Sparks from the Smithy

November 25, 1999

Photo Album

Shannon at Zion
Shannon & Ethan in Zion
Zion National Park
November 9, 1999

Off to the Emerald Pools
Zion National Park
November 9, 1999

Ethan & deer
Run away! Run away!
Zion National Park
November 9, 1999

Gerrit with clown
Must… escape…
Circus, Circus, Las Vegas
November 10, 1999

Chopper ride
Ethan, helicopter pilot
Circus, Circus, Las Vegas
November 10, 1999

Liberty
Proud to be an American
NY, NY, Las Vegas
November 11, 1999

Roller coaster
White Knuckles
NY, NY, Las Vegas
November 11, 1999

Floating ball
Science is cool
Leid Children’s Museum, Las Vegas
November 11, 1999

Boys
Children’s Quarterly (CQ?)
November 17, 1999

Happy Thanksgiving
November 25, 1999

October 29, 1999

Photo Album

Ethan in bear suit
Cornered
September 28, 1999

Fred's fort
Family on the Fred’s Fort
October 3, 1999

Samson
Just the grass, please, Samson
October 23, 1999

Ethan’s first pony ride
October 23, 1999

Eric
It’s a great day
October 23, 1999

Ethan golfing
Another Tiger?
October 23, 1999

Gerrit the Clown
October 29, 1999

The garbage man takes a treat break
October 30, 1999

October 14, 1999

Two to the Five

Eric

“So, how old are you, Eric?”
“It’s the big two (ahem, to the) five!”
“Wow, I thought you were older than that!”

Probably about 20 years ago, I calculated how old I would be when the year 2000 came. I think I decided that 32 wasn’t so old that I’d be over the hill, but I would be climbing fast.

I wasn’t really bothered by turning 30, but turning 32 last month made me feel old. Maybe spending so much time with computers has made powers of two more momentous than powers of ten. If that’s true, then at least I won’t feel old on a birthday again until I’m 64 (2⁶).

I just think about all the interesting things I’ve done in my life, that I don’t do anymore, like be in plays, sing with Men’s Chorus, travel to different countries, and other adventures.

Sharing these thoughts with Shannon, she said, “I hope you don’t think your life stopped when we got married?” No, no, not at all. Though having very small children does limit your adventures, I guess.

But on my birthday, I had a couple of adventures. The first wasn’t too pleasant.

Birthday Adventure Number One

I stopped on the way to work to get some gas, and my car wouldn’t start after filling up. I turned the key and nothing happened.

I tried to call Shannon to come rescue me, but she was on the phone, so each attempt cost me 35 cents as it would kick straight through to our voice mail. I tried calling some of our neighbors to pass the message to Shannon, and even Kerry at work, but I couldn’t get anyone. Finally after about a half hour and a couple of dollars in change, I got through to Shannon.

We jump-started my car when she arrived, but it kept stalling. I considered trying to drive to a mechanic, re-jumping every time I had to stop or slow down on the way, but that didn’t seem like a very good idea. By the time I decided that, we were far from the gas station, so I borrowed a phone to call a tow truck.

They told me it would be a 40 minute wait, but it was more like an hour and a half. By the time he came, I had just 10 minutes to get to a meeting at work, so we sent the truck to an auto electric place I’d been to before, and Shannon dropped me off at work.

I got on the phone immediately to the mechanic, who informed me that their shop had moved to another location. So while my boss peeked in saying the meeting was starting, I had a panic attack trying to see if the tow truck could be reached (it could) before it dropped off my car (too late) and what the heck was going on with the repair shop since the tow truck company insisted that it was still running in its current location. I guess someone else had taken over the location, still doing electric repairs, and relaying through the tow truck driver I got a phone number of someone I could ask to fix my car.

Fortunately it just turned out to be a bad battery, and replacing it did the trick.

Birthday Adventure Number Two

Shannon is wonderful. After hearing my musings of adventure, she came and snatched me early from work that day (short day of work between the two adventures) and took me rafting on the Provo River. The place that rented us the boat called it a kayak, but it was really more like a canoe-shaped raft.

Eric at river

The river is pretty calm this time of year, so although we got splashed a few times, it was mostly a pleasant ride down the river. Fly fishermen dotted the banks and shallows, and the late afternoon sun shone off the water in front of us. A few trees had started to change for autumn, adding color to the canyon rock and greenery.

Shannon at river

Another couple went down the river at the same time, in a raft with a guide. The rental place said that was a nice way to go because you don’t have to be responsible for anything. But we decided it would be more fun to be responsible.

We only crashed a couple of times — then we got the boat into the river. Ha! Just kidding. We ran into bushes hanging over the bank once, and nearly bottomed out once, but other than that we did pretty well.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Shannon

I just got home from Moab this afternoon (September 15). It was great. Ethan loved it. The only reason he was willing to come home was to see his Daddy, otherwise I’d have had to leave him at the Archway Hotel.

My parents were vacationing in New Mexico so I convinced them that a few more hours of driving would be well worth seeing two of their grandchildren, so I took the kids and met my parents in Moab. Eric couldn’t come because issues at work were too pressing for him leave.

Grandpa

The drive down to Moab went really well. Gerrit slept a lot, and Ethan played, and most important we didn’t get hopelessly lost. The hotel was nice with a beautiful pool. That was probably Ethan’s favorite part. While we were in Moab my Dad was sick and so at times he had to rest rather than play, but that pretty much fit a two year old’s needs anyway.

Moab hike

We spent Tuesday morning in Arches National Park. Grandma, Ethan, Gerrit and I went on a trail in the park that we thought was supposed to be easy. We were mistaken. The trail was ranked “moderate” so it was a bit of a challenge but, it was really fun. I’m so proud of Ethan, he walked the whole trail and only stopped to play in the interesting red sand he found. Gerrit rode in a baby pack. He was really good sleeping and just looking around. At the end of the trail Mom and I felt like we’d really accomplished something.

Swimming pool

Later we did some shopping and more swimming and before I knew it we were home. Well, actually the ride home was much more harrowing. Gerrit slept very little and although I stopped 4 different times he screamed a lot. But I would still do that trip again in a minute, just probably not tomorrow.

Giving Up the Sports Car

Eric

Shortly after graduating from BYU in 1993, I was drooling over a slightly used Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX while visiting a dealership with Kerry and my girlfriend Shannon. It seemed like a lot of money to spend, but I had a decent job and few expenses, so within a few days, I went from my sort-of-red ’77 Toyota Celica to a sweet white and black ’92 Eclipse.

It was definitely a car that you turned and peeked at after parking it. I was a little embarrassed that I had the hottest car in the lot at work, since I was the new guy.

Eclipse

But I look back, now that I’ve given the 8-year-old Eclipse up, and think about all I did with that car. It was the car from which I waved to Ethan when leaving for work each day, and the car whose growl he and Shannon recognized as I was coming around the corner back home. It was the car that Shannon and I took on dates, both before and after we were married. It was the car that carried many of our possessions when we moved into our first house. It was the car I drove my wife to the hospital in for the birth of both our children. And it was the car I drove to my wedding, and that I drove my new bride in home from the temple.

So it was a little sad to see a car salesman drive it away last Monday.

Easing the pain was the fact that he had left a hot 2000 Jetta GLS VR6 in its place. Though not quite as sexy as the Eclipse was when new, the Jetta is still a great looking car, and decked out with almost all the extras — leather, sunroof, CD-changer, 16 inch alloys, etc. And I only gave up 20 horse power from my turbo-charged Eclipse, so it is quite lively.

Jetta

A couple of guys at work decided they needed a test-drive, so we went up the canyon a little ways. After driving it, and playing with all the nice features and amenities, they said, “Well, Eric, I think you’ve got the hottest car in the whole lot here.”

September 11, 1999

Photo Album

Fire Engine
Not a garbage truck, but still kind of neat
June 12, 1999

Drinking Soda
Daddy won me this soda
June 12, 1999

Josh Kim
Popsicle with Joshi Kim
July 5, 1999

Chair Nap
A nice spot for a nap
July 16, 1999

Gerrit & Grandpa Smith
July 16, 1999

Peanuts
Sinking into peanut-sand
July 22, 1999

Rain Hat
The rain dance worked
August 8, 1999

Crawlspace
An adventure into the crawl-space
August 14, 1999

Gerrit
Gerrit looking sweet
August 14, 1999

Burp
That was a good burp!
September 12, 1999

June 19, 1999

Issue 19

June 20, 1999

Issue 19

Orem, Utah

Fathers and Sons

Eric

I tried to build Ethan up on the idea for quite a while. He even seemed enthusiastic when we left, but only ten minutes into the drive he started saying that he wanted to go home.

We were setting off on our first camping trip together, as part of the ward annual father and son outing. Our camping place was at Little Sahara, a big field of sand dunes popular with the off-road toy owners. It isn’t too far away, so I figured we’d be able to escape back home if things got really ugly.

Being stuck in traffic just a few miles from home, and Ethan already starting to chicken out made going back home a more real possibility. But we made it through the traffic, and popped open a bag of Doritos for a good distraction.

His requests to go back home were getting pretty desperate until, mercifully, he fell asleep in the car. I thought that once we made it to the campground, he’d think it might be OK after all. That didn’t really turn out to be true until we started setting up our borrowed tent. And when all the bedding was made up inside, he was ready to forsake his own bed at home for a while.

Ethan
Pitching the Tent
May 7, 1999

To really win him over, we went up the hill onto the dunes. The sand was different from beach sand. It was very fine. It also had some of the feel of fresh snow in that you could be the first to make tracks in wide stretches of the wind-rippled surface. Looking closer you could see that all kinds of critters had really been the first to make tracks. There were tracks straddling a continuous line that told of a lizard or mouse dragging its tail behind. Even beetles left a tiny pattern of footprints in meandering loops across the dunes. We ran around out there until it got dark.

Ethan
Tatooine – Er, Little Sahara
May 7, 1999

Dinner that night was a collection of snacks not requiring cooking, and then I thought I’d try to put Ethan down to sleep. I had this irrational fantasy that I’d get him to sleep, and then have a little time to socialize with my neighbors before I went to bed myself. I quickly learned that there was no way on earth I was going to leave Ethan in that tent by himself. He was distraught (and out of the tent) when I came back from a bathroom trip. My next thought was to try to read a little in the tent while Ethan went to sleep, which proved to be shattered fantasy number two. In the end, I think I was asleep before Ethan was.

In the morning, I got to introduce him to one of the joys of camping: getting out of a warm sleeping bag and into freezing cold clothes. He had the added exhilaration of getting a diaper change, too.

We climbed the dunes again in search of a patch of sunshine to warm us up, then came back down to camp for pancakes, eggs and sausage, compliments of the ward. After taking down our tent, we spent the rest of the morning on the dunes.

Ethan
Excavation
May 8, 1999

This trip, we took Ethan’s dump truck and shovel, and he had a great time moving dirt. A lot of people from the ward were playing on a really tall, steep dune. Kids would run and jump from the top to see how far down the hill they could land. Someone even had a plastic sled, and they talked me into taking a ride. That ended with sand-filled clothing after an unspectacular wipe out. All the time we were at the hill, Ethan was squirming his way down it. When he reached the bottom, I figured it was time to move on.

Some people had also brought some model rockets to launch, and Ethan always wanted to chase after the parachutes as they came back down, but he didn’t have much of a chance against the bigger kids.

We packed up and headed out a little before lunch time, and stopped at a McDonald’s on the way back home. It was a nice little trip, and Shannon enjoyed it too. Now that I’ve got two sons, she says she’s looking forward to all three of us going away in a couple of years. I think she meant it in a nice way.

How I celebrated Cathy’s Birthday

Shannon

It all started Friday afternoon–no I didn’t begin having contractions–I went to the hospital for a non-stress test. Basically I lay on a table for half an hour while machines monitored the baby to determine whether his extended stay in the hotel maternal(original due date June 3) was placing him in any danger. The nurse who performed the tests and saw the baby on ultrasound sent us home saying we’d passed all the tests with flying colors and there would be no induction reprieve for me that day. This was what I expected to hear, so while I was anxious to have the baby, I wasn’t terribly surprised, and it was nice to be reassured that all seemed well.

I’m So Ready
June 3, 1999

Eric and I had only been home for a short time when a man called and asked to speak to me. It turned out to be my doctor, Dr. Johnson — same delivery doctor as Kerry and Melissa. He called to say that upon review of my tests the baby did seem to be under some duress during contractions. Since I was already 40 weeks there was no reason to wait and he felt there was reason to deliver. He said lets have this baby tomorrow. What could I say but OK? After saying goodbye, I announced to Eric and my family “We’re having a baby tomorrow.”

We were instructed to call labor and delivery early Saturday morning to see what time they wanted me to come. Instead, they called us at 5:45 and asked whether we could be there by 6. That left little time to get ready and even less time to become overly nervous. After a light breakfast, a blessing from my husband and father, and kisses for Ethan we went to the hospital. It seemed a little strange to be going to the hospital to have our baby without being in any pain, but I knew there’d be plenty later so I wasn’t too upset.

At the hospital we were taken to a labor room where I climbed on the bed which would be my place for the next several hours. After answering several medical questions, a nurse tried to start my IV. She missed the first time. Watching her made me sick and I thought I might pass out. It was not the best way to start labor.

Shannon
Nothing like a delicious meal of ice chips to pass the time.
June 5, 1999

The morning progressed uneventfully. We called home to make sure Ethan hadn’t run away or totally exhausted his grandparents, but all was well. I thought it was unfair that they brought a tray of food for Eric to eat in front of me while I dined on ice chips. Around 10 AM, Dr Johnson came by to check my progress and break my water–what fun. Eric kept a fairly detailed log of the labor. In his 11:18 AM entry he wrote “Real pain now.”

About an hour later, still in quite a bit of pain and progressing very slowly, I got a shot of pain killer. I am amazed at how quickly it took effect. I can remember watching the nurse inject the medicine into my IV and wondering how long it would be before I felt some relief. I think it came before she even finished with the injection. I was so dizzy and relaxed I could still feel the pains but they didn’t bother me. I just wanted to doze. At 2 PM I was only dilated to 4 centimeters, I had arrived at the hospital at 2 centimeters, and once again in lots of pain so I asked for an epidural. I should have known better–it was not my day for needles. The IV took two attempts, a simple blood draw required three tries and hurt terribly (I’m still bruised from it) and the epidural was no different. On the first try the doctor punctured my spinal column, so he had to do it again. Because of this, they had to take my blood pressure every 3 minutes to make sure I wasn’t dying, but I was no longer in pain. In fact I was so drugged I wondered if my body was floating.

Half an hour later I started to feel a lot of pressure. Our new nurse (I’d been in labor so long they had a shift change) said it was time to get ready for delivery. She called the doctor and prepared the room and got me to begin pushing. In the course of her preparations we learned she is our neighbor’s mother–small world. She was really nice and very encouraging, almost too much, she had me stop pushing and paged my doctor again because she said if he didn’t hurry in from the parking lot I’d have this baby with out him. Doctor Johnson arrived and after just a little intense pushing our fair-haired boy was born.

Shannon & Gerrit
Rewards
June 5, 1999

It was really beautiful. With Ethan’s delivery I was so tired and drugged I didn’t know what to expect but Gerrit’s was different. I felt a great desire and the strength needed to deliver him. I thought he was beautiful because I hadn’t had to push very long so his head was round and his eyes were so bright and wide open. We didn’t know what sex baby we were having but I was honestly not at all disappointed that we didn’t have a girl. I was so pleased we’d had another little boy, hopefully a best friend for Ethan. Well, he’s been screaming for the last 20 minutes so I’d better stop now.

Gerrit
New Boy
June 5, 1999

Revolving Companies

Eric

I heard once that the average time an employee stays with a computer company is something like two and a half years. That makes technical people seem capricious, but I have a different view of things: I’ve worked full time for four companies in the past seven years, without so much as changing the chair I sit in.

I started out with Folio Corporation a year before I graduated from college. I was so utterly clueless about the way a business works back then that I’m embarrassed. I didn’t know what a stock option was, and I figured that the company must be profitable because they kept paying my salary. Folio was privately owned back then, but in the process of raising funds, they made a deal with Mead (of paper fame) for money in exchange for the right to buy the company after a few years. The owners figured that Folio would be either bankrupt or too big for Mead to buy. They were wrong.

Nearer to the bankrupt side of things, Folio had a very promising new version of its flagship product coming out. In fact, Folio VIEWS went on to win the MVP award in its category from PC Computing Magazine, as well as several other industry awards.

So Mead decided to exercise its option to buy, and Folio became a little fly speck piece of Mead Data Central. We all feared the worst, but little actually changed from a day to day perspective, except that we lost our President, Brad Pelo.

It was in the process of that purchase that I first learned something about options. Apparently I had a few, though they were never discussed with me when I got my job offer. Probably someone wanted to avoid the conversation:

Manager: In addition to your salary, you’ll get mumble mumble options and be a partial owner of the company.
Me: Options? What?
Manager: Uh, well…
Me: Never mind, let’s go back to the part where you’re going to pay me to mess around with computers!

I ended up getting a tiny check every so often. So tiny (not to mention it was taxed at 30%), it was a wonder they even bothered to print the thing up at all.

After a couple of years, the paperless office still had failed to materialize, and Mead audaciously decided that killing trees was going to continue to bring in money, and they could quit wasting time on all that computer junk they had come up with. Mead Data Central became Lexis Nexis, and we found ourselves as another little speck owned by one of the world’s largest publishers, Reed Elsevier.

Reed Elsevier wanted very much for us to change our name to say that we were a division of theirs. We preferred to avoid that, not only because we had successfully avoided such a thing with Mead, but also because Reed Elsevier happened to be a competitor to several of our largest customers. We might as well have put a little tag line on our business cards that said, “Buy Folio software and 10% of your purchase will be used toward putting you out of business!”

It wasn’t a happy relationship, and a couple of years later we convinced them to let us sell ourselves. It was a big secret project to find a buyer, and after months of work, the announcement came that we were being purchased by Open Market, Inc.

All of us who hadn’t been involved in the deal collectively exclaimed, “Who?” Open Market is in the internet commerce business, and it seemed a strange match. I guess their vision of information commerce matched our vision enough that it made sense. Actually, long before any negotiations, someone from each company had made a presentation at a conference right after each other, and people told them they needed to get together because they were saying the same things.

So we became Folio, A Division of Open Market, Inc. This concession on the name turned out to be just a minimization of fear. Each time we had changed hands over the years, our “parents” had wanted us to feel like there weren’t going to be sweeping changes; that we could feel secure in our jobs. As soon as we started to feel a part of Open Market, the name Folio was used exclusively for a product line instead of a company. We were all Open Market. I’ve even got Open Market business cards. For the first time, the Folio sign on the building was replaced with another company name.

This was a very educational time. We were a public company (OMKT on NASDAQ), and what we did actually had an impact on stock prices. We all got options in the company, and you could track their value. We felt like an internet company, and started making personal purchases online.

But things still didn’t always feel right. Press releases said that Open Market is headquartered in Burlington, Mass. and listed specific offices all over the world, but never in Provo, Utah. The company also gave some of Folio’s biggest customers a royalty discount if they would prepay in order to get more revenue for a weak commerce quarter. And when the company didn’t meet analysts expectations for a quarter, the president listed poor Folio sales to the corporate market as one of the causes. Never mind that we had intentionally shifted focus from that market segment, and the correct response from that statement would have been, “No duh!” it still sounded like we weren’t doing our part. And last, but not least, in an industry where stock prices were soaring, we were stagnant.

So a couple of weeks ago, the wild rumors started flying around the office: we were being sold off, that we were being bought by a group of local private investors including Alan Ashton (of WordPerfect fame), and that Brad Pelo was coming back.

Amazingly, all the rumors were confirmed last Wednesday. Except that the deal is more complicated. This new company, ABSB, L.C. (after the investors’ initials I guess), is leasing the Folio product line from Open Market (with the option to buy in a few years), and hiring all of us as its own employees. The lease arrangement, as opposed to an outright sale, was purported to be for tax advantages, but it left an odd side-effect. Open Market still owns the Folio name, and won’t give it up to the leasing company to use as its own name. Hence the hastily named ABSB where the investors had really wanted Folio.com. So now we begin our new employment trying to think up a more inspired name.

I guess the move made the analysts happy — four of them upgraded the stock to ‘buy’ after the announcement. Hopefully the stock will shoot up before I run out of time to cash in my options.

So now I’m one of the old-timers in spite of a nascent company. I guess I’ll have to stick around for a while more, because figuring out what to put on my resume would be too hard. Besides, if I don’t like working for this company, I’m sure it will be something else in a couple of years anyway.

June 10, 1999

Photo Album

Gerrit
Perched on Mama’s Shoulder
June 11, 1999

Ethan
Recycling
June 10, 1999

Shannon & Gerrit
Almost Time to Come Home
June 7, 1999

Eric & Gerrit
First Check-Up
June 5, 1999

Gerrit
The Official Weigh-In
June 5, 1999

Ethan
Thanksgiving Point
May 18, 1999

Ethan
Oscar the Grouch Has Competition
April 17, 1999

Ethan
Sleep finally prevails
April 11, 1999

June 6, 1999

Photo Archive 5

Gerrit Dean Smith
June 7, 1999

New Baby Gerrit
June 7, 1999

Easter Eggs
Ethan’s first Easter egg coloring
April 3, 1999

May I please watch Wallace & Gromit?
March 16, 1999

Hiker
Hiking and rock throwing in Rock Canyon
March 13, 1999

Airplanes
March, 1999

Handsome boy
February 28, 1999

Cathy
Nice day for skiing
January 25, 1999

Eric
I really hate this hat
January 25, 1999

Mr. Bear & Computer
Mr. Bear wants to play too
January 16, 1999

March 14, 1999

Issue 18

In this issue:

New Headquarters!
The Essence of a Two-Year-Old
Updating the Force
LASIK Update

New Headquarters!

The headquarters for Sparks from the Smithy have moved! From the office upstairs to the family room downstairs. This is in anticipation of a new family member’s arrival in June. In giving up a private office, we now have a brand new fancy desk with room not only for the computer, but for lots of other junk to be piled up as well.

New Desk

The Essence of a Two-Year-Old

Eric

Cheesy Ethan

In the course of time’s normal dash, our son has become a two-year-old. What a time of life — both for him and for us. He’s the most loveable and infuriating creature I’ve ever met.

Ethan frequently greets me returning home from work with a gleeful, “Daddy! You came home!” followed by a big hug. Those are great. And it’s fond thoughts of him like that that make him pretty loveable while he’s upstairs asleep.

But then there are also times he puts his growing language skills to use, in exchanges like these:

Daddy: Do you want some more milk?
Ethan: NO!!!
Daddy: OK, no milk.
Ethan: I want some milk!

Daddy: I’m going to pray.
Ethan: No! I want to pray!
Daddy: OK. Go ahead.
Ethan: No! No! No!
Daddy: Well, then I’ll pray.
Ethan: No, I want to pray!
Daddy: Be quiet.

Daddy: OK, bud, let’s change your pants.
Ethan (running away): No, no. Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!

That last one makes his rebellion somewhat endearing. And to be fair, probably a lot of his contradictions are caused just by his inability to express everything he wants to say. Maybe he wants milk, but not from the cup I’m offering.

And speaking of language, some people tell us they think that Ethan is pretty advanced verbally. To us, he’s just Ethan, but he still surprises us occasionally. One day he said, “Daddy, may I please sit on your lap?” And in response to a question he said, “No, thank you.” I always thought such language came only after lots of talk about Magic Words.

But then he also takes advantage of his linguistic ignorance:

Ethan: Can we go outside?
Daddy (hesitatingly): You want to go outside?
Ethan: OK!

Repeating his questions back to him just seems like an invitation to him.

A two-year-old’s energy can be difficult at times. It is an energy springing from his desire to be free and do things himself, even when a tired parent just wants him to hold still and stay close by while going through a checkout at the store. He’s remarkably honest about why he wants to get down sometimes: “I want to run around.” I’d like to figure out a way to encourage that honesty, even though I can’t always give him what he asks for.

But we miss that energy sometimes. We went to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City a couple of months ago, and Ethan got sick in the car right as we were exiting the freeway. There were all kinds of unpleasant things coming up, which led to an immediate trip to the children’s clothes department at Fred Meyer. We got him cleaned up, but he was still pallid the entire time we were at the zoo. That he was content to stay in his stroller was kind of nice, since we didn’t have to chase him around the whole park, but it just wasn’t as fun. We had an outing just for him, but he couldn’t enjoy it because he was queasy the whole time.

He’ll dump anything on the floor and dance around on it. He’ll say goodbye to the rocks, telling them that he’s hungry and needs to go home now, after we’ve been hiking. He’ll climb up in the pantry to get a pop tart, eat two bites and throw the rest on the floor. He’ll pick up the assembly instructions for a desk and say, “It says build a desk. The end.” He’ll insist that he wants to take his clothes off in the fitting room too, and then crawl under the wall into the next stall saying, “Is that my daddy?”

In short, he’s at an age where he is this amazing bundle of sweetness and frustration. I think overall, I’ll miss it when it’s gone.

Cool Ethan

Updating the Force

Eric

The second trailer for the upcoming Episode 1 of the Star Wars story just came out a few days ago. I saw it as a QuickTime clip on my computer at work, and it gave me misty eyes. It made me feel a little funny to get emotional about a movie trailer, and I had to think about why it would cause such an impact.

Part of it is the amazing universe that has been created, with heroic Jedi Knights, beautiful queens and princesses, fantastic aliens, and cool space ships. But there’s more to it than that.

George Lucas said that when the whole story is laid out, you’ll see that it is really all about Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader). And from that perspective, it makes the saga a bit of a tragedy. So to see this 9 year-old kid in the trailer, and realize what his life will be like is sad.

But to understand my reaction, I have to go back to when I was a 9 year-old kid, and saw the original Star Wars movie for the first time.

Alan and Jeff were working at the Westgate theater in Beaverton at the time, and they both saw it for free since they were employees. It seems like Alan, though he enjoyed it, didn’t think it was anything too special — typical hero rescues the princess stuff. Jeff said I probably wouldn’t understand it. But Phyllis, Kerry and I went to see it, and I still remember walking across the parking lot afterward (to go have a pizza at Gino’s) profoundly affected. “That was the best movie I’ve ever seen,” I declared. It struck a chord with me, as it did with my friends.

My ultimate fantasy, as expressed in my journal from the fifth grade, was to own the Millenium Falcon. I mentioned this in entries titled “If I Had Three Wishes”, “If I Had $1000 to Spend”, and simply, “I Wish I Had the Millenium Falcon.” Today I would probably amend those wishes to be rid of the maintenance headache that came along with the Falcon, but it would never have occurred to me to wish for some perfected duplicate — the Falcon was The Ship. It had character.

And by association, Han Solo was The Man. Of course, my friends and I all liked Luke, but we knew Han was the cool one.

It still bothers me that the re-released Special Edition of Star Wars had Greedo fire first before Solo blasted him. Not only did it look a little hokey, it sabotaged the power of the story because it made Han’s change of heart (to risk his life for something noble) less dramatic.

Anyway, it was always a tacit competition to see who could see Star Wars the most times. I lost track around 15 times. There was one showing where I remember scavenging through the bushes in the theater parking lot for bottles I could turn in at the grocery store to be able to pay my admission. I think I still ended up something like three cents short, but the ticket seller had mercy on me and let me in. I think in all the scrambling I missed the first few minutes of the movie. That was OK, I had it memorized word for word anyway.

I had Star Wars action figures, Star Wars pajamas, Star Wars trading cards, Star Wars models, and Star Wars bedding (which mom recently sent me). I got two copies of the Star Wars sketch book for my birthday. I read the book, and knew the parts that had been cut from it to make the movie.

When The Empire Strikes Back was about to be released, I went to see Star Wars again, just so I could see the trailer. I arranged with some friends to save me a spot in line on the opening day, so that we were within the first 20 people into the theater. I wrote in my journal that, “I’ll probably think the movie is corny when I’m older and they have all these new movies with better effects.” It hasn’t happened yet.

When Return of the Jedi came out, I was older and less fanatic, but I still saw it twice in two days, and probably saw it a few more times in the theater.

So, now, an inconceivable twenty-two years after the original film, the trailer for The Phantom Menace combines a strange combination of nostalgia and anticipation for me. The movie can’t help but make truckloads of money, but please let it be good!

LASIK Update

Eric

I can see. Really pretty well — especially through my right eye. My left eye is still less than optimal, but I’m still hopeful. The surface is smooth and the correction is right, it just seems to be a bit drier than it should be.

A guy I talked to who had RK said that his eyes tended to be dry for a whole year after his surgery. I hope I don’t have to wait that long, but gradual improvement at any rate would be welcome. Still, I’m able to function pretty well, and even my computer fonts have shrunk back to their pre-surgery size.

January 21, 1999

Issue 17

Eric

To See

On Friday, January 15, I went under the knife in hopes of freeing myself from corrective lens bondage. My eyesight required a correction of something like -7 or -8 diopters before surgery. If you’re not up on your optometry, that means that I had such keen visual acuity as to be able to accurately tell, during an eye exam, which wall the eye chart was on. With both eyes uncovered, I could frequently tell that the chart was whitish with an irregular black splotch in the middle.

I had always thought that surgery to correct my vision would be cool. One of the first procedures was radial keratotomy (RK), but it doesn’t work with eyes as bad as mine. They’re also finding that it can have some bad long-term side effects in some cases. LASIK (laser assisted in-situ keratomileusis), on the other hand, is several generations better than RK, and has the distinct advantage that it hasn’t been around long enough for lots of bad side effects to be discovered!

Well that’s not actually true. In fact, if you want to talk yourself out of any kind of refractive surgery, take a look at I Know Why Refractive Surgeons Wear Glasses. As you might suppose by the site’s title, it has a somewhat pessimistic view of things, and can make you aware of the worst case scenarios. That can be a good thing. If you can make it through that page with some desire for surgery remaining, then you’re probably a good candidate.

Surgeons

To my doctor’s credit, he doesn’t wear glasses. In fact, he had LASIK himself and now has 20/20 vision. Another interesting point about my doctor is that he looks like he just graduated from high school last year. In reality, he might be a couple of years older than me. Maybe. I think that’s some kind of life milestone when you’re the same age as your doctor.

W. Scott Lohner, MD

I actually had a choice between the young Dr. Lohner and the highly experienced Dr. Jay Clark. Having met them both, I made a careful scientific decision to go with Dr. Lohner based on the fact that Dr. Clark is a dweeb.

OK, I’m being harsh. He just didn’t seem to care much whether I would be one of the 18 or so patients whisked across the operating table in a day. So as to lessen any offense to Dr. Clark, I should say that I know several people personally who are extremely happy with the results of Dr. Clark’s surgery. I just liked Dr. Lohner better, and he defended himself well when I politely asked him why in the heck I would choose him over someone with as much experience as Dr. Clark.

So I got to be eyes number 26 and 27 that Dr. Lohner has done.

The Big Day

My surgery was scheduled for 9:00 AM. I showered and dressed using no other hygiene product than Ivory soap. They say the laser is sensitive to smell. Isn’t that odd?

Shannon had the neighbor give me a blessing before we went because she was so nervous. I wasn’t nervous at all. At the doctor’s office they gave me a Valium, so I don’t know if I was nervous after that. I don’t think so.

They poked at my eyes a little to get a measurement of corneal thickness, then it was off to get a stylish surgical hat and booties, and wait for eyes 24 and 25 to be done.

At this point, Shannon was out in the waiting room, where they piped a video of the surgery to a TV. She could see that whole thing — even the gory parts.

Flap and Zap

When it was my turn, they set me on a contoured table, and gave me a BYU Nerf football should I feel the need to relieve any tension.

Now I’ll describe the surgery itself. Try not to get lost in the technical language.

They put anesthetic drops in my eyes, and swiveled me under the laser. Then they put a patch on my left eye, and a thingy to prop my right eye open. Then they put another doohickey over that that felt like it was going to suck my eye out of its socket. The pressure actually makes you go blind for a moment, but since they had warned me about that in advance, the only finger marks in the football were from discomfort instead of panic.

Then the microkeratome slid over my eye to create a little round flap in the cornea. Dr. Lohner rolled back the flap, and I could tell that that part of the eye is kind of important for being able to see. You are supposed to keep concentrating on a fixating red light throughout the procedure, which seems easy enough until they start taking your eye apart, squirting liquids in it, and changing its refractive properties.

Once the flap is rolled back, they start firing the laser. The manufacturer of the laser, in order to make it seem more impressive, designed the laser to make a loud clicking noise when it is operating. Other than the noise, I couldn’t even tell that anything was happening.

The time that the laser fires determines how much correction is done — a little less than a minute in my case � and when it was finished, Dr. Lohner smoothed the flap back in place and started over with my left eye.

The whole procedure took just a few minutes, and after Dr. Lohner had a look at my eyes through a slit lamp, I was on my way. I would like to say that it was miraculous, and that I instantly had perfect vision. Unfortunately, at that point I could hardly keep my eyes open, and they felt pretty lousy. They were watering so much I couldn’t see much of anything.

Post-Op

Happily, after a nap and a couple of hours, the pain was gone. I was still disturbed that I couldn’t see very well, though. It was definitely better than before, but wasn’t anywhere near what I wanted. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I had to wear these silly, clear plastic eye shields taped to my face when I went to bed. They made me want to sing the Junior Birdman song.

By morning, I was convinced that I was going to have to get an enhancement (where they do the procedure again to sharpen things up). I just couldn’t see that well. We went in to see Dr. Lohner for my first post-op visit that morning, and he didn’t seem concerned. I was seeing about 20/45 in each eye, and in one lucid moment after he put some drops in my eyes, I could read the 20/25 line with my left eye. He said it would take three months before my eyes were completely healed, though my vision should improve over the next week or two.

So here I am, 12 hours shy of one week post-op. I still feel like I’m wearing dirty contact lenses, but frequent use of eye drops shows me some promise. Sometimes, when my eyes are nice and moist, I can actually see pretty well. I’ve been able to function OK through the week, though I tend to prefer larger fonts on my computers these days. It was also pretty hairy driving home from Salt Lake at night in the rain the day after my surgery, but I’m still alive.

At this point, I’m still a little wary. And impatient. I want to see clearly NOW!!! Everyone tells me this is all normal though, so I’ll stay optimistic and give an update later.

December 26, 1998