Another Borders Bargain

I saw this at the aforementioned Borders clearance sale for $3 in the Biography/Memoir seciton. So I had to get it - you know, because "Mormon" was in the title.

For starters, it's not about a regional singles Halloween dance at all - that's just one of the many settings in the book. It's the tale of a young, single, Mormon girl living in New York City who is trying to figure out her life. She has no apparent claim to fame, at least not until the book was published. Just your typical twentysomething Mormon writing a memoir.

One thing I find interesting is that whenever a member of the Church is mentioned in the media, they are almost always described as a "devout Mormon". If I were famous, would I be called devout?

I don't think that Elna Baker should be described as devout, but what do I know? I only read the book. She seems to have a testimony of the gospel, but is also enticed by the adventure and excitement offered by some of the other avenues in life. I gave her some benefit of the doubt, because she notes that she spent part of her childhood living in the Sumner/Bonney Lake area of Washington. Although we never crossed paths, I served four months of my mission there, so we did have at least one thing in common, in addition to being members of the church.

I think there should be more books like this one - real Mormons writing about their faith and their perspective on things. I don't want to read about what you've researched or what you think you know that is going to change my life. Just tell me about you. That's what I liked about this book.

It takes a certain amount of courage to write such a book - Ms. Baker deserves points for being open and honest about her life and her thoughts on the tenets of her religion. I think most Mormons probably have certain aspects of the church that they haven't quite reconciled. Which is totally fine, because that's what this life is all about. But I think most people prefer to keep their doubts and weaknesses to themselves, because who wants the rest of the ward looking at you with a wary eye? She pretty much just goes for it - putting it all out there for anyone she's ever known to read.

I appreciate that she doesn't seem to blame the church for her difficulties. A path that has been traveled before is, "I have a hard time living x principle or believing y doctrine, so check ya later. It's not true." She seemed to acknowledge that it was the right way to go but wasn't sure if she wanted it for herself.

I don't know if this paragraph counts as a spoiler, but if it does, you've been forewarned. You're kind of hoping that by the end of the book she figures it out. But she doesn't. Even finally finding an acceptable Mormon guy who is interested in her doesn't do the trick. There's no triumph of faith. There's no white wedding. By the end of the book, she's still indecisive and seems to be leaning the other way.

The book was not exactly written for the LDS reader. There's a fair amount of profanity, and yes, she does spell out all the f-words. A lot of making out and "playing with matches" takes place.

I will say that it did inspire me to write a memoir. Certainly there are things that happened in my life that are at least as notable as what Ms. Baker has going on.

If only I had the time. . .

Curse of the Second Round

You have to love the NFL draft. My favorite part is when the experts say - hey, you can't evaluate how a team did in a particular draft for three or four years. And then everyone proceeds to grade and evaluate every team's draft anyways.

I guess I'm happy enough with what the Broncos did in the 2011 draft. I'm pleased that they didn't draft any quarterbacks, running backs, or wide receivers. Also that they didn't do a bunch of stupid wacky trades a la Josh McD.

Hopefully they picked up a future Pro Bowler in Von Miller with the #2 pick. It's a pretty safe bet that he will be at least decent.

But I think the success of this draft will hinge on how their back-to-back picks in the second round turn out - safety Rahim Moore and offensive lineman Orlando Franklin. If they spent the better part of the next decade in a Bronco uniform, then this draft will probably get an A. If they don't, then the Broncos had better hope one of their late-round picks turns out to be another Shannon Sharpe or Karl Mecklenburg.

I've harped on how crappy the Broncos have done in the draft in recent years - a lot of this is due to how they've picked in the second round.

I did a quick review of the 27 second-round picks the Broncos have made in the past 25 years (1986-2010). Here's the roll call:

Gerald Perry (1988)
Doug Widell (1989)
Warren Powers (1989)
Alton Montgomery (1990)
Reggie Johnson (1991)
Shane Dronett (1992)
Glyn Milburn (1993)
Allen Alridge (1994)
Tory James (1996)
Eric Brown (1998)
Montae Reagor (1999)
Lennie Friedman (1999)
Ian Gold (2000)
Kenoy Kennedy (2000)
Paul Toviessi (2001)
Clinton Portis (2002)
Terry Pierce (2003)
Tatum Bell (2004)
Darius Watts (2004)
Darrent Williams (2005)
Tony Scheffler (2006)
Tim Crowder (2007)
Eddie Royal (2008)
Alphonso Smith (2009)
Darcel McBath (2009)
Richard Quinn (2009)
Zane Beadles (2010)

Not a single Hall of Famer on the list, and only three Pro Bowls: Ian Gold, Glyn Milburn, and Clinton Portis earned one appearance each.

Only four are still with the team: Eddie Royal, Darcel McBath, Richard Quinn, and Zane Beadles. And so far the greatest contribution any of them have made to Denver may very well be Eddie Royal's Taco Bell commercial.

Only two players on this list spent more than four years in a Bronco uniform. Ironically, they were both selected in the same draft. Ian Gold played 7 years in Denver and Kenoy Kennedy played 5 years.

The best second-round pick of the last quarter-century came in 2002, when they selected Clinton Portis, who had two sensational years in Denver before he was traded to Washington for Champ Bailey. So I suppose it could be argued that the Broncos did get a Hall of Famer for their second-round pick in that instance.

The Broncos did okay in the second round in the 1990s, picking up guys like Shane Dronett, Allen Alridge, and Lennie Friedman, who did okay.

But in the last 10 years they've blown second round picks on guys who were total busts: Paul Toviessi, Terry Pierce, Darius Watts, and Tim Crowder.

Darrent Williams looked like a good second-round pick - up until the night he was murdered.

Tatum Bell and Tony Scheffler were good players, but for whatever reason team management did not seem to want them.

Possibly the worst, though, came in 2009 when Josh McD traded a first-round pick in order to select Alphonso Smith in the second round. And then traded him for a bag of clean towels a year later.

So I'm hoping with this new Broncos regime that they can get back to drafting the second round like they did in the 1980s, when they picked up guys like Rulon Jones, Vance Johnson, and Simon Fletcher.

Not a Good Book

Are you an aspiring author who lacks confidence that your manuscript can cut the mustard with a publisher?

Read Empty, by Suzanne Weyn.

And feel your confidence in your work become Full.

If this can get published, then surely you can!

I've always lived under the assumption that an author submits a manuscript and then the editor reads it and suggests revisions. I get the impression that in this case, they ran spell check and decided it was good to go.

Our local Borders went belly and so they had a several-weeks clearance sale. I usually never buy books unless I know exactly what I'm buying. But I couldn't resist picking up a few random titles at discount prices. This book looked intriguing sitting in the YA fiction section at 60% off. Maybe the fact that there were roughly 50 other available copies should have tipped me off that this was not a sought-after volume.

It's set about ten years in the future, and the citizens of the earth are coming to the realization that the world's oil supply is almost gone. I'm not really a huge environmentalist or anything, but it could make for an interesting enough story, right?

I think the author simply tried to accomplish too much in 250 pages. To really make her idea work, it probably needed to be a three book series. But she was probably worried that once they figured out she wasn't a fiction writer, they wouldn't publish a second or third book. So it all got crammed into one book.

It's told from the point of view of three teens in a New England town. There's Tom, your garden variety teen boy who's handsome, muscular, and sensitive. There's Niki, your stereotypical hottie cheerleader who has been spoiled by her parents. And there's Gwen, the Goth chick with black hair who lives on the edge and is a little bit ahead of the curve when it comes to smart energy. There's also a Hispanic kid who lives in a trailer. I forget his name - we'll call him Carlos for the purposes of this review.

In the book, oil prices are around $100 a gallon. A bunch of teens get in an all-out brawl because the rival school gets caught siphoning gas from their cars. Gwen's house burns down becasue her rebel brother is storing black market fuel in milk cartons. Niki's dad goes on a rampage and shatters an antique chair and throws it in the fire place because he can't get a job in the distressed economy. And then things get real bad when the superhurricane hits.

The book is basically green energy propaganda poorly disguised as fiction. It reads like a pamphlet with quotation marks and characters randomly inserted to make it seem like a story.

There's the romantic subplots. Carlos likes Gwen. Gwen likes Tom. Tom likes Niki. Niki likes herself. As the book progresses, Niki starts to like Tom but is worried that Tom might like Gwen. She also might still like her old boyfriend after the high oil prices mellow him out. Tom starts to like Gwen, but is worried that Carlos and Gwen have something going. Gwen likes Carlos, but only as a friend, and tells him as much. It's not really clear how that whole situation resolves itself, although we're led to believe that Tom and Gwen end up together. But the whole thing is so boring that you don't really care.

This book has continuity errors galore. And I'm a stickler for continuity. If you're too lazy to write your book so that it makes sense, why should I bother to listen to any of the ideas you put forth?

The good news is, you'll be glad to know that everything ends up just fine in the future after we run out of oil. So no worries!

NOTE: I skipped adding a spoiler alert, because you don't care. Trust me.

I've already given this book away to the YW garage sale, and some other sucka probably paid good money for it - or maybe they didn't and it's on a Goodwill shelf somewhere.

What's the Big Deal? #3

People get up in the night about the weirdest stuff.

We had this figured out at LJE back in 1983. I remember very clearly. We were served white milk every day. On Fridays, we could choose chocolate milk. You know, because it was Friday.

So, Boulder Valley School District, you don't need to outlaw chocolate milk. And no, suburban Los Angeles mother, you don't need to serve flavored milk every day so the kids will drink it. What's wrong with these people?

And to the parents who don't like it? I guess they can send in their own lunch with the child, or there is those water fountains over yonder.

Time to Get My Sap On

I can get a little sentimental, and I'm about to. So hold onto your butts.

So today is (was) Mother's Day. At church they always strive to drive home the point that it is a day to celebrate all women. I was sort of pondering upon that point - is there any merit to it, or is it just the PC thing to do? Not pondering in an insensitive jerk sort of way, but wondering what kind of case could be built.

While our thoughts rightly turn first to our own mothers and the mothers of our children, are those really the only mother figures we ever have in our lives? We also can extend this celebration of mothers to grandmothers and aunts. In most cases, those individuals are as close as you can get to the real thing.

But are there more than just our relatives?

As many young Mormon lads do, when I turned nineteen I left home to serve a two-year mission. One of the issues to deal with is that your own mother is essentially taken away from you for that two-year period. You're sent to a strange place where you've never been to live among people you don't know. You get a weekly letter in the mail and a phone call twice a year. That's pretty much it.

It was rough on me, as it is for a lot of young elders. Eventually, I adapted to the void, partially through passage of time and I believe partialy through many of the great sisters who lived in the wards within the Tacoma Washington area. Not that they had any sort of parental relationship with me - but my missionary companions and I were the beneficiaries of their motherly qualities. They did many of the things that a mother would do for her son - giving gifts, baking birthday cakes, preparing delicious meals, offering compliments, and welcoming us into their homes - not just as members of the church fulfilling an obligation, but as friends.

So reflecting on these ladies and their acts of kindness today - I guess you can say it got a little dusty in the chapel for a few seconds today. I haven't seen or talked to most of them in 15 years. At least one of them has passed away. It's a select group - I could count the specific sisters I was thinking of on my two hands and have a few fingers left. I guess I don't necessarily need to name them here, but I could if I wanted to. I won't ever forget them, and on Mother's Day 2011 I salute them for how they blessed my life.

And so, a woman can be a mother to anyone, even if only temporarily.