Fathers Day

We were out in Nevada in May to see my parents. There are many reasons to visit, but one is that there is always something to do associated with the garden and I enjoy the physical labor. The fresh vegetables are always excellent. Almost every evening we had a "stir-fry" of carrots,

onions (the onions were not completely mature, hence the water wash to remove the dirt),

and whatever other vegetables were available, including the last of this season's asparagus and the first red-skin potatoes. The fresh green beans we usually cooked separate--there were enough to package for sale which is what is going on in the next picture.

I am very thankful for good parents and wish to acknowledge their consistent example of excellence throughout the years. Since it is Fathers Day, I will particularly mention Dad's example in social, religious, and scientific endeavors. To focus on only one such thing, his doctoral research over 60 years ago in the area of plant growth hormones and growth regulation was truly ground breaking. During this last visit, I learned that he is still actively benefiting from the knowledge gained from this and his subsequent research. This came up when I asked Dad why he has the earliest maturing tomatoes in the entire valley. He shared with me his practice of putting the right mixture and levels of plant growth hormones (called auxins) on tomato blossoms to chemically induce fruit setting earlier than it would have happened naturally. The way you can tell is that the tomatoes mature without producing seeds. His knowledge concerning this comes directly from his research in the mid-1940's.

As a final note, I recently got a copy of Dad's Ph.D. dissertation, and in talking with the UMC archivist, was told that images of all the yearbooks were available on-line. He said that I might want to check and see if I could find a picture of my father. The following picture was the result:

I doubt my father knew that 60 years later he would still be applying the same principles he was discovering when this picture was taken to grow the earliest crop of tomatoes and the best vegetables in a desert valley of Nevada.

Pictures from the past

Suzanne recently posted about bicycles and I said I would look for pictures. Here is what I found. The picture in my mind's eye of everyone standing proudly in front of their shiny bikes did not turn up, but I did find pictures of Suzanne, Sam, & Joe, diligently polishing chrome:


Ever since Kathleen's pictures of Rebecca & Emily's robots, we might have been remembering this picture of Joe's robot. Actually, the sign next to it says, "E.T., The Extra Terrestrial", but it is very robot-like in any case.

Gallup 12

Earlier this year Pfizer had all of its employees respond to the "Gallup 12" questions. Actually, the way they were presented to us was not as questions--they had been re-cast as statements and we were supposed to rate how much we agreed with them. Gallup's research had shown a strong link between agreement with them and worker performance/engagement, which, in turn, was linked to business success. The statements were:

1. I know what is expected of me at work.
2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
6. There is there someone at work who encourages my development.
7. At work, my opinions seem to count.
8. The mission/purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.
9. My fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.
10. I have a best friend at work.
11. In the last six months, someone at work talked to me about my progress.
12. In the last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

There were some interesting things that were noted. For example, most people agreed strongly with #9, but not with #4, which would imply that we think our co-workers do well at their jobs but we don't tell them very often.

The leader of our unit of about 18 scientists (my manager) asked us which statements we thought were most important for our group, and #2, #3, and #12, won out. This led to me being appointed as the leader of a committee (composed of 1/3 of our group) that was supposed to examine one of the statements (we got #3--"At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.") and come up with a plan to deal with any issues around this.

The meeting I had with my committee was very interesting. We agreed that what we do best is science and solving science problems. The things that kept us from doing this had mostly to do with (1) increased paperwork requirements in the areas of recording research results in notebooks (believe it or not, although all of our research results reside on computers we still have to paste printouts into an analog notebook--an electronic notebook has been talked about for years but is still in the future, apparently mired in legal issues) , (2) inefficient software (brand new!) that has to be used to process and archive data into the company database, and (3) a goal-setting, personal development, and performance review process (also managed by some new software!) that is time-consuming and does little to guide or motivate. It is interesting how all of these had a common theme of IT and software.

One of the other things we decided that hindered us from doing science was being involved on committees and "focus groups"--the "#3" committee we were a part of being a prime example. For this reason, one of the bullet points on our action plan was to dissolve the committee so we could get back to science and what we do best.

My manager did not let us off the hook so easy.

Alma 17-18 Worksheet

If you will forgive me one more seminary remembrance, when we studied Alma chapters 17 and 18 (which includes the account of Ammon defending King Lamoni's flocks) I gave the students a worksheet which included the following questions. For your enlightenment, one of the student's responses are given in italics:

· Alma 17:2-3 What did the sons of Mosiah do to be spiritually prepared to teach the Lamanites?
They prayed.
· What resulted from this preparation? (see verses 3-4)
They could cut off people's arms.
· Alma 17:9 What else did they do?
They fasted.
· What resulted from this? (see verses 10-12)
They got hungry and could cut off people's arms.
· What can we learn from this about how we should prepare to share the gospel?
Pray and eat good food so you can cut off people's arms.
· Alma 17:7 What did the sons of Mosiah do to be physically prepared?
They lifted weights.
· How is this similar or different to the physical preparation missionaries make today?
They didn't have weights and had to lift sheep. Today, missionaries have weights to lift.
· When Ammon entered the land of Ishmael, what happened at first? (Alma 17:20-21)
He cut off everybody's arms.
· Read Alma 17:20–23. What was the first thing that impressed the king?
That Ammon cut off everybody's arms.
· Read Alma 17:24-25. Did Ammon have to do everything the king wanted him to do to maintain the good impression? What did he do instead? What was his first assignment?
He cut off everybody's arms.
· Read Alma 17:26-29. In verse 29, why was Ammon happy when the other servants were afraid?
He could chop off everybody's arms.
· After defending the king’s flocks, Ammon continues to serve by taking care of his horses. How does this impress the king? (See Alma 18:10)
Ammon cut off all the horse's arms.