MormonDaddyBlogs

My Peeps

April 7, 2012 By Dennis

Going off the rails a little bit for this one, in that it’s a post by a Mormon mommy (gasp!). But it is, frankly, too good to resist, and it has a nice little message for our Mormon daddy community, too.

Kacy Faulconer speaks beautifully of what it means to be enmeshed in a ward of her “peeps,” fellow Lattter-day Saints, with all their weirdnesses mixed in with their beautiful acts of kindness. (My favorite line: “Every ward has a few weirdos and if yours doesn’t–it’s you.”)

“Peeps in my ward plan parties for me that I don’t even want to go to like they are some over-eager friend. But then I go (begrudgingly) and it’s fun and good. I used to plan those parties for them and they came (begrudgingly) and it was fun and good. Left to my own devices I would stay home and do nothing (don’t get me wrong–this is not without merit) but sometimes a little nudge to do more is OK. You can’t anticipate what you’re going to get from these peeps because you don’t always know what you need. I didn’t know I needed a frozen chocolate drumstick with nuts from my gal-pal/80-year-old neighbor yesterday but as it turned out, it hit the spot quite nicely.”

This Easter season, Kacy’s post, which you can read here, hit the spot quite nicely.

Filed Under: Featured, General, Writers

MDB Spotlight: 3 more posts you don’t want to miss

March 31, 2012 By Dennis

This week, MDB featured a post, called “I’m a Mormon and I Don’t Watch Fox News,” which served as a timely reminder for the need for civility and respect for those who may share your chapel but not your politics. While we’re speaking of Fox News, there’s another MDBer who not only watches it, but is frequently an invited guest on Fox News.

In a recent post, author Jason Wright gives an intriguing description of the five hours that are required to generate a 3-minute interview segment in Behind the Scenes of a Fox News Appearance.

When I visited a new website, called Mormon Explorer, one word popped into my brain: genius. It’s an innovative site that is designed to facilitate connections between Mormon families in their travels throughout the world. The idea for Mormon Explorer began two years ago when Mormon dad Jeff Paul took his family on a 3-week adventure through a number of European countries.

“With two kids (one and three years-old) on a student income (or lack thereof), we had to be creative in how to stretch our budget to be able to experience the best Europe had to offer. We quickly identified our nightly hotel costs as the largest and most manageable expense. We experimented with the different options available; budget hotels, hostels, and staying with friends (some whom we met at church and others through online communities). By far, our most memorable experiences from the trip were the evenings we spent in the homes of strangers, sharing meals and sharing stories.”

Read more about the creation of this site in Mormon Explorer – Uniting Through Travel.

I hope I might be forgiven the self-indulgence of highlighting Will People Come, Ray?, but it is for a good cause. As a Mormon daddy, I am witnessing one of my daughters who, in addition to working full-time as a Special Ed teacher at a local high school and taking a full load as a Master’s degree candidate at BYU, is doing her best to generate funds for her school’s new Best Buddies chapter.

Best Buddies is an organization that seeks to foster meaningful friendships between kids with special needs and mainstream kids.

My daughter has been doing everything she can to help fill the auditorium for a benefit concert. It will feature a terrific line-up (The Whits and Allred). If any of you are in the Provo area on April 7, I hope you can join us and bring the family. (There’s a $2 discount if enter promotional code “buddy” at the Get Tickets Here box at her online ordering page.)

If you do, please say hello. It would be a pleasure to meet a fellow MDBer.

Filed Under: Featured, Film/TV, General, Media, Music, Writers Tagged With: Dennis Agle, Fox News, Jason Wright, Jeff Paul, Mormon Explorer

To Every (Political) Thing, There is a Season…

March 28, 2012 By Scotty Taylor

Photo by sidknee23. Creative commons license. Some rights reserved.

Two things we generally try to avoid on this blog are politics and religion (not that there’s anything wrong with them, it’s just that they are already well-covered elsewhere). So what do we feature in our first post from Brett Nordquist‘s blog? Politics and religion!

Brett gives us a timely reminder that there is more than one side in the political realm, even within the Church. You may agree or disagree with what he has to say, but one thing’s for sure… forsaking civility and spewing vitriol towards those on the other side of the political spectrum won’t get us any closer to fixing anything.

Brett lives in the Seattle area with his wife and four children and works as a custom PC builder. You can check out his blog post: I’m A Mormon And I Don’t Watch Fox News, or other posts on his blog simply titled: Norquist’s Blog.

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Scott Taylor is the writer of an award-winning short film, Wrinkles, and of the upcoming feature film, Edwin. He and his wife have four children. Scott touches on a variety of matters on his blog, Scotty Watty Doodle All the Day.

Filed Under: Featured, General Tagged With: Brett Norquist, Scott Taylor

Firefighter/Paramedic

January 28, 2012 By Dennis

Because of the nature of his job, Firefighter/Paramedic maintains anonymity for himself as well as his department. He also maintains the privacy of his patients by not revealing their personal information and by changing minor details of the calls he goes on.

I knew him briefly when I lived in California, before he took up his chosen profession. He’s a 34-year-old who is married and has three young children. Not surprisingly, he serves as his ward’s emergency preparedness coordinator.

Welcome Firefighter/Paramedic to the MDB blog.

Filed Under: General, MDBer, New to MDB

One Year Old, Not Breathing

January 28, 2012 By Dennis

“Engine 51, Medic 143, you’re responding for a 1 year old unconsciousness and not breathing. PD is also en route.”

Thus begins the latest post by a new blogger to MDB, a firefighter/paramedic working in California.

The blog is a fascinating account of the life of a firefighter/paramedic, from rolling in the middle of the night on calls where an elderly woman is spending her last moments of mortality to lighter fare where the subjects get what’s coming to them.

The experiences, even the big ones, are typically recounted in a very matter of fact way, from the unresolved end of the 1-year-old’s episode to this resolution about the elderly woman:

“We followed the ACLS protocol without success. The patient went from a ventricular PEA into asystole. After 30 minutes resuscitation efforts were terminated.

“90 minutes after the tones went I found myself back in bed, slowly drifting back to sleep….but not before turning off my alarm.”

Because of the nature of his job, he maintains anonymity for himself as well as his department. He also maintains the privacy of his patients by not revealing their personal information and by changing minor details of the calls he goes on. I knew him briefly when I lived in California, before he took up his chosen profession. He’s a 34-year-old who is married and has three young children. Not surprisingly, he serves as his ward’s emergency preparedness coordinator.

Welcome Firefighter/Paramedic to the MDB blog.

Filed Under: Featured, General, New to MDB Tagged With: http://mormondaddyblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/paramedic2.jpg

Time to Take It All Off?

June 1, 2011 By Dennis

Mark Wilcox decided the time had come to cut his losses. After mulling the matter of his own male pattern baldness for some time, Mark decided to beat nature to the punch by shaving off the remainder of his hair.

It was a brash move not without its consequences. Mark learned a number of random lessons, including the fact that a bald head can make a wife cry and a kid laugh.

All things considered, would he do it again? Find out in Should I Shave My Head or Not? Randomness I Have Learned from Going Naked Up Top.

Filed Under: Featured, General Tagged With: Apparent Parent, Mark Wilcox

Remembering

May 30, 2011 By Dennis

It’s a day for remembering. Remembering those who put their lives on the line to protect us. Remembering loved ones who have gone before us. Here is a pair of posts that remind us to remember.

Band of Brothers

The Art of Manliness turns its attention to the men of World War II’s Easy Company, just one company of many who sacrificed much to preserve our freedoms.

AofM’s post features a series of motivation-style posters capturing the voices and images of some of the men of Easy Company, who still have much they can teach us today.

Read Motivational Posters from the Band of Brothers.

The Men Behind the Crosses

If you live in Utah, you may have driven by them many times. And you may have heard about them in the news, as they have attracted considerable legal attention. But Scott Taylor recently stopped to learn more about a pair of crosses he drives by regularly.

He learned that this particular pair of crosses marks the location where two Utah Highway Patrol officers had fallen 40 years apart. He dug deeper to learn their stories, which he shares briefly on his post, but also provides links where you can learn more about the men behind the crosses.

Read They Died 40 Years Apart…A Memorial.

Filed Under: Featured, General Tagged With: Art of Manliness, Brett McKay, Scott Taylor

Prom: Better Late?

May 26, 2011 By Dennis

Geoffrey Sagers is just a regular Mormon dad who blogs (in Chronicles of Geoff) about whatever project he is working on, be it home improvement, self improvement or family outings.

But more than a decade after his wife didn’t get asked to prom, Geoff did something pretty extraordinary. When it comes to prom, maybe late isn’t just better than never, maybe it’s just plain better.

Geoff even let his wife tell the story in her blog. We can learn a lot from Geoff. (Let’s hope our wives don’t see this.)

When Geoff isn’t working on earning husband of the year honors, he is busy being the father of five. His oldest daughter has special needs. “She is my incentive to live right,” says Geoff.

Welcome Geoff to MDB by starting with his link to his wife’s post in Prom 2011.

Filed Under: Featured, General, Parenting, Relationships Tagged With: Chronicles of Geoff, Geoff Sagers

The Manly Switch of Physicality

May 23, 2011 By Dennis

It was a post I started reading with great anticipation. The introduction describes a series of five switches that, when left in the “off” position, leave us feeling restless, angry, and apathetic, but when switched to the “on” position make us feel “alive, invigorated, motivated to be our best, and just plain manly.” Best of all, these switches would require only “small and simple” changes.

Sign me up.

I confess the more I got into Brett McKay’s post on the first switch, physicality, the more I realized two things: 1) this particular switch may not be as small and simple to implement as I had hoped; and 2) Brett was probably right on the money.

Writes Brett: “When seeking to activate the deeply encoded parts of primitive masculinity, there is no better place to start than physicality. Primitive man used his body all day every day: building, hunting, walking, dancing, fighting. For modern man, these activities have been replaced with sitting.”

Time to get out of that chair? Don’t miss The Art of Manliness’ first installment in the series The 5 Switches of Manliness.

Only four switches to go…

Filed Under: Featured, General Tagged With: Art of Manliness, Brett McKay

Enraptured by the Rapture

May 21, 2011 By Dennis

Some end of the world predictions catch on better than others. For some reason, radio evangelist Harold Camping’s prediction of today, May 21, 2011, leads the pack and may not be surpassed for a long time (if there will still be more time).

It’s even captured the fancy of the MDB community as well. Here is what a few of us had to say about that.

Linescratchers, a group music blog for and by LDS musicians and those who love them, came up with their Music Bucket List: Rapture Edition, featuring concerts and albums they must re-experience at least once before they die, such as: “I think I’d listen to Abbey Road for sure. Now that’s a farewell album if I ever heard one.”
Saint Mark is graduating Sunday from law school in Boston. Sadly, that is a day after rapture. “I ran into a parade of May 21st believers. I tried to make a deal with one of them: I’ll read your brochure on why this Saturday is the day of judgment if you will take this pass along card and call the number on it on Sunday, if Sunday happens.” Find out what happened next in Judgment Day or Just Another Day of Judgment?
Michael Lyons prefers to stick with Matthew 24′s take on the timing of the Second Coming. Still, he wonders if he can “use the predicted rapture as a way of getting out of the Fathers/Sons overnighter tonight?” Read more in No Man Knoweth – I Think I’ll Stick with That.
Middle-aged Mormon Man brings us his revised to-do list based on the rapture date, including the following section from Friday: