State of the Me: 2019-2020

Since this new year is a nice, round number -- and I'm hitting 20 years of marriage and 20 years of living in Europe at the end of this new year -- I'd like to give a two-decade review this time.

The three main axes are home/family, career, and creative projects.  All three have had some significant ups and downs.

Let's start with career since that's the simplest one.  It's been a mostly upward (if bumpy) trend since I started as a software engineer around twenty years ago.  Overall I think I've done a pretty good job o treating setbacks as "crisitunities" that ultimately led to gaining good experience. 

Some highlights include the time I had the opportunity to take a product from slides to production as the sole engineer in the company, and another where I served as CTO for more than two years.  Plus, I've written three books on Java programming and have given numerous lectures.

From this past year, I'm especially proud of the three lectures I gave for Climate-KIC the Journey -- including one where I was invited to speak at the Community Summit in Hamburg.  This was a great follow-up to the Climathon in 2018, where I had a great time assisting as an invited expert.  I also gave a talk on building a career through startups (at the Impact Hub).  This was a follow-up to some of my earlier writings for The Startup.

I have just started a new job, and so far it looks like it's going to be an exciting challenge.  I'm doing straight-up engineering (no management), and the project is one that's up my alley.  Of course leaving my previous job was something of a disappointment.  I really wanted to make it work, but I learned that -- while I can fix a lot of things -- there are some big factors outside of my control, even as CTO.  Ultimately, I had stop banging my head against the wall and move on.

Maybe at some point I'll be CTO of another tech startup (hopefully something related to addressing climate change!), but I will have to make sure that I'm really on the same page with the others running the company before accepting this level of role again.  I have learned that agreeing on the grand overarching goal just isn't enough to make all of the other components fit into place.

The path of my creative projects has been a bit bumpier.  Through the first decade of the current millennium I built a beautiful dream -- a work I poured my heart into and am still proud of.  But over the years I found that I couldn't make it take off.  I couldn't get it to soar.  It was devastating to watch that dream die.

I took up blogging around the same time.  It was amazingly fun at first because I could write essays on a variety of subjects that I'd been thinking about -- and people would read them.  But over time that became frustrating as well because the amount of time and effort it took to build any kind of audience and community (here and at Main Street Plaza) was so wildly out-of-proportion with the size of the community I could build.  I've found myself slowly giving up.

That said, I've had a great experience working with people and making friends within the Mormon Lit community.  I loved giving talks and panels at Sunstone.  (See this roundup post for links to some of my publications and presentations.)  The Brodie Awards (which I built) are still going, and there's an exciting new project in the pipeline at Mormon Alumni Association Books -- so hopefully in the upcoming year I can rekindle some of the projects I started.

But for my personal creative/artistic work, my biggest breakthrough came in 2015 when a new story came to me.  During a magical 3-week vacation in Paris I wrote wrote it out and figured out how I could actually draw it in my favorite story format :  la bande dessinée (as a comic book).  Now I've drawn more than 2/3 of the first book (of three), and I love the results!  I'd be done already if it weren't for work.  My new goal is to have book one done before the first half of 2020 is up.

Regarding family and home -- well, I'm happy with what I've built.

I started the millennium on a high note by marrying my true love and starting my new "happily ever after" life in France.  (I recounted act one of this romantic adventure in an essay for the book Baring Witness, 36 Mormon Women Talk Candidly about Love, Sex, and Marriage.) 

It was challenging to start a new life in a new country at the same time as starting a new family -- with two babies who arrived shortly after we installed ourselves in Bordeaux -- and no support network of family and friends there to help us out.  But it was a wonderful, magical time.  I finally felt truly at home living the life I chose for myself.

Moving to Switzerland in early 2008 was hard.  I think that challenge was the main impetus for starting this "state of the me" series, as I explored how I felt about starting over as a foreigner in a new place surrounded by a language I did not speak -- it was as though all of that life I'd built as a person integrated into French culture had been erased.

But, over time, I learned the new language.  I've learned a new city -- Zürich -- which I love now probably as much as I loved Bordeaux.  I became a citizen of France years ago, and we're all on track to become citizens of Switzerland.

My children were so young when we moved that they don't really remember living anywhere except for Zürich -- specifically this one neighborhood of Zürich where we've been living since 2010.  It's a great environment for kids, teens, and young adults because it's so easy to get around on foot, on bike, and especially on public transportation.

I'm glad that my older son passed the Baccalauréat exam this past year and my younger son is on track to pass it as well in a couple of years.  Both boys are very bright, so I had expected them to both be at the top of their respective classes throughout school, but that didn't really happen.  Maybe I should have pushed them harder and run a more disciplined household. 

I think what really stopped them from becoming high-achievers in academics was lack of effort (and lack of motivation to make an effort).  And I think that problem stems in part from each one having a best friend at home and feeling secure and content.  They have all sorts of projects that they collaborate on, and they should be able to build careers in some sort of informatics engineering, so I think they're doing fine the way they are.

My relationship with my husband has grown deeper and more loving over the years.  He is my best friend in the sense that he is the one person I can completely count on to have my best interests at heart -- and vice-versa.  I think that's key to a successful relationship -- each partner cares deeply about the other's happiness and well-being.  Partners, not competitors.

The one home-front area that needs some work at the moment is our home itself.  It's a beautiful apartment that fits our lifestyle well, but the clutter is starting to take over.  One of my goals for the next couple of years will be to sift through all of our junk in the basement storage and in the apartment.  I want to get rid of everything we don't need and organize the rest.  I hate to devote so much of my time to piles of consumer goods, but they're starting to crowd my space, and I don't want to just throw them all in a landfill.

The first part of my organizing-stuff program was to get all of the Legos in order (see this video).  And I made a beautiful Lego city  which has been a super fun project to share with my kids:

Now I'd like to clean up the rest of my stuff.  In particular, I plan to sign up for some online portal to sell or give away anything that's not useful to me but might be useful to someone else.

As for the world at large, it's hard to be really optimistic or hopeful.  The devastation we humans are wreaking upon our environment (that we need to survive) isn't slowing down, yet it needs to turn around and reverse immediately if or species is to survive past the next few generations.

On the bright side, it's encouraging to see worldwide climate strikes -- led by young people who aren't OK with the future that's being passed along to them.  And it's good to see that US democracy has enough breath of life left in it to impeach that criminal.  But US democracy is still on life support and it's not clear it will pull through.  We need to wrench out this kleptocracy and rebuild the civil, democratic institutions and social infrastructure if we are to make the changes necessary to save our world.  Specifically we need to stop the use of fossil fuels pronto, in addition to addressing the related problems of worldwide exploitation of people and resources, and the corresponding wars.  Can we build sustainable, just, and democratic systems to replace our current mess?  I hope so.

I hope Elizabeth Warren will win the US presidency, as I think she really has the skill, passion, and knowledge to take down the current stranglehold that the ultra-rich have on American society.

And I guess my biggest source of hope is the rising generation (from millennials on).  It looks like they recognize the kind of mess we're in, and I hope they are becoming galvanized -- learning down to their cores how dangerous authoritarianism, corruption, and runaway inequality really are.

Here's looking forward to 2020 -- good luck to us all!

Mid-year goals!!

This is a tale of "be careful what you wish for" -- one that I hope can be turned into a plan for making those wishes come true.

I've told everyone the setup to this tale about a million times, but in case you missed it, let me get you up to speed:

A few years ago I got the impression that my career was stagnating. I took a look at my experience and skill set and determined that the job I'm most qualified for is CTO of a tech startup. (Check out this article I wrote for The Startup with some of my insights on the subject.) And so I took a risk, worked my butt off at a new company, and now I find I have succeeded in becoming the highly-valued CTO of a tech startup! One that is actively fighting climate change -- another of my big goals!!

But... The problem is that while growing my career was an important goal -- it's not my only goal or dream. Working full-time-plus kind of crowds out everything else, and I'm left with this constant background of stress of wondering when I'll have time to pick up this or that project again.

Being undervalued, on the one hand, was enraging and depressing -- but on the other, there's something to be said for being in a dead-end job where you're overqualified enough to just phone it in (and where you only have to work three days per week). I sure had the time and energy to get a heckuvalot else done, and I miss that... :(

It looks like I am on track to get my IT department into a state where I can reduce my hours to 80% -- or ideally even 60% -- in the beginning of 2019. That's great, but it means another almost six months of postponing all of the other junk I want to do. So, I was thinking that -- maybe if I outline it all here -- I might get some of it done on evenings and weekends...? Also note, I'm currently taking off Fridays for the Summer in order to make some progress on drawing my comic book, and I am really, really hoping to finish at least the dining hall scenes before this vacation time is up.

So, aside from my comic book (which is dream/goal #1, always), here are the other things I would like to have time to do, organized into categories:

2. Organize my apartment

This perhaps shouldn't be #2, but it is. I hate the feeling of being slowly buried in clutter, and I don't want to just throw stuff out. I want to go down to my basement, donate or give away online everything that is usable (but not by me), and hence free up a bunch of space down there.

Then, I have this dream of constructing my own "Ikea-hack" Lego table (which I have designed in my mind) so that I can free up a huge amount of floor and shelf space in Nico's office (a.k.a. the guest room), and have a beautiful place to sort the whole Lego collection -- and build an awesome city! (I would love to do some of this stuff again!)

I'm thinking I might be able to get the table constructed during Christmas break if everything works out. Then, naturally, I'll be in a position to organize/donate the rest of the clutter, and for a brief moment, I will live in a blissfully clutter-free home.

3. Articles, conferences, and MAA Books!

Here's what I would like to do:

• Promote MAA Books in general, and Donna's awesome book in particular -- It would be really great to be able to get enough reviews and listings for this book so that we could realistically start working on finding, editing, and promoting our next book.
• Stoke up the fires of Main Street Plaza -- unfortunately I don't seem to even be able to keep Sunday in Outer Blogness alive. :( Fortunately, Donna has helped recruit another author, but in my fantasy universe we would have a collection of people writing regularly (and be able to pay them...).
• Write a couple of more articles for The Startup. I have the drafts ready, it's just a question of focusing and doing it.
• Give a lecture on startups in a tech lecture series (this is in the works).
• Help organize a Mormon Stories Workshop in Switzerland. This one actually has a deadline (plus I'm not the primary responsible), so it looks like it's really going to happen.
• Write more articles for this blog. It's not that I think I'll ever have a non-trivial readership here -- it's that I really enjoyed having this sounding-board for my ideas here in the past. After a while I got to the point where I'd written about all the subjects I was really burning to write about, so I stopped. But now it's been long enough that I have a backlog of topics again, and I'm just having trouble getting started.

There are a couple of additional things standing in my way from getting this sort of stuff done. For some reason I can't seem to start writing a simple blog post without many hours of psyching myself up to do it. Not sure why. Even on a topic that I've been churning over in my head and constructing arguments and phasing for weeks or years -- sitting down and composing it is daunting.

Additionally, I haven't been reading books regularly for the past couple of years because I used to read in the tram -- and that time has of late been almost entirely eaten up by Pokémon Go. On one level, I feel like this is a shameful waste, but I can't dismiss it as entirely wasted time.

Pokémon Go has two big advantages for me: (1) it is very Zen -- it allows me to relax and shake off all of the stress while I'm commuting to and from my stressful job, and (2) I am -- really for the first time -- regularly socializing with actual Swiss people. Not just people like me -- international, third-culture folks, mathies and techies -- but really random people of all walks of life who live in Zürich.

Actually, not everybody who plays is Swiss -- Pokémon Go seems to cut across all categories, immigrants from all countries, locals, tattooed youths, bankers and finance guys in their suits, moms & dads with kids, moms who don't bother to bring their kids (like me), old, young, guys, gals, you name it! And to do it right, you really have to make an effort to meet people and make friends. This has meant stepping outside of my comfort zone in a major way and growing my perspective, so I can't really beat myself up for obsessing over whether I managed to catch this or that shiny pokémon, etc.

4. Other stuff that should be on the list

Here's the grab bag of stuff I would love to do if I had an infinite amount of free time:

• More projects with my kids. I would like to do some of the Kangaroo math challenges with Léo, and help them both to create more image and music assets for the video games they're developing,
• Political activism. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm one of those people that is watching the news, aghast at what is currently going on, and saying, "Wow, I hope somebody (else) does something about this!!!!" I did register to vote (I can legally vote in the US and France), so I guess that's better than nothing.
• My own podcast -- yeah, that's a fantasy, but maybe someday if our species lasts a few more decades.
• Figure out more recipes for the herbs in my balcony garden. That said, I think my garden has been a bit of a success story. I tend it a bit and it produces more foods that I would expect from a balcony.

I was going to include a list of the blog entries I'm hoping to write -- to see if there's interest -- but let's leave it at this. And we'll see how much I can get done!!

Awards Time!!!

As you probably know, one of my main blogging activities is the weekly link roundup Sunday in Outer Blogness over at Main Street Plaza. Plus, for four years we've been hosting two yearly awards: the William Law X-Mormon of the Year Award and the Brodie Awards!!

David Twede won the 2012 X-Mormon of the Year contest, and recently stopped by to thank us for the award.

Naturally, this means that of the four winners so far, the only one who didn't post thanks/acceptance/acknowledgement of the award is last year's winner Joanna Brooks. Ironically, of the four winners, she's the only one I happen to know personally since we were on the Student Review together in our BYU days. I guess she just never forgave me for all those arguments I won. J/K ;)

Anyway, the Brodie Awards -- for excellence in LDS-interest online arts -- are currently in the voting phase!!! Check 'em out, and have a look at some of 2012's best posts, images, songs, and more -- and vote for your favorites!!

We have a really great batch of entries this year. One particular highlight this year (as I mentioned on MSP) was that there were a number of stories that broke and/or were best reported in blogspace, so the "News Reporting" and "Church Watch" are categories to watch.

Another amusing highlight is that an article from the Ensign is in the running for a Brodie this year in the "Interfaith Interaction" category -- and not as a joke. It has a real shot at winning. (Note for non-Mormons: the Ensign is the official magazine that the CoJCoL-dS uses to give spiritual messages to members, and is almost treated as Mormon scripture, as discussed here.)

I can't wait to see who wins!!

Nerd-hobby time again!!!

So, I've been busy with my nerd-hobbies again!!

My kids (especially Leo) and some of their friends from school love playing Minecraft together, so I thought it would be fun if they could play together online across the Internet. Plus, I thought it would be fun for them to play online with their cousins across the ocean. So I set up a Minecraft server for them on the Internet!!

I figured that I might as well make a second server (for my blog friends, see here) since setting up two minecraft servers is as easy as one...

The funny thing is that setting up the server was almost as much fun as playing!! (I wrote about it on my professional blog.) I signed up with linode, and (I'm not being paid to say this) I totally recommend them -- their service is great!

For my work, I have to maintain some server applications running on some Linux machines, and it's fun to have my own little (virtual) Linux machine out there in the cloud that I can run hobby stuff on! Soon I will figure out how to migrate the Main Street Plaza blog to it.

And -- in case that isn't nerdy enough -- here's another episode of my Star Trek parody series!! This is one of my very favorite episodes, even though I'm hardly in it. It's the one where my little sister plays a child-genius who invents a new life form, which, naturally, escapes and wreaks havoc...

The only thing worse than people talking about you is people not talking about you...

My mom used to say that anyway -- and that's the attitude I'm taking towards some news I discovered the other day. Apparently there's a new journal of Mormon Apologetics, and they devoted some space in their inaugural issue to calling my blogs "childish rubbish" and "bit raunchy and as lacking intellectual content."

Hard to believe they bother to publish claims like that about little ol' me? Well, you can read all about it on my latest Main Street Plaza post.

And -- for those of you who aren't interested in such frivolity -- I uploaded another episode of the Star Trek series I starred in!!! This is a funny one involving a Tholian plot to steal my pet hamster:

Vote (for me!) in the 2011 Brodies!!

We have a huge number of fantastic nominees to vote for in this year's Brodie awards!! I'd like to call attention to my two entries (since I'm quite pleased with them, and I don't want them to be totally buried among all the other excellent choices):

What is Faith? This is a discussion I wrote to try to pin down what people mean when they talk about faith, and especially what they mean when they talk about believing something "on faith." I became curious about this question when I noticed misunderstandings over the word. People assumed that since they were all using this same word "faith" that they must be talking about the same thing -- when in reality the different speakers were talking about very different concepts. Naturally, this is a bit of a follow-up to my earlier piece It takes a lot of faith to believe that!!!. (running for Best Philosophical/Theological Discussion)

Building on a Religious Background is an essay I wrote for the October / November 2011 issue of Free Inquiry (the magazine of the Council for Secular Humanism). It's about how non-believers who were raised in a religion have a unique opportunity to foster cross-belief dialog. (running for Best Discussion of Mormon (or former-Mormon) Community)

New book reviews and Mormon Lit news!

I just reviewed to great new memoirs for Main Street Plaza: John K. Williams' tales of serving a mission in Bolivia Heaven Up Here and Ingrid Ricks' amazing adventures in a highly unusual (and-not-entirely-in-a-good-way) Mormon family Hippie Boy.

Also note: Johnny Townsend is planning a project that sounds really fantastic:

I am accepting short stories dealing with unconventional Mormons for an anthology to be called “Marginal Mormons.” The stories should be 25 pages or shorter, though length will not necessarily disqualify a submission. Payment will be $20 and one copy of the book, in exchange for perpetual, non-exclusive rights. The stories may be original or previously published, as long as you currently retain the rights. I am not particularly impressed with faith-promoting stories, but I am also not looking to attack the Church. I simply want stories that show unconventional Mormons or new interpretations of doctrine or history. The story does not need to be disturbing but should certainly be thought-provoking.

Please email any stories in the body of the email, but also include them as an attachment. Send to johnnyjohnnyt at yahoo dot com.

"That's so Mormon"...? Dan, no!

If homophobic teachings by church leaders are to blame for anti-gay bullying, should people respond by giving Mormons a taste of their own medicine? Dan Savage OK's it, but I say no in my latest piece on Main Street Plaza!

See also my posts on bullying.

My Mormon Media Watch!

So often the PR wing of the CoJCoL-dS complains that media coverage of Mormonism is full of misleading and confusing half-truths. My suggestion (in general) is that they could combat this problem more effectively by providing accurate information -- rather than simply attempting to get outsiders to repeat the church's preferred misleading half-truths.

Has there been any progress? See my latest Main Street Plaza article: Mythbusting, Mormon-Style!

What is faith?

It's a surprisingly tricky question!

We were having a discussion about religion at Main Street Plaza (so what else is new?), and I noticed that different people were using very different definitions of the word "faith"!

I've found that a lot of unnecessary confusion and misunderstanding can result from assuming that everyone is using a word to mean the same thing when they're not. So I wrote a new post: What is Faith? to help each person clarify which definition(s) they're using -- with a fun list of twenty statements that may or may not be "faith"!

The answer sets we've gotten so far show a surprising variety in what people would call "faith". Try it yourself -- but be sure to write out your own answers before reading other people's.

I'm not claiming that one set of responses is necessarily right -- I'm just curious to see the range of opinions! :D

See also my earlier post on the definition of faith: It takes a lot of faith to believe that!!!

SAHMs: Who's got your back?

Over on Main Street Plaza I've just posted SAHMs: Who's got your back?

(It is the latest instalment in my series on Feminism and women's conflicting interests.)

Insights on Mormon culture, thanks to "God's favorite musical"!

I haven't seen "The Book of Mormon" yet, but you can hear the songs online, and people have already started discussing them on Main Street Plaza.

When the reviews of the musical first started appearing, I remember there was a lot of focus on whether they got the doctrinal details right (Is Kolob a planet or a star? Does God really live there? etc.). But it appears that what they really got right is unique character of Mormonism — what it’s like to be Mormon! (And, really, placing less importance on the precisions of doctrines like Kolob and more importance on Mormon practice and attitude is, itself, quite accurate.)

If you have an opinion on any or all of the songs, please vote in our poll and tell us about it. Here's my favorite (followed by what I wrote about it):



A lot of the songs had me going “Wow, fantastic! And so true!” But it was listening to “You and Me (But Mostly Me)” that made my whole youth and childhood pass before my eyes. Standing there, happy to supportively sing “my best friend…” while somebody Awesome! sings his heart out about serving God. And it didn’t hurt that the song kind of reminds me of ’80′s pop, and of “Humble Way” from God’s second-favorite musical:



This same missionary scenario — including the leader/subordinate relationship, and the fact that it’s cute that they’re not really humble about their awesome task — is exactly what the song “Humble Way” was about. “You and Me (But Mostly Me)” is what “Humble Way” wanted to be (if it had been totally brilliant).

I completely agree with Holly’s assessment that this would be perfect sung as a duet between a young LDS guy and his fiancee. I don’t think that’s reading anything into it that’s not there. Hierarchy colors so much about Mormon interpersonal relationships. And the (officially unequal) partnership between missionaries sets the model for marriage.

One point that is pure genius is the fact that their unequal relationship isn’t quite the central focus of the song. The leader’s earnest desire to do something great for mankind and God is as central (if not moreso). And the fact it’s tied in with his own ego is winked at.

You can see this symbolized in the Mormon temple endowment ceremony (which I haven’t been through, but I’ve heard about it). The fact that the wife covenants to obey her husband is OK because the husband is making a covenant with God. If you complain (or do anything other than stand beside him being supportive), then you’re the buzzing fly that’s detracting from a man and his important business between him and God!

I can’t imagine any song could more perfectly capture what Mormon patriarchy feels like.

And I can't wait to see the whole musical!!

Spring Break in Italy!

We just got back from lovely Lago Maggiore!! Now, I know we've already been to Lago Maggiore, but the way I see it, you can never have too much Lago Maggiore.

Some amusing stuff happened that I'll post about in the next couple of days. But for the moment I'm easing slowly back into the Internet. Since the trip was just four days chrono, I figured I'd make it just make it a relaxing vacation-from-Internet. (I love the Internet, but sometimes we take separate vacations.) I even got up at five on Easter Sunday to be sure to have time to finish my Sunday in Outer Blogness column and make a picnic lunch for my family to eat on the train. It wasn't necessary, BTW, we were ready a full hour before we needed to be -- but better safe than sorry!

Helpful fly-by critics

One amusing thing about Main Street Plaza it the number of fly-by critics we get. By "fly-by" critics, I don't mean people who are intentionally trolling. I mean people who take one look at the site and are incensed -- incensed! -- that non-believers would be discussing Mormonism. We get so many of them that that's our one FAQ.

For a while, I assumed that this is simply because Mormons are taught in church that "apostates" are bitter and hateful. Hence -- if Mormons see any "apostates" on the Internet -- they sometimes post a "Why are you so mean and bitter?" comment without making any attempt to determine whether that criticism applies. I imagined that -- if it weren't for prejudice against former-believers -- they'd have the common courtesy to read the welcome page before criticizing.

The more I thought about it, though, (over the years, as these fly-bys have flown by), the more I asked myself: Is this supposed 'common courtesy' really so common? Do people really read the welcome page and FAQ on other types of sites before posting comments like "I can't believe you people are wasting your time discussing this topic!"

I certainly got my share of that in my few posts on the Hathor Legacy (eg. helpful fly-by: "Why are you wasting your time analyzing a kids' movie? It's just a movie!" me: "Um, because I find the topic interesting. If you don't, then I agree that one of us is wasting time by participating in this discussion. But it's not me.")

Then I thought: Maybe these helpful fly-bys only appear on blogs about touchy topics like feminism or religion -- topics where some people feel threatened by the mere existence of discussions they disagree with. Maybe blogs on topics that really are frivolous [royal wedding watchers, Edward Cullen's hair-care tips] don't get as many "This site is so stoopid, you all need to get a life!" comments.

But what do I know? I'm starting to think that all websites get these. My kids have been watching some (rather ridiculous) YouTube videos reviewing various Lego sets. And even there, one of them spent a good three minutes complaining about all of the negative comments. His advice? "If you don't like these videos, don't watch them." Makes sense to me.

The thing is that the Internet is full of people discussing every topic you could possibly imagine (and plenty of other topics that you would never have thought of in a million years). There are so many interesting discussions to read -- plus an uncountable number of discussions that you personally won't find interesting (but someone else, apparently, does find interesting). That's what I find perplexing. Given the infinite selection and finite amount of time -- why take the time to read the ones you find uninteresting and post comments telling them how uninteresting you find them?

But that what I love about the Internet -- you're exposed to so many new mysteries of human nature to contemplate!! My personal motto is a variant of a famous quote by Spinoza: "I strive not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them."

Vote (for me) in the 2010 Brodies!!!

It's that time of year again! Time to showcase the best LDS-interest stuff posted to the Internet in the past year!! And vote for which ones deserve awards as the very best!

Several of my posts are in the running. Please vote for me -- unless, of course, you think someone else's post in the same category is better. ;^) There's some pretty stiff competition!

• for Best Interfaith Interaction: Our Heavenly Nico!


• for Best Philosophical/Religious Discussion: Faith vs. Bias


• for Most Interesting Commentary on Mormonism: Survival of the Fittest: Mormon Style!


• for Best Gender Issues Discussion: Career women vs. SAHMs round II: There Can Be Only One True Choice!


• for Best Book Review: The Church of the For-Profit Corporation: Daymon Smith's "The Book of Mammon"


• for Best Book Review: Steven H. Lee's "Falling into Life: A Gay Exmormon's Journey"

Plus, I was nominated for "Best Bridge Building" (overall). We'll see if I can beat John Dehlin -- he's a lot more famous than I am. ;)

Whether I win or not, though, I'm thrilled to see how many people are excited about these awards!! This is only the second year we've been holding Brodie Awards at Main Street Plaza, and I'm glad to see that people are having fun with them! :D

2011 State of the Me Address

You may recall from last year that I'd isolated three main categories of goals where I need to put in some effort: (1) career, (2) German, and (3) arts (writing/blogging).

So, how have I done?

1. Career -- on track. As usual, this is a point where it's not appropriate to post too many details to the Internet, but I'll just say I had some specific goals in mind about the direction I'd like to see my career heading, and where I'm at right now is (if anything) better than what I was hoping for.

2. German -- on track. I'm at the point where I can carry on more-or-less reasonable conversation with a very patient German-speaker. I'm about halfway through my intensive German class (two afternoons per week), and I'm enjoying it immensely. And I'm planning to spend my vacation this Summer on a really, really intensive German class/immersion in either Germany or Austria.

3. arts (writing/blogging) -- pretty much totally dropped the ball.

I had a number of different creative projects I wanted to work on this past year, and I got very close to zero work done on any of them. I haven't given up on them. Rather, as Jen Hancock (and Madonna) explained:

So NARAS asked her, how do you keep all those balls in the air? She said she didn’t. She just makes sure to remember where she drops them so that when she has the time she can pick them up again.

Even though lots of amusing stuff happened to me and my family -- which I could have written about -- I didn't even bother to keep my blog updated regularly! At least I updated my masthead so y'all would know I'm not dead...

The trouble is that I have more than twice as much stuff I'd like to do than I have time in a day to do it. I used to write a lot of blog posts in a little notebook while I was commuting on the bus or tram, and now that time has been taken over by German homework. (Well, let's be honest -- for a stretch of several months in there, I developed a rather unfortunate Sudoku habit that also ate up quite a lot of otherwise-potentially-productive commuting time.)

The one exception -- the project that I'm very proud of -- is how well things have been going at Main Street Plaza. For years I've been gathering all of the former-Mormon blogs into a common list (Outer Blogness) and encouraging community discussion by highlighting new blogs and interesting posts in my weekly column Sunday in Outer Blogness. But it was hard for MSP to really get a foothold as a central gathering place because we didn't have enough news and other content to keep people coming back. Then Chino Blanco signed on and changed that. And in the past year MSP has really taken off, from having a small-but-loyal readership to being one of the Internet's most popular blogs on the topic of Mormonism. And the success builds on itself: the more popular MSP becomes, the more people are willing to contribute interesting guest-posts!

Naturally, the blog that's doing well is the one that gets all of my Internet time lavished on it. Usually, I feel like I'm hardly doing anything substantial over at MSP, but it is amazing how time-consuming it is just to read everyone's blogs every week and look for ways to weave the different discussions together.

Another goal that wasn't on my official list -- but that I did a good job on -- was to spend more time with real-life (non-Internet) friends and with my kids. As far as the kids are concerned, I'm a huge believer in undirected, free, imaginative play. However, it's possible to go overboard on that. I like to set aside a certain amount of time to read to them, and to just sit down and play some of the things they're interested in with them. Especially now that they're getting to be old enough to build some really cool, complicated stuff out of Legos!

So, my goals for the comping year are (1) to keep going on the items that are on track (German, career, family, friends, MSP), (2) pick up some of the balls of creative projects I've dropped, and (3) Put some more effort into "thinking globally, acting locally" regarding the environment, charity, etc.

Another good question about exmos?

Why are so many young people leaving the church these days? At first it seems like a simple question, but if you think about it, it's not. the question started on the LDS blogs, but they didn't have the stomach to see it through to the end, so, naturally, we've picked up the slack at Main Street Plaza. :D

Yay!! I won a Brodie!

So now I can display this impressive graphic on my blog:



I know it's a bit of a dubious honor considering that I gathered and sorted the nominations and ran the polls. And in spite of that, none of my posts managed to win... (I got an award for community building.)

Oh, well. You can go congratulate the other winners. :D

Vote in the 2009 Brodies!!

If you're following Main Street Plaza, you probably already know that author Walter Kirn won 2009 William Law X-Mormon of the year, and that he has publicly accepted the award.

Now we're following up with another series of awards -- the Brodies -- for X-Mormon online excellence!! You can vote for excellent posts, sites, and people in twenty-two different categories.

And, on a totally unrelated note, look at this drawing my 6-year-old Leo made in Tux Paint:


"Origami", by Leo

The Day I Sang about the “Latter-Day Glory” with the C of C and with the Polygamists

I finally got around to telling the tale of the time I visited a Mormon Fundamentalist (polygamist) church service this past Summer!! It's up on Main Street Plaza, have a look: The Day I Sang about the “Latter-Day Glory” with the C of C and with the Polygamists.