the car to come home, the outside temperature gauge read 104 degrees. When we got home, JoAnn filled a trough with water for the dogs but PJ wanted wanted to get in first.

Moral Set Point?

When I read this article, it rang true. Probably because I see so may supposedly good LDS members in the Utah State Legislature who are so unethical.

Do We Have a Moral Set Point?

Posted: 26 Jun 2009 09:11 PM PDT

A few years ago, psychologist Nancy Etcoff wrote a piece for Science & Spirit magazine in which she explained that "while feelings of happiness change from day to day, depending on the circumstances, people seem to have a stable midpoint to these variations, a general level of happiness to which they return after momentary irritation or elation fades. Scientists call this the 'hedonic set point' or happiness thermostat."
So I was interested to read about a recent study from a group of researchers at Northwestern University who suggest we have a set point for morality as well. They ran a bunch of experiments to see how our sense of moral self-worth affects our behavior.
According to the scientists, people who behave immorally in one aspect of their lives tend to "cleanse" themselves by performing good deeds in other areas. But their model goes further, as a write-up of the research reports:

Other studies have shown the moral-cleansing effect, but this new Northwestern model shows that the cleansing also has to do with restoring an ideal level of moral self-worth. In other words, when people operate above or below a certain level of moral self-worth, they instinctively push back in the opposite direction to reach an internally regulated set point of goodness.

If they're right, the opposite of the cleansing effect would also hold true: Performing a series of good deeds would raise our moral self-worth, thus leading us to do some not-so-good stuff to balance things out. That's just what psychology graduate student Sonya Sachdeva, who worked on the study, suggests. "Imagine a line on a plane," she says. "The only way you can come back down is either by refraining from good social behavior or by actively engaging in immoral behavior."

Petting Zoo and Pony Ride

A couple of weeks ago, JoAnn, Senta, and I took PJ to the Gardner Village Petting Zoo. To tell the truth, JoAnn and Senta had as much, if not more, fun than did PJ. Ever since that day, JoAnn has been thinking about getting a pony with a cart for PJ to ride in. She apparently had a childhood friend who had a pony with a cart and they had lots of fun. I am somewhat dubious because she also had a pony when she was a kid and she told me plenty of horror stories about it when we were dating (the pony was smart enough to open any gate and her dad was always in a battle with it). Anyway, after the petting zoo, the girls went shopping and the boys went to the snack bar, just the way it was meant to be.

Sleep Study

Sometime last year, one of JoAnn's doctors asked her if she was getting enough sleep. Of course she wasn't and the Dr. asked if her husband's snoring ever woke her up. Of course she said yes and the Dr. recommended that her husband endure a sleep study. So, after she bugged me about for several months, I asked my Dr. about it and he sent a referral to the Sleep Institute, and I was soon scheduled for an interview with the sleep Dr., who, by some quirk of fate, was the original Dr. who recommended the sleep study to JoAnn. After the interview, I was scheduled for a night to sleep at the sleep institute which is, how strange is this, at the Dr.'s office. When I got there, I was hooked up to a myriad of wires and tubes and expected to sleep the night away. The photo doesn't show all the sensors later stuck up my nose. After the results were reviewed, the Dr. said I had severe obstructive sleep apnea (not good). I then had to go back in and get hooked up to the wires one more time and sleep with an air pressure mask to see how it worked. The photos are me hooked up to the wires and a shot of the wires going into the computer. I'm actually looking forward to sleeping with the sleep machine (c-pap). It would be nice to wake up in the morning and feel good. We'll see how it goes.

Way Back in June

Way back in June, when Richie was visiting, we had big plans for Saturday. We were going to go down to the clay pits on the west side of Utah Lake and collect fossil rocks for JoAnn's class, and then we were going to go to the Scottish Festival at Thanksgiving Point. Since we were planning on having lots of fun, I went and picked PJ up from the Grayson's at about 10 AM and brought him back to Bluffdale. We realized that we probably wouldn't leave until about noon so I took PJ over to Bluffdale Town Days which was being held at the park. When we got there, he wanted to sit in the sports car and the National Guard helicopter.

He then wanted to get on one of the "jumping things", the inflatable, enclosed play areas that kids bounce around in. Anyway, we went to the area with the "jumping things" and were told that we had to go buy a wristband. So we headed out in search of a place to buy wristbands but couldn't find one. In the meantime, he spotted the antique tractors and wanted to go play on them.

After he drove every one of them, it was time to go home and load up for the excursion. As we left home, the clouds were getting dark to the south and as we drove through the terrible traffic in Saratoga Springs, it started pouring rain. It rained harder and harder and we finally had to turn around when we realized that even if we went to the clay pits, it was going to be very muddy. When we finally got home, the power was out so we couldn't go back to the park because the "jumping things" had all collapsed. By the time the power came back on and we went back to the park, the "jumping things" had been folded up and put away. Ever since then, when we drive past the park, he looks at me and with a sad voice says "no jumping things today".

Fleetwood Mac

Hey look, it's me, JoAnn, and Greg at a Fleetwood Mac concert in the ESA on May 27th. FM is JoAnn's favorite band and while they are not my favorite, I learned a couple of years ago that they put on a spectacular concert. The last time we went, a couple of years ago, we had upper bowl tickets, but when we got to the arena, they took our tickets and replaced them with lower bowl tickets because the arena hadn't sold enough tickets to even open the upper bowl. Must have made the people who purchased the lower bowl seats for more money mad. This time they weren't even selling upper bowl tickets. Anyway, the concert was on the night when Richie was arriving from DC. I asked Greg if he would pick up Richie at the airport and he said no way, he wanted to go to the concert. It seems he had grown up listening to FM on our trips to Arizona and other places and was a fan, so I bought him a ticket and asked Senta to go to the airport. Well, FM played their butts off for 2½ very enjoyable hours.

Just before we went into the concert, Richie called and said his plane had been delayed because of weather. They had been sitting on the runway for about 4 hours and hoped to take off soon. I eventually picked him up myself since he didn't arrive at the airport until about 1 AM. He was supposed to arrive at 8:30 PM.

Oquirrh Mountain Temple

On Wednesday, we took the opportunity to attend the open house for the Oquirrh Mountain Temple in South Jordan. Dustin and PJ live pretty close to the Temple and drive by it on a regular basis. Dustin has told PJ that the Temple is "Jesus' House". PJ told JoAnn a couple of weeks ago that he drove past Jesus' House so he knows where he lives. The funny thing was that as we went though the Temple, PJ kept asking Dustin "where Jesus". Knowing Dustin's sense of humor, he probably told him Jesus had to go to work.