Tag: Seth

Not Quite Ultra Super Cool Deluxe

On By Peter WatkinsIn 2010Leave a comment

Dear Will:

Some time before the Christmas holiday Costco started selling this K’NEX contraption called the “Hornet Swarm Dueling Coaster.” Now if you’re unfamiliar with K’NEX, they’re sort of like the Tinker Toys I had as a kid only updated significantly for the 21st century. But you don’t even have to know about Tinker Toys to understand some simple calculations: The Hornet Swarm Dueling Coaster comes with 1,116 separate pieces and requires 104 steps to assemble. Once completed the HSDC stands 3 ½ feet tall.

As a rational adult, you could look at those numbers and come to the clear-headed conclusion that what your eleven-year-old really needs for Christmas is a good book to read. Unfortunately, I did not marry such a person. In fact, the Other Santa in our house thought that what our family wouldn’t be complete without a Dueling Coaster of its own. (“Motor! Sound! 4 cars!”)

What I’m trying to say is that last week Seth and I finally finished assembling the Hornet Swarm. It wasn’t even somewhat kind of slightly easy. (“For ages 9 and up”? I don’t think so.) But we “got ‘er done,” as they say. And even though it does indeed stand nearly four feet tall and now occupies a prominent position in our still-unfurnished dining room, I have to admit: It’s pretty cool.

But still. We fired that sucker up a few times and enjoyed it, but since then if there isn’t some new audience to dazzle with it, it sits unused. Or did. Until yesterday.

You see, yesterday someone’s dad decided that it would be a good idea to reengineer the Hornet Swarm. You know what’s cooler than a Dueling Coaster, don’t you? A Single Coaster with Dueling Tracks, of course! And someone’s dad decided that he could easily enough cross the tracks and thus transform the Hornet Swarm from pretty cool to ultra super cool deluxe.

It seemed so simple. It took a little ingenuity inasmuch as the new design required a few pieces that were not included with the original 1,116. But hey, the box did say “Imagine • Build • Play,” didn’t it? When faced with such a challenge, you find a way is what you do. Because “our” idea was even better than the original.

The trouble was that although we got the tracks to go in the right places, and we only broke one piece in so doing, for some reason the chain that pulls the cars to the top of the coaster was no longer pulling. All we got was a click-click-click that told us the chain was stuck and the motor was straining to pull it along. Pieces started detaching themselves, leaving our enterprising engineers with only one thought: “She’s gonna blow!”

Nuts. It really did seem like a good idea. But ultimately someone’s dad had to admit that there was probably a good reason why the good folks at K’NEX didn’t draw up the HSDC his way. Maybe, he had to admit, the people who designed the thing really knew what they were doing all along.

And so, the lesson: The tragic tale of the Hornet Swarm Single Coaster with Dueling Tracks reminds us that the best way to stay on track is to stick with the plan—or should I say, the Plan—set out by the Master Builder responsible for the design itself. It is, after all, with good reason that God encourages us to “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). Or as the prophet Isaiah once taught: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

To which I might add: As you face the dips and turns and loop-the-loops of life, may you always put your trust in the Master Builder. And when you think you have a better idea, think again.

PW

This Is Why We’re Here

On By Peter WatkinsIn 2009Leave a comment

Dear Will:

Last week we returned from one of the greatest family adventures ever. Among the greatest for us, anyway. Along with another family of friends, we took our two youngest for a backpacking trip in Zion National Park. Specifically, we hiked from one end of the Narrows to the other.

If you have never visited the Narrows, here’s a snapshot which, even in its beauty, doesn’t begin to capture the spectacular scenery.

Now if I tell you that it took us two days to complete the 16-mile hike, you’ll probably think, “No big deal.” That’s sort of what we thought as well. But it turned out to be much more difficult than we would have guessed. For starters, the hike is 16 miles long if you walk it in a straight line—which you can’t. To hike the Narrows, you must crisscross the Virgin River repeatedly throughout the hike, which turns the 16 miles into 25 or 30 instead. Further adding to the challenge, as you proceed downstream, springs and streams continuously add volume to the river, so it gets deeper and swifter the farther along you go. Consequently, as you grow more tired, the invisible terrain on the riverbed becomes more treacherous: the boulders are larger, slicker, and more irregular, the currents stronger, the rapids more frequent. What’s more, as this picture suggests, there are long stretches in which there is no riverbank whatsoever, meaning that you have no choice but to hike in the river itself.

That’s not that bad if you are carrying little more than a water-bottle and some trail mix. But since we spent the night at the river’s edge, we were all wearing backpacks, some of us laden with 30 pounds or more of gear and food. That’s not the sort of load that makes it easy to stay balanced while maneuvering over algae-covered rocks in a swiftly-moving, muddy river. In fact, there were many stretches in which we had to cross the river in pairs to keep one another from being swept downstream. There were many areas in which the water was too deep for Seth, my 10-year-old, one area in which all 11 of us were required to swim with our packs strapped to our backs.

It was hard—so hard that we often fell into the trap of focusing strictly on our footing. Periodically, someone in the party would admonish us all to stop and look up—to take in the amazing beauty that can only be seen if you go there on foot. “This is why we’re here,” we would remind ourselves. “This is the point of our ordeal.”

Toward the end, Seth (wise beyond his years) speculated that this would turn out to be the sort of experience that we would look back on with joy, relishing both the difficulty and the magnificence of the experience. But, he added, “right now I’m not enjoying it much at all.”

Ah, life. Strewn with boulders, fraught with peril, harder than we would wish and often not much fun. All the more reason that periodically we should stop and look around, marveling at the miracles around us and relishing the privilege of being here, now, wherever and whenever that might be. In many ways, the ordeal is the point, a challenge for which we should all be grateful.

God has said: “Peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high” (D&C 121:7-8). May it be so.

PW

Let’s Start with the Obvious

On By Peter WatkinsIn 2008Leave a comment

Dear Will:

So the ol’ 401(k) statement arrives in the mail and I think to myself: “Don’t do it.” I hold it there, knowing that what lies within is the grimmest of grim news, a financial plunge of historic proportions in what has generously been called our “portfolio.”

Knowing better,  I open it anyway . . . and it’s horrifying. Stupefyingly so. But as is so often the case, stupefaction leads to a moment of clarity and self-awareness not seen since I acknowledged in the 10th grade that I would always be a lousy golfer. In this golden moment, it occurs to me that I never  had enough in the 401(k) plan to retire anyway. Not even close. Wouldn’t have survived the first winter without begging lumps of coal from the local soup kitchen. So what if that super secure Lehman Brothers bond hadn’t exactly paid off? In times like these, there is comfort in incompetence.

Which sort of begs a question (for our present purposes, anyway): What other “blessings” do we have to be grateful for? Let’s start with the obvious:

Dana took Bryn to see Twilight—while Seth and Peter stayed home and watched the ballgame. If that’s not a blessing, what is?

Luke moved into the dorms at UCLA. He gets to sleep in every day, treat every meal like a buffet, come and go as he pleases, all without the daily scrutiny of his overbearing parents. What could be better?

Luke moved into the dorms at UCLA. More time to focus our daily scrutiny and overbearing parental instincts on making Bryn and Seth miserable instead! What could be better?

What could be better? How about family vacations?

Who doesn’t love a scraped-up minivan with a busted air conditioner?  Well, we don’t, for example. But when you have to make twice daily round-trips to the ballet studio, a buck eighty-seven for gas is pretty nice. You know, considering.

Rat traps. (Don’t ask.)

Almost forgot: Luke moved into the dorms at UCLA. Now Seth doesn’t have to share a room and instead can devote precious real estate to the 140-or-so stuffed animals with which he shares his bed. Which doesn’t explain why he continues to squeeze his scrawny nine-year-old frame into the narrow patch not covered by his velveteen menagerie, but at least he now has options.

Then there’s the President-elect. Seems like we ought to say something about him since he got Dana to work the phones and Bryn to wear his shirts and even Seth to stick stuff on his bedroom wall. Luke even worked the polls this year (twice, though he hastens to point out that it was a non-partisan endeavor). Now if we could just get that annoying bumper sticker off of the scraped-up minivan, Peter would be happy too.

There’s other stuff as well. Like a job, for instance. In this environment, that’s a pretty great thing. Food on the table, even if it isn’t served buffet-style as in the dorms. Oh, and Jason Mraz (Bryn wants him in here too). Teachers. Coaches. Friends. Microwave ovens (when you get home from ballet every night at nine, that’s pretty important). Yoga. Belts. Laptops. iPods (unless you put them through the washer). Chocolate (dark especially). Books. Rain (yeah, right). Sports. The Maple Conservatory of Dance. And of course family. Dysfunctional though it may be, it’s the most precious thing of all. You know, considering.

PW